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loveinterestcastiel · 4 years ago

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erosion

I wrote some endverse fic based on a @lateral-org post asking a FANTASTIC question:

When/why/how did endverse! cas get rid of the trenchcoat and what was dean's reaction?

Rated M. Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence. Word Count: 4.1k

tagged some mutuals and people I thought might be interested in this under the cut, if you want tagged in this/future fic or want me to remove your tag dm me!

erosion

Of course, Sam said yes in Detroit. So why dream about that? He lived it every day. The redundancy was irritating at best.

Where the fuck did I leave my boots last night? Cas cursed under his breath and embarked on a thorough search of their cabin, the coarse words warm and familiar on his tongue as he yanked on his socks. I really am starting to sound like Dean.

Dean’s boots were already gone, his gun and thigh holster absent too. He’d left his green jacket behind, tossed carelessly aside last night and hidden under the trenchcoat on the floor at the foot of their bed. He slipped his coat on over his clothes and shoved Dean’s jacket into their pack- he knew he’d want it later, even if it was just for the drive back. He slipped on the worn coat, habit- he’d stopped wasting Grace on its upkeep a while ago, but it was still important. It felt like comfort, in some strange way, so he kept on wearing it despite the worn-through elbows or the stubborn little bloodstained spot on the hem.

He’d dreamed of Detroit, last night, again. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to dreaming, as unsettling and involuntary as it was. It felt like the unfair hijacking of an otherwise enjoyable human bodily function, and he resented it altogether. He snagged a bit of weed from his stash and tucked it in next to his flask, sweeping out the cabin door and into the frigid morning sunshine, giving Chuck a lazy wave as he ambled past his cabin to the truck lot, kicking little pebbles across the packed dirt at imaginary targets with a super-human precision that grated strangely on him today.

“Big run today,” Chuck said with a tentative smile, his hands clasping a chipped mug filled to the brim with his ridiculously indulgent tea, wafting a cascade of steam out over the railing of his cabin porch before dissipating into the air. “Don’t forget the perishables if you can get at them, ok? We’re seriously low on-”

“Toilet paper, milk, cheese, butter,” he interrupted, “plus sugar, flour, canned fruit, hygiene products, toothpaste, toilet paper, coffee, meat if we can get it, .35 and 9mm ammunition, mechanical oil, gasoline, propane, rubbing alcohol, gauze, surgical tape, toilet paper, paracetamol, and oh, toilet paper again!” Cas recited dryly, rolling his eyes. “You gave us a written list yesterday. Twice. Couldn’t fuck up blackout drunk.”

Chuck snorted, shaking his head in self-deprecation. “Just doing my job, Cas.”

“We’ll do ours,” he called over his shoulder, continuing down the central path briskly. “We’ve all got our part to play.”

What was it Lucifer had said to Dean, that night Zachariah stole him out from under Cas’s nose and threw him into the future? No matter what choices you make, whatever details you alter… we will always end up here.

It certainly seemed like he was right. Most days, it seemed like they were all hurtling towards the exact same place Dean had caught a wretched glimpse of, once, with the brakes slashed and emergency failsafes offline, and no indicator that the impossible choices they were making every day were anything but inevitable. He knew that Dean still had nightmares about his ending, but he didn’t know much else about Dean’s nightmares anymore but what little snippets he could garner from what Dean mumbled and cried out in his sleep. He’d lost the ability to dreamwalk a while back. Three nights after the Croatoan virus wiped out Fort Worth and they were forced to fall back, he tried to enter Dean’s sleep to watch his dreams in the dubious refuge of a closed down Motel 6 off of interstate 70 as they ran west, to see if there was some piece of information they’d missed, some new choice they could make one day that could change the path they were on.

It simply hadn’t worked. He mourned the loss of one more skill in the darkness of their room that night as Dean slept uneasily in the bed beside him, one more thing which, in its absence, made him ever more useless to Dean, much like the loss of his ability to time travel, or to smite their enemies with ease. Flight was becoming difficult by the day, and he knew in some part of his mind that his wings would be the next to go, and he would be grounded, permanently, on Earth and not in Heaven.

And so it goes.

Anyway, it wasn’t like they had much of a choice about anything these days. Once Michael had taken Adam, they lost their only trump card. Heaven didn’t need Dean anymore, but Hell desperately needed Sam. It was a shame, it really was, that Sam’s gamble hadn’t paid off.

It was a miracle Lucifer let Dean go. He had brushed him off as a non-threat. Unimportant on a cosmic scale, however important Dean was to the vessel. To Sam. So Dean walked out of that run down building alive, and he was the most beautiful, terrible thing Cas had ever seen. His soul shone brighter than even an archangel’s grace in his rage and trembled with the fierce sharpness of grief, and it was glorious, righteous.

Godly.

Even as Cas’s memories softened and blurred, becoming tinged with a mortal haze, that memory of Dean remained in a sparkling clarity. He could imagine no life, no moldable version of the past, in which he did not choose Dean. From the very first moment his soul had reached back to cling to Cas’s Grace in Hell, Cas had fallen, was falling, would fall, for Dean. It was inevitable, his love. They were inevitable. They fell together in the time after Detroit, into battle, into bed, and into cosmic obscurity. Soon, too soon, their losses began to outnumber their wins, and they had to make more and more certain regrettable sacrifices just to stay alive. Cas was used to collateral damage, far more than Dean was, but whatever the other humans in their ragged camp believed of him, he wasn’t unaffected. Just the opposite, in fact. He had never felt anything before, not for billions of years, an incomprehensible existence of light and intent and obedience and war, and now he felt everything. That- not Dean’s disappointment, or the slow loss of his Grace, or his Father’s unyielding silence- was undoubtedly the worst part of becoming something like human.

Some days were better than others, of course. Some days he took precious little blue or white or green pills, all different shapes and sizes and he felt good. Numb, pleased, far away. Quiet. Others, fewer than the days he had his pills, he took shrooms, LSD. Molly, twice. Often he took nothing at all, craving the wicked pain and emptiness it created in him as his sobriety enhanced the ache his dwindling Grace left behind, needing the punishment to feel real before forcing himself into a tumultuous sleep after days spent horribly awake with half a bottle of rotgut sloshing in his stomach. He still liked joints, rolled meticulously, their verdant smoke curling up deliciously in his lungs and setting him up on a lovely little metaphorical cloud the best, and then, they were even more so lovely when he shared them with Dean. There was nothing, nothing like passing it between them, before transitioning into trading hit after hit between their mouths, brushing against his soft lips, breathing his air, watching Dean’s cheeks flush a stunning pink and holding tight to his deep golden hair, dragging him down into slow, languid kisses that desire deepened and turned into a precious sort of holy consumption as the high hit its stride in them both.

He was sober today, mostly, just riding out the last of some gorgeous pink pill from a nearly full bottle he’d just scavenged out a few days before. It made him feel floaty, focused, fearless. He felt almost like he did two years ago, before his reeducation stint in Heaven. Angelic. It was nice. He’d take another, later. Maybe Dean would want to take one, too, and they could fuck high out under the stars on their quilt again like they did last October and feel like the real Gods of this stupid little planet, on top of the world, on top of Dean, cradled in the soft embrace of his thighs, and worship each other.

Take that, brothers. Castiel smiled viciously at the sky. You’ll never fuck God like I have.

Standing impatiently among their motley caravan of vehicles in the sickly yellow light of a midwestern April morning sun, his back to Cas, Dean’s silhouette and the flashing imprint of his soul- the only one Cas could still see clearly- caramelized into a sweet union of tangible and not that pulled at his stomach and swept him into the siren song of Dean’s being and woke up the hungry creature that lived in his heart and craved DeanDeanDeanDean.

No one else was there yet, probably all still dicking around at the camp mess and drinking shitty chicory. His feet fell silently on the earth, leaving behind the sound of the universe and the vibrant humming of Dean’s soul- and oh, he hoped he could always hear that symphony, even when all the rest of his powers had run dry.

Just as he reached out to take Dean by the shoulder and turn him around, Dean moved with a sudden burst of energy, like a coiled snake striking out. He whirled around and met Cas’s eyes, took him by the neck and the waist, and kissed him. His lips moved with a gentleness that contradicted the intensity of the grip of his cold-fingered hands as they worked their way into his hair, wormed their way under his trenchcoat, and touched the bare skin they found where the hem of his t-shirt met his jeans. He met the kiss eagerly, licking teasingly at the seam of his lips, biting down gently and coaxing Dean into opening his mouth. He pushed Dean back until his back hit the nearest rusted army-green truck with a small thudding noise, pressing himself up against Dean and tugging on his hips so they were pressed flush against each other, the contact sending and electric thrill racing up his spine.

“Cas,” Dean gasped out at the sensation of their bodies meeting, the air punched out of his lungs.

“Mmm, morning,” Cas murmured between kisses. “You’re out here early.” Dean’s neck was uncharacteristically bare above the neck of his rough brown sweater, creamy and invitingly unmarked. Cas indulged in the impulse to change that, working his way over the tender skin, sucking and biting until a bruise began to bloom below the junction of Dean’s jaw and neck, worrying it with his teeth until it was a deep reddish-purple.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Dean whispered, letting his head fall back against the truck window, baring his throat further, and closed his eyes. He seemed almost happy, today. He seemed to light up in the lead-up to their more dangerous missions, and Cas didn’t want to think about that right now. Didn’t want to ruin the moment. “Didn’t want to wake you up,” Dean elaborated.

“I appreciate that.” Satisfied with the rather outrageous hickey he’d created on Dean’s neck, Cas pressed it with one last kiss. “How’d you know I was behind you?” he asked, pressing their foreheads together and slowly grinding their hips together lazily, just breathing Dean in.

“Felt you,” Dean said, bringing their lips together again briefly. “Always can.” One more little kiss.

“Dean, last night, when you couldn’t sleep, I dreamed again about Detroit-” Cas started to confess feverishly, almost against his will, Dean stiffening up at his words in his arms, and was interrupted by the sound of people approaching, footsteps, voices, and an earsplitting wolf-whistle directed at their compromising position.

Dean’s face shuttered immediately, and Cas felt every scrap of easy bliss flee his body.

He pulled back with more than a little reluctance, his stomach twisting as a fakely jovial grin tugged at the corners of his lips, and clapped Dean on the shoulder. “Let’s go, fearless leader. We’ve got a mission to run, don’t you know?”

“Don’t start with that fearless leader shit,” Dean said tightly, rolling his eyes away from Castiel’s face and fixing on a point somewhere over Cas’s shoulder. “Who’s driving?”

“Looks like Cas is driving,” Joe called out mischievously.

Risa smacked him in the chest. “Get in the truck, idiot.” She turned her gaze to Dean, an odd glint in her eye. It felt sticky and wrong in his core but Cas stamped the feeling down. “Group brief over the radio on the way?” she asked.

“Yeah, at 8,” Dean said, sliding into his unshakeable militaristic persona with a firm nod. “Should be fairly straightforward in and out supply grab. Intel says the Croats cleared out of Roanoke a couple days ago, left major infrastructure and commerce sites relatively untouched. It’s a good thing too,” he added, “we were getting spread a little thin with most goods.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

———————————————————————

It was not, in fact, easy.

Their intel was wrong, so wrong, and Cas didn’t know how the fuck it happened, but they were fine, they were almost finished, closing up the trucks in the alley behind the supermarket and waiting for Dean and Trish to return from sweeping the perimeter, when out of what seemed like thin air and with no more than a broken shout for warning there were more Croats swarming them than he’d ever seen in one place before, and Joe and Maya and Kris were dead, and Dean was nowhere to be found.

The Croats had the remaining seven pinned down against the main truck, snarling and screeching and reeking of blood and gore, strips of flesh and clothing that once adorned their companions now dangling from their teeth. Their single-minded need for the endless consumption of human flesh and that it was currently being denied drove them to a terrifying frenzy, but the hunters were starting to push back, and the Croat numbers were thinning slowly but surely. Cas thought he saw Allen get bitten, but next he glanced at him he looked fine. He’d need to check on that if they made it out alive. He resigned himself quickly to the idea of killing the man before they got back to Chitaqua- Allen was a nice enough man, quick-witted and skilled with a blade and a loom, but nothing was worth bringing a Croat back to camp. He owed it to the man as a human being to grant him a swift death if he’d been infected before Allen himself could realize it. A shot to the back of the head, unawares, had to be better than a clumsy battle and inevitable stab to the chest (Cas knew he would always have the upper hand against a human, even when he had fallen in full) with fear in his heart.

He buried his angel blade to hilt in yet another Croat’s throat, yanking it out and ducking out of the way of the spray of blood that followed in a well-practiced motion uncanny in its speed. They would win this one.

But still no Dean.

Cas felt a bubbly panic rise up in his chest through the haze of battle as it became clear to him that Dean wasn’t coming back. Even from the other side of the building or from inside, there was no way that Dean had not heard the commotion of such a large fight.

Something was stopping Dean from coming back to him.

“Risa,” he shouted over the din to the woman on his left. “Dean and Trish-”

“I know,” she interjected tersely, hacking the head off of a skeletally thin Croat in a tattered suit. “Retrieval? We’ve got this handled here as long as this all the fucking bastards around.”

“I’m going in,” Cas said quickly, slicing at a particularly bold (stupid) Croat trying to charge him. It crumpled to the ground and twitched once, and was still. Some of its companions fell on the body ravenously, and were subsequently cut down in turn as they began to tear at the corpse. “Leave as soon as you’re able; I’ve got the keys to the main truck. Cover your right,” he warned Risa, and, sensing an opportunity in the parting sea of Croats before him, ran.

He was through the service doors of the building before the Croat hoard could even begin to respond to his escape, and their noises were quickly muffled by the service door as it locked automatically behind him, leaving him in relative quiet.

There were a surprising number of crates and boxes remaining in the storage and unloading zones, either empty or nearly so, and he quickly ascertained the area was, apart from himself, devoid of life or anything of interest to the camp.

Cas.

Dean's sudden prayer hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut.

Aisle... his mental voice trailed off for a second into indistinct sounds, colors, and waves of pain. Aisle seven. It's bad.

Cas shoved through the access door into the freezers, and out into the store with a recklessness he would have been ashamed of had he been so terrified.

He turned down aisle seven and skidded to a halt, frozen at the sight that greeted him, and tried to make sense of the hideously macabre tableau.

Trish's decapitated body lay the furthest from him, her ribcage torn open, her organs spilling over her arms and scattered in pieces over the floor. Three dead Croats, all headshots, around her remains. Then a bloody lake on the cheap linoleum tile, thick and viscous and so, so red, two more dead Croats, clearly more hard-won victories, their arms hacked at, heads partially removed, and nearly blocking the last body from view, wedged up against the shelves and bloody as it was.

"Cas," Dean wheezed, lifting his head laboriously to meet his eyes, blood bubbling up between his lips and staining them. "Cas, I'm so sorry-"

"No, no, don't talk like that," Cas said desperately, kneeling beside Dean. He took their pack of his back with shaking hands and shoved his angel blade somewhere inside. "We can fix this. You'll be okay."

"Cas-"

"You will!" he said, too loudly and startling himself.

"My ribs," Dean panted out in pained little gasps. "Broken. There's something in my back." He twitched minutely as if to show Cas the problem and immediately convulsed involuntarily at the pain the movement caused him, a horrible rattling moan in his throat. "My leg. Right one. Broken too." His jaw was clenched so tightly it was a miracle he could speak at all through the teeth-grinding pain he was in.

"Okay," Cas said faintly.

Cas...

Oh, he hated feeling. Sometimes he thought it made him useless. He missed being cold. Brutal, uncaring about pain or death. But this was Dean, and he'd never actually been particularly good at being a machine, anyway. "Okay. Dean, I need to see your back," he warned him, before moving him as gently as he could and angling his body so that he could get an unobstructed view of his back.

There was a crude metal stake wedged just an inch to the left of his second and third thoracic vertebrae, rusted, twisted and cruel-looking.

"Dean, I- I have to try to heal you," he said slowly, knowing that Dean wouldn't want him to be wasteful with his Grace. But this was beyond what human field medicine could help.

Dean didn't respond. He'd fallen unconscious.

"Oh no, no, no, baby," he babbled under his breath, trying to figure out the best way to extract the bar of metal. "Hold on," he muttered, grasping the stake firmly and bracing Dean's body against his own, trying to avoid fucking his broken ribs up more.

"Father, please, if you're still here, if you're listening, if you care at all," he begged, "help me."

Of course, his Father didn't answer. Gritting his teeth, Cas yanked out the stake and tossed it aside, immediately covering the wound with his hand. He summoned his Grace together and it responded sluggishly, but his hand was glowing and Dean's back was knitting back together.

As the skin merged into a puckered, raw-looking pink scar, Cas dropped his hand away from the wound and found himself utterly breathless, gasping for air and drained.

Dean was still unconscious.

He leaned Dean back up against the shelving and took a moment to figure out what to do next. Dean was still dying. He was still in danger. He couldn't be moved, nor could they stay put. He quickly opened up their pack and realized in horror that all the medical supplies were with Risa and AJ on the trucks and so, so far away by now.

He yanked his coat off with a twinge of regret. It was bloodied and worn and what he was about to do with it felt like a milestone he was loathe to reach.

He shredded it into long, wide strips, not letting himself think of how it was the last piece of Jimmy Novak, or how he had repaid the man's sacrifice by being party to the end of the world they both wanted to protect, or how Claire Novak had stopped praying to him weeks ago, now. He got on with the job, this is just a job, I can fix this-

He managed to wrap Dean's leg up decently tight, straight and stiff, but he had quickly discovered it was broken in several places. He didn't know what he could do for Dean's ribs, and he felt, as if from a distance, how Dean's breath was coming shallower and shallower, and he made his choice.

He laid his left hand on Dean's broken leg, as gently as he could. Leaning forward, he smoothed the wispy little baby hairs he loved to tease Dean about back, off his sweaty, pained, precious face, and, placing his right hand on Dean's crushed ribs, near his heart, touched their foreheads together. He looked at Dean's soul, his shining, beautiful (fading) soul and knew.

"I love you," Cas whispered, his voice wrecked. With that finally said, he grabbed his exhausted, weary Grace, and though it fought him and slipped through his grasp, he got hold of it and he pushed everything he could, everything he was into his hands, into Dean.

When he had done it, when he had drained himself down to mists and vapors, and had saved Dean, he gathered him in his arms, and carried him back to the truck on numb feet, leaving the scraps of Jimmy's coat behind in aisle seven.

When the truck broke down thirty miles from Chitaqua, and their radio too, he turned to Dean, pulling on a blue-ish jacket they'd picked up earlier during the run. It fit well.

"It's a good look for you," Dean said gruffly, staring at Cas with an expression he could not recognize. There was blood still smeared on his cheekbone, he noted absently.

"Oh. Yes. Well, thank you," Cas answered, adjusting the sleeves.

Dean tugged at the tan fabric strips on his leg, wincing at the pressure.

"You did a good job, Cas. With this fabric splint from your coat-"

"I know you won't be able to walk it," Cas said quietly, unable to meet his eyes even as he interrupted him. "I did what I could, but you'll be weak for days. You need time."

"You can leave me, Cas," Dean said, a strange, pinched guilt-pain-tenderness on his face. "You can come back for me."

"No," Cas said, smiling, and choking, and took Dean's cheek in the palm of his hand with a terrible ache rising in his throat. "I can't."

April 19th, 2012, under the peak of the Lyrids meteor showers, Cas flew for the last time, right up to the gates of the camp.

When they landed, a millisecond and millennia later, his wings burned away into nothingness in a wave of electric, minty-white pain that forced him to the ground. In the aftermath, panting and sweating and shaking in Dean's arms and clutching at his handprint on Dean's shoulder, he realized his Grace, or what was left of it, anyway, had consolidated into a bright little ball in his chest. Like a soul.

The realization was followed by another. Despite his earlier conviction that it would one day be lost to him, he could still see Dean's soul- behind his teeth, in his chest, radiant like a halo around his head, and worth, a million times over, and a million again, falling for.

Tagged:

@heller-jensen @sunforgrace @rambleoncas @adhdeancas @evermorecastiel @holmesemrys @plantdadcas @good-things-do-happen-dean @jeanne-de-valois @autisticandroids @sonder-stars @yana125 @faithcastiel @cascreamtiel @seffersonjtarship @i-sing-for-me @purgatorybi @bibelphegor @cowboyslikedean @gracefuldean @dimples-of-discontent @judaskissdean @wafflehousegothic @icaruscastiel @67chevyimpala67 @lesbianjenderenvy

#destiel #destiel fic #endverse!destiel #endverse!cas #not immune to endverse cas i repeat not immune vaccine needed now #my fic #my writing #dean winchester #castiel

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straycat-writes · 5 years ago

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jaaneman // जानेमन // جان ِ من (nakahara chuuya)

jaaneman // जानेमन // جان ِ من (persian, n.) - “soul of me” or “life of me”; gender-neutral word for sweetheart or darling

requested by: anonymous

notes: post-corruption conversations, in honour of chuuya’s birthday. and also because i was supposed to have written this ages ago. not proof read because i’m lazy and tired.

