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daechwitatamic · 2 years ago

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VIII. Nothing Grows Here || KNJ

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni

Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, the absolute slowest of burns

Pairing: Namjoon x female reader, unrequited Taehyung x reader

Beta'd by @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii - thank you endlessly!

Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love.

Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.

Namjoon starts to question where your heart lies.

Section Warnings: kissing, language, drinking, breast play/nip stim, public physical intimacy (they do not get caught)

WC: 5.5k

The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Journey | Edna St. Vincent Millay

Thursday November 22nd

Namjoon catches you for breakfast on Thursday, too. He stands on the kitchen side of the breakfast bar, while you sit on one of the stools facing him. You each hold a coffee mug - yours blue, his white with lineart of a tree peeking between his fingers.

“I’m working on Journey for my thesis today,” you tell him suddenly. “Do you know that one?”

You must be talking about a St. Vincent Millay poem, Namjoon figures.

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t know that one.”

You lean your body fully towards him, clearly excited. Namjoon feels a tickling sensation of fondness at how animated you get when you talk about this kind of thing. “It’s about freedom,” you explain. “Or, longing for it. It’s about walking a certain path but longing to step off, to go somewhere uncharted.”

Namjoon hesitates. He feels a little like you’re telling him something without telling him, in a way. “It sounds good,” he hedges finally. “What’s your favorite part?”

“The last two lines,” you answer immediately, reaching for your phone and opening a note you’d made. “A gateless garden, and an open path: / my feet to follow, and my heart to hold.”

“What’s the context?” Namjoon asks. “What’s your thesis?”

“Well, the first line’s clear,” you say, turning your phone screen back off. “A gateless garden - the gate being the symbol for what was holding her to the strict path, right? And now it’s gone? Leading her to the open path she mentions next. It’s like, the moment she breaks free.”

Namjoon nods, following easily.

“It’s the last line I’m not sure about,” you admit. “My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. I feel like you could take it two ways? Is it spoken to the reader? Like, my feet are for you to follow, and my heart is for you to hold? Or is it my feet’s task to follow, and my heart’s task to hold tight? The second, right? Her feet are meant to follow the open path mentioned in the line before?”

“If you want my actual input on this,” Namjoon says with a sly smile, “you’ll have to come to my office.”

You grin at him, laughing. “I think I should get free TA services. It’s a roomie privilege.”

Namjoon laughs too. “Nope,” he says, standing and picking up his emptied plate. “Office hours, or no help.”

You sigh dramatically, draping yourself over your plate. “You wound me,” you say mournfully, and Namjoon chuckles from the kitchen, where he loads his plate and fork into the dishwasher.

“Maybe I just like you showing up during my work hours,” he says, looking at you sideways. “Maybe it makes work suck less.”

That shuts you right up, a blush spreading across your cheeks.

–

You don’t visit Namjoon during his TA hours, and he tries hard to pretend that’s not the reason he’s in a weird mood by the time he locks up and walks home in the dark.

His mood darkens even more when he unlocks the apartment door and finds you and Taehyung side by side on the floor of the living room, your laptops open on the coffee table, clearly working on homework together.

You look up when you hear the door open. “Hi!” you say brightly, oblivious.

“Hey,” Namjoon says, hoping he sounds normal. He sets down his bag next to the breakfast bar and heads in the kitchen. He starts scavenging for anything quick and easy - leftovers would be ideal, if there are any.

Out in the living room, he hears Taehyung’s low voice ask you, “Hey, do you remember that time at the beach?”

You let out a peal of laughter instead of answering.

Taehyung giggles, too, and then adds, “I still can’t believe that kid jumped on me. Who does that?”

You’re still laughing, the words coming out strangled. “And you’d been fast asleep,” you wheeze. “What a wake-up!”

Namjoon finally settles on something and heads back through the kitchen, hands full. He slips into his bedroom and closes the door gently with his foot, placing his food on his desk and preparing to start writing.

He wonders, as his laptop boots up, if he’ll ever manage to be around you and Taehyung at the same time and not feel like the outsider.

Friday November 23rd

Namjoon’s Friday schedule is his best all week - he’s done by two in the afternoon, free as a bird to start his weekend.

He hangs around the offices for a while anyway, killing time and trying to pretend it’s not because he knows you have an afternoon class that ends around three-thirty.

When three-thirty rolls around, he can’t lie to himself anymore. He texts you.

[3:32 PM] Namjoon: want company walking home? im leaving my office

[3:32 PM] You: siiiiiiiiiiigh i WISH i was going home

[3:32 PM] You: i’ll be in the library until it closes, bye 🙃

Namjoon tries to put aside his sinking feeling of disappointment. He gathers his things and starts to walk home. Once there, though, the apartment feels too empty, too quiet. He used to like that, used to seek out being home when he knew he’d be alone. Now, it makes him feel… kind of hollow.

He takes a quick shower, mostly to kill twenty minutes, and then texts Yoongi and Hobi - “happy hour?”

It’s less than twenty minutes later that he’s on a barstool next to Hobi at their favorite dive, waiting for Yoongi to arrive. The place is dimly lit, practically empty as the office crowd has another hour or more of work and the college crowd won’t start filtering in for another six hours or so.

The door opens, a blast of late autumn air accompanying Yoongi as he makes his way over and sits on Hobi’s other side.

Two beers later, each, Hobi knocks his elbow against Namjoon’s. “Anything new from the she-devil?”

Namjoon eyes him flatly. “I assume you mean Elyse?”

Hobi nods, biting back a proud smile at his own bad behavior.

Namjoon sighs, fishing for his phone in his pocket. “I told you about her coming into the bookstore out of nowhere while I was hanging out with Y/N, right?” he checks, as he searches through his phone for what he’s looking for.

“Yes,” Yoongi confirms. “We all agreed that was very kdrama of you.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Namjoon complains. “Anyway, so she called me like two days later. I let it go to voicemail. You never heard this, okay?”

The guys nod, and since they’re essentially alone, Namjoon puts the voicemail on speaker and lets it play.

“Hi, it’s me. Elyse. I know you’re probably wondering why I’m calling… you were pretty clear about how you feel. I just… I’m just having a hard time feeling… closure, I guess? I know, it’s silly, when I’m the one who ended things. I just… I don’t have anyone to talk through all this with me… you were my person to talk to.

“I know this is so unfair. I know it’s illogical. And I’m sorry, I hope you can believe that. Anyway. I’m not asking for anything. Just… if you ever want to talk… I wanted you to know you can call any time. I’ll talk to you.”

“So now she’s the saint and you’re the villain,” Hobi grumbles, leaning back in his chair.

“Right,” Namjoon agrees. “She’s the poor baby having a hard time and I’m the asshole for not entertaining her every need, when she’s the one who asked me to move on.”

“You don’t owe her a fucking thing,” Yoongi says seriously. “I hope you aren’t planning on calling her back.”

Namjoon pauses. He has no intention of humoring Elyse’s little game, but mostly because his head is too full of you.

And somehow, Hobi reads his mind.

“Listen,” he says, uncharacteristically serious, “I’m not saying to call Elyse, because I think I am speaking for everyone on planet earth when I say that’s a terrible idea. But if your reason isn’t your own dignity and self-respect -”

Yoongi cuts in. “What he means is, if your reason is the roommate.”

“She has a name,” Namjoon snaps.

Hoseok carries on like nobody else was speaking, “-then you need to sit back and think about that. Because that’s been going on for, what, two months? And what do you have to show for it?”

Namjoon feels defensiveness flood through him, clear down to his toes.

“It’s a two-way street, though,” he protests. “I haven’t pushed the issue with her, either.”

“And that’s all well and good…” Hobi allows. “But do you want to come second forever?”

Namjoon scowls. “I don’t think you’re being very fair to her.”

Yoongi leans forward, his elbow on the sticky bar. “I think you’re giving someone too much grace as they string you along - again. I kept my mouth shut the whole time with Elyse, and when she broke your heart I felt fucking responsible for not being a better friend and telling you what I could see from the outside. So I'm doing it this time - I'm not making the same mistake twice.”

Namjoon shakes his head. “It’s not the same. She’s not Elyse. You can’t hang her for someone else’s crimes.”

“We’re just saying,” Hobi says, eyes finding Yoongi’s for confirmation as he speaks for both of them, “this feels a little familiar.”

