#the pitying looks made me feel much worse than my personal philosophy

[writing-in-mermish]

Sometimes I think about how I have a lancer/bad guy/loner character type answer to a “would you rather” question. Like, I’m a pretty upbeat friendly person but my answer to this question would make you think otherwise. You’d look at me and think “who hurt you” and want to write fanfic about me healing or something.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Wei Wuxian/Lan Xichen? Arranged marriage could be fun, but really any take you might have on them.

ao3

“Did you do something to irritate your uncle, too?” Wei Wuxian asked.

Lan Xichen finishes writing, then puts his brush down before looking back at the guest disciple from the Jiang sect. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

Wei Wuxian was lying on his back and tossing a rolled-up ball of paper up and down instead of copying the rules the way he was supposed to, but Lan Xichen didn’t scold him – the rules would be copied eventually, or they wouldn’t be. If Wei Wuxian wasn’t minded to do his work, would scolding help?

It'd only been a little while, but Lan Xichen felt that he already knew him well enough to know that it wouldn’t.

“I mean, copying rules was supposed to be my punishment,” Wei Wuxian said. “But you’re his prized student, the First Jade of Lan. Why are you stuck here supervising me?”

Lan Xichen smiled. “By all rights, the task should belong to my brother,” he explained. “He runs the discipline hall in normal times. But Wangji chose to remain in secluded cultivation rather than attend classes this season, so I have taken his place.”

Wei Wuxian pursed his lips, clearly thinking it over.

“It’s a pity,” Lan Xichen added. “I think he might have liked you.”

Rather, more accurately, he thought Wei Wuxian’s incessant teasing might have gotten under Lan Wangji’s skin – at times he feared that his brother, in his pursuit of cultivation, was growing too serious, too soon. It would do him well to spend time with those his own age, especially someone as light-hearted, witty, and clever as Wei Wuxian.

“Hey, Lan-gongzi.”

“Mm?”

Wei Wuxian had rolled over onto his stomach and was staring at Lan Xichen, who smiled helplessly back, expecting another prank. Instead, Wei Wuxian asked, “Is there really no one else in the Lan sect who can supervise punishments?”

“What,” Lan Xichen said, “am I not suitable to your eyes?”

“You’re too suitable! You’re the heir of the Lan sect, a perfect gentleman – how can you waste your time copying rules for your uncle’s lectures?”

Lan Xichen chuckled. “My uncle’s lectures are a treasure,” he said. “He teaches not only good conduct, but insight into the world and to the path each person must follow – do you know why they praise him to the skies as a teacher?”

Wei Wuxian blinked.

“He can help students apply the precepts handed down from our ancestors to their own lives, shaping them to match their own philosophies – it’s like encountering a treasure trove with a thousand gleaming gems, and if you only listen earnestly and whole-heartedly, you can claim one as your own. Putting aside exercising and improving your moral sense, the insights you will gain will tremendously speed your cultivation; in the end, you will be qualified to be a real gentleman by the cultivation world’s terms.”

“Why didn’t anyone say so?” Wei Wuxian demanded, sitting up straight. “I’ve been sitting here doing nothing –”

“If you want to waste your opportunity to obtain a beneficial education, there’s nothing anyone else can do about it.”

“You’re very frustrating, and very persuasive,” Wei Wuxian informed him, but he was already smiling. “I think I like you!”

“I’m honored.”

“All right, all right, so I’m convinced. How many more do I need to copy?”

He flicked his fingers and formed talismans: a half-dozen brushes rose up in unison, ready to paint.

Lan Xichen laughed in delight.

-

“His path is evil,” Lan Wangji said. His voice was level as always, unmoved even by the atrocities of the war; the people said that it was as if he had wholly left the world behind, and kept only righteousness in his heart – with no space for love or empathy.

Sometimes, Lan Xichen thought they might be right.

“His motivation is good,” he said tiredly. “Didn’t you spend time with him before? In the cave, with the Xuanwu…”

“We cooperated, and succeeded in escaping together,” Lan Wangji said coolly. “It is that experience that shows me what Wei Wuxian is capable of – and that his current path of cultivation is a matter of choice.”

Lan Xichen shook his head. “He’s fighting the Wen sect. Without him, we would be much worse off; that doesn’t seem to me to be evil.”

“Brother, I know you spent a long time looking for him alongside Sect Leader Jiang. Do not let that commitment, and your fondness for him, blind you to the truth. He could fight alongside us as a righteous cultivator, and he has instead turned to demonic cultivation. Are we to accept evil if the end results are good?”

“I do not believe he is evil,” Lan Xichen said, and then, shamefully, added, “That is my decision, Wangji. Are you questioning your sect leader?”

Lan Wangji raised his hands and saluted deeply, not even bothering to send Lan Xichen a look of judgment for playing that card. “You will need to decide what is more important,” he said. “In time.”

Lan Xichen knew that.

He shook his head a second time, this time to himself, for his foolishness. Lan Wangji was right: he would need to eventually decide between righteousness and victory, between the orthodoxy of the cultivation world and –

Love.

Unrequited love, no less.

Wei Wuxian’s fierce repulsion of Lan Xichen’s attempts to help had made that clear enough.

And yet…

He would go to look for Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen decided, and laughed bitterly at his own foolishness. In an ideal world, he would invite him to come back to Gusu to refresh himself – to rest, to recuperate, to remember why the orthodox path was the right one. But harsh experience had shown him that the Cloud Recesses were not safe – that no one would be safe until the Wen sect was gone.

Even if it meant resorting to demonic cultivation.

Inviting Wei Wuxian back would have to wait. All Lan Xichen could do now was fight alongside him.

-

“You seem unhappy, Xichen,” Nie Mingjue said apropos of nothing, and Jin Guangyao looked up from where he was practicing playing the Song of Clarity, surprised. He looked even more surprised when Lan Xichen nodded, acknowledging the comment as truth.

“Are you really, er-ge?” he asked, putting aside his guqin. “Why didn’t you say?”

“You’ve met him,” Nie Mingjue said before Lan Xichen could respond. “Would he ever say?”

Jin Guangyao considered the point, then nodded.

Lan Xichen smiled. “You are both good friends,” he said. “I am blessed in my friends.”

“In your brothers,” Nie Mingjue said, and Lan Xichen couldn’t help but flinch. “Trouble with Wangji?”

“No, Wangji is perfect.” As always. “He merely reminds me of – an old disagreement of ours.”

“About what?” Jin Guangyao asked. “Is it something we could help with?”

Lan Xichen shook his head. “I don’t think anything could help.”

“Is this about Wei Wuxian?” Nie Mingjue asked, and this time it was Lan Xichen who turned to stare at him in surprise. “What?”

“You – know?”

“Know what?” Jin Guangyao asked, looking concerned and – well, a little irritated, in truth. Probably because Nie Mingjue had figured out something even he didn’t know, which wasn’t something that happened very often. “Er-ge, what is da-ge talking about?”

“Xichen has a crush on Wei Wuxian,” Nie Mingjue told Jin Guangyao, straightforward and blunt as always, and Lan Xichen put his head into his hands.

“How do you even know that?” he said, voice muffled through his palms. “We barely interacted during the Sunshot Campaign, you wouldn’t have even seen it…”

“Huaisang told me. He saw you during his time at the Cloud Recesses; he said you seemed very happy, then. And with Wei Wuxian now an exile from the cultivation world…”

“I just don’t understand why he did what he did,” Lan Xichen said. “He’s always been – I believe in him. He’s a good man. But he insists on continuing his demonic cultivation, he stole away the Wen sect and ran to Yiling…” He shook his head. “Perhaps my family is merely doomed to tragedy in love.”

He was trying to speak lightly, but for some reason that made both of his sworn brothers frown and look at each other, silent communication passing between them as if like lightning – and that was rare, too. The last time he’d seen that had been before Jin Guangyao had left for Langya.

“I don’t like the idea of er-ge being unhappy,” Jin Guangyao said abruptly. “Er-ge deserves the world. What’s one Wei Wuxian?”

“I agree,” Nie Mingjue said. “He might have been ejected from the Jiang sect, but that just makes him a rogue cultivator – and other than stealing the Wen sect remnants, he hasn’t done anything in nearly a year, hasn’t he? He just lives peacefully.”

“Growing radishes,” Lan Xichen put in, and shrugged when they looked at him. “I went to visit him…I thought someone should tell him about his shjie’s engagement.”

“You went to visit him,” Nie Mingjue said, as if that was significant. “In Yiling. I see.”

Jin Guangyao was nodding as if Nie Mingjue had said something profound.

It was a bit like the days before Langya, when Jin Guangyao was Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, his trusted deputy, and between them they planned out battle and aftermath alike, strategy and tactics.

Lan Xichen looked between the two of them and suddenly was struck with a bad feeling.

“No, wait,” he said. “You can’t – he doesn’t even like me!”

“Nonsense,” Jin Guangyao said. “Who doesn’t like our er-ge?”

-

“I’m incredibly sorry about this,” Lan Xichen said to Wei Wuxian, who looked dazed. “I didn’t think they’d go this far just because I liked you. You shouldn’t have to marry me to bring your Wen sect back into the world – in fact, I’m not going to allow it! I’ll fight for their ability to live freely without any such ridiculous conditions, I promise. Am I not a sect leader in my own right? I will –“

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said. “You like me? As in –” He mimed cutting his sleeve. “Like me?”

“Yes, and you don’t like me in return, I know,” Lan Xichen said. “You should feel no obligation whatsoever. As I said, I will –”

“Doesn’t your brother want to kill me?”

It was quite possible Lan Wangji wanted to kill Wei Wuxian.

“I wouldn’t let him,” Lan Xichen said. That seemed more relevant.

“You don’t mind my demonic cultivation?”

“I mean, I prefer orthodoxy, of course, but it seems clear enough to me that your intentions are good. As long as you remain restrained and disciplined – and I know you have the capability to do so – then I don’t see why –”

“When are we getting married?” Wei Wuxian asked. “And can I invite Jiang Cheng, and shijie?”

“You misunderstand,” Lan Xichen said. “You don’t have to –“

He stopped speaking for a few moments.

A little later he cleared his throat and said, “Ah. I see.”

Wei Wuxian grinned at him.

[zellerysworld]

『 Comfort 』

Sukuna x F!Reader

Word count: 2.1k

Tags: Fluff???, Established Relationship, Angst, Mentions of death, self hate, and abuse, slightly insane reader, slightly soft Sukuna

A/N: Readers abilities are touching people to make them sleep, transfer memories, and see past (for those with DID, talk to the souls within the persons mind). She serves as a informant by going inside victims heads to look in their pasts for curses that were around them; informing her teammates of location and grade level. She can also gain powers from whomever she touches for a short period of time.

Ex: Sukuna can give Malevolent Shrine to her for battle, but after one use/within five minutes, it vanishes. If she uses powers that are harsh on her body, (domain expansions or strong cursed manipulation) she faints/gets nose bleeds.

Your feet dragged against the brutally cold floors of the first-year dormitories at Jujutsu Tech. Everything around you was dark, dim light being provided by the full moons reflection through the windows. The corridor felt like a never-ending strip as you silently sobbed under your h/c locks.

Today was… hard. Usually, you can handle the painful endeavors of reaching into the depths of stranger’s minds, but today was different. Todays victim was a young boy, not even a teen, who was abused by his own parents. When you grazed his swollen cheeks as he lied motionless on the floor, the fear he felt as his mother raised a hand to him engulfed your body. Then and there on the scene, you began to cry uncontrollably.

Doing the same thing every day, seeing the same pain in people’s memories, reliving all of their fears within seconds- it was beginning to rip your soul apart piece by piece. At first, it was manageable. However, over the past year of being at this damned jujutsu school, all you seem to feel is excruciating aches in both body and soul.

Recalling the child’s memories, you fell against the wall of the corridor while burying your tearstained face into the same shaking, gloved hands that touched him. Gojo Satoru picked you to be a student because of your “Stability”, yet you were turning into the opposite. The way you viewed death and the nature of It was what impressed Gojo and everyone around you the most, though you have never seen yourself as impressive. All you do is touch people and relay information, nothing too complicated, right?

A door creaked open after your fall emitted a loud thud in the room behind you. When you lifted your head to apologize, you noticed it was none other than Yuji Itadori- Sukuna’s vessel in other words. The young sorcerers’ eyes widened at seeing you in such a distraught state, hastily running over to you. Yuji scanned your body for wounds but was only able to find a pair of empty eyes. “Y/n? Are you alright? C’mon, lets get you to your room.” He scooped you into his arms, carrying you as a mother does with her sleeping child.

Yuji opened the door, gently placing you onto the silk sheets of the rooms bed as you silently cursed yourself for being so weak. The expression you bared made him pained, so he attempted to make you comfortable by taking your shoes off. After doing so, he sat to side of the bed. He held your shielded hand into his bare ones before recommending, “How about talking to Sukuna?”

Your voided eyes closed as you slouched into the headboard. Sukuna would be disappointed to see you in such a state, him possibly refusing to secretly work with you anymore if he saw this mess. Or even worse, he’d stop loving you. From that thought, your mind continued to spiral.

While stuck in your self-pity, Yuji was removing a glove from your hand. “Gojo makes you talk to Sukuna for information, but I know you enjoy talking to each other. He thinks about you a lot.”

Hearing Yuji’s words made your eyelids flash open like lightning as he removed the glove completely. Gojo assigned you to become an informant for him by touching Yuji to go into Sukuna’s domain, however that plan backfired. Overtime, you began to tell Gojo you couldn’t get anything from him, while secretly falling for and scheming with Sukuna. There was a pact made between the two of you: In exchange for touching Yuji to temporarily gain sukuna’s abilities, you must kill with those powers.

You grew to hate violence over the years; having seen multiple forms of it through people’s memories. But you made an exception, being that violence should be used against those who use violence with malicious intent. Although it is a bit of a hypocritical way to think.

When going out with Yuji and others, you take advantage of the surroundings by stalking your next prey. You do this by “accidentally” bumping into people on the streets and reading their memories to search for any abusers, cheaters, or murderers. Although you were technically a killer too, you knew one day you’d have to pay for your sins. Lately, that day seems to be snaking its way closer to you.

“Y/n?” Yuji questioned with a slight tilt of his head; his voice snapping you from your train of thought. Raising the hand he ungloved, the fingertip of your index finger tapped against his forehead. With the tap, his body relaxed before falling into a deep state of sleep. His head fell onto your lap, giving a perfect opening to use your ability. You took the smooth palm of your bare hand, and cupped Yuji’s jawline. This was how you opened communication into someone’s memories, or in this case, into someone’s personalities.

Although you were nervous to see what sukuna would think of you in such a ruined state, Yuji’s words made you feel relaxed. Sukuna was your partner after all, he should be able to see you like this. But then again, he was the king of curses, not just some human guy you picked up on a dating website. In the end though, your want of Sukuna’s comfort overlaps your fear.

Your eyelids shut, then reopened in a different place. It was still nighttime at this location, but it was not the physical world that humans are used to- even if it felt like it was. A vast plateau of flowers swayed in the man-made dream you were in. Constellations of multiple forms helped the moon light up the colorful night sky. The cool air caused you to slightly shiver as it brushed through the grass.

“Why did you bring me here, brat? I was sleepin’ on my throne.”

Sukuna’s rugged voice didn’t seem to faze you as you gazed upwards to the moon. Instead, it oddly comforted you. Although most are terrified of his presence alone, it did not budge your already cracking mind in any shape or form. It slightly annoyed Sukuna that he couldn’t scare you, but it felt comfort in knowing that there is at least one person in this world who doesn’t flinch at the sound of his name.

When you didn’t respond to his question, he lifted a brow in confusion. The robed man slowly stepped through the tall grass, his hands staying in his pockets of course. “Hey,” he started as his warm palm gripped your right shoulder, “Answer me.” His tone became serious, but if you squint, you can see the worry in it. The sound of your silence was so damn loud.

Sukuna jerked your shoulder, revealing your heartbroken expression to his red pupils. You leaned your head downwards, feeling embarrassed that he had to see you like this, but who else could you have gone to? “Yu-Yuji told me y-ou,” you hickuped while trying to speek, trying to hold back your tears from him, “He t-told me you… think about me.” Your tears looked like melting diamonds as they fell from under your locks and into the moonlight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrKjywjo7Q

(For those that want to feel the moment.)

He didn’t know what to feel, nor what to do, until you muttered out, “I’m sorry…”

In that moment, you felt your knees go weak. Your legs gave out, making you fall into the grass. Sukuna quickly grabbed your waist, falling into the grass with you as your cushion. He nuzzled his tattooed face against your puffy cheeks while whispering, “Show me what happened.”

You lifted a hand, cupping his jawline to open communication into his nervous system. Through the line, you showed him the memories you saw and how they hurt you. Sukuna couldn’t have been less fazed, seeing as he is the king of curses and was a mass murderer. But when he saw the expression you made when ripping your hand away from the boy, his spirit felt like a nail went through the center of it.

He sighed, moving loose hairs from your forehead so he could have a full look at your bloodshot eyes. Your e/c orbs told him how drained you were beginning to feel from the mortal world. He cooed, “I wish I wasn’t trapped in this brat. I would destroy the entire world for you, Y/n… You wouldn’t have to deal with any shitty pains like this.”

Sukuna hated everyone, except you. As the saying goes, Heroes would sacrifice you for the world, while villains would sacrifice the world for you. He enjoys telling himself the lie of “Y/n got on my good side”, but Sukuna always knew the truth of why he couldn’t help but care for you so much: You changed him. Out of billions of people just on this planet alone, you were the one to take his heart, mind, and philosophy and then mold it.

Killing was killing to Sukuna, and that’s all there was to it. But he found his goals shifting when he meant you. The insanity that filled your eyes as you’d hold a fresh blade against the neck of your enemies. Human or curse, it didn’t matter to you. Bad was bad, good was good; things were black and white to you as they were to him, but in a different manner. Your bravery was another factor to his care for you. The fact that you went unarmed into Yuji’s mind after he ate the finger just to get a view of Sukuna’s throne without any care for consequences was such a curious thing to him.

You both saw things the same way, yet not. The complexity of your careless philosophy was something to applaud in his eyes. But as you lay in your despair, Sukuna is grimly reminded you are still a human that must endure the torture that is a fleeting life. He wanted you to be a curse like him, enjoying the comfort of eternity in a paradise he could build for just the two of you.

But in the end, you were just a human. And although it sounds like something he is absolutely disgusted by, it’s not. If anything, the fact you are just a human girl catches him off guard even more. A human girl managed to move a god’s heart. A human girl somehow has the power to see people’s pain and was never moved until many years later. Sukuna didn’t know if he should have been happy or terrified to find someone like you.

His thoughts were cut off by the sound of your silent sobs, making him close his eyes in uneasiness. It took him a few minutes, but he soon realized what he could do to relieve your pains. He saw what you saw and felt what you felt, therefore he knew just how helpless and weak you were feeling. To him, you werent weak at all, and he needs you to see that.

“Y/n.”

Your crystalized eyes looked to his blood-colored ones.

“Let me show you what I see.” His voice was soft, yet still had a rugged tone to it.

He pulled you upwards, making you sit up across from him while waving grass continued to surround the two of you. Leaning into you, his forehead leaned on yours as you snaked a hand across his palm, entangling your wrist with his fingers. The hand you were snaking tightly gripped at your forearm before you gripped onto his. Using this technique is a more intimate way of opening a line of communication. Both of your eyes closed to open it completely.

In Sukuna’s memories, you view things how he views them and see things through his mindset. It felt like a wave of ease flow throughout your body as you became comforted in the way he sees you. Most of the moments you saw were when you would smile, fight, or annoy Sukuna in general. Which, by the way, you were the only person who could ever taunt Sukuna and live to see the sun rise.

When your eyes fluttered open, he felt your lashes against his skin. This prompted him to open his eyes as well, and he found a pleasant surprise upon opening them. “What?” You questioned with a hint of sass, feeling your tears dry as your aching mind became soothed. Sukuna smirked, enjoying seeing a temporary tint of red over your normally e/c orbs.

Usually, your eyes don’t change colors after a connection, so it struck him as pleasant while it lasted, “Nothing, you are just a giant ass baby.”

“Oh shut the fuck up. You are the same person who got mad and came out when I ate a croissant that was meant for yuji!”

“I can taste whatever this brat eats, you realize that right? Those butter ones are tasty…”

Your eyes reverted back to their normal state as you bickered with your partner in the moonlight lit field. While back in the physical world, Yuji was snoring away on your bed in a very unflattering position. Although you don’t get to see Sukuna in the physical world, you still find comfort in feeling his soul In the spiritual world.

⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈

My request are open. <3

Edit: on my god thank you guys to much. ❤️❤️ I’m getting so many requests! I’ll start working on them when I get home from work today. They will be posted within 2-3 days because these requests are actually pretty good ones that are really long 😂. But my requests are still open so don’t be afraid to submit something!

[sasa-gay-yo]

Just Us (Chapter Three: Normal)

← Chapter Two

“A false sense of calm. Of hope. That’s all that it was.” 

