#never mind basic conscientiousness toward others around them

[queerlyglittering]

some of y'all never had parents who aggressively shamed you for making even a little mess or even just mere evidence of your existence and it shows

[hb-writes]

Drunk Shakespeare

Summary: It’s Summer 1925 in the Little Lady Blinderverse. Isiah and Clara decide to end their work day early to escape the heat of the betting shop, but find the heat in the air between them is harder to escape than they thought.

Characters: Clara Shelby x Isiah Jesus, Finn Shelby pops in for a moment.

Prompt: Almost caught

Content Warnings: Just vibes and a little kissing.

Tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

Peaky Blinders (Non-Shelby!Sister) Masterlist

Clara watched the long hand of her brother's old pocket watch as it moved around the clock face, the quiet ticks and tocks seeming to mock her as they seemed to slow and delay in her mind.

After what had seemed like an eternity squashed into a mere morning and early afternoon, she was basically caught up on the books. Or at least, if she wasn't precisely caught up, Clara wasn't feeling particularly motivated to keep working on them. Not that she'd been doing anything that could really be considered ‘work’ for the last hour and a half.

Shoving the pocketwatch away, she glanced at Isiah. He was across the room in Finn’s office, twirling a pencil in his fingers. Clara wasn't sure what he was meant to be ‘working’ on in her brother's office, but she assumed pencil twirling wasn't it. 

It had been a slow afternoon. No one had been keen on laying bets or working, so the shop had emptied early. Everyone had finished up their day's work and gone home.

In this heat, Clara didn't blame them. Despite the mound of work she had to complete for her brother, she didn't want to be here either.

Clara had already shed her sweater. She couldn't respectably lose any more layers or she'd be left in just her slip, but she longed for it. She longed for a breeze or dip in one of the ponds on the grounds of Arrow House. She longed for a chunk of ice from the ice box in the kitchen. She longed for the end of this Friday afternoon, the end to this stale, sticky existence.

Clara pushed herself back from the desk—Tommy's desk, though he never used it anymore. The chair was more hers than his these days. Tommy had once said it could be Clara’s one day—the boss's chair—but even though it was her who sat in it more than him, Clara wasn't the boss. Today, she felt no better than any other working person staring at the clock and waiting for the end of their shift. It seemed that was all she’d done all day.

She'd have to come back and finish what she hadn’t accomplished before the end of the month—over the weekend or early before she was due at the Jamaica Row office on Monday morning. It wasn't smart putting it off, but Clara didn't care. The heat had zapped any sense of caring from her system, leeching all of the diligent conscientiousness she was known for straight out of her. 

"What are the odds we get caught out if we lock up early?” 

Isiah's foot fell off the desk and slammed against the floor, Clara's sudden presence in the room startling him more than it should have considering a wall of windows lined the office and he’d faced that way, his glossy gaze set out toward the empty shop she crossed over on her way to get to him.

"Christ, Clara—Trying to stop my fucking heart, eh?"

Clara sighed, rolling her eyes at Isiah’s dramatics out of nothing more than habit. The whole bit was familiar. He usually would have wrapped her head in an arm, ruffling her hair as retribution, but today he barely moved, barely even allowed the muscles of his mouth to pull into a smirk. 

Clara was glad for it because if Isiah laid a hand on her, Clara thought she might scream. The idea of him coming anywhere near her in this heat, of his warm hand in her already frizzy hair…she felt warmer just thinking about it.

"The only thing I'm trying to do is stop working."

"You're finished?”

Clara shrugged. She didn't have it in her to lie, but she didn’t quite want to admit she’d been doing close to nothing all day either. "Are you?'

"I've been done for hours." 

"What are you sitting in here for, then?"

She could see that she wasn't the only warm one. Isiah had rolled his shirt sleeves. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She couldn't imagine why he'd choose to sit here when he could be anywhere else.

Isiah raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?" 

"Fucking hell. You’re babysitting. Tommy's such a—" 

“Finn," Isiah interrupted.

"What?"

"It was Finn’s idea. Said 'I've got a meeting across town. Keep an eye on her.’ Not Tom."

Clara hummed, filing that annoying development away to complain about later. For today it was an order from Finn’s mouth, but before Finn, it had been John, and before that, she knew the order had originated with Tommy and Arthur. Tommy, who Isiah no routinely called 'Tom' and defended, as if they were friends. On the same side of things. Clara let the thought go, too hot for the annoyance that came with thinking too hard on her brothers.

"Where'd Finn go, anyway?'

"Meeting across town," Isiah answered, repeating the words with a smirk. 

Clara breathed deeply, stifling the urge to hit him. She could imagine herself doing it, the satisfaction of her open palm—all clammy and swollen with the heavy moisture of the air—smacking against Isiah’s stupid, sweaty forehead. 

“I just said.” Isiah added, stupid grin still on his face. “The heat getting to you, there, Miss Shelby?” 

It was hotter in Finn's office than it was in Tommy's. There were no windows to the outside here, no airflow. Clara pulled at her dress, the fabric sticking to her collarbone as she tried to catch some relief.

“I meant who’s he with?” 

Isiah shrugged. “Afraid that's above my pay grade. Can’t be asking after the boss’s whereabouts now, can I, love?” 

Clara rolled her eyes. Finn wasn’t any sort of boss, not really, even if he was acting like it lately. And the amount of things that fell above Isiah's pay grade had dwindled over the last few years. She was nearly certain Isiah knew exactly who Finn was meeting with and what it was about, but she let it go, figuring that if it was important or relevant to her, he'd have just told her. The fact that he was playing with her told her it wasn't either of those things.

“Fine. Tell me, love, does the 'boss' have anything good in that drawer there?” Clara nodded toward the desk and Isiah shook his head, chuckling. 

“What are you shaking your head for? What’s he going to do?” she asked. “Fire us for borrowing his whiskey and skiving off?” 

“Tom—”

“I don’t care what Tommy or Arthur or John or Finn has said. It’s hot and there’s no reason for us to be cooped up here. I’ll take my chances with the lot of them.” Clara reached down, pulling out the bottle of whiskey. She opened it and took a slug before she handed the bottle to Isiah. After he drank, Clara held a hand out to him. 

He raised an eyebrow, glancing at the hand they both knew was clammy and damp with sweat. Clara ran her hand down the side of her dress before presenting it again. 

Isiah rolled his eyes as he slipped his hand into hers and Clara groaned, dropping his slicked hand in an instant. Isiah smirked as he ran his hand down the side of her skirts same as Clara had just done. No other man would’ve dared to slide his hand down Clara Shelby’s side like that, but this was Isiah and they were alone in the shop—no prying eyes to watch over them for a change.

“You’re insufferable.”

Isiah chuckled. “You’ve said so plenty enough.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Well, between you and me, it’s mutual.”

Clara yanked his hand then, pulling him out of the chair and to his feet. Isiah stumbled for her benefit. 

“You’re testy today.”

“I’m hot,” Clara answered, walking towards the staircase. She tugged Isiah along up the first few steps, her arm straining as Isiah stopped on the third step from the bottom.

“And we’re going to the second floor to cool off?” 

Clara took a deep breath before stopping and turning back to Isiah. 

“We’re all locked up?”

Isiah nodded. He'd gone around to check all of the doors after Finn headed out. “Have been for hours.” 

“Good, now shut up and do what you're told.” 

Isiah snorted. “Yes, ma’am.”

Clara smirked at that. At least someone respected her. Even if it was just Isiah, and even if he was only playing, the telltale smile tugging at his lips, a bit of glee right there dancing in his eyes. Because even with those things present, Clara knew some part of it was genuine. Isiah respected her more than most people in her life. Believed in her more than most, too. And he had always offered up a bit of his power in the context of their relationship, allowing her to win on most things. 

Not every single thing, but most. 

Enough of the time that Clara knew when he was doing it. 

As they moved up the stairs, the heat wrapped around them like a blanket. Someone had shut all of the windows, the air up there even more stale than it had been down in the shop. 

Clara had a moment of doubt while the stifling heat grew, smothering them both and challenging Clara's breathing. Sweat collected on her back and chest under her clothes. She cursed in her head that maybe Isiah was right. Maybe there was no relief to be found on this Friday afternoon, not unless she wanted to give in and head out to her brother's house. 

But Clara didn’t want to. If she did, Tommy would have questions about the books and whether or not she’d caught up yet. She didn’t have it in her to try to lie to him. If she was being honest, she didn’t have it in her for much of anything except simply being. 

Walking the stairs of her childhood home with Isiah’s hand growing sweaty in hers, Clara was reminded of simpler days. Of times when she’d been just allowed to be. Even then, she’d been an anxious child. Overwhelmed and feeling like she was pulled in a million different ways, but looking back on it now, Clara was nostalgic for a certain freedom inherent to childhood. A certain freedom that came with not fully understanding the actions and motivations of the adults surrounding her. 

She had always sought to understand, had always wanted to be a part of things, and now that she was—now that she and Isiah both were thoroughly integrated parts of the things they’d once begged to be included in—Clara would give anything for the two of them to go back to before. 

To be reading together from a book, or pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. To be just two kids in their own little bubble, just the two of them against the world. It was a lovely thought, accompanied by a lovely feeling of nostalgia and as they stepped onto the second floor—just the two of them there within the walls of number 6 Watery Lane—Clara thought maybe it could still be the case.

The times were less frequent these days, but there were still moments when Clara would catch Isiah's gaze across the room, the two of them immediately caught up in some secret conversation that no one else even knew was taking place. 

And sometimes, the two of them would dance, and as Isiah spun Clara around, she could’ve sworn there was no one else in the world. On those occasions, it was as if the music played of its own accord, no one needed to pull the strings or croon the melodies, the two of them feeling anonymous and alone even though they were surrounded by other couples. 

“Come on, Siah,” Clara said as she tugged Isiah’s hand, some part of her certain that she could reach out and grasp that feeling, as if it was something she could trap and hold onto, keeping it close to her heart. 

Isiah smiled at Clara’s impatience, his body so near to hers that he could feel the heat radiating off her back, a warmth separate from that of the air around them, almost pulsing between them. 

Clara dropped his hand as she stepped into her bedroom, still neat and tidy and kept as if the 12-year-old girl she once was still lived there. As she moved toward the window, Clara pressed the whiskey bottle into Isiah’s hand, not bothering to look back to confirm it was within his grasp before she let go. 

Isiah leaned against her dresser, watching as she struggled with the window, the wooden frame stiff and swollen and thoroughly stuck from the heat and years of disuse. 

As he watched, Isiah wondered...when was the last time Clara Shelby had climbed out through her bedroom window? When was the last time Isiah Jesus had climbed out with her? 

Neither of them could remember, and it seemed like the room had forgotten as well, the window remaining belligerently shut even as Clara dug in her heels and leveraged all of her strength in trying to raise the pane, a new layer of sweat gleaming at her hairline as she struggled. 

“Alright,” Isiah started as he eased off the dresser, the whiskey bottle set aside. “Let me—”

“No!” Clara answered, her voice booming with the strength of her struggle as she kicked a leg out in Isiah’s general direction to keep him back. “I’ll get it. You choose a book.”

Clara sent her foot out again, this time directing it toward the other side of the room, and Isiah turned to follow the direction of her kick, straight to the chair beside her bed where a stack of books sat piled dangerously high. 

The pile was a mix of old and new, a selection of books from her childhood and few of her more recent favorites interspersed with a few of the books Isiah remembered as coming from Tommy’s shelf. Those books had once been forbidden to Clara, but Isiah supposed they were far beyond forbidden books at this stage. And Tommy Shelby had far bigger concerns than what types of books his sister was reading. 

Isiah fished a book out of the pile before returning his attention to Clara. He was about to sit down on her bed to watch the show of her struggle when the window flew open, the sudden movement accompanied by a rush of air and a celebratory shout from Clara. 

“I told you I would get it,” she said, wiping the sweat from her brow as she turned to him.

Isiah rolled his eyes fondly and crossed the room to grab the whiskey, a swallowed comment on the tip of his tongue because even though Isiah and Clara usually passed quips back and forth, he was more interested in getting out on the roof, more interested in the reprieve of fresh air. Isiah pressed the book and bottle into Clara's hands before swinging himself out through the window. 

Isiah was through in a small span of seconds, but it was certainly a more difficult maneuver than he remembered now that his body was all long limbs and the window seemed infinitely smaller than it once was. 

Reaching back through the frame, he took the book and the bottle Clara handed off. Isiah set them both aside before holding his hand out back through the open window.

“I can—”

“Just let me help, won’t you?” Isiah interrupted. He wiped his hand down the front of his pants before holding it out again. “Gotta fight me about everything.” 

“I’m not—” Clara grasped his hand, allowing Isiah to tug her through, and letting go once she was steady on her feet. “—fighting. I just—”

“Can do it yourself,” Isiah answered. “I know. Doesn’t mean you should always have to.” 

Clara huffed even though a part of her appreciated the sentiment. She tried to be independent. She tried to do everything for herself. She tried to prove how smart and strong and capable she was to just about everyone, but she didn’t have to prove any of that to Isiah. 

Clara unbuttoned the top of her dress, gently fanning herself with the loose fabric as she looked over the courtyard. She took a deep breath, grateful for the grey and cloudy Birmingham skies that shielded them from the heady rays of sun she usually craved.

The roof outside of her bedroom wasn’t exactly the reprieve she had imagined, but it was marginally better than the dense staleness of the shop and her bedroom. 

“Romeo and Juliet?” Clara asked as she lowered herself to the roof and reached for the book. “Really, Isiah?” 

While Clara enjoyed her Shakespeare, the play hadn’t exactly been her favorite, and her memories of the piece were tainted by the fact that she’d first read it at school, with Juliet’s role going to a girl she wasn’t particularly fond of. Clara would’ve preferred to revisit Sherlock Holmes or one of Tommy’s old books. 

Isiah shrugged and sat down beside her, reaching for the bottle. “Reminded me of when you tried stepping out with that Italian kid.” 

He said it as if he didn’t remember the name of the ‘Italian kid.' As if it had been nothing but a blip. As if her social connections hadn’t gotten her into nothing but trouble that year and been the source of arguments between her and her family, and her and Isiah.

Clara shoved Isiah’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t stepping out with anyone.”

It had been a friendship. Maybe with a hint of a crush, but there had been no stepping out. Nothing close. Her brothers' reputation had seen to that.

“And anyway, it’s more like when you were stepping out with that Cheapie girl.” 

Isiah raised an eyebrow. “What are you on about?” 

“Ruth,” Clara answered. “Practically Wally Bartow in a dress.” 

He snorted. “It was one dance, Clara. Didn’t even know her name. Had no clue she was a Bartow.”

Clara shrugged. “You looked awfully cozy if I remember properly.” 

“Well, that’s just how I dance, love.” Isiah winked at her before taking a swig from the bottle. “You know that better than anyone.

“And I'm sorry to inform you, but if either of us is destined to have a love life like these two—” Isiah nodded towards the book. “—it’s you. No matter who you end up with, it’ll be like Montagues and Capulets. Shelbys against whatever poor sap you choose.” 

Isiah knocked her shoulder, the touch telling her it was only a joke. Clara stayed leaning against him as long as she could manage in the heat before prying the bottle from his fingers to take a sip.

“Ada says us Shelby girls are cursed that way.” 

Isiah reached for the book, thumbing through the pages rather than answering. He had an idea about that particular curse. He had been old enough to remember how Ada’s marriage had been handled, and even if he hadn’t been, Isiah knew how Clara was being managed. 

How they both had been managed for years now. 

Isiah reached out for the bottle, taking another swig before he started reading.

“Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…”

They passed a few hours reading and talking and sipping from the bottle, the pair moving on to gentle conversation interspersed with quotes from Shakespeare’s catalog once the pages became too difficult to read in the dimming light. Lost in the throes of conversation, easy laughter and the cooling night breeze, Isiah and Clara were suspended in what felt like a world that was just their own, their sense of time and place and awareness pushed aside.

Clara was giggling at some obscure quote Isiah had pulled seemingly out of nowhere when Isiah sensed suddenly that the world was no longer theirs alone, his attention gone to the far end of the shared courtyard, a familiar chorus of boisterous laughter reaching his ear from across the space. 

Isiah was faintly aware of Clara naming the play he’d quoted before she shared her next quote, a gentle laughter lacing her words as she spoke, but the awareness of his heart pounding against his chest was stronger, a sudden urge to quiet her—to shield their presence there on the roof—taking over.

Overcome with that urge, Isiah could’ve shushed her or set his hand over her mouth to stifle the words.

Or he could've taken a breath and calmed himself and simply let her finish. 

It wasn't as if they were doing anything wrong. There was no reason to hide.

Isiah could have let Clara tell him, ‘I do desire we may be better strangers,’ before dissolving into giggles. He could’ve then told her the quote was from ‘As You Like It,’ a quote which he was intimately familiar with because Clara had directed it at him and Finn a number of times before, sometimes in jest, sometimes because she wished to hurt them. 

No one would question Isiah and Clara being out on the roof with a book and a bottle of whiskey, least of all Finn. People were plenty used to their antics, but something felt different tonight so Isiah only let Clara get half a sentence out before he placed his hand at the back of her head, drawing her in close and pressing his lips to hers in the dark, catching her words and quieting her so efficiently that it was nearly silent on the roof as Finn and the junior Peaky Boys passed over the back threshold of no. 6. 

The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but Isiah felt Clara’s whole body relax within his touch. She leaned into the hand he cradled behind her head, allowing him to deepen the kiss he hadn’t intended on giving in the first place, her hands reaching out for him, her fingernails grazing his scalp in a way that sent shivers down his spine. 

Isiah pulled away, but even so, for a moment, he forgot where he was. He forgot why he’d kissed her, or at least he’d forgotten whatever justification he’d initially provided himself for pressing his lips to hers. He forgot about Finn and the boys. He forgot about Shakespeare and feuds and consequences. With his warm hand still on the back of Clara’s sweaty neck, barely able to see the details of her now flushed face, it was once again just the two of them there in the world. 

With their faces still so close that Clara could feel Isiah’s warm whiskey-tinged breath on her face, her eyes shifted to his lips. She couldn’t remember what they were talking about before. She didn’t know why he’d kissed her. She had heard the back door slam, some part of her aware of her twin's proximity, an awareness Aunt Polly had always tol her was part of her gifts, but as Clara pulled Isiah's lips back to hers, she found she didn’t care to remember there was more to the world than the two of them and this. 

She didn’t want to question it, and yet, Clara was first to pull away this time, her ears far more sensitive to the familiar sound of someone turning the handle of her childhood bedroom’s door than Isiah was. With a sudden swiftness, she removed herself from Isiah’s hold and pushed him back against the roof as she extended her hand up to the sky. 

“There you are,” Finn said, sticking his head out the open window to see what Clara was pointing at. "What are the two of you out here for?"

Clara tilted her head back to her brother. “Constellations and Shakespeare. Would you like to join us?” she asked, the words feeling odd to her as they passed through her swollen lips.

“No,” Finn snorted. “It's payday. We’re heading to the Garrison, and then maybe to a few other—” 

“No, thank you. I'm staying here,” Clara answered, even though it wasn’t exactly an invite Finn had extended, but more of a declaration. An order.

A flash of something passed over Finn’s face. Clara could barely see it in the dark, but she figured it was a bit of annoyance, maybe, or a touch of shock at being refused. It seemed like more and more, Finn was coming to expect the same sort of compliance from Clara that the others did, forgetting that it was mere minutes that separated their births rather than years.

“It’s too hot, Finn,” Clara added, her tone a bit softer. “I have no desire to be holed up in the snug, squashed between you lot.”

“Alright, then. Isiah?” Finn tried.

“She’s got a point, mate.” 

Clara heard someone shouting from the floor below, the details muffled by the shut door, but Finn seemed to recognize their meaning well enough. 

"Are you sure?" Clara sensed the question was for Isiah even though they could barely see each other's faces in the growing dark. "Drinks are on Shelby Company Ltd. tonight," Finn added, as if Isiah's drinks weren't usually on the house, anyway.

"It's alright. You go ahead with the boys," Isiah offered. "I'll keep an eye on Clara."

Clara's elbow twitched, the desire to ram it into Isiah's ribcage surging as she caught the hint of a smirk on Isiah's face, but Clara stopped herself knowing that it had been the right thing to say.

Finn nodded his understanding in the dark, his attention pulled to the stairs once again by a sudden noise.

"Don't fall asleep out there, Clara."

Clara heaved a breath to stop herself from telling him he had no business telling her where she could or couldn't fall asleep, but Isiah beat her to it, telling Finn he would handle it.

No matter that Finn would likely be the one who needed assistance finding his bed before the night was through...

"Have a good night," Finn said as he stepped away from the window, leaving Isiah and Clara alone. They leaned back against the roof, the two of them staring at the sky in silence as they listened to the sounds of Finn and the boys heading out through the back door, their shouting and laughter echoing as they traversed the shared courtyard. 

When the echoes died away, Clara stretched out her fingers, seeking the familiar roughness of Isiah’s palm. 

“That was bad,” Isiah said, his fingers closing around hers. “Close...we almost got caught.”  

Clara heaved a breath before turning to face him. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

Isiah snorted. He glanced briefly to his right to meet Clara's gaze in the dark before tipping his head back to the sky.

"Hamlet," Isiah answered softly, squeezing her hand gently before releasing her fingers.

They had been through this time and time again, the two of them dancing around the label of what they were. Friends. Best friends. Something more. They had settled on friends as far as most of the world was concerned, but that didn’t mean the lines weren’t still blurry at times, their belligerent feelings tangled and confused and persistent. For years now, they had maintained a mostly unspoken agreement that they’d keep anything beyond friendship hidden—from themselves, from one another, from everyone else. 

Most especially from everyone else. 

They'd learned early on that it wasn't worth the strife. It wasn't worth the fight. Any resistance had been squashed down time and again. Somehow, this felt easier. Less painful.

If it was up to the two of them, perhaps things would be different. Perhaps they’d have tried at love and failed, and moved on by now. Or perhaps they would have tried and it would have been easy. Smooth.

Perhaps there would be no confusion or jealousy or hiding. No dismissing their closeness as nothing more than echo of a childhood friendship, no stinging comments on who the other had stepped out with—the slights used both as a weapon and a protection to guard their tender hearts. 

But as it was, Clara and Isiah had never been given a proper chance at something more. A boundary had been set for them at the outset, a series of orders they’d both been too young to fight at the time. They’d been at the mercy of the powers that be, and even though they were older now, they were still at the mercy of that power.

Or maybe they still danced around the boundary because it felt easier, somehow safer for them both to keep that prescribed distance between them. 

“Perhaps I am destined for tragedy, Isiah.” Clara mused. “Or simply to be alone. Unloved for eternity.” 

“You’re not alone, love.” Isiah reached for the hand he’d dropped only moments before. “I’m right here.” 

“And you know I love you," he added as Clara curled toward him, resting her head against his chest. 

Clara sighed and nodded. 

“I love you, too,” she added, and Isiah’s chest fell with the breath he’d been holding. 

“Can we not just pretend that’s enough?” Clara asked. “Just for tonight?”

They were dangerous questions and Clara asked them without turning to observe Isiah’s face. She could feel the tenseness of his body beneath her, the fear her questions provoked.

“Like it’s just us in the world and no one else?” she tried, a question and a wish because the house was empty and the roof was dark and it was unlikely they’d be caught. 

Isiah feared that a little, but more than he feared getting caught—for they’d successfully explained away so much over the years and he had no doubt they could manage it again—Isiah feared the two of them getting caught up in things. He feared getting caught up in the true feelings between them, the ones they’d so carefully worked to keep a hold on all of these years, a carefully manicured relationship that allowed them to be close, but not so close that they fell over the edge. 

