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clanwarrior-tumbly · 11 months ago

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Hi!! I absolutely love your fanfics. I was wondering if you could do a Gideon (Gordon) x reader fic that’s kinda angsty to fluff? Maybe the reader and him were close, but he ended up leaving because of how successful G-Man studios was. Then, when Matthew humbled him, he realized that he never should have left?

Awh thank you! For this one, Reader is just replacing Julia more or less

..............

"Are you okay? That looked pretty rough.."

Blinking in surprise, Gordon gazed up at you for a brief moment, seeing the look of concern written all over your face. Yet he didn't have the courage to say anything, as he just sniffled and shook his head, trying to bite back tears.

He thought you were going to make fun of him..just like the rest of this stupid school did after he tried asking out one of the popular girls.

Finally, he had gotten such a burst of confidence, thinking his "fearless" nature was going to score him a date.

But that was all gone now.

He made a damn fool out of himself in front of everyone.

"I think this is yours, Gordon."

Looking back at you, he was shocked to see you kneeling down, the book dusted off and being handed over to him. He quickly snatched it back, cradling it to his chest. "Th-Thanks.." He mumbled. "I'm surprised you even know who I am in all honesty.."

"Well, we do share classes." You mentioned, smiling a little as you both stood up. "You know, they can laugh all they want. But I bet none of those jerks would have the balls to ask her out like you did. I'd say you're truly living up to the "fearless" title."

He was frozen in-place, unsure of what to say as you alluded to his shirt, which he bashfully covered with his oversized coat. When you footsteps walked past him, however, he spun around and saw you going to your locker.

He stumbled after you. "W-Wait!"

"Yeah?"

"You know my name, but I'm afraid yours has slipped by me. What was it again?"

"[Y/n]."

"[Y/n]...well..thank you for the kind words, [y/n]. I wish more people in this stupid school were like you." He tried mustering a smile, although at the moment he seemed self-conscious about his braces. "Would you...l-like to come by my place to study for that test we have tomorrow?"

"...damn it's tomorrow? I was working on a whole flash card set but I kinda fell behind and-"

"Oh I have my own set, too! Maybe we can exchange them and quiz each other!"

"Sounds good." You chuckled, entering your lock combination to grab your notebook. Once you shut the door, you glanced at him, smiling. "I'll catch you after school then, G-Man."

Gordon blinked, jaw-dropped in disbelief as you walked away from him. He just stood there, watching you vanish into the crowd of students on their way to their next class.

A few people whispered and giggled at the way he was staring at you, some even calling him a weirdo or creep.

But this time, he didn't pay them any mind.

You just gave him the coolest nickname ever.

G-Man..

"Wait, the G-Man Empire has fallen, you said?"

"Yeah! Don't you ever watch the news? Apparently Matthew Patel is the new CEO!"

"...hah, I figured karma was gonna catch up to that son of a bitch sooner or later."

"Woah, [y/n]..that's kinda harsh. Didn't you go out with that guy and start on it together? I thought you'd be pissed off about it."

"Why would I be pissed off? He pushed me aside when it got successful and claimed he didn't have "time" for a relationship anymore. And it made me think "well shit, maybe it was never a real one to begin with...maybe he saw us as business partners and nothing more"."

"...damn, I didn't know all of that. My bad."

"No, it's..." Pausing, you held the phone away from your ear for a moment, taking a deep breath before you could get too upset. "Look, I'm over it. I'm not glazing over everything I might've done wrong..it was all him. He turned into a rich douchebag."

"Right, and now he's a broke douchebag." Your friend laughed. "Anyways, if I see him on the streets..I'll deck him in the face for ya, alright?"

"Thanks. Maybe I'll do that, too, if I happen to see him.." You joked as well, already feeling a bit better after ending the conversation, hanging up the phone.

With a small sigh, you turned back to the TV and put on some anime episode, relaxing as you focused more on the show and less on the rainstorm outside...

And Gideon.

But unfortunately for you, a name like that was hard to forget.

Especially as you once knew him as that aloof yet sweet nerd who used to hang out with you after school and on the weekends. Most of your days were spent either studying or watching anime while he explained every bit of lore under the sun.

Sure, highschool had its cringy moments, but other times it was great.

Gid--Gordon made up the best parts of it.

He was the first person you ever saw the Sparks(tm) with.

You two were close, graduating and going into college together, and ultimately helping him form the G-Man business from the ground up. He was inspired by that cool nickname you've given him in highschool, assuring you that you deserved all the credit.

At some point, however, he suddenly changed his name..apparently because he felt like "Gordon Goose" was dead to him.

You agreed that being addressed as "Mr. Goose" was one way to ensure he's never taken seriously, so you accepted his name-change to Gideon.

Then...even more about him began to change.

And soon you barely recognized the man you fell in love with.

As soon as he discovered something called "The Glow", his wealth skyrocketed, but he refused to let you in on what this little secret of his was. And he barely gave you his fair share of the earnings anymore.

It wasn't long before you got shoved aside, and he stayed up on his high horse alongside all the other millionaires and billionaires while you worked at your drastically lower-leveled job that was connected to his business empire.

Yep. His empire.

Not yours and his.

He didn't speak to you again unless it was through some random agent.

You were livid for the way he just left you in the dust, and right as you thought you couldn't hate him even more...

He went out with Ramona Flowers, got broken up with, and formed some bizarre group that apparently included her six other "evil" exes.

Oh, how furious you were.

Not at her, though. You felt terrible after she told you about how controlling he was, but it made you wish that you had a time machine so you could go back and warn her NOT to date that prick.

Or better yet..go back and stop him from turning into a prick.

Now according to your friend, Matthew Patel--Ramona's first ex--won the rights to all of Gideon's properties after a tough fight. But oddly enough nobody knew of his current whereabouts.

They emphasized the point that he was kicked out and not killed..

That made you wonder where he is and if he's-

'Wait..why do I suddenly feel sorry for him?' You blinked, before shaking your head and deciding to pause the episode, realizing you weren't even focusing on the story anymore.

Only that jerk.

Okay, so maybe a small part of you did miss him..and hoped that Gordon would come back. But you had a feeling things won't ever change nor return to what they used to be..

Deciding to clear your thoughts, you threw on your coat and opened the front door, stepping out onto your porch. You didn't go any further, as you simply wanted to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the rain.

Of course it was windy, too, making the air feel chillier than it actually was.

Through the downpour, however, you could make out a figure that was seemingly limping down the sidewalk.

They were barely lit by the streetlamps, but your heart sunk into your stomach the moment you realized who that was exactly..

"G....Gideon..?"

Sure enough, it was him.

Gideon Graves. The rich asshole who now looked as though he was dragged through the mud several times in a row..completely disheveled with bruises on his face and tears in his usually pristine clothes.

Not to mention he seemed utterly defeated.

Upon hearing his name, he stopped and looked over, stunned to see that you were still living on this same street. "[Y/n].."

You scowled, the words you've exchanged with your friend from earlier coming back into your mind. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

"Please..don't remind me.." He rasped, his voice sounding so broken and tired.

"I think I will, actually. Now you know how I felt when you kicked me to the curb."

"...I'll admit it..that was a stupid thing for me to do. And I'm sorry.."

Blinking, you were surprised by his sudden apology. But your guard remained up, as you just huffed. "What? Just because you lost your big empire..you finally decide to grovel at my doorstep in the cold rain and apologize? Where was this last year? Two years ago?"

"........"

You sighed. As much as you despised seeing how sad and pathetic he was acting...it did tug on your heartstrings a little bit. You were starting to catch glimpses of that sweet kid you once knew..

"Gordon?"

He perked up. "Yes?"

"...I see. You haven't entirely killed your old self, then.." You quietly mused.

"You were right, [y/n]. I..I-I never should have left you." He took off his glasses as he sniffled and put them in his pocket, shivering. "I don't have any right coming here, but..I used the last of my money to catch a bus. Just to see the one person I still care about...and...hopefully cares for me, too.."

You blinked. "You...still care about me?"

"I know it didn't seem like it, but...I never stopped.." He mumbled. "I got greedy, ambitious...and lost sight of who really loved me. Now I'm back to where I was before.."

"And that is...?"

"..being a loser.." He was even quieter this time around. So much so, you barely heard him at all...although you knew what he said exactly.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I said...I'm back to being a loser."

You smirked. "One more time?"

"I said I'm a LOSER!!" Gordon snapped, tears finally streaking down his sunken cheeks as he scowled at you. His shout was hoarse, yet pained at the same time. "I-I'm a loser, okay?! A loser who doesn't deserve to grovel at your doorstep like this. A loser who should just lay down and die-''

Then he heard your small laughter and stopped his pity party, sniffling as he stared at you. "Wh-What's so funny?"

"You are a real loser for leaving me...but I'm just as much of a loser for wanting to let you back into my life.." Sighing, you shook your head before you grabbed the umbrella beside your door, opening it and heading down the steps.

He stared at you, now seeing that you two were standing under the umbrella together, totally sheltered from the rain.

Why were you doing this?

You looked at him. "You know, I thought about decking you in the face earlier..but I'll take you admitting you're in the wrong any day. Now let's get out of this rain."

A small whimper left his lips as he shuddered, practically clinging to you while you wrapped an arm around him, leading him back into your house.

In that moment, sparks flew, and Gordon realized he was finally seeing them at their strongest.

#clanask #anonymous #scott pilgrim x reader #scott pilgrim takes off x reader #spto x reader #gideon graves #gordon goose #gideon graves x reader #gordon goose x reader #hurt/comfort #angst/fluff #angst to fluff

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lorata · 5 months ago

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Wait I just did the maths and Alec was 12 in Claudius’ arena. What was that like watching with his parents? Did Joseph use it as a teaching moment ‘this is what happens when you break the rules’ sort of deal

Anonymous asked: Just realised Alec would’ve been 12 and watching Claudius’ arena with Joseph and Adora, did they say anything? Did they comment? What did the trainers say?

OKAY WELL SIX MONTHS / 6,000 WORDS LATER HERE WE ARE

warnings for uhhhhh generational trauma and child abuse and the cycle of trauma / abuse / fear / fascism / all that good Seward soup

FIC BELOW:

-----

Creed left for Residential a week before the Reaping, and his absence stretched long and thin as the Games played out. One of their tributes died quick, a heavy blow to the head that took him out before he hit the ground. The other managed to drag herself into a tree with a seeping gut wound, blood oozing between her fingers and dripping down the branches, face upturned at the camera for a sponsor parachute that never came. No signs of life but the flutter of her lashes and the steady drip-drip-drip of blood until both stilled and the cannon fired.

“Bedtime,” Dad said, then almost as an afterthought, “You too, Selene.”

Alec dragged himself off the sofa, limbs heavy. Selene kept sitting, eyes fixed on the television with a now familiar glint. “Lene,” Alec said, sharper than he meant to.

Her gaze snapped to him, sharp with irritation, and he saw the Centre-reflex in the coil of muscle at her shoulder. Saw her wind up to hit him before the moment cleared and she was back in his living room, both their parents watching. “Whatever,” she said with sarcasm-shaded casualness. No points for subtlety, trainee, said the trainer in back of Alec’s head, but at least she followed.

No jockeying for space at the bathroom mirror now that Creed had gone. Alec missed it with a desperate ache, but elbowing Selene now wouldn’t bring back the easy playfulness of the early years. She brushed her teeth, spat, and marched into the bedroom without a word, leaving Alec to stand there with his mouth full of foam and his chest a gaping hole.

By the time Alec ventured into his room Selene had already vanished into the top bunk (Creed’s bunk). Alec stared at the lump of blankets in the reflected hallway light before giving up and crawling under the covers.

“I wouldn’t have tripped,” Selene said. The blankets rustled — the mattress creaked as she rolled over to face the wall — and soon her breathing evened out into sleep.

Alec tried, really he did. Except that eyes closed or open, squeezed tightly shut or held wide until they burned he still saw it: the red-black splatter of arterial blood onto wide jungle leaves.

-----

December: icy winds whistling from the mountains, blowing snow that stung his cheeks, endless promotions for the upcoming Victory Tour. Selene’s thirteenth birthday.

No party, like she predicted. Instead, Alec’s window slid open as he hunched over his desk, struggling with an essay about the Solstice, and Selene dropped through. Snowflakes scattered on her dark hair, slowly melting. “Yo,” she said. “Got the signature.”

Alec swallowed hard. “You going tonight?”

“Yeah. Uncle Joe’s going to drive me.” Not Uncle Paul. Not Aunt Julia. Selene rubbed one cheek with her shoulder, a short, jerky movement, avoiding Alec’s eyes as he gaped at her.

Selene barely spoke to her parents anymore, tension filling their house until it choked. But they weren’t the only ones; shared family dinners had stalled out since the fall. Selene’s parents didn’t want her going to Residential, everyone knew that. He didn’t know his parents had gone behind their backs.

“Oh,” he said. “Well — knock ‘em dead?”

“You know it.” She punched his arm. “Don’t wuss out without me.”

“Yeah, right. Like I’d stay here by myself where it’s sad and boring.” Alec shoved her back, and for a moment they could have been horsing around like old times, if not for the damp-edged sheaf of folded paper clutched to Selene’s chest. “Don’t break all the records before I get there.”