Everything had been published in the papers rooting for the Scouts and people in the streets were also in high spirits when they heard they were coming back from a monthly expedition. People had lined up in front of the café and this time I decided to join them and not wait for the newspapers. I could see if Levi made it out alive by just stepping outside of my door. 

Jonas had given me the box he was standing on, yet I still had to go on my tiptoes to just get a look over everyone else’s heads. I had asked Jonas how people knew the Scouts would come back and he said they would just take the whole day to stand and wait. It was almost beautiful to see the number of people here to support them and it made me feel warm inside. I never forgot the look Levi gave me when I told them the Scouts gave me hope, but I hoped that this display from the people of Trost could convince him.

“They’re here!” There were soft cheers as the horses neared in everyone’s vision. This was the first time I got to see Erwin in person and the portraits of him gave his eyebrows no justice. Even from far away you could see his herculean presence. People cheered more and more and I searched around for him on as they came closer and closer. 

Then the cheering stopped. The first of the line to see what was behind Erwin shut completely up and I was straining so hard to see why. Erwin’s expression was unreadable.

“Elias, get on my shoulders.” I grabbed the little boy from Jonas and hoisted him up as a lookout, “Can you see why they stopped cheering?” 

The smile on the boy’s face dropped.

“Elias?” Before he could say anything, the crowd started for him. 

“I thought for once we had a chance! Now, look!”

“My tax dollars down the drain again.”

“Ugh, useless.” I felt Elias’s grip on my hand tighten as he heard the remarks. He was little and probably couldn’t understand the criticism of the people he wanted to be when he grew up. Even I couldn’t understand until I finally saw what everyone was muttering about. Scout after Scout limped by.

They had halved easily. They were filled with people who were bandaged, crippled, walking with no horse, or lying unconscious in a cart. This made me instantly seize up with worry. Where was Levi?

“Miss. Eva… Where did they all go?” His tiny voice was filled with so much sadness. I hadn’t been there to see them off like the rest, but I knew from the somber faces that it was bad. My eyes darted back and forth from the people in the carts to those on horseback. Shouldn’t Levi be near Erwin if they were both officers? That means he had to be walking somewhere. 

I handed Elias back to Jonas and pushed my way to the front. It was rather easy now that people were starting to turn around and go back home after the big disappointment of the Scouts. I didn’t care about the numbers now, I just wanted to see one soldier for who I had just bought more peppermint tea. 

When I reached the front, the sight was even more heartbreaking. I could see their eyes. I could see the sadness and fear. It was something I had only seen in the humans of the underground. Then remember why I had stopped coming to bid the Scouts a ‘Welcome home!’ It was too much for current and past me to see humans deal with. 

A hand went on my shoulder and I turned to see Jonas. His face was harsh and solemn. I knew what his judgment of the Scouts was. They all walked by and slowly a sense of dread filled me. There was no way… Humanity’s Strongest couldn’t have… 

“Where is he?” The line wasn’t long and there were little to no people left. The chance of him showing up in the next few seconds was slim, but I put my hands together squeezing. Hoping.

“Levi.” 

It was a mere, breathy whisper, but his head snapped over from on top of his horse. Once he met my eyes, he looked forward like he had before. Not sparing me another glance. He was at the very back of the line, probably to protect the weak from lingering titans. It was a sick joke of a formation, but my stress level instantly went down. He didn’t look hurt, there were no bandages on him, but his expression was darker than I had ever seen it. It was probably selfish for me to only care about him right now, but as they walked by and out of the gates of Trost, I just wanted him to turn around and come in for a cup of tea. I wanted to hear him explain to me what happened. I wanted him to not hear the townspeople who were hurling insults left and right, not caring if the Scouts heard them. 

Usually, we just get nasty looks.

No, Levi, my look wasn’t nasty. It was concerned, anxious, filled with stress; I wanted to give you some tea. 

“Come on. I’m sure people will want a pick me up after seeing that.” I looked at the ground, at the leftover wagon wheel tracks. I hope he didn’t think I was looking at him that way. 

“Miss. Flynn, I hope you have some coffee ready. Those of us who don’t drink will need it.” I looked over to see June and Elias’s father, a grim expression on his face too. Everyone’s emotions were putting me down too.

“Yes, sir. Right away.” 

He didn’t come in the rest of the day and the few days after that. I inquired with some people and learned that Scouts get a week off before they have to go back and the officers only a few days. Seeing some Scouts meet their parents again or come into the café made me doubtful of Levi’s return. Everyone was so dark and grim, and without Levi to come and break that, I started to sink into that emotion as well. So much so that a few people had commented on it. 

“A breakup with a boyfriend?” 

“Did you have a friend in the Scouts that died?” 

“You seem unlike yourself today, Eva.” 

It was those people who made my attitude worse. If only he would come in and let me talk to him, maybe I would feel better. The fact that he could be willingly not coming in was probably what made my thoughts worse. I even kept a kettle of hot water ready for when he came, but he never showed. 

“I know how much you revere the Scouts, Eva, but you can’t let that do this to you. A false sense of calm. Of hope. That’s all that it was.” I shook my head at Jonas as he wrapped my fingers with the balm treated bandages. I guess the atmosphere was making me physically deteriorate too. I was grinding coffee when the first part of my skin split. My right ring finger. I didn’t think anything of it, but as I worked and worked to suppress feelings, my hands started to suffer more and more. 

“It wasn’t false, Jonas. I still have hope in the Scouts. It was one expedition. It’s just the way everyone is acting is just putting me down too.” 

“We were all stupid to think that the titans had backed down, even for a little bit. I know it hurts, but it might be better to put your faith in other things… other people.” I pulled my hand away from him and stood up. What did he mean by that?

“My thinking is fine, Jonas. Don’t you have something to deliver.” That was his cue to stop talking and leave. It was nicer than I wanted to say to him, but I couldn’t be that rude to someone who comes back everyday. However, there were sometimes that I could yell at him or be short, but I didn’t care. Everyone deserved some hate for what they gave to the Scouts. That was my philosophy. 

I went about cleaning, making sure that every table was spotless, and taking extra care of his table. He was already stressed about death, if he came in, I didn’t want him to be stressed by dirt either. 

If he came in. 

The hours ticked by and I found myself still sitting in the dark café after closing. Today was the last day of the regular cadet’s break. Maybe they were nice to officers and gave them the same. That’s what I was telling myself. 

Finally, when the sun went down, I told myself it was time to go. I reluctantly grabbed the leftovers to put in a bag and put my coat on. Even if it was a short walk up some steps to get to my home, it was getting colder as the end of fall was approaching. The city’s atmosphere somehow made the cold more depressing. 

Turning to lock the front door, I heard some footsteps walking up to the café. 

“Sorry, I know it’s looked like we were open, but we’re closed for the day. You can come back tomorrow at six in the morn-”

“I didn’t come because I don’t want you to be burdened by me.” My eyes widened and I dropped the keys on the ground. Quickly, I composed myself and the beating of my heart.

“Burdened?” I picked the keys up and saw his figure standing on the side of the alleyway. He was in regular clothes, but it still didn’t hide his stature of a captain. Anyone walking by would know it was him.

“You said the Scouts gave you hope. Then, we come back and I see your expression. I couldn’t even look at you because I ruined that. I didn’t want to come here, just for you to look at me and feel hopeless and lost and all these negative emotions and-” 

“You talk a lot for someone who’s wrong.” That stopped his rant and admittedly that is the most he’s ever talked to me, but I needed it to end. He was digging himself into a bigger hole. 

“What?” It wasn’t harsh this time as all of his one-word phrases were. 

“Whatever look I had on my face, when you were all marching through Trost, it wasn’t me losing hope. It was me, worried about their wellbeing. It was me, hearing what people were around them saying, hoping that you didn’t hear them. I think the look on my face was from a place of concern or even pity.” He moved to lean against the brick, arms folded. 

“I didn’t want to come here because then I’d involve you in all… in all of the emotions and all the death. A civilian shouldn’t have to deal with a soldier. They should be kept ignorant so they can live happily.” 

“So what was it then? You didn’t want to ruin my hope or you didn’t want to ruin my innocence?” He took a deep breath in and I noticed some people looking our way. This was a great way to have rumors spread like wildfire. If I go back to the café, there were windows that couldn’t be closed. I’m sure Captain here wouldn’t want civilians to witness his “soldier emotions”.

“I don’t…” He glanced to the side as well, seeing the people who stopped walking.

“Follow me or at least try to get yourself onto the second-floor apartment if you’re worried about them.” I turned away from him and went up the stairs on the side of the building, opening my front door. To my surprise, he did just follow behind me. Another order I’ve gotten him to follow.

“Do you want tea, Captain? I only have green tea up here.” He just stood by the closed door and stared at me. It’s like he was scared about coming into my house. Was this the first time he’s ever come home with a woman? There’s some humor in this situation I guess. 

“No… I’m fine.” I put the bag of bread on the kitchen counter and pulled out the tea leaves. I’d make him one anyway. 

It was quiet again, but quiet like the first time we met. It was full of awkwardness and questions we wanted to ask. The air was too thick to swallow. To think, this is only the third time I’ve met him and he’s in my house. Maybe it’s just entertaining for him to see how civilians live. That’s why he followed.

“So, I’ll ask again. You didn’t come because you didn’t want to-” 

“I didn’t come because I was scared to face you.” I stopped stirring the honey into my tea. I even let go of the spoon to look up at him, still standing by the door. So he was scared of me. Captain Levi was scared of me? No, that couldn’t be. He just didn’t know how to define what he was feeling. 

“Scared?” He nodded and leaned against the door frame, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was like he was mad at himself for saying all of this. Maybe he was. Revealing those solider emotions again.

“When I came in on my horse, I saw your face and I saw the face of the boy next to you. I didn’t care about him, but yours… I thought that my failure on this expedition had broken the hope you had for the Scouts. If I came to your café, you would just treat me like everyone else does? Just like everyone treats the Scouts. I had found someone who understands the underground and who seems to understand the Scouts, and then that look on your face… it was like it was over.”  

“My look was concern. I told you that.”

“But in a town full of people looking up at you with anger and hatred in their eyes, how do you tell the difference?” I’d give him that. I was surrounded by people swearing and glaring up at him. I was just a bit hurt that he misread my emotions after I told him what I thought. He wasn’t scared, but he was bad at precepting people’s feelings. That could add to the rumor of him being emotionless. He wasn’t emotionless, he just didn’t have to ability to deal with the mass amount of emotions he gets.

You’ve only talked to him one and a half times, Eva. How are you talking like you know him?

“What made you come here then? You came when you knew I had closed. Was it to avoid everyone?”

“I was here earlier, I just didn’t have the courage to face you and everyone in that café. Especially that one boy you always have next to you.” That made me laugh out loud. Humanity’s Strongest was annoyed at Jonas and scared of me. What kind of power do I have over him? The tea he likes? Why was he so worried about Jonas? 

“That boy’s name is Jonas and he’s a delivery boy for Reeve’s Company. He’s around me a lot because he’s the delivery boy for that area of Trost and he likes to talk a lot. He also lives around here too.” 

“Your hand?” He reached out a slim finger to point at my bandages and I held my hand up. He had probably seen Jonas bandage it again today. 

“My skin splits from being so dry. I get it from work. I haven’t found a good balm to heal it though.” He closed his eyes.

“I come back from an expedition and you’re the one who’s hurt.” That hit something in my core. I looked up at him from the tea and his eyes were staring again. No look to the side and not from the peripheral. It was like when I was cleaning the tables. This feeling… with a Captain of the Scouts. That was dangerous for my sanity. I wondered if he felt the same.

I walked over and sat down on the couch that was facing him and set the tea down, one cup across from the other. 

“Again, to make sure you understand in that over-calculating brain of yours, Captain. My hope isn’t broken. There will be bad expeditions and there will be good ones, but to me, having bad ones will always be better than not having any. My look was concern for you. You were at the very back, but I thought you would be near Commander Erwin. I couldn’t find you anywhere, so I was the one who was scared. When I saw you, the way that you looked, I was concerned for how you felt, physically and mentally.” That made him lower his gaze to the ground again. I wished I swept last night. 

“Who are you to feel concern for me?” If I didn’t know where he came from, I would have been offended by his question. Truthfully, I was a little hurt that he said it that way, but I knew what he meant. In the underground, those who cared about you were those who used you or were in the same boat as you. I wasn’t a Scout and he knew I couldn’t possibly use him in this situation. He was confused why I had given him any thought, as his normal life would have nothing to do with me. Why didn’t I shy away from him and revere him as an scary, emotionless Scout?

“I’m someone who cares. Someone who’s still confused about you, personally. Why did he come into my café? Why does he keep coming? Someone who knows only a fraction of what it’s like to live in this world and someone who knows nothing about what you have to go through everyday. I’m not a Scout, I’m not a soldier, hell, I don’t think I could punch anyone hard enough to hurt them, but I do know what it feels to lose people and what it feels like to be judged by them too. So, I guess I’m someone who’s game for understanding you, too. You’re concerned about me too. My hands.” He didn’t answer, he just kept looking at his shoes on the floor. What’s so interesting about them? 

“I am concerned, yes. I don’t know why I feel so concerned about the opinions and condition of someone I’ve only talked to on two separate occasions. I’m not a civilian, nor do I live a normal life, but I guess I’m someone who is also game for creating normal. Starting with your tea. I went to your café on a recommendation from a friend and I came back because you gave me some thread of normalcy to hold onto. Sitting here and in that café, I don’t feel like Captain Levi. I just feel like Levi, whoever that is. No titans, no paperwork; just tea.” I smiled up at him and maybe my cheeks were a little warm too. It was just the tea being too hot, that’s what it was. 

“Well, Mr. Levi. Come drink some tea and sink into normalcy. We can talk about anything you want.” He stood up from the wall, contemplating if he was to join me on the couch. If he did, he knew he’d just signed himself up for a lifetime deal. He’d have to come to the café every month at least and he couldn’t die. That would ruin his normal and my understanding. I wasn’t all that surprised when he sat down, but still my heart felt like it was going to burst. Maybe for the first time in his life, he picked to sit instead of to stand. 

“Tea. I don’t know much about it, but I drink it from habit. What teas are good for what? You recommended me mint tea that first time.” I moved my legs up so I could sit crisscross and comfortable. 

“You’ve just asked a very, very loaded question, Levi.” 

We talked late into the night about tea and owning a café. Many cups of tea had kept us up and I had completely gotten lost in conversation that I forgot he would’ve had to leave. He didn’t leave that night, but I don’t remember who slept first or when. He just sat there, leaning with one arm of the back of his chair and one leg crossed, listening and commenting on the various teas I recommended and on what I should do to change the cafe’s layout for a better person-per-square-meter ratio. 

At one point, we had just stopped talking, each taking sips of our respective cups. There weren’t thoughts of titans, of the Scouts, or of failed exhibitions. I also got a lesson in math, so it let me understand that even without a proper education, Levi was a genius at certain things. We sat there soaking in the present. That’s probably why he forgot he had to go back to HQ or why I forgot to prep the starter dough for the morning. We didn’t care much for the future consequences. 

When I woke up, he was gone. The blanket I had given him, saying I’d go sleep in my own bed, was over me and the tea cups were clean and hung up on their rack. It was satisfying to wake up like this. Everything was light and peaceful again as opposed to waking up with Trost’s grim atmosphere. It was seven in the morning, and I was late to open the café, but I didn’t care or feel any rush. As I walked out of the door to a, probably, annoyed crowd, I felt a note in the breast pocket of my coat.

Left at 5AM to get back to HQ. See you after the next expedition.

                                                                                   -L 

Chapter Four→

Chapter Masterlist

[youknow-i-loveit]

Why I Still Feel Like I Need To Ask Permission Before I Do Anything Ever

Randomly hit with the realization that my parents are still holding me back because they never taught me how to act with autonomy.

They never taught me how to be assertive or how to tell people things.

(They also wrecked my self-esteem, which was pretty horrible to begin with.)

My parents were very “do this because I told you to” authoritarian types who didn’t like to answer questions, and especially hated it when you questioned them. Questioning other authority figures was okay sometimes, depending on who the authority figure was, but my parents wanted to reign over their children with absolute power.

They generally had issues with needing to feel in-control. They didn’t have great role models for what it means to be an authority figure- my mom was the youngest, doted upon and spoiled for being the only girly-girl in the family, and by the time her parents had her (the eighth child), they were exhausted and distant, permissive, laissez-faire parents- and my dad grew up under an abusive military man who routinely beat his children, who used his voice as a weapon, and when he was at work, his wife ruled through manipulation, primarily guilt-tripping. Since my dad was the second of his six brothers, he was considered to have a better idea about how to deal with children, so my mom generally deferred to him, partly because of that, and partly because if my dad didn’t feel like he was in charge, he would make sure everybody felt miserable.

And as they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My dad very much took after his father. He thought he was being toned-down and “gentle,” and bragged all the time about how he had it worse, making it sound like he was going easy on us. He often threatened to act more like his dad. But while I feel bad for him and his brothers and the abuse they endured, that gave him no excuse to abuse us the ways he did.

I could go on and on, but the point is, my parents didn’t know how to be in charge, but they felt that it was their god-given right to be in charge-- literally, they kept throwing “Honor Your Mother And Father” at us from the Ten Commandments.

My parents never admitted to being wrong. In fact, my dad hammered it in that being wrong was shameful and something that none of us should ever, ever do- ignorance was considered shameful, and if we ever dared utter the sentence “I didn’t know,” he would mock us, roar at us, and quite often, make references to that moment for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the week. It took me years to be okay with admitting that I don’t know things. To teach myself that learning should be fun and exciting, and that teaching others new information should be seen as an opportunity, not as a burden.

So my parents are proudly ignorant control freaks with an abusive streak, who want to rule with absolute authority; so far so great right?

My parents were strict Catholics who wanted us to follow their faith. They took us to church every Sunday. They enrolled all of us in Catholic school until they couldn’t afford the tuition anymore. They insulted anyone non-Catholic- even other Christians- calling them stupid and sinners and sometimes even “evil,” and considered anyone who attended Catholic church but didn’t adhere to their beliefs “not true Catholics,” so they were lumped in with the rest of the riffraff who were apparently going to hell.

We were allowed to question authority figures that didn’t adhere to their strict beliefs, and even encouraged to make fun of them, but if we ever dared to question someone who did, my parents informed us with cold, cutting certainty that we were making the wrong choice and were in danger of going to hell ourselves.

We grew up pretty sheltered. Our parents wouldn’t let us participate in most of the fads that swept up everyone else in our peer groups. It didn’t even matter when those peers were all Catholic kids attending our same Catholic school- my parents still thought their parents were making the wrong decisions, and we were effectively isolated from socializing with our peers. For a window into this, consider that I was forbidden from watching or playing Pokemon during the late 1990s. At recess, literally everyone else in my class would “play Pokemon,” whether that meant they were actually playing the trading-card game or whether they were pretending to be characters from the show. Since I wasn’t allowed to participate, I was left alone on the swings, accompanied only by one of the lunch moms who took pity on me. (Her name was Mrs. Stevenson. She was funny. I liked her. For Halloween, she wore an ugly holiday sweater with Froot Loops glued all over it and said she was a ‘cereal killer.’)

We weren’t allowed to watch Sailor Moon, or Rugrats, or Dragon Ball Z. We weren’t allowed to play with Furbies. We were allowed to accept Beanie Babies as gifts, but our parents were too poor to buy us any, so I think the most I had was about six.

We were also (wrongly) informed that people different from us were all stupid. I questioned this from a young age, asking why people were different, but instead of actually answering me, my mom would go “Exactly!” as though that settled that.

So when I asked why African Americans spoke differently or dressed differently or said things like “black pride,” I was told it was because they were entitled and because they thought they were special, but that they were foolish and wrong. It was only later, on my own, that I learned they don’t do these things to set themselves apart from the rest of society out of some weird petty desire to be special and different, but because we stole their culture from them, and they need to reclaim an identity that they can be proud of. The system is stacked against them, so every act of embracing their blackness is an act of rebellion against the system that tries to crush them every day. They speak differently because of where they live, because of history and culture that have shaped their words that way, and if their grammar is improper, that’s most likely due to underfunded school districts, but it could also be code-switching so they fit in with their peers.

And when I asked why anyone would be anything other than Christian if the Bible really was the word of God, and God was real, I was told it was because they’re too stupid or jaded to see the truth. So when my uncle came out as Muslim when I was a teenager, our family ostracized him, berated him, and made fun of him relentlessly behind his back, because we all thought he was stupid. It was years later that I became an atheist and I realized the questioning process he must have gone through, the philosophy he must have studied, the books upon books he must have read, the agonizing introspection he must have endured, all while living under his parents’ roof... 

We were told that we were smart. That we were important and special. 

But we were also taught that we were constantly on the razor’s edge of being undeserving of love or redemption.

Naturally, this caused me to form strong attachments to characters like Loki, Bucky, and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast- characters who others saw as monstrous, but who seemed worthy of redemption, who didn’t seem to deserve everything that was done to them, even as much as they blamed themselves or got down on themselves sometimes.

