#people love and grieve their abusers even if their abusers WERE cruel to them 100% of the time

[gayofthefae]

Anyone who thinks this was the culmination of her arc

and not THIS

Has no clue what this fucking show is about

News flash, buddy, the entire horror genre is an allegory for abuse. The three supernatural targets of this show are the three kids who were abused. It hasn't all been leading up to Mike telling El he loves her any more than kissing Nancy in season 2 was more important to Jonathan than getting the mind flayer out of Will.

Her abuser begged for her forgiveness and she stood up and left him to die alone. I am so proud of her. I am so, so proud of her. That is a more difficult thing to do than most viewers will (thankfully) ever know. He was horrible to her.

But look at how hard it was for her to make that decision. I am so, so proud of her.

[effei-s]

What shatter-me Warner would do.

The fastest character assassination I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the thing: Warner from original trilogy had character arch. More important: he was a character.

He was mean, villainous, cold, cruel murderer, with daddy who basically bought him regency (like come on, if it wasn’t for Anderson no one would even think about giving him that position; n for nepotism), but he also was deeply traumatized and abused his whole life and had little to none normal human interactions. I loved that fact that the only good thing he did (killing Fletcher because he was abusing his family) resolved into a complete catastrophe (Anderson killing children and wife) because Warner didn’t think it through. He tried to do the right thing and failed miserably, because he was more concerned with making a spectacle for Juliette. And after that he still had the audacity to paint himself as a hero who saved poor family from terrible tyrant in Ignite me.

I didn’t expect him to act and think like a human being. He didn’t need to act like a normal human. Warner gas lighting Juliette in the first third of ignite me is Warner’s thing to do. Him yelling and throwing tantrums and making scenes in Unravel me is Warner’s thing to do. Him forcing Juliette to do things she doesn’t want and traumatizing her in the process in Shatter me is Warner’s thing to do. Him wanting to torture Adam to death is Warner’s thing to want.

There’s a few reasons for this:

a) he doesn’t know how to communicate with people other than giving them orders or making threats;

b) he truly believes that he’s in the right here (he doesn’t see himself as a bad guy in Juliette story, more like a knight on a white horse);

c) he’s physically unable to be honest with himself and always has someone to blame for his own mistakes and failures;

d) he’s ‘results justify the means’ kind of guy.

Changes for good, with trauma that deep, when you basically don’t have a moral compass, don’t happen over night.

Was his ignite-me arch made sloppy? Yes. Everything was too info-dumpy and too convenient (Juliette forgetting that Warner was going to torture Adam to death; Juliette feeling that she’s the one who needs to apologize; Leila’s entire character used only for a sob story; Adam turned into a douchebag so Warner would look a more suitable love interest, etc). But it still was an arch. And the finale of ignite me was so open I really could imagine that, little by little, in the future, he will start to trust people more and really gonna help Juliette and co to make the world a better place. And his redemption arch wasn’t finished in the slightest, and I would even say that it was only the beginning of it, but it was implied that things will get better from there (the most important part of that being him genuinely wanting to make things right with Adam and James; he’s the one who makes the first step and initiate the bond).

So what went wrong in new three books? Ehm… everything, to be honest. Instead of developing a character that was already there, she decided to give him a new personality. Actually it can be said about every single one of characters, but Warner just happened to be the biggest victim of them all.

Let’s look at Restore me.

Okay, we have his pov, and I never thought I would say it but… Warner is kinda dumb. He’s supposed to be this military strategy genius, someone who knows how RE works from within and… it turns out that he just as clueless as Juliette. More than this, we never actually see him do ANYTHING except fucking Juliette. And for some reasons he never helps Juliette with her work??? There’s so much paperwork and instead of helping her to sort though it he’s… just not there???

Those stupid long monologues about how she’s capable to do anything mean nothing if he doesn’t actually help (as we can see at the end of restore me, when Juliette gets captured).

That fact that he doesn’t immediately check if Castle’s words are true? And instead of helping Juliette with Haider (telling everything he knows about him and his family, preparing her for the dinner) he fucks her??? This is a dumb bitch shit. And maybe you didn’t noticed but Shatter-me Warner wasn’t a dumb bitch.

After all, there’s a simple reason I never wanted the job of supreme commander myself—

I never wanted the responsibility.

It’s a tremendous amount of work with far less freedom than one might expect; worse, it’s a position that requires a great deal of people skills. The kind of people skills that include both killing and charming a person at a moment’s notice. Two things I detest.

Remember shatter-me Warner who wanted power because power meant that he could have control over his life? Remember shatter-me Warner who wanted to work with Juliette as a team to change the world? Yeah that’s him now.

No personal ambitions allowed when you’re a walking dildo, I guess.

Off the topic, but Mafi really enjoys making Juliette stupid as fuck:

“Oh, yes, of course,” she says, remembering. “I’ve gotten a bunch of letters about that. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”

Let's continue.

Hurting Haider would be enough to start a world war.

Warner says and then Juliette threatens Haider, a foreign official on a diplomatic mission, and instead of being even a little bit worried and think about possible consequences, Warner thinks this:

But I can only smile at her. I want to scoop her up and carry her away. Take her somewhere quiet and lose myself in her.

Okay, I guess it’s official, there’s sperm inside of his head instead of brain cells. I can’t find any other explanation for this clownery.

Shatter-me Warner would… Shatter-me Warner won’t be in this situation in the first place.

Someone tries to kill Juliette and Warner does… nothing about it. He never goes to check the body of the assassin himself. He thinks that Nazeera hides something and he still allows her to go around and doesn’t even interrogate her when Juliette says that Nazeera was there at the moment of the attack. He doesn’t find it even a little bit suspicious? That guy who had tremendous trust issues in the original trilogy? Remember him? Yeah, that guy. Shatter-me Warner would lock Nazeera and Haider up and demanded answers. Shatter-me Warner would be angry as fuck, and would try to kill Kenji with his bare hands, because Kenji was stupid enough to leave Juliette alone. Shatter-me Warner wouldn’t stop until he had answers (and the head of a person who wanted to kill Juliette on a plate).

New Warner is too busy feeling sorry for himself to actually do anything about it. And after one chapter it’s completely forgotten, like that fact that someone tried to kill her is not important at all.

And then Castle enters the picture with his stupid and sloppy info-dumping (I guess Mafi never heard of ‘show don’t tell’ rule). And says this:

“She can’t lead this resistance,” he says, squinting at something in the distance. “She’s too young. Too inexperienced. Too angry. You know that, don’t you?”

and if that wasn’t enough he also says this:

“It should’ve been you,” Castle says. “I always secretly hoped—from the day you showed up at Omega Point—that it would’ve been you. That you would join us. And lead us.” He shakes his head. “You were born for this. You would’ve managed it all beautifully.”

AND HE’S STILL ALIVE AFTER?

This is a fucking treason right there. And Warner A-OKAY with this.

Shatter-me Warner would strangle him right there. Or better yet, he would go along with this until he has 100% evidences of Castle’s betrayal and then he would kill him. Or he would kill him simply because Castle was withholding important information and earlier in books he put Juliette in a great danger by sending her to Anderson without telling her the truth (unravel me).

But not this Warner. New Warner is far more concerned with fucking Juliette then helping her or looking for a way out of this situation (because now he has dick instead of a brain).

After my father’s revelation, my thirst for information became suddenly insatiable. I needed to know more—who these people were, where they’d come from, how much we’d known—

WHERE AND WHEN DID WARNER IN PREVIOUS BOOKS DISPLAY THIS?

When I say that Mafi simply forgot her own characters this is what I mean. Warner from original trilogy didn’t give a flying fuck about them. He thought that they were weak and stupid.

I will lose her.

And it will kill me.

He said this shit and after he nearly had a panic attack because he imagined her dating someone else? Oh, come on, how more pathetic can he get?

There are words for this kind of behavior: toxic codependency.

Oh wait wait! I know! This is not Warner! This is Edward Cullen disguised as Warner! The mystery is solved!

Oh, he fucks her again. Apparently it’s the only thing he’s good at. What a character! The layers! The complexity!

And then Lena came into the picture.

Until that moment I was more or less okay with Warner. Yes, I was very confused, but I was ready to give Mafi benefit of the doubt. He lost his father and was dealing with grieve. We all can act out of character in the face of a tragedy or drastic changes.

“Why do you keep pressing this? Who cares if I’ve been with other women? They meant nothing to me—”

And there I felt in my guts, I’m not gonna like what next to come.

Haider was exhibiting suicidal tendencies. Self-harming. And I got really scared. I called Warner because I knew Haider would listen to him.” She shakes her head. “Warner didn’t say a word. He just got on a plane. And he stayed with us for a couple of weeks. I don’t know what he said to Haider,” she says. “I don’t know what he did or how he got him through it, but”—she looks off into the distance, shrugs—“it’s hard to forget something like that.

Oh, so Warner's words about how he never had any real interactions with anyone before Juliette were bullshit. About how he doesn’t understand people were also bullshit. About how Juliette was the first person who was not afraid to speak with him freely were also bullshit. Because all of the sudden he can help someone heavily depressed. Someone with suicide tendencies? Someone who harms himself? And now he has an ex-girlfriend who’s ready to beat the fuck out of him and calls him mean words (she clearly doesn’t fear him)?

Now his entire character in the first trilogy doesn’t make any sense. And his excuses don’t make any sense.

Bravo, Mafi! Bravo! This was the fastest character assassination I’ve ever seen.

She says that Lena was in love with him—really in love with him—but that Warner broke her heart, that he never treated her with any real affection and she’s hated him for it.

Oh, so he’s not only stupid and absolutely useless, he’s a fuckboy. And if there’s one thing I HATE, it’s fuckboys.

There’s a big-big-big difference between someone who has one-night-stands and THIS SHIT:

“You’re upset, I understand. But it’s not my fault you feel this way. I don’t love you. I never have. And I never led you to believe I did.”

“She and I,” he says, “it was—we were nothing. It was a relationship of convenience and basic companionship. It meant nothing to me. Truly,” he says, “you have to know—if I never said anything about her it was only because I never thought about her long enough to even consider mentioning it.”

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t two years of anything serious. It wasn’t even two years of continuous communication.” He sighs. “She lives in Europe, love. We saw each other briefly and infrequently. It was purely physical. It wasn’t a real relationship—”

So he despised her but used her for sex? WOW. Cool. He can go and trip over a fucking knife or fall out of the window for all I care.

“Everything in my life was different before I met you,” he says. “I was lost and all alone. I never cared for anyone. I never wanted to get close to anyone. I’ve never—you were the first person to ever—”

And how exactly he was able to help Haider with his self-harm then??? If he didn’t CaRe for anyone before Juliette?

This was the moment when Warner from original trilogy died in agony.

Okay, let’s see real quick what we have in Defy Me:

He thinks about escape but never really does anything to escape;

(anderson is the one who opens his cell;

he stands in front of a guy who murdered his mother and doesn’t even think about her, yeah I can see how important she was for him;

/again, shatter-me Warner would probably demanded answers, but not walking dildo, walking dildo cares only about Juliette. his excuse in ignite me 'i did it all for my mom' doesn't make any sense now, because he actually doesn't give a flying fuck about her/

he gets captures one minute after he “kills” Anderson;

nazeera is the one who gets him out of there;

super soldier taught his whole life how to survive, everyone. useless as fuck)

He doesn’t know anything about jewelry.

(super ooc, i know what Mafi was trying to do here: she tried ‘sherlock holmes doesn’t know that earth revolves around the sun’ thing Arthur Conan Doyle did, but the problem is WARNER IS A FASHIONISTA, or he was).

He wants to get married because…???

He sees a woman who tried to kill Juliette and he’s a-okay with staying at her place, because she said that it was actually a message (???).

Castle is still alive.

Nazeera who knew all this time about Anderson and was working for him is also alive and well.

Oh and he doesn’t care about Anderson being alive and being a real threat to Juliette (fucking her is more important for him, as usual).

His complete disregard for Juliette’s safety only makes me hate him more with every new book.

Imagine me.

First and foremost: don’t call imagine-me Warner shatter-me Warner. Don’t insult shatter-me Warner like that. With shatter-me Warner Anderson would have to try very hard to get to Juliette. It would be ‘Warner made 100 back-up plans, but Anderson knew him too well and created 101 plan and that’s how he managed to win’ kind of situations.

But walking dildo is too busy feeling sorry for himself (as usual), he just sits by her bed FOR TWO FUCKING DAYS, doing absolutely NOTHING to make sure she’ll be safe.

Nooira says that Juliette should be killed and she’s still alive for some reason.

He’s entire persona is that he’s rude to people (but not bbc’s sherlock holmes kind of rude, when he’s unbearable dick but he’s actually smart and really gets shit done, so we can tolerate him). He’s just rude.

He doesn't care about Adam or James's wellbeing (remember Ignite me Warner who really wanted a family? Yeah that's him now).

But he has gruppies now, because he’s hot and everyone in the sanctuary wants to fuck him.

Oh and he proposed to Juliette. HE PROPOSED. THEY ENGAGED! DO YOU HEAR ME??? THEY GONNA BE MARRIED! HE PROPOSED TO HER! AND SHE SAID YES! THEY GONNA MERRY!

Because god fucking forbid we forget about it.

(mafi really thinks that her readers have the mental capacity of a golden fish, huh?)

I lost count how many times walking dildo implies that he's gonna kill himself if Juliette is not with him (disgusting).

Then our walking dildo cures Juliette by the power of petting (it’s not power of love, lads and gents; you want to see love go watch defenders on netflix; mafi already copypasted elektra’s arch from that show into imagine-me Juliette, you can do yourself a favor and see how this trope can be executed without borderline on sexual assault petting scene).

18-old girl marries a fucking sociopath believing he’s actually a good person.

(we all know how shit like this ends, people like that don't change; and this 'he's different with me cuz i'm very special and i'm gonna teach him the right way' it's really harmful message considering that the audience of those books are mostly teenage girls).

Trust me, there's nothing revolutionary in this trope, it's tale as old as time.

Here's the thing, good written character always defined by connection to other people: friend, lovers, enemies, family, foes, acquaintances, even some random strangers. It's the easiest way to establish what kind of person they are.

Walking dildo doesn't have any of that because all of his "character" revolves around Juliette. He's not a person anymore. By the end of Imagine me he doesn't have friends (his relationships with Kenji or Haider non-existent), no family connections (no talks with Adam or James), even enemies or foes or even people that don't like him (because everyone wants to fuck him, because being hot is his only character trait).

His only family and friend is Juliette. And you know what? It's fucking boring, overdone and lazy as fuck. And insulting to the character he once was.

No redemption arch, no character arch at all.

Happy end.

[astudyinfreewill]

“look what you made me do” 2/? | masterpost

aka: me making taylor swift songs about dean winchester and/or deancas bc it’s what dean himself would want

second song on deck, as promised; this one actually has quite a few cas beats in it, especially at the start, despite it having a dean vibe overall, so it should be interesting. again, bonus fanvid link at the end <3

this is me trying

i've been having a hard time adjusting i had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

ok, we start off strong with a couplet that could suit either dean or cas. “the shiniest wheels” is actually a perfectly fitting metaphor for a show that treats cars like emotional avatars of the people who drive them (i could so easily go into a digression about how the same thing happens in trc but this is the wrong post for that... how do i keep finding myself emotionally invested in car-fetishizing media while barely being a can-drive gay myself). ANYWAY, the first thing that comes to mind is the impala and how it’s pretty much synonymous with dean’s sense of self, how it gets wrecked and rebuilt over the course of the show, often tied in to his emotional state. and dean, well. he’s built up a lot of trauma over the years, but he’s also just getting older, as humans do.

on the other hand, we could also see it as a cas line - he’s not as much of a carfucker car aficionado as dean but he’s an adoptive winchester so hey, it still kinda works (rip to the pimpmobile, gone but not forgotten). what i MEAN is -- cas has been slowly falling from grace ever since season 4. he was becoming more human in season 5 already, with a grim prediction of his human future in 5x04; then lived as human for a while in season 7; then became completely human in season 9 before regaining his grace. but in season 15, again, his grace was apparently failing (boy it would be SUCH a shame if that plot point just, like... got dropped... 😐). substitute “wings” for “wheels” and you get a picture of someone who used to be this unstoppable, super-powered angel soldier that demons cowered in fear of, but has slowly become more human over time. as for “a hard time adjusting”... well, cas’ journey towards humanity has not been the easiest transition: it’s come with self-doubt, mental and physical pain, and of course, as he learned about love: heartbreak.

