#what separates him from the humble young man that burns his skin to support his sister

[swampythesweetsketch]

Ninjago have the other ninja be turned into monsters, beasts, and other worldly cratures.

Meanwhile Kai has retained all his humanity and is covertly becoming the Second Spinjitzu Master.

[blue-honeycomb]

Quiet Devotion 4 [Hawks x Reader]

I'll edit this at a later date...

Summary: Part 4 of the 'Quiet Devotion' series… Somehow this story's managed to wring yet another part out of me. What am I doing with my life?

Reader Details: Emotional, humble, loyal, introspective, independent.

Quirk: Life Fiber (A.K.A Soul Silk).

Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

---

---

Six Years Ago

---

Fast doesn't even begin to cover the sheer speed the winged hero is capable of, and coupled with his reaction time and environmental awareness he seems down right inhuman at times. As far as you can tell there are few skills he's incapable of executing mid-combat and you find it all the more admiral that a considerable amount of that talent is focused on support and rescue work. It says much for his character that life takes precedence over the promise of glory

Memories of darkness and pain nip harshly at the back of your mind, the fear that'd overcome you when the car fire had finally died out was printed red on the backs of your eyelids. You can still smell the stench of burning gasoline and the heavy tinge of sweet iron, the feel of sand in your hair.

You dream of it sometimes, even a year later. You don't usually get back to sleep afterwards either, despite the tear inducing exhaustion riping painfully though your body. Instead you pull up the 24/7 Hero News website and hope that you'll catch a glimpse of red feathers flashing across the screen, hear that smooth, masculine voice quipping at his comrades, snarking at his opponents.

Anything to make you feel safe again. Anything to remind yourself that the dark of your room is only temporary, that the blankets tucked tightly (too tightly, always too tightly) around you are soft and pliant under your hands.

The news plays in the background as you finish washing the night's dishes, reporters droning on about Hawk's exploits in a seemingly endless stream of praise and condescension. Rapidly cooling water drips down the front of the kitchen sink and soaks the front of your shirt despite your best efforts, and you take a moment to unstick the cloth from your skin with water-wrinkled fingers.

The fabric is sopping in some places still, heavy and discolored with dish water despite the wringing you give it. The rain outside seems to somehow add to that feeling of dampness despite you having not been outside all day, the pitter-patter of icy droplets battering your window like icecubes caressing your spine.

It's as you lament the condition of your clothes and the weather that the beginnings of a though begins to take root in your mind.

'If only my clothes were made from my quirk.' You thought exasperatedly, not for the first time, while entering the livingroom to watch the rest of the report before you had to do laundry. 'Then I'd never have to worry about wet clothes again.'

On the news Hawks stands before the cameras with his trademark devil-may-care smile on his lips, eyes half-lidded and entire hero persona picture perfect but for the way his clothes seem to sag and darken unevenly from the rain. A more aggressive reporter manages to sneak in a baiting question about the teenager's glaring inexperience in the field and the winged hero quips back in response, water dripping from the tips of his long deflated hair.

He looks miserable standing in the rain, the bright colors so characteristic of him dulled and darkened by the gray overcast, by the rain soaking him to the bone. Even as he's smiling you can tell it doesn't reach his eyes, barely even manages to fully form on his lips as question after intrusive question is hurled at him from the hoard of intent faces. You don't miss the way he glanced to the side occasionally, towards a rail thin man standing quietly beside him, meeting the teen's gaze every time with a narrow-eyed stare.

You don't think you've ever seen Hawks so unhappy before. Not on the battle field with hellfire raining down around him, nor any of his interviews with a panel of venomous snakes breathing down his back. Not even when he'd misstepped during his first solo multi-villian battle and had more than half of his left wing exploded right off his back.

No. You'd never seen him looking so miserable before and more than anything that quiet discontent in his eyes racked your soul with a sad, profound longing. Without conscious thought the tips of your fingers begun to warm and turn black, dark roots creeping up the veins in your fingers and fading at the knuckles. Moments later the beginnings of your silk spilling forth onto your lap and latching onto your pant legs catches your attention.

It did that from time to time when you got overly emotional. Frankly, the lack of control was embarrassing and never failed to remind you of why you were never able to train it past its current potential. Your doctor had said it was nothing to worry about though, and that you could maintain a normal life even with the occasional accident.

You'd thought about going to a quirk specialist shortly after you'd hit your current limit, but ultimately decided against it when you caught sight of the price tag attached to each visit. You reasoned that even if you managed to start producing more silk there'd be little use for it besides having readily available materials on hand if you ever felt the need to sew. So you dropped the matter entirely and carried on with your life.

Until a year ago, that is, when your whole world came crashing down around you.

You quickly shake those thoughts away, instead focusing on detaching the silk from your clothes before they can weave into the fabric they're touching. Yet another oddity you've had to learn the hard way. For the first twenty or so seconds before it cools and solidifies, the silk will try to latch onto any available surface and meld to it. Honestly, it was more annoying than anything and sometimes you regretted not being able to get it checked out by a specialist.

It took a few moments but you eventually managed to get the silk separated into their individual strains. They're each around ten inches long, though some had managed to stick together at the ends to more than double their length.

Exasperated, you pluck up the longest of the bunch with the tips of your darkened fingers, holding it before you with a frown. The black strands remain stuck together and you knew from experience they'd now be impossible to disconnect.

The flash of red on the television catches your attention for a moment and your sight blurs as it attempts to refocus. In that brief second, however, the black of your silk melded seamlessly into the darkened cloth of Hawk's soaked jacket and undershirt. In that exact moment, the quiet thought came to your mind.

'My quirk has never been useful to me. But maybe, with enough patience and effort, it can be of use to someone who deserves it more than anyone.'

And so begun the trials of your labor. The physical manifestation of your unspoken devotion.

---

Present Day

--

Hawks wasn't sure what expression had managed to slip past his usually perfect control, but whatever it was must have been fearsome indeed because the young researcher before him was sweating bullets beside his mentor. Said mentor was glancing disappointedly at his assistant and had yet to step in, instead opting to shake his head and cross his arms with quiet exasperation.

"So." Hawks begun in a slow drawl, still smiling but for the way his eyes narrowed. "We're just throwing civilian names into hero politics now are we?" The assistant lowered his head, but remained silent. "Making sure to break all those confidential clauses, huh? I've got to admire your spirit though. Go big or go home is the name of the game in this industry, after all." The winged hero clapped a hand over the other's shoulder, making sure to look him right in the eye as he finished. "How's it feel to be the uncontested winner?"

The assistant took a deep, fortifying breath before finally speaking. "I got carried away. My actions were a direct violation of Proper Hero Agency Conduct and I understand there will be repercussions. I-" The young man pauses again, almost breaking eye contact but the hand tightening on his shoulder quickly made him reconsider. "I let my pride get in the way of proper procedure and it's potentially put a civilian in danger." The assistant grit his teeth and closed his eyes. "I didn't win anything. I fucked up. Knew it the moment their name came out of my mouth."

There was a tense silence before Hawks himself broke it with a loud, exaggerated sigh. "It can't be helped I guess. Chicks gotta break a few eggs before they can grow after all." Everyone pointedly ignore the fact the Hawks was only a few years older than the assistant. Most of all the assistant.

The winged hero threw his head back, letting his entire posture slump and his face crumple into an irritated frown. "They're probably having a heart attack right now."

--

You were panicking. Inwardly, for the time being, but you weren't too far from having a total breakdown. For three hours your phone has been blowing up with an unknown number of texts and calls, half of them demanding your compliance and the other your service, all of them wanting your attention. None of them were making much sense.

The bit about various hero agencies wanting you to work for them was clear, what wasn't though was the why in this situation? The only thing you could think of was the uniform you'd given Hawks (you were well aware you'd probably been on camera the entire time you'd been near Hawk's agency), but such things were dime a dozen in the hero industry and you didn't believe for a moment Endeavor's agency was hurting for costume designers.

The next thing you could think would prompt this response was that there was something about your quirk you were unaware of. Something, apparently, heros deemed valuable enough to look for. What it was you weren't sure, but you knew enough about yourself to know your quirk, while fairly simplistic, was still an unknown to you in many regards.

Still, the sudden influx of unexpected messages was stressful enough. Add that to the fact most of them were from distinguished hero agencies with members that could literally demolish mountains and you were feeling more than a little pressured. Even a little frightened by some of the more demanding messages you'd managed to glimpse before retreating to the other side of the workshop.

You could barely move your furniture across the room most days, what could you do if the likes of Best Jeanist or Gang Orca decided to pay you an unexpected visit?

Okay, that was the panic talking. Not only was that scenario completely illogical, the jab at Gang Orca for having a stereotypical villian aesthetic was uncalled for. Time to recenter yourself and get some much needed fresh air into your lungs before you start accusing All Might of fraud or some such nonsense.

It takes a few minutes to get the muscles in your back to loosen and your mind to stop spitting out half-coherent worst case scenarios, but you manage with a few intense rounds of breathing exercises. By the end of the ordeal you're exhausted, even a little sore from the lack of air before hand. You're functioning again though, and that's what matters.

Now in better control of your thoughts the most obvious solution to your current predicament comes to you with little prompting. You don't even hesitate. There is not a single doubt in your mind as to what you must do.

