#i had difficulty trying to convey what i was going for here so this might be a weaker one

[zahnffxiv]

hrothtober day 28: flight!!

i'm still not good with heights!!

[swallowerofdharma]

Do you think a happy ending for Guts, Casca, and Griffith could work?

All three of them? No, I really don’t think so. It wouldn’t work or make sense for the story thematically imo. But take every single one of my reflections with a grain of salt since I am really bad at predicting outcomes in the long run, maybe because I get easily distracted by details and I like to be surprised by the story while it’s developing, without anticipating too much.

I don’t think that Griffith can have something like a happy ending, more about it later, but I think that one of the biggest questions with his character is what role Moonlight Boy will play, because if I see that Guts being able to kill him, as a mercy kill mind you, not as revenge nor as retribution and punishment, would work thematically, Moonlight Boy dying too in the process would make it too discomforting and would break any residual trust or relationship between Guts and Casca.

Miura took enough inspiration from specific types of western storytelling that it is entirely possible that he had a sort of happy ending in mind. These types of stories being fairytales and many examples of American cinema, which - due to the enormous influence of the Hays Code - incorporated happy endings from the model of the fairytale, because they were intended to convey moral teachings. Many other genres of storytelling aren’t necessarily bound to this perception of “a good ending is the happy ending and the resolution of the problem in favor of the protagonist or the return to the order, return home triumphant, so that we learn that being good is rewarded, while being bad is punished at all costs”.

In an article titled Happily Ever After published in “The Velvet Light Trap” no. 19 in 1982 David Bordwell wrote this:

The cultural implications are very much at play here, so please understand here that I am not trying to be pedantic or down putting, I only have a different point of view and different expectations myself, since I don’t consider happy endings always the best ones, they often don’t feel right compared to the real trends of life and end up being cloying and even irritating to me. And I don’t expect both Guts and Griffith to survive, nor I expect to see Guts and Casca being shown ending up together romantically, I think their situation is going to be left open. But I don’t know for sure.

Epic tales, various mythological legends, realistic narratives, many minor genres, like horror for example, don’t have happy endings as we might know them from the specific perspective of the fairytale. And I think that’s alright. There are cultures where a satisfying ending is the death of the protagonist, otherwise the story doesn’t feel finished, so we ought to have perspective. Many Japanese stories are centered around heroic deaths, there is beauty in it, but again I don’t think Miura wanted Berserk to end with Guts dying at all. I think that he really wanted a different ending from Go Nagai’s Devilman. I won’t add more because I don’t want to add spoilers to Devilman’s own ending in case someone reading this doesn’t know. Personally I hope Berserk will have a satisfying and believable ending, especially for Casca and for her a good outcome can’t happen without Moonlight Boy surviving, in a very angsty twist of fate, and maybe for Guts too, it would make sense and it would be thematically coherent with its views of the difficulties of life and how little rewarding it can be, but still hopeful for those who learn what is really important and worth fighting for.

[gamesception]

lets read rgu chapter 12

I’ve been told that this version of Juri is the originally intended version of the character?  And while I don’t think the person who said that was lying or anything, it’s still kind of hard to believe.  Partially because there seems to be a lot of misinformation going around about this series - a lot of folks online seem to think that the manga - the entire manga - came first and the anime was an adaptation from that, which my initial research says is not the case.  Partially because that bit of research also gave me the impression that Ikuhara wasn’t very forthcoming with anyone during the production regarding the overall direction of the story.  I’m not sure I would buy anyone’s account of what the original vision for Utena’s story was “supposed to be” other than Ikuhara, and possibly not even his.

I could easily see how we could go from anime Juri to this - ie, Ikuhara had an idea for the character that he knew would be controversial so he kept it close to his chest and didn’t tell anyone for as long as possible, leaving Saito with a character design but no character that might as well just be slotted in as a romantic rival for Touga’s affections in a manga story that is at least presenting itself more as an Utena/Touga romance.  On the other hand, if manga juri was genuinely the initial intent by everyone, including Ikuhara, from the very beginning, I have a hard time seeing how the pivot from this to anime Juri happened mid production.

I mean, that would take some kind of miracle.

Setting aside other versions of her character - hypothetical or realized - manga Juri is a purely physical threat.  She doesn’t have a compelling motivation to relate to, she doesn’t present a significant thematic challenge to Utena’s worldview or princely ambitions.  She’s just someone who is good at sword fighting - a fact that the still image format of the manga can /tell/ us, but can’t convincingly /show/.  The duel panels are very pretty, but don’t really convey a great sense of danger or difficulty than those with Saionji.  And Juri’s supposed unbeatable fencing skill is pretty significantly undermined when just a couple pages into the fight Utena calls down the power of Dios...

and then Utena just wins. effortlessly.

Another unfortunate thing I’m just now realizing is that with Juri having the one sided crush on Touga and being a bitter and jealous antagonist over it, there’s not much left for Nanami to do when she’s introduced....

only she’s probably not going to be introduced, is she?  I mean, the dissolving dress party prank thing didn’t happen, we haven’t seen or mentioned her yet, the manga probably doesn’t have time for comedy side episodes...  Anime’s best worst girl just doesn’t appear in this comic at all, does she?

Another of my favorite characters missing entirely from this version of the story.

Anyway, Utena tries to ask Touga if he’s the prince who saved her as a child, but can’t quite bring herself to do it.

The next day she’s still distracted thinking about it, throwing off her archery game, though we do get a cute moment of Wakaba cheering her on, so that’s nice.

Afterwords Miki approaches Utena to talk about Juri and Touga.  He feels bad for Juri, and wants to go talk to Touga about it.  sure I guess.

Touga’s dorm is a mansion for some reason.  That’s kind of funny.  I’m not sure why they’re coming here if he’s supposed to still be in the clinic?

They break into Touga’s house using a spare key, and I’m still not sure why, or what they’re doing here.  I mean, I know what Utena’s doing here - she’s snooping around to find out if Touga’s her prince.  Manga Utena is significantly more concerned about that then anime Utena.

Ok, so Miki’s snooping around because he thinks Touga’s up to something and has been in communication with EotW instead of just receiving letters from them.  At least I get what they’re trying to do, though not why he invited Utena on the spying mission.

Utena finda a picture of Touga and Nanami (forshadowing a future character introduction?  Am I wrong about her being completely absent?), mentions how she always wanted a sibling.  Miki starts to open up about whatever the manga version of his deal is when they hear someone else in the building and rush to hide.

A couple pages are out of order in the scan here, which caused a fair bit of confusion, but basically they rush to hide in a cupboard, but it turns out to be a secret door to Touga’s wizard sanctum.

And that’s where the chapter ends.

I don’t know.  It’s hard to be super invested in the rose magic wizard mystery when I feel like I mostly know what’s going on already from having watched the anime - even if there’s more detail on that side of things in the manga, where as the interpersonal character stuff - the stuff that stays compelling to me even if I already know it - is largely absent in this rendition.

I wasn’t expecting to like the manga as much as the anime going in, but even so I’m still pretty disappointed.  It’s not incompetently crafted by any means, it still looks good, and some bits even look better than the anime version, but still.

But hey, maybe they’ll do something with the star signs business, and I’ll be able to make some homestuck jokes?

[foxymoxynoona]

I'll admit I'm struggling with this story, lol. I'm trying to figure out your plan, and not-so-secretly love that I can't. One thing I have noticed, and it might just be my sharp JK bias, but other than when Sasha dumped him, it almost feels like he's always the "bad guy", the one doing stupid shit that causes problems for them. So much so that when I read these other asks, most readers are usually on Sashs's "side" of whatever the current conflict is. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm waiting for something to make me understand why she loves him and stays with him. Sometimes the relationship feels uneven. Yet I know it's not and that she most definitely has her issues. But, he has to have issues too, right? The way he grew up in the spotlight, privileged, prodigious, but also imprisoned in a lot of ways. I don't know what I'm saying here exactly, but I just wonder if his acting out/rebelliousness needs some addressing? If maybe he wanted to be caught? I'm sorry for rambling. I'm avoiding going back to work. Can't wait for what you have planned, as always.

��� It's great fun watching the tide go back and forth and often eddy into division about who's giving more or causing more problems or pulling more of their weight. There are definitely plenty of "why is she with him" comments but also just about as many "she's holding out on him" comments, etc etc. You could say that Sasha has some deeper attachment issues that impact the relationship while JK is more likely to make short-sighted mistakes, but there are also examples of the opposite for both of them. Truly a mess, haha!

I think I've mentioned before, I think Flux was a lot of rapid growth for Sasha due to her internal conflicts imploding. My Matryoshka leans more into Jungkook's struggles, which surfaced in the last book when he basically melted down over their breakup but were sort of tamped down as he focused on Sasha. Many readers had commented about feeling like Jungkook didn't actually realize or address just how much he struggled in Flux --and here we are in My Matryoshka seeing more things bubble, some of which are his own doing and some of which are a result of his career/lifestyle. He's been pushing boundaries more and more over time as he tries to develop a sense of control and his own identity. It makes sense Sasha is a boundary he'll push against too --and arguably that can be a positive thing, for him to feel confident and secure enough to test that relationship, but the context of boundary pushing is not necessarily... comfortable, let's say.

I think what I'm trying to say is, sometimes "bad" (rebellious, acting out, however you want to phrase it) behavior has a really important ,valuable developmental reason. Look at toddlers and teenagers and the hell they can put their loved ones through 😂 Originally Sasha was part of his boundary pushing, then she became a boundary to push against, and so on.

As for the question "why does she love him/be with him" or the reverse comes up a lot with readers and it's very interesting to me. Why is anyone with the person they're with? Some blend of ilogical emotion/attachment, careful evaluation, choice, and stubbornness despite the difficulties. I suppose there are relationships where things are only ever easy, but for many in long term relationships there are going to be rough patches and it comes down to the individuals in the relationship and how they decide for themselves what's worth staying for or when it's time to leave. From my own personal experience, life can get hard in ways it's impossible to predict, and the impact that past trauma can have on a relationship can be really, really hard to work through on top of that. Hard doesn't necessarily mean not worth it!

It makes sense that we spend a great deal of time evaluating the relationships we see in stories to decide our own boundaries and needs. In this case, I do have a master plan of what I'm trying to convey with their relationship, but it's a long term message. Sometimes I'm so impatient and wish I could just skip ahead or give the answers, but the journey is part of it 😎 So we will all have to be patient and live it.

Trust me, it's harder for me to be patient hahah

[michelleelizabethtanner]

Well. Here I am. With another question. Or more so, interested in hearing your thoughts.

Talk to me about this scene, in particular, Rio’s thoughts / feelings about the possible pregnancy and loss.

I am of the mind that he knew (or suspected or hoped) that it was fake all along, but then this scene makes me question that.

Uuughh, maybe I’m unromantic, but I think I’m in the minority in my opinion. I don’t view him as being sad about the loss of a pregnancy he allowed himself to believe was real. Like, I can just picture his little brain cogs turning after the OB confirmed a pregnancy, trying to figure out how she was lying. If Rhea was clever enough to inform the doctor and get her to lie, why wouldn’t Rio have suspected that as a possibility? He probably imagined all sorts of ways he was being lied to, ranging from “she isn’t pregnant and everyone is lying” to “she’s pregnant and it isn’t mine and she’s lying.” And maaaaybe somewhere in a secret corner of his mind lived a nagging little spark of “she’s pregnant and it’s mine and we’re all fucked, especially this poor baby.”

I keep watching this scene, trying to see his grief over a lost pregnancy, and I just don’t see it. I’ve tried to bend my mind that way and those emotions don’t come across to me at all. Even if he did believe she was pregnant, I don’t think his immediate emotion here is grief.

He sees the distress on her and watches as she engages in a self-destructive behavior. Has he seen her do this before? He’s participated in her self-destructive actions in the past, but IDK if he realized the trauma response that they were. He was having too much fun with her and enjoyed the ways she acted out. Her willingness to work for him, her initiating sex with him – it was all fun and games. I think this is the first glimpse he has into her overwhelming sadness. Into the load she carries and the reasons why she ever entered his world in the first place. To me, he is almost worried for her mental stability and how she may be hurting herself here.