TL;DR: LIFE COMES AT YOU FAST AND THESE GUYS ARE TIRED.

i didn't know if you'd care if i came back; i have a lot of regrets about that

‘kay, this next part is definitely cas. cas who, as i mentioned in the previous post, just keeps leaving, whether that’s because he’s sacrificing himself or taking off on his own. and because that typically goes over like a lead balloon with dean, either because it leaves him grieving and traumatised or it plays right into his abandonment issues (or both - hello purgatory arc!), cas would be tentative about coming back. it’s also very apparent that castiel feels like the winchesters only value him for his abilities and powers (and after all, he’s been created to be a soldier), so if he feels like he’s not being helpful enough, he also tends not to feel wanted (again: dean wants him to stay, but cas wants to be asked to stay). plus, we know every time they’ve had a falling out it takes dean a bit to get over his anger (“dean, i thought i was doing the right thing”; “yeah, you always do”) so i don’t think cas takes his forgiveness for granted, especially if he has lied to him in the process (yes i’m thinking about the mixtape episode). “a lot of regrets”, indeed.

pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could've followed my fears all the way down; and maybe i don't quite know what to say, but i'm here in your doorway.

here, again, the car can easily work as a metaphor for someone’s emotional state. pulling over to take a breather, to try to assess things from a distance; and with lookout points so often being perched on steep hills, it’s easy to imagine the sense of vertigo, your own fear and self-doubt almost pushing you towards dangerous, self-destructive ideas. and we know cas doesn’t do things by halves - when he’s committed to something he believes is right, he goes all out. and yes, that has led to more than one falling out. 

but despite that - despite his worst fears telling him he should not come back to dean unless he’s “coming back with a win”, or able to protect him from harm (yes i’m thinking about the mixtape episode AGAIN), he does always come back to him. it’s the one thing that dean can always depend on, castiel finding his way back to him like dean is his true north. i’m here in your doorway; the please take me back once more is implied.

i just wanted you to know that this is me trying i just wanted you to know that this is me trying

(and dean does take him back, because however many times castiel feels that he has failed in his mission, he always comes back and tries again, tries harder, tries to make it right or do it better. and that’s something dean relates to - fucking up in the worst ways and getting beaten down but always getting back up, always starting over, always trying again. in fact, he’s kind of the one who taught cas that. and with that-- we move over to the dean portion of this.)

they told me all of my cages were mental so I got wasted like all my potential

ah, it wouldn’t be a dean pov without some good old fashioned self deprecation. “all of my cages were mental” isn’t 100% accurate in dean’s case because he has been dealt a pretty shit hand by life, but he also excels at self-sabotage. “I got wasted” is of course an allusion to his alcoholism, but then we have the clever play on words with “wasted potential”, which... hits close to home. all dean’s ever done is tried to live up to what he thought he should be, always feeling like he was falling short. never quite the favourite son, never the man his father thought he should be, not strong enough to resist hell, not the righteous sword of michael the angels expected, not good enough for the people he loves not to leave him, just not enough.

and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad i have a lot of regrets about that

...as i said above: though dean does always forgive the people he loves, it still takes him quite a bit to get over his anger at them. and when he’s angry, he lashes out, often saying things that come off cruel, things he absolutely does not mean. and this part reminds me, yet again, of dean’s painful confession in 15x09, about how he gets so angry and doesn’t know why (of course, the answer is trauma and childhood abuse; but he has no way to process that); and he tries to stop it but he can’t, and he always, always regrets it in the end.

i was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere fell behind all my classmates and i ended up here

oh, dean. dean winchester with his ged and his give ‘em hell attitude. he breaks my heart. i touched on this in my previous post, but there’s something to be said for the fact that dean had to grow up so fast, he really didn’t grow at all in some ways ( “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere”). from a young age he was shoved in a parental role, having to be both a father and mother to sam, which meant never getting to exist just for himself. which of course, in turn, means he never got to develop a healthy degree of emotional maturity. in “bad boys”, we find out that the only time dean even got close to being a normal teenager, receiving positive reinforcement by sonny and bonding with his peers, john ripped him right out of that safe haven; and by the time “after school special” is set in, he’s given up on ever getting a shot at a healthy environment, using denial as a coping mechanism by trying to pass off his and sam’s shitty, depressing lives as super edgy and cool.

pourin' out my heart to a stranger but i didn't pour the whiskey i just wanted you to know that this is me trying i just wanted you to know that this is me trying at least i'm trying

i don’t really need to explain this bit i guess, but it’s about the implications of how it can somehow be easier to open up to a complete stranger rather than someone you care about; and how for dean, who is used to frequenting seedy bars and dives, one-night stands are as much about comfort than they are about pleasure. that’s the only way he knows how to let himself be touched, seen, held -- because of course, “no chick flick moments”, and besides, we know that when he falls in love he falls hard, so it’s safer to just roll in and out of town. 

the interesting part in this context though, is that “but i didn’t pour the whiskey”, especially since we know dean, like every other winchester, tends to drown out his problems with alcohol; so him choosing to not do that, and instead just look for comfort from a stranger (whether it’s through sex or just chatting away at a bar) is, in itself, a sign of trying to do better. because if there’s one thing dean knows how to do, is trying, and trying, and trying again. in fact, as i mentioned above, it’s kinda where cas learned it too. and we know dean is a stand-in for human nature, so of course, this is also a larger discourse of how humans are flawed and imperfect but can always improve, always do better, always try harder or be more. and maybe that’s what makes a righteous man, really.

and it's hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound it's hard to be anywhere these days when all i want is you you're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town

this next part... listen. i don’t know how it fits into the narrative of trying, but what i do know is i can’t stop thinking about grieving dean. about how every time he loses cas, a little piece of him dies too, but it’s a piece that gets bigger and bigger every time, carving a hollow inside him. it’s unsightly, it’s unforgiving, it’s raw - it’s like an open wound. and as much as dean has always taken on the role of the person who puts on a brave face, makes a joke, and pushes all his feelings down, well -- it’s hard to that; it’s hard to focus on anything else when he’s missing cas like a phantom limb. “all i want is you” which is to say i’d rather have you, cursed or not; which is to say, i need you. need you badly enough to see your face everywhere after escaping purgatory, just like “a flashback in a film reel”. 

and i just wanted you to know that this is me trying  (maybe i don't quite know what to say) i just wanted you to know that this is me trying; at least i'm trying.

so, yes. dean is trying. he’s always trying, even though healing and progress are not linear or easy. and he knows he’s got anger issues, he knows he’s bad with his words, but damn it, he always shows up for the people he loves, and he tries to do better, every. damn. time. partly because he’s us, he’s all of us, he’s human perfectibility incarnate; and partly because he loves cas so damn much and maybe if he gets it right this time he’ll get to keep him -- and i don’t know which of the two options makes my heart hurt the most.

---

fanvid rec link here! it’s only for the second half of the song, so the more dean-centric one :)

[signofwolf]

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – book review

Series: Throne of Glass #7 Genre: YA, Fantasy Theme: Fae, magic users, war Warnings: mentions of torture, imprisonment Star rating: 0,5/10

Why did I pick this up?: I wanted to end this horrible series once and for all.

[Heavy spoilers ahead]

To make myself clear, before this book I quite liked this series. It wouldn’t place in my top 100 books, not even close, but it was a pleasant pageturner to listen to in audiobooks when working.

Language

Let’s start slow. I lack the words to express how much I hate the words ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘mate’ after this series. Not even gonna try to express my trauma. But these 3 gems aside, Sarah J. Maas needs a dictionary. Or compress her work to a manageable size. Everything sang, Everyone melted, Every man roared, Every woman trembled, Everyone was unleashing themselves at least once a chapter (number of chapters: 122) ). And now I know definitely too much about Yrene’s ‘womb’. I know so much…

Dynamism

I thought that was a book about a war with heavy action content. Oh boy, I was wrong. This 984-pages monstrosity has maybe 5 pages of action. If you squint.

Every sequence, where by design action should take place was followed by one of two scripts:

Few sentences of action and then a few pages long internal monologue. Often repeated with the same character after the next few sentences of action, or with the next character and then the next (sometimes the first character made a second appearance and then everything would go all over again). And the word ‘character’ used in these sentences is not because I’m rambling. This book is written that way!

Few sentences of action and then action stops, and we are graced by a few pages long conversation. In the middle of a battle. Or spying. Or in Erawan’s chambers, when his castle is going down, and he is running up the stairs...

Time

Leaving alone the fact that apparently all series took less than a year (till this book I estimated the plot for about 3 years, Wiki told me it was 2, but Maas knows best), because that is a can of worms in itself. Time in this one? I honestly have no idea. There were many ‘few weeks of travel’ parts with two main groups of POVs. Personally my only time indicator was ‘Orynth won’t fall till Aelin gets here’. But nothing just fit. And I saw Lost Song when in the last episode we as the audience realized that our two POVs parallel storylines are in reality millennia apart. Lost Song made sense.

Emotional loading

… there wasn’t any. Really, it was like reading a milk label. Every time the scene was potentially emotionally impactful, Maas went ahead to overexplaining EVERY. GOD. DAMMED. THING. And it was abso-fucking-lutely everything. ‘Emotional dilemma? Let’s current POV explain it! 2 pages should be enough… Damn maybe it wasn’t enough. I know! I’ll switch POVs and explain it through the other character!’ <= My impression of Maas’ thought process. I’m fairly sure that the record was 7 POVs explaining the same thing in the row, but I was blacking out a little, so I cannot be sure.

And if that wasn’t enough, this book had a second way to defuse tension: random-plastic-repetitive-badly_written-smut. Really badly written and really repetitive. How could you not feel the spicy bits, when Manon (cruel, self assured 100+years old witch-queen) reacts the same in bed as Elide (20years old, virgin, ex-slave). And the rest of them were the same, there weren’t ANY distinctions.Just copy-paste.

The next point in current case: Someone died, it was impactful, I really liked the character, so I got sad. But then 2 of our characters came out of the room with a body, and after a paragraph of grieving they started making out, and then I was regaled with 2-pages-long description of melting cores. That was the place then this book stopped being badly written, and started being distasteful.

Characters

Remember when I was writing about switching POVs (which is 15(!!!) In the whole book. Oh and an omniscient narrator in places when our current POV was grieving too much to overthink something, but Maas still wanted to inform us about something)? They were all savagely murdered in the worst way: character mutilation. Somewhere between books our maybe-not-that-original but colorful and interesting characters became carbon copies of each other. I have no idea how many times I didn’t realise there was a POV switch. The only indicator was a change of pronoun, or when Maas was telling us the name of a current narrator. These were the only ways. And if you can't distinguish if you are in Dorian’s head or in Manon’s, that is the sign of a really BAD writing.

Romance

…there wasn't any. In all this book there wasn't any naturally progressing romantic scene. There were Maas’ endgame pairings which were sexing or pinning. As the author Maas loves to write about soulmates. And it’s not a bad thing itself. When I want some fluffy story I often tag ‘soulmates’ in AO3 and voila, +10 to good mood. But God above, it is not cute when every pair you write about are ‘true mates’ just BECAUSE. It is the only way Maas sees a relationship, as a fated pairing, written in the wake of the universe by the God himself. There is no choice, nor the work to put in it. They are the author's OTP and that means that they are perfect and they should have children right now. Point in case:

Guy was treating a girl like a shit on his sole, including throwing her naked out of tent, on a snow, with their friends present, all the while abusing her verbally in a worst way. But it’s okay, because when she almost died he realised his mistakes and apologised. Two scenes later, he was forgiven, because... fated mates?

The pathos

I know that many people don't like this type of scenes, but it's not my case. I’m reading by picturing images and not repeating words. I like sequences that I can imagine to be grand and glorious, even if they are a little corny. That said, the pathos scenes were the most disappointing ones for me. Maas likes to write parts that are more picturesquely exalted than logically possible [point in case: meeting of 5 armies/forces in the random patch of sand in Empire of Storms, and it being painted as ‘an Aelin’s great plan’. I laughed myself silly at that. But not taking logic and all the plot holes into consideration that was a nicely looking scene. In Kingdom of Ash that wasn’t the case. I would say that the author wanted to paint us a renaissance painting every 20 pages or so. In my opinion, every time she failed miserably. Each and every of those scenes was or to farfetched to be even remotely realistic, and evidently written only for a sake of the picture, or just plainly stupid.

Example, and it’s so priceless a scene, that I just need to share it: Battle of Orynth, 25th day or so (time in this book doesn’t exist), the 13. sacrificed themselves (like thousands before them but hush). And then, time stops: grieving Manon is going through the city, they open the gates for her (yes, the siege is still on), she goes to the place where they died, after her come out all of our main heroes, and half the city itself with ‘flowers, rocks and precious possessions’ and they lay it there in a tribute to these brave (evil till 2 months ago) witches. I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I saw such an abstract scene. It’s a material for an essay in itself. No, I could not take it seriously.

Additionally, it's hard to make an impact as every damn sentence is grand and lofty. In the end it became truly pathetic, Aelin vs Maeve was unreadable.

Character deaths:

Let's make a quick count: main characters in a series at the start of KoA: 12 secondary characters in a series at the start of KoA: 20ish minor and total background: a lot more

Death count: main: 0 secondary: 3 minor: 2 (11 if we try very hard)

Resurrections: 1 (possibly 3, but not gonna analyze it)

Did you feel emotions of this impossible war against this all-encompassing, all-powerful, invincible, immortal, cunning Evil with armies from 3 continents and 2 worlds? No? Me neither.

Oh well, but there were a lot of deaths of ordinary soldiers. I’m quite certain that all of Terrasen’s army was at least twice brought back to life for them to die in these numbers.

Logic or lack thereof

Oh, and let’s not forget about the Deus ex machina army of unbeatable, magical elves on wolves, from legends, living for the past thousands of years in the unreachable lands of the north, because they managed to run from the surprise attack 10 years earlier. Did I mention that they came from portals, which the whole book was telling us were impossible to make in this scenario? After the previous saviour army was already fighting there for a day? And that Aelin didn’t know they would come for sure (how did she contact them again?)? Even though they were waiting in the full armours for these portals? Ah, and also: that army didn’t do anything. They just came and fought for maybe 4 minutes. And there were just so many things like that!

And if we’re on the topic of armies I present you: ‘My favourite absurd-list in the series: allied armies’.

(As a comparison, in A Song of Ice and Fire by J.R.R Martin, in 7 kingdoms of Westeros, at the peak of war there were 7 forces present, but not all were even engaged in a war.)

First the ones that made sense:

Armies of Terrasen’s Lords (counted as one, not gonna nitpick)

The Khaganate army (also counted as one)

Galan Ashryver’s armada

Whitethorn fraction

Rebel Ironteeth witches

…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’?

And there were some that did not:

Ansel of Briarcliff’s army

The Silent Assassins

Mycenians

Wild Men of the Fangs

Army of magical elves on wolves

And the ‘I don’t even know’ category:

Crochan witches

Overpowering and overreaching

Section title tells it all. The stakes were too high. I was honestly waiting for Aelin to become Super Saiyan and start to throw planets at Maeve and Erawan. I won’t spoil if this happened.

In my opinion it could be a really great series, if our list of villains ended with Arobynn and King of Adarlan, and the list of Aelin titles with an assassin and a princess. We could have had two main fight plots: one emotional with Arobynn, when Aelin would have to face a damage he had done to her, and overcome it. And the second one, with freeing Terrasen from Adarlan’s rule. That’s it. There was an asshole, power hungry king, who feared magic and wanted to rule the East part of a continent. A lot of plot, but not so much that we stopped to care, or didn’t have time to cover everything. We could really get to know what Terrasen and his people were like and not JUST GET TOLD that it was ‘the greatest place in the world’ every damn 20 pages.

Plus…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’? It's a REALLY valid question.

Climaxes

IIf I have to write a list of things that disappointed me in this book, this review would be thrice its current size, but one of the worst grievances I have is the complete lack of acknowledging the plotlines that had been started. This book series has overall 4 372 pages (not counting novellas) and 12 main characters (still not gonna address this). All of them had their storylines and arcs but if they weren't tied up in the previous instalments they wouldn’t be in this one. I get it, Maeve and Erawan got beaten (in an extremely unsatisfactory way) but they were only a background in this series' plots.

Aelin Well, Aelin was one of 3 people (+2 paragraf-long insertion from Nesryn and Chaol) who got their own POV’s after the battle (second was technically Rowan, who was ‘Aelin’s POV outside of Aelin’.The third Dorian, who got almost a full two pages). And from this we got that: she got crowned, Aedion got his bond and that Maas have no idea how the city looks after weeks of siege. In her case what angered me the most was ‘Terrasen is my home’ subplot. Only in this tome we read at least 3 times that Aelin will be okay with dying, if only she gets to see Terrasen one last time, or if she get to die on Terrassen soil. But you know what? Maas forgot to write the scene where Aelin actually ‘comes in’.

Mannon Didn't get her own POV after the battle, but here’s what we’ve got: She is going to the Wastes with Croachans and Ironteeth. Whait. What? Yes, that was the ending of this 500+ years of feud. They fought together and they decided to unite their two species, completely forgetting more than half a millenia of slaughter. I can only hope that there were at least some talks behind the scenes… NO! F*** NO! This isn’t how it works!

Rowan, Dorian, Chaol, Yrene, Lysandra, Aedion, Lorcan, Elide, Nesryn, Sartaq Lived happily ever after

Secondary minor and total background characters Survived (I acknowledge that they would be ignored in most books’ epilogues, but this abomination is almost 1000 pages of nothing!!).

Good Scenes

That saying, this book actually had 4 good scenes:

Crochan witches go to war - gathering-forces-to-fight trope, which is my *love-always trope* so I’m not even sure if it was relatively good, or if I’m just a slut for this trope. It was still only a paragraph long though.

[recurring] The children’s tale Aelin repeated to herself to remember who she is.

‘Lorcan Lochan’ - the only marginally funny scene in the whole book

I actually found Darrel making Evangeline his heir charming. Even if circumstances were far-fetched at least.

But the words crime of this book? It was agonisingly, mind-numbingly boring. If the overexplaining and repetitions were to be taken out I highly doubt that there would be 300 pages left.

For these 33 hours of audiobook I suffered through I give it half a star. Because Abraxos exist.