Selene didn’t wave as the car backed away down the narrow lane, but Alec watched the headlights bob through the trees anyway. “Are they mad?” he asked. The thought twisted his insides.

Mom held onto the question before she answered. He liked that she took him seriously, but hated that she had to think. “She would have walked,” she said at last. “Liking and accepting are different things.”

Not a no, Alec thought, but not ‘we are banned from the Valents’ house forever’ either. He didn’t like it, but he could accept it. One kill for Mom.

-----

Aunt Julia handed him his favourite mug, steaming and filling the kitchen with mint. Alec took it without paying attention, curling his palms around the sides instead of grasping the handle. He jerked back with a hiss, liquid sloshing over the rim onto his fingers. Only Centre-training kept him from flinging the mug away.

“Alec!” Julia darted forward. “Did I burn you?”

“No,” he said quickly, and hid his arms behind his back. His throat clenched. “No, I’m okay. Sorry. It’s fine.”

Julia studied him for several endless seconds. At the Centre Alec learned to take a punch to the face without flinching, but under Julia’s direct scrutiny he buckled and held out his hands. She curled her fingers around his wrists, turning him to face her so she could examine the angry weals slashed across both palms.

“I fell,” Alec said in a low voice. Julia caught his gaze and held it, but this time he squared his shoulders and stared back, steady. “I fell,” he repeated. “It was my fault.”

(Spring meant young, green branches, and Dad had been distracted. Usually he was precise: two short strokes each, but this time Mom had darted in to stop him. She’d ordered Alec to the Valents’ and pulled Dad aside, and as he edged out the door he’d caught the the sharp snap of her tone.)

Julia sighed, but only stood up to fetch the medicine kit. Alec watched her smear cream over the parallel cuts and tape his hands, and took a deep breath as she finished. “Is something … happening? Outside. Dad is really tense.”

Like Mom, Julia considered her words before answering. “I’m almost twelve,” Alec insisted. “I’m not a kid anymore, you can tell me.”

“You know Paul and your father can’t talk about work at home,” Julia warned. “But I do think the country is … uneasy. Seven had an unconventional win, and those are always unpredictable. I think everyone will be on edge until the Reaping.”

“We learned about that in Civics,” Alec said slowly. “Unrest happens in cycles. The districts get restless after the Tour but quiet down when the next Games start.”

She favoured him with a tight smile. “Exactly. A few more months and things should go back to normal.”

-----

“Elias Linden!”

Alec inhaled sharply through his nose. Reaching into his mind he yanked out half a dozen memories of the switch stinging his palm, Dad’s hand knocking his face to the side, the burn of his thighs as he counted down the minutes of his nightly wall-sits, so that when the camera drones swung past his row the image of his face that flickered across the enormous screens stared out calm and impassive.

(Alec, seven years old, desperate and terrified to start a fight so the Program will notice him.)

(A group of kids with Centre bracelets, tossing a ball back and forth in a circle.)

(A kid in the middle, wrist bare, face screwed up tight and lower lip wobbling.)

(“You’ve had your turn. Let someone else play.” “Last chance, kid. Go away.”)

(Alec in the office with a broken nose, split lip, a bag of frozen peas held to his face. Kid in the middle vanished as soon as the fists started flying.)

Elias Linden.

Out of all the twelve-year-olds in District 2. Alec must have fought the bullies over him a dozen times those next few months. Elias never said thank you — never looked him in the eye — and once the Centre called Alec stopped picking fights, too exhausted to think about the merchant boy with the hunched shoulders and hunted expression.

Elias didn’t look like a kid who’d learned to fight once his recess saviour forgot about him. The drones zoomed in on those same hunched shoulders, same clenched jaw, same stupid fancy clothes that made him a target for every pre-Residential tyrant in the central quarter.

And now —

“I volunteer!”

Alec pressed his knees together against the automatic urge to buckle. He had actually forgotten. Year after year of summers in this square — Creed’s lifelong obsession — and still, for those 30 seconds it was real. The Arena had swooped down and curled its claws around Elias, around all of them, like everyone else in Panem.

But they weren’t the rest of Panem. They were Two, and Alec couldn’t breathe. For a handful of seconds he got it, got why Dad always used that reverent voice when he spoke about the Games, why Creed puffed himself up so big and important. Alec knew Elias and they’d called his name; it could have been Alec. But it wouldn’t be Elias, and it wouldn’t be Alec, not this year, not any year.

Because of the tall, blond teenager with long limbs and steely eyes who strode down the central aisle, mouth curved in a hard sneer. And one day, because of Creed.

Alec bit his tongue until he swallowed blood and cheered with the rest of the crowd, a hollow in the pit of his stomach.

-----

Without Creed, now without Selene, the afternoon yawned. A whole summer with no one else for company; even Alec’s usual trick of calling up an imaginary Selene to devise likely activities wouldn’t save him now. Maybe he could dam the creek and teach himself to swim in the shallows? That would take time, if nothing else.

“Alec.”

He never jumped on the outside anymore, even when all his insides clenched into knots. But Dad’s serious voice made Alec’s heart start running laps, and he turned around slowly, brain doing somersaults trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. Forgot to make his bed? Left his breakfast dishes on the table? Splashed water on the sink and didn’t wipe it?

“Come inside and see this,” Dad said. “It’s important.”

Most kids at school didn’t start watching until the Reaping, maybe the year before so they knew what standing in the square their first year meant, but even Alec only sat down with his parents for the evening recap. A low chord of foreboding plucked in his chest. Quicksand dragged his limbs but he forced himself into a Peacekeeper’s march to join his parents in the living room.

Tucked into a corner of the sofa, under cover of his knees, Alec twisted anxious fingers in the crocheted afghan as one after another, district after district, kids his age walked shakily to the stage. This year the Games would have a whole stage of Elias Lindens — or Alec’s entire class at school.

“What happened?” he asked, once the footage switched to commentary. The Games correspondents didn’t have any theories, or if they did, they weren’t telling. Dad pressed mute on a discussion over the ongoing trend of seersucker in the outer tributes’ Reaping shirts.

‘This,” Dad said, slow and heavy, and Alec’s brain filled in the rest of the sentence along with him as he had done thousands of times — only without the ghost of Selene’s imitation trying to make him giggle —

This is what happens when we break the rules.

“Aunt Julia said,” Alec said, needing to show he understood, needing desperately to be a grownup. “She said there was unrest in the districts. Like how we learned in school.” Dad said nothing, which meant he wasn’t wrong, and so he continued, one foot in front of the other. “So this is — a reminder? That the Games are not a joke. That — that obedience is not a joke. That … they think they’re smart enough to find a way around the rules, if they’re tricky, but they’re not. The Capitol is the boss no matter what.”

Mom nodded. “Yes.” Now the Reaping footage returned in split screen, the only Volunteers (One, Two, Four) waving at the roaring crowds. Her face pinched, eyebrows drawing close, one corner of her mouth turned down. “Their job will be to carry out the punishment.”

“Because we’re the sword,” Alec said, on surer ground now. Anyone who made it to Transition knew this one. District 2, the tool, the weapon, acting as the Capitol willed. Creed had that speech memorized since he was five years old. “We don’t write the message, but we send it.”

They sent him back outside after that, and Alec hauled himself up the willow tree in the hopes that wind in the branches and the solid bark beneath his back would settle the uneasy churning in his stomach. All those weeks of Dad working overtime, the growing tension, a whole nation under the thumb for disobeying. Alec squirmed when Selene sneaked an extra cookie in front of him, never mind widespread treason. And now, six tributes in charge of delivering the Capitol’s retribution. Alec didn’t envy them that task. What did you do with tools, after all, once they’d outlived their use? There would only be one Victor this year, same as any other.

He clenched his eyes shut and focused on the rustle of leaves overhead, the drone of insects and scream of a distant hawk.

-----

Nothing surprising about their girl this year. Strong, beautiful, definitely deadly, stalking the training room in ‘unreleased’ footage that fools nobody but they still do it every year. Dad liked her; Mom said she should smile more. Then they had a brief argument about double standards in tribute sponsorship — Dad: “No one ever asked Nero to smile” Mom: “I am well aware” — while Alec wedged himself in the sofa corner as usual, hoping they forgot about him.

The boy, though —

Right from the start Alec could tell that the male tribute from Two would be unconventional, a thought that chilled his spine. Alec watched, chest squeezed so tight his ribs creaked, as the rangy boy chatted up outlier tributes, postured with the other Careers, and looked up at his mentor with such raw need that Alec looked away, burning with second-hand humiliation. Not exactly the ruthless murder machine that the Reaping set up for him to be.

Once footage ‘leaked’ of a Two v. Four showdown in the training room, both boys bristling for a fight, bodies tense and pushed up in each other’s space, eyes locked, faces so close they breathed the same air. Alec’s face burned, his whole body flashing hot, and he had to fight the urge to fling the blanket over himself, horrified to be in the same room as his parents, even though nothing about that made sense.

“What is he playing at,” Dad groused. “Actually, no, what is his mentor playing at. That boy’s only doing what he’s told. She knows better. Our job — and the stakes — could not be more clear. This is not the year to get clever.”

Alec didn’t bother answering, having long learned to differentiate between Dad’s ‘vent’ and ‘require response’ modes, and so he tensed when Mom ignored the signs. “She wants her kid to survive. There’s no shame in that.”

“That is not what the Games are for,” Dad said sharply. “Not this year. Not any year. They’re bigger than the life of one tribute, one mentor. Lyme knows that — or at least, she should. If she’s forgotten, then that’s one more piece in why this year is necessary.”

Mom’s face tightened, and Alec expected the silence to stretch the way it sometimes did at the dinner table, awkward and awful, but she fired right back, fast enough he nearly flinched. “Of course they’re more than a single life, but that doesn’t make that life irrelevant. It doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try everything she can to bring him home. Or should she dig a grave as soon as the paperwork is signed?”

“Alec,” Dad said, without looking at him, “Outside.”

Alec scrambled off the couch and out the door so fast he bashed his knee, hip and shoulder against various corners on the way out. He did not slow down until he hit the woods.

-----

Next morning, creeping downstairs to grab breakfast and duck outside before his parents woke, Alec ran into his father on the way up, squarely-folded blanket and pillow tucked under his arm. “Um,” Alec said, burning with a sense of shared embarrassment he couldn’t articulate.

“Alec,” Dad said, like any morning, except he fixed his gaze to the left of Alec’s head. Alec scrambled to the side, pressing his back against the wall to let him pass.

-----

“And with that, we’ll be right back to hear from our electrifying tributes from District 3!”

The camera wiped from Caesar Flickerman’s glinting smile to a panel of forecasters as Mom soundlessly muted the television. Alec’s knees dug into his chin and he held himself small, willing himself to shrink, dissolve back into the fabric of the couch, disappear entirely. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t even blink. Don’t do anything to draw attention. A mouse in the shadow of a hawk, waiting.

Dad’s moods had always filled the house — Creed never believed him but Alec could sense them with his eyes closed — and now it seeped into the living room, thick and unstoppable, like the low roll of thunder before a storm or gush of oil from an overflowing bucket. “Joseph,” Mom said, warningly, but then she stopped, looked at him, and her tone shifted, turning almost gentle. “Joe. It’s all right.”

“What about that is all right,” Dad gritted out. “The instructions this year could not have been more clear. One knows. Our girl knows. They’re playing along, they’re following the rules. The boy is not following the rules. He’s not following the rules, Dora —”

“I know,” Mom said, soothing. Alec had to breathe, finally, and drew air in through his nose as slowly as he could stand. “I know. But they know this as well as you do, they know the cost. They wouldn’t play this game for no reason. There must be a plan.”

“Oh?” Dad spun to glare at her, eyes wild. Don’t move, hissed Alec’s brain, don’t move. “What about all that about mentors and tributes and digging graves and lives not being irrelevant? Throwing our son in my face? Maybe she’s done the math and decided that it’s worth it, like you said. Maybe she doesn’t care who pays the price as long as one boy comes home. They don’t know.” His breath came ragged now. “They don’t know. They don’t know what happens when you break —”

Mom crossed the room in two sharp strides and knelt in front of Dad’s chair, holding his wrists. “Alec,” she said without looking away from Dad, “Go find Paul and Julia. Fast as you can.”

Frozen, Alec couldn’t move until Mom’s slap-sharp “Now, Alec!” tore him from his spot.

-----

Aunt Julia and Uncle Paul were washing the dinner dishes, television on mute in the other room, when Alec slammed his way in the front door. Julia jumped and dropped a drinking glass, which dropped into the sink with a wet plorp. “It’s Dad,” Alec said, chest squeezing. “The District 2 boy said something in the interviews and I don’t get it but it made him — he’s not — Mom said I should come get you —”

Julia and Paul exchanged a look. “Should I,” Julia murmured, and Paul shook his head. “I’ve got it,” he said, and he kissed the top of her head, folded the dish towel on the counter, and headed out. He squeezed Alec’s shoulder on the way past, his hand warm and solid.

“I don’t know what happened,” Alec said. He felt very small and very stupid and he missed Selene so much it hurt.

