#we could grow as individuals and as a couple like we discussed and wanted

[smehur]

Drarry fic recs #5

oxygen [Fic & Art] by @maesterchill

Draco doesn’t smoke. Except when he needs to breathe.

A wonderfully atmospheric rendering of the moment when the tentative friendship hesitantly built through years of unplanned meetings gently turns into a deeper, romantic intimacy. Featuring a lovely, lonely Draco and an incredibly evocative description of the magic hiding in cigarette smoke. 10/10 would read again.

AITA for being "obsessed" with my childhood nemesis? by @rainstormradish

Alrakis • I [24M] attended a small boarding school in the UK. There was a boy in my year, a couple of months younger than me, and he became my nemesis after we developed an intense rivalry. My friend [25F] told me recently that our dynamic was "weird back then" and that "it’s even weirder" that I still think about him today. She argued that I talk about him all the time, but I believe the amount I talk about him is reasonable. AITA? prongymcprongface • i completely get what you mean. i had a nemesis (like a school one, separate to my other nemesis) and we had a dynamic super similar to what you are describing. having a nemesis is a very cool and normal thing dw about it. NTA In which Draco asks the internet if he's being reasonable. Only one commenter is sympathetic. They start talking.

This was so much fun to read, I don't even. A brilliant concept, flawless execution, and bonus points for Draco's online name. ✨👌

For Lack of Wanting by @fluxweeed

Over the last ten years, I’ve worked hard to become a better person. I hate being reminded of who I used to be. But Harry likes it when I’m mean.

I loved this even though it broke my heart. Perhaps because (like with other fics that successfully broke my heart), I could totally see it: a Harry who grows into his fame, a Harry who doesn't look under the surface of things unless forced, a Harry who never spared a serious thought about Draco after the war. And a Draco desperate enough to throw everything away for him anyway. Beautifully crafted and utterly devastating.

By the Grace by @letteredlettered

Harry is an Auror instructor. Malfoy wants to be an Auror.

Oh, boy. This fic. It left a mark on me. It's the second most literary fic I've read to date (topmost being Running on Air by eleventy7), and by far the most ambitious one. That summary doesn't begin to do it justice. It's a story about the initiative to reveal the wizarding world to the Muggles; the political struggles of those for and against it, including activism, media manipulation, government corruption, and even terrorism; and Harry and Draco in the midst of it all. I also suspect it's brimming with commentary on real life UK politics, but I'm too distant from those topics myself to say more. It is for this ambition, and for the the meticulous creation of a detailed post-war political landscape and the actors trying to shape it, that I wholeheartedly applaud and recommend this fic. Anyone looking for an adult, thought-provoking, political story perfectly set within the Harry Potter world will have an absolute blast with it.

But I can't say I enjoyed it. I picked it up not for the politics, but for the romance. And the romance, while definitely an omnipresent element, was kept so deep in the background, that the reading was an exercise in frustration almost to the very end. This was done purposely, with incredible consistency and discipline, and to great effect, in order to craft the slowest of slow burns. But I, like a kid bored with the things on the news, skimmed through the lot of political discussions (which are what gives the story such a strong literary vibe), constantly looking for the individual, the personal, the relatable; constantly hoping for the feels. And when they came to the fore at last, it was a bit too little, too late.

As much as I admire its ambition and craftsmanship, this is not a story I would read again. But I will never, ever forget it.

Nice Things by aideomai

The first thing that happened was Theodore Nott came back from France.

Possibly the softest, gentlest, most soothing story I've read in this fandom so far. Something to come back to when my spirits need a lift. There's a scene (spoiler: it asks and answers the question, "are you fucking with me?") that I read three or four times in a row, smiling wider and wider on each go, and another (someone returning after holidays) that i had to revisit at least twice. This doesn't happen often in my reading! I confess I wished for a more detailed exploration of the developing intimacy (read: smut), but I respect the author's decisions; they left me with a heart full of warmth and a head full of dreams.

Many thanks to the wonderful authors in this fandom for sharing their stories, and to all the readers who help spread the word. ❤️

[7ndipity]

Yoongi Breakup Headcannons

Yoongi x Reader

Summary: How Yoongi and Reader would handle having an increasingly tumultuous, on/off or seesaw coded relationship, and realizing that things need to come to an end.

Warnings: angst, mentions of sex

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anon who requested this! I’ve not written much on this kind of topic, but I’m hoping I at least got the general vibe you were wanting?

Masterlist

Requests are open

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As much of a realist as he is, I think Yoongi would be in complete denial when it comes to your relationship.

Like yeah, of course y’all have some issues and fight, but every couple does, right?

Even though y’all went from hardly ever fighting to literally half the time you’re together it ends in arguments and slamming doors.

But you always end up making up (and god does he love making up with you), so you both keep convincing yourselves it’s not that bad. So long as you come back together by the end of the night, you can make it work.

Eventually though, I think y’all would have the sudden realization of the growing distance between the two of you.

Like, schedules get busy, life gets even busier, until there’s a work trip or smth and he suddenly realizes he hasn’t spoken to you in almost three days?! And then he calls you, nearly frantic, but you’re fine, not having fully realized either, and his heart cracks in that moment bc how could neither of you have noticed?

Knowing him, he would likely pile the blame on himself and beat himself up abt it, feeling like he’s not doing enough to make things work and not prioritizing your relationship.

Y’all try to make more time for each other, but you can feel something has shifted, it’s not as easy, not as comfortable as it used to be, the only time it comes close is when you have sex, but there’s still a subtle desperation that you can feel just under the surface.

Tbh, I feel like you would end up having to be the one to stop him one day and say that y’all needed to talk? Like, no one’s ‘dumping’ anyone here, but you would have to be one to put the initial ‘what are we doing here?’ question out there.

The actual breakup would be relatively quiet, coming after a long, mutual discussion. He doesn’t say it, but he feels guilty for not seeing the signs earlier, even though you were both being willfully blind.

Overall, you leave things on okay terms. I don’t see him as someone who would be friends with his ex’s, but if you run into each other, he still asks how you’re doing, leading to the two of you talking for a while.

He actually really appreciates these encounters, they leave him feeling a little bit lighter each time, knowing that you made the right decision, that you’re both okay and working towards your individual happinesses.

Taglist: @sopebubbles-replies @btsw1fe @this-must-be-my-tardis @whitefoxgirl @bethanysnow @coffeedepressionsoup @main-bangtansmauyeondan @captainorangegoose @k4ngelz

[slutbee]

revelations + split lips

Written for the Sam and Dean Mini Event by @holyfreaks (finally)

06/27/24 Prompts: Growing pains/growing up, family is hell

Rating: E

WC: 2.7k

Part 3/4.

Summary: Sam knows he has to end this to make it easier on both of them when he leaves. Dean knows something's up, and desperately tries to keep Sam from slipping through his fingers. Words are said. Relationships are cracked until finally, they shatter.

Maybe Sam should have waited to say it until they weren’t lying in bed, chests heaving in post-orgasmic bliss. But something possessed him to say it then, impulse overriding his better judgement that had been winning out in his more sane hours.

“We gotta stop this, Dean.”

His brother jolted up onto his elbow. It had been two years since it started, and Sam wanted to end it? In Dean’s opinion, they were in too deep to stop. That, and he didn’t want to stop.

“Why?” he demanded, trying to keep anger out of his voice.

Sam couldn’t tell him. He was planning to leave for college, leave Dean, but he couldn’t tell him that. Because he wasn’t really leaving Dean specifically, it was more of an unfortunate side effect.

“I, uh-” Sam hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Don’t you think we’re getting a little too old?” was his lame excuse, one that Dean fortunately bought.

“Too old for sex? Come on, Sam,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

“No, I mean…” well, he was stuck in this lie now. Better think up a better argument. “Shouldn’t we find other partners?”

“What for?" asked Dean. He began to wipe himself down with a Kleenex found on the bedside table. It didn’t feel right to have a serious talk covered in cum.

Sam was quiet for a minute. “I dunno. Forget it.”

Dean tossed the Kleenex at the wastebasket in the corner and missed by about three feet. Sam wrinkled his nose.

“No, you brought it up. What’s wrong?” Dean studied his brother’s face where he laid against the pillow. “Don’t tell me you’re on that religious bull again.”

Well. “I’m not,” Sam lied. He rolled off the bed, back to Dean, searching for his boxers on the floor. He found them and pulled them on with one hand.

"Ya can't lie to me, Sam. I taught you."

Sam heaved a sigh. Maybe it would be better to tell Dean he was getting religious guilt again rather than the truth. Or maybe he should just rip it off like a bandaid. He knew how Dean would react, though. In the past two years of sleeping together, Dean had shown more and more of his... clinginess to Sam (for lack of a better word). If he thought it was bad before, Dean never wanting to go anywhere without him, it got a thousand times worse when Dean started viewing them as a couple. It's not that Sam didn't love his brother, he did, but the guy didn't know anything about boundaries. How could they, growing up like they did?

"I just feel like..." Sam started, then hesitated again, perching on the edge of the bed, back still turned on his brother. "we're getting older. We need to get on with our lives as individuals, maybe." Fuck. He shouldn't have said maybe, now he seemed less sure.

"Well I don't want to," Dean said firmly, in his end-of-discussion voice. Sam's chest twisted. Not like how it used to; in a bad way. He should have known he could never escape.

Dear God, it's me again. Why did you make me like this? I believe less and less that this is a temptation I'm going through, and more that it's just how I am. Please make me not love him so much anymore, I need this to be easier.

"What are you doing?"

Dean's voice jolted through Sam and he jumped up from where he had been kneeling by the bed. "Nothing."

"Really?" Dean's voice took on an accusatory tone, and he took several quick strides towards Sam. "Cuz it looked like you were down there prayin'."

"So what if I was?" Sam asked defensively, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I do it all the time."

"You don't do it all the time," Dean corrected. "Only when something's really on your mind. This isn't about the other day, is it?" He chewed on the corner of his lip, which was cracked and swollen from getting hit in the face while training with Dad. It was a self destructive habit Sam had observed many times.

"I can't believe you're still stuck on that," Sam huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Damn right I'm stuck on it! You're sounding like you wanna break up with me, sorry if that makes me a little anxious."

Sam threw up his hands. "That's just it, Dean! That shouldn't even be a thing that comes up in conversation between us! I shouldn't have to break up with you because we should never have been together in the first place!"

Sam froze. He hadn't meant to say that. He slowly made eye contact with Dean, who was stopped in his tracks, mouth slightly agape.

"You don't mean that," Dean said, voice cracking. "Sammy, I thought we-"

Shit. Sam really needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut. Seemed like these days every time he opened it he hurt someone's feelings or got in a fight. "I'm sorry, Dean, I didn't mean-"

"No, you meant it," Dean interrupted. He turned away, fishing the car keys out of his inner pocket. "I need some air."

"Dean, wait!" The door slammed behind him. Sam exhaled and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingertips. How would he ever break the news? He began to consider leaving without telling anyone; although that would probably be worse, considering his two family members would assume he had been kidnapped and tear the earth apart looking for him.

It would be painful, but Sam couldn't stay. The vice grip of his father would never let up, and the stifling love of his brother was becoming too much to bear.

The next time they had sex, Sam cried, thinking of leaving Dean. He pressed open-mouth kisses to his brother's chest as he pumped in and out of him slowly, making love for once instead of fast and dirty teenage fucking.

"What is it, Sammy?" Dean asked breathlessly, fingers tangling in Sam's hair, gripping the strands tightly as he tilted his head back in pleasure.

"Nothing," Sam replied tearfully, raising his face to press his lips to Dean's perfect male-model ones. "Just love you."

That was a fact that was getting harder and harder to ignore the more Sam tried to ignore it and think about other things. He couldn't imagine Dean not in his life.

"Knew you'd get over that shit- ah-" Sam performed the favorite move, pushing Dean's thighs up for that perfect angle.

"Fuck, Sammy, gonna-"

At first it was subtle, and Dean wasn't sure if it was a coincidence and Sam had just robbed some poor frat boy, or if it was an intentional style choice. A Stanford t-shirt had made it into the kid's laundry, along with a matching sweatshirt. But then, when he was looking through Sam's bag for a lighter (Dean's own had run out of fluid and he always really needed a smoke these days from all the stressing he'd been doing over their relationship) he found the pamphlets. College mail, addressed to Sam Winchester at a P.O. box in Pennsylvania.

And he really shouldn't have gone to Dad about it first. He should've waited until Sam got back from the gas station down the street. And he didn't really mean to, anyway, Dad just got home first and Dean had just found it and the rage was fresh and he wanted Sam to get in trouble; wanted him to get locked down.

John flung the hotel key onto the little breakfast table and spotted Dean crouching by the bed, not moving.

"Son?"

Dean clenched his fist and stood, spinning on his heel and shoving the paper into his dad's hand. "Found this in Sam's bag," he muttered, then walked to the cooler to grab a beer. He stayed facing the wall, seething, mind going a million miles a minute while he waited for John to say something, anything.

Stanford? Of all the places Sam could go, California? That's where, like, hippies lived... right? They hadn't really spent a lot of time in California, so Dean didn't really know anything about it aside from Hollywood. Maybe that's why Sam wanted to go there. A place where Dad and Dean wouldn't come very often. A new place not tainted by memories with them.

"Sam's bag, you said?" John finally asked quietly. It wasn't a sad sort of quiet, it was the quiet that came before the storm. Suddenly Dean felt a wave of regret. He'd been on the receiving end of that storm more times than he could count. Hell, he spent most of his life trying to keep it away from Sammy. And now he'd just directed it toward his little brother in full force. Shit.

Sam trudged up the sidewalk to their motel room, noting that the Impala was gone from the parking spot in front of their door. Dad's still out. That would make it easier; Sam didn't want to tell Dad and Dean at the same time, because everything with Dad turned into a massive argument these days.

Sam paused outside the door.

Dear God, please help me tell him. I don't wanna hurt him, but I don't wanna let him guilt me into staying. Fuck, if I didn't love him so much this would be so much easier. Sorry for swearing. Amen.

He turned the handle.

Dad went out again (probably to a bar) and Sam came home, and Dean didn't say anything to him about what he'd found. Turned out, Dean didn't need to bring it up, because while they were seated at the wobbly formica table, finishing their wimpy dinner of Kraft mac n' cheese, Sam cleared his throat and said, "Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean answered through a half-chewed bite of cardboardy noodles. He turned over the folded page of newspaper classifieds he was reading.

"I have something to tell you."

Dean's heart flipped in his chest as his eyes flicked up to his brother. Sam was twisting the collar of his t-shirt and chewing on his lip like he always did when he was afraid something he was about to say would upset Dean.

Nodding, Dean gulped, swallowing his bite. "What?"

Sam released his lip from his teeth. "I, uh...." He paused, like he was trying to figure out the right way to say it. There really wasn't any right way to say it, because Dean already knew what was coming, and had time to prepare his reaction. "You know how I like school so much?"

"Yeah, you're a fuckin' nerd." Dean chuckled, trying not to let on that he knew anything. "What about it?"

"I've been thinking," Sam continued, not matching Dean's lightheartedness. "I think I'd like to go to college."

There it was. "What for?" Dean asked perhaps a little too quickly. "Not like you're ever gonna do anything with a degree. Just a fancy piece of paper." That was a bit of a low blow, considering Dean knew how much Sam hated hunting. But he was feeling petty.

Sam took a deep, quiet breath. "I could."

Dean snorted. "Like what, Sam? I don't think I've ever met a hunter who even graduated from high school."

"Have you ever asked? Besides, I'm going to graduate." Sam lifted his chin proudly. Dean felt the anger he was trying to suppress surge up in jealousy. Dean hadn't graduated high school properly, that's why he was working on getting a GED. Just so he could get jobs, anyway; if it was up to him he wouldn't try at all. He hadn't even realized Sam was going to graduate.

"Where do you wanna go? How will you even pay for it?" Dean asked, a lot more bitterly than he meant to. Sam flinched a little at Dean's change in tone.

"I got into Stanford," Sam admitted quietly. "They gave me a lot of scholarship money." He cast his eyes down and began picking at a chip in the tabletop.

That Dean hadn't known. "You already applied? You didn't even tell me." His voice raised in volume with the mix of emotions rising in his chest. "When the hell did you do that?"

"I don't have to tell you everything I do, Dean." Sam looked back up and scowled, finger digging into the chip he was making worse.

"You do when it's this big!" Dean was practically shouting now. "Hell, Sammy, this affects my whole life. Our whole operation! I can't do this shit without you, I can't deal with Dad alone! You know that."

"Nobody's stopping you from leaving him, either!" Sam snapped.

"I'm his blood! I owe him that much," Dean bit back. "When, Sam. When did you do it?"

"Last year. My teachers in Buffalo were helping me with college stuff."

"You've been hiding this shit from me for a year?" Dean rose from his chair angrily, picking up the remainder of his dinner and chucking it in the trash like a baseball.

Sam got up as well, holding out his hands like he wanted to keep Dean at bay. "Yeah, cuz I knew you would react like this! You're lucky I told you at all! I almost left without saying a damn thing!"

"Why would you leave at all?" A lump was growing in Dean's throat, tightening and making it hard to breathe. Tears pricked at his eyes. "Do you hate us that much?" His voice broke.

Sam sighed. "No, it has nothing to do with you, Dean. I just want to get an education. And I really cannot stay with Dad a second longer."

"You can get an education here. You never leave the damn library, just learn stuff on your own!" Dean couldn't really debate the whole Dad point, because he understood. Sam and Dad were constantly at each other's throats, and Dad wasn't exactly a peach any other time.

"I can't learn everything on my own! It'll be way too hard," Sam tried to explain, approaching his brother cautiously. "Besides," he swallowed, "I want to be a lawyer. You gotta go to school for that."

"A lawyer?" Dean asked hoarsely. "Why the fuck-"

"It's the closest I can get to doing what we do without actually doing it, okay?" Sam said exasperatedly. "I could help put human monsters in jail. I want to do good."

"You are doing good! Let normal people take care of humans!"

"I want to be fucking normal, Dean!"

Dean pressed his lips together in a tight line. "So that's why you're leaving me."

He should have known. He heard his brother pray sometimes after they'd spent the night together. Heard him muttering his repentance before fucking Dean six ways from Sunday. Dean was the abomination, the temptation that kept Sam not normal.

"Dean, that's not-" Sam tried, but Dean wasn't going to stick around to hear it. He stormed past Sam, tears finally running down his face, grabbed his leather jacket off the bed and ran out the front door. Once outside, he swung the jacket over his shoulders and reached inside the pocket for his smokes and lighter. Dad pulled up in the Impala just as Dean lit his cigarette and wiped his face of evidence he'd been crying.

Dad definitely still noticed Dean was crying, since he couldn't stop more tears from falling. As he rounded the hood of the car, Dean jabbed his thumb behind him in the general direction of the hotel room. "Kid's home." John just nodded and went inside. Soon, the raised voices of his father and brother rang out into the night air.

"You don't need to know everything, goddammit Sam!"

"Well excuse me for thinking I could maybe have a life and career outside your stupid revenge arc!"

"You watch your mouth, that's your mother you're talking about!"

"I didn't even say her fucking name!"

Dean wiped another round of tears and took a long drag of his cigarette as he pushed himself away from the wall and walked out into the night, the dull sounds of fists hitting flesh echoing behind him.

Sam left the next morning without sparing so much as a look or a word to Dean, striped hoodie drawn up tight around his face, duffel slung over his shoulder in a fist. From his bed, in the half-light of dawn, Dean could see the bruises on Sam's face that he was undoubtedly trying to hide. A tuft of hair stuck out from the hood above his forehead. His pretty lips were puffy and the bottom one was split, like it had been smashed against his teeth. Knowing Dad, it had.

Even like that, even leaving, Dean still thought he was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on.

Thanks for reading! I have one more part after this (an epilogue), and then this series is wrapped up. Hope you're liking it!

[inchandescence]

Chanbaek Tarot Reading 2024

Chanbaek Tarot Reading 240320

I read 3 parts: current, 2nd half 2024 until the end of the year, and 1-2 years in the future.

Before reading please know:

If you don't believe in tarot then you don't have to and please never mock people who loves reading tarot predictions, we all have rights and our own free will, and it's not a crime.

Tarot readings are not facts, they are predictions or you can also say a glimpse of what is happening and what would happen.

How detail the reading is influenced by the reader, for myself I can't give a very detailed reading yet, so this is how I far I could do it.

Also I've read tarot for chanbaek many times since 2021 and this reading... I could say it's the most positive out of all readings I've done.

---

Current situation with chanbaek:

Keywords: healing, finding peace, contentment, seeing positives, growing to stability, steady loving relationship, privileged, new perspective, take action

Before this current time (1st half of 2024) chanbaek had a series of hard time in their relationship, doesn't have to be because of themselves, could be bcs of many other factors, but bcs of those issues they experienced some kind of slow down BUT now at this time they finally healed and able to make peace, so I think the issues are more to last year (2023) cus I read them too last year and yes they were having issues here and there, with external people too. Now they finally felt content of the resolution and they can see the positive outcomes. Because of them finally moving on to a better time for their relationship, at the same time their relationship is growing to stability and is going to be steady. FYI, in the past years when people read tarot for chanbaek, it's already predicted that they are going to reach a stable and steady period of their relationship SOMEDAY when they are both ready. And I believe... this current time is going to be that beginning. Additionally, they will be able to see their past mistakes, reflect, and learn, and be open to new perspectives, they both know what they want and what each other want, and they will no longer beat around the bush, they will immediately take action now, all for their relationship.