When they leave, a few hours and a few beers later, Namjoon’s still got an ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach. They’re wrong, he knows they’re wrong, he knows you have feelings for him - they don’t have all of the information.

Can he say for sure you’d choose him over Taehyung if it came to it? No, but he also doesn’t think it has to come to a choice like that. Surely you can all handle this like adults?

When he texts you, asking if you’re still at the library, it’s with that ugly feeling stirring and churning inside him, the need to prove something building up into a flurry.

When you text him that you’d meant it when you said you’d be there until closing, Namjoon pays his bill and heads, on foot, for campus.

It’s not hard to find you in the library; there are four other people, total, each of you at your own tables, hunched over laptops. He pauses by your elbow, and you look up at him, surprised, your fingers somehow continuing to type as your brain catches up to the world outside your paper.

“Oh,” you say. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“Come with me,” he says. He meant it as a question, a request, but he can hear how it comes out like a demand. Your eyes widen, your mouth opens a little in surprise. But you close your laptop and slowly rise to your feet. Namjoon takes your hand and gives it a gentle tug, pulling you towards the stacks.

Once you’re shielded from view by the shelves and the books they hold, he tugs more insistently, pulling you to him, catching your lips in a kiss.

You stiffen in surprise, but melt out of it quickly, reaching up to cup his jaw as you kiss him back. He grunts happily when he feels you return it, reaching around you and pressing his large hand against the small of your back, forcing your bodies closer, pushing your hips against his. He keeps you there but doesn’t push it further, waits to see how you react, gives you the chance to indicate that you want him to cool it down.

You don’t. You release his jaw and fist your hands in his sweater, opening your mouth for him as he kisses you like he has a point to prove.

He does have a point to prove. He’s fully aware of why his feet led him right here, right now.

He backs you against a shelf, careful to leave his hand between your spine and the metal, his other hand coming up to tangle in your hair. He kisses you like he wants to meld himself to you, leave a piece of himself, leave a reminder to everyone else that he’d been here first. You let him, you take his fury, you spin it into something softer, and you give it back to him, just a little changed.

He doesn’t know how long he kisses you, your body pressed between his and the books, but when he finally abandons your mouth and straightens up to look at you, you’re panting, cheeks flushed, hair mussed, chest heaving. He takes a step back, putting space between your bodies again, unpinning you to the bookshelf. You seem like you’re not sure how to hold yourself up without it, without him. You take a tentative step, and your arm twitches like you might reach for him, might pull him back. But you don’t.

“What was that for?” you ask instead, breathless. “Not that I’m complaining. Just. What the heck.”

“You’re in this, right?” he asks you, which isn’t an answer at all. It comes out strange, strangled, desperate. “It’s not just me?”

“What?” you utter, looking positively alarmed. “Namjoon, what? Of course I am. What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Namjoon feels himself calming by degrees, his control coming back to him little by little. He needed to hear you say it.

“Nothing happened,” he says, which is kind of a lie. Yoongi and Hoseok happened. Elyse happened. In his own way, Taehyung happened. But none of that is your fault. “I just… had a moment where I wasn’t sure. What this is. If it’s… just me.”

You shake your head, eyes wide. “Did I do something to make you feel like that? I’m really sorry if I did. Is it - is it because of -?”

Is it because of Taehyung.

A little, Namjoon thinks. But not entirely.

“Look,” he says, reaching out a hand and touching your arm gently. “I’m not asking you to… choose between us or anything stupid like that. I just need to know if this is… going somewhere. If you want it to, or if you’re just… enjoying it. No judgment either way - I’ve just hit a point where I think I need to know.”

You continue to stare at him, eyes still wide, looking probably as blindsided as you feel.

“Namjoon,” you whisper finally. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

The air all leaves his body. “Okay,” he says, exhaling. He gives himself a mental shake. He can lick his wounds later, alone. “Okay. Thanks for tell-.”

“I’m not just enjoying this,” you continue, putting a little sneer on the words. “I’m - I’m in this. I’ve told you - I like you, and I want to be with you. It’s just - my paper’s due in an hour and a half, and my brain is pudding, and you just kissed me absolutely stupid and…” You trail off, look at him a little desperately, like you’re trying to juggle just one too many things. “I don’t know what exactly I want, within what parameters - I was… I was kind of okay with just seeing where it went and not trying to put a name or rules to it just yet? If you need more than that, we can have that conversation, but… maybe not right this second?”

“No need,” Namjoon tells you, meaning it. He reaches out without thinking first, smoothing down where he’d messed up your hair. “I’ve been fine with that, too. I just needed to know that… it isn’t nothing. That we’re going… a direction. That’s all.”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously. “Something happened,” you say, sounding sure of it. “You don’t spook this easily. Was it her?”

Namjoon shakes his head, takes your hand, starts to lead you back to your table. “Nothing happened,” he lies again. “What’s your paper on? Do you want help?”

Sunday November 25th

I unlock my ribs and pry them open. I want to view the things I make. The garden has that fresh-earth smell, each seedling marked by a little stake.

But I grow only skeletons - no petals - brittle blooms, instead. Buds of bone will reach the light. Nothing grows here that isn’t dead.

An offering made - a little seed. This one, they say, will live. There’s quite a price for this living thing, a price I’m not sure that I can give.

You stare at the page, chewing absently on the end of your pen - a bad habit you’ve never been able to break.

You kind of like this one. Especially the eighth line - nothing grows here that isn’t dead. You roll the words around your head again, feeling the weight of them.

You do like it, you decide. You’ll turn this one in; you hadn’t turned in the shitty wolves one - you’d drawn an ‘x’ near the top of the page and left it to die.

Namjoon passes behind you at the breakfast bar, touching your back lightly as he does. It’s his little way of announcing his presence without scaring the shit out of you; you’re not sure when he started it - not long ago, for sure - but it’s sweet.

“Morning,” you tell him, closing the notebook. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good,” he says, coming back around to your side of the breakfast bar now that he has a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “You?” He crosses the living room and drops heavily on the couch, turning to look out the large windows. Outside, it’s overcast - so dark that you really ought to turn a lamp on, but no rain falls.

“Pretty good,” you say. “Can I come hang out over there with you?”

He says the same thing back to you that you’ve said to him before - “You don’t have to ask.”

You perch by him on the couch, coffee cup warm in your hands. You curl your feet up next to you and tug a throw-blanket over them.

The two of you sit in comfortable silence, both watching the window absently.

When Namjoon speaks, it surprises the hell out of you.

“Y/N…” he says slowly, turning to look at you. “Tell me about you and Taehyung? Like - about your friendship?”

You’re shocked into literal silence, mouth open, brain absolutely devoid of words. What do you even say to that?

He reaches out a hand, places it gently on top of your thigh. “It’s not a trick,” he says gently. “I just… want to get to know more of you, and your friendship seems like… a really big piece. You’ve told me before that he’s family…” He trails off, looks down at his coffee, then back at you. His face is open, genuine, kind. “I want to know more about that. If you’re comfortable telling me.”

You lick your lips, eyes on the ground. You should let him see this part of you; you owe him this honesty. But how to make him understand? Which moments of your life best paint a picture of what it was like having only Taehyung in your corner?

“When I think of Taehyung,” you say softly, when you’ve thought of a starting point, “I always think of fall. We met on the first day of school, two years before I lost my family. He was the only kid who would talk to me at lunchtime, because I was new.” You laugh under your breath, remembering. He’d been all ears, but you’d been so glad someone was sitting by you that you wanted to never let him out of your sight again.

You claimed him as yours immediately.

“When I lost my parents,” you continue, “I lived with my Grandma for a long time. She was really strict; she was being protective. She didn’t like a lot of the other kids in my class, she wouldn’t let them come over to play. But she had a soft spot for Taehyung. He could just charm the shit out of her, even when we were seven years old. I still don’t know how he did it. But when I look back on my life, he was the only one there. Every holiday, every birthday, every stupid childish adventure, every mishap, every failed test or scraped knee - it was Taehyung who was with me.”

You don’t look at Namjoon while you talk; it’s easier not to have to see him as you recount your early years. But you can see out of the corner of your eyes that he’s watching, listening, hearing you out.

“When my Grandma got too sick to take care of me - she started losing her memory, it got unsafe for both of us really rapidly - Taehyung helped me pack up her stuff that was going to the facility with her.” Remembering this makes your throat tight, and you drink some coffee to cover it. “I think the only reason she went in willingly was because he held her hand through the lobby and down the hall. It wasn’t me she was clinging to, it was him.”

