#however just note that i’m being very careful to not push myself this year. therefore friends and mutuals with take priority

[vaporgrove]

i need to do artfight attacks but i’m being held down by The Curses

i’m going to get to them tomorrow if i can’t manage it tonight! if you attack me and are waiting for a revenge i promise it’s not that i’m ignoring you it’s just that im currently failing

[carewyncromwell]

“I wish I could stop the world from turning -- Keep things just the way they are... I wish I could shelter you from Everything not pure and sweet and good... I know I can’t...I know I can’t... But I wish I could.”

~“I Wish I Could” by Collin Raye

x~x~x~x

tw: emotional manipulation, mild gore

x~x~x~x

the Cromwell family tree // includes references to original character Hermia Flume // learn more about Blaise and his son Tristan

x~x~x~x

In February 1998, the Second Wizarding War was in full swing. Terror reigned supreme through the Death Eaters’ hold over the British Ministry of Magic, with puppet Minister Pius Thicknesse ordering the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to facilitate the persecution and imprisonment of Muggle-borns, political dissidents, and other such “Undesirables.” It was a very scary time for everyone, including people who had to work at the Ministry, such as magical lawyer Carewyn Cromwell.

However scary the entire War was, however, one of the scariest moments of it for Carewyn ended up being when the new Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Death Eater Corban Yaxley interrupted a private meeting with one of her coworkers to pass along a letter for her that he’d unceremoniously ripped open.

When Carewyn took the letter from him and read its contents, her heart leapt into her throat.

Winnie --

Jacob has fallen very ill. I’m caring for him here at the Cromwell estate, but I know he will rest easier, with you at his bedside.

Apparate home at once.

Blaise

“Jacob would be your brother, yes?”

Carewyn looked up at Yaxley. His cold eyes were very beady upon her face.

“I was under the impression that you and your brother weren’t on good terms with your uncle,” he said. “You two helped land him, my brother’s wife, and your other aunt in Azkaban at one point, if memory serves me. Rather charitable of Blaise, to now suddenly want to tend to wittle Jacob’s sniffles...”

Carewyn averted her eyes as she quickly got up from her desk and grabbed her purse.

“Forgive me, sir, but my brother needs me,” she murmured. “I must go to him at once -- ”

Before she reached the door, though, Yaxley blocked her.

“Oh, of course,” said Yaxley, his lips upturned in a rather cool, insincere smile. “Naturally, you must go to him. He is your family, after all. The last thing I want is for one of my most hardworking subordinates to lose a member of her family...especially to such a sudden illness.”

He was so close to her that Carewyn could hear his thoughts without even looking at him. Images of prowling around Jacob’s apartment -- of casting anti-illusionary spells at the walls that did nothing and Yaxley’s fist clenching  around his wand as he ruthlessly kicked over Jacob’s coffee table -- rippled over her vision.

“In fact,” Yaxley pressed on, “if Jacob’s illness is truly so severe, I might recommend he be transferred to St. Mungo’s, for more expert treatment. I think it’s best that I Apparate over to Yorkshire with you, to see him for myself.”

Carewyn’s heart clenched.

“That won’t be necessary -- ” she said at once, but Yaxley cut her off.

“I insist.”

He pushed her office door the rest of the way open, indicating the hall to her pointedly.

“After you, Miss Cromwell,” sneered Yaxley.

~*~

The knowledge that Jacob was ill would’ve worried Carewyn enough on its own. Jacob and Carewyn had always been incredibly close, and that bond had only deepened further after Carewyn saved Jacob from being trapped in a magical portrait for seven years and the two of them refined their shared talent for Legilimency as adults. But Blaise’s note was incredibly suspicious from the off-set, and not just because of the reason Corban Yaxley had cited. For yes, however disconcerting it was that Jacob was with Blaise at the Cromwell estate, when Jacob would never have willingly accepted Blaise’s help in a million years, Jacob had also always been in very good health. Therefore he couldn’t just be “ill.” Injured, on the other hand...

Carewyn couldn’t remember feeling more disconcerted than she did when she Apparated with Yaxley to the Cromwell estate -- or, more specifically, to the lands just outside the Cromwell estate. For around the house itself was a very tall, black wrought-iron gate, enchanted so as to prevent Apparition and Disapparition. Lane Cromwell had told her children all about how impregnable of a fortress the Cromwell estate was -- not just keeping everything from animals to even the weather out, but also trapping all of its residents inside with no chance at freedom.

The thought of Jacob, trapped in such a foreboding manor house behind such a terrifyingly cold, cage-like gate...

“Hmph,” said Yaxley, eying the gate with displeasure. “Suppose this thing prevents Apparition onto the grounds itself. Very well, then...”

He strode up to the gate, whipping his wand out with a flourish. The gate, however, didn’t open -- instead, it only seemed to flicker like red-hot cinders in a fireplace, before fading back to its normal cold black.

With a deepening frown, Yaxley waved his wand, but once again, nothing happened. He then reached out as if to open the gate manually -- when his fingers enclosed over the wrought iron, however, it flared a violent shade of red, and he catapulted backward, bellowing with rage and pain as he clutched his wrist.

“GYAAAARGH!”

It was as if Yaxley had touched a red-hot poker. His palm and fingers were covered in cauterized sores, the outer skin being ripped open exposing the red and violet veins underneath. Carewyn recoiled in horror.

“Corban,” said a very dry voice. "What an unexpected surprise.”

Both Yaxley and Carewyn looked up. From the other side of the gate, Carewyn could see the frame of her uncle, Blaise Cromwell, sweeping toward them. He was dressed in elegant black silk robes with a high white linen collar and white cuffs, and his blond-bearded face was twisted with the kind of immaturity and arrogance better suited to a schoolyard bully.

“If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve arranged to meet you at my fireplace,” the Head of the Cromwell Clan said sleekly. “I’m afraid this gate’s old enchantments don’t allow anyone without Cromwell blood to enter. Don’t tell me Marek didn’t mention it?”

Yaxley gritted his teeth with both pain and fury as he nursed his injured hand.

“...He...must’ve neglected to,” he hissed. “I’ve come to see your nephew, Jacob. I’ve received word that he’s here, in your care.”

Blaise’s eyes flitted over to Carewyn, who was standing just behind Yaxley. Her eyes flashed with contempt upon Yaxley’s back.

“That he is,” said Blaise, putting on his most innocent expression. “I paid his flat a wellness check this morning, only to find him completely emaciated in bed, fighting back a bad case of Black Cat Flu. Nothing life-threatening, of course -- but the boy’s always been hopeless, when it comes to caring for his own health. So I brought him home, so as to make him more comfortable.”

Yaxley cocked his eyebrow disbelievingly. “Awfully charitable of you, Blaise.”

Blaise shrugged. “I am Head of the Cromwells. It’s my duty, to take care of my own.”

His eyes flitted back over to Carewyn, his hand sliding absently into his pocket.

“Now, then,“ he said in a much crisper, more business-like tone, “come, Winnie, my dear -- best get you inside...”

Carewyn didn’t move. The very last place she ever, ever wanted to go was inside the Cromwell estate. After everything her mother had told her, she knew that it was a prison of the highest order...and after everything Blaise had done to try to force Carewyn, Jacob, and Lane to return to the Cromwell estate and rejoin the Clan, the very last thing she wanted to do was to give him a chance at trapping her inside his house.

Carewyn looked up at the foreboding manor with narrowed eyes. Her mind lashed around, trying to grab onto Jacob’s, if it was anywhere...but the gate, it seemed, blocked her Legilimency just as well as it did everything else...

“Don’t dawdle, Winnie,” Blaise said a bit more sharply. “Jacob is waiting.”

Carewyn’s eyes shot back up to her uncle’s face. “You can stop calling me Winnie, you are not entitled to that name.”

It was Carewyn’s mother Lane’s nickname for her, and so it was solely Lane who was allowed to use it.

Blaise returned her mistrustful glare with a far more impatient one of his own as his eyes darted back over his shoulder at the house. It made her really, really wish that his Occlumency wasn’t so rock-solid that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

But if Jacob really was in such bad shape...she knew she truly had no choice. And so, taking a deep breath, she swept past Yaxley, her light gray robes billowing behind her as she walked up to the gate.

As soon as she approached, the wrought-iron sparkled with silver, and within seconds, the gate had sprung open, allowing her access. Carewyn walked through, only to realize with a start that someone had abruptly tried to sneak up behind her. Before he could get too close, though, or even before Carewyn herself could react, the gate clanged shut behind her, trapping her inside and flaring with red as it forced Yaxley out. The wizard gave another bellow of rage and pain in response to the iron once again burning him.

“Forgive me, Corban, but you’ll simply have to return to the Ministry and use the Floo Network,” Blaise said airily. “I’ll be happy to receive you properly, once I make it back to my office.”

Carewyn flinched as she felt Blaise snake his arm around her and steer her away from the gate.

“Come, Winnie.”

Blaise led her at a very brisk walk away toward the manor house. Fully aware of Yaxley’s glaring eyes on their backs, Carewyn kept her gaze on the manor house rather than at Blaise. As her eyes passed over the climbing ivy and tiny windows, she reached out with her mind again.

Jacob! Jacob!

Something seemed to stir, somewhere in the lower West Wing of the house -- like a child too weak to move.

Pip. Where...Pip...?

CRACK. A ways away, Yaxley had Disapparated.

As soon as Yaxley was gone, Blaise lost all pretense of sophistication or composure. Seizing Carewyn’s arm in a rough vice grip, he yanked her behind him as he ran into the house.

“Augh -- let go of me!”

Carewyn tried to break free, but it was no use -- Blaise had always been much stronger than her. Her uncle whirled on her with a fierce eye.

“Don’t be a child,” he spat.

With a wave of his wand, he’d thrown open the front door, dragging Carewyn inside the house, and then slammed the door behind them. Then without skipping a beat, Blaise forced Carewyn to follow him up the stairs.

“The instant Corban arrives at the Ministry, he’ll be on his way back here through the office’s Floo grate,” Blaise muttered to Carewyn, his arrogant, condescending voice strangely urgent. “I must be there to meet him, if I don’t want him to wander -- ”

Pip? Pip?

Jacob! Jacob, I’m here!

Pip. Where...? Where...?

Jacob’s voice was becoming fainter -- almost as if he was losing awareness, or...as if she was getting further away from him...

“ -- Claire’s not bright enough to keep him occupied there that long,” Blaise pressed on, unaware of Carewyn and Jacob trying to mentally reach out to each other. “And even if she could, Corban will have to see you with Jacob, in order for him to believe that he’s ill and halt any further questioning...”

Ack...Pip...

Carewyn could practically feel Jacob’s pain shooting through her own veins. It made her eyes flash.

“If Yaxley saw me with Jacob, then he would know full well he wasn’t sick with Black Cat Flu, Blaise. What happened to my brother?”

“Nothing the foolish boy didn’t bring upon himself,” scoffed Blaise. “Now come along -- Jacob’s right up here -- ”

“I know full well he’s not, Blaise!” Carewyn spat. Yanking out her wand, she pointed it right at Blaise’s jaw, so as to force him to stop pulling her along. “Now take me to my brother right now, or so help me -- !”

WHOOSH.

Blaise and Carewyn both straightened up sharply at the sound of a gust of air rushing through a fireplace  not too far away: likely in a room around the corner down the hall from where they were standing. A moment later, Carewyn could just barely hear the simpering voice of her aunt Claire.

“Corban! What a nice…surprise!”

A flash of panic pulsed through Blaise’s expression before he whirled on Carewyn, his face twisted with anger and anxiety.

“There’s no time to explain -- I need you upstairs, with your brother, while I go deal with Corban.”

Carewyn’s eyes flashed. She dearly wanted to hex Blaise right in the face -- but with Corban Yaxley inside the manor and Jacob in no fit state to fight back or escape, she knew she couldn’t afford to act rashly. So, her face full of distrust and contempt, she reluctantly lowered her wand.

“As soon as Yaxley is gone, you will bring me to Jacob,” she hissed.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Blaise said dismissively. “Now move.”

He yanked him by the arm up the last set of stairs and down the hall, running to the closest door, which was painted a dark blue. The head of the Cromwell Clan opened the door and quickly shoved Carewyn inside.

“Tend to him until I return,” Blaise told her sternly. “Quietly. His headache doesn’t need to get any worse.”

With this, Blaise shut the door right on Carewyn’s back, forcing her fully into the room, before his footsteps retreated rapidly back down the stairs.

Carewyn glanced at the shut door, before turning to look at the figure lying down in bed. When she saw his face, she gave a start.

Jacob?

It was her brother -- at least, visually. His long messy black-brown curls were all in his face, which was pallid and lined with sweat. He was also shivering noticeably as he blearily blinked up at her. His gaze was distrustful and guarded, despite his exhaustion -- a kind of look Jacob would never give his younger sister in a million years. 

It didn’t take Carewyn long at all to guess the truth.

Polyjuice. How like Blaise.

A bitter taste rippled through her mouth at the thought of Blaise similarly disguising himself as Jacob, eight years ago. This time, though, she wasn’t going to be fooled by someone pretending to be her brother.

Yet Jacob was in the house somewhere. She had sensed his thoughts. So for now, at least until Yaxley left, Carewyn would have to play along with whatever Blaise was up to. And so, after a moment, she took a few steps closer to the bed, coming to stand behind the chair positioned next to the bed.

Not-Jacob stared Carewyn down, his eyes filled with just as much distrust as she’d felt toward Blaise. Even so, the fire was tempered by his lack of energy and consciousness. His mind was a swirling, turbulent sea of clouds that disoriented both its owner and anyone looking in on it. Disjointed echoes of Blaise’s voice even bounced sickeningly through Carewyn’s sinuses, just looking into this stranger’s eyes.

“ -- Winnie -- ”

“Lie down. You’re in no fit state to move, let alone argue -- ”

“Now drink this -- ”

Intense nausea rippled through the stranger’s eyes. He was clearly quite ill -- maybe even with the same Black Cat Flu Blaise had claimed Jacob had.

Polyjuice Potion tastes weird enough when you’re not sick, Carewyn thought. How gross must you feel, drinking it when you are?

“You’re Winnie, aren’t you?” said the stranger.

The question was as petulant as a child’s. It sounded strange, as Jacob’s voice certainly had never sounded that way. It was also accompanied by multiple memories.

“ -- little Winnie -- ”

“ -- saw her the other day -- our little bastard cousin, I mean…”

“Watch your tongue, Iris. Bastard Winnie may be, she is still one of ours.”

“ -- she’ll return home to us soon enough -- ”

Not all the words Carewyn heard were Blaise’s this time, but most of them were. …Come to think of it…the stranger’s childish affect did sound a bit like Blaise’s too…

“…I am Carewyn, yes,” she said softly. “My mother calls me Winnie.”

Not-Jacob’s eyes narrowed further, flashing with resentment and suspicion as he coughed harshly. Carewyn could practically sense the voice of a much younger boy coming off of him -- “I don’t want her here! She sent you away! I hate her, and I hope she never comes back!” -- followed by a loud SLAP and searing pain across the face. The recollection made Carewyn flinch — even when she felt a rocking, queasy sea of guilt wash through her, it only served to make her feel more pain in her face, alongside the pulsing of the stranger’s sinuses and head.

Carewyn rested her hands on the back of the chair as she considered the stranger who was not Jacob lying down in bed. Then, after a moment, she reached into her purse, took out a handkerchief, and wordlessly wet it with her wand.

“Here,” she said gently.

She leaned in and started dabbing the cold wet cloth to not-Jacob’s forehead. He flinched, startled and confused.

“What are you doing, you -- hack, hack -- idiot?” he said very rudely, his voice thick with congestion. “Hack -- I’m not your…your stupid bastard brother — ”

“Surprisingly I figured that out a while ago,” Carewyn shot back dryly. Her expression then grew a bit grimmer. “…Blaise told me to tend to you until he got back. Considering I can’t look for Jacob properly until after Corban Yaxley leaves, I reckon I should do that.”

Especially when you are actually this sick. You must be miserable…

She continued at not-Jacob’s temple with her wet hanky. He kept glaring drowsily up at her, even though his thoughts were so disoriented that Carewyn felt like she was riding a hexed broom. It made her avert her eyes, just to try to shut out his thoughts -- when she did, she noticed the empty glass on the side table.

“Can you sit up?” she asked.

Not-Jacob looked away with a loud huff.

“Use your eyes!” His voice was laced with resentment. “Hack -- I’m obviously in no fit state to move...”

Blaise saying the exact same thing in the stranger’s memory rippled over Carewyn’s mind again, and it made her raise her eyebrows.

“Is that so? Hm…if you were truly in no fit state to do anything, then I would think you would be sleeping so you could build up your strength.”

Not-Jacob grumbled irritably. “I can’t sleep either. Hack — hack — my cough’s too bad.”

“Well, propping your head up and drinking some water should help with that. Here.”

Carewyn reached out a hand back behind not-Jacob’s shoulders, supporting them enough so that she could help ease him up and adjust his pillows under him. He squirmed.

“Get off me, you -- ” he muttered. “ -- you tramp, you -- Muggle-raised bastard -- ”

“If you’re in a fit state to swear, then you’re in a fit state to sleep quietly,” Carewyn scolded him as she picked up the glass from the side table and wordlessly filled it with water from her wand. “Now settle down. I don’t want you to choke.”

Despite all of his fussing, not-Jacob did ultimately do as Carewyn said, however sour he looked about it. He clearly was not feeling well enough to actively rebel against her help, and he did seem a little refreshed after drinking some water and repositioning himself. When he cleared his throat, he actually was able to clear up some of the phlegm that had been trapped there.

“Does that help?” asked Carewyn.

“I suppose so,” not-Jacob said begrudgingly.

“Good.”

“Is it, though?”

Carewyn blinked. Not-Jacob cocked his eyebrows arrogantly.

“Hack -- it’s not like you actually care about your family, aside from your brother and mother,” he said scornfully. “So what does it matter to you, if I get better or not?”

Carewyn frowned deeply as she put down the glass again. “Family or not, no one deserves to suffer.”

“Even the guys who hurt your brother?”

Carewyn stiffened. Not-Jacob’s eyes gleamed -- he seemed pleased that he’d gotten such rapt attention from her.

“Do you want to know what happened to him?” he asked under his breath, rather like a kid divulging a secret. “He got into a duel with a bunch of Uncle Corban’s mates in Hogsmeade.”

Carewyn felt like her heart had been squeezed. “The Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade?”

“Yeah,” said not-Jacob, seeming even more pleased by her reaction. “Uncle Marek said that one of Honeydukes’s people has been sending enchanted sweets to Hogwarts...so the Death Eaters decided to send them a message, for trying to stand up to the Carrows. Father said he saw them burn Honeydukes’ Sweet Shop to the ground.”

Carewyn’s heart hurt, just hearing this. Jacob had mentioned once that one of Ambrosius Flume’s daughters had been providing him with healing pastries for the fugitives he’d been keeping hidden inside his flat. Not only that, but one of Jacob’s closest friends was the owner of the Three Broomsticks, Madam Rosmerta. He must’ve gone to Hogsmeade to help them, upon hearing their home was in danger...

“...When you say your father, I assume you mean Blaise,” Carewyn asked quietly. It was the only thing that made sense, given not-Jacob’s incredibly distinctive, arrogant attitude. “What was he doing in Hogsmeade?”

Not-Jacob gave another scoff. “What do you think he was doing? Hack, hack -- he was making sure your brother didn’t do anything stupid. Not that that stopped him.”

“But how did he know Jacob would be in trouble?” Carewyn pressed, her eyes narrowing a bit more suspiciously.

“He overheard Uncle Marek talking about it while tending to me,” her disguised cousin said with a shrug. “Hack -- Uncle Marek is Uncle Corban's brother, you know. Uncle Marek really wants to join the Death Eaters himself, though Father won’t let him. Father thinks we should stay out of it and just look after ourselves.”

Carewyn’s brows knit together. “And what do you think?”

“That Father’s right, of course,” not-Jacob said, as if it were obvious. “Family’s the only thing that really matters. Not that you and Jacob know anything about that -- all you can do is run around trying to save people who aren’t anything to you.”

Carewyn crossed her arms. “There are a lot more people in the world that matter besides those who share our blood.”

“So you’ll put yourself in danger just for them?” not-Jacob shot back. “A bunch of nobodies? When your family needs you, when -- hack -- all it does is make your family worry about your safety, all the time?”

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit together over her eyes. She could sense an odd kind of conviction ebbing off of not-Jacob, when he said this -- something oddly fiery, under the surface. She could see Blaise’s pale, anxious face, as he carried Jacob past the open door of the bedroom they were currently in -- “Damn you, Jacob!”

“You and Jacob are so selfish,” not-Jacob said coldly. “All you can do is run around -- hack, hack -- making yourselves feel good by helping a bunch of outsiders who will never love you the way your real family can. Hack -- meanwhile, that real family has to sit on the sidelines helplessly -- hack -- hoping and praying that you’re going to be okay. All because you won’t even come home, where it’s safe.”

Carewyn could sense someone entering an old room with only one very high window looking out toward the grounds -- “To hell with the world. ...It could never love you, as I do, my son -- ”

That must be Mum’s old room, Carewyn realized -- Lane had described her old bedroom as tiny and dark with only one high window.

And sure enough, Blaise had come to take hold of the person’s shoulders from behind, when he stood in the doorway, a gesture that made the person flinch, given the possessive strength in his father’s hands -- “She’ll return home to us soon enough -- ” “You’ll be able to hear her sing yourself, when she does -- ”

Carewyn’s red lips came together tightly as she considered Not-Jacob solemnly.

“Family is more than just flesh and blood,” she said softly. “I have many friends who have put themselves on the line to fight for my safety and happiness...and I’m grateful every day, for that love they’ve shown me. And I know that there are a lot of other people out there who...yes, perhaps they haven’t done anything for me...but they have the capacity to express just as much love themselves -- for me or otherwise.”

Her eyes drifted down to the bed covers under her hand.

“...As much as...your father might worry about us, in his own weird way...he’s been very lucky, to be able to stand on the sidelines and act like the War doesn’t apply to him. We've all been lucky, to be able to live somewhat normal lives. Many other people aren’t so lucky. And those people aren’t nothing to us. They’re our friends -- our coworkers and mentors...even just people who we’ve gotten used to seeing every day on our commute, but never really talk to. And those people do matter. Maybe not as much to us as other people do -- but they still matter.”

With another loud cough, not-Jacob crossed his arms and turned over in bed, away from Carewyn. The lawyer’s eyes narrowed upon his back.

“You called Jacob and me selfish, a moment ago,” she said a bit more coldly. “Well, we’re not selfish enough to only care about a human life if it benefits us.”

Glancing around, she eased herself off of the bed and stood up. She strolled across the room, over to the window in the corner, and looked out into the garden below. It was very well-manicured with many white flowers, but the hedges around it were so high, one could hardly see the sky. When she reached out her hands and, with a bit of effort, opened the window, though, Carewyn was a bit put-out to discover none of the nice ambient noise one could expect from opening a window: no wind blowing through the hedges, nor birds singing.

Looks like the shields around this house really are impregnable, she thought grimly. She had to get Jacob and herself out of here...