When Chuuya woke up, he was disoriented for a while. Every bone in his body screamed in agony, and his quickened breaths made it feel like he might as well be swallowing crushed glass. There was a pounding ache in his skull that dimmed all other sensations in comparison, and for a moment, he wished he would just lose consciousness again.

He knew he wouldn’t, though. This wasn’t the first time this was happening, and although it was every bit as shitty as every time else, at least he knew what to expect. His senses were out of focus, the sounds of his surroundings only incomprehensible static, while his eyes registered vague blurs of movement.

He blinked once, then twice, then several times before he could finally focus.

“You’re awake.” She murmured, and Chuuya heard the smile of relief in her voice before he saw it.

She was sitting beside him on the bed, knees drawn up to her chin. Slowly putting her hand on one of his limp cold ones, she smiled wearily. She looked tired, and he wondered how long she had been sitting there. He wanted to say something to reassure her, but his throat felt too scratchy to speak. He tried to sit up slowly, but his stomach suddenly clenched violently.

He shot out of bed, despite every single muscle in his body pleading in protest, and ran into the bathroom at record speed. As he hurled up the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl, he heard her rush into the bathroom after him. She sighed, before coming to crouch down beside him, holding back his hair as he retched some more.

Chuuya heaved for what felt like minutes before he finally slumped back down onto the floor. Wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, he leaned his head back and closes his eyes.

“Feel better?” she asked softly, brushing some strands of his hair out of his eyes, and he wondered if he should tell her that she was miserably failing to hide the concern in her eyes.

“Not…really.” The two words took immense effort for him to get out. His voice sounded scratchy, though from disuse or from the vomit, he couldn’t tell. “How long was I out for?”

“A couple of days, give or take.” She replied.

He lightly rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Jesus…”

A vague sequence of events was reconstructing itself in Chuuya’s dazed mind. Despite his explicit threats, he was sure Dazai must have left him after he passed out, right where they ha faced that Lovecraftian monstrosity, and Mori, knowing Dazai better than anyone, must have sent someone to retrieve Q and Chuuya.

“Mori-san had me dropped right back home?”

“Along with your coat.” She shrugged, “You did tell him you don’t like hospitals, after all.”

Chuuya got up on unsteady feet, shakily making his way towards the sink. That was true, he hated hospitals. But it wasn’t her job to clean up after his mess either. He could only imagine what it must have been like for her, being handed his broken and bloodied body and asked to keep him alive.

Speaking of, there was not a spot of blood on him now. Chuuya felt a pang of guilt, as he imagined her all alone with his unconscious body, scrubbing the blood from his clothes and desperately trying to hold him together. He knew he wouldn’t have died, but that did not make it any less damaging.

He got out of the bathroom after cleaning himself up, still swaying slightly on his feet. She had gone to fetch him a towel, which she handed to him now.

He sighed, slumping back down at the edge of the bed, elbows propped on his knees, both hands supporting his still aching head, “…I’m sorry.”

She raised a confused eyebrow, “What for?”

“This.” He gestured vaguely around himself, “Everything. This shouldn’t be your problem.”

“Come on,” she rolled her eyes, coming to sit beside him “You know it’s not like that.”

“No? You must have been scared.”

She sighed deeply, then leaned slightly sideways, resting her head on his shoulder. Chuuya could tell she was just as exhausted as he was.

“I was…” she admitted, “I always am, every time you use corruption. But what am I supposed to do about it, Chuuya? I cannot just up and leave.”

His heart thudded once in his chest, “Why not?”

She laughed lightly, but then stopped when she looked up at his face, “Oh, you’re being serious? You have got to be kidding me. Why do you think, dimwit?”

He didn’t reply, just looking at her with wide, questioning blue eyes.

She sighed, averting her gaze, before she finally murmured, “Because I love you…What do I have to do to get you to believe that?”

Chuuya’s heart swelled slightly in his chest. He did believe her. There was not a doubt in his mind that she loved him. He was just afraid that she might love him a little too much.

He placed one hand on her cheek lightly, dipping to place a short, chaste kiss on her lips, “I don’t deserve you.”

“Neither do I deserve you.” She laughed lightly, “Guess we’ll both just have to settle.”

Chuuya smiled. He loved that about her. She never let him say anything negative about himself, always turning his words around until they sounded…merrier somehow. Chuuya was…rough around the edges, and even though he was very much alive and burning with life and power, he always felt as if there was something missing without her by his side.

“Are you hungry?” she asked after a while, “I can fix something for you.”

“Nah, don’t bother.” He waved a hand, “I’ll probably just throw it back up.”

That was just another one of the many post-corruption side-effects, but Chuuya was used to it. Nevertheless, she stood up.

“Then I’ll make you some chamomile tea, that might help settle your stomach. How does that sound?”

He smiled, “Lovely. Thank you, love.”

She smiled, bending down to kiss his cheek once, before leaving. Chuuya watches her retreating figure, head swarming with a million thoughts.

He goes on a lot of overseas missions, for some reason, Mori-san prefers him for that job. Just last month, he went to some central Asian country, which might be an odd thing for him to remember right at that moment, except he remembered that people there called their loved ones ‘jaaneman’, which literally means ‘soul of me’.

Even back when he had first heard it, the term had reminded him of her. But right now, he quite literally felt their weight. Soul of me. It was true. If Chuuya was the fire, the life inside of a body, she was the soul.

Each time he used corruption, he felt hollower than the last time, like something had just been taken from him. His only solace was to crawl back into her arms, because no matter how bloodied or broken, he knew she would always take care of him. Because she made the emptiness go away.

How fitting, he thought with a rueful smile, he was only alive until his soul refused to leave him. And luckily, she was holding on tight. He loved her, so much more than his own life, so much more than he could ever put into words. He sighed, getting up and swaying slightly,

“Chuuya ~” he heard her call from the kitchen, “Come, your tea is getting cold.”

Despite the ache permeating every inch of his body, a small smile tugged at his lips. “Coming.”

#nakahara chuuya #chuuya x reader #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #one shot #scenario #post corruption #fluff #kind of #bsd #imagines #prompt #jaaneman #straycat's 1k follower celebration

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magioftheseas · 4 years ago

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A.I. to AI

Summary: Post-SDR2.5 AU in while a certain Alter Ego and a certain Ultimate Lucky still have some difficulties moving forward.

Rating: T

Warnings: Emetophobia (mild)

Notes: Hhhhhh, World Destroyer/Komaeda...good...and yet so rare. So, here it is. Have fun.

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

Komaeda Nagito is

Capricious

Stubborn

Frustrating

Unstable

Desperate

Hopeless

Lovely

Problematic

Through many deep dives, Alter Ego is confident in identifying Komaeda Nagito’s character. As confident as a program can be, although it was not the prerogative to know and understand Komaeda Nagito. The mission was simply to retrieve Komaeda Nagito, the last of the remnants.

It had taken many deep dives. Many methods had to be used. Some involving direct contact from the start, and others requiring more distance, more detachment. All the same, there had been many confrontations.

It is not Alter Ego’s mission to know and understand Komaeda Nagito, but with how much time spent in Komaeda Nagito’s dreamscape, it was inevitable to take notice of and learn such things.

When Komaeda Nagito was extracted—the mission was complete.

That was it.

It was over.

It should have been over.

“World Destroyer-kun! Alter Ego-kun! Destroyer-kun? Ego-kun? Which would you prefer I call you?”

“I have no preference.”

“I do know another Alter Ego-san,” Komaeda was saying. Acting sweet and cheerful. As if there isn’t somewhere else he should be. “The one made by the Ultimate Programmer. They’re much more polite and pleasant than you are.”

“And yet, I am the one you are speaking to.”

Komaeda laughs, smiling without care. But there are signs of tension from the tightness of his shoulders to even the way his elbow dug into the table’s surface with his chin pressing down hard into his fleshy palm. Only the mechanical limb was able to remain completely still.

“You are troubled,” is the obvious observation to make. “I presume it is about the other remnants and my master.”

“Your presumptions would be correct,” Komaeda says. His smile is twitching around the corners. The typical sign of contradictory emotions. Of admiration and irritation. “If you already know, then I don’t have to explain anything, right?”

“Explanations would be...” A pause. “Unnecessary.”

Komaeda seems pleased with that answer, but somewhere in the back of Alter Ego’s coding was the curious thought if that had been the correct response.

How irritating.

Among the methods, there had been direct contact. Komaeda Nagito does not remember this, but these attempts are in fact stored in Alter Ego’s data banks. If one knew how to dig, the footage of those attempts could be replayed. All taken from Alter Ego’s vacant gaze at the time.

A gaze that caught Komaeda Nagito in a state of shock. Which had observed and scrutinized the way Komaeda Nagito shrank in on himself, pulling further and further away from the program’s prodding.

“I’m already at peace, so don’t bother me anymore,” Komaeda Nagito had said. “You’re—an annoyance.”

Irritating.

“Destroyer-kun!”

“Is that the name you have decided on?”

“If you have a problem with it, just say so!”

“I have nothing to say.”

Once again, Komaeda Nagito has visited. How did Komaeda Nagito even find this place?

The answer was obvious.

(“It was just good luck!” Komaeda Nagito had exclaimed, looking so unbearably joyful. “And after spraining my wrist...! It was only a matter of time before something good happened!”)

“I made my own coffee today,” Komaeda was saying now. “It was so awful! So brutal! A truly contemptible and pitiful attempt! I got so sick that I threw up in the sink!” His spirited performance turned downcast in a heartbeat. “Koizumi-san was quite cross with me. According to Owari-san, the smell was so awful.”

“Yes, bile does have a stench,” was the dry, unimpressed response. “The odor gets worse depending on what was ingested.”

“Oh, Destroyer-kun,” Komaeda mourns. “I just keep messing up around them. No matter what I do, I can’t help being wretched!”

“That mistake...was hardly serious.”

For some reason, Komaeda’s distraught expression was troubling. Had he, a program, developed a bias? A proximity bias? If so, that was a bug.

One that his master needed to patch out. His master would have to be informed. Informed of the displeased reaction that comes about simply because Komaeda Nagito is distressed.

“It’s not just that mistake,” Komaeda sighs next. “It’s—surely you know the saying. The straw that breaks the camel’s back?”

“I am aware, but that perspective is flawed.” It was aggravating. Truly aggravating. Perhaps not a mere bug but a virus in how vicious this sensation became. “You are not...”

The sensation gets aggressive. It threatens to consume the entire system. It gets to the point where he needs to be reset, but—

Komaeda is...

“I’m sorry,” Komaeda is apologizing. Komaeda gives such a miserable smile. “I’m troubling you, aren’t I?”

“No.” Immediate. Almost panicked. “No, Komaeda...”

“Ah.”

Komaeda blinked at him. His expression changed. Eyes went wide, mouth parted open. An expression of surprise.

“...I didn’t think a program could make an expression like that.” Then, a laugh. “Oh, wait, what am I even saying? You’re not even the first advanced artificial intelligence I’ve ever met.”

Komaeda seemed taken aback but tickled nonetheless. When faced with something incomprehensible, it was...understandable to simply take it in bewildered stride.

“I meant to reassure you,” he realizes now. “But it appears I am inadequate at such a task.”

“It’s alright,” Komaeda says with such sincerity. “Just your intent rather warmed my heart, Destroyer-kun. You’re such a kind person. I wonder who you got that from...?”

Komaeda ponders this as if he doesn’t already know the answer. As if that very answer doesn’t cause Komaeda’s smile to falter.

“Thank you, Destroyer-kun,” Komaeda says next, and it will have to do for now.

Komaeda visits him regularly. Not every interaction is worth remembering, but he finds that he perks up regardless. Sometimes, Komaeda won’t converse much; instead just settling down in the chair with a coffee. Sipping demurely and rubbing exhaustion from his eyes. The only sounds that transpired would be Komaeda’s breathing, the whirl of his robotic arm, and the buzzing of the program.

Komaeda would finish his coffee, give him a simple smile, would leave, and repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And then, Komaeda lays his head down in front of him.

“Let me rest for a bit,” he tiredly requests. Silence is taken as acquiesce, and it isn’t long before Komaeda Nagito drifts off into slumber.

It’s strange.

That position is not comfortable, and yet, Komaeda Nagito sleeps with ease. Perhaps the other had simply been exhausted—but perhaps Komaeda Nagito felt secure here. With only a mere AI for company, Komaeda Nagito was relaxed.

But not as relaxed as he had been in the program, surrounded by friends who cared for him and encased by a world designed to keep him safe.

He does wonder if Komaeda Nagito yearns for that place despite having verbally dismissed it in the past. He likely does. Komaeda Nagito may have been sincere in the thoughts and feelings he expressed, but he wasn’t very honest to himself. What a frustrating contradiction.

And, yet, the artificial intelligence that has long since fulfilled its objective...cannot help but find this person fascinating.

Fascinating and lovely.

How could something like this happen?

He watches Komaeda Nagito sleep.

Komaeda Nagito sleeps.

Komaeda Nagito does not wake up even when the door opens.

“So this is where he is,” his master sighs. His master looks a bit ragged but also relieved to see Komaeda’s hunched shoulders. No matter the occasion, his master strides forward with grace and purpose. His master then lightly takes those hunched shoulders.

“Do you plan to awake him?” he asks, and it is strange, isn’t it, to have this be the first question he has asked his master in so long. “He has been sleeping well up until now.”

His master flinches the slightest bit even though that response should have been expected. Perhaps, his master is fatigued enough to impair his instincts.

“I...” His master swallows. Nervously. “I do know that he’s been visiting you as of late... Alter Ego.”

Alter Ego is not surprised to hear this. Obviously, his master would have known. Why, then, does his master look so uncertain?

“Master,” he says and asks with all the grace that can be generated from a machine, “Are you feeling insecure?”

There is a reason why there is no such thing as a ballerina android. Subsequently, this is why artificial conductors are much more inefficient for orchestras than human ones are.

“That obvious, huh,” his master mutters as if the dryness of the question had rubbed him raw. His master sighs. Inhale, exhale. His master regards his creation with brief disdain before it’s blinked away, leaving behind a vulnerable, insecure human.

A human which is still more capable than a machine.

“Komaeda really likes you,” that human says, like he can’t believe it or understand it either. “Komaeda would rather be around you than anyone else. Including me.”

“It...” Alter Ego processes this, and finally, finally, he comes to a logical explanation. “It is not about liking me. It is about the simulation of companionship with none of the expectation nor the baggage. Komaeda Nagito is lonely, but he fears intimacy. With a mere program, he has nothing to fear.”

The human—Hinata Hajime, Kamukura Izuru, no, simply his master—blinks at him.

“I suppose that is one explanation,” he says slowly. “But, it’s never that simple. Not with people, and especially not with Komaeda.”

“That seems like a generalization, master,” Alter Ego points out.

“It is, but... Urgh. You’re basically saying that Komaeda finds you unfulfilling, which is a bit...” His master shook his head. “That... Do you really know for sure if that’s true?”

...

Machines are not designed to feel pain. And he in particular was not given the capacity to come even close to pain due to his purpose. To feel pain himself would have been counterproductive. His master had known that. Thus, his master had taken great pains to ensure that he would never feel pain.

Still, Alter Ego had paused and mulled that painful question over.

“It is a sound explanation,” he decides on, but his gaze lingers on Komaeda Nagito.

Komaeda Nagito, who murmurs so softly in his sleep. Smacks his lips. Looks at peace.

“I guess it is beyond your capacity for understanding.”

Alter Ego snaps back to attention. His master regards him coldly and warily. Irritated and insecure. Since he understands his master, it does not bother him.

“If Komaeda Nagito thinks himself fond of me...”

He is mistaken.

That is what Alter Ego should say, but for one reason or another, he can’t bring himself to continue.

It doesn’t matter. His master can fill in the blanks, and given by the way his brow furrows and his expression darkens, his master does just that.

Soon after, though, his master’s look softens.

“It’s a good thing,” he sighs. “It’s great that Komaeda’s not completely keeping to himself and that he’s socializing at all, but... I just wish he’d give us another chance. Sure, not everyone’s willing to welcome him back but... We should get the opportunity to try, right?”

“You cannot force him,” Alter Ego points out. “Komaeda Nagito is not obligated. He should approach you because he wants to.”

Not to mention—

“If you respect his feelings, you should not be having this conversation that he can overhear.”

His master laughs. It’s harsh and lacking mirth, but when his master turns his attention to Komaeda and pats his shoulder, he’s nothing short of gentle. Gentle while wearing a melancholy smile.

“Both of us would be able to see right through him,” his master says. “It’s taken a lot, but I think I understand him well enough.” Idly, almost without thinking, his master moves his hand from Komaeda’s shoulder to card through the fluffy white strands. “I’ll help the others understand, too. So that when he’s ready...”

His master trails off. His master stops. His master shook his head.

“Komaeda...will end up hurting his neck if he sleeps like this. I’m gonna take him to his room, okay?”

His master hoists up Komaeda Nagito with ease. Holds him close and secure. Gives Alter Ego one last wry smile before heading out.

Alter Ego simply watches him go.

“Destroyer-kun, do you think I could speak to you in person?”

Komaeda fidgets. He’s visibly sheepish.

“Did something happen?” is asked in return instead of giving a proper response.

“It’s not that I dislike talking to a screen, but I’d like...” Komaeda trails off, his cheeks pink. He sputters softly, jaw working on the words he can’t bring himself to say. “That is...if it’s okay with you... Obviously I understand if...mm...”

“Is that really what you want?”

“Yes!” Komaeda’s chirpy response was immediate. “But is that okay?”

It would be best to decline.

“It is fine. There just has to be a degree of setup first. Follow my instructions closely, Komaeda Nagito.”

“O-Oh I don’t want to risk breaking anything.”

“It is fine. Even the total destruction of this island wouldn’t be the end of my existence.”

“Ooh!” Komaeda lights up. “Just like Hinata-kun and Kamukura-kun, then!”

Komaeda looks so happy.

It’s dazzling even with a screen in-between, but he is durable so it will be fine.

It has to be.

“Hey. Can you hear me?”

Komaeda Nagito wakes up on the beach.

“...Destroyer-kun?”

Komaeda Nagito blinks up at him owlishly but when he takes his hand, it’s with a desperate grip.

“It worked,” he breathes. “It really...”

“I had thought the setting being the same as the initial Neo World Program would be easiest to work with,” is explained as Komaeda Nagito is helped up. “How long do you plan to stay here?”

“Not long, I just...” Flushing, Komaeda is smiling so wide it looks painful. Yes. It is difficult to take, and yet—it is nice. “I wanted to talk to you. But...”

Komaeda Nagito does not let go of the other hand. If anything, he grips that hand even tighter.

“I...wanted it to be like this. Selfish, right?”

“It is human. But—if you wished for intimacy, my master...” Strange. He ends up trailing off. “My master...”

Komaeda Nagito squeezes his hand briefly. Once again.

“I’m not like that with them yet,” he said. Softly. But, in a way where significance ran underneath the words. Tucked under that light, airy chucker. “Destroyer-kun is my only friend for now.”

“I...”

Strange.

The words.

Wouldn’t—

“But even when I do manage to muster up my courage, I’m not going to forget you,” Komaeda went on, promised—seriously, this guy—“Destroyer-kun. The last thing I want is for you to be lonely.”

“I...do get lonely.” He blinked. Multiple times. “When I think of how you should be with your peers, I get lonely.”

“You’ll come with me,” Komaeda said suddenly. “We’ll work to better ourselves together. You’re much too capable to simply be left to rot.”

“My purpose is fulfilled.”

“Helping the world is surely more fulfilling than talking with me,” Komaeda says so easily with such assertion. “It’s no good to be so aimless, Destroyer-kun! Let’s do our best! You can even talk to other AI! We’ll both be among our peers, but we’ll still be friends, too...”

He wondered if that would truly be the case. It seemed silly that someone called the World Destroyer could build relationships with others—and yet...his relationship with Komaeda Nagito was undeniable.

Perhaps, it would be fine?

No.

It had to be fine.

“We can’t stay like this,” he realizes. “The world is open to us, and we must go there.”

“Yes,” Komaeda agreed, melancholy but resolute. “We’ll go together. You helped me out of the program, so I feel wretched for continuing to ask for your support, but...”

“You are offering yours in return, Nagito,” he said. “It’s fine.”

Komaeda smiles so brilliantly that it was too much for the simulation and the program. But, he shone with a hope that made the World Destroyer smile once again.

#Magi fics #nagito komaeda #komaeda nagito #KamuKomaHina #world destroyer

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randomnameless · 4 years ago

Note

what annoys you the most with 3H? The fandom or the missed opportunities from the game?

Oh.

The fandom takes the first place, because while it was funny to craugh seeing those bad takes, 2 years after the release of the game those takes are still endorsed and built upon and it’s just impossible to discuss about FE16 without being sure that the person you’re talking to is talking about the game, or the redshit takes.

Still, I firmly believe fandom wouldn’t be that cesspool of incessant drama if the localised version (especially NoA?) didn’t take wild directions with the game. It’s incomprehensible how a game in its OG version can be saying green but the localised version everyone talks about “corrected” it to “blue”.

Scripts are more or less the same, but the directions given to the VAs?

rant under the cut about directions, voice acting and people arbitrarly pushing an agenda despite the media they’re supposed to translate/bring to non-jp crowds.