Julia sighed. “Let’s finish up the dishes first.”

Alec opened his mouth to protest, but Julia held out the towel and he stepped forward to take it from her automatically. And once he had the towel she handed him a glass and the rest sort of followed, and the rhythmic motions of drying the dishes didn’t make the earlier events disappear but they did help quiet the jangling in his brain, at least a little. Finally, Alec placed the last plate on the shelf and hung the towel up to dry, and Julia gestured him over to the table.

“I don’t know what happened either,” Aunt Julia began, and fair enough, they didn’t even watch the interviews. Until Alec came bolting in they wouldn’t have known there was anything to worry about. “But Paul and your mother will sort him out. Peacekeepers, you know. They understand things we can’t, sometimes.”

The urge to tear at the skin by his nails, to pick and pull until his fingers bled, bubbled up strong, and Alec exhaled hard and pressed his hands flat to the tabletop. Pushed down hard until his knuckles ached and his joints shook. “Do you think he’ll ever tell me?”

Aunt Julia frowned. “About tonight? Or something else?”

How even to explain the spectre that stalked his house, haunting the hallways and hanging over Alec’s shoulder any time he considered the kind of playful rule-bending that Selene took for granted as a childhood rite of passage. Alec stared at the table, following a grain of wood from the edge until it disappeared from view. “I don’t know how to — I feel like there’s something big I don’t know. Like he’s always not telling me something.”

Julia laughed.

A snort, not a fully belly laugh, and stifled by her hand once the sound caught up with her, but even so Alec bristled. “It’s not like that,” Julia said. “I only mean, Joseph always has something on his mind. But it has nothing to do with you — or anyone else, really.”

“But —” Alec clicked his tongue in frustration. “Shouldn’t I know? It seems like if I just, if I knew, I’d understand and it would all — make sense. Him. Me. All of it.”

She studied him, eyes dark and serious. “Alec,” Julia said finally. “It’s not your job to manage your father.”

Several summers ago, Selene pushed him out of the willow tree in the backyard. He’d landed on his side, shocked and winded, the breath driven from his lungs, one arm caught under him, wrist bone snapped in two. It came back to him now — not the blow or the pain or the fear, but that moment when he slipped from the branch before he hit the ground, when time elongated and he’d been weightless, floating.

“What,” he said finally, stupidly. “I’m not.”

“Hm,” Julia said. “I’ll make cocoa.”

-----

After the cocoa, Julia sent Alec upstairs to get ready for bed. “You’re welcome to stay here until things settle down,” she said. “I’ll make up the room for you.”

Despite absolutely nothing being different — Selene hadn’t even taken any belongings with her — the yawning cavern of her absence echoed so loudly that Alec actually stole one of her favourite shirts to sleep in out of spite, in the hopes that she would appear in the window to fight him for it, or something. Obviously she didn’t, because that was stupid, which meant that when Julia came back in to say goodnight she found Alec with ‘CAREFUL, I BITE’ emblazoned across his chest.

“Do you think we’ll get punished for what the Twos are doing?” Alec asked. “Dad’s worried, I know that much.”

Julia sat on the edge of the bed and brushed his curls back. “Your dad’s worried because his job takes him closer to things than most. I think if anyone knows their duty, it’s Two. Any mentor worth two stones knows how to keep their tribute and the district safe. Now sleep.”

She poked a finger between his eyebrows, then bent to kiss his forehead. Alec closed his eyes and let himself believe her.

-----

Tree shadows criss-crossed the ceiling as Alec tried to will himself to sleep. Two Boy had aimed the target back at the districts, blaming the families of the tributes for not volunteering. Except that — the outer tributes were usually scrawny, and starving, and had never seen a weapon in their lives. They hadn’t trained in a secret academy for years, had they? Mom and Dad and the trainers always said the Centre was a privilege. It wouldn’t be a privilege if everybody was allowed.

So what, then.

He could hear Selene’s dismissal already: not our problem. Even Creed would argue that training or no, it was the older sibling’s duty to protect the younger, and they would have to live with the guilt of that failure. But Alec had stood in that Reaping square, had watched Elias Linden take that first shaky step forward, and if no one else had taken his place? What if Alec had been thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and never held a sword? Would he have done it?

Alec didn’t even want to go to Residential. He’d never volunteer to die.

Okay. If it wasn’t the Careers, and it wasn’t the districts, then whose fault was it?

Alec jumped out of bed, sheets tangled around his feet so he nearly tripped and slammed into the floor face-first. He pushed Selene’s desk chair out of the way into the middle of the room, pressed his back against the wall and bent his legs until his thighs burned and his brain gasped in relief.

He counted to five hundred, then dragged himself, twitching and trembling, back to bed.

-----

Normality attempted to reassert itself with breakfast: scrambled egg and toast with a generous tablespoon of homemade rhubarb jam from the neighbours down the road. As always Alec hesitated at the jam — a definite indulgence, and he hadn’t done push-ups or anything this morning — but Julia had already spread it on the bread and asking for a plain slice would be rude. Julia and Paul shared another glance as he sat down, and Alec tensed.

“Your dad and Uncle Paul are going back to the office today,” Aunt Julia said, carefully. “We’ll all watch the recaps in the evening.”

Alec let out a breath. Aunt Julia was on-call for emergencies at the hospital and Mom’s school was out for summer vacation. Senior staff at Eagle Pass, meanwhile, had a work-from-home rotation for Games month, and it wasn’t Dad or Uncle Paul’s turn to be on site. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s an unconventional year already,” said Uncle Paul. “Safe to say the Arena will be a stressful one. We agreed it’s better if we’re not glued to the screen all day.”

Not exactly a lie — Paul and Julia only ever watched the recaps — but Alec knew the sound of an intervention when he heard one. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I guess I’ll … go hang out in the woods?”

Julia poured him a glass of juice. “You can take the fishing gear if you like. I’ll pack you a lunch.”

-----

He left the fishing gear at home, haunted by the memory of gulping mouths and pleading eyes on the last trip Dad tried to take him on, which left his original dam-the-river plan as the only option that sprang to mind. Alec trudged home at dinner time soaking wet, covered in mud, having heard absolutely no stupid jokes or threats or feats of illogic all day. The only time he fell into the creek, he’d tripped on his own.

Hanging out by himself sucked.

-----

Twelve-year-olds died every year. Alec had even seen them. But even compared to the hulking gods of the Careers they’d still been older than Alec and somehow more mature, even if they sobbed their way from Reaping to unceremonious death.

Now they were his age. His classmates.

The recap didn’t linger too long on their deaths, screaming and running and fighting to scale the forcefield walls. Two Boy took out one in the first few seconds — first kill of the game — without even looking. Dad grunted under his breath, a noise Alec recognized as now you’re playing ball. Unfortunately they saved most of the bloodbath time for the Career drama, Two versus Four and the shouts of betrayal between them. Dad was bracketed on the couch between Mom and Uncle Paul, and Alec tried not to look at him.

Two Girl gave it her best shot, but even she couldn’t take down four Careers on her own. “He left her there,” Alec said in a small voice. Sure, it was the Games, and alliances were only temporary, but — still.

“He made his choice,” Dad said, flat and grim.

He’d made everyone else’s choices for them too, apparently. After killing Two Girl the Pack stared at each other, then split. Everyone for themselves from day one. Alec swallowed the sour taste in his mouth. At least his parents paid for the raw feed so he didn’t have to listen to a commentary track on top of everything else.

And so it went, day after day. An ugly Arena for an ugly year, full of traps and tricks to create excitement before a bunch of kids Alec’s age could die slowly on their own. “It is a punishment for the districts,” Alec said once, watching the girl from Twelve dissolve in acid rain, screaming until her lungs filled with blood. “But not —” Not one carried out by the Careers, he’d begun to say — not with their tributes struggling to survive alongside the outliers, hardly the glorious tools of the Capitol’s vengeance the Reaping promised them to be. The sense of exception granted by the Volunteers had levelled.

He froze as soon as he registered he’d spoken aloud, but Dad only sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We have a narrative,” he said, reluctant. “We’ll see how it plays out.”

Two Boy started this, and so almost against his will Alec started to pay attention. While the Ones and Fours faced mutts, Two alone dragged himself out of the collapsing ground for hours and hours. Alec imagined the trainers asking, why? Why perseverance rather than combat? Humility over glory? Perhaps humiliation for the one who’d broken the rules? Bringing him low while the ones who’d played along got to earn their survival with honour and prestige.

Boring, Selene would say, for sure. Who wants to watch this dude crawl out of a hole for eight hours. Let’s go back to the fights.

-----

Two killed Seven after sharing a meal and talking about home, and Alec swallowed nausea. How could he do that, how could he — chat about family and little sisters and share chocolate and names and then slit his throat like that, like it didn’t even matter, pick up the dead boy’s token and take his snacks like it didn’t bother him. Alec thought of Selene sitting in Residential with the thirteens, watching, taking notes, of Creed, and the air around him had gone thin and thick all at once, pressing close around him and squeezing, squeezing, but none of it sliding into his lungs no matter how he gasped —

“Bed,” Mom said firmly, her hands on either side of his face. She snapped her fingertips against his cheek and he could breathe again. “Come on, Alec.”

He let her drag him into bed and tuck him in as she hadn’t done in years, physically lifting his legs over the edge of the bed and rearranging him bodily like a toddler. “I don’t want it,” Alec whispered, choked. “I don’t want Creed in there.”

“Creed,” Mom said firmly, “will not be like that.”

Alec pressed his arm over his eyes, breath shuddering. “He’ll still have to kill them. The ones my age.”

“He won’t have picnics with them,” Mom said. “He won’t make a game of it. And he won’t antagonize the President and the Gamemakers, either. You know that.”

He didn’t look at her. Pushed his arm down harder until coloured lights spun behind his lids. “Do you want him in there? Really?”

The bed creaked as Mom drew back, mattress bouncing with the sudden removal of her weight. “Good night, Alec,” she said, sharp and repressive, and it wasn’t fair and he shouldn’t have asked when she couldn’t possibly give an answer that would make him happy but her tone left no room for an apology.

Jeremy, Two Boy had said. Like my old man. He’d actually named his father on television. A father who — according to his interview — turned him out into the streets and left him homeless. Alec curled into a ball and tried to ignore the churning deep within.

-----

I hope the popcorn tastes good, said Two Boy, saluting over Nine Boy’s corpse with his blood-stained dagger. Try using thyme.

Dad stiffened. And there it was again, that little jolt in Alec’s spine, that sense of wrongness, the turn of his ankle on the stairs, the give beneath his foot that spoke of a sinkhole in the yard.

Two Boy hadn’t mentioned brothers. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he really did mean it to shame the district families, except. Except. If it were Creed he’d be sick with anger and guilt and fury, no one in the districts was eating popcorn — even in Two that was gauche, as Dad would say, so where — then who —

Alec met Dad’s eyes without meaning to, both of them fingers clenched on knees, breathing through their noses. This is what happens, Dad always said, when he ordered Alec to the wall, or sent him to his room without dinner, or cut a switch from the dogwood coppice in the backyard. This, and this, and this.

I get it, Alec wanted to say, desperate and terrified, but his voice died in his throat. I get it. He’s going to get us all in trouble.

Dad’s mouth thinned. He nodded, once, and turned back to the television without a word.

-----

Two Boy dragged himself across the frozen grass to the hovercraft as his vitals plunged downward at the bottom of the screen, but at the last possible moment he made it. The Gamemakers bestowed their favour, bringing out the sun to grant him that last burst of strength to get him to the ramp.

The Capitol assented. He had struggled enough, been humbled enough. A satisfactory narrative could be fashioned. District 2’s little traitor could come home.

Alec glanced at Dad, but phones were ringing off the hook all over the neighbourhood as soon as the trumpets blared. They all watched the recap knowing who would win. “Well,” Dad said finally, “this will be a fun cleanup.”

-----

No more of the districts-at-fault in the post-interview. No more inflammatory political commentary. They dressed Two in a too-big suit like a little boy wearing daddy’s clothes, had him blubber all over his mentor and cry about only ever wanting a family. Alec would never have believed it as a Two interview if he hadn’t watched the Games from start to finish.

Boring, said the Selene in his head again, absolutely disgusted, but the iron grip of terror around Alec’s chest loosened, maybe, a little. Obvious, sure, but maybe that was the point. Maybe playing poor-little-helpless-boy would be enough to forget this was one of the most dangerous Victors Alec had ever seen.

-----

After the closing ceremony, Dad called Alec outside. They stood together on the porch, shoulder to shoulder, looking out over the front walk as fireflies flitted in and out over the lawn. “Alec,” Dad said slowly. “These past — I’ve — I wanted to —”

Alec’s palms itched. The cuts from the switch had healed, pale pink stripes along his life line, nearly invisible. “It’s okay,” he blurted out. After everything that happened, everything he’d seen and heard, an apology from his father for showing emotion might actually explode his brain. “I get it. Now things can be normal again. Right?”

“I hope so,” Dad said, with feeling. He paused, and for a long moment no sound but the wind rustling the leaves and the call of two horned owls in adjacent trees. At last he let out a long breath and rested a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I know it isn’t easy, but you’ve always tried to do what I ask of you. I know that.”

