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onceupona-chaos · 4 years ago

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Why keep an open mind about Elain

(And why her book will slap hard)

When I was writing this one-shot right here, I read a few posts about Elain as a spy, some of them liked the idea, others didn't. Which is totally ok, if you don't, of course. I also reread a lot of scenes from the books to understand better how this could play out.

But I came across some comments about how Elain being a spy would make her "lose her characterization" or be "out of character". So I wanted to talk a little about it. This post will be discussing those comments specifically and why you should keep an open mind about Elain.

NOTE: As usual, sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language. I really hope I made myself clear. If you have any comments, I would love to hear them. Be kind!

1. Elain as a character

The first reason I don't believe that argument is because ACOSF made it clear that we know very little about Elain. So how can we say it would be something out of character for her when we barely know her as a character?

So far, we only have other characters points of view on Elain: a person who has a sweet temper. But ACOSF came to tell us that there is another side of her. Nesta expected Elain to cry because of Graysen. She didn't. Elain didn't back down from her fight with Nesta, she didn't hesitate when it came to the Trove or the Hewn City, she laughed when Nesta told her to fuck off. In every single of those moment, Elain's behavior is emphasized by one reaction of the others: surprise.

"You think I’m to blame for his death?” Challenge filled each word. Challenge—from Elain, of all people.

"Elain showed some teeth," I observed. "I wasn't expecting that."

And this is nothing new. Look at what we have in ACOFAS:

and Elain—Elain—had taken up Azriel’s dagger and killed the King of Hybern instead.

The last two books highlight that 1) we don't know everything about her and 2) we expect one behavior from her.

But most importantly: she often doesn't correspond to what it is expected of her, especially in ACOSF.

And then we have this:

With time and safety, perhaps we'll see a different side of her emerge.

But I also think we haven't yet seen all she has to offer.

And before this makes someone think Elain will not get a book because we don't have much on her character, this is exactly what books are for. To develop a character. Before ACOSF, Nesta didn't have much development either. We had seen ACOFAS lay the background for her, the same way ACOSF laid the background for Elain's story.

Elain will surprise us. Sarah is practically screaming that at this point. So before judge something as out of character, we need to have in mind that Elain will have her arc and by the end of it, she will be different, she will grow. Which leads me to:

2. In order to be developed, characters need to change

Before ACOSF came out, lots of people said Nesta would never be a warrior, especially because of this line:

And why must I train at all? I am no warrior nor do I desire to be. (ACOWAR)

And I understand. I really do. But we went from that to Nesta not only becoming a Valkyrie, but also thinking about starting a small unit of females. Yes, that line is back in ACOWAR. However, in ACOSF Gwyn and Emerie said the exactly same thing:

Gwyn gestured to Nesta's fighting leathers, the overlapping scales. "I'm not a warrior".

Emerie's face yielded nothing, as blattle-hardened as Azriel's. "I'm not interested in a warrior's training".

There's a difference between developing a character and doing something out of character.

Elain already is passing through an internal change, which means SJM is preparing her for her arc. So we have to keep in mind that Elain will pass through challenges, changes in her journey, where she will learn new lessons, abilities. She will face and deal with her traumas and flaws, because she will be developed as a character. Of course, her essence will still be there, but in order to grow, she needs to change as well.

At this point lots of things happened to her, now we will see Elain making things happen. Changes like that are inevitable, necessary, but not out of character.

Now, if Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie became warriors, why would it be so out of character for Elain to become a spy?

Personally, I think if Elain became a warrior, that could be considered out of character, because Sarah already told us that her strength comes from a different place:

Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light.

Of course, this is Feyre's Pov, but is also SJM talking about Elain's nature.

We have to understand the difference between characters' point of view and what SJM is trying to tell us. For example, Nesta in ACOSF had one perception of Elain ("she is like a dog"), but SJM emphasized Nesta's perception as not correspondent to Elain's behavior. How? Using that scene where Elain talks about Nesta's dancing. in that moment, Cassian and the readers realized Nesta's point of view was biased, non correspondent to what Elain was showing us in that scene.

I'm saying that because there's a difference between narrator and author. But this is another discussion entirely.

But I truly believe from what we have seen so far, Elain isn't the warrior type. And despite the fact that we had just read ACOSF, therefore another book about warriors training doesn't sound so appealing, from what we had seen until now, Elain's has potencial (build up) to go to another direction, one that we haven't seen yet.

3. Elain already has what it takes

I want to look at this:

I wondered if Rhys’s spymaster often got his information through stone-cold manners as much as stealth and shadow.

My sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles.

For the record, Feyre said this in ACOWAR and these both scenes are very close to each other.

Spying is not all about shadows and stealth. Azriel works from the shadows, but if Elain can be so lovely and convincing that anyone would do anything for her, she could be a different kind of spy. And with her Seer powers, she could be a valuable one. As much or even more than the Night Court spymaster. Look at this:

Shadowsingers are rare—coveted by courts and territories across the world for their stealth and predisposition to hear and feel things others can’t.

We know Elain can be almost as stealthy as Azriel. And she is a Seer, which means she can See and hear things others can't, too. Not to mention we already have seen that she is observant and knows how to keep a secret.

Elain pushed, “We keep it secret—we send the servants away [...] No one will know.”

“I think she’s got you beat for secret-keeping.”

Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

Not only she is observant, but also knows how to read people, to understand them. Look at these scenes where Nesta said basically the same thing, but Feyre didn't understand her. Elain on the other hand...

With Feyre:

“Father would want you to—”

“Don’t you finish that sentence.” Despite the sound shield around us, there was nothing to block the view of my sister baring her teeth. The view of her fingers curling into invisible claws. A scene. This was about to become a scene in the worst way. (ACOFAS)

With Elain:

"[...] if Father were here—”

“Don’t ever mention him.” Nesta bared her teeth, but kept her voice low. "Never fucking mention him again.”

Pain slowly washed over Elain’s face. And understanding. “Is that what this is all about? Father?” Silver lined Elain’s eyes, but her voice remained steady, sure. “There was nothing that could have been done to save him, Nesta." (ACOSF)

Elain understood exactly what was going on with Nesta.

Nothing is more telling to me than this, and I highly doubt SJM didn't want to show us not only Nesta's internal issues, but how Elain can understand and read very others very easily as well.

Elain also understood when Feyre wasn't sure about buying gifts. And not get me started on Azriel's bonus chapter, where it's emphasized repeatedly that they can read and comprehend each other without necessarily saying what they meant. This shows a connection between them, yes, but also a skill.

Just imagine how valuable and rare she would be for the Night Court.

And the best part is it wouldn't be out of character, because she already presented those features. Besides, Elain can be lovely, delicate and be a bad ass spy (or whatever she wishes to, tbh) . Even better: she can use those characteristics in her favor.

Do not forget what Rhysand said: Elain is sweet and she is not afraid of get her hands dirty. We just haven't seen that yet, because SJM will show us that in her book. Simple as that.

4. Elain being a spy attends SJM's pattern

In every book (or series) so far we had a female character learning something new. Feyre learned how to control her powers (and to read), Nesta learned how to be a warrior. I think it's safe to say that Elain will learn something in order to be developed as a character.

You could argue she could learn anything, which is fair. But in ACOSF we learned that Elain can be stealthy as well. SJM emphasized it again and again, and there is no way in hell she did that just for fun. It's safe to say by now that even if she doesn't become a spy, this ability will play a role in her book.

A few examples that we all know too well by now:

Elain spoke from the doorway, having appeared so silently that they all twisted toward her, “Using me.”

"You came,” Elain said behind her, and Nesta started, not having heard her sister approach. She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she’d been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends.

She'd leave her gift amongst his other, opened presents, subtle and unnoticed.

What is curious is that stealth is associated with Azriel, but also with Nuala and Cerridwen, Elain's friends. (Here, I highly recommend this amazing post for more on this friendship and what it means to Elain’s future).

I don't have a doubt the next book is about Elain, it will be her book. So you can't tell me the fact that her friends and love interest are spies is just a coincidence or that won't mean anything. Not when Elain herself has already started to show that she can be just as stealthy and subtle as any of them.

In this scenario, we have:

Elain learning how to be a spy with Azriel, whilst they work together to find the Trove and help each other to heal from their issues.

A female main character learning something new with the help from her love interest whilst they work together to solve a problem connected to the main plot and help each oher to heal from their issues.

I PRESENT YOU THE SJM'S PATTERN.

I know some people like or don't like this theory because that would mean Elain would have a connection to Azriel or because they don't like her becoming "similar to Azriel".

But the thing is: they already share a connection, they know each other for almost two years now and most of their interactions happened "off-screen", so they don't need her to become a spy to want to be together. They already do.

And mostly important, she wouldn't become similar to Azriel, because Elain already has the required features. We don't know much about her, but so far what we do know is: she is stealthy and a good secret keeper. She knows how to read and understand people. She can hear and see things others can't, because she is a Seer, and she can be convincing af.

Most of those were emphasized again in ACOSF concomitantly with Elain's another side. (Tell me again the next book isn't about her).

And again: a female character learning something with her love interest is SJM's pattern. We've just read a book that follows this exactly structure. Are we going to say Nesta or Feyre lost their characterization because they learned and now share the same abilities as Cassian and Rhys?

SJM already answered that for us in ACOSF:

“Does it undermine my image as a warrior to be with you?”

“No. Does it undermine Feyre’s when she’s seen with Rhys?”

This is so telling, I literally stopped my reading at this. We tend to put this passage aside because of what comes next (Cassian being very discreet and screaming he's Nesta's mate to every single soul in Velaris to hear), which is totally fair. But right there, SJM is telling us that female characters sharing abilities with their love interests is no reason to undermine them. On the contrary, in her books this is a way for them to heal togheter.

Knowing SJM, Elain being a spy along with Azriel, Nuala and Cerridwen wouldn't be nothing new. We have seen this story over and over again.

We have so much build up for this, I could go on and on and on. And before someone says this won't work because Azriel has to stay away from her, just take a second to think about how much tension we would get if they are forced to work together in order to find the Trove (or any other reason that SJM will come up with). We'll have a story full of secrets, tension, drama, angst, passion, desire, love. Things too easy don't make a good story.

But at the end, even if she does not become a spy, I just think we have many possibilities for Elain and an amazing story ahead of us. I really want people to keep an open mind about her and her book and not judge too harsh amazing possibilities as out of character. If Nesta hadn't became a warrior, we wouldn't have known the Valkyries. So maybe, when you judge a possibility like that, you are closing yourself to an amazing journey.

And also, Nesta was once judged and hated. A lot of people ended up changing their minds, which is great because she is awesome. So I think we already learned that lesson.

We will see another side of Elain emerge and she will surprise us. That's not me, that's SJM. She already told us that. Repeatedly.

All of this just to say: keep an open mind about Elain. She has what it takes and will surprise us - and I can't wait to see her becoming a badass.

#pro elain #elriel #a court of silver flames #acotar 5 #elain archeron #spy elain #acotar theory #azriel #nuala and cerridwen #elain x nuala x cerridwen #acotar theories #pro elriel #elriel theory

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sealer-of-wenkamui · 3 years ago

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Ciaran Character Analysis

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ciaran over the last few months, so I wanted to try and collect my thoughts and do a proper character analysis of sorts. Of course, things are highly open to interpretation in Dark Souls, so this is just how I read her character and the reasons why.

First of all, I actually don’t think she was together with Artorias for a number of reasons. She almost certainly had feelings for him, but I think she tried to hide them, and perhaps didn’t fully understand them. For one, she simply speaks of him as a “dear friend”, and while this could also be taken as her keeping their relationship secret, there is no description or unused dialogue from Artorias’ side hinting at it either. I also wonder if her unused dialogue where she calls him a “dear companion” was changed because it sounds too openly affectionate. In Gough’s unused dialogue he states that she had “strong feelings” for him, which is worded like they were one sided instead of in a relationship. And while he might have realized it, Gough is also the most perceptive of the Knights, even realizing that the fire will one day fade, while Artorias strikes me as being much more oblivious. Finally, her dying words come across like the confession of a dying woman, one who was never able to say her feelings in life, so she at least will say them now that she has nothing to lose. Interestingly enough, they’re also unsubtitled- words meant not for you, but for Artorias and for herself.

One of the biggest reasons why I think she would hide her feelings is her position. She is one of four Knights of Gwyn, entrusted with a special soul, and despite her appearance, she is considered something more than human, and seems to have disdain for humans (as seen by her dialogue when you attack her, or even just the way she says “human” in her unused dialogue).

I don’t think it’s the case that she’s human while the others are not just because she’s small, since size seems to be easily variable based on the state of the soul, for example Ornstein grows in size upon absorbing the soul of Smough, or Gael, much larger than your average person after consuming the dark souls of the pygmies. Perhaps even Artorias was a normal size to begin with.

Ultimately the gods and these demigod-like existences with their special souls aren’t all that different from humans, but the important thing is that they are considered as such, so she would be too. Humanity is constantly linked with the dark throughout the series. And even someone as kindhearted as Artorias, who believes in the goodness of humanity, thinks of the dark as something evil, something to be feared (In fact he words it as believing them to be more than just dark in his unused dialogue). One of the four Knights of the man who sacrificed himself to stave off the Age of Dark would want nothing to do with the dark. Yet feelings, and especially feelings of love, are a very human thing (just look at the pursuers/affinity description for example). That alone seems like the strongest reason to hide any feelings she might have for Artorias, to refuse to acknowledge that human side of her, to repress them and pretend they don’t exist.

Even more so than the other knights she comes across as having something to prove, as someone that has worked so hard to reach the distinguished status she has and doesn’t want anything to take that from her. The lightning arrow description mentions that female knights were rare to begin with, and she was able to work her way up to being one of Gwyn’s most trusted. The porcelain mask description mentions how determined she was to earn it as a decoration of honor (I imagine she first became an especially distinguished Lord’s Blade before becoming one of the four), and the English description actually leaves out another interesting fact- that it’s decorated with her own hair. The wording makes it sound like she cut her own hair to decorate that mask. This makes it seem like she wanted to stand out and make a name for herself- giving herself a distinct look that would come to be feared by all enemies of Lord Gwyn.

On the level of character design, her mask is what she’s most known for, the hornet ring description in DS3 even drawing attention to it. This comes across as a very deliberate choice reflecting her character- as she is a woman whose mask is more than just physical, someone who is perpetually hiding her “human” side. Her mask gives her an otherworldly look, like something beyond humans and reflects her “divine” self. Her purpose in life is to strike down any and all enemies of her Lord, and she has worked so hard towards that alone, almost as if she’s trying to become the mask she wears. Even though I think she might be able to relax a little around the other knights and especially Artorias, she comes across as a very serious woman that doesn’t truly know much about herself outside of her job. Interestingly, her face under the mask is just the default female face in-game, as if she truly isn’t meant to be seen without it!

No matter how much she tries to repress her feelings though, a mask is still just a mask, and they don’t disappear just because she wants them to. She has strong feelings for Artorias, a darkness she desperately wants to hide. Despite being a Knight of Gwyn, I tend to associate her with the darkness as a result, and even her name may be a reflection of that as well. Ciaran is common Irish boy’s name (Ciara is a girl’s name but she specifically has the masculine form of the name, a decision I also think was intentional and may tie into her being the only woman of the four and how rare female knights were) and looking around, she doesn’t seem to be named after any famous Ciaran as far as I know. So, what is the meaning of the name? Little dark one. A name associated with darkness seems especially significant in this series, and her struggle with her own humanity is central to her character, something that even her name itself betrays.

Since female knights are apparently rare, and she has an especially high-ranking position, I think she would also want to hide her feelings out of fear of being seen as just a girl in love. I also think its interesting how the hornet ring description also draws attention to the fact that she’s the only woman of the four, and how her name is almost exclusively used for boys, and I wonder if she went by the title of “sir” as well. At the same time, her appearance is the distinctly feminine look shared by all the Lord’s Blades, even using her own hair as well, so it’s not something she’s hiding either.

In addition to being the lone woman of the four, I also got the impression that she’s the youngest and last to join the Knights, which may further add to the feeling of needing to prove herself.

The main reason why actually comes from her speech pattern, when you compare it to the rest of the characters seen in that time period, it stands out. While Elizabeth, Dusk, Gough, and even Artorias all speak in an old-fashioned manner, she noticeably does not, except for “May the Lord guide thee” which sounds like a set phrase anyone serving Gwyn might say. If it was tied to status, then she would speak that way as well, she’s hardly trying to hide it (and besides we see other characters opposed to the gods that speak in the same way, like the hollow outside the Ringed City or Yuria). Maybe she did come from a more humble upbringing and that could be why, but with how varied the characters that do speak like that are I don’t think that’s it (and even some clearly noble characters don’t, like Lothric or Oceiros). So I wonder if its simply because she was born later once speech styles had changed.

Her position also makes sense if so as well, she’s an assassin, so even if she wasn’t around until after the Age of Fire had begun and Gwyn had gained status, that’s exactly when you would need a skilled assassin to eliminate your enemies. In other words, she’s not a dragonslayer, so it still makes sense if she is younger.