You pause, bracing yourself for the next part a little. “Aunt Lin raised me after that, but… her heart wasn’t really in it, and she worked nights and slept days. Most of my teenage years, I spent on my own - unless Taehyung was with me. He shared food with me when Lin forgot to give me lunch money, gave me Christmas presents when she worked the holiday… made me laugh with his dumb-ass jokes when I felt like no one in my life ever remembered I was there.

“When we graduated high school, Taehyung bought me flowers and…” You swallow, fighting hard against choking up. “He told me he was proud of me for getting this far, alone. That he knew I’d make it anywhere I wanted to go, because he’d watched me fight my way that far. Lin… didn’t show up to graduation, and left me some chicken in the fridge to have for dinner. That story’s the best metaphor for all of it. No matter what step of my life you’re looking at, that’s the picture you get.”

Namjoon waits to make sure you’re finished, not just thinking of what to say next. “Can I ask something kind of challenging?” he says quietly, and your heart stutters, afraid of what it might be.

“Of course,” you tell him, because if he can sit and listen to you talk about another guy like this and not walk the fuck away from you, you owe him the answer to anything.

“All those stories…. all those moments…” he says thoughtfully, and you recognize his tone from when he was trying to let Elyse down easy, “they’re all from when you were growing up. What about now? What about these last three years, here at university?”

He was right. It is a challenging question. Putting words to it is hard enough, but add in that your audience is the guy you’re developing strong feelings for… it feels like a puzzle. Or a test.

“It’s been… hard,” you admit slowly. “Being his friend… it’s different, here.”

Because of other girls.

Because of your own stupid heart.

Because you’ve left home, and your circle of support isn’t just him anymore.

Because your worlds have gotten bigger, your edges expanding, and you can’t revolve around each other as tightly anymore.

Namjoon doesn’t even have to ask the question he’s driving at. You get there all on your own.

Are you and Taehyung even really that close, now? Or is it all nostalgia and familiarity, loyalty and habit?

He seems to see it on your face that he doesn’t need to push it. He brushes his thumb along the side of your leg, where his hand still rests from earlier.

“Thanks for telling me all that,” he says, voice hushed.

“Thanks for listening to it,” you counter. “You want a turn? I can listen for a while.”

He laughs a little, leaning back against the couch. “Nah, I’m good,” he teases. Then, he lifts his arm to make a spot for you. You slide over, leaning against him, letting him wrap an arm around your shoulders.

You sit in silence together a while longer. You’re not sure what he’s thinking about, but you’re thinking about your friendship with Taehyung - its benefits, its failings, its definition.

Monday November 26th

Even though you spend most of Sunday together, working separately on your homework in the living room, even though you walked to campus together as the sun burned away an early-morning fog, you still think about Namjoon the entire time you’re in class on Monday. You can’t help it. When class ends, you catch yourself practically running to go bother him in his little office.

Girl, you think, scathingly, get a grip.

But it’s happening and it’s exciting and you just like him and you can’t stop thinking about how he kissed you in the library last week and -

You knock on his office door, and he has the audacity to smirk without even looking up to check that it’s you.

“Come in,” he says, pen scratching away at whatever he’s working on. There’s something dangerous and playful in his voice, and you shiver. Then, feeling bold, you close the door behind you when you enter the room.

That makes him look up, the smirk still on his lips.

“Hi there,” he says, still in that same voice.

It’s cocky, a little smug - a side of him you haven’t really seen before.

“Happy to see me?” you tease, dropping your bag on the ground with a thunk and stalking closer, feeling a little predatory.

He hums agreeably and stretches, the movement pulling his shit taut across his chest.

There’s part of you that thinks he’s fucking with you on purpose. You decide, on a whim, to push back - to play the game, too, and see where it gets you.

You approach him purposefully and he spreads his legs to let you stand between them, leaning back and peering up at you, a dare on his face. You feel alight with thrill, your own smirk playing on your lips.

You swivel and sit, perching on his (strong, thick) thigh, looping your arms around his neck. You half expect him to lose the bravado, to get shy or flustered, but his hands come up to grip your hips - dangerously close to your ass - immediately, tugging you more firmly onto his lap.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he murmurs, one eyebrow raised.

“Just wanted to see you,” you tell him honestly, and lean in to kiss him.

It’s light and sweet, at first - less desperate and hungry than your previous kisses have been. His lips feel feather-soft for a few seconds, brushing gently against yours, and your heart stutters, trips. He brings one hand up to the middle of your back to help you balance, and you pull yourself tighter against him as he opens for you.

It’s tongue and teeth as you pull yourself against him, your chest flush with his. As you kiss him, the sweet, gentleness melts away and you find yourself humming low in your throat as he grabs your ass again with the hand that isn’t holding your back, fingers kneading into the jean-clad flesh there.

He makes a noise of his own at yours, like an answer, pulling you tighter against his lap by the meat of your ass. You can feel him, hard beneath you, and you shift purposefully against it once just to hear him groan so quietly you might miss it, his mouth only centimeters from yours.

Then he’s kissing you again, more forcefully, his hand creeping up from the swell of your ass to dip under the hem of your shirt. His fingers feel warm and sure against the bare skin of your waist, and then they’re sneaking higher, his thumb sliding firmly along the side of your breast, over your bra. You sigh into his mouth, and it ends on a bit of a whine as you wordlessly ask for more.

He obliges, shifting slightly to cup your whole breast in one large hand, squeezing once before running his thumb over your hardened nipple. You whine again, pressing your leg against his hard length, trying to egg him on. He squeezes again, then slides his fingers beneath the underwire, rolling the bud he finds there between his fingers.

You moan quietly into his mouth, breaking the kiss to gasp as he does it again, a fraction harder. He swipes his thumb over it again and you press open-mouthed kisses to the side of his neck as he buries his face in your hair, eyes closed.

Footsteps approach and pass outside the door, and you both freeze, his hand still wrapped around you. You look at each other, wide-eyed, afraid to move.

“Does… that door lock?” you manage to whisper. He shakes his head no, almost imperceptibly, and slowly withdraws his hand from up your shirt.

“We should probably cool it anyway,” he whispers back. “Even if someone knocked first, having the door shut with you in here… is probably enough to get my office rights revoked.”

You nod, vacating his lap and fixing your bra, which he’d left askew. He does some adjusting as well, you notice, before reaching over and pulling the door open a few inches.

“I’m working the store tonight,” you tell him, trying to get your head back to reality, focusing on your schedule to help get it there. “So I won’t be home for dinner.”

“Should I bring you something?” he asks. “I’m here until five. I could come by, after.”

“That’s your choice,” you tell him. “Kris is working with me tonight, so if you show up with food for me it’ll be officially a thing. Like, there’s no going back from that. So if any part of you is trying to keep this low-key, that’ll be over.”

“Hm,” Namjoon says, mouth making a straight line.

“To be fair,” you say, as an after-thought, “Kris has been being obnoxious about you and me since you moved in, way before anything happened. So. It can’t really make things worse.”

“Okay,” Namjoon says, giving you a sweet smile. “I’ll see you later, then.”

You glance at the time - you’ve got twenty minutes to get across campus. Which is plenty, but you need to go.

“Alright,” you say reluctantly. “I guess I’m off. See you in a little bit.”

At the store, it takes Kris about fourteen seconds to look you up and down and say flatly, “You’ve been kissing.”

“What?” you gasp, hands leaping to your body - checking your hair, your shirt, your mouth. “How do you know?”

They shake their head in mock disapproval. “I just know these things. Honestly, Y/N, you live with him, can’t you do these things at home?”

You swat at their arm petulantly. “Quit acting like you aren’t super jealous.”

“Oh, I am,” they inform you. They lean against the counter, placing their chin in their palm, a dreamy expression crossing their face. “Believe me. So what’s it like with him? Tell me everything.”

–

Namjoon shows up sometime before six, a bag of food in hand. He looks a little nervous, and you aren’t sure if it’s because of your warning about Kris, or because last time he did this he got accosted by his ex. Maybe both.

“Hi there, Dimples,” Kris greets him with a big smile. “Come stay a while.”

“Have you ever formally met Kris?” you ask, coming between them. “Kris, Namjoon, - Namjoon, Kris.”

“Nice to meet you,” he replies. “Unfortunately, I have to go home and finish a paper.”

You set the bag of food on the counter and walk with him back towards the doors leading out.

