#the space special interest at such a young age was both a blessing and a curse | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kusakabesimp · 12 days ago

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This is a very special gift to @95lexx <3

The low hum of voices filled the daimyō's hall as Higuruma Hiromi took his place at the center of the room. Kneeling on the tatami, he smoothed his robes before turning to face the Daimyō. As a daigennin, his official duty was to administer justice in Sendai, but his role went much deeper than the law. Through his connection to the Judgment Kami, Higuruma could see the truth in its purest form, without deceit or bias.

Two young men led in Ryomen Sukuna, one of the daimyō's most well-known samurai, and forced him to kneel. He crossed his arms, grinning as he glanced over at Higuruma. There were rumors that Sukuna had attacked civilians in a recent clash with a rival daimyō, resulting in a massacre that prompted this call for formal judgment.

Higuruma closed his eyes and reached out with his spirit, a ritual he'd performed countless times before each Judgment. But today, there was a subtle difference, a sense that the outcome might have effects beyond the Daimyō's hall. In response to his call, he heard the Kami's voice echo in his mind.

"Higuruma Hiromi, what seeks judgment and balance?"

A gentle breeze drifted through the space, and the crowd exchanged glances as a bright blue light settled around Higuruma. The hall fell silent, a few samurai bowing their heads in reverence as they waited for the daigennin to speak. He opened his eyes to deliver Judgment, gathering his thoughts before turning to the man beside him.

"Ryōmen Sukuna," Higuruma began, letting the name hang heavy in the air, "the Judgment Kami has revealed the truth and found that you violated the codes of honorable conduct. Your actions -- the slaughter of civilians and blatant disregard for life -- have tarnished both your honor and that of the Daimyō."

Higuruma paused, the Kami's Light of Judgment casting long shadows over the hall. Sukuna lazily picked at his nails, his gaze wandering around the room as if he were looking for something more interesting to do. The young pink-haired samurai behind him gave him a sharp nudge in the back, pushing him forward and bringing him to attention.

With a cold expression, the daigennin continued. "You are hereby stripped of all lands and titles and condemned to zanshu. Itadori Yūji will carry out your beheading." The Light around Higuruma grew brighter before flickering out, and he bowed to the Daimyō, signaling the end of the proceedings.

The atmosphere in the room changed as whispers replaced the earlier tense silence. Sukuna was escorted out, head held high and a defiant look in his eyes. When the doors finally closed behind them, the daigennin shifted his gaze back to the hall. Daimyō Gojo moved through the crowd with his usual easy stride, but it was the tall samurai with him that caught Higuruma’s eye. He wore the moon and cedar crest of the Kusakabe clan, but the daigennin didn't recognize him.

"Higuruma-sama!" The Daimyō called out, his voice just a bit too loud for the hall. He clapped a hand on the daigennin's back, making him almost stumble forward. "I see your Judgment hasn't lost its edge. The Kami made the right choice when they blessed you with their insight."

Straightening up, Higuruma smoothed out the wrinkles in his kimono. "Gojo-dono," he replied flatly.

Despite their age difference, the Daimyō had always treated him like a younger brother. He'd grown used to it over the years, but it still tested his patience. Unfazed by the reaction, Gojo squeezed his shoulder and pulled him closer, eyes gleaming with a familiar mischief. The daigennin shot him an annoyed side glance, already bracing himself for what was coming next.

"I have a favor to ask," Gojo said, "and before you say anything, yes, I know you hate surprises, but this is important. Daimyō Yaga has asked for you by name, and you know how things get when he's involved." He gestured to the samurai beside him, who had been watching the exchange with amusement. "This is Kusakabe. He's my best samurai, and I'm sending him with you to Edo."

Kusakabe stepped forward and gave a respectful bow, trying his best to disguise his smile. Higuruma responded with a brief, indifferent nod before turning his attention back to the Daimyō.

"I don't believe that will be necessary," Higuruma said, keeping his tone measured.

Gojo waved off the comment, but there was a change in his voice. "I can't just send the oracle of the Judgment Kami out alone."

"Having Kusakabe will make the trip easier, and besides," the Daimyō said, his usual playful grin back on his face, "you need someone to make sure you don't scare everyone away with that serious frown."

The slight twitch of Higuruma's mouth hinted at the effort it was taking to maintain his composure. But there was no point in arguing with the Daimyō when he was in a mood like this, regardless of how much he wanted to say no. After a brief pause, he bowed his head. "As you wish, Gojo-dono."

"Good! It's settled then," Gojo said, clapping his hands together. "You'll leave first thing in the morning."

--------------------

The mist still hung low as Higuruma made his way down the path from the shrine to the torii arch. He noticed Kusakabe leaning casually against it, one hand tucked into the sleeve of his dark green kimono and a piece of grass dangling at the corner of his mouth. As he drew closer, the samurai turned, giving the stalk a lazy roll to the side before plucking it out.

The samurai greeted him with a respectful bow. "Higuruma-sama."

Higuruma gave him a brief look, irritated by the unwelcome company. He gave a curt nod and moved on, reaching for his fan to cool himself against the rising morning heat.

"You're up early," the other man said with a grin, tucking the grass back into his mouth. "Not that I'm complaining. Just wondering if this is part of your usual routine or if you're making sure the Kami is extra pleased today." He fell into step with the daigennin, casually matching his pace as they walked towards the village. "Kusakabe Atsuya, by the way," he added, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Noted," Higuruma replied, snapping open his fan.

An awkward silence hung between them. Kusakabe stole a quick glance, but Higuruma’s expression was unreadable. The samurai laced his fingers behind his head and chuckled. "Got it, not one for small talk."

As they passed a group of children playing, their ball rolled to a stop at Higuruma's feet. Without breaking his stride, he nudged it with his foot and sent it rolling back. The children immediately rushed over, their laughter filling the air as they crowded around him. As their tiny hands eagerly tugged at his kimono, Higuruma's expression softened, the edges of his mouth curving into the faintest of smiles. He crouched down, speaking gently as he touched each child's head, offering a quiet blessing from the Kami.

As Kusakabe watched this interaction, his initial skepticism gave way to curiosity. He'd met plenty of high-ranking officials, but the way the daigennin's icy exterior melted spoke to a depth of character he hadn't expected.

Falling back into stride with the samurai, Higuruma's face returned to its usual serious expression. The silence between them was more noticeable now, the uneasy quiet of two people learning to navigate each other's company, but neither of them sure what to say.

--------------------------

As the afternoon went on, the landscape changed, taking them from the outskirts of the village to the wilder edges of the forest.

"We've got a few hours' walk to the next town," Kusakabe said, glancing over. "A friend of mine owns a small ryokan there. We can stay the night and grab a few more things."

As the light faded, the samurai slowed his pace, guiding them to a break in the trees. He pulled aside some low-hanging branches, letting the daigennin pass through. "Let's set up camp here," he suggested. "We won't make the ryokan before dark, and traveling at night isn't safe."

As they stepped into the clearing, Higuruma felt uneasy. He wasn't used to being outside Sendai, much less in the middle of the forest. Surrounded by the tall circle of trees, he stood rigid, trying to adjust to the idea of spending the night outdoors.

Noticing the familiar twitch pulling at the corner of the other man's mouth, Kusakabe offered a small, reassuring smile. "We'll be fine," he said, setting down his pack and pulling out a flask. "Water?"

Higuruma hesitated, eyeing it uncertainly as he fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve.

The samurai raised an eyebrow. "I promise it's not poisoned."

With a small sigh, the daigennin reached for the flask, and his fingers brushed against Kusakabe's, the brief contact easing tension he hadn't realized he was holding. Taking a cautious sip, he relaxed his shoulders and offered a quiet "Thank you."

Kusakabe turned his attention to setting up camp. As the forest around them darkened, Higuruma hovered nearby, unsure of how to help but strangely calmed by the other man's steady movements.

With his back still turned, the samurai continued unpacking. "No fire tonight," he called over his shoulder, answering the unspoken question.

"Why not?" Higuruma asked, furrowing his brow.

"Too risky," Kusakabe explained as he rolled out a sleeping mat. "You won't freeze," he added with a smile. He chose a spot a little distance from the mat to give Higuruma some space. Sitting back against a tree, he tucked his arms into his kimono and closed his eyes.

"You should get some rest," Kusakabe said quietly.

Higuruma looked up at the stars, reflecting on the unexpected comfort he felt in Kusakabe's presence. He quietly slipped away to a secluded spot at the edge of the camp. Kneeling beneath a small cedar tree, he took a deep breath to center himself as he connected with the Judgment Kami.

The Kami's voice flowed gently. "Higuruma Hiromi, what seeks judgment and balance?"

Higuruma hesitated. Was it right to invoke the Kami's power for something personal? And should he question the character of someone who had shown him compassion? "This man, Kusakabe Atsuya, who travels with me as my protector — I wish to understand his true nature."

The presence of the Kami grew stronger, wrapping Higuruma in its energy. "Ask your questions, and I will seek Judgment."

Higuruma carefully considered his words, trying to balance his curiosity with respect for the Kami's insight. "Are there any actions or choices that would reveal a different side to the man I see now?"

For a moment, there was only the soft rustling of the cedar overhead. Then the Kami's voice returned: "No one is without flaws -- all beings possess weaknesses, moments of doubt, and lapses in judgment. Kusakabe is no exception. Yet he holds a profound care and concern for others that extends beyond duty. Care that is freely given, without expectation or condition."

Higuruma reflected on the Judgments he so often delivered to those with more obvious flaws, whose intentions were hard to see beneath the weight of their mistakes. But Kusakabe’s quiet integrity revealed a new distinction: judgment shouldn’t solely condemn mistakes but also seek to understand the humanity within those who faltered.

The faint crunch of leaves was the only warning Kusakabe needed. He instinctively jumped to his feet, positioning himself between Higuruma and the emerging threat. Ryōmen Sukuna emerged from the darkness, his lips curling into the same arrogant smirk he had in the Daimyō's hall.

"Such a warm welcome," Sukuna remarked, strolling into the clearing. "And here I was, trying to be polite." He closed the distance slowly, rolling his shoulders back as he moved in. His gaze flickered briefly to Higuruma before locking back on Kusakabe, his smirk changing into a challenging grin.

Kusaskabe kept his hands tucked into his kimono, but as the other man edged closer, he eased into a defensive stance.

The grin on Sukuna's face stretched wider, feeding off the growing tension. “You’re wasting your time," he sneered, "This won't change what's coming for him.”

Lowering his hands from the folds of his sleeves, Kusakabe shifted his weight and sank lower. Sukuna's grin wavered, unsettled by the samurai's unshakable calm.

"Fine," Sukuna hissed, his patience wearing thin. “If you're that hell-bent on protecting him, then draw."

Kusakabe tilted his head slightly, letting his hands hang low, and his fingers relax. “Mhm, I’d rather not,” he mused. “It’s not safe to let a kid play with swords. You're more likely to hurt yourself than anyone else.”

Sukuna’s expression darkened, his amusement giving way to raw anger. His fingers twitched near the hilt of his katana. But Kusakabe remained still, completely unbothered. The tense silence was finally broken by the sound of Sukuna drawing his blade. He swung aggressively, aiming high, but Kusakabe sidestepped, slicing up through Sukuna's torso and grazing his neck.

In a final, desperate move, Sukuna thrust his katana forward as he began to fall. Kusakabe, already in motion, didn't notice how close Higuruma was behind him. The daigennin raised his iron fan, deflecting most of the blow, but the tip of the Sukuna's blade dug into his shoulder.

Sukuna swayed on his feet before dropping his katana and collapsing to the ground. At the same time, Higuruma, overwhelmed by the pain, sank to his knees.

Kusakabe's attention snapped to Higuruma, and for a split second, his calm facade fractured as he moved to the daigennin's side, helping him to his feet. Noticing a slight wince, Kusakabe tightened his grip and lifted the other man into his arms. As Higuruma's head fell against his shoulder, the samurai adjusted his hold, drawing him closer as he began to move.

------------------

It was well past midnight when Kusakabe stumbled up to the ryokan. His heart pounded in his chest as he glanced down at the daigennin's pale face and the deep red stain spreading across his kimono. Shifting his weight, he knocked on the door with his heel, cradling Higuruma to his chest.

Seconds stretched into what felt like an eternity before heavy footsteps approached.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” came a gruff voice as the door flung open.

"I’m sorry, Nanami." Kusakabe’s voice cracked. "I didn’t have a choice."

"Kusakabe? What the hell?" Nanami blinked, his irritation quickly melting into concern as he saw Higuruma, barely conscious and lying limp in the samurai's arms.

"This is—" Kusakabe began.

"I know who it is," Nanami interrupted sharply, his eyes scanning the dark streets behind them. "Inside. Now." He stepped aside, holding the door open as the samurai hurried past.

Nanami pointed down the hallway, and Kusakabe gave a quick nod of thanks as he made his way to a room. He gently laid Higuruma on a futon and adjusted the daigennin's arm to peel back the blood-soaked kimono. Moments later, Nanami appeared with a tray, setting it down before quietly slipping away.

The samurai worked with intense focus, pouring a small amount of sake over the wound. Higuruma’s pained groan tightened Kusakabe's chest, pushing him to move faster. He ground mugwort leaves between his fingers, the earthy scent cutting through the sharp tang of blood and sweat. With the poultice in place, he tore a strip from the lining of his kimono sleeve and wrapped it snugly around Higuruma’s shoulder. Gradually, the daigennin's breathing slowed, and he drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep. Kusakabe lingered by the door, watching him quietly before sliding it shut.

Outside, Nanami was waiting, arms crossed. "Do you mind telling me why you're coming to me in the middle of the night with the oracle of the Judgment Kami?" Nanami fixed the samurai with an unblinking stare.

Kusakabe sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Sukuna."

Disbelief flickered across the other man's face. "Sukuna? I thought he'd already received Judgment," he said with surprise. "Executed, zanshu. That was supposed to be the end of it."

“It should have been,” Kusakabe said grimly. "But tonight, he came after Higuruma."

Nanami's gaze drifted back to the closed door. "Why? What does Sukuna want with him now?"

“I don’t know.” Kusakabe’s hand flexed at his side, frustration seeping through his voice. “Before I killed him, he said something — he said it wouldn't change what's coming for Higuruma."

"Are you saying Sukuna was warning you?"

"Not a warning, a threat," Kusakabe said, voice dropping. "Whatever this is, it’s bigger than the Judgment that Higuruma passed. There’s something else going on that we're not seeing yet."

Nanami stayed silent, his mind running through the possibilities. Then, with a quiet exhale, he straightened up and uncrossed his arms. "This is dangerous business, friend," he said seriously. "For now, keep him safe. I'll dig into this."

---------------------------

Light spilled through the window, wrenching Higuruma from a deep sleep. He winced against the brightness as he struggled to sit up, but the effort left him weak, and he slumped back against the futon. A quiet rustle at the door caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Kusakabe enter the room.

"How are you feeling?" the samurai asked in a low voice.

Higuruma grimaced as he shifted. "I've been better."

"I came to check your bandages," Kusakabe said, kneeling on the tatami. "Make sure everything's holding."

Higuruma hesitated, a faint flush spreading on his cheeks. The idea of letting someone this close felt awkward and overwhelming. “Is that absolutely necessary?” he asked nervously.

“Unless you want to die of infection before we reach Edo, then yes." Kusakabe slowly reached towards the sleeve of Higuruma's kimono, and the daigennin flinched, his body shying away from the contact.

“I’m here to help you,” the samurai said with a touch of dry humor, "not to rip your clothes off.”

Higuruma’s cheeks burned, and he turned his head away. “Just…make it quick."

The touch was surprisingly gentle as Kusakabe eased the kimono down, his fingers brushing lightly against the other man's skin. It was a practical touch, but it stirred something deep in the pit of Higuruma's stomach. He took a slow breath, trying to focus on the fresh cloth wrapping around his shoulder, as if losing himself in the movements could help him push aside the vulnerability creeping in. Sensing his discomfort, Kusakabe finished quickly, rewrapping it with a new bandage before moving on to clean the kimono lining in fresh water.

The samurai placed a change of clothes next to the futon, and as he left the room, he turned and offered the daigennin a small smile. “I’ll be back soon with some food."

----------------------------------

Higuruma stirred and rubbed his eyes, half-dazed and wondering how long he'd been out. His body felt lighter now, and as he sat up, he noticed a tray neatly arranged with a small meal. But eating didn’t seem pressing right now — he’d get to it later. With a bit of effort, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way downstairs. Voices drifted from the room below, and as he stepped in, he saw Kusakabe and Nanami seated at a low table, deep in conversation.

Kusakabe looked over and raised a brow in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up."

Moving to the counter, Nanami began prepping a bowl of rice. The daigennin looked after him and frowned. “You don’t have to do that,” he called over.

“You need to eat,” Nanami replied calmly.

Before Higuruma could argue, Nanami returned with food, setting it down in front of him along with a small bottle of sake. The daigennin stared at the bowl, debating whether he had the energy to eat. Across the table, Kusakabe watched him quietly, sipping a drink with the calmness of someone who had mastered the art of waiting. With a quiet, resigned sigh, Higuruma finally picked up his chopsticks and started to eat.

A warm smile spread across Kusakabe's face. He carefully pulled back the sleeve of his kimono as he poured some sake and then set it next to Higuruma's bowl. “After you finish, you should have a little," he said softly. "It’ll help you sleep.”

Higuruma glanced up at him, meeting his gaze briefly before nodding in agreement. The samurai offered one last affectionate smile before he rose from his seat and headed towards the counter.

Nanami glanced up as Kusakabe approached, a serious expression etched on his face. "I found out some information you're not going to like,” he said. “Daimyō Gakuganji is planning to overthrow the country.”

Leaning against the counter, Kusakabe lowered his voice. “Gakuganji? The man’s ancient. He doesn’t have the strength for something like that, not after the Shattered Cliffs.”

The other man shook his head, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "It's not just him. He’s been rallying the smaller Daimyō, getting them to band together. They’re planning to topple everything and consolidate power under Gakuganji’s rule."

“What does any of that have to do with Higuruma?”

“Higuruma’s Judgment is the one thing standing in their way," Nanami replied grimly. "If he makes it to Edo and speaks with Daimyō Yaga, their plan falls apart. They see him as a direct threat."

A tightness clenched Kusakabe's jaw, and he tapped his fingers lightly against the counter. “But how did they even know he's heading to Edo? We’ve been careful.”

"I don't know, " Nanami said, "but they're well-informed, which means they're even more dangerous."

“Then I have to move faster," the samurai said quietly.

The conversation with Nanami lingered in Kusakabe's thoughts as he made his way back to the table. Sitting down across from Higuruma, he noticed the daigennin's blissful smile and the rosy pink flush on his cheeks. He was leaning on the table, swaying slightly as he tried to sit up.

Kusakabe sighed and picked up the sake bottle, shaking his head. "How much did you drink?" he asked with a touch of concern, "I said to have a little, not the whole bottle.”

Higuruma let out a tipsy laugh. “Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by 'a little'...” he slurred, trying to look casual but failing miserably. “In my defense, I'm very distracted.”

The samurai raised an eyebrow. He set the bottle back on the table and extended a hand to help Higuruma to his feet. “That’s the sake talking,” he said teasingly. "And if you’re trying to flirt with me, you need way more practice.”

Higuruma wobbled and started to lean. “I'm not really good with words, am I?" he mumbled. “What I mean to say is, my focus is distracting. No, distracted, I mean, you’re very —"

"OHH-kay, time for bed," the samurai chuckled, wrapping his arm around the other man's waist and guiding him towards the stairs. He felt Higuruma lean closer, his head resting lightly on his shoulder. As they reached the room, Kusakabe carefully led him to the futon, and with a soft groan, Higuruma sank back into the bedding.

"Let's check your bandages," Kusakabe said, slipping the kimono off the daigennin's shoulder, and this time, he was unusually still. Focused on his task, the samurai didn't notice the weight of Higuruma’s gaze. Kusakabe paused as a hand gently touched his arm, and he looked down to see the daigennin holding the torn kimono lining. He accepted the clean fabric with a smile and began to wrap it. Higuruma's gaze followed the motions of Kusakabe's fingers, feeling the knot secure and the warmth of his broad hands lingering just a little longer than necessary.

“Will you stay with me?” Higuruma murmured.

The samurai glanced over, searching the other man's expression, but the daigennin remained quiet, watching him with a steady gaze. Settling down on the tatami, Kusakabe kept a small, respectful distance -- close enough to offer comfort but not too close to intrude. Feeling a soft tap on his shoulder, he turned slightly to see the daigennin's hand reaching out. Kusakabe took it in his own, in a silent reply to the earlier question.

I'm here.

----------------------------

Kusakabe leaned against the wall, one hand tucked into his kimono and the other resting on his katana. "Evening," he said softly as he noticed Higuruma beginning to stir.

Shifting under the blankets, the daigennin groaned as he rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Is it night again?” he mumbled, his voice heavy with sleep.

“Seems like the sake did its job,” Kusakabe replied with a grin, stretching his legs before pushing off the wall.

Higuruma pressed the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off his growing headache.

“You’ll feel worse if you don’t drink some water,” the samurai said, stepping over to the low table and pouring a cup.“We'll be back on the road tomorrow, so you need your strength." He turned, offering the cup to Higuruma, who accepted it with a tired nod.

Just as the daigennin raised the drink to his lips, the door slid open with a sharp thud.

Nanami stepped inside, his nata gripped firmly in one hand. His eyes darted around the room before landing on Kusakabe. “We don't have much time," he urged. "You need to go."

The samurai was already at Higuruma’s side. “Can you stand?” he asked, sliding an arm around him to help him up. Still dazed, the daigennin straightened as much as he could, bracing himself on Kusakabe's arm for support.

Positioning himself by the door, Nanami briefly met Kusakabe’s gaze, then motioned toward the other exit. “Go, I'll deal with this," he said firmly. Then, just before turning his attention to the hallway, he added, "He needs you — keep him safe."

Outside, the night was unnervingly still. The only sound was the echo of hurried footsteps closing in behind them. Kusakabe abruptly veered into a narrow alley, tugging the other man behind him. The cold, rough wall met Higuruma's back as the samurai pressed him firmly against it, hands braced on either side of him as they melted into the shadows. The faint glow of a lantern flickered at the alley's entrance, and Kusakabe shifted to block the light, pressing closer as if urging the darkness to stretch further around them. Higuruma felt the thrum of Kusakabe’s heartbeat against him as they stood motionless.

As the footsteps faded, the daigennin let out a slow, shaky breath. He noticed the samurai's expression soften, his sharp protectiveness giving way to something far more tender. Leaning in just a fraction closer, Kusakabe's breath ghosted against Higuruma's cheek as his arm slipped around his waist, drawing him in.

“We should move,” the samurai whispered.

Gently, Kusakabe released his hold, taking the other man's hand with a soft squeeze before leading him into the night.

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As the morning sun peeked over the hills, they found themselves in a bustling market, the sound of chatter and clattering wooden carts a sharp contrast to the silence and shadows of the previous night.

"We've got a problem," the samurai said quietly, looking at the guards posted at the narrow path leading out of town. "We need to find something to disguise you. You're too recognizable."

Higuruma frowned. “What do you mean? I’m not wearing anything that stands out."

"The gold chrysanthemums are an immediate giveaway," the samurai said, motioning to the embroidery on the edges of the daigennin's blue kimono. "We have to find something that helps you blend in."

He led Higuruma to a nearby stall, where a woman was carefully folding vibrant fabrics. Kusakabe spoke to her with a low, charming voice. Higuruma's heart pounded as he suddenly noticed guards weaving through the crowd. Kusakabe touched him gently on the shoulder, bringing him back to the moment, holding out a patterned yukata and a veiled hiyoku hat.

“Absolutely not!” Higuruma shook his head vehemently. “I’d rather take my chances with those guards than wear —”

“I know it's not ideal,” Kusakabe whispered. “But if we don’t do this, we’ll be in a lot more trouble. It’s just for a few hours. And besides," he teased lightly, "You'll be the most beautiful lady in town."

Higuruma frowned, glancing toward the guards again before reluctantly stepping behind the stall to tug the yukata over his clothes. Kusakabe flashed the daigennin a reassuring smile, helping him adjust the layers and tie the obi around his waist.

“Hold still for a second,” the samurai murmured, carefully lowering the semi-sheer fabric of the hiyoku into place. “You look beautiful," he said softly, trying to ease Higuruma's visible anxiety. "Just stay close to me; we'll get through this."

As they made their way down the crowded street, Higuruma lowered his head, the veil giving him a small sense of protection from the curious eyes he felt on them. His body tensed, every instinct screaming at him to turn back. Without thinking, he reached out, tapping Kusakabe's hand, and the samurai took it gently in his.

“Breathe. I’m right here with you.”

One of the guards raised a hand to stop them. “Excuse me, madam,” he said, moving closer to Higuruma and trying to peer through the veil. “I'm sorry, but I need to see your face.”

“Forgive me, sir,” Kusakabe said politely, dipping into a respectful bow. “My lady is still recovering from a fever. We’re on our way to visit my sister in the next town for some herbs to help her regain her strength, and it’s crucial that she isn’t exposed to the wind until she’s well enough to travel freely.”

A tense silence followed as the guard weighed Kusakabe's words. Higuruma kept his head down, afraid to move an inch. His pulse pounded in his ears as he fought to stay still, fingers trembling within the samurai's steady hold. Finally, the guard grunted and stepped back, waving them through. Once they were out of line of sight, they quickly moved onto the open road leading south.

“I can’t believe that worked,” the daigennin murmured, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kusakabe chuckled, gently squeezing Higuruma's hand. “I told you we’d make it, my lady.”

Higuruma shot him a playful glare, unable to hide his smile. “Don’t call me that."

-------------------------

Days drifted by as they traveled off the main roads, Higuruma’s injury making them move at a slower pace. Despite the setback, Kusakabe remained patient, never pushing him to go faster. As the sun started to set one night, they found a secluded spot at the edge of a thicket. Higuruma sat down carefully, and without a word, Kusakabe crouched in front of him, his hands already reaching for the daignennin's shoulder.

“It’s nearly healed,” the samurai said, looking over the wound. He tore another piece of lining from his kimono and began to wrap it carefully.

“Is that an uroko pattern?” Higuruma asked.

“Mhm,” Kusakabe replied, smoothing the cloth before tying a knot. “The fish scales symbolize armor — offering protection and safety.”

“Just like you do," the daignennin said with a quiet intensity.