“What are you doing? Father shut that to keep out the cold air.”

Carewyn glanced at Not-Jacob. He was peeking over his shoulder at her without uncrossing his arms or fully turning over, which made him look all the more like a child stubbornly refusing to apologize for his bad behavior.

Carewyn regarded him with a slight wry smile. “Cold air doesn’t hurt you when you’re sick. When you cough, you’re expelling the germs that are making you sick into the air -- if you keep all the windows closed, then all you’re breathing in is the air that made you sick in the first place. So we need to bring in some fresh air so it can push the bad air out.”

“Yeah, right,” said Not-Jacob, as he turned back over.

Carewyn could practically feel him pause. Then, abruptly, he said,

“Bring me some soup.”

Carewyn cocked her eyebrows.

“Hack -- if anything’ll make me feel better, it’s some soup,” Not-Jacob said petulantly. “So bring me some.”

Do I look like a maidservant to you? Carewyn thought scornfully. I have no idea where the kitchen even is in this house, anyway.

“Sorry, but your father told me to stay here with you,” she said primly instead.

“Well, then, the very least you can do is sing something, to help me sleep,” not-Jacob said without skipping a beat, as he closed his eyes. “You said that I should be sleeping, so I can build up my strength.”

Carewyn gave Not-Jacob’s back a rather bewildered look. He didn’t look at her again, though -- instead he simply sat there and waited. Rather than merely seeming expectant or entitled, though, there was something anticipatory, coming off of him -- almost hopeful.

Blaise singing to a dark-haired teenager resting fitfully in this exact same bed -- “You are my sunshine -- my only sunshine -- ” -- Blaise fixing the boy’s collar as he sat at the piano --  “You’ll be able to hear her sing yourself, when she does -- ”

The tension in Carewyn’s eyebrows slowly faded, despite herself. It left her expression far more pensive than it had been previously, as she settled herself back down on the bed. She paused, considering the stranger wearing her brother’s face still turned away from her in bed as his shoulders tensed.

Blaise’s son must still be rather young, Carewyn considered for the first time. A young teenager, most likely, if one factored in both his vocabulary and his bratty attitude. How old was he when his father went to Azkaban, with the rest of R? He would’ve had to have been at least a toddler, to have any memory of the Ministry arresting Blaise. How old was this boy now, when he wasn’t wearing Jacob’s twenty-seven-year-old face?

Carewyn’s eyes drifted around her cousin’s bedroom. However sparsely decorated Lane’s old room had been, this room was not so austere. It actually looked rather cluttered and “lived-in,” despite the grandiose furniture and bed curtains. A large collection of model dragons, griffins, basilisks, and Acromantula was scattered about the room; the bookshelf was almost completely full, its only incomplete row of books being supported by a pair of dragon-skull-shaped bookends; and there was a fake dog skeleton wearing a red collar and an ugly Christmas sweater sitting loyally next to the chair in the corner. There were even two signed posters for Lorcan D’Eath and the magical boy band Spellb🔮und hung up on the far wall beside the bed’s ornate side table. What caught Carewyn’s eye most, though, was the tiny model thestrals that had been hung on every handle or knob in the room so that they dangled off of them, their wings occasionally flapping with the force of gravity.

Carewyn’s eyes lingered on the thestral dangling off the side table’s drawer handle as she quietly inhaled and started to sing.

“Hush-a-bye -- don't you cry -- go to sleep, little baby... When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses...”

As soon as she started singing, she could feel the boy wearing Jacob’s face give the slightest start, but it almost instantly softened his posture. Almost immediately, all of the tension had rippled off his shoulders, and his arms crossed so tightly over his chest had fallen loose beside his covers. His hand even lightly clutched his covers. He’d also gone so quiet that it was clear he was paying her rapt attention.

“Dapples and greys -- pintos and bays -- all the pretty little horses...”

Carewyn could sense something almost wistful coming off of her cousin, as she sang for him -- watching his model thestrals “fly” across his room -- wishing he could ride one -- crying bitterly when his father broke one, in the heat of anger, when he was a toddler -- clinging to his legs, sobbing and begging forgiveness -- “I’m sorry, Father! I won’t leave you alone -- I swear I won’t!” -- Blaise holding an older boy, bringing a hand through his hair -- “ -- no one out there could love you as much as I do -- remember that -- ”

Blaise’s son isn’t happy here, any more than Mum was, Carewyn realized. He just feels guilty about the thought of leaving his father...no matter how badly Blaise treats him...

Her blue eyes softened with pity despite herself as she reached out and rested a hand on top of her cousin’s hand on the covers. The gesture made him flinch, so Carewyn sang the next lines more gently, in an attempt to reassure him.

“Way down yonder, in the meadow, Poor little baby, cryin’, ��Mama’... Birds and the butterflies flutter ‘round his eyes -- Poor little baby, cryin’, ‘Mama’...”

Slowly not-Jacob seemed to relax again. Carewyn could once again sense Blaise in his thoughts -- the times when his touch made the boy flinch, as he wasn’t sure what kind of mood his father was in, when he held him so tightly --

“Don’t pull away, and perhaps I won’t hold so tight -- ”

Carewyn very gently took her cousin’s hand, being careful not to hold it too tightly. She wanted to comfort, not restrict him.

“Hush-a-bye -- don't you cry...go to sleep, little baby...”

Not-Jacob quietly exhaled as Carewyn’s song came to an end. His hand even very lightly enclosed over Carewyn’s in return as she heard the click of the door opening behind them.

She looked over her shoulder, to see Blaise and Corban Yaxley in the door frame.

“Here you are, Corban,” said Blaise. “Your proof of my testimony.”

His blue eyes passed from his disguised son in bed to Carewyn, zeroing in on her holding his hand. Something strangely happy flitted through his expression, before he put on a more solemn face and approached his niece.

“How is he?” he asked softly. The sincerity came through seemingly despite himself, but so did something oddly smug that Carewyn couldn’t quite place, thanks to his rock-hard Occlumency.

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed up at her uncle. “Better. You shouldn’t have shut him up in your son’s room like this -- he’s not going to get any better, breathing in nothing but stale air.”

Blaise looked miffed at being told how to take care of his son, but he tried to feign nonchalance. “I merely thought to stave off the chill.”

He turned to Yaxley, who was peering carefully down at not-Jacob.

“As you can see, Jacob is in no fit state to have been anywhere, Hogsmeade village included,” said Blaise in a slightly haughtier voice. “I don’t know who your scouts thought they saw, back there -- but my nephew has been here at the Cromwell estate since this morning.”

Not-Jacob stirred at that moment. He glanced from Blaise, his eyes blinking blearily up at him, before looking over at Carewyn.

“...Pip...” he rasped.

The nickname coming out of anyone besides Jacob made Carewyn incredibly uncomfortable, but she quickly feigned concern as she rested a hand over not-Jacob’s head on the pillow.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t try to talk...rest now...”

Not-Jacob’s hair fell into his eyes as he reclined back on the pillows with a tired sigh. Carewyn brought a hand down to gently pat his head -- out the sight of her eye, she could see Yaxley’s upper lip curling with displeasure.

“...I see,” snarled the new Head of Magical Law Enforcement. “I suppose there must’ve been some sort of mistake.”

It was clear he didn’t fully believe this -- but with Jacob present, and seemingly too ill to leave his bed, he didn’t have anything to justify further investigation. He’d been outmaneuvered...and he was not happy about it. And the Death-Eater-turned-Ministry-employee turned on his heel as if to leave.

“Very well -- I shall leave you to tend to your nephew,” he said coldly. “I’ll make a follow-up trip tomorrow, to check on his progress.”

“I’ll expect you at noon,” Blaise replied crisply. 

Yaxley headed for the open door. Waiting in the hall just outside was Carewyn’s brown-haired, doll-like aunt Claire. At the sight of his sister, Blaise straightened up a bit -- she gave a covert little nod before shooting an anxious look over at Yaxley. Blaise’s eyes narrowed.

“Claire, escort Corban back to the fireplace, won’t you?” the Head of the Cromwell Clan said pointedly. “I daresay he has very pressing matters to attend to, back at the Ministry.”

Yaxley shot Blaise a rather dirty look over his shoulder, before sweeping back down the hall from whence he came. Claire rushed after Yaxley -- even after they had both left down the stairs, Blaise remained in the door frame, listening carefully as their steps faded away down the hall below.

“Winnie?”

Carewyn looked down at not-Jacob. He hadn’t opened his eyes yet, still pretending to be asleep.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Your brother’s hair is really long and annoying,” he mumbled.

Carewyn’s lips turned up in a slight smile as she reached out to smooth some of her brother’s messy curls out of Not-Jacob’s face. He relaxed again, smiling ever-so-slightly despite himself.

“Did it work, Father?” he asked a bit more loudly.

“Quiet, son,” Blaise said tersely. “I’m trying to hear.”

Not-Jacob shut up at once. Carewyn glanced at Blaise -- her uncle’s eyes were narrowed upon the staircase as he listened hard. Finally, in the distance, Carewyn heard the loud WHOOSH of the downstairs fireplace, and Blaise’s shoulders finally relaxed as he exhaled.

“...He’s gone,” he murmured.

Not-Jacob blearily opened his eyes at last, his features spreading into a bigger, brighter smile.

“So it worked?” he asked eagerly. Then he devolved into a coughing fit.

“Hush,” said Blaise sternly. “Lie back down before you cough up your entire lung.”

Once his son had quieted down again, Blaise gave him a smug smile.

“...Yes, it worked. You needn’t have worried -- it was truly not so difficult for your father to manage. Your Uncle Corban has always been a stupid man.”

“If he’s so stupid, I must wonder why it took you so long to join us,” Carewyn said dryly.

Blaise shrugged. “Perhaps I just wanted to give Tristan some time to get to know his cousin.”

He crossed over to not-Jacob (in truth Tristan Cromwell), fetching a small, green-tinted bottle out of his robes.

“Here, son, drink this. No sense in you looking like a ragamuffin any longer than you have to...”

Tristan obeyed. As soon as he’d downed the contents of the bottle, his frame began to morph, his features smoothing out with fresh youth, his height shrinking and Jacob’s long curls bending back in on themselves and straightening out to a flat, straight black.

When the Polyjuice Potion’s effects had been completely negated, Carewyn found a pale, frail-looking thirteen-year-old boy laying in the spot where the “not-Jacob” had before. And when he blinked up drowsily at Carewyn with eyes as blue and almond-shaped as hers, but far less sunken-in or tired than hers or Jacob’s, he offered her a weak, cheeky smile.

“Hi, Winnie,” he said impishly.

“Hello, Tristan,” Carewyn answered coolly. “And it’s Carewyn, please.”

“Father calls you Winnie, so will I,” Tristan shot back. “After all, I’m going to be head of the Cromwell Clan someday -- which means one day, I’ll be head of you too.”

“Sorry -- but the only head that shall dictate my fate is the one on my own shoulders,” Carewyn said very coldly.

Rather than being offended by this, Tristan's cheeky smile spread as he gave another hacking cough.

“Hack -- I made Winnie sing for me,” he told his father, his haughty voice oddly boyish in its mischief.

“I heard,” said Blaise, looking incredibly pleased with both himself and his son as he smirked at Carewyn. “Very pretty, Winnie. I sincerely hope it was a song your mother picked up somewhere, rather than something from that Muggle wretch who sired you.”

Carewyn felt a flare of loathing.

“Stop calling me Winnie -- and Mum did sing it to Jacob and me as children, yes,” she said. Her red lips curled up in a rather cold smirk of her own as she added, “It’s an old folk song -- though the version Mum heard first was performed by her favorite Muggle band, Peter, Paul, and Mary.”

Blaise’s nose wrinkled at once, but Carewyn pressed on a bit more aggressively.

“Now enough stalling, Blaise. I want to see my brother. Now.”

Blaise gave a rather irritable sigh. “Oh, all right. Forgive me for trying to encourage some familial affection...”

His tone dripped with a kind of passive-aggressiveness that could make anyone want to punch him in the nose. But before he could say or do anything else, the clock tolling in the hall made him stiffen like a startled cat. Tristan likewise had bolted up in bed, looking up toward the hall.

“Father?” the boy said hesitantly.

“Blast!” swore Blaise. “Pacifying Corban took more time than I thought -- ”

Carewyn cocked her eyebrows dully at Blaise. Guess he wasn’t so easy to deal with, after all.

Blaise strolled out of Tristan’s room to the top of the staircase, shouting down the stairs.

“CLAIRE! Keep Pearl and that neanderthal husband of yours on the ground floor until I come down there, do you hear me!?”

Somewhere downstairs, Carewyn caught the muffled sound of Claire’s voice obediently shouting back some kind of assent before dashing down the stairs. Blaise then swept back over to the bed and brought a hand down on his son’s head, looking down at him sternly as he steered him back down onto his back.

“Rest here quietly until I return, Tristan,” he told him. “I must send Winnie on her way at once.”

Carewyn’s brows knit together tightly over her eyes in righteous anger. “I’m not leaving without -- !”

“Without Jacob, I know, now be quiet and come with me!” spat Blaise venomously.

He tried to grab hold of Carewyn’s arm again, but this time she was able to dodge his hold.

“Don’t touch me,” she said fiercely as she dashed out the door of Tristan’s room and back to the top of the stairs. 

Sensing that Carewyn would at least follow him this time, Blaise gave an irritated growl before sweeping past her and down the stairs. Carewyn glanced back at Tristan briefly, noting the anxiety in his pale, boyish face, before quickly taking off after her uncle.

“Your brother is already in the room across from my office,” Blaise shot over his shoulder at Carewyn as they raced down the hall. “I instructed Claire to move him to the chaise longue in there while I distracted Corban. In the office is the Floo grate you can use to transport Jacob out of here -- I’ll mop up whatever blood he leaves behind once you’re gone -- ”

The thought of Jacob bleeding heavily made Carewyn’s heart pang with anxiety. She tried once again to reach out to Jacob with her mind.

Jacob. Jacob!

That familiar presence stirred again.

Pip? Pip!

He was close! Carewyn felt her heart leap.

Jacob! Jacob, are you awake?

Pip -- no -- I don’t think so, Pip --

Images of buildings overwhelmed by Fiendfyre dragons and manticores swam over Carewyn’s eyes. Jacob himself was fully surrounded, flinching with pain every time the heat lashed at his limbs -- holding his arms out wide as if to protect the alley behind him from the flames he was actively confronting -- Jacob’s determined thoughts echoing in her own head, and then his voice choked by the sooty air -- I can’t let them go any farther -- “Finite Daemonium!” --

You’re dreaming, Jacob, she told him firmly.

I thought so. Pip, where are we? You’re close, but...I can’t tell where you are, from looking at it...

Never mind that now. Don’t worry, I’m coming --

Carewyn was so locked on her brother’s mind that she ended up overtaking Blaise in the last stretch, barreling over to the door through which she could sense Jacob. She seized the door to the room neighboring the office that had once belonged to Charles Cromwell and threw it open.

Lying prone on his stomach across the chaise longue was the real Jacob. His face, neck, and back were covered in bandages and orange burn paste, both of which could only half disguise the severe burn marks that slashed across his back and had hacked a good chunk out of his long hair.

Carewyn’s heart leapt into her throat.

“Jacob!”

She ran to her brother’s side and quickly tried to turn him over enough that she could take hold of his face with both hands.

Jacob! Carewyn urged him with her mind. I’m here, Jacob -- focus on my voice, Jacob --

Jacob gave a soft groan of pain in his sleep, but inside his own mind, he was more aware and easier to hear than before.

Pip. Pip -- Honeydukes. Were there casualties?

Carewyn’s heart sank remembering what Tristan had said about the Death Eaters’ attack in Hogsmeade.

...I don’t know, but...the building was completely destroyed. It was burned to the ground.

She could feel Jacob’s heart pang with guilt and sorrow, hearing this. The face of a pretty woman with a blond bun and a strong jawline handing him several boxes rippled over her eyes -- “ -- for your tenants, not you, so don’t gorge yourself -- ”

“You’ll have to hide him yourself,” said Blaise tersely, once he’d caught up with her. “Claire might be loyal enough to keep her mouth shut, and Pearl dislikes the Dark Lord’s methods enough herself that she won’t be too cross, but I can’t take the risk that that idiot Marek learns of Jacob’s true condition, considering his blood relations...”

Carewyn’s eyes shot back up to Blaise, narrowing slightly.

“Is this why you wanted me to come so quickly?” she asked. “Because you knew once Claire’s husband came home, it’d be harder to hide Jacob from him and the Death Eaters?”

“Of course,” snorted Blaise. “Your brother would undoubtedly throw a fit if he woke up here. And although I would normally be perfectly willing to deal with one of your brother’s little temper tantrums, Marek hears more than enough from Corban that he’d be able to deduce where Jacob’s injuries came from, if he saw them. And just about everything Marek thinks, Corban could eventually hear.”

Jacob’s form twitched sharply.

Pip. Pip -- is that Blaise with you?

Jacob seemed to writhe in both anger and anxiety, even through the pain that still pulsed through his every vein and made it hard for him to move. Carewyn hurriedly brought a hand through his bangs, trying to soothe him.

It’s okay, Jacob. It’s okay.

“As much as I could take better care of both of you here,” Blaise said with a glare across the hall at the closed office door, “I’ll have to leave this to you and your mother, to sort out...”

The Head of the Cromwell Clan strode over to the office, threw open the door, and moved toward the blazing fireplace. He seized a cluster of Floo powder from a dish on the mantle and tossed it into the flames, turning them a bright emerald green. Then he returned to the sitting room where Carewyn was bent down beside Jacob, hoisting Jacob up into his arms with some difficulty so he could carry the younger man into the office. Some blood leaked through the bandages on Jacob’s right shoulder, staining the carpet.

“Ugh -- you’re far too weak to lift him on your own, but I must get downstairs quickly,” Blaise instructed Carewyn. “Choose your destination, and then use Mobilicorpus to carry him into the grate. The fireplace’s tiles are already arranged in the correct order to allow one to leave on a Tuesday, so we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone else coming through the Floo Network in the meantime.”

Seeing Carewyn's deep frown at his word choice, Blaise gave her a dark smile.

“Your grandfather was very strict about when a person could come or go from this house, and so am I,” he said, lowering Jacob down into the armchair beside the fireplace. “Be grateful for my mercy, under the circumstances.”

Carewyn pursed her lips.

“Grateful? For not keeping us locked up in a cage?” she whispered tartly. “Forgive me for not singing your praises. It’s shameful enough that you’ve already done it to your own son -- ”

“I’m protecting him,” Blaise retorted, his eyes flaring with temper. “Just as I would you, Lane, and Jacob, if you all would just open your eyes. At least then you and Jacob wouldn’t be throwing yourselves into Fiendfyre for the sake of some low-class shopkeepers -- ”

Jacob must’ve heard that through his connection with Carewyn’s mind, despite the state of delirium he was in, for at that moment he lashed out his limbs violently. The burns to his chest, however, abruptly made his body crumple in on itself as he moaned in pain.

“Clearly those ‘low-class shopkeepers’ mean a lot to Jacob,” Carewyn said fiercely. “So keep your insults to yourself.”

She turned her focus back to Jacob, trying to send soothing thoughts through her Legilimency. Then, her eyes still narrowed, she looked back up toward Blaise, her gaze landing on his shoulder rather than his face.

“...Thank you,” she said softly. “For saving him.”

Blaise scoffed as he turned away. “I said it before -- I’m the head of our family. It’s my duty to take care of you.”

Despite this, his face betrayed a rather self-satisfied expression as he headed for the open door. Once he’d reached it, he rested his hand on the frame as turned back to look over his shoulder again at Carewyn.

“Safe travels, Winnie,” he said, unable to fight back a smug smirk despite himself. “Do try to return home sometime in October, won’t you? Tristan plays the piano for hours, on his birthday...”

“This is not my home, Blaise,” Carewyn said coldly. “And don’t call me Winnie.”

Blaise was still smirking like a cat who’d successfully caught a rat as he retreated from the room, closing the office door behind him with a snap. As soon as Blaise was gone, Carewyn took her wand back out and flourished it at Jacob.

“Mobilicorpus.”

Ghostly white ropes emerged from her wand and lashed themselves onto Jacob’s limbs, allowing her to lift him off the chaise longue and carry him after her like a balloon on a string.

Pip --

Shh, Carewyn sent Jacob more comforting vibes through her Legilimency. You can sleep easy now, Jacob -- we’re going home.

With some difficulty, she eased herself and Jacob into the Cromwell fireplace, resting a hand beside Jacob’s head so that it didn’t accidentally hit the top of it.

“Cromwell Cottage,” Carewyn said her mother’s new address very clearly, “Tintagel, Cornwall!”

And with a flash of green and a WHOOSH of air, both Carewyn and Jacob disappeared from the Cromwell Manor.

~*~

Lane Cromwell was also absolutely beside herself, at the sight of her son. She quickly shut down all emotion so she could set about brewing a large batch of burn paste at her large kitchen cauldron, while Carewyn reached out to her Healer friend Chiara, who sent over several more potions she’d brewed herself via Owl Post, which were specifically intended for reversing curse damage.

After administering the multiple potions to Jacob both orally and topically over the course of several hours, Jacob’s condition finally seemed to improve -- his back and right shoulder had scarred over badly thanks to the violently angry third-degree burns, but the pain had finally been tempered enough that Jacob could sleep peacefully and wake up very early the next morning, just before sunrise. Carewyn, who’d curled up asleep in the chair at Jacob’s bedside, woke up not long after he did, subconsciously sensing his thoughts poking at the inside of her mind.

Pip. Can you hear me, Pip?

She stirred restlessly.

Jacob...?

She slowly opened her eyes. Her older brother smiled tiredly up at her from the bed.

“Morning, Pip,” he murmured. His orange-paste-soaked, scruffy face was very gentle as he passed her several comforting mental images through his Legilimency -- Jacob and Carewyn hugging each other upon their shared graduation from Hogwarts -- them singing Christmas carols together -- Jacob as a teenager carrying his very sleepy little sister on his back to bed --

Carewyn immediately moved to unfurl herself from the ball she’d been curled up in on the chair, rubbing her eyes quickly to try to wake herself up.

“Jacob...”

She slid out of the chair to the floor, crawling on her knees over to Jacob’s bed. When she reached him, she threw her head protectively over his heart as Jacob -- predicting the move long before she’d made it thanks to his Legilimency -- encircled her in his arms, bringing a hand gently through her hair. She knew he could feel her heart beating against the front of her rib cage -- see the memory of how scared she was, seeing his condition at Cromwell Manor -- Lane’s reaction, to seeing him...

“I’m sorry, Pip,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I worried you. You and Mum.”

Carewyn gave his arm a squeeze. “You were just trying to help the Flumes and Rosmerta. I know that.”

“I was,” assented Jacob guiltily. “But I should’ve been faster, I should’ve been able to do more. Then maybe Honeydukes...”

He exhaled heavily as he closed his eyes.

“I’d really wanted to save it,” he said lowly. “Even if just some of it was salvageable, at least then the Flumes would have somewhere to go -- some piece of what they had, at least some small thing they could hold onto and build off of. But they don’t...and now Hermia...”

He broke off, too despondent to put his grief into words. Carewyn gave her brother’s arm another supportive squeeze.