Please see my garishly accurate cover on my instagram! You can also like it there :D

instagram | goodreads

[amberlarks]

“Half”, 2019-2021, oil on canvas, 48”x 60”. It’s about growing up half Asian in America. Art is about wearing your heart on your sleeve and I have a lot to share about this one. It would really mean a lot to me if you read the story behind it. I reflect on the current events of the past week and past year. It feels very vulnerable sharing all of this, but I also know how important it is to share. This is one of the most important and personal paintings I’ve made in my life and I’m so happy I finally finished it. Thank you for your support, your inspiration, and for listening❤️

Growing Up Half Asian in America: A Reflection on Identity and Racism

By Amber Larks

I finally found my words. Day 1 I had no words, only grief. Day 2 I was furious with rage. And now I feel a sense of healing. Grieving together and supporting each other even just virtually has been so healing. And it inspired me to finish a painting I started sketches for in 2019. I’m not sure what strange force or feeling came over me to put it down and not pick it up until now, but I think it was meant to be.

These two years have been huge for talks about race and I’ve learned so much. I think my painting was finally ready to be completed because of how much I’ve experienced and learned and because of that, found my voice and identity in this movement.

This painting was art therapy for me and I know a lot of people will connect with it. I had been struggling for so long on my thoughts on current events because I am half. Half Chinese and half white. Somehow, I always feel my thoughts or feelings aren’t valid because “I don’t know what it’s really like to be Asian”. I have always struggled with imposter syndrome because I’m half. I constantly straddle two worlds. But being Chinese is who I am, it’s half of me. I was gaslighting myself wondering if my grief was valid. Thoughts like: “You’re not really Asian so stop playing the victim here”, “People will think you’re just a white girl trying to look woke” and “You should be sad, yes, but grieving like you knew them? That doesn’t make sense”. How fucked up is that?

But this is what being half is like. You feel like an imposter even though it is 100% genuinely part of your identity. And I honestly think this is where a lot of my social anxiety comes from because I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere. But being half is also a beautiful blessing where I’ve cultivated a deep understanding and practice of empathy.

Being half, you experience direct racism but more often racism in the form of people being racist in front of you not knowing they are in front of an Asian person. My first memory of racism is being in second grade and two white boys in my class pulling their eyelids up and down taunting “Chinese” “Japanese” “Chinese” “Japanese”. I will always remember it and the feeling I felt.

And Seattle, my city, as much as a beautiful, progressive haven that we are, we blindly participate in passive aggressive racism. I can’t tell you how many times people have complained to me about “Asian tourists” as if they are not human, but instead an inconvenience to your white city. As if they are not people who have worked hard and saved for years to take their family on vacation, land in a foreign city with a foreign language only to be scoffed at and not welcomed. Where is our empathy there? Where is our humanity? So much of racism is not seeing others as human which makes it easy to be so cruel. The dehumanization of minorities is pure cruelness.

Maybe we don’t do things like you, look like you, or talk like you, but that doesn’t make us lesser. We have feelings. We feel pain. We have depth. We’re smart. We can read between the lines. We know when we are not welcome and it hurts. We know when we are being ridiculed and it hurts. We know Hollywood only sees us as objects and it hurts. We see our brothers and sisters getting murdered and it hurts.

Growing up half taught me to hide my Asian side because from age 5 I deemed it unsafe to show in fear of being bullied. As I grew up, I continued to hide in fear of being disrespected, stereotyped, harassed, and sexualized. That last one is huge for Asian women and disturbs me to my core. I hope I never hear the phrase “Asian persuasion” again or “exotic” like we are some seductive fetishized foreign object rather than individuals.

Also mixed kids need to be normalized. Being mixed is becoming more common now thankfully but growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I had people ask me if I was adopted, if my mom was my nanny, or “what am I?” and “Where are you from?” This is so alienating. And we’re still at a point where we’re being fetishized because of “how exotic we look”. Please take a moment to understand why these are issues.

It’s only within the last few years that I’ve gotten more comfortable sharing my identity as the world becomes more accepting of different cultures. Although current events show why I’m still weary with sharing my identity with people I don’t know.

And yes, I am privileged in many ways to be white passing because I have the option to blend in easier. I have realized this year more than ever just how privileged I am and oblivious I was. But I also feel the weight of pain our communities feel. And grief is grief. Struggles are struggles. Pain is pain. We need solidarity to move forward.

So I’ve been really touched the past 24 hours how much support and outcry there has been. My boyfriend (also half Asian) and I were saying how it’s actually weird seeing all this Asian stuff. I had to do a double take at what was happening- to see so many people talking about it. We’ve always just dealt with it and somehow society made us feel that’s just how it was. We were used to it. We learned to expect it. You learned to deal with it. And you don’t complain. “People have it harder” “We’re lucky to be where we are”. Silent strength. And silent suffering.

I think of my grandma and her strength. And how she never complained. And it breaks my heart to think of the things she must have endured throughout her life. She was my hero. So strong and so quirky and so herself. And I think of how all of that is in my mom and my sister and I. Being Chinese to me is to be resilient. My people have been through so much yet we’re taught to keep our heads down, work hard, and not complain.

So it really warms my heart seeing so many people speaking out about this and supporting us right now. It’s really moving to see how much positive support can help heal a hurting community. Just seeing people speak up is healing in itself. That people are listening and our problems are actually real. That we’re not overreacting. Victims normally don’t see themselves as victims if they’ve been manipulated to think their pain is normal.

That’s how it’s been for Asian people. (model minority myth at play here). And this is the problem with the model minority myth: It is crafted out of white supremacy to preach “congratulations you should be proud you climbed your way out of poverty. Not like those other folks. Look at the bright side. Forget the rest. Forget the torment we put you through. Forget the past. Aren’t you so glad to be you, a model citizen, a respectable citizen” when in reality it is giving a false sense of security and false praise in a society that is still so very hostile towards you. It delegitimizes our pain and manipulatively puts us against other minorities. It “deems” us closer to white even though that’s not true at all. It’s not a scale of white to black and everything in between. We are all unique cultures and something we just happen to have in common is that we are all not white. We all know what it’s like to be the minority. And we have strength in solidarity.

This has been a moment of clarity for me for my identity. I grieved and I’m still grieving for those lost and their families. Because they could have been me. They could have been my own loved ones.

Empathy can create so much change and healing. So please, when a community calls out for help, please return the call. Picture yourself in their shoes. For them to endure so much pain to finally reach the breaking point of calling out for help- it means it’s serious.

This past year has shown how much white supremacy upholds our society. It really does permeate every major artery, crack and corner of this place. It’s also shown how easily it’s tolerated. Excuse after excuse is made to uphold it and it’s time for that to stop. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone being vocal about this, everyone who is evaluating how their thoughts, words, jokes, or actions could be part of the problem(it’s not your fault, it’s the society we grew up in), and to everyone who reached out. Thank you.

I feel like a weight has been lifted finishing this painting and at the same time I am finding peace with my identity. Being Asian is having an unspoken bond with other Asians because you’ve all been through similar struggles. You are brothers and sisters in solidarity. And that’s what I love about the Asian community. We have an unshakable strength in each other. But recently our community has been violently rocked and traumatized seeing our brothers and sisters murdered and abused. It takes a toll on a community. It’s a collective grieving we are going through. So thank you to everyone returning our call for help. Thank you for listening. And thank you for your love. We will heal but we will need everyone’s help to get rid of white supremacy, racism, and domestic terrorism. And until then we will continue to stand in solidarity with all communities fighting for the same cause✊

I ask of everyone reading this:

Please try and use a lens of empathy to understand why marginalized communities are marginalized as well as their history and struggles.

Please take the time to reflect in the moment if your everyday actions, words, and thoughts perpetuate stereotypes and racism. I’ve caught myself many times. It’s in all of us because we live in a toxic society built on white supremacy. But that’s where the progress comes- when you address it and try and fix it.

Please vote and support leaders who are anti racist. Who work to uplift all communities. Voting and activism works. Rhetoric matters. And politics is not just an old man’s game anymore.

Show solidarity. It means you care.

Have empathy. Do your part to make the world a better place- not just for yourself and the people you care about, but for every human being. The light in me honors the light in you❤️

[hamliet]

On Banana Fish’s Ending

Welcome to the hell that is Banana Fish’s ending. If you like it it’s hell. If you hate it it’s definitely hell. If you’re like me somewhere in the middle but closer to “I don’t like this” it’s hell. We’re all suffering. 

Like any useless writer, I cope by writing out my feelings so here, have this.

I can see why some feel the ending narratively works in some respects, and in some ways I can even agree it can be read in certain ways that make it work. But I also think a happy ending could have been just as narratively excellent, depending on the execution, and my personal opinion is that this would have been a more responsible ending. But no one has to agree, and I understand why people hate the ending and why people defend the ending. 

I’m going to talk about this in a few segments: authorial statements, social messages, and genre. (I’m writing another meta on the narrative themes of the ending because that section got massively long.) For what it’s worth, a story does not exist in a vacuum, and while it’s absolutely valid to interpret and critique a story according to simply the written story, it’s also valid to weigh authorial intent (or to dismiss it), and to evaluate how the story plays into both larger cultural messages and larger literary trends. Any author 100% knows that their story will be interpreted according to all of these. But what follows is mostly my opinion/explaining why I feel as I do. It is not me saying anyone has to feel or interpret it the same way. 

Authorial Statements

I know Yoshida has made... contradictory and, frankly, offensive statements on the ending, in which she’s said things such as that Ash narratively had to die because he was a murderer and people who kill need to pay with their own lives. In general, Yoshida seems to struggle in interviews--like saying she hates Yut-Lung when the story’s moral center character (Sing) literally tells him in his last scene “I can’t hate you” and promises to help him redeem himself. This is hardly unique to her. It’s hard to explain a complex element of story in a few sentences of an answer. Ishida’s first interview after the end of TG had some cringeworthy moments, Rowling seems to make constant missteps (and retcons), etc. Hence, I generally employ “death of the author”--I think the author’s intent matters to the extent their work conveys their intent, but not if their work contradicts what they then say. 

The entirety of Banana Fish contradicts this idea of murderous karma. In fact, the story is at its core about finding a way out of a violent cycle, of finding freedom. Ash dying with a smile on his face literally says that he did not die trapped in a system of karmic violence with no hope of freedom. 

Not to mention Sing is a murderer. Yut-Lung* is a murderer. Blanca is a murderer. They all live, and get hopeful (even happy-ish) endings and implied redemption for Yut-Lung and for Blanca. 

*I know Yut-Lung is name-dropped as having been assassinated in a later manga called Yasha but like, he never actually appears in Yasha and it has nothing to do with his character’s arc in Banana Fish, so I don’t think it’s relevant to anything relating to Yut-Lung’s character as we know him. It’s really just an Easter egg, and since Yut-Lung dying in Yasha is a retcon of the fact that his arc ending with him living in the main story (Banana Fish) I feel completely free to disregard it as not actually canon.*

Additionally, Banana Fish takes empathetic looks at children who are suffering in a world where they are forced into the roles of prostitutes and killers, and what’s the point of empathy if it can’t change anything? Eiji is noted to basically be walking empathy, having a gift for comforting those around him, and the mutual, spiritual, and yes, romantic, love he and Ash share changes things for Ash (and for Eiji). To say that death had to happen narratively is to say that Eiji was, in the words of his critics, useless, which is rather at odds with the central emotional draw of the story: Ash and Eiji’s relationship. It contradicts Eiji’s beautiful letter, the one that Ash smiled as he died because of, because in this letter Eiji assures Ash: “you can change your destiny.”

So anyways, regardless of what Yoshida says, Ash being a murderer is not a narrative justification for the ending because that simply isn’t what the story conveys.

That being said, that perspective--that Ash’s death is karma for killing--is exactly Ash’s perspective. Just when he was about to overcome his flaw of not seeing his value by realizing how much he meant to Eiji, Lao reminds him of Shorter’s death, the one thing he cannot forgive himself for. And so Ash allows himself to die. But the thing is this perspective is wrong and narratively condemned. Eiji’s letter offers a counter to this, but Ash doesn’t take it (which is slightly inexplicable). Plus, as we see in “Garden of Light,” it leaves Eiji unable to completely overcome his flaw (an inability to act/truly live) for seven years, so the story condemns it too. 

And, of course, Ash also did not kill Shorter out of malice--he was forced into it, like he was forced into the life he had to live with Dino. It’s not the deaths of one of the people begging to be spared whom Ash killed for playing a role in killing Shorter, but Shorter’s death itself that brings about fear and mistrust in Lao. To have Ash’s death be a consequence for killing willingly (which he did plenty of), it should have been for one of those nameless people we got a brief shot of, instead of as a consequence for a murder Ash had no choice in and was a victim of almost as much as Shorter was. But that also wouldn’t work because a nameless death doesn’t quite suffice for offing your main character, so. Yeah. Ash’s death is not a narrative consequence for killing others; it’s expressly framed as a tragic and cruel result of his inability to forgive himself for specific acts that were not his fault. 

Social Messages Part 1: LGBT relationships

While Banana Fish was written in the 1980s-90s (kind of a dire time for LGBT+ people in the United States with the AIDS crisis), the trope of “bury your gays” has received rightful criticism since, and the ending can definitely be seen as “bury your gays.” (A criticism that is not helped by what happens to the gay/bi character in Yasha.) In other words, while I think the themes, characters, and frankly issues of Banana Fish are generally timeless, the ending is the only part of the story that I don’t think ages well. As time goes by, it will probably get even more criticism because of current society finally moving towards being better in the portrayal of LGBT+ characters. 

*Because I want to complain and explain why I really don’t consider anything post-GoL canon: the follow-up picture book “New York Sense” doesn’t help the “bury your gays” impression either: Sing and Akira are certainly intended to be parallels to Ash and Eiji as Akira is brought to the US by Ibe and interacts with gangster Sing in “Garden of Light,” and while such framing is very ambiguous/bordering on not being there in GoL the follow-ups absolutely paint a romantic framing to their interactions in GoL. They marry and raise a son, popping up in cameos in Yoshida’s other works. Hence it runs dangerously close to reading as the heterosexual couple introduced in the epilogue got the happy ending while the gay couple we spent 19 volumes with did not. Since Sing is also still heavily involved with the mafia in all of the follow-ups, this again contradicts narrative justifications for Ash’s death as karma. 

While I very much like Akira’s character, her romance with Sing isn’t just uncomfortable because of the above issue--it’s also uncomfortable because she is 13 and he is 23 in GoL (though their relationship doesn’t have to be read as mutually romantic there, and I don’t read it that way) and according to “New York Sense,” they marry when she is 18 which... implies things that seems very, very out of character for Sing, the series’ moral compass, and dramatically contradicts the skeevy adults preying on kids theme. It can also raise some cringe-worthy questions about why it’s framed as okay for the heterosexual couple but negatively (as it should be) for the people--who are primarily men--who assault Ash (and there is noted to have been a woman who assaulted him in “Private Opinion”). Like with Yut-Lung’s death, I just... don’t accept this retconning as canon. It contradicts the themes of Banana Fish as a story so I don’t have to.*

Social Messages Part 2: Abuse Survivors

For people who have been through abuse similar to Ash’s, in which choices over basic things like life, death, and your own body are taken from you, it’s honestly cruel to show someone who has spent their entire life suffering just about to grasp happiness, and then they die. It is fully valid to find this completely distasteful, and I do too.

But for me at least, one aspect that circumvents... some of the distasteful implication that Ash really was broken by things he had no choice in is the fact that Ash triumphed over his abusers first. Yet of course, having him die afterwards still hurts people who read the story and see themselves in a character like Ash, as it can reinforce the idea that abuse defines your life. 

I do wish (though I don’t think there’s a moral necessity) that more authors/creators would acknowledge that, in creating characters whom you in theory want people to relate to, see themselves in, root for, care about, you’re asking people to suffer with them as they suffer and if they die, grieve for them. Given the heaviness of Ash’s arc and the specific nature of his suffering (especially since it was horrifically emphasized in the story’s last arc with Foxx), the fact that Ash didn’t in the end overcome the message that he did not have value is going to be very painful for readers/viewers. (Lao missed his vital organs, so Ash really chose to die instead of getting help, because he chose to believe Blanca over Eiji, which... I’m not sure it quite works.) If you could have narratively had it end happily (and it absolutely could have, and apparently Yoshida’s editor told her not to end it with Ash’s death), there’s room to say that going with the tragic ending is hurtful and bordering on irresponsible. 

Genre

That defeat of Ash’s abusers is the reason I don’t think Banana Fish is quite as tragic as other stories like, say, the first Tokyo Ghoul or Hamlet or Macbeth, though it’s certainly tragic. In those stories, every single characters’ flaws lead to them dying, and it offers a cautionary tale. Banana Fish is more in the vein of say, Romeo and Juliet, or even the movie Titanic (I’m not making a romance comparison, for the record), in that the main characters might die, but their choices and the people they loved and how they loved manage to save a city, in the case of Romeo & Juliet, or to save Rose in the case of Titanic. In Banana Fish, Ash did help Eiji live, even if Eiji would need time to process it after the set-back of Ash’s death. 

In other words, even if I’m unhappy with it and I am, I don’t consider Banana Fish’s ending nihilistic. It wasn’t “life sucks and then you die,” at least not to me. Life sucked, but it also meant something, even beyond Ash’s relationship with Eiji. Ash’s life had value. Through saving Sing in the story’s climactic battle, and then helping Max with that article that would save other child prostitutes, Ash saved younger versions of himself. That’s powerful. Not only that, but Ash found love and hope in his personal life as well with Eiji, Max, Shorter, etc., and through that genuine happiness. Even if he couldn’t fully grasp it, he knew it was there, and he died knowing there was genuine, true love, and therefore beauty, in the world too. And that, for me, comes across as far more hopeful than surface-level, cheaper happier endings. But still, the fact that Ash couldn’t fully experience this beauty and happiness because of the cycle of violence he had no choice about being involved in, plus a questionable character decision, does leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. (That questionable character decision, with the letter not having a full effect, makes tragedy seem a bit forced on Yoshida’s part.)