Kusakabe didn’t look up, but Higuruma noticed his gentle smile. "Speaking of protection,” the samurai said, reaching for his kaku obi and pulling out daigennin's iron fan. “If you’re going to carry this, you need to know how to use it.”

“And what about you?” Higuruma asked, glancing back at the samurai. “Why don’t you have one?”

Kusakabe grinned. “Things are more interesting this way."

Squaring his shoulders, the daigennin tightened the grip on his fan and snapped it open. He closed in, swinging at Kusakabe's arm, but the samurai swatted it away with the back of his hand.

“Not bad. Try to anticipate my reactions,” Kusakabe said calmly.

Frustration flickered across Higuruma's face as he tried again, this time aiming for the samurai's head. But again, the other man blocked him, the fan hitting harmlessly against his forearm.

“You’re too predictable. Change up your strategy,” the samurai suggested, his tone still soft.

The daigennin launched another strike, and then another, each met with a well-timed parry. “You’re not taking me seriously!” he exclaimed.

He rushed forward, but the samurai turned, using the momentum against him and nudging him off balance. Stumbling back, the fan slipped from Higuruma's hand and clattered to the ground.

As the daigennin tried to regain his footing, Kusakabe’s hand wrapped around his waist, steadying him. He leaned in, his voice low and gravelly in Higuruma's ear. “I can assure you, I’m taking you VERY seriously."

Higuruma's breath hitched, heat flushing his cheeks as he forgot the sparring match completely. “You could’ve just let me fall,” he managed.

Kusakabe chuckled softly. “And miss seeing this face? Not a chance.”

A low rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and Kusakabe glanced up at the swaying trees. “We need to move further in for cover before the storm hits,” he said, noticing a flash of lightning. Higuruma was already headed to the left toward an overgrown path.

“Hey, where are you going?” Kusakabe called after him.

The daigennin motioned toward a moss-covered stone tangled in the roots of a nearby tree. “That’s the flame of the Judgment Kami,” he murmured, a touch of reverence in his voice. "There should be a shrine close by."

A gust of wind blew in, carrying with it the scent of red pine and incense, and the forest shifted along with it, the branches above bending to form a natural arch. As the shrine came into view, the air grew cooler, and a light rain began to fall.

"Looks like the Kami wants us to hurry," the samurai teased, looking over with a grin.

Inside, moonlight filtered through the small cracks in the ceiling, casting soft, silvery lines across the dusty floor. An old irori firepit sat empty near the entrance, with a layer of ash from fires long since burned out.

“It's been a while since someone's been here,” Kusakabe remarked. “Seems strange, given the Kami’s presence in Sendai.”

“There used to be more oracles tending to places like this," Higuruma said softly, "But times have changed -- now I'm the only one left."

"Still, you're here," the samurai smiled. He knelt at the irori, clearing a spot in the ash.

As Kusakabe prepared the pit, Higuruma gathered a few dry offerings and knelt beside him. “Maybe these can bring back a little warmth,” he murmured, placing them on the kindling. Just as he pulled his hands back, the wood ignited with a sudden spark of blue flame, and the fire began to crackle, spreading warmth through the room.

Kusakabe’s gaze drifted toward the flames as he stoked the embers. "Nanami told me about Daimyō Gakuganji's plans, the takeover he's organizing. Once we reach Edo, Daimyō Yaga will call for a formal Judgment. And Gakuganji knows that the Judgment Kami will confirm his guilt."

The daigennin looked up at Kusakabe. “So that’s why you’ve been —”

"Yes," the samurai said, his voice soft and steady. "That's why I've been so protective."

Higuruma realized it was just as the Judgment Kami had said; Kusakabe wasn't acting out of duty or honor. It ran deeper than that. He was doing this for him. “Atsuya," the daigennin whispered, leaning in slightly, “you don't need to put yourself at risk for me."

The samurai offered a warm smile. “I made that choice, Hiromi. Willingly."

Higuruma’s hand hovered beside Kusakabe’s leg, brushing against the fabric of his kimono before lightly tapping on his thigh. The samurai lowered his hand, waiting patiently until the daigennin met his touch, and then he began tracing slow, soothing circles over Hiromi's knuckles.

"When I was younger, in the temple,” Higuruma said softly, “I was only allowed to connect with the Kami. What we have...” He paused, searching for the right words. “It’s new to me.”

“I understand why you feel that way,” the samurai whispered. "But it’s okay to let someone close, Hiromi. To let yourself feel safe. Loved."

The words stirred something in Higuruma that he couldn’t fully grasp. Safe. Loved. The concepts felt so distant, like something that would slip through his fingers if he reached too far. But sitting here with Kusakabe, he wondered — what if it was possible? What if he could let himself lean into this, accept that it was okay to want more? And as the thought wrapped around him, he felt a warmth bloom in his chest that had nothing to do with the fire.

-------------------------

Higuruma was pulled from his dreams by the gentle sound of bubbling water. As he blinked awake, he saw Kusakabe looking over, his face lighting up with a warm smile.

“Morning! The Kami left us some breakfast,” he said, scooping rice from the pot over the irori and offering it to him.

“I don’t need all this,” Hiromi protested, staring at the mountain of rice.

But Atsuya just smiled, peeking over his own bowl as he dug back into his breakfast.

After the meal, they stepped outside, greeted by the morning sun bathing the path in a beautiful golden light. Kusakabe paused to stretch, his arms reaching high above his head as he let out a satisfied sigh. Standing at the threshold, Higuruma gave a low bow to the altar, acknowledging the presence that had watched over them. As they turned to go, the branches overhead unfurled as if the Kami was blessing their journey ahead.

Their shoulders lightly brushed together as they walked, and Higuruma playfully nudged the samurai, a faint smile on his lips. "If you keep looking at me like that, I might start to think you’re enjoying my company."

Kusakabe raised an eyebrow. "Your flirting skills are definitely improving," he teased, nudging Hiromi back.

"Is that so?" the daigennin said, finally breaking into a full smile, "I'll keep practicing then."

But as they rounded a bend and saw the imposing gates of Daimyō Yaga's hall, Higuruma's expression turned serious again.

Stopping at the entry, they were met by two guards standing at attention. One of them leaned in towards the other. "Is that the moon samurai from the Battle of the Shattered Cliffs? The one that defeated Gakuganji?"

Kusakabe shrugged off the statement with a casual smile. "It's really not that big of a deal," he said, as if he was discussing the weather and not his reputation. "Anyway, the oracle of the Judgment Kami is who you should be speaking to."

The shift in the guards' demeanor was immediate. They both lowered their gaze and bowed deeply. "Forgive us, Higuruma-sama," one of the guards said respectfully. They quickly stepped aside, opening the gates and ushering them in.

As they passed through and entered the quiet gardens, Higuruma glanced over. “I didn't know you were at the Shattered Cliffs. Why brush off something so important?”

The samurai chuckled. "Because it's not as grand as they make it out to be," he replied. He paused, then offered his arm with a gentle smile. “I care about the things that matter.” Almost instinctively, their steps fell in sync, each stride mirroring the other.

"You know," Kusakabe began quietly, "I thought that was just another fight, just another Daimyō. But looking back, things make more sense. The timing, how Gakuganji's men pulled back so quickly — it wasn't a defeat. It was preparation."

His voice trailed off, brushing his free hand along a cedar branch as they walked past. “A few weeks after that, someone tried to kidnap Daimyō Yaga's son,” he continued. “I managed to stop it, but I think that was the beginning. Gakuganji was testing the waters, seeing how far he could push one Daimyō before making a plan to topple the others."

The sounds of lighthearted laughter floated through the air, catching their attention. A young boy was playing beneath the sakura, chasing after the falling blossoms. As he turned, his eyes lit up. "Kusakabe-san!"

The samurai leaned down and held out his arms, scooping the young boy up and placing him on his hip. "Kuma-kun, you're almost getting too big for me to pick you up," he teased, ruffling the boy’s hair.

"I heard someone special was coming to help Father," Kuma said, his voice full of excitement. He peeked over at Higuruma, then leaned closer to Kusakabe, growing shy. "Who's that?"

"He's that someone special, little bear.” The samurai smiled, turning so the boy could see the daigennin more clearly.

Kuma looked at Higuruma with wide, curious eyes. “Oh! You’re the one with the Judji—the Judji— the Judgeman!”

Bending so that he was at eye level with the boy, the daigennin gave him a smile. “Yes, the Judgment Kami and I are here to help."

The little boy's expression softened into a wide grin. “I knew it!” Kuma paused as if suddenly realizing something. “But... Kusakabe-san can help you too, right? He’s really strong."

Kusakabe chuckled warmly, ruffling the boy’s hair again before setting him back down on the ground. "Don't worry, little bear,” he said, his voice softer now. “I’ll be there with him.”

A gentle breeze blew in as Kuma ran off, carrying petals on its current. Higuruma reached out, catching one delicately between his fingers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kusakabe said quietly.

The daigennin nodded, eyes lingering on the fragile blossom before releasing it and watching it float away. “This is what we're here for,” he murmured. “To protect this peace.”

Higuruma briefly hesitated before shifting closer, allowing Kusakabe’s arm to slip back through his. Atsuya gave a small, contented smile as he felt the daigennin lean in, and they began to walk towards the hall, the petals dancing in the breeze around them.

-----------------------------

Atsuya and Hiromi sat side by side, gazing up at the hazy moon. They had already spoken with Yaga, going over everything in careful detail, but now, in the quiet of the Daimyōs house, Higuruma felt his nerves start to unravel.

His hands rested in his lap, fingers nervously tracing the gold embroidery on his sleeve. “Do you think the other Daimyō will accept the Judgment?" he asked. "Gakugani is still influential.”

“Yaga called us because he trusts you, Hiromi,” Kusakabe said softly. “We presented what we had, and tomorrow, the Judgment Kami will take care of the rest.

Higuruma reached over, taking the samurai's hand in his own, feeling its broad strength beneath his palm. He gave a familiar gentle tap, seeking reassurance, and in response, Atsuya intertwined their fingers.

Turning slightly, Hiromi knew he didn't need to ask the question out loud. "Will you stay with me?"

Kusakabe leaned in just enough for their shoulders to touch, giving Higuruma's hand a soft squeeze. "I'm here."

----------------------

The grand hall was still, the air thick with anticipation of the Judgment ahead.

“Daigennin Higuruma Hiromi," Daimyō Yaga’s deep voice echoed through the room, "the council calls on you to deliver Judgment on Gakuganji Yoshinobu. May the Kami speak through you.”

Higuruma gave a solemn nod, casting a quick glance back at Kusakabe, sitting quietly behind him. The daigennin brushed his hand against the iron fan tucked into his obi as he took a deep breath. This Judgment carried greater risk than anything he'd performed before, so every word and thought had to be precise.

Facing Gakuganji, Higuruma noticed the other man’s shadowed, grim expression. “The formal charges against you, Daimyō, are of the highest consequence,” the daigennin began. “You stand accused of plotting to destabilize and overthrow the rule of all Daimyō across the nation.” He closed his eyes, centering himself as he let the sounds of the hall fade away.

"Higuruma Hiromi," the Kami's voice said softly. "What seeks judgment and balance?"

Doubt began to creep in: "What if I fail?" Hiromi tried to push it aside, but it lingered, pulling at his focus.

In turmoil, Higuruma's mind drifted to Kusakabe. He could see those green eyes, warm and full of encouragement, and almost feel the comforting hold of Atsuya's hand as if he were standing beside him like so many times before.

"Breathe, I'm here."

The anxiety threatening to overwhelm him began to melt away, the samurai's voice burning through the last shadows of doubt. The Light of Judgment stirred, its energy flickering at the edges of his awareness. As the energy coursed through him, he felt the strength of his bond with Kusakabe intertwining with the presence of the Kami.

Higuruma opened his eyes slowly, feeling the room come back into focus, the blue flames casting a soft glow over his calm expression. “Gakuganji Yoshinobu," he began, "the Judgment Kami has revealed the truth and found that you conspired to disrupt the harmony that governs our realm." He watched Gakuganji's face shift as the reality of the Judgment set in.

The tension in the room grew thicker, every gaze locked on Higuruma, waiting in silence. "As a consequence of your actions," the daigennin continued, "you and your allies are sentenced to indefinite imprisonment here within this daimyō. You shall remain confined until the council deems it appropriate to revisit your case.”

As Higuruma went to bow to the Daimyō, Gakuganji shot to his feet, his voice trembling with anger. "This is ridiculous! I won't submit to such a baseless Judgment."

The hall grew tense, a nervous energy spreading through the room. Daimyō Yaga raised a hand, instantly silencing the crowd. "Enough," he said, his voice echoing through the hall. "The oracle has spoken, and the Judgment is final."

Before the guards could step in, a sudden blur of movement snapped Higuruma's attention away. A woman darted from the crowd, drawing a kanzashi pin from her white hair and lunging straight for Kusakabe.

Time froze.

Higuruma pushed Kusakabe back with one hand while the other reached for his obi, fingers curling around the iron fan. He snapped it open in a single sharp motion just as the pin came down. The air around them hummed with energy as the Light of Judgment surged to life, wrapping both men under a shimmering blue shield.

The kanzashi struck the barrier with a metallic clang, sparks flying as it ricocheted off before falling to the ground with a soft clink. Momentarily stunned by the impact, the woman staggered back, and before she could recover, the Daimyō’s guards rushed in to surround her. The hall erupted in chaos, but Higuruma barely registered the commotion.

Heart still racing from the near miss, he quickly turned, his eyes frantically searching for Kusakabe's face. When their eyes met, relief washed over him, so intense it nearly knocked the wind out of his lungs.

Atsuya’s lips curved into a soft smile. "I guess that means we're even."

------------------------

The evening air in the room felt cool against Higuruma’s skin as he lowered his kimono sleeve and bared his shoulder. The wound had long since healed, but Kusakabe’s hands still moved with the same steady care, wrapping the makeshift lining bandage in the ritual that had become their way of staying close.

Hiromi's gaze stayed fixed on the samurai's hands, but his thoughts were trapped in the memory of how close everything had come to slipping away. He opened his mouth, and the words broke free, raw and uneven. "I almost lost you today."

Kusakabe paused, tying the strip of cloth in place before answering softly. “I’m still here."

The daigennin looked away, a worried twitch tugging at the corner of his mouth and his fingers anxiously pulling at his sleeves. "You told me once that I was allowed to be close to someone," he murmured, "I couldn't believe it then because I didn't know how." He hesitated, the words hanging between them like a bridge he was afraid to cross.

Kusakabe nodded. "And now?"

Higuruma moved closer, making the small space between them even smaller. He lifted his gaze, and for once, there was no shield, only honesty and vulnerability. “I know what it feels like to be safe. With you. And now I want to know…what it would feel like to be loved.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected. A gentle refusal, or maybe seeing his own uncertainty reflected back at him.

But the samurai’s smile softened, a quiet warmth spreading across his face. “Then come here," he whispered.

Slowly, almost cautiously, Hiromi leaned in. Their lips just barely grazed, a tentative brush, testing the waters. Atsuya responded with gentle stillness, allowing Higuruma to meet him at his own pace. There was no urgency, only the soft, unspoken acknowledgment of everything they'd been holding back.

Hiromi's hands moved to the samurai's hair, fingers carding through the strands. A soft tap at the nape of his neck soon followed, a silent signal they both knew so well, reassuring Atsuya that this was something he truly wanted.

The kiss melted along Higuruma's tongue, smooth and sweet. Underneath his palm, he felt the rhythm of Kusakabe's usually calm heartbeat shift and quicken beneath his touch. It pulsed steadily against his fingers, a reminder not of what could have been lost but of everything that was right here, in this moment.

There was a tender intensity behind each press of Kusakabe's lips that would have made the daigennin's knees buckle if he'd still been standing. Every inch of his body trembled as Kusakabe cupped his chin, kissing him breathless. And then slowly, they both drew back, Atsuya's breath still warm against Hiromi’s cheek. They stayed close, their eyes half-lidded and their foreheads gently resting together.

Reaching out, Atsuya brushed his thumb softly along Hiromi’s jaw, a barely-there caress, as if memorizing the quiet warmth beneath his fingertips. He gently tilted Higuruma's chin up and guided him to meet his gaze.

With his usual comforting smile, Kusakabe slid his arm around the daigennin's shoulders, and Hiromi melted into his chest, instinctively curling into the warmth. They lingered in each other's embrace, exchanging soft kisses until Hiromi asked the familiar question.

"Will you stay with me?"

Atsuya placed his hand over Hiromi's heart. "Always."

-----------------------------

The carriage rolled along the path into Sendai, a thoughtful gift from Daimyō Yaga. Higuruma sat close to Kusakabe, watching the world pass by: lively market stalls, sakura trees in full bloom -- each sight sparking memories of their time together. When a young girl with blue hair spotted them, her face lit up, and she waved excitedly at Kusakabe. Everything felt so familiar, like home. Yet, as they neared the Daimyō's residence, Higuruma felt a knot forming in his stomach, tightening with each turn of the wheel.

Outside the door, familiar laughter echoed from a nearby room. The door swung open with enthusiasm, and Gojo's playful grin lit up the space.

"Ah! Look who finally showed up," the Daimyō exclaimed, giving an exaggerated formal bow as he welcomed them in. "I've been hearing some wild stories about you two. Taking down the country's most powerful samurai and passing Judgment for treason?" He reached out, clasping the daigennin by the arms and giving him a playful shake. “You’ve made your little Daimyō so proud,” he beamed.

Kusakabe cleared his throat, trying to stifle a laugh as he glanced at Higuruma, who shot him a "Why is he always like this" look.

"Alright, time for the formal stuff. Higuruma-sama --" Gojo said, drawing out the moment for dramatic effect. "The way you handled Gakuganji? Very impressive. I’d like you to visit a few of the other daimyō and oversee more Judgments."

Leaning in slightly, the sparkle in his blue eyes softened with genuine warmth. "But don't get too comfortable, alright?” he added with a teasing smile. “We need your brilliance in action, not just lost in daydreams about sharing quiet moments with a certain samurai."

---------------------

The moon hung high in the sky, casting the Daimyō’s garden in a wash of silvery light. Beneath the cedar trees, the two lovers sat side by side on a worn stone bench, drawn into the calm quiet of the night. Higuruma’s heart felt heavy. Slowly, his gaze drifted downward, worry clouding his face as he wrestled with the thoughts swirling in his mind.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, barely cutting through the night. "What if...when I leave, I don't come back?" His voice trembled, and the tension he'd held onto all day finally bled into the open air. "I don't want to leave Sendai, leave you, but --"

Kusakabe leaned closer, gently taking Higuruma’s hand in his. "Who said anything about me staying in Sendai?" he asked softly.

“But the Daimyō didn’t say if you could go. You’d risk everything, maybe even your title, if you leave,” he murmured, his gaze fixed on the ground.

Kusakabe squeezed Higuruma’s hand gently. “I spoke with the Daimyō. He actually encouraged me to come along with you. He knows how much this means to us.” He reached over to tuck a stray curl behind Hiromi's ear. “And titles don’t matter when it comes to what we have. I love you, and that won’t ever change.”

The samurai slipped a hand into the folds of his kimono, drawing out the familiar rolled-up strip of lining. He gently tied it around Higuruma's wrist, smoothing it against his skin. "This is my promise," he said, looking deep into Higuruma's eyes, "Wherever you go, I'll always be right beside you."

----------------------------------------------

The legends told in Sendai speak of two bound by light -- a gentle sun, whose soft light reveals the heart, and a devoted moon, ever watchful at his side.

As dawn breaks each day, the sun rises with a warmth that reaches softly into the shadows, illuminating hidden places and offering clarity and compassion to all who seek it. His light is steady, unyielding, not in force, but in the quiet courage of truth.

And as evening falls, the moon follows close, his watchful presence a vow to protect and care for the light he so deeply loves. He carries the sun’s warmth in his heart, amplifying it into a comforting glow across the night sky. In this sacred dance, he whispers words of encouragement, reminding the sun of his worth and purpose, urging him to shine brightly each day.

For as long as the heavens exist, this legendary love endures: two souls, forever bound, finding each other in every dawn, every dusk, and every moment in between.

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soniarandhawausa · 2 years ago

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TECHNOLOGY BENEFITS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN: SONIA RANDHAWA

Imagine living almost entirely at home for a year or more as a child: no time spent in the classroom, no chance to play with friends on the playground, or many chances to indulge in favorite pastimes and discover new places, people, and activities.

Children were kept apart from everyone but their immediate families and placed in a kind of twilight zone due to the global lockdowns that prevented the coronavirus from spreading. But not everything was lost. Children could maintain any traces of their pre-COVID lives thanks to various technologies that kept them entertained, learning, and interacting with friends.

A tech expert in San Francisco, Sonia Randhawa, states a few of the advantages of technology for young children:

Quick information exchange

Our children's well-being is crucial to their rapid learning. We can access the information we want at any time from our computers, tablets, or smartphones thanks to the Internet's quick information exchange. We can go to the extent that we can and break free of the boundaries of time-space concepts for whatever we want to learn or impart to others. Without waiting for the information, we are going to him.

Creativity and freedom of expression

Kids have big ideas, too big to fit in a box. They used only to have access to art supplies like colored markers and crayons to express their thoughts, but now they have access to computers, tablets, and a great deal more to help them do so, whether through digital art or the more traditional drawing method.

Each ability gained from interacting with technology has a creative expression component. While programming a mobile app or video game is the term, coding is a skill.

Socializing

Naturally, it cannot be denied that children who devote a lot of time playing video games, watching television, or using their phones may struggle with socialization. However, children who use technology sparingly can use it as a socializing tool.

For instance, they might become friends because they share a common interest in a social setting and play certain games frequently. Similarly, individuals can learn a new language and recognize a new culture via the Internet, meet people from various languages and cultures, and converse with them.

Problem-solving and perseverance

Whether that obstacle is attempting to construct a shelter in Minecraft, a video game, or learning how to hack, it all contributes to developing a robust sense of perseverance. As a result, they will be encouraged to devise solutions to issues that arise within or outside of technology, such as difficulties with homework, disagreements with friends, or other personal challenges.

Developing special skills

Developing specialized skills is becoming increasingly impossible with technology. We can now paint on a tablet and create a large orchestra using a computer to produce music. Why shouldn't these blessings be passed on to our children?

Numerous applications are available for children to enhance their interests, particularly on our smartphones and tablets. Your children can discover their talents through these applications. Additionally, these tools portability may hinder the child's creativity.

In-demand job prep

One of the most significant advantages of exposing children to technology is that they will be well-prepared to enter a pool of high-paying tech jobs.

The cool thing about this is that we aren't just talking about coding or Silicon Valley. Today, there are tech jobs. Tomorrow will bring tech jobs. Some of tomorrow's technology will be completely novel and unlike anything else the world has ever seen. Some of the technology of tomorrow will be like the technology of today.

Conclusion

We can make life much simpler for both ourselves and our children if we learn how to use it to its full potential rather than living in fear and avoiding technology in this day and age, says Sonia Randhawa. We will achieve this high-efficiency level if we carry out the necessary controls for them and educate them about the limitations of technology.

#soniarandhawa #Technology Executive #Software

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sluttyten · 4 years ago

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craving you like the devil craves heaven

summary: you’re a succubus (a female demon that seduces men to death) and you task yourself with seducing someone difficult. enter mark lee, a priest with a vow of celibacy that he’s already struggling with. you think you’ll have some fun. (based off this message from an anon)

length: 8,622

warnings: religious themes, sacrilegious, corruption, demons, priests, oral sex, masturbation, sex

As a newly-made succubus, you wanted to impress your peers and superiors, and therefore decided to challenge yourself by making your first time special and big.

“A priest?” Your direct superior shook her head in disbelief. “Most would start with a regular mortal who is much, much more likely to succumb to sin. Are you sure you want to commit to seducing a priest? You realize they swear to be celibate, and typically they’re committed to destroying demons like you and I?”

You do realize all of those things, but you’re sure if you find the right one you can do it. Not all priests are perfectly perfect and holy.

All it took was a little bit of divine intervention (or rather you intervening in the divine), tapping into that holy line of mortal prayers. A little eavesdropping, careful listening, and at last you plucked the correct line, listening to the reverberating prayers of a holy man dealing with such sinful thoughts, praying for help in remaining faithful to the vows of the priesthood.

It was night in this place where the young priest was. Cool and dark, the air was damp and would surely make you shiver if you were mortal, but the cold didn’t affect a demon like you, nor did the mist as it clung to your eyelashes and the strands of your hair. You stood across the street from the rectory, standing in the shadow of a doorway, gazing up at the faint golden light of a window on the second floor of the holy man’s house.

You could still hear a whisper of his prayers.

“Lord, it’s me, Mark, your servant. I pray you give me the strength to resist these desires, the sinful thoughts.” He prays, and you can almost picture him kneeling with his hands folded before him, head bowed, and lips moving slightly as he repeats the words of Latin prayers.

You decide to study him.

That night you stand there on the street and watch the house, listening to his dreams, and catching glimpses of his neighbors’ dreams, as well as the other two priests who share the home with Mark. And in the morning you shift yourself to match the wall behind you, to continue your observations as the young priest rises and dresses and walks down the street to the church. You watch as he passes through the cemetery tucked behind the church, and he pauses at some of the headstones to straighten flowers or offer a prayer, and then he enters through a side door, and you stand outside, waiting.

Several hours later a crowd begins to arrive, passing inside through the large, ornate front doors, and soon after music swells, voices rise, and you hear the chanting of prayers upon prayers. You watch as Mark emerges from the church among his parishioners, as he smiles and talks and shakes hands with them.

You take special note of the way that his eyes repeatedly flick toward another human, near the same age as himself. You notice the way his eyes follow their movements, how he smiles when they meet his eye.

Ah, this one. That one is the source of the young priest’s sinful thoughts.

You observe as the crowd thins, disappearing from the front steps of the church until it is only the priest speaking to a mother and her toddler that keeps tugging on her hand and crying, and Mark tries his best to pay full attention to her, but the lovely human who has attracted his notice stands a few feet away, holding a folder in their hands.

Eventually as the bell tower above the church chimes the hour, Mark excuses himself from the mother, stating that he has an appointment to get to, and you watch with renewed interest as he leaves the mother and beckons the nervous-looking folder-wielding individual to step back into the church with him.