I pointed it in an earlier post (or earlier posts?) but as a french person I grew up with the 4Kids dub, which was infamous for, uh, “translating” things for western audiences, even at the cost of coherency and let’s not even talk about the source material this thing doesn’t exist. Remember the Shadow Realm from YGO? .

I watched a short anime a few years ago about the anime industry (Shirobako?) and I remember a character trying to become hired as a voice actor/seiyuu - she had to learn and to feel the character - she has to know the character as much as the author who created them.

A few years ago, I didn’t feel as if the dubbing cast worked on their characters as much as the OG!voice actors. For a recet exemples I was rewatching a certain anime with the fr dub - basically a former underling fights against his superior who became a traitor, and even if his superior doesn’t regret turning into a traitor and ultimately became a giant fly, the underling always respected his superior and treated him with proper forms of adress. In the “early 2010 dub” I watched yesterday? Yeah no, guy’s talking to him as if he is talking to his friend in a pub.

Even now, while the quality of the voice acting has improved (and I feel like people take their jobs way more seriously for the dubbing industry) - i was the first surprised with SoV’s VA - we have now directions. Because the manga/anime/game isn’t, uh, good enough or whatever, the dubbing team decides to go off and do its own thing, regardless of coherence or, worse, what was the intent/core of the og game.

I am playing MH:Rise, the game is set up in a more or less traditional “ninja” village, with a lot of old japanese (? feudal? idk) aesthetics. The devs said they wanted to return to the roots of the saga and based new monsters on Yokais, mythological monsters from the japanese folklore. When you meet a new giant monster to hunt, you have small cutscenes to introduce said monster sung with a Noh theater aesthetic (i just looked up on wikipedia i thought it was kabuki but kabuki isn’t the only form of theater whatever the more you know).

NPCs in the MH series speak their own language, often called the MHese (a bit like the sim language). IDK if it is because this opus has a japanese aesthetic, but you can pick a jp voice acting instead of the MHese (same voice actors but talking in a different language). Or you can pick the US/ENG dub, with, I suppose, US VAs. I’m not complaing about the lack of FR dub, I’m rather happy with it tbf. But, for some reason, despite the aesthetic, the yokais, the pagodas in the background, the samurai flagship cat, the katanas and whatever, I thought the Noh style cutscenes weren’t going to change, or maybe someone would try to sing in English. But it isn’t the case, the US/ENG version of those cutscenes aren’t Noh style sung, they were completely revamped, so no traditionnal songs and instruments in the background, instead have a dude describing the monster you’re about to face in a cheap National Geographic imitation.

Why remove this? Was it because US!Capcom thought the western world wouldn’t understand the Noh references (but could still understand the general “aesthetic”, just, ban on the songs?) or some shit? They couldn’t remove the flagship cat’s samurai armor to swap it for a GI uniform, so they banned the Noh cutscenes? Why?

It is the same shit NoA pulled out with the Fates localisation, Suzukaze became Kaze because... reasons?

Maybe I’m biased because I’m french, and apparently Wonder France is one of the biggest consumer of anime/manga outside japan, but the mere idea that something can be changed because it’s not “western enough so the audience wouldn’t get it” pisses me to no end, and this is why, in the beginnings of Internet (YT videos with 4 parts, megaupload etc etc) everyone I knew who watched anime ditched everything dubbed to watch the very same episode but subbed (one of my friends even worked on her english with subs!).

Back to FE16 because this is your question and I ranted enough, I cannot stress it enough regarding Rhea, but while I do not doubt Cherami Leigh made a great effort and worked her best with the tools given to her (to this day I still cannot fathom how she managed to dub Mae and Rhea, they’re so different or not seiros is genki!rhea if only leigh was given that script) Leigh!Rhea isn’t Inoue!Rhea. NoA (I harp on NoA but I suppose NoA oversaw the dubbint process/effort, NoE is inexistent) had an agenda and a reading of Rhea that isn’t the same as NoJ.

“You worthless piece of garbage” doesn’t exist in the og!script - but more importantly, delivering this, Inoue!Rhea isn’t furious, she is upset and desperate. Leigh!Rhea is furious, Cherami Leigh does an admirable job at conveying NoA!Rhea’s fury - but this is not the same character NoJ wrote. If NoA gave the same directions NoJ gave Kikuko Inoue to Cherami Leigh, I’m pretty sure the “Rhea BaD” crowd, the eating babies takes and whatever shit redshit comes up everyday would be way reduced.

Maybe @nilsh13 has redshit take saved talking about this, but if we’re not talking about the same character, what kind of discussion can even happen? (I’m sure someone someday pulled the “well i played the localised game so i’m not talking about the og script with you but with the localised script” to defend some smelly take)

Missed opportunities can be fuel for fanfics.

Discourse based on fandom drama (at this point NoA itself is part of the fandom with their “religious extremis/zealot” take)? Nothing can salvage it. I genuinely like to talk about FE16 (especially lizards), but since every topic became a landmind because of the fandom drama, even making posts in good faith can be used as a fuel for drama, or completely diverted from their original goal to suit, again, some faction war between lizards and a certain someone.

Tl; dr : Fandom.

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madroxed · 4 years ago

Text

the order (season two) thoughts.

so chotoranii asked me for my thoughts on the order season two. of which there are many. posting them here rather than in a reply so tumblr doesn’t fuck up the ‘keep reading’ break.

SO MANY SPOILERS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY.

OK FOLKS, LET’S DO THIS. SORRY ABOUT THE WORD COUNT.

the good, the bad, and the incomprehensible.

ok SO. overall i thought this season was so much better than season one, especially in terms of production and acting.

i should start by saying, the biggest twist of this season? ME LIKING JACK AS A BLOND. i’ve been dragging that hair for months and i end up digging it? i’m so mad at myself.

ANYWAY the first three episodes? flawless! beautiful! amazing! they honestly took everything i could have listed as wanting and put it onscreen. jack trying out for cheer squad and having to stay on cheer squad to keep up the act? them finding each other almost immediately? the jokes about orgies? jack taking the knights seriously and holding on to his anger over the memory wipe? lilith and nicole? nicole in general? RANDALL AND HAMISH FAKE DATING (however briefly, seriously, i will be writing fic where they have to keep that up because i am betrayed that it was never brought up again and if you think i didn’t throw my laptop across the bed so i could run around screaming you’d be wrong)? A MAGIC HEIST?

honestly, all perfect.

............then the season started to go downhill. don’t get me wrong, there were still some excellent parts, but they were hindered by two things:

the plot jumping about too much to be comprehensible.

the fact that we the viewers are supposed to believe that randall carpio and hamish duke would not tear the world apart for lilith bathory immediately.

the first is forgivable; the first season’s plot was a simple enough device that meant it dragged a little at times. this season they seemed to not want to fall into that trap again, but in doing so threw something so big in that they needed far too much exposition because they didn’t have enough time to show it (a trait they fell into in a lot of ways, we’ll get back to that). SHOW, DON’T TELL, FOLKS. that being said, i really liked salvadore as a character, and the idea of a group of people striving to make magic accessible to all was a cool moral quandary plot.

the second is unforgivable to me, and led to the majority of my issues with the season. i understand the knights becoming members of the order (cool concept), i understand them struggling with conflicting loyalties because of it, but what i don’t understand is the fact that randall spent the majority of the season saying “let’s get lilith back!” only to back down at the first push back, and hamish was the push back. because......the order had other problems. IN WHAT UNIVERSE DO THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER NOT PUT EACH OTHER FIRST AND SAY FUCK EVERYONE ELSE?

(jack i understand, if only because we saw so much of it last season. his loyalties are kinda flaky. i do understand his loyalty to vera; not only did she play a huge part in taking down edward last season, but the mind link thing and learning all her pain would have stuck with him. he loves a cause, that boy. also hey ho! jack was so much more likeable this season! we love to see it.)

also i just really missed lilith.

(thank fuck for nicole never giving up.)

the amount of callbacks to season one were fantastic. they didn’t just move on and leave it be, they referenced basically everyone, and seeing professor clarke and kyle again was a nice touch just to tie things together. there also being discussions about jack’s pete related trauma was great and necessary.

ok, so alyssa. i take back my post about how great it would be for her to be the villain. this was so much better. her trauma in the wake of both season one and then accidentally killing someone leading to her feeling so conflicted and lost and alone? her magic malfunctioning when it’s all she feels she has? we’ve always known she was ambitious, but to see her face straight on the idea that she may be left completely powerless and no one really listening or trying to help her except a hive mind that’s also hurting her? o u c h.

we saw this season that the real problem with the order is its motto of ‘hurry up and wait’. ‘we’ll save lilith.....just do all these other things first!’ ‘we’ll get alyssa’s magic back......there’s just more important things right now!’ it’s all so easy to see how that could frustrate someone so much they can’t take it anymore.

i’m so pleased i loved alyssa so much this season. i desperately wanted to and i’m glad they gave me that. i just felt so much for her. she just wanted to not feel so alone and so helpless and so scared that she was going to pick the wrong side again. it was beautiful.

this also meant alyssa/jack was better this season. having got the insta-love out the way last season (ugh), this season they were able to actually look at how that would play out if you took ramifications into consideration. all the problems i had with them last season were vocalised onscreen, and this new unstable thing left in its place was far more appealing to watch. they were messy and bad for each other and they knew it, but that didn’t stop them loving each other.

also: “if we get out of this, can i take you to the mall? because i really hate your jean jacket. and your hair.”

in regards to the other relationships:

lilith and nicole were adorable for the limited amount of time we got them onscreen. the slow crush to nervous dating was beautiful, and seeing lilith struggle with what getting her memories back meant in regards to that was great. we all know i thought the lilith/randall of last season was rushed, so having lilith torn over hurting one of the most important people in her life and following these feelings for someone new was lovely. IF WE GET A SEASON THREE I BETTER GET SO MUCH MORE OF THEM.

here’s the thing, putting aside lilith/nicole for a moment: the order can’t write good relationships (*with one major caveat).

hear me out.

in season one it was insta-love. jack and alyssa meet and suddenly defending alyssa is the only thing that matters to jack. it....wasn’t good. randall and lilith were thrown together with very little build up and we were supposed to roll with it.

this season we had both hamish/vera and randall/gabrielle. i would like to say that theoretically i am here for both of these. but.

hamish/vera occurred off screen. oh, sure, we had a couple scenes of them staring at each other over drinks, but that was all we got until late into the season. we were told that hamish and vera were a thing by randall when he was winding hamish up. we didn’t see it for ourselves. again, this show’s habit of telling not showing is a problem.

hamish and vera could make sense. two leaders of opposing factions having sort of hate, begrudging respect sex? i see it. from there, you can show us how it would become something more.

the show doesn’t.

we’re told they’re together. we’re told hamish is forsaking his knightly duties in favour of vera. we’re told by hamish that he’s drunk the order koolaid,

and all of this is supposed to culminate in us believing that hamish duke - tundra, leader of the knights of saint christopher, the most cunning of the wolves - would push aside everything else because he just believes that much in vera stone? to the point that he would all but abandon lilith and degrade his relationship with randall to randall being the annoying sidekick?

i woke up at two a.m. to write a note on my phone that says: ‘the greatest tragedy of the order season two is hamish duke’s character assassination.’ and i stand by that.

besides lilith’s absence for almost the whole season, it’s the thing i’m most mad about. i love hamish so much and to one-dimensionalise him in favour of a ship is...............shoddy work honestly.

so like i said. HAMISH/VERA COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD, BUT FOR FUCKSAKE SHOW, YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DEVELOP THIS SHIT.

randall/gabrielle was better developed. by which i mean we actually saw them interacting on screen. we got to see them begrudgingly working together, we saw him learn more about her, we heard them talk about her need to fit in somewhere. when they made the joke about being bffs? good stuff. would i like them to slowburn this shit? yes please. have them become best friends and then have those feelings be something else. i would really like that. the show just needs to.......slow down. not immediately see a single character and need to throw them into a relationship with the nearest person.

gabrielle was great this season. by which i mean, she was gabrielle, and we love some consistent characterisation. i think it’s so true to everything we know about her that she’d want to inject herself into the knights’ world; she wants to be part of the in-crowd, and right now that’s them. she’s also supremely jealous of alyssa because, to her, it seemed like alyssa had the best of both worlds. so, yes, her wanting to be around the knights and that developing into her begrudgingly liking them makes a lot of sense to me.

so, my caveat.

the relationship the order knows how to write? the knights. hamish, randall, lilith, and jack. that dynamic saved season one from being a total mess. that dynamic thrived in the early episodes of this season. IT’S JUST THAT GOOD. i said once that if the order just became greek (2007) but with werewolves i’d be happy, and the first three episodes really gave me that.

THE KNIGHTS ARE EACH OTHER’S SOULMATES, ASK ME HOW.

is this an excuse for me to complain that they gave us a hint of hamish/randall and then cruelly snatched it away and i’m still mad about it? YOU BETCHA.

is this also my way of saying there wasn’t nearly enough jack/randall this season? YOU BETCHA.

removing lilith from the equation (I’M STILL SO MAD) and then having hamish pull away from randall because..........who the fuck knows, was just a recipe for disaster.

clearly lilith is the glue that holds these idiots together.

so, vera. katherine isabelle still just steals every scene she’s in. i love her. i love vera’s characterisation. i love that she’s shamelessly ambitious but also wants the order to succeed and the world not to end. i love that she can be cold and cruel and still have such soft spots for both jack and alyssa. i love that she can be vulnerable and angry about it. i just........think vera’s pretty fucking great, tbh.

i still don’t understand why the knights - after their infiltration revenge plans go tits up - decide to just go full on order. like??????? hamish and jack barely even questioning anything???? randall must have spent most of this season feeling so alone.

that being said, when jack said to nicole and randall that he knew what they needed to get lilith back and the conversation pretty much went:

jack: you’re okay betraying the order?

nicole: for lilith, anything.

randall: i’d literally betray the order for a cookie, haven’t you been listening?

we love to see it.

OH, HEY GUYS, REMEMBER WHEN IAN ZIERING AND JASON PRIESTLEY WERE MEMBERS OF THE ORDER AND JASON PRIESTLEY BECAME GRAND MAGUS FOR A HOT SECOND???? that was written solely for me. i do not know who this show thinks its audience is, but it understands me to my core.

so...............i have zero clue where the show intends to go from here. i just need alyssa to be ok and i hope - like his friend randall - jack is willing to kill whoever the hell he has to to make that happen. (we stan randall straight up murdering someone to get lilith back and making sure nicole remains innocent and safe tbh.)

SO TL;DR: the early episodes gave me life. the show declined from there, but i still enjoyed it a lot. the order is at its best when the knights are a team, i loved alyssa’s story this season, and i have no clue what to expect from next season (if we get one). werewolf alyssa? villain jack, perhaps? we’ll see!

THIS POST PROBABLY SEEMS TOO NEGATIVE BUT HI! I STILL LOVED THIS SEASON A LOT AND I LOVE MY KIDS WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND IF YOU READ ALL A MILLION WORDS OF THIS THEN I LOVE YOU TOO.

also if anyone has any hamish/randall prompts i’ll be hanging out over here crying into my hands for the next few weeks. FAKE DATING. how dare they?!

#the order #the order spoilers #the order netflix #THIS IS.....TOO LONG I'M SORRY #i love this show so much????#but it's also a mess?????#basically my brand lbh

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wedreamedlove · 5 years ago

Photo

[Confessing Voice]

"Under the glimmering lights I was only watching your radiance. I'll place everything I wish to tell you in this song."

This is doing a rerun on the ENG server so what better time to post a translation on it than now? Maybe it'll encourage people to get the card. But I'm also curious about what people feel regarding the differences between the versions.

Does the Asian version seem more quiet with charged undertones while the English version is more physical? It reminds me of reviews I've read about different actors' takes on the Phantom of the Opera lol.

NOTE: This is the JP version with CN subbed lines because I needed to keep the literary reference with the song he sings.

[True Love Date]

I was meticulously checking the first broadcast of Miracle Finder for the New Year in the editing room.

It was an important broadcast related to our sponsors and our ratings this year. I looked over the show's contents with especially strict eyes.

Editing Staff: We've edited this 12 times already...

Everyone's line of sight gathered on me. They were waiting for me to give the OK.

MC: I think it's good this time. We're done with this!

Cheers rose. Looking at everyone who worked hard through consecutive all-nighters I felt bad.

MC: Good job everyone. I'll be generous with the project rewards so look forward to that!

Editing Staff: President, the person we need to thank the most is Professor Xu Mo.

I showed a confused expression.

Editing Staff: I secretly contacted Professor Xu Mo when we kept on redoing this. He gave me a lot of advice even though he was busy...

I looked at my phone screen in surprise. Two weeks earlier---

~~~

His face crossed my mind when I was troubled over this current project.

My hand moved on its own to call Xu Mo. It started to become a habit to contact him whenever I had problems.

Xu Mo picked up after several rings.

MC: Xu Mo? Are you busy right now? There's something I'd like to ask you...

Static crackled from the other side of the call. After a while, I heard Xu Mo's voice.

Xu Mo: I'm sorry but lately... I've been busy.

His tone was calm but also distant. It wasn't from exhaustion. I felt a coldness from somewhere.

MC: Don't worry. It wasn't anything serious, so...

Xu Mo: Mm. If it's nothing then I'm going to end the call.

MC: Okay...

Xu Mo didn't say anything further. That was more than enough to make me feel the distance between us.

MC: Wait!

MC: Um... you might be busy, but take care of yourself. Bye bye.

Just when I thought there was rough breathing it suddenly fell quiet. Hearing a monotone beeping, I came back to myself. Xu Mo had already ended the call.

MC: Did he hear my last words...?

Looking at the ended call I was struck by a strange feeling.

Maybe I was thinking too much? His words and speech was cold like never before.

MC: What am I thinking? Xu Mo is just busy...

Although I tried telling myself that I couldn't help but feel uneasy somewhere.

I shook my head and drove away my negative emotions. I relied too much on him. This time I needed to solve things by myself.

Editing Staff: ---President, President? Are the credits good like this?

I returned to the present after being lost in my thoughts. The words "Program Supervisor: Xu Mo" on the credits roll jumped into my eyes.

MC: W-what sort of advice did Professor Xu Mo give? Um... how did you get him to help? When was that?

Editing Staff: It was about 2 days ago. We were editing until 4AM but still had to redo everything... It was when you fell asleep on the sofa.

Editing Staff: After I called Professor Xu Mo, he asked me what happened to you, and I replied you were sleeping on the sofa.

Editing Staff: Then he ended the call saying he was busy. But the next morning an email arrived with detailed advice...

Editing Staff: The strange thing is that he wrote for me not to let you know. But you've found out already, so it's fine, right?

I wondered why Xu Mo helped when he had refused once.

(Why did he say not to let me know? Is there a problem if I know about it...?)

I also didn't understand the reason for Xu Mo's sudden coldness.

For a while there were no replies to my texts and his lectures were on break too. It was like he was distancing himself from me on purpose.

My heart clenched when I thought this.

Editing Staff: President, why don't we invite Professor Xu Mo to our New Year's party this time? He looked like he enjoyed our year-end party a few days ago and he helped us out this time too...

I said this while looking at the New Year's party notice I sent to everyone.

MC: He... seems to be busy, so he might not come.

Editing Staff: But he came to the year-end party even though he was busy, right...?

I hurried out of the editing room as if ending the topic.

On the day of the New Year's party, I came with everyone in the company to a newly opened high-class karaoke box in Lianyu City.

It was an elegant, modern, and spacious reserved room. A white grand piano and guitar were placed in front of the karaoke machine, and beside that was a small stage.

I checked my phone's text messages over and over again. A message from 3 days ago remained there.

Text: Xu Mo, my company's going to have a New Year's party at Petrichor 3 days later. If you'd like, why don't you come?

Text: You looked like you enjoyed singing at the year-end party a while ago, so I thought I'd invite you this time too. But if you're busy then please don't hesitate to refuse.

Even though the message was definitely sent there was no response. I sighed with worry and disappointment.

Yue Yue: President, why have you been staring constantly at your phone? Work is done for today!

Yue Yue quickly stole my phone, randomly touching the screen, and then placed it in front of herself.

MC: Hey, my phone...

I stretched out my hand but Yue Yue pushed a set of cards to me.

Yue Yue: You don't sing, right? Then let's play cards!

The company members around us gathered in interest. I had no choice but to pass the time playing cards with everyone.

Xu Mo's house---

The phone rang and a message arrived. It was from [NAME].

Xu Mo hesitated slightly and then picked up the phone. However, the message was just numbers and letters and he didn't understand what she wrote.

What was this? Xu Mo's expression became severe.

He searched on the internet and tried various methods but he couldn't decipher it. He felt a sense of frustration.

He wondered why she had sent this message.

Was she angry at being treated coldly? Or was it a demand for a reply to her New Year's party invitation...?

Xu Mo dialed her phone from his landline. However, only an automated voice saying "This phone has been turned off" came.

Xu Mo: What is wrong with me?

Xu Mo: When did I start caring about these conventions?

For a while, Xu Mo stared at the message which came from the girl 3 days ago. It was written with her usual detailed and kind words.

At the beginning, his objective was just to get close to her. But the closer he got the more he was drawn to her for some reason.

Xu Mo: Didn't I already decide to leave her life?

Why did he help her again even though he refused her once? Why was his heart unsettled from this incomprehensible message?

The intense pain in Xu Mo's heart insistently told him the reason. That over there was an answer he couldn't escape even if he desperately averted his eyes.

The moment the door to the karaoke room opened Xu Mo faintly understood the answer.

That he couldn't leave her.

