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ahtsumu · 4 years ago

Text

long shots ; miya osamu

pairing: miya osamu x f!reader

synopsis: miya osamu is the teacher’s assistant for food chemistry i. you can’t stop thinking about him.

tag(s): college!au, slow burn, TA!miya osamu, grad student!reader, fluff, reader is a go-getter!! ; warning(s): profanity, suggestive themes, talk of insecurities and imposter syndrome ; wc: 5.6k

a/n: happy birthday to @starrysamu! i love u. pls excuse any errors. i’ll weed them out later! btw this fic is not a sugar daddy au LOL

HIS NAME IS Miya Osamu and he always looks like he has it all figured out. Comes in every class with his black hair perfectly tousled, the sleeves of his dark button-up rolled to his elbows, a cup of coffee in one hand and the strap of that black messenger bag in another.

“He drives a BMW, did ya know?” Isla says in your ear one morning. Your only friend in Food Chemistry I gives you a pointed look before sitting back in her chair in the lecture hall with a smirk on her face. “Saw it this morning. Bet he’s loaded.” The two of you watch the subject in question walk across the classroom and settle in his seat at the table in the corner.

“Shut up,” you whisper with wide eyes. A grin–– far from innocent–– makes its way onto your face. “Imagine being Miya Osamu’s sugar baby.”

“He’s not old enough to be a sugar daddy.” Isla looks at her nails disinterestedly. “And that’s too many AUs in one. He’s already the TA, for god’s sake. This isn’t some shitty Wattpad novel.”

A light giggle slips out of your lips. “I can see the title already. My Sugar Daddy is the TA?!”

Now, if anyone had been listening in on your conversation, they would’ve assumed many things about you. The first being that you’re both gold-diggers. This is untrue–– at least, in your case. Isla, you’re not so sure about, given how your friendship only goes back about one month. But she tags you in memes on Instagram so maybe it’s as real as real gets. Their second assumption would be that you have a big fat crush on your TA. That one’s complicated, mostly because it’s true, but only kinda. It all started in the second week of school when Isla caught you staring at Osamu and slipped you a post-it note with both your initials encircled in a heart. And, because you’re shameless with a good sense of humour, you made a show of kissing it while she was looking. And thus began your meaningless but incredibly entertaining, satirical, co-written fantasy about Miya Osamu.

It also didn’t help that on the first essay you got back, Isla’s paper had been marked up with “are you sure?”s and “this is a jump”s, while yours had “excellent reasoning” and “insightful analysis”. You’d even gotten a little comment at the bottom: y/n, fantastic work. you should speak up in class more often. –– OM

But Miya Osamu doesn’t play favourites because the next week you’d gotten another essay back, this time with another comment at the bottom: y/n, not your best work. you could’ve done better by connecting your first paragraph with the second using grant’s reading. conclusion lacked punch, too. all the best. –– OM

Every time you’d read the words scrawled in blue ink, you’d felt a pair of eyes on you. But you chalk it up to Osamu being a careful grader. A good TA. Someone who cares about his students.

Isla calls bullshit on that. You’re not really sure how to feel about her stance.

The classroom door opens and shuts again. You don’t have to look at your phone to know that it’s nine on the dot. Instead, you and Isla straighten your backs, pull out your notebooks, and focus. Your no-nonsense professor says “good morning” in her usual perky manner before jumping right into her keynote presentation.

“Did you all find the reading okay?” Professor Lee asks an hour into the lecture.

A chorus of “yes”s fill the air. You bite your lip, wondering if revealing that you didn’t understand shit will out you as the class idiot. Or maybe your silence is telling enough–– maybe the people in the seats beside you have noticed the grimace on your face and are having thoughts like ‘gee whiz, am I glad I’m not dumb like her’. Heat rushes to your cheeks. Sometimes you really wonder if you’re smart enough to be here. Occurrences like these do nothing to dispel your insecurities.

You vaguely hear her ask something like, “Any thoughts about the reading?” It’s not that you’re actually dumb. It’s just that this class is ridiculously hard for an introductory course, even for a graduate programme. From the start of the semester til now, fifteen people have dropped the class. There’s just twenty of you left. Guess a ridiculously hot TA can’t save a course’s drop-rate.

Before you can make your mind up on what to say, your professor moves on from her question.

As you look off to the side of the room for a break from your thoughts, you find a pair of blue-grey eyes pointed in your direction.

Everything about you, from the expression on your face to the way your muscles tense, makes you look like a deer caught in headlights–– even though he was the one caught staring in the first place. So maybe your shamelessness works on a scale.

Miya Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth.

And as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all, he looks back down at his laptop and continues typing.

The rest of the lecture goes through one ear and out the other.

“Everyone, I believe Osamu has something he wants to say,” Professor Lee says as everyone begins packing their bags.

The raven-haired TA slides out of his seat and sits on top of his desk. “Yeah.” Osamu clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. You notice how the muscles in his arms bulge from the movement.

“Whipped,” Isla mutters, grinning mischievously.

“Him for me,” you whisper back, though your eyes do travel back to his face where they should’ve been all along. Osamu catches your gaze and holds it. And then he looks away again.

“Now, I know you’re all Nobel prizewinners in the making,” he begins, garnering a round of snickers and giggles from your classmates. Most people say that cliques dissolve in college. That there’s no such thing as popularity amongst graduate students. That much, you agree with. But no one ever said anything about popular teacher’s assistants. Especially smart, attractive, witty teacher’s assistants like Miya Osamu. “But in case you didn’t understand the reading or would like to develop a deeper understanding of it, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll try to host a review session all of us can attend.”

Professor Lee smiles appreciatively at Osamu, adding, “That’s a wonderful idea, Osamu. Guys, please take this opportunity if you struggled with the reading. I know eighty pages is a lot, but our next three classes are structured around the concepts in the reading and the mid-term next week will almost exclusively be about it, too.”

Well, shit.

To: [email protected]

Hi Osamu,

I was wondering if I could get some help with the reading from last class. To be frank, I couldn’t make it past page 15 and I’m lost like a snot-faced five-year-old in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Sorry. Thanks in advance!

Regretfully,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: [email protected]

no problem. is 5 pm tomorrow at jack’s okay? we start on the concepts from the reading next class so i want to get you up to speed asap. let me know. thanks.

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

It’s five minutes to five when you pull into the parking lot of Jack’s Diner. The shiny, retrofuturistic eatery is a university favourite but the empty parking lot tells you it’s completely deserted right now (and rightfully so–– who eats dinner before six?). The black BMW parked a few spots from your car, however, says that you’re not alone.

Osamu’s figure comes into view as you reach for the handle to the front door of Jack’s. The twenty-six-year-old sits by himself at one of the bright red tables in the back, typing away on his dark grey laptop.

His head lifts up at the sound of the opening door. Osamu calls out your name and waves you over.

“Hi,” you greet with a smile, sitting down across from him.

“Hey.”

You look around before leaning forward on the table. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” Osamu sits back in his seat. “I thought about hosting one big group, but then I realised that it’d probably be stressful for the staff here.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. “And I had a hunch that everyone would have different questions. Forcing everyone to review concepts they already know is a waste of time.”

At first, you nod. That makes sense. But then you furrow your brows. “So how long have you been here?”

Osamu blinks. He hadn’t expected you to ask about him. “Hmm? Oh.” He taps his phone to check the time. “Just a while.”

Quirking a brow, you ask, “And how long is ‘a while’ to you?”

“Seven hours,” he admits, chuckling lightly when he sees your jaw drop. “A lot of people had questions. They just don’t act like they do. Anyway, time flies. Really, it does.” Quickly, he clears his throat and sits forward. “So, about your email.” He grins. “Not sure if you meant it to be funny, but it was.”

“I’m glad my distress was entertaining for you. Do you TA just to watch grad students suffer?”

“Perks of the job,” Osamu says. His grin widens when you giggle. He’s never heard you laugh before and he realises at that moment that it’s really nice. And then that same grin falters. Gracefully, of course, and imperceptibly to you. But not to him. Is it okay for him to be… thinking things like that? About a student? But you’re not really his student since he’s just the TA. Right? Osamu ignores the weird feeling that comes over him and clasps his hands together at the edge of his laptop. “Back to your email. Can ya tell me what you’re confused about?”

Three hours and two Impossible Burgers later, you suddenly understand everything about food molecules so well that you wonder why you’d even been confused in the first place. But besides that, you’ve also picked up things about Osamu. As a person and not an idea. Not that you’d been actively searching for fun facts about your TA. But they’d stuck to your brain like gum at the bottom of a desk. He likes to slip sarcastic quips into a conversation every now and then. Eats burgers upside down (“The right way,” as he’d said, smirking). Is friendlier than he looks.

“You’re really good at explaining things,” you comment as Osamu shuts his laptop closed.

“Well, I kinda have to be,” he says. And maybe it’s the mental fatigue catching up on him or the fact that he’s real fond of the reason why he can break big concepts down into morsels but suddenly, the rest of his thoughts spill out his mouth like wine. “I have a twin brother with potato salad for brains.”

“Oh?”

And before he can stop himself, he tells you about Miya Atsumu, the pro-athlete you’ve definitely heard of but never gave too much thought. And then you hold onto the fact that they were both on the volleyball team and you ask of which school, so then he tells you about Inarizaki, the high school he attended, and then his decision not to go pro to go to college, and then––

“Sorry,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you say–– and you mean it. “Your life is interesting.”

Osamu leans back in his chair. “Well, I’m sure yours is, too.” He holds your gaze like it’s the key to your presence. It’s an invitation. The kind that comes from people who don’t really know if they want you around but also don’t want you gone.

You take it.

Osamu shouldn’t–– he really shouldn’t–– but he wonders about the things you didn’t tell him the entire drive home.

Isla laughs when you tell her about what happened at Jack’s. You lay in bed with your phone next to you on speaker, your face turned on your pillow so that you’re staring out the window at the city below.

“He wants you,” she sings.

“Or he was just being nice.”

“Methinks not!” Isla giggles. “He’s intrigued, girl! You’re like that cute little new mystery in his life and he just wants to get to know you.”

“I think he was just being polite.”

“Or he’s crushing on you!”

“In your dreams.”

“You mean yours? Boo, you’re no fun today. Usually, you go along with the jokes.” Isla’s tone is playful on the surface but full of implications.

A few silent seconds pass. Yeah, you think, agreeing. I do.

“Girl,” Isla drags out the word in a high pitch, saying it like a scientist says ‘eureka’. “You’re not playing along anymore because it’s real now. You're actually catching feelings!”

“Am not!” you laugh.

“The Y/N I knew would’ve said ‘nah, bitch, he’s catching feelings’ and I think that says all there is to say.”

“Okay, I think he’s cute but it’s not a crush,” you concede, grinning. “And he’s the TA, Isles. It’d never happen.”

“Not while he’s still a TA in a class you take.”

“Isla.”

“Ask him out once this semester ends! Unless you’re chicken.”

“I’m not asking him out.”

“Knew you were––”

“Have you seen me? He’s asking me out.”

Miya Osamu walks through the door at eight-fifty as usual that next morning, dressed in his usual button-up, holding his usual cup of coffee. But this time, as the rest of his tall frame passes through the doorway, Osamu’s eyes subtly scan the faces in the lecture hall, lingering for just a while over yours. The corners of your lips turn up. You hope he saw that.

“Bitch!” Isla whisper-screams. The students sitting around you turn around at the noise and grin at each other when they realise it’s just Isla being… well, Isla. She shoos them away jokingly.

“What?” you whisper back.

“Care to explain why our TA was literally eye-fucking you?”

“That was hardly eye-fucking,” you retort. “Maybe like an eye-handshake.”

“Yeah, a naked eye-handshake where his thang is handshaking your––”

He does it again the next class.

And the next.

And then he doesn’t. Miya Osamu walks through the door to Food Chemistry I at eight-fifty in the morning in a navy blue button-up with a cup of coffee in his hand and looks through the rows of seats in the lecture hall for your face, only to find it missing.

He debates pressing the matter.

To: [email protected]

hey osamu,

i wasn’t in class today because i’ve been sick with the flu (no big deal, just feel like i’m dying). a classmate sent me pictures of the slides from today so i think i should be fine, but is it okay if i email you with any questions? thank you very much!

miserably,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: [email protected]

y/n,

of course. sorry to hear that you’re sick. let me know if i can do anything to help you. the midterm is next week. get well soon.

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

“You writing that the midterm is next week did not offer me any peace of mind, by the way,” you say, spinning around in your chair as Miya Osamu enters your pod in the library.

He offers you a wry grin. “Hello to ya, too.”

“Was that an accent?” You thought you’d heard one at Jack’s, but you couldn’t be sure because it’d been so spotty.

Osamu slips into the seat beside yours and pulls out the laptop in his messenger bag. You catch a whiff of his cologne–– something spicy and woody, but clean. It suits him. “Nice catch. Yeah, I speak a regional dialect. Took me a while to smooth it over but it still resurfaces every now and then.”

“Why?”

“It just didn’t seem fitting for a PhD candidate, I guess,” Osamu explains, opening the slides from the class you missed. A day after your initial exchange, you’d emailed him again (with a much clearer mind) and asked if he could go over the slides with you in person.

i literally feel like i’ve been given the homework from russian lit, you’d written. except the russian has been translated to hieroglyphs and my task is to choreograph an interpretive dance based on the hieroglyphs.

Osamu had snickered when he saw your email. that doesn’t even make sense. must be the fever talking, he’d been tempted to write. But that strange feeling had come over him again, the one that’d screamed at him to keep it professional, goddamnit, so he’d played it safe instead and sent is eight pm at the main library okay? He hates that you’re getting a watered-down version of his personality. Osamu swears he’s a lot more interesting when he’s not, well, a TA.