They pass through the nave of the church—their footsteps echoing up to the vaulted ceiling, through all the empty pews—and bow at the altar before stepping around to the side, and passing through a doorway tucked behind a statue of a saint. They shut themselves away in the priest’s office, and you listen eavesdrop from your hiding place across from the church, a safe distance from all the blessed holiness that would try to keep you out.

You can’t quite hear Mark’s thoughts, but bear enough to it, sensing the fluctuations in his emotions as the parishioner shows him the divorce file, and pleads with him to help them resolve the issues in their marriage to their spouse in a way that won’t end like this.

You can feel Mark’s tension, the conflict within himself. It’s his duty to help. But the desire he feels for this person sitting across from him.... it’s sinful, it goes against his vows.

That night you watch him walk back to the rectory after another mass, several meetings, a meal at the home of one of his parishioner’s. You listen as he prepares himself for bed, as he prays once more for the strength to get passed this way he feels because he knows it’s not right in the eyes of the church and God.

And that night, after Mark’s window has at last gone dark, after he’s fallen into dreams, you decide that your time for first contact has come.

Mark’s dreams are easy to intrude upon. The boundaries upon the rectory, blessed though they may be, are old and worn and leave several gaping holes for you to slip through and into his mind.

What you’re doing isn’t possession. That’s not in your repertoire.

In his dream, you take the form of Mark’s desire. You form the dream into what you require, setting up the scene as being back in his office, that desk between him and you, the future-divorcée’s file open on the desk.

Mark doesn’t notice a thing, he just slips right from his normal dreams into this one, picking up his lines without a skip.

“....and pray to the Lord. You and Alex can get through this. Counseling and prayer works miracles.” Mark says, and just as he’d done earlier in the day, he reaches across the desk and takes the hand sitting there atop the file.

Unlike earlier though, you’re in control of this dream. You’d felt Mark’s mind buzzing when his hand came in contact with the hand of his secret desire, so you turn that to your benefit now, making your first changes.

“I know it’s wrong,” you say in the voice of the divorcee, “But sometimes I think there’s no use saving the marriage. Alex feels one way about it, and I can understand that. Alex could fall in love with someone else and be happier and I want that for my spouse, of course I do. And if I could fall in love too....” Your look up at Mark sitting across from you, his hand still on yours, and the look on your face is one that you put as much want and lust into as you can.

Mark gulps. His fingers twitch against your hand. “Sometimes people fall in love with someone else. A peaceful resolution to a marriage, the dissolvement, annulment.... that can happen and both parties can remarry happily.”

He’s trying so hard, the poor thing. One look into his eyes and you can see the nervousness and excitement, the way his mind is rushing at this news that the person sitting before him might want to look for new love.

“Sometimes the person that we’re meant to be with is actually right in front of us.” You say.

Mark nods, swallows again. You test the waters, stroke your thumb over the back of his hand.

He jolts in his seat and stands, rubbing a hand over the top of his head as he paces over to a water disperser in the corner of the office, and he fills a small paper cup for himself, gulps it down. And you take this as your next opportunity to try to twist this dream to your advantage.

“Father Lee,” you step closer and closer, coming up right behind him.

His hand shakes as he fills the cup again, but before he can quite lift it to his lips, you curl your hand against his, and take the cup, bringing it to your lips and draining it while you look at him. He watches with his lips parted, eyes wide. Mark drinks too—drinks in every detail of you wearing his desire’s face and putting your lips where his had just been. You can hear his adorable thoughts—the innocent rush he gets from thinking that’s like an indirect kiss.

Things are moving too slow now, you can tell that even in a dream, even when you’re offering everything up for him to make the move, Mark won’t take the opportunity. He’s trying too hard to hold back, and you just want to seduce him.

So you push things ahead just a little bit, rearrange the dream to your liking, which is you sitting on the edge of the desk, leaning back on your hands with Mark’s hands on you. He’s got one hand tangled in your hair, the other on your waist, and the overwhelming sexual frustration you taste on his tongue as he kisses you is so fucking sweet.

Mark murmurs your name.

Well, not your name. But the name that belongs with this face. You press closer, kissing him back to make him shut up, to keep him distracted and enchanted by the lust of the dream.

But perhaps doing that pushes it too far.

Mark breaks away, gasping, “No, wait. I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Irritation flashes through you, and for a split second your true self shines through.

Mark’s eyes widen and he gasps, the whole dream fluctuates, shaking and tipping to the side, and then you’re ripped back to reality, just a monstrous succubi hiding in the space beneath his bed.

You hold still as Mark staggers to his feet. Bare feet brush across the floor, and you hear him slapping his face, pinching at his inner arms, and then you hear him murmuring prayers again.

“Father, I’m sorry for my sins. Please forgive me.” and “Father purge these demons from my mind.”

You wrap your arms around yourself under his bed and smile. You don’t plan to go anywhere.

Several more days pass and you let Mark be. You even return to Hell for a few days to update your supervisor on your progress, and while it’s not as much as you’d like, they are impressed with your target.

By the time you return to watch Mark again, he seems to have calmed down a bit from that naughty dream you’d given him. You return just in time for him to say his nighttime prayers, and once more you wait for him to fall asleep before you enter his space.

You bring yourself physically into the space—at first incorporeal, but then you manifest a tangible shape that you personally admire for all of your earthly adventures, and you settle in to do your work for the night.

Even with a real body, you’re still light as a breath of wind, so when you climb onto the bed and settle over Mark’s chest, he doesn’t stir. Nor does he do anything as you step into his dreams.

This time you observe the dreams for a moment.

You seem to be in a memory. Mark’s brother and himself when they were younger, riding bikes down a street that fades off into white nothingness at the edges, not that either of the two boys seem aware. The dream shifts naturally from that bike-ride to sitting in a car, the windows rolled down, a night breeze filling the interior and raking its fingers through Mark’s hair. There’s a girl sitting in the seat beside him, talking and smiling and dressed cute with a milkshake in one hand that she pauses her story every now-and-then to take a sip at. A girlfriend or a first love. When she reaches over and lays a casual hand on Mark’s thigh, he jumps a little. It’s close enough to what you need, so you grasp onto it and take control of the dream like you’re the one driving a car.

You wear the dream-girl’s face as easily as you’d worn the one in the last dream. You move her hand higher up his thigh.

Mark turns his head to the side with a sharp inhale, staring at you. And then you realize, startling even yourself, that he’s actually staring at you.

The dream ripples and you can feel it pulling away from you, Mark resisting your attempt to control the dream.

“Who are you?” His voice asks, but the Mark in the dream before you doesn’t move his mouth. The voice echoes and booms from all around you.

Abort. Fleeing a dream, tearing yourself from the web of his mind, abandoning your victim in a situation like this seems like the absolute most perfect idea.

But tragically, it seems impossible.

The dream closes in around you, squeezing tight as if holding you there. You grapple with Mark’s mind, and then suddenly the dream releases, Mark gasps awake, trying hard to suck in breaths against the new weight of you sitting on his chest, a succubi filled with the lust and dream-energy you’d been siphoning from him.

Before you can truly flee, dissolving back to your incorporeal form and slipping out into the free night, Mark’s hand closes around your wrist, and with a strength and agility you didn’t expect, he flips you under him, pinning your form to his bed. Trapping you between his warm body and the firm mattress.

“Who are you?” Mark hisses.

You let your true eyes shine through, hoping that the dimly glowing sulphuric color of them will frighten him into letting you go.

Instead, he reaches into his shirt and draws out a cross on a silver chain. You flinch back into the sheets as Mark asks the same question again.

“I’m here to help you.” You turn your gaze away from the cross, locking your eyes on his. “You’re so loud with your lustful thoughts, and I’m here to help you feel better, to tame your lusty sins.” You buck your hips up, pressing up against his hips.

Mark swallows hard. “I don’t know what you are or what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, so you don’t want to fuck that sexy, soon-to-be singleton you were dreaming about the other night?” You bring your hands up both of his arms until your fingertips are under the sleeves against his biceps. “Oh, Father Lee, don’t you know how sinful that is? What would your fellow priests think? What must He think?”

Mark’s jaw tightens, and he brings the cross closer to your skin. Your body tingles and burns.

“Let me up.” You tell him. He doesn’t budge. “I swear to all things evil, let me up or I’ll scream and moan, transform to look like your secret desire so when your Brothers came running in here all they’ll know is I’m moaning your name, and you’re....”

Mark moves.

“Demon.” He spits the word at you like an insult.

You sit up, fixing your hair, and you wink in his direction. “You got it.”

“Get out.”

“Hey.” You stand, raising your hands innocently. “You’re the one that summoned me here. I’m a succubus, and the amount of sexual frustration radiating off of you was too delicious to pass up.” You lean in and sniff at his neck, just to take the opportunity to make him uncomfortable because he’s cute like that. “I just want to help, to show you that you can still feel good, Mark. And anyway, is it breaking your vows if I was just trying to entice you in your dreams? It’s not real is it?”

Mark shakes his head, taking an unsteady step backwards. “Even thoughts are sins.”

You roll your eyes and sink back down onto the edge of his bed. “That’s such a modern misconception. Back in the early days of your faith, people weren’t quite so... prudish. They had sex, some even saw it as praising Him, thanking him for the goodness of it all. Some people still do, why do you think people scream His name during the throes of ecstasy?”

Mark blushes. “Stop it. I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m just trying to help.” You reply, leaning back on your hands and looking up at him. “You’re horny, I can feel that. You’re channeling all of your lust toward one unattainable person because they’re married, Mark. Not to mention, they call you Father Lee, which is very unsexy, might I add. But if you would just give in to your dreams, have a hot little dream of making out, getting down and dirty in your office, then that would give you a bit of satisfaction, right? Have a wet dream like you haven’t since you were a teenager? Or at the worst, wake up with a boner, take care of it yourself. You do jerk off still, don’t you, Father Lee?”

Mark frowns at you. “Shut up.”

“Is that a no?” You gasp, sitting up. “Seriously? But you’re still so young, you’ve got all of these hormones, this energy that you need to release. Even if you feel you can’t release it with someone else, do it yourself.”

Mark turns completely away from you then, but you can still see him reflected in the mirror across the room. “Get out.”

His tone is so dour, dark and serious, that you do get out. You flee into incorporeality, still able to observe the look on Mark’s face when he turns around a second later and sees you’re gone, can still see the shape of where you’d say on his bed. He runs his fingers through his hair, and then begins to whisper prayers to his God for forgiveness for his weakness.

You let a few more days pass before you return, scared that coming back too soon would cause too much damage. But several days, you think, gives him time to think more about what you’ve said. You do watch him though, you watch closer than you’d done before, and you see Mark clumsily try to touch himself, as if thinking about what you’d said, but he always pulls his hand away after a moment with a groan of frustration.

On the fifth night since you’d last appeared to him, Mark lingers in his office at the church, pouring over papers, notes from meetings, notices from the parish school. In the yellow half-light cast off by his desk lamp, Mark looks so much older and more tired than anyone should look at twenty-five.

“You need to do something to relax,” you tell him as you manifest right behind his seat, already rubbing at his tense shoulders.

Mark spins his chair around so quickly, he nearly falls out of it. His pupils expand with fear, his chest rising and falling with the surprised, panicked breaths you’d startled out of him.

“How are you in here?” He asks, his eyes darting around the room to the closed door and the latched windows. You know he’s thinking about how the doors of the church are locked (because he’d checked them earlier after the last service for the evening), and then you can see the switch flip in his mind as he starts thinking about how you’re a self-confessed demon currently standing on holy ground. “How are you here?”

You shrug and step around him, sitting on the edge of his desk and plucking a paper from the middle of one of the piles. “It’s easy to be here. I just feel all tingly in all the good places.” You wink at him.

Mark groans and punches the bridge of his nose. “Am I going crazy? Is that what this is? You’re a manifestation of my mental breakdown?”

“Absolutely not,” you laugh. “I’m real. See?”

You take his hand from his face and bring it down between your thighs, close enough that Mark can feel the heat radiating off your skin, but before you can actually make him touch any part of your body, Mark jerks his hand away. You sigh sadly and return your focus to the paper in your hand.

“So, marriage counseling going well for the unhappy couple?” You scan the document which is notes Mark had taken during the counseling session for his crush. “From the looks of it they have issues. The unresolvable kind. Alex just won’t put out, and your sweetheart has needs, huh? But you know all about that, don’t you, Mark?”

Mark snatches the paper out of your hands. “That’s a confidential document.”

You hold out your hand, and right before Mark’s eyes another page from his desk appears in your hand, and this time you read aloud. “When we first got married, we would have sex regularly. At least once a week, usually more.” You raise your eyes to look at Mark. He’s trying so hard not to blush; you wonder how he got through the session. The next few lines of the message are more whining about the current lack of a sex life, and then it’s gets into the sordid, juicy details that you feel certain Mark had struggled to copy down, but had done so for the specific intent of reliving the rush he felt hearing about the sex life of someone he desires.

So naturally you read that part aloud to him as well, and Mark just squirms in his seat. You look up at him and see that he’s definitely blushing, his hands folded as he stares down at them with such a forceful look of concentration, that you’re surprised they’ve not burst into flames. He’s so determined to ignore you, you can hear the prayers racing through his mind.

But when you toe off your shoes and bring a foot up into his lap, you’re amused to find a raging erection hiding there. Mark shudders as the sole of your foot caresses him. His hands untwist, and one moves to your calf, curling around it, but he doesn’t push you away. Not as you keep moving your foot over him like this. His eyelids flutter.

You don’t dare speak, just let the silence hang in the room as you rub Mark’s erection with your foot, his hand on your calf, the other clenching into a fist on the arm of his chair. His lips part, small sweet-sounding sighs falling free. His eyes close, head dropped back against the headrest of his fine leather seat, and his hips shift beneath your foot.

He looks beautiful like this, you think.

Half-lit by his lamp, blushing and glowing with list and finally-felt pleasure. Your body tingles with your own pleasure, the success of doing this.

Mark’s teeth catch his bottom lip, trapping a grunt within his lips. You press your toes to circle them at the tip of his erection, and Mark’s hips lift up, chasing the feeling, grinding against your foot. He sighs, soft moans and pretty sounds, and then at last, he whispers “oh God” and then shudders and slumps back in the chair.

You feel the wet heat beneath your heel, Mark’s cum filling his trousers.

Satisfied, you vanish before he can open his eyes.

You return the following night. This time Mark is in his room at the rectory, sitting up in bed. His eyes are closed as he leans against the wall, his bedsheets pooled in his lap, his hand resting there. He’s not touching himself, but you can tell that he’s challenging himself not to. He’s hard again, and the moment you present in the room, his eyes open as if he could feel the change in the air.

“Demon,” his eyes narrow. “What did you do to me last night?”

“Why? Did it feel good?” You smile. You don’t walk straight to his bed, though you know you’ll end up there. You walk to the closet, run your fingers over the hangers, you skim your fingers through the dust gathering on the books lining the shelf on his wall.

When Mark clears his throat, it’s then that you finally look at him. “Why are you here?”

“Because you need me.” You nod at his lap, wave your hand in a long gesture at his whole body. “I’m telling you, Mark, the energy coming off of you, it’s a wonder you don’t draw every succubus in Hell to come seduce you, drinking up all this juice you’ve got, I’ve never been so full.”

Mark’s eyes flash darkly, his eyes stuck on your face. “Well you had your fill last night right? I can’t believe.... I’ve prayed to the Lord for forgiveness so many times since last night I went to confession earlier today.”

“Oh did you?” A burst of excitement goes through you, and you hurry to sit on his bed, taking up his hand. “What did you tell them about me?”

Mark shakes your hand off. “I didn’t mention you. Why would I? They’d either think I’m losing my mind, which I’m still not convinced that I’m not, or they’d think that I’m just breaking my vows and having sex with someone. I just confessed that I lost my battle against lust and took care of myself.”

You tut at him disapprovingly, shaking your head as you say, “Lying in confession? Isn’t that an oxymoron? And a sin?”

Mark’s hands clench at the sheets. “I wasn’t lying really. Not if I believe that you’re a figment of my cracking mind.”

You smirk, and when you lean closer and lay a fingertip on Mark’s cheek, tracing along his cheekbone and then dropping to outline his lips, you whisper, “And do you believe that? Truly? That I’m just a figment of your imagination?”

“I don’t know what I believe,” Mark whispers hoarsely. “I don’t know if it’s better to think I’m doing this to myself or that there’s a demon taunting me.”

“Maybe I’m actually an angel in disguise, sent in answer to your prayers.” You shift onto your knees, and lean close to Mark’s face. You hold just an inch away from his lips. He goes almost cross-eyed trying to keep looking at you. “In which case, you should take advantage of this opportunity, no? Let me help you, enjoy it.”

Mark pulls his head back, closing his eyes tight as he drops his head back gently against the wall. “This is a sin. I’m a priest, I can’t be doing this.”

You roll your eyes and move.

Mark peers curiously, and almost fearfully, through a cracked eyelid when he feels your weight leave the bed. But a split second later you’ce settled completely in his lap. He goes stiff, murmuring prayers under his breath as well as something that sounds suspiciously like some sort of chant to banish you.

You stay firmly in your spot. “Why did you become a priest, Mark?”

Your question catches him off guard. His prayers cut off and he opens his eyes, looking directly at you. “What? Because I was called. I heard His voice calling me.”

“When?”

“The first time I was young. Fifteen, I think.” He looks up at the ceiling, remembering. “Again when I was eighteen. I entered the seminary at nineteen, studied until I was twenty three, when I became a deacon, and then I was ordained earlier this year. At twenty five.”

You shift your weight. “And you never doubted it? That this was what you wanted to do? That you wanted to swear yourself to celibacy? Never have sex, never allow yourself to experience pleasure? Tell me, Mark, are you a virgin?”

Mark’s blush returns, flooding his face with heat. “Why do you care?”

“Have you ever been touched by another person?” He stays silent, and you think about what you’ve observed in him. You think about him clumsily touching himself before giving up, about how easily he’d fallen apart under your touch the night before. “Have you ever touched yourself, Mark?”

You can feel how hard his heart pounds now, and in each loud beat you hear your answer.

“Cute. Little virginal priest.” You put your hands on either of his cheeks, turning his face so he has no choice but to look right at you. “Was last night your first orgasm?”

Mark breathes through his nose, holding your gaze, trying to steady his racing heart and mind. “Can you stop.”

“But aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to feel it again?” You drop your hands from his face. “I can give that to you again. I can make you feel even better, actually. If you let me, Mark, I can open up a whole new world to you.”

When his eyes close you can tell that he’s thinking about how to banish you, to send you back to hell. You find that very attractive, particularly when a muscle in his jaw flexes.

“Mark,” you whisper, and you lift a gentle hand to his neck, tracing a finger along a vein that stands out there. “Mark, what if I’m just a figment of your imagination? It’s not wrong then, is it? To want to feel good like you did last night? I can give that to you again, I can make you feel better. Just tell me yes.”

The silence buzzes in the room as you wait for him to speak or do anything.

“Yes,” Mark’s voice comes out shaky, hoarse. “Yes, okay. Just one more time.”

You move before he can decide to change his mind. Mark just takes steadying breaths as you sink down the bed, slipping beneath the covers, fitting between his thighs. He holds his breath when you tug down the waistband of the plaid flannel pants he’s wearing, when you touch his bare erection with your fingers, the tip of your tongue, your lips closing around him.

You’re not sure that he breathes until swallow around him, pushing to take more of his cock down your throat. Your body buzzes with the heat coming off of him, the energizing power of making him feel good.

Mark doesn’t touch you. He clenches his fingers in the bedsheets on either side of his hips as you give him his very first blowjob. You can’t help looking up at him as you do this; watching every look of pleasure and satisfaction cross his face, unrestrained. And when he moans, they’re soft moans, always conscious that you’re not alone together in this house of holy men, that there’s another priest just two doors down, an empty bathroom in between.

You keep sucking him off, taking him as deep into your mouth as you can when he blows his load for the first time.

Mark bites his knuckles to keep quiet. You pull off his erection, keeping your fingers on him, playing with him as he shudders through the last waves of pleasure.

“Look at that, would you? Felt good? How could that be a bad thing?” You drop a tender kiss to his tip, and then sit up, feeling very satisfied in yourself. “Do you want more?”

“More? No. I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t.” He put his hands over his face, pinching at his nose. “Shit. What am I doing? You need to leave.”

You look at him with his face covered, his body on display to your eyes. “Well, if you want more, I’m sure you can look up a summoning ritual for me in one of your holy books, Father Mark. Call me.”

You stand up, and it’s not like you’re going to leave by the door, or anything, but you turn to look around his room one last time. You’re done here. You seduced the priest, drank energy from him, there’s nothing more to be done. You’ve enjoyed your first time, but you’re not going to do the full succubus job to this man, you’ve enjoyed him too much. You won’t drain him and leave him sick. You just hope you opened his eyes.

“Wait.” The young priest grabs your arm before you have the chance to disappear. “How do you expect me to summon you if I don’t know your name?” He says it lightly, almost joking, as if he’s still not sure that he can really take this seriously, this whole you being a seductive demon thing. But the look in his eyes is hopeful.

With a light touch to his chin, you lean in, and whisper your name in his ear.

Months pass in mortal time. You move on from the young priest, seducing many men and some women, draining a few of them dry until they’re just shells of their former selves. You’re currently seducing a wannabe actor, literally sitting on his dick, when you feel a tug inside you. It’s a strange feeling, nothing you’ve felt before, and it’s not pleasant at all.

You push at the man’s chest, the unpleasant feeling spreading through you. “I’ve got to go,” you tell him, and then you turn and vanish, following the strange feeling.

You find yourself in a strange room, a small bedroom.

“So you really never came back to me.” A voice says from behind you.

You spin around, noticing all at once the candles, and then right before you--

“Forgive me, Father. I thought you didn’t want more from me.” You reach out to Mark, standing right here before him for the first time in so long. You missed him. You missed teasing him.

“I didn’t expect you really wouldn’t come back.” Mark stands there just out of reach, his arms folded across his chest. And he looks so good, so handsome in a black button-down shirt and gray pressed slacks. But he’s barefoot and his hair is messy, adding a toned-down casual level to his attractiveness. He clears his throat and you look back up to his face as he says, “I had to make do without you around, you know.”

That piques your interest. “Oh? Did you finally learn to jerk off? Have you been touching yourself? Here in the priest house?”

Mark shakes his head. “Look around, does this look like my room there?”

No, actually. It doesn’t at all. And a quick look out the window shows that you’re in somewhere completely different.

“I left the priesthood,” Mark explains. “What you said, what you did to me, I realized that the priesthood wasn’t what was the best choice for me. I can still serve the Lord in other ways, other ways that will allow me to explore the side of me that you awakened.” And now Mark steps closer to you. At last, he reaches for your face, slipping his fingers into your hair. You practically purr at the contact with him. “I’ve been busy since you left me.”

“Oh?” You lean into his touch. “From priest to manwhore in just a few passes of the moon.”

Mark nods. “I tried to stay on that path for a little while, but I just couldn’t. I craved more, that same feeling you gave me.” He nibbles his bottom lip nervously for a second before admitting, “I actually slept with a woman before I decided to give up on the priesthood. I prayed for forgiveness afterwards, but it just felt like I fucked up too much on that one, so I decided to leave. I moved away, started over, slept around, but none of them touched me the way that you did. Nothing feels better than you.”

You shrug. “It’s part of the job description really. I’m a seductress. You think I’m not going to be the best you’ve ever had? Is that why you summoned me, you want more at last?”

“Demon, I want to make you a deal.” Mark caresses your cheek. “I am a man of faith, and you’ve steered me down some side path that I had absolutely no intention of going down. In the past, I didn’t know what to do with you, but I wanted you. Now, I still want you, but I know what I’m doing. I know about you. I did research about your kind while I was looking up how to summon you again. I want to make a deal.”

“A deal?” You pull back from him, breaking all contact. “Mark, what the hell. Don’t you know what making a deal with a demon means?”

He cuts you off with a shake of his head, dismissive. “I don’t care. I know the risk, but, fuck, I swear you got me addicted to you. Just a few hits, and I crave you.”

“Why would you want to make a deal with me? A binding pact?” You push at his chest and Mark takes a step back to balance. “Are you fucking stupid? You think I want your soul, Mark Lee? You had a good soul, a pure one. That’s why I left you and never looked back! Some things are too good starting out, and tarnishing them with my hands....” You look down at your hands, and you can see through the glamor you wear, down to your real form the ashen hell-burnt flesh.

Mark’s watching you when you look up at him. But he doesn’t look afraid, doesn’t look sad or sorry.

His eyes still burn with need.

“I don’t want your soul,” you tell him, “So I don’t want a deal.”

Mark takes another step back from you. “But I want you. So take the damned deal. Fuck me.”

“And what do you get out of it? You won’t get fame or fortune or health from this deal. You literally just get to fuck a demon until you die, so no, that’s not good enough.” If you were human you’d be sick to your stomach right now. What Mark’s offering you, if he were anyone else you would take the deal, but Mark Lee was a good man when you met him; he was cute and innocent, a pure soul that you wanted to protect so you left for his own good. You couldn’t make him pay the price of being with you.

No, Mark shakes his head in denial and desperation. He comes close to you again, standing just an inch away from you, close enough that both of you can feel each other, but not close enough that any part of you is actually touching.

“Just touch me, please.” Mark pleads. “I miss your touch. The way you made me feel, I’ve been chasing that high for months, and nothing compares. Please.”

You want to touch him. You really, really do.

With a groan of frustration, you cup Mark’s face in your hands. “I’m going to be the death of you,” you tell him in the moment before your lips meet his.

The kiss is absolutely intoxicating. Mark moans and wraps around you, moving backwards toward his bed, limbs tangling together as you both collapse onto his sheets. You pin him beneath you, kissing the air from his lungs, your fingers sliding down the front of his shirt, buttons falling open just at your touch. And when your fingertips move a bit lower, grazing the front of his pants, you find that he’s devastatingly hard.

He rolls his hips up against your hand, groaning into the kiss, whimpering delightfully when you squeeze his erection.

You sit up on him, and Mark follows, needy for your kiss. His mouth crashes against yours, sharp and hot. You push his shirt off his shoulders, and you let him roll you under him, your body nestled into his sheets as Mark unbuttons his fancy slacks, pushing them down enough that you can see his cock pop out.

You grab onto the edges of his pants, dragging him forward up your body, and you all but throw your mouth onto his cock.

Much like the last time, Mark seems caught off guard by the way you make him feel. He moans loudly, fingers knotting in your hair. But unlike the last time, he quickly recovers, seems to know what to do to get exactly what he wants, using his hands in your hair to direct your mouth.