The constant messages of “you need to be perfect or else” and “you are a disappointment,” accompanied by my dad’s ridiculously high standards, made me desperate for approval. 

I sought favor with my parents nearly every day, but was so often disappointed- especially by my dad. Even when I’d done something I was really proud of, he’d find ways to poke holes in it, talk down to me, call me stupid, and ask something to the effect of why I’d made such a horrible decision.

So I started looking elsewhere.

Friends. Partners. Teachers. Professors. Therapists. Co-workers. Bosses. Other people’s moms. Members of groups I joined. Anywhere I could get it, I was (and still am) constantly thirsty for validation, praise, and approval.

My parents probably weren’t trying to do this, but they taught me to constantly second-guess myself. They taught me that I needed to ask for permission to exist.

One of the things that was brought up over and over again whenever one of us would upset Mom was that “she gave birth to you.” On one memorable occasion, my dad went into graphic detail about how exactly the birthing process worked. He made it sound like some sort of accomplishment, or personal favor, that I should be forever grateful and reverent towards. But I never asked for this. Giving birth was something she couldn’t avoid. I should have never been guilt tripped into feeling like I owed her something for it.

Whenever my dad was a certain flavor of upset, he’d bark “Get out of my sight!” We would flee to some far corner of the house, behind some closed door, and cry where no one could see. In that moment, he had ceased to give permission to exist in his presence.

So when I first came out as trans, I struggled a lot, because I felt like I constantly had to ask everyone around me for permission to be myself.

It’s tragic that, in retrospect, everyone would have respected me a lot more if instead of asking, I had simply told them who I am and then been myself. I should never have felt so timid, so cowed. I should never have felt like I owed anyone an apology for asking them to use my name and my pronouns.

I should have been free to be me.

But when I lived under my parents’ roof, I wasn’t free. I was forced to hide, to pretend. I was forced to let them deadname and misgender me. I was still forced to attend church until I moved out-- I got out of attending weekly mass by pleading that it was detrimental to my mental health, after being forced to attend masses as an atheist for over a year. But in order to keep a roof over my head, I was still forced to attend Christmas and Easter mass every year, and badgered to attend more masses at nearly every opportunity.

I had to lie about who I was dating too. I had to hide all the ups and downs- the euphoria of new crushes and new relationships, the agony and heartbreak of breakups or bumps in the road. I couldn’t ask my parents for advice navigating this extremely important part of my life. Instead I had to figure it all out on my own, and lie, and pretend they were my “friends.”

My parents made me feel as though I couldn’t do anything on my own.

So to this day, I still often feel like I have to ask for help or for moral support in order to get things done. Not everything, but anything that my partner could feasibly be involved in or have any opinion on whatsoever. Filling out forms, looking things up, buying food, scheduling our week.

And anything that I’m not 1000% sure my friends would invite me to, or anything I’m not 1000% sure they want me to do, I’ll hang back on or stay silent. Any sort of physical affection that I’m not 1000% sure is welcome, I’ll hold back on or I won’t even offer, because I’m so scared of rejection or retaliation. Any complaints that I have, I’ll run by someone else first, and sit on for often weeks or months before I bring it up, if I ever bring it up, because I’m so worried that someone’s temper will flare, or that they will grow cold and distant and cut me off from their affection/ attention/ presence.

My parents never taught me how to ask for things.

They never taught me how to tell people things, simple things, like “I’m going to the store,” or “I’m a guy actually,” or say “Oh, you’re going to meet up with a bunch of people I know? Can I come?”

I’m self-taught in a lot of things, but socializing is one of them.

And as I’m sitting here typing this, I’m waiting for my partner, because we have to get through a lot of paperwork and beaurocratic nonsense this week, and even though not all of it strictly needs to involve her, I still feel like I can’t do it on my own.

It’s okay to ask for help. That’s something I’ve had to get used to too.

But sometimes I worry if I ask for too much help. >_<

[linkspooky]

Pls... your top ten nisioisin characters... i love your lists...

I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT  HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAVES. IF YOU EVER ASK WANT TO ASK ME WHO MY FAVES ARE FOR A SERIES FEEL FREE TO SEND ME AN ASK.

My favorite thing about Niosisin’s characters is how genuinely subversive they are. Not in the sense that he’s deconstructing tropes, but rather these are characters who would never get their story told in most other books, because they are not good, or righteous. Nisioisin breathes life into them, and allows those who cannot be forgiven, those who are deviant, those who have dropped out of society to still remain human. He tells their stories the same as everybody else, because their lives are just as fun. 

1. Even if I’m hated, Even if I’m Despised - Kumagawa Misogi 

He’s only my favorite character of all time so I’ve talked about him on this blog before, but let me find something new to say. Oh Kumagawa, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Or maybe it’s Oh Kumagawa, how do I despise thee let me count the ways. 

Kumagawa’s character is so interesting because it’s written in antithesis of everything a shonen protagonist is. For Kumagawa, his determination just makes him fail worse and worse. His desire to be involved and help people always guarantees the worst result for the people he wants to call his friends. His empathy is extremely painful for him, and is a trait that drives him insane rather than making him a kind and loving person. 

A lot of time in manga empathy is like, a magic fix-it-all bandaid that basically makes the main character a saint by being able to emotionally relate to anybody. Kumagawa is the reality of that situation. He is empathic, and by relating so much to the humans around him he shows how ugly, and messy human emotions can really be. Recovery and saving others isn’t necessarily a beautiful thing, it’s complicated and sloppy. 

Kumagawa is a character where getting stronger won’t solve any of his problems. Which is what happens in a lot of shonen manga, rather than trying to emotionally mature the main character will just learn a new fighting technique and develop that way. Instead, Kumagawa winning fights means absolutely nothing. The only thing that can free him is to grow up as a person, and the fact that Kumagawa’s arc is given equal weight to both of the main characters shows how accepting of weirdoes and broken off beat characters Nisioisin is as an author. 

What I like about him is how genuinely broken he is, but not for monstrous reasons but for entirely human ones. It’s his genuine care for others that breaks him the most. He’s a character written to be insane, but also geniunely human. Kumagawa is not able to live properly, or even act like the main character like Zenkichi and Medaka are but he’s still able to find his own way to live. 

2. I don’t feel any reality from you people - Ajimu Najimi 

“Genius who is super good at everything, but is secretly sad and lonely on the inside” is a pretty common Nisioisin trope. It tends to be pretty hit and miss with me, but it also resulted in one of my favorite characters of all time. I tend to like these types of characters more when they’re allowed to be… what’s the word… unlikable. When the story isn’t trying to go on about how cool they are.

The reason why I love Ajimu is because she is just like Kumagawa, a subversion of the character you expect her to be. The same way Kumagawa suverts Zenkichi in a way, Ajimu subverts Medaka. The same way that Medaka is all loving, Ajimu is indifferent to absolutely everything. The reason she’s able to be kind to everyone around her is because she genuinely doesn’t care about you. Her real personality when not being apathetic, is to just be downright nasty and look down on absolutely everything. 

She’s completely self absorbed because according to Ajimu she’s the only one who exists in the universe. She’s the only one she knows for sure is real. The opposite of Kumagawa, a character entirely lacking in empathy, not even thinking of herself as human in any sense of the word. Ajimu acts like she knows everything in the story like she’s reading off of the script, but that’s because she literally thinks that everything in this world is fiction and she’s literally breaking the fourth wall.

And my favorite part about Ajimu is that the story doesn’t glorify her meta fourth wall shenanigans. She’s not treated as someone who sees through everything in the end. She’s just pathetic, and suicidal, and dragging everybody else along into her trillion year long self pity party. She’s more of a human failure than someone who can’t possibly empathize with humans, and that’s why I love her. 

3. There ain’t no meaning, got it? - Ii (Boku) 

Ii-chan is the narrator of Nisioisin’s first ever series, Zaregoto (Lit. Nonsense). It’s not really until the second book you get a grasp of his character, but Strangulation Romanticist does such an excellent job of setting up who he is as a person. This is another one of Nisioisin’s character types (narrator who feels ennui, and really, really doesn’t want to be a person). 

What’s great about Iichan is that he is special in a way. Just like he’s described in the books, when he’s thrown into situations everything goes a little bit crazy. He always gets dragged into mysteries, and has people die around him even though he tries to stay as uninvolved with people as possible. He’s actually a great look at what a character constantly caught up in murder mysteries like the main character of a detective novel would actually act like. He has this deep rambling narration that sways between nihilism and existentialism that makes him a really unique character to read about.

But at the same time Iichan is also kind of a normal dude. And I don’t mean in the sense that he’s an everyman, or has no personality, but he kind of just feels like one. The great twist of No Longer Human is that Yozo isn’t some inhuman monster, he’s just kind of a normal guy who drowns out his misery by taking advantage of women. Like, it’s not all that uncommon. The same thing with Iichan, as poetic as he gets he’s kind of a very petty person and most of his flaws are very mundane ones. 

It’s basically very hard to care about other people in this world. Ii-chan doesn’t want to at all, he just wants to have all of his emotional needs fulfilled by the friend he both infantilizes and puts on a pedestal. He’s just super clingy about the one relationship he has in life, because he’s afraid of losing it, but he’s also afraid of being close to her. Ii-chan is just kind of a normal person reacting badly to trauma, but he presents himself as such a mystery that most people lose sight of that (in story). He’s kind of just petty and annoying, and that’s why I love him. 

4. No Longer Human - Hitoshiki Zerozaki

Zerozaki is Iichan’s greatest character foil. Basically the best way to describe it is Zerozaki is Mersault. The flip that is switched on for everyone that prevents them from killing someone when the idea crosses their mind is turned off for Zerozaki, and so he kills. He doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t have a particular reason to it, he just can’t overcome his impulse to kill. If Ii-chan is restrained, then Zerozaki never restrains any of his impulses at all and lives following only those. 

Once again this is another common Nisioisin character archetype “A murder, but they’re sad and lonely.” What I like about Hitoshiki is how much of a deviant he is to that archetype. 

He wants a friend and somebody who understands him, but at the same time he hates himself so he doesn’t want anybody too close. He lives in a family of murderers and he’s somehow the rebellious child of the family. He’s constantly running away and wandering from place to place. What makes Zerozaki interesting is how self aware he is about all of this too. He rambles his thoughts and will just be like “Yeah, so anyway that’s totally fucked up (LOL).” 

 5. Is your life dramatic - Kaiki Deishuu

Kaiki is a character who I admire for his philosophy above all else. He’s another one of those “deviant” characters like Kumagawa who would just be a villain to be defeated in any other narrative, but in this one he gets fully fleshed out as a character. 

What’s interesting about Kaiki is that he chooses exactly the way he lives. He decides to be a villain. Kaiki at some point sees through most of the lies of the people around them, and for how meaningless the things that you are told have value can be. He hates holding onto ideas like those.

But that doesn’t mean that Kaiki rejects everything. He doesn’t claim to see above society, or that he’s not a part of society. Rather, Kaiki just uses that awareness to realize he can give meaning to whatever he personally finds meaningful. Because it’s all meaningless anyway, as a human being he can create his own meaning. 

So his want of money is not just simple greed, it’s what he’s decided to live for. Kaiki is an adult who willingly chose to become a conman because he finds that’s his place in society. He just doesn’t trust himself enough to be kind despite feeling the same desire to save others, so he decided to lie to them and trick them instead. 

6. “I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows” Oshino Ougi

Ougi is just interesting conceptually. They are literally Araragi’s own shadow, running away from him and given form and consciousness of their own. While Ougi themselves works as a common Jungian shadow archetype calling characters out for what they are repressing and also revealing the bare faced truth to them, which is why they are so heavily associated with mirrors, lights, and shadows. 

My favorite part about Ougi however is not their connection to Araragi. It’s when Ougi starts to become their own character. An oddity with consciousness that begins to deviate from what they were made for, because they were allowed to live on their own.

Ougi did not become a fave of mine until Zoku because that was when they started to self reflect and realize their own strange existence separate to Araragi. The conversation scene with Araragi is one of my favorite in the whole series because it shows how Ougi is just a genuine tease, and a very clever and insightful person. That’s who they are, outside of just being an oddity that exists to criticize others and call out flaws. They’re ridiculous, and a little strange, and they enjoy screwing with other’s heads and messing around a bit too much. But Ougi Oshino is Ougi Oshino. 

It’s just an interesting concept, to have to define who you are as a person when you were created out of all of the unwanted qualities, and insecurities of another person. 

7. Why are you touching me without permission, you weed - Yasuri Nanami

Nanami is another one of those “I’m a genius and I’m good at everything but I’m secretly sad” characters, and once again what I love about her is how unlikable she’s allowed to be. None of what Nanami is capable of comes off as cool for very long. She’s basically framed and treated as a horror movie monster, always speaking in the same monotone voice. The one story that shows her true nature in chapter four is literally, paced, framed, exactly like a slasher movie with characters being hunted down and killed one by one. 

Nanami’s just this horrible wretched existence that doesn’t even want to be alive. She basically acts like frankenstein’s monster, ie, the one in the book. She’s just this corpse that is barely even alive in the first place, constantly sick and in pain, and she’s also at war with herself. The part of her that wants to die and the part of her that’s lonely and wants to find some reason to live, or some connection in life are constantly at war with each other. 

And as horrifying as Nanami is she also feels like the most human of Niosisin’s, super-genius characters. She’s riddled with weaknesses and flaws. She lashes out when he’s in pain, she felt bad when her parents told her to die. You get the sense that Nanami’s super genius isn’t what drove her insane at all, it was just how everybody around her treated her as some thing that was not human. Isolation made her this way. She was conditioned to act this way not born inhuman. There are characters that Nisioisin writes that are genuine sociopaths (as in the trope of an unfeeling person unable to feel human emotions), but Nanami is not one of them and so when she starts acting with sociopathic-traits in her personality it makes her all the more painfully human because we see how she’s been driven slowly to act this way. 

7. *Yawns* Nezumi

Juuni Taisen is one of those death game stories where every character is defined by their one gimmick and written around their concept. In the original novel each character really only gets one chapter to be fleshed out as a character. I half suspect Nisioisin wrote it as a dare to himself on how much he could accomplish with one chapter.

The interesting part about Nezumi is his concept again. He can redo anything 100 times. You think this would make him amazing at anything in life because of his time loop ability, but physically having to live through all of those time loops exhausts him to the point that he’s too tired to do anything. You would think he could get anything he wanted out of life, but there are times he can ask a girl out one hundred times and get rejected one hundred different ways. 

Nezumi is interesting because of how quietly he lives. There’s nothing he really wants out of life, and nothing he wishes for, like a rat he just scurries and survives. 

9. I am currently being accused by everyone - Kakushidate Yakusuke

The same as Iichan and Kumagawa, Yakusuke is a guy who is just cursed by constant bad luck. What I like about Yakusuke is that he’s a full fleshed out character, instead of just an unlucky every dude protagonist.

He’s a contract worker who is constantly shifting between jobs. Due to this fact he’s got like 1,000 skills that he gained on his various jobs. He’s not smart, but because he’s experienced so much of life he’s incredibly resourceful. Which is why he makes a perfect counterpart and foil to Okitegami.

Yakusuke’s everyday life is him constantly being accused and blamed, and falling from one bad situation to the next. But, he has so much experiences that it’s what draws Okitegami to him who can only ever experience one day at a time because her memories will reset at the end of the day. He’s exactly my type of man, a total failure at all walks of life.

10. This is your last chance, let me make you happy! - Kugi Kizutaka

He’s so low on the list because his story “Magical Girl Ritsuka” only has one chapter published in english, but he’s so interesting he instantly became a fave. He’s actually a concept i have been looking for for a long time, which is basically what I describe as “Reverse Junko Enoshima.” 

Basically someone as smart and manipulative as Junko Enoshima, who can make anybody into their toy, and predict things years in advance and control everything, but instead of using that power to send the world to despair, they use that power to give the world hope instead. Not out of any genuine good will or because they’re a good person, but because they’re obsessed with the idea of giving people happiness the same way Junko is with sending people to despair. 

Kugi is a lot like that. He’s a genius ten year old who sees everybody for their potential to be used, and looks down on absolutely everyone around him. He’s made contact with a magical girl, because he’s pretty clearly planning on using her to enslave the world to him, so he can force everybody to be happy. And it’s absolutely adorable. He’s just such a genuine terrible little person while at the same time wanting to make everyone happy. 

[divineluce]

An Overdue Encounter || Rio & Luce

Location: Scribe HQ

Timing: Early July 2nd

Tagging: @3starsquinn & @divineluce

Summary: Both a little battered and broken, Rio and Luce do a some digging to figure out what exactly is up with Remmy’s strange necklace.

Orion always felt weird showing the Scribrary off to people for the first time. Though, technically since Luce had been here before with Winston part of those nerves should technically be null and void, right? Well any normal human without anxiety would certainly think that made sense. Unfortunately, Rio wasn’t one of those normal humans. Instead, he was a bucket of nerves around Luce. Both because he didn’t know her and because he had never been instead of the building with her before. Plus, it didn’t help that he was still sporting the black eye, split cheek and wrist brace following his encounter with the trolls. The pain in his ribs had settled a bit at least. It was no longer the main source of his pain, a subtle pain surrounding his torso in its place. The bruising around his stomach and back from the tree and subsequent fall to the ground had done a number on him. But the ribs really only hurt if he took too deep of a breath. Or laughed too loudly. Or moved. “Hey there. So uh- Winston showed you the place already, I know. Did they take you to the main library area?” 

For about the twentieth time this week, Luce was thankful that she drove a big ass 4x4. It could handle the rough terrain outside of town easily and meant that, instead of hauling ass through the woods, she was able to drive at least a good chunk of the way. Still, the effort reminded her that her ribs were still very much broken. And no amount of human medicine could fix this particular problem. No, only time could heal her broken ribs. Time, or her mother finding out what they’d done. Nope. She could suffer through the pain. As the Scribe building came into view she saw that Rio the Pink Haired Kid, as she’d been thinking of them, was now Rio the Blue Haired Kid. The really fucking beat up blue haired kid, what the fuck? Taking in his appearance, Luce let out a low whistle. “You look about as good as I feel and I was in the hospital all last weekend. Fuck. What happened to you?” She asked. “And yeah, they did. We mostly stayed in the area about real fexted up shit.” Luce joked. 

Orion was willing to admit that he was very intimidated by Luce. She seemed confident and social and way too cool to hang out around someone like Rio. Not that the two were necessarily hanging out. This was business, of sorts. Rio and Winston were Scribes, for lack of a better word at least. Helping people like this was supposed to be what they did. So Rio was here to help Luce in spite of how awkward it may be. “Ah, uh accident.” Rio shrugged, trying to downplay the total breakdowns he had been having the entire week. “Or well, I got attacked. Which was sort of an accident. But it looks worse than it actually is.” That probably wasn’t true, considering his ribs, but it was mostly true. He healed quickly. “Great! Well then we’re off to a good start. We can head in and start figuring out which sections we need to pull.” Rio motioned Luce to follow him. He paused by the tree to that he used to open the barrier and slipped inside the building once it had revealed itself. “So what information are you looking for?”

“An accident. I call bullshit on that. What attacked you?” Luce asked as she followed Rio inside the library and immediately sneezed as she entered the dusty building. The reaction sent a wave of pain through her ribs and she let out a strangled groan of pain, clutching her ribs. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She muttered, shaking her head as she leaned against one of the nearby bookshelves. Pain ran up the entire right side of her body and she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. It took longer than she wanted, but eventually the pain subsided and she was able to stand on her own. “Uh…” She said, brain buffering in the aftermath. There was so much that she wanted to know. Needed to know. About her magic, why the flames still felt low. About Bea, and why she had come back so different. But, the first thing that came to mind was the way that Remmy had writhed on the ground of Bea’s house, clutching at the necklace. At the way she’d felt magic coursing through them. Familiar magic, that she couldn’t quite place. “Do you know if there’d be a book about… magical items that can hurt people? Like… fucked up necklaces or anything like that?”

 Clearly, Luce didn’t believe Orion. Not that he could blame her. Rio’s face looked pretty intentionally damaged. But Rio liked to stick to it that something had gone wrong during their encounter. If only he could have figured out a way to stop the trolls from attacking. “Trolls attacked me. But it was sort of an accident. Or like a misunderstanding. It shouldn’t have gone down the way it did.” Rio didn’t know how much to tell Luce. Didn’t even know if she cared to hear about Rio’s personal life. Rio certainly didn’t need to relive that moment over and over again. Not that he could help it much, when his brain refused to do anything but play it over and over again every time he closed eyes. Speaking of that, what was hurting Luce? She was cursing up a storm and gripping at her side in pain. It looked exactly like Rio had done a few days ago. “Hey uh- you okay there?” She certainly didn’t seem okay for a minute, until she rested against the bookshelf long enough to reclaim herself. “I uh-” Rio paused, considering the topic before answering again, “Maybe magical artifacts? Either that or it’s worth checking the section on hunting. Could be some kind of gross, screwed up hunter’s tool.” He groaned. He had been avoiding the section written for and by hunters since he got here. He knew enough about that twisted world. He didn’t need any other knowledge. Until maybe now it seemed. “How were they hurt? Like physically harmed? Mentally?”    Rio turned a corner, sharp and walked down the rows, cutting into an aisle and pausing near a stack of books talking about magical artifacts, “There’s a couple of Scribe stories in here specifically about tools and artifacts local to White Crest. May be a good start assuming your friend lives in town?”