“Just so you know,” he mutters out of the side of his mouth, voice barely audible. “I have had a problem for the last hour and a half since your little visit. And that’s not me flirting with you, that is me filing a formal complaint.”

It surprises a laugh out of you, and he grins at you sideways too.

“Sorry,” you say, barely meaning it. “That’s sounds… hard.”

“Oh, my god,” he utters, as you lose it, laughing so hard you have to grab his arm for support as you double over. “Seriously? Kris, do something with her. Who let her out of the house today?”

“I do believe that was you,” Kris says dryly from their perch by the registers.

You wheeze through the laughter, trying to suck in a long breath. “Sorry, sorry,” you giggle. “I couldn’t help myself.

He shakes his head at you, moving for the door. “I’ll see you at home,” he tells you, and then he leaves.

“At home,” Kris sighs, like it was so romantic.

You shoot them an eye-roll as full of ire as you can manage.

<- Prev || Next ->

Finally some backstory, and finally some spice!!!! What are we thinking??!!!

As always thank you so so so so much reading, I appreciate you all sooo much! Happy friday!!!

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henrysglock · 1 year ago

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He's Talking To Me Through The Lights!

Something that just hit me (and I'm not sure why I didn't make the connection earlier) is that we can't concretely say it was Vecna, or any version of Henward for that matter, that we saw in the shed with Will on Nov. 6th, 1983.

Now you're probably saying to yourself "Okay, James Henrysglock has finally lost the fucking plot". I promise you I haven't, and that I actually have a pattern that supports this. Please just like. Give me the chance to explain what I mean.

Let's look at the lightbulb in the Byers' shed when Will is snatched:

And we all go: "The lightbulb, like in the Creel family's attic! The blinding light! That's a trademark Vecna thing!"

Except it isn't.

First off, the lightbulb itself, while connected to to the Creel family's attic, isn't specifically a Vecna thing. It's also heavily attributed to HNL.

Second off, when we first see "Vecna" trance and kill (allegedly) in 1959, gateless kills, there is no blinding light. It's just flashing lights:

It's the same deal in 1979:

No steady, blinding light, just flashing lights.

So really, what's wrong here is the assignment of the light's behavior, that steady, blinding glow, to Vecna. Blinding lights have never been a Vecna-specific trait. Blinding lights are, in fact, consistently linked to gate events.

When do we see lights steadily flaring bright throughout Stranger Things??

Season 2: El closes the gate

Season 4: Vecna kills Patrick and opens Watergate

Season 4: El fights One

Now, this particular sequence becomes more complex when we consider a few confounding details:

1. El's Changing Eye Blood Between the blinding light sequence of teen El and the banishment of Henward by baby El, there is both a camera swap and a makeup swap. We never see bright-lights teen El again after this swap, despite irl El continuing to function in NINA the way she had been when her teen self was shown to us. This means we may not have seen the fate of whichever baby El teen El is representing, especially given that Martie and Millie match in blood pattern in BTS pictures (a blood pattern we never see on filmed baby El).

2. The Dematerialization-Gate Split + Mirror Swapping The gate and the dematerialization don't occur simultaneously.

Nor do they occur within the same mirror orientation, with the same crack patterns, or with the same bloody gown pattern. They are separate events. We do not see El open wallgate, even though we know, logically, that she did so.

3. The Lighting The lighting when El dematerializes Henward is identical to the time she dematerialized the demogorgon: Dark, teal-grey, flashing lights.

Why do I dredge all that back up?

Because the earlier bright light is most likely associated with the gate outcome. It's always a gate. Always.

"Okay, well, clearly Vecna opened a gate and yoinked Will, then."

Did he though? Because Vecna himself seems to think differently:

Vecna couldn't open gates until ST4, otherwise he would have done so earlier.

We also know it can't be the demogorgon that yoinked Will, either, because demogorgon attacks are associated with wildly flashing lights. The light in the Byers' shed just steadily brightens. I have a theory about the sound overlay, because a similar thing happens visually in 4.07 when they overlay the gate and dematerialization outcomes:

I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple different things happening at the same time in different timelines re: Will's disappearance (I will touch on this below).

So, most of all, this begs the question: Why is the lightbulb in Will's shed behaving as though someone is opening a gate, when Vecna cannot yet open gates?

This leaves me with two main speculations:

1. The lights flared due to El opening Mothergate, given that that happened on the same day. El first contacts the Demogorgon at 1:33pm on Nov. 6th and panics. We aren't given a time for the opening of Mothergate, but it was sometime later, likely far later, given that it occurs during the shift of the guy who gets chomped in the elevator on the night of the 6th:

This would mean that someone else was in the shed with Will, likely someone from or in cahoots with HNL, which would explain how they were able to get his fake body accurate right down to the clothes he went missing in. Those may even have been his clothes on the doll, given that one of the newspapers said he was found being experimented on in HNL.

2. Will, panicking, opened his own gate to escape the situation. He ended up in the UD that way, hence why he's still wearing the clothes he disappeared in.

(Note, these situations are not mutually exclusive à la timeline theory and the differing newspapers surrounding Will's disappearance)

Either way, what the hell is going on here?

#the vanishing of will byers #henry creel #henry/vecna/001 #will byers #stranger things

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zerogate · 8 months ago

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I often think we are deceiving ourselves by imagining we are involved in spiritual pursuits; and spiritual activities are very fashionable these days. It is easy to join meditation retreats of one kind or another believing we are undertaking something meaningful. but in fact we may merely be indulging in a kind of spiritual recreation.

First of all, it is necessary to be free of any preconceived ideas about meditation, and also of any kind of habitual thinking, to starve the mind of ideas and thoughts. Zazen is not a way of gaining great knowledge; it is a way of humility there being nothing to acquire, nothing to keep; it is the transcendence of all that is habitual in us. It is this vast unknown original field of reality which no one has ever explored. Each moment is new, virgin soil.

Our whole lives should be penetrated by zazen; whatever we do should be none other than zazen; there is no spare time to indulge in anything, even zazen itself. And no preparation is needed for this, because meditation is our original way of life; it is the deep peace of the mindfulness we experience when our whole being is absorbed and opened by what we are doing now, be it sitting, or going about our daily activities.

Our own individual being is like a man in a small boat; and the boat is floating at the mercy of the waves on the sea. So long as we remain like that man in a boat we shall be easily influenced and disturbed by daily events, clinging to conventional beliefs and old habits in the hope that they will provide us with some kind of security; our entire lives may pass like that of a dreamer, or a drunkard.

Zazen is the recognition of the universal life, as it is, within us. Everyone is seeking eternal life and peace, but it is, miraculously here within this moment. Deep peace does not always come from inspiration, special knowledge, or practice; it is present in each and everyone's exhalation, in the deep silence of no-mind.

Zazen is a primordial practice, essentially the trinity of body breath, and mind; and true zazen will not be opened in us until our sitting posture, breathing, and mind are correctly adjusted. Daily practice, awakened determination and teachings bring about this trinity of zazen. We must sit with the back straight and breathe calmly leaving thoughts as they are to come and go like clouds in the sky. Our eyes will naturally be cast to the ground in front of us, not looking at anything; everything around us naturally being reflected, as it is. When we have no focus inside or outside of us, we have 'ten direction eyes', and are free from everything.

Breathing is the rhythm of the universe; it will awaken us to the truth that there is nothing but the breath of the cosmos, coming from an immaculate origin.

To sit in zazen is to experience transparency and nothingness, as well as endless abundance. To sit in zazen is to discover the one within who is born anew every moment of this timeless reality. When one acts with intention, however, there is a split between God and man. To sit and sit without one's 'self' is real sitting.

Do not have satisfaction, or dissatisfaction — Just sit and sit and sit. Once sitting is truly settled, the mind is free from wandering, and one is peace itself. To sit firmly and unconditionally is to realize one's original simplicity and to understand clearly that very little is needed in ordinary life. Seeing this, one is purified.

Zazen is the cessation of the everyday business of thinking! It is, in fact too simple to want to continue — doing nothing, expecting nothing, getting nothing! But we should not be sitting-machines. If our everyday lives are unsound, it is impossible to practise the real way of zazen. If zazen is not the son of daily life, it is a lie. But the opposite is also true — daily life is the son and zazen the mother.

