#never had a proper identity crisis before and it
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
starkidlabs · 4 months ago
Text
God I don’t need a full-blown Identity Crisis, on top of the crippling loneliness and debilitating body dysmorphia I have right now (both of which are the worst I have ever had).
1 note · View note
basmala260 · 2 months ago
Text
The basic dynamics of Hirano and Kagiura's relationship
First of all, I don't like comparing the two because they both fall into the spectrum of ideal romance and the other into complicated romance, But just to make things clear, Sasaki To Miyano is more genuine and romantic while Hirano To Kagiura is more on the complicated side discuss identity crisis where hirano is dealing with his self issues and Kagiura deals with his concept of love Unlike Sasamiya where everything was perfect, friendship, admiration, feelings, time to give a proper answer, mutual feelings
But I will use this in some paradoxes between natural and complex relationships to illustrate some points, fair enough
1. Kagiura's personality is the fastest to develop in this relationship. He just loves his roommate, trying to make sure of his feelings, but thanks to his friend's support, he determined his proper definition of love. Of course, a large part of him is inclined towards his parents' relationship* and as I mentioned before His desire to feel Hirano's feelings for him turned into a physical desire because he couldn't get the look he wanted from Hirano's eyes.
* With that said, I want to touch on this point since this is one of the ways the manga shows how childish Kagiura is, it's something where you ask a child what they want to do when they grow up and they'll tell you they want to be like their mom or dad
Tumblr media
I actually asked one of the kids in the family a couple of days ago what she wanted her partner to be like when she grew up, and her response was simple "a kind and a caring person." (You can pull any child near you and they will give you the same answer).
Isn't that exactly what Kagi loves about Hirano? (I mean I know this is a natural trait of the person you love but usually it is not only this, I hope this makes sense) What I'm trying to explain here is how Kagiura is always referred to as a child
Tumblr media
Not only that, but Hirano's rejection of him activated the stubborn (and seemingly childish) feeling inside him. Hirano had already rejected him twice (9 - 23.5) But he was vehemently denying it, confident that Hirano would "REALIZE HIS FEELINS" and not "give up." (Because I used to see a lot of people saying that Kagiura is forcing Hirano)
As I mentioned before, this is blind optimism.
Unlike Sasaki, who didn't think he had much hope, and in the time he gave Miyano to think, he was happy that Miyano was thinking of him and didn't want anything else, and even if he had rejected him I'm sure everything would have stayed the same and he wouldn't ask Miya to think again at any chance He was really grateful to have Miano in his life, just it
Tumblr media
2. Move to Hirano who The one on his side of the relationship is much slower and also late, since this was the first time he experienced something like this, he had no one to confess to, he had no one to love, and he had never been in a relationship before, Hirano struggles to define and understand love itself, He is not looking for a clear concept, he is trying to find a concept
He had never thought about it before, and it seemed to him that everything he did to Kagiura, from pampering and loving, was a natural act, as he was searching for a sense of responsibility throughout the story.
He was the only child of his parents, intellectually intelligent, but socially stupid, qualities that formed fertile ground for the desire to feel responsible.
We can see how he is a supporting character in the main manga like Hanazawa, but unlike Hanazawa who was driven by anxiety, Hirano was driven by responsibility.
Every time Kagiura gets close to Hirano physically and Hirano doesn't move, it's not that Hirano wants Kagiura to get closer, it's not that Hirano trusts Kagiura not to get closer, but it's already made clear that Hirano doesn't mind Kagiura touching him, it's just that he doesn't understand what this should mean, it's not that he doesn't want to or that he wants to, he just stands helpless not understanding (The thing is, in chapter 20, he was just surprised, but he wasn't bothered by it)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Unlike Sasaki and Miyano, there was a boundary and a line between the contact between them.
The most likely idea for me is that Hirano is slow to understand his feelings because he is trying to understand Kagiura and has never tried to understand himself.
74 notes · View notes
candywife333 · 1 year ago
Text
My Little Saesang (Part 1)
chubby reader x idol jungkook
Summary: Y/N had been a super fan for a while. Some would say bordering on saesang or creep level. She didn't think she was one, till she experienced an incident that made her stop being a fan. She had never thought that Jungkook or any of BTS ever noticed her, as she was part of the masses of obsessive fans. But they had. Especially, one doe eyed idol in particular. He never thought he would miss his fan, or shall we say saesang. Yet, he couldn't help but notice her absence. And he didn't know when her presence started to matter to him so much.
Disclaimer: The Jungkook represented in this fic does not reflect the true actions or thoughts of the real life Jungkook. Please treat this fic as exactly what it is, fiction
Triggers: Critique of fandom culture and kpop as a whole, identity crisis, eventual smut
Note: Not proofread. Slated to be approximately 4 parts or less.
"Y/N, what the hell are you still doing in that cafe? Didn't we come over here to spy on Jungkook at his house before he heads off to M-CountDown for his performance? I don't remember scheduling a pit-stop for you to have a second lunch", Kim-Hee glared down at me through her thick framed black glasses that honestly sort of made her look like a sexy principal. Anger at being diverted from her goal of catching the tan pop-star in his sweaty excellence seemed to cloud her vision.
I retorted back with a snort, "You know me very well at this point, after being my fellow saesang comrade in arms for close to 2 years girl. I am digesting my food baby as we speak and will soon be ready for delivery in that nasty garbage ass smelling toilet. I have a date with the shits, so to speak. Don't you see that my jeans are popped open and the zip down ready to go. I don't got the energy to chase this man today. Our stunt at New York was bad enough, don't you think"? Shaking my head at her idiocy even after knowing me for so long, I exclaimed, "Feel free to chase him in time for his ending fairy if you feel like it though. I am just not feeling it today".
Kim Hee, my bestie, stared at me with squinted eyes, black tiny eyes glittering in the harsh sun, "Girl, you were the one who had this all scheduled out a month back? How could you not bloody commit at the crucial time!!!! Our fucking junior fans are counting on your stupid ass". I waved my right at her in dismissal, ramen sauce covering my lips like a new Fenty lipstick that I just could not afford right now with my measly ass job as janitor at KBS.
I snarled back in irritation, "Tell those kids to go and study in college, that's more important than following his dumb ass anyways. He won't remember them for their troubles. At max, he will remember a few fans from their initial debut days , get married to a rich ass plasticky actress, have beautiful spoiled kids, and die a rich philanthropist. Saesangs don't get paid if you catch my point. Honestly, if it paid as a job, I would consider it. But I think I may have to retire". I patted my distended stomach in contentment, satisfied with the first proper meal I had in 3 days, stalking JK with my team all over New York and then catching a flight to Korea for his album showcase.
My bestie stared at me now in shock, with wide eyes, hands waving in the air, clearly confused at my statements, "Didn't you just say a week ago that this was all worth it? That supporting our faves, especially BTS, and the lord and savior himself , Jungkook, was a noble passion to pursue? Why have you suddenly done a 180 on us and him like this"? I flinched visibly at her reminder of what I used to be and who I used to be. The person she described felt foreign to me now. Ever since I opened my eyes and saw what fans, especially super fans like us, who didn't have a life outside of BTS suffered, I was a reformed woman. A reformed woman who had decided as of now to save all my money for some botox and a dental appointment, some clothes for mom and dad, and a hot meal for my younger sister. I was going to go from being a crysallis to a butterfly. In essence, I was going to woman the fuck up. That's what the fuck I was about to do with my life.
With this aim in mind, I slammed my fist against the plastic table, startling Kim Hee. "Bestie, you never got close enough to JK to see how much he hated it, okay? He hated us in those moments that we invaded his privacy. Remember that one time I snuck up on the set of them filming "Black Swan" to give him a godiva chocolate my mom had brought back from Sweden?" Kim Hee nodded in assent, clearly knowing how much of big deal it was for me to part with food of any kind, for any reason, for anyone (Even my own family). I loved luxury chocolate and food in general. Nobody could rip it out of my hands , as evidenced by Kim Hee and all our friends in middle school when I slapped a guy stupid and hit him in the nuts for taking a ferrero rocher out of my hands---the motherfucker.
I continued ,"Well I gave it to his hands while he was waiting outside at the entrance of the set. Even normies like me are allowed on that area, it was not a restricted filming area. I just left the chocolate next to where he was sitting, with a red bow (his name engraved on it) wrapped around it. He legit stared at me in confusion, like he had not seen me for the past 9 years, sneered at me, disdain in his beady black eyes and threw the chocolate in the dustbin like it was as figment of his imagination". Kim Hee stared at me in dismay, clearly knowing that what I considered the foremost cardinal sin in life was throwing away food, particularly expensive food.
I wrung my hands in the air, holding in my tears, "Bestie, it was white chocolate, do you understand? It was limited christmas edition. I could never afford that chocolate in my dreams , if not for one of mom's colleagues gifting it to her. Chili ,(my sister) was yapping about it for days, salivating, thinking she could bite into it. And I sacrificed it to an undeserving multi millionaire". I sat back down on the bench, numbly, tears streaming down my face. I was so done with him and the entire group at this point. I understand that what we do, Saesangs, stalkers, whatever they like to call us, is not correct. We should not be so invasive. But I always told the kids who followed in my footsteps that we could support them, but just not to the point that we impinged on their personal lives. I had done some fucked up things as a newbie army, but two years into their debut, I understood that limits were required.
The most I had ever done since then, was to gift the members things as a fan. Whatever I could afford. Whether that was their favorite convenience store snack left by us on the set of one of their music video shoots. Or a pack of gum or their favorite desserts when we attended fan meets. I and the girls who followed me on these adventures, as I used to call them, never snuck into HYBE. We were of the more benign variety, not on par with the crazies who took the same flight as them (not that I could afford that), or collected saliva, sweat, and urine samples. For goodness sakes, we didn't even run after their vehicles, we just waved politely and jumped up and down like rabid dogs that had treats waved in their faces.
The moment I was compelled to stop following my fave, or I guess my former bias as of now, was simply when he casually looked at the chocolate I had left next to him as though it were poison, and tossed it in the trash without looking back. That was when I knew, I was worthless in his eyes, along with the rest of the fans who tried so hard.
We shelled out money saved up from little jobs and pocket money accumulated for months together, to buy expensive albums, merchandise, and anything else they put out. We forgo the little luxuries like nicer shoes and warmer coats in winter to buy tickets for outdoor showcases and shiver in the cold wind to just catch a glimpse of one of their half smiles. We stream their music that speaks of love that we do not comprehend, love whose face is so unfamiliar in our youth that we would pass it by as though it were a stranger. When we don't have anyone in our lives to hug us and hold us and kiss us, to wipe our tears and pat us on the back when we are down and to tell us that everything will be alright, we stare at them in the tabloids extrapolating who they could be in love with, fantasizing about a love that could never be ours. We live our lives, living for them, living around them as though we are satellites caught int he orbit of a bigger planet, and now, it does not make sense to me anymore.
It may just be a chocolate, stupid worthless and insignificant to him. It may be cheap, a show of cheap love that he wishes to spit on. But it wasn't cheap to me. My love wasn't cheap. Food isn't cheap, especially food bestowed with love. And I was done giving my love away for free, as though it meant nothing. As though it were a cheap cigarette to be smoked and discarded, ground under the foot of someone who had finished using it for a fleeting high. Cheap and dispensable and convenient, that's what we were, what I had become.
I cringed internally as my gaze redirected towards Kim Hee. I croaked out in determination while chewing on the remnants of soggy ramyun, "We are done babe. I am through with this horrible, parasitic relationship. I am going to figure out how to make myself rich or get rich through marriage. I am done being stupid, falling over myself for a guy or a group of guys who don't see or appreciate me. They get rich on my desperation, and I don't wish to give them that power anymore".
145 notes · View notes
aettuddae · 21 days ago
Text
HONEYCOMB — chapter 9.
— late november, 2013.
Tumblr media
꩜ synopsis: the lavier-choi's, a french-korean family from seoul's elite that runs an electric vehicle production business, has been preparing to face a looming economic crisis that could crumble their empire, and it all takes a turn for the worse when, unexpectedly, their patriarch, who headed the company, suddenly passes away. at the news and her mother's desperate call, albany, the eldest daughter, is forced to abandon her life in paris representing france as a professional fencer and return to her homeland to face her mom's old-fashioned whims in order to help the family. amidst all the frenzy, the only positive thing she finds is that, after years, she will be reunited with her siblings and all the friends she grew up with, especially the yu family from across the street.
Tumblr media
masterlist | prev | next
[written chapter]
seoul's elite children were a difficult species to deal with. mired in the hysteria of not having everything the world had to offer and the greed of possessing too much even so. convinced that they were the only ones who deserved proper treatment, that the rest deserved no respect, they were driven by the belief instilled by their parents, and possibly the rest of society as well, that they were the best this country had to offer, when in reality most were idiots with possibilities obtained in dubious ways.
when your parents had earned their money through hard work and raised you with dignity and care, it was hard to be an elite child among other elite children.
although not all the children in the choi family had the working principles of their parents, they were nice people, the kind of people who doesn't ask if you're high, middle or lower class before speaking to you.
albany enjoyed the facilities that life had given her, she didn't deny it, after all, without her parents' money she probably wouldn't have been able to dedicate herself to a sport as expensive as fencing, but she had never let it consume her head, never have her material goods been stronger than her moral goods. she wasn't the typical spoiled child who would do everything to keep her fortune, and she wasn't a capricious person either.
as she entered her teenage years she began to notice that she was the opposite of her mother. not everyone in the family could be different from the community in which they lived. during those times they fought a lot, among all the causes, the one that stood out was eveline's need to impose her beliefs and lifestyle on her daughter who did not want that for her and hated to obey her orders.
"albany dress this way," "fencing is not for ladies," "you don't have to help him, that's his job," "do you like any boys? someday you will marry a rich man."
the eldest of the choi daughters was not capricious, but she looked like she was when she constantly had to fight to maintain the identity she was developing before her mother's corrosive hurricane.
eveline was not a bad mother, albany had never lacked for anything and she always had her there when she needed someone to protect her, but she was a complicated woman who could rarely identify the things that others felt or thought. her whole life had been about trying to survive the robot that was her mother who seemed to have an unrelenting operating system with strict orders to hunt albany down and transform her into one of her own.