Still recovering from the bout of pain, Luce did her best to focus on Rio’s weird ass words. An accident with trolls? A misunderstanding? What the fuck? “A mix up with trolls? You know? Sure. That makes about as much sense as anything else in this town.” She said with a grimace and a shake of her head. If that was what he said happened, that was what happened. Waving their concern away with a hand, Luce nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just some fucked up ribs, that’s all.” She dismissed his concern. She didn’t really want his pity-- or anyones. She just wanted to get some information and get out of here. “A hunter tool… What do you mean by that?” She asked as she followed Rio through the winding bookshelves of the library. Yeah, she knew about Hunters, knew that there were different people who specialized in different things. But she always just thought they ran around with guns or swords or stakes. Nothing fancy or anything like that. “Uh… Physically, I think. I’m not sure.” She said, flexing her hand as she trailed behind him. Even though it was just a memory now, Luce could feel the flow of magic, still tingling across her fingers. “They’re not my friend.” She said, the words coming out as a knee jerk reaction. “They’re just someone I know. And they don’t,” She paused, trying to sift through the words buzzing in her head, “They shouldn’t be hurt like that. But yeah. They live in White Crest.”

Considering Luce had just brought her sister back from the dead, Orion knew that she knew about the supernatural. At least when it came to magic stuff. So he nodded, “Yeah that’s uh- sorta my philosophy when I learn new things now too. Just try to go with the flow.” Refusing to go with the flow could get people killed in this town. What a coincidence, Luce’s ribs were injured too?” Oh really? That’s so weird I-” He trailed off, considering that maybe he shouldn’t finish that sentence. If he came clean about his ribs being broken, then Luce might rightfully wonder why Rio wasn’t in more pain. He was honestly, but the hunter healing had already started working and the pain was more of a constant, but dull stinging. Way more manageable than it had been the first few days after he had been attacked. “The troll uh, punched me. In my side. So I’m pretty sore too. But yours sounds… more serious. Did you break anything?” Rio asked Luce. Were the injuries from the spell? He couldn’t be sure, but it made him nervous. If something like that had happened, how did Winston escape with just a scar and weird magic?

“Uh- hunters that specifically go after the supernatural? There’s sort of a… code that a lot of them follow, but not everyone. Some will kill indiscriminately. And some like to… play with their victims. With magic and some other torture devices. From what I’ve read. It could be something like that.” He certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. Especially for Luce’s friend. Or her not friend. Whoever it was that Luce knew. “But I agree, nobody deserves to be treated like that.” Rio settled on the books that he pulled and made his way through more aisles until he got to the hunter section. It was the dustiest section, one that Rio very rarely pulled from and mostly ignored. He had spent so little time over here that he wasn’t even sure what he should be looking for, so he studied the books carefully as he spoke, “So… You seem to know a lot about magic.” Rio began, eyes trained on the book titles so he didn’t have to meet Luce’s eyes. “Can you do magic too? That spell… that Winston helped with. The books don’t make it sound like a one person job. Actually even with multiple people it still usually fails from the sounds of it. So they had to have help from other magic users, yeah?”

“A troll punched you. Well, how about that.” Luce said, casting a look of surprise at the kid. As beat up as he was, he definitely didn’t look like he’d been beat to shit by a troll. Must have gotten lucky? The troll must have whiffed the punch. Rio wasn’t exactly a bulky, Dwayne the Rock Johnson looking guy. He honestly looked like a stiff breeze might knock him over. But, she really didn’t care to know about his situation. If he said it was an accident, it was an accident. She had more important things to worry about and so did he. “Doesn’t matter, it’s healing.” She said with a dismissive wave as they continued to walk between shelves and rows of books. 

At his explanation, Luce resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew what hunters were, yeah. She just didn’t think that they would ever torture people. Weren’t they just meant to keep people safe? But, as he continued speaking, her eyes narrowed. “Play with their victims? Torture devices? Fuck.” She said shaking her head. Was Remmy being hunted? Had someone figured out they were a zombie and wasn’t satisfied with just killing them? Was that what was going on there? As Rio began to scrutinize the various books, Luce trailed behind him, not sure what she was meant to be looking for. None of the titles made much sense to her-- there weren’t any books called “Fucked Up Cursed Necklaces And How To Destroy Them.” At his question, Luce reached for the magic within her, but came back with nothing but barely glowing embers amidst ash. Her jaw clenched at that. It had been a week since they’d brought her back. And yet, her magic was still burning low. She had to get it back, had to make sure it came back. “Yeah. I can.” She answered, not bothering to say more than that. “What about that book?” She asked, pointing to what looked like an old hunter manual.

One thing Orion noticed about Luce was that she didn’t seem to ask a lot of questions. He appreciated it right now. The last thing he wanted to do was try to explain how he got away from them or what he did to it. She seemed to move on from the topic pretty quickly too. Flippantly disregarding any concern for her injuries and trying to focus back on the subject at hand. Rio didn’t have much choice but to oblige. Not that he’d try to dig any deeper regardless. He had already learned the repercussions of trying to dig too deeply into someone’s life. “Yeah uh- some hunters aren’t all about that sense of duty or honor or whatever. There are some sick, sick people out there.” Rio shivered at the thought, his mind jumping to the basement of his parent’s house. He wished that memory magic wasn’t as dangerous as Luce said it was. Maybe he could make himself forget the basement. 

So Luce was a spell-caster too? Did that run in families? The hunter gene was not necessarily genetic though it did some to be more prevalent in parents that were hunters. Maybe magic was similar? But it certainly helped explain how something like necromancy could be accomplished. Rio shook the thought away and grabbed the book that Luce had pointed out, “Definitely worth a try.” He added it to the ever growing stuck tucked beneath his arm. “We can set up at one of the tables around the corner here. We’ve got a lot of reading to do.”

“You can say that again,” Luce murmured, her mind going back to Montgomery’s home and how it stood as a tribute to cruelty and death. She’d seen the wings of pixies and Fae pinned up in boxes, she’d seen the jars full of the heads of Montgomery’s victims, had seen her own sister’s held in one herself. She knew just how cruel hunters could be. How vicious they could be. The idea that Remmy might be facing someone who would toy with them until they died… She swallowed. “Yeah, people do some really fucking sick things just because they can. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.” 

“Sounds good to me.” She said and followed him towards one of the tables. Brushing off a layer of dust with her hand, Luce immediately sat down at one of the chairs and began to flick through the pages. Studying. Reading. This sort of shit had never been her forte. Not in school, not during the coven tutoring sessions, not at home when her mother had tried to drill into her brain the nuances of how their magic could be expanded beyond just the flame. But, she needed to figure shit out. She needed to find out why Remmy was wearing that fucked up necklace, how she could get it off, and make sure that they were safe. As the minutes ticked away, Luce looked over at Rio. “How did you and Winston find this place anyways?”

Orion has studying down pat now. He was becoming surprisingly good at picking out keywords by now. He can scan through multiple pages a minute, sometimes multiple books if he was hyped up enough on energy drinks. Today, he stuck with the one and flipped through page after page trying to find something that stuck out to him. He was starting with magical artifacts. He was afraid reading the hunter manual would mess with his mind too much. “Well, long story uh- There used to be these people that called themselves Scribes. Not sure if you would’ve heard of them they’ve been mostly defunct since the late 80’s.” Rio began explaining, unsure how much information someone may have on the subject. He figured most people around their age had never heard of the Scribes before. “But my uncle knew of them. He was one of them for a little bit before it shut down. He showed this building to me once when I was a kid and a few months ago I... found myself back” That was a simple explanation, but the truth of it. There wasn’t much more to it than that. “As for Winston, well I don’t know how they did it, but they sleepwalked in here one night out of nowhere. I was... sleeping here at the time and happened to run into them. We had only met once before that but well I guess the rest is history.” He couldn’t stop himself from grinning at the thought. How lucky Rio had been, to be sleeping here that night. 

Rio got back to studying, abandoning a book in favor of a new one. This one was written by a hunter, who happened to also be a scribe. So much for neutrality. He dove into the book, searching for anything that may stick out. “I don’t want to... ask too much about your acquaintance because it’s none of my business. But are they something other than a normal human? Like would they have abilities that needed suppressed? It may help narrow down the search.”

Listening to Rio speak, Luce looked at some of the diagrams drawn in the book she had selected. It was some kind of fucked up trap, some monstrous combination of jagged silver teeth and springs. No doubt it was meant to capture werewolves in the most painful way possible. The thought of a hunter going after Ulfric, or Ariana, trapping them in something like that? It put a bitter taste in her throat. But, this wasn’t what she was looking for. She needed to focus. “Scribes. Seems like they took the title seriously, this place is like a fucking warehouse of books.” She said gesturing around them. As Rio explained the circumstances of how Winston came to find the massive library,  “Hm. Sounds like the two of you were at the right place at the right time. Worked out well.” She nodded before shutting the book. This was just all about how to trap things, not how to keep them controlled.

Luce let out a quick puff of air, blowing a few strands of hair from her eyes. She didn’t really want to go spilling Remmy’s secrets to someone, but… She didn’t really have a choice. And besides, it’s not like Rio knew who they were. She hadn’t even told him their name. “They’re a zombie. They’ve been wearing this necklace for a couple weeks-- I didn’t even really pay attention to it. But, something happened the other day and it… brought them to the ground. They were screaming. In pain.” Luce grimaced at the memory, her fingers clenching into a fist against the table. “I need to know what that thing is and how to destroy it.”

Orion nodded, “They did. A little too serious sometimes, probably.” It had to be one of the reasons why they eventually fell. “They kept records of hundreds of years of supernatural history. Maybe more. They had chapters all over the world. But they were a little... stubborn.” Rio tried to think of the easiest way to sum up their collapse, “They didn’t want to modernize. So they died out.” 

A zombie? Maybe this friend was Morgan. Or maybe it was connected to Morgan or Ashley or whoever was turning others into zombies in this town. It didn’t matter at this point, all that mattered was that something was torturing zombies. “I’ve actually been trying to do some readings about zombies recently. I don’t know a ton about them, but I bet whatever it is they use to suppress their abilities.” Rio hopped off of the table where he had been resting and turned to Luce, “I’m going to go try to find some books specifically about Slayers. We may have better luck finding something specific to the undead.”

“Makes sense. Gotta change with the times, or you’ll get left in the dust.” Luce brushed her hand over the cover of one of the leather bound books, nose wrinkling. “Literally.” A part of her wondered if that was what Rio was doing here, trying to bring the Scribes into the modern day. But, a much larger part of her just didn’t care. Maybe another time, under different circumstances, she would have been interested to figure out just how he knew about this, how his uncle was aware of the Scribes to begin with. But, she shelved that thought. She had more important things to worry about.

“I know… a bit.” Luce said, the words seeming to stick in the back of her throat. She could still remember what it felt like, waking up as a zombie through Morgan’s memories. She could still remember how incapable of feeling anything at all, she had been. “Their sense of touch, it’s muted. Really, really muted. It’s like being underwater, but it’s like… it’s like there’s an ocean of distance between you and your skin.” She shuddered, forcing the memory from her mind. Was that how Remmy felt? All the time? “Yeah. Slayer shit. That might be the place to look.” Luce said, grabbing a random book from the stack. As she did, she noticed a small section in the book about ghosts… As she stared at the scribblings, note in the margin from a human exorcist, she swallowed. Ghosts. They had a way of making their way back to those they’d developed a… fondness for. A shiver went down her spine as she stared at the looping handwriting. “Slayers, they deal with, vampires, zombies, that sort of thing, right? They wouldn’t come after someone who… was brought back?” She asked as she thumbed through the pages. 

Orion chuckled at Luce’s  joke, “Exactly.” But despite all the flaws that the old scribes had, they still had the ability to help a lot of people through their text. If Rio could turn that into something modern and useful, maybe he’d be able to make something of the life his parents had tried to force on him.

“Muted” Rio repeated the phrase back to himself, latching onto the words that Luce spoke. “I was told once that they don’t feel pain like humans do. So it must be something like you described. Muted.” Rio searched through the hunter catalogue again until finding some information regarding slayers. It was the only branch of hunters that Rio wasn’t very familiar with. Growing up in a household of beast hunters and wardens, they knew about vampires and zombies but had never been appropriately taught about them. As he passed Luce to head back to the table he noticed the book she was holding and paused. “I- don’t know honestly. I think it depends on the hunter.” He wished he had a better answer for Luce. He could only assume that this had to do with her sister. “As long as everything went right... she should technically be alive, y’know? The undead don’t have heartbeats and they can only survive on blood or flesh from the living. Those are totally different.” He didn’t know if that helped or not. He couldn’t be sure because he didn’t know all of Bea’s situation. Rio crawled back onto the table and rested his feet against one of the old chairs. “I know a slayer. He’s not.... I don’t know if I can trust him fully. He seems like a good person, but I don’t know his philosophy on the undead. I could ask if he knows anything about the necklaces?”

“Yeah. It’s nothing like being human at all.” Luce replied, her fingers flexing, as though to remind herself that she was still here. She was still human. She was still alive. Swallowing, she listened to Rio intently. The last thing she wanted was for their efforts to have only put Bea in further danger. She was aware of the consequences that came with going against nature, knew that everything had a price that must be paid. But, she wasn’t going to let her sister pay it again. “Fair enough.” She murmured, scanning the pages with ever growing dismay. Just as she was about to shut the book in frustration, her finger came to rest on a picture of a… large armband? Something used to cripple creatures. To keep them malleable, easy to work with. “No-- no, Rio. Look. This. Do you think this might be what someone’s using on them?”

It’s nothing like being human at all. Orion had always been so sure that despite the differences, supernatural species were still human. Even though werewolves changed form and vampires had previously died, at their core they were still human beings. But was that fair of Rio to determine? Morgan was adamant that she was a zombie now. Not a human, but a person. Ariana seemed content identifying as a werewolf instead of a human being. Was it fair for him to thrust that upon them if they didn’t even want to be human? Could he blame them? He furrowed his brow, pondering this along with Luce’s statement. Maybe they really weren’t like humans at all. It didn’t change Rio’s point of view or his morals. They still didn’t deserve to die. Or worse, live through the torture that some humans put them through. When Luce found something, Rio perked up from his position and practically crawled across the table to take a look. “Interesting. How the heck did they build something that helps neutralize the undead like that? Some kind of magic or drug maybe? Either way, they would have to have a way to refuel the magic or resupply the drug. That means someone in town would have to know about it.” Rio guessed. This was nothing more than a hypothesis, and one without much backing either. His expertise wasn’t within magic or supernatural drugs. “Hey if you want to like... borrow a couple of these books to do your own research you can. I just need to log which ones you take. And uh- I’ll sorta need them back. Eventually at least.”

“It’s gotta be magic. If it was a drug, there’d have to be some kind of like… needle or something attached to it right?” Luce said, her brow furrowing as she tried to figure out the diagram that sat before her. “Yeah… They’d need a source or some kind of like, transmitter at the very least.” She said, pushing the book away in disgust. The fact that someone, anyone, would ever make a device like that was horrifying. Not that she had any room to talk. She’d done some terrible things herself. Swallowing, she pushed the images of August from her mind. No. That had been different. August had deserved every last ounce of his suffering. Remmy… they’d never done anything to warrant the kind of pain she’d seen them in. At Rio’s words, Luce blinked in surprise. “Are you sure? I… Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

Knowing nothing about supernatural drugs (or real drugs for that matter), Orion was going to take Luce’s word on that. It made sense. Unless there was a drug that could slip in through pores to enter the blood system. That wasn’t completely outside of the realm of possibility, but magic certainly seemed more likely. It wouldn’t have been the first time that hunters and magic had teamed up for some mutually beneficial cause. “That would imply that whoever is doing either must either know magic or has connections with someone that can do it, right? I don’t know if that narrows things down at all.” How many spell casters were in this town? The number was probably higher than Rio thought it was. “And yeah- totally serious. Winston and I are working on trying to digitize the information here. So that it’s more easily accessible to those that need it. But uh- as you can probably see, we have our work cut out for us on that. So, I don’t think we will be pressed if you borrow some stuff for a while. I’ll just want it back eventually so I can start to move it over.” Rio pulled his laptop from his book bag and pulled up the tracker that he had created when Blanche started stealing books. If people would be coming in and out with different books, Rio wanted a way to keep track of it. “I’ll just log anything you end up taking in here. So I know which ones are gone right now? If that’s okay.”

“It does, yeah.” Luce said, her troubled expression only growing even more. If there was some kind of magic user who was out here, making these kind of torture devices, they had to be stopped. They were a danger to the community, to everyone. If they could cripple Remmy like that, they could kill anyone in an instant. She had to make sure that whoever was responsible for these things got dealt with. Ideally, in a permanent way. Luce regarded Rio in a new light. He really was just a… good kid, wasn’t he? Trying to do his best or whatever. “Yeah. Sure, okay.” She said, grabbing her phone and typing down the name of the book she was currently looking at. Luce skimmed through one of the other books and her fingers fell on a section on ghosts, poltergeists, something called kinterwibs and other kinds of hauntings. Jaw tightening, she added it to the pile. “I’m gonna be taking these two. But, uh… I think I found out about as much as I can here.” She said, awkwardly shifting as best as she could without jarring her ribs. “Thanks, Rio.”

Orion was a bit relieved that Luce seemed ready to leave. He had been trying to hide how much pain he had been in since he forced himself out of bed to head over towards the forest. Rio hadn’t even really wanted to come, but whatever Luce was looking into had seemed pretty important. “Thanks. For logging that. I know it seems stupid being a mostly abandoned library and all. But.. I just want to make sure to get as much information as I can.” Rio added the books to his list and slowly crawled down from the table and began gathering his things. “Of course. Happy to help. Winston’s super important to me. So all of their friends are too.” Rio shrugged, slowly pulling his arms through the book bag. “And I’m happy to help with anything else you may need to. Anything you tell me is strictly confidential, cool?”

Grabbing the two books from the table, Luce did her best to rise from the chair without twinging her ribs. She grimaced at Rio’s words. What the fuck was up with people in this town saying that the things they did was stupid? First Remmy, now Rio. Christ. “It’s not stupid, it’s clearly important to you. Don’t discount what you’re doing like that.” She muttered, with a shake of her head. “But yeah. Thanks. I’ll make sure to get these back to you when I’m done.” Luce said with a nod. She bristled a little at the sound of friends, but did her best to push that feeling down. Winston was… yeah. She guessed they were a friend. More family than friend at this point, but Rio didn’t need to know that. That said, he didn’t need to know any more about her than he already did. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She said before heading out of the library, shoulders squared as she pushed through the doorway. Sweet kid, naive, a little too trusting, a little too kind. She hoped nothing else happened to him. As she walked out to her 4x4, Luce looked down at the books in her hands, at the thick leather-bound volumes. She had a lot of reading ahead of her. But, if it meant stopping Remmy’s pain, she’d do it.

[corpsentry]

WINTERSTORY: OR HOW THE BOY KING FISHED THE SUN OUT OF THE SKY

ao3 mirror

fandom: haikyuu!! pairing: kageyama/hinata rating: T notes: spoilers up to chapter 387, getting together, character study, kageyama tobio experiences Desire warnings: death mentions (it is 387 after all), second person pov, philosophy

Kageyama Tobio, re-examined.

i. A month before Kitagawa Daiichi loses at the junior high qualifiers, your grandfather passes away. You had been sitting on the hard-backed chair in the hospital with your volleyball recordings and your volleyball recordings and listening to him breathe all week. You had not played volleyball in a while.

The month before that had been better. Sometimes he would agree to watch a match with you. You would slot the disc into the disc player they set up in rooms for dying people and point out your favorite maneuvers, the service aces you wanted to mimic. He would nod along, speak a few words or none.

The month before that had been the worst. Your sister informed you diplomatically that your grandfather was dying. Your legs went still under the dining table. You had seen the news making its way towards you on the horizon, and missed its arrival all the same.

You don’t remember much of the funeral. Only that there are white lilies and black suits and some far-off relative tells you about the symbolism of flowers. Good-bye and be-at-peace and whatever. He’s your second cousin from your father’s side and you’ve never seen him in your life. You’re given flowers to hold; you hold them. You’re given words to say; you say them.

A month before Kitagawa Daiichi loses at the junior high qualifiers your grandfather dies and the world reshapes itself around this fact but volleyball, strangely enough, does not. Something has left with him. It is the same thing your sister took with her when she glimpsed a different version of Miyagi through the window. One full of bright girls with lovely, flowing hair and powdered laughter.

“I’m quitting volleyball,” she said, fifteen and angry and in love.