This is your chance to finally pay back the man you owe your life too. This may very well be the only chance you'll ever get and you've learned that life is far too short to squander the moments that matter.

Your slip on your coat and gloves, making a few last minute adjustments around the shop before stepping out the door and locking up behind you. With your purse on your shoulder and your eyes lit with hopeful determination you walk out into the world with renewed purpose.

You leave the phone.

Nothing they have to offer matters. It never has and you doubt it ever will. They could offer you jewels and they'd collect dust, the world and it'd keep on spinning. They could grant you eternal life and you'd have given it up in a heartbeat for this one chance.

He's the only one that matters. The only one whose attention means something.

He is your priority. He is your only priority.

[kuningannasansa]

A musketeers rewatch (that nobody asked for) 1x07

Here we go, my least favorite episode of the whole show excluding season three which I didn’t watch! If you have even a passing fondness for Ninon, I suggest you look away :)

We start with a royal procession through the crowd and there are quite a lot of waving people there. If they can fill the streets with extras for scenes like that, why can those same extras not be used for the court scenes?

Priest whose name I have forgotten is being robbed. The musketeers rush in to help. 

Meanwhile, a crazy girl tries to get close to the queen and ends up being ran over by her carriage. If this is meant to be some Emily Davison analogy, it sucks!

The dead lunatic’s name is Therese and she wanted to give the Queen a note. Constance takes it and says “Fleur, what does this mean?” Am I supposed to take from that that she cannot read for herself? Cause a merchant’s wife definitely, definitely would know how to do that. 

Fleur is nowhere to be seen, however.

“This is an age of glorious discovery!” says Ninon. “Galileo observes the moons of Jupiter... But what is the role of women in this age of wonder?” - well, gee, i don’t know Ninon. Maybe you could have mentioned some female scientists of the era in addition to Galileo? Catherine de Parthenay, anyone? Or Marie Fouquet? Hell, Ninon de l'Enclos, my atheist queen, for whom this Ninon is doubtless named, was a notable woman in her own right! But no, we have to make women look more oppressed than they actually were to make this waste of space look more awesome. 

“My women of Paris, seek your own enlightenment!” - wrong era!

Therese, an orphan from a humble background, wanted to hand a petition to the queen about women’s education.  

“If she was an illiterate orphan she could not have written this. It is misguided but not unintelligent.” - says Richelieu. And indeed he turns out to be right. She didn’t write it. Which is fucking bizarre. 

Anne asks him if he doesn’t favor women’s education and he replies: “I admire learning wherever it is to be found, but this amounts to an attack on the authority of church and state.” Any French history buff know what the actual Richelieu’s thought of women’s education? @tatzelwyrm​? I’m gonna start a biography on him soon, but not until I’m done with this rewatch.

Ninon barges in past the guards and yells “stay out of my way, I will address the King!”. I’m sure this is meant to make her look badass, but she just comes across like a complete idiot who doesn’t understand that she would do better to follow court protocol, no matter how much she might dislike it, if she wants to achieve her goals.    

Luckily for her she’s pretty, so the king doesn’t mind.

“I want to know why this tragedy happened. If your guards are to blame I want them punished.” And then she gives Treville a dirty look! How dare you, you waste of skin and oxygen! Don’t you dare blame Treville for this mess! 

“You knew this lunatic?” - lmao, Richelieu!

Therese was the daughter of Ninon’s servant whom Ninon decided to educate. So she was educated, she COULD have written the petition herself. But she did not. Because when Richelieu says “she wrote this and was killed trying to give it to the Queen” Ninon screeches: “Don’t be ridiculous! She didn’t write it, I did!” And I mean, who exactly is looking down on servant girls here and saying it’s ridiculous to expect them to write something intelligent. It’s not Richelieu. 

But more importantly, WHY?? If Ninon wrote it, why couldn’t she hand it to the Queen? Why did this poor girl have to die? This is so, so stupid! I mean, okay, maybe Therese heard Ninon speak well of the queen and got the idea to hand her the petition on her own, without being told by Ninon to do so. But why did she have it in the first place, if it’s Ninon’s petition?

“Apparently the Comtesse de Laroque believes herself above the normal laws and conventions of society.” ´- well that’s an understatement.  

“The treasury is bankrupt and the country needs a new navy. Ninon has the wealth to provide it.” And that is why Richelieu sends Milady into the salon to find something to use against her. These two are so good in this, I love their scenes together! Pity about the rest of the episode. 

Richelieu is now freaking out about lesbians and Milady is just like “really, dude? really?”. I love her!

“Ninon must pay up or face destruction, I want every last penny from her!” - so it was not his intention to kill her, just to get the money. Interesting.

Fleur’s father is Bonacieux’s cousin. I love that, the commoners having family connections and support circles of their own.

The robbed priest is called Luca! Richelieu is “delighted to see him”, apparently, cause they’re old friends. And Louis isn’t, because he wrote a pamphlet arguing that Kings should bow down to the Pope’s authority. 

“We can’t have a comtesse abducting young women and spiriting them away to her boudoir!” - Oh, Richelieu! Do calm down.

It’s odd watching Richelieu try to use homosexuality to take Ninon down while shipping Trevilieu thou. 

Athos barges into Ninon’s salon, demanding to know where Fleur is and Milady very discreetly hides behind a pillar. Lol! 

And Ninon starts hitting on Athos immediately. She tells him that she’s often thought he’s handsome but the “melancholy aspect” to his looks is “probably only mental vacancy”. Who taught you how to flirt? Why must you be so abrasive and confrontational all the time? Like really, I get she’s meant to be a Strong Woman Who Don’t Take No Shit TM, but she just comes across like a loudmouth. 

Athos likes it thou!

“Forgive our intrusion-” “I will not forgive it!” - Jesus Ninon, it’s just a figure of speech, a polite gesture. People use these in conversation sometimes. She’s so unnecessarily rude smh.

Aramis says he “gladly acknowledges the superiority of the female sex” and I throw up in my mouth a little. That’s not feminism, that’s slimy!

D’artagnan: “If that wasn’t flirting, I don’t know what is.”  Porthos: “Rubbish! She can’t stand him.”  Aramis: “One day I’ll sit down and explain women to you.” - cause we’re all the same and no means yes, right writers?

Luca: “His holiness is concerned about the direction of French foreign policy.” Richelieu: “Well the pope is Spain’s performing monkey.” - he really is so funny! I know I keep saying that, but he is!

Also, YAY politics! Intelligent dialogue! I love this scene so much!

“In matters of religion I defer to Rome, in all else I am my country’s servant” - lol, Richelieu inventing the separation of church and state

Luca: “Is this your final word on the subject?” Richelieu: “It is.” - and that right there is where Luca decides to kill him. The actor plays it really well, knowing it’s coming I can see the briefest moment of regret in his eyes, but without hindsight I wouldn’t notice anything. And he gives Richelieu the poisoned gift. 

Also, isn't it the same guy who plays Margaret’s new man in Harlots? 

Athos says that Therese and Fleur were so far below Ninon in status that they were not in a position to make choices of their own free will. Which is fuckign stupid. But Ninon saying that she views all women as equal regardless of their birth is equally moronic. I mean, sure, they should be, but in reality they’re not and ignoring that doesn’t help anyone. And Athos does point out that Ninon’s money and position gives her certain privileges, but it sits wrong coming from him and not from Porthos or Milady or Constance, who are from poor/less wealthy backgrounds. That said, this is still one of the few semi intelligent scenes in this whole episode, so whatever. At least someone said it. 

Now she kisses him and invites him to dine! And he just looks sad.

Luca tells Richelieu to “deal with” Ninon “firmly”, cause the Pope is dying and Richelieu could be the next Pope if he shows himself a strong defender of the church against “heresy”. What heresy thou? Women learning to read? Lol, that’s so cartoonishly evil and ahistorical, but whatever. This at least explains where Richelieu’s desire to have her burned came from.

Richelieu: “I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a heretic.” Luca: “A woman who openly defies God's laws, what other word is there?” - what laws thou? what has she done, other than hold some salon meetings, as every other noblewoman was doing at the time?

Richelieu promises to consider his options and Luca tells him to pray to the poisoned bone for guidance, lol.

This right here is Richelieu letting personal feelings cloud his judgement, thou! Which he said he has learned no to do. But he allows himself to be carried away with visions of becoming Pope and honestly I don’t see how he can possibly believe that could happen with his foreign policy and how hated he is by the Vatican, as stated in this very scene.  

Milady and Ninon! I love that scene! Ninon clearly thinks she’s super special because she “takes the initiative” by kissing men instead of waiting to be kissed. She’s so damn smug about it! And Milady is just like “oh I could never be so bold” and I swear I can hear her laughing internally! 

And she very cleverly charms Fleur’s location out of Ninon!

Athos’s idea of a first date is the morgue. Charming.

Athos saying that Ninon is responsible for what happened to Therese because she gave a lowborn girl an education doesn’t sit well with me. Classist ass! But she is responsible for not thinking of Therese beyond how daring and adventurous and fun and positively scandalous it would be to educate a servant girl and then not bothering to care for her when she got bored. Cause if she had done, Therese could have come to her with her plan and she could have prevented her death. Because yes, regardless of her education, her background predisposed Therese to be naive about the King and Queen and how petitions work. Where was Ninon in all this, when a girl under her charge decided to do this foolish thing that cost her her life? Because if you want to be someone’s teacher you do have a duty of care. In short, Ninon is a classist ass as well! They’re perfect for each other!