"you have to attend galas to get contacts and eventually someone to marry."
that was the most annoying one of all the annoying things that could come out of her mother's mouth. she and her father should have been able to distinguish albany's resistance to this idea from a simple tantrum, but her father, as good and understanding as he was, was always at work and her mother was unable to understand why someone wouldn't want to make the life she had.
her parents had met at the '87 seongbuk-dong garden festival. she was never sure if her mother loved her father, but he always told it so excitedly, how she was wearing a long, puffy light blue dress, with her blonde hair tied back and styled in a way that in seoul was not usually seen. he had heard that a new family had recently arrived from france and seeing her face while imagining her accent had only made him more desperate to talk to such a beauty.
her mother told all the stories without much emotion, even the one about minho's birth, which clearly thrilled her, was a bit bland when she narrated it. because of this, it was indecipherable when a memory moved her and when it didn't. she had said a couple of times that her father had come up to her and tried to flatter her beauty with a poor, awkward french, and she had chosen to stay with him because he was the most handsome of all the men at the festival.
of all the rich men at the festival, she chose the handsomest. intelligent woman.
for eveline it was the natural order of things because even when living in france that's what she was taught to do, but albany didn't want to get married, didn't want it at ten years old and didn't want it at twenty-eight. at first, she was just reluctant to the idea, until eventually, she was adding up reasons why she didn't see herself in that scenario.
starting because she didn't want to marry a man, obviously, which over time for society ceased to be relevant, leading her mother to pursue her and suggest that in modern times she could marry a woman if she wanted to. but it was more than that, she didn't want to feel that she belonged to someone, that her life depended on another person, she didn't want to be somebody's woman. she wanted to make a name for herself, to stand out on her own, to fulfill her dreams. her great and only love had always been fencing and it would be with this that she would marry, she had no intention of being a housewife or working in her family's company so she could provide for her partner, that did not excite her. the idea of having to neglect her goals for someone else did not move her. besides that, she had never loved something or someone as much as she loved her vocation.
"if i ever get married it will be because i loved someone else more than my dreams." albany used to say when she and jimin would discuss what they would do in the future.
and although she had loved people, never more.
it took a while for both her parents to understand this decision, until they got tired of asking her to find a wife and let her move to paris. still, when they wanted to send her to her first gala before that, albany made such a fuss about not attending, that she managed to put it off for two years.
the gala's. you dressed up in the most elegant gowns designed by the most important names just for you, and at your fifteenth you attended for the first time. they were events where connections were created, you not only looked for a partner, but also for friendships, future colleagues who could help you in the working and economic world. contacts.
the children arrived there with goals in mind, already knowing the relevant names of who they should approach. they had their heads washed by their families desirous of money and power, they were trained to look for the same and to use whoever they could get their hands on. there were exceptions of course, but most of the friendships they had now in their late twenties were fictitious, conventional because as children they were not taught to create genuine bonds.
at these events, which lasted for a six-month season, there were dances that you had to know by heart and if you didn't it was because you hadn't received the proper education, it was full of the sons with the most relevant surnames in the country. extensive tables filled with delicacies made by the best chefs, which tended to be albany's favorite part, classical music performed live, and decorations that looked like something out of a fairy tale.
they were beautiful, but boring as watching grass grow.
and albany wanted neither a husband nor more friends than she already had, so she refused to expose herself to so many unpleasant people in such a mediocre environment. once, when she was sixteen, she had such a fierce fight with her mother not to attend one of these, that she ended up locked up camping in her room with no interaction with the outside for two weeks, being fed by jimin who had the spidery ability to climb up to her window developed to perfection.
it was only when she reached seventeen that she agreed to attend her first gala, being of her class who later made her debut, thanks to the pleas of minho who by then had attended more of these events than one could bear. he swore he just wanted to see her make new friends and that it would be fun because he would be there with her, although years later she learned that their mother forced him to convince her. albany admired minho more than anyone else in the world and would do anything for him, so she agreed. they had a huge fight when he ended up not spending any time with her during the night, but they worked it out because in the end minho was just acting like an idiot man at twenty-one, and he apologized as soon as he realized how wrong he had been.
when she finally learned the reason why minho had begged her to attend her first of many gala's she ended up going to, any hard feelings left over from that altercation dissipated. more than anyone else she knew how hard it was to say no to eveline lavier.
her only condition for accepting that time was that jimin would accompany her. she wasn't willing to face a night like that on her own, even less so when she knew she would be heavily judged for being an older debutante than the others. so she convinced the yu parents to let little fourteen-year-old jimin be her plus one, and they agreed, mostly because the blackhaired would never have let them say no.
that night she was wearing a dress that eveline had sent a guy with an unpronounceable last name to design for her personally and jimin, who was not going as a debutante but as a chaperone, was wearing one of the dresses she already had in her closet for special events.
"what's the ugliest dress?" asked karina after entering the main hall with her arm tied to the older one's, scanning the group of people in extravagant outfits and hairstyles.
"jimin, it's wrong to ask that!" she slapped the hand she used to hold her. "but that brown one strikes me as an insult to fashion." she twisted her mouth in disgust, making the younger girl giggle as she pointed as dissembled as possible to a girl wearing garments with numerous ruffles of such a color.
"yes, it is ugly." she agreed in amusement. "but no more than that one." she pointed to a yellow one with a tail, both joining in laughter again.
they ignored all the dances that started on the dance floor, as jimin barely knew them and albany didn't care to remember them after not having practiced them for two years. they stood near the table and as slyly as they could they kept some food, as it was not well seen to eat away from the table, and then went to the patio of the place to eat while they chatted and joked about the event.
"i'm bored." warned the blonde, wiping her hands after finishing a piece of cake she had managed to hide and carry all the way outside.
"what should we do?" the other girl thought aloud.
they both kept silent as they contemplated the options the event offered, which weren't very flashy, and looking all around for something that was like a miracle. albany turned her head back and saw the bush entrance. in places like the one they were in there were always wide gardens to sit in or explore, in that specific one there was a short and narrow patio that connected to a beautiful rose garden that was strictly forbidden to enter during the gala, it was reserved for meetings during the morning and afternoon.
"jimin." she spoke with her eyes on the archway of leaves.
the youngest brought her attention to it to understand what it needed, and noticing her with her gaze wandering to the background, she searched for that which she was observing with her own eyes.
"oh." she vocalized as she found the target. "yes." she agreed, needing neither to explain anything else.
they quickly stood up, leaving the remains of what they were eating on the stool they were previously sitting on. they scanned their surroundings, confirming that most of the people were inside the room and outside there were only a couple who weren't paying attention to them. jimin took albany by the hand and began to take quick steps making the older girl follow her, heading to the place they had both set as their destination. the entrance was always open, hoping that people would behave and not pass by, but they didn't count on two best friends with nothing better to do.
they passed the archway and without letting go of each other began to walk through the dark, empty park. their phones had been taken at the entrance as to use the flashlight for illumination. it was barely visible as the walls of vines that enveloped the place blocked the city light and the moon wasn't particularly bright that night. as they wandered, something flew over the blonde, which, because it was night, she assumed must have been a bat. with the creature that had flown close to her and this realization of what it could be, the girl became upset and began to punch at the air, afraid that the animal had landed on her clothes. jimin tried to help her and calm her down, but there was not much she could do. not seeing well because of the darkness and the sudden movements she was making, albany didn't notice that the backward steps she was taking were leading her to a fountain full of water.
her ankles collided with the edge of the water and albany lost her balance. jimin, who was following her trying to calm her down, stretched out her arms with the intention of holding her, but didn't make it in time before the girl fell into the water. jimin covered her mouth in surprise and a little because she didn't want her to see her laughing at how stupid the situation had been, while albany finally stopped moving as half of her body was wet.
the blonde raised her head in search of some reaction from her best friend, who at first managed to hide it, but a few seconds later it was very obvious that she was laughing.
"hey!" she groaned as she noticed how entertained the younger girl was by all this.
choi, still submerged in the fountain, flicked the water in the girl's direction, but the splash barely reached her. in the end she could do nothing but join in their laughter. once they calmed down she showed her hands, wordlessly asking her to help her up, to which jimin agreed. the girl approached, grabbed the older one and when she was about to start pulling, she was drawn in the direction of the structure, without time to react to what was happening and resist, she fell on top of the older one, soaking herself as well.
jimin rested her weight on her hands, which she positioned on either side of albany's waist, and lifted her torso enough to be able to look at the blonde with shock, her mouth open in surprise, condemning her in her mind for what she had just done. she threw her body to the side, causing the water to jump and hit choi again, who, in vain, covered herself with her arms. once away from albany, jimin began to throw water at her, annoying her as a consequence of her actions, causing her to do the same and starting a war between the two of them.
after a moment, albany stood up as quickly as she could, her dress and hair in disarray and dripping, and then got out. she offered to help the younger girl to do it too and the latter, after looking at her with suspicion for a moment, accepted. once they were both out, albany gave her a mischievous look and jimin felt nervous about what was to happen, only to be caught in an embrace by her best friend who was completely covered in water and was now finishing wetting the parts of her that remained dry. she lifted her off the ground, shaking her body a bit, and letting her go finally, not before taking her face in her hands, pulling her close and leaving a long, loud kiss on her cheek, to which jimin pretended to vomit.
"thank you for coming with me, fée." she said sincerely.
"anything for you, bany." she gave her cheek a squeeze. "now how do we get back with our clothes all wet?" she looked down at herself.
"don't worry." a third voice suddenly joined the conversation as they were illuminated by flashlights, startling them. "we've already spotted them." reported with obviousness the head of events who was in charge of the gala and had appeared in front of them with two more authorities.
(!)
taglist [OPEN] : @cwpiqwon @yoontoonwhs @aeriuchinarga @sixflame438 @yeetaberry127 @1luvkarina @masuowo @saysirhc @rinapomu @aliceiwk @nwjnsloona @arihiu
35 notes · View notes
raelyn-dreams · 1 year ago
Note
Any headcanons of your favorite enstars characters? 👀💫
I do indeed nonnie! Though tbh, these are kind of full-cast headcanons lol. Tysm for the ask 😊
Mika is still upset he wasn't included in the Sanrio collab, and angrily sewed plushies the entire day it was announced.
During practice for Artistic Partisan, Hiiro was under the impression that the prop spears were much heavier than they actually were, leading to him accidentally slamming one through the wall (and nearly impaling Shu).
We don't talk enough about how Knights are given swords for their performances. Like who thought this was a good idea. Even if they are dull and fake, do you know how terrifying it is to have Ritsu Sakuma come at you with a sword and a maniacal grin? Kaoru Hakaze does.
Kuro was basically acting as a mediator for the entirety of the Yuukyou Seishunka cover rehearsals (while Mika and Souma prayed their unit leaders wouldn't kill each other). Keito and Shu came to feel kinda bad about this as they were winding down, so they begrudgingly worked together to make him a gi, as a thank you and apology. Keito never wants to hear the words "proper quilter's knot" again, but it was worth it for the smile on Kuro's face.
Hiiro and Hinata both have...shaky histories with high places (Hiiro in !! main story after Rinne disowns him, and Hinata during Setsubun). Niki doesn't know the details, but he notices after a while, so they start having rooftop hang-outs on occasion to help them with it.
I really like the Hiiro-Hinata-Niki dorm as a whole actually (which...Hiiro and Hinata are two of my favs, and Niki's up there, so that's to be expected lol). I see a lot of potential with the three, and I think they'd really get each other.
Ibara visited Kaname once. It was a stupid and sentimental thing to do, really, and he had work that needed to be done, lives to prepare for...but he couldn't help but feel he owed it to him, the near-silent apology that passed his lips that day.
Also, veering into AU territory a bit, but I think if Kaname were to wake up and eventually get back into the industry (after lots of rehab + accommodations), he'd keep the HiMERU name, but drop the "cool" persona he tried to associate with it. Life is too short to care so much about the public's perception of him, and I feel he'd go in the opposite direction of Tatsumi, and become even more outspoken, which would make him a good Crazy:B candidate.
OreMERU (our HiMERU) and Kaname are going to need to talk. A lot. I think Kaname wouldn't quite forgive him and would be upset about the identity theft, but he also can't bring himself to hate him, as he can see why he did it and knows it's for him. There's a lot of guilt and misunderstanding on both sides (ntm Tatsumi, Jun, and everyone else's reactions), but I think they eventually get through it alright, and OreMERU would always be Kaname's "Onii-chan".
OreMERU is also gonna have an identity crisis, and tries to quit Crazy:B, but of course Rinne, Niki, and Kohaku aren't gonna let him just dip like that. There's a lot of panicking, some bad hairstyle decisions, but he comes out alright, and starts going by another stage name that's important to him in some way.
I'm sorry about the excessive Tojo headcanons nonnie, I fully read Obbligato for the first time last week (just knew the basics before) and it wrecked me asdfghjkl.
Anyways. Back to everyone else.
As Mika gets used to Shu's more lenient personality, he tries to see how much gore he can get away with in Valkyrie's art.
Shu tries so hard to respect Mika's artistic vision and encourage him, he really does. But he draws the line at real pigs brains on-stage, even if they are in jars ("But Oshi-san, it represents the breakin' o' the mind after they tried so hard ta conform ta the expectations they put on 'em and ended up slaughtered! It's perfect symbolism, ain't it?")
Adonis makes money on the side for Undead by acting as an interpreter for other units during lives and Q&As. It ends up so popular and profitable that ES actually ends up investing money in professional interpreters for all events, because the ES heads can be kind of good people for once I guess. As a treat.
Rei, Ritsu, Niki, Tatsumi, Eichi, and Kaname (if he rejoins the industry) start having a combined monthly interview to make up for ones they miss due to illness/disability. The college kids/anyone that's been sick or couldn't make their own interviews occasionally join in too (usually Chiaki, Mayoi, Nazuna, Shu, Leo, and Izumi). Rei feels personally attacked sometimes, but its overall fun and way less stressful than trying to make every interview for their own units.
Kuro/Shu/Mao/Izumi dorm have sewing nights. It started because Kuro and Shu already sew, and Izumi wanted to be able to make his own alterations as a model just in case. Mao ended up joining in as a way to de-stress from student council work, and they have a relatively pleasant time together.
Souma is canonically good at embroidery, so I like to think he ends up creating his own sword scabbards for different Akatsuki costumes using the skills he's picked up from it. They're very pretty, and he's very proud of them.
108 notes · View notes
sgiandubh · 6 months ago
Note
I salute the brave Greek singer Despina Vandi 👏- who refused to go on stage in Turkey, because of hanging a photo of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Dear Despina Vandi Anon,
As promised, here is your audio. It should count as Sunday's delivery for the vast majority of this fandom's time zones, so expect another one the week that just started, on a different topic - Anons never cease to amaze me:
I very much doubt our readers know who Despina is, so I'll make a proper introduction:
youtube
Yeah, she'd like to think of herself as Greece's Taylor Swift, but the honest truth is her decent voice serves the cause of bubble-gummy Balkan turbo pop. The kind of forgettable BS you hear on a beach, somewhere around Paralia Katerini, Anon. My favorite in Greece, Kambos Beach, on Patmos, will give you Janis Joplin instead, and I love those guys to bits for that.
But anyhow, the topic is serious, even if the event itself might sound as just another starlet's whim. What happened was immediately instrumentalized by the press on both sides of the Great Post-Ottoman Divide, simply because we are dealing here with fundamental identity tropes - handle with care, always.