Going back to her feelings, the way I see it is that Artorias being consumed by the Abyss and killed is what finally forced her to face them- she’s not able to recognize just how strong they are until the man himself is gone. Perhaps she planned to kill him herself as she was in the area, but realized she couldn’t, or rather that she would almost surely hesitate and get herself killed. In a way, its almost a relief the chosen undead came along and killed him instead, she understood it was something that needed to be done, and though she doesn’t seem to like humans very much, she doesn’t hold anything against you. You find her immediately after killing Artorias, so she almost certainly would have been the one to find his corpse and make that small memorial, as if she wanted to make sure it would be her and no one else to find him. Despite being the kind of person who would always be watching her back, you find her kneeling in prayer, not so much as turning to look at you when you approach, and you can even easily attack her from behind in such a state. As if simply being there in prayer was the most important thing in that moment- and she surely has a lot of thoughts going through her head and a lot of feelings hitting her all at once. At this point, she can’t lie to herself, and even if she couldn’t confess while he was alive, if you take her life, she’ll at least do it before she dies.

When you speak to her, she seems to have no interest in you outside of obtaining Artorias’ soul, with only his will stopping her from taking it from you. She claims she wants to pay proper respect to him with it, but at the moment, his actual grave hasn’t been made yet, so I imagine she might take it into herself for a while until that point.

As to her eventual fate, I do think its likely she’s the corpse found behind his grave that has the hornet ring. At first I wondered why someone of her status wouldn’t have a proper burial, but in time, not many people are going to that grave, and those that do don’t return, so it may simply be she died after it was forgotten, and her corpse was never found.

The fact that she will give you her tracers if you give her his soul implies she gives up being a Knight of Gwyn (they’ve half fallen apart at that point anyway), but she doesn’t strike me as the type to kill herself right then and there, I think it would be a slow wasting away and curling up to die behind the grave of the man she loved. She (nor Gough) drop the special souls that they should have as part of the four… and while it may simply be to not further encourage people to kill them, if that soul is what gives them a long life (Ornstein is somehow still around after all) she may have purposely given it up so that she may eventually die… or maybe its after she receives his soul and she keeps both hers and his at his grave.

Finally, her ring ends up in the untended graves in DS3, and while there are a number of reasons you can come up with for how it ended up there, I feel like the most important part is the symbolic meaning behind it- for it is found by a grave with a Farron greatsword, one of the types modeled after that of Artorias’. It feels as if even in death, her feelings linked the two of them together.

While not nearly as direct, even DS2 has a parallel to Ciaran in the form of Alsanna. Much like Ciaran, you find her kneeling in prayer mourning her lost love, who also happens to be a left-handed swordsman who sacrificed himself and got corrupted and even has (several) animal companions. (DS2 also is where its mentioned that Artorias was left-handed, and its consistently used to mark characters paralleling him, even in Bloodborne with Ludwig.) Her soul even gives you a pair of curved swords. Parallels can also be drawn between the other three knights and people closely associated with the fragments of Manus, but only Ciaran parallels the child of dark herself, further deepening her association with the dark.

More directly, DS3 has the Dancer and Vordt, two knights who seem to honor Ciaran and Artorias’ legacy, and were always seen together- in fact you can see phantoms of what seems to be them before they were transformed into beasts walking the streets of Irithyll together (Vordt too, is left-handed). Despite how she tried to hide her feelings, I think it may have been her ring that betrayed them, so they ended up being remembered together. The Pontiff Knights in general also have a great deal of similarity to the Lord’s Blades, somewhat in armor design but mostly in their job, being described as Sulyvahn’s “punitive blades”. The Dancer herself most notably has two curved blades that look remarkably similar to Ciaran’s tracers in shape, as well as being gold and silver, even wielding the gold one in her left hand like she did.

There are probably more little details I could add, but this is already long, and I’ve covered the major points that I’ve thought a lot about. I tried to explain my reasoning as best as possible too, but there’s plenty of stuff that’s unknown and that’s half the fun. Feel free to comment, I love Ciaran and I love to think about her and discuss her!

#Dark Souls #Ciaran #Lord's Blade Ciaran #I've been dwelling on her ever since i met her in DS1....#i love her.....#i don't really write much but i've been posting a looot of thoughts about her on twitter and stuff #so i wanted to try making something somewhat cohesive to collect them all #didn't even get into little details like how cute it is how her voice softens when she talks about Artorias #or my delusions about how she might have initially reacted to his death #but i got the important points!#enjoy?#I hope i can make everyone appreciate her just a little bit more~

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chews-erotically · 4 years ago

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Waxing Gibbous

Pairing: Ezra + femNurse! Reader

Rating: Hard M / 18+ ONLY

Warnings: Angst/violence/gore/blood/mentions of prostitution/SMUT(eventual)/veryinaccuratesurgicalprocedure

Honestly words have been fermenting in my brain for many moons. I am new to this, so please be gentle. I have written before, however never for a fandom. Special thank you to @yespolkadotkitty and @rzrcst for their support and encouragement, it truly means the world to me.

Summary: You are a nurse on the Green moon contracted to care for a group of prospectors. An act of violence forces you to flee your camp. Ezra finds you.

Words: 2376

PART ONE

The first time Ezra fell, it was with the Saters. You’d been hunched in a cordoned-off section of tent, dust motes waxing and waning against the haze of thick, dank air. At least you could breathe, a small mercy it was to remove your helmets and sit unfettered in the musty inner folds of the makeshift barracks.

The Sater stank. When he sneered at you, his grey lips parted to reveal the jagged tombstones of his teeth. When you had first sat down and dispelled with the perfunctory greetings, choking down the offering of what always reminded you of unsweetened Turkish coffee mixed with engine oil, his eyes made no attempt to hide the way they had raked over you as if you were some shiny toy. Or a bag of meat. You were under no delusions when it came to the fact that you, by nature of being female, were going to be ogled. Still, it left you no less disgusted as you fought to keep your face impassive while his eyes honed in on your chest.

Ezra sat beside you on the narrow bench, hunched forward with forearms balanced on knees that were spread to allow for his head to clear the sunken canvas ceiling. His expression was equally neutral, the only hint of tension showing in the tight bunch of muscle at his jaw. He knew as well as you that if the sater did not accept the barter, things would turn dark.

Ezra had been here longer than you. Stranded with no transport after the crew he’d arrived with turned on each other over dig locations and payload disbursement. The pod they’d arrived in had been burned, irreparably damaged and left no more than a husk in the Green due to the short-sighted fury and bullheaded ire of his hired compatriots. In the fracas, he’d sustained an injury to his right arm from a rogue thrower shot. In retrospect it could have been much worse, but the spores of mold that made the air so toxic had worked its way into his flesh the same way selfishness and suspicion had seeded the demise of his partners.

You were hired as a nurse to tend to your own hired prospecting crew, lured in with promises of adventure and treasures beyond your wildest dreams. You had known there had to be a catch, you were not so naive to believe that consequence could elude you, but you had signed the contract anyway hoping for more than the dreary clinic you’d worked in for the past five years. You were alone, you were lonely, you had no family. Your few friends had steadily drifted away from you as they met their own partners, started their own families. You were left to the ether. So you signed almost without thought when the recruiter came, signed before you had time to think it through, because you were aware that if you thought too much you’d talk yourself out of it. You knew all too well how adept you were at talking yourself out of things.

So, you’d arrived on the Green and things had proceeded as planned, uneventful for the most part. The others on the crew were respectful, if a bit distant. Nothing untoward had happened until a contractor by the name of Jorin began to take a particular interest in you. At first you’d been able to politely deflect his advances. Showing up in your tent unannounced, he feigned all manner of illness and injury to get your attention. Over time he became more aggressive, invading your space until you had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was not welcome. It was not until he’d followed you back to your cot and tried to push you down that you’d snapped. You hadn’t meant to kill him, but the scalpel you had hidden in your fist had found its way to his carotid artery nonetheless. So you left, and you were blank and in shock and covered in someone else’s blood when Ezra found you.

He’d stood, imposing and straight-backed, hand on hip while his head followed your shambling approach. Your adrenaline was waning, and you shuffled forth on trembling legs, hands held aloft in supplication. When you reached his clearing in the midst of dense vegetation you noted his mouth moving at light-speed, the hand on his hip twitching toward the thrower he had slung across his back. As you got even closer you noticed his eyes were wide. You were not on the same transmission channel so you could not hear him. Your hands gestured as if underwater, left hand tapping your transceiver while your right held up three trembling fingers. When Ezra understood he switched the channel and immediately his animated drawl was filling your helmet.

“.....cannot fathom how you are standing in my sights looking like you’ve been baptised by Lady Bathory herself, alone? Please do tell this lonely old prospector how in Kevva’s name above you’ve found yourself in such a state of affairs?”

You noticed immediately that he did not seem at all frightened or wary of your appearance, just confused, and….excited? You gazed up into the visor through a constellation of blood spatter and freed your tongue from its bone-dry cavern, swallowing thickly.

“I didn’t mean to kill him. He tried to, to…..he came after me.”

Ezra stepped forward in what seemed a conspiratory move. You froze. Taking note, he’d immediately stepped back, but his dark eyes fastened to yours with an intensity that made you feel as though he could see through you into your very essence, every shameful childhood memory, every flaw and triumph as readable as prose on paper.

“Intention rarely informs the realities of snuffing out the flame of mortality. Between intention and action there lay an endless array of variables, something I know as well as my own name. In all my time on the Green the one thing that continues to ring true is that people here take. If you have nothing to offer, they will find something to take.”

He straightened before continuing, “Given that you are appreciably female I can imagine what it is he believed himself entitled to. You have none of that to fear from me, little stranger. I am but one lost soul amongst this verdant hellscape.”

You were still processing the events of the past several hours, and it took you some time to accustom your ears to the man’s mellifluous cadence. The people in your previous company had been stilted, blunt, mostly monosyllabic. This man before you spoke as if convinced his words would alight and manifest whatever sacred force or unimagined color the universe deemed fit to spew forth. It was incongruous. You considered your next words carefully before you spoke.

“Do you have a dwelling? A tent? I hate to impose, but this is my only suit and I’d like to get as much blood out of it as I can.”

That was how you’d become acquainted with Ezra. You’d exchanged names as you walked to his tent, and all the while Ezra pontificated. The tent was modest, two cots arranged across from one another. Equipment stacked along one canvas wall, while texts and notebooks spread across a folding table toward the front entrance. Ezra explained where the water source was located as you both disconnected your helmets and stripped your suits. The blood splashed across yours had dried to a dull rust. Almost as if it could be something other than blood. Almost.

You’d set the suit to soak in cold water and truly noticed the man in front of you for the first time. He was tall and broad-shouldered, thick locks jutting chaotically from the dome of his head and curling around the lobes of his ears. A shock of blond colored the seam of his hairline. His brow was lined with years of tension and unrest. Wide, dark eyes below pronounced brows. A prominent aquiline nose. His mouth, still moving. Always moving, as if he were trying to get every thought he had out of his head before the hourglass ran out on him.

Your eyes were next drawn to a dirty bandage circling his arm. You’d been so lost in your head over the strange turn of events that you did not notice the barely perceptible wince as he inventoried what appeared to be dried ration packets.

“What happened? To your arm, I mean?”

Ezra sighed deeply before answering. “Merely a flesh wound from an errant thrower blast while my crew and I were in the midst of parting ways. It was a most unsavory affair, I’m afraid. I don’t believe the weasel wielding the staff even meant to shoot me.”

You stepped closer, eyeing the torn, worried cloth. “You have to be careful. The spores in the air will seep into everything, especially an open wound. Your bandage is filthy. Do you mind if I take a look?”

“You have experience with dressing wounds?”

“I’m a nurse.”

You were wholly unprepared for the brilliant smile that split his face. Suddenly you could see the younger, roguish man that he had undoubtedly once been. You were suddenly overwhelmed, you could not understand how the heart in your chest fluttered as desperately as a bird beating its wings against the cage of your ribs. You felt close to panic as you realized that you were reacting this way to a man you did not know.

Careful.

“Kevva above, I must have done something right in a past life as I’ve done nothing in this one to deserve such a fortuitous gift! A nurse! An angel of mercy, a dove of benevolence!”

You felt heat rush to your face, and you cursed your feeble emotions as you turned quickly away from him. Please, ignore my abject idiocy.

“Med kit?”

“Ah, of course. My apologies, Dove, I forget myself.”

You pointedly ignored the unprompted endearment as any further contemplation on this new development would lead to literal hysteria. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Ezra sat at the table near the entrance, sweeping the array of notebooks and papers to the side. You pulled up a crate once taking the med kit and unwrapped the soiled bandaging. You understood how awkward it had to be to dress a wound with one hand, and so you were able to forgive the haphazard application. He hissed and winced again as you revealed a very red, open and angry wound bed assaulting the meat of his right bicep. Black had begun to settle in around the ragged edges. It did not look good. Your gut sank as you noticed the purplish pucker of skin surrounding a crater that oozed and tunneled, purulent drainage saturating the underlying gauze.

The mold had done a spectacular job of decaying what would have normally been a straight forward traumatic thrower wound. You were shocked that Ezra was not screaming in pain.

You kept your face studiously blank as you set out supplies: a vial of Ancef, sterile saline, bandaging, gauze, antimicrobial foam, hydrogen peroxide, a basin, and the scalpel you’d kept clutched in your fist as you’d fled. There was an injectable narcotic preloaded, you offered this to Ezra and he shook his head, his eyes still and worried. He knew it was bad, and he was scared. A wave of melancholy slammed into you and without thinking, you reached out and laid your fingers gently on his wrist.

“Hey.” He met your eyes, and they were old. Ancient, and filled with what was akin to an existential weariness. You had to dig the toe of your boot into your calf to keep your eyes from filling with tears. You cleared your throat. It did not sound like a noise you’d make. You wondered who you were, really, before speaking.

“I’m going to do the best that I can. It won’t be pretty. Your wound is badly infected. The black bits are necrotic, and if I don’t debride your wound it will spread. I’m going to try my hardest to save your arm. This is going to hurt, so I really think you should take the injection.”

Ezra’s solemn gaze swung to fasten on yours. After a pause of internal debate, he simply nodded. You filled the basin with hydrogen peroxide and placed the scalpel in. You picked up the preloaded syringe and sterile gauze and quickly discharged the narcotic serum into Ezra’s left deltoid. His eyes soon took on a haze of detachment, pupils constricting to pinpoints.

You picked up the scalpel and got to work, and Ezra finally screamed.

He kept his arm impressively still while sweat cut rivulets down the planes of his face. His jaw clenched so tightly you feared his teeth would crack and splinter- you’d finally and wordlessly paused your work to place a length of spare leather strapping between his teeth, which he clamped onto like a feral dog.

You worked quickly and wordlessly, cutting ribbons of spoiled flesh from the blessedly granulating bed of tissue and muscle beneath. Your mind worked in circular prayer, asking forgiveness from the universe for killing, for hurting. Ezra’s flesh was a sacred scroll and you were inscribing your texts upon it, begging for deliverance. It was not lost on you that the same scalpel you’d used to snuff one life was carving death out of another.

When the deed was done, you reconstituted the Ancef and injected it into the meat of his buttock. You did it quickly, too wrung out and disturbed to feel impure. There was nothing prurient about what had just happened, nothing sexy in his agony. For all of its intimacy it was brutal and ugly and traumatic. At that moment you were inextricably bound to one another.

#Ezra Ezra Prospect

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cafeinthemoon · 4 years ago

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The Leaves of Her Garden - Chapter XIV

Title: The Leaves of Her Garden

Genre: Fanfiction

Pairing: Madara Uchiha x reader

Rating: Mature

Word count: 2514

Chapter (s): 14/?

Read the previous chapters here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Interlude, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13

Symbols: ⭕ | ➕ | 🖤 | ▶▶

Chapter XIV - Ninjutsu

The moment of the Todoroki’s farewell finally came.

You didn’t know if it was because you were becoming used to your role as Sachiko Uchiha or if it was the thought of seeing the Todoroki leaving, but you felt that playing your part during their farewell was easier than during the wedding.

Your feet didn’t fail you when you walked toward them by Madara’s side, nor your hand trembled when you offered it to Koji Todoroki, their head and Sachiko’s father, who accepted your gesture with visible contentment, wrinkles forming around his brown eyes alongside the composed smile he gave you and your husband: it was clear how much satisfied he was to see things going according to his plans. It was almost risible when you remembered that this man were genuinely convinced that you were his beloved daughter and that you were the key to the Uchiha’s favor. You felt tempted to glance at Madara, to see his expression as he looked at the man, but you contained yourself: everything was almost over now; you couldn’t take the risk of messing up with everything.

Only when Koji released your hand and stepped back to his previous spot alongside the elders of his clan (all of them his uncles, as Madara told you), to a position where you could analyze his figure in precious details, you started to understand your feelings about him.

That man, not so far from his sixties, would never seem so impressive if you saw him in common clothing and all alone; nothing about him – his average height, his grayish hair tied down with a red stripe falling over his back and his simple wood sandals, not so different from the ones worn by the other Todoroki – was worthy of catching one’s particular attention. He was not distinguishable like Madara: his resemblance with the other members of his clans, not all of them as important as the elders, was such that he could be taken as any other person but their leader. His expression while observing everything around him corroborated with that impression: a discreet but perceptible smile, followed by a muffle sound in his throat that reminded you of a giggle and a nod of his head had some soothing effect over his appearance. If it wasn’t for your current situation, you would have sympathized with him.

Yet there was one thing in him that could tell you that he was not a simple man, and it was his eyes. Brown, small and perspicacious eyes, as the ones of a collector of rarities or a seller, always measuring the value of everything, seeking for benefits and good opportunities. The first time you looked into them during the wedding, all the illusion about his simple nature was gone and could not be brought back, and the same happened to you during the farewell. You finally were able to understand what Madara was talking about when he stated that this man’s clan were not to be taken lightly: if that was your impression of their head, you didn’t want to imagine what you should expect from the elders, more experienced – and unscrupulous – than him. You felt lucky that you didn’t have to speak directly at them during the lunch, moments before.