“They can rebuild, Jacob,” she said gently. “Jae told me that there were no casualties in Hogsmeade that night, because someone was able to reach the heart of the Fiendfyre tearing up the village and extinguish it.”

Carewyn smiled softly.

“I have a strong feeling that ‘someone’ was you, Jacob. And if it was, then the Flumes, and everyone else in Hogsmeade...they owe you their lives.”

She passed the warm pride that made her chest fit to burst through her mind to Jacob’s. It made his brother hold her that bit more tightly, leaning down awkwardly to rest his head on top of hers on his chest. Carewyn could see herself carrying Jacob into the Cromwell grate while supporting his head -- herself at age fifteen, running through the Portrait Vault to throw her arms around Jacob --

“And as usual,” he said through a slightly choked smile, “I owe you mine.”

Carewyn could sense him parsing through her memories of the Cromwell Manor. Seeing Blaise and that dark, cold house through her eyes made Jacob’s heart flare with distrust and resentment.

“Thanks for getting me out of there, Pip,” he murmured. “I don’t like thinking I owe that no-good, gaslighting old knob Blaise a favor.”

“After everything he did to you as part of R, this is the very least he could do,” Carewyn said dryly. “Even so...for once, I’d say we should be glad that Blaise is only stupid enough to pacify the Death Eaters, not actively support them...and that he’ll choose to protect you over elevating those relations of his that do.”

She paused. The memory of sitting by Tristan’s bedside while he was disguised as Jacob passed over her mind.

“...Jacob?”

“Yeah, Pip?”

“I think we should send something along in October, for Blaise’s son’s birthday. What Muggle sheet music do you think we should send him?”

Jacob blinked. Then his bandaged face broke into a huge grin as he started to laugh.

“...Dancing Queen. Merlin Alive, Pip, one of them HAS to be Dancing Queen.”

[cqlfeels]

@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let's talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.

A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!

Let me start by briefly going through why I decided to write this, because it’s important. In haunting Meng Shi’s tag in my starvation for Meng Shi content, I’ve multiple times come across the idea that Meng Shi pushed Meng Yao too hard, that she should’ve been more careful with teaching him to seek his father’s approval at any cost, and that she was too naïve. I’ve never reblogged this kind of post because 1) I personally think it’s rude to go out of your way to ramble about how much you disagree with someone on their own post and 2) if this was an isolated incident I wouldn't care either way, so I didn’t want to direct this rant at anyone in particular. It’s more to do with a tendency, primarily (as far as I can tell) from fans who haven’t had much contact with Chinese culture, to oversimplify Meng Shi and make her relationship with Meng Yao slightly disturbing, and I think part of it is due to CQL basically cutting out her entire storyline (so fans simply don’t have info about her to assess her fairly) and part is due to misunderstanding what a good parent is supposed to act like in the context of Ancient China.

[Of course, Ancient China is not a very useful historical concept, not any more than “ye olde Europe” - things change a lot based on time and place - but you know. It’s fantasy. Extremely broad trends are okay in this case.]

Anyway, the idea behind the posts I mentioned is, basically, that Meng Shi (usually through no fault of her own) is to blame for Meng Yao’s obsession with power, since his desire for approval was inherited from lessons she taught him. Just to start with, I’d argue that Meng Yao isn’t power-hungry as much as he craves security and respect, but that’s a different meta. Let’s assume that she really did teach him to be Like That. Was she wrong to do so? I’m not looking for “does that make for a happy, well-adjusted childhood?” or “would you raise your own son as Meng Shi did?” - I’m trying to figure out, would she have been considered a bad mother in the context of the society she lived in? I don’t think she would’ve.

It is surprisingly hard to find texts about the obligations of parents in Ancient China. Their main obligation is to raise filial children, but I feel like that’s not very useful: whether or not parents are good parents, children are expected to be filial, so a child being filial really says more about the child than about the parent. Maybe the parent completely missed the mark and society at large was what taught the child to be filial!

We can assume, of course, that parents were to raise good people, and that by learning what a good person looked like, we could figure out whether the parent was successful, but once again, I feel like that’s pinning things on the outcome, not on the process - the best of parents can end up with an awful kid and vice versa.

While thinking about all this, it took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to remember the story of Mother Meng and Meng Zi, but once I did, it wouldn’t leave my mind - in part because the Meng here is the exact same Meng of Meng Shi and Meng Yao (yay! fun if useless parallel!), and in part because this is a story about how a woman can successfully raise a son by herself.

Okay, so important note: one of the most influential ancient Chinese thinkers is Meng Zi (孟子 Mèng Zǐ), who is known in the West as Mencius. If you've never heard of him - he's perhaps second in importance only to Confucius. When Mencius was still a young child, his father died, so he was raised by his mother, who is usually known only as Mother Meng (in Chinese, 孟母 Mèng Mǔ.)

Mother Meng's story is told in Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳 Liènǚ Zhuàn), which for around 2000 years beginning around the 18th century BCE, was the most commonly used book used to educate women. The book is divided into sections, each one showing a different way women could be honorable and good. Mother Meng's story is told in the Maternal Models section (母儀傳 Mǔ Yí Zhuàn.) The story has a few parts, some of which I'll quote, always from Kinney's 2014 translation.

Before I go on to quote it, though, I'd like to establish that Mother Meng's story is so, so famous that even if Meng Shi had never read this particular book, I'm almost certain she would've been familiar with at least the outlines of Mother Meng's story. I'm not cherry picking a suitable chapter from the book, I'm literally going with the most famous story in it because Meng Shi would be most likely to know this one if she knew no other story.

Okay, the first part of the tale takes place when Mencius is a young boy and Mother Meng is a widow raising him.

The mother of Meng Ke of Zou [a different name for Mencius] was called Mother Meng. She lived near a graveyard. During Mencius’ youth, he enjoyed playing among the tombs, romping about pretending to prepare the ground for burials. Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son.” She therefore moved away and settled beside the marketplace. But there he liked to play at displaying and selling wares like a merchant. Again Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son,” and once more left and settled beside a school. There, however, he played at setting out sacrificial vessels, bowing, yielding, entering, and withdrawing. His mother said, “This, indeed, is where I can raise my son!” and settled there. When Mencius grew up, he studied the Six Arts, and finally became known as a great classicist. A man of discernment would say, “Mother Meng was good at gradual transformation.”

According to the translator's footnote, "gradual transformation" is "a childrearing technique, whereby a child is morally formed through daily exposure to correct models of behavior."

From this story comes the proverb 孟母三遷 (Mèng Mǔ sān qiān) - "Mother Meng moved three times." It's come to mean that a parent - especially the mother of a male child - should spare no efforts to provide an environment that will give their child a good education, paying particular attention to what models are surrounding them.

I'm sure I don't need to say if Meng Shi was at all familiar with this proverb (and she would probably be), she must have been very stressed out over literally raising her son in a brothel. (Here I must mention sex workers in ancient China were often essentially owned by the brothels, so literally "moving three times" wasn't really an option for Meng Shi even if she could miraculously pick up another trade.) Meng Shi did however at least try to surround Meng Yao with the accomplishments appropriate for the son of a cultivator:

Xiao-Meng, are you still learning those things lately? [...] The things your mom wants you to learn, things like calligraphy, etiquette, swordsmanship, meditation… How are those things going? [...] His mom’s raising him as a young master of a wealthy family. She taught him how to read and write, bought him all those swordsmanship pamphlets, and even wants to send him to school.

Meng Yao actually talks a little bit about “those swordsmanship pamphlets” in the only time in canon he directly shares memories about this mother:

Lan XiChen, “Your [guqin] skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?”

Jin GuangYao, “No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice.”

Lan XiChen seemed surprised, “Sword and cultivation guides?”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, you haven’t seen them before, have you? Those small booklets sold by the common folk. First jumbled sketches of human figures, then deliberately mystified captions.”

Lan XiChen shook his head, smiling. Jin GuangYao shook his head as well, “All of them are scams, especially to fool women like my mother and ignorant children. You won’t lose anything by practicing them, but you definitely won’t gain anything either.”

He sighed in a rueful way, “But how could my mother have known this? She bought them no matter how expensive they were, saying that if I returned to see my father in the future, I had to see him with as much competence as possible so that I don’t fall behind. All of the money was spent on this.”

See what’s happening? Meng Shi cannot physically take Meng Yao to cultivators, but she spares no efforts in giving him the closest thing she possibly can -- figuratively, we might say she moved three times.

Of course, these booklets don’t work, but as Meng Yao says, how could she have known this? The cultivation world is very closed off - think of how the entire Mo household gathers to see Lan juniors, and how Wei Wuxian mentions once that “Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.” Not just noble, but mysterious. That tracks, too - I mean, they live in inaccessible households and mostly leave to night hunt or visit each other, neither of which is an activity that would allow commoners to get much more than an occasional glimpse of them.

Now, if Meng Shi doesn’t even know that a pearl for Jin Guangshan was just a trinket, if she doesn’t know even the wealth of a major sect, how can she read booklets and decide whether that’s genuine cultivation or not? All that she sees is a chance for Meng Yao to be surrounded by the ideas and skills of the people she wants him to emulate - cultivators - and therefore she does everything she can to get him that chance. Mother Meng moved three times.

Okay, but maybe the argument is not “Meng Shi shouldn’t have pushed Meng Yao to cultivation” but rather “she should’ve pushed him, just not too hard." To that, I present another tale from Mencius' childhood:

Once, when Mencius was young, he returned home after finishing his lessons and found his mother spinning. She asked him, “How far did you get in your studies today?” Mencius replied, “I’m in about the same place as I was before.” Mother Meng thereupon took up a knife and cut her weaving. Mencius was alarmed and asked her to explain. Mother Meng said, “Your abandoning your study is like my cutting this weaving. A man of discernment studies in order to establish a name and inquires to become broadly knowledgeable. By this means, when he is at rest, he can maintain tranquility and when he is active, he can keep trouble at a distance. If now you abandon your studies, you will not escape a life of menial servitude and will lack the means to keep yourself from misfortune. How is this different from weaving and spinning to eat? If one abandons these tasks midway, how can one clothe one’s husband and child and avoid being perpetually short of food? If a woman abandons that with which she nourishes others and a man is careless about cultivating his virtue, if they don’t become brigands or thieves, then they will end up as slaves or servants.” Mencius was afraid. Morning and evening he studied hard without ceasing. He served Zisi [a great scholar whose grandfather was Confucius] as his teacher and then became one of the most renowned classicists in the world.

Notice that Mother Meng moved three times to ensure Mencius would have the highest of aspirations - to become a scholar. But just aspiration isn’t enough. Not by any means. Now that Mencius is actually studying, Mother Meng is willing to take an extreme action to ensure he's taking it seriously. Mencius doesn't have a father to smooth his path to success. He has to learn that aspiring to greatness isn't enough. He'll have to put in the effort as if his life depended on it. And if he doesn't persist in his hard work, everything he's done thus far will be useless. Sounds like a lesson imparted on young Meng Yao, doesn’t it?

A lot of fandom rage towards Meng Shi would apply to China's Best Mom Contender, Mother Meng. She gives her son big dreams, and teaches him how to go about achieving them in a society where failing is easier than succeeding. Yes, it's fair to say that Meng Shi taught Meng Yao to refuse to settle for anything less than being “Jin Guangshan's son, a respected cultivator.” Yes, it's also fair to say that she probably didn't allow him much time to play like children his age did. But unfortunately, in the world of MDZS, poor children probably wouldn't get to play anyhow, the difference is that they'd usually be working, not studying. Studying is a privilege! It’s a privilege Meng Yao could not afford but was given to him anyway, through his mother’s many sacrifices. We can even say that while she was alive, Meng Shi was trying to ensure Meng Yao would one day have a better life, at the expense of a fun childhood - and that's very Mother Meng of her, whatever our modern Western sensibilities might have to say about that.

Finally, I’d skip other tales (which show Mother Meng and an adult Mencius) and go straight to the poem that ends the Mother Meng section:

The mother of Mencius

Was able to teach, transform, judge, and discriminate.

With skill she selected a place to raise her son,

Prompting him to accord with the great principles.

When her son’s studies did not advance,

She cut her weaving to illustrate her point.

Her son then perfected his virtue;

His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.

I’d like to focus on the last verse - “His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.” All that Mother Meng wanted was for Mencius to not completely ruin his life, but he became great. You can so very easily see a parallel with how Meng Shi hoped Meng Yao would be a cultivator but he became Jin Guangyao, Chief Cultivator, styled Lianfang-zun, one of the Three Venerable, hero of the Sunshot Campaign.

Of course you can say “Jin Guangyao did many Very Wrong Things to get there, though!” Which, sure, okay, fair point. How many and how wrong depends on which canon we're discussing, and your own interpretation, but there’s no version of the story in which Jin Guangyao is 100% an innocent child uwu. But blaming that on Meng Shi is just... straight up weird? I don’t see anyone going “If Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted Wei Wuxian, he’d never have dared become Yiling Laozu!” and that’s pretty much the same logic. Would street kid Wei Wuxian have invented a new type of cultivation if he had never been taken in by the Jiang? Probably not, but raising undead armies is very much not something Jiang Fengmian could’ve predicted. In the same way, how could Meng Shi have predicted that teaching her pre-adolescent son “You are the son of a cultivator, act like one and earn your place in society” would’ve ultimately resulted in innocent deaths? How could she predict “You’re not destined to having the same horrible life I did, you can get something better than this” was a bad thing to teach? I quite honestly don’t know.

Finally, I'd like to point towards a much flimsier evidence that Meng Shi did great as a parent. And that is Meng Yao’s love. Nie Huaisang at some point comments Meng Shi is someone who Meng Yao "cherishes more than his life," and I think his assessment is correct.

Even putting aside the fact he built a whole temple to get his mother to reincarnate into a better life, and even putting aside how he refuses to flee the country without her remains, there's still crystal clear evidence that Meng Shi must've done something right. Because a lifetime of people using his mother to bully him doesn't seem to have made Meng Yao resent her. Had their relationship not have been very strong, odds are he'd feel bitter and/or ashamed of her. That doesn't seem to be the case. He's attached to her even decades after her death.

I want to be very careful with equating mutual affection with good parenting, though. When I was a rather rebellious teenager, my mother (in typical Chinese fashion) used to say that parents and children don't have to love each other as long as they're dutiful to each other, by which she meant that a parent-child relationship isn't informed by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by whether you'd be willing to do anything for each other. Specific to my case, she meant "I don't care if it makes you hate me, you will do as you're told because that's what's best for you." (That may also be the reason why people more familiar with Chinese culture see the Jiang family less as outright abusive and more as #complicated, but that's another meta.)

Whether your kid wants to hug you every time they see you is of no consequence to traditional Chinese thought - raising them to be the best they can is all that matters, because at the end of the day, you won't be around forever, but you can definitely set up your kid's life so that it goes smoothly and virtuously. How that's accomplished varies depending on many factors, but to have the goal be "I want my child to love me" rather than "I want to raise my child right" would've been considered selfish as hell.

So even if all that Meng Shi had given Meng Yao had been stern lessons about the need to go get his birthright, she would've still have been considered a good mother!! In fact, she would've been doing everything she was supposed to do, under extremely difficult conditions! (Remember the importance of environment? That Meng Yao grew up to want to be a cultivator despite having probably never even met one speaks wonders about Meng Shi's childrearing powers!!)

But just based off how over the top Meng Yao's filal dutifulness is, I'd go a step further and say that even as she did the impossible, she was also loving enough to inspire genuine affection. This is complicated because children who have present fathers could expect their mothers to be tender with them. The first century BCE text 禮記 Lǐ Jì or The Classic of Rites says that:

Here now is the affection of a father for his sons - he loves the worthy among them, and places on a lower level those who do not show ability; but that of a mother for them is such, that while she loves the worthy, she pities those who do not show ability - the mother deals with them on the ground of affection and not of showing them honour; the father, on the ground of showing them honour and not of affection.

But when the father figure is lacking for any reason, the mother must abandon her tenderness because someone must guide the child, and without a father, the role falls to the mother. A single or widowed mother had to be very careful to not smother their children with affection and raise useless, spoiled kids, or so it was thought. (The presence of Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is why Madame Lan can be so affectionate with the Lan boys, by the way - if she was raising them by herself she would've been expected to be much more practical. AUs where she just gets her kids and runs away could do very cool things with this idea. But I digress!)

Where was I? Oh, okay. Because Meng Yao seems to not just respect, but actively miss her, it seems that Meng Shi somehow managed to deal with her son on the ground of both honor and affection, to paraphrase.

So basically, all things considered, it seems not only would Meng Shi have been considered a great mom (if people could look past her being a prostitute, anyway) but she also went above and beyond the bare minimum. She truly spared no efforts on any front to make sure her son had everything your average gongzi would have - someone to teach him and someone to love him, access to education and confidence in his birthright. That she couldn't actually make him a cultivator, that she couldn't actually raise him in a proper home with no one being cruel to herself or him - that's immaterial. Even Mother Meng couldn't control what her neighbors did, only what she taught her son! The key point is Meng Shi tried. She did everything she could to educate her son right. You couldn't ask more of her, and quite honestly, you should probably be asking less.

Of course we can't err on the other extreme and say she was Perfect. Given MXTX only ever writes flawed characters, we can safely assume that if we'd known more about Meng Shi, we would've seen many flaws. Indeed, just the fact she didn't teach Meng Yao the guqin when he apparently wanted to learn it might point to some conflict we don't know enough to speculate about (maybe she focused too much on cultivation when Meng Yao's interests lay elsewhere? Maybe she wasn't able to sufficiently shelter him and he felt it'd be a burden to ask her to teach him anything? Maybe maybe maybe, go wild with your fics.) Nevertheless, I would never hold a female character to a higher ideal than a male character - if the male cast of MDZS can be a hot mess and still be admirable for what they're trying to do, then so can Meng Shi.

At the end of the day, when I look at Meng Shi - and I've made myself a document with all the references to her in the novel canon so I could easily contemplate her life and character - all I see is a woman every bit as determined and resourceful as her son, willing to do everything it took to raise her little boy into the sophisticated and ambitious man he became.

Finally, here's a fun little parallel that I'm 100% sure was unintentional but I still love. I said Meng Shi couldn't have moved three times. She couldn't, but I think maybe she taught her son he was worth moving three times for. Qinghe Nie. Qishan Wen. Lanling Jin. Isn't that super fun to think about?

Alternatively, tl;dr: Oh My God I Can't Believe We're Blaming Women For The Actions Of Their Adult Children In The Year Of Our Lord 2k21, Meng Shi Was Doing Her Best, Chill!

[peppermintbee]

OMORI has poor writing (Part 1)

OMORI stans, just block the #omori hate tag now because I’m going to use it to vent my frustrations with this game. If you love this game, I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. I am glad you enjoyed it so much. I am glad it means a lot to you. I’m not here to take that away from you. I honestly wish I felt the same way!

However, if you are like me and finished the game feeling disappointed, underwhelmed, and maybe a little frustrated, then I am here to say you are not alone. OMORI--while having the right set pieces for an interesting game--is a narrative mess.

I’m splitting this into two posts. This first post is about problems with the plot. The second is about problems with the message/moral. 

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 1: Plot Writing Lies

There’s a book by Brian McDonald called Invisible Ink which is about how to write a compelling story (you can read this great book online for free here). There’s an explanation of the writing “lie” that I find myself frequently thinking of. A “lie” in this context does not mean something is literally untrue, it means something FEELS untrue, unrealistic, improbable, or unlikely. For example, if a character gets shot in the leg but manages to do parkour, this is a “lie” since it seems unrealistic for that to happen. If a character witnesses their beloved parent’s death and shrugs it off, it’s a “lie” because that reaction seems highly unlikely.

In OMORI, the plot is held together by multiple little lies that--try as I might--I just couldn’t bring myself to believe.

1. Sunny’s friends care about him, and vice versa

A major theme of the game is how friendship can overcome any obstacle. Friendship gets Sunny over his fear of heights, spiders, and water. Friendship is what Sunny remembers before the final boss fight, and allows him to face his guilt and defeat it (and prevent him from committing suicide). With the photobook and dialogue you are reminded over and over and over and over and over again that Sunny’s friends love him unconditionally.

However, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it. The childhood memories are cute but shallow, boiling down to simply hanging out and eating treats. Plus, Kel and Aubrey fight constantly, with Aubrey even physically hitting Kel when he steps out of line. Hero and Mari behave more like babysitters than true friends to the younger kids. 

But at least the other kids interact with each other. Sunny, on the other hand, showed nearly no affection or consideration towards his friends. He floats through the memories like a ghost--he could have been completely absent from all the photos and it would have made little difference. I was ready to accept this as Sunny being an unreliable narrator and not thinking he was a good enough for his friends, but this never contradicted. Instead we are given even more memories where Sunny just silently exists there being “cute.”

[Sunny enriching the lives of his friends by LARPING as a cat.]

Because of the lack of meaningful interactions between them, there was nothing in the game that made me think that these 12-15 year olds would have a strong enough bond that would survive 3-4 years of no contact after finding their friend hanged. In fact, that discovery only drove them farther apart. The only person who I could believe actually had a close bond was Basil, who almost literally filled that trope of being the friend who would help you bury a body (or in this case, help Sunny cover up the accidental manslaughter).

The writing fix for this would be simple: instead of showing us the same boring birthday and beach scenes over again, give the kids memories of overcoming some age-appropriate adversity together: heartbreak over an unrequited crush, anxiety over homework, sports injury, lost dogs, divorced parents, running away from home, bullying, etc. Set a precedent of the friends supporting each other through good times AND bad times. Without such backstory, Sunny’s friendships allegedly giving him the courage to overcome his guilt feels like a lie.

2. Sunny abandoning Basil in the bathroom scene

One of the most confusing moments in the game was Sunny’s negligence when Basil has his first breakdown in his bathroom. This part of the game is player-controlled, which is a strange writing decision because all you can do is click on Basil and various bathroom amenities over and over which completely saps the urgency out of the scene. When you try to leave, Basil begs Sunny to stay, but (due to a lack of player options) Sunny walks out without a word. With no option to talk to him OR get help for him, it makes Sunny seem exceptionally cruel to Basil. In fact, I was starting to wonder if the game was setting up for some sort of twist that Sunny DIDN’T care about his friends, which would fix some of the confusion in point #1. However, as we know, that is not the case. Therefore, Sunny’s negligence/apathy towards Basil’s pain feels like a lie.

The writing fix would be to make it MORE clear that Sunny is intentionally running away from Basil. Make it a cutscene, or, give a false choice such as “Leave Basil? Yes / Yes”. After Sunny leaves, Kel should make some remark about Sunny looking odd, “You look sort of shaken up, is there something you want to tell me?” then hit it home with Sunny shaking his head. This would make it more clear that Sunny is intentionally hiding Basil’s state, as opposed to just being a bad friend. As it stands, it just felt like a writing mistake.

3. Basil and Sunny working together to stage Mari’s death as a suicide

This is the plot hole that I see the most complaints over, but it’s so big I have to address it. Accidentally pushing Mari down the stairs I understand, but the rest is too absurd. Below are some of the “lies” that the writing tries to get away with:

That Sunny and Basil wouldn’t just claim she slipped and fell.