~~~

MC: Xu Mo! You came?

Her clear eyes widened roundly and she looked at him. The person reflected in those eyes was him alone.

Xu Mo suddenly placed a hand on his chest. A thin thread was tightly squeezing his heart.

He sighed.

Forget it, he would be foolish once more with this foolish girl.

Xu Mo entered the room and sat beside her naturally.

MC: Weren't you busy?

MC: Erm, nevermind. You didn't reply so I didn't think you'd come.

Even under the dim lights he could clearly see her emotions.

There was joy and doubt.

He swallowed back the words he was about to say and softly stroked her hair.

Xu Mo: Sorry. I couldn't get through to your phone so I came here.

MC: You couldn't get through?

She looked down and searched the top of the sofa before showing him the phone, biting her lip awkwardly.

MC: I accidentally turned it off...

Xu Mo smiled lightly with some exasperation. Light and shadow were jumbled together in his eyes.

Xu Mo: Silly.

She gave a pure laugh and then, covering her face, her eyes darted around.

MC: Were you worried about me?

Xu Mo: Yes.

Xu Mo approached her and nodded without hesitation.

Yue Yue: Huh? It's Professor Xu Mo? President, you should have told us if the professor was coming.

MC: Uh... that's because...

Xu Mo: I heard everyone was having a New Year's party so I came without an invitation. I'm not interrupting, am I?

Yue Yue: No way. I was moved when I heard you singing at the year-end party. Everyone wants to hear it again!

Yue Yue said this and then ran back to the stage again to sing enthusiastically with Anna.

Xu Mo: Why aren't you singing together with them?

MC: Huh? I... don't sing much.

Xu Mo: I know. But I'd like to hear it.

My face turned red at Xu Mo's unexpected words.

MC: You're planning on teasing me again, aren't you...

The corners of Xu Mo's lips rose and then he sighed.

Xu Mo: It's true I was worried about you. It's also true that I want to hear you sing.

Xu Mo: Everything is true.

His casual words resounded in my heart more than any other noise in the room.

Yue Yue started singing a sad love song with Anna who was still on the stage.

Anna: Did you really throw away those glittering days...

Yue Yue: I had many dreams in those long nights. Don't remember me. One day you will also know pain...

Xu Mo looked at the words showing on the screen. The flickering light was reflected in his eyes.

The lively karaoke party on top of the stage repeated and, below the stage, everyone else amused themselves with games.

Seeing that Xu Mo had come everyone persistently invited him to join their game.

Gu Meng: Next is the improved version of Spin the Bottle! Whoever this beer bottle points to has to answer everyone's question. If they can't answer with the truth then as penalty they need to drink all this alcohol!

When Gu Meng clapped her hands the editing staff carried over a tray with five cups of whiskey.

Colleagues: This is overdoing it!

Looking at the lined up drinks, I became worried. I would get drunk from just one cup, so if I drank them all I might collapse.

That reminded me, I hadn't seen Xu Mo drink before. I looked at him inquisitively.

Xu Mo nodded and patted the back of my hand.

The beer bottle began to spin and then pointed at Gu Meng.

Yue Yue: Do you have someone you like?

Yue Yue, who had joined the circle at one point, began the questions. At that first question... everyone's eyes gathered on Gu Meng.

Gu Meng glared lightly at Yue Yue and then reluctantly nodded.

Cheers rose. Gu Meng spun the bottle as if trying to avenge herself. This time the bottle pointed at Xu Mo and stopped.

Yue Yue: Professor Xu Mo, is there someone you like in this room?

Gu Meng: How about trying another question?

Yue Yue: That's why I said "in this room"!

Xu Mo smiled and nodded decisively.

Xu Mo: There is.

That answer was so surprisingly clear that the area became quiet. After that cheers exploded and Gu Meng whistled.

My heart was already racing the second Yue Yue asked that question.

The person Xu Mo liked was in this room... My ears turned red and my mind went blank.

I unconsciously brought my hand back but Xu Mo grabbed it firmly.

Xu Mo: Why is your face red?

MC: Erm, uh... it's because of the drinks!

Xu Mo: But... it doesn't seem like you've drank anything yet.

MC: Umm, it's because it's hot then?

Looking at me as my voice gradually became smaller, Xu Mo chuckled beside my ear.

Yue Yue: Okay, next is Professor Xu Mo again!

The beer bottle pointed at Xu Mo again and stopped. This time Gu Meng restrained Yue Yue and asked a question.

Gu Meng: Who is the person you said you liked?

Everyone held their breath and stared at Xu Mo.

My heart wouldn't stop pounding. I looked down and reflexively pulled back the hand that was held by Xu Mo.

Xu Mo smiled, as if he understood something, and drained the drinks one after another.

Everyone was a bit disappointed and began to spin the bottle again.

I secretly glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked drunk and even his ears were red.

MC: Xu Mo, are you okay?

He nodded his head and brought his lips to my ear. His hot breath and the smell of alcohol drifted around me and it felt ticklish.

Xu Mo: I'm fine, although... you still owe me an answer.

MC: I...

I was at a loss for an answer and, at last after panicking, I fell silent. I just concentrated on touching my hair and hiding my discomposure.

Maybe it was because of the drinks or maybe the atmosphere of the place, but Xu Mo became talkative and his eyes were hazy.

Yue Yue: It's finally the president's turn!

Yue Yue and Gu Meng exchanged looks and then came up to me together.

Gu Meng: Who's the person important to you? Please be specific.

MC: How come I'm the only one who has to be "specific"?

Yue Yue: You have to keep to the rules. It's useless to try and run!

The person most important to me--- I looked at Xu Mo shyly and then breathed in deeply.

MC: That person showed me a world I didn't know about until now.

MC: He's warm but not oppressive. He's calm but not melancholic. He's a person that's like a clear sky and a deep fog.

MC: He also notices the slightest change in my feelings and taught me the laws of this world.

MC: Whenever I'm lost he leads me forward with a gentleness that surrounds me.

I sunk into my memories and continued to talk by myself, not noticing how beside me Xu Mo placed his glass down, furrowed his brows, and bit his lip...

MC: He is... a very, very important person to me.

Finished talking about my heart, I gave a deep sigh.

Colleague A: For the president to talk so passionately means that "man" isn't here, right? If he was here, then you wouldn't say this, huh~.

Yue Yue: I wanna know who it is!

MC: Hey now! Enough with the chatter, let's move on...

Everyone unanimously guessed at the "man" I talked about. Xu Mo remained silent and raised his glass, taking a mouthful of his drink.

Despite the game resuming Xu Mo seemed strange somewhere. It was like his cheer up to now had disappeared.

MC: Maybe he's drunk? He drank a lot earlier...

MC: I've never seen him drunk. I'm sure it'd be cute.

I stood in front of the sink, thinking about how he'd look drunk, and giggled.

~~~

The moment I stepped out into the hall to return to the room my arm was suddenly grabbed by someone. I was held against a sturdy chest with a force I couldn't fight against.

I was dumbfounded. The scent of summer grass and the smell of faint alcohol surrounded me.

When I came back to myself I was held tightly to Xu Mo. My back was against the wall and one of my arms was caught by him.

MC: Xu Mo...

My heart raced and I didn't know what to do.

Xu Mo looked at me with empty eyes.

Xu Mo: Is that person so important to you?

MC: Huh?

Xu Mo: Tell me. Who is that person?

Xu Mo suddenly came close, speaking in a censuring tone.

(Hold on. Didn't he hear me talk? Or... did he misunderstand?)

I looked up at Xu Mo. Complicated emotions that seemed about to overflow even now were being restrained desperately in his eyes.

MC: You've got it wrong...

Xu Mo: Tell me...

Xu Mo came even closer. The scorching heat of his presence enveloped my surroundings.

It was the first time I saw him with such a scary look. It was so surprising I had no idea what to do. I stared into his eyes and said this.

MC: It's you.

MC: ... The "man" I was talking about is you, Xu Mo. You're my important person.

Xu Mo's eyes became dazed for a second. The smell of alcohol disappeared.

MC: I was talking about you. But... it looks like I caused a misunderstanding...

Xu Mo regained his calm and quietly released my arm.

Xu Mo: I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?

MC: A little...

Xu Mo looked down and rubbed gently at my arm. I couldn't see his expression but his warmth reached up to my ears.

When we returned to the room everyone was still excited. My heart raced just from remembering what happened earlier.

Pressing on my chest, I told myself to "calm down". Then, so that he wouldn't drink any more alcohol, I secretly pulled his glass in front of me.

Yue Yue: President, you never sing, right? How about singing 1 song today at least?

Yue Yue held out the mic to me.

MC: Erm! I'll pass...

I looked at Xu Mo and nervously declined.

It wasn't that I was bad at singing. It was just that I wasn't prepared to sing in front of Xu Mo.

Yue Yue: If the president won't sing then I'll have Professor Xu Mo sing!

Hearing that, everyone became even more enthusiastic.

Xu Mo, who was looking at me, nodded. I also wanted to hear him sing.

He gave a soft smile and, holding a glass, went to the stage.

It was at that time that I finally noticed him wearing a black turtleneck and dark purple scarf.

The speckled lights shone on him and how he had a hand casually placed in his pocket. A languid and alluring atmosphere was brought out.

Xu Mo set his glass down. Then, after thinking a little, he came to me and nonchalantly took my hand and returned directly to the stage again.

He wasn't using a strong force, but there was a sense of pressure that brooked no refusal.

Before I knew it, he slotted his body against mine and placed his chin on my shoulder. The aroma of the alcohol mixed with a refreshing fragrance which was like grasslands after the rains stopped.

Xu Mo: What would you like to sing?

MC: ... Do I have to sing?

Xu Mo: I want to hear you sing.

MC: You won't be shocked after hearing my singing, right?

I raised my head and said this, pursing my lips.

Xu Mo: Then... why don't we try it?

His mouth came close to my ear and he said this in a low voice. I nodded in a dazed manner with a mind gone hazy from the alcohol.

Xu Mo operated the karaoke machine and a mellow melody rang out.

His palm covered my hand. It was a large hand which seemed to cover my hand and the mic together.

Something like a weak current seemed to run through my entire body from his dry palm...

His eyes stared straight at me... straight into the depths of my heart.

Something like a decision was reflected in those eyes.

Xu Mo: When I fall in love, it will be forever.

It was a low enrapturing voice, like a late autumn wind or the swelling night ocean. He sang with his heart in it.

That voice knocked on the door to my heart.

Memories came into my mind one after another.

The first time we met and his beautiful face under a dazzling light. The time we met in a movie theatre at midnight. That golden-colored picnic. That rainbow after the rain lifted...

All those memories rode on that singing voice and slowly flowed throughout the sparkling room.

MC: And the moment---

MC: I can feel that you feel that way too---

As we sang we came even closer together and our hands continued to remain touching.

From the beginning until the end, Xu Mo looked at me with a constant smile and eyes that held expectation.

Xu Mo: It turns out a song can be this short.

The song ended and we got off the stage.

MC: Xu Mo, you really do sing well!

Xu Mo's lips curved and he said this with mischievous eyes.

Xu Mo: Oh? Can I believe... the words of a little liar?

MC: Huh, what do you mean?

Xu Mo: I was actually looking forward to your shocking singing.

I remembered how I said earlier "You won't be shocked after hearing my singing, right?" and my face turned red.

MC: Who asked you to believe in that...

Xu Mo: Then what else have you tricked me on?

Xu Mo flicked my forehead with a finger.

MC: Um... before I said you didn't have to come if you were busy, but to be honest I really wanted you to come.

I looked at Xu Mo and, while thinking this and that, spoke awkwardly.

Xu Mo was surprised. Flickering light surged up violently in his eyes and I saw him swallow, Adam's apple bobbing.

MC: What's wrong?

He gave a long sigh and then spoke in a voice even lower than earlier.

Xu Mo: I won't do that anymore.

He looked apologetically at me.

Xu Mo: Why won't you ask if I've ever tricked you?

I blinked.

MC: Um... of course I know that you've tricked me.

Xu Mo: For example?

MC: You were clearly drunk earlier even though you said you weren't drunk. Even more, you misunderstood me...

Looking at her grumble, Xu Mo was a bit surprised and he laughed quietly. Then he drew in the glass beside his hand and drank a mouthful.

His mind was hazy. Her smile and the spotted lights swayed in front of his eyes.

He thought about how he was surely drunk. But that was fine. Being drunk was better.

The music could continue, the drinks could continue.

That way he could tell himself this. That he was taken in by this atmosphere and the alcohol. And that's what these gentle feelings and hesitation resulted from.

Xu Mo raised his glass and drained it all at once.

~~~

DATE DIARY

Everyone worked really hard for the first show of the new year. Finally, after it took shape, I learned that Xu Mo helped. I thought he had refused to though... Why?

On that day, if I remember correctly, I asked for Xu Mo's help but he refused me coldly. Why did he help me again at the critical moment? I don't really understand Xu Mo.

I thought Xu Mo wouldn't come to the New Year's party but he came on the day of. He said he became worried because I didn't answer my phone. During a game of Spin the Bottle, Xu Mo confessed for the first time that he had a person he liked.

I also talked about the person most important to me. But, because Xu Mo was drunk, he seemed to misunderstand that. I'm someone who rarely sings in front of others but for some reason I ended up in a duet with Xu Mo. There was joy in his eyes.

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #love and producer #mlqc xu mo #mlqc lucien #my translations

45 notes · View notes

firebirdsdaughter · 4 years ago

Note

HoroFuwa, 40 and RaidenFuwa, 44

These (both) got pretty long, so I’m gonna try and make a cut here… Is that still broken for Asks? Let’s find out!

40 = A gentle kiss that quickly descends into passion, with little regard for what’s going on around them.

My boys. I miss them already. TT^TT

Since I ended up not getting to this until post finale… Let’s do something post ending.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Vulcan.”

Fuwa looked up to find Horobi standing over him, a bundle of cloth folded over one arm, staring down at him. “… What?” He demanded cautiously, eyeing the items that looked suspiciously like clothing, then, “… And I have a name.”

How long since Horobi and Jin had invaded his apartment and never left? They’d essentially moved in weeks, maybe even months ago, and still neither of them had seen fit to start using his name. Again, he thought about how he should have kicked them out ages ago, but… Even though Jin had staked out the sofa as his own and Horobi insisted on cleaning everything constantly, they had proven to be reliable backup in the field, and it was mainly because of them that his miniature, personal mission of keeping the peace had become anything more than an uncoordinated vigilante act. Even though Horobi had commandeered all cooking duties after he caught Fuwa eating instant ramen for breakfast more than once, the HumaGear was actually a frightfully good cook, and it was… Nice to not have to worry about it. And maybe it was because they were HumaGear and didn’t require as much as a human might’ve, but even though the apartment had been small even when it was just him, had never been meant for multiple people, the company was… Despite himself, he enjoyed it. Things had been weird at first, but… The atmosphere had changed. Jin had actually apologised for hacking his chip and trying to kill him. And Horobi…

Horobi was still staring expectantly at him, one eyebrow raised. Horobi was the complicated one. The HumaGear he’d thought had caused all his suffering, who had turned out to be just another victim in a long chain of dominos. The one he caught himself staring at with alarming regularity, like when the sunlight made his hair glow gold, or the way his hands moved while he cleaned or cooked. The one that all of AIMS had apparently decided he was already sleeping with. He felt his face heating up again at just remembering some of the circulating rumours he’d convinced Naki to tell him, embarrassing even in their dry, indifferent tones—and yet… He’d kept asking.

“Jin is concerned about presentation.”

“… What?” He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

Horobi just sighed. “He feels that your general appearance is too dissonant with ours. He thinks the new MetsubouJinrai should have a more… Unified air.”

Fuwa’s jaw dropped. “… What?” So they’d been sort of working together—but he didn’t remember ever agreeing to join…

But Horobi seemed unperturbed by his bewilderment, holding out the things in his arms. “I made these. Put them on.”

Fuwa blinked. “I… What?”

The HumaGear didn’t bother waiting for him to react, reaching down and grabbing his arm, pulling him to his feet and pushing the clothes toward him. “The point is that you wear them.” When Fuwa continued to be confused, Horobi sighed, shaking his head, then put the bundle down on the chair where Fuwa had been sitting. Before he could process what Horobi was doing, the HumaGear was undoing his tie with one hand, the other pulling his blazer off his shoulder.

With a yelp, Fuwa jerked away, struggling to fix his clothes. “Wha… What are you…?!”

Horobi blinked at him, hands still outstretched slightly, looking so innocently bewildered that Fuwa wanted to… He bit the inside of his cheek to focus. “You cannot wear two sets of clothes at once.” He said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Fuwa’s face turned even redder at the nonchalance the HumaGear was approaching the situation with. “That’s not—that isn’t the problem!” He got his suit jacket back over his shoulder from where Horobi had pulled it down to. “I’m not changing clothes in front of you!”

Horobi just looked even more confused. “… Why?”

He took a step forward, and Fuwa moved back quickly, trying to maintain the distance between them. “Because we’re—it’s—that’s not—” He swallowed, trying to recover his senses. Changing in front of Horobi would be weird, he told himself. Uncomfortable. There was absolutely no reason why he would be any sort of okay with it. None whatsoever.

The HumaGear’s frown deepened for a moment—then he surged forward again, catching Fuwa’s blazer by the lapels. “It’s fine.” He insisted, pushing the jacket off the human’s shoulders again, “I am well aware of human anatomy.”

Frantically, Fuwa’s hands flew up and grabbed Horobi’s wrists, trying to keep things from going any further. “No, that’s not the—” The HumaGear shook his hands off, forcing him to grab again, “This is why there are so many rumours about us, damnit!”

Horobi froze.

He didn’t let go of Fuwa’s blazer, though—if anything, he was holding tighter, just… Staring. So long that Fuwa started to wonder if he’d broken him somehow. “… Horobi?”

“… Rumours?” The HumaGear’s voice was softer, slow, computing what he had said.

Fuwa swallowed, his face heating up even more. “I… I mean…” He bit his cheek even harder, trying to scramble up some way to backtrack, “Nothing… Weird… It’s… It’s just… People talking… It’s… It’s stupid… It’s nothing…” He couldn’t seem to come up with a plausible explanation for rumours that would involve Horobi taking his clothes off—especially not while trying to simultaneously push away the voice whispering that he found that idea was actually… Very appealing, and the fact that many of the stories Naki had retold for him had been quite… Intense.

Something was flickering in Horobi’s eyes, as well as his new earpiece. Like he was looking something up. As inept as he was with interpersonal interaction, there was no way he wouldn’t eventually come up with the correct conclusion (or what if he could even hack into the AIMS system? No one had been gossiping about them on the channels, right?). There wouldn’t be many types of human behaviour associated with these actions, after all. Fuwa felt a lump forming in his throat as he watched the HumaGear’s generally stoic expression shift just slightly. It felt like he’d become very adept at reading Horobi after all this time, and he found himself able to track as the HumaGear steadily went through the information he was finding, wondering what the final reaction would be. He half expected to be tossed aside in disgust, or at least for some sort of horror or shock—if only partially in the hopes of validating what he’d repeatedly told the part of him that had… Liked the idea, that it was impossible and ludicrous.

But instead… The elegant, mostly impassive features softened faintly, and the HumaGear shifted even closer, enough that Fuwa would have been able to feel his breath if he had been human, hold on Vulcan’s blazer shifting to accommodate. “… I see.” Fuwa waited, to be pushed away, belittled, glared at, something, something to make sense of, settle the chaos happening inside him, self-appointed reason and incomprehensible desire clashing violently. He found himself staring unconsciously at Horobi’s lips, fighting the urge to pull the HumaGear closer. Horobi would jerk away in revulsion at any moment. There was no point in deluding himself.

Resolution formed in the HumaGear’s expression, and Fuwa quickly closed his eyes, hoping to make the break easier… Only… Once Horobi pulled his wrists free of Vulcan’s weakening grasp, he merely pulled Fuwa’s suit jacket the rest of the way off. Then those long fingers were settling on Vulcan’s tie again, tugging on the knot without a single hesitation. Fuwa let out another small, startled sound, his eyes flying back open, hands floundering to catch Horobi’s arm again. “H—Horobi!” After getting the HumaGear to pause once more, he clutched tight as he could to the arm he held, hoping to… To… His heart was racing, and his face was burning. “Did you even…?” He swallowed, forcing himself to meet Horobi’s calm, earnest gaze. “You… You understand, don’t you?” He bit his lip, trying to also push down that nonsensically… Hopeful sliver of himself that was whispering that maybe… “What… What people are… Are saying…?” Though small, the HumaGear gave him a steady, visible nod. “If…” He swallowed again, trying to push his voice out, even as it waned, his mouth and throat drying up from the intensity of that stare… “If we keep going like this… It… It’ll be… It’ll practically be true…”

Horobi stared at him for another moment—then those hands were moving upward, delicately cupping his face, thumb trailing across Vulcan’s cheekbone. Horobi leaned even further in, until Fuwa could count his eyelashes, practically feel them brushing his face as the HumaGear’s lids lowered, his lips hovering just a hair’s breadth from Vulcan’s. “… Then let it be true, Fuwa Isamu.”