When you can see it in his face that he’s enjoying this a bit too much, you pull off, using your hand on him instead, looking up at him as you jerk him off over your chest.

“Mmm, fuck,” Mark moans, a hand running over his chest and down his abs. “No one makes me feel this good. Not with anything they’ve done to me.” He thrusts forward into your hand. “I need to feel you around me.”

You nod. You want it too. You’re ready for him, and he’s clearly more than ready for you. Mark quickly disposes of his pants, climbing back on the bed, sinking in to kiss you again, and you fall into the kiss, more intoxicating than anything you’ve ever felt. With a hand to his chest, you press Mark onto his back, and you climb over him, straddling his thighs.

You don’t break the kiss, just reach down as you move forward to situate yourself over him. Teasing the head of his erection against your wet, dripping entrance, Mark whines, shifting his hips up eagerly. “Patience,” you murmur, and you leave his lips behind to kiss down his throat, down the center of his chest, and you glance up at him as you allow his tip to slide inside you just as you circle your tongue on one of his nipples.

He bucks up, wanting to bury himself inside you, but you’ve already pulled away again.

“Thought you said you’d know what to do now?” You ask, flicking your tongue over his pebbled nipple. “When are you going to prove that? Because from where I’m sitting--” you sit upright, right down on him so his erection is trapped between his abdomen and your wet heat, “--you’re still the innocent boy who doesn’t now how to fuck me.”

You’re not entirely sure how he does it, flipping from submissive boy trapped beneath you to you suddenly being on your back with Mark’s mouth ravaging your throat, and his cock rutting between your legs, still not inside you, but now it’s you who groans at the tease. His erection glides over your clit, and each time you feel a zip of pleasure.

You grip at his arms, fingers digging into muscle, and then Mark’s cock slips and on the next thrust, he fucks right into you.

Both of you moan as he sinks inside you, his teeth catch at your throat, instantly soothed again by his lips. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mark mumbles the words against your skin. “You’re so soft, warm. Heavenly.” He buries his face in your neck, his entire body presses against yours--chest and hip, legs tangled together as he shallowly fucks into you while sucking at your throat.

This is intimate and strange and fascinating and fantastic. Your usual partners are just quick fucks that you feed off of their sexual energy and then you leave. It’s not intimate at all, no matter how many times you’d fucked them, there was no intimacy--rarely were attempts made by them, and never by you--but here you can’t get enough of this. You just want Mark closer until you can’t feel where your form ends and Mark begins.

Your fingernails scrape the back of his neck, twisting in his hair as you bring his busy lips from your throat to your lips, needing to satiate the hunger.

This is pure lust, addiction to him and his addiction to you.

You’re not even feeding off the sexual energy of this intercourse, just existing in the moment for the carnality of it all.

Mark’s thrusts grow bigger, deeper, more powerful, and you wrestle with him, letting him stay on top until suddenly you want him beneath you. You want to fuck him, to ride him, and that lasts for a bit until you’re on your belly pressed into the bed, Mark thrusting into you from behind with his lips against your cheek as he murmurs praises. There’s teeth and nails, Mark’s hair sticks to his forehead with sweat. He shivers in delight when you press him again beneath you, circling your hips on his cock, tracing your fingers over the raised pink lines from your nails down his chest.

He looks high, his pupils wide, his skin flushed, and he’s alive with a glowing energy that calls out to you, begging you to drink it in. But you don’t want that here. You just want this, to feel a part of this, to make him feel the best you can because experiencing sex like this with Mark where you’re not using your demon powers feels absolutely insane, makes you feel even better than when you do answer that call, and drink off the energy of your partner.

His hand snaps against your ass, and you realize you’ve just been sitting there, gazing down at him in admiration. “Move, baby.” And he does it again.

“Fuck, Mark. Do you go to confession and tell the priest that you dream about getting fucked by a demon like this?” You roll your hips, sinking forward until your lips are beside his ear. “Do you confess your sins. Forgive me, Father, but I let a demon into my life. She fucked me so good I stopped being a priest because her pussy is worth it.”

Mark moans.

“Forgive me, Father, but when I was a priest, she made me cum for her in the Church, on holy ground.” You squeeze around his cock, and he lets out a beautiful sound. “Mmm, forgive me, Mark, but I think no amount of confession will make up for sinning like this, loving every single thing we’re doing right now.”

“Holy--!” Mark’s voice cuts off as you sit up, curling your delicate fingers around his throat. His eyes roll back from the pleasure, and you just smile down at him, applying pressure to his throat and circling your other thumb around his nipple. He blinks and looks up at you, his mouth hanging open in soundless awe and appreciation, his eyes glowing with lust and something else. You just want to make him feel good.

You press forward, unable to hold back, needing to feel his lips on yours as you ride him, as you feel that pleasure seeping through your body, a warm silvery-golden glow as your toes curl and your body goes warm and light and fuzzy.

Mark’s hands are on you -- on your hips and your hands and in your hair and on your thighs, touching you all over, pressing you down as he bucks up into you, and then he’s cumming and it feels so good too, better than when the others have done it.

You keep kissing him, rolling your hips down on him, wanting to keep this feeling going. It’s one you’ve never truly felt before.

But eventually it must end, and you roll off to the side, and Mark follows, not wanting to let you get too far. He tucks his face against your neck, breath hot and damp on your skin, and his thigh slips comfortably between yours. You feel sticky and sweaty all over in places you didn’t know you could be sweaty, and you feel like you need to catch your breath.

Mark drops a singular tiny kiss to the center of your chest, and then he pulls back, his head resting on one side of the pillow, yours on the other, only a few bare inches between the tips of your noses. You’ve never been this close to a human before (on multiple levels) and you don’t pull back.

“I made a deal with a demon,” Mark whispers, and he uses a finger to brush back a section of sweaty hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear. “Or at least, I meant to. Don’t leave me.”

“Mark, I won’t kill you.” You tell him, absolutely refusing to let this go where he seems to carelessly want it to go.

His fingers tighten in your hair. “Then give it up. I want you. All the time. And it’s not just because you’re a succubus. I know that’s part of the enchantment, I completely understand that, but I know in a deeper place in my heart that I crave you in a way that’s separate from your crazy, mystical demon powers, okay? Give it up.”

You stare into his eyes, his wide and innocent and hopeful eyes. You want to do it for him. You want to give Mark whatever he asks for. But... “I can’t. This is who I am, I can’t just give up being a succubus. It’s what I was brought into existence to be.”

Mark shakes his head. “I refuse to believe that. You’re a demon, but what are demons except fallen angels.” His thumb strokes over your cheek. “And I see an angel when I look at you.”

You roll your eyes and push his hand away. You sit up, ready to leave his bed, to flee into the unknown from him. But Mark’s fingers circle tightly around your wrist.

“I know how to summon you, I’ll just bring you back,” he says.

“And if I asked you not to?” You flex your wrist, testing his hold. “If I told you that I truly wanted you to leave me alone. What then?”

Mark’s hand falls away and he closes his eyes, turning onto his back to face the ceiling. “I would leave you alone. I would wish I could have convinced you to stay. Because I can see that you want to be here as much as I want you to stay.” He opens his eyes, looking right at you. “You gave me your name before you left, you opened this path for me to find you again, so you must have wanted me to, right?”

Right.

“So stay. I’m a theological man, and I’ve done my research into demonology and the supernatural, into good and evil. You think you’re just a demon, but I think you’re an angel, and somewhere in between where you stand and where I stand is a happy medium, a place where you and I can have this--” he gestures between your two bare bodies in his bed “--without you being afraid of destroying my soul.”

This is absolutely ridiculous.

You want it more than you can explain.

“Make a deal with me, demon.” Mark says, taking your hand in his, guiding it to his chest. He presses your palm flat over his heartbeat. “Stay with me, and I’ll help you become the angel that I know you are.”

This story began with a demon set on destroying her sexual victims and with a priest certain of his fate as a celibate holy man, and now you’re here. Both of you have already come so far from where you began.

You take Mark’s hand, guiding it so his palm lays over where your heart would be.

“The deal is true.” You tell him, and Mark gazes into your eyes as he repeats those words back to you, and just like that a bond is formed, a pact made, and you sink down against him, pressing your cheek to his chest as his arms wrap around you.

And this time you stay.

a/n: oops, I knew as soon as I first read this message that it was probably going to end up as a drabble, but damn I didn’t think I’d make it this long lol

If you liked it please reblog, like, comment. If you’re into the corruption of religious figures thing, definitely also check out Righteous a 5-part series by the wonderful @skzctnightnight it’s not got demons but it does have seminarian student Mark being tempted by the reader and it’s very hot and good

#mark smut #mark lee #mark lee smut #nct smut #nct 127 smut

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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

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It became routine. Each ‘morning’ by the clock, he would patrol the perimeter, check the transmitter, check the seals and go over all the jury rigging that kept him alive.

He would explore from time to time, but ever aware of the fragility of his existence, he was restricted as to how far he was willing to go.

As time grew, so did his needs. He discovered ice and greedily harvested it for the three things it could give him – water, fuel and oxygen. He slapped together a tin can with a couple of thrusters scrounged from the doomed Zero-X and slapped a call sign on it. Thunderbird X wasn’t much, but it got him what he needed, darting between the nearby lumps of solar system garbage that ranged from frozen chunks of hydrogen, right up the elemental chain to the absurdity of the lump of gold that threatened to puncture X simply due to the velocity it was travelling at.

So, he managed. He found what he needed and he built. He logged. He explored to keep himself sane and he discovered.

But most of all, he longed.

He had left so much behind, so far away.

At times he would picture his sons in his mind’s eye, just to keep their images fresh.

Little Allie with that dash of golden hair and innocent blue eyes. He counted his schooling years wondering at the report cards he wasn’t seeing, but knowing he was bright, ever so bright, taking after his lovely Lucille.

Thoughts of his wife kept him company to the point that he often wondered if she was there with him, watching over him, keeping him safe.

The time Thunderbird X’s starboard thruster exploded on his return run, sending her into a deadly roll that almost ended in a final farewell to his existence…she was there while his leg mended. There through the pain of resetting and the ache that followed for weeks.

She was in his dreams.

She whispered in the long silences.

But his boys.

Young Gordon, so determined to go to the Olympics, more fish than teenager, he wondered if he had made it. If his brothers and his mother had been able to watch him stand on that podium and represent his country.

He daydreamed he did.

And even if he didn’t, god, he missed his smile. His second youngest son was a ball of mischievous sunshine, even when Jeff had found sand poured into his boots and the time the little brat filled his shower head with blue dye.

When he needed to smile, he thought of his little Gordy.

He harvested what he could from the Zero-X. The ship was never going to fly again, crippled by its unintended plummet into deep space. He had done his best to stabilise her flight as she appeared suddenly surrounded by debris and icy rock. As it was, he had barely managed to set down on the planetoid. The more correct word would have been ‘crashed’ but he had a Lee Taylor drawling in the back of his mind about any landing he could walk away from, yada, yada.

He missed his space buddy and his dry wit like he would miss a limb. It had always been the two of them against the unknown. They’d been there and back, but now, so far away, he wasn’t with him.

But despite that, he forged on.

He tore that pile of scrap metal apart and, from it, made a place to survive.

He could call it a home, but he refused.

Home was an island with his family so many thousands of AU away.

He built.

He crafted.

He survived.

Communications was a priority. He knew the distance. He knew the chances of reaching that tiny blue dot so, so far away.

The transmitter was easy. Most of that equipment had survived intact, but the technology was nowhere near the level of International Rescue. He wrangled what he could out of it and sent a repeating signal.

A vain hope, but hope nonetheless. His boys had the best technology on the planet.

And then he remembered the flight plan of the Calypso.

It didn’t take him long to put together another signal, a hack into Brains’ robot. It was a long shot, but if it worked, his boys could hear him sooner.

So, checking the transmitters became part of the routine. Every day.

Power levels.

He had harnessed the great engines of the ship. She couldn’t fly, but she could generate enough electricity and more for his needs. Thank god.

It was with hope he built the receiver.

This he crafted from scratch with his own knowledge. Between Shadow Alpha, his own training and introducing John to his first radio at age five, he had the skill set.

It was fond memories of his middle boy that accompanied the exercise.

Red hair and turquoise eyes that absorbed every smidgen of information Jeff had been willing to impart. He was the eldest of his boys aiming high enough to follow Jeff into space. Of course, John’s interests were different, drifting in more Lucille’s direction of applied physics and the creation of new systems. John took to digital technologies like Gordon took to water. His longing for space simply led to communications and astro-specialities. Where Jeff was closer to the traditional NASA test pilot type who jumped into a tin can and crossed his fingers that the labcoats knew what they were doing, John was a little of both. Made sense since his mother was one of those labcoats.

Lucille had sent Lee and Jeff to Mars only to welcome him back with a little red-haired boy to carry both of their legacies.

So, when he flicked the on switch on his receiver, it shouldn’t have surprised him that John’s voice was the first sound he heard.

“Calling Zero-X from Thunderbird Five, Colonel Jeff Tracy, do you copy? Please respond.”

It was a recording, repeating over and over, sweeping the universe looking for him. It faded in and out, some times riddled with static, always days out of date, but it was his son.

Some nights he cried.

It didn’t stop as the years passed. It became reassurance that at least part of his legacy still survived, that his sons were still running International Rescue. It got bad enough that at one point he built a second receiver just so he didn’t have to turn that one off to change frequencies.

John’s voice sung in tune to Lucille’s in his head.

The day he discovered the coded entries in the repeating signal, he nearly lost it completely.

His middle son was truly brilliant. Laced into the repetition was a code, an IR code with John’s unique identifier that only his family knew and with the computing power Jeff had salvaged from the wreck, he had just enough to uncover what his boy was sending him.

Words.

Photos.

Stories.

His family in tiny snippets looped into that repeating signal.

“Dad, we know you’re out there somewhere. We miss you. Please know we won’t stop looking and we will find you.”

So stranded millions of miles away from home, every now and again, he would receive a care package from home. Sometimes the signal shattered beyond repair, sometimes interference was so bad John’s voice barely made it. Sometimes the signal went completely dead and Jeff would fret as the solar system realigned itself enough to let that signal through again.

But his blessed John sent such a lifeline that he knew he may not have survived without it.

He even sent his brother’s piano music.

Only a fragment survived the distance, but Jeff clung to the sound of Virgil’s fingers on his mother’s piano.

Thoughts of his second eldest, his gentle artistic soul who bore so much of his beloved Lucille that he hadn’t been able to look at the boy for some time after losing her.

He had so much regret, so much he wanted to make up to his boys. His priorities had seemed so obvious, so clear and so right at the time. But now, stranded with so much time to think, he could only think of what else he could have done.

Perhaps he could have been there for Virgil more. Been there for all of them. He lost his youngest’s teen years, he was becoming a man without his father or his mother.

Virgil had been older. Such a strong boy despite his sensitivities. He had his art and his music, yet he was so determined, the young man had presented his father with his pilot’s license, his engineering degree and stepped into his role in International Rescue without a blink.

He’d seen that expression on Lucy’s face the day she told him she was pregnant with their first. He had immediately flared protectively, claiming she needed to step back on the Mars project.

She had such fire in her eyes when she told him clearly and at length where he could stick it.

Virgil had that same stubborn streak along side his music. He was as tough as the ‘bird he flew.

And when it came to Jeff’s food sources, stubborn had been the key.

The Zero-X had been a prototype. She wasn’t stocked for a long-term mission; her supplies had been minimal and hunger had become a constant companion. There were limits out here as to what could be found, what could be considered edible.

He had done things he never wanted to think about again.

He had daydreamed about his mother’s cooking.

There were times that this one lack of supply nearly did him in.

He had tricks they had used on Mars and on the Moon, but ultimately the human body was tied to Earth’s ecosystem and there were so many limits as to what he could do to emulate it.

The ship’s empty hydroponic racks mocked him, but the daylight lamps were enough to save him.

So, he managed an existence. Meagre and sometimes painful, but stubborn kept him going and the voices from so far away kept him in hope.

And hope was named Scott Tracy. He knew his eldest. Where Virgil was stubborn, Scott was driven. The man would not stop.

Those vivid blue eyes that had at first looked up at him with admiration, and later faced him down with determination and sometimes anger, ever the staunch field commander of International Rescue. Scott was his second. He knew he had depended on him far too much, even from early on after Lucille passed, but the boy had shouldered it all.

He had no doubt Scott was still shouldering it. The boy had such a capacity to love and to bear what he needed to, to get the job done. Scott was the one who had stepped in when Jeff had been unable to be there for whatever reason.

His mother had made a point of making sure Jeff knew exactly what he was putting his children through. Loudly and in detail.

Jeff knew his failures.

And ultimately, he had failed his boys completely and ended up stranded out here.

With his regrets for company.

He existed.

He survived.

He clung to hope.

And then after an eternity the messages changed. John’s voice stopped its loop and switched to direct communication. Everything Thunderbird Five had threw his son’s voice across the void. Where Jeff only had the little transmission power he had, his son’s ‘bird knew how to yell.

His boys had received his SOS.

He cried tears when all five spoke to him from so far away. He couldn’t answer, but god, could he listen. After all those years of Scott yelling at him to listen, his mother yelling the same, he finally was so grateful to hear their voices.

Alan’s had deepened and sounded so confident and sure. Gordon’s smile floated across space and warmed his heart, John, his lifeline, had tears in his voice and Virgil’s deep baritone was sweeter than his music.

And Scott.

The fire in his voice lit up the small confined space Jeff lived in. That determination was there, strong and ever so driven.

His sons were coming to get him.

Hope became reality.

And all he could do was weep.

The care packages increased in frequency and often had a variety of brothers telling him of their progress. The stories varied, but the mission updates all came from Scott, delivered in sharp military terms.

Scott didn’t send stories.

Launch Day was scheduled, but due to the time delay, he found out about the plan at almost the same time his proximity network started screaming at him.

And of course, fate chose that day for his planetoid to fall apart. He had tempted luck too far and it was finally calling due.

His boys moved faster than he expected and he was in Thunderbird X when they arrived. He could not believe he almost missed them…after waiting so, so long.

When he saw Scott fall, his mind stopped and he just moved.

The hand he caught was the first he had touched in over eight years.

Those blue eyes, the same eyes that accused him in the darkness when sleep failed him, now looked up at him in astonishment, widening ever so much.

So full of love that his heart shattered.

His boy.

“Dad?”

“I’ve got you, son.” Hold it together. “Now, what do you say we get out of here?”

-o-o-o-

FIN.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Jeff Tracy #nuttyfic reblog #episode tag

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petri808 · 4 years ago

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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33-Epilogue

— I just wanna say thank you so much to everyone who followed along, your comments and suggestions along the way really helped to bring this story to life! It’s my longest fic to date, and to think it started as a one-shot for nalu day 2020 lol. YOU GUYS HELPED MAKE THIS HAPPEN! 🥳🥰🥰 ILY YOU ALL!💜💜💜💜

@mcornilliac special shout out for you help with the toughest part 😘

Even after all these years, riding on a train still brought a small flutter to Lucy’s stomach as she remembered the long ago evening when she’d met her husband. From an innocent meeting to a death defying experience, talk about a roller coaster ride. And yet, if she had to do it all over again, Lucy wouldn’t change a thing. Crazy sounding yes, for why would anyone not want to avoid what she’d gone through? Touka had truly pushed her sanity to the breaking point, but well, the therapist was right in the end and Lucy felt almost invincible now. All that pain, all the struggle she’d pushed through had made her the strong and resilient woman she was today. Happily married to Natsu with their fraternal twins Nashi and Ryuu. Mrs. Natsu Dragneel, Lucy smiled to herself, there was no way she’d change a thing.

Of course, it hadn’t been easy. After Natsu proposed and Lucy had accepted, there were still a lot of work to be done. But that measure of acceptance and affection did wonders. Any worries she’d had that he wouldn’t want a broken woman melted away and gave her the confidence to get better. With each passing therapy session, her strength grew, and by the time they graduated college, Lucy could honestly say she’d been cured to a functional degree. No longer struggling through nightmares and panic attacks, her anxieties were under control and the debilitating depression a distant memory where it belonged.

Yeah... Lucy sighed happily as she watched the landscape pass by from her train seat. Meeting Natsu was the best thing to ever happen in her life, well, aside from the kids. They’d married about a year after graduation on the anniversary of their meeting. It was a beautiful affair at an indoor venue, with close friends and family to join them. They’d gone a more modern route for the ceremony but did take pictures at a garden dressed in the traditional attire for sentimental reasons. Lucy wore the shiromuku white kimono while Natsu a montsuki haori hakama. And no, it wasn’t train themed! Levy was the Maid of Honor and Gray was the best man. By then, Levy and Gajeel were also married and Gray in a serious relationship with a girl named Juvia Lockser. Lucy was so happy for them both. All of their lives were moving in the right direction.

Everything was perfect. Great jobs in their fields of interest, lives settled into a comfortable routine, when 5 years later Lucy was pregnant with fraternal twins. It was a total surprise since twins didn’t run in either of their families. Always the jovial optimist, Natsu joked that they’d been doubly blessed because of what they’d gone through, and Lucy couldn’t help but love such a concept. Of course, once the euphoria of the motherhood prospect waned, reality set in that she was having twins! Two! Double the babies meant double of everything, from the pregnancy concerns to raising them. Growing up without a mother and as an only child, Lucy didn’t have a lot of experience with small children. But Natsu patiently assured her, that she’d do just fine. Think of it as a new challenge, and after overcoming one pretty tough situation, this would be a walk in the park. On the bright side, Levy was also pregnant with the couple’s first child so the two best friend’s kids would grow up together.

And Natsu was right, there were a few bumps in the road but nothing too difficult. During her fourth month Lucy was diagnosed with gestational diabetes as well as some minor gastrointestinal issues, so Natsu swayed the doctor to put her on bed rest. Better safe than sorry. The babies were healthy, but by the 7th month, she really couldn’t move much, and she was miserable being stuck at home all the time. Lucy missed her job because she genuinely enjoyed working for the magazine. But in the end, it had been a good thing. She could manage her health easier that way and it gave her time to do something she’d thought about doing as part of the healing process. With Natsu’s support and permission, it was time to put her writing skills to good use and write a book about their experience.

It became an instant hit, especially with female readers. The book was not only an autobiographical reflection of what had happened to them but focused on shining a light on the dangers of stalkers, as well as the importance of taking the warning signs seriously. Lucy didn’t hold back in her re-telling, even pointing out the serious flaws in Japan’s laws in protecting citizens from stalkers which at the time were nonexistent. Feminist organizations working to change those laws used her story with permission for their cause. She had no intentions of becoming a poster child for the movement, but in the end her role may have played its part, because 2 years after the publishing, Japan finally adopted anti-stalking laws making it easier for police to string together harassment cases, as well as for victims to get the help they needed.

Her life was nothing but exciting to say the least! And with two young children, now age 10 certainly kept them on their toes. Their daughter Nashi was just like Natsu, very outgoing, friendly, but a bit of a daredevil while her brother Ryuu born 4 minutes after her was the quieter of the two. He preferred books like his mother to adventure. Of course, that never stopped Nashi from dragging him into shenanigans! But the best part was how close they still were and fiercely protective of each other. Lucy and Natsu couldn’t be prouder of them and hoped this would continue throughout their lifetimes.

Fifteen years... come to think of it, their wedding anniversary was coming up shortly. With Natsu now a senior fire inspector for the Tokyo prefectural government, he was often busy. Lucy did mind it, because frankly it gave her some peace and quiet. She chuckled at the thought. Not that it was all that peaceful with the twins. But she digressed. His success meant their lives were very comfortable, and her own journalism successes while not as financially based, were still celebrated in their relationship. Natsu never waned in being the dutiful and supportive, always loving husband that Lucy felt blessed to grow old with.

‘Two more stops, pick up the kids from school, stop at the grocery store for dinner...’ Lucy tapped out on her phone a to-do list of ingredients to pick up at the store. Perhaps katsudon... ‘Mmm, or maybe nabe,’ hot-pot soup since it was expected to be a bit chilly that evening.

Lucy looked up briefly, really just spacing out in thought when someone catches her eye. At the other end of the train car, she noticed a woman facing slightly away, but enough to where she couldn’t quite see a face. It couldn’t be... Lucy looked away not wanting to stare, but somehow... for some reason the woman was awfully familiar... looking exactly like Touka. Well, not exactly, but enough to make the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It was a blonde, with a different hair style— and that could always be changed. Similar body type, the facial side-profile features that Lucy could see resembled Touka...

Now despite being better, her anxieties still bubbled up from time to time, so she immediately switched to her coping techniques to calm them down. ‘You’re fine,’ Lucy talked herself through it, ‘no point in getting riled up.’ The woman hadn’t done so much as looked in her direction, so it must be okay. Contrary to popular belief, things like depression and anxiety never fully goes away, especially when someone has experienced a severe level of it. Those emotions and irrational thoughts are forever programmed into the brain, but there are ways to keep them at bay and Lucy’s successfully done just that for 15 years.

‘Just go back to what you were doing. Katsudon or nabe? And don’t forget you need to pick up milk...’ But, fifteen years... could Touka have been released by now? Lucy shook the thought away again. ‘Stop it! Everything is fine. It’s not her!’ The train was semi-full of passengers all minding their own business... including the woman. There was no reason to start panicking now. Lucy adjusts her position on her seat away from the woman’s direction. If she couldn’t see her, she could pretend she didn’t exist. ‘Maybe I should pick up ingredients for both, that way I don’t have to shop tomorrow.’ Lucy thought to herself, and with the kids with her, they could help in carrying the shopping bags. ‘Yeah, we’ve got a plan…’

After figuring out her shopping list, Lucy pulled up social media to keep herself distracted and for a few minutes it did the trick. Silly videos of entertainers never got old. The train reached the next stop and she felt it come to a stop. Since it wasn’t hers, she didn’t pay it any mind as she scrolled through her feed. But as the disembarking passengers funnel past Lucy, her eyes pick up on a pair of pink high-heels peeking from over the edge of her phone. Her body instantly stiffened up from the similarity to the ones worn by the woman, while her curiosity slowly got the better of her. ‘Breath, act nonchalant!’ Lucy’s eyes tracked the high-heels moving past her until they left her periphery. She then slowly sat back up, pretending to readjust her position, when she caught a pair of eyes looking back. Lucy’s breathing hitches with a shaky exhale. “Oh, my god—"

Standing at the doorway with one hand on the frame, the blonde woman smiled at Lucy then winked before stepping off the train.

