#not 2 make everything about horrible exorcists but i think at least part of it can be traced to how much he hated the feeling of

[aethersea]

May I request 41 - First Kiss and 94 - Hair Brushing/Braiding for the Leverage OT3, please? (Also extra bonus points if you give Eliot beads in his hair like in The Ice Man Job, because we didn't get NEARLY enough of that in the show) Thank you!

I cannot believe I wrote this whole thing out and then never published it. I’m so sorry, it’s been at least twenty-four years since you sent in this ask, please accept my humble apologies and also this ficlet.

However, this prompt is just pure fluff, and I hate to tell you this but I am not a fluff writer. I just can’t pull off that unadulterated sweetness. I am in this fandom for the shenanigans, first, last and foremost! So this fic is now a 5+1 of Eliot and Parker trying to seduce Hardison.

1. Parker thinks they need to give him gifts, so she goes through her stash and picks out the largest, fanciest jewel she’s ever stolen. Then she realizes: Hardison likes stories. He spends hours giving their aliases histories and pets and allergies and favorite foods, he can get a whole sordid history of jealousy and betrayal from a single corporate email chain, and Parker knows for a cold fact that he writes little stories with his online friends about being wizards together.

She goes through her stash again and picks out the most cursed thing she’s ever stolen.

It’s a jeweled statuette, almost as tall as her forearm, made of gold and studded with precious and semi-precious stones. Mysterious deaths have befallen five separate owners of this thing. Its base is dented from the time it was used to bludgeon Owner Number Three to death. The tiny rubies it has for eyes follow you across the room.

Parker puts a bow on it and leaves it in Hardison’s room while he’s sleeping. He wakes up to this horrible little statue watching him from his bedside table.

He texts the group chat, Hey did anyone put an evil little gold guy in my bedroom last night? But Parker chickens out and says nothing (drunkenly betting Eliot that she can seduce Hardison is one thing, but admitting that she likes him is something else altogether). Everyone else texts back variations on “nope.” (Except Sophie, who just sends back a string of heart eyes emojis and a wikipedia link. She loves cursed artifacts.) So Hardison puts the statue away in a closet somewhere and figures he’ll deal with it later.

Parker is mildly offended that he put her gift in a closet. She goes into his room the next night and puts it back on the bedside table, where it clearly belongs.

This goes on for a week. Hardison puts the statue in a desk drawer, then in one of the cabinets in the office downstairs, then in the dumpster down the street. Every day he wakes up to those glittering red eyes watching him sleep. He’s asked his internet buddies if anyone knows a good exorcist. Hardison doesn’t really believe in curses, but also? What the fuck. What the fuck.

~

2. Eliot assumes the drunken bet will be forgotten by morning. What kind of world would it be if people always followed through on promises they made while they could barely stay vertical? So he spends the morning nursing his hangover and cleaning his knives. Cleaning guns is no good while hungover—all the snaps and clicks of popping things in and out of place sound like actual gunfire when you’re hungover, it’s a nightmare—but knives are quiet and have no moving parts. Buffing and polishing them is soothingly repetitive work, and every once in a while he can throw one at one of the dartboards on the walls and reassure himself that his reflexes are still sound even after that much tequila.

It’s only when he gets Hardison’s text about the golden statuette that magically appeared in his room overnight that Eliot realizes Parker’s actually going for it. After some internal debate about whether he’s going to stoop to this or not, Eliot decides what the hell and starts making plans.

Eliot agrees that gifts are the way to go, but not stolen gifts. Not things. Anyone can give a thing. Proper wooing is about giving experiences.

Eliot plans for three days. On the fourth day, he and Hardison have their irregularly scheduled monthly coffee date, and Eliot texts him beforehand to say he wants to do it at the brewpub this time. Hardison arrives to find a deceptively simple meal: basic country fare perfected through years of experimentation, made with the best ingredients Eliot can get his hands on. And Eliot, after all, is still a retrieval specialist. There’s very little in the world he can’t get his hands on.

And yet the night ends and somehow he has not gotten his hands on Hardison.

This is just not right. Eliot knows how to deploy a smolder, okay, Tangled reference aside he is damn good at flirting and he knows the looks he’s giving Hardison are clear as day. It’d be one thing if Hardison had turned him down, or if he’d been uneasily unwilling, or even if his eyes had widened slightly in suppressed panic and he’d abruptly found a reason to leave. Eliot can take rejection, bet or no, and he’d have bowed out graciously without a fuss. But this was much, much worse.

Hardison didn’t even notice he was flirting.

He’s going to have to up his game.

~

3. “How do you seduce people?” Parker asks bluntly, turning up at Sophie’s door just past midnight.

Sophie, despite the hour, is utterly delighted by the question.

This goes as well as you would expect.

~

4. Eliot’s taken a lot of dates to sports games. Hardison may prefer sparkly elves with purple lightning magic to a decent MMA fight, but baseball is the American pastime. Eliot gets them perfect seats, hot dogs from the best vendor in the stadium, even chilled beer that he smuggles in without letting it get warm. It’s going to be a perfect game.

And it is. At first. Hardison, it turns out, has a lot of opinions about baseball. What he does not have is an understanding of the rules. They’re not even into the second inning by the time Eliot finally snaps and starts arguing with him about it.

They make it all the way to the fifth inning before Eliot realizes that Hardison’s basing his complaints off the rules of a game from a Star Wars novel.

They’re at the bottom of the eighth before Eliot will speak to him again.

~

5. Eliot and Parker are drunk again. This is not intentional. They didn’t even mean to come to this bar, but the smoothie place with the fried oreos that Eliot had brought Parker here to try was playing such incredibly bad music that they’d ordered the oreos to go and fled. The bar was just the coziest looking place on the block, and of course they’d ordered drinks to avoid being rude––Eliot had entertained himself for a few minutes scouring the menu for something that would pair well with fried oreos and popcorn chicken.

And now they’re drunk. The conversation has, perhaps inevitably, turned to the ongoing bet.

“I tried everything!” Parker wails. “I laughed at every joke, I touched my hair constantly, I got him talking about things he likes.” She thunks her forehead on the bar. “All that happened is now I know the complete history of orcs in western literature.”

“Hardison wouldn’t know flirting if it pinched him on the ass,” Eliot grumbles.

Parker slaps his arm. “No pinching Hardison!”

“I’m not going to—I don’t pinch people!”

Parker’s ignoring him. Eliot pouts and takes another sip of his drink. He’s not entirely sure what this one is––it’s blue and kind of fizzy, that’s all he can say for sure. Parker took over the drinks menu several glasses ago, and she’s been picking them based on what has the most fun name to say. Eliot’s pretty sure the alcohol content’s been doubling with each order.

“Eliot,” Parker slurs, “we need to work together.”

“What?”

Parker lifts her head from the bar and frowns at him, the way she does when she’s figured out the obvious solution and is just waiting for everyone else to get on the same page. It’s adorable. It’s always adorable, but right now her eyes are wide and slightly unfocused from the alcohol and she’s listing sideways a little, almost as if she’s unbalanced, and it is the most adorable thing Eliot has ever seen. Parker’s never unbalanced, but some part of Eliot’s fuzzy brain thinks she’s about to fall on top of him and cannot wait to catch her.

“You can’t seduce Hardison,” Parker points out. Eliot is drunk enough to get offended by this, but too drunk to get out a complaint before she continues, “I can’t seduce Hardison. But if we work together, the two of us can definitely seduce Hardison. Together.”

Eliot stares at her. Then he takes another sip of his fizzy blue drink. Later, when questioned, he will blame his next words on that drink.

“Worth a shot.”

They take Hardison to a movie. They research for three weeks beforehand. They find the best movie theater in town, with the nicest seats, the biggest screens, and concession snacks that Hardison likes, and they buy tickets for the midnight premiere of the superhero movie that Hardison hasn’t shut up about for the past month. Parker even hacks into the theater’s computers in a last-minute fit of nerves and cross-references the credit cards with drivers’ licenses to make sure the people sitting in front of them won’t be too tall.

Parker witnesses a kidnapping in the parking lot while the boys are getting popcorn. They don’t even stay long enough to catch the commercials.

~

+ 1. “Hey Eliot,” Hardison says during movie night, a little over a week later. “Remember the Ice Man Job?”

Eliot groans. “I try not to.”

Hardison throws a piece of popcorn at his face. “Shut up. Remember how you did your hair for that one? With the little—those little beads on, like, a braid?”

Eliot shoots Hardison a suspicious glance. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Teach me how to do that.”

Eliot shoots Hardison another, more deliberate look, this one pointedly directed at Hardison’s complete lack of braidable locks.

Hardison rolls his eyes as if that’s a silly detail to get hung up on and leans forward to dig around in one of the boxes he has under his coffee table. He emerges with a ziplock bag of plastic beads in no time flat and hands it triumphantly to Eliot. Then he yanks a few cushions out from behind Parker, who’s sitting on his other side, and puts them on the floor in front of him. “Sit here?” he asks Parker, patting the cushion pile.

Parker takes a moment to consider being offended at having her cushions stolen, but curiosity gets the better of her and she just plops down between Hardison’s legs, grabbing the bowl of popcorn as she goes, and waits.

Hardison lifts her hair with sudden gentleness, drawing it over her shoulders and letting it fall down her back in a golden wave. His fingers brush against her neck. Parker shivers. Eliot is distantly aware that he’s gone perfectly still, focused with a hunter’s intensity on Hardison’s dark, graceful fingers carding through Parker’s hair.

Hardison leans back, hands on his knees, and Eliot breathes again. “Well?” Hardison looks over at Eliot, a tiny smirk of challenge on his lips. “Show me how it’s done.”

Eliot is suddenly, brutally aware of how close they are. Hardison’s couch is obscenely comfortable, which is half the reason movie nights are at Hardison’s in the first place, but it is not large. Their thighs are touching. Hardison leans away, to give Eliot access to Parker’s hair, and he’s still so close that Eliot would barely have to reach out a hand to—

Eliot ruthlessly shoves that thought down into the dark where it belongs. He dealt with this, he dealt with this years ago, and accepting Parker’s stupid bet doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the way Hardison and Parker look at each other. It just means he doesn’t mind losing for a good cause.

So he keeps his tone steady and his fingers brisk as he shows Hardison how to braid the clunky plastic beads into Parker’s hair, and if he flushes with heat when their hands brush each other, well, nobody has to know. He’s been trained to withstand eight different schools of torture. It won’t show on his face. His voice never once falters.

Parker has had no such training. Her lips have parted, and her breathing is shallow. She’s staring glassy-eyed at the TV. Hardison can’t see her face, sitting behind her, but Eliot watches her carefully, worried that they need to call this off. Parker’s not used to intimacy, to closeness that means something, and for all the three of them have spent half their movie nights literally on top of each other, this is something else. This has weight.

Eliot puts a hand on her shoulder, pressing down just enough that Parker startles and cants a glance over at him. Eliot raises his eyebrows in question, and Parker glares back: don’t you fucking dare. Eliot backs off. Hardison, frowning in concentration as he threads a wisp of Parker’s hair through a green bead, graciously pretends he didn’t see the exchange.

Hardison gets the hang of the beading fairly quickly, and Eliot shows him a few different techniques. He’s almost managed to convince himself that nothing is actually happening when Hardison says, conversationally, “You two are really bad at this.”

Eliot glowers his confusion. “At movie night? You started this, if you wanted to actually watch Alien then you shouldn’t have—”

Hardison’s smile is soft, but Eliot decides for his own safety to focus on the laughter at its edge. “No, at this.” And then he slides his hand onto Parker’s neck, caresses her cheek, and isn’t the slightest bit surprised when she gasps.

Parker whips around, and there’s hurt on her face but it dies in the glow of Hardison’s gentle, unteasing smile. Hardison pulls her up with the lightest of touches, and she goes, eyes fixed on his like salvation.

