heartinhands

[heartinhands]

"That's fine." Chidori hadn't, truthfully, expected Shinjiro to actually listen to her plea (it's not a plea, it tells itself, it's a simple ask). And try as they might ignore the little wave of relief that flutters in their chest, Chidori's hands can't stop themselves from unfurling from the clenched fists she had at her side.

She takes a few steps, wooden soles clacking against the smooth concrete, up to Shinjiro and reaches into a pocket to withdraw a small plastic baggie which she unfolds and opens, waiting. The two of them look very out of place in this summer heat with their outfits. "What do you want?" Everything is a transaction around here.

shinji shoves his hands into his pockets , glancing off . he's tempted to brush her off . it's not his problem that jin decided to throw his meds out . he , on the other hand , hasn't thrown his out for a reason ... even if he's trying his damndest not to take them anymore .

but he's still a damn bleeding heart , and he doesn't want to condemn a guy on the off - chance that he might need all the reserves of his suppressants . maybe he can spare a few ?

" i can ... give you one 'r two . i need the rest . "

[heartinhands]

He's rendered a little uncomfortable by her kneeling to get him to look her in the face; Verso is always shifting, a mask-wearer, or so his father told him, unwilling to put too much of himself into any one thing lest the opportunity change shape. Something about great art being a mirror. He'd thought it stupid. He still does. "I don't know what or how," Verso admits, their chest filled with dark pitch, "I just know it'll be worse somehow." They give a tiny shake of their head, unwilling to let that dark pitch begin to take shape and become more seen. It's better not to dwell. "And this is bad enough, isn't it?" Ah there. A little warbling mess of a joke to pull things back into shape. They smile into their collar and tilt their head so their split ends can ghost by Julie's cheek.

"Thank you for your trust," Verso amends. That's something he can grab onto and hold more tightly. It's not that they don't trust their own feet--they're just trusting the ground less and less. "I'll do everything I can not to scourge it." He rubs at a tear duct with one finger, then loops his arms underneath legs that he brings to his chest. "I'm not trying to be cagey, you know. About it. Just that...there's already so much to be afraid of out here already. I don't want to add a phantom fear to that list." Even though he knows it's just as tangible as the Nevrons. maybe even more so, ink-stained fingers dabbling underneath the pulse of this world.

Julie rubs her fingertips together with a fraying end of Verso's hair between them when he thanks her. It was just a job, she considers saying. One she enjoyed and felt fulfilled by, but nothing special. She likes life that way. Always moving. She likes watching the sun rise from the top of scaffolds and complaining about pipe smoke blown in her face and smacking her thumb with a mallet at least once on every project, no matter how many stones she's chiseled and smashed away at over the years. It's only a little nice to know the Dessendres valued the work done on their home. A nice thing to imagine Aline Dessendre paying any mind even though she never showed her face during the construction. Julie never really worked with the ones who commissioned the team but they'd seen Renoir Dessendre here and there while they worked. She can remember the scorched walls and caved roof. The burnt hair smell that clung to the walls for weeks.

Funny how nothing ever seemed to be wrong before that day.

"Well if you do that, I'll have to--Hey--" Julie stills her hand and lets it slide away as she glances down again, her brow furrowing. There's concern there but it's more sharp-edged than just that: She's never heard them sound this way before. She crouches to sit next to him and uses the same hand as before to turn Verso's shoulder closer to her, his profile a jagged set of lines cut out by the fire. Like a cut out. Or a classic, perfect statue likeness. "What will?" Fall apart? Hasn't everything already? They've joked darkly about it over splinted bones and craters left where cities once were. "We'll find them, it's only a matter of time." She really believes that. Alive or dead, she doesn't need to say. But either will be better than the limbo and the waiting. The empty grief. It's not that Julie can't understand, or can't relate to the feeling of not being able to stay. Hell, it's the entire reason she doesn't want to go back in the first place! Not yet.

