#i did rely heavily on a reference for this one but i lost it. ill try to find it again and post it if i do

[gaybd1]

@zukki-week Day 5: "There was only one bed" but now it's THREE people

AKA they all fell asleep in Zuko's bed after another assassination scare and are about to wake up like this except Zuko actually just might already be awake but is fine to keep pretending to sleep because he doesn't want to disentangle his leg from Sokka's quite yet because... this is actually... kind of nice?

[biot08]

FFXIV Character Sheet

with love given to @bluespiritfire (original here!)

Name: Zoissette Vauban / Zo

Age: High 30s

Pronouns: She/her

Birthdate: I forget, but it’s on her in-game paper doll

~~PLACE OF ORIGIN~~ Race: Ishgardian Wildwood Elezen Hometown/city: Ishgard Current residence/popular haunt: Work for the Maelstrom, so has barracks space in Limsa Lominsa. Works for Gage Acquisitions, so sometimes crashes on the couch at their HQ in the Goblet. Her parents still live in Ishgard, and so she can also couch-crash there

~~APPEARANCE~~ Eyes: Brown Hair: Black with purple highlights Hair type: Straight and thinnish Hair style: Short undercut Body type: Athletic, the wiry kind; muscles of steel cable Height: Tall Skin: Light brown Facial features: Nothing notable Body features: Shortish ears for an Elezen

Favourite/commonly used clothes: That beautiful skirt and jacket combo that Tataru made for her when she is being casual. The heavier dark jacket and sabatons that Tataru made when she has serious business knight work to do.

~~SKILLS~~ DoL/DoH Dabbles in the entire list of DoL/DoH skills for self-sustainability purposes, but has no real talent for any of it

~~COMBAT~~ Main discipline Gladiator/Paladin (she will never refer to herself as a Paladin; her training is that of an Ishgardian knight); her other main discipline is arcanist/scholar

Secondary/Tertiary/Extra Classes Red mage and machinist (in-game, she also has NIN, but that’s more because I like the class and less because it’s appropriate for the character)

Fighting style She shifts between hard-and fast and defensive/protective as a knight. She appears reckless to the inexperienced, but she very much knows what she is doing. As a scholar, she is tactical, and very wait-watch-and-see.

Any difficulties with magical/physical disciplines? Red mage is the only magical discipline she is extremely good at, because it relies heavily on her physicality (channeling with precise rapier work) and on her personal mana pool. She is awful at drawing in external aether. Her magics as a scholar also lean heavily on her ability to work with the summoned fairy construct to do the bulk of the aether work while she performs the necessary manipulations and calculations. As a result, she was merely a middling arcanist, but is a very good scholar.

~~PERSONALITY TRAITS~~ Analytical, cunning, curious. She can be impulsive, but it is not because she is not considering the consequences, but often because she is very interested in what they will actually be. She is very self-assured in general.

~~LIKES~~ Environment: A warm home with a warm fire. She does find Ul’dah’s dry environment endearing after the snowscapes of Coerthas post-calamity. She tolerates Limsa. Weather: Warm days Flavours: Nuts greens meats and fruits Textures: Cotton or wool Favourite Dish: Meat pot pies of any sort. They can be well made, and that’s great. Or the can be mediocre, but easily portable and reheatable on the front lines, and that’s also great. Favourite Colour: Purple Favourite Sound: The utter silence of the soundscape during a lull on the front of the dragonsong war provides her with strong mixed feelings that have turned nostalgic. The way snow dampens sound and makes for a particular kind of quiet night is eerie, but dragons tend to be very loud; as a result, the eerieness was overridden by the knowledge of a promise of a good night’s rest Favourite Smell: Hot meat pie straight out of the hearth Favourite Place: The little fort outpost she was ‘in charge’ of and responsible for for a great deal of her adult life. She can’t go back, but she has fond memories of the place Favourite Holiday: The new ones they’re inventing celebrating the  end of the dragonsong war and the beginning of a new promise of peace

~~DISLIKES~~ Environment: Snowy environs. She’s had enough of that for several lifetimes. Weather: Snoooooow Flavours: Gamey. You get a lot of gamey meat on the front. Textures: Weirdly, finds silk to be entirely too slippery Least Favourite Dish: Ishgardian knight hardtack. It’ll feed you, but you’ll regret it the entire time. Least Favourite Colour: White, though she has no strong opinion here Least Favourite Sound: Bells. Too many alarm bells in her life. Least Favourite Smell: No strong opinions here Least Favourite Place: Coerthas. Even though her most favourite place is there Least Favourite Holiday: Doesn’t really have one, though she ignores several; this is less dislike and more apathy

~~HOBBIES~~ Reads voraciously, both for research and as a hobby. Finds working out invigorating. Does not skip leg day. Never saw a mountain that didn’t need someone to at least attempt to scale it. Pretty fond of fucking around (and often finds out, which is also fun)

~~RELATIONSHIPS~~ Parents/Legal Guardian/Parental Figure: Mother and father. While no longer Ishgardian nobility, the Inquisition merely stripped them of house titles and colours, but did not excommunicate them. They live in the repaired parts of Ishgard now, as commoners Siblings: Second oldest of seven Children: Nope Romantic: Single, about to be complicated (for tax and guild fee purposes) Friends: Picks up acquaintances easily enough, thanks to an easy going personality and willingness to just generally roll with things. Has few truly close friends, though, due to having a tendency to keep a bit of a distance. Loyal for life once past that point, though. Rivals/Enemies: No rivals, but there are definitely people among the noble families of Ishgard who she would count as enemies. Not enough to truly go after or do anything about, but people who she is, at best, cold towards if she ever has to interact with them. She gets on well with Alphinaud, as the two complement each other, his diplomacy making up for her lack of it, and her foresight making up for his frequent naivete. She snarks with Y’shtola and the two often banter like old maids. She merely has a working relationship with Thancred, but it’s not cold; it’s just not a close friendship, either. Tataru finds her vexing. Estinien and her have a deeply shared understanding that comes from both being front line participants in the dragonsong war. Krile and her do not understand one another, and tend to settle for just being cordial. She finds Urianger likeable, and gently needles him at times, and doesn’t always realise when he’s doing it back.

Any special gestures of affection they have with people in their life? She will, without fail, ask Lennier if he’s been working out, and will swoon when he performs physical feats (squats, pushups, etcetera) nearby.

~~HAVE DEALT WITH/IS DEALING WITH~~ Definitely has some PTSD. Also, her entire family has gone from lesser nobility to commoners with a status that, until recently, left a bad mark on their name (their status as a minor house was lost when the inquisition found evidence that some members of the family, cousins in relation to Zoissette, were hertetics). She keenly feels the disruption of life in Ishgard due to the end of the dragonsong war, but does not quite know how or what to feel about it.

How are they dealing with the most prominent of the above? How does it affect their in day-to-day life, if at all? She sleeps lightly and poorly and generally pretends she doesn’t have a problem

~~ODDS AND ENDS~~ Notable Weapons Not really. Any sword is still a chunk of metal made with lethal intent

Notable Mounts An Ishgardian raised Chocobo, of course, for the most part. If she is travelling into danger, the Magitek armor, while defanged, is still a walking tank. If she has to fly somewhere, the manacutter from the Ironworks is just plain fun to fly

Notable Minion/s She has come to value Midgardsomr’s council and will travel with him as he is willing

Keepsakes/Mementos ... the Fortemps Shield.

Chronic Illnesses or Disabilities None

Education Level The same schooling most Ishgaridan noble family knights get to enjoy. She did a lot of self-study, because she found it interesting, but it was also part of a continuous bid to try to be accepted in the astrologian guild; however, due to House politics, she was never accepted. Fortunately, when she left home due to the situation after the inquisition investigation, the Limsa Lominsan arcanists were more than happy to take her on and guide her studies further. Generally her studies started with things she thought would be helpful for the war effort; history, strategy, logistics, and tactics. Since then she has dabbled in any of  dozen different subjects, learning few of them deeply, but being at least conversational in a great many of them

Habits I should probably come up with some!

[yeoldontknow]

Ciperion: 1/2

Author: @yeoldontknow​ as part of the Anchors & Arrows collaboration with @imdifferentshadesofpurple​ Pairing: Jaebeom x Reader (oc; female) Genre: fantasy!au; shipwreck au; jaebeom is a fisherman; romance; angst; elements of horror; ghosts; eventual smut Summary: Everyone on the Isle Indolon knows the story of Ciperon, though none believe it is true. Over centuries, the tale of the long lost ghost ship on the high seas has become little more than urban legend. In his youth, Jaebeom always thought the story was heartbreaking, and he did his best to avoid it - the same way he avoids the missionaries that have taken occupation on the island. On the anniversary of Ciperion’s ill-fated port date, you wash up on sea, and only you have the answers he’s always been seeking. If only you could remember who you are. Rating (this part): PG-13 Warnings (this part): angst; shipwrecks; references to head trauma; jaebeom does CPR; jaebeom rescuing an unconcious woman; allusions to sexual assault but it didnt happen, he just is protective and misinterprets everything; anxiety; ptsd; vomiting; ghost stories; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of blood; non-major character death; themes of horror; lots of grief; memory loss; jb doesnt really know what to do with himself; mentions of becoming a widow; it sounds really sad but i promise its not that bad; tbh oc is a really great sport Word Count: 17.5K

Three hundred miles off the emerald coast of Isle Indolon, Second Mate Ansil Green looks up at the shimmering night of the dark sky and feels a chill of apprehension burrow deep within his bones. 

There are only three days left to their journey, and for five months he has charted each with meticulous accuracy. It is easy to rely on the stars, he thinks. Their steadfast illumination and the reassurance found in their seasonal rotation have brought him immeasurable comfort throughout his life, and not once, not even on nights when storms threaten to eat their way through the ship’s bowsprit, have they ever led him astray. 

In the berthing hull, the missionaries say their prayers with tightly clasped hands, while others read their scrolls in preparation for new lectures once they reach the shore. Back in Indolon, Ansil’s wife and two children anxiously await his triumphant return, and everyone, every crew member and stow away rat, is eager to breach land. Even now, he can see it clearly - his wife’s pretty eyes as she laughs, small crescent moons that remind him of the night sky; the youthful, almost violent laughter of his sons as they play in the fields; the creaking if their iron bed frame as he rocks between her thighs, not unlike the ship as she rocks against the sea. 

Tonight, he wonders if these simple treasures have fallen too far out of reach, if they have slipped, imperceptibly, out of his grasp. 

Because tonight, the stars are wrong. 

Gripping the mahogany banister, he leans against the side and cranes his neck, angling his view slightly to the right in the hopes of correcting the pattern. Something about this is terribly wrong, wrong enough that the deepening doubt bites at him, heating his skin like a fever. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he does his best to swallow this worry,  attempts, rather meekly, to focus on the light flapping of the mainsail above him, on its rhythmic and soothing white noise that often helps him drift, hazily, through sleepless nights. Now, it offers him little comfort, the wind that moves the ship rustling through his hair, stroking against the shell of his ear, carrying whispers of splintered wood and rocky shores blackened by sea water mixing with spilled blood.

Heavy footsteps make their approach from behind, the purposeful strides and confident gait of Captain Grier L’Allante causing the heels of his boots to shatter the false sense of peace. Ansil does not move to greet his Captain, and while this would be considered an insult on any other crew ship, he supposes Grier has become used to his flippant and yet focused attitude when the stars are out, decades of manning ships alongside one another having reduced the rules of propriety almost entirely non-existent. Keeping his gaze on the sky, he feels Grier come to stand beside him, the heat of his closeness full of pride and awe; admiring the vastness of the sea before him, he exudes an energy that puts a sour taste in the back of Ansil’s throat. 

How he hates to ruin the evening.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ he announces, feeling Grier stiffen rather than deflate entirely.

His captain hums in consideration, never one to give over to fear or uncertainty. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the stars.’ Ansil corrects his posture and regards his friend with pleading eyes. It is, perhaps, the first time he has ever shown signs of fear with his captain, but Grier maintains his composure and presses his lips into a thin line. ‘They’re at the wrong angle by about twenty-six degrees,’ he continues to explain. 

Pointing up at the constellation Cassiopeia, he gestures a long straight line back behind him, back towards the foresail, in the direction of Hydra. Turning once again to look at Grier, he waits for some kind of flicker of emotion to pass over his features, and when nothing comes, he simply sighs, pressing his friend for more. 

‘This distance shouldn’t be this wide,’ he offers grimly, straightening his posture to stand at his full height. ‘Did we turn?’

‘No.’ Grier barks his reply with forceful authority, though, behind his eyes there is a storm brewing, a brief flash of concern that placates Ansil. ‘I helm this ship myself, and you know in your heart we haven’t turned. You said straight on until dawn, and the wind is steady at four knots to the South-West. We’re still on course.’

In unison, they turn back to the sky, and Ansil tightens his grip on the railing. ‘There’s something bad about this. I can feel it.’

Grier chuckles amicably. ‘What you’re feeling is five months staring at the same bloody lights in the sky.’ His gaze falls on Ansil’s profile, and he can feel him regarding his features with probing scrutiny. ‘You didn’t even take a woman at the last port,’ he states, nudging his shoulder with a force that makes Ansil lean to the side. 

‘They’re not precisely the same,’ he admonishes with a laugh. Grier regards him expectantly, but all Ansil can manage is a sigh of longing. He’d love to laugh at this kind of crude joke, and normally he would, but three days is somehow longer than five insurmountable months, the ability to count them transmuting the number into something brutal. ‘And you know I’d never do that to Mala.’

Taking off his hat, Grier runs a hand through the greasy black strands of his hair, grimacing through his laugh. ‘Too loyal for your own good.’

This is something Ansil can tease him about, and he offers his friend an impish grin, taking his own opportunity to nudge Greir’s shoulder roughly, revealing his hidden strength. ‘And your prick is too slippery for your health.’

It’s childish, the way they punch their fists into one another’s arms, the jovial nature of this making him feel as though they are teenagers once again. At once, he is nineteen and Grier has just convinced him to come out to sea, to stow away on his father’s vessel, and they are laughing at the reckless foolishness of this idea. But they are smiling, already hungry for the adventure, already wanting the spray from the waves and the salt that shall never leave their skin. They are young and they are hopeful, and now, even after the bloodshed and the violence and the horror they have seen among the ocean, he thinks they have never been quite as dangerous as they were then.

‘You need rest, mate,’ Grier advises once they’ve settled back against the railing. They look out over the ocean, the water as black as the night it reflects, light of the moon illuminating the peaks of waves and casting shadows behind them as long as the sea is wide. Releasing a deep sigh through the flare of his nostrils, he suddenly becomes alarmingly serious. ‘Otherwise, it’s scurvy.’

A beat of silence passes between them, a pregnant pause in which neither one of them breathes, the word hanging heavily between them both, unwilling to be touched. Until, they erupt into laughter, Ansil leaning against the railing to steady himself atop the wet baseboards. A wave hits the side of the ship and sprays gently against his cheeks, cooling his skin and for a moment, he is grounded in the happiness of this. For a moment, the sky is clear and he can see Grier’s warm, too kind smile; can see the way the ship is heading home, steadfast and unyielding in her journey.

For a moment, there is peace.

Calming his breath, he runs a hand over his face and nods. ‘What I would give for a peach.’ 

Ansil waits for the inevitable hum of commiseration, a sound of companionship in the memory of the juicy ripeness of Indolon peaches - the yellow of their fruit so moist it would leave their hands sticky for days. He can almost taste the burst of flavor in his mouth, tongue wet in desperation for something other than the salt and brine of oysters and trout, and finds the only consolation for this hunger is that they shall arrive in time for the peak season. 

Ansil waits for Grier, but the sound never comes, his captain watching the waves beyond the ship with lips parted in pale shock. Knotting his brow, Ansil takes his time turning to look where Grier’s focus rests, the tendrils of dread rising once more within his belly. The fear in him feels almost inhuman, taking full control of his joints as they stiffen, keeping him rigid and held firmly in place. Grier continues looking out to sea, blood rushing away from his cheeks, likely retreating within to service more important pieces in preparation of survival. 

When Ansil finally gathers his strength, he swallows thickly, and looks out to the water. He has lived through war - a great many battles on Naval ships both larger and smaller than this. He has seen dying men beg for both life and death, the fear in their eyes making it unclear which they crave more. He has seen waves rise taller than the ships he crews, seeking an immortal companion for her enduring loneliness. 

But he has never seen fog overtake the earth quite like this, or with such wrath.

It comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, swallowing both sea and sky as it crawls across the horizon. From its center, an ethereal light seems to glow, a beacon to herald the nothingness that surrounds them, but even this light too is a half formed shadow, the core of its rays smeared across miles as it spreads within the clouds. The blood in his ears in unrelenting, the rush of his blood to his thunderous heart making his head begin to hurt as he watches it spread. Has anything ever been so fast? 

The fog works quickly to cover everything in sight, racing towards the ship at a speed he simply cannot comprehend. When he was young, and newly appointed to Third Mate Naval Officer, he sailed aboard the Cygnus, the fastest ship Indolon had ever produced - reaching a record breaking thirteen knots in the correct wind conditions. Somehow, this fog is so much faster, ravenous for absolutely everything it touches as the waves begin to still beneath its touch. 

The wind ceases.

The waves still, cannibalised by the fog.

And as he looks to Grier, their eyes mirroring the horror they find in each other, he realizes the ship has come to a full stop.

It is when the fog touches the boat that he hears it, the anguished screaming of men beneath their feet. Even at war, he has never heard such terror as this. The sound is born from men suddenly learning that they will die, this death an ambush to the unsuspecting and therefore all the more gruesome in its wake. He regards his feet with a disgust that taints his numbness, the abjection of this noise releasing a myriad of feelings within his veins - the urge to run, the urge to scream, a tightness in his throat so painful he fears he may suffocate on the size of it, and the overwhelming desire to cry. Yet, it seems his body cannot decide upon any of these, and so settles on none, rendering him absolutely and completely silent. 

They stand above the berthing hull, listening to the missionaries burst to life for one extraordinary moment before their echoes die one by one, their last breath a wail of anguish. As Ansil takes in a long, slow inhale to steady his growing panic, he can smell the acrid stench of blood and piss wafting up between the boards, bile rising to the back of his throat. The silence that befalls them in the aftermath is threatening, an eerie calm that raises gooseflesh along his skin. Bones brittle and mouth dry, he simply stares at Grier and takes in every detail he can, unfailingly certain this is the last time they will see one another. 

In the distant horizon a tall mast looms beyond the mist, the main mast taller than that of their vessel. The crow’s nest is empty, and if he focuses long enough he has the passing sensation he could look right through the wood into an empty, eternal void. 

‘It can’t be,’ he whispers, reminding himself it is just a legend and that legends are buried in the past.

They are buried.

His voice carries no echo, the atmosphere around them tight enough his voice lives and dies before him, reaching nowhere else but his own ears. Grier does not even react, does not make any movement at all, save for the shifting of his attention to the world behind Ansil, eyes trained on something that makes his adam’s apple bob in the effort of swallowing his trepidation. 

A bead of sweat glides down Ansil’s spine, and he can feel an angry shadow looming behind him. Burning like hellfire, he waits for the scent of his own flesh bubbling beneath his chemise to reach his nose, readying for immolation. Death comes slowly for people like him, he supposes. It likes to take its time weighing the worth of his soul and the value of his existence. He has made love and he has made life, but he has taken far more than he has created, and so he suspects this slow conquering of his person is deserved - retribution for the bloodstains etched into his palms.

‘Ciperion,’ Grier says, eyes widening in sudden, terrible realization.

It is the last thing Ansil sees and hears before cold hands wrap around his jaw, pressing fingers into his mouth and pulling until the pain in his bones, his skin, his muscles is so great the world turns black.

Standing on the old oak dock behind his home, Jaebeom stares out at the open sea and knows that, today, the water is ruthless. 

He can feel the rage beneath her waves, the violent and unforgiving aggression of the current guiding the water as it rolls up against the edge of the dock, shaking its legs as if testing the foundation’s strength. The first light of morning is unable to penetrate the intense cloud cover along the horizon, their peaks and valleys tinged with red shadows behind the murky green and black. Awake far too early to begin his descent to the jetty, he balls his fists in the pockets of his linen coat and eyes the gathering storm with suspicion. 

Once again, he’s been brought out.

Pulled from his feather bed by some unseen force, it has become a habit for him to spend his early hours on the dock, overtaken by a profound sense of longing. Rooting himself to the wood, he has grown used to the passage of time that drifts beyond him, and finds that he is unencumbered by these lost moments. It’s been happening more often as late, his sleep interrupted by the desire to see and to know, an endless stream of questions burning at the back of his mind that chase the sleep from his limbs. But, always, the words are garbled, the thoughts unclear. 

It is worse today - somehow, he knows this with all of his being. Even as he stands, completely alone and unseen, he feels naked all the way down to his nerves. Narrowing his eyes, he peers at the water, unblinking, taking hold of the ache within his chest. Something is missing, has been lost. Or, perhaps, it was taken from him, the intense longing in his chest delivering him a nostalgia too great to be expressed or understood. If he looks long enough, he can almost envision it emerging from the horizon, precariously balanced as though hanging on a thread. 

But the image never fully forms, never reveals its nature, and he is left bereft, hissing a sigh of frustration between his teeth. 

Gulls pass overhead, making way for the Southern shore. Their calls are the music of the morning, a siren song that only serves to mire him deep within his thoughts, and he blinks several times as he rolls his shoulders back, trying, and failing, to collect himself. The current sends a rough breeze through the thin fabric of his chemise, the uncharacteristically cool summer air nipping at his skin, and he bristles though he does not shiver.  Digging his nails into his palm, he struggles to gather the will to leave, every bone in his body telling him he must wait.

Each morning Jaebeom finds himself in this position, looking out to the open water and waiting - wanting to write love letters, wanting to write odes, often wanting to simply cry or curse the tide for what it has taken, but he remains mute, dumbfounded, lingering expectantly for an answer that will not come. And he is angry, muttering to himself that he must leave, that there is no purpose here, but the thought of missing it only serves to aggravate his insistence on keeping still, on looking and looking harder. 

‘Come on,’ he mumbles, as if willing a response from the sea.

When nothing comes, the muscles in his arms and thighs tense as he presses himself into the dock. ‘Show me,’ he hisses, emphatically.

Immediately he feels terribly silly, not even certain to whom he is speaking. It is not the first time he has made these demands, not the first time he has called out to the sea as if it would even deign to reply. The answering silence and empty air should neither surprise nor disappoint him, but as his posture curls and his chest deflates, he finds both of these things happen in quick succession. Something is out there, something beyond the place the light touches, and he thinks what frustrates him most is the endless unknowing. 

Voices along the shore break his concentration, a group of missionaries walking side by side, barefoot in the warm sand as they talk, sometimes laugh, amongst one another. The sound of their chatter breaks the magic of this hour, an unwelcome interruption to the morning solitude. At once he returns to himself, hands in his pockets relaxing out of the fists he’s been holding, and suddenly he feels rather neutral about his position on the dock, about the ocean, and the thick clouds overhead. 

The town has started to wake, the missionaries commencing their morning walk a sign that he is late - terribly late, and the time it will take him to prepare his sails and his nets will likely cause him to miss the golden fishing hour. Closing his eyes, he hangs his head and sighs, certain he will lose the best crabs of the day. 

Briskly walking along the shore to the jetty, he keeps a wide berth from the missionaries as he passes. Jaebeom keeps his eyes trained on the rocky jut of the shoreline, keeping his posture rigid in the effort of not being overtaken by the staggering sense of unease that gradually drops his feet to his stomach with each step he takes. He’s certain they must feel this, must feel the crushing weight of his discomfort, and he furrows his brow, swallows thickly, and grits his teeth as he prepares for conversation. 

‘Good day,’ they chime in unison, bowing their heads in greeting. The steely chill in their voices makes him shiver. ‘May Deus keep you.’

Jaebeom simply nods politely, but says nothing, finding no solace in their words. On instinct, his attention diverts to the slotted diamond shaped symbols on their rosaries, a sense of nausea rising in his stomach. Lifting his gaze to their faces, he focuses on their features - their eyes, their well practiced smiles, their royal blue square hats - but all the while, he battles against himself, soul willing him with all its might to look, once more, at the rosaries. 

Quickening his steps, he hurries past them, releasing a breath he did not know he had been holding. Running a hand through his hair, he chastises himself sheepishly for his disrespectful behavior. He’s old enough now, nearly thirty and well past the age of childish anxiety, to know they are harmless, it is harmless, but still he feels a rattle in his bones even after they have disappeared from view. He remembers the monthly service ceremony - his mother, her pleading eyes, and his frightened distress as she brought him along. Long into the night, he would be plagued with the memory of their long faces and their empty expressions, the fear and hatred in him making him feel sick with fever. 

Eventually, he grew out of this level of anguish but still his maturity and his logical reasoning do not serve as a comfort. In the numerous missionaries that occupy Indolon, he finds no refuge, no joy, somehow more sure now, in his old age, than ever of their wrongness.