They kiss sweet and slow, and Eliot’s heart twists in his chest and he can’t breathe. He needs to leave now before he shatters in half, but if he moves then they will look at him, and he would rather never breathe again than meet their eyes right now.

Hardison breaks off the kiss, gazing at Parker with something just this side of wonder, and then he does look at Eliot. Eliot flinches. He opens his mouth to…say something, make some joke or hasty excuse and scramble out the door, but Hardison raises a hand to Eliot’s face, slides his long fingers to cup Eliot’s neck, and pulls him forward, as gently as he did Parker.

It’s a chaste kiss, no more than a soft press of lips, because Eliot is too stunned to respond and Hardison doesn’t push. It lasts a long time. A whole era of change happens in the span of that kiss, as everything Eliot thought he knew tears out of place and then settles, gingerly, into a new understanding.

Hardison pulls away, his hand still warm on the back of Eliot’s neck. His smile is pure sunshine. Eliot finds himself smiling back, helpless.

Hardison’s grin turns smug. “And that,” he says, looking between Eliot and Parker, “is how you do it. Y’all are disasters, honestly, I can’t believe two master criminals working together couldn’t manage a single real date—”

Eliot heaves a deep sigh and drags Hardison into a headlock, pinning his arms when he flails. Parker surges to her knees and starts tickling him mercilessly.

They don’t finish the movie.

[facets-and-rainbows]

Bloody Fairy Tale (part 2)

Time to dust off my translation of the Shiro story from the light novels and actually start trying to finish it!

 Part 1 is here.

The white car I had driven into the village was parked inside the grounds. I let go of the man’s hand as we reached it.

I’d had the ghouls slash a front tire and a rear tire on my beloved car right from the start. That way, the villagers couldn’t suggest driving somewhere to call for help. All the cars in town had suffered the same sort of attack. And of course, all the phone lines were already cut.

By now, this village was like its own lonely island.

As I was feeling proud of my work, the Asian man muttered something in a language I wasn’t familiar with. “Kyou…kai?” [T/N: “A church?”] He was frowning.

Probably wondering why his chant hadn’t had any effect back there.

Seen from the side, he had a face like a knife blade: sharp, cold, and guarded. I would have to be careful around him.

“I think we lost them,” I told the men calmly, putting on a relieved face.

I was plenty aware that my gorgeous features and the bright white teeth peeking out from behind my smile had a tremendous effect on new people—or rather, on men. I use every resource available to me. What’s wrong with using my femininity a little?

I could either dispose of them somewhere in the commotion, or use my body to entice them—either way, I would have to pretend to be their ally for now.

“All of the villagers are hiding in here. I’ve surrounded the grounds with high-grade holy water, so middle level and lower demons can’t get in. It’s safe.”

“You put up this barrier?” the Asian man asked when I had finished speaking. This time he used proper English.

“Yes.”

“Fujimoto Shirou, Order of the True Cross, Japan Branch,” he said, taking out his license from his inner coat pocket and showing it to me.

So he was Japanese?

I honestly hadn’t expected that.

With his native-like English pronunciation and the way he looked straight at a stranger like he was trying to drill through them with his eyes…well, to put it bluntly, he didn’t seem very Japanese.

When I thought of a Japanese person, I imagined someone who was all cheerful smiles but never looked anyone in the eye, who was always hunched over busily working on something, who had a big camera slung around their neck, and who was surprisingly bad at English—not just the children, but grown adults too.

The thick glasses he was wearing were just about the only thing that matched my mental image…

“Maria LaMorte. Upper second class. I’m an Aria meister.” At any rate, I went ahead and held up the badge that I had hanging at chest level on a gold chain. Showing proof that we were allies would be the most effective way to get him to let his guard down.

“Maria, huh? Hey, have we met somewhere before?”

He lazily waved his index finger back and forth between us.

“Hm? I’m sorry, I don’t recall.” I shook my head.

“That’s weird,” said the man from Japan, rustling a hand through his coarse-looking hair. “I usually make a point of remembering every beautiful lady I see, even if we only met once.” He pulled one corner of his mouth into a crooked grin as he said it. It was the smile of a ladies’ man.

This is a japonés? At this point I’d gone so far beyond exasperation that I was almost impressed.

As I answered him with a “hmph,” the white man joined the conversation, also speaking fluent English.

“May I introduce myself as well, Fujimoto-sempai?”

I observed the second man indifferently.

First off, he was terribly tall. Even I had to crane my neck to look at him.

He was probably an Aria or something, with skin so pale you could see the veins underneath. He had nice features that I suppose could be called handsome, but there was a nervous look about him—maybe it was the dark circles under his eyes.

“I’m his underling Johann, lower second class. It’s a pleasure to meet such a lovely Sister.”

He certainly wasn’t shy about speaking so pretentiously in his clear baritone voice, complete with theatric gestures. And what’s worse, it actually suited him.

If he was lower second class at his age, he must have just become an exorcist. That would explain why his brand-new uniform looked so pitifully out of place on him.

Plus, he seemed weak and sickly.

Nothing to worry about from this one.

I made myself a mental note and turned my gaze back to Fujimoto.

There was one thing I needed to confirm before anything else.

“Do either of you speak Spanish?”

Spanish was the lingua franca in much of South America. The villagers here all used Spanish in their daily lives, and knew practically no English. And that meant things could get dicey if these two spoke any Spanish—but they both shook their heads.

That was a relief. It looked like fortune was on my side.

“But what are members of the Japan branch doing here?”

“It’s a cross-border mission based in international goodwill,” Fujimoto answered my question first, but he was clearly stifling a yawn as he said it.

Johann was eager to add, “We finished our mission without incident and were on our way back to the nearest branch office when we ran out of gas. We walked the rest of the way here! Yes, that’s why we’re so ill-equipped. We’ve already exhausted the bulk of our supplies.”

What an unbelievable stroke of luck. This is perfect, I thought, as I desperately resisted the urge to grin. That would explain why they were so lightly armed.

In that case, it would be child’s play to kill them. As long as I promptly dumped the bodies somewhere near where their mission had been, I could fool the local branch. I’d found a silver lining to all this.

“It’s true what they say—that exorcists are always horribly understaffed. To think a new recruit like me would be sent out to work like a dog…I’m afraid I may have chosen the wrong profession.”

Fujimoto ignored his lackey’s cheerful complaint and asked me, “So what the hell happened to this village?”

He spoke casually, but his sharp gaze never dulled. Beneath his flippant demeanor, the man had no weakness, no openings. I felt like he’d pierce right through my armor if I let my guard down at all—and as I thought that, I casually glanced away from him.

It was dangerous to make too much eye contact with an enemy, especially a sharp enemy like this.

That said, avoiding eye contact too much wasn’t an option either. That was practically begging them to suspect you.

I was confident that I could strike the right balance.

“When I got here this evening, there were already ghouls wandering all over the village.” I put everything I had into playing the part of a good and pious exorcist.

When I bit my lower lip a little in mock bewilderment, I really did start feeling bewildered. I was sure the deep lines forming on my forehead looked surprisingly natural too.

“The villagers were in a terrible panic over being attacked by corpses all of a sudden—everything was completely out of hand. I don’t think I finished setting a barrier around this church and getting everyone inside until about an hour ago.”

I cut off the story there to say, “Anyway, let’s all go inside the church,” and invited them onto my home turf. The more I talked, the more likely they were to find holes in my story. I needed to keep conversation about the village’s condition to a minimum. “The ghouls might attack us again, after all. Can we wait until we’re inside to talk?”

The two men accepted my proposal easily.

I had some awful uninvited guests on my hands, but I was glad they were both men, at least. If they were women, I wouldn’t even have the option to seduce them as a last resort.

The Japanese one especially seemed like a womanizer. As long as I could deal with him somehow, that weakling Johann wouldn’t be a problem.

It’s okay. They’re not a major obstacle, I repeated to myself as I led them to the church and pushed the door open. The door was needlessly heavy, maybe because of its elaborate construction, and Fujimoto casually reached out from behind me to help support it. At this decidedly un-Japanese show of chivalry, I looked back at him over my shoulder and smiled.

“It’s too bad for you two, but…I’m glad you ran out of gas.”

“Well, hearing that from someone as beautiful as you makes the whole walk worth it,” Fujimoto answered, flirtatiously.

I gave him a gentle grin in return.

Deep down, all I could think of was how to entrap this man from Japan.

 At the very least, I had to get rid of these two tonight.

No matter what it took…

[icharchivist]

Oh no I agree w/you on not being hard on fans who think differently. One of the reasons I like fan discussions is to read other people's thoughts and try to understand where the ones I disagree w/are coming from. That's just my personal view and reading of the character. I think lately the stress has been getting to Chaoji so he's extra harsh and that's going to be unattractive to Allen's friends. I also think he's wording things the wrong way. It'd be better if he said I'll fight the Noah -

2 instead of I'll fight Allen or telling Allen's friends to forget about him. In this way Chaoji is, whether he means to or not, making it sound like Allen is JUST a Noah. Which.... Is actually a interesting thought. What does the average person think how a Noah works? Does he think Allen is 100% gone now? *shrugs* Either way agree to disagree on some parts. I have no probs w/fans so forgive me if it sounded I was harsh to them. I was just naming of groups I saw and thought it was interesting.

Ahh alright, sorry then for the lecture! it’s fine, don’t worry now that it’s cleared up. 

I think i’m getting a little paranoid of some fandom arguments? especially when it starts to involve how some fans react to some controversial events. Bigger fandoms have been so filled with dramas (there had been a lot of push back against people liking not pure uwu characters that i get defensive at the idea of judging how someone may approach a controversial character they may like) i tend to end up having red flags over silly things i would probably have used myself a few years back. 

Your argument was fine, and honestly pretty mild in that term, i guess i’ve just had seen enough more virulent argument to be a little.. *alarms bells* upon reading some vague keywords. 

So my point is, my bad, i’ve got a little defensive there and judged your ask too harshly. I apologize.

Now back to the topic, yeah agreed on Chaoji. I honestly think Chaoji doesn’t know what details makes a Noah? I mean, the Order didn’t know before Road made her introduction and the Bookmen had to explain to them a few things. No one knows what it is like to turn into a Noah, no one knows about the awakened memories, and hell, the 14th is already a specific sort of Noah (i say it with all the love, but Nea isn’t a Noah Memory like Joyd is, he’s a parasite inside Allen’s body: his own being, not a memory that awoke in Allen, so even that when you know Noah’s development logic, is weird)

Chaoji didn’t become an exorcist until after the Ark’s arc and no one had any reasons too explain to that random crew man who was just helping carrying Lenalee around what little secrets they had learn about the Noah. So I think Chaoji still sees them as “they control the Akuma, they are rotten to the core, and once they turn there’s no come back”, perhaps projecting what he knows of the Akuma (which in which case is true, once an akuma, the only thing you can do is kill them with innocence for salvation - no attempt to really save them. Which makes me think, Chaoji did know Chomesuke- i think he wasn’t developped enough to have a reaction to him, but the fact Chomesuke had to destroy himself bc he couldn’t resist to its nature anymore might have added to this argument that there is no salvation for Dark Matter). 

For Chaoji I really don’t think he had the time to know about Noah stuff, and everything we know about how Noah comes to be come from Noah’s POV, so not something the Order may know, let alone a stubborn exorcist who hates them by principle. Allen tends to extend his compassion to non-humans because in a way... if he had seen Mana as non human the moment he would have turned him as an Akuma i think Allen couldn’t have stand it. (also i ended up mixing up with FMA but that reminded me of how Ed refused to kill the armor guys in the Lab 5 even when they kept saying they weren’t human anymore, because if he did so it would just imply that his brother isn’t human either and that it’s his fault that it is like that. I think the same reasoning can be applied to Allen @ the Akuma and extend to the Noah as long as the Noah are on the “side” of the Akuma. Ironically though considering “Mana” ended up becoming a Noah. Well. Always was, but you get my point)

Meanwhile the only strong feeling we’ve seen from an exorcist @ the Noah for being a Noah, was Kanda saying that since they are humans (which Skinn repeated) then they could be killed. Which i personally always took as a reassurance on Kanda’s part of reclaiming his own humanity and Alma’s, since they were denied it as kids and perhaps the only thing that, after all the horrors Alma had done, that made him human was that Kanda could kill him. Kanda asserting the Noah’s humanity in order to convince himself that death is part of humanity would, if i’m correct, be a sort of projection to protect that memory and identity, the same way Allen projects on others. 