“I think it’s fine,” you say, smiling. “I like it. It’s you.” And suddenly, you’re wondering if it’s okay to be complimenting your TA. If it’s okay to say that you like things about him, or if that crosses some grey, unclear line. Is it weird to treat your TAs like they’re your friends? It’s not like TAs are real teachers. Right?

A grin–– wide and genuine and almost excited–– grows on Osamu’s face. He rubs the back of his neck as his eyes flit over to the laptop screen. “Thanks. Really.”

You nod. But you feel like there’s more that he might want to say, so you wait.

“I got a lot of shit for it when I came here for my master’s, y’know. Not to my face, of course, but people would refer to me as ‘the guy with the accent’. A professor once said it made me seem crass. Said it’d hold me back in my career.”

“So you changed.”

“Adapted,” Osamu corrects. “It’s hard to admit but conforming is sometimes all you can do when you don’t have the power to change the system. Can’t really make everyone suddenly respect a dialect.”

“And after you’re finished with your PhD, you’ll go back to speaking in that dialect?”

Osamu looks out the window and smiles, probably imagining the plans he’s already made about the future. “Yeah.”

“What if you have to speak the standard language at your job? Like, your boss is all, ‘hey man, if you don’t speak––”’

“I’ll be the boss.”

“Oh?”

And with a little more prodding, Miya Osamu tells you about the restaurant chain he plans on opening after graduation, the slides about food additives left completely untouched.

The librarian knocks on your pod a few minutes before eleven to tell you they’re closing.

“Shit,” Osamu murmurs, running his hands through his hair. You’re still laughing about something he’d said before the librarian interrupted him–– one of his stories from high school–– and he thinks that you’ve completely forgotten that the reason you came to the library was to catch up on the material you were already behind on. And now you’re behind on that. But you look so carefree right now and, actually, you’re very pretty and you’ve got such a good heart and it’s a lot for him to process but he knows he just wants to see you happy a while longer. So Osamu just slumps back in his chair and laughs along with you.

He says your name as his chuckles grow softer. “It’s pretty late. How’re you getting home?”

“I’ve a bike,” you reply. It’s good for the environment and is a pretty solid form of exercise if you do say so yourself. Sometimes you just don’t feel like driving.

Osamu presses his lips in a thin line. Would it be too much to offer you a ride? “I can drive you home. It’s really not safe for you to be alone outside, especially near midnight. You can get your bike tomorrow. Or I’ll get it for you.”

He drives fast. Not the unsafe fast that speed demons drive at, but the kind of fast where you know he’s got some edge to his character. You bring it up to him–– especially since it’s nighttime, for god’s sake, he could hit something–– and all he does is remind you how there are lamps as bright as the sun lining the entire road to your dorm. And the fact that you live in the least accessible dorm on campus.

“A twenty-minute drive?” he’d exclaimed when he saw the GPS monitor.

“A bunch of roads are closed for construction. It’s a ten-minute bike-ride because I can cut through campus.” And suddenly feeling a little burdensome, you’d added, “Sorry. I can still bike––”

“No.” He’d held his hand out in front of you, gesturing for you to stay in the passenger’s seat. “It’s not a bother at all.” Because it wasn’t. Osamu was… happy. Not that he’d admit that.

“So this BMW,” you start in a teasing tone.

Osamu smirks. “A gift.”

“Can I guess from who?”

“Sure.”

“Atsumu.”

His brows rise. “Colour me impressed.” He hadn’t expected you to remember anything he’d said about Atsumu. Or maybe he had but told himself otherwise to lower his hopes.

“I’m smart like that.”

He snorts. “Not if you keep distracting me and using your review time to…” hang out with me, get to know me, tell me things about you… “…goof off.”

You grimace. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Osamu makes a turn down a familiar street. It dawns upon you that you're ten minutes away from your dorm and suddenly you wish he’d just make the wrong turn at the next intersection so that you could talk to him some more. It can even be about the health benefits of fish or the molecular makeup of kale–– you don’t mind. You just want to be around him longer.

“I think you’re really smart,” Osamu says quietly. “I think you’re not processing the readings because you’re distracted, or just not fully applying yourself. Obviously, last class’s slides are a different thing, since you were absent. But you really are smart. I’ve seen your papers.”

You bite your lip to hide your grin, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. “Thank you.” You look out the window, too jacked on dopamine to think straight. “I think I still need you, though.”

And that innocuous little sentence floats right out your mouth into the air, settling between you like a little wedge before either of you even realise it. Neither of you says anything. You marinate in the awkwardness before stuttering out a clarification. “To, um, to explain things. Y’know, since you’re, uh, so good at… explaining things.”

Osamu clears his throat and chuckles stiffly. There’s a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, looking straight ahead. He can’t even look at you. Fuck. It’s so awkward. “I’ll try to keep… explaining things.” Fuck. What does that even mean?

A few uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. The night can’t end like this, you think. It can’t when everything else had gone so well. You still have to see him for a few more months. “Did you know,” you start, catching Osamu’s attention, “that Jack’s Diner has a location in Italy?”

“Oh?” he asks, making the final turn to the street where your dorm is. He actually hadn’t.

“Yeah. I asked the owner about the chain a while back. Have you ever been to Italy?”

Osamu shakes his head. “I’ve been to Paris, though. To see a friend. He’s a chocolatier.”

Now, if Osamu had been your friend, you would’ve said something like well, let’s go to Italy together, except he’s not. He’s your TA and you’ve been reminded that enough tonight. So instead, you say, “When you open that restaurant of yours in Italy, let me know.”

“That’s gonna take a while,” he laughs. He appreciates how you said ‘when’, though. And he tucks that little bit of confidence you have in him somewhere deep in his mind so that it doesn’t get lost.

“Isn’t that just seven hours?” you shrug, grinning. Osamu’s BMW pulls up outside your dorm and parks as he marvels at what you just said. You’re amazing. You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to face your driver.

“Thank you for driving me,” you say, offering him a smile.

“Yeah,” he replies.

You stretch out your hand. With a puzzled look on his face, Osamu grabs it and shakes it. Firmly. You can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Calloused for sure, but they feel nice.

“Goodnight, Osamu.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

He watches you jog into the building before driving away. And it’s like you’ve possessed his car or something because the smell of your shampoo and perfume is everywhere and it’s too much but it’s also not enough at the same time and he can feel your palm against his as he spins the steering wheel to make a turn and for the first time in his life he doesn’t turn on the radio to fill the silence in his car. Osamu replays everything you said in his head.

But he especially thinks about that part where you said you need him.

Weeks melt into months. You turn in essays after essays for Food Chemistry I, each coming back with detailed commentary in an all-too-familiar blue scrawl. All your other classes go well–– extremely well, actually. You might just end the semester with a 4.0 if Food Chem doesn’t fuck you over. Isla still tags you in memes on Instagram. You still tell her about everything that happens with Osamu.

Speaking of.

“That’s the wrong equation,” he says behind your ear as he settles in the seat beside you. The sound of his low voice so close to your ear sends a small shiver down your spine. “You gotta switch the hydrogens.” Osamu knocks on your skull lightly. ��What’s goin’ on up in there? Ya got somethin’ on your mind?”

You laugh and elbow him in the side. “Shut up, ‘Samu.” He’d told you during one of his office hours that he’d gone by that nickname because he had a teammate with a foreign name in high school. It sounded so cool, he’d said, grinning.

I think Osamu sounds pretty cool already, you’d teased.

And he’d replied, Let’s trade. I like yours, you like mine, why not share?

You teeter on the line between friends and less-than-friends and, oddly enough, more-than-friends. Sometimes you still play it safe. Sometimes he pauses between texts and real-time conversations, no doubt to scrap an instinctive reply for something more “professional”. Sometimes you say things that make him look at you with the ghost of a smile at the corners of his lips. Sometimes he calls Atsumu to scream about you.

“S’not a no,” Osamu points out. He’s dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers today. You’re suddenly reminded of how the weather’s been getting colder when someone opens the door to the university café and lets in a gust of chilly autumn air.

“Okay,” you admit, setting down the pencil. “I just… don’t really feel prepared for this next test.”

Osamu frowns and looks down at your worksheet. “Your process is correct, though.”

“Right, but… I don’t know. I’ve just not been feeling great about myself lately,” you laugh, looking down at your feet. “Food Chem’s the toughest class I’ve ever taken. And remember how I completely embarrassed myself in that class discussion last week? It’s not really making me feel like I belong here.”

“Imposter syndrome,” Osamu remarks.

“Correct-o.”

He says your name softly and puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Maybe you’re not the smartest, but you’re definitely smart. And you belong here. I’ve seen your papers. They’re just as great as anyone else’s and I don’t hand out compliments for nothin’. You’re gonna do some great things but ya can’t improve if you ever give up.” Osamu searches your eyes for a sign of your understanding.

There’re a lot of things you want to say but you don’t know how to put them into words. “Can I hug you?” you finally ask.

Osamu doesn’t even think about it. “Of course.”

He feels you smile against his chest and wonders if you can feel his heart beat faster.

Isla camps out in your dorm as finals come around the corner.

“I don’t understand shit!” she wails, throwing her notebook into the air.

“Isles, it’s okay,” you laugh, slipping out of your chair and walking over to her nest in the corner. “You gotta chill, dude.”

“Not fair! I didn’t have a hunk holding my hand through this course all semester,” she retorts, humour glittering in her dark eyes. “I had the Organic Chemistry Tutor and his accent’s cute enough but, girl, you had Miya Fucking Osamu!”

“You’re literally the worst.” You giggle and sit down beside her. “Tell me what you’re confused about. I’ll try to explain it to you.” The way Osamu does.

You text him that you’d channelled his brains later that night.

His reply comes seconds later. all you, einstein.

From: osamu

good luck on the exam

you’re going to kill it

To: osamu

would u like to divulge any… information about it? �� 😏 😏

From: osamu

bye

To: osamu

i was kidding :(

From: osamu

fine. tip #1: write your name

To: osamu

not very helpful. 0/10

From: osamu

keep running your mouth and 0/10 is what your score’s going to be

i’m kidding

you got this, y/n

“Holy fuck,” Isla groans as you cross the street to head to lunch at Jack’s. “If you don’t see me next semester it’s because I’ve gotten my grade back and decided to drop out.”

“What would you do?” you ask, amused.

“Maybe move to New Zealand. Raise some sheep. Marry a hot, blond shepherd and fuck off to a cliffside cottage.”

“Solid plan.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“What about me?”

“Remember that conversation we had at the start of the year? About your man?” The two of you reach another red light for pedestrians.

“We’re friends. He’s not my man,” you laugh. Though it pains you to. Something about being Miya Osamu’s friend doesn’t really sit right with you, but you don’t know how to not be his friend. You don’t know how to move out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into.

“But you wish he were! And now you can finally hit him with that ‘Hey, Osamu, I’ve been madly in love with you since the start of the semester, wanna fuck like rabbits and then open that store in Italy?’ and he’ll be all––”

A throat clears behind you. With wide eyes, the two of you turn around.

Holy fuck.

Miya Osamu stands behind you with his hands in his pockets and an enormous smirk on his face.

“He’ll be all what?” he asks, eyes fixed on you.

Isla murmurs an excuse and starts walking on her own to Jack’s.

“Um.” You swallow nervously and shrink in your coat. “You heard all of that, right?”

“Yep.” Osamu grins. He grins. He’s grinning. He’s smiling like he’s won the fucking lottery and you honestly don’t know what to do with that information.

“So, like,” you look down at the sidewalk and kick at a pebble, “what are your thoughts about that?” God, you could die. “‘Cause I know you’re a TA and it’d probably look pretty bad and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because I like you and it’s cool if we just…”

Osamu interrupts you with a laugh. “My thoughts,” he says, “are that I want to kiss you.” His fingers lift your chin up. “What are your thoughts about that?”

Well, shit. “I think that’s pretty cool, yeah,” you breathe, eyelids fluttering shut as his face comes closer to yours.

He tastes like mint. And his lips move softly, slowly against yours like he’s savouring the moment. And then you feel his hands snake around your waist to pull you closer–– closer because you both are tired of forcing the distance between bodies that want to be near each other, closer because he’s thought about kissing you just like this for so long, closer because you remember the last time he’d touched you was three days ago and it was just a brush of his fingers against your arm and that feeling of wanting more haunted you for the entire night. But holy shit, Miya Osamu is kissing you. He’s kissing you.

And then he pulls away. His dark eyes flit over yours. “I,” he breathes, “I need your course load next semester.”

“What?” you ask, disbelief written all over your features, chest rising and falling as you try to steady your breathing. You just kissed, for God's sake, and he's––

“I need to know which courses not to apply to TA for,” he grins, cupping your face in his hands. “Can’t be teachin’ in a class with my girlfriend as a student.”

“So we’re official?” you ask, beaming.

“If you want,” Osamu replies with a smirk.

You grab the front of his coat and tug him down for another kiss. “Hell yeah, I want to be official.”

#miya osamu #miya osamu x reader #miya osamu scenarios #miya osamu imagines

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studiojeon · 3 years ago

Text

bitterness in goodbye | jjk

this is part of my troubled outsiders series. sadly, you can't read this as a stand alone (meaning: feel free to check the previous parts ♡)

| summary | - You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

warnings: none (?) i mean chaeryeong insults jungkook which is an atrocity in itself but-

contents: we diving into the angst my friends. jungkook is an innocent, kind hearted soul, i promise. oc's got the feels (out oct. 1) for jk. idol!jungkook × student!reader.

author's note: I EDITTED THIS FROM MY PHONE DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THAT IS? also, thank u for the amount of support i've been receiving lately, i appreciate everyone lots. feel free to ask away or suggest anything btw, i would love to write for any prompts you guys come up with. 💞💗💖💘💓💕

words: 1.57k

playlist: honey by halsey

Four weeks later, the receptionist of your apartment complex hands you over a cardboard box with the hoodie Jungkook and you had talked about that day on the Han River. Jungkook kept pestering you to please please please send him your address for confidential purposes, which you knew had to do with his determination to literally provide anything that catches your eye right away. You assumed it was a sensitive topic for the boy whether people had purposefully taken advantage of his money before, so you didn’t dare to say anything when the man asked you for your size literally two hours after he dropped you off, scared to either reject his solidare intentions or piss him off for bringing unwanted memories back. In your defense, your personality type keeps oscillating between INFP and INFJ so it’s only natural that you take extra care to make sure those around you have as much peace of mind as possible in your presence.

