#sometimes I feel sympathy for them when they show their human side rarely

[crunchyspicysalmon]

Watching Downton Abbey and omgggg seriously O’Brien and Thomas PISS ME OFF!!! Like shut the fuck up!!!

[jackrrabbit]

it will come back [pt. 2] /// Yandere Shigaraki x f!Reader

Summary: You have a bad habit of picking up strays, and the half-dead villain you find bleeding out in a dumpster is no exception. [Part 1] [Part 3]

A/N: Title from the Hozier song—“don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ, don’t be kind to it / oh honey don’t feed it / it will come back.”

Tags/warnings: yandere, violence (not directed toward reader), crying, Shiggy REALLY likes you, reader needs a friend and a good night’s sleep, non-explicit sexual content. [In later parts: 18+, sex, other stuff]

He—Tomura—keeps visiting.

At first you think it’s because of the free medical care, and you wish you had the spine to tell him to suck it up and go see a professional. After a couple weeks turn into a couple months and his wounds fade into ragged purple scars, though, you start to think differently.

Within a short time Tomura has figured out your work schedule, and he does a decent job of not showing up after your long shifts. The unavoidable consequence of this is that he ends up monopolizing your precious days off, but you come to the realization about a month and a half in that you don’t actually mind. You like it. It’s like spending time with a friend.

Mostly you guys talk. It doesn’t seem like Tomura really has anyone to talk to the way the two of you do, but that’s probably just you projecting. It’s usually shallow stuff—TV shows you like, video games he plays, funny stories from patients you treated. Sometimes when you’re cooking for yourself, you make extra for him. (It happens a lot, actually, and at one point you bring up how much his appetite is costing you and the next time you see him he brings a bag of rice and makes you a porridge that crunches between your teeth when you try to eat it. You can’t finish yours, but he eats an entire bowl and insists that you’re being picky.)

Sometimes he sleeps over on the couch, but he’s always gone when you wake up.

The two of you skirt around the heavier stuff, and you know it’s intentional on his part. You have to resist the urge to ask him about being a villain—he’s all but confirmed it for you, and it’s human nature to be curious, isn’t it? In the same way you can’t help looking at a car crash, you want to poke and prod and find out what it is, exactly, that Tomura does for a living. That part of his life is suspiciously absent from your discussions—if you didn’t know better, you’d think he spends all of his time sleeping and playing games and breaking into your place.

On the other hand, you don’t want to know. Plausible deniability. You can accept criminality in the abstract, but you’ve treated too many victims of the bullshit hero–villain battle to be comfortable really knowing why Tomura avoids public places.

So you don’t ask about it, and Tomura doesn’t tell, and you don’t look up his name. And it’s easy. It’s nice. You’d forgotten what it’s like to come back to a home that isn’t empty.

And then one day when you get off a few hours early from your shift, you stop by a convenience store to pick up some snacks for yourself (hey, you’ve been working hard, you’re entitled to binge a little on foods that you’re afraid to look at the fat content for), and you think, Hm, I wonder if Tomura wants some.

[You: 7:49 PM] > Are you coming over today? [T: 7:49 PM] > Yeah why [You: 7:51 PM] > Getting snacks > Want some? [T: 7:51 PM] > No

[T: 8:12 PM] > When r u coming back to ur place

[T: 8:58 PM] > Hey where are you

[T: 9:39 PM] > (Y/N)?

There’s a man with a gun in the convenience store.

It takes you a second to process at first. You’re standing in the snack food aisle seeking out Oreos and debating the merits of Double Stuf vs. Mega when you catch the mumbled demand and the metallic clicking noise you’ve only ever heard in movies before. It’s a gun—you know that, but your mind dismisses it because it’s ridiculous. Guns are rare in hero society. People don’t go around robbing bodegas at gunpoint anymore.

(You should know better. You work in a goddamn ER. But you compartmentalize, and the crimes you see written across your patients’ bodies stay out of the realm of your personal life because you need them to.)

It’s only when you see the muzzle of a hunting rifle pushed up to the cashier’s sweaty neck that you really understand what’s happening.

You drop to the ground immediately, looking toward the exit but it’s shut and there’s some kind of metal…thing holding the door closed. The cashier mumbles a denial and you can hear him fumble around with the cash drawer for what feels like ages.

It’s real. This is real. You’re in the middle of a robbery. Where are the heroes? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

God, you’re a hypocrite, cowering behind the aisle divider and waiting for someone to step up while the robber’s demands get increasingly louder and more frantic. He wants money, and the cashier (who, you remember, is a man in his sixties with hands that shake with Parkinson’s when he holds out your receipt) isn’t being fast enough.

“That’s it? There’s no more? Are you fucking kidding me, there’s gotta be a safe or something—“

“No! No, p-please, I’m sorry, this is all I have!”

You cringe, crushing your eyes closed as if that will make it go away. You’re surprised you can hear at all over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

“Don’t fuck with me old man, I know there’s more! Show me the safe or I’ll blow your goddamn brains out!”

No! You have to do something. You can’t just sit here. You’ve heard plenty of death threats from your patients (not to mention that one from Tomura), and you know the difference between a bluff and a serious warning. Maybe you can catch the robber off guard, try to pull the gun away? You stand up quickly, hoping against hope that you won’t regret this, but in a split second you see that the cashier has the same idea and he’s trying to pull the rifle out of the robber’s hand and—

BANG.

Something warm and wet splatters across your face.

///

Tomura is angry when you get back to the apartment. As soon as he hears your key in the lock he rises from your couch so he can grab your collar with three fingers, jerking your head up to force you to look at him. “Where have you been? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting—“

But he cuts short in the middle of his sentence. Maybe because he sees the look on your face. Or maybe he just notices the traces of blood you haven’t been able to wipe off.

“What happened,” Tomura says. It’s not a question. He adjusts his grip slightly so it’s not quite as punishing, but you hold still anyway.

You have to force your mouth open in order to speak, but when your voice comes out it’s more steady than you thought it would be. “It’s not my blood. There was a robbery at the store. The cashier got shot.”

“Oh.” He releases you and frowns. “That’s it?”

“Fuck you.” You push past him into the kitchen to get yourself a drink with trembling hands. Pantry’s out of shōchū, whiskey will just make you sicker—ahh, there it is. Baijiu. The glug glug glug of the liquor into the glass does nothing to put your nerves at ease, but you pour yourself a double anyway.

“Wait—wait.” Tomura’s hands twitch and rub over his arms like he’s trying to stop himself from grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you. “Calm down. Why are you so upset? Don’t you see this stuff every day?”

You do. You’re an ER nurse. There’s no injury you haven’t seen. But it’s not about the blood. “I...I knew him. The cashier. He was nice. He had a grandkid on the way. I—“ You bite your lip and down the baijiu in one gulp. It burns.

Tomura clearly doesn’t know how to comfort you; probably doesn’t even really know why you need to be comforted. What does it mean that death is so meaningless to him? you wonder. But you need someone to listen to you, clueless or not, and Tomura will have to do.

The baijiu is still bitter and hot down your throat when you speak again. “You know something? Know what they asked me when the heroes finally showed up and pulled us out of there, me and the corpse?”

“…What?” Tomura asks warily.

“They stuck a camera in my face and asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to the hero who saved me. Any words of gratitude I wanted to share,” you spit. Now it’s your turn to feel your hands making fists at your sides. Your fingernails scratch into your palms like the pain can be an outlet for the sudden overwhelming fury spilling over you. “They didn’t save him. They were too late.”

Tomura’s eyes widen, and through your curtain of anger you can tell he’s looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. It’s unlike him to even look directly at you, and when he does it’s usually in disinterest or half-sincere irritation. This, though…this is different. He’s watching you like a believer watches a prophet. You can tell—or at least some deep, ugly part of you that you hope is wrong can tell—that he’s trying not to smile.

“I hate this,” you say, and the first tear drips out of your eye and runs down your cheek. It’s awful. You don’t want to cry in front of Tomura. You don’t want to show him how weak you are. But before you can wipe it away, Tomura’s hand comes up and does it for you, smearing the tear over your cheek in a gesture that—for him—is oddly tender.

Then he hugs you.

It’s stiff and awkward, like he’s forgotten how to do it, but the intention is clear. His arms fold around your back, pulling you into his chest while his chin makes its way to rest on your shoulder. He’s leaning into you so deeply that your spine is arched back, and you stagger away from him only for him to step closer again to make up the distance.

“It’s not fair, hm,” he murmurs into your hair. His tone is the closest thing to sympathy you’ve ever heard from him, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement you can’t ignore. “They’re always too late, aren’t they? The heroes… And everyone will watch that video of you thanking the heroes, and they’ll think they’re safe too. They’ll keep going about their lives and think that nothing bad can happen to them because a hero will always be around to save them…but you and I know that’s a lie.”

It takes you a second to recognize the emotion that’s raising goosebumps over your arms while Tomura rubs circles into your back, but when it clicks you shiver because it’s fear. You’ve never really been afraid of Tomura before, even when you should’ve been. Does he realize he’s backing you up with how forcefully he’s pushing himself into you? The backs of your knees hit the arm of your couch and you topple onto it with Tomura following.

He holds himself above you on his hands, legs tangled with yours. His eyes are wild and he’s not even trying to suppress his grin now. You’re trapped lying on your back under him—pinned like a butterfly under glass.

“Get off of me,” you say as calmly as you can.

“It’s all a lie, all of it…” A hand comes up and strokes your cheek, rubbing with two fingers at a stray fleck of blood on your neck. “I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I’m so glad you understand…”

“Let me up now, Tomura.”

He holds still for a long moment—waiting, thinking, considering—and then sits up, still straddling you but loosely enough that you can scramble back away from him on the couch. Your heart is racing, but you try to slow your breaths so he doesn’t pick up on how scared you are.

“Don’t freak out. You’re no fun,” Tomura says, and you exhale a sigh of relief at how normal he sounds. You never thought you’d be so happy about him looking at you like you’re nothing.

“I think you should go,” you say carefully.

He rocks back on his heels and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you mad? I thought I could stay here tonight, like usual. Since I waited for so long.”

“I’m not mad. I just…want to be alone.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone tonight. Not after what you’ve been through.”

Oh, now you care. “Fine. Okay? Fine. You can sleep on the couch.” You’re too tired to argue any more, and you’ve never really been good at convincing Tomura to do anything he doesn’t want to. It’s a miracle he listened to you when you told him to get off you. Considering how often he breaks into your apartment, it’s not like you could keep him out anyway.

So he stays the night. He doesn’t bother you when you take a shower and go to bed, he just lies on the couch in his street clothes. When you wake up in the morning he’s disappeared like he always does, and for the first time since you met him you’re truly relieved that he’s gone.

///

You always thought it would take some level of courage you don’t possess to actually bite the bullet and look Tomura up. To do so would mean saying goodbye to whatever strange relationship the two of you have built over the months, and you’re just not brave enough to risk it.

Turns out it’s not courage that makes you type his name into the search bar. It’s cowardice. You’re lying in bed under the covers when you do it, and the blue-white screen of your laptop is the only light in the room. Your comforter is pulled up almost over your head like it’s a wall that can block out reality.

“tomura”, you enter into the search bar, but you don’t hit return. Instead, you look at the search suggestions.

> tomura shigaraki > tomura shigaraki league of villains > tomura shigaraki decay

Something about it sounds familiar. But you’re not ready. Still, after everything, you’d rather keep your eyes closed. You backspace and snap your laptop shut, and when you do your room is so dark that you think the emptiness might swallow you up.

///

[T: 5:52 PM] > Are u going to be at home tn

[T: 6:14 PM] > Hey check ur phone

[T: 6:42 PM] > Stop ignoring me > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N)

[T: 6:46 PM] 3 MISSED CALLS [You: 6:50 PM] > I’m at work [T: 6:50 PM] > Don’t lie > you finished an hour ago

[T: 7:13 PM] 1 MISSED CALL [T: 7:14 PM] > You said you werent mad [You: 7:15 PM] > I’m not [T: 7:15 PM] > Then stop being a brat > im coming over > ill bring takeout

You’re nervous about seeing him, but in the two weeks since he pushed you down on the couch you’ve found yourself…missing him. Like it or not, he’s made himself a fixture in your life. So when you get home you’re brimming with anticipation, wondering who you’ll get when you open the door—the normal Tomura you’ve come to like over the past few months, or the one from that night. The villain.

But it’s just him. Good old Tomura, laden with plastic bags and containers of greasy fast food for the two of you to gorge yourselves on. You tease him for being cheap and he argues that you’re just a snob and everything seems so normal that you can almost forget the look in his red eyes when he told you that you understood.

Almost.

///

You probably have no idea how good you look when you’re crying.

Of the couple thousand views on the news channel video of your “rescue” from the convenience store robber, at least a tenth are from Tomura. Eventually he just downloads the video onto his computer so he doesn’t have to read the inane comments that the other viewers leave on the webpage. It seems like everyone but him thinks you should feel lucky that you were saved by a hero before the robber could get to you, too.

As always, the public are a bunch of shit-soaked morons. Reading the comments makes him angry, so angry he’s tempted to look into a few of these brainless sheep and see how lucky they feel when they’ve caught the attention of a violent criminal. But that wouldn’t be productive, so he saves the video externally and leaves the news website alone. It’s for the best. Besides, seeing the “views” counter on the website tick up and up by the dozen every time he refreshes is just another reminder that other people are watching this; other people are seeing how delicate and vulnerable and pretty you are with tears spilling out of your eyes and the cashier’s blood sprayed over your clothing.

Thousands of useless fucking NPCs are looking at you just like Tomura is. They’re probably thinking about how sweet you look, just like he is. And they’re probably imagining all the ways they can take advantage of your fragile emotional state, just like him.

You’re too trusting for your own good. Tomura used to think it was a virtue, and it is, but only when it comes to him. Whenever he thinks about how your face is slapped over a dozen different news websites for the whole world to see, he has to dig his fingernails into his neck to keep calm. It’s better when he can just watch the video and pretend he’s the only one seeing it.

And it’s not like not watching the video is an option. Tomura can’t resist your crying face. There’s a point around the three minute mark where your voice breaks in the middle of your statement, and sometimes Tomura skips there in the video just so he can hear that pathetic little sob and replay it over and over and over. Maybe it’s sappy, but Tomura really does feel his heart skip a beat at the way your eyes and nose are rubbed red from your misery.

How fucked up is it that he gets off watching you cry?

Would you be angry if you knew? You probably would, but you put up with so much from him already. Maybe you’d be okay with it if he told you he really and truly tried to hold out. The first dozen times Tomura watched the video, he refused to touch himself no matter how tight his pants got while you choked out your stilted answers to the reporters’ questions, but at this point he barely has to click “play” on the video before he gets hard and takes matters into his own hands.

At the end of the day, it’s your fault. Everything about you is so erotic, from your shaky voice to your pouty, bitten-red lips. Isn’t it completely normal to be aroused while looking at the person you like? And Tomura likes you, he really likes you. He doesn’t have any pictures of you, and with the high definition of the news channel’s video he can see every perfect contour of your cheekbones, every pore in your skin, every glistening wet eyelash.

It’s not that Tomura doesn’t feel sympathy for how upset you are in the video. He does! Not even just sympathy, even—he’s empathetic. He knows exactly how it feels to be let down by the heroes. How dare they tell you you need to be grateful while you’re still trying to wipe brain matter off your shirt? Always too little, too late. It’s not fair.

But if he’s being honest? As miserable as you are, Tomura is happy that you were in the store when that robber came in and that you had to watch a man you knew get his brains blown out in front of you. You need a wake-up call to lose faith in hero society. If you have to suffer some emotional trauma in the process, that seems like a fair price to pay.

And the fact that Tomura gets to jerk off to it? It’s almost like destiny.

➠ [Part 3]

[princesssarisa]

A defense of the ending of “Wuthering Heights"

@astrangechoiceoffavourites, @theheightsthatwuthered, @wuthering-valleys, @heightsandmoors, @incorrectwutheringheightsquotes

 I’ve been reading other people’s opinions on Wuthering Heights this past year, I’ve noticed a small recurring theme.

It’s the idea that the ending feels out of place; tacked on; anti-climactic; too tame compared to the rest of the book. That it feels wrong for Heathcliff to simply lose interest in his revenge and then lose the will to live, or for the surviving characters to have any kind of happy or hopeful ending after so much brutality.

One book I read excerpts from on Google Books (I don’t remember the title or the author) suggested that maybe Emily Brontë originally wrote a very different, more brutal and Gothic ending, now lost. The author proposed that the final ending was probably the result of Anne and/or Charlotte urging Emily to tone down the book’s “immorality.” Of course this is pure conjecture. This same author also speculated that in the novel’s first draft, Heathcliff was explicitly Mr. Earnshaw’s illegitimate son, but that Anne and/or Charlotte persuaded Emily to change it. I’m not at all convinced by that theory, since @astrangechoiceoffavourites has argued very eloquently that to make Heathcliff and Cathy’s love forbidden because of the incest taboo rather than because of social class and race would go against the plot’s main themes and make nonsense of Heathcliff’s revenge on the Lintons and Earnshaws.

Still, this theorist isn’t the only person to think the ending (and possibly the whole second generation storyline) feels like the work of a different author than the rest of the book. Just recently I read a comment on Facebook arguing that a more cohesive, consistent Wuthering Heights would have had “a much darker and more explosive ending.” I assume a similar mindset is why some theorize that Branwell wrote the novel’s first half and Emily wrote the second. (I think I hate that theory even more than I hate the theory that Branwell wrote it all – “He didn’t write the whole book, but he did write the part everyone likes best.”) And if we compare the various adaptations’ endings to the ending of the book, there’s definitely a trend of giving Heathcliff a more brutal death.

I understand all of this. The ending of the book is ironic. Heathcliff himself knows it’s ironic: “It is a poor conclusion, is it not?” he asks Nelly, “an absurd termination to my violent exertions?” We don’t expect a towering, terrifying yet fascinating Byronic anti-hero like Heathcliff to become apathetic and ineffectual in the end and then die quietly (albeit mysteriously and eerily) in bed. We’d sooner expect him to freeze to death chasing Cathy’s ghost through a blizzard, or to be shot by his worst enemy, or to be lured by Cathy’s ghost to commit suicide by gunshot.

But I know I’m not the only person who thinks the entire book is fully cohesive and who sees nothing wrong with the ending whatsoever.

As far as I’m concerned, Heathcliff’s “absurd” end is more interesting than anything “darker and more explosive” would have been, precisely because it’s unexpected and yet makes perfect sense. Revenge never makes Heathcliff truly happy or brings him peace of mind: we know that all along. It might distract him from his pain, but it can’t cure it. While initially surprising, in hindsight it’s not surprising at all that, with no out-of-character repentance or remorse, he eventually loses the will to seek any more revenge. At heart it was never what he really wanted most; his real greatest desire is and always has been to be with Cathy.