That either boy would even come up with this sick plan.

That they wouldn’t back out of this idea during the multi-step process (carrying her downstairs, outside, getting the jump rope, tying a noose, putting it around her neck, stringing her up, hiding the evidence... This is a series of multiple decisions, not one quick accident like the initial push.)

That it’s not the image of Mari’s death that traumatized Sunny, but the image of what they chose to do to her body that traumatized them. I understand the image of Mari hanging is more dramatic, but they literally did it themselves so why is that more haunting than Sunny killing her?

That Mari’s true cause of death wouldn’t be immediately obvious to the parents, the police, the friends, EVERYONE. (I’ve seen fans try to get rid of this plot hole by hypothesizing that the parents knew and covered it up, but the evidence of this is circumstantial at best. The father saying, “You’re not my son,” is unreliable since it happens in Sunny’s headspace. Divorce is common after the death of a child, and, at the very least, Sunny’s mom doesn’t show any evidence of knowing what happened. The way it is written, only Sunny and Basil know the truth.)

The ridiculousness of this twist is so extreme that it completely broke any immersion I had left. Frankly, the reveal that the happy, loveable Mari committed suicide is a far heavier and more realistic twist than a crazy murder-cover-up story is.

Additionally, it seems like Basil was only written into this scene in order to make Sunny the true victim of what happened. After all, Sunny may have pushed her, but it was Basil who came up with the demented cover up. (This is apparent from just the photos but the datamined Truth Album confirms it.) By having Basil come up with the plan, the game splits the guilt between the two of them to make the kids easier to sympathize with. It’s problematic because if Basil was not in the scene, there would be no way to justify what Sunny did to Mari. So why is what they did easier to accept when they worked together?

Fixing the writing lie: Sunny lies and says that Mari slipped. Remove Basil from the scene, and instead have Sunny confide in Basil which forces Basil to become a co-conspirator and burdens him with the terrible truth.

4. Sunny’s friends forgiving him and Basil for what they did to Mari

Last but not least, the story heavily implies that Hero, Kel, and Aubrey will forgive Basil and Sunny for what they did to Mari. I found this to be almost as unbelievable as the staged-suicide stunt.

It feels like a lie since the group’s friendship is never established as anything beyond shallow hang outs from 3+ years ago (see point #1).

It feels like a lie because this is hot off the heels of Aubrey being so distraught over Mari and the following fall out that in the last three days she 1.) attacked Sunny and Kel with a nail bat TWICE, 2.) Stole Basil’s photobook, and 3.) Shoved Basil in the lake. This trauma is still very fresh for her.

It feels like a lie because the complexity of the staged-suicide is so extreme, one would be hard pressed to forgive ANYONE for doing that, be it friend, foe, parent, sibling, lover, etc.

I’ve seen fans argue that the ending is not about forgiveness, it’s about telling the truth, and I want to believe that. Really. If the ending was about Sunny starting his redemption arc by telling the truth no matter what the consequences are, that would be a meaningful lesson. But the writing does not support that. The ending headspace segments are focused on assuring Sunny that his friends will support/forgive him no matter what. To do this, the game shows us the shallow photobook memories (again) to show how much they allegedly care about each other. Then, when fighting Omori, Sunny remembers these quotes from his friends, which directly correlate to their unconditional support:

KEL: Friends... Friends are supposed to be there for each other.

AUBREY: I hope you can find some peace... or you know... some happiness.

HERO: We made the mistake of leaving each other when we needed each other the most. This time... we’ll stay together.

BASIL: Maybe one day... things can go back to the way they were before.

The really direct evidence that this ending is about getting forgiveness is this quote from Basil in Sunny’s headspace:

[BASIL: “AUBREY, KEL and HERO are good friends. You have to trust that they’ll forgive us.”]

This is one of the last scenes before Sunny tells his friends the truth, proving that obtaining forgiveness from his FRIENDS is in fact the leading motivation for Sunny’s actions.

Fixing this writing lie is easy. Instead, adjust the writing to be about telling the truth, not about how much the friends will still love Sunny. Have headspace Basil say, “Even if they don’t forgive us, Aubrey, Kel, and Hero deserve to know the truth. It’s the only way to make things right... or close to it.”

Conclusion

OMORI is undeniably a cute game with a strong visual identity, and has a premise that could make for a very compelling experience. However, the sloppy plot and weak character writing cause the potential of this game to be squandered. There are other issues as well that I chose not to cover for the sake of time, such as the poor pacing of the dragged out dungeons and the bizarre, unrealistic behavior of characters in the “real” world. 

However, there are a few more glaring problems with OMORI that I have to address: In part 2 of my critique, I break down what may be the biggest problem with OMORI’s writing: the message.

[ Link to Part 2: OMORI’s Message is Mishandled and Distasteful ]

[yuzhousky]

Hi bummie🤗

The post about vsm225 has really rubbed me the wrong way and I have a few things to say.

First, I have a message for the person who submitted the ask to you: if you are going to bash somebody like that behind the safety and comfort of your keyboard, the least you can do is NOT post it anonymously. Show us your name and your face. How do you expect to be taken seriously for tarnishing someone's name anonymously?

I myself have been her long time follower on instagram. Does that make me and another 1300 people stupid? Shallow? Retarded?

However, the fact that i have been her follower will not make me biased to what i have to say.

Now, on a serious note, I like what she posts on her instagram, also i like what meimei (the girl who is looking after her account at the moment and posting stuff for vsm while she is struggling with covid) has been posting for the past month as well. Well, im lying. I dont like it, i LOVE IT. I love the vibe of posts, i love how spicy and sassy they are, and that is one of the instagram profiles i have the most interaction with. Because we are all there to have a good time, NOT to state facts. Vine is a very respectful person, she never throws hate or shade towards anyone, she never forces anyone to believe in anything she posts, and she never pushes her content in the as-a-matter-of-fact manner. Yes, there are sometimes hardcore bad translations from weibo, but i never take that stuff too deep, im able to get the point of what was behind it. Also, if she posts anything misleading for whatever reason, the moment she realises that she will own up to it and apologise.

Everything else is not meant to be taken seriously, but as fun and good time. Only things regarding zz and jy work and what THEY allow US to see regarding their private life can be called FACTS, the rest is all product of our delulu, speculations, wishful thinking etc, and we choose what to do with it. Im a 39 year-old man, with a master degree and more than 2 brain cells in my head and a full on life going on, yet in my comments on instagram i will refer to zz as "queen", "wifey", "madam huang" all in the name of funny banters and light hearted content and not because i find it to be the FACT. The fact is that i have enormous respect for that boy, not that i find his sole existence to be the wifey queen of jy. The FACT is that we can all learn from him how to behave mature, be strong, stick to your guns and believe in what you do, do stuff you find to be good for you, not bowing down to anyone and losing your integrity will result in success, not whether he wore the same tshirt as jy. The fact is that zz has always remaind humble, well behaved and he never allowed the success to take the best of him, not whether or not him and jy spent 2 hot nights in sanya in february. I could go on forever with this.

Vine, and everyone else on the internet are NOT here to please the crowd but because they post the things that make THEM happy and make THEM feel good. Those are THEIR accounts. The rest is up to us - who do we find at the same wave length, whose vibe matches ours, whose posts we like, and so on. Therefore we choose who to follow, and we all should be respectful to any other work anyone else posts online. Because, behind each and every profile is someone who takes time of their busy lives and puts a lot of work to provide the content for us. I personally cant stand the profiles dedicated to johnny and reba ship, but i dont go around barking online that they suck. I simpy DONT GO THERE. I stay in my own lane, i follow the content i like and let others live. Im not going around saying, or as the person in the post casually said "POINTING OUT"- hey everyone, dont follow that person because it doesnt align with MY OWN taste level. What qualifies anyone to say that? What right does anyone have to say that? Does any of us live or spend time with the boys? Using the FACTS logic, i could come to bummies profile every so often and be like - listen girl, you have to stop leading people on with your "hints" and "coincidences" and stick to the facts only tyvm. Right? Instead, i choose to visit your blog every day, LIVING for the content you put here.

Of course, there is always the responsibilty towards what you post publicly for everyone to see, but as long as there is nothing harmful or malicious im not being nit picky about it.

There are so few profiles dedicated to yuzhou left. There is bummies blog and like another 10ish instagram profiles still actively posting about them as one. Why having any bad vibes about any of them? Why showing any negative energy to anyone? Throwing shade or hate? What is the point like? Aren't we all here because we are supporting the boys for ALL the work they have done in the last 5 years, watching their growth in life and careers and having some light, fun time while doing it? Why creating any bad blood? I mean, we are basically being gossips girls, sorry everyone, we are not saving the world here or curing pandemics to take things so seriously.

As usual bummie, im ending this by thanking you yet again so much for everything you do, keep up with the good work! 🤗🤗🤗

Thanks for sharing your opinion. However, I just wanna make some points clearer here:

Tbh I'm not biased towards anyone in this case so I'm just gonna say what I'm thinking now. The previous anonymous ask about vsm was somehow pretty harsh towards vsm and I really don't want anyone to throw shade on her at all because I know she's a lovely fan of YZ and she's just trying her best to share the latest info about the boys. I know not all of her posts are about the facts; many of them are just delulus and jokes among fans, which are normal, and of course it's her own account so she could literally share anything she wants. However, I myself prefer the clarity in news/info delivery more, I mean if the post is just a delulu or joke, it should be stated clearly in order not to cause misleading or misunderstood things, because many interfans do not have Weibo accounts to double check the info, not to mention those new fans who might get confused even more. I have to say that this isn't the first time someone asking me about the reliability of some vsm's posts on IG because of her "vague" words and translation, and then I had to find the original posts on Weibo again or double check the info with Chinese cpfs then told vsm to correct her words.

So my opinion is that we are all sharing info with a big love for our idols but we also need to care about the clarity and reliability of our content as well. Of course we do not need to please anyone on the internet but at least we're responsible for what we post and those who might read it.

[g-perla]

From “Nessian Shipper!!” to “Nessian…Shipper??”

This...is going to be a long one so strap in.

Years ago when ACOMAF came out and the kind people of tumblr posted screenshots of the Wings and Embers short, I found myself looking at Nesta and Cassian, considering the idea of them being romantically and physically involved, and found myself with the following thought; that’s my SHIP. These feelings were reinforced throughout the smattering of brief interactions between the two we got in ACOWAR, probably until the very end where it was unclear if Cassian had gone to see Nesta before or after she headed up the stairs seeming distinctly not ok. That wasn’t a very big deal though. For all I know he did, and she pushed him away, or maybe they did have a talk. Feyre’s perspective is very limited after all. This didn’t really stop my Nessian shipper heart at all.

My Nessian shipper heart became compromised in ACOFAS and in the teaser to ACOSF. I still haven’t re-read ACOFAS so I just want to make it clear that I’m still dealing with 2+ years of accumulated messy, largely unexplored feelings about this ship. That being said, I wasn’t very impressed by Cassian’s behaviour towards Nesta. The interactions between them we were shown left me questioning the stability of a ship I had previously loved with reckless abandon. I questioned Cassian, I questioned Nesta, I questioned their independent trajectories, and them as a couple in the context we were given. My conclusion was that I could no longer really ship them as eagerly in good conscience.

A week or so ago I wrote in a post that Cassian seems, to me, ashamed of Nesta. This idea came to me after considering his behaviour mostly in ACOFAS and to a lesser degree in the previous books. A post by @inyourmindeye, where they put forth their arguments about why Cassian isn’t ashamed of Nesta made me reconsider, however. I read their post carefully and took some time to gather my thoughts after taking in this other perspective. I will share them now.

First, I will say that the word “ashamed” perhaps isn’t the most exact word to express how I feel about Cassian’s complex emotions when it comes to Nesta. I think a more apt word would be conflicted. Second, I want to clarify that when I wrote “ashamed” I didn’t mean to imply that he didn’t care about Nesta. Feeling ashamed of something or someone because of the feelings of attraction or care one might have is certainly possible. Additionally, these emotions aren’t necessarily contradictory, nor do they necessarily depend on each other. They do, however, complicate each other and create conflict.

But what exactly is the source of Cassian’s possibly conflicted feelings?

In the most simplistic sense, I suggest the source is Nesta and the Inner Circle. Or rather, Nesta v. the Inner Circle.

Many in the fandom and some of my own posts have discussed the inherent incompatibilities between Nesta and the IC (as depicted in the canon texts we have access to as of 21/10/20). These incompatibilities are largely ideological such as different definitions of “free will” and agency. Nesta simply does not tolerate the messy dynamics of the IC and the tacit acknowledgement that Rhys has the most authority. For Nesta to fit into this world, she would have to abandon the elements of her character that constitute her core self and which make her subversive within the narrative and without: a disdain towards authority, a resolute mind that isn’t easily moved, quick to anger and abrasive and hostile in her expressions of this anger, but capable of making concessions if the situation gnaws at her strict moral code, morally grey, not nurturing, generally unpleasant to those she doesn’t trust, judgemental, unapologetic in her sexuality or in her femininity, lacking in patience when it comes to idiots and sycophants, critical to a fault, not immune to enacting cruelty, etc. See, if this were a man and if this book had been written during the Romantic period and we were reading it now we would just say “well, I’ll be! What a text-book example of a compelling Byronic hero! We love to see it.”

Note how the men (sorry, males) in SJM novels tend to have many of these same characteristics. They are also pretty good examples of Byronic heroes. The main difference is the energy most people bring when they criticise women. One of the characteristics of a Byronic hero is his refusal to be confined. This confinement can be moral, ideological, epistemological, or physical. Basically, people in the world of such a hero (or even in ours) can’t compute when they encounter him and are unable to put him in easy categories. This often manifests as irrational hatred towards this character because it offends our sensibilities about what is known and what is unknown.

It’s attractive to think that we are immune to this as people existing in the 21st century, but we are not. We still rely on the “Other” to define our identity by both creating it and violently rejecting it. I suppose it’s as good a time as any to share the thesis of my overarching analysis project; basically, Nesta is the ultimate representation of the Other. She is Other in her womanhood (or I guess femaleness), she was Other even as a human, now that she is high fae she is Other to humans but tragically she is also Other to the high fae because she was Made. She is Other as a magical being, she is Other to the IC, she was and is Other to her bio family. She is Other to many of us because we simply cannot comprehend her actions in ACOTAR (how could she have been so cruel????). As of now, there is not a single place where Nesta can exist without offending the very core of what a lot of people value.

One framework for the Other was proposed by the French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan. He basically said that the Other is that which we must reject when we start forming a concept of the Self. The Self is the known therefore safe; the Other is the unknown therefore dangerous and disruptive. The Self creates the symbolic order which is essentially the blueprint of accepted life to which the Other is antithetical. I can go on and on about the intricacies of this, and Lacan himself certainly did, but I’m working on a review of different conceptualisations of the Other so I will stop here. What I want to establish while bringing this up is that Nesta is essentially the Other to the IC’s symbolic order, i.e. fundamentally incompatible and an epistemological threat. This is a very theoretical way to explain the IC’s hostility and dislike towards her, but I find it compelling enough to pursue (and I am a nerd).

We can’t forget that Cassian is a known element of the IC’s symbolic order, thus one of the Selves let’s say. The Self should seek to annihilate the Other (as it usually does)…not love it, desire it, care for it. To do so is to enter a profound state of existential precarity. To pursue his feelings for Nesta, Cassian would have to question the fundamental assumptions that are at the core of his known world. There is nothing simple about such a task and I can’t really blame him for struggling. 

Still, understanding something isn’t necessarily synonymous with liking it. I wish that the distance between these two characters were not so great. I wish both could just sit and talk with the respect I know them to have for one another. The constant insults and underhanded jabs made by both parties are messy and not in a fun way. As the ship stands, I don’t feel comfortable liking it with the same reckless abandon as before. I think their hostility is too raw, even if their actions contradict them most of the time. Is it unreasonable to want them to interact without reservations in situations other than those between life and death? I hope ACOSF can provide the development they both deserve. Maybe then I can stop having one leg in the ship and the other overboard.

[lupinlongbottom]

Aggravating Acquaintances

Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: Being friends with James Potter was a feat many didn’t have the pleasure of experiencing. However, for (Y/N), the worst thing to happen to their friendship was meeting one Sirius Black on the Hogwarts Express their first year. To say that (Y/N) and Sirius didn’t get along would be an understatement. 

Prompt: Hey! Imagine for Sirius with prompts 147 and 71? - Anon

147. “You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions.

71. “Are you really flirting with me right now?”

prompt list can be found here

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: drinking/alcohol, a few suggestive themes?

A/N: Sirius Black. That’s it. That’s the author’s note. also i really like asshole energy you know? no? idk. bantering and whatnot is a bunch of fun

__

Parties.

(Y/N) never cared for them, if she was being honest with herself. Never once did the idea of drinking her problems away, only to laugh and dance with her friends came to mind. While she never shied away the occasional drink, she never felt the need to have more than a few, to let her inhibitions get the best of her. But now, here she was, surrounded by a pack of bumbling drunkards in a rather crowded Gryffindor common room, wishing for the sweet release of death.

“(Y/N)!” James Potter, Gryffindor Chaser, exclaimed from across the room, practically crawling over the crowd to reach her. 

“Hey Jim,” (Y/N) smiled politely, choosing to ignore the way his eyes were pleasantly glazed over. He had a habit of going too hard, too quick. “How’s the party treating you?”

“Never been better,” James said, trying not to shout. “Gryffindor won the match!” So much for not shouting. A few Gryffindor students aided in the chant. Some rogue Hufflepuff students chimed in as well. 

“I know,” (Y/N) laughed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I was watching the whole thing, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” James laughed. “Did you think Evans saw me?” His head whipped around, eyes scanning for the redhead.

“Oh she saw you,” (Y/N) said, nodding lightly. “How could she ignore the way you fell off your broom?”

“Hey!” James said, his attention drawing back to (Y/N). “Almost. I almost fell off my broom, caught myself in the end,” he laughed, “wouldn’t want to spend this night with Poppy, would I?”

“Suppose not,” (Y/N) said, taking a sip from her glass. It was mostly  pumpkin juice, the scent alone was a giveaway, but one of (Y/N)’s roommates insisted on adding some firewhisky, just to shake things up. The warmth traveled to her chest with every sip. It wasn’t terribly unpleasant. “Wouldn’t want to give Evans the wrong idea about who you fancy, no?”

“I love Poppy,” James said, sighing lightly, leaning against the wall. “She really knows how to mend a broken bone…”

“What about a broken heart?” (Y/N) asked, pointing to a couple across the room. There, in the corner, Lily Evans and a Ravenclaw boy whose name escaped (Y/N)’s recollection. They looked to be awfully close, whispering sweet nothings in the midst of the crowded room.

“Why do you have to do that?” James asked, groaning ever so slightly. “Ruin my high?”

“It’s my job,” (Y/N) shrugged, taking another sip. “You know, friend code and all.”

“I don’t think that’s very friendly of you, (Y/N),” James said, eyes growing sharp.

“Look, either you saw it now or saw it later,” (Y/N) said nonchalantly. “I figured if I told you now, you’d at least have half a mind to go and try to change it, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose you’re right,” James said, the dark look on his face contorting to one of intrigue. “Strike while the iron’s hot!”

“Exactly,” (Y/N) smiled, pushing his shoulder. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Without another word, James pounced across the crowded room, a faint shrieking of Lily’s name rang throughout the carpeted walls. (Y/N) laughed, noting how the girl’s emerald eyes met with the ceiling, pulling the boy dressed in blue away from James’ persistent swooning.

“Pumpkin juice? At a party?” A voice behind her chanted, nearly right next to her face. 

(Y/N) turned to the sound. There, in all his glory was Sirius Black, the man she had a less than ideal share of run-ins with. They were known to butt heads, ever since their first year.

“Oh, hello Sirius,” (Y/N) said cooly. She took a large swig of her drink, nearly half the cup in one go.

“Would you like me to fetch you a juice box too? Maybe a blankie?” Sirius laughed, finding himself leaning against the wall near (Y/N).

“Would it be one of yours? Because I’ve forgotten mine all the way back home…”(Y/N) said, the fakest smile she could muster adorned to her face.

“Funny girl,” Sirius said, downing the rest of whatever was in his cup, setting the empty chalice down near his feet. “Would you want it to be one of mine?”  

“And to be covered in dog hair?” (Y/N) said, nearly snorting. “Fat chance.”

“Oh come off it, (L/N),” Sirius grinned, “I’ll make it smell extra rugged, just for you.”

“Rugged how?” (Y/N) inquired, crossing her arms as best she could, drink still in hand. “Cigarettes and wet dog?”

“Exactly,” Sirius said, “extra rugged.”

“Right,” (Y/N) laughed, turning to ignore Sirius, her attention back onto James across the room. Sirius followed her eye line, watching her stare almost intently at the Gryffindor.

“Oi,” Sirius said, waving a hand in front of (Y/N)’s face. “Let him have his fun, he doesn’t need mummy around to keep an eye on him.”

“I’m not his mum,” (Y/N) said.

“Sure act like it,” Sirius said, picking at his fingernails. “Always doting on him, scolding him for every little thing—”

“I only scold him if it involves you, Sirius,” (Y/N) said, pointing an eyebrow at the grey-eyed boy. “The shit the two of you get into, I swear—”

“You shouldn’t have to scold him, you’re not his mum.”

“I literally just said I wasn’t,” (Y/N) said, growing annoyed. “I just care about him, okay? I’ve known him longer than you—thanks, by the way—so I think I owe it to myself to make sure he’s not going to kill himself—”

“Oh wow, little (L/N) pulling the ‘I’ve been his neighbor since forever, therefore I think I know everything about him’ card again,” Sirius said, his voice mocking (Y/N)’s. “Grow up, relax and let him have his fun.”

“Your impression of me is quite good, did you practice that in the mirror?” (Y/N) said, growing hot with anger, not that she’d give Black the time of day to know it.

“I think the key to a good (Y/N) impression is the shrillness in the voice,” Sirius said, nodding lightly. “Though your beautifully enchanting—but ice-cold—stare is hard to pinpoint, I’ll admit.”

“Beautifully enchanting?” (Y/N) laughed, the heat in her face not ceasing.

“Yep,” Sirius nodded, unashamed. “I figured talking about your big mouth was already pretty obvious, didn’t need to—”

(Y/N) slapped him hard against the arm.

“I should add terribly mean to the list,” Sirius mumbled, rubbing the place of contact, a slight grimace doting his expression.

“Terribly mean?” (Y/N) nearly laughed. “You’re the one saying I have a big mouth!”

“You do,” Sirius said, “not backing down from that one, never.”

“You annoy the hell out of me, Sirius,” (Y/N) said, finishing her glass. “I’m going to get another drink—”

“Allow me,” Sirius said, pressing a hand against (Y/N)’s chest, preventing her escape. He pulled his sleek wand from his back pocket, waving it ever so slightly. With ease, two—rather full—glasses found their way through the air, above the commotion of the room and into their space. “Take it,” he motioned to the still floating cup, taking a large swig of his, “I reckon a bit of actual alcohol will make you a bit more lively.”