In a nutshell, on July 17th, Despina Vandi was scheduled to appear in concert in the (otherwise positively sleepy) town of Çeşme, on the South-western coast of Turkey. The problem with Çeşme is double: a) it is near Izmir, formerly known as Smyrna, before the early-ish days of the Turkish Republic, in 1930, and the epicenter of the troubled transition from the sultan's powerless despotism to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's aggressively secular autocracy. And to add insult to injury, b) it is a municipality run by the left-wing CHP, the main opponent to Erdoğan's overbearing political project. The New Sultan's dream clashes mightily with the Founding Father's ambition of an emancipated, literate Turkey. So much so in fact, that one might see a mild rebellion gesture in the fact that the organizers thought fit to decorate the stage with a Turkish flag and Mustafa Kemal's portrait - something you see pretty much everywhere in today's Turkey, from libraries to pastry shops, to be honest. What followed is emotionally logical: Vandi abruptly canceled her appearance, because she felt that her performance was politically manipulated and the mayor of Çeşme angrily invited her to get out of his town ASAP, because he felt that nobody puts Baby Atatürk in a corner.
Vandi's reaction is entirely faithful to the Byzantine centuries-long tradition of defiance and spite towards the Turks. The Mayor's reaction is an irked reply to the uncomfortable situation of losing face because and in front of a woman singer, who showed utter disrespect for the Father Figure in the room. But beyond the heated, almost farcical argument we are perhaps talking about what Jay-Z called an 'Empire state of mind'. 'Never the twain shall meet', to respond to the golden-fanged rapper with some Kipling. At least since the evening of that fateful day of May 30th 1453, when Constantinople finally capitulated in fear, fire and collective trauma to the Ottomans.
Steven Runciman sums up best that feeling of cosmic impending doom:
"The month of May was drawing to a close; and in the gardens and the hedgerows the roses were now in bloom. But the moon was waning, and the men and women of Byzantium, the ancient city whose symbol had been the moon, prepared themselves to meet the crisis that all knew to be upon them." (The Fall of Constantinople)
The Greek mind never quite came to terms with that feeling of being under siege. The Ottoman (and post-Ottoman) mind never quite came to terms with the imposter syndrome that ensues a cursed victory. Its genuine administrative genius that ensured for hundreds of years an almost complete domination of the Levantine world failed to adapt itself to the industrial and bourgeois revolutions of the Nineteenth century. Despite that very costly Berlin-Bagdad railway, the train of modernization was never caught at a moment that could ensure the political survival of its Empire.
But an Empire is never completely dead and done with. As Philip K. Dick famously wrote in VALIS, one of his most strange novels, 'The Empire never ends'. He was, of course, talking about the Roman Empire and how he bizarrely felt about its timeline overlapping with the Watergate Scandal. Yet, despite the clearly psychotic inspiration of that book, I think he was onto something. An Empire never ends, to the extent that its faint echoes still inform even the most apparently trivial news of our own reality.
But this, I suspect you might know better than me, Anon, judging from the tone of your comment. In that case, γεια σας και σας ευχαριστούμε πάρα πολύ για την υπομονή σας.
18 notes · View notes
a-dinosaur-a-day · 2 years ago
Text
Round Two: Kholumalumo vs Amanzia
Kholumolumo ellenbergerorum
Tumblr media
Artwork by @alphynix, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs
Name meaning: Kholumolumo (giant reptilian dragon from Sotho folklore) named for Paul and François Ellenberger (the original excavators of the fossils)
Time: 210 million years ago (Norian stage of the Late Triassic)
Location: Lower Elliot Formation, Lesotho
Kholumolumo is an old friend with a new name. Its previous informal name, “Thotobolosaurus” meaning “trash heap reptile”, was truly magnificent and became one of the great memes of Ye Olde 2010s Palaeo Tumblr! Needless to say it was a bittersweet moment to see our old buddy finally published but lose its iconic name in the process. Rest in peace, Trash Heap Lizard.
The reason it wound up with that name is because the fossils were in fact found basically right next to the local rubbish dump of the village of Maphutseng in 1955. The trash pile turned out to be sitting on a bone bed of around five to ten animals, and over the course of several years they were excavated and moved to the University of Cape Town. Unfortunately, and perhaps appropriately to the name, the subsequent study of these fossils ended up being a complete trash fire. Specimens went missing that have never been found, professional relationships fell apart, and the animal itself wasn’t mentioned in the literature until 1970 when it was dropped into a discussion on the stratigraphy of the Elliot formation and named “Thotobolosaurus mabeatae” without any description of the fossils. This made the name “Thotobolosaurus” a nomen nudum (naked name) and thus invalid.
Finally in 2020 all the tribulation paid off and it received a proper initial description, although many fossils that weren’t lost in the chaos still remain under study and could be the subject of future papers. It’s nice to see our beloved trash heap of a dinosaur finally coming into its own!
Amanzia greppini
Tumblr media
Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs
Name meaning: Named for 19th-century geologists Amanz Gressly and Jean-Baptiste Greppin
Time: 157 million years ago (Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic)
Location: Reuchenette Formation, Switzerland
Amanzia has been through a real odyssey of classifications. First discovered c. 1860, it was mistaken for a theropod and named Megalosaurus meriani in the 1870s, reclassified as a sauropod and named Ornithopsis greppini in 1922, then re-reclassified as a species of Cetiosauriscus in 1927, and then basically ignored ever since. Poor guy’s got an identity crisis now.
The actual fossils weren’t properly cleaned until 2003, and subsequent study in 2020 named it and revealed it was probably a turiasaur, an early-branching group of large sauropods that was unknown before the 2000s, so nobody working on it in the century and a half beforehand could have had any idea what they’d really found!
106 notes · View notes
chidoroki · 1 year ago
Text
182 Days of TPN - Day 173
Chapter 173: "Prisoners"
My immense dislike towards Peter often leads me to making fun of him, but he ain't a cute kid. I dunno any child his age (however old he is here) to look that happy with wearing a full suit. Normal children would complain.
Tumblr media
I know Norman isn't related to the James at all, but I still enjoy how so many people joke or theorize about it solely based on how he took on the WM persona and how similar they look at a first glance. Not just by the hair and outfit either, but even their actions, like you can't look at this panel and not be reminded of that one panel of Norman from ch126. It's so memorable that I don't even have to place it here to compare the two because of how identical it is to James here.
Tumblr media
Imagine if James never found that old document. The world would continue on suffering under the farm system rules forever and we wouldn't even have our story. Maybe. Ray would probably still question his existence and the world whether or not James hides clues in the books in the GF library. It would certainly be more difficult for the kids to survive outside the farm though without using the pen for guidance, if they could manage the escape in the first place.
Tumblr media
Peter, for once in your life, can you please just act like a normal child? Who hears of someone sacrificing others for their own gain and thinks, "oh, they're brilliant! I wanna be just like them!" I really hate how Julius pushing aside his personal feelings in order to change the world and stop the fighting sounds so similar to what Emma did with making the new promise, but our girl would certainly never betray her family and friends to achieve that better world!
Tumblr media
This poor man. It's as if his entire purpose in life is crashing down around him.
Tumblr media
As heartbreaking as this scene of James' death is, I can't feel sorry for Peter in this moment. The dude labeled James as a traitor and gave the order to the other Ratri men to go kill him, so I can't imagine why the boy is wailing so hard for something he caused to happen. He could've at least tried to talk to James about the situation, maybe find some common ground that the two of them could agree upon that would apply to both their ideals on how to run the clan and farm systems, but nope. Death be upon ye. The fact that Peter gets up and walks away shortly after rubs me the wrong way too. If he was truly upset about his brother's death, surely he would've taken his body somewhere else to do a proper burial instead of just leave him there. Peter mentions at the start of this chapter that he respected James more than anyone, but this sure as hell ain't the proper way to show it.
Tumblr media
Local fool having an existential crisis. Sure the Ratri clan was bound to play the part as the mediators between both worlds, but one couldn't honestly believe that was the correct way to do things. It's surprising the promise lasted a thousand years before someone had the nerve to stand up and say, ya know, living this way just ain't right.
Tumblr media
Peter isn't wrong, unfortunately. Humans can really be so terrible. The world we're personally living in is far from perfect.
Tumblr media
One of the rare deaths when the corners of my mouth are tugged upwards. It's fine. No one really wanted Peter to join the kids in the human world anyway.
Tumblr media
Favorite panel/moment:
James' smile. That's all.
Tumblr media
24 notes · View notes
knifedog-machina · 10 months ago
Text
Role Fatigue And Being A Shell Of A Person
I Want Off This Self-Inflicted Archetype Ride, Thanks
Hey, my name's Gavin, he/him, and I'm writing out my fucking identity crisis on main, because what else do we have a journal for?
Content Warning: I get existentially fucked up about my personhood and purpose in life, and I use a few reclaimed slurs as identity labels for myself. This ends on a pretty hopeful note, all things considered.
So. This past week, we realized something, that Jude and I - especially me - have been basically fitting in the same roles Max's daemons used to. Because brains are weird, and they love patterns, and we've been unconsciously keeping this pattern going for a solid year or so.
And at the end of that last essay he posted about it, Max said that we aren’t the same thing. His daemons were parts of himself and extensions of what he needed back then. We, as their headmates, are separate people. And that’s that, right? Pack it in, solid conclusion, all neat and tidy. I sure fucking wish it were, but no, I’m having a bad time and I'm going to talk about it. My old therapist told me that writing out my thoughts is good for me, and I’m choosing to believe her.
I spent most of my time in the back. Not in a proper headspace, but just running damage control, executive functioning. Keeping track of stuff like, when's the last time you ate, or what do we need to do now to make your feelings less awful, or you should really take a break from memorizing brainstem structure and take a walk. And it's kinda ridiculous that I can do it for someone else, because I also have ADHD and all the executive function issues that go with it, but it’s easier when it's for someone else. And I guess that's part of being a Caregiver.
I'm capitalizing Caregiver there because I'm talking about the archetype. Martin was a caregiver archetype - her purpose in life was to take care of Max and their needs as a person, and she felt fulfilled and content with this because she was a part of them. She was never under the impression that she had anything to gain from becoming a fully separate person, someone with her own wants and needs as separate from her job, and she didn’t have anything to gain! She was happy like that, being an extension of someone else's needs, because Max was living enough life for both of them, and she didn't need to be a person for them to exist and thrive together.
I’m a separate person from Max. I'm a separate person from Jude. I'm not just an extension of what my partners need from me. But - fuck me, I've spent this long trying to be! And it's not even something that started here, it started in source, because Jude needed me to be functional while they were fucked up and having meltdowns over their abuser, and I stepped up because I wanted to help them. I helped them until I couldn’t anymore, because I was emotionally exhausted, and I stopped and recovered just enough that I could help them again the next time they ran back to me.
And I didn’t learn anything from that! I didn’t learn that I had to take time to rest and recover before I could help anyone else, I learned that I'm fully fucking capable of helping someone else if I just focus on them. This is the exact opposite of what I was supposed to learn, but I'm nothing if not exceptional.
Because - listen, I like helping people, I genuinely like taking care of people I love, it feels like I'm doing something important and making a difference and I am. It's so important to me to make sure that my loved ones are okay, and if they aren’t, I want to help them feel better. It's genuinely fulfilling to me.
And I looked at that, and I looked at what I could do, now that I'm here, feeling lost and confused and upset about forgetting important people and details in my life, and I decided that I would be fine just doing that. Only that. Specifically that. I can forget about how I feel like I’ve lost my identity by just making a new one. Right? It’s not like I had anything else to do, and I like helping people. It worked out.
So I just helped out. I didn't front, even though Jude did to talk to friends and make new ones and gradually get more involved in our daily lives, because I just didn't fucking want to. Like, really, what did I have to talk about with people? I don't have much. I'm doing something important, anyway, isn't that more useful than talking to people, or playing a game, or getting into a podcast, or reading a book? I was completely fine, and I had to be fine, because I couldn't help my partners if I wasn't fine and if I couldn’t do anything useful I’d have to face how fucking disconnected I felt from being a living person.
And now. Now, I can’t do that anymore. Because I fucking burned out. You really could have seen it coming months ago, if you paid attention, but I sure fucking didn’t. So I can’t do the things that I’ve been building my fragile fucking self-image over, and I’m left to look at what else I have to my identity to talk about. And it's really not enough, honestly.
Like, okay, I have three cats. They're wonderful little bastards, and I love them, and I can't hold a conversation only talking about my cats. I'm a fag, I’m queer, I’m transsexual, I'm kinky, I'm stone, and several of our friends have boundaries around discussing sexuality and slurs that I am not going to cross. I was into martial arts back in source, and we don't have the time or money to learn that now. I tend to like alternative rock and indie music, and I haven't listened to new music in months so that's kind of a dead end. I like tabletop roleplaying games, and we don't have the time to listen through a whole session, let alone a season, and I don't have opinions to discuss on them anyway because I'm fucking tired.
So I don't have much that makes me feel like I have an identity. I feel lost and frustrated and tired and anxious and useless. And I argued with my partners about reaching out to our friends for support, because I don't want to burden them with my nervous breakdown. Because isolating myself from the world has gone so well so far, hasn't it?
Turns out it helps to talk to people. Turns out we have the kinds of friends who also like helping their loved ones. Shocker, I know. And we know the guy who wrote the guide to growing as a person from being a fictive - thanks Goratrix - so I really should've done that weeks ago. Preferably before the nervous breakdown, but whatever, it happened.
In conclusion, I'm really not okay right now. Huge fucking surprise. But at least I know I’ll feel better if I start actively doing things. Because I can do that. Listen to new songs, listen to one session over three days. Play a video game. Getting one fucking hobby will probably do wonders to fight off the existential despair. And it's all going to be painfully fucking slow, because I'm not gonna remake a sense of self in a week, and it's going to suck. And I'm gonna get through it, and I'm going to feel better. It'll be worth it.
And hey, if you read through this whole thing and you're also going through the horrors, mood, take my hand. We’ll get through this shit together.
8 notes · View notes
lyloneliness · 9 months ago
Text
This will have nothing to do with bsd and will be very personal so those who follow me for bsd stuff you can stop reading if you want ₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎
Actually, I don't think many remember, or have even read the tag game (edit: my bad, it was an ask) in which I said I actually have something similar to a Dissociative Identity Disorder.. Well, even if no one reads this I just wanna put my thoughts down so it's okay anyway.
I just realized that now that I'm dissociated, what is 'me' as an alter (alternative personality), or more as a person is supposed to be way more defined... Or restricted in a way. I was always a weird person, with many changes of heart, of moods, of likings and other stuff... Well, in everything really.
Back then, if I was to use only one word to define myself I would always answer "changing", or "inconsistent". One time I even got very upset at my parents and cried because they said it was a bad word, a bad thing, that I shouldn't describe myself as inconsistent... I felt like they rejected the fact that I am like this, or just basically, like they rejected me.