---

The rest of 2024 (the 2nd half until the end of the year):

Keywords: party, celebration, gathering, family, stability, caring, home, but also business, domestic comfort, support, helping each other, openness (discussion, sharing)

Okay... like kinda crazy bcs I feel like we have been given a glimpse of chanbaek's stable and steady and very domestic life as a couple (finally) and it also begins with some kind of a party, celebration, gathering with family. What im getting is!! This year baekhyun will finish kyoongcon and chanyeol will finally either release PCY1 or reveal the first official hint for PCY1 and like both of them worked so hard for all of their individual projects 1-3rd quarter and they finish them well! So at the end of 2024 they will be having holiday and party and celebrate with family hehe and also after this celebration I think chanbaek won't like rest assured, both of them will go back to work right away and they might think its gonna be a little harder bcs they both alr achieved many great things in 2024 and 2025 the standard will be even higher but both of them will have this kind of worry and they will be open to each other about this! They will share and discuss their plans, whats next, whats good, they will always be there for each other no matter what.Oh adding to this!! I think both will be living that double income couple life so well you know.. like they go to work, do business, they go home, sleep tgt, eat tgt, really happy workaholic couple 😂

---

Chanbaek Future!! 1-2 years later

Keywords:

"quality time with people you cherish in your life"

"turning romantic wishes into reality"

connection and commitment

Okay I feel like the result isnt as detailed as the first 2 questions' results BUT still this is a glimpse of what the future holds for their relationship and the answer indicates they will spend more time tgt compared to this year or previous year, they will have more quality time with each other and people around them, and they will build that connection as a commited couple who will walk to their future together. Also a card describes chanbaek's commited relationship as an air sign, I'm an air sign myself and I feel like this is really really good, being an air sign is wonderful and just the best because like air sign is a sign of freedom and humanity, air sign likes to fly away yet at the same time, they know when to stop flying and rest for a bit and look what is happening under the sky. This is a healthy relationship, both chanbaek will get the freedom they want as both are very independent, but also when they need each other and care about each other, they will be together. Like their relationship has this good set of boundaries but also uncountable empathy.

---

P.S.: While wedding/engagement is possible but what I feel is more to celebrating their achievements in 2024 hehe BUT WHO KNOWS

I suddenly have the urge to read tarot bcs of the penshoppe x bench thingy haha i feel like it gives more hm how do i say it, it adds one more "red string" to chanbaek, what i mean is now theres another thing that connects both of them so their energy tgt will become stronger

[river-gale]

2, 5 12, 27 with (of course) River Gale?

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

i think it has to be that scene where they talk about register in english and how all our most formal syntax is latin and greek in origin and our least formal is usually germanic. just, the fact that they know that and are willing to randomly spend several minutes explaining it. i fell instantly in love

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

someone put 'Simulation Swarm' by Big Thief in a mars house playlist and i haven't stopped thinking about it since. river and aubrey....

like wrong gender obviously but i think of them when i hear it. so.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

i put this in a fic once already but i just feel in my heart that they know fortran. the programming language from 1957 bizarrely still in use among engineers. like, if you asked them to solve any problem in fortran, they could do it, and the solution would be bizarre, totally unreadable to anyone else, and LIGHTNING fast. i have programming style headcanons for every pulley character but this one is my fave

27. FREEBIE QUESTION!!

CARTE BLANCHE TO TALK ABOUT RIVER GALE!? LET'S GOOOO

i'm putting this under a readmore because i can't stop yapping.

i have so much to say. i could write individual essays about their politics, their gender, and their relationship to their sibling, but i want to talk about the argument they have with january sort of mid-book

i love this argument because they both have a point! january has a point bc gale's policies suck and because gale is obviously super privileged in their education. when i first read it, i thought gale was being kind of obtuse for not acknowledging that, but...

on like my third reread i realized i've been in this argument on gale's side lmao. i'd like to think i'd respond more maturely now that i've been there a couple times, but in the moment, "i can't argue with you about this because you're too smart for me" is really deeply unpleasant to hear! it doesn't feel like the other person is pointing out privilege, it feels like they're saying "i can't connect or engage with you on this because i (a) don't trust you enough to believe you'll listen to me or pay enough attention to see my argument when i don't express it perfectly, in fact i think you don't care at all about what i have to say, and (b) you are different from me in a way that is inherent and immutable, so much so that i can't even discuss things with you." and it's easy to see why that hurts!

and gale probably feels that last one way more because their halo reading means their brain is actually, physically different from everyone else's! january is 100% valid for feeling overwhelmed in this moment and for these reasons, but to gale, who connects with people by debating them bc they care about other people's opinions, it probably feels like a moderately insulting rejection.

i also think gale is the sort of person who views a debate or an argument as an opportunity for synthesis—disagreeing with someone and pointing out the counterarguments isn't to tear their argument down, it's to make it stronger by giving it an opportunity to address its flaws!! it's to arrive at the truth together!! it's a way to grow closer to people by learning how they think!! but we can see here that january views it as a violent takedown, which is completely valid of him given what gale and their pr team did to him at the beginning of the book!! that WAS a violent takedown, it lost him his job, and it was his first introduction to gale, so it's totally reasonable of him to assume that's how they work all the time, even though it's extremely not!!

i just love gale so much, because they obviously care so much about other people when the other people are right there in front of them. and they try really hard to tone the argumentative curiosity down, because they know it makes people uncomfortable, but it's their truest way of expressing that care. and it's so easy to misinterpret. and if you really think about it this conversation is kind of tragic for them, especially if you read them as having feelings for january at this point!

tl;dr: i think it's a fantastic character dynamic packed into the span of a short conversation! thank you for reading my impromptu river gale essay <3

[scarymonsters-andsupercreeps]

The Miracle We Need

Chapter 5

<-previous next->

With Kakyoin and Avdol in the hospital, Holly uses this time to regroup. However, her rest is cut short by an uncanny new enemy.

Read on AO3 here!

No warnings as far as I’m aware, only a minor nightmare mention

Chapter 5: Try My Best, Be a Real Individual

Outside of the hospital in Aswan, after dropping off Avdol and Kakyoin, the remainder of the group stood to discuss their plans.

“What do we do?” Polnareff said. He’d recovered from his blood loss, so the doctors had agreed to let him leave. His leg was bound tightly, having 10 stitches. He was to use a crutch to make sure he didn’t rip them. He wore a spare pair of baggy gray cargo pants until he could buy a new white pair.

“We can’t afford to wait around here for long. Even though Holly isn’t sick, there’s the threat of DIO becoming too strong. Every day we don’t reach him is another day he gets to grow stronger,” Joseph said, touching his chin.

“The doctors said Kakyoin’s eyes are doing well with the first aid we did, and they’re healing rapidly. Maybe we can give him a couple days?” Holly said. “Avdol will probably be ready to go in that time.”

Holly thought back to Kakyoin. The boy suffered for the whole car ride. She had felt awful about it, and tried to make him as comfortable as possible, but it was really no use. The pain he’d been in must have been unbearable. Now, however, he was already much better. Just being in the hospital had perked him up, as well as having been healed by Holly. Avdol had not been much better. He slipped in and out of consciousness, although his wounds were not as severe and had taken the Hamon better, probably because Joseph was the one who healed him. Seeing Holly do it had inspired the old man.

Joseph nodded. “That’s reasonable. We need the time to regroup anyways. We’ll stay here for two days or until Avdol is better, whichever comes first.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” Jotaro said. “Get supplies?”

“That, and rest. This will be a good chance for us to recuperate after so long without a good night’s sleep. I’ll even splurge on a good hotel!” Joseph said with a grin.

“Oh, I’ll buy some ingredients while we’re out. I’ll make everyone a big dinner to help stay strong. I’ll do dessert too,” Holly said. “Oh, and snacks for Kakyoin and Avdol!”

She saw Jotaro visibly perk up at the prospect of her making dinner. “Sure,” he said coolly. “I’ve got a few errands as well.” He adjusted his jacket, which was freshly mended from the fight yesterday. His shoulder was okay for now, but he wasn’t supposed to use it if he could help it.

Joseph checked his watch. “Alright, we’ll split up. We’ll go visit Avdol and Kakyoin around dinner whenever Holly finishes the food, so do whatever you want until then.”

Polnareff pouted. “What am I supposed to do? I have to use a crutch all day…”

“You could go book our rooms at the hotel and hang out there,” Holly said. “You should rest there if you can. Your leg will heal faster that way.”

“A nap does sound nice…” Polnareff said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Joseph opened his wallet and pulled out a few bills. “This should cover it. Get your sleep and then meet us at the fountain in an hour or so.”

As Polnareff limped away, Holly turned to Joseph and Jotaro. “I’m gonna go buy stuff for dinner, do either of you want to come?”

Jotaro grabbed his hat. “Go ahead.” Before anyone could speak he turned and walked away, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Joseph blinked. “What’s got him in a bad mood?” He said to Holly.

She frowned. “I’m not sure. He probably need his space after that fight, though. It seemed like it was hard on him.”

Holly led Joseph down the sidewalk a ways, then realized something. “Where’s Iggy?”

Her dad shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it’s probably best to leave him be. He’ll probably follow Polnareff to the hotel so he can ruin his hair again.”

Holly cringed, recalling how many times Iggy had attacked Polnareff on the ride here. “Will we ever be able to clean up all the hair in the car? It’s everywhere.” She sighed and continued walking.

“Doubtful. How does Polnareff even have that much hair? Iggy’s been ripping it out in chunks and his goofy flat top is still untouched,” Joseph said, shaking his head.

Holly laughed. “Are you jealous, papa?”

Joseph stuck his chin up. “No! I still have a full head of hair, so there’s nothing for me to be jealous of.”

At the store, Holly pulled a list out of her pocket and studied it. The writing was tiny and covered the whole page. She took out her pen and crossed out a few items.

Joseph laughed. “You had that ready ahead of time?”

“Of course. What else was I supposed to do on that long car ride?” Holly smiled. “I was looking forward to making dinner for everyone, so I wrote down several ideas. We’ll buy whatever they have.”

“What did you cross out?” Joseph said curiously.

“Those were meals that Jotaro is neutral about. Now the only ones left are ones he likes. I’ll make one of his favorites so he’ll feel better.” She smiled, then her face immediately dropped. “Wait. Papa, does anyone have a food allergy? I didn’t even consider that!” She started to scribble more notes on the other side of the list.

“No, no! We’re all good. None that I know of. We’ve eaten tons of stuff.” Joseph waved his hands in a negative gesture.

Holly nodded. “Great!”

As Holly shopped, Joseph fidgeted. He felt antsy. It was a good thing to rest in Aswan for a few days, but whenever they were still he started to worry. The last time he’d felt like this consistently was back in his youth while training to fight the Pillar Men. He could barely even get a wink of sleep back then—the stress had been relentless. He hoped Jotaro wasn’t that way, the boy needed his rest.

One thing he’d always loved about Suzi was that she never fell for his tricks. She knew he was upset back then and was very gracious to him. He probably wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for her constant support in combination with being pushed to the brink by his competitiveness against Caesar. He missed her. He’d call her as soon as he had time at the hotel.

“Okay,” Holly said, placing an item into her basket. “That’s the main course.” She crossed out a few more words on her list. She hoped everyone would like the dinner she chose, but there was always next time if she messed up.

After a small silence, Holly decided to ask Joseph something that had been bothering her for a long time. “Papa, do you have nightmares?” She said quietly, touching her necklace. The calming effect worked momentarily, but quickly dissipated as her anxiety grew.

“Sometimes, yeah…why do you ask? Have you been getting them?” His brows furrowed in concern.

“Pretty often, ever since I woke up. I’m wondering if it’s because I have a Stand now. I’m directly connected to Jonathan’s body, or just DIO at this point.” She pursed her lips.

“Wait, you’re having specific nightmares?” His eyes widened.

She paused, collecting herself so she wouldn’t cry. “I usually see DIO…and I see Jotaro as well. He’s always injured or worse.” Her voice caught. “It’s horrible…”

Joseph quickly hugged her. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Have you been getting all the rest you need?”

“I think so…I’m not tired. I’m just…drained. I was so worried about Jotaro…”

“He’s fine, and he’ll be fine in the future. I promise you he’ll make it. He’s stronger than any of us could ever hope to be, and smarter too. Have faith in your son, Holly…he won’t die on you.” Joseph paused. “I know that won’t help the dreams, but I promise you they won’t come true.”

She nodded, her lip quivering. She held back her tears. She wasn’t about to cry in a public market. “Thank you, papa.” she touched her necklace again.

“Take it easy if you can…And tell me if your dreams ever change. I’m wondering if it’s an offshoot of my spirit photography.”

“If it’s that, doesn’t it mean the dreams will come true?” Holly said.

“Spirit photography can be misleading at times, and DIO has previously interfered with Hermit Purple. It’s very possible he’s doing something to you to try and break down your will. Don’t let him get to you, okay?” Joseph put a hand on her shoulder. She still felt like a little girl whenever he did that—his hands were so heavy, even the non-metal one.

“Okay,” Holly said, taking a breath to calm down. She wanted to believe him more than anything, but something about her dreams made her think they were real. She didn’t know when the time would come, but eventually she would need to save Jotaro’s life, and she had no idea if she’d be able to pull it off.

Holly trotted down the street. She was a touch late after dropping the groceries off at the hotel and making treats for Kakyoin and Avdol. Joseph had left early, saying something about going to a coffee shop with Polnareff and Jotaro. Holly was initially sad she didn’t have time to go, but on further reflection realized she didn’t really want coffee. She clutched the box of homemade sweets to her chest, putting on speed so she wouldn’t be any more late.

The buggy was parked to the side of the road, and three people stood around it. Joseph, Polnareff and…someone else. He was around Jotaro’s height, but it wasn’t him at all. The others were talking to him like they knew him. Holly assumed it was a friend they’d previously met while traveling and happened to run into again.

As she got closer, she caught a glimpse of the newcomer’s face. Her heart skipped a beat. This strange man’s face looked like Jotaro, but…wrong. Holly couldn’t quite place it, but this wasn’t her son. It was like someone had make one of those hyper-realistic wax figures of him. It was a perfect likeness, but definitely still wrong.

She didn’t know what to do. Joseph and Polnareff weren’t attacking him for now. They were probably going to try and catch him off guard and interrogate him about DIO. At the moment it meant playing along, she thought.

“Bonjour, Holly,” Polnareff said with a smile. “We were just about to leave, you’re just in time.”

“Everyone get in,” Joseph said, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Oh, I’d rather walk,” not-Jotaro said, starting to sweat. That immediately raised Holly’s suspicions. If the enemy didn’t want to be in the car, that likely meant he’d tampered with it.

Holly decided to put some pressure on him. she grabbed his hand. “C’mon, sit with me!” The impostor’s hands were cold and clammy, unlike Jotaro’s, which were always warm from being in his pockets. Not-Jotaro also had none of the abrasions Jotaro had picked up yesterday, although he did have old scars from earlier in the journey. Holly was somewhat impressed.

“Oh, no…I’m okay…Holly…” not-Jotaro didn’t seem to realize he was supposed to be her son. She was a bit flattered he hadn’t noticed her age, but unsure what he’d thought of instead.

“Hey, don’t disrespect your mother like that!” Joseph snapped. “At least you didn’t call her a bitch, but calling her Holly is rude. You’re old enough to know better.”

“It’s okay,” Holly said cheerfully. “I don’t mind!” She smiled at him. If it was the real Jotaro, he would have looked away, but this person just stared at her like a deer in headlights.

Holly looked at Joseph, slightly panicked. She didn’t know what to do about the impostor. He winked at her. Oh, so he had a plan. She decided to mess with the impostor until Joseph dealt with him according to whatever he was plotting. He had to go along with whatever she said, right?

“Anyways, we don’t have time for you to walk. Get in the car, it’ll be easier.” Polnareff shoved not-Jotaro into the backseat.

Holly got in next to him as Polnareff sat in the front passenger seat. She noticed an orange on the seat that had escaped the bag of them on the floor. She went to pick it up, but not-Jotaro snatched it before she could.

He quickly tossed the orange out the window, pretending he’d dropped it.

Holly masked her suspicion with a laugh. “Jotaro, you butterfingers!” She said. The orange was probably significant in some way, she thought. She didn’t know how. She needed more time to observe.

Not-Jotaro gave a strained laugh. “Yeah…”

He could have at least tried with the laugh, Holly thought. Jotaro’s laugh was nothing like that, not that this person would have any way of knowing. It was almost offensive for her to see such a sloppy rendition of her beloved son.

Holly leaned back in her seat. She was just getting irritated now. She hoped the real Jotaro was safe, but on second thought, an enemy this clueless would never be able to get one over on him. She took a breath to stay calm. The best way to defeat this enemy is to wait him out, she thought.

Polnareff suddenly spotted something in the rear-view mirror. “Hey, Mr. Joestar…it’s Iggy! He’s trying to catch up to us.” He leaned towards the mirror so he could see better. “He’s got an orange in his mouth. Did he steal that?”

So Holly was right about the orange…unless Iggy was just feeling generous, which she highly doubted. Iggy probably knew something she didn’t. She had no idea what.

A moment later, the dog jumped up and squirmed in through the open window, dropping the stray orange right onto not-Jotaro’s lap before sitting down next to Holly.

“NO!” Not-Jotaro shouted.

Polnareff snatched the orange. “Jotaro, where’s your cool exterior? It’s not like you to scream that way.” He paused. “Or is it, Holly? I could be wrong.”

“Oh, it certainly isn’t…” Holly said. She grabbed not-Jotaro’s hand. “What’s got you worked up, pumpkin?”

He stared at her. “Uhh, I meant…did you no-tice that cow over there?” He pointed.

She turned and looked. “Oh, so cute! I love cows, thanks for pointing her out!” She smiled. Internally, though, her thoughts raced.

Firstly, Jotaro would have been annoyed if she called him “pumpkin.” That was irrelevant, however, compared to the orange mystery…not-Jotaro seemed to want nothing to do with that one specific orange. It wasn’t like he had a phobia…a bag of them was sitting right at his feet. It had certainly been tampered with. But in what way? It couldn’t have been poison or he wouldn’t be scared of its presence, only of eating it. Unless it was a poison that could kill by touch or smell? No, that didn’t work either. If it was a strong poison like that, Iggy and Polnareff would probably be dead, as well as the impostor since he was the one who planted it here.

“You’re acting peculiar today, Mon ami. Could it be…” Polnareff said, looking back at not-Jotaro over his seat. “…that you’re a fake?”

Not-Jotaro visibly stiffened. Holly wasn’t sure what Polnareff’s game was, but she was curious how it would unfold. Holly wouldn’t have thought to just directly confront him, or was it more of a mind game?

“Uhh, good grief.” Not-Jotaro grabbed the brim of his hat. “What’re you even talking about?”

Holly laughed. This one was actually genuine, mainly because of how bad the impression was. “He’s just kidding around, silly!” She was slightly nervous about the group’s safety if they were to let on that they saw through his disguise. She hated to interfere with whatever Polnareff was planning, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to play it safe.

Polnareff paused. “Ugh, I’m bored.” He lit up a cigarette and held out the box to not-Jotaro. “Do that trick you showed me, would you?”

“Trick?” The impostor said. He was sweating heavily at this point.

Polnareff pointed to his mouth as he flipped the cigarette backwards, catching it and holding it with the lit side in the back of his mouth. He puffed smoke out of his nose and grinned.

Joseph chuckled. “Hey, you’ve gotten way better! Good work.”

Polnareff successfully turned the cigarette back, snickering. Not-Jotaro cut in. “Yeah, I can do that. It’s easy.”

Holly raised an eyebrow. She remembered Lisa Lisa teaching her that trick as a child, back when Holly still thought of her as Grandma. Lisa Lisa said it came from her husband’s family.

Except, of course, Holly was taught using candy instead of cigarettes.

It had apparently become a Joestar heirloom…Joseph must have passed it down to Jotaro without Holly knowing. She had no idea how far back in the Joestar line the trick went. The thought of her ancestor Jonathan, who she’d only ever heard the highest praise of, doing such a funny thing…She couldn’t help but smile.

Although she did wish Jotaro didn’t feel the need to smoke. She couldn’t exactly blame him for that, however, with how stressful this journey had become.

“Great. Do the one with five cigarettes, then,” Polnareff said, pulling out a handful of cigarettes from the box and thrusting them into not-Jotaro’s hands.

It would be pretty funny to watch him struggle and maybe even bump into him so he’d burn himself, she thought…but she had a better idea.

Holly grabbed the cigarettes. “You shouldn’t smoke…it’s bad for you. You should know better, sweetie!”

Polnareff shrugged, sheepish. “I suppose he is a bit young to be smoking…my apologies, Holly.”

“It’s alright…it just makes me so sad as a mother!” Holly said. She pinched herself to bring tears to her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry for getting emotional…” she faked a sob, burying her face in her hands.

Joseph glared at Polnareff, then not-Jotaro in the rearview mirror. “Apologize right now, both of you. No one makes my daughter cry and gets away with it,” he growled.

Holly rarely saw him this serious. That steely gaze was reserved for only the worst of offenses, and had only once been placed on Holly herself. She shuddered, recalling her teenage antics.

“I’m really sorry, Holly,” Polnareff said. “I wasn’t even thinking.” He put out his own cigarette. Holly felt bad. She had nothing against Polnareff…she hoped he realized she was only toying with the enemy and not actually upset with him. She’d make sure to mention it later.

Joseph shot a look at not-Jotaro that could have shredded him on the spot, or maybe melted him. “And what about you?”

The impostor froze for a moment, then turned to Holly, frantically rearranging his uncanny mannequin face into something vaguely apologetic. “I’m sorry…uh, mommy…” as soon as the last word escaped his mouth he realized his mistake.

Holly snorted, caught completely off guard. She held back a laugh, feigning more sobs. “Oh, it’s okay…I knew my little boy would understand…” she put her hands down. “I’m so proud of you…”

Not-Jotaro audibly sighed in relief when he received a positive reaction. Holly might cry from trying not to laugh. The real Jotaro would probably sell his soul before calling Holly “mommy,” especially in front of others. She could count on one hand the amount of times that happened once he was over the age of 10. She was shocked at the ignorance of this enemy. He might have had a chance of fooling her if he’d bothered to study Jotaro’s mannerisms and personality.

Polnareff slowly turned, exhaling from his nose. “Did I just hear you correctly?” He laughed. “‘Mommy?’” He laughed harder. “Are you buttering her up or what?”

“No,” not-Jotaro spat. “What’s your problem?”

“You really aren’t feeling well today, huh?” Polnareff said through a cackle. “You’re nearly 18, right? What 18-year-old still says ‘mommy?’”

“My 18-year-old!” Holly said dramatically, grabbing onto not-Jotaro’s arm. She was committed to making the most uncomfortable social situation possible. She snuggled against him. “Oh, I was so so worried you’d hate me after what happened between us…”

Not-Jotaro panicked again, as well as appearing to be very weirded out by her. “Oh, that? It was nothing…” he said uncertainly, trying to subtly shift and get out of her embrace. She didn’t want to be hugging this stranger, but it made her ruse funnier, so she’d commit. She tightened her arms.