His schrooning boat is docked at the base of the rocky cliff side, just below the lighthouse and pushed far away from the crowded wharf. As he makes his approach, he feels the eyes of other fishermen bore into his spine, their judgement of him, his lack of a First Mate, a crew, and his placement of his boat always deeply felt at this hour of the morning. But he does not mind. 

Since he was small, Jaebeom’s understanding of the sea, of her nature and her cruelty, has kept him at a great distance from his peers. As a child, he preferred to listen - to listen to the ocean and to watch it change, finding a deep affinity in her tumultuous loneliness. This kind of loving relationship, he thinks, has developed into a skill that keeps his family well paid, a roof over his head, and the bellies of many full. Maintaining a crew would simply distract him, his mind less on the water and more on the work of his members. 

And while he, too, might have agreed the placement of his boat against the rocks is reckless at best, it is placed where he would catch crabs as a child with his father - the best location to spot their lavender and purple shells as they eat the moss along the stones. And just below, the bright vermillion of the king crabs glittering as they sink to the ocean floor.

Stepping onto his boat, he sheds his linen jacket and cranes his head back to observe the large mast, its mainsail tied neatly at the base with a strong sailor’s knot. Rolling up his sleeves, he lets the sea breeze kiss his warm skin, heated and dewy with moisture from his walk, and watches light behind the clouds do its best to illuminate the land below. The rains will likely start soon, the hours left in the day for adequate fishing conditions dwindling, and so he hoists himself up on the shroud, untying the sail in quick, easy motions. 

Climbing up the iron ladder connected to the mast, he reaches for the rope at the center of the sail and latches his fingers, giving one large tug to set the sail free. It flaps loosely in the wind, releasing itself to its full length, and as he makes his way down in the cover of its shadow, he looks out to the lighthouse, admiring the way the tall grass is somehow more viridescent beneath the grey skies as it reaches upwards, asking for rain. Autumn is nestled in the branches of the trees, the peak summer season soon to give way to the burning gold of autumn, but as he regards the lighthouse field he finds it difficult to imagine the world any other way than this. It’s as though the earth has always been green, always been bright, too alive to ever fully be witnessed.

As he takes in the splendor of the earth, letting pleasure root itself against his ribs, he notices, rather curiously, a pile of cloth discarded amongst the rocks. Strewn carelessly across the sharp incline, the ivory cloth has been yellowed and torn, resting long forgotten in the shallows. Narrowing his eyes, he steps off the shroud and leans over the edge of his boat, glad that it is still tied to the fender and not drifting away with the sudden displacement of his weight. As he continues to look, the ivory gives way to the vitality of flesh and long limbs, and his mouth runs dry. 

‘By Deus,’ he whispers, the dread in his veins restricting the volume of his voice. ‘It’s a person.’

Limbs moving of their own accord, Jaebeom is carried back to the dock, hands working quickly to remove his boots. Gaze unwavering, he keeps his eyes on the body, transfixed and horrified, afraid of letting his eyes wander for fear of it disappearing altogether. His heart beats like thunder against his sternum, warring with too many emotions and unable to allow any one a victor. Behind the worry, the confusion, the terror, a curious sense of relief is building, a calm that would almost have him believe he is not in the process of coming undone. 

If he focuses on it, he gets the sense that this is what he has been waiting for - not just in the morning before the dawn breaks, not just in the crash of waves against his boat and their icy waters demanding his spirit, but for always. In this moment, the hollowed sensation in his heart, the sense of something long absent, is scabbing over with each breath he takes. 

Barefoot, he moves at a slow run, something like grief and hope mixing in his blood and putting a swell in the joints of his fingers. Jaebeom stifles these feelings, grounds himself in the reality that someone might be hurt, might be in need, and reminds himself, dutifully, that it is not the time to be carried away with his emotions. Still, there is a tingle at the base of his neck, an urgency that goes beyond humanitarianism, pushing him forward with exhilaration.

'Help.'

A female voice is carried on the wind, musical in its cadence and pleasurable in the way it sings its request. The ocean spray delivers it to him at the same moment the water bursts over the rocks, the sea mist rising up against his cheeks before retreating through the crevices in the earth, cooling the flush beneath his skin. Inside him, it burrows, reaching down and deep to nestle in the long empty caverns of his heart. As he moves over the rocks, carefully placing his feet to maintain his balance, he strains to hear it once more, certain it is a woman he is racing to help and she is begging to be saved. 

'Help heal.'

'I'm coming,' he calls out, voice as shaky as his legs and echoing over the ocean’s roar. 

He does his best not to cut his toes on the angular shards that have been eroded over years of rough sea water, but with each step he takes the water rises over the rocks with an aggression bordering on feral, demanding all of him within its foam. With each rush of water, he has the feeling it is reaching for his ankles, hands desperate to clutch at his person and drag him down, and down. 

Yet, the closer he gets, the more he feels as though he could weep - from joy, from desperation, from loss - and this alone is enough to make him want to rush, pushing through the erratic rhythm of his heart and beyond the lump in his chest that makes each inhale ache. Now, with a clear vision of the body, it is as though you have been spit from the ocean’s mouth, cast out for your transgressions and all the corrupted ways you have disappointed the ocean. There is tragedy in the way you are draped over the rocks, body poised at woeful angles for having displeased the gods. Now, you have been forced to greet the horror of your retribution. 

Only a few rocks away, Jaebeom allows himself a brief pause and takes you in, letting his eyes take their time in their discovery of your person. Hugging himself, he suddenly feels conflicted, as though he is learning your shapes while still becoming reacquainted with something long missed. This state of being is a paradox, and in the full emptiness of it, he has the passing sensation that he is learning the essence of love, and little else. 

Shaking himself free from his idle reverence, he takes a few steps closer and notices the silk of your dress is ruined, perhaps permanently. His jaw drops slightly at the still gleaming shine of the fabric, the most expensive silk he has ever seen. It clings to your skin, dampened and tarnished, fraying at the ripped edges but still doing its best to hold you delicately, clinging to you in the effort of keeping you safe. Something about the cut of the dress triggers a memory he cannot quite reach, a familiarity in its lines and shapes that make him recall there was a purpose behind this outfit, a reason that it is both extraordinary and unforgettable, but it vanishes from him as quickly as it came. The fog in his mind is heavy, muddling his thoughts and pulling at the edges of his concentration and he knits his brow together to keep himself grounded.

In the aftermath of this brief recollection, he bites a whine of longing burning at the back of his throat, a pathetic sound of loss, regret, mourning. Your hair spills over the rocks, eyes closed and skin bruised though not scraped to bleeding. Flickers of recognition press at him, mind racing around the image of your soft lips, the high angle of your cheekbones, and the delicate elegance found in your wrists. Struggling to recall your name, Jaebeom approaches gently, coming to a kneel at your side, unsure what to say at all.

Pressing two fingers to the pulse point in your neck, he feels a dull, yet ever present, throb of life beneath your skin and releases a breath he did not know he had been holding. Alive, though just barely and unconscious, lungs likely full of sea water. Everything about you is soft, the warmth of life fading quickly beneath his fingers and rendering you terribly fragile, and he retracts his hand for fear of his touch giving bloom to more marks along your flesh. 

Glancing around the cliff face, he looks for signs of wood, other bodies, ripped sails or bent iron, but finds nothing. No signs of shipwreck, no signs of a waiting party to receive you. You are alone in this torment, rejected by land and sea, and forced to exist within the limbo of life and death. 

Before he can stop himself, he lifts you to his chest, cradling you close as he rises to a stand. If you were awake, you would be shivering, would tremble in the chill that means to overtake your very bones, and he hurries as best he can back to his boat and the woolen blankets he keeps in case of cold summer rains. Moving quickly over the shore, he stumbles slightly, feet tripping over themselves in surprise as he feels you burrow into him, seeking warmth with a low moan, and brow furrowed in what he hopes is simply the effort of healing. 

Finally aboard once more, he takes you into the small cabin beneath the helm and tucks you into the straw bed he keeps for nights when the winds are threatening and violent, remaining on the boat in case the waves should do their best to reclaim the wood. Draping several blankets over you, he crawls close enough the heat from his chest could radiate into your skin, encouraging a rush of blood in your veins. His fingers twitch, wanting to brush stray strands of hair out of your eyes, but he presses the flat of his hand into the bed, resisting his urges. 

The medic will need to be informed. This realization hits him with a bitterness that speaks of separation, chest restricting and tightening against the air in his lungs until it hurts to breathe. Against his bones, his muscles battle the urge to hold you close and he shuts his eyes with a grimace as a headache blooms at the base of his skull. Yet, as he strains to focus in the quiet of the cabin, he is acutely aware there are no traces of your breath, no labored wheeze no even inhalation, and so he resolutely declares that he will ferry your oxygen, coming to sit up on his knees as he plugs your nose and presses his lips to yours, opening them slightly. 

Cradling your chin between his thumb and forefinger, Jaebeom exhales deeply, letting the strength of his breath travel into the limit of your lungs. Squeezing his eyes closed, he exhales for as long as he can manage, giving everything within himself to you before, all at once and all over again, he feels as though he has stepped out of himself. 

Once more, voices materialize at the back of his mind, these new sounds more like echoes that erupt from nowhere and no when, fingerprints of a bygone era carried to him on wings. Their words are a garbled mess of sounds, undeterminable cadences lacking diction or emphasis, but he hears the sound of a man, low and gentle and wondrously tender.

He hears a man, and the man is unmistakably, unfailingly, him. 

Opening his eyes, he drinks you in, and surrenders to the notion he is being conquered by the mere sight of you. One word from you, and it would be as violent as a new beginning, a great shattering of all the comforts he knows of the world. And he would welcome it, knows, as if by magic, that he has given over to it before, would give over to it again, the power in you so great only ritual could contain it.

Blinking several times to clear the shock from his mind, he quickly moves his hands to your chest and presses against your sternum in the rhythmic way his sister taught him when he announced he wanted to be a fisherman, just like their father. Her eyes had glazed over then with the memory of loss and strife, and so she laid him on the floor and promptly taught him how to save a life should the sea threaten to claim a man as her own. The muscles in his harms strains as he continues pressing, and he thinks maybe he will need to press his lips to yours once more, bracing, instinctively, for more voices to fill his head, but a rush of water bursts from between your lips and he quickly moves back, turning you to your side to let it drain completely.

Falling back on your side, you release a cough but you do not wake, the small puddle of water between you both at once threatening and sacred, a reminder that everything Jaebeom has seen and felt is real, tethered to this moment. Tethered to you. 

‘Who are you?’ he murmurs, but even as he says it, even as the words leave his mouth, he knows this is not the right question. 

In the oncoming silence, the correct words swell on his tongue, nearly tumble from his lips, but, instead, he chews the inside of his cheek, aware that the right question will insight a riot in him he is unprepared to endure. 

When Jaebeom carries you into his home, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, overtaken by the staggering weight of deja-vu. 

He’s been in this position before, holding you against him in the center of his small kitchen as the elasticity of his emotions stretches outward for an eternity. There is an awakening occurring at the very center of his soul, bursting like a new star as its white heat slithers down his spine. Glancing down at you, your soft lips, your closed eyes, and your limp frame, held so closely to him, he feels the earth move beneath his feet, the shifting tectonics of his life all leading to this single moment. 

Shaking his head, he releases himself from this, moving to his bedroom with focused steps as he places you in his bed. Igniting the oil lamps, he works quickly to bathe you in warm light, covering you with his down comforter before moving to the furnace tucked in the corner of the room. In summer, he keeps little coal and kindling but he uses the last of the brush wood he’s saved from the recent winter to ignite a small fire that burns red and gold behind the latched closing.

He regards your still form with a frown, running a hand through his hair in distress and grits his teeth. The last several days have been almost unbearably hot, but it seems August’s heatwave has been broken by the cool wind of the day, the overall gloom breaking the humidity and blocking the sun from her usual path. Of all days, it pains him that this would be the day the sea released you from her clutches, sent you from the cold depths of her darkness back to the shore where the sun refused to keep you. 

From his kitchen, he takes a small linen cloth, inspecting it for cleanliness, and folds it into a long rectangle. Warming it in front of the furnace, he rotates it in circles before he feels it is sufficiently heated, just enough to ease tension in your muscles and restore heat where you need it most. It warms his hands, palms already swollen and grown clammy, room becoming relatively stuffy as he slides the cloth beneath your neck while you sleep. Already, a pink flush has begun to settle within your cheeks, the relief in him not unlike a rapture.

What will you say when you wake, he wonders. How will you sound when you look him in the eye, unsure of where you are? More importantly, he worries if you will wake at all, if perhaps the rush of blood beneath your skin is the last tour it will take before it stills altogether, heart too sluggish to keep a steady flow. The thought sends a tremor of heartbreak into the base of his spine, and a pained gasp tumbles through his lips, scorning the very notion of the thought. 

He needs an occupation to distract, needs a purpose to feel as though there is progress being made, and so he turns on his heel and grabs his coat, supposing that when you do wake, he should at least be ready.

The walk to his sister’s cottage is not long, one that he usually relishes in the spring when the path is lined with blossom trees and the foxes play around their dens, their ruddy tails bouncing amongst the high grasses. Today, his strides are long but the journey feels endless, the path reaching well beyond the limits of the land, his mind thinking only of arrival rather than enjoying the view. 

Another group of missionaries passes him along the dirt road, and he crosses to the other side to give himself space, freedom, liberation from their watchful eyes. Offering them sidelong glances, he studies the way they regard him conspicuously, whispering to one another as though he cannot hear the faint sounds of their voices, the conviction of their stares a judgement he feels with all of his body. Do they somehow know that he has found and kept a woman? Have they heard the voices too, the echoes he is resurrecting just by being near you? 

He finds he cares little for the answers to these questions, deeming their existence as something infinitely less important or significant in the light of resolute purpose. 

Byeol answers the door after three hard knocks, her face a picture of confusion that still does nothing to mar her beauty. She stands just shy of his height, one hand on the door and the other on her hip, the laugh lines along her cheeks carrying a secret smile within them. 

‘Jaebie,’ she announces, more a question than a statement. Arching a single brow, her brown eyes bore into his with the chastising admonishment only an older sibling could manage. ‘Shouldn’t you be fishing?’

Jaebeom nods, a noncommittal gesture of affirmation, and presses his way through the doorway, past her slight frame. He wastes no time slipping off his boots as he fumbles for an explanation. 

‘Sorry for the unexpected arrival,’ he mumbles, only partially apologetic. ‘Something’s…’ his voice drifts away, eyes looking everywhere but her face as he searches for the right words. To tell the truth means he must tell the whole truth, unable to hide anything from her, and so he settles for one single, vague word. ‘Happened,’ he says, finally.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Byeol’s eyes widen, hands raising to gently cup his face in her palms. Satisfied he is whole, they run down his shoulders to his arms, searching. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, no.’ He pulls himself from her grasp, hands raised in surrender, offering her a sheepish smile of amiable regret. ‘Nothing like that. I, uh, need to borrow some of your clothes.’

She takes a single step back, brow knit together in bewilderment. A myriad of emotions pass over her face, and Jaebeom does his best to count them all, the youth of her features rising and falling between her fear, her amusement, her apprehension. Eventually, she settles on curiosity as her eyes rake him up and down, one hand resting on her chest, perplexed yet surprised.

Rolling his eyes, he turns away from her and moves through her home, heading towards the wooden staircase. ‘They’re not for me.’

Byeol follows close behind, hot on his heels. ‘You’re telling me you…’

There’s too much excitement in her voice, the sound and volume of it making him close his eyes as if bracing for a storm. In one fluid motion, she rounds in front of him to block his path, eyes wide in delight as she makes an inappropriate gesture with her hands. 

‘No!’ he scolds, though he finds he must swallow the early threads of a laugh. ‘Not that either.’

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he feels a slight flush creep into his cheeks as she giggles in childish glee. Gently easing her to the side, he continues up the stairs with heavy thuds of his feet. It always amazes him how easily, and how quickly, Byeol can manipulate the atmosphere in the room, her energy always barely contained and always terribly infectious. Questions are burning at the back of her throat, and she follows closely behind, the bounce in her step echoing around the house behind him. 

Just like their mother, she will not let this go until she is satisfied, will not let him leave until she has received at least one answer, and so he releases a silent sigh as he reaches the landing, turning down the hall towards her room. He should be commended, he thinks, for the bravery he must assume to endure her interrogation.

‘There’s a woman -’ he begins slowly, only to be cut off.

‘You bastard!’ she exclaims delightedly, slapping his shoulder blade with enough force to make him stumble. 

She takes his slight hesitation as an opportunity to run ahead of his once more, the glee in her eyes wild and bright, a look he once found vindictive in their youth. Spreading her arms wide, she presses her hands into the frames of her bedroom doorway, full of impish joy as she stares him down. The love he feels for her blurs together with his frustration, the affection in him rising like a tide.

‘Would you stop?’ he pleads, though now he does not bother to stop his laugh. ‘I just need some stays. A chemise and some trousers, too, if you have them.’ 

Standing to her full height, she raises her head elegantly, full of self-importance and authority, swallowing her smile for a serious expression of warning. ‘You can borrow them on the grounds that you give me her name.’

Exasperated, he looks away, letting his gaze move to the side and into the small rectangle that is Sun Hee’s room. It’s messy, the bed unmade and several books piled onto their mother’s antique rocking chair. Atop the books, her stuffed crochet kitten rests, presiding over the chaos like a queen. Along the walls, sepia portraits of his mother and father hang beside cross-stitch pieces his sister did while pregnant: one a rabbit, another a bundle of wild flowers, one a vestige of the sea. In the center of the wall, above her small wrought iron bed, a portrait of her father is framed and hung, the frame a silver gilded edge that catches all the light, even when the clouds threaten to block the sun.

When he looks once more at his sister, he sees how his silence and avoidance has riled her further, her wry grin returned once more with all its damning inquisitiveness.

‘Do I know her?’ she presses, narrowing her eyes.

He shakes his head, and offers a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘No,’ he explains, ‘I actually don’t know it.’

Jaw dropping, she reaches forward once more and slaps his arm. ‘Jaebie!’

Dropping his head, he presses his fingers into his eyes and wishes, with all of him, that her assumptions of his perpetual loneliness and solitude were not such a concern. Wishes, more than anything in this moment, that Sun Hee did not frequently ask for an auntie to play with, her lack of a father rendering her wishes for a sibling obsolete. For any other man on Indolon, a woman in his home, let alone his bed, would hardly be news, would hardly warrant any discussion at all, but Byeol has watched him try, and fail, over the years to find a woman who loves as ardently, as openly, as intensely as he does. 

She has watched him resort to his life by the sea, watched him spend days alone on his boat, returning at sunset and smelling of brine and salt. All her life she has watched and she has worried, alluding to the full weight of her concern only in jest.

‘Can I please just have them?’ he groans weakly.

Lowering her arms from the doorway, she steps to the side and welcomes him through. ‘Yes,’ she acquiesces. ‘Take what you need from the closet, but this isn’t over. And be quick, I’m on my way out.’

Jaebeom tosses her a silent expression of gratitude over his shoulder, moving through her room with quick steps. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks, sliding open her wardrobe and taking things he knows she keeps but does not often wear, certain she will not miss them. ‘Isn’t Sun-hee already at school.’

Byeol moves behind him, gathering her headscarf from atop her bed and tying it with a hum of confirmation. ‘I’m going to Mala Green’s. Her husband’s ship was meant to port two days ago. It never made it.’ 

Jaebeom stills, clothes draped haphazardly over his arm as he turns to greet her eyes. Together, they regard one another in silence, a cold chill seeming to overtake the room. He remembers the look he sees in her eyes now, remembers the bone deep anxiety and the way she did not sleep for weeks, not even months. In a single moment, it is four years ago and they are both bereft.

‘The Pyxis?’ he murmurs, remembering how he and his sister and his niece, and all the town had watched it sail away from port eight months ago, waving until it disappeared from the horizon. 

She nods minutely, a small motion almost imperceptible had he not been watching her intently, looking down at her hands where she nervously picks at her fingernails. ‘She is thinking the worst.’ 

Dropping the clothes to the bed, Jaebeom takes a few strides and comes to stand before his sister. Letting his hands rest on her shoulders, his thumbs press idle, reassuring circles into her muscles, hoping his expression looks hopeful, at least. ‘It could just be delayed.’

Taking in a shaking breath, Byeol nods but does not lift her eyes to his, gaze trained instead on the unsteady  motions of her hands.‘We always like to think that, but…’ Falling quiet, she glances towards her vanity, a distant expression of longing painting her features. He knows she is looking at her wedding photo, but he does not mention it. ‘A woman always knows, doesn’t she?’ she finishes, finally looking at him with an empty smile.

And just like that, in the length of the shallow stretch of her lips, they fall back in time to Port Vela. She clutched his hand as the Aquila departed, the strength in her grip enough to turn both their knuckles white. The intensity of this touching reminded him that to love is to open the heart to grieving, that to love means to welcome the notion of losing, and so he pressed his fingers against hers with the same force, joining her in solidarity. 

Even before the missionaries declared him dead, she knew he was lost. The tears she shed in childbirth were not those of bodily trauma but those of heartbreak, once more holding his hand and begging for him to tell her why Dong Hyun wasn’t there with her, why the missionaries were forcing her to believe he was still alive. She said it hurt to know they were teasing with the heart of a widow, that moment perhaps the last time he ever feigned trust in the gods and their mortal vessels. 

Dong Hyun had left to deliver a group of missionaries from a nearby port, and they were angry for weeks at their failed return, citing a growing population that needed more help. Jaebeom never knew why they didn’t come to the funeral, his sister and his newborn niece crying in unison against an empty coffin while he pressed his feet into the wet grass. He wanted them to see what their selfishness had done, the rage in him putting a sheen of sweat on his neck, the most angry he had ever been. 

‘He’ll be okay,’ he states, pulling them both out of the darkness of their thoughts. ‘They will all be okay.’

It’s a nice thing to say, he thinks, something that sounds reassuring and optimistic, but he wonders, quietly in the back of his mind, to whom he is offering this confidence.

Byeol startles slightly, eyes glassy and slightly glazed over with memory as she takes him in. ‘Yes, well,’ she begins, stepping out his hold to gather her things. ‘It will be good to be there for her.’

Jaebeom watches her move towards the door, hands balled into fists and pressing his nails into his palms. It’s more visceral now, somehow more tangible than ever, the unease he feels when he thinks about their blue cloaks - their endless, royal blue. 

‘Launder those when you’re done please,’ she says, coming to a halt and pointing her long index finger at the clothes piled on the bed. ‘I don’t want to be wearing any of your remains -’

Jaebeom’s eyes widen, the spell of his thoughts broken by Byeol’s teasing giggle. ‘Byeol!’

She simply steps into the hallway and moves down the stairs, her laughter carrying through the house as though the sadness had never been let in. 

It was only when you said you were leaving, announcing the date of your expected departure with wild eyes and ink stained hands, that he thought maybe, horribly, he had not told you he loved you enough. 

You showed him the boarding papers, the crew notes, the bonds list and you were laughing, disbelieving that good fortune could shine on the persistent. Years of work had culminated in this opportunity, and you could not tear your eyes away from the King’s signature, it’s black script so formal you pressed your fingers to your lips to hide the ferocity of your smile. He loved you most then, burning in silence and struggling to find the right way, the best way, to tell you that his love for you demanded he become monstrous, too many hearts in his chest to contain the totality of this wanting.

‘It will be the longest we’ve ever been apart,’ you said, chancing a look at him, and the briefest flickers of grief walked across your face. In an instant, you tucked them away, smoothed your smile over and put the light back in your eyes, hiding from him the very thing that could bring him to his knees.

‘I’ll send a hawk to woo you,’ he offered, the smile tugging at his lips only half genuine, only half true. 

He was certain you knew it, too, but you simply chuckled, arched one perfect brow and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

‘You’ve already done that.’

He only had a week to show you that he loved you beyond reason, beyond the human capacity for emotion. One week, and you would be gone, drifting away from him at sea, and he would be waiting, always waiting. 

‘Then I’ll do it again.’

Again and again he would do his best to win you over, holding you tightly against his chest and reminding you there was nowhere as safe, nowhere as sacred as against his skin, against his heart. You leaned up to kiss him, always eager and impatient for the things you wanted most, but he breathed against your lips, let your twin exhales unify your heartbeats and reminded himself that you were still here.

He could feel you. You were still there.

Jaebeom wakes with a start, hairline dampened with warmth, stress, and confusion. 

The dawn breaks through the sheer curtains of his bedroom window, the heat in the room oppressive and stifling as the embers within the furnace strain to match the gleam of the sun. Curled in a ball atop the lambskin carpet at the foot of his bed, the joints of his knees and elbows are aching, having been forced into one position too long. Tentatively, he stretches his limbs with a low groan, elongating his back against the floor and does his best to remain quiet in his relief. 