As pretty and comfortable the piece of soft clothing is, an important factor is missing, something that you can’t recreate buying two of the same size and color, and that is Jungkook's escence and how good it looks on him in comparison to anyone else in the world. Meaning, you didn’t like it as much as you thought initially would. And it absolutely did not have to do with the fact that your short stature made you look like a toddler who stole their dad’s jacket.

Still, in order to show Jungkook how much you appreciate his gift, you bring it to work the next day, and the rest of the days after that, with the excuse that with winter rolling around you needed something to keep you warm in the office. Jungkook doesn’t miss the opportunity to confirm your assumptions regarding your appearance whenever he barges into your office randomly throughout the week, arguing that ”you look so adorable” and doesn’t stop for two weeks more, until he gets used to seeing you wearing something you shared with him. Which doesn’t help ease your growing romantic feelings for him whatsoever.

Because yeah, you liked Jeon Jungkook, just like every human being with eyes and sexual desires, except, you didn’t just like him in a superficial way, and that’s where the problem with him resides. Though you are sure everyone has fallen in love with the endearing boy at some point - especially the excluded and invalidated women of society - you can’t help but place some blame on you for allowing yourself to be swooned so goddamn easily. Your mom had said to you at some point to be wary of the way some men would talk to you when you grew up, their intention usually being getting inside your pants, which has happened to you more times than you'd like to admit. And with the argument that she knew you better than anyone, she claimed you would comply right the second someone talked sweet to you; you despised the fact that was the case with Jungkook (and Jungkook only), although he had never shown any sexual innuendos. What your feelings could do to your relationship with Jungkook and your rather chill lifestyle scared you to death, shiver me timbers and all that shit, having romantic feelings for someone else is embarrassing, especially when your chance with them has been scratched out the second you laid eyes on them.

Jungkook sits on your couch, legs spread on your thighs as you two pretend to watch some series on netflix. “I don’t buy for a second the act you’re putting on right now.” he speaks randomly after staring at your deep-in-thought state for a few minutes and laughs when you snap at him for not letting you overthink in peace. “What’s going on?”

Truth is, you don’t fucking know. A few hours before he arrived at your place (you had to pick him up at the dorm and sneak the both of you through the subterranean parking lot, because god forbid someone saw Jungkook arriving at some chick’s dorm on a saturday afternoon) you swore you would be able to conceal whatever emotional turmoil you had going inside of you without compromising your regular behaviour around the man, but when push comes to shove, it’s impossible to keep yourself from wondering how far you could go before that special someone found out what was going on inside of your head.

Jungkook’s phone rings in his pocket with some annoying tone he had downloaded illegally from youtube the same day the company had handed over the device as a gift for him (you still were a little bitter over how they neglected the rest of the staff but you also knew it was kind of impossible for the human kind to just gift a-thousand-dollar-phones to almost five hundred people out of solidarity). “Hyung?” he picks up, still wary of your unusual behaviour, concerned eyes looking at you. “No, uh- i’m with Yugyeom right now.” and your heart shatters into a million pieces.

You have been suspecting for a while that Jungkook is being hesitant to introduce you to his social circle. Although, you’ve tried your best not to take it personal, it is getting harder to resist the urge to ask him what the fuck is up with that. The fact that Jungkook had to lie about the person he was hanging out with broke your ego; he could’ve just said he was with a friend, right? You suddenly feel like you’re fifteen again, when the guy you liked would love you in the dark but pretend he didn’t know you in the light.

Holding your tears back, you gently push him off and make your way towards the bathroom in the most nonchalant way you could. This is your fault for falling for the nice popular guy in the first place, you remind the reflection staring back at you. Still, as bad as it hurt, there was no way you were going to cry over a stupid boy, let alone when he was literally sat on the next room. He can go fuck himself if he thinks he can just toss this behind as if nothing ever happened.

You text Chaeryeong instead.

“chaery bom bom: i swear to god i gonna throw hands the next time i see the bitch.

chaery bom bom: like who the hell does he think he is? fucking squidward looking asshole.

chaery bom bom: he ain’t even that cute bub, you’ll get over him. i know jinyoung wouldn’t treat you like this”

You sigh. Chaeryeong has been enamored with the idea of you and his former company colleague from GOT7 since the day she met the guy (which was somewhere around ten years ago), and although he was all that, you didn’t like his quiet and cold aura, it intimidated the fuck out of you (Jungkook was the entire opposite of that).

You spray on some perfume just to have an excuse as to why you randomly ran to the bathroom when Jungkook’s inquiring eyes stare as you sit back on the couch, which is exactly what he does. “You done with your call?” you ask, bitter.

Jungkook frowns, a bit taken aback by the sudden question but still unaware of the way his words had made you feel, not even sensing the hostile change in your mood. “Yes, it was one of our managers. He was wondering if I could come back to reshoot some...-thing.”

Okay, now you kind of understand as to why he lied in the first place and to say you feel guilty is an understatement. “I supposed he backed down once you mentioned you were hanging out with Yugyeom.” playfulness makes its appearance on your tone and Jungkook rolls his eyes at you, tongue poking on the inside of his slightly red cheeks.

“Sorry for that” he moves closer and cuddles your arm, like a sad guilty puppy. “It’s just- I don’t want them asking questions''.

You understand. He is a very reserved and private person after all. It took you a bit to crack him open yourself. Plus, you kind of share that trait with him, you’d hate it too if people were constantly on your nerves for the people you decide to hang out with.

And that’s all it takes to forgive him. Not very cash money of you.

“You better not pull that shit again, though” you shift in his hold and he looks up at you. One look into your eyes and he knows what you mean. “I’ll kick you out.”

After nodding, Jungkook resumes his concentration on the series you picked out for him. Due to your short attention span, you are very picky about what you invest your time in, especifically with audiovisual pieces of media, so Jungkook trusts you whenever you recommend something on very rare occasions. As a matter of fact, Jungkook was busy attacking your kitchen counters for snacks (which you didn’t have) when you mentioned Money Heist. “Munch on some grapes instead” you suggested to soothe his disappointment.

You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

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giotanner · 4 years ago

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Art Theft and Bullying in The Old Guard Fandom

Hey TOG fandom! Do you know that stealing art is a crime? Do you have a problem with bullying (“because that poc muslim artist deserves!11!” based on a random tumblr post) within Discord servers? You do?... then read on.

Please grab some cookies and tea (and get comfortable!) and read on. This is a SERIOUS matter that I, as an outsider, was able to see WITHOUT being influenced by anyone else. I am not friends with any of the people involved here, although after these events I have empathy towards them.

I’m telling you this so you won’t be able to say to me "you are allied with/you are influenced by"... That is not the case. I have facts and evidence, so please read! I will be talking about ART THEFT, BASHING, REPOSTING, AND DISGUSTING BULLYING BEHAVIOUR towards a person who is not even in the server. As a fellow fanartist I feel so bad because “this artist deserves it” in their mind.

(Now: apparently there is a part of the beautiful The Old Guard fandom that thinks: the characters and people’s headcanons are more important rather than an actual person's well-being, and with every new illustration by the artist, they are badly spoken of. Because… ugh, why not?)

I talked about facts, so here’s one:

If you joined this server (there are a couple servers with this name, please don't get mad at the wrong one - note the icon!) The first thing you know is: karanoidandroid is a racist and a homophobe… in their opinion. People and also these mods think this because of some posts on tumblr by white people. AH.

Why? Hearsay, bimbi belli. If you go to this artist's page you won't find a single racist thing (the artist is literally a POC who is brown and a Muslim. How? - you may say- What? Ah yes, she must be under "white influence! 11 !! bad POC !!" and who says that? Ah right, a white person. Or another POC with a different experience. wtf we have so many experiences, how can you say ‘you’re racist’ to a POC about this? Just because this artist’s preference is a different sex position, and no one is trying to force you to like it, eh!)

And from here on out... hatred. Terrible and personal hatred that has spread like wildfire. EVERYWHERE. Even people who know nothing about this fandom know that this artist is "racist and homophobic". Only.Because.Of.Hearsay.

So what did this artist do, you ask? She created a safe place on discord, away from tumblr. For people who like top!Joe. Don’t you like it? GOOD FOR YOU. That’s fantastic. We should as a fandom respect everyone's preference. This server was simply made so people could get away from tumblr and the drama and bullying. That’s it.

But did they leave this artist alone? No. The gossip had infected this fandom by now. It is now a "fact": this artist is x and y, you know. Because a couple people spread that, knowing nothing about the artist other than she was making a server they didn’t like.

Because THEY decided it. Because this artist decided not to fight and leave and you weren't satisfied with that.

Let’s BULLY a Muslim POC because we disagree with their views IN FANDOM! Because someone’s views on a CHARACTER are more important than an actual person, right? (According to sources who wished to remain anon, I know for sure the mod is white. A white mod is bullying and stealing the art of a brown Muslim woman because their views on FANDOM are different)

How?

READ these screenshots. They were posted a couple days ago. EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME this artist posted an art… they bully her. (So yeah, it’s NOT the first time)

No source, no link, no name. It was posted by a Mod (in blue) and the point is: a rule of this group is “don’t steal art/don’t put art without source” BUT HEY- WE’RE MODS and this artist deserves it!11!!1!)

This poc muslim artist didn’t insist on “top!joe only”. It’s just her preference, you know? I don’t care about people’s preferences. If you want to read more about how racial issues have somehow gotten involved in sexual position preferences, check out this post by +lgbtq poc with a degree in Medieval Islamic History x (note: his blog is gone (bullying again!) so the link is to a reblog)

“Where is the source?’ a person asks. They don’t want to put the source and THEY’RE THE MODS, they made that the R U L E.

But you already know, again only by hearsay: “the artist is homophobic and top!joe is full of bullshit”. (A mantra - but they’re NOT IN THE SERVER to know. It’s an assumption) What bullshit? I dunno. I’ve been on tumblr for the past few months and I read everything, and what I read is just a preference, not racism. But they went to the artist saying “you can’t”. Just because they have a different opinion. A ‘woke opinion’ against a POC Muslim artist. Well.

You don’t like her preference? Again: BRAVO. Amen, that’s okay. But it’s not “end of story kiss kiss”.

If you steal and you put a drawing without source… it’s not a joke anymore, do you know this mods? Even if you don’t like the artist or agree with all of her opinions, THEFT IS THEFT. There’s no excuse for it, especially if their excuse is saying the artist ‘deserves’ it.

Discord community Guidelines:

#1 Do not organize, participate in, or encourage harassment of others.

#17 You may not share content that violates anyone's intellectual property or other rights.

Anyway the artist deserves their art to be stolen ONLY BECAUSE OF HEARSAY everyone knows that she is..? (chorus: racist and homophobic!) And this was decided by white people and is now being used to bully a POC Muslim.

BRAVI! Have a biscuit!

You’re bashing and bashing and bashing and bashing for MONTHS, so now you don’t know the truth, but only this… because /this/ it’s common knowledge.

Stealing art and trying to say that's okay because they’ve decided that someone they don't know is racist doesn't change the fact they stole is disgusting. Then saying it’s just a joke? wow, the audacity.

The point of all this is clear: Since I hate this person/I have this immeasurable hatred towards this artist from posts that other people have made about her THEN I am a mod so I can do it, I am allowed to steal her art, bash the artist and mock her in other comments and every time this person just… exists.

THESE ARE THE FACTS. I have so many screenshots. Thanks to some people I know within the discord. This is only ONE day. It has happened before.

Why “that artist and linking her blog would break multiple server rules and make numerous people uncomfortable?” Ah, yes, c’mon you know… I know you know! (Chorus: Because the artist is racist and homophobic… even though they’ve never spoken to her, and are literally bullying a POC Muslim and refusing to source art)

Well, yeah, Without proof. Just “common knowledge and the same old “by hearsay” on tumblr. By ‘woke’ people and then it was shared by people like me or you if you don’t know the story.

And how did this story end? They stole the drawing. They put the stolen illustration in a group of TWO HUNDRED and SEVENTY PEOPLE and said “oops, i did it again” and they refuse to link the source. It’s stealing. And it’s serious. It’s terrible because they are bashing this artist all the time.

TO REITERATE

1.They STOLE an artist’s work and laughed about it, which is bullying and against their own rules. This has happened more than once with this artist.

2. When they were called out, they bullied the person calling them out.

3. When they didn’t like that they were called out, THE PEOPLE (yellow and green) CALLING THEM OUT WERE KICKED OUT OF THE SERVER, despite art theft and bullying being against the server rules. Again, the rules that they made.

Regardless of what you think of the artist, stealing art sets a dangerous precedent for future fandoms. If someone doesn’t like your opinion does that mean they can steal YOUR art/writing/creations? Because if you think it’s okay for this person’s art to be stolen because you don’t agree with them, that’s basically what you’re saying.

They were cruel. And TOG doesn’t deserve this. I love this movie so much. I love this fandom. I love to make fanarts of Joe and Nicky. Joe is so sweet, full of love, a true warrior and Nicky isn’t an Italian dramaqueen, he isn’t naive, he is kind and a bravo sniper. Two imperfect men, but perfect for each other. A Muslim and a Christian, a white and a brown man. Together. Not stereotyped. Wow, thanks at least for that 2020.

and I hope we can do better, in future.