Anyway, now I know that it was because the different parts of 'me' that were supposed to assemble in one identity at the end of early childhood didn't assemble like with most people, those who don't struggle with severe dissociation. And with people with a 'complete' DID, they don't assemble at all, and one becomes the main while the others appear later in life to help the 'whole person'/system navigate in life, adaptating to situations by switching. But for me it was just like a child doesn't knowing how to combine many things to make a proper collage just taped a ripped sheet of paper together to vaguely maintain it, faking it being whole.
That's why I was like that, I was literally different persons stitched together and coexisting throughout my life.
And now that each of us is separated from the others, and well defined, they all know what they like, how they are, who they are. Well, they don't even have to acknowledge it, they just ARE like that.
All but me.
I'm the 'main', the one to whom all this life is attributed to, the base of our existence until now. And all the memories I have are supposed to be mine. My feelings, my likings, my relationships, my behaviors.. But now I know most of them were the other alters', and I don't know anymore what I like. What is 'me' in all of this?
I don't know how to make the distinction. I don't know what I like, how I'm supposed to act like. The person I was supposed to be wasn't really me all this time, so the image I had of myself is crushed.. I always felt like I wasn't properly someone, I never knew who I was, so I made efforts. But turns out all the progress I thought I had made over the years to construct my personality just split at the same time as us, I'm back to before I constructed everything I'm supposed to be. There is nothing left for me..
I can't even say what my favorite colour is.
I don't have an identity.
I feel like a digital painting to which all the layers were took away to make a complete painting out of each, and all is left is the blank canvas. That's indeed a weird comparison but well, I'm supposed to be an artist so I couldn't think of something else.
I feel like I'm a middle schooler in the middle of an existential crisis when I'm supposed to be 19 in a little more than a month. Everyone always said I was a mature one, turns out one of my alters was 4 years older all this time, and now I can't seem to see things from a distance, cool my head and try to understand anymore. Everything is blurry and I'm scared. Honestly, I forgot what it was to be lost and scared. 'I ' almost didn't feel anything in a year and now I'm blending with a big mess of feelings that I don't even know are mine or not, and how I need to react to them.
I don't even know if I'm tired of being in this void, or sad, or disappointed by this loss of self... I drown myself in hypersomnia to avoid existing like this and thinking about what I'm gonna become and how I'm supposed to become it (well, I don't even know what I want to be to begin with.. ), only to have weird dreams that I don't know are whose since I switch even in it, and deciphering it all seems exhausting.
I don't know what to do. I don't even know if I actually want to do anything..
Well, this is all for the rambling! (≡^∇^≡)
I kinda feel sorry for anyone who'd get until here reading all this mess... If you wanna say smth or ask questions I'm all open really. Even if it's quite unlikely.. but yeah, "just in case", yknow (=ㅇ༝ㅇ=)
Oh! And something that made me laugh (bitterly but still) :
*Incoming screenshot of when I was writing*, for those with the blue theme like me
Tumblr media
Auto correct didn't even consider this possible 😹😹😹
6 notes · View notes
ichika27 · 1 year ago
Text
OnS Chapter 130
Tumblr media
Aaaaaaaah!!!! The lore thickens!
I am just dreading to make this since tumblr's post editor updated to being a pain the ass to use lol. I can't just not blog about reading OnS chapters cause it's the only way I can "re-read" them when they become unavailable. Why have the scanlators stopped working on this, I'd never know but I'm sad they don't seem to be around anymore for this manga (I mean I'd still read stuff on mangaplus but if I want to backread at least I'd have a way...).
Tumblr media
While Yuu-chan and Mika are having a chat and probably some potential existensial crisis, Rigr seem to be checking out the 1st Progenitor's memories.
Tumblr media
Would you look at that? He got there at the exact point in the memory world that Yuu-chan and Mika last watched! How convenient lol.
Rigr now knows about Shika Madu's past.
Tumblr media
The reincarnated angels don't remember their past lives but it seems Shika Madu is okay with them living unaware of it. After all, tragic backstories and all.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Rigr now knowing the truth, it seems he now cares about the 1st Progenitor. Shika Madu might be an asshole but he still cares about his angel subjects even after all this time. He knows it would be difficult and he might not be able to succeed but he's not going to give up hope.
It makes me wonder more what his plan is in the present since he seems to be fucking over those he says he cares about.
Anyways, Rigr ends up crying even if he doesn't have his past life memories which made him wonder if those memories still lie within him somewhere.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I'm not gonna lie, I have no idea what to call him now that it's revealed he's the real Mika. Anyways, he was finally noticed by Shika Madu which is bad cause he has a plan.
Tumblr media
Angel Mika is alive now and he needs to make his father think he's still dead so he asks homonculus!Yuu to take his place. He'd even forget his real identity to make things more convincing.
"No matter how many eons it takes... no matter how many generations we go through... in the end, we'll save everybody!" declared human Yuu whose actually the real angel Mika (this is gonna be confusing lol. I'm calling him Past!Yuu). It didn't matter how long it took and what the circumstances have become, Yuu-chan has always wanted to save everyone no matter when and it's always been his goal.
(I wish I could take the screenshot of when he said this but it's hard to crop with the length)
Homonculus!Yuu seems hesitant at first but he happily agreed with Past!Yuu's plan and he's now the new Mika.
Tumblr media
New!Mika (yes, I'm not calling him that) is given his first task for his newest role. I'm guessing the "seven lights" are the black keys? Maybe? Anyways, he basically made it so that his father would do a bunch of detours before getting to his goal lol.
Tumblr media
Past!Yuu erased (although more like locked away) his memories of being Angel Mika. He promises New!Mika that no matter what, he'd come back and collect him and New!Mika happily promises back.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Beams of light shoot out from New!Mika and Shika Madu catches one of them. On his hand he finds one of the black keys (I was right earlier! lol). He thinks homonculus!Yuu might've done something but basically thinks "Nah, I made him and he can't think for himself." so he turns his attention to Past!Yuu.
Tumblr media
Past!Yuu acts like he knows nothing (either he's acting or the memory lock worked too well) and Shika Madu doesn't buy it and checks his memories which kills Past!Yuu in the process. Shika Madu confirms that Past!Yuu totally knows noting (lol if only you knew).
Shika Madu laments the fragility of the humans he created as he estimated that they might not even live to be a hundred.
Tumblr media
Shika Madu doesn't realize that close by, Past!Yuu aka the real Angel Mika had been reborn again.
Tumblr media
Aww!! A proper reunion between Mika and Yuu! Yuu-chan had fullfilled his promise! They still don't actually have their past life memories but they're okay with it as they think it'd have been bad if they actually did all this time. After all, it took this long to get this far in their plans and they went through so much that if they remembered everything, it'd have made them suffer more and give up.
They're reminded of the vampires who hated being immortal cause it caused them suffering.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
These two are now having a discussion on the meaning of (their) life. They wonder why they should keep going and why Yuu-chan should make Mika human again. Mika answers that he wants to live and die with Yuu-chan (aww... that's so sweet!). Yuu-chan asks if that'd really make Mika happy and Mika says he thinks so.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Mika is slowly but surely turning into a full demon and Yuu-chan says he won't let it happen. Yuu-chan concludes that they don't clearly remember their past lives and they'd continue living this life and would try to reach their present lives goal: save everyone (especially the dead Hyakuya orphans and Guren and their friends) and turn Mika back to human.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Hope restored! Yuu-chan likens their current situation to a video game and thinks that they have a chance now that they know the lore. Mika agrees!
Their current goal? Get the seven keys!
Tumblr media
Oh!! Flashback to eight years ago!
Ferid is wondering why the First Progenitor wants to make a "Mikaela" and what even is a "Mikaela" in the first place. He says he wasn't compatible to become this Mikaela and the First Progenitor himself cannot be whatever it was.
Tumblr media
He also got his hands on little Yuu-chan and Mika (they were drugged and were sound asleep) to check their memories. Someone else is there with Ferid however...
Tumblr media
Ferid asked Guren if Guren had checked the kids' memories and he hasn't yet.
Oh... what does this mean?!
--
That last panel though. Guren looked weird lol. Had their chins always been this round/big? I mean I knew the illustrator's artstyle had changed over the years as this manga had been running for a long time now but this is the first time I really notice. I don't like it lol. Makes them look weird and old. I might not like Guren that much but I have to admit he's handsome and this? Not at all lol.
Okay! We got the lore!! I'm happy and excited and this feels like the most hilarious development I've seen in this story in a while. Angel Mika is smart and immediately have some kind of starting plan for his goal. Sadly, it seems turning himself into Yuu-chan also lowered his braincells lol jk. It seems no one else in this metaphorical chess game realized that someone they wanted to take as pawn is also playing the game.
Guren and Shika Madu totally fucked up their plans all because they were targetting the wrong kid! Especially Guren who had been with Yuu-chan longer in this current life cause his actions in the last couple of chapters made Yuu-chan reject helping him. I think if Yuu-chan had gotten back his memories of being Angel Mika and if Guren knew about this fact, Guren probably would've had a better chance of convincing Yuu-chan to sacrifice himself since Yuu-chan's goal in life (both the past and present) was to save everyone including Mika.
Oh, ther irony! XD
This isn't a perfect story, I admit. I don't think this turn of events had been hinted before (if it had been, then it's my fault I missed all the clues) but I don't care. I'm still having a lot of fun reading.
Mika telling Yuu-chan once again that he'd just want them to live together until the end made me sooo happy! Ah, it's times like these I'm happy to be a MikaYuu fan haha. I remember that in the PSP game, they did mention this also with Mika and Yuu wanting to live and raise kids together. (>///<)
I'm curious now about what Shika Madu is actually feeling about all this in the present. He did care a lot about everyone back then but now it doesn't seem to be the case and he's willing to sacrifice the other vampires just to get his son back. But then again knowing that he could just have them reincarnated, maybe he's okay with sacrificing the current them cause he can just make new bodies for the vampires.
Also wondering why Shika Madu kept remaking the Yuu from Ancient Greece. Did he realize there's something special about this new human? Did he realize that in a way, this was the human form of the homonculus eyeball (actually Angel Mika)? Or did he just think of making a human version of homonculus Yuu cause it'd be easier to experiment on something like him which he could just remake? I wonder if it's the reason why Yuu from Ancient Greece didn't have emotions while the new humans created in the past had personalities or seemingly could have one even before getting possessed by angels?
Also, Shika Madu's tragic backstory is enough to make Rigr sympathize or at least care about him though. I wonder how this would affect things as Rigr hated the First Progenitor and was willing to oppose him. How about now?
That ending there though. What did Ferid mean by "Have you looked into their memories?" when talking to Guren? Vampires have now been revealed to be able to read memories - Rigr and Shika Madu did so earlier and Ferid says he would at the end although I think I should've seen this coming since vampires turn into demons and demons have that ability. Does the question mean Guren also have that power? How?? Or is it Mahiru-no-Yo's power their talking about since she's now Guren's demon? Hmmm..... but then again, didn't they mention a connection between the Ichinose clan and Rigr?
Oh my god, so many questions! XD
I'm so glad I didn't end up taking too many photos cause tumblr had a photo limit for posts and I didn't hit that. Excited for the next chapter! Hope it's as fun as this one.
If I don't get to post anything in the next few days, here's a Happy Holidays to you! I hope you have fun and thanks for reading. :)
19 notes · View notes
how-masterful · 2 years ago
Text
Remastered
Dhawan!Master X Reader
Chapter 9: The Power of Three
Tumblr media
Summary: The cubes arrived in mystery, and have stayed there for a whole year. You’ve dragged the curious, and slightly jealous, Master into a year of self imposed domesticity. But what happens when those strange cubes finally begin to wake up?
Notes: The first proper remaster of 2023! And yes, hold your shock, another series 7 episode. Would it make you laugh if i said this wasn’t even my favourite series (but is very much up there!) Thank you so much for all the love this series has gotten since it’s started. Our next part is story number 10 (well technically 13 if you count the four parter and the extra new earth- but like the Doctor, we could argue over numbers for days!) I hope you enjoy this part, and as always thank you to @plethora-of-imagines​ for being my proof reader in times of writing crisis!
It had been 365 days since they’d arrived. 
Palm sized black cubes, mathematically perfect to even the smallest micrometre, each exactly identical to one another, devoid of any and all differing imperfections. Black cubes that had rolled off the intergalactic production line, before dropping out of the sky as the sun rose over the horizon. A quick glance at your mobile news feed had brought you back to Earth to investigate, the Master arguing it was purely for jealous satisfaction- if somebody else was trying to invade your planet, he wanted to know. You also considered his desire to stay put for the first week to see if the Doctor would make an appearance, sticking her blonde head out of the TARDIS door and solving the problem as easy as mowing the lawn. 
But the Doctor never showed, the familiar wheeze of the blue box never drifting through the breeze. Instead, UNIT had taken a chance upon the next best thing- and now Kate Stewart had a tracking proof, bug proof, anything proof burner phone loaded with her number and given to the Master, one also kept for herself. A deal that would most definitely be under review, pending the results of the cubes.
If there was anything the Master excelled at, beyond flamboyant universal conquest and being the last great appreciator of disco, it was playing the long game. Years of establishing himself as anything from professors to prime ministers, building an entire afterlife to waiting out nearly eighty years jail hopping, had trained the Timelord to gain a strangely enviable level of patience: the application of said patience always depending on rather the less enviable, more volatile nature of his mood swings. 
If you were to simplify things, the Doctor was a hyperactive puppy: needing constant mental enrichment, her conversations a tangle of tangents and unfollowable trails of thought. But the Master was the most seasoned of spoiled house cats: able to lounge and preen in bouts of attention, concocting his own games to keep himself dangerously occupied. If silence from the doctor was a moment of peace, silence from the Master was inspiration for suspicion. 
Luckily for you, you were privy to the times where the Master could be nothing of the sort.
His hearts pounded softly within his warm skin, your naked form pressed against his bare chest, bodies glistening with a thin sheen of sweat as you lay in a satisfied pile upon the sofa. The Master's hands were idly trailing down your spine, fingers drawing the ghosts of shapes, a warm brown fur blanket covering your lower halves- a feeble attempt at some sort of privacy from the room. Your eyelids were almost heavy, hair sprawling behind as the tv continued to play the long abandoned reality shows. The cubes were their own celebrities now, a year after they’d dropped out of the sky. Tv documentaries, dramas, crafting shows, soap operas. Hollywood was even trying to cash in. 
The evening had started with yourself and the Master watching (or in his case, hate watching) the Apprentice, the pair of you smirking at the fact Lord Sugar probably had no clue he’d be still hosting the show with his consciousness in a droid in the future. But the Masters wandering hands had ensured you’d missed quite a lot of the episode.