For even though Isiah dated other girls, and even though Clara insisted that Isiah Jesus was just a friend, they both knew there was something more between them. A magnetic pull, something in their hearts that they both knew to be true love. 

In the moments when the two of them could be honest with each other, when the rest of the world fell away...on nights like tonight, it wasn’t especially unusual for their lips to meet. It wasn’t unusual for Clara’s hopelessly romantic naïveté to make a showing. For some part of her to feel that it could be easy. That it could work.

And it wasn’t unusual for Isiah to agree. For every part of him to want the very thing they spent the bulk of their days denying and shutting down.

They were both craving it now though, both barely able to remember why they ever did hold back. It was just the two of them there on the roof beneath a blanket of smog-covered stars, both of them still hazy around the edges due to the whiskey and the heat and the memory of their kiss, the memory of his hands on the back of her neck. 

Those things made it easy to hope. They made it easy to forget.

Because if they were surrounded by friends at the Garrison or out at Arrow House or under the watchful eye of a Blinder, Clara and Isiah wouldn’t even entertain the thought that they could be more than friends. Under those circumstances, they’d be easily convinced that regardless of the feelings between them, it was much too complicated, much too difficult. 

“Maybe we should just run away. Find a place in the world where there are stars in the sky and no Shelbys.”

Isiah snorted. “Not even you?”

“Well, just me,” Clara amended. “Just me and you and no one else we've ever met. It could be easy.”  

“Maybe,” Isiah hummed, his hand tilting Clara’s face up to his as he spoke. “but the course of true love never did run smooth, Clara Shelby” 

“A Midsummer Night’s—” Clara started, only for the rest of the play’s title to be caught up by Isiah’s lips. 

They both knew it wasn’t a good idea, dabbling in love when neither was ready to commit to the war it would be. Neither was quite ready for the consequences of them moving beyond friendship, moving against her family’s wishes and decrees, but they let it happen anyway, some piece of their hearts holding on to the hope that someday they wouldn’t be hiding on a rooftop, stealing hungry kisses in the dark.

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

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[eclvpses]

introducing; geordi quinn massacre

welcome to marina, GEORDI QUINN MASSACRE ( cis man, he/him ) ! they are a THIRTY-ONE year old WITCH who resides in HYLAND PARK. They work as a MUSIC TEACHER at MARINA HIGH SCHOOL and are said to look a lot like HENRY ZAGA. People around the island find them to be +SANGUINE and +CONSCIENTIOUS, but also -HIGH-STRUNG and -COWARDLY. what do you think?

stats.

name: geordi quinn waldo massacre.

supernatural relation: cradle witch from his father's bloodline.

sexuality: gay.

birthday: march 11.

star sign: pisces.

myer-briggs: isfp.

occupation: music teacher at marina high school.

place of birth: marina island.

last played on spotify: unknown / nth by hozier.

general disposition: nurturing and anxious.

background.

geordi was born to an up-and-coming rock star / legend, and his number one groupie at the time

his mum was only 15 when he was born, she still had a whole childhood she wanted to live, and of course his dad didn’t stick around to do any parenting - he was already having multiple other children with multiple other women - so it resulted in geordi raising his mum more than the other way around

by the time he was a teenager his dad was firmly out of his life, his band finally taking off and leaving behind all the families he’d created and destroyed in the blink of an eye to do world tours

the best thing he ever got from his dad was his little sister olive, her own mum and geordi’s close friends that bonded over their hatred for the man that uprooted their lives without even hesitating or caring

growing up already used to taking care of his mum, geordi didn’t hesitate to help raise his sister too, who he still considers his best friend and is fiercely protective of even tho now she’s more his guardian angel than the other way around (she’s sm cooler and he’s just a loser with anxiety problems)

geordi realized he was a witch at a young age, it became sort of obvious when things around him began to set on fire at the slightest increase of any emotion, but it definitely came as a surprise considering his mum is 100% human with no magic whatsoever, so lo and behold his dad cursed him with something else

he never really gained control over his abilities and therefore gets nervous ever using them

just wanted a normal life for himself - the only similarity geordi would admit to having with his dad was their love, passion, and natural gift towards music, so he took this talent and ran, a music teacher now at one of marina’s public schools

most of geordi’s life was as mundane as it could be and he loved it, until his fiancé lark woke him one night in hysterics, a headache so bad he struggled to speak, walk, basically exist -

a simple slip at work that no one thought anything of had led to a burst aneurysm, he was gone before doctors could even diagnose the issue

geordi waited weeks, but lark never returned to him as a ghost the way he’d hoped, so in a fit of desperation, he turned to his sister and begged her to help him bring lark back - of course olive helped, and while for a week or two at best it seemed like the reanimation spell worked, the malevolence some ghosts possess began to manifest in lark and then some, until he became actively violent, attacking geordi in their home and begging to be put to rest again

geordi doesn’t talk about that particular incident (that took place around two years ago) and he doesn’t talk about lark anymore, and he especially refuses to touch on his magic - probably ever again

details.

he doesn’t actually believe in nicknames, when he introduces himself he says his name’s geordi quinn and will pull a face when people call him geordi, gq, etc. but mostly grin and bears it

his students call him mr. massy, kind of hates the association his last name gives him with his dad and frankly doesn’t particularly think it. appropriate for his students to go around saying Massacre 24/7

he’s developed a barbarically keen sense of mind-reading from growing up and talking to olive in their heads, sometimes a flash of someone’s inner thoughts will go through his mind and he hates it but it’s uncontrollable

just. an awkward anxious fool LKSDHGKLHSDGHSDGLKH he means well but he never rly got to be a kid and had a life of tragedy, he just doesn’t know how to relax rly

there’s been hook up and dating attempts since lark, but he wasn’t much of a Hook Ups person before his fiancé and he is Far from it now, and dating just hurts a bit bless his heart

so grossly loving and nurturing its definitely got him hurt in the past, putting all his attention and trust into people who didnt deserve it / didn’t reciprocate but it hasn’t stopped him from doling out all his kindness

a loser pathetic pushover frankly</3

connections.

he’s lived in marina his whole life so friends!!! childhood friends, teacher friends, just friends from any walk of life rly i need it all

exes from before lark perhaps/first love situation??

friends of olive’s he sees as siblings / family too :)

awkward hook up attempts as of recent or in the past…….

also dates. he’s tried to go on n it failed OR

dates that went well n he got anxious about feeling something?? :eyes:

ppl who know of his dad, this connection cld go anywhere rly but some juicy ideas could come from his painfully loserish lame ass dad n screwing over more ppl in town etc.

i’d love to see lark’s family?? we can talk over whether geordi is still close w them or if their relationship is more strained after lark’s passing</3

anything else that anyone wants :D

[dawningbowstrings]

dragon age ; canon ; froy gutierrez ; cis man ; he/him ― there’s MAEDHON LAVELLAN at the gate, the 27 year old ELF + ROGUE. i heard they make people think of an ever-smiling face, the sharp twang of a bowstring at midnight, pile of books thrown about to find answers that were never written down, half-remembered stories, lime-green glows at dawn, rage left to simmer and burn before it erupts, dark facial tattoos, loving so hard your heart might burst with it, never being seen as a person beyond a pair of ears, but even that might not save them from their destiny.

Pinterest | Canon Choices

Basics

Name: Maedhon Lavellan

Age: 27

Gender: Cis man

Pronouns: He/him

Race: Elven (Dalish)

Class: Rogue (Eventual artificer specialization)

Titles: The Inquisitor, The Herald of Andraste, Third Hunter of Clan Lavellan

Sexuality: Gay man

Appearance:

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 162lbs

Build: Lanky

Hair Color: Brown

Eye color: Blue

Vallaslin: June (The Craftsmaster)

Scars: Numerous, across the entire body with a high number centered around the face after a particularly nasty encounter with shems. Other scars are from early hunts gone bad.

Personality:

MBTI: INFJ-T - The Advocate

Idealistic and principled, they aren’t content to coast through life �� they want to stand up and make a difference. For Advocate personalities, success doesn’t come from money or status but from seeking fulfillment, helping others, and being a force for good in the world. While they have lofty goals and ambitions, Advocates shouldn’t be mistaken for idle dreamers. People with this personality type care about integrity, and they’re rarely satisfied until they’ve done what they know to be right. Conscientious to the core, they move through life with a clear sense of their values, and they aim never to lose sight of what truly matters – not according to other people or society at large, but according to their own wisdom and intuition.

Enneagram: 2w1 - The Companion

Basic Fear Enneagram type two-wing-ones fear being unwanted by those they love. They tend to take on a caretaker role to serve others and avoid feelings of insecurity. Basic Desire They desire love and acceptance above all else. They are service-oriented and humble, seeking to help better the lives of those in their community. Companions tend to stifle and repress their negative emotions and personal desires. They may feel internally conflicted as they work to meet everyone else’s needs but their own.

Temperament: Melancholic

The melancholic temperament, is often characterized by deep thoughts, introspection, and a propensity for reflection. A person with a melancholic temperament is typically introverted, detail-oriented, and analytical, often displaying an inclination toward philosophical or intellectual pursuits. Melancholics value order, consistency, and perfection. They are driven by a strong sense of right and wrong and have high personal standards. While this can make them incredibly dedicated, it can also lead to self-criticism or perceived inadequacy when they fall short of their own expectations. Melancholics tend to form deep, meaningful relationships, cherishing a few close bonds rather than seeking broad social networks. They are typically sensitive and empathetic, often going to great lengths to understand and support those close to them. Their introspective nature can lead to a predilection for solitude, and they often need time alone to recharge. They are known for their introspective and often creative minds, as their propensity for deep thought can inspire beautiful pieces of art, literature, and other forms of expression. On the downside, melancholics can struggle with a tendency towards pessimism, and they may be prone to feelings of sadness, worry, or even depression. They can get caught up in overanalyzing situations, which can lead to indecision or inaction. They might also struggle to adapt to new environments, preferring to stick to what they know and are comfortable with.

Positive Traits: Empathetic, forgiving, discreet, loyal, organized

Negative Traits: Reserved, anxious, impulsive, melancholic, single-minded

Likes: The sound of the wind in an aravel's sails, warm water in a bath, the sound of a friend's laughter, dawn across the mountains, the smell of old books, new arrows, ink stains on old manuscripts, the music during Dalish celebrations, dancing, his room in Skyhold, the people of the Hinterlands and their indominable spirit, the stories the Chargers tell over drinks, the smell of the ocean, reading, drawing.

Dislikes: Meetings first thing in the morning, poorly-seasoned food, lying, snow, wearing shoes, mabaris, having a throne, deserts, the humid heat of a summer afternoon, Orlais and its obsession with the Game, being asked to use daggers instead of a bow, not being allowed to cook his own food, religious arguments, rock climbing, the bite of winter air in the mornings, fade rifts hovering in the least convenient locations imaginable, the Fallow Mire, riding horses.

Wordly Opinions:

On Magic:

"I don't have any problem with it. It's just part of the world, like birds or halla. The constants in life are demons, the Fade, and death and that's about it. So, I'm not terribly opposed to it. Doesn't mean I have a gods-damned clue how any of it works and frankly, I don't want to. Can you imagine getting whispered at all night while you sleep by things that don't even exist in our world? No thank you, I'd convert to being an Andrastian before I accepted that, and I'd cut my ears off before I converted."

On Templars:

"I really cannot stand when people think they're better than everyone else because of the size of their sword and their armor. I especially hate when those people that already had an ego problems thanks to their overcompensation for what's between their legs think that the lives of every man, woman, and child they've abandoned matter less than their pride. I despise the templars, but now, with all the lyrium they've subjected themselves to, I feel... bad for them as well. I suppose if you want a chat with Cole, he'll have all the details for you on exactly how I feel."

On Mages:

"Every story I hear about mages makes me think of the Dalish. Of course, the Dalish are a far more interesting group, less prone to hiding and cowering in the corners when someone starts to throw their weight around. And don't even get me started on allying with Tevinter. Despite that, all this? All this humanity? Their world is build on two things: fear of magic and fear of the Dalish. I've got enough sympathy for those circle mages to try and offer them another way. If it goes wrong, of course, Cullen and Vivienne will never let me hear the end of it, so I've got significant motivation to make this alliance work."

[siriusmydeer]

hello love, i was wondering if you could do a james potter x slythering fem!reader? one where she is working so hard on getting her life together. she is trying to be different than her family and working so hard but it is getting to her. she feels like she is failing and every turn she takes is a dead end. she feels like there is no purpose to what she’s doing. i think some super fluff is required, like james boosting her up and loving her. plzzzzz & thx

his slytherin

james potter x slytherin!fem!reader

summary: when you overwork yourself james is there to save the day.

word count: 2.4k

warnings: mentions of insomnia, mentions of sleep deprivation, mentions of not eating, mentions of over working yourself, angst, sad!james, house stereotypes, bad grades, implications of smut, WOLFSTAR😍, mentions of food, a breakdown, THERES FLUFF I PROMISE

seventh year was quite literally, a mess. maybe not for others, finally done school or they were super excited to travel around the world seeing things they’ve never seen before. you’re dream had consisted of constant studying, and working that barely made any time for yourself.

for the prior three years you had studied and practiced with madam pomfrey in the healers wing to eventually become a healer yourself, and it took a lot more than you thought it anticipated.

you knew as a healer, later in life you would have to deal with artefact accidents, dementor attacks, creature-induced injuries, magical bugs, potion and plant poisoning, dragon trainers with injuries, and incredulous spell damage.

with that you had to be prepared, which meant more time hitting the books and less time spending your final year at hogwarts with your best friends and your staggering boyfriend.

(hahah u see what i did there?)

james had qued in on your restless nights by gazing across at you in the great hall. the colour of emerald green becoming frequent in his life now; surprisingly to everyone else. where you were sat at the slytherin table, your eyebags already deepening by the day and your nose buried in some sort of school book.

the thought of even being like your family, made you nauseous. you didn’t want to be like your strict, immoral family, the death eaters, the murderers, and the ministry officials. who worked like machines without feelings or care.

as a slytherin born into a pureblood family those were the expectations that were almost nailed into your back like a sign said, ‘here’s the pureblood slytherin, shame her even though you don’t know her!!’

of course those were the stereotypes, ones that had been built on for centuries since salazar slytherin himself. that you of all people had to inherit. so you had to fall, and rebuild yourself entirely for even a chance. the restless nights, insomnia, caffeine and studying was your way of rebuilding.

of course that had an effect on your grades, not sleeping, not eating and barely focusing made your grades tremble a great deal to the point where professor slughorn got concerned by his best potions makers, recent poors in his class.

you were too focused on being better that you couldn’t even focus on your own well-being, that you couldn’t even see you were hurting yourself on the people around you. almost self isolating yourself from everyone entirely.

“darling?” james whispered, his body sitting across from yours at one of the mahogany tables in the library. pince set him a warning glare not to cause any mischief as she turned around.

“hmm?” you mumbled, barely acknowledging his prescence and continuing to read your defence against the dark arts textbook, something about the ‘chameleon ghoul.’

he had barely seen you all week, and when he did he saw your agonized face scrunched up in a book and your mauve dark circles that rested below your eyes clear as day.

“why don’t you take a break, dear? have a rest, you’ve been working non-stop. ve’barely seen you.” he murmured the last bit, embarrassed for feeling ‘needy.’

“can’t jamie, newts are soon i need to be prepared.” you looked up in his direction for a moment, barely catching his saddened eyes through his spectacles at your denial of his request to finally see his girlfriend.

if this were two maybe three years ago, james would not be caught dead having a conversation with a slytherin, let alone a relationship with one. the stereotypes blinding his vision for along time before he could see what was truly in-front of him.

i mean the gryffindor pride genetically ran through his veins as he was born into the etiquette pureblood-gryffindor family himself. it was almost destined for the both of you to be corporeal enemies.

but... something about your altruistic and considerate attributes subtly changed his mind. thanking merlin, and horhace slughorn for pairing the both of you in potions in fourth year. there was always something about the way you were so gentle and benevolent with him in potions class might’ve flipped a switch in his mind.

“right then... see you later?” he muttered disappointed in himself, you work so hard to prove yourself meanwhile he didn’t even have a glare in his way because he was the perfect headboy gryffindor student; with absolutely no judgements thrown his way despite his actions towards others in previous years.

“dunno, i’m studying.” you replied, your voice monotone and dull almost raspy from barely using your voice unless answering questions in class to almost being a know-it-all and pushing yourself to the tops of all your classes.

he got up from his chair, it scraping against the floor as he walked to the exit almost like a dog with its tail between his legs. he just got so mopey by your dejected less merry self. he had to do something, he had to make you understand that being a slytherin wasn’t just you.

it was a part of you sure, but ambitious just meant you strived for your goals and you were cunning which showed your amplified skill.

that didn’t mean you were— evil? being a proud reckless gryffindor was one in his heart but nobody ever thought he was malicious.

so, james fleamont potter did the only logical thing he could think of; going to his bestfriends for help. of course at first they were not over the moon glowing in delight when they found out he was dating a slytherin, especially sirius.

but that was expected, his family being his only views on how a pureblood slytherin acted only projected onto you. giving you almost a conscientious reason to work, the thought of someone james felt was his brother perceiving you as despicable only made you pursue your self judgements.

but after your book swaps with remus, you and peters athrimancy study sessions and music bonding with sirius they grew quite fond of your personality and thought that you were due with a chance with the marauders.

“moony, i need help.” he spoke desperately as remus’ face was also buried in a book, except out of his own free will.

“james needs my help? hear that sirius? prongs needs my help.” he declared proudly as the brown-haired gryffindor groaned crossing his arms.

“it’s y/n.” he mentioned, glancing in sirius’ direction before sitting on the vermillion love seat across from the fawn haired boy.

“what about her?” remus was more-so confused, what would be so wrong with you that james had to ask him for help?

“she’s suffocating herself, the books, the studying, not sleeping, not eating, nothing. i dunno what to do anymore remus, she’s so pent up on wanting people to stop looking at her like she’s heinous she’s working herself to death!” he ranted, all his anger and agitation spilling out in one fast-paced sentence that james needed to catch his breath by the end of.

“i just dunno how to make her catch a breath, take a break. what do i do?” james panted, looking at his mates for an answer.

“imperious curse?” sirius proposed, a bad proposal but his intentions were... thoughtful. “yeah let me go use an unforgivable curse on my girlfriend so she can have a study break. no thank you, next.” james sarcastically humoured him, james didn’t want to compromise your education or use an unforgivable curse on you for that matter but you looked so incredibly burnt out he didn’t know how to help you.

“body-bind curse? so she’s like.... forced to stop?” peter suggested, looking up from his transfiguration essay catching onto the conversation as he twirled his quill between his fingers.

“or, y’know something actually logical you could do is take her books. get her lavender tea or something, let her talk.” remus finally spoke, shrugging then looking at the ‘lord of the flies’ book in his hands a smirk lying on his face knowing that would he james lucky choice.

“moony, you genius! i could kiss you!” james hopped up from his seat, on his way back to the library.

“oi! i’m the only one he’s going to be kissing, prongs!” sirius yelped as james walked out of the portrait hole with a distant chortle.

on his way to the library, where you were previously seated, james made a stop to the kitchen to grab a few of your favourite snacks and some water. he dropped them back at his dormitory, but not without a mini lecture on ‘kissing moony.’ from sirius.

what a drama queen.

the castle was slowly darkening, the only light pivoting from the floating candles in the air. he saw your frozen-like figure in the same spot you were except looking over your history of magic textbook, learning about the ‘emeric the evil.’

“y/n.” he stated firmly, you almost jumped from your seat in surprise, due to your recent sleep deprivation. “merlin james, give a girl a little warning first.” you chastised before returning to your next book that was slammed together right in-front of your eyes.

“james! i was—“ you were cut off quickly by him gathering all of your books and placing them in his left arm. “what are you doing?” you questioned, looking at him with furrowed brows, to exhausted to argue with him.

“you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, your basically a study.... that muggle thing- robot! you’re a study robot! so i’m taking care of you.” he got sidetracked as he spoke in a gentle yet firm tone.

“but i have too-“ you were cut off again by his pointer finger shushing your lips together. “no, either you sit here in silence because i’m taking your books either way or you come with me to my dorm.” james spoke, resisting to your complaints.

“fine, but you have too—“ you started off, annoyed that your study time was ruined by james incessant comments about you ‘overworking yourself.’ he though, was not having any of that. “nope.” he grabbed your hand, dragging you off to the gryffindor tower.

you gave a small tired wave to sirius, peter and remus on the way to the dormitories as they were all either on the floor or splayed across the scarlet-coloured couches. sirius following with a teasing wolf whistle and wink seeing the both of you walking up the stairs.

“don’t do anything i wouldn’t do!” he chuckled, looping his arm over remus’ shoulders.

“ha, bloody, ha, padfoot. so, so funny i’m on the floor laughing.” he teased, sarcasm lacing his words in a monotone voice almost mocking snape.

you playfully rolled your eyes before being dragged up the stairs to the boys dormitory. the only noises heard were the clacks of your shoes and the soft breathing emitting from both you and your boyfriend.

your eyes were met with candies sprawled all over his poorly made bed, one of his quidditch sweatshirts paired with your favourite joggers; the ones he probably stole from your dorm room one night; because he was keen on you just staying there with him and ‘subtly’ moving all your things into his dormitory with the rest of the boys.

you looked at him with an arched brow, a silent question of ‘why are you doing this?’ ignoring your questioning look he sprawled himself on his twin-bed, his hands clasping in his lap waiting for you to change.

you put on the clothes he layed out, feeling james’ left hand tug you onto his chest when you were done. oh his soft, pillowy chest, you almost felt tempted to fall asleep right then and there.

“darling girl, tell me what’s going on?” he softly questioned while stroking your hair with one hand, his other arm stroking your back.

“i just—“ you stuttered, feeling a wave of tears glossing over your eyes. “i feel like everything is going so, so, wrong. m’so afraid of failing, i want to be better! i don’t want to be like m’terrible family, but it all feels like so much!” you mewled into his shirt, his grasp growing a bit tighter in an effort to psychically comfort you.

“baby, you’re nothing like your family, you have to know that?” he directed your vision to his gaze, the soft marks of mascara down your dampened face only made his gaze softer.

“you work so hard on trying to be not like your family, you don’t even know how amazing you truly are. you’re so generous, you’re always willing to help someone even if you don’t like them, i know i wouldn’t have that patience!” he softly chuckled, seeing a faded grin on your lips.

you sniffed as he continued his praise, “you’re such a hard worker, and i’m truly in awe of you. you’re the one person who truly puts her best foot forward and it’s so incredibly amazing, but you’re working so hard your exhausting yourself. y/n, it’s breaking me to see you like that.” you saw small wet streaks around his eyes, not truly realizing your self destructive habits had been harming people around you; had been harming him.

“jamie, i’m— im so sorry!” feeling the wash of emotions suddenly bundled up wash all over you, your nervous system feeling overwhelmed with the emotions of sadness, guilt and anger bubble up all at once. you whimpered into his shirt, spewing out mumbled apologies that were barely coherent due to all the sobs.

“shh- shh, don’t apologize.” he articulated, shifting his hips up and grabbing a folded parchment from his back pocket.

“w—whats that?” you questioned, trying to calm down the mewls and whimpers that wanted to escape your throat.

“this, darling, is a schedule.” he pointed out, a week schedule with times on it that labeled your subjects as well as times of the day. he also dedicated certain parts of every single day with “james!!” in bright red ink.