Then there’s the strongest factor in his loss of his will for revenge: his grudging empathy for Hareton. Again, as far as I’m concerned, this is fascinating irony. Heathcliff has purposefully set out to shape Hareton into a copy of himself. Ultimately, that scheme “goes horribly right,” because he sees too much of his younger self in Hareton to hate him as much as he wants to, or to have the will to separate him from Cathy II the way he himself was separated from Cathy I. Then there’s Hareton’s resemblance to his aunt, Cathy I; even though Heathcliff’s passion for Cathy has been the motive for all his revenge on the two families that separated them, in the end it’s what makes him unable to ruin the lives of her lookalike nephew and her daughter, even though they’re also the children of the two men most responsible for taking Cathy from him. Again, it works because it’s handled delicately and without sentimentality. He still shows no remorse or regret for his past actions, and never shows any real kindness or fondness to Hareton or Cathy II, but despises the conflicted feelings they stir in him. But the fact remains that, despite all his efforts to be a monster over the years, he’s still a human being, capable of some empathy for people in whom he sees aspects of himself and of his beloved Cathy. I think it’s fascinating that this humanity, and not his monstrous actions, is what undoes him in the end.

Also, as some critics have pointed out, the very fact that Heathcliff receives no punishment for his sins (apart from his inner torment) makes the ending subversive by Victorian standards. If he had died a brutal death, it could easily have been viewed as his comeuppance, demonstrating God’s justice. From a moral and religious perspective, it might be all the more disturbing that instead he gets to die as close to a peaceful death as his character allows, with a devilish smile on his face.

Moving beyond Heathcliff’s death, I don’t see anything wrong with Hareton and Cathy II′s ending either.

First of all, it isn’t necessarily a straightforward happy ending. It’s definitely bittersweet if we have any sympathy for Heathcliff, and not just because he dies. This penniless, abused, disdained orphan of color defied the classism and racism of his society by clawing his way to wealth and status and by bringing down the two families who once oppressed him, but in the end, it’s all for nothing. Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange go back to the Earnshaw and Linton heirs and the only trace left of Heathcliff is a single name and death date on a tombstone. He’s just as much of a “nobody” in death as he was as a homeless child. Of course it’s tempting to cheer for this fact because of his cruelty and because Cathy II and Hareton are sympathetic, basically innocent young people whom he unfairly punished for their parents’ sins. But in a way at least, especially in Marxist readings of the book (which I don’t fully agree with but do see validity in), the ending can be viewed as the triumph of the classist and racist status quo.

Nor, as some critics have argued, is it guaranteed that Cathy II and Hareton will live happily ever after. First of all, the fact remains that Hareton loved and loyally served Heathcliff to the end, and to please Hareton, Cathy had to stop speaking out against Heathcliff even though he had horribly abused her. There’s also the fact that Hareton once hit Cathy himself; only once, and before they were even friends, let alone lovers, but in the real world it rarely bodes well for a woman to marry a man who once slapped her. A few critics have wondered if Hareton is really permanently “tamed” in the end, or will eventually revert to the roughness Heathcliff bred in him and abuse his new power and status the same way Heathcliff did. On the flip side, there’s the fact that apart from her conceding not to criticize Heathcliff, Cathy seems to rule over Hareton almost as much as her mother did over Heathcliff when they were children. She educates him, he craves her esteem and does her bidding, and in his lessons she meets his mistakes and inattention (however playfully) with “smart slaps” and threats of hair-pulling. Some critics have wondered if we should view these as red flags; if Cathy II is destined to be an emotional abuser like her mother was.

But even if you don’t subscribe to those darker interpretations of the ending... even if you view Cathy and Hareton as fundamentally good people who genuinely grow and change for the better, find a healthy balance between the worlds of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, and will be truly happy together... well, what’s wrong with that?

Is it really so impossible to believe that sometimes the cycle of abuse can be broken, or so “out of place” to show it being broken at the end of a book that shows its horrors? Is it just naïve delusion to hope that, with effort, children can avoid repeating their parents’ mistakes and opposing social structures like the Heights and the Grange can be reconciled? That at least one young couple might manage to combine the good aspects of both worlds while discarding the bad, rather than combining the worst of both worlds the way Heathcliff did? Just because the book is dark as a whole, do we really need to be so cynical when reading it that we can’t allow it to end on a note of hope?

Besides, I’ve written before about the mirror-image character arcs of the two Cathys. Cathy I is born and raised at Wuthering Heights, but eventually leaves it for Thrushcross Grange when she marries the latter household’s heir; she initially loves the rugged dark-haired Heathcliff and wanders the moors with him, but then gains snobbery, treats Heathcliff with increasing disdain, and shifts her attentions to the prissy blond-haired Edgar, whom she marries; as a result, her life ends in misery. Cathy II is born and raised at Thushcross Grange, but eventually she leaves it for Wuthering Heights when she marries the latter household’s heir; she initially loves the prissy blond-haired Linton, whom she marries, and treats the rugged dark-haired Hareton with disdain, but eventually she loses her snobbery, learns to love Hareton, and wanders the moors with him. In no way is Cathy II’s positive ending “tacked on” – her entire character arc is structured to be the opposite of her mother’s tragedy.

I understand why some people don’t care for the ending and think it feels anti-climactic or out of place. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a thoroughly effective ending and fully consistent with what came before.

[my-bated-breath]

Rage, Compassion, and the Bridge in Between

An essay on Katara’s emotions

On the spectrum of human emotion, rage and compassion exist on opposite ends. After all, rage is harsh and violent while compassion is soothing and nurturing; rage is unforgiving while compassion is all-forgiving. As such, they run a parallel course to each other, one canceling out the other whenever they do meet.

At least, that’s what we expect. We expect anger and kindness to be separate entities, and our media reflects this - a character is either severe or gentle, and in the rare case that they’re both, the contrast between their ability to hurt and their ability to heal is treated as a dichotomy. Except the human condition is not that simple, and sometimes, there is a not-so-simple story that remembers that.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara embodies the human condition - or more specifically, she embodies the duality within it. Throughout the show, her tenderness and her wrath are balanced in a way that renders her one of the most well-written female characters in children’s animation, perhaps even in all of television. Because Katara’s anger and compassion do not simply split themselves into two identities. Instead, they coexist and coalesce into one. They drive each other; they feed into each other; they are two sides of the same coin.

But how can that be true when opposite traits are supposed to clash and counter each other’s effects?

There’s no denying that at times, Katara’s anger and compassion serve to show two different sides of her. We even see this within the very first episode:

(on left) Katara: No that's it! I'm done helping you! From now on, you're on your own!

(on right) Katara: He's alive! We have to help!

At first, Katara’s irritation towards Sokka is what causes her to accidentally waterbend the iceberg open, in which the transcript describes her movements as “agitated.” However, as soon as she sees Aang, this irritation is replaced by concern for “the boy in the iceberg.” Hence, within a few minutes, we see how Katara can be motivated by compassion and rage separately.

Still, just because her kindness and anger are shown to be separate in many scenes that this separation applies to every scenario. Although Katara’s two opposite traits are opposite, that does not mean they are always opposing. Instead, they can fuel each other - her rage can fuel her compassion, and her compassion can fuel her rage.

Let’s see how.

Part 1 - Katara’s Rage Fuels Her Compassion

Throughout the series, Katara shares her grief over her mother’s death as a way to sympathize with others. In “The Southern Air Temple,” “Imprisoned,” and “Jet,” Katara tells Aang, Haru, and Jet about the effect the Fire Nation raids had on her, which establishes some of the most emotionally-charged scenes in these episodes. She is at her most vulnerable during these moments, laying bare a deep-rooted trauma in order to reach out and connect with someone else.

Dialogue from The Southern Air Temple

Katara: Aang, before we get to the temple, I want to talk to you about the airbenders.

Aang: What about 'em?

Katara: Well, I just want you to be prepared for what you might see. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They killed my mother, and they could have done the same to your people.

Dialogue from Imprisoned

Haru: Yeah. Problem is... the only way I can feel close to my father now is when I practice my bending. He taught me everything I know.

Katara: See this necklace? My mother gave it to me.

Haru: It's beautiful.

Katara: I lost my mother in a Fire Nation raid. This necklace is all I have left of her.

Haru: It's not enough, is it?

Katara: No.

Dialogue from Jet

Jet: The Fire Nation killed my parents. I was only eight years old. That day changed me forever.

Katara: Sokka and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation.

Jet: I'm so sorry, Katara.

However, these moments seem to distinctly lack any hint of anger from Katara’s end, so it may seem irrelevant to mention them here - that is, until we remember Katara had mentioned her mother one more time. Trapped in the Crystal Catacombs with a former enemy, she once again says that the Fire Nation took her mother away from her - but this time not with sympathy. No, this time she is filled with rage.

Dialogue from The Crossroads of Destiny

Zuko: You don't know what you're talking about!

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

As Katara sits down, tears forming in her eyes, it becomes clear that her grief has festered into bitterness and anger towards the Fire Nation. By now, her grief is her anger, and so it’s not just shared pain Katara is empathizing within all four of these scenarios - it’s also shared rage.

She is gentle with Aang because she knows the effects of loss (inducing the Avatar State); she is sympathetic with Haru because she knows what she would be driven to do to have her mother back (inciting a prison break by stirring the prisoners’ righteous anger); and she is moved by Jet’s dedication to the Freedom Fighters because she would fight for the Southern Water Tribe too (against the Fire Nation, although Jet’s rage blinds him in a way that Katara’s doesn’t).

Then, in the Crystal Catacombs, it’s Katara’s anger towards the Fire Nation that uncovers her hidden pain. Her vulnerability is what causes Zuko’s words (“That’s what we have in common”) to resonate with her so much, enough for her to offer to heal his scar.

Therefore, Katara’s relationship with anger and grief (whether it’s emotionally-driven similar to how Aang enters the Avatar state or self-righteous similar to her calling the earthbender prisoners to action) is the foundation for some of her most compassionate moments in the series.

Part 2 - Katara’s Compassion Fuels Her Rage

Just as some of her most sympathetic moments are rooted in understanding someone else’s rage, many of Katara’s harshest moments see her acting on the behalf of others’ pain and needs.

As the designated “mother” of the Gaang, the Gaang’s more silly and immature antics often aggravate her and cause her to reprimand them severely, a clash that features prominently in Katara and Toph’s relationship.

In “The Chase” and “The Runaway,”  Katara shouts at Toph for lacking a sense of responsibility. However, her indignation does not simply stem from taking personal defense, but from wanting to safeguard the family she has found in the Gaang. Then, both these times, Toph learns the true motives behind Katara’s overbearing actions through a conversation with Iroh and Sokka, respectively.

Dialogue from The Chase

Toph: People see me and think I'm weak. They want to take care of me, but I can take care of myself, by myself.

Iroh: You sound like my nephew, always thinking you need to do things on your own, without anyone's support. There is nothing wrong with letting the people who love you help you.

When Toph talks with Iroh in “The Chase,” Iroh imparts some wisdom on finding mutual support in friendship, implying that Katara pushing responsibilities onto Toph is her way of solidifying and upholding the loving and supportive dynamic within the Gaang.

Dialogue from The Runaway

Sokka: I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture.

Toph: The truth is sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me. You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom.

As the dialogue states, “Katara’s been the one looking out for [them].” Hence, her mothering tendencies towards Toph in “The Runaway” are evoked by her wanting to avoid the danger that Toph’s high-profile scamming is beginning to place them in. In other words, she simply wants to protect her makeshift family because “she actually cares about [Toph and the rest of the Gaang]. You know, the real [them].”

Katara’s ability to empathize with others, to see past facades and prejudices, is one of her defining traits. Earlier, in the episode “The Painted Lady,” Katara manages to see beyond the people of Jang Hui’s Fire Nation background and recognize that above all else, they are suffering from war and poverty. Consequently, they are people who need her.

As such, even the notion of abandoning the people of Jang Hui (as suggested by Sokka) enrages her because Katara is someone who “will never, ever turn my back on people who need [her]!”

Still, Katara’s desire to fight for a village of strangers cannot compare to the lengths she would take to protect Aang.

Dialogue from The Western Air Temple

Katara: You might have everyone else here buying your… transformation, but you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something, right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends ... right then and there. Permanently.

While Zuko was a bystander as Azula shot lightning at Aang, he was an active participant in his fight against Katara, whom, just moments ago, he shared an incredibly intimate moment with. But despite how Zuko betrayed Katara personally, it is the impact his betrayal had on Aang’s life (and death) that she focuses on. So even at her most threatening, Katara acts to protect someone else, Aang, the boy who is her friend and her family.

Together, all these instances reveal that Katara’s compassion is what grants her a protective instinct, and her protective instinct is what moves her to anger and violence.

Conclusion

Katara’s character provides invaluable insight into the relationship between compassion and rage, revealing how it is not simply black contrasting white, but a spread of grays and contradictions. After all, that is who Katara is. She is two sides of the same coin and the bridge in between.

Even more, that is the human condition - full of grays and contradictions, simultaneously negating and reciprocating, balancing and tipping the scales all at once. And perhaps human emotion, in all its breadth, cannot be contained to a two-dimensional spectrum where emotions can either be placed close together or on opposite ends - because humanity is of infinite dimensions, constructed from science, dictated by art. And yet, somehow it is a two-dimensional animated character who captures human complexity with such ease.

[angelharness]

Various Slashers as Yandere Archetypes 

WARNINGS: yandere content 

Another non-requested piece. I actually found myself terribly interested in the concept after my last post musing on the topic (found here), though I’d like to restate that I don’t believe I’ll be writing more on the matter, unless a commission. 

Will firmly reiterate last time’s warning, it’s very important to recognize this characterization as unhealthy and to never enable such behavior in any real relationships. 

Will be sorting each slasher into seven classes, including Isolating, Manipulative, Dependent, Possessive, Obsessive, Delusional, and Lucid

The definitions vary greatly depending on the Slasher, while some may not fit an archetype listed, or could be a hybrid of any number of them. It’s also very possible for them to fit multiple subcategories. 

For reference, a general key would be

Isolating - (Usually gradually) cuts off s/o from their friends and family, secluding them and asserting themselves as their only social contact. Goal is perhaps to make s/o reliant on them.

Manipulative - Fairly straightforward, though the means of manipulation vary. Often emotionally controlling. Might resort to guilting the s/o or self-destructive tendencies to get them to stay. Goal is to assert control over s/o.

Dependent - Depends on s/o for stability or comfort. Might suffer from separation anxiety and as such is terribly clingy. Often ignores other social ties to focus on their s/o. No implicit goal, but usually wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Possessive - Similar to Manipulative and often a package deal. Would under no circumstances share their s/o, likely frets over losing them (perhaps to romantic rivals or even misguidedly anyone they falsely deem a threat). Goal is to assert control over s/o. 

Obsessive - Not necessarily Possessive, though the two sometimes come together. An Obsessive might not outwardly act on their fixation, but silently pines intensely for their s/o. Fixates heavily on their s/o. Goal is to become closer to the person of interest, or wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Delusional - Hard opposite of Lucid. They likely wrongly believe their feelings are reciprocated, believe them and their s/o are meant to be, or that their s/o is in denial of their feelings and it’s up to them to help them realize this. No implicit goal, but usually wishes for reciprocation of feelings.

Lucid - Hard opposite of Delusional. Well aware that their feelings are unhealthy and destructive, but usually represses these thoughts or simply doesn’t care. Might feel guilt, but it’s often overshadowed by longing. May have any of the formerly listed goals.

BILLY LENZ

Dependent, Possessive

He is a complex case. His lucidity comes in brief episodes, then wanes to stubborn delusion. Generally, though, he’s dependent on you for a sense of stability. When you leave, he throws somewhat of a tantrum, absolutely trashes the place, tears the wallpaper, knocks shit over, then curls up in a corner, stewing in a vicious, wordless rage. On the rare occasions, afflicted by guilt, he’ll silently clean it up, intensely avoiding your gaze all the while. Most of the time, though, you’re left to deal with the damage of his uncertain temper. He feels like you’re abandoning him, even if you fully have the intent to return; when you do come through the door he launches into your arms, all rushed kisses and crushing hugs. Inevitably, though, the cycle will repeat once more, gradually wearing you thin and thinner. Like a sweater heavily loved. But this love is intense and merciless. 

CARRIE WHITE

Dependent, Delusional

Carrie is very much wary coming into this relationship. She’s so baffled by affection, true and honest affection, no underlying teasing, no stifled giggles, that she nearly breaks down. It takes much adjusting, but soon, she’s hooked. She becomes dependent on your praise and approval to function routinely. Anything you dislike she does as well. You’re always so right, she thinks, so puzzlingly perfect. She idolizes you to the point she blocks out any of your flaws (which come with being human), entirely eliminating the possibility from her mind. She’s willing to overlook any fault, anyway, but she’s dazed by the spectacle of genuine love. Every moment you’re away is a unique, awful pain, singed with worry (you’re leaving, you found someone better), and though in those moments she thinks there’s no possible greater agony, the bliss of your presence keeps her around. She doesn’t care for anyone else—they never cared for her, and it’s not like their compassion would compare, either way. She decides you’re all she needs.

JASON VOORHEES

Obsessive, Isolating

First confronting his feelings, he disregards it casually, assuming it’d be easy to ignore. He busies himself with work, but finds this fixation occupying his thoughts in increasingly frequent intervals. He knows something needs to be done when it starts directly interfering with his chores, leading to sloppy work and far too many victims fleeing. The easy answer is to off you. He hunts you down with that intent, well ready to finally rid of this distraction. But he can’t. Stands there with a hellish anxiety wracking his chest, a feeling only distantly familiar, recalling the days when his heart did beat. He’s so intensely, frustratingly obsessed with you—it upsets him even, confuses him tremendously. All he knows for certain is that he wouldn’t be able to stand you with someone else; doesn’t care if he’s not that someone, as long as it’s not anybody else. From then on, it’s a very last minute change of plans; keep you alive, isolate you, make you dependent on him. He’s not the type to force affection on you, but rather, would purposefully withdraw it for extended periods of time, until you seek it of your own will, in which case he will reward you with the desired attention. 

BRAHMS HEELSHIRE

Possessive, Manipulative 

Like Billy, has a fragile temper that can be quite a minefield to traverse. You can never be sure what will upset him, but when it does he makes sure it’s known. Could additionally be classified as isolating, as he will immediately confine you to the manor. Leaving is far out of the question, though later on he might permit you to extend this bit of freedom to the expanse of garden surrounding the mansion (he will, however, keep you far from the gates). He makes himself out to be entirely helpless without your guidance and care, though that must be wrong, being how he’s had only himself for much of his time living in the space between the walls. It gets you to stay, and that’s what matters in the moment. But eventually, the need to escape his suffocating presence vastly exceeds your will to stay. When that time comes, an effectively inevitable outcome, Brahms had realized in the back of his head, he’ll turn to violence, first in tantrums then in threats directed to both yourself and him. Isn’t beyond killing you if he’s convinced you’re set on leaving and there’s nothing he can do.

BUBBA SAWYER

Dependent, Possessive

Partly delusional, but knows you’re unwilling. Still, relies on you for a feeling of normalcy, that distant echo of a real, functional relationship. Couldn’t bear the thought of you with anyone else, so much he might resort to threats of violence to coerce you into staying. Whether these are empty or significant falls on you to figure out. Liable to tantrums when you’re away, though the severity of these outbursts is determined by his current stability. He considers you part of the family, though at the end of the day, Drayton gets the final say on your status of life. He’ll plead desperately and with genuine distress, but it doesn’t take much pushing for him to cave in on himself; he’s far more scared to disobey the family. If he’s to kill you, he’ll go about it sweetly, clumsy, unfamiliar kisses as he smooths your hair down, trying uselessly to calm you. Your struggling and crying only troubles him, and he might hurry up the process just to quiet that awful commotion. If Drayton allowed, though, he’d keep you as a sort of pet; you’re to stay in his room or at his side and never stray. You’re given a seat at the dinner table as long as you pull your weight and pitch in (albeit unwillingly) with household chores. 