We do not need a particular time to be at 'the gateless gate of dharma', it is enough if we sit in calmness for a while each day Being busy is not the same as having the empty sky in our hearts. If we sit we find that we can sit however busy we may be. Time will be found for eating and sleeping. So, if we say we have no time for meditation, what we are really saying is we have other priorities.

We are all beginners. This is not only true, but necessary — even for someone who has been practising for more than one hundred years. This is not trite sentiment. We need the beginner's mind in everything, whatever we do, whoever we are.

Expert practitioners are naturally able to discern and rectify their attitudes and actions the moment the need arises. They are always able to abandon their own selves. They are always beginners.

This is the meditation of infinite awakening; this sitting does not remain as our own.

Generations of peoples, primarily in Asia, have maintained that the historical Buddha, Gautama, invented zazen, and so was an Absolute God in zazen. The truth is, of course, zazen was not born of, nor created by the historical Buddha; Buddha was born of the unfathomable depths of zazen. We too may be born from the same place, as countless buddhas have in the past. We are all absolute perfection in zazen, infinite perfection — the transcendence of ourselves; the transcendence of the practice; the transcendence of all things. Zazen is and was the mother of Buddha. We should confirm this with our own direct experience — otherwise we shall be carried away by man-made stories and the euphoria of dogma; and this is not our true practice.

-- Hôgen Yamahata, Zazen: Sitting Meditation

#quotes

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imbadatparking · 8 months ago

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Vanessa’s house is the biggest on the block. It sits at the top, overlooking the rest, a beautiful white gate growing unidentifiable purple flowers that change to yellow and blue as the year drags on. The gate is always locked, but the contrasting garden that thrives in the front yard makes it all seem welcoming anyway. I’ve never been inside, but the rumors say that there’s a life-sized painting of Vanessa’s great grandaddy hanging above the real fireplace, that Vanessa has a trust fund in her bank account, that the only reason they live here, instead of somewhere where they’re surrounded by people like them, is because of Vanessa’s daddy’s work.

Her’s may be the biggest, but Charlie’s and oSamantha’s are pretty close. They were no small feats, even looming next to Vanessa’s, with their tall structures and shameless flaunting, even more so considering the other buildings they stood near. The rows of houses get bigger and bigger the further you drive up the hill. The people are haughtier, and the grass, in an almost funny way, is literally greener on the other side.

We live at the bottom, and not very proudly. Stock gray tin roof that causes water to run down its tilted surface, across the rusted gutters, into the house in a way that drip, drip, drips into the bowls we place on the concrete floor. There are only a few houses that look like ours, and the kids sit at the curbs and play jacks and trade dimes and nickels for quarters at the corner store. Past that, the road tilts at an almost 45 degree angle, and another layer of wealth is added for every new house.

It was hard to get used to at first. In Illinois, there wasn’t a Vanessa’s house or a Charlie’s house or a Samantha’s. Our old neighborhood wasn’t divided from those with money and those without. Everyone there had the same gateless front yard where nothing but weeds grew, the same hole in the big toe of their shoe, the same fifty-cent deck of cards to entertain themselves.

I never used to be ashamed of where I lived, because I never had to worry about looking good in front of kids with money, but ever since we moved here, it’s been different. Vanessa told me I could pretend her house was mine, so the embarrassment isn’t as bad, but that doesn’t change the fact that I know where I live. No, I say, pointing to the sad, poverty-wracked building, that’s not where I live, I actually live there, and I’d point from my bus seat to the top of the hill, admiring the way Vanessa’s gleans in the sunlight like gold underground, feeling pride in a place I didn’t even live in. After Illinois, when Mom needed a change of scenery and Daddy needed a reason not to drink, that’s the place we picked. The biggest house on the hill. The one that overlooks the rest.

| k. - @nosebleedclub prompts. march v. drive up the hill

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mistbow · 2 years ago

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The Virtue of Void

The dragon mark on the Shepherd’s glove is modeled after Maotelus, and even the cloak is based upon the patterns of Maotelus. The Shepherd also uses Maotelus’ powers, the “Silver Flame”, to purify hellions. Yet, I think, even outside of his duty as the Shepherd, Sorey’s character represents the virtue in the element that Maotelus represents, Void.

In Zestiria, there are five elements: Earth (地), Water (水), Fire (火), Wind (風), and Void (無), modeled after the Godai (五大) in Japanese Buddhism: Earth (地), Water (水), Fire (火), Wind (風), and Void (空); as you can see that even the Five Lords are called Godaishin (五大神) in Japanese. However, if you notice in the kanji used for void, it’s actually different; sure, both “空” and “無” can be translated to “Void” in English, however, there’s a big yet nuanced difference here.

When 空 is used (like in the original Godai in Buddhism), Void means something like a vacant space. There’s nothing inside. Think about how a vase is useful because it has the clay part holding everything together, and the space inside it that you can put anything in it. In Buddhism, this character is used when describing śūnyatā or the element of ākāśa (both are very different concepts, mind you).

When 無 is used (like in Zestiria), Void means something like no-thing, like when you put the prefix un- or non- in English. It is the “without”. What it is not, however, is “no” in the “yes” and “no” dichotomy, which I will talk about later. It also, in some ways, refers to pure awareness, before the human gains experience and knowledge.

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a popular kouan in Mumonkan (無門關, lit. The Gateless Gate), in which the first kouan (趙州狗子) reads like this:

趙州和尚、因僧問、狗子還有佛性也無。州云、無。

A monk asked Zhaozhou Congshen, a Chinese Zen master, “Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?” Zhaozhou answered, “無.”

This has been interpreted to mean as follows: The kouan is not about whether a dog does or does not have a Buddha-nature because everything is Buddha-nature, and either a positive or negative answer is absurd because there is no particular thing called Buddha-nature. In it, the answer of “negative”, 無, is clarified as although all beings have potential Buddha-nature, beings who do not have the capacity to see it and develop it essentially do not have it. The purpose of this primary kouan to a student is to free the mind from analytic thinking and into intuitive knowing. A student who understands the nature of his question would understand the importance of awareness of potential to begin developing it.

VELVET: Let me ask you a question, Shepherd. Which do you choose: the “many” or the “individual”? SOREY: Well, I suppose I'd choose each of the “individual” so I'd end up with the “many.”

This is a very Sorey-like answer, of course, in which I mean to say that here he basically refuses to engage in the dichotomy presented by Velvet (Artorius, actually). Sorey indirectly says to unask this question; it is fundamentally flawed and that he won’t give in to the premise that a dualistic answer can be given in this case. It’s not either-or, because without the individual, there is not the many, and vice-versa.

To explain more on that, I’d like to go back to the Five Lords, but especially look at the crests for the two known leaders of the Lords: Maotelus and Innominat.

The Crest of Maotelus

A crest signifying Maotelus, the central figure of the Five Lords—a lord of the void, who embodies both light and darkness.

The Crest of Innominat

A crest that bears a distinct resemblance to that of Maotelus of the Five Lords. The dark parts are absent, leaving one with an impression of light and purity.

These crests are deliberately similar, yet the big difference is that Innominat’s is missing the “dark” parts: signifying only “light” and “purity.” The “void” that Maotelus represents, on the other hands, embraces both the “dark” and the “light”, and we have the entire game of Berseria to explain why that is.

Taking a closer look at Maotelus’ crest, it reminds me of another symbol that exists in the real world, because of the equal and interacting dark and light parts, almost cyclical.

Taijitu (太極圖), literally meaning the Symbol of the Supreme Ultimate, is often used to symbolize yin-yang (陰陽), opposing yet non-adversarial forces that complement each other, equally taking turns on waning, waxing, waning, and waxing again. The common saying in English is that “there are two sides to everything”, however this doesn’t fully explain the symbol: one half of the yin-yang cannot exist without the other. They are inseparable. If you have a hill that has a sun shining on one side, then you have one sunny side and one shady side. You cannot have an inside of a square without the outside, or the outside without the inside. That sort of thing.

