#''Blood'' is kind of dependent on the situation and how much she's forced to interact with it.

[inhalesinkbreathing]

First post and its my oc intro wow lmfao!!

Also tw: very long intro for her soorrryy!!

Blog rp rules too!! I'm open for any interactions >_<

Sorry for shit quality-

Full name is Keiko Kyotoru! First name Keiko (Ke-ko) last Kyotoru (Kyo-to-ro)/Himejima. I cant decide sob. Keiko is Himejima Gyomei adopted child!!

Keiko would be Non-binary (androgynous; a Nonbinary whose both genders) and goes by She/He. plus I won't expose her gender since I wanna see who guesses if she is a female or male lolol. Plus I think I accidentally put more scars on her other art woops I'll change that-

Her role; Demon Slayer, Rank; Hinoe.

Backstory

(And he kept her in his estate and trained her; means he kept her from when he first became a hashira and when she first joined and slowly became a Hinoe rank. (14) She did the final selection at 11)

Keiko's family (Father: Gakayo, Mother: Ayaka, Brother: Kaika) lived in the village Gyomei live in, so her brother can peacefully (not so because heyyy demons) and be happy!!

Keiko's father almost sold him for ermmm,,, let's say he almost made her into Kanao past situation- because of how desperate he needed money for his sick son and wife!!

Keiko does go to the orphanage that Gyomei live in often as there were probably some kids her age to have fun with + when she's not getting thrown by her father, she helps with gyomei! That's why when they went to Jail, Gyomei decided to officially adopt Keiko.

Here have Kyojuro explain it 4 u for how she's half demon lol

Also just so u know Keiko is a free-happy going kind of personality, even being hit with a traumatic event you'll see her smiling. (Nah she forces it, she can't be like Tanjiro tbh) she's almost seen as annoying with how happy she is,,,

Ink breathing

Ink breathing came from Water breathing mixed with stone breathing.

Forms; 6/7. (TW: idk how to make these detailed as possible lol)

Galaxy void vortex (Offense) - 銀河のボイドボルテックス

Galaxy void Vortex; it creates a black splatter from her katana as its either spun— with dual blades attached— or ink like water tsunami (mini) swallows up the demon visions whole as the slayer slowly walks up to the demon and slice off its neck with ease as the demon still stay there with confusion until the last bit of their body, then realisation.

Black World veil(Defense) - 黒い世界のベール

Black World veil; where it creates a ink veil around the demon surrounding as a fake slayer— isn't real, will run around the demon as in means of distraction. Not for long depending on the demon noticing the slayer running away or had slayed all the fake ink ones (5 fakes)

Dark World striker (Offense) - ダークワールドストライカー

Dark World Striker; It's a multiple attack at once, where it sends slashes multiple time as the slayer who wields dual weapons can do this forms. Where they grab by the chain that hooks up both katanas as they use it to the full potential of swinging it around the demons surroundings, either cutting them up or injuring them until much later where it'd fully slice them.

Ink walls (Defense) - インクワラ

Ink walls; where the slayer uses the attached katana and spin it around their body with fast speed, making the weapon the shield as they can run while using this form to protect themselves or someone.

Dual shots splatter (Offense) - 2発の弾が飛び散る

Dual shots splatter; Where the slayer uses a long chain and their katana, attached to the katana as the slayer throw the katana into the demon, then swinging it back to them before repeatedly doing this like a gun shooting its bullets but its able to retract it back.

Ink droplets fusion (Offense) - インク滴の融合

Ink droplets fusion; Where the slayer uses small metal pieces or droplets of water/blood. The slayer uses it and at the same time uses the fast speed of swinging and creating a spark before hitting it with full force as they hit it against the demons body parts, to stun then running or fighting back.