Now, you were glad that you would not get to see them in a long time.

When all the formalities were exchanged, Madara gave the sign and some of the Uchiha men near your post passed to the other clan’s side. They were the men chosen to guard the Todoroki entourage on their way home. Izuna, who was at his brother’s side and remained quiet until that moment, gave them some instructions and wished them good luck on their mission. They nodded, and finally the whole group turned and started to walk toward the road, guided by the Uchiha guards.

When the they disappeared at the distance, a general sensation of safety seemed to spread among the people who came to the farewell. Some of them started to walk back to the compound’s interiors, to their own activities; the remaining ones formed smaller groups between themselves and you heard whispers coming and going through your ears, but you were too focused on your own state to understand what they were saying.

When you were no longer capable of distinguish the presence of the group at the road, you took a breath of relief, but you didn’t realize it until you heard a muffled laugh near you. You looked at your right and found Izuna staring at you, the same strange expression you used to identify in his dark eyes, something between hilarity and seriousness that always unsettled you, so that you didn’t know if he liked or despised you.

And to think that he was nothing like this just a moment ago, when speaking to his pairs who were to guard the Todoroki during their travel. You could say anything you wanted about Izuna, but you should recognize his talent as an actor.

- Among all of us, our Sachiko girl is the one who best played her part, but it seems that this wore her out – he commented, crossing his arms – I understand. Fathers can be scary when they want to. And that one in particular – he glanced at the road’s direction – He gives me the creeps.

Your eyes widened a bit when you heard those words. You immediately looked at Madara, eager to find out his reaction and act according to it: after the things he showed to you through his dojutsu, it was the appropriate thing to do. But he didn’t do more than stare at his brother in silence and ignore him right after.

Izuna didn’t seem intimidated by this, nor his smile faded; was it possible that he had a different perception of those events than Madara? You didn’t have much time to think about it, because soon he got back to his serious manners and changed the subject as if nothing happened.

- Anija, I’m going to take care of that work. The sooner we get ready, the better.

- Go, but be careful to do it exactly as I told you.

You sensed no trace of exasperation in your husband’s tone when he replied. Maybe he was used to Izuna’s way of expressing himself.

The younger Uchiha nodded and left without any more words for you or his brother. You observed while he walked away, his tied, black hair covering the center of the clan’s crest on the back of his clothing.

- Y/n.

You startled a bit when you heard Madara calling you by your true name in the presence of other people, but then remembered that most of the presents knew about it. You turned to him.

- Is there something wrong?

- No, absolutely – he smiled – But you seem a little worried.

You couldn’t help trying to explain yourself.

- It’s nothing serious. It’s just that I…

Still smiling, he nodded, as if you just confirmed his theory.

- You aren’t sure about my brother’s feelings towards you – before you could reply, you felt his fingers brushing your hair behind your ear – Do not worry. Despite his manners, which are more likely to mess with one’s perception when they are not familiar to him, Izuna likes you. I haven’t had an opportunity to tell it to you but now, but it is true.

You blushed, but didn’t reply. Hearing this from Madara’s mouth was somehow comforting: since you first met Izuna, you felt like the young man had nothing for you except despise.

- Right after he brought you, he came to speak to me about you – he continued – Not only he described your resemblance with the other girl, but he also explained the conditions in which he found you, pointing out that you must have had an exceptional physical resistance for someone who is not a shinobi to not succumb during the travel to our compound. When I heard what he said, I immediately became interested. It was too good to be true, or so I believed until I have put my eyes on you.

You suddenly remembered your first night at that room you were left to rest, the darkness that surrounded you and that corner where you saw the pair of red eyes. The next morning you tried to talk to Izuna about it, but he didn’t want to hear you. Now, the last thing you’d expect was to hear Madara himself bring the case to light, but there you were, hearing him explain how he entered your room and stood there, analyzing you with his Sharingan.

- I must tell you that I was impressed to see Izuna’s hypothesis confirmed – he smiled as if he just read your thoughts – You were weak and injured, and your body was exhausted, that is true, but you would survive and recover, and then would be ready to play your part. Later, not only you were capable of running into a physical conflict and stay on your feet, but you also did well during our training. I mentioned this in one of the messages I sent to my brother while he was away, and he made his good opinion on you very clear in his reply.

You looked ahead, at the same direction Izuna took when he left, and a changed occurred in your opinion of him as well. The anxiety you used to feel every time you were in his presence or thought about him was now slowly disappearing. Since he brought you there, Izuna had a way to make you feel like you’d never be a part of his family, of his clan, but knowing his true thoughts on you soothed your worries. Maybe one day you would see him as your brother too.

Madara’s words about your resilience also reminded you of something you’ve been considering since he told you he was going to leave the compound in a few days.

You turned to him looking for the right words, but it seemed that he was already expecting for that.

- You want to ask me something, y/n? – and caressing your cheek – You do not need to think much about it, then. Just speak.

- Well, first I wanted to know how much time you will… how much time we have together before you leave.

He thought of it for a moment.

- One week. Not much more than this. Why do you ask?

- I’ve been thinking of it since you mentioned your travel – you took his hand on yours; somehow the gesture helped you to find your words – It’s not that I find any flaws in your measures to keep us safe while you’re away, but… I want to take my own measures to take care of myself, and I thought that you could help me in this.

Madara’s smile widened when he heard that, so pleased he was with it.

- I see. You want me to train you during this period, but you are not sure if one week is enough for you to learn something useful in case you have to defend yourself or the people around you.

You nodded, but there was more, and your face burned when you explained it to him.

- To speak the truth, I want to know if in one week I would be able to learn… ninjutsu – you you gave his hands a soft squeeze, feeling the obligation of justifying yourself for asking something that he could see as absurd – It does not need to be something complicated, it could be just enough for me to protect myself and avoid a physical confrontation, which would be more dangerous.

Madara didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he analyzed your words for a moment, then took his hands off yours and passed his arm around your waist.

- There are still many people here, though you could think there are not – he whispered – Let me take you to a calmer place where we can talk properly.

In fact, there were less people around now and you wouldn’t mind talking in their presence, but he seemed worried about that. You chose to think that he, who knew those people for longer than you, was more prepared to decide what was best to say in front of them or not, so you just let him lead you to wherever he wanted to take you.

***

You didn’t go back to the house nor to any strange place. In a moment, with the same technique he preformed to take you to your room after that morning when you were training your body memory, Madara reached the garden with you. You started to think that this place in particular was surrounded by some sort of protection he created with his shinobi abilities, for he implied that you were safe once you were there with him.

You considered questioning him about it, but somehow you thought that this was a subject for another day.

When you look into his eyes after the arrival, you saw a distinct gleam in them, followed by a smile you understood he was containing until that moment. Was he satisfied with your request, or was he mocking you?

He answered your question as if he heard you formulating it.

- So… You want to learn how to dance, y/n? I was waiting for the moment you were going to ask me something like this – you felt his fingers giving a subtle squeeze on your waist, your skin warming up under his touch even with your clothes being there to separate them – However, you surprised me with your interest in ninjutsu. That surpassed my expectations.

You were still a little nervous, though.

- And is it a bad thing? – you’ve put your hands over his shoulders – I wasn’t lying when I told you I just want to protect mys…

His giggle interrupted you.

- I know. And I approve your request. However...

The giggle slowly turned into silence. Then he spoke, low and serious as you still haven’t seen him.

- I want to hear your reasons for it. They will determine my answer.

You frowned.

- But I already told you…

Madara raised his finger and placed it over your lips.

- I know that there are more behind this, y/n, and you cannot hide it from me. Or why do you think I brought you to this isolated place to have this conversation?

You held your breath. After all you’ve seen from Madara Uchiha since you’ve met him, you should have expected something like this: nothing was ever simple with him.

You sensed his approaching, but did not try to pull away. He continued to speak in whispers in your ear.

- You understand that I could simply use my Mangekyo Sharingan to search through your mind and find the answer. But I do not want to act like this. I want to have a normal conversation with you, girl. I want to hear the story from you.

#naruto fanfiction #madara #madara fanfiction #madara x reader

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bre-meister · 4 years ago

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9 &/or 10 (Dialogue Prompts) for cleon !! TY FOR FEEDING US

9. “I just wish things could have turned out differently between us, you know?”

Mall trips were always...interesting. Perhaps it stems from the insanity that was his everyday life, but Leon always felt that doing things so mundane like going to the mall was kind of weird? But, weird in a good way. He wasn’t sure exactly how to describe it. D.S.O Agent Leon Kennedy wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about it as he stood surrounded by little tiny onesies and itty bitty tutus and headbands; cribs, strollers, changing tables, and more displayed on top of the shelves reaching up towards the high ceilings of the store. Well, that’s a lie, Leon did know how he felt - awkward, out of place even.

He wasn’t exactly sure why that was the case, especially considering this wasn’t his first rodeo so to speak. Though, last time Claire had done most of the shopping for the smaller things. His preparatory skills were mostly limited to ordering the bigger things online once Claire had picked them out and then assembling them after they had arrived.

When his wife had asked him to come along this time - mainly to help wrangle little Izzy who had insisted on helping pick out clothes for her new little sister - Leon couldn’t say no. He had nothing else to do on an unnaturally normal Saturday and spending the day with his family sounded like heaven after spending the week doing paperwork. He just hadn’t anticipated the sheer amount of things they actually needed to get. Technically speaking, they should have all of the said items at home from when Isabelle had been little - and they did have some. Some of her baby things had been lost in a move a while back - a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of D.C was great for him and Claire but not necessarily for a little girl. The couple had also given away some things to one of Claire’s co-workers who had needed some baby clothes and such. They truly had not expected to have another child, what with their hectic lifestyle but Leon would be lying if he said he wasn’t extremely excited for the new baby.

So, things having been lost one way or another, they had to replace almost everything; which was fine considering Leon’s paycheck alone was enough for them to live fairly comfortably. Chris was always making snide comments about his “government money”, he might as well put it to good use. Which is how the small family found themselves in the non-descript baby store on an even less notable Saturday afternoon. But, despite coming in with two girls, Leon now found himself alone hence the unnecessarily awkward feelings. Claire and Isabell had stepped out for a short moment to find a bathroom, his pregnant wife needing to go nearly just as bad as their four-year-old.

“Leon?” a voice called from the doorway of the store that leads out to the mall.

Leon looked up confused, that was the direction that his wife and daughter had disappeared to but that voice sounded nothing like Claire’s. Upon laying eyes on the source of the noise Leon felt his confusion shift to something else.

He hadn’t thought he could feel more awkward but somehow, he managed. Calling his name was a living ghost. Leon didn’t have much time to consider that oxymoron before the blast from his past in the form of an objectively beautiful woman entered the store and made her way towards him.

“Oh my gosh! It is you - Leon Kennedy. What’s it been, like five, six years?”

“Yeah,” Leon swallowed awkwardly, “something like that.” If he remembered correctly, it had been much longer than that.

As if coming to his senses, Leon suddenly realized how rude he was being - a former fling or not, Claire would have scolded him if she saw the way he was behaving now. He chuckled awkwardly to cover up how...awkward he was feeling. Quietly, Leon wished he could think of a word or a feeling that was not “awkward”.

“How have you been, Cindy?” He hoped she didn’t catch the upward lit of his greeting when he got to her name - he wasn’t exactly sure he’d remembered correctly.

“Oh ya know, working, shopping,” she gestured to the bags in her hands, “this and that. I’m good though, how about you?” If she noticed his hesitance at her name she didn’t let it outwardly bother her.

Leon looked around before answering, trying to see if he could spot Claire anywhere - no luck. Apparently, at this moment, Leon was two things: awkward and incredibly unlucky.

“Ya know, work, family, shopping,” he mirrored Cindy both in his statement and bodily actions. Motioning to the pack of baby bottles in his hands that he had been mulling over he hoped that Cindy would take the hint - Leon purposefully having emphasized the word family.

Yet again, if Cindy noticed she didn’t let it deter her. She placed a well-manicured hand on Leon’s bicep, gently squeezing all the while batting her eyes in what he assumed was supposed to be a sultry manner. Not many things could be taken as sultry when surrounded by pacifiers and burping cloths.

“I was genuinely surprised when I saw you, and in a baby store of all places. Never would have thought of you as the settling down kinda man. Then, I thought that you were probably just shopping for a friend or a family member, ya know like a shower gift or something. I also thought you’d might want some help, ya know, a woman’s touch. So, here I am”

At that the hand on his arm began to move up and down, those red-colored nails causing involuntary goosebumps to rise on his skin. Apparently, Cindy had been doing a lot of thinking in the last few minutes. Doing some thinking on his own, Leon came to the realization that he’d used to think he loved the color red on a woman. Now, he realizes that he loves the color red on one particular woman.

Before he could get a word in to stop whatever was happening in its tracks, Cindy started up again. Her attention had shifted to the things on the self in front of him, finally removing her hand from his arm. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t done with her not so subtle come on though.

“Sometimes I just wish things could have turned out differently between us ya know? Maybe this could have been us together, shopping for our own baby,” Cindy let out a small laugh at her own imagined scenario.

“I don’t.” He said confidently, happy that the awkward had finally made his way out of his system.

Apparently so had the unluckiness because as Cindy looked up at him, a confused frown on her face, any response she was about to formulate was cut short by a tiny body barreling into Leon’s legs.

“Daddy, Mommy and I saw the coolest candy store and she said that if I’m a good girl then we can go after we're done here! Are we done yet?” Isabelle let out, seemingly in one breath.

Leon laughed, both at his daughter's enthusiasm to curb her sweet tooth and at the look on Cindy’s face. He knew it was rude but the genuine shock was just too good to let slip and she was too wrapped up in said shock to notice.

“No baby girl, we are not done yet. Although trust me, I would much rather be in the candy store,” She looked to Leon as she approached, her next words directed towards him, “their chocolate display was pretty impressive.”

Leon wanted to laugh at his two girls. Instead, he coughed a little, nodding his head discreetly towards Cindy - an action he knew only his wife would notice.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. How rude of me, I'm Claire and you are?”

Cindy had managed to pick up her jaw from where it had fallen on the floor but still seemed to be too stunned to speak.

“Claire, this is Cindy, an old friend of mine. We haven’t seen each other in a while so when she spotted me from the window outside she came in to say hi. Cindy, this is my wife, Claire, and my daughter, Isabelle.”

Isabelle waved shyly from where she had retreated behind her daddy’s leg. Leon felt that was a little odd considering usually Izzy was a boisterous little girl who loved to talk - even to strangers. Perhaps she was tired, or maybe Cindy just rubbed her the wrong way - he’d heard kids were perceptive like that. It certainly didn’t help that Cindy’s face had been akin to a fish what with all the open-mouthed gaping when both girls had returned.

“It's wonderful to meet you, Claire.” the tone of her voice said that this meeting was anything but wonderful.

Still, Cindy held out her hand and the two politely shook. Leon couldn’t help but notice Cindy’s gaze falling on Claire’s hand returning to her noticeable bump as they pulled away. What was left of the color in her face drained and at that moment, Leon could tell that the woman made a tactical decision to save whatever was left of her dignity.

“Well, I just came in to say hi. Leon looked a little lost on his own but now that I see he is not alone I suppose I should continue on my way. I still have a few stores to hit before I can go home. Congrats, by the way.” Cindy motioned towards Claire’s midsection at her baby bump.

“Thanks,” Leon said, in unison with his wife.

Cindy turned to leave, giving one more awkward smile before she left - funny how the tables had turned in that way. Leon almost felt bad for her. It was obvious by her comment that she was still searching for the peaceful family life that he was forever grateful he’d found with Claire.

I just wish things could have turned out differently between us ya know?

That one statement carried so much weight. Leon knew that eventually, Cindy would find the one who was right for her, and together they could shop baby necessities until her heart's content. But, as for him, looking at his two girls fawn over pink and purple onesies meant for his soon-to-be girl number three, he couldn’t say he agreed. This is where he was meant to be - with them.

He knew he’d do anything for them, follow them anywhere. Even, he thought, overpriced, extravagant, mall candy stores. Although he had to admit, Claire wasn’t wrong about the chocolate display, it was pretty impressive.

#Cleon fic #Cleon #CLEON BABY #Leon Kennedy #Claire Redfield #Claire/Leon #resident evil #My writing

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heyheydidjaknow · 4 years ago

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For anyone who is wondering why I deleted the chapters, I was very tired and forgot what tenses were, so I had to go back and change it all, and that is a pain on Tumbr. Tumblr also, apparently, either has a character or word limit, so this is our first 2 parter. I know I could just separate them into chapters, but I feel weird about making a whole chapter devoted to a date, so.

Edit: Who was gonna tell me I misspelled Casey?

Chapter 6 Pt 1

Leo sighs. “Okay, the fact that this will be the second creepiest stunt you’ve pulled this week says a lot.”

“Relax.” Donatello draws another line. “If she has a map of the foreseeable future and showed it to me, it obviously makes sense that I should answer in kind.”

“But,” Raphael points out, “this is the most desperate thing he’s done this week.”

“Zip it.” He caps his pen, holding his diagram up and walking off to his newly obtained whiteboard. “Besides, it’s not a comprehensive flow chart—attempting to list every possible conversation thread would be futile. It's simply a visual aid to remember the general actions I should take in any given situation.” Although you have been promising to “teach him a thing or two” about plot structure one on one, a part of him thinks it appropriate to make the first move. It appears to be the gallant thing to do, anyhow.