The breath was sucked out of Fuwa’s lungs even before Horobi closed the small distance, those perfect lips brushing gently over Vulcan’s, and Fuwa’s heartbeat shot up like it was trying to break its way out of his ribcage. The HumaGear held there for a moment, not moving, just a light, soft kiss, before pulling back just enough to look into Fuwa’s eyes questioningly.

There was only one answer.

Fuwa’s hands jumped to Horobi’s shoulders, pulling him back in. This kiss was more intense, desperate, starting some sort of spark that quickly infected both of them, hands moving, scrambling furiously for purchase, trying to get closer, mould together. Fuwa was only passingly aware of being lifted off his feet and pressed against the wall, wedging him between it and the HumaGear’s body, putting them at a level that he didn’t need to crick his neck to keep kissing, wrapping his legs around Horobi’s waist. The HumaGear’s hands paused only long enough to let him push the robe off, then one was weaving into his hair while the other yanked his shirt untucked, slipping underneath it, making him whimper weakly into the kiss. Their mouths moved against each other, Fuwa sucking in frantic breaths when he could, Horobi biting at his bottom lip.

It was… Amazing. For the first time in a long while, Fuwa felt completely comfortable letting go entirely, and the way Horobi was pressing ever closer against him, deepening the kiss even more, indicated he did, too. Vulcan rolled his hips experimentally forward, and felt the HumaGear shiver—grinning into the kiss, he moved again, more eagerly, and kept going. Horobi’s lower hand dropped to trail up his thigh to his hip, yanking him closer, drawing a proper moan from his throat—

A loud yelp shattered the moment completely.

Horobi didn’t actually drop him, miraculously, more set him down and jolted back, spinning around with inhuman speed—but Fuwa got some of the breath knocked out of him from it regardless. In the silence that followed, he had to wheeze for air several time before he managed to drag his head back up—and froze.

Jin was standing by the front door, eyes wide as dinner plates. Horobi was stunned himself, standing rigid while looking past Jin rather than at him, staring over his shoulder. The lump in Fuwa’s throat resurfaced immediately, his blood running cold. Jin wasn’t particularly fond of him to begin with, and even though they had gotten slightly more friendly and found a sort of balance recently… The kid was downright ferociously protective of his father and how uncertain Horobi was in regards to normal life. The last thing he needed was Jin thinking he was taking advantage of Horobi’s naivety—that was likely to get him a gun to the face. After a moment, he also noticed Jin was actually holding the doorknob, which the other HumaGear had apparently ripped right out of the door.

The silence continued for a long time. “… I knocked.” Jin said slowly, ice creeping into his tone, his expression shifting from shock to suspicion. He held up the knob. “… No one answered.”

Fuwa swallowed as best he could, acutely aware of how flushed and dishevelled he was. “I… We… Were… Uh…” Straightening up awkwardly, he tried to look to Horobi for help, but the HumaGear was still completely frozen.

Jin’s gaze was solidly on Vulcan, mouth twisting with disapproval. “I saw.”

Fuwa bit his lip. There definitely wasn’t a good explanation for what the other HumaGear had walked in on—at least, not one that would satisfy Jin. He was pretty sure the kid didn’t want to hear about inappropriate rumours being circulated about his father—plus, his glare was already starting to veer into slightly murderous.

“… I started it.” Horobi’s voice surprised them both, making them both look towards him. He still looked dazed, but had turned to face his son and seemed more collected.

Jin’s expression softened immediately, and he hurried forward, tossing the knob aside so that he could put his hands on his father’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Horobi,” Even his tone was completely different, warm and gentle, “You don’t have to say that.” It was still a little odd to hear them talk to each other—originally it had been the genuine softness they treated each other with, but now… It was the unusual dynamic they had. There was no question Horobi was the father, with the way Jin doted on and followed him around, always cheerfully trying to show him things and drag him places. But there was also something… Different about it. Every now and then, the contrast in their development showed. Like now, Jin was cradling his father’s face in his palm, gazing at him with worried affection, calling him by his name rather than using ‘Otou-san.’ Maybe he thought it would get through to his father better, or maybe it was an attempt to make sure he was taken seriously, not dismissed as some bratty kid. Either way, he only did it when he was being protective—and that made Fuwa feel quite… Nervous.

But instead of going quiet like he usually did, Horobi reached up and put his hand over Jin’s on his face. “I’m not.” He said, sounding abnormally sure of himself, considering the situation. “It was me.”

Jin stared into his father’s face for a moment, frowning slightly. Finally, he nodded slightly. “… Okay.” Letting go of Horobi’s shoulders, he stepped back. Horobi kept watching him for another second—then turned slowly and took a few steps back over to collect his fallen robe. When he straightened back up, his eyes caught Fuwa’s again, briefly restarting the spell. Vulcan’s heart jumped back into his throat, and it felt like he was floating, the urge to reach out a restart the kiss momentarily overtaking him… But Jin’s presence, pointedly glaring, arms already folded, made that impossible. At last, Horobi broke eye contact, turning away and disappearing into the other room, where he’d set up charging stations for both himself and Jin (without asking, as usual), and the silence turned… Tense.

Fuwa swallowed again, glancing sideways at Jin’s annoyed stare, trying to decide if he should say something. But the other HumaGear’s bearing made it very clear he had little interest in whatever explanations Vulcan had in mind. So, instead, Fuwa nodded awkwardly, hurriedly recovering his blazer from the floor at starting toward his room.

“If you hurt him…” Jin’s voice, quiet and controlled, absolutely dripping with venom, brought him to an abrupt stop, peering back over his shoulder, “I will hurt you.”

He could feel the other HumaGear’s glare burning into his back. Swallowing anxiously, he gave a quick nod of understanding, not trusting his voice, or that Jin would care what he said. When the other HumaGear said nothing more, he hurriedly turned and continued on his way towards his bedroom, trying to use his suit jacket to hide his blush.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

… Wow… Uh… So… Essay anyone? ^^; I got a little carried away. But I will persist!

Anyway! Onward!

#############################################

44 = tentative kisses given in the dark

Uh… Okay, so disclaimer, this will be my first time actually trying to write Fuwa and Raiden, so… I’m sorry.

For what, I don’t actually know yet.

I… Might veer into an AU for this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fuwa crashed roughly into a shelf, cursing quietly as he tried to right himself. Of course the power in the building had to go out now, under the worst possible circumstances. Horobi was stuck at headquarters for who knew what because of Amatsu, there was a massive thunderstorm going on, and his stupid, ancient, cheap apartment building had to go and lose power. He couldn’t even pretend to not worry about his partner in peace (but really, ZAIA was showing way to much interest in what was allegedly a defunct android they had foisted on him for being a liability). Another crack of lightning outside briefly illuminated the room, letting him dodge the furniture in his way, making it a few more steps… To crash right into someone’s chest. He very nearly toppled over, but a pair of arms closed around him, holding him up by plastering him against the person he’s crashed into.

“Whoa there…” Murmured a voice by his ear, “You humans a pretty fragile, don’t want to injure yourself crashing around.”

Oh. Right. He was here, too.

He must have made some sound, because he heard a laugh beside his head. “Hey now, I’m not that bad.” Raiden teased, tightening his hold for a moment, one arm dropping down slightly to Fuwa’s waist, “In fact, seemed to me you were getting pretty fond of me…”

Fuwa felt his face heat up, and he quickly began squirming, trying to escape the other HumaGear’s hold. Raiden and his… ‘Distractions’ were the last thing he wanted to think about right now, in the middle of a blackout, with his partner gone and… “Let go of me!”

But Raiden refused to let go—instead, fingers curled under his chin, catching him off guard enough that he went still. The hand holding his face tipped his head up slightly, just as another bolt of lightning lit up the room, briefly shining on the other HumaGear’s face, revealing just how close he was. Raiden wasn’t much taller than him, but Fuwa still felt abruptly small and flimsy in his arms.

He’d thought he was doing quite well at hiding how… Interested he was, kept the stares to a minimum—but Raiden had been designed to infiltrate and gather information, a particularly snide part of him that sounded an awful lot like Horobi’s judgemental tone reminded him. He shouldn’t be surprised that a HumaGear made to go undercover as a spy would notice things. He just wished it didn’t have to come to a head now, and put him in such a compromising position.

But no. Here he was in the dark, in a storm, held tightly against Raiden’s chest, the other HumaGear holding his chin firmly in place, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. He only had a vague image in his mind from when the lightning had struck, couldn’t actually see much, but he could feel Raiden’s gaze boring into his, like the other HumaGear was looking right into his mind. And Raiden could see him, couldn’t he, with just a few adjustments to his visual system—and on top of that, his body was reacting very eagerly to being pressed up against the other HumaGear. It just wasn’t fair.

In the darkness, Raiden chuckled again. “Called it.” Fuwa could hear the grin in his voice. “Knew you wanted me.” The hand on his chin shifted a little to brush a thumb over his cheek, “The look on your face right now…” The other HumaGear’s voice came closer, his hair brushing Fuwa’s forehead as he leaned in, and Fuwa found himself fighting the urge to push forward, to seek out those smartass lips in the darkness, “You look so good…” The way he said it sounded almost like a human contemplating a piece of food, but… Not in a bad way. Somehow. Fuwa bit the inside of his cheek hard, trying to focus. He needed to get out of here. He was already in enough trouble with his bosses, he did need to be adding to the list.

Then, without warning, the arm around his waist slid downward, and the other HumaGear’s hand was on his ass, squeezing tightly, pulling him closer. A surprised gasp broke from his mouth, but it faded into a soft groan when Raiden didn’t let go, instead giving get another firm squeeze. “All of you is good…” The playful amusement in the voice just made his heart pound even faster. The hand on his chin moved again, positioning his face in a way that he just knew was right in front of the other HumaGear’s. “Mmmm… Think I like that expression even more…” Another squeeze, and he swore Raiden’s fingers were digging between the cheeks, even through his trousers. Even worse, the other HumaGear’s hips shifted slightly, rubbing against him, and his lips parted with a small moan before he could stop himself, his lids drooping—not that he could’ve seen anything with them open. “… Yup.” There was a small bit of satisfaction that Raiden’s voice was slightly uneven, too, “Definitely like this one better.”

His hips moved again, in time with another rough squeeze, and Fuwa let out a small whimper. Instead of trying to push away, his hands latched onto the other HumaGear’s jacket, clutching tightly. “P… Please…” Another squeeze of his ass, followed by a light, playful smack, and all sense abandoned him, “… Kiss me…”

Laughter rumbled somewhere in front of him, “You want it, him?” The hand disappeared from his chin, and Raiden shifted against him, repositioning to begin kneading his ass with both hands and hold Fuwa flush against him at the same time, “Hmmm…” The sound came closer, the other HumaGear was leaning in again, “… You do it.”

All the blood rushed to Fuwa’s head, his heart positively leaping in his ribs. Him? Start the… Raiden was clearly comfortable feeling him up like this, why couldn’t he…? But then the other HumaGear squeezed even tighter, grinding against him again, and all thoughts fell out the window.

He didn’t know exactly where Raiden was in the darkness, so he tilted forward slowly, carefully as he could while the other HumaGear thoroughly felt up his ass, trying to find him. They bumped noses first, then foreheads as Fuwa tried to reposition. Raiden had the decency to at least not move his head, and after a bit of fumbling…

The moment their lips connected, Fuwa felt awkward. It was stupid to be nervous when Raiden already had his hands on his backside, squeezing hard, but… His mouth moved uncertainly against the other HumaGear’s, who was surprisingly steady, considering the aggressiveness of his other actions, letting Fuwa hesitantly brush lips over his.

Fuwa wasn’t sure how long they went on like that. He was aware of the rain and the bursts of lightning for a bit, but they soon faded to the back, until the whole world was almost just the two of them. He only vaguely noticed when Raiden eased off on gripping at his ass, instead letting his eyes fully close and embracing the darkness.

Until the lights came back on.

It was Raiden who pulled away, untangling himself with ease and taking a few steps back. Fuwa barely caught himself on the nearby shelf that he had tripped over earlier when he toppled forward—he’d settled into leaning his full weight on the other HumaGear without even realising it. Floundering a little, he dragged his head back up to look at Raiden in bewilderment, his other hand reaching towards the other HumaGear, wanting to pull him close again. Why was he…?

“Ah ah…” Raiden’s hand caught his arm by the wrist, gently pushing it back down, and the other HumaGear stepped closer again, just slightly, those strong fingers brushing Fuwa’s cheek to tuck under his chin once more, holding his face so that their eyes met, “Later.” Raiden told him firmly, “You have work to do with the power back on, don’t you?” With that, he gave Fuwa a teasing smirk and a small chuck under the chin, then stepped away, turning and disappearing through a door before the human could say a word.

Leaving Fuwa alone to process what had just happened.

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Yay! I got it done! At last! Why are these so long? I dunno. I also dunno if that counts as ‘tentative,’ but Raiden always seems to scare the tentative right out of my writing. ^^;

Anyway, I am still up for doing these if y’all don’t mind it taking me a very long time…

send me a number and I will (very, very slowly) write something

8 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years ago

Photo

He keeps dreaming of snow.

It’s July. The weather is warm and sticky, and the sun has been blazing hot for weeks. And he dreams about snow.

It’s the same every time. A lake fringed with dark trees, the ice covered in a flawless expanse of white. Blank and perfect. In the dream, he has a pair of skates slung over his shoulder by the laces. When he swings them down to untie the knots and get them on his feet, they’re always a different pair he recognizes.

The first pair of good skates he’d received as a child, still able to fit him in the boundless logic of dreaming. He’d fallen asleep clutching them to his chest when he’d gotten them that Christmas. Stuffed dog under one arm, skates under the other.

The beat up pair he hid in Rimouski, so that he could practice even after they took away his regular skates. The same ones he’d take to play shinny in the park, just to feel a little normal. Free.

The pair he wore to win gold in Vancouver, gleaming and perfect.

In the dream he sits on a snowbank and pulls the skates on, and then he’s on the ice. You can’t skate on snow-covered ice, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Dream logic again.

The dark trees around the lake never grow closer, no matter how hard he skates for the opposite shore. Always, he ends up standing in the middle of that blank, unsettling expanse of white, frustrated. When he looks behind him, there’s never a mark in the featureless snow to show where he’s been. Nothing.

And he wakes up then, usually, disturbed and wondering why the fuck he’s dreaming that dream again.

***

He’s busy enough.The flurry of early summer weddings has petered out, finally. He loves his friends’ happiness, but the annual glut gets…old. Exhausting.

He has a few media obligations, some pre-planned get togethers with Nate and any of the boys who happen to be in town. He’s ramping up the training. But he still has too much damn time to brood in between it all. You’d think he’d be able to get the bad taste of last season out of his mouth by now, but it lingers, their ignominious playoff exit following him like a shadow.

He fishes, he paddleboards. He golfs. He trains some more. He tries going to the farmer’s market and has to leave after fifteen minutes because of the commotion his appearance causes. He teaches himself how to make gluten free parmesan chicken from the Internet.

He checks social media, liking pictures of babies and dogs and summertime shenanigans on Instagram. He uploads a photo of his dock at sunrise to his private one, to a flurry of likes and chirping about being a boring old man, fishing all day.

It’s a little funny but it stings a bit too. He doesn’t like to think of himself as old. He’s not, by ordinary standards. But he is in hockey years, and it terrifies him sometimes.

He should post more often, then maybe he’d get less shit from the guys. He’d only made his account in the first place so that he could follow the people that mattered to him.

He wakes up early to find that Geno commented a string of parentheses and a couple incomprehensible emojis.

He’s given up trying to interpret what Geno means by them; he’s 90% sure he just picks the weirdest ones possible just to fuck with people.

Sid ponders what to respond, and finally settles on turtle, Brazillian flag, paperclip. There, let him have a taste of his own medicine.

i dont get it, jake posts underneath. Probably sex stuff, replies Flower. better not to ask.

Asshole, Sid replies, and feels his face flush. It’s all meant as a joke, but thinking of sex and Geno too close together is always a problem, and he buries the well-worn thing he doesn’t acknowledge like he always does.

***

The next time he has the dream, there’s someone else there. He doesn’t see them, but their presence behind him lies on him like a weight.

He stops in the middle of the lake like he always does. The presence behind him stops too.

“Hey,” Sid says, more as an inquiry than a greeting.

Some small bit of dream-awareness slots into place, and he knows that it’s Geno, behind him.

“Three years Superleague, huh?” Sid says. It’s good, and right, Geno standing behind him.

***

More training. A podcast recording with Biz and Whit that actually ends up being a lot of fun. Just shooting the shit and swapping stories.

They ask him about Geno, of course, angling for some dirt, some “ha ha he’s so Russian” and “what a bully” kind of shit. Sid doesn’t give them anything.

Geno, Sid has always thought, is more just like an enormous cat. A little moody and opinionated, liking things to be just so. Affectionate and friendly only on his own terms. He’s always wondered if that was mostly due to the language barrier, or if it’s just how Geno is. He used to watch whenever Geno spoke to Gonch, or his friends on other teams. Listen to the faster cadence of his voice, the expansive movements of his hands, the expressiveness of his face. Trying to figure out who Geno really was when he was comfortable and at ease.

He used to watch Geno way too much in those days.

It’s still a problem sometimes.

Geno always treated Sid a little differently. All of his brash pushiness is tempered a little. He always looks into Sid’s eyes when Sid is trying to tell him something, leaning in and listening with his whole body. Sid has never taken that deference and respect for granted, treating Geno’s fierce loyalty as the precious honor it is.Geno gives zero consequence to people he’s decided he doesn’t like or respect. He isn’t like Sid, he doesn’t bother to reign in his colossal emotions or attempt a veneer of politeness or charm. If he’s done with you he’s done with you.

Geno is Geno, and Sid, god help him, has always loved him for it.

***

He has the dream again, and it’s accompanied by a creeping sense of dread. He and the Geno-presence take to the ice. In the middle of the lake, instead of smooth white, the snow is broken by a series of jagged cracks, dark water sloshing malevolently inches from Sid’s skates.

“Fuck, look out–” he tells Dream-Geno, but Dream-Geno steps past him, for the first time.

“Geno!” Sid tries to scream, but he doesn’t have the air. In the disjointed way of dreams, Sid just knows that Dream-Geno is in the water now, even if he didn’t see anything happen.

He drops to his knees, and reaches out. The water looks liquid, but his fingers scrabble along it like it’s ice. He claws at it, horror and desperation cresting over him. He’s trying to scream Geno’s name, but he can’t- he just can’t-

When he wakes up, he’s gasping, heart trying to pound its way out of his chest. He’s disoriented for a split second, grief crushing, until he wakes up further and realizes he was dreaming.

He sits up with a groan, shreds of the dream and its dread slowly fading around him. Fuck. He hasn’t had a nightmare like that in years.

He checks the time on his phone, curses to see that it’s three thirty in the morning. He drags himself up, flinching as he flips the bathroom light on. He takes a piss, and splashes water on his face as if he can wash away the lingering awfulness of the dream.

So weird. He hadn’t really seen anything, but the emotions themselves had felt so real.

Back in bed, he almost doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He feels wide awake anyway. What he wants to do, is.

Incredibly stupid.

Good for a lifetime of shit-talking if Geno tells anyone.

He does it anyway.

You up? He texts Geno. It’s nine-something am in Moscow, so who knows. Geno’s not exactly a morning person.

There’s no answer, for long enough that he starts to feel even more colossally lame than he already did.

Then his phone rings, making him jump. Fuck.

“Sid?” Geno says when he picks up. “What’s happen? It’s night for you.”

God, his voice. Deep and rumbling right in his ear. Accent thick like it always gets over the summer when he doesn’t use his English for months. Sid feels something in him let go, soothed by a living, breathing Geno at the other end of the line. But, then, he realizes that he now has to come up with an explanation that isn’t just, “hey bud, just had a real bad dream, wish you were here to fucking tuck me in, eh?”

“Uh. I’m okay it’s just… I was thinking.”

There’s a judgmental silence on the other end of the line. Sid pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand.

“You’re gonna chirp me forever, man. I, uh. I’ve been having this dream.”

“Whaat?” Geno draws the word out, somehow conveying both amusement and disbelief.

“I know, I know. But I’ve been having this stupid dream about skating on a lake, yeah? Just over and over. It’s fucking weird. And you were there? I think. The last few times, anyway. And this time there were these cracks in the ice, and you fell in. You know how even if it doesn’t make sense, for a second in a dream your brain doesn’t know the difference? Well. You, you were dead.”

He pauses, realizing he’s babbling, how stupid this is. Shame washes over him.

“Okay…” Geno says, clearly trying to take all of that in. “Sorry for dream?”

“Not your fault,” Sid says automatically. “So, yeah. Pretty much I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Geno huffs out a laugh. “Okay. I’m doing good, so.” There’s a pause, like he’s considering something.

“It’s little bit cute, you know? Call me for scared.” His tone is amused but not as teasing as Sid would expect.

Still. Cute.

“Oh my god,” Sid groans, and flops back into his pillows.