It was Touka!

#nalu #nalu au #nalu fan fiction #nalu fan fic #natsu dragneel #Lucy heartfilia #Natsu x lucy #fairy tail #strangers on a train #epilogue #petri808

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sweetestlamb · 4 years ago

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New Beginnings

Chapter 9 Cut Scene

Summary: Flowers for the three most important women in his life.

The bell chimes announcing his arrival and the florist glances up smiling softly when she sees that it's him again, he's been frequenting this flower shop since his mother was admitted to the hospital after she casually complained about her room feeling suffocating. It was a small room, the best they could afford with the measly money he was making at the coffee shop. He always tried to leave the curtains open, so the sunlight would spill into the small space. He has randomly seen the flower shop one day and walked inside to see if anything caught his eyes.

There had been a lush bouquet of white lilies, his mother’s favorite. He remembered always seeing them on their kitchen table when he was younger. His father would bring them home for her on her birthday and for their anniversary. The smile she always rewarded him with was his favorite, his mother looked the most beautiful when she was smiling brightly.

The way her face lit up when he brought the first bouquet made the decision easy for him, he ignored her and continued to bring fresh bundles each time the old ones shriveled up.

To see her smile he would do just about anything, it was why he visited her everyday after school forgoing outings with his friends and why he would sing to her at nights when she couldn't fall asleep. He remembered the lullabies she sang to him when he was young and he loved watching her eyes soften as he sang it to her, she would hum along before slowly drifting into deep slumber.

She deserved beauty, if he could he would give her the world but all he could offer was his love- in the form of flowers- right now. Since he was young she'd always accepted that as if it was truly a blessing.

"Your usual?" The elder woman asks making her way over to the white lilies, pale and delicate reflecting the light piercing through the window. He nods in agreement at the pure snow colored petals, humming before looking around aimlessly. A colorful bouquet catches his eye, something about them remind me of his sister. They are so full of live and demand his attention, without thinking he says, "That one too. Please wrap it nicely."

"Those are a great choice, but very different from the lilies. Are they for the same person?" The florist inquires while wrapping the second bouquet expertly, he can understand her confusion the two bundles are vastly different. He chuckles shaking his head, "No, the lilies are for my mom and these are for my sister."

The florist beams at him, it's a look he has seen many times before, mothers love him. It doesn't take much for them to start planning his marriage with their daughters, it's both embarrassing and flattering but he's not interested in whatever suggestion she's about to make. His heart is occupied and there isn't much room for anyone else.

"You know I have a granddaughter your age. Are you seeing anyone?" The florist asks coyly, already reaching into her pocket for what must be a picture of said granddaughter.

He walks away feigning distraction to avoid answering the question. He stops to read the description of a flower he has no real interest in and he hears her light giggle behind him.

"I understand. I won't pry. I'll get these wrapped up and you can come pay for them." He sighs in relief at the easy dismissal, glad that he didn't offend the woman the next flower shop was miles away.

He turns around ready to follow her and go see his three favorite women, when something catches his eye. He's never seen this particular flower here before, captivated he walks over to them lightly touching the multicolored petals. They are beautiful, unique in their distinct ombre coloring and he is honestly mesmerized.

"Those are delphinium." He hears the florist call to him and he steps closer smelling the light sweet aroma and they immediately remind him of someone, someone equally beautiful that has changed before his eyes just like these flowers. Someone who has layers and sometimes he gets whiplash trying to keep up with her, but he wouldn't change a thing. She was a beautiful disaster, the perfect storm that he wouldn't run from despite the chance of destruction.

"You know flowers have meanings. Delphiniums symbolize a new beginning and acceptance of your feelings. You shouldn't buy those if you don't want to send the wrong message." The woman warns sending him a cheeky smile and he chortles at her, tickled by this sweet old lady.

Acceptance of feelings, huh?

Had he accepted his feelings? Why exactly did he have feelings for the girl when she spent most of their time together pushing him away?

But then his heart supplies images of Sujin's elusive smile- it never stays for long but he can feel it under his skin hours after she has stopped, her holding him in the hospital despite her size she had somehow made him feel small and protected, honestly he hadn’t expected her to show up at all. Had assumed that he was the only one that did any kind of chasing in this relationship but once again she had taken his assumptions and spun them on their proverbial head. Her melodic laughter as she made dumplings with his family and the smatter of flour on her nose, somehow it didn’t take away from her beauty whatsoever. And finally, the night he found her on the sidewalk soaked and shivering- he had never been so proud of not minding his own business, he's grateful for it all, it brought them to this moment.

She’s not his. But there is potential.

Not yet. But he was patient, he would wait for her to come to him.

"I'll take these too. Please wrap these in something pretty. They're for someone special." He smiles caressing the soft petals imagining her smooth cheek.

#true beauty #han seojun #kang sujin #chapter 9 cut scene #bittersweet after chapter 9 #I just like pain #sorry #bmtl #junjin #true beauty kdrama #Seojun is such a good boy #I need to make him happy soon

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allthingsfern · 4 years ago

Text

In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

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nerdwaifuu-stories · 3 years ago

Text

The Proposal

Happy (belated) Ninjago Oc Day! Ik I haven’t posted much on this account, but I figured it would be the perfect time to post something about my OCs.

Ig some basic info:

Word count: 4,966

Oc basics: the main two are Hisashi and Emon. Hisashi was a samurai/soldier who I have made Ronin’s (dead) uncle. Emon was a criminal who worked for Chen (although Hisashi doesn’t know about that. He just knows that Emon has previously done crime in his youth), but started to lose interest over time due to several factors. Another oc that’s mentioned is Lex. They are a friend of Hisashi and Emon’s, and they are actually an Oni.

Summary: Taking place roughly 25-30ish years before the Ninjago series, Hisashi is coming home from a mission. Since he and Emon have been together for some time, he figures it’s time to take it to the next step. He is one ring purchase and a ship and train ride away from trying to reach that next step.

If you want to know more about these characters, there’s some stuff on my art account @nerdwaifuu-art.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers rang through the village as they saw the group in green armor entering the village. The soldiers marched through the middle, many with a look of victory on their faces contrasting the scuff, dirt, wounds, and exhaustion their bodies presented: all a worthy cost for a village's safety. Eventually their march and the cheering stopped as the chief approached the group.

"Oh great heroes, thank you! Thank you for saving us from those fiends! We will never forget what you have done for us! May the Creator bring you prosperity!" The chief cheered. Once he spoke his last word, the crowd of villagers' cheer erupted again, echoing the chief's message. From there, the chief and the captain went off to chat and the rest dispersed throughout the village. Some made their way back to the ship either to rest or prepare for the journey back to the city. Others remained in the village to chat or to explore. Amongst those exploring were two young men: a stout, short dark brown haired chatterbox and a long dark copper haired, silent listener. The two strolled through the village as one chatted away and the other listened while glancing at everything they passed.

"I wonder if the captain saw our hard work out there."

"Mhm."

"I mean we were kicking butt out there."

"Mhm."

"We should probably go to the medics to get our backs checked from how much carrying we were doing..."

"Mhm."

The stout man slowed his walk as he placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, "Hisashi, you good? You're quieter than usual, and it’s hard for you to be quieter than you already are..." He paused before he threw himself on track to a ramble, "Anyways, you just seem out of it."

"Yeah... Uh, yes, yes I'm fine, Shiro," Hisashi stumbled, "My mind's just on, uh, other things."

"Oh? Other things? What kind of other things?" Shiro questioned.

"You know... other things..." Hisashi kept scanning the surrounding stands and buildings.

"No, I don't know other things. How about you introduce me to them?" Shiro coaxed.

With a sigh, Hisashi stopped his mini search and said, "I'm just looking for some gifts..."

"Forrrr?"

Hisashi paused for a second, then said, "For my nephew-"

"Ah, why didn't you say so? No need to be so secretive with me," Shiro smirked, "C'mon, let's go find him something. One of these shops should have something he'll like" Shiro kept his hand on Hisashi's shoulder as he started to lead him. Hisashi resisted the push and said, "Actually, I know what shop I want to go to... I just need to find it again..." He looked around once more and then there it was: a small wooden stand run by a middle aged woman. The stand was covered with an assortment of items: jewelry, weapons, metal decorations, toys, metal sculptures, etc. He saw it the first time he arrived at the village and knew he had to stop by it.

"There it is," Hisashi took the lead and pulled Shiro with him as he approached the stand.

"Ah, hello boys~ Do you see anything you like?" The woman greeted them.

"My friend here is just looking, but I do see something I like," Shiro said, shooting a smoldering look towards the woman. The woman giggled and the two continued to chat (or Shiro commanded the conversation and continually bragged about himself). Meanwhile, Hisashi looked at the items. His eyes kept being pulled towards the actual reason that he wanted to come to the stand in the first place—a set of two matching rings sitting in a wooden ring box. Both were made up of a thick metal band that had a space cut in the middle where the gem was, making it appear as if the gem was floating. On the band, on either side of the gem, was a dragon carving colored gold. One ring had a black tinted band with a white gem while the other had a polished, silver finish and a black gem.

The woman noticed his interest in the rings and, once Shiro had taken a short pause, she shifted her focus, "I see that you've found something you like." She picked up the ring box and placed it in the middle of the table. Shiro shot a confused look at the woman and then at Hisashi.

"Oh, sorry, I was just looking at them. They're very beautiful," Hisashi admitted.

"Haha, no need to apologize for looking at what I'm selling, but thank you. My husband's... well, my late husband's father made them," the woman sighed, "Honestly the story is quite sweet. He came to this village and set up a blacksmith shop. A woman came into the shop one day and he fell deeply in love with her. He expanded his skills from weapon making to making small metal trinkets to give to her—" the woman glanced down at some of the other items at her stand before continuing, "She loved every single one and returned his love. Eventually, he decided it was time. He went into his workshop and began on his favorite project. The next time anyone saw him leave his shop, he went directly to the woman, took her somewhere nice, and proposed with these rings. She wore one and he wore the other..." A small smile formed on her face as she looked back at the rings, "Then they passed it down to my husband to use with me, and now here I am trying to sell them," she sighed, "I have no use for them now, and, even though I'm probably making some people roll in their graves, I need the money..."

"Awww, yeah that is really sweet. It's a shame you don't have a lady friend back at home, unless you and that Lexi girl have something~" Shiro teased Hisashi. Hisashi rolled his eyes. 'That Lexi girl' he referred to was Lex, but Hisashi only saw them as a friend. Instead, he had his eyes on someone else; someone else that he deeply cared about; someone else that he actually had something with.

"Plus we're here for your nephew. I don't think he'll have any use for these rings," Shiro reminded him.

"Um, right, of course..." Hisashi watched as the woman placed the rings back to their original spot.

"Oh, a nephew? Is he into metal work? Or I'm assuming he'll like the toys if he's young or the weapons perhaps?" The woman asked.

"Ah yes, a 5 year old who's into metal work-" Shiro quietly snickered. Hisashi shot a quick glare at him.

"Oh, he's quite young, scratch the weapons then," she chuckled.

Hisashi looked around the table some more and decided on one of the small metal figures and an old pocket watch.

"Ah, I'm sure he'll enjoy that," Shiro muttered sarcastically when he noticed the pocket watch was no longer ticking.

"He likes taking things apart and making new things, so yes, he'll probably enjoy this," Hisashi defended his choice.

"Is he trying to be an inventor?" the woman asked.

"I believe he does have an interest in becoming one. He's been fascinated with all the technological changes going on in the city. I don't understand it, but at least he's getting prepared for the future," Hisashi answered, starting to take out his money for his purchase.

"I forgot Ninjago City was going through all that. All the beautiful wood and clay buildings being replaced with tall metal buildings... It's insane."

"Yeah..." Hisashi and Shiro nodded along. While Hisashi searched for the right amount of money, he noticed that the remaining soldiers started to make their way back to the ship. He glanced back at the rings and turned to Shiro, "How about you head back to the ship while I finish up here?"

Shiro nodded, said his goodbye to the shop owner and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Hisashi turned back to the stand and asked, "How much are the rings?"

The woman stated the price and said, "So you are interested in them after all?" Hisashi nodded as he took out the right amount of money for the rings, the figure, and the pocket watch.

"So is this for someone or just keeping it for yourself?" The woman wondered.

"I have someone at home waiting for me—"

The woman leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. Before she could ask any questions, with a soft smile, Hisashi whispered, "I met h- uh, this person a while back and now we've been together for 5-6 years now... I figured I should do something special..."

"And decided it was time?" The woman asked at the same volume as him, with a large grin on her face. He nodded.

"Well, I hope the Creator blesses you both," she said, exchanging the items for Hisashi's money. He said his thanks and started to head off to the ship.

"Goodbye, may the Creator bring you prosperity and may the Great Serpent protect you on your journey!" The woman called out.

Hisashi turned around and asked "Great Serpent?"

"Oh, do people in the city not know this story?" Hisashi shook his head, so she explained, "According to some stories I've heard, there's a serpent that sleeps deep in the sea. She apparently used to rule the sea and was the reason for the waves and the storms, so people used to pray to her and give her offerings to keep her happy. Unfortunately that's all I know from the top of my head, and it's all probably just a story."

"Huh, sounds interesting. Thank you," Hisashi said before departing.

Laying his bed, Hisashi could feel the ship rock back and forth and hear his roommates chatting instead of sleeping, excited to be one step closer to home in the morning. But none of it blocked his focus on reading. His brain refused to let him sleep as the nerves have finally got to him. He had a ring in his possession, and he was hopefully going to give it away once he got to the city. To try to calm himself down in the safety of his bed, he took out some letters he got in the past few weeks. Each one started with "My Dearest Sai," and ended with "I can't wait to see you again. Love, Emon Sharma."

It was odd to think that these letters used to be closed off with a "Sincerely" or a simple "From," and "Love" was never a closing he had seen until 5 years ago. Even though it's been years, Hisashi's heart still flutters when he sees the word in Emon's handwriting. It still feels like such a new feeling, especially when he never acknowledged that such feelings could exist in him when he was growing up. Even when his brother tried to describe them when referring to himself and his now wife during high school, Hisashi never understood. Now he did.

After rereading each of the letters, he held the paper close to his chest. He tried picturing everything that Emon described. He tried remembering each random ramble that he sent him that Emon responded to. He silently laughed at the idea of him trying to make sense of everything Hisashi tried telling him. If he tried sending similar letters to anyone else he knows, they would just skim through everything and ask about how he is and how's work, avoiding to say "please tell me more about this random thing you learned ." Emon would be one of the only people who would say that.

The chatter in the room quieted down and the remaining lights started to disappear. With a sigh, Hisashi caught one more glimpse of the contents of the letters before it went completely dark.

"I can't wait to see you again. Love, Emon Sharma."

He softly smiled, folded the letters, and placed them under his pillow.

"I can't wait either..."

"Ah finally, land!" Shiro exclaimed once he and Hisashi got off the ship. Carrying their stuff (armor, weapons, supplies, letters, etc.), the two swerved their way through the crowds of people. Fellow soldiers were pouring out of the boat, being welcomed by their loved ones, going to a nearby inn or bar, or already beginning their ways home. Hisashi looked around at who was there, but he knew that his loved ones were in the city, which was a train ride away. He smiled at the thought of coming off the train to them, and clutched the ring box that hid in his pocket.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop for a drink? Or even for a snack?" Shiro asked, following his 6 foot friend to avoid getting lost.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Gotta make sure I catch the train," he said, glancing back to make sure Shiro wasn't too far behind.

"But the train's not going to leave for a bit," Shiro said, puzzled.

"I know, I just..." Hisashi trailed off and stopped in his tracks, leading to Shiro bumping into him.

"Oof- what's going on?" He asked, but got no answer. Shiro looked past Hisashi to see what was ahead, but it didn't click due to so many people being around. It wasn't until he saw two people: a short, medium tanned, black haired man with a scruffy beard and a towering, brown-skinned, short brown haired (hidden under a hat), female presenting person. The man noticed them and started to wave, then stopped and started approaching quickly while dragging his companion with him. Hisashi gripped the hidden ring box tighter as he started walking to lessen the distance. Once he was within a foot of the man, the man threw his arms around Hisashi and nearly lifted him off his feet within the first few seconds of the hug while saying, "It's so good to see you, Sai!"

"Woah, easy Emon. No need to break me," Hisashi chuckled, wiggling a bit to loosen Emon's grip and free his arms. Once they were free, Hisashi returned the hug and pulled Emon close while Emon buried his face into Hisashi's shoulder. Hisashi wished he could stay in this hug forever. He also wished he could just give Emon a big kiss, but he had to wait until they were in private; until they were in the city...

"Wait a minute—" Hisashi pushed Emon out in front of him, keeping his hands on Emon's shoulders—"What are you guys doing here?"

"Lex and I just figured that you deserved a welcome party as soon as you arrived," Emon confessed.

"And Emon really missed you and wanted to see you as soon as possible," Lex added.

"Yeah, that too," Emon chuckled, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. A smile stretched across Hisashi's face as he tried to hold in a laugh. His hand left Emon's shoulder and almost caressed his cheek, but he then remembered Shiro was watching from behind and they were surrounded by other people. He slowly pulled his hand back and hid it back in his pocket, trying to ignore the longing look in Emon's eyes. He then said, "Thank you, I missed you so much too. I couldn't wait to see you again..." Emon responded with a soft smile.

"Well, I missed you guys too," Shiro barged in, now standing next to Hisashi.

"Yes, it's good to see you, Shiro," Lex mumbled.

"I thought you would be much happier, Lexi," Shiro snickered. Lex's eyes were shooting daggers, but they tried to hide their gaze behind the brim of their hat as they said, "We best be going now. Don't want to miss the train." Before anyone could say anything, Lex had already turned around and started towards the train station.

"Ah what a shame. I wanted to talk with y'all more," Shiro sighed, "Well, see y'all back in the city tomorrow!" After an exchange of goodbyes, Shiro disappeared into the crowd.

"Well then, let's go," Emon said, linking his arm with Hisashi's. The two then followed behind Lex, trying to keep up.

"What was all the hurry about Lex?" Emon asked them.

Lex turned their head away from the train window and said, "Just didn't want to get stuck in one of his rambles. You get him talking and you'll probably end up hearing too much about what happened during the mission. I'm just not in the mood to hear how he 'sliced one man's head off' or whatever."

"That's fair," Hisashi said, also looking at the passing land outside the window. He was there when all of it happened, and he didn't need to hear about it again. He only wanted his mind on one thing and one thing only.

"Speaking of which, how was the mission?" Emon asked.

"Oh, just a typical mission. The thugs were playing hard to get for some time. Fortunately, we stopped them before anything too bad happened, and we didn't have many major injuries this time around. Just some scratches here and there," Hisashi answered quickly. He took one last look out of the window before sitting up and facing Lex and Emon on the other side of the table, saying, "But, despite the mission, the place we were at was very lovely." Emon leaned closer, interested to hear more.

"It was a small village by the ocean. Whenever we had a break, it was so calming to be on the white beach and just listen to the calm waves. And the village was really lovely too. It was filled with small shops and stands, and the people there seemed nice. They were very welcoming and always closed the conversations with something about 'the Creator' blessing you." Hisashi said. Lex perked up to full attention towards the end.

"The Creator? Like the creator of the town?" Emon asked.

"Or the Realm..." Lex muttered quietly, but, when they got confused looks from the two men, they said, "World. I mean world."

"Oh right, that makes more sense," Emon chuckled.

"Yeah, they often referenced them, but I guess they have plenty of other stories too. Before I was leaving, a nice woman at a shop said something about a Great Serpent—" Hisashi then recited what the woman had told him. Both Emon and Lex were leaning in close to hear every word. When Hisashi finished, Emon, with excitement in his eyes, and Lex, looking like they wanted to say something but decided against it, looked at each other, then back at Hisashi.

"Woah, that's so cool! Bet that was fun to hear about right before getting on a ship," Emon snickered.

"Yeah, but it's merely just a story," Lex uttered, leaning back against the seat, "Nothing to worry about."

"Have you ever heard of it?" Hisashi asked them. Lex hesitantly nodded, "All I know about it is the same as what the woman told you..." Hisashi could tell that they knew more, but he didn't want to force anything out of them. He could probably try finding a scroll or a book with more information.

"Anyways, overall the place was really nice. If we didn't have work and other stuff to deal with, I would say we should go there sometime," Hisashi said, mainly glancing over to Emon when talking. The idea of just leaving the city, getting on a ship, and sailing somewhere to explore sounded so pleasant, especially if it was with Emon and even Lex. He would even want to take his nephew once in a while. Just the 3 and sometimes 4 of them on a ship, seeing what the world offered. But their lives didn't allow for that. Hisashi had soldier duties to take care of while Emon and Lex had their own responsibilities, and there was just too much they would be leaving behind. Maybe one day in the future it could become a reality.

"Yeah, that would be nice," Emon said, smiling. Then the table went silent. Lex went back to looking out the window while the other two sat silently. Hisashi started to fidget with the ring box in his pocket, only bringing back the nerves. He looked up at Emon and could see he was shifting in his seat, shooting glances at both him and Lex. He wondered what Emon could be so nervous about.

Lex turned their head and sensed the nervousness sitting next to them and across from them. They shot a "say something and get it over with" look at both Hisashi and Emon.

"Sai—"

"Emon—"

They both paused and tried continuing, only further interrupting each other, "Sorry, go ahead—no you go ahead—no I didn't have anything to say—no please, I interrupted you—"

With a sigh, Lex barged in, "So, do you guys have any plans for today?" The two paused and looked at each other, waiting for the other to say something.

"I heard the weather is going to be super nice today. Maybe you guys can go to the park," Lex suggested.

"You are such a mind reader. That was what I was going to suggest," Emon said.

"I was actually going to recommend the same thing," Hisashi nervously laughed. He's so glad that he wrote Lex about what his plans were, or he would've just chickened out and waited to do it.

"Hah, perfect. Maybe we can get some lunch too. You're probably starving. I know I am," Emon said with a grin.

"Sounds good," Hisashi replied with a soft smile. He turned to Lex and mouthed the words "Thank you."

They smirked and mouthed back the words "You're welcome."

"Man, no matter how many times I come here, I always forget how good the food is," Emon exclaimed as he finished paying for the food. In defeat, Hisashi watched the check and the money leave. Him and Emon literally went back and forth about who would pay the bill only to find out that Hisashi had left his wallet at home due to him rushing to get ready and look nice for the day, so Emon came out victorious.

"I claim to pay the next check," Hisashi uttered while they got up and left the café.

"Haha, we'll see if you remember your wallet next time," Emon snickered, "Although it's not like you to forget it at all. Are you feeling well?"

"Yes yes, I'm fine," Hisashi chuckled, "Just adjusting to being home that's all..."

And just being a big ball of nerves, he thought to himself. At least he had the ring with him, or his whole plan would have gone down the drain because of one silly mistake.

"How about you though? You seemed nervous on the train," he asked Emon.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Um, yeah I'm good now. It was just being on a train. Y'know I don't really go on them," Emon said. Hisashi raised an eyebrow, but decided not to further question him.

The two continued to chat as they walked towards and into the park. Circled by the new skyscrapers, the park sat at the center of the entire city. Full of green hills and growing trees, it was one of the few areas of nature in the city. It was still a work in progress as workers were busy with putting in new buildings, benches, and pathways, but it was still a nice place for a stroll and a proposal.

The two walked through the park, chatting and enjoying the scenery. While listening to Emon, Hisashi scanned the area, trying to find the best area. It needed to be a private area with no one around, but also needed to be a beautiful area.

All of a sudden, Emon grasped Hisashi's hand and said, "Come with me, I know a good place you need to see." He then started leading him up one of the hills, looked around, and then continued pulling him along. Down the hill, across some of the grass, and up a slightly taller hill. Once they reached the top, Emon stopped and tightened his hand around Hisashi's, looking out at the view of the entire park.

"Wow," Hisashi marveled at the view. It was beautiful... and there wasn't anyone else around... it was perfect.

"I know right. I came here all the time when I was younger. When I had no where else to go, I would just come here..." Emon's grip loosened, so Hisashi gently pulled his hand away and backed up slightly. He pulled the ring box out of his pocket and took a deep breath as he went down on a knee. This was it. It was time.

"It's crazy to think that I've come all this way," Emon continued, still looking at the view, "I used to come here as a young thief just trying to survive. That's all I thought my life would be until the day I died. But you've changed that..." Hisashi watched Emon go grab something from inside his jacket, but he couldn't see what. "...You've shown me that there's more to my life. Life is not just about trying to get by. It's about learning and experiencing new things. It's about love. It's about so much more than I know, So, I took you here in hopes that I can leave the lonely, barely living thief behind and enter a new chapter of our lives. Hisashi Arima, will y—" Emon turned around, about to kneel down, but he stopped halfway. In his hands was a long, wooden box with a black finish, kept shut with a golden latch. He quickly stood up and hid the box back in his jacket, his eyes not leaving Hisashi. He ran one of his hands through his hair as his face started to flush red. "Sai, I— oh my god..." was all he could say.

Hisashi sat there frozen, unsure what to do. He had planned this for weeks, but now everything just jumped out of his brain.

"Were you about to propose..."

Emon lips formed an embarrassed smile as he quickly nodded. Hisashi's mouth hung open and he looked down at the ring box, unsure what to say. Should he just try to stick to his plan or let Emon continue?

"Forget about me, go ahead," Emon whispered, gently pulling Hisashi's chin back up.

"Um, well," Hisashi cleared his throat and took a deep breath in, looking into Emon's eyes. They had a sort of calming aura about them now. Hisashi's lip curled up slightly as he gathered his words.

"I guess to play off what you've said, you have changed my life as well. Before I really got to know you, I probably seemed like a stone cold guy whose only purpose was to work until he no longer could. You have added more purpose to my life... so much more purpose. And, despite trying to understand everything, love was never one I could get a grasp of. Now I feel like I know at least a tiny bit about it from the past few years, and I'm willing to learn more with you. Emon, I love you so much. I will love you until the day I die. Even beyond death, I will always love you..." Hisashi took a pause, trying to catch his breath from speeding up towards the end without taking a moment to breathe. During the pause, he decided to open the ring box, resulting in a quiet gasp from Emon. He glanced up at him to see the reaction. His smile was bigger, but was being slightly hidden behind one of his hands. His calming eyes started to tear up as he looked up from the ring to Hisashi.