Again, I see almost worry in this moment. Idk why I imagine Rio as very aware of things women go through that men usually don’t. Like the difficulty of a pregnancy loss. I imagine he would understand the impact of that kind of loss. Look at him assess her. It could be him looking for the truth. But it doesn’t seem that way to me. It’s a complicated look. One of empathy and of concern. He’s watching her get drunk and self-harm and to me, he is feeling for her here. Despite himself, he is feeling for her as a fellow human. A human he cares about whether he wants to or not.

And slowly, that empathy and that caring and that genuine concern he feels for her changes. There are no more excuses. The shield she had protecting her is gone and he has no reasons not to kill her. I think this is the moment he realizes this, while at the same time realizing that he no longer WANTS to kill her. His anger cooled while she stalled and some of his old sentimental feelings for her have returned. He just experienced them. He just felt the care for her he’s been stuffing down. The care he thought was gone forever. And suddenly those old feelings came back when he saw her vulnerable and hurting. Rio loves to save hurting women. He loves to be their hero. Not even for his own ego. I think he just acutely feels a protectiveness over women he views as “his,” and he felt that protectiveness for her as he watched her shoot tequila and be sad. I think those feelings surprised him. I think they confused him. And I think his internal struggle here is with himself and his code of ethics rather than grief for what might have been with an illegitimate crime baby. He isn’t mourning a baby. He’s mourning Beth.

Side note: what do you think the actors thought they were conveying? It’s so interesting to me how we all attribute all this emotion based on subtle looks and small actions. Beth and Rio aren’t real. So what did Christina and Manny think these characters would feel in this moment? So fascinating!

[gogofordrakgo]

Since Tumblr chickened out on allowing people off-site to ask questions, I have to resort to barbaric measures to do so. Please forgive me for this.

What started you on D/S drabbles and what made you stick to strictly 100 words (as is the original requirement for this format)?

How do you work with them? Start big and trim down, or small and add more?

You do them in alphabetical order. Why?

- Guest

Ooh! Well, this is fun! Sorry for the delay, Tumblr decided to hide this until just now! I started the drakgo drabbles back in... I think 2021 mostly in an attempt to get back into writing in general. (Hell yeah for antidepressants lol) I thought writing a couple of quick short stories would be helpful, and ended up writing a few drabbles for the challenge of it... And then I realized it was fun and I found them “simple” to write, so I wound up sticking with it! In fact, a number of the original drabbles still haven’t been posted as they don’t fit in with any of my current sets. I’ll find homes for them eventually, I promise!  I stuck with the 100 words because I can sorta be a stickler for inconsequential rules. I imagine there are very few people besides myself who’d be upset if I went over or under on a few of them but I generally think the challenge is in getting the story conveyed within the constraints of exactly 100 words. As you said, it’s the original requirement for this format and while I will never correct someone else for calling a short story a drabble (because honestly, I know it doesn’t really matter) I couldn’t imagine myself doing this any other way. Now, this question I feel like kind of a jerk answering... I sort of just... write them. I don’t know, so long as I have an idea to work with I can usually get an entire drabble written in a matter of minutes. That’s not to say I never end up going over or under the word count! Certainly, I have spent plenty of time reworking certain drabbles to reach 100 words exactly! I’ve also had a few drabbles, I admit not many, that I’ve rewritten several times just on the principle of not liking the way they turned out. “Wrestle” for example took me an entire day to write, as I couldn’t decide what route exactly I wanted to take, or how best to convey the positioning in the scene. But... Yeah, in general, most of them come pretty naturally to me. I would like to make it clear here that I have been writing for well over a decade and did in fact study writing in college. The fact that this comes easily to me now is not me trying to look down on or discourage anyone else who might struggle with short-form storytelling or writing in general. I have done a lot of work to reach a point where I can confidently believe I am a decent, if not good writer.

The alphabetical order thing actually came from the names of my one-shots! I don’t know why I decided to stick to one-word names but I did and eventually started to think it would be funny to write a one-shot covering every letter in the alphabet. Then for a variety of reasons, I wound up somewhat leaving the fandom for a while and had a lot of trouble trying to get back into writing. So that never really happened. As things started to get a bit better, as I started writing the drabbles, I realized if I was going to post them I might as well hit that alphabet goal! And what better way to do that than to do it in... reverse alphabetic older?

But that was how I ended up using obscure words as my first set of drabbles. After that, it just sort of became part of it, which I admit is a little unfortunate because while I have this current set almost completed and the next two sets named... It’s starting to get really difficult to come up with categories that I could hit all 26 letters in! I may just decide to start posting them as I write them later on, but frankly, I enjoy my personal alphabetical rule and know I’ll have difficulty breaking it when the time comes.

Wow! Seriously, thank you for the questions! I hope I was able to answer them in a decently satisfying way! I promise the drabbles will get posted soon... I’m just... working on... something... I’m hoping to be done with it in the next few days!

[northernolddragon]

Hi, I wanted to quickly and awkwardly let you know that the song on your recent post, O Children, is actually a song about the Holocaust. Thought you might like to know since it's a little awkward to have it on a ship post. /gen

Hello. The songs touch on many semantic loads, despite the original ones originally put in by the author. It's awkward to perceive it so directly, considering that this song covers only this event, which was incredibly difficult and terrifying in history, and only that (by the way, these are only speculations — there was no specific confirmation from the authors, who created the work). If you don't understand and don't try to delve into the meaning of my post to two happy and cheerful 'children' at that moment, of course, that you clearly didn't expect no less difficult adventure, full of different directions, not without difficult decisions and losses, then probably it's your perception. I understand him. And I understand many songs that contain certain events from history, and there are those that are specifically confirmed, there are those that announce this in the text itself, but there are compositions that generally contain the concentration of certain events, emotions and sensations. The song 'O Children' are of exactly the same kind, I want to note.

This song was also played on the radio during the dance of the grown-up Harry Potter and Hermione Granger in the first part of the latest films. Perhaps one of my favorite moments from the film adaptation, despite the fact that this moment was not in the book. Quite strong and deep meaning. Were they children of the Holocaust? No. They were children who had to go through things, that children shouldn't have to go through. They were children who grew up quickly, because the dark times demanded it. They were children, whom were happy at this very moment, at that very moment of their 'adventure', forgetting for this very minute about, what would happen after it. Therefore, the meaning of this composition isn't limited to something specific. Yes, it is about the weight of the burden, about the elusive second of happiness. Yes, about a deep struggle. The list can be endless. It has limitations only in the structure of the underlying emotional background — that is, this isn't a song about love, not about red roses and trembling sighs. This is exactly what was important to convey. By posting this song and lines from it, I didn't include a moment of history, if that offended you. I have included my sense of understanding. My perception.

I don't include excerpts from songs or quotes from authors without meaning. :) "Oh, I love this song! It will be in this post!" No, I know what I fill this or that post with. And this composition has been in my player for a long time and I love it immensely. But I haven't included it in other Bloodweave posts before. She didn't fit the situation. Here it fits perfectly into my understanding. They are happy at this moment, they rejoice like children, when they have a lot of hard everyday life and doubts behind them. None of them expected a guest to move into their heads, bringing them together. No one expected that would have to fight countless enemies and deal with the consequences of his own internal struggle. Tomorrow they may turn into illithids, tomorrow some of them may be gone, tomorrow there will be a war with the Absolute, tomorrow they will scatter. But they are happy at this moment. They're having fun. And that's strong for me.

"Hey little train! We are all jumping on <>" is about a journey, about a path that involves difficulties in advance. "The train that goes to the Kingdom <>" Where is it going? What Kingdom? Kingdom of evil or good? Gale says, that they saw hell in their melancholic state, which is not without truth. Gale also thanks for understanding, when the main character feeds the 'monster' inside him. Kingdom, monster - very metaphorical, in my opinion. Very subtle. Therefore, the kingdom has many meanings. "We're happy, Ma, we're having fun <>" I talked about this above. It's never too late to be children, even as adults. The talent of having fun and being happy in difficult times is what touches me. "It's beyond my wildest expectation." The thorny path of difficult trials is individual. They are united to go through it together. On the list of expectations is a possible conversion to mind flayers, which will later turn out to be a larger problem.

My individual semantic load conveys precisely such a context. And it in no way depends on the most difficult events in history, if I really missed something and the authors of the song put a similar meaning there.

Happy upcoming holidays (or already coming ones). Good for you. :)

[rantbunyey]

Hello, been over 8 years.

I know the landscape of Tumblr has changed wildly, and yet I find myself here again. I've tried my hand at other blogs, but there's still something familiar and comfortable here. While this place might not be the best for blogging nowadays, well... who is going to care or even see?

I originally made this blog page because it was my place to rant. Away from my other page where I reposted memes and shitposted. So, I'm back for some more of that. I did draft out another post talking about the difficulties that I've had over the past decade. Things have been up and down, and down again, but that's nothing I haven't talked about before. Still working on myself and surprisingly still finding myself growing and changing in certain ways, even if things around me don't change so much. So I thought... why not take a different approach today, and talk about something that's been on my mind that actually makes me happy. Allow me to talk about her.

Who is her? Who is she?

She is someone who I've known for probably 4 years now, but still makes my heart flutter when I hear her voice. I've had a few relationships here and there over the years. Nothing that got very far in progression, but I've dated. Still, what is it about her that warrants its own happy post? Well, she's not exactly someone I'm in a romantic relationship with. I suppose you can just say that she's someone that I have a massive crush on.

She is a friend. I've always been a bit hesitant to talk about it, because I'm afraid of putting my feelings into words sometimes. She's someone who I've become friends with over the past few years. For the past 2 years or so, we've exchanged at least one message nearly every day, even if it's just a meme or two. Still, she's been one of the constants in my life as of late, and that's due to no small effort on my part. Regardless of the circumstances, she is a friend that I chose. Not a friend that I just happened to sit near in class, not someone I happen to be near due to work or commute... she's someone I chose to get to know.

She is someone that I've had feelings for well over a year now. Last year I drew a Valentine's day card, and this year I gave her chocolates. Perhaps I'm overstepping since we're not in a relationship, but sometimes I wonder if I didn't convey my feelings well, short of just spilling my guts and word vomiting like I've done in the past. I worry about these things. Given the circumstances of our friendship, I have to question whether it's okay for me to feel this way. Given our dynamic, is it okay to feel this way? Even if it's fine for me to have these feelings, is it okay for me to tell her how I feel? I think that my behavior over the past few years have indicated that I'm interested... like... there's no way that she doesn't know, right? And yet, I'm afraid to ask. The thing is...

She doesn't live near me. This is a long distance friendship. Between work schedules and different time zones, I've made an effort to talk to her as much as I can, but it's still tough sometimes. We've... never actually met in person yet. It's... a little embarrassing to admit honestly, but spending time talking to her is one of the things I look forward to most every day. It's one of the things that when I'm down about life, about myself, hearing her voice can always bring a smile to my face. So we've never met face to face, but we will soon.

She recently sent me a gift pack and a letter as a surprise, and my dumb ass was grinning ear to ear as I grabbed the package from the mailroom. I almost tripped over a dozen things trying to get into my apartment to open it. The letter was just a friendly letter of appreciation, but like I mentioned earlier... feeling seen is one of the things that I wanted most. So yes, I was still smiling like an idiot reading every word slowly. A faint scent of her perfume on the letter - my heart was beating out of my fucking chest and I had to reread each sentence 2-3 times before I could make any sense of it through the deafening sound of my heartbeat. Am I the dumb one here? Does this mean anything? I know there's a lot of uncertainty. One thing that I'm sure of in this moment is how much I care about this person, and how much I want to be there for this person, and have fun times and memories together. But... one thing at a time. I'm going to see her soon.