“Please,” (Y/N) said, grabbing the glass tightly, bringing the brim to her lips. The hot burning of cinnamon met her tongue instantly. If she had a splash of firewhisky before, this might as well have been a tsunami, the liquor coating her throat. “Oh my God, how much is—”

(Y/N) let out a sputtering cough, unable to hold the liquid well. Sirius merely smiled.

“Peter’s been making them,” Sirius said, nodding to the pudgy Gryffindor across the room. “I tried teaching him how to count out his shots, but he’s still got a bit of work to go,” he took another sip, “though, makes for a hell of a punch, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say,” (Y/N) said, eyeing the drink in her hand cautiously, “Why have you let Peter take over your usual job? Last time I came to one of these, I distinctly remember you were the one making the drinks.”

“Ah,” Sirius clicked, staring into his own cup. “Felt like I should give Peter a spin, considering he’s been nagging me about it practically all year.”

“Why’s that?” (Y/N) asked. 

“Easy,” he took another sip, “being the bartender means you get all the girls practically batting their eyes at you all night,” Sirius said, grinning widely. 

“Makes sense why you like the job so much,” (Y/N) said, pressing her back against the wall. “Those kind of girls can’t keep their eyes off of you.”

“So you’ve noticed?” Sirius smirked, “thought you didn’t may much mind to my life, isn’t that right?”

“O-of course not,” (Y/N) said, stammering lightly, “it’s hard to ignore the girls who throw themselves at you,” (Y/N) found herself burying her words into her cup, gulping quickly. “Hell, nearly all of my roommates can’t stop their insistent conversations about your hair—or whatever—halfway into the night. It’s exhausting.”

“What about my hair?” Sirius asked, bringing a hand up to his long locks. 

“Nope,” (Y/N) shook her head, “not falling for that one. You don’t get the pleasantries of me repeating compliments to stroke your already large ego,” she shook her head again. “No way.”

“So you think it’s huge?” Sirius said, glancing down at (Y/N), that shit eating grin plastered to his face. 

“Shove it.”

“Wouldn’t you like that pleasure, hm?”

“Sirius,” (Y/N) said plainly, “are you really flirting with me right now?”

“I might,” Sirius shrugged, almost unbothered.

It wouldn’t have been the first time he had done it. Sirius Black was anything if not perceptive to his surroundings, noting how his—what was hopefully an obvious joke—flirting flustered (Y/N) every so often. How he loved to push her buttons, make her squirm.

“Why don’t you go and try your luck on someone who’ll care?” (Y/N) sputtered, pointing her glass-filled hand over to a group of girls who had been staring at Sirius for so long, they might as well have been made of stone. “I’m sure you’d get a better reaction out of them, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Don’t want to flirt with them,” Sirius said, giving a polite wave to the girls across the way. One looked as if she was ready to faint. “Would rather annoy you.”

“How charming,” (Y/N) said, her voice cool as ice. 

“You’re not shooing me away,” Sirius said, almost in shock. “Normally this is the part of the conversation where you promise to hex me or,” he waved his hand dramatically, “go and complain to Potter. What gives?”

“I’m drunk,” (Y/N) lied, taking another sip as if to prove her point. “Sue me.”

“If you’re drunk, then I’m the Queen of England,” Sirius laughed, his chest bobbing up and down. “There’s more to it,” he pressed a finger to (Y/N)’s cheek, pushing her head to the side, “admit it. Go on, I’m all ears.”

“What do you want me to say, Black? That I fancy your company?” (Y/N) said, almost surprised at her honesty. Perhaps the firewhisky was working a bit faster than she expected. It had been a long time since she had as many drinks as she did, but she blamed the excess drinks on the grey eyed boy standing near her. 

“Fancy my company?” Sirius repeated, nearly as stunned as (Y/N). “Since when has that ever been the case?”

“Since all my friends ditched me,” (Y/N) said, staring back into her cup. “One of them went back to our dorm, a boy on each arm—Godric, I don’t even want to go back in there. I don’t know what I’m going to get myself into going back to that…”

“Rotten friends,” Sirius said, “even if they are getting laid. S’not right.”

“Figured it was either chat with you or look like a terribly sad fly on the wall,” (Y/N) said, “I chose the latter.”

“Honestly, I’m honored,” Sirius said, bowing lightly. “Truly and utterly honored to be of service.”

(Y/N) didn’t know why she had even bothered to spend another second with Sirius Black, if she was being completely honest. The entire time she had known him—first year, met on the train—he had been the constant thorn in her side. She clung to James quite a bit back then, that was something she could admit, but James acquiring another close friend, someone so unlike herself, really ground her gears. Black and (L/N), like oil and water, could coexist for a bit but never truly mix. 

“You should be,” (Y/N) said, feeling herself grow a bit lighter. The alcohol, she assumed was the cause, nothing more. “I’m surprised you’re even chatting with me this long anyway,” (Y/N) fought back a yawn, “thought my perfume would scare you away, has in the past.”

“It’s grown on me,” Sirius said plainly, “better than the rubbish James’ been using to woo Lily, stinks up the entire room.”

“Tell me about it,” (Y/N) laughed, recalling the repugnant aroma that James swore up and down would win Lily over, the woman at the department store said so herself. “I told him when he bought it that it wouldn’t work, still didn’t listen.”

“He really doesn’t listen,” Sirius said, glancing over at James. He had been sulking in the corner, rejected by Lily. “But I reckon we could do him a favor.”

“A favor?” (Y/N) asked, draining the rest of her drink. “What’re you thinking?”

“Let’s go destroy that cologne,” Sirius said, pulling on (Y/N) sleeve, headed towards the dormitory. “Together. You know, since we’re friends now.”

“I never said that,” (Y/N) scoffed, following Sirius up the stairs, the lightness in her chest expanding. Sirius pulled (Y/N) into their room, conveniently empty. “Well? Where does James keep the bottle?”

“Not sure,” Sirius said, shutting the door, getting a stink eye from (Y/N), “what? I don’t want Prongs walking in here while we destroy his property.”

“Fine,” (Y/N) laughed, flinging herself onto James’ bed, rolling to the foot. She propped herself onto her elbows, head hanging over the bright red trunk at the end of the bed.  “Do you think it’s in his trunk?”

“Seems like a good place to start,” Sirius said, kneeling before the trunk, hands tracing the latches. “You’re going to want to move your head, sweets,” Sirius laughed, pushing (Y/N)’s head back, “wouldn’t want to hit your pretty face, would we?”

“So you think it’s pretty?” (Y/N) smirked, pursing her lips. She could almost see Sirius’ eyes roll to the back of his head, for just a moment. “What? So you can flirt with me, but I can’t dish it back? Seems awfully silly, Black.”

“Wasn’t flirting,” Sirius said, rifling through James’ trunk.

“No?” (Y/N) giggled, rolling to her back, the top of James’ red four-poster filling her sight. “You called me pretty.”

“And you are,” Sirius said, lifting up a few books, eyes scanning the contents beneath them. “It’s the truth.”

“So that’s not considered flirting?” (Y/N) asked, growing confused.

“I call all the girls pretty,” Sirius said, smirking up at (Y/N). “Fact of life, sweets.”

“There you go again,” (Y/N) said, pointing her finger upwards, “calling me ‘sweets’! If that’s not flirting, I don’t know what is!”

“Is it?” Sirius asked, closing the trunk. A large smirk was plastered to his face.

“Holy fuck!” (Y/N) exclaimed, throwing her hands into her face. “You are so aggravating! First you’re flirting with me, then you claim that you’re not and now you’re just playing mind games with me!” (Y/N) groaned, rolling back onto her chest, face planted into the sheets. “I wish you came with instructions, for fucks sake. At least then I’d be able to somewhat understand you.”

“You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions, love,” Sirius said, head resting comfortably on his hand.

“What kind of a line is—”

It was then when she lifted her head, (Y/N) noticed, how close Sirius’ face was to her own. She never noticed the mole on his nose, slightly above his left nostril. Granted, she had never been this close to Sirius before to have noticed the little brown spot. Actually, now that she looked a bit closer, Sirius Black had a few other moles on his cheeks and one right above his lips. If one didn’t know any better, they’d mistake them for freckles. The sporadic placement of these little marks were enchanting, almost like a perfect constellation, unique and intriguing.

“I—uhm—you’re a little close,” (Y/N) said, not moving an inch.

“Hypocrite,” Sirius said, staying as still as a statue.

“Did—did you find the…” (Y/N) tried to find her thought, her mind wandering, finding a home in Sirius’ grey eyes. 

“Cologne? No,” Sirius shook his head ever so slightly, eyes not breaking away from (Y/N)’s.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

(Y/N) moved her gaze upward, finding solace in the rich reds of the canopy above. In her most recent memory, she couldn’t come up with a time she felt exactly this way, let alone with Sirius Black of all people. She waited a moment before peeking back at the boy at the foot of the bed, her eyes flicking immediately back up to the canopy when she noticed Sirius’ gaze still upon her.

“Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re hard to look away from,” Sirius said, finally adjusting his position.

“Shut it—”

“No,” Sirius said, his voice almost stern. (Y/N) brought herself to turn herself back towards the Gryffindor, curious. “I said what I said.”

“You’re drunk,” (Y/N) laughed, pushing his face away, finding the bit of breathing room she created immensely calming for a moment.

“I’m not,” Sirius said, rebounding to his original position quickly, if not closer. “Are you?”

“No,” (Y/N) said honestly.  

“Good.”

That was all he said. Because in the next moment, Sirius’ lips were on (Y/N)’s. The hand that held his own head up was caressing (Y/N)’s cheek, more gentle than the actions against their lips. The kiss was hot, needy, almost. The tension had snapped like a rubber band, quick and suddenly. But just as quick as it came, (Y/N) pulled away.

“Sirius what the—”

“Oh come on,” Sirius laughed, hopping up onto the trunk, seated neatly in front of (Y/N). “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about doing that? Besides,” a hand stroked his chin thoughtfully, “you kissed me back.”

“That’s—no—Sirius!” (Y/N) was at a loss for words, the warmth that had radiated from her chest had spread to her entire body in that single motion, what once she could’ve blamed on the alcohol became very telling of her true feelings. She couldn’t deny that she didn’t kiss him back, because that would’ve been an outright lie. Only one thought rang through her mind. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sirius asked, his grin fading. (Y/N) shook her head. “Well, you must really be thick, then,” he ran a hand through his hair, pushing the stray locks back, “well, considering our sexual tension is always so thick you could cut it with a knife—”

“Sexual tension?” (Y/N) laughed, almost against herself. “Is that what you call it?”

“I mean, sure, it started with a visceral hate for one other—first year was a rough one for that—but you can’t deny our chemistry,” Sirius said thoughtfully. “Who would’ve thought I’ve got the hots for the girl who made my blood boil every time I saw her?”

“Made? Like, past tense?”

“Of course,” Sirius nodded, “well, I suppose you make my blood boil in other ways, sweets.”

“Disgusting,” (Y/N) laughed, pushing Sirius away.

“But you could say in less ways and words that I fancy you, (Y/N),” he shrugged again, “I mean, you’re the only person in this castle who’ll call me out for my bullshit—”

“Incorrect, Remus and various other teachers do too—”

“You’re the only one who calls me out for my bullshit that I’ll listen to,” Sirius corrected, “what can I say? You don’t fawn over me or trip over yourself to get my attention. Quite frankly, you avoid me whenever possible.”

“So, you’re saying you like the chase?”

“Something like that,” Sirius laughed, placing a hand on the bed. “Not to mention that you’re bloody beautiful,” he moved his hand to touch hers, ever so lightly, “and you already get along with my mates—”

“One of them was my best friend before you trailed along, thanks,” (Y/N) said, her smirk growing. She didn’t hate the way his hand felt atop of hers.

“And I’m forever grateful for it,” Sirius said, his face softening. “Grateful for James for introducing me to the biggest pain in my ass.”

“Not the smoothest way to pick up a girl,” (Y/N) laughed.

“But it’s working, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” (Y/N) smiled, feeling her own face relax. “For some reason.”

(Y/N) allowed herself to give Sirius another kiss, this time, one she initiated. It was softer than before, but still held every ounce of energy like the last. As if like a bucket of ice water had been poured over them, (Y/N) pulled away.

“Wait a minute,” (Y/N) pressed her hand against Sirius’ chest, as he had begun to seek the previous contact. “You let Peter make the drinks tonight.”

“And...?”

“Oh my God!” (Y/N) said, feeling a wave of realization come over her. “You were planning this all along!”

“Well—uhm—not exactly like—”

“Admit it, Sirius Black,” (Y/N) said, poking a finger to his chest, “admit that you let Peter take over your prestigious bartending duties so you could try and woo me!” 

“Woo you? What are we? Fifty?”

“Sirius—”

“Alright,” Sirius laughed, pressing a kiss to (Y/N)’s nose. “I admit it. I figured tonight wouldn’t be the worst time to try to make a move, so I needed to be mobile.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” (Y/N) laughed, pressing her lips back onto his, resuming their previous motions. 

While the two had quite a bit more to talk about after their laughter ceased—and things that involved not talking—(Y/N) grew ever more thankful that she chose to attend the gathering this evening. While Sirius still had quite the long way to make up for his previous jokes and pranks he had pulled on (Y/N) in the past—one really can’t forget the forever sticking chewing gum that plastered her robes all of second year—he figured a bit of smooth talking could glaze over any of the cracks. That, and kisses she’d be damned to forget the rest of her life. Two remedies for a sour situation.  

They never did find that cologne. 

__

General Tag List: @maralisa124 / @leighxlover / @hey-its-me-rai / @missihart23 / @biatheintrovert / @luna-xxxxx / @chocolaterumble / @why-am-i-sad-and-sleepy / @steve-thotgers / @greeneyedthief / @kitkatkl / @thelightsideoflife / @thataudreydork / @badgirlsdeaddreams / @meteora-fc

Sirius Black Tag List: @knowledgeisthebomb

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[viastro]

kiss, kiss, fall in love! | kim mingyu

ミ★ synopsis: in which you and mingyu have been dating for a month but you still haven’t kissed.

ミ★ genre: humor, fluff, a hint of spice

ミ★ warnings: none!

ミ★ word count: 1,964 words

ミ★ pairings: mingyu x female reader

ミ★ notes: hi! i haven’t been posting as much because i just started spring quarter and my classes have been giving a shit ton of work. you were beautiful WILL be starting soon, i should be finishing up the last parts in a week or two (hopefully) uh other than that, this is dedicated to @omgnctchina​ <3

You and Mingyu are literally the epitome of the best friends to lovers trope, not even kidding. You two met when you were a junior and he was a senior in high school. He was loved by almost everyone in your grade, as well as those in the grades below you. You didn’t pay much attention to him, your interest only began once your friend dragged you to one of his baseball games. You were always so confident that you weren’t gonna succumb to the mingyu loving agenda, but alas, you did indeed, fail. 

Who could blame you though? Kim Mingyu is a 6’2”, kind, caring, and very handsome man. 

You didn’t end up speaking to said handsome man until a couple months later. You were sitting in the janitor’s closet, yes you read that right, and you were chilling there reading a book. You and the janitor had a good relationship because you always told her “thank you for your hard work!” and always picked up after yourself. She let you spend time in the janitor’s closet when you needed time to yourself, so now here you were. Spending your free period in the janitor's closet reading the Hunger Games trilogy for the nth time.

You heard the doorknob jiggle, glancing over to greet your janitor friend, only to see the reincarnation of Apollo himself, Kim Mingyu. He was holding his journal in one hand and his lunch bag in another, and you both just stared at each other with mirrored shocked expressions.

[when worlds collide] 

“Uh… hi.” You finally say, breaking the silence between the two of you. Mingyu lets out a small, shy smile. “Hey.”

“So uh, why are you coming into the janitor’s closet?” You ask, marking your place in your book before closing it, giving him your full undivided attention. He snorts, letting the door close as he places his stuff down on the organizer.

“Why are you already in the janitor’s closet?” He asks instead, and you grin.

“Touché.”

And with that, a beautiful friendship formed between the two of you in the janitor’s closet during study hall. You both became practically inseparable, becoming best friends was easy. You were comfortable with each other right away, feeling like you’ve been friends for years. Everyone was either envious or happy for you, sometimes the envious ones wanted to throw you away. There was truly no in between.

You and Mingyu officially started dating in your first year of university, he was going on his second year already. Mingyu claims to have fallen for you first, he doesn’t count the time you finally took interest in him after witnessing him play at the baseball game. You argue that it’s not fair for him to not count it because that was literally the beginning, but then he pouts at you and you let it go.

It’s been a month since you both called it official, and all of your guys’ friends knew the day would come. 

“There’s just NO way you guys wouldn’t have ended up together.” 

“Okay but like-”

“No yn! There’s no buts. Not when Mingyu would stare at you with literal heart eyes whenever you entered the room. I swear to God, I wanted to throw myself away sometimes because of how long it took you both to confess.”

“...”

“Yeah. That’s right. Yall had fucking heart boners for each other.”

The month has been nothing but bliss. Nothing much changed in your dynamic other than the fact that you guys hold hands, cuddle, and spend the night at each other's places now. There are those that are jealous of what you two have, read: hoshi, and those that wanna throw up because of how lovey dovey you both are towards each other, read: the whole friend group.

However, Mingyu still hasn’t kissed you. You’re not necessarily complaining, but it’s been a month and his lips are very tempting! Can anyone really blame you? You literally have the epitome of the best man ever and you can’t kiss him. There have been moments where it looked like he was close to finally kissing you, but then he moves to press his lips to your cheek or your forehead. You don’t want to push him though, because if he hasn’t made a move to kiss you thus far that means he’s not ready. Therefore, you will happily wait until Mingyu is ready.

but internally punch the air.

“Okay. I think I’m gonna kiss her today. I’m gonna DO IT.” Mingyu exclaims, slamming his fist down on the table for emphasis. Minghao looks at him with a bored expression on his face, having been through this conversation ten times in the past month already.

“Yup… nice one.” Minghao mutters, giving him a sarcastic smile as he takes a sip of tea. 

“Hao!” Mingyu whines, making Minghao let out a little chuckle. “Okay, okay. It’s just that we’ve had this conversation at least fifteen times in the span of a few weeks Mingyu.” 

“...really?”

“Yes…” 

“Damn…” 

Mingyu rests his head on the palm of his hand, pouting for a moment. Minghao reaches out and pats his hair, ruffling it in an attempt to calm him down. “I just. I always muster up the courage to kiss her, right? And then I look into her eyes, and I fucking chicken out and move to kiss her cheek instead.” 

“What are you scared of Gyu?” Mingyu shrugs in response. He takes a sip of his coffee, looking out his apartment window. 

“For some reason, I’m scared that she doesn’t want to kiss me. I feel like I’m a bad kisser.” He explains and Minghao lets out a laugh.

“Absolutely not. You being handsome and nice isn’t the only reason all those people in highschool had a crush on you, ya know?” Minghao retorts, making Mingyu look down with a blush.

“You’ll be fine. I have a bffie date with Joshua in an hour, so I have to head out now.” Minghao announces, standing up from the couch and patting Mingyu on the back.

“Have fun Hao, thanks for letting me vent my problems out to you.” Minghao gives Mingyu a smile before he closes the door. 

Mingyu chugs the rest of his coffee, letting out a small burp when he’s done. He places the mug onto the table, looking over at his phone, which has a polaroid of the two of you on the back.

“I can do this.”

Oh my god I can’t do this. Mingyu thinks to himself as he glances over at you dancing as you create your own pasta for the very first time.

You have a headband on to ensure that no hair lands into the pasta dough. You’re slowly swaying your hips as you knead the dough with delicate hands, Mingyu cocks his head to the side once he realizes you’re kneading to the beat of the song. You let go of the dough to hit the woah and Mingyu chuckles at you.

“What?” You giggle, turning around to glance at your boyfriend. He’s on the other side of the kitchen, working on the marinara sauce. 

“I can’t believe you just hit the woah to a keshi song.” Mingyu teases and you roll your eyes. 

“You can hit the woah to any song if you put your heart into it.” 

“... what.”

“I said what I said!” You state with finality, giving Mingyu a sly grin. He steps over to you, placing his hands on your hips and spinning you around to face him.

“What?” You ask, locking eyes with Mingyu. It’s only then that you realize the close proximity between your lips. You let out a small gasp, feeling your heart swell with excitement that this! This might be it!!

I’m gonna fucking do it! Mingyu screams internally as he stares into the eyes that hold the whole galaxy. He takes notice of your tongue that peeks out to swipe at your lips, and he clenches his fist.

“You,” Mingyu presses a kiss to your nose. “Are silly.” He says, before stepping back and giving you a small, pained smile.

I didn’t fucking do it!! Mingyu screams to himself, getting ready to punch the air. You’re clearly taken aback, staring at him with wide eyes as the warmth disappears once he steps back. Mingyu gets ready to turn around and you reach out and grasp his wrist.

“I am not going to get fucking blueballed for the ten millionth time Kim Mingyu.” You practically seethe, making Mingyu’s mouth drop open. 

“I-I uh, I d-didn’t, wait. Blueballed??!!” 

“Come here.” You mutter, pulling him close so that his arms automatically wrap around your waist. He lets out a small breath of air as his chest hits yours, your hand reaching around and resting on the back of his neck. Standing on your tiptoes, you close your eyes and softly press your lips onto his. 

Now by any means, you didn’t feel fireworks explode within you like the fanfictions claimed back in the day. Instead it was a small tingle in your stomach, similar to the feeling of riding a rollercoaster and the downhill part is about to occur, but much milder and more pleasant. As soon as your lips connected, Mingyu attempted to pull you even closer, causing you to let out a little giggle. His lips are as soft as you expected, tasting like mint from the peppermint chapstick he uses. 

You pull away after a minute because your calves are fucking dying from staying on your tiptoes, and Mingyu tries to chase after your lips, causing you to laugh. You stand up on your tiptoes real quick to press a small peck on his lips. You take notice of how pink Mingyu’s lips are now, and it makes you want to kiss him again, but you must focus.

“I should’ve done that sooner.” Mingyu states with a look of absolute awe on his face, making you chuckle at his antics. His eyes are glazed over as he glances down at your lips and back into your eyes.

“So why didn’t you, you weenie. It was like you were teasing me all those times before!” You exclaim, reaching out and pinching his waist, causing him to squeak and jump back.

“I’m sorry! I just… got shy…” Mingyu mumbles and you grin. 

“You sure didn’t seem shy when we were kissing.” You fake a yawn to exaggerate your point, and he glances up at you with a glint in his eye. 

“Oh yeah?” 

Mingyu places his hands under your arms, lifting you up and moving to the opposite counter and setting you on it so that you’re now at eye level with him. You feel warmth flood your cheeks, the cocky demeanor now being replaced with timidness. He gives you a smile, flashing his pearly whites. 

“Confident now are we?” You ask, cocking your head to the side. Mingyu places both his hands on either side of your legs, staring into your eyes for a moment. 

“Shy now, aren’t we? My cute baby.” Mingyu coos, squeezing your cheek and you slap his hand away. 

“Are you gonna kiss me or what?” You mutter impatiently, and Mingyu laughs.

“You know, actually…” You prepare yourself for what he’s about to say next, but you genuinely were absolutely not expecting this.