"Don't you trust everyone? And Renoir?" She doesn't ask it as an accusation but as another attempt at a reminder. We have to trust each other. There's really nothing else if we don't. It almost feels like she's starting a different sort of argument and Julie doesn't want to fight about that right now--So she adds, trying to smile again to show she wants to be encouraging, "They trust you." A little pause "And I guess I do, too," she adds and pinches their shoulder before holding it gently after, clearly hoping to make Verso lighten up a pinch, even though her smile never really fully forms, too serious to be called a real one. "Whichever group you go with, you won't be by yourself. And someone will continue either way. What is it you're scared of?" It's usually not too hard to tell with Verso, but there's an odd quality to their fearful muttering that she just can't shake. Like this time his answer might actually be different from any others they've whispered over campfire and sleeping bags before.

[heartinhands]

ok im normal now and i promise to stop complaining about e33 cuz i genuinely think its a good game and all that. it just makes it suck even more being given a game that is already so good make some crazy huge pitfalls like that because idfk why no one in the writer's room was like "hey this feels like a bad idea"

[heartinhands]

e33 spoilers i'm just full on ranting at this point

i just think its so fucking unfair that verso is allowed by the internet and the writers of the game to 'not want his life' but a disabled person isn't allowed to have complex feelings about being disabled and having the chance to live a life where she is abled, idfc that that's not "progressive" or whatever, disabled people are allowed to want to be abled. and before anyone comes for me i am disabled. but the bulk of the problem is that the narrative and the devs so blatantly favor the "real" dessendres over the canvas in act 3 it generates ableism in discussing the endings of the game. people who act like the canvas is equivalent to a VR world (or something like it) and that lune and sciel and gustave and monoco and all of them aren't as "real" as the dessendres are are genuinely starting to annoy the hell out of me. because if you really think that then why did you play 30+ hours of the damn game

you fight so hard with the people in the canvas for them to live in their fight against the paintress, you get sad when sophie gommages in the prologue, you even cry when gustave dies and you watch everyone grieve him, and what--the two options at the end of the game are to just erase the entire world you spent the whole game believing in or to let maelle just take over and become god and stick everyone in a world where they're essentially puppets for her???? if y'all (the devs) wanted this to be about the dessendres so bad you should have just made it about the dessendres instead of making me give a damn about sophie and gustave and lune and sciel and then say "actually it's 100% bad for them to exist no matter what, sorry".

chalking maelle's motivations up in her ending to "continuing the cycle of grief"--as is so trendy to do in media right now--that aline started sucks and boils her character down to nothing imo. a lot of this is the devs' fault. the maelle ending makes me ridiculously sad because i think it's very uncharitable not only to the only disabled character to make her a controlling god who the devs write off as having the exact same motivations as her (kind of shit) mother, but also to the characters of the canvas.

like i already said in another post genuinely i like the verso ending because it makes sense for verso and his brand of self-flagellation but i do not see how the maelle ending make sense for maelle. but it's obvious the devs had 0 interest in treating her as a nuanced character by the time act 3 comes around because they just wanted the game to be about cycles and grief and they weaponized disability in doing that. give me a break.

we are expressly shown the dessendres kind of dont gaf about alicia or catering to her needs even LONG before the fire and she's forced into the canvas by clea and gets a chance to have, what we are told and led to believe by the devs, is a REAL LIFE. by which i mean a real life doesn't mean that she's able bodied, what i mean is that she is actually surrounded by 1) supporting and loving people like gustave who aren't callous to her and 2) disabled people, once again citing gustave, who actually can live fulfilling and happy lives.

but no. she's just expected to give up the love she had and has in the canvas for the sake of helping a family that offers her zero support move on. and if she doesn't want to do that it's not "good for her". and if she stays behind in the canvas the devs doom her to being a horror villain who is also just throwing her "real" life away. the maelle ending is so goddamn MEAN to her and so unfair when contrasted with verso. it is so unfair.