So Luca’s stolen bag is in the morgue with the body of the thief who stole it. And Athos promises to send for it in the morning. I know it’s CSI: Musketeers and all, but why was it not delivered to Luca the moment it was found, lol? He’s a pretty important guest at the palace and it’s his property. 

Athos agrees with Ninon that marriage is a curse. LOL!

Ninon’s reason for not marrying is that she does not want a husband to own her wealth and body. Makes sense and that’s why many independently wealthy women chose to stay unmarried. Just pointing out the few things that make sense.

“You are a rebellious woman” - oh good, we managed to squeeze the title of the episode into the dialogue! 

Aramis just tossed a red guard out of Ninon’s house. Can’t tell if he’s dead or not, but certainly unconscious. 

There’s fighting. The red guards have swords, the musketeers have books. Athos screams “where is your authority for this!?!” - well, the Cardinal, I’d assume, since they are his guards. Oh bear of very little brain!

Fleur and some other runaway girls are found sleeping in a secret chamber and Ninon is arrested for abducting them.

Athos is all like “you said she wasn’t here” and Ninon tries to explain that Fleur did not want to be found and begs “make them stop” to which Athos replies “sorry, I can’t”, his voice and face making it very clear that he doesn’t want to. Because a woman lied to him! This is the worst crime! Really Ninon is lucky she’s being arrested right now, otherwise she’d end up swinging from a tree.

“Four young women! In their nightwear! I can only speculate as to the horrors they have endured!” - Richelieu really has a bee in his bonnet about lesbians. The days before p*rnhub must have been hard for a catholic cardinal. 

Luca is even worse thou! “Your majesty is joking but Satan is real! And his female familiars are everywhere amongst us.” Jesus christ guys, calm down! Have a wank or something!

“She had the girls, she lied, she brought her fate on herself.” - Oh shut up Athos! Not everything is about you and your relationship issues! As Aramis points out. Thank you, Aramis! And I never believed I’d ever say that.

Ninon/Aramis  > > > > > > > > > > Ninon/Athos

Aramis gives Ninon the cross Anne gave him. This is quite sweet!

“It’s not so easy when you don’t have money” Constance says and she is right. But it’s like the show is saying that the only way women can be independant is if they are independently wealthy like Ninon. But that’s not really true, Fleur could get a job such as a seamstress or pharmacist or grain merchant or actress or even as a secretary now that she knows latin and greek thanks to Ninon. Women did have jobs in 17th century France and even belonged to guilds etc. Not saying that Fleur would not be more financially secure still with a husband, but if she really doesn’t want that she has options and I don’t like how this supposed “feminist” episode constantly erases women’s actual history. 

Fleur’s father rages “what does she need an education for? She’ll be a seamstress until she’s married and then she’ll be a dutiful wife and mother.” But if he is Bonacieux’s cousin then they are in the same social class, that is to say, the merchant class. And merchant women had to keep their husbands’ shops when their husbands were away. They needed to know how to read and write and do sums. They needed this to be an attractive marriage prospect to a husband of their own social class! 

And the father wants to hit Fleur and D’artagnan all heroically threatens him. How boring!

Richelieu: “Many of our young women are educated. It’s not something we’re ashamed of.” Fleur: “Not just embroidery and sewing.”  Me: “WELL OF COURSE NOT!!!”

Then Fleur says Ninon taught them the “secrets of our bodies” and Richelieu is a hound on the scent!

“Be quiet or you’ll be gagged!” - Again Armand, this is neither the time nor the place to indulge your kinks. 

ENTER MILADY! 

She does such a brilliant job of her testimony! This is again her lying about rape and I talked about before why that is bad, but in this case I don’t mind cause it’s for state reasons and doesn’t in any way invalidate her own story the way the thing with D’artagnan does.

Athos completely LOSES HIS SHIT!! Not doing the defence any good there, buddy!

The look she gives him as she walks out is priceless!

Queen Anne to the rescue, bringing clemency from Louis! Clever girl, must have manipulated it out of him! Season 1 Anne was intelligent.

And Ninon ruins it by saying: “I have never consorted with the devil until this moment. I am looking at him.” To which Richelieu replies: “Condemned from her own mouth.” As any person with half a brain would. Jesus christ Ninon, you should have been gagged! For your own safety! 

And then Richelieu stops breathing! And we get Treville’s reaction to it, thank you camera people! Thou Treville mostly just looks confused, like “what is that drama queen doing now?” 

Now he’s twitching! And I’m sorry but it looks hilarious.

Aramis carries him to bed on his back and puts a hand over his mouth. I’m not sure that helps with the breathing issues... 

Louis pushes Aramis out of the way and cries “please don’t die! please don’t die!” aawwwwwwwwwww!

Aramis really saves his life here, huh.

Anne is briefly jealous about the cross and asks Aramis if Ninon is his lover. Lol! She never expected him to stalk her for the rest of her life, she fully expected him to keep lovers.  

Luca: “Satan turned his blood to acid at her command!” Porthos: “We’ll add Satan to the list of suspects.”

Fleur: “You think I poisoned him?” Constance: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard even by musketeer standards.” - THANK YOU CONSTANCE!

Fleur is to be married to a 40 year old butcher. Poor girl!

“Was it you?” - LOL!

“Half the doctors say you’re doomed, the other half claim you’ll make a full recovery. There’s a lot of professional pride at stake.” - Milady is very funny too! But I’ve always known that! 

“Whatever happens to me, I want you to extract this confession from Ninon.” - translation: it doesn’t matter if I die, the main thing is that France gets that navy. For France, always. I’m amazed by how much he trusts Milady here thou.

Milady thinks the kneebone of St. Anthony is gross and “as much use as the doctors”. Bless her!

Constance very sweetly talks Fleur’s father out of forcing her to marry. Go Constance!

Ninon: “There is nothing worse than a woman who betrays her own sex” Milady: “I can think of a few things, but let’s not argue.” - THIS!! This is my favorite part of this whole miserable episode, because yes, with her background she can think of things Ninon couldn’t possibly imagine. It’s also a fuck you to that “don’t encourage girl on girl hate” line terfs and white feminists always hide behind when they get called out on their bullshit, though this wasn’t the point here. I love how she doesn’t even explain, too. Let’s not argue, cause what’s the point. You’ll never get it.

I do want to stress that Ninon is not wrong for educating other women and she has been unjustly condemned (althou I would argue that she might not have drawn Richelieu’s ire if she went about it in a more subtle, less smug way, for the safety of the girls she teaches if not for her own). But Milady is employed by the First Minister of France and is doing her job here, a job which she depends upon for her own independence and safety. As she says, Ninon didn’t do anything to her, she’s just a victim of circumstance. 

“If you don’t confess, the women of your salon will burn in your place. Surely you wish to save the lives of your accomplices in Satan?” - Milady does a good job of selling it, but if you think about it, that makes no sense. These women have already been publicly proclaimed Ninon’s victims. And if they have legal trouble with burning her alone, how would they manage a whole bunch of them, most of whom are also high ranking noblewomen?

Ninon falls for it thou. Fail!

Richelieu orders Ninon burned and Milady says that the Queen and King won’t like it. Richelieu replies that: “she’s irrelevant and a new navy will soothe his dismay.” He’s really underestimating season 1 Anne here. But season 2 will prove him right, sadly.

“The kingdom of heaven is a dream. Our only life is here.” - Go Milady!

Richelieu says he won’t burn her for heresy but to be careful cause “one day someone else might” and idk, but it comes across like pretty friendly advice, considering what he’s currently doing with Ninon. 

Now he worries he might go to hell! And Milady says he’s already there, lmaoo! I LOVE THIS SCENE!!

They go to the morgue to retrieve Luca’s bag and discover that the thief was poisoned in the same manner as the Cardinal. Thus the plot is uncovered.

“Open his mouth!” “You open his mouth!”

Luca kills a red guard and is about to kill Richelieu (who fights him with a fork!) when the musketeers burst in. And Richelieu curses them for being late!

Richelieu had apparently worked out that it was Luca who was trying to kill him at some point during the night. No idea how. 

Athos begs for Ninon’s life while the pire is already burning. And Richelieu agrees cause burning her is all very “dark ages”, like he said to begin with. He says he’s not a cruel man, just a practical one. But practicality sometimes requires cruelty. He’s not a sadist thou, that’s what he meant and that’s true. 

Athos drags Ninon off the burning pire. So the great feminist character got duped by Milady and then had to be rescued by her love interest. So good, much feminist. 

“As far as the world is concerned, Comtesse Ninon de Laroque died on that pire today.” Richelieu takes her lands, her property and her money and sends her into exile. Then he threatens to execute her if she ever tells anyone the truth of what happened.

“My voice will never be silenced, but I promise you will never hear it.” - the stupidest line of the whole episode and that’s saying something. Seriously, what does this mean? Your voice was silenced! Richelieu got your wealth which you could have used to educate more women. You were completely defeated. Like really, who is the idiot who wrote this? And what made them think this is in any way empowering or even just a satisfactory conclusion to Ninon’s acr?? Ughhhh!!