When he’d returned home, you were still sleeping. Unchanged and in the exact position he had left you, a brief anxiety overtook him at the sight of your too relaxed face and the weakness in your limbs. There was a fragility in you that frightened him, a treacherous sort of quiet that promised great annihilation consuming the room and reaching down, deep within his ribs, compressing his lungs. He would have shed tears for you, would have unleashed an expression of grief so holy and so silent it would have broken worlds - but you moaned, almost regal in your suffering, and, for a moment, he was weightless.

In the tense tranquility that followed he slumped into the reading chair beside his bookcase, head buried in his hands, and sighed. With his eyes closed, he could pretend things had not changed, that he was still himself, that he still belonged to himself. It was as though there were two of him, battling within his blood - the one that knew nothing, that craved the assurance and predictable simplicity inherent in the life he had built for himself. 

But the other is violent, a torrent against his bones reminding him this life is not his, that you are his life, and the passion in him is pushed into madness at the notion of not being able to follow where you have gone.

‘All this?’ he lamented into the rough skin of his palm. ‘All this over the desire to be loved?’

The moon was midway through its journey across the sky when he fell asleep, nestling into the rug at the foot of your bed - at your feet, though still giving you the distance, giving himself the distance. And all night he had seen you, felt you, let his whole world become enamored with you.

Pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, he groans, letting the dark become coloured with reds, whites, and purples under the pressure. Rustling from somewhere in the room makes his heart stutter in its rhythm, motions still and muscles tense with the effort of not moving, simply listening. His is not the only breath in the room, and when he takes his hands away from his eyes, his vision adjusts to see you - your face framed by your hair as you lean over the bed, regarding him curiously. 

Startled, Jaebeom sits up, head dizzy with the sudden movement, and he presses a hand to his temple though he does not close his eyes, fearing he might still be dreaming. A dark night lives in your irises, hungry for everything that comprises his very being, and even as he lets his vision focus, lets himself recline into the intensity of your stare, he feels as though you are burning inside him, tearing your way through his sinew, the most voracious thing he’s ever seen. You regard him, unblinking, studying every detail and nuance of his features with tension in your brow and parted lips. 

Briefly, he wonders how long it has been since someone looked at him like this, looked at him as though he is both the universe’s greatest secret and its most coveted answer.

‘You’re awake,’ he manages, throat dry and voice constricting beneath such coveted attention.

Instantly, he curses himself for such a simple and obvious statement. All night he had imagined hundreds of first conversations with you, knowing his first words with you would ultimately be the most important, and already he has betrayed himself. You’ve taken all the power from him, left him in such a state of shock, he supposes his words have withered, nothing in the world as sacred as your eyes on him. 

But the smile you offer him at the sound of his voice could combat the sun, the world brightening around the fullness of your cheeks and the pleasure you keep at the corner of your lips, like a secret. A blush burns at the tips of his ears, and he is glad it does not immediately live in his cheeks, pleased he has learned, somehow, to not give himself away all at once. 

‘I am,’ you nod in affirmation. A chill walks down Jaebeom’s spine, the sound of your voice an echo of his dreams, exactly as he heard it all night long. ‘You found me.’

Seconds stretch between your bodies, an infinite eternity between your last syllable and his first breath, his eyes on yours like a pledge of loyalty. 

‘Were you looking for me?’

Hope invades his words without his permission, helpless against their desire to be the thing you sought most, to be lucky enough to be your prize. His fingers press into the soft strands of the carpet beneath him, and he watches as you fall back against your legs, shoulders slumped as you look around the room. All at once, emptiness overtakes you, the light in your eyes dimming as you search within yourself for an answer.

‘I don’t know,’ is your whispered reply. Looking at him once more, he feels as though you are rooting within his soul, continuing the expedition within him. But still, you are lost, voice adrift and lost at sea. ‘I can’t remember.’

He smiles encouragingly, wanting you to know, more than anything, that it is okay. For himself, he reminds you both that everything is okay.

Inching along the carpet, he clears his throat as he rests his arms on the bed, gazing up at you as though he is making wishes on the moon. He wants to be close to you - more than he’s ever wanted anything, Jaebeom wants to be in your orbit, close enough he could taste the salt that still lingers on your skin. Biting his tongue, he swallows all his rushed, messy emotions and clears his throat, choosing instead the words of logic, the words of practicality. 

‘What is your name?’

Little by little, your smile slowly fades, burned by this simple question. Still, you remain calm, perplexed and unsure of how much of you has truly been misplaced. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s okay,’ he reassures you gently. ‘My name is Jaebeom.’ In saying his name, he waits for a flicker of recognition, a response that would confirm all he has spent the night feeling, but you simply regard him blankly, glad for the conversation. Shaking his head, he sighs. ‘How did you get here?’ he tries, keeping his voice calm so you find no reason to panic or run.

Now, your smile disappears completely and all that is left behind is you, your sadness, and the way it clings to your body like a shadow. The smallness of you in this moment puts an ache in his chest that feels like an inheritance - something he has been owed, that you owed one another having vanished in the completeness of your unknowing, and, together, you grieve. With a slow shake of your head, you confirm there is a void surrounding the nature of your being and the reason for your arrival, and the longer he looks the more he sees how this torments the deep desire that quakes inside you.

He knows nothing of you, knows only that you are here and you are tangible and you are emptied, but still he can sense you are a wild, impossible beast of a woman. The storm in you could tear the world asunder, and so he tries a different tactic, choosing to ask what is felt rather than what can be recalled, wanting to hold onto as much of you as he possibly can.

‘Are you hurt?’

For a long moment, you consider his question, as if thinking through the concept of hurt, the very notion of it, rather than the truth of it. Running his eyes over your frame, he notices that some bruises on your arms have already faded, as if the midnight sky was your healer. You are far healthier and far more whole than the person he found yesterday, but there is a strangeness to the way you look at him, to the way you think through his questions that gives him the passing sensation that you are not there at all.

He fears, all the way down to his marrow, that if he were to look away, you would disappear completely.

‘It does hurt, yes,’ you admit finally. Offering him a small nod of confirmation, your eyes grow wide as though you yourself are surprised by the experience, the ability to truly hurt a clandestine experience.

Jaebeom had feared this. Always, the most lethal of wounds are the ones not worn on the skin. ‘Where?’

Slowly, you lift a hand to your chest, right above your heart. Pain etches itself on your face, the turmoil of bewilderment and confusion, the misery of things long lost, making a home of your soft features. He watches your brow knit together as you regard him, a slight downturned frown tugging at your lips as you silently beg him for answers. 

Reaching a hand forward, his fingertips nearly graze the smooth skin of your knee, exposed between the ripped threads of your silk dress. When he’s close enough he can feel the warmth from your skin, he remembers himself, retreating back to curl his hand into a fist.

‘Did a man hurt you?’ 

He hates the way the words taste, sour and acrid on his tongue, but he supposes this dress is your wedding gown and he’s seen more than his fair share of broken hearts around town. This, of course, would be the worst he has ever seen, but he chooses not to worry you further, keeping his voice soothing and calm.

‘No,’ you shake your head, looking beyond him into a distance that is both contained within and expanding outward. ‘Not one,’ you continue with a dark whisper. ‘Many.’

Jaebeom does not think himself a man prone to violence or aggression but, in a single moment, he feels his heart is a weapon. His spine straightens as he rears back slowly, relying entirely on the support of the floor beneath him. His hands are no longer his own, knuckles taught with the desire to tear his way through flesh and sinew. There is no limit to the monstrous creatures he would face standing up for you; he’s burning, fully ablaze alongside you, and it surprises him how quickly kindness can burn away.

‘We can report it when you are well enough,’ he announces, clearing his throat in the effort of remembering himself. As much as he would go to battle for you, he similarly does not want to frighten you. ‘When you remember the details we can report it. They won’t get away with it.’

Shoulders relaxing, your hand falls away from your chest as you find comfort in his words, and a small sense of pride prickles at his ears and neck. With anyone else, he’d be sheepish that he is giving himself and his emotions away so quickly with you, but he can’t help it, he thinks. Not when you look at him like this, like he’s the part of summer you’ve been anticipating most and are pleased by the mere sight of him. People don’t look at him like this, especially the people he wishes would look at him and want to continue the mere act of seeing him. You make him feel like someone, and he is more with you than he ever has been on his own. 

Keeping your eyes on his, you shift so you rest on your hands and knees, crawling across the bed towards him. Jaebeom leans back, pushes himself away from the bed and it is only when the heat from the still burning furnace threatens to sear his chemise that he pauses, looking over his shoulder to pout at the proximity. Your hand presses against his foot, stopping his movements and he returns his focus to you once more, all breath and blood flow halted in his veins. 

You’ve climbed off the bed, settled on the floor with your hand on him and a glimmer behind your eyes that says you know he has longed to be touched. Has he been real before this moment? Has he truly existed until the moment you placed your hand on his skin, a paradoxically cold warmth that sends a chill up his legs and into his groin. Until this moment, he has been afflicted with the strangest sense of object permanence, but only of himself - himself and his relation to you, the only thing that has ever truly mattered.

‘You won’t come close to me,’ you explain, sounding terribly sad.

Deflating, he leans forward and places his hand on yours, finally, running his thumb along your knuckles. The salt from the sea has turned your skin into the softest thing he’s ever touched, and he applies just enough pressure to remind himself you are tangible, real, present. 

There’s something familiar and, simultaneously, ephemeral about the way his hand moves over yours. He finds it impossible to look away as he explains, ‘I wanted to give you space.’

‘I’ve had enough,’ you counter, and the sharpness in your words has him taking in your lips, your cheeks, your face in wonder. You are every bit the tempest he knew you would be, and he smiles, amused and gladdened by your confident vehemence.  

Pulling your hand out from under his, you raise it to the side of his face, tucking strands of hair behind his ear and letting your fingers glide along his cheekbone. The intimacy leads him, momentarily, to believe that he is completely naked, exposed to you in all the ways that could truly break him. Once more, he feels you searching within him for something you can almost grasp. Words live and die on his tongue, answers he too craves fading before he has the chance to truly process them.

You are unified in this complex looking, the act of remembering both a mysterious and a fact.

‘You’re familiar to me.’ Cocking your head to the side as you speak, the childlike curiosity you exude has him pressing his hands into the carpet, reminding himself it is still too early to take hold of you, too early to hold you against his heart as he had done in his dream.

‘Have we met before?’ he offers gently.

Excitement colours you, has you straightening as you pull your hand from his skin. ‘Do you know me?’

It’s his turn to shake his head, his turn to smother hope with little disappointments. ‘No.’

‘Then I suppose not.’ 

With a slight shrug, you return your hand once more to the side of his face, palm cupping his cheek to trace the contour of the bone. Little by little, your eyes soften and a silent yearning overtakes your features. Jaebeom wants to tell you everything when you look at him like that. Things he’d never breathe to another person, things he had long since forgotten rise up in his throat and he nearly chokes on them, wanting you to have absolutely everything.

Running your thumb over his bottom lip, a blissful sigh escapes from the center of your chest, eyes slightly glazed as you luxuriate in the texture of his skin beneath your finger. ‘I don’t mind, though. I like looking at you.’ 

How like a child he feels when he is with you - suddenly restless and impatient and young, the boundaries and the calculated logic he has spent years cultivating in his adulthood dissolving the moment he learns you are pleased with him. In his dream, he somehow knew your kisses were a hurricane, all raindrops and wild winds that made his skin feel electric. The way you seem to tear through him now is a confirmation he was correct, the summer in you so immaculate he thinks it is always the bloom of July in your soul.

Were he to look elsewhere in the room, he is certain it would be a betrayal - the treachery of looking away from the gods’ sky. Jaebeom is calmed by the sight of you, the anxious itch in the back of his mind dormant simply because you have decided he is worthy of being adored. He wonders where he has been looking all this time, if he has truly seen anything at all until this moment, the colours of the world infinitely more rich because of how you choose to wear them. 

Clearing his throat, he looks briefly at your hand where it holds his foot like a cross and trembles. ‘I like looking at you, too.’ It feels so silly and unimpressive, repeating your words back like a parrot, but he means it - there is more conviction in those small words than any other promise he has ever made and, when he looks at you again, he hopes you can feel it.

Your answering smile is so rich and full, he finds his thoughts are rendered unintelligible, and so he lowers his gaze to the ripped dress that does its best to maintain the echo of its former shape.  

Clearing his throat, he slowly pulls his foot out from your grip, skin tingling from the loss of contact. The warmth from your hand still lingers, and he frowns, regretting his decision even through his commitment to the choice. Pressing his hands to the floor, he rises to stand and brushes off his trousers, looking for ways to keep his hands busy.

‘Can you stand?’ You look up at him, expectant and congenial. ‘Are your legs strong enough?’

Copying his earlier movements, you press your hands into the floor and, unsteadily, lift yourself to a stand. For a moment your knees wobble, but you keep your eyes on his, shoulders rolling back as you take in a slow inhale. Finding your balance takes focus, brow knotted together with the effort of standing on weakened muscles, but you keep your feet planted, hands spread at your sides to aid in maintaining your center of gravity. And when you stand, stable and sure, at your full height, you nod proudly, delighted you have surprised yourself.

‘Good.’ The most natural thing in the world, he finds, is praising you; a long dormant habit awakening once more ‘I’m actually not sure what I’d done if you couldn’t,’ he admits sheepishly.

Amidst your infectious giggle, Jaebeom finally has an opportunity to truly take in the state of your clothes. He wonders what torment you have seen, what hell you’ve walked through that has torn the silk and chiffon down to the essence of their threads. The bodice hugs your waist, but the whalebone corset is torn at the ribs, threatening to expose your skin. There will be no saving the sleeves that hang limply off your shoulders, falling behind your back like a ragged cape. Sea water has stained the silk to a tarnished, bleak yellow, the sand of the seabed nestled deep within the folds of your skirts. 

Still, too much of your skin is visible to him. The skirts have pulled away from the bodice and a large portion of your thigh remains bare, the other leg free of clothing from the ankle to just above your knee. Standing before him, he sees you as a survivor of a slaughter that bore no claws, and he aches to pull you close, to keep you safe, to remind you that you are whole.

Perhaps, he thinks, the reminder is mostly for himself.

‘I brought you some clothes,’ he announces gently. Gesturing vaguely to the wardrobe in the opposite corner, his nerves get the better of him, words becoming bashful. ‘You look like the size of my sister, so they should fit.’ Running a hand through his hair and gripping the strands to alleviate the tension in his wrists, he pulls himself out of your orbit and heads toward the wardrobe.  ‘We need to go into town anyway to see the medic, so I can get you some if these don’t fit properly. I just…’ 

Opening the doors, he pulls out the clothes he borrowed from his sister- stays for night time, two pairs of trousers, a woolen skirt he remembers buying for his sister one solstice that she has never worn, and three chemises he hopes will fit you. He lays them out delicately on the bed, arranging them into outfits he hopes you find comfortable. Fixating on the trousers, he looks at them too long as his stomach drops. Indolon is one of the few islands where women wear trousers, their propensity for skirts just as enthusiastic and common. He hops the sight of them will not offend you.

‘Thank you.’ Approaching the bed with light, careful steps, the smallness of your voice does little to mask your immense gratitude, hands coming to graze the myriad of fabrics he has selected. 

Something about the feel of them between your fingers astounds you, a stunned silence turning adding a weight to the room that did not previously exist. 

‘These are beautiful.’ Your hand moves to the skirt, the difference in its texture putting a glee in your eyes that makes his heart swell. ‘Thank you for caring for me,’ you finish, finally looking up at him once more.

Time bleeds past him as he falls into you, falls beyond himself and into a love that consumes him. Around your body, light seems to vibrate, uncertain how to hold you and so it holds all of you, and none of you, at once, bending around your back until he wonders if the very nature of this conversation is merely an illusion. Should he look away, he worries you would vanish, that he might forget, and so he steps near enough that he might touch you. 

Keeping his hands forced at his sides, he drowns momentarily in his wanting before he speaks. ‘Anyone would do it.’

Lowering the skirt, you reach up to cup his face, forcing him to look at you. A shiver walks down his spine, followed swiftly by an unfamiliar heat in his blood as you speak. ‘I don’t remember much of the world, but I do remember that is not true. Not everyone would do as you have done.’ You lean into him, close enough your breaths touch between your bodies, his entire existence narrowing to this single moment. ‘I’m grateful for you.’ 

All of him craves giving in to the boundless lust that rages within his chest, memories of his dream resurfacing to haunt his bones. There were other memories within that dream, memories of your body wrapped beneath his, memories of your lips and the way you always pressed hard against his mouth, ensuring he would feel you long after you had departed. Jaebeom wants to live in those memories now, wants to force them into his reality so badly his hands and his sides start to shake.

But in those memories, lives the texture of your skin and the way his fingers have mapped every node of your spine. And it is only when he recalls the distant blur of this experience, so foreign to him it is as though it belongs to someone else, that he remembers there is nowhere in his home for you to undress.

When he had selected this house by the sea, he had assumed his life would contain the dawn, the dusk, the ocean, and little else in between. His home is merely one large square, the kitchen bleeding into his open bedroom and the sitting area tucked into corners he felt would be comfortable. There is, fundamentally, no element of privacy, and this is the only thing, he thinks, that gives him the strength to pull away - the desire to keep you comfortable and to be polite his only saving grace.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, taking one small step back. It is enough for his head to become clear, enough for the sadness in your eyes at the separation to not sting like a bullet. ‘I can leave you to change.’ 

He moves around you, not really certain what he would say should you inform him you will need assistance with your bodice and corset. They are torn enough and ruined enough he imagines they will not be a problem, but the mere idea of his fingers accidentally caressing the smooth expanse of your back puts a tightness in his chest the magnitude of which has him both frightened and bewildered. 

Jaebeom does not want people like this, certainly does not want them this badly and with this much conviction, and so he walks through the bedroom and into the kitchen, the cool metal of the doorknob a balm against his skin. And it is only when he is outside, eyes closed as he lets the breeze overtake his heart, his spirit, his soul, does he feel like himself once more.

It is only when he is in an entirely different location, far enough away from you he cannot feel you, that he remembers to breathe.

The walk to town, by your side, is among the most eventful experiences of his life. 

Having roamed the island roads all his life, he has grown used to the view, the unchanging scenery resulting in him finding it to be rather dull and grey. He cannot remember the last time he saw this world with fresh eyes, the last time he took in the trees, the slope of the land and felt joy - the last time this world brought him pleasure. You however, combat the very essence of his ennui with your inherent enthusiasm, taking in every sight and every sound as if it is, not the first time you have witnessed them but, the first time you have reunited with them after many years away. 

In you, a language of reconciliation is being cultivated - one that only you will be able to understand, and one that makes Jaebeom cast you curious side long glances as you press your hands together in consternation. Your scrutiny of each detail slows the walk considerably, your presence somewhat distant and hollow as you struggle to define the essence of familiarity within you. Each time, it fades miserably and quickly, leaving you momentarily disheartened only for new wonder to replace the frustration once more. 

Through you, he begins to see the town as something eternal, something so long lasting and sacred that, even if it is forgotten, it is still unchanged and important enough to be missed. Selfishly, he ponders what place he held in your old life, if he held any place at all, aware that, sometimes, you look at him with this same questioning fixation. In his own life experiences, you appear missing, but the way you look at him and touch him assures a small, needy piece of his heart that he is remembered, and therefore not ephemeral. 

Still, he is certain you have been here, on Indolon, that this is your home and nowhere else. Having decided to forgo the shoes he had taken from his sister in favor of your bare feet, claiming it felt more natural to feel the earth beneath your toes, your steps are confident as you walk. Your eyes take everything in with too much intensity, but your steps are sure, certain of the placement and used to the cracks and the gravel that line the journey. When you are not focused on a building, a face, a view, you do not follow behind him. Instead, you are perhaps just a hair’s breadth ahead of him, relaxed in your inherent certainty. 

‘Is any of this triggering your memory?’ he quietly tries, hoping he does not completely disrupt your train of thought.

‘Yes, but at the same time no.’ Your lips continue moving even as your voice dies, murmuring mysteriously to yourself as you look around. ‘It’s like I’ve seen this before in a dream, but then anything can look like anything if you want it to badly enough.’ Offering him a sly smirk, you peer up at him through your eyelashes. ‘I still like looking at you the most, though.'

Heat paints pink smears along his cheeks, and he glances down to his feet momentarily to smile at himself, flattered and, helplessly, twitter-patted. With you beside him, so close, his fingers dig into the pockets of his coat, gripping the cloth in the effort of stifling the desire to reach for your hand.

'Thank you,' he begins, his smile unwilling to fade. Still, he does his best to warp his features into a serious expression. 'I'm glad I'm more interesting than trees and brick.'

The music of your laugh is an eruption, the juicy fullness of it breaking over his tongue and filling his mouth with unprecedented gladness. You are unshy with your laughter, endearingly liberal and letting it echo through the air, demanding everyone hear your pleasure. Jaebeom swallows thickly, feeling almost as though he can taste you on the wind, in his mouth, and he holds his breath wanting to keep you inside him just a moment longer.

'I'm serious,' you tease, nudging into his side

Passing the field of pink and blue wildflowers, you become transfixed by a group of small children playing amongst the grass. Holding hands, they jump and dance in a circle, their laughter interrupting the song they are singing in broken unison. He recognizes the nursery rhyme of Ciperion immediately, remembering how his sister and some of the older children would make him play this game with them, dancing in a circle until the song ended and they had to remain completely still. Always, one of his sister's older friends, usually the boy she had a crush on, would play Ciperion, choosing a victim to steal away from the group. Only then would the circle continue dancing over and over until only one player remained and they had to outrun Ciperion to win.

He chuckles at the memory, how petulant he always felt at being the first one out - always, and without fail. Now, he realizes it was merely because of his strong reaction to being taken that made it more entertaining for his sister's friends, his cries and yells something they would tease him about for days.

‘What are they singing?’ you ask softly, interrupting his thoughts.

Jaebeom hears your voice and looks to his side, finding you are no longer with him. Turning, he finds you have come to a halt alongside the edge of the field, watching the children with a dark fascination that runs a chill down his spine.

He approaches you slowly, looking between the children and you, finding the tether of your fixation to be unbreakable. ‘The song of Ciperion,' he explains gently. 

When you look at him again, your inquisitive expression is marred by such a sincere sense of aloneness his throat runs dry. Your prying eyes demand more from him, demand explanations and answers, so greedy and so painfully hopeful he wonders what the word wounded in you. 

‘It’s an old urban legend on the island,’ he begins, looking back at the children who have now stilled, a little girl roaming behind the group with her hands raised like claws. ‘Everyone knows it, primarily because we grow up hearing it from friends or parents. It’s really just a ghost story. Parents tell it to make sure their children don’t go too far near the shore if they can’t see them, and kids tell it amongst friends just to see who is the most brave.’

Mystified, you keep your eyes on the group of children. ‘And it’s a song?’ 

He shakes his head, meeting your eyes on the raised arms and laughing faces of the children, hoping this contact of just your twin gazes is a comfort. ‘Not really, no. It’s a story, but it’s so old it’s become a nursery rhyme.’

‘Tell me.’

Jaebeom hums, trying to remember the way his mother told him this story when he was small. ‘Centuries ago, there was a ship called Ciperion that was meant to arrive at Port Vela.’

At the word Ciperion, you bristle, eyes widening slightly, though if in terror or recognition he cannot tell.

‘It was commissioned by the King, back when there were Kings,’ he continues, watching your reactions in the corner of his eye. ‘In those days, it was the fastest ship ever created, and had been assigned one of the largest crews - they called it the jewel of the sea. The crew was composed of experts in every field - cartography, cosmology, anthropology - and the ship’s sole mission was exploration.’

When you finally look at him, the heat from your gaze puts a fire in his veins, the sheer fervor and earnestness of your attention making him shudder. Swallowing thickly, he continues. 

‘Legend says that they reached an island and saw how corrupt the Indolon King had been, how far reaching his power and torment really was.’ In the field, a little boy is taken by a young Ciperion, his scream of surprise mingling with the relieved laughter of the other children. ‘They rushed home to stop him from destroying their land, but the ship never made it. No one knew where the ship had gone, especially because the waters had been calm the night of their intended arrival.’

‘So they all perished?’ Even as the words leave your mouth, your focus turning back to the children, he knows this question is not meant to be answered, a small voice in the back of his mind advising him you already know this answer. Its rhetorical nature is anguished, lost, full of a yearning he presumes no language could ever express.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jaebeom nods knowing you cannot see him, and continues. ‘The lighthouse stayed on for weeks, even on clear nights. But still, Ciperion never came back.’

The silence in you is a sea, and once more he presses his fingers in the fabric of his jacket, warring within himself to keep his hand still. Your own hands look lonely, hanging limply at your sides as though you have been defeated by something much larger, and much more complex, than just your lack of memory. As he studies your changing expression, he counts the emotions that swim over your features - anger, fury, loss, grief, and, strangely, happiness - before you settle on none of these, choosing instead to remain empty. 