#the old guard #the old guard fandom #the old guard art #bullying #stealing art in tog fandom #thank you very to all the people who worked HARD for this post #thank you for the informations #please reblog the truth with FACTS and not fake news about an artist only by HEARSAY #you can ask me (but not anon trolls)

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years ago

Note

i saw your post about Charles and what his personality past and part in the story line so i was wondering if u could do the same for vlad? :)

Ah, well, I can at least let you know what I’ve seen so far? I haven’t delved too far into Vlad, and some of his general impressions can be confusing, so I’ll do my best to make it sensible and unbiased! Here you go lovely <33333

Fair warning, there will be mentions of a lot of JPN app content since Vlad and his boys aren’t around much in the ENG app yet.

My general sense of Vlad is basically discount vampire Sasuke Uchiha.

What I mean by this is to say–according to what I’ve read so far–his clan/family were murdered by vampire hunters in cold blood when he was just a young boy. Presumably as a result of that traumatic event, he harbors a sizable enmity towards humanity and kind of lashes out on them in weirdly specific moments of violence. Another aspect of his motivation is something that’s mentioned within Comte’s route; which is that Vlad went through the timespace door on his own one day and allegedly saw a devastated future, where nothing remains of life on earth more or less.

I guess the reason I find him to be so perplexing is that he speaks about his actions in terms of efficiency, while most of the things he does just feel like unhappy outbursts (v often a product of unresolved trauma symptoms, I’d wager.) I also say this because he appears to have no larger pattern to his fury beyond the original event of his loss. Most of the human beings he attacks aren’t much of a threat to him and hurting them really doesn’t bring him any dividends beyond revenge.

For instance, he insists his disdain for humanity and insistence on controlling them is for the sake of ensuring they do not destroy the future–the horrifying wasteland he witnessed when he traveled through the timespace door. However, I’m not really sure how his current movements really speak to that goal? I mean sure, maybe he’s relying on Faust to create an immortal human so that humans will be forced to care because it will be their future too, but he doesn’t allow Faust to draw his pureblood blood for experimenting. (One can most certainly argue this was more about a lack of trust, and perhaps for plenty reason: Faust is vindictive enough to try to turn the tables and exert control over Vlad, or act on his own whims with his findings.) But if that’s the solution he’s waiting on, turning the rivals of the men in the mansion doesn’t really bring him any closer to that vision either? I mean, what good does it do to bring back Gilles de Rais–a prominent French serial killer? How would unleashing him on the populace help humanity “realize the error of it’s short-sighted and wasteful ways” and move to a brighter future?

Can’t help it, I ask these questions as I read.

In Comte’s main story, Comte hammers home that Vlad is not somebody to be taken lightly. One day when MC goes out to buy flowers, Vlad poses as a human florist to sell them to her–which is how Comte finds out he’s in France, and that he’s made contact with MC. When prompted, Comte describes him in a very particular way; and I think people really overlook this when they talk about their relationship. He says that Vlad is frighteningly pure in terms of the way he thinks and acts. The way I understood his description (given what I’ve seen of Vlad) is that Comte really does mean it point blank: Vlad is very simple in terms of why and how he does things. The issue with this is that nuance and context are lost on Vlad as well–and that’s where the problems start to flood in. Vlad is angry at humanity for what they’ve done to him. Baseline? That’s fair, they killed his damn family. However, Vlad thinks that by extension he has the right to decimate the general public and attack people completely uninvolved in his hurt.

And that isn’t right either–it’s ignoring so many factors here. He’s ignoring how much vampires use and toy with humans as pawns, it’s ignoring the massive power imbalance between him and his victims (this really isn’t a case of self-defense most of the time, nobody but Comte/Leo is a sizable threat to him), and he’s ignoring whether or not a person even did anything to deserve his retributive violence. While murder is never okay, it is perhaps more understandable when we see Jeanne’s frenzied and violent belligerence in response to a man who murders a boy’s mother for the sake of his own amusement/convenience. Vlad literally sees almost every single one of the rivals he created begin to heal/improve and murders them in cold blood because they are no longer of any use to him. That’s uh……..that’s a little messed, not gonna lie to you chief.

While part of me understands the efficiency here–he doesn’t want to leave any traces of his involvement, he doesn’t want any loose ends–it’s also just kind of foolish and cruel ultimately. From my understanding of the narrative, all the people he turned had some visible sign that indicated their origin to Comte. So even if he claims it was for the sake of concealment, it was more likely about his personal convenience. Which…..also yikes.

[Comte clearly does not trust Vlad to be reasonable, and I think there’s plenty of good reason enumerated above, but I actually don’t sense quite so much hatred? I think he’s just given up on the idea of Vlad growing up, even if he doesn’t like giving up on people. And considering Vlad’s behavior, I think it’s overkill to say that Comte just abandons him because he doesn’t care lmao. Even when Comte expresses real anger at the end of his own route, it was more because Vlad was fine with endangering MC’s life just to get back at him. I think Comte’s unhappiness with Vlad has more to do with Vlad’s treatment of human life as meaningless and worthless. It’s fascinating but also kind of sad? Vlad’s traumatic experience results in behavior that is a direct exacerbation of Comte’s trauma, and as such--no matter their potentially fond history--they can’t stomach each other.]

In Comte’s route, Vlad also has Shakespeare abduct MC and take her to the cathedral. Later on in the castle, we see an immediate display of Vlad’s shocking powers: he has the ability to manipulate people’s desires/thoughts. I’m not exactly sure how this works, but he is able to give MC visions of the mansion and Comte coming on to her–which shocks her into realizing it’s all just a dream. It’s not reality; it’s all manufactured by Vlad.

After that...weird introductory note...Vlad gives MC the rundown on his life together with Comte, which as always is subject to a question of bias. My assumption is that he did not lie, only because he was trying to convince MC that he was “right.” Furthermore, he does not omit the most damning evidence of his erroneous judgement, which suggests a continued inability for him to see where he went wrong.

We get a series of three flashbacks. The first is them as young kids. I don’t know if Vlad had already experienced the horrors of his family being destroyed, but this particular flashback focuses on Comte. His parents, in an effort to teach him that vampires and humans have no ability to co-exist, send away all of his teachers/mentors/nannies/the servants--pretty much everyone and anyone he was closely bonded to. Think about it this way: we can see that Comte is very sociable and affectionate by nature. He was living in a house full of people, all of whom cared about him and looked after him in their own way. Now the house is entirely empty. Naturally Comte is very very upset, and Vlad appears to try to cheer him up with little success.

[When I look back on this scene I don’t think I initially registered the sheer dissonance of Vlad’s reaction, versus Comte’s catatonic misery. There was a very solemn feeling to that memory, and the correct choice in terms of extending comfort is to hold his hand believe it or not. There is a sense that he feels very alone. When young boy Vlad enters one can argue that it was the proper thing to do; he was trying to cheer up his playmate and friend. But at the same time, I think I need to double check. Because I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong. What if Vlad was happy to see someone as alone as him, and that joy is accordingly dissonant for that reason? He can’t see what Comte needs or how he’s hurting because he’s so glad he isn’t alone anymore in a way.]

The second flashback is the war nurse scene that I have spoken at length about. The important thing to focus on here is Vlad’s surprise that Comte would opt out of turning her out of respect for her wishes. The way Vlad frames the situation is starkly different from Comte’s. Comte sees himself as an outsider, somebody who invaded her life as a result of the timespace door and therefore has no right to suddenly change the course of her fate. He had no idea if she even wanted to live (considering the horrors she’d have to cope with and remember) or leave that time period at all, for that matter (considering the only thing keeping her going was helping the wounded/victims). Comte really was listening to everything she had to say, and he was taking her concerns and motivations seriously.

Vlad simply says: if you want her, take her. It’s as simple as that for him. And in one way that’s not entirely wrong--assuming Comte would have every intention of looking after her and actually cares a lot about her. But what’s being ignored here is her agency and the fact that they really don’t know each other that well? Something like that could begin and be rocky, if it doesn’t end in complete disaster. Worse, I get the feeling Vlad is perfectly fine with the notion of turning her and if things don’t work out, just kill her or get rid of her. Again, the simplistic thinking comes into play here: it ultimately comes down to Vlad being self-centered. He’s thinking only in terms of satisfying his needs, he doesn’t seem to have any concept of a larger pair or group feeling. There’s an inability to bend/be flexible for the sake of maintaining a greater harmonious feeling.

[For the record, I don’t think this makes him irredeemable? Only that it makes it very hard to live with him or love him, probably. There’s an inability to live at a joint pace? It’s always answering to what he wants without room for anything else most of the time, which to me is not living and it’s not love ;;;;]

Following their escape back to their own time, Vlad explains how he wants to use the door to turn geniuses and control humanity. He eventually wants to create a surveillance state, which would mean everyone is forced to move with his explicit approval, more or less. (He almost reminds me of Louis XIV, can’t tell if that’s what they were going for.) I have my doubts that his abilities could extend that far, but human history shows us that we are plenty susceptible to fascist and totalitarian rhetoric. In a shocking display of anger, Comte draws the line at controlling humanity and forcing them into a regime in which, and this is Vlad’s description not mine, “we (purebloods) would be like kings.” There’s definitely a concept of evolutionary superiority at play here, which echoes what I mentioned earlier; vampires seem to have this awareness that they’re apex predators in a sense, and enjoy the power that comes with that. Unfortunately, that probably makes for a fairly toxic/uncomfortable larger species culture, which is exactly what Comte and Leo hate lmao.

Vlad does not seem to find any issue with this sort of outlook, and asks MC to decide which of them--Vlad or Comte--is right. Who is more realistic, who best understands the future? As expected the MC replies that it's Comte, and Vlad goes from beseeching to big mad at record speed. He's p much that gif of the teddy bear that smacks its head down on the tables and then has the angry eyebrows.

This is where Comte intervenes, firing a warning shot that grazes Vlad's cheek and demanding he let MC go. In response, Vlad shoves MC into the turbulent timespace door--p much guaranteeing MC's death. (Essentially timespace is a void of sorts, a human being could never survive in that environment for long. Vlad fully knew this, and yeeted her anyway.)

So uh, yeah. Disagreement? Death. Moving on? Death. Nuanced approach to reality? Death. Beginning to think he doesn't really have a lot of patience or open-mindedness or any other kind of problem-solving approach.

He raises flowers and gardens like a fiend, and he openly plucks any single flower with a blemished leaf. Even if a single petal is slightly damaged, it will be removed and destroyed. So one could argue his extremism reflects a kind of perfectionism as well. No room for errors or troublesome dissent. No ugliness of any kind. I mean in all of his interactions with Faust and Charles this is the overt undertone. Don't ask more of me than I'm willing to give. Behave like good children, mommy's busy. Is that insubordination? boss music begins

One thing I actually don't understand very well is his decision making in Dazai's route. Dazai finds out about what Vlad's doing in a nanosecond when he senses MC is in danger, and yet Vlad makes absolutely no move to eliminate Dazai? He just watches from the shadows. Even when Dazai grills Charles about his loyalty to Vlad, no retribution.

My best guess for this specific situation is that Vlad does derive some level of satisfaction thwarting the future of human beings/former humans. Dazai--being somebody with no great desire to live, no rivals to speak of as far as we can tell, and no larger aspirations--is a life that is easily extinguished. There's no satisfaction in it. When Vlad's clan was murdered and he saw the future decimated, it could be that he felt humans had invaded and eradicated every potentiality that was important to him. Where he might have lived happily with his family, that future was ripped from his grasp. Where he might enjoy his flowers and the creation of an immortal for the rest of conceivable time, that too was ripped from his grasp with a desolate future.

So much about who Vlad is is about control, so it's very possible his lashing out is an extension of that. Dazai does not awaken any of the disdain he feels, and he does not succeed in overthrowing Vlad's control over Charles, so Vlad simply lurks in silence.

And last but not least, I've seen the preview to Vlad's newest birthday event story. The contents are incredibly revealing, in that MC wishing him a happy birthday and offering him a gift has him saying that it was "the best birthday ever." Granted idk if that’s sweet or just...beyond sad, but here we are. It’s only compounding my curiosity about the wound on his chest--I really do wonder if he was attacked and locked away by vampire hunters or hostile human beings or something. I say that only because that line speaks to a lot of isolation, and given how little he seems to care about turning people/subjecting them to his whims it feels odd. Why the isolation or lack of people who care about him? Is it a perceived lack where his actions alienated all the people who wanted to be close to him, or is it a more involuntary lack?

When she says let’s celebrate again next year, he seems a pleasantly shocked by the notion, and remarks “Ah yes, it’s a promise c:”. The preview was also mega horny: “You make me feel so loved, I don’t think I can be gentle with you tonight. If you enjoy it so much, then I won’t stop. I want to see you completely lost for me. I’ll teach your body what it means to be loved by a pureblood.” Aaaaaand pretty sure the CG was alluding to him licking the good stuff from her basement, though not entirely sure given it was only the preview.

The brief POV they give us is also very revealing:

“You always keep your promises, and I think I underestimate all the time how much you saved me. You are good, only you are good in this world.”

“Will we continue to make promises to each other in the future? Well in that case--you will always, always be mine, my vampire.”

Tbh he’s...v sweet? In his own way? Honestly he feels like a crabapple that is just so sick of the world and wants softe wife to take comfort in. While granted that’s not really my thing, I know a fanbase appeal exists for these types--so if that’s your thing, have at it!

So now that we have reached the end of my ridiculously long analysis (when am I ever brief, I’m so sorry. If you made it all the way here you deserve a cookie at the very least, if not the right to chase me with a bat) perhaps it’s more clear why I said discount vampire Sasuke Uchiha? “My clan is gone, every other second I’m going to be in retraumatization insanity, when I’m not I’ll be seeking power/hobbies, planning the demise of people who wanted the best for me, building a team to my advantage and unquestioned control, and eventually settling for a lifelong love who sees the best in me despite my more difficult moments and perceived hollowing loneliness. Not the most ideal comparison, but I will say if Vlad was not already named the historical figure, would have pointed and yelled Uchiha.