「オレはヘルダルフがどうして災禍の顕主になったのかを知りたいんだ」

迷うことなく答えたスレイにメーヴィンは重ねて尋ねた。

「知ってどうする？あいつを倒す弱点を見つけたいのか？」

「それは……考えたことなかったな」

「なに？」

意外な答えにメーヴィンは眉間に皺を寄せた。

「じゃあ、なんのためにヘルダルフの過去を知りたいんだ？」

「導師として……ううん、オレがオレとしてヘルダルフと向き合うためだよ」

導師の使命は禍の顕主を鎮めること。スレイが導師になった当初、ライラはそう説明した。そのためには、世界を識る必要があると。

そしてスレイは旅に出た。出会いと別れを繰り返し、喜びと悲しみを繰り返した。どんなことにも裏と表があり、それらは切り離せない関係にあることを識った。

「旅は、導師として必要だったのかもしれない。でも、オレは導師であるまえにオレなんだ。世界を旅して、この世界が災禍の顕主によって危機に瀕していることを改めて識った。それを止めたいと思うのは、導師だからじゃない。オレ自身なんだ」

災禍の顕主は世界を穢れで満たそうとする、いわば大きな”負の流れ”だ。それと向き合い、抗おうとするなら—”正の流れ”になろうとするなら、相手を深く知り、正しく裏と表の関係にならなくてはいけない、とスレイは感じていた。

「導師として災禍の顕主と戦うだけなら、過去なんて識らなくてもいいかもしれない。でも、オレは識りたいんだ。自分が向き合うためには、それが必要だって感じてる。導師じゃなく、オレの勝手な願いだけれど、迷いのない選択をしたいから……メーヴィン、力を貸してくれないかな？」

メーヴィンは沈黙した。顔から笑みは消え、鋭い眼光がスレイを見定めるように行き来する。///スレイも沈黙し、メーヴィンの答えを待った。

やがて語り部は深くため息をついた。

「……なるほどな。使命じゃなく、己の意志で戦うことにしたってわけか……。確かにたいしたタマだったようだ」

“I want to know why Heldalf became the Lord of Calamity.”

Sorey answered without any hesitation, and Mayvin asked again.

“And what will you do once you know? Do you want to find a weakness to take him down?”

“I... had never thought about that.”

“What?”

Mayvin’s brows wrinkled at the unexpected answer.

“Then, for what reason do you want to know about Heldalf’s past?”

“I want to face him as the Shepherd... no, as myself.”

It is the Shepherd’s duty to quell the Lord of Calamity. When Sorey first became the Shepherd, Lailah explained this to him. In order to do so, he needed to know the world, she also told him.

Then Sorey set out on his journey. He had repeated encounters and farewells, experienced repeated joy and sorrow. He learned that everything had two sides to it, and that these two sides were inseparable.

“This journey might have been necessary for me as the Shepherd. But I am me before I am the Shepherd. Traveling around the world, I understood once again that this world is threatened by the Lord of Calamity. And I want to stop that not because I am the Shepherd, but because I want to do it as myself.”

The Lord of Calamity was a great “negative flow,” so to speak, that seeked to fill the world with malevolence. To face and resist this, to be the “positive flow,” Sorey felt he had to know the other party deeply and be on the right side of the relationship between the two.

“If all I want to do is to fight against the Lord of Calamity as the Shepherd, I may not need to know anything about his past. But I want to know; I feel that I need to in order to face him. It’s my own selfish wish, not as the Shepherd, but I want to make this choice without hesitation, so... Mayvin, will you lend me your strength?”

Mayvin was silent. His smile faded from his face, and his sharp eyes came and went as if he were assessing Sorey.

Sorey, too, was silent, waiting for Mayvin’s answer.

“...I see. So you decided to fight him not because of the Shepherd’s calling, but on your own will... you certainly have the gall to do it.”

Emphasis mine. Like coins, Sorey realizes that everything can’t have the tails (裏) without the heads (表). If Heldalf is the minus (負) of this world, so to speak, then in some ways he intuits that he needs to be the plus (正). That’s just how the world operates—it will yield to the balance, as he gets it.

(By the way, this whole duality of everything also applies to life and death in Daoism, and Zestiria, as a whole, touches upon both life and death in its narrative.)

死生，命也，其有夜旦之常

Death and life are ordained, just as we have the constant succession of night and day.

故善吾生者，乃所以善吾死也

That I found it good to live is the very reason why I find it good to die.

(For a person to value life but resist death would be a perversion of our very nature, as life and death are natural stages of being, if we value a person’s life, we should likewise value their death.)

反者道之動弱者道之用天下萬物生於有有生於無

Returning is the movement of Dao. Yielding is the manner of Dao. The ten thousand creatures of the world are created from being; Being is created from non-being.

—Dao De Jing (道德經) verse 40

道生一一生二二生三三生萬物萬物負陰而抱陽沖氣以為和

Dao creates one. One creates two. Two creates three. Three creates the ten thousand creatures. The ten thousand creatures carry Yin and embrace Yang, Pouring their Qi together, thus becoming harmonious.

—Dao De Jing (道德經) verse 42

In Daoist philosophy, the yin-yang becomes sensible from an initial, quiescent nothingness or non-being (無), and continues moving on until that quiescence is achieved again.

And I’d like to emphasize this: at the center of Daoist philosophy is that nothingness (無). Everything emerges from that 無, and will come back to that 無 as well; that’s how the world will settle itself naturally, and that’s how we live with Dao (道), or, put simply, the underlying principles of the universe (this is a very gross simplification, by the way).

One of the important concepts in Daoism is wu wei (無為).

道常無為而無不為

Dao ever-constantly practices actionless action, Yet nothing is left undone.

—Dao De Jing (道德經) verse 37

The term basically gets translated as a lot of things (actionless action, non-action, etc.), but wu wei refers to an action that you do without needing to act on it; an action that is so natural to you that you don’t have to consciously think about how, what, why, when to do it. (Think of how when you learn how to drive, you are conscious about many things, yet when you’re already adept, it’s almost second nature to you.)

Without forcing it. Yes, perhaps that is the right word.

將欲取天下而為之吾見其不得已

[夫]天下神器不可為也為者敗之執者失之

故物或行或隨或(歔)或吹或強或羸或挫或隳

是以聖人去甚去奢去泰

Would you take hold of the world and control it? I see you have no choice.

Now: the world is a divine vessel, You can not control it (indeed!). He who acts, ruins it; He who grasps, loses it.

So, among all things, Some lead and some follow, Some sigh and some pant, Some are strong and some are weak, Some overcome and some succumb.

Therefore the sage avoids extremity, excess, and extravagance.

—Dao De Jing (道德經) verse 29

There is an order to life, and we play our parts in it. That’s fine, and it grants us enough liberty to explore our capacities and take delight in them. But if we try to overstep our boundaries, extend beyond our capacities, we will fail miserably and painfully.

There is no satisfaction in pretense, if allowed to guide our lives. We need to be what we are, not what we would like to be.

ROSE: Sorey. If a heart set on justice starts generating malevolence, how do you think it should be stopped? ROSE: That’s what her angle is. She thinks her own personal justice and a universal sense of justice are one and the same.

I hope it’s obvious enough why Cardinal Forton is different from Sorey, despite both having strong enough desires/dreams of their own.

(There’s also duality at play here—Sorey gives life, Rose takes life.)

「イズチにいた頃は"穢れは危険なもの"って認識ですんだけど、こうやって人の世界に出てくると、そんな単純なものじゃないんだってわかったよ。人の社会と穢れは切っても切れない関係なんだ。そこで生きていくということは、誰でも穢れを生む可能性があるってこと」

スレイは街を見通した。フォートンの影響がなくなったとはいえ、穢れはまだ残っている。街の人々が知らないうちに生んでいるのだ。

「オレも穢れを生むかもしれない」

「君は穢れを生まないよ」

ミクリオは間髪入れずに答えた。スレイは顔をしかめる。

「.......どうして、言い切れるんだ？どうしても叶えたい夢がある——その点では、オレとフォートン枢機卿の気持ちは一緒じゃないか。それで、あの人は穢れを生み出していた」

「あの人とスレイは違う。君はひとりじゃない」

ミクリオははっきりと言った。

「夢を叶えるには、揺るがない意志が必要だ。けれどその強さゆえに、視野が狭くなり、他者の痛みに心が麻痺していく。——でもそれは一人だからだ。一人で夢を叶えようとするから、周りが見えなくなる」

ミクリオはスレイの両肩を摑み、言い聞かせるように言った。

「君の夢は、僕の夢でもある。君が暴走しそうになったら、僕が殴ってでも目を覚まさせる。僕を信じられないか？」

スレイは迷わず首を振る。その勢いのよさに、ミクリオは少しだけ笑う。

「だから君は穢れに捕まることはない、絶対」

“When I was in Elysia, I was aware that malevolence was a dangerous thing, but now that I’m out in the world of humans, I come to realize that it’s not that simple. Human society and malevolence are inseparable, even if we try to separate them. Living in such a world means that everyone has the potential to be tainted.”