All I know is that right now, I'm looking forward to seeing a good friend that happen to have admired for a while now. I'm excited, but also so so nervous and anxious.

So, who is she? Someone who is very important to me.

And to end on a gushy note...

Say you want me with you here, beside you Anywhere you go, let me go too That's all I ask of you

I'm out.

[that-bipolar-journey]

Depakote: A Couple Months In

Hello Friend,

So as you might have read in one of my previous posts, my psychiatrist prescribed me Depakote and later bumped me up to 1000mgs after the tests came back a bit low. After that happened, there was about a month to two month span where I didn’t have any appointments with him. During that time, my moods were pretty intense. I mostly fell into deep depressive holes that felt a smidge difficult to crawl out of. Other than that, I felt almost completely numb. I had little to no drive to do much of anything other than basic tasks that were required. This was especially difficult because if I hate anything, it’s not being able to feel passion for anything. On top of all of this, I have gained a good 30 lbs since I have started this medication. Thankfully he was very receptive to my concerns and we made the decision of lowering the Depakote dosage and adding in some Wellbutrin. He said that hopefully the Wellbutrin helps with the depression and counteracts the weight gain. He said, if not then we’ll come up with another plan. I conveyed to my psychiatrist what difficulties I was having emotionally most of all. While talking with my spouse and thinking by myself, I realized that I have quite a lot of trauma that hasn’t been tended to. Some rather fresh and some dating back to my early childhood. Knowing this, I talked to my psychiatrist about getting into therapy again after around 5 years of not having it. He gave me some numbers of therapists to call that he thinks would be a good fit. I’ve reached out and I’m hoping to hear back from them soon.

I’m really hopeful about the changes that we’re undertaking with my treatment. I’m just thankful that I have a really good psychiatrist and that we’ve at least got a plan of going forward. I will say, these are just my experiences with Depakote and they will likely be different from person to person. Keeping that in mind these are my experiences and it’s a good idea to work with your psychiatrist and see how things go with you. I’m only here to throw out my experience that way you know about a possibility. Hopefully if you’re prescribed Depakote, it works on its own. For me, we’re still fussing with it.

I hope you have a great week. I hope you’re well. If not, try to keep with it and reach out when you need help. There is no shame in needing assistance with mental health.

Here’s a reminder to drink fluids (preferably water), eat something, take them meds, go to your appointments, attempt to do something pleasurable, be kind to yourself, and all that good stuff.

Love always,

S

[somnambulants]

i love your writing!! could you maybe do something with exes to lovers with nat?

word count: 3.9K notes: thanks for the request! i’m glad you like my writing! i also may...have started thinking about writing a second part because im super attached to this fic. let me know if thats something you guys would be interested in!

“Barton, you’re such a –“

Your world stops turning at the sound of that voice, everything else becoming static. It doesn’t matter that you’re standing in a room full of people that you’re supposed to be impressing.

It’s been over ten years since you’d last heard that voice.

Vaguely, you know that Captain America is speaking to you but the only thing you can pay attention to is her.

You turn slowly, and the second you lay eyes on her you know for sure.

It’s definitely her.

You see it the second she spots you too.

In all the time you’d known her, she’d always been so much more proficient at hiding things than you but you still see the way her eyes widen as she takes you in and the way her face shifts into something that resembles shock before she manages to mask it.

“Nat!”

You startle a little, having now somehow completely forgotten that Captain America was next to you and that you were in the middle of a tour of your new workplace the second you’d landed eyes on her.

Oh god.Your new workplace.

Your new workplace that was also clearly her workplace.

As she approaches, you futilely look for every possible way you can escape. “This is Y/N. Fury’s informant while Agent Emery is on reconnaissance. Y/N this is Natasha Romanoff.”

Natasha? Romanoff? Absurdly, you have the sudden urge to laugh.

She really couldn’t have come up with a better name after fleeing the country all those years ago? It’s a surprise to you that you hadn’t heard about her sooner with that alias.

Pushing that thought away and hoping that your face shows the professionalism you’re trying to convey, you straighten your spine and clear your throat. “Nice to meet you.”

Captain America’s eyes flick between the both of you. Maybe you’re not doing as good a job as you’d thought.

Natalia-Natasha takes the hand you extend to her and shakes it. “Likewise,” she says, and you hate the way your body still reacts to her voice all these years later; hate the way her touch still makes you feel.

Even more so, you hate that you don’t know what it is you’re feeling more of as you look into her eyes: fury or heartbreak.

She makes a flimsy –well flimsy to you – excuse and leaves the conversation after that. You watch her walk away, clenching the hand she’d touched into a fist as you resist the urge to put it through the wall next to you.

Somehow you think you’d have a hard time explaining it to the man still standing next to you, who is now watching you with a thoughtfully puzzled but not suspicious expression.

Not yet, anyway.

--

Your dreams that night are fitful and full of her. The first time you’d met, you’d been nothing more than children.

There are no children in red room though. Only fighters and a fighter, she definitely was.

You? Not so much. You’d never been designed to last more than a day in that place and you wouldn’t have, if not for her.

Natalia throws you back against the mat, again and then again and again. Each time you stand up with more difficulty until eventually, she throws you down so hard your vision blurs for a second.

You never had a chance against her, something you knew before you even stepped foot into the room and you know they must have known that too when they set you up against the most experienced fighter here.

It’s abundantly clear you’ve been set up to fail.

The next time she hits you, your legs give out beneath you and you can’t bring yourself to get up this time, even though you know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t.

You know how this works.

Bracing yourself for impact, you close your eyes and wait. It’s pathetic. You know.

The final blow never comes. When you finally crack open an eye, you find Natalia, arms crossed, just gazing down at you.

It might have been your imagination but her eyes don’t seem quite as hard as they had been before.

She extends a hand after a second of her just watching you and you watching her. A little part of you is convinced it’s a trick; that the second you take her hand, you’re going to fail whatever test this is.

Still, against your better judgement you take her hand and, rather than the macabre images playing out in your mind, instead she actually helps you stand, surprisingly gentle as she does so.

She gives you a second to reorient yourself and then her whole demeanour changes, turning cold and stiff as she crouches down back into a fighting position.

“Try again.”

Just as abruptly, you’re thrown into another and another. Quick flashes of the past that still haunt you.

Natalia taking you on your first mission.

Natalia holding your hand as you cried over the body of the first man you’d killed.

Natalia lying beside you on your mattress, running her hands through your hair gently when your nightmares became so bad you’d go days without sleeping.

Years and years of training. Years of bruises and broken bones. Mission after mission. Somehow, it’s all maybe not-quite worth it but it almost is – almost – because of her.

When you kiss her for the first time, you think that might be the first time either of you has had any control over what you do with your bodies. 

You can't remember a time where you'd had something you'd ever wanted and you wanted her so badly.

You can’t get enough of it. Or her.

And then, one day, you wake up and she’s just... gone. 

--

The next morning, feeling irritable and exhausted from your disturbed sleep, you walk into the avengers training room and find the one person you’d been hoping wouldn’t be there.

Of course, your mind spitefully whispers because of course it wasn’t enough for the universe to thrust her back into your life but it had to throw her in your face too.

When you enter, she has her back to you but you know she knows you’re there by the way her back stiffens slightly.

You watch as she stands up straighter at the words you throw at her back, unable to help yourself: “What is this? Babysitting duty? I think we’re passed that, aren’t we?”

She turns to you. “I usually come here early,” is all she says. She doesn’t respond to the bite in your voice.

You make a non-committal sound and then just decide to ignore her, stomping past her to make your way to the far corner of the room. You work by yourself in peace for about ten minutes before you hear the sound of footsteps and all of a sudden she’s in front of you.

“I need a partner,” she says. 

You have the urge to laugh in her face, before it strikes you how cathartic it would be to punch her right now, no matter how childish it might be, so you stand, letting the weight you’d been holding drop back to the floor with a loud thud, and follow her across the room.

You both crouch down in anticipation and you take a second to really look at her.

Her expression is unreadable. The pang you feel when you realise that surprises you.

There had been a time when you’d known her like the back of your hand and now she's nothing more than a stranger standing in front of you.

It hurts a lot more than you’d thought it would.

--

This continues for weeks. You don’t know why you let it happen but you do. You get up early; you go to the gym; you spar with her and then you fulfil the duties you’d been hired to do.

It’s almost easy to slip back into that headspace of your whole life revolving around her. Because it does. All you do is think about her when you’re not around her.

Over those weeks, you still barely speak a word to her because at least if you don’t speak, you have some kind of power.

To your surprise, she lets you ignore her, lets you pretend you don’t hear her whenever she speaks and you resent her a little more for that. You’d rather she hated you as much as you want to hate her.

It would make it all so much easier.

--

Eventually, though, you break.

You’re not strong enough to ignore your desire to know everything; to know how she’d ended up here. And why she’d clearly cared enough to stick around and try and save the entire world when you, a single person, hadn’t even been worth enough for her to stay.

“Why,” you pant, mid spar one morning. She’s kicking your ass, as usual. “Why here? Why the avengers?”

You’d sworn to yourself you’d never ask her this question but the yearning to know has been burning inside you since you’d walked into this building over a month ago now.

Equally as breathless, Natasha drops the careful façade she’d had up and looks at you with those eyes; the ones that could have made you do anything at one point in time. You’re not convinced they still couldn’t. “I wanted to do better… be better than what we were…. Isn’t that why you’re here, too?”

That answer hurts you more than any of the hits she’s landed on you this morning. And there’s been a lot. She’s still the superior fighter, even if she had left so long before you.

God, those words hurt to hear. Especially to have you lumped in with the clearly bad part of her life, whether it was her intention or not.

Maybe that’s why you say what you say next. Maybe there’s a little part of you wishes this whole situation would hurt her as much as it hurts you.

“How… uncharacteristic of you,” you ignore the last part of her sentence because honestly: you don’t know why you’re here. You feel like you’ve been lost and drifting your whole life and the only thing that had ever made sense to you was her.

You know your bitterness has bled into your voice with your words but you don’t make any effort to mask it. And if you can hear it, she definitely can too.

In the blink of an eye, she stops sparring with you, straightening up quicker than even you can catch. You let out a breathless huff of air as she grabs the front of your shirt pulling it so you’re forced forward until you’re almost nose to nose with her.

You hate that for a split second, before you can control yourself, you lean in slightly. As much as your mind can’t stand her, your body has no such feelings and it still wants her. You know you have no hope of hiding it from her so you don’t even bother.

“You don’t know me,” she says. The words come out of her mouth fiercely but the look in her eyes is soft, beseeching, like she wants you to hear her. “I'm not that person anymore.”

Like it matters.

It’s like you’re suspended in time for a second, and all you can think of as you look into her eyes is of the woman you knew.

You hate that you still miss her.

There’s a flicker of something in her eyes that you want to believe mirrors the torrent of emotions currently taking over you – the sadness, the anger, the grief – but you know better than to have hope when it comes to her.

You know all too well how it ends. And you’ve had enough of false hope.

Typically, in a fight, you know Natasha would come out on top – has every time -- but she’s never had your anger directed at her the way it is now and she isn’t expecting the way you’re practically vibrating with it as you shove her away, so hard that she stumbles backwards, only just managing to stay on her feet.

“Clearly,” you spit at her as you straighten up, and start walking towards the exit.

You know she’s still just standing there in the same spot. You can feel her eyes on you.“Yeah, run away,” she mutters under her breath.

It’s the first time she’s shown you the attitude you’d been giving her for weeks and her reaction is justified, you can admit it, but you don’t care.

You spin around, fury overtaking you as you advance on her until you’re pinning her against the wall behind her. “Sorry,” you hiss, glaring into her eyes. “I forgot you’re the only one who can do that.”

“That was different.”

You laugh. It’s not a nice one. It sounds like an injured animal trying to claw it’s way out of your throat. 

“Why? Because it was you doing it? Excuse me for not being —“

All of a sudden, she’s kissing you. Or you’re kissing her.