You contemplate this alongside the flowers in your hands. You superimpose. You’ve always been bad with words but you know what it feels like to set a ball from the furthest corner of the court and have it fall perfectly into the spiker’s palm. You’re not soulless.

“I’m quitting volleyball,” you imagine your grandfather saying. Afterwards, you scrub at your skin in the shower until it turns red, and begins to flake away into the drain.

ii. See the problem is a ball lands where you ask it to, while a word spins out of control and eats your face. A ball will listen; a word will not. The world has done you a disservice and, reeling from the impact, you are only trying to stay on your feet.

A month later you step onto the court again with bubble wrap for skin. Everything is too-sharp and too-bright and the air in the gymnasium smells wrong. This smell is supposed to reassure you, you said so once. You are supposed to be in love with something. The question is: what?

Volleyball is a sport where you are always looking up. One must keep not only their eyes open but also their ears, and by extension, their hands. Process the data around you and re-purpose it into ammunition. Keep the blood in your veins burning. Ask for the ball.

Ask for the ball, that is to say: open your mouth. Say something or you will be left behind. You will yourself to do this as your teammates get slower and angrier and meaner. Your fingers begin to yearn for more contact with the ball. Somewhere in the back of your mind a voice informs you that you are losing and it sends a sliver of anxiety sliding across your cheek like a switchblade. You are panicking now.

Before this, there had been a boy with orange hair and so much hope in his bones, it made you jealous. In a desperate bid to remove this feeling, you tried to hurt him.

Your grandfather would not approve of your actions on the court today, tomorrow, or on Friday. Next week you are benched and the sensation tears at your skin like a free-fall. They give you the name King of the Court, then kick your knees into the concrete.

iii. You ask the boy with the orange hair what he’s been doing for the last three years. The other question, the one you’re actually supposed to ask yourself, is this: what have you been doing for the last three weeks? And the week before that, too, while your sister spent the daylight hours at her boyfriend’s and you stared at the houseplant in the corner of the living room. It has been wilting, slowly and steadily, for over a month now. You consider watering it every time you walk past. You never do.

iv. You don’t learn of Karasuno’s old histories until you get there but they seem fitting. This is nice, you decide, holding the fabric up to the light. This is where I will bury my crown.

But Hinata Shouyou—

v. Hinata Shouyou is a disaster. He’s so bad at volleyball it makes you mad. It makes you mad that he makes you mad. You had resigned yourself to a lifetime of apathy. Whatever sacred thing you had formed with volleyball had gone up like a plume of dust when your grandfather passed away. You think you will never be over anything. You are a suitcase packed for a business trip, mostly empty.

“I’ll set to whoever will help us win,” you say.

His hands curl into fists and his face crumples. It has been a while since anyone has cared enough about you to be upset instead of disappointed.

“Hah?” He’s seething. He knows you’re right and can’t do anything about it.

You pick up the ball, feel its surface singe your palms. If volleyball is over then what is this? What do you call this feeling? You look up.

“I don’t think you’re necessary to win right now,” you say.

“Hah?” he repeats. It’s one instance in a lifetime of honesty. He doesn’t know how to hide. He’s probably never needed to. Bitterness rises like bile in the back of your throat; you swallow around it.

Later, you stay to clean up the gymnasium. There is a moment in which he jumps off the stage and the setting sun splinters across his form. He is all skin and muscle, barely fifteen. He is not at all like the gods you grew up worshiping or the bleak faces you recall from junior high. This is, you observe distantly, different.

“What?” he asks, defensive. He has noticed you staring and begun seething again. Everything you do pisses him off. That’s new. Is that bad? You peer into yourself, ask the question again. Is that so bad?

“Nothing,” you tell him. You wheel the ball cart back into the storage room. The sound of shoes, rainfall, then he is there beside you. He does not pursue the matter of your eyes and therefore you do not pursue the matter of the strange way he refracts light. Physics cannot explain this. Nothing you know can explain the conundrum of Hinata Shouyou. For better or worse, you have all the time in the world to find an answer.

vi. Several months after quitting volleyball, your sister got into a fight with her boyfriend. He was an honor roll student that took triple sciences with history as an elective because he liked it more than the sciences, and had convinced his parents it would make his resume look good. This left sparingly little time for your sister, who had, in a spur of the moment decision, quit volleyball to share her own time with him. She only wanted to walk home together a few times a week, eat lunch at the same table, go on dates sometimes; she told you these things as she did her nails and cried. You listened and tried to fit her words into the dollhouse of your universe. Spending time with someone sounded painful. It involved sacrifice, you surmised, the act of carving things out of yourself. You decided it was a pity that your sister’s boyfriend was in love with history and she had been in love with volleyball. It was hard to love two things at once, or separately.

Later she broke up with this boyfriend and you watched as she acquired a string of subsequent boyfriends who were all unwilling to give up their version of elective history for her. You wondered what exactly she was trying so hard for but were unsure how to ask. Was it companionship? Was it devotion? Was it that abstract notion of love that made your face burn with exertion, even when you had done nothing at all? She had stopped looking for boyfriends altogether by the time you entered high school, and decided eventually to pursue hairdressing in Tokyo.

vii. Volleyball is a sport where you are always looking up. After junior high you refused to stare at anything but the ground before you, having resigned yourself to the fact that no one would want to hit a ball you had set. It seemed fair to anticipate the ball’s descent instead of its ascent. The ascent, after all, was dependent on factors outside of your control. The descent could be slowed down or at least cushioned with your hands.

“Give me the ball,” Hinata demands. He opens his mouth and the words cut right through you. Mesmerized by the sound, you toss to him and he slams the ball into the opposite court. There’s that age-old silence, the sharp intake of breath. Hinata and Kageyama’s freak quick does it again.

As long as you’re here, you think, he’s invincible.

Or is it the other way around?

viii. Karasuno goes to the Spring High. Still it doesn’t quite sink in until you’re walking onto the orange court and the announcer with his shiny annoying microphone is reading your name off a placard. ‘Kageyama Tobio’ goes up in the air like a firework. You feel your heart scrabble for purchase on your ribcage.

You play on all three days. You inhale the stark geometry of movement and the court teaches you physics and sorcery. You have sunk your feet into the hardwood floor and you will not go anywhere until Hinata Shouyou who refracts light like a miracle falls from the sky. Until he becomes Icarus.

When he finally does, you tell him, "I'm going on ahead."

What you really mean is: I want you to chase me.

ix. “What’s volleyball to you?” Hoshiumi asks once after practice. The question comes from nowhere and arrives nowhere. You simply happen to be present.

“Volleyball is volleyball,” you say perfunctorily.

Hoshiumi tilts his head back like a Yakuza. “That’s a stupid answer. Think harder.”

You slide your notebook into the front pocket of your bag. You picture rows of plastic bottles placed at equal intervals along a court. You hear the ball falling. The smear of shoes.

“Think harder,” Hoshiumi repeats. You think maybe he’s psychic, though he’s probably just bored. You think you would be nothing without volleyball. And Hinata, if he had not pulled you out of the sky and tied you to a kinder religion.

You consider Hinata Shouyou and the ball. Which matters more, which is the elective history class you cannot give up? Hoshiumi taps his feet against the floor impatiently.

“Volleyball just is,” you decide. Something has come upon you. You know what it looks like but not how to describe it. Hoshiumi can take his weird questions and shove it.

“Hah?” Hoshiumi tilts his head so far back you worry that his neck will snap. You zip your bag and sling it over your shoulder, nod in his direction without meeting his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Kageyama, you’re full of bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

x. He calls you one night from Brazil, drunk off his ass, and you burn like Alexandria with the urge to put your hands on his throat.

xi. “Is that so bad?”

“No, but the Black Jackals are annoying. Atsumu still holds a grudge against me for the Olympics. Sakusa’s going to make everyone use his hand sanitizer and then he’s going to run out and he’s going to make one of us buy him refills.”

“And Hinata Shouyou.”

“Yeah. And Hinata Shouyou.”

xii. Maybe passion is frustration. Maybe love is consumption. Maybe Hinata comes back from Brazil and the first thing you think when you see him in the hallway outside the toilet is that you want to lick the smile right off his face. It has taken you several years to reach the place where the shadow of junior high and the family you left behind does not cast itself across your shoulders, but merely the tips of your toes. Your feet are planted firmly in the dirt.

Your grandfather used to say that no one understood what was and wasn’t important to you better than yourself. At eight you felt that he was being evil and deliberately cryptic. At twenty-two, you think you understand. Volleyball is Hinata is volleyball. You cannot have one without the other and you cannot have neither, so you want to have both.

The Black Jackals win. As the crowd surges out of the bleachers, calling your names like promises, you duck under the net to the other side of the court. The sound of shoes, rainfall; then he is there beside you.

“It’s my win,” Hinata says, smiling so hard you think he’s going to crack right open. He's sweaty and gross and you've never seen anything quite as spectacular.

“Yeah” you say, and then you kiss him.

xiii. Everyone knows Kageyama Tobio fucked up at the junior high qualifiers, but most people don’t know he borrowed his father’s suit for his grandfather’s funeral. He didn’t want to go in the first place. He was scared of the faceless casket he would be forced to confront.

By the time he emerged onto the court again he had retreated so far inside of himself, there was little left on the outside but a motorized shell which remembered, vaguely, how to play volleyball. They called him King of the Court for months afterwards, but they didn’t see the way the court had swallowed him up and spat out his bones. His teammates had been watching him with curious resentment for months. His coach had little sympathy for the sullen genius with the brackish words. No one saw that he was carrying a wound for a heart. They saw only the court and the ball and the way the spiker’s hand fell short of its golden trajectory.

Look at that, they said in wonderment. Isn’t that terrible.

Everyone knows Hinata Shouyou sucked at volleyball at the start, but they don’t know that Kageyama Tobio looked at him for the first time that day and hoped immediately, from some strange and selfish part of his chest, that Hinata would be the one to wake him from his solitary dream. That he saw in him the face of a sleeping god.

They don’t know that Kageyama spent six years watching for the shadow of the sun through the clouds, and then was there to greet it at first light.

0. By the grace of God and with this crown, I name you king of everything.

[himluv]

Another Kindness

Another Solavellan oneshot, set immediately after Little Mercies. Enjoy!

Solas woke with a start, his heart lurching in his chest even as he blinked at the cloying fog of the Fade in his mind. For once he hadn’t journeyed anywhere in his sleep. He’d had too much to process from the night before and needed the honest rest. Riallan’s heated words and gaze had haunted him, promising more than he could ever hope to have.

But even that turmoil was not enough to obscure the voice that had called to him in his dreams.

Beside him, but thankfully on her own bedroll, Riallan was already sitting up, a cup of tea in her hands. Around them the Dalish camp began to stir, the fire rekindled, where a pot of water bubbled above it. He’d expected the Inquisitor to look worse for wear after her indulgence the night before, but the only hint she felt the after effects of the wine was the barest squint at the corners of her eyes.

“Bad dream?” She asked.

He couldn’t clear his thoughts and words felt slow and clunky in his mind. He gestured at her cup. “May I?”

She blinked, but did not hesitate to hand him her drink.

The tea was blessedly hot, a medicinal blend of elfroot and ginger. Perhaps she was feeling the wine after all. The liquid burned and stung, the spice of the ginger mingling with the elfroot to sting in his nasal passages and sinuses. He grimaced, took another sip, and handed the cup back.

“You don’t like it?”

He shook his head once. “It is tea. I detest the stuff. But I need to shake the dreams from my mind.” He shook his head and sighed. “I may also need a favor.”

Her eyes widened. “Of course, Solas. Anything you need.”

“I— thank you, Inquisitor.” More of the camp was stirring now, including Cassandra. Whatever his relationship with Riallan was, it wouldn’t do to have others aware of it. Not now at any rate.

She clued into his desire for discretion, the hand meant for his arm quickly returning to cradle her mug of tea. “What’s wrong?”

He ran a hand over his face, the well of frustration demanding movement. “One of my oldest friends has been taken captive by mages, forced into slavery. I heard the cry for help as I slept.”

She watched him, her eyes seeming to see straight through him. As always. “Your friend is a spirit?”

That earned her a tiny smile; she was cleverer than anyone in the Inquisition gave her credit for. “Yes,” he said. “A spirit of Wisdom. Unlike the spirits clamoring to enter our world through the rifts, it was dwelling quite happily in the Fade.” He frowned, struggling to keep his fury buried under his mask of calm. “It was summoned against its will, and wants my help to gain its freedom and return to the Fade.”

Her brow crinkled as she considered his words. “I thought spirits wanted to find their way into this world?”

While he was pleased that she asked questions, as he always was, Solas didn’t have much patience for her curiosity this morning. Not after that dream. “Some do, certainly. Just as many Orlesian peasants wish they could journey to exotic Rivain.” He shook his head. “But not everyone wants to go to Rivain! My friend is an explorer, seeking lost wisdom and reflecting it. It would happily discuss philosophy with you, but it had no wish to come here physically.”

His frustration must have been apparent because, though he saw lingering questions in her green eyes, Riallan did not ask them. “I’m happy to help, Solas.” This time she did not hesitate to put her hand on his arm. “Let’s go get your friend.”

He didn’t know why he was surprised. Of course Riallan would help him, he never should have doubted her. But any other modern mage would assume that a spirit was nothing more than a demon, that it was a lost cause. That Wisdom could not be saved now that it’d been bound against its will. Fear and ignorance would have stayed their hand.

But, it was increasingly clear to him that Riallan was not like any other he had met in this hollow world.

“Wisdom is not far from here, I’ll mark the location on our map.”

He tried to downplay his anxiety, Riallan could tell. Solas, normally so stoic and in control, was strung tight. His hands fidgeted, reflexively balling into fists the moment he forgot to relax them. His jaw clenched, the muscle spasming, though he didn’t seem to notice. If those hadn’t been indication enough of his concern, his determined march up the riverbank left no room to doubt.

He was terrified for his friend. Before Cole, Riallan wasn’t sure she would have understood. She would have helped, she would always help Solas after everything they’d been through together, but she wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the attachment to a spirit.

Knowing Cole made her realize that the concept of personhood was not limited to physical beings. Cole might be a spirit made manifest, but his personality was his, regardless of his body. She cared for the spirit, much like she would a younger sibling. If someone bound him against his will, she would do everything in her power to save him.

She would treat Solas’ friend no differently.

Ahead of her, Solas gasped. “No. No, no, no!” He’d stopped in the middle of the path, every line of his body tense with fury. “My friend!”

Riallan ran to join him, and she saw what had upset him so. Instead of a billowy wisp of a spirit, there stood a towering purple Pride Demon, panting and growling in the center of an intricate summoning circle.

“They’ve corrupted it,” she said, the words barely more than breath at the gut punch of realization.

“Yes,” he growled.

“How-?”

“- a spirit becomes a demon when it is denied its original purpose.” His words were fast, furious. Frantic. Even as he answered her she could see his thoughts racing behind his eyes, desperate for some plan. Searching for some way to undo this.

“So, they summoned it to do something so opposed to its nature that it became a demon… fighting?”

Before he could answer, a human mage approached them. His steps were timid as he looked them over, but once he saw their staves he sighed with relief. “Mages,” he said. “You’re not with the bandits?”

Riallan hadn’t thought Solas could get any more tense, but all that worry and fear congealed into something else altogether. Something incredibly cold and sharp. Suddenly he radiated icy fury and power, as if he were a predator preparing to pounce. She had never seen him so threatening, not even when they faced Corypheus in Haven. If she hadn’t trusted him with her life, she would be terrified of him.

The human did not notice the very real danger he was in. Like the fool he was, he kept talking. “Do you have any lyrium potions? Most of us are exhausted, we’ve been fighting that demon.”

Solas snapped. “You summoned that demon! Except it was a spirit of Wisdom at the time.” He took a step toward the man. “You made it kill, twisted it against its purpose!”

The human stuttered, lips trembling beneath his ridiculous mustache. “I… I understand that it may be confusing to someone who has not studied demons-”

“We’re not here to help you,” Solas seethed. His fingers were tipped in frost, and she realized he was barely keeping his magic under control. Emotional outbursts often led to unexpected magic, but that was in young, untrained mages. Solas was one of the most elegant and refined casters she had ever met.

She needed to get this situation under control before someone got hurt.

“Word of advice?” she glared at the human. “I’d hold off on explaining how demons work to my friend here.” She looked the mage up and down, letting her disdain show. “He knows more than you.”

That got a reaction.

“Listen to me!” He pointed at her, as if wagging his finger in her face made him that much more respectable. “I was one of the foremost experts in the Kirkwall-”

“Shut. Up.”

Solas’ voice lashed at the man, and he flinched. He looked at the apostate and seemed to truly see him for the first time.

“You summoned it to protect you from the bandits.” It wasn’t a question, wasn’t even an accusation. Solas said it as fact. He knew it, had accepted it, and now he was prepared to move on.

“I… yes.” The human at least had the decency to bow his head in shame.

Solas took another step toward the mage, and Riallan stiffened. She wasn’t sure what would happen if they got within reach of one another.

“You bound it to obedience and then commanded it to kill. That is when it turned.”

The human made to argue, but Solas had no time for him now. He looked to her and his fury gave way to pleading.  “The summoning circle. We break it, we break the binding. No orders to kill, no conflict with its nature, no demon.”

She somehow doubted it was so simple. In her experience, nothing about the Fade was that simple. But he looked at her with such desperation, such hope, that she could not tell him as much.

Besides, he knew much more about spirits and the Fade than she did. She would not be the fool the humans were.

The human, once again, had no sense of self-preservation. “What? The binding is the only thing keeping that thing from killing us! Whatever it was before, it’s a monster now.”

Solas glowered at him, but spoke to her. “Inquisitor. Please.” It was the most helpless she had ever heard him. She never wanted to hear him sound that way again. She knew then that she would do anything to keep him from feeling like this.

Riallan nodded. “If we focus our attacks on the pylons, we’ll break the circle faster.”

The Pride Demon chose that moment to roar, and the human mage cowered before them, his hands clamped over his ears and his face scrunched up in fear. Riallan’s lip curled in disgust. A coward, too pitiful to face the consequences of his actions.

She expected Solas to lash out at the man, but he had eyes only for his friend. “We must hurry!” And then he took off, sprinting towards the summoning circle.

“Dareth shiral…”

Solas knelt in the dry grass, staring at where his oldest friend had been only a moment before. Wisdom was gone now, dissolved and blown away on a wind it had never wanted to feel. Distantly, he was aware of Riallan standing behind him, close, but not too close.

Did she fear him in that moment? He had shown more of himself in the past half-hour than she had ever seen. More emotion and power and turbulence than he had let anyone see in more years than he could count.

What must she think of him? But even as he wondered, he found he didn’t have the energy to truly care. He could deal with the fallout of his emotions another time.

“I heard what it said,” she said. Her voice was soft, soothing and yet… pained. Did she grieve for him? “It was right. You did help it.” Another kindness. Was her empathy truly so endless?

He could not look at her. Not yet. He sighed. “Now I must endure.” He wasn’t sure how at the moment. There had already been so much loss. He was already enduring. The prospect of carrying another heartache through this bleached and bleak world…

“Let me know if I can help,” she said.

He bowed his head, bit back the anger at her words. It was not legitimate. It was grief that made him want to yell that she had done too much. Had seen too much. That his debt to her was already too high. That he should not accept her offers of comfort because she wasn’t real.

But of course, he could not say any of that. Largely because it wasn’t entirely true. But also because, after all she had done for him, all the kindness and mercy she’d shown him, he would not hurt her like that. Not with careless, selfish words.

He stood and turned to face her. He tried to smile, but suspected it was a weary and frail thing. “You already have.” Movement in his periphery stole his attention, squelched the thanks he was about to give her.

The mages.

“All that remains now is them.” He turned away from her, the anger from moments ago returned in an agony of fire in his veins.

“Thank you,” the leader, the supposed expert, said. “We would not have risked a summoning,” he tried to sound apologetic and failed. There was no real regret in his voice, just relief. “But the roads are too dangerous to travel unprotected.”

Solas stalked toward him, the rage boiling up as he spoke. “You tortured and killed my friend.”

Now, finally, the mage understood the danger he was in. He took several steps back, his eyes darting over Solas’ shoulder to the Inquisitor. “We didn’t know! It was just a spirit. The book said it could help us!”

As the grief and fury crashed through him, for the first time since waking Solas felt powerful. Capable. The emotions tangled with his mana and suddenly all of him was on fire and desperate for release. He lifted his hand, summoned that boiling power close, and then-

“Solas.”

His name on her lips. Not angry. Not afraid. Not disappointed or ashamed or disbelieving. Just his name in a soft, tender tone. It wasn’t a command, he understood that at once. She would not keep him from this path if it was what he truly wanted. But she wanted him to be sure, to take a moment and think of who and what he was, how that might change if he obliterated the sniveling mages before him.

It was enough.

He faltered, his hand lowering even as a part of him still raged. He locked eyes with the lead mage and growled, “never again.” He turned away, ignored the trembling sigh of relief from the mage, and looked at his feet. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Riallan. He wasn’t sure what she would see on his face, blame, relief, anger, grief… None of it was something he wanted to share. Not even with her.