Sorey looked over the town. Although Forton’s influence is gone, malevolence still remains. The people of this town were giving birth to malevolence without them realizing it.

“I might give birth to malevolence too.”

“You won’t.”

Without a moment’s delay, Mikleo answered. Sorey frowned.

“…How can you be so sure about that? I have a dream that I really want to fulfill——and in that respect, aren’t my feelings the same as Cardinal Forton’s? She was giving birth to malevolence because of that.”

“You’re different from her. You’re not alone.”

Mikleo made it very clear.

“An unwavering will is needed to make dreams come true. But because of how strong it is, our vision narrows and our hearts become numb to the pain of others——but that’s only because we are alone. Because we try to fulfill our dreams alone, we lose sight of the world around us.”

Mikleo said, grabbing both of Sorey’s shoulders, as if to remind him.

“Your dream is also my dream. If you are about to go out of control, I’ll punch you to wake you up. Or you can’t trust me?”

(Emphasis, again, mine.)

The Daoist sage is the paradigm of proper responsiveness. He has perfect sensitivity and responsiveness both to things in the world and to other people; to his surroundings. He’s open to the dynamic of relationship self-other, to the relativity and mutual involvement of self and other. In contrast with an average human being, the sage, whose heart-mind (心) is free from any residue, displays an “unbiased receptivity to things.” His empty heart-mind “takes no distortive action” and so “what is can be as it is, with no disfigurement.” Thus, it is possible for the sage to “appreciate things as they really are” and also to perceive and embrace a person as they are. The uncluttered heart-mind makes the sage well-equipped for correctly evaluating the actions of others and responding appropriately.

(I would like to mention that Zestiria tackled a bit of this whole “you’re not alone” bit earlier with a Daoist parable: the snake, the frog, and the centipede.)

Yes, it is in the heart-mind (心) that is empty; that has nothing in it. Think of it like a mirror, or a glass, that gets obscured when it is tainted, and so you can’t see clearly what’s on or through it. In Zestiria, I think this is the virtue of purity really stands for.

穢れ――自らの思うまま生きることを阻む世界の皮肉に圧し潰された、人の心の悲鳴。その悲鳴を感じ寄り添い、本当の形の心とともに再出発する背中を押すのがスレイの救いの力(感じる力・霊応力)。浄化の炎を振るうだけでは救いとは言えず、逆に炎がなくとも人や天族を穢れから救う事はできる。

Malevolence――The screams of the human heart-mind that is crushed by the irony of the world that prevents them from living as they wish.

To feel those screams of the heart-mind and get close to it, and push them to start over with the heart-mind in its true form is Sorey’s powers of salvation (his power to feel and his resonance).

Wielding Flame of Purification alone is not enough to save; on the contrary, it is possible to save humans and seraphim from malevolence even without it.

In Daoism, at the core of the heart-mind (心) of every human being there is an authentic self. The authentic self is intimately connected with virtue (德), which is a gift people receive at birth. But the heart-mind is also the seat of all mental activities; it is the “location of consciousness.” With time and via the contact with the outside world (learning a language, learning social norms, going through traumatic experiences, etc.), the heart-mind becomes filled—like a container—with “knowing consciousness” (知). Not knowing how to use this knowing consciousness selectively—turn it on when necessary, but also turn it off at other times—a human being comes to depend on this consciousness and identify with it completely. When unstopped in its growth, this consciousness continues to produce multiple, derivative intellectual layers atop the true self. All actions that are motivated by these inauthentic layers oppress and harm one's spiritual core.

The thoughts, actions, and speech of a person are no longer the reflection of their true self.

EDNA: Don’t let her see you frowning like that. You don’t want Rose’s feelings to go to waste, do you? SOREY: I don’t. But I just... I feel so bummed.

Now, the question of emotions. Having an empty heart-mind which is free from emotions implies being emotionless. However, it is not really the case that a Daoist sage is emotionless; rather that he does not add anything (i.e., a word, a thought, an action) to make a given emotion amplify and, thus, exceed its natural boundaries. Being free of these excessive emotion means not allowing likes or dislikes to damage you internally, instead making it your constant practice to follow along with the way each thing is of itself, without trying to add anything to the process of life.

The sage consciously restrains himself from making any such additions that would lead to prolonging the life span of an emotion. As a result, emotions remain spontaneous, genuine, and harmless—they come and go freely, like changes in the weather or the seasons of the year, and they never transform into anything excessive or harmful. Thus, emotions are never artificially solidified into a fixed identity. The sage is free from emotions in the sense that they leave no residue in his heart-mind, they do not take up the space within, and thus they do not block the sage's unity with Dao. By cultivating the void (無) of the heart-mind, the sage ensures that he is never harmed by emotions.

SOREY: You mean to live is to obey the laws of nature? HELDALF: What else would it be? SOREY: You’re wrong! All that is, is not being dead.

Daoism is a philosophy that stresses living simply and honestly while in harmony with nature. Letting things follow their natural course. Wu wei (無為), no wasted action, is the principle.

However, one thing that many people get wrong when hearing about this concept is that it means total surrender. Yes, wu wei implies giving up on forcing things. But never giving up altogether.

For instance, when you’re experiencing injustices, wu wei doesn’t suggest resignation. It’s quite the opposite. Wu wei suggests a persistent amount of pressure. This pressure isn’t a metaphorical jackhammer or wrecking ball. It’s a soft strike in the right spot. It’s like water quietly working through the toughest cliffs and rocks.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves… Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Passivity is often looked down upon. In the case of Zestiria and Sorey, (especially in the early reviews where people started playing Zestiria in bad faith because of the infamy surrounding the game), people often criticize how Sorey is not the ideal male Tales protagonist; he is often called “radio-controlled” (ラジコン) in the sense that Rose (along with the others, especially Lailah) is seen as the one controlling and driving his character around, thus, Rose is, to the eyes of these people, the “real” protagonist of Zestiria because she is the more “assertive” one. And she is assertive, by the way, but I think people look at Sorey’s character the wrong way.

Yielding and passivity are virtues traditionally associated with the feminine in the Daoist point of view, and I know this might have caused some knee-jerk reaction in some people, but in Dao De Jing, even though the intended audience would've been men, students are encourage to embrace and nurture the feminine elements of their nature. These feminine virtues are seen as positive traits to have, not inferior to their more assertive masculine counterpart.

The “feminine” is the earth. The inborn nature of its body is stable. Women are patterned on it. If a man wishes to congeal his essence, he should mentally pattern himself on earth and be like a woman.

And it is, intended as part of his character.

山本　そういう意味ではおとなしい主人公に見えるかもしれませんが、熱い思いはちゃんと持っていて、叫んだりノリや勢いだけで解決しようとはしないキャラクターにしたんです。代わりに、ミクリオをストレートに感情表現するキャラクターにして、2人で1人の主人公のような言動をとるように工夫しました。

YAMAMOTO: In that sense, [Sorey] may seem like a calm protagonist, but he has passionate feelings, yet does not try to solve problems by shouting or just going with his spirit or momentum. Instead, we made Mikleo a character who expresses his emotions in a straightforward manner, so that the two of them act and speak as if they are one protagonist.

馬場　彼が世界を動かそうとしたんじゃなくて、彼の行動の結果が世界を動かしていく、変えていく。

BABA: He didn’t try to move the world, but the results of his actions moved and changed the world.

Sorey is like a blank canvas, unstained, yet with a strong, pure core. With this heart-mind of his that is empty in the Daoist sense, he acts just as he does, just as he is, staying true to himself. He never forces his way through, he knows that he has to be in harmony with nature (as symbolized by the seraphim, who are described as the very world the humans live in itself), and he then learns that everything in the nature has two sides to it—this includes reconciling not just life but also death. To respect life, you have to respect death. To respect death, you have to respect life. But to yield also means to still be alive; being alive is not the same as not being dead, after all. He has learned to be in check with himself, and with his surroundings.

Sorey is really the perfect character that embodies the values that Maotelus’ Void represents. Empty of malevolence.

One thousand years apart, and he manages to inherit that will. Legends (伝承) are not just told (伝), but also needs at least someone willing to listen to them (承); it’s why they’re called that way.

“Legends” will someday become “hope.”