That’s all from me folks, hopefully this was a fun way to get introduced to him? And again, hope I didn’t alienate--I fully respect what people do and don’t enjoy o7

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp meta #ikevamp vlad #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp faust #ikevamp charles #ikevamp dazai #i hope this was helpful!#i had too much fun writing it jkahlgkjhgdf i love meta #but thank you for submitting <33333 #oh discount vampire sasuke uchiha we really in it now #rambles #not incorrect quotes

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maddogofshimano · 4 years ago

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New Years Haruka Character Story

Y1 Spoilers

I did a fresh translation on this one because I know I super rushed it the first time through because I was frantically grinding diamonds. This one is simultaneously very sweet and raises several questions.

Here’s the card! It’s very pretty.

Summary: It’s 2011, and Kiryu has something he needs Haruka to pick up in Kamurocho. She goes by herself, and with the help of Date retrieves this special item. Unfortunately, it’s not what either of them are expecting, and the Tojo Clan seems desperate to get their hands on it...

2011. Haruka is in her third year of middle school.

Summer vacation is just about over, Haruka's a little sad about that. Haruka asks if Kiryu's bought everything for dinner.

He says he has, but he has something he needs Haruka to do. She asks if he needs her to buy something else. He says no. He actually... wants her to go to Kamurocho. There's a person there who's been holding onto something for him. He'd like Haruka to go pick it up. She needs to do it directly.

Haruka agrees, and asks if she can to go right away? She doesn't have anything prepped. Kiryu says that Morning Glory will be fine, don't worry. She leaves Kiryu in charge of the cooking, since it was her turn. Kiryu says he'll make "Man Food" (Tl note: bachelor meal?)

The next day she arrives in Kamurocho.

Haruka: Uncle Kaz said that someone from Sunflower should be meeting me here... ?: Haruka-chan! Haruka: Ah, Takako-san! It's been so long! Takako: It has! You've gotten so pretty...! I was really surprised to get a phone call from Kiryu-san. Here's what he wanted me to hand over. It's a little heavy. Haruka: I'll put it in this bag then. Thank you so much! I'm glad this was so easy to pick up. Takako: Sorry, I'd invite you over for lunch but Sunflower is in the middle of spring cleaning right now... Haruka: No don't worry, I'm sorry to have been a burden. Tatako: Well, I'm off! If you ever are in the area again, give me a call. Give Kiryu-san my regards!

Haruka thanks her and wonders if this is the thing that Kiryu needed her to pick up personally. She thinks it'd be a good idea to check it... but she's starving, and she sees a Smile Burger. A goon bumps into her, and they both drop their bags.

He cusses her out, she says that he's the one that bumped into her, he is incensed that she would dare talk back to him. Thankfully, Date arrives.

The goon asks if this asshole is her dad.

Date: Heh. That firecracker's dad is unlike anyone else in the world. I'm just his friend.

The goon throws hands, as goons are want to do. Date kicks his ass. The goon quickly snatches his bag and flees, promising that he won't forget this! Date makes sure that Haruka is alright, and says if she comes to Kamurocho she should really let him know. Where's Kiryu anyways?

Haruka answers that this time she's here all by herself. Date wants to know why the hell she'd do that. She explains that Kiryu wanted her to pick up... where'd the bag go? Date points it out, it seems it got displaced during the fight.

Haruka's worried that whatever she needed to pick up might have been broken, so they should check... Date is tired of standing around and invites her to New Serena, he'll make some food. Haruka asks if Date also makes "Man Food". He laughs and says she should look forward to eating it.

Turns out Date is a good cook! He says he's pretty meticulous about it, and that Saya is also fond of it, though she wishes he had been that good at it a long time ago. They open the bag up to check what's inside. It's something small, and pretty securely wrapped. It's...

A pistol. A real one.

A yakuza bursts into New Serena with a knife. He's been looking for Haruka, and wants her to hand that bag over. Date recognizes the man's pin, he's Tojo Clan! The goon says that if they won't hand it over, he'll just have to beat it out of them. Date beats this guy too, and he runs off fast.

Haruka asks if that was a Tojo goon, Date confirms and says that if they know about that pistol, they're going to keep trying to take it... We really need to know why Kiryu wanted you to get this so badly

Haruka agrees and calls Kiryu.

Kiryu: Ah, Haruka? Did you already make the pickup? Kiryu: You shouldn't take it out of the bag very often. Haruka: Something that I shouldn't take out... so this is genuine? Kiryu: That's right, and it's high quality. I think you're grown up enough to have it now. Haruka: I'm grown up enough...! Uncle Kaz, what the heck do you mean...!? Voice over the phone: Excuse me? Kiryu: Ah, sorry. Someone's here, I'll have to cut this short. Haruka: U-Uncle Kaz! Haruka: .... Date: What'd he say? Haruka: That I'm grown up enough, so it's fine for me to have this... Date: What? What does that mean... Haruka: I don't know either... Uncle Kaz, he hung up in the middle of talking... Date: ...I don't want to believe it. I really don't want to believe it, but... Haruka: ? Date: Well, maybe Kiryu's returning to the yakuza... Haruka: Eh...? Date: I can't think of any other situation where he would need a gun. Then the Tojo Clan heard about this gun's existence, and decided to steal it. Date: There's probably going to be a lot of people who aren't happy about Kiryu returning. Haruka: B-But, they'd definitely find this at the airport...! Date: Didn't you hear that Kiryu is coming here? In that case, wouldn't he just meet up with you and pick it up then? Haruka: (That's... Uncle Kaz is going to...!) Haruka: .......... Date: ...Haruka? Haruka: I'm going to get rid of this thing! <Haruka runs out of New Serena> Date: Hey, wait!

Haruka is looking for somewhere to throw away the gun where no one will find it. Unfortunately she is found by the goon from part 1. He wants her to return what she's got right now! Haruka is surprised he said "return", and asks if he means this gun? The goon says that since she went and looked inside... he'll just have to erase her!

Thankfully Date is here to rescue Haruka again. He's pretty winded, he's not as young as he used to be. The goon says that Date's been a real pain in his ass, and fights him again, and loses again.

Date: Whew... Calm down Haruka. If anything happened to you I'd never be able to show my face around Kiryu again. Haruka: Sorry... Date: Hey, why are you trying to drag Haruka into this? Is this some kind of payback? Goon: Ugh, i-it's... Haruka: Before you said to "return that"... Were you talking about this gun...? Goon: Huh...? You, you didn't notice? Haruka: Eh? Goon: We took the wrong bags. I got yours, and you got mine. Date: What? Goon: Look, this is your bag. Haruka: Ah! They're identical!! Date: Then, it was crazy to think Kiryu would send Haruka out to retrieve a gun for him. Damn, I really cried wolf on that one... Me and my big imagination. Date: I'm really sorry, Haruka. I shouldn't have worried you like that. Haruka: It's okay, I caused you a lot of trouble too... I'm sorry. Date: Well, there's one person that could have prevented this whole mess. Oi. Goon: Y-Yeah... Date: I'm a detective, so don't even think you can escape and do whatever it is you were planning with this gun. Goon: Ughhh... Date: So, what did Kiryu actually want you to pick up? Let's open it. Haruka: Yeah, let's take a look. ...This is........ Haruka: A kimono? <Haruka returns to Morning Glory> Kiryu: ...So that's what happened, huh? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you go by yourself. Haruka: It's okay. Date helped me. By the way, Uncle Kaz. What was the reason that you wanted me to pick up these clothes by myself? Kiryu: ...Because of this letter, you should read it.

Haruka: A letter...? Kiryu: It's from the person who got that kimono for you. Haruka: Umm...

To Haruka, If you're reading this letter, that means I wasn't able to give you this myself. That's a shame, I have always hoped to give you this kimono when you got older. I hope that wearing this kimono when you make the first shrine visit of the year brings you much happiness. Please be happy. That is my only wish. From Yumi

Haruka: .......... Uncle Kaz.....!! Kiryu: Yeah. ...Well, try it on. Let's see how it looks.

Haruka: Alright. Haruka: How is it, Uncle Kaz?

Kiryu: ...It looks great on you. Yumi would have said the same. Haruka: Thank you, Uncle Kaz. Haruka: ...Thank you. Mom.

<END>

Bonus stuff: this isn’t a bonus at all but hey Date? Hey Date??? You’re really just going to... help Kiryu rejoin the Tojo Clan via his daughter picking up a gun for him????? You are so ride or die it’s a problem. What the hell man!

This is the only time I can think of them explicitly referencing Kiryu visiting Kamurocho post Y3 that isn’t during one of the games. It wasn’t a hard assumption to make, Akiyama seems to know Haruka pretty well in Y5 despite not interacting in Y4, but it’s cool to have that confirmed directly.

#yakuza #rggo #ryu ga gotoku #ryu ga gotoku online #Kiryu #Haruka #Date

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hellacioushag · 4 years ago

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mindpalace0 said: @hellacioushag the reason why many elriels are against the mating bond for lucien and elain is because elain does not want it. It was something she did not choose for herself but instead it got forced upon her. Feysands and nessian knew each other before the mating bond reveal. That's not the case for elucien. On the worst taumatic day of elains life some random male claims her. Then she finds out she is shackled and is forced to have a bond with someone she doesn't know

mindpalace0 said: @hellacioushag yh it would be different if elain CHOSE to get to know lucien etc but of right now it's Canon that she gets really uncomfortable around him loses her boldness. Lucien is also shacked to her. He wouldn't have chosen her he says himself she was thrown at him. I can't say for all elriels but the ones I do k ow just want aleain to be able to choose to stray from what is expected of her. Right now everyone expects her to simply accept the bond and become a mate mindpalace0 said: @hellacioushag I'm deeply sorry if u have ever received comments from idiotic elriels calling u antifeminist. Ignore them and know its not true. At the end of the day sjm can go anywhere with these books. Many elriels simply don't want to ship two people who are genuinely so uncomfortable and awkward around each other. That however can change as the books progress

mindpalace0 said: Also it's CANON they r uncomfortable and awkward with eath other. Will that change later on in the book? maybe. But right now almost every scene of theirs is cringe to read. You can't be serious when u say that they r not uncomfortable around each other cause they r. Elain owes him NOTHING. Why should she. Why should she stop herself from being happy because of a bond she does not want. Feysand and nessian differ cause in the end they still got to know each other

mindpalace0 said: Before the bond revealed itself. Elain did not have that.

ok i think i got everything that was either directed at me or was just sent in the general post unspecified. i’m not gonna sit and talk about elriel cause i really don’t care about that ship or anyone’s reasons for shipping it. you do you. have fun. i will however address some of the critique you mentioned regarding my thoughts on elucien and the bond.

1. we do not know how elain feels. we don’t have her pov so anything the other characters are inferring about her regarding her body language is only speculation, not fact. if cassian or nesta notes how elain’s boldness disappears in lucien’s presence we do not know why that is. we can only project our own assumptions as to the motive. you are assuming it’s because she’s uncomfortable around lucien and doesn’t want him. i could assume that she may have been overwhelmed by lucien’s presence because when he’s gone she isn’t faced with the bond, but in his presence she not only feels it there, but may also glean his feelings for her through the bond. neither one of us can claim our assumption is fact because we weren’t in elain’s pov in that scene. other characters interpretations are not always reliable. feyre assumed mor was hiding her love for azriel until mor flat out told her she had no romantic interest in him. until we have elain’s pov we cannot claim our assumption of the scenes are textual evidence.

2. lucien didn’t say he was shackled to elain. the quote is this:

“I would agree with you on that,” I admitted. “But remember that they were engaged. Give her time to accept it.” “To accept a life shackled to me?” My nostrils flared. “That’s not what I meant.”

he is not oblivious to elain as some would like to claim. he and feyre were discussing graysen and how elain was still mourning the end of their relationship during acofas. feyre was trying to tell lucien to give elain time to accept it was truly over between her and graysen and lucien, having just been brushed off by elain, pushed his own insecurities onto feyre. i assume he thinks because elain won’t speak with him, won’t even try to get to know him, that she think he’s beneath her. that a life with him is surmountable to being shackled. again, this is his own fear and insecurities about her and the bond. we actually don’t know how elain feels about lucien. only the bond. only that she hates the idea of being bonded to anyone.

3. eluciens, as far as i am aware, do not want elain to be forced into the bond. we want her to be able to get to know lucien the way feyre and nesta got to know rhys and cassian. we want them to have a chance. the only reason there’s a different dynamic with elucien vs feysand/nessian is because elain is aware of the bond and the idea of it has added fear and pressure to her. however, lucien has been kind and patient and understanding. when feyre asked him to move to velaris in acofas to get to know elain he declined. not because he doesn’t want to know her, not because he doesn’t want to be mates, but because he is allowing her to set the pace. he’s being respectful, but also wants her to know he’s thinking about her and he’s there whenever she may want to talk. he is putting himself in the uncomfortable situation of going to feyre’s holiday events and putting himself out there with gifts for his mate because he wants to get to know her. if elain asked him to stay away he would based on his history of respecting her need for space. so any pressure elain is feeling is not based on lucien’s actions, but the idea of the bond itself.

4. if you don’t like elucien that’s fine. my post wasn’t about trying to convince you otherwise. it was in relation to seeing a lot of anti-elucien posts implying shippers are anti-feminist and don’t respect elain and her choices. it was to uplift the elucien community cause i know seeing those same tired arguments gets annoying for me. i think it’s perfectly fine to talk about a ship, to dissect why you don’t like them, but i don’t think it’s acceptable to tear down the shippers who support the ship. to imply horrible things about the shippers and then claim it was just a personal opinion. nah. you want to make jokes, and memes, and shitposts about the fandom and shippers i think that’s fair game. you want to write a meta implying anyone supporting a certain ship are supporting child abuse or they’re misogynistic or they're racist is disgusting and it needs to stop (not you specifically, but the fandom as a whole).