By dismissing the intentionally ambiguous falling-out, he’d fallen right into her trap.

“Even though I got in a fight with your girlfriend back home and stabbed her with a kitchen knife?” Holly said the most outlandish thing that popped into her head, batting her eyelashes. “You finally forgive me? When we visited her grave you said you never wanted to see my face again!”

Not-Jotaro swallowed hard, probably starting to connect the dots in his head. She’d been trying to build up to him thinking she was completely overbearing and strange. “Uh…” he leaned further away from her.

“You really do?” She said, feigning a hopeful look. She hated to admit it, but she was having a lot of fun with this. She’d always wanted to be an actress when she was younger. Up front, Joseph and Polnareff shared a look, baffled.

Before the impostor could dig his own grave any deeper, Polnareff cut in. “Hey, Jotaro, how about we have an orange eating contest? Much safer than cigarettes.”

“I can allow that,” Holly said, sniffing theatrically and wiping a fake tear. “I’m so relieved you have such good friends, sweetie pie!” Yet another nickname Jotaro would hate.

Polnareff grabbed the orange Iggy brought back, tossing it upwards and snatching it out of the air. “Ugh, I hate peeling these…”

The blood drained from Not-Jotaro’s face and his mouth fell open. “Not that one!” He shouted frantically.

Holly racked her brain. What could he have possibly done to that orange to make him so scared of it? Why would he willingly be in the same car as it, in that case? Holly wasn’t familiar with the situation before she arrived, but something must have happened that he wasn’t planning on. Were they in immediate danger? She didn’t know whether to get serious.

What was Joseph planning?

“What now, Jotaro? What’s wrong with it?” Polnareff asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Uh, Iggy brought it back, right? Who knows where he found it?” Not-Jotaro gestured to the dog, who was politely sleeping on Holly’s lap.

Iggy probably brought it back because he realized he’d been tampered with. He was able to smell Geb, which meant that whatever this new enemy was up to was likely not going to escape his keen nose. Holly scratched his ears.

“It looks clean, but if it bothers you I’ll eat it. Grab another one from the bag,” Polnareff said.

Not-Jotaro froze for a split-second, paralyzed by panic. He suddenly howled in pain, clutching his stomach. “Stop the car! My stomach hurts!”

Holly’s suspicions were immediately raised. What was he getting at? “You have a tummy ache? Why didn’t you just say so?”

He folded in his seat, groaning loudly. “Ughh, I need to go now!” He fumbled with the door.

“We’re almost at the hospital, Jotaro…can’t you wait?” Joseph said.

“NO!” Not-Jotaro blurted. “No, it’s really bad! I’ll catch up later, I mean it!” He dove out of the car and stumbled to his feet.

“Hey, wait a sec!” Polnareff said, rummaging through the glovebox. “Take some toilet paper so you don’t ruin your underwear. At least be civilized.”

Not-Jotaro snatched the roll and took off running, barely remembering to thank him.

In the pause a moment ago, Holly had snuck the suspicious orange into the enemy’s pocket. She wondered what would become of him, but whatever happened, she couldn’t allow her friends to be harmed.

Holly watched him go, disappearing behind a rock in a cloud of dust. It was like something out of a cartoon.

Once he was out of earshot, Holly burst out laughing. She clutched at her sides, doubling over and wiping tears from her eyes.

Polnareff and Joseph glanced at each other as the old man parked the buggy in the hospital lot. “What’s so funny, Holly?” Joseph said.

“That was awful,” she said, barely able to speak from laughing so hard. She put a hand to her chest.

Suddenly, there was a loud blast that echoed across the horizon. It was shockingly close, and came from the same direction not-Jotaro had gone.

No way. She looked at Iggy. The orange…was it a bomb? She raised her eyebrows and the dog nodded, or at least he moved his head in a manner that could be interpreted as a nod. She didn’t know how to feel about this. On one hand she hoped the enemy wasn’t dead, but on the other hand he’d had every intention to kill them, so it was probably for the best.

“Are they doing construction over there?” Polnareff said, shading his eyes against the sun and leaning forward on his toes to try and see better.

Holly raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to speak, but Joseph cut her off.

“Jotaro!” He called, grinning and waving at the boy, who was sauntering towards them on the sidewalk.

Holly whirled around. She was absolutely delighted to see the real Jotaro. He looked as annoyed as ever, his eyes half-lidded as he regarded them with a touch of confusion.

“Where’d you come from? Weren’t you just…?” Polnareff said, scratching his head. “Did you get over your sickness that fast?

“Good grief, what are you talking about?” Jotaro grumbled.

Holly laughed. “Hey, he doesn’t know what happened…at least explain before you joke about it.”

“Huh?” Joseph said. “Are you feeling bad again, sweetie?” He placed his prosthetic hand on her forehead absentmindedly, then realized what he was doing and switched. “You feel okay…”

“Do you have some sort of super speed ability you never told us about? I don’t know how you got from the spot we dropped you off to all the way over here in such a short time,” Polnareff said to Jotaro, raising an eyebrow.

Holly blinked. “Wait, you’re not joking?” She paused. He had fallen for the enemy’s disguise? She supposed that was understandable, he hadn’t known Jotaro for as long as Holly.

“Well, yeah…it’s a reasonable question,” Joseph said. “I have to admit I’m curious as well.”

Holly stiffened, turning to face him. “What? You too? You both thought that was actually Jotaro in the car with us?” She grabbed his shoulders. “You’re being 100% serious and not pulling my leg?”

They stared at her. “…yeah?” Polnareff said. “Who else would it be?”

Holly pursed her lips. “Jotaro, were you in the car with us just now?”

“No,” Jotaro said. He was bent over fishing an orange out of the bag in the buggy. “I walked here. No clue what any of you are on about.”

“Oh my god!” Joseph said. “Was it an impostor?”

“Yes!” Holly practically shouted. “I thought you knew…why did you wink at me?” She put her hands to her head.

“Oh, I meant it to show you I was kidding around…” Joseph swallowed. “I, uh…didn’t realize the guy in the car was a fake.”

“So, Holly, you’re saying everything you did in the car was an act?” Polnareff asked.

She gaped. “You thought it was real? I was messing with him because I thought Papa had a plan!”

“I wasn’t sure what to think!” Polnareff put his hands up defensively.

“Neither I nor Jotaro would ever do anything that just happened,” Holly said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think we need to worry about the enemy, either. That explosion a second ago was the orange he was scared of.”

“It was a bomb?” Joseph exclaimed. “He was trying to blow us up…that’s…”

Holly sighed. She shook her head to try and get her thoughts together. She didn’t know whether to be mortified, angry, or just laugh until her lungs gave out.

Jotaro was leaning against the buggy eating an orange. Holly could tell he was enjoying watching Joseph and Polnareff make fools of themselves. “If the enemy’s out of commission there’s not a problem. Let’s go see how Avdol and Kakyoin are doing,” he said, pushing off the car and walking towards the hospital entrance.

Holly fell into step next to him. “Sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t have betted on Papa. Polnareff I can understand, but Papa?”

“Doesn’t surprise me…They can be pretty dense,” Jotaro said. He was smiling ever-so-slightly. He offered her a portion of his orange and she quickly accepted.

“Yeah,” Holly said with a small laugh. As she opened the door, she heard a siren blaring in the distance. Turning, she noticed an ambulance racing down the road towards the ER.

As the paramedics unloaded the patient, Holly’s jaw dropped. It was the fake Jotaro as well as another small person. They were both mangled and bleeding, with some areas in temporary dressings. The two were rushed away on gurneys.

“H-his outfit—“ Holly said, completely in disbelief.

“It’s ugly as hell.” Jotaro crossed his arms, looking away disdainfully.

Holly cackled victoriously. “I knew it! That was the guy pretending to be you.”

Jotaro’s eyebrows shot up. “And they bought it?” He seemed to realize the extent of how bad the impostor’s disguise was. He looked embarrassed.

“And his acting was terrible on top of that,” Holly said. “It was a train wreck!”

Kakyoin perked up as he heard the door open, his pinkish hair swishing as he looked over. “Is someone there?”

“Yes!” Holly said, trotting over to the side of his bed. “We came to see you! How are you feeling?”

The boy beamed. “I’m doing a little better. Thank you for thinking of me.” He folded his hands on his lap, clearly trying not to touch the bandages over his eyes. “Did anyone else come with you, Miss Holly?”

“Yep, everyone’s here! Even Avdol. We brought him along since he was feeling up to a walk.” Holly grinned as the man carefully shuffled in, sitting down in a chair off to the side. He was fairly well recovered, in fact the doctors said he just needed a day or so.

“I’m glad to hear that.” Kakyoin said.

“I made you two some cookies,” Holly said, setting down the box. “They’re chocolate chip, would you like one?”

“Yes! Uh, I mean, if it’s not too much trouble…”

“Of course it isn’t! I made these just for you.” She fished out a cookie and gave it to him, lightly patting the top of his head. He stiffened at the touch. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Holly said sheepishly.

“No, it’s okay…that just reminded me of my mom, is all…”

Holly turned around from giving Avdol a cookie, feeling a pang of sadness. “Aw, sweetie…” she put her hand on Kakyoin’s shoulder. “You’ll be back home before you know it. I promise.”

Holly frowned. She couldn’t imagine what the poor boy was going through. He probably hadn’t seen his parents properly in months. She doubted he’d gone back to them while under DIO’s control. Kakyoin’s resilience inspired her.

“Thank you. I hadn’t realized how homesick I was until now.” He took a bite of the cookie and chewed for a moment before completely freezing. He quickly swallowed. “Miss Holly, these are delicious!”

“Agreed!” Avdol chimed in.

Holly smiled. “I’m so happy you all like them. I wasn’t sure what to make, so I went with a classic.” She remembered something, and reached into her bag. “I brought cards. I thought we could play some games together. We’ll take turns being your eyes, Kakyoin, how about that?”

“That sounds fun,” he said. “I’d love to.”

“Perfect! How about we play Go Fish?” Holly suggested. “Uh, unless you’re too old for it,” she added sheepishly.

“No, let’s do it,” Polnareff said, sitting down next to Kakyoin on the edge of the bed. “I’m great at Go Fish. We’ll win for sure.”

Kakyoin chuckled. “I’m fairly certain it isn’t skill-based…”

“Then you haven’t seen a real expert play.” Polnareff cracked his knuckles as the rest of the group pulled up chairs around Kakyoin’s side table and Joseph dealt out cards.

After a few turns, Kakyoin spoke. “Did anything interesting happen to you guys today?”

Holly grinned deviously. “I’m so glad you asked. In fact, we encountered a Stand user.”

Joseph and Polnareff groaned in unison. Jotaro put down a pair of cards after receiving one from Avdol.

Kakyoin laughed. “What happened?”

“His ability was to shapeshift—oh, got any 6’s?—and he turned into Jotaro.”

“Go fish,” Joseph said, cringing from embarrassment as she spoke.

Holly drew a card. “His disguise was realistic but…off. I knew something was wrong right away, but I might have fallen for it if his impersonation wasn’t garbage.”

“In what way?” Avdol said, curious.

“In every way!” Holly said, smacking down a pair of cards for emphasis. “It was honestly ridiculous.”

She continued to tell Kakyoin and Avdol all about it, sparing no details. She was getting lots of laughs and embellishing the story in areas. Eventually, one round of Go Fish stretched into many, and the afternoon stretched into evening.

“I’m sorry to cut the party short, but we’ve gotta get back to the hotel, and you two need to rest,” Joseph said as he gathered up the cards after a round.

Kakyoin nodded. “I understand. Thank you again for coming.”

“See you,” Jotaro said, touching the brim of his hat as he left the room.

Joseph tipped his own hat. “Bye-bye!”

As Avdol left and Holly was about to say her own goodbyes, she looked at Kakyoin and noticed wet stains on his bandages. “Are you alright, Noriaki?”

“Yeah, I’m alright…” he said with a sniff. “Sometimes my wounds, uh…leak.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate.” She crossed back to him and gently took his head in her hands, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “We’ll be back first thing tomorrow.”

Kakyoin sniffed again, looking away. “Thank you, Miss Holly.”

“Of course, sweetie.” She smiled softly. She thought of the boy as another son and was glad she could be here to comfort him. She hoped to be able to get him back to his real mother unharmed, but for now she was happy to be a stand-in.

She patted his head again, and turned to leave.

Holly gently closed the door, and as she walked down the hall she heard him cry in earnest. She closed her eyes, suddenly noticing the wetness on her own cheeks.

Thank you for reading!

[clever-and-unique-name]

Oh. Something in me is snarling and snapping. Okay.

Sorry, most of you aren't going to have a lot of context for this because it would take far too long to explain and these feelings are melting my brain. The short story is I made a discord server 4 years ago for friends with OSDDID and just left it yesterday.

I still have a couple friends there still. So I've been kept abreast of the conversations that happened in the wake of me leaving. Because nothing can ever be discussed openly, to the face of who it's about, right? That's a big part of why I left in the first place.

So, some things, to recap, mostly for my sanity. Sorry, this is going to get extremely long, because I want to say all I need to say.

Initially, I made the server to foster a small, intimate community of people with OSDDID. One of those people is someone who groomed me as a teenager.

Over time, some of the people there helped me realize I was in a toxic relationship with that person. When things finally came to a head and that person left the server (2? years ago?), I was...very not okay. But I had people there supporting me through it, and we got closer through the fallout. I am genuinely thankful for their support through it. It would have been exponentially more rough without them.

Time passed. I went from being unemployed to working full time. I had less time to spend socializing online, partially due to the strict divide between our work-parts and home-parts. I began to neglect my friendships, and though we tried--god, we really did try--we just couldn't figure out how to talk more than maybe once a week, when the right alignment of parts were out to be Home and Social in the way we felt we needed to be. And it just dwindled from there.

At some point around there, I started talking to B. We bonded over our shared love of art and character creation. She was welcoming to all of my parts, insisted on talking to anyone who was present. A novelty for me, to be individually recognized and not have to hide anyone. She got me on my stressful days and rough nights--vulnerable times I didn't feel I could share with people previously. We have talked every day for two years.

Resentment began to grow from the people I'd previously been close to. Obviously...it hurts to be told that someone doesn't have space for you like they used to, while they're clearly engaging in a close and intimate friendship with another person. I tried to reassure that I still cared about people, and tried to reach out when I could, but it kept cropping up with different people in the server: you don't care about me anymore, we're clearly not friends anymore, well you can make room for her so why not me. It was almost like clockwork for a bit, once a month someone new would step forward and I would try to put out the fire again.

(The thing is, every single one of these people expressed that they completely understood and sympathized/empathized with my limited social ability. They insisted that our level of contact was fine, until it apparently wasn't and they confronted me about it. So as I was having a conversation with one person with them saying "No it's totally okay that we don't talk much, I still love and care about you sooo much!", I was fielding a convo from a different person who had said the same thing to me weeks/months ago, talking about how I had actually been horribly neglecting them and that we weren't friends anymore.)

Then around a year ago, that person I mentioned, the one I knew as a teenager, created a new account to bypass my blocks, and reached out to me again. Trying to "apologize" for something, the subject of which had me questioning if someone I knew was tipping them off to things I was processing semi-privately. Right at the crescendo of all the other social issues.

Lit match. Powder keg. Boom.

I withdrew hard. From absolutely everyone but B. I didn't know who to trust with their reassurances of "we're totally okay, love and care about you!" I didn't know who harbored resentments. I knew, from past experiences, that there were people in the server prone to gossiping with each other, and I had stepped on their toes by pulling away from them. I mean. That's how we had bonded in the first place--by us privately talking about the person I knew, among others. You know what they say about bad karma.

I all but disappeared from the server, owner in name only. I fought the urge to delete it, and instead promoted others to mods so I could further remove myself. Every time I attempted to talk there, I was overwhelmed with anxiety to the point of physical illness. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head, that I was just having attachment trauma, that I could sit with my discomfort and everything would be fine. More and more, it felt like the only person I could truly trust to be emotionally attached to was B. Out of 20-odd people, 6 had heel-turned and told me I hurt them with my distance. I was just waiting on the rest to do the same. And waiting. And waiting.

And suddenly, a couple days ago, another server "friend" (I hesitate to call anyone that because it was impressed upon me, multiple times, that I was not being a friend to people) blocked me. I found out when I went to send them a meme and discovered I couldn't. I thought I was used to it, I thought I couldn't be blindsided anymore. But it had been a while since it had happened; I thought everyone who had a limit with me had reached it.

I checked our convo history. Yet again: us talking about how much we understood each other, how we're both prone to isolation, how we still cared about each other.

Upset, I told B, who was also friends with them. Who immediately found out she was blocked too.

So we both decided to leave the server. We announced it yesterday afternoon, and hung around to talk a bit, wanting to leave as little confusion as possible without outright calling anyone out. We knew there were people there who didn't know about any of this going on (I'm so sorry for all the drama that's been dumped on your feet, guys.) We also knew there were people there who had been talking about all this behind our backs--we just didn't know how many. Again, the suspicion and speculation and "when will it happen again" was really what was eating us alive.

We left amicably. And then as soon as the doors were closed, of course people stepped forward to talk about how I had just stopped caring about them to focus on B instead. As if it was that simple. As if they had stopped at any point to talk to me about it (and the ones who did vehemently denied that it was an issue of comparing our friendship to mine with B.)

Caring was never the issue. I cared about people until they blocked me, or outright told me I wasn't a friend to them anymore. I kept caring about people, against my fears that it would end like that again, because it's just my nature to care. But caring in silence doesn't feel like much of anything, does it? I know that. I'm sorry for the way I've made people feel from that. But connection is a two-way street--where the hell were you? B has talked to me every day for two years. When someone talks, I respond. If you wanted me there, where the hell were you?

[mariska]

hi friends. mainly making this post on here in case my friends have noticed me absent socially from pretty much all my main interactions social media places cus i have very very little to no social skills/energy and i dont want folks worrying about my inability to talk like at all lately even through text instead of voice.

a few days ago my grandpa passed away after a brief amount of time in hospice care with mainly my moms looking after him in shifts. he was in his 90's so it was somewhat expected but it still happened really quick in the grand scheme of things and i'm not coping well at all with it, especially because i was too scared of visiting him these past couple months for multiple reasons having to do with me being immunocompromised more so than usual on a new hormone med i've been taking, my severe agoraphobia, and to be completely honest, i could not bear to see him in a slow state of death because i knew the image would never leave my head.

we were always really close. he was on my non-biological side of my family (i have 2 moms and was born via known donor father so im only genetically related to one side of my family and they don't live in the US) but he was absolutely autistic (never formally diagnosed but fit all the criteria to a T the same way i did before getting diagnosed, like VERY similarly to me it was almost eerie in a good way), he was there when i first started learning how to swim cheering me on when i was very little visiting him and my (also deceased) grandma with my moms, he sent me custom printed birthday + christmas cards using his own scanned family photos and 90's tower computer (that he originally built on his own originally, he loved building computers especially when i was little and it was like The New Home Tech Thing, only reason my family even had a computer when i was growing up is because he custom built one for us and sent us sheets and sheets of instructions on how it all worked and how to install things and such), he gifted me my first digital art tablet in my tweens/early teens (which if you know me, digital art eventually became my main and preferred visual art medium for drawing/painting and i still use the same brand of usb plug in tablets today that the original gifted one was).

anyways. sorry for rambling it's just been. um. like very hard. trying to. get through the days. i also had an extremely re-traumatizing doctor's appointment the same day he died (my mom who took me did not tell me before the appointment and waited until after which i am genuinely so thankful for theres no way i would have been able to go to that appt if i'd had his death on my mind beforehand) and, thankfully again, the doctor i saw is a very very kind trauma-informed woman who was super patient and understanding with me, and knew the appointment would be traumatizing cus we had discussed why that would be at the previous first appointment i had with her and she did all she could on her end to help make it less stressful and scary for me, but, y'know. still brought back some very intense personal trauma that i've only really started trying to mentally process in the past few years.

so that is. a very abridged explanation as to why i have not been able to reply to most messages on here and texts and discord and such and i'm super super sorry about being so MIA. i just do not have the ability to let everyone know individually why i am disappearing in and out from plans and conversations so i'm hoping most of you will see this post here and that way i maybe won't feel as bad as i do about very much unintentionally ghosting so many of you that i truly care about very much 💔

[misscammiedawn]

Penlight Spoiler Reviews (Sayori Part 2)

Download Penlight (Pay what you like) from Itch.io here

Past reviews: Quick Review - Nozomi Routes - Sayori (Part 1)

Turq's reviews: Hiroko Robot - Hiroko Tickling - Nozomi Zombie

-

So... last time we met with Sayori and turned her into a Doll.

This time we're going to discuss the impact of Personality Play on a person and outright give Sayori dissociative identity disorder. As a person diagnosed with DID and a victim of personality play abuse I have a lot to talk about on this topic. I hope you don't mind me being a little over-indulgent.

CW: The Alter route will discuss topics of IRL hypnotic abuse and the long-term effects of personality play on a person's psyche as well as perspectives of how DID presents in my personal experience. I put the reality segments in italics to help people skip over them.

ALTER ROUTE:

Note that the name I refer to the Alter by in this review is the name I gave her. It is not even remotely canon. Aiko, Megumi and Yuri are the default names given by the game. Please do not take the naming convention I used to reflect DeMille's authorial intent. I use it mostly to match the screenshots and give some more pump to a narrative twist.

The first half of the review contains some seeds of discussion topics that I want to grow out so I highly recommend reading that one.

This route is my biggest hypnotic trauma being played out in visual novel format. I'll sprinkle my thoughts on the reality within the fiction. I'll put the reality pieces in italics if you want to skip them.

So if the Doll Route is based on the concept of boundaries and respecting someone's comfort then the Alter route answers the age old question of "What if your hypnotist were hit by a bus" that is to say, what are the impacts of going about your life with dangerous and permanent programming still in your head?

I suppose another theme would be one I vibe with intently. "Be careful who you entrust your mind with"

Sayori asked "what's the worst that could happen?" at the start of his hypnosis scene. Sayori, always so careful to think about things before committing takes her time with the doll suggestion. What if she didn't advocate for herself and set up firm barriers?

"What's the worst that could happen?"

Alter Route is a winding map of many paths and much of it is still yet to be written. The route begins with Sayori being asked to adopt a carefree persona who hates to study (and has a crush on Kyou). He also specifies that this persona will have no idea that Sayori even exists.