PLUS we spend 2 whole acts learning about verso and his whole array of problems and we get 1 tiny little fake epilogue learning about alicia in the "real" world and the rest of everything we know about her is filtered through painted-alicia talking to her or through fading boy's recollections so naturally people favor verso over alicia. just like alicia is treated in-game the devs just don't seem to give a damn about her or exploring her motivations beyond having characters usually tell her what she wants (which btw is ableist in of itself) and her either saying "no!" or "you're right!" like come ONN.

and as a result of all this blase treatment from the devs clearly favoring the dessendres over the canvas in act 3's script, everyone online gets to justify their decisions about which ending they pick behind ableist rhetoric about (if they pick the maelle ending) "her life is basically over in real life anyways now that she's horribly disfigured" which i cant even begin to elaborate about how this is the most offensive take in the world or (if they pick the verso ending) "it's not ok to have a disabled person live in VR and it's basically approving euthanasia" as if the canvas isnt a real world and its pissing me off.

i'm just mad as hell at sandfall for failing to think about this inevitable outcome of ableist rhetoric getting thrown around online when they wrote the fire and when they wrote the endings, especially with how obvious it is that they favor the dessendres to the entire world of the game. sandfall when i fucking get you for making me, a disabled person, have to see people use ableism to justify A CHOICE IN A VIDEO GAME. they should not have done that. they just shouldn't.

[heartinhands]

e33 spoilers

ive decided actually able bodied people arent allowed to talk about maelle and alicia anymore

ok took this out of the tags just in case: 'omg in the maelle ending shes just like aline' SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPP

[heartinhands]

New is not how Verso would describe himself. He says so. "No I'm not." I'm in my nineties, technically. And this is a kid who's trying to tell him he's a new soul. They're a bit insulted. Things would be much easier if Verso were 'new.'

Clara seems unfettered, her voice song-like as she keeps on narrating their introduction to the new toybox. Verso's blood immediately chills. This is a monster in the shape of a girl. This is a prophecy or a scourge or a plague. Either way, somehow, she is less human than him. "I'm--," his voice comes out just as cold as the blood in his veins sits, "I'm not from here." The Town? Surely that can't be all--Verso Dessendre and his sisters Clea and Alicia delighted in naming places in the Canvas. It gave each world its own particular charm, its own habitat, even when the names ended up being childish and silly. How can something just be The Town? The twyre in the air nonetheless nods its acquiescence: this is The Town, Verso.

Keeping up with the girl's prophecy-spinning is already making their head hurt even more than the sick scent of the wind. "Verso. What do you mean by 'fix me?' Is this not the Canvas?" For a moment their stomach does a flip then resettles, smoothed out by his own melancholy, the part of him that knows not to hope carelessly. "Am I free?"

Clara counts herself as the luckiest girl alive. She is impossible and none can understand her. She is never alone because she has her sister, the only one who knows her. The Town-on-Gorkhon adores her miracles / The Town-on-Gorkhon despises her for her plague. Her eyes are huge and bright as she watches this man who is so terribly wrong choke on the air--They're not made of clay and hay and earth at all, just brushstrokes, and there are no strings for her to grasp. But she still has her hooks.

"You're as new as me!" She chirps, clasping her hands together as a wide beam of a toothy smile shines across her face. All of Clara is a shimmering mirage, one even she has no way of seeing beneath. The man with the streaks of silver isn't stuffed with sand. She has been dying for a plaything that might be like her. "Did you roll out of the grave, too? The twyre would be part of you then, too, hmmmm..." Her hmm is musical and discordant, as if her vocal cords each have a pitch and tune of their own. Never has a little girl been able to make the most odd string of words sound scary; Never has a girl been so unlike a living thing before Clara. "Who made you so flimsy? This is The Town," she says this like it is the most definitive statement imaginable. "I can fix you if you want. So it won't hurt so badly!" Her tone flips quick from considering curiosity to genuine excitement. She can do that! She can do miracles! There is nothing Clara believes in more! "Tell me your name!"