The sun had long set, only a thin, bright strip of light at the very base of the horizon above the buildings of town. Alec blinked away the stinging in his eyes. “Thanks, Dad.”

They stood there a moment longer, then Dad clapped his shoulder and stepped back. “Come on, then, let’s head in before the mosquitoes eat us alive.”

#lorata answers #anonymous #we must be killers: tales from district 2 #my writing #oc: alec seward #oc: joseph seward #oc: adora seward #is this too niche for ao3 lol #EDIT: too late it's on there lol

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mie779 · 4 months ago

Text

Don't Kiss and Tail

A/N: This is an alternate/what-if version of season 3 episode 17 “The Jolly Roger” where we have Zelena pose as Ariel… What if it was the real Ariel who spoke with Killian, how pissed Ariel would be and go tattle to dear old daddy dearest and have Killian cursed, and not only his lips.

This story is part of CSSNS2024, and I have some peeps I’d like to thank.

@whatevenisthisbloganymore (on Tumbler) for beta reading this. Without her, this would have looked so messy.

@iamstartraveller776 , who made the beautiful banner for this story. It was also through a talk with her that the title finally came to be. And that title sparked my muse, (damn it!) so perhaps one day I’ll write some original mermaid story.

It’s been such a blast being part of this event, (again), and it's sad to see this will be the last year. I love the stories already having been shared, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories.

My inspiration for the theme was several CaptainSwan fan art with a mermaid theme, from Wild-white-werewolf (Julia Volkova) and Svenjaliv. And plotting began and I tried to find a place to do an alternate spin on an episode… On a rewatch I stumbled over the episode “The Jolly Roger” and the whole talk with Zelena posing as Ariel had my muse thinking… so here you are, without further ado, my contribution to the CSSNS24.

READ ON AO3 if that is your thing (like me) https://archiveofourown.org/works/57458686

Don’t Kiss and Tail

“You're a monster… “ The following sting of the female hand slapping his cheek still burned as Killian watched the mermaid leap from the dock and dive into the dark water. The flip of her colorful tail was the last thing he saw.

“Bloody hell. “ He understood the mermaid perfectly as he'd been so bullheaded in that missing year in the enchanted forest. His focus on getting his beloved ship back and this having not helped Ariel find Eric might have been stupid. He paced the docks. The whole town was still in a mighty uproar over the wicked witch. So he wasn’t going to worry about a pissed-off mermaid right now.

He kept his pacings to the docks, but he staggered back in surprise when Ariel again came striding towards him, this time from behind the old fisherman’s shack. How did she get back there? He shifted his gaze towards the water where she’d vanished moments ago. But before he could contemplate this the mermaid spoke.

“How am I supposed to trust a man who doesn’t believe in love?” Ariel curled her lips in disgust.

“I still do,” Killian whispered, his face contorted in agony.

“Then swear to me on it. This woman broke your heart. Do you still love her?”

Killian looked down, the word tearing through him like a thousand blades. “Yes.”

“Then swear to me, on her name.” Ariel lifted her chin in an unspoken challenge.

“Then I swear on Emma Swan.” Her sweet name was the only easy word falling over his lips.

A smirk forms over Ariel, “Thank you, captain, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.” She flipped her fingers towards him and something green and warm wrapped around his lips; the sensation confused him and he covered his lips with his hand, “What the hell?”

He looked back up at the mermaid. But the next second a swirl of green smoke engulfed the girl and in her stead was now the wicked witch. “Zelena it was you.” Killian drew his cutlass, “where’s Ariel?”

With a quick flick of her wrist, Zelena tore his weapon out of his hand.

“Relax. She wasn’t here right now, I’d imagine she’s gone tattling to her dear ol’ dad, boo hoo, the pirate wouldn’t tell me where my beloved is.” Zelena rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“I don’t understand why you would pretend to be her?” He frowned.

“To corrupt your love. I have known all about your dirty little secret for some time, and have seen the guilt on your face ever since making that decision that day. I knew it haunted you. I knew I could use it.

“Use it for what?”

“When you evoked the name of your love, your selfish plea for redemption, I was able to curse you. Or more specifically your kiss - you see the next time your lips touch Emma Swan’s all of her magic will be taken. Everything that makes her special, that makes her powerful, that makes her a threat will be gone.”

“I won’t do it. I’ll tell her, then she’ll defeat you.”

“Then I’ll send the Dark One to kill her before you can.” The self-satisfied smile on her face pissed off Killian even more, but he saw right through her bluster.

“No, you won’t. If you could have killed her you would have. You need her power removed. That is why you didn’t kill her when she came to the town. It’s why your monkey looked after her in New York instead of killing her.” Killian gave her a satisfied smirk. “For some reason, you can’t.”

Zelena pursed her lips before saying, “It no longer matters, because you’re going to remove her powers. I may not be able to hurt Emma, but I can hurt those around her.” She lifted her eyes briefly as if to contemplate who to put on that list, “Her parents, her friends,” she shifted far too close, “her child.”

“Do not go near him.”

Zelena chuckled and grinned knowingly. “Yes you’ve become quite fond of the boy, haven’t you? I will enjoy turning him into a monkey’s breakfast.”

“I’ll stop you.” Killian sneered.

“No, you won’t. That pointy little hook of yours can scratch a mere mortal but me…” Another chuckle. “You’re out of your depths, pirate. The choice is yours, kiss Emma and remove her power or everyone she loves dies.” The words came out in a hate-filled staccato, baring her teeth as she sneered at him.

Before Killian could make another retort she was gone in a swirl of green smoke.

“Bloody hell.” Killian slumped back on the crate behind him, his lips still tingling from the curse Zelena had cast upon his lips. “Bloody hell that woman is crazy as shite.” He shook his head and gazed upon the dark waters, the moored fisherboats swaying on the gently lapping waves. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there - he wasn’t sure where to go from here, all he knew was that he wouldn’t tell Emma about the curse. He wouldn’t have her worry about another thing in her life. He would attempt to avoid her advances to become closer. He knew they were closer than ever to crossing that line of a real relationship.

The moored boats started to crash against the dock, the wood scraping against the concrete. Something was stirring up the water and when he rose to his feet he spotted a swirling vortex out in the water. Moments later a white-haired man with a tri fork floated in the water.

“Bloody hell, now what?” Killian groaned.

“You’re Killian Jones?” The voice of Triton boomed over the docks, the trident pointed at Killian.

Killian gulped down and was about to lie his way out of this predicament when a far too familiar mermaid rose from the water.

“That’s him,” Ariel said and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What did I do?” Killian wavered.

“You refused to help my daughter find her love, and now you shall pay.” Triton lifted his weapon and boomed, “Ye shall live a life under the sea. Return to the dry lands will only be possible by a true love kiss.”

“What the bloody hell…” Killian stepped back but swirling white magic leaped from the trident and within seconds it wrapped around Killian. The magic pulled at his form and he felt pain shoot through his body. “What are you doing to me?” His voice pained and he dropped to the edge of the dock, while his hands grabbed his legs. The magic swirled over his form from head to toe.

“You’ll have to live your life as a merman.” Ariel huffed. “You didn’t want to help me find my Eric.”

“Bloody hell, you went and tattled to you dear old…” Killian gritted his teeth, the magic did some crazy ass shite to his body. “... Dear old daddy.”

“See, father, he’s nothing but a vile and ruthless pirate.” Ariel glared at him.

“I see, my daughter. And now he will not be able to walk around on dry land and pursue his happiness.”

“Bloody hell, Emma…” He nearly blacked out from the pain.

“Yeah, now she won’t be able to find you.”

When Killian finally opened his eyes again the pain had vanished, but as he inspected himself he quickly saw how his body had changed, his torso now bare, and from the waist down his legs had transformed into that of a merman’s tail. Its dark scales glinted in the streetlights behind him. It would be crazy to try and slither his way into town like this. With a roar of anger, he leaped into the water and headed for where Ariel and her father had been. But the harbour was empty and the king and his daughter were nowhere to be found.

Killian lifted his head above water and roared, “Bloody hell, what do I do now?”

*********

Emma was nursing her second mug of cocoa at the diner. It had been two days since she or anyone else had seen Killian and by now she was more than worried. With Zelena on the loose wreaking havoc around them, it was safe to bet she might have had something to do with his disappearance.

Where the hell are you, Killian? Emma thought, taking another sip, and gave her son a reassuring smile. His observant brown eyes were wrinkled in concern. How was she supposed to share her worries with her son? He had no memory of anything related to magic.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, you know it’s just my case that has a lot of loose ends.” Emma mused, “I’ll go to the docks and see if I can find any leads.”

“Will Killian be there?” Henry licked up the remaining crumbs of his breakfast with his finger.

The mention of his name had Emma’s heart skip a beat. “I don’t know kid, I haven’t seen him”

“His boat is still down in the harbor.”

Emma blinked in surprise, the Jolly Roger wasn’t there. “Oh yeah, the fishing boat he took you out in.”

Emma finished her cocoa before she ushered Henry outside, and they walked down to the waterfront. Sure enough, the fishing boat Killian had borrowed was still there. “Look kid, I’m just going to ask around. Why don’t you go to the beach and see if you can find something interesting?”

Henry looked a little put out by this so she added, “Look, this case is not exactly kid friendly so I don’t want you to be part of it. I’ll come for you in half an hour.”

Henry nodded mutely and trodded towards the nearby beach; she could still watch him from afar if Zelena chose to show up.

Emma asked the harbor master if he’d seen Killian, but the only answer she could get was that the old man had seen Killian three nights ago talking with a red-haired woman. That could either be Ariel or Zelena so it wasn’t much help. But why would Killian speak with either of them, unless it was Zelena who then had taken him somewhere?

“Moooom.” Henry’s shout startled her and she rushed towards her son who was waving his arms in the air as he rushed towards her.

“What’s wrong, what happened, are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Henry waved his arms in front of him taking a few deep breaths, “I’m fine, I just think I saw something out in the waters.”

“What?” Emma felt a cold shiver run down her spine, and flashes of Killian lying dead in the water shifted through her mind.

“It was some kind of a large fish.” Henry looked a little puzzled, then shrugged, “It had to be a fish, the tail looked like a fish but it was big, like a grown man.”

“A small whale?” Emma mused, unsure what kind of large sea creatures roamed the coast of Maine.

“Maybe, but I haven’t seen any whales with scaly shimmering tails.”

“What did you just say?”

“It had black shimmering scales.” Henry paused and looked at her with worry. “What's wrong?”

Emma shook her head and masked her worry with a smile. “Nothing, I don’t know what you saw but it could have been a large fish I guess.” Inside her head, she thought: it could be a mermaid. She had no idea where Ariel was off to, and now that she thought about it she hadn’t seen the red-haired mermaid for a couple of days either. Did Zelena whisk her away too? That crazy-ass wicked witch of the West needed to be stopped in whatever crazy plan she had set up.

Emma suggested they head back home to Mary Margaret and David, and as they walked along the beach she couldn’t help scanning the water to get a glimpse of whatever creature Henry had seen out there.

Just as they reached the docks again she looked over the rocks jutting out from the coastline and she could have sworn she’d spotted a dark-haired creature hiding between the rocks, but it was gone in a flash and the last thing she saw was the reflection of the sun in a dark tail. “What the hell?”

“What is it, did you see it too?” Henry asked excitedly.

Emma shook her head and waved him off, “No I don’t think it was anything, a seal perhaps.” Or a selkie… oh wasn’t that over in good old England they were legends? Emma wrapped her arm around Henry and urged him to walk to the docks. As they rounded the corner she couldn’t help herself and took another glance over her shoulder. The same dark-haired creature which now looked remarkably like a human was holding onto the rocks but was too far away to see. What the hell is that? she thought to herself, and she couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that had settled inside her. Who was out there?

Emma couldn’t focus on the talk at the dinner table that night and Mary Margaret did ask if she was okay. Emma waved off her mother’s worry and assured her she was merely trying to string together all the loose ends she had in her case. She glanced at Henry who had helped clear the table and then settled onto the couch with his game console.

Her sleep was filled with strange dreams of sea creatures waving at her from the water, all twirling around in a mismatched chaos of confusion. When the first rays of the sun peeked through the thin curtains she slipped out of bed and left a note for Henry before heading for the beach.

*******

Killian kept a close eye on the shoreline, still staying out of sight as he wasn’t sure who would spot him. It was infuriating and damn near impossible to figure out what the hell he should do. He knew his main hope was finding Emma, and spotting her with the boy yesterday afternoon he’d damn well nearly jumped up on the rocks and called out for her. But Henry was there and he still had no memory of any fairytales or curses so the lad was sure to be spooked out of his wits seeing a real merman speak with his mother.

Then there was the whole conundrum with the curse Zelena had placed on his lips. He would never let her willingly give up her magic for him.

The early morning sunlight glinted behind him as he scanned the beach, he was sure Emma had spotted him the day before so he hoped she would return, this time without Henry.