"Will you... would you... uh..." Hisashi started, but his mind was back to blanking out. Improvising clearly took all his brain power. It was his turn to blush red.

Emon chuckled, took Hisashi's one hand that wasn't holding the box, and asked "Will you marry me?" Hisashi couldn't help but laugh along as he quickly nodded. Emon then took the polished silver ring and slipped it onto one of Hisashi's fingers, and Hisashi put the other one on Emon.

"By the way, that was my line," Hisashi joked as he gave Emon his ring.

"Technically it was supposed to be mine," Emon said before pulling Hisashi up and into a kiss with his arms around his neck. Once they both pulled away, Emon held Hisashi close and rested his head against his shoulder.

"I love you so much Sai, and thank you for the ring. It's absolutely as beautiful as you are..." Emon said, then remembered his proposal gift. He let go of Hisashi, grabbed the box, went down on his knees, and held the box up.

"This is what I was going to give you... I hope you don't mind it not being a ring..."

Hisashi took the box from him and unlocked the latch. He lifted the lid to find a ornate dagger inside. It had a pale green jade hilt with silver sheath decorated with floral motifs and pale green and red gemstones. He gently picked up the dagger and unsheathed it to reveal a silver, double edged blade.

"This is beautiful," he said in awe, sheathing the blade and placing it carefully back into the box.

"I'm glad you think so. As soon as I saw it, I figured it would be a perfect gift," Emon said, smiling.

"It definitely is. Thank you," Hisashi said, giving Emon a quick peck on the lips.

"Well, should we get out of here and start the next chapter of our lives?" Hisashi asked.

Emon took a hold of Hisashi's hand and said, "I'm ready whenever you are."

They took one more look at the view, and Hisashi started to lead Emon.

"Let's go."

#ninjago oc day 2021 #ninjagoocday2021 #ninjago oc #ninjago oc fanfic #my oc writing #oc: hisashi #oc: emon

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hieromonkcharbel · 4 years ago

Text

Vibia Perpetua, was executed in the arena in Carthage on 7 March 203. The account of her martyrdom - technically a Passion -is apparently historical and has special interest as much of it was written [section 3-10], in Latin by Perpetua herself before her death. This makes it one of the earliest pieces of writing by a Christian woman.

PROLOGUE

1. If ancient examples of faith kept, both testifying the grace of God and working the edification of man, have to this end been set in writing, that by their reading as though by the showing of the deeds again, God may be glorified and man strengthened; why should not new witnesses also be so set forth which likewise serve either end? Yea, for these things also shall at some time be ancient and necessary to our sons, though in their own present time (through some reverence of antiquity presumed) they are made of but slight account. But let those take heed who judge the one power of the Holy Spirit according to the succession of times; whereas those things which are later ought for their very lateness to be thought the more eminent, according to the abundance of grace appointed for the last periods of time. For In the last days, says the Lord, I will pour my spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids I will pour forth of my spirit; and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. [Acts 2:17, cf. Joel 2:28]

We also therefore, by whom both the prophecies and the new visions promised are received and honored, and by whom those other wonders of the Holy Spirit are assigned unto the service of the Church, to which also was sent the same Spirit administering all gifts among all men, according as the Lord hath distributed unto each [I.Cor 7:17]- do of necessity both write them and by reading celebrate them to the glory of God; that no weakness or failing of faith may presume that among those of old time only was the grace of divinity present, whether in martyrs or in revelations vouchsafed; since God ever works that which He has promised, for a witness to them that believe not and a benefit to them that believe. Wherefore we too, brethren and dear sons, declare to you likewise that which we have heard and handled [I Cor 15:1?]; that both you who were present may call to mind the glory of the Lord, and you who now know by hearing may have communion with those holy martyrs, and through them with the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and honor for ever and ever. Amen.

2. There were apprehended the young catechumens, Revocatus and Felicity his fellow servant, Saturninus and Secundulus. With them also was Vibia Perpetua, nobly born reared in a liberal manner, wedded honorably; having a father and mother and two brothers, one of them a catechumen likewise, and a son, a child at the breast; and she herself was about twenty-two years of age. What follows here shall she tell herself; the whole order of her martyrdom as she left it written with her own hand and in her own words.

PERPETUA'S ACCOUNT

3. When, she said, we were still under legal surveillance and my father was liked to vex me with his words and continually strove to hurt my faith because of his love: Father, said I, Do you see (for examples) this vessel lying, a pitcher or whatsoever it may be? And he said, I see it. And I said to him, Can it be called by any other name than that which it is? And he answered, No. So can I call myself nought other than that which I am, a Christian.

Then my father angry with this word came upon me to tear out my eyes; but he only vexed me, and he departed vanquished, he and the arguments of the devil. Then because I was without my father for a few days I gave thanks unto the Lord; and I was comforted because of his absence. In this same space of a few days we were baptised, and the Spirit declared to me, I must pray for nothing else after that water save only endurance of the flesh. After a few days we were taken into prison, and I was much afraid because I had never known such darkness. O bitter day! There was a great heat because of the press, there was cruel handling of the soldiers. Lastly I was tormented there by care for the child.

Then Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed deacons who ministered to us, obtained with money that for a few hours we should be taken forth to a better part of the prison and be refreshed. Then all of them going out from the dungeon took their pleasure; I suckled my child that was now faint with hunger. And being careful for him, I spoke to my mother and strengthened my brother and commended my son unto them. I pined because I saw they pined for my sake. Such cares I suffered for many days; and I obtained that the child should abide with me in prison; and straightway I became well and was lightened of my labour and care for the child; and suddenly the prison was made a palace for me, so that I would sooner be there than anywhere else.

4. Then said my brother to me: Lady my sister, you are now in high honor, even such that you might ask for a vision; and it should be shown you whether this be a passion or else a deliverance. And I, as knowing that I conversed with the Lord, for Whose sake I had suffered such things, did promise him nothing doubting; and I said: Tomorrow I will tell you. And I asked, and this was shown me.

I beheld a ladder of bronze, marvelously great, reaching up to heaven; and it was narrow, so that not more than one might go up at one time. And in the sides of the ladder were planted all manner of things of iron. There were swords there, spears, hooks, and knives; so that if any that went up took not good heed or looked not upward, he would be torn and his flesh cling to the iron. And there was right at the ladder's foot a serpent lying, marvelously great, which lay in wait for those that would go up, and frightened them that they might not go up. Now Saturus went up first (who afterwards had of his own free will given up himself for our -sakes, because it was he who had edified us; and when we were taken he had not been there). And he came to the ladder's head; and he turned and said: Perpetua, I await you; but see that serpent bite you not. And I said: it shall not hurt me, in the name of Jesus Christ. And from beneath the ladder, as though it feared me, it softly put forth its head; and as though I trod on the first step I trod on its head. And I went up, and I saw a very great space of garden, and in the midst a man sitting, white-headed, in shepherd's clothing, tall milking his sheep; and standing around in white were many thousands. And he raised his head and beheld me and said to me: Welcome, child. And he cried to me, and from the curd he had from the milk he gave me as it were a morsel; and I took it with joined hands and ate it up; and all that stood around said, Amen. And at the sound of that word I awoke, yet eating I know not what of sweet.

And at once I told my brother, and we knew it should be a passion; and we began to have no hope any longer in this world.

5. A few days after, the report went abroad that we were to be tried. Also my father returned from the city spent with weariness; and he came up to me to cast down my faith saying: Have pity, daughter, on my grey hairs; have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be, called father by you; if with these hands I have brought you unto this flower of youth- and I-have preferred you before all your brothers; give me not over to the reproach of men. Look upon your brothers; look upon your mother and mother's sister; look upon your son, who will not endure to live after you. Give up your resolution; do not destroy us all together; for none of us will speak openly against men again if you suffer aught.

This he said fatherly in his love, kissing my hands and grovelling at my feet; and with tears he named me, not daughter, but lady. And I was grieved for my father's case because he would not rejoice at my passion out of all my kin; and I comforted him, saying: That shall be done at this tribunal, whatsoever God shall please; for know that we are not established in our own power, but in God's. And he went from me very sorrowful.

6. Another day as we were at meal we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the forum. Therewith a report spread abroad through the parts near to the forum, and a very great multitude gathered together. We went up to the tribunal. The others being asked, confessed. So they came to me. And my father appeared there also, with my son, and would draw me from the step, saying: Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child. And Hilarian the procurator - he that after the death of Minucius Timinian the proconsul had received in his room the right and power of the sword - said: Spare your father's grey hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperors' prosperity. And I answered: I am a Christian. And when my father stood by me yet to cast down my faith, he was bidden by Hilarian to be cast down and was smitten with a rod. And I sorrowed for my father's harm as though I had been smitten myself; so sorrowed I for his unhappy old age. Then Hilarian passed sentence upon us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully we went down to the dungeon. Then because my child had been used to being breastfed and to staying with me in the prison, straightway I sent Pomponius the deacon to my father, asking for the child. But my father would not give him. And as God willed, no longer did he need to be suckled, nor did I take fever; that I might not be tormented by care for the child and by the pain of my breasts.

7. A few days after, while we were all praying, suddenly in the midst of the prayer I uttered a word and named Dinocrates; and I was amazed because he had never come into my mind save then; and I sorrowed, remembering his fate. And straightway I knew that I was worthy, and that I ought to ask for him. And I began to pray for him long, and to groan unto the Lord. Immediately the same night, this was shown me.

I beheld Dinocrates coming forth from a dark place, where were many others also; being both hot and thirsty, his raiment foul, his color pale; and the wound on his face which he had when he died. This Dinocrates had been my brother in the flesh, seven years old, who being diseased with ulcers of the face had come to a horrible death, so that his death was abominated of all men. For him therefore I had made my prayer; and between him and me was a great gulf, so that either might not go to the other. There was moreover, in the same place where Dinocrates was, a font full of water, having its edge higher than was the boy's stature; and Dinocrates stretched up as though to drink. I was sorry that the font had water in it, and yet for the height of the edge he might not drink.

And I awoke, and I knew that my brother was in travail. Yet I was confident I should ease his travail; and I prayed for him every day till we passed over into the camp prison. (For it was in the camp games that we were to fight; and the time was the feast of the Emperor Geta's birthday.) And I prayed for him day and night with groans and tears, that he might be given me.

8. On the day when we abode in the stocks, this was shown me.

I saw that place which I had before seen, and Dinocrates clean of body, finely clothed, m comfort; and the font I had seen before, the edge of it being drawn to the boy's navel; and he drew water thence which flowed without ceasing. And on the edge was a golden cup full of water; and Dinocrates came up and began to drink therefrom; which cup failed not. And being satisfied he departed away from the water and began to play as children will, joyfully.

And I awoke. Then I understood that he was translated from his pains.

9. Then a few days after, Pudens the adjutant, in whose charge the prison was, who also began to magnify us because he understood that there was much grace in us, let in many to us that both we and they in turn might be comforted. Now when the day of the games drew near, there came in my father to me , spent with weariness, and began to pluck out his beard and throw it on e ground and to fall on his face cursing his years and saying such words as might move all creation. I was grieved for his unhappy old age.

10. The day before we fought, I saw in a vision that Pomponius the deacon had come hither to the door of the prison, and knocked hard upon it. And I went out to him and opened to him; he was clothed in a white robe ungirdled, having shoes curiously wrought. And he said to me: Perpetua, we await you; come. And he took my hand, and we began to go through rugged and winding places. At last with much breathing hard we came to the amphitheatre, and he led me into the midst of the arena. And he said to me: Be not afraid; I am here with you and labour together with you. And he went away. And I saw much people watching closely. And because I knew that I was condemned to the beasts I marvelled that beasts were not sent out against me. And there came out against me a certain ill-favored Egyptian with his helpers, to fight with me. Also there came to me comely young men, my helpers and aiders. And I was stripped naked, and I became a man. And my helpers began to rub me with oil as their custom is for a contest; and over against me saw that Egyptian wallowing in the dust. And there came forth a man of very great stature, so that he overpassed the very top of the amphitheatre, wearing a robe ungirdled, and beneath it between the two stripes over the breast a robe of purple; having also shoes curiously wrought in gold and silver; bearing a rod like a master of gladiators, and a green branch whereon were golden apples. And he besought silence and said: The Egyptian, if shall conquer this woman, shall slay her with the sword; and if she shall conquer him, she shall receive this branch. And he went away. And we came nigh to each other, and began to buffet one another. He tried to trip up my feet, but I with my heels smote upon his face. And I rose up into the air and began so to smite him as though I trod not the earth. But when I saw that there was yet delay, I joined my hands, setting finger against finger of them. And I caught his head, and he fell upon his face; and I trod upon his head. And the people began to shout, and my helpers began to sing. And I went up to the master of gladiators and received the branch. And he kissed me and said to me: Daughter, peace be with you. And I began to go with glory to the gate called the Gate of Life.

And I awoke; and I understood that I should fight, not with beasts but against the devil; but I knew that mine was the victory.

Thus far I have written this, till the day before the games; but the deed of the games tehmsleves let him write who will.

SATURUS' ACCOUNT

11. And blessed Saturus too delivered this vision which he himself wrote down.

We had suffered, he said, and we passed out of the flesh, and we began to be carried towards the east by four angels whose hand touched us not. And we went not as though turned upwards upon our backs, but as though we went up an easy hill. And passing over the world's edge we saw a very great light; and I said to Perpetua (for she was at my side): This which the Lord promised us; we have received His promise. And while we were being carried by these same four angels, a great space opened before us, as it had been a having rose-trees and all kinds of flowers. The height of the trees was after the manner of the cypress, and their leaves sang without ceasing. And there in the garden were four other angels, more glorious than the rest; who when they saw us gave us honor and said to the other angels: Lo, here are they, here are they: and marvelled. And the four angels who bore us set us down trembling; and we passed on foot by a broad way over a plain. There we found Jocundus and Saturninus and Artaxius who in the same persecution had been burned alive; and Quintus, a martyr also, who in prison had departed this life; and we asked of them where were the rest. The other angels said to us: Come first, go in, and salute the Lord.

12. And we came near to a place, of which place the walls were such, they seemed built of light; and before the door of that place stood four angels who clothed us when we went in with white raiment. And we went in, and we heard as it were one voice crying Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, without any end. And we saw sitting in that same place as it were a man, white-headed, having hair like snow; youthful of countenance; whose feet we saw not. And on his right hand and on his left, four elders; and behind them stood many other elders. And we went in with wonder and stood before the throne; and the four angels raised us up and we kissed him, and with his hand he passed over our faces. And the other elders said to us: Stand you. And we stood, and gave the kiss of peace. And the elders said to us: Go you and play. And I said to Perpetua: You have that which you desire. And she said to me: Yes, God be thanked; so that I that was glad in the flesh am now more glad.

13. And we went out, and we saw before the doors, on the right Optatus the bishop, and on the left Aspasius the priest and teacher, being apart and sorrowful. And they cast themselves at our feet and said: Make peace between us, because you went forth and left us thus. And we said to them: Are not you our Father, and you our priest, that you should throw yourselves at our feet? And we were moved, and embraced them. And Perpetua began to talk with them in Greek; and we set them apart in the pleasure garden beneath a rose tree. And while we yet spoke with them, the angels said to them: Let these go and be refreshed; and whatsoever dissensions you have between you, Put them away from you each for each. And they made them to be confounded. And they said to Optatus: Correct your people; for they come to you as those that return from the games and wrangle concerning the parties there. And it seemed to us as though they would shut the gates. And we began to know many brothers there, martyrs also. And we were all sustained there with a savour inexpressible which satisfied us. Then in joy I awoke.

NARRATIVE OF MARTYRDOM

14. These were the glorious visions of those martyrs themselves, the most blessed Saturus and Perpetua, which they themselves wrote down. But Secundulus by an earlier end God called from this world while he was yet in prison; not without grace, that he should escape the beasts. Yet if not his soul, his flesh at least knew the sword.

15. As for Felicity, she too received this grace of the Lord. For because she was now gone eight months (being indeed with child when she was taken) she was very sorrowful as the day of the games drew near, fearing lest for this cause she should be kept back (for it is not lawful for women that are with child to be brought forth for torment) and lest she should shed her holy and innocent blood after the rest, among strangers and malefactors. Also her fellow martyrs were much afflicted lest they should leave behind them so good a friend and as it were their fellow-traveller on the road of the same hope. Wherefore with joint and united groaning they poured out their prayer to the Lord, three days before the games. Incontinently after their prayer her pains came upon her. And when by reason of the natural difficulty of the eighth month she was oppressed with her travail and made complaint, there said to her one of the servants of the keepers of the door: You that thus make complaint now, what wilt you do when you are thrown to the beasts, which you didst contemn when you would not sacrifice? And she answered, I myself now suffer that which I suffer, but there another shall be in me who shall suffer for me, because I am to suffer for him. So she was delivered of a daughter, whom a sister reared up to be her own daughter.

16. Since therefore the Holy Spirit has suffered, and suffering has willed, that the order of the games also should be written; though we are unworthy to finish the recounting of so great glory, yet we accomplish the will of the most holy Perpetua, nay rather her sacred trust, adding one testimony more of her own steadfastness and height of spirit. When they were being more cruelly handled by the tribune. because through advice of certain most despicable men he feared lest by magic charms they might be withdrawn secretly from the prison house, Perpetua answered him to his face: Why do you not allow us to take some comfort, seeing we are victims most noble, namely Caesar's, and on his feast day we are to fight? Or is it not your glory that we should be taken out thither fatter of flesh? The tribune trembled and blushed, and gave order that they should be more gently handled, granting that her brothers and the rest should come in and rest with them. Also the adjutant of the prison now believed.

17. Likewise on the day before the games, when at the last feast which they call Free they made (as far as they might) not a Free Feast but a Love Feast*, with like hardihood they cast these words at the people; threatening the judgment of the Lord, witnessing to the felicity of their passion, setting at nought the curiosity of those that ran together. And Saturus said: Is not tomorrow sufficient for you? Why do you favorably behold that which you hate? You are friends today, foes tomorrow. Yet mark our faces diligently, that you may know us again on that day. So they began all to go away thence astonished; of whom many believed.

[note: Apparently Roman, as with modern, custom the condemned were allowed a choice of food. The martyrs used the opportunity to celebrate an Agape, or Christian Love-Feast.]

18. Now dawned the day of their victory, and they went forth from the prison into the amphitheatre as it were into heaven, cheerful and bright of countenance; if they trembled at all, it was for joy, not for fear. Perpetua followed behind, glorious of presence, as a true spouse of Christ and darling of God; at whose piercing look all cast down their eyes. Felicity likewise, rejoicing that she had borne a child in safety, that she might fight with the beasts, came now from blood to blood, from the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after her travail in a second baptism. And when they had been brought to the gate and were being compelled to put on, the men the dress of the priests of Saturn, the women the dress of the priestesses of Ceres, the noble Perpetua remained of like firmness to the end, and would not. For she said: For this cause came we willingly unto this, that our liberty might not be obscured. For this cause have we devoted our lives, that we might do no such thing as this; this we agreed with you. Injustice acknowledged justice; the tribune suffered that they should be brought forth as they were, without more ado. Perpetua began to sing, as already treading on the Egyptian's head. Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus threatened the people as they gazed. Then when they came into Hilarian's sight, they began to say to Hilarian, stretching forth their hands and nodding their heads: You judge us, they said, and God you. At this the people being enraged besought that they should be vexed with scourges before the line of gladiators (those namely who fought with beasts). Then truly they gave thanks because they had received somewhat of the sufferings of the Lord.

19. But He who had said Ask and you shall receive [John 16:24] gave to them asking that end which each had desired. For whenever they spoke together of their desire in their martyrdom, Saturninus for his part would declare that he wished to be thrown to every kind of beast, that so indeed he might wear the more glorious crown. At the beginning of the spectacle therefore himself with Revocatus first had ado with a leopard and was afterwards torn by a bear on a raised bridge. Now Saturus detested nothing more than a bear, but was confident already he should die by one bite of a leopard. Therefore when he was being given to a boar, the gladiator instead who had bound him to the boar was torn asunder by the same beast and died after the days of the games; nor was Saturus more than dragged. Moreover when he had been tied on the bridge to be assaulted by a bear, the bear would not come forth from his den. So Saturus was called back unharmed a second time.

20. But for the women the devil had made ready a most savage cow, prepared for this purpose against all custom; for even in this beast he would mock their sex. They were stripped therefore and made to put on nets; and so they were brought forth. The people shuddered, seeing one a tender girl, the other her breasts yet dropping from her late childbearing. So they were called back and clothed in loose robes. Perpetua was first thrown, and fell upon her loins. And when she had sat upright, her robe being rent at the side, she drew it over to cover her thigh, mindful rather of modesty than of pain. Next, looking for a pin, she likewise pinned up her dishevelled hair; for it was not meet that a martyr should suffer with hair dishevelled, lest she should seem to grieve in her glory. So she stood up; and when she saw Felicity smitten down, she went up and gave her her hand and raised her up.. And both of them stood up together and the (hardness of the people being now subdued) were called back to the Gate of Life. There Perpetua being received by one named Rusticus, then a catechumen, who stood close at her side, and as now awakening from sleep (so much was she in the Spirit and in ecstasy) began first to look about her; and then (which amazed all there), When, forsooth, she asked, are we to be thrown to the cow? And when she heard that this had been done already, she would not believe till she perceived some marks of mauling on her body and on her dress. Thereupon she called her brother to her, and that catechumen, and spoke to them, saying: Stand fast in the faith, and love you all one another; and be not offended because of our passion.

21. Saturus also at another gate exhorted Pudens the soldier, saying: So then indeed, as I trusted and foretold, I have felt no assault of beasts until now. And now believe with all your heart. Behold, I go out thither and shall perish by one bite of the leopard. And immediately at the end of the spectacle, the leopard being released, with one bite of his he was covered with so much blood that the people (in witness to his second baptism) cried out to him returning: Well washed, well washed. Truly it was well with him who had washed in this wise. Then said he to Pudens the soldier: Farewell; remember the faith and me; and let not these things trouble you, but strengthen you. And therewith he took from Pudens' finger a little ring, and dipping it in his wound gave it back again for an heirloom, leaving him a pledge and memorial of his blood. Then as the breath left him he was cast down with the rest in the accustomed place for his throat to be cut. And when the people besought that they should be brought forward, that when the sword pierced through their bodies their eyes might be joined thereto as witnesses to the slaughter, they rose of themselves and moved, whither the people willed them, first kissing one another, that they might accomplish their martyrdom with the rites of peace. The rest not moving and in silence received the sword; Saturus much earlier gave up the ghost; for he had gone up earlier also, and now he waited for Perpetua likewise. But Perpetua, that she might have some taste of pain, was pierced between the bones and shrieked out; and when the swordsman's hand wandered still (for he was a novice), herself set it upon her own neck. Perchance so great a woman could not else have been slain (being feared of the unclean spirit) had she not herself so willed it.

O most valiant and blessed martyrs! O truly called and elected unto the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Which glory he that magnifies, honors and adores, ought to read these witnesses likewise, as being no less than the old, unto the Church's edification; that these new wonders also may testify that one and the same Holy Spirit works ever until now, and with Him God the Father Almighty, and His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, to Whom is glory and power unending for ever and ever. Amen.

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 4 years ago

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South Korean music industry at a glance: an outsider perspective

I watched one particular AMV last week. The song used for the video was “I’m afraid” by Korean rock band DAY6. I was pleasantly surprised as someone who values lyrics in song first and foremost. The music itself was great. I’ll listen to their songs again. It’s a nice fit for my music taste. Naturally, YouTube’s algorithm decided that I’m a fan of everything Korean after 1 video and started spamming my recommendations with k-pop songs, documentaries and everything in-between.

I watched a couple of videos, listened to some songs and discovered fascinating patterns. So, I went down to the comment section. And it was rather interesting experience, should I say? The concept of entertainment industry in South Korea simply begged to be explored more after this. I dug deeper and visited Tumblr k-pop tags and briefly glanced upon Instagram and Twitter. And, oh...

I am a big picture person and I enjoy both studying and creating systems. This one was particularly fun to explore. I discovered a lot of new things for myself. Perhaps, you can discover something new for yourself too or take a step back and look at this from a new angle.

Disclaimer: it’s impossible not to offend someone on Tumblr, so keep that in mind. That being said, I do NOT intend to insult of offend anyone. It’s just a little research done for fun, because I love research with a purpose. This post is NOT A HATE post. No hate intended for fans, artists or other people involved. It’s meant to be a discussion, nothing more and nothing less. If it sounds like hate, it’s just my sarcastic sense of humour.

Content Warning: I mention suicide, death, depression, rape in a couple of sentences. There’s nothing major or graphic, but it’s there.

In this long post I decided to share with you my opinion, a so-called outsider perspective, on the world of music entertainment industry in South Korea and people involved in it on different levels. I use the word “outsider” mainly because, that’s exactly what I am in this case, as someone who is in no way involved in k-pop community. I can’t name you a single band or their members. I don’t know any solo artist and can’t neither sing nor name you any song.

And to be completely honest, I don’t think I will set my foot into k-pop fan-circles ever again after everything I saw.

Think of this as “In this essay I will...” meme, except there’s an actual essay.

As far as I know, in South Korea “k-pop” refers to all music produced in SK, including solo artists, various bands, singers-songwriters. It doesn’t even have to be pop music. Koreans include in this definition all genres of music. However, around the world “k-pop” means primarily music made by idol groups and bands marketed for children, teenagers and younger people. In this post I use the latter definition, because that’s how most people understand “k-pop” in other countries. Therefore, my statements, opinions and conclusions here would concern only idol music.

The music industry in South Korea is heavily influenced by culture and traditions of the country, just like all things are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, different backgrounds are what makes people so interesting and unique. However, when combined with consumer mindset, desire to generate profit at any cost and fast-paced nature of modern life these neutral cultural elements could produce something concerning, and it can lead to disastrous consequences.

1. Idol

These people are called artists, musicians, singers, bands, groups, performers. In South Korea and in Japan, however, people call them Idols or Stars. I’ve also seen Muses, Princes and Queens. Interesting, isn’t it? The terminology used to describe these musicians in South Korea is one of the key elements in this whole entertainment system. You’ll see why.

But who or what is an idol exactly? Let’s take a basic definition from Wikipedia.