[heartinhands]

[heartinhands]

From devils to Earthrealm-ers(?) Nero has practically seen it all at this point. He wasn't trying to be self-deprecating--Nero's been a fuck-up his entire life and has come to pretty much embrace the title. If he hadn't been a fuck-up, he'd still be wasting away in Fortuna, biding and waiting his time for a change that would never come if he hadn't had the balls to be different. Well, Nero had balls. And a crazy-looking glowy demon hand--that had definitely helped ostracize him enough to get him to dare to embrace being a fuck-up.

His prosthetic fingers clack as he cracks his organic-knuckles and then he grabs Red Queen, swinging it back over his shoulder with a haughty kind of gesture. He's never been afraid of talking to gods, so Nero walks right up to Raiden while everyone else stays in line, hand now scrabbling at his jaw like he's getting rid of an itch. "So what's next? Do we just go kill things? What even is this massive threat to humanity, anyway?" Am i gettin' paid? Nico says I owe her 40 bucks for gas and I kind of don't want to shell out. Getting lifted out of a job and sent to hang out with this Raiden guy for war or whatever has kind of put a strain on his already strained wallet.

“ may fortune favor the fuckups. ” (from nero for whomever!)

SHITTY HOROSCOPES STARTERS

Raiden stands tall and looks at the new addition of Earthrealm's defense force, slight contrition present in the thunder god's eyes as while he would not use the same language... he deeply felt the sentiment.

Things had not gone according to plan, he had made mistakes on the path to victory, and now the fall out of his past actions was approaching - they would all have to prepare for what comes next.

"Our path has led us here, and we must stand strong to face the adversity that encroaches on us. A new generation of heroes, you and the others are our hope for the future. Do not let yourself be defined by past mistakes, there is innate worth to you, to the fire in your soul. I believe in all of you."

[heartinhands]

Damn gestrals! Verso runs his hands through his hair, back over the curve of his borrowed skull, trying to think about a gift. The spot where Monoco tapped him already dissipates, pain shifting into normalcy. "Come on." Appealing to Monoco's secret bleeding heart. "Give me a hint, at least." Nope, that won't work. Verso sighs in his own defeated exasperated way and scratches at the stubble on their jaw.

"Should have asked years ago." He tries a Verso-smile that feels even more foreign on his face than usual. "I would've had more to offer you." Back when I had something worth chasing, back when I wasn't so tired. And now this is all I've got to offer. "Of course it has to be special. You know me, I never settle for the bare minimum." It has to be less than that -- or it has to be more than that. Verso is great at dichotomies, not so much existing in the middle.

Racking his brain, Verso finally reaches into his breast pocket and extracts a small pocket knife they'd been using for whittling in idle hours. Monoco will probably recognize it, so he doesn't bother introducing it when he takes a few steps towards his friend. "Never got very good at it," they say, crossing to Monoco, grabbing their friend's hand and putting it in his palm, "But I won't need it for much longer anyway." Verso quickly pulls away, hands falling to his side, coat shifting as he turns his back on the gestral before Monoco can say anything about it like / you have to stop talking like that. "Maybe you could give yourself some cool tattoos or something."

Great. Now he's gone and messed up something in Verso's brain again. This happened more often in the past, a hundred years ago when Verso had just learned he wasn't the only Verso and Monoco had to contend with the fact that the one he knew before was gone. Really it wasn't so hard for him. It hurt but not like it does for humans. He's used to the lifecycle of gestrals: Living, dying, coming back with your name but a different life to live anew. It's natural for them, the way they have always lived and been reborn. It's so hard for humans. They weren't even supposed to live like this on the Canvas. They shouldn't have to exist in a way that hurts them so much. And this is why he doesn't talk to many of them anymore. Monoco sighs and this time he does whack Verso lightly on the upper arm. It's not without affection.

There's a reason that the little boy's train is down in his pack near what remains of Noco. Monoco doesn't play with it. It's another part of who he is. But he likes to fight, not say choo-choo (even if his choice of a train station for a home might say otherwise. No one will mention this because they do not know enough about him or they are Verso. Who clearly cannot ask for his own stability). (And not for the first time, the idea of it all makes Monoco wonder if Alicia, the one who Verso calls his sister, remembers how Alicia, the other one, once played with him as a child or if the memory would slip away like these ones Verso has too. But that doesn't matter either. There's nothing he can do about any of it.)