Either way, you’re kissing and you don’t know how exactly it happened but you know that you can’t get enough of her; can’t get her close enough even though there’s no longer even an inch of space between you.

She flips your positions, tugging you closer, and you’re abruptly bathed in cool air as she rips your shirt off you, shoving you against the wall.

Your heart picks up rapidly as she kneels in front of you, easing the rest of your clothes off in one fluid moment.

“I hate you. So much,” you tell her as you step out of your pants and it’s not convincing even to you. Still, you repeat it again and again as she kisses down your body – so tenderly and gently that your voice starts to wobble.

You hate it. You hate her.

She looks up at you from in between your legs, now on her knees. It’s such a vulnerable position that you find you can’t look at her and you have to close your eyes. Natasha digs her nails into your thighs as she forces them apart.

“Look at me,” she demands. Her grip tightens until you obey; you know you’re going have crescent shaped bruises tomorrow. Her gaze is soft and tender and just all consuming. You know there’s no coming back from it. You’d never had a chance, even back when you didn’t mind not having one. “Don’t look away.”

You don’t, not even when she finally, finally, touches you and your head falls back against the wall. 

You hold her gaze the entire time knowing how incredibly stupid this is and not caring at all about how much you’ll regret it later when you’re thinking straight.

--

And regret it, you do.

You stop working out early. You walk the other way in the halls if you see her. You know people are catching on that something is going on between the both of you; have caught multiple avengers giving you quizzical looks whenever you’re in the same room and it makes you feel even worse than before.

You channel all that regret into something more meaningful and commit to doing a damn good job at what you were actually here for. And you do. You can admit you do a fantastic job.

Every time you hand a report in or come back from a mission, you swear see a glimmer of approval in Fury’s eyes. Something you’d heard was notoriously hard to come by.

You must have done something really shitty in a past life though because after weeks of throwing yourself into your temporary duties, you walk into your temporarily office and are immediately flagged down by Fury, who debriefs you on the details of a mission he’s sending you on.

You’re thrilled for about three seconds until you see the name of the person you’re going with.

Agent Natasha Romanoff.

Fury is looking at you with a scrutinising expression when you look up from the file. Every time he looks at you it’s like he can see inside your soul. “Is that a problem?”

You grit your teeth and force yourself to smile. “Of course not, sir.”

--

It is a problem. A big problem, in fact.

You don’t speak to her on the flight there. Even though it’s only the two of you confined in the aircraft. You don’t even so much let yourself look at her. You can feel her looking at you multiple times, though, even though she’s piloting and should only be looking at the course in front of you.

There are no words exchanged between you all day beyond the times you absolutely have to speak. 

At least not until you reach the tiny hotel room you’d been given.

The second the door closes behind you both, she turns to you and opens her mouth and maybe it’s cowardly but you cut her off before she even start speaking.

“I’m going to have a shower,” you say and flee the room with your entire carry-on, worried that if you pause to sift through your things, she’ll keep talking.

Still in the same spot, the look on Natasha’s face when you emerge from the bathroom is full of clear exhaustion. You hate the way it makes you feel. Empty. Sad. It’s exhausting for you trying to convince yourself you hate her.

“I’m sorry I left,” she says and you freeze. “I wanted to come back. Find you. I just didn’t know - i didn’t know if you even wanted me to.”

You’ve wanted to hear those words for so long. Now you have you don’t know what to do. “Why did you leave?”

She hesitates. The look in her eyes tells you you’re not going to get a full answer. That as open as she’s trying to be, you still don’t get to know why she abandoned you. “It’s a long story.”

The evasion stings. “An apology means nothing if you won’t tell me why.”

It’s an unfair thing to say. You know that but you don’t really feel like being fair right now.

You chance a look up when she doesn’t respond and find her looking down at the floor. It makes you wonder what — or who — she must still be protecting by not telling you. 

It becomes apparent that she’s not going to say anything else after the silence between you drags on long enough that the tension in the air becomes almost unbearable.

You don’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing the tears in your eyes so you flick the light off and turn the lamp on your shared nightstand off, throwing the both of you into immediate darkness. It’s definitely too early to be sleeping but you don’t care.

Eventually, after laying there rigidly for what feels like hours and listening to the sounds of Natasha tossing and turning in the other bed, you finally fall asleep and are immediately thrown into dream after dream that quickly turn into fitful nightmares.

Nightmares that may be more aptly called memories. After one particularly bad one that thrusts you back into consciousness, you bolt upwards, still half asleep. 

You only narrowly manage to avoid bumping straight into Natasha, who’s hovering above you, because of her hand on your shoulder holding you in place.

You flinch away from her instinctively and she backs up to give you a little space.

The only sound in the room is your heavy and desperate gasping for air. Natasha, now perched on the very edge of the bed, bites her lip, looking at you as if she knows exactly what you’d been dreaming about.

She probably does. It doesn’t take a genius to guess.

“Are you –"

“I’m fine,” you say flatly. You stare up at the ceiling, absently counting the tiles as you try to slow your breathing.

You’re hyperventilating, you know it, you just can’t get yourself to stop. You’re also sweating, it’s disgusting. You can feel how all of your clothes are stuck to you. Your hair flattened to your neck.

If you hadn’t been dealing with this for so long, you’re pretty sure that you’d think you were having a heart attack instead of a panic attack.

But you have. Been dealing with it. It’s just something you’ve come to expect now. You just never thought she’d be here to witness it.

All of a sudden, as you’re still trying to calm your breathing, the bed dips below you.

Your eyes fly open in shock to find Natasha sliding onto the mattress beside you, still on top of the covers.

Gingerly, she rests her head on the pillow next to your head and fixes her gaze on the ceiling.

It’s slight but her hand brushes against your own a few minutes later.

You suck in a breath between your teeth, but despite yourself, you let her move closer, until she’s so close you’re almost touching, and you can hear her quiet breathing.

Against your better judgement, you let your eyes slip closed again. Seeming to understand you’re not going to push her away, Natasha shifts closer, until you’re both shoulder to shoulder, the way she used to lay next to you when you had bad dreams when you were kids.

She grabs your hand, and slowly, hesitantly, she moves it to her chest where you can feel her heart thrumming rapidly under your fingertips. Surprisingly, it still works; you breathe in and out, in out in out, in time with her heartbeat.

You must at some point fall asleep because all of a sudden you can hear birds chirping outside the window and the sounds of people outside in the street.

When you open your eyes, you expect to find the spot next to you empty and the covers unruffled, as if she’d never been there at all but to your shock she’s still there beside you, awake and on top of the covers.

The circles under her eyes make you think she must not have slept at all.

You slide out of the bed and head towards the bathroom without saying a word, where you turn the shower on and just sit under the spray for what must be at least an hour, letting the water run over you and trying not to think.

This time when you return, she’s gone.

--

The rest of the mission goes smoothly. If nothing else, you both work well together as a team. You can still read her movements like a book, and she knows to anticipate what you’re doing before you even know yourself.

The days go fine. The nights not so much. You don’t speak about it but every night you’re woken up by the same dreams and every night you wake up to find her kneeling beside you.

If you were stronger willed, you would’ve shoved her away the first time, but you can’t bring yourself to. Maybe it’s a little selfish but you can’t find it in yourself to care. 

The last night of the mission is when you finally break, though. Something shifts in the air when you wake yourself up gasping and meet her eyes. The same eyes that had been blank and lifeless in your dream. 

You know she feels the shift as well by the way she’s looking at you, cautiously hopeful.

You don’t say anything though and neither does she. You just lay there, side by side, and watch each other carefully for what could be seconds, or it could be hours.

Her eyes are begging wordlessly: Truce?

Despite yourself, as you gaze back at her, you find yourself giving in. For tonight at least.

Truce.

[takuyakistall]

to yuu.

Note: I wanted to write short HCs for each character as they wrote the letter when I finished reading everyone's thank you messages (◕ᴗ◕✿) ! All of them are very cute and I couldn't help but get some midnight rot so I had to write it down. Here's the link to the post where every message is listed down. Before you start reading, just a heads up, most of these are written in a romantic light. I also recommend reading the letters themselves first before heading here.

Characters: All students + Grim (Excluding Ortho)

Riddle Rosehearts

"Dear friend," Riddle thought that it was the most appropriate way to address you—or at least, that's what his brain is trying to make him think. Ever since overblotting and you helping him snap out of his frenzy, he had difficulty in labeling what exactly you were to him.

Before everything, you were supposed to be just a mere acquaintance to him and yet here you were sending him gifts out of the blue. The general "rule" towards receiving gifts was to give the giver your thanks. Albeit the better option was to thank you personally, he thought that maybe a letter would be better so that he can sort out his thoughts.

Friend. He nodded, proceeding to write down the rest of his message until he realized that this was an opportunity to invite you to tea with him under the pretense of paying you back for the gift. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly as he continued writing.

Surely, you would accept his invitation, right?

Trey Clover

"Hey you," was that too casual? Too rude sounding? Trey shook his head as he stared at the two words. He hadn't been expecting a gift from you and frankly, he was more than a bit surprised. Though perhaps he hadn't read the "gift" part when he suddenly started writing down questions about what you liked.

He immediately started thinking of how he should pay you back—gifts? He doesn't know your taste that well. Favours? Hmm, he's not too sure about that one. That's why he decided to ask, if there was something you wanted—he'll do his best to find it for you. A tempting offer, right?

It seems like you have to tell him that this wasn't a trade.

Cater Diamond

"Helloooooo," he started off. The extra amount of Os he used was proof that he's trying to take this occurrence casually. Though in the inside he was absolutely beaming. Gifts never fail to put a smile on his face, especially if it came from someone you didn't expect to give you a gift or someone special to him.

In this case, it was probably the latter. He took a small break as he stared at your gift, wondering what he should write. A small smile took over his face as he picked up his phone and snapped a few selfies of him with your gift with a caption before hitting the post button.

"Received a gift from a dear friend, isn't it amazing? ♪"

Deuce Spade

"Friend," Deuce rarely got to experience receiving gifts from friends to one another judging how his past years were spent as a delinquent. To say that he was happy to receive one from you was an understatement, he was over the moon.

He felt the need to mention it to you with a huge grin on his face. He thought of various ways to give you something back as he let out a small hum, he felt like he was having a field day. He signed the message and told himself that today was going to be a great day.

Ace Trappola

"Hey you," Ace was terribly suspicious of the fact that you sent him a gift out of the blue. Were you trying to buy him silence over something you did? Were you trying to convince him to do your homework for you? A lot of questions springed up inside his mind but not once did he think that it was just a genuine, sweet gift with no ulterior motives hidden beneath.

He knew that you would get mad at him if he continued to suspect you so he said that he was kidding in all caps with three dots after that—which didn't help his situation at all.

He felt awkward trying to convey his feelings like this and he ruffled his own hair as he told you that he just needed to tell you something later, when you're face-to-face. That would make it easier for him to speak.

Leona Kingscholar

"Good day," Leona uncharacteristically typed. He felt like he was being held at gunpoint by his past etiquette teachers as he tried to think of an appropriate response. If it were up to him, he would've just slapped a "thank you" on a piece of paper and asked Ruggie to give it to you.

Though he thought that perhaps it was better for him to actually put in effort for once. Even if it seemed like his so called effort seemed like something he just stole from the internet—that was more than enough, right? He'll just put his signature at the bottom and ask Ruggie to give it to you.

Ruggie Bucchi

"Hey you," a big grin took over his face as he wrote down his first few words. He wasn't as experienced as other people when it came to writing down messages of gratitude, he once tried consulting Leona about it—asking how to make it sound decent only to be met with an answer that went like: "Just put whatever."

And that's what he did! Truly, he's thankful for receiving a gift. For a split second, he wondered if he should share it with the people back in his homeland. Though he pushed that thought to the back of his head as he signed the bottom of the paper with his signature. He'll figure that out once he gives the letter to you.