“I need to be alone. I will meet you back at Skyhold.”

And he walked away. He heard her take a step toward him, heard the intake of breath as she prepared to call out, but she did not follow. She did not call to him. Even as he felt her eyes on his back and the weight of her heart on his shoulders, she let him go.

Yet another kindness.

[ravenwolf1132]

They Come and Go

This was just a quick plot bunny that I came up with on the fly while listening to the fma ost and merry go round of life. Shaggy, who as I picture him, is someone who values nature and the prospect of life, comes across someone attempting to do the impossible and breach the laws of nature and the way life flows to try and bring back his dead wife. A woman he loved more than life itself and had a very healthy relationship with, which unfortunately their time together has been cut short due to an untimely death. He's trying to bring her back to life and Shaggy has to talk some sense into him a la Fullmetal Alchemist style. (As in philosophy, heavy topics like death and grief, and trying to move on with one's life. Just a warning to y'all)

Kinda just jumps right into the confrontation between them. No set up what-so-ever as if it's just after the dramatic reveal and you turned on the TV at the end of the episode. So, LET'S-A GO!!

(Oh and Clarence and Myrtle were just names I came up with on the fly, so picture them how you want.)

~•~●~•~

They Come and Go

"Clarence?!" The Mystery Inc exclaimed all except Shaggy.

"But why?" Velma asked she was sure that the sweet and kind man was innocent.

Clarence scoffed, "because of my wife, that's why!"

"Huh?"

"Ugh, guys, like, it's easy," Shaggy drawled in a bored tone, all eyes were on him. "His wife is dead, and he wanted to bring her back to life. Isn't that right, Clarence?" He held up the book the man was trying to steal. "I have to say, all this set up and elaborate planning is a little much for trying to steal a single book. Then again, like, perhaps you wanted to scare everyone away so there would be no witnesses to the atrocity you were about to commit!"

"But how can wanting your loved ones back be an atrocity?!" He shouted in outrage, "Don't you have people you'd miss if they died?! Wouldn't you want to do anything to bring them back again?!"

"Yes, I do have people like that, they're all around me," Shaggy admitted. "But, like, there's a difference between wanting to do something and actually attempting it. There are many people who want to try and bring their loved ones back to life, yes, that's true. Hell, that's a natural part of the grieving process. But, there are few who actually attempt it, and even fewer that succeed. Even then, they're still losing that battle. But that's another story entirely."

"That doesn't make any sense, isn't bringing the dead back to life supposed to be impossible?" Fred asked.

"Exactly my point, Fred," Shaggy said. "It is impossible. The closest we've got is cloning, and, like, even then, those clones are different than the person we initially tried to bring back. There's no bringing the dead back to life, it's just not possible."

"So what?!" Clarence yelled, "just because those people failed, doesn't mean I will too!"

"Oh really?" Shaggy questioned with a quirked eyebrow. His voice was level and calm, and the others knew that Shaggy only ever got like this when he was pissed off. Wisely, they backed off and let him speak. "You really think you are powerful enough to play the hand of God? I'm not a big religious believer myself, but even I know that life is something way out of our human control. Nature is something that cannot be controlled, everything will eventually go back to the way it was, how nature intended it to be. That's the problem we have here. Going against that flow of life, that innate cycle that cannot be changed nor altered is the problem. You have to accept it, not fight against it. If someone were to be brought back to life, it would only disrupt nature's balance and destroy ecosystems. Let's say that the person you brought back was content wherever they ended up, would they be grateful to you and thank you for a needless rescue then?

"What if, even worse, they were brought back immortal? Can you name one person that would want to be physically unable to die? No, I doubt it. Immortality is considered more of a curse than a blessing. Not only would it throw a permanent wrench in the circle of life itself, yes I did just make a lion king reference but it's relevant! But it would also destroy the person who came back, unable to die while they have to watch those around them grow up and pass on themselves.

"How would they feel towards you if you were the reason they were miserable? That they were robbed of that chance of having a happy afterlife by you and as rubbing salt in the wound, would never be able to have that chance again, and would have to watch as other people die and are given it instead, because of you and your selfish desires to have the love of your life back? Well, I'm telling ya now pal, that's gonna get you an eternity in the dog house."

Clarence looked like he had been slapped across the face and it seemed as if he was finally woken up from his delusions. He hung his head in shame and his shoulders started to shake, the others thought he was going to explode with anger, but when they heard soft sobs coming from him, they realized he was crying. Shaggy doesn't usually like to make people cry and would try to make it up to them, but he didn't this time. He couldn't, he was right and he was standing by his belief, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to offer some comfort. He helped the emotionally distressed man out of his costume and binds and the man latched onto him and sobbed. Shaggy didn't say anything but hugged him back and let him pour it all out. When the sobs finally died down, he pulled back.

"Thank you," Clarence said in a quiet voice, "I see my wrongs now, but still. What am I supposed to do now? That hope was all I had left! Please, tell me, what I'm supposed to do??"

He was so distressed, the Gang had never dealt with a case like this, and it hurt them to see him like this and sympathized with him. After all, everyone has people they couldn't bear to lose, he had a point. But Shaggy seemed to know what he was doing.

"Like, I can't tell you that," he said with a sorrowful shake of his head, pulling out of the other man's vice-like grip. "You have to figure it out for yourself. I can't tell you what you have to do with your life as much as anyone else can, only you can make those decisions."

He stood up and turned his back to the man walking forwards a few steps before pausing, he glanced back and saw Clarence sitting there limp as a rag doll and he sighed quietly, barely a sound passing his lips.

"Well, if you want my advice…"

"Yes?" Clarence asked in a hopeful voice.

"You have to move on. Myrtle wouldn't want you wallowing in grief and self-pity, she'd want you to honor her memory by living a long, happy life even in her absence. But not for a second should you forget her."

"How could I? She's- or was- the love of my life, I- I couldn't just, just forget someone like that!"

Shaggy turned and smiled at him, it wasn't a confident grin or silly smirk, it was a genuine smile that had to make him wonder if this kid had been through something similar. "There you go," he acknowledged, "That's the first step to acceptance, admitting that she's gone. It'll be hard, trust me, I know. My dad, someone who I was really close to, was killed on duty. I know what it feels like to lose a loved one, but once they're gone, they're gone. No one can bring the dead back to life, Clarence. Not you, not me. But hey, I got through it. You will too. And anyone else dealing with it for that matter. It's a part of how life goes, and everyone will eventually have to face that same music too. But oh well, I'm just some humble hippie kid riding around in a van straight out of the 1960s with his friends and his dog, so what do I know?" He laughed and even the rest of the occupants in the room shared a chuckle. "Still, you have to keep going, Clare. To quote an obligatory teenage cartoon, 'you have two good legs, so get up and use them.'"

"Heh, you're right," Clarence said, "though I probably would have gotten away with all this if it hadn't been for you meddling kids and your dog."

"Rog? Rhere?"

The room's atmosphere lightened at the familiar quip. Then Daphne spoke up.

"Well, the good thing is," she started, "this whole thing was private and no one but us knows that you were the monster. So how about we let this one slide for once? We'll just return the book and say we found it when the monster disappeared, though we are also going to be sure to explain how the monster won't show up again. Not unless it's someone else doing it, of course."

"We'd let you off with a slap on the wrist, but I think Shaggy has that covered," Velma said.

He laughed, embarrassed, "Well anyway, like, how about we hit the town and get dinner? After all this excitement, I'm starving!"

"Reah! Re roo!" Scooby agreed with a wag of his tail.

That night consisted of returning the book to the museum, explaining to the town how the monster won't come back, then proceeding to hang loose with some fun. Only Shaggy could really turn from any heavy and depressing topic to something light-hearted so quickly.

~•~●~•~

The closest thing we humans have to immortality is human memory. Remembering those who have passed on. As cliche as it may sound, the phrase "those who leave us don't truly leave us, they will continue to live on as long as we can remember them" still has merit. It's the only thing we can hope for beyond our grave that we made a big enough impact on those we love to be remembered for generations to come, that way, we can truly live forever as long as our memory still lives. I hope all those struggling to come to terms with death know that things will get better, and to those of you who are debating whether or not you're worth living, you are. You'll find your acceptance too, you just have to keep living to see the next day to eventually get there.

Boy, that went long, but I'm glad about how it came out. (And don't worry, I'm fine. It's just something I think was appropriate to address after writing a story with such heavy topics.) Well anyway, it's nearly midnight over here and I need to go to bed, G'night!

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 8

*comment shared a comic shipping Sayaka and Kyoko*

What. What is this. Is shipping the Blue-haired Paladin and the Red-Haired Warrior a thing? Because I'm suddenly seeing it as a thing. Seriously that is adorable. Damn it. I'm still holding the "Letting Familiars Go" thing against her, but between her Tragic Backstory and that comic I'm now shipping the two. ...given how short my last ship was I'm suddenly worried.

And we’re back! Watching bloodstained Silhouette-Sayaka hack wildly at the the downed witch while Silhouette-Madoka and Silhouette-Kyoko watch.

Jeebus.

The labyrinth breaks down as Sayaka laughs, staring ahead wide-eyed and muttering about how “It’s easy once you know how to do it. I’m sure I’ll never lose this way.”

Sayaka. Just because you can shut off pain and use magic to heal damage to your body, does not mean that you should!

Back in the real world construction site, Sayaka picks up her first Grief Seed. Well, while I’m not happy with her new fighting style, at least she got

What’s with that creepy head tilt and glance back? Have you been taking lessons from Homura?

Why did you just throw the Grief Seed

Why did you just throw the Grief Seed to Kyoko

Argh. No no no. Sayaka, you know that you only have so much magic, right? That you are not some special Magical Girl that doesn’t need Grief Seeds to recharge? I get that you think that you’re making a point, but you just fought a Witch and used up who knows how much magic, you need to recharge more than the bystander.

So what, you gave Kyoko the Grief Seed so that you wouldn’t be in her debt? Ok fine, that’s a slightly better reason. But still, you’d better find another Grief Seed soon, so you don’t run out of mana when you really need it.

Ok, see?! You just dismissed your outfit and then had to get caught by Madoka! That fight took a lot out of you, you cannot afford to give away Grief Seeds right now! Stop being Lawful Stupid!

“That idiot…” See, Kyoko agrees with me! This is not just someone with a “me first” philosophy scoffing at charity, this is a matter of keeping up your defensive ability!

Intro of Lies

Ep 8: I was Stupid… So Stupid

Later, as it’s raining…

As a mournful cello tells us that “This is a sad moment, u guys!”, Sayaka and Madoka are sitting at a bus stop, Sayaka leaning tiredly against Madoka. Madoka’s trying to tell Sayaka that going all Blood Knight is not a good way of fighting…

“Just because you don’t feel it, it doesn’t mean it’s ok to get hurt.” Yes, exactly!

But Sayaka’s just focused on winning. If she doesn’t fight like that, she can’t win, because she “doesn’t have any natural talent.” Um, you did just start as a MG a little while ago, right? It’s really not that much of a stretch to think you’d be less able than who-knows-how-old-they-are Magical Girls.

Madoka’s still trying to get it through Sayaka’s skull that even if it works, it doesn’t mean that it’s good.

“What’s ‘good for me’?”

Uh oh.

Yup, back to “I’m this shiny gem being held right in front of your face, not the meat puppet you were just talking at.”

Sayaka’s really getting fatalistic, isn’t she? Saying that the only worth she has left in the world is killing Witches. That’s she’s a walking, talking corpse, pretending it’s still alive.

Ok, personal note. Isn’t that what all people are, if we go with the idea that souls exist? Not that I want to make Kyubey sound like he was right, but the body is not the consciousness. Yes, you should take care of your soul-container, but the body itself is not ‘alive’ in that sense. You are not dead, Sayaka, you’re just… offset? Look I’m trying to talk Sayaka out of being Lawful Stupid, give me a break.

There is so much “good that others could do for you now, Sayaka! You can still have friends, you can still enjoy things like good food and music. Heck, there’s my newest ship thanks to that comic you lot posted!

I mean, that solves all your problems right there! Kyoko can teach you to stop being so self-sacrificing and enjoy your life again, you can teach her to care about other people besides herself, and together you act as a more moderate Magical Girl duo like redwulf said. And it even answers your concern about you being so different than Kamijo now, Kyoko’s just like you, an immortal magic user!

It’s not stupid, Sayaka, stop saying that it’s-

Wait.

Ep 8: I Was Stupid… So Stupid

Um, yes! Yes it is very stupid to think about how you could be happy again, Sayaka. Keep thinking that it’s stupid until you’re proven wrong. *fingers crossed*

See, Madoka just wants to make you happy again, Sayaka. So stop making her feel like she’s a bad friend.

“Then you fight them.”

What.

Why are you telling Madoka that Bunny-Cat said that she has Protagonist Powers? Why are you telling her that she could beat Witches easily?

“If you really want to do something for me, you should experience what I’ve experienced first.”

Sayaka, stahp.

“You can’t give up being human just out of a little pity, can you?!”

Ok, that’s just unfair, Sayaka.

“In place of you, who could accomplish anything but won’t-

So don’t talk like you care, when you’ve conveniently overlooked that!”

NO. BAD SAYAKA. TIME OUT FOR YOU, YOU MADE MADOKA CRY.

AND STOP DOING THE CREEPY STARES.

Jerk-Sayaka tells Madoka not to follow her, then runs off into the rain.

Wow. Ok. That was uncalled for, Sayaka. Yes, this situation sucks, but that does not give you grounds to blame Madoka for not getting her own soul torn out!

Madoka’s left standing dumbfounded in the rain, no doubt blaming herself. Argh.

And Jerk-Sayaka runs along- crying?

“I’m so stupid…! Why did I say all that to her?”

Ah, ok. Still a jerk thing to do, but Sayaka realizes that she let her emotions get out of hand. I’m still waiting for her to apologize to Madoka, but I can understand.

Aw, no. Sayaka, you are not beyond saving. Just go back and say you’re sorry for the outburst, I’m sure she’ll forgive you.

Homura? Or a sign that says Homura? Oh, do we get to see Homura’s place now?

Whut.

Well ok. This is appropriately arcane enough for the Mysterious Transfer Student, I suppose. Glaring white walls and floor, candles everywhere, floating scrolls and some huge pendulum…

Seems that Homura’s invited Kyoko over, to go over plans for Walpurgisnact. Oh yeah, the Giant Flying Thing that should drop a Super Grief Seed, I’d almost forgotten about that. Really speaks for the intensity of the “MGs are Lichs” thing that I stopped thingking about it. How much longer until she summons the Super Witch, again?

Kyoko asks how Homura knows where it will appear, the MST says ‘Statistics’.

...what Statistics?

Homura refuses to elaborate. I’m guessing she thinks that Kyoko wouldn’t approve of a plan to actually summon a Super Witch on purpose. Still, Kyoko wants more info. And so does

Kyubey

Ok, good on you for summoning your spear that quick, Kyoko. Go ahead and kick the uninvited guest out. But Bunny-Cat says it came with some important information…

“Sayaka Miki’s deterioration is happening far quicker than I expected.”

Uh oh. So her Soul Gem’s running out of juice faster than usual?

“It isn’t just all the magic she’s using. She, herself, has begun to curse the world.”

Oh crap. I’m remembering Mami’s lesson on Witches, how they are born from Curses.

Are we going to see the Anti-Kyubey soon? I’m actually not sure how much worse they could be than Jerk Bunny-Cat, but whatever actually creates Witches… could it see Sayaka as an opportunity for recruitment?

Going back to my theory that Homura got her powers from Anti-Kyubey (since Kyubey doesn’t know where she got them from), I’m thinking that she made a Ghost-Rider deal and then proceeded to renege on it, just focus on increasing her own power and protecting Muggles who don’t actively get in her way. But if some antagonist could convince Sayaka to be more active against the “selfish Magical Girls”... Oh dear.

(“I was stupid… so stupid… to think that Magical Girls could ever be good. They are only selfish, so I will destroy them all!”)

Kyoko snaps at Bunny-Cat, saying that it’s their fault in the first place. Kyubey ignores that, and says that at this rate Sayaka will be causing them some trouble before Walpurgisnacht arrives.

Kyubey: “So watch out! I don’t want to lose any more Magical Lunch Ladies than I have to.”

Kyoko’s still a bit confused, but Kyubey suggests that she talk to Sayaka about it. And Homura already knows what he’s talking about… although it’s curious where she learned “such interesting things”.

Homura has finally had enough of Kyubey and orders it out. Kyubey just turns around and walks through some shadow out of the room.

Wait, where did it walk out again? That room’s pretty bright, the only darkness is the sides of the seats- oh, wow. Ok, so Kyubey can apparently phase through solid objects or something. No wonder it keeps showing up indoors.

Kyoko asks why Homura’s letting it go, she says that there’s no point in killing it. I’d disagree, but whatever. As for Sayaka…

“Her Soul Gem has become too tainted. If it is not purified soon, there will be no coming back for her.”

So, it’s like a corroded battery? Her Gem’s not got enough full magic-packets in it, so it’s not going to last much longer? And if she want’s to keep fighting after that, she’ll need some new power.

And transition to the classroom. Jeez, in all this drama I almost forgot they’re still middle-schoolers.

Sayaka’s absent again… And Madoka’s blaming herself for not going after her.

Now it’s later in the day and… aw crap.

Hitomi’s deadline has passed. She’s going to confess to Kamijo.

The two are walking by a huge waterfall/dam at sunset, and Kamijo is cluelessly talking about he never realized that Hitomi’s house was that direction. To which she cheerfully admits that she lives in the exact opposite direction. But she went that way today because she has something to tell him.

Madoka is talking to someone, learning that Sayaka’s not home and she hasn’t been there since yesterday… wait, Sayaka has parents?! Or at least a guardian? We haven’t seen anyone, so I was honestly assuming that she was yet another orphan.

Well, Madoka’s not going to give up yet. Off she goes to find her!

Now we’re back at the dam, watching Hitomi and Kamijo talking about something but not hearing their words. As Sayaka watches from the shadows…

Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it. She’s falling, isn’t she. She’s going from Paladin to Blackguard.

Now Sayaka’s stumbling through a dark bubbly background as her theme music is playing

Nope, now she’s screaming as she slashes through a labyrinth. She’s still trying to keep her word, kill Witches…

Sayaka, your Soul Gem is looking kinda dark. Please tell me you’ve got some Grief Seeds to recharge it by now…

Footstep? Sayaka turns around to see Homura walking through the car park towards her. Sayaka is not pleased to see her blank head tilt stare.

“Why can’t you understand? You don’t have the luxury of killing familiars.”

So that wasn’t a Witch? She still doesn’t have any Grief Seeds? Good grief, Sayaka. This is a matter of having the power to fight Witches or running out and being helpless, you need to recharge!

Sayaka rejects Homura’s advice, who only comments about how Sayaka’s Soul Gem must be at its limit and tosses a- Grief Seed! Thank you Homura, that’s just what is ne

Oh for fucks sake, Sayaka! Stop being so goddamn self-sacrificing and take it, don’t just kick it down the ramp! You will run out of magic, be unable to heal yourself from your reckless fighting, and die. Get it through your skull!

Yeah, Homura didn’t like that. Even scrunched up her mouth.

“Don’t be a fool. You’re in no position to be questioning anyone’s help right now. Or do you simply hate being rescued that much?”

Damn, Urobuchi really doesn’t like the self-sacrificing hero type, does he? Sayaka’s had nothing but bad stuff happen since she started, and now the character who’s going to basically summon a demon for more power is sounding pretty reasonable.

Now Sayaka’s saying her Heroic Creed from the after the last episode’s credits, about how she’ll be a different kind of Magical Girl. Good words, but you’ve got to take care of yourself to back them up.

To which Homura can only say “You are going to die.”

“So what if I die.” Aw. Aw Sayaka, no. “It just means I won’t be able to kill witches anymore.”

Ok, fine. If appealing to your own self-preservation isn’t working, how about these two points:

-You are completely neglecting all of the Witches you could kill in the future, all the lives that you would save, in order to go all out against the Witches and Familiars right now. If you really want to save as many Muggles as possible, to go to the extreme of “The Needs of the Many outweigh the Needs of the Few”, then you have to recognize that the lives you save now fighting recklessly cannot possibly measure up to all the lives you will save in the future if you just exercise a modicum of restraint

-If you die, Madoka will cry. Madoka will cry because of your foolishness. Don’t make Madoka cry.

If you define yourself as being “of use” or “not of use”, then recognize that you are loosing effectiveness as a Witch Hunter with this self-destructive behavior. Snap out of it!

So what if you “can’t” defeat Witches right now? You did pretty damn well against the one in the factory that almost killed Madoka and Hitomi, and you’re just starting out! Get some training under your belt and you’ll be a great successor to Mami. But not like this.

Homura can only ask “Why? All I want is to save you.” Aw, so she’s seeing Sayaka as someone to help again, after the whole “Competition for Grief Seeds” thing.