"I see," he says, voice dropping low like he's digging in his heels, pretending not to see Verso flounder in a gesture--for Monoco--of obvious kindness. "You already know what I like. Can't just get me one of those. Has to be special, eh?" There's an invisible yet palpable sense that Monoco is rolling his eyes. Yes, he's teasing; Verso has to know that material things other than Nevron legs don't matter much to Monoco. A gift from a friend would, but he doesn't actually expect anything. Really he'd rather they just take turns hitting each other or chasing a bouchelier or something. That would be fun. "You didn't like the last gift I got you," an exhaled BAH! follows this, he still can't believe that happened, he got picked on for weeks for it after, he can complain!! "So I won't help you pick for me. Not this time."

[heartinhands]

"Huh? Ohhhh. Uh. Yeah--great." Jeez. With anyone in her scene Nana can talk a mile a minute and get some drags of her cigarettes in between them too: about the ups and downs, about how getting time in for practice is hell, how Trapnest annoys the hell out of her and makes her so jealous she could curl up and die like the bug she is on the inside--how it spites her to live after all that's said, just so she can stand on that stage alongside Ren. "You know--band life." He does not know band life. Just like Nana doesn't know 'normal' life. "They annoy the hell out of me, but they're what I've got, so...guess I'm stuck with 'em." And it's the best thing she can say, offering a smile to Kyosuke that almost borders on warm. For Nana. She's grateful to them all, she is, just saying it is hard.

But what's this, a poster? No, Nana hasn't heard anything about that. She shakes her head a little, frizzy bob falling in front of her eyes. "Hachi...she can be soooo coy when she wants to be. I had no idea." Nana thinks she knows 707 and all the secret hiding places, but apparently Hachi's got her beat. How annoying! "Hey--she didn't show you, did she?" Will you show me if she did?

“that bad, huh.”  his face clouds a bit– that’s their nana, alright. hadn’t junko made a show of her predictions for what she would do that day? “there was a time she’d rely on her blood type bringing about, what was it, a cancelling effect. can’t say if that ever worked for her– but it was a nice change for her. for a while.”  he is light about it, the kind of ribbing fondness he feels little difficulty expressing in respect to her.  “no problem, really. figured she’d call junko this weekend, at any rate.”  and… “glad to see the demon lord isn’t rubbing off on you, too.”  

(there was a time where that happened with them, too.)

he is more deliberate with what is left of the bottle this time, and asks for another. smaller, yes. not as cold. he can feel the entirety of adulthood come careening into view, in stop-gap conversations and event-talk.  this can’t remotely be nana’s scene–  in a more literal sense, however, it is.  right now.  physically. “hm? oh, yeah. it did. she’d had to rush a little, but it turned out great.  besides, if it goes through– she’ll get to feature it in a district-wide exhibition.”   he traces something absently on the sweating bottle. “nana says things have been going great for you guys.”  

which brings him to the crayon-on-paper heart of the conversation (fundamentally, a side character is going to be nosy enough to push things forward a bit, aren't they): “she’s been trying to make another poster for your band. did she ever show you? i’d say it’s been over a month’s worth of attempts.” 

[heartinhands]

my bad i forgot already about my sideblog so i should have just posted the placeholder there to link it in my muselist LOL

[heartinhands]

just posting this so i can link it on vash's post on my muselist..maybe i'll update this post and give him a proper dossier at some point ive kind of been on a dossier kick lately but. slight disclaimer. i dont ship vw

[heartinhands]

I NEED A FATHER. I NEED A MOTHER. I NEED SOME OLDER, WISER BEING TO CRY TO. I TALK TO GOD, BUT THE SKY IS EMPTY. independent & private wuthering waves multimuse. BY RAIN.