Mingyu takes a step back, turning his knees inwards, and points his two fingers towards each other, mimicking the shy anime girl stance. You gape at him, and he gives you those stupidly cute puppy dog eyes.

“Am shy yn-chan.” He says in a high pitched voice.

“Oh my fucking god.”

“Can’t believe I’m gonna kiss yn-senpai!” 

“I’m leaving.” 

“Omo, yn-chan!”

“GoODBYE!”

Mingyu ends up chasing after you once you reach your bedroom door, pulling you back into a scorching kiss that leaves you both absolutely breathless, don’t worry.

[kitkatopinions]

While thinking about the flaws of the main four protagonists in RWBY, I realized something. You can pretty clearly trace the flaws of three of the four main characters back to their early roots, whether or not the show addresses them as flaws currently. But with Blake, you can’t really do that.

TL;DR at the bottom

Ruby started the show being over-confident and reckless. She was a combat school student with only two years of learning under her belt when she took on Torchwick (although she may not have known who he was.) She easily assumes her team can handle Torchwick and the White Fang, wanders off alone in Mountain Glenn, charges after Torchwick again in the Fall of Beacon, travels to Haven to fight against Cinder without understanding any of the particulars and seemingly with no plan, and unnecessarily leads her team into stealing an Atlas plane while literally telling Qrow that she doesn’t care what he thinks and basically tells him to go along with it or leave. Any of those events could’ve resulted in her death, and it was often - not always, but often - due to outside forces that she survived (Glynda rescuing her, Oobleck realizing about the underground city, tons of fellow Beacon students + Atlas military taking out Grimm after the train crash, a Grimm eating Torchwick, Qrow taking out Grimm on the path to Haven, Qrow saving them from Tyrian, Cordovin aiding them after their unnecessary actions result in a massive Grimm attack.) So when she refuses to accept a no-win situation, traps a city in the direct line of Salem’s fire, sends out a message to everyone that might cause mass panic directly condemning Ironwood for trying to save as many as he can, and then doesn’t have a plan to actually save anyone in Mantle or Atlas, it’s very frustrating, but it’s not surprising or hugely out of character. It’s easy to track this. Ruby’s over-confidence, recklessness, and stubbornness started small and with her only striving to be a hero whether she was ready or not. And left unchecked, it just continued to grow. Weiss started the show being judgmental, rude, and prone to pettiness. Although she seemed to open up quickly to her team and these flaws seemed to die down considerably in volumes 4-5, it’s not exactly out of left field for her to act the way she does towards Whitley in volumes 7 and 8. In V1 Weiss judged Ruby as a child who didn’t know what she was talking about that had taken something from Weiss (the leader role,) and therefore Weiss acted like Ruby was a nuisance and treated her coldly and aggressively. She was hugely judgmental towards Sun, and Blake as well the minute she learned Blake was a Faunus and a former White Fang member, and even after she decided Blake was fine anyway (so badly handled) she made it clear that she wasn’t accepting Sun just yet. Despite any growth she might’ve had with her team, we never see her change outside of that. It becomes clear it’s still a problem, when Weiss is confronted by her considerably younger brother in volumes 7 and 8. Weiss judged him as a child who didn’t know what he was talking about that had taken something from her (her position as CEO of the company) and therefore, Weiss acted like he was a nuisance and treated him coldly and aggressively. Weiss showed no sympathy to him despite knowing his home life. It’s easy to track this. Her pettiness, judgmental tendencies, and aggressiveness never went away, they just stopped being directed at Ruby, Jaune, or the rest of her friends. Yang’s flaws are always easily tracked. She’s got a big temper, charges into things without thinking, and she’s pushy. We see this from the start as she pushes Ruby to make friends despite her clear discomfort and explodes at Grimm for damaging her hair. This continues on pretty clearly in the first couple of seasons, including Yang refusing to give Blake space, and yelling at her with red eyes and pushing her when she wasn’t listening. The funny thing about Yang is that most of this gets addressed and started getting worked through. Yang charging into battle and over-relying on her semblance are combat driven problems that are pointed out to her by her father and worked on to overcome. Yang is much calmer and patient than she had to be with Raven, continues to be patient and understanding with Qrow and Oz when she finds out they’ve been keeping things from the group in volume five, she listens to and accepts Weiss’s advice, and doesn’t lash out at Blake at all when she returns. Although she was still clearly the same person, she was also clearly working on her flaws and trying to be better. However, this seems to backslide in the latest three seasons, with her acting aggressive and not even trying to understand Oz, acting aggressive and not even trying to understand the Ace Ops, pushing Ren to talk about his feelings and then getting angry at him for expressing ones she doesn’t think he should feel, launching into battle without thinking repeatedly and seeming to not really take the situation seriously sometimes. This is frustrating to me, but it’s easy to track, too. Yang was working on her flaws, but has recently backslid into old habits.

But Blake? Blake’s early flaws were things like taking too much responsibility on her shoulders, being unable to let things go, running from her trauma, and lashing out at her friends. Many of her stronger traits were connected to her flaws, and were things like standing up for herself and others, having a strong moral code, and being responsible. (NOTE: Her arc and the allegories to real world racism were absolutely mishandled, making things like her strong moral code - like ‘stealing is always wrong’ - problematic in context. However, for the sake of this argument, I’m referring to her strong moral code as a strong trait as in it was something distinct about her character that we were meant to see as a good trait.) Blake had firm standards, like ‘stealing is wrong,’ and ‘I can’t wait for others to handle things for me, I have to handle it myself.’ During the course of seasons 4 and 5, her character arc was centered around learning to embrace her strong traits without falling into her bad ones. Like Yang, many of her flaws were directly addressed during these seasons, Sun and her parents helping her see that she can rely on and trust others, Blake expressing herself without lashing out, Blake confronting her past head-on in the forms of Adam and Ilia rather than running from it, and finally letting go of much of her own guilt and self-deprecation at the same time. The funny thing about Blake now is that she’s still showing flaws, they just aren’t the flaws she used to have that all pretty much got tied up in a bow, pun unintended. Instead, many of the flaws Blake seems to be showing now are in direct contrast to her former strong traits. She doesn’t stand up for herself, leaving it to Weiss or Yang to speak up for her. She doesn’t take responsibility, putting it on Ruby’s shoulder and begging her to help her in fights. She doesn’t have the extreme moral code, being one hundred percent fine with stealing, beating up law enforcement officers, fighting against the government, etc. Like, not to say that those things are always bad, just that Blake thought they were always bad, not that long ago. This is why, out of all the main characters, Blake is the most upsetting to me. I can hate what Ruby, Yang, or Weiss do, but Blake doesn’t even feel like the same character anymore. Adding onto that, she doesn’t seem like a powerful or interesting fighter anymore either when she used to be very good and very interesting to watch. This makes her just... Feel like a chess piece that CRWBY has say things every now and again to sound good. She feels like another weapon that Yang can just use sometimes. It’s honestly hard to see, because Blake could’ve been a really great character, and now she doesn’t feel like a character at all.

TL;DR It’s easy to track the flaws of Ruby, Yang, and Weiss all throughout the show, but Blake’s recently displayed flaws directly go against her early characteristics. This makes it feel like her whole character is different.

[optimistic-personality-disorder]

Hi! Can I ask how you experience a co-morbid diagnosis of NPD and autism? What are your symptoms, etc? Thank you and have a good day

Helloooo

NPD affects how I think other people view me and how I view myself. This won’t be an exhaustive list, because I cannot pretend to be completely self aware, but here’s some more obvious ones.

I have an expectation (which I personally believe is normal) that other people will be kind and respectful towards me at all times. They should also do their absolute utmost to ensure I have everything I want and need. However, I do not subconsciously believe I should have to do the same.

Someone says something I think is rude and it sets me right the fuck off; I get so enraged it gives me physical headaches and causes me to dissociate heavily.

Someone criticises me, even if it’s constructive, and I simmer in rage for days. I can never forgive them for it, even if they beg. I have to force myself to forget via distractions and restart the relationship I have with that person from scratch.

It gives me moments of extremely, delusionally high self worth, and overall/daily makes me feel like I’m “set apart” from others by virtue of “just being better” with no real underlying truth (though I think I’m smarter or better looking or even more morally correct).

I also have had issues with being passive aggressive, sarcastic, demeaning, mocking, and bullying; not that I don’t know what I’m doing, but rather I don’t care, or I’m trying to push to see how far I can push this person. It’s an impulsive desire that I’m working on curbing.

I don’t feel “love” easily. This might be more related to my other personality disorder (paranoid) but I don’t relax enough to let anybody emotionally near me. Even friends I have had for years, I struggle to think of as “equals” who are really on par with me and worthy/deserving of my love.

My autism affects how I communicate with the world in general, including people, but also objects, time, and place. Symptoms I have include;

not liking eye contact, not finding it necessary to hold eye contact,

auditory/tactile/visual sensory processing issues,

finding it very very difficult to adjust to fit social groups (even though I desperately want to, because “fitting in” gives me a great deal of respect and therefore pleasure from an npd perspective),

not understanding sarcasm or unspoken communication, or any sort of vague/unclear communication,

extreme difficulty making friends as early as anybody can remember, as I was a “quiet, watchful, a-social child” who was often bullied for being weird or not fitting in,

speaking often in a very formal or stilted way with very stiff or nonexistent body language and facial expression,

having special interests (though I admit this had become difficult post major trauma, as hypervigilance prevents me from fixating and focusing on things very well).

I also struggle with, as a separate issue from the previous paragraph, saying things that are mean unintentionally (as well as the separate intentional/impulsive words) because I don’t understand where the boundaries lie for other people.

I also want to note, something which I find very important for comorbid dx, is that I have always displayed autistic symptoms, right back to preschool. I didn’t start displaying prominent, continuous narcissistic symptoms until I was at least about 14 or 15, though I had had my moments in childhood, they were scarce. I had always been a nervous and sheltered child, and I had suffered anxiety most of my life, but I didn’t display enough paranoid personality disorder symptoms for a diagnosis until I was 17 or 18.

I hope this could offer an insight!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Karin’s Magical Girl Story

Another collection of thoughts and reactions, plus analyzing some small changes the NA translation made (similar to the translation comparison I did for Alina’s MGS a while back).

Starting off with not a change, but an interesting note: Karin and Alina’s club situation is rather strange.  Alina is the “outsider” from the Art Club, while Karin is part of the Manga Club.  The classroom they share, though, doesn’t appear to be the main space for either club.  I’d initially assumed that it was the room originally used for the Manga Club, but once Arc 2 updates these backgrounds...

It turns out this actually is an art classroom!  I guess the school just has two?

First major change: Just like in Alina’s MGS, they removed direct references to Karin and Alina’s ages.  The reference to Karin’s age at the start of the Magical Halloween Theater event was also changed.

(In JP here, Alina was said to have won a lot of different awards “for a 16 year old,” while Karin stated her age as 14 in the MHT event.)

Again, unsure of why the change, but it could be in order to fix the continuity issues. Because good lord, that continuity is snarled...

I think the order that makes the most sense is Karin MGS > Alina MGS > Magius forms > one year passes > MHT > Main Story Ch5 > Holy Alina’s MGS.  In theory, then Karin should be 13 and Alina should be 15 in their Magical Girl Stories and then 14 and 16 in the present, but as mentioned that’s contradicted by the start of Karin’s MGS in the original Japanese.

There’s also the weirdness around when/how Karin learned Alina was a magical girl, since Karin seems aware of it in MHT, yet it’s unclear if she knows in Holy Alina’s MGS.

… Anyway, stuff like this is why I gave up on constructing a coherent timeline for Magia Record.  There’s just too many continuity tangles.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

References to Karin being in her second year in middle school and the third years leaving – also changed.  Probably because it’s both an uncommon way to refer to grades in English, and also, once again, another continuity issue.  (If the third years left, why is Alina still there in one years’ time if she’s at least one grade ahead of Karin?)

Another change: some specifics in why Karin and Alina are in the same classroom together.  In JP, it’s not specified who made the deal to let Alina use the room.  If anything it seems like Karin is the one making a deal directly with Alina.

Which actually makes far more sense all around – why does “the school” care that Alina is giving informal lessons to some random kid?

And it makes more sense from Alina’s perspective too, in that it explains why she tolerates Karin constantly bothering her – putting up with Karin is explicitly the price she’s paying to Karin for using the space.

Oh boy, this.  Karin having this mindset is why it took me so long to really ship AliKari.  Because the dark undertone to “if only I improve, then surely Alina will treat me better” is that Karin is blaming herself when Alina is cruel to her.  And that can very easily slide into an abusive relationship - if you don’t consider it one already.

Alina treating Karin decently should not be dependent on Karin’s art skill.  Or anything else, for that matter.  Full stop.

(Tangent time, including some Arc 2 spoilers)

What ultimately made me come around to AliKari is some of the early Arc 2 stuff, where Karin starts thinking the reason Alina disappeared is because Alina is mad at Karin for not improving.  Karin’s explanation is spectacularly wrong, so I’m now more trusting that the game is implying that Karin’s mindset is going to change. That she’ll stop believing she’s at fault for Alina’s actions - and hopefully stand up to Alina too while she’s at it.

The other half of the equation is Alina, who as far as I can tell, is genuinely not interested in bullying Karin.  She certainly has every opportunity to do so – especially given how her teacher punishes Karin for Alina’s behavior – but Alina never takes advantage of it.  So while she is overly harsh and blunt about expressing her opinions to Karin, I don’t get the sense there is any manipulation underlying it.  Indeed, very unusually for Alina, we also never see her enjoying or fantasizing about Karin’s pain or distress.  She really, truly, just wants Karin to get better at art already!

Obviously, for any kind of relationship between the two to work, they would both need to undergo significant character development.  But that’s the draw of AliKari – while other characters have stagnated (sigh, RikaRen), Alina and Karin are still some of the most dynamic characters in the game. And in general, the direction has been that despite starting out in a bad place (like Karin’s mindset above), they’re growing to become very positive influences on each other.

(End tangent)

Enjoying the extra cliches thrown in here and there, and in general how they translated Karin’s dramatics by adding additional cheesy and on-theme descriptions.  Stuff like “dark and dreary night” or “cauldron of trouble” aren’t in the original Japanese, but they’re wonderfully in-character – honestly probably an improvement over the original!

Not a change, but more reminding myself that I really need to read Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.  I’m like 97% sure that’s what’s being referenced here – the plot description and even the comments Karin makes about “Phantom Thief Kirin” In her later Magic unlock quotes are all a very close match.

Interestingly enough, I’ve heard KKJ mentioned as an earlier dark magical girl series that Madoka Magica rips off.  So it’s quite interesting to see it referenced again back in a PMMM property – I wonder which part of the creative team was responsible for this detail?

Hm, so, the subject and detail of Karin and Alina’s conversation in the middle differs between translations.  In JP, the subject is vague, so the fan translation has Alina going off on an extended metaphor comparing the history of art to the protagonist of Karin’s manga.  Meanwhile, in NA she just makes vague comments comparing her own growth as an artist.  

I think I prefer the former - Alina usually doesn’t like talking about herself, but she sure loves to ramble about art history.

The translation I can find for the metaphor Karin’s grandmother uses here in JP renders it “barely able to keep a business going” - so did Karin’s grandmother possibly own a business herself?  That’s a bit more interesting than just “struggled to make ends meet.”

Speaking of Karin’s grandmother, I really like her as a character.  Her relationship with Karin is really sweet - I mean, how often do you see a teenage girl and an older woman being fans of something together?  It happens in real life plenty of times, but it’s so rare to see this kind of interaction represented in fiction.

And it’s nice to see an example of mental illness being treated as just that – an illness.  I especially like that there’s consent to the cure – Grandma outright says she wishes to be cured, rather than Karin deciding as such on her own.  (As Karin is often wont to do…)

This is a fun illustration of how Alina has a very strong internal logic to her, but she’s really terrible at communicating it to other people.

Karin, naturally, takes Alina’s comment here as an exceptionally mean thing to say – it sounds like Alina is callously implying the thing Karin worked so hard on was so bad it wasn’t even worth Alina’s time to destroy, so she’s making Karin suffer even more in having to destroy it herself.

And the way Alina elaborates makes it quite clear that yes, she did mean to call Karin’s work garbage.  This isn’t Alina having difficulty with Japanese or English.

But while Alina’s sense of taste can be quite sadistic, I don’t think that’s what she was aiming for here.  Remember that Alina believes that “only the artist themselves has the right to destroy their work.”  So this is actually Alina acknowledging Karin’s work as art, and therefore only Karin has the right to rip it up.

And why rip it up?  Because whenever Alina finds her own work unsatisfactory, she destroys it.  Hence Alina’s question at the end of this little back-and-forth:

If Karin doesn’t want to rip up her manga, then according to Alina’s logic, that means she must be happy and satisfied with it.  But even Alina can tell that Karin is still unsatisfied and lying to herself, hence Alina’s frustration and confusion at Karin not destroying her work.

Another timeline note: Alina doesn’t lie, and even if she did, she doesn’t have a ring here.  So I think it’s pretty settled that Karin’s MGS takes place before Alina learned about magical girls.

Oh huh. In NA, Alina thinks she’ll be the one in trouble if Karin isn’t ready.  In the fan translation I’m used to, it seems like Alina is saying she’d just be mad herself… but I think NA has it right here.  (In the original JP, Alina is using the passive form of “get angry” without a subject.)

Both work, but the impression NA gives with both this change and the earlier one is that someone at the school is basically putting Alina in charge of supervising Karin.  Which… what the hell, Sakae Academy?

Going back a bit, Alina’s advice and its effect on Karin is interesting.  One of Karin’s flaws really is that she makes excuses for herself and only half-commits, so Alina pushing her to think about what she truly wants and work hard to get it was genuinely what Karin needed to hear at the time.

However, Alina is also an obsessive perfectionist that tends to push herself to very clearly unhealthy levels…

So it’s rather fitting that on following Alina’s advice, Karin ends up pushing herself into doing something very dangerous: insisting on fighting a witch alone even though Kaede tries to get her to retreat.  Karin is so determined she’s risking her life to fulfill her goal – something Alina would no doubt approve of.  But also a great illustration of why Alina and her advice is flawed too.

Which, come to think of it, is part of why Karin and Alina’s MGS actually form a nice pair of complementary short stories.  If you read them in chronological(?) / original JP release order, you first get to see how Alina helps Karin to grow as a person, and if you think hard about it, you can kind of see foreshadowing for Alina’s own issues.  Then in Alina’s MGS, you get confirmation of that foreshadowing about Alina, and furthermore, the payoff to Karin’s development with her now being the one to give Alina some hard-hitting advice.

[putschki1969]

KEIKO Newsletter #1 Long Interview - English Translation

This is an amazing and incredibly insightful interview so be sure to check it out. Really, everyone should read this. It’s very candid and you will be able to understand Keiko so much better after reading all of this. However, please note that this is fan club EXCLUSIVE CONTENT so DO NOT SHARE on other sites.

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KEIKO Official Fan Club 肉とチョコレート Fan Club Magazine Volume #1: KEIKO Long Interview (p 2-6)

-- It's been such a long time since our last interview. KEIKO: That’s true *laughs*. But let's act naturally without putting on airs, there is really no need for that! -- Right *laughs*. How are you spending your days? KEIKO: I am fully immersed in my music. However, since it’s quite hard to be mobile right now due to Corona, I am mostly focusing on doing research for my voice. Originally I had planned to be busy with music production but due to the influence of COVID-19 restrictions, the recording did not progress smoothly. Quite the contrary actually, it took quite a while to finish a single song, the production almost came to a full stop for some time. That’s how I ended up with a little time to spare for my research. I am the type to really enjoy spending a lot of time working on my songs, so I was absorbed in my research, trying to find the best ways of expression. -- What type of research was it? KEIKO: I am studying how to best approach a new song. How can I align my voice with a song so it resounds in a pleasant manner? It's a lot of fun to figure out the right accents and intonations, where to position my vocals for the best possible reverberation, how to colour my voice to match the melody. Even though we are in this situation, I still feel like I am spending my time efficiently. Therefore, rather than saying, "I will just be patient and wait until this self-isolation period is over", I spend my days doing what I need to do. -- Listening to you talking right now, I get the feeling that you are very straightforward, your approach to music seems to be quite different compared to the past. KEIKO: It's not a better or worse approach but it's definitely completely different from what I used to do so you really cannot compare it... Now I'm working based on my instincts, if I feel like singing a song, then I will just do it. When it comes to “Ray” for example, my staff members recommended it to me, saying it would really suit me. So I just went ahead with it. The more time I spent focused on the song, the more addictive it became. I chose my other songs on a whim too simply because I wanted to sing them. Then I searched for a voice that would bring out the best of the song and make it shine. When I actually try to sing these songs with my own voice for the first time I usually feel like my voice doesn’t match but then I try and try again to pursue a better sound. -- Your own choices lead onto a new path for yourself! The very essence of a solo artist’s activities so to speak. KEIKO: When you say it like that, it starts feeling so real. It was so much fun to get immersed in these activities. -- I think the last time we met was on March 30, 2018, when Kalafina held a stage greeting for the premiere of your documentary film "Kalafina 10th Anniversary Film ~A Sparkling Harmony Spun out of Dreams~". What state of mind were you in after that? KEIKO: We made a commitment, a promise to ourselves, to all our fans and staff members so we were hell-bent on reaching our 10th Anniversary with all our might. As we continued to rush towards our goal regardless of anything else, my physical condition started to deteriorate. By the time we had achieved what we had set out to do I had reached my limit. Therefore I decided to take a rest in order to take proper care of my body.