But the magnitude of this choice renders you disheartened, tears pooling in your eyes, and he watches you swallow, fighting them back to the depths within your heart.

‘There’s never been any proof that Ciperion was real,’ he offers, hoping this will aid in bringing you comfort. It was never real, he supposes, and so there is no need to mourn the loss of made up things.

Yet, this consolation does not help, only serves to insight frustration, hands at your side curling into small fists as your eyes narrow. 

Looking back at the children, Jaebeom combats the ever creeping flush at his neck and ears with the rest of the story. ‘Some say that every twenty years, on the anniversary of its port date, you can see the ghost ship Ciperion sailing along the horizon, looking for ways to dock. Only if the night is clear, that is.’

‘And if it isn’t?’ you question, a bitterness biting at your words that takes him aback.

‘If it’s cloudy,’ he offers delicately, ‘the fog along the water is so thick it blocks the lighthouse altogether. It moves up from the water onto the shore, looking for ways into houses or into town as if it has a mind of its own. And if it touches land, you can hear screams in the clouds themselves.’

As if they never happened at all, as if, all along, you nothing of this story had touched a bleeding wound within you, the tears in your eyes seem to dissolve. Your hands unfurl from their fists, and a touch of pink warms your cheeks. There is contentedness all over you, and you turn to face, a pleasant smile tugging at your lips.

‘That’s a nice story,’ you say, simply, blinking up at him in genuine interest.

A laugh bursts from his chest, one that comes from nowhere at all and instead is a bark of surprise rather than a logical expression of amusement. Furrowing his brow, he laughs to himself through the fear and the confusion, waiting for your earlier expression of grief to overtake you once more. But when it does not come, when you giggle along with him merely because it is something to share rather than an honest or sincere experience of humor, he silences himself with a low grumble and kicks the stones at his feet.

‘Yes,’ he agrees quietly. ‘It’s just something we grow up hearing, but nothing ever comes of it.’

‘Is it the anniversary, then?’ You smile up at him, seeming happy to be included in a story, happy, too, to be sharing his company, and you press your bare feet into the stones, making little shapes with your toes. ‘They’re singing with so much fervor.’

‘Yeah,’ he hums in confirmation, watching you draw circles into the earth. ‘Actually, I think it’s tomorrow.’

‘And will you look for the ship?’ 

Cocking his head to the side questioningly, he studies your face as he speaks. ‘Would you like to?’

‘Are you asking me?’ you press, tilting your head to the same angle as his. The sight of you makes his breath catch, your beauty always somehow the most arresting, the most bewitching, but watching you mirror his position creates an uncanny sense of unease in his belly. ‘I’m not sure what I would be looking for,’ you finish, uncertainty lacing your tone.

‘I’m not either,’ he laments, furrowing his brow as he takes you in. There are so many things he’d like to say to you, only to you, so many things he’d like to ask, but starting feels painful, complicated, as though he’s attempting to speak a language he does not yet understand, so he swallows, drawing the same circles as you with his shoe. ‘I haven’t gone looking for it since I was a kid.’ Your circles are so clean, while his are oblong, and he is unsure why this matters, but he is excited, fundamentally, that there is so much he can learn from you. ‘The last time it was here, I was eight, and even then we didn’t see anything.’

Nodding in understanding you hum, knitting your brow together in consideration of his words. ‘It would be...fun?’

‘If you want to, we can,’ he chuckles, peering at you through his lashes, still waiting for another response of sadness, of melancholic heartbreak to rise up in you again. The legend of Ciperion stirred something in you, touched pieces of your spirit denying access to all else, and he thinks, perhaps, it is the tragedy of lost life and torn wood that triggers memories of spilled blood. Anyone would weep at the horror of this, and so he clears his throat, remembering true horrors are the ones humanity can touch.

‘But,’ he begins, loud enough the children in the field turn to look at them, worrying their play will be halted before continuing to sing once more, ‘you washed up on the rocks.’ Looking at you fully, he feels his chest tighten, remembering the shredded silk and the way your hair wound over the rocks, latching into deep crevices just to keep you safe. ‘People don’t just come from the sea. If there’s a shipwreck somewhere, we’d have to tell the medic and the council. That’s a more pressing ship to be looking for.’

Biting your lip, your eyes grow distant and glassy as you retreat inward, mind racing towards shadowed images that render your voice small and soft. ‘I don’t remember where I was before this.’

‘Sometimes that can happen with trauma,’ Jaebeom advises, and it strikes him that your admission does not bring despair, only annoyance at your failing memory.

Through all of this, not once have you expressed fear at the notion of death, unafraid for your own mortality even after the very essence of it has been threatened and challenged. It hits him now that the only time you have ever been afraid is when confronted with the notion of others experiencing a fate meant for you. One tale of a shipwreck, and so soon were you unmade into a dark beast, woven together by sorrow. 

Kicking the stones away from his feet, he tilts his head encouragingly, wordlessly advising that you continue alongside him. ‘The medic is one of my old school friends,’ he explains with a small grin, readying for Stefan’s loud laugh and teasing sarcasm. ‘He’ll be able to tell you more once he can run a few tests. You’ll like him. He’s quite funny.’

Walking beside him, there is a bounce to your step. ‘I remember that I like funny people,’ you announce, tossing him a playful smirk. ‘Maybe I will like looking at him as much as I like looking at you.’

Jealousy tightens itself around his ribs, the selfish desire for him to be the only thing that brings you pleasure rising in his throat like bile. It is an entirely new experience for him, the notion of love that one must remember its fragility, the sacredness of a lover's admiration more divine than the gods. Already, every breath he takes is heavy with you, body and soul hypnotized by your existence, and, in the effort of appearing aloof and affable, he grits his teeth through a humorless laugh.

‘Better not,’ he teases, though the jovial nature of it is almost nonexistent. As soon as he says it, he becomes upset with himself, the statement alone so preposterous and out of his character he shivers to shake the sound of it off his skin.

You, however, do not seem to notice, nudging into his shoulder once more as you continue on the journey.

Jaebeom has not seen the entirety of Isle Indolon, his ability to travel limited by his small income and the availability of everything he needs being centered to the town. However, he has never truly felt the need to explore, their small city of Sunridge Keep the capital of the island and therefore so full and bustling with activity he finds it impossible to muster the desire to leave. Orange red brick buildings decorated with limestone columns line the road, the gravel and dirt of the path turning into smooth cobblestone, warmed by the light of the blazing sun. 

Hissing slightly as your toes touch the warm stones, you pull your foot back in surprise, only to place it back down with careful movements, mind racing once more as you take tentative steps forward. Immediately, your eyes are everywhere, touching everything all at once. You are hungry for absolutely everything, reading names of shops, studying faces of strangers as they pass, watching the florist hand out daffodils from her wicker basket as though nothing has ever been so marvelous. The bread maker offers you a warm sticky bun, and you look instead to the man’s face, not to the pastry held in his large palm, studying him as though his name might arrive on your tongue.

Jaebeom guides you away, offering the vendor a dismissive wave of his hand, only to find your eyes latched onto something else. He grows light headed watching the trajectory of your focus, your wild discontent and ravenous hunger gnawing you into a frenzied state of almost savage inquisitiveness. There is not a single thing your gaze does not touch, and occasionally you stop in front of shop windows to look in, eyes searching ever deeper for something familiar. 

The center of town always smells the sweetest to Jaebeom, and so he leads you in this direction, hoping that the star shaped expanse and its wide angles will ease some of your tension. Childishly, he plans to acquire some roasted chestnuts, certain their candied deliciousness will provide you comfort even if it does not inspire remembrance. The throng of people eases as he approaches town center, the citadel bell chiming the late early hour, and you pause, looking up into the sky in awe. He’d always loved the bell tower - even if he did not trust the missionaries, even if he made himself believe it was deception that lurked behind their irises and not concern, he always appreciated their music. 

Leading you to the large fountain directly in the center of the star, he settles on the warm marble and gestures for you to sit beside him. The rushing water calms his erratic heartbeat, and, yet again, with his eyes closed he can pretend he is small, little more than a boy who belongs completely to himself and to his mother, the whim of his will the only thing that stirs his reason.

‘We have a bit of time to rest here,’ he says, leaning back and closing his eyes as the sun cascades over his skin. It warms him from within, the magic of his childhood returning on the breadth of a sunbeam. ‘I always like to sit here a while before I run my errands. One can never deny music, can they?’

Jaebeom awaits your response, what feels like his very spirit existing in anticipation of you. But when it does not come, his skin begins to tighten amidst another wave of unease, and he opens his eyes to find you have retreated so far within yourself the shock of it lives on your features.

Hands in your lap, your back is rigid and straight, gaze flicking between the citadel tower and the people mingling at its base - up and down and back again, rushing between each as though you will never have your fill, teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek. Your fingernails pick at your skin before pressing crescent shapes into your palms, adrenaline putting you in a state of anxiety so severe he finds he, too, is sitting up straight and watching the crowd for familiar faces.

‘Do you recognize something?’ It takes work to keep his voice calm and soothing, doing his best not to startle you.

‘There’s something wrong with this,’ is all you whisper, and Jaebeom scours the crowd for a sign of injury, panic, even an out of place cart, but he comes up empty, finding nothing untoward in the surroundings.

Once more, he studies every face that passes, every horse drawn carriage that moves past, wondering which of these is the culprit for your turmoil. It is only when your hand moves to his thigh, gripping tightly enough he comes to see your grip as a vice, that he notices what it is that has you so undone. 

At the base of the citadel, the crowd has started to dissipate, the smiling faces of mothers and their children departing after receiving their blessings. A group of four missionaries stands, handing out pamphlets and greeting passerby with neutral, unreadable expressions. Their royal blue cloaks catch the late morning sun, the velvet of the fabric gleaming in all their expensive glory, putting cerulean shadows on the limestone behind them. In this way, they are glowing, ephemeral visions that at once are otherworldly and oppressive, the sort of power in their light that would bring one to their knees.

As always, he shivers at the sight of them, but your grip on his leg tightens and when he looks at you again you are murmuring to yourself and he feels his jaw go slack.

‘Murderers,’ you hiss, softly enough that only he can hear but you say the word over and over, voice rising in pitch until your voice dies altogether.

You watch them, unblinking and repulsed, the fear and loathing in you so great he sees you now as a mere apparition of the woman you once were. A great tremor has started to creep through your limbs, body rocking back and forth as though you are at sea, your center of gravity warped as you continue to look and look. 

Running his hand up and down your back in an effort to calm you, Jaebeom feels his own voice start to waver. ‘What is it?’ 

You say nothing, merely shake your head, unwilling to speak for fear that they may hear you. All his question manages to do is inspire another round of mumbling, calling them murderers only to yourself and only to Jaebeom, simply because he is close enough for your voice to reach. His eyes scour the crowd for a discreet way to remove you from the fountain, looking in the direction of Stefan’s practice only to drop to a disappointed frown. In front of the pathway, at his end of the star,a group of people have gathered to inspect a vendor of Veruvian silk.

‘Murderers,’ you say again, and this time it is loud enough that a young boy passing by hears your voice, his eyes widening in surprise. 

Jaebeom grimaces apologetically, waving the boy along as he pulls you into his side, holding you close. Even in his state of panic, his heart breaks that this should be the first time he holds to him, the first time you would be able to remember, the comfort his arms reduced to merely a time and a place, and not a feeling. The trembling in your muscles is palpable, tangible enough his hands feel as though they are gripping something monstrous, something absolute in its knowledge and power. In a single moment, you have become something Other, shaking against his ribs with enough violence he fears you may tear the marble of the fountain asunder. Your hand leaves his thigh and comes to grip your seat, fingers pressing against the stone until your knuckles turn white. 

He’s certain the missionaries must see you, certain this will turn into something holy and something wholly unwelcome, but they seem to pay you both no mind, their attention devoted instead to the good and to the whole.

And just when he thinks he may be able to ease words out of you, the noise of you reduced to slow, deep inhales between your parted lips and the shaking in your muscles coming abruptly to a halt, you bed over, eyes wide in shock, as you vomit sea water, seaweed, and, most horribly of all, blood at your feet.

Author’s Note: lord god, im telling you i thought this was going to be a very short story but here i am...all this with so much more to go. im just really in love with this world and actually really proud of it? ive never done anything like this and ive been in love with fisherman!jb ever since the dye preview pics came out. ive had this in my mind since i messaged @imdifferentshadesofpurple​ in may about it and im just so glad it lives. did i make an entire story out of that one promo pic and the oyster dress by alexander mcqueen? sure bet but you cannot blame me.

tag list: @red-exo​ @heatofmyexoheart​ @majci​ @yehet-me-up​ @lamichellee​ @ahgishaman​ @softly-savage-mint-yoongi​

[thelastyetfabolousmidwestmadman]

Dark Side Of The Rising Sun Part 1

Yo what’s up!

After the success of my previous post, I’ve decided to bring a follow up where I talk about the many dysfunctions and issues facing Japan that I’ve learned in my research. Detective Conan often shows the criminal justice system of Japan in a positive light while in reality it has many issues due to the culture.

Now let me make this clear: Japan has many great things about itself that should never be ignored. However, these are real flaws that have or need to be addressed with many Japanese also recognizing them as problems.

Now I had to split this into parts as this is rather ungainly to put it all at once. If you have any questions please ask and I’ll do my best to answer them.

 Suicide

Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world with about 15.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

This is due to many factors such as Suicide not being considered a sin as well as historical connotations of it being a honorable way to go.

It is also considered a act of revenge, apology, and protest.

It is mostly caused today by factors such as unemployment, alienation and intense social pressure.

Japanese society is overall tolerant of Suicide but this is changing in recent times.

Another factor is the need for acceptance over individuality.

People with mental illness are often discriminated against, stopping potential help.

Internet Suicide Clubs where anonymous people make/plan suicide pacts and commit group suicide are a major issue.

If you kill yourself via Shinkansen, your family will be fined heavily. It is also the cause of half of the train delays and referred to as a human incident.

Tall buildings have mandatory suicide fences to prevent people from jumping off. When they succeed, they take off their shoes before hand.

It is common for suicidal people to take insurance policies and wait a year or two to go through with it so their families would be okay.

Ikka Shinju or family suicides are when the entire family kills themselves together due to Asian views of the family. When the parents kill their children before themselves, this is called Muri-Shinju or murder suicides.

Oyaku Shinju or parent-child suicide are where a single parent kill their children along with themselves.

Drownings, overdoses, hangings, and jumping off places are the most common form of suicide.

Judiciary

Traditionally, the judge is hated more then the lawyer is in the west as the Judge is often viewed as a symbol of the Japanese nobility judging the common man.

If you are sent to trial, you are certain to be convicted regardless of innocence due to the countries 99% conviction rate. (Really makes Eri’s work more awesome and badass doesn’t it?)

The Japanese supreme court is one of the most conservative in the world, rarely ruling against issues that are blatantly unconstitutional and anti human rights. As a result, one of the more positive proposals for amendments of the Constitution is the creation of a separate Constitutional Court.

If you are sent to death row, you will never be told in advance when you are going to die.

Culturally, once arrested the person is automatically considered guilty.

Police are often reluctant to overturn convictions as they insist that only guilty are arrested and convicted.

The law when a child is considered criminally responsible is 14.

Judges are often pressured into making convictions as their careers are negatively affected by a not guilty verdict.

Prosecutors are given the choice not to pursue a case regardless of sufficient evidence.

Prisoners in Japan, while somewhat treated better then much of the world due to it’s focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, have to follow strict military style regulations from minor things such as being forced to fold the bed, or to wash your face to more draconian measures such being beaten if you don’t march or sit the wrong way.

In turn, many have inadequate access to medical care as they don’t have many options for their healthcare.

It can take months or years before you are tried, meaning that a right to a speedy trial is completely nonexistent.

“Periods of reflection” where inmates are forced to be handcuffed, gagged and placed in solitary, are often not recorded by the warden.

Foreigners are forced to speak and write in Japanese.

Drug Use

It is considered vastly socially unacceptable to do narcotics in Japan.

Most drug addicts are even considered to be not human.

If a celebrity is caught doing drugs, his career is automatically fucked and he is blacklisted from the industry, as well as erased from current projects.

The most commonly sold drug is methamphetamine. This started after World War II due to Meth being legal for soldiers to consume in order to stay up late on petrol as well as from occupying Americans. After the was, it became a huge epidemic for 12 years.

Marijuana use has risen among youth. Despite it having little danger as well as medicinal uses, it is widely considered evil, with the law having no tolerance.

Overall, Japan has little drug use compared to the rest of the world due to the cultural taboo and strict laws. However, there are signs that it is being vastly under counted,

Most illicit drugs are imported from Taiwan and South Korea due to it being near impossible to grow it natively but it is becoming increasingly hard to do so.

Drugs overdoses are criminally under diagnosed.

Epidemics often occur due to low periods of economic growth and recessions. (Examples include the postwar period, the 70′s, and the Lost Decade after the Bubble Economy burst in 1989)

It is common for your family or doctor to call the police once you admit there is a problem. Then you are forced to take a urine sample and if it tests positive you are immediately arrested.

A lot of doctors open pharmacies to add to their income. As a result, many oversubscribe prescription drugs.

Hypocritically, Alcoholism is completely tolerated and not treated as a addiction due to alcohol being considering purifying in Shinto, a cure, and Japan having a intense drinking culture.

Child Abuse

For the most part, physical child abuse is considered a private issue and often ignored. While things are slowly getting better, Japan still has a long way to go. (Imagine if Kogoro did what he did to Conan in the west. Child services would be on him like a fly swatter.)

Child services often return the children to their parents even if they say their abusing them as the counseling centers need the parents to admit to their abuse.

It is a complete myth that Japan’s age of consent is 13. That is only the lowest one could set it. Most prefectures are set at 16 or higher. In turn, child molestation of those under 12 is heavily punished. However while vaginal rape of children is illegal, basically just about everything else as long as it’s statutory is basically alright.

Enjo Kosai or compensated dating is the practice of Teenage Girls to go on dates with older men in exchange for money and gifts. While not necessarily always leading to prostitution is treated as such and the girls are often blamed if they are hurt in the process.

Child sex trafficking of migrants is a serious issue and they are often treated as criminals and sent home without counseling.

Adoption of children is rare and frowned upon so many of them have to gro up in centers.

Children of unmarried couples are discriminated against due to the violation of the traditional Ie system and do not have the same protections or privileges of married couples because of its Koseki system.

Men are not obligated to pay child support and it’s near impossible to get them to legally as they can simply hide their finances by not telling them. Plus only one person can be named on the custody sheet.

Child Pornography was effectively decriminalized until 2014. No seriously.

Sexual Harassment/Assault

Domestic violence victims are disabused from coming forward due to the idea of bringing shame to their family.

Stalking cases are rarely taken seriously by the police

OH THERE”S WAY MORE BUT THIS LIST IS DARK ENOUGH SO LET”S SAVE THIS FOR A LATER DATE.

Working Conditions

Idols are heavily exploited and forced to follow strict rules such as having no social life, banned from having a boyfriend, etc. This is because they are supposed to sell a image of innocence and be there exclusively for their fans.

Anime creators are often forced to work long hours with little pay. This has resulted in a slump in the industry with very few new hires so they are forced to rely on the older animators whose health may fail sooner rather then later.

Funds are rarely given to films with artistic intent or that are political in nature, resulting the film industry suffering compared to the more internationally regarded South Korea.

Police Corruption

Until recently, Japanese police would work with organized crime to lower crime. The only reason they stopped was not out of concern for the everyday citizen but because they were embarrassed by the Yakuza when they began to show up more publically.

The media is often laughably compliant to the police, with they rarely offering a critical lens.

Police have undue influence on the Pachiko industry, with many retired officers being hired as muscle and for advice.

It is quite common for officers to embezzle from their slush funds.

In a effort to cover up crime, police often refuse to investigate mysterious or suspicious deaths, preferring to label them as accidents or suicide.

Police are often anti migrant and sexist to a fault.

It is neigh impossible to get a wiretap going due to rigid privacy laws.

Even the police can’t fire weapons as you need approval to even loose your gun so many officers have never fired a bullet.

Government Incompetence/Corruption

Voter Apathy is super high, with many elections having hilariously low turnout.

Many politicians have Yakuza connections, with the gang members serving as bodyguards and canvassing for votes.

Votes in the countryside are worth two compared to urban ones.

A lot of politicians are completely out of touch and constantly have to resign for gaffes (racism, sexism, historical revisionism, etc.)

Political acts are based on group consensus so it can take a long time to get meaningful reform done.

Criticism and debate is ironically frowned upon, with open criticism within a party being effectively banned.

Cronyism is common. While for the most part Japanese politics is based on expertise, many politicians are awarded ministries based on their support for the leader.

The NHK (Japanese version of the BBC) is largely neutral and free but the current Japanese government can dictate what it is to focus on temporarily.

Press Clubs are often given exclusive access to interviews and information from the government, so they get biased preferential treatment.

Okay I guess the point of this list is to bring attention to these issues and expand the opportunities of where to go when it comes to dark DC fanfiction. Don’t worry, here’s a cute Conan to make you smile!

[chaptersinprogress]

demolition lovers  |  4

"P'King!"

Sighing, he closed his eyes and sent the heavens a quick prayer for patience. Speak of the devil.

Rating: T

Warnings: mild swearing

Pairings: Ram/King; Bohn/Duen

King frowned as he checked his watch. What was taking Bohn so long? Surely the meeting with the professors hadn't run that late. He sighed and shot Mek a text.

K: I'm at the Gear Statue. Where are you guys? Is the case still being discussed?

M: Still outside the Dean's office. They're taking longer than expected. Might be more serious than we thought.

K: Damn. Still can't believe it was the archi department the nongs brawled with. We've always had a decent relationship with them.

M: Yeah. But don't worry, we haven't seen any sign of the med kid yet. We'll make sure Bohn doesn't run into him.

K: Thanks. Sorry for taking up your afternoon.

M: Bohn's our friend, it's nothing.

King pocketed his phone with a smile. Mek and Boss were far too good to them. He swung his bag onto his shoulder as he got up. He'd better go find the Year 1s now, or he'd be late for their tutoring session.

"P'King!"

Sighing, he closed his eyes and sent the heavens a quick prayer for patience. Speak of the devil. Opening his eyes, he found Duen standing in front of him, holding a bouquet of flowers.

"N'Duen," he said coldly.

Duen flinched slightly at his tone. "Ah, sorry to trouble you, P'King. Do you mind helping me pass this to P'Bohn? I didn't manage to find him this morning to pass them to him myself."

"Don't worry, you can consider the deal over. You needn't bother."

"But I want to," Duen replied slightly desperately. "I have to make it up for hurting him."

King let his eyes fall to the bouquet Duen clutched. Purple hyacinths were interspersed with daffodils, all enclosed within a ring of fresh snowdrops. He mentally catalogued the flowers - forgiveness, new beginnings, hope.

"And why should I pass this to Bohn?" he asked. "What are you expecting, N'Duen?"

"I...I..." began Duen, stammering. He took a deep breath. "I wish to court P'Bohn!"

King raised his eyebrows. "Oh? But I thought you found his attention... troublesome."

Duen flushed. "I didn't mean it that way! It's just... P'Bohn can be kind of forceful. And there are a lot of people who aren't happy about his attention being on me, so...um... they take it out on me. It's a bit scary sometimes," he admitted.

King felt himself soften slightly. He'd grown up with Bohn and knew first-hand just how aggressive he could get when he wanted something. That and people could get very ugly sometimes, especially when it came to matters of the heart. 

No wonder the kid had reacted so strongly. The stress of being pushed around by Bohn and the others had slowly built until he'd finally exploded. Bohn had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"But are you willing to deal with this?" King pressed. "There will probably be many times in the future that situations like this occur again. Who's to say that you won't react the way you did again? I don't want to watch my best friend get hurt."

Duen considered the question carefully. "P'King, I cannot guarantee you that I will never hurt P'Bohn again. We are both human, and we will end up making mistakes, some of which will hurt each other."

"But I can promise you that I've had the week to think about this,” he continued. “And I'm sure that P'Bohn is worth the effort. The future may be uncertain, but I'm willing to apologise for the mistakes I've made and will end up making. And if P'Bohn will have me, I hope to stay by his side for a long time."

King searched Duen's face for the slightest hint of insincerity, finding none. And the fact was, the type of relationship Duen and Bohn had was between the two of them. He had no right to determine it. Caving, he took the bouquet.

"Fine. I'll help you pass this to Bohn. But- !" he said as a smile spread across Duen's face. "First you'll need to convince Bohn to accept you on your own. Then you'll have to convince me that you're a good match for him."

Duen nodded frantically. "Yes, P'King! Thank you for giving me a chance!"

King sighed, already beginning to regret the decision. "Alright, alright. Scram," he said, walking off to find the Year 1s.