Jack Howl

"Friend," he doesn't know what to say it's embarassing. Even in letters, he still manages to retain that straightforward yet somewhat roundabout personality of his. A tinge of embarrassment seeping through the letter.

He wished he could've just talked to you in person instead but alas, he was stuck here trying to rack his brain for words. In the end, he felt like it was best to keep it simple—the slightly demanding tone at the end was the result of him getting flustered at the thought that it's possible that it could be a date between the two of you.

Azul Ashengrotto

"My dear friend," Azul couldn't count the number of times he had crumpled a piece of paper and threw it into the trashcan only to get a new one—rinse and repeat. Jade and Floyd had to stifle their laughter when they saw how distressed he was over a single message. Though, perhaps that was the fruit of his unconventional feelings towards the giver.

He didn't want to sound too stiff and professional to the point that he sounded like a robot but also, he didn't want to sound too casual to the point that you might find it weird. He had to let out a small sigh as he ruffled his hair, another piece of paper thrown into the trash can before deciding that he should just play it safe and give you a free drink.

Jade Leech

"To my dearest," oh no. His hand slipped and accidentally made his greeting more intimate than it should be, he could go back and change it but—fufu, where's the fun in all of that? His lips tugged up into a smirk as he continued writing, knowing full well that what he was implying would evoke an interesting reaction out of you. But, if that wasn't enough to stir you up a bit then why not put a little more something? He was a prick this way.

He spotted an empty space on one of his shelves in the corner of his eye, glancing at it for a few seconds before an idea popped into his head. A smile that barely showed off his sharp canines, hidden beneath his gloved hand.

"Truly. Would I lie to you?"

Floyd Leech

"Little shrimpy," he grinned. Floyd was in an especially good mood today after receiving such a thoughtful gift from you. He played with his pen in hand, spinning it around as a distant look took over his face when he tried thinking about the reason why you gave him a gift out of nowhere.

Knowing that Floyd pays a little more attention to you than others, he was bound to be curious and he was more than eager to find out—there's always a reason behind someone's actions, after all. He tried expressing his intent to get the answer out of you which came out a little threatening but if you saw the look on his face there's no mistaking that it was an even bigger threat than you initially thought.

Kalim Al-Asim

"Hey love," Kalim was as straightforward as ever. Not a single filter as he wrote down his raw feelings. There was no reason for him to hesitate especially now that he was practically about to shake from pure joy—he was incredibly close to signing the letter and hopping into his magic carpet to give it to you personally but Jamil was there beside him to stop him if he ever does that.

Though that didn't mean that it was gonna stop him from wanting to ask you out on a magic carpet date with him, he'll just have to explain to Jamil when you accept his invitation. That is assuming you'll accept, right?

Jamil Viper

"Dear friend," Kalim practically forced him to write a letter back to you. Jamil wasn't an ingrate, he knew when to show gratitude when it was appropriate but he preferred thanking you in person. He had to settle for this in the meantime, he thought that maybe he'll just invite you to Scarabia to talk about what he could give in return.

He hadn't really expected a gift from you, especially with all the trouble he might've caused you due to his overblot. Though he didn't think it was all that bad. In fact, he felt a little relieved that you didn't hold any grudge against him.

Vil Schoenheit

"My dear," Vil had an unmistakable smirk placed upon his lips. The choice of words he wrote managed to give out a slightly smug vibe as he stared at your gift on his desk. Impressed by your ability for finding him a suitable gift, he decided to give you a little bit in return.

His smirk slowly turned into a gentle smile as he imagined your face probably tearing up at the thought of him giving you a signed card, he couldn't help but put an offhanded comment near the end. But it was quickly followed up with a single bit of rare praise from him.

Rook Hunt

"Hey love," Rook was always one to act dramatically whenever he had the chance and even in letters, he managed to sound dramatic. As soon as he realized that you had sent him a gift he started gushing about how wonderful it was and how inspiration was raining down on him like tiny droplets.

What's a better way to let his raw emotions out than poetry? That's right, this man wrote you a poem expressing how he feels because of your gift. He almost forgot to say his gratitude because he got carried away but thankfully, Epel pointed it out to him before he could give it to you.

Epel Felmier

"Dear friend," he rarely got any gifts from anyone outside his relatives so when he saw you give him a gift, he was excited to say the least. There's always a certain joy you can evoke in a person when you give them a gift it was almost euphoric for some. He thought that it was sweet of you to give him a gift and decided to give one back with a small message.

Friend. For some reason, it felt a bit off addressing you as that but he quickly shook his head and shot down that thought. As for his gift, he prepared a little something he made himself. Hehe, he's quite proud of it too!

Idia Shroud

"@YOU" it was interesting how Idia didn't bother changing to formal speech when he decided to give you a thank you message for your gift. He's typing the same way he would to his friend, namely "Crimson Muscle", but perhaps that was because he didn't know of any other way to talk to you without sounding unnatural or weird.

People would normally not even think about giving him something and yet you gave him one. He couldn't help but smile a bit when he said how you were a bit of an oddball—he came up with various nicknames for you inside his head. Most of them being different words for the term "weirdo". Yet they always had a hint of affection whenever he would think of it.

Malleus Draconia

"Dearest," Malleus started off. It was rare that he received gifts from people outside his family or nobles back in the Valley since a lot of people found him intimidating—terrifying for some, even. He was glad that you felt comfortable enough around him to show simple gestures such as these. Upon receiving your gift, Lilia noticed how it came from you and urged Malleus to write his thank you message differently from how he usually writes it.

Did you perhaps know of the legends surrounding the Thorn Witch...? If so, then maybe he could sneak in a little joke. The gift of beauty and the gift of song—ah, nevermind. He pursed his lips slightly, he'll just handpick a gift for you himself. A small gargoyle statue, maybe. Or he could ask the other members of Diasomnia to help him.

Lilia Vanrouge

"My dear," his lips formed a small smirk. Lilia appreciated all surprises, big or small. Though, in particular, something about your surprise gift made him more excited about it than usual. Was that just his old age getting to him or was it something else? He couldn't be bothered to think about it that much.

As a form of gratitude, he weighed his options. It was either giving you a gift back or letting you ask a favour of him. He thought the latter would be more acceptable until an idea popped into his head as his eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief. He knew you didn't know what it exactly meant but he gave you his signature nonetheless—he'll leave you to figure out.

Silver

"Hey you," Lilia taught Silver that it was common courtesy to show gratitude when someone gives him a gift. He tried thinking of countless ways to say thank you with his old man bugging him to ask you out on a date instead in the background. In the end, he paid Lilia no attention and instead went with the standard short message and giving a gift back.

He urged himself not to fall asleep as he typed out his message even though he already let out a yawn without him noticing. He glanced at the screen blankly, wondering if he forgot to add anything until he slowly felt himself snoozing off. Head resting on the keyboard and typing out whatnot. When Lilia arrived at the scene, he didn't bother waking him up and just sent the message as it is.

Silver was so embarassed the next day and refused to talk to Lilia temporarily.

Sebek Zigvolt

"Human," he didn't even try addressing you as anything else other than that even in letters. When he found a gift lying by his room, he was a tad suspicious but loosened up when he read the tag attached to it. As stated, it came from you and the gift was meant for Malleus—wait, what. Sebek scrunched up his face as his eyes scanned the words printed on it.

"To Sebek Zigvolt" This was a mistake, right? Sebek was a bit flushed but quickly shook it off by saying how it was probably a subterfuge or whatever that was. There was no way it was for actually for him, right? Surely, you must've sent this in hopes of hearing more about the great Malleus Draconia. Right?

That is... Wonderful!

Grim

"Dear underling," it was cute how he made an effort to write you a letter despite being in the same dorm wherein he could just talk to you directly. But perhaps he was so touched to the extent that he wanted to do this—did you give him tuna? He struggled thanking you properly and ended up boasting about how he was going to be the greatest sorcerer.

Even though he called you underling at first, he couldn't help but soften up a bit. That didn't sit right with him somehow, he didn't know why. He let out a groan as he racked his head for a more appropriate word until-!

Partner... Sounds about right.

[thoughtfullyrainynightmare]

HEY! HEY HEY! I have a request! :))) so I have this idea that Yami has a younger brother and the little brother come to the Clover in hopes of finding him. I think Yami washes up where the village(?) underwater was but instead the little brother washing up there he is near hage

So! I probably should have stated this as a x

F!reader type thing kinda enemies to lover because y/n doesn’t like the clover kingdom or the magic knights but has a sweet spot for kids so she’s determined to help little brother out…*ahem* I dunno if I put enough info here for you to go off of and I HOPE that this meets the requirements for a request 😛🙏 maybe she’s a spy from the spade and she had a change of heart bc Yami is… Yami!

I’m going to leave this in your hands now 😛🙏🙏

Hello hello~

Hmm, a spy eh 😏 there's so many possibilities for pining and hesitation and the tension! An excellent idea 👌

I made this as a kind of a prelude to a romance, but I do hope you like it!

Pairing: Yami Sukhiro x f!reader

Genre: fluff/slice of life

Fic type: Oneshot

Length: ~1.3k

You looked at the young man you had just fished out of the ocean, cooking some fish on a camp fire. Well. Technically you hadn’t fished him out of the ocean, just found him on the shore, but since he was lying face down in the sand, you might just as well have fished him out.

Though you were supposed to be spying on Cloverians, you couldn’t just help but feel sorry for the young man, boy. Boy compared to you.

And he hadn’t exactly struck you as a Cloverian. Maybe it was the clothes he wore, or just his general being, but what had sealed the deal for you, of him not being from Clover, was his accent. Or language, actually. His speech was understandable, but clumsy and… simple. Simple sentences that conveyed his thoughts to an extent, but nothing elaborate. But. It sufficed.

You looked at him, looking intently at the fish that he was cooking, being mindful of not burning the sleeves of the clothes you had lent him. Just baggy pants and a shirt. He was lucky that you had a change set of clothing, one that fit him. Because otherwise he would have been stuck trying to stay warm in soaked through clothes, and that was one hell of a situation to be in.

You crossed your arms and looked up to the evening sky with a faint sigh. The boy had introduced himself as Kage, and told you that he had set sails to find his brother. Which struck you as brave, idiotic, deranged and admirable, give the circumstances. Because, sure, there was logic in allowing the tides to carry him away from his homeland the same as the brother, and hopefully taking him to the same location as his brother years before him. But. There was a lot of ‘hope’, ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ associated with it.

It was hardly a plan. But you had to admit that the kid had some guts. And he would continue looking for his brother, which brought you around to the request he had made a short while ago, one, because of which, you were now furiously thinking.

You were here as a spy. Kage did not know that and you sure as hell weren’t going to tell him. You did not like being in Clover. You weren’t going to tell him that either. But. You were going to go around the country anyhow, with the maps and vague ideas of places you had been given, so… you might just as well let him tag along. You were both on unfamiliar grounds, but he had the added difficulties of not really knowing the language and not being properly equipped.

“Sure… I’ll help you out,” you told him with heavy syllables, making a decision right there and then, that if it started to look like you’d do him more harm than good, then you’d part your way from him. Because… the last thing Kage needed was being associated with a spy.

So, you started travelling around, him trying to find information about his brother, which was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and you just… trying to gather information. And as you did so, you learned about a squad of knights that was led by an… eccentric man. One that peculiar, rare type of magic, which seemed to spark light in Kage’s eyes, and he insisted that you’d search this squad out. Which you didn’t quite oppose, since… if this was an ‘eccentric’ bunch of knights in the kingdom, maybe there’d be worthwhile information in there. It could very well have been that this squad would be the trump cards Clover would utilize, and that information would be highly valuable, if that was the case.

And though it took a while, to locate the base dep in the woods, in a place that one wouldn’t really expect a Magic Knight Base to be, you finally found it.

You were greeted by two young men, one with fire magic and the other with lightning.