But for the others, Lenalee had never hesitated around the Noah, even upon meeting Road, she quickly fought back. Lavi has a bad experience with Noah but he’s neutral enough to care more about what Allen wants in the end (when Allen wants to rescue Tyki the whole thing is about “the guys at the Order will look badly at it but if you think it’s important...” and not “why you do want to rescue the guy i wanted to kill a few hours ago”)Then there’s mainly Krory with the twins (and Lenalee to an extend) and I think there was too much irritation going on about them being brats more than them being Noah that went on there. 

But from Chaoji’s point of view who knew nothing about them, had spent his life hating the dark matter for taking what he loved, he saw.... Well Tyki playing with Lavi’s grief and threatening Lenalee, before trapping them in the Ark and trying to kill Allen, he’s seen Skinn  attack everyone and they then left Kanda behind with him, he’s been here a huge chuck of the Jasdebi fight just to see the Twins being Absolute Disaster Making You Lose Faith In Anything They Ever Represent (And It Happens To Be The Noah This Time) (did i ever mention that i love those stupid twins? I love them. They’re so dumb.), Road destroying Lavi’s mind and torturing Allen into forcing him to destroy Lavi, and finally the Lullubel attack on the Order that killed a huge amount of people. And if we extend the timeline to when he could have caught up his next meeting with the Noah in the Alma arc made him KO, kidnapped Lavi and Bookman who are now thought dead, and Fiidora’s parasites tortured him when he was powerless to save Lavi and Bookman, which might add some feeling of guilt there by the by. 

Without understanding of the Noah he just saw... the sheer destruction they brought along with them.

So Allen saying “I might become a Noah and you will have to kill me” - well I think seeing how horrible the Noah had been up to this point was enough for Chaoji to think that if Allen became one, it would override all of the good qualities Allen had. After all he has never seen the Noah before they became Noah.

Tbh It makes me even wonder if being introducted to Tyki in his human form (and Road to her human form as well but it’s more minor than how they befriended Tyki before that) may have made more possible for Allen to want to try to see that humanity. Because he saw this humanity with how Tyki behaved with his friends. More than just... hearing about “Oh apparently he has friends” that Chaoji would have heard from Allen, Lavi and Krory’s reaction upon meeting Tyki again. 

In a way, the fact Krory also has this association adding to how much he cares for Allen to relativise the way “becoming a Noah” might affect Allen - in a way Chaoji cannot. Because Krory saw Tyki having seemingly meaningful friendships with humans so, becoming a Noah wouldn’t come out as completely monstruous for him a way someone who just know the Noah might. (that, and also how his love for Eliade was serious and might make him more willing to believe in that humanity, even if Eliade told him in the end that she was just using him. Krory didn’t know she was lying - but he might hold on to that feeling).

So adding to all of Chaoji’s unchecked prejudice, there is this complete unknown over people he had only known as cruel. He has never seen their humanity the way Lavi, Krory, Kanda and Allen has. Then again yeah it doesn’t excuse anything because Miranda and Lenalee for exemple are in the same situation having suffered first hand from tortures from, well, Road for exemple, but trusting Allen above all while just as much in the dark. Even if depending how much the infos Bookman gave came to Miranda and Lenalee before Chaoji joined the Exorcist Group.

So that ended up being a lot of rambling dkjhfd but my point is that therefore, Allen is the one to see the humanity of the Noah the most, Krory and Lavi has reason to at least know personally Tyki’s human side to doubt how the Noah’s cruelty works, Kanda had had how he met with Skinn to approach it, else every exorcists before Chaoji was recruited might have heard a bit from Bookman but that’s it. Any other sort of acknowledging this humanity would come with trusting Allen. Which Chaoji doesn’t. 

And no one knows what “becoming a Noah” is like. And while Chaoji wasn’t there and i’m certain Lveille lied, but Allen did have a swift change of behavior and personality at least twice in the Alma’s arc for everyone to see (when talking to the Earl + when Kanda stabbed him). Even Johnny saw that. A second hand retelling could just convince Chaoji “well perhaps he had no control and it doesn’t matter what kind of person he was - once a Noah, you become a monster” and that could be enough.

That was a lot of ramble i’m so sorry dkjhfd but yeah. It’s a mess. 

And it’s just... there’s no way Chaoji can know. All he could do would be to trust Allen. Even seeking for answers isn’t exactly a position Chaoji is in, even if it would be preferable if he did question what he thought so far (like the others do) rather than just thinking “yup, he’s a goner, i’ll fight him”

if that makes any sense kdjhfd

idk Chaoji’s perspective is kinda fascinating to me. I dislike that he has it and doesn’t question it, but it’s fascinating to see how being emotionally disconnected from every elements we have ended up caring about can make someone like this. It really shows the price of emotional investment for me to see how Chaoji behave. He’s kinda the Counter-audience in that regard. And that’s what makes him fascinating, for as much as i dislike him as a person ahah. 

[nightcoremoon]

I think part of the reason why I hate horror movies is because of the overreliance on jumpscares and shock value and BWAH SUDDEN LOUD NOISES rather than on atmosphere, believability, tension, fear.

here's a list of horror movies from google and the reasons why I hate them, or why I love them, or that they're not actually horror movies.

A quiet place: haven't seen it yet but it's a thriller more so than a horror. thrillers can be scary though but then again so can comedies. and romances. 50 shades is definitely scary: it is psychological abuse after all.

Halloween: slasher film, automatically boring and shit. I'm including the entirety of the franchise here, by the way, and I'm also gonna be including Friday the 13th, nightmare on elm street, etc. They're all the same brand of sensationalist garbage. maybe the very first in each series could be redeemable but the mass volume of shitty and terrible CGI gorefests have ruined them forever. "oh no the scary unkillable monster is coming after us and he's gonna kill us in overly violent ways" 💩

Hereditary: I don't even give a shit it looks trite EDIT maybe it's okay but I don't give enough of a shit to bother to ~give it a chance~ because hey. that's what fucking horror games are for.

Insidious: boring, not scary, 0/10

Get Out: haven't watched yet but will because it's a cinematic masterpiece that defies genre conventions

Bird Box: IM SO FUCKING SICK OF HEARING ABOUT FUCKING BIRD BOX SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT BIRD BOX HOLY SHIT. It's just the goddamn happening by shyamagofuckyourself and it's an excuse to profit off of sensationalist suicide. oohh so spooky. eat my ass, boggart

It: too much bad cgi makes it a comedy. plus a bunch of kids say fuck a lot. good movie that's technically horror I guess but is it scary? nah.

Suspiria: I've never heard of this movie

Annihilation: same

Split: M NIGHT SHYAMALAN IS A SHITTY FILMMAKER and also it's ableist as fuck so

Mandy: google you suck none of these movies have any mainstream appeal

The Conjuring: 💩💩💩

Hush: ??? you know what fuck it I'm skipping the ones that don't matter

The Vvitch: 🙄 my mom's a witch, my best friend's a witch, I'm a witch. hey yeah maybe let's not buy into christian colonialism please? scary witches are boring as shit. gimme something actually scary. like Catholics.

The Nun: wait shit not like that! and by that I mean BORING AS HELL aside from the jumpscares. which are shit

The Babadook: clearly an LGBT movie, not horror

Cabin in the Woods: a parody and an excellent one at that. at least the gore is in homage, or hilariously over the top

Sinister: the fucking epitome of shitty jumpscares and shock value and lack of atmosphere and bad acting and bad plot and jesus fucking christ this is one of the worst and most boring movies I've ever had the misfortune to see DONT WASTE YOUR GODDAMN TIME

Saw: it's actually a thriller with Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Michael Emerson, and Tobin Bell. it's a campy cheesy low budget true to form horror film with adequate writing, good acting, AMAZING MUSIC BY CHARLIE CLOSER, and isn't over the top with gore considering it's all practical effects. top fucking notch but spawned a dozen terrible sequels.

Shaun of the Dead: it's a touching and heartfelt romantic comedy... with zombies, EXCELLENT CINEMATOGRAPHY, excellent acting, and sad parts that will rip your fucking heart out, stomp on it, and grind it to dust. literally one of the best movies ever made of all time, eat shit tarantino.

The Ring: eh, the original Japanese was better (Japanese horror is its own genre and not a part of this criticism, I actually really like original Japanese horror unfucked up by american audiences as long as it doesn't just gratuitously glorify suicide as Japan does), but this was still a really good mystery thriller with some really cool effects, and is the only movie that has ever actually scared me for real. even now I hate that there's a tv with a vcr right at the foot of my bed.

The Sixth Sense: shyamalan made a couple of good movies. this was one of them. but it wasn't a horror movie and if you didn't know the twist IT WAS A FUCKING AMAZING ONE. like, goddamn empire strikes back levels of supreme and god tier plot twists. it went a little overboard on shock value but compared to the rest of the COMPLETE BULLSHIT on this list (AND IN HIS OWN MOVIES) it really could've gone way further.

The Descent: goddamn claustrophobia. too much horribly cgi'd gore and terrible decisions to be truly enjoyable though. would've been a much better movie without the mutants and the middle finger to physics throat stabbing and the JUST FUCKING KICK IT YOU GODDAMN IDIOT and oh yeah the subtle misogyny. the first half was good tho

28 days later: shitty remake of a merely ok movie EDIT I was thinking of 28 weeks later, 28 days was actually okay I guess

Scream: did not age well but it's okay for being meta, despite the fucking torture porn of drew barrymore at the beginning. allowed for scary movie 1 though, so I'm glad it exists.

Paranormal Activity: PARANORMAL FUCKING ACTIVITY CAN EAT MY ASS, ITS SUCH A SUBLIME FAILURE OF EXECUTION. I WANTED IT TO BE GOOD BUT IT WASNT. oh well at least it inspired five nights at Freddy's. I'll go ahead and throw all shitty found footage movies under this one, including unfriended.

Blair Witch Project: a fucking pioneer of its time. a genre definer. truly scary. good movie. I'll go ahead and throw all good found footage movies under this one, including cloverfield.

The Shining: a thriller, not horror. but goddamn is it the scariest not horror movie ever made. Stephen king you magnificent bastard

Alien: goddamn fucking alien. science fiction masterpiece. director's a little creepy but eh, sigourney weaver kicks ass, and alien isolation is such a good game (despite its many flaws), and it's just so iconic in terms of sheer scope of concept. it's the same horror movie as anywhere else but in space, and I still can't fucking believe this was made in the 70s. this and Star Wars were FUCKING AMAZING, and the xenomorph? THATS ALL PRACTICAL EFFECTS BABEY. NO OVERRELIANCE ON CGI GUTS AND SHOCK VALUE HERE, ITS JUST PURE HORROR AT ITS FINEST. good movie. aliens was better. everything else... eeehhh...

The Thing: same as the descent but with men instead of women, and EVEN WORSE DECISION MAKING. IT IS UNBELIEVABLE JUST HOW GODDAMN STUPID EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM COULD POSSIBLY BE. and in the remake yeah the practical effects were mind blowingly fantastic and inspired dead space which I believe is one of the best horror games if not just best games or horror pieces of media if not just best pieces of media constructed. but the prequel? 🙄 no thanks

The exorcist: masterpiece of practical effects without an overreliance on jumpscares and gore

Jaws: it's Stephen fucking Spielberg in the 70s and one of the most influential horror films and just films in general

Hellraiser: okay I'll give all works by clive barker a pass here because goddamn is he a demented fucking genius if ever I saw one. if only Jericho was actually a good game, it could've been the next doom 3

Poltergeist: an actually good horror movie that depends on atmosphere and effects more so than jumpscares and gore? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

Evil Dead: campy but misogynist. the sequel was a comedy so it's okay. the next sequel is also a comedy AND ARMY OF DARKNESS IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER FUCKING MADE. FIGHT ME. and fuck the remake. sam raimi should've retired after spiderman 3. maybe even before that.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: honestly not bad. it was actually freaky and believable. rednecks really are fucking scary with all their inbreeding and terrible music and hatred of black people. I refuse to acknowledge the original and the sequels.