“so those,” he pointed out, directly at all the times he wrote his name leading up to the newt dates, “are times you and me spend together, no studying, just loving. so i can remind my beautiful, smart, and amazing talented loving girlfriend how astonishing she is.” he said with a grin, proud of himself.

“you really know how to charm a girl, potter.” you may have teased, but without him you don’t know what you would’ve done. james was truly your saviour, your light, stars to your moon; if you will.

he was yours, and you were definitely his. 

taglist: @fathermarty @kittykylax @terr0rizer @aspiringsloth20 @dear-luna @famdomhideout @hufflepogue

[shihalyfie]

The difference between Taichi and Daisuke

Because Taichi and Daisuke both fit a rough model of “the brash shounen protagonist”, and because Daisuke, as Taichi’s junior, is intended to invoke him in certain ways, it’s easy to pin Daisuke as just being a slightly derivative version of Taichi in a different context. In actuality, as much as there are similarities between the two, there are other ways in which they’re actually polar opposites!

Although 02 is a sequel to Adventure, 02 is a very different kind of story, one that prioritizes being about relationships instead of Adventure’s simple self-actualization. This means that the characters that are at the center of the narrative are very different because the way each of them grow has very much to do with the story each wanted to tell -- and what each wanted to portray in their respective groups.

The most important thing to understand about both Taichi and Daisuke is that their surface demeanors are extremely misleading.

I discussed in my earlier meta about Taichi that, in fact, a lot of Taichi’s behavior comes from the fact he’s too chill about things -- he’s very easygoing and initially doesn’t seem very argumentative. That emphasis is on initially, because, nevertheless, Taichi has a tendency to try and take charge and push the group to do ambitious things, and when confronted about his ideas maybe not being so great, he starts arguing about it. Adventure episode 7 has him say something pretty condescending to Yamato in the course of it, and it’s only the first in what’s going to be a lot of these incidents. If you want to confront Taichi, he will fight you back.

While it leads to a certain degree of conflict (especially with Yamato) in the earlier parts of the series, it also means that, from the very get-go, Taichi is someone who has no problem making decisions on the fly and getting everyone to go forward with him. It’s also especially important in light of the Adventure group having been a bunch of kids from separate circles tossed together thanks to the circumstances; his ability to make quick and firm decisions helps them come together when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do things cohesively.

On the other hand, Daisuke, despite having an abrasive surface demeanor, is extremely deferential, and, well, kind of spends the early parts of 02 rather lacking in a spine (I say this with affection, I promise). Unlike Taichi, who often sometimes tried to push forward with whatever he wanted to do even if it was a bit on the dangerous side, Daisuke is so deferential to other people that, during these early episodes, he actually gets carried around by other people more than he can be said to pull others forward. It really doesn’t take much for everyone to override his opinions as long as they’re assertive enough.

Certainly, part of it is because Daisuke’s dealing with his seniors -- Daisuke is an extremely deferential person who’s craving validation, and so he looks up to his seniors and is constantly deferring to their judgment. But even the nine-year-old Iori is capable of getting Daisuke to shut down, just because Iori’s a very assertive person, and Daisuke shrinks so easily. Daisuke’s early-series tendency to lash out at others is largely very defensive, mainly because he’s lacking in validation and plays very poorly with how easily he feels threatened or how much he can’t tell whether he’s being made fun of. (Rather like an overly on-edge puppy, basically.)

But in any case, the important part is that as far as important decisions go, for this part of the series, Daisuke is not the one making them.

Still, what Taichi does have as a leader, he’s somewhat lacking in a certain other area: emotional sensitivity. A lot of his friction with others in the early parts of Adventure involves him stepping on someone’s toes (such as accidentally insulting someone with a well-intentioned but insensitive joke, or being callous with Koushirou’s computer), and when he’s confronted about it (usually by Yamato), actually gets defensive and starts fighting back about it, which leads to things like escalated conflicts with Taichi and Yamato violently punching each other out.

Even by the time of Our War Game!, Taichi is indicated to still have somewhat of a problem accepting responsibility for when he’s offended someone else or doing something wrong, and it’s pretty clearly a big reason he and Sora are still in a very bad fight during the events of the movie. Most of the time (at least during Adventure and Our War Game!), by the time Taichi’s realized he’s messed up, he’s already deep in hot water.

In comparison, initially brash as Daisuke can be, when things really come down to it, even the early episodes indicate that not only is he much more non-confrontational, he’s actually significantly more emotionally sensitive. In 02 episode 7 (one that’s still pretty high up in his phase of being rather too shallow when it comes to issues about Hikari), he does what even Our War Game! had indicated Taichi at being really bad at doing: immediately apologizes to Iori on the spot and takes back his statements that went over the line with Takeru. Even this early part of the series still has clear indications he’s more attuned to considering his friends’ feelings without being prompted to do so (in 02 episode 10, he immediately catches on that Miyako’s not feeling well, with nobody else having to point it out).

On top of that, as much as he has an occasional tendency to lash out angrily at people, unlike Taichi, Daisuke almost never resorts to ad hominem (insulting the other person directly); abrasive and argumentative as he may sometimes be, he isn’t the type to call people names or be condescending. This is a really important distinction that’s often overlooked (not only with fictional characters, but also often in real life in general); it’s the difference between “you’re stupid” (ad hominem) and “what you’re doing is stupid”. Daisuke very often does the latter because he’s defensive and quick to criticize, but it’s vanishingly rare he will ever go as far as to try invalidating a person, nor does he ever really look down on anyone; it’s an important key to understanding how he’s actually the type to support and respect others even despite his tendency to get argumentative.

Daisuke having the Digimentals of Courage and Friendship points him towards Taichi and Yamato, and it’s important to not neglect that latter part -- as much as Daisuke’s surface traits and character design beg you to think more of Taichi, Daisuke’s tendency to be more emotionally sensitive and constantly consider the feelings of his friends is much like Yamato’s, especially since Yamato also had a tendency to have a somewhat abrasive exterior but actually be emotionally passionate about those he cared about. As a result, Daisuke never, ever gets in a fight with anyone to remotely the same violent and anger-filled degree Taichi and Yamato would get in back in Adventure, because even when he gets kind of close in 02 episode 11, he ultimately ends up sidetracked by thinking seriously about what his seniors have to say about friendship and trying to figure out what Takeru’s feelings are that it defuses very quickly. In the end, Daisuke’s just too conscientious about other people’s feelings to let it get that far.

The first time Taichi is properly recognized as the Adventure group’s “leader” is in Adventure episode 28, and the word is used directly. Taichi even initially denies it, before everyone brings proof in the form of pointing out that he was the one capable of bringing them all together when they’d split apart, and Taichi later demonstrates his abilities as a leader himself when he properly delegates Koushirou as the one to solve the card puzzle. Everyone states that they trust him as the leader, and defer to his judgment in this situation; for the rest of the series, the group continues to acknowledge him as someone who eventually calls the shots and makes the major decisions over what the group will do next.

No equivalent to this scene exists in 02. In fact, Daisuke is not the leader of the 02 group in the same way Taichi is the leader of the Adventure group, and, to push it further, I would even go as far as saying that the 02 group does not have a leader at all.

Understanding why the 02 group doesn’t have a leader, or, more accurately, doesn’t really need one, has to do with the fact that the 02 group has a very different relationship with each other than the Adventure group does. Taichi was responsible for holding the entire Adventure group together and organizing them because they were liable to fall apart without someone as the lynchpin, but the 02 group started off as a social circle before they were a fighting group, and therefore will stick together as friends even if nobody’s holding them together per se. This leads to 02 episode 19 featuring them deciding to work independently to the point Daisuke gets left behind -- compare the equivalent episode in Adventure and how Taichi is treated, and it’s pretty clear Daisuke doesn’t actually have a very commanding role in the group. (You can think of it as an inverted version of the Adventure group’s relationship with socialization vs. fighting coordination; the Adventure group figured out how to fight together fairly quickly but fell apart as soon as Taichi was gone, whereas the 02 group is predisposed to hang out together as friends but takes much longer to learn to coordinate from a fighting perspective.)

Even after Daisuke starts to become more assertive, however, he still doesn’t always take an active role in terms of coordinating or calling the shots -- the most prominent example being the Giga House incident in 02 episodes 28-29, in which he doesn’t mind deferring to the others as they all strategize. It’s a huge contrast against the Adventure group (which was rather big and in need of someone to organize such disparate people) deferring to Taichi to make the final calls and to lay down the goals for them to follow, whereas Daisuke can make decisions or suggestions, but is much more liable to defer to his friends’ ideas or what they want to do if they happen to have any better suggestions. Daisuke doesn’t have the bird’s-eye tactician abilities Taichi has nor his natural charisma, but he shows all signs of being well aware of this; when the 02 group makes a major decision, it’s always one they make together, and although Daisuke eventually does gain a certain sense of independent will, he still puts extremely high value into what his friends think about the situation before going forward with it. As much as Daisuke was certainly the most influential in getting the group to reach out to Ken, it's ultimately the rest of the group that chooses to find their own way to reach out to him, each on their own terms -- Miyako in 02 episode 25, Hikari in 02 episode 32, Takeru in 02 episode 37, and Iori in 02 episode 38 -- and while Daisuke did originally have a clear intention to reach out to Ken regardless of what the others thought, he still very much did actively bid and hope for the others to get along with him in their own ways (see: 02 episode 30).

(This also has the side effect that, as much as Daisuke’s surface demeanor might suggest that everything would be a reckless disaster with him around, the fact that he takes his friends’ stances on the situation so heavily in regard means that he’s actually less likely to do something catastrophically stupid in a major situation, as long as his friends are sufficiently able to keep him in check.)

In the course of Adventure, the skill that Taichi begins to hone is “becoming a leader” in every sense of it -- organizing others, bringing them together, and learning to be ever so slightly less impulsive by thinking through his decisions a bit more instead of leaning on the first thing that comes to his head. The Adventure group, twice on the verge of falling apart, is ultimately brought back together under his lead, and it’s his charisma that allows all of them to trust him and what he wants to do.

It’s not hard to see why; he has qualities for it that come to him naturally, in that he treats people equally and without prejudice, and is a soccer captain-like tactician who is capable of taking a bird’s eye view of the situation and organizing things around them. As demonstrated in Adventure episodes 16 and 28, he’s good at delegating roles when people need suitable guidance.

Daisuke, on the other hand, has a very different specialty: emotional positivity and support. Once he starts shedding the defensive abrasiveness he’d had a tendency to fall into during the first half of the series, his true capacity for being a very pure-hearted, emotionally sensitive person who puts the well-being of his friends first and foremost before anything else comes through. This means he’s the member of the group who’s the most brimming with “positivity” and “the will to push forward”, especially over the course of the second half of 02 in which things are taking a larger and larger psychological toll on the group. Again, the 02 group doesn’t actually have a true “leader”, and many of those traits Taichi has that Daisuke lacks ultimately have to be substituted by some of the other members in the group, but Daisuke’s main skill is in “leading the charge” with emotional support -- and that’s why he ends up often being the one most proactively pulling them forward (and, on a meta level, is why he’s the main protagonist even if the story is arguably more about Ken).

Of course, Taichi and Daisuke do end up having traces of the others’ strengths -- Taichi ultimately comes around to being more emotionally sensitive and handling others maturely (especially in 02), while Daisuke receiving a proper support group and validation from his friends allows himself to show the assertiveness he’d struggled to show in the first half. But ultimately, their strengths are their own, and tailored very well to the dynamics of the particular groups they’re affiliated with.

Once eight years have passed since 02, we can now see this disparity in personality to the point it’s started having major differences in their future paths. Taichi’s in the middle of an existential crisis, drifting away from a lot of his friends and not sure what to do with his life, whereas not only is Daisuke cheerfully hanging out with his friends like 02 was only yesterday, he’s very clearly aware of what he wants to do with his life (after all, he’s had that very clear goal since he was in elementary school).

In regards to why Daisuke’s not having nearly as many problems with his career path: it’s because Daisuke’s satisfied with the low hanging fruit.

Daisuke has always admired Taichi ever since they were both tiny kids, and it’s easy to see why, given Daisuke’s deficiencies prior to the start of 02 -- being a natural leader, charismatic, and extremely assertive, Taichi very easily presented an ideal image of an idol for Daisuke to aspire to. Kizuna makes it clear that Daisuke is just as senior-adoring and Taichi-adoring as he was back in 02; he has a lot of faith in his seniors to be able to pull amazing and great things off.

Daisuke himself, meanwhile, is happy with only the idea of running a ramen shop, and is practically playing the whole thing by ear without thinking of it too hard. While Taichi hasn’t really said anything about the matter, it’s pretty easy to believe that there is no way in hell Taichi would be satisfied with something like that as a career; he’s always been the ambitious type who wants to do big things, and the fact he’s taking political science and economics at a major university (if it’s anything like the real uni, it’s not easy to get into!) indicates that, even if he doesn’t know exactly what, he certainly would rather do something bigger and more influential with his life.

But the drama CD provides a lot of insight into Daisuke’s current attitude regarding the whole ramen shop thing, and he’s rather grounded about it all, admitting that he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing and being very quick to admit his own faults. I mentioned earlier that Daisuke is actually good at taking responsibility for his own failings, and it’s likely his lack of ambition stems from the fact that he simply doesn’t consider himself cut out for huge, amazing things to begin with. But that doesn’t matter to him, because he’s happy with simple things, and, more importantly, he’s happy as long as he can continue to support his friends -- and receive support from them in return. Said drama CD includes him relating a long narrative about how, after initially being unsure of what to do, he took all of the little pieces of information and suggestions he got from his friends extremely seriously, even when they didn’t think much of what they were doing or saying at the time -- in short, Daisuke’s life really does involve appreciating and loving his friends.

This is important to consider in light of the fact that the 02 group is cut out for a very different future from their seniors’ -- again, look at the difference between Taichi’s eventual future of “history-making diplomat” and Daisuke’s of “ramen shop owner”. Even when you take into account the whole success story of his shop becoming a chain (which, knowing him, may well have been by accident), as far as world-shattering impact goes, the most influence Daisuke is ever going to have with that career is in regards to food. But this ties into the fact that Daisuke really is that kind of person, someone who’s more community-oriented and sensitive about bringing happiness to the people around him more than he’s capable of aiming for the abstract, whereas Taichi is the kind of person who is much more ambitious and able to enact larger impact over more usually disparate groups of people, even if it means not necessarily having the same type of support group Daisuke has.

And, on a larger scale, it ties into the reason why 02 group is so easily tied at the hip despite their seniors so clearly drifting apart -- it’s baked into the difference between their dynamic and their seniors’ dynamic. The Adventure group is comprised of the kind of people who shoot for individual achievement and self-affirmation over all else, but the 02 group is somewhat dependent on each other for support. As I’ve said before in the relevant meta, this isn’t fundamentally a bad thing -- it ties more into how they choose to live and what they want to prioritize, and as far as the 02 group goes, Daisuke’s priority of mutually supporting his friends ties into the overall group’s priority of valuing their relationships to each other over necessarily shooting for high individual achievement, and finding their own happiness that way.

It’s also interesting to think about why Taichi has his goggles back by the beginning of the movie, meaning that, at some point, Daisuke gave them back to him and started wearing the orange sunglasses we see him with for its duration. Of course, Taichi having the goggles is for meta reasons, since there’s a lot of symbolism associated with Adventure itself and Taichi’s past association with it, as well as its own connection to his past...

But it’s also interesting to consider the fact that even as early as 2003, Daisuke was considering passing the goggles on to someone else. (They’ll eventually end up owned by his own son, but you can imagine the trail of who passed it to whom at what time for yourself.) The same drama CD track implies heavily that Daisuke initially wore his own pair of goggles specifically for the sake of emulating Taichi as “the person who had the power to protect everyone”. Taichi passing his own pair onto him was proof that Daisuke was now worthy of accepting that power and becoming capable of his own courage.

Yet by 2003, Daisuke already considered himself confident enough in said abilities to be willing to pass them onto someone else. You can imagine the circumstances of why he decided to give them back to Taichi for the time being (perhaps he noticed Taichi slipping into an existential crisis?), but the point is that while the goggles still have symbolic meaning, Daisuke’s capable of carving his own path and figuring out what he wants to do without needing to use the exact same thing Taichi did. Instead of chasing after someone else for it, he managed to find his own strengths within himself, and thus, ends up finding happiness in a very different way than Taichi does.

[mlpdestinyverse]

“The Bigger One”

Heather Tart is used to many things, be it receiving praise, using her charm to sway a situation to her favor, or asserting her dominance as a respected student at Twilight's School of Friendship.

A punch to the face...is not one of those things.

Feat. Star Chime, Heather (Tart) Reed

Related Chapters: Tongue Twister, Honesty, Confrontation ~Destinyverse Archive~

Story and Description Under The Cut

Heather Tart had a plan. Of course she did. Her meticulous mind could think its brilliant way through anything. Especially when she had a goal so close to her she might just be able to touch it. As such, she used her natural charisma to discreetly excuse herself out of her afterschool clubroom that day. It was a little earlier than the typical time her Science Club ended. Not that it mattered. Not only did their activities finish early, but in their final moments of leisure time, only one topic buzzed relentlessly around the classroom. Princess Luna was here, visiting the School of Friendship. Under what pretense - and for how long - no one knew. Near the end of the day, the regal Alicorn had been spotted by a stray hall monitor. Striding beside Princess Twilight Sparkle, Luna had been touring the school grounds between class periods, quietly observing the students through door windows while they busied themselves with classwork. Yet she was nowhere to be seen once said periods had ended and the hallways bustled with hooves and claws alike. Elusive as ever, their mysterious Moon Princess. One could assume the Princess of the Night had discreetly taken her leave long ago; glorious gossip, however, said otherwise.

Heather's heart had nearly burst when she'd heard the news. Years of dreaming and the heavenly Alicorns were finally rewarding her. The teenaged Earth Pony resisted prancing through the empty halls in her excitement. Upon trotting out the front doors, Heather scanned the beautiful frontal schoolyard and its glistening pond that surrounded the entrance. The sky was still gray from its brief shower hours before, and with careful hooves, the filly made her way across the damp stones cutting through the pond and around the side of the school. With even more precaution, Heather made sure to avoid the mud in favor of patches of rain-touched grass. She hated nothing more than muddying her hooves. And if she was going to meet Princess Luna? She was going to do everything to ensure she'd look as elegant and pristine as ever. Step one: Make her way towards the back, where she knew the school's picnic tables were scattered about just for students during their lunch periods and downtime. Step two: Grab the nearest table towards the backdoors. Probability told her, almost without a shadow of a doubt, that this would be the very exit Princess Luna would use if her tendency to avoid crowds and not cause a fuss was anything to go by. It wasn't one hundred percent guaranteed, but the chances were high enough that Heather was willing to take it. It wouldn't be out of character for her, either. Heather loved sitting at a table on a sunny day to quietly work on homework. Sometimes, as president of her club, she'd even sit there to plan out new fun lab experiments for the Science Club's next meeting. Studious. Conscientious. Hard-working. She could never get enough of teachers and students alike noticing her and praising her efforts. As they should. The scenario in her mind played out the same way. She'll be sitting there, hunched over a notebook and mulling over new club activities, when Princess Luna and Twilight waltz their way out of those doors. They'll see her, Twilight will ask her what she's doing, and Heather would yet again demonstrate her leadership and intellect. Twilight will praise her, introduce her to Luna as one of her best students- And the youngest of the royal sisters will look upon her and remember her name. Heather could feel her heart racing and subconsciously her hooves picked up their pace. Meeting the other princesses, catching their attention, and standing out amongst the drabble...if she were to be honest, she didn't realize just how much she ached for it. Not until now. Not until it was so close- Heather turned the corner, honing in on the table she knew would be hers- Only to find another sitting there. And oh, at the sight of her, Heather felt her very blood boil. Of course she just had to be here. The dullest, most boring-looking Unicorn that had ever insulted Heather's eyes; dull white and cream coat, drab grayish-blue mane, pale and ugly blue irises as narrow as a snake's. And who could ever miss that long, rat-like tail with a tuff of mane at the end, just lying on the bench beside her. She wanted to laugh at this filly's attire too, trying to pass off as prim and proper with an outfit that only made her look like a senile office worker.  Heather knew very well who this was. And she despised her very existence. But as a filly of her own standing at this school, she had appearances to keep up. So with the most saccharine smile she could muster, Heather took long, deliberate steps towards the other filly. It didn't take long for the Unicorn to notice her, those snake eyes flicking up from what had to be the most ostentatious book Heather had ever seen; silver and grey with metallic decor on its cover, embedded with one large tacky-looking gem just as blue-gray and washed out as the filly it belonged to. Heather stopped beside the table, avoiding a muddy patch beneath it, and held the Unicorn's gaze as much as those eyes repulsed her up close. "Hi there! You must be new around here!" Heather chirped. She gave the filly a chance to at least muster a reply. She should have expected the Unicorn to

cautiously eye her like a socially inept buffoon. After an awkward few seconds, she nodded. "I am," the filly managed. Good for her. "Well isn't that nice!" Heather lies through her teeth and a beaming smile. "Then I can't blame you for not knowing! Where you're sitting right now is my usual seat. But hey, now you know, so I'm sure you won't mind moving for me, hm~?" The Unicorn stared at her. Two seconds. Five seconds. Heather watched impatiently as the other filly swept her gaze across the other empty tables around them, almost pointedly. 'Yeah. You heard what I said. I'm not being subtle. Get lost.' Victory was in her grasp, of course. She wasn't the only one here that had pretenses to maintain and denying her civility would only make this filly look like the asshole of the two. And that wouldn't make the Unicorn much of a role model, now would it? Heather's innocent smile stretched expectantly, taking in the Unicorn's deadpan expression boring into her. Another annoying second later and the other filly finally shut her book tight, sliding it to one side without breaking eye contact. "No. I don't think I will." Heather's smile twitched. How she didn't take into account a lack of even the most basic social courtesies from this filly, she'll never know. "Well that's a little harsh," Heather feigned hurt, disguising the simmering fury just beneath her skin. "I just wanted my favorite seat for my studying. Is that really too much to ask for?" An unwavering, distrustful narrow of those eyes was the Unicorn's only response. So. That's how it was going to be. ...yet face-to-face with such blatant defiance, Heather - for the first time - was at a dead end. There was no sweet talking that face. And with no one around, there was no leverage here for her to turn the tables. Behind pursed lips her jaw clenched and her teeth grated. Pathetic. Pathetic. It infuriated her how rapidly the power had shifted - power taken from her in the one place Heather had worked for it.  Power THIS outsider didn't deserve. It was then that Heather's eye honed in on a certain pretty little book, teetering near the edge of the table. Ah. Okay then. Heather could take a loss. She could take a small, minuscule hit to her pride. No one was there to see it. Her goal was still in reach, so long as she kept up pleasantries and proceeded with her plan at the next table over. Heather, however, wasn't above taking small, subtle, petty victories. Anything for the satisfaction of reminding others where she stood around here. "That's too bad...but I understand." Heather sighed and hung her head. "I won't bother you." She turned her body, then. Too quickly. Or just fast enough to make the harsh bump of her flank against the table's edge at least semi-believable. She listened for it... SQUISH A gross squelch cut the silence, a sound that was beautiful to her ears. As she had hoped, turning back around revealed the plummeted book, lying delightfully amongst the brown patch of muck below the table. Despite her gasp, Heather could barely stop herself from grinning at her success. "Oh no!" she exclaimed, and it was just as difficult to stifle a much-needed laugh, especially with how much this Unicorn's face had slackened at the sight beneath them; silvers and greys, now smeared with dark mud. The other filly took in the filthy book with dim eyes. Poor spoiled girl. "I'm so sorry! Let me-" Heather's hoof was inches away from picking up the book to present to the Unicorn - a grand power move in her head - when a sourceless light blinded her. The Earth Pony barely had time to react before something solid rammed straight into her face. All she could do was squeal and tumble back into the ground at the excruciating pain and the sheer force of the impact. There was a wet slippery slide of the earth below her, displaced by the collision of her body. She didn't even know she was holding her stinging face until she pulled back trembling hooves from it, furiously blinking her blurry vision back into focus. Her head throbbed, the blood rushing into it