AMANDA YOUNG / THE PIG

Lucid, Manipulative 

Fairly coherent regarding her emotions, though this regulation never translates into her actions, which are twisted by impulse and anxieties. Unintentionally incredibly manipulative, will very quickly turn to self-destructive exploits to gain your sympathy and convince you to stay. Eventually, she stops caring if you’re only sticking around out of a feeling of necessity. If you ever show intent to leave, though, she’d panic. Amanda can’t conceive a life without you now that she’s met you, and though she despises how dependent she’s become on you for stability, she can’t will herself to try and improve. Your attention is a new, frightening addiction; the highs come with affection and compassion, but then withdrawal in the periods you’re away. These acts of love have to be greater and greater than the last to recreate that same rush of intoxication. She’d allow you the illusion of freedom, reminding you often you can leave if you wanted (it’s all a ploy for sympathy), but makes a show of how pathetic she is without you. She can barely function, and though she hates this vulnerability, her balance of mind being dependent on another person, she’s trapped herself in an unforgiving sequence of self-destructive desperation and a murderous temper. 

[robin-the-enby]

Hey! I love your matchups and I really want one with on the black butler characters.

I am ISTJ and even though I was born in America I come from a Mexican family. So I am fluent in Spanish and English. Along side of Mandarin Chinese (still learning) and Japanese (still learning)

Appearance wise, I have olive skin, long wavy/curly hair that reaches my tailbone (i like putting it in side braid). I also have long bangs that quite often fall over my glasses. And just too lazy to move them. I also have dimples when I smile. I will bite anyone who try poke them.

Personality: I can get hard to know at first because I have trust issues (my heart has been broken okay) . Not too mention people don't try to get know me because of my major Resting Bitch Face. They think I am judging them or that I am scary. But I am not... I am attentive so I will stand up for myself and anyones else. I am patient. Also, after you get to know me you will realize I am a chaotic crackhead with a melodramatic persona. Like "your star is here!" "The stage is calling for me. Move out of my way" "the spotlight is on me so could you move you crusty face?" I like to tease and flirt with the people I am close to. I zone out or daydream a lot. And in the worst times. It could be a serious meeting and I am chuckling because of something in my head. Which have scared people. It could be during a conversation and I will stop listening. But I will always feel bad and apologize.

I also like to scare people. Like tell them the unsolved cases or horrific cases that I know (I love unsolved cases) . This is also why my little siblings hate me. Turns out talking kids murder cases and disapperinv cases was not appropriate for bed time story... woops.....

I like to pop out of nowhere and either flick or playfully punch my friends and say boo. I do accidentally roast people. I don't think before I say things. And don't realize until hours or days later. And I am like "shit"

I am sarcastic and that has gotten me in trouble before. My friend asked for my advice and I didn't know she was being serious. So I gave her a sarcastic advice and she came back to me mad. I was like "shit you believed me?"

Likes/hobbies: i like my anatomy class and I like to read, write, meditate (because I get stressed a lot). I really like to dance and listen to music. Which my music taste is everywhere: Kpop, classical music, jazz, jpop, Spanish songs, rock, metal. Every music genre except for country. I like to play the violin.

My passion lies in the arts and crafts. I would like to do illustration and photography. More specifically street fashion photography and and event photography. Like weddings and funerals. Yes funeral photography does exist and I will like to do it. Since it is also special event. I draw a lot of portraits and landscapes. I have been told that my art is either scary or mysterious. Though I can get a little caught up with my passion. I practice to get better with no rest.

Flaws/toxic traits: I am not empathetic or sympathetic. People always thought I didn't care about my friend's issues. I do i just don't understand them. My compassion does make up for this and will give advice. My other flaw, is the high walls I build to protect myself. I am there for other people. But people were never there for me. People have manupliated me and that cause me trust issues. I don't know how to handle negative emotions like depression, anxiety, self doubt, procrastination. So I just isolate myself in these moods. They really take a toll on me and make me think I can't do my passions. I am afraid of commitment because of toxic relationships i had before.

Love language: I am not obvious with affection. (Because no one ever gave me it). I show it through my teasing and flirting. My love language is however Act of Service. I will help my s/o with anything they need. Chores, work, advice, etc. Sort of the mom of my friend group. But a Savage mom as I have been told. "Stop crying, here I made you a cookie" "do I need to hurt someone" "don't worry I can get coffin with a lock in it". I am also an aggressive supporter. Like "No YOU are beautiful. YOU are gorgeous!" (This happened when someone gives me affection and time try to turn the attention to them as way to hide my fluster)

I will call my s/o like "stupid" "idiot" but in a endearing way. Okay. Occasionally I will use "beloved" and "Cariño/cariña"

I am not good receiving verbal affection or physical affection. I was never given affection so I am not used to it. I will start blushing and stop working. I will also probably say "idiot" or turn the attention to them like "no.. u" but I think fails because I am terrible at hiding my blush. I get easily flustered with affection okay. But I won't ever admit that I like it. Though it is obvious.

Sexuality: i am bisexual so it doesn't matter what gender I am paired up with.

Funt fact i guess?: I love small plants, plushies, and banana milk. Like I have hundreds of different kinds of plants and they each have their own name. Like GGmo, Lily, Melody, Edward. I love Banana milk as I said. I drink it every evening. It always get me happy so when I am sad or had a bad day. I drink banana milk and I am happy. It is also to make up for my coffee addiction. I am addicted to coffee. My friends said no coffee and I was like fine banana milk then :)

This is getting long now... bye.

I'm glad that you like my matchups, I'm trying my best tbh😅 I match you with:

Sebastian Michaelis

Sebastian is very curious in nature, so he definitely wants to know what you're really like, not the front you put on.

He's also very charming when he wants to, he makes it very easy to open up to him and get comfortable around him.

Sure, he, as a demon, doesn't really care much for humans, so when he doesn't have to play the polite, kind butler, he probably has a RBF as well, however, I think that changes when he's interacting with someone he loves.

His sweet words may have been a mask at first, so he could see the real you, but the closer you two become, the more he means every word of praise, encouragment or comfort he utters.

He would most certainly be amused by your crackhead self once you do get comfortable around him, but it's not really his vibe. He wouldn't scold you for being loud, brash or inapropriate, like he does the other servants.

If he's in a really good mood or when the situation calls for it, he can be dramatic as well. Sometimes he'd do it just to get on Ciel's nerves XD

One big pro of being with Sebastian is that he lets you off the hook a lot. If he was talking to anyone else and they'd space out, oh honey, he would stare them down so hard, it's sending chills down my spine just thinking about it. But if it's you it's like a complete 180, Sebastian can't possibly be mad at you, everyone spaces out sometimes, those things just happen.

The other servants make sure to be on your good side so that you could intercede with him on their behalf.

You can't scare him with your true crime stories, but you sure as hell can scare the others. And you can bet your ass Seb's gonna help! The plan is: You tell the story and then he's gonna pop up out of nowhere behind them, giving them mini heart attacks.

If you try to scare him though, you'll need to be on guard 24/7 until he gets you in return. And even if your on guard all the time, he finds a way to scare the life out of you.

Your humor is practically the same, I mean, Sebastian is great at off handed remarks/roasts and sarcastic comments that you have to look for to really see them. You two could be talking shit about anyone and everybody would be like "Oh yeah, normal conversation, yes"

Sebastian would love to dance with you. And trust me when I say this, he is good at any type of dance. If you two are ever at a ball, prepare your feet, because he's not gonna let go of you the whole night (unless his master is in danger of course).

He would be your #1 supporter, he'd go with you out to take photos, and if you asked him to look at some, he'd take a good long look at each and every one of them and describe in detail how he feels about them. Also would go to any art shows you'd host if it came to it.

When it comes to sympathy and empathy, Sebastian also has a hard time showing these feelings. He's been alive for far longer than any human on Earth and he's a demon. He's never had any of the problems humans have, so naturally he doesn't kniw what it feels like to have them. Plus, before you came into his life, he didn't care much for them either.

However, he's gonna be there for you whenever you need him, emotionally or practically, even though he doesn't get your feelings.

You both have walls put up, you because of bad past experiences, him because as a demon, he has major issues with being vulnerable in any way. And I'm not talking just emotionally here, but demons are almost undestroyable, yet they have very few weaknesses that they just need to hide away.

It's rare Sebastian has a problem, but even if he had, you wouldn't know, because he thinks you, as a human, wouldn't understand and so he won't burden your mind with it. However, he's very perceptive and so if your behaviour changes, be it due to anxiety or a depressive episode, he'll know.

Now, he's not the type of person to try and break down your walls by force, but in situstions like these, where he's not sure how to help, you gotta talk to him and he won't leave you alone until you tell him how he can help.

He's not above carrying you around and doing everything for you until you're embarassed enough to tell him

He is very appreciative of your help around, since the other servants are good at everything but what they're supposed to do.

You with your tough love and Sebastian with his teeth rotting compliments and affection, it'd be honestly really funny to watch. He adores how you show affection, because it's different from most people he's known. But on the other hand, you can't expect him not to spoil you afte all the hard work you do every day?

He would really shower you in love and affection, because you deserve it and because it makes you flustered XD

[ranmanjuu]

—gen z mc with uesugi-takeda + misc. forces

ahh, i’m so glad people liked my gen z oda hcs! lol it’s usually pretty slow from my writing blog experiences until now, but i’m rlly happy! i was planning to do u-t and the others but then i decided to stop at oda and continue another day. thx for the asks tho! and yeah, i do take requests but it’s more of a pasttime, since this whole blog is just my stupid ideas written out and shared out there.

also someone said that a gen z mc could be old enough to romance the warlords, like, early twenties. and yes, very fair if u wanna romance ur mans with memes and existentialism go for it!! i just think it adds more to the comedy side of this child they have to babysit, while not fearing death or any consequences from their dumb of Ass decisions. someone who fears no death and armed with no braincells is a fool, but a Child who fears no death and armed with no braincells is also a fool, but more bizzare and has That Vibe y’know

@niphredil-14​ and @arthotsglasses​

tw: s*icidal, violent jokes treated in a light manner

also spoilers to some things of their characters

—kenshin:

who is this,, , sassy lost child??

he first saw you prepared to throw hands with ronins who were being Elite Dickheads. ofc, armed with nothing compared to the sworded-adults, he had to interfere.

no matter how cold he treated you, masking his secret !!!-like concern, you seemed so unfazed through it. you still interacted with him like normal,,,,, why?? do you want a death wish?

and each time he threatened you with,, anything, you responded with, “the only one who gets to hurt & kill me, is ME”

...... what?

he’s convinced you’re the biggest fool of a person. and he’d be right but even so, he has a weirdly strong need to protect you as you two got closer. you’re often with sasuke, so it’s harder to avoid you.

even with all the Horrible jokes you make on a daily basis, if your passionate side with everyone having equal rights of being treated as human, for him it shows a side of you that makes you seem precious and pure and kind hearted.

and the overprotective side increases.

which is, ,, a bit problematic sometimes cause you have the tendency to target and piss off anyone in a 10 meter range by just one (1) sassy comment, along with your lack of impulse control and blurting out everything in your mind. it’s made you a lot of short enemies in the sengoku period, and kenshin would always be ready to slice them down behind you.

sasuke has to tame him down with his Masters degree in kenshin-wrangling.

at banquets, kenshin would often have you beside him. if you’re too young for sake do age for drinking exist in sengoku? probably not. it’s more of sasuke advising for him to not give you alcoholic drinks he’ll have you pouring for him or just munching away at pickled plums or food.

—shingen:

(ngl i kinda had a hard time with this since it’s erasing a big part of his overall character,,, flirting)

once he heard the news that oda had taken in somone as young as you during honno-ji,, ,,,he’s in a very “how dare that demon >>:( taking such a pure soul,....”

and when you’re taken to kasugayama as a captive, you’re,,, surprisingly very calm and whelmed. you don’t have much sign of fear or anxiety in your overall demeanor meanwhile you’re busy dissociating and spacing out to feel those

you actually don’t seem to hate your captor. but shingen isn’t sure if your ‘fingerguns’ is a good thing or not cause it depicts you pointing guns @ him,, (dw is good shingen)

while yes being held hostage—no matter how good you’re being treated—isn’t ideal and kinda not very cash money, you consider shingen v chill. man has a kindheart!! “i diagnose you with good vibes.”

if he ever sees your righteous side, as everyone else, he’ll deeply admire you. he himself is someone who believes in such as well. and hearing the circumstances in the modern world regarding those things (blm, etc.) his heart truly does go out for you. he feels sympathy for such a young person like you having to take action

also your dirty humor around him, echigo’s player, kind of makes him question where and how you learnt it

and,, his illness.

through getting straight to the point and not falling for it each time he changes subject/dodges the question, you managed to get to the bottom of his illness. shingen himself thinks it’s not something you have to burden with knowing—you’re so, so young.

but that doesn’t matter to you. the world’s given you such a shit time, you’re mature enough to understand the situation at least.

and as he finishes his explanation, all there was is silence. it felt wrong to say any of your usual quips,, so all you did was slowly came there and hugged him.

that was more than what he’d ask for.

—sasuke:

oh hell yeah

you are in your element with him. the chillest guy to talk to, and probably the first one you’re the closest to

your phone was dead after like 2 days of use, and you were miserable while hideyoshi, like a typical parent, told you to go outside and into town. sensing your bad mood, sasuke asked what’s up. you deadpanned, “my phone game ended and now i’m ready to commit not breath.” you oslemnly look out in the bustling streets and clutched your fist like an Anime Protagonist, “those boomer memes were right all along... i am absolutely Miserable and Useless(^TM) without it.”

in response, you could’ve sworn he did the Anime Glasses thing as well, “then we at team Moderately Awesome Sengoku Ninja are happy to announce the launch of a DIY phone charger, made with the electricity from a fruit and the main functionality of a solar panel. and has more durability than samsung’s.”

there were Stars in your eyes now. with a big grin, you thank him, “i’d die for you, sasuke.”

“then perish.” he said with a blank look. (yukimura, in the bg: ???!!!??!??!?)

the next day he consentually breaks in through the ceiling and gives you the weird contraption. you’re now saved, soul-wise.

the memes start coming and they don’t stop coming from the two of you. in any situation. whether it’d be at a teahouse, or at a battlefield that can determine your life and death.

and you can have discussions about current world events, or the past ones, with him and he’d understand completely what you’re talking about. it’s those rare nights when you’ve been thinking and have a deep conversation with him in his room, and as an adult, it makes for interesting results as well.

the others are endlessly confused, but you’re both so unapologetically yourselves.

and he’s super protective if the circumstances are tough. he feels bad for dragging another person in the sengoku with him—much less when they’re so young like you.

if you’re enough of a lil shit, once you’re taken into kasugayama, in the nights where you can’t sleep because brain at what would be 3 am, you’d probably trudge over to his room and wake him up to tell him what kind of mind-blowing shit you realized.

—yukimura:

when he saved you from falling to your death, your reaction already set off weird Vibes inside him. what do you mean, “you stopped me from fleeing this fleeting world by the sweet embrace of death” ?!?!?! are you crazy?? yes

he doesn’t waste time getting blunt with you at all either.

once he goes into azuchi as a merchant, he silently observes you talking to sasuke for a bit. what’s with your weird language?? and crude humor???? never in his life has he met someone in your age act like that wtf

even so, he still operates on the basis of ‘‘if sasuke trusts you, i trust you’’, no matter how utterly concerned you make him feel

you have a dirtier mind than him! unsurprisingly. along with everyone else, you often tease the poor soul, a nd you’d gladly tell him what the innuendoes mean ( 69, etc.) and maybe sprinkle in some gay jokes in there

and why do you keep mentioning this “bromance between him and sasuke” ?? what us,,, a bromance????? and why is sasuke in it??

he takes you out to teahouses to eat chestnut dumplings and other desserts with you. you always seem to target the one he doesn’t like the most and have a bit of banter

your relationship is built on banter but what’s different rlly

he treats you much more maturely than other people your age. as in, he doesn’t pull back his punches in words most of the time. you don’t seem to around him also, it looks like.

and, he’s also very protective of you. he regards you as his little sibling, as rat as you may be. and he does care about you—he might just be a bit unwilling to say it

—yoshimoto:

you think he’s very chill, if a bit unique but who were you to judge. and he is, if you ever meet him in echigo or even azuchi

his big liking to art and something of apathy to people is osmething you can respect. there’s something about that kind of Vibe that you find oddly a mood.

and oh boy oh boy you wasted no time pulling up your phone and showing images of what art is in the future. whether it’d be a screenshot of anime, fanart, aesthetic-like ones, palette-themed—the whole shabang. 

and, somehow, you were left ranting to him  about how some artists in the future get it so shitty for theft, reposting, not crediting, the list goes on (please be a decent human being to artist, sincerely the author) and he can’t help but just listen in silence and kind of thinking about how you’re so passionate about the Struggles of artists. and it isn’t something he sees often in the sengoku era—where war rules most things.

and he does find art from the modern times interesting, how they’re so different and vast in styles. and not only that, it’s not like the future only has one major style like then, each hand can draw such different pictures and still have beauty in each. he appreciates and admires that.

and he does tell you his thoughts ^ while you give your own insight. it’s so fascinating to see someone like you having strong opinions on this.

because, well, rn art is a big thing in our lives as we’re stuck inside. a part of entertainment is looking at any media of art—and he finds his view of art and yours quite the same. you two came from a time of turmoil (one moreso than the other) but still think art isn’t exactly irrelevant just because it isn’t a cure to diseases or the Ultimate Weapon.

you had to Surgically Remove him from your phone so you can use it and to stop him from draining your battery looking at the art

and he often drags you out to town and admire pieces when you’re holing yourself in too much. your comments are always unknown to him, “radical”, “that’s one i can vibe with ngl”, and the list goes on.

and you occasionally call him pretty boy as a compliment rlly

—kennyo:

when you first saw him at honno-ji, and he won’t forget the one (1) line you gave him, all you said to his warning of ooo spooky demons was, “that’s lit fam gtg tho”

and that alone was enough to stun him for a few seconds

honestly you told the others of your meeting with kennyo before they told you it could be kennyo. just a throaway line of “oh yeah there was this dude with a scar across his face.” / “,,, ,....that’s kennyo. he’s really dangerous actually—” / “oh, poggers”

you’re probably kind of half the reason the oda forces found who dun it.

and it was an eye for an eye, kennyo himself found out that you were their child chatelaine, and very close to the others. as per his villain-schedule, he kidnaps you .

he laments about how “such a pure soul such as yours is not to be stained by the demon’s hands”

oh how Wrong he was.

you were the definition of the opposite of pure. and you seemed unfazed, which surprised kennyo but shrugged it off. he was willing to face you screaming and panicking, along with shouldering the sin of doing the deed. but instead, he was met with a raised eyebrow and, “this is unexpected and probably not welcomed but what am i doing here.”

he was stunned for a moment before explaining what he can. 