Psycho: eh, hitchcock's worst is still better than most of the shit on this list.

The Wicker Man: OH GOD NOT THE BEES! AHHGUBLAHH MY EYES! AAAAAHHHHH!!! fucking excellent comedy. but it doesn't have any naked ladies in it like the original did. oh well, can't please everyone.

Night of the Living Dead: THOSE ZOMBIES ARE BULLSHIT. ZOMBIES CANT USE WEAPONS AND THEY SURE AS FUCK CANT TURN YOU INTO A ZOMBIE BY STABBING YOU WITH A TROWEL. THEY HAVE TO BITE YOU. FUCK YOU GEORGE ROMERO. Also, dawn of the dead was just sensationalist garbage. "They tore apart a real pig carcass tho so it looked like real intestines" what? the fuck??? who gives a shit????? I watch movies to escape from reality, dumbass. I don't beat off to chopped up human carcasses. If I want a zombie movie I want the walking dead sans the soap opera bullshit and the racism and then "no one is safe and everyone will die" boring mentality propagated by twd and got and other things I used to like but no longer care about (because why should I give a shit about it if everyone could die? I can already be sad enough about all the real people I know who die. enjoying the pain of the deaths of those important to us is a privilege the cishets have). the walking dead seasons 1&2 was pure horror and the very best kind. don't give me boring contrivances. "but sheena, night of the living dead was a trope definer! everything in it was original!" yeah, you know what else is original? *farting noise* George Romero is just rob zombie without a rock band. his best work was fucking call of duty. that's pathetic. "maybe you just don't like gore" HEY YEAH SURE I DONT WANNA SEE UBER REALISTIC INTESTINES AND ORGANS IF THEY ARENT PART OF A MEDICAL DEAL SO IM JUST A BIG DUMB HATER. I'm the one in the wrong. fuck me, right?

Don't Breathe: A FUCKING TURKEY BASTER FILLED WITH SEMEN. THATS SO STUPID I FORGOT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SCARY. BEST CRINGE COMEDY OF THE YEAR :D

Tremors: legitimately great movie with a hundred shitty sequels. like saw but your faves win so you walk away filled with determination rather than sad and disappointed. enjoyment of tragedies are a privilege awarded to those who are neurotypical.

Zombieland: gore done right. the only casualty is mindless zomzoms and bill murray. good. granted it counts as a romance and a comedy but honestly last time I watched it I cried at the part where you find out buck isn't tallahassee's dog. god I love that movie. AND FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS IS THE MOST BADASS MOVIE OPENER EVER.

The Fly: Jeff fucking goldblum. amazing effects for good reasons. need I say more? the original doesn't exist because 1950s horror movies are all bad because all 1950s movies are bad. the 1950s should just be purged from america's records except for pleasantville.

All other Stephen king movies: hit or miss but mostly still good. although very few are actual horror.

10 cloverfield lane: more of a thriller like above's misery but still an amazing movie.

Peeping Tom: literally a movie about how creepy it is to fetishize the deaths of women WHILE LITERALLY FETISHIZING THE DEATHS OF WOMEN. like, come on man. how do you miss your own point so completely?

Invasion of the body snatchers: it's not horror and if it's made to be horror using gore it's shit. the whole thing is just an allegory to the joe mccarthy communism witch hunts anyway.

Cube trilogy: the ultimate b movies. so bad they're good. and it's such an interesting concept too!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: fucking alien clowns come to earth to turn us into cotton candy by killing us using carnival fare. THIS IS THE GREATEST BAD MOVIE EVER MADE.

All horror movies based on horror video games: either irredeemably bad, or action movies

All creepy Netflix horror movies: wow any idiot with a camera and basic cgi skills can throw shit together to make a movie these days, huh

The Slender Man: I am literally too pissed off about this movie to insult it.

Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve, the Slender Man movie on YouTube: triumphs of meta, editing, found footage, proof of concept, and story. Slenderman is such a malleable entity for a perfect horror experience, HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY FUCK THAT UP? YOUD HAVE TO BE INTENTIONALLY SABOTAGING YOUR WHOLE MOVIE TO FUCK IT UP AS BAD AS SOMEone who exclusively directs remakes... oh... oh no.

Wrong Turn: one mediocre movie and a dozen loathesome snoozefests coasting by on shock value

Troll 2:

oh god

they're eating her

and then

they're gonna eat me

...

oh my gooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

(Troll 2 is literally the worst movie ever made and I have to respect it for that at least)

but yeah, horror is just bad for movies. but for video games, though...

[mustdang-100]

Shifting Perspectives - Ch. 7

Shou and Teru have a sleepover. Reigen gets some excercise.

Summary:

How many espers does it take to rescue one abducted conman?

Months after the events of the World Domination arc, Reigen disappears sometime between leaving the office and after-work plans. Serizawa finds himself the unwilling leader of a bunch of former Claw members and a couple of stubborn teenagers, determined to get Reigen back.

On AO3: <http://archiveofourown.org/works/11091201/chapters/31009659>

Tumblr: Ch.1|Ch.2|Ch.3|Ch.4|Ch.5|Ch.6|Ch.7 - below

Teru double-checked that Shou was indeed pointing at the nondescript office building directly in front of them before turning back to him in astonishment.

“That’s the government facility?”

“Yep. Tricky bastards, aren’t they?”

The building was one among dozens smack in the middle of Spice City’s main financial district, where the government had clearly chosen to hide their operation in plain sight. A bold move, but with all the upheaval Spice City had experienced in recent months, Teru supposed it made sense for the government to have a base somewhere local.

Teru crossed his arms, looking up at the shadowy form of the building. Despite a night sky clear of clouds, the sliver of crescent moon above provided very little light. There wasn’t a single sign, whether truthful or disguise, to indicate the purpose of the building to a random passersby. No window lights broke the uniform darkness stretching up above them, either, barring the chance for any useful movement indicators behind curtains or blinds. The building practically exuded unfriendliness and unwelcomeness.

This wasn’t really a surprise – Teru didn’t expect them to usher in trespassers for a cup of tea – but it didn’t make their objective any easier. He considered for a moment, ears pricking for any sounds beyond the rumbling and honking of cars, faded and distant at this late – or, perhaps, early – hour.

“Okay, we need a plan of action. How much do you know about this place? Have you been inside?” Teru tapped his chin. “Do you know how many espers they have? I’d imagine it’s more than just the one we saw in the video, especially if this is where they’re keeping your father. That means we’re going to have to-”

Teru turned to look at Shou. Or rather, the space formerly occupied by Shou, as Shou was no longer there.

“Yo, blondie. Follow me, we’re gonna attract attention if we stand around talking out here. Not exactly a normal place for two teenagers at four a.m.”

Teru followed the sound of Shou’s voice just in time to see his short figure disappear behind the corner. He followed Shou around the building, catching up just in time to see him stop before the front door of the building directly across the street from the rear side of the government facility. Shou dug a key card from his pocket and swiped it through a scanner; the door unlocked with a click that seemed too loud, echoing out on the dark street. Teru glanced nervously behind them, feeling suddenly as though they were being watched. He didn’t like having the shuttered government building at his back.

Shou, unhurried and unconcerned, trotted through the small, empty lobby and led him up to a vacant office space on the eighth floor. He ignored the ‘For Rent’ sign pasted at a slight angle to the door, and opened it easily with a second key from his pocket.

Teru cautiously inspected the wide, mostly-empty space inside, trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that their mission had suddenly slipped out of his control. However, he noted with interest the large windows conveniently overlooking the government facility below, which would make spying from this perch a simple matter.

“Hmm. How lucky for you, that this space just happened to be empty.”

Shou grinned. “Yes. Very lucky. Very lucky that the consultation business that was based here had a fit of ghostly interference right around the time I figured out where they were holding my pops.”

Teru couldn’t help but grin back. “Oh my. Must have been quite the serious haunting case to force them to move out. You know, I happen to part-time as an exorcist for an up and coming psychic corporation. Perhaps I could diagnose; what kind of spectral activity were they experiencing?"

“Oh, you know – important documents going missing, printers producing vaguely threatening messages directed to various employees, and the occasional ghastly wail coming from the bathroom. The usual kind of thing.” Shou opened a closet door, still smirking. “And for some reason, it always starts back up again as soon as anyone else tries to move in.”

Teru laughed.

The opened closet revealed a shelf stocked with a jumbled stash of nonperishable food. Shou ripped open a granola bar with his teeth and ate half of it in one bite before tugging a tangle of bedding and spare clothes from the lower shelf of the closet, dumping it on the ground. He spread a sleeping bag on the floor, then tossed a package of something freeze-dried on top of it to complete something like a meal, moving all the while with the careless confidence of routine. Teru was beginning to suspect Shou slept here very, very often.

Teru pulled a health bar of his own from his bag and leaned against the wall, tearing it open. “So, this is where you’ve been living?”

Shou paused in sorting through the pile of fabric to look up at him with narrowed eyes. “Only sometimes. I told you, I needed, I mean wanted, to know where my pops was being kept. Keep an eye on things.” Shou shrugged in a tight flex of shoulders, and turned to pull out a wrinkled t-shirt, sniffing it gingerly.

Teru frowned, mulling this as he chewed. “I still don’t see why you don’t just leave him to rot, he doesn’t deserve your continued interest – he’s not exactly the pinnacle of parental behavior. I.e., he kinda tried to kill us all- ohhhh, is that why?”

If Shou was keeping an eye on a potential threat… yes, that explanation made perfect sense to Teru.

“What? No… I mean kinda, but… Ugh .” Shou flopped back onto the sleeping bag. “Look. He was stupid, and horrible, and pretty much insane with power. I haven’t figured out what exactly drove him to the point of ‘I-am-so-powerful-I-must-therefore-be-the-best-in-the-world-and-thus-I-must-rule-it,’ because that’s so idiotic I couldn’t even begin to explain where that kind of thinking comes from – woah there, eat much? There’s some water in the closet, that’ll help with the coughing, breathe dude – but…”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Teru, still wheezing a little despite the water, occupied himself with very carefully examining the back of his own hand. His glittery purple nail polish had chipped on one finger. He mourned that he hadn’t packed that bottle so he could repair the damage, return the nail to its formerly pristine smoothness.

“I don’t know. It’s just, there was that fight with Ritsu’s brother, and some of the things he said after, and then he… he gave up , he, he let them lead him away. And he’s stayed . He doesn’t have to, I’m pretty sure he could break out if he wanted, he definitely could have at the beginning. But he’s staying locked up, like he deserves, like he owes to, to everyone, to society. He’s like… paying his dues, I guess. And it just… it makes me wonder, ya know? If he’s changing. If he’s reconsidering…”

Shou made an angry, frustrated noise, almost a growl. “But I don’t want to fall in the same trap I did before, when I confronted him! I was naïve enough to think he was still capable of change, before, when I didn’t know just how fucking insane, and how powerful, he was. But Mom says he didn’t used to be that way… And if he could change once, then maybe...”

Teru’s mind was roiling, burning with a need to explain… what exactly, he still couldn't formulate. So he chomped on his tongue and said nothing. The silence stretched.

Shou sat up straight in a sudden, swift movement. “Let’s just say, I’m curious, and leave it at that. Now would you leave it alone? I thought you wanted to get Reigen out, not pry into every little bit of my life. Next thing you’re gonna be asking me what my favorite color is.” He grinned, too brightly. “It’s red, by the way.”