[heartinhands]

for what comes next

[heartinhands]

They frown and reach for the stick they've been using to poke at the fire to pull it back to the safety zone. "Hey now. I'm using that." His voice lilts light somehow: Sciel is right anyways, being teased isn't so bad, and he's been alone for so long. Sciel's casual indifference is a bit of a comfort in this solitude, especially with Lune being so righteously furious all the time and Maelle being--Maelle. He tries not to dwell.

"I'm not bad." Verso is quick to defend their pride, a little defensive squiggle creasing over his brow. "Just...ah...well, I guess the best word for it is that I would have been 'sheltered.'" He could make squid ink pasta whenever he wanted--he could have as many lemons as he wanted and get their juices over his fingers while he worked on a lemon tart for Clea because she was always busy on some new bizarre-and-kind-of-scary painting. There was always fine wine in the cellar, the fruit was never bad, the fish always fresh. Verso knows how to make fancy fine dishes and courses for a night of good fun with friends--they didn't know, for a long time, how to simply dry meat. Learning that a dry block of bread and hard cheese could be a feast had been a lesson that had come to him embarrassingly late in life and not until he had taken to Search and Rescue, determined to patch up this doomed world for himself. Stupid. Stupid. I should have stayed behind, I should have enjoyed having the piano to myself and my squid ink angel hair. Verso doesn't actually believe that. In fact, the only thing Verso believes in is that he should not exist. A long time ago he said the opposite.

"...There's no good stainless steel pans out here. How am I supposed to get a good flambe?"

Sciel flashes her eyes wide and shakes her head, exhaling a singular giggle. "Wouldn't. You. Like. Ta'know." She kicks out a foot to nudge at Verso's abandoned stick and send it closer to the flames. Not all the way in, but near enough just to see if she can get them to be protective of even a dead piece of wood. He would. Protective of everything he wants to let go of.

Verso is a lot like many of the teachers she knew in her short time working as one. Most of them Gommaged while still holding the position, compared to farmers who often spent their last years helping with less physical tasks, or shopkeeps who passed their stores off before they said goodbye. Teachers never felt finished, even when some of them desperately wanted to be. Because it hurt. Every year, it became more and more of a pressing fact that hardly any of their students would even have a chance to use the life skills they were being given beyond their childhoods. Apprenticeships gave everyone a bit of ground to stand on there, a bit of room to feel they'd accomplished something with their small bit of time, but still. Sciel's students still grasped her hands tight after the 34th's Gommage like they were memorizing the grooves and lines of her palms. The rough patches where her skin had weathered in the sun and where her tools often dug into the flesh there over the years. Yeah. Getting plastered after she said goodbye to them had been the right decision.

Reflexively, Sciel closes her palms and drops them to her lap. She doesn't want to look at the bracelets anymore.

Really she never stole that much. And usually it was only to play a joke. To get chased around with a trowel or sprayed with a hose. You have to make your own fun in Lumière. "What, you don't like rabbits? I think they're cute." She enunciates cute in English, like that makes it sillier. "And you like when I tease you," she adds this offhand. It's a fact about him she's never questioned once. "Are you a bad cook then? If all you've been eating is dried meat. Hurting my rabbit sensibilities a bit here."

[heartinhands]

"I'm not trying to say you're wrong overall. But going from 0 to 11--that's wrong. You know me, I don't give a damn about morals, Suguru, you know that--but psychically lobotomizing half the population to get a result you want strikes even me the wrong way. I just wanna say...what's the harm in playing the long game? If we keep raising kind kids, the problem solves itself eventually. Just not in our lifetime." Funnily enough, of all people, Satoru Gojo has never had a problem with playing the long game or looking to the horizon. Geto wants immediate change. Gojo is happy to let it come to him. "What's the problem with putting all your bets on that gamble?" Regardless, he keeps his mouth shut while his friend continues his monologue...he's always been so theatrical.

That said, it's a win for Gojo. At least in the way of it feels like Suguru has actually listened to him.