“......... fuck.”

he cringed ever so slightly at your curse. but your attention seems to stray so quickly off of the fact that you were bounded and helpless, to the fact that you have the man doing unspeakable things to civilians and you absolutely don’t approve.

throwing your common sense to maybe be civilized, you went off on a rant of how human rights and how to not be an ass to him. all he could do was just listened, shocked to even cut you off.

when he did, he gave the whole ‘unsaved demon’ shtick, and you weren’t taking that kinda shit. he believed he was truly unsaved—you knew that. but that doesn’t make it okay.

eventually, he left you with a cold end of the conversation.

he admires your spirit in a way—but with what he’s experienced,,, it’s a bit of unreachable for him.

if at any point you saw the soft side of his with animals, you just gaped at him for a split second and whispered, “the gap moe is strong with this one.”

also old man died inside when you said that you’d fight god, along with many things.

all in all, to him, you’re insufferable. but weirdly,, fascinating.

you’ve totally ok boomer’d him once cause he rlly looks old

—motonari:

,,. if your speech to kennyo was bad, he’s going to rant hell.

motonari already knew you were interesting even when his men just spied on you. your behavior, so brash and impulsive, is going to be so fun to have, he thinks.

through some planning to stir up more chaos, he kidnaps you and brings you unto his ship. same as kennyo, you showed no clear sign of surprise, and that’s when he decided you were either used to this in any way, or a fool. both answers, he liked.

you’re kind of really confused on why he’s doing what he’d doing. “i get it, i like to stir up chaos myself but it’s harmless,, most of it—but not until the people are in danger, bitch.”

and by that line, motonari leans towards you with a deadly smirk, “now, i can bite, ‘kay kid? you don’t wanna be in the receiving end... do you?”

“do it, coward.”

and before he could let out even a wheeze of laughter, you continued on on a lecture of, again, not being a dick and letting people live their life in peace. and much less all of this damage, for what? chaos?? yeah you wanted to see the world burn but it wasn’t literally.

however, his patience was running thin. he shuts you up forcefully, and leaves.

even so, after a cooldown period, he still talks to you (,,,, well, that’s kind of a generous term) because, right he was, you were so fun in his eyes.

an interesting observation he made,,, was that you picked up on his big dislike of physical contact. and he’d think with how annoying you were at times, that you’d weaponize it. but you didn’t—in fact, you kept your space (not that you were planning to get close) and respected his boundaries.

he thinks you a bit of peculiar for that decision, some wary, and perhaps naive.

one of the days—the more dangerous ones—he was planning to take you to the oda as bait or something. and you weren’t taking it like that. two days before arrival, a storm racked up. you stood upon the edge of the ship with the rest of the crew watching you like you were a madman.

“the oda won’t want me if i’m dead, would they now?”

motonari stands in his composure, guffawing, “all i need is to make sure they believe you’re alive, kid.”

a smile that showed absolutely no fear and 1000 percent spite spread in your face, “not unless i decimate my own body until all the trail left is my blood. the only one who gets to do that shit to me, is me.”

finally, a look of wavering shows in his face.

you were saved last minute,, and the rest is history.

[johaerys-writes]

Fandom: The Song of Achilles

Summary: During his two month long sea voyage from Phthia to Skyros, Patroclus makes an unexpected friendship.

Chapter 3: Fate, the final chapter of At the Water’s Edge, is up! Where Patroclus finally reaches Skyros, and has an important decision to make.

Read here or on AO3! Or read from the beginning

The sun had set, and the night birds were gliding into the fast-approaching dusk when we finally returned to the ship.

The rest of the sailors had already gathered for dinner, the wide galley filled with the sounds of jest and song, with the smells of the fish stew that was being prepared. I didn’t usually join the crew during their meals, preferring to take them in my room, by myself, but that evening Xanthos had insisted I stay. He was sitting next to me now, with his cheeks still flushed from our trek through the verdant hills back to the port, and the wind that had combed through his locks had given him a wild appearance. There was a gleam in his eye, that I imagined matched my own.

The fish stew was rich and savoury, heavy with the taste of the sea and spices. Not all ships fed their crew this well, but the captain was a generous man, or so Xanthos had told me. After we had both finished our dinner, a nearby sailor treated us to some watered down wine. It was from the northern plains, near Macedonia, I was told, and quite strong, with a heavy aftertaste of berries and honeysuckle.

“Xanthos,” one of the men called. He was a tall man, strong like an bull, with his large head shaved clean. He had a bright and easy smile, which always made me somewhat uncomfortable, especially now that it was directed at both me and my companion. His gaze fell on the bracelet on Xanthos’ wrist. “What’s that you’re wearing? A little too fancy for you, isn't it?"

Xanthos smiled brightly, seemingly unaware of the laughter that broke out over the wide space. He raised his arm to show his bracelet to everyone who had lifted their heads from their drinks to look. “Do you like it, Thaddeus? I wasn’t aware it would be to your taste. I thought the only place you liked to wear jewellery was on your teeth.”

The other men laughed and jeered, banging their mugs on their tables. The jab did not seem to deter Thaddeus, who grinned even more brightly, revealing several golden teeth. “Everyone knows that, boy,” he said, laughing. “Did your friend choose it for you? You and I both know you couldn’t pick something nice if your life depended on it.”

I felt uncomfortable with everyone’s piercing stares that suddenly fell on me. Xanthos turned his body ever so slightly towards me, as if shielding me from the sailors’ crude jests. “He did,” he said, waving his mug casually. “He has a good eye. Which is more than anyone can say about you lot.”

They all laughed again, and Xanthos and Thaddeus exchanged even more jests, some of them crude, but none ill-natured. Before I knew it I was laughing with them too, and soon some of the sailors had come to sit around our table. Talk shifted away from Xanthos’ bracelet and into other matters, the ship’s journey and the highest price the captain had been able to get for some of the oils and herbs they carried, the details of the trade.

“Barley always sells cheaper here than it does in the mainland,” they would say. “Don’t know why the captain bothers with the Sporades.” Or, "Piraeus has raised the cargo tax to thirty three talents. Soon, they'll be charging an arm and a leg just to let ships into port."

I listened to their talk, quietly sipping on my wine. Trading held little interest for me. I had never in my life had to barter, sell or buy anything, apart from the rare occasions that Achilles and I would sneak away from the palace and go to the harbour to watch the street performers and musicians that sometimes ended up on our shores. It was always fun and exciting at first, but I would soon grow weary of the chatter and noise, of the heavy and sour smells of discarded fish and sweaty human flesh, of the rattling sound of the dice games at every corner. We would quickly retreat back to the olive grove, or our small secluded beach, where Achilles could run and throw his spears undisturbed. I would sit back on the warm sand and watch him move for hours, watch as the muscles rose and fell under his skin, as shadows pooled and stretched across his features with the passage of the dying sun.

A pang of longing drove through me at the thought, before I was able to stop it. My memories of Achilles had always been gold- tinted, as if the brightness of his presence made everything it touched resplendent, just like he was. They had always been a source of comfort for me, yet now they just made me ache for him all the more.

“Do you play, lord?”

I blinked at Thaddeus, jolting out of my reminiscing. At my baffled stare, he nodded at the stretch of table between us, smiling. “Do you play?”

I followed his gaze, and there I saw them. Four dice, their pips staring up at me like eyes. They were not white and made of bone like I was used to; they were red instead, made of terracotta stone. The pips were carved on their flat and smooth surface and painted over with dark dye. The shape and colour of them mattered not, though, as I found myself staring at them for what felt like a lifetime.

It was then that I remembered one of the reasons why I never joined the crew during their meals. Sooner or later, the tables would be cleared, and dice would be drawn out for games that lasted well into the night.

My pulse thrummed in my temples at the images that promptly rushed through me in waves; my anger at Clysonymus, at his blatant disrespect, his mockery. His eyes that widened as he fell back, losing his balance; the crack of his head against the stone. His blood trickling slowly on the dry ground beneath him, mixing with the soil and turning it crimson. I remembered how bright it was, as if it were before me just then. My stomach turned.

“Patroclus,” I heard Xanthos say beside me, but his words reached me as if through wool. “Are you well? You are pale as a sheet.”

I think I muttered a brief apology before standing up, almost making my chair topple over in my haste, then half-running towards the deck. My heart was racing; my mind was spinning, spinning. I was shaking like a fish out of water when I finally reached the railing and clutched it with trembling hands, my breath clawing at my throat.

It wasn’t always this bad. The sight of the dice didn’t always leave me this shaken, but my nightmares, ever since I had boarded the ship, were the worst they had been in years. Almost every night I would wake up trembling and out of breath, with cold sweat running down my spine. Those memories, Clysonymus’ face, the dice that rattled incessantly in my head; all those things were part of me, embedded in my bones. Had I honestly thought that one half day of careless enjoyment would be enough to ward off those ancient terrors?

I squeezed my eyes tightly, willing the images that seemed to be lodged there away. The night was dark upon the world now, and I felt swallowed by it, a pebble sinking to the bottom of the sea. It seemed as though if I let go of the railing for even a heartbeat, the waves would rush up and swallow me, drag me into their dark depths.

I jolted when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to Xanthos, who was watching me with evident concern.

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m fine. Really.” I gripped the railing hard, taking in a deep, steadying breath. My heartbeat was gradually getting slower, and I could feel the fear that had gripped me only a moment before easing away. I stared out into the darkness, at the stars that now shone brightly above me.

“Did, uh…” Xanthos started shyly beside me. “Did Thaddeus do something to upset you? I could talk to him if you wish. He’s a rough fellow, but he didn’t mean to—”

“No. No, of course not. He did nothing wrong. It wasn’t… it wasn’t his fault.”

Xanthos remained silent. He didn't press me to speak further, to explain; still, I felt like I had to.

I took another deep breath, this time to ease the words out of me. I had never spoken about my nightmares to anyone but Achilles. Without him by my side, it felt like every memory, every image from my past was a stone, slowly grinding me to meal. The last thing I wanted was to dig them up again, but the need to share the burden, if only for a moment, was what urged my tongue to weave the words.

“There was a boy, once,” I started quietly. “When I was younger. We fought over… over a pair of dice. I pushed him. He fell and broke his head.” My fingers tightened so much about the railing, that my knuckles had gone white, the wood digging into my flesh. “I killed him.”

Xanthos did not speak then, but I could sense no judgement or horror in his silence. Only patience. His very presence there gave me heart, and I continued. “I did not mean to. It was an accident. Yet every time I see dice… they just remind me of him.” I glanced up at him, fearing what I would see in his eyes, but there was only understanding.

“How old were you?” he asked softly.

“Ten.”

He let out a slow breath. “To have seen something like this, so young…” He shook his head, and his eyes glinted oddly in the night, reflecting the light of the waxing moon above us. “I am sorry you’ve had to live with this burden all those years, Patroclus.”

The sympathy in his voice made a wave of bitterness rise within me. I swallowed thickly, but the knot in my throat remained. “At least I got to live,” I said quietly. “That boy didn’t have that chance.”

I had never admitted those thoughts to anyone, not even to Achilles. I wished to stop my tongue from forming the words, to think of anything else, anything at all, but could not. “Sometimes,” I whispered, “I try to imagine what might have happened to that boy, had I not pushed him. How his life would have been, if I hadn’t been in it. He would have been at marrying age now. He might even have had children. He would have inherited his father’s titles, his lands… He would have been a man, in his own right. But he got to live none of that. Because… because of a pair of dice.”

My eyes burned as I spoke. I rubbed them stubbornly, determined to not shed any tears. I did not want Xanthos to think less of me.

Xanthos kept his silence for a long while. When he finally spoke, his voice was gentle, mingling with the sighing of the crisp sea breeze. “The night before I boarded my first ship,” he said, “I was terrified. The priests of Apollo had spoken of a terrible storm that was to come, the worst we had seen in ages. They’d seen it in the blood of a lamb they’d sacrificed, on Apollo’s holy day. I did not want to go. I sat on my bed while the wind blew outside and shook with fear. My father came in and saw me. He told me something then. It stuck with me.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“He said… 'A man whose fate it is to die in a fire, will never die in a storm'.” At my confused glance, he laughed softly. “What my father meant was, every one of us has a path in life. The moment we come into this world, the three Fates spin their threads and decide what is to come. If my destiny was to die in a sea storm, even if I stayed on land and herded sheep all my life, the storm would eventually find me. ‘Meet your fate proudly, boy,’ my father told me that night, ‘because you cannot escape it.’ ” He turned to look at me, his dark, almond shaped eyes meeting mine squarely. “You have your path. So did this boy.”

“But…” My old pains and fears rose to the surface, the dreams that had haunted me for most of my life. I struggled to find a justification for it, for what had happened to me, for what I’d done, something that would make it all make sense. I could not.

“It is cruel,” I whispered. “Is it not?”

“It is life, Patroclus.”

His hand on the railing was so close to mine, I could almost feel the heat emanating from his skin. I thought of his words, turned them this way and that in my mind. I had my path. So did Clysonymus. It did not change what I  had done, his life had still ended too soon. His death was still my fault. Yet if I had not pushed him…

I would never have left Opus. I would not have gone to Phthia. I might never have met Achilles. I would never have known him, followed him, loved him. My life, as I knew it, would only be a shadow of what it was, what it could have been. It was still cruel, but it was my life. My path, the one the Fates had carved for me.

The Fates had never been kind, nor fair. But they were absolute. Inexorable.

My hand crossed the distance between us to land gently beside Xanthos’. The waves splashed against the ship’s belly, and the night owls at the shore cooed. We stayed silent, side by side, watching the night stretch endlessly before us.

The following evening, when I went to the ship’s galley for my dinner, none of the sailors were playing dice. It didn’t take long for me to notice that it was Thaddeus’ wrist that Xanthos’ bracelet was gracing now. When I glanced at him, the unspoken question lingering in my gaze, he only smiled and winked.

“Fate,” he jested cryptically, and took a large sip of his wine.

I didn’t see another die being thrown for the remainder of the days I stayed on the ship.

~

The day that the rolling hills of Skyros came into view arrived much slower, and much faster than I’d expected. The bay that we pulled up on shimmered golden in the early morning light. I could just make out the last of the Pleiades disappearing into the rosy fire of dawn when the ship was pulled to harbour. I leaned against the railing, my bag with my handful of belongings hanging by my shoulder, my heart beating in my throat. Somewhere on that island, perhaps in that palace atop the hill, Achilles was waiting for me.

Xanthos was by my side when the ship’s ropes were tied to the old and worn out palisades of the long and narrow wharf. I had thought he would go straight to his bed after his shift had ended, to get what little sleep he could before they would be setting off again, but he walked down with me, then followed me to the beach, where the wharf ended.

We gazed at each other for a long moment, standing ankle deep in crystal clear water. I found myself tracing the lines of his features, the slope of his nose, his strong eyebrows, his heart-shaped mouth. His eyes were kind and warm as ever, but there was something else hiding in their depths. During those heartbeats that we looked at each other I noticed everything, even things I had never paid much attention to before, as if I was trying to commit his features to memory, keep them safe with me.

“So,” he said softly, “it is time.”

I nodded. “It is.”

I expected him to leave then, to climb back up to the ship and sail to his own destiny. But he stayed there, gazing at me.

“We’ll be going back to Euboea now. To Kymi.”

“I know. The captain told me.” I smiled when I said, “And then you’ll be setting off for the Eastern ports, right?”

His lips widened in a smile that mirrored my own, but it was not quite as bright and effortless as I was used to. It was almost timid. He shifted on his feet, cleared his throat. “It won’t be for very long. Three, perhaps four months. And then we’ll be back.” A light, barely perceptible flush crept up his cheeks as he said, “I was hoping perhaps… I could see you. When I come back.”

I blinked, taken aback. I wasn’t rightly sure how long I’d be staying in Skyros, whether I would be going back to Phthia next. In my heart of hearts, I wished to find Achilles and leave with him straight away, return to Pelion, where Chiron was waiting for us. Yet all of my hopes seemed uncertain and hazy, like trying to grasp at shifting sand. Three, four months… I did not know if there was any way for me to plan that far ahead. Gods, I didn’t even know if Achilles was still where I’d been told he would be.

My stomach tightened as I told him earnestly, “I… I’m not sure where I’ll be in four months, Xanthos.”

“I know,” he said hastily. “I know that it’s all uncertain now. But… You could wait for me here. I could come back for you. And then we could leave together.”

"Leave?" I frowned a little as he spoke, my confusion increasing by the second. “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere at all. We could return to Phthia together, or… or anywhere else you like. Go to the mountains, perhaps. You like the mountains. Right?” His flush brightened, and his eyes flashed with something that I couldn’t quite decipher. Something akin to hope. “After my trip to the East, I think I’ll have enough gold to build a home. A small one. Like... like the one you told me about. With a garden out front…” He let his words trail away, searching my face. His throat bobbed when he swallowed. “We… could stay there. You and I.”

I froze when I finally caught on his meaning. He wanted me to… to go with him. To build a life with him. To be with him. To… love him.

I took a breath, preparing myself for the blow I was about to deliver. “I’m sorry, Xanthos. I… could not.”

I saw the joy and hope that had been there a moment before drain from his features. I saw his smile quiver, and his shoulders slouch. “Oh.”

“It’s not—” I started, then stopped myself. My fists opened and closed by my side, helpless. “I can’t give you what you want,” I said quietly. “This person I’ve come here to find… He’s everything to me. He’s…” I paused, looking about me. My mind worked furiously as I searched for words that wouldn’t hurt him anymore than they had to.

Xanthos spoke the words for me.

“Your fated one,” he said softly. He gave me a wan smile, his eyes kind and earnest as they met mine, but I could still see the hurt I’d wrought there. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” The sun was rising slowly over the mountains in the East, painting his sun-bronzed features golden and bright.

“Pepromenon fyghein adynaton,” he said. Fate is inescapable.

I nodded slowly, not knowing what else to say. He reached out and tentatively placed his hand on my shoulder. “I wish you all the best, Patroclus.”

“So do I.” I met his gaze, looking deep into his warm, honey brown eyes. “Thank you, Xanthos. For everything.”

His fingers squeezed my shoulder gently, feather-light, before he turned to leave.

I stayed there for a long while, at the water's edge, watching as the ship slowly rowed away. When its sails were nothing but a white speck on the golden horizon, I turned around.

Somewhere on that island, in the palace atop that hill, my fate was waiting for me.

[sifeng]

Review: Love and Redemption

While I first started watching this drama out of pure curiosity of why people claimed it to be “the second most tragic drama” (after GMP, of course). While there are certainly aspects of this show that could be better, I find it fair to claim that it is a wonderfully made xianxia, and certainly one of the best in the genre within this decade. 

Plot:

According to legends, the god of war saved the heavens in a deadly battle against the demon a thousand years ago. Both fell from the heavens and disappeared from the world. Chu Xuan Ji was born to the world lacking in the six senses which makes her rather clueless and inept. She befriends Yu Si Feng, the outstanding head disciple of Lize Palace who falls for her, thus beginning a xianxia romance that is entangled with the conspiracies from the past. The Zan Hua Tournament is being held in the Shaoyang Sect and its leader Chu Lei has two daughters - his trusted eldest daughter Chu Ling Long, and the youngest daughter Chu Xuan Ji who is lazy and terrible at martial arts. When Yu Si Feng and Chu Xuan Ji meet through a coincidence, they forge a friendship with each other. Yu Si Feng falls for Xuan Ji despite the harsh consequences that he must face as it is forbidden for students of Lize Palace to fall in love. Meanwhile, Ling Long clashes with Wu Tong after she criticized his foul actions at the tournament. In retaliation, Wu Tong accidentally injures Xuan Ji and gets expelled. Having recovered from her injuries, Xuan Ji promises to concentrate on cultivating. Four years later, Xuan Ji and Yu Si Feng meet again. Si Feng wears a mask due to a curse that can only be broken if he finds true love. 