Dripping of the dark universe (Offense/Defense - Hidden form) - 暗黒宇宙の滴り

Dripping of the dark universe; where the slayer stops breathing to make their body numb and slow their heart beat. Making it impossible for the demon to know where the slayer is by how fast their quiet run is, not able to tell by breathing or heartbeat too as they can multiply slice ur neck no matter how many times it can grow/attach. It is a dangerous form, it can either make the slayer die if use this form alot, death by not breathing or accidentally stopping ur heart too low.

How Hashiras/Keiko view eachother + Relationships with Canon characters

Kyojuro/Tengen relationship as family because Keiko sees them as older brothers, plus they both are best friends so it'd make sense. Genya and Keiko is siblings but genya isn't officially adopted. She still would call Genya brother! Too bad sanemi lol

Oh and this is also S1 Keiko.

Taisho secrets about Keiko!

Keiko had to be taught by Gyomei + Tengen about Japanese before she could understand it! Especially for missions.

Keiko knows about Chinese, English, ASL and Japanese.

He has really, REALLY bad memories, close to Tokito's but not that bad.

A Kakushi (the perverted one) gave Keiko a opened uniform (almost like Sanemi) and really short skirt because he thought Keiko was a female and got reported by Gyomei.

Nobody still knows what actual gender is Keiko. Not even Gyomei.

Keiko once actually wore a haori but it got too annoying for her and made it into his belt and tied one on his shoulders. The scarf she wears on her neck were actually bought by Genya/Gyomei as a birthday gift since she never had one before.

Keiko's past time is carving wood! Especially when Gyomei's training area is filled with nature. The mask she wore was actually made by her.

Her vision is so bad that her glasses doesn't even help her anymore but she still wears it as it is still clearer than without glasses.

Keiko is usually with Gyomei as such that she doesn't like socialising with others instead of the Corps, she doesn't like being judged and stared at.

Keiko has Insomnia + Hypersomnia.

Keiko HATES the dark! So sadly she'll sleep beside Gyomei as a sense of comfort.

Others!

Actually since her Breathing is ink, she usually has actual ink on standby for some reason. She sometimes uses it to either, in battle‐ use it as distraction— or not in battle, to annoy Tengen with it.

How tall is Keiko? She'd beside Tokito's height but slightly taller since with her shoes, she'd reach over Gyomei waist by abit. And without she'd exactly be at his waist.

Keiko is also a healer, since she was young she had to bandage her own wounds and slowly got into healing. That's why if u go to Gyomei's estate for a visit after his mission, you'll see her bandaging his father up.

Sanemi/Iguro has beef with Keiko because of Genya/Misturi lmfao, but sometimes Keiko does try to push Iguro to marrying Misturi faster,, and try to mend Sanemi and Genya relationship.

Keikos theme song(s):

And Immature by Veebunni (can't find it)

[waitingforwinterwinds]

ASOS; Steel and Snow: 16 SANSA II (pages 220-226)

While Sansa has her measurements taken for a surprise new gown, she recalls her recent interactions with Margaery and Dontos over the upcoming wedding(s).

-

She needed a new gown, that was true. She had grown three inches in the past year, and most of her old wardrobe had been ruined by the smoke when she'd tried to burn her mattress on the day of her first flowering. ... The comment made her blush. Yet the last time she'd gone riding, she could not lace her jerkin all the way up to the top, and the stableboy had gaped at her as he helped her mount. Sometimes she caught grown men looking at her chest as well, and some of her tunics were so tight she could scarcely breathe in them.

That's fucked up. A lot of shit in this series is fucked up, but the fact that Sansa couldn't even get clothes that fit her until the queen ordered it? That's fucked up. It's a power play on Cersei's part, possibly Joffrey's, depends on whether or not it even occurred to him. But even aside from the casual reminder of how little power and authority Sansa has, it's degrading.

Now, if y'all will excuse me for just a moment. *hefts the steel chair of justice* I have some ... 'grown men' in need of a serious conversation...

I'll wager this gown was Margaery's doing somehow, or her grandmother's.