pulsing loudly in her ears.  While her world was reassembling itself, Heather felt the fabric of her torso become seized and in moments her entire body was being pulled up by a shocking amount of strength. The open-air was suddenly freezing against her pelt, forcing her delayed senses to fully experience the scorching hot pain spreading through her muzzle and cheeks. Her left eye especially struggled to stay open, even as another face shoved itself into hers. The filly before her breathed shallowly against her nose, wild and unhinged eyes resembling a beast now more than ever. "That," the Unicorn heaved out in a heavy, shaking breath. She renewed her grip on Heather's dress, expression distorted into a monstrous snarl. "Was father's you heartless wench!" Heather felt like a ragdoll, swaying on weak, dirtied hindlegs, one hoof pathetically draped over the vice-grip holding her in place. Her brain felt shaken, thoughts racing. And her blood ran cold when the other filly let out a quiet, humorless laugh at her. "Oh, I know your type..." the Unicorn whispered breathlessly, those venomous irises burning holes into her. "Thinking you're the biggest fish in the pond. Like you can lord over everyone else without consequence. You think no one can stand up against you." Heather choked on a sound as her face was pulled in further, a breath ghosting her muzzle even hotter than before. Her panicked magenta eyes darted up to the Unicorn's horn; what was already glowing a haunting silvery-blue now crackled violently with energy, stray white sparks searing into her exposed skin. A primitive growl ripped out of the other filly, and in those ferocious eyes, Heather swore she saw bloodlust. "How's it feel to meet a bigger fucking fish?" Heather screamed. It was something raw and primitive of her own, and she thrashed in the other filly's hold to no avail. She didn't know how long that went on for, wasn't sure how much time was passing as she waited for another strike- "STAR CHIME!" A booming, commanding voice filled the space, powerful enough to tremor the ground beneath them. Her ears only then registered a number of other voices rising in volume and proximity. The rigid muscles in her neck ached when she finally turned her head just enough to see out of the corner of her eye.  So many heads were sticking out of classroom windows, no doubt stragglers from clubs that surely have ended by now. Amongst those faces, she could recognize a few teachers, and to the right... Princess Twilight and Princess Luna, with the backdoors thrown open around them. Her attacker jerked away, releasing Heather to let her fall onto her forelegs. As soon as she was released, a blur of movement rushed out from the creatures gathered behind the two Alicorns. "Heather!" The Earth Pony almost instinctively flinched away, but was immediately soothed by the familiar arms of her best friend, Amber Shine, cradling her form. It amazed her how the Pegasus filly was willingly angling her body to both support her weight and shield her if need be. Despite the protective walls surrounding her, Heather still had a clear view of the princesses. Twilight looked absolutely horrified. But clearly someone else here held the most oppressive presence and authority. Princess Luna looked upon the scene with a frigid death stare that would cut through anyone. And it was trained on one single filly. "What is this?!" Luna demanded, her deep voice rumbling the air like thunder. When she strode forward, not even Twilight dared to stay in step. She trailed behind the other princess with shock etched into her youthful features.  The Unicorn shuffled, and Heather watched Star Chime's newly distressed visage come to life. Her long tail lashed behind her like an agitated cat. "She knocked father's tome into the muck, mother!" Star shouted, eyes darting wildly from Heather to Princess Luna. The Alicorn's expression actually faltered for a second before her sharp blue eyes landed on Heather. And Heather's heart jolted in terror. 'No...no! Don't you dare ruin this for

me!' "It was an accident!" Heather wailed back, letting every ounce of emotion pour into her voice. Near-instantly, Star Chime whipped towards her with a scowl. "You LIAR!" "ENOUGH!" Star Chime's head snapped up to look at her mother, as Princess Luna now stood a mere tail length before them, dark blue wings flaring out behind her. "That does not constitute violence against a defenseless subject, Star Chime!" And as the lunar princess seared those harsh eyes into her daughter, it dawned on Heather the advantage she had. The position she was in, with her face undoubtedly swollen and appearance soiled by the assault of that horrid young princess. She was more grudgeful now than fearful, though she couldn't deny the tears of pain and prior-fear-for-her-life that had left streaks in their wake. However, there was room to play it up further. So focusing on the pain and just how overwhelmed she felt? A hiccuping, sniveling mess she became. "Y-you didn't even let me pick it up for you!" Heather sobbed out, pressing her wet cheek into her friend's warm chest. The sweet Pegasus comfortingly stroked her hair. She could just imagine the pity on Amber's brow. "You just attacked me out of nowhere! E-even after I apologized!" Murmurs. Sweet murmurs of concern and disbelief sounded from the far-off onlookers. They knew her; thoughtful, honest Heather, who got along with everyone and had a spotless record. In the face of unnecessary violence, they literally had no reason to doubt her. Besides, how was she supposed to know that garish book was from the late King? Not even the Alicorns above could claim she was lying here. "Oh Heather..." Twilight murmured compassionately, and that alone filled her to the brim with glee. Checkmate. "M-mother, please, I just..." Star Chime begged uselessly. Oh, begging suited her. Too bad she had nothing to excuse her brutishness. She lost this battle ages ago. Heather knew, because Princess Luna could only exhale deeply, her countenance a storm of emotions that the filly was honestly clueless to identify. What Heather hadn't seen coming was the sudden shift in the Moon Princess' expression from there; from rigid and grave to sheer exhaustion and sadness. "I thought we were past this..." Luna whispered, so quietly that Heather had nearly missed it. The true proof that those words were even spoken was the way Star Chime recoiled as if she had been slapped. Heather jumped as feathers slid over her back, only to realize Princess Twilight had moved forward to reassert authority. After shooting her a gentle glance, she returned her attention to the other princesses. She hesitated before opening her mouth to speak- Luna beat her to it. "I have changed my mind, Twilight." Luna began, collecting herself just as quickly as the shift had happened. "Star Chime will not be attending your school after all." Heather would have whistled were this not an inopportune time. She simply sat back and enjoyed the unfolding drama as Star Chime looked at her mother with wide, shell-shocked eyes, frantically searching Luna's face for an answer already before her.  "Mother," Star Chime's voice cracked, desperation seeping through. "No, please, let me prove myself-!" "There is nothing to prove." Luna quietly interjected. Her general demeanor was no longer of disappointment or even judgment, but somber patience of all things. "I realize now that you require more of my attention than what little I have given you...perhaps in the future you may return to Ponyville. But now is not your time." As if to make her point, Luna subtly swept her gaze across the onlookers, and Star Chime followed her line of sight. Heather had to agree, Princess Luna was practically showing her mercy. Imagine attending classes here after making a first impression like this. She'd be the talk of the halls. Every soul in Twilight's School would know of the violent princess who punched one of their top students square in the face (and Heather would absolutely make sure every ear knew of it). Little miss Star Chime was better off being pulled

out of this school before she even started. It'd give Heather less of a migraine and save her the humiliation.  Just like... "Allow me to extend my deepest apologies in place of my daughter," Luna said towards Heather, whisking away every other thought in her mind. While she began to buzz in delight, that buzz slowly died down at the unreadable expression the Moon Princess wore. She was as formal and distant as ever. Almost...scrutinizing her? Where was her sympathy? "I will be holding a very thorough discussion with her over these events, and I intend to offer reparation to you and your kin." "Heather's parents aren't here in Ponyville," Twilight finally found an opening to speak, taking on the tone of a responsible princess. "But Applejack is her guardian, so I'll be contacting her soon to pick Heather up." "Very well. I will return shortly to speak to her, then, and recompense will be sent to the family." Heather perked up when the royal addressed her once more. "I understand that you are distressed. I will be escorting Star Chime away from here, and you will have time to recover with your friends. I hope you do not mind." Heather sniffled and swiped a hoof over her face. "I don't mind...thank you, princess." Luna's attention left her too quickly for Heather's liking, focusing on the Unicorn princess instead. "Come, Star." Luna called in a hushed voice, taking her exit with grace and purpose. Heather's focus shifted to Star Chime just as the Unicorn's horn lit aglow with that very same eerie silvery blue, levitating the grimy book out of the sludge. As parts of the wet mud slipped off in thick glops, the Unicorn gave the book's cover a weak swipe of her hoof, only managing to smudge muck further into its intricate crevices. While Luna departed with the elegance and power of true royalty, Star all but dragged her hooves after her, gaze downcast and mouth pressed into a firm line. Unsurprisingly, she shot one final scorching side glance at Heather Tart through her draping bangs. It lingered until Heather left her periphery and the Unicorn could only trail after her mother like a helpless foal.

Pressing her head further into her friend's chest, Heather sneered at the filly's retreating back until she rounded the corner and out of sight. 'That's what you get, rat princess.' "Heather, are you okay? What did she even do?!" Now that the immediate threat was gone, her colt friend Arctic Bolt was charging in from the small crowd, nearly slipping a few times in his scramble over. Oh great. Heather wasn't sure if she was in the mood for the buckball star's overdone jests and witty quips at this moment. Yet she couldn't reject the amount of attention and concern she was receiving. "Gods, I think she gave you a black eye." Amber Shine fretted. The filly helped Heather sit up, but the moment she even tried to brush a hoof near the Earth Pony's left socket, Heather flinched away and grunted. "Punched me." Heather forced out through gritted teeth once Arctic had slowed to a stop before them. "Fell to the ground..." "Geez, it's like your dress took as much of a beating as you did..." Arctic muttered. And as much as she wanted to roll her eyes at his dumb remark, looking down proved that the joke was more accurate than she'd realized. Red fabric was now stained with mud and grass and stretched out past its limits by the iron grip of that wretched beast. Or maybe it didn't look so bad! MAYBE that was just her, peering at it with one eye while she held shut the one that was throbbing and bruising over. Yeah. That remuneration better come fast- "Heather, I am so sorry." Twilight's voice promptly grabbed her attention. The Alicorn mare bent her legs to meet her height, looking to her with so much guilt that one would think the perpetrator had been one of her own family. "This shouldn't have happened. Star Chime has been working hard through some of her...habits, and while she's made progress she's also very emotional at heart and then after losing her father-" This was very new and very disconcerting, watching Princess Twilight Sparkle actually fumble through her words and appear rather flustered over the situation. Heather felt her jaw clench. The two had to be pretty close for Twilight to feel this compelled to defend the girl. "That said, harm should have never come to you, especially on my premises. I just...I hope you won't hold this against her. If circumstances were different, I really think you two would have gotten along." Oh. Heather could not stop her face from screwing up at that. Twilight noticed (Heather for once hoped she did, God forbid the Friendship Princess actually tried to forcibly mend this atrocity) and her shoulders noticeably drooped. "But I completely understand if this has damaged those chances."

Twilight took in a healthy breath of air and straightened back up. While she once again spoke with calm and control, the way her ears remained pinned back was hard to miss. "Please head in and wait outside my office whenever you're ready, Heather. I'll let the nurse know to prepare an ice pack for you before I get in contact with Applejack. This'll definitely take some time, so please bear with me." Ugh. Applejack. As if her voice wasn't already annoying to listen to on a daily basis. Now the older mare was going to fuss knowing her overprotective nature and Heather wasn't looking forward to having her ear talked off on how slices of raw potato and toothpaste were the grand answer to healing her face or whatever ridiculous ideas those country bumpkins had in their screwy heads. Moving out and away from the farm life couldn't come sooner. But there were bigger things to focus on in the present. It wasn't until Twilight had walked off, exchanging words with the last few students who were being herded away by the remaining school staff, that Amber Shine voiced a question that had been on Heather's own mind. "What did she mean by...'working through habits'?" The orange Pegasus uttered slowly, eyeing the backdoors as the final student filed in after the princess. "That was way more unsettling than it had to be." "Oh...oh Gods it's all connecting..." Both Heather and Amber turned to Arctic, who was now holding his head between his hooves in what appeared to be either alarm or a headache. Ever the dramatic one. Heather would have been tempted to snap at him for obnoxiously drawing the suspense out, but thankfully Amber was faster and more patient. "Uh, mind sharing?" The Pegasus cautiously prodded, now giving her friend a hesitant glance-over. Arctic's wide blue eyes flashed back into focus and he began wildly gesturing with his hooves- "Okay listen- I have this friend in Canterlot whose cousin went to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns with this other guy, right-" "The friend of a friend's cousin." Amber repeated, and oh, Heather recognized that tone as the filly already being half-done with the conversation. Bless her. "Easy to follow. Carry on." "No, seriously listen!" Arctic hissed quietly, and for the first time since Heather had met the silver Earth Pony, he actually looked like he was being serious. "My friend told me this story about how apparently, Princess Star Chime got pulled out of school for completely thrashing that cousin's friend! Said there was blood and teeth everywhere and she beat the poor guy until he was begging on the floor!"  Heather could feel her visible eye nearly bug out of its socket. "And they tried to let someone like THAT come HERE?!" she near shrieked. Her friends were lucky that she had already spent her vocal cords not too long ago. "It IS the School of Friendship. Guess they were hoping to make her less punchy." He muttered out one of his wisecracks. Heather's head was whirling too much for her to admonish it. How close had she just come to being battered into a stain on the grass?  Wait...actually- "Okay, but why are we only just now hearing about this?" Amber, ever a kindred spirit, inquired the very same disbelief in her own mind. "The newspapers would have blown up over a royal scandal like that!" Heather agreed. And if she had possessed this knowledge just a little earlier, maybe she would have treaded just a bit more carefully. At the very least, she would have been able to figure out a way to use it to her advantage... "Well for one, it was like, two years ago... and apparently not a lot of ponies got to witness the attack. But-" Arctic leaned his head in, head whisking about in search of eavesdroppers before dropping his voice even lower. "It sounded like Celestia and Luna covered the whole thing up and made everyone involved agree to keep the information private. So most of the public has no idea what happened, but obviously whispers managed to slip through a few mouths in upper Canterlot..." "Wow..." Heather whispered. Yeah. That was probable. The princesses

had the power. And while Heather knew anyone else would have been a little frightened over the influence their rulers had, whether for the sake of a nation or for their own means...Heather herself was sort of amazed. As if she could actually blame them for going to such lengths to conceal the shame that girl would have brought to their exalted family otherwise. "But even before that!" Arctic swiftly continued. "Apparently the kids at the school were already dubbing her the 'Delinquent Princess' behind her back! My friend's cousin never knew why until...y'know." "Delinquent Princess." Amber repeated back. "What a...stupid name." 'And I think it's fitting...' Heather was tempted to add but miraculously toned her spite down. "...I mean Ithoughtitsoundedbadass- but only because I thought the whole story was just some elaborate rumor!!" Arctic threw up his hooves. "I didn't think someone from the royal family could be that crazy, yet here we are! So don't talk like it's nothing but made-up gossip after what just happened!"

"...you're not wrong." Amber muttered, and her wing pulled Heather closer into her side. The earth filly welcomed the warmth, though she didn't like the look of discomfort on her friend's face. "In other words, we're talking about violent habits. And from a princess of Equestria...that's awful." "Yep. She is. But let's stop talking about her for now" Heather muttered, feeling both sets of eyes fall on her. The more she heard, the more that resentment deep within her grew. And the more that grew, the more her temples ached beyond the limits of what she was willing to deal with. "I think I'd like that ice pack right about now." "Oh crap, right!" Arctic jumped, urgently motioning for the fillies to walk ahead while he kept the rear. "Got a little carried away. We'll stick around until Twilight gets back!" "Yeah. Twilight did say it'd take a while." With a comforting smile, Amber Shine squeezed Heather's shoulder with her wing feathers. "I say it a million times, but just as a reminder; we've got you, girl." And she appreciated the encouragement. She really did. But Heather found it incredibly hard to muster more than a ghost of a smile when she found her legs on autopilot while her mind was elsewhere. 'Stop talking about her" she'd said. Yet she couldn't even bring her own brain to shut up. When it came to the very thought of that Unicorn princess, ugly green thorns never stopped digging their way into her ribcage. But after today... Heather's inner snarl rang with unconcealed bitterness, louder than ever before. 'How? How does someone like her get to be a princess?'

_________________________________________

Officially introducing Star Chime! Daughter of Luna, sister of Prince Amadeus, and youngest royal of the five royal Equestrian children (Princess Flurry Heart, Princess Lumina, Prince Amadeus, Prince Nova Spark, and Princess Star Chime, in that order)! Though by youngest, she's probably a year or two younger than Nova Spark.

I'm excited that she's ready to officially be a part of the cast!! I've considered her and Dream Flow the future main protagonists of present-day story. One day she'll meet her partner in crime. One day...

Also, very fun to write a chapter exploring Heather's psyche! In no way am I advocating for violence against misbehaving kids, by the way. I know people will see this as Heather "getting what she deserves" - and wanting to see karma get her is valid - but just know the purpose of this chapter wasn't me trying to take pleasure in physically "punishing" this kid, back when she was a youth with very misguided values. Just wanted that to be clear!

[ladymaigrey]

Enneagram and DD/Defenders – Part 2 – Matt the Reformer

Find all the posts in https://ladymaigrey.tumblr.com/tagged/enneagram (or go to my blog and look for “enneagram” tag)

gif courtesy of @dead-fandom-support-group​ (see her other enneagram gifs here)

TL:DR – The Reformers are perfectionistic and idealistic, with strong drives to “do good” and little patience for any perceived failure. Quick to anger and guilt-prone. Certain, stalwart and arrogant on the outside, they question themselves on the inside: are they actually “good”? are they sure they are right?

When under stress, they can become narrow-minded, self-centred and dramatic (movement towards Type 4 - Individualist).

For balance, they need to learn how to relax and let-go a bit - let the world spin on its own for a little while (acquire some characteristics from Type 7 - Enthusiast).

Matt: in addition to fitting Type 1 description (and often going towards Type 4), also has some characteristics from Type 2 – Helper, particularly the tendency to put the needs of other’s before one’s own, to the point of martyrdom.

The Reformer - in general

The Reformer has a strong value system about what is right and wrong and is quick to judge themselves and others in accordance to these norms. They are perfectionistic, but practical. They struggle to tolerate ambiguity or subjectivity, preferring objective facts and categories. They like to plan, organise, control, impose order over chaos.

The Reformers are their own harshest critics. They can be quick to anger if they see themselves or others falling short of their ideals. Yet anger often causes guilt, if they believe that a truly “good” person should not get angry. Therefore, anger is often suppressed out of conscious awareness. Still, it tends to come out in expressions of righteous indignation, sarcasm and guilt.

They are quick to argue, moralise or instruct – because they Know How Things Are Supposed To Be. Yet, internally, they are often worried that they are wrong, that they are not Good. Although they may question themselves on the inside, outwardly they will struggle to shift from their position because admitting they are wrong is too threatening to their idealised self-image.

The Reformers are over-responsible. At extreme, they can get burned out with carrying their unrealistic “shoulds” and “musts”. They struggle to relax and have fun.

According to Wagner (1980, p. 60) “They identify with St. George slaying the dragon, crusading to make the world a better place to live in.”

Research participants identified (or identifying) as Type 1, also tended to have high Conscientiousness (Big-5) scores and high Sensing (S), Thinking (T) and Judging (J) scores in MMPI test.

Matt the Reformer 

Judging on the basic outline and, particularly, that St George quote, Type 1 fits Matt well.

His definition of “doing good” is to defend the little guy against injustices and stand up to the unjust strong and teach them a lesson. He is perfectionistic, highly conscientious and disciplined when it comes to his goals - a legacy of his Dad’s insistence on academic diligence, Stick’s drilling, and his internal drive to protect and see justice done.

He is very certain of his direction on the outside, defending his position with a bull-headed obstinacy to rival the Punisher, but he questions himself on the inside. He is often plagued by worries that he is not, in fact, “good” or “just” at all – worries that he most likely internalised from his childhood, from those who admonished “Be careful of the Murdock boys, they have the Devil in them.” Therefore, he feels like he must forever prove his goodness to himself.  He is over-responsible to a ridiculous degree, taking it as a personal goal to prevent all injustice he “can” (i.e. that he is within an earshot of, and his earshot is looooong). Whenever he “fails” - guilt and rage follow. Rage (and violence), in turn, feed into his guilt and self-doubts about being “good”. Sometimes it seems that he is more guilt-ridden than an old farmhouse is ridden with termites.

For all of Type 1s’ practicality and need to control, when it comes to pursuit of goals and facing threats, they tend to make decisions instinctually, based on the product of their perceptions and gut-response. Matt Murdock is an allegorical embodiment of this concept. He responds to what his senses tell him – responds immediately and, often, drastically, without pausing for thought or communication with significant others. For type 1s (and other “gut” types 8 and 9), this often stems from the belief that “life is a battle, and their weaknesses must be tested” (Zuercher, 1992, as quoted in Hook et al., 2020), and THIS IS THE MOST MATT-DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENT I’ve ever read in a peer-reviewed psych article!

In addition to Type 1 characteristics, Matt shares some Type 2 characteristics (in Enneagram parlance, that would make him a Type 1 with a Type 2 wing). Specifically, Matt seems to take pride in denying his own physical and safety needs in order to meet the needs of others, as per his self-imposed responsibilities. This type of martyrdom is more characteristic of Type 2s (Helpers). At the same time, the occasional over-the-top drama that goes with that martyrdom is characteristic of Type 4 (Individualists).

Although, to be fair, it is always difficult to judge psychological state purely from behaviour. So, it is debatable whether his tendency to put his needs last is driven more by his Type 1 perfectionism (i.e. his internal need to do “good” overpowers his other basic needs), or his Type 2 martyrdom beliefs (i.e. the belief that his suffering is immaterial, and even required, in the face of the suffering of others, and that he only matters when he helps others). As @ceterisparibus116 and I discussed sometimes ago, it seems that martyrdom tendencies tend to raise their head when he has faced some kind of “failure” or setback - when he is feeling low regarding his life and identity. At such times, it is perhaps a heightened need for self-sacrifice – to prove his goodness and worthiness through meeting the needs of others to the detriment of his own - that may contribute to some of his more painful (and draMattic) physical excesses.

Then again, human psychology is a mudbath and it is never clear which rising bubble is driven by which underlying motivation.

(As an aside, I do think that the DD-fandom (myself included) has embraced the Type 2 martyr!Matt more than the canon actually suggests. He is often written in fics as forgetting or forgoing his basic needs (including food, sleep and medical care) in order to constantly give of himself to others. I wonder if, on some level, it reflects the real-life tendency to react to Type 2s – the “humble” Helpers – in a more positive or warmer way than the “arrogant” Type 1 do-gooders.)

Anyway.