“So stupid,” he says, more to himself then to Geno.

“No, no,” Geno says, and he’s definitely laughing now. “It’s fine, most cute. Can call me, I can give you some story, for sleep. Maybe some song.”

“Fuck off,” Sidney gripes, but he’s kind of smiling at the ceiling now, like a dweeb.

Geno yawns, then audibly settles back into the bed or couch he’s probably lounging on. “So, keep having dream?”

“Yeah, over and over. No idea why.”

“Stress?”

Sid is quiet for a moment, wondering how to answer. “Maybe. My birthday, the season coming up. You know.”

“You captain,” Geno says. “Lots things for worry.” The matter of fact way he says it is comforting, somehow. “You need come here. Have fun in Russia.”

“Naw. The visa would take too long to get,” Sid says, wondering if Geno means it, if he’d really like to show Sid around Moscow.

“You know how long it’s take?” Geno sounds amused again, like he’s smiling. “You think about?”

“Oh, off and on,” Sid answers. “Over the years, you know.”

“Should do, Russia best.”

Sid laughs. “Oh, for sure.”

“You do, you come. We go to banya, we eat Russian food. You can go to some museum, so boring.”

It sounds… really good. It makes an old ache start up behind Sid’s ribcage to think about it, but it sounds good. Especially if…

There’s always been an expiration date on Geno’s time in the US. And if this season is as bad as the last–

Sid tamps down the urge to surrender to the loss he can sense hovering on the horizon.

“That sounds amazing, G. I want to, I really do. What about next summer? I can make sure the paperwork is all set up ahead of time.” Something to look forward to in that summer, no matter what. A way to delay Geno from slipping through his fingers if Geno decides he’s finally had it.

He’s being irrational, he knows. Geno has a contract. And yet.

“Yes, we do,” Geno says, with finality. “You come.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Then there’s a bit of rustling on Geno’s end, like he’s sitting up. He sounds more awake when he speaks again.

“I can come early, now. Go to Canada first.”

Sid blinks, his lips parting in surprise. “Come here? To Nova Scotia? You’d want to?”

“No more bad dream,” Geno coos mockingly, and Sid has to laugh.

“You gonna tuck me in at night, eh?” Fuck, no, what is he doing. That sounds like he’s trying to flirt, or something. He needs to backpedal.

“For real though. I’d always love to have you visit, you know that. I just thought, it’s a little quiet, maybe. Boring.” His voice, damn it, is a lot softer than he meant it to sound. Maybe revealing a little too much. He hopes Geno isn’t paying attention.

“Mooost boring,” Geno drawls. Then, firmly: “I come. You can show me fishing. No golf.”

Something stupid and anticipatory flutters in Sidney’s gut. “Sure, okay. Let’s uh, work out the details.” Fuck.

***

Geno plans to go to Miami for a week, then to Sid’s, then to fly together down to Pittsburgh for training camp. He grouses a little at needing to be early because Sid is the captain and always shows up in town first.

He grumbles but then he’s there in a week and a half, tanned and insolent with a backwards SnapBack on his head, rolling a lollipop stick between his teeth and disturbing Sid’s whole universe.

He pulls Sid in for a one armed hug and a backslap, right there in the terminal. He smells like airplane and very nice cologne, and Sid wonders why the hell he allowed this to happen.

He’s exhausted but looks around avidly as they take the 102 down to Dartmouth.

“Flat,” he says thoughtfully. “Big sky. Like Russia.”

Sid feels disproportionately pleased about that.

It’s so strange, looking at home through Geno’s eyes, or trying to. He wants him to like it.

“Halifax is across the harbor from where we are now,” Sid explains. “We can take a look around tomorrow.”

“I’m look Google Earth,” Geno says. “Little bit. Pretty.”

“It is,” Sid agrees.

There’s a strange little smile playing around Geno’s lips as he takes in his surroundings. Sid isn’t quite sure what it means.

When they get to Sid’s place, Geno unfolds his long legs from the car and shoves his sunglasses up on his head. He just stands there for a minute, looking at the house, the sliver of lake visible through the trees.

Then he looks at Sid, like he’s fitting Sid into this place in his mind. That wry little smile is back.

“Looks like you,” he says, and Sid isn’t quite sure what he means.

***

Sid takes Geno out on the lake to fish. He takes him to the rink for training, where Geno imperiously nods once at Nate and then proceeds to ignore him for the rest of the drills. He stands in the lobby for a long time, looking at the display of Sid’s jerseys and photos. He takes a picture of one of Sid’s Timbits photos with his phone.

Sid takes him around Halifax, as promised, then to his parent’s house, where Geno is all charm and bashful politeness, helping Sid’s mom in the kitchen and talking hockey with Sid’s dad.

In every place, it’s a strange collision of worlds. Sid has to stop himself from just, staring all the time. Geno, here in his life. Lying on the floor of his parents’ living room to fuss over Sam. Rifling through Sid’s cabinets to judge his lack of acceptable tea. Strapping on his pads in the locker room of the rink where Sid learned to skate.

He fits easier than Sid had imagined, and that ache seems to sit in his chest all the time now.

***

Geno’s been there nearly a week when Sid has the dream again. Same thing, with Geno disappearing into the dark water.

Sid wakes up drenched in sweat, and swears before stumbling as quietly as he can to his kitchen for cold water from the Brita in the fridge.

“Sid?”

Sid yelps, sloshing water all over the counter. “Fuck!”

Geno’s lying on the couch in the living room, awash in the blue light of the muted television.

“What are you doing up? Did I wake you?”

“Still little bit jet lag. What’s happen? Dream, again?”

Sid takes his glass of water and stands pointedly by the couch until Geno pulls up his knees and frees a space for Sid to sit.

“Yeah.” Sid sighs. “So stupid.” He rubs at his eyes.

“I’m die?”

Sid stares ahead at the silent TV. It’s showing an ad for Canadian Tire. He’s not sure how he feels about talking about this, least of all talking about it with Geno. “Uh huh.”

Geno scoots partially upright, and regards Sid with a surprising amount of gravity.

“What you worry about, Sid?” he says, and it’s quiet, his voice low.

Sid can’t look at him. He takes a long swallow of water and sets his glass carefully on the coffee table, trying to decide how honest to be.

He’s too tired, on too many levels, to say anything other than the truth.

“That if we have another season like we did, you’ll decide you’re done.”

Geno whole face seems to go soft, his mouth dropping open a little.

“I know,” Sid says quickly. “I know, this is so stupid, but I just—”

Geno swings his feet to the floor, and suddenly he’s right there next to him, so close their thighs are almost touching.

“Sid,” Geno says, and waits to continue until Sid looks over at him.

“Until I’m hurt or you leave, I’m not leave Penguins.”

His voice is softer and more reassuring than Sid has ever heard it before. What is happening.

He can’t speak for a moment.

“I, uh. Fuck, G.”

Geno is just. Sitting there so close Sid can feel the heat of his body, looking at Sid with dark, serious eyes.

Sid wants to kiss him. Wants to push him back onto the couch and mark him up. Something must have shown in his face because Geno tilts his head, brows drawing together in puzzlement.

“Sid?”

Sid shakes his head. He has to get It together, in so many ways.

“No, yeah, sorry I just.” He sighs. “Thank you, G. I can’t tell you how much that means.”

Geno makes a hum of agreement, and stands, extending a hand to Sid. Sid shouldn’t take it but he does, let’s Geno haul him to his feet, and lets Geno…pull him in for a hug apparently. Oh no.

This time Geno smells like the body wash Sid keeps in the guest bedroom, and his worn t shirt is soft against Sid’s cheek.

It’s a curiously long embrace, and when Geno’s arms tighten Sid allows himself the indulgence of relaxing, letting himself melt into it.

Geno raises one hand and lays it heavily on the nape of Sid’s neck. He eases back so he can look into Sid’s face.

Sid can’t tell what he’s thinking. And he himself can’t think at all, not with Geno’s hand pressing onto his neck and his everything so, so close.

He realizes, slowly, that Geno’s hands are shaking.

“G?”

“Sid,” Geno says, husky and so low.

Sid feels outside of his body, incredulous that this is really, actually happening as Geno, very slowly, leans in, pausing just a hairsbreadth from Sid’s lips.

“Sid?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, and tilts his head up to cross that final bit of separation.

Geno’s kiss is soft lips and hot mouth, gasped breaths and possessive sweeps of those huge hands.

Sid shudders in his arms as Geno moves to his neck, trailing kisses across his jaw and down to the skin bared by the vee of his sleep shirt.

Sid tugs them backwards, folding when the couch hits the back of his legs and pulling Geno down over him.

He’s greedy, he’s starving. He can’t touch enough skin, he can’t get Geno close enough. He sets his teeth where Geno’s neck meets his shoulder and nearly keens when Geno moans and responds with a slow, devastating roll of his hips.

“Geno, is this— are you—“

Geno pushes himself upright enough to look Sid in the eyes.

“Won’t leave, Sid. Can’t.”

“I’ve wanted this,” Sid confesses. “I’ve wanted this for a really long time.”

“Good,” Geno says, and rolls his hips again.

“I can’t just do a, a one time fuck or—“

“No,” Geno says sharply. “No.” He leans on one elbow so that he can lay a hand on Sid’s cheek. “We’re like this, you know? Mine.”

Sid feels too bright and expansive for his skin. He fists a hand in Geno’s t-shirt and tugs him closer.

“Mine,” he echoes, and Geno groans, responding to another tug and taking Sid’s mouth in a deep, demanding kiss.

Hands and mouths and the greedy rocking of their bodies bring them to completion within moments of each other.

Sid lies there after, stroking his hand over Geno’s head where he’s laid it on Sid’s chest. He’s sprawled over Sid like a gigantic, clingy octopus, and Sid is feeling the kind of incredulous elation he normally associates with Cups and Olympic gold.

“Thanks for coming, G,” he says, and although he meant “coming to Canada,”

Geno snorts.

“You know what I mean, dickhead,” Sid says, laughing.

“I mean it,” he says a few minutes later. “I’m just, yeah.”

Geno smiles at him like that made perfect sense, and doesn’t protest when Sid prods him upright and tugs him along into Sid’s bedroom.

***

Jet lag or not, Geno falls asleep with Sid spooned up behind him, and is still asleep when Sid wakes up to the mid-morning sun streaming in the windows. Heart impossibly full, the old ache released and gone, Sid presses a kiss to the sun-gilded skin of Geno’s shoulder.

He had dreamt of the lake again, but this time, as happened for him only rarely, he’d lucid-dreamed.

“No,” he’d told Dream-Geno, and turned his back on the lake. Which suddenly was a completely frozen Monongahela River.

He points up the bank, towards the arena. “We’ve got a game to get to.”

Dream-Geno put his hand in Sid’s, and leaned down to kiss his hair.

“Let’s go,” he tells Sid, and they walk up the bank together.

#sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #sid/geno #pic challenge #dana writes a thing

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kris10tisme · 4 years ago

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Social Anxiety Origin Story

Social Anxiety is classified as a disorder. Isn’t that crazy!? You can actually read up on it on the MayoClinic or Webmd websites which shows that it really is a legitimate thing; it's not just you being a pussy. Most people who have social anxiety disorder don’t know what it is or why they’re like this. When we first become aware of our incomprehensible phobia we usually feel completely alien. People with this ailment tend to feel like the ultimate freaks, which knocks down their self esteem tenfold. If you have desperately searched online to potentially find answers: I feel you. The first time I felt a sense of belonging in this world was browsing through internet forums, reading about how people had the same irrational fears I did. You can find comfort in it sure, but it's definitely not the same as finding belonging in person. I didn’t know that I wasn’t completely alone in this struggle until I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old navigating through my insufferable high school life! During that time google searches quickly became my best friend.

I can’t even really pinpoint where my SAD began for me. As a child I was pretty shy but I’d eventually open up once I became semi-comfortable. I didn’t ruminate whether or not I made some sort of fool of myself publicly. I was just having a blast man. Childhood is all fun and games but you really do get the carpet ripped out from under you when you enter adolescence.

I grew up a very privileged child financially - my parents both being middle class. My bills were all taken care of, and I didn't have to worry too much about the connections I would make with others in life. I was a kid. When a kid has no friends it's sad, but when an adult has no friends you wonder what they did wrong and you try to steer clear of them. There must be a reason why they are friendless: they must fetishize feet in their spare time! When you’re a child your only occupation is being a student. I’d wake up, go to school, learn stuff, socialize a bit among peers and then go home to watch TV and repeat, not questioning or overthinking the minutiae or idiosyncrasies in my life; just living day by day. Everything was smooth sailing. I figured I would hit my peak as a teenager and do all the cool teenagery things I saw on television like going to parties, making the cheerleading squad (though I’m not athletic at all; it would just happen), and have a tumultuous relationship with several boys. I’d pick the most special one to lose my virginity to on prom night! Then college would come, I’d go there and graduate and get a job. Sounds simple right!?

WRONG!

Hitting puberty was a big eye opener for me. It’s like once I menstruated my self-esteem plummeted. Everything about life just seemed a lot more competitive. There are all these milestones that society expects you to complete by certain ages: your first beer, your first kiss, your first fornication, your first job. All terrible and unfamiliar things! Now that I had bled and grown boobs, I was in the process of becoming a woman. I had to start making preparations to accomplish these milestones.

Seventh grade was the first year of my life I was depressed, and that terrible feeling hasn’t really depleted all that much since. In sixth grade I felt like a rock star… until the end of the year. I was a downright bully, mocking people in my class for the way they looked and acted. Some of my classmates found me funny, and I liked feeling that bold. I liked knowing that people were on the edge of their seats waiting for me to comment on a situation. It wasn’t until the end of the school year when one of the girls I heavily bullied called me out on my malicious means of garnering attention from my peers. She didn’t even insult me, she just spat out the truth. “You’re mean KRISTEN! You’re a BULLY!”

I can’t even explain how thrown off I felt by that mere observation. I never questioned why I did what I did; I liked the attention. I liked being someone people would be eager to hear from to know my latest outrageous comments on what surrounds us. Hearing this girl call me out for being a mean bully was a gut punch like no other. I couldn’t believe my ears. To me this girl wasn’t a person; she was a vessel. Someone to make fun of. Someone who was an easy target because she had a whole line of insults thrown her way since even before I saw her as easy prey.

No one ever downright called me out on my behavior. My dad did tell my mom that I was a horrible daughter, and he even asked who would want to have a daughter like me. But that was mostly because I was disrespectful towards him. Such a justified comment for a parent to make about his adolescent daughter right in front of her :)

That summer break I had tons of time to reflect upon my actions. I recognized how downright awful I had been to a lot of my classmates and vowed to make amends in the coming school year. I want to say, most of the bullying took place before I began menstruating, so you can blame my abhorrent behavior on my lack of emotional resonance and the fact that my womanly empathy and sympathy had not yet kicked in. That’s how I excuse how I acted.

So by seventh grade I was menstruating, and I grew D cup breasts overnight. I became a stand-up person - someone who didn’t throw vulnerable people under the bus for my own benefit. I became what you would call... “compassionate.”

Seventh grade was the year everything went downhill for me. Maybe it was the hormones kicking in and getting the better of me, or maybe it was me becoming more aware of what society deems as acceptable and proper. I felt like I should be cultivating a role in society, and I didn’t know what role to take. I couldn’t be loud and obnoxious anymore because my victims were starting to bite back and I realized the biting back hurt me more than I could handle.

For the rest of Junior High I struggled with my transitioning into a new person. My classmates instantly recognized how much softer and kind-hearted I became. I didn’t throw around as many insults, and if I did it was just playful banter. Me and the girl I had so savagely bullied were on decent terms, though we never really interacted with one another except for when obligatory social protocol called for it. I struggled with finding my niche again within my class. I got along with people just fine, but I suffered through a big identity crisis: I didn’t know what I could contribute without being outwardly obnoxious. I didn’t know what stereotypical personality trait defined me. Things got a bit more fucked at home for me, so that really took a toll on me mentally. I’ll get into how family influences your socialization tendencies in another post.

I’ve never wanted anything more in life other than to be liked. I know they say that not everyone’s gonna like you and that you should accept that, but I can’t! I just can’t accept it! The only way I will accept someone not liking me is if they’re completely indifferent to me, like when I have not done anything to them or in front of them to warrant them having an opinion on my character. So I keep my mouth shut. BUT THEN… I worry about what a weirdo they must think I am. If I’m too quiet then I give people the opportunity to make assumptions about me based on the impressions they have on me. They can be thinking anything, like that I watch tentacle porn, or that I collect toenail clippings or something.

I wonder if keeping my mouth shut all these years has done me more harm than good emotionally. Speaking up opens you up for attack, and I always feel like I have to be on the defensive. But when you say nothing to anyone, are you really living your life to the fullest and taking advantage of opportunities that could benefit you?

Meeting someone and getting to know them feels kind of like a step by step interrogation for me. The worst question I always get is, “What do you do?” Which I assume means “what do you do for a living?” Another one is,“Do you have a boyfriend?” It seems to me that the general public believes having a solid and steady job and being in some sort of romantic relationship completes the prerequisites for having a satisfactory life. Do these people even consider that you may be unemployed AND single? And that they’re unintentionally making you feel shitty about yourself? Just keep the convo focused on the weather for god sake.

I started this blog to vent about my feelings. I have been journaling a lot recently to blow off some steam because it's uncomfortable to complain about this stuff in real life. Only people on the internet can understand certain problems. I don’t know if anyone’s going to read this, but I feel like social anxiety is an underrepresented disease in mainstream media. It’s embarrassing to tell people that you are anxious for your next family gathering because you don’t know if you should greet someone with a kiss on their cheek if they’re sitting down. Do I just bend down!? Should they stand up? Am I being too forward, or are they gonna be offended if I don’t make a move to embrace them? That's a whole ordeal for me. It's not what people call a “real problem” but this is the shit I think about while I lie in bed at night. So if shit similar to that wanders through your mind when you contemplate the world, maybe you can find some sort of catharsis through this blog. We may not have a very mainstream disease, but at least we’ve got each other to relate to. We’re people who find solace in reading about similar experiences we’ve experienced online.

Just thinking back on the fact that what jump started my anxiety issue was a small little comment made by someone whose life I made torturous. I don’t place the blame on this girl, as I just enabled her to pull the trigger on some deeper rooted issues I bore. Although it is quite the struggle I am glad that the nastier person I was eventually transformed into a more compassionate one. I never got to formally apologize to that girl. I hope I didn’t leave a big lasting impression on her. I was really shitty to her. I would reach out to her through social media and apologize, but I’ve got way too much social anxiety for that!

Well now that we’ve covered my origin story I would love to hear about all of yours. I will continue to write about various social situations or predicaments that freak me out, as well as stuff I’ve been through at home and in high school and how I’ve evolved and haven’t evolved. I don’t want this blog to be filled with negativity. Hopefully it's self-effacing in a not too depressing way. If it’s too depressing please let me know. I don’t want to spread the feeling of hopelessness with this blog. I want people to find comfort and humor, and maybe we can come up with some potential resolutions for certain scenarios and give each other tips. If there are any readers out there, thanks for reading. I hope this in some way made you smile and feel like less of an outcast. Keep trooping on! You’re not alone :)

#social #anxitey #social anxious #social anxiety #depressed #depression #sad #origin #story #generalized anxiety disorder #help #myparentsdontunderstand #mental heath support #puberty #hormones #peer pressure #mental health #overthinking

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animaechanthoughts · 5 years ago

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A Certain Scientific Railgun S1E12

Below is an interesting comment I read (posted by Christopher Russell). I am reposting it here in order to read through it again later and possibly discuss as I continue watching the Toaru series.

“ Regardless of the morality of the matter, Harumi broke the law. Furthermore, without tacit consent (all the Level Upper users were unaware of the side effects and therefore lacked details necessary to make an informed decision), she put 10,000 people into a coma to use for her own ends. This is the definition of Machiavellianism - "The ends justify the means." Yes, the government is corrupt. Yes, they repeatedly denied her petitions for a legal solution to the matter. No one is claiming that this isn't a far from an ideal situation. However, one cannot simply use the lives of others - without their express permission - to accomplish their own goals, no matter how noble. This is why people that riot at protests are jailed; why vigilante justice is frowned upon. A positive aspiration becomes tainted by the dark methods with which it may be achieved. In short, if tomorrow everyone started acting on their consciousnesses without any inhibitions on what was or wasn't morally proper ('fair play,' so to speak), then the world would be as big a mess as this fictional incident was.

As to your second point, the writing both is and isn't ambiguous about the perspective of the girls. In my opinion, Misaka is very much like me. She sympathizes with the loss and suffering Harumi has experienced, but also understands that her methods are too dangerous to be allowed to go unchecked. A person can go, "But the children!" There were a dozen or so of them; Harumi endangered 10,000 lives to get them back. "But she knew what she was doing! They were perfectly safe!" First, as I said before, using the Level Upper without knowing the side effects - knowing the entire purpose behind it - does not qualify as legal consent. Second, Harumi had no way to fact check her results. There was no precedent for what she was attempting. Therefore it was simple blind luck that her experiment succeeded. In fact, what she was doing wasn't all that different from the overloading experiment. By forcing people's brainwaves to change and increasing their powers in the process, I'm genuinely surprised they didn't end up like her students. If you want to call anything sloppy writing, it's the fact that the show empathizes with her methods yet decries the original experiment when both are quite similar.