Mikey hops over the table, following one of the paths with his finger. “How come you have a shark on this one?”

“Oh,” he nods, “that’s in case she decides to go to the beach and gets attacked by a shark.”

“And why are there these Xs on this one?”

“That signifies the end of one of our lives.”

“And the hearts?”

He blushes. “I’m not answering that.”

Raph shudders. “Man, this just feels gross. I can already feel the secondhand disgust.”

“Raphael,” Donatello sighs, “love is a complex enigma that, if not thoroughly considered and tailored, will crumble before your very eyes. I cannot and will not destroy what little relationship we have by being reckless. Besides,” he scoffs, “in what other possible manner could I ask her out?”

“Hey, Y/N,” Leo offers, “let’s hang out.”

“See, that’s too pedestrian.” He gestures to the poster. “Trust in the—”

You slam through the door. Donnie, apparently panicked, flips the board over with fumbling hands. “H-hey, Y/N. Hey.” He stands up properly, clearing his throat. “Hey.”

You point at him. “How do you feel about busting a corrupt disgrace to the title of scientist?”

“Good!” He peaks at his board, trying to steal himself. “Where are we headed?”

“A neuroscientist by the name of Rockwell got mutated.” You start heading out. “Asshole in question is Victor Falco, AKA Feral Falco, AKA The Rat King if we don’t haul ass. He’s at Rockwell’s lab.”

“Awesome. Let’s go.” He runs after you, shooting a thumbs-up back at his brothers.

You are going to murder a man tonight. Probably. Hopefully not. Depends on how hard it is to wreck his shit. You have been stalking the Channel 6 news for about a week now, waiting for the jackass to show up, and now that he has? You are not about to let him become the monster you knew he could and would become.

“So,” Donnie startles you, lost in thought, “how was your first day of class?”

“It was fine. Met Casey, avoided Irma like the plague, all that jazz.” You turn a right.

“Casey?”

“Casey Jones. Hockey player, real bad at math.”

“A guy?” He seems interested in this subject for some reason.

“Yup.” You reach into your bag, wrapping your fingers around your kitchen knife, hands already shaking. If you must kill him, you will make it quick. “My age.”

“Oh.” He sighs. “That’s… nice.”

‘Can I just take him to the police? I don't have any evidence. This is breaking and entering.’

He clears his throat. “Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“We’re here.”

You look up at the building, sigh. “So we are.”

He moves in front of you, moving to meet you at eye-level. “Is there anything I need to know before we go in?”

You take a deep breath. “The man in the lab coat is the perp. We need to take him down, first and foremost. He may act a fool, but he’s accountable for the mutation of his partner. We either have to incapacitate, convict or, if necessary, kill him.”

He swallows. “This guy is that bad?”

“Not yet.” You start pulling the knife out properly as you push the door open with your clothed arm. “But it’s best to pull a weed out from the root.”

He follows you closely.

You look down at your phone to double-check that this is the offending room. “Here.” You back up, gesturing to the door eccentrically, heart pounding in your chest. “This is the room.”

He approaches you, brow furrowed. “Y/N,” he asks cautiously, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you look sick. Are you alright?”

You nod. “Nervous is all. Haven’t done this sort of thing before.”

He offers a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry.” He gives you a thumbs up. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, alright?”

Your knuckles go white around the grip as you try to release some tension. ‘Don’t choke. That’s his job.’ “Yeah.” You return it. “Oh, are you free tomorrow night? I still have to give you that lesson.”

His face lights up. “Y-yeah! Totally!” He grins eagerly. “Should I go to your place? At what time?”

“We’ll hash out the details on the way back.” You look prominently to the lock. “Now, I take it you have some gadget or gizmo to help us open this bad boy?”

He kneels, pulling a device from the utility belt on his hip and sliding it into the card reader. “Of course.”

The door lets out a harsh buzz, the light turning green. You pull your sleeve forward onto your hand, pushing the door open.

The room smells like metal and mold and decay, a certain lethality hanging in the air when you enter. You stay close to the wall, pulling down a lever to illuminate the harsh laboratory in an even harsher light. And there, caught frozen as he pockets a vial, is Victor Falco.

His eyes flicker towards the door.

You tackle him to the ground, shifting your weight back onto his legs, and pin his arms above his head. “Donnie,” you call, stopping his struggling with a knife pressed against his neck, “would you be so kind as to find a few things for me? I can tell you where they are in the room, but I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“Uh, sure.” His voice sounds strange to you. Tight. Nervous? Confused? You ignore it for now.

“What is the meaning of this,” the scientist bellows from underneath you. “I demand you give me an explanation!”

“Oh be quiet, traitor.” You press the blade against his skin. “We both know the crime you’ve committed against your partner.”

His eyes widen.

You keep your eyes locked on him at all times. “The first thing you’re looking for is a container of mutagen. When you get to the desk, you should see 2 stacks of drawers.”

You do not hear his footsteps. “Mhm.”

“The bottom left drawer has a false bottom. If you pull it up, you’ll find a canister of mutagen.”

You hear the drawer slide open, the shuffling of papers. “Got it.”

“Fantastic. Now, on the desk should be a flash drive belonging to Rockwell. Grab that.”

“How could you possibly know?” You feel his wrist tense as he clenched his fist. “I was so thorough.”

“I’m psychic,” you lie, smiling coldly. “Be happy I met you here and not in your home.”

“Anything else?”

“Whatever is in his pockets, besides car keys and a wallet. You’re getting new chemicals.”

The doctor does not seem to like that idea. He starts writhing underneath you.

“If you don’t stop moving,” you sigh, bringing the knife up and down quickly, hovering over his left eye, “you, a neuroscientist, will have the pleasure of discovering firsthand if what people say about losing your depth perception is true. See, I’ve always heard that it settles, but I’m more than happy to see it happen firsthand if you’ll indulge me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You aren’t sure.” You chuckle darkly, fingers wrapping tighter still around his wrists. “I don’t need to be a psychic to feel your shaking.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a green blob crouch down, pulling vials from his pockets.

“You’re a child.”

“And yet I’m the one holding a knife to you.” ‘Why am I so calm?’ “You’re selfish. You’re prideful. You won’t try anything because I know you to be cowardly, and you won’t say anything,” you nod, “because, if you did, you would have to admit to breaking into your missing partner’s lab, and deal with the backlash regarding me and my associate bringing that hard drive to the police and letting them connect the dots.” You smile sweetly. “Donnie, would you be so kind as to get some distance between you and Mr. Falco?” You do not look over at him, focused on the current task. “If he pulls anything, you need to be able to bring that to the police.”

“Got it.” A few seconds pass. “I’m by the door.”

You slide the carving knife in that general direction. “Goodnight, Falco.” You grab his hair, slamming his head against the ground once as you leap to your feet. You grab the knife, sprinting towards the door. “And that is our cue to leave.”

Donatello, who is having interesting feelings about the whole thing, appears to have been snapped out of some sort of trance. He nods, and the both of you exit the scene.

You wipe your mouth on your sleeve, shaking as you rest your chin on the edge of the dumpster. “T-thanks,” you smile shakily. “I appreciate it, really.”

“Not at all.” He let your locks fall from his hand. “I imagine it’s hard, what with having hair and all.” He helps you down from your perch on a stack of crates. “Are you feeling alright now?”

“Besides my mouth tasting like stomach acid? Never better.” You sigh, rubbing your face with your hands. “Sorry. The nerves just kinda…” you trail off, cheeks dusted pink. “Well, you get the idea.”

“It’s alright, really.” He smiles fondly. “You were really bold in there. It was really cool.”

“I don’t feel cool. I feel the opposite of cool.” You start down the alleyway. “But at least we stopped a ton of problems in its tracks.”

You hear a primal cry as a large primate lands in front of you.

You look him in the eyes, already tired of this episode. “Good evening, Dr. Rockwell.”

His eyes snap to Donatello, who was already unsheathing his bo staff. You look over your shoulder at him. “Chill out. He’s cool.”

“He’s a giant monkey!”

“Dude, he’s a well-esteemed scientist.” You turn to face him properly, holding his arms out to get some proper separation. “Put the effin stick down.”

“But—” He stops, takes a deep breath, and sheathes the staff. “Alright. I’ll trust you.” He seems almost disturbed by your apparent ease.

You turn back to face him properly, smiling. “Doctor,” you nod, “your partner will be of no concern to you from this point onward. Rest assured; his research has been halted.” Your tone is politely respectful.

The wild eyes of the primate calm. He seems to at least sense the general sentiment. He nods once, leaping up onto the nearest rooftop and disappearing into the night.

You nod in satisfaction, looking back at the stunned Donatello.

“He calmed down so easily.”

“He has a human mind, for the most part.” You shrug, continuing down the alley. “Let’s head back. Man, if you dad knew the kind of trouble I just got him out of.” You giggle at his dumbstruck expression, walking backward to keep facing him. “Well, are you just gonna stand there lookin pretty or are you going to come with?”

His face goes red. He nods once, hurrying after you.

You two walk quietly for a little over a minute. “Hey, uh, can I ask you something?”

“Totally.” You decide to bite the bullet and pull of the manhole cover. “What’s up?”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Call who what?” You start climbing down.

“You know, not call him Master Splinter.” He pulls the cover back on, landing beside you. “You always call him my dad or Yoshi or Mr. Hamato.”

“Well,” you shrug, “he’s your dad, right?”

“I’m not saying it’s a problem,” he clarified, “or that’s it’s incorrect, but most people—myself included—refer to him as Master Splinter.”

You start walking with him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Donnie,” you sigh, “but, if I can help it, I honestly hope I never have to call him that.”

“Why?” He walks beside you, eyes tracing your figure subtlety.

“Didn’t I already say?” You nod back in the direction you guys came from. “You saw how I acted back there. This is only episode six or seven. The trauma I’d have to go through as a ninja here would kill me,”

“But you have the guts for it.” His voice is certain. “You’re strong enough, mentally, to be a ninja.”

You pause, your throat catching. You wonder if he would still think so if he had seen how you had spent your nights.

He clears his throat, blushing again. “I think you are, anyway.”

You wrap your arms around his neck, burying your face in the crook of his neck silently. You feel him seize up under you. “Thank you,” you mumble.

He slowly relaxes, snaking his arms around your waist and pulling you closer. He rests his head on top of yours gently. Slowly, he buries his hand in your hair. He is always so warm— he makes you feel oddly safe. This is only the second time you have been this physically close to him, but you don’t think for a moment that he would try anything.

You back off, clearing your throat as your cheeks catch fire. “Sorry,” you smile timidly. “I’ve just been… I’m not usually this clingy.”

He blinks out of his stupor, looking down at you. “Huh? Oh, don’t worry about it.” He grinned giddily, almost drunk. “Y-You are all good.”

You swallow. “I’ve gotta do an introduction type project for school, so I gotta get back home.” You walk back in the direction you two came. “Come to my place at about seven tomorrow. I’ll order food.”

He nods, body relaxed. “Seven. Got it.” He does.

You wave, walking back to the ladder. “Then I’ll see you then.”

He stands there, watching you leave. As soon as he hears the sliding of the manhole cover back into place, he takes a moment to celebrate the victory before starting to walk back to the lair.

‘I got a date!’

Table of Contents

Chapter 5

Chapter 6, Part 2

#tmnt donnie #donnie x reader #2012 donnie #donnie #donatello x reader #tmnt donatello #donatello #tmnt #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2k12 #tmnt x reader #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #nyc #x reader #self insert

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another-snape-story · 5 years ago

Text

Start of Term Banquet

Chapter IX

The day when school was to open its gates for the students has come, and with it came a strange uneasy feeling, which made you doubt whether you should ever sign up for this.

Wrapped in a blanket, you shielded yourself from the sunlight, which started seeping through a narrow slit between fringed heavy curtains, wishing you could stay in bed till next week – or better till next year – and skip this whole procedure of meeting children and – what seemed even more frightening – running your first class. You grabbed a pillow and pulled it over your face, letting out a loud groan of displeasure. A moment later the pillow landed back on a mattress with a hard flop and rolled across the bed, in your opinion – prohibitively wide for one person. After a split second of balancing on its edge, it fell on the floor. You didn’t care. Staring at the ceiling, you regretted staying at Snape’s for too long last night, but once this thought crossed your mind, your lips stretched in a contented smile. No, this was definitely not something you should ever regret.

One of your feet touched the rug, and soon the other one joined it, when you finally found strength to sit upright. Getting out of bed has never been an easy task for you, especially on days like this. The only thing that made you up was a chance to meet your fellow Professor, who could probably give you a piece of advice on how to survive your first day of teaching. You didn’t feel like acting all thorny and standoffish around him; you already trusted him enough to share some of your insecurities. It just happens sometimes: you meet a person, and on a level deeper than human perception allows, you somehow realize you fit together, even though you might know not much about each other or even nothing at all.

“He’s certainly not there,” you told yourself, turning the handle on the staff room door, but still hoping he was. The more space of the room the opening door revealed, the less of a hope there left within your heart, which was replaced with bitter disappointment, once you stepped inside and didn’t find him. Regrettably, there was a short stature of Professor Flitwick instead. Not that you didn’t like him – otherwise, he managed to combine intelligence with sense of humor in such a pleasingly ingenious and simple manner, you couldn’t resist his captivating charm – but at the moment you just didn’t feel enthusiastic about any abstract conversation.

“A little nervous, ain’t you?” he smiled from above the armrest of a couch.

“I am…” taken aback, you admitted hesitantly. “How did you…?”

“I always feel nervous on the first day of the term, even after all these years,” he replied in a squeaky voice.

Later you thought it was even good you met no other than this tiny man. He definitely was a better person to discuss the issue which bothered the both of you, him – clearly – to a much lesser extent. He persuaded you that there was nothing to worry about and, considering indifference the worst of vices, expressed his approval of taking things close to one’s heart.

As much as Professor Flitwick helped you overcome excitement, there still remained something that gave you no peace. It was getting dark; the students were about to arrive. Busy with start of term banquet preparations, seemingly each of your colleagues scurried through the castle making sure everything was ready; even school ghosts gathered in the Entrance Hall to greet newcomers, but Snape never showed up. Neither actually did Dumbledore, yet his absence didn’t upset you in a slightest. Hoping to chase annoying thought away, you roamed the Great Hall, admiring the view of the floating candles under the ceiling enchanted to look like the sky above.

“Enjoying yourself?” a voice you had no trouble recognizing asked from behind your back.

“Just loitering around,” you turned to face the man wearing his regular black suit and impassive expression. No matter how hard you tried not to smile, the corners of your lips raised up slightly, and so – unable to resist – did his.

“Take your place, the students are already here.”

“Are they?” This news surprised you, since nothing betrayed someone’s presence.

“Come on,” Professor Snape hurried you, heading for the High Table. “You don’t want the crowd to trample you down,” his hand leisurely reached for your waist and froze mere inches to the small of your back, never venturing to come in contact with your body.

As the last word was spoken, children broke through huge oak doors floating the Hall and filling the air with cheerful buzz of excited voices. Amazed, you watched their chaotic maneuvers between benches in attempt to get a better place at the table, realizing how close you were to being engulfed in this swirling mass.

“I swear, Professor, if you appeared a minute later…”

“Save your gratitude for occasion more suitable in the circumstances,” he interrupted you in his typical monotonous manner, scanning the crowd with the look of anthracite eyes, which now seemed even darker than usual.

Attention switched from the man’s face, you noticed your other colleagues joining in. Headmaster was smiling broader than ever. Professor Quirrell caught his foot on the ends of his robe and almost ran into Professor Hooch, who was forced to grab him – overbearing enough – to jolt him back to balance. Aurora Sinistra, Astronomy Professor you got along quite well, happened to find her place on the other side of the table, so you had no choice but to stay where you stood, moreover, you had no reason for complaining – the company this evening prepared for you was more than acceptable.

“I can’t spot Professor McGonagall,” you whispered, leaning closer to Snape’s ear, as if it was a confidential matter.

“Of course, you can’t, because she’s not here,” was his plain answer.

Before you could open your mouth to ask for more details, the oak doors swung open again, and a line of paired up first-years entered the Hall, escorted by the one you were just talking about. Professor McGonagall led them up the teacher’s table, where the Sorting Hat was already awaiting to put children in their Houses.

“L-look at t-that young m-man in round g-glasses,” Quirinus perked up. “This is Harry P-P-Potter! I m-met him in the L-leaky C-C-Cauldron on the 31st of July! H-he was…”

“What were you doing in the Leaky Cauldron, Quirrell? You said you had some business in the Ministry,” Snape cut him short, focused on identifying the legend among other children. It wasn’t hard – he was the only one wearing round glasses. This very moment, rubbing his forehead, the boy looked in your direction. He seemed lost and confused, just like his peers waiting for their turn to be sorted.

“I d-did,” he confirmed, “it was earlier t-that d-day.”

“Don’t mind a glass of sherry before meeting authorities? You never stop surprising me,” Snape snapped disapprovingly.

“N-no, I just…”

“Harry Potter!” McGonagall called the boy’s name, and all the people – students and teachers – stared at him in at once settled silence. While the Hat took its time to decide in which House Harry belonged, Quirinus stuttered something under his breath, probably, trying to find an excuse, but no one was interested.

“Shut up, Quirrell!” you heard Snape’s annoyed hissing, and he stopped half-word, his face – paler than before – contrasting with purple of his huge turban.