A flash of golden hair and a red leather jacket caught his eye, and he swam closer to the beach. It had been a learning curve the past few days navigating underwater and he realized there was a colony of merfolk some miles south of here keeping their existence unknown beside a small island off the coast. They had not exactly been friendly but they had not been hostile either, only made it clear that he had no business there as they somehow had sensed he truly didn’t belong under the sea.

Emma had walked to the beach and neared the long row of rocks going out from the beach. She pushed away her loose hair from her face as she scanned the water.

Killian reached the first rock, lifted himself halfway out of the water, and waved, “Emma?”

Emma nearly stumbled over her feet as she stepped out on the first couple of large boulders. “Killian, is that you?”

Killian swam closer and he saw how her face contorted into surprise and worry at the same time. “Aye.”

“How the hell did this happen to you?” She narrowed her eyes as she focused on his tail. “You have a tail.”

Killian refrained from rolling his eyes, only nodded and with a quick push of his hand, he lifted himself on a low boulder and sat there.

“What happened?” Emma moved closer cautiously as if trying to gauge if this was some kind of ploy to fool her.

“It’s me, love. Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” He tilted his head and smirked.

Emma rolled her eyes and settled on the rock beside her, her knees bent so her boots didn’t get wet. She reached over and touched his arm. “It really is you.” Her eyes scanned over his form and a blush spread over her cheeks.

He gave her a knowing smile, this might be the most naked he’d been in her presence and the color on her cheek indicated that she didn’t mind.

Then she frowned, “What happened to you, who did this?”

“You know how Ariel came to town some days ago.”

Emma nodded, “Yeah everyone was so surprised to see her.”

“Well, she was here on a mission.” He looked down at his hand and hook. When he’d transformed he’d been surprised that his hook was still there.

“What mission?”

“To find me and avenge me for failing to help her back in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Why didn’t you help her?”

“I was so focused on finding my way back to you that I declined to help her find her Eric.” Killian sighed and pushed his wet hair away from his forehead. He looked at her, “I was a fool, I know that.”

“That was a foolish choice.” Emma’s hand on his arm rubbed up and down, “but seems like a long stretch to curse you into a merman.”

“That was her father’s doing.” Killian mused.

“She went and tattled to her father?” Emma exclaimed and turned fully towards him, “Are you serious?”

“Very much so. The king of the sea, Triton cursed me to be a merman, until…” He paused and closed his eyes.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.” Killian brushed it away, how on earth was he ever going to tell her that kissing her might be the only thing bringing him back to his human form? But in doing so he would also remove her magic, giving Zelena a better chance at getting whatever witch wanted.

“Do you know how to reverse the curse?” Emma asked and leaned closer. He could smell her perfume now and his heart beat a lot faster. Gods she smelled good.

“I… it’s going to be bloody complicated.” He grimaced, rubbing over his face.

“Tell me, please,” Emma begged. “Whatever it is we can make it happen, we can go get Regina if it’s…”

“No!” He exclaimed, “No one else needs to see me like this.”

“Oh, it’s not exactly a bad look you have going here.” Emma mused and her eyes scanned over his form again, the blush on her cheeks darkened.

Killian tilted his head, getting a better look at her, her eyes sparkled with mischief something that was rarely seen these days with all the stuff going on with Zelena and her son still not remembering anything.

“So you see something you like here, love?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“Perhaps.” She looked down at her hand resting on her bent knee, her fingers tracing over the seam in her jeans.

Killian chuckled, leaned closer, and caught her eyes, “So you’d not mind having a merman as a friend?”

Emma choked back a laugh, “I can’t believe you’re so at ease about all of this, I’d be in a total panic had it been me turned into a mermaid.”

“I did panic at first, but I knew you’d come looking for me. I saw you on the beach with your boy yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you call out then?”

“Henry doesn't remember anything about magic, so I imagined seeing a real-life merman might be too confusing.”

“He’d survive I’m sure. He might not remember, but he still has a vivid imagination.” Emma chuckled, then sobered, “But how can we reverse the curse?”

“Thought you wanted me to stay like this?”

Emma shook her head, “As much as I like this look I still want the real Killian Jones in my life.” She blinked a few times, “I can’t imagine not having you in my life, Killian.”

“Oh.” Hope bloomed inside him and he smiled, “I’d very much like that.” He glanced down at his tail and smoothed his hand over the black scales.

Emma reached over and asked, “May I?”

He looked up at her in surprise and noticed the curious glint in her eyes as she looked at his tail. “Aye.”

Emma moved forward and smoothed her hand over the black scales, it was a strange sensation feeling someone else touch his merman tail like this. The warmth of her hand seeped through to his core.

“This is so strange.” Emma mused and kept her hand on his form, when she looked up at him her eyes were filled with wonder, her lips looking so damn inviting he nearly leaned forward. But when she moved first he pulled back and rubbed over his mouth.

“I can’t…” Killian looked to the sky, the sun had now fully risen and the sea birds flew over them in circles, their cries echoing over the waters.

“What?” Emma pulled back and hugged herself. “This… what do you mean you can’t I thought you wanted to… you know kiss me.”

“Bloody hell I do want to kiss you.” It’s all I’ve been thinking about since we returned to Storybrooke.

“Then why… “ Her voice trailed off and she gasped, “Did Triton do more to curse you?”

“What do you mean?”

“So if you kiss someone they die or something like that?”

“It wasn’t Triton.” Killian sighed and shifted in his seat. The rock beneath him started to feel uncomfortable.

“Then who?”

“Zelena…” Killian whispered.

“Seriously!”

“Aye, I’m afraid so, the witch came to me in disguise as Ariel, and since I thought it to be the actual mermaid who’d just jumped into the water I couldn’t have known. The woman was livid and had me swear on the woman I love’s name and she cursed my lips.”

“What?”

“She cursed my lips…”

“Yeah yeah, I heard that… it’s the love part I’m curious about.” Her voice was wary and guarded but when he glanced at her a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“Aye, you’re the woman I love.” Killian reached over and touched her leg, “It’s always been you.” He looked down, “But if I kiss you now we’ll never defeat Zelena.”

“Why?”

“The bloody witch cursed my lips so that should you ever kiss me, your magic will be taken from you.”

“Great.” Emma rolled her eyes and pursed her lips, “Just freaking great.” She looked at his tail, biting her lips.

“I can’t ask that of you, love.”

“Why not?” Emma exclaimed, “You can’t continue living like a merman.” She tilted her head, “Or do you want to be a merman forever?”

Killian shook his head. “There’s got to be another way?”

“And if not?”

“I will live my life hunting down Triton and defeat him.”

“That is a fucked up plan. You know that, pirate?” Emma rolled her eyes, “What I know of Triton he is very powerful and you will have every merman hunting for your tail.”

“You will need your magic to defeat that wicked witch, whatever it is she’s plotting, it can’t be good for anyone in this town.” Killian mused.

“Look, let me ask around and see if we have a chance to work around this curse.” Emma reached over and cupped his face, his skin burning by her touch. She was so bloody close he could smell her.

“Don’t make too much of a ruckus just for me, darling.” He placed his hand over hers.

“Let me be the judge of that, eh?” Emma smiled, her thumb caressing his skin. Then she moved closer wrapping him in a tight hug, “I can’t lose you, Killian.” Her words whispered into his skin and shivers ran down his spine at how close she was now.

“I’m right here, love.”

She pressed a small kiss to his neck and whispered, “Good thing it’s only your lips she cursed.”

“Bloody hell, love, you… gods.” Killian groaned and wrapped his arms around her holding her close.

They stayed like this for some time and it wasn’t until they heard some of the fishermen shout to each other from the docks that they pulled away.

“I better dive down into the water again,” Killian mumbled, gently untangling himself from Emma’s embrace.

“Yeah, I’ll come back here tonight, okay?” She looked up, “after sundown.”

“Aye.” He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm, “Tonight, hope you find a way.”

Emma rose to her feet and stepped back onto the beach before she turned around and gave him a parting wave, “See you tonight then.”

Killian waved back and jumped into the shallow waters below him and swam for his usual hangout spot he’d found at the end of the peninsula jutting out into the sea. It was going to be a long day, but hunting for fish would perhaps keep his mind off of things.

**********

Emma’s head was buzzing with everything she’d learned this morning. Killian was a freaking merman now, long black scaly tale included. Her face heated up when she recalled how damn good he looked sitting there with a bare chest and tail. Damn, she hadn’t known she might have a thing for mermen. Well, this one merman in particular it seemed.

She sought solace in a cup of hot cocoa and a Bearclaw from the diner and when Ruby placed her order on the counter the brunette asked, “You look a bit off kilter this morning, what happened?”

“Oh…” Emma pushed away her hair and sighed, “It’s a long story.”

“I have time, the morning rush is over.” Ruby rested her arms on the counter, “So spill, girl.”

“I found Killian.”

“Oh, the elusive pirate has shown his face again, where is he?”

“In the sea,” Emma mumbled and blew on her cocoa.

“Well, he’s a pirate.”

“No I mean, he is IN the sea, two curses included.” Emma sighed.

“Who cursed him and why?”

Emma explained what she’d learned from Killian, making sure that no one nearby was eavesdropping. But the diner was mostly deserted so she could share her story with Ruby.

“That is such a crazy story, even for this place.” Ruby waved her hand around and Emma couldn’t agree more. Even with everything going on right now a man cursed to be a merman and on top of that also with cursed lips so he wasn’t able to kiss her. That last part had Ruby waggle her eyebrows and comment, “So the question is are you willing to pay with your magic so your pirate will have his legs back?”

“The question is more if he’s willing to let me kiss him.” Emma sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“He seemed reluctant to let me just kiss him, he wants me to keep my magic as it will no doubt be useful when we go against Zelena.” Emma mused and shrugged her shoulders, “I need to speak with Regina, perhaps she has another way.”

Emma enjoyed her breakfast and took off to find Regina, but the mayor had no idea how to reverse a curse that was linked to a true love’s kiss. And she agreed with Emma that she might be the only person Killian loved. But if she kissed Killian she would lose her magic.

*******

Killian kept a close eye on anything happening at the docks, hoping Emma would come down early. But when he did spot her she was accompanied by Henry so Killian kept his distance and watched Henry drag Emma onboard the small vessel he’d borrowed from the fisherman in the past week.

“What are you doing, lad?” Killian asked in wonder. Sure he’d taught the boy a thing or two about boats and sailing, but it wasn’t safe for anyone to go out there with so little training.

“Come on Mom.” Henry’s voice rolled over the water, “I wanted to go fishing, and since Killian is missing I need you with me.”

“Okay, kid, I don’t know how to sail this thing.” Emma sighed and placed her hands at her hips.

“It’s easy. See here.” Henry started up the engine and leapt down to release the boat from the docks and jumped back on board.

Killian contemplated showing himself and warning the pair not to go out there. The skies were getting darker further out and he felt a storm rolling in, but it might be hours before it reached the shoreline.

Henry sailed the boat out on open waters and stopped the engine, and soon Killian could see him preparing the fishing rods. Emma was still arguing with her son about the safety of this, but Henry eased her worries and soon Emma had settled down on a crate on deck.

The sun disappeared behind grey clouds and before either Emma or Henry knew what hit them the rain started falling heavily. Henry scurried to get the engine started while Emma struggled to get the fishing rods packed away. In her haste, she stumbled over something on the deck. Her body slammed into the railing and she lost her balance. Killian could only watch in horror as Emma tumbled into the dark waters below. With a quick flip of his tail, he dived towards where Emma was slowly dropping to the bottom.

Henry’s cries for his mother were muffled by the water but they pierced through Killian like knives. He wasn’t about to leave this boy without his mother.

Emma wore her red leather jacket and it had weighed her down so much that she wasn’t able to swim upwards. Her eyes were filled with panic when Killian finally reached her.

Her body went limp in his arms as he ascended to the surface and broke up into the air. He looked down at the woman in his arms, her eyes closed, lips blue and lifeless.

“Mom?!” Henry’s frantic voice sounded from above, then “Killian is that you?”

Killian didn’t pay attention to the lad right now, all he cared about was the woman floating in his arms. Her skin was more and more pale and he leaned closer and realized she wasn’t breathing, her lips turning blue.

“Emma?” He called out frantically, his hand cradling her face.

“Give her mouth to mouth,” Henry called from above him.

Killian swallowed; he knew he had to breathe life into her, “Her magic will be lost.” He called back, his voice breaking, this couldn’t be happening.

“What?”

“My lips are cursed.” He looked up and when he spotted the bewilderment in the lad’s eyes he knew he’d screwed it up. Henry had no memory of magic or fairytale characters. There was no time to explain so the decision was all up to him and as he watched Emma lie lifeless in his arms his heart broke. He couldn’t live without this woman in his life, be damned her wrath if her magic was gone, he needed her.

Pressing his mouth to hers he breathed into her mouth, feeling her chest fill with air. A woosh of magic spread out around them and he felt his tail vanish and turn into a pair of legs again. The motion to keep them afloat changed but he managed to balance himself and Emma above water. He blew more air into her mouth and then Emma violently coughed up seawater.

“Killian?” Her voice was weak and her eyes searched his face, “What did you do?”

“You were drowning, I couldn’t… I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let you die, not like this. Not in front of your boy.”

“Mom?!” Henry bellowed from above them, “Are you okay?”