You, the player, are given a prompt to provide her a name.

I called her Sapphire. First playthrough and so shall again for this review. I picked that name with intent. I'm still not 100% sure it was a good idea, but I did.

Is it because of the alliteration? The blue hair? My referring to my hypnotic eyes as having a "sapphire flame"?

I said that this route was my biggest hypnotic trauma being played out on the screen?

In 2003 a dumb 19 year old met a man online named AW. AW saw that teenager's mind was fertile ground for character play. He planted a couple of alters in that kids head but none were as beloved nor as important as his little recruitment doll. His "slave" (oh how I have grown to hate that word) who he trained to bring him pretty girls...

The name I feel comfortable with in this current era of my life is Dawn. I prefer people call me Dawn when I am in this headspace, though I don't mind being called Camden and can tolerate being called Cammie when it is said by someone affectionate of us as an individual. But I am fractured. Diagnosed with DID in 2023. I type about it every now and again.

He called me Sapphire.

It was the name of a roleplay character... I even have Sue-Chan art commissioned of her. I have another piece at my bedside desk and have had it much of my adult life.

I have done a lot of thinking on if my DID is a result of this extensive play or if my DID simply made my mind more susceptible to it. The question is moot for the most part but I have found comfort in believing that there were elements of our heart which we were unaware of at a young age...

And AW reached in and found those elements within us. He found the part of us that was unburdened by sexual or gender repression and was able to personify our hypnosis obsession in a way we simply could not otherwise. He saw it. He identified it. Named it... Then dared to claim ownership of it.

In the game, Sayori takes to the suggestion swimmingly. She embodies the traits of this alter personality. She becames [Sapphire]. Giggling and acting shy around her beloved Kyou, she demands a tour of the house and Kyou becomes increasingly concerned that this act is going a little too far and you are given your first option.

For simplicity's sake I'll divide the path into 3 distinct branches (I made up the names for clarity as they do not have names on the official route tree):

Golden Ending - In which Sayori is woken up in Kyou's room and is so freaked out by the lack of memories between going into trance and waking up that much like Doll Route she refuses to let Kyou hypnotize her until she feels confident of the safety. In this route [Sapphire] does not come out ever again.

Day Lost - In which Kyou does not wake Sayori up and lets [Sapphire] go home and spend a night at home and isn't woken up until the next day at school. In this route Sayori's trust is broken enough that she seeks Nozomi's help, not Kyou's in saving her from this situation.

Week Lost - In which Kyou does not wake Sayori up and instead he decides outright to program [Sapphire] to be the dominant persona and avoid detection from the outside world.

For the Golden Ending there are a number of prompts during Sapphire's (let's drop the bracket gimmick and just call her that, it's better than saying Alter Sayori over and over) brief stint where you are given the option of bringing Sayori back and after she is justifiably upset about waking up mid-conversation in a different room you are given an option to summon Sapphire again.

I like that the chaotic nature of the initial encounter allows a number of options to go between what essentially are the options of "let Sayori exit Kyou's room" or "let Sapphire exit Kyou's room", especially as Kyou himself is making a decent number of assumptions about Sayori and her willingness to go along with the suggestion.

Kyou is a very big believer in the idea that a person's willingness to obey a suggestion is equivalent to a person's consent to the suggestion. This is because Kyou is a dumb kid and he is playing with fire.

If he does not try to force Sayori to calm down by imposing the carefree persona upon her she will accuse Kyou of projecting his infatuation of Nozomi onto her and become frustrated that he would dare override her core traits with such dangerous programming.

She notes that hypnosis shouldn't make her act the way she clearly was acting and admits this requires further study after cram school. She insists Kyou dedicate himself to further study on the topic too.

His study, which to his credit he does commit to, comes up empty. He believes Sayori is in denial that part of her yearns to be carefree and act as Sapphire had.

Sayori does her own research and...

Sayori is best girl.

She admits herself foolish for going along with it but is committed to the science of understanding what is happening to her. As a test she tries to resist Kyou's sleep suggestion but when she put her head on the pillow she was compelled to sleep deeply. She could not stop it. No matter how hard she tried.

She recognizes that the best hypnotists in the world could not do as Kyou has done.

Kyou gets defensive and starts a fight which escalates. At present you only have the option to apologize but there is a greyed out option for future in which you can bring Sapphire back.

I'm interested in seeing that path in the future.

After the pair talk it through Sayori thinks to involve Nozomi as a third party consultant. She wants to see if Kyou's hypnosis is as powerful on anyone or if it is just her and she knows Nozomi will instantly agree to this.

Sayori is a bad friend. In Doll route she refused to allow Nozomi to interfere with the hypnosis but in this route she weaponizes her knowledge of Nozomi's hypnosis fetish in order to have someone to test on. Even the safest penlight hypnosis has the potential for danger and it's hard to reconcile her involving Nozomi, even in a route where Kyou has proven himself not a shithead.

After school they test the penlight on Nozomi.

and it confirms in Sayori's mind the hypothesis that the penlight is odd and makes hypnosis act in ways it shouldn't. She even notes that the CIA have been trying to do what Kyou has managed for decades and a random high school kid accidentally stumbles on it.

Sayori really hates how Kyou just bumbles into success when she has to fight so hard to scrape by.

Now in the Nozomi route I mentioned that the timelines are pretty rigid for Sayori and to a lesser extent Hiroko. Sayori has cram school every day except for Sunday (which is a day taken by Hiroko's tennis tournament) and much of the Doll route requires maneuvering around study club, an optional obligation, and cram school which is necessary or she will be contacted by her father.

The other Alter routes will involve consequences for Sayori's grip on her responsibilities relaxing a little. Here she is still trying to be everything she should be while dealing with this extra stress.

That all said, she rushes out of the scene when Kyou finished the simple down and up with Nozomi. She has to go to cram school. She vanishes so fast that Nozomi is left sitting at the table running her fingers along the table and processing the fact that a fantasy from her mind control stories just came true and it's all suddenly over.

So Nozomi, with an opportunity to make her fantasies come true, tries to convince Kyou that it would help Sayori out to do more tests. She insists that it is in Kyou's best interest and she promises that if Sayori is upset then she will take full responsibility. She gives Kyou as many outs as possible to tempt him.

You have to deny her twice.

If you accept then there's a rough draft of an unfinished path but it also provides the most Sleepyhead moment in the game.

I swear to heaven Sleepyhead is going to cosplay Nozomi Akemi at a hypnosis convention one of these days...

Turning her down is one of the most mature moments Kyou has in any route.

His crush has just begged him to do the thing this entire affair was for and he turns her down.

I'm proud of you Kyou. You're a good boy. Also Nozo truly cannot be trusted around hypnosis.

You're a lovely girl, Nozomi, but you're insatisable. We all love you for it. But you cannot be trusted.

Look back to the Doll Route and the thing with the culture festival application. Sayori ruins her relationship with Nozomi because he couldn't trust her around the promise of hypnosis or Kyou with the temptation of working with Nozomi.

It's interesting when we get to see these dramatic irony stings.

The next day Sayori turns up and tells him to destroy the penlight. If you refuse then Kyou will force Sapphire out again use her willingness to go along with Kyou to entrance her again and both deprogram Sayori and erase Sayori's memory and then the next day utilizes Nozomi's offer to test more to do the same with her. Alone again but he still have his penlight.

In the good ending. He uses the penlight to deprogram Sayori and destroys the penlight. The story cuts a few months later and Kyou has become a regular at Study Club and is picking himself up. He is treating Sayori's insomnia via therapeutic hypnosis and is truly thinking about becoming a real life hypnotherapist.

He also pulled off the culture festival and though Sayori was not involved, Nozomi kept him on his toes.

The pair have grown close and know a lot about one another's lives to the point of which Kyou asks Sayori on a date to an arcade and she is surprised that he would ask her to such a location and Kyou mentions her talking about how much she enjoyed arcades before high school.

Sayori notes that they may be having a date but she still is still moving if she gets into med school and they won't last long. Kyou acknowledges that it's worth enjoying the moment even if it doesn't pan out.

I love her.

Now this route involves erasing Sapphire in both good and bad ending. She barely got to exist. Less than 5 minutes into the world.

Shall we go back in time to that initial encounter and meet her now?

An interesting part of the Alter routes where Sayori and Sapphire are bouncing back and forth (intentionally or unintentionally) is that this is the only route that has "rules" to keep a track of.

Any time Sayori is turned into Sapphire or Sapphire is turned into Sayori there is a complete void between times that the Become... trigger was used.

Sapphire recognizes that she was given a trigger to have a "carefree and fun" persona installed and assumes that "Sayori" is the name of this. Any time someone calls her it she becomes more and more aware of the situation.

Another rule is that Sayori and Sapphire have a common history and this is a really interesting thing that instantly caught my attention and proved that DeMille understood the assignment and either studied dissociative identities or is quite capable of understanding how they are expressed.

There is nothing about Sapphire that isn't part of Sayori. She is not how Sayori would imagine someone without inhibitions or a caricature of a carefree person. Sayori simply remembered a younger point of her life when she used to visit the arcade with her father and how her life felt before she became weighed down by expectations and the stress of not being able to keep up with her studies.

Look up at those last two pictures. That's Sayori at the end of the Golden Ending and Sapphire at the start of the Alter path. That smile isn't unique to Sapphire. Sayori can smile like that too. She can visit the arcade and have fun. That is a huge part of the story that is being told here. There truly is nothing within Sapphire that doesn't already exist within Sayori. They share a beautiful blushing smile.

It's not fully developed as a story where this was the core of the tale would be but I think that is something that makes it all the more effective. It's succinct. A concept I am completely blind to but I do like it when others pull it off. I am not saying that Sapphire is 12 year old Sayori (well. My thoughts are more nuanced than that at least. We'll see what I mean a little later). I am saying Sayori was asked to conceptualize a carefree version of herself and Sapphire was constructed from the emotions that she was once familiar with.

Which makes for not just an effective story, but a reflection of reality.

AW met us from a roleplaying group. Sapphire was not the only character we played in those days. But she was the only hypnotist character. When we were a teenager we were deep into reading hypnotic theory. We burned through so many books between ages 16-25. But there's a difference between reading how to do a thing and doing it.

But Sapphire was a character and so in posts she would think about different types of inductions by their name and talk about things like convincers and depth signals. She spoke in a grandiose pattern. She was confident. In charge. Dominant.

I don't know how many people AW had us hypnotize but he recognized that we did not have the confidence to do so when we were lucid. But in Sapphire's headspace there was no filter, no cogs turning... it was fluid. A person who knew their stuff, believing they knew their stuff... no delay, no bravado. Was I what I imagined a hypnotist to be or was I just a version of myself unburdened by a shame of kink, a fear of eroticism, any notion that this was not who we were and what we were built for.

I recall in the 2010s when my friend group met "me" in my iteration at the time... there was no hypnosis that time. Just a call from the heart to fill a void in a tabletop scene. Our playable character was transformed into the personality of a femme fatale and we needed to act as her with no time to prepare. We closed our eyes and reached inward. Sapphire is not the shape we sought but it was the shape that reached up and took control in that moment.

We think about that moment a lot. I took the name "Honoria" that day. The shape of "me" had changed. I wonder what shape I was before AW got a hold of me. Sapphire existed before AW... but he poisoned her. Changed her into something else. It makes me wonder what experiences, emotions and memories forged me. I wasn't always here. But now I am...

And I don't just disappear in silent moments or the years between activty.

I'm also a sucker for rules in storytelling and so when things like which name is spoken out loud or the trigger is used I am keeping these things in mind. I wanted to mention that early as it plays in as we go.

So Kyou does not bring back Sayori and Sapphire laughs about how Kyou's hypnosis must have failed when he calls her "Sayori" and she does not recognize the name.

And with Kyou's negligence on full display, Sapphire heads out of the house, not even recognizing her own name. He assumes she'll just snap out of it when the situation calls for it. He doesn't realize the level of distress that can be caused by leaving someone in a literally "altered" state interact with the world and their life.

We used to call it "channeling". Evidence had shown that hypnosis could let our younger self do things that they couldn't do in an unaltered state. Eventually they started to lean into it. At work. In intimate situations. When they needed to perform. When they needed to play a character, to push through barriers of fear and doubt. Close your eyes. Let yourself enter a flow state. Become the person you need to be...

We were already a transgender woman pretending to be a man. This just made us a transgender woman pretending to be a man needing to pretend to be other people just to function in basic life tasks. It felt pathetic. It felt so alienating from my sense of self. I didn't identify with my body or my mind. In seeking ego death we hypnotically abused ourselves to the point of which we were just an idea of a person who had a legal name that didn't feel like our own...

I did this to myself, I would think.

The next day Sapphire ambushes Kyou at the gate. He notes it's odd but he's just happy there's someone happy to see him.

Kyou doesn't realize this is the alter personality and calls her Sayori, convincing her that Kyou is still trying to make the hypnotic compulsion from the previous day work.

Kyou's reply is not to tell her to Become Sayori again. It is to panic about what Sapphire will do when she hears the wrong name being spoken by the teacher and her friends...

In his defense, Sapphire did scold him in trying to trigger her in a public place.

But he still prioritizes a comfortable landing for Sayori over the danger of allowing Sapphire to run rampant.

This priority is the source of much of the drama in the One Day situation.

During class people do infact call Sapphire "Sayori" and she is horrified and confused by it.

We are given two options.

"It's a prank" - Change her back

We'll focus on change her back for now and come back later for "It's a prank". After all. Kyou may be able to tell himself that he is prioritizing Sayori's safety and doesn't want to wake her up to a public setting but the longer he puts this off the more distress both Sayori and Sapphire will be in.

It would be irresponsible to actively encourage this situation to continue by gaslighting or worse programming a woman in distress to lean into her altered headspace to avoid confronting the reality of the other persona being upset when they wake up.

...so let's have Kyou bring Sayori back.

Penlight hypnosis causes the hypnotee to blank out entirely. We saw this directly in the "Reversal" route. This counts for altered states too. We had seen it when Sayori woke up suddenly in Kyou's room and we saw her reaction to it in the Golden Ending path.

Imagine how terrified she would be waking up a day later with no memories of her night. Knowing that some other version of herself had lived a day in her life. Spoken to her parents. Attended school. Acted as if it were here.

The sentiment makes her sick to her stomach.

Sometimes in our emails and chatlogs we find little bits of evidence of our actions and behaviors, areas of the internet we had posted in with no recollection, even after system discovery.

AW had Sapphire make her own Yahoo account to send messages from, I have the sign-up email in my inbox. When I saw it my blood froze cold. I still do not know the password and it has been locked from my attempts to get in. It terrifies me to think of all the things I would see if I managed to get in.

I don't think I can describe the powerlessness and vulnerability that comes when you realize that the continuity of your own experience has been disrupted and even in the face of evidence you're unable to reconcile it. You know that it was you. You cannot deny that. But it still remains alien. You have no memory at all of the situation or scenario. It makes you feel so hopeless and untethered.

She takes it fairly well, given the circumstances.

Sayori retreats to the rooftop club ordering Kyou to stay the hell away from her. She is beyond terrified.

Kyou, being Kyou, instantly starts internally pouting about how he is not at fault for how people take his hypnotic suggestions and that it is unreasonable to blame him when hypnosis cannot force someone to do something they didn't want to do.

Typical Kyou stuff.

He does note he should have been better about safety and beats himself up a little about his mistake, though.

From here the school week continues on with Sayori avoiding Kyou. She instantly speaks to Nozomi, someone she knows can help her with matters of hypnosis. Nozomi even gives Kyou a firm talking to and tells him in no uncertain terms "you hurt my friend. You have to atone. On her terms, not yours."

Nozomi is wonderful. She really gets to shine in this route as she is the voice of ethics in hypnokink. Ironic, given how quickly she throws that all away when she has an opportunity to go under for herself but she knows her stuff, she knows her ethics.

It speaks to how much a person can let their own safety disappear when they are given opportunities to play. I'm certain all the older members of the hypnosis community had some brushes with dangerous individuals due to their own level of self-neglect.

But Nozomi does know what ethics are and she wants to protect her friend. She does a fantastic job of it.

She acts as a mediator and invites Kyou to her house the following day so that Sayori has a safe space to work out what the heck is going to happen next.

At Nozomi's house they gather together and Nozomi lets Kyou have it, she all but screams at him.

(Nozomi and I share a soapbox)

The rant Nozomi gives on ethics at this point is one of the highlights of the game for me and not just because of my connection to the reason she's yelling. She speaks passionately about how ethical hypnosis is performed, she uses the word "hypnotee" several times (proof that DeMille is read up as the fictional space and public consciousness tend to favor "subject") and notes how Satoshi, the senior from last year's show, had performed correctly.

Nozomi's anger at Kyou is something that reminds me of a number of my close friends in the best possible ways.

Sayori even notes that she is certain Kyou meant no harm and that she forgives him. Nozomi's reply is "Not until he gets on his hands and knees"

Better be careful, Sayori. Nozo is coming for your "best girl" crown.

Sayori is Sayori though and she is not going to submit herself to deprogramming hypnosis without understanding the situation in full and having control over how the matter is handled. This may not be the consent/rapport version of Sayori's story but she is still the same woman. Well, Sayori is anyway.

Sayori notes that the level of control that Kyou has demonstrated matches years of conditioning with a hypnotist and shouldn't be replicated with 2 sessions worth of trance.

AW and I met in 2003. I broke it off with him in 2010...

Sayori wants to understand the rules and pontificates that if they are as she thinks then if Sapphire came out she would not recall anything between the last time the trigger was used and the present moment. Sayori is also certain if she heard the trigger phrase she would be incapable of resisting it.

To prove this she asks Kyou to use it.

And it works. Sapphire returns, giggling at the magic trick of Kyou teleporting her from school to Nozomi's house. She's just delighted to be out of class. She is hypnotically compelled to hate studying after all...

Sapphire takes it all in stride and seems to have no qualms with Nozomi's presence, outright saying that she assumes Nozomi invited them over because of her "hypnosis-loving giddiness". Sapphire knocks Nozomi off her balance by outright identifying her fetish and laughing at how Kyou clearly picked up on it too.

All Kyou needed to do was say "Become Sayori" again and the scene would be over, hypothesis confirmed. Alas, what can go wrong must go wrong and Nozomi's mother enters the scene and Kyou prioritizes the comfort of Sayori waking up in an awkward position over her safety.

He convinces Nozomi to let the conversation play out and just trigger Sayori when the mother has gone. Right? Sorted.

A small chat turns into lunch.

Lunch stretches on and Sapphire starts talking it up. We learn a little more about Nozomi's board game hobby and the fact she has a secondary friend group she plays games with on some evenings.

Sayori's phone goes and Sapphire excuses herself to answer it... and then goes missing.

The next sequence is a lovely wild goose chase of Nozomi and Kyou unable to find Sapphire (her phone is turned off!) and worrying that Sayori's father referred to her as "Sayori" and Sapphire worked out she's the installed personality and ran off to prevent anything happening to her.

Remember how I said the timelines of the game are rigid. Saturday is a good day for this to happen. Sunday is Hiroko's tournament after all...

...and Saturday is cram school for Sayori...

Her dad was upset she wasn't there and Sapphire, hypnotically induced to hate studying, hung up on him and turned off her phone and ran off to have fun.

The goose chase has some wonderful characterization of Kyou and Nozomi bickering, a brief Hiroko cameo and some character history for Sayori.

They find Sapphire at the arcade. In every route, as noted by the ending of the Golden Ending, Sayori has fond memories of going to the arcade with her father prior to high school and she was actually remarkably good at video games and found them relaxing fun.

Sapphire is just built from that feeling after all.

I do not know how much research DeMille did in this route. Turq told me in reading blog entries (this specific route was written this year) that DeMille was not happy with how this route was written and I was surprised to hear that. As a person with DID and former victim of personality play abuse I felt the nuances were handled remarkably well.

One of the theories of DID (which is a dramatically contested topic in psychology. I should do a post on the 3 major theories that are kicked about someday) is based on Attachment Theory. In child's psychology they are developing aspects of identity, self and personality which are typically reinforced by their relationship to caregivers and the stability of their environment.

Attachment Theory posits that while the child is developing they come to have subconscious expectations of their environment based on how they are treated that cause a level of anxiety and avoidance with Secure Attachment being low anxiety/avoidance and Disorganized Attachment being high levels of anxiety/avoidance. Disorganized Attachment is more than just anxiety/avoidance, though. It comes from unstable environments where the child cannot reliably act in a certain way to get their needs met. Caregivers and authority figures do not respond well either via abuse or neglect (for instance an alcoholic mother may be violently and angry towards a child at night and then loving and apologetic in the morning) leaving the child feeling confused and afraid and unable to rely on stable protection and affection. Thus the personality and stable sense of self does not develop as the child is not modeled a correct way to behave, leaving them without a stable core.

Add in some cPTSD to the mix and you get some fun stuff happening in the brain.

Incidentally Disorganized Attachment is something that comes up in the development of BPD (which includes Identity Confusion as a diagnostic criteria) as well, which is why some psychologists believe that DID is just BPD with extra steps. As I said it's a contested field.

That all is to say that Sayori's relationship with her parents is strained. They are always working, something she and Kyou bond over, and she herself is busy to the point of breaking trying to live up to their expectations. Maybe I'm just headcanoning it but Sayori and her father clash a lot when Sapphire goes against his wishes.

So it is truly remarkable to me that Sapphire regressed to the point in her life when she used to visit the arcade and play games with her father. Sayori always refers to him as "father" and (in this route) Sapphire always refers to him as "daddy". I chose to put weight on that, even if it's not intended by the author.

Every one of her routes this love of video games exists but you'd never see it if she didn't have a reason to let it shine. It's not that she's ashamed of it. She just cannot be the person she was before and it's part of the reason she resents Kyou. Kyou can just take it easy and coast without even trying. She's sacrificing SO MUCH and cannot even feel confident about her ability to succeed.

Sapphire just takes the weight of that responsibility off of her.

Oh it's been a while since I used a photo. I got caught up talking about psychology stuff. I do that sometimes. Here. Have a Sayori kicking Kyou's butt at Street Fighter!

Sayori decides that this proves her theories about the penlight hypnosis without a shadow of a doubt and requests Kyou allow her to hypnotize him with it.