“In the practice of religion, a cult image or devotional image is a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, person, spirit or daemon ... that it embodies or represents. In several traditions, including the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and modern Hinduism, cult images in a temple may undergo a daily routine of being washed, dressed, and having food left for them. Processions outside the temple on special feast days are often a feature. Religious images cover a wider range of all types of images made with a religious purpose, subject, or connection. In many contexts "cult image" specifically means the most important image in a temple, kept in an inner space, as opposed to what may be many other images decorating the temple.

The term idol is often synonymous with worship cult image. In cultures where idolatry is not viewed negatively, the word idol is not generally seen as pejorative, such as in Indian English.”

Cambridge Dictionary defines idol as follows:

And here’s the definition from Oxford Dictionary:

This is a centrepiece of this tapestry. Surely, you have noticed by now what these definitions have in common.

Idol = a cult image of a god, a deity

By calling these musicians “idols” industry makes society and audience treat them in certain way, namely as gods. What characteristics do gods possess? They are beautiful, talented, funny, confident and graceful, blessed by eternal youth of immortality. Gods have no flaws, they do not bleed, they are above human concerns. They are an embodiment of perfection. They are stars, you could not reach.

But real people are not like that. They can be sad and angry, insecure. People don’t have perfectly symmetrical faces. They can’t dance in sync without preparation. They can’t sing like angels at any given moment throughout the day.

What happens when idols accidentally reveal their humanity? What happens when people see, that they make mistakes and do stupid things, that they need to train hard to appear graceful on stage?

I will tell you. And it’s not pretty. But, first, let’s look at other elements of this system.

2. Y/N and Self-insert fantasy

Aside from the music, K-pop sells the self-insert fantasy to the audience. It’s carefully arranged to appear real, where the cracks are masked and every word is scripted. The reality is so vivid that one doesn’t even have to use imagination all that much, because all scenarios and decorations already exist. Countless interviews for TV and magazines, fan meetings, talk shows, reality shows made sure people are privy to all juicy details of personal lives and opinions of musicians. And also one word - merchandise. Some of that merch made me question my life choices. Some of it is, ah, creepy or has weird vibes. All of this provides plenty of material for people to work with. Fans can effortlessly imagine themselves beside their idols or even in their place.

In a highly competitive society, where people throw themselves into studying and work since young age, forming deep and lasting connections with others is very hard, sometimes impossible. As a result, people long to have a group of close friends with similar interests, a loving partner who would cherish them endlessly. People want to be rewarded for their backbreaking efforts to succeed by the carefree life of fame and music, everlasting friendships and love. And in a way you can’t really blame them for his.

Does this dream life sound familiar? We are looking at K-pop bands here. It doesn’t really matter if their members don’t always get along or that they can live in debt, that fame is fickle and adoring fans can tear your self-confidence to shreds. Audience wants the glamour of fantasy and the industry is more than happy to cater to these desires.

Perhaps, knowing that even for idols this fantasy is sometimes unattainable makes the whole set up feel just a little cruel.

3. Fans, stans and fandom culture

We’ve already established earlier that idols are gods in the eyes of people and listed traits they must possess. So, what else do gods need to exist? Worshippers. Because a cult is worth nothing without its followers. Gods need a group of people to worship them and spread their beliefs. The role of worshippers is performed by a fans in this case.

Apparently, there is a running joke that girl groups need to win a general public popularity and boy bands need a big passionate fandom. It seems to be true according to my observations.

In k-pop fandom people use the word “stan” to state that they like or support particular group. Now, I am sure everyone here knows that in other fandoms, dedicated to movies, shows, books and games there’s an important distinction between being a “fan” and a “stan”. What is it?

A fan is someone who likes a ship or character, creates and/or consumes fandom content, supports certain ideas, discusses things they enjoyed and disliked, criticises canon. Stans, however, are a different breed. They engage in all typical fandom activities, but their support and enjoyment becomes obsession. Stans believe their favourite characters and ships are immune to criticism, that they are superior no matter what others say. Stans start shipping wars, send anon hate, death threats over fictional characters and hurt real people. Stans are considered toxic fans. And majority of normal civilised people don’t like them and try their best to let stans hang out in their echo chamber by themselves.

In other fandoms and communities, to be a fan means to love, support and enjoy something, while to stan means to obsess over and hyperfixate on these same things. Words “I stan” rarely mean “I support” for most people, and if they do mean that, it’s only used in a joking manner (”We stan procrastination legend!”, “I stan our miscommunication kings”).

Everywhere else “stan” has only negative connotations, except in k-pop. But what has changed? What’s the difference? Why do international fans scoff at “shipper stans” and then turn around calling themselves “stans of X k-pop group” at the same time? Does it make you wonder?

And this is another core theme of k-pop, in my opinion. In fandom where stan = obsession = support, you can see interesting patterns.

Fandom loves their flawless gods. But watching them from afar is not enough for some people, because unlike deities in different religions, these gods live among us. People are very much aware of that. Industry has created a cult and laid the groundwork for worshippers to express their adoration in every way including personal contact. And who wouldn’t want to meet their god? Who wouldn’t want to know more about them or tell them how much you love them? In talk shows and fan meetings there is only so much one can do after all.

People desire to know more, to have more so much that their obsession transforms into concerning stalker tendencies. These crazy individuals follow idols, stalk them on social media, in hotels, research flight numbers, bribe security. Musicians were attacked and poisoned. I strongly suspect there were cases of rape that no one knows about. There is even a special term for these fans - “sasaeng”.

Is there a definition for stalkers of actors or musicians in western world? No, I’m pretty sure there isn’t. They are just called “invasive/obsessive fans” or “stalkers”.

Also, there are sasaeng memes. Yeah, you heard that right. I enjoy some classy dark humour as much as the next person, but there is a fine line between normal and questionable.

Back to the topic of stalkers. Do you realise how disturbing that is? Such behaviour is so common that there is a term for it. You create a fandom-cult, encourage people to worship k-pop idols as gods and then act surprised when members of said cult become fanatics and their adoration becomes obsession.

And it’s so easy to step on this slippery road. The system makes it ridiculously easy. Lines begin to blur. How much is too much? Where do you draw the line?

While sasaeng fans engage in extreme real-life obsession, people online aren’t that far off, to be honest. I’ve seen it all: imagines, headcanons, fanfiction, real-person shipping, reactions. Real person shipping is a controversial topic. Some people support it, others don’t. I suppose I’m among those who don’t get it. I’m not exactly against it, but I find it strange. Mainly because it’s based on assumptions made by fans about personalities and behaviour of real people.

Assumptions. Dear me! K-pop fandom has this thing with video compilations. I’ve never seen this phenomenon being so widespread in any other community or fandom. Basically people edit together a collection of short clips from talk-shows, interviews, Instagram stories, some YouTube videos, etc and then proceed to analyse every gesture, word, facial expression of idols and provide both audio and on-screen commentary. These videos and many other forms of similar analysis allow people to imagine what kind of personalities idols have, what kind of life do they live. It’s the source material for fanfiction, imagines and headcanons.

But it’s not real. It’ll never be real. It’s an illusion, an image, a stage persona. They fall in love with a face and made up personality. And I think that when people create this content they can forget this. Fans can develop certain emotional dependence and unhealthy attitudes in the long run. In some YouTube comments even supportive and encouraging words sound whiny and obsessive. And semantics of being a “stan” of certain group or individual doesn’t help.

4. Industry, companies and liars

At last we arrive at the most important aspect of music entertainment industry - its creators.

Have you seen “The Road to El Dorado”? It’s one of my all time favourites. It has iconic characters, adult jokes that I didn’t get as a child and iconic soundtrack. I’ll quote “It’s Tough To Be A God” a lot here.

In South Korea music industry is a factory, the production line to be exact. This kind of set up affects everything in the grand scheme of things. Companies and agencies play the role of training centres and record labels. And there are so many of them that a whole new scamming system developed based around fake idol agencies. It implies that there are people who fall for offers of these agencies and continue to do so. I suspect that victims must pay a fortune upfront before they realise their mistake. Are there any kind of legal protection against such scams? How can people verify the authenticity? Because a well masked scam can exist for a long time before someone discovers it and calls them out on their nonsense.

As far as I understand legal companies work like this. After high school, which is often focused on performing arts (and private schools can get away with using talents of students for personal gain, which is totally not surprising), young people can audition for an agency and become an idol in training or idol-trainee. And passing audition is hard. But good recommendations can help, connections too.

During training you don’t get paid. Only a few companies pay aspiring musicians. People can spend years in training and don’t debut. But rent, necessities, clothing and food (not that you need much of it, but more on that later) cost a lot. Where do you get the money to live then? Support from parents, one or two part time jobs at most and bank loans. Surprise! We found an unexpected (just kidding, it’s very obvious) party, who reaps benefits from the system.

You need skill to be an idol. Natural talent helps too. The more skills you have, the cheaper and faster your training is. To level up your game you attend classes every month offered by your agency, which are not cheap (dance classes range from 400$ to 1000$ per month, sometimes more). There are four main categories in evaluation process: vocals, rapping, dancing and visuals. Idols are multitaskers, to have a chance on stage one must be perfect at everything. And people are ready to invest thousands of dollars into their kids training so that they could have a chance in entertainment industry. South Korea thrives on revenue k-pop industry generates every day.

Let’s pause here for a second and think about what kind of people come to these agencies. The answer is easy. People who have a dream, a desire, a real goal. You don’t wake up one day and decide to become a k-pop idol. Sometimes people get invited by agencies (after prior acting, modelling career or any other form of exposure). These people are usually very young. Some start straight after high school, some after university, but 25 years old is considered a late start. Compare that to western musicians who start singing at any age and still become famous.

But why this age limit? Because idols are eternally young. So that in public eye musicians are remembered as 20 year old gods. People would listen to their music and imagine a young attractive face. Career in k-pop is short, it lasts 5-7 years, rarely longer than that. It’s even less than modelling or acting can offer. And professional sportsmen retire in their late 30′s. Some play longer, but usually, that’s it.

If you live in Los Angeles and say that you want to be an actor or performer, no one would bat an eye. It’s like saying that you want to be an engineer or accountant. Similarly, in South Korea becoming an k-pop musician is a real career. Because part of the self insert fantasy that the industry sells is the idea that anyone can be an idol. It’s easy after all. Anyone can pass auditions and become a trainee. A trainee with no guarantee of debut. But one should never underestimate the power of idol-dream. After all, idea is the most resilient parasite.

“My friends started training in kindergarten. They have wanted to become idols since young”

“A lot of young kids get interested in Korean music”

A 6-year old child sees the performance of k-pop group for the first time on TV. Let’s say it’s a girl. She is enraptured and decides that she will be like that too someday. She grows up, while being part of the fandom, just like all idols are in one way or another and whose fan-obsession transforms into desire to succeed. Her parents spend time and money to find her tutors, to fund dancing and singing classes. Perhaps in high school this girl decides to fix the shape of her eyes and make nose straighter. She trains hard and passes the auditions in her dream agency. And during training this girl faces the reality of behind the scenes life in music industry.

“Why are you crying? I’m not even pushing you”

“How many times have I told you? The rest are doing it perfectly”

“She is dancing like an elementary school student“

“I watched your performance as a spectator who bought a ticket to your concert. I want a refund“

“You make my ears hurt. I don’t want to listen at all”

“Listening to you was tiring”

“I’ll kick you out instead. You won’t debut”

“I thought I was going to die. That’s how determined I was”

While I do understand that keeping a high quality standards in media industry is important, there are more productive and healthy ways to motivate someone to improve and be more passionate, you know? Constantly insulting people with sadistic glee and putting them down at every opportunity or calling them ugly to their face doesn’t do much.

Do you think that children know about this? Do they know about soulless teachers and belittling managers? Do they know about friends who are really your competition, so you shouldn’t get attached? Do they know about living in debt? Do they know any of this? No, I don’t think they do.

Children dream about the stage, about the sea of lights and crowds who chant your names. They want adoring fans and photoshoots. They want to appear on TV and magazine covers. Teenagers want the thrill of performance, they want to share their music and dancing with others.

“I don’t know how many times I cried alone”

The truth is cruel. But they won’t give up easily even if it means sleeping 4-5 hours and consuming no more than 500 calories per day. Because giving up means that your whole life was a lie. One can’t afford not to be good enough. Giving up means admitting that all efforts and money your family invested into your dream were in vain. It means losing face before your family and friends - a fate worse than death. Imagine living this idol dream and building your whole future around it and then being told that you’ll never debut because of the circumstances outside of your control or something minor, like face shape or 1 kg of weight that your body refuses to lose. It can break you. Especially if you are like 18 or something.

5. “And who am I to bridle if I'm forced to be an idol If they say that I'm a God, that's what I am”

“I don’t think there’s anything a tough as being a trainee in Korea”

Once you are a trainee at the agency your personal life does not belong to you anymore. You can’t go out without permission of the agency. You phone is taken away. Your diet and weight are monitored. Bad habits are not allowed (no smoking, drinking or drugs). Oh! I think I found the good thing in the system! Unfortunately, it won’t last. Trainees can’t date or meet with family without permission of agency. Dating is very taboo. Even established idols can’t openly date.

Why is that? Because gods can’t belong to anyone. Their lives are property of the fandom. Because openly dating idols destroy the self-insert fantasy. There was a former idol girl who dated another musician. She was called a whore by her fans, her loving and adoring stans. You might know who I am talking about. Would you call an American actor or singer a prostitute for dating someone?

Trainees sign the contract. And how can a young person straight out of school or university know much about what makes a good contract in entertainment industry or what makes a good contract in general? Even if you do understand the terms fully you would still sign it because if you have come so far, you can’t let your dream slip this easily. There isn’t a choice. Not really. If you want to debut, you will agree to anything.

What about life after debut? You have to pay off your loans. And company takes 60-70% of your group’s earnings. Artists themselves get 30-40% and split it between themselves. K-pop groups have from 5 to 10 members or more than that. Each person gets less than 6%. Idols are not filthy rich. They are not. These earnings are practically nothing compared to the work you have put into this.

Idols are musicians, who often don’t even write their own songs, music or create choreography. But if public doesn’t like the song and musical number the company created, they blame idols for the failure. Such an amazing logic we see right here. But people say that sharing music is the best part of idol life. But whose music?

Models on catwalk are not there to demonstrate their physical beauty, they are blank canvas for works of clothing designers. Same with k-pop musicians. They act like puppets in a way, whose faces and voices are used to show audience someone’s music and songs. Some groups do write their own music and lyrics and it’s nice to know that. But those, who don’t are rather unfortunate. It’s a nice tool of psychological control and pressure for an agency. They can hold it over group and use the following rhetoric: “We gave you everything! Why can’t you follow the simple instructions” or “Where would you be without us? It’s not even your music!”

I called k-pop industry a factory. That’s true. Dozens of people become trainees every year. These talented young people are fully prepared to do anything to achieve their goal. They are ready to practice until they collapse, starve themselves and pour themselves into every song. Companies know that. Tell me why would they value their idols as individuals, as people, as human beings if they always have a replacement? Why bother with mental health of their artists if next year they could have a fresh set of people, who are younger and prettier? Why try to improve relationships inside groups if you could fire any member and replace them within a month or two?

In western countries famous bands have different stories. Some were friends since high school, who played in bars and during festivals and then they were noticed by some representative of label company, who offered them a contract. Some groups were formed by like-minded people who bonded and decided to share their music with the world. There are many stories, but ultimately the have one thing in common. Bands in the West often form themselves. These people had time to bond, connect, discover each other, solve some disagreements and learn to work around their differences.

K-pop groups are formed by their agencies. They are their property in a way. Company selects the best and puts together these total strangers, appoints the leader with marketable face and personality and then expects them to work together like a well-oiled machine. No one has time to bond during training, because other people are you competition, not friends. And then you must learn to work as a team and be best friends on camera for the audience to support the self-insert fantasy. It’s no wonder that k-pop groups don’t get along sometimes. And every member knows that they are replaceable. It doesn’t help in forming connections. Groups can’t just terminate contract and go to work with another agency. I heard it happens sometimes, but it’s not a done thing. Unlike in other countries where bands just sign the deal with a different label and release their music under their name if they don’t like the old conditions.

“It's tough to be a God But if you get the people's nod Count your blessings, keep them sweet, that's our advice Be a symbol of perfection Be a legend, be a cult Take their praise, take a collection As the multitudes exalt Don a supernatural habit We'd be crazy not to grab it So sign up two new Gods for paradise”

But is it really a paradise?

Idols are expected to act cute, to match personalities created for them by fans or media. They have to act according to the concept of their group. They have to be a symbol of perfection: skinny, single and with a face perfected by surgery. They are allowed to mess up, but only in a cute way. They can break down and cry, but only if it’s “aesthetic”.

Weight issues are a separate topic. Sometimes I wonder whether managers in companies understand how weight loss or human body in general works. To be honest, I think that scales in agencies are rigged. And only managers know that. I know it can be done from personal experience. Some beach resorts tweak their scales and make them show 4-6 kg less than actual weight, so people wouldn’t get upset if they gain some. There is no way a girl as tall as I am (173 cm) could weigh like 47-50 kg and be able to perform complex choreography on stage and sing without being out of breath, visit the gym on a regular basis and generally function as a normal human without fainting every other day.

“I developed a lot of eating disorders”

“I think I consumed about 300 calories today“

“Someone, please, trim the fat off her arms”

If you grow up thinking of idols as gods and then, when you become one of them you think that you must act as one too. But being an easily replaceable god is a heavy burden. The industry, companies and audience want you to be perfect, to always be on your best behaviour. And the thought of not being good enough or divine enough terrifies you, because stans have no mercy (black ocean concept is the most stupid thing ever by the way). This kind of pressure can destroy even the most resilient. And it does.

Almost everyone knows that situation with mental health in South Korea is not the best to put it lightly. In many ways it’s a cultural thing. But in k-pop mental health issues are treated with even less care. Gods are not supposed to be depressed or suicidal. They are not supposed to have fears or insecurities, can’t be upset or angry. They try hard to be this deity, this image. So, even when they realise they need professional help or even a friend to talk to, they either won’t seek said help or reach out only to be met with silence. Some agencies disapprove or forbid therapy altogether.

Sometimes fandom becomes self-aware.

“Don’t forget that idols are people too!”

“Your favourite idols are running out of breath just to keep you entertained“

“They are humans, who have feelings!”

Oh, but here’s the thing, my friend. The industry doesn’t want you to think of them as people. Companies and media repeatedly reinforce the idea that they are not people, they are your idols. And strangely enough, the audience supports this idea. People continue to call them idols, developing worshiping tendencies in the process, imitate them, scrutinise their flaws and triumphs. Because, you know, only “real and ordinary humans” can have flaws, not “idols”.

So people who say “they are human too” and people who say “wow, this concert was amazing, but vocals in the beginning were so off-key, I simply can’t” are one and the same.

This thought process would have been funny if it wasn’t so disappointing. But that’s just my observation.

And here’s another thing about sexualisation. I said before how appearances are everything, marketable face and body could drastically improve your chances to succeed. Companies know about this too and concepts and aesthetics of groups are designed accordingly. Girls are dressed in skimpy outfits, their dances are unnecessary suggestive, they wear heavy make up and try to have “mature” vibes. Boys don’t avoid such objectification either: suits, tight pants and dress shirts along with make up and hairstyle to give audience a promise of the things to come. Grown adults are not supposed to lust after 15-17 year olds. You can’t just create a sexy stage persona for teenagers. Do you remember my earlier words about creepy merch? Yeah. All of it neatly plays into the self-insert fantasy and encourages obsessive behaviour.

This happens in western countries too. In some way that’s understandable. Beautiful and sexy image with a hint of innocence attracts more people and sells, because it caters to one of the base human instincts. But some things make your skin crawl.

Sponsorships are another topic. Some k-pop bands seek out sponsors to provide financial aid and cover expenses, when earnings are not enough. Sometimes these sponsorships are fine, perfectly civil. But sometimes it’s a prostitution. Girl groups receive money and provide sexual favours to their patrons. It’s a way for the group to gain financial support and even find new opportunities in the industry. Companies can encourage such deals. Let that sink in for a moment.

6. “Any advice to those who want to become a k-pop idol?”

A lot of former idols and trainees have similar responses to this question.

“I don’t want to discourage anyone, but think twice”

“You only see the glamorous side, but don’t see all the hard work that goes into it”

“It’s not what you think”

“They think ‘Since I am good looking and can sing and dance really well, maybe I should become an idol?’, but there is much more to it“

“They think it’s something that is easy and will keep their family set for life financially”

And this implies that most people don’t know what kind of lifestyle k-pop stars truly have, despite the amount of information available online about “behind the scenes” proceedings.

7. Moving on

I am a practical person and every decision I make is subjected to scrutiny. And after seeing everything I can't help but wonder whether idols believe it's truly worth it. What keeps the industry alive is the idol-dream, the wilful ignorance of its reality and youthful idealism, the beautiful naïve belief that it'll get better, even if it never does in the end.

Sure no one would ever admit it out loud, because it's one of those things you never say on camera, no matter how sincere you have to be. It's the matter of professionalism after all, and idols have it spades. And also, because admitting this would equal admitting that you spent your best years doing something you both loved and hated, admitting that this was a mistake.

When you grow up in a society where appearances matter the most, where saving face and being polite is more important than staying true to yourself, where individuality is tolerated only to a certain point, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you need a break. I greatly respect those who decided that idol lifestyle is not for them and moved on.

8. Conclusion

To sum up, I hope you enjoyed my small research and this perspective, since you have read it all the way to the end.

You have noticed that entertainment industry is an intricate system and its every component makes sure nothing changes. Companies have power over idols and audience, fandom has power over idols and their careers, and musicians themselves have fame and their music, but not always the promised fortune or happiness.

It’s important to understand the big picture to draw your own conclusions and encourage positive and heathy attitudes in fandoms. Being open minded and allowing people to make mistakes and live their lives the way they want to is a part of being a decent person. People don’t owe anything to others. Art is about sharing your thoughts and feelings, promoting ideas and spreading beauty. It’s not always about money. And I think that this is what k-pop lacks as an industry. It turned dreams and human need for self-expression into business. Here everything is turned into a product. Everything idols touch can be sold, sometimes literally. Industry created problems, which can’t be solved anymore, because doing so would topple the system. And I find it tragic. Trapped in an endless chase after perfection creators of k-pop forgot that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

If you take a look at comment sections and posts on different platforms, what will you see? What kind of things resonate with audience? What makes people laugh and cry? When people start to appreciate the substance?

“Everyone needs to hear this song in their darkest moments”

“Thank you for your music!”

“They always deliver! These guys can’t make a bad song!”

“It inspired me to write again!”

“Their songs brought me and my sister together once again”

“This is what happens when you let groups write their own music - they make incredible things”

“They really are legends of k-pop! I love that they are not afraid to show their inner strength”

“Stay strong! You rock!”

I believe that the answer is quite simple: when it’s real, sincere. It’s all about the message you choose to send to your audience, because only superficial things cause obsession. When you say that the sparkly façade is all that matters, then that’s the only thing people will ever care about. Your audience will never give a damn about the meaning behind dancing, music or lyrics, if you tell them that performance is more important. No one would praise WHAT k-pop idols sing, instead they would prefer wasting breath to criticize HOW they sing or look or move.

I dare the k-pop industry to prove people that it’s not just about looks or perfection, or laser shows, or being a branding machine. Prove to your fans that k-pop artists are also passionate people with big dreams and talent, who love every moment of their job, who live and inspire, who are human just like us and whose humanity is real!

Do it, you cowards!

And now, I’m finished. I can hear the raging crowd of k-pop fandom in the distance, which means it’s time to hide. See you some other time!

#k-pop #korean music #k-rock #k-pop idol #k-pop meta #k-pop discussion #k-pop fandom criticism

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cat-x-riceball · 4 years ago

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I love all the fruits basket pairings. I want to give my thoughts on every couple and how well they compliment each other. There's obviously going to be manga spoilers.

Let's start with my favourite couple. I do like all of them, though. These are not my rankings.

Kyo & Tohru: They are just meant to be. As everyone frequently says, Tohru is good for anyone. Because Tohru is just wife material - she knows cooking, likes household chores, isn't selfish and self-centered, cherishes and genuinely cares about the people around her, and extremely loyal to the one person she loves. Whereas, Kyo is the one most suited to her. While everyone, including Kyo, got help from Tohru, Kyo was the one who was by her side whenever she needed someone the most. He helped her get over the facts with her dad and made her realize that her dad wasn't the villain. Despite knowing he would turn into a cat, he hugged her, wrapped up in blankets. Oh boy, that was hot. Not only that, they both emotionally support each other. Their characters might be different but they have a lot similarities, and persons like them would probably get along really well in real life. They do domestic work together. They are both morning persons. They both can cook. They are good listeners. They get flustered a lot and are shy. Oh, my gosh! I really need to stop ranting. I will keep on going about Kyoru. So guys, all in all, Kyoru is a perfect couple.

Haru & Rin: The iconic gothic couple. Gosh, their dressing style is fab. I read somewhere in the extra of the author of furuba that Hatsuharu picked up these kind of fashion sense from Rin, before that he used to dress up like Kyo - like wear hoodies, t-shirts and sneakers. That's how much Rin influenced him. On the other hand, Rin started liking accessories made by Haru. I love their influence on each other. Plus, Rin and Haru would do anything for each other. Haru is a natural kind and gentle person, except when he goes Black. Whereas, Rin has a very sharp tongue, but still cares about Haru the most. Rin is probably the best to keep Haru in check since he is a space cadet, god knows what he thinks all the time. On the contrary, Haru is the best to be by Rin's side. As everyone Rin had in her life thought of her as a burden, Haru genuinely cares about her and is stubborn to not her go - that is the exact thing Rin needed. Not to mention, Haru is the type to donate everything to others and Rin is the type to not share anything. Therefore, they balance each other out perfectly.

Yuki & Machi: A messy, sweet couple. They are both so unhygienic, it's hilarious. They compliment each other perfectly. One has a sassy mouth, and another has a sharp tongue. God bless their child! Their understanding is very cool, too. Machi is one of those very few people who saw through Yuki - his loneliness and insecurities. We can see in chapter 136 that Machi is someone who gets insecure with her boyfriend but doesn't try to show it, which is very normal. I mean, if my boyfriend was that good-looking and charming, I probably would handcuff him with myself. On the other hand, the way Yuki expresses his love for Machi is so adorable. When he broke that perfect box of chalk for Machi, I was triumphed with delight. Not to mention, Mogeta is a bridge between their love. I love these two together.