Emma gave her son a weak smile and wave before returning her focus to Killian. “You saved my life.” She cupped his face and he marveled at the feel of her hand against his cheek.

“Aye.” He swallowed deeply, “But your magic… I’m sorry love.”

“We’ll find another way to beat Zelena.” Emma soothed and pulled herself closer to him again and kissed him.

This time it was a real kiss, profound and filled with untold promises of a future together.

“I have a rope ladder here,” Henry called out and interrupted their kiss, both adults looked sheepishly up at the teenager who rolled his eyes. “Don’t go around doing that too much from now on, okay?”

“Aye, lad.”

Emma chuckled and coughed a little, clearly not fully recovered from her near-death experience.

“Come now love, let’s get us back home.” He maneuvered them both to the rope ladder Henry had dropped over the sides. “Are you okay going up on your own?”

“I’m fine, Captain.” Emma smiled and hauled herself up the ladder, slow and steady and Killian followed her to the deck where Henry greeted them both with a hug.

When Killian pulled away to get the boat started Henry stopped him, “Did you just have a tail before you saved my mother?” The lad’s eyebrows were lifted to his hairline.

“Henry.” Emma interjected and took her son’s arms, “There’s a lot of things that aren’t as they seem.” Emma looked at Killian, “Some things will be a bit hard to understand, but let me tell you why we’re really here in Storybrooke.” She urged him to sit on a crate and turned to Killian, “Get us back home.”

“Aye.” He saluted her with a grin and let mother and son talk alone on the deck while he took the wheel. The boat wasn’t as majestic as his old lady The Jolly Roger, but it would do for now. He watched Emma speak with her son, who looked more and more confused and sometimes even worried.

When they reached the dock they were greeted by Mary Margaret, David and Regina, who all looked relieved to see them all. Killian included, which surprised him a bit. But apparently, a lot of people had been worried about his whereabouts in the past few days.

“Mother.” Henry greeted Regina with a hug and when he pulled back, “Killian was a merman.”

Everyone gasped in surprise and a load of questions was thrown at him, he lifted his hands and said, “I’m here now in human form and that is what matters.” He grasped Emma’s hand, “We’re ready to fight off that green witch, any ideas what her plans are?”

Mary Margaret stepped forward and said, “Henry this is for you.” She presented him with a storybook, a very familiar storybook. “You need to believe.”

“In what?” Henry took the book and a burst of magic swirled around them and he gasped. “I remember.”

Everyone cheered and no one seemed to ask more about their adventure on the water, not until it became clear that Emma’s magic indeed was gone. But that was a worry for another time as the threat of Zelena still hung over Storybrooke.

All Killian cared about was having his legs back on dry land again and Emma by his side. He wanted her there for the rest of their lives if he had anything to say about it.

THE END

#ouat #once upon a time #killian jones #captain swan #fanfiction #emma swan #my writing #writers #writers on tumblr #ouat fanfiction #cssns24 #cssns2024 #mermaid

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mrs-snape5984 · 10 months ago

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“Save me from myself…don’t let me drown!”

“Who will make me fight? Drag me out alive? Save me from myself…don’t let me drown! ‘Cause you know that I can’t do this on my own…” (“Drown” by Bring me the Horizon)

Struggling with my disease ME/CFS feels exactly like that: I’m drowning! Drowning deeper with every new “Crash”, drowning in my solitude, drowning in my darkness, drowning in my fucking despair!!

Being doomed to stay in my dark place day and night makes me feel like I’m losing control over everything in my life. I’m losing myself…losing the woman I was meant to be! Slowly but steadily I’m vanishing from the scene, which was meant to be my life!

But stop! Take a deep breath! I’ve overcome a lot of traumatic experiences in my life. And who was there to fix me…to ease my pain? Who was my anchor for more than 20 years, when I lost my sight for the right path? Severus Snape!

So, I reached out to @madfantasy and told Mani, that I’m drowning…and I needed to be saved from Severus once again. I know, he can’t save me from my disease, but he will always be my comfort blanket…my sign to keep on fighting! This stubborn, brave and so perfectly sassy man will never fail to remind me of the power of resilience.

My dear Mani, I don’t know, how you’re doing this, but you’re achieving it every time to make the love between Severus and me palpable! Everything, that I wanted to express with my idea of drowning in my personal misery, came to life because of your outstanding talent for your art! I don’t know, who you really are, but you must be such a precious soul in real life! I can’t describe in words, how grateful I am for the way, you’re soothing my troubled heart and mind with your artwork!

🖤 Severus & Julia 🖤

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1moreff-creator · 1 year ago

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Matching the DRDT Characters with their Roman Numeral Quote (LGI MV)

So, I immediately fell in love with newest Literature Girl Insane MV, and I have to drop everything I’m doing just so I can talk about it. Although there is so much to discuss I don’t even know where to begin, one thing which immediately caught my eye was the crosswords which flashes on the screen for a moment.

As many have figured out, it’s made up of the names of everyone in the cast, plus Mai Akasaki, minus David. As the footnote on “Now” says, it’s better to use full names instead of nicknames (such as Julia instead of J) and to exclude the protagonist of the MV.

Here’s the solution by raspbeyes, who I believe may have been the first person to upload it to Tumblr.

However, what’s really interesting is that, by the nature of a crosswords, it connects all characters with a Roman numeral. And these Roman numerals show up throughout the video, attached to different sentences. That way, you can connect the characters to these sentences. And so, you get some pretty interesting stuff. With that in mind, I went through and collected all the Roman numerals (it’s not very difficult, apart from one exception), and I wanted to share my thoughts on them.

Now, the numbers don’t actually show up chronologically for the most part, and the only real logic they seem to follow is “they show up after the crossword flashed on screen”. I’ve decided to list them in the order of the actual number instead of the chronological order, as I don’t find the latter to be very important (apart from one case).

That said, I will actually start by number two, since number one is a bit of a special case. You’ll see. For now:

II - Rose ~ Ego cogito ergo (turbatus) sum

We have some latin to kick things off! “Ego cogito ergo sum” is the ever famous “I think therefore I am” philosophy, but in latin! This phrase (from what I understand) claims that the only thing we can be truly and absolutely sure exists, is our own reasoning and consciousness. This fits Rose decently well, as she’s established her photographic memory causes her trouble separating what’s real, what’s a memory, what’s a dream, etc. Even more so, it sorta fits with the song “Cartoons” from the now vanished character playlist, which some theories placed as Rose’s.

However, there is also the addition of “turbatus” to the saying. Turbatus, from a quick Google search, means something like “disturbed”. Thus, the full meaning is something like “I think, therefore I am disturbed”. This fits Rose even better, considering her scene with Teruko and Nico in the dress-up room. Don’t think I have to go too far in explaining this one.

III - Charles ~ If you doubt brittle things are broken

So, is this about his dead brother he doesn’t remember? As in, “if you doubt your memories, as they’re brittle, they’ll break? Or is this talking about the relationships between the cast? “Distrust will lead to our collapse”, sorta fits the talk he had with Teruko early in chapter 2.

However, I actually lean more towards the brother thing, because of the blue, long quote which is flipped upside down on top of the image.

“And now here’s my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”

So, here’s where the Roman numerals become sorta weird. Does this count as part of Charles’ quote or not? I assume it’s at least related, especially seeing some of the other stuff we’ll see in the background.

Now, to the actual quote. I recognize it as a quote from the fox in “The Little Prince”, a book which if you have not read, you should honestly read. It’s a surprisingly sweet book to attach to Charles, but I can honestly see him blushing while talking about it, so it fits.

The quote itself is simple to understand; the material things in the world are not as important as our feelings, relationships, hopes, dreams, all that which can only be seen with the heart. This could be talking about the group’s relationships like I mentioned, but I lean more on thinking it’s referring to the memories of our loved ones, aka, Charles’ memories of his brother. Yes, the fact the quote starts by talking about secrets influences this interpretation.

IV - Arei ~ Right now, why do you cry?

Not much to talk about here. Arei’s the victim of this chapter, that’s why she cries. You can read into it a bit more and claim it has to do with Arei’s bullying of other people (“why are you crying, you wimp?” is something which could conceivably come out of her mouth), or more optimistically, it’s talking about how Arei used to only cry crocodile tears, but as she’s grown more empathetic, she now cries for her friends. Or some sappy shit like that.

Yeah, it’s still probably just about being the CH 2 victim.

V - Ace ~ Right now, why do you go insane? [flipped]

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda laughed a bit when I checked which character this one belonged to. Yeah, it’s pretty fitting, Ace is always going off for the most inane stuff.

More interesting is perhaps the background quote, “a cat has 9 additional lives”. Considering we’re talking about one of two people who’ve survived murder attempts so far, it makes sense, though I wonder if it’s going to come into play again later.

… Also, this just confirms in my mind the song from the playlist which belonged to Ace was “Yesman”. Undead, undead! and all that. I swear I’ll make a post about it eventually, I’m just more focused on this at the moment.

VI - Arturo ~ mind exercise 1 2 3 4

… Uh, well, as a surgeon, he do be exercising that mind though? Or something like that. Yeah, frankly I got nothing. This is just another moment where we Arturo enjoyers gotta take the L.

(Yes, I did just come out as an Arturo enjoyer-)

VII - J ~ Do it like that, let’s live together!

Another one I have no answer for. Like, what do you want me to say, this implies J’s the mastermind? Because it sort of does, seeing as she’s telling everyone to live together. But I really don’t see anything too interesting in the main quote.

However, the background quote may be more noteworthy. Anything in brackets is covered by something else but can be guessed with context.

“The Moral La[w] causes the people to be in com[plete accord] with their ruler, so that they wi[ll f]ollo[w] [him] regard[less of] their lives, undis[mayed] by any danger”

Had to look this one up. J’s quote is from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” of all goddamn things. The Moral Law the quote is talking about is, from basic research in Google, some sort of unity of purpose; the idea that if the followers and the rules have the same interests, their side will have an advantage in war.

… What?

Yeah, this one’s a bit odd too. For now, my best answer is that it may have to do more with Mariabella than J herself. If you see Mariabella as a sort of leader, and her fans as the followers, it could be talking about how the combined pressure of Mariabella and the media overwhelm J, the “other side” of the “war”.

But if you’re really into the mastermind J idea, you can read it as “she’s the leader of the killing game, with the followers being the people at home that have the same purpose of wanting to see despair and keep the show running by watching”. But I really doubt we’d be getting this sort of mastermind allusions in an MV from chapter 2 of all things.

If anyone has better ideas on this quote or any other, I’d love to hear them.

VIII - Nico ~ even if i try to think, idk!

Another one I can’t talk too much about. My best guess as to what this means is “Nico tries to think about social cues, but doesn’t get it”. Relatable, but also nothing new. Maybe I’m missing something big, but it’s what I got for now.

IX - Levi ~ look, aside from the usual, give me that medicine

Disclaimer, the words don’t actually appear in that order in the MV, but this phrase makes a lot more sense than “look aside from that the usual medicine give me”.

I really don’t know what this means. I mean, I can guess Levi might take some medicine? Whit did say some people took prescriptions apparently. But I really don’t quite understand why this is the first time we’ve had his character associated with medicine.

EDIT: The last few paragraphs about Levi are dead wrong, I’m just leaving by them up so you can laugh at how stupid I was. Here’s a correction with a better analysis.

The background quote doesn’t make it much better. It’s just talking about the orbit of a thing, something something representative trajectory… something something Jupiter… something something 1930…

Oh shit, it’s about the discovery of Pluto! That’s what Google seems to think when I put those keywords in, anyways. Well, as fun an astronomy tale as that one is, I actually have no idea what it means for Levi’s character. I guess it’s something we’ll see in the future.

… Or maybe, crazy idea. You know how Pluto was first thought to be a “planet” but then got reclassified as”dwarf planet”? Maybe this means my theory is right: Levi will get “discovered” as the blackened of the second trial, but then “reclassified” as an accomplice when they find out Eden is actually-

Alright, I’ll stop. I’m joking, obviously… (unless?)

X - Min ~ Democratic-ly

Wait, hold on a second, you may say. That is an X, but it doesn’t really look like the rest of roman numerals font-wise. There are plenty of times X’s appear in the video aside from here, such as… well, the blank death portrait that’s always in the background.

And yes. To my joy, Min got given a bit of special treatment, since the roman numeral for ten, being an X and all, can be seen all throughout the video. However, there is one reason I believe this is absolutely Min’s X.

You see that tiny little 10 next to the X? That’s a footnote. And footnote number 10 is “The Roman numeral for 10 is X”. Of course, the reason we’re reminded of it here is because that X isn’t just a bunch of blood, it’s a Roman numeral.

Of course, Min gets the biggest numeral because she is just that much of a girlboss.

Anyways, numeral oddity aside, it’s pretty obvious why this is Min’s. The background text is just the description of the rules of a class trial, a trial where the outcome is decided democratically, and the reason Min died. This scene is directly followed by more references to class trials, which although they have some interesting implications for the MV as a whole, only help to solidify Min’s connection to her line.