-- You are the type of person that continues onwards in a stoic manner without ever taking a break... KEIKO: Yes! So I told myself, “you need to rest now!” -- Actually, at that time your physical condition seemed very fragile to me. KEIKO: I am sorry if I made you worry. I was very much aware of my state but I decided to ignore it in favour of pushing further ahead. I was determined to keep our promise. -- And then you finally took a break. KEIKO: I can talk about this openly now but I was actually thinking about completely retiring from music. For the longest time my entire existence revolved around being Kalafina’s Keiko and I was constantly switching the button on and off between my private and professional life. Once I wasn’t Kalafina’s Keiko anymore I ended up losing my presence of mind, I no longer knew who I was as an individual. I thought that there was nothing I could do in the world of entertainment, like I had no place there anymore. After all, you can only be active in this world if there is a demand for what you have to offer. -- Yes, that may be the case. KEIKO: But what the fans wanted was Kalafina. And that’s not something I felt like I was able to restore. “How should I best express myself if there is no demand for what I can offer as a solo artist?” This kind of thinking wasn’t positive at all so I thought I shouldn't return to the industry. That's why I felt it would be best for Kalafina's Keiko to just not do or say anything, I simply “disappeared”. That's honestly the reason why. -- The Keiko I know as an artist is stoic, diligent, very strict on herself but incredibly caring when it comes to others... an image of perfection so to speak. But truth is, it seems that music was your driving force, if you hadn’t had Kalafina’s music, you wouldn’t have been able to move ahead. KEIKO: Yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to move ahead at all. Actually, that’s a character trait of mine, whether you consider that to be a good or bad thing *bitter smile*. I am the type that’s able to keep running and pushing forward because my goals and ambitions dictate everything I do. That's why I couldn't return in this half-baked state of mind, after all, I don’t do half-measures and it would have felt like I was betraying everyone who had been supporting us in the past...at that time, I was seriously considering retirement, I guess it was because my mind and body were exhausted. -- This was probably the first time you ever experienced something like that in your life? KEIKO: Yes, it was the first time for me. Around that time, my nephew was born and we all went to see my grandmother after a long time. Something really weird happened there. When I looked at my nephew who had just been born and my grandmother who was 80 years older than him, I couldn’t help but see a striking resemblance, their faces were alike despite their enormous age difference, isn’t that strange? For some reason, that made me think about "life". Going to visit both of them regularly truly healed my heart. -- Maybe that’s something that would have gone unnoticed if you hadn’t put a halt to your busy life to rest a bit. KEIKO: Yes, I think so. I feel like it's been around 17 or 18 years since I have experienced such an everyday relaxed life. The time with my family released all the tension that had gathered up from my non-stop activities as Kalafina’s Keiko, all of a sudden, my deepest tensions were dissolved. When I was spending time with my grandmother, I remembered "aaah, back in the day, granny helped me put on a kimono!” I wanted to continue that tradition and learn the technique as well so I would later be able to help my niece and nephew put on traditional Japanese clothing. That’s why I decided to go to kimono school. -- Oh I see. KEIKO: Around summer time I met up with an old friend from school. During one of our chats the idea of a trip suddenly came up. Almost everyone has gone on a trip after graduating uni or something but I have actually never gone on a proper “girls trip”. I was like, “yeah, that would be great!” so my friend said, “okay, let’s go on a trip!” and that’s how we ended up taking a girls trip....We went to Angkor Wat, a World Heritage Site in Cambodia, I had always wanted to go there. This trip would not have been possible if I had continued my work as member of Kalafina, when we had made our plans it felt like I was thrown back to my high school days, it was very liberating *laughs*. I really wanted to experience the heat and humidity of Cambodia, the turbulent landscapes of the past and present, and the energy of the people living there. My friend was quite taken aback by my suggestion, "eh! Cambodia?!"

-- She was surprised you didn’t suggest a resort or something *laughs*. KEIKO: She told me, “I just didn’t expect that based on the image you portray” *laughs*. The time I spent with my family and friends separated me from the music I had pursued for such a long time. I didn't listen to a single song. Going four months without listening to music, it’s something I can’t remember ever experiencing before. -- Did you not want to listen to music? KEIKO: Music was just gone from my life or I guess it simply stopped coming into my life. Perhaps my brain was shutting it out in order to heal my mind and body. During that time, I discovered so many parts of myself that were completely different from Kalafina’s Keiko. My true nature I guess. I felt like that was the real KEIKO. I realised, “I didn't know myself at all!”  The truth is, I have many insecurities so in order to protect myself I had created a fortress, an “image of Keiko” with high towers and lots of keys, I had felt comfortable hiding behind that image but the feeling of being released from myself was very refreshing. At that time I felt like I still had many changes ahead of me and that I would like to discover new aspects of myself that I didn’t know yet. I still feel that way. Slowly I want to scrape off one layer after the other from the facade I have carefully crafted throughout the years. -- Interesting. KEIKO: If you are living that kind of life, you are bound to feel better *laughs*.  My health improved a lot! I felt so much lighter, like a heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders, both my mind and body were able to heal and become healthy again. That was around the end of summer in 2018. During all this time various people from the music industry and media had contacted me because they were concerned. At the beginning, I would just reply, "I'm sorry, I can't deal with this right now..." Gradually though my opinion changed and by the end of summer I felt like I was ready to dip my toes into the industry again, I was like, “okay, let’s talk a little about my options.” I met up with the producer of my current agency. He asked me, "you have sung such a wide variety of songs in the past but what kind of songs do you want to sing from now on?" I couldn’t provide an answer because I honestly had no idea. For a few days I was super depressed because for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what music I wanted to sing. I mean, it’s a really pathetic situation for someone as involved in music as myself to not know what kind of music I want to do in the future. Then one day I thought, “that’s it, that’s enough, this has to stop right now” and wham, my switch was turned on. From then onwards, I was once again able to devote myself to music and I could listen to Yuki Kajiura's music without being negatively affected by it. -- So from one moment to the next you pretty much went from wanting to retire from the entertainment industry to wanting to resume your activities. KEIKO: Well, the demand was great. If there hadn’t been a demand, I would have never returned. Either way, I realise that my break was not a waste of time but rather a necessity. Later when I would discuss all of this with Kajiura-san she told me, "it’s a good thing that people like us are making music. For the general public we are just considered emotionally unstable but when it comes to music we can make good use of all our quirks and channel everything into our work”. Both of us broke into laughter after that *laughs*. -- Artists are truly fascinating people. It's wonderful that you are able to shine on stage. KEIKO: It’s tough for us though *laughs*! But well, it’s our music activities that provide us with energy. Right now I feel most calm when I am at the studio. Once my state of mind had gradually improved, I listened to a lot of live music from various artists. By experiencing music from the audience’s point of view I wanted to use my instincts to find out what kind of music got me excited, hoping that I would find something I would want to sing myself. I checked the songs that I really liked and found cool, I even tried to sing them in the studio. But no matter how many times I sang them, nothing felt right. Until one day when I came across a song that was randomly played on my smartphone, that one felt nice, it felt right. I knew I wanted to do that. It happened to be one of Kajiura-san’s songs. It just felt so genuine. On a whim, I decided to write a letter to Kajiura-san. I told her, "I have reached a point where I can sing again with a positive attitude. I once again realised that I was able to pursue my work as member of Kalafina for 10 years straight because I just really loved your music." That was at the end of 2018 and Kajiura-san immediately contacted me when she had received my letter, "don’t you want to meet up at the beginning of next year?" After not having seen each other for quite some time we talked for about five hours *laughs*. I shared my honest feelings with her and she suggested, "do you want to participate in my lives?" I was like, “absolutely!” So in January 2019 it was decided that I would take part in the upcoming Yuki Kajiura Live Tour.

-- Over the course of a year Kalafina’s Keiko and the Keiko that had absolutely nothing to do with Kalafina converged into a single person and became the KEIKO of today.  KEIKO: I think 2018 was a very important year in my life. Once I had separated myself from music for a while, I was able to realise how important it was for me. After finishing the YK tour, I started delving a little into music production as "KEIKO" but rather than finding the music I wanted to do, more than anything I just wanted to be absorbed in the process of music production. Right now I am very open to all song suggestions by my producer, I won’t give anything a “no go” because I literally want to try everything. I am focused on the task of how to approach any given song. I don’t want to think too deeply about the whole process and it’s not so much about wanting or not wanting to sing it, first and foremost it’s about giving everything a try. -- I think in your previous activites you were taking things too seriously, always thinking deeply about everything and trying to figure out the meaning behind it all. So this new approach is definitely a big change for you, isn’t it? KEIKO: That's true! Sometimes I wonder, "is it okay to be so casual and carefree about it?" But really, more than anything it’s about being happy and I can honestly say that I am super happy focusing on the music production and doing research on different vocal techniques. -- In a sense, you are just innocently pursuing music? KEIKO: Yes and that’s amazing. I came back because I wanted to do this! -- You are able to work on your music with an open mind free from all responsibilities. KEIKO: I guess it’s okay to find joy in the innocence of doing that? -- Music is about being free, we can all enjoy it as we please so it’s totally fine. In fact, now that you are starting your solo activities I think it’s wonderful that you are able to pursue music with this sort of innocence, it’s like you are returning to your starting point and reliving that initial sense of excitement when you were making music for the very first time. KEIKO: I am glad you are saying this *laughs*. I still don't know where my music as KEIKO is heading. Right now it’s just about having fun. It’s really just that.

-- Coming back to your songs, when I first listened to 「命の花」, 「Be Yourself」 and 「Ray」 I felt like I had met a new KEIKO. KEIKO: I'm happy to hear that. -- I would like to talk a little about 「命の花」, it’s the first time you wrote the lyrics for a song, right? How did you come up with the lyrics? KEIKO: Actually, I came up with these lyrics thinking, "I want to sing this song as soon as possible!" It wasn’t so much about, "I want to convey this or that in my lyrics." I just loved the demo tape so much! I wanted to meet the person who wrote it. I was utterly captivated by this song. I listened to the demo tape again and again but I had trouble with the lyrics, I couldn’t really think of anything. I got frustrated because I wanted to sing it already so I just ended up applying all kinds of words to the melody. This is how the lyrics for “Inochi no Hana” came to life. I got sent dozens of demo tapes as candidates for my solo debut but for some reason I was absolutely fascinated by this beautiful melody. -- So you spun the words being guided by the beautiful melody that you fell in love with? KEIKO: It's embarrassing when people say "I was spinning words" becaue really, what I did wasn’t anywhere near as poetic or cool but yeah, I guess it was something like that. Although it was my first attempt at songwriting, one could say that I was able to write the lyrics in a natural manner without getting overwhelmed more than necessary. I was really just going back to my old habit of pursuing the "beautiful sound", something I had done ever since my Kalafina days. It took me some time to match the words born out of my emotions with the sound of the melody. Trying to respect that and wanting everything to match I would sometimes come up with quite mundane and simple phrases. But that was intentional. As long as my words fit the notes, that was fine with me, I think for my maiden work it is the best I could do. -- As a result, I feel like the lyrics resonate incredibly well with this beautiful melody. KEIKO: Thank you. I'm really looking forward to everyone’s reaction, I am wondering if I was able to touch my fans on an emotional level. If possible, I would like to hear a lot of your impressions. "How was it? Did you think it wasn’t so great? Did you not like it? Are you hoping my next songs will be better?” I wanna hear all of it *everyone laughs*.  The staff members I'm working with right now sometimes have very different opinions, which is quite refreshing, it’s a lot of fun and very educating to work with them. They provide a stimulating environment where I notice things that I would’t have noticed before, they make me think about all kinds of things and they inspire me to be interested in lots of stuff. While exchanging opinions, I really feel like we have become TEAM KEIKO. -- You seem super happy and content talking to me like this. KEIKO: I keep wondering, is it okay to be like this? Am I being too naive and innocent? -- No! I Not at all! I think it’s perfect. Rather refreshing actually. KEIKO: I am a newbie after all (as solo artist)! *everyone laughs* -- One can tell that you are blessed with good staff! KEIKO: But really, it’s all an accumulation of my past activities. If it hadn’t been for my 10 years in Kalafina and if I hadn’t taken a well-needed break, I wouldn’t have this environment now. -- That’s true. As for "Be Yourself" and "Ray", they are quite the curve ball for everyone who is familar with your previous work. KEIKO: Indeed. I never meant to sing "Be Yourself" but when I mentioned that I really loved the song my producer said, “oh really? Then you should sing it!” *laughs* I asked myself if I should really take on the challenge of trying to sing a song with such a fresh and exciting vibe... I don’t think it would have been possible without my current staff members. I was able to take on the challenge because everyone was encouraging me and enjoying the ride along with me, no one was limiting me or questioning my potential. Until I actually worked on the song it was like a bag full of surprises for me, I had to idea what to expect and I couldn’t imagine the final outcome. By singing this song, I feel like I have expanded my range of music. As a listener, I have always loved listening to songs with such a youthful vibe. But never ever could I have imagined that one day I would be singing such a song myself *laughs*. I sang this song free from all obstructive thoughts, with a completely open mind, just focusing on the rhythm. As a result, it turned out to be a pretty tough song to sing so I spent about 3 days in the recording studio. -- I think your singing voice sounded very unique since it was inspired by the fresh and exhilarating rock vibe. This song must have really made you aware of your unknown abilities. And I felt that "Ray" was a song that powerfully conveyed your expressive power and passion as a solo singer. KEIKO: When it comes to “Ray” I wanted to find something that would properly represent “KEIKO - the solo singer”. Also, I wanted it to be a song one could listen to repeatedly without getting tired of it. I feel very insecure about my voice and I usually don't feel like listening to my own singing over and over again. However, I thought that I had to overcome these insecurities if I ever wanted to sing for my audience as a solo artist. After a lot of research we finally decided on "Ray". I recorded it with a particular focus on even the smallest sound. After dealing with this song, I had a much easier time approaching new songs. I got much faster at finding the right sound and expression to suit a new melody. This was definitely the song that solidified my singing as a solo singer. -- Regarding “Hajimari wa”, I think we will talk about it in depth when we do our next interview. But overall I would say that you have released some impressive work ever since your solo debut. Solid music with a lot of range and depth. I think your solo debut was truly spectacular. KEIKO: I'm really blessed. To think that someone like me who thought of quitting not too long ago would be given such a wonderful production environment. Moreover, I couldn't have ever imagined all the different kinds of expressions I get try out now, these are all ways of singing that I have never used before. -- I think one can and should try new things at any time in life, regardless of age or the stage you are in your career. KEIKO: By all means! If anyone wants to try something new I can tell you this from the bottom of my heart, "please don't be afraid! If you fail, you can start over, just try to feel like a child again, do not surpress your honest feelings!" I wish there would be more people with that kind of motivation. In the past I couldn't have considered that way of thinking either *laughs*. But now I have genuinely started to think this way. I would like to continue my musical activities conveying these ideas for my loyal fans who have loved me for such a long time and for everyone who I will meet in the future.

Interviewer: Akihiro Tomita He has done lots of interviews with Kalafina in the past, he moderated some of their events, he appeared in their 10th Anniversary movie and of course he is currently Hikaru’s manager/producer at Hifumi.

[merakiaes]

Self Care - Finn Shelby

Pairing: Finn Shelby x reader

Requested: By @foggysportsbananawagon​ and anon. 

Prompts: #20, #21, #22 and #32 from the angst-list. 

Warning/notes: This is a combination of this, this and this request. It turned out a bit messier and more angsty than I originally planned so I’m warning you for cringe xD (NOT PROOFREAD)

Wordcount: 3667

Summary: Following John’s death, Finn has been trying to fill the empty space left behind by taking on too much work, something that causes conflict between the two of you.

Finn Shelby was way too good for the business his family was running. Hell, he was too good for all of Birmingham, and probably too good for you, as well. But still, you had been together for a year now.

You had grown up jumping around between families and orphanages and most of the orphanages and families had treated you alright.

But you were a handful growing up, acting out because of the lack of stability in your life, so you never got to stay very long at the same place.

As you entered your early teenage years, you cleaned up your act. Or, well, you got better at concealing your anger, and this resulted in your final family keeping you for all time to come.

Unfortunately for you, however, the final family ended up being the only one to not treat you alright.

The family consisted of a woman, her husband and their three sons, all of whom were older than you by a minimum of seven years, and all of whom were going to mentally and physically abuse and sexually harass you for the next five years of your life.

The first three years, between the ages twelve and fifteen, you were still a weak, lanky little thing who, despite already having quite the temper, was too scared to actually do anything when the three brothers started asking, or rather demanding you, for… favors.

You guessed you were lucky in a way that your body blossomed very late as you during those first years “only” had to touch them but got away without being touched yourself.

But once you passed fifteen you grew into your feminine shapes, which caught their attention in an entirely different way. They tried to force themselves on you, but curves weren’t the only thing you developed.

With them, your muscle mass also increased, which made you able to defend yourself, which in turn, caused the sexual exploitation to take a more violent turn.

Everyone in your neighborhood knew what was going on. They saw the bruises on your arms and the vulnerable look behind your eyes.

But everyone turned a blind eye to the entire situation, shrugging it of with the reasoning that ‘war did that to a man’ and that it was ‘only natural for them to crave physical intimacy after being alone and scared for so long’.

This went on until you neared your eighteenth birthday, when finally, someone stepped in and did something.

The Shelby brothers.

They were passing through your town on business, heard the yelling and cursing coming from both you and your supposed “brothers”, and discovered the four of you in an alley behind a shop, where you were cursing them out and swinging at them with a metal pipe while they laughed and tried grabbing at your dress.

Now, violence against women wasn’t unusual in the slums of Small Heath, and usually, they wouldn’t bat an eye. But you were young, they were three against one, and you had a certain fire to you that they couldn’t turn a blind eye to.

John was the first one to come to your rescue, taking you under his arm and pulling you away to allow Arthur and Tommy to do what Peaky Blinders did best; slash their eyes out with their blades and leave them to bleed to death.

Even though you had been fighting back with more ferocity than most women sported, you were really shaken up and refused to leave John’s side during the entire ride back to Small Heath.

And even when you had arrived at the Shelby household where Polly greeted you with open arms, they noticed by the way you would glare at everyone else, that John wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon.

So he stayed the entire time Polly cleaned your cuts and took care of you, and by the time Finn arrived back home from the boxing ring with Isaiah in tow later that night, you had calmed down and was sitting at the kitchen table playing cards and joking around with John and Arthur while Tommy and Polly sat by watching.

You hadn’t had the most gracious first meeting with the youngest of the Shelby siblings, seeing as this was the time he had began developing his whole hostile “I can do what I want because I’m a Shelby”-attitude.

But after a cuff upside the head with the kitchen towel from Polly, he had to get to terms with the fact that you were going to be staying with them. And only a few days into it, it was all good.

John tried keeping you out of the family business to his best ability, but once in a while he allowed you to come along on the safer jobs, where he was certain no violence would be involved.

You basically either followed John around wherever he went or helped Esme out with the kids when he wasn’t able to. And Finn, he followed you around wherever you went, which wasn’t all too appalling.

John took care of you and you started taking care of Finn once your relationship took a romantic turn, and that’s how it continued for almost a year. Until John passed away at the hands of Changretta, breaking the entire family apart.

You had never felt such an intense sorrow as you did at John’s passing, not even over your own parents. After all, he had been the one to look after you for the past year, taking you in as if you were one of his own.

Two months had passed since his funeral, and although you got along with the rest of the family, you weren’t as close with them as you were John and Finn, so the latter was pretty much the only one you had left.

At least that’s how it felt. And now you were losing him too.

Ever since John died, he had been trying to fill in the empty space he left being, trying to walk in his footsteps by taking on more work and responsibility than he was able to handle, pushing you away in the process.

You had tried voicing your worries a few times, but he had always waved it off and walked away. And you didn’t want to pressure him, knowing that he was mourning and therefor wanting to give him the time he needed.

But now it was getting ridiculous, and you couldn’t be quiet any longer.

The walk from your shared house to his office wasn’t very long, but it felt longer today as the weather was absolutely horrid.

Rain was pouring down and hitting the top of your head roughly, and no matter how hard you hugged your coat around your form, you still couldn’t stop the slight tremble that was going through your body.

To say you were happy to get inside once you reached your destination was a huge understatement.

You stopped in the doorway briefly to shake the rain off your arms, unbuttoning your black coat and slicking your wet hair back so that it wasn’t sticking to your face before continuing into the building and in the direction of Finn’s office.

His door was closed, something that rarely happened unless the two of you were fooling around, which instantly caused suspicion to arise inside of you.

You quickened your pace, the heels of your shoes clicking against the hard wooden floors, and you wasted no time in flinging the door open upon reaching it, your eyes instantly spotting Finn snorting a line of snow from the surface of his messy desk.

He instantly raised his head at the sound of the door hitting the wall, sniffing and using his fingers to rid of the excess powder from his nose.

He didn’t have the chance to say anything though, as you were already marching over to him with furious steps and wasting no time in wiping the two remaining lines off of the desk, watching the white powder spread into the air.

“What the fuck, Finn?!” You exclaimed, dropping the bag in your hand to the floor. “You told me you quit with the snow!”

Unlike the soft eyes he would usually look at you with, his eyes only showed pure anger, staring back at you harshly.

“I did.” He glowered down at you. “I just needed some fucking release.”

“Release?!” You yelled, throwing your arms out. “You’re addicted, Finn! It’s not healthy, none of this is healthy!”

“It’s my life! I’m an adult and a fucking Peaky Blinder, I can do whatever the fuck I want and you don’t get to decide what’s healthy and not for me!” He yelled back, which only made you more agitated than you already were.

“How daft can you be?!” You demanded. “Open your eyes! This behavior is the result of your brothers constantly using you to do their dirty work and not sparing a single thought to how it’s affecting you! They’re working you to an early grave!”

Finn stepped around his desk quickly at that, raising a finger and pointing it in your face while his other hand stayed in a fist at his side.

“Don’t talk about my brothers like that.” He snapped. “You have no right.”

You scoffed at his words, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I have every right.” You corrected him, glaring fiercely and fearlessly into his eyes. “I love them like my own flesh and blood but they’re idiots. Tommy has the emotional range of a fucking teaspoon, Arthur is as independent as a five year old and no matter how much I love and care for them, I love you more, and I’m fucking tired of how they’re just turning the cold shoulder to how you’re turning out. It needs to stop and if you’re not going to tell them to lay off on you, I’ll do it myself. In fact, I’ll go do it right now.”

Without waiting for his response, you turned whipped around and moved to head back the way you had just come from, but you only got to take one single step before Finn’s hand clamped down around your upper arm.

Your brain instantly went into panic mode at the feeling of his tight grasp squeezing your flesh. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling triggered the hundreds of traumatizing memories you still struggled to bury from your years spent with your last family.

The feeling of the three brothers’ hands on your body, trying to feel you up, and then hitting you with all their might when you wouldn’t let them.

“Why can’t you just stop putting your nose in other people’s business, (Y/N)?” Finn yelled at you, still holding on to your arm. “I can’t take it, no one can take it! You’re fucking insufferable!”

In any other case, his words probably would’ve brought tears to your eyes, but right now, you could barely even register them as they were spoken. Instead, the cause of the uncomfortable stinging feeling in your eyes was the painful memories being brought back to the surface by the familiar and dreaded feeling of being manhandled.

Your eyes slowly looked away from his and to the side, glazing over as your breathing got heavier and heavier.

Finn was still speaking. You couldn’t hear him, but you could see his lips moving in the corner of your eyes. When you suddenly stopped responding, however, your arm now handing limply in his hand, he instantly came to his senses and let you go.

And the second he did, your senses returned to normal and you began coming back to reality, now being able to hear his voice again.

“I’m sorry.” He told you, his voice coming out as a breath. He took a step back, seeming to get lost in thought for a moment before he regained his composure and walked up to you again, grabbing a hold of both of your upper arms but this time a lot gentler.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, bringing his thumbs up to your cheeks. “Please don’t cry.”

You hadn’t even realized the stinging in your eyes had turned into fully developed tears until you felt the wetness between his thumb and your cheek.

Raising your eyes back to meet his, you noticed that all of the anger previously held behind his baby blues were gone and replaced with guilt.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He whispered, taking another step closer to you and joining the hand that wasn’t wiping away at your cheeks with one of yours. “I’m sorry.”

As he closed his eyes and leaned down to press his forehead against yours, you took a deep breath, responding to his actions by squeezing his hand in yours.

“You didn’t hurt me you idiot.” You whispered, causing him to open his eyes again. “What’s hurting me is that you’re hurting yourself.”

You swallowed, feeling a new set of tears building up at the brim of your eyes. “You’re killing yourself by trying to fill John’s shoes. I cared for him just as much as the rest of you. He was the one who got me out of that horrible place, out of the grasp of those even more horrible people. He saved me and now he’s gone and it breaks my fuckin heart every day. But you’re not him. You’re not supposed to be him. No one is, but him, himself.”