I do love Richelieu and Milady getting a rare victory thou! 

“Nothing, no person, no nation, no god will stand in my way.” - HOT!

Aramis gets his cross back lol. Otherwise it would have burned. 

Lmao, Richelieu sends Luca’s ashes to rome with a threat to the Pope.

And Capaldi pronounces “Richelieu” in a very strange way. 

Milady: “You do realise you’ll never be Pope?” Richelieu: “It’s an Italian club and largely a clerical position. I prefer something with a little more influence.” - L! O! L!

Ninon plans to open a school for poor girls and be a teacher. Well, idk, I hope she does a better job of it than she did with Therese.

Athos asks Ninon if “Madame de la Chapelle” ever told her anything about herself. And Ninon is like “so you did know her after all?” and he says “in another life” and she warns him to be careful because she has the cardinal’s protection so “a blow against her is a blow against him” and idk, does she realize that Milady was Athos’s wife here? Is that how I’m supposed to read it? He did tell her before that he used to be married.

Then she kisses him and tells him she could have loved a man like him. And she’s just way more into him than he is into her.

Lmaooo, Fleur is not forced to marry and can continue with her education and she’s “sure” that the woman who convinced her father was Ninon. And Constance doesn’t correct her and doesn’t even want the credit, but I’m mad lol, as if Ninon even remembers you exist Fleur!

D’artagnan gives Constance the credit, at least! And then comes his declaration of love, which is actually very sweet and I really liked them together in season 1! Constance is so beautiful in this scene too! It’s very well lit and she’s wearing that lovely dress!

Aaaaand we fade to black on some PG13 kissing and groping! Sorry, this was very long, but there was a lot to complain about.

In conclusion, awful! Like, the thing that bothers me the most is that this token girl power episode would not even have been radical in 1970, never mind today. The message is simply that women should have an education, which no sane person today would disagree with. It’s very safe and bland. And erases women’s real history in the process. It’s almost as if these male writers are congratulating themselves “weren’t things ever so bad Back Then, we are so much more progressive now”, instead of doing the truly radical thing and showing women’s real history, showing women in positions of power running their literary salons and not getting burned for it, showing women as independent businesswomen with an education! Why not give Bonacieux a female rival in the cloth business? Why not go deeper than “women are human beings” and give the episode a truly radical message that still resonates today. After all, we might be ever so educated now but it’s not like women have achieved equality. More on that in this old post: https://kuningannasansa.tumblr.com/post/126434697304/the-problem-of-ninon 

Anyway, I really hope the next episode will be better! 

Red Guards killed: 1 or 2, impossible to really tell

Ladies killed: Therese

Best Dressed: Ninon. She did have some pretty dresses. 

[blackenedinsomnia]

The Runaway Circus

Hey, it’s me again. I’ve just finished this chapter for this Victorian/Mystical Kirimina AU. As always I've had a delight writing this I hope you all enjoy! 

Most of my inspiration came from @skeletordraws picture: http://skeletordraws.tumblr.com/post/177491877978/its-timmmeeee-its-kirimina-appreciation-day

And some inspiration from my story that I’ve been writing as well. 

________________________________________________________________

Waves crashed on the murky docks, orange lanterns illuminated the streets as the sun arose from the clouds. Kirishima laid there on his bed, the white creased sheets slung over his body. His head buried in his left pillow, saliva patches covering the other pillow. The wind howled and barrelled through the cracked and broken window, sending the thin curtains flapping frantically. His floor covered with bottles of rum and ale, whistled as wind skipped on the neck of the bottle.

A foghorn had blasted through the harbour, knocking over bottles; Kirishima leapt up out of his bed. His mind ringing and his senses rattling around like a broken toy. Falling out of his bed he slowly shuffled his way to his bathroom and clicked on the light.

Using the sink he hoisted himself onto his legs he took a thorough look at his groggy appearance. His white shirt he was wearing was drenched in grease, oil and vomit. His eyes were black rimmed and a five o’clock was ever present. “What the hell happened last night?” he whispered as the overhead light flickered on and off. “Well at least I have today off” he smiled with a hint of regret from the previous night.

With a change of clothing, he sat down on the chair; it creaking with his weight. He sat there as his clock chimed to the eighth hour of the morning, his teeth biting into the stale bread that was his breakfast with a hard crunch. He unravelled the newspaper and started to read the headlines. They ranged from a masked vigilant hanging people in the streets from the streetlamps, the latest football scores or even advertisements for a travelling circus.

His morning routine was interrupted by a knock on his apartment door. “Come in, the lock is already broken anyway” Kirishima yelled. The door slowly creaked open and a sluggish, rough looking man came walking inside. He had a black waistcoat and a white shirt on, with dark navy trousers and mucky Oxfords.

“So, you got home all right then?” TetsuTetsu exclaimed

“Of course, I did, I’ve been through worse” he chomped down on the last bit of his morning meal. “So, what brings you to my humble abode” he gestured his hands stretching out around his apartment.

“Well it’s your free day you up to anything?” he asked pulling the other chair out and slipping into it.

“You assumed I would be?” he chuckled, folding his paper up and slapping it on the table.

“Well I was thinking of going to the Circus later on?” he asked taking out a pocket knife and orange from his trouser pocket and started to peel it.

Kirishima sat there for a moment and rubbed his beard “It does seem to pique my interest, but I think I’ll need another thing….”

“They’ll have beer there!” TetsuTetsu squelched eating his orange slices.

“Okay I’m sold, when is the event taking place?” Kirishima grinned

“The Circus will be in town at seven at night and then the main event will be starting at ten.” TetsuTetsu lifted himself out of his chair. “So, you’ll have some time to kill my friend,” he said throwing Kirishima another orange out of his pocket. “I’ll meet you outside of the Circus’s entrance, don’t be late” he yelled walking toward Kirishima’s apartment door.

“See you there buddy!” he cheered back.

Time passed throughout the day, and the night was finally upon Kirishima; nine o’clock. He walked down the cobbled street in brown oxfords, almost as similar as TetsuTetsu. With that, he wore maroon tartan trousers with a white shirt accompanied with a red tie.

The centre of the street was buzzing with stores selling unique and exotic foods. Whale burger, frog legs, toffee apples, all the vendors were yelling for their time in the spotlight.

The echo’s of flutes, trumpets and drums came from the glowing orange brilliance of the Circus.

Kirishima got closer to the entrance of the venue and stood there in awe. Acrobats spun sparkling rings interchanging between their arms to their legs, to their heads to their hips. Muscular me stood on a podium flexing their muscles with pride, as flamboyant dances handed out alcohol and food to all the patrons in the venue.

“Well, well I thought I was going to be the one that was late!” TetsuTetsu yelled

“Thought I would surprise you” he laughed back, hugging his best friend.

“Now we have an hour to spare what do you want to do?” TetsuTetsu said pulling in his friend closer, moving closer into the mouth of the circus.

“How about a drink? Some food?” Kirishima asked pushing him away “Do you think we have time for both?” he smiled

“Maybe…” TetsuTetsu grinned. Half an hour had passed, and they were separated. Kirishima was lost in a crowd of colours and entertainers. His head was a little dazed from the drinks he had beforehand.

“You look lost mister, you need some help?” a female voice whispered in his ear. A scent of strawberries wafted passed him as the women spun around him, in an elegant and seductive dance. The woman had a veil covering her hair and her mouth. She was wearing dancers dress, ribbons were attached to her wrists and her waist; they seemed to move in unison with her dancing.

“Yeah I was looking for where the event is?” his eyes fixated on this woman.

“If you just keep walking straight, you’ll find the tent honey…” she stopped talking and dancing all together. “Oh, you like what you see mister?” she grabbed his tie and pulled him in closer to her “Say you don’t look too shabby yourself” Kirishima blushed almost redder than his hair. “Well you know where I will be…” she whispered

“Wait what’s your name?” he stuttered as she gently pushed him away.

“My name is the “Pink Succubus, I’ll see you at the show” she giggled blowing a pink cloud of smoke onto Kirishima’s face. He wafted away the smoke from his face, and she was gone.

“What a weird woman” he whispered under his breath walking toward the tent.

He clambered his way to the tent, people were funnelled in through the two spinning gates as workers handed out tickets. “Hey, Kirishima!” TetsuTetsu yelled, one hand in the air and the other a stein of beer; it’s head overflowing, spilling onto the ground.

“Ah, thank god…” he exhaled meeting up with his friend in the line, his cut in was met with drunken heckling and disgruntled looks. “I thought I would get lost here,” he said supporting his weight on his shoulder.

“Hey buddy you don’t look too great, booze not going down too well?” TetsuTetsu

“No TetsuTetsu, a woman with gorgeous pink skin and she smelled like strawberries and she was dressed like this dancer.” Kirishima stopped with TetsuTetsu putting his hand over his mouth.

“It’s the booze” he groaned.

They finally entered the red and white striped tent; the tension was rising as well as the excitement. Four rows of red leather chairs wrapped around the stadium. The arena’s ground was covered in sand and a red podium sat there illuminated in a spotlight, another span of light came from where the entertainers would enter the stage from. The two men sat down in their seats, trying to get comfy.