When faced with crisis and failures, Matt does tend to move towards Type 4 (Individualist), as suggested by the Enneagram theory. He becomes dramatic in his sense of uniqueness and messiahnism; also – self-isolating, liable to be impulsive and making self-destructive decisions. His thinking narrows down myopically to the sole pursuit and defence of his goals. Although his goals as Daredevil revolve around “saving” others, being Daredevil is a large part (if not the whole) of what defines his life’s meaning to him. Therefore, his narrow focus at these times of high stress, and his prioritisation of Daredevil’s goals above the feelings and goals of significant others, is suggestive of a strong core of defensiveness/self-protectiveness. The righteousness of his aims is, in part, a psychological mask; it is a demand for others to excuse his poor relational behaviour on the basis of the specialness of the burden he chooses to bear.

That is not to imply that, when Matt stands up for his identity and his goals to his friends, it should only be regarded as a sign of self-centredness or depression! Telling those, who persistently refuse to accept someone’s truth, that ‘this is who I am’ – as he does to Foggy in Seasons 1 and 2 – can be a sign of positive self-regard and self-esteem. Similarly, when Matt gravitates towards the Type 4 Elektra and attempts to embrace some of her ideals of putting personal wants before duty, it is driven by a healthy impulse to balance the obsessive nature of his goals. Or, at the very least, to share the burden.

Matt is also capable of behaviors that, according to the Enneagram, balance some of the unhealthy extremes of his Type 1 characteristics. Although he is serious and driven most of the time, he is also capable of relaxing and having fun (which is a type 7 characteristic – the balance archetype for Type 1s). Although Matt is perfectionistic, it isn’t driven just by guilt and fear - he also wants to reach his targets (e.g. excelling in law school) for the sense of achievement it gives him (which is a Type 3 trait). He practices some mental and emotional self-care, leaning into the benefits of meditation which, at least in theory, should allow him to switch off from his over-thinking and judging, and simply be touch with his internal sensations without reactivity.

Finally, I think the fact that Matt doesn’t totally disavow his anger but, instead, finds a productive release for it while punching crime in the face, is overall a healthy(-ish) impulse. His anger has a specific role in his goals. Therefore, he has, at least partially, solved the dilemma that plagues Type 1s, i.e. that their anger means they can’t truly be “good”. Only partially though, as he certainly still has plenty of self-doubts and internal guilt trips (see the “why did God put the Devil in me” conversation with Father Lantom in Season 1).

Wagner (1980) advises that, in order to achieve psychological balance and free themselves from the overwhelming perfection of their world-altering goals, Type 1s need to learn that,

“The universe is not perfect, yet, but it is unfolding as it should. Be patient, God isn’t finished with me, yet.” (p. 113) 

To me, this advice seems similar to the idea of the Tapestry that Father Lantom spoke of to Matt (see conversation between Matt and Sister Maggie in S3e13). Enneagram, being theistic in its origin, makes many allusions to the perfection of the Process by which the world works and of the Divine Thought guiding it. This axiom states that all moments and all creatures within this process are perfect in themselves and in their place. Perceptions of imperfection come from the Ego, which is of the mind, not of the Divine original essence. Serenity – the lost virtue of Type 1s – comes from trusting the perfection of the process and the Divine Love guiding it.

By the end of Season 3, Matt appears to have made some steps towards accepting this premise. At least - intellectually. Maybe.

References

Wagner, J.P. (1980). A descriptive, reliability, and validity study of the Enneagram personality typology (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3108&context=luc_diss

Zuercher, S. (1992). Enneagram spirituality: From compulsion to contemplation. Ave Maria Press.

[bookspined]

❝ that’s all history is after all: scar tissue. ❞

{ cis-man, he/him }  huh, who’s FROY GUTIERREZ? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually SCORPIUS MALFOY. he is a TWENTY-TWO year old PUREBLOOD wizard who is A HEALING APPRENTICE. he is known for being CAPTIOUS, RETICENT, FACETIOUS, DISMISSIVE, and DRAMATIC but also RESOURCEFUL, CONSCIENTIOUS, FERVENT, INNOVATIVE, and OBSERVANT, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song IN DREAMS BY BEN HOWARD. i hear he is aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, so be sure to keep an eye on him. { merry, 24, gmt, she/they }

CHARACTER PARALLELS: Amy Santiago (B99), Claire Temple (Daredevil), Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place), Giles (Buffy TVS), Michelle Jones (MCU), Simon Tam (Firefly), Elizabeth Swan (PoTC), Spock (Star Trek), Clarke Griffin (The 100), Harley Keener (MCU), Gregory House (House) suggested honorable mention Gizmo (Gremlins) 

pinterest [blood, medical imagery tw]

wanted connection ideas

Full Name: Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy Gender/Pronouns: Cis man | he/him Age: Twenty-three Birthdate: January 20th Parents: Draco Lucius Malfoy & Astoria Céline Malfoy (née Greengrass) [Not biologically Astoria’s due to her health, if you ever point this out he’ll flay your eyeballs] Siblings: N/A. Birth place: St. Mungo’s Hospital, England Height: 5’11” Weight: 56 kg Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Demiromantic Bisexual Nationality: British Body Alterations/Marks: A ragged diamond shape scar at the base of his throat.

Blood Status: Pureblood Hogwarts House: Slytherin Wand Arm: Right Pet: His pet toad, Jarvis, recently passed away. Patronus: Arctic Fox Wand: 11 2/3 inches, Willow, Supple, Dragon Heartstring.

Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.

Personality Traits: Brilliance, innovative, empathetic, individuality, openness, social consciousness, inventive, logical, practical skills and self assertion; lack of attachment to people outside his circle and the “real world,” over-intellectualizing of the emotions, dismissive, anxious, crotchety tempered, facetious, rigid, prone to self-isolation, intellectual arrogance, and stubborn. Zodiac Sign: Aquarius/Capricorn Cusp Moral Alignment: Neutral Good Core values: Loyalty, Knowledge, Hope Four temperaments: Melancholic  

HOGWARTS HOUSE ANALYSIS

Slytherin Primary and a Burned Ravenclaw Secondary.

Slytherin Primaries prioritize their own selves and loved ones first. Slytherins don’t feel guilty or selfish about this– they feel righteous and moral. The most important thing is to look after your own. Abandoning or hurting one of your own is the worst thing you can do.

A Burned Ravenclaw Secondary might want to be skilled, curious, and prepared, but they feel like they are (or like people think they are) limited, clumsy, or inconstant. Gathering knowledge, hobbies, skills, or tools is the right way to achieve their goals, but Burned Ravenclaws know that’s not going to work within their capabilities. So they take other paths and use other tools– maybe a Gryffindor’s bluntness, a Slytherin’s flexibility, or a Hufflepuff’s slow and steady dedication.

You may have a Hufflepuff Secondary Model.

Hufflepuff is the House of grit, reliability, and determination, and Hufflepuffs use those values to help live, act, and succeed. If you model Hufflepuff Secondary, you also value these things and like to live by them. You like to be hardworking, dedicated, and consistent– but you wouldn’t feel guilty for abandoning those values in the service of other, higher priorities. If there’s another, easier way to get what you want– you’d take it. You think hard work provides valuable rewards– and those rewards are why you work. The work doesn’t have persuasive value in itself.

Despite his very best resistance he’s always been pretty empathetic in nature, he tries to rule his emotions as well as he can but fails more often than not. He was always one of those toddlers that if another kid started crying he’d be right along with them, not because he wanted attention but because he just couldn’t not. A bit of a crybaby, has researched how to magically seal up his tear ducts. Obviously managed to keep the family’s flair for the dramatic there as well. After a few years he leant into the sarcastic vague-snobbishness to hide the core of overwhelming anxiety.

Just managed to scrape through his schooling with nearly all top grades, this isn’t really due to him being a model student. He has always accrued information with a voracious appetite. Any knowledge he could find, even if most people would consider it entirely useless. His mind clicks into that place? You can’t keep him away. However, when there is not an immediate stir of interest on his approach to a topic he has to fight with himself tooth and nail to carry on. 

Predictably found exam season highly stressful, was never open about it but was quietly competitive and silently smug over his good grades. Could comprehend well above his reading level from an early age and would often look into experimental research and complicated magic but found himself lost in OWL level History of Magic when chapter upon chapter lay ahead of him about something that didn’t catch his interest. Some people he beat just to spite cause he hates them. It worked, whatever.

Tends toward introversion and finds himself tired sometimes quite easily by a large amount of social interaction. Witty and big-mouthed when he feels comfortable or is in the presence of those that embolden him and very likely to get flustered and snap at people when things are becoming a bit too much. Especially if he feels however unjustly that someone is blocking his escape. Has matured slightly in this since leaving school but it happens still, he’s just anxious. Quite fickle and can at the drop of a hat decide that he’s done with you for the day once his Give Me Attention Meter is maxed. Could be an absolute bloody brat when he felt like it but feels he has grown out of it, which he mostly has.

Always been very, very aware of many people’s distrust of him and his family, he used to sneer and play it up if anyone tried to bring up his dad and go on the offensive but was genuinely affected quite deeply by it all. In his early school years, despite his weakness to the cold, he constantly had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow so that his blank forearm was bared as a statement to just about everyone. I am not marked, I never will be. Now he’s older he has more of a handle on things and can be diplomatic in situations where people are clearly discomforted by his presence and his family history.

Even though the war culminated far earlier in this verse I imagine Scor would have had to have been relatively sheltered as a child if not for how emotionally sensitive and prone to periods of ill-health he was, it was definitely for his own safety. He is still the grandson of a known high-ranking Death Eater and that made him a media target and put one on his back for anyone else that might happen to be watching. 

Never produced much of a talent for offensive magic and wouldn’t resort to those methods unless he had literally no other choice, not a front line fighter by any means. His talents with strategy, potion-making, healing and his perseverance with defensive magic are what define him to the Order. While everyone kind of knows who he hung out with at school and who his friends are he is deliberately very mischievous with releasing rumours and misleading people. He deliberately keeps his cards very close to his chest so most people don’t know that he is aligned with anyone, he usually uses glamours or a scarf to conceal his identity if he has to. 

While he is knowledgeable about healing and anatomy, he is the WORST at taking care of himself. The literal embodiment of Healers make the worst patients, tends to forgo sleep and basic bodily needs if he’s locked into what he’s focusing on. Sometimes needs reminders to sleep and eat, like a child. 

Healing is the most satisfying part of his life and he would never give it up, he likes to experiment as he has a fascination with magic and muggle science and where they might intersect. A fucking nerd honestly. While he thinks he’s being fairly subtle about it a large part of his academic life has been doused in research into blood maledictions, for obvious reasons. He does his best not to flutter too obviously around his Mum. She is capable and ten times stronger than he is. 

Lives in a small studio flat in Diagon Alley that is mostly stacks of books and makeshift shelves.

the stillness of the world the moment you take the first step into fresh snow, cashmere and fine wool, the pearlescence of dreamless sleep draught, the scratch of a quill on parchment, faintly tremoring fingers, a shiver up your spine in a warm room, the exhilaration of a problem solved, a thunderous grey overcast sky, the bite of a stitching charm, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, petrichor, the burn in your eyes before a well of tears.

Always had somewhat fragile health tending toward sickly. Hands are never warm, his existence is an endless heat seeking mission. 

Went to one Slug Club meeting and used his time to verbally berate and or challenge most of the contacts in attendance, he was not asked to return. 

Potions Club, Charms Club, used to sometimes be willing to be dragged to Dueling Club but didn’t enjoy himself. 

Plays quite a bit of chess.

Bruises like a fucking peach and scars so easily.

Views quidditch as a good fly spoiled. 

Is a very skilled pianist almost entirely due to his Grandmother’s tutelage. 

Surprisingly great with children/toddlers/babies, no one including himself expected this, he mostly feared them beforehand. 

Bit of a mummy’s boy in that he practically GLOWS when people talk of Astoria’s achievements. 

When he has time off from healing he will have chipped black nail varnish on. 

Highly intelligent but rarely manages to match a pair of socks, chews his quills but no one else’s. 

While very eloquent and well spoken, he is markedly less posh than when he first arrived at Hogwarts.

When he isn’t prone to bouts of insomnia he can take a nap pretty much anywhere. He was once found in a tree after several frantic hours search.

[ CREDIT : CHARACTER PSD template by @karmahelper (defunct url) I tried to find a current social this week by messaging around but couldn’t find anything unfortunately. Forgot to copy this over from the google doc! ]

[danielletinybruiser]

Two Years of Blue

It's been a bit since I updated here, since I suppose I mainly use my instagram account to talk about jiu jitsu. But hey, I have a few things to mull over, which tends to go better in writing, so here we are. Content warning for weight on this one.

I've been a blue belt for two years! And what a wild two years — I did change up my gym, and then, hey, there was this pandemic that ground the world to a halt (and is still doing so). I was very, very lucky, since I was able to train with Viki pretty much the whole time. We had access to mats, and were able to train, and they taught me a great deal: a lot of gi stuff, a ton of leg locks (I never went for them, or defended them well, until I basically just rolled with them for a year), and so much detail in passing and retaining guard.

Viki is a long, lanky blue belt, and I like to think I taught them a bit too. Maybe. 

But of course, even with rolling during lockdown and tons of other cross-training, it took me awhile — really, a few months — to feel a bit more in the groove with jiu jitsu again. We started going back to limited, vaxxed sessions starting in March, and slowly started going back to the gym normally as everyone else got vaxxed up. I'm finally going 3-4 days per week, consistently. This past week, I think I trained grappling every day aside from Wednesday. It's mid-July, which means it's taken me that whole time to feel like I'm getting there.

I'm also competing again in just under two weeks, which has (as it typically does) lit a little fire under me to get my shit together. Or attempt to!

One thing that did help, certainly, was doing a lot of cardio the whole time, and  focusing on getting that to a good place. All winter I did a lot of running, and yes, here it is... a lot of indoor cycling on a [cough, whisper] peleton. I know this makes me a bougie asshole. I know. But the workouts — on the bike and very much on the treadmill — are actually great. The running workouts with at least two of the coaches are appropriate for actual competitive runners. I've done workouts there that were extremely close to things I did as a competitive XC athlete in college. Back when I was actually fast. Fast-ish. I'm not fast anymore. Not even a tiny bit.

But my running is much improved, and the cycling has been an incredible, incredible base for me. I'm routinely doing longer or more challenging rides on non-BJJ days, and then often a shorter ride (or one of the functional strength routines) on days I roll at the gym. My whole thing with it is doing hard cardio when I'm already tired, so I get very used to pushing through. Endurance has never been my problem, but I know that I get slower physically — and, far worse, *super* discouraged mentally — when I get tired.

Doing this much cycling has had a hilarious and, uh, probably obvious side effect: I actually put on a little bit of muscle. I went into the whole Peleton thing thinking "yeah, I'll do cardio twice a day, and lose that stubborn couple of pounds that make competing at 125 dicey in like a month, easy!" and, HA. No. 

What I did get, though, are leg muscles that don't fatigue as fast. I have much more power and energy than I used to, and, hand-to-heart, I don't think I was in bad shape before. It's just... better now.

That took a couple of weeks to accept, I'll be honest. I felt pretty dumb: of fucking course spending... let's say 8 hours a week doing HIIT or climb rides on a bike would build muscle. I’d gain some weight from that, naturally. But now, I'm honestly thrilled to feel comfortable and much stronger at 135 anyway. 

That's where I was always going to be for grappling industries (where there's a 120 and a 135, nothing in between), and where there are 125 lb classes... it's honestly ok. I have a healthy diet, I stick to it rigorously (with the occasional cheat day, ofc), I do cardio almost every day, and I feel good. Will I be a little shortie in this weight class? Of course! But at least I feel like a stronger little shortie, and that's what counts.

As with all of this, let me be clear, I have no delusions of grandeur. This is an awesome hobby that I'm obsessed with! But I only want to compete to learn and get better and do it all on a pretty comfortable level. I'm probably never going to fuck with the open IBJJF tournaments, or anything like that. Give me a nice submission-only tournament for scrubs like me. (Honestly, I wish everything was just submission only. Forever.)

There are actual, legit athletes who use the baby tournaments for a tune-up, and young folks who may become legit athletes who are learning to compete and deal with pressure, probably just because this is NYC and there are world-class gyms here and all that. This 37-year-old goofy white bitch just wants to get as good as possible, given the obvious constraints. And enjoy myself.

To this end, my friends, coaches, and training partners deserve medals for dealing with me. Berto and Jaime (my friends and coaches) have been patiently leading me towards things I need to work on. Viki will roll with me and give me things I need to do based on our roll, and we'll drill them right then and there. And Caroline has been instrumental in me getting my head at least part of the way out of my ass, just going for things. For months, I was rolling, but just playing defense. Just talking to her about it helped, and now, every time we roll, I have that voice in my head telling me to go for things. It's helping.

I just hope I can keep that in mind in two weeks. I get nervous. Really, really nervous. I've competed... this might be nine times? This will be my third blue belt tournament, anyway, and it'll be the first since... January 2020. My head is usually so far up my ass — especially at first — that I will probably make some dumbass mistakes. But I'm working on accepting that I'll feel like an idiot and to just have fun with it and use it to LEARN and find some new things to work on. Embrace the doofus and enjoy.  

Gym Feelings

I also got very, very excited about my gym yesterday. Right before going to a (fantastic) Women/trans/non-binary folks Judo class taught by a really great woman black belt, I went on about how much I love my gym. How inclusive it is, and how, just *not a toxic MMA culture* place it is. I'm just going to copy a bunch of that thread here, just absolutely gushing about Chop and Chops:

Today, in a couple of hours, I'm going to a women/trans/nonbinary grappling class at my gym, taught by a woman Judo black belt. I'm PUMPED.

It's really important to me that my MMA gym is an inclusive, positive environment for me and for everyone. MMA -- and especially Jiu Jitsu -- does NOT need to be a place dominated by bros with awful politics and horrific tattoos. It can be for anyone to enjoy.

The door to my gym has a trans-inclusive rainbow flag on it. The brothers who run it make sure that all women, trans folks, enbies, and any GNC folks feels especially comfortable and have dependable training partners for each class, especially if they are new.

Here's another thing -- its' an MMA gym, there are plenty of cis dudes! But said dudes are respectful and gracious. I feel safe training with them BECAUSE of the atmosphere and attitude of the place, that's certainly not true everywhere.

One of my favorite training partners rn is a very, very sweet bigger white belt due who wrestled at a high level. If you've done BJJ, "bigger white belt who wrestled" is typically the scariest thing. But he is an absolute gentleman, doesn't just throw his weight around...

he is conscientious and I am learning SO MUCH from rolling with him. Again, in another atmosphere, I might be intimidated. In our gym, people learn to train hard but modulate and always respect their training partners.

I know I'm gushing at this point, lol. But I really can't overstate how much that atmosphere of respect and inclusivity is important and makes a massive difference. I'm a small queer woman, training there simply feels great to me, and that's everything.

That's the thread! I can't say enough good things about this place. It's also honestly a refuge for me, a place where I see my friends (where we all hug very aggressively for a couple hours, then chitchat). I guess it all comes down to this: I'm so, so lucky to be a part of this community. I want everyone in the world to have something they love, and amazing people to support them in it/enjoy it with them.

[yogaadvise]

10 Ways to Practice Yoga in the Office

10 Ways To Practice Yoga Exercise in the Office

***

Ok, so your office doesn't precisely include being able to 'quit the day job' as well as accomplish your long-lasting desire for ending up being a yoga exercise instructor yet on the list of holiday options. That's ok. These points require time, (as well as cash!). All of us understand what it's like to rest uncomfortably at a workdesk for hours each time, safe in the understanding that following month's rent will certainly be payable, yet literally itching to drop to descending canine and extend that spinal column on the office rug after hrs staring at a display. As we learn in yoga exercise, locating a center ground is key, and if you truly can not wait for your 6pm Vinyasa class or escape for a fast lunchtime circulation at Yogahub, we've compiled a list of 7 refined yet efficient ways to get your yoga exercise on as you tick via your day-to-day tasks.

Sit up Straight It might sound easy - and it is. Ensuring your spine does not round and become familiar with bending over your coffee and keyboard is essential to preserve a great pose as well as core. Uncross your legs. Merely change your rest bones and stomach to a sharp and conscientious position, and also peel your shoulders back whenever you observe a curvature. Method well balanced and solid breathing, like in Tadasana. This will make certain you preserve emphasis, as well as lessen anxiousness, enabling you to satisfy deadlines as required. You'll additionally feel and also look even more confident! Post-it notes can be a valuable tip to 'stay up' whenever your attention wanders to the walls or flooring or ceiling ... anywhere away from your work!

Side Stretch Last I inspected it was a completely appropriate office task to have a little stretch now and also then - currently all you need to do is exercise conscious breath understanding as you do it! On a deep inhale, raise both arms above your head. You can stay in a seated setting, with your back and shoulders straight. Touch the palms with each other, as well as hold for 5 breaths. Alternative between leaning to the left and also right to experience a stretch in both sides, holding each side for an equivalent number of breaths.

Chair Pose It's called 'Chair Pose' for a reason! Resting straight and also pleasantly with your 2 hands on your thighs, take a number of deep breaths. You can even close your eyes if it's specifically busy today - accomplishing calmness in the chaos of a stressful workplace environment is no easy accomplishment. Increase hands above head, and also making use of the strength in your legs, lift the sit bones several inches from your seat, keeping the 'seated' posture as you hover for 5 breaths.

Seated Cat-Cow While you may do not have the floor room as well as basic social self-confidence to complete a round of cat-cows by the printer equipment, simply peeling your shoulders back and also down on an inhale, and rounding your spinal column to suck your bellybutton towards your spine on an exhale a number of times is a great means to compensate. Make certain you start staying up directly and also take a breath gradually! This position is excellent for alignment as well as re-configuring your entire system after a demanding meeting.

Seated Twist What's that behind you ?? To the left? Hmm, uncertain. Just how around to the? This one is simple discreetly, however do not fail to remember to concentrate on your breath! It's easy to get carried away in the physicality of yoga exercise, and also a setting like an office space makes it added difficult to concentrate on the interior, crucial and advantageous side of the pracitce. Twist from below the waistline, letting your head follow your spinal column and also continue to be on each side for several breaths.

Forward Bend Depending on the understanding of your co-workers this present is a lot more conveniently accessible for some than others. Of training course, you could always simply pretend to have something in your footwear! With feet shoulder-width apart from a standing position, gradually bend forwards from the midsection on a lengthy exhale. Don't compel your hands to touch the flooring, instead let them rest comfortably anywhere they reach naturally, and also remain below for several breaths. Exit the present in a likewise controlled and also mindful fashion.

Tabletop Shoulder Opener Using the actual top of your table or workdesk, run your chair back several inches to make sure that your arms can extend out straight, hands still on the workdesk. Drop head down in between the arms as well as hold for several breaths, making sure the remainder of your torso continues to be in line and also legs are uncrossed. If any individual asks, simply claim you shed something under the desk!

Aeroplane Safety Pose I'm not fairly certain what the real name of this position is, however it looks like the seated forward fold from your chair that's advised on aeroplanes to assume must the airplane enter any trouble! Widen legs and go down gradually from the lower back and hips until your upper body is relaxing on your legs, head hanging towards the flooring. Numerous breaths right here might work as your new go-to present for any worried or demanding situations!

Pranyama and Meditation Remember, 'to practice yoga exercise' does not merely imply resolving an effective circulation of asanas and also feeling like you've completed a terrific exercise. There is far more to an energetic as well as genuine yoga exercise technique than physically tough yourself to a present you've never ever done before. In this sense, a workplace atmosphere can in fact be the perfect location to exercise breathing and also pranyama techniques you have actually learned in class. If absolutely nothing else, it is certainly the environment in which they may end up being needed summarily - demanding situations and also occupational anxiousness strikes even one of the most practiced yogis sometimes, and also it is essential to be able to take 5-10 minutes break from job, not always from your workdesk, yet to simply breathe. Shut your eyes and technique "4-2-6" breathing, or quietly overcome a round of Kapal Bahti as your coworkers quabble over that's going to get this week's lotto numbers.