She does so at Nozomi's home and much like the Nozo-Reversal route we have a quick blank out from the induction to 20 minutes later. Nozomi and Sayori worked hard to be safe about their suggestion and we witness one of the most interesting scenes in the game from an ethics standpoint.

Kyou remains in trance and during this 20 minute window is forced to deprogram Sayori and remove Sapphire and sleep triggers from Sayori's mind.

We'll get more into the ethics of just erasing Sapphire in the final segment of this route...

Kyou argues that the penlight isn't a mind control device and Nozomi, clearly done with Kyou's denial and is about to get into an argument when Sayori steps in and notes how Kyou believes that the penlight is just a hypnosis tool and not a mind control device and if such were true then he would not obey any programming that he did not want to.

She orders him to break the penlight.

Kyou obeys.

But he fights the compulsion.

He fights it with all his might.

Seeing just how much he struggled in this scene reminds me of the ending of Nozo-Trance where Kyou commanded her to be his girlfriend. The penlight can overrule agency and in this moment Kyou cannot resist. He screams, begs the girls to stop, swears at them and cries out at the top of his lungs.

But he obeys.

Kyou is livid. Yelling at both girls that they had no right to subvert his will and destroy his hard work. He even threatens to build another one... and it is in this moment when...

Sayori hugs him and shares a moment of perspective. They had both been violated by the penlight and left to feel confused and afraid at the complete lack of control they each had in their own mind.

The ending to this route is actually rather positive. Sayori's father relents enough to let Sayori ease from her studies a little as it is clear that she had a burnout that erupted in her behavior during Sapphire's reign and that she was working better with full rest anyway.

Any Sayori route tends to include a note that moderation helps her more than obsessive study. Burnout will actually kill her but she needs to make the change from inside. She's a proud woman with a firm sense of control on her experience. She does not want to be told what to do, but she benefits a lack of pressure.

Kyou, Sayori, Hiroko and Nozomi start a D&D campaign together and Sayori finds an affinity for acting out characters in the setting.

Trust me, I can relate.

So this is what happens if Kyou wakes Sayori up on the school day after creating Sapphire.

...what happens if he didn't?

What happens if Kyou is arrogant enough to think Sayori is better as a carefree lady who hates to study?

What if Kyou decided he wanted to keep Sapphire?

"It's a prank" Route:

Every now and again I pull up my chatlogs with AW and one question plays in my head over and over again.

"How could I trust someone like this with my mind"

I pulled up chatlog and did a word search for "memory" to see if he ever did amnesia shenanigans with me. I found this exert:

AW: so she's pretty much wholly brainwashed at this point AW: her memory, personality, beliefs etc… are all customizable AW: she's got a second, deeper moral compass now. 'right' is what pleases master, and 'wrong' is what displeases master

As I read this all I could think was how did I let someone talk to me like that. How did any part of me accept that he could be allowed to mold us... it was such a violation.

If there is one thing I am grateful for it is that hypnosis in reality is not hypnosis in Penlight. The things AW commanded us to do were unconscionable. But we simply did not obey. But we did not run from him. It took him trying to make moves on people in our vanilla real life to make us break it.

If Kyou decides to trick Sapphire into thinking everyone is calling her Sayori as a prank, she instantly starts to threaten Sayori's entire career by complaining about study club and how much she hates school. Kyou doubles down.

Kyou doubles down in the worst way possible.

He hypnotizes Sapphire to always hear the name "Sayori" as Sapphire and to always unconsciously refer to herself in speech and writing as Sayori. By the absolute grace of DeMille Kyou remembers enough to make this suggestion in a way that saying "Become Sayori" will not be heard as "Become Sapphire". Though in my opinion the fact he even thought to close that loophole speaks to how unethical he is being right now. He knows what he is doing and is doing it anyway.

When Kyou is a little fuck he really makes me hate him...

During this hypnosis session Kyou starts thinking of Sayori as "Sapphire's other personality" before internally correcting himself to say "real personality".

That's one of the biggest themes of this route. "Real".

In the first two routes, Sapphire was a suggestion gone awry. Her autonomy (as well as a good use of "compartmentalized memories" in dialogue) is noted in the "Bring Sayori Back" (Day Lost) route but it is in this route that Sapphire and Sayori are treated as full dissociative identities.

Having just committed an atrocity on Sayori and helped smooth out any wrinkles in the personality he installed in Sayori's mind (that is commanded to have a crush on him), Kyou wakes her and she confesses her love. Kyou reciprocates.

Kyou's denial is legendary enough that if DeMille revealed he had a hypnotic compulsion to have the worst possible take in any scenario where the player isn't controlling the situation, I'd believe her.

Sapphire is all about the public displays of affection and starts being intimate and close to Kyou at school, pulling him to the rooftop club. There she mentions that she is dating Kyou and they are practicing hypnosis for the cultural festival.

Nozomi's hypnosis radar is pinged.

After Hiroko incredulously calls her bullshit, Sapphire doubles down and states that she is going to have a proper date with Kyou during the coming weekend. When reminded that mock exams are coming up and she should be studying, Sapphire happily says she will blow it off in order to spend time with her love <3

Nozomi's bullshit detector is pinged.

However, Nozomi is Nozomi. So she simply chimes in that as Class Rep it is her duty to help with the cultural festival and she must be involved in this hypnosis show. There is no options in this. They will attend Kyou's house tomorrow and there is no ifs or buts.

Sapphire also proves she cares about her friends and notes she is prioritizing Hiroko's tennis match for Sunday. Sayori is a good friend, even when her moral limitations and over-controlled behaviors are turned off.

Why, yes. I do know what I typed in the last review.

Have you considered Sayori is best girl, though?

Nozomi spends the day scripting out what will happen with the hypnosis session (no shenanigans, just scripting) and is enjoying herself but then Sapphire gets the phone call. Same time as it happened in the previous route. Sayori's father is livid that she is not at cram school. This time however we get to hear the argument and it is fairly pointed.

Sayori cannot avoid going in this route. It's interesting to note the differences between Sapphire without Kyou's reinforcing her presence in Sayori's mind and how she is here. The other Sapphire just hung up the phone. This one ended up going.

Nozomi excuses herself before noting "Sayori has never missed school. Not once. Not regular school of cram school."

She notes the discussion about second personalities and knows damned well what is going on here.

My beloved audience, behold! It is the thesis statement of this entire route. Also I will remind people of what Nozomi's first action is when she gets a hold of the penlight in Nozo-Reversal route.

There are so many times in this game where characters make overt ironic references to other routes. This is most certainly one of those moments.

After cram school Sapphire and Kyou meet up for their date and Sapphire talks about how she had intended on getting in a higher level high school but had not been able to be accepted elsewhere. She was happy to have Nozomi and Hiroko still in her life but it marks the moment that Sayori had become obsessed with study.

She visits the arcade and notes how she used to visit with her dad. Once again I note the fact that this Sapphire is less childish than the previous one. I feel the "Bring Sayori Back" Sayori was regressed to who she was before high school, referring to her father as "daddy" where here she calls him "dad" every time. Sayori always says "father".

Kyou's hypnosis has integrated Sapphire and Sayori and more importantly associated the memories, just not the behaviors. This Sapphire is an adult and she has full ownership over her actions during high school and has decided that she does not want to be that person anymore. She is happier like this.

Sapphire plays an arcade game and thanks Kyou for letting her "relive a happier time in her life" before dragging him down for dinner.

The two bond over their estrangement from their parents. Kyou is from a broken home with a father he barely sees and Sayori/Sapphire have a paramedic mother they barely see and a father who doesn't do anything to help anyone and Sayori/Sapphire disagrees with what he does and they argue about it.

She had wanted to become a doctor to make them proud even when they did not have economic advantage but Sapphire is not as sold on the idea. A doctor needs to keep up on study for their entire career. She has no interest in such a life.

Kyou starts to realize he is making a huge mistake and that programming Sayori to go against everything she stood for.

Finally realizing what Nozomi was trying to tell him before he realizes that he's done a horrible thing and tells her that they have to break up. He confesses everything. That he used hypnosis to change her personality, that he expected she would snap out of it, that he is going to throw her entire future down the drain and it's not right and they have to stop.

Then Sapphire pulls the rug out from under him.

We have just lost cabin pressure...

So you may have noticed that I was calling her by the alter's name this entire time.

The game text is still calling her Sayori and has been since we reprogrammed Sapphire to unconsciously hear the name Sayori as her own. Kyou has been calling her Sayori. The entire game up until now has been treating this character as if she is Sayori but with her personality adjusted.

This scene has the game switch the name card back to Sapphire.

She's known the whole time that she is the installed personality. She worked it out on the first day when people were calling her Sayori. The installed personality was supposed to be "carefree and fun-loving" and she sees those traits in herself. Therefore it stands to reason if she behaves in the way Kyou's hypnosis was supposed to make her act and people called her the wrong name then she is the one who Kyou created.

And she's okay with it.

Moreover she knows Kyou can just say "Become Sayori" and be done with it.

And she is NOT okay with that.

"What is this "real" business? I am as real as can be, Kyou. Do you mean to say I am not the original? That I am a creation that must be destroyed now that I have inconvenienced you?"

"Kyou, I am no parlour trick for you to put away once it has been used. I am real. I have lived a life."

"Do you... do you really think you have the right to take that away from me, Kyou?"

Sapphire explains she has existed as a feeling within Sayori for some time and that her experiences these past few days are her own and belong to no one but herself.

Flooding with tears she says that what Kyou calls "fixing" her is actually Killing her.

One thing I see argued back and forth in support groups is the concept of a core/original/real personality. Many therapists, especially those approaching from the perspective of the IFS model and expect there to be a "Genuine Self" waiting to emerge. I do not share this viewpoint and even if I did , how ethical would it be to assume the birth identity is the only valid one when we've been living as a woman for 3 years.

Even still... would "birth identity" and "the original" even be synonymous. I consider "birth identity" to be the boy from London, not the person in the stories we were told of our childhood.

I may not have full memory of my childhood but I am fully aware of the things the "little monster" did. I wasn't allowed to grow past it. Suspended from school 3 times, expelled once, hospitalized a kid by cracking his head on a concrete pillar, stole, broke into places, got brought home by the police a couple times. All before hitting 10 years old.

I do not know who that child my father would tell me stories about was. I don't identify with him. I do not feel him inside me. I am aware it was me who flooded the toilets, punched a teacher and broke into abandoned buildings.

I also remember the refrain in my head in those young years "don't be like them." I remember moments of oblivious bliss and moments of being consumed by an all powerful righteous fury in my heart. Simultaneously a happy child and an angry adult. Seeds that would grow into Cammie and Camden. Yet neither of those were my name... they wouldn't be for another 20 years.

When we transitioned. We didn't know we had DID. Camden had been running the system for a few years at that point and was finally able to express openly and outwardly... and so on days when we couldn't present femme our self-loathing and emotional volatility increased. We began to hate with a burning passion any expression of masculinity and our English heritage.

We began to hate our birth identity existing within us. We tried to erase him. End him.

It's actually a common practice for people going through gender transition. Here's a comic that makes the point more clearly than I ever could. See my tags for it? This comic convinced me exactly what the game is saying firmly. The Boy has a right to exist within our heart. We don't get to put him away just because he's not convenient to our gender expression anymore.

Kyou is told firmly that to erase Sapphire from Sayori would be murder and that Sapphire believes Kyou is a better man than that. She acknowledges this is a heavy topic and gives Kyou time to think. Our little idiot hypnotist is left completely out of his depth, forced to accept that he has given life to this alternate personality and such gifts cannot be revoked lightly.

What follows is a sequence at school where the rooftop gang gather and Hiroko stresses about her performance in the tennis tournament may impact her scholarship giving Sapphire the opportunity to show how carefree she is about scholarships. Nozomi confronts Sapphire with the knowledge that she is an installed persona and is horrified to find out that Sapphire not only knows this but does not care to be "fixed".

The conversation also bounces back and forth between using the names "Sayori" and "Sapphire" enough that Hiroko and Nozomi notice traces of Kyou's meddling. He confesses that he has programmed her to hear the name she is comfortable with whenever someone is clearly addressing her.

Nozomi is LIVID at hearing Kyou tried to mitigate harm by disguising it. She knows just how monstrous and unethical that is.

This is something that I fear isn't delved into enough within the ethical routes of the game. There are shadows of it here but I really feel like there needs to be a route that is specifically about owning mistakes.

As Turquoise pointed out in his NozoZombie review, a good hypnotist can still make no errors and still hurt a person. Kyou is entirely the type of person to utilize amnesia suggestions to bury mistakes and put things "right" but typically this only happens in the bad endings of routes.

I know too many people who played in the 2000s with dangerous hypnotists who crossed boundaries or made abreactions and tried to make the hypnotee forget rather than owning their mistake. I truly feel this is a topic that DeMille would knock out of the park if it were the sole focus for a storyline.

I also want to know that Sapphire's speech patterns at this point of the story are unique to her. Sayori has a grandiose way of speaking and the way that Sapphire talks is in character for Sayori but where Sayori's expanded vocabulary and wordy ways of speech is treated as her being a little loquacious, Sapphire embraces the concept of "eccentric", utilizing some phrases that she uses as a point of comfort such as "as you like".

Oh and as a British expat, I do love when I can feel DeMille's nationality bleed into this Japanese setting. It just makes me happy in the same way playing a 90s era RPG with American pop-culture references or seeing Brock eat a "jelly donut" would.

On the rooftop Nozomi caves in to despair, realizing that her friend is the one being killed. Sapphire insists that Sayori still exists within her mind but she has no reason to yield her existence to her. Nozomi's crying starts attracting attention and so Sapphire concedes that Sayori needs to be part of this conversation but it has to happen later in a safer place.

"Wait! Not here. And certainly not now [...] do you have any idea how Sayori will react were she to wake right now? In this place?"

Sapphire says that they need to perform the hypnosis in the privacy of the study club, where Kyou first hypnotized Sayori.

If you've not played this route yet, I want you to cast your mind back. Kyou did indeed hypnotize Sayori for the first time in the study club. This is a true statement.

But there's something odd about it, don't you think?

Kyou notices too but cannot quite identify what it is until Sapphire says that in order to make a safe landing spot for Sayori the conditions need to be perfectly replicated. Including Kyou and Sayori being alone in the room.

What is she scheming, I wonder?

After school Sapphire enacts her role as head of the study club and Kyou waits until afterwards to meet with her. Nozomi makes a final plea to bring Sayori back and tries to explain that Sapphire is not a real person and that the fact he can erase the hypnotic trigger is a proof of this fact. Kyou, who has spent time with Sapphire and recognizes her as a unique entity, disagrees.

Kyou's denial is legendary, though. Nozomi is making sense. She feels this "Sapphire" is simply Sayori following hypnotic programming, acting in the ways that Kyou told her to act and there is no separate individual. There is just programming that needs to be removed.

I like that this argument is left as a firm disagreement between Kyou and Nozomi. The ethics are dirty as can be in this situation. Kyou literally created a personality that is hypnotically compelled to love him. Earlier in the route Nozomi says that Sayori is "under duress" when Kyou says they are in love and that is right.

The situation has spun out of control and now the morality of it has become ungovernable. It is wrong for Kyou to permanently change Sayori into his girlfriend, it's the same situation as the endings where Kyou forces Nozomi to become his girlfriend. It is wrong to deprive Sayori of her autonomy, her life, her years of hard work.

Erasing Sapphire should be a cut and dry case.

But Sapphire is advocating for herself and does not consent to being erased. The whole situation boils down to whether or not you believe Sayori is following hypnotic conditioning or if Sayori and Sapphire are separate individuals with autonomy.

To add in further moral murkiness, Sapphire has come up with a scheme.

She will finish out her high school career pretending to be Sayori. Acting as a stuffy and studious woman, friend to Nozomi and Hiroko and stay away from her beloved Kyou. Earn their freedom by going through the motions and then after school is over she can return to Kyou and not have to worry about her parents or friends or society nagging about her behavior ever again.

Obviously that is an unacceptable circumstance.

Makes it easier to just ignore Sapphire's consent. She's not "real" after all...

But Sapphire is smart enough to know this may be the case and has selected the Study Club as the location of their hypnosis instead of Kyou's home.

That's the thing that was odd about the location. Kyou hypnotized Sayori in the study club for the sleep suggestion. Sapphire was created at Kyou's home.

She knows that if Kyou tries to bring Sayori back then he will be forced to manage the fact that she has lost 5 days of her life. Sapphire is so intent on living that she has put Kyou in a position where refusing her is disadvantageous. Sapphire is an evil mastermind when her back is to the wall.

In her mind to "include Sayori in this conversation" would be to destroy herself. Once she loses her ability to advocate for herself then Kyou would be the only one who could speak to Sapphire's autonomy and Sayori, Nozomi and Hiroko would never treat her as "real".

We know this. Nozomi said as much just before this meeting.

Sapphire admits, she has no right to demand this of Kyou (though she did think to put him in a position where refusing would end poorly) and that if he simply remembers her and keeps her in his memories then it could be enough.

You are then given the option to bring Sayori back or not.

Bring Sayori Back - Go Along with Sapphire's Plan

Should you go along with Sapphire's plan then she will have Kyou use a fake trigger to "bring back Sayori" and invite Nozomi to come into the room and begin acting out as if she were Sayori.

As soon as Nozomi comes in she keeps asking Sayori if she's okay. Telling Sayori that it's been 5 days. That Kyou hypnotized her.

Sapphire sells her role and is as livid and rigid as one would expect Sayori to be. Nozomi starts peppers every sentence with Sayori's name. Truly concerned about her friend.

Then Nozomi proves she is smarter than Kyou and knows her shit with hypnosis.

"Sayori" does not even react. She is hypnotically compelled to hear either name and internalize it as the name she should hear. Nozomi said Sayori every sentence in order to slip in a "Sapphire" and see how she reacts.

Sapphire fails to notice and Nozomi knows that the pair of them had lied to her...

In despair she once again cries for her friend to come back and Sapphire springs into action.

We get a timeskip to the final day of school. "Sayori" hangs out with her friends and Kyou remains a social parriah. Everything has gone "back to normal".

As they pile out of school Hiroko notes that Nozomi looks jumpy and just doesn't want to be there. Sapphire looks at Nozomi and assures her that she is amongst friends and she shouldn't be so tense. That if she had anything that was concerning her she could speak up and she would be happy to help her see things in a new light.

We flash back to the study club room.

Sapphire didn't use the penlight. She threatened to use the penlight.

She kept Nozomi in line via threats because she enjoyed watching the discomfort in her face whenever Nozomi was caught in the moral quandry of doing something or not fighting against this injustice. Sapphire gets off on having power over people and making them stew in discomfort.

Full credit to @spiralturquoise for pointing out that in the doll route there is a moment where Kyou has a thought box where he is convinced Sayori is enjoying his discomfort.

I am convinced that Sayori in every route enjoys watching people in moments of discomfort. It certainly explains her reactions to NozoZombie's stage show and why she makes the best audience member to be watching the events.

There are actually a number of little bits of foreshadowing in other routes. In one route Hiroko even jokes about how "we don't need two Sayori's around here". I look forward to replaying the game and catching the little asides.

DeMille has a very firm idea of who these characters are and is so gifted at maintaining their internal consistency. More impressive given how each character is dramatically altered when they interact with the penlight.

The bad ending concludes with Sapphire reuniting with Kyou andf starting their new life together with her performing a little bit of jabbing at him to see his own discomforted face contort as he struggles against the morality of his actions.

This ending has Kyou and Sapphire break off from the world and alienate themselves from family and friends to dive into a life consumed by one another. I find that this is one of the more intriguing fail conditions of the routes. Isolation is a big theme of all the bad endings. Whether Kyou ends up ostricized due to his misdeeds, sacrifices connections with the girls for what he feels is the safest option or is consumed by a hollow life where kink has consumed everything.

The doll bad ending is of a similar calibur where Sayori has no cares or interests outside of how wonderful hypnosis feels and so Kyou finds a full time job in maintaining a hypnojunkie and his life entirely becomes about catering to those needs.

Intimacy and connection is the good end. Isolation, even when alone together, is a bad end.

But that's a bad end. Let's bring Sayori back instead.

Kyou's lip trembles and he mumbles out his apologies. Sapphire just smiles back and closes her eyes in acceptance.

"You... You need to Become Sayori again."

Sayori wakes up and is stunned, scared and confused. Nozomi rushes in to hug her friend and they go to Kyou's home in order to sort things out. It was where the suggestion began and thus it seemed prudent to handle it there.

Nozomi and Kyou explain everything and Sayori listens and absorbs. She is numb by the end and tells them what it felt like for her. There are no memories at all of her time as Sapphire and she could not impact anything from within their mind, she was simply trapped in a void.

Kyou takes this as confirmation that Sapphire is a being unto herself.

Sayori agrees, noting that her hubris enabled this and that she should have been careful to entrust her mind to an idiot clod. She now has a dissociative identity to show for her arrogance. Sayori fully accepts that Sapphire is a separate entity born from her thoughts, emotions and memories and does have a right to exist.

Sayori is the best girl and I love her.

She gives Kyou two options. Erase all the programming and lock Sapphire away inside her mind forever, unable to come out and interact with the world. This option is as good as killing Sapphire but will allow Sayori full control over her life.

The other option is to integrate their consciousness to function together. Nozomi is horrified to consider this option, noting that it would be the end of Sayori's aspirations for med school.

She gives her signature Sayori smirk and boils it down to a simple statement.

"Ruin my life or destroy hers."

You bring Sayori under penlight hypnosis once again and are given the final option of the story.

Sapphire... I won't leave you behind - Sapphire... I have to let you go.

First off I note that Kyou frames this choice as being about Sapphire and not Sayori. I say that with no judgment or commentary. It's simply a fact of the route.

To erase Sapphire ends the game with an abrupt timeskip. The rooftop club want nothing to do with Kyou and he lives out the rest of his school career in solitude. Sayori manages to recover her lost week and feels confident about her chances for med school.

When Kyou speaks to her on her last day of school she is blunt and angry with him. She says every time she sees him she remembers how close she came to losing everything.

She says trusting him was her mistake and she takes ownership of it...

But Sapphire's life was placed in her hands and he sealed her away forever. Sayori wants Kyou to live with that. She wants him to miss her for the rest of his life.

She says goodbye and Kyou never sees them again.