I want to quote Arthur Miller’s “Tragedy and the Common Man,” and I’ve highlighted parts I think explain how I feel about Banana Fish and Ash’s character (in particular, why I don’t think a tragic ending necessarily sends a nihilistic message, at least not to me):

The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws. And Job could face God in anger, demanding his right and end in submission. But for a moment everything is in suspension, nothing is accepted, and in this sketching and tearing apart of the cosmos, in the very action of so doing, the character gains "size," the tragic stature which is spuriously attached to the royal or the high born in our minds. The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in the world.

There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism. Even the dictionary says nothing more about the word than that it means a story with a sad or unhappy ending. This impression is so firmly fixed that I almost hesitate to claim that in truth tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy, and that its final result ought to be the reinforcement of the onlooker's brightest opinions of the human animal.

For, if it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity.

The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly have won. The pathetic is achieved when the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity, or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.

Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.

This applies to basically all tragedy, of course, but I think some tragedies are more hopeful than others. And I see that struggle in Ash’s, and a hope in Banana Fish that I don’t see in other more nihilistic stories. Ash fought to reclaim the humanity that people tried to deny him, and through Eiji realized his humanity was there all along. 

Anyways, these are my complicated, all-over-the-place feelings on the ending. It’s fine for people to feel strongly either way, but also understand that when discussing such a heavy, fundamentally triggering work, it’s good to be sensitive to where people are coming from and interact with differing opinions with empathy. Many of us relate to characters like Ash, Eiji, and Yut-Lung, and since you don’t know where someone is coming from, let them express their feelings, and be kind. 

I’ll post another meta on thematic impressions on Banana Fish later. But to each their own. Also please note, again, this is really just my opinion. 

[tsuuyuri]

tw for suicide, death, eating disorders, fat-shaming, skinny-shaming, anxiety, depression, bullying, etc. just don’t read if you aren’t in a good place. 

i swear to god. 

any knetizen (because yes, this is a specifically a knet problem) that sits back after sulli’s death and acts like they didnt treat her like a piece of meat to buy and sell and eat and spit out and call too fat and too skinny and so selfish and so ugly and so “out of line” like she was some evil snake when she was always just a girl being herself, expressing herself, being different from the “traditional ideal korean woman”, struggling with mental illness and eating disorders in an industry that is stressful and unhealthy and cruel and with “fans” who are absolutely nobody in comparison to who she was that sit in their homes and talk trash about her body, her “attitude”, her sex life, and whatever else on the internet for fun. 

i am sick and tired of people making excuses for korean misogyny and toxic beauty standards because “oh it’s a different culture”, whatever! a culture that promotes sink or swim standards in its education system and requires everyone gets plastic surgery no matter what in order to be considered worth anything needs to fucking change! it’s killing people and it’s been killing people for a long time! south korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. koreans and honestly everyone need to wake up and stop acting like this is just “crazy celebrities” because it’s not. they’re just the ones we all hear about. you don’t hear about the teenager 5 blocks down who committed suicide last week after being bullied for being gay. you don’t hear about the student that committed suicide last month because they aren’t an academic person and their parents called them stupid and punished them for not having top grades. we don’t hear about them because they aren’t famous. but we need to look at these famous people who we think have everything that makes life worth living, commit suicide and understand how much that shit probably happens with just regular ole people. for every celebrity who kills themselves, there’s 10 more non-celebrities. 

every time someone innocent commits suicide, it’s murder. it’s murder by society. it’s murder by people who tear them apart until they can’t be sewn back together again and then wonder how it could happen. 

sulli was anorexic. being anorexic is so, so fucking painful and hard and awful and it’s so much deeper than just being “pretty”. sometimes it’s needing to feel like you have something in your life under control. sometimes it’s wanting to be smaller so maybe people can’t see you anymore because you were abused. sometimes it’s just wanting to die slowly. i went to an inpatient ward 3 times by the time i turned 18 and had tubes shoved down my nose and throat because i just couldn’t eat a thing without panicking and feeling guilty. the anxiety and depression after i got out each time was so crippling that i couldn’t leave my house. i can’t even imagine getting on stage and performing in that state like people criticized sulli for not doing. “oh she’s lazy, she’s selfish, she’s not taking it seriously, she’s just acting like a princess!” she’s a young girl who was having panic attacks, being told her body type isn’t right to be an idol, who was depressed, who wasn’t sleeping enough hours. she was sick. and you made her even more sick. who the hell would want to perform for people who don’t appreciate it? negative words outweigh positive ones. netizens know that. be honest with yourself. they thought it was fun to poke at someone. they felt good talking bad about someone. they thought it was “okay” because she’s a celebrity and apparently when you sign a contract in the kpop industry, your humanity dies and nobody has to think about how their words and actions make you feel anymore. 

women in kpop are attacked all the fucking time for doing normal things. 

i looked at pictures of sulli when she looked her healthiest and i thought she was beautiful. koreans called her flat, flabby, said she had cankles, thick legs, called her fucking sulliphant. i looked at pictures of sulli when she was so thin she should’ve been in a hospital like i had been and i was scared for her but her smile was still beautiful. koreans criticized her for “getting shots and liposuction, oh it’s not natural, the bruises aren’t pretty” or praised her for finally not being “ugly” and having a pretty bodyline, having skinny legs, and for finally discovering the “true wealth of a woman is her looks” and the worst part, some still called her sulliphant and fat and ugly when she was easily under 100 lbs. it’s just unfair. it’s so unfair and horrible and it happens every day, to every female idol, some less and some more, and it happens to every single woman and even men now in some places. 

and now, im sitting here sobbing, not just because i regret not being a bigger support when sulli needed that even though it’s not my fault i wasn’t as aware of kpop, but also because i know if i were a kpop idol while going through depression, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, paranoia, and anorexia nervosa... i would be dead. i would have been dead years ago. i would be just like sulli. bullied to death by her own mind and by people who think you are their doll to throw around. 

no one should have to “stay strong” through comments like that. not a celebrity, not anyone. no one. 

korean beauty standards need an overhaul. i have had enough. anorexic isn’t beautiful. it’s painful. it should not be a singer’s job to be nice to look at in a very particular and unnatural way that only 10% of people are born looking like. 

sulli having a boyfriend got koreans so fucking angry, calling her unprofessional, a cock-sucking whore, a slut, whatever other disgusting words you can think of, but men were just as quick to ogle her and take photos up her skirt for their own enjoyment because “oh well she’s an idol, that’s what she’s there for”. women were jealous of sulli for having access to handsome and rich men they wouldn’t because she’s an idol and they’re not, so they shamed her for it. men weren’t mad about sulli having a sex life, they were mad about sulli having a sex life that didn’t involve her fucking them, so they shamed her for it. sulli was just being a person. but being a person isn’t congruent with being an idol, for some reason. 

sulli spiraled into reckless behavior and they blamed her for that too when they drove her to it. 

“she’s a celebrity, it’s what she signed up for.” 

no. she didn’t. she signed up to sing, dance, and make people happy. she didn’t sign up for people to tear her apart. 

his case is significantly different, but it’s a part of an epidemic all the same, so i’ll mention him once and not again: jonghyun didn’t pass away just for south korea to learn nothing about ignoring and shaming mental illness and torment another already tortured idol into leaving too.  

this isn’t simple cause and effect, this is prolonged bullying and attacking someone, beating them again and again until they can’t stand up again. this isn’t an isolated issue. it’s years of criticizing, terrorizing, dehumanizing, ignoring, and taking for granted, that leads to one very horrible, very permanent, very quick outcome. 

so yeah. any knet who says “rest in peace sulli” needs to rethink if they really deserve to be saying that. if you ever called this poor girl names, criticized her body as not “aesthetically pleasing”, shamed her for being in a relationship and having sex as a grown woman, sexualized her regularly, exploited her, and/or contributed at all to her feeling this horrifically bad about herself to the point she felt alienated from everyone and like she couldn’t continue living... you don’t get to grieve. you get to feel guilty. you get to feel horrible about what you said and did to this woman who was only human, and who was ostracized for being herself and for appearing strong until she couldn’t anymore. 

sulli, you are not a bad person. you are an angel now and forever. i wish we had done better for you. rest in peace, sweet girl, and know i will always think of you. you will never be just a memory. you are alive through those who truly love you and know you. 

and if you or anyone you know is struggling with bullying, depression, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, etc., as always, please reach out and get the help you deserve. support is a phone call away. you never walk alone. even if it’s a complete stranger, there are people who want to help and who want you to live on. i want you to live on. i want us all to fight these demons and to work toward a better future. it is possible. we can and must do better. we can and must love ourselves and each other. 

be kind, take care, ask for help, give help. 

celebrity, non-celebrity, women, men, children, black, white, asian, latinx, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary, cishet, disabled, able-bodied, neuroatypical, neurotypical, etc. we are all human. 

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

Natalie Dupree (Emily Rose) Harry’s Law 2x11 Gorilla My Dreams (2012) 2/ 2

Jugde Lucas Kirkland: Guardianship of a gorilla? Are you serious? 

Mike Horace: A gorilla she stole. 

Harry Korn: She did not steal him. He escaped from a local zoo, he ventured onto her property, perhaps intuitively, since he - 

Judge: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You are? 

Horace: I’m Mike Horace, Your Honor. I represent the Cincinnati Presbyterian Good Fellows Zoo. 

Judge: That’s a lot of names. 

Horace: Well, my client owns this animal,  and I would ask - 

Harry: That presumes the animal is capable of being owned. I would ask Your Honor to afford the gorilla the status of personhood for the sake of this proceeding. 

Judge: I’m is this a joke? 

Harry: Your Honor, I’ve looked into this creature’s eyes. Apes are a lot less inhuman than we would like to think. Our DNA and theirs is 98% a match. The gorilla we’re talking about today uses an iPad. He knows sign language. He thinks. He reasons. He communicates. 

Judge: Counsel, counsel has any court in this country granted personhood status to an ape? 

Harry: No. But other countries have. And here at home, the great ape protection act was reintroduced to congress in 2011. The day is coming, Your Honor. There’s a qualitative shift happening in the way we view the animal world, especially when it comes to apes. 

Tommy Jefferson: Your Honor, I, too, looked into the eyes of this beast, and I felt a kinship. How about you hear from our client, Natalie Dupree, who’s been living with this beast for the last month. 

Horace: Ms. Dupree does not have any standing to assert - 

Harry: She has foundation. She studied primatology in college, she’s been the primary caretaker of this gorilla. If we’re to consider the best interest of the ape, which I would submit we should, Natalie is uniquely qualified to bear witness on that. 

Horace: This woman committed a theft. And and we’re to reward her by giving her a day in court? 

Harry: This isn’t about her. It’s about the ape. 

Judge: All right. Where is this animal now?  

Harry: At my client’s farm.  

Judge: That’s not gonna fly. I’m gonna hear from your witness, but in the meantime, the gorilla goes back to the zoo. That’s all.

*** Natalie Dupree: [signing and English] It’s just going to be for a short time, Wentworth. Okay? We’re going to get you out. But you need to go back, just for a short time. Okay? 

Tommy: [trying to sign at the same time] Everything will be okay. It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna fight for you. We’re gonna fight. And everything’ll be okay.

***

Natalie: Well, I had just come home from work. I had some groceries in my hand, and I got this feeling, like I was being watched. And I looked over at the hedges and there were these big eyes sort of peering out at me. 

Tommy: Were you frightened? 

Natalie: Of course I was. There was a gorilla in the bushes. I was scared to death. 

Tommy: And then he came walking out at you? 

Natalie: Very tentatively. I could see that either he was afraid himself, or that he somehow was sensitive to my fear. That’s what I remember being struck by first, was his powers of perception, if not empathy. 

Tommy: So then what happened after he came out of the bushes?

Natalie: Well, he kept walking forward. And from his body language, I could tell that, like I said earlier, that somehow he sensed I was afraid. And so he took my hand, ever so gently, and he caressed my palm, like what he did with you and Harry. And then then he signed “Hello”. I think I gasped. This was this was like straight out of a Disney movie. 

Tommy: So Ms. Dupree, where did you think this ape had come from? 

Natalie: I’d seen the reports on the news about the zoo escape, so I knew that his name was Wentworth, that he was very docile. 

Tommy: Now I understand you brought along some video. 

Natalie: Yeah, I did. Just a little footage, just to give you an idea.  

Tommy: I’m going to roll it, and then you can tell us what we’re seeing.  

Natalie: Okay. So I brought him an iPad ‘cause I’d read the chimpanzees and orangutans were using them. And that’s what he did to the first one. But then, a day later he’s doing puzzles and finger painting. 

Judge: Ms. Dupree, you haven’t manipulated this footage in any way? 

Natalie: Judge, orangutans are using these things to video chat with other orangutans in different zoos. Oh, he likes opera. 

Judge: How smart, in human terms, would you say he is? 

Natalie: I would say he’s the equivalent to a two or three-year-old child. Oh, and I I probably should’ve edited this out, but it gives you a sense. He wasn’t toilet trained at the zoo, by the way. He learned that in two days. People magazine. 

Horace: You have reason to think he’s been mistreated at the zoo? 

Natalie: Yes. Yes, he’s the only gorilla there. 

Horace: That’s mistreatment? 

Natalie: In the wild, gorillas lead extremely social lives. They have friends, they have family. They love, they laugh, and they’re active. In your zoo, he sits alone all day and does nothing. 

Horace: But he could never be set free. He doesn’t have the skill set to survive in the wild. 

Natalie: Yeah, but there are sanctuaries, there are other zoos where there’s other gorillas. At least he’d have some sort of social and emotional life. I’m sorry, but it’s cruel to stick him in isolated captivity in Cincinnati Presbyterian. 

Horace: Because he can use an iPad? 

Natalie: No, because it’s inhumane. He has an IQ of almost 90. 

Horace: But where do we draw the line? Dogs, especially service dogs, have displayed extraordinary intelligence. Should we grant them personhood status? What about ducks? I’ve been told ducks are smart. You lease your property out to shoot ducks, right? Isn’t that how you first met Ms. Korn, and Mr. Jefferson? 

Natalie: Look, I’m not an animal activist. I eat meat, I wear leather and yes, yes, I make a little money leasing my land out to duck hunters. But this case is about great apes. They’re different. 

Horace: We use apes for biomedical research. Are you against that? 

Natalie: 100%. 

Horace: Children dying of leukemia this research could cure them. But you say, no, better the ape be happy. 

Natalie: Mr. Horace, if you want to make the argument that sacrificing an ape is worth saving a child, then go on ahead, but that’s not what we’re talking about, are we? We’re talking about the cruel and abusive treatment of sticking an intelligent being in a zoo and charging people admission for entertainment. And last time I checked, that did not cure leukemia. 

Horace: But it’s an animal, you’ve come into this court asking the court to treat him as a person. Now if we actually do that, what do we say to the next guy out there who happens to love dolphins?

Mike Horace: Look, uh, my client, too, loves this animal. And not just because people pay admission to see him. But he is an animal. To somehow call him a person, even for the sake of a legal proceeding why? Because, uh, he’s pretty smart? A lot of animals are. Dolphins, dogs. Because it feels emotions? Well, so do elephants. Elephants will mourn the loss of family members for years. Like it or not, we do practice speciesism. We eat animals because they taste good. We kill them for clothing, sometimes vanity. We use them for medical testing. We whip their behinds coming down the home stretch. We coop them up, and we own them. We own them. Under the law, these animals are considered property, under the law, this animal is the property of the Cincinnati Presbyterian Good Fellows Zoo. It’s as simple as that.

Harry Korn: Well, I’m glad you called it for what it is: speciesism. ‘Cause that’s what it is. Following Mr. Horace’s logic suppose a being from another planet showed up, IQ of 300, had the wherewithal to reverse climate change and told really funny jokes. I mean, he’d get no rights here ‘cause he’s nonhuman? We could just throw him in a zoo and charge admission? I don’t think that’s what any of us want. And yet, under Mr. Horace’s argument, the law is the law. Your Honor, the law evolves as we learn. Always has. I understand there’s a slippery slope problem. Today it’s a gorilla; next it’s a dolphin. Soon people will be trying to stop me from shooting a lousy duck. Which I look forward to. I like shooting ducks. I don’t know where we draw the line here. But if we have a being of real intelligence, capable of showing compassion, one that possesses self-awareness, has language skills, a being that lives a social and emotional life, I have no problem drawing the line there. And as I said at the beginning, I’ve looked into this gorilla’s eyes. I challenge anybody here to do the same and not see something a little human. But in the end, it’s not about the ape’s humanity, is it? It’s about ours. How do we, as a species capable of feeling and crying and caring, how do we lock up another being that This ape laughs. He learns. He reasons. He plays jokes. He grieves. He worries. And right now, he’s worried sick about having to stay at the Cincinnati Presbyterian Good Fellows Zoo. Judge Lucas Kirkland: I certainly agree with you, Miss Korn. The law is evolving on this, and we’re seeing the legal rights of animals expanded by the day. But the problem with granting actual personhood status is: what’s the test? Can’t be IQ. As we’ve seen, certain animals have more intelligence than some humans. Emotion? Well, how do you measure that? Maybe it’s the empathy chip. But most of our successful CEOs are missing that one. This is why speciesism has always been very pragmatic, at least from a a legal standpoint. I completely support, even cheer, the continued expansion of legal rights for animals, especially when it comes to the great apes. But looking at where the law stands today, animals, even the great apes, are considered property. And the property in question belongs to the zoo. The motion for legal guardianship is denied.