“There's no way they’ll end up profiting.” The Master said softly, fingers still delicately caressing.
You hummed in agreement, pressing a small peck to his collar.
“I’ve got no clue who's the project manager.”
“Pink shirt, she’s a little bossy but willing to cooperate. Blue shirt overspent on the catering, he’s not going to stand a chance in the boardroom.”
You chuckled softly, the Master turning his gaze down to stare at you curiously.
“What?”
“You.” You replied, adjusting yourself to meet the Master's eyes.
“You’re laying on my sofa on a random Thursday. We’ve played a game of chess, gone for a walk, and even though we’ve been to the shops we still decided to order a takeaway. You sat here and told me how you almost stopped pizza ever being invented, and now we’re watching the Apprentice after having sex.”
The Master blinked puzzlingly.
“I’m waiting for the funny part.”
You tilted your head, fingertips gently circling over the skin of his chest, drawing shapes around one of his hearts.
“I never thought you’d be so domestic. I like it.”
The Master gaped in disbelief, bordering on wild offence. You giggled once more as the Timelord narrowed his eyes in disgust.
“How dare you use that word. I’d rather you call me a bastard.”
“I did say I liked it, though! It’s been so long since I've spent time on Earth like this, so mundane. It’s a nice change of pace, not worrying about being on the wrong end of a death ray.”
He shifted beneath you, pulling an arm behind his head and reclining back upon it. You moved along with his adjusted position, resting upon your elbow, your hair falling loosely behind.
“It’s also slightly comical to see the man I've seen blow up entire planets do the weekly shop.”
“You forget I've spent my fair share of days on Earth, love.” The Master bit back, the ugly chill of his exile breezing across the back of his neck.
“I’m not a stranger to the domestic, just highly opposed to it.”
“It’s nice, though. What we’ve been doing. You have to admit, it’s hardly been torture.”
You began to walk your fingers teasingly over the Masters collar, fingertips ghosting over the veins in his throat, creeping towards his jaw.
“You can’t say you haven’t been treated right.”
The Master hummed out a devious chuckle, slowly bucking his hips beneath you, urging your body to inch closer to his own.
“Mmm, that is true. My lovely wife has indeed helped to keep the bed nice and warm. And this sofa. And the bath. And the dining table, if I remember rightly.”
You playfully shushed him, placing a finger upon his lips. Your touch soon morphed to cradle his cheek, thumb brushing over the bone. The Timelord didn’t protest a single movement.
“The nicest part of it is having you here with me. Being able to share this part of myself with you.”
A small smile curved upon the Master's lips, his brown eyes softening somewhat.
“Well love, you’ve hardly been selfish with the other parts of yourself.”
“You’re a goddamn sex fiend.”
You teased, leaning down and stealing a small peck from the Timelords lips.
“Takes two to tango.”
He leant up to deepen your connection, warm hands snaking around your back and attempting to pull your body closer to his own. You knew if you indulged you wouldn’t be able to move, locked in an endless spiral of delicious ecstasy, one you would never dream of attempting to free yourself from. But you were also beginning to feel the chill of sweat settle across your skin, the layer of dew making the encounter feel slightly less romantic than it should have.
“No, Master, stop it-”
You warned, pulling the Timelords hands from your waist and clutching them within your own. The Master grinned, leaning back against the sofa and giving a carefree shrug, relinquishing control of his arms to your touch.
“I’m going to run a bath.”
The Master's eyebrow raised as you pulled yourself free from his clutches, sliding from under the blanket and laying it back over the Master's bottom half. You plucked his shirt from the pile of clothes decorating the floor, throwing it over your head and doing up the buttons, ignoring the way the Master dramatically pouted at the loss of your fully naked body. You made your way out of the lounge and onto the stairs, out of sight of the Timelord. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already committed every part of you to memory.
“I’m going to use that new body wash I got today.”
You said innocently, calling over your shoulder as you headed up the stairs.
“I may need a second opinion on it!”
The Master chuckled to himself, before settling down to stare up at the ceiling, a large breath escaping his lungs. He pondered to himself, alone with his thoughts, the Apprentice successfully ignored. He mulled over your words, turning them over in his head. Tasting them, taking in their scent, seeing if he liked the sensation of them. You said he was being domestic… one step up from being domesticated. You also said you liked it. But you also didn’t say you liked it more, he reasoned. You hadn’t indicated a preference for any of his states of being. Which made his analysis of your words feel even stranger.
Did you prefer him like this? The normal husband, rather than the spaceman that took you away? Would you mourn the loss of this when he inevitably found out who was trying to invade the planet he’d already called dibs on? Or, a more terrifying prospect, would this invasion ever end?
The Master's face fell. He hadn’t ever considered the idea of not knowing. In the many, many endings he’d planned for the scenario, not one of them had included never finding out the reason why. Of course, knowing his luck, the moment you both left earth the cubes would detonate and pulverise the planet, and you would never let him live it down. But that would also mean he kept you away from harm.
The Timelord scowled, furrowing his brow. He didn’t like the amount of questions his brains were presenting. He never liked thinking about a plan with this much detail. Especially when it wasn’t his. A tiny part of him scolded himself for taking a companion and letting himself have something else to look after beside himself. But the other parts of him proceeded to beat that thought into the ground, squashing it beneath their metaphorical shoes.
He turned towards the coffee table, the Tv having swapped to some random drama about a historical figure, and stared at the small black cube. It sat next to the empty pizza box and the unlit candle, right beside the abandoned TV remote and the Masters new favourite glasses. 
He reached over and plucked the pair of spectacles from the table, grasping hold of the cube in his other hand as he placed the glasses on his face. He inspected the cube with a newfound disgruntlement, spinning the mathematically perfect creation in his hands. Why did these stupid little cubes arrive? Who sent them? And why were they still here, if not to give him an extreme internal crisis?
“What are you?” He muttered to himself, squinting his eyes to scrutinise the box.
“What are you doing?”
The Master scrunched his nose in disapproval, his narrow eyes now a full blown glare.
“You’ve survived fire, ice, gravity, atomic radiation, and even tissue compression. Do something.” He urged, hands now clutching the box tighter.
“Do something, you annoying thing. Go on. Or are you just a waste of my time?”
The Master paused, watching the cube intently. He waited, internally goading the small black box to do something. But it did nothing, sitting in his grasp as it had done for the last year. With a grunt, the Master flung the box across the room, letting it tumble to the floor and crash into the carpet. 
He stared at the box for a brief moment, his anger rising exponentially when suddenly, the cube opened.
Upstairs you were in the bathroom, the door having opened with a small squeak. You headed over towards the bag of toiletries you’d bought, unpacking the items onto the side. You couldn’t help but wonder if the Master had been slightly put off by your words earlier. He was a sarcastic bitch at the best of times, an eye roll never too far behind. But you worried he’d taken your words to hearts. You’d poured your soul out to him with the best intentions. Well, it was more like you’d filled a coffee mug rather than refilling the Pacific, however the point still stood. 
You did enjoy your time of domestic bliss, free from trouble and danger and peril. You enjoyed the domesticity of the TARDIS too. Reading in the library, swimming in the pool, picking disguises from the wardrobe and playing bedroom roulette. Baking cakes with ingredients that if baked wrong would set your hair on fire, ordering things from Kerblam and trying to hide the packages from the Master, knowing full well they’d show up in the order history and on the transactions of his intergalactic black card. It was domestic, but it was a new kind. One where instead of him sharing his world with you, you were sharing yours with him.
A small pulsating sound pulled you from your introspection, the famed body wash being placed upon the side. You turned over your shoulder, hoping it was merely the humming of the pipes. Instead it was the small cube in the corner, which had effectively become a candle stand. You plucked the small candle from the top of the cube, abandoning the jar to the side of the bath as you stared at the cube in awe. The small box had begun to shimmer a deep blue, glowing and spiralling in what you presumed to be an alien text. You leant down, bringing the cube to eye level, staring curiously at the small box. 
You played through every possibility- was it about to explode? Hatch? Was this a message from whoever sent the thing? Was it… alive?
The sprawling blue swirls disappeared as soon as they arrived. You stretched out a hand to grasp hold of the box, hand clamping down on the top of the square, when a painful sensation shot through your hand. You pulled away with a wince, cradling your wrist and inspecting the damage- A small square of needle pricks sat in the palm of your hand, tiny droplets of blood pooling at the mouths of the wounds. Your fears of alien tetanus were distracted by a steady beeping noise emanating from the cube. 
You looked up, eyes widening. The cube was showing your pulse.
The Master scurried over from his place on the couch, ignoring how the loss of the blanket left him rather exposed. He crouched down onto the floor, staring down at the awakening cube with widened eyes. The far side of the cube had opened, the panel sliding upwards, and a large beam of blue light spurted from the other side. The Master attempted to outrun the cube, darting to the other side to face it, but the cube was much faster. Before the Master could peer inside the cube had snapped its open side shut, taunting the Timelord by opening the panel on the other side instead. The Master growled, circling the cube once more, but the cube continued its game. After three more attempts the Master grasped hold of the cube, determined to see inside. The small black box was instantly searing hot in his hands, like it had been sat on a grill. The Master winced and threw the box into the air, proceeding to throw and catch the cube through various levels of pain.
 He ran through the door that linked the lounge to the kitchen, small welts appearing on his palms as he nakedly juggled the cube, wincing and swearing like a sailor as he went. The washing up bowl was still in the sink, the water ice cold, having been forgotten about from breakfast. The Timelord threw the sizzling cube into the bowl, the water bubbling and boiling like a cauldron. The cube refused to relent, steam and bubbles errupting to the surface. Saying a silent prayer, the Master turned on the cold tap, the bowl spilling over and into the wider basin of the sink. He hoped that would be enough to stop it burning its way through the centre of the Earth.
“Master!” You called urgently from the top of the stairs.
The Timelord turned over his shoulder, before glancing down at himself, visible debate upon his features. While he was sure you wouldn’t mind, he also considered that being fully naked beyond a pair of tortoise shell glasses wasn’t the most polite state of dress to be in when running up such a high water bill. He also hoped the neighbours were also distracted with their own cubes, and not nosy enough to see his antics through the floor to ceiling glass door to the garden. Purely for your sake, that was. Nudity had never been a thing of shame for his current face. He had been Rasputin, after all.
“Master!”
You called again, racing down the stairs, still only wearing his shirt. The Master sped into the living room, eyes scanning over the piles of clothes. His trousers, or underwear for that matter, were nowhere to be seen. Where the hell did you throw them?
“Fuck!” 
He hissed to himself, before grasping the blanket from the sofa and tying it around his waist like a towel. He ran into the hallway, the blanket already threatening to slide down his legs. You ended up meeting in the middle, your arms leaning on the bannister and you looked down at your husband.
“The cube in the bathroom just spiked my palm and showed my pulse!” You yelled, the Master grasping hold of the blanket and glancing back to the lounge. 
“The one on the coffee table kept opening its sides and then got boiling hot- also, where the hell did you throw my trousers?”
You looked down at the Master and gave a snorting laugh, when a loud bang came from the downstairs bathroom. It was a metallic zap, the sound colliding with metal. You both looked at the door, then each other, then back at the door as the sound grew louder and louder. The Master was about to step forwards, likely in an effort to be the brave one and open the bathroom door, but the cube beat him to it. 
The door swung open, the metal lock now burnt and smoking, and a cube came floating outwards, hovering menacingly in the air. You blinked in shock, your lips parting to ask what it was doing, when the front side slid open and a small laser sat within. The metal laser looked you both up and down, and you looked at the Master in confusion. But the Master was preoccupied with ducking from the blue laser bolt that had been shot directly at his head, which instead proceeded to shatter the vase of flowers on the side.
“Up!”
The Master cried, but you were already halfway up the stairs. With one hand covering his face and the other clutching at the blanket the Master stormed up the stairs, swiftly catching up with your speed and almost sprinting into the bedroom. The pair of you pressed your backs against the door, your fingers frantically trying to twist the knob shut. The floating cube was sending an assault in your direction, firing randomly and rapidly in every direction it could. Holes were punctured in the walls, pictures were shot down, the carpet singed. Now you anticipated that the cube would try to shoot you both dead. You knew if you took a death ray to the head, the ending would be quite swift. If the Master took the hit, you’d have to pray the wardrobe was fireproof. Either way, through fire or fury, you’d never get the deposit back.
You shut your eyes as you focussed on keeping the door pressed shut, the Master joining your mission as you felt the door continuously jolt forwards. The hits were heavy, but never enough to send the door free of its latch. It continued its firing for an endless two minutes, but those minutes felt like a day. It took the Master's hesitant prying of your body from the back of the door for you to realise the firing had stopped.
“Is it-”
The Master pressed a finger from his free hand to his lips, gesturing to the door with a tilt of his head. You swallowed, nodding in agreement as he ever so gently began to open the bedroom door. You spotted the TCE in his grasp, fingers clutching it like a phone- likely an instinct to carry it, you hadn’t even felt him leave the door to fish it from his jacket pocket on the chair. The Master wordlessly stepped out into the hallway, and you braced for the chaos. Maybe the cube was smart enough to plan a sneak attack. Growing the courage to poke your head around the door, you saw the Master was creeping down the staircase with slow, deliberate strides. You took the deepest of breaths as you carefully followed, watching as he peered through the bannister to watch the cube. He tilted his head like a curious animal, beckoning you with his head again, all while keeping his gaze on the lounge. You scuttled over to meet his side, careful not to squeak any troublesome floorboards.
“What’s it doing?”
You whispered, watching as the cube hovered in front of the tv. It was scanning it, cycling through endless images and scrolling through Wikipedia pages at lightning speed. You saw the history of the world pass over the screen, images of bombs and tanks mashed in with pictures of animals, machines and athletes.
“I’d say it’s doing its homework.” The Master whispered back.
“On what? Weaponry? Politics? Evolution?”
“Everything. Maybe it’s building up its information banks to… um… honestly I’ve not got a clue what it's doing now.”
The Master trailed off, confusion creeping across his features. The cube had stopped scrolling through Wikipedia, and was now on social media. Pictures of dogs in hats, a Youtube video on making bread, an Instagram model's trip to Paris. The cube was making its way rapid fire through every single social network site around. It had even posted a blank tweet.
The sound of a phone pinging upstairs stole your attention, the pair of you wincing as you anticipated the cube turning to face you both. You held your breath, awaiting the death ray, but it never came. The cube was too busy playing a game of Solitaire to notice. Sparing a glance to the Master, you cleared your throat.
“HEY!”
You called. The cube didn’t flinch. It was still hovering in the air, playing the game as fast as it could.
“C’mon.”
The Master had begun to trudge back upstairs, heading towards the bedroom and disappearing through the door. The cube had now begun online shopping, scrolling through hundreds of pairs of shoes and handbags, and was searching for a discount code. Your earlier fear had been replaced with pure confusion. Why had it suddenly ditched its efforts to kill you… to scroll the internet like a person?