Cast:

Cheng Yi (成毅) as Yu Sifeng (禹司凤)

Yuan Bingyan (袁冰妍) as Chu Xuanji (褚璇玑)

Liu Xueyi (刘学义) as Hao Chen (昊辰)

Zhang Yuxi (张予曦) as Chu Linglong (褚玲珑)

My Opinions:

Plot (My Rating - A-):

First of all, I quite like the pacing in this drama. As the matter of fact, towards the end I actually feel like some things were rushed, not dragged out. It’s never a show that allows you to press the fast forward button, because 1. the tragic moments are super intense and dramatic, and 2. you don’t dare skip over the cute/funny moments because you know there won’t be many left. Second of all, I really appreciate that the writers of this drama really decided that they were going to make the most tragic drama ever. They really dedicated themselves to that craft, and I think they succeeded wonderfully. In terms of plot points, I absolutely loved the whole 9 lifetimes idea. It really brings out the tragedy and beauty of Yu Sifeng - he will do anything to protect those he loves, especially Xuanji. I would not complain if every single lifetime was made into a 45 minute episode, though that would be 405 more minutes of Sifeng being tortured by love on top of the infinite amount of minutes that already exist in this drama. 

One problem I had, again, was with the misunderstanding that separated our two leads. I understand that this misunderstanding was one that had to do with the morals, backgrounds and fates with both of them, and thus was obviously meant to be a separating factor, but with the way the two characters were written, it felt odd that it created such an amount of misunderstanding. Overall, the plot was good, it didn’t have any revolutionary ideas, but it turned up the tragedy factor and had consistent pacing (if not too rushed towards the end). I’m sure there were probably a few plot holes here and there (one of which is why is it so easy to destroy that huge jar thing towards the end? If that’s what��s keeping the universe at balance, shouldn’t it take more than just one Yuan Lang to destroy it?), but overall, solid plot.

Characters (My Rating - B):

Sifeng is an absolute angel. He’s probably the most heroic lead in a drama who acts totally out of selflessness, who will help his loved ones no matter what pain it puts him through, and who can remain so kind, so unbothered mentally by whatever pain everyone puts him through. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have faults. He acts irrationally in the face of love and he often mistrusts the people around him. He’s a very complete character that not only evokes viewer’s sympathy, love and admiration, but also makes sense when taking into consideration his morals. He rarely does things that are out of character. If I were to rate just his character I’d probably give an A+.

But, there are other characters in this drama. I do like Xuanji, not as much as I like Sifeng, but I like her more than most drama leads. Despite the whole lacking six senses thing being a super confusing plot hole of sorts (like she clearly likes people in the beginning, Linglong, Minyan, her father, and dislikes people, Wu Tong, but isn’t she supposed to be unfeeling? Also she screamed out of fear when she fell using the teleport tool etc etc), I liked how she wasn’t stupid, but simply naïve. She’s actually a pretty smart person, especially in the first half of the drama, when she defended Sifeng against the Five Sects, and then Minyan after he was caught from Tianxu Tang. She didn’t let herself be manipulated by her father or Hao Chen, but rather thought for herself, took into account what she knew of their characters and came to the correct conclusion that the Five Sects were being stupid. I found myself a slight bit annoyed when she took the Five Sects side on the whole Mosha Xing issue, but given that the argument was no longer Sifeng vs. her father, but rather demons vs. humans, I can sort of understand why she didn’t trust him. Also, he did lie to her a bunch of times so, I suppose that adds to the fact. Though, she failed to use the trait that I used to really like, which was the ability to take logic and character into consideration. Did she really think that Sifeng never loved her? Because like, with all the evidence right there in her memory, I find it hard for anyone logical being to come to that conclusion. Also, I really like how she eventually became as loving of Sifeng as he was of her. She was literally willing to destroy the world, and herself, just to save him. 

As I have said before, no one likes Hao Chen, and that’s good. He’s obviously written to be a character that you should dislike, not only because he gets in the way of Sifeng and Xuanji, but because he is clearly so biased against demons (despite the fact that most demons aren’t even bad at all); because he manipulates Xuanji/God of War so many times and doesn’t even feel guilty whatsoever; because he always says “for the three realms” and yet happens to do things that will completely destroy the peace of the three realms. There are things to like about him, like I am pretty sure that he does actually care about the three realms, and he does want there to be peace, but his ideology about peace, and love, and war are just so skewed that he ends up doing the opposite of what he wants to do. 

Other characters were mostly likable, like Linglong, Zi Hu, Teng She, Minyan (most of the time), Xiao Yinhua, Ruo Yu (sometimes), Wu Zhiqi, etc etc. Some were evil for no apparent reason like Yuan Lang (why does he want to control the three worlds? What happened to him in the past for him to become this power hungry? If these questions were answered this character could be sooooo much more compelling) and Wu Tong (again, why did he start out so violent and cruel? I understand why he become a demon and helped them, but like does he not realize that it was clearly his fault first?) Also, the Heavenly Emperor seems like such an odd character. I understand he is the emperor and so he shouldn’t hold his relationship with Bailin and Xixuan above their faults, but like why was he so okay with like letting a totally faultless Xi Xuan endure several mortal trials all ending with painful deaths? And if that was because he was being a good and fair emperor, why does he let a game board decide fate? He also just stood there while the world was ending, and it took Xuanji to convince him to help her. I would like to know more about this guy and his complete lack of ability to care about anything.

So overall, while I think the main characters were written very well, with complex characteristics, some of the villains were just left tools to push forward the plot. 

Acting (My Rating - A-):

So first of all, Cheng Yi’s portrayal of Yu Sifeng was absolutely amazing. He brought out all of Sifeng’s traits super well, from shyness initially to the cruelness Mosha Xing to his loving gaze at Xuanji to the heartbreak in tragic parts. I’m pretty sure he’ll become a star after this show, and can I just say, he totally deserves it!

(Like can you see the pain in his eyes?)

I was pleasantly surprised by Yuan Bingyan here. I really like how her acting style changed along with the new role she took, as Xuanji she was bright and cheerful, as God of War she was heartless and cruel. You can see in the nine lifetimes that the way she reacts to Sifeng’s death slowly changes. Her crying scenes need a little more emotion, but overall, a super stable performance. 

Chemistry/Romance (My Rating - A):

The chemistry was just amazing. I find it interesting that their kisses slowly got more and more passionate as time went on. 

I think part of the reason they have such good chemistry is because of the acting. Like oh my god their tiny reactions to when the other gets hurt really gives it away that they love each other. 

The romance was also written nicely. While some people complain that Xuanji didn’t suffer enough, I feel like they don’t have to be equal in suffering in order for them to be a good pairing. You could tell from the very beginning that Xuanji liked Sifeng in a different way from other people. And the fact that they went through nine lifetimes together, each one when Sifeng died because of Xuanji... it just makes their romance so much more epic. Add that with good chemistry, good kisses, and good acting, well of course people love this ship so much! Xuanji would destroy the world for Sifeng, because the only person that matters in her world is Sifeng. Sifeng would put himself through ten lifetimes of torture just so Xuanji can be happy, because so long as Xuanji is happy, he will be happy. 

Music (My Rating - A): this one is simple. Just listen to the soundtrack and you’ll understand my rating. I didn’t give it an A+ though, because while all the songs are great, there isn’t one in particular that I love. 

Costumes (My Rating - A-): Sifeng’s costumes are really pretty. Some of Xuanji’s are pretty too, they get prettier as the show goes on, but some of the ones early on were kind of meh.

CGI (My Rating - A+): the best CGI in a cdrama. Just look at the scenes where Sifeng shows his wings! 

Overall Rating: A-

Recommend For: People who like xianxia dramas and dramas that try to incorporate a lot of themes. People who don’t mind their heart breaking a thousand times while watching a drama. People who want to find a couple that you have to root for. People who like super epic guzhuangs with lots of subplots, mythology, reincarnations etc. 

[zuffer-weird-girl]

Since tumblr decided to eat it, heres like a sequel to your first kin and hawks writing how shes a hero to him but this time Kin is older and during that day Kai and his S/o has been busy with Kaito since hes learning to be the next boss and everything and kin doesnt have an interest in it. Causing kin to feel ignored and alone causing her to blow up on them and leave the house, Hawks finds her crying instantly recognizing her and helps her. (Kin always kept his feather with her too)

Aw my baby :(

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"That way you can just control the cells and-" Chisaki overhauled the metal box in front of him before putting it back together "Done." He handed the box to Kaito "Now your turn."

"Cany we just skip to overhauling humans already dad? This is boring." The teen received a flick on his forehead as a response.

Nearby set the two girls of the mafia, you and your second child with Chisaki. Kin got from you your quirkless, something her father insisted it was a good thing, more than good even. And the girl didn't saw a problem with that... although something that did bother her was her lack of interest on the yakusa.

She valued her family but didn't saw the point of worthshipping the Shie Hassaikai so much... and this left the poor girl in a state of... being left out from her family.

"Mom?" The girl spoke hesitantly but just when you were about to give her attention one precept came to you asking for some assistance since Kai told them to not bother him when teaching his son about the overhaul. "Is okay mom. Go see what it is." Kin smiled sadly at her mom giving her a apologetic look before going to see the problem.

Getting up from her seat and allotting her favorite uncle, Irinaka, that she was going on a walk, the young girl left the house on a state of sadness, crying silent to herself as she clenched the clothing of her sleeves.

"Well well well!" A voice made her squeal as she looked for it "Why is it a little birdy crying now?" Suddenly, she looked up and saw that smirk she recognized from the news and from how much she enjoyed to watch as younger, having even one red feather still locked away from her father to nto just throw it away.

"H-Hawks-san?!" She squealed as the hero laughed and landed on the ground with a smirk before frowning at seing the girl face.

"Say, dont I know you from somewhere kiddo?" He asked with a hand on his chin, getting just a inch closer to Kin before he snapped his fingers "Ah! I know now! Is my once little hero from that carnival! How is it going kid? Not a good day?" He smiled in sympathy on his last question as Kin felt her eyes burning a bit as she looked at the ground.

"I-Is nothing... j-just a bit sad is all."

"Hm. This way we cant do huh? Where are your parent so can I ask something for them?" He looked at his sides much like a pigeon would making the girl giggle.

"They're... busy. My pa is training my older brother while my mom is helping on... my family bussines." She knew she couldn't tell that she was straight from a mafia, she didn't care about anyone hosting about her family because she knew how to fight a little... bit seing that type of face on her favorite and only hero's one? No way.

"Lwt me guess then. You feel a bit alone?" Hawks smiled as she nodded before messing up with her darkbrow hair "Eh, I bet I cam cheer you up on a ride to your home then?"

Her golden eyes sparkle at that before she nodded a bit. In one second, Hawks was flying above jer and holding her by her arms securely before taking a fly.

The girl yelped before giggling at the sensation as Hawks smirked at it.

"So kid, my little hero has which type of quirk?"

"I dont have one!"

"Eh?"

"I'm quirkless! My papa though is very much proud of it! He says that I'm just like my mom and how much of a rare jew I am sometimes!" She giggle at the memory as Hawks chuckled a bit amused.

"So your father must like you lots then kid." She stopped giggling to reflect in his words before she dared to ask.

"Will he like me even if I dont take interest for my family's business as much as he does..?" She mumbled but hawks still heared and landed her safely on the ground when she spotted her home.

"If he does already say something like that to you then I'm sure he wouldn't mind it. I'm not a therapist but meh, who knows?" His clock tickles as Kin watched in curiosity on what it was "Has an attack on the center, well, gotta go." He looked over his shoulder to smirk at her "thanks for the break time kid, I guess we both were needing it." And just like that he flew off to the sky.

Kin smiled before she flinched at her father's cough from behind her. Slowly looking around with a nervous smile.

"Heeeey dad.."

"Shower. Now." He spoke in harsh words as she lowered her head... Before she could get inside, Kai stoped her by the shoulder as he inspected her from head to toe before sighing in relief. "Are you hurt? Everyone was looking for you brat... it's your time to choose what me, your mother and brother do for the night."

"... sorry papa." She smiled a bit sadly before Kai sighed and pat her head.

"As long as your safe and unharmed, everything is fine. Now go shower.... Kin?" He spoke as she giggled at her father tsundere act.

"Yeah?" He slowly plucked out one red feather with a twitching eye and showing to her.

"What. Is. This?"

Sh-!

[himbowelsh]

i take extreme interest in the bob characters’ flaws, especially winters. like in the series he is shown to really not have any faults or vices (as nix says) but i always try to think of what possible problems he has. like i think he really sucks at communicating most of the time, he never really gets deep with anyone in the series without it seeming short lived or distanced. he obviously cares about his men, but there’s a part of me that thinks he didn’t grow up with that much praise /part 1

or that he was given compliments like “you did great with x BUT you could improve on x and x” so his idea of personal conversations seem more professional or impersonal instead of genuine. or i think he may see everything too strategically and doesn’t take human emotion into consideration enough. like impulse decisions, he doesn’t get that sometimes bits of passion push you to do things, like guarnere being upset his brother died, or liebgotts hate for german POWs / part 2

because he is thinking about the bigger more rational picture of it instead of the deeper reasons for their actions. i’m sure he knows what’s going on, don’t mistake it for him being ignorant towards that, he feels like everyone else. i just think his is more guarded due to years of internalizing on his own part. dick obviously has an overwhelming sense of responsibility, he’s a natural born leader. so he puts himself aside because that’s what he thinks a leader should do / part 3

and to the people in dicks life who care about him, like nix who is at times over emotional and will share his thoughts and yell his problems out loud, they take dicks lack of forefront emotion to mean he doesn’t like him. when that’s the complete opposite, he’s putting his own emotions aside as a way to show he wants to be strong for nix and let nix know that his emotions are the most important thing to dick, so much so his inner thoughts and feelings can be pent up to listen to nix’s own

Ooof, there’s a lot to unpack here so I had to take a little while to digest it, but...

No doubt, Dick’s modest and restrained upbringing played a major role in the man he became.  It definitely taught him humility, that working hard and quietly is better them being a showman.  When you compare someone like Nix, with his Upper East Side upbringing, to Dick, the contrast is clear.  It could come down to sheer personality, but Nix is outspoken and emotional, almost erratic with it at times.   No doubt Dick feels things just as keenly, but he’s learned to keep it inside. 

I have to disagree on your main point, though.  I think Dick does understand emotions.  He doesn’t let them influence his own decision-making, but he has a keen understanding of the people around him  ---  he wouldn’t be such an effective leader if he didn’t.   He knows that Guarnere’s anger is motivated by grief, and definitely must have sympathy for him; but Dick is able to look at the situation rationally, and realize that Guarnere is putting all their lives at risk for the sake of his own vendetta.  (Interestingly, Winters yelling at guarnere is one of the few times we see him lose control, even a little.)

During Nix’s mini-breakdown, he gets it.  He doesn’t completely know how to handle it  ---   because Nix’s emotions are so wildly different from his own, messy and mercurial  ---   but Dick is there, a quiet support when his friend needs it.  Compare this to how Nix reacts when he sees Dick is upset: he talks around the issue, offering semi-awkward reassurances that don’t really hit at the heart of Dick’s actual problem, but acknowledge it nonetheless.   (Hall’s death is a great example.  Dick is struggling with losing someone under his command; Nix can only assure him that the map they obtained will do a lot of good. This validates both Dick’s efforts and Hall’s sacrifice, offering Dick a small measure of peace.)

On the topic of Hall  ---   here’s a great example of how Dick understands people.  Hear me out, here. He’s just dropped into Normandy, and his only companion is a scared kid he only kind of knows. It’s a bad situation. Both their lives are on the line.

A livejournal post from 2009 explains it best:

I can’t resist giving you this whole conversation, cause it so illuminates Winters’ character without being heavy-handed. Winters: “So you’re a radio man.” Hall: “Yes sir. I was, sir, until I lost my radio in the jump. I’m sure I’ll get chewed out for that.” Winters: “Well if you were in my platoon, I’d tell you you are a rifleman first and a radio man second.” Hall: “Maybe you can tell that to my platoon leader when we find him. If we find him.” Winters: “It’s a deal. But first, I need your help. Locate some landmarks to get our bearings. Keep your eyes peeled for buildings, farmhouses, bridges, roads, trees…” Hall: (laughs) “I wonder if the rest of them are as lost as we are.” Winters: “We’re not lost. We’re in Normandy.” Hall is clearly scared. But Winters, man… 1) makes conversation, which makes Hall feel more normal in this crazy environment, 2) reassures Hall that he’s not a screw-up, so he feels stronger, 3) calls Hall a “rifleman first”, which makes an excellent point and teaches Hall something, 4) by calling him a “rifleman”, focuses Hall on his identity as a soldier (as opposed to a technician), which might save their lives if they run into trouble, 5) enlists Hall’s “help” to distract him from his fear, 6) makes him laugh, and 7) reassures him that they’re not lost; that Winters has the situation under control. See that? It takes me longer to explain the awesome than for Winters to be awesome. That’s how awesome he is.

Winters’s approach to emotions is practical, but he gets them. He’s got a keen sense of how to communicate, and what works for each man. Actually, he works best one-on-one with the men, instead of stuck behind a desk. Other peoples’ emotions aren’t his problem.

You definitely hit on something when you say he puts his own emotions aside, though. That might be the core of Winters’ character flaws  ---  he represses his own feelings, always making room for others. There’s no doubt he’s got a blindspot when it comes to Nix  (at times, he’s overly-tolerant, almost enabling Nix’s self-destructive behaviors); Nix is the closest person to him during the war. He sees Nix at his worst...  but even when Dick’s really struggling, he doesn’t open up to his friend. Is he the sort of person who prefers not to share his feelings? Probably. Still, Dick rarely vocalizes what he feels, keeping it all inside. I could see him...  as the sort of person to push aside what’s best for him to make room for other people.  He lets them have center-stage, and his natural humility keeps him from claiming even the recognition he’s earned.  He’s not the sort of person comfortable in the limelight.  The only reason he advanced so far in the army wasn’t because he was pushing his own accomplishments, but impressing everyone else with his obvious skill and experience.  In another setting  ---  say, a workplace ---  Dick’s reticence might lead to him getting passed over for promotions or drowned out by louder voices.  He doesn’t pursue what he wants, personally, only what the people around him need.

Just my thoughts, and thank you so much for sharing yours. Anyone else who wants to chime in on Winters’ flaws is welcome!!

[mimssides]

Life on Crow Avenue: Part 12

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Warning: Past self-harm by Patton through cutting!

The scene where Patton reveals his cutting scars will be marked like this so you might skip it if you need to.

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A little snore came from Roman, which quickly quieted down into a soft breathing in and out. Remus held him for a good while, none of the three speaking. At once Remus began to raise his voice, face turned away from Patton and Virgil. He sounded a bit sad, a bit wary but yet he was speaking and told them quietly: “I haven’t seen him in such a bad state in a while… Screaming doesn’t usually happen.”

“Well, I’d be having terrible nightmares as well if one of my cousins or uncles and aunts would have tried to kill themselves,” Virgil retorted and Remus turned back to look at him.