***

Zoologist: He’s been a little grumpy today. 

Natalie: Tell me about it. 

Tommy: Hey, where’s that tiger I shot at? You got him here? 

Harry: Would you get over the stupid tiger. 

Natalie: Hey, Wenty? 

Zoologist: Oh, he can sulk with the best of them. 

Natalie: Oh, yeah, I’ve seen it. Hey, Wenty.[signing] Will you come over here, please? Hey, stop being childish. I want to talk to you for a second. 

Tommy: Show him your ass, Harry, that’ll get him over. 

Harry: Show him yours. 

Natalie: Hey, honey. Hey. [signing] We’re gonna try to get you out of the zoo, okay? We tried very hard, and we’re gonna still try. But you just you have to live here just a little bit longer. 

Harry: [signs same?, points towards Natalie] What she said. Do you think he knows we’re really trying? 

Natalie: Wenty? Wenty?[signing] We’re gonna get you out somehow. All right? We’ll we’ll get you out. 

Harry: What was that? 

Natalie: He, um. [signing] I miss you, too.[/signing] I really think we should go home. I don’t want him to see me cry. Bye, Wenty. [signing] We’ll be back. Okay? I’ll be back.

[arrietty-cadee-clock]

Snakes Over Scarves / Kagerou Project Secret Santa Present

MERRY CHRISTMAS @melly-arts!

I’m your Secret Santa for @kagepro-secret-santa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super sorry that this is so late; I’m a pretty slow writer ;_;

Also sorry if this ends up being a lot more than the things you originally prompted. I tried to write a bit more in depth than I usually do, so really super duper sorry if this turns out to actually be terrible.

That said, while still sorry for making you wait so long, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and just in general Happy Holidays! XD

Snakes Over Scarves

8477 words

Romantic KuroAya AU

Please enjoy!

:)

From as far back as she could remember, Ayano had never really liked it when things changed.

And why would she? Change was such a pesky thing, introducing the unwanted unknown into otherwise ordinary daily lives; disrupting schedules, plans, and missions: pretty much inconveniencing everyone involved.

With the exceptions of the very few times when change had brought good things such as family in the form of three precious siblings or introduced her to new friends as the elementary, then middle, and the final high school bell rung... nope, she didn't like it all, even one bit.

Her tests, for example, never came back the exact same. Sometimes they'd come back printed with a somewhat hopeful 73%, or a barely passable 51% or, if she had been really unlucky on that test day, a bottom-of-the-barrel, drudge-like 35%.

It was disappointing to say the least. She always studied for them, that part never changed, and yet during the last few weeks before... all of this, they always went even lower than on her unlucky days.

Oh, what she would have given to be like a certain calm, stoic boy who she used to follow around everywhere. Ayano sighed and stretched in her chair, looking at the desk on her right where (had this been the real world) he would have been sitting as she reminisced about his perfect score of 100% which never ever changed.

A smile easily grew on her face just by remembering it (him) along with memories of other things and people from that long-past, happy, unchanging time.

Shintaro, Shuuya, Kousuke, Tsubomi, Takane, H-

Until suddenly-

*ccrrreeeaaakkk*

-her thoughts were completely interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open and the steps of someone coming into the otherwise empty classroom, save for her.

-aruka... great.

Just like that, the small wistful smile ghosting on her lips halted its steady growth, shrinking down, down, down with every step the person (demon, creature, THING) behind her took further into the room until it became a large lifeless frown.

Why is it becoming easier to frown than to smile with every new loop... Ayano thought in dismay even though she had already known the answer a long time ago. She stood up from her chair and quietly walked a few steps towards the window at her left, reaching it just as the other person in the room had reached her desk.

It (not he, she, they, IT) had come to visit her again.

How absolutely wonderful.

Ayano counted the number of footsteps it took for it to reach her side by the window. Refusing to look it's way, she lowered her head deeper into the red scarf wrapped thickly around her neck and steeled her gaze into the fake fire-coloured sky just outside the window instead. Sadly though, it didn't stop her from seeing the person beside her open its mouth out of the corner of her eye, ready to speak vile words that a slimy animal like itself didn't have the right to even know; ready to remind her once again that change was not only super annoying, it also brought much, much darker things.

Like instability.

"Looks like you've failed again, haven't you?"

("Mum and Dad shouldn't have driven past that mountain, they shouldn't have gone away at all.")

Danger.

"How utterly pathetic, although completely unsurprising for a foolish human, don't you think?"

("Takane, Haruka, what is he trying to do...?!")

Sometimes even death.

"Oh, come on now miss Hero, say something. I mean, was this not what you wanted? What you wished for? What your little heart desired?"

("Shuuya...")

A lot of the time it brought death.

"..."

Exhaling out, Ayano finally turned to face her 'companion' and smiled again, yet this time it was not tenderly solemn. No, this time it was brimming with as much cheer and as much unapologetic contempt as she could put into it. Because no matter how much everything else changed around her, there was one thing that never did.

"I hate you Snake of Clearing Eyes."

But of course, three measly words were never enough to make it go away. It probably only amused the snake demon if anything, enticing it to stay even longer and say more nasty things. Ayano could only imagine what would happen if she ever truly expressed just how much she despised the monster, if she were to ever scream out the thoughts of 'leave my family alone' and 'please die' or 'I'd kill you if the Heat Haze would let me' that always followed after the initial 'I hate you.'

It would probably be rolling on the floor laughing in delight. The idea alone was enough to make Ayano go sick to her stomach; she could barely tolerate the image of its disgustingly smug smirk in her brain for more than a few seconds without shuddering, so she never permitted herself to say anything else and favored ignoring it instead.

This, of course, did not mean in any way that she was afraid of the monster.

No, no, no. Not at all.

Whatever great terror that the evil creature had first instilled inside her had steadily vanished piece by piece each time it made the queen snake do a reset. As the clocks were forced to wind themselves backwards again and again, they also seemed to strip away the fear that the snake was originally shrouded in until there was nothing left to be seen but a petty, selfish, despicable beast whose only goal it seemed was to endlessly torment her.

It surely never grew tired of it at least; always changing (agh) its ways of inflicting suffering, never staying consistent when visiting her in the small little classroom.

During some loops, the snake would appear immediately.

The moment right after she had gone through with her ultimate plan and jumped off of the building and snapping her neck as a result then woke up inside the small classroom-sized pocket of the never-ending world without a scratch, it would already be leaning against the doorway, wearing the skin of her loving father who's only true fault had been that he had loved his wife and family too much for his own good.

Suffice to say, Ayano had been brought to her knees in tears without fail during the first few loops where she had killed herself and then be forced to listen to her own father scoff at her lack of intelligence and attempt of being a savior, promising to fully carry out its own diabolical plan before leaving the room in malicious laughter.

She couldn't even bring herself to say the "I hate you" until at least loop #68, but even then it was only tearfully whimpered out and she was still left trembling on the wooden floor wondering if the poor, kind man who had gently raised her was crying as well underneath the cruel, red-eyed control placed onto him without his knowledge.

Other loops the Snake would appear during the very middle of the timeline, just to remind her of how bad things were going in the real world without her.

Unlike when it would come right after her death, the Snake didn't stick to just one exclusive form during these visits. Instead, it would take on a whole myriad of different (agh) shapes and bodies.

There were times when it took the form of Shintaro, his bubbly younger sister, a small brown-haired boy she didn't know, a small black-haired girl she didn't know yet reminded her quite a bit of her mother, Takane turned blue and virtual, and even the sweet white-haired girl that housed the queen snake that she hadn't ever met, but knew that Kousuke loved very much.

Then there times when it took control one of her sibling's bodies and they were, without lie, the only times in her entire life (and death as well, she supposed) that she actually struggled to restrain herself from giving into a blind rage. It would do no one any good if she tried to grab one of the grieving flower pots that had been placed on all of the desks but her own to throw at the loathful monster who dared to harm her family.

She would probably just miss anyway, so a wrathful "I hate you" would have to be enough.

Finally, there were loops when the snake would appear just before the next one would start, always right after it had murdered the Dan.

It only ever took one form during these visits, just as it did with her father when it came straight away. "Konoha" was what Haruka had named the form when it had still been a simple video game avatar... and yet, Ayano knew without a doubt that she hated it most when the Snake took control of it, even more than when it took over her siblings.

After all, it was the one thing Haruka had wanted so badly, the only thing (besides seeing the girl he loved one more time) he had wanted even in death. It was his wish turned sickly, just like him. His desire to be strong and healthy and normal abused and treated like some weapon to kill those he and she both cared about.

It was just such a completely blatant scorn of her friend's last hope that whenever the snake came into the room with blood-splattered black hair on white skin, twirling the still smoking gun around a finger and mockingly calling itself 'Kuroha' instead of the original name that the body had been given, all Ayano could do was glare at the creature in stoic loathing.

No sadness. No anger. Just uncomplicated, tranquil, steadfast hate along the three magic words that corresponded to it.

"I hate you," she would whisper under her breath, not caring if the abhorrent creature even heard her. All it mattered was that she heard it, knew it, and believed it.

Ayano swore to herself - actually swore - that she would never stop saying them, ever, that she would never change.

She would not.

Until one time... she did.

In all honesty, Ayano herself didn't know the reason why.

Maybe it was because of boredom; there wasn't exactly too much to do when one was trapped inside an alternate dimension besides wait for the next loop while remembering your past life.

Or maybe it was because she missed the sound of own voice beyond saying the exact same three-word sentence for what would probably have been centuries already.

Or maybe it was just because she had finally (finally) grown fed up enough of listening to the bastard Snake's endlessly boastful taunts that she could no longer stand being quiet, lest she go completely insane.

Or... perhaps it was because Ayano just wanted to. Needed to.

Just one change, one little shift and that's it.

Sucking in a breath of sweltering heat, ignoring the uncountable voices in her head exploding for her to stop what she was planning right now, she forced her eyes away from the window and spoke for the second time.

"Don't you... don't you ever get tired of this?"

Upon hearing her hastily said question, The Snake of Clearing Eyes paused it's bragging, blinking at her in genuine confusion. "What?"

"You heard me," Ayano said again, trying on a harder voice. "Haven't you gotten tired of this by now?"

Again the monstrosity (who had appeared after the end of what she could only guess was loop #440, and thus chose to wear the very much despised black android form) only looked at her, seemingly still surprised that the puny human in front of it was finally responding back. If Ayano really squinted, she could admit that the Snake looked distressingly like Haruka when it wasn't sneering down its nose at her.

Enough to almost be... innocent-looking, she supposed.

"And by 'this' you mean...?"

"All of this! Resetting time, possessing my father, hurting my loved ones over and over and over." Ayano balled up fists by her sides, not wanting them to start flying out of control. "Why are you not completely exhausted by now? Why are you even doing this?"

Slowly but still quick enough to be infuriating, the Snake crossed its arms over its chest and let a smaller version of its signature condescending smirk grace its lips. "I already told you, didn't I? I simply want to make the wishes of you humans come true, and this is the only way to grant your father's wish."

"Liar, you're worse than Shuuya." Ayano narrowed her eyes, the wind blowing in from the window and scattering papers all around the classroom. "You were never planning on bringing my mother back. All you ever wanted was to keep the timeline from going on so you could keep on living, no matter how many innocents you have to kill."

The pale-skinned, coal-haired snake being chuckled darkly. "Well... I won't deny that the living forever part of having an unachievable wish is quite the perk. But still, this is just how I'm granting his wish and if it takes forever to do so, so be it. Besides, I granted your wish at least, right? You wanted to be a hero, and you were one. All the way into the ground."

The Clearing Eyes flashed a razor-sharp grin and took a step forward. Ayano refused to take a step back.

"Y-you're wrong! This was not what I wanted at all! I just wanted to protect my siblings and my friends," she gasped, her chest hurting as the wind further whipped through her hair, almost dislodging the clips she always wore because she hadn't been able to handle just how drastically her mother's death had sent everything down hill.

"Living forever isn't worth hurting others. It isn't worth killing people and bringing so much suffering. Can't you see? Why don't you understand?"

It was the Clearing Snake's turn to narrow its eyes. All the amused haughtiness in its expression was replaced by an unreadable icy chill and for the first time in a very long while, Ayano could feel some of the original fear she had felt when she had first read those old diaries and learned about a monster with snakes for hair.

"No, I don't see and I don't understand," it muttered, neon yellow eyes piercing into her solid brown ones. Ayano wondered if this was what snakes looked like when they were about to bite their prey. The fact that she couldn't actually be harmed in this world barely soothed her. "Tell me then, Ayano, why are you even asking me all of this since you seem to have my character completely figured out already?"

"Because! B-because..." Ayano began to stutter much to her horror but pushed on regardless; she would not let her nerves break right when they had just become strong. "Because I don't understand! I don't understand how you can not care when you destroy lives and take over people! How you can be a thinking, living being and still be okay with everything you do. How you can be so cruel. I just... I just don't understand you at all."

"..."

For once the Snake of Clearing Eyes was silent, bloodlust evaporating away completely. Ayano used the time to catch her breath and slow down her heartbeat even though it had already truly stopped a long time ago. She then stared at the Snake fiercely, searching for the glowing eyes that were now obscured by black bangs. She never found them.

"You... are right. You don't understand me," muttered the Clearing Eyes Snake eventually. Turning around, its dark shadow flickering on the red sunset-lit walls as it walked towards the doorway out.

"And why would you?" It called over its shoulder brusquely, as if trying to restore the normal biting sting to its words, still without so much as looking at Ayano. "You're just a human after all. What with your pitifully short lives, how would you even begin to understand the thoughts of a superior, long-lived being... you really are such a fool."

When the Snake had reached the door and seemed to be on the verge of saying one last mean-spirited remark before walking out, it brought a hand up to touch the plainly wooden doorframe and paused. After what seemed to be a moment of consideration on the monster's part, it twisted its head back just enough so that Ayano could see the glint of one of it's shiny, lime eyes.

"A fool who should consider herself lucky that she doesn't need to understand the fear of disappearing forever."

Saying nothing more, the towering black-colored android walked out of the room unperturbed, but definitely less obnoxiously casual as usual. Likewise, Ayano had nothing to say either as she somberly watched the door begin to crumble away and the walls begin to disintegrate. Time was just about to reset again, right on schedule.

Not knowing what to feel (not pain, not confusion, not even hate), all that she could do as her memories ebbed away and the entire world swirled into a single hazy red void around her was wonder whether not if her small little change really had been nothing but a mistake.

As fate would have it, things only kept changing and growing more different as loop upon loop passed by. But unlike before, this time Ayano didn't even have a list of possible reasons why she was changing alongside it.

She had no clue at all.

For one thing, the Snake now exclusively came just before a route ended and thus always in the 'Kuroha' body, so much that Ayano could no longer clearly remember the last time it had shown up as her father or one of the Dan. Although she still held an immense scorn for the usage of this particular form, she was pressed to admit that this new sort of consistency wasn't the worst. At least now she could easily predict the exact moment when it would show up rather than be on her toes guessing all of the time, which was spades better than before.

(Should I start referring to it as 'he'? The Snake hasn't taken over any of the girl Dan members in so long...)

Another much more bewildering thing: the two of them actually started talking to each other. Like, actually talk, wherein Ayano would respond and remark back words other than "I hate you," and while the incessant ridicule the Snake always had sitting on top of its tongue never stopped coming (she didn't think it was spiritually possible), it was definitely lessening with each passing timeline, to the point that she could honestly say that their conversations were no longer entirely antagonistic.

"How were all the members of the Dan doing before you killed them this time?" she would ask at least once per visit, their current loop #563 being no exception.

It- he would always answer honestly, even if it most of the time wasn't polite at all. "The nine brats including this one?" He gestured at his own lanky, black-clothed body. Thankfully his hands weren't blood-stained which meant he had simply shot the teenagers instead of strangling them to death this time. "They were fine I guess, nothing out of the ordinary. Although... it was actually the Focuser who jumped in front of the Captivator when I shot them. Usually it's the other way around, so does that count as different?"

"...sure."

The Snake, in between bouts of his daily mockery, would ask her questions as well sometimes during routes where he seemed to be in more relaxed, indulgent moods.

"Tell me, little clumsy Hero, what's with the red?"

Ayano tilted her head in surprise. "Ahh? Why do you ask-"

"Don't play the idiot. Or at least don't play it more than you already are. I spent years looking out of your old man's eyes and I can't remember a single one where you didn't wear that scarf," he barked out brusquely. "While there's no doubt that it's the most superior color, I don't get why a mere child would wear it so often. Why?"

"...well, my mother certainly liked the color a lot," she started, gliding her fingers over the two pieces of red plastic in her hair before folding her hands over her skirt thoughtfully.

"But I don't know, I guess... I guess I wore this scarf every day because it made my siblings happy. Made them feel better about themselves; that it was okay to have their own red. I'm sure you already know this-" she bit her tongue to keep her words from sounding too bitter, "-but for most of Tsubomi, Kousuke, and Shuuya's lives... red wasn't the best color out there."

She had expected the Clearing Eyes to laugh at her and to take pride in the misery his fellow snakes had caused three poor children, but instead of sneering the black android instead tilted his own head just as she had. "And did it work?" he asked, sounding the most sincere and curious than she had ever heard from him.

It was... kind of amazing, Ayano couldn't help but blink in astonishment.

"Yes, I think it did."

"Hn."

Once the loop (this one being #828 if she recalled correctly) had ended the pale-colored, lime-eyed Snake left the classroom silently, not a single disdain-filled final comment making it's way out of his mouth and attacking her ears.