I can think of few things in life more painful than being revoked access to speak to someone you love. To see them in front of you. To interact with them and to know that you are no longer on the "inside" of their trust. That you know the true names and shapes of the person... the people behind those eyes and know that you no longer have permission to see that. You are no longer allowed to hear their individual voice. It is a pain I would never wish on anyone.

And oh the level of self-loathing in internalizing that you have no right to be upset about it. That you are not owed access or trust. That you have to just live with the knowledge that they would take it all back if they could.

I know what it's like to miss someone for the rest of your life.

...so...

What if we integrate the pair into a single consciousness?

This time Kyou programs the two to have a line of internal communication and the ability to trade the body when they need to.

The timeskip happens again and Kyou has once again gone the final months of school alone. He is not soon to be forgiven for his actions. But as exams end the rooftop club have a date to go to karaoke to celebrate. Sayori is pessimistic about her propositions but did promise to celebrate. She also promised to talk to Kyou.

The rooftop club approach him and invite him to the celebration. As Sayori speaks with him, cold and upset, she is caught in moments of aside where she is caught in an internal argument.

The scene at the karaoke club is so beautiful and shows that not only has Sayori adapted to include her alter self into her life but Nozomi and Hiroko fully accept Sapphire as the 4th member of their group. Hiroko and Sapphire even seem to get along greatly.

Sapphire comes out to Kyou's comfort and delight and explains that Sayori pulled out of her emd school plans and they have to live a completely different life to accomodate their ideology clashes.

Kyou himself being one of them.

Sapphire and Sayori have internal conversations that Nozomi and Hiroko ask to be filled in on and for all it is worth this is handled just as it tends to be in my lived experience. DeMille did a good job of showing what "healthy multiplicity" looks like in a social dynamic and I cannot begin to thank her enough for that.

The whole "split personality" thing in fiction is always used as a source of drama. Internally as the turmoil between two (or more) individuals fighting over the solitary life. Externally as people not always knowing which alter they are speaking with.

I always appreciate when it's shown as just a part of who a person is. That people struggle to keep up with the shifts but are capable of following the changes and being aware that the person they are speaking to contains multitudes and the statement "they are the same person" and "they are different people" are both true at the same time.

In support groups I tend to see a common refrain that "DID is actually boring. It's just traumatized people trying to live their lives." and I agree with it. There's so much less mythology and intrigue in reality. This scene does a good job of showing the mundane reality of a person who has attained dynamic system communication and has people who they trust and share their truth with. The clumsiness and uncertainty of how any of it works and just trying to not stumble or apologize too much.

I often think I don't deserve the way people see me. See us. I've never been able to be what I am lucky enough to receive for others. In support groups and in life I have met other people who have these experiences and I fuck up. A lot. I try to not worry about it because I know I'd forgive the people around me if they messed up. But it takes earnest care and trust to be open with another person and for them to accept you and adapt their behavior to invite you in. It heals my heart to see Nozomi and Hiroko roll with it, even if they don't fully comprehend it.

During the karaoke party Kyou asks Sapphire where they stand, if they have a future or if tonight is a goodbye.

Sapphire takes him outside and admits that she still loves him and as Kyou reaches out to make a connection Sayori steps in and scolds her alter for breaking their agreement.

The pair get into an outloud argument over the situation and the impact Kyou's hypnosis has had on their shared life.

Sayori had to talk to her parents and tell them that her stress had caused a breakdown and she needs to adjust her life goals in order to accomodate her abilities. Sapphire jabs that Sayori would have had a miserable life treading water if intervention had not happened. Sayori notes that being forced to surrender her dreams is not a favor.

The sequence ends with Sapphire saying that she forced Sayori to give up her dreams. Giving up her love of Kyou is a suitable price.

Kyou will always be the one who ruined Sayori's life and saved Sapphire's. Sayori cannot bring herself to hate him but she cannot allow him to be in her life.

In a bittersweet ending, Kyou allows Sayori/Sapphire to return to the karaoke bar and he walks home.

The end.

The route is interesting in that there is real basis for it and yet the dynamics of the route lean more heavily into hyperbole than most need to. Adjusting a person's identity and risking them gaining a dissociative disorder is a very real issue within the hypnosis community.

I recently made a post about the topic which was inspired by my playing this route. I have no desire to out any of the people I have spoken to in the weeks since I posted it but a number of people have approached me to thank me for the post and share their experiences which mirror much of what AW did to me.

Then there's those Disney Deer files that are so imfamous at altering people's personalities and compartmentalizing their thought process that there are major online publications doing exposes on the topic.

DeMille handles the situation both in the present of noting what happens when a person's behavior is shifted by hypnotic conditioning and just how dangerous it is to give birth to alter egos via hypnosis. I feel there is full respect in her depictions and spare for Kyou's behavior being on a spectrum of irredeemable and fucking stupid; the characters treat the scenario with the gravity it deserves. I never felt like anyone betrayed their character's core while arguing on the agency and legitimacy of the alter personality.

I don't know if this is going to be the best storyline for anyone or be relatable to anyone outside of a very narrow window of individual... but as a member of that pinpoint Venn diagram... I appreciate that this story exists.

I think DeMille knocked it out of the park and I cannot wait to see what happens in the grayed out paths when they are written. Even if it hurts to read.

Next time we'll visit Hiroko. Though Turq has already handled the Tickling route if you want to read that now.

Going to take some time to focus on Not Penlight for now though. This took an age to write and edit.

[2baddiesfanfics]

Let Destiny Decide (Chapter 1)

Pairing: Kafka x Himeko

Tags: Angst, Exes, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering

Summary:

Years have gone by since Himeko last saw Kafka. When her hologram appears on the Astral Express and interrupts an important meeting, the leader of the crew is once again thrown into memories of the past. When she gets an invitation to meet up at the Goethe Grand Hotel...what's a couple more nights on Jarilo-VI, anyway?

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1: 594

The air in the main cabin of the Astral Express buzzed with excitement as the crew gathered to discuss their plans for the next planet. Pom-Pom prepared to make their announcement but was abruptly interrupted by the emergence of a mysterious hologram.

A figure stood before them, their face obscured by an umbrella.

“Long time no see, Astral Express crew.” Her voice, sultry and deep, sent shivers down their spines. “It’s Kafka. I came at a good time. You’re all here. Every…single… one.” Her words, punctuated with a tense and uncomfortable familiarity, felt like individual bullets hitting them in the chest as she strutted toward one person in particular.

Himeko. The fiery-haired trailblazer was quickly growing agitated at her sudden and unwelcome appearance.

“No need for the mysterious introduction, Stellaron Hunter.”

Kafka cracked a grin that reminded Himeko of staring into a shattered mirror. She knew she had hit a nerve and it only made her want to twist the knife more.

“Himeko, correct?” Kafka asked. The leader of the Astral Express crew had heard her name on this woman’s lips before but in a much different setting. Memories danced behind her eyelids and she could almost feel the warmth of her breath in her ear once more.

“Apologies for interrupting your little get-together, but I’m sure once you’ve heard my request, you’ll forgive me. I’d like you to make a destination change.”

Himeko tried to keep her anger in check, but her facial expressions and subtle crack in her voice betrayed her. “I’ve seen your face before, Stellaron Hunter…”

She paused a moment as a flashback of the two of them pressed against one another twisting in bed sheets returned to the forefront of her mind.

“…even if it was only on a Corporation wanted poster. They were offering quite a bounty…dead or alive. Do you know the figure?”

“Doesn’t concern me. Then again, a corporation bounty is a compliment, not an insult, don’t you think? The higher the figure, the bigger the compliment,” Kafka nonchalantly replied.

The scarlet-haired woman rolled her eyes at her response. Sounds just like something she would say. The projection continued on to propose they change course before disappearing entirely.

The crew dispersed after agreeing to stop at the Xianzhou Luofu instead of their previously decided-upon destination. With this change of plans, Himeko and Welt decided they would stay just a few more days on Jarilo-VI.

She felt her phone buzz in her hand. Quickly scanning the message, she sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache already starting to throb dully in her skull.

Hello, darling. Miss me? Silly question - I know you do. It’s been too long. I see you’re still on Jarilo-VI. Meet me at the usual spot. You know the room number. Don’t keep me waiting.

She had to refrain from throwing her phone against the wall. She always thinks she’s so clever. What is she playing at? How long has it been? Five - no, it’s got to have been at least ten years since we last saw each other, Himeko thought to herself as she grabbed her bag and headed for the Goeth Grand Hotel.

Kafka placed her phone face down on the table in front of her. She’ll come. She knows she will, for Himeko would never miss an opportunity to see her. To feel her. To drown in her once more. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she waited patiently for her guest to arrive.

————————————————————

The two first crossed paths in their early twenties. Himeko had just started her new life and journey on the Astral Express when she stopped on the planet of endless night.

Living with no sunlight was something entirely new to her, and being able to stargaze all day meant her head was constantly tilted upwards. Even as she traveled amongst the stars, it was never the same as standing on solid ground and witnessing them twinkling back at her. Lost in the scenery, she hadn’t been able to properly brace herself before a woman with amethyst-colored hair came running toward her and crashed…hard.

“Ow! Shit! Watch where you’re going!” Himeko shouted, clearly annoyed.

Brushing the dust off her dingy-looking coat, the other woman glanced her way. “My apologies. Had to get away from the Night Watchers.”

“And what, may I ask, did you do to get the patrol’s attention?”

“Stole some food. I don’t have any credits on me since I left my home world in a hurry.”

Himeko stood silently taking in the woman before her. This might be the opportunity she had been searching for. She had the Express - now she just needed a crew. “Are you looking for work? Perhaps you’d like to travel with me for a while? I have food and plenty of room.”

The other woman shot her a cautious look. This was too good to be true. But Kafka was never one to say no when an opportunity arose. “…Sure. Why not? Could be fun. I’ve got nowhere else to go. The name’s Kafka.” She extended her hand.

“Himeko.” Their palms connected in agreement.

As they traversed the universe together, they quickly grew closer. Passionate stolen kisses under the starry night sky, countless nights spent learning the intricacies of each other’s bodies, and the sweet sounds of pleasure ricocheting off the walls of the Express melded together to shape the dreams they shared of a future together.

Finally, Himeko had let her feelings slip. Perhaps it was jitters from too much homemade coffee. The two sat together in the main cabin when she finally said the words.

“Kafka…I think I love you.”

“My, my, Himeko. Love is such a…strong word. You should be careful who you say that to,” she said, never looking up from the screen of her phone.

Not exactly the response she was expecting, Himeko turned bright red in a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment as she went back to quietly reading her book. Suddenly, her phone buzzed. A text from the woman who sat across from her. The number 594 glowed brightly. She furrowed her brow. Another message pinged.

“Love” is not a word I say, but think of 594 as a code of sorts. On the phone keyboards of the past, five correlated with K, nine with “x,” and four with H. You’re a smart girl. Make of it what you will, but know the feeling is mutual.

Himeko looked back at her and they both shared a gentle smile.

As they continued their journey together, their paths eventually crossed with Elio. That’s when everything changed. Every other word out of Kafka’s mouth was “destiny.”

One night Himeko returned to the Express to see Kafka’s bags packed.

“Are you…are you leaving?” Himeko whispered in disbelief.

“Elio asked me to join him. I said yes.”

“You’d leave me for him and those…those criminals? Just like that? What about us?”

“I need to do this, Himeko. Not just for me - for us. It’s for our destiny. I found the place where I belong.”

“And you’re saying you didn’t find it here? With me?”

Kafka bit her lip and cast her gaze to the side. “That’s not what I am saying. I can make a difference. For now, my future lies with them.”

Himeko turned away. “Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want. You always have,” she responded shakily.

Kafka approached her and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to turn. Kissing her cheek, she murmured, “Our destinies are intertwined whether you want to believe it or not. Our paths will cross again. I swear it.”

Tears stung Himeko’s eyes, dangling on the precipice, daring to fall. She had no words and no right to ask her to stay.

Kafka gathered her bags and tread toward the exit.

“K-Kafka…you were right. I should have been careful about who I said that word to.” She heard a barely audible chuckle in response.

Himeko watched the doors close behind her, knowing each step took Kafka further away from her. She was alone on the Astral Express once more. When she finally made it back to her room, a post-it note was tacked to the door. Through blurry eyes, she saw the familiar number: 594.

————————————————————

Himeko now stood before the hotel room that bore those same number. Her thoughts were muddled. There was so much to say, and yet she didn’t know where to even begin. She wanted to scream at her for leaving her, for being so foolish in having a bounty put on her head…for everything she’d done in the time they were apart. But her heart raced and her body trembled with more than just seething anger. An undercurrent of need simmered just below the surface.

The scarlet-haired woman knocked once, and before she could tap a second time, the door flew open. The woman who broke her heart, looking the same as she did years ago, answered.

“I knew you’d come,” Kafka said with a smirk as she leaned against the door frame smugly. Himeko huffed and quickly entered the room. The last thing she needed was to be seen with a Stellaron Hunter.

“I’m only here to hear you out. I’m leaving as soon as you’re done.”

“Tsk. I know you better than that,” Kafka muttered as she helped Himeko out of her coat, kissing her shoulder before stepping back.

Chills ran down Himeko’s spine as she felt her soft lips touch her skin. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone that it didn’t take much for a fire to slowly build within her. Kafka hung the item of clothing in the closet before turning to her and pulling her closer. Himeko put up a hand in protest.

“Kafka. Stop. You asked to see me and here I am. Now what do you want?”

“You always did love playing hard to get. Didn’t I tell you our paths would cross again? Seems like destiny finally caught up to us. Since you’re here, why don’t we enjoy the time we have together?” Kafka asked.

“Is that all you wanted?” Himeko asked quietly.

“Not entirely, no. I also wanted to warn you. Elio has plans that include you and your crew. There are bigger threats at work here than before.”

“I appreciate the concern, but we can handle ourselves.”

Kafka took Himeko’s hand in hers and brought the back of it to her lips.

“You’re still just as beautiful as the day I ran into you. Especially when protecting what you care for.”

Himeko pulled her hand away like she’d touched an open flame. She may as well have been. If she allowed Kafka to toy with her like this, she knew she’d lose this battle.

“Oh please, don’t be so dramatic,” the Stellaron Hunter chastised as she snatched her wrist back. “Relax. Let me take care of you. Our destinies may have taken us on different journeys, but my feelings never changed. I would have thought the room number alone would have given that away. No matter where I go, I always request it.”

The leader of the Astral Express couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Does she really still care for me? She was never one to look back instead of full speed ahead, but her heart had other plans. Himeko spun around, her mouth crashing against Kafka’s. The other woman fought for control, kissing down her neck to her chest, stopping to admire the dainty mole she found so alluring.

“I dreamt of you and your body every night I was away. Especially this,” she murmured as she kissed the sensitive spot. She felt Himeko exhale harshly.

“Your scarlet hair, as fiery as you are,” she taunted as she ran her fingers through it. “And the way only you can say my name, somewhere between veneration and exasperation. I can never tell if you want to kiss me or hit me. It’s very cute.”

“Kafka…” Himeko moaned out as the woman caressed her through her dress.

“Hmmm yes, exactly like that,” Kafka chuckled darkly.

Himeko hated letting her have the upper hand. Kafka didn’t fight her when she moved to strip her of her white satin dress shirt and harness. As her clothes hit the floor, Himeko allowed her to unzip her dress.

The Stellaron Hunter tugged at the latch, kissing the newly exposed skin that appeared as she slowly pulled it down. Letting the dress fall to the floor, Kafka couldn’t peel her eyes off of the lacy red panties she was greeted with. Seems like she came prepared, she thought to herself. Slipping her fingers up the sides, she helped her shift out of them and felt her shiver as the cool air of the hotel room chilled her skin.

Kafka led her by the hand to the bed, sitting her before her, Himeko’s back now pressed against her chest. Reaching around, her fingers danced across her body as she traced every mole she once knew and scars she did not. She cupped her breasts, pulling and kneading her nipples with a tenderness that was new to her.

Himeko leaned back, surrendering herself. A small mewl of pleasure escaped her lips. She closed her eyes, feeling the heat inside of her continue to build. Her eyes snapped open as a sudden jolt of pleasure caused her to buck her hips forward. Kafka had moved one of her hands, her index finger now circling the bundle of nerves between her thighs. She spread her legs open further, begging for more.

“Mmmmm…f-fuck…Kafka….” Himeko moaned, trying and failing to keep her voice down.

“You like that? Of course you do. You haven’t changed at all,” Kafka chuckled as she felt the other woman’s body twitch and writhe at her touch.

She continued to knead one breast as she played with her clit. Dipping her finger inside of her to collect her slick, she worked at her clit as she inserted a few digits to add to the feeling.

“Kafka…please….more,” Himeko groaned.

The Stellaron Hunter stopped her ministrations as she leaned over to the bedside table and pulled out a vibrator. Turning it to the lowest setting, she brought it to Himeko’s entrance and began to tease her with it. The tip slipped between her folds and found its way to her clit. Kafka kept it there just long enough to bring her to the edge before gliding it back to her entrance.

Himeko pressed herself into Kafka again waiting for her to insert the toy, only to feel her bite her shoulder in resistance.

“Damn it, Kafka! Please,” she whined.

The vibration of the other woman’s laughter added to the full-body sensation. “You’re so wet and needy. Has it really been that long?” Kafka asked as she slowly inserted the toy.

“Ahhhhh! Y-yes,” Himeko breathlessly answered.

The vibrator slid in and out of her a few times before Kafka clicked the button to increase its speed. Himeko placed her hand behind her, grabbing the pillow as her hips bucked furiously. Turning her head, she sought her lover’s lips. Kafka’s tongue entered her mouth and she moaned into her.

Speeding up her thrusts in time with Himeko’s hips, she felt the woman’s body shake violently. Her scream of an orgasm was muffled in her throat as Kafka continued to guide her through it. Their lips parted as they each took deep, heaving breaths.

Removing the toy, Kafka switched it off and returned it to the table. In a rare show of affection, she pulled Himeko into an embrace as she listened to her breathing become steady. She almost thought she had fallen asleep, until she felt droplets of water hit her chest.

“…Himeko?”

The leader of the Astral Express was furious with herself for allowing this show of weakness. “Why? Why contact me now, after all this time? Is this all you wanted? A quick fuck when it was convenient for you?”

Kafka stroked her cheek, wiping away a tear with her thumb. “Let me return your question with another: Why do you always assume the worst of me? I’ll be the first to admit my intentions are rarely pure, but with you…it’s different. Just because I left to pursue what I felt was right doesn’t mean I never cared about you, Himeko.” Her fingers toyed with a strand of her hair. She wasn’t used to being open or vulnerable like this.

“I think you look at the now while I look to the future. We have different philosophies, but that doesn’t mean what we have isn’t real,” Kafka said, placing a kiss on her forehead.

“I don’t know what kind of spell Elio put you under, but the actions we take now are what determine the future.”

“Himeko, I really don’t want to have this debate right now. It’s killing the mood,” her hand had moved to tighten around the back of her neck.

“Fine. I know nothing I say will change your mind anyway,” she said as she moved to straddle Kafka’s hips. Bringing her face inches from hers, she whispered, “But I sure as hell can make you regret ever leaving me.”

Her tongue slithered into Kafka’s open mouth, interrupting her before she could argue further. The flavor transported the Stellaron Hunter back to the days when she’d complain about the acrid taste of coffee staining her taste buds. God, she hated it. But those were simpler times, and their current relationship - if that’s what you could even call it - was far from simple. For now, she’d savor it.

Himeko’s hands roamed through her hair, pulling her deeper into the kiss. Kafka willingly allowed her to take what she wanted. She knew she’d caused her enough pain for two lifetimes. This was the least she could do.

The scarlet-haired woman let her mouth wander to Kafka’s neck, and she felt the sharp pinch of teeth against her skin. Himeko was territorial. If Kafka had so much as glanced at another woman in a bar they were at to gather intel, she could bet she’d be feeling the piercing pain of expensive heels shoot up her leg.

She felt the bite again, only this time it was her shoulder. “Jeez, I get it,” Kafka muttered.

“Oh, I don’t think you do.” Himeko’s voice was muffled as it reverberated against the Stellaron Hunter’s chest. “Whatever Elio says your ‘destiny’ is, we both know it’s me.” She felt another nip to the side of her breast.

“Mmmm…I never said it wasn’t, darling. We’ll be seeing each other. Just…in a different capacit- ah, fuck!” She cursed as Himeko brought her teeth down on her nipple.

“I’m done listening to you talk. I just want to hear you say my name like you used to,” she teased as she twirled Kafka’s other nipple between her fingers. Her head sunk deeper into the pillow. Himeko was right. There was no point in fighting. If she was going to let her win this round, she might as well lay back and enjoy it.

“Fine. Do your worst.”

“Fine. I will.”

Kafka focused on the softness of her lover’s lips as they traversed her body. Goosebumps rose to the surface of her skin, betraying the fact she was thoroughly enjoying this. Himeko’s shoulders nudged her thighs, which were already coated with her arousal, wider apart. Her cool facade quickly evaporated with a single stroke of her tongue across her entrance.

“Fuckkkk, Himeko…” she moaned. She worked slowly, deliberately, never giving her what she knew she wanted. Pausing, she looked up at her through eyes hooded with lust.

“Yessss, that’s what I like to hear,” she replied.

“Please…more…”

“More, you say? Oh, I don’t think so. You want more? You’ll have to touch yourself while my mouth is occupied.”

Kafka immediately obeyed. Her willpower was strong, but not that strong. Working her clit with the pads of her fingers, Himeko took care of the rest. The combined feeling of her tongue and the Stellaron Hunter’s own ferocious movements was too much to bear. She broke, stroking herself until Himeko could feel her shudder against her face.

The two were at an impasse. They knew they wanted - no - needed each other. But both were stubborn, each standing for what they felt was right. Kafka curled around her, her arms wrapped around Himeko’s waist from behind.

“So…what now?” She asked the redhead pensively as she buried herself in the scent of her rose shampoo.

Himeko shrugged. “I…don’t know. You tell me.”

Kafka sought her hand with her own, weaving their fingers together.

“I suppose we let destiny decide.”

[profounddefendorcrusade-blog]

Debunking the “Lancer is a little kid” belief

After years and years of not shipping anything (not in video games, movies, or TV shows), I finally came across a particular pairing in Toby Fox's "Delatrune" that immediately caught my attention. In case you're still guessing even after reading the title, I'm talking about Susie and Lancer here. Specifically, how Lancer is portrayed in the Delatrune fandom.