Teru rolled his eyes, all too happy to end this conversation that had wandered into places he didn’t want to think about too closely. “Yeah, okay. So, what do you know about this place?”

“I’ve snuck inside once or twice. I made a drawing of the basic layout; or at least, the important parts. It’s around here somewhere, in the closet probably.” Shou stretched, then curled up in the sleeping bag. “I have some ideas, but let’s deal with it tomorrow. First, we sleep. I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Wait, what? But we’re so close!”

Shou snorted. “We are not , they've got all kinds of security in that place. We gotta think this through first.” He cracked an eye open, a pale blue slice staring Teru down. “We’re gonna do this smart, yeah? We know who has him, and where he probably is. No reason to rush it and fuck everything up now.”

Well. Teru could hardly argue with that without making himself seem irresponsible. And no one out-responsibled Teruki Hanazawa.

Shou grumbled when he realized that since Teru hadn’t intended to sleep until they found Reigen, he hadn’t packed anything to sleep on (“ That’s like, the most obvious thing. You’re slacking, oh Prepared One.” ). However, he did toss Teru what seemed to be the only pillow, and a giant blanket he must keep around for the winter months. Teru settled down to try and sleep for what remained of the night.

It wasn’t two minutes before Shou was snoring softly, a tuft of bright red hair the only thing visible from the nest he’d made of the sleeping bag. Teru gave up after half an hour of lying awake, staring at the ceiling. He pulled out his binoculars and examined the building below, but the dim light from the street lamps failed to reveal anything new from this angle. No sudden signs pointing conveniently to Reigen’s precise location, so that Teru could dash in, get Reigen safely back to Spirits & Such, and return everything to normal.

Shou turned over in his sleep and sighed. Teru glanced at him, a bit wistful. He uncrossed and re-crossed his legs, fighting the impulse to get up and pace. Instead, he forced his limbs to relax, hoping the twitchiness would fade on its own. He examined the empty office space again, first merely what he could see from that spot, and then jumping on the excuse of poking into the bathrooms and shadowy corners to get up and walk around. After a thorough examination, he sat back down on his blanket. He was immediately hit with the urge to check it all again.  

He slumped, pressing a hand to his face. By focusing on the mission and with Shou there to talk to, he’d been able to ignore or excuse his growing unease all day. But now he’d lost those foci, and could no longer ignore the issue without lying to himself.

Damn it. Fucking Claw.

Teru sighed, and finally acknowledged the irrational fears reawakened by Reigen’s abduction, which were never as buried as he liked to pretend. These were the fears of a hunted child, that had spawned habits of constant vigilance, and instant violence, and a push to grow skilled enough so that he would never have to worry about being a victim again. He’d be a hero like in the movies, made powerful -but unscathed- by his past. Or, so he’d thought.

Regardless, Claw was gone now, doomed by its own avarice. The monster that had conquered or devoured every esper it encountered, gorging itself on power and yet never reaching satiation, had finally run up against one who refused to be consumed. Shigeo had ripped the head from the beast, and Claw had crumbled to ash, its members defeated or reforged. Claw’s demise had brought Teru a peace he hadn’t realized he’d craved, and if he hadn’t owed Shigeo the world before…

‘…that’s so idiotic I couldn’t even begin to explain where that kind of thinking came from…’

Teru flinched. Shou had, without realizing it, just told him that his childhood boogieman was born from precisely the same ideas that he had once espoused to anyone who would stand still long enough. And given that he would make them stand still and listen, if necessary, that was quite a lot of people.

I’m not like that anymore, he told himself crossly. That’s the old me. I’m a different person now.

He wished he was as good at convincing himself as he was with everyone else.

Watching the building now, Teru couldn’t help but long for the reassurance of Shigeo’s immeasurable pool of power at his side. But then again, returning Shigeo’s master before he’d even noticed he was gone was a gift too good to pass up. Teru reassured himself once again that they’d certainly, definitely done the right thing by not telling him Reigen was gone. There was no reason he should feel guilty about not telling him. And there was certainly no reason why he should feel guilty that he wasn’t rushing in right now, right this very second, to get Reigen out. No reason at all; it was completely illogical.

Teru pulled his blanket over to the wall so that he could lean back, but didn’t have to lay all the way down, trying to trick his brain into relaxing enough to sleep. He watched the sky lighten, streaked with orange and red and pink, not a cloud in sight. The sun rose in jumps each time he opened his eyes from the light doze that was all he could manage, and Teru fought the inclination to wake up Shou just for the riot of complaints he knew would keep his own thoughts at bay.

***

“Ah, you’re awake. Good.”

Reigen turned to the door, interrupted mid-pace by the return of Nagata and the silent shadows of the guards.

As if you haven’t been watching me this whole time, you prick, he thought with irritation and a twinge of claustrophobia. He hadn’t quite been able to ignore the steadily blinking light of the camera ever since he’d woken up, groggy from either not enough sleep or too much. Without a phone, he had no idea how long he’d slept. Or even how long he’d been there.

I should probably wear a watch, he mused. All fancy businessmen wear watches, why haven’t I thought of this before. And then the next time I get abducted, I’ll be prepared -”

“Ahem.”

Reigen blinked. Nagata was staring at him, looking slightly miffed that Reigen wasn’t hanging on his every word.

“I said, I’m curious why you didn’t bother changing?”

They both looked at the set of fatigues, still folded neatly on the desk where Reigen had found them upon waking up.

“Forgive me, but I would have assumed you’d want to change out of the clothes you’d been wearing for almost two days. I'm sorry if they’re not quite to your… exacting tastes,” a sideways glance at Reigen’s cheaply-made and slightly-too-large suit, “but I’m afraid the only other spare clothing we have are prisoners’ jumpsuits. I thought you might prefer this…?”

He sounded almost wounded that his ‘gift’ had been rejected. Reigen fought not to roll his eyes. Yet he was startled to hear he’d only been here for a couple of days – it felt much longer than that. He also wasn’t about to admit that not only had he been feeling too vulnerable to give up his last remaining possessions, but also that a change of clothes into something so distinct would interfere with his plans. Instead, he simply shrugged and mumbled something indistinct, not meeting Nagata’s eyes.

Nagata contemplated him a moment more, face blanker than Reigen would have liked.

“Are you ready to return to our earlier conversation?”

“Oh… um. Y-yes, yes.” Reigen swallowed loudly. He wiped sweaty palms on his pants. “Yes, I think I’m ready.”

Nagata smiled in condescending approval. He waved the esper guards out the door, as he had last time, then pulled the single chair out and gestured for Reigen to take a seat. Instead, Reigen hesitated, and began tentatively.

“Listen, I was wondering… it, um, it would be nice to be able to walk around for a bit… stretch my legs, as it were, it’s a bit cramped in here… perhaps, we could take a walk while we chat?”

A line dented between Nagata’s eyebrows in an immediate frown of displeasure. “How about we have our discussion here, first, and then you can take a walk for as long as you want, all on your own?”

Reigen turned his gaze slowly to the door, behind which he knew the guards were standing. He waited.

“Ah, well, yes, but the guards will maintain a distance, of course. They’d be just close enough to keep you in eyesight.”

“That’s… you and I both know that distance doesn’t make a difference with… them. Sir,” he hastily remembered to add.

“Then we’ll come up with another arrangement.” Nagata’s words were too clipped, the information he wanted tantalizingly just beyond his reach. He sat in the chair instead of waiting for Reigen to take it, to reinforce that he wasn’t leaving.

Reigen bit his lip, and looked at the ground. He rubbed the knuckles of one hand with the other, then tapped his fingers against his thighs. He shuffled his feet, glancing at the door again and edging away from it, just a little, as though nervous of the people behind it even with solid steel between them. He looked everywhere but at the agent, who sat intently before him, his building annoyance crackling through the air. Reigen held the silence for five seconds… ten…

“I… I’m sorry, I… I’m not sure… I think I need some more time to think it over, after all…”

Nagata’s eyes narrowed. Reigen fought to not hold his breath.

Nagata studied Reigen, and tapped his fingers on the desk. Abruptly he stood up from the chair, straightening his clothing of nonexistent wrinkles. “On second thought, walking and talking is good for the mind. Promotes clarity, and reflection. Let’s take a walk, just the two of us, hmm, Mr. Reigen? The guards can wait here until we come back.”

Reigen hesitated again before speaking. “Ah… yes. Okay. Um. Thank you.”

Nagata opened the door, firmly instructing the esper guards to remain there while he took the nervous, powerless, defenseless captive out for a walk around the facility. He didn’t even turn to look behind him as he began walking down the hall. Reigen followed docilely behind.

To Reigen’s surprise, Nagata didn’t immediately continue pressing him. He simply walked, with an occasional glance Reigen’s way, but slowly enough that Reigen could study their surroundings.

There wasn’t much to see, as he recalled from the hazy journey to his cell. Blank hallways, devoid of windows and décor; no billboards for memos or morale-boosting friendly office betting pools. For that matter, he only saw a couple of employees. Another black-clad woman whispered something to her older companion as Nagata and Reigen passed, who shook their graying head. A young bureaucrat or secretary with arms full of a stack of papers turned a corner, took one look at the two of them, and turned to scurry in the opposite direction. Reigen had to bite the inside of his cheek to hold back a casual “Huh, you always keep so few employees around in the middle of the day?”

For the middle of the day it was – as they turned another corner, he got his first glimpse of gleaming sunlight in what felt like weeks. Reigen stared around in surprise; they were on the second floor of the building, with a railing separating them from the open air above a large, eerily welcoming atrium. Brightly lit with natural light, a wall of windows formed the front of the building, through which a normal city road and accompanying sidewalks could be seen. The atrium looked more like the entrance floor of a large bank than a highly-secure government facility, although it was as empty as the rest of the building’s halls.

Reigen couldn’t help a raised brow at Nagata. “Didn’t realize the government was so welcoming to prying eyes and public opinions on your operations. Say, what’s the general consensus on abduction? ‘Cause I’d like to add my two cents.”

Nagata ignored him, watching someone in a finely-tailored suit walk swiftly past on the sidewalk outside. “The glass is bulletproof, and one-sided – we’re not as visible to them as it appears. Nor as vulnerable.” He looked up, directly across the space. “For example, there are shutters, should we need them.”

Reigen followed his gaze, eye-level on the opposite side of the wall from where they stood. Sure enough, there were rolls of thick metal waiting to close over the windows at a moment’s notice. The sight was a shock in contrast to the atrium’s first impression, and he gave the large space a second look with a more critical eye.

There were cameras everywhere, on the ceilings, on the walls; some with obvious red blinking lights, and probably some he couldn’t even see. There were also several odd blank metal panels set into the walls – weapons lockers, perhaps, though his imagination could spin something worse. The panels blended in just fine with the tastefully bland decor unless you knew to look for things that seemed just a bit… off.

This wasn’t merely a front; this whole place could be easily turned into a conveniently-located trap. Reigen felt cold just thinking about the possibilities.

Nagata was watching him again, leaning on one elbow resting on the bannister. He had apparently decided this was a good place to continue their ‘chat’. Reigen, his rapidly-adapting plan whirring in the back of his mind, certainly had no objections.

“So tell me, Mr. Reigen – given that you’re in the industry of being a psychic without actually being psychic, I’m curious. Was it worth it to hire an esper employee, or do you find all the additional violence in your life hasn’t made up for the validation it provides for your business?”

For one horror-stricken second Reigen thought that he, that Mob , had been found out, until he realized Nagata was referring to Serizawa. Still, he didn’t like what those words implied; he paused before saying, slowly, “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“Well, may I be frank?” Nagata continued without waiting for an assent. “You seem more… cautious around espers than I would have expected, for someone on record for spending so much time with one in your daily life. But their world is a dangerous and vicious one, and I can only assume that having to deal with the messes a psychically-gifted thug instigates has led to experiences that taught you that kind of caution.”

Reigen turned away before Nagata could see his expression. He himself didn’t want to know what his face looked like.