Practice Gratitude This can be as easy as claiming 'thank you' to the brand-new trainee who's simply handed over your coffee, or more meditative as you steadly advise on your own to value the task you have for the funding it offers you to live, to take a trip, and to go to yoga exercise courses! Whenever it comes to be as well much, remind on your own of this, and be happy for all the little things. Thank your body for being a healthy and working vessle by nurturing it at lunch, and guaranteeing your ongoing development and focus!

There are numerous other adaptations to aid you maintain your practice and emphasis in the office, specifically with the appearance of Chair Yogain recent years and the variety of basic stretches as well as twists that can be exercised from a seated setting. Though they may not give a full body stretch and also sense of invigoration that a complete practice will, they at the very least will aid you obtain via the day in the office without tensing up excessive and will absolutely help keep your flexibility and strength.

Alternatively there are additionally currently lots of yoga workshops and independent instructors using business yoga courses to groups of employees in workplaces in their area- why not suggest it to your associates and organise your preferred yoga exercise instructor to find to you?

[vaguely-concerned]

the mandalorian episode 7 reactions

spoilers under the cut!

- during my rewatches I have been thinking ‘damn baby yoda has witnessed A Lot of murders/seen his dad get hurt even more’ and found it strange it hasn’t affected him more and little did I know they were saving it all to fucking stab me in the heart with one barbed wire-wrapped zweihander. the scared way he shakes his little green head while mando tries to reassure him fjskdfhaksd T___________T 

cara tho of all people. okay this is kind of a crazy idea but bear with me: what if baby yoda picks up a lot on mando’s feelings (in a wordless baby-with-a-Force-connection sort of way -- almost a metaphoric heightening of how babies actually attune to their caretakers in real life), and normally mando is a bit detached/dissociated around others but he’s starting to warm up to and trust cara and it’s bringing him a bit more online and the baby reads that engagement/excitement as danger because that’s the only thing he has to compare it to? like they’re clearly actually having fun but the baby wouldn’t know that because uh mando has never just had fun around him before and to the baby adrenaline seems like adrenaline no matter the source. that might be completely off base but it was what dropped into my brain right away so *shrug*

I’m so grateful mando doesn’t get mad at bb even when he gets scared like that though. it’s good for my soul. 

- cara and mando being bros is Life, is Love 

- but most of all CARA!!! I love her!!! and the effortless way mando put down his trump card.... “sorry got stuff to do people to beat up no can do my helmeted friend” “’kay. by the way we’re going Imp hunting” “:D:D:D when do we leave”

- KUIIL Y_____________Y actually I refuse (REFUSE) to accept it until someone finds his body and confirms he’s actually dead, I believe denial is my prerogative it’s almost christmas for goodness’ sake  

- when cara, greef karga and mando are about to leave for the town I actually SCREAMED at the screen “MANDO REASSURE YOUR CHILD AND TELL HIM EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY BEFORE YOU LEAVE HE NEEDS SOME SAFETY” and then he didn’t and then I cried 

- pedro pascal did some Things with his voice in this one and it was mean and unfair and uncalled for and awful. the honest hurt and fear in his voice when he says “It tried to kill him”? END ME

- mando straight up doesn’t seem to know anything about the Force at all, or at least not in a way that lets him connect it to the baby. maybe he vaguely knows jedi were a thing but not quite what they actually were. I like that, an interesting showcase of the different perspectives through the galaxy. (maybe finding someone to help out with this is going to be the story arc for next season?

- I actually think this is the first episode where they’ve tried to cover too much in too little time and had to drop the emotional consistency as a consequence. it’s understandable since they need to get all the pieces set up right for the finale, but it didn’t quite work for me (by which I mean for the love of god I needed just one scene, however short, of mando and baby yoda connecting properly with nothing else going on to help me through the stress/reaffirm the bond so it’s unbearably fresh in your mind what this is all for. yes that’s right I wanted them to hurt me more that’s how I roll)

the stuff Kuiil was doing there with his droid story also felt slightly disjointed? out of tune with the rest of the episode? I like him very much and I think I see what they were going for but it felt a little off? mando gently being faced with the fact that droids are naturally neutral and that it’s people who decide what to make them/teach them (yessss go off kuiil!) deserves more space to breathe, this is definitely my least favourite episode so far  

- lol @ the empire dude. ‘yeah okay but apart from all the genocide what did we even do to anyone tho???’ in the end he seemed to earnestly admire mandalorian culture in an almost fanboyish way, which doesn’t really surprise me; there must be some decent overlap between people who believed in the empire and people who think the mandalorian tendency towards militarism and (periodic) expansionism is Cool. (which is why I traditionally haven’t cared much for them, incidentally, they’ve always sort of bored me as a warrior culture before this series added some mystical/more overtly religious overtones to the whole thing)

also loved how mando gave him  n o t h i n g  at all to work with and cara’s ‘who the hell is this guy??’ to the new bad guy lol

- mando averting the fight between kuiil and cara just by being soft and asking for help/reminding them of the kid ;___; I love him he knows how to deescalate a situation when he wants to 

also the parallell between baby yoda protecting mando and the droid hovering ready to protect kuiil... right in the feels man. also kuiils air of dignity and experience is so effective. pls be my gruff no-nonsense grandpa who helps me with my computer kuiil

if kuiil is actually dead (which I continue to REFUSE but if) I get the feeling that mando is going to have to Reevaluate some things basically out of respect to his memory, since the way he describes putting this droid back together is framed so heavily as parenthood and surely there must be some empathy for that at least behind that beskar chest plate at this point

I have been thinking that adding a droid to mando’s little uh ‘crew’ would be thematically appropriate so maybe that’s what going on? kuiil said he could reprogram it for childcare, perhaps we’ve found the babysitter we’ve been begging for

- the one-sided vendetta between mando and the very soft spoken, very conscientious, very polite droid is hilarious. mostly because it thus far has manifested mainly in mando presumably glaring behind the helmet and being slightly snippy in saying he won’t come down for dinner like a fucking teenage boy in a sulk fjskdafhsd (I am slightly forgiving of him because droids pointing guns at the kid must be trigger central for him and I can sympathize, it’d take some time to change)

- some other high points of hilarity: three blurrgs and four people in mando’s tiny rustbucket of a ship. “It’s trying to eat me!”. the fact that greef karga was ABSOLUTELY planning to double cross them from the beginning and admitting it openly, he ain’t ashamed (the ‘mando get better friends’ campaign continues). mando describing the spectacular firefight at the end of ep 3 as ‘a bit of a run-in’. baby cackling as he finally gets a turn behind the steering stick of the razor crest. the mysterious multiplying four storm troopers (‘you said four fucking storm troopers karga!!!!’) phenomena. “well there are more. what can I tell you”. mando, with perfect disdain: “on your wall”. the panicked force choke was upsetting but the fact that ‘we do not strangle our friends’ was the Mando Parenting Lesson of the day is undeniably kind of funny.  

- anyway I am here and ready to pass out from stress waiting for mando to lose his entire shit and go on a roaring rampage of rescue to save his kid in the next episode (I swear to GOD disney there better not be any between-season cliffhangers about this or I will fucking riot/possibly just die)

ETA: I FORGOT TO MENTION: credit where it’s due the flamethrower did pull it’s weight in this one, I still think he should invest in something more reliable but it did the trick this time and fair is fair

[saiilorstars]

The Beginning of Everything

Ch. 19: The Monaxi Reality Show

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: Female OC x 10th Doctor

(OC Renata’s Face claim: Marjorie de Sousa) (Gabby’s face claim: Victoria Moroles)

// Story Masterlist //

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DISCLAIMER: This chapter’s plotline is from Doctor Who’s comic stories. Most of the dialogue is directly written from the comic. The plot is NOT mine.

Chapter Summary: The Doctor discovers who the Sky Hunters really are and he, along with Renata and everyone else, have to put up the fight of their lives in order to end the Monaxi's little horror show.

Gabby felt like her head was spinning. Her kidnappers - or saviors, it was still in the air - were talking at the same time, one voice over the other, so she didn't really know where to interrupt to make her case. She was grateful that one of them - the only human-looking one - had stopped the team from killing her on the spot but now they were all arguing with each other. Actually, on some level it was mind of funny because they started out debating what to do with her and somehow ended up arguing with each other over other things.

"Only you were stupid enough to get caught by them too!"

"Come on! Let's just fry her already!"

"Be quiet! Everyone, I'm trying to think!"

Gabby hadn't even gotten up from where the ship's force-field placed her after being brought into the ship. She was afraid that if she moved even an inch, everyone would shoot her. You can't just sit there and let your friends die! She exhaled deeply. She really couldn't just sit there. Her eyes flickered to the human man who seemed to be taking the reigns of the team. He could be her only salvation right now.

"Y-you," she found her opportunity to speak once the Earth man shut the other members up. "You're a human like me, right?"

The man furrowed his eyebrows at her. She at least didn't seem like he wanted to kill her, unlike the others, which gave Gabby hope that this was the right way to go.

"Yes, I am," he answered in a gruff tone.

"So am I!" Gabby exclaimed and pulled herself up to her feet. "If you can scan for a false bio signature, you should be able to pinpoint the origin of my DNA. You'll find I'm a native too!"

One of the members - a blue alien creature with a tiny head, a squared body and fat legs - scanned her with a circular object on its chest. "She's right," it declared a few seconds later. It brought up one of its skinny (almost tentacle-like) arms to the Earth man. It's hand was a screen that showed the results of the test on Gabby. "She's telling the truth boss, except there's an anomaly. Her DNA is genetically distinct. A throw forward, like she's from another time zone."

Gabby gulped. "I can...I can explain that…"

"What, you're a tourist from the future? That's even worse!" a bald, humanoid man with two sets of eyes growled. Gabby did not like his buff arms holding a high tech gun at her.

"And impossible," added a tall, green humanoid women with long, like hair.

"Not at all," went a pine tree-looking alien. "It's just not allowed. Generally speaking, anyway. I have seen future days…"

"Shut up, all of you!" the Earth man ordered again. "This data says you're from the world's future, supposing that were even possible," he looked at Gabby. "Why are you here?"

Gabby didn't answer straight away because she was a little bit distracted with the blue alien's tentacles floating around her. "Umm...to stop the Sky - I mean the Monaxi?" She had no idea what the 'Monaxi' were but she figured it was the name of the creatures behind the 'Sky hunters'. "That's what the Doctor and Renata do. They help. We help."

"What? You're conscientious objectors? I hate them almost as much as I hate tourists," the buff alien huffed.

"Last time some well-meaning protesters were captured by the Monaxi," the woman said. "They got themselves splattered across three valleys."

Gabby's eyes widened.

"Right. That's not what's needed here, future girl," the pine tree alien said.

"We are one cell amongst many who resist the Monaxi," the Earth man explained.

"They're invading," Gabby nodded. That much she could conclude on her own based on what she'd already seen.

"No, they're enslavers. They use this area's people and many others as a stock cupboard. Or pantry, based on whom they're selling them to."

Oh, this is bad, Gabby gulped.

~0~

"It's hot," Donna concluded almost as soon as she was conscious.

The Doctor was already standing up and gazing about. Wherever they were it was very different from the woods. For starters, Donna was right. It was blazing hot. They were in a desert that even included the traditional three birds flying in the sky that one would usually see on t.v. There was a lake not so far away from where they were but that was pretty much it.

"Doctor, where are we?" Donna got up and looked about.

"Never mind that," Renata stood up fast, but doing that too fast left her wobbly on her legs for a bit. "We need to find Gabriella and fast. Who knows where she is or who took her."

"Meerox?"

The trio turned to see Munmeth calling to another trio from a distance.

"Doctor, I don't like this place," Renata told the man. None of them were really concerned with who Munmeth was talking to considering they looked like they were part of his clan or the River clan. She was more worried about Gabby and where she ended up. Of course she wasn't denying they weren't in enough danger themselves. Already they had been attacked earlier and were taken away by the nets only to be deposited where they were now.

"I may have an idea of who's playing with us," the Doctor said quietly so Donna wouldn't hear.

Renata looked at him with widened eyes. "Someone you know?" She didn't mean to sound accusatory, but that's how she sounded and for a moment the Doctor lowered his head. "Doctor, I-I didn't…" she sighed. "This isn't you. Whoever did this is at fault. And we're gonna find them."

"Munmeth, watch out!" Donna shouted and ran to yank the man back before one of the trio of his clan speared him to death.

"But I know them!" Munmeth was stunned that he'd nearly been killed by his own friends.

"Nobody's a friend here," the Doctor eyed the trio carefully.

Renata seized the spear that had nearly taken Munmeth and held it threateningly at the clan trio. "I don't know who's pulling your strings but you better stay the hell away from us."

"Munmeth, if we don't fight you, we'll be punished," the women from the trio answered.

"Oh," Renata straightened up a bit. "So they're real." She thought they might have been projections or basic technology but no, they were actual people.

"No we don't!" the Doctor snatched the spear from the Renata's hand and struck it into the air just as a huge bird - a pterodactyl - swooped over them. It came crashing down with sparks and its head rolling to the side.

"It's a robot," Donna caught the wires sticking out from the bird's neck. She flinched when the Doctor smashed its head with his foot. It was very aggressive and unlike him, but the situation called for it. "Now listen to me," the Doctor turned to the clan trio, "We don't have much time. This was not a bird. It was a camera." He pulled out his glasses to examine the bird. "It was the eyes of those who are truly watching you, stealing you from your homes, making you fight. We need to destroy as many of these cy-birds as we can."

"Who is this stranger?" a blonde man asked then eyed Renata and Donna.

"Who are you to tell us what to do?" asked the second man, a bald man.

"Seriously?" Renata groaned. "I really hate when they do this," she looked at the Doctor. "Humans can be very slow sometimes."

"Oi!" Donna elbowed her in the ribs.

"Quickly, we don't have much time," the Doctor pulled the spear from the ground again.

"Do as he says," Munmeth urged his people. "He is...the medicine man."

~0~

"Gabby, I'm Effrid Blink and these are my associates," the Earth man was introducing himself to Gabby. The team was somewhat more amiable than before but the only one who really seemed to take an honest, friendly attitude towards Gabby was Effrid.

Gabby still put on her best, warmest smile as Effrid introduced her to each of the crew members.

"Mem-brain was liberated from a Monaxi circus. He can't remember his real name."

The buff alien in question only huffed and went to the computers along with the woman with them.

"Unta, a Jerdian, whose world has become considerably more warlike in response to the Monaxi threat…"

Gabby wiggled her fingers in a hello manner but neither alien in question seemed to care for it...except for Tony.

"I'm Tony, hi!" the blue-squared alien that had scanned her earlier waved one it's tentacles at her. It definitely cheered up Gabby a bit.

"Tony, as inscrutable as he is useful," Effrid seemed closer to smiling. "It was he who rescued me from Monaxi. The tender mercies long ago. I still don't know what's inside that plasma suit he wears, but I trust him with my life."

Gabby eyed Tony's exterior with newfound curiosity since his skin wasn't skin but a suit. "Nice to meet you all."

"If you're sticking around, girlie, make yourself useful," Unta said as she sat down in front of the computers like Mem-brain.

"It's really nice to meet you all," Gabby said rather fast as she had more pressing matters to get to. "Listen, my friends got taken away and I really need to find them."

"Guerilla tactics are best when dealing with the Monaxi," Effrid went to take the head chair of the controls.

"That way we were made a hazard for the relatively minor operation they have going here," Tony said.

"What do you mean?" Gabby neared the screens, wishing to God she had learned some basic alien language in the past but...alas, she had not. "I really need to find my friends."

"We keep them from decimating the population," Effrid looked back at the concerned Gabby. "That's about all we can do. Resources are stretched."

"Well...how long has the Monaxi been doing this?" Gabby asked.

"Too long," sighed Effrid. "Longer than I can remember."

"They're like a plague," Tony shook his tiny head. "We'd need an army to drive them back."

"No," Gabby said matter-of-factly. She immediately had the looks of Unta and Mem-brain. "You need Renata and the Doctor. Trust me."

~0~

The Doctor had led the group through the 'desert' and discovered many more cy-animals that contained cameras. They were being watched through everything it seemed.

"Are we clear on what we do, then?" the Doctor asked the group once they stopped by another lake for a quick rest and catch up. Munmeth's friends still seemed a bit unconvinced that the Doctor's plan was the way to go, but it was really the only plan they had that gave them a chance to survive. "Whatever happens, whatever you see, and no matter how terrifying it looks...stick to the plan." He reached for his sonic inside his coat and started examining the lake in front of them.

Renata noticed the worried looks from the others and assumed they still weren't very trusting of their technology. "It's really alright," she assured them. "It's just a sonic...which...you don't really understand either…"

"As I suspected - hard light synthetics," the Doctor read off his sonic.

Donna crossed her arms and gave the man a pointed look. "And for those of us who don't speak 'Doctor'?" she then glanced at Renata but the Time Lady put her hands up.

"Don't look at me, I barely know what he's talking about sometimes."

The Doctor rolled his eyes at their conversation. "I meant it's holographic. It can be disrupted. As can anything else on similar wavelengths."

Donna practically glared at him. "I still don't know what the hell you mean!"

"Nothing here is real," the Doctor lowered his sonic with a heavy sigh.

"Doctor…" Renata had caught something dark forming across the lake. She took a few steps forwards, letting the water hit her ankles, but she didn't seem to mind getting wet. "What's that?" she pointed up ahead.

Sand swirled as if there was a sandstorm coming. Something black was forming in the middle of it and it looked to be huge.

"Positions people!" the Doctor immediately shouted. "Remember to wait for my signal!"

Donna was the first to rush away but she pulled Munmeth with her, who then brought along the rest.

"Renée, you too," the Doctor reminded but Renata shook her head.

"I want to know who the hell created all this and took Gabriella from us," she said with a deep scowl across her face. Her eyes narrowed as the creature from the sandstorm finally emerged but there was an immediate confusion once she saw its squid figure. "I'm sorry-" she blinked, "-are we under the sea?"

"I should've recognized all the trademark signs of oppression," the Doctor frowned. "A whole holographic coliseum to test out the qualities of those they enslave."

"I must have missed that class," Renata mumbled. She studied the bright orange squid coming towards them on its dozens of long tentacles. Its top part resembled a circular spaceship but it was still bright orange with only a streak of silver at its middle.

"The energy nets, indiscriminate use of tractor beams directly upon living matter, dumping unwanted captives from great heights...the needless cruelty…" the Doctor reached for Renata's hand, gripping it tight as soon as he held her. "Everyone, now!" He dove to the ground, pulling Renata with him, and allowed for a perfect target that the others could get.

Everyone threw piles of sand at the squid, delaying its arrival to their side of the lake. The Doctor then aimed his sonic at the squid and activated it. The squid's orange and silver top seemed to rise a bit and revealed a monster-like head underneath complete with classic horror, sharp teeth and dozens of eyes.

"What is that, Doctor!?" Donna watched the squid struggle to stay on its tentacles thanks to the sonic.

"A species of traders that prey on less advanced lifeforms and sells them to high civilizations," the Doctor said. "An elusive race known to be that rare thing, a composite of physical matter and energy. And if I am recalling correctly, you also pipe the gladiatorial spectacle from these coliseums back to your homeships. Munmeth, Kria, now!"

Munmeth and Kria came running with a huge, fashioned net between them. Between them and Renata, they threw the net over the squid and essentially knocked it to its side. The Doctor's sonic was messing with the squid's tech on its top.

"Pitiful little...bipeds…" the squid groaned and slowly picked itself up again, tossing the net to the side.

"Oh, it talks," Donna made a gesture as if she should've known it would've talked.

"Good," Renata glared at it. "So it can tell us where the hell we are and where the hell Gabriella is."

"You'll regret causing damage and delay," the squid warned.

"Try me," Renata was quick to say despite not having much to defend herself with.

"Renée, just stay back!" the Doctor exclaimed as he kicked up the energy from his sonic.

"I may not have a sonic but I do have my ways," Renata scowled.

"Yeah, well, as much as I'm very curious how your balled fists are going to solve this...let me just take care of it!" the Doctor put himself in front of her and used every last bit of energy to finally put the creature down.

The squid collapsed on its own tentacles and as it went down, the orange faded from its skin and left it with a rotten, green color.

"Is it...dead?" asked Donna made sure to stay a few feet away from them just in case.

"I ruptured his energy carapace," the Doctor shrugged as he tucked his sonic back into his pocket. "I popped him...but he'll recover eventually."

"I need him to talk now," Renata snapped, although not directly at him. She was just upset that so far they hadn't gotten any clue of where they were and they were no closer to finding Gabby either.

"Renée, we're dealing with the Monaxi," the Doctor told her and watched her blink in realization. "They might be vicious but maybe they aren't as tough as they look."

"How could I have missed what they were?" Renata brought a hand to her forehead and rubbed hard circles over her skin.

"It's impossible to remember every single race we learned about…"

"You don't forget."

"I'm not normal."

That made Renata smile for a moment. Of course, the Monaxi finally spoke up and ruined their moment.

"How could a stupid local biped like you know that we are Monaxi?"

"You actually can't tell the difference between any of us, can you?" snapped the Doctor. "We're all just two-legged insects to you, huh!? Just raw material to be enslaved or slaughtered."

"It's not like you matter."

Renata actually gasped out of pure offence. "This is why I don't like travelling sometimes," she looked at the Doctor. "Because every once in a while, you meet creatures like these."

"It's a good thing we're not just any travelers," the Doctor looked directly at the Monaxi. "Constellation of Kasterberous ring a bell?"

It definitely did. "Not possible…"

Renata actually wanted to grab the Doctor's arm when he started walking towards the Monaxi. She didn't want him anywhere near the creature who still had possession of its dozen tentacles.

"Your psi-control maintaining the illusion of this place is weak," the Doctor spat. "I will ask you this only once: bring down this holographic lieso we can see where we really are."

"If you insist," the Monaxi surprisingly said.

The area around the group began to glow for a minute then died a few seconds to reveal a coliseum and they were right in the middle of it.

"What are these strange caves?" Munmeth was wide-eyed at the structure around them. Glass walls lined the circular wall on each level where there were supposed to be benches.

"They're not caves," Renata moved towards one glass wall. Now it was the Doctor who wanted to keep her close. "They're...cages…"

"What?" Munmeth looked at her.

"Imagine a net for people, a net that you can't get out of," Renata stopped walking and turned sideways to meet the man's gaze. "Everyone who has been taken is in here, in these walls…"

Munmeth didn't seem to believe it at first but once he heard the cry of his daughter, who was stuck behind one of the glass walls, it all seemed to make sense. He rushed for his daughter but came crashing into the glass instead. "Doctor, you must help me! Muthmunna!" he banged against the glass.

"I don't suppose there's a button or something we can push?" Donna quietly asked Renata.

Renata shot a glare at the Monaxi that'd brought them here. "Not unless it's feeling generous."

The Doctor shared the glare on the creature. "Drop the cage shields, Monaxi," he spat the name out.

The Monaxi's dozen eyes glowed a bright red. "I can't do that."

"Do it or I'll do worse than give your energy sac a puncture," the Doctor whipped out his sonic again and threatened the Monaxi with it.

"You misunderstand me. I am unable to. I don't have the etheric key. Only our leader possesses that."