Ayano smiled the tiniest bit as the world started to deteriorate around her but hid it behind the tell-tale red scarf, all the while still pretending to be clueless as to the reason why.

It wasn't until many, many, many resets later that Ayano fully realized that her companion was changing just as much as she was and perhaps even more astonishingly, that she could actually call him 'companion' completely unironically.

"Hey," she said during loop #1365 while folding an origami crane with the paper of her failed tests just as she had done when she was alive, "Snake Of Clearing- Kuroha, can you tell me something please?"

"Hn? Okay Hero, shoot," he mumbled without opening his eyes, lazily sprawled in the chair and desk next to her's even though it wasn't his- wasn't his at all, Ayano knew all too well but still let him sit there regardless (I hope Shintaro won't be upset.)

"What was your family like?"

Now he cracked an eye open at her. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's just that I've already told a lot about myself and my family and friends, probably way more than I should have considering what you always end up doing to them," she explained calmly as she finished the final folds of the paper bird. "And yet you don't really ever tell me about yourself or your own family. I just thought, you know, that it'd be fair if you did."

Kuroha scoffed, "I think you've lost even more brain cells than normal during that last time reset. If you didn't know this obvious bit of information already, I'll gladly remind you: I don't have one."

"Yes, you do: Azami, her husband, Mary-chan's mother, the other nine snakes. Tell me about them; aren't they your family?"

"What? No!" Kuroha jumped up and out of his seat in utter bafflement. "They are not my 'family'! My master was nothing but a naive, desperate fool and that simpleton of a husband she had was equally weak-willed. Their stupid brat-daughter was just another whiny child. And my fellow snakes? While they're still better than you humans they are nothing but unthinking, low-level pawns to be used for my plans."

He rose up to his body's full height, "So to reiterate this again human hero, I have no family," and glared down at her menacingly.

"..."

Or at least he tried to. It only took one beat, two beats, three beats before Ayano could no longer hold it in.

"Pfffft."

"W-what is so funny that you are laughing human?!"

She had to bring a hand up to muffle her chuckles. "I-I'm sorry. It's just... you sounded so much like what people would expect from an angsty teenager going through a rebellious phase and trying to disown their relatives."

"What!" He cried out in shocked indignance. "That is not it at all!"

"It was, it was! Complete with the whole 'I have no family' line too, hehehe!" Ayano only laughed harder as the literal snake monster in front of her actually went red in the face and started sputtering out weightless death threats. She couldn't help it, she really couldn't because oh gosh he (the Snake of Clearing Eyes for goodness' sake) just looked so flustered! It was, in all honesty, kind of adorable.

"For the love of- agh!" Kuroha slammed a black boot onto the floor hard, fully snapping Ayano out of her laughter, sending the paper crane tumbling out of her hand and onto the floor. "Don't speak as if you understand! Just because you have the Snake of Favoring Eyes inside of you doesn't mean you know what it's like to be one of us, to be like me. You don't know at all."

He whipped around and stomped over to the sliding classroom door, looking to be fully intent on walking out and cutting the visit extremely short. It was reminiscent of a child angrily marching away just after having thrown a tantrum; Ayano definitely would have found it cute as well if she hadn't hastily shot up from her seat and walked after him. She must have really struck some sort of nerve; the last time he had acted like this was almost a thousand loops earlier right after that infamous first change.

"Wait! Wait please, I-I didn't mean to sound so insensitive. Sorry."

The black android stopped just as he had slid the door open, not saying anything with only his back facing her.

"Kuroha? I'm sorry okay? Believe me, I am," she repeated again, a hand slowly outreaching to touch his shoulder only to stop midway as his voice returned. Softly.

"You don't know what it's like to be disliked by your master from the moment you were created. To be the only ability she didn't use. To have to fight and act out for attention yet still be cast aside the moment she met that damn white-haired human. To only be listened to when she wanted something even though you were her only ability that could speak and think, and even then it was just because she wanted to be with her precious new family longer than naturally possible, not you or your fellow eye abilities; her old family. You..."

He took a step forward out of the room. "You don't know."

"Then, t-then tell me!" Ayano cried out, successfully grabbing onto his elbow before he could run away and go where she couldn't follow. "Tell me so I can understand; so I can talk to you about it and you can share things with me like I've been talking and sharing everything with you! Please, tell me what you feel so I can help."

"...why do you want to, though?" he whispered. Slowly, he turned around to finally look her in the eyes. Seeing his face, Ayano couldn't find a single hard line or curl of a sneer. Instead, all she found was simple pensiveness, melancholy, and dare she even think it, vulnerability.

"You hate me, do you not? That's all you used to say after all and even I wouldn't be able to blame you. I know the things I've done; I'm the one who did them." He let out a small sigh as if in bittersweet nostalgia. "There isn't a likely chance that I'll ever stop doing them too, so why? Even after all this... talking we've been doing, why would you go this far? Why does it matter to you, Tateyama Ayano?"

After taking a moment of silence to get over the shock of him calling her by her real name without merely a hint of derision, she replied back in full, utter honesty:

"...because you're all I have now. It's true that I can't stop you from doing all of these terrible things, and I'll never be able to forgive you. But if that really is and will always be the case, then what do I have to lose?"

She offered a small, but open smile unobscured by the red scarf. "I still remember that route so many loops ago when I first yelled at you. I didn't say this during then, but I will now: I want to understand you, to know you, maybe even learn from you, but only if you'll let me. So what do you say, Kuroha, Snake of Clearing Eyes? Will you?"

One beat, two beats, three beats; ten, a hundred, a thousand passed by with nothing but unsure yet steady staring between eyes of both blazing yellow and determined brown. It almost reached to a million before the pair of yellow ones finally broke, blinking and sighing.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay you win Hero. I'll tell you what you want to know." He rubbed his temples in embarrassed agitation, then stuck out a stiff hand towards her. "But not in here; this room is way too stuffy for this kind of talk. I don't even now how you can handle it when yammering on about your precious 'Dan' so much already. No, we're going outside for this."

"Eh?" Ayano blinked dumbly, feeling perplexed just as she was beginning to beam and jump up in pleasant surprise. "But isn't the timeline about to reset again?"

"On the outside world maybe, but it doesn't restart in here until I say so. And I think I can keep it running for a while," he remarked with only a somewhat malicious wink.

"O-oh okay, but ah, that still won't work; I can't leave this room," she reminded him. "Didn't you tell me I'd turn to dust or something if I did during the first ever route?"

"I lied, obviously."

"HAH?! YOU REALLY ARE WORSE THAN SHUUYA, AREN'T YOU?"

The smug, robotic boy-wearing snake only chuckled a genuinely amused chuckle, his signature smirk finally back where it belonged. He stuck out his hand further towards her, albeit more confident and laid back. "So what do you say, Ayano, little human hero? Will you step out into the Neverending World? It's just as much your home as it is mine at this point."

She stared at his hand. Up until now, they had never actually touched skin to skin. He's a snake, Ayano knew, but the Konoha body used to be a full flesh and blood human.

In other words, would he be warm or cold?

Only one way to find out, she concluded and began to reach for his hand with a slightly bigger smile, once again ignoring the voices in her head telling her variations of ‘no don't do it’ and ‘this will make everything weird again!’ and ‘change is bad, remember?!’

It's just another little shift. Well, maybe a medium-sized shift. Still though, I doubt it will hurt anything.

...his hand was warm.

Ever since that medium-sized change at the end of that fateful route over a thousand timelines ago, there hadn't been another route afterward where the two of them didn't go out walking through the mystical haze. It was bigger than whatever Ayano could have imagined; twisting exact images of the city buildings she had grown up around as well as the trees of the very forest surrounding said city. There was no doubt in her mind that it had done the same with the rest of the real world as well.

The sweltering temperature was a constant everywhere they walked and while this lack of change probably would've pleased her say, five hundred routes prior, the only thing that would please her now would be to be wearing anything but her stuffy old middle-school uniform.

(Seriously, she couldn't fathom how Kuroha could stand it wearing his all-black outfit constantly. Bah, otherworldly snake beings were weird.)

So with the blistering never-ending sun high in the sky beating hard glints of light on her red clips and Kuroha's headphone-ear-things (she had asked about them during one of their first few walks. Even he didn't know how they worked) and the occasional god-sent breeze ruffling their clothes as they walked and talked, it became extremely clear quite early on just how empty the world really was. There was no one else on the streets, no moving cars on the road, no one else in the entire city besides the two of them.

"I thought lots of people came into this world. Thousands of people die every day and August 15th definitely isn't an exception. Why isn't there anyone else?"

"There is, idiotic Hero, you just can't see them. Everyone goes to their own version of the daze, your's being the classroom; the rest of the world is empty to them. The only other person they'd be able to interact with would be the person they died beside, but since you always insist on dying alone each and every time, well-"

"I see."

"Yeah. It's really only me and Master who can actually go and visit anyone we want, not that she ever has the will to do anything but mope for eternity. Have I told you that already?"

"Too many times... hey um?"

"What is it?"

"Do you ever go and visit anyone else besides me?"

"I used to. Usually only to check that things were going according to plan, that the ones who were leaving wished for the right things so as to get the proper snakes."

"Did you ever talk to them?"

"Sometimes, always just to laugh at them and bring out their despair, like with you before."

"..."

"...you were always the most fun to do it with, though, which is why I haven't visited anyone else in at least four-hundred-and-forty loops."

"Wow, thanks, hehe."

They talked and talked and talked about absolutely everything-

- Ayano's life before she even knew what a medusa was... Kuroha's life watching the world through Azami's eyes during the planet's earliest days... how honestly scared Ayano had been when she had first seen her sibling's powers, despite how much she had assured them she wasn't... how hard adapting to human life and modern day society had been for Kuroha in Kenjirou's body during the first thirty-eight or so loops... how much it truly hurt each time Ayano jumped and twisted her spine out of sisterly love... how much it actually did hurt whenever Kuroha took possession of someone, feeling all of their pain and sorrow and traumatic memories pass through as he forced himself to become them -

-they left nothing out at all, no piece of information kept secret, no part of themselves hidden away.

Huh. We're going to run out of things to talk about at this rate, Ayano thought and squeezed the large hand covering her much smaller one. Kuroha didn't squeeze back, but she could see the edge of his mouth quirk into a half smile underneath the spotted yellow dots up on his cheek.

For every single walk they took together at the end of a timeline, the steps they took side by side each other were always at the same pace, holding warm hands all the way.

Although... maybe walking in silence together like this wouldn't be the worst thing to do for eternity, she also thought. Soon enough her own half-smile was quirking onto her lips in return as they stepped through the heat daze's version of her old school, leisurely approaching the door of Ayano's classroom as the outside streets grew ever fuzzier from the impending reset.

It's almost nice enough to not want all of this to end...

Judging from everything that had happened and would probably continue to happen, that notorious first change was leaning on the possibility of not being a mistake more than ever before.

Their routinely outing for loop #2550 had been one of comfortable silence. Neither of them had found any reason to speak and disrupt the serenity from just being in the other's presence, despite Ayano noticing that the look in Kuroha's eyes seemed to be more hazed over and glassy than usual, as if he was looking for something in the distance but not finding it. 

As if he was thinking very hard about something.

She had been planning to ask about it when they had reached the last stoplight that stood between them and the school building, but Kuroha beat her to the chase.

"What's it like to be real?" he suddenly blurted out as they waited for the traffic light to flash green (even though there were never any cars, Ayano always insisted on following the so-called rules of the road even though it always earned her a roll of the eyes from the snickering snake.)

She startled a little bit and looked at him quizzingly, not understanding the question. "Uh, what do you mean by 'real'?"

"Real as in real, Ayano. As in having a body from the moment of your creation and keeping it every time you're reborn," he explained, eyes cast into the hazy air in front of them. "What is it like to not have to force yourself into someone else; to just be you." He swung his eyes back down, locking into hers intently. "What is it like to be alive...?"

It took Ayano a good solid ten seconds to even begin to think of an answer. What is it like to be alive? How should I know, I'm dead after all. But, maybe I can remember if I try...

"It feels like... like you're normal I guess," she settled with, gently taking a hold of Kuroha's other hand so that she was holding both of them. "It's like you just know from the very start who you are, who you're meant to be. You go through daily life always as just one person; the same as everyone else around you going through their own lives. It feels like you're equal to them all, equal to the whole world."

"And- and that's what it's like to be human?" Kuroha asked in actual bright-eyed awe, clutching both her hands tightly.

"Yes-" she smiled tenderly up at him, "-that's exactly what it means. You're equal. You're weak. You're human."

"..."

"N-not that you would know or even want to know anything about that of course, hahaha," Ayano tried to tease a little, hoping to bring a blush or even a normal look of irritation onto his face.

She got neither.

Despite looking positively entranced by her words just a second ago Kuroha quickly resigned back into himself; eyes disappearing under bangs, his hands letting go of hers. 

It was the first time they had ever let go of each other while walking.

"Kuro-"

"The light's red. Come on, let's go. Before time runs out."

Kuroha then cut ahead by himself and crossed the street without waiting for her, ("H-hey wait! Kuroha!") leaving Ayano scrambling to catch up behind him as they entered the school and navigated their way up the floors to the familiar old classroom, although she didn't know why he seemed to be in such a hurry. The world hadn't started to fade away into the new timeline yet, even though it really should have started by now.

Odd.

"Je- *wheeze* -jerk," she complained when they reached the well-worn out door, bent over with hands on her knees gasping for breath (gym hadn't exactly been her best subject in school, although she had still been much better than Shintaro at it, much to her secret delight) behind him. "I hope your gun jams when you kill everyone after the next route."

"It won't," he said matter-of-factly, not making any moves to slide open the door and let her in.

Odder.

"Hahaha, very funny all-mighty Kuroha. If don't mind now, I'm going to go inside so you can get started running the loop. Definitely be sure to tell me afterward how your gun definitely doesn't break~" She giggled and tried to walk past him to open the door herself, only to be stopped by his hand blocking her path. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"U-um, what are you doing? What's wrong?"

"..." Silence. Extremely odd.

"I take it back, this isn't funny anymore Kuroha. Why aren't you letting me in?"

"..." More silence. Okay, now this was just getting annoying.

"Kuroha, I said-" she began, ready to calmly but willfully ask to be let in. She didn't get to finish her demand, however, as Kuroha swung around to face her at a scarily swift speed. His eyes were ablaze with nothing but seriousness, shocking her almost as much as his next few words did.

"Do you want to be real again, Tateyama Ayano?"

It was her turn to be silent this time. "...what are you saying?"

"Exactly what I just said: do you want to be real again? Alive again? A normal, equal, weak human again?"

Before she could follow up with an even louder, more unbelieving "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Kuroha suddenly turned around and slid open the door in one fluid motion.

What (no, who) Ayano saw inside stopped her right in her tracks, flitted the very words off her tongue and restarted her long-passed beatless heart.

It was Shintaro. Two Shintaros; one of them wore a black hoodie while the other one wore a familiar-looking bright red jersey.

Ayano's hands were positively shaking. "S-Sh-Shin..."

The one clad in an all-black hoodie looked extremely sickly like he hadn't felt the touch of the sun in two years, and seemed as if he were on the edge of a complete mental breakdown. The one dressed in red looked a lot better; less pale with fewer lines and bags of dark stress under his eyes. He looked much more alert and cautious, but also more stable.

...the jersey still suited him perfectly, just as she remembered.

"Shintaro!" she called out to the both of them. They didn't take notice or even react to her voice, meaning that they couldn't hear her and proving it very likely that they couldn't see her either, much less interact with her. Yet it was still painful for Ayano to stop her herself from outright running forward and crushing both of them into a hug.

They're both so much taller than me... what routes are they from... I can't believe this is happening... oh Shintaro!

"H-how?" was all she could hiccup out, still staring at the two versions of the same boy she had admired throughout all her school life.

"Well, it wasn't easy, believe me," Kuroha spoke softly behind her, not a single trace of ill intent or malevolence hidden away in his voice. She doubted that she would find any traces hidden in his features if she turned around either. "Had to do a whole lot of trial and error during the last six timelines... but I managed to finally get them both here on lucky number seven. That's what Dan number he is right? 7?"

Ayano nodded back, her legs now trembling as well but she couldn't tell if it was still from her sheer level of incredulity or from the ball of happiness growing at lightning speed inside her chest. Kuroha laughed, low and benevolent and melodic-like, sounding nothing like Konoha but almost sounding exactly like Haruka.

"Thought so. Now before you ask 'why', he said right at the exact moment she was literally about to ask why, why, oh god why did you do all of this for me, I'm so happy, "Let's just say... I remember that loop so many routes ago too; the one where you first yelled back at me... when you asked me if I was tired of all of this... tired of hurting others to get what I wanted... of lashing out at Master Azami because she chose to also love Tsukihiko and Shion instead of just us..."

He brought a hand to rub his neck awkwardly-

"Back then, I was so sure that I would never grow tired of it ever..."

-yet the smile he gave her was bright, toothy and kind.

"...but I think maybe I have now."

Still smiling warmly down at her, Kuroha motioned into the musty, sun-filled classroom where the two lost boys were waiting. "Go ahead, do whatever you like. Use one of them as a sacrifice to leave and be with your uh, family again or send either one of them off with a snake of their own. You'll either die for real or come back to life - I really don't know which is better at this point - but I can guarantee you that it'll be real."

The smiling Snake closed his eyes and sighed. Satisfied. Content. Tired. "Even if you don't do anything at all, if you still hate change as much as you've told me all of these rewinding routes, I want you to have the choice at least. The choice to stay the same... to ruin everything... to change. Whatever your final wish will be, I hope it makes you happy my small Hero."