I'll wager it's not. But that's because I know what's happeneing before Joffrey's wedding. "Oh, sooner, much sooner, her Grace insists."

But it's scary that after all this time, Margaery just had to be kind to her a little, and Sansa's first thought was "Margaery's doing something nice for me" and not "nothing nice is free, if I don't know the price, it's because it's something I'm not likely to be willing to pay"

It does speak to Sansa's desire for the world to be a nice as it looks at the surfaced, of her preference to see the good in people. And i love that for her, that even after everything, that's something they couldn't take, but she's not safe, she's still in the lion's den (ha, appropriate simile is appropriate) and she needs to be more suspicious of everything in order to protect herself.

Like literally, "- and all else befitting a... a lovely young lady-" that pause should have raised some red flags.

The cousins took Sansa into their company as if they had known her all their lives. They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept...

lemon (cakes) = 🥛

Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He'd come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.

Ahhh, so this is the false memory kiss I've heard so much about?

Going back to that chapter where Sandor puts his hand over her mouth and holds her so tightly she can't wiggle free, and there's "He yanked her closer and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened."

I can see how, especially given that there was a sense of violation already just from the trespassing in her room and the manhandling, and Sansa was not having a good time mentally or emotionally with the war outside, I can see how her mind could have easily confused things. She felt violated, and there was a moment where she was very much expecting that specific violation to occur, our minds very easily rewrite situations, it would make sense for Sansa's mind to give a more concrete for to her sense of violation.

(Especially when she's been molested by other men, including Dontos who does force kisses on her.)

But I would honestly also not be surprised to find out GRRM had the kiss happen in one version then forgot he edited it out. Continuity is hard.

I don't see why this has given her such a hard-stuck label as The Most/Only Unreliable Narrator though. Like, what? does she keep going back and changing the details 'oh he used tongue actually'?

- and Sansa's merlin brought down three ducks-

Fun Fact: Merlin's are the UK's smallest bird of prey. Sansa's wolf, Lady, was the smallest of the litter.

GRRM keeps giving her the teeniest predators.

"It's brave of you to warn me, but you need not fear. Joff's spoiled and vain and I don't doubt that he's as cruel as you say, but Father forced him to name Loras to his Kingsguard before he would agree to the match. I shall have the finest knight in the Seven Kingdoms protecting me night and day, -"

And Cersei had Jaime. But that didn't stop Robert.

She's so brave, Sansa thought, galloping after her... and yet, her doubts still gnawed at her.

It's easy to be brave when you have money and support and you haven't been on the receiving end of someone's violence. It's not really bravery, after all, it's ignorance.

Sansa's been brave as well, staying alive when she could have taken a tumble from a window, surviving Joffrey, the court, all of it.

Yet the more she thought about it, the more she wondered. Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does... ... Sansa was surprised that Margaery did not see it too. She is older than me, she must be wiser. And her father, Lord Tyrell, he knows what he is doing, surely. I am just being silly.

No, you're not.

You have information, first hand, that they don't, and even though you've tried to tell Margaery, she doesn't actually want to know. (Ignorance and Arrogance are far too alike in dignity.)

As for Lord Tyrell? Even if we disregard Olenna's opinion of him, you're working on the assumption he's like your father, that he cares about his daughter as anything other than a trade piece/brood mare for a grandson who can sit the Iron Throne.

That he wouldn't let the marriage agreement be made until Loras was a Kingsguard says he does care, but to be honest? Vibes so far? That was more about the political power and bragging rights that come with having a son in such a position, and it gives his gay son a convenient excuse for not taking a wife, ever. (not that he knows Loras is gay iirc?)

...*casually smacks Dontos and his 'give your Florian a kiss' with the steel chair*

The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed that night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, -

With the timing of things, you do get the feeling that team Lannister knew the Red Wedding was on the way.

In Sansa's dreams. her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

Awww, she does still think of her sister.