And just as it finished explaining, something a deep orange light burst from its top. The Doctor just barely jumped out of the way when it exploded. He landed face first but looked up in time to see an even bigger Monaxi floating in the air.

"You'd risk taking the life of one of your own just to be sure of shooting me in the back!? You must be really scared!"

"I'm scared for you - get over here!" Renata practically hissed at him from her spot. She felt completely useless being unable to remember anything about the stupid creatures. She admitted there were a few times where she wouldn't pay attention in school, and much more - ironically - when she spent a lot of her time with a young Doctor.

"Gallifreyans. I know what you are," the larger Monaxi remarked. "I am Iktra. My colleague here, Vozmarth, is young, ambitious, inexperienced and foolish. He never was good for much and now he's lived up to his promise."

"It's his fault you fired him?" the Doctor almost laughed. "That's harsh even by Monaxi standards."

"You dare judge me, Time Lord?" the Monaxi lowered its body a bit as if to look the Doctor face-to-face. "In ancient times, of all the races we traded with, yours were the cruelest...the most demanding. Your kind had the most unrelenting of appetites, you were the most terrifying in your ambivalence. You use your time scoops to populate your own coliseums, your death zone, but you needed the likes of us too. You demanded gladiators for your entertainment and we supplied them."

"At least not all of us were awful," Renata called out, gaining his attention whether or not the Doctor wanted it. "We may have started out that way but some of us learned and evolved. I don't think the same applies to your people."

"At least my people are alive."

Renata's face fell flat.

"Word gets around, Time Lords. You'd have to go back to primeval times to find any of your kind outside the time lock."

"Now!" Donna suddenly shouted and when Renata and the Doctor looked back to see Donna leading the others with the huge net from earlier. They threw it over the Monaxi once again.

"You filthy bipeds!" the Monaxi shook against the net. "You cannot hold a Monaxi! I'll kill you all!"

But this time they were ready for him. One man jumped with the net to stand on top of the Monaxi and secure the net. Donna pulled hard and had the others follow her lead.

Renata actually smiled at the efforts. "It's moments like these where I can see why you appreciate the humans so much," she told the Doctor. He gave her a side-glance that encompassed his surprise at her words, but also a newfound fondness for her. He'd been getting those lately, actually.

"Use that sonic of yours to disrupt his energy carapace as well," she suddenly instructed. "If this Monaxi is the leader then by de-activating his energy carapace…"

"...we can essentially de-activate the others," the Doctor finished with a huge grin. "Renée, you're a genius!"

"I...wouldn't go that far," Renata made a face.

The Doctor didn't care for that statement. He thought she was incredibly smart, but that was a conversation for another time. "Keep him steady!" He told the others and hurried to take his sonic out again.

"We're...trying!" Donna struggled with her end of the net so Renata ran to help her.

The Monaxi shook violently to rid itself of the net. "You can't hold me!"

"Monaxi, cease all hostile actions immediately!" rang a loud voice. For a moment, the Monaxi stopped and it gave the Doctor the perfect chance to de-activate.

Once more his sonic lit up when it took aim against the Monaxi. Even as it shook, its orange color began to glow to eventually fade away just like before. "Cranking up the levels!" the Doctor was happy to report despite the terrible struggle he was now facing as well.

"Monaxi, surrender now!" rang the same voice from before.

"Where's that coming from!?" Donna wildly looked around in case they would also be attacked from something else.

Renata was the first to see a huge ship - no, rocketship. She gasped and unintentionally let go of her part of the net. "It's the ship that took Gabriella!"

Donna nearly fell back from when Renata let go of the net. "Would you be so kind to keep helping!"

"Sorry!" Renata quickly reached for her part again. "But that's the ship! We have to get Gabriella back!"

"Monaxi! Cease or we'll slice you in half!"

"I'd rather not go anywhere near that thing!" Donna cried as soon as she'd heard the threat. "If it shoots it'll hurt us too!"

Renata's eyes widened. "Good point! Everyone!" she yelled to those aiding them. "Get away from the Monaxi!" she made the gesture for them to follow her. "Doctor, you too!"

"Just a bit more!" the Doctor kept a steady aim on the Monaxi. "I've almost drained it!"

A few seconds later came the promise of a blast that sliced the Monaxi in half. The force threw everyone on the ground.

"Doctor!?" Renata was quick to call when she raised her head off the ground.

"I'm here, I'm here!" he was shaking his head to get rid of some straggling sand. "And whoever just attacked did help with de-activating the energy sources, so...I guess we should thank them?"

Renata discarded his confusion and gazed up at the huge ship in the sky. "We need to get Gabriella back."

But before they could even think of a plan, the ship took position to land. It lowered itself to the ground and opened its cargo door. A few seconds later, a few aliens, plus two humans, emerged from it.

"Renata! Doctor! Donna!" Gabby came running up to the trio.

"Gabriella, thank goodness you're alright!" Renata hugged the girl tightly. "You are alright...right?"

Gabby laughed as she pulled away. "Yes. They-" she pointed over her shoulder to the team she was with, most of which were now helping get the prisoners out of their glass cages, "-are rebellion fighters."

"Lucky for you, then," Donna crossed her arms. "Meanwhile, we were stuck fighting for a reality show."

"Donna," the Doctor shook his head at the poor comparison.

"That's what it was!"

Gabby chuckled.

~0~

Once Effrid had rounded the last of the Monaxi still straggling about, the Doctor felt it was right to leave. They had also helped Munmeth and his people into Effrid's ship so that they could be returned home.

"What about the other Monaxi?" Gabby asked the trio once they neared the TARDIS. "Would they come here to investigate why all their people disappeared?"

"Nah," the Doctor didn't hesitate to shake his head. "Monaxi always want things easy so I've rigged up a warning beacon. If more come this way, they'll know that this world is defended by us." He smiled specifically at Renata, but the woman only laughed.

"Oh please, like you said, what am I going to do with my balled fists?" she raised her two fists and tilted her head at them. "Not much, I think." She chuckled again and went inside the TARDIS first.

The Doctor seemed to think of something that kept him lingering outside even when Gabby and Donna went inside, something that brought out a big smile from him.

[humanp30ple]

👁️ Lana 👁️

Basic

Name: Leilani Sanchez

Nickname: Lana, L

Age: 16

Gender/Pronouns/presentation: cis woman, she/her, masculine.

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: Puerto Rican and Thai

Race: Asian Hispanic

Orientation: Lesbian? It’s complicated. She’s 99% sure she’s a lesbian

Known Languages: English, Spanish

Occupation: High school student, dreams of being an astrobiologist; wants to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life forms

Physical Description:

She’s a stocky young woman who stands at 5’8” and weighs 225. She has a waist that isn’t very defined, her shoulders and hips are about the same width. She has a relatively flat chest that she flattens further with a binder. Her bottom is flatter than it is round and most of her weight is situated around her torso and her upper thighs and arms. She has deeply tanned, slightly dry skin that’s prone to mild breakouts and covered in a light dusting of peach fuzz, dark brown eyes, and dark, shoulder-length, coily hair pulled back into a loose ponytail.

She has a round face that is nearly as wide as it is long with her cheekbones being the widest part of her face. She has upturned, slightly protruding, hooded monolid eyes with rounded, bushy low arch eyebrows. Her nose has a wide bridge with a slight hump that leads into a broad tip and a wide nasal base. She has a wide mouth with a heavy lower lip and a rounded cupid’s bow. She has a slight overbite and requires braces. She has a toothy, crooked, contagious smile. Her ears are slightly larger than average and are round with an attached earlobe.

She has small hands with long, ovoid palms and short, chubby fingers. When she was younger she would bite her nails, causing them to become stubby and uneven. She doesn’t paint her nails often. When she does, it's usually with clear, black, white, navy blue, lime green, or candy apple red polish. She is left-handed.

She has three small beauty marks that form a triangle; one next to the head of her left eyebrow, one directly below the middle of her collar bone, and one on her neck to the left side of her windpipe.

She often wears a dark orange denim shirt over a white X-Files t-shirt with brown, loose-fitting, corduroy pants that are rolled up at the ankle, revealing a pair of plain maroon crew socks followed by a pair of distressed white hi-top classic converse.

Likes/Dislikes

Likes:

Investigating conspiracies and secret government shenanigans

Aliens and the possibility of extraterrestrial life

Space and space-related things

Unprompted discussions about philosophy, religion, and the nature of reality

Theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, and related sciences

Memes and vines and other funnies

Long road trips

Being right

Sweet, sour, spicy, and salty foods

Dislikes:

Being lied to

Being wrong about something and not knowing it

The thought of being alone in the universe

Being the last to know something

People who are quick to disbelieve

Bad journalism

Bitter foods

Favorite colors:

Orange and brown

Favorite Food(s):

Chicharrones de Pollo

Frybread with honey and powdered sugar

Favorite Drink(s):

Dr. Pepper

Favorite Song/Theme Song:

Touch​-​Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon

Movies/TV Shows/Performances: 

X-Files

In Search of…

Invader Zim

Book(s):

War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

Favorite Subjects in school:

Trigonometry

Physics

Astronomy

Favorite animal(s):

Dogs

Favorite place(s): 

The library

Her room

The local observatory

Personality:  She's ambitious and driven, with a strong work ethic and the ability to visualize what others can't. She prides herself on having scrupulous attention to detail, a vivid imagination with a strong sense of compassion, and her ability to see through dishonesty and disingenuous motives; she sees how people and events are connected. When she comes to believe that something is important, they pursue that goal with a conviction and energy that can catch others off-guard. She won’t engage in any actions or promote beliefs just to benefit herself. Rather she does what she does and believes what she believes because she trusts that it will make the world a better place.

She’s very talkative and outspoken and prides herself in being straightforward and is neither subtle nor devious in her speech or behavior. She says what's on her mind and pulls no punches. According to some, she’s a little lacking in regard to tact and diplomacy due to her frankness. She’s opinionated and loves to share those opinions, even when literally no one asked her to, and she loves a good argument or debate. Still, she makes an honest effort to be mindful of others and how her words could affect them.

She is quick-tempered but isn’t known to hold grudges and although she can get quite angry, she doesn’t hold it in and stew about what bothers her. She gets upset, gets over it, then moves on.

She has an inquiring mind filled with thoughts that are a little unconventional and perhaps somewhat eccentric but are nevertheless unique to her and her alone. People tend to have a hard time understanding how she thinks or why she expresses herself in the ways she does. She likes to think of herself as being ahead of her time. Ideas and intellectual freedom are her top priority. She doesn’t like to be told how to do things and wants the freedom to do things her own way. There never seems to be enough time to do all the things she has on her mind. Mental restlessness causes her to always be on the search for new information and knowledge. She has unique ways of passing this new information along to others. Boredom is seldom a problem for her.

A lot of her thoughts and behavior is driven by a subconscious ambition for power, recognition, distinction, and status. She is not content to follow and craves a leading role in whatever she does. She’s a dedicated and tenacious worker capable of foregoing immediate comfort in order to achieve her long-range goals. She can easily become a workaholic and is very conscientious about doing a thorough job. She’s prone to being overly-enthusiastic in all of her endeavors, especially when it comes to doing research on topics that interest her such as paranormal activity and the possibility of coexisting with extraterrestrial life forms. She is always eager to share her findings with her friends, followers, and really anyone who will listen. However, sometimes her over-zealousness leaves others questioning her credibility.

At times she can come off as stubborn, impatient, self-centered, impulsive, and perhaps a little dogmatic. When someone challenges or criticizes her principles or values, they are likely to receive an alarmingly strong response. She’s highly vulnerable to criticism and conflict. Questioning her motives and methodology is the quickest and easiest way to get on her bad side.

She has a natural tendency to stand alone and do everything herself, thus she finds it very difficult to ask for help.

She’s extremely private when it comes to her personal life. She finds it difficult to truly open up, even to close friends. Trusting a new friend can be very challenging for her and she often feels there are few people in this world who truly get her.

She often gets so caught up in her pursuits that any of the cumbersome tasks that come between her and her ideal vision is deeply unwelcome. She likes to know that she is taking concrete steps toward her goals. If routine tasks feel like they are getting in the way – or worse yet, there is no goal at all – she will start to feel restless and disappointed.

Her passion, impatience for routine maintenance, idealism, and extreme privacy tend to leave her with few options for letting off steam. She frequently exhausts herself and struggles to find ways to balance her ideals with the realities of day-to-day living.

Misc. Information

She has a Chihuahua named Laika. He’s a coward and isn’t very intelligent and he looks like a sad rat but he’s trying his best and she loves him very much.

Kins Fox Mulder and Dib Membrane

Her first crush was Dana Scully

Runs a blog dedicated to documenting her experiences with, research into, and general passion for aliens and paranormal activity under the pseudonym “A. Leon”.

[shihalyfie]

A meta and analysis on Yagami Taichi

Being the face of Adventure and arguably the rest of the franchise, Taichi has the honor of being an important figure in the realm of shounen anime overall, which has the unfortunate side effect of very often being described with things that don’t actually match him at all -- the way people often talk about him (especially mainstream press) tends to portray him like a stereotypical shounen hero who charges aggressively into everything and is hot-blooded all of the time. That’s not...quite on the mark.

I think “impulsive” is certainly a correct way to describe him, but in a very different way than one might think -- and, in fact, Taichi is much more of a multifaceted character than he’s often pigeonholed as. How? Well, let’s talk about it!

Taichi in Adventure

The main reason it’s probably incorrect to call Taichi “hot-blooded” by nature is that, in actuality, he is far more often too chill than otherwise. It’s not that he aggressively charges into everything without any rhyme or reason! Rather, it’s more like he takes everything very easily and has a “don’t worry about it!” attitude.

In fact, I think our friend the Animation Chronicle explains it better than I can:

If he doesn’t know/understand something, he acts while he tries to figure it out...

So in other words, rather than our conventional version of “being impulsive” meaning beelining to the most aggressive possible action, rather, it’s more like “the first thing that pops into his head” -- even if it’s a fairly easygoing or relatively harmless-seeming solution, he just goes for it because it sounds like it’ll work and he doesn’t see any reason why not.

That said, it’s also made abundantly clear by multiple sources that his ideas do come with some kind of consideration:

From the Animation Chronicle: “He appears to move with reckless abandon, but he actually does take in his surroundings and he takes good care of his juniors in the soccer club.” 

From the Adventure novels: “Taichi treated everyone without discrimination, as equals. That attitude of his didn’t change, even towards Koushiro. If Taichi hadn’t invited him, Koushiro was sure that he would have never gone to summer camp.”

Sora and Koushirou even back this up personally in Adventure episode 16, when Koushirou points out that Taichi had always been kind to his juniors, and Sora recalls an incident when he’d foregone an opportunity to score a goal because he’d known Sora was more likely to pull it off successfully.

So in other words, Taichi is, fundamentally speaking, not someone who does things for personal glory, but does want to work for other people’s sake. It’s just that, in trying to carry that out, he has a tendency to default to the first thing that pops into his head. Or in other words, Taichi’s primary way of thinking is “act first and figure out the details later” -- and this has both good and bad things about it.

Firstly, the fact that Taichi has such an “action-first” philosophy means that he’s capable of acting very practically in situations when others would freeze up. A very good example of this is Adventure episode 21; after angsting for half an episode considering quitting the fighting and enjoying his life at home, the moment he realizes that everyone else will be in danger if he leaves everyone be, he immediately instinctively steps in to help everyone. It’s not necessarily that Taichi doesn’t feel the stress or danger of fighting; it’s just that when he sees the practical impact of people he cares about getting hurt in front of him, all bets are off, because he needs to help people now.

The second thing is that, as Koushirou points out, he’s very kind to his juniors, and people in general -- he doesn’t really pay much mind to things like seniority, and is more concerned about treating everyone in accordance to their practical capabilities. This means that he’s someone who has a certain sense of charisma, especially since he’s appreciative of people’s abilities.

This is best indicated in Adventure episode 28, when two important things about Taichi are brought to the forefront:

Taichi’s natural charisma and ability to appeal to people makes him someone good at “bringing people together” -- indicated by the fact that the group hadn’t taken long to completely fall apart after he’d momentarily departed in Adventure episode 20, but came back together after he’d rallied them. The Adventure kids, coming from rather different social circles and backgrounds, were not originally the type to stay together or be particularly tight with each other by default, and so, during the first half of the series when they still had ways to go in terms of having any kind of meaningful bond with each other, they were unconsciously dependent on the charismatic Taichi to keep them together.

Taichi is a “natural leader” in every sense -- “leader” meaning not only someone who pushes people forward, but also someone who recognizes others’ abilities and is willing to delegate rather than trying to do everything by himself. This was briefly demonstrated in Sora’s Adventure episode 16 flashback when she remembers that Taichi willingly gave up the opportunity for a goal when he understood she could do it better (it’s reflected in his soccer position, too), but also here in Adventure episode 28, he gives the task of solving the card puzzle to Koushirou because he (correctly) determines that Koushirou, not himself, is best equipped to do the job. Also note that the episode makes clear that everyone agrees to it specifically because Taichi appointed him to the position -- much like how “understanding everyone’s abilities and delegating properly” is an important and necessary skill for a leader, everyone trusts Taichi to make that decision, and therefore trusts in Koushirou because he was appointed by said well-informed decision.

So those are the good things about him. What about the drawbacks?

The first is that Taichi is, unfortunately, a little emotionally insensitive. He doesn’t mean badly, of course -- you can’t deny that his penchant for teasing or trolling people makes him quite a fun person to be around -- but he tends to lack a bit of emotional insight and is prone to crossing the line with his remarks. Again, this is a symptom of him being too chill about things at times; he tends to react with “what’s the big deal?!” -- a statement that one should absolutely not say when arguing with someone, and which tends to get Taichi in hot water, especially with Yamato.

While the trope of “the shounen hero and the cool rival often having friction” is quite common in anime like this, Adventure’s play on it is actually quite different from how it would usually be played elsewhere. In most other shounen anime, this kind of relationship would have to do with something like the hot-blooded protagonist wanting to charge in and the cool-headed person wanting to be more “rational” about it, but in Adventure, Taichi and Yamato are pit against each other due to reasons that have to do with emotions. Yamato, contrary to what his character archetype might suggest, is someone who’s openly passionate and emotional, and is also someone who goes out of his way to care about others and their welfare -- so he often gets into fights with Taichi because he perceives Taichi to be insensitive and not putting sufficient thought into the others.

Yamato’s reactions are certainly extreme -- Adventure episodes 9 very clearly depicts him as the one losing control of his emotions and escalating the argument with Taichi to a full-on fight, whereas Taichi wanted him to calm down -- but he’s not fundamentally wrong in that this is an aspect Taichi needs to improve about, because it is true that Taichi tends to take the first suggestion of “what’ll get something done” that pops into his head, but also has a problem of vastly underestimating how dangerous things might be.

Again -- and this is very important to stress -- it’s not that he doesn’t care about others, and it’s not that he’s unaware of the dangers around him or the potential for repercussions! As Sora says in Adventure episode 16, he is conscientious of his surroundings and aware of potential risks. He has always put thought into his actions, and he doesn’t just charge into things with no rhyme or reason. He just has an abysmally poor sense of judgment, because he’s so naturally chill that he thinks “it’ll be fine, don’t worry!” -- and thus starts stubbornly locking down on what he wants to do because he’s so sure it’ll be fine and that everyone (usually Yamato) is overreacting.

If you want a specific example about Taichi’s tendency to misjudge: in Adventure episode 9, Taichi and Yamato get in a fight when Yamato perceives Taichi as too insensitive about Takeru’s potential welfare, which weirds Taichi out because Yamato’s being awfully overprotective. On its face, it might seem hypocritical because we later find out in Adventure episode 48 that Taichi is just as overprotective of his own sister, but it’s important to note that in the relevant episode, Taichi states that he has to go out of his way because Hikari continually fails to vocalize whenever she’s hurt or in pain. This implies that Taichi sees Takeru as someone who’s clearly capable of taking care of himself because he expresses himself better (and thus, Taichi doesn’t understand why Yamato has to go out of his way for him). Indeed, Takeru ends up latching onto Taichi because he sees him as treating him with the independence that Yamato won’t -- but Takeru has his own very deep-seated emotional issues that he just happens to be very good at hiding, and while Taichi is certainly always looking out for Takeru, he never seemed to have become aware of this problem.

This difficulty in judgment leads into a certain pattern of behavior that Taichi exhibits that only comes up in very specific situations, but is so consistently depicted that it’s basically an inherent trait of his: what I call the “Yagami Taichi stress response”.

Taichi is the kind of selfless person who prioritizes others’ welfare over himself, and there are times when it will often fall into almost self-destructive levels. (This is a trait he actually shares with his sister, although the two of them naturally deal with it in very different ways.) His first priority is “helping everyone”, and especially “helping anyone who’s in trouble” (especially when it’s happening right in front of him). Which means that whenever he feels that others are depending on him for something, he ends up often taking too much responsibility for everyone’s welfare, and starts cracking under the pressure.

Because Taichi is the kind of person who prioritizes “action first” and figuring things out as they go along, this means that his reaction to stress is basically becoming a completely unfocused mess. Or, in other words, he lets the thought of but we have to do something!! completely consume his head, methodology be damned, and he starts panicking and doing everything in every which way to get it done, to the point he starts lashing out at others or becoming an emotional wreck because of the stress. The first time we see this is Adventure episode 16, where, being the only one with a working Crest and feeling that he and Agumon have the responsibility of protecting everyone, starts pushing himself and Agumon to carry everyone’s burdens, resulting in everything going wrong and the dark evolution to SkullGreymon at the end of the episode.

Again: It’s important to remember that, even at his “worst”, Taichi’s main priority is helping and protecting others, which means that his way of responding to that stress is basically determining that he’ll take all of the responsibility onto himself. That involves things like forcing himself to “work harder for everyone’s sake”, or becoming dangerously self-sacrificial, or at least allowing himself to become an emotional wreck because as much as he knows better, his one strongest thought is always we have to do something!!

Taichi exhibits more of this behavior in Adventure episodes 48 and 49, to the point he gets unusually aggressive with Koushirou (which is also explicitly pointed out as him not acting like his usual self) once he starts panicking about Hikari’s welfare. Again, note that all of this stems from we have to do something!! -- he basically starts panicking because despite Koushirou clearly doing the best he can, once things start going south, it’s just not enough.

So, speaking of things going south: because Taichi often misjudges situations, whenever things go wrong, he takes it badly. This is someone whose first course of action is to “act first and work it out as we go along,” but the number one thing he can’t stand is seeing other people get hurt, and so when other people do get hurt because of the consequences, Taichi shuts down -- for instance, when he learns that his ploy to attempt to get Greymon to evolve ended up hurting Koromon and everyone around him in Adventure episodes 16-17, and when his taking the Digital World too lightly (taking Koushirou’s explanation of it being “like a game world” at too much face value) ends up getting Sora in trouble and his own life in danger.

Which leads to a certain degree of irony: Taichi’s behavior isn’t normally out of solely recklessness -- mainly really poor judgment and a tendency to underestimate things -- but when he does slip up and start having to deal with consequences, he does become reckless. But because this recklessness is out of a desire to “not let anyone else get hurt”, it results in him being reckless specifically with his own welfare --  he’s the kind of person who “takes too much responsibility onto himself”, and his way of responding to the issues of “someone might get hurt” and “but we have to do something!!” means that he, by default, responds to everything with “okay, then I’ll be the one who gets hurt!” Or in other words, his solution to preventing other casualties while still doing something to help others involves becoming dangerously self-sacrificial. Because in the end, Taichi is the kind of person who hates seeing people being in trouble or hurt in front of him, and his instinct is to always protect people, no matter what.