“Why can’t you trust me?” Um. Well, you kinda threatened Madoka’s family and knocked Sayaka out that one time, so…

Sayaka’s so out of it she can’t even come up with a reason that she can’t trust Homura. Other that that somehow, she knows she’s a liar?

“By looking at your eyes, I can tell you’ve given up on everything.” That she’s speaking hollow words, that even now she says she wants to help but it’s not what she’s really thinking. But she won’t fool Sayaka!... yup, Sayaka’s slipping. She needs Madoka-encouragement, stat.

Homura flips her hair and-

“You do realize that you’re just making Madoka suffer more and more?”

Hey, she’s using my second point! Lets see if it works at all.

Nope, Sayaka just says that it has nothing to do with her. Right, after your outburst at her, and the fact that she’s your best friend? Suuure it doesn’t.

“You’re wrong. Everything has to do with her.”

Bwuh? Where did this come from? Are you worried that Sayaka’s brooding will get Madoka to make a Contract, and pose a risk of getting the Super Grief Seed?

Um. Homura just transformed into Magical Girl Mode. Why did she do that?

Um. Homura just admitted that she has no desire at all to save Sayaka. She just doesn’t want Madoka to have to watch Sayaka destroy herself?

Is this Homura’s twisted “Non-Magical Girls are to be protected as best able, other Magical Girls are competition” logic?

“If you refuse my help here, there is no recourse for you but to

Oh no. no no no.

die.”

No no no NO. Sayaka. Transform. Fight back. Run away. DO SOMETHING.

“If you will make Madoka grieve more than she has…”

Running? Is Madoka showing up. Oh crap, Madoka’s going to see Homura kill Sayaka, isn’t she?

“...then I…”

Raised hand.

“...will kill you…”

Bright purple light.

“...here and now. Sayaka Miki.”

Run. Run run RUN!

Homura pulled back? What?

KYOKO!

I am so happy to see you! Character development, yes!

Kyoko the Hero yells at Sayaka to run, who… slowly gets up and shuffles off. Ok, at least she’s moving?

As for you, Homura, what the hell? Get out of that armchair, you can trade seats with Kyoko after that stunt you almost pulled.

Kyoko’s yelling at Homura now, who only says to let go of her. Oh? Oh! If Kyoko’s holding onto the MST, then she can’t use her teleportation!

But she can still do something with her shield?

Oh shit! Grenade! Kyoko quite reasonably leaps back. And that’s all Homura needs to vanish before sudden explosion.

Aw damn, it was just a flash-bang. I mean, still, ouch, but I could have sworn it looked like a classic frag grenade. I must be out of practice with shooters.

And she’s gone. Hopefully Sayaka got far enough away.

Ok good, looks like she got on a train. Although she’s having to listen to two dumbasses who are probably wearing fedoras. Strange art style, everything just black and white…

“You just can’t treat women like rational human beings.” Oh shut up.

Wait, when did Sayaka stand up?

“Hey, tell me more about her.”

Um, Sayaka?

Ok, um. Sayaka, they’re just idiots, there’s no need to go too far…

Listen, these two jerks are scum, they are not part of the world you’ve been protecting. Don’t let them spoil your view of the world.

Sayaka? Sayaka, what is happening? Why are you getting all squiggly?

Aw crap. Her magic’s finally going, isn’t it?

Madoka’s still looking for Sayaka, walking by the river.

Kyubey

. Who just appeared from the shadow of a lamppost. Was it there earlier, or is this confirmation Bunny-Cat can shadow travel?

It asks if Madoka is mad with him too. And instead of saying no, our All-Loving Heroine asks that if she was, if it would turn Sayaka back human. Damn, now you’re on even Madoka’s List, Kyubey.

Kyubey claims that it’s beyond its power to do that. Sure it is, I’m pretty sure it just doesn’t want to give up a Magical Lunch Lady any sooner than it has to.

But

Oh no

Madoka, NO.

Madoka is talking about how Kyubey once told her she could be an incredibly powerful Magical Girl.

No. No no no. Don’t do it, Madoka. We’ll talk her down, hook her up with Kyoko, anything other than that.

Kyubey is going on about how “incomprehensibly powerful” Madoka would be if she unlocked her Protagonist Powers, probably the strongest being in the show. I mean, world.

“If I had made the contract with you…”

Madoka, NO! Sayaka would have made the contract for her own Wish and to help others regardless, do not blame yourself for that!

What’s this? Kyubey doesn’t understand how Madoka’s potential could be so great? It’s on a scale that theoretically shouldn’t even be possible?

(Shades of Tephi’s “That’s not how charts work”)

Will we ever get an answer for this?

“I want someone to come explain it as much as you do.” Ergh. And now I’m torn between finding out and keeping the information away from Bunny-Cat.

So the power that Madoka could unleash could twist reality, or whatever? So her Wish could, I dunno, bring someone back from the dead? (Bring Mami back)

What, you’re saying that Madoka could “even become the god of this world”?

Wait. I’m seeing possibilities here.

If Madoka could really be that powerful, more so than any MG…

I’m picturing a world where Magical Girls are known to exist, where they don’t have to hide their powers. Maybe they could find a way to get Muggles to see Witches and stay away, recognize the threat. The Magical Girl Contract could be understood, and people who can actually give informed consent could make the choice to create Soul Gems and protect the people. (sudden mental image of cops in Magical Girl outfits, ha. Or can only women make the Contract?)

And over it all, Magical Girl Madoka Kaname, leading the growing Magical Girl movement as a team of modern-day superheroines.

Please tell me that’s where this story is going. And not that Urobuchi is going to stop all over my hopes and dreams.

Enough power to do things that Kyubey can’t or won’t do? Like grant Wishes and bring people back? (Bring Mami Back) Even turn Sayaka human again? Kyubey says that it would be child’s play for her (reinforcing my belief that he could turn her back, he just doesn’t want to).

Ergh. This is… if Madoka could really have that power…

Would it be worth trading her soul for? Or at the very least moving it outside her body?

Madoka says that it would. For Sayaka.

Well. Eight episodes into a twelve-episode show. I guess that it’s about time the main character came into her own power.

Madoka will do it. Make her into a mag

WHAT

WHAT

BUNNY-CAT IS SWISS CHEESE

WHAT

Kyubey is dead. Kyubey is dead and Madoka will never be a magical girl and Mami will stay dead and Sayaka will turn evil and

What

Homura?! What the hell?!

You just fucking killed Bunny-Cat! He was a jerk, but Madoka was about to get her powers! You just screwed Sayaka over, for what? Because you don’t want the competition?!

Oh for- this wasn’t about self-sacrifice, you psycho. Madoka was about to unlock enough power to make things better in this show. You of all people should understand that!

Ok, what the hell? I get that you consider Muggles like Madoka innocent, but you’re getting rather illogical about this. For the potential good that she could do, I think that knowingly putting her soul in a rock isn’t that bad.

What. Homura is crying. What. Why is the Vulcan showing emotion.

She’s babbling about how so many people would grieve if Madoka died.

Homura… are you…?

You’ve been trying to protect Madoka from the life of a Magical Girl. At first I saw it as wanting to prevent competition, then trying to guard the innocent little Muggle from the danger. But you were trying to protect Madoka specifically? Why would you do that, when it conflicts with your behavior?

“Have the two of us… met somewhere before…?”

Are we FINALLY going to get a damn explanation for the Vision? Like, Homura saved Madoka from a Labyrinth before and wiped her mind, or whatever?

Homura’s not saying. So Madoka’s leaving to find Sayaka.

...damn it. I almost got some damn answers here, but nope! Urobuchi is trolling me.

Instead of answers, we’re left with a bullet-riddled Kyubey, a crying Homura, and a running Madoka. And I wish I understood how we got here.

Whoa, what?!

“You knew there was no point in doing that.”

Kyubey?! You’re alive?

What the hell is that image, that silhouette balancing on the fence with red eyes.

“I have countless spares, of course, but making me use them up for no reason like this… It’s a waste.”

...what.

So Kyubey’s alive, and

OH GOD is it eating the corpse? Itself? What?

KANAYA: I Suddenly Dont Understand Anything And Am Currently Casting Sincere Doubt On The Laughable Insinuation That I Or Anyone Else Ever Actually Did For Even A Single Moment

Kyubey is a clone or whatever or what?

Homura’s gotten back to her feet and resumed her Mysterious Transfer Student attitude.

“That’s the second time you’ve killed me.”

Really? Was the first offscreen, or did I miss it?

“That was Time Magic, wasn’t it?”

Time Magic?

TIME MAGIC?!

“You’re not from this timeline, are you?”

YOU GUYS

HOMURA IS A TIME TRAVELER

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

-She knows Madoka from an alternate timeline that Madoka somehow got a glimpse of

-She’s seen all this happen before, knows where to show up and how to act to prevent things

-She could have gotten her powers from Kyubey, just not this Kyubey

-She’s fighting with the experience of two runs as as Magical Girl

-She’s acting so cold and detached because these are just counterparts of people she knew in her own timeline

-Her special ability isn’t teleporting, it’s pausing time and moving somewhere else before it resumes

That makes sense now! There’s still so much about this show that doesn’t make sense, but at least that does!

But it boils down to the fact that Homura knows what Kyubey was doing the whole time, coercing these girls into transferring their souls and becoming Magical Lunch Ladies.

...yeah, I guess that does sound pretty out there. No wonder she didn’t just outright say what it was up to.

Kyubey is being remarkable chill for recently learning his opponent has time-travel knowledge. I guess it’s pretty confident that it’s already succeeded, and even though Homura stopped him before Madoka could Contract, if it can replace bodies then it’s only a matter of time before it can catch up with Madoka and finish the deal.

But Homura is adamant that she won’t let things to according to Kyubey’s plan.

“Or should I say, ‘Incubator’?”

Incubator? What does…

Oh.

Oh shit.

Kyubey’s been storing the Grief Seeds.

Kybey’s always been around when a Witch shows up.

Son of a bitch. I kept on going on about some sort of Anti-Kyubey, who was creating Witches the same way that Kyubey was creating Magical Girls.

But if Kyubey was ‘incubating’ the Grief Seeds, planting the Grief Seeds…

Kyubey is Anti-Kyubey!

And if it’s been the one planting the Seeds…

Homura didn’t plant the hospital Seed, you did!!!

You son of a bitch! You killed Mami!

What, we’re just leaving it at that?! No way, we are going to get that thing to confess and

Oh wait, it’s Sayaka at a train station. Ok good, we found you. Let’s just get you home and talk this out. We need to discuss Operation ‘Kick Kyubey’s Butt’.

Oh hey, Kyoko found her! Guess Madoka’s still on the way. Kyoko takes a seat next to Sayaka and jokingly asks about how long she’s going to keep acting like Batman. Sayaka apologizes for making Kyoko look for her. Which confuses Kyoko. Where’s the brash Ally of Justice that she’s been fighting?

Sayaka says that she just can’t care about anything anymore, that she can’t remember what she thought was worth protecting… yup, this is classic Falling Paladin. Quick, somebody try to kick a puppy in front of her so she gets all “Justice Will Be Upheld” again.

Kyoko’s just chowing down on some potato chips during all this.

Sayaka’s pulled out her Soul Gem, and geez that is looking pretty freaking dark. How much longer before it’s completely empty and she can’t use magic anymore? Now she’s talking about how hope and despair balance back out to zero, throwing Kyoko’s words back at her. Ouch.

Yes, you saved people, Sayaka! Never forget that! But… then you started feeling resentment and hatred. Um. And hurt your best friend.

“For as much happiness as we wish on one person, we can’t help but curse someone else.” Oh come on, that’s not true! There’s… ok, give me a minute, I’m sure I can think of an example where someone doing good didn’t backfire on them in this show…

Ah! Mami saving the person who fell off the building! That was a good act that didn’t hurt her!

Aw no. Don’t cry Sayaka. Look, I know that things seem bad, but we can get past this. You can…

“I was stupid… so stupid.”

Whoa what the hell?

WHAT THE HELL THERE ARE FLASHING LIGHTS AND KYOKO JUST WENT FLYING

Sayaka. Sayaka your Soul Gem is cracking. I am fairly certain that your Soul Gem should not be cracking something that contains a soul should never break

Your Soul Gem just broke

That

That is a Grief Seed

Your Soul Gem just turned into a Grief Seed

What

What

“Sayaka!”

I… what…

Construction site.

“In this country, half-grown women are called “girls”, right?”

No. No no no no NO NO NO

“In that case, it’s appropriate that you, who will one day grow into Witches, should be called ‘Magical Girls’.”

…

what.

...after credits chibi-ish picture of Mami, Homura, Madoka, Sayaka , and that red-eyed ALWAYS SMIRKING MANIPULATIVE LITTLE-

Homura: “Maybe I’m being a fool, but until I know for sure whether she can or can’t be saved, I don’t want to give up.”

Episode 9: I’d Never Allow That To Happen

[hamilton-one-shots]

Omegaverse AU 9

When they got to the restaurant, Thomas parked and got out, getting over to the other side and opening the omega's door before he could do it himself.

John blushed at that and smiled. "You're quite the gentleman, aren't you?"

Thomas smiled. "I try to be.."

John stepped out of the car and walked beside Thomas as they made their way to the restaurant. He felt Thomas's hand brushing against his and pulled his own away, looking down a bit. He wasn't exactly comfortable with even the smallest displays of affection.

Not that Thomas needed an explanation. If John didn't want to hold his hand, he didn't want to hold his hand, nobody was dying over it.

Once they reached the entrance, John held the door open for Thomas, making the alpha smile, then followed him to the hostess for a seat. They were seated at a booth and sat across from each other, awkward silence quickly filling the air.

"So.." John began in an attempt to kill it. "How was your day?"

"It was alright. I did have to deal with a few idiots who were freaking out because they believed you were an omega.. I mean, you are, but I didn't write that."

John nodded. "I know what you mean.. Sorry you had to deal with that.. What did you tell them?"

"I just said that it wasn't their business. I got them off the topic of your dynamic," Thomas explained with a shrug.

"Okay... Thank you. I have no shame in being what I am, I just don't want it to reflect poorly on people who didn't do anything wrong, like Mr Washington. That man's a saint for all he does for me.." He gave him a job that pays as much as it would an alpha, he let him work from home during his heats, he gave John his own personal work space to keep him safe, before a problem even arose, and John still felt like an equal to his alphan peers.

Thomas smiled at that. "So, how are you enjoying your job with the newspaper?"

"It's pretty good," John stated. "The pay is fair, I enjoy writing what I write and I still get to draw cartoons, of course. And I don't feel like the office omega during meetings or something. Obviously, I stand out by being the only one besides Washington with my own office, but it's not the same during meetings. Washington makes alphas stay out of the meeting room when they're on their rut, not me. And I know I'd be allowed to go to the office during heat if people didn't have a huge problems with omegas in heat in general."

Thomas nodded at that line. "I know what you mean. It's not fair that alphas with ruts get to just go around and omegas in heat have to just shove themselves into a hole for a week. And then female omegas.. Do you mind if I call you that?"

"No, it's fine. As long as you don't say it in a degrading way or anything, I know what you mean. I know what I am," John assured. John was a man, but that didn't mean he had anything against being female.

"Right. If I do say anything offensive, just let me know. But, as I was saying, it sucks that you guys, especially, have to go through everything you go through.."

John shrugged. "Life is life.. At least the other girls there are betas." In an office with all of those alpha males and with the fact that he was just so used to it, John preferred to use the women's bathroom. Anywhere else, he was taunted by female alphas for being a trans guy in the girl's bathroom and for being an omega, but, at work, he could just take care of his business and leave. Whenever he ran into the girls, they just smiled at him. There wasn't much small talk, but when there was, it was friendly.

Thomas was shocked to see how grateful John was for such a basic human decency, but he supposed that there were just some things that an alpha would never have to go through that omegas just lived with. "It sounds pretty hard being an omega.." he absentmindedly commented.

"Yeah.. But you get used to it," John said with a shrug. It took a lot of getting used to, but he got used to it. "But, you know, you already know a lot about me, but I don't know anything about you. Tell me about yourself," John requested with a small smile. Part of him just wanted the subject to be changed, but he also genuinely wanted to learn more about Thomas. They were on a date, after all.

Thomas nodded and thought a bit. "I went to college and majored in pre-law because my parents kind of forced me. I wanted to be a writer, but they refused to listen, so I flunked out of law school first chance I had and began doing this. I don't know, I just... I wanted to write, but I wanted to write something other than novels.. Something nonfiction that people could relate to. These days, what's more relatable than a college student just trying to survive? Or any person trying to look for work, for that matter."

"Right," John agreed. "Even I got some help from reading your blog. You're really good at what you do."

"Thanks.." Thomas smiled. "But I can't deny one thing that Alexander says about me.. I did get through college on my parent's money. I had an easy childhood... But it's not like I lie about it. When people point it out, I just tell them it's true and all, but some of them keep pushing to get a rise out of me. I just shake it off. Just because I had it easy doesn't mean I'm incapable of trying to help others. I'm not trying to take pity and I try to put myself in their shoes."

"So.. Those discount diets that you post?.." John asked, curious.

"I try them all for at least a month and I record how I feel everyday." Sure, the all ramen diet was definitely a mistake, but there were some that were successful. "Besides, it wasn't like money was just rolling in when I started out. I had to save money, so I killed two birds with one stone there," Thomas said with a shrug.

John nodded. "You know.. If I wasn't an omega or trans or gay, I'd be just like you. My dad was loaded, but as soon as high school was over, I was on my own. That's the one good thing about being an omega: omega shelters a thing. Far from perfect, sure, but they're a roof over our heads and two good meals a day." Omegan shelters ran on volunteer work and government funding, but they also ran on the omegan philosophy of using resources, any resources, sparsely. Cupboards and storage rooms were full of extra resources, used only because expiration dates were near or because a newcomer came from the streets, starving. There were nicer shelters for homeless people of any dynamic, but during times of hardship, they were the first to fall to chaos. And, with people not expecting omegas to have anything, their shelters were left alone. It was selfish, but omega instinct was complex. It had to be. Of course, children and other omegas were saved, but others... not so much. It was rare that they actually felt bad about it, though. Omegas were treated as the lowest class. Why should they show kindness to those who show a new omega to the streets as soon as their first heat began? More than that, it was their fault that omegas were the rarest dynamic. The chance of becoming an omega is about the same as becoming a beta or alpha. The chance of survival as an omega made them the most rare.

And Thomas would never know any of that. He gave John a slight look of pity. "That's awful.." At least Thomas was able to take some of his scholarship money and use that to keep himself afloat until his blog was able to support him. From his point of view, it sounded like John was stuck being cold and starving.

"It could've been worse." John knew it was just survival. And he knew if that secret ever got out, there would be outrage. Omegan massacres weren't unheard of. "Besides, I made it out just fine and I know that everyone who was in my position will be too." Of course, omegas always took care of each other.

Thomas just nodded. There was nothing he could say about that, he had no idea what it was like to be in John's shoes. And, in this case, there was no way he'd ever find out.

[keyshunadasha-blog]

Survive & Repeat

Life has had the pleasure of knocking me down and picking me up repeatedly. It’s how our relationship has worked for as long as I can remember. Typically, something bad happens, then something bad happens again. Then when you reach the point where you feel as if it can get any worse than this, it usually does. Throughout the years I have learned to change my perspective regarding how I perceived negative news and bad experiences. I like to proudly say I’ve transformed into an optimist. I’m more of a, “you can’t get the rainbow without the rain”, kind of girl.  My prior philosophy came from my all-time favorite movie, “The Lion King”, “Sometimes bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it, so why worry”? Believing in this philosophy was apart of my journey, because before that I had a victim mentality. Why me? Why my family? How could God let this happen? I remember saying once as a young girl that I would make a deal with the devil just to get my family out of a particular situation. & Yet, I survived.

My childhood was the stereotype of growing up in the African American community. Drugs and Domestic Violence.

Let me take you on a quick journey into my life.

I was introduced to crack rocks at the age of 7. I watched my mom get her ass beat as early as my head start years. I caught my step-dad having sex with a close family member of my mom and I told. Would you believe that my own family turned against me? They tried to make me feel bad as if I was the one in the wrong. My siblings and I suffered constant physical, mental, and emotional abuse. If I had a dollar for how many times, I was told that I didn’t have any common sense, I’d be rich. I remember walking around the house afraid. Afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Most times I would just try to stay in the room until my mom came home from work. My mom endured multiple women and outside children. I watched her hurt so much for so long until she finally got the courage to move away. We moved across the country but hey, if that’s what it took so be it. It turned out to be the most traumatic time of our lives, but I survived.

There my mom succumbed to her inner demons and became a crack addict. She lost her way as an individual and as a mother. So, with me being the oldest of course I had to step up. One thing that I appreciated from my stepdad is that he made me promise to always look after and take care of my sister and brothers. That stayed with me, so I did what I had to do. I cooked and cleaned, hid crack pipes from my siblings, helped with homework, made sure we had clean clothes. As my mother’s addiction grew stronger, she became less and less of a mother. Food was sparse, and utilities were getting cut off left and right. I started stealing food from school. One of our neighbors must’ve have noticed the changes in our household and he allowed me to work with him restoring run-down housed around the city. I used that money to get our utilities on, buy food, and school supplies. Eventually it all just became to much.