“Not Slytherin, eh?” asked the Sorting Hat from the boy’s head, which almost disappeared in its shabby depth, and the man beside you grunted contemptuously, drawing your attention. But once Harry Potter was announced to be a Gryffindor, unimpressed, he pursed his lips, while the rest loudly cheered the little wizard, who walked toward his table looking like fainting from excitement.

“Wanted to have him in Slytherin?” you teased your gloomy colleague.

“Why would I even care?” Professor’s face twisted in disgust, and you giggled.

“So, you said, 31st of July. Wasn’t it that very day when Gringotts break-in took place?” you addressed Quirrell, when the last student was sorted and the feast began.

Snape, who was sitting between the two of you, frowned. “Indeed,” he confirmed.

“Did you see something strange?” your bent over the table trying to get a better view of the man’s face from behind tall black figure.

“S-strange?” he muttered, avoiding your curious glance. “I d-don’t think s-s-so. It was j-just as us-sual.”

“Just – as – usual,” Snape recited thoughtfully. “And how often do you drop in there, Quirrell… to judge about commonness of that place?”

“W-well I’ve b-been there a c-couple of t-times when I needed to f-find another b-book for my w-w-werewolves’ r-research and…”

“I thought you were studying vampires?” Snape clarified in a bored tone.

“I always t-try to l-learn something n-new, to k-keep abreast, you know…” Quirrell returned to his meal.

“So you must’ve heard they procreated a new dragon as a result of crossbreeding!” you exclaimed delightedly.

Snape’s brow arched in astonishment, as he slowly turned his head with ‘oh really?’ expression on his face to check if you’ve suddenly gone insane, or he just overheard something. Leaning on the carved backrest of your chair, you gave him a sign not to dispute, so that Quirrell couldn’t see it.

“Romanian Longhorn and Swedish Short-Snout,” curious what you were up to, Snape played along, naming first two species that came to his mind.

“Exactly! They called it Snout-Horn, but still can’t come to an agreement about its belonging to one of the countries. The argument maxed out recently! Taking into account that the dragon hatched in Slovakia, it’s quite a hot topic!”

“N-no m-matter, h-how they c-call it – it’s a b-b-breakthrough anyway!” Quirrell acknowledged, without showing much interest.

“Its horn grew way too long – and therefore too heavy – so the creature barely holds its head,” you continued vigorously. “Can you imagine!”

A master of self-control, Snape couldn’t help letting out a short snort, not believing he participated in this nonsense.

“What for was all that dragon thing?” he asked you after the feast, on the way back to your chambers.

“He never gives comprehensive answers,” you shared your assumption. “Just wanted to find out, whether he’s a fool or just pretends.”

Snape walked silently beside you.

“I got the same apprehension,” he admitted finally.

“You think he knows the one who did it? I mean… Gringotts break-in?”

“Too fast with conclusions, ain’t we?” a ghost of smile crossed the man’s face and vanished as fast as it appeared.

He was pretending too. You knew this question bothered him even more than yourself, but he wasn’t going to discuss it with you. Why? Didn’t he trust you? Did he consider it not your business? You felt hurt. You really cared about the Stone and the safety of the whole school, but no one seemed to appreciate it.

“Perhaps… Good night, Professor,” disappointed, you gave him a harsh nod.

Snape realized he’s just pushed you away – which was the last thing he wanted – but being not ready for such outcome, he couldn’t find words to fix this stupid situation.

“Good night, Professor,” he answered stiffly, surpassing your formality, and headed down the corridor to his private rooms, scolding himself for being too wary; and you remained standing where he left you – upset, frustrated.

Before offence could squeeze your heart and poison your soul with sadness and misery, Snape stopped in his tracks.

“Don’t let him become aware of your suspicions,” he said quietly, his head just half a turn in your direction.

“Professor?” you called him softly. Desperate notes in your tone prompted him raise his glance on you, and what he saw made him feel relieved at once. You were smiling.

“Rest,” he smiled back. “Your next day’s going to be full of impressions.”

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Tag: @diaryofafan17 @yul-is-sparkling @fullmoonshadowwrites @forthehonourof @mayumikurosake @redrehab @space-helen @fluffymadamina nadiigh @theworldisugly-22 @lukaerith-morningstar @sighsinkhuzdul @67-chevy-baby

#snape #severus snape #snape x reader #severus snape x reader #snape fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction

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aqvarius · 4 years ago

Note

I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops.

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind.

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally.

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do.

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more.

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter.

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly.

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and��i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes.

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING.

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from.

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great).

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them.

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better.

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility.

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha.

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling.

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.

#romance md: always on call #rmdaoc #munechika takado #i'm... afraid to tag this #but i must do it to keep my blog organised so i can come back and find this #her love in the force #hlitf #hyogo kaga #voltage inc #otome romance #love 365 #love choice #snow writes #meta #snow rants #that should be a new tag #voltage mc

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clairecrive · 5 years ago

Note

Saw your post about Tommy Conlon! What about Tommy x reader about how Tommy feels around a woman that loves him after everything that happened to him? Maybe reader is a kinda shy too? Or maybe smth about how they start dating? I'm just so soft for Tommy omg

Omg yes. Hi, anon! First of all, thank you so much for your request. Second of all, I totally am too, he deserves to be smothered with love. Period.

Tbh, when I try to imagine something about him and a potential love interest I feel like it would take ages to even talk to him, let alone let him open up to someone. I think it would be a long process, but tbh my mind has been filled with ideas since I saw your ask and I’m dying to give it a try. However, this is the first time that I write about Tommy so pls bear with me.

I’m totally going to do one about how he deals with the reader’s presence in his life and her affection for him even in his toughest moment(maybe she’s there during Sparta or they meet afterwards? don’t know yet), so let’s consider this one as a prequel for that. Just to understand the context.

(continues under the cut)

When anyone referred to the “American Dream” no one’s mind imagined them in Pittsburgh. That’s a fact.

But what point is there to dream about the “Big Apple” or the sunny L.A. when you couldn’t afford it? Pittsburgh was the only option given that a part of your family lived here and deeply you were grateful for the opportunity of leaving “il bel paese” for a while.

Although it was hard to start fresh in a place where you didn’t know anyone, you actually found out soon enough that the total anonymity that came with moving to a new place suited you quite well. After the first few months spent on enrolling into looking for a job that matched your qualifications and eventually settling for a job that paid the bills when you didn’t find any, you had mastered a beautiful routine.

You would get up bright and early no matter how much you wanted to sleep ‘till the end of times, after a quick breakfast you would head to the local library. When you didn’t have a shift you would still go just to set in a secluded corner of the library and read for a few hours.

Then around lunchtime, you would bring food for you and your cousin that worked in a gym near the library. James, your cousin, is a personal trainer. Sometimes he would also coach some guys for MMA fights and work as a secretary in the spare time. Since I’ve moved here though, he offered to speak with his boss for the secretary place and thanks to James now I have also a job as a secretary.

To be honest, working in a gym attended only by guys, wasn’t as bad as you thought. They didn’t pay you much attention, other than a few words when they came in or left and some brave ones that tried to hit on you. Maybe it was because you were James’ little cousin, you weren’t sure. In any case, you were fine just being invisible.

Afternoons there were actually quite boring and uneventful, so you would usually look for jobs or read whatever book you had picked up at the library. The last one you were reading was actually so interesting and captivating that you couldn’t keep your eyes off the pages even when you were walking.

You knew the road from the library to the gym by heart by now and it was all walking area, so no risk of being put under a car, fortunately.

So that’s exactly what you were doing when you met him the first time: nose buried in the pages of the book not really paying attention to your surroundings. If your calculations were correct you were almost outside of the gym. It turned out that you were almost correct and a door in your face told you that you were in fact right outside the gym.

Needless to say, the impact made your book violently hit your face making you lose your balance and almost hit the floor. Yes, almost, because Tommy’s hands prevented you from making a fool of yourself. Well at that time you didn’t know his name was Tommy, to be honest.

“You should be more about where you’re going.” His voice was almost rude like you had made him do something that he would rather avoid. Of course, at that moment your shyness only allowed you to mutter an apology and blush from the embarrassment. And that’s what you did before quickly making your way into the gym where your cousin was waiting for you.

It wasn’t that Tommy was rude, he was just really introverted and didn’t like talking to people. A trait you had in common, you would soon find out. He was actually very well-mannered and he probably had realized that the way he had spoken to you could have made him come across as someone that he wasn’t. While he usually didn’t care about other people’s perception of him, he still thought he was in the wrong.

Mind you, he didn’t apologize. Not openly at least. The next time you saw him walking into the gym, he acknowledged your presence with a tilt of his head. It wasn’t much, for some people it could actually be seen as rude but it was the first time he “reached out to you” and you appreciated it. Besides, it was just the way he was.

So that’s the way your interactions went, on good days be would occasionally smile at you and when your shyness wasn’t getting the best of you, you actually managed to smile back. Until one day everything changed. You had to walk where the rings were to talk to James and since you’ve looked at his schedule, you knew he was coaching Tommy. You had heard something about a big tournament coming up of which you did know much but you had noticed the hype that had been in the air since then.

True to yourself, you weren’t looking around you. Your eyes were fixed on the piece of paper in your hands where you had written the client’s requests, rehearsing what you were going to say when a loud noise of a crowd cheering and punches made you look up.

There it was, Tommy and Maddog fighting in the right. Well, it was more like Tommy that was beating the shit out of Maddog than a proper fight.

You were relatively new to violence, so the sight shocked you. Of course, working in a gym you would hear people throwing punches and whatnot but it was different than actually witnessing it with your eyes. Besides, the feral fury with which Tommy was kicking and punching him actually scared you.

How was he capable of such violence? Was he really that evil? Or was it just a cathartic release of unprocessed anger and hurt?

You didn’t know his story so you didn’t want to be unfair and judge him but you would be lying if you said that you didn’t shiver and hurried to get out of his way when he stormed off the ring.

Did you actually think he could hurt you? No, but that level of anger buckled up in a young man’s body was not healthy nor safe. And you heard the news so you wouldn’t risk it.

At that moment you didn’t think that he noticed your fear, being too hyped up for the fight. But that was something that you didn’t know about him and that you would soon start to love: Tommy was always very mindful of his surroundings and the people around him. So yes, he did notice the way you shivered in fear and the sight actually upset him. Thinking that he could be the reason for a woman’s fear just like his father was his mother’s.

Again, he tried to make it better. Or at least started to think about a way to.

One night, James had asked you the favour of closing up in his place. He had told you something about a girl and knowing that you certainly didn’t have any plans you agreed. Although, the moment you noticed that the only one left waa Tommy you started to regret ever saying yes.

Again, he noticed the way you carefully approached him and he didn’t like it one bit when he noticed the nervousness in your eyes just because you had to talk to him. Maybe another guy would have been smooth about it, thinking that it was because he was half-naked and all. And maybe a little part of you was intimidated by the nakedness and the beauty of his body but the bigger part feared a violent outburst from him.

“Uhm, sorry Tommy but I’m afraid I have to close the gym.” you weakly told him. He didn’t answer you and for a moment you wondered if had heard you at all but after throwing the last punch he nodded toward you and walked toward the changing room. Hoping he would be quick, you did everything your cousin told you to do and waited for him at your desk. Fortunately, he didn’t take long and after twenty minutes-ish he was standing next to you.

Turning off the lights and locking the door you turned ready to make your way home when Tommy’s presence startled you. You thought that he had already walked away.

“Oh sorry, I thought you had already gone,” you said trying to make up for the surprise on your face when you saw. Wouldn’t want him to think that his face scared you. He was actually very handsome, you noted now that you had the opportunity to look at him up close.

“ Do you have a car?” he asked bluntly not even acknowledging your words

“Nope, I came on foot. My house isn’t that far from here,” you explained not sure if he was asking how you were going to get home or if you could give him a ride

“You can’t walk around at this time of the hour on your own, it’s dangerous.” he scolded you much to your surprise. When did you go from barely acknowledging each other to him scolding you?

“I’m sorry but since when do you care about me? We don’t know each other.” you pointed out, your usual shyness leaving place for anger

“Come, I’ll walk you home.” he offers not bothering, again to answer you

“You do know that I don’t know you and that you’re as good as any stranger on the street right now, don’t you?” Just because you went to the same gym you worked in, doesn’t mean that he’s trustworthy. Not to mention his anger outbursts.

“I know what you saw okay? But that has nothing to do with you. I would never hurt you.” he said sighing knowing very well that his fight with Maddog had affected you greatly. These were pretty much words that every potential rapist would say, you’re aware of that. However, that was something in his eyes and in the way that he wasn’t invading your personal space that proved he was genuine.

“I don’t even know your name.” you weakly protest but you had pretty much caved and he knew that

“I’m Tommy. And you are?"

"My name’s y/n, nice to meet you Tommy.” you smiled at him, accepting his offer of walking you home.

And that was the first time of many that Tommy had walked you home and one of your very first interaction.

Part 2

#didn't mean to make it so long #sorry #tommy conlon imagines #tommy riordan #tommy conlon #tommy conlon fic #tommy riordan imagines #tommy conlon one shot #tommy conlon x reader #tommy conlon imagine #Tom Hardy #tom hardy imagines #warrior #tommy conlon x

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parab0mb · 4 years ago

Photo

I live!

So... yeah, after about 3 and a half months of complete silence, I’m back. I know taking forever to upload anything new is a pretty common occurrence for me, but the whole summer is admittedly long even by my standards. Despite recently graduating I think a combination of career-hunting and depression siphoned any motivation I had to accomplish anything these past few months. I’m still busy with work and looking for a career but I’m at least feeling slightly more motivated now, at least enough to attempt to get back into a drawing mood, even if it’s nothing substantial.

Anyway, since I’ve had my OC Lilian on the brain for a while now, I figured I should draw her alongside the rest of the core cast for her story. Originally I was considering making a reference sheet for all of them (and I still might someday) but the aforementioned bout of depression combined with my usual laziness kept that from going anywhere, so instead I decided to draw them all together, so that I can have their designs all down on paper (this is also a personal ref for me to help remember their heights). Can’t say all the names/designs are set in stone but it’s a start.

Now then, wall-of-text character description time!:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Lilian Liao - An eleven-year old tomboy who seems to attract paranormal activity like a magnet, Lilian was hoping that moving to a new town would bring a sense of normalcy to her life. However, she quickly learns from her new neighbors (who happen to be a family of witches) that she is a medium who is fated to attract all manner of weirdness to herself no matter where she goes. On the other hand, while she may not be able to "turn off" her powers, she can learn to pacify and resolve the issues of the various supernatural entities she regularly encounters.

Impatient, ill-tempered, and a bit of a bully at times, Lilian's bad attitude tends to clash with her powers and she often makes a bad situation worse for herself because of it. Fortunately, with the help of the witch family next door, a wannabe conspiracy theorist, and a possessed talisman, Lilian may yet learn to control her powers (and temper) and find peace in her hectic life.

~ Ling's Talisman - Given to Lilian by her new witch neighbor Medea, the Talisman is an artifact of unknown origins capable of siphoning and amplifying magical power. However, upon receiving it Lilian quickly discovers the Talisman houses one other secret: a lingering fragment of its previous owner's soul. This previous owner, known only as Ling, was a medium just like Lilian but seems to have forgotten much about himself after lying dormant inside the Talisman for hundreds of years.

Ling is (understandably) bitter about his current, body-less state of being, and is apparently just as stubborn and hotheaded as Lilian, meaning the two are constantly butting heads with one another. Still, believing that Lilian's powers may be the key to exorcising himself from the talisman, Ling reluctantly agrees to teach her better control of her powers for their mutual benefit.

~ Devin Liao - Lilian's older brother; presents himself as a rebellious and edgy punk but isn't quite as deep as he thinks he is. Him and Lilian don't get along very well, and regularly belittle and argue with each other. While Devin is one of the few normal humans in Lilian's life who actually acknowledges all the paranormal activity that surrounds her, he does little to actually help her deal with it and will even complain if it begins to inconvenience him (even though she has little control over such things).

Still, in spite of their frequent bickering Devin does genuinely care about Lilian and will help her without a second thought should she find herself in legitimate trouble. And even without any supernatural powers of his own he proves himself to be surprisingly adept with confronting the paranormal (when forced to do so).

~ Hui Liao - Lilian’s and Devin’s father, Hui does his best to strike a balance between his demanding engineering career and being a reliable single parent, to which he is mostly successful. Hui has an almost unwavering levelheadedness and rarely ever grows impatient with his children's antics and bickering (while still knowing when to put his foot down and keep the two from tearing each other apart). He also does his best to support his kid’s interests, even if he doesn’t always understand them or unintentionally embarrasses them.

Unfortunately, Hui’s demanding career leaves him little time to physically be with his family, and despite his efforts to support Lilian and Devin he clearly does struggle to relate to their interests or help resolve their personal issues. Lilian in particular is distressed by her inability to prove the existence of the paranormal to her dad; while he would never scold her for claims of ghosts and monsters being real, as a man of science and reason Hui struggles to accept her seemingly baseless claims and chalks it all up to her simply having a vivid imagination.

~ Wally Peskon - A wannabe paranormal investigator and the closest thing Lilian has to a non-magic friend, 11-year old Wally quickly gravitated towards Lilian due to their like-minded fixation on proving they aren't crazy to the rest of the world. And at first Lilian was actually elated to meet a regular human who's observant of the paranormal, but her mood quickly changed when she realized he's a hack who gets caught on bogus conspiracy theories and completely overlooks real supernatural activity happening right in front of him. Not to mention he's frantic, clumsy, and a busybody, making just as much of a headache as the supernatural beings that are always bothering her.