They didn’t seem too suspicious, more… eager, or curious, asking if you were lost. How strange, you thought. Maybe Cloverians are as dumb as they say…

Kage, however, eagerly explained to them his situation. And after some chatter, the two said something about their captain, and ran off, telling you and Kage to follow. Like a couple of school kids. How naïve…

So, you were there, lingering in the side lines when a man, built like a fridge, emerged from inside the base. And there was… something, in the way he looked at Kage, and Kage looked at him. After which they began speaking in that strange language of theirs.

There was a hug. One that only brothers could share.

Kage cried.

The older brother looked like he wanted to cry, but had forgotten what tears tasted like.

Looks like my job is taken care of… this one, at least…

As much as you hated Cloverians, you felt it for them. And, well, technically, Kage and his brother weren’t from Clover. The brother had been living in Clover for a good while, but technically he wasn’t from Clover. He had just wound up here. And… you couldn’t really blame him about it.

“Oi,” the brother called out, making you turn back around and face him.

He’s… pretty handsome…You shook your head. Where did that come from?

“You helped Kage out, so… the least I can do is offer you dinner,” he offered. It was a clumsy offer, but… not a bad one. And besides, it had been a long day, so, you might just as well accept it.

Plus it felt… bad to just leave Kage like that. You had been travelling for a while now, and you had grown fond of him. He was like a little brother to you, so you could handle one dinner or afternoon, with a bunch of Cloverians. And… Yami, as you came to know him, seemed like a decent enough of a person. As did the … kids in his squad.

You had expected a knight squad to be formed of older people. Though, then again, training started very early on in Spade as well, so it wasn’t that different. But what seemed different, was the abundance of food they had. At least compared to Spade. Perhaps you should have gotten used to it by now, having travelled for so long, but… it had been just you and Kage. And now that you were at a table with… mostly Coverians, watching how they lived their lives… Watching how Yami handled, or tried to handle, the bunch of hooligans… a bunch of… kids… at the dinner table… eating their bellies full.

Despite the stories you had been told of Clover, about what it’d be like, about how they’d be… This was nothing like that. This was… like a family. That was the best word to describe it.

None of these kids were bad, just like Kage wasn’t bad. And Yami, he… wasn’t bad. He might have wound up here the same as Kage, but that didn’t make him evil. Besides he seemed sincere. The way he interacted with everyone; the way he talked to you; the way he… smiled…

Perhaps it was just the fatigue, or food coma talking but… this didn’t seem that bad of a place to be. Not especially with the warm blanket being placed onto your shoulders as you had settled onto the sofa, and your consciousness begun to drift off.

[tomtenadia]

King for a day

I apologise for the horrible title...

Rowaelin month - day 19 

It was a nice autumn day and the castle still lay quiet. It was still early and most of its occupants were still in bed.

In the royal chambers Rowan’s eyes popped open and in that instant he sensed the distress in the person sleeping at his side. His fae senses alerted him through the bond that there was something wrong with his mate. She lay curled in a foetal position, her hands clutching her stomach.

“Fireheart?” His voice thick with fear. Was it a nightmare? Was she ill?

It had been three years since the war had been over but the healing process for all of them was taking much longer than expected and he knew that Aelin some night still woke in the grips of panic and the horrible feeling of still being in that damned coffin. And in those nights all he could do was to hold his mate in his arms and let her know she was safe, and free and that he was at her side. It broke his old immortal heart.

“Aelin?” He called again, pulling her to his chest and as of on instinct she buried her face against his chest “are you okay?”

She whimpered and Rowan almost screamed. He could not bear to have her in pain. His lips peppered her forehead with kisses “what is it?”

“Cycle.” Was all she said and Rowan knew. Since her transformation into full fae her body had been changing as well and adopted all the traits of the race. He had learned that her cycles were not regular and when they happened, Aelin would be in extreme pain for days. She had also inherited the difficulty for fae to procreate. They had decided to try and have a family for over a year now but it has been proving very hard and he could not stand the hurt in Aelin’s face when it failed once again.

It would happen, he kept telling her, the last piece to that happiness they had been trying to find since after the horrors of the war. He had dreamed it, their family, they just needed patience.

“Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call the healer?”

She shook her head and snuggled closer and Rowan tightened his hold “I guess I can play king consort for a day and deal with politics.” Aelin looked up at him.

“You hate that stuff.”

A gentle kiss “I do, that’s why you are queen and I am just the pretty male at your side,” he joked “but I guess that for a day I can deal with Darrow and the council men.”

“I am the queen,” she said with a tired voice, forcing herself to a sit position “I can’t stay in bed all day. I have a duty.”

“Aelin,” his strong hand brushed a strand of hair from her face “even the queen needs a day off when she is not well.”

Once they had started working on their kingdom they had reached the agreement that she was the one dealing with the political side. Rowan had preferred to throw himself into physical labour admitting that helping rebuild was more into his chords than dealing with courtly bullshit. Aelin had joked that he just hated to dress up for court.

She tried once more to protest but Rowan was in full fuss mode and pushed her back down in bed. He grabbed the thick blankets and covered her “now you stay here. I will go to the healer and ask for your tonic.”

Aelin watched him stand and leave their chamber and as soon as he left she ducked under the blankets ignoring the pain spreading through her lower body.

Rowan came back ten minutes later and found her hiding under the blankets. He pulled them back and helped Aelin to sit up “Drink. The healer assured me this will help.”

She took the goblet and drank under his watchful eye and once she was done Rowan grabbed the empty goblet and pushed her back down “now you rest and sleep. Would you like a book?”

Aelin shook her head. She was not feeling well enough to concentrate on a book.

“Or we could just cancel the council for a day and you could stay in bed with your wife all day, keeping me company and holding me in those strong arms of yours.”

Rowan flicked her nose “we can’t do that.”

“Not even if it’s your queen who orders it?” She looked at him hopeful that she had hit the right spot that convinced him to dismiss court duty and stay with her. She appealed at his male duty to look after his mate and a glimmer of hope flickered into her when for a brief instant he seemed to consider it.

“For as much as it pains me to leave you alone when you are distressed, alas, I am the king consort, which means that is my duty to deal with politics when you can’t.”

Aelin huffed disappointed “at least bring me chocolate when you come back from your duties.”

“As my queen commands.” He leaned over to kiss her deeply and pushed her once more under the blanket and then pulled away to get changed for his boring and long day with the council.

Ten minutes later he was pushing open the heavy doors of the council room all dressed up in his best tunic, breeches and polished boots. 

“Good morning, gentlemen.” He greeted as he sat at the head of the table where Aelin would usually sit.

“Your majesty.” Said Darrow, bowing his head in salute. Rowan hated to be addressed so formally, hated all the frills of court. He was a warrior, he was used to a much simpler way of life. But being married to the queen had that unpleasant downside. But for her he’d do anything. Even deal with people who still looked at him as a brute with no right to claim the title of king consort.

“My queen has asked me to convey her deepest apologies. She is currently indisposed and had asked me to attend to her duties for the day. I hope the lords here present will not be offended to deal with such a brute like me.” A smirk spread on his face. Let them know that he knew exactly what they thought about him.

“We are sorry to hear about her majesty’s being unwell. We wish her a speedy recovery.” Replied Darrow ignoring the jab about having to deal with him. 

“So,” he started grabbing some documents. He might not actively deal with politics, but he knew exactly what Aelin was doing. She would discuss her plans with him and update him after every council session.

“The first item on the agenda is the requests from the merchants guild…”

It was far too many hours later when he was free once again. Once out of the room he unclasped the first three buttons of his tunic and felt like he could breath once again. Quickly he ran back to their chambers. The bond had been quiet and he felt little distress from Aelin meaning that the tonic had effect. Leaving her alone had gone against every single one of his male instincts but he had responsibilities and their kingdom mattered a lot to both. So he put his male fussiness aside and just went on with the day job.

Once back in the royal chamber he found Aelin deeply asleep and the worry in his chest loosened a bit. He quickly got changed in a more comfortable attire and then slipped in bed with her, pulling her body to his chest.

As soon as she was in his arms Aelin awoke and gave him a sleepy smile.

“My dutiful king is back,” she said in a tired voice.

“Yes, and Darrow is unpleasant as always.”

Aelin gave him a low chuckle.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as his hand gently massaged her lower back.

“Now that you are back, much better.” Her face disappeared in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of pine and snow that was so him.

“Did you sleep the whole time?”

Aelin nodded.

“Good.”

“Did you bring me chocolate?”

Rowan chuckled and stood to go to his desk and grabbed something. A moment later he joined her back in bed with a box of her favourite chocolates.

“Such a dutiful king.”

Rowan sat with his back against the head of the bed and pulled Aelin against him in a semi sit position as she ate some of the chocolate delicacies in the box.

“Nothing like eating chocolate in your mate’s arms on a sick day.”

Rowan chuckled and tucked her head under his chin “just don’t eat too many or you’ll find yourself with a different kind of stomachache.” He took the box from her hands and pulled the blanket up to cover them both.

“I am here now,” he whispered against her hair while his arms surrounded her “sleep a bit more.”

A few minutes later Aelin was asleep once more and he relaxed.

She was his life. His everything.

And for her he’d even sit in endless meetings.

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 132

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Novel Updates

Chapter 132: By Day, By Night

After hanging up, Lin Qiushi got out of bed. He went to the living room to check on the door and television, making sure both those things were still the same as they had been during daytime yesterday.

After that, Lin Qiushi left the apartment in a hurry. Halfway out he even got a call from Wu Qi, asking why he wasn't at work.

"There's something I have to do." Lin Qiushi was already in a car and had honestly completely forgotten about going to work. He tried to wheedle: "Ask for time off for me."

Wu Qi, "okay, how long should I ask for?"

Lin Qiushi, "half a year?"

Wu Qi, shocked, "…half a year?? Are you planning on resigning?"

Lin Qiushi glanced at his watch, not thinking of work at all.

"Or yeah, you can just resign for me."

Wu Qi seemed like he had something to say, but whatever words were on the tip of his tongue never made it out—he only sighed: "Fine, I'll get time off for you. If there's something going on you've got to tell me, alright? Don't carry it all on your own."

Lin Qiushi made a noise of agreement, expression still pensive.

The car continued on, and over an hour later, it arrived at where Lin Qiushi wanted to go. Lin Qiushi got off, went upstairs, and knocked on the door—every motion done in a single smooth breath. The truth was, however, that these few simple motions were only possible after extensive emotional preparation done during the car ride.

The door he knocked on opened after a bit, revealing a beautiful middle-age woman—it was Ruan Nanzhu's mother.

Because before they'd entered the door, Ruan Nanzhu had taken Lin Qiushi home. Now Lin Qiushi had a clear memory of where Ruan Nanzhu's old house was. Coming here this time was simply to confirm one thing…

"Hi Auntie," Lin Qiushi greeted politely.

"Hello." The woman watched Lin Qiushi with curiosity and asked, "is there something I can help you with?"

"I wanted to ask, do you know who Ruan Nanzhu is?" Lin Qiushi asked carefully.

"Ruan Nanzhu?" The woman's tone of doubt sent Lin Qiushi's heart sinking, and the question on her face only grew stronger. "Sorry, I don't know who that is."

"Then do you know Ruan Baiye?" Lin Qiushi brought up another name—this was the name of Ruan Nanzhu's older bother.

"Baiye? He's my son…" Mama Ruan said. "He's not home right now, but he'll be back later tonight. Are you looking for him?"

Lin Qiushi, "ma'am you…only have one son?"

Mama Ruan nodded as the way she looked at Lin Qiushi got stranger and stranger. Which was fair. Suddenly coming to her house and asking questions like these, Lin Qiushi didn't seem like a normal person at all.

Lin Qiushi had no idea what else to say either. After bidding Mama Ruan goodbye, he rushed back downstairs and hurried off to another location.

Ruan Nanzhu's existence had been completely wiped. There was nobody in this world named Ruan Nanzhu, not even to his parents, and even Obsidian, the organization that he led, had stopped existing…

This time, Lin Qiushi's destination was Li Dongyuan's White Deer.