#tales of #tales of zestiria #mino talks zesty #mino rambles #very long post...#i always get too long-winded yet say nothing lol

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bookishcatcafe · 11 months ago

Text

Untitled

Gaze into this golden epoch.

Here the first

and last man

stands at the edge of the world—

Singing poems to no one.

The waters dangle off the precipice,

like crystalline stalactites,

dripping naught.

And he, like antkind,

Waltzes to silent numbers

shrouded in the secrecy

of isolation: the silent killer.

He gives

more than it

which takes everything

from him.

As the dwarves in death,

or the seabirds to the sailor-men atop rocks,

like Esther on the motorway: driving

in idealized democratic notions

of what she wants in her life,

drove headfirst into the intersection

between an exit ramp and twirled

like clockwork

off the rails and into shallow waters.

The gates open up,

spilling with a golden liquid,

whiter than the sun,

swirling around his being,

and in moments of trickling time,

he becomes void of human shape

now shining too—

walking through a gateless garden,

the beach subsides,

and time echoes away:

this music for everything,

the waltz that never ends

and ends for everyone.

#poem #poetry #my poem #my poetry

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inventors-fair · 1 year ago

Text

Alone In The Big City Commentary

Hello everyone, @loreholdlesbian here again. I’m back with the commentary for the last contest I ran, the monocolored Ravnican legends

Garulsz, Jaded Barkeep by @wolkemesser

Interesting. So you want creatures to be damaged in combat, but survive, which rewards big creatures. And then you have a nice way to make your creatures bigger that ties into the food ability. My worry is just how much this’ll discourage your opponents from attacking. It makes the math really complicated (since you can turn food into +1/+1 counters), and it’ll be frustrating to get it wrong. I think the food-making ability should only work on your turn.

Aurelia and Lavinia by @piccadilly-blue

This is an interesting prison card. I like that it encourages you to attack, so it’s less of a grindy game, though you really only need one or two hits to be a nuisance. I kinda wish it encouraged it more, not using counters. Something like “Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, until your next turn, creatures can’t attack you, planeswalkers you control, or battles you protect unless their controller pays 2/W for each of those creatures.

Zorym, Gateless Courier by @bergdg

Pretty generic, but cool. The mana is definitely a good gate for the consecrated sphinx effect, stops it from getting out of control. I like hexproof from multicolored too, it tells a surprising amount of story, especially combined with the name. It implies some kind of rebellion type thing going on, and I think that kind of flavor is a good addition for a pretty generic value piece like this.

Zomaj Hauc, the Firemind by @misterstingyjack

The spellslinger effect seems a bit disconnected from the threaten tribal, but i guess a lot of those kinds of cards are instants and sorceries so i can see what you’re going for. And i really like the pieces. As a wording thing though, this should be “When this ability resolves for the second time”; there’s weird targeting issues with this as written.

Tomik, Chairman of Balance by @railway-covidae

This is a good kind of land destruction. It takes enough work to drag the game into a stalemate as a 6 mana card that you probably aren’t doing that work unless you’re about to win. And it’s good at taking on ramp decks. I do worry that 6 mana is too much for a hate card to do its job well, but i also worry it gets a bit too armageddony much lower? Not sure.

The Forgotten God by @dimestoretajic

I know you made this as a reference to Priest of the Forgotten Gods and I think making a card for that is a cool place to take this contest. The name throws me off though. The priest refers to gods plural, but having a single god be “the forgotten god” implies they’re the only one which is odd. Giving it the same immortality ability as Ilharg is a good flavorful tie. And onto the mechanics, I do quite like it, though it feels a *little* odd that it only triggers off a nontoken creature’s sacrifice but it cares about all sacrifice including tokens. It’s probbbbably fine though

Ranov, Undercity Scion by @snugz

“This ability triggers only once each turn doesn’t work with an ability like this that has it change zones; it can’t keep track of how many times it triggered before. (And technically it doesn’t trigger at all cause it’s a replacement effect.) More importantly though, I just don’t think this card is exciting. A toned down, safety-netted reference to what used to be a keyword just isn’t enticing in the way a legendary card should be.

Ilharg, the Scarring Flame by @halfsilveredmirror

This is a very mechanically different take on the character from the first iteration, but probably a more fitting one tbh. I really like the mini-decimate effect, this is cool. Pretty brutal though, especially with trample and haste; not hitting creatures is a good call (even if it was just for color pie reasons), it still gives them a chance.

Rev, Guide to the Guildless by @0woah

This fits the spirit of the contest (heh), but technically not the letter. This is a cool way to enable to enable gates matter stuff, though land tokens always have some issues- namely, they’re very easy to mix in with regular lands.

Thessgra, Azorius Legislator by @batatafilosofal

This seems neat. Clearly wants to be in a mill deck, so you want to make sure the payoff works well with that, and I’d say this does. It’s a very defensive card, which makes it easier for you to sit back and mill. I do think this wants a way to enable itself even if not very well.

Suniel, the Woodwise by @nine-effing-hells

Solid design here. Lots of populates are good, but this takes enough investment to do that that it’s not problematic. Is there a reason you chose to forgo reminder text? There’s more than enough room.

Rhakh, Raze-Board Dedicant by @curiooftheheart

“Enters the battlefield attacking” is a neat little flavorful addition to the trigger conditions. The intention clearly seems to be this dying during combat, which I quite like, but I wish the toughness was a little lower tbh. Like 5/3

Fblthp, Adored by @bread-into-toast

Very clearly a MOM or aftermath design, and I quite like it. I’m a little surprised we didn’t see any “Whenever this creature convokes” designs frankly. This card is really limited in its commander purposes by its color identity but not every card needs to be a great commander, and it’s a cool and fitting design all the same.

Storch, the Dead Drop by @spooky-bard

Art description: Deep in the Undercity, a skull and a bony arm are visible breaking the surface of a veritable mountain of rot to be harvested by the Golgari. Beams of light pour forth from its eye sockets, scanning and surveying the area. The glowing Dimir sigil branded onto the skeleton’s forehead makes its allegiance clear.

Surveil synergy plus reanimation is a fun combo of effects. This is minor, but I think this is a bit too color intensive for a ravnica set (and it feels more like a ravnica main set card than a supplemental set card) because it synergizes with a guild mechanic. You want to be able to throw this in with a bunch of surveil cards from the set and many of those are gonna be blue. Like I said though, minor point, and very cool card. The repeatable reanimation is likely a bit problematic though; that’s a pretty cheap reanimate as an activated ability all things considered, and it could get a bit repetitive.

Massacre Girl, Fugitive Headliner by @deg99

Neat design! This is just a solid, black-feeling beatstick. Annoying to block, annoying to kill. I just wish it did a little bit more massacring ya know? Killing generally one creature a turn at most just doesn’t feel like it lives up to the title.

Araithia “Rat” Shokta by @izzet-always-r-versus-u

Fun way to capture her “people don’t think about me deal”. Protection from everything, with a clear window for interacting. Mostly, this is just an invisible stalker that’s hard to suit up which is where Invisible stalker becomes most problematic, so it’s probably fine.

Bori Andon, Izzet Blastseeker by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

Art direction: Bori is on the left, with part of the back towards the camera, only the face is fully visible to the viewer. He stands a couple dozens meters away from the Harmony Basilica. Flying towards it (clearly launched by someone) there's a viashino; it's going to hit one of the glass windows. A lot of Ravnican are watching. Some Azorius and Boros members are running towards Bori to stop him.

Having a board wipe on board definitely shouldn’t be instantspeed with no mana needed to activate. That’s a good way to hold your opponents hostage. I also worry about this kind of repeatable board wipe where all you need to do is put a few +1/+1 counters on this or something (which if it’s your commander you’ll definitely build your deck to do) and you can, again, hold your opponents hostage.

Bachasarius, Stage Presences by @little-red-rabbit

Well you forgot legendary lol, but the intention was clearly there. This seems fine, good uncommon legendary design. Simple, points you in a pretty clear direction. Solid, not a ton to say here.

Acorn, Trostani’s Disciple by @squeezyboi

Well firstly, this has the same targeting issues I talked about in another card. (Like, the exact same, with only targeting on certain resolutions of the ability, it’s funny how y’all both did similar things in that regard.) But I like the general shape of the design, with “Play a bunch of creatures and you get a different effect each time”. And the vhitu ghazi token is cool. I just wish it was less cramped to read.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventors' fair #alone in the big city contest #commentary

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