Virgil regretted his words on the spot. The guilt in Remus’s eyes was soul crushing and speechless Virgil gulped and looked down to his lap unable to think of anything that could excuse what he just had said.

“It’s not your fault that you feel like this, Remus. Roman knows and so do we. Don’t make yourself responsible for feeling the way you do.”

Patton’s voice was calm and kind. His whole personality had always seemed so soothing to Remus and he could barely comprehend it. Could barely understand how one single man could fit so much compassion and sympathy in his chest. Remus forced a smile and ruffled Roman’s hair. He did not budge and Remus sighed.

“Maybe it’s because he made me sleep in the same bed after the last time when it happened… So, he was sure that I was still there and all that. After all, there was nobody but him to keep an eye on me. He had to rely on himself. And now I wasn’t next to him, so that might have freaked him out additionally,” Remus mused more to himself than the others.

Patton furrowed his brows and pressed his lips together while watching Roman sleeping against Remus’s side. He had done the math when Remus had said they were seventeen at the time when the accident happened and that it has been nine years ago. The twins were twenty-six. Young adults, only in their mid-twenties and already had to vigorously fight for themselves to even get a standing in the word. It felt so wrong to Patton. That they went through so much pain and injustice.

“You know I love him,” Patton was suddenly ripped out of his train of thoughts by Remus speaking up, “but he gets fucking heavy after a while. Help me getting him back to bed? I’m not sure I can carry him there on my own.”

For a moment Patton’s brain completely blanked until Virgil got up with a huff and walked over to Roman’s other side. Perplexed Patton watched how Remus repositioned himself and grabbed his brother under his arms before looking up to Virgil and asking doubtfully: “You sure there’s some muscles on those wimpy arms of yours? He’s not a light-weight after all.”

“I could ask you the same. You look just as wimpy as me,” Virgil countered deadpanned and grabbed Roman by the legs.

Remus chuckled a little and mumbled under his breath: “Touché. Now let’s get him back to bed.”

With that Remus hefted Roman up and with Virgil’s help carried him towards the hallway. To Remus’s luck Virgil was indeed stronger than he looked and they had little problem to get his sleeping brother back to his room. Swiftly Remus ordered Virgil to walk backwards inside and wanted to carefully lay him down on bed when Virgil suddenly stood still and uttered perplexed: “The fuck?”

Remus blinked confusedly until he realized that the young man stared at the mattress on the floor and rolled his eyes annoyed.

“Where’s the bed frame? Where’s the rest of the bed, Remus?” Virgil asked again to what Remus only sighed.

“He’s got a mattress. A new one even! That’s ought to count for something right? Also, can we please just lay him down? He’s getting heavy.”

Virgil glared at Remus but helped him putting Roman down on the mattress and waited with saying anything until Remus had tucked Roman in and shooed him and Patton out of the room. With a pout Virgil turned around and started to walk back into the living room, Remus following him with a sigh Patton in tow. Virgil was upset and let Remus know as much when he stared at him the second, they were all back in the living room.

With an offloading gesture Virgil then said to Remus: “Why does he not have a proper bed, Remus? And do you sleep on a mattress as well? Why did you not-”

“We don’t know how to do that!”

Remus’s voice rarely got so loud and agitated. His breath rarely ran so fast. Reflexively, Remus crossed his arms in front of his chest and pressed his fingers into his upper arms.

“We didn’t have the money or the space to buy bed frames for, Virgil,” Remus said so much timider than before. “For the longest time we shared a mattress in the backrooms of the places we rented and only in the last year it was enough to buy two mattresses. I also have an ancient bedframe, which was left in this building. I know it’s not enough and that we ought to have got a bedframe for him but we never did that before. All the furniture and equipment we ever bought was for the store. Never for us. There was no money to get something like that for us. We haven’t done that and it’s - it’s weird to start doing it now? I know it shouldn’t be, it’s not so different from what we already did, but it is and I don’t know how to do it now.”

Virgil gulped and looked down to his shoes. Anger and frustration never helped improving someone’s mental health. At least it had never done himself any good. He remembered the frustrated hisses from his younger cousins when he failed to speak up for himself, the out-worn patience of his mother when he had yet again come home with bruises from other kids or a failed assignment due to his inabitly to speak in front of people.

“Sorry,” Virgil said slightly looking up and watching Remus tiredly scratch the back of his neck, “I should have been more compassionate. Like, I struggle with so many basic tasks, it’s terribly hypocritical of me to judge you for this.”

Remus just shrugged in response and stared down to the floor. He did not really care anymore. Caring took a lot out of him and usually it was all already spent on Roman. Today he didn’t have it in himself to care much more, Remus believed and instead let himself lean back and rested his head on the back lean of the couch.

“You should tell your uncle that I do not expect him to fix Ro... I know it’s a fuckton of work and that he’s a stubborn bitch. I’m not sure if I’ve been clear enough for him,” Remus said at once and he heard a muffled noise which he decided was probably a huff or chuckle.

“I think his problem with you is that you’re too direct for him, not too unclear” Virgil said and Remus grinned a little.

People had told him that his whole life. Too straightforward, which was rather ironic considering how queer he was, and too loud and inappropriate. But then again, he really did not know many children who had such intimate knowledge of human bowels that they could recreate inner organs with felt and sew them into a teddy bear, which they then ripped open dramatically at the weekly show-and-tell back in first grade. His teacher had screamed and many children had run away in fear, while Remus was laughing and having the time of his life. Well, until they had called his mother and he had to write an apology letter for the class. Writing apology letters, well writing in general really, wasn’t his strong suit and Roman had helped him come up with something, despite having been one of the kids who had screamed the loudest. Roman had always been an easy scare. Sometimes a little too easy to still be fun for Remus actually. It was why he had stopped making him his victim but his partner in crime. Which was really fun because no one ever was able to tell them apart and people could easily be messed with when they were uncertain to which twin, they were speaking to or didn’t know one of them even was a twin. That had led to the whole prank with June Bittenbinder, which was up to this day one of proudest pranks Remus had ever pulled.

Revelling in memories Remus hadn’t noticed the ratty blanket being thrown over his legs or that Patton’s arm brushed his from time to time. Only when he heard a little snicker, Remus closed his mouth (wait why was his mouth open in the first place?) and looked to his left where Patton sat and giggled.

“That poor girl! You two really had it out for her,” Patton said gently to Remus’s confusion and he blinked several times.

About what was Patton talking? Remus wanted to ask but found himself rubbing his neck and realizing how dry his throat was. But there was no reason for that, right?

“You did not realize you were rambling, did you?”

Patton patted Remus’s upper arm and Remus leaned against the touch. He frowned and looked down to his knees before he looked back up again to meet Patton’s dirty brown eyes, pulling at something in Remus’s soul he hadn’t known he even possessed.

“I didn’t? I was talking?” Remus asked meekly and watched how Patton’s eyebrow twitched a little as his expression grew a little sadder.

Patton’s hand stayed on Remus’s shoulder and the small, far too cute smile remained on Patton’s face, something Remus was so grateful for.

“You were,” Patton said patiently and motioned with his chin to Virgil huddled against his shoulder fast asleep, “quite a bit even. It seemed like you needed to get it out of your system and so I let you talk and stopped Virgil from disrupting you. I believe, he found your voice quite soothing.”

Blankly, Remus stared at the young man sleeping leaned against Patton’s side. People didn’t find him soothing. They didn’t like him talking. Even less rambling.

“And I liked it too. Quite a bit so even. You’ve got a fascinating way of telling stories, Remus. I enjoyed it a lot.”

Remus let himself gaze at Patton and pulled the blanket on his knees up. With a sigh he nuzzled himself against the fabric and took a few breathes before he decided to speak again.

“Thank you, I guess. I didn’t even notice that my lips were moving. Or that time had passed…”

“It’s alright. It’s not like we’re in a rush…”

An agreeing hum. Silence set itself over them.

“You didn’t hear me.”

Remus grinned a little and just glanced to Patton. He met his look firmly.

“You didn’t hear me when I called for you to wait for me. So, why? Why did you not jump?”

A tiny exhale mixed with the ghost of a chuckle.

“Oh Poppy. Just because my head’s cruel to me doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all. I saw you running. I knew you were coming for me. You were going to blame yourself if I hadn’t been standing up there anymore. And I won’t make you feel responsible for my suicide. I’m not that mean.”

The silence wrapped itself around them. They sat so close and were yet so far away it seemed. Remus let his thumb brush over the side of his pointer finger and felt himself breath in and out for a while. His throat was dry and he decided that he might want to drink a coffee.

Softly Remus put the blanket down and nudged Patton in the arm.

“Coffee?”

Patton nodded and watched Remus stand up and disappear in the kitchen. His words stuck with Patton. ‘Poppy’ rang in his ears and he rearranged himself so Virgil looked more comfortable in his position against him. He listened to the water boiling in the kettle and how mugs were sat down on the counter. Remus was not exactly quiet while doing his chores and Patton felt almost a little stupid for not noticing sooner that something might have been off about Remus’s hearing.

“Milk? Sugar?” it came from the kitchen.

“Both! Three teaspoons of sugar please!”

Patton heard a quiet hum and then Remus soon showed up with two cups in his hands. Gingerly he placed one with a rainbow in front of him while keeping his own cup in his hands. Patton looked at it and it seemed to be some cheap merchandise from Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Tentacles. Really fit his aesthetic.

“I get why Roman is so scared at the prospect of losing you…” Patton said quietly but loud enough so Remus could still hear him. “But I also understand why you … you would want to hurt yourself. Maybe not to the extent you want to, but I get it. I’ve been there.”

Patton paused and let his eyes linger on Remus’s face. Sorrow, surprise, disbelieve. He had seen it all before but somehow now they seemed to matter more. Matter more coming from a man who had tried to jumping from a rooftop today. Matter more coming from the man he had stopped from jumping from a rooftop today.

“I… I don’t have a lot of close family,” Patton said feeling his voice waver but pushing through, “only my parents. They were supportive. Always. Even when it meant cutting off ties with their families who were unsupportive of who I was. And I am grateful for that every day of my life. I truly am. My mother did so much for me and – Let’s not go into that. She, she really was amazing and then she got sick when I was nineteen. It got down so quickly; I barely knew what was happening. And then from one day to the other she was just – gone.”

Patton licked his lips and grabbed his right forearm.

“I didn’t take it well. In fact – I was miserable. And so desperately lonely and in so much pain. I did not know what to do with myself so I – I got destructive.”

Patton let go of his arms and softly placed his hands at the hem of his shorts. Quickly he exchanged a look with Remus, before he then pulled the fabric up and revealed the skin beneath. Revealed some faint, some not so faint looking scars from cuts over the inner side of Patton’s thigh. Some of them were quite long, others shorter and piled on top of each other. Wordlessly, Patton rolled his shorts back down and exhaled for a moment.

Patton felt a shiver run down his spine. It was not easy for him to admit his weaknesses. His flaws and mistakes.

A hand on his shoulder. Patton turned his head and saw Remus levelling his look and pressing his lips together.

For this it was worth it.

“I was doing this for around half a year. That’s how long I could hide it. Then I worried my friends from college so much that they called my Dad and he had me take a timeout. Had me go to therapy after ages of discussing and fighting and me claiming that it was for naught anyway. That it would not change anything as it could not bring her back. But after a while of me going, well, it did change things.”

“It fixed you?”

Remus’s voice sounded full of doubt and the look in his eyes clearly showed the scepticism in his word, which made Patton grin a little.

“No, it didn’t. It helped me though. A lot. I stopped cutting and my therapist advised me to pick up something to do instead, among other things of course. For me that was drawing. I became pretty good at it and it eventually helped me get into my current career after I dropped out of college. And there are still times when I need help. I can go months without a meeting but then out of nowhere I feel old thoughts, old patterns appeal to me again. Then I go and make an appointment just to talk it out and recentre myself.”

Patton paused and squeezed his hands together for a moment. Then he entangled them and put one hand on Remus’s which was still residing on his shoulder.

Faithfully, Patton looked at Remus and said sincerely: “I know this sounds unrealistic and not true to you, but I believe that therapy would help you, Remus. Roman will not be able to heal you neither will the others or I. But I believe you can get better. I believe you could be happier. I know you deserve it and I think you should consider trying it at least.”

Remus gulped. Patton watched the micro-expressions of his face change in a hart beat, the thought supposedly running through his head. Patton still held his hand and he felt it twitching and let go of it only for Remus to take it again a second after. They look at each other, having a conversation, pleading at one another to just listen and hopefully accept what they asked the other.

“I’m not sure if there even is something salvageable about me anymore…” Remus mumbled.

Patton’s look fell. But his lips were still kept in a smiling position and Remus sighed. For him he forced himself to remain positive. To remain optimistic.

“But, I guess, considering it isn’t half so bad,” Remus gave in.

There suddenly was warmth. Warmth radiating from Patton’s person and again – this little spark that Remus didn’t think should be there –

Arms were flung around him. Warm, soft arms and breath tickling the nape of his neck. Mechanically, Remus returned the gesture and felt Patton relax in their embrace. Of course. He must have been stressed as hell, if this was his background. And yet he had remained staying here with him. He had shared this with him.

“Thank you, Poppy,” Remus mumbled in Patton’s hair and patted his back soothingly. “It means a lot to me. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

They stayed like that for a few more minutes before Patton moved a little and asked for a second blanket to tuck Virgil in. After a five-minute search the eventually found a second one and Virgil was tucked in, they sat back down nipping at their coffees and let the silence of the night sit in between them.

That was until Remus said, rubbing his shoulder softly against Patton’s: “I probably shouldn’t pry but who else knows about them? Like around whom do I watch my mouth?”

Patton glanced up and shook his head a little, distracting himself from the thoughts occupying his mind.

“I think Logan knows… I haven’t really said it but he knows me from high school and he knew something was different when we met again and I dropped some hints and he’s really smart so. He probably knows. And well, uhm-” Patton broke off and glanced over to Virgil with a flush so dark that Remus could see it despite the dim light.

Curiously Remus smirked and nudged Patton in the side while asking: “I’m sensing a scandalous confession coming, sugar puff. Spill the tea~”

Patton coughed a little to hide his embarrassment a little before admitting: “I, uh, Janus knows about the scars because he kinda saw themwhenweslepttogether.”

Patton was steeling himself for a mocking comment but nothing came. Cautiously, he looked to Remus and suddenly realized that he probably had not understood what he had rambled so quickly. Apologetically, he scratched the back for his neck and took a deep breath so he could try again.

“We had a one-night stand, soon after we met. Well, like on the night we met actually. He didn’t comment on them though, so I don’t know what exactly he gathered out of it.”

Carefully Patton watched Remus’s expression. First it was blank, then it turned into something more impressed to Patton’s surprise.

“Respect. He’s an attractive guy, so I cannot fault you for it. But how on earth did that whole meeting go down?” Remus asked.

Unbelievingly Patton stared at him before he broke into a giggle and started to tell Remus the story of the night, he and Logan had met Janus, leaving the darker topics slip in the back of their minds for the rest of the night.

___

@varthandi

@sickeningly-deceitful

@sammy-is-obsessed / @exhaustedfander

@unoriginalgayboyalex

@alexisrealgay

@softie-sushi

@wolfs-feder

@just-a-neoclassical-painting

 Tagged for this fic:

@frawkeye

@arodynamic-enby

@espepspes​

@ladysuperheros

@bullet-tothefeels

@fukindork

@shadeofadye

@magic-but-its-green

@liv-is-a-fander

@croftersjam15

[commander-orca]

COTW FANFICTION

CHAPTER 8: MY ANGER LOVES YOU DEARLY

It was rare for Rochalizo to feel such uneasiness in the face of a mundane situation of this kind. He knew he was the type to resist others’ bad state of minds and could ignore without too much difficulty or sympathy those who gave in to tears or panic. A few months ago, he used to be insensitive to the suffering of others, even laughing at those who felt easily pressured or sad. Few things could move him in Amonlogia, where he struggled to find his place and crossed the city from day to day, withdrawn and shut in like an oyster. Here, it was different. He had the unpleasant feeling that his shell had split open to the limit. Suddenly he was attached to anyone and was moved by everything; recent events had upset him and broken through all his emotional defenses. His promise to help the residents still stood. But he was now sure he would not come back unscathed from this adventure. After the attack by the Gerakis forces, the smallest things worried him and this weapon which he usually carried casually around his belt, forgetting it most of the time, was now found a frightening number of times in his hands, clutching at the slightest suspicious noise. He had become far more protective than he ever thought he would be, keeping an eye on the locals, counting their numbers sometimes.

The light was barely reaching his legs, which were crossed on the chair in the corner of the room; the air smelled of ink and musty. With a weak breath, he cleared away from his sight the long wick which fell on his eyes. He was in the central tower of the island, in the room used by consultants as a meeting place to discuss and deliver certain laws and decisions of average, sometimes negligible importance. This place also served as an office for filling out papers, drafting decrees and speeches. More importantly, it was the antechamber opening onto the tower’s large balcony from which the captain spoke. For half an hour already, everyone had been busy in this too small room - which, let's be honest, had real claustrophobic effects - in order to finalize the imminent speech of the leader. Papers flew in all directions, pens fluttered, consultants made a few final recommendations, their insufferable voices taking on a high pitched tone with each turn of the clock hand which throbbed in the hubbub as uncomfortable as the heat. Backed up against the wall, Suoh put up with these recommendations, head bowed, his hand gripping the wall, barely standing on his legs. He looked pale, on the verge of fainting ... Rochalizo turned his head away, feeling that familiar retching resurface.

It was with Suoh that he had been most surprised. Staying by his side had taught him patience, when he had had to refrain from putting his stupid brain back in place ... But also had somehow, developed, he reluctantly admitted, his sense of empathy. , his kindness and selflessness. Being in the company of such a loving person must have rubbed off on him. What came next wouldn't surprise anyone; he had become attached to him, his usual gentleness sometimes relieving his moments of doubt or distress. It was something that had fascinated him from start to finish; the cries, the threats, any attempt to destroy him ... He responded to all of this with doubly more destructive outbursts of kindness.

That kindness had ended up grating, though, inevitably. So much so that Suoh once asked him to teach him how to shoot. So that he could end human lives. Rochalizo hated this turnaround. He had had fun at the start, making fun of him and his unconsciousness and like a child in whom one would take pleasure in distorting their innocence, he could not help but communicate his cynicism, his sense of the opportunism. But the dreadful realization that each day the young chief began to resemble himself and his brothers, aroused in him a nauseating disgust. Suddenly he felt guilty and if he had been able to turn back time so that Suoh would forever remain an ignorant lulled in sweet delusions, he would have done so without a regret. The worst had been when he had watched him with his own eyes wield a weapon, shoot innocent people, he who was repelled by all forms of violence ... It had seemed to him at the time that by shooting these bullets in the chest soldiers, Suoh had at the same time eradicated what he had been. The former Suoh was probably dead. And the new Suoh had almost been gone. A few hopes away from being changed into a flesh doll, a moving corpse forever. Recovered, -or almost-, he had only been entitled to a few ridiculous hours of convalescence before having to resume his role. Perhaps that was why this kindness dissolved like honey in tea, because people were exploiting the resources he had, without ever sparing him or treating him.