"P'King, over here!" shouted Phu.

King raised his hand in acknowledgement and strode over to the group of Years 1s huddled together at a bench in the Engineering Faculty's garden.

"Hello nongs, I've heard that you need some help. Your midterms coming up?" he asked, leaning against the side of the table.

Phu nodded frantically. "Yes Phi, but we're all lost when it comes to indeterminate forms of limits and L'Hospital's rule."

"Ah. Yeah, it can be a bit tricky to wrap your head around at first. Let me see, we can work through an example together."

King spent the next ten minutes explaining the concepts, first to the entire group, then tailoring the explanation to suit the individuals who still couldn't fully grasp it. When he had satisfactorily cleared the theoretical doubts, he assigned the group a set of questions from the textbook to try applying what they had learnt.

After giving them five minutes to attempt the questions on their own, he began walking around, checking their work and offering corrections and guidance to those who needed it. As he pointed out a mistake to one of the students, he heard Phu call out.

"Ram! I saved you a seat. Hurry up, P'King has already started tutoring!"

King felt his heart rate pick up. What were the chances that this was some other 1st year engineering student also named Ram?

He felt more than saw someone settle down opposite the student he was helping. King's palms grew sweaty. Still torn between wanting to know and remaining ignorant of who exactly had joined them, he forced himself to focus on the worksheet.

When he finished pointing out the errors and could delay no further, he slowly straightened up. His eyes dragged across the books stacked on the table to muscular forearms encased in a crisp white shirt, travelling along the length of a slim black tie, before arriving at a familiar face.

King swallowed heavily as Ram looked up at him, expression carefully blank.

"Ah P'King, do you mind explaining the concepts again to Ram?" asked Phu. "Sorry he's late, I forgot to mention to you that he had a prior commitment."

King hastily turned to face Phu, grateful for the opportunity to look away. "No worries, Nong. I'll be right there."

He made his way over to Ram at snail-pace, desperately trying to prolong the time it took to reach his ill-fated crush. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst right out of his chest.

Finally reaching Ram's shoulder, King took a deep breath before speaking. "So, um, do you have any particular questions or do you want me to start from the top?"

Ram nodded sharply. King waited for Ram to clarify which of the two he was referring to but received no answer.

"You do understand Thai, right?" he asked carefully.

Ram gave another jerky nod. When no further reply came, King ran a hand through his hair. "From the top then, I assume. Turn your textbook to the chapter on indefinite limits, we'll start from there."

He muddled his way through the explanations, relying on Ram's nods and head shakes to gauge his understanding. Assigning Ram a couple of questions, he stepped back and took a few moments to collect himself.

Shit. Having to tutor his crush was pure torture. He had been hyper-aware of himself the entire time - every breath, every tiny motion he made, and even the volume of his voice. The stress of having to be near Ram was going to be the death of him.

"P'King," Phu called. "Ram's having difficulty with this question."

Pulling himself together, King braced a hand on the table and leaned over Ram's shoulder to study the problem. As he did so, he caught a whiff of Ram's cologne - a heady blend of musk, wood and leather. The scent hung seductively in the air.

King inhaled deeply, subtly trying to fill his lungs with it. Too distracted by the smell to concentrate on anything else, he stared at the paper blankly, not processing a single word.

Ram turned his head slightly to stare at his suddenly all-too-quiet senior. The movement caused his nose to lightly brush against King's cheek. The touch burnt like the white heat of a comet trail and yanked the senior back to the present.

King jerked away like he'd been stung.

"I...er...I forgot about a meeting. Gotta go now," he stammered, grabbing his bag and the bouquet from Duen off the bench. "N'Phu, send me a photo of the question. I'll get back to you later," he said before promptly fleeing, leaving the 1st year students staring after him in confusion.

Bohn stroked a smooth petal delicately. "What did you say the flowers meant again?"

"Forgiveness, new beginnings and hope," came King's muffled voice from where he'd buried his face in the mound of pillows littering Bohn's bed.

Bohn hid the smile that had slowly begun to spread across his face in the bouquet. "King, he went through the trouble of making an apology bouquet."

"Yay... lucky you..."

Bohn shot his friend a glare. "What's your problem? You've been like that for half an hour already."

"Don't remind me," King moaned, attempting to smother himself with the pillows. "Or better yet, just kill me now."

"You have five seconds to start talking before I come over there and make you talk," Bohn threatened. "Five. Four. Thre-"

King threw a pillow at him without looking. It bounced off the edge of the couch, nowhere near Bohn. Grabbing it, Bohn chucked it back at King, and unlike his friend, nailed him right in the head.

"Ow! Alright! He was part of the group I had to tutor today and then I went and fucked it all up with my stupid crush, happy?!"

"What did y- "

Bohn's phone pinged. Deciding to drop the subject for the moment, Bohn reached over and picked it up. Reading the message, he whooped and jumped on top of King.

"He asked me out! King, Duen asked me out!"

King lifted his head up with a groan and wheezed, "He did what now?"

"He asked me out!" yelled Bohn into his ear. "Our usual bar, tomorrow night at 9!"

"Ok, ok, I heard you now get off me," King pleaded, gasping for breath.

Bohn promptly rolled off him and moved to text Duen. King put an immediate stop to that by grabbing Bohn's arm.

"Wait, are you sure you want to accept? This is the same guy who rejected you a week ago that we're talking about."

Bohn raised an imperious eyebrow. "Of course I'm sure. I always get what I want."

King sighed and let Bohn get back to texting Duen. He pulled out his own phone. Like hell was he letting Bohn walk into this on his own.

K: Our resident idiot has decided to accept that kid's request for a date tomorrow

P: You serious? The same one he was avoiding at the fundraiser?

K: Yeah. A bouquet of flowers is all it took for that resolve to collapse like a house of cards.

P: What's the plan?

K: I'm gonna go with. No way in hell am I going to leave them alone till I'm sure of his intentions.

P: Text me the address and time, I'll be there

K: No way. You have your hazing trip the next morning. Are you not planning to sleep? You're not coming.

P: You're not my dad. And that's my problem. Besides, Bohn's given you the slip plenty of times. As long as he doesn't know I'm there, we can keep an eye on him.

K: Fine. The usual bar, 9pm. I'll let you know if there's a change of plans.

P: Got it

[hawkesvarric]

Masterlist of my D&D Characters

⚗️ ARTIFICER ⚗️

Breena Boddynock. Forest Gnome. Alchemist. Criminal. Twin sister to Brocc, a monk. She’s an inventor who sells her creations to the highest bidder, not terribly concerned with “morals” or the “law”. Currently traveling through the Underdark to return a magical hammer back to the duergar clan it rightfully belongs to. (After she stole the hammer in the first place, but let’s not split hairs here, shall we?)

🪓 BARBARIAN 🪓

Cormyn. Human. Ancestral Guardian. Archaeologist. Grew up in the wilds among a tribe of barbarians, though among the clan there were also healers and magic users. He loves learning about ancient histories and digging through the abandoned ruins lost in the mountainside. The spirits of his ancestors speak to him, telling him of the past. He has a wife, another human barbarian named Galatea, and they have a son together named Tiran. A mysterious illness overtook a large portion of their clan, including Galatea, and now Cormyn seeks a remedy to bring home to his people.

📯 BARD 📯

Bonejangles. Skeleton. Whispers. Charlatan. He woke up in his own grave and had to claw his way to the surface. No tombstone, no memories, and no name. People either feared him or tried to kill him, so he learned how to disguise his skeletal features and how to forge fake identities for business purposes. In his past life, he was a powerful warlock named Romero Marivaldi who had struck a deal for eternal life. However, one should be very careful what they wish for when striking a bargain with a fey. Has (had?) a wife named Damiana, who had her own twisted part to play in Romero’s unfortunate fate.

Altair. Human? Lore. Entertainer. Once, Altair was a half-orc named Kash. He was the son of the chieftain, training to one day take his fathers’ place. Then a dragon attacked, slaughtering most of his clan including his father. Including him. Barely managing to escape, his fathers’ adviser Grimon drug Kash’s body away from the carnage, using the last of his magic to return the boy back to life. Only the spell had unintended consequences. For now Kash was in a completely different body, that of a human. He fled once he learned of the clan’s fate, leaving Grimon behind. He took on a new persona, Altair the Wanderer, hoping to leave his past behind him.

🩸 BLOODHUNTER 🩸

Red. Human. Lycan. Haunted One. Unwilling test subject in an experiment performed by wizards on behest of the king to try and create more powerful soldiers for his armies. It worked, though perhaps better than they anticipated. Red managed to break her chains on the night of the full moon when she transformed and slaughtered everyone in sight before escaping. Now she seeks to find any others like her so they may unite and kill the king. Maybe blow the whole kingdom up while she’s at it, she hasn’t decided yet.

⚕️ CLERIC ⚕️

Keothi Ogolakanu, the Wolfkiller. Goliath. Life. Outlander. Grew up high in the mountains, longing to discover the rest of the world. But Keothi’s role was to be the clan’s healer. She had all but accepted her fate when a pack of winter wolves attacked. The goliaths fought back, but were overwhelmed by the wolves’ numbers and ferocity. They began to corner a child, teeth gnashing violently, when Keothi heard a whisper in her ear: “Protect.” She used a magic she never had before, killing the wolves single-handedly. The spirit that spoke to her was that of the Pathfinder, one of the old gods her people still worshiped. It was now her destiny to leave her clan behind, following wherever the Pathfinder’s path might take her.

🌿 DRUID 🌿

George “Pebble” Pebbleton. Half-elf. Moon. Hermit. As a child, she wandered into the woods all by herself. She has no memory of where she came from or what her name once was. A pair of bears found her and, perhaps because they could sense the magical energy inherent in her or maybe because they had just lost a cub of their own, they took her in. Of course, she still interacted with people from time to time. Travelers and adventurers, the occasional bandit, etc. It was from one of them that she heard about a local tournament being ran in a nearby town. So she decided she was ready to leave, though her bear guardians still follow her around to make sure she’s safe. On the tournament registry, she made-up the name George Pebbleton on the fly, hoping it sounded normal enough.

⚔️ FIGHTER ⚔️

Kimbatuul Sora. Dragonborn. Champion. Outlander. Sora was always a braggart, a show-off, and a ham for attention. But for good reason - she really was the best fighter in the Kimbatuul clan. Her father had a seat on the council while her mother ran the market. Life was great. Until her adulthood celebration, that is. Sometime during the night of revelry, a council member was murdered with her trademark halberd engraved with her name. Sora tried to defend herself, but the evidence against her was overwhelming. The punishment was traditionally a battle in which the accused could “prove” their innocence by withstanding a barrage of attacks from the council. However, her father couldn’t stand the idea of raising his sword against his own daughter, nor could he idly stand by and watch the others do so, so he managed to convince them to banish her instead by forfeiting his own council seat. Though alive, she was now disgraced by her own people, being deemed guilty and dishonorable for not fighting. She was banished into the neighboring woods, becoming a sellsword in order to provide for herself.

Seymour Quincy. Warforged. Eldritch Knight. City Watch. On the fringes of a magical college dedicated to cutting edge education, a team of dwarven wizards were tasked with studying the mysterious entity we call the soul. They had performed many experiments with little to no success. Either the souls wouldn’t bind to the objects chosen or they would go on a murderous rampage after being untethered to their own humanity. Just as their research grant was about to be taken back, one of them suggested using a younger soul. Hence Experiment #57 was born--er, created. After a short observational period, it was deemed a success. No unbinding, no stabbing. The experiment even seemed to possess a personality. Perhaps a bit more personality than the dwarves would’ve liked. #57 didn’t like being called a number. In fact, #57 didn’t like being referred to as ‘it’ either. He decided he ought to have a proper name--Seymour Quincy. The research team indulged him at first, still glowing from their success, but it was quickly made clear that #57--Seymour wouldn’t function the way they had hoped. They couldn’t sell him to the military as a soldier. He was physically strong, even capable of performing magic, but he was more interested in searching the woods for stray bunnies. The only times Seymour would fight were when he believed somebody innocent to be in harm’s way. For now, he has a “job” with the local city guard so the researchers can continue to observe his soul’s development and hopefully find a way of making some sort of financial returns off of him. If only he’d stop wandering off because he thought he saw a kitten.

👊 MONK 👊

Rikeo Sepret. Human. Open Hand. Gladiator. Born in the gladiator ring, Rikeo was forced from childhood to fight for nobles’ entertainment. These fights were not only brutal but to the death. He learned early on how to use his body as a weapon so as not to rely too heavily on swords and such. Rikeo also learned how to put on a show. If he was forced to have blood on his hands, then he was determined to be the best at it. His grandiose personality combined with his over-the-top combat maneuvers and his undefeated track record granted him a bit of freedom. Just enough for him to knock out the guards and escape. Now he travels, armed with only his fists and his wit.

🛡️ PALADIN 🛡️

Giselle Baldric. Human. Ancients. Folk Hero. When her hometown was destroyed by a dragon, the Baldrics took up residence in a neighboring city as humble workers. Giselle worked on the docks which required much heavy lifting, though she never minded. She loved listening to people’s stories and the docks had all sorts of interesting folk coming and going. And she loved to help others, always doing little odd tasks here and there. Locals began spreading the word that if you needed help, just look for the red-headed woman on the docks. One night, as she was about to head home for the evening, a mermaid appeared in the water. The mermaid claimed to have heard of Giselle’s heroic nature and decided that she must be the one destined to wield this sword called the Storm Breaker. Giselle took the sword from the mermaid and vowed to protect all that is naturally good in this world.

Kraven. Tiefling. Oathbreaker. Mercenary Veteran. As a mercenary, Kraven did a lot of bad things in the name of conquest. She looked out for her own interests and betrayed people along the way, even allies. None of it mattered to her, so long as she came out on top. But one day, she was hired to bring in a smuggler alive so her client could have a “talk”. She found where the halfling lived and told him to come outside. He refused. Kraven decided a little fire ought to motivate him, so she set his house on fire. Only she was shocked to discover there was an infant there. She had done terrible things, yes, but to other assholes who deserved it. This was too far. She ran inside, seeing the halfling man dead from severe burns, and recovered the child. Kraven took the baby to a local temple to be looked after, but her client was furious. Not only was his man dead, but his mercenary went in to save a child instead of her target. He placed a bounty on her head and Kraven fled into the night. To make matters worse, now she had all these...feelings. That maybe she had been a bad person before, but it wasn’t too late to change. Her magic even began to change too, her previous oath broken. Now she was lost, caught between her past and her uncertain future.

🏹 RANGER 🏹

Don’t have one who is very developed yet :(

🗡️ ROGUE 🗡️

Arkade Vrago. Tiefling. Inquisitive. Investigator. Worked with the local city watch, solving crimes and catching criminals, before opening his own private investigative business. Arkade wishes to retire peacefully on a beach somewhere, but keeps getting dragged into cases. Grumbly, but secretly nice.

🔮 SORCERER 🔮

Jono. Human. Draconic. Inheritor. Slowly morphing into a dragon, no big deal. Jono is very laid-back and chill about most things, but even he is a big concerned that one day he might not be a human anymore. He has a mysterious amulet in his possession that he is hoping is the key to stopping the progression. Oh, and he kinda accidentally got married to the Fey King’s daughter, so the Feywild’s sort of out to get him. No worries, brah!

🌀 WARLOCK 🌀

Andella “Andy” Wroth-Mooncairn. Half-elf. Raven Queen. Noble. Rich, spoiled, and bratty were the best words to describe Andy. Not that she cared what others thought. She considered herself above everyone else. Growing up in a castle named after you tends to do that. Her parents arranged a marriage for her to a neighboring lord’s son, a real nerd. But Andy had little choice in the matter if she wanted to continue living off mommy and daddy’s money. At the wedding, an undead horde led by a powerful lich attacked. It turned out that Andy’s groom-to-be had stolen a cursed spellbook per his own ambitions, but had neglected to take into consideration that the wizard might not be so much ‘dead’ after all. Before he was ruthlessly ripped apart by zombies, he passed Andy the spellbook and told her to keep it away from the lich. She barely managed to escape the carnage, running out of the castle in her bloody wedding dress and clutching the spellbook to her chest. Having witnessed so much bloodshed, she vowed to personally send every undead abomination straight back to Hell where they belonged. And that’s when a mysterious raven landed in front of her with an interesting proposal...

✨ WIZARD ✨

Mialee Zolerii. Eladrin. Evocation. Acolyte. Attends the most prestigious academy, but couldn’t exactly afford to pay for it herself. So she also works at the school as the beastkeeper’s assistant. Her ex-gf may or may not be a dragon. (Although, in Mialee’s defense, she wasn’t in her dragon form at the time, okay!) Always tries her best, but things still tend to explode around her. Currently on a semester abroad, studying any new creatures she happens to come across in her travels. Will she wrestle any of them? Probably!

Bartok Abbadon. Drow. Invention. Guild Merchant. Bartok knows he grew up in the Underdark. He remembers being a weak child who was picked on constantly until he began to show real promise in his eldritch studies. Then he was sent to Menzoberranzan with a small handful of other promising candidates to work and study in the city’s largest library. But that’s where things start to get a little fuzzy. He knows his memory has been manipulated, but still he cannot fully recall his time at the library. Small flashes of things come to him and then they are gone as quickly as they came. If he tries too hard to grab on to the memory, his nose begins to bleed. So, at some point, he decided to stop trying. Especially because his last clear memory of the Underdark was rather horrifying. The library was on fire, bodies everywhere, and when Bartok looked down at his hands, they were covered in blood. It haunted his nightmares for some time after he fled to the surface. What happened there? What were they all doing there that had to be protected so badly they needed to alter his memories? And, worst of all, what if all that flame and death was his fault? Bartok tries not to think of it now, as he has a shop to run where he sells various herbs and inventions of his own creation. His homunculus familiar, Batty, keeps him company. And that’s that, right? No way his past can come back to haunt him all the way up here...right?

[sara-scribbles]

Learning to Live (Part 1)

Líf/F!Summoner Notes: Completely self-indulgent AU.  Líf’s world did not have a Summoner, so things ended differently.

Part 1 Part 2 --------- Somehow the Order of Heroes had won. They had won against death itself. Hel had been defeated, and everything was back to normal. As normal as it could get. Souls who died still went to the realm of the dead. However they were no longer used as minions for Hel’s army. Rather they were judged by the underworld’s new ruler, Thrasir. Those who she deemed worthy would be reborn into a new life. Those who had done ill while alive were forever punished in some way. Forever trapped in the realm of the dead.

Though the title of ruler had been offered to Eir, she had declined. She desired to spend her life among the living. Among the people she called friends. Among the sunlight and flowers she loved so much. Thrasir had stepped forward and offered to take the mantle. It seemed that she had no desire to return to the living world. Even though she was free from Hel’s influence, she insisted on staying. Perhaps, Kiran concluded, there was someone in the realm of the dead she wished to stay beside.

As for Líf, he did not hide his desire to stay behind in the ruined Askr. However Sharena was against the idea. Being her brother, even if he was from a different universe, she did not want to leave him alone. Surprisingly Alfonse shared his sister’s sentiment. Looking at an older, bitter version of himself, a flicker of sorrow passed in the prince’s eyes. With much convincing, the fallen prince dragged his feet to the world of the living.

Kiran walked leisurely down the hallway. It was nice to be back in Askr. After being away for so long, she had forgotten what it felt like to be in the busy castle. Heroes greeted her warmly whenever she passed. Some of the younger ones ran to give her a hug when they had returned. She had even missed Grima with their thinly veiled threats. Being in Askr for a few years, she felt like she was home.

“Kiran,” Anna called to her.

The tactician turned to her. “Yeah?”

The redhead glanced around before leaning in. “Have you seen Líf?”

“No.” Her brows furrowed. “Why?”

“He’s been missing for most of the day. Since he’s new, I’ve been trying to keep tabs on him. Neither Alfonse or Sharena know where he went this morning. It’s only been a week, but he avoids contact with everyone.”

“Do you think he left?” She hadn’t seen hair or hide of the swordsman. He didn’t want to be bothered, so Kiran didn’t bother him. She had learned that some heroes just wanted to be left alone. She learned to respect their wishes, and they in turn followed her commands on the battlefield.

Anna shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t leave. Where would he go?”

“Back to the land of the dead? He wasn’t very keen on coming here,” she pointed out. “But I’ll keep an eye out for him. It can’t be that hard to find a gothic swordsman.”

“Thanks. We have a meeting tomorrow morning.” Waving to the woman, Kiran continued her walk to the library. 

“Hello, Kiran,” Gunnthra greeted. “Here for another book?”

“Yup! I just finished the one you recommended. It was pretty interesting.” The older woman smiled before returning to her book. Browsing the shelves, Kiran grabbed a book at random.

Leaving just as quickly as she had come, Kiran made her way out of the castle. Going into the woods, she made sure not to go too far. Her favorite spot to read was under a large oak tree. The base of the trunk was sturdy and wide. The leaves shielded her from the bright sun, but allowed enough to filter in.

Her smile dropped a bit when she saw that someone was already occupying her spot. The dark armor and pulsing blue glow was hard to miss. Walking closer she stopped right in front of him. One hand on her hip, she cocked an eyebrow from under her hood.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding.” Líf looked up at her. His dark red eyes were cold and empty.

“What do you want?” She noted that his sword was absent from his side.

She tapped her foot. “Well Anna has been looking for you. You disappeared all morning, so she’s worried.”

“Worried I’ll leave,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Hmm...yeah probably. Or worried you’re sulking somewhere.” A small smile formed on her lips. “Also you’re in my reading spot.”

He looked around on the truck of the tree before turning back to her. “I don’t see a name on here.”

She chuckled. “I don’t need to have my name on the tree. Plus that would be a rude thing to do.” She cupped her free hand behind her ear. “Can’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The wind whispering my name. It’s obviously my spot.” When he didn’t move, Kiran sighed. Taking a seat next to him, she pulled her hood off. “I guess I can share my spot with you. Just don’t go telling people about it.”

“Perish the thought of having more people around,” he retorted. “One person is enough.”

Kiran bit her lip from laughing. Leaning against the tree truck, she opened the book. Silence fell between them. Kiran soon forgot about the fallen prince next to her as she immersed herself in the book.

When the sun was going down, Kiran finally pulled her attention away from the book. Stretching the sore muscles in her back, she groaned in satisfaction when her bones popped. Picking herself up, she glanced over at her silent companion. His head was against the tree and his eyes were closed.

Studying him, she decided he looked at peace. The dark circles under his eyes were not as prominent when he was awake. Whatever facial muscles he was straining while awake were relaxed in sleep. She could almost see the Alfonse she knew. Stepping closer to him, she reached out. His hand snapped up and gripped her wrist. His red eyes clashed with her own.

“Sorry...I was going to wake you.” He released her wrist. “We should head back to the castle. Dinner should be ready.” She stepped away, watching him.

“Do you always bother people when they’re resting?” he asked, his voice gruff.

She shrugged. “Only if they’re going to miss dinner.” He stood up slowly before turning to the castle. “Can I ask you something?”

He glanced at her before starting to head out. Kiran followed at a slower pace. “Even if I say no, I feel that you’ll ask your question.”

“Do you hate me because I wasn’t there in your world?” He halted immediately. Kiran stopped as well, standing a few feet behind him. “Your Askr didn’t have a Summoner. Even though everyone assumes you did, you didn’t. I was never brought to your world.”

“How did you know?” The setting sun gleamed off his armor. Shadows obscured his profile.

She shrugged. “It was mostly a shot in the dark. You didn’t refer to me by my title. Even our enemies refer to me as Summoner. You also look at me with contempt. You hate me, but try not to show it. Am I wrong?”

He was silent before answering. “Anna tried to summoner you, but no one came. Despite that, we managed to keep Embla away. We managed to defeat Surtr without a Summoner. We managed on our own even if it was harder.” He turned around to look at her. His eyes seemed to glow in the dying light. “We managed without you. Until we couldn’t. Hel came and everything fell apart. Everyone...gone.”

A deep pain settled in Kiran’s stomach. “Líf, I’m so sorry.”

“Your words are just that, words. Nothing can bring what I lost back. My counterpart here is weak.” He clenched his hands. “He relies too heavily on you. They all do. What happens when you leave? How will they continue to fight without their precious Summoner?”

She shook her head. “Relying on people doesn’t make you weak. I think people who are strong are the ones who are able to ask for help. Because they realize their own shortcomings, they’re able to get stronger. I’m sorry for what happened, truly. However, you’re here now. I can’t force you to do anything. It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll learn to live again. If you ever need me, I’ll be here.”

Before he could answer, Kiran walked past him. She didn’t look back as she made her way to the castle. Líf was not what she expected. He was not the Alfonse she had come to know. He was entirely his own being; thinking of him as Alfonse was wrong on many levels. She wanted to help him, but she wouldn’t force her help on him. If he wanted help, he could always seek her out. Until then, she would patiently wait.