By the time you’d finally made it upstairs, the Master was sitting on the bed and fishing a phone out of his jacket pocket. You recognised the device immediately as it fell into his lap.
“That's the UNIT phone, isn’t it?”
The Master nodded in reply. He looked at the notification and smirked, before extending out his arm for you to read it.
“I think we’ll be needing a quick shower rather than a relaxing bath, love.”
The Timelord said as you peered forward to read the message.
“Come to the Tower of London ASAP. Matter of Urgency. Kate.”
While your arrival at the tower had been expected, what you found within was not. The cubes had been active for approximately 47 minutes before shutting down, UNIT having had almost 300 under constant monitor. One caused mood swings, another blew fire, and one played a constant, ear splitting rendition of ‘Agadoo’ on repeat. You joked that the poor soul sitting in that box with the cube was due some serious workplace compensation. 
You could tell the Master was restless, the situation poking at him in a way that set his teeth on edge. Standing in that room, endless questions being shot at him, suspicious eyes of every worker who’d read his extensive, extensive case file. The file that, according to Kate, was more like a filing cabinet. And that was just from the seventies. He couldn’t work with all those hands on deck, he needed the air to think. So, you’d dragged him to a wall overlooking the Thames. Give him space to breathe, you considered. To calm himself down and think.
“Earth is such a shithole.” He muttered to himself, staring at the vast body of water.
“Your politicians are corrupt, your capitalist societies are draining you dry, you have no idea how to be nice to each other anymore.”
“Is shithole Gallifreyan for ‘alien renegades dream?’” You asked with a small smile.
The Master shook his head.
“A renegades dream is a planet worth concurring. I spent seven quid on a coffee on Monday. There's no saving this place.”
You laughed softly, swinging your legs lightly on top of the wall.
“Years ago I'd have asked what else there was, where on Earth doesn’t function this way. But now? After being with you?... I’m inclined to agree. I’ve seen so much out there… whole different ways of running things, whole different societies. I’ve lived in your world and now everything seems so… different. It’s comforting, I know it’s mine, it’s where I came from. But I’ve seen the end of the universe, Master-” You said, taking hold of the Timelords hand.
“And now everything seems slightly-”
“Strange?”
You nodded in agreement, leaning into his shoulder. The Master stared down at the water, watching the waves lap against each other, crashing softly into the concrete wall.
“You said you enjoyed seeing me here.” The Master said rather bluntly.
“That you enjoyed seeing me so… domestic.”
“I knew that word would bite me in the ass.” You hummed out a laugh, turning your head to face the Master.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I also didn’t want you to think I wanted to change you. You told me about Missy, how the Doctor wanted a different you. But I didn’t mean that I liked you changed, I meant-”
“I know what you meant.”
You gaped at the Master, who was now making his way towards the same smile you’d worn earlier. It was slightly painful, as if he was fighting against his own body to get out the words. As if years of hardened instinct were being chiselled at, piece by piece.
“Could you… maybe tell me what you think I meant?”
“You meant that we had very, very different lives. And while we’ve spent our time together perhaps I overlooked the fact that you’re human. I took you away from earth and let you in. But this year-”
“I brought you to Earth and did the same.” You said, filling in the gap. The Master nodded, your hand slowly creeping to make your way into his.
“I don’t want you to think I've forgotten who you are, Master. That I don’t appreciate the fact that you’re literally a whole different species to me. Maybe that's why I like it so much, seeing you living in a house and doing human things. Because I know you’re an alien, a mass murdering criminal one, but you’re putting in that effort for me.”
The Master raised an eyebrow in warning.
“You’re making me sound far too nice.” He bit.
“Master,” You chided, squeezing his hand.
“What do you want me to say? You’re only being nice to me because you’re a manipulative bastard who wants to take over the universe? That I only ran away with you because you promised me great sex?”
“Now you’re making me out to be a monster.” He purred. You playfully swatted him on the arm.
“You’re not a monster, you’re a Master. Who picked up his own human stray and looked after it better than the Doctor ever could.”
The Master couldn’t help the smirk that crossed over his face. It was quite the unspoken truth amongst him and his old friend. One the Master would now hold as eternal bragging rights until the end of time.
“And now I'm working with UNIT. If the old me could see me now-”
“Maybe when we solve the invasion we can work on your acceptance of character growth.” You suggested. The Master sighed.
“I should’ve told Kate to gather all those cubes and destroy them. Lock them away. Keep them out of sight.”
“You did the best you could.” You argued. “You offered to help, and you’ve constantly been feeding back. And let's be realistic here, would they have listened to you?”
“No.” The Master grumbled. “But the one time I actually try to help, it’s pointless.”
“It’s not pointless-”
“If i’d told them to leave them out, they would’ve thought I was behind them and not trusted a word I said. If I'd told them to get rid of them, they’d’ve thought I’d planned to use them as, I don’t know, bugs or something. Wanting to know where the super secret UNIT storage is.”
“You already know that, though.” You pointed out. “You stuck the address on the fridge.”
“But they would think that anyway. And now, I look like a useless help because now the cubes ARE doing something.”
“You couldn’t have known that-” 
“But I should’ve! World domination is my thing, love. This is what I do! God knows I've been trying for centuries. And now these stupid little boxes turn up and all of a sudden they’re breaking into government systems, hacking the Pentagon. I could’ve stopped this. But nobody had the balls to trust me.”
“Kate does.” You suggested, leaning into the Masters side.
“Obviously speaking metaphorically. If she’s anything like her dad, from what you’ve told me, she’ll be able to tell when you’re working with slightly less evil intentions than usual. Like that story you told me about the Axons.”
The Master smiled to himself, staring down at his shoes.
“We still went back to hating each other afterwards. He locked me in a prison and punched me in the face in the death zone.”
“All in one day?”
“No, two separate days. Two separate bodies.”
You wrapped your arm around his back, fully leaning into his side and resting your head on your shoulder.
“Well I'm sure you were doing lots of wonderfully horrible, wickedly cruel and criminally genius things that deserved such twisted justice.” You purred. The Master chuckled, resting his head on top of your own.
“You don’t have to grovel, love.” He said. “I already married you.”
You laughed gently, nestling more comfortably against his side.
“I like seeing how big I can inflate your ego before you know I'm teasing.”
“Obviously, you can’t tell anybody about any of this. I’ll more than happily hypnotise you.” The Master suggested with no malice in his tone. You shook your head, eyes resting shut as you listened to the sounds of the waves.
“You don’t have to hypnotise me, Master. Sooner or later you always get what you want.”
The pair of you sat in a comfortable silence, allowing the sounds of the cityscape to wash over you. You could have sat there forever, cuddled up to the Master and-
“That's it!”
The Master suddenly yelled, pulling his head from your own. You pulled away from his shoulder, staring at the Timelord, eyes riddled with confusion.
“What’s it?”
“They got what they wanted! The cubes got what they were after!”
The Master pressed a firm kiss to the top of your head, grasping at your cheeks and making you splutter in shock.
“C’mon!” He called, already sprinting back to the tower.
By the time you’d caught up with him, the Master was already laying out his plan. You looked around in confusion as you stepped into the base of the tower- The power was completely out.
“Do you have a back up?” You asked, jumping into the conversation.
“We’ve got three.” Kate replied. “Each kept separate and constantly maintained. This shouldn’t be possible.”
“Well, is it the cubes?” You looked towards the Master, who was already typing away madly at the computer. You met the eyes of the guy at the desk, who sent an unsure glance. You hardened your gaze, attempting to send the strongest message possible- the Master, for once, could be 100% trusted.
“Most likely.” The Master called over his shoulder.
“But how does it link with earlier?”
“You set a scan for their activity, while you’ve been gone it's been off the scale. Perhaps they’re… recharging?”
“By that logic it took them 365 days to charge up. Did we see anything to suggest that?”
You asked, following the head of scientific research further into the base.
“No, we would have noticed!” The Master yelled over his shoulder.
“We noted nothing. No spikes, no surges, nothing. Maybe they had the energy already when they landed.”
“Then why take a year to act on power you already had?”
The Master spun around in his chair, eyebrows furrowed as he thought. You could tell your earlier chat was pushing him further than before. He was determined to figure this out… Whatever it was.
“What's that?”
He asked suddenly, pointing towards the closest cube container. You turned around to look at the metal box, peering through the window at the cube. Kate brought her torch up to the window and gasped softly. The cube was glowing once again with the blue energy you’d seen earlier. Only this time, instead of its side emblazoned with alien text, it read a simple number. 
7
The Master pushed himself from the chair, pushing his fingers against the glass as he peered into the box between you. Kate hurried over to the next box, peering in through the glass.
“This one says it too.”
“And this one!” You said, staring into a third box.
“And the one over there. They all say seven.”
“Why would they do that?”
The Master pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned, as if trying to yank the answer from one of his many brains.
“Seven… Wonders of the world?” Kate offered. 
“Continents, days of the week, seven seas?”
“Is it the planets? Seven planets have influence over humanity?” You suggested.
The Master's head suddenly shot up, his nose almost pushed against the glass as he stared down at the small black cube.
“Sides of a cube.”
“What?” You said, meeting his side.
“Seven sides of a cube. A cube has seven sides.”
“Is this extratemporal physics again?”
“No, no cubes have seven sides.” The Master said, narrowing his eyes.
“The six you can see… and the inside.”
It was almost as if the cubes had heard his words. The lights in the building suddenly burst back into life, illuminating the UNIT base. In the same moment, the cubes all began to flicker, the blue text upon them shifting and changing.
6
“It’s a countdown!”
The Master declared, spinning on his heels to face both you and Kate. You stared at the cubes in confusion, a million questions coursing through your mind.
“How long do we have? Minutes?”
“You’ve got until they hit zero, then you’ve got nothing.”
“It can’t be minutes.”
“They’re alien cubes that fell out of the sky, Kate, they can count down in whatever fashion they like.”
The Master met Kate's eyes, his hardened expression knitted together with stone cold severity.
“Whatever they’re going to do won’t be good. Get it out however you can- news, radio, social media, text, amber alert. Hell, I'll give you the password to Archangel, god knows they never changed it.”
Kate stared at the Master wordlessly and the Timelord stared back, his voice laced with deepest sincerity.
“I need you to trust me, Kate, as much as you can bring yourself to. Just get your precious humanity away from those cubes.”
“But why now?” You interjected. “If we’re running on Kate's theory, they already had the ability to do all this stuff. Why did they wait so long?”
The Master's eyes were shifting. He was knitting together a theory in his mind, his brains fizzing with resolve.
“Because they needed time… they needed trust… Harold Saxon!”
You sent the Master a strange look, Kate joining you with a raised eyebrow. The Master smiled, his eyes wide with excitement.
“I’ve done this before! When I was Saxon, I landed eighteen months before election day. I knew people wouldn’t trust me the moment I landed, I needed to slowly convince everybody to vote.”
“But you had the Archangel network, the cubes aren’t hypnotising people.” You replied.
“No, they’re not. But this was politics. I needed to be irresistible, one wrong moment of press could cost everything. But the cubes are just that- cubes. They can’t talk, they don’t move, but they’re clever- they rely on people to naturally convince themselves to trust them. Use that herd mentality, bring them into their lives, their homes, make memes and documentaries and fake twitter accounts, become unsuspiciously mundane. And then, once you’re inside-”
“You reveal who you truly are.” Kate finished. The Master snapped his fingers in her direction.
“Like what you did with MI6 too. Get inside, get trusted, get the information, use it to your advantage. Learn how to attack.”
The Master nodded at your words.
“We took our eyes off the horizon just as things were coming over it.” The Master said, his words echoing something the Doctor had said a long time ago.
“Get that information out as fast as you can.”
The Master said, turning back to Kate.
“Obviously not the stuff about me. But everything else, go go go!”
By the time the word had spread to the news, the cubes had counted down to the number 3. The Master hadn’t stopped staring at the cubes, watching them count down with a dangerously growing fascination. It was as if a year of private musing had built up to full blown fixation. He wanted to know what happened when the taunting little boxes reached zero.
“I’m going in there.”
He decided, stating his decision proudly to both you and Kate.
“What? Why?” You asked, spinning around in your chair.
“What if it, like, explodes?”
“That’s the reason I'm not sending you in.” He smirked. “The magic of me is there’s always another one that comes next.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know it’s not going to explode.”
“How?”
“Because one cube already has!” He said, staring at the map.
“There's roughly 100 billion cubes on earth. And in those 47 minutes every cube did something different. One of those cubes exploded in Japan. So we know it's not going to do that.”
“How can you be so sure?” Kate questioned. The Master smiled darkly, grasping hold of the metal door of the container and yanking it open.
“Because the best showmen never reveal their final trick before the end. Wish me luck, my love!”
The Master sauntered inside the box, slamming the door shut behind him as the number lowered once more.
2
“We can do this remotely!” Kate called through the glass as the Master sat down on the small stool. He gestured to the glass and to his ears, throwing his hands up in a questioning manor. You sighed and knocked on the glass wall, the Master still pretending to not hear a thing.
“This isn’t the sound proof one! You can still hear us!”
You yelled, and the Master rolled his eyes. He sat comfortably, placing his hands upon the table and staring down at the cube. He waved innocently to you from the inside of the capsule. You stood in wait, anxiously nibbling your bottom lip.
1
The number counted down once more. You leant forward. So did Kate. So did the Master. The three of you held your breath, waiting in pure anticipation. Your stomach was churning, feeling like it was climbing higher and higher on a roller coaster track, inching towards the precipice with every agonising second.
0The Master smiled in anticipation. You felt your stomach drop as the coaster threw itself down the descending track. The top of the cube smoothly slid open as it had done hours before, only this time it stayed open. The Master leant forward, carefully manoeuvring himself to hover over the open box. He peered inside, Kate standing on her toes to try and see what was inside. 
“Well?” You asked hesitantly, eyes flickering between staring at the Master and staring at the cube.
“What's inside?”
The Master inspected every corner of the cube, staring with all the power his gaze could muster. He stared at every side, every inch of the inside of the cube. All the theories that had been wrestling inside his head withered and perished.
“Nothing…” He growled, anger surging inside his chest and sparking through his body
“There's nothing!” The Master snarled, reaching to grasp hold of the cube. He threw the box to the other side of the container, gritting his teeth and storming towards the door.
“Why, why is nothing inside?!”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” You called after the Master, following him towards the desk, his furious gaze devouring every inch of data present.
“Nothing inside means no bombs, aliens, invasive plants. Empty means good, right?”
“Empty means nothing!”
He snapped, investigating the board.
“But it means the general public is safe, right?” Kate clarified, standing behind the man at the desk who was slowly inching away from the furious Master. The Master growled, turning to face Kate with an exasperated expression.