Temporarily. It's not much, but it's enough for Satoru to feel a regained hope and trust in Geto. There's an itch at the back of his brain that warns him, restlessly, stirring, and Satoru's Six Eyes are pointing to an inevitable truth... but there are few things Satoru gives the benefit of the doubt to, and Suguru Geto sits at the very top of that list. He scratches the back of a calf with the top of a foot.

"Ew," Satoru says, just like 'old times', some reflection of his high-school self coming out to play, "Don't say benevolent. The last thing I wanna be is some saint for all the geezers to pin their prayers on." Pinning all their hopes on him is annoying enough already. He shrugs and grins and sticks out his tongue. Just Like Old Times. Indeed, the way he saunters alongside Suguru as they leave the room--who doesn't slouch like he used to--reads Just Like Old Times too.

Satoru doesn't buy his own lie about trusting Suguru. He tells himself he should buy Suguru's anyways. They're friends. Suguru just made it clear he was listening. Scourging that trust for the sake of anything else doesn't make sense.

When they hit the outside part of the skyscraper building Suguru now calls HQ, Satoru digs his toe into the pavement, neck jutting out, sun already baking on his nape. "So...as long as we've both got time to kill, and now that you've told me you're not playing the role of Gendo Ikari trying to bring about the Third Impact...what do y'wanna do?" He grins cheekily, as if daring Suguru to be incensed by the inflammatory comment he just dealt in his typical careless demeanor. "I got time to kill before the geezers inevitably try to get me involved in some more boring bullshit."

Noblesse oblige is the obligation of the powerful and the strong. The idea that strength isn't just something you’re gifted with, but a curse. . That’s the part that no one really talked about. The way power came with expectations before you even had the chance to make your own choice in deciding what to do with it. There's a tone shift as he watches his best friend insist none of that needs to happen when he's here.

The raw conviction. There's almost a childlike resolve about it. Either way, it stuns him into a silence, and for a moment, he looks him in the eyes. His own slightly widened. Disarmed. "..I see." he finally offers. "You still think the problem is just the curses we can see." as if musing aloud. Not as cold, maybe even a little deflated himself. "That if we give kids a good environment, fight all the good fights..." (shield them from the kind of ugliness they faced) "that the world will eventually mirror it right back." magically. Suguru's tone tires, as if he isn't sure how to proceed. The misunderstanding is a little more in depth than he initially thought it to be.

"Satoru.. this isn't about exorcising what already exists." he gestures, "It's about putting a permanent end to what allows it to exist at all." Curses, that is. He knows Satoru knows this. "We can't just keep cleaning up the mess, You can't be expected to-" he pauses, remembering it's supposed to be a gentle reminder. "We need to change what causes those messes to begin with." it was the whole point behind the zones; cursed energy regulation that non-sorcerers produce under high-stress conditions." Merely hoping for things to get better without an actual solution of substance was... childish and naive. But, for some reason, he can't bring it iin himself to say that. Not now. "My hope is, that if we can stabilize that output, we can reduce the mass production of curses altogether." he pauses, knowing this part will sound just as naive, "Maybe even.. end it. In time."

by now, he's no longer proceeding this conversation with combative intent. his voice and expression more sincere. "That's not a world only for sorcerers. That's a world where sorcerers aren't needed on call." On call.. referring to the sorcerer directly in front of him. and everyone else before him, around him, or after. he wants to tell him don't say her name, but he can't bring himself to. wants to tell Satoru not to bring her into this like that, but instead, he shakes his head slowly, as if giving a signal. did he really think he didn't remember what happened to her? him of all people. that it wasn't something he thought about more often than he let on? "Still.." he exhales a sigh, "I hear your concerns." a long silence lingers for a moment as he mulls over his next words.