[saeitoshi]

Alright, this is going to be a theory post first of all focusing on Flame possibly cheating to help Soulburner whenever he uses his “Burning Draw” skill. The overall question being addressed is: Are the Ignis cheating to help their duelists win?

If Flame cheating for Soulburner is true, then the possibility opens up to Ai also cheating for Playmaker with his “Storm Access” skill. However, there’s not really any concrete evidence for this case that I can think of from the top of my head (plus I unfortunately don’t have the time to rewatch all 50+ episodes), but I will address this case as much as I can.

The post will wrap up with the significance of this theory if it does end up being true, which focuses mainly on the information we learn in Episode 43. I did not expect this part to be such a long section at all, but re-watching the episode surprised me with much more potential foreshadowing than I expected.

A quick heads up, this is by no means defending the writing, but simply a theory that may explain the purpose behind the direction that the writers have taken. 

1. Flame’s potential cheating with Soulburner’s “Burning Draw.”

A major issue that has many worried is the constant Soulburner wins since his appearance, especially the back-to-back victories against Go and Blue Girl. Could it be purely poor writing? Perhaps. However, it could also be exceptional writing as it deliberately shows his victories repeatedly. All of Soulburner’s wins so far ultimately rely on his skill “Burning Draw,” which depletes his LP to 100 but allows him to draw a card for every 1000 LP he lost. 

What if his skill, however, is being manipulated by Flame? What if whenever Soulburner uses “Burning Draw,” Flame hijacks the duel disk and shuffles the deck so that Soulburner draws the exact card that he needs to win? This would give reason to showing Soulburner winning again and again, to emphasize that he only wins through Flame’s cheating, and not through his own prowess. 

For Flame and Soulburner’s case, this post is only going to be looking at Episode 56, since I feel like the earlier episodes with them didn’t give any obvious hints towards this possibility. If this theory is true, then I believe that the writers deliberately placed these hints in this particular duel where Soulburner was being pushed to his limits, where he struggled the most in the entire series thus far.

It started in the middle of the duel when Soulburner is down to 900 LP at the end of his turn. When Flame notes that Soulburner is whining, he says this:

Now these comments by themselves can be easily played off as Flame being the sarcastic AI that he is, as even Soulburner notes, but he continues on:

I’m going to analyze these two lines first before showing more screenshots.

a) For the first line, Flame is repeating the exact words that Soulburner said in reference to Soulburner praising Blue Girl for her dueling skills as the charismatic duelist and hero of LINK VRAINS, and yet this line still holds meaning in Flame’s case. 

If Flame is using it in the same manner as Soulburner did, then Flame “being an excellent AI partner” that gives Soulburner “the edge” over Blue Girl is an objective truth. If Flame was simply the “compassionate observer” that he teases that he is, then this is less of an objective form of assistance, but more of a subjective form based on feelings and emotions that doesn’t necessarily actually help Soulburner with his duel. An objective form of help is more concrete, like something that can actually affect the end result of the duel. 

b) The second line is much more apparent, as Flame notes that with his help, Soulburner’s “dormant abilities may bloom.” This line implies that Flame can do much more than simply cheer from the sidelines to aid him in the duel. Especially in the context of duels in VRAINS, Flame could be referencing to Soulburner’s skill when he says “abilities.”

Moving on to later on in the duel, by the end of Blue Girl’s next turn, Soulburner states that he is in a “pretty bad situation.” Flame responds as so:

Flame mentions that there is ONE card that will turn the duel around, and both Soulburner and Flame know exactly which one it is (the card “Fusion of Fire”). Notice the LARGE amount of cards in Soulburner’s deck, and yet Flame insists that it is still possible to win. However, it would take a miracle to make it happen with that many cards left in the deck. 

Soulburner then proceeds to draw, but is not able to draw the card he needs to win and says this line:

Flame’s response to this is the most intriguing to me, and made me start thinking about the theory in the first place:

Although again, this can be played off as his sarcastic self, another way to interpret this is that Soulburner never relied on destiny in the first place to help win any of his duels, including those that he won with his skill. Soulburner instead had other ways that ensured his victory, and that his amazing draws that won him duels were not simply due to luck.

Flame continues his response with this:

This can also be interpreted as Flame not wanting Soulburner to lose, but Flame is purposefully taunting Soulburner to use his skill. However Flame keeps mentioning to Soulburner to forget about destiny, because it’s irrelevant in the outcome of the duel itself. 

Of course when Soulburner does use his skill, lo and behold:

Soulburner gets the card he needed. Flame also mentions destiny a third time over the course of a couple of minutes, as if to imply to Soulburner that he doesn’t need a “Goddess of Destiny” to draw the right card; he just needs Flame to do it.

This basically results in the end of the duel, so there’s not much else to mention for Flame and Soulburner’s case. In my opinion, this was the most vocal that Flame has been during a duel with Soulburner, which brought his comments into my awareness even more than it normally would.

An ending note: after the duel when Soulburner praises Blue Girl for becoming stronger, Flame ends it off repeating this same line again:

Flame, I get it, you’re important. 

On a more serious note, repetition can be a very important factor in the context of foreshadowing. Similar to how Flame kept on mentioning “destiny,” the fact that he continues to say that Soulburner won because he had “an excellent AI” to help him starts to bring this fact to the viewers’ attention, that perhaps Flame was actually the deciding factor of Soulburner winning the duel, through his possible manipulation of Soulburner’s skill in the final turn. 

2. Ai’s potential cheating with Playmaker’s “Storm Access.”

Like I mentioned before, there is not really any obvious hints that I know of which Ai gives away about possibly cheating (and therefore no screenshots to accompany this section). Even so, there may possibly be foreshadowing in the previous episodes that I'm not aware of, but won’t be addressed here unfortunately. 

However, I will address the possible implications pertaining to Ai’s influence with Playmaker’s skill “Storm Access,” which allows Playmaker to grab a new card from the Data Storm when his LP reaches 1000 or lower. Similar to Soulburner, Playmaker has not yet had any losses in the series, and Playmaker’s winning streak all started with the first duel in Episode 2 when he first used his skill. 

We all know that by this current arc, Ai is able to fully manipulate the Data Storm where he can freely summon and dissipate it at will. However the question remains, how much control did he have before this?

In Episode 1, Ai was able to at least summon the Data Storm, but whether that was the full extent of his control is unknown. Although it is possible that after leaving Yusaku for 3 months, he went from having almost no control of the Data Storm to having complete control of it, the power gap seems to be an extreme one to leave off-screen. However, what if instead of it being a large power jump, Ai actually had much more control than was initially assumed?

By Episode 42, we can tell that Ai could not control the instability of the Data Storm, so what else could he have control of if he did have more than we thought? The cards available for Playmaker. 

Again, I’m not aware of any blatant signs that Ai has dropped to imply this, but if Flame does prove to actually hijack Soulburner’s skill, then it is also a viable possibility that Ai would do the same. Ai has been known to lie to Playmaker before with no ill intentions, and since we know that Ai from the beginning was aware that Playmaker was his duelist from the Lost Incident, Ai would be more than willing to influence the cards that Playmaker would receive in the Data Storm to help him win his duels. 

3. What is the significance of this theory to the plot if it’s true?

The significance is essentially found in the major plot point of this series. Revisiting Episode 43, Ryoken explains the entire backstory of Dr. Kogami and the Ignis, and talks about Dr. Kogami’s prediction after “billions of simulations:”

If we assume the “billions of simulations” are in fact true, then the Ignis will be the cause of humanity’s downfall. This heavily implies that there will be tension between humans and AIs in the near future. However, if there are humans like Yusaku and Takeru who get along with their Ignis, then how would this ultimately become an issue? As long as the winning team (aka Playmaker and Soulburner) keep winning, the end result should be that humans and AIs live peacefully. 

There are two possible reasons that this could occur:

a) Playmaker and Soulburner both lose and SOL Technologies/the other unknown enemy begin to mistreat the AIs and trigger a war between humans and AIs. 

This is certainly a possible route that can happen, but it’s less likely of the two. The main reason is that Dr. Kogami never predicts that only some of the Ignis will be the cause of humanity’s end, but rather all of the Ignis play a certain role in this, including Ai and Flame. 

In this first situation, Ai and Flame would both still stay by Playmaker and Soulburner’s side regardless of whether they lost or not. Therefore they would not be able to have any part in being a part of humanity’s enemy. 

(Also if this theory also becomes true, then there is no way Playmaker and Soulburner would ever lose with Ai and Flame’s help and this reason becomes a completely moot point.)

b) Ai and Flame ends up being the ones distrusted by the duelist counterparts, and inadvertently trigger the war between humans and AIs. 

This reason is more plausible, especially because we know that the Ignis are more than capable of lying when they need to after Ai’s example. 

There’s no denying that both Yusaku and Takeru have a deep bond with their AIs. Even though Yusaku denied having any trust in Ai early on in Episode 42, there have been subtle hints in the following episodes that show that Yusaku does care about Ai.

The trust that Yusaku has with Ai isn’t necessarily spoken, given Yusaku’s reserved nature, but rather in Yusaku’s facial expressions. Throughout the series, there are even moments of silence in some episodes where you simply observe Yusaku’s expressions to understand him as a character (this could even be made into its own post). Regardless of whether he speaks it or simply shows it with his expressions, Yusaku does view Ai as a close companion. 

However, what happens if Yusaku and Takeru’s trust between Ai and Flame dissolves? The tension between humans and AIs that already exists (as we saw with Windy’s distrust in humans in Episode 55) would grow even more, and without any Ignis/human pair able to mitigate the tension, it would only continue to augment through the help of SOL Technologies/the other unknown enemy. 

If this second reason does end up being the correct one, how would the trust between the two pairs be lost? We can find the answer in this theory. If indeed this theory is true, then Yusaku and Takeru’s trust in their AI partners can easily be lost if they find out that all of their duels have been rigged by them. 

Dr. Kogami continues his explanation further: 

Even Dr. Kogami himself is shocked to find out that AIs will become enemies to humans. He believed that the Ignis only have good intentions for humans, and that they could coincide peacefully with each other.

Then we can start to wonder, what if both the simulations and Dr. Kogami’s belief that the Ignis simply want to help people are correct? 

It could easily be possible, again, with this theory. If Flame and Ai actually are cheating, they have pure intentions to assist Soulburner and Playmaker to help them win their matches. However, this could also lead to a potential strain in their trust if the two duelists ever found out about it, leading to an eventual tension between humans and AIs.

In fact, if we keep listening in on Ryoken’s conversation with his father, when Ryoken asks why the Ignis would do such a thing, this is what Dr. Kogami explains: 

These are the exact words that Dr. Kogami says is the primary cause. Let’s dissect these two lines for a moment.

c) In the first line, he mentions that the AIs will essentially be watching over humans. If we think about the current Ignis that are with their duelists, they are basically “supervising” humans, specifically their human partner from the Lost Incident.

Now we start to think, what is the actual definition of “supervision” by the AIs that Dr. Kogami is referring to? Is it simply just observing, or giving emotional encouragement? Or is it something more practical, like, for instance, useful assistance to make sure that their duelists will be okay no matter what? (a.k.a. Flame and Ai cheating through Soulburner’s and Playmaker’s skills to ensure that those two always win.)

d) The second line is much more prominent when you align it with this theory. The concept of Flame and Ai cheating through their “supervision” would cause people (i.e. Soulburner and Playmaker) to view AIs as their enemy due to their distrust of them. Once again, this would lead to the inevitable clash between humans and AIs. 

This is basically all of the information provided in Episode 43, and there’s not much to say beyond this. I do want to emphasize that in regards to this theory, if the humans and AIs do become enemies because of everything listed, Hanoi would still ironically be the main culprit that started it all. 

This in itself could also be its own post, but basically Hanoi were the ones who attacked Cyberse first, the ones who ultimately caused the reunion of humans and Ignis who were living in their own separate worlds. They were the ones who instigated the distrust between humans and AIs (which is confirmed by Windy’s distrust in humans after the Hanoi incident). 

Even though the distrust would be amplified due to this theory, the original cause would still be from Hanoi’s hands, in spite of their ultimate goal to avoid conflict between humans and AIs. 

[serahne]

~ Characters Parallel : Nagito Komaeda & Maki Harakuwa ~

Or : from a simple idea, this post devolved into something so big that I have to put it under cut. Sorry in advance for how indegistible it might seem.

Maki and Nagito are the two characters with the most tragic and traumatic background. I’m not going to play the Olympics of Pain to determine if it’s better to be an orphan or to lose your parents as a child, or anything like. Let’s just agree to say that their backstory is a big part of their character and deeply shape them as they are.

‘As their are’ cover many things, though. They are both defeatist/pessimist at core. Komaeda came up with the ‘luck cycle’ idea, thinking that he is doomed to never escape this until he dies, while Maki knows, at the moment where she is revealed to be an assassin, that things will end badly.

They both lost their family, and it’s something that weight heavily in them. We all know about Komaeda’s parents, of course, but a lot of Maki’s FTE are dedicated to tell the story of her childhood friend who she invented a family with and who eventually died. They both feel powerless to fight their personal tragedy, and probably guilty, too, even though they objectively couldn’t do anything. Their death was an accident.

Their isolation has two factors : first, they chose to stay away from the rest as a precaution. Maki expresses it best during his speech at the beginning of chapter 3, where she claims to just want everyone to ignore her. I would say this might be a little more sub-conscious on Komaeda’s part, but he stays away from any emotional connection on purpose, after the losses he knew as a child.

But beyond that, even if they wanted to fit in, it’s very hard for them, for they have a very different belief systems, when compared to everyone else’s, and that’s what separate them from living a ‘normal’ life. Nagito claims that people stay away from him because he has a ‘righteous’ mindset, but it’s not exactly the truth. The problem is that his mindset isn’t seen as ‘righteous’ by anyone except him. To elaborate on that, I thought it was interesting to have Korekiyo put a spotlight on this problem in ndrv3 : why is murder wrong ? The answer is : because we are socialized to think it’s not. Of course it makes sense. People will have no problem accepting that murder is wrong, even when they do commit murder. Everyone has... a system of values, belief, that dictate what is right and what is wrong, and define their action.

Nagito and Maki don’t think murder is wrong. Nagito thinks that anything can be ‘good’ if it’s to spread hope, Maki, after years of mental training, just lost this capacity to feel that killing is a big deal. It’s not that they don’t have morals, quite the contrary, but the core of their moral beliefs is differents from ours. This is something really unsettling, and that makes impossible to create relationships with others because you can only create bond with others by relating to them in some ways, at least. Not that this is different from an antisocial personality disorder ( sociopathy ). Maki and Nagito aren’t Junko, let’s make it clear.

Because of the way the plot is written in ndrv3, Maki’s character only starts to evolve in chapter 2′s trial, against chapter 1′s trial for Komaeda, but their progression is relatively similar. While Komaeda was a lot more involved in the first murder, they both chose to hide crucial informations, even if not displaying them could lead to the death of everyone. Once everyone knows about Nagito, they all decide to accuse him of being the killer, whereas Kokichi, who is the only one who knows about Maki, does his best to condemn her during a big part of the trial.

Something that is often missed in sdr2 but is much more visible in ndrv3 is the way Maki and Nagito’s beliefs are shaken a little during these trials. Maki, after Kaito’s blind display of faith, admits that he gave her some motivation. Nagito, who was supposed to be the first victim, claims that he now ‘has some motivation’ to live after Twogami’s sacrifice.

Nagito and Maki are both ostracized after the reveal. In a very distateful way for Komaeda, compared to Maki, but there is no saying what would have happened to her without Kaito, when you see the way Kokichi and the Student Council treated her.A great way to say that the big difference in their respective arc is Kaito, of course. There is... really no telling where Komaeda’s arc would have gone with someone half-dedicated as Kaito to help him.

I don’t really see the point in comparing Kaito/Maki to Koma/Hina, because Hinata and Kaito are... basically exact opposite and their dynamic is very, very different ( I’m not going to go in deep in Hinata’s feelings for Komaeda because that would take me ages to do that ). But when it comes to Nagito and Maki’s feelings for them, we can draw some comparisions. They both develop feelings for someone who doesn’t really exist. Nagito develops feelings for Hinata based on the idea that he is a ‘symbol of hope’ and an Ultimate, and Maki slowly falls for the ‘let’s believe that you can be whatever you want’ mindset. Both of them never experimented these kind of feelings before.

Bonus on this subject HERE. ( thanks @novatoast ! )

The illusion is broken in chapter 4, for both of them. Nagito learns about Hinata’s true nature, and chapter 4 in ndrv3 could be re-named ‘Let’s kick Kaito as hard as possible’, putting Nagito and Maki in deep distraught. For both of them, chapter 4 is pretty much the end of the world because their belief system is back in full force and they are panicking, and yes, in a self-destructing spiral, too. That doesn’t mean Nagito and Maki stops having feelings for Hinata and Kaito, that means that these feelings stop to be positive, for them.

Chapter 5 is probably the chapter where the similarities are the biggest ones. Both Nagito and Maki are obsessed with the idea to save Kaito/The FF’s traitor or to destroy the Remnant(s) of Despair ( no matter how misguided this goal might be at the end ), and takes drastic measure for it where they relied heavily on their talent, even if that means sacrificying themselves. Unfortunately, tragedy follows them and they end up causing the death of the exact person they wanted to save. If we dig even deeper, neither of them could be saved : Kaito was terminally ill, anyway, and Nanami didn’t even exist. Thus, what they did do look like a huge waste.

Something that I’m a little sad about and that I can’t add in this analysis, is that we never really see Komaeda’s reaction to waking up and realizing that everything was a life/simulation. Considering how terrible it is for Maki, I’m very curious about him too. Oh well, never cease to disappoint me, dr3 !

A few weeks ago, someone asked me if they thought Komaeda would be as popular as a girl than as a boy. I think as a general rule, the answer is no. This does disappoint me a little, but it doesn’t surprise me either, unfortunately.

Of course, these characters aren’t copy/pasted, they both have their own identity and plenty of reasons to not like them for that, which is great, but a lot of critics about Maki or Nagito are from people who will enjoy the same traits on the other ( trying to kill everyone in a fit of despair, developping feelings very quickly for someone who they look up to, general ‘coldness’ - which is often a way to refer to her different belief system... ) and I think it’s interesting to think about that sometimes.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

God Loves You, Which Is Why You’ll Burn In Hell (Part 2): A “Good, Christian Child,” Claudine Frollo Is Not

All Frollo ever truly wanted from his daughter was for her to become a “good, Christian child” in the midst of all the sin, the debauchery, and the faithlessness that is life on the Isle of the Lost.

As mentioned in part 1, Claudine Frollo was the product of a very brief, tumultuous marriage between Frollo and a woman whose name is lost to time and even his memory, whom he only ever refers to as “Not Esmerelda.”

Even more so than the other VKs, the deck was stacked heavily against Claudine: the infamy Frollo had already accrued over the past four years and the overzealous behaviour of his flock made her a social pariah by association, the strict and rigid standards for good behaviour imposed on her were even more inflexible than her peers’ and the punishment all the more severe, and the fact that the parents of everyone else were praising them for sinning, misbehaving, and generally being very bad, un-Christian like children made for a very difficult life.

But still, she persisted, abstaining from pranks and parties, casual kissing and cruelty, stealing and sex (the sinful, pre-marital kind), being bullied, picked on, and victimized relentlessly, but never lashing back, always taking her lot in life with a smile, comforting herself at night with prayers and the thought that when Judgment day comes, she will be taken away from this Hell and to an eternal Paradise.

Unlike the rest of the Isle parents, Frollo also loved her truly, supporting her, praising her, and doing his damndest to care for her despite his ever failing health and the fact that the Isle was not kind to such “pure, holy people” as them.

Then, puberty came, and all of that went into a hand-basket headed straight down.

The problems all started when Claudine got her first period, and Frollo insisted that she had to deal with her “private shame” all by herself, while also reminding her about all the many things she couldn’t do whenever she was “unclean.”

Her body began to change, from a little cherubic angel to a devilish succubus in the making, and Frollo began to rant and beg her to cover up lest she unwittingly lead others to temptation, or rile up the “slavering dogs” (teenage boys, and some of the girls) even more than they usually are—never mind that Claudine could literally cover herself head to toe in a sack, and Frollo would still complain that her “piercing eyes” were still too much temptation.

New, confusing, interesting but dangerous feelings started to stir inside of her, and the only things she got from Frollo were violent, fiery admonitions that she ever let herself be overcome by such temptation, before being ordered to pray to God for mercy, that through His divine will she may become stronger and overcome the shortcomings of her flawed, mortal body.

And things sure didn’t improve when she confessed she was feeling them for girls, not boys.

Still, Claudine persisted, refusing the advances and temptation of her peers, dedicating so much time to patching up and sewing clothes to make sure she was covering up where everyone else was starting to intentionally bear more and more skin than usual, and continuing her nightly prayers, though they were now recited while she scrubbed menstrual blood off everything she owned, and cleaning the things she had turned “unclean.”

It was around this time that the little, obedient girl was starting to question her faith, all the things Frollo had told her were true and infallible, of the value of eternal Paradise some far-off, vague time in the future when God declared her stay on this plane over, VS earthly pleasures now that everyone else was enjoying and seeking.

Still, she trusted her father, her faith, and God more than anything else.

So inspired was Frollo by his daughter’s devotion amidst this tumultuous time that he started a convent, a section of his church renovated and dedicated to the proper education of the young girls of the Isle, so they may know how to serve God for the rest of their lives, or become good, Christian wives to the wholesome men they would find in the future.

(The boys were on their own; in his wisdom as a man himself, Frollo declared them truly lost causes that was beyond even Saint Jude.)

Never mind that the prayer services Claudine was assisting with was oftentimes an extra hour to nap, or gossip in the pews. Never mind that her fellow “nuns” were constantly sneaking out, partying, and staying long enough to sleep and enjoy a free breakfast before going straight back to sinning. Never mind that within the walls of the holy ground, sacrilegious things were happening between the other girls who found they weren’t very interested in boys, like the Good Book said they were supposed to be.

Then along came CJ, the herald of the beginning of the end.

Frollo had never liked CJ, thinking her the worst of Hook’s children, the very epitome of everything that is wrong with the Isle, all the sin, the evil, and the selfishness of the world given form as a teenaged girl—and for the few times in her life, CJ actually sincerely thanked someone for saying that.

Claudine didn’t either, thinking her her ultimate project, what was going to be the true test of her faith, the one thing that would prove to herself and everyone on the Isle that God was Great, God was Good, God was Almighty, that she would convert this wild child going around serving no one but herself, bring her to the light and the joy of serving God and others.

Never mind all the “unholy” things CJ had initiated and that she went along with, flawed as she was and prone to temptation.

Never mind that the “lies” coming from her mouth were starting to sound more true than anything Frollo had ever told her—though her growing suspicions that he was turning senile might have been part of that.

Never mind that for all the “wrong” feelings she had for her felt—as the cliché went—so right.

The convent dwindled, until it was just the two of them plus a handful of the children of Frollo’s flock. Suddenly there were no services to distract herself with, no other people to try and save and get a break from CJ, no excuses for not seeing her and interacting with her. No busying herself and avoiding all the things she’d tried not to think, tried not to feel, the things she prayed and prayed to God to please take away, that she’d listed when she asked if she’d already suffered enough, that He thought she should still endure as part of her “test.”

All of it came to a head in the storeroom of the convent, where CJ had finally managed to break into the locked cabinet containing the (tarnished, but still) silver candlesticks Frollo had lent for the convent’s services.

“Put those back,” Claudine growled.

CJ chuckled as she casually stuffed the sacred artifacts down her dress, along with her other ill-gotten treasures. “Why? Going to tell me off to Father Frollo? Ooh, ooh, oh wait: I’m going to incite the wrath of the Big Man Upstairs, and He’s going to strike me dead where I stand, isn’t He?!”

Claudine’s scowl grew deeper as CJ threw her head back and laughed. “CJ, I have been patient with you all this time, spending all of my precious time and effort, trying my damndest to save your soul--”

“And why have you been doing all this, exactly?” CJ asked. “It’s definitely not because I won’t make-out with you if you weren’t all high and holy on me, though I must admit, the Old Boys talking about the joys of making women of the cloth ‘fall into temptation’ certainly had it right~” she said, licking her lips.

Claudine blushed. “Is it really so unbelievable to you that I just want to save your soul, CJ?”

“Yes, actually, considering we’re all damned here!” CJ replied. “Have you looked around you, Claudine, or have you just been blind all this time and none of us have noticed? We’re the dregs of Auradon, their forsaken, their outcasts—we have literally been cast out to die and rot in our own filth just because their Big Guy Upstairs decided we didn’t belong in their world.”

“That was King Beast, not God!” Claudine said, fuming and shaking now.

“God, Beast, what’s the difference?” CJ asked. “They’re both powerful men who just decide on a whim who lives a luxurious, comfortable life and who deserves to suffer and struggle, reassuring the former that they did something to deserve it, and the latter that if they obey, don’t complain until the day they die, and keep on praying and praising them and calling them the Best Thing Ever for all of eternity, they’ll go to some magical place where everything is all well and good.