As for other footnotes, footnote seventeen on the word “democratic-ly” is just an objective fact (“Not a real word. Can’t be found on any dictionary”), though the fact “democratically” is spelt wrong could be a reference to Min’s execution, where she was forced to get a lot of things wrong before dying.

Final note is footnote 12, on the class trial definition, which talks about majority rule and how, because it’s the fairest way to make decisions in a group, “murderers never complained when we voted for them to die”. There are implications here about the fact Teruko also received votes in the first trial, but for Min, there isn’t anything new here.

And yes, Min got three footnotes. As she should.

XI - Mai ~ God is dead

Honestly, I guessed who got this line before even checking the crossword. It just fits what we know of Mai too much. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to know she would get a line as dramatic as this. If you want a proper interpretation, Mai is sometimes treated like a god by the others considering the secret quotes, but now she’s dead or gone or something.

Of course, that’s the literal meaning of that phrase. When you look at it through the lens of Nietzsche (and Wikipedia to make sure I didn’t fuck up anything), the phrase “God is dead” refers to the idea that as christianity became increasingly non-universal, the ethical and sociocultural elements of society which had been built on it would be questioned and revised. So, “growing lack of faith causes shifts in the status quo”, or something like that. It’s something which, again, may fit Mai from what we know of her backstory. Someone everyone had unquestioned faith on, who did something which had consequences, so maybe that caused a breakdown of that original faith, or something? Anything involving this character is always extremely speculative, but I frankly think the more literal interpretation works better in this context.

In any case, this phrase is about as cryptic and dramatic as everything involving Mai, so it fits.

XII - Eden ~ ???: But you’re in my way, aren’t you?

… Alright, Eden, I know I believe you to be the CH 2 killer and all that, but you gotta at least try to defend yourself against the allegations! The hell is this?

In case anyone was wondering, I think she’s the killer who wants to get out to meet back up with the girl she kissed (who I’m starting to get convinced is Mai but I’m not ready for that conversation), so this line reads like something she’d say to Arei in that theory. However, it’d be kind of a weird thing to put in the MV before the chapter ends, and besides, there’s an interpretation I like more.

You see how there’s a triple question question mark there? There’s a chance someone is saying this to Eden. I’ll actually get back to this later, because I have to talk about XVI before I cover my theory on this. Apologies.

CW for XIII: Suicide

XIII - Teruko ~ or

… He. Alright, out of context, this is kinda funny. But if you let the MV play, it’s “… or not to be?”, from “To be or not to be?” Shakespeare and all that. That said, the video does, in fact, only keep the number on screen while it says “or”, so I choose to notate Teruko’s quote as just that. Also, as raspbeyes noted in their original post, the number thirteen is considered unlucky, so Teruko.

With that, I have to talk about how insanely dark it is to cut that phrase off at the “…or not to be” section. For anyone who hasn’t read this speech from Hamlet (which I hadn’t either, btw, had to look it up), the phrase “to be or not to be” is actually about suicidal ideation, with the word ‘be’ serving as a synonym for ‘live’. Therefore, cutting the phrase off at just this section leaves behind only suicide as the option.

It had already been implied Teruko has attempted suicide before (see: her telling Arei that failed hangings hurt a lot), and that her luck is the only thing keeping her alive. This just seems to imply it’s a much more present issue than we believed.

Then there’s the background text. From my research, the one on the left is a quote from “Murder on the Orient Express” and the one across the bottom is from “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.

“Murder on the Orient Express” is easy to tie in, as it’s literally a murder mystery novel. Uh, spoilers for the novel, I guess, but it ends with the main detective, Poirot, concluding that the murderer was either no one in the train or everyone there. That sort of ties into Teruko’s hidden quote of “It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all”, I guess? For the line itself, it seems to be about a character hatefully looking at the detective. You can take Poirot to be Teruko because she’s decent at class trials (as opposed to everyone else being horrible at them), and the person looking at her to be… any blackened, or anyone, or David, take a pick.

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a bit weirder. It’s a short story about Omelas, an utopia which is the perfect life for everyone there, except for a young child who is forced to live in mysery for the sake of the others. The quote in the video expresses this pretty succinctly. I guess it’s talking about class trials? How the happiness of everyone hinges on one person being very unhappy? Teruko’s the protag, so it makes sense she gets a line like this. There could be other interpretations, but I think that’s the most straightforward one.

XIV - Veronika ~ Things like substance of the arts

I mean, it fits. Veronika’s talent is artistic in nature. It seems a bit… non-dramatic for Veronika? But I guess there’s nothing wrong here.

… Well, there may be, but I’ll get there in a moment.

XV - Whit ~ Remaining ignorant, isn’t that “happiness”?

(Trust me, that’s the order the words show up on screen)

This one’s also easy. Whit’s secret is “Your mother is dead. You omit this truth”. This, combined with his behavior in the killing game, characterizes Whit as someone who prefers to ignore tragedy rather than process it, remaining “ignorant” in a way. The footnote attached, 15, just talks about the phrase “ignorance is bliss”, which is pretty much what the quote is.

…

The problem is the background text.

Thinking Time: “Subtract 4 due to tetraphobia”

That’s the phrase in the background, which appears as both Veronika’s and Whit’s lines are there. This is noteworthy because this is the only time in the MV that two different Roman numerals appear on screen at the same time. The phrase is also attached to footnote 4, which defines tetraphobia:

“The practice of avoiding the number four; it is most common in Eastern Asia. This superstition arises from the fact that the number 4 can be read similar to the word ‘death’ in several languages”

This connection is further implied because the character with the Roman numeral IV is Arei, who died this chapter. There is special attention brought over and over again to the number four, and this phrase asks us to “subtract” it.

And of course, this phrase chooses to appear when two “characters” are on screen, to make sure we can’t figure it out definitively.

Let’s start with Veronika: If you substract four from fourteen you get ten (astounding maths, I know). That connects her to Min and “democratic-ly”… which is the part of the MV most related to class trials and the killing game. Because if there’s a way to look like the mastermind, you bet Veronika’s hopping right on that train!

Other than being “Veronika playing mastermind footsies” for the fiftieth time, and the fact she sorta enjoys class trials, I don’t see any other connection between her and Min’s section, so.

I should address, too, you can remove 4 from 14 in a more literal way, and end up with 1 (doing it with Roman numerals just gets you ten again). This would connect her to Xander, whose line I’ve yet to cover, but trust me on this, I don’t think it connects to Veronika.

However, that’s for the line itself. Veronika might actually have a connection to Xander himself, because of their lines about Mai. Xander’s is “she couldn’t stand to do nothing” and Veronika’s is “a girl who didn’t foresee the consequences”. These are the only lines which allude to whatever big thing Mai may have done. If Xander and Veronika have a connection, it is likely through Mai.

And then there’s Whit, who is also on-screen at the time. Or, well, his Roman numeral is.

Alright, Whit. Veronika’s being super suspicious, so the tetraphobia line has a good chance of being about her. All you gotta do is be normal about this “subtract four” thing, alright? Good.

When you subtract 4 from Whit’s 15, you get 11, which is Mai’s “God is dead”-

For fuck’s sake.

He really just can’t dodge these mastermind allegations, can he? Anyways, if this is about him, he killed Mai, or something, and thus is likely the mastermind.

I’m joking- well, kinda. There are other interpretations, like maybe he… was the first to lose faith in her, in the Nietzsche interpretation of Mai’s line? I don’t know, but the murder is the more straightforward answer for this, if you ask me.

The problem, of course, is that there’s no way to tell which character the “subtract four” thing applies to. Well, the use of the word “tetraphobia” feels more Veronika leaning, what with phobias being related with horror and psychology, but to counterbalance, the line only appears when Whit’s numeral shows up, so it’s even again.

Anyways, back to the last numeral in sequence.

XVI: Hu ~ ???: Go and cry

Alright, you don’t have to be so mean-

In all seriousness, I believe this relates to Hu’s reaction to David’s reveal. And possibly her secret if it’s the one Veronika has.

However, what’s interesting about this line is that it seems to be a direct quote from a character, because of the triple question mark at the beginning. And this is where my theory comes in.

I believe triple question marks is David. This would fit perfectly with this line, as it’s totally something David would say post-magical girl transformation. And with him being the protagonist of the MV, it makes sense for him to be involved.

And that takes me back to XII. If you remember, I said I would talk about Eden’s line a bit more after talking about XVI.

Well, it’s pretty simple, really. Eden’s line comes right after Hu’s in the video, so it’s reasonable to assume ??? is the same person for both of them. In other words, I believe it’s David who tells Eden “but you’re in my way, aren’t you?” This still implies Eden’s the CH2 blackened, by the way. As in, “you’re getting in my way because now I need to figure out a murder”, or something like that. There really isn’t any other thing it could be referring to. Unless it’s like, “you’re getting in my way because you’re so nice you’re preventing murders from happening” or “you’re getting in my way of manipulating Arei by befriending her”, but the first one is too abstract and the second one doesn’t work since David didn’t know about their friendship until after Arei died. So don’t go thinking I’m giving up on that theory. It just changes the context a bit.

And with that, we’ve successfully gone through the sixteen numbers. Except, wait! Don’t think I forgot about the funny British boy!

Well, to be frank with you, there is a reason why I chose to save Xander for last. And that is… I didn’t want to start the list with disappointment.

I - Xander ~ Inconclusive

See, the problem is that Xander runs into much the same issue as Min, but without a footnote to help solve the problem. The Roman numeral for 1 is just “I”, so any time the word I appears, Xander’s Roman numeral appears.

Now, maybe you think this is stupid. Obviously any time “I” appears as an actual word, it’s not meant to be Xander’s numeral! We just need to look for the time it’s not a part of the lyrics or a phrase in the text!

This is obviously the most intuitive solution, and it does arrive at… an answer. So, I present, the First Possibility.

First Possibility

I - Xander ~ (the world of abnormal sentiment dances)

Now, at first glance, this works! You have the numeral next to a phrase, and there’s nothing else it could be!

Except, the problem is that that only extends to the screenshot. In this part of the video, the same phrase is on the screen for a good few seconds, but the “I” disappears and gets replaced by several numbers, then the “&” symbol, more numbers, and what seems to be a “=“ sign, maybe? But could be II sideways. Don’t know, looks like code, not my expertise.

The issue here is that this would be the only time a character’s phrase lingers longer than their numeral. This is pretty inconsistent with the other phrases we’ve seen, which is what gets me to hesitate and wonder if that “I” is actually made to be part of the code and not the crossword thing.

That, combined with the line itself. Because what does “the world of abnormal sentiment dances” have to do with Xander? I looked it up, but it’s not the name of a book or anything. Maybe I’m missing something, but I really don’t think this is related to Xander in any way.

So, I looked for other possibilities. The problem is that, like I said, all other possibilities are part of lyrics or phrases, not a standalone numeral.

And yet, there is one which stands out to me as a good candidate. This has a high chance of being wrong, but I’ll bring it up anyways because I think it’s cool.

Second Possibility

I - Xander ~ I hate the things that I love, and I love the things that I hate

… Well, I know it’s hard to read it in that clusterfuck, but that is what the red text says.

This line has a bit more to do with Xander, or at least, David’s feelings towards Xander. We know he probably did like him based on some scenes from the MV, but he’s sad about his death. He hates him for leaving, but his heart loves him anyways. That could be read as romantic or platonic… hesitant on the platonic-

That said, the problem is explaining why I believe this is the Xander line. And that comes down to the background text.

… Yes, that background text.

You see, in the MV, it slowly fills out in a way which lets you read it somewhat. I’ll tell you what each part of the text means, but if you want visuals, I’ll ask you go to the video.

What first appears is white text on top and the right. The white text on top is Big Clue #1, as it’s a definition of electrocution. You know, that thing Xander died from.

The text on the right, meanwhile, seems to be an excerpt from “Alice in Wonderland”. The specific passage seems to feature Alice lamenting how much “pleasenter” [sic] things were “back home”. And well, for everyone but Teruko, their homes were likelier “pleasenter” than the killing game. However, in this context, it could be an analogy to David missing the past, when Xander was still alive.

Then, more white text appears on the bottom as yellow text appears under the white text on top. The bottom text is, again, more talk of electrocution, but the yellow text is a bit more complex. This is the line (from Google, exact wording may vary):

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...”

Another “The Little Prince” quote, another straight banger (I love that book). Imma need the hornier of you to not focus too much on the “taming” wording and focus on the important part. This one speaks of the beautiful simplicity of relationships; everyone is “just some dude” until you meet them and establish a relationship, and then, they become unique.

This is an especially wonderful quote for Xander and David’s relationship. David truly wanted nothing more than to be “a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes” instead of the idol Xander saw him as. He wanted a genuine relationship with him, where they were not just each other’s idols, but something bigger; each other’s boyfriends :D

Alright, sappy stuff aside, this quote is related to Xander, that’s what you need to know.

Then there’s the big pink text. It says “note: can’t read”. Yeah, fair.