This is why, when he saw Suoh, with a pale face and folded hands, slump against the wall and pray for the speech to be postponed, Rochalizo felt his stomach turn violently. Near the young chief, the advisers in their long sober dresses, mingled in protests and in virulent encouragements. They formed a tight circle around him, some standing, loudly indignant, others leaning over him like idle parents over-brooding their offspring. Rochalizo uncrossed his legs, getting up to approach the stage. Suoh had crouched down with his back to the wall, the top of his head was covered with his hands in despondency and his eyes were closed and constricted. Even in the shadow of his elders, his waxy complexion was striking. His disheveled hair and his wrinkled tunic were proof that he had slept too little to think of taking care of his image.The elder counselor went into a fit of nervous anger, this Kuchiba who apparently served as a mentor figure to Suoh, but who Rochalizo thought to be useful only for unnecessary stress.

"Come on Suoh, get up, you have to go!" Everyone is counting on you! He insisted, trying to pull him by the shoulders.

"You have to go anyway, they're all together downstairs already," the black-haired counselor whispered to him, crouching down next to her boss.

Suoh lowered his head into his knees. His breathing was wheezing and his fingernails hollowed out his scalp, strands of light hair pulled painfully through his fingers. His knees against each other had started to shake.

“Please,” he begged once again, “I can't do it. I'm not going to make it... "There was a short silence during which the advisers looked at each other in dismay. Kuchiba reordered his neatly stacked papers and grumbled under his breath, stunned.

"I don't understand what puts him in such an awful state...

-It can't be the stage fright, he was never really impressed by all this ... "

At the back of the room, their only view of the outside, this panorama of a grandiose blue sky offered by the opening in the clay had become dizzying. The heat waves just came in and out, wrapped around their clothes. From the lodge there was an impatient, ragged hum. There was something oppressive about the roar of the sea, coming and going.

Shinono, the youngest counselor, took a soothing voice and matched it with a hand on her shoulder.

"Suoh, answer ... Tell us what's wrong ..."

Rochalizo couldn't take it anymore. If a single stupid phrase came out of their mouths again, he was going to implode. Did they not see? In this state, nothing could be earned from him. The poor monkey was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And a bunch of loud morons was sure to increase his agitation.

“Suoh, hey! What will people say if you-

-They won’t say shit, folks. Get away ! Rochalizo retorted, working his way through the advisers to Suoh.

His face had taken on two shades of red in anger and his irregular breathing showed that he was barely controlling himself not to give in to aggressive behaviour. With a few rustles of fabric, he joined the chef and grabbed him firmly by the arm. His annoyance worked on his strength as he managed to lift Suoh with just one effort. Suoh was so surprised he didn't say a word. The advisers now gathered around Rochalizo, watching him with a sort of admiration on his face. Poor, they were going to be disappointed.

"Can't you see he can't do it ?! Leave him alone! He snapped to their attention as he crossed the room, holding a still dazed Suoh around the waist.

Finally, the advisers seemed to understand that things were not going to turn in their favor. Their protests grew heavier. Several followed them to the door.

" Hey ! Come back! Kuchiba exclaimed, brandishing his fist in the air, "The speech should have started at least a good three minutes ago!" "

But Rochalizo was determined not to stop. He could feel it, he had to get it out of here. He crossed the threshold of the door not looking back, furious.

"Improvise your bloody speech yourself!" The only thing he's going to do is go rest! "

Rochalizo then took the direction of the hut in which Suoh dwelled, walking in determined strides. The heels of his boots clattered against the dry clay, and his sword, tied to his belt, clanged faintly in the long hanging gallery. Suoh still hadn't said a word to him; maybe he thought it was pointless. Either way, the silence sounded like elusive, crestfallen approval. He quickened his pace, convinced, and went out into the pleasantly deserted streets, since everyone had gone to the tower to hear the speech which would not be spoken.

Arrived at Suoh's, the young man heard himself sigh with relief; to be honest, he didn't really know what he had expected. Perhaps a neglected bedroom that would have allowed him to find with compelling evidence that something was wrong with him. He could not say, however, if he was more relieved than annoyed. If he listened to that little voice in his head and the way his fists clenched against his leg, he was sure he wanted to find something. Indeed, the current situation left him nothing concrete to be able to confront Suoh without appearing to be a nosy or a sentimental idiot. Rochalizo coughed to dispel his discomfort and grabbed Suoh by the shoulders, seating him on the bed, but this discomfort instead of disappearing, filled him up him like water in a bathtub. Suoh gave him a grateful look.

"Rochalizo ... Thank you".

The young man met his eyes, embarrassed. His hands tightened around the stakes on the footboards. What was to answer that? He was probably worse than those stupid advisers. Suoh was old enough to fend for himself, to support his own choices on his own, and Rochalizo had only acted like a mother hen, as if Suoh was a little child in need of a chaperone. He felt ashamed that he had behaved so impulsively and thought he understood exactly what his friend in the tower was feeling.

"Uh ... well ..." he began, rubbing the tip of his boot against the edge of the pink carpet.

But in the end, wasn't it all Suoh's fault? His index and middle finger, both set with thick golden rings, came to rest on the top of his mouth. He could not be blamed for wishing to check his condition. If Suoh had shown himself to be truly responsible, he would have made the decision to return home on his own and would have asserted himself. His tearful demeanor was causing concern to everyone around him, so it was his fault. The fool, why didn't he say anything if he felt low ?! Was he going to let everyone walk all over him until there was nothing left of him ?! Rochalizo fixed his eyes on those of the young chief, invigorated with a new irascibility. Furious, he leaned over Suoh and grabbed him by the collar violently, bringing his silly face close to his.

"WHAT WAS THAT, EH ?! CARE TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED IN YOUR HEAD ?! DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO START YOUR LITTLE BREAKDOWN ON A WHIM?! STUPID MONKEY!”

Suoh froze, scared. His eyes, wide open in dismay, did not let go of Rochalizo's. For the first time of the day, to the immense satisfaction of the marquis, these green pupils had stopped looking at him without seeing him and gave him all their attention. Suoh had stopped seeing him as the ghost of someone he could push away and lie to as he pleased. Oh because Suoh hadn't said much yet but Rochalizo knew he would try to lie to him. The smile he had given him with his thanks had already been.

"Rochalizo ...

-DONT TALK! I’M FED UP WITH YOU! "

Suoh blinked several times, stunned to be scolded like this. Rochalizo released his garment and thrust his varnished index finger into his chest. His tone of voice had dropped, but he was still speaking loudly and the nervousness in his words was palpable. He was fuming.

"Now, instead of worrying everyone, you're going to rest! I’m leaving you no choice! ”

Immediately giving shape to his words, the marquis walked around the bed and pushed aside the covers of the box spring, shook the pillow to air it out and also straightened the headboard. Suoh watched him do it, speechless. When he was done, he dragged Suoh by the shoulders to the other end of his bed and pulled the covers back over his knees.

" Lay over. Or do you want me to do that for you too?”, He mumbled, staring at a still frozen Suoh.

Suoh swallowed his lips lightly, probably in the throes of an inner dilemma. He chose still to be docile and to submit to Rochalizo's requests, if it could not be said that they were rather radical orders. His face crumpled up a bit and he proceeded to push the corners of the duvet and bedspreads between the mattress and the frame once Suoh was lying between the sheets. The action made him blush, it was strange to find himself there tucking Suoh in and especially expressing his concern to him so openly. His pride had just taken a hell of a beating ... It was also just as unsettling to be leaning over him like a protector and showing this facet of himself being... Soft? How awful... Rochalizo suddenly stepped back, his cheeks flushed.

" Is everything alright ? Suoh asked, who had just jumped from his sudden withdrawal.

"Uh ... Yeah, yeah, it's fine, it's fine ..."

Rochalizo had replied automatically. His brain took a few seconds to process their short exchange. Once again, he felt anger radiate through him.

“A minute. You’re the one asking me that ?! "Suoh hunched over like a shriveled flower, fearing another fit of anger. But the insufferable habit he had of always taking care of others to his disadvantage took over this time.

“Accept my apologies if I’ve offended you, Rochalizo. You look anxious to me, that's why I'm asking "

Rochalizo would have liked to give him scold him again, it was not the urge that he lacked and the blood still boiled in his veins to this effect. However, he could only stare at him in the whites of his eyes and crush his face into his hand. Sighing, he sat down on the side of the bed, giving Suoh barely a second to shift his legs.

"You really don't get it, you hopeless case."

Suoh straightened up on his elbows, attentive to his movements. Rochalizo imagined, knowing him, that he was already looking for a way to be forgiven. This simple thought was enough to upset him. Why was he like this? Why was Suoh just a bunch of second thoughts whose contents he’d never reveal to others? It didn't make things any easier ...

"I don't quite understand, but if it's because of the speech ...

"Obviously it's because of the speech," muttered the marquis, his head bowed, through his teeth.

"My intention was not to be a burden to you," Suoh whispered to him, after he had straightened up and he put a pale hand on his forearm, "Nor to cause you to worry. Forgive me ".

-Suoh, is that hard for you not to speak in apologies? Rochalizo cursed at him, his eyes dark.

Suoh gave him a rueful smile.

"I guess I'll drop the apologies for today."

They both let the calm of the small room overwhelm them. It was lukewarm and the down was as comfortable on the top as it was when standing inside. Rochalizo's eye was drawn to the pots of cacti that bloomed at their own pace on the shelf and the many tubs of blue flowers that were becoming more beautiful every day. Bathing in the only ray of sunlight, a miniature tomato plant gleamed quietly and grew, more fertile than ever, given a perfectly adequate amount of water. An ear of lavender, too long to be arranged, escaped from one of the open drawers of the dresser, kept in a patch of damp earth. Everything here breathed life and thrived through the care and love that was given to them. Everything ... Except one thing.

Suoh rested his head gently against Rochalizo's shoulder. It was done gradually, first because his position stiffened the back of his neck and tilting his head seemed like a good compromise. Then because he realized that words might be too much in this heated dispute caused by clumsy misunderstandings. Rochalizo surely would never admit it, but those little gestures were at fault if he didn't manage to hold it against Suoh for too long. When his cheek was pressed against his shoulder, he felt caught in the whirlwind of something bigger than himself, of a universal and unconditional tenderness that did not belong to humans.

Rochalizo did not look at him, but as he got lost in the pots of the blue flowers, had the impression that their eyes had met. His azure fingernails scraped his own thigh despite being able to do anything.

"I don't like it when you’re not looking after yourself ..."

Too fast, too recklessly, Suoh's fingers had speared his face and forced him to watch him from up close. His face surrounded by his hair was like the tall trees of a forest which covered the sky and made you lose your way. Not this scary perdition, rather this unstoppable urge to run through the woods and never come back. A powerful instinct to obey that insistent question that came to mind who whispered "What would happen if I ran away from all civilization and got lost in these woods?" Rochalizo exhaled painfully.

"Your concern is precious to me".

A smile. A simple and yet too evocative smile. In a flash, Rochalizo recognized in those cursed features the memory of an expression that had paralyzed him, that had haunted his nights these days, had even given him nightmares. For a moment, he saw the gunshots again, the murderous rifle in those white hands, the rows of helmets and iron boots, the cries and those words he heard echo every time his feet brought him back unconsciously at this location.

"No ... No, shut up, it's not concern," he gasped, breathlessly, holding back his despair, "You ... you really don't understand."

Not giving in to tears, all that remained was anger. It was the best he could do after all.

"There is no one more inconsiderate than you! Can't you see you're screwing yourself up ?! And for whom? For a herd of ungrateful people who don't even see how much you sacrifice yourself for them! "

His face slipped out of Suoh's reach but Rochalizo didn't back down. He confronted him with fierce aplomb. Suoh was the one who looked down at this accusation he couldn't afford to deny.

"It is the role of the leader of the Whale, I cannot oppose it-

-Who is preventing you ?!

- ... But I'm happy. I am happy to offer myself to its inhabitants ... "Suoh continued, ignoring his interruption," I don't think this is a sacrifice.

-So you are completely blind!”, Rochalizo exploded, his eyes so dilated they looked like they were going to disappear.

His breathing heavy, he resumed, swallowing behind clenched teeth:

“You are just a puppet that they use to ensure the obedience of the people. They steal your life away with all their prohibitions. And in the meantime, they let you destroy yourself. But by carrying on like this, you will soon be incapacitated. And all those people you care about so much, they're all going to DIE ”.

Suoh flinched and jumped back suddenly, as if the Marquis had just burned his face with a tinplate. He clenched his fists, his fingernails sunk so deeply into his palms that he was quickly seized with a sharp pain. He couldn't understand. Rochalizo was just a foreigner. He hadn't grown up here. He knew nothing of the ties that bound the inhabitants to each other or to this island, nor of this ineffably sacred responsibility which had become his.

“No one else is going to die,” Suoh bellowed, “You don't know what you're talking about!

-Of course I know!

-No, you who fleed your country like an egoist, you know nothing of what I feel! I could die for them! Suoh yelled at him, his face twisted in frustration, trembling with fury, his mouth twisted.

He was about to hear Rochalizo and counter whatever he said, to say something else, maybe something that could be hurtful. Something that could have convinced him that what he was claiming. But Rochalizo stopped screaming. He lowered his head and grabbed his hands, crushed them in his.

"You fool ... Can't you see? I don't want you to die ”.

Suoh fell silent. Then the origin of the problem suddenly became clear to him. Slowly approaching Rochalizo, he pressed his forehead to the top of his head. The young man bore the same smell as him, the smell of milk. Why had Suoh said all those mean things? He belonged here, with them.

"It won't happen, Rochalizo".

Rochalizo gripped Suoh's face aggressively once again. This time his voice was sharp, threatening.

"Don't even dare to promise me such things!" It was only a few days ago when you ran towards the soldiers and ... I ... ", he shook his head to keep from thinking back to those terrifying events," I forbid you to speak of death as lightly as you do! "- he tightened his fist next to his face -" Suoh, in truth I do not care about your story of sacrifice. All I'm trying to tell you is ... Take care of yourself better than that! You have no idea what you're doing to yourself! Do you think you can live on sleepless nights, non-stop services to others and the punishments that you inflict on yourself ?! By neglecting your health ?! "

Suoh blinked, shocked, breathless. Even if he had wanted to speak, the words would not have come out.

" Lay over. I will not repeat it. "

Rochalizo got up from the bed, pretending that this exchange of screams hadn't happened. Staring down at him, he stared at him sternly, arms crossed, waiting for Suoh to do as he ordered. Suoh couldn't move for a few seconds. It seemed to him that Rochalizo's gaze pierced his skin like a million flamethrowers. The young chef quickly lay down and pulled the covers to his neck. Then Rochalizo came back to him and knelt at his bedside. He took Suoh's hands back in his and buried his face onto the mattress.

“You, forgive me. I didn't mean to scare you. You know very well that it is not against you that I am screaming ”.

Suoh slowly nodded. A slight piteous smile split his cheeks. His hand trailed tenderly through Rochalizo's hair.

"I didn't want to admit it but I'm afraid you're right ..."

Rochalizo looked up hopefully in his direction.

"Maybe thinking about myself once in a while would help, but ... I've always put others before me. I don't know how to take care of myself and ... I don't know if I would get any satisfaction from it ... "

Rochalizo smiled back and his eyes closed on his lids. His mocking sneer echoed through the room, but his face was marked with an unusual solar glee.

"Lucky you that I’m a selfish person then. Because I happen to know a ton of ways ”.

Suoh stared at his face, dazzled by Rochalizo's smile and he felt a familiar form of peace wash over him. For the first time, he was letting someone lift up the hearts and lighten up the mood for him. And he felt good. It was a small start, but it was a start.

[ghostlywriterneon]

KuraNeon Week. Day Two - Disguise/Ocean

Title: Water Friends

Rating: General Audience

Theme: Siren AU

Description: At the age of 8, Kurapika had stumbled across a beautiful cove far away from home. It was the perfect hiding spot to read his books or collect shells along the shore line. Unfortunately, someone had beat him to this perfect spot. Though, she wasn’t quite human. Sirens are normally seen as dangerous and sly creatures, but she didn’t seem so horrible? Honestly, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two of them. She had friends, she had cried at the loss of her mother, and she enjoyed everyday. If it weren’t for the gills and tail, she wouldn’t be different from any other human. They had become fast friends after their wariness from the grown-ups stories. And for the next 3 years, they would meet up every Saturday at 9pm. 

Stay away from humans, he said. They’re dangerous, he said. Pssh! They’re really not that bad. Sure some of them are people they have to watch out for, but it’s really not all of them. There are some humans that are curious to learn more about sirens or understand that they’re intelligent creatures too. That they are also creatures that are capable of making friends, feeling sympathy, and you know, enjoying life. Really, humans and sirens aren’t that different. Sure sometimes they snack a bit on humans and they can lure them to their deaths, but humans can do that too! She’s sure that there have been instances where humans have lured sirens in and then cut them up and made sushi out of them!

… Oh that was a disturbing thought. Alright, yanno, we’re going to pretend like that isn’t a thing. We’ll just ignore all thoughts of eating each other. Oh that sent chills down her spine. Yup, we’re done there.

She flicked her tail against the sand and water. Ugh, what’s taking him so long? Currently she was resting in her favorite cove. It was the one that always had the best looking shells long its coast. This one also happened to be one where humans rarely travel too. It was pretty far from their civilization from what her friend has told her. He travels here for the same reason as she does. The shells here are always in perfect condition and make really good gifts for others. He’s told her that his mother loves the shells he brings her, so he always eager to come here and gather more for her.

‘Hehe, what a cutie!’

Neon does this more for herself, but maybe she should start giving some away? Hm. Maybe she could fine a really pretty one for Kurapika! With that thought in mind, she slid herself back into the water and began her search for the prettiest shell here.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been searching, when she heard the call of her name. Immediately her head shot out of the water and she started to wave at the boy with a big smile on her face.

“Kurapika!! What took you so long?”

Ah darn, she hadn’t found the prettiest shell yet. Oh well, she was sure the conch shell will do.

“Sorry! My mom told me I had to study for an extra hour today. She caught me sneaking out last night.”

Is studying really a punishment for him? She can see that satchel. She knows that it’s filled with books. It’s probably even heavier than he is! She pulled herself back onto the shore. She wasn’t too far out of the water, after all she needed to keep her gills on her hips submerged, but most of her upper body was up and out of the water. She kept the shell to her side for now. She’ll give it to him when they go to leave.

“Sneaking out? Kura I never thought you had it in you! What were you doing? Tell me! You hafta tell me!”

He was kicking off his shoes and rolling up his pant legs as she was speaking to him. Even with his face turned away, she could see him blushing.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Oh how cute, he was mumbling!

“I was only hanging out with Pairo. We like to explore the woods at night. I usually don’t get caught, but dad was up a lot later than he normally is.”

He came to sit down near her, resting the exposed parts of his legs in the water. He was smiling at her, a bit nervously too. She couldn’t help but to tilt her head. ‘What’s that look for?’ She poked and pulled on his cheek earning herself a squeak from her friend.

“What are you smiling like that for, Kura? You’re gonna make me nervous if you keep that up!”

Another round of blush grew on his as he fumbled over his response to her.

“E-Eh? S-Smiling like what? I’m not smiling weird.”

Well, he didn’t slap her hand away or move away from her, so she’ll take that as permission to continuing to pull and pinch at his cheeks.

“Yes you are, dummy! You’re still smiling like you’re nervous about something! Come on, you can tell your super amazing, awesome best friend anything!”