The light in the middle had dimmed and a voice boomed over the speakers attached to the support beams. “Ladies and Gentlemen, what you’re ‘bout to see will fill your mind with spectacle and wonder!” the man boomed; smoke filling the arena’s centre. “Prepare to feast your eyes on air defying acrobatics, wondrous creatures and daring devils! I welcome you!” a flash of light filled the centre blinding the audience as the smoke shot up into the air forming into a dragon-like shape.

The dragon hung from the roof of the tent, it’s talons gripping into the support beams, the wood cracking, splinters falling from it. An ear-piercing roar, its eyes and the open mouth glowed a malice red., shook the tent to its core.  The dragon released its grip and crashed down into the floor a cascading wave of wind and dissipated away.

There stood a muscular man in a red jacket, under that was a cream waistcoat and white shirt. Black trousers and a black top hat also accompanied the outfit. He had jet black hair with a rugged face with a scraggly beard. He wore a devious smile which looked like an alligator’ and a black eyepatch covered his right eye.

“To your night of Hell!” he cackled fire erupting from the entrance. Dancers ran out onto the performance grounds and started to get into position. A marching band followed soon after playing an intense tune, firing up the crowd. Kirishima was fired up, he had never felt like this for years; a burning passion was awoken.

The performance had finished a couple of minutes, it felt like a flash and bang of pure ecstasy. Trapeze artists followed next, then fire breathers and then it happened. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you have a wonderful time, I know I have” he chuckled, his grin still sharp as a knife.

“Here is a lil’ demon I found a while back that was just a paper on the streets.” Smoke started to slowly crawl its way towards the stage. “A sublime, delicious, supple young thang; that’ll leave you begging for more” a black silhouette emerged from the smoke. Kirishima’s eyes opened, and the woman waltzed out.

Her face was still covered by a black and red kabuki mask. Two horns extended from the mask and it had a devious grin; it is bearing its teeth. She wore a full black dress; red dancing shoes and red arm high gloves finished the dress. “I introduce to you, The Pink Succubus!” the ring leader yelled.

Her feet were dragging along the sand, her thighs moving side-to-side. Her body was like a well-oiled machine as she found her rhythm. She was a natural, like a bird taking flight she glided through the stage, kicking up sand with her toes; exaggerating her movements even more.

The smoke started to form into a stringy wisp-like creature and started to weave in and around her body adding to the performance. She came closer and closer to Kirishima’s side, still dumbfounded by her beauty.

Her tracks were halted by his flamboyant red hair. She paused for a moment, everything seemed to slow down. Her body now shrouded in smoke, she studied him; staring at her. She slightly removed her mask, her amber iris pierced him. Kirishima started to sweat, his gaze fixated on her visible eye.

His reaction making her chuckle, placing the mask back on her face the smoke enveloped her entirely. Smoke moved back into the middle and started to fill the room again. Kirishima frantically scanned the area for the woman, she couldn’t be seen.

The music started to pick-up and rise in intensity. Suddenly out of the smoke two big, beady, orange eyes with black slits for pupils; stared back at the crowd. A thunderous roar blew the smoke away, stood in the middle of the stage was a wondrous creature. A head of a lion, the wings of a bat and the tail of a scorpion. The pink girl sat on top of the creature stroking its mane.

“Hiya!” she yelled cracking the reigns on the creature, its wing spanned and flapped majestically; sending clouds of sand scattering everywhere around the stage. Kirishima covered his eyes as he watched the beast fly up into the air. They reached the top of the tent at their top of a loop. The girl let go of the rains and blew a kiss with both of her hands. Suddenly with a snap of her fingers, they dissipated into pink rose petals.

The crowd cheered and applauded, some even tried to grab the petals. Kirishima was still stunned, he looked at his trousers petals covered them as well as the floor. Brushing the petals off, he noticed a piece of purple card on his leg. He turned it over and read it. “Come and find me” signed off with a heart. Kirishima looked to his right and saw his friend snoozing in his chair.

“Man, even with all that noise he didn’t wake up, he must really like sleeping” Kirishima joked to himself. And with that, he got up his seat and went for the backstage area.

[sidpah]

No Time Like the Present

Orange light fills the horizon as I collapse, having fought against these rigid bars for nearly an hour, the way I do, on and off every day, as I have for weeks, and having found it, as I do every day, utterly hopeless, I now lean against those same bars for support...

Stuck in a cage made for a man half my size, vomiting from dysentery… This island is not very large, but I could be lost here for life, short as it may now be… I could easily become one of the growing statistics who vanish without a trace…

I’ve been privy to much worse than the torments of agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, or the occasional psychotic episode, (worse even than the Judge’s vile display, in fact,) while in the care of these mercenaries… Endless black-hooded torture routines perpetrated in the name of peace and safety… I realize in this, at least, the incredible strength of empathy… Young man, stripped naked by clean green fatigues looking out of place in these stark walls, blood streaks and thick black snakes of dried shit smearing the floor… Rough pockmarks in those walls matching the deep acne-cratered skin on the face of the soldier clamping tight the young man’s wrists. Fingers sunk deep in a can of congealed bacon fat saved from dozens of high lipid breakfasts, another uniformed sociopath lubricates the shaft of a long thin light bulb… The metal end has been delicately removed and the tube filled with tanturi, a traditional thick habanera sauce that locals pour on everything… Black electrical tape seals the vial closed… A woman, short blond hair, a sick puppy-throwing smirk on her face, spreads the prisoner’s cheeks wide, one hand separating pale pillow of flesh, a few feeble hairs in tight anxious spirals, his puckered sphincter exposed and cold and significantly hairier than the surrounding skin; the woman, the mercenary, the soldier, the callous subhuman thing, inserts the lubricated capsaicin-filled bulb deep into the victim. The pleasure she takes in this is a clear indication that she’s conquering an old demon with his grinning mask hung over her own… Bulb fully submersed, they leave the poor captive to his own devices… The mercenaries pretend to retreat, but I know they’re rushing to grab a seat, their asses full of nothing volatile or corrosive, to watch through a two-way mirror built into the far wall as the young prisoner’s face betrays every panicked, agonized, miserable thought in his thoroughly distraught mind. He remains standing, hunched over, not sure what, if anything, to do… His hands are bound tightly in front of his exposed crotch. The bulb is completely sunk inside his body, so retrieval is an obvious impossibility… The crux is that if he sits or makes too sudden a movement, decisive or otherwise, even to the extent of attempting to squeeze out the foreign object, the bulb will shatter and not only shred, but acid-burn his colon in what could only be some of the most ferocious pain imaginable… I imagined. Thinking about his predicament made my ass hurt. I felt it. I felt all that he must’ve been going through… And I realized in this way, that if I choose to picture happy, content, enlightened people, I could perhaps empathize my way to liberation, or at least to a relative semblance of peace… And I now wish I could’ve shared that wisdom with him… Sometimes the price of discovery is quite steep…  

 Footsteps are approaching. I close my eyes already knowing it’ll be that tiny man in black uniform bearing a plate of something so foul I’d rather eat my own diseased diarrhea than one putrid spoonful… A bony hand on my shoulder… fingers long, each knuckle protruding from skin… I open my eyes, eased by his touch… the Healer… His mask removed, a thin blue flame tattooed from his collarbone to a white flicker just beneath his left eyelid… His is a face that could’ve been forged of clay or mortar – no lips, but a place where all features seem to be pulled cascading into a rough gorge of mouth – Grains of sand imbedded in his pores… He sits just outside my cage. In his lap he holds a frail and ancient book… I feel a little better already…

The dry brown page flips with a crisp dignity befitting its age… I look closely at the words written in an unfamiliar script.

“Truth is a Stone,” it says. “He who carries the Stones of Truth aside his triple heart, shall be forever protected, and safe from mortal injury or curse.”

“It no longer tells me anything of value…” echoes through the tiny bones in my ear… Invaders have a way of diluting even the most potent spiritual powers… “I look out upon my people, as they look to me for answers I wish I had…”

Beautiful shapes flicker against palm fronds… He gestures to them…                  

“Reflections of our burning shadows… The malicious winds scatter our ashes, scorching our sacrificial fields… Corn a distant taste in our abscess mouths… Above, the unlined cloud spins its shiny fragile web, making sure every seed has been thoroughly drowned. I would say a prayer for my village, but these barren lands cannot be so easily healed...”

“Have you tried building an army?” I ask.

“As family, we held our ground as best we could against the torrent’s unyielding wail. We even attempted that ancient art of reconciliation… one that was a hallmark of our culture… But their new laws are drafted in oppressed blood, greed of jewels, influence and slow arson fire. Unlike so many, we won’t be tranquilized with their weak dollars and denial…”

I hang my head, shaking it lightly side to side, understanding I have nothing meaningful to say. The motion makes me suddenly seasick. I turn and add a new contribution to the growing puddle of murky fluids beneath me.