But before that note appears, some cyan text begins sprawling out. It’s not a quote from anything as far as I can tell, so here’s a transcript:

“…man crushed by reality puts on a s[how]…

…[of end]urance. If that’s beyond your

[com]prehension, dear reader, then you a[nd]…

[I’ll n]ever understand each other. Life’s…

[short?] so we might as well make it…

[count?] real life is a realm th…”

So, yeah, I’m sort of guessing half the words here, and I can’t even tell what the last line is, but I think we can get the gist from this. Reading this with the context that Xander’s probably connected, it’s easy to figure out. David was crushed by reality when Xander died, and he put on a show of endurance after that. The insult to the reader is a bit uncalled for, but I don’t particularly care, it fits David.

So, with the idea that this little breakdown is related to Xander, it’s safe to say the line “I hate the things that I love, and I love the things that I hate” (not a quote from anywhere I could find btw) is linked with Xander as well.

And, well. There are other references to Xander, but they’re never paired with an “I”. And there are other instances of the word “I”, but never in relation to Xander, at least not as much as this little breakdown.

This clusterfuck of text also forms directly after the crosswords shows up. And while most of these aren’t in chronological order, number II through V do. Wouldn’t it make sense for I to appear right after the crosswords and make I through V in chronological order?

In any case, I believe this is a decent alternative to the “world of abnormal sentiment dances”, whatever that means.

Conclusion

This was really fun! I am satiated for now, the content drop was awesome, I loved it a lot. There’s so much more I want to talk about in this MV, but this was priority number one in my mind.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! If you made it this far, you deserve your own Roman numeral, all for yourself! Take care!

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sapphiel · 5 months ago

Note

Any facts about Envy and/or Abaddon? If not, that is completely fine with me.

Envy is an artificially created demon, specifically a yaoguai, a demon infused with the essence of an animal.

She was created by another demon who was a grieving father, mourning the loss of his beloved daughter, envying those who got to keep their own children. After years of searching for ways to bring her back, he found a way to create yaoguais. In the end... Envy was the result. A corrupted form of his daughter who doesn't even remember herself.

Her former name was Mariah Julia.

Being half-chameleon, Envy has a prehensile tail, a long sticky tongue, can change her appearance to become invisible or even resemble someone else, and her back pair of eyes can move independently and give her unparalleled vision. Strangely, her fingers and toes are also adhesive, much like a gecko.

Her name is gotten from the fact that not only was she born out of envy, but she secretly yearns to be like other people, be they demon or not. She feels incomplete, a disappointment... and maybe someone else's life is a lot more fulfilling than her own.

Abaddon is the Lucifer of Treachery, the lowest of the lows. Lucifers are demons branded by Hell as sinners and criminals that not even fellow demons can tolerate. He bears the worst title, the Ninth, after manipulating several people into getting his own way, like tricking other demons into crimes so that he may report them to Hell to be branded as other Lucifers, and even seducing higher authorities just so he may ascend in power.

His punishment as the Lucifer of Treachery is the fate of non-existence. He was sentence to vanish from reality for as long as no one is thinking about him. Several millennia had passed since his banishment, and only just recently had he returned to reality due to complicated reasons.

Formerly an overachiever who wants to ascend in life, Abaddon is now extremely nihilistic, and wants to be rid of reality. His current goal is to find the child he made with an angel long ago in order to harness their power. Demons and angels in Schism form a race called the nephilim, nicknamed "godkillers" for their potential to overthrow even the mightiest of powers. He seeks to use his child's power to hopefully destroy The Schism, and end not just the world, but reality as we know it, so that all will cease to exist.

In relation to the other Lucifers, he is actually the reason for the other eight's (technically nine) imprisonment: He pushed for Archibald's dream of a truce with angels but reported him as a traitor to Hell (Limbo), blackmailed Jezieka's lover for her indulgence in cannibalism, only for Jezieka to offer herself to be punished in her stead (Lust), corrupted Lady Vylke into consuming massive amounts of demon flesh then had her reported (Gluttony), tricked Tytus and Dima into robbing a bank of Fodere (the Circle of Greed) then lured them into a trap for capture (Greed), seduced Ariel when she was a lieutenant so he may climb the ranks with her graces, who eventually went insane with anger after finding out his betrayal (Anger), goaded Heresy into forming an army to fight the government of Hell only to rat her out in the end (Heresy), captured the general that was Red Lady mid-war for her acts of extreme and unwarranted violence (Violence), and finally, reported his own right hand, Adarahiel, who knew everything, to the authorities so that no loose ends remain.

His child, Morticia, does not know her true origins, as her angel mother had sacrificed her body so that Abaddon cannot lay his hands on either her nor the child, and she initially know she was a nephilim. Eventually though, Abaddon will find her, possessing and corrupting her, then ensuing a grand battle that causes a lot of the Schism's greater powers to unite against the Treacherous menace who dared to rear his head again after millennia of silence.

#OCV: The Schism #OC: Envy #OC: Abaddon #rayart #rayanswers

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tokiro07 · 6 months ago

Text

Undead Unluck ch.208 thoughts

[Beat Cute]

(Content: first impressions - Fuuko's parents, character analysis - Sean, lore - reincarnation mechanics, predictions - arc participants, thematic analysis - death and loss)

Okay, so I was right about the Union needing to replace members of Kaede's band, but I was NOT expecting it to be because Kaede hospitalized all of her friends!

With how ludicrously clumsy she is, I thought for a moment there that Kaede might have been a previous Unluck holder, but we know that can't be the case because Fuuko got it before Kaede died and Kaede wasn't present among the past Unlucks. Instead, I think it's more likely that Kaede was the reason that Fuuko was chosen as the next Unluck - she may have already been pretty good at dealing with and reacting to unlucky events, so the other holders might have thought she'd be able to handle whatever Unluck threw at her. They just didn't anticipate a plane blowing up

I'm really enjoying Kaede as a character pretty much right off the bat, there's a lot more flavor here than I was expecting. I kind of figured she'd be shy and quiet, and that's what would prevent her from performing, but instead she's bright and bubbly, always willing to throw herself into anything with a smile despite the fates clearly telling her not to. That little thumbs up she gives Fuuko's dad after accidentally choreographing a Jackie Chan fight scene was insanely endearing, this guy's got great taste

Fuuko's dad predicting and reacting to Kaede's antics gives us a solid impression of the kind of guy he is, too. He seems like the fastidious type, planning things out in advance to be prepared for anything, while also having the fortitude to press on even when he finds he was unprepared. I suppose one would need both of those traits to marry a woman who might accidentally send you to the hospital just walking forward to greet you

Beyond our new characters, this was a really good chapter for Sean, too, or at least seems to be setting up something really good for him. I like that his insecurity about his importance to the team hasn't just vanished after a few contributions, it's still a core part of his character to want to stand out and matter. Having his points redistributed over the rest of the team's, especially hearing that they're better to have on call for an emergency, is a great way for the narrative to revisit this concept. It probably doesn't help that Rip would actually have been the next reasonable option to drop, since previously Fuuko was dropping members from the top and had literally just booted Chikara and Enjin to bring in Top and Haruka, then dropped them to bring in Nico and Ichico. Though they have no beef this loop, Sean in L100 definitely hated Rip, and likely feels some kind of jealousy towards him here since he guy has two wives and he doesn't have a single girl that he knows of (rootin' for ya, buddy)

Of course, revisiting the roots of Sean's character flaws doesn't need to define his involvement in this arc, it just gave an extra layer to his presence this time around. By giving him a reason to be downtrodden, Tozuka necessitated a way to get him invested in this storyline, and fittingly that touches on his other root: the loss of his father. Julia thought that Sean was excited to help out because it might help him meet cute girls, but that's definitely just a cover. Sean knows exactly what it's like to lose your parents and only be able to reconnect with them via memories, so knowing that Fuuko not only lost her parents but has the chance to reconnect for real, it's natural that he'd want her to take advantage of it. In fact, in L101, he's the only member of the Union who understands what Fuuko's going through

Chikara's parents were saved, Tatiana's not a Negator yet and her parents will almost certainly be saved, Enjin got to cook for his mom like he always wanted, Phil didn't lose his mom...the loss of Sean's dad was completely unrelated to his tragedy, it was just something that happened in his life, and while I'm sure Fuuko would have liked to have prevented it, she likely just didn't have the information to do so. Narratively, this at least provides that point of connection between him and Fuuko, and I'm so glad we get to capitalize on it

Sure, Gina still lost her grandma, Void was still a street urchin, Shen was still an orphan, but they all have their own circumstances that make that a little bit different, and Gina's off helping with Tatiana in Russia, so Sean's easily the best choice to be present here

Julia's presence is to be expected since she hasn't awakened Unjustice yet and she needs as much screentime as possible to establish parallels and distinctions from Juiz. I also think this will be a good time to help us understand the difference between her circumstances, Juiz's and Fuuko's, since Juiz never had parents, Julia was retroactively assigned to parents, and Fuuko is retroactively parentless

Not only will that establish narrative connections, but it's looking like we're going to get a deeper understanding of the mechanics as well. By all logic, Sean's supposition that this is a New Game+ rather than literal time travel should preclude the need for Kaede and Mr. Izumo to procreate, and yet Fuuko's is Back-to-the-Futuring somehow. I have no idea what Tozuka's logic is here, but my best guess is that it's tied to either the Rule of Soul or Parents. Juiz, Victor and Andy would obviously be exempt from this, but Fuuko's soul may be tied to the world on the assumption that her parents will one day provide a vessel for that soul

In the event that the current Fuuko dies, she could well be reincarnated as herself within the same loop since her soul would be available, but perhaps by the mechanics of the Rule in question, there is an almost contractual obligation for her parents to at least be together in the first place? Or, since Fuuko is worried about time paradoxes, it's not that the Rule is endangering her, but her interpretation of it. She thinks that her parents not getting together could erase her, so while mechanically that makes no sense, it seems to make sense to her, and thus affects her regardless. I'm sure Tozuka will explain it, but for now I'm sticking with the theory that Fuuko's doing it to herself

As for the backing band Fuuko's going to throw together, I expect that this will go similar to the space mission where we're going to dedicate a chapter to picking three members rather than having the whole group participate. I say three because when Kaede discusses her band being hospitalized, we see three beds; what looks to be a male guitarist, a male drummer, and another female member, presumably a backup singer or dancer

As far as I'm aware, the only Union members we know have musical experience are Tella (who can't sing thanks to Untell) and Rip, who can play piano. I don't believe we know if anyone on the team is gifted in guitar or drums, though if I had to guess, Enjin strikes me as someone who might be able to do a mean drum solo

I think Julia's a must, since like I said she needs more screentime to get acquainted with the cast and audience, so to that I think it would be extremely funny if she was on guitar and said something to the effect of "it's like a violin you play with your fingers, right?"

I'm on the fence about whether Fuuko will be the third member, since she's near identical to Kaede and wouldn't want to distract from her performance, but it's also such a good opportunity for them to bond and I wouldn't want Tozuka to drop it. Maybe she'd use Nico's memory machine to hypnotize people to think they're the original backup band? Whatever the lineup ends up looking like, I'm sure I'll be able to write a whole post dedicated to it

The final thing I want to touch on is a line that Sean says that I think is meant to be the thesis statement for this arc, and arguably one of the series' greatest overarching themes: "You never know when or where will be the last time you see [someone]."

[TRIGGER WARNING: DEATH]

I think it's pretty self-explanatory how that relates to the theme of enjoying life, that you should spend time with the people you care about while you can and make the most of that time. It's so self-explanatory that I debated whether or not I should talk about it here, but...it's relevant to me right now

A friend of mine died this week. It wasn't exactly sudden, but it was also looking like it was going to be okay for a minute there, so I got a little complacent, I suppose. Reading this line immediately rang true with me. I'll never see that friend again, and I can't even remember what the last thing I said to him was. Did I make him feel like a friend, or was he worried that I was just humoring him? I'm sure at the end I wasn't even on his mind, I'm pretty sure we weren't close enough for that and he was more concerned with his wife, but still, I worry whether or not I treated him right in the time that I knew him

While we weren't super close, my family and his had a lot of plans for spending time together, and now they're just...gone. No more games, no more dinners...nothing. Even if we weren't close, we were trying to be, and however close we could have become, now we'll never be. It doesn't feel like a tremendous loss of what we had, but certainly of what could have been

I take solace in knowing that I did things to the best of my ability. I went out of my way to spend time with them when I could. I tried to make the most of my friendship with them with the time I had, it just got cut short by circumstances outside of anyone's control. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I feel like if nothing else Tozuka and the Union would be proud of me for how I tried to enjoy my time with my friend

Maybe that's a stupid thing to say. Maybe I'm being silly. But I've always believed that art is meant to be a way to explore our relationship with the world, and I really don't think any series I've experienced has done so much to prepare me to deal with loss. One Piece is close, of course, but I've gone on and on about parallels between UU and OP a thousand times by now

Anyway...I haven't really gotten the chance to talk about any of this out loud, and I don't think I've really gotten to process my feelings on it. I'm sorry to dump it on you folks who read this far, but also thank you to anyone who did

And to anyone else experiencing loss or grief right now, I hope that me talking about my experiences or reading Undead Unluck helps you process it too. Even if it's just me or a manga, I hope you can find peace through other people. That's certainly what Tozuka wants for us

Until next time, let's enjoy life

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews #i wasn't expecting this chapter to make me get heavy but here we are

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