“It’s the kind of behavior I’d expect, from someone with his past.” Nagata must have taken his silence for agreement. “He and his friends are a bunch of former terrorists. Honestly I’m not sure how they got away scot-free the first time; Joseph was never very clear about it. Something about a pass from the Prime Minister. Though of course, he’s one of them as well, so who knows what really went down…”

He moved just a little closer, and lowered his voice. Out of Nagata’s line of sight, Reigen finally allowed his hands to curl into fists.

“Mr. Reigen, I know you must be concerned with the repercussions. But we can help you. We can make sure that, whoever it is, never knows it was you who told us. So tell me. Is it Serizawa Katsuya, or one of his friends? Multiple of them working together, perhaps? The way they tend to band together, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

And with that, Reigen officially couldn’t take it anymore.

“Mr. Nagata. I’m so sorry for the abject failure in your upbringing that caused you to become such a miserable person. Or maybe it’s just that your character is so flawed, there was never any hope for you.”

Nagata stared at him, blinking rapidly, trying to process the sudden shift in conversation and demeanor.

“But in case there’s hope for you yet, allow me to fill you in on some missed lessons.” Reigen stepped forward, closer to Nagata, who had the look of a deer in headlights as he hastily tried to figure out what had gone awry.

“Some people choose to be good, and some people choose to be bad. This is true of everyone, whether they have psychic powers or not. Therefore, there are psychic people who choose to be good, like my associates have done. Just some coincidentally-psychic people who, despite errors in their pasts, now want to live normal lives and contribute to society the best that they can.”

Reigen leaned a little closer.

“And following the same line of logic, there are, of course, non-psychic people who choose to be bad.”

Reigen smiled, a bright baring of teeth. Then he sunk his fist into Nagata’s face with the full force of his weight behind it.*

Nagata fell back against the balcony’s railing, hands going instinctively out to catch himself. Reigen kept moving, using the momentum from the punch to twist, sweeping a leg up for a follow-up kick. With all his focus on the movement, he barely gave notice to his weakly-protesting conscience before switching his aim to as high on Nagata’s chest as he could, high enough for just the right amount of leverage...

He drove his heel into the top of Nagata’s sternum. Nagata tipped over the balcony, and plunged out of sight.

Reigen didn’t wait to see the results; he’d just have to hope Nagata didn’t land badly enough for the fall to be fatal. He skidded to the staircase, leaping down stairs two or three at a time, and bolted for the front door. He flung himself at it, hoping desperately that it would open…

It did. But not quietly.

Reigen ran out the door, almost blinded by the brilliant sunlight, hysteria bubbling into a shriek of startled laughter to match the cacophony of dozens of screeching alarms. Alarms that did not quite mask the pounding echo of military boots, setting panic to nip at his heels. (*Punching Sleazy Bureaucrats Right in the Fucking Face, Reigen’s Secret Technique)

[eachainn]

Requested by @valerianights: xjdnx maybe some protective mikleo towards sorey? And sorey amazed/scared because mikleo shouldn't do this anymore? (Here's Part 1 and Part 2.)

Sometimes it felt like all he was doing was falling unconscious and then waking up in strange places. 

Sorey groaned and propped himself on his elbows, glancing around. At least he wasn’t in an inn, although he almost wished that he was in the inn room because they meant that everything they had done wasn’t a bad dream. Sorey would have loved stumbling through the Earthpulse to be a horrible dream.

He sat up slowly, looking around the ruin. His interest perked up at the carvings on the walls, Sorey scooting closer to them.

He gently touched some of the carvings, brushing off a layer of dirt and some dead vines to see them more clearly. He caught a glimpse of a person stacking blocks before the scuff of a boot over stone pulled his attention away.

Sorey froze, turning his head to bring the other end of the room into his line of vision. There wasn’t anyone in the room with him, but he could see shadows moving on the wall. Sorey frowned, staring at them for a moment before pushing himself off the ground.

He vaguely remembered stumbling out of the Earthpulse with everyone, but even that was fuzzy. His fever had been running high at that point and it was hard to pick out what had been real and what had been some twisted form of his imagination. He was sure that the cool hands that he had felt against his forehead had been real, but only because the had been there the last time he’d been injured.

Sorey carefully moved towards the front of the room, trying not to make noise. As he got closer he could make out raised voices, picking out his name. That was almost enough to get him to stop, but Sorey kept moving. 

If they were talking about him, then they were only doing it because they thought that he was still unconscious. If he wanted to hear more, he would have to keep quiet, and he desperately wanted to know more.

No one in the group seemed eager to talk to him, but Sorey couldn’t blame them for that. He was an exorcist that they had saved on a whim and he was more trouble than he was worth. He hadn’t been high enough in the ranks to know any helpful information and he still wasn’t used to his blind right eye, which meant he was next to useless in combat. He was perfectly content to be alive and allowed to travel with them for his own safety, but that didn’t mean that he liked being left in the dark.

Sorey braced himself against the doorway, careful to keep himself tucked out of sight. He would have been tempted to lean out around the lintel and check to see who was talking, but he would have practically stepped out into the open with his eye the way it was and that would defeat the whole purpose.

He stood still through a lull in the conversation, his eyes widening when he recognized Michael’s voice when the man spoke. “There are ways to transfer this. I’m sure of it. We can ask Lailah.”

“No.” Sorey rocked forward at the sound of Mikleo’s voice, keeping himself from stepping out of the room.

He wanted to check on the malak. The last time he’d seen Mikleo, the malak had been unconscious in the Earthpulse and in danger according to Lailah. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see him awake since they had made their pact.

Sorey shifted in place, debating making some sort of announcement of his presence when Michael groaned.

“I’m not asking much. Just maybe think about this more. Selene would make a good vessel, as would Rose or anyone in the next town when we figure out where we are. Just anyone but him.”

“And why not him?”

“Because he’s an exorcist!”

“That didn’t stop you and Muse the first time.”

“We had no other choice! You were in danger, and Edna was in danger because she wouldn’t leave you. The exorcist offered.”

“If you don’t approve, then why didn’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re human. You could have acted as my vessel. If you had any problems with it would should have said it then.”

“I...I couldn’t.”

There was a telling silence, Sorey wishing that he hadn’t chosen to listen in on the conversation. It felt private, but he couldn’t step away, not when his heart sped up at the thought of anyone taking Mikleo away.

It wasn’t that he wanted to use the malak, if he had wanted that he never would have let him go int he first place or volunteered to help Mikleo. It had never been about the power, it had been about preserving the freedom that the malak had just found.

He swallowed, rubbing at his arm as the silence went on. Then he heard Mikleo huff. 

“If you couldn’t be bothered then you have no right telling me what to do about my vessel. Besides, I thought you’d be happy. Now we have someone to watch him in case he betrays us like you’re always talking about.”

Michael made a choked sound. “You’ve just gone back to the way you were before.”

“No. Now I’m in control of my own thoughts, my own feelings.”

“But you can’t trust him.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Sorey leaned back against the wall, startling when he heard someone walking his way.

He glanced around the room, trying to find a place to hide or a way to make it look like he hadn’t been listening in. The room was completely blank, anything that would have been in it had been removed when the ruins had been abandoned all those years ago.

Sorey slid a little bit down the wall, offering Mikleo a sheepish smile when the malak walked into the room.

Mikleo pivoted to look at him, Sorey rubbing the back of his neck as Mikleo stared at him. “I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...if you want me to I’ll just...”

“No.” Mikleo shrugged and walked towards the center of the room. “You would have heard it eventually. It’s probably better that you heard it like that then all of them hiding it from you. Knowing you, the guilt would have eaten you up and I need you as my vessel.”

“There are others that-”

“No!” Mikleo rounded on him. “I told Michael no and I’m telling you no!”

“Why?” Sorey took a step forward, not daring to reach out to Mikleo. He didn’t have that right. He’d never had it.

Sorey fumbled for words, trying to string them together in a way that made sense. “I only did it to save you, but I never intended it to be permanent. If there’s another way, then you should take it.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I’m an exorcist. I tethered you before against your will! I used you and Edna.”

“You freed me and Edna.”

“That’s not the point!”

“It is. It’s the entire point.” Mikleo took a step forward, Sorey stepping backwards. The malak continued to back him up, only stopping when Sorey ran into the wall.

He grunted as he back hit, Sorey glancing back at the wall before looking over at Mikleo and finding him too close. 

The malak didn’t seem to notice, his attention completely on Sorey. That kind of attention made the hairs on the back of his neck prick up, because he’d seen Mikleo fight and it had been awesome and terrifying.

He licked his lips, trying to come up with something, but Mikleo beat him to the punch.

“I don’t know any of the others, not like I know this about you. You will serve as a suitable vessel, so I’ll take it. More than that I...I..” Mikleo frowned and looked away, Sorey seeing a blush dust the malak’s cheeks. “I don’t trust you but you’re the known. I know what you will do. If you freed me before, then you’ll do it again. You may be an exorcist, but you have a conscience. And that’s enough for me right now. Besides,” Mikleo looked back up at with him determination in his eyes but still blushing, “if you step out of line I know that I can handle you.”

Sorey blinked, trying to sort through what Mikleo was saying. He swallowed, trying for a smile and not sure that he succeeded. “So...you’re watching me?”

“If you want to put it that way, yes. Someone needs to.”

Mikleo reached up like he was going to touch the right side of Sorey’s face, his hand jerking back at the last moment. The malak curled his fingers towards his palm before he sighed and stepped back. 

Mikleo looked at the door before shaking his head. “Since you’re up, we might as well get moving. Just because we’ve stopped doesn’t mean Heldalf hasn’t. And I don’t like what I sensed it there.”

“Do you know what it was?”

“No. But I’m sure we’ll find out.” 

Mikleo turned on his heel and walked towards the door, Sorey remaining pressed against the wall.

He was suddenly struck by how much he didn’t know Mikleo. He thought he had, at least while the malak had been tethered to him. That malak had liked reading or listening as Sorey read, and Sorey had always thought of that as a quirk, but that had been the only remarkable thing. 

Now there was so much more, and Sorey felt like he was only scraping the surface each time and making no progress. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He looked back up at the malak, surprised to see Mikleo waiting for him at the door. 

The malak made an impatient motion, Sorey pushing himself away from the wall. 

There was no point in staying behind, not when Heldalf was still moving forward with his plans. Stopping them would mean saving the malakhim, which was his main goal at the moment. Besides, it was about time he stopped being the weak link in their team. If that happened, they just might kick him out. They didn’t need dead weight with what they were doing, it was too dangerous for something like that.

He stepped up to Mikleo’s side, tempted to hang back but the triumphant smirk that Mikleo had kept him in place. If this was what Mikleo wanted, then he could bow to that.

As long as Mikleo and Edna wanted him around, he was more than happy to stay.

[lia-nikiforov]

Winter 2017 Anime watchlist

Lmao this was supposed to go up last week but it takes me forever to write these things up orz.

Anyway, we’re 1/3 of the way into this barren Winter season, and thus my watchlist has shrunk significantly. I think I’m currently watching what, 10 shows? vs 23-ish last season? Anyway we’ve had a couple neat surprises this season, but it’s mostly the sequels that are keeping everything interesting. Also there’s quality hatewatch material which I hadn’t had in a while.

Because I fucked up, this time I’m going from best to worst rather than the usual opposite

Top Priority

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Futatabi Sukeroku-hen

To no one’s surprise, Rakugo maintains it’s tightly written character drama in top form. The direction is still unusually creative and masterful, especially considering this is a DEEN anime, production team deserves every kudo. If season one was a tragedy, season 2 is gearing up for a story of salvation. Every week I go in completely prepared to suffer and am repeatedly surprised by how happy I feel at the end of each episode.  Scenes like Yakumo consoling a sleeping Konatsu with her father’s rakugo or his performing an old play in Sukeroku’s style for Yotaro are as heart-wrenching as they’re heartwarming. S1 was a strong contender for anime of the year 2016 (and for me it was a toss up between that and YOI) and season 2 seems ready to pick on that and go for a second run.