#acotar fandom #elucien #mindpalace0

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thisdreamplace · 3 years ago

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I had a nasty fight with my former bff. This was long ago. She did the whole 'boycotting me' thing at school and afterwards had a mutual friend pass her msg to me, saying "tell her [me] to get it into her skull that she's not the center of the world, who does she think she is? Stop acting like a #" Im simplifying the words, her actual words were nastier

I got thinking today abt this fight, and her comment abt me that is still way too fresh in my mind even tho I hadn't recalled it in 2-3 yrs!, and I actually decided to use the law to revise my friendship to feel better as what happened after the fight was shameful on my part. But before I knew it, I started rmmbring my relationship with her. How I became a total victim. Got so stuck on her validation, begged her to be friends with me (after I got the degrading msg. 🤕 silly me w/o a backbone lol) and stayed her 'bestie' for way too long. Only after it's all over im noticing smth messed up abt out 'feiendship'. It wasnf that normal I think. She would get so pissed if I did anything that went against her thoughts/beliefs/way (which is why she called me a selfish # that major fight). It was so subtle the way she showed her disapproval. To her, if I did anything not aligned with her, or even makih decisions on my own which didn't involve her, it was wrong. And had consequences like her beinf distant for days etc, or getting angry if I didn't mind read her bla bla, I just had to keep her at the top 24/7 and she expected everyone else to do the same... which I thought was normal... It wasnt. And what would be even more crazy is she never realized how that meant she always wanted the attention. That she always wanted it her way! It just makes me feel... Sad.... When I look back. How couldn't I have notived it before? I used to be strong headed, opinionated before I became 'besties' with her.. That all has changed. I wonder why -_-

It may be dumb on my part but with the weak mind and insecurity I had then, I took that fight/her reaction to the heart and internalisef this stupidiy (DENY MYSELF if the other alternative was denying HER. I didn't think it was wrong. For the oldme, it really wasn't wrong smh). Aaah I'm so sorry old me :(

This fight started bcoz she asked me for smth and I refused, instead of relenting like I always would, and I see now that her reaction (to me not being an obedient # to her ig?🤢) was basically her setting rules. It was wrong of me to refuse, yes, but why did she react that way? Why did this pattern continue? That everyone was selfish if they didn't think of her ;_; like how do u deal with this? And the icing is when I too started to defend her and make excuses for her all the time. And ik I'm making her out to be so strong, don't worry... I accept the strong only rule when the weak submit. And I was weak as hell, so its understandable this whole thing. I think 😅

Idk. I seen your posts abt eyipo with other anons so i hope u can tell me figure out what this was. Its clear to me she was projecting smth about me, and mb throughout our whole friendship she was projecting me. And I would think it was her hurting me, that she was right and I was wrong or maybe I did smth wrong. Mb I thought I deserved being punished that way?!

Today I suddenly had an aha moment and I realised... this is how a victim thinks. I didn't know I was a victim when I was living that stoey aka thought I was powerless. When in fact I really wasn't?! Haha still accepting I 555% created ALL that. The law can knock you out haha

Enough old story I just want to ask, what du u think the msg she sent to me was? Did I really deserve such a reaction (did I mention she included other girls in the boycot? 🤢) just for standing up for myself? What about the whole 'fight' aka showcase of power? And the entire yrs of being friends why did I never realize I was only hurting myself so much by putting her before me? And also, with the everyone pushed out thing, how did it fit in? Like why the hell did I give her too much power in validating me by giving in after the fight in the first place?, and while I did have some fun times (saying this so anyone else who reads this doesn't think it was pure torture lol. We had some common interests tyat no one else in the class shared when we first became 'friends'), deep down I was so unhappy so why didn't this reflect on her? I mean why didn't she ever sense just how much she'd hurt me, why didn't she see how much I put on the back burner coz of her?! Was it as she saw it as her right? I'm just so confused

This is still a bitter pill to swallow tbh but I have to face this in order to move on. This person and my life with her has left me wit many scars and I got to understand how I did this so I never attract such a person in my life again. Its not even abt bejnf a victim. As I said, these victimy things were subtle and I only noted them when it was too late and I was a shell, like she getting super pissed and disapproving if I had a differing opinion and me blowijg it out of proportion and tailoring my views or not expressing them so as to not feel the disapproval...thanks boycott conditioning ig? 😭 Aaaah even talking agaunst her rn is making me uncomfortable. Which makes me think I still am scared of her subconsciously even tho she's no longer in my life. Like, what in me made me choose her? I haven't healed, obviously by this ask as u can tell, but idk what is it in my self concept that had this whole thing in my past even happen

My friend, I also want to say I think you're a beautiful soul 🥺. And im sorry for the long ask lol. And I pray you'll always have all your desires. And plz, was it hard for u at first when u learned about u creating everything? The good, the bad, and the repulsive (like this story)? How did u get over old stories? Ty ty ty 😭

To begin with you're being really harsh on yourself. Like, I know it's hard, but it's never that serious. And trust me, this is something I have to remind myself of regularly. Because there have definitely been moments in life where I look back on myself in that moment, and I feel like I was pathetic and would slap myself if I could. But the truth is, there's just no need for any of that. We always did the best we could. We always did, period. We couldn't have done anything differently and this will continue to be true our entire lives. Looking back on the past with such overwhelming feelings, is really not needed. I get looking back to learn from it, but practice coming from a place of love and acceptance instead. It will help you grow, rather than get stuck back in this cycle of self-hate and confusion. Plus, you actually never need to analyze the past to grow but that's beyond the point right now.

To me, by reading your ask, the message she sent to you was clear. You feel you deserve less in life, you feel you're not good enough, you feel like a victim to life and others, you feel like you're not empowered or the operant power of your reality. It's not about her being wrong and you being right, and I get this is one of the hardest pills to swallow. Everyone is you pushed out. Therefore, there's simply no such thing as who is right and who is wrong anymore. It was only ever you.

When it comes to everyone is you pushed out, you have to understand this person isn't this way because that's who they are. They were that way because that's who you were. Inside of you, you brought their character to life. Therefore, the same way you are not stuck to such an undesirable self concept, neither is that person. It's not that you chose her and attracted her in. You were just dealing with yourself. That's what I hope you walk away from this response understanding. Because by thinking she was outside of you, you're missing the mark. And this is such an important concept to understand when it comes to the law of assumption, because it's really at the forefront of everything. People play such a huge role in our lives, whether it's relationships, jobs, opportunities, etc etc. So understanding how everyone is you pushed out actually works is extremely important.

So instead of putting all this blame on her or even putting the blame on yourself, all these memories really do is give you a glimpse into who you were at the time. It shows you the beliefs you held about yourself. It shows you what your self concept was. That's all it's doing. So in that way, there's actually no one to blame at all. I know it feels good to put blame, even when it's on yourself, but the truth is there's no room for blame when you learn about the law. You simply take responsibility and become empowered by the power you have held this entire time. And you practice making it work in your favor.

If you want to see how something was apart of your self concept, all you have to do is pay attention to what you are thinking/feeling. Shame, not being good enough, etc etc is all just stories you once held onto. Now you don't have to hold onto those stories anymore. Now that you know the power you hold, you get to make a new decision for yourself. Rather than ruminating of the painful past, allow it to be and know how that's not your story anymore.

Was it difficult for me to accept how I created everything? Yes and no. It's been a journey. While I could accept it logically, emotionally it was still very painful. Many times I wanted to cry and lash out when I felt alone and felt upset that no one was there for me. Although, I knew deep down it appeared that way because of my own concept of self. So yeah, it's been a journey. And it's honestly not always delightful. But this is the journey we have to take for the rest of our lives, so we might as well get used to practicing and applying these concepts. Instead of continuing to hold ourselves in such painful lights. I got through old stories, and I continue to get through old stories, by feeling all the pain that came up. By allowing myself to cry and feel however I felt like during those times. And in the back of my mind I knew I was getting stronger in my power. I knew how I would keep persisting once the pain subsided. And little by little, old stories fade more and more. That persistence to continue choosing better for yourself, is truly more powerful than it may seem in a difficult moment. Have trust in how it's all working out for you regardless.

Hopefully this is helpful! Thank you for your kind words. 💖

#eiypo

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max1461 · 4 years ago

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Just read Scott Alexander’s post on “conflict theorists” vs. “mistake theorists” and, hmm. I have several thoughts. First, to summarize the concept for anyone who hasn’t seen it before: Alexander links to a reddit post by user u/no_bear_so_low, who originated the idea, saying

There is a way of carving up politics in which there are two basic political meta-theories, that is to say theories about why different political ideologies and political conflict exist. The first theory is that political disagreements exist because politics is complex and people make mistakes, if we all understood the evidence better, we’d agree on a great deal more. We’ll call this the mistake theory of politics. For the mistake theorist, politics is not a zero-sum game, but a matter of growing the pie so there is more for everyone. The second theory is that political disagreements reflect differences in interests which are largely irreconcilable. We’ll call this the conflict theory of politics. According to the conflict theory of politics, politics is full of zero-sum games.

u/no_bear_so_low claims that both the far left and far right are more amenable to conflict theory than liberals are, who lean more towards mistake theory. Alexander seems to agree, though in his own post he’s speaking mainly about Marxists in particular. He summarizes the concept as follows:

To massively oversimplify:

Mistake theorists treat politics as science, engineering, or medicine. The State is diseased. We’re all doctors, standing around arguing over the best diagnosis and cure. Some of us have good ideas, others have bad ideas that wouldn’t help, or that would cause too many side effects.

Conflict theorists treat politics as war. Different blocs with different interests are forever fighting to determine whether the State exists to enrich the Elites or to help the People.

In addition, Alexander subdivides the categories further into “hard” and “soft” versions:

Consider a further distinction between easy and hard mistake theorists. Easy mistake theorists think that all our problems come from very stupid people making very simple mistakes; dumb people deny the evidence about global warming; smart people don’t. Hard mistake theorists think that the questions involved are really complicated and require more evidence than we’ve been able to collect so far [...]

Maybe there’s a further distinction between easy and hard conflict theorists. Easy conflict theorists think that all our problems come from cartoon-villain caricatures wanting very evil things; bad people want to kill brown people and steal their oil, good people want world peace and tolerance. Hard conflict theorists think that our problems come from clashes between differing but comprehensible worldviews.

So what do I think about all this?

Well, it seems to me that this framework is (a) a fairly reasonable descriptive dichotomy, in the sense that, yes, a lot of people do genuinely seem to fall into one of these two camps, and (b) a horrible dichotomy on which to base any prescriptions about political meta-theory, in that these are both awful (and obviously wrong) ways to think about the world. Now, Alexander doesn’t explicitly give any such prescriptions, but he does describe SCC as “hard mistake theorist central”, and generally speaks of mistake theory in approving terms, while speaking of conflict theory in disapproving ones. I think this is bad.

At a base level, my problem with both these “theories” is that they’re, in some sense, just too optimistic.

I agree, for example, with the hard mistake theorist sentiment that the world is full of extremely challenging technical problems, that these problems can be the source of real human suffering, and that the only way to address these problems is through data collection and empirical analysis and hard technical work. And I agree that this will often produce unintuitive conclusions, that run against people’s gut sense of what the right policy might look like. I agree that the state is diseased. I do not agree that “[w]e’re all doctors, standing around arguing over the best diagnosis and cure.” People, it turns out, often do have genuinely different and irreconcilable values, and genuinely do envision different ideal worlds. In addition to that fairly mundane observation, there genuinely are a lot of bad actors, who are just in the game for their own benefit. The world is full of grifters, schemers, and petty (or not so petty) tyrants; on an empirical level that’s just not something you can deny.

On the other hand, I agree with the easy conflict theorist sentiment that, e.g., “bad people want to kill brown people and steal their oil.” There’s plenty of pretty immediate proof of that to be found if you look into the history of colonialism¹, or the slave trade, or US foreign election interference in the twentieth century. Actually, just so I’m not pissing anybody off by only mentioning “western” examples, I’ll include the Khmer Rouge and the Holodomor and comfort women and uh, you get the picture. For god’s sake, the Nazis really existed, and yeah, they really believed all that Nazi shit. In retrospect they may seem like implausibly evil cartoon villains, but in fact they were real flesh and blood humans, just like the rest of us. You think that was just a one-off?

And on a much more mundane note, sometimes (actually, very very often), ordinary people just have incompatible ethical axioms. Sometimes people have genuinely different values, and there are no rational means to sort out which value-set to choose. I suspect this is at least part of the reason for the rationalist community’s skew towards mistake theorizers, in that their favored intellectual tool has more-or-less nothing to offer when it comes to selecting your values (=ethical axioms, =terminal goals, etc). I mean, of course rationality is good for diagnosing contradictions in your value set, but it can’t tell you how to resolve those contradictions. That’s the domain of intuition, empathy, and aesthetics, were data cannot light your way.

However, I do not agree with the conflict theorists’ underlying sentiment that if “the good people” were just in charge, everything would be better. After all, there are all those pesky technical problems with unintuitive solutions getting in the way, requiring all kinds of expertise and thorough empirical study and uh, plenty of them might not even be solvable.² This is a huge deal. It’s incredibly easy to have the best of intentions and still make horrible mistakes by virtue of just... happening to have the facts wrong. Not through malice, or self-interest, or even some nicely-explainable sociological bias like white fragility or whatever. Just because problems are hard, and sometime you will fail to solve them. Even when people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Here’s a handy latex-formatted table for your comprehending pleasure:

lol, we live there.

So this all sounds a bit pessimistic and, well, I suppose it is. I think we have a responsibility to acknowledge the gravity of our situation. We could, conceivably, live in a world that was structured according to either the conflict theorist’s vision or the mistake theorist’s vision, but we don’t. We live in a much scarier world, and if we don’t face that terrifying reality head-on, we’re not going to be able to overcome it.