“No! You don’t do this without payoff! Every single movement by those stupid little cubes has been calculated, precise. Them being empty means you sent billions of cubes to earth, made them sit for a year, put on a show and couldn’t carry it out!”
“Master, look at the screen.” Your voice wavered, the Timelord following your finger as you gestured urgently to the screen. The various feeds of CCTV around the world were showing the same exact thing: People in cafes, streets, offices, parks, homes. All of them were collapsing to the ground, clutching their chests, before falling still on the floor.
“Oh my god, they’re dying!” Kate said. The Master's face turned even more perplexed.
“How, how are they dying, why are they dying? Why doesn’t any of this make any sense?!”
“Kate, do we know the cause?”
“I want intel, give me reasons why-”
“Why is this happening?!” The Master groaned loudly, pacing a hole in the floor before the desk.
“The cubes, they show off a bit, they go dormant, they open and suddenly-”
The Timelord felt a venomous punch in the chest, a burning hot wound sizzling him through the inside out. He let out a choked shriek, his body lurching himself backwards and into the wheeled desk chair, the chair rolling back against the floor as he clutched at his chest in a panic. He could feel his arteries seizing, the power in the left of his chest being snatched away with red hot fury.
“Master, what’s wrong?”
You clamoured urgently, the Timelord craning his neck to look at you. He gasped for breath, eyes almost bulging out of his head as he clawed at his chest in pain. 
“I don’t, ack, I don’t-” He panted as you rushed over to his side.
The computer began to beep rapidly, the man on the desk frantically ingesting the new readings that were coming in.
“Global reports in a surge in heart failures-”
“ACK!” The Master cried, his voice strangled as he violently scratched at his shirt.
“Oh my god, ah, only one heart!”
Your eyes widened almost comically as the Masters fists began to thump furiously upon his chest, hitting in a fast rhythm of four as he attempted to restart its beating.
“Shit!”
“Only one heart, fuck, only one heart! Not working, ack-”
You grasped hold of the back of his chair, mainly to stop the Masters sporadically kicking legs from sending him dizzy.
“Ok, shit-”
“Only one heart, only one heart!”
“I’ll get you to the hospital!”
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
He shrieked, waving a trembling hand towards the screen.
“Turn me around, show me, turn me around!”
You pushed hard against the back of the chair, sending the Master rolling towards the desk as the screen flashed a violent red with warning signs.
“Show me what the cubes did after they opened!”
“I don’t-”
“Do as he says!” Kate snapped, and the man on the desk instantly began typing. He pulled up every reading they had. Temperature, weight, size, shape-”
“Look at the currents!” The Master cried.
“Sudden spike in electrical field.” The man on the desk said.
“No-” Kate exclaimed. “They stole the power?”
“They’re signal boxes! Steal the electricity, find the closest idiot leaning in and BAM!”
The Master clutched at his chest again, wincing as he recoiled back in his chair.
“They take out what they- ack- can, the human heart. It’s powered by electrical currents, one blast will do it-”
The Master had grabbed hold of the desk man's chest mid rant, his fingers fisting into the material as he yanked at his chest furiously.
“How do you kill a human? Go for the heart- FUCK!”
“They have to have a main hub, a power source, somewhere to report back to-”
Kate asked, her terrified technician frantically trying to peel the Masters fingers from his shirt. You grabbed hold of his wrist and tugged, another searing bolt of pain surging through the Timelords chest. He released his grip and began to smack his fist into his chest once more, his eyes scrunching shut as he let out a pathetically drawn out whine.
“HOW do you humans cope with only one heart,” He groaned, leering at you as you watched worriedly.
“It is PITIFUL!” He spat, small flecks of spit hitting your face. You groaned, rolling your eyes as you wiped the glob from your face.
“Master I don’t care, i’m taking you to the hospital-”
“I’m not going to the fucking hospital!” The Master shouted.
“I think you should.” Kate replied sharply.
“The energy readings are converging there.”
The Master let out another pained whine. You supposed this one came from finally having to do what somebody else wanted.
By the time you’d gotten to the hospital, the Master could barely stand on his own. He was clutching his chest like he had heartburn, rubbing it in circles with his fingers. You followed close behind, Kate and her soldiers in tow. You knew you might not have long left before the Master went down. You had to figure out what was going on.
“How many do we think have been affected?” 
You asked as Kate checked her phone furiously.
“Early reports are saying about a third of the population. Anybody with even the closest proximity to the cubes.”
“It could happen again.” The Master groaned, his face cast with a pallor of sickness.
“Who knows, they love the number seven so much, six more could be on the way. You need to tell them how to not die.”
“And you need to find where they came from.”
“I’ll do my bit, you do yours!”
He grunted, before collapsing against the wall.
“Stay in contact, Kate!” You said, patting the side of her arm.
“The world needs you right now. You’ll do great!”
“I’ll do my best.” She replied, before she and a small tribe of soldiers disappeared back through the hospital corridors.
The Master whimpered, clutching at his chest as he tried to push himself free of the wall.
“Ok, how long can you hold on for?” You asked, taking hold of his arm and throwing it across your shoulder. With a heave you pried him free, the Masters weight heavy as you yanked him up the small set of stairs. He groaned loudly, his voice croaked as he struggled for breath.
“Not.. much longer. But I can feel it’s here somewhere… down here!”
What was once a helpful hold had become a headlock, the Masters elbow trapping your neck as he attempted to drag you forwards. You struggled under his clunky leadership, his legs swaying as he staggered like a drunkard through the frantic hallways of the hospital. All around was unfolding chaos, doctors and patients alike collapsed upon beds and chairs, staff running ragged as they tried to hold back the unknown affliction.
“Through, here!”
The Master declared, yanking you around a corner before suddenly flinging himself backwards. He collapsed back against the wall, his face crumpled with agony as he struggled to stand, his eyes scrunched shut as he let out a series of panicked grunts and whines.
“I can’t, love, ack, I can’t-”
“Master-” You pleaded, crouching down by his side.
“I need both hearts, I can’t do this! I can’t!-”
You watched in horror as he sank flat to the floor, his back pressed into the pale blue linoleum as he convulsed in pure agony. You looked around you, trying to ground yourself as best you could. Right now, though he’d never admit it, he needed you. Desperately. A real life or death moment in time. You scanned your surroundings, eyes dashing over every part of the corridor to find something that could possibly save his life. Maybe a spare doctor to help with CPR, maybe adrenaline to restart his heart, or maybe just-
Then, you saw it. Sat atop of an abandoned nurses cart, a bright red bag with two paddles on the side. A defibrillator. If electricity had stopped one of the Masters hearts, maybe electricity could start it again.
“You’re gonna hate me for this!” You declared, dragging the bag from the top of the cart and siding it across the floor.
“But this may do it!”
The Master turned to look at the red bag beside him. If his eyes were wide earlier, now they were practically out of his skull.
“No, oh no no no!” He protested, attempting to shove the bag away. The machine awoke with the twist of a knob, the screen blinking on with a loud beep.
“Don’t you fucking dare, don’t you fucking dare!”
“Stop swearing at me and let me save you!”
You smacked at his hands, the pair of you engaging in a pathetic wrestling match as you fought to rip open his shirt, the Master vehemently protesting your attempts through guttural grunts of pain. He gasped in shock as you exposed his chest to the cold hospital air, his hands flying into the air as you grasped hold of the two live paddles. 
“That won’t work, It won’t work on a Timelord! I’m a-”
“Alright, clear!”
Through some miracle, the Master kept his hands out of the way. You pushed the two paddles onto the sides of his chest, hopefully hitting each heart dead on. The cold metal of the paddles made the Master wince, but the electric shock that hit his system made him scream in shock. He made a strange whooping sound as you pulled away, dropping the paddles on the floor in a panic. The Master suddenly sat up at the waist, his torso springing up like a Halloween decoration as he reached out with splayed fingers like Frankenstein's monster. He whooped and hollered as he scrambled to his feet like a new born fawn, legs wobbling as he stared down at his chest in amazement.
“Oh, oh, yes!”
He moaned, the sound making you blush as you stared up at him on your knees. He did a small strange dance, likely waking up his limbs properly, his hand pressing over his heart. He felt the familiar rhythm beneath his touch once again, a cackling laugh escaping his throat.
“And he escapes death once again!”
He declared, grasping hold of your hand and yanking you to your feet.
“With his glorious companion by his side!”
The Master span you around in his grasp, practically tangling your legs together and he leant you down into a forceful dip, your lips crashing together as he pulled you into a ferocious kiss. You were too startled to indulge in the moment, your lips working on instinct as you gasped for breath once parted. His lips now reddened, his heart beating once again, the Master smiled down at you with a maddened, Cheshire cat grin.
“Do that to me again and I'll leave you in the stone age.”
Your eyes rolled dangerously hard as he guided you to stand, kicking the machine to the side of the corridor and flapping his hands above his head.
“No problem Master, happy to help Master, love you too Master.”
You grumbled loudly, the Timelord winking in your direction. You were about to remind him to button up his shirt when he pressed a kiss to his palm, patting it to the top of your head, his touch much gentler than before.
“You know me so well, Love.” 
The Master mused, before running into danger half dressed for the second time that day.
38 notes · View notes
lifeofkaze · 10 months ago
Note
Hallo 🙂
Can I get 💌 ❌ 🧐 🏆🎯 please? 💛
Saluuuut 💛💛💛💛
💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?
As much as I love them, I have learned to not depend on them as much as I used to anymore. I know we always say "write for yourself" but it took me a proper months-long block and identity crisis as writer to actually take this advice to heart and learn to live by it. Half my story vault will properly never see the light of day, or only when I feel like it and that's... okay, I guess.
That being said, I love comments, and yours in particular. I actually read back on them again every now and again, and they never fail to put the biggest smile on my face so a big big BIG shout out to you 💛
❌ What's a trope you will never write?
I answered this earlier but in short, I'm open to almost any trope as long as I can somehow relate to at least an aspect of it.
(I say that now. If you gave me a list, I'd probably go "nah... nah... nah... omg never")
🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?
Yes and no. I try to write first, and research later. I find that the more I gather knowledge, I stray from what my gut says a scene/character should look and be like, and that makes it hard for me to trust my writer's instinct. Thus, I write the scene as I see fit, and then do my research and adapt what's needed in the next drafting round.
That being said, if there's factual knowledge I need, or I'm dealing with sensitive topics, I make sure that this research is thorough and well implemented before putting anything out.
🏆 What's your most popular fic?
I will never get over the fact that the stats of my reader insert smut fics from the olden days, which weren't even in a style that had anything to do with how I feel comfortable writing, beat any story that actually holds some personal meaning on AO3. And I mean... by a long shot.
🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?
As much as I'd like to be that super clever writer able to pull off these amazing twists... I'm not. I had hoped that my "secret" villain in A Search for Balance would fool a couple of people for at least a little while but literally everyone saw through Matthew from the start 😅
That being said, I've been keeping a couple of stories very closely guarded that are yet to be written where I do hope I can surprise a couple of people, so... we'll see when we get there.
2 notes · View notes
fortycumber · 1 year ago
Text
so having read @mindmeltonabun-blog 's analysis of the plagiarism in My Demon, I felt strangely compelled to give my own review, since I have been pondering on it for quite some time now ever since I've finished it.
In short, my opinion would be, that the drama is a rather shallow, superficial, but visually stunning rendition of a popular trope that has been done a gazillion times before. It leaves a lot to the viewer's interpretation and their imagination due to the lack of proper explanation of major events in the plot. Think, an adaptation of a popular teen novel from the 2010s- short on everything but chemistry between the main actors (Fallen from 2016, The Mortal Instruments from 2013, heck even Twilight as the post stated as well and many more). The author laid out a nice blue print of a story that could have worked, had it been better researched and had she paid more attention to details. My particular problem with this drama was Gu Won's obvious identity crisis, which stems mainly from the fact that the author herself didn't really know what he was supposed to be. Like is he a demon, plucked from the many or is he the devil himself? He calls himself a demon, then then devil, he often claims that God's his boss, God herself says that she sent him there among humans, because she needed a "worker", which to me heavily implies that he's an angel..? Am I the only one who couldn't quite understand that part? And after the small discussion I had with certain commenters on Mydramalist, I guess I agree with the fact that he's supposed to be some kind of a fallen angel, mirroring the real devil, but that still doesn't explain as to why God called him "her worker". I guess, everything's part of the author's scarcely explained lore.
The Christian elements of the story, especially the Joseon Era part, were interesting (like I would totally watch a standalone drama following only that arc of the story, it's ten times more original than the main one), but totally lacked in execution and research which made a complete jumbled mess of the whole story, I did catch a few references to the Bible here and there, dunno if they were intentional or not.
Do Do Hee, to me, seemed like an even more washed out replica of Nam Ji Ah from The Tale of the Nine Tailed, mainly in how she was structured: she was strong, independent and formidable until she met her male lead and in a way she served as a feisty enigma for him to solve throughout the first few episodes, until he did and she fell flat, constantly in a need of his protection and reassurance. The "Succession" part of the show was an absolute chaos, it was obvious from the beginning who the culprit was and his tactics were honestly laughable, he wasn't terrifying at all, yet alone secretive and elusive, his whole character seemed to have escaped from a makjang if you ask me. There was no real fight, no palpable hatred and conflict between Do Do Hee and him, he spent strategically more time stroking Gu Won's magical book and chatting up the maniac he hired in sketchy chatrooms, instead of doing evil things. I would so have preferred if the guy who was obsessed with Do Do Hee (for whichever reason we'll never find out btw or maybe I missed it, dunno) was the real villain instead of Noh Suk Min, he at least, evoked pure disgust and uneasiness in me, while Noh Suk Min made me laugh, literally. Oh and what a marvelous waste of Lee Sang Yi, his role was literally useless he was just there to be pretty (I love you boo <333333). Let's not forget the detectives please- they were even more useless, they just existed to be clueless about their jobs and look raggedy and lost most of the time.
The whole tone of the drama should have been different and more graphic. For a drama that deals with such heavy topics, it should've been darker, grittier, scarier, Gu Won should have been more dangerous, bolder, more seductive, sexier and more lethal, I mean he's a literal demon and given his tragic backstory he should have been truly ruthless, preying on people's misfortunes and feasting on the terrible outcome, in fact I think I would prefer for him to have been a libertine living an absolutely lavish and debauched life in the human underworld, where he would find most of his potential clients instead of the doleful theatre owner who mopes around clock towers looking for "his next victim", it just doesn't match the person he became after seeing Do Do Hee's past version dead and killing all of those people because of it (I mean Song Kang is more than a capable actor to do such a character, I wanna cry thinking what we've been deprived of seriously). For someone who boldly exclaims his hatred of people, he seems quite timid in hurting them, he should have been shown literally torturing people who didn't adhere to the contract and who wanted to escape it, instead he is just stuck in a dress up game with a plot that progresses nowhere and most of the time selectively "borrows" elements from other famous dramas. In fact the same thing could be said for Do Do Hee as well; as much as I liked most of her outfits, she was presented as this notorious business woman in episode one, but all she ever does in the rest of the episodes is just drive around town, looking like a Barbie doll.