Fortunately, Lilian and her unwanted paranormal company helps Wally improve his perception of what is and isn't real (somewhat), and he slowly begins to get better at recognizing and even helping Lilian resolve supernatural phenomena. He also has a habit of buying or cobbling together seemingly useless pieces of anti-paranormal equipment that sometimes end up saving the day. Sometimes.

~ Wednesday "Wendy" Cauldrison - Lilian's new neighbor and the 8-year old daughter of Medea Cauldrison, Wendy is a hyperactive and spontaneous witch-in-training who’s obsessed with all things cute and glimmering. Heavily sheltered from non-magic culture by her mother, Wendy quickly takes a liking to her new neighbor Lilian, who offers her a chance to hang out with normal humans and partake in non-magic activities. Unfortunately, while Wendy usually means well, her overambitious nature combined with the haphazard use of her magic often exacerbates Lilian's paranormal problems, and as such Lilian (at least initially) isn't exactly eager to let Wendy tag along with her.

Like her mother, Wendy's magical expertise mainly involves brewing up potions, powders, and other concoctions to cast spells. However, her lack of experience means a lot of her brews don't come out quite right and have unpredictable effects, while the few brews she actually does have a grasp on are only good at making things prettier or making them explode violently, with no in-between.

~ Medea Cauldrison - The mother of Wendy Cauldrison, Medea is a coven-less but highly experienced witch living in plain sight within Lilian’s new neighborhood (although she hardly has to try to keep it a secret). Despite appearances, she's over 600 years old and has traveled a good portion of the multiverse. And yet, in spite of her vast experience with all things magic, she knows surprisingly little about the culture and technology of humans, as she has a bit of a superiority complex towards them and tries to avoid interacting with them when possible (even going so far as to forbid Wendy from experiencing most of the human world for herself).

While Medea may not hold humanity in high regard, it can’t be denied that she’s still fairly knowledgeable of all things magic, and she’s highly understanding of Lilian's plight and (usually) willing to help her out. Combined with the fact that she's competent enough in her magic to ward off many of the more threatening paranormal creatures out there, she's certainly one of the more reliable personalities in Lilian's new neighborhood. Medea’s magical expertise revolves around nature and potions; she can not only conjure and manipulate plants but with the right ingredients can brew up all manner of potions and powders to suit any situation.

#I feel that Devin and Wendy are the most fun to draw of the lot #just throwing that out there #artwork #myartwork #lilian #lilian_liao #devin_liao #hui_liao #ling #wendy #wendy_cauldrison #medea #medea_cauldrison #wally_peskon #wally #original character #ocs #reference

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moseswilhelm · 5 years ago

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Now that you’re all gone, I’ve got a few squishy bits to air out. I don’t feel normal. Whether that means quirky or broken or eccentric depends on the day or hour or seconds between the particular anxiety of waiting on someone to respond to a long string of text. Internally, I’ve cycled between deciding if I am alien, demon, mutated evolution, a plaything of God, a challenge, or just plain old mentally ill. We can guess the healthier option, but there isn’t much use or fun using that.

Knowing you’ve lacked socialization in your youth doesn’t really mean much in trying to solve that problem in the same way that knowing you were just shot won’t help close the wound. What I am trying to say is I wasn’t socialized when I was young and that consistent distant feeling from your peers comes from that. Hearing that you think differently, or have an interesting brain is a nice little compliment albeit a little condescending. Unfortunately, you can’t really monetize excellent explanatory metaphors without the true meat and potatoes of capitalist society: focus. Arguably, effort and hard work and all that, but the measurement of how much you’ve put into something gets a bit blurred when you’ve somehow acquired detail knowledge of the economic turmoil that initiated the Pontic Wars. Someone please give me money for that. Easily an entire week got a bit lost in trying to understand centralized economies in the classical era and not one person paid me. Outrageous. I think writing was my way of trying to accomplish that level of usefulness that we are all trying to achieve. I knew that whatever I went through as a kid helped me develop an approach to understanding things in a unique way, but this is arguably not even useful to myself let alone the world as a whole. Unfortunately this hobby/career is top tier ADD nightmares and require a level of focus and drive comparable to Stephen King just ripped on coke. I neither have the proclivity for weird child orgies and dog monsters or coke. Well thats a lie, coke suits me just fine but my scantron has enough bubbles filled out and I’m already late turning in my “how much of a trainwreck are you” buzzfeed quiz. I see you, red squiggly telling me that “thats” needs an apostrophe. Fuck off, this is art and I refuse to change. Hey, what do you think happens when you’re told that confidence has to come before... y’know... actually being proud of yourself? Arrogance and self-absorption, obviously. You learn very quick that empty confidence is just as meaningless as no confidence, so to kind of fake it you have to really inflate things you have no right inflating and they are inflated on a scale comparable to those around you. Which is arrogant! Its awful! People can do different things at different levels and still be valid! Confidence is valued at an extremely high level to the point where the confidence to present yourself is a bit more important than the character you are supposedly proud of... evidenced plenty by the folks in the public eye known specifically for their charisma and yet somehow failing to actually be a person worth being around. That said, it can get tangled up in actually being proud of yourself. Shocking, I know, but you can’t really lump people who have characters worth being proud of to those just decent at faking it. Faking it. I know imposter syndrome is a thing. I am certainly not really alone in the concept of “oh god I’m faking it” so I won’t really pretend I have some magic insight on the concept (I’m lying I’m absolutely going to present myself as someone with Answers welcome to the fucking show) but when does “holding it together” and “how you present yourself” become imposter syndrome. “Hi this is me who has to be this way in order to balance between seeming different enough to stand out but not so different that you feel disgusted at the concept of change, nice to meet you” I mean what the fuck is a person anyways. Thats not a question. Not even a rhetorical one so if you answered aloud in your head I’m sorry but my psyche is not emotionally prepared for audience participation right now so clam up. Finding yourself is always a precarious as hell phrase because that often means one of two things: 1. Learning not to care about how others feel about who you are, despite all evidence of existence point out that this is the absolute most important aspect of your life 2. Presenting the parts that you were afraid to present to people. Look, I get it, you can’t please everyone and I’m not really here to talk about how to please anyone. In fact, I’m not even here. This is a lucid dream you’re having in your chair and shortly you’ll wake up and not remember if you were sleeping at all. Its fine, you’re fine. You have to please someone though. I think we underestimate the value of the tutorial level of life regarding this. You are given a set amount of people who are, usually, just going to be pleased by your existence. This always sets up your expectations of how that looks, how it feels, and how important it is. I mean imagine if right now I decided to criticize the immense value society puts on children. You’d hate my fucking guts! “Look at this asshole, kids deserve to be cared for” To be clear I don’t disagree with that. I think a lot of the current “you are valid” rhetoric is based on the concept that adults deserve to be cared for as well. This sorta rounds off my point that attention and reassurance is an important part of being cared for. In my opinion, this gets overlooked very often in favor cheap performative actions like hitting a heart button and oh my god I’m like a baby boomer writing for the new york times okay hold on I promise this isn’t a cynical criticism of millennials. People want to be heard. Importantly, people want to be understood. Spicy hot fucking take. Its a bit more than “this person knows who I am” although thats precisely how its framed. People want to be cared for, and this means knowing the... other person knows who they are caring for. Ah holy shit this is why I use metaphors. You have a snickers bar and you are hungry. Congration, you done it. Its the middle of the day and you never had any breakfast and frankly your bank account could use a break from pleasuring Starbuck’s atm reader so you somehow found the last snickers bar in a box you bought off of impulse bought off of Amazon and immediately regretted because it was gone two days later. Or so you thought. As you threw away the cardboard you hear the tell-tale tumble of a forgotten rod of peanuts and caramel that must have gotten jammed in the back of this thing. It was, however, 7am and you had to get to work and maybe having bubbleguts while dealing with people is not your recipe for a good day so you throw it into your purse or bag or whatever the fuck and move on. “Lunchtime” rolls around and as you do the mental gymnastics required to find the conclusion that food=energy in between bouts of fury over why your workday insists on starting at 8am and how you can’t seem to cope with falling asleep early enough for that not to matter, you remember your snickers bar. Reaching into whatever bag you put it and coming to the horrifying dread of realization that you left this bag in your car in fucking July, you find the sweet sugared respite in a corner. Squeezing it a bit just to test, you are surprised to not find it in the horrible (and yet delicious) state of melted confectionary. Your stomach grumbles a bit as you fidget with the perforated candy wrapper, vaguely thinking to yourself that it might be interesting to read the ingredients as you eat this thing like that isn’t going to fill you with inexplicable Eldritch dread. Nobody needs to know they are ingesting something that might have been made in a facility that also processes every other nut you can think of, delightfully shortened into “tree nuts”. I wonder if anyone has cross referenced all the allergen warnings to deduce which candies are made in the same factory, or if that information is just freely available. What if we kissed in the snickers production facility??? haha jk but...? Anyways, as your mind cycles through a list of stale memes you manage to unsheath this uncut chocolate delight from its wax(???) plastic prison and proceed to take your first, and arguably best, bite into this lunch. Your teeth sink softly into it, as you would expect. In fact, expectations haven’t really filtered into your skull soup you call a brain, so all manner of things can just slip through your recognition. Not this, however. Instead, fireworks of electric signals screaming “BITTER POISON” shock your brain from its previous state of vaguely functioning. Now you truly see the color of light, feel the air cocooning your skin, the squirm of your organs in your belly. Full panic ensues. You are not human, you are animal, and you have taken in a poison thing. You spit it out right there on your lap. You stare at the sad and ruined chocolate mutant nestled grossly in between your legs as your brain high fives itself for saving your life before frantically scouring your subconscious for whatever Vine gives it enough dopamine to not just fucking kill yourself right here. What happened? The fugue of panic washes your perceptions with a mixture of justifications for this travesty. It probably just went bad, but that didn’t taste spoiled (you consider yourself a mild expert having scraped clean many an old collection of halloween candy collections in August the year after the fact) so maybe it melted and rehardened? Baking stuff is weird so maybe that broke down some of its components. You pick it up (holy shit that is slimy. Of course its slimy, just touch it) and its insides look fine. I mean, how often do you examine the insides of a partially chewed bite of snickers? No weird colors. The remaining chocolate lasagna brick also looks exactly what you’d thought it be. You jokingly think to yourself that maybe you had a stroke but despite the apparent hilarity of that possibility you do the smile thing in the selfie camera of your phone. Everything seems fine, but now you’re getting mad that some turn of events has just ruined your perfectly good slab of sugar and fat that surely would have made the rest of the day bearable (and full of indigestion) Now that is a metaphor.

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defensefilms · 3 years ago

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Fox Sports Apologize For Their Opinions Of Giannis

The build up to game 6 of the NBA finals has brought with it some interesting analysis and a lot of it was really self-analysis on the part of the television analysts and the media attempting a kind of mea culpa regarding their perceptions of one of the best players in the league.

Fox Sports has spent most of the day questioning their perceptions of Milwaukee Bucks star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, starting with Nick Wright.

To Nick’s credit he brought up some very great points about how most stars that accomplish what Giannis has accomplished get far more open and gushing praise and far more respect from the media and current players.

All this goes back to comments James Harden made a year ago regarding Giannis, to the effect of “I can’t just be seven feet tall and dunk the basketball. I gotta have skill”. The obvious implication being that Giannis doesn’t have skill which was utterly ridiculous and down right untrue when Harden said it and has been prove to be even more ridiculous now.

Indeed Nick Wright is 100% on the money here. Any NBA star that wins 2 back to back MVP’s and a Defensive Player Of The Year award to boot, would be regarded as the unquestioned best two-way player in the league.

It’s a false narrative and James Harden coming to the Nets overweight and unable to help Kevin Durant win a series against the Giannis and the Bucks. Harden didn’t face nearly enough backlash for that.

However the guy that should have caught the most heat during the Nick Wright segment in question, was his co-host Brandon Marshall, who has repeatedly said over the last two year that Giannis’ lack of shooting skill would prevent him from being in the position that he’s in now.

He’s clearly looking like one of the worst analysts on tv right now because of this and you have to wonder how these guys can get paid to be wrong. It’s one thing to hedge your bets on a players succeeding but it’s a whole other thing to bet on a player’s failure and that’s what a lot of these guys in sports media do.

Brandon Marshall is the beneficiary of a tv sports media culture that doesn’t pay you to be right they pay you to be on time. The way it should work is that guys lose money for getting it this wrong but that would be meritocracy and the media want meritocracy for athletes but nor for themselves.

These NBA playoffs have reminded me of the 2019 NBA playoffs, not because of Giannis but because once again you have a team and a star player in the Finals that the media would have not chosen if they were to have their preference.

The media are shamelessly pushing for big market teams to make the finals and some of it is jut job preference. Stephen A Smith has said many times that he would rather have to travel to Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago than Toronto, San Antonio or Milwaukee. Most of the media would rather be in big cities.

The problem is that it’s not supposed to matter what they want. It has nothing to do with the game, the sport or anything else for that matter.

Just Do Your Job!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of it is a style of play thing with Giannis and people thinking that Steph Curry is more fun to watch which is the dumbest thing ever.

Some of it of it is the belief in analytics and 3-point shooting being the defining factor separating elite players from the rest, which is clearly false. The Suns in this series have proven the limitations of 3-point shooting and the Warriors in 2019 were still capable of big shooting nights but the Raptors were just better.

I have one question for those that think Damian Lillard, Steph Curry, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and any other player who favors flashy plays and ankle breakers, “How many of those guys have ever carried their teams to a championship?”.

Kyrie Irving was instrumental in the Cavs 2016 win but he was not the best player on that team.

Steph Curry in 2015, was not named Finals MVP and the team he played against had injuries, and before you point out Giannis and the Bucks injury luck this year, remember that Giannis also came back from the nasty knee-bending injury that looked for sure, as if it would end his season. Any other player comes back from an injury like that within mere days, the way Giannis did would have stories written comparing him to Willis Reed.

By the way, American media tried to say that the Bucks would be better with Giannis off the court, because now the other Bucks can be more aggressive, which is ridiculous. The Hawks were without Trae Young and when he came back he was hobbled, these are not difficult things to point out given that it was just a few weeks ago but can you imagine another star being talked about in this way.

Yesterday, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd spent the entire day backtracking on things he had said about Giannis over the last two years. As always Colin just pretended all of his old takes don’t exist and he explains that away as “adapting to changing information” as opposes to it being that he was always wrong.

Completely undermines things Colin said a year ago during an interview with Doug Gottlieb, another known hater of small market teams.

The meat and potatoes of this is that the media should stop trying to tell us what people like and what they like and just report what actually happens on the court.

The idea that fans are less interested in a Suns-Bucks finals series and that the game’s biggest stars (LeBron, Durant, Curry) not being present at this time of year is hurting the NBA is absolute hogwash. More than that though it shouldn’t matter as far as the audience is concerned.

The other layer of this is media commentators, like Jason Whitlock who believe that the decline in the NBA’s rating is due to them supporting Trayvon Martin and movements like Black Lives Matter, like a way of punishing a corporation for not being indifferent towards racism or racist behaviour.

It is absolutely astonishing how little these guys actually know about the wider world. If I lose 1 million local viewers and I gain 3 million international viewers have I really lost ground? Does math matter? Are your sources/metrics for keeping up with the rating a true reflection of ALL your total viewership or are you still using the old Neilsen ratings because you’re boomers, and there is no other country except America considered in the metric?

A combination of cord-cutting, new media, streaming and all other manner of things means that the NBA is better off embracing the idea of this being a global sport. Adam Silver understands this better than the talking heads on TV.

I cannot with this nonsense.

It struck me while writing this that usually at this time of the year, there are soundbites and callouts and subtle digs being thrown about in post game press conferences. Chris Paul tried some of that after game 5 when he said that “everybody expects Giannis to miss free throws”. I’ve been respectful towards Chris Paul even though this sereis has given me every bit of ammunition not to be.

I’ll only say this; Giannis has led his team from down 2-0 and the whole time, he’s been missing free throws but what does that say about the guys that gave up the 2-3 lead. What does that say about a guy that has given up multiple series leads?

Game 6 awaits tonight and yes, people are doing what they always do at this time of the year and the media vultures are already taking pieces of flesh out of Chris Paul. The talk in the media is that Chris Paul losing would hurt his legacy. I don’t agree but every year it’s got to be someone and this year it might CP3.

As For Giannis and further adding to how the media relate to the guy, is that his press conferences have no sound bites. There’s no calling someone trash or saying that “that’s a bad shot” or “claiming that the series is over” or that “they can’t guard him”, even if the last two of those things may in fact be true.

He has handled the media with kid gloves and in turn there is a stability and calmness about the Bucks.

For one thing, Giannis has completely challenged and flipped the media’s expectations of what a star player can be in this league. Long may he reign.

It’s a new day as far as the NBA media goes and if you’re not adapted, you’re dying.

#nba #nba 2021 #nba playoffs #nba finals #milwaukee bucks #giannis antetokounmpo #fox sports #nick wright #colin cowherd #brandon marshall

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scintillakreations · 3 years ago

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jo-the-schmo · 7 years ago

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Chaos Breeds Life, Order Bleeds Blue

A/N: :Long title, I know. But trust me, I couldn’t think of a better one. I might change it later. This one’s a bit different and I’m posting it at 3:30 in the morning like a responsible adult.