"We won't see eye to eye on everything. Maybe not even most things." he gently reaches out a hand for his arm, "But I know this much." he looks him directly in the eyes, "You want the same thing I do." generally, on the bigger picture scale. "So.." with that, Suguru nods, "I'll dial down the strength." adding a beat after, "Temporarily." withholding the obvious. "We'll observe and record the effects. There's some merit in your claims, I agree. and I'll consider the changes. Permanently." not mentioning that if the numbers should slip too far, he'll readjust .. without blinking. but for now? Suguru merely takes his USB drive, tucking it away. a symbolic storm having passed. for now. As he heads for the door, a small laugh curves on the edge of his lips, holding the door open for him. For a moment, it starts to feel like old times. "Wow." he feigns being impressed by Satoru's concerns for Megumi. "Benevolent is a surprisingly good look for you." lighter much like their old selves now heading out of the conference room.

they're walking side-by-side again, even if .. just for now.

// @heartinhands

[heartinhands]

Beatrice has never believed in princes and white horses. But she was made by someone who did. This disdain tremors in her very soul--wandering Fragment to Fragment in search of prey and ally alike. It's easy for her, the golden butterfly that she is, to alight upon a world doomed by roses and promises of princes and / "a girl who cannot become a princess is destined to become a witch." Words that, if she were home, in the metaworld, would strike and impale her red truth heart for all to see and crush and kill. But here she is Beatrice and she is powerful. Here her prey, her ally, cannot See her.

"Ahhhh..." Beatrice cackles delightfully, clearly amused by the way Kanae refers to her. Angel and demon, these tend to be the first ways people refer to her--how quickly their terror descends when she states the obvious: No, I am a witch. How will Kanae respond?. "How many times I have heard that phrase in my thousand years of life...!! No, Kanae, I am no dream--I am no angel. I am a witch. I make angels shudder in the face of my capriciousness *cackle*. I make dreams run and transform into nightmares if I will it."

On Rokkenjima when she had been made powerless she had been named a ghost and a spectre and she had hated the title. Kinzo, that horrible man, had cast her power into that homunculus, dooming her to a life ensteeped in misery, deeper than even the earl grey Beatrice drinks on the daily / deeper than men's blood, which Beatrice also loves to participate in imbibing. "Are you going to damn yourself for me too? I love it when mortals do that. The sight of those starched-white nightgowns flying through the air is always a beautiful one for someone such as I, who is bored by mortal temptations, and seeks only entertainment." She puffs on her pipe and out comes beautiful golden smoke. "If you do elect to entertain me, I promise to bless you. I am the Endless Witch, Beatrice. My blessings are rare. My promises are even rarer. *smile*. Of course, it would be unfair if I didn't warn you to consider your options carefully...after all, if even the angels would damn themselves for me, what lengths do humans go to?"

"angels would damn themselves for me." (beato for muse of your choice!)

@heartinhands, pinterest quotes.

when she had been eight, kanae whole-heartedly believed in princes and their great white horses.  and when she had been eighteen– but that was a story that had lost its shine (like teeth, such large teeth), its sweetness (it tastes so bitter).  currently, she is eighteen still, and she is told she had been weak for months and months and months, with no hope of her ever living.  she is not told why.  she is not told of what she no longer recalls, but knows clearly, had been here once.

a ring, a flattering set of diamond pendants, a silver bracelet were left at the side of her hospital bed.  and roses. red, red roses. tall and pungent.  

she cannot be confined, so she is led outside on her demands, and she loses whichever nurse assigned to look after her. their starch-white uniforms and their patient smiles, and the rose embroidered into their hats– kanae could take no more of them.  

and she is met with… met with a sight, a sign, a person in such gold and red and– a shine that could frighten. 

“i can believe that.” yes. she could believe in anything, anything else. she shields her eyes from the glare of the sun with a sickly, thin hand. kanae can barely make out her features from here. “i can believe you.” 

with confidence like that (more than confidence; it is such fate-binding assurance), this stranger must be a miraculous wonder indeed.  or a ghost.  she can scarcely differentiate between the two of them these days.  “i can’t tell.”  she begins, and stops. and begins again, “if i am dreaming– i think i have been, for weeks and weeks. they tell me i could have died.”

they say my sister-in-law did this, they say my sister-in-law is missing, they say she was a ████, they say nothing at all.

“are you a dream?”