“Oh, what’s that, you say? You can’t see this Paradise? No one knows for sure if it exists, because you have to die naturally to go there, and no one that’s ever died has ever returned to tell us mortals about how great and how worth it is, because Paradise is just that good, so we have to rely on wrinkly old men in dresses asking us to believe them when they say it is?”

CJ scowled. “Admit it, Claudine, this is all because of your father, isn’t it?”

Claudine had no words, only unintelligible fuming and sputtering.

“He’ll never love you like he did when you were still his ‘sweet little angel,’ Claudine,” CJ said flatly. “Look at yourself: you’re just like that ‘Esmeralda’ woman he despises and hungers for so much, temptation on legs—and I should know! Do you really think that if you try hard enough, that if you pray hard enough, that if you rely on that ‘God’ of yours to swoop down and use His ‘mysterious magical powers’ on you that it will change the fact that you’re going to get fucked every single day, and not in the fun sense?

“Your fate was sealed when you were born a girl, Claudine.”

Claudine stared at her, her hands balled into fists, her knuckles white and her nails digging into her palms, already starting to draw blood.

“What’s going on down there?!” Frollo cried.

CJ sighed. “Well, fuck, there goes my nice, clean escape plan!” she said as she picked up a box of matches on the side. “I hope you’re happy, Claudine, you’re directly responsible for what’s about to happen.”

Claudine blinked. “Wait—what in God’s name are you doing?!”

CJ’s eyes twinkled like the lit head of the match in her hand. “Making myself a distraction, is what~!”

She flicked it onto the meticulously dried and cleaned cloths for the altar.

Frollo’s convent burned that day, that section of his church rendered permanently uninhabitable for the acrid stench, the collapsed brickwork, and the superstition surrounding that forced his flock into inaction.

Claudine herself barely escaped the flames, screaming like a banshee as her long hair and her ankle-length skirt had caught fire.

They say the old her died there, burned to death and reborn anew in the ashes, for the very next day, the Isle saw a very different Claudine Frollo:

One with her formerly long, luxurious locks savagely cut short into a bob; the foulest and filthiest of words coming from her mouth, almost always taking the Lord’s name in vain; and all too eager to drink, smoke, and fuck till her body gave out.

She still wore a long, white coat, pristine and pure by the Isle’s standards, but once she’s out of sight from her church and her home, she sheds it to reveal a shirt a size too small and the top row of buttons conspicuously undone; a plaid skirt from Auradon’s many academies, cut dangerously, scandalously short; and high, spiked heels that force her to sway her hips with every step.

Frollo still believes Claudine is a good, Christian child like he always wanted her to be, unfailing in his support of her in spite of the evidence, always assuming the best of her, and the worst of everyone else, “sinners, sycophants, and heathens that they are.”

But everyone else knows the truth.

[tuckeverlasting-thegirl]

So this is really just an emotional dump because this is causing a storm in my heart and I just want it to stop. At this moment, it is March 8, 2019 at almost 5:30 in the morning. Pictured above is my grandpa, a man who was more of a father to me than my own or my stepfathers. He was constant, he was loving, and he was someone I relied very heavily on. Today is his 68th birthday. However, on December 11, 2013 in the early afternoon, my grandfather committed suicide. We were devasted and his own grandchildren, his only grandchildren, were the last to know.

I'm not here because of all of this, not really. Instead, it's the ridiculous double standard of my own grandmother, his ex-wife of 16 years before his death, and someone he hadn't spoken to in 5 years because of his illness induced paranoria. The same grandmother who claims he didn't love her their entire marriage, claims he might have cheated on her. The same grandmother who has seen several men since their split/divorce (they were seperated for nearly decade before the divorce), while he never interacted with women outside of family and professional settings. I'm not saying he was perfect but I know for a fact she isn't innocent like she likes to claim. She even continues to refer to him as her deceased husband when she talks about him to strangers and acquaintances. But when she talks to her current man friend (she says they aren't dating but that's a whole other vent), it's suddenly her ex-husband.

Again, not really a reason, just a lil backstory and build up. Anyway because the 5 year anniversary was back in the December, I requested the day off. It's always been a hard time since then and the following year we had also lost my grandmother (again I was really close to her but I have a whole other rant surrounding that) on the 8th. When I told Grandma I taken the day off and I needed to spend time with my family, none of us should be alone that day, she looked at me and said that we needed to move on.

...

Move on. The woman who spent 3 years pulling him into every conversation and pulling him in every other conversation the next 2, was preaching to me about moving on. But it gets better.

Yesterday we were talking over dinner and she was talking about how she needed to get out the house today because she couldn't possibly stay home on this day. It's ok for her to be overly emotional about the 5th birthday without him, but I'm wallowing in the past thinking about a 5th Christmas without my Papa. Thinking about how he left things between us. But ya know what? That's cool. Whatever. Not the first time my feelings on the subject were dismissed. Ignored. I let it go on my behalf the first time. Felt bad for my siblings. My baby brother didn't really know the man and my older still can't talk about it to this day. They say death is suppose to bring a family together. Instead, it tore our family apart.

I also got to thinking about where I was a year ago. A year ago today, I was released from the hospital. I had been admitted on the 5th due to suicidal thoughts and self harm. I don't remember most of the year and a half before that. Nobody knew. And my family was utterly clueless. To this day my mom and grandmother don't actually believe I ever self harmed or planned my own death. Everytime Grandma goes ranting off about how she doesn't understand why he did it, I just look her in the eyes. "If you haven't been there, you don't understand. When it's that bad, you don't really think anything except 'oh my god, I'm hurting them, how could i hurt my family like this, maybe they'd be better off without me'. It hurts even more when all you can see is you hurting the one you care about." She always changes the subject after that.

This went off on a slightly wild tangent but then again, I'm tired and i have to be up in 3 hours so i don't really care. I feel a little better. Maybe I should share more often. Lemme know.

Laters.

[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 52)

“So the part about the Keeper leading you through the Valley and tempting you…?” Weiss asked.

“All poppycock!” Abner replied. “If Ily had even attempted to offer me seeds from the Valley, there would have been serious consequences for the both of us, and I guarantee you I wouldn’t be coming back to human settlements with them, if they didn’t imprison or kill me first.”

“And the ending, where you were tricked into drinking cursed water…?”

“Artistic license. The river was in fact enchanted, but it’s just a base component for life-water, mana-water, and some forms of elemental weaving.”

“And the eternal slavery?”

Abner smiled. “Well, we had to ensure that my debtors wouldn’t feel the need to go looking for a corpse or any traces of their ill-fated crew, would they? And besides, what better way to scare off Valentinians than with the one thing they fear:

“Uncompensated labour!”

“The eternal life part was actually spread much later, seeded into other rumours of the Keeper after the original account had been around for so long it had mutated all on its own. It was Ilaya’s idea, after I accepted the Council’s offer of vastly extending my own life to continue my work, if at the cost of never leaving the Valley ever again, and being the organoid—my term for organic cyborgs like myself—you see before you now.”

“And you accepted?”

Abner chuckled. “Why wouldn’t I have? I was free from all of my debts, had all the equipment and funding I could ever want or need plus a constant supply of fascinating projects to occupy myself with, and a means of controlling my worst impulses and keeping me on track.

“Sweet Shepherd, if anyone over at the human territories ever invents something like these governors, they would become an overnight trillionaire! Though I shudder to think at what would happen to Avalon when you have a human workforce that suddenly no longer suffers from lost productivity due to distraction...”

Abner’s face fell. “About the only real con was that I would, and did, outlive Ilaya.”

“The two of you were close?”

Abner smiled bitterly. “She was my best friend, before or after the Valley. I’ve never met a kinder soul, someone who was willing to put up with so much from me because they knew that for all my problems,  I was going to be more than worth all the effort—both to herself, as a companion for life, and for the rest of society, as you can experience for yourself whenever you ride the Tubes.”

He looked off into the distance. “Though, to be fair, it’s not like she was spoiled for choice with friends...”

“I suppose living in Keeper’s Hollow made it difficult.” Weiss said. “Why do they live so far away...?”

“Keepers attract trouble like super-powered magnets, and their living far away from the rest of the Bastion reduces the collateral damage when the metaphorical 'shit goes down,'” Abner said. “Well, that other reasons I’m afraid my governor is telling me I’m not allowed to tell you.”

Weiss grumbled under her breath.

“Stand by! The test is almost about to finish.”

Soon enough, the machine powered down completely, and Weiss feet went back down to the ground. “Well?” she asked as she stepped out.

Abner was hard at work at the terminal. “Just one moment to double-check the results and… congratulations, Weiss, you are a Weaver, attuned to Elemental Water, with astoundingly high power levels, and incredible potential for further growth beside!

“I knew Ruby saw something in you!”

Weiss nodded. “Should I be feeling anything?” she said as she looked at her hand and turned it over. “Because I don’t feel any different from before I stepped in.”

Abner chuckled. “That’s because we haven’t given you a focus yet! Remember the runeblade you wielded in your Honey Dream with the others? The Rune Ranger section, at least.”

Weiss nodded. “Yeah, it felt… weird in my hand. Good weird.”

“Even more evidence you’re a Weaver, this test just confirmed it.” Abner said as he shut down the chamber. “Penny, take Weiss along to the Raucous Room, while I take your potential focus out of storage; if the results are going to be even half as I hypothesize they will be, I want you in a facility specifically meant to be completely, utterly destroyed without consequence.”

“Yes, Maker Abner,” Penny said. She didn't reach out for Weiss and gestured out the testing room, and kept a noticeable distance from Weiss as they went off to the hallways once more.

They walked in awkward silence for a while.

“Hey...” Weiss said. “Sorry about earlier, when I snapped at you… that was really wrong of me.”

Penny smiled. “Apology accepted. I understand that given everything you’ve just learned, the temptation to ‘shoot the messenger’ is very strong indeed!”

Weiss nodded. “Why does the Council keep so many secrets?”

“Controlling the flow of information is key to maintaining the peace and authority of the settlements; an uninformed public tends to be a docile one, especially when there is an ever present and very real threat from outside forces occupying their immediate thoughts.”

“Isn’t that facism?”

“It is, and is one of the largest reasons for the separatist movements, such as the Celestians.”

“Democracy lose the popular vote?” Weiss joked.

Penny nodded. “There have been attempts to change the system, from both regular citizens, members of the Council, and local leaders, but it’s extremely difficult to do so given the fact that all of our vital, life-supporting technology and infrastructure rely heavily on pre-existing construction dating back to the Enkindling Era, and the Fae's complex symbiotic relationship with their environment beside.

“All successful Fae mass migrations and separations from the original settlements have relied heavily on truly exceptional circumstances—one of which is you humans arriving here in Avalon.”

Weiss nodded as they entered a giant basement, the walls, floors, and ceilings a pale brown, made of square tiles arranged in a neat grid. “I guess aliens landing and making themselves home will throw the natives for a loop...” she muttered.

“The entirety of Avalon, actually!” Abner cried as he met them, a long, ornate box in his hands. “The realm was very different before we humans arrived. Now, I’m sure you’re growing quite tired of all the history lessons, and are eager to test your powers, but just a few things to get out of the way first:

“One, this is not a brand new weapon, and is actually very, very, very ancient. I’m afraid whoever owned it before you has been permanently lost to time.”

“Two, Fae Ancestral Weapons, while very powerful from the essences absorbed from their previous owners and their battles, are also EXTREMELY picky about who owns them next. From what Elder Goodwitch tells me, so far this one has never had a successor, so the likelihood of it rejecting you is very high.”

“And three, alongside that power also tends to come memories, knowledge, and instincts, which while normally beneficial in that it allows even total beginners to become formidable fighters in record time, it sometimes comes with detrimental side effects to mental health, so please, please tell me if you suddenly have intense moments of deja vu, intimate memories of events that happened long before you were even born, and especially if you’re referring to people by their ancestor’s names.

“I am obliged to mention, the effect is especially pronounced with Weaver’s weapons such as this.

Abner put his hand on the lid. “And now, without further ado, I present to you...

“Myrtenaster!”

The runeblade inside the velvet cushions looked like an Old World Relic, an ornate rapier that had been later modified with an essence revolver, much like the one she had wielded in the honey dream. Inscribed on the hilt was the weapon’s name in German.

“Well, go on now! Take it!” Abner said. “Don’t worry: if it rejects you, I can manufacture you a new runeblade within the hour, among other alternatives.”

Weiss slowly put her hand over it. Even though the cylinder had been empty of mediums for centuries, she could feel the power radiating from it. She wrapped her fingers around the handle.

Immediately, magic surged from Weiss' hand and into the sword, the blade glowing a pale blue like ice. She pulled out of the box, held it up and admired the glow. She’d never quite seen anything so beautiful...

“Ha-ha!” Abner cried. “I knew my suspicion was correct!’

Penny clapped her hands. “Congratulations on being chosen, Weiss! Being named the successor of an Ancestral Weapon is a--”

They all stopped as even more power surged into the weapon, the glow growing ominous, water-like tendrils now spiraling around the blade and meeting up at the top as a bubble of energy. Weiss thought she really should let go, but couldn’t, like her fingers were frozen.

Beat.

Abner screamed as he dove well out of the way, Penny reached out and grabbed her arm, wrestling the point of her blade away from them.

A beam of concentrated magic shot out moments after, cutting a straight line across the ceiling and the far-wall.

Weiss wrenched her hand free of her sword, her whole body shaking.

Myrtenaster clattered to the floor.

The damaged panels fell off, cleanly cut apart where the laser had split them, new ones teleported in shortly after.

Penny let go of her arm, and held her steady by her shoulders. “Detecting severely elevated vital signs, brain activity, and extremely high magical levels! Are you okay, Weiss?!”

“HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS AWESOME!” Weiss screamed, grinning from ear to ear, her eyes wild.

Abner frowned. “Oh dear, here comes the power high!” he said as he stood back up.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take a break first…?” Penny asked, smiling nervously.

“HELL NO!” Weiss replied, now looking dangerously pale. “Give me my sword back! Gimme! Gimme!”

Penny looked at Abner.

<… Penny: Paralytic Shock, Intensity 1.>

<Yes, Maker Abner,> Penny replied.

She let go of Weiss with one hand, the other crackling with magic.

“Sorry, Weiss,” she said, before she put her hand to her chest, and everything went dark.

Weiss came to on the floor of the Raucous Room, lying on her back with Penny kneeling over her and Myrtenaster laying on her other side.

“Are you alright, Weiss?” Penny asked as she helped her up to a sitting position.

“I feel… really weirdly good, actually!” Weiss muttered. “What happened?”

“You were suffering from an overload of internal magical energy, and I had to shock you unconscious.”

“So sorry about that!” Abner said, his voice booming from the PA system. “For better or worse, with unstable Weavers, it’s safer for everyone involved if you knock them out first, and calm them down later.”

“Why?” Weiss aksed. “What would have happened if you didn’t?”

“You would have exploded,” Penny replied.

Weiss blinked. “'Exploded'…?”

“The official term is ‘Catastrophic Involuntary Discharge,’ where like an overloaded mana collector, the excess energy is unable to be contained, and is released into the immediate environment as a result—oftentimes violently.”

“Holy shit...” Weiss whispered. “Is it wrong that I still want to use my powers more?”

“Not at all!” Penny said. “This is actually quite healthy, that you feel the need to discharge your excess mana reserves. The only real issue here is that you do it safely, and in amounts that don’t overwhelm you like earlier.”

“How do I do that?”

“In the long-term, regular weaver training, continuing your farming, and making processed goods from them will help tremendously,” Penny replied. “Without a doubt, your body unconsciously leaking excess magic is what caused your moonshine to be so potent, and your creations to turn into elementals—both the most recent ones, and the goo monster back at the Job Gauntlet.”

Golems began to warp in around her. They were all simpler and more inhuman than Penny, designed like medieval knights in full plate armour, Fae-made weapons in their hands. All of them of them were the size of an adult human, except for a giant titan four times as large as them with an executioner’s blade to match.

“And in the short-term, you can help me get some valuable data about you and your powers by destroying everything you see around you—preferably with your magic,” Abner finished.

Weiss looked around and smiled as the Knight Golems came to life, standing at attention with their weapons at rest.

Penny picked up Myrtenaster, then held it out to her with upturned palms.

Weiss took it. Now that she knew what was coming, she had much better control over her flow of magic, and as a plus, the feeling of it amplifying it several times over still felt amazing.

“Stay back, Penny,” she said as she stepped forward, the first of the knights mirroring her. “This is going to get messy.”

Penny curtsied and giggled. “As you wish, 'mistress~'” she said playfully, before she ran to the side, into a bunker Abner had just warped in.

One of the knights stepped forward, a swordsman.

Weiss curtsied, it bowed, and they raised their weapons.

The knight charge, both hands on its blade.

Weiss readied herself to meet it with her rapier, before she felt Myrtenaster pulse in her hand, images, wordless ideas and suggestions echo in her head.

She smiled, and stabbed the sword into the ground.

A sheet of ice came rocketing out, catching the swordsman unaware. It slipped and fell, Weiss stood aside as it zoomed on past her. The ice cracked and dissolved back into pure mana as soon as her opponent slid past it, but there was no time to complain:

The next knight was stepping up.

Again, she curtsied, he bowed, before he charged her with his sword.

Weiss held up her free hand, spreading her fingers open, a sheet of solid ice forming in front of her.

The knight swung.

Crash!

The shield shattered into a million pieces, barely stopping the blade from meeting her shoulder.

The attack didn’t hurt, but the blow to her ego certainly stung.

The knight stepped back, gestured apologetically.

“I’m fine,” Weiss said as she readied herself again.

The knight did the same, stepping back a few feet, before he swung again.

This time, Weiss didn’t try to block the blow with her magic, but with Myrtenaster. The runeblade was bounds stronger than its thin appearance would have suggested, and knight’s blade came to a stop. However, it still had brute force on its side, and it pushed down on Weiss with most of its strength.

Again, the golem's blade struck home, on her other shoulder.

Once more, no injury, except to her pride.

Weiss gritted her teeth, saw that the knight overbalanced, falling forward and leaving his chest open.

She slammed her off-hand into him, magic pouring into the knight’s chassis, before it turned into freezing cold ice.

The knight staggered back from the blow, stunned.

Weiss stabbed it three times with Myrtenaster, the knight staggering back if it had been blasted by a firehouse.

The shock wore off, it began to move once more.

Weiss grinned as she cocked her off-hand back, then thrust it forward.

The knight went crashing to his back, and skidded back a few inches.

The icicle jutting out from Weiss hand stayed in the air, before it disappeared, the leftover magic falling and glimmering in the air like frost.

The golem was hauled off to the side by the third knight, this one armed with a repeater.

Weiss curtsied, he bowed, then got into a shooting position.

Dummy darts began to fly through the air and into Weiss. She raised up her off-hand, formed another ice shield, but it too shattered after only a handful of shots. She raised up Myrtenaster, closed her eyes and thought:

“Shield.”

The hail of blanks stopped. Weiss opened her eyes, saw the darts landing on a translucent barrier in front of her, ripples of energy spreading out from the points of impact before they harmlessly dropped off.

The knight reloaded.

Weiss circled Myrtenaster in the air, the ripples spiraled into the middle.

The knight raised its firing arm.

A beam of water shot out from Myrtenaster, and bored a sizable hole into its chest.

It looked down at itself, up at Weiss, nodded, then promptly collapsed.

“You seem to be getting the hang of this quite quickly!” Abner said. “Shall I up the difficulty?”

Weiss grinned. “As high as you can make it.”

“Well… good thing I had the foresight to equip them all with blanks!” Abner replied.

The knights all bowed as one, before they raised their weapons and charged.

[tiliaeuropaea-blog]

sapphic-nd replied to your post

“*banging pots and pans* MOFF-TISS-HATE   MOFF-TISS-HATE...”

why, though? can you think of a legitimate reason to back up that point or are you just bitter bc your ship wasn't canon?

Under the cut, a list of things I’m “bitter” about, regarding all seasons of Sherlock, in no particular order.

They butchered all the female characters. Straight up butchered their character potential and made them tools to be used by male characters. Let me be a bit more specific about a couple of them:

Irene Adler (and yes, I always going to be bitter about it). Now, Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia (published in 1891!) is a more proactive, progressive, appealing and genuinely interesting character that BBC!Irene will ever hope to be. And if you think about the 120 year gap, it’s kind of sad. ACD!Irene is a successful thirty-something woman who has retired from her career after making a fortune and now lives in a fancy area of London all by herself (IN THE FUCKING XIXTH CENTURY), marries for love and outsmarts Sherlock Holmes so hard he is left speechless. She’s funny, talented, smart, has a wonderful sense of humour, and sometimes dresses as a young lad to walk around London without being restricted by gender norms. An icon to this day. Now Steven Moffat read this story and went, “This is absolutely NOT a feminist victory! I, a straight white cis middle-aged man, know EXACTLY what a feminist victory looks like!” So BBC!Irene is a woman whose power literally comes from her vagina and her being fuckable. Her agency is reduced to her reliance on powerful male figures. Sure, she’s smart, but it’s made clear she’s not smart enough. The Alpha Man outsmarts her, humiliates her and then swoops in to mercifully save her. She should be the Woman who beat Sherlock Holmes, but she’s not. And don’t even get me started on her sexual orientation (and the implications that all gay women are promiscuous and just waiting for the Right Man). I highly recommend reading Antonija Primorac’s The Naked Truth for more insight on the matter.

Molly Hooper. They mistreated her character all along, and I think this is pretty clear. She’s depicted as needy, pathetic, weak time and time again. I thought they were getting better at writing her until season 4 came along. They simply used her when they needed her (e.g. for looking after a baby they created just for the sake of a good pun; and of course Rosie’s babysitter had to be Molly or Mrs Hudson, god forbid it’s a man? Greg who?). Zero agency, zero character development. But the last straw had to be the I Love You scene. First of all, how is it possible that Molly is still in love with Sherlock? Honestly? They literally haven’t spoken to each other in months, it’s just not realistic. This is character regression. Secondly, she is just brought back so she can be humiliated. Again. I truly believe Moffat has a kink for getting praised by women and humiliating them in return. Talk about issues. What’s even worse is that she’s shown visiting 221B in the final episode, as if nothing happened. She’s expected to be humiliated by Sherlock again and again and forgive him every time.

Rosamund Mary Watson. I’ll just refer you back to these two metas, x and x, I wrote after T6T. 

Eurus Holmes. Her depiction as the Mad Woman in the Attic is in itself problematic, and if you’re interested in reading more about this, please read @aherocanbeanyone‘s post about the depiction of mental illness in TFP. Also may I add something Beatrice pointed out in private: weird how the only Holmes sibling to be “mad” is the female one, uh? Her own character is inconsistent at best: she’s a mentally ill person, who has been locked up since childhood for murdering another human being, but in the end she just needed... a hug? So you’re either telling me Mr and Mrs Holmes are horrible, cruel parents who never showed affection to her daughter and/or intervened when they realised Euros was jealous of Sherlock and Victor’s relationship? Or her psyche is totally inconsistent and far-fetched. Moreover, when Sherlock hugs her and comforts her, she is once again saved by a man and has her agency wiped away - she’s unresponsive, doesn’t talk, etc. As Kaite Welsh said: “Although Euros in villain mode can be truly horrifying, at least she had power. At least she had agency. [...]  Every woman on the show has been systematically defanged and no amount of Mrs. Hudson driving a sports car can erase that.” (x)

That being said, we can safely say Sherlock is a sexist show. Most episodes don’t even pass the Bechdel test, I think.

Now, onto my “bitterness about Johnlock not being canon”. The reason I’m angry that Johnlock was not canon, is that it made the whole series a prime example of queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is cruel and honestly, some of the people on here who believed the most are young queer fans who were really hurt by the way Mofftiss treated us. I don’t approve of the carrot and stick approach they used. They repeatedly insulted and disregarded the Johnlock community in interviews and peppered the show with gay jokes, but kept playing with the subtext and the fans. They exploited their queer fans, their resources and then revealed they actually don’t care at all. If they cared about us they would’ve followed through and made the subtext text. If they didn’t want this from the start, they shouldn’t have played with the feelings of queer youth just because it’s fun. But what’s wrong with an ambiguous ending, you ask? It’s cowardice and cruelty. By leaving the ending ambiguous they revealed that they care more about the money that the larger straight (and homophobic) audience can give them, than about the loyalty and respect of a smaller but dedicated group of fans, whose lives would’ve been changed by this kind of representation. I’m sorry but this is just plain evil. 