“I don’t know who it was who strung gold medallions around their commandant’s necks or what made them feel worthy of our reverence and devotion… standing on our strong backs to reach the highest leaves, while trampling our faces into the mud… They have taken everything… our crops, our treasure, our land, our hope and our gods… Beneath their uniforms, suits, tailored shirts, they learned to hide their unseemly sores, exchanging the humble soul of man for the pride of a philanthropist. These are the gods of our new world… and I spit at every one of them…”

I’m not sure whether he’s finished his thought because before any silence can arise, a soldier rushes up behind him, that black uniform blending in with everything, and bends down to grapple him around his neck. But the soldier never makes it that close. The Healer twists his own neck around with such a sharp snap that my spine aches in sympathy, and flashes a disastrous stare over his right shoulder. The soldier freezes with one foot off the ground and one hand on his rifle… The upper half of his body torques to the right, revolving around his anchored right leg. The soft hollow below the soldier’s ribs lines up above the gun’s muzzle, its stock butted against the ground… and with a blink that I’m not sure his victim has time to register, the Healer sends the man falling in a graceful pirouette that impales him on the barrel of his own rifle. When he turns back to me, there is a sad kindness in his eyes… He acts out of need… He does not enjoy harming others…

I promise to help, whatever help I could be… But first, he must set me free… And help me reclaim the attaché… He nods agreeably. I’ll lead a naïve cabal, I promise him, rending the bricks and smokescreens from the industrialist’s final solution to the rest of Mara’s filthy tricks – (Social activism as a way to purify national karma?) I feel strong and righteous because I know that one incendiary heart is enough to disrupt the status quo; and that a martyr is just an obedient scapegoat for true rebels who know how to band together… How to dismantle the system from within its own walls… There must first be cool awareness of facts to neutralize their malignant deceptions and to stifle the allure of temptation impulse buys from all the coal-black-suited devils who continue to poison the water in this thirsting Promised Land. Who taint all the unsown dreams that burn our palms already blistered from years of fruitless toil...

A flash of spark from his callused palm against the bamboo cage… The feculent slosh around me churns, boiling up with ungodly stench… I can only crawl, but as he lays his hand against my shoulder, my strength begins to return…

We are sailing inches above the ground through a small oasis… Date palms keel over as he passes beneath them, Sun-dried fruit raining down on us like fat cockroaches…  

[ad-drew]

The Shaman Society | An Excerpt, Part 6

Second draft editing continues to go well, chugging along a chapter at a time. I wanted to give another excerpt, but decided to go back a couple of chapters I had initially skipped over so I could share a bit of the lore of this world. Hopefully, some of you find it interesting!

Tagging: @mania-junkie-writes​

If you want to be added to my humble tag list, just send me a message and I’ll be happy to do so!

---

Dozens more buildings greeted her, each one in the same traditional design. Rei spun around with her mouth hanging open, staring like an idiot. No freaking way. She hadn’t dropped in on one random home. This was a city. But why? How? She couldn’t have fallen through her grandparents’ closet and landed on the other side of the world, could she?

“I don’t—this is—” Rei’s words stumbled out in stammering fits. The farther they made their way down the street, the more frantic her gaze darted around to take in everything. “What even—?”

Kaito grinned at her. “Welcome to Hinansho, the one and only city of Takama-ga-hara.”

“Takama-go-what?”

“Takama-ga-hara. Shinto teachings describe it as the dwelling place of the kami, but we’ve come to know it as the Spirit World.”

Rei rubbed her eyes. “Hold up. You’re telling me we’re in a different world?”

“Oh yes, my dear girl. Another world, indeed.”

Several individuals appeared around the street corner. The man was bald with dark skin, and the woman pale with a long coil of sleek black hair. The small child following them shared features of each, his skin a lighter brown than his father. All three were dressed in different colored yukata. Kaito offered a bow to greet them on the way by, and they returned in kind before continuing on their way.

“Takama-ga-hara is a realm outside the human world,” said Kaito, waving for Rei to keep up, “but exists alongside it in unison.”

A thousand denials swam through her head. Thoughts of books, and video games, movies, anime—all the different varieties of “other worlds” she’d ever been exposed to. Fiction. Stories. The sorts of things that didn’t happen in real life. “That’s not—I don’t believe it. How does any of this exist?”

The smile never left Kaito’s face. “I wouldn’t concern yourself so much with the ‘how’ as you should with the ‘why.’ This way.”

He led her to another street, this one crowded with multiple groups of people. Some folk simply passed through, going about their business. Others stood talking together, whether on the street itself or in the gardens outside various buildings. One woman knelt alone in one of the gardens, digging through the dirt with a trowel, while a young boy and girl ran circles around her in an audible, giggly game of tag.

A vast mix of different people dotted the crowd. A squat, tan man dressed in khakis leaned against a tree, talking in a thick Australian accent to a woman wearing a sun dress, who replied in a deep drawl. Another woman wore a dazzling blue qipao, and walked hand-in-hand with a copper-skinned woman dressed in white robes and a hijab. A thickly-moustached man wearing a frock coat and a cowboy hat ran by them with a laugh and a wave.

“And why am I here?” Rei said. “What is this place? Who are all these people!”

Kaito returned a wave to the frock-coated man on the way by. “You’re here because of who your parents were, and their parents before them. What they were a part of.”

Rei stared at him, a cold knot lifting into her chest. “What do you know about my parents?”

“They were friends of mine. As were your grandparents.” At the mention of her grandparents, Kaito’s expression sank. “I am sorry to hear of your loss, Rei. They were good people.”

“My grandparents were, yeah.” She shoved past him, continuing down street. Who the hell was this guy to talk about her family like he knew them? “But my parents abandoned me. Couple of no-good deadbeats. Suppose they ran off and left you behind like they did me, huh? Some friends.”

She heard Kaito sigh and shuffle after her to take the lead. “I should explain. This city you see around you, Hinansho, was built by a group of people who strived to make our world—the human world—a safer place, as we continue today.”

“This all sounds mad. You know that, right?” When he didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes and continued, “And what exactly do you keep the world safe from?”

“From evil. Monsters.”

Rei scrunched her brow, following Kaito around another bend in the street. Evil? Monsters? The hell kind of game was this old man playing at?

Around the bend, they stepped into a sprawling park. Dozens of blooming cherry blossom trees surrounded the open waters of a massive lake. A strong gust rushed through the trees, pulling a swirl of blossoms out onto the water’s smooth, mirrored surface. Like a thousand glittering stars, the petals moved across the water, spinning and circling each other in an unending dance. Like stepping into a goddamn fairytale.

A large square platform suspended over the center of the lake, connected to opposite shores by a pair of arching bridges. Pillars at the corners of the platform supported a sloping roof, offering cover from the beating sun of a cloudless blue sky above. Twelve individuals moved across the platform, each paired with another in a swift exchange punches, kicks, and grapples. Curious. Some kind of martial arts sparring session?

The combatants separated from each other and bowed, before squaring off for another go.  Flashes of blue light erupted in their palms, and Rei’s jaw plummeted to her shoes. Where there had been nothing, each individual now wielded a different weapon—a variety of swords, clubs, staves, and others among them. The combatants reengaged their sparring. Same intensity as before, only this time with everyone armed to the teeth.

Thin air. The weapons had appeared from thin air. Forget fairytales. She’d fallen into freaking Narnia. Unable to stop the words from tumbling out her mouth, she blurted, “What the fuck is all this?”

“We’re shamans, Rei.” Kaito looked to her. Gone was his smile, replaced by a stern, weighty gaze. The kind of gaze that made you shut up and listen. “And this is The Shaman Society, an organization that for centuries has worked to protect the innocent by hunting and eradicating malevolent supernatural forces.”

“W-what kind of forces?”

Rei couldn’t stop staring at the platform. These so-called shamans had begun performing impossible physical feats. Some moved so fast she could hardly see them. One man leaped what had to be fifteen feet straight into the air like some kind of human grasshopper. In one instance, a woman lifted her opponent over her head with all the effort of hoisting a sack of feathers and threw the man over the platform into the water below. The fallen shaman disappeared with a loud sploosh, only to spring into the sky a moment later and land on the railing, no worse for wear.

“Yōkai, to be specific,” said Kaito. “Creatures borne of the underworld, Yomi-no-kuni, where a person’s soul departs to when they die.”

Rei rubbed her palms furiously against her eyes. “Fuck, okay—yōkai? And these are monsters from another world?”

Kaito nodded. “When a person’s soul departs for Yomi, it may become corrupted during the journey. Yomi feeds this corruption, twisting the soul and changing it into a yōkai. Over time, these yōkai can slip into the human world through occasional rifts. The same thing can happen if a person dies with a powerful will to remain on earth, in which case the soul and spirit are unable to move on. The lingering regrets of the spirit corrupt the soul into a yōkai.”

She pressed her palms harder against her face. Any more, and she’d drive her eyeballs back into her skull. “And lemme guess: they kill people?”

“In order to survive in the human world, a yōkai must periodically feed on the life essence of living beings. How much and how often depends on the individual. Either way, The Shaman Society’s job is to stop them.”

Rei finally pulled her hands away, turning a bewildered stare towards Kaito. “So…souls, spirits? Those are real things?”

“Indeed.” Kaito raised his hands, palms flat towards the sky. A blue glow ignited around his right. “Two different natural forces exist within our bodies. The first is our spiritual energy, or ki. Our ki composes our spirits, which gives us our mind, our individuality, and makes us who we are. This same energy composes the entirety of Takama-ga-hara, giving it tangible form.”