When he arrived at White Deer headquarters, Lin Qiushi discovered that the building that once belonged to White Deer was now commercial offices, labeled with the name of XX Bank. Lin Qiushi was standing in the doorway contemplating how to sneak upstairs when he saw a familiar face leave the building. That person was wearing a suit and speaking to someone beside him; judging by appearance alone, he was that baby-faced Li Dongyuan that Lin Qiushi knew.

Seeing this Lin Qiushi hurried forward and called, "Li Dongyuan!"

Li Dongyuan's feet stalled, and he glanced in Lin Qiushi's direction. With eyes both cautious and distant, he asked, "who might you be? If you'd like to discuss something please book an appointment with my secretary first."

"I—" Lin Qiushi said. "Do you know me?"

Lin Qiushi lifted an eyebrow and didn't speak. His expression though, gave Lin Qiushi an answer—he did not know Lin Qiushi, and even thought Lin Qiushi's question odd.

"You don't recognize me?" Lin Qiushi also couldn't quite convey how he was feeling just then.

"Should I recognize you?" Li Dongyuan smiled a smile that wasn't quite a smile as he scanned Lin Qiushi up and down.

Lin Qiushi suddenly recalled something else. He said, "then do you know Zhuang Rujiao?"

Li Dongyuan didn't answer, and still seemed unfamiliar with the name.

"What about Jin Yurui?" Lin Qiushi tried again.

"You know her?" Li Dongyuan's smile, however, faded. "You're one of hers, then?"

Lin Qiushi could finally be sure why some people didn't exist in this world—because they were still alive. If they still survived in the world outside the door, then they did not exist inside this door. Both Li Dongyuan and Jin Yurui were dead, so they had new identities inside this door.

And, those who had died inside the doors aside, the people who were competely unrelated to the doors did not seem affected by this rule at all. They existed both inside this door and outside it, and had nothing to do with living or dying.

"Is there anything else?" Eyeing Lin Qiushi, who was deep in thought, Li Dongyuan lifted his chin with a cold expression. "If there's nothing else why don't you take your leave? This is a place of work."

Lin Qiushi took one last look at him before turning to go.

"Who is that?" the person standing beside Li Dongyuan asked as they watched Lin Qiushi leave.

"I don't know," Li Dongyuan said. "Looks kind of familiar though. Never mind, bring me that data and let me confirm…"

Lin Qiushi left White Deer headquarters and glanced at his watch. It was already twelve noon. An idea surfaced in his mind, and Lin Qiushi got out his phone to book a roundtrip flight for C City the next morning.

There were some matters he wanted to confirm in C City; it was already too late to go today, so he could only hurry there tomorrow morning and try to make it back in one day.

Fact of the matter was, Lin Qiushi didn't want to try spending the night on an airplane. Hell knows how terrifying that would be.

After taking care of lunch at a random spot in town, Lin Qiushi returned home and took a nap. As he thought about what would happen later that evening, Lin Qiushi thought he wouldn't be able to sleep. But in fact he slept quite well, passing out the moment he hit the bed. When he woke it was already five in the afternoon. Chestnut sat by his side, meowing, looking to be hungry again.

Lin Qiushi got up and, after fixing up some food for Chestnut, called some delivery for himself. He ate while watching TV.

He saw the trailer for Tan Zaozao's new movie. From the language of the advertisement, Lin Qiushi figured out that Tan Zaozao had already won the award. The award-winning movie was exactly the same as it had been on the outside, only the director was a different person this time and not Zhang Yiqing.

This world was so very similar to the world that Lin Qiushi lived in, but there was one fundamental difference—Ruan Nanzhu, the person Lin Qiushi most wanted to see, was not here.

Good thing that was so, actually. This door, for a lot of other people, would likely be of insurmountable difficulty. Like Zhuang Rujiao. Or Cheng Yixie for that matter. That was because here, they could once again see their most beloved person…

The night deepened, and Lin Qiushi got everything ready.

Around ten in the evening, it suddenly began to rain outside.

Water came down as if tossed from a ladle, washing clean the earth scorched dry by the sun. Lin Qiushi stood by the window, watching as passersby scampered home along the sidewalks until only streetlamps were left on the empty streets, with only the occasional car passing by.

Chestnut fell asleep sprawled out on the couch. The atmosphere grew quiet. Some senseless program played on TV as a queer sort of silence began to crawl out inside the house.

Lin Qiushi smelled petrichor. He used to be quite a fan of this smell, until he encountered a particular door. After that, this tainted scent of rainwater became something a lot more unpleasant.

The hour hand turned bit by bit, and twelve o'clock was nearly here.

Lin Qiushi sat in the living room, as if a spirit waiting for the death god's verdict. The switch from day to night came, and the clock hanging on the wall finally began to ring: ding dong, ding dong, ding dong…Twelve chimes heralded in another world.

The moment it became twelve, someone was immediately knocking at his door once more. Backpack on, Lin Qiushi came to the door, and through the peephole saw a woman standing on the other side, smiling at him.

He remembered the woman's name. It was the NPC hidden among the crowd in the Sister's Drum door, Xu Jin.

"Hurry up and come out already," Xu Jin told Lin Qiushi. "Come out already, my sister's coming to find you."

Lin Qiushi didn't open the door. He heard a soft noise from the window, however, and when Lin Qiushi turned, he saw a figure pressed against the glass.

It was a person with all her skin stripped off, her body a mess of blood and flesh from head to toe. The bloody face pressed against Lin Qiushi's glass and her mouth split open, showing Lin Qiushi her stark white teeth. It looked like she was trying to open up the locked window, and judging from her motions, she seemed close to succeeding.

Opening the door looked to be the only option right now. Gritting his teeth, Lin Qiushi twisted open the door handle and faced Xu Jin, standing on the outside.

Xu Jin clearly knew what Lin Qiushi was worried about, and began to chuckle.

"How could I bear to hurt you?" A pause, as her gaze lingered on Lin Qiushi's backpack. "My diary is still in your hands. Did you give it a good read yet?"

Lin Qiushi, "…" Why did he feel like he was being teased?

But there wasn't time for him to worry about that, because Xu Jin's sister was about to come in though the window. Xu Jin grabbed Lin Qiushi by the arm and ran. The two made their way down the hall and came to the elevator.

"Go on inside, but watch out," Xu Jin said. "There are other things that want you dead."

Lin Qiushi asked, "what about you?" He recalled that Xu Jin didn't have a very good relationship with her sister.

"Me?" Xu Jin’s eyes curved up in a sudden smile. "How do you know that I don't want you dead?"

As soon as she said this, the skin on her body began to fall off patch by patch. The startled Lin Qiushi rushed into the elevator and pressed a number.

Xu Jin was chuckling again, and though her laugh was bright like silver bells, her terrifying appearance struck a sharp contrast.

Even though she now looked scarier, she didn't seem keen on pursuing Lin Qiushi.

The elevator started. In theory, Lin Qiushi ought to be safe, but that weird sense of danger once again assaulted the top of his head.

Lin Qiushi looked all around him, and when he spotted a certain something hanging in the elevator, goosebumps appeared all over his body. He'd spotted behind him, on what should have been an empty elevator wall, a huge black picture frame. There was nothing inside the frame, but the frame was pointed at exactly where he was standing.

Lin Qiushi reacted swiftly, hitting the button for the floor closest to him. At the exact same time, black water stains began appearing on the white paper inside that frame. First there was only one drop. Then it began spreading on the canvas paper.

He watched as the shape of that stain began to look more and more like a woman. It dispersed across the canvas and, in a short amount of time, managed to coat the entire large canvas.

Luckily it was then that the elevator reached the nearest floor. Lin Qiushi immediately took off, and the moment he cleared the elevator, a pair of pale white hands burst out of that canvas paper, searching around like it was looking for something to grab hold of.

Lin Qiushi was currently on the sixth floor. The moment he was out of the elevator he turned for the emergency exit right next door, bounding quickly down the stairs.

It was dim in the stairwell, with just enough light to see the path beneath his feet. Lin Qiushi ran down two stories before feeling something was off. He took a closer look, and discovered that he'd been turning round and round on floor six.

The stairs seemed to have become a mobius strip—up, down, backward, forward, it all came back to the sixth floor.

Lin Qiushi's feet screeched to a halt. He took in his surroundings, and noticed, on the white stairwell ceilings, little black spots of water appearing. That chilling stench of rain too was spreading through the air.

The thing had found him. Lin Qiushi made an executive decision and left the stairwell, stepping out onto the hallway. But back in the hall, Lin Qiushi discovered that the corridor had underwent a terrifying change: black frames hung on both sides, and inside each frame was a human head with its expression all twisted up. As for the ceramic tile floor, there was now a new carpet, thick and black—the pattern on it looked the same as in a door they'd encountered before.

Lin Qiushi looked up and saw, on the other other end of the hallway, another painting hanging. That painting was a woman in black with a long, sharp hat. Her eyes were half closed, but it felt like she was staring right down the hall and meeting Lin Qiushi's eyes.

Lin Qiushi wanted to leave the hallway, but when he glanced back, he found that the stairwell he had just came from had disappeared. The length of the hallway too seemed to be slowly shortening; Lin Qiushi could sense the painting of the woman getting closer and closer, closer and closer…

At that moment, a drop of water fell onto Lin Qiushi's forehead. Lin Qiushi gave it a wipe, and realized that it was blood. On reflex he looked up—a black hole had appeared above his head without him noticing, and blood was dripping from its edge onto his head. A pair of black eyes glimmered faintly in the dark, and then right after, a pair of pulpy, bloody hands reached out of the hole for Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi's instincts were to back away, but the strange thing was, the hands stopped when they got to him. As if a miracle, he sensed no animosity from this pair of hands.

The hallway was still getting shorter and shorter, as if it were becoming a cage keen on trapping Lin Qiushi inside. With a clench of his teeth, Lin Qiushi reached up and grabbed the fleshy mess of those hands, and then felt a sudden force as he was brought out of that shrinking hallway.

"Aiya, looks like you can't manage without me after all."

The voice belonged to Xu Jin, but from appearance alone, he couldn't tell it was her at all. The skin on her body was completely gone, leaving only scarlet flesh and blood. She was grinning brightly at Lin Qiushi, and the contrast between her smile and appearance was strange, but Lin Qiushi didn't find it scary at all.

"Thank you," Lin Qiushi said to her.

Xu Jin didn't speak. Her gaze instead leaped over Lin Qiushi to look behind him.

Sensing something, Lin Qiushi too twisted around, and spotted on the other end of the darkness a pair of glowing red eyes.

"Meimei, my sister."

The owner of those eyes was also a skinless monster. She didn't have any legs and could only walk on her hands, but that didn't mean she was slow. She glared at Lin Qiushi with vitriol and bared her teeth; like a hyena hunting its prey, the sheer amount of hatred in her eyes was strong enough to materialize.

"Why did you betray me?" she said. "Do you like him that much? Since you like him so much, why don't I keep him here for you?"

Xu Jin tilted her head, and also smiled.

"But Jiejie, even if you did that, I still won't like you."

After that, she told Lin Qiushi to run, and threw herself at her sister. The two monsters clashed and tangled together.

Lin Qiushi got up and sprinted in the direction of the light. By the time he reached its source, he found that he'd already escaped from the apartment building, and was standing in the yard of the residential block.

It was still raining outside. Lin Qiushi pulled an umbrella out of his backpack and slowly pushed it open, stepping out into the curtaining rain.

The rain came down in sluicing torrents, and the streets were completely empty, with only water splashing along the ground. The rain ought to have been noisy; but at a time like this the loudness of the rain only made the world sound more silent in comparison.

"Help me—help me—"

There was a sudden cry for help. A silhouette came stumbling out of the rain, and Lin Qiushi could just make it out: she was a pitiful-looking young woman, staggering through the rain in a long dress. It looked like she was being pursued by something, and when she spotted Lin Qiushi standing not too far away, it was like she'd found an oasis in the middle of a desert—she came running immediately.