That must be why Cersei is having it made for me, so I don't look shabby at the wedding. (...) She wanted to look beautiful fro Willas Tyrell. Even if Dontos was right, and it is Winterfell he wants and not me, he still may come to love me for myself. Sansa hugged herself tightly, wondering how long it would be before the gown was ready. she could scarcely wait to wear it.

Oh sweetheart, no.

She deserves someone who loves her for her own sake, and not her dowry. She doesn't deserve to be used as a political pawn. Or to be sold like cattle. (none of our girls (or boys) do, but this is about Sansa right now.)

[jellogram]

Review of the A&E JonBenet Ramsey documentary on Hulu and general case discussion below the cut.

First of all it's always nice when a true crime doc isn't shy about criticizing the police and discussing how they might have been blinded by a need to close the case. And the general harassment the family has gone through isn't fair, because I don't believe in harassing anyone involved in a crime regardless of their role in it. The media and the police both immediately decided the family killed their daughter in cold blood and they were made to suffer as if this was fact, and that was fucked up.

That said.

I don't like how the doc takes the DNA of an unknown male as evidence that the family is innocent. All that proves is that the stupid theory about the brother killing JonBenet likely isn't true, but there was never anything to suggest that anyway. The doc refutes some falsehoods, like the letter being definitely written by Patsy Ramsey, but it ultimately doesn't do enough to explain why the family should be exonerated.

There's a big difference between proving they didn't outright commit the murder themselves, and proving they weren't somehow complicit in what happened.

Because the story the doc tells doesn't make sense — if we take that DNA as the exoneration of the parents, the remaining details still don't fit together.

They're implying that someone broke into house, took JonBenet from her bed and dragged her into the basement, strangled and assaulted her, killed her, and then left without any signs of forced entry, without disturbing any part of the house at all, and without waking anyone, went over to a notepad and wrote a ransom note for the return of JonBenet, and then left, never to be heard from again.

The only way any of that makes sense is if the family knew someone was in the house and didn't intervene, which leads me to my theory.

As many have suggested, this was most likely a targeted attack based on JonBenet's publicity. So we have parents who've entered their child in the inherently exploitative and sexualizing industry of child beauty pageants, and a daughter who is quite successful and well-known for this. We have an unidentified male who was sexually assaulting JonBenet, and we have a situation where the parents simply had to know this man was in the house with her.

I think you can guess where I'm going with this.

I think they knew the man was alone with her. I don't know if they knew what he was doing with her, but I think they allowed him into the house to interact with her alone. I think it went badly and he killed her. But the parents knew if they pursued the killer they'd be exposed for having allowed him into the house, and possibly pimping their daughter out, depending on how dark you think their original plan was. They might have just meant to let him get a photo with her or something, I don't know, and I certainly wouldn't level these accusations at all if I had any kind of platform, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

I don't think the family murdered her, I don't think they killed her by accident, but I do think they know what happened. And even if you think the killer could have somehow snuck in and out of the house undetected, I believe the ransom note completely ruins that theory.

I find it painfully obvious that they wrote the note. They wrote $118,000 specifically to match John's Christmas bonus, because they thought it might lead the cops to suspect that was the motivation. Because it makes absolutely no sense for the killer to have left a note when they'd already killed the girl, left her body in their house, and made a clean getaway.

It makes no sense for him to demand only that much when they lived in a fancy house, it makes no sense that he wouldn't have also stolen anything if money was his goal, it makes no sense to imply that a simple Christmas bonus would have been the motivation when JonBenet was high profile, sexualized, and sexually assaulted. Clearly she was the target.

In conclusion: I think this doc does a good job explaining how the media firestorm around the case was harmful, and how cops can be blinded to other possibilities once they get a hunch. I think it's good that something shows the parents' perspective, given that no one knows anything for sure and 99% of case coverage is against them.

I do however think it goes too hard trying to defend the family and ends up doing exactly what they criticize the cops for: becoming so deadset on their narrative that they become blinded to the evidence right in front of them.