Hiro & Kisa: Young love is beautiful - as long as Akito doesn't interfere. Hiro is a complete jerk, no arguments about that. But I love his personality completely flips when Kisa is there. I laughed my head off in the scene where Momiji texted Hiro for coming to the summer getaway and Hiro was bad-mouthing it, but as soon as Kisa said she wanted to go, he agreed almost immediately. Kisa is a sweet angel; she needs someone like Hiro who would fulfill her needs without getting bothered about it. As we have seen, Hiro is very caring for those he loves - his little sister, mom and Rin. Although, Hiro and Kisa might have some fights occasionally since Hiro has a trash mouth, he crosses the line sometimes. But in the end, they both will apologize for the mistakes and solve it.

Hatori & Mayu: Spring comes when snow melts. Kana is definitely someone who Hatori will never forget, neither will he replace her with Mayu. Mayu has created her own special place in his heart, she warmed his frozen heart once again in her own way. At first, I just wanted someone to love Hatori, no matter who it was - because that guy deserves all the love in the world. But Mayu is perfect for him. She can deal with almost any situation given that she is a high school teacher. Plus, she can understand people well as she deals with problematic children all the time - Kyo, Momiji and Haru. She definitely will understand Hatori and is qualified to be by his side. What to say about Hatori? He's already perfect. I'm glad that Mayu's unrequitable love become true and Hatori's empty heart was once again occupied.

Kureno & Arisa: Age is just a number. I admit their age gap is kinda weird, but its pretty common in the place I live in. I don't really mind as long as there is true love. They fell in love quiet earlier than others, it was fast-paced. It was a mutual love at first sight. Who doesn't love that? If I were to find any similarities between these two, I find nothing too spectacular - they are both dedicated people. Arisa is kinda rowdy, not feminine. On the other hand, Kureno is calm, quiet and the type to go along with anything. Arisa doesn't put up with anything, and Kureno put up with Akito - the worse person to be with. I think their relationship would go really well because Kureno has handled Akito's temper-tantrums for years, so he definitely can deal with Arisa. Also, Arisa would go well with him since he is basically a Tohru to her. They have their dynamics, but in the end, love wins.

Ritsu & Mitchan: When you add two negatives, it becomes positive. Both of them were pretty down towards themselves and were prone to commit suicide. But now having each other in their lives, I'm pretty sure, the thought of dying rarely crosses their minds. As Tohru said, the world doesn't need anybody, it's the people who need each other. They both give reasons to each other to live, that's why they are well-suited. Ritsu and Mitchan are both chaotic, it's ridiculous to watch their panicked reaction in sync. They are pretty shy as well. It's pretty cute. We didn't get to see much of them in the manga and anime so far, I hope we learn how their relationship went. I'm sure they will grow to be more confident.

Shigure & Akito: Jealousy is both love and hate at the same time - that's the exact case with these two. They both hated each other for jealousy because they loved each other - also called complicated relationship problem. I think the method Shigure used to get Akito back was pretty harsh and vengeful, but it serves Akito right for treating the other zodiacs so horribly like they were toys. The thing that bothers me most is - Shigure loved Akito even before seeing her. Its pretty messed up if you ask me. But I'm glad, at the end of the series, they both solved their issues and became dedicated to each other, instead of playing around. But Shigure, you seriously need to stop flirting with other females, otherwise I won't be surprised if Akito divorces you or pushes you off the second floor.

Ayame & Mine: The nonsensical duo. Someone who can handle Ayame is god-tier, trust me. As we all know, Ayame lives in his own little, fantasy world. I'm very curious to know - how did someone like Ayame fell in love? How did he even notice Mine when all he looks at is himself? We will never know. But as long as there is someone out there who can love him, it's all fine. Mine is pretty level-headed and just as crazy as him. She can go along with his crazy, nonsensical ideas. Plus, they are both into creating things. What could be better than having the same interests as your partner? You will never lack a topic to talk about. And it seems Ayame is pretty understanding of Mine. Not to mention, when Ayame told Mine that he was born into this world to love her, I screamed with tears rolling down my eyes - that chapter was emotional as fuck, alright? All in all, I love these crazy duo.

Kazuma & Hanajima: I can't imagine this ship sailing. I love them both individually. I do not ship them. I can't picture Hana-chan as Kyo's mother when Kyo is probably older than her - although it would be hilarious to see them as mother-son duo. If you connect the dots, Tohru would be her daughter-in-law. Hanajima would be triumphed about that. We still don't know how Shisho feels about it. He probably would never marry, considering that might hurt Kyo's fragile heart or so he thinks. But who knows? I love them both as individuals. Hana-chan is gothic fab, and Kazuma is the best fucking dad in the whole series. But if the author wants them together, I won't actually hate it. It's okay, I suppose. As you all know, age is just a number and jail is just a room.

That's it for all the ships. Have I missed any? Do tell me.

I feel bad for Momiji and Kagura. We didn't get to know about their respective partners in the original manga. That's what happens when you fall in love with the main two protagonist 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't really care much about Kagura because I know she will found someone suitable - I do pity that guy. He would get beaten to death everyday like Kyo.

Momiji needs to find someone who will appreciate his angelic heart and treasure him. I hope he finds someone even better than Tohru - someone better than Tohru might be impossible as she is one of a kind - at least, someone who loves him truly.

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secret-engima · 5 years ago

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I blame @talisward for this but like-

Before I get way into this, tagging @wolfsrainrules and tentatively @north-peach because FFXV isn’t your fandom but this is also part Star Wars and who knows you might find it funny.

What if in a Star Wars/FFXV crossover, a ship takes damage to the hyperdrive (pirate attack or unexpected meteor shower something) and the hyperdrive yeets them waaaaayyyyyyyyy into Wild Space and it crashes on the jungle islands of an unknown planet and the crew is killed in the crash.

But the crew weren’t the only ones on board.

The Galahdians of various Clans, for once all united, swarm over the strange thing that fell from the sky very warily, scuffing and chirping at each other (because this is totally an A/B/O verse, maybe even an a/b/o spin-off of Thrown to Wolves verse who knows) and they finally pry open part of it to look inside and- dead bodies. Dead bodies of strange adults and non-human ... beings that still looked vaguely humanoid and didn’t dissolve like daemons. Sprawled over in what was clearly death from the crash. They explore and find no survivors or even anything familiar. The letters on the walls are strange, the technology is strange. Everything is strange.

Then one of them finds a body dressed differently. Rather than strange, unpleasant smelling synthetic fabric, this one is dressed in spun clothes, rough and simple and practical. The body, not human but very humanoid, is curled up near a door, an expression of odd serenity and determination on their face even in death.

It’s one of the Ulrics that notices the area AROUND the body is miraculously untouched. There is destruction and crumpled metal and sparking wires in the hallway leading up to the spot, but the door behind the body and whatever is beyond is undamaged. Protected.

One of the Ostiums sniffs carefully, stiffens as he finally catches a scent other than sparks and foreign metal and strange blood, “There’s something alive on the other side,” he whispers.

An Arra presses her ear against the door for several seconds before growling, “I hear pups.”

And that’s the only incentive they need to start forcing the door open, because pups are sacred, even in a place like this, a metal ship that fell from the night sky and is filled with the dead bodies of human and non-human beings alike.

The door finally gives way with a scream of metal, letting the light spill into the room.

The collection of Jedi Younglings stare at them with wide, frightened eyes, some human, others not, all smelling of sadness and terror and the need for reassurance.

The Galahdians glance at each other meaningfully at the sight of non-human pups, then carefully set about coaxing them all out despite the language barrier, soothing the tears that come at the sight of the dead protector (who must have been protecting the pups with magic, surely) and herding them out into the jungle sunshine. While some of the Clans start working on removing the bodies for as proper a funeral as they can make (they hope star people don’t mind being burned and released to the winds, but it’s all they can do), others start trying to figure out what to DO with the new children. They can’t separate them, but these are a lot of strange children and that will be a lot for any Clan to handle. They settle on giving them to the more famed and long-standing alliances, the Ulric-Ostium and the Lazarus-Furia-Arra because the joint clans will have an easier time raising the kids and figuring out ... well. Non-human biology.

One of the Ulrics meanwhile is carefully distracting the poor scared kiddos by trying to establish some rudimentary communication. She finally coaxes their names out of them and smiles when one of the humans (human-like? If he’s a star person does he really count as human?) in the group, a boy no more than eight if she doesn’t miss her mark, steps forward and shakily bows in greeting and carefully enunciates ��Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Some other notes on this AU that I apparently have now: a/b/o is an Astral fiddling thing that happens over time and all the Jedi younglings are young enough that THEY develop it too as they’re raised by Galahd.

Galahd guards their Star Children zealously. Keeps them secret and treasured.

If this is not a Thrown to Wolves a/b/o spin-off, then this is still an AU where “magic” (ie the Force) can be used by almost everyone to some degree or other, just for simpler things than the specialized and extremely powerful magics of the LCs and Oracles because of Bahamut’s Blessing. Other people can still do amazing stuff with their “Magic” but it’s not armiger or Walls or superhealing/purification and it’s not as overwhelmingly powerful as LCs (who are all like- up there with Anakin Skywalker Force-power wise).

The younglings are Obi-Wan’s crechemates, they were on their way back from Illum or something when the hyperdrive yote them to Eos. They quickly figure out they’re on a planet so far away no one knows Galactic Standard and that no one has space travel. Eventually they settle in their new lives.

Everyone picture Feral Galahdian Jedi bbys. It’s like- Feral Mandalorian Jedi bbys but without the helmets and heavy armor XD.

They did end up splitting the creche between the various Clans, but tried to keep at least two kids near each other at all times so that they wouldn’t feel abandoned and organized regular “play dates” for all their Star Children (with the added benefit of the adults getting to share their meltdowns over the weird things their Star Children do and need). Also Ramuh is watching from on high and running damage control, which is why no Galahdian falls over dead from space viruses and no youngling dies in spasms from Eos viruses. He’s also the one to tweak the kiddos to fit into the a/b/o dynamic.

Obi-Wan would like you to believe he’s an Ostium. He is not. He’s an Ulric. Bant is his long-suffering Ostium braincell.

Other members of the creche include: Bruck Chun, who after multiple hard lessons on bullying is actually a pretty decent (if aggressive) bby Furia. Quinlan Vos because I find him fun (or, in this AU, Quinlan Ulric), and a couple OCs because I can’t remember who all else is in Obi-Wan’s age group/creche. There’s a Togruta in there somewhere because Togruta are cool.

Meanwhile in the Galaxy at large the Jedi are searching for their lost ship of younglings with more than a little alarm, but they don’t find them. While wandering for clues even years later, one Qui-Gon Jinn stumbles across a slave woman and her year old bby on Tattooine. The bby is extremely freaking Force sensitive so he Qui-Gon Jinn’s his way into buying both of their freedoms and taking them to Coruscant to introduce the woman to the Jedi so she can decide if she wants her bby in the Jedi or not. The woman is Shmi, the bby is Anakin.

Obi-Wan uses the schematics found on the ship (it was a ship for building lightsabers and stuff like in that one Clone Wars episode), his own instincts, and bits of the Elemency crystals/meteor shards lying around to “re-invent” the lightsaber. All the Galahdians are enamored and immediately figure out how to make their own.

Niflheim was Not Prepared to tackle a jungle full of Feral Galahdians with Laser Swords. Galahd does no fall and the Kingsglaive are still formed but not out of refugees. Instead Regis approaches them hoping to form an elite force of laser sword wielding jungle maniacs warriors. The Galahdians agree after some haggling for extra autonomy/privacy to hide their Star Children.

I feel like Obi-Wan joins the Kingsglaive. Just- because OBI-WAN. He’s curious and interested and he doesn’t particularly like war but he has that very strong Protecc instinct and people appreciate his diplomacy.

Years and years later, when the Star Children are teens/young adults, either they figure out how to repair their old ship or somehow another Republic ship finds Eos and all the Jedi proceed to collectively lose their minds over finding their Feral Galahdian former-Jedi younglings and their culture of laser-sword wielding jungle Packs.

Also the secondary genders is NOT a thing outside Eos so all the Jedi are ALSO freaking out over that and trying to figure out how their younglings have it (BECAUSE IT’S A THING. THERE ARE HORMONES AND VOCALIZATIONS AND STUFF THAT NORMAL HUMANS/MON CALAMARI/ETC CAN’T PULL OFF). It ... it never occurs to the Jedi that the Astrals did it because no matter how many times the Galahdians say it’s an Astral-granted thing, no one believes them because everyone “knows” that must be their primitive mythology and culture. There is no such thing as beings who can materialize out of thin air and are made of pure Force. Pssh.

Ramuh the Troll, Bahamut the Drama Queen, every other Astral who is professionally insulted that their existence is brushed off by the idiots who should know better: Behold, we shall ruin these arrogant space monks’ entire careers.

Also Palpatine tries something funny near the Galahdians and is murdered discreetly via an Arra because they can SMELL the madness and near daemon-like corruption on him kthanks.

Also also all the Galahdians take one (1) look at Anakin and go BBY SPACE ULRIC and promptly adopt Shmi and Anakin both while the Space Monks look on and sputter in confusion.

#Secret Engima Rambles #Reach for the Stars (As They Reach Back) verse #star wars/ffxv #oh look a new au

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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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Anonymous asked: I hugely appreciate how educated you are with your education in the Classics (at either Oxford or Cambridge I think) but I ask with sincere respect how does any of it inform your privileged life in this day and age? It’s easy to say how much we should value our European traditions and heritage it is quite another to live it out don’t you agree? What do you personally get from it?

This is a very relevant question and I apologise if I have stalled in answering it as I was busy with work and life to formulate a worthy reply. But your question is an important one indeed for anyone who harkens to the past as a guide for the present and the future.

I won’t waste space here and tick box all the purely academic reasons why the Classical world is still relevant for us today. I think you can find that in easy to read books and articles written by eminent Classicists who do an admirable service in making the Classical World come alive for the general public (Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, Emily Wilson, Edith Hall, Peter Jones, Bernard Knox, Robin Lane Fox, Paul Cartledge, and Donald Kagan amongst others that come to mind). But it’s an uphill battle to be sure.

Classics - at least in United Kingdom - has been regressively marginalised with each passing generation starting from school up to university entry. It has an image problem. Few pay much attention to scholars of Latin and Greek. The impression is that Classicists are snobbish and is the education of privileged elitists who master languages that are not spoken. They learn to write them only to read them better. They slap your hands when you write a Latin word common in Sallust or Livy, rather than in Cicero. There is some truth to that sadly. To a large extent Classicists themselves have not been a good advertisement for why anyone should appreciate let alone study the classical world.

At one end those educated in the Classics can come across as encouraging elitism, snobbish pedantry and a sniffy social superiority and at the other end those not versed in Classics but through Hollywood (any sword and sandal film like Gladiator etc) and PC white washed TV series (BBC’s Troy is a good example) have formed a romantic attachment to the ‘heroic’ past by having blue pilled themselves into escapism. Both extremes makes Classics a fetish rather than a guide for life through the beauty and power of the language and culture of the singular Greeks and Romans.

The study of Classics can become the proverbial dog who can dance on two legs, but for what practical purpose? There is the rub. Classics, at its best, offers the historical, philological, and literary foundation and discipline to apply a critical method to every general aspect of learning - and living.

I was fortunate that I had Classicists - both within my family and also my teachers - who were cultured and had led such interesting lives and were able to marry their Classicist mind to their life experiences (often through the experience of war). So learning European languages was not just to get one’s head around arid esoteric articles by 19th-century Frenchmen on the Athenian banking system or Demosthenes’ use of praeteritio and apophasis, but also to appreciate the genius of Dante,Voltaire and Goethe. Classics should never just be about philology though because it can result in a life mostly missed.

Perhaps others might call it privileged but I consider my childhood blessed because I was surrounded by family members who were educated in the Classics - more rare than one might suppose. Through my great aunts and grandmother they instilled the discipline that the mastery of Latin and Greek fuelled the ability to speak and write good English -- and why the latter mattered as much or more than the former.

By the time I left both Cambridge and Oxford behind, I could cite passage numbers in Greek texts of what Thucydides and Plutarch thought of Nicias. But it was only when I went through Sandhurst to pass out as a commissioned army officer did it truly jump off the page and become alive for me.

Moreover having had long fire side conversations with both my grandfather and father - both Oxbridge educated Classicists and both served in distant different types of wars as swashbuckling officers - did I use that learning to understand why for example was Nicias such a laughably mediocre general of the Peloponnesian War. And this was essentially the practical point of reading Thucydides and Plutarch about Nicias in the first place.

I spent many hours in my down time during my service in Afghanistan between missions re-reading dog earred favourite Classicist texts. I began to see the ghosts of the Greeks in the characters of those with whom I was serving. Some began to resemble Sophoclean characters - especially the less well-known ‘losers’ like Ajax and Philoctetes - the sort of tragic heroes whom we root for but the odds are against them - think of any American Western film or the more pathological Tarantino films. Like Sophocles I saw majestic characters (some special forces operators) out of place in a modernising world who would rather perish than change - but in a context where their sacrifice schools the lesser around them about what the old breed was about and what was being lost.

A running thread from a childhood spent in many other countries - from South Asia to the Far East - to the present day is learning to appreciate our landscape as the Ancient world did. The cultivation of curiosity of cultures was seeded in childhood. Respecting and even admiring other cultures - Indian, Iranian, Chinese and Japanese primarily come to mind - led me to appreciate and treasure my own cultural heritage and traditions. The DNA of both the Roman and Greek world went far and wide and so teasing out their fingerprints was fun. In northern Pakistan, we came across ‘Alexander’s children’ - children with blonde and blue eyes who were said to be descended from Alexander the Great’s time in Afghanistan and India - and wandering around the banks of the Jhelum river imagining how Alexander beat his respected foe (later ally) King Porus at the Battle of Hydaspes in 326BC.

These days despite having a busy corporate career I help support running a French vineyard managed foremost by two exceptional cousins and their French partners. As such the Classics still resonate in how I look at the land beyond the vineyard - bridges, roads, towers, walls - and imagine the Greeks not with ink and papyrus but as men of action, farmers and hoplites, in a rough climate on poor soils. I suddenly envision them pruning and plowing in Laureion, the Oropos, and Acharnae, more like the rugged local farmers with whom come harvest time I roll my sleeves up and get my hands dirty in the vineyards than as the professors in elbow patches who had claimed them.

Knowing and learning about the Classical roots of our Western heritage isn’t just a question of culture it’s also about what personally motivates us in life and how that determines how we make consequential choices in life.

I live in fear of one Greek word ‘akrasia’. Ancient Greek philosophers coined the term to explain the lack of motivation in life. Most of the philosophical conundrums explored by contemporary philosophers were already explored in Ancient Greece. In fact, Ancient Greek philosophers laid the solid foundation for all philosophical approaches that appeared throughout history: theories of Kant, Hegel or Nietzsche would never exist without Socrates, Plato or Aristotle.

Among the many problems that baffled the Ancient Greeks, one of them gets quite a lot of attention today. Why don’t we always do what’s best for us? Why do we abandon good decisions in favour of bad ones? Why can’t we follow through on our plans and ideas?

Many people would say that the answer is simply laziness or decision fatigue, but Ancient Greek philosophers believed that the problem lay much deeper, in human nature itself. ‘Akrasia’ describes a state of acting against one’s better judgement or a lack of will that prevents one from doing the right thing. Plato believed that akrasia is not an issue in itself, because people always choose the solution they think is the best for them, and sometimes it accidentally happens that they choose the bad solution because of poor judgement. On the other hand, Aristotle disagreed with this explanation and argued that the fault in the human process of reasoning is not responsible for akrasia. He believed that the answer lies in the human tendency to desire, which is often far stronger than reason.

As with almost all philosophical concepts, a consensus has never been reached and akrasia remains open to interpretation. But its practical consequences are all too real in today’s world. Motivation is what makes us unpredictable and persistent, and the life circumstances of the modern world often make motivation disappear.

Today - regardless how old or young one is - many are more and more tempted to exchange a long-term goal for an immediately available pleasure in all its forms from the emotional band aid of porn from a lifeless relationship (or a lack of one) to escaping loneliness for the false intimacy of social media friendship. The lack of motivation can cause us to reduce ourselves to someone else’s standards when we know we can be or do better.

The Greeks felt that the way you think and feel about yourself, including your beliefs and expectations about what is possible for you, determines everything that happens to you. When you change the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life. I’ve been deeply influenced by Aristotle’s idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. “The control of the appetites by right reason,” is how he defined it. Another way to reframe this is to say, “Virtue is knowing what you really want,” and then building the intellectual, spiritual, and moral muscle to go after it.

To be cultured - as opposed to be merely educated - is how you put what you’ve learned to work in your own life, seeing the world around you more deeply because of the historical, literary, artistic and philosophical resonances that current experiences evoke. This is the privilege of being cultured. For me Classical stories come often to my mind, and some times provide guides to action (much as Plutarch intended his histories of famous men to be guides to morality and action). The classics then are a part of my mental toolset and the context I think with some of the time. I see that as the real blessing in my life.

Thanks for your question.

#question #classics #education #life #personal #bio #library

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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

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It became routine. Each ‘morning’ by the clock, he would patrol the perimeter, check the transmitter, check the seals and go over all the jury rigging that kept him alive.

He would explore from time to time, but ever aware of the fragility of his existence, he was restricted as to how far he was willing to go.

So, he managed. He found what he needed and he built. He logged. He explored to keep himself sane and he discovered.

But most of all, he longed.

He had left so much behind, so far away.

At times he would picture his sons in his mind’s eye, just to keep their images fresh.

Thoughts of his wife kept him company to the point that he often wondered if she was there with him, watching over him, keeping him safe.

She was in his dreams.

She whispered in the long silences.

But his boys.

He daydreamed he did.

When he needed to smile, he thought of his little Gordy.

He missed his space buddy and his dry wit like he would miss a limb. It had always been the two of them against the unknown. They’d been there and back, but now, so far away, he wasn’t with him.

But despite that, he forged on.

He tore that pile of scrap metal apart and, from it, made a place to survive.

He could call it a home, but he refused.

Home was an island with his family so many thousands of AU away.

He built.

He crafted.

He survived.

Communications was a priority. He knew the distance. He knew the chances of reaching that tiny blue dot so, so far away.

A vain hope, but hope nonetheless. His boys had the best technology on the planet.

And then he remembered the flight plan of the Calypso.

It didn’t take him long to put together another signal, a hack into Brains’ robot. It was a long shot, but if it worked, his boys could hear him sooner.

So, checking the transmitters became part of the routine. Every day.

Power levels.

He had harnessed the great engines of the ship. She couldn’t fly, but she could generate enough electricity and more for his needs. Thank god.

It was with hope he built the receiver.

This he crafted from scratch with his own knowledge. Between Shadow Alpha, his own training and introducing John to his first radio at age five, he had the skill set.

It was fond memories of his middle boy that accompanied the exercise.

Lucille had sent Lee and Jeff to Mars only to welcome him back with a little red-haired boy to carry both of their legacies.

So, when he flicked the on switch on his receiver, it shouldn’t have surprised him that John’s voice was the first sound he heard.

“Calling Zero-X from Thunderbird Five, Colonel Jeff Tracy, do you copy? Please respond.”

It was a recording, repeating over and over, sweeping the universe looking for him. It faded in and out, some times riddled with static, always days out of date, but it was his son.

Some nights he cried.

John’s voice sung in tune to Lucille’s in his head.

The day he discovered the coded entries in the repeating signal, he nearly lost it completely.

Words.

Photos.

Stories.

His family in tiny snippets looped into that repeating signal.

“Dad, we know you’re out there somewhere. We miss you. Please know we won’t stop looking and we will find you.”

But his blessed John sent such a lifeline that he knew he may not have survived without it.

He even sent his brother’s piano music.

Only a fragment survived the distance, but Jeff clung to the sound of Virgil’s fingers on his mother’s piano.

Thoughts of his second eldest, his gentle artistic soul who bore so much of his beloved Lucille that he hadn’t been able to look at the boy for some time after losing her.

Perhaps he could have been there for Virgil more. Been there for all of them. He lost his youngest’s teen years, he was becoming a man without his father or his mother.

He’d seen that expression on Lucy’s face the day she told him she was pregnant with their first. He had immediately flared protectively, claiming she needed to step back on the Mars project.

She had such fire in her eyes when she told him clearly and at length where he could stick it.

Virgil had that same stubborn streak along side his music. He was as tough as the ‘bird he flew.

And when it came to Jeff’s food sources, stubborn had been the key.

He had done things he never wanted to think about again.

He had daydreamed about his mother’s cooking.

There were times that this one lack of supply nearly did him in.

He had tricks they had used on Mars and on the Moon, but ultimately the human body was tied to Earth’s ecosystem and there were so many limits as to what he could do to emulate it.

The ship’s empty hydroponic racks mocked him, but the daylight lamps were enough to save him.

So, he managed an existence. Meagre and sometimes painful, but stubborn kept him going and the voices from so far away kept him in hope.

And hope was named Scott Tracy. He knew his eldest. Where Virgil was stubborn, Scott was driven. The man would not stop.

His mother had made a point of making sure Jeff knew exactly what he was putting his children through. Loudly and in detail.

Jeff knew his failures.

And ultimately, he had failed his boys completely and ended up stranded out here.

With his regrets for company.

He existed.

He survived.

He clung to hope.

His boys had received his SOS.

And Scott.

The fire in his voice lit up the small confined space Jeff lived in. That determination was there, strong and ever so driven.

His sons were coming to get him.

Hope became reality.

And all he could do was weep.

Scott didn’t send stories.

Launch Day was scheduled, but due to the time delay, he found out about the plan at almost the same time his proximity network started screaming at him.

And of course, fate chose that day for his planetoid to fall apart. He had tempted luck too far and it was finally calling due.

His boys moved faster than he expected and he was in Thunderbird X when they arrived. He could not believe he almost missed them…after waiting so, so long.

When he saw Scott fall, his mind stopped and he just moved.

The hand he caught was the first he had touched in over eight years.

Those blue eyes, the same eyes that accused him in the darkness when sleep failed him, now looked up at him in astonishment, widening ever so much.

So full of love that his heart shattered.

His boy.

“Dad?”

“I’ve got you, son.” Hold it together. “Now, what do you say we get out of here?”

-o-o-o-

FIN.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #jeff tracy #nuttyfic reblog #sorry I couldn't help myself #was reminded of this today by a wonderful person commenting on it on Ao3 #so I had to share it again #you guys just rock #thunderfam rocks

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