Now, what you're about to read is me being as objective as possible, but if you still see Lancer as a literal kid (even after the very last point, taken straight from the game itself), go on and believe what you want to. I mean, isn't that what works of fiction or supposed to be about? Letting our creativity flow and taking whatever we want to take from the actual work, so that we can interpret it in any way we want to? I won't even stop you from posting hate comments (they're inevitable). Just prepare yourselves for a reality check, folks.

Enough rambling. Let's get straight to the point. And that point is that whenever I went on the internet to look for fanart/fanfiction of these two, I could barely find any for one reason: 99% of the fandom saw the pairing as pedophilic. I must stop you all right there. Let's take a not-so-well-deserved break from my little discussion and look up the term 'pedophilia.'

In short, a pairing can’t be pedophilic if neither one of the characters is an adult. Or, if they're in a romantic, but non-sexual relationship. Like, you can call a couple with an age gap weird/gross all you want, but if it's not sexual, the term 'pedophilia' doesn't apply. That's my whole point. Except... Susie and Lancer are *peers.*

About Lancer's height. Saying that he's a child just because he's short is like saying Papyrus is much older than Sans just because Sans is short (heck, if you compare the heights, you'll see he's even shorter than Lancer, and yet Sans is an adult, and no one has ever questioned it).

Let's look at an actual example: Monster Kid/Teen. I found a picture containing them as a child (right) and teenager (left). See the difference? Okay. 

Now, I did the same thing for Lancer, and... if he were a child, he'd look something like this:

If you look up an actual height comparison for every character in the game, you’ll see how Lancer and Monster Teen are the same height (Kris and Ralsei too as far as I can tell). Still not convinced? Let's look at Susie. Most people follow this logic: She is taller and, therefore, must be older than Lancer. To that, I say: she's a dinosaur-like monster; of course, she will be taller than the others. Who knows how tall she'll be as an adult? As for Lancer: his dad may be tall, but that doesn't automatically mean he will be as huge as him when he grows up. Nothing weird about that.

Now Let's look at Lancer's personality. He's an immature and spoiled prince, but for a good reason: he spent his entire life being treated as a baby/toddler/child before he met Susie. No wonder he lacks confidence, needs 'babysitters', and is terrible with directions. Lancer... doesn't know any better. He's never been told that he can be his own individual. He's never been told that he isn't useless. That he doesn't need protection. Remember when Lancer told Susie that he had never eaten the Dark Candy hanging way too high on the tree because he wasn't allowed to get it himself, and she decided to let him try it even though she was hungry? Or when he stated that he wasn't allowed to swear? Lancer was even surprised that the trio's "collective dad" "lets them" swear. I'm sure people growing up in a strict household would understand when I say how this doesn't explicitly have to do anything with Lancer's biological age, just his upbringing. And Susie trying to get (the word they used was not 'teach,'  just 'get') him to swear more is similar to what some of my friends do sometimes when I'm too shy - get me out of my shell. That doesn't make me younger than I am. She teaches Ralsei sarcasm too in CH2, and I don't see anyone treating him like a little kid.

There's an interesting post about this here on Tumblr (https://at.tumblr.com/rainy-poppy/lancer-is-literally-a-child-why-are-you-shipping/d3kpxj3hpn1j). Basically, the person is saying that Susie, being the tough badass she is, wouldn't be hanging out with an actual child (despite calling him 'kid,' which I'll be getting to after this). Let's look at Anne and Sprig's friendship in Amphibia for a second since both of their ages are confirmed. She's 13. He's 10. The difference between Susie and Anne here is that Susie was a bully. Someone who was actually threatening, and not just a typical, friendly teenage girl like Anne. A bully like Susie would NOT willingly team up with a child. Instead, she'd say something like: "Whatever, kid. Scram!". Not only that, but she would not threaten to bite a child's face off, or beat him up (Lancer was literally the first person she actually beat up, according to what Monster Teen and Snowy tell us about never having seen her do it to anyone before), try to kill him twice (and almost succeed the second time), or call him 'man,' 'dude,' 'idiot,' and a 'wannabe tough guy.' And Lancer's face? I don't know if it's a joke. If it is, I'll ignore it, but if that's his actual face, then no. Him being a child is impossible. And considering that he has already made this particular face three times (once in CH1 and twice in CH2), I'm pretty sure it's canon. I can't get behind how someone could look at this face and think "That's a baby/toddler/little boy!" I seriously can't.

And it's not just that. We see that he and Susie made a literal game in which we (Kris) and Ralsei are supposed to ‘thrash our own ass’. I don’t know about you, but I highly doubt a child would have the mental capacity to contribute to the project or keep up with Susie in general. Additionally, Lancer shows an uncharacteristic level of maturity, ordering his troops to imprison us. Heck, they put him as the king of the entire Card Kingdom! Would they have put a 10-year-old on the throne? If they were smart, then no, of course not! Rouxls Kaard would have been in charge instead until Lancer was old enough. The comment one of the Rudinns made about him being their new king went something like: "We didn't know who to make our new king. Lancer's always been annoying, but seeing how nice he treats you guys, I think he'll be fine". There isn't a single mention of him not being old enough. The only canon information we have about Lancer’s age is that he isn’t old enough to ride a motorcycle, so he’s 15 max. Not an adult, but not a child either. And considering how the rest of the gang are teens, he is at least 13 (although, this is still too young imo).

Lancer understands the concept of death damn well; he just doesn't let it bother him. A child would scream, beg, cry, or run away in terror if someone threatened or tried to kill them, or become paralyzed from fear. He was even willing, no, EXPECTING to die during the Susie fight and said "Susie, you... you missed." He was willing to make this sacrifice just to keep her safe from his dad. The same guy who only used to care about being useful to King and making him proud (despite clarly having a soft heart) finally found something more imporant than proving himself, and that's having, being, and remaning a true friend to the end. This is both heartbreaking and beautiful. And from this one scene on, Lancer's remained 100% loyal to his friends, especially Susie (but also never had a single thought about leaving Kris and Ralsei behind).

A child like Monster Kid was clearly naive in UT. They said how they want to be like Undyne when they grow up (all Lancer said was how he wanted to be like Susie, without the "when I grow up" part). Not only that, but Monster Kid isn't even old enough to fight and needs Undyne to protect them, while Lancer is a skilled fighter compared to the rest of the Card Kingdom inhabitants (minus his father). Lancer, as immature as he sometimes is (and for a good reason, if we consider his upbringing), isn’t naive and clueless about the world. Bonus points for his jokes being not only silly but clever and sarcastic. He's like the perfect combo of Papyrus' goofiness and Sans' sarcasm. A child wouldn't be able to ride their bike as well as he does, think of such witty comebacks, or make up creative new words on the spot. A child would babble some stupid stuff, unfunny to teenagers. But Lancer's actually the only person who can make Susie laugh (besides herself).

Now, about this whole 'kid' talk. Lancer, I believe, called himself like this because he sees himself as a child despite being chronologically older. Why? As I said, because of his upbringing and (I think) because his father always saw him as incapable. And Susie addressing him as ‘kid’? It could mean a few things:

1) it was said as a way to mock him for his height, immaturity, or both, and as an addition to the comedy; it's not that deep

2) She thought that he was a kid, but Lancer explained to her that he wasn't when they started hanging out, which would explain why she didn't call him a kid ever again (and called him 'dude' and 'man' instead);

3) It's meant to imply Lancer is 1 or 2 years younger than Susie, but 3 years younger? I don't think so. More than 3? Definitely not.

*I think the first one is the most likely scenario considering she had called him a 'wannabe tough guy’ during their next encounter, while they were still enemies

I respect if you don't like/hate the ship because you see them as siblings, if you headcanon Susie as a lesbian, or if you ship her with someone else. I'm just sick and tired of this reasoning and not being able to enjoy the ship in peace because of people attacking it and its fans.

Edit: There are a lot of things I either forgot to mention, or want to discuss in more detail, so here they are:

-The reason the word 'kid' is repeated so often during our first encounter with him is because someone from the staff accidentally thought Lancer was much older than he really is based on the headcanon voice he gave him, so Toby decided to highlight that Lancer is a kid just like the rest of them (this was spoken of during the 6th anniversary of UT, there's a video on YouTube). Not only that, but Berdly calls himself 'the smart kid', and Susie says something like 'whether you're the smart kid or not, we couldn't care less (referring to Berdly)'. Basically, they're all still "children" (as Queen calls them) even though they're technically teens, and it's not like Lancer is an exception. Heck, Berdly asked: "Who's this guy?" And not "Who's this kid?" because we're already familiar from CH1 that Lancer isn't an adult, so there's no need to highlight it anymore

-Toby wanted to make 4 slots instead of 3 originally so Lancer could be a part of the gang and appear in the status menu, but figured that it would take too much work (from the stream). This proves that all 4 of them are equals; a child wouldn't be able to or allowed to fight alongside teenagers

-Speaking of my previous point, Lancer is a pretty skilled fighter (can throw a ton of spades), he's stronger than a lot of his people (his attack is 7) and also surpingly difficult to kill (during the fight with Susie)

-He acts a lot less stupid than most people give him credit for and is way more emotionally mature. Sure, he's silly for the sake of the comedy, but also clever and sarcastic. You can't convince me, based on his dialogue and interactions, that he acts like a little kid. Once again, I don't understand how those who had played Undertale are now pretending that they don't know Toby's humor is often exaggerated (like in Papyrus' case). It's not their first time seeing someone incompetent and purposefully goofy in his game

‐ If we look inside Lancer's room, we can see that it not only looks similar to Kris and Susie's, (who are, you know, teenagers), but there are also no "childish" things in there, such as toys, posters and action figures (Papyrus has them, and he's an adult). Also, he has a totally normal, spade-themed bed, while Papyrus, again, has one shaped like a car, yet somehow, Lancer is the one seen as a little kid. Sans reads Papyrus *bedtime stories* I repeat: *Sans reads Papyrus, an adult man, or an older teenager, bedtime stories.* NO ONE does this to Lancer.

-Whenever he and Susie interact, I always get the feeling that they're both on the same wavelength. To give an example of what I mean, I'll compare their dynamic to the one between Applejack and Apple Bloom from MLP:FiM. Even though AJ cares about her little sister, they each have their own friend groups. Saying Lancer is a little kid wouldn't make sense, considering how Susie has always treated him as her equal (heck, they even high-fived each other twice in CH2. If that isn't a sign of equality, I don't know what is). I never got the feeling that she was taking care of her "little brother," like a lot of fans seem to think. Even when she tried to save him from the maze, she got lost herself. I mean, who wouldn't do something like this if it meant helping a friend out? Not to mention the many stupid things they did TOGETHER (in the 6th-anniversary stream of UT, Toby stated how neither of the two knows anything about villainy), so it's not Lancer dragging Susie down with him

-This might sound like a nitpick but I think it's important: how Lancer addressed King as 'Father,' and also how King referred to him as a 'traitor'. A little kid would excitedly run up to their dad and say either "Dad!" or "Daddy!" And I highly doubt a kid would be referred to as a traitor

-Susie actually planned to bite his face off, and Ralsei didn't stop her. I'm sure as hell he wouldn't have let a young child get eaten like that. Also, Lancer called him his 'main man,' once again showing that they are similar in age. And if he were really a little kid, Lancer would have annoyed the living daylights out of Susie once they teamed up (ask her to play with him, ask a lot of questions and be overall annoying. Trust me, I've got younger cousins). But instead of that scenario, Susie says "We got bored, so we're having a snack" What does this mean? That Lancer did not act like an annoying little kid, simply because he isn't one. Don't even get me started on how people draw him, because holy hell, it seems to me that 1) most of the fandom is actually blind and doesn't see that he, Ralsei and Kris are all roughly 4 feet tall in the actual game or 2) they try to capture Lancer's childishness by drawing him as a toddler (except, the personality they give him isn't his real one in the first place, considering how he's never acted like a toddler once, so I really don't know what the point of drawing the poor guy like this even is)

-An argument I saw against Susie x Lancer was how "they've never acted romantic with each other" All I have to say in regards to that is how they've literally known each other for roughly 2 DAYS (+ Toby seems to want to make Suselle canon). I can't get behind how people think that love can blossom over such a short period of time. Not everyone believes in 'love at first sight,' and I'm one of those who don't. Crushes, yeah, but they are usually short-lived and always shallow. What we learn about Lancer is that he values sincerity and is very sincere himself (as we can see when Kris tries to compliment him twice) Plus, Susie never had any friends prior to Lancer, so jumping from friendship to romance just like that would be not only bad writing, but also unrealistic. The very reason I love Lancer is how there's no sudden romantic subplot linked to him, like Noelle's obsession with Susie and Ralsei's crush on Kris (I find both of these ships toxic as hell, but I don't want to talk about them here). Just to add something here: despite not moving any romantic subplot forward or being associated with one, Lancer isn't unfamiliar with the concept (as seen in CH2 when he calls himself handsome and admits to 'having fallen in love'). I honestly think that, much like Papyrus, Lancer isn't linked to any kind of romantic subplot simply because he's the comic relief, so it would affect the comedic part of his character

-Why is everyone complaining about this ship, but not a literal child (Frisk, who most people see as 8-12 years old), going on a date with an adult skeleton, Papyrus? (at least, people usually percieve him as a young adult, but he could also be a teenager) Either way, it isn't a small age gap. Also, why is Frans such a popular ship even though one character is a child (Frisk) and the other clearly an adult (Sans)? You could argue that Frisk's age hasn't been confirmed, and skeletons don't age because they're undead, but still, Papyrus and Sans were not introduced as, you know, skeleton boys, and yet somehow both ships are acceptable, but Susie x Lancer isn't? Not just that, but people age Frisk up when it comes to the Frans ship and there's far less hate for it than the ship that isn't even pedophilic?

-People are also totally fine with ships like Dipper x Wendy (Gravity Falls), Aang x Katara (ATLA), Toph x Sokka (also ATLA), Spike x Rarity (MLP:FiM), and such. There is a clear age gap in all of these pairings, but they're not seen as problematic in any way

-I bet that, if Ralsei had a childish personality, or literally any other character, they'd also be seen as a kid/toddler. Even a baby for some reason? I don't understand this. The way people perceive Lancer, when it comes to both height and personality, is completely different from how he acts in the game. Sure, he's loud, flamboyant and obnoxious, but also chill and sarcastic. And sure, Lancer does have the tendency to act dumber than average, but THAT'S THE POINT of a character who's a COMIC RELIEF

-"But King doesn't allow Lancer to say tier-two swear words!" Neither does Greg from Steven Universe, and Steven was 14. You know, a teenager. In case people are curious about which episode I'm talking about, it's "Beach City Drift". Basically, Greg doesn't allow Steven to say words like 'hate' and 'creep'. That's even worse than not allowing your teenage son (who is still a minor and therefore you still have authority over him) to say tier-two swear words!

-"Why does King make his people take care of Lancer if he isn't a little kid or allow him to eat from the Dark Candy tree?" To make sure he's acting like a proper prince and not the goofball he is deep down, if you ask me. And because he doesn't take the poor guy seriously. As for the Dark Candy; once again, eating sweets isn't considered 'princely' and, as I mentioned above, Lancer is still a minor, so King still has the authority to tell him what to do and punish him in whatever way he wants (having to take a shower every time he reads a swear word, possibly being starved, according to a few lines, and even being emotionally and physically abused). Emotionally, in the sense that King belittled him, made him feel worthless, ignored whatever Lancer had to say and used him in a manipulative way to achive his goal of serving the Knight (the first two points are guesses, while we saw the other two on screen). Physically, based on the fact that he becomes worried when he realizes his friends and his dad are gonna fight. I have no doubt that King was phyiscally violent towards him at least once, considering how terrified Lancer is. He knows what King is capable of because he himself experienced his wrath. I see Lancer's upbringing as that of a lonely, overprotected person, who's also royalty. There are a lot of examples of this type of upbringing, whether we're talking about real people or fictional characters (like Rapunzel, for example)

-Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender took over the Fire Nation at 16. This makes sense. I don't imagine Lancer being much younger when he took over the Card Kingdom

-"The reason why the guards obeyed Lancer when he told them to imprison Kris, Susie, and Ralsei is that King made them obey his every order!" Then why can Lancer make his own laws (+ he knows what the word means, which wouldn't be the case if he were too young) without asking RK for permission, and why do Lancer's people listen to him without complaining when he orders them not to attack/kill us at the beginning of CH2 (if we attacked the Darkeners in CH1)? King isn't in charge anymore, so it's not out of fear. They all clearly grew to respect Lancer and his authority. They wouldn't respect a child like this

-"In the stream, Toby said Lancer is a boy!" So what? We've got Ralsei, who people call 'fluffy boy,' and Susie, who's known as 'purple girl'. I bet Berdly and Noelle would also be known as 'bird boy' and 'reindeer girl'. Even Lancer refers to Kris, Ralsei, and Susie as 'boys or girls' In the same stream, when they got to the part where we first meet Lancer, someone said something along the lines of "Now it's time to replace the fluffy boy (Ralsei) with another boy (Lancer)" In other words, they're both referred to as boys and therefore must have similar ages. Yet SOMEHOW it's acceptable to ship Susie x Ralsei but not Susie x Lancer

-The Fun Gang (Kris, Susie, Ralsei, Lancer, Noelle, and probably Berdly too) is their friend group, right? It wouldn’t make sense for the five of them to be teens, and for Lancer to be the only one who’s a child. Deltarune is clearly a story about teenagers finding their place in the world

-King wouldn't have trusted a child with something as important to him as destroying Lightners

-The Jack of Spades (the card which Lancer represents) is associated with a young man, not a child

-The thing I absolutely can't stand is how people who headcanon Lancer as a little kid act like their headcanon is canon and somehow think that 'they're right while others 'are wrong'

-Him not understanding what a 'mom' is, if we really want to look too deep into this (which I doubt we should since Toby's characters are often comically exaggerated and act sillier than 'normal'), could have something to do with how Darkeners are created in the first place. We don't know anything about them if you think about it. Whether they are 'born' or not, or if they even age. Maybe everyone in the Dark World will always remain the way they are physically. We don't know yet

-Queen adopting him in order to take care of him makes sense, considering he is, you know, a minor. Saying he doesn't need a mother figure is like saying Kris doesn't need Toriel

-In the live stream I mentioned earlier, the team talked about Lancer's original concept art, and announced how he was originally going to ride a motorcycle (making him 16). I don't imagine that they'd age him down from 16 to, let's say, 10 years old ↓

-Another thing that might contribute to people seeing him as a "little kid" is his design. What I mean by this is how Lancer's "eyes" (if that face he made was canon and not just a meme) are not in alignment with the eyes of, let's say, Kris and Ralsei. I'm certain this has to do with his species (the spade he has for a head isn't a hoodie but a part of his body; I came to this conclusion after I saw how he can move the top part of his head up and down when he's happy/sad, kind of like what a dog does with its ears). And, let's imagine for a moment that the rest of the gang were the same species as Lancer; they'd all be the same height then, if we apply logic here. They'd also all be the same height if everyone were a human/goat/dino. In other words, Lancer is of completely average height for a spade. There's this logic going on in the fandom that, since Lancer isn't that tall + is goofy + isn't skinny, he's a little kid. But if he weren't chubby or immature, even if he remained on the shorter side, I 95% believe he'd be drawn normally, just like Kris is drawn

-I'm no good at math and numbers, but let's try to think logically once again. In Berdly's flashback, he and Noelle are seen participating in the spelling bee, making them 8 years old (that's the youngest kids can be in order to participate). In the present moment, they're roughly twice the size they used to be back then, right? That would make them around 15 or 16 currently, because 8+8=16. The exact same comparison can be linked to Lancer. When he was 8, he was shorter than he is now, as a teen ↓

-Also, here's a comparison of Monster Kid, Frisk, Sans, Lancer and Kris. It's clear, looking at the image below, that the first two are children, that Sans is a simply short adult, while the last two are teens ↓

-In the stream, Toby showed us some more concept art for Lancer. In this particular picture, we can see that he used Kris' height to design Lancer. Since we know Kris is a teenager, that must mean that Lancer is one too ↓ 

-Why does everyone think Lancer is younger than Susie? He could be older than her, but we don't know it, and probably never will because ages in UT were never canonized either

-"But Lancer looks up to Susie so he must be a lot younger!" I once again have to draw parallels between two fandoms. In Kung Fu Panda, Po looks up to Tigress even though they're on the same team and have similar ages. There's nothing weird about looking up to someone, whether they're older, younger, or the same age as you. Lancer idolizes Susie because she's tough, tall and physically strong (I repeat, it's all because of her species and NOT because she's older). Her age has nothing to do with her physical appearance

-Also, why do people think that when someone says 'I ship these two characters,' that automatically means they want them to do something sexual? Ships can be just romantic and sweet, you know?

-During the sleepover after chapter 2's pacifist route, Susie mentions how cool it would be if Ralsei and Lancer could come to visit the Light World and explains how Ralsei could be mistaken for Kris' cousin, as well as how Lancer would live under Kris' bed. Right after this, she excitedly says how all of them could walk to school together and be an unstoppable team. This is proof that all four of them are not only high schoolers, but also that the age gap between them isn't larger than 1 year (sophomores are between ages 15-16, so that would mean that Lancer (and probably Ralsei) is 15, while the other two are either 15 or 16). They must be sophomores because Catti has a job (Berdly too); you have to be 16, at least. Maybe 15. But definitely not younger than that. Again, no pedophilia here

-A little theory I have is that, in the end credits of the final chapter, we'll finally get to see Lancer riding a real motorcycle, but that's just what I'm hoping to see, and it may or may not age well. This would mean that he would have turned 16 by the end of the game

-Typical teeage behavior ↓

-And, most imporantly, THE TIME THE GAME ACTUALLY DEBUNKED IT. Now, I don't know how many people actually payed attention to this little moment (I found it on accident) ↓

Let's break this down into a few segments to understand it better: Lancer challenges Kris, Susie, and Ralsei to a race to their new rooms. Instead of saying "the last one there is a rotten egg," he, for the sake of the comedy and his unique speech pattern, says "the last one there is a fresh and fragrant egg" We can say that there is no deeper meaning behind this particular choice of words, but to me, a "fresh and fragrant egg" represents youth (adolescence).