Now, in general, I’d say I spend a lot of my internet-argument-energy-allowance trying to persuade [what I perceive to be] overly conflict-theorizing leftists in the direction of a greater recognition of the genuine technical difficulty of the problems we face. It's probably worth making a separate post about why I think a “denial of unintuitive solutions” is so common on the left, but I’ll just mention here that I think it relates to what I once jokingly called the “Humanistic gaze”. That is, the bias to view everything quite narrowly through the lens of the humanities, and to view all problems as fundamentally sociological in nature. When the world is constructed entirely by humans and human social relations, there’s a level at which nothing can be unintuitive. After all, an intersubjective world must ultimately be grounded in subjective experience, and subjective experience is literally made of intuition.

I usually don’t spend much time pursuing the dual activity (trying to argue liberals out of [what I perceive to be] an overly mistake-theorizing perspective). This is largely because, well, I think the optimistic assumption that mistake theorists make —that most people have basically compatible goals, and that relatively few people are working out of abject self-interest or hatred or whatever— is so obviously false that it doesn’t warrant as much genuine critique as it warrants responding with memes about US war crimes. The principal of charity is best extended to ideas, not people or institutions. You can take the neocons’ arguments seriously without extending charity to the neocons as agents.

The post concludes with Alexander writing

But overall I’m less sure of myself than before and think this deserves more treatment as a hard case that needs to be argued in more specific situations. Certainly “everyone in government is already a good person, and just has to be convinced of the right facts” is looking less plausible these days.

And uh, yeah. Indeed.

So, in conclusion: is politics medicine, or is it war? No, it’s politics.

There are disagreements, and conflicts of interest, and coalition building, and policy-wonkery, and logistics. There is, as with anything involving the state, the implicit threat of violence. (That’s where the state’s power comes from, remember? Whether it’s their power to tax, or their power to enforce individual property rights to begin with. Their power to regulate or build infrastructure or legally construct corporate personhood or whatever. There’s more than a bit of game theory involved, sure, but the rules of the game are set through the armory.) Every scholarly technocrat with double-blind peer reviewed policy suggestions still ultimately just decides who the guns get pointed at, if at several layers of abstraction. Every righteous people’s vanguard is still bound by the mathematics of production and the dynamics of a chaotic world. There are no easy solution, not conceptually easy nor practically easy. And unless we recognize that on a very deep level, we have no chance of fixing anything.

[1] I’d quote my go-to example here, of the truly ghastly stories relayed to linguist R. M. Dixon by the Dyirbal people of Australia about their subjugation at the hands of white settlers, but unfortunately I don’t have his book with me at the moment. Also this post would require several additional trigger warnings.

[2] I mean, after all, there are only countably many Turing machines, and the set of all languages with finitely many symbols has cardinality 2^(aleph_0)!

#society #for posterity

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years ago

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Long Way From Home: Chapter 3

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Friendship Characters: Scott, Tracy Family

We're far enough in now that I can safely credit @ak47stylegirl and her fic Thunderbirds Meet Thunderbirds for inspiring the overarching premise behind this fic without spoiling what the premise is. There are some obvious differences between the fics, and will continue to be differences, but I almost certainly would not have considered throwing Scott into TOS without reading that fic.

<<<Chapter 2

The room they ended up in, passing through another room full of chairs in the process, was the closest any room so far had looked to home. A sunken area contained a variety of seats, all in front of a desk, while towards the window sat a baby grand.

“Take a seat,” Not-Dad said, settling himself behind the desk. A position of power, Scott noted. Not-Dad had a clear idea of where they stood with regards to each other, and it wasn’t in Scott’s favour. He remained standing, noticing pictures of five young men and a beautiful woman on the walls, surrounded by unmistakably oriental artwork. The young men were familiar. Four of them, he’d already met. Other-Scott looked back at him almost cheekily, while Other-Virgil held a cigarette. Other-Alan looked disinterested, and Other-Gordon was reclining casually. At the far end, next to Other-Scott, was a fifth man – blond – with his arms folded, and Scott’s insides twisted unpleasantly. He had a feeling he knew the final man’s name.

The rest of the family began to file in, seating themselves in what appeared to be a pre-ordained seating plan. Other-Alan perched on a corner of the desk, and Scott waited until everyone had found their seats before folding himself up into a sofa in the middle of the sunken area.

“Now, the first order of business is to work out exactly how Scott arrived here,” Not-Dad proclaimed. “He claims not to know, but there must be some clues.”

“But, Jeff,” Mrs Tracy interjected. “What about his brothers? You are going to look for them, aren’t you?”

Scott had been about to demand the same thing. Not-Dad looked uncomfortable.

“But Mother-” he began. “This is a remote island. It should be impossible for anyone to arrive unannounced. For our own security, we must find out how Scott arrived here.”

“Surely we can look for clues about his brothers at the same time, Father,” Other-Virgil offered. “There are enough of us.” Not-Dad seemed unconvinced, and Scott got to his feet, ready to demand that they locate his brothers before doing anything else, when the door opened.

“I, uh, think I-I’ve solved the, uh, mystery of h-how Scott a-arrived here, Mr Tracy.” Scott stared at the man in the doorway, his stutter and blue-framed glasses instantly reminding him of Brains, for all that this man was white, and English from his accent.

“You have, Brains?” the elder man asked, his attention immediately switching off of Scott, who was getting very sick and tired of familiar names and semi-familiar faces with no explanations.

“W-well, it, uh, might sound a bit fantastical, b-but John and I believe i-it’s, uh, the only explanation,” Other-Brains warned as he entered the room properly. At this point, Scott didn’t care if it was fantastical – if it was plausible, he’d take it, especially after the casual name drop of one of his brothers. The final one, completing the set.

“The, uh, DNA sample I collected turns out to, uh, p-perfectly match the, uh, sample I took from o-our Scott.”

“What sample?” Scott interrupted, sparing a glance towards Other-Scott, who had spoken at the same time.

“Your, uh, surprising resemblance to o-our Scott prompted me to, uh, take a sample for a-analysis.” Other-Brains didn’t seem the slightest bit repentant. “A-as for you, uh, Scott, t-there are many, uh, ways to obtain a sample from, uh, your o-own home.”

“So you’re saying this guy’s a clone?” Other-Alan interrupted, and Scott bristled.

“Well, uh, technically b-by sharing a-a ninety nine point nine p-percent DNA match they are, uh, c-clones, but not in the, uh, way you m-mean, Alan,” Brains replied.

“Explain, Brains,” Not-Dad demanded. “What do you mean by that?”

“W-well, Mr Tracy, when I-I said that, uh, their DNA was a-a perfect match, t-there is, uh, one s-small discrepancy.” He presented them with a clipboard, which showed far too many numbers and squiggles for Scott to make head or tail of it. “S-see here, there, uh, is a foreign s-strand in his, uh, results.”

Scott couldn’t see what he was referring to, even when he helpfully pointed to a particular section of comparison.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we can’t see a thing, Brains,” Not-Dad. “But we’ll take your word for it. What does it mean?”

“Quite, uh, honestly, Mr Tracy, I-I’ve never seen this before,” Other-Brains admitted. “H-however, I believe the answer, uh, lies with the, uh, technology that he a-arrived with.”

“You’ve been poking at my gear?” Scott demanded, stepping forwards. Mrs Tracy put her hand on his arm lightly.

“J-Just a cursory, uh, glance.” Other-Brains still didn’t sound at all repentant for his intrusions. “Enough to, uh, tell that y-your technology is nothing l-like, uh, ours.”

“So, what, he’s an alien?” Other-Alan asked. It was such an Alan-like – his Alan-like – accusation that something in Scott’s chest hurt.

“I, uh, believe John w-would be, uh, better to explain,” Other-Brains deferred. “Mr Tracy?”

“I’m not sure about that, Brains,” Not-Dad disagreed. “It’s one thing showing him our home, but John is in a top secret location. We can’t reveal that on a whim.”

“O-on the contrary, Mr Tracy, i-if John and I are, uh, correct, he is a-already fully a-aware of John’s, uh, location.”

“What?” Other-Scott snapped, his hand landing sharply on Scott’s shoulder. “How?” His fingers dug in tightly, too tightly to be shaken off without the use of force, and Mrs Tracy’s hand was still lightly resting on his arm.

Scott was more concerned about what they were saying. John and location automatically signalled Thunderbird Five, but this wasn’t his John. Whatever was going on here, despite his uniform International Rescue had yet to be mentioned and he had been intending on keeping it that way, unwilling to bring that sort of information to the attention of a group of individuals too weird and bizarre to trust.

“I want you to explain, Brains,” Not-Dad ordered. “I refuse to involve John in a situation this delicate.”

“I-if you, uh, say so, Mr Tracy.” Other-Brains was clearly disappointed at not having back-up for his explanation, but Scott didn’t care who said it at this point as long as it was an answer. “Well, there, uh, is a theory a-amongst astrophysicists k-known colloquially a-as the, uh, multiverse theory. It a-addresses the theorem that, uh, there are multiple universes. John is, uh, better versed i-in it th-than I, but, uh, I know enough to, uh, believe that this is o-our answer.”

“He’s from a parallel universe?” Other-Alan exploded. “No way, Brains. That’s ridiculous!”

“I, uh, did say it was f-fantastical,” Other-Brains reminded him.

“Yes, Brains, but this seems very far-fetched,” Other-Virgil pointed out. “Suppose that’s true; how did he get here?”

“Well, uh, travel between these, uh, theoretical u-universes has not been, uh, investigated, so u-unless Scott’s universe has been, uh, experimenting in the field it is most likely that the, uh, two u-universes temporarily, uh, collided and Scott fell th-through a r-resulting fissure.”

“I don’t remember falling through any fissures,” Scott protested. “I had just left,” he paused, still determined to leave International Rescue out of the conversation, even if Other-Brains was alluding to something similar with Other-John, “my plane and was on my way out of the hangar. Then I woke up here!”

“The ‘plane’ in question wouldn’t be Thunderbird One, by any chance?” an unfamiliar voice asked. It was slightly distorted, as though coming through a speaker. The gentle touch on his arm and the talon grip on his shoulder did nothing to stop Scott tensing.

“What do you mean?” he snarled, looking around for the owner of the new voice. Nothing had changed, no-one had entered the room without his knowledge-

Other-Brains had his left arm held at a weird angle, the face of his watch pointed directly towards Scott. Instead of the ancient, analogue dial he expected to see there, a man’s head was visible. He had a shock of platinum blond hair, but Scott’s attention was caught by the blue hat perched slightly lopsidedly atop his head.

They’d scrapped those hats years ago, one of Dad’s flights of fancy they had all been glad to ditch with a uniform upgrade.

“John!” Not-Dad sounded furious. “Brains, I said we would not be involving John in this!”

“As Brains said, Father, there’s no point.” The blond man – Other-John, recognisable as the fifth portrait hanging on the wall even if he was wearing civilian clothes in that, rather than what looked suspiciously like a proto-IR uniform in Other-Brains’ watch – seemed unbothered at his father’s fury. “This Scott is another universe’s equivalent to our Scott. According to the clothes he was wearing when you found him, that includes being the pilot of Thunderbird One for International Rescue.”

“If this is all true,” Scott interrupted, choosing to chew through the International Rescue bit and the fact that there was a Thunderbird One here later. “All these parallel universes and colliding universes and falling through fissures into other universes stuff. What about my brothers? Aside from one,” he wasn’t willing to give any names out yet, even if Other-Brains and Other-John, at least, seemed to be sharp enough to make a correct assumption “they were all in the house when I got back. Wouldn’t this ‘fissure’ have swallowed them, too?”

It was an outlandish theory. The idea that he’d fallen through into some parallel universe and was now with an alternate version of his family – a version that still had their father, his brain pointed out unhappily – was ludicrous. But it was a theory. He’d heard Alan mention it once, although the teenager had been more interested in the prospect of aliens in their own universe than another one at that moment in time. They were colonising Mars, pushing other expeditions further afield in the Solar System. Space travel was an expensive luxury, but it was a luxury available to anyone with the money, not just the strictest trained of astronauts. Further exploration of the universe was underway, but nothing had ever touched the concept of other universes.

Yet, in the absence of anything more solid, Scott was willing to cling to the theory Other-Brains and Other-John were presenting. As long as his brothers were safe.

“You were found in our Thunderbird One’s hangar,” Other-John informed him, and Not-Dad did not seem happy at that bit of information leaking out, from his attempt to interrupt. Other-John ignored him. “If you were in your own Thunderbird One’s hangar when the collision occurred, that means that you were simply displaced from the location in your home to the identical location in ours. On that basis, if your brothers were also transported, they would have appeared in their respective locations in our home as well. Seeing as they haven’t, I think it’s safe to assume that you are the only one that fell through.”

“But-” That was a lot of supposition, and Scott was not willing to stop searching on the assumption that just because what happened to him hadn’t happened to them, didn’t mean nothing had happened to them.

“However, to be safe, I have included additional parameters into Thunderbird Five’s algorithm to locate any mentions of people appearing out of nowhere, their names, assuming their names are the same as ours, or any other similar phenomena, so if they have ended up elsewhere, I’ll pick it up,” Other-John continued. “If they’re here, I’ll find them. If they’re not, that explains why they haven’t contacted you.”

It was practically a moot point to name drop Thunderbird Five at this point, as far as Scott was concerned, more interested and reassured by Other-John’s calm assessment of the possibilities and the measures he’d made to handle them, reluctantly nodding that yes, their names were the same. Not-Dad, on the other hand, seemed almost apoplectic as he stood rapidly from his desk.

“I did not authorise you to talk about the Thunderbirds, John!” the man thundered. “You have no proof that this Scott has links to an International Rescue of his own, and even if he did, there is no guarantee that they are the same!”

“Yes, Father.” Scott didn’t like the tone Other-John adopted, one that seemed almost used to scoldings. Dad wouldn’t have been like that with them if he was still around and in charge of International Rescue… would he?