Having heard him finish up his golden words, Ayano soon found that her entire body was quivering. She brought her hands up to cover her face, muffling away her overjoyed tears. Many beats passed, so many that they wouldn't fit properly in tens or hundreds or thousands. Eventually, Kuroha peeked open an eye.

"Hello? Earth to little red heroic Ayano? I said go ahead, didn't I? Listen, if you're worried about what might happen to me after this, it's okay. I'm not going to disappear without a fight and even I'm not sure what will happen exactly. So it's fine really, you can go and- huwah!?" he exclaimed as Ayano was suddenly moving again, unwrapping her red scarf and swinging it over the tall dark android's neck at a speed fast enough to break necks.

"Wh-what in the heat haze's name-"

She didn't give him even a second's time to finish asking what she was doing. With nothing but overwhelming gratitude in her restarted heart, she had practically already done it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you was all she thought as she pulled down the scarf ends entwined in her hands, pulling Kuroha's head closer to her as a result.

There weren't any voices in her head telling her to stop this time as she brought the ethereal snake being all the way down and pressed their lips together, turning on her eye power for the first time ever just so she knew he was feeling what she felt as well, not caring at all if this was probably the most devastatingly large change she could have done.

It was finally at this exact moment that Ayano knew that the first tiny, amazing one hadn't been a mistake at all.

Despite everything that had happened surprisingly, Ayano still wasn't too fond of change.

It was still a very pesky, unpredictable thing.

It had turned Tsubomi from sweet and proper to guarded and aloof, turned Takane from awfully moody to downright gleeful, and turned Shintaro into an even lonelier person in some of the really depressing timelines.

And yet it had also changed a murderous, unredeemable devil of a snake spirit into someone so wonderful that he had been able to claim the most precious place in her heart.

Change could make people lose their jobs, move away, drop out of school and even kill them, but it could also bring people together, make souls stronger, rebuild lives and help people to forgive.

Maybe it wasn't so bad as she had always forced herself to believe.

Whatever the case truly was, she would be deciding the fate of herself, her friends, the never-ending world itself in a very short amount of time. What would she do? Which copy of the boy with the perfect memory she had always envied would she be able to help? How could she change everyone's destiny for the better?

All these unanswered questions and thoughts swirled around in her mind, silent as time, and yet all Ayano could really do now was watch as her stubborn, flustered, beloved Snake gently slipped away from her as the all-powerful world without end around them went into limbo, even though she very much wanted to cling onto him like her life depended on it.

Whatever I choose now.

Whatever I end up fixing or ruining.

It's all because of you, Snake of Clearing Eyes.

Because you didn't leave me alone.

Because you changed.

And so had she.

Smiling the most joyous, radiantly happy smile she could present, red eyes of favoring emotions still intact and aglow, Ayano whispered her last true feelings before she went to go remake the world and change yet again.

"I love you Kuroha."

[timclymer]

Testimony of a Suicide Survivor

I am a suicide survivor. I am also a Christian. This article explains how anyone, but especially people of faith, can survive or help others to survive the tragedy of a suicidal death of a family member or close friend.

My father committed suicide with an overdose of prescription medicine taken in conjunction with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant that exacerbates suicidal tendencies in those who are prone to such self-destructive acts. I was 16 years old at the time. I was wrongly ashamed of my father’s suicide for most of my life. In fact, that feeling of shame is one of the great regrets of my life. With the combination of drugs and alcohol my dad might not have even intended to take his life. It could have been an accident. Their was no suicide note. He had no previous declaration of intent to commit suicide. The answer to that mystery we will never know. Still, officially his death certificate declared it a suicide.

If someone asked how my father died, I would say that he died of a heart attack. That is the response my mother repeatedly instructed me to say. The manner in which my father died was not about him in her mind. Rather, it was about us. My mother was concerned about what others would think of us if they knew my dad had committed suicide. Perhaps, she thought, they would blame us. They might suggest that we drive him to it. They might suggest that we failed to appropriately respond to his suicidal tendencies. In short, my mother worried that they might blame us for my father’s suicide.

Thoughts of if only we had done or said this or that constantly crept in to our minds. It was an emotionally destructive self-imposed guilt trip. Guilt can cripple. When guilty is unjustified it is especially damaging.

The Christian approach to guilt, real and imagined, is in recognition and confession of sin, and faith in the love, goodness, and power of God – “casting one’s cares upon him,” not – in no way– upon the probability of one’s own, or the suicide’s, lack of, or diminished-under-the-circumstances (mental illness), guilt. To cope with suicide one must dump their guilt. It does not belong in the grieving process. Grief is plenty enough to cope with without the burden of unnecessary and undeserved guilt.

Even in cases where no guilt is present the conscience will find occasion for and evidence to accuse. It’s a struggle I call the blame game. The blame game is a method of coping by blaming someone else for the suicidal death that torments you. Sometimes you blame another relative. Sometimes you blame the person who committed the suicide. Often it’s a combination thereof. This venting of anger on someone else tends to provide some measure of relief in the short term. It does not work in the long term. Blaming anyone for suicide is wrong most of the time. Where metal illness is the culprit, nobody and nothing except the mental illness itself is to blame. The sooner people come to terms with this truth the sooner they’ll be on the path to recovery.

Most people are ignorant about suicide. That is why they often shy away from family members or friends who are struggling with suitcase. It is wrong to be accused of or by the suicidal death of a family member or friend. It is cruel to desert those who are suffering. Feeling uncomfortable with suicide is never an excuse for rejecting those who struggle with this most tragic of deaths. Ask yourself, would you desert them if the person died of a heart attack or cancer? How can you desert them if their loved one died from suicidal mental illness?

Mental illness can kill just like cancer and heart disease. In suicide, most often it is the mental illness that kills, not the person. A mentally stable person does not react to angry words or events by killing themselves. Only mentally and emotionally sick people do that. That is why their response to anger or any other stimuli is irrational and ellogical. If they were healthy it is illegally their response would be suicide.

Depression affects your mental and emotional state of mind but it has a biological origin. Depression can be triggered by anger and resentment which have physiological effects. While the anger can elicit an emotional response, it is the biological mental illness (depression) that is the culprit. People get angry everyday but they do not kill themselves because they are mentally healthy. Here, you bought not blame or exculpate the person who committed suicide. This brings us to the mercy of God. He knows all, He is just and He is merciful. Take comfort in Gods mercy. Also take comfort in understanding that with few exceptions suicide is faultless and blameless.

Some 20 years after my fathers death I had to cope with multiple suicide attempts by my brother. It was scary and emotionally draining. My brother is still living – thank God. However, he had a lot of close calls. More than once death was knocking at his door. The family was notified to get to the hospital quickly. Doctors suspected my brother would survive his latest suicide attempt. After every attempt he would be grateful for his life. He would also feel incredible guilt for the fear and heartache his suicide attempts brought on his family. Then he would get depressed and regress. Eventfully, like a vicious cycle, he’d attempt it again and again.

My brother is a Viet Nam veteran. Like so many vets who endured that conflict, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He is designated as a service connected 100% disabled veteran. Depression is a consequence of PTSD. Fortunately my brother came to terms with his mental illness and thought treatment. I have no doubt that treatment, medication, and prayer are what saved his life. It has allowed him to live a mostly productive life despite he still struggles with his illness. Treatment, medication, and prayer are the difference between my brother and our father. Our dad had none of these and, of course, he died.

A little over 20 years after my father’s death I had to deal with the suicidal death of the 14-year-old son of very close and dear friends. It was shocking and traumatic. Losing ones child unexpectedly is about the worst heartache one can ever endure. To lose that child as a result of suicide is far worse; it is indeed grief to the extreme.

There were warning signs, but they were not aware to his parents. He experienced slight personality and behavioral changes that were more observable at school and with his friends, especially his girlfriend, then at home. That’s why it’s important to communicate in the family setting. Depression is often difficult to see if you are not looking for it. School officials and friends either did not know the warning signs or they disregarded them. Families can not rely on others to inform them.

Symptoms of depression or suicidal feelings may include a change in eating or sleeping habits, withdrawal from friends and family, giving away valuable possessions, rebellious behavior, running away, drug and alcohol abuse, unexplained obsessions, decline in the quality of work or school work , and marked personality changes. It is important that parents, teachers, counselors, and pastors know and recognize these signs. It could save someone’s life.

Everything seemed normal that evening. Nothing seemed different or peculiar. It was a pleasant evening until his mother heard the gun shot that would be the beginning of grief on a huge scale. This would be compounded by the prevalent reasons why. It would have been accompanied by the expected guilt and blame which his family did not deserve to feel. It was not their fault. Nor was it his fault. His mental illness killed him as surely as cancer takes its victims if left untreated. But a parent can not seek treatment or medication for their child unless they know that the child is sick.

It was difficult to go through this ordeal with them. I honestly sentenced their pain and shared their grief. Still, it was important to be there for them. It cemented our friendship and even took it to a new level. That is something to remember if you know someone who is trying to survive suicide. Be there for them. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the Christian thing to do. Do not just offer help and wait for a call that never comes. Insist on sharing their grief. If nothing else be there to sit with them, hold them, listen to them, or just silently occupy space with them. They will gain a measure of comfort just from your presence. They will know you are genuinely there for them if the grief becomes too much for them to bear alone.

Our most recent loss was the suicidal death of my niece. This was especially difficult to cope with. My mother is not very stable and I already explained my brother’s history. This was his daughter, his first-born. Worrying about how grief would impact them while dealing with my own grief was a monumental emotional undertaking. It took the saying be strong for them to a new level.

I watched my niece grow up in to a gem of a woman. She was as pure as the driven snow. She was devout in her Christian faith. She was a registered nurse who took pride in providing for the health care of others. She served her country honorably as a commissioner officer in the US Air Force. She was only in her early thirties but she was very sick. She was mentally ill.

My niece was bipolar. She had the most severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that her psychiatrists had ever seen. She also suffered from schizophrenic episodes and severe clinical depression. As an RN she understood her condition. She wanted to live but she did not know how to with so much mental anguish. Nobody could help her. No medications sufficed. As a woman of faith she struggled desperately and prayed continuously, on her knees, for hours at a time.

She had several suicide attempts that failed. It was destined that she would succeed at some point. When people are that sick they are unable to reason. They can not think clearly or rationalize effectively. All they do is suffer. It’s not surprising that they are focused on placing an end to that suffering. Mental illness can be very deadly.

It’s important to understand that healthy people do not kill themselves. A person who is depressed does not think like a typical person who feels good. They live in the here and now. Depression keeps them from looking forward to a better time. They can not comprehend positive thinking. Sometimes they do not even realize that they are sick much like my dad and our friend’s son. Sometimes they are very much aware of their mental illness like my brother and my niece. They seek help and struggle as best they can but sometimes nothing works for them. Not medication, not therapy; absolutely nothing helps them. These are the most severely afflicted with suicidal mental illness. My niece was one of these. They will continue to attempt suicide until they succeed. You can not help them. You can not save them. All you can do is pray for them.

It is disturbing when some so called experts say that suicide is preventable. It suggests that everyone who ever committed suicide could have been saved. While it is true that suicide is often preventable it is like wise true that sometimes it not. Suggesting other can lead to endless suffering and needless guilt by suicide survivors. The reality is that in sever cases of metal illness nothing short of divine intervention can save a suicidal person.

Remember, nobody who commits suicide asked for their depression. They would do anything to rid themselves of it. Being depressed is not the result of life choices any more than catching a cold is. Some people get it, and some do not. Such is life.

It is hard to imagine suicide being a sin in these clinically depressed people. One can not offend God by involuntarily contracting an illness, regardless of what the sickness may be. If suicide in such a circumstance constituted sin, then it would be sinful to catch the flu or die of pneumonia. It is comforting to know that most mainstream religions understand and share this perspective, especially Christian denominations. The Catholic church of my faith was once notorious about guilty associated with suicide. It taught that the commission of suicide was a mortal sin. This explains why my mother is still living a lie about her husband’s death. However, the Catholic Church has since clarified their position on the issue of suicide. The Catechism of the Catholic Church plainly states, “We should not despairs of the eternal salvation of persons who take their own lives …” (2282-83).

This does not mean that suicide is never sinful. If someone is of sound mind and premeditatedly acts to kill himself / herself for the purpose of punishment or harming another, that would be a sin. If they avoid deserved punishment by the state for a criminal conviction by committing suicide that is arguably a sin. Anyone who commits a suicidal act with malice aforethought for evil purposes is at grave risk of mortal sin. That is tantamount to murder, which is a crystal clear violation of Gods commandment: “Thou shall not kill.”

If a person, because of mental illness, certainly believes with their heart and soul that dying will somehow end the suffering and anguish of others, regardless of how wrong they may be, who could suspect that it is nonetheless a selfless act in the eyes of God. Remember, “No greater love has a man than to give his life for another.”

Some people who commit suicide exhibit intense courage in the undertaking. Consider the soldier who deliberately throws himself on a hand grenade or a land mine to save the lives of his comrades. Did he knowingly kill himself (ie, commit suicide)? Yes, of course he did. Was it also a courageous and self-less act of courage? Absolutely! It was courageous and selfless. We correctly label this soldier a hero. People who commit suicide are not rewards as some suggest. Jesus serves as a perfect example of one who suffered immensely and sacrificed his very life for the salvation of others. Sometimes we do need reminding.

Depression is usually a treatable disease. Most people who are depressed do not commit suicide or even attempt it. But they are more vulnerable to the risk of suicidal thoughts and they and their family members should be aware of this. Most people, who suffer from mental illness, without it is extreme, will benefit from therapy, medication, or a combination of these. In the case of depression medication very often can permit these people to live completely normal and happy lives. The key is first to recognize the problem and then obtain treatment as soon as possible.

Some people are more prone to suicide than others. They should be particularly alert to the warning signs of depression. Suicide tends to run in families. My family is living proof of this. Suicide most often results from brain disorders such as clinical depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar illness, schizophrenia, and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. All of these brain disorders have a genetic component that, if left untreated or mistreated, can result in suicide. The risks of suicide increase considering the longer a person goes without treatment. That is why it is dangerous for a depressed person to avoid treatment for fear that he or she might be labeled as being crazy. We are living in modern times. We are way beyond such foolishness; at least weought to be.

If you suffer from depression do not take a chance – get help. If your child is depressed, get your child help and do it quickly. Do this even in the face of resistance. You just might be saving their lives.

It is estimated that mental illness is the cause of 95% of all suicides. The # 1 cause of suicide is untreated depression. Ninety-five percent of all suicides are the direct result of the aforementioned brain disorders. According to the National Mental Health Association the teen suicide rate has risen an astonishing 200% in the last 40 years. That is a rate three times what it was in 1960. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15 – 24 year-olds. About five thousand 15 – 24 year-olds kill themselves every year. These are alarming figures.

In conclusion, it is important to point out that maintaining your faith will increase your rate of recovery from the tragedy of suicide. Do not pray less. Instead pray more. Your faith will be your greatest source of comfort. Do not be mad at God. God did not betray you by letting your loved one die. He understands the pain of death. He endured it with the sacrificial death of his only begotten son for your sake and everyone else’s. Jesus understands the pain of death. Remember how He wept for Lazarus. Remember how he suffered in His own blameless death. Remember how His blessed mother Mary died when He died. Remember the painful deaths of His Apostles.

Remember, everyone dies of something; it’s preordained. We can not escape death, at least not in this worldly life. Your loved one just happened to die of mental illness that ruled in suicide. Even in this worldly death we still remain spiritually linked. You have not lost your loved ones. You have merely postpones being in their company until such time as God calls you home. He will do that plenty soon enough so do not try to rush the process. Remember it’s about His will, not yours.

If ever you have to end being a suicide survivor take comfort in knowing that you can survive even though the anguish of your loss may at first seem to be insurmountable. Everyone must go through a grieving process when a loved one dies. The grief associated with the suicidal death of a loved one is manifestly more difficult to cope with than other types of death. But, it is also similar in that it will likewise end. You do not needarily get over your loss; that void is always there. However, you do learn to cope and deal with it. Your pain will go away. You will come to understand that your loved one remains with you in spirit and you with him or her. You will laugh again. You will experience love and joy. You will obtain peace of mind even though you’ll always have the sorrow associated with loss. But we feel sorry when we lose our youth and vitality too. That does not mean that we stay miserable because of it.

Definitely grieve, but also let go. Get professional, spiritual, or other help if you need it. Accept the fate that you are dealt just as Jesus and his blessed mother accepted the fate of the Holy sacrifice at Calvary. Jesus, while suffering the pains of crucifixion asked of his heavenly father, “Why hast thou forsaken me.” Even the Son of man asked why. He also said “Thy will be done.” Our Lord in faith accepted his fate and in so doing taught us to do the same. We do not have to know and understand everything. In faith we must just believe, as Jesus did, that God understands and knows what is best. He will take care of things, perfectly. Accept, as Jesus did, the fate you are dealt no matter how much it hurts at the time. After all, you can not change it and you are not responsible for it.

Understand the difference between holding on to a memory and clinging to a soul. Release the soul from your mind so that your loved one can be with our Lord where he or she will prepare a place for you when your time comes. You will be together again and the next time it will be for all eternity. That will be a joyful eternity with God almighty. Trust in God and maintain your faith. God will make it right. You will survive.

Copyright: Ed Coet

Source by Ed Coet

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/testimony-of-a-suicide-survivor/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/185780686270 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

[homesolutionsforev]

Testimony of a Suicide Survivor

I am a suicide survivor. I am also a Christian. This article explains how anyone, but especially people of faith, can survive or help others to survive the tragedy of a suicidal death of a family member or close friend.