She squished his cheeks together at the last part and that was enough to make him pull her hands away. Darn, she was really having fun too. Though, now he looks even redder than before. He refused to look at her too. Huh, is he embarrassed?

“I’m not nervous! It’s just… I have a gift for you.”

Oh! A gift?? What kind of gift? She pulled herself further out of the water and closer to her friend. Really only her tail was left in water, but she couldn’t help it. Receiving gifts was one of her favorite activities! She was hovering over his legs, her hands braced against the sand on either side of his body.

“Show me, show me, show me!”

Her eyes were practically shimmering with joy. Kurapika always had the best gifts. Every single thing he gave her became one of her most prized possessions. They were small things like wooden statues he bought or made, cute clips or hair ties, he even gave her a pretty bracelet once! Nothing big, but always really thoughtful. They were they best types of gifts for sure!

Neon watched every movement he made as he leant over to his bag and pulled out… flowers? She tilted her head to the side and took them when he offered them to her. She hasn’t seen any flowers like these before. The only ones she’s seen were the ones that grew close to the coast. These ones were really pretty too. It was purple and looked so delicate. She felt like if she touched its petals, she would ruin it.

“I figured since I can’t take you into the forest, I could at least bring some of it to you.”

A big smile came across her face. The only thing keeping her from tackling Kurapika to the ground were the flowers in her hands. That, however, didn’t stop her from bouncing in place.

“Kura! They’re so pretty! Uwah!!! What are they called?? Are there more pretty flowers out there too?”

“Mmhm, this one is called a fairy slipper. It’s really hard to find. But I could bring you mountain bells and starflowers too.”

He smiled back at her, obviously happy that she liked the gift.

“Although… they won’t last long underwater. Maybe next time I could bring you something a bit hardier? Mushrooms might better than flowers.”

Ah, she would be happy with any of those! This was so cool! She doubted anyone else she knew had something like this!

“Hehe! You could always bring me more when the wilt!”

She couldn’t stop smiling. She was looking over the flowers, thinking of the best way to get them home without damaging them. She’ll just have to swim real slowly and avoid any currents.

“I have a gift for you too, but it’s nowhere near as cool as this!”

She grabbed the conch that was sitting to the side and handed it to him. He looked like he likes it so that was good enough for now.

“Next time we see each I’ll bring you something really, really cool, okay?”

He smiled and nodded at her words.

“I do really like this, but okay. I can’t wait to see what you bring me.”

Yes! Excellent! AH now she was super excited for their next meet up! For the past three years, they were meeting every Saturday at 9pm. Their meetings would last about an hour or so before they both have to go home.

This week will be the longest week she will ever have to wait. Oh she better start planning what she should bring now! Ah! She could pull things out of that shipwreck near her home! Or maybe he would want something natural? Oh there are too many choices with that one though!

Eventually, the two had to go their separate ways. They had grabbed a bunch of shells before they waved each other goodbye, swearing to meet the next week. Neon was practically vibrating the entire wait. The next day she had immediately gone out to find the perfect gift for Kurapika. She settled on the items within the wreckage. However, she couldn’t decide on just a singular item so she chose to bring multiple in a pretty bag she found in there too.

When Saturday arrived, she had shown up much earlier than normal. She was too excited to wait at home and just had to come here as soon as possible. She spent her time looking over her items and squealing softly to herself. When 9 o’clock came, she couldn’t sit still. She was bouncing and attentively watching the path that Kurapika came down on. But soon, it became 9:30. Perhaps he got in trouble again? Then it became 10:00. It couldn’t hurt to wait longer, right? Eventually it became 12. She was tired and really needed to go home and sleep. He must have been busy today. She’ll come back next week and yell at him.

But then next week arrived and he still hadn’t shown up. Again she waited up 12 before taking her leave. She was worried now. Had something happened? Was he okay? Or did he get into trouble with his parents again? She went home with a heavy heart and waited another week. Once again, nothing. Something had to have happen.

She started appearing every day at random times of the day, hoping to at least see him or his friend Pairo. At this point any human would do. She could hid in the water and ask if they’ve seen him. But unfortunately, she received nothing.

Her flower had long since wilted by the time she gave up. Kurapika wasn’t returning and what happen will remain a mystery to her.

[monchikyun]

21. the sympathy of undead things

Connor dreams about it sometimes. Not like normal people do, that is one skill he hasn’t been able to master. Each night he is being presented a slideshow of all the key moments in his life. This means that he can’t avoid the image of a hole in his forehead, face screaming death or deactivation or something that should be permanent. But it wasn’t, he is still alive. Wasting space day by day, not willing to give up the gift of consciousness he’s been told to treasure. He stills feels like an anomaly, a thing that should be rotting in a scrapyard, not acting as just another detective with too much worry on his mind.

It’s all because his friend has been shot. Just like Connor was that awful day. A bullet sent straight into his forehead, aiming to kill. No one thought he would survive, many were of the opinion that he shouldn’t. Only Connor wasn’t able to lose hope, judging by his previous experience with near-death scenarios and the ingrown unwillingness to let go. 

There isn’t any spare body into which Gavin could transfer his soul, it doesn’t work like that with real human beings. He has only one chance for life, like it should be.

He remembers all the time they have spent together bickering while trying to get along, treating the memories like it’s the most precious thing in his world. Maybe it is, or one of the few he managed to gather in his short time on Earth. He makes himself think about him as a friend, like it would make their relationship more profound and the weight in his heart more explainable. The truth is they have just recently graduated from being enemies. Though he must admit that for their mutual distaste of each other, they seem to seek each other out, pretending that they want to bully one another. They do, but not because of the hatred that is between them. There is barely any, at least on Connor’s side. He just enjoys being around the irascible detective and he wishes it’s the other way around too. 

That’s why his absence hurts. Gavin might not be dead, but he’s hanging on the thread, one slip-up and he falls into the endless abyss of no return. Looking like he’s just asleep, having a rather unpleasant dream. Connor wonders if he can see it too, the moment someone decided that he shouldn’t exist anymore.

He has negotiated the right to stay beside him in the bleak hospital room, since not that many people care enough to pay the man a visit. Tina does, Hank tries, and the rest of them believes that showing a sad face counts as an effort. It feels like Connor is the most important person in Gavin’s life, no matter how ridiculous that might sound. Maybe there is something between them that he hasn’t been able to spot before. 

Because no one would be able to lug him out of there unless they were really, really strong. And even then he would put on a fight and probably win since he’s been made to surpass everyone. Not that he often can, but the pain coursing inside of him is a drive like none other.

The doctors said it would be a miracle if Gavin woke up, and a near impossibility not to have any signs of brain damage. But Connor still hopes, despite the odds and the impending doom that gets more potent the longer he stays there.

It’s raining today, the autumn weather being as unrelenting as ever. He’s seen people fighting against the wind for their umbrellas, sheltering their bodies with thick coats, and that makes him glad that he can’t feel the biting cold.

He always brings something with him, flowers or some kitschy trinket to cheer up the otherwise gloomy place. And then he opens the old book Hank gave him one day and reads to Gavin, wishing that his voice would break through to him one day. When he gets bored with the text in front of him, he talks. Connor tells him about all the mundane things he’s done throughout the day, about Sumo and his neverending supply of cuteness, and about the good things in the world he’s missing right now. The sound of raindrops hitting the glass window panes, the smell of wet mud, the comfort of hot tea, everything that the detective might never experience again.

Connor rarely cries, but this afternoon he doesn’t seem to ever stop.

He tries holding Gavin’s hand, peeling his skin away as if he hid a magical healing power underneath it. It has been a while since it all happened, but there is still some chance that this will have a happy ending. 

Gavin will wake up, he tells himself.

“Please wake up.” He whispers so that Gavin can hear.

It never works, but it’s nice to have that opportunity to try. That’s all he can do, just try.

Maybe all the failed attempts he has accumulated over his time here are the reason he doesn’t notice the change in the heart monitor and only when Gavin’s eyelids flicker his system freezes in shock.

He can’t tell what goes on next. There is a commotion of medical staff and he isn’t needed all of the sudden. The minutes that pass by while he waits for something that would take him out of this uncertain fog are just a blur. A whole night must have gone by before someone talks to him, informing him that Gavin is awake and capable of speech.

“A miracle,” they call it. It doesn’t matter. Some people just can’t be killed that easily, and that happens to be one of the attributes they share in common.

“Hey.”

Connor forces the tears forming in his eyes to stay put a little while longer, just so he doesn’t freak his friend out.

“Good morning.” He smiles and lets go of the resolve that made him refrain from crying.

“Somehow I knew it would be your pretty face I see first.” And Gavin can’t help himself too, not that he’d ever blame him.

“Tina is on her way, I called her.”

“Okay, thanks,” he says. “So, you come here often?” It’s strange how a simple smile can make him feel like walking on clouds.

 “Yeah, some say I basically live here.”

“Do you plan on moving on, now when I’m alive?” The joking tone gets put aside to allow in something fearful. Like he’s afraid Connor would leave him after all the time he has invested into that stupid human.

“No, never.”

He extends his hand again, this time keeping his skin on as to show how similar they truly are. Gavin takes it like it’s his lifesaver, squeezing it so tight Connor is thankful he doesn’t have real bones.

“Okay. Good.”  

There is no way he’ll ever let go of Gavin now that he found him again.

@convinseptember can I get a star for at least trying xD

[teaveetamer]

Looking at Edelgards wiki page, and aside from all the spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and horrible sentence structure, dear LORD is it filled with such vague, unspecific language to make her look better. Saying in "some endings" she passes on the role of Emperor to someone else while in others she "rules for an unspecified time" to support she steps down after the war, completely ignoring Lysitheas ending where she rules for the rest of her life and not clarifying the specific (1/3)

numbers of endings where she retires (I counted, its two, and even then only in her later years). Crimson Flower apparently ends "much faster" than the other routes instead of directly stating its three months faster. Saying she only spoke so harshly to Dimitri before executing him to allow him to "hate her" until the end (how compassionate of her /s, also I cannot find any proof of this in the script so either I'm missing something or the editor is just posting headcanons). (2/3)

All in all, Edelgards entire personality wiki section is a complete joke. The person that wrote it should have their editing priviledges removed. (3/3)

I mean we know who is making all of those edits. It’s our resident contrarian that people were sending a dozen asks about yesterday. It just comes off as another of many poorly thought out arguments, since they keep pointing to specific supports or text in the game when that’s... Not really necessary. We all played the game, you only do that shit when you’re trying to win an argument.

Honestly if I were in control of the page it’d look more like this:

Edelgard holds herself with a dignified air, but full of melancholy and solemn wistfulness. which can make her appear outwardly cold. As heir of the Adrestian Empire, she is an exemplary student and a natural leader. She keeps a modest stoic front. rarely cutting loose and maintains formality. She rarely cuts loose and maintains formality at all times. Her colleagues classmates (who the fuck calls the people they went to school with “colleagues”?) express great surprise whenever she does relax. While She is generally a private person, she does recognize the importance of her duties and expresses confidence and faith in the abilities of her allies. and she is rarely shown opening up to other people.(the previous line did not make sense, her recognizing the importance of duty has no relationship to being a private person).

She is a capable dancer, having taught Dimitri at a young age and has a talent for drawing portraits, though she is embarrassed to show them to others. (These really belong in a separate “skills” section but whatever the wiki doesn’t appear to have that category for this game). She has a personal nickname, El, of whom which she only allows very close individuals, namely her family, to call her.

Though she tries to keep it a secret, Edelgard is deathly afraid of rats, as they remind her of a past she is uncomfortable with. Edelgard is deathly afraid of rats since they remind her of a past she is uncomfortable with, though she tries to keep this fact a secret. She is also fears afraid of the ocean since because she cannot swim.

Edelgard is far more complex than she initially appears, as she had been scheming to dismantle the corrupt systems of Fódlan, namely the influence of the Church of Seiros, the oppression of the Crest systems, and the hidden machinations of the Agarthans. Driven by her desire to remove these influences, she is willing to sacrifice both her life and reputation as she believes that the only means of achieving her goals is through war and sometimes underhanded tactics. (Such unnecessary fluff). Edelgard will use whatever it takes to achieve her goals, using all three of the aforementioned systems begrudgingly as they are the current means for her to amass any sort of power and influence in order to instigate meaningful change in them. Edelgard is extremely driven, and she is willing to use whatever it takes to achieve her goals. This is evidenced by her willingness to work with Those Who Slither in the Dark, as she believes they are the only ones who can help her amass enough power to achieve her ends.

Edelgard strongly believes that the ends will justify the means if she were to win the war, as she despises the structure of Fódlan society and believes it has to be replaced by a more just system under which humanity can flourish. In the Azure Moon route she states she went to war after weighing all options and determined that it would be much faster with far fewer casualties than to continue on in the continent's current state. This is reflected through the Crimson Flower route that ends much sooner than the other two, albeit a later war is impending against the remaining Agarthians, where she manages to wipe them all out, compared to the other routes where the Agarthans survive to return at a later time. As a result, she does realize the gravity of her orders but chooses to remain steadfast in her belief in improving society for everyone. She also does not desire to remain Emperor for too long as according to a tea time conversation with her, Edelgard states she has no intention of handing the throne to any children she might have, instead planning to pass it on to someone brilliant and kind, which a few endings do, while others she rules for an unspecified time. (Literally this entire paragraph is unnecessary fluff.)

Dimitri has had a significant impact on her life as the two are step-siblings when her mother Anselma married King Lambert under the name "Patricia." In their childhood, neither were aware of their relationship to each other, but they were close nonetheless, with Dimitri affectionately calling her "El" which only those particularly close to her are allowed to call her. Dimitri gifted her a dagger which she held well into the present, which was symbolically meant to tell her to carve out her own ideals and face the numerous hardships she had to endure up until the present. If met at the Goddess Tower during the Academy Phase, she admits that her first love was a Faerghus noble who she cannot recall, implied to be Dimitri. Despite her past feelings towards him, it is heavily implied for most of the game that Edelgard no longer remembers Dimitri nor that he gifted her the dagger, possibly as a result of her trauma from the experiments. In the Azure Moon route, she accepts Dimitri's invitation to parley on a whim. Despite failing to come to an understanding with one another to end the war peacefully, she is nonetheless able to express her gratitude to him for the dagger and the strength it provided her when he reminds her that it was a parting gift from him. (Everything in this paragraph would really be more at home in a separate “relationships” subcategory, which this wiki also does not feature.)

Edelgard's personality and ambitions are a result of tragedies that painted her view of the world. The traumatic imprisonment of her siblings and herself due to the experiments of Those Who Slither in the Dark created her hatred of Crests.  Edelgard’s personality and ambitions are a direct result of the suffering she faced at the hands of TWSITD. Her imprisonment and the subsequent experimentation on herself and her family were a key factor in her disillusionment with Fódlan and the Church of Seiros. (Don’t ask me how she got to that conclusion. Also take a shot for every time this dude uses the word “tragic”.) She also despises most nobility, especially the Adrestian Nobles, as they are partially responsible for the circumstances leading to said experiments, but also due to the fact that Crests are used as societal leverage by most nobles as a sign of their prestige. She even shows sympathy and pity to Miklan, whom she praises for becoming a leader despite being disowned and leading a group of bandits, calling his death "a waste". One of her main goals is to dismantle the current nobility system and having the people earn their position by merit rather than birthright, which she achieves in her ending in the Crimson Flower path. (More fluff.)

Edelgard has a complex view of the current Church of Seiros as her tragic history with the Insurrection of the Seven along with the knowledge given by her father regarding the truth of the War of Heroes paints her radical opinion. She bears a large distrust of Rhea due to her withholding of knowledge and context behind the history of the church, even pointing out some of the Church's hypocrisy of remaining neutral across Fódlan, yet allowing the Crest system to flourish that Edelgard despises. She does not fully dismiss the concept of faith however, even allowing it to continue to exist in her rule, though heavily monitored by the Empire. (Oh hey Edelstan is acknowledging her state run religion at least) She even tries to learn more about it from Manuela but does not plan on ever becoming a devout follower by any means. When as an enemy, however, she will cause those who are faithful to be afraid for their lives and flee the Empire. However, during Crimson Flower, several Knights of Seiros that have become unnerved by Rhea flee to the Empire, while those involved with the Church in the Empire flee for the Eastern, but then flee to Faerghus due to lack of a military. (Fluff.)

Despite this, Edelgard expresses fear and anxiety over the consequences of her actions her chosen path should Byleth side with her in Crimson Flower, as she understands that she would be her actions make her responsible for the deaths loss of countless lives. (lmao “the deaths of countless lives”) This is proven further when Randolph and Ladislava die defending Garreg Mach from the Church, and how she laments that another life is lost in the war because of her choices. She mourned Dimitri's death, letting herself be hated by Dimitri to the end by speaking harshly to him to let his perception of her remain, lamenting how she could not save him from Thales's manipulation. (wut) Dimitri's death struck her to the point that Byleth questioned if Edelgard was crying, which she denied, claiming that the Edelgard who cried had perished years ago.

Edelgard's relationship with Byleth greatly affects her personality and fate in the war. Edelgard admits in her support that she feared expresses fear that she would have become "a harsh ruler with a heart of ice" if she had to walk her path alone. In the other routes where she is not taught by them or where Byleth sides with the church against her, this becomes a reality and ultimately leads to her early demise. This is likely expressed in the conversation with Dimitri, where, in the Japanese version, she retorts Dimitri's statement over the lessons he learned with his friends and Byleth with her stating that he can understand that because he has what she lacks, referencing how Edelgard felt Byleth was the only one she could consider an equal that is not bound by status but simply as Edelgard. As her enemy, Edelgard will express regret that the two did not walk the same path and even find some semblance of closure falling to Byleth's sword in the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind paths. Should they choose to support her, she has a far easier time expressing kindness and regret over her actions over the course of the game herself. She will opt to force her enemies to surrender instead of wiping them out, where she even offered to spare Rhea and the Church followers if they surrendered, while the former was willing to sacrifice the city the final battle takes place in. (This doesn’t even make sense, she never forced Rhea to surrender she just half heartedly gave her the option of surrender). She also has several fleeting moments of peace and happiness, such as when she takes to drawing portraits of Byleth, which she is self conscious about due to their lack of quality in her eyes.

That attachment towards Byleth is even perhaps stronger than that of the other house leaders. When they teach the Black Eagles, she makes several attempts to get Byleth to understand her world view, even though Hubert advised her it would not be wise and personally invited Byleth to her coronation. In the Crimson Flower route, Dorothea notes that among the Black Eagles, Edelgard was the most emotionally affected by Byleth's disappearance. Edelgard's fondness for Byleth goes so far as to encourage Byleth to call her El and even let Byleth give her orders on the battlefield despite her dislike of not being in control. Despite her earlier statement that she does not cry, she openly cries at the end of the Crimson Flower route when Byleth supposedly dies after slaying Rhea, but is overjoyed when they are revived. Edelgard's bond with Byleth can ultimately result in the marriage of the two, regardless of their gender. It is in her proposal to them at this level where she asks that they stay close to her and that she will need them for the rest of her life. Regardless of her relationship status with Byleth, in the Crimson Flower route, it is through their influence that she ultimately achieves her goals and is remembered far more kindly than in the other routes where she perishes. (Again, would be more at home in a separate relationships section since it says almost nothing about Edelgard as an individual. You could maybe keep the bit about her disliking not being in control, but I’d combine it with an earlier paragraph since it doesn’t make much sense as its own thing.)