"Help, help!! Please, I'm begging you please help me, something wants to kill me…" She fell to the ground, looking up pathetically at Lin Qiushi. "You're also someone going through the doors, right? So am I, this door is so scary—"

Had this been reality, Lin Qiushi would've definitely helped the young woman up by now. But at this stage he wasn't moving, and a light furrow had appeared between his brows. The truth was, he found the person before him a bit familiar—more specifically, everything that appeared at night now was familiar, and he was certain he'd seen this person somewhere before.

"Mister, mister." The woman collapsed in the rain saw Lin Qiushi unmoved, and slowly crawled forward. She wiped at the rainwater on her face and said, shakily, "I know a safe place, and I can bring you there. Do you want to come with me?"

Lin Qiushi said, "do I know you?"

The woman said, "we met once in the door, and you even helped me out." Her lashes lightly trembled, looking vulnerable as anything. "But I didn't deserve that mercy, I still didn't make it."

"We met inside a door?" Lin Qiushi now found the shape of her eyes familiar. "Which door?"

The woman approached Lin Qiushi, saying, "you know, that one."

As Lin Qiushi watched her, he suddenly spoke: "There's something behind you."

The woman halted.

"A giant picture frame," Lin Qiushi said. "She's here."

The woman wheeled around in fright, but when she didn't see anything behind her, she suddenly realized that Lin Qiushi had recognized her. What had been a pitiful expression immediately went cold.

"It's been a while," Lin Qiushi said, "Yang Meishu."

The woman chuckled coolly.

"You still recognized me?"

Lin Qiushi shrugged. "I didn't want to, but I can count the people who wanted me dead on one hand. Since you're not a ghost, you must be somebody who hates me…"

He paused, and quickly announced, "she really is here."

But Yang Meishu didn't believe him. She said, "do you really think I'm that dumb? You've fooled me once already, you think you can do it again? I—"

As she spoke, getting more and more agitated, she felt a sudden breeze behind her. Yang Meishu glanced back, and found the woman in black standing right behind her. The woman's white face was impassive, and in her hands was a black picture frame that she swung right at Yang Meishu.

Yang Meishu knew this was likely it for her, and a terrible scream came out of her mouth. Right after she screamed, she became a portrait in the hands of the woman; soaked from head to toe, her expression bore both fright and a lively, vivid resentment.

Lin Qiushi took the opportunity to run further away. The woman didn't seem intent on chasing after him either, only watched him go with an icy gaze.

The rain came down in torrents, and Lin Qiushi was completely soaked. In such a strong rain, the umbrella was practically useless. As he ran, he fished out his cell phone and sent Ruan Nanzhu a text.

How are things on your end? After some thought, Lin Qiushi added: I'm fine over here, don't worry about me.

After the text was sent, he didn't get a reply for the longest time. It wasn't until Lin Qiushi found a place to hide from the rain that the message notification dinged, displaying four simple words: I'm good, don't worry.

Seeing the message, Lin Qiushi huffed a bitter laugh. Because how could he not know? Had Ruan Nanzhu truly been alright, the text would not have been so short. Ruan Nanzhu had trained his way through so many doors, so god only knew how many malicious NPCs and dead people from the inside he would meet at night. From what Lin Qiushi understood of him, if he had everything under control, he would've definitely sent a message first asking about Lin Qiushi's situation. Now, even his text message was so short. The situation on his end could not be good.

He wanted so badly just to be by his side—Lin Qiushi clenched his phone and thought bitterly. Whatever he had to experience would be fine, as long as he could be by Ruan Nanzhu's side.

[Ch. 131] | [Ch. 133]

[momentofmemory]

hello, i ADORE the way you use and pair fonts. i was just wondering if you had any tips for using more than one font in an edit? (Such as mixing cursive and non-cursive, etc.) if you've answered something like this before, my apologies!

nonnie!! literally never apologize for asking me to scream about fonts; they live in my mind rent free. 💜i’ve mentioned a vague collection of fonts i like here, but i’ve been meaning to do a post on how to combine them for awhile so thanks for giving me an opening to do so! so, without further ado, a few tips & tricks.

1.  FIGURE OUT THE VIBES OF YOUR SET FIRST.

Like colours, fonts have a certain feeling/energy to them and should match the emotion you want your set to communicate. Cursive fonts tend to suggest a more gentle, relaxed, or fragile emotion; brush fonts convey a sense of movement, excitement, or freeness; heavy-weighted fonts have a sense of power, abruptness, or impact; and so on, and so on. For example:

 Although they’re both using the same kind of alignment, the combo on the left is far less in-your-face as the option on the right would’ve been. Using a handwritten font for the accent feels a bit more contemplative or personal, like an awed whisper; whereas the all-caps bold font is more like it’s coming to kick your door down in celebration. Either option works well enough as a font combo, but in terms of working together towards the theme, the left one matched what I wanted. So—always prioritize emotion in font choice, even if another option looks just as cool.

2.  STYLE YOUR OTHER FONT(S) AROUND THE ACCENT FONT.

With “the accent font” being the “fancy” one, in this case. It’s going to be the centerpiece of your set, so you don’t want to have picked a supporting font first only to discover it doesn’t actually go with your main font. I usually type the text in a placeholder font (like Helvetica or let’s be real, my faves Gill Sans or Futura), then figure out my accent font for the Main words, then go back and find a supporting font & weight that I like.

You also, like me, might just stick to 3-4 “basic” fonts and never change them, because it’s much simpler that way and also Futura is such a pretty font y’know?? 

3.  COMBINING FONTS IS ABOUT CONTRAST.

For fonts to work together, they have to contrast in (at least) two ways—in weight, in style, in size, or in colour. Similar to picking out an outfit, if a font is too similar to its neighbor it’ll clash, but they do still need to be living in roughly the same neighborhood or it won’t fly. For example:

Only two fonts are used in each set (and only one in the last one—the contrast is made through negative space rather than font type), and contrast comes through 1) size (note how the accent font is always bigger—I usually aim for about double), 2) style (block, handwritten, brush, sans serif vs. serif), and in the case of the bottom left one, 3) tracking (“bumps the needle” is the same font [gill sans] as “my heart” is; the difference is the distance between letters is set at like 1500 vs about 75).

While there’s plenty of contrast in the examples above, there’s also harmony—in the top left example, the Accent font for “My God Does” is a thick, rounded font, so the supporting/plain font is also fairly rounded and a medium weight. Compare that to the middle bottom set, where since “Wolf” is in a tall, thin font, “Leading” is also in a tall and thin font.

Without harmony, the fonts start warring against each other. Taking that last set as an example:

On the left, we have the original—“Wolf”/”Leading” pairs Onyx/Acumin Variable Concept (Extra Condensed)—and on the right, Gill Sans has replaced Acumin Variable as the secondary font. Because Gill Sans is so much rounder and bigger (this is despite my taking the pt size down by about 6), it reads as thicker. That added horizontal weight takes away from the very concentrated vertical weight of the Accent font, and therefore doesn’t work as smoothly.

You can get away with pairing rounded/thin letters or heavy/light letters, and in fact you should try it! Just make sure there’s a significant contrast between them, not just a minute one.

4.  TYPOGRAPHY NEEDS AN ANCHOR.

Once you’ve picked your fonts, there’s another problem: placement. One of the difficulties of text in a gif is that it can go anywhere, and so sometimes we get carried away with the arrangement. That’s where anchoring the text—placing it in alignment with something else—comes in. Let’s zoom in on two of the examples above.

While the arrangement is playful in both, the text doesn’t feels lost because even when it’s unusual, it’s still directly aligned with some part of another word. In the left example, “The,” “Wolf,” and “Wolves” are all aligned with their first letter to the left, whereas the word “Leading” is aligned to the right with its last letter matching the “S” in wolves. Thus, while it breaks up the left-alignment of the rest of the set, it still feels like it belongs because it’s attached on the other side. It doesn’t “break the box,” so your brain doesn’t get confused.

With the set on the right, a similar thing is at play. First, the alternating pairs are aligned either to the left or the right so it still reads as a unified rectangle (don’t break the box!), and second, each time the text switches sides it’s placed directly on the line below the last word. So even though they’re not aligned on the left or right, they are aligned from top-to-bottom. The negative space is also key to breaking up the text in a pleasing manner, as seen in this comparison:

The original version on the left creates a smooth river or “S” shape, with each line break also making sense for the rhythm of the sentence. The one on the right, however, breaks the text up uncomfortably, the lines are jagged and bump up against each other unpleasantly, and “the scratching” stretches far out into the negative space, tripping up the flow. When and where you chop up a text matters not only for how you read it, but also how you feel about it.

5.  A QUICK WORD OF WARNING.

Obviously no rule is a complete absolute, but I think this one holds up under most circumstances so here it goes: do not put two different fonts of the same genre in the same gif. If you have Cursive Font A already, you very likely won’t be able to successfully implement Cursive B right next to it without causing confusion (see rule 3 about contrast). You might be able to get away with two accent fonts (e.g., a nice cursive font + a thick impact font), but it’s a lot harder for the reasons mentioned above about clashing/warring for attention. Basically, make sure you’re adding, not subtracting, to the overall statement.

6.  PRACTICE!!

The best way to figure out what style works best for you is to just go mad with it. I’ve been doing typography work of one kind or another for about a decade and yet even looking at some of my sets that are just a few months old I’m surprised by how much my style has grown & expanded! The more you use it, the more you’ll find certain fonts, styles, and tricks to your liking, and seeing what other people do with their sets is a great way to expand your repertoire, too.

Go forth and have fun. 💜

[the-timeless-founder]

#5. do you prefer fast plots, pre-enstablished relationships or slow burns?

#15. do you prefer fast plots, pre-enstablished relationships or slow burns?

#37. how does your muse handle breakups?

SHIPPING QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN - SFW EDITION!

5. do you prefer fast plots, pre-established relationships or slow burns?

More than anything, slow burns. Because they just fuel my fire a whole lot. That being said, I don't mind the other two types. But slow burns are definitely my faves. And I write them a whole lot.

15. what’s your OTP when it comes to your muse?

Well, I'll answer this in parts because... Too many OCs e-e;;;

For Saeclus, without a doubt it's the lovely Kang Devyn. This ship gives me life in ways I can't even express properly. I just... ✨️them✨️

For Mishiro, I don't really have an OTP yet. I like her dynamic with Shuu, Subaru and even Ruki. But I don't really have any proper ships for her just yet. And for her family and friends, mainly Amriel, Yushiro and Aphaeleon, again I don't have a solid ship. Sorry to disappoint.

For Claire, her main ship is definitely Carla for me. I hope to convey more of their dynamic in the future. But all in all, I think it's pretty much Prince and Princess type (even if Carla is technically a King).

37. how does your muse handle break ups?

Fair warning, there might be somethings that don't sit well with you ahead.

For Saeclus, he handles them pretty well, at least outwardly. He might ask the reason for the break up, but that's the extent of it. He won't push his boundaries and distances himself from the person accordingly. It seems as though he didn't even care much to begin with, even if he's hurting quite a bit. Love is something that often disagrees with Sae, so he's prepared for it at any given moment.

For Mishiro, she has quite a bit of difficulty handling them, since she's always struggled with connections and now that she had such a close bond she suddenly has to let go. She might try to get her partner back for a little while, but when consistently told no and turned down, she'll take her hint and dissappear from their life altogether. She's gonna be nursing a sore spot from the loss of connection for a while though.

For Claire, it's a little difficult to tell. It goes back to the nature of the relationship for her. If she was only here to have some fun and receive some proper attention, she's absolutely fine with the break up and couldn't care less by the next day. However, if she was taking the relationship seriously, she definitely doesn' react well to the news of a break up. In most cases however, she cares less about the loss of connection factor and more about the fact that someone is choosing to leave her behind, something that triggers a lot of things in her mind.

Thank you for the questions <3