You paused briefly, squeezing your eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears from falling, but it was to no use.

“I know it hurts and that you’re scared.” You continued with a shaky voice. “But it’s not your fault and no one is going to hurt you. I’ve tried to help; I try to talk to you about how you feel but you just keep pushing me away.”

You opened your eyes to look at him again. His nostrils were flaring slightly and his jaw was tense, a clear sign that he was trying his hardest not to let his walls down, and the words leaving his lips a second later did nothing to prove the opposite.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He shook his head, removing his forehead from yours and taking a step back. “I’m fine.”

Your body grew cold again when he walked away from you to lean on his desk, and you instantly found yourself missing the feeling of his skin against yours.

“That’s what you always say, but it’s not true, is it?” You inquired. “If you don’t want to talk about it then say so, don’t lie and pretend you’re fine when you clearly aren’t.”

You wrapped your arms around yourself in a desperate attempt to get some of the warmth he had taken with him back, but it did nothing. You let out a shaky breath, squeezing at your own arms.

“You can’t make everyone happy.” You sniffed. “You can do anything, because quite frankly you’re fucking amazing, but you can’t do everything. The person who tries to keep everyone happy often ends up feeling the loneliest. Just look at your brothers. They have families that love them, but they’re both fucking miserable because they keep pushing everyone who care about them away. John was the only one who didn’t. You want to be like him? Follow his example on that. Don’t try to be like him with the sole purpose of proving yourself to Tommy. I know you think you have something to prove but you don’t. And either way, you shouldn’t even feel like you have to prove your worth to your own fucking brothers. They’re supposed to see it by themselves, and if they don’t, then fuck them. In fact, fuck everyone else. A lot of what weighs you down isn’t yours to carry to begin with. If someone asks you to do more and you have a big reaction inside, it may be a sign that you’re already doing too much. You can’t live your life for other people. You’ve got to do what’s right for you, even if it hurts some people you love. You have to think about yourself, Finn.”

You finished your long rant with a deep breath, barely even having taken a second to breathe in between sentences and being left winded.

Finn was still leaning on his desk, his hands squeezing the edge of the wood to the point where his knuckles were turning white. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, another clear sign that he had been working way too hard, and his back was rising and falling as he breathed heavily.

Even though he was turned away from you, you could see clearly that he was trying his hardest to keep his cool as he listened to your rant, without a doubt just as conflicted by his own feelings like he always was these days.

“They need me.” He responded without moving an inch. “They need me to step up and fill the space he left behind. You just… you don’t understand.”

But you did. You understood better than anyone.

“You’re wrong.” You shook your head. “They don’t need you. I’m the one who needs you. I’m all alone and I-“

You had to cut yourself short as you were overcome with sadness, having to bite down on the inside of your cheek to keep the sob from leaving your lips.

“And I… I don’t know how much longer I can stand by and watch you destroy yourself. I already lost John. I can’t lose you too.”

This time, you couldn’t keep the sob in no matter how hard you tried, and Finn perked up immediately at the sound, pushing himself off the desk as you continued, now staring down at the floor.

“You’re slipping through my fingers, Finn, and I can’t seem to stop you from slipping further and further away. If this is how things are going to be, I don’t know if I can stay with you. With any of you. I can’t take the helplessness; I can’t take all of the chaos. I need something stable, and besides John when he was still alive, you were the only stable thing I had. And now you’re just…”

You couldn’t find the right words, but you clearly got your point across as Finn whipped around faster than a man finding out the pregnancy test results.

“No.” He shook his head, marching over to you and taking your face in his hands, pressing his forehead against yours and looking into your eyes so desperately. “You can’t leave me. You’re all I’ve got. I’ll change, I promise. I’ll start listening to you. Please.”

You could barely comprehend the words spilling out of his mouth, they were coming out so rushed.

“I don’t want you to listen to me.” You answered, giving him a stern look. “I want you to see things for what they are and stop trying please everyone and listen to and take care of yourself.”

He looked at you, scanned your face and searched your eyes for something you didn’t know. You stayed like that for another few seconds, just looking at each other. And then he nodded, moving his hands away from your face to the small chest pocket in his vest, pulling out a small bag of the same white powder you had caught him snorting when first arriving.

Your eyes hardened at the sight of the substance, your mouth turning sour. “What are you doing?” You asked, glaring slightly.

But he was completely unbothered, simply answering; “I’m taking care of myself.”, before turning around and walking over to the fire to the right of his desk, where he tossed the small bag into the flames, the plastic letting out a loud sparkling sound when it met with the heat.

“Finn.” You called out, wrapping your arms around yourself once again to make up for the warmth that he had taken with him.

But he didn’t listen, simply going over to his liquor cabinet and grabbing the two half-full bottles standing on the middle shelf, walking straight past you again and heading directly for the window where he started pouring out the contents of the first bottle.

You furrowed your eyebrows slightly, calling out again. “Finn.”

But yet again, you got no answer. He just put down the now empty bottle and picked up the second one, starting to undo the lid.

With a sigh, you uncrossed your arms and walked up to him, ignoring the chill that overcame you when the cold air from the window hit your clothes that were still wet from the rain, and grabbed a hold of the bottle just as he was about to start pouring it out.

You pulled it out of his grasp and put it down on the windowsill, and then proceeded to grab a hold of his upper arms to turn him to look at you.

He was breathing heavily and looking like he was on the verge of crying, which only proved further how broken and overworked he really was.

Your tears had finally stopped falling, and your sobbing had ceased. You sniffled, bringing his face down to yours like he had done to you only moments before, but rather than resting your forehead against his, you pressed a kiss to his lips.

His hands moved to your waist out of pure instinct, pulling you closer.

You pushed your lips harder against his before breaking apart slightly, not enough to stop your lips from touching but enough to allow you to speak.

“I’m not going anywhere.” You whispered, moving your hands from his face to the back of his head. “I promise.”

He closed his eyes, letting his head fall into the crook of your neck and pulling you closer by your waist. “I’m sorry.” He mumbled into your skin, and you took a shaky breath, letting your eyes fall shut too.

“I know.”

[angstmonsterwrites]

I have to vent...

A post came across my dash decrying Americans as fundamentally un-empathetic, self-centered, unsafe, and untrustworthy. The author of that post gave plenty of anecdotally understandable reasons for why they felt that way. Their reasons ranged anywhere from conversations in a rather large forum defaulting to Americanized metrics or the expectation that American celebrities are recognized universally, to failures in basic human decency--a toxic, exclusionary LGBTQ culture and failures to give a damn about what goes on elsewhere in the world even if one has friends there.

My initial mental knee jerk response was to defend myself as an individual and to wonder if anyone outside the U.S. I’ve conversed with ascribes those awful traits to me, or maybe assumes they’re eventually going to rear their ugly head and therefore intentionally holds me at arms’ length. After all, most of the people I’ve wound up trying to connect with historically aren’t from my neck of the woods exactly. When disaster has struck those other countries, I have been worried. I have paid attention. I have checked for updates and maps outside of my country. If someone throws measurements in the Metric system at me, I really don’t mind. (Oh no. You’re making me conceptualize things using a system that logically goes by increments of 10? How dare.) The only thing I really stumble on is the Fahrenheit to Centigrade/ Celsius conversion, but that’s nothing that a two-second internet search won’t solve, and I’m sure as hell not going to bother the other person to do such a simple task for me. I’m a big girl--I can take care of my own blind spots and not burden others with them. I do not expect to be coddled or babied or have people spell things for me the American way. (I don’t care about celebrities at all, so I’m probably about as in the dark on American ones as I am those from anywhere else.) If anything, I hold myself to such a strict rule of “no one owes me shit” that I fail to push maybe even when I should. I’ll cower under the fear that asking an innocent question or an opinion is a terrible violation of someone’s privacy, much less make them justify why/ how they identify themselves a certain way.

That whole post was just completely jarring to me because the behavior it described came off as ticking down a list of one violation of my own values after another...and I’m an American. I’m a very self-isolating person, and I’ve encountered plenty of other Americans who would say the behavior described by that post is simply abhorrent; who cringe at that level of self-centeredness with severe second-hand embarrassment. To be honest, I make a point of keeping myself well away from people who feel the need to act like that in any capacity. I just don’t have the spoons...

**Deep breath**

I don’t think the author of that post was wrong, but they are not right either. They are certainly right that the Americans they have encountered have the negative traits they describe. But I cannot stress enough that America is not a monolith. The one thing that cooled me off just enough to type this out was when I considered that I have at times had similar thoughts about certain states within the union. Does America have a seedy sub-culture or pockets of rudeness and narcissism? Well...yes, yes we do. My country wouldn’t be in the troublesome place we find ourselves in 2020 if not for that bloviating, hyper-partisan sect of Americans, including some of the socially ‘liberal’ ones. And they are very, very loud in online spaces. However, and for instance, the LGBTQ folks I’ve encountered IRL have almost always been far more inclusive, compassionate, and welcoming than most of the nit-picking, soul-shredding hell-scapes online.

Talking to my younger sister, who is far less socially broken then myself, and maintains friendships in various places around the world--Lithuania, Singapore, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greek, Ukraine, etc. etc.--she says that her friends’ most repeated perspective on Americans is that you can’t truly understand who they are if you haven’t been here, and it probably helps to have visited more than one region. (Most of these friends, she met when she was attending art school in Chicago, so they’ve had the opportunity to see for themselves.) Their take was similar to the pattern I’d noticed with LGBTQ communities--the rude, invasive, judgemental American asshats are loud and all over the place online, but on the ground, it’s another matter altogether; a mixed bag where the good is very good and kindness is common enough, while the bad ranges anywhere from slightly annoying to outright putrid but are no means representative of the character of the nation as a whole.

(Another small note: The American sociopolitical sphere has also been under online assault by Russian bots and trolls posing as Americans, seeking to divide and inflame for several years now. “Is that really an American or--?” is not an unfair question to ask. Not saying that there aren’t more than enough true-blue shit heads, but their numbers are literally being exaggerated and the toxicity of their discourse beefed up from without.)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND COMPANIES

Perhaps not everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world. The reason people there care about Larry and Sergey is not their wealth but the fact should be: we're going to succeed even without them. But kids are so bad at making things, the only way forward is through doing what you love. And the way most companies make money is by creating wealth, you have to be developed by entrepreneurs. They'd have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps millions, just to figure out what the problem is before you can solve it. I think the single biggest problem afflicting large companies is the difficulty of raising money itself can kill you. You don't have to live in a great city. Do not, however, tell A who B is. It seems so convincing when you see the same thing. Whatever the story is in the sciences, true collaboration seems to be so. The second reason investors like you is that you should be richer. And from my friends who are professors I know what impresses them: not merely trying to impress them.

I want to get a job, as if the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money, instead of making a to-do list push you. More often than not we're wrong. Anyone in the arts, things are very different. In painting, for example, the wisdom of the engineer who knows certain structures are less prone to failure than others. Perl. A prototype doesn't have to be extra cautious. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news. All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you can see that people there actually care what paintings look like. Be independent. I'm hopeful things won't always be so awkward. It has always mattered for women, but in the late 90s said the worst thing you can say about something is to criticize its tone, you're not saying it to your boss, but directly to the customers for whom your boss is only a proxy after all, and you're not doing it individually, but along with a small group.

But if enough good ones do, it stops being a self-indulgent choice, like buying expensive office furniture. Together they were able to withstand the local feudal lord. It is that you're 30 times as productive, and get paid for it. What matters in Silicon Valley in the late 90s said the worst thing about living there was the low quality of the eavesdropping. Food has been transformed from something that seemed totally normal into a rather seedy habit: from something movie stars did in publicity shots to something small huddles of addicts do outside the doors of office buildings. In an opera it's common for counterarguments to be aimed at something slightly different from what the original author said: when you program, you spend more time reading code than writing it. But patents may not provide much protection. They were effectively a component supplier.

Here, as so often, the best defense is a good offense. For the next year or so, if anyone expressed the slightest curiosity about Viaweb we would try to sell them the company. A startup with a couple founders in their early twenties can have expenses so low that they could be profitable on as little as $2000 per month. And during the Renaissance, journeymen from northern Europe were often employed to do the best they can, by the standards of the desktop world. When things go well you can take risks; when things are bad you want to be canaries in the coal mine of each new addiction—the people whose sad example becomes a lesson to future generations—we'll have to figure out the right thing to do. And to be both good and novel, an idea probably has to seem bad to most people, or someone else describes you, it tends to obscure the underlying reality. You can't make the pie larger, say politicians. But that world ended a few years before by a big, fat, bully. Perhaps, if design and research converge, the best research is also good design, and in which performance is therefore unbounded. Then I asked what was the maximum percentage of the acquisition price they'd trade for it. Advising people and writing are fundamentally different types of problems—wisdom to human problems as well as you can be wise without being very wise, you can at least avoid being surprised.

And if the author is correct or not. The difference is that wise means one has a lot of people: that you could actually make the finished work from the prototype.1 These forces are always at work to some degree in fundraising, and they can cause surprising situations. The Bay Area has a lot of other people's. Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore them because they look wrong. Otherwise as soon as the first one is ready to buy. Why is that so? For example, consider the case of Viaweb, the simple solution was to make the software run on the server. Apparently only recommendations really matter at the best schools. But people are not simply wise in proportion to the amount they invest. People whose work is to invent or discover things are in the same way that someone might design a building or a chair that's horribly uncomfortable to sit in, then you've done a bad job, period.2

Notes

One measure of the companies that get killed by overspending might have infected ten percent of them. One father told me: One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to have the least VC-like. There need to fix.

I find myself asking founders Would you use in representing physical things. But which of them agreed with everything in exactly the point of failure would be investors who rejected you did that they'd really be a great deal of competition for the board to give you term sheets.

[jamestaylorswift]

The Archer - Analysis

I was nudged to write out my thoughts about “The Archer” and I’m honestly glad for the push. This song is so beautiful yet haunting. I don’t see people appreciating it as much as I think it should be appreciated.

Standard disclaimer that this is my own personal reading of the song. You are free to disagree with any or all of what I say. There are many good interpretations of this song out there. It helps that it’s a very evocative track 5!

This analysis is not short. Sorry.

——

Combat, I’m ready for combat

I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?

‘Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

——

Unlike other tracks on Lover, there’s no concrete imagery such as a garden gate or prom dress in this song. Taylor is sharing what only exists in her mind. This is a story told purely with metaphors. It’s important to lean into them.

The purpose of the first verse is to contextualize the rest of the song. She introduces the idea of being torn about wanting a fight. She would only want to fight someone if she has a really good reason to do so. Her driving force is “cruelty winning in the movies.” Her thrown-out speeches are the thing that would start the fight. Tossing the speeches implies that she is unsure not of the content of the speeches but of entering the fray of battle that would ensue after delivering them.

It’s very hard for me to see these speeches as anything but coming out speeches. Coming out (even as a non-celebrity) is often stressful. Cruelty winning in the movies is a nod to the fact that mainstream media depicts LGBTQ characters meeting tragic ends. Taylor, as a wildly famous celebrity, has cultural influence. Her coming out would impact the culture; it could change the endings of those movies. But her impact would only be measurable years in the future. 

This verse is also where she first addresses the “you” in the song. I think the “you” is essentially a random observer/everyday Joe Schmoe. It’s nobody in particular because it could be anybody. The only thing remarkable about “you” is that she’s directly addressing them. That makes this story personal.

——

Easy they come, easy they go

I jump from the train, I ride off alone

I never grew up, it’s getting so old

Help me hold onto you

——

If the “you” in this song is a random person who has some benign preexisting opinion (whatever that may be, including a non-opinion) about Taylor Swift, then the “they” refers to arbitrary people who are on the fan/hate train. “They” come and go easily and represent flux in interest in her. I read the metaphor about a train with momentum as the implication that general interest in Taylor waxes and wanes but is inherently self-sustaining because of her celebrity. In this song, “they” aren’t necessarily the enemy like the public was, for example, in reputation. She just doesn’t concern herself with “them” anymore. It’s the “you” who has her full attention and who is sticking around to hear the story.

Finally, we get the first of many “help me hold onto you”s. This one is her articulating why she’s telling this story in the first place. It’s “I want you listen to this story and try to understand.” It’s “help me,” but in a chill way.

——

I’ve been the archer

I’ve been the prey

Who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

——

The archer is the zodiac symbol for Sagittarius, the centaur, Taylor’s astrological sign. Taylor exists in parts, just like a centaur: she is part her celebrity persona and part her real self, an amalgamation who is a Taylor different than either of the constituent halves. To the “you” it’s Taylor in her purest form. It’s impossible to completely separate her celebrity from her person at this point.

The chorus is about the duality of Taylor’s being, her actions, and others’ investment in any part of her. As the archer (hunter) she has aggressively exercised control over her public persona. As the prey (hunted) she has been a passive victim chewed up and spit out by the public/industry/etc. for things outside of her control. Sometimes it is her own actions that drive people away or attract people to her. Sometimes it is by individual choice that people board or leave the train.

The archer, Sagittarius, is also symbolic of a prophet who can predict fate. The prey is a victim of a terrible fate that, by nature, cannot be changed. I prefer to think of the archer/prey metaphor as commentary about the duality of fate rather than intense combat (for which a bow and arrow would probably be insufficient). This song is Taylor trying to reconcile the certainty of her future with distress about the unknown consequences of present-time decisions.

(Note that this first chorus is where the bass drum beat starts. It represents anxiety about the future. The first part of the song is exposition. The drum only comes in when she starts worrying about the “what ifs.”)

——

Dark side, I search for your dark side

But what if I’m alright, right, right, right here?

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face

Then I hate my reflection for years and years

——

Nobody Joe Schmoe has no obvious reason to hate Taylor for anything that she just said. But Taylor knows what comes next in the story. She’s anxious about Joe Schmoe’s reaction to what she’s about to say.

Taylor admits to doing self-destructive things. Because of the context she provided at the beginning of the song, I believe this is a reference to staying closeted. The “reflection” could be the literal reflection of her now-noseless face. Hating it is pure personal regret for self-destructive actions. The “reflection” could also be the mirror which her fans/the public hold up to her. Her self-destructive choices manifest in others’ toxicity. Hating what they’ve become starts with hating the ways she enables that behavior. (It’s really both “reflections.” The duality of man, yadda, yadda, yadda…)

More important than blaming herself for any (*cough*) past decisions, she articulates the pain of being in the closet in two simple lines. Burying a significant part of yourself by hiding behind a carefully constructed lie is exhausting. It’s sad. It also provides protection and safety and it’s unfortunately all too common. Cruelty wins in the movies, thus people are cruel to themselves.

——

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is on fire, invisible smoke

And all of my heroes die all alone

Help me hold onto you

——

I think people consistently underestimate just how morbid “The Archer” is. Taylor reveals that her prophetic future is death—specifically, becoming a ghost, thus leaving an imperceptible trace of herself. She already feels suffocated by that possibility. Her suffering is invisible. She might just be left to die a slow, agonizing death via asphyxiation. Worse yet, what happens afterwards? Asphyxiation from invisible smoke would make it seem like she just dropped dead of her own accord. Or if the smoke somehow became visible….well, if you could see a ghost in the first place, a smoke-filled room would make that impossible. The implications are staggering and they’re all sad.

Few, if any, of Taylor’s heroes have literally died alone. I’m going to go out on a short limb here and say that Taylor probably sees parts of herself in her heroes. Therefore, the “heroes” in a song supposedly about the dilemma of coming out are other famous people who were/still are closeted. Taylor identifies herself as a potential role model for the younger generation like her heroes are for her. Her heroes’ lonely metaphorical deaths are exactly what she fears. Dying alone is being in the closet indefinitely. It’s being misunderstood and not having any way to rectify that situation. Perhaps this song is about the mortifying ordeal of remaining unknown.

As evidenced by the invisible smoke in the room, she thinks her metaphorical death is certain and imminent. The “help me hold onto you” is now “help me,” but in a very unchill way.

——

‘Cause they see right through me

Can you see right through me

I see right through me

——

As a reminder, “they” = random people in the public and “you” = nice, ordinary Joe Schmoe whom she wishes could understand her predicament. Being see-through is being seen without substance. Therefore, what the bridge is not saying is “don’t you see how obvious it is, isn’t it wild that people don’t pick up on me and/or my lover being loud in public?” It is saying “I am literally a ghost to ‘them’ because ‘they’ look at me and don’t see any of this pain, I’m basically dead to myself too because I feel like I’m already doomed, you’re my last hope so please say you see me.” Who cares about reaping the benefits (love, adoration) from the mortifying ordeal of being known? At this point she’s pleading simply to be seen as herself. “I see right through me” is her worst fear. This is why this line breaks out of the bridge and bleeds into the surrounding choruses.

(The bridge, to me, is where it becomes clear that treating the “you” as her lover with whom she could come out does a serious disservice to the rest of the song. Her lover as “you” inverts the meaning of the bridge. This makes the story inconsistent. I appreciate the gravity of the “help me hold onto you” line if it were spoken to a secret lover. However, being seen/understood is more intimately tethered to being out as an individual than being out with another person. In my mind, it makes more sense for this attitude to be an invariant of the song.)

——

All the king’s horses, all the king’s men

Couldn’t put me together again

‘Cause all of my enemies started out friends

Help me hold onto you

——

The Humpty Dumpty rhyme is basically “anthropomorphized egg sits on top of a high wall, anthropomorphized egg falls off the wall and shatters irreparably.” Taylor as Humpty Dumpty makes the wall she’s on top of the pedestal of fame/success. She’s saying that coming out would topple her from her pedestal. Her image as a woman who became famous for writing heterosexual love songs is as fragile as an eggshell. When it breaks, what is left behind?

“All the king’s horses, all the king’s men” might be a reference to her fans whom she once considered as friends but whom can also be incredibly toxic. I read it as a catch-all for anyone who isn’t Taylor. The key of this verse is her musing on why an eggshell can’t be repaired. It’s not for lack of manpower. It’s that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—everyone, literally—are enemies and don’t want to reconstruct Humpty Dumpty. They simply don’t believe Humpty’s death is so tragic that they would spend effort to change his fate.

Taylor fears that darling Joe Schmoe, a friend to whom she is addressing this story, could become an enemy by conscious choice. She can give Joe Schmoe the truth and plead to be seen, but Joe Schmoe can still choose to see right through her anyways. It’s terribly frightening to be honest yet have that vulnerability go unacknowledged. Taylor coming out is her facing the prospect of instant confirmation that good people do not care. She could die a ghost despite efforts to be visible.

——

Who could stay?

You could stay

Combat, I’m ready for combat

——

Coming out is a choice but being gay is not—it is fate. She has no control over how others react to that. Taylor slowly acknowledges throughout the song that her future isn’t in her hands. She ultimately shifts away from the prophet/victim binary by reiterating that she’s sure of herself and that whatever happens, she’s not going down without a fight.

Lover the album isn’t just about romantic love. This song is not construing an inherently unequal and sometimes toxic relationship with fans/the public as love. “The Archer” romanticizes the possibility of someone reacting to honesty with kindness and understanding. Love is being seen.