I remember waiting up all night for food to be brought to us. I remember feeling uncomfortable because of the strange people that kept coming by. One day I was raped by one of those strange people. My siblings came home right afterwards, and I had to act as if nothing happened. Eventually we were taken away from her. I’ve never felt pain like that before. Being raped, giving birth, being beat; nothing can compare to seeing my brothers and sister walk out of that school in tears. At the end of the day that was our mother and we loved her wholeheartedly. We went from group homes to foster homes back to group homes. Eventually we were reunited with our family in Mississippi.

WE SURVIVED.

I turned down the opportunity to speak with someone professionally because of the stigma behind it. So, I started my journey to self-heal. Which meant I cried myself to sleep every night for months. I shut down because I didn’t know how to handle the multiple mood swings, I had throughout the day. I couldn’t handle conversations about my mom. I couldn’t handle the looks from people knowing our situation. I used to get so upset when people would tell me that I was strong.  Although I managed to muster up a smile from time to time, on the inside I was BROKEN. It was extremely hard to adjust to my new life. I persevered. I was a part of “the system”, until I turned 18. Let me drop some statistics on you. High school students in foster care have the highest drop-out rate and lowest graduation rate in comparison to all student groups. Only 20% of foster kids attend college.

I graduated number 4 in my class, a straight A student, Student Body President, Track Star, Captain of the Majorettes, Prom Queen, Recipient of Multiple Awards & Scholarships, Football Maid, Class Favorite, and a Member of the Mississippi National Guard. I also attended The University of Southern Mississippi. Despite everything I went through, I beat the odds.

I SURVIVED.

I’ve had multiple failed relationships. I have loved and lost and loved again. I’ve been played, I’ve done the playing. I went through a phase of drinking until I blacked out. I was raped again as a young adult. I’ve lost friends. I’ve been betrayed by people closest to me. I’ve lost faith in God and regained it. I’ve had a cancer scare. I’ve battled with depression. I’ve had a high-risk pregnancy. I’ve personally been through hell and back.

I SURVIVED.

You want to know the best part about surviving? It means you’re still living; your story goes on.

I don’t pity myself or desire sympathy. The things I have had to endure has molded me into the woman I am today. & I know that so many others have had it way worst than me.

I am now the mother of two beautiful kids. Soldier. Full-time Cosmetology student. & now a Blogger.

I hope this reaches and helps someone to live in their truth and respect their journey, because if I can survive, you can too! 

[kpop-dumpster]

Will You FALL For Me?

GOT7′s Jaebum ; fluff

What happens when your crush makes you so nervous that you can’t even talk to him? 

Requested by: @iridescent--wings

heh did you get the pun?

[A/N:Hi my dumpling, sorry this is so late and thank you for waiting!! I hope you like it]

Stepping over the cracked pavement and walking up the flight of stairs of the main building, you pushed open the door and looked for the number 249 next to your next class. Despite it being two months since you started going to college, you still forgot where you were meant to be. The weather had gotten cooler and the need for sweaters and scarves increased. Today was the coldest day of the week, you could see your breath puff out every time you exhaled, so you wrapped a scarf around your neck and quickly left your room.

The shiny trophies encased along the walls of the hallway weren’t enough to attract your attention after seeing a familiar figure walk into the lecture hall right before you. Navy blue headphones in his ears, bag hanging from one shoulder, black hair falling a little over his eyes, saying he caught your attention was an understatement. It was the first day of Philosophy of the Human Experience when you first met him.

~~~

“Hey, mind if I sit here?” Looking up, you were met with a guy who had an innocent and bright face, gesturing at the seat next to you. Coming to a college far from home, you knew no one and he was the first person to talk to you.

“Ye-yeah, of course” you moved your things that were spread out along the two-person desk and watched him put his own bag on top.

“Thanks. I’m Jaebum by the way.” As soon as he sat down and you were given a better look at his face, you internally sighed because he was incredibly handsome. But you just met him. There was no way you could have a crush on him already… right? After introducing yourself, you faced away from him and out the window. The way his hair was falling over his eyes, and the sleepiness still within them, was enough to make you sigh. There was just something so alluring about him that had you wanting to know more. Before you could build up the courage to turn to him and start a conversation, the teacher stepped in and class began. Within that 1 hour period, you learned that Jaebum was interested in philosophy, especially because of the questions he asked and the way he answered other questions. His passion for the topic shined through, and although you tried to concentrate on the class, your mind kept wandering to the man sitting a few inches away from you. Glancing over at him, you looked at his side profile and felt your heart do a flip. His jaw clenched, concentration all over his features, hair pushed back. Jaebum could easily be a model, being effortlessly handsome. And the day this crush was implanted into your head was the day you couldn’t bring yourself to talk to him. He just made you too nervous to think straight, but at the same time you wanted to get to know him more. Because how would anything happen if you couldn’t even talk to him?

~~~

That was three months ago. And you were still too flustered by him to have a proper conversation. Every day, he would ask you how you were, if you had a nice weekend, or if you had done the homework. Jaebum would ask you anything that could start a conversation but each and every time, you had shut him out and gave one worded answers as you looked away. Little did he know, you were trying to hide the smile that spread the moment he talked to you rather than any other girl in the class. The beating of your heart every time he smiled at you was loud enough that you feared other people could tell. And even with all these wonderful opportunities to get to know him, your mind made you shy away and watch those chances slip out of your hand.

Jaebum was confused. He didn’t know why he so desperately wanted to talk to you because it seemed like you didn't want to talk to him. But sitting next to the cute, quiet girl for three months had him wanting more. You had peaked his interest when you easily talked to other guys in the class but never to him, and he’s been sitting next to you ever since the first day. And that made him want to get you to talk to him, to laugh with him and give him one of your endearing smiles. When Jaebum wanted something, he was determined to get it.

“Hey, what’s up?” He smiles when he sees you walking in right behind him, and slows down to walk beside you to your seats. Maybe today would be different, right?

“Nothing. Everything’s good.” And there it was, the awkward silence that fell upon the both of you; it’s come to a point where it turned into a normal occurrence. But you wanted that to change, to stop acting like a nervous high schooler who melted around her crush. You were an adult, and if you wanted to get something done then you need to do it yourself. Taking a deep breath, you looked at him and smiled. “How’re you doing?”

Jaebum swore his heart stopped for a moment. Because you were talking to him back, and also this was the first time your adorable smiles were directed towards him. For the longest time, he’s seen you laughing with your other friends outside of class or even other guys in this class. But it’s never been him. He’s never been able to laugh or smile, and that might be because he’s always backed out at the last moment and not tried at all. But you took his silence as rejection, seeing him stare at you with surprise painted over his features, and looked away in embarassment.

“Wait, sorry that was rude of me. I’m doing alright… great, actually.” Reaching your seats and sitting down, you looked at him with curiosity.

“How so? You sound like you just changed your answer in the moment. What made it so great?”

“You’re talking to me.” When Jaebum said that, he ran his hand through his hair to try and cover up his nervousness. Luckily, he didn’t noticed your shocked expression and then the pink blush covering your cheeks. You wish that he didn’t have such a strong effect over you, but every time you see him, your heart beats faster and you get a little happier. This inexplicable feeling of liking someone overtook you and now you were in too deep. But as you were trying to not make it obvious that you were affected by his bold comment, he had glanced down over at you. In a playful way, he gently nudged your shoulder “hey, are you alright? You seem a little nervous.”

“What? No, you’re imagining things” lightly hitting his shoulder, you both laughed and it was like a barrier had been passed. The awkward tension from the past classes had disappeared and it was like you two have been friends for years. Teasing jokes were made and you were laughing so hard you almost cried. Calming down and trying not to burst into laughter, Jaebum stared at you with a small smile and wondered why this hadn’t happened earlier.

Class started and the whole time, Jaebum kept bumping his shoulder with yours and you did the same. Covering your mouth and trying to stop the laughter, you made a bold move and rested your head on his shoulder so he would stop. And it did work, Jaebum froze on the spot. The feeling of your head resting on him, and your body shaking with laughter was enough to have his heart racing. And in that moment, he knew that what he was feeling was something that can’t be stopped. Because he had fallen for you. Hard.

The classes filled with light flirting and giggles were Jaebum’s favorites, and he was disappointed every time he saw the teacher erasing the board and seeing people start to get up and leave for their next lecture. He would watch you walk out, turning to give him a small wave and sighed once you left. But today, a flash of boldness hit him and he stopped you before you could leave.

“Do you have another class right now?” Without a moment’s hesitation, you shook your head saying no.

“Why?”

“Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out. I found this really nice pathway that not many people know about. But it’s totally fine if you have other things to do, actually I shouldn’t have asked in the first pla-”

“I would love to,” you cut off his nervous rambling and watched him hurriedly pack up his stuff/ Once he reached you, the both of you started heading out of the building and Jaebum lead the way. The crunch of leaves under your shoes and the breeze in the air screamed autumn and your lack of layers made it obvious you were unaware of the temperature dropping. As your were walking, he noticed the way your rubbed your hands together and tried to keep warm. You heard him laugh and take off his jacket, only to have him hand it to you.

“Here, you look cold”

“But what if you get sick?”

“I’d rather get sick than have you get sick, princess.” Before you could protest anymore, he wrapped the jacket around your shoulders. His breath was lightly hitting your cheek from how close he was to you, and in the position you two were in, it was like he was hugging you from the side. Thankfully, the cold had already made your cheeks warm, but the sudden nickname he called you by made it worse. It was obvious to anyone passing that there was some type of relationship between the two of you, but there wasn’t. Neither of you had the courage to talk about how they felt about the other, despite there being a mutual feeling.

“What are we?” You broke the silence but Jaebum didn’t move from his position. His arms shifted so they were around you and he gently put his chin on your shoulder.

“That depends. What do you want us to be? Because I like you. Do you like me?” He chose to stay behind you because he couldn’t bear to look at you if you rejected him. Jaebum liked you far too much to see you crush his feelings in one small word. At least in this position, he wouldn’t have to see the pity in your eyes and you didn’t have to see his heart break.

“I like you. A lot. And I don’t know why I’m nervous right now but maybe it’s because I think I like you too much. But I want to be something more.” And Jaebum hugged you tighter, happiness overcoming him. His heart was soaring; he couldn’t believe the girl he had a small crush on in the beginning of the year would ever like him back. But here he was.

“Then will you let me take you out tonight for dinner? I know this really good place that just opened.”

“So it’s a date?” You playfully leaned back into his chest and looked at him.

“It’s a date.”

It was a picturesque scene, with red, brown, orange leaves falling around the new couple, both of which were grinning and hugging. And anyone passing by could tell how right they were together.

This is him trying to contain his excitement after having you smile at him for the first time what a cutie

[yutikyis]

The Fox and the Wolf

(This one is a whole lot of darkness, angst and general unhappiness so I am placing it behind a cut for both politeness and protection. There is a lot of dark stuff beneath the cut.) 

How was I ever frightened of nightmares? How could any fantasy, no matter how plausible, compare to reality? I sit here scribbling in my journal because I have nowhere to go. I am ashamed to face anyone. I do not want anyone to see me. How could I stand it? For anyone to see me this way. I am not ashamed I was injured. I am ashamed of the blood on my hands. I can’t go to the Order, I can’t go to Lloire and if I return to my apartment... I suppose I can take a little comfort in the fact that the Blood Rose turned out to not have been as potent as I had expected. Had it truly been able to conjure the worst thing imaginable I would have seen that room, that man, long before tonight. I certainly will forevermore. I’ll hear his voice in my ears. Perhaps every night. He got his wish there. He won’t be forgotten. The Wolf. I may not know his given name but I did not need it. He spoke his true name like a roar. I wonder if Alex and Kyoudo realized what he was doing. I did. I realized it from the moment he began to speak. For I had heard those words before. Seen those actions before. Not, perhaps, to his extreme... but maybe that was merely because she had some empathy for her own kin. I heard the reflection of his words in Father as well. Kindness through cruelty. Through a belief in strength. The world is a terrible place and you need to be a beast to survive it.  Better the fox than the sheepdog. Fox. The word is etched deeply into my soul. I had always loved foxes. My first toy was a stuffed fox. I assumed them cute and playful. Of course I learned as I grew older that a fox was a hunter. Not the strongest or the most deadly but a viscous, cunning, forceful little animal. One who goes for the throat and ends its prey quickly. I did not want to be a fox. Yet maybe I am. I still feel my hands around his throat. I hear him choking it out. “Better the fox than the sheepdog.” Maybe my only comfort is that I wasn’t enough of a fox to end him before I was injured.. and little comfort that is. I can hear my mother’s voice in my head. “Well, Snowflake, means ya got a while yet to go, don’t ya?” Yet she would be proud of me tonight. Not as proud as if I’d take him with dagger or bow but proud none the less. He, after all, used magic as well. We were, if not equals, at least comparable. I’d faced a predator and I’d bested him. Predator to predator. Even writing those words makes me sick to my stomach. It means his philosophy has infected me. I am ‘lucky.’ He inflicted far less injury on me than he did on L’ania. I will bear only a scar. Feel the lingering memory of steel piercing my stomach. Yet, as I am certain is true for her, the worst he did to me wasn’t with blade or spell but with word. I hear his pride and his delight. His encouragement and his soft whispers. I feel the memory of pain in my stomach and know that if he wanted he could have made his final blow worse. He wanted me to survive and bear a brand of my own to mark his legacy. He was being kind. Of all the things I could have anticipated in that room that was the very last. He thought, truly, he was doing the right thing. He died happy. He got the death a wolf would have wanted. He passed along his teachings. He showed he was right. And it scares me that he may have succeeded. His words linger in my brain. L’ania fought to save him to the very end. She knew what he was doing. I did too. There is no miscommunication between us. I promised L’ania I would try to save him. I failed. I can’t use my excuse of being blinded by anger. Of not knowing what I did. I know exactly what I did. I can make excuses. Had I fought an iota beneath my ability he would have taken me. He almost did anyway. Yet that doesn’t change a thing. I didn’t even consider saving him. He was a deadly predator and needed to be stopped. I stopped him. Stopped him from his kindness and his attempt to help. That is the worst thing of all. I was not hot. I was cold. I knew exactly what he did. I knew exactly why he did it. I understood him. I pitied him. I felt for him. In my mind’s eye I saw the long road that lead him down this path. I saw the undeniable pain that must have been in his history for him to see the world the way he did. I saw, in him, in how he spent his dying moments teaching and sparing, what could have in another life been a good man. I knew all of it and I did not stop. What cruel twist of fate was it that put me in that room with Alex of all people? The very man I argued for. A walking, talking, breathing example that one of the worst people imaginable can change. I can hear the argument already. That it was life for life. Had I not killed him he would have killed me. With me dead he very well could have taken Alex too. One life for two. Simple math. It’s true. So I should have died. The battle was not just for flesh. It was for souls. I may have won the battle of the flesh but the wolf died without a mark upon his and yet left his mark upon all who stood against him. It would have been better to die and in death to reject his philosophy than to prove him right. He died with a smile on his face. He died thinking he was right and that I’d proved it and that is a worse crime than taking his life.  How can I be the same person who argued so vehemently with Oni about Leera? Is there an ilm of difference between the men? Of course there is. Yet how much I will never know. Maybe the same kindness, the same pain, the same lingering sense of good existed in him as does in Leera. Maybe he stole aether from people because he was as much a victim as Leera. Maybe he hurt and killed for the same reasons. They are both even Elezen. They are both predators. They both spared me when they had no reason to. L’ania may hate me for breaking my promise but she can’t possibly know that I agree with ever bit of anger she feels. How can I dare to believe I can save Leera when I can do no less for man who could have been him? How can I fight no less fiercely for Oni than I did L’ania?  I looked in the cool simple reflective water of a nearby pool and I saw my hair. White and red. I looked, I realized, like a fox. Maybe it will be possible to fix it again. Maybe I shouldn’t. Lloire bears his as a mark for his failure. Maybe I should do no less. Maybe I am the fox and I should not be able to hide it. Not from others and not from myself. I am scared to go back to the apartment. Scared that either I will find her there... or find nobody there. I am not sure which i am more frightened of.

@laniahena

@hana-xiv

@ishgardiansnow

@lloire14 @onidephor

(probably others I missed tagging, there’s a lot here!)

[tao-of-iron-and-blood]

Adversity Makes Us Stronger People love to say how someone is a "product of his or her environment." Often it's apologist jargon reserved for when someone does something wrong or commits a crime. It suggests the accused had no choice other than to become what their environment led them to be. To put it bluntly, I don't agree with this line of thinking. If this were true I would've dropped out of high school, gotten into drugs, and become a full-fledged alcoholic. I never would've accomplished anything and blamed everyone and everything else for my failures. To be fair, I'm not saying that your environment has no effect on you whatsoever. I'm merely stating that everything in life boils down to choice, and the power to choose lies within the individual. Certain situations may increase the difficulty of the choice, but the freedom to choose your actions – and your attitude – remains. It Begins With Responsibility First, one must assume all responsibility for everything that's happened or has failed to happen to them. Once you adopt this as a philosophy for governing your life, you become empowered. You see that you and you alone decide your future through the choices you make. This philosophy is the key to unlocking your potential. By doing so you not only assume responsibility, you also assume control over everything in your life. Successful people choose to learn from adversity and allow it to make them stronger, while weaker people use adversity as a crutch to blame their failures on. Yes, bad things may happen to you that appear to be beyond your control (developing testicular cancer was one such occurrence for me) and you may not always be able to control those instances. But you can always control how you react to them. You can see them as learning experiences and opportunities to grow into something better, or you can use them as excuses that will ultimately hold you back from reaching your true potential and lead you down a path to mediocrity... or worse. Believing that my choices directly affect the quality of my life has allowed me to fight through much adversity. As a child, I was surrounded by drinking and drug use and could've easily gone down that path, but I also had many goals. From a very young age I knew that these negative things that surrounded me would only prevent me from achieving what I really wanted. I made a conscious decision, a choice, to avoid them. I also grew up poor, in an area that was rife with poverty, and was led to believe that wealthy people were somehow privileged and that their success was due to some inherent advantages that I didn't have access to. Yet as I matured, I noticed that the harder a person worked, the more successful they were, and usually, successful people just worked harder than less successful people. This relationship between hard work and success not only applied to economics, but also athletics and scholastics. The Greatest Success Factor There are many other factors that play into success, but I believe the single most important factor is hard work. There's no disputing that hard work is a choice that anyone can make, but as you might've guessed or experienced, hard work is difficult. Many would rather make excuses or blame others instead of simply admitting that their lives are substandard because they've chosen the path of least resistance. Similarly, it's also much easier to temporarily escape your problems with alcohol or drugs than it is to get to work solving them, and as such, the temptation to self-medicate is too much for many to resist. In either case, it's choosing the path that presents the least challenge and the results will usually speak for themselves. I've been through some difficult situations I'd very much like to forget. I've had to wrestle a loaded gun away from the head of a loved one to prevent a suicide. I've had to go out into the woods in the dead of winter to break up branches because there wasn't enough money to buy firewood to heat our home. I've had to sit helpless in the passenger seat of a car while it careens at eighty-plus miles per hour down a dirt road, with the driver so drunk he had no memory of it the next day. I experienced all those things during my adolescence, and honestly, these are far from the most difficult things I've had to deal with. I know what it's like to contemplate suicide because my problems seemed so insurmountable. I felt completely alone in the world, just me and demons, and the only thing I desired was for the pain to stop. I've felt all this on the inside and yet had to walk through life presenting myself as if nothing was wrong. I used to hate when people would ask me, "How are you?" Even though I knew the question was just a rhetorical greeting, it bothered me that I had to put on a fake smile and lie, answering "Good, how are you?" when I really wanted to reply, "Well, things are so dark and horrible right now that I was just contemplating killing myself." Adversity Makes You Stronger I'm not sharing these things looking for sympathy or pity. I loathe pity, and there are many out there that have had much more difficult lives than I have. I only share these experiences so that others going through tough times can see that anything is possible if you're willing to work hard enough and persevere when things are at their worst. I can say with total honesty that I feel fortunate to have experienced all the negative things that I have. Adversity makes us stronger. Every time you overcome something difficult it makes the next challenge that much easier. My biggest fear with my own children is that their lives are too easy and that they'll have a very hard time coping with difficult things in life when they inevitably arise. I could've easily used any of my experiences as excuses for not achieving anything. Instead, I chose to learn from what I went through and make myself a better, stronger person. I chose to use what I observed to make better choices and build the kind of life I really wanted. And even in my darkest times, when it seemed like there were no answers to my problems, I made the choice to never take the path of least resistance. You can do the same. So choose to not to be a product of your environment, but rather a product of your desires. While I can't promise you that it will be easy (it most certainly won't), I can promise you that it'll be worth it.