And now last but not least: they’re mediocre writers at best. They rely heavily on illogical plot twists just for the shock value. They’re like architects that built a house with stained glass windows and a pool with a 30ft slide, but didn’t really bother with the foundation. The house is going to collapse eventually, no matter how pretty it is. The show may be exciting and shiny, but if you take a closer look you’ll notice so many plot holes and fortuitous coincidences. “You know what they say about coincidences? The universe is rarely so lazy.” But they are. Most plot lines are built on coincidences, chance, and far-fetched deductions that magically turn up to be correct. This has always been their modus operandi since day 1 (the suitcase has to be pink because the woman wears a pink coat? you do realise most women don’t have as much suitcases as they do coats, do you?) but it got worse with the seasons. The reason is that they bit off more than they could chew, wanted to build ever cleverer and more convoluted plot lines without being able to make them realistic and plausible. Season 4 was supposed to reference back to previous seasons, to tie up all loose ends, so be the overarching glue that kept all season together. It was obviously not, most characters were OOC and their character development made a sharp U Turn to FuckedUpVille. Also, they said that the big plot twist was something they hinted at throughout the series but they did not??? They literally introduced a new villain two episodes in with no other hint beforehand? Also, it’s pretty obvious they did NOT plan this ahead because this season is completely detached from the others plotwise. Well of course except for Moriarty, who we are expected to believe knew about Sherlock’s secret sister but did not use it against him? Because he’s what, kind-hearted?

They’re also pretty shitty at handling climaxes: all the climaxes in the show have deeply underwhelming resolutions that resolve absolutely nothing: Morairty has Sherlock and John at gunpoint? Ooops, phone call. Euros shoots John? Nah, tranquillizer. Reichenbach Fall? Who the fuck knows how he did it? Not them. What I mean is, they come up with a shocking scene where all hope seems to be lost, how will our hero survive? Cool, right? But they cannot come up with a decent answer to that question either, so they scramble up a (again, furtuitous) way to dodge the situation. That’s a sign of bad writing. If you can’t figure out how your hero survives, you should not write that scene.

But if they’re just plain incompetent, they do not deserve hate, right? They deserve to be explained their mistakes so that they can grow and become better writers! Wrong. We’re past constructive criticism, Moffat refuses to listen to criticism, he even sounds personally offended whenever someone says anything about his shows (x x). He’s just like a giant entitled toddler who needs a reality check. About Gatiss, I honestly to this day cannot wrap my head around what is up with him. 

This is the end of my presentation on how much I hate Mofftiss. I’m sure I forgot something but I’ll add if it comes to mind. Anyway, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are sexist queerbaiting assholes, lame writers and horrible human beings. End of.

[orendrasingh]

Adam Schiff did most of the heavy lifting for the House managers, and if he performed ably, he also relied on arguments and tropes that don’t withstand scrutiny.The Democratic case for impeachment and removal is now heavily encrusted with clichés, widely accepted by the media, meant to give their indictment additional weight.In his lengthy opening statement last week, Schiff relied on all of them, and then some.This is not to say that the basic charge against Trump — withholding defense aid to Ukraine to try to force investigations that he wanted — is wrong, or that Trump’s conduct was proper.It’s just that to try to get it to the level of impeachment and removal requires rhetorical gymnastics. Schiff strained to make Trump’s Ukraine scheme a piece of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, to exaggerate its national-security and electoral consequence, and to portray removal as the only remedy.Here are 15 times that Schiff related a stilted, distorted, or flatly erroneous version of events: 1. “Just as he made use of Secretary Clinton’s hacked and released emails in the previous presidential campaign.”Schiff wanted to connect Trump to Russia’s hacking, even though there is no connection. So he said Trump “made use” of the emails. But what does that mean? That he cited them. Well, so did everyone else. As Byron York pointed out the other day, the press widely reported on the WikiLeaks disclosures. If it was blameworthy to make a big deal of information revealed in the hacks, Bernie Sanders was a major offender, calling for the resignation of then–DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz after the DNC hack. 2. “In 2016, then–candidate Trump implored Russia to hack his opponent’s email account.”Again, this is an attempt to make Trump responsible for Russia’s hacking. It refers to a press conference where Trump made a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Russians' being rewarded by the press if they found Hillary’s missing emails. The Russians did attempt to spearfish a domain used by Clinton’s personal office on the same day, but it’s hard to believe Russian hackers were taking their cues from Trump, and of course, they had already hacked the DNC — hence, the occasion for Trump’s riff. 3. In pushing the Ukrainians on the discredited CrowdStrike theory, Trump was “attempting to erase from history his previous election misconduct.”Trump has been, no doubt, desperate to find someone else to finger for the Russian hacking since Russia is such a focus of his critics, but the hacking wasn’t his work, so to refer to it as “his previous election misconduct” is absurd. 4. Robert Mueller testified “that Russia systemically interfered in our election to help elect Donald Trump, that the campaign understood that, and they willfully made use of that help.” Schiff wants to portray Mueller as having found Trump guilty in his probe, when he actually found no evidence of collusion. 5. After Mueller catalogued Russian interference, the very next day, “President Trump is on the phone with a different foreign power, this time Ukraine, trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the next election.”In the Schiff version, a Trump caught red-handed working with the Russians to interfere in U.S. politics then immediately turns around to work with the Ukrainians. But the opposite was true. It was Trump’s sense of outraged innocence over the Mueller probe that partly motivated him to focus on Ukraine’s purported role in getting the Russia investigation started. 6. Trump believes “that under Article II, he could do anything he wants.”This has become a favorite chestnut of Democrats during impeachment, but it wrenches Trump’s statement out of context. He was talking about having the inherent Article II power to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. Whatever you might have thought about the wisdom of such a move, Trump was correct about his power. 7. “The military aid that we provide Ukraine helps to protect and advance American national-security interests in the region and beyond.” This is certainly true, but every time Democrats revert to the importance of Ukrainian defense aid as a matter of policy, it raises the question of why, by and large, Democrats went along with Barack Obama’s refusal to provide any lethal assistance to Ukraine whatsoever and how Trump, overall, has been better on Ukraine assistance. 8. Trump is guilty of “abusing the powers of that office in such a way to jeopardize our national security.”It’s ridiculous to suggest that what turned out to be a brief hold on Ukraine aid had dire national-security consequences for the U.S. 9. “He personally asked a foreign government to investigate his opponent.”This has become the conventional way that Democrats refer to Trump’s request of Zelensky, although in concrete form it became a push to get them to commit to probe Burisma, the shady Ukrainian energy company that had Hunter Biden on its board. An investigation of Burisma is not the same thing as an investigation of Joe Biden. Assuming the Bidens aren’t at the center of some corrupt scheme involving Burisma (and there’s zero indication that they are), the investigation would have been a nothingburger in its impact on U.S. politics. Trump would have touted the investigation, but it is doubtful that this would have had any more impact than his already full-throated denunciations of Biden corruption. 10. Trump was asking the Ukrainians to help “smear a political opponent.”This accords more with Schiff’s fictional version of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president than the reality. The Ukrainians weren’t being asked to manufacture evidence against Joe Biden, and an investigation of Burisma presumably wouldn’t have smeared him, per the above point. 11. Acting ambassador Bill Taylor testified that the Trump team wanted the Ukrainians “in a public box” by publicly committing to the investigations, and this shows that “President Trump didn’t care about the investigations being done.”Schiff’s theory is that Trump wanted only a public announcement of an investigation, so he could use it against Joe Biden in his campaign. Usually, though, if you want an official to publicly commit to something, it’s to make it harder for him to back out of his promise. 12. Trump doesn’t have a right to solicit “prohibited foreign aid in his reelection.”This makes it sound like Trump was raking in Ukrainian campaign contributions and getting the Ukrainians to run ads in swing states. In reality, he was pushing for the Ukrainians to investigate a Ukrainian company, the practical political effect of which would have been nil in the U.S. 13. “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we can’t be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”It’s really amazing that Democrats have gone, in about three years, from insisting it’s impermissible to question the potential outcome of an election, when Trump ill-advisedly did so at a debate in 2016, to making it central to their worldview. They believe they were robbed in 2016 and also believe they will perhaps be robbed again. But Hillary lost under her own power in 2016, and regardless, it’s beyond the power of one person to rig a national election that will draw massive attention and turnout. 14. “I don’t think that impeachment power is a relic. If it is a relic, I wonder how much longer our republic can succeed.”Schiff argues that failure to remove eviscerates the impeachment power. Since no president has ever been convicted and removed, it’s not clear why this would be. It just means that there is a high bar to removal. 15. “If impeachment and removal cannot hold him accountable, then he truly is above the law.”Again, Schiff wants to portray impeachment as the only way a president can be held accountable, when Congress has all sorts of other levers — from investigations, to funding, to inter-branch relations, to censure — to hold a president accountable.

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[justsimplylovely]

Adam Schiff did most of the heavy lifting for the House managers, and if he performed ably, he also relied on arguments and tropes that don’t withstand scrutiny.The Democratic case for impeachment and removal is now heavily encrusted with clichés, widely accepted by the media, meant to give their indictment additional weight.In his lengthy opening statement last week, Schiff relied on all of them, and then some.This is not to say that the basic charge against Trump — withholding defense aid to Ukraine to try to force investigations that he wanted — is wrong, or that Trump’s conduct was proper.It’s just that to try to get it to the level of impeachment and removal requires rhetorical gymnastics. Schiff strained to make Trump’s Ukraine scheme a piece of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, to exaggerate its national-security and electoral consequence, and to portray removal as the only remedy.Here are 15 times that Schiff related a stilted, distorted, or flatly erroneous version of events: 1. “Just as he made use of Secretary Clinton’s hacked and released emails in the previous presidential campaign.”Schiff wanted to connect Trump to Russia’s hacking, even though there is no connection. So he said Trump “made use” of the emails. But what does that mean? That he cited them. Well, so did everyone else. As Byron York pointed out the other day, the press widely reported on the WikiLeaks disclosures. If it was blameworthy to make a big deal of information revealed in the hacks, Bernie Sanders was a major offender, calling for the resignation of then–DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz after the DNC hack. 2. “In 2016, then–candidate Trump implored Russia to hack his opponent’s email account.”Again, this is an attempt to make Trump responsible for Russia’s hacking. It refers to a press conference where Trump made a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Russians' being rewarded by the press if they found Hillary’s missing emails. The Russians did attempt to spearfish a domain used by Clinton’s personal office on the same day, but it’s hard to believe Russian hackers were taking their cues from Trump, and of course, they had already hacked the DNC — hence, the occasion for Trump’s riff. 3. In pushing the Ukrainians on the discredited CrowdStrike theory, Trump was “attempting to erase from history his previous election misconduct.”Trump has been, no doubt, desperate to find someone else to finger for the Russian hacking since Russia is such a focus of his critics, but the hacking wasn’t his work, so to refer to it as “his previous election misconduct” is absurd. 4. Robert Mueller testified “that Russia systemically interfered in our election to help elect Donald Trump, that the campaign understood that, and they willfully made use of that help.” Schiff wants to portray Mueller as having found Trump guilty in his probe, when he actually found no evidence of collusion. 5. After Mueller catalogued Russian interference, the very next day, “President Trump is on the phone with a different foreign power, this time Ukraine, trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the next election.”In the Schiff version, a Trump caught red-handed working with the Russians to interfere in U.S. politics then immediately turns around to work with the Ukrainians. But the opposite was true. It was Trump’s sense of outraged innocence over the Mueller probe that partly motivated him to focus on Ukraine’s purported role in getting the Russia investigation started. 6. Trump believes “that under Article II, he could do anything he wants.”This has become a favorite chestnut of Democrats during impeachment, but it wrenches Trump’s statement out of context. He was talking about having the inherent Article II power to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. Whatever you might have thought about the wisdom of such a move, Trump was correct about his power. 7. “The military aid that we provide Ukraine helps to protect and advance American national-security interests in the region and beyond.” This is certainly true, but every time Democrats revert to the importance of Ukrainian defense aid as a matter of policy, it raises the question of why, by and large, Democrats went along with Barack Obama’s refusal to provide any lethal assistance to Ukraine whatsoever and how Trump, overall, has been better on Ukraine assistance. 8. Trump is guilty of “abusing the powers of that office in such a way to jeopardize our national security.”It’s ridiculous to suggest that what turned out to be a brief hold on Ukraine aid had dire national-security consequences for the U.S. 9. “He personally asked a foreign government to investigate his opponent.”This has become the conventional way that Democrats refer to Trump’s request of Zelensky, although in concrete form it became a push to get them to commit to probe Burisma, the shady Ukrainian energy company that had Hunter Biden on its board. An investigation of Burisma is not the same thing as an investigation of Joe Biden. Assuming the Bidens aren’t at the center of some corrupt scheme involving Burisma (and there’s zero indication that they are), the investigation would have been a nothingburger in its impact on U.S. politics. Trump would have touted the investigation, but it is doubtful that this would have had any more impact than his already full-throated denunciations of Biden corruption. 10. Trump was asking the Ukrainians to help “smear a political opponent.”This accords more with Schiff’s fictional version of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president than the reality. The Ukrainians weren’t being asked to manufacture evidence against Joe Biden, and an investigation of Burisma presumably wouldn’t have smeared him, per the above point. 11. Acting ambassador Bill Taylor testified that the Trump team wanted the Ukrainians “in a public box” by publicly committing to the investigations, and this shows that “President Trump didn’t care about the investigations being done.”Schiff’s theory is that Trump wanted only a public announcement of an investigation, so he could use it against Joe Biden in his campaign. Usually, though, if you want an official to publicly commit to something, it’s to make it harder for him to back out of his promise. 12. Trump doesn’t have a right to solicit “prohibited foreign aid in his reelection.”This makes it sound like Trump was raking in Ukrainian campaign contributions and getting the Ukrainians to run ads in swing states. In reality, he was pushing for the Ukrainians to investigate a Ukrainian company, the practical political effect of which would have been nil in the U.S. 13. “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we can’t be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”It’s really amazing that Democrats have gone, in about three years, from insisting it’s impermissible to question the potential outcome of an election, when Trump ill-advisedly did so at a debate in 2016, to making it central to their worldview. They believe they were robbed in 2016 and also believe they will perhaps be robbed again. But Hillary lost under her own power in 2016, and regardless, it’s beyond the power of one person to rig a national election that will draw massive attention and turnout. 14. “I don’t think that impeachment power is a relic. If it is a relic, I wonder how much longer our republic can succeed.”Schiff argues that failure to remove eviscerates the impeachment power. Since no president has ever been convicted and removed, it’s not clear why this would be. It just means that there is a high bar to removal. 15. “If impeachment and removal cannot hold him accountable, then he truly is above the law.”Again, Schiff wants to portray impeachment as the only way a president can be held accountable, when Congress has all sorts of other levers — from investigations, to funding, to inter-branch relations, to censure — to hold a president accountable.

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[minglerblog]

Postpartum Depression

Ting MIng Ler J1602144

ABSTRACT

Depression is and has always been a serious mental issue in society . People always speak of I have depression in a joking manner . In some point, depression will not be taken serious, the reason of choosing Postpartum Depression is due to the fact I have someone close that have experienced this mental issue and left a impact in my life.

The purpose of this project is to spread awareness about Postpartum Depression, to let the public know more about this mental issue that has been haunting pregnant women, and its victim . Helping them overcome this painful process.

 WIDE CONTEXT  

People feel sad, moody or low from time to time, some people experience these feelings intensely, for long periods of time (weeks, months or even years). But depression is more than just a low mood, it's a serious condition that affects physical and mental health.

  The sign of depression is feeling sad, down or miserable most of the time, or have lost interest or pleasure in usual activities for a long period. Behaviour will change significant, such as not going out anymore, not getting things done at work/school, withdrawing from close family and friends, relying heavily on alcohol and sedatives not doing usual enjoyable activities, and unable to concentrate. During a depression state a person will be flowing full of negative thoughts sadness disappointed and self-doubt. For the physical side of symptoms tired all the time, sick and run down, headaches and muscle pains, sleep problems, loss or change of appetite, significant weight loss or gain. All experience some of these symptoms from time to time, and it may not necessarily mean you're depressed. Equally, not everyone who is experiencing depression will have all of these symptoms.

 Depression and grief is different, being sad does not equal depressed. Grief is a painful feeling come in waves and intermixed with positive memories, throughout this stage self-esteem is usually maintained. Compare to major depression, mood and interest for the victim is decreased, the feeling of worthlessness and self-loathing are common. For some people, the death of a loved one can bring on major depression. Losing a job or being a victim of a physical assault or a major disaster can lead to depression for some people. When grief and depression co-exist, the grief is more severe and lasts longer than grief without depression. Despite some overlap between grief and depression, they are different. ( Identifying and Managing Preparatory Grief and Depression at the End of Life, Vyjeyanthi S. Periyakoil, James Hallenbeck,  March 1, 2002).  Depression can affect anyone even for a person  live in ideal circumstances. Serval factor play a role in Depression, Biochemistry, Genetics, Personality and Environmental factors. In the cases of, Biochemistry differences in certain chemicals in the brain may contribute to symptoms of depression. Genetics also play a part in depression . For example, if one identical twin has depression, the other has a 70 percent chance of having the illness sometime in life. People who have low self-esteem, can be easily overwhelmed by stress, or who have negative thought  are more likely to experience depression. Continuous exposure to violence, neglect, abuse or poverty may make some people more vulnerable to depression. Depression has different types, Major Depression, PPD postpartum depression, SAD seasonal affective disorder. In the case of Major Depression, there is different categories. First of all is Melancholia during this depression state victims will experienced all the symptoms of depression, having slow movement and losing pleasure in everything. Psychotic depression is also one of the major depression, it causes hallucination or delusion, making the victim believing they are bad, and the most importantly they will feel being watch, followed and paranoid.       

  SPECIFIC CONTEXT 

 The topic for my specific context research is postpartum depression (PPD).  Postpartum depression is one of serious depression that women will have while pregnant, after birth. Estimated that 14%-23% of pregnant women experience depression during pregnancy, and 5%-25% experience depression postpartum. postpartum depression is linked to chemical, social and psychological change with a baby. Victim of depression postpartum usually is new mother due their lack of experience to take care of baby and the physical changes to their body. Carrying a baby in no simple task. The symptoms include difficulty of sleep, appetite change and accompanied with symptoms of major depression. In some serious case Postpartum depression can lead to the Thought of death and suicide or thought of hurting someone else in this case it will mostly be the new born baby. If depression isn’t treated during pregnancy, it can lead to postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a serious condition that can last for months after giving birth and can affect the way a mother bonds with her baby.

People usually confuse Postpartum depression with baby blues. Baby blues is a mild form of postpartum depression that most new moms will experience. It starts one to three days after the birth, and it usually won’t last long. With baby blues, many women have mood swings, they’re happy and suddenly crying the next. They may feel anxious, confused, or have trouble eating or sleeping. The baby blues is very common, up to 80% of new moms have it, and it will go away on its own.

About 13% of new mothers experience postpartum depression, which is more serious and lasts longer. It can start up to a few months after childbirth. (Postpartum Depression and the Baby Blues, Melinda Smith, May 2019 ) . If you have a family history of depression or have suffered from depression before, you’re more at risk. Postpartum depression is treatable. But if is not treated, children will be affected also.

Depression can also cause issue such as financial or marital problems, or a very stressful life event.

Depression can lead mothers to be inconsistent with the way they care for their children. They may be loving one minute and withdrawn the next. They may not able to respond at all to their children’s behaviour and they may respond in a negative way. Depending on the age of the children , they will be affected by their mother’s depression in different ways. (Paediatr Child Health. 2004 Oct; 9)

   THE WORK 

 The objective of the infographic and the art installation is to tell the story of PostPartum Depression victim and tell the target audience about PostPartum Depression how did it happen and the progression of recovery , treating PPD victim with patient and love. Before this project, an interview has been conducted with PostPartum depression victim.  Through the data gathered PostPartum depression victims felt paranoid, unstable emotion, and some even has violent behaviour.   People often misunderstood depression with grief, both do share similarities and yet different from another. Depression and grief both has the same trait that is feeling of sad and powerless , but depression lasted longer. Similar with PostPartum depression , it takes a long time to recover , in some cases PostPartum depression never recover. The envision idea of the art installation is to connect with the target audience through the visual and let them understand more into the dark side of PostPartum depression, help those who in need, feel more empathy instead of feeling sympathy .Knowing and understanding the situation that the victim felt and giving them love and care, instead of telling them “everything will be fine” ,helping them navigate through the stormy ocean , make them felt warm and give them courage again.    The infographic used simple four colour black ,white,and red , each colour has their own story. Three specific story from real life interview was chosen for the infographic. Each colour represent the story white will represent fear, black paranoid and red is violence. The white will show a silhouette of a black colour demon looking creature to play with the space in order to show the powerless mother against her own fear. The colour black will tell the story of a mother being paranoid, to create the empty space and loneliness. Red will be more straight forward, telling the story of the mother violent side while dealing with Postpartum depression. Each colour is a symbol and its tells their story.       For the art installation , is to create something feminine ,peaceful, yet harsh looking. The first idea was to have the audience interact with the art piece, and form there came out the idea of sculpture. In order to create the harsh looking ,reference from barb wire was taken to create the shap , pointy and desperate look. But the barb wire design is too intense and will not suit the final outcome .The barb wire design was improvise to a more feminine wire sculpture of a women’s hand holding the baby , while still maintain the pointy edges to show the emotion of pain , irritation and fear of the mother. The wire sculpture of the hand was taken real reference form a real life human hand in order to create the accurate human hand size, and it has a more mechanic look to it. The main piece will be a wire sculpture and cover with fabric to make it like a baby. In the final outcome the hand will be the stand of the baby to simulate a mother holding a child. The story will be shown through fabric print , to show each different stage of Postpartum depression until the recovery.     

 THE PRATICE/DESIGN RATIONAL

 For this project the colour of choice is pink, black , white , grey and red. Each colour symbolize a different stage of PostPartum depression . Pink is  a delicate color that means sweet, romantic, charming, feminine, and tenderness, is associated with bubble gum, flowers, babies, pink is also the color of universal love of oneself and of others , it represents friendship, affection, harmony, inner peace, and approachability. Pink is the more sweeter and peaceful side of the red. While red brings up the passion, aggression, and dramatic action. Red, the color of blood and fire, is associated with meanings of love, passion, desire, heat, longing, lust, sexuality, sensitivity, romance, joy, strength, leadership, courage. But for this project the red will represent rage, anger, danger, malice, wrath, stress, action, vibrance, radiance, and determination The overuse of red is to show the  temper, agitation, anger, and overbearing, demanding, and oppressive behaviors  for the stage where the “mother “will have more a violent behaviour, and to have a more dramatic visual. The colour of black is often associated with power, fear, mystery, strength, authority, elegance, formality, death, evil, and aggression mostly towards the negative side. The colour black in this project represent the overwhelming emotion of fear and sadness that slowly corrupt the mind of the victim. The white symbolize innocence and to form a contrast between the black. Lastly the colour grey associated with loss or depression, it shows the affects of the mind and body by causing unsettling feelings.(Colour Meaning, Jennifer Bourn ,November 2010)

The visual in the fabric printed artwork is design by different shape and illustrated by a semi cartoonish style , by using the theory of character design. A visual message has to be clear to be effective and exploring a character's silhouette in an early stage of the design , the overall shape will speak for a character's personality. Curved and circular shapes are the friendliest due to they have no sharp or dangerous corners. Circular shapes mostly represent a character of being soft and harmless , a more harmony design. Triangles will relate to diagonal and strong, fine lines and are the most dynamic of the three shapes. Evil is often associated with the sharp edges shape etc Disney Maleficent and Transformer Megatron .Triangular concepts, as they appear  sinister and has showed the most aggression . It is the circle's  opposing shape and often used for antagonists. The shape of a character has the ability to visually communicate to the audience, but the visual communication becomes more effective when placed in relation to another character: A small character that is posed with a big character will make them seem even bigger and smaller. When creating visual, opposing characters, or a team, it is important that they look good together, by adding  contrast in proportions and body shape it is possible to create visual interest while also revealing something about the character's personality and telling the story. Character design depends from realism to idealization  the silhouette of a human character will different depends on how stylized a character, a design or a game is. A stylized Design for example will have more creativity, exaggerated shapes and proportions when it comes to creating, designing a character through a recognizable silhouette. Proportions can be altered in many ways and  are especially useful to create many different human-based characters: A character with a small head and a large body will communicate in a different way compared to a character with a small body and a large head, adding personality to the character.( How Can a Character's Personality be Conveyed Visually, through Shape, Hanna Ekström.)

    REFERENCES

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/what-causes-depression

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/types-of-depression

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/signs-and-symptoms

http://www.drplace.com/Identifying_and_Managing_Preparatory_Grief_and_Depression_at_the_End_of_Life.16.28112.htm

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/postpartum-depression-and-the-baby-blues.htm?pdf=13028

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724170/

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/babyblues.html?WT.ac=p-ra

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/postpartum-depression-and-the-baby-blues.htm/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/postpartum-depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20376617

http://primarypsychiatry.com/can-postpartum-depression-be-predicted/

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https://www.bourncreative.com/meaning-of-the-color-pink/