My father committed suicide with an overdose of prescription medicine taken in conjunction with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant that exacerbates suicidal tendencies in those who are prone to such self-destructive acts. I was 16 years old at the time. I was wrongly ashamed of my father's suicide for most of my life. In fact, that feeling of shame is one of the great regrets of my life. With the combination of drugs and alcohol my dad might not have even intended to take his life. It could have been an accident. Their was no suicide note. He had no previous declaration of intent to commit suicide. The answer to that mystery we will never know. Still, officially his death certificate declared it a suicide.

If someone asked how my father died, I would say that he died of a heart attack. That is the response my mother repeatedly instructed me to say. The manner in which my father died was not about him in her mind. Rather, it was about us. My mother was concerned about what others would think of us if they knew my dad had committed suicide. Perhaps, she thought, they would blame us. They might suggest that we drive him to it. They might suggest that we failed to appropriately respond to his suicidal tendencies. In short, my mother worried that they might blame us for my father's suicide.

Thoughts of if only we had done or said this or that constantly crept in to our minds. It was an emotionally destructive self-imposed guilt trip. Guilt can cripple. When guilty is unjustified it is especially damaging.

The Christian approach to guilt, real and imagined, is in recognition and confession of sin, and faith in the love, goodness, and power of God – "casting one's cares upon him," not – in no way– upon the probability of one's own, or the suicide's, lack of, or diminished-under-the-circumstances (mental illness), guilt. To cope with suicide one must dump their guilt. It does not belong in the grieving process. Grief is plenty enough to cope with without the burden of unnecessary and undeserved guilt.

Even in cases where no guilt is present the conscience will find occasion for and evidence to accuse. It's a struggle I call the blame game. The blame game is a method of coping by blaming someone else for the suicidal death that torments you. Sometimes you blame another relative. Sometimes you blame the person who committed the suicide. Often it's a combination thereof. This venting of anger on someone else tends to provide some measure of relief in the short term. It does not work in the long term. Blaming anyone for suicide is wrong most of the time. Where metal illness is the culprit, nobody and nothing except the mental illness itself is to blame. The sooner people come to terms with this truth the sooner they'll be on the path to recovery.

Most people are ignorant about suicide. That is why they often shy away from family members or friends who are struggling with suitcase. It is wrong to be accused of or by the suicidal death of a family member or friend. It is cruel to desert those who are suffering. Feeling uncomfortable with suicide is never an excuse for rejecting those who struggle with this most tragic of deaths. Ask yourself, would you desert them if the person died of a heart attack or cancer? How can you desert them if their loved one died from suicidal mental illness?

Mental illness can kill just like cancer and heart disease. In suicide, most often it is the mental illness that kills, not the person. A mentally stable person does not react to angry words or events by killing themselves. Only mentally and emotionally sick people do that. That is why their response to anger or any other stimuli is irrational and ellogical. If they were healthy it is illegally their response would be suicide.

Depression affects your mental and emotional state of mind but it has a biological origin. Depression can be triggered by anger and resentment which have physiological effects. While the anger can elicit an emotional response, it is the biological mental illness (depression) that is the culprit. People get angry everyday but they do not kill themselves because they are mentally healthy. Here, you bought not blame or exculpate the person who committed suicide. This brings us to the mercy of God. He knows all, He is just and He is merciful. Take comfort in Gods mercy. Also take comfort in understanding that with few exceptions suicide is faultless and blameless.

Some 20 years after my fathers death I had to cope with multiple suicide attempts by my brother. It was scary and emotionally draining. My brother is still living – thank God. However, he had a lot of close calls. More than once death was knocking at his door. The family was notified to get to the hospital quickly. Doctors suspected my brother would survive his latest suicide attempt. After every attempt he would be grateful for his life. He would also feel incredible guilt for the fear and heartache his suicide attempts brought on his family. Then he would get depressed and regress. Eventfully, like a vicious cycle, he'd attempt it again and again.

My brother is a Viet Nam veteran. Like so many vets who endured that conflict, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He is designated as a service connected 100% disabled veteran. Depression is a consequence of PTSD. Fortunately my brother came to terms with his mental illness and thought treatment. I have no doubt that treatment, medication, and prayer are what saved his life. It has allowed him to live a mostly productive life despite he still struggles with his illness. Treatment, medication, and prayer are the difference between my brother and our father. Our dad had none of these and, of course, he died.

A little over 20 years after my father's death I had to deal with the suicidal death of the 14-year-old son of very close and dear friends. It was shocking and traumatic. Losing ones child unexpectedly is about the worst heartache one can ever endure. To lose that child as a result of suicide is far worse; it is indeed grief to the extreme.

There were warning signs, but they were not aware to his parents. He experienced slight personality and behavioral changes that were more observable at school and with his friends, especially his girlfriend, then at home. That's why it's important to communicate in the family setting. Depression is often difficult to see if you are not looking for it. School officials and friends either did not know the warning signs or they disregarded them. Families can not rely on others to inform them.

Symptoms of depression or suicidal feelings may include a change in eating or sleeping habits, withdrawal from friends and family, giving away valuable possessions, rebellious behavior, running away, drug and alcohol abuse, unexplained obsessions, decline in the quality of work or school work , and marked personality changes. It is important that parents, teachers, counselors, and pastors know and recognize these signs. It could save someone's life.

Everything seemed normal that evening. Nothing seemed different or peculiar. It was a pleasant evening until his mother heard the gun shot that would be the beginning of grief on a huge scale. This would be compounded by the prevalent reasons why. It would have been accompanied by the expected guilt and blame which his family did not deserve to feel. It was not their fault. Nor was it his fault. His mental illness killed him as surely as cancer takes its victims if left untreated. But a parent can not seek treatment or medication for their child unless they know that the child is sick.

It was difficult to go through this ordeal with them. I honestly sentenced their pain and shared their grief. Still, it was important to be there for them. It cemented our friendship and even took it to a new level. That is something to remember if you know someone who is trying to survive suicide. Be there for them. It's the right thing to do. It's the Christian thing to do. Do not just offer help and wait for a call that never comes. Insist on sharing their grief. If nothing else be there to sit with them, hold them, listen to them, or just silently occupy space with them. They will gain a measure of comfort just from your presence. They will know you are genuinely there for them if the grief becomes too much for them to bear alone.

Our most recent loss was the suicidal death of my niece. This was especially difficult to cope with. My mother is not very stable and I already explained my brother's history. This was his daughter, his first-born. Worrying about how grief would impact them while dealing with my own grief was a monumental emotional undertaking. It took the saying be strong for them to a new level.

I watched my niece grow up in to a gem of a woman. She was as pure as the driven snow. She was devout in her Christian faith. She was a registered nurse who took pride in providing for the health care of others. She served her country honorably as a commissioner officer in the US Air Force. She was only in her early thirties but she was very sick. She was mentally ill.

My niece was bipolar. She had the most severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that her psychiatrists had ever seen. She also suffered from schizophrenic episodes and severe clinical depression. As an RN she understood her condition. She wanted to live but she did not know how to with so much mental anguish. Nobody could help her. No medications sufficed. As a woman of faith she struggled desperately and prayed continuously, on her knees, for hours at a time.

She had several suicide attempts that failed. It was destined that she would succeed at some point. When people are that sick they are unable to reason. They can not think clearly or rationalize effectively. All they do is suffer. It's not surprising that they are focused on placing an end to that suffering. Mental illness can be very deadly.

It's important to understand that healthy people do not kill themselves. A person who is depressed does not think like a typical person who feels good. They live in the here and now. Depression keeps them from looking forward to a better time. They can not comprehend positive thinking. Sometimes they do not even realize that they are sick much like my dad and our friend's son. Sometimes they are very much aware of their mental illness like my brother and my niece. They seek help and struggle as best they can but sometimes nothing works for them. Not medication, not therapy; absolutely nothing helps them. These are the most severely afflicted with suicidal mental illness. My niece was one of these. They will continue to attempt suicide until they succeed. You can not help them. You can not save them. All you can do is pray for them.

It is disturbing when some so called experts say that suicide is preventable. It suggests that everyone who ever committed suicide could have been saved. While it is true that suicide is often preventable it is like wise true that sometimes it not. Suggesting other can lead to endless suffering and needless guilt by suicide survivors. The reality is that in sever cases of metal illness nothing short of divine intervention can save a suicidal person.

Remember, nobody who commits suicide asked for their depression. They would do anything to rid themselves of it. Being depressed is not the result of life choices any more than catching a cold is. Some people get it, and some do not. Such is life.

It is hard to imagine suicide being a sin in these clinically depressed people. One can not offend God by involuntarily contracting an illness, regardless of what the sickness may be. If suicide in such a circumstance constituted sin, then it would be sinful to catch the flu or die of pneumonia. It is comforting to know that most mainstream religions understand and share this perspective, especially Christian denominations. The Catholic church of my faith was once notorious about guilty associated with suicide. It taught that the commission of suicide was a mortal sin. This explains why my mother is still living a lie about her husband's death. However, the Catholic Church has since clarified their position on the issue of suicide. The Catechism of the Catholic Church plainly states, "We should not despairs of the eternal salvation of persons who take their own lives …" (2282-83).

This does not mean that suicide is never sinful. If someone is of sound mind and premeditatedly acts to kill himself / herself for the purpose of punishment or harming another, that would be a sin. If they avoid deserved punishment by the state for a criminal conviction by committing suicide that is arguably a sin. Anyone who commits a suicidal act with malice aforethought for evil purposes is at grave risk of mortal sin. That is tantamount to murder, which is a crystal clear violation of Gods commandment: "Thou shall not kill."

If a person, because of mental illness, certainly believes with their heart and soul that dying will somehow end the suffering and anguish of others, regardless of how wrong they may be, who could suspect that it is nonetheless a selfless act in the eyes of God. Remember, "No greater love has a man than to give his life for another."

Some people who commit suicide exhibit intense courage in the undertaking. Consider the soldier who deliberately throws himself on a hand grenade or a land mine to save the lives of his comrades. Did he knowingly kill himself (ie, commit suicide)? Yes, of course he did. Was it also a courageous and self-less act of courage? Absolutely! It was courageous and selfless. We correctly label this soldier a hero. People who commit suicide are not rewards as some suggest. Jesus serves as a perfect example of one who suffered immensely and sacrificed his very life for the salvation of others. Sometimes we do need reminding.

Depression is usually a treatable disease. Most people who are depressed do not commit suicide or even attempt it. But they are more vulnerable to the risk of suicidal thoughts and they and their family members should be aware of this. Most people, who suffer from mental illness, without it is extreme, will benefit from therapy, medication, or a combination of these. In the case of depression medication very often can permit these people to live completely normal and happy lives. The key is first to recognize the problem and then obtain treatment as soon as possible.

Some people are more prone to suicide than others. They should be particularly alert to the warning signs of depression. Suicide tends to run in families. My family is living proof of this. Suicide most often results from brain disorders such as clinical depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar illness, schizophrenia, and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. All of these brain disorders have a genetic component that, if left untreated or mistreated, can result in suicide. The risks of suicide increase considering the longer a person goes without treatment. That is why it is dangerous for a depressed person to avoid treatment for fear that he or she might be labeled as being crazy. We are living in modern times. We are way beyond such foolishness; at least weought to be.

If you suffer from depression do not take a chance – get help. If your child is depressed, get your child help and do it quickly. Do this even in the face of resistance. You just might be saving their lives.

It is estimated that mental illness is the cause of 95% of all suicides. The # 1 cause of suicide is untreated depression. Ninety-five percent of all suicides are the direct result of the aforementioned brain disorders. According to the National Mental Health Association the teen suicide rate has risen an astonishing 200% in the last 40 years. That is a rate three times what it was in 1960. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15 – 24 year-olds. About five thousand 15 – 24 year-olds kill themselves every year. These are alarming figures.

In conclusion, it is important to point out that maintaining your faith will increase your rate of recovery from the tragedy of suicide. Do not pray less. Instead pray more. Your faith will be your greatest source of comfort. Do not be mad at God. God did not betray you by letting your loved one die. He understands the pain of death. He endured it with the sacrificial death of his only begotten son for your sake and everyone else's. Jesus understands the pain of death. Remember how He wept for Lazarus. Remember how he suffered in His own blameless death. Remember how His blessed mother Mary died when He died. Remember the painful deaths of His Apostles.

Remember, everyone dies of something; it's preordained. We can not escape death, at least not in this worldly life. Your loved one just happened to die of mental illness that ruled in suicide. Even in this worldly death we still remain spiritually linked. You have not lost your loved ones. You have merely postpones being in their company until such time as God calls you home. He will do that plenty soon enough so do not try to rush the process. Remember it's about His will, not yours.

If ever you have to end being a suicide survivor take comfort in knowing that you can survive even though the anguish of your loss may at first seem to be insurmountable. Everyone must go through a grieving process when a loved one dies. The grief associated with the suicidal death of a loved one is manifestly more difficult to cope with than other types of death. But, it is also similar in that it will likewise end. You do not needarily get over your loss; that void is always there. However, you do learn to cope and deal with it. Your pain will go away. You will come to understand that your loved one remains with you in spirit and you with him or her. You will laugh again. You will experience love and joy. You will obtain peace of mind even though you'll always have the sorrow associated with loss. But we feel sorry when we lose our youth and vitality too. That does not mean that we stay miserable because of it.

Definitely grieve, but also let go. Get professional, spiritual, or other help if you need it. Accept the fate that you are dealt just as Jesus and his blessed mother accepted the fate of the Holy sacrifice at Calvary. Jesus, while suffering the pains of crucifixion asked of his heavenly father, "Why hast thou forsaken me." Even the Son of man asked why. He also said "Thy will be done." Our Lord in faith accepted his fate and in so doing taught us to do the same. We do not have to know and understand everything. In faith we must just believe, as Jesus did, that God understands and knows what is best. He will take care of things, perfectly. Accept, as Jesus did, the fate you are dealt no matter how much it hurts at the time. After all, you can not change it and you are not responsible for it.

Understand the difference between holding on to a memory and clinging to a soul. Release the soul from your mind so that your loved one can be with our Lord where he or she will prepare a place for you when your time comes. You will be together again and the next time it will be for all eternity. That will be a joyful eternity with God almighty. Trust in God and maintain your faith. God will make it right. You will survive.

Copyright: Ed Coet

Source by Ed Coet

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/testimony-of-a-suicide-survivor/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

[the-emotional-equilibrium]

Grieving.

I’m not entirely sure when it started, but I’ve come to realise I spend a lot of time wondering who I could have been with a different upbringing and mourning the result. Any time I see a family on TV or meet the parents of a friend I find myself thinking “what if” and “if only”.

I’ve never felt like I had a proper dad. When I was younger he wasn’t around much and when he was I wasn’t his priority. He went through girlfriend after wife after girlfriend and I was dragged through every single ordeal. Many of them were quite cruel in themselves too; one told a six year old me my parents didn’t love me and no one ever would. Another had me so afraid I stayed in my room for days. When I tried to tell my dad, he told me he needed someone to love and asked me “don’t you want me to be happy?”. He also explicitly told eight year old me that he loved his girlfriend of 6 months more than me. That broke my heart. That’s all I remember of the relationship with my dad up until I was about 15. It is a little better now, but I still feel like I’m missing out on all those Dad Things. I never really experienced the little things like dad jokes and playing football badly in the garden, so it’s easy to feel slightly robbed.

Plus, I feel like I never really had the ideal mum. I mean, nobody is perfect, but for sure it could’ve been improved upon. Although, this was something I only started to realise recently, as my best friend started to point out that saying “It’s okay, I have secret places to hide what I love” and the like aren’t normal, healthy things most people have to think about. In truth, all I’ve known since I can remember is emotional abuse and my mum’s complete mood instability. I’ve had to learn to know where everyone is in the house at all times; to think 10 steps ahead of every situation to avoid angering her; that it is always me who must apologize and that I should never speak. I’ve also come to understand that it isn’t okay to have privacy; voicing any contradicting opinions is wrong; that it isn’t okay to be gay and that nobody is on my side. I constantly live on the edge and I’m hypersensitive to any tension because of where it can lead. I’m terrified of being slapped or locked out of the house again. And even though I think despite all that she’d never fatally hurt me I still have scissors and a very sharp cactus within arms reach or else I can’t sleep.

With my mum, I’ve never found her approachable or easy to talk to because of the response on the few occasions I’ve tried it. I envy the people who can chat to their mum as if they’re on the same level and that feel safe and secure in their own home. I’ve never had that. It’s just been 18 years of navigating an emotional minefield.

The first thing people say to me when I explain this (not that I do often) is that “it’ll all be okay though because you can leave soon”. And yes, that’s true. In October I’m moving out and going to university, but abuse isn’t something that stays where it happened. It’s something that’s shaped me in 100 different ways, some of which I probably don’t know about yet. But it’s what makes me anxious; mute and struggle to trust even the kindest of people. I feel like I’ve never had the opportunity to be an individual and discover who I really am because I’ve been silenced for so long and I’ve always had to be alert and aware of other people’s needs which have been shown as being more important than mine.

I feel like the shell of where a human could have been, and even if I grow from now there will always be something missing. I mourn the person I could’ve been with the right relationships and support and I grieve for all the good times I could’ve had that I imagine every single day.

Despite all this I do feel an ounce of guilt for saying a bad word about them; they gave me food and clothes and a roof over my head. But I still feel like I’ve missed so much I’ll never get back.