Wordcount: 4034

Warnings: Language, time science? Blood

Tags: @sunsetleslie @hoshihime98 @phantastic-fandoms @arya-durin-51 @thelazyfangirl @happypineappleapple @sweaterkitty-fluff Message me or send me an ask if you want to be added to the tag list

“This sure doesn’t look like homework.”

You almost jumped out of your seat when you heard the voice speak to you. It had been silent for so long that hearing a voice surprised you. Wait…how long have I been here? As that thought struck you, you suddenly realized your surroundings and the numbness in your legs. You had been sitting on the floor outside the school library ever since it closed. The hallways were dim, most people already up and gone. Books were strewn around you, some still open and small notecards tucked into the pages with questions. And in front of you, stood a man with a familiar, thick, black rimmed glasses sitting on his nose.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! The building must be closing, I’ll get out in just a sec…” You started to frantically shove your newest lends. But you saw the man kneel down, waving his hands for you to stop.

“No need, the building doesn’t close until all the teachers and staff are gone. And I’m still here.” His eyes flicked down to what you were reading. “Horology? Planning on making clocks?” Professor Laurent questioned with a mischievous glance back at you. “Hope you aren’t changing majors on me!” You gave him a tired chuckle.

“Nah, this stuff is giving me headache. I could talk about history all day and not get tired of it. But the library barely had what I was looking for, the clock stuff isn’t really helping.”

“Why the sudden interest?” That question immediately eased the tension in your head.

“I’ve just…been feeling kinda stuck recently.” You sighed.

“In time?” His head cocked to the side. You nodded. His mouth drew into a tight line, as if he were considering something. He seemed to come to a conclusion.

“I’m sorry if this is…an odd invitation. But I think I have some stuff you might want to look at, more physics and philosophy related.” You’ve never heard his voice be so serious. It was somber and comforting. Almost as if he was saying, ‘I know what you’re going through.’ “They might do you more help than what our library, that’s for sure.”

“Really? That would be great!” You exclaimed. He slid his metal to-go cups into his worn satchel, freeing his hands. He reached out, gently closing most of your books and taking them himself.

“I’ll help you with these.” After collecting all your things, the two of you set down the hallway toward his classroom. Professor Laurent was probably the kindest person you’d ever met. He wasn’t like most teachers you had known, he genuinely cared. He felt more like a mentor than a teacher, which although seem as though they’re supposed to be synonyms are actually quite different. There wasn’t a single person to your knowledge that has met him and not felt how wonderful he was. Which, is probably why seeing the way he walked with such a soft step, or his silence being deafening got to you so much.

The building was sectioned off less by building and more by long halls. And the quiet echoed beneath your feet. It completely reflected how you would personify the professor. Kenopsia. In the few minutes of traveling, he seemed like an entirely different person. The halls are usually so bustling and loud, full of energy for one reason or another. But perhaps, that’s only because that’s the only time you see it like that. Or more appropriately, him like that. Empty, solitude, echoing. Eventually you made it to the door to the room you visited most during school. You heard a click from the lock being turned and he pushed open the door. You almost instinctively went over to your desk that you always tried to sit at, you could even imagine the bodies of all your peers in their respective places. But the professor kept moving forward, over to his office.

It only took a few moments for the two of you to be in the smaller, off-set room. You had never actually been in there before, so you were intrigued by everything around you. The walls were bland but there were a few bookshelves placed in assumingly random places. His desk was made of a light wood, clean, had a few picture frames in the corners. He set his bag down by the desk and laid the books he carried down on it’s surface. You followed in-suit. He switched between all of the shelves, picking out a couple of different books. As he came back over, he gestured for you to sit in one of the chairs on the opposite end of his own. The swivel chair creaked under his weight as he pushed the books towards you.

“Do you have a favorite theory?” He asked. Honestly, he had been silent for so long that you hadn’t considered him asking you anything.

“I don’t suppose I do… I haven’t been through this enough to really have an opinion.” But that now begged the question. “Do you have a favorite?” It took him a second to answer.

“I don’t think it’s my favorite, but the idea that past, present, and future co-exist is comforting.” He paused. “No matter how much of a low point your life has hit, the happiest version of yourself is happening at the same time. But I suppose this all subject to human perception. Time is a human-born concept, after all.” You looked over at all the old books in front of you, they looked to be pretty worn down. And you didn’t recognize any of them.

“This is an interesting collection you have.” You stated as you plucked every book from the pile to read the cover. “I would’ve never guessed you were into this kind of thing. You never mention it at least.”

“Well, no one is really an open book. You never knew because there was no reason to tell you until now. Plus, it shouldn’t be so surprising, my entire profession is based around time and where it’s led us.” A little bit of his usual demeanor returned to him. “You could also argue that I don’t know everything about you, and that’s because I don’t. There’s plenty that you don’t share with people.” Boy, if he only knew.

“I guess you have a point.” You spent a moment reading through the text of the smallest book. “It all just seems so crazy…” You muttered.

“What does?”

”The fact that there are all these different theories, there’s no solid answer. Fate vs. Freewill, wormholes, string theory, co-existence, butterfly effect… It’s all just ideas!”

“Time isn’t like genetics or gravity where we could see or test it. We were the ones to decide how many seconds are in a minute, minutes in an hour, hours in a day. It’s a complex study because it means different things to different people.” He looked through you, almost like he was trying to see into your thoughts. “Perhaps I’m wrong in assuming this but, did something happen in particular that made you so interested? Is there something making you feel stuck?” You could tell he had been dying to ask you this question, not just in the minutes passing this evening, but ever since you woke up. He noticed you were different, everyone did. But he was the only one to ask. Everyone else was too scared to, thinking that it was just a side-effect of your coma.

“You would just think I’m crazy if I told you…” You sighed. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not too sure about that, I’ve seen some crazy in my time. Try me.” He leaned into the desk, his elbows resting against it. You tried to think of a way you could phrase this.

“Do…Do you really think a single person can change history?” He raised an eyebrow, shifting his glasses down a tinge.

“Now you already know my answer to that, of course I do. I’m almost certain I say that to your class every other day.”

“I was…kinda afraid you’d say that…” You could tell he was confused by your statement. “I feel like I’m changing too much. And all I’m doing is destroying it, breaking it.” He was silent for a moment, suddenly moving his chair to the adjacent side by you. He rested his hands on his knees and looked at you with comfort.

“Order brings habit, but with chaos comes life.” He looked over at the pile of books, quickly searched through them for one in particular. It was a medium sized book with a navy blue cover. Explaining Chaos. “That is the principle to Chaos Theory. With chaos comes innovation and progress, it isn’t always destruction.”

“I always though chaos theory was that unbelievable things will happen simply because they can.” You took the book in your hands, running your fingers against the cover.

“You’re not wrong, but that’s not the whole story. Chaos Theory is where we get the popular idea of Butterfly Effect. A simple action can have tremendous consequences. But those actions don’t always result in breakage.” Suddenly you had an idea.

“What if…Hypothetically speaking, what if time were in a set straight line? Events happening in a fate like manner. What would happen if a disturbance suddenly happened to this set timeline?” You asked.

“Like a time anomaly?” You seemed to peak his intrigue.

“Yes, something unexpected. What would do you think would happen?” You found yourself on the edge of your seat.

“Well, I’m not expert…But I would think that’s probable cause for change. Both direct and indirect. Say that I put a pen on Mrs.Gepson’s desk. You could say that now she would have a new pen, a direct change. But you could also say that someone could then steal that pen from her and then throw it at someone else, an indirect change that continuously effects the whereabouts of that pen. But if it were to a time anomaly, it would most likely result in a split from the previously set reality. This might then cause further anomalies, making more and more splits, until we get to something closer to a web. Or something along the lines of a multiverse.” Holy…shit… “But of course, that begs the question, what is this anomaly? If this were a fate based line of time, why would this anomaly occur? Would that anomaly then also be conjured by fate? Unless it was an outside force with no correlation to that timeline. And that also depends on when exactly this anomaly occurred.”

“Oh, that’s uh…I think got the chills.” You gave a nervous chuckle. He looked at you quizzically, or like he was trying to figure something out. There was never a moment of clarity in that gaze but he seemed to have put it aside for something else.

“Why don’t you take these for a little bit, as loaners.” He gestured to the book pile. “Read over them this week and then we can discuss if you found your answer at the end. But it’s late, I can’t have my best student losing too much sleep.” He smiled warmly. You were glad that he was still himself, you doubted for a moment.

“Thank you so much! That would really help me out!” He helped you put the books away so that you could carry them home. Together, you both walked down the shallow halls, they seemed less daunting than they were before. Professor Laurent was always a well dressed guy, very business casual. Charcoal slacks, light blue button down dress shirt that’s never buttoned all the way, nice dress shoes, black rimmed glasses. He looked like a professor. You always considered him to be young even though he’s in his late 30s. His presence is very comforting, like he knows what he’s doing, all the time. But as soon as you were out of the building, you became nervous. The familiar streets started to bother you. Ever since you woke up, you tried to avoid the streets at night. The tension around you was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“Would you like me to walk you home? I’m assuming you live near campus.” Professor Laurent suggested. You raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s very responsible to let a young girl walk home by herself this late at night. I know you can handle yourself but it would best to avoid anything unsavory if possible.” You mentally sighed in relief.

“Thanks. And you’re right, I’m only a couple blocks away.” You gestured toward the direction of your apartment.

“Good! I’m the pretty darn close too.” The two of you started to walk together. He pulled out his cellphone. “Just give me a second to call my daughter…” He clicked on something and then pressed the phone to his ear, it only took a moment for him to speak again. “Hey Ravenna, sweetie…Yes, I am on my way home. I should be back in about 15 minutes…I was helping someone out, don’t worry. If you don’t mind waiting a few extra minutes, I’ll pick us up some dinner?…Alright, I’ll see you soon, sweetie. I love you…” After a few seconds, he hung up the phone.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter, you never talk about her!” You exclaimed. That actually explained a lot.

“Yeah, she told me to stop doing that. She doesn’t like it when strangers just know who she is, especially if she didn’t naturally come up in conversation. I told her I’d stop doing it.”

“Actually, you calling her reminded me that I should probably text my boyfriend. He’s hanging out with his sister at our apartment so I should tell them I’m on my way back.” You pulled out your phone. Hey Phoenix, tell Anna that I’m on my way. Don’t eat all my food. Love yoooooou! You add a heart emoji.

“Your boyfriend’s name is Phoenix?” DAMNIT! I NEED TO STOP DOING THAT!

“Yeah, trust me, that name suits him.”

“What’s his last name?” He seemed curious.

“Hansen, his sister is also my roommate, her name is Anna.” He looked at you with a cheesy grin.

“Well, it sure is a small world!” What? “I know their dad!”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, we’re great friends. I’ve known Phoenix since he was born! He used to call me Uncle Joshie.”

“Aw, that’s adorable and I’m definitely going to use that later to embarrass him.” He chuckled at your statement.

“That is crazy though. I mean, what are the odds? Maybe Ill see you at the family reunion?”

“You go to their reunions?”

“Well, Allen and I host one together every year. It’s more of a friend reunion where we bring all of our all of our families. I suppose it’s better that we learned this now rather than later?”

“Yeah…that would’ve been hilariously painful.”

“At least you’d have a funny story to tell later, right?”

“Crazy history makes for crazy stories…” You remembered something he said earlier, something about how him not telling things to people because they don’t ask. You had always been curious about something… “What made you want to be a history teacher? You seem to be really interested in time so why history?” He seemed surprised that you asked.

“Well, I didn’t get an intertest in time until later in life but…Oh, you would probably just think I’m crazy if I told you.” He mimicked you from earlier, to which you followed in tow.

“I’ve seen some crazy in my time, try me.” You smirked. It took him a second to answer, he almost seemed nostalgic.

“Let’s see…When I was 17, I wasn’t doing too hot. My grades were low, I didn’t care about anything, it was one of the lower points in my life. I didn’t even think I would graduate.” That surprised you, he was always so happy and cheerful that you would never guess. Maybe that explained why he was acting like that earlier. “But then, one night, I had a dream. I was standing out in the middle of a field, there were white tents everywhere I looked, but no people. Except for one. This young woman, wearing a black dress. It wasn’t a modern dress though, it was historical. I couldn’t see what she looked like, her face was fuzzy like TV static. Her dress would change too, but I could just tell it was the same woman. It slowly became white and red, then grey and white with pink detailing, it was still her. I couldn’t hear her voice but…I could feel her words, if that makes any sense? It was like she was speaking through my skin, or singing is probably more appropriate. I kept having this dream, again, and again, and again.” He cleared his throat. “So, the first logical thing I decided to do was research it. The only thing I had to go on were the words she was singing.”

“What was she singing?” You felt something in the back of your head.

“It’s a long song, but the first verse always jumped out at me… O fare you well, I must be gone// And leave you for a while:// But wherever I go, I will return,// If I go ten thousand mile, my dear,// If I go ten thousand mile.” He recited rather than sang.

“That’s…really pretty…but also sad?”

“It turns out that it was a song first dated in 1710, The True Lover’s Farewell. That gaze me a good time frame since it was next seen around 1803. Which means, I was dealing with something from early America or England. Fortunately for me, England was ruled out since I later noticed the color blue appearing around the dream. Blue coats to be exact. Sometime in the American Revolution. This was also reassured because of her clothes, I was able to date it around the late 1770s.”

“That’s why you chose history? A girl in your dreams.” The feeling was spreading to your temple.

“Sort of, doing all this research gave me something to do. It gave me a purpose for a little while, it surprisingly helped me. To this day, in a way, it’s still my purpose. I still have many questions about those dream. I still get them from time to time as well. I started to pay attention to things around me more, including school. It took a lot of struggle but eventually it lead me to what I’m doing now.” He seemed to think of it fondly, appreciative of it. Your apartment was just down the street now. You could even faintly see Phoenix sitting on second step. You should’ve run right up to him, but you didn’t.

Something didn’t feel right. You felt like…

You were being watched.

That’s when you heard footsteps pounding behind you. You couldn’t even think about it before you felt Professor Laurent turn around and pull behind him. A familiar sound, a gun being cocked. You swallowed your fear. There’s no way. It can’t happen again. It isn’t… You turned around and peered behind the professor’s arm.

It was him.

It was the same man from that night. The same frozen eyes that you remember. They had never caught him, in fact, the police couldn’t even find any suspects. They assumed he left the state. You had a lot of time to think about what happened after you woke up. None of it added up, and the police agreed. It didn’t seem like a typical mugging. Most were done quickly, they’d speak to you with few words, hide their face, get your money, no matter the amount, and then go. It also seemed strange that they’d target someone who wasn’t alone, leaving them outnumbered. And the way that he let his anger get the best of him and how he did almost nothing to go after Anna made it all seem like something else was happening. Some other sort of agenda. But nothing came out of it.

He didn’t bother to hide his face last time and now wasn’t an exception. His skin was pale and gaunt, a strong jaw, you could see light brown hair under his hood. Why him? Why is he here again? His lips were in a tight line, he seemed frustrated, staring down your professor.

“Whatever happens, stay behind me, alright?” He whispered to you. You were visibly shaking. The man took notice, that’s when Professor Laurent finally addressed him. “Take a step back, young man. You don’t want to do this.” He said calmly. Blue eyes tightened his grip on the gun.

“How about you take a step back? Away from the girl.” This wasn’t a mugging anymore.

“I can’t do that.” Blue Eyes tilted his sideways at the professor’s statement. “Do you want money? Because I can give you money, no need to get in over our heads.”

“No! I want you to take a step back away from that girl behind you! I’m not letting that bitch ruin things again!” The man yelled, he didn’t care if anyone heard him. What is he talking about?! Professor Laurent turned his head and looked down at you. Then he looked down the street. You followed his gaze, Phoenix was looking around, you were just out of his line of sight because of the darkness surrounding you. You were being told to run. You looked back up at your teacher and shook your head. But he acted before you had the chance.

“Go!” He yelled, rushing forward and grabbing the man’s arm, forcing his gun to point toward the ground. You shakily took a step back. You couldn’t run, you knew you couldn’t. You desperately looked around for some sort of weapon that might help. The two men were struggling for power, you couldn’t see the gun clearly anymore. Meaning, it was in between them. Everything was happening at once, you didn’t know what to do, you couldn’t think, you couldn’t breathe.

Then there was a shot.

Both men stood still for a moment. The gun fell to the ground as they both reeled back. But then, Professor Laurent fell to the ground, blood pumping out of his chest. You screamed. Then man was clutching his shirt in the same place. His breathing was forced and choking. Maybe it was just your imagination, but you thought you could see something coming out of his left eyes. Not blood, but not tears either. He looked over at you with a sneer, a look that said more than any words could. And with that, he staggered to a run down an alley you had passed not to long ago.

You kneeled down beside your teacher. Panic welling up inside of your stomach. He was still breathing. As Blue Eyes’ steps faded in the distance, another pair rushed behind you. Phoenix heard the shot. Heard your scream. He was next to you in a matter of seconds. He seemed shocked by what was in front of him but you were quick to tell him what to do.

“Phoenix, call an ambulance and give me your belt!” He seemed shaken but he followed your instructions. Taking his belt, you wrapped it around Professor Laurent’s chest, your hand firmly pressed down on the bullet wound as you fastened it. Stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding, pressure will stop the bleeding, tighten the belt, press your hand down harder, stop the bleeding. You couldn’t even hear Phoenix while he was on the phone. “You’re gonna be fine, everything’s alright…” You tried to reassure him and yourself. His breathing was heavy but it was there, that’s all that mattered. You something slowly roll down his temple from his eye.