I'm sure there were more things that irked me, but I just can't remember at the moment so I'll just stop here. The sole thing that saved this show was the chemistry between the leads.
6 notes · View notes
pickinglilahs · 1 year ago
Text
I'm not done with the Blackeclipse story, but I'm shifting gears to my One True Love... Drarry
Chapter 1 (2k) Slow burn AO3 link, Ch 2 This is a Trans!Harry fic (Gender Fluid/NB/Queer!Harry). Basically, the Dursleys didn't want to raise a girl so they brought Harry up as a boy. It didn't really matter till 8th year when it suddenly did. Most chapters will be T but some will be 18+ Also, there will probs be trigger warnings on some chapters for abuse, PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc. This first chapter is kind of harsh as we do dive into some of Harry's past for backstory so...Take care of yourselves
Harry was having an identity crisis.
At least, that's what Hermione called it.
Supposedly, since he had spent most of the last decade trying to survive, he hadn't had much time to think about his gender.
Or maybe it's just that his gender had never been an issue before. It always just...was.
Granted, when Harry was little, he had tried to understand, but his middle school library didn't have any information on anatomy, let alone 'Sissy Boys.'
That's what he was.
A Sissy Boy.
At least, that's what the Dursleys had called him, and, as he was just a little kid who didn't know any better, Harry believed them.
Sissy Boys were weak and stupid, and they didn't have a penis like Real Boys.
Sissy Boys were freaks.
And Harry had been twice as freakish because of the accidental magic that he didn't understand.
Looking back, Harry could see how their influence shaped his understanding of the world and himself. Their treatment of him was still engrained on his psyche.
The Mind Healer Harry had seen after the war wasn't very helpful when it came to things like that though. Sure, they had helped him understand his panic attacks and how to work through them. They helped with finding coping mechanisms for when everything became too much. They had even started him down this path of self-discovery.
It was actually them who had suggested he attend Hogwarts for the 'eighth year' McGonagall had offered his class. Supposedly, it would be good for him to have the chance to be a normal teenager.
Well, here he was, back at Hogwarts, and he felt anything but normal. Though, Harry had to admit, that was a comfort in its own right. He wouldn't know what to do with himself if all he had going on was classes and gossip.
Maybe that was why he had dove head-first into this particular issue. This was something tangible. Researchable. Understandable.
On the first day of classes, Harry skipped lunch in favor of perusing the library alone. All he could think about during his morning classes was seeing if the Hogwarts library had the information his middle school library hadn't. Surely it must.
As he wandered up and down the aisles, Harry's mind strayed to other distractions. He assumed Hermione was at lunch—seeing as they didn't even have homework yet—and Ron hadn't come back for eighth year. He was in Diagon working with George.
That had led to a lot of yelling and crying, and now Ron and Hermione weren't speaking to each other.
Again.
And while Harry had stayed far away from that minefield, Ron wasn't talking to him right now either.
He and Hermione were on speaking terms, but they didn't do much speaking, even before the fighting. They mostly sat in each other's company, both terrified of being alone.
After twenty minutes of wandering up and down the aisles, Harry finally gave in and asked Madam Pince for directions.
While he was terrified of the shriveled old shrew, she did direct him to the proper section, scowling suspiciously all the while. He made his way over to the shelves and stared at the books blankly.
He could feel Pince's eyes on him, so he pulled a book down at random, flipping it over and pretending to read the synopsis. After a few moments, he looked back up at the shelf and grabbed two more books from different shelves.
Confident that at least one would be able to answer his questions, Harry took the books back to Pince to check them out. He put them into his bag and there they sat the rest of the day.
He went to his afternoon classes and kept his eyes on the teacher or his notes, but his mind never strayed from the books in his bag and the answers they might hold.
When he finally made it to the eighth-year common room after dinner, Harry went straight to his room. He had his own with a private bathroom—Thank Merlin—; so, he grabbed the library books and flopped onto his bed.
Examining them, he thought he did a pretty good job blindly grabbing. The first was Sex versus Gender. The second, Anatomy for Dummies. And the third was just called Trans.
Harry still wasn't sure what 'trans' meant, but McGonagall and Pomfrey had both used the term when asking about him in first year. So, at the very least, he could finally learn what it meant.
He started with the anatomy book, flipping until he got to the section labeled Male v Female. The cover page just had symbols and things on it, so he turned to the next page.
Here, there was a drawing on each page. Both the male and female were just outlines with their organs showing. A big arrow pointed to the female's gut, pointing out the additional organ labeled 'The Uterus.'
Harry frowned and turned the page again, a sinking feeling in his gut. There were two more drawings, this time zoomed in and slightly from the side.
Harry wasn't stupid. He had looked down there before and he knew it was definitely not what was drawn on the 'male' figure.
He turned the page again and was greeted with 'The Vagina.'
Harry's stomach rioted. He leaped off the bed and sprinted for the bathroom. When all of his dinner had made a reappearance, he sat on the floor. Putting his back against the wall, Harry pulled his knees up, hiding his face.
Female
Male
Sissy Boy
Female
Sissy Boy
Male
Female
"Harry?"
He jumped as he felt Hermione's hand on his ankle. Her face was blurry, but he could see her furrowed brows.
"Harry, are you ill? Do you need to go to Madam Pomfrey?"
Harry just stared at her. His mind was spinning too fast to grasp what she was saying, let alone formulate a response.
Seeing his blank, unfocused look, Hermione sighed. She left to fetch his school robes, which had been tossed carelessly over his desk chair. Walking back to Harry, she pulled the Walkman out of one of the pockets and turned it on.
She held the headset up to one ear to make sure it was playing before slowly reaching out to put it over both of his. Then she picked his glasses up off the floor, cleaned them with a tap of her wand, and put those on him too.
When his hands came up to adjust the way his glasses and the headphones sat on his ears, Hermione sighed in relief. She went back out into his room, putting his robes in the hamper, and grabbed his charms book from his bag to read.
She was about to go back to the bathroom to sit with him when she noticed the books on Harry's bed. Curious, she went over to look and gasped.
"Oh, Harry."
Not wanting to overwhelm him, she left the books and went to sit beside him on the bathroom floor. At least she knew what this was about. Usually, when he had an episode, what set him off was anyone's guess.
This?
This they had been expecting.
This, Hermione was prepared for.
So, she sat across from Harry on the floor of the bathroom, waiting for the storm raging in his mind to slow.
It was a surprisingly short while before Harry paused his music. He even took the headphones off, wrapping them gently around the player. He stood, still a little shaky, and dropped a brief kiss to the top of Hermione's head in thanks before making his way back to his bed.
Hermione followed him and sat at his desk as he pulled pajamas out of his trunk. She was already dressed for bed, having only come seeking him to check in and say good night. Hermione was glad she came.
As the desk and the bathroom door sat along the same wall, Hermione couldn't see into the bathroom from her seat. So, Harry left the door open as he went in to change and brush his teeth. As she had expected, Harry started talking once he was out of sight.
Unexpectedly, he didn't ask if she already knew or why they hadn't told him. No. Instead, he asked, "You know what the worst part is?"
It was rhetorical, but she answered anyway, "That you're only just now getting to figure this out?"
He snorted, "Nah, I've never had great timing."
He had a point.
"No. The worst part is that I knew. Or should have known. Or-" He paused, and she could picture him running his hands over his face, glasses askew. "Part of me had to have known first year with how everyone was asking all those weird questions. And I had to have known third year when Remus was telling me about-"
He trailed off, but Hermione knew. Remus had told Harry about his parents. About how they were expecting a baby girl. About how they would have loved to see who he had become, no matter what.
"I just didn't want it to be true."
Hermione could hear him brushing his teeth. She had no idea what to say to that.
When he came out of the bathroom, Hermione stood, holding her arms out in invitation. Harry didn't always accept hugs, especially not after having an episode, but he did this time.
In another life, he might have been taller than her. As it was, he was painfully small and frail. Even years of Hogwarts' feasts and Molly's cooking couldn't make up for a decade of malnourishment. Especially since he had still spent his summers at Privet Drive.
Another wave crashed through him as Harry realized he wasn't just small for his age; he was small for a boy. Hermione was average height, and he was almost as tall as her.
Which meant he was normal height.
For a girl.
Taking a deep breath, Harry pulled away. "Does this mean I have to wear a skirt now?"
The question startled a laugh out of Hermione before she could suppress it. Harry was smiling too, but the worry in his eyes belittled the effect.
"You don't have to do anything," she promised. "You could go on like you have been and no one would know the difference."
Harry nodded to himself. But... Did he want to go on like he had been?
"Or," she continued, "You can keep reading those books and decide for yourself who it is you want to be. This isn't an all-or-nothing, Harry."
He looked back up at her, confusion etched into his face. She smiled and went over to his bed, picking up Sex versus Gender and Trans.
"These are a great start, and I know a few others that might be helpful too. Don't be afraid to ask, Okay? And-" She choked off and switched directions, "You can write to Charlie too; they're nonbinary. They might be able to help you with more specific questions."
Something 'clicked' for Harry at the mention of Charlie. How the second eldest Weasley wasn't exactly masculine, but also not very feminine.
Both and Neither.
At the same time.
Harry looked down at the books in his hands and nodded again. He went over to sit on the edge of his bed, studying their covers. Hermione kissed his head and left, calling for him to try to sleep at least a bit tonight; even though they both knew he wouldn't.
Sighing, he settled back against the headboard, opened Sex versus Gender, and began to read.
@bradley-95147-blog @shyshadows430
6 notes · View notes
another-dra-anew · 2 years ago
Note
scuttles. if ur still doing the ask meme. kurokawa (annie)
kurokawa!!! i totally didn’t fill out everything except the last bullet point and then forget i was working on this for like a week. ☺️
-My identity hc for them
i hc’ed her as lesbian specifically for a v long time, but bi kurokawa has been speaking to me recently ? bisexual homoromantic may b,, split attraction model my beloved. but who really knows!! my thoughts will prolly change again. 
and i don’t really think much abt her gender identity! she prolly ids as like.. a girlie pop. that’s what she’d say if u asked her. some characters are canonically cis some canonically trans some of them i have opinions on but it’s not smthn like. “canon” per se. and some i just have zero thoughts whatsoever kurokawa is in that last category
- Thoughts on their home life/family
neeeed to rewrite the motive scene in ch1 so bad. uhmmm. ya know. i think kurokawas love of streaming/social media/etc stemmed from like….. wanting to have fwends and that not really being an option for her ? she was v well loved and v well taken care of but like… having a bunch of besties who she could go have sleepovers with and stuff was never a feasible thing… so i think like. having a fanbase is vv much so a comfort thing. can’t have friends over to do their makeup but can do her own makeup while chatting with people. can’t bake for friends but can share recipes/demonstrate them and see people post their recreations. not really about her family, but it’s a bit of a home life detail! 
  - How i feel about their canonical writing/handling
i like how she’s written and handled! i actually reaaaally like what happens with her narratively for reasons i cant explain yet. buuut yea i like her she’s fun! even if her writing kinda shows how old beta is (ie was written before we had proper dra translations). “but wait couldn’t u just rewrite her personality now we know mikakos true behavior” consider: i don’t want to !!!! i wuv her she’s staying. i’ve gently changed things but just… shhh. it’s fine. <3
- The one thing i’d want to make canon about them
despite being in the… sunny and sociable archetype (i will NOT spoil… (<- trying to keep myself in check) but hopefully smthn that’s come across is how like. a big message rn is how important being besties is to preventing murders), kurokawa is like. zero help to keeping people hopeful and not wanting to murder one another in a kg setting. personality =/= how good u are at connecting with people. shes not going to actively make things worse like Some People, but simply having a cheerful nature will noooot help people stay happy and if anything can result in further isolation. it’s a matter of how u interact with others- there’s people who are more negative/pessimistic but they do better to increase the odds of the group being calm than kurokawa does.
and this is nothing against her as a character or a person!! it’s just a matter of how beta is written, and also how she’s written and handled, that i wish was more apparent. i think it’s a fun insight on her personality and who she is. she’s not consciously trying to be, like…… she’d love it if she could be uplifting and a source of hope! but she just Doesn’t form those bonds with people immediately. tsuzuna have very specific approaches and are very Conscious of how they interact with others, and kurokawa just doesn’t have theee… knowledge/skill/experience. because she’s not used to long term emotional crisis management!!!
- My number one favorite ship for them
…y’all remember kobashikawas ask meme fill? i should say kuronori logically they’re The moment. but my brain rn is saying tomori/kurokawa…..
- …Now everyone else i ship with them
she’s v shippable!! again my hcs change often but rn she’s actually one of the characters i can see w/classmates of the opposite gender. woah. that in mind tho, i only really actively ship her with the other members of the kuronorimakitomo polycule, but i also think she’d be cute dating tomori and iranami (downsizing the polycule…. if kurokawa and tomori are with iranami, does that mean inori and maki are with hatano? hm..)!! i think she’d also kinda be 👀? at taira when they first met, but after getting to know her a bit better kurokawas like “oh !” and side steps away. she doesn’t like tais energy.
- The thing i will NEVER ship
. do i need to say it. 
- a dynamic/relationship i wish was explored more (in canon, or in fandom)
the fact kurokawa was like. kobashikawa should come with us to the exorcism cuz he investigated the store!!!! despite. literally investigating the store with him is really funny to me. underrated moment girlie what was ur reasoning there!!! also she didn’t even invite ōtori. it’s so silly to me, so i have to say kurokawa and kobashikawa- OH though!! i do also like her and uehara. canon answer for dra in general, to put them together. but i think they’re silly!! overall just the maedas exorcism gang!
- thoughts on their design (appearance-wise)
!!! i like her design a lot actually! constantly changing little details, but the general concept of purple jacket, black t-shirt, black shorts, then socks and sneakers, is always the same, and i always like it!! it’s a bit more plain, but it allows for little details to be added (shoes w/hand drawn details, custom made jacket), which are cute and add to her character! liiike, kurokawa and uehara both have custom shoes and jackets, but they came about them, and stylized them in v different ways, and so it says smthn different while still being the same sort of concept. buuuut anyways!! she’s cute and i wuv her fit <3!! 
- A music-related thought- a song that reminds me of them, or what their music taste is, etc
maybe a weird thing to point out as a niche?  but i think she listens to a lot of kpop girl groups…. fun time to mention that i cannot imagine her on twitter i think she has one for like. her brand ? which is very inactive. i don’t think she’s one where the music like……. ✨speaks✨ to her i think she’s a casual enjoyer of the things she likes!
2 notes · View notes