Ralsei asks him why he's standing if they're supposed to be racing, and Lancer replies with: "I wanna be the egg!" According to my interpretation, he's trying to say how he wants to be "the loser," "the failure," "the underdog," or something similar. In other words, he wants to be the last/the worst.

Finally, he adds: "You won't get through your teen years without at least one Egg." Whether this is referring to how he wants to experience failure/ being the loser and finds it to be an important/essential part of growing up, or maybe there's some other meaning behind being an "Egg," it's clear as day now that he's a teenager. Any of them (Kris, Susie Ralsei, or Lancer) could have been "the egg" in this race if they had ended up last. We know that the other three are teens, and if Lancer is saying how he wants to experience being "the egg," and associates it as an essential part of being a teen, that means he's in the same boat as the others and is also a teen. "One Egg" is probably linked to failure as well, so if we translated the dialogue into a non-metaphorical one, it would go something like this:

"The last one there is a loser!"

"I wanna be the loser! You won't get through your teen years without being the loser at least once!"

So yeah, that's all the reasons why Lancer is NOT a little kid. Thanks to anyone who read all this. And if you're still gonna be a hater, then ok. Waste your time insulting random people on the internet and make them feel terrible about themselves for having an opinion (though, it's not even an opinion after the final point) about a work of fiction, instead of enjoying the things you want to enjoy and minding your own business

P.S. I may have forgotten to mention a few more arguments: 1) Lancer is strong enough to carry Susie's entire weight on his back/head; what little kid could do that? 2) Lancer's attacks are numerous and strong enough to make SUSIE, THE PHYSICALLY STRONGEST member of the team, FLINCH. 3) At the hospital, Rudy mentions something about Noelle playing a "children's" game, I think it was in ch2, gotta go check, but the point is, Rudy (and Queen, by calling them children a few times) considers these teenagers to be "children" Which honestly makes a lot of sense since they're all still under 18. 4) There is not a SINGLE "little kid" in this entire game. Let's see here... we have Kris, Ralsei, Susie, Noelle, Berdly, Temmie, Monster Teen, Snowy, Catti and Jockington... who are ALL 'big kids' (teenagers). And you're trying to tell me the only person who's 10 years old is Lancer?? Get outta here. 5) It makes sense that Deltarune is about teens. Why? Because it is supposed to be a 'more mature' game than Undertale. Teenagers go through all the stuff DT characters go through (family problems, depression, loneliness, crushes, feeling clueless about who you truly are etc.) Lancer has family problems, he used to be lonely, and he was completely misguided because of his dad. Typical teenage problems he's experiencing here. 6) I don't expect a kid who's 10 years old or less to be into motorcycles. That's logically a teen thing. Otherwise we'd see him ride normally on a bicycle with a helmet on, just wanting to play, like, you know, a child. 7) Oh yeah, and Toriel mentioned something about Susie being a bad influence on Kris, so there's that. Lancer and Noelle ("I wish I could do crazy stuff like you...") willingly look up to Susie, while Kris and Ralsei are unwillingly influenced by her (at least, Ral was). This is called *peer pressure* Because they're all teens. But Susie's dominant. So... yeah.

Anyway, I don't care what people ship. I'm fine if you hate susancer. It's not for everyone. What DOES piss me off so much though is the lack of respect Lancer gets, how he's treated as this "bouncy little pumpkin uwu" despite being one of, if not, the most useful character in the game plot-wise so far + a great comedic relief. I'm sick of him being drawn and treated as a toddler. So sick of it.

I get that the kids in the fandom still lack critical thinking, but older teens and adults, too?

In any case, I'm signing off for real this time. Thanks for reading.

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

In Defence of 4/4 EP.12

(from someone who didn't like it very much)

I've made an entirely different post about people's reactions to the ending so I won't address any of that here, if you want that post. Bang! Here. But this is not what this post is about. This post is about recognizing the good in something I personally would've preferred had gone a different route. So let's get into it.

(long post, guys, Imma spare you, people who wanna scroll past 😉)

1st things 1st: yes. I know. The narrative about growth and adapting and change would've been so great had Day not gotten the transplant. It would've paid off so well for the main couple and all the other characters too. And it would send out such a nice message about how disabled people are whole, despite their disabilities. How happiness is possible for everyone, without restraints, no matter their body or mind. BUT that's not what we got. And that can be upsetting, I know I'm a little upset myself, but, and considering the ongoing fandom discussion, is it all that bad that we got something different? For once, I do not think so.

I think the very first thing that needs to be addressed is what is said by @daymork in this post:

"the hardships, the journey, even all the good that happened during allllll that still matters after recovery"

Or: just because Day gets his sight back, that doesn't mean the story being told is suddenly useless. Because a story about how people are flawed and scarred and they need to grow past certain issues to enjoy life again or they need to gain new perspectives is never useless. Society keeps showing us that assholes who cannot see past their own belly button or that people who are restrained by their traumas are still out there, so how could a narrative about growth ever be pointless?

Futhermore, it is a crucial part of the characters' arcs, even past Day's blindless being involved. Day ties his self-worth to being capable and always doing what he is supposed to. Night is careless and doesn't like abiding by the rules, even when it inconveniences others. Their mom has a bad case of "mama knows best", she's inflexible, what she wants, she gets. Mhok is traumatized by his sister's death and he can't move on, can't let go. (and so on, but I think you get the point) Regardless of the challenges that come with adjusting to Day's disability, all of them were already facing challenges that made their lives harder. Because, sure, we don't see it, but everyone always has a struggle. They sure had too.

And now you say, well, Dante, doesn't that make Day's blindness a plot device used just to make these characters better and then discarded when no longer needed? And sure, yeah, I think that argument can definitely be made and it is solid, I won't deny that. But I also think that the way you read it depends on what you believe this story is about. Because, if you think this story is about Day's struggle with blindness, then sure, yeah. But you can also see it as a story about maturing and overcoming hardships or a love story about two people who, like everyone else, have to adjust to learn how to adjust with each other. Or a story about different types of love and how they connect and overlap or change. Or a story about perspectives and points of view and how every single person is gonna look at the same things with different eyes and what that means for the way people live and how they relate to one another. Or a story about what makes a person and about how, no matter the way people see you, you are still a person and you can make your own choices, despite everything. Or something else, even, Idk. I'm not the owner of opinions and I'm not trying to be. My point is: it's all about individual perception and understanding.

Regardless, even if you do see that particular part as ableist, does it erase all the other stuff the series does? Does it erase the point is makes about not babyfying disabled people? Does it erase the point it makes about seeing disabled people as people who deserve no other feeling but pity? Does it erase the point it makes that Day was living well, even without Mhok or his sight? I don't think so. It might undermine it but it does not erase it.

And I think that leads us to the most important part of this discussion, actually: maybe the point was, all along that, in order for Day to be able to be able to get his transplant (narratively, of course) he needed not to need it. He needed to be able to be okay with not having it. He needed to learn to live without it and be happy. Because, in the end, what problems were actually solved by the transplant, really? None, I would argue.

Day and his mom, Day and Night, Night and their mom, Night and Porjai, Mhok and Rhamon, Mhok and Rung, Mhok and Day... As well as their internal conflicts (Mhok was a successful chef, Rhamon a good mother, Night a good husband, Day a librarian, etc...), all that was solved before that. The transplant truly didn't change anything besides what it changed: that Day now has the physical ability to see again. "No, Dante, it allowed him to go to the mountain again!", I hear you say. And sure, it did, but that wasn't new: he'd been there before when he was 100% blind. And it's not more magical when he can see than when he cannot. In fact, I would argue it is the other way around.

The 2nd time they're there they don't even care that much about the mountain or the sunset. They care about their relationship and what it means to be together again and they care about the journey. That's what they talk about. "Oh, but Mhok talks about how him there at the mountain is no longer the last image Day is gonna see". Yeah. But that, I would say, is more about how that is the case because Mhok is now there to stay (he even says so himself) rather than the fact Day can physically see him.

So, what purpose does it serve in the narrative? Is it just a "and now he can see because, sure, let him have it, it's the end, idc"? Could be, I mean, yeah, I think you can make a strong argument that this is just an ableist way of a "happy ending" but I also want to point out that that might not necessarily be the case (other than what I'm gonna explain next, even so, because, as @e-lisard pointed in this post - among others that I've seen do so but I only remember faer, some disabled people prefer stories where there is a cure for all or some of their disabilities). But also because, if nothing changes for Day (except he can play Badminton again, which, as someone who loves Badminton myself, like yeah, pretty big thing) then maybe that's the point being made: that, in the end, the thing that Day so desperately wanted in the beginning of the story has become almost meaningless now because he already had everything before. And that his happiness, unlike what he and everyone around him had previously thought, was not all dependent on his physical ability to see, but rather on his (and everyone else's) psychological/emotional ability to see. And once they unlocked that, nothing else was really all that relevant.

So, of course, you can have whatever opinion you want and I still stand by the fact that I'd rather not have him recover his sight because I like the implications of that better but, I think, the ending we were given is not all bad and some good things can be taken from it, especially if you see it as a comparison made to highlight the fact that Day's physical ability to see was not at all relevant to his happiness and that the story was really all about the journey.

If you want to add or disagree (politely) or something feel free to use this post. Comment or reblog or whatever. I'll be happy to keep this discussion going just as long as we can all be respectful.

Other than that I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you have a great day!! All the love 💜💜💜

PS: People I tagged, if you'd like not to be tagged pls tell me, I just did so because I didn't want credit for things that I did not think of or state myself. Cheers! <3

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Hi Eleanor,

I loved your description. Especially the part about honouring found families. That is the part about Eloises story I have always loved. She has the love of her family and can bring that nurturing love to another family. She chose phillip and his children when she could have stayed single. She had to realize she wanted this life on her own.

I have to confess something. I am a sucker for the unplanned pregnancy trope. But you have given me the idea about a married couple who was trying to prevent pregnancy having a surprise baby.

I can see Eloise and Philip having a sexual relationship for a few years before they discover Eloise is with child. Probably discovering the pregnancy once it is already a few months gone.

I feel this story would have a similar anxious feel as your story Willow Bark. Both Eloise and Phillip don't know what to feel. I can see Phillip offering a herbal cocktail but like Anthony offering to call off the wedding, after searching her soul, she cannot go through with it. She wants to face her fears and anxieties about childbirth just as she did marriage.

I can imagine her and phillip giving their children alot of leeway. Their home is the loudest home because they want all their children to be able to express themselves.

I think what this story line and willow bark both have is not a woman falling to societies norms or expectations but actually examining what they want for themselves. So many tropes and storyline are the heros and heroines get swept away. Eloise and Phillip are intellectuals who need time to exam their hearts.

I'm sorry for my drabbles. Also please feel free to disagree. There is not alot of Eloise and Phillip content and I think they are one of the more interesting couples. Also, I love that Eloise named her daughter after her friend. Of course they could have a puppy named Penelope too.

Hello there!

I'm sorry this reply is so delayed - I have been traveling. You have so many beautiful and intriguing ideas for Philoise! I agree they are one of the more interesting couples - tbh, they are my favorite Bridgerton couple in that I find so much to love in the two individual characters, as well as their interaction together. For Benophie, I really just love Benedict but find Sophie to be a rather blank slate. As you said, Eloise and Phillip are intellectuals, and they both have well-founded anxieties to explore and grow from. There is so much fertile ground (pun intended) for interesting stories with these two!

While I don't currently plan on writing stories with Philoise having children together, I love your unplanned pregnancy idea for them and think it is the perfect framework for lots of juicy drama and character exploration. If you write fics, or even just want to start, this is a fantastic idea!

I also love that we can fall back on Eloise getting a puppy named Penelope if we hc that she doesn't have her own children 😂 That is perfect!

Thank you so much for all this character discussion, I love it! 💙

[wingedsam]

Started a Power Rangers tabletop campaign with my usual group a couple weeks ago and we had I shit you not like the most perfectly cinematic first session. I'm gonna break it down because it was so very good, I had so much fun. The premise of the campaign so far is we're each a Ranger, we became Rangers after a Final Fantasy summon monster appeared to us when we had a near death experience and offered to make us a Ranger so we could fight and destroy fiends. We each agreed for our own reasons and formed contracts with these beings with the stipulation that we had to hunt down and destroy fiends. None of us know other Ranger's exist. We all think we're the only ones.

Cast: Adelaide - Green Ranger [this is my character] Callie - Yellow Ranger Viktoria - White Ranger Kara - Black Ranger Jun - Blue Ranger Rodger - Red Ranger

So we gotta get the team together. Callie, Viktoria, and Rodger are up first and all happen to meet when responding to a fiend attack in the alleyway outside Callie's apartment. Viktoria and Rodger jump in already suited up, and Callie comes in civilian clothes to offer support. Some discussion and she invites them up to discuss things.

While that's happening Jun is working at his pharmacy job when Kara comes in trying to get a prescription that is not hers filled. They go back and forth until fiends attack inside the pharmacy and Kara just jumps right in transforming without a care to handle them. Jun slips to the back to transform and joins in. They have a stand off after because Jun is not very trusting of her and also mad, but they manage to calm down and Jun shoots out the pharmacy camera to cover for them.

Also meanwhile, Adelaide is walking home from her job and runs into several fiends on her own. Notably they are dancing around one fiend and making it grow bigger. She launches in solo to take them out, but the bigger one explodes and takes out part of the street. With the problem solved and not wanting to get spotted she just powers down and leaves.

Callie, who is a firefighter, gets a hit from her work about two emergencies reported. A fire at a pharmacy and an explosion across town. She gets Viktoria and Rodger to go in suits to check the explosion while responding to the pharmacy herself. She walks in right when Jun [still suited] shoots out the camera. Now we have the connection. Callie gets Jun and Kara to agree to come back to her apartment as well so they can join the discussion.

Viktoria and Rodger head for the explosion, and the dice just refuse to have either of them or Adelaide notice each other. I managed to botch like 3 notice checks to have Adelaide spot either of them and neither of them managed to see her leaving the scene. Even the other three driving back pass Adelaide noticed nothing... so, how do you get the team together?

Rodger and Viktoria see no fiends and a large crater and decide to report back to Callie's place. Well they're faster suited than Adelaide in civilian mode [while also injured from the fight]. Rodger gets back first and says he's gonna go in the open window... and we all make the executive decision that it would be most funny if Adelaide lives in the same apartment building as Callie, a few doors down. So Rodger rolls to remember, and picks the wrong window, ending up in Adelaide's apartment.

Adelaide heads up, enters her apartment, and finds a mysterious individual rummaging through her fridge. Thinking he's a fiend she transforms and attacks him before he notices her. Her spear only diverting from contact when he calls out for her to stop, thinking she might be Callie since he had never seen what suited Callie looks like. They have a quick back and forth before Adelaide spartan kicks him out her window and slams it shut, powering down to go back about her night.

Viktoria sees Rodger come violently back out the window and laughs, then they rush to go back in and find this other Ranger. Viktoria is able to count the windows and find Adelaide's apartment from inside. While they're confronting her, Callie, Jun, and Kara come up and Callie is wondering why they're bothering her neighbor. Adelaide is deadpan as hell so she's able to flatly say no when asked if she was involved with the explosion downtown. Or any Ranger shit. [with a good deception roll]. Rodger jumps in and says she pushed him out the window. She says he broke into her apartment. Callie asks how she got hurt and Adelaide just gives up and says the explosion. They all go into Callie's apartment so Adelaide can get some first aid and they can discuss this whole mess. Only a few minutes in and a mysterious voice speaks in everyone's heads, referring to them as her children and calling herself Mother. Some brief discussion and she realizes the beings everyone made deals with are the energy signature she is sensing and we learn who their names and the nature of their existence in duality with the fiends we've been fighting. The deal is made clear, we fight and destroy fiends, offering their energy to our partner being until they're strong enough to take their original form at which point we'll be free from our contracts and the beings can go back to what they wish. If we cannot kill fiends to offer energy, our energy will be taken instead. We can all handle that. We exchange info and split for the night, which is when we discover that Jun actually also lives in the apartment building a few floors up, he also agreed to let Kara stay with him since she's more of a drifter with no place. Rodger and Viktoria leave for the night. Viktoria is the only one of us to not give her name or power down, so we only know her as White for now.

The next day while going about her business Adelaide passes the crater to find empty cop cars and a bunch of fiends with another big fiend like the one that exploded, except this one is much much bigger. She calls in the others and once everyone is there the whole team gets in on the fight, finishing with Kara getting a cool power moment as the tank where she lifts the big one off the ground, then the rest of us all together launch it high enough in the sky with an attack that the explosion misses the town.

[waitmyturtles]

Some quick late-night thinky thoughts on The End of the World, With You, episode 5:

1) Still feeling very glad I didn’t dump this show -- I was going to dump it originally because I thought Masumi was ending up to be an annoying weenie, but:

2) Now I kind of like the knowingly elder statesmen roles that both he and Ritsu are assuming vis à vis Yuma, and it’s cute!

3) I can’t predict where this Meguru storyline is going to go, but I do appreciate that the show cast a gender-neutral individual for the role in Idegami Baku.

4) And speaking of the Meguru storyline, I’m DESPERATELY GLAD, in a deeply trope-y way, that Miki Koichiro didn’t fuck with what works by way of Yoshida Munehiro’s role -- he who is literally not even listed in the MDL profile of the show, and if he were, he’d probably be listed as, “You Know, The Same Old Kido Shit,” because like, how could we have expected anything different?! HE’S SO GOOD. I mean -- EVEN THE SAME FACIAL HAIR as The Pornographer, come on!

Y’all, I was cracking up. Poor Yoshida -- I mean, if he’s going to be typecast, at least he EMBRACES IT. And then all his character’s shit gets LIT ON FIRE. Karma on so many levels. After seeing how Kido switched up to be so positive in The Pornographer: Playback -- this was a nice reminder that Miki uses Yoshida to give us refreshing moments of asshole-like behavior in his scripts, and I just love that Miki trusts Yoshida with those moments. Yoshida was great.

5) So I guess we’re now into the supernatural, huh? 

6) I’m kind of wondering if a macro background theme of this show is to highlight the ongoing discussions in Japan about mass euthanasia. The NY Times recently reported about ongoing public discussions around mass suicide and the growing elderly population, and I can’t help but think that the meteor -- along with Yuma’s potential for possibly interfering with it -- is somehow connected to this discussion. 

Couple that with what I think was meant to indicate that Ritsu may be more of a Goebbels-like figure than we may have thought. Yes, Ritsu is already making me squeamish for giving Yuma the suicide drug, maybe helping Meguru’s sister with her suicide (maybe? I don’t know if that was INDICATED in the episode, but I assume that we could maybe assume it), and indicating that he may want to live, all while Masumi assumes that Ritsu will off himself before the meteor hits. This cloudy confusion about Ritsu is giving me the jibbles, because I wonder if it’s indicating that he’s even far darker than we think, and that he might want to go on a euthanasia joyride before the Earth shatters.

Anyway -- I could be super far off, but things continue to not smell right with Ritsu, even as he had redeemed himself just a little in episode 4.

[sing-you-fools]

fine, i'll post the explanation again. the original had more memes if you wanna look through the reblogs for it.

i think where people are getting stuck is the core concept of the word queer. so here is a very quick breakdown of what that word means to me.

queer isn't a box. it isn’t a label the way the other letters are labels. it's not a synonym for "LGBT+" or "gay" or anything. queer is a word that specifically evokes the nuance of identity.

heaven and hell in good omens, for all their flaws, are a queernormative soceity. in this society, gender is treated less as a box that you fall into when you're born, or even a box you get to choose, but rather as a buffet table. you walk over and decide which pronouns you want (if any), which identity label (if any), how you want to present.

in a world like this, any other labels become extremely nebulous. what is straight, what is gay, what is trans, when gender is a mosaic? when you deconstruct the very concept of gender, it queers everything. when you build a world where the concept of gender is this expansive, you can't shrink the characters down into the boxes our culture uses!!!!!

(now, when queerness is the norm, people within the society likely won't consider individual relationships queer [as many others have pointed out, from heaven and hell's pov, the angel and demon thing is a lot queerer than the both-mostly-appearing-masc thing], but remember we're watching and understanding through an earth 2023 lens and if we're going to talk about it it's going to be in the language our culture uses for such things, because that's how language and communication works. i've read and discussed a lot of fiction that takes place in queernormative settings but i think this is the first time anyone has demanded that i defend my "choice" to consider the relationships within the setting queer.)

queer means this entire concept is too big for my tiny human brain!!!!! queer means none of us are using these words in the exact same way. none of us are thinking about gender and sexuality in the exact same way and that's the point!!!!! we shouldn't be!!!!! IT'S NUANCED!!!!!

queer says the boxes aren't always big enough, or small enough, or flexible or permeable enough or close enough to another box you wanna stick a limb into once in a while so let's destroy them and let everyone make their own beautiful artwork to tell us who they are!!!!! we'll keep the labelmaker around for those who like the labels and want to add them but no one is obligated!!!!!

i think the final thing the fans who haven't been alive for as long as Neil and Terry have been writing queer characters aren't understanding is that this book came out in 1990 and THIS WAS NOT DONE IN 1990. THIS WAS GROUNDBREAKING.

YES, THIS MOMENT IS DIRECTLY FROM THE BOOK AND IT'S A HUGE DEAL.

to have a main character - a protagonist - in a book that isn't specifically, explicitly, and exclusively being marketed to The Gays™️ proudly declare himself THE Southern Pansy, simply was not something authors did!!!!! and it especially wasn't something authors who were then going to get mad that people read their characters as queer did!!!!! this was the height of the AIDS epidemic, y'all!!!!!

"but it was a joke" yes!!!!! a positive joke!!!!! an affirming joke!!!!! it's not even a little bit at our expense!!!!!

Aziraphale said oh no i'm not just gay i'm the fucking platonic form of queerness in nineteen fucking ninety and people are frothing because Neil won't use the word you want him to!!!!! and if you don’t think they read like a couple please read some Discworld and get back to me!!!!!

read other work by these authors and other queernormative worlds and other older fiction where the queerness could only exist as subtext and try to understand the immense privilege you have had to grow up queer in a world that allows you to look at some of the best representation i've seen in my 36 years and declare it not queer enough for you!!!!!

@neil-gaiman you're a saint