But, again: Taichi’s way of “action first” is not a fundamentally bad thing -- remember, Adventure episode 21 established very well that this trait of his is very good for bringing him out of his biggest bouts of hesitation, because he has a very practical understanding of the need to fight in order to prevent more casualties. This is especially because the final arc of Adventure deals heavily with the concept of “collateral damage”, or the question of how to handle fighting to save people, when people are inevitably hurt (or, in this case, dying) in the process.

Yamato accuses Taichi in Adventure episode 43 of not being conscientious enough about the friends they’ve lost in the process, but once Yamato succumbs to his resentment and personal beefs and starts selfishly picking a fight with Taichi in Adventure episode 44-45, Taichi indicates that he is keeping his fallen friends in mind -- it’s just that, to him, not continuing the fight is an insult to everything they’d died for (especially because, indeed, more people will get hurt if they don’t do something). 

And, ultimately, in Adventure episode 50, Taichi does conclude that Yamato, Jou, and Mimi are right about one thing: while he’s always been right about them needing to do something, they do at least need to be careful about how they go about it so that they don’t incur more sacrifices along the way. Fortunately, Taichi is a soccer captain and perfectly capable of quickly coming up with a suitable plan on the fly (he even cites it in this episode, and in fact had already demonstrated an ability to come up with tactics when necessary back in Adventure episode 20) -- it’s not that he’s never been able to do flexible thinking, it’s just that his natural tendency to be “too chill’ about things and overestimate the efficacy of the first thing that popped into his head was something he needed to learn to think through a little harder.

And so, the final episodes of Adventure indicate him finally starting to tap into his capacity for that -- thus truly becoming the definition of the Adventure group’s “leader”.

Taichi after Adventure

We learn in Our War Game! that Taichi still has a bit of a way to go in terms of the “emotional sensitivity” part, most notably when Taichi starts getting defensive when he accidentally disrupts the computer connection, and Koushirou (most likely correctly) pinpoints this insensitivity as the likely reason he and Sora got into a nasty fight prior to the events of the movie. In fact, while Taichi already clearly had some shades of this in Adventure, when his “teasing” of others or stepping over their boundaries could sometimes go a little too far, it’s especially indicated here that Taichi is very, very bad at dispute resolution, because he keeps trying to deflect blame for his own actions and indirectly accuses Sora of being the irrational one in regards to their argument. (Again, for anyone entangled in a dispute with a friend: “dismissing the other person’s feelings” and going for the ad hominem, instead of at the very least acknowledging them in the process of making your point, is the number one worst way to handle this.)

Of course, Taichi wouldn’t have gotten this far if he didn’t have the natural charisma to compensate -- again, he’s fundamentally someone who cares about other people and attends to them. But, unfortunately, he’s still bad at knowing how to deal with other people’s emotions and learning to deal with them with proper empathy...

...So, in fact, it’s striking that the Taichi we initially meet in 02 is someone who, most of the time, seems to come off as very mature and put-together. The fact that he so willingly turned over his goggles to Daisuke at the beginning of the episode is a really huge deal, frankly -- even if you don’t subscribe to the theory that there’s any major sentimental backstory to it a la V-Tamer, that’s still an item he’s kept on him since he was a tiny child and clearly must have a huge amount of attachment to, yet he immediately handed it over to Daisuke the moment he felt Daisuke was worthy of it.

It’s actually quite a bit of a swerve for those of us used to the more “playful” Taichi who sometimes took things way too lightly, but it’s also important to realize that this is the Taichi that Daisuke and his friends see. This is especially in light of the fact that Daisuke starts off the series with a very severe inability to be assertive, so Taichi, who’s always been naturally assertive from the get-go (almost too much sometimes), is everything he is not, and therefore admires.

Taichi is still Taichi, which means that he’s still subject to the Yagami Taichi stress response, and he gets very close to blowing up angrily at the others when they show up late. But unlike how he had a whole train of being rather out of control when emotionally compromised in Adventure episodes 48-49, he gets himself together fairly quickly and admits that he also didn’t want to force everyone to come if they didn’t want to (to the point where he had even thought about going alone with Hikari in the worst-case scenario -- again, note the tendency for self-sacrifice and putting responsibility on himself).

We also see him about to lapse into it again at the end of the episode, when he freezes up because he’s not sure about what to do in regards to the potential of hurting Agumon in the process of getting him back -- but Yamato manages to get him back on his feet, rather literally, and with a punch to the face.

This punch tends to be really often misinterpreted as if violence is just a fact of life when it comes to Taichi and Yamato, but it is very, very important to understand the context behind this scene and how it differs from the two’s relationship in Adventure. Whenever the two fought back in Adventure, it would be a very vicious argument with the two genuinely angry at each other, and with Yamato accusing Taichi of being insensitive and thus becoming hostile and resentful towards him. In this scene, however, Yamato has become conscientious of Taichi’s own feelings and reasons for hesitating. This is evidenced by the fact he only does a single punch and holds out his hand to Taichi right after -- said punch was strictly meant as one meant to snap him back to reality, and Yamato holds out that hand knowing that Taichi will not take it as anger or resentment, but rather “I did this because you needed something to get you back into focus, I know you also know this and won’t take it as an insult, and I understand your feelings and want to help you.”

It’s important in establishing the level of deep trust Taichi and Yamato have where they understand each other’s positions now without fighting over it -- the two of them even point out in the next episode that the reason they can get away with this is because of how much worse they used to go through before, but now, the two of them treat each other with mutual sympathy, understanding, and support, and devoid of condescension whatsoever. And because of that, Taichi is able to “snap out” of his hesitation much more quickly than he would three years prior, because now he has Yamato’s emotional support, and Yamato even frames the situation in a way the “we have to do something!!” Taichi would understand: if they don’t do something, Agumon will continue to be the Kaiser’s slave destroying everything that he himself would never want to see destroyed, and even if they end up accidentally losing him in the process, it would arguably be a bigger mercy to him than it would to let him continue in this state. It’s all very practical reasoning that works best with Taichi’s way of thinking, and because of that, they’re able to push forward into the events of the next episode.

But just because he’s become more mature doesn’t mean he’s lost his characteristic charisma or ability to be playful or a tease -- after all, Taichi has always had a penchant for a bit of a smug personality, sometimes even bordering on the petulant. This especially comes out when he’s with Agumon, but, really, Taichi is a person who really likes fun.

On another interesting note, however, Taichi sends Sora off in 02 episode 38 when he’s very heavily implied to have caught on that Sora is about to confess to Yamato, and pushes her on without giving her grief for it. Regardless of whether you subscribe to the theory that Taichi has his own unresolved feelings in the situation, the important part is that he understood that this was a grave enough situation for Sora that this did not merit teasing her or insensitively poking into her feelings on it -- in other words, it’s a huge contrast to Adventure episode 26 when he was clearly at a loss on how to deal with her when she was emotionally compromised, and Agumon and Gabumon commented that he wasn’t as mature as Yamato in dealing with this.

But now, Taichi is much more capable of showing actual empathy for others and understanding when it’s the time to hold back on the teasing or potential insensitivity, and for that, Agumon compliments him on the same maturity he’d failed to express three years prior.

By the time we get to Kizuna, the fact that Taichi is one of the lead protagonists is for obvious meta reasons (he’s the protagonist of Adventure, after all), but it also makes sense that a movie centered around the millennial existential crisis -- and, specifically, the issue of career uncertainty -- would have him as a major player in it. Remembering that Taichi is fundamentally the kind of person who operates as “act first, deal with it later,” it makes perfect sense that the terrifying pressure of dealing with something as vague and uncertain as career pressure would be something that Taichi would continually put off. Again, Taichi is a very practical-minded person who usually works best with things that are clearly happening in front of him, so “wide-ranging” things are things he plays badly with.

Despite Taichi being very clearly depicted as “out of it” for this movie, at the very least, certain fundamental personality traits of his haven’t gone away -- for one, he’s still one of the most expressive characters in the movie (to the point many a fan has commented on his jackpot of facial expressions) in terms of petulance, sometimes getting a little defensive, and driving poor Koushirou a little nuts with his tendency to be reckless with electronics. He also gets a bit cocky during the battle with Eosmon, which, again, tracks with his tendency to do that every so often (and to be fair to him, everyone was guilty of severely underestimating Eosmon at the time, so it’s not like this was a major miscalculation on Taichi’s part).

Moreover, much like in 02, Taichi and Yamato are understanding of each other’s feelings to the extent that Yamato is the first person Taichi calls to dump his feelings about his existential crisis over. Even though they’re still prone to some mild bickering at the beginning of the movie, they immediately go back on high-fiving terms right after, so it’s a very far cry from the time back in Adventure when Yamato would look down on Taichi for being insensitive.

But here, we have this one line that basically represents the source of all of the problems Taichi ends up going through in this movie, including the reason for his loss of Agumon: Taichi is trying to “force” himself to become an independent person, and in the process is pushing Agumon away, and, on a more metaphorical level, his own self.

Taichi moved out of his parents’ house under the pretense of not burdening his family, but Hikari’s comment about their mother wanting him to drop by indicates that it’s not likely they necessarily wanted him to move out -- and despite that, Taichi is miserable in his daily routine of walking back and forth from school and working at a part-time job and eating convenience store food. He’s clearly lonely, yet he won’t allow Agumon into his room (it’s stated that his visit midway into the movie is his first time here). He keeps his old goggles and Digivice, yet he shuts it in a drawer and only opens the drawer to stare at it from time to time, and when Agumon finally does visit and finds his AVs, Taichi freaks out and pins it as an “adult thing” before he finds himself in the awkward situation of basically gatekeeping his own partner with a societal standard he doesn’t even understand.

I should point out that the AVs are not strictly porn, if you want to be really technical about it; it’s “gravure” videos, involving a cosplayer dressing up in sexy/high-exposure outfits and striking suggestive poses, but it’s not actually explicit porn. Moreover, a toned-down version of this scene exists in the Shueisha Mirai version of the novel, where the issue is not about AVs but rather the fact that Taichi only has alcohol in his fridge -- absolutely nothing non-alcoholic, despite how impractical this is -- because “[he’s] an adult, after all.” So the point of this scene is that Taichi’s being performative, or in other words trying to do Adult Things because That’s What Adults Do. And since a Digimon partner is representative of the inner self, and especially established in 02 to have relevance to one’s “less dignified and more childish dreams”, Taichi looking down on Agumon, i.e. looking down on himself, becomes the reason why he ends up losing him at the end of this movie.

As things get worse for Taichi and the crisis escalates, we actually get another glimpse of the Yagami Taichi stress response -- Yamato confronts him on whether he’s okay with going in to save all of the Eosmon victims despite knowing what’ll happen to their partners. Taichi, frantically (Hanae Natsuki’s voice acting really sells it here), has an emotional outburst and professes that, no, of course he’s not, but, again: they have to do something!! Because in the end, Taichi is a selfless person who understands that bad things are happening to people now, and the important thing is saving them now and dealing with the consequences once that’s done with, and even Yamato admits that, as much as he hates it, this is the correct answer.

Taichi does, unfortunately, lose Agumon at the end of the movie, but there are multiple indications he’s already on his way to getting him back, given that Taichi’s starting to address all of the problems he was neck deep in at the start of the movie. In the middle of the movie, after having shut his goggles in the drawer all of this time and only pulling it out whenever he was depressed, he decides to embrace the courage they initially symbolized and puts them back on his neck, and when we reach the climax of the movie, he uses Hikari’s old whistle to wake everyone up. This needs to be distinguished from all of the “nostalgia” everyone else had been drowning themselves in by looping themselves eternally in old memories from a desire to never move on from them; symbolically speaking, Taichi’s blowing of the whistle represents acknowledging the important things in your past, and making productive use of them to move onto the future, rather than the unhealthy reactions of either drowning eternally in nostalgia, or performatively shutting everything out about your past in a bid to reach some arbitrary standard of adulthood.

Hence, Taichi’s thesis -- the one he had failed to write at the beginning of the movie -- is only filled out once Taichi embraces that past version of himself, because his thesis summary is about reflection on his past experiences, and making use of those to think about how to apply them to the future.

This is, obviously, intended as a lead-up to the 02 epilogue in which Taichi becomes an ambassador -- or in other words, someone who indeed specializes in “bringing humans and Digimon together” and offering proposals on how they can coexist in the future. Agumon, of course, is an important part of this job (look at his suit and bowtie!), instead of Taichi shutting him out and treating him like someone who doesn’t belong in his adult life.

Of the careers depicted in the epilogue, Taichi’s is the most “furthest-reaching”, since, as a diplomat, he has influence over a pretty huge range of things, which fits with Taichi’s tendency to shoot for some pretty high things -- and, also, conceptually, it works well with what we’ve always known since Adventure to be Taichi’s true specialties as a “leader”: having the charisma and understanding to bring people from different places together, and to lead them all forward.

[chiseler]

Wanted Man: On THE FUGITIVE

The road at night is home to one of America’s perennially romantic figures: the man who’s on the lam. The escaping slave wading in the water to throw off the dogs; the western outlaw with his face on a Wanted poster and a price on his head; the Depression-era bank robber gunning his stolen V-8 toward the state line. Guilt or innocence is almost incidental; it’s the race to stay free, and the need to keep on the move, that lend such dark luster to the fugitive. The double meaning of “wanted man” is inherent, never stated more succinctly than in Nightfall (1957), when just before they kiss Anne Bancroft tells Aldo Ray, who is pursued by both cops and criminals, “You’re the most wanted man I know.”

With all due respect to Aldo Ray, the most wanted man of all was surely David Janssen, who carried one hundred and twenty episodes of the television drama The Fugitive (1963-1967) with a charisma deeply rooted in the unease, alienation, and desperation of the man on the run. As Dr. Richard Kimble, who escapes en route to the death house after being falsely convicted of killing his wife, Janssen imbued the show with a hunted, haunted, hellhound-on-my-trail mystique. His might be called a one-note performance, but that note is a suppressed intensity that never slackens for an instant; he never forgets or lets us forget that he’s under sentence of death. The fear of being caught is in his husky, constrained voice; the nervous smile that twitches one side of his mouth; his darting, plaintive eyes; the way he stands with his shoulders slightly hunched, as if against a cold wind. Every woman wants to give him aid and comfort. Who could resist a strong, quiet, kind, yet just possibly dangerous man who is also as lost, alone, and in need of help as the bedraggled stray kitten he fleetingly bonds with at the end of the series debut? Because Kimble is a mensch, at times perilously close to a saint, it’s all the more important that Janssen has a dark, gritty edge to his presence. While the scripts place him again and again in the position of risking his safety to help someone in trouble, Janssen brings out Kimble’s exhaustion and bitterness, his reflexive distrust of authority, his lonely and self-punishing stubbornness.

Every episode of The Fugitive ends with Kimble alone, walking down the highway, thumbing a ride, huddling in the back of a truck, skulking through a railyard, or slumping in the gloom of a Greyhound bus—disappearing into the no-man’s-land of the American night. The look and mood of the series are relentlessly drab and melancholy. “Another shabby room, another lonely night,” the narrator intones; another dreary town that looks just like the last, another cheap hotel, another menial job where the stranger must put up with bullying bosses and needling co-workers, another toxic web of resentments and desires waiting to trap the newcomer. The Fugitive paints the life of a drifter as a dismal and repetitive slog. In this it forms a perfect counterpoint to Route 66, another popular television show with which it overlapped. (Route 66 ran from 1960 to 1964, and Janssen was a guest star on the show just before The Fugitive began its run.) Buz and Todd, footloose buddies zipping around the country in a Corvette, are troubadours for the philosophy of moving on; at each stop they help release people trapped in emotional ruts, then motor on, restless searchers for some ultimate true home.

These contrasting shows nicely illustrate the two kinds of travel that haunt the American imagination: exploration and flight, discovery and escape. To be on the road is to be free, unfettered by emotional bonds or confining routines, going to the next new place. To be on the lam is to have no safe haven, no-one to trust, just a desperate and dwindling hope of eluding capture. In The Fugitive, Richard Kimble wants nothing more than to settle down, to return to the stable and wholesome life he once had as a pediatrician in the fictional small town of Stafford, Indiana. He roams (rather than fleeing the country) in the far-fetched hope of tracking down the one-armed man he saw running from his home the night his wife was murdered. He stubbornly pursues the dream of clearing his name—a determination that is part of the machinery required to keep the series in its perpetual holding pattern of flight and pursuit. The paradox of the show is that it depicts all the horrors of being a fugitive—the constant fear of betrayal, the impossibility of forming ties, the need to remain in a sub-legal twilight—yet also creates an irresistible glamour around the figure of the fugitive, who is strangely purified by his shadowy existence outside society, and who unintentionally seduces or provokes the masses gnawing at their private traps.

The show’s machinery is also kept running by Kimble’s dedicated hellhound, Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse). Writer Stanford Whitmore confessed to deliberately giving the character a name similar to Javert, the monomaniacal policeman obsessed with capturing Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Gerard, who comes within a whisker of catching Kimble in roughly every third episode, is robotic in his idée-fixe; inhuman in his refusal to respond emotionally or change his mind. The keynote of his character is his peculiar refusal to state that he personally believes his quarry to be guilty. Every time the question comes up, Gerard smugly states that it doesn’t matter what he thinks. “The law pronounced him guilty. I enforce the law. Whether the law is right or wrong is not my concern. Let others debate and conclude. But when I begin to doubt, to question—I can’t permit it.” In a sense, Gerard is not a person at all, but a personification of authority at its most rigid and unimaginative. Often, people encountering Gerard remark that now that they have met him, they hope Kimble gets away. Even more often, the thwarted Gerard complains that he can’t understand why so many people, especially women, side with the fugitive and help him escape.

Kimble is a litmus test. Every plot turns on the way people react when they learn who he really is. Some help him because they believe he’s innocent; or because they’re grateful for something he’s done; or for some obscure personal reason, like a desire to get back at someone else who wants to turn him in. Some people betray him because they figure it’s their duty under the law, some for gain, some out of spite. Carrying his own story with him like a personal storm-cloud, Kimble continually stumbles into situations involving crime, injustice, mistaken identities, false accusations, and deceptive schemes. The whole country is filled with wrongly accused ie. nnocents and villains with law-abiding fronts. In “Come Watch Me Die,” Kimble helps a young man who is accused of murder but proclaims his innocence escape lynching, only to learn that he did commit the brutal killing and is a remorseless sociopath. Frequently Kimble is torn between his need to testify to things he’s witnessed, and his fear of coming forward and risking police attention. He’s a supremely ethical, conscientious man for whom the law and all its trappings is the enemy. “Come Watch Me Die” ends with a rare moment of humor, when a sheriff, favorably impressed by the way Kimble has captured the killer, asks if he has ever considered a career in law enforcement. The fugitive responds with a nervous, queasy smile.

Flung from one moral dilemma to the next, he is constantly caught between his societally-imposed guilt, which forces him to hide his identity, and his innate goodness. “Wings of an Angel” incisively illustrates the way he is caught between the forces of law and crime. Wounded when he (yet again) helps capture an escaping convict, he’s taken to the nearest place for treatment—which happens to be a prison hospital. He’s a hero to the guards whom he fears and a villain to the inmates, who sneeringly call him “cop-lover.” When some inmates recognize him, they blackmail him into stealing morphine for the prison’s junkies. Being a doctor adds to Kimble’s trials, as he often feels obligated to help the injured despite the risks of revealing his medical knowledge.

Though he always resists serious moral compromise, his life is constructed of lies and deceptions: in every town he assumes a new name, invents a back-story and a home town, fills job applications with phony references. He’s quite ready to knock people down to make an escape, steal a wallet when he needs identification, or fake his own death. His surprising competence at living outside the law is a large part of his attraction. In “See Hollywood and Die,” when he is held hostage by two young thugs along with a woman whose car they steal, Kimble convinces them that he’s a cool professional crook, and plays the part of a fast-working seducer to forge an alliance with his fellow hostage. The sense that this man could be dangerous, if he wanted to be, keeps him from seeming too idealized—or rather, it idealizes him in a different and more appealing way.

Much has been written about the transference of guilt in Hitchcock’s wrong-man stories. But being a fugitive, even with all the attendant ethical snares, does not tarnish Kimble’s conviction of his own innocence and his right to stay free and alive. (The one exception comes when, inevitably, he contracts amnesia, and on learning his identity, can’t be sure of his innocence.) The moral dilemmas so elaborately constructed in each episode can sometimes feel contrived or repetitive or strain credulity, but the show is driven by this basic, burning core of Kimble’s desperation, his raw fear and profound depression whenever he’s cornered or fingerprinted or locked in a cell. The suspense is superficial yet sure-fire: watching each episode, I know perfectly well that he’s not going to get caught, because if he did the show would be over, yet I respond with dutiful Pavlovian reflexes. Oh no! How’s he going to get out of it this time?

The Fugitive has the ritualistic, same-time-next-week quality of classic television, so different from today’s mandatory novelistic arcs. Each episode opens with a re-cap of the premise, which grows tiresome, though it comes in the deliciously portentous voice of William Conrad. (The credits were changed, very much for the worse, at the start of the second season; the season one credits include wonderful noirish footage of Kimble’s escape from a train wreck, and Conrad somberly intoning, “Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time, and sees only darkness. But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand…”) The Fugitive was the creation of Roy Huggins, the veteran writer and producer who was also behind Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Run for Your Life, and The Rockford Files. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Huggins taught himself to write by copying Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely in longhand, which is enough to put him in my good books. He got into movies when his novel Too Late for Tears was adapted into a taut and terrific 1947 film noir with Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. A member of the Communist Party until 1939, he was called before HUAC in 1952 and pragmatically named names—but only of those who had already been named. Presumably, he knew something about moral compromise.

The Fugitive was both a critical and popular success, though only for one season did its ratings break into the top five TV shows. Famously, the show’s finale (a two-parter called “The Judgment”) was watched by more people than any previous television program—72% of all households that owned TV’s tuned in. For the record, I have not yet seen the final episode, since I am still working my way through season three. I have an idea how it might go, though: I imagine Kimble will capture the one-armed man and be exonerated, at which point all of the scores of women who fell in love with him over the course of 120 episodes will appear, saying, “At last we can be together!” Then an enormous fight will break out, and he’ll be torn to pieces like Orpheus by the Maenads.

But seriously…

The enduring power of The Fugitive lies precisely in its unresolved tension, the way it portrays being a fugitive as a universal and eternal condition. Richard Kimble has nothing. He often carries a small suitcase, but since he’s regularly forced to flee with only the clothes on his back, the suitcases can’t hold anything that he’s attached to. He has no identification, just whatever petty cash he earned at his last job. He works as a mechanic, a farm laborer, a handyman, a lifeguard, a truck driver, a hospital orderly—always something faceless and expendable. He goes by whatever name he pulls off the top of his head. But his own identity clings to him as an inescapable threat: his fingerprints and his face inform against him, yet he never tries plastic surgery or burning his fingertips with acid. (He does dye his hair, but this fools no-one—though it vastly improves his appearance, and neatly distinguishes his fugitive identity from his previous square self.)

The scripts may insist that Dr. Kimble yearns to go back to being a solid citizen, with his medical degrees hanging proudly on the walls of his office, but those who love the show just want to see him in another shabby room, for another lonely night. He’s the eternal drifter; the hitch-hiker with the worried face; the guy keeping to himself in the corner of a boxcar; the stray that every woman wants to take in and console; the friendless stranger turning up his collar against the cold wind; the man who is from everywhere but here, and who’ll be from here soon.

by Imogen Sara Smith