[beyondthetemples]

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE FEAR?

repost. do not reblog. italicize for ‘uncomfortable, but bearable if necessary’ ; bold for "keep it away!"

--

OBJECTS & THINGS :・needles・knives・sharp objects・bruises・blood・paddles/belts/objects used in beatings・germs・vomit/vomiting・holes (trypophobia)・alcohol・cigarettes・drugs/narcotics・pills・medicine・bikes・cars/buses/trains・boats・planes・bridges・elevators・stairs・roller coasters・fire・water・snow・rain・thunder/lightning・dolls/puppets・stuffed animals・balloons/popping balloons・bright lights・crowds・loud noises・animatronics・robots・technology・(other: )

PLACES: ・your home・your childhood home・the countryside・the city・closets・bathrooms・bars/nightclubs・doctor’s offices・dentists/orthodontists・hospitals・operating rooms・schools・jails/prisons・morgues・cemeteries・open spaces・cramped spaces・abandoned places・attics/crawlspaces・junkyards・churches/synagogues/mosques・religiously-significant places・haunted houses・back alleys・the outdoors・the mountains・the woods・the ocean・outer space・(other: places where very bad things happened)

EXPERIENCES & CONCEPTS : ・failing・heights・falling・jumping off a high place・climbing a high place・the dark ・showing off a talent ・the cold/being cold・heat/being hot・eye contact・accepting change・being challenged・getting lost ・getting separated・getting arrested・being trapped・being stranded・being followed・getting surgery・getting tattoos/piercings・swimming・driving・riding a bike・riding in a car/bus/train・flying in a plane・boating/sailing・being on the open water ・getting photographed・religion・thunderstorms ・blizzards・tsunamis・floods・tornadoes・hurricanes・earthquakes・mudslides・avalanches・poverty ・hunger・public speaking・performing in public・talking on the phone・talking to strangers・humiliation・pain・illness・death ・disassociating・danger・surgery・vehicular accidents・being burned・drowning・being choked・being starved・being poisoned ・suffocating・being stabbed・being shot・breaking a bone・being restrained・being laughed at ・being yelled at/demeaned・confrontation ・conflict ・physical fights・verbal fights・war・commitment・isolation ・silence・responsibility・taking responsibility・introspection ・apologizing・falling in love・emotional attachment・emotional intimacy・sexual intimacy・physical contact (any)・getting married・having a child・loveless relationships・unrequited love・falling out of love・divorce/separation ・breaking up・pregnancy・being pregnant・ageing・losing your attractiveness・the unknown・the past・the future・mistakes ・(other: )

CREATURES :・animals (general)・insects・spiders・creepy crawlies・snakes・scaly animals・frogs/toads・slimy animals・mice/rats・rodents・birds・dogs・cats・wolves/coyotes/wild dogs・lions/tigers/wild cats・bears・raccoons・possums・woodland animals・crocodiles/alligators・sharks・fish・aquatic animals・cryptids・aliens・sea monsters・vampires・werewolves・mummies・ghosts・monsters・angels・demons・zombies ・God・the devil・(other: )

PEOPLE :・people (general)・ men・women・yourself・your mother・your father・your siblings・your family・family・parental figures・elderly・adults・teenagers・kids・babies・clowns・drunk people・doctors・dentists・teachers・pastors/clergymen/nuns・religious figures・bullies・criminals・killers・police・authority figures・introverts・extroverts・aggressive people・overbearing people・pushy people・manipulators・hyper-sexual people・anxious people・liars・cheaters・people stronger than you・people weaker than you・(other: )