High-Priority

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto saga

Honestly this one had my full devotion guaranteed when they decided to commit to those thick af Kansai accents. I am also very pleased with the budget this is getting, it looks reeeaaally nice. Kato’s designs have translated to animation greatly (not that this was a surprise since they did that pretty well on the first series too). The plot seems to be moving rather fast so I wonder if they won’t suffer to fill in the full cour (although this arc is quite long) but for the time being I’m excited to get the Kyoto otaku in me continually catered to.

Yowamushi Pedal: Next Generation

I was a Little dubious about how well they’d manage the transition of Makishima’s departure, and while killing him off was rather abrupt to the point I’d even say the guy was fridged for the sake of Onoda’s development, they did a rather good job in setting Teshima as the new role model for the 1st years (who is also very dreamy). I also laughed my ass off with how gigantic they made Ashikiba who is a rather delightful addition to the cast. Kudos to you show, you’ve got me excited in a new season even without my favorite character.

Little Witch Academia

It’s hard to find something to say about this show other than it’s energetic, lively and fun to a fault and that Sucy is still Best Girl. It’s very easy to tell how passionate the folks at TRIGGER are about this project and I’m glad they didn’t give up and continued to work on it even if it was poorly received by Japanese audiences. The show reminds me a bit of The Worst Witch, which I used to love in my early teens so there’s also that.

Kuzu no Honkai

This is such a fascinatingly disturbing show to watch. Like watching a trainwreck I guess, except that it’s not a trainwreck in the sense of Hand Shakers, but in you’re just watching all these horrible people destroy each other and self-destruct emotionally and it’s really interesting. I’m particularly invested in Hanabi’s internal struggle and self-deprecation. Could complete dispose of Moca (whose choice of nickname makes my skin crawl) but otherwise I’m constantly at the edge of my seat waiting for the next developments. I also continue to be rather fond of the vagina imagery in the ending, and I appreciate that there’s actually a show that treats female sexuality in a layered, human way, for purposes beyond otaku titillation.

All Out!! 

This show continues to grow on me with its unique approach to team dynamics. The fact that rugby teams are so big gives us an interesting opportunity of seeing many characters take the spotlight at different times, and this show’s cast continues to be funny and extremely likable to the point that even if Gion has had to sit out most of the games, and even if there isn’t as much focus on Sekizan as I’d like, they’re still engaging and fun. There have also been genuinely emotional peaks, notoriously when that one guy quite the team and it crushed Sekizan’s heart. Also kudos for how even in-show Sekizan’s amazing hair is considered cray-cray

Classicaloid

Honestly this second cour just keeps getting better? I don’t know how they did it but they managed to make me not care about whether we’ll ever get some semblance of plot or explanations, I could watch the Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin and Liszt doing nonsense stuff show all year round. Whoever wrote the Fish!Schubert episode should get an Oscar and a Nobel Prize

Here we make a drastic leap between things I’m loving and things I’m just eh-watching

ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

Aaaahhh what should I do about you, show. Ep 1 was okay, ep 2 was great, ep 3 was kind of nothing. There’s obviously way more than meets the eye in this allegedly peaceful country and once that starts to unfold the show will start gaining momentum, hopefully, but as it is I think it suffers greatly from how inscrutable the main character is. I have no idea of Jean’s motivations beyond his love of cigarettes (and I feel they’re overdoing it, unless they plan to make the tabacco thing a  crucial part of the plot later on, they’re hammering the whole ‘tobacco is rare and this guy is weird for smoking’ thing way too hard) so we’re at this weird position of not really knowing where we’re going. I’m intrigued enough to keep watching, but I certainly hope we get some form of interesting developments sooner rather than later.

Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans

The writing continues to be notoriously better while the story gets more and more tragic and I still don’t know how to feel about it. Seeing bad guys cheating their way to victory always upsets me a lot, and seeing people die meaninglessly only adds insult to injury. I’m in too deep to drop it at this point, but I honestly can’t forgive how they didn’t even give us that final revenge moment against the Kujan kid. Also every time Atra brings up her dream life of being part of a polyamorous marriage with Mikazuki creeps me the fuck out because obviously Mikazuki doesn’t have the emotional maturity to engage in any such relationship

Onihei

I’m very uncertain about what to do with this show. First episode was promising, with murky direction, but interesting setting. Episode two was mostly unimpressive, the final twist was rather predictable and the moral outcome wasn’t particularly satisfying. And then episode three put me to sleep. My first impression was that the dyamics between Heizo and his thief-turned-snitch subordinate would be the core of the show, but the latter seems to have been mostly sidelined in favor of focusing on the coolness of Heizo. Which isn’t a problem per say, but the execution just isn’t working and they’re completely wasting the Edo setting, with the cases turning out quite generic. I don’t know, ep 4 is already out so I guess I’ll check that out and decide from there (watched episode 4 already, fell asleep again which I guess is as good a sign as any that this isn’t working for me,but I’m too lazy to move it to the bottom. Dropped)

Hate-watching

Hand Shakers

Why is this pile of steaming garbage over the mediocre (and gross) show? Well, this one’s gross too, but exceedingly terrible is always better for ironic entertainment than plain boring stuff. At least Hand Shakers keeps me engrossed with its terribleness. Honest to good, even if I hardly remember what the previous episode was about, I’m always looking forward to the next one, I enjoy the terribleness too much.

Also, this is a little insignificant, but this is the first time I see any reference to the Japanese immigrants in Brazil (th, which was kind of a big thing back in the 1930s, in any anime I’ve ever watched, and since I had to look up into that for my thesis, it felt kinda nice to see it and understand why Brazil of all countries.

Super Lovers 2

This is so boring. Even when they try to address the issues I had with the previous season (mainly questioning the nature of Haru and Ren’s relationship), they always do it half-assedly. No drama, no tension, no resolution and certainly no semblance of any plot progression and it’s becoming increasingly tedious. The introduction of the new host guy could add at least some drama to the plot, but I’m not holding my breath. The dog continues to be cute

I dropped Marginal #4 since episode 2 and I can’t quite remember what it was about other than there was a long sequence of one of the guys desperately looking for his “lucky undies” and I’m too old for this level of juvenile “lol undies” humor. Turns out “not putting me to sleep” wasn’t that strong an asset after all.

Anyway really dead season but the scarce good stuff is really quite good, and the truly terrible stuff is so terrible it’s hilarious so overall the season doesn’t feel as terrible as it could. 

[icharchivist]

So your meta of Lavi is a masterpiece and it helped me put into words a lot of stuff. I kinda wanted to talk about Allen though, one thing you mentionned is that Allen is really positive/optimist and want to save everybody, and while some of his 'light' probably comes from Mana's mask because so far it seems Allen's idea of Mana was of a really kind and positive and cheerful person. I wonder how much of his optimism/positiveness and desire to strive for the best for everybody come from -part 1

part 2-himself ? And I suddenly remembered DGM reverse, and woah, most exorcists backstories so far are really horrible, but they all had normal-happy memories mixed in (that doesn’t make up for the horibleness of other stuff and I’m not downplaying their stories nor am I interested in comparing who had it worse), Lenalee had her family before most got killed by Akuma and she was ripped away from Komui to be psychologically tortured and abused by the black order and it quite obviously distressed

part 3- her, her life so war was happy until akuma and the B.O ruined it. I dunno for Lavi but most panels of him as a child are cheerful and cute af, and he became a bookman for his desire to know about history and know more than most people, then increasedly got sick of humanity and their wars and their stupidity. Kanda’s backstory is the stuff of nightmares and OW, but he had Alma with him from the beggining and his friendship/love/I don’t think he quite knew with Alma meant a lot for him

part 4- etc etc. Allen’s backstory in reverse ? Kinda the opposite. Red didn’t have anything happy, no happy memories, no people that loved him, nothing. He barely had shelter (one that didn’t quite block out the chilling cold), and had to work to the bone for and while he had food, it wasn’t something he took for granted, because if Cosimo or somebody else felt like it they’d say lies to the ringmaster that Red slacked off and the Ringmaster would get pissed at Red, ‘put him in his place’part 5 (I think it’s 5)-and make him starve that day as punishment. And he was under constant threat of violence from pretty much anybody. The best reaction/treatment he could hope for at the time was being ignored (and all his human rights with it), and had to face disgust/physical violence/insults/slurs from all others. Red kinda accepted that nobody’d ever love him (though he admitted he longued for love once he witnessed it), but that didn’t matter because he hated other people right back

part 6- and the first time he received warmth/got treated as a human was from Allen the dog, then from Mana himself (who Red thought the worst of at the beggining), then had fluffy and happy memories and moments during two years after his miserable and hellish life (people probably treated him normally once Mana got him a glove to cover his Innocence Arm). The thing that differentiate him from others is that most others experienced at least some warmth before getting disillusioned/cynical

avant-derniere part-most experienced some warmth before discovering that no, humanity/life suck (for Kanda it happened at the same time)(that’s even how the earl bait most into making Akuma, they experience happiness and love then get crushed when the source of hapiness gp away), but for Allen/Red ? He was utterly done with life and didn’t remember any instances of a good memory/life and didn’t even know what positivity felt like ? And then he got to experience that life doesn’t suck THAT much.

final part- then he got to experience that life doesn’t suck THAT MUCH. that’s why witnessing/enduring fucked up shit won’t faze him in his goal, fucked up shit was the norm before this weird magical thing called love came. (aside from his duty to atone to what he did to Mana) He didn’t get the transformation from hopeful to cynical. it was the other way around. He went back to save Tykki in the ark once the Noah problem was taken care of, because in Allen’s worldview, Allen himself and his -

the true final part- Allen himself and his friends doesn’t qualify as 'white/light’ in his worldview. Tykki is a sadistical homicidal bastard ? He does have human friends and people he care for anyway, so if he’s not a threat/able to kill exorcists anymore he might as well save him. And that’s why he didn’t judge Suman for being a traitor. Or maybe I’m just sprouting useless pretentious bullshit and am mistaken,sorry, idk, enlighten me.

Heyaaa!! first thank you so much for the compliment it means a lot to me ❤ but huge shout out to the anon who helped put it all in words like that.

Second, I think you’re completely spot on on everything you mention.

(Before jumping in the whole thing while i agree with all you say, i’ll just mention that one of the Guidebook, the Grey Arc one, mentions that Lavi joined the Bookmen at 6yo, and almost gets killed by a stray bullet when he was 7yo (the guidebook mentions he clang to Bookman’s hair when he was healing him, leading Bookman to say it’s Lavi’s fault they’re falling off now). So by all account despite this incident Lavi had a happy upbringing with Bookman, or well as much as the heartless Bookman training had to offer).

For Allen, yes, all you say is very true and it’s honestly super interesting to me? Allen’s life before Mana was hell. Hell, hadn’t Allen-the-dog died because he was beaten up anyway? The only happiness he had with that Dog was taken away by him likely by his abusers. Before Mana, he lived through hell. He was 7 when he met Mana and they were together only 3 years. That’s only 3 years of real happiness. And if anything we get from Cross’s memories chapter, is that it took Allen a long, long time to get over it (and while there’s camaradery between them, Cross’s teaching traumatized Allen to this day so. Poor guy went through a lot).

Mana seems to be the only window of time in which Allen was happy, and he doesn’t have anything else in his early memories that allow him to cling to that. tbh that’s also why the changes of names matter a lot with Allen. from “Red” because it was the color of his arm, something people insulted him for, it was either an insult he got too used to to correct since he didn’t have a name anyway, or seeing himself as nothing else than what made his monstruosity to others. To “Allen”, the name of the dog. Of the first being who showed him love and affection and who died unfairly. To then take on the “Walker” last name after he turned Mana as an Akuma, likely in a way to remind himself of him, to “Keep Walking” but also to remember everytime he hears his name of what he has done to Mana and his duty toward him. 