Deciding not to dwell on those thoughts, and also finding himself unexpectedly infuriated by Not-Dad’s temper flaring at Other-John, Scott glanced around the room and found something unexpectedly familiar.

Two lamps sat innocently on one wall, perfectly spaced for someone of his height to stand between and hold onto – or pull down.

It probably wasn’t his smartest idea – in fact, he could hear Virgil and John in his head telling him emphatically not to do it – but his reckless streak had never listened to reason. He gently removed the light touch of Mrs Tracy from his arm, and twisted sharply to dislodge Other-Scott’s grip before striding purposefully over to the lamps. Muscle memory dictated his movement more than conscious thought, his arms jarring as the lamps did not pull down, but a switch depressed beneath his fingers nonetheless, and to a chorus of disbelieving – and frustrated, in some cases – voices, the room disappeared in a smooth rotation to reveal Other-Scott’s launch tube.

Or should have done, if it was the same as home. What he had not expected, as he automatically stepped forwards, off of the plate before it could spin back around, was to be immediately greeted by the sleek grey form of Thunderbird One herself.

Immediately he could see differences to his own ‘bird. The pilot seat was inside the cockpit, not extended for boarding, and the opening resembled a door more than a viewing window. VTOL jets were positioned in different places, there were no letters dictating fuel intake, areas of danger and other basic safety information, and her shape was very slightly different.

However, small differences aside, there was no doubt that this was Thunderbird One. Even ignoring the bold white lettering proclaiming her as such, there was no doubting the grey hull, blue engine housing and, most distinctively of all, the vibrant red nose cone.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Other-Scott asked from behind him. Scott made a noise of agreement – even if she wasn’t his, she was close enough that visually, she looked just as stunning. “I guess you have the same access point? You gave Dad quite the shock when you found the entrance to her hangar like that.”

“Near enough,” he confirmed as Other-Scott stepped up beside him, leaning his arms over the railing as he also gazed at Thunderbird One. “The portrait of the rocket goes to Two?”

“Virgil’s crazy slide,” Other-Scott said, bemused.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Scott agreed. “I didn’t see Three or Four’s entrances.”

“Your Four has an access from the lounge?” Other-Scott sounded surprised. “Dad refused to put one in. Gordon has to take the passenger route to Two.”

“A fish tank,” Scott admitted. “Gordon refuses to keep fish in there, though. Says it would be too traumatic for them. He stole John’s model Stingray and put that in there instead.”

Other-Scott chuckled, the first time he’d been anything other than serious since Scott had first seen him.

“That sounds like something Gordon would do,” he admitted. “Your John let him?”

“Said it was a more accurate place for it then the stand in his room,” Scott confirmed.

“And that sounds like something John would say,” Other-Scott grinned, before falling quiet for a moment, studying his ‘bird. “Do you think they’re right?” he asked. “That you’re from a parallel universe?”

It still sounded ridiculous said out loud.

“I don’t know,” Scott admitted. “But it’s the best guess we’ve got and sounds marginally better than insanity.” How he was going to get home, if he really had ended up in another universe, was another matter entirely.

“I suppose that’s true,” Other-Scott said. “But we’ll work something out.”

“Scott!” Not-Dad’s voice echoed through the hangar as the man strode towards them. He did not look pleased, and they shared a look.

“Which one of us does he mean?” Scott wondered out loud. Other-Scott shrugged, clearly bracing himself for a storm. Once again, Scott was left to wonder if it would be the same if Dad was still around – would he be used to disapproval, and a father ruling the roost with an iron fist?

He shoved those thoughts away firmly and straightened his spine. Not-Dad might have his own son contrite, but he had faced down too many people who saw themselves as his superior to cower in front of a man with no relation to him.

“What are you doing in here?” Not-Dad demanded. “How did you find the entrance?” Behind him, at a more sedate pace but intrigue clear in their eyes – exact colour matches to Scott’s own brothers – were Other-Virgil, Other-Gordon and Other-Alan. Brains brought up the rear, his watch still broadcasting Other-John’s face. Scott was getting fed up with all of the questions.

“Because I’m Scott Tracy,” he declared, stepping forwards, away from the Thunderbird behind him and towards the man challenging him. “Because that is my ship and I know how to get to her.” He expected Other-Scott to protest, remind him that it wasn’t his Thunderbird One because they were in the wrong universe for that, but he didn’t.

Not-Dad was shorter than him. Not by much, just enough for him to realise he was looking ever so slightly down to meet his eyes. ��Did that mean he had outgrown Dad, a final growth spurt just after the Zero-X and the tragedy that brought?

“How dare you take that tone with me!” Not-Dad snapped, fury flashing through grey eyes. Behind him, two pairs of brown eyes and one pair of blue had widened in surprise. “Does your father permit you to talk back to him like that?” All at once, Scott’s temper flared.

“My father is GONE!” he shouted, fist flying to the side and connecting with the wall of the hangar. “You might look like him, but you’re not him, and I won’t treat you like him!”

Silence followed his words, even after the echoes of his yells finished bouncing off the hangar walls. His own breathing was loud, too loud to his own ears, and his knuckles started to throb as he felt everyone’s eyes on him.

Other-Alan spoke first, because he was Other-Alan and of course he did, for all that this Alan wasn’t a teenager and should at least have some modicum of common sense.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Scott ignored him, finding Not-Dad’s – Never-Dad’s – eyes again. They were shocked, horrified, even, and seeing that expression on a face that looked just like his father’s reminded him of the last time he’d seen his Dad look like that. When Mom died.

He had to get out.

Thunderbird One was behind him, offering haven except she wasn’t his Thunderbird One and he knew they would all crowd the cockpit, imprisoning him inside until he talked. He had no intention of ever talking, of telling these strangers wearing his family’s names and almost-faces about how much it hurt. He’d never planned to tell them Dad was gone in the first place.

The two lamps stuck out of the wall, nearest Other-Scott. They’d lead back into the lounge, an unfamiliar place but one that it would at least take time for them to pursue him there, judging by how long it had taken them to join him in the hangar. He lunged forwards, found the catches on the lamps and spun the wall back around. Behind him, the silence broke, voices talking over voices in a cacophony that was shut out as soon as the rotation completed. Soundproofed walls. Nothing less than he’d expected.

“Oh, dearie, what happened?” He’d forgotten Mrs Tracy would still be there. “Oh, you poor thing. Look at your hand. Tin-Tin, be a darling.”

“Of course, Mrs Tracy,” the young woman said, finding her feet and hurrying across the room to him. “Oh, that looks nasty. I’ll treat it right away.” A touch on his elbow and his feet were moving of their own accord, following her down the stairs and through hallways he’d yet to learn until they arrived in a room he recognised.

The signs of his fight with Other-Scott had gone, gaps on the shelves where bottles had stood when he first woke the only indication that anything had happened in the room. As Tin-Tin directed him to sit in a chair, grabbing a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages for knuckles he hadn’t realised were bleeding, for all that they were throbbing in discontent, he caught sight of his uniform, still neatly folded.

His comm unit was on the top, and he reached for it to find it was too far away from where he was sat.

“I’m almost finished,” Tin-Tin assured him. “You know,” she continued. “If you open the window, there’s a track that runs up towards a cliff. Only Scott ever goes up there – his brothers don’t know about it.”

Scott stared at her, realising for the first time that for all their differences, this young woman was likely this universe’s version of Kayo.

“I don’t think he would like that you told me that,” he said, unable to bring himself to address Not-Dad by any name. His voice cracked mid-sentence and he frowned. “He wants me under his watch.”

“Oh, Scott,” she replied, pulling the bandages tight. “He’s worried.” A delicate hand picked up his comm unit and pressed it into his uninjured hand. “I’ve known our Scott a long time,” she added, closing his hand over the unit. “In all that time, I’ve only seen him cry once.” By the time he had registered her words and raised a hand to his face, surprised to find it come away damp, she’d left the room.

Swiping at the tears angrily now that he knew they were there, he regarded the unit in his hand, and then the window. A place to himself was exactly what he needed, although the idea of using one of Other-Scott’s escapes felt distinctly weird. Footsteps outside the room forced his decision – if they were going to find him in this state, he could at least attempt to make it a challenge.

The window opened easily, and soundlessly. Well-maintained, and he wondered how often Other-Scott used it, or if one of the others also had escape routes from the infirmary. Considering his own brothers, it was likely that they all did – one of the reasons Grandma had put their infirmary in a room with only one exit was because they were all terrible patients and one exit was infinitely easier to guard than multiple.

He remembered his lack of shoes only when bare feet met dirt, but he had no idea where Other-Scott kept his shoes, and no desire to go hunting. The route Tin-Tin had described stood out to him easily, a challenging terrain that he would have chosen himself even if he hadn’t already known about it. Then again, this universe’s version of him had done exactly that, once. Strapping the comm unit firmly to his wrist, finding familiar comfort in its snug fit and slight weight, he started up the trail.

It wasn’t as challenging as it looked; once Scott found his rhythm it was almost easy, but as it was an escape route from the infirmary that made sense. Escape routes were useless if they couldn’t be used. After only a few minutes he rounded a particularly aggressive-looking crag to find a hollow tucked behind it. The view was fantastic, jungles and volcanic crags combined with the ocean behind and the sky above. Down below, he could just about see a white building that had to be the villa, an oddly-shaped swimming pool set in front of it.

There was no doubt this was Other-Scott’s secret escape.

He curled his legs in, out of sight of anyone that might be looking up the route, and tore his eyes away from the unfamiliar vista to focus on his comm unit. Logically, he knew it was useless. John would have been trying to get hold of him as soon as he woke from his cat nap, and if anything was going to get through to here – to another universe – it would be the powerful signals of Thunderbird Five.

Scott didn’t want to listen to logic. Despite being wrapped in bandages, his fingers found all the right places to activate the comm unit, and he waited with bated breath for it to connect. It took a while, connection symbol flashing orange as it searched for a signal to hook onto. International Rescue technology was as resourceful as the rest of them. Designed to be compatible with every known network in the world, as well as their own with Thunderbird Five at the heart, there were blessedly few places where signal was impossible. Here, on a Tracy Island, with a Thunderbird Five proven to be sending and receiving signals, there was no way his comm unit wouldn’t be able to find a network to hijack.

The red symbol that eventually flashed up defied him, the slash through the connection symbol taunting him as it declared there were no networks in the area.

“Don’t you dare!” he complained at it, shaking his wrist vigorously and resorting to fierce taps when the red symbol stayed steady. “There’s a signal right there, dammit!” he cursed, gesturing down towards where the villa lay. “And up there!” He motioned to the sky, where their Thunderbird Five undoubtably lurked. “How can you not find it at all? Dammit!”

He depressed the call button anyway, watching the hologram technology awaken, ready to beam his image to whoever was on the other end. With tearstained cheeks, scruffy pyjamas that weren’t his, and a wrapped-up hand, he didn’t want his image beaming anywhere, and quickly changed the setting to audio-only.

“Thunderbird Five?” he tried. “Come in, Thunderbird Five. John, are you there?”

The red symbol stubbornly remained, and his comms remained silent. He’d thought that at least Other-John would answer.

“John? Virgil are you there? Come on, guys, pick up! Gordon, can you hear me? Alan!” His voice cracked and he scrubbed at his face again, unsurprised but frustrated when it came back freshly damp. “Kayo? Grandma? Brains? Anyone, dammit!” He was begging and he knew it, tears seeping into his voice no matter how hard he tried to keep them up. “MAX? EOS! You’re always hacking things you shouldn’t, you damn AI. You’ve got to be here! Put me through to John. I know he’s looking for me. Just… put me through, dammit!”

The red symbol never wavered, blocking him from his family no matter how much he cursed, threatened, begged it.

“Why won’t you work, you stupid piece of junk?” he demanded. “It’s only a goddamn universe in the way. Just one, stupid, measly, universe!”

A universe. An ever-expanding chasm of space that contained billions upon billions of galaxies, which themselves contained billions of stars and planets. They were colonising Mars. Thunderbird Three had managed to travel out as far as Jupiter. The distances were incredible; the wonder as Alan launched off to far-flung parts of their solar system never failed to strike Scott.

Those incredible distances didn’t even make a fraction of the chasm between them now.

A chance collision of universes had thrown him across. Inter-universe travel wasn’t even a daydream in the minds of their most advanced scientists, and from Other-John’s words, this universe was the same.

Scott wasn’t John, but he was reasonably handy with numbers and probabilities. The chances of another collision occurring that would send him home again were beyond remote. International Rescue made the impossible happen, but Scott was all too painfully aware that even they had limits. How did you rescue someone from another universe?

Would they even know where he was? It took Other-Brains and Other-John some leaps of logic, DNA testing between him and Other-Scott, and a grasp of the difference in their technology to reach the conclusion. All his family would have was the fact that he was gone. Without a trace. It would be even worse than Dad. At least they knew what had happened to Dad, had seen that cursed footage of the Zero-X exploding into infinite pieces with no body left to bury.

He had just vanished.

John would be blaming himself, cursing himself for going to take his next nap before ensuring Scott was safely in the house. He remembered what his brother had been like when Dad had gone, the weeks, months, of frantic searching and sleepless nights until he’d taken Three up and all but bust through the airlock to drag John back to Earth. He hadn’t let him back up there until the space elevator was installed, one of Brains’ pet projects that Dad had vetoed but Scott demanded because anything to bring their family closer together was a good thing.

He hoped one of the others would stop John tearing himself apart. His little brothers were strong, he had to believe that. If Other-John was right and they weren’t also here, somewhere in this strange universe with its indecipherable technology. No, Scott wanted them at home. He wanted the four of them to be together, even if he wasn’t there.

But he would be, he promised. No matter that the distance between them was insurmountable, no matter that there were some things even International Rescue couldn’t do. Nothing, not even the damn universe – or however many universes were involved in this fiasco – was going to stop Scott Tracy going home to his brothers.

He just had to figure out how.

Chapter 4>>>

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