Rei stared at the old man’s hand. There it was, glowing of its own accord with no discernible light source. Sure, totally natural. “Uh huh. Ki. And the other?”

A second glow erupted, this one red, surrounding Kaito’s left hand. “On the other side is our life essence, or chakra, which composes our souls. A soul gives the body its breath, its heart, its energy.”

The burning glow danced like fire in her eyes. “Chakra, sure. A little too Naruto, but go on.”

Kaito clasped both hands together. The blue and red light combined, glowing brighter and shifting into a deep, rich purple. “Bring both these forces together, and you get the gift of life. They create a natural balance between worlds. When a person dies, their energies split, with the soul traveling to Yomi, and the spirit here, to Takama.”

Rei took a step back and raked her fingers through her still-damp hair. Alright, so time to throw everything from tenth grade Biology right out the window. Forget the mitochondria. Life was powered by mystical energies. “So, by killing these yōkai you keep some sort of cosmic balance, or whatever?”

“And save people’s lives in the process. A reward all its own.”

Hollowness rooted in her throat, leaving an acrid, metallic taste on the back of her tongue. “Insane” didn’t even begin to cover this. Souls, spirits, shamans, evil monsters, cosmic balance—made for some cool stories, some fun video games maybe, but real life? No freaking way.

She pinched herself—hard, on the back of her neck, to the point a small drip of blood squeezed between her fingers. The resulting twinge of pain brought a disgruntled gasp to her lips. Shit. Okay, not dreaming. Go fucking figure.

[kuh-boose]

eeeey!!! Time to share about my OCs some more! Next in the line up is Kelli Amelia Belrose! Kelli is honestly two separate characters. Her initial appearance in my head began with a little story I started in class in high school because I was bored and have not touched in years now. Initial Kelli, who we’ll call Kelly (with a y), is internally nervous and externally snarky, and has an incredibly dry and kind of self-deprecating sense of humor when she’s not being kind of distant. She’s always frustrated with her situation and has a voice in her head name Aries who doesn’t help. And she’s a badass that’s rather confused and annoyed that she’s a badass. She swears quite a bit.  Current Kelli is placed into the DC universe, particularly with the Red Hood and Batman. This Kelli is far sweeter, almost stubbornly so, despite having undergone a bit more trauma. She’s the one I’m gonna talk about in this post. 

Kelli was born to Coralynn (Cory) Belrose. Before we get to Kelli I wanna take some time on Cory. Cory grew up in France with a devoted father and an absent mother. Her father was military and it led to her moving about quite a bit, though Cory generally didn’t mind. Her father was diligent on six things: kindness, education, patience, discipline, preparedness, and courage. These would be the same things that Cory would desperately instill into her daughter. Cory grew up to be a number of things as it turned out. She simply wasn’t satisfied with just one, but eventually narrowed down to first a ballerina, then into a neuroscientist when she realized ballet couldn’t be maintained into her old age. 

I wish I could say Kelli was a child born of a deep love between two people, but... I’m too twisted for that. 

Cory became the target for, honestly, a man I don’t have a name for yet so we’ll just call him Victor because why not. Victor is... well, incredibly paranoid and his goal in a world filled with super people and super monsters and threats from space and other dimensions was to create a super thing of his own. His plan? Create a human weapon. After years of amassing supplies and staff, he kidnapped some of--what he thought--were the best humans humanity had to offer. Coralynn fit that description. She was taken, impregnated through artificial means, and then gave birth to Kelli. Initially, Kelli was one of the “guinea pigs:” children who were born within the facility and were simply beta testing for the methods they would use on the actual products. This allowed Kelli to remain with her mother in what was essentially an apartment-like prison cell. Kelli was taken, often daily, for experiments and testing. On these trips out of their cell, Coralynn would get Kelli to observe everything she could and report back to her, despite how much it hurt for them to take her (the for the first few months she tried to fight it, but that only resulted in a ton of beatings and tranquilization). By the time Kelli was four Coralynn managed to get them out, though by the time she got to safety and blew the whistle on Victor and his assistants, the facility was destroyed, hundred of charred bodies found at the site. 

Buckle up kids, it only gets worse. 

Coralynn got five years with her daughter. They lived in Paris, moved into different places around the city frequently since Coralynn never really trusted anything, even with personal protection provided by the government. But they loved each other so much. After a rough adjustment period to being back on the outside, Coralynn made certain her daughter had experiences and taught her to be kind and smart and strong and to see hope when everything was all darkness and despair. She kept fresh flowers and plants in their home, read to Kelli every night and climbed trees with her in the park and went to bakeries in the mornings to share the cookies she helped Kelli make the night before with the bakers. They visited libraries frequently and visited Kelli’s grandfather when they could manage it. Cory even maintained a ritual they had in the cell: dancing. 

They had a kind of content bliss like this for five years. One evening Coralynn and one of the personal guards was shot in an alleyway by some men in suits. Kelli tried to pull her mom up until the other guard pulled her away and got her to safety. Despite protective custody, she was kidnapped during a transport and found herself back under Victor's thumb. Victor began using what was left of his guinea pigs and desperately trying to turn them into the final product he had dreamed of for years. Kelli spent years being tortured through cruel experiments and attempts at psychological molding but clung fiercely to the memories and lessons of her mother. These experiments pushed her closer towards the weapon Victor wanted, strong, quick reflexes and stunningly agile, but not significantly past that of a human at peak condition. And for all his efforts Kelli wasn’t budging in her willingness for cruelty (at this point it was mostly out of spite and luckily there was one or two of the staff that managed to be at least little decent to her and encourage her decisions). 

The experiments turned her skin and hair white, drained the color from her eyes from brown to a pale gray, and strengthened her muscles, teeth, bones, and skin. Still, it wasn’t enough. Finally, Victor managed, through a full year process, to give her something no one else had, and that he himself didn’t fully understand (he would never admit he used alien tech to do it). Kelli was “outfitted” with glands (and a chemically changed body that would respond to them) that would produce god-only-knows-what. This mysterious stuff would “charge” Kelli, making her always kind of prominent purple veins glow and produce some kind of energy. In a state when it’s active Kelli is stronger, faster, smarter, and more ruthless, but she overheats quickly, to the point where her skin will begin to burn from the outside in. Luckily it heals relatively quickly but is still excruciating and if she uses it too much she’s out for days in a feverish and unconscious state. No one is sure if it can kill or her not.

All the while, Kelli’s grandfather (Coralynn’s father) is still looking for her, long after everyone else has given up. Eventually, he released a number of the videos of Kelli and her mother had made together on their adventures around Paris, desperate to renew public interest in finding her. Victor the asshole strikes again and poor grandpa dies of a “heart attack” while trying to gather some old acquaintances in Gotham city who can “find just about anyone.” This brings about the attention of the world’s greatest detective, AKA Batman, AKA the ONLY DC SUPERHERO THAT MATTERS (besides all his kids and like, wonder woman). After, y’know, doin what batman does, he and Robin find and take out Victor's operation (though Vic manages to escape with a good chunk of data), with Kelli being the only survivor left, unbeknownst to her (harming the others was a frequent threat used on her). It’s actually Robin (Jason Todd) who finds her in her cell near death after a particularly harsh test and actually convinces Batman to let her stay with them while she recovers. By this time she’s seventeen.

It’s with Jason and Alfred that she kind of reacclimates to being treated like a person, but it doesn’t last all that long before Bruce, with Kelli’s permission, admits her to an organization that will study and try to cure her. As is always the case in comics, that organization turns out to have some not so great backings and Kelli almost finds herself in hot water again, except she escapes this time, only to return to Gotham find out that Jason has died. She kind of just leaves then, a bit numb that her first friend since her kidnapping is just gone she just wanders the world a bit. In true Kelli fashion, she offers help where ever it’s asked of her and this eventually turns into a life of heroism, albeit a very humble and almost sneaky version since she tends to keep a low profile with it.

 Eventually, she meets three important people in her life. Vera Martin, and older woman with an elegant face and a stocky frame who refuses to share her real last name but is an older woman who grew up in the countryside of who-knows-where and eventually fell into mercenary work. At least that’s as far as anyone can guess. She tends to be pretty briefly spoken, but she keeps a locket of a man and a young woman around her neck and is very, very, very fiercely protective of Kelli. All that Kelli cares about is that Vera is very much a good person with compassion and wisdom that comes from years of experience. Vera tends to smack Kelli when she does something reckless and gets hurt, but bandages her up with the precision of a full medical staff. She also kisses Kelli’s forehead when Kelli is asleep and provides some support of particularly tough missions. She gives Kelli classic books every holiday, no matter how little, and writes her own commentary in the margins. They’re usually very snarky and clever jokes. The two others are Joseph and Harold. Harold is an active mercenary, and Joseph is his boyfr--tech support. Harold is sweet pea with a mean face, and he uses it to his advantage. As talented of a mercenary as he is, he has a soft spot for kids and kind of wishes he had gone on to be a teacher instead but opts for making children’s books in his spare time under a pen name. Kelli loves making him baked goods and reading his books and just generally being in his company. Joseph is a mastermind at anything, honestly, and he loves having Kelli test his armor, weapons, and disguises (which come in handy since Kelli stands out quite a bit otherwise). Vera tends to get kind of annoyed and insist Kelli looks fine as she is, to which Joseph will reply “I think so too, hon, but to the populous at large, she’s Frosty the Undead.” 