Blue paint.

You wiped it away. All that mattered was that he was still breathing. He began to cough so you lifted his head up. You tried to avoid thinking about anything else, you knew you’d break down if you did. You began to mutter ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again. You couldn’t help it. And as the red lights began to flash and blink closer, you looked down at the ground.

He left the gun behind.

#will be added to the masterlist soon #lore story

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kenobios · 7 years ago

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i'm really intrigued by the fact that you chose kylo as an infp. i'm interested in learning more about unhealthy xnfp types because that's my own type and i have been typed as unhealthy as well. Do you know where I can learn more about unhealthy xnfp types? Or possibly other unhealthy types as well?

I’ll try to explain why I picked Kylo Ren as an INFP as best I can to give you some insight into why exactly made that decision, then I’ll discuss an unhealthy INFP afterwards, and link you to some sources of information on unhealthy types. I know you haven’t directly asked my why I chose Kylo Ren as an INFP, but I feel the need to explain myself since I’ve already witnessed people questioning my decision, so I may as well get it out of the way. Hopefully you don’t mind my word vomit.

To understand unhealthy MBTI you have to understand what makes any given type ‘unhealthy’. What that is, exactly, is when your four cognitive functions aren’t balanced. So in terms of an INFP’s prominent functions, we’re looking at (Fi-Ne) -Si-Te. Si and Te are Tertiary and Inferior functions, which means that most of the time they’re not exactly at the forefront of an INFP’s thinking process, usually they are last priority or merely affect the dominant and auxiliary functions in some way. It can be considered unhealthy if one of these functions begins to take priority over the dominant and auxiliary functions. An easy way to conceptualize this is to imagine a car with four people. You have the driver (dominant function) and the co-pilot (auxiliary function) at the front, kind of helping each other out but the driver still does most of the work. Then in the backseat you have the guy who engages in discussion with the two up the front sometimes but he’s still in the backseat (tertiary function) and that guy who keeps mostly to himself and only says something when he suddenly wants to be a backseat driver or the actual driver specifically asks for his help (inferior function). You have to have these four people in the car at all times to make sure the trip goes smoothly, but the moment you start moving those people around, giving people roles they shouldn’t be in, is when you start making it a dangerous journey for all involved = unhealthy MBTI. I’ll talk about that later, first:

WHY I THINK KYLO REN IS AN INFP

DOMINANT-AUXILIARY FUNCTIONS

Fi - introverted Feeling

Fi dominance makes INFPs highly in-tune with the subjective aspects of reality (personal values, emotions, ethics, the human psyche) which makes them somewhat disinterested in pure objectivity. This means that INFPs have trouble looking at situations objectively/in a manner that removes all emotion, values, and nuance from the decision-making process. (x)

Now what does this have to do with Kylo Ren? Well, first to point out why he is a Fi-dom - Kylo Ren has his own set of values, and doesn’t seem to care about other people’s values if they don’t agree with his own. He doesn’t let them affect his decision-making. Fi-doms often believe their values are inherently right, and a lot of their decision-making stems from exactly that, rather than what someone else has told them what is right/what they should do. This could be confused in Kylo Ren’s case with people thinking he is doing what Snoke tells him to do, but he is only doing those things BECAUSE he personally believes in them. He has been conditioned to change his values to align with Snoke’s, therefore he sees no problem in doing whatever Snoke tells him to do - and why doing things against that belief system (darkness > light) is so hard for him to grasp - because you can tell (along with being told by Adam Driver) that he intrinsically believes he is right.

There would have to be some significant event that shakes Kylo Ren’s inner beliefs (such as perhaps realizing what he had been conditioned to believe about killing his father as the ‘right thing’ to do, suddenly becoming the ‘wrong thing’ as he canonically falls to his knees in regret) to cause him to start a misalignment between them and Snoke’s and to begin the questioning, doubting, self-reflecting process that had otherwise been a 100% commitment from a Fi-dom’s point of view. If this occurs, an INFP will take it very seriously and it will be hard to process, as to them it can feel like figuratively speaking, their whole world (belief system) has been ripped out from under them. As an unhealthy INFP, this “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do (according to my own beliefs, not your wrong ones)” way of thinking can make them seem obnoxiously self-righteous. But more on that later.

Ne - extroverted iNtuition

Ne users are naturally attuned to concepts and possibilities as their main way of taking in information; they’re not interested in knowing the facts and instead prefer to look at how they are connected, what their underlying principles and ideas are. They themselves are “great at generating ideas, but not so much at following through on their execution.” (x)

This usually leads to Ne users being less inclined to plan things - or if they do plan something, they’re more inclined to ditch it later on or get distracted. They’re interested in the ‘bigger picture’ or the ‘end goal’ not the minute details or the routine steps it takes to get there. This basically means they like to improvise - but this can also lead to confusion or being distracted. Isabel and Peter Briggs Myers describes this as Ne users being “wholly directed upon objects, searching for emerging possibilities” and that they will “sacrifice all else for such possibilities when found” (Gifts Differing Understanding Personality Type, 88). This can be seen when Kylo Ren gets distracted from the plan to capture the droid, changing the plan to instead merely capture Rey or when he offers to teach Rey despite it going against Snoke’s plans; both times Kylo Ren was distracted by the new possibilties that Rey offered, despite going against the given plan. He also struggles to stay on course in terms of what he needs to do and his belief that he needs to quench his light side. Overall, his short-sightedness (I don’t mean that negatively, but more in a sense of being preoccupied with the HERE AND NOW rather than the LATER), abundance of confusion and inability to stick to a predetermined course is a telling sign of an xNP. Ni-dom’s, on the other hand, are incredibly future-sighted and always think of the consequences and possibilities in future while simultaneously finding it important and necessary to formulate a plan and stick to it (Obi-Wan is a classic example of a Ni-dom in Star Wars, as is Palpatine).

TERTIARY-INFERIOR FUNCTIONS

(Keep in mind that these functions are not meant to be at the forefront of an INFPs processes and usually are used in last-moment measures or merely just affect or amplify a dominant function, so not all INFPs may display or develop these on the same level)

Si - introverted Sensing

Si is the FiNe’s third function, and it gives a sense of solidity to their Fi beliefs. Si also makes the Fi-led internal world structured and detailed. When it comes to values that they have had adequate time to develop, they tend to have a solid sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. A lot of their perception in these cases is based on their personal experiences. This is because Si places a high value on real world experiences and its impressions of them. FiNe’s store all the interesting experiences and information they gather in their mind in an organized way for future reference. (x)

So this basically just solidifies Kylo Ren’s beliefs about him being ‘right’ and makes it that much harder for him to consider anyone else’s point of view against his own. In an INFP’s perspective, their beliefs are constructed on past experiences, so if someone comes along and tries to tell them they’re wrong, they’ll think, “well, that’s not how it happened before” or “not according to my past experience”. Their past experience will usually take precedence as ‘evidence’ over anything anyone else tells them. The Si element in an INFP can lead to them holding intense grudges, clinging to these ‘past experiences’ too closely in order to judge the world around them, even if they don’t realize it. If someone hurts them or breaks their trust, an INFP might try to forgive them, but they will never forget what they experienced before, and will more than likely fear it will happen again. All of this comes in to play during the scene between Han Solo and Kylo Ren on the bridge, and could explain why Han Solo was unable to persuade Kylo Ren, merely on the basis of “we do miss you” or the idea that things might be different, because, in Kylo Ren’s experience, it doesn’t add up. What he experienced in the past takes too much precedence over anything Han Solo is saying. He might consider what his father is saying, reflect on it in his head, and realize that he would prefer to trust the reality of whatever Snoke has told him over the things his father is saying, that, in his mind, don’t align with what he previously experienced. Of course, that is just my personal interpretation of the scene anyway.

Equally, as Si might cause an INFP to hold a grudge, it can also, in the same line of thinking, make them incredibly sentimental about things or objects that have played a part in their past. This can be seen when Kylo Ren speaks to Vader’s mask, his reaction to Anakin’s lightsaber, or the deleted scene of him on the Millennium Falcon. Another interesting effect Si tends to have in an INFP is that it can lead to INFPs having values and beliefs that aren’t considered “traditional” by most people. This is again, because their beliefs are based on subjective matter and experience, not the objective, collective belief of what may be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Kylo Ren’s deep-set belief in the dark side is by no means “traditional” thinking, because he doesn’t care about the collective opinion or thought, but about what he personally has gone through or is going through.

Te - extroverted Thinking

Te is a process that allows FiNe’s to take in information from the real world, make quick decisions on what the most effective solution is, and put that solution into play right away. This is the weakest, achilles’ heel part of the FiNe. Although it would be exhausting and unhealthy for them to rely on this aspect of themselves all the time, they can pull out their troubleshooting skills when necessary to get a job done effectively.(x)

Te is usually described as making quick and efficient decisions based on objective fact. In a Fi-dom, this ‘objective fact’ becomes a ‘gut feeling’ from which they base their quick decisions from. However, they’ll only do this if they are forced to, as a last measure, since Fi-doms would much prefer to be able to take their time before making a decision, and being consistently forced to make quick decisions with no time allowed for thinking can result in unhealthy behaviour. Te in a Fi-dom can also be what they resort to when they are suffering an intense struggle about a decision, in the end just saying “fuck it” and going with their gut instinct, even if they can’t articulate a solid reason for making that decision at the time. The most common and comfortable use of Te in a Fi-dom, however, is to critique and offer improvements to existing systems, structures or plans based on what they believe to be more effective. In terms of Kylo Ren, I believe we’ve seen him making this ‘gut instinct’ decision whenever he is forced to make a decision regarding Rey without being given the time he needs to figure out what he should be doing (according to his belief system), explaining all these weird decisions he seems to make in regards to what the most effective way of dealing with an enemy would be versus what he feels like doing at that moment in time for which he can’t really offer a good explanation. I suppose you could also see this function when he criticizes Hux’s indoctrination methods and offers what he sees as the more effective option: clones.

AN UNHEALTHY INFP

Being unhealthy in MBTI means that you use your functions in a way that’s detrimental to yourself or others.They could be in a loop (reliance on their dominant or tertiary functions and ignoring their auxiliary), a grip (reliance on their inferior function), or just generally using their functions in unhealthy ways. (x)

Now, I’m going to admit I haven’t done a lot of reading on unhealthy MBTI yet, so I’m going to derive a lot of information from this post by highonmbti for now, and only the manifestations that I see in Kylo Ren. I definitely suggest checking out the post and highonmbti in general if you’re interested in reading more about unhealthy MBTI.

Unhealthy use of Fi

The unhealthy use of Fi means they’ve reached some extreme point of the function over all their other functions, resulting in unbalanced behaviour.

One of these behaviours can be seen as excessive stubbornness and self-righteousness towards their own sense of right and wrong, making it very hard for them to consider how their actions might affect others, or acknowledge other people’s values and perspectives. They may also treat those who don’t align with their belief system in a condescending manner, as though they are blind to the real ‘truth’ that is the belief system that the INFP has constructed. This, of course, is self-explanatory when it comes to Kylo Ren. He clearly has no sense of how his actions might affect anyone but himself, nor does he seem to care about any moral code that doesn’t align with his own.

An unhealthy dominance of Fi can also manifest in INFPs being obsessed with seeming ‘different’ or ‘misunderstood’ as they become hyper aware of the difference in their personal values and perspectives versus the rest of the world. Unhealthy INFPs might also take their preference for subjective, values based decision-making to the extreme, refusing to rationalize or explain their decisions at all, and as highonmbti puts it, defaulting to “it’s just what I believe ok?!” without presenting any evidence. I don’t believe there’s any definitive evidence of either of these for Kylo Ren, but one could infer either of these possibilities.

Unhealthy use of Ne

Healthy aux Ne is what allows INFPs to think outside the box, consider the “what ifs” of things - but an extreme over dominance of Ne can instead result in too much ‘thinking outside the box’ or a detachment from practical reality. This is where the stereotypical ‘dreamer’ INFP comes in, but in an unhealthy INFP this can result in too much dreaming to the point where they get lost in it and lose their grip on reality. This could very much relate to Kylo Ren’s delusional outlook and the fact he is so caught up in trying to act out this fantasy of being Darth Vader.

Fi-Si loop

A Fi-Si loop occurs when the INFP begins to ignore the external world in favor of their subjective perception of it. When this happens they skip over Ne entirely to judge based on subjective values and perceive primarily based on their subjective perceptions of cues from the tangible world. An INFP loop would likely experience extreme withdrawal from the external world, fear of trying new things, hyperawareness of bodily sensations (pain, hunger, thirst, etc.), being stuck in a rut/routine, and hypersensitivity and emotional reasoning. (x)

Basically, a loop is when you overuse your tertiary function (in this case an INFP’s Si) over the auxiliary function (Ne), resulting in a Fi-Si function instead of Fi-Ne. Outwardly this manifests as an extrovert who is unhealthily extroverted or an introvert who is unhealthily introverted. You can read more on loops here.

I believe Kylo Ren is most likely an INFP with a Fi-Si loop, or alternatively with a Te grip. To me, he seems an unhealthily introverted introvert, and displays much of the behaviour listed as common with an INFP with a Fi-Si loop. He has withdrawn from the external world to such an extent he doesn’t even reveal himself to it. We can’t know for sure if he suffers hyperawareness to bodily sensations, but the importance of feeling pain and having that pain tied to one’s power in the dark side might relate to that. His hypersensitivity can be seen in his adverse overreactions to things, in particularly his tantrums (which I believe are hypersensitive reactions to the feeling of failure) and his struggle with emotional reasoning.

Te grip

An INFP in a Te grip disregards their dominant Fi in favor of the cold, hard logic of Te. This is likely to happen if they’ve suffered some kind of significant emotional turmoil, and particularly if that turmoil involved a prolonged disregard of the INFPs personal space, values, emotions, or identity. An INFP grip would likely experience: rejection of the complexities of personal values and emotions in favor of cold, hard logic; harsh, aggressive outbursts of negative emotion; excessive criticism of themselves and others; adherence to rigid standards and schedules; black and white thinking; refusal to confront and deal with negative emotions.(x)

Compared to a loop, a grip is in fact just the outright replacement of the dominant function (Fi) with the inferior function (Te). In an INFP’s case, this would mean the extreme refusal of the INFP’s central manner of being surrounding subjective emotions and feelings in favour of hard logic. It’s an INFP going against everything that would otherwise make them tick, rejecting themselves in the most extreme way possible.

Now, while some of these manifestations scream Kylo Ren, others are more questionable, which is why I consider a Fi-Si loop to be more likely than a Te grip. The extreme rejection of emotional thinking may seem fitting to Kylo Ren under some conditions, such as his attempts to emulate this ‘cold-hearted, logical killer’ that is the image of Darth Vader - and the way he is trying to enforce and ignore his true functions thus resulting in his aggressive outbursts of negative emotions. An INFP with a Te grip is the epitome of someone with a lot of emotions trying to bottle up all of those emotions and rejecting them, only to explode at any given point in time.

CONCLUSION

While I have spent many hours trying to figure out what Kylo Ren’s typing could be, I could still be wrong. The truth is, we haven’t seen enough of him yet to be fully sure of anything, so many of these assessments are based upon assumptions, because we just haven’t been given enough information otherwise. But, in my opinion and through my process of thorough elimination, this is the most logical fit I could find at the moment.

I will admit that I am also under the assumption that Kylo Ren will be getting redeemed, and that we will see crucial developments in the way his personality might not necessarily ‘change’ exactly, but in this case, become more healthy by the end of the trilogy. So, even as hard as I might try to remain unbiased, I do feel the need to put that out there out of fairness of letting anyone who reads this know where I stand amongst all this discourse.

Also, I know that MBTI isn’t a scientifically-proven method of analysis, but I do find it to be an incredibly useful tool when trying to understand and unpack fictional characters, or even people, and figuring out how exactly a character might think, feel, or react to any given situation and why. But hey, that’s probably just my INTP self trying find patterns in everything.

And finally, to the poor asker who didn’t actually ask for any of this at all, and who I’ve basically just word vomited all over, I’m so sorry I just can’t help myself sometimes. In answer to the question you DID actually ask, here are some interesting sources that I’ve found so far on unhealthy MBTI, keeping in mind that I, too, am still trying to find more sources on the subject:

highonmbti’s discussions on unhealthy mbti

funkymbtifiction’s discussions on unhealthy mbti

mbti-notes’ discussions on unhealthy mbti

Healthy and unhealthy cognitive functions by Erik Thor

When going through these, as an INFP, you want to specifically be paying attention to unhealthy Fi, unhealthy Ne, Fi-Si loops and Te grips as they directly relate to your type.

I haven’t found any good books that talk about unhealthy MBTI yet (the ones I have read haven’t really touched on unhealthy MBTI either), but two books I’m looking to get that may interest you (if you have the money) are:

In the Grip: Understanding Type, Stress, and the Inferior Function by Naomi L. Quenk

Was That Really Me?: How Everyday Stress Brings Out Our Hidden Personality by Naomi L. Quenk

But I will stress that I have not read these books yet, so I can’t vouch for them having useful information pertaining to unhealthy MBTI.

#reysdoublelightsaber #kylo ren #reylo #if you read between the lines #kylo ren meta #star wars mbti #i spent way too long writing this up when i should have been studying for my exam #worth it? yes #*swpersonalities #*swpersonalitiesexplained #*mymeta

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