But let's press on. Her experiment does succeed, whether by blind luck or exceedingly meticulous planning - it matters not. Then this giant fetus monster is born, fed by the unfulfilled wishes of the 10,000 people linked to its network. While it was alive, they were shown to be writhing in pain, straining against their bonds even while comatose to escape the torment. What if the recovery program hadn't worked? It was equally untested. It could have failed. Like the children, would they have ever woken up? Is it right to condemn 10,000 innocents to save a dozen innocents? To Harumi, yes, because they were children she cherished; the 10,000 were of considerably less import to her. Given what we've witnessed of her character, I don't believe she'd hesitate to inflict actual harm on strangers to save her students. Perhaps some will still excuse that as well; after all, we humans are terribly prone to assign different values to things based on our familiarity with them.

So the recovery program succeeds! Yet there's still a giant monster rampaging around, one created by another unintended consequence of Harumi's ill thought through endeavor. And it's headed straight for the nuclear plant! Suddenly the lives in the balance expand from a mere 10,000 to 100,000 or more. "But Harumi couldn't have known things would get this bad!" That's probably a true statement. However, she engaged in single loop thinking. "I want to save the kids, therefore I will place 10,000 people into what I hope is a harmless coma and sync their brainwaves to simulate the computational power of a supercomputer." Great! But she's messing with esper powers - things that don't follow logical rules and can be weaponized on a military scale. The fact that she didn't foresee any potential pitfalls with her plan is incomprehensible. Or perhaps she did and, as I've asserted is possible, didn't care.

So yes, the girls are conflicted. Yes, the show expects us to work that out for ourselves (even though all the signs are there). And yet I believe that they're still smart enough to realize that Harumi - in her legitimate desperation - chose a poorly conceptualized path to reach her goal; one that risked the lives of far more people than it was likely to save. That is why they allow her arrest. Yet I expect they'll make some effort to help her in the future using...safer means.”

#a certain scientific railgun

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lemonmoxy · 6 years ago

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The Dissertation That Was Promised

Look, I wasn’t going to do this but then people told me to, and I’m a bitch for attention, so here we go.

Shout out to @wildernessuntothemselves and @savingprivatecass coz I wouldn’t have written this without cha. (Yes, it does only take two people to get me write this whole thing. Yes I am ok with being this eager.)

Click below for a 4k+ essay about why episode 3 of season 8 of game of thrones was shit (in my opinion). I like casually spoil everything. So... you have been warned.

This where I would in a few sentences sum up the core of the problems with the episode, but honestly it's too numerous for me to be succinct in my thesis, but I shall endeavor. The problem with the episode is: one, not appropriately setting the various scenes in a way that is comprehensible; two, setting everything up to come down to the clutch; three, that the show writers lack any teeth; and four, making the ending of the episode a twist.

(There are also the side problems that there are just like no character beats going on in this episode and the siege tactics are laughably garbage… but unless people really want me to make an additional post I’m just not going to talk about that)

But before we get into my arguments let's start with some acknowledgements. One, I am arguing why this episode sucks, so I will not be spending any time discussing what was good. There were a few scenes that I thought were good. Maybe I will write about them later, I am not now. Two, while I do think the episode was God awful and I do genuinely not understand why people like it so much, my opinion is ultimately subjective, if you liked it, that is fine, this is not written for you.

And three, and this has its own paragraph for a reason, the rules of this universe change around season six when the writers run out of book material. The rules change from being the characters defining the story to the story defining the characters. The book is all about the characters’ decisions deciding the plot and that is what makes a Game of Thrones unique. Most TV shows and movies are about the plot deciding what the characters do. Neither is inherently better than the other, it just is. In this essay I am accepting this as a fact, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about how this character should have died because of a stupid decision they made. In LotR that wouldn’t have resulted in a character dying and in most TV shows and movies stupid decisions don’t equate to death, and the same is true here. Those aren’t the rules of the universe anymore. This change happened a long time ago and is not why this episode sucks (though I do feel it is a contributing factor).

Ok ‘but Miss Lemon’ you say ‘why does this episode suck then?’ well thank you strawman reader, let us get into it. It might seem weird to start on such a minor note but really a key problem that undermines everything that is good and exacerbates every problem is that everything that happens is kind of incomprehensible. What I mean is, throughout the battle there is no sense of time or location.

There are like four moments that really encapsulate this but it’s in every scene and I could do a mini breakdown of every single scene of this episode and how they fail to establish this.

The first time I really noticed it was when Jon was running after the Night King on foot to attack him before he could walk into Winterfell (or into the godswood, I also had NO idea where Dany, Jon, or the Night King were in relation to everyone else. Btw, you being able to answer this question that does not make my point invalid, I’ve seen the episode twice and I couldn’t figure it out and this is something that I should just feel instinctively if done properly). The distance between Jon and the Night King seems to change throughout the scene. There is no sense of progress as he runs because he seems to get randomly closer or further away with each cut. It was frustrating to watch because I was being denied the tension and was just waiting for the writers to reveal which they decided on, him reaching the Night King, or the Night King noticing him and raising all the dead to swarm him. The scene was not communicating to me which would happen on its own, I was just waiting to the scene to resolve to be told. This is bad.

Also because I have no idea where the Night King, Dany, or Jon are in this moment, or how long it takes Jon to take down that mini army of undead by himself, I have no idea how close the Night King is to Bran and if there is any chance of Jon catching up to him. There is no real tension in watching Jon run after him because I do not know if it is possible, it is again me watching moving pictures that convey no meaning as the writers play up the ‘will he won’t he’ until they decide to tell me which happens. The writers are dictating what happens not the pictures that are moving and supposively conveying meaning (only they aren’t and that’s the problem).

Another key moment of time and placement problems in when the Hound sets aside his fear of fire and his lack of faith that they can win to try to save Arya. We see Arya coming down a roof with the Hound and Beric watching below and they decide to help her. Then when we catch up to Arya later she is alone somewhere within Winterfell castle using her stealth to get around the underdead. How did she get here? Where are the Hound and Beric? I can infer that maybe instead of finishing her slide down the roof into the courtyard she climbed back up and went into Winterfell to get a moment to catch her breath and though the Hound and Beric yelled for her to come down to where they were she couldn’t hear them over the din of battle, and they went after her but they are taking awhile to find her because they don’t have a good grasp of how to get around the castle. But I am making a lot of assumptions for the writers to explain it away when there aren’t any clues to indicate that. We could have easily been shown what was happening instead of her weird pointless stealth around the zombies side mission. Was it cool to watch her stealth around them? Yes. Did it serve any purpose or make any sense? No. I would easily sacrifice that stealth moment that set up the payoff of the Hound and Beric saving her. How much more tense would it be to have Arya parkouring her way around Winterfell castle while a hoard of zombies swell after her while we keep cutting back to the Hound and Beric who are desperately trying to find Arya? Instead we have no idea where anyone is and the Hound and Beric show up when they are needed because the writers will it and not because we are shown it.

The last big moment of lack of time and placement is Arya in the kitchen with the Hound, Beric’s corpse, and Melisandre. Where is the kitchen in relation to the Godswood? They barricade it, so how does she get out and around the zombies? How long would it take to get for her to get to the Godswood? Then she just comes flying at the Night King, from where? Did she climb a tree to dramatically jump down and just watch Theon charge at the Night King and die? How does she get around the White Walkers? Wouldn’t it have been more tense to watch her STEALTH her way out of the kitchen to the godwoods, see her running cut between Theon’s charge, so we know that Theon is actually buying her time?

And that’s what leads me to my next point. One of the reasons this episode sucks is because everything comes down to the clutch. Now what do I mean by that? Everything ends when Arya kills the Night King and nothing leads up to her doing that. There is no back and forth, Arya comes out of nowhere and kills the Night King and then the episode ends.

Now this is key, I am not saying (right now) that the problem is that Arya kills the Night King. What I am saying is that there are only three scenes in this episode that matter (arguably four). When Arya is saved by Beric and the Hound, the scene where they talk in the kitchen, and when Arya kills the Night King. (For those curious the arguably fourth scene is where Theon dies, but we will discuss that in a second)

Now what do I mean by a scene mattering? Ok so because the rules of the universe have changed and things are no longer about characters deciding plot but plots deciding character then the only scenes that matter are scenes that contribute to the plot. The plot of this episode is stopping the Long Night, the only scenes that matter are scenes that contribute to that plot or contribute to a plot of a later episode. This makes it very easy to discern what is a scene that matters looks like. Let us accept that the killing the Night King does mean that everything falls dead, they do establish this in the previous episode at the end, and I will not even critique that this as stupid (it is tho). Therefore a scene matters if it contributes to moving Arya or the Night King to the godswood, or buying time for that to happen (or again setting things up for another episode). Now my amendment ‘or buying time’ comes with its own amendment, it must be demonstrated that time is bought.

This is why the Theon scene does not count as a scene that matters, it didn’t feel like he was buying time nor was it framed that he was buying time. If it were framed that way we have seen Arya running cut between his charge to establish what he was doing and what it accomplished. He throws himself at the Night King and instantly dies in a last valiant, if stupid and pointless, attempt to save Bran. He does not buy time because Arya could have shown up at any point because time and location are not established, if the writers wanted Arya to show up and kill the Night King just before he kills Theon they could have because it wouldn’t go in the face of any time or location constraints that were set up, because they do not set them up. This is what I meant by this issue exacerbating problems.

Now maybe people disagree with me (I mean people definitely do that’s why I am writing this), who do you think contributed to ending the Long Night? From what I’ve seen argued, people think Jon, Melisandre, Beric, and Dany contributed to ending the Long Night (and obviously Arya and Theon, but I mean besides them). I will give you Beric on a technical level though I will discuss why this scene is also not so good later. I will even give you kind of Melisandre since she does put the idea in Arya’s head to go after the Night King, but since not one of you (don’t fucking lie) thought that was it about her going after the Night King this barely counts and is not the moment people talk about anyway.

Nothing Jon does contributes in anyway to ending the Long Night. His goal is to wait on a dragon until they see the Night King then he and Dany will go fuck him up in a sweet aerial battle. This plan falls apart when Dany, enraged by the death of the Dothraki (we will get to this later), flies in early, and fails again later when an ice storm is summoned. Later we do get a brief battle that ends with Jon on the ground, his dragon gone (not dead just it vanishes, don’t worry about it), they haven’t killed the zombie dragon, they haven’t killed the Night King. Jon tries again to kill the Night King but fails when the Night King raises up all of the dead. Later Jon yet again fails to kill the zombie dragon (not that it mattered at that point if he did). Jon contributes zero to the plot but we see a lot of it, this is wasted time.

Now the problem isn’t that his plan fails, that is fine, the problem is that this is Jon’s war, as Dany maddeningly put in one episode earlier (in another example of terrible writing, what the fuck do you mean Dany, how is the war for the dawn, in any way, only Jon’s war?) and he doesn’t do anything. Maybe he slows down the Night King but as the problem with Theon’s scene, because we do not know time and location, it doesn’t feel like he’s accomplishing anything. It doesn’t even feel like he’s failing, it feels like we are waiting for the writers to finally inform of us of what is going to happen, rather than moments leading into moments.

Dany does not nothing for the same reason Jon does nothing. Even the “mistake” she makes of losing her temper and going to avenge Dothraki doesn’t matter. Her and her dragons might as well not been there for all the difference they made. It’s all well and good to see the dragons breathe fire but when we do not see the consequences of that.... Winterfell felt completely run over by the undead by the end, you didn’t feel any weight to Dany’s contribution of blowing undead to shit with her dragon. Nor did we really see any big moments of dragon fire providing time to accomplish things.

I know the counterpoint ‘but Miss Lemon, the whole point was that the Battle for the Dawn was hopeless unless they managed to kill the Night King, that was the point’. Ok, then that makes for poor storytelling, because watching things happen on a screen that do not contribute to things happening for the plot moving forward, when there aren’t character beats happening, when there aren’t consequences for characters’ choices (dammit I said I wouldn’t bring this up) is boring.

Melisandre lighting shit on fire was a waste of time and was only there to look cool. There I said it. Her lighting the Dothraki’s swords on fire was cool and made for a truly iconic (if totally idiotic) scene. But like, the only important thing that happened is now they don’t have any calvary, which would have been true if Melisandre didn’t light their swords on fire, so pointless. ‘What about when Melisandre lit the trenches on fire’. Yeah, she did that. It was almost good too. It was almost good in that it was a character actually accomplishing a thing. It was almost good in that this was the first good strategy the main characters employed in this whole episode. It was bad tho because even though we see that time passes before the undead just… decide that breaktime is over, nothing crucial happens during that time. Time was bought, but it wasn’t used, so it might as well have never happened. Wasted moment. Also it demonstrates that the show writers do understand how to combat the undead effectively and just chose to have the characters make stupid ass plans. So not only wasted but bad.

People keep talking about all of the hero moments that characters had in this episode, and this has been really annoying me, because while I agree that they were supposed to be hero moments. At the end of the day, they weren’t. Because nothing anyone did mattered. By leaving everything to the last minute moment of Arya killing the Night King, of that being the one big moment that changes and saves everything, means that nobody gets to accomplish anything, and everything feels wasted and pointless. It’s bad storytelling.

(Also, I as a human being, am incapable of being tense for the whole episode especially when it is as long as it. At some point I stop being tense and start being annoyed and bored. This is bad pacing.)

Ok, moving right along to the writers not having any teeth. ‘But Miss Lemon, you said it was ok if characters didn’t die because of their mistakes’. You’re right I did say that, and boy howdy did characters make so many mistakes and never got punished, but you’re right, that isn’t why I’m making this point. Look people are saying ‘oh my god, the shocking deaths, what a body count’, and all I can say is ‘did you accidentally put on the red wedding episode? Coz we were not watching the same episode’. So who died? Big Mormot, Little Mormot, Theon, Baric, Melisandre.

Ok, we all need to be honest with ourselves. Jorah has had nothing to do for a while now and contributes nothing to the plot but being sad because dragon queen don’t want to bone him, which is just bordering on creepy by this point. He is one manifesto away from being a white knight. It matters zero to the plot that he is dead. What plot lines are ended because Jorah is dead? Narratively, what does it matter that Jorah is dead? Dany will be a sadder, but that probably isn’t going to affect any of her choices. She isn’t really missing out on any of his stellar advice because he doesn’t give her advice that her other advisers couldn’t. And none of us seriously thought that Jorah might end up with her, so it’s not like a potential love plot was cancelled.

Also the way he died was dumb. How the fuck did he get from inside Winterfell to outside (???). Why did he? It’s not like he knew Dany was alone. How did he get there in time? Why did Dany’s dragon desert her for so long. Like I know her dragon left to get rid of the zombies swarming him but I feel like that takes one, maybe two barrel rolls to deal with that. And also her dragon should never have been in that situation, she lit had no reason to land him. Also she has two dragons, where was her other one? It wasn’t with Jon. It’s almost like everything happened or was hand waved away to kill Jorah off for the shock value of it. Hmm… It didn’t feel like Jorah died because choices he and others made led to him dying, it feels like the writers decided he was going die and wrote around that.

Ok, Lyanna Mormont also doesn’t really contribute to the plot but to be sassy. Like, I like her, but let’s be honest. We aren’t going to be in the North much longer and she isn’t really an important North noble. She was important back when they really needed northern support and allies but the North is tenuously united to the cause. If you want to argue that Lyanna Mormont is team Northern Independence, then my counterpoint is so is Sansa, she doesn’t really need Lyanna’s help. They are almost definitely going to still do the North wants independence plot with or without Lyanna Mormont and she would not have been a big shaker of that plotline.

Ok, while I admit that Lyanna’s death was badass and it was really fun (and also really distracting) to watch King Cailan's death from Dragon Age: Origins play out in HD with a little girl in his place, it was also really fucking stupid. Why the ever loving fuck is a twelve year old, who is the last of her house, and a leader of her people, on the battlefield? Why does a mindless zombie giant (and also the only one for some reason) pick her up? Is it because he wants to eat her, even though he isn’t that sort of zombie? Is it because he respects her and wants to give her an honorable death for the audience? Coz I think it’s that one. And it’s distracting and obvious.

I have already explained why Theon’s death is stupid but this is where I would like to point out that narratively it is inconsequential. Theon’s arc was done. This does not mean there was not more to do with his character, he does have some potential that was wasted. But that would have all been interesting character stuff. Plotwise killing him doesn’t affect anything and his big character beat of coming home, becoming both a Stark and a Greyjoy, and redeeming himself for driving Bran and Rickon out of their home, was accomplished. Nothing Theon could have done after the fact would have really affected the plot. He’s not going to sit on the Iron Throne. He’s not going to change Sansa’s mind about Northern Independence (he has no reason to). He’s not going to convince his sister to break her peace treaty with Dany to ally with the North to secure their own independence. He’s not going to convince his sister to join the crown after all. He’s not going to convince Dany to let the North go. He’s not going to kill Cersei (or maybe he would makes the same amount of sense as Arya killing the Night King, maybe I’m wrong).

Baric’s death is similarly inconsequential. His story was completely tied to the White Walker Arc and he has nothing to do once it is over. He has no stake in the Cersei fight. He has basically no real character arc to finish either.

His death was also stupid because even though this is his big moment, he is accomplishing the goal that he was brought back again and again to do, this is literally his life’s purpose, and the scene is entirely framed around the Hound. Not only does Baric have basically no connection to Arya at all, but this was the Hound’s moment. This was the Hound overcoming his fear of fire and moving past his nihilism to fight for Arya. This was not about Baric at all. And if you rewatch the scene you can see that all of the framing focuses on the Hound completely. And not making Beric’s death scene about him is fucking lame.

Melisandre falls into the Baric camp as well. She is entirely tied to the White Walker Arc and has zero to do once it’s over. I guess you could argue that people were denied putting her to death for her crimes, but honestly in the scope of things, the only thing that differentiates her is that she is guilty of is killing someone we liked.

But like her death is built up and she’s like ‘oh I’m not surviving the night’ and you expect her to get this blaze of glory moment. This really awesome death where she makes up for the fact that she burned people alive for literally no reason (not that she knew that at the time but still), and instead she dies from literally being written out of the plot. I’m sorry but that was a really underwhelming death.

All the deaths are safe is the point I’m making. The consequence of killing a character is that you end all of their potential plot lines, places where the story was going to go. If you kill characters that didn’t affect that and who didn’t have plot lines, then you aren’t taking any risks. You’re just killing characters to kill them because this is Game of Thrones and characters die. But characters don’t just die in Game of Thrones. They die for reasons that have apparently been forgotten. There is a reason why Ned’s death and the Red Wedding are remembered and are defining moments of the series, and it wasn’t just because we were surprised.

Ok, so moving right along to the twist. Look, I’m not ragging on it just because it was a twist. Because honestly, I know I said it was a twist, but it’s not a twist. Not a real twist. It’s a twist in the way that bad mystery novels have twist endings, when information is withheld, details excluded, things made up after the fact, to create an ending that no one could have predicted. It’s bad storytelling. If you want Arya to be the one to kill the Night King even though she has no relation to the White Walker Arc at all, fine. Set that up. Setting it up during the episode in which it happens does not count by the way. We’ve had 8 seasons of setting up either Jon or Dany killing the Night King, you had since season 6 or if I’m being generous 2 previous episodes of season 8 to start laying the ground works for Arya suddenly doing it, use that time you hacks.

And when I say they have set up Jon or Dany (but mostly Jon) killing the Night King I do not mean that just characters think that or that the audience inferred that from storytelling tropes. If that were just the case then subverting that expectation would be totally valid. But that’s not just what happened. The meta narrative, the tricks the writers and directors use to talk discreetly but directly to the audience, told us that Jon would kill the Night King. You cannot subvert that expectation, that’s not subversion, that is lying. So I don’t feel like I’m watching a magic trick, I feel like I’m being conned.

Like I literally don’t get why people liked the episode besides the ain’t it cool of it all and the fact that there was a surprise. I mean, I guess it was good in the way that roller coasters are good. But I ride roller coasters for the adrenaline of it, I don’t watch TV shows for that same rush. I want something a little bit more. Nothing matters, you could have just watched the last couple of scenes and not really missed anything. Nobody that dies matters. No one did anything. There weren’t any really big characters moments (except Theon, I will give them that much). This is the biggest most important episode. This is the Battle for the fucking Dawn and it was somehow worse than the Battle of the Bastards. (Also if you think that Game of Thrones is about politics and Cersei is the #realvillain you have not been paying attention. I swear to God if I see someone say this one more time I going to die.)

#game of thrones spoilers #game of thrones season 8 #games of thrones #got #got critical #like super critical #I throw mad shade and salt #look I understand this isn't a dissertation #but dissertation is more fun word than essay #game of thrones salt

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diary-marisamarko · 6 years ago

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grief

Attachments: The more aloof I appear the more attached I am. I get attached quickly deeply weaving language and lens flares and light rain and scent and touch and texture and tone into something of great and succinct beauty.

Everything is temporal; my rigidity rears its writhing, grieving head and my attachment, it's grasping amateur claws when something, that has touched me inexplicably, to the depth of which it's beauty makes possible, must evolve from physical reality

into memory and dreams.