Vera tends to “accidentally” break a lot of Joseph’s things when he’s not looking. 

But that’s okay because Joseph replaces all of her black cloths with pastels. (Harold switches them back because, tbh, Vera kind of scares him.)

Woah! With that over lets get some fun stuff in here:

Kelli. Loves. Strawberry. Strawberry cake, icing, milk, jelly, milkshakes. You name it. If it’s strawberry, she loves it. She even has a strawberry print shirt and raincoat. 

She likes sleeping in “cramped” spaces. Under beds, in cabinets, boxes, crates, etc.

Despite liking cramped spaces, Kelli still gets a bit panicky being confined to places like room. The easiest way to freak her out are putting her in a public shower setting or having her lay back flat on a table. She can manage it for a little bit with some breathing exercises, but after about ten minutes she goes nuts. 

She enjoys libraries, and actually, lives in an old one filled with books from all over the world and those picked up at yard sales and free boxes. She sleeps in a hammock under a stained glass skylight strung high up amongst the shelves and keeps a few personal items on a shelf next to her.

Her headquarters of sorts is under the library in the basement.

Out of all vehicles, she prefers motorcycles for the maneuverability. 

She is crazy agile and flexible. Like contortionist level flexible. 

She has a crow named Cherise and an opossum named Pêche. Though since she runs around quite a bit they tend to hang out with Vera a lot. 

She still loves to dance, any style, but ballet is her favorite. 

She has a ring with a bird on it and a necklace with a sunflower on it. They’re recreations of ones her mother had and they were made for her by Alfred and Jason. She never lets them far from her and doesn’t take them off at all if she can help it. 

She also has a sunflower tattoo on her shoulder and a bird tattoo on her shoulder blade. 

That’s enough for now, this got really long (story of my life). Thanks for reading!

[zabchan]

Legacy: the Legend of Honu

Chapter One: Stories

There are three stories that the Waialiki family hold sacred, one for each member of Honu’s family. (illustrations beneath the cut!)

His dad’s favorite, either to hear or to tell, is how the legendary chief Moana sailed across the great ocean to deliver Maui, demigod of the wind and sea, and restored the heart of Te Fiti. Dad gets super into the telling, especially during the fight scenes, waving a branch around, bowling over imaginary kakamora or fending off the deadly fireballs of Te Ka with a near-perfect imitation of a hawk’s screech. His dad’s rendition of the greedy crab Tamatoa singing to his hoard of shiny objects is a crowd favorite, the song stuck in Honu’s brain for weeks afterwards. It’s a long story, and Dad doesn’t break it out unless it’s a special occasion or he wants to show off…which is pretty much all the time, but he keeps recitals limited to feast days at least. Mom tells it ok, but she tends to focus on the ocean and how it came to choose Moana, citing the great chief’s compassion for a baby turtle being harassed by crows, and how showing kindness to even the smallest among us can lead to big things. Mom is always trying to put extra lessons into stories, while his dad is all about the big magical showdowns and explosions.

 It’s best when Honu’s parents tell it together, with a practiced ease of cooperation and easy banter. Its hilarious when Mom joins in mid-telling and voices Maui, forcing Dad to continue the story from Moana’s perspective. But their best rendition is when Mom handles the narration, describing the dark, traitorous wonders of Lolotai, the chaotic, bizarre and deadly ships of the kakamora, the glorious blooming rebirth of Te Fiti, using her arms and hands to carve the images in the air and make the words come alive. Dad is the best at doing all the voices and sound effects, by far. He also makes up songs at each major story point; and here is often when Mom joins in, her rich alto twining through his father’s warm baritone like a canoe through the waves.

Aside from his favorite epic, Dad delights in recounting all the Maui stories, from ‘How Maui Stole Fire’, told in the depths of stormy season, when the gift is the most appreciated as the village huddles in their fales, to ‘The Invention of the Coconut’ at harvest, when he can be surrounded by heaps and heaps of the patron crop, punctuating the tale with sounds of cracking the husks in his massive fists.

Honu’s mom likes to tell Maui stories too, but with a twist. She always prefers the ones that reveal some aspect of Maui’s humanity: his generosity, his bravery, the heart among the heroics. So her favorite story is how the great Maui humbled himself for the love of a human woman, how he gave up his hook and his immortal life to be with her and her people, to savor each day as it came and love like there was no tomorrow. Honu pretended he was bored by the story when he was younger, but secretly he wished that someday he could find someone to love as much as that. to give up so much of yourself but still consider it a price well paid; wow.

(He thinks he might see it sometimes in the way his dad looks at his mom, or the way his mom smiles at the whole village when they return from sailing lessons. Whether it be for love, for family, or community the thought that something or someone is worth giving up eternity for, that’s the real lesson Honu learns.)

And then there was Honu’s favorite story; not least because it was about himself. When Honu was little he’d ask for this story nearly three times a day, sometimes right after having been told it the first time.

The day Honu was born, his father was out hunting sea turtle, whose meat and blood are rich in iron and perfect food for pregnant women and new mothers. As the village champion was aiming the killing blow he thought he heard his wife’s cries of labor from the shore. It made him jerk and miss his shot. The spear flew from his hand and scratched a long mark across the turtle’s shell. Honu’s father raced back to the island, swimming the last ten feet himself, and bursting into the birthing hut dripping wet in his clothes. (Which is a terribly rude thing to do in the presence of the chief; some might have demanded his head for the insult, but of course grandfather would never be so petty.) He arrived in time to hold his wife’s hand during the final push to birth his firstborn son.  They gave the child the name of Honu, meaning turtle, in honor of how his first act in this world was to save the sea creature. It is said that the turtle saved that day grew to an enormous size and became a legend on the island, identified by the long scratch mark on its shell.  It is also said that when it appears, it gifts the island with extra hauls of deepwater fish, tuna and marlin and sturgeon, (all Honu’s favorites), and chases away all the stinging jellyfish (Honu’s decidedly least favorite).

The blotchy pink scar on his leg twitches when Honu hears that part of the story, and he cannot help but wince at the memory of the week-long fever, nausea and burning agony that resulted from half a second’s brush from the purple tendrils.

The turtle story is Grandpa’s favorite too, and while Honu loves his parents dearly, Grandpa Tui is special.  Grandpa Tui tells him stories of their ancestors; of the meanings in the patterns on his skin, on how this uncle invented a new way to catch fish, or how that great-grandmother painted the tapas in their fale. Tui teaches Honu the pride of the craftsman, of a job well done, of carving a lasting legacy with your own two hands.

Grandma Sina teaches Honu how to be quiet. Not in a bad “be quiet I’m trying to sleep” way, but the patient, kind, listening way. To still your heart and mind and be open to the sound of the breeze, of the growing things, the earth beneath your fingers. How, when you are quiet, other people tend to talk more to fill the silence and often let something slip they didn’t mean to. And when they do you smile, and stay calm, and ponder these things and in the silence find wisdom. Wisdom, hiding in plain view, hiding in the quiet places and the attentive ear.

So, unlike his loud and boisterous father or his chatty instructive mother, he grows up to be a thoughtful, quiet young man who smiles and loves to listen. He tends not to speak until all else is quiet, and on Motunui that is rarer than most people give credit for. That isn’t to say he doesn’t love people and being around them. In fact, Honu tends to feel drained and empty when he’s separated too long from people, but he’s happiest when he can be in a big crowd and not say anything, just listen to their chatter and stories while he works on yet another project, be it whittling or weaving or mending nets.

He is learning boatbuilding from his father and from studying the canoes of his ancestors. He learns to sail and wayfind as a matter of course, the son of two master wayfinders on the island of wayfinders descended from- you get the idea. But mostly what this inspires in him how to make better, stronger boats with more decoration and more design and functionality. He learns of different types of tree and their virtues, of the nature of waves and how they crash over a deck and just how much water it takes to sink a canoe…and in the process learns a deep and profound respect of the sea and her moods. When all you have between you and the deepest, darkest fathoms is a bundle of sticks held together by some tar and rope; you learn how much you need to be able to trust and rely on your boatmaker. His people have boats that have lasted over a thousand years. His dream is to make one to last a thousand more. One he can proudly sail a family of his own on one day, discovering new islands, new treasures and new materials to fuel his endless list of projects.

Honu is a craftsman. He speaks more through his work than his words. Honu loves his people’s way of decorating even the smallest objects, the ones where you wouldn’t think decorations would matter, like fishhooks. His hands are always itching to carve or paint or inlay something, and it’s rare to see him without a tool in hand. fortunately he inherits some decent artistic talent from his dad, although his dad’s sense of taste is more questionable. The story of how, when his dad met his mom, Dad had been working on a giant statue of himself in a cave covered in hand carved pictures (also of himself) is another family favorite, albeit not in the top 3.

and then there came the day when Honu learned not only were the stories all true…his mom and dad not only shared names with the two famous heroes…they were the heroes of the legends.

And they weren’t the only things from the stories that turned out to be true, as Honu was soon to learn…quite violently.

(whether or not I continue this story depends greatly on the amount of support and interest i get so please, dont hesitate to send me your feedback!)