And you’re entierely right: Allen’s story was one of cynism and suffering who eventually ended up getting better thanks to Mana, and Mana’s loss and the guilt of turning him into an Akuma from Allen in the mindset of constantly trying to take it over his shoulders. 

It’s obviously not meant to disregard the others backstories, like you say- but it’s interesting bc even Kanda who had the most horrible early years in life had Alma, and Alma balanced out the horrors he had to go through, and he had him from the start. And the scientists were actually kind to the kids outsides of the experiments. (not excusing any of the shits they pulled the kids through- but it sure does contrasts with Allen’s past that had people abuse him for no reason).

Mana is the catalyst of Allen’s storyline in many ways: for being the first being who showed him kindness and changed his viewpoint of life, to then the grief of losing him shaping Allen’s future guilt that isolates him from others.

Had Allen not been able to create an Akuma for Mana, it’s to wonder how “selfless” he would have become. While I think that him wanting to smile, be cheerful, be kind, comes mainly for being raised by Mana- His selflessness, his self-sacrificing attitude, his way to distance himself emotionally from others all come from the fact he “betrayed Mana” by making him go through the Akuma making process. If Allen could have remained kind and sweet growing up, a lot of his worst habits may not have existed has the guilt from the Akuma not happened.

I think it would be the nuance of what Allen evolved into due to Mana’s raising him, and what Allen evolved into due to the grief of losing Mana and therefore forcing himself to wear his mask.

Had Mana not existed at all in Allen’s life, I don’t doubt he would have turned into a bitter person until someone showed love and care for him. Imo, Allen was someone who was starved for affection but was in an unsafe environment for it to happen, and he grew cynical. The only fact he cared this much about a dog being kind to him shows that he was already fundamentally a kind soul that was just unable to express himself and only bitterness remained. What Allen needed was someone kind to encourage this side of him. (and like you mention, Allen does agrees he longued for love, just didn’t know what it was beforehand)

I think Mana made Allen feel safe to be “gentle”.  He showed him how being kind and cheerful could help himself and others. Like a parent teaches his child to evolve in life in a way. Allen was only 7 after all, he was still young enough to learn, to be shaped by his experience.

“Mana’s mask”, that fake smile though, comes from Mana’s teaching pushed to the extreme after Allen’s guilt over Mana pushed him to push people away. 

So yes, you’re right: Allen’s journey was of cynism to cheerfulness. To determination to carry on. I think he had the potential to cheerfulness all along but just needed someone to push him in the right direction, and Mana was that push (but for that we need a little more “casual times between Mana and Allen between Allen’s 7 and 10 years old”). But the guilt and trauma of the Akuma!Mana incident pushed Allen to do this to the extreme, often at the detriment of his own feelings.

I believe his willingness to see the best for everyone comes from the Akuma!Mana incident as well. It is hard to believe that finding One Gentle Person after years of being abused would change Allen’s view this much. But i think seeing something like gentle and sweet Mana being turned into a weapon of Mass destruction, and then see this repeat itself with others people, knowing that Akuma were people just as desperate than he was, people who loved so hard, that they called onto a soul who hadn’t asked for it to be turned into weapon: would have Allen see that there must be something good into anyone. That if an Akuma, a weapon of mass destruction, could be just a suffering soul being chained into life because they were loved too much, then what about anyone else? 

I think understanding the Akuma the way Allen does have him reconsider the way he sees everyone else. That everyone has their chains that bind them to the world. That some of those Chains are heavy and can turn people into assholes to stand it, to stand this life they were chained into. But there’s still a soul behind the chains and Allen wants to believe in it. I believe it’s a way also to hold on to the last memories he has of Mana, to keep it as a positive figure in his mind, rather than an already twisted creature. And that’s why the humanity and salvation of the akuma is so important to Allen to start with.

By humanizing the Akuma to that extends, Allen can push his compassion to anyone else. So imo, i don’t think it would have happened had the Akuma!Mana incident not happened. It’s likely it is that bad in canon as well because of his eye only: perhaps if he only ever saw Mana, he would have developped differently, but seeing all those Akuma’s souls made it impossible for Allen to ignore it. The moment he sees a soul, he sees a story there; he sees a person who was loved too much and was chained back into life to commit horrors. And from that point on, I think that compassion just become a reflex.

So as such it makes sense Allen extends that to anyone else. Suman becoming a fallen told a story about why he became this way, of his relationship with the Innocence, of his suffering with it. Meeting the Light part of Tyki first had Allen sees all sides of him, and know that Tyki was duty bound to the Noah as well, and that people cared for him. And if Allen didn’t extend this compassion to Tyki per se, he would have had to the people who loved Tyki because he knows what loss feels like and he doesn’t want anyone to go through this.

I find it harder to word than i expected welp but yes, i agree with all you say, and y e there’s just. a lot to Allen. and imo his whole viewpoint comes from he sees Akuma to start with. Mana was his greatest influence in general.

allen breaks my heart ;;-;;

Take care!

[icharchivist]

Aw, I was looking over the past dgm posts on your blog and I had no idea about the Timothy bonus post Allen and Johnny quitting the Order. It makes sense, Timothy hasn't been around long but canon bits show he was really attached to Allen (The Gray Log said they took baths together apparently). Timothy is always a big part of Allen's Order loved ones flashbacks (and Johnny carries a picture around of him hugging Allen). Knowing Timothy loved Johnny a lot too just gets me. Allen and Johnny -

2 certainly took a lot of the Order's (humanity) innocence and joy with them when they left. See this is why I utterly adore the Allen and Johnny dynamic. I didn't expect it but it was so organic and now the 2 are so important to each other. And they were both so important to many good people of the Order. My heart breaks yet soars at once! X0

Aww nonny!! :’D have fun in the old posts though!

and ahh yes that bonus breaks my heart ;;-;; 

I think it’s always important to remember how radically Komui changed the Order and put the focus on humanity, especially creating himself the team that now fits the scientific division as we know it (and Jeryy) on the sole purpose of lightening the mood for the Exorcists and help them in battle in a way they don’t feel just like weapons thrown in a war. (Kanda & Lenalee stories are the two that showcase that the most).

Johnny was part of this initiative too. Even in earlier chapters we see he tends to be a lighthearted goof who is genuinely trying to help, and his kindness shines through even more than the others (no jab at the others though, most of them were trying to get by. I would clap for Reever’s kindness too if he didn’t have to catalyse all his efforts in making sure Komui isn’t destroying the Order).  and Johnny just also experienced a major loss in the recent arcs while all his goal was always to find ways to ease it to the exorcists- and he’s such a softie. I mean he’s the only one of the scientists to show major disgust for what happened to Alma for exemple. (Reever too but he does try to swallow it back. Johnny is such a softie he completely breaks down. It’s telling though that the two to react with empathy and compassion to Alma are... the two scientists of Komui’s unit, the unit he set in place specifically to change the Order and the way it treated the exorcists)  

And despite that, Timothy arrived right at a very bad moment for the Order, after it had been destroyed and half its staff was killed, there’s only 14 or so exorcists left  because there had recently been a slaughter as well, (which imo probably left a much more massive impact on their psyche that we give them credit for. ) and especially, Lveille came back in commands of the Order right before Timothy came to the Order, bringing with him ruthless scientists that don’t especially seem to follow Komui’s ethics, and well, we’ve seen how Lveille tends to turn people into weapons, and with Lenalee’s backstory, how he wouldn’t hesitate to take it on the youngest of the gang either.

With how perticular Timothy’s innocence is, and the sacrifice they know they have to pull that kid through to, in his case, litterally making him a weapon in the war (since his innocence implies him projecting into an Akuma to be a weapon)... No wonder everyone started to get a bit overprotective of him.

(more on that bc i can, but it keeps reminding me of how, when Allen escapes the order, Krory is shown to be the one handling Timothy: )

Back on Allen and Johnny, again it’s no real wonder either: Johnny lost people he loved in the Order’s attack and he got especially protective of Allen after seeing everything Allen went through and how much Allen tried to protect everyone during the attack.  Not to mention, we know Johnny was very close of Suman Dark, who died horribly in the exorcist slaughter when he became a Fallen - and it was also something Allen could connect with. Allen was there when Suman was killed. And right after that Allen “died”. For Johnny, Allen was the newcomer, he was sweet and all, but suddenly he had to almost die with one of Johnny’s close friend, trying to protect him. It must have been a lot to take it for poor Johnny back then, and when Allen came back, Tap died in the Order’s Attack and Allen once again just. Jumped into protected everyone, especially Johnny. No wonder Allen is this soft about Allen’s all being, he has more reasons than anyone in the scientist division to know how far Allen pushes his sacrifices for the others while still keeping a smile. No wonder he tries to ease it even more for Allen. 

And it’s still in a very bad timing for Allen considering how he’s scrutenized by the Order since Lveille is back in the picture. Which is already enough to put pressure on Allen but-

I think the fact Cross “died” right before meeting Timothy may have especially make Allen’s soft spot for Timothy stronger. With every revelations that came with Cross, Allen is obviously shaken up  by the revelations, his death, and the order’s pressure. Having a kid, an orphan, who had been used by his own father, who also turned to crime to pay back debts, who has an innocence that is leaving him with a part of his body he is probably bullied for, and a supernatural marking from his father on his own face,  now joining the order at a time where Komui’s attempt at peace became unstable... I have no wonder why Allen made sure the kid felt safe. Between being able to see himself in Timothy and being in such a troubling time having to reconcile his past with who he is, going out of his way to make sure the kid felt safe is on brand.

I think the timing and the fact the Order is becoming more and more “unsafe” really strengthened the fact the older ones, who have seen all that chaos, would try to shelter the young kid who has no idea what sort of mess he’s getting into. And if things are getting more and more tense in the Order, at least make it a better place for the Kid.

That’s why also the bonus in question is super sad. It’s Komui getting out of his way to try to fill that void for Timothy, avoiding his works (yes he’s lazy too but shh) to priviligize him and his silliness seems to be trying to balancing out the severity of the absence as well. (I’d argue a LOT of Komui’s character could be summarized like that tbh)

It could also raise a lot of questions about how unstable the Order truly became. We don’t know much anymore now, but we know that like, the exorcists had been sent to hunt Allen down (to Krory’s dismay), Lenalee and Marie are lying to the Order about Kanda’s whereabouts and i think it’s mentioned that they’re getting in trouble for doing so, and that’s sure not Komui’s doing. Considering Johnny left the Order but escaped it, with science tools to keep his memories and actively help Allen also somewhat could incriminate the Science Division into “helping a fugitive out” which would probably strengthen a grip on the Science Division as a whole with Lveille’s authority.

What I’m trying to say is that Johnny’s departure is probably adding more internal problems, it’s likely the Science Division being too scrutinized makes it hard to find time to balance out the new kid, and the others exorcists are probably out of town or in trouble regarding the Allen’s case: Timothy is probably excluded from it due to his young age, but therefore... he must feel so alone. 

Yeah, Allen and Johnny were a unit in the Order. I think there’s tons of reasons why and especially how tight they got after the attack on the Order, and how the more problems were getting in Allen’s way the more protective Johnny became knowing fully well that Allen’s heart is good and doesn’t deserve this mess. And it’s so sweet to see it. It’s even sweeter to see how this affection and this unit was extended too to Timothy, to the newcomer, to the one naive kid who hadn’t been seeing those horrors just yet. And they want to preserve that innocence, to live by what was originally Komui’s ethics in the Order.

Now that they’re both gone and the trouble it leaves the Order in especially with Lveille taking over the controle from Komui all while the Science divisions is probably under scrutiny while the exorcists are sent on missions or under watch... All efforts to emotionally protect Timothy so he adjusts in the Order, in the war, are becoming thin. 

At Least Komui is still here to help.

But that sure also emphazis how much of a hole Johnny and Allen left to the Order - if not just by their presence, also by the consequences of their absenses.

Sorry i ended up rambling just kdhjfkdj this particular situation makes me so sad.

Take care ;O