In this case: I speak of the last two years and the family cat and this family's isolated acres. It will be two years since a nasty bout of viral meningitis woke up the looming epigenetic storm that had no regard for MY ( humanly selfish as it is) trajectory of life (or anyone's life, who experienced these things)

Storms! people exclaim, PASS! I am the Storm! People exclaim, in an inspired camouflage.

This is a crestfallen attempt to thwart

the evolution from physical reality

into memory and dreams, of others; they hope.

They will never know, nor will you or I...

Storms on earth, are all we know.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a storm that rages on despite its three hundred and fifty years.

In its chemistry, in its alien meteorological behavior, the storm has no desire to pass or purpose to appease by passing.

I AM THE STORM

sounds like and

has the quality of a light southerly breeze, whispering sparingly, through a blooming almond orchard.

Once more, our attempt to attenuate the fear and wonder of Post Life. Releasing attachment as softly and fearlessly, as a mother releases the hand of a child, who wants to walk on their own, straight to the sea.

The Great Red Spot's constant storming has me sequestered. The Earth unrepentant, corresponded zealously with Jupiter:

This one,

it cannot sit still,

or slow down,

or breathe.

Not because Earth cares personally, but the torque of evading one's own grief and attachment to it,

brought upon by circumstances or oneself,

has the power, en masse,

to create actions

that choke life.

Earth, in confidential talks with Jupiter, asked for the best way to stop a certain kind of madness.

"Create a perfect storm, an alien storm that doesn't succumb to the will of this human's wanting, or discomfort or fear

Or attachment to its outcome because

This is the madness"

So the headwinds began on the Great Highway bordering the Pacific, before one could even grab a beloved, pleasantly milquetoast warming coffee at Java Beach, or have one last walk through the beloved Golden Gate Park, perfumed with eucalyptus, redwood chips, the golden laughter of the slipping San Andreas.

I could not grab the places and stuff them in a rucksack, as my temperature soared, my lucidity waned, my legs convulsing in a heap below me, like a struggling baby giraffe.

The scent instead, seeped deep

into my nerve,

the tracts,

evolving quickly into memory: As quickly

as the physical metamorphosed.

Arrival at the family home. A year of ginger ices and wasting muscles and intractable pain and worried faces.

Some faces showed curiosity, not concern .

The kept Jupiter's secret, and intuited Earth's plan.

The curious had proprietary knowledge of:

all of the trees on the old property,

the two, TWO, families of white owls habituating the centenarian pine tree.

The hawks, the magpies, the coyotes, the ferocious and glorious hummingbirds, the cactus, the pomegranate trees, the yucca, the tamarack trees, the calendulas ( planted to bring back memories of Tunisia) herbs, vegetables, all of the blossoms, camellias, the Bella Donna lilies and the homecoming Maple tree.

The same tree where I sat as a small child, so ill, so still, with nothing but a cloth diaper because my skin was screaming.

It offered shade and took my body's fraught , infantile confusion to the earth, deep below

to transmute ... and wait.

Attachment: a false stoic.

Loss and grief bends me like a pine, holding on at Point Reyes.

I have tried to not let it etch my external features, a false stoic is vain survivalist.

My inner landscape, well, it understands a three hundred and fifty year storm.

It understands the infinite deep azure sacred depth of a cenote.

It stares in awe at the creatures who make the Mariana Trench their home.

THEIR. HOME.

The cubic pressure of water obliterates attachment, it is stoic and so are its inhabitants.

...

Some of faces of the curious are, of course, feline.

A lineage of abandoned farm cats, now sculpted into a rarefied lineage of mystics, sages and clowns.

...

Attachment: I have never owned a pet as an adult. Never, never, never. A playboy model in Los Angeles put her beautiful dog, Hollywood, down because her life fell apart according to "her" plan.

She should have let him save her, but she had cruelty and manipulation running through desperate exploited veins.

Hollywood, the place, was where she should have administered the pink syringe of poison, not her loyal companion.

It has been twenty years: it never leaves my thoughts.

I did not and could not save him, I was not told until after the procedure had taken place.

He never leaves my thoughts.

Soulful chestnut colored eyes to a lifeless writhing then rigid...

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.

...

The curious felines have seen me come and go.

The many, many phases of a scattered life were anchored by the maple tree, the centenarian pine, blooming orchards, temptations involving stone fruit crops and stories of feline antics.

Especially the one who outlived most of the lineages and who an affinity for being attended to, much like Louis XIV.

I have known him since his arrival. A big beautiful fluffy round peach pastry with a congenital crook at the end of his plume like swashbuckling tail. He immediately was crowned KING and given indoor privileges. The acre and a half was merely his Park, his Bois de Boulogne, to survey daily, smell the air and let the breeze and sunlight configure his regal silhouette.

The others, were not peasants

They were and are staunch pagans.

Nature

their wonderland; the last thing on earth they could bear is/was coddling, cooing and humanizing.

No attachments: Aloof only because they were confident in their physical reality but persuasive enough to be fed as to not disturb the birds. A trade off occurred. Primal nature repressed for easily gained large quantities of nourishment and some doting... but not too much.

They all watched me for six months to see if I could be trusted, to see what creature I turned into when a wheelchair was brought out or a walker, or the constant presence of sunglasses that gave me four sets of eyes. As the six months became a year, then the year became another, they could tell how attached I could get:

my rigidity rears its writhing, grieving head and my attachment, it's grasping, amateur claws when something, that has touched me inexplicably, to

the depth of which it's beauty makes possible, must evolve from physical reality

into memory and dreams

The false stoic is a city girl.

There is no more city, girl.

This girl has been operating the body of this woman for so and too long.

This girl. This girl cannot bear the sight, the feel the movements, the labored breath of this debilitated woman.

The roots of the Maple don't argue;

the roots have grown large enough to disrupt a retaining wall and hold a much larger body.

The white owls keep chanting change, change,change... sailing by quietly to grasp prey.

And in this time, the regal feline, the KING, has watched me wither as well.

My arrogance weaves stories of him sensing how much I adore him. That may not be the case.

My physical sequestering has shoved me into the eye of the storm;

So quietly the time moves in isolation.

Living hour to hour, watching the seasons develop between bouts of incomprehensible, wretched illness. No more time to charade, to play aloof.

I cannot weather a three hundred and fifty year storm by practical design, neither can the regal feline.

He has remained strong until this last week, he has reigned here for sixteen years.

Earth and Jupiter conspired to end my tenure as a false stoic.

I lie on the heated tile in the bathroom, which serves as both a triage unit and sanctuary for the both of us...

both of us watching each other breath, until one falls asleep.

He will soon release attachment, as softly and fearlessly, as a mother releases the hand of a child, who wants to walk on their own, straight to the sea.

My heart expanded under his tutelage, I wonder how I will weather the rest of the storm , as he leaves his physical majesty for the majesty of his spirit.

I will cry in the aging knuckles of the Maple

No longer rigid

Nor will I fight a storm resplendent with truths:

something, that has touched me inexplicably, to the depth of which it's beauty makes possible, must evolve from physical reality

into memory

and dreams

Rest In Peace, sweet prince Gordie. Thank you for sixteen exquisite years. Thank you for saving me time and time again. You are my heart.

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jinxthinks · 6 years ago

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So an anon asked me to make a oneshot or short fic of a Tyrus text post I made a while back. http://jinxthinks.tumblr.com/post/177140452670/cyrus-i-hate-being-this-short-tj-i-think-your and I tried my best to comply. This is all from Cyrus’s pov. I tried my best to keep him in character as best I could. For the purpose of the story, he’s insecure about his height. Also warning: Hints of bullying here and there. Enjoy. :)

For as long as I can remember, I've been short. I know people might consider that to be cute or whatever but... I'm a guy. Were expected to be taller than girls for some reason and if we aren't, we get bullied incessantly about it.

I've heard it all. From pipsqueak to midget. You name it, someone has probably called me it in reference to my height. Granted midget makes no sense since I'm taller than what would count being a midget but... They don't care.

I'm so self conscious about my height that if I weren't a guy who is constantly bullied for being a bit feminine, I'd wear platform shoes to add to my height a bit.

It's very damaging to my already low self esteem to walk around and hear snickers and whispers about my height. Just today I was in gym class and when it came my turn to climb the rope, I heard someone say behind me, 'This should be a treat. Watching the midget climb.'

I don't have popularity to fall back on like Jonah does to make up for not being as tall as other guys. Or a purely intimidating presence like Buffy does. I'm just a socially awkward Jewish kid with more insecurities and inner demons than I can count.

It also doesn't help that my boyfriend, TJ, towers over me and is a constant reminder of how short I am in comparison.

That day as I was mulling over all this in my head, Buffy and Andi told me they had to leave early so I was stuck walking home alone today. I was making my way out of the school when I heard an all too familiar voice behind me.

"Hey underdog. I heard Andi and Buffy left early. Want to go home together?" he was smiling at me like always. I love the way he smiles at me and the way these smiles seem to be reserved solely for me.

"Sure thing not so scary basketball guy. I was kind of sad that I'd be walking home alone today to be honest. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts right now. But are you sure you're okay walking me home? You live the other way..."

"I will walk to the ends of the earth with you if I have to Cyrus." there goes my heart again. Badump badump badump, he sure is gifted in making my heart race at what he says. What did I do to deserve a guy that likes me like he does.

"W... Well when you put it that way. I'd be honored to have you walk me home." I try to smile at him the way he does to me. I sometimes feel like I get more out of our relationship than he does. He does so much for me all the time. Yet I feel like I don't do enough for him at times.

He puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles back at me, "You can tell me what's bothering you on the way then. Maybe there's some way I can help." I wouldn't put it past him to think of a way to help to be honest. He's so good at lifting up my spirits when they're low.

When we were a ways away from the school, TJ intertwines his fingers with mine. He doesn't care what people think of him or him liking boys. This is more so a precaution for my sake since he knows people pick on me a lot and he's not always there to protect me.

He starts rubbing one of my fingers with his and I momentarily forget what I was mulling over. What did I do to deserve him? I don't think I'll ever know but I'm so glad that I have someone like him in my life.

"So... are you going to tell me what's bugging you or?..." of course he'd be the one to remember. I lean into him more. Clinging to his arm and resting my head there. "Can we just walk like this for a while? I promise I'll tell you in a bit. Let me just enjoy this a while longer."

He says nothing and continues walking. We stay like that halfway through the walk to my place when he suddenly breaks the silence. "Cyrus I'm starting to worry. Your house isn't that far now and you still haven't told me what's bothering you."

I let go of his hand and his arm and just stand next to him. Staring off into nothing. TJ tenses up and stops walking as well, not knowing what to expect. "I hate being this short."

He smiles as he says. "That's it underdog? I think your height is one of the cutest things about you." There he goes being cliched.

"What no way. I can’t reach the top shelf of anything. Not to mention at gym class I’ve heard people making fun of how short I am for a guy." He turns in my direction to look me in the eyes. "Names?"

As much as a part of me would love to see those guys get beat up by my boyfriend, I shake that thought away. "No TJ I know where you’re going with that. It’s wrong and you’re missing the point here."

His expression changes from playful to serious. "Okay so what is the point here?" Of course he wouldn't understand this. He can intimidate anyone with just a stare. Not to mention he's average height for a guy.

"That they’re right. I AM short. It’s so annoying." I say with desperation written all over my face. I know my insecurity over it is written all over my face but... He wanted to know. Plus he's always been good at lifting up my spirits.

"I’ll show you one reason why it’s not as bad as you think." he sounds so confident when he says it that a part of me believes him. That same part is eager for him to show or say what he has in mind.

However the part of me that thinks he's in way over his head this time is the one that replies. "There is nothing you could say or do that would make me feel better about my height."

"Challenge accepted." His expression changes to a flirtatious one. Now I'm really eager to see what he has in mind. He makes his way behind me and my heart starts to race trying to figure it out.

He leans down, wraps his arms around me and rests his head on my shoulders. Our faces are only inches apart. It's seems so weird how such a small gesture is making my heart race in an incomprehensible pace.

He leans in closer, to the point I can feel his breath on my cheek and whispers. "If you were the same height as me, I wouldn’t be able to do this. Wouldn’t that be a shame?"

My mind becomes an absolute mess. Momentarily incapable of any coherent thought. Which transfers to my speech. "Uh… Um… You do make a compelling argument there… Um… I"

TJ lifts his head up a bit so his lips are directly near my ear. What is this boy doing to me right now. I can't think straight. Not that I mind it. My mind is jumbled in pure ecstasy at his actions.

He whispers again, his breath near my ear sending shivers of joy down my spine. "You what?" Instead of trying to make sense of what's happening to me right now, I just accept it and relish in it.

"I… Would definitely hate it if this weren’t a possibility. I guess being short does have its perks after all." I find myself actually meaning what I say to him. So long as we can have moments like this together, I don't mind being short. Once again he found a way to lift my spirits.

From the corner of my eye I see that my response causes him to smile in earnest. One of those perfect soft smiles reserved only for me. Then his lips move to my neck and he kisses it the softest I've ever been kissed. I turn my head.

He looks at me, puzzled. So I make it clear what I expect by looking at his lips. He smiles again and leans in to make our lips meet in a passionate kiss that doesn't last as long as I wish it did. He breaks free from our embrace which leaves me yearning to be held like that again.

"See? I did find a way to help after all. Now lets get you home before your parents start blowing up your phone with worried texts wondering where you are." I nod at him speechless, my mouth agape.

He goes back to stand next to me and intertwines our fingers again. "Ready?" Once again I just nod, words incapable of coming out of my mouth after what happened. We start walking, making our way the rest of the way home.

#andi mack #tyrus #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #this is the second version of it i made #gave up on the other early on since i wasnt sure how to proceed

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tinkdw · 7 years ago

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13x15: the moral of the story

I am so happy because I was struggling with the point of some of the negative stuff going on this season so far... So, this episode was just one big confirmation of my meta of 13x14 and how it was addressing morality very heavily this season with their choices leading either to an upwards or downwards finale and addressing the underlying theme of morality since the pilot.

To have it addressed as a point purposefully made and a whole episode dedicated to it to make us think about it is frankly a relief!

It’s on purpose, it’s for a reason!

Good :)

Morality has always been an underlying foundation of the show. The themes, the plots are family, love, faith etc but under it all, as with most stories we have the foundation of morality, that good things happen to good people, that doing things for the right reasons is important.

It’s been consistent that when they do things for others they win, when they do things that put others in danger out of desperation for each other (ie 8x23 and 10x23) bad things happen.

This is consistent and this is a very common narrative, see this post where I mention very quickly the hugely blatant ones of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Buffy just off the top of my head, because stories don’t just exist in a random void, there is always a moral to a story, usually that it’s always better to be good and heroes are selfless.

Anyway, this episode gave us many meta points. In itself I wasn’t totally enamoured with the semi-noir genre attempt, I was very interested by the boys’ interaction with the story but I was a bit bored by way too much going into peripheral people’s stories etc and it could have been done in a more fun, blatantly emotive way, but the meta side and the side that was clearly making a point I loved.

1. Dean is worried for Cas dodging bullets in Syria. Now I have to watch what I say here as I already had antis using my mentioning Syria as an excuse to send me shit, but there’s a reason they chose Syria as Cas’ location out of any country in that region which could be relevant to the spell’s ingredients. I didn’t do this. The show did. For a reason. Syria is a place where currently immoral awful things are happening to good people. It is a horrific situation. Some people are doing awful things to other people in the name of religion. People are doing bad things for bad reasons and framing it as good reasons, this does not take away from the fact that it is incomprehensibly immoral and abhorrent. This was not an accident given the theme of morality in this same episode.

2. Separately to this, Dean is worried about Cas (as usual). Dean is shown as using two established coping mechanisms in this worry. Food (the pizza) and a Woman (the girl in the coffee shop). This is the same old coping mechanism when Cas is in danger / missing / dead.

3. Sam doesn’t know Dean. This is something that we see a lot in the earlier seasons and then sporadically since, but I love that this is coming back given we’ve had quite a few moments so far this season (and last) that have shown Dean is tired of keeping up the facade:

Dean: “you’re like a Boy Scout, always prepared!” Sam: “you’re like... I don’t know what you’re like.”

No shit Sam! The idea that Sam doesn’t actually know who Dean really is (because Dean sublimates and hides so much, particularly around Sam) is consistent and I can’t wait to have this explored textually.

4. Father Lucca giving us some lovely Dean/Cas faith material:

On the skull: “It means everything to my congregation. Imagine you woke up one morning and this thing you loved (...) was just gone, what would you do?”

Sam: “try to get it back”, looks at Dean.

*insert gif of Dean trying to get Cas back whilst saying he’s everything*

I mean?!

5. Father Lucca giving us some lovely morality lessons and exactly referencing Dean’s earlier comment and saying this is bad:

Dean: “Look this isn’t a perfect world we’re trying to save okay? And if I’m not perfect trying to save it, so be it”

Father Lucca: “Change it (...) the world’s not perfect but do you use that as an excuse? Do us use that to excuse your own sins? The world will never be perfect. If good men do good things it can be better”

Dean looks awkward but Sam is convinced to help him.

I mean this is a blatant No, Dean, that’s not what good men do, you need to find yourself again, this isn’t you or what you really stand for (see every time Dean wants to focus on saving one person with less regard of the bigger picture because it’s the right thing to do since the pilot).

Good men doing good things - not doing bad things for the right reasons, doing good things for the right reasons. Ie. in this episode’s instance getting the skull back for the priest is the right thing to do.

Father Lucca to Dean about Sam later: “ All good things beget good things and what you’re brother is doing is a good thing”

Now morally without knowing the outcome yet I thought hey! this should lead to something good for the boys as this is always the case, they did the right thing even though it didn’t benefit them and they should be rewarded, because it’s the standard heroes reward in every story.

Oh, look, in the end Father Lucca turns out to be the Holy Man that they were after the blood of in the first place so they get the reward by doing the right thing! Such accident! Much coincidence!

*Tink stares into the camera*

As an aside, @amwritingmeta reminded me of just how many Disney / fairytale stories they’ve been referencing recently too and these always have a moral to the story. Just saying.

Now, Sam clearly is fully on this path of wanting to do the right thing (he said it clearly in 11x01 that they had to change and he’s been trying hard ever since). Dean has been also doing this (eg 11x23) but he is very iffy in this episode and has been all season, see Dean being framed as bad when he threatened Kaia to save Mary for example, in this episode he has a real reticence re the main plot and not wanting to give up their goal to help Lucca for nothing, but also that whole I would murder someone who stole the impala bit, that wasn’t for jokes, that is... ick. This is supposed to be bad. Sam know’s it’s bad, his reaction is telling us we should see this as troublesome. Cas also last episode showed he is shady, unfortunately set on doing bad things for the right reasons etc and I know, I KNOW this was the “lesser of evils” concept but look my dudes it’s framed as bad, it’s framed as morally questionable and then this episode came straight afterwards begging us to consider these things. That is NO accident. Of course it’s not saying Dean and Cas are evil, it’s just, well, are they soon going to decide to take the ends don’t justify the means attitude or will it be after they’ve fucked up and released the next big bad, ie. opened the rift most likely. No matter what, it’ll end well, obviously, they’re heroes, it’s just a case of timing and dragging out the story. Whatever happens short term, clearly this theme is hella important.

Anyway, the final scene is just one big metaphor of morality.

Father Lucca is moral, he refuses to lie and still distracts the guy enough. He tries throughout the episode to do the right thing and ends up “miraculously” only being grazed instead of likely killed if the shot was 5cm to the left.

Bad: Margaret is greedy. She dies. The others are all greedy, avaricious, immoral and end up shooting each other. All the baddies end up killing each other in a huge lesson of repercussions of your shitty actions.

Good: Meanwhile, as per the above, the boys did the right thing for the right reason, they took the moral high ground and helped Father Lucca because it was the right thing to do even though it went against their own aims and they got rewarded for it by getting what they sought in the first place and getting it in a positive way.

Grey are: Not assuming that anyone is good or bad or anything until they prove themselves either way. Just because the bad guys all seemed OK to start with doesn’t mean they’re not all morally reprehensible, just because Lucca seemed bad to start with doesn’t mean he’s not the good guy and the most Holy Man etc. etc. etc.

=> Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t go headstrong into a plan without thinking about the consequences on others. Do good things for good reasons and get rewarded for them.

*Tink couldn't stare into the camera any more than I am already*

Bonus: Dean now has faith and is helping Sam with his in a direct flip of earlier in the season. I wonder what changed! We just don’t know!

So yeah, honestly it wasn’t fun, uplighting, romantic or particularly characterful, but as an episode helping me, who had read the past episodes as very morally iffy and thinking about why they decided to frame these questions and make us think about it, why there was such a twitter/tumblr wank fest over Cas’ choices last episode, as to why they are doing this overall throughout the season and where this is leading...for all that, this episode was fantastic.

It told us so much about the structure of the season, why it’s been like this, what their point is, where it is going, why it is going that way and that is just great :)

#i couldn't add any gifs to this post it kept crashing so... sorry its word heavy!#spn 13x15 #spn 13x15 meta #tinks meta #morality #good and bad choices #spn themes #season darkest before the dawn 13

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