INTERNAL & EXISTENTIAL : ・not knowing・trusting ・forgiving・forgetting・being forgotten・being alone・being misunderstood・being used ・being taken advantage of ・being unloved・being hated・being abused ・being lied to・being hurt・hurting others・being unpopular・being humiliated ・being stood up ・being ignored ・being powerless・losing power ・being abandoned ・being betrayed ・being replaced・being unwanted/unneeded ・being excluded ・being a failure・being untalented/boring/not special・becoming poor・becoming ugly・losing control (of your situation)・losing control (of yourself)・lacking identity・lacking a purpose ・letting people down・disappointing others・losing friends・losing family・watching loved ones suffer・watching loved ones die ・getting sick・getting hurt・dying・’existing’ but not living・(other: death happening AROUND her moreso than TO her)

[pan-fangirl-345]

He Would Tear the World Apart

Summary: During a raid, you're taken hostage. Shouto doesn't take the news well, and will do anything to get you back.

TW: kidnapping, abuse, alcoholism mentioned, Enji Todoroki's bad parenting, mental torture, dissociating, injuries, blood, angst, mentioned character death (no one actually dies), a lot of swearing, chains, starvation, dehydration, that sort of thing. If there's anything I missed, please let me know! Also, there is a happy ending, so it's angst to fluff!

A/N: First and foremost, I have no medical degree, I have no idea what it's like to dissociate, so anything medically incorrect is because I am not a doctor, though I am currently working on getting my psychology degree. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, that was not the intention. I have no idea what went through my head to make me write all of this in an hour, but here you go. Also, please read the trigger warnings, and if you don't like it, don't read it. Anyway, I might make a part two to this if anyone is interested. Feel free to spam my ask box, or slide into my DM's if you want. Please interact with me, I adore you all.

Aizawa sighed as he stepped into the conference room. He sat down heavily in his usual seat, and Nezu climbed onto his shoulder, as was custom after so many years, despite the situation they were in.

Again.

"As you have all heard, one of the second year students, (Y/N), has been taken. She was last seen on a raid with the hero she was studying under, and we haven't heard anything from her since this transmission."

Nezu pressed play on a recording and her voice floated through the air.

She was panting, and she was whispering, but Aizawa knew that it was her.

"To anyone receiving this transmission, this is hero-in-training Tempest, I'm pursuing the criminals associated with the gang 'The Numerals'. I've been separated from the others and my comms have been compromised by one of the members. Please, send back-up."

There was a pause where all they could hear was her breathing, and suddenly she yelled, "Hey! You, stop!"

There was static, and then there was nothing.

"We have received information from one of our recon teams that they have taken her to their base of operations, though we don't know exactly where that is yet. We have also, as a school, received a ransom demand. Her parents have yet to be contacted about this."

Copies of the notes were handed out to the teachers, and they all frowned, clearly thinking the same thing Aizawa had thought.

They were a school, what kind of school had this kind of money sitting around?

"What is the girl's quirk?"

"She can create different types of storms in her hands," Aizawa supplied. "As of the end of last year, she could make a hurricane for a few minutes at a time, sometimes a dust storm, and I know for a fact that she was undergoing training over the summer, so it might be more than that now. Under extreme duress, she can make a full scale electrical storm in a building or outside, but only if her life is threatened."

"So, not helpful for getting out of this kind of situation?" one of the other teachers chirped and Aizawa nodded.

"No," he agreed. "Though we should be checking for any strange storms and freak electrical spikes."

"Do any of the other students know about this?" Hizashi asked.

"No, and we need to keep it that way," Aizawa told his husband.

"Why?" Vlad King asked.

"(Y/N) is Todoroki Shouto's girlfriend," Aizawa replied, then waited for that to sink in before he continued. "If he finds out that she's gone, or that's she's been kidnapped and harmed . . . ." He shook his head a few times before he added, "He would tear the world apart to get her back."

"Fuck," someone mumbled, and Aizawa nodded.

Pretty much everyone that was at U.A. knew what that girl meant to Shouto, not to mention the people at Endeavor's agency, and the one that (Y/L/N) was working with.

"Alright, so what's the plan?" Midnight asked.

"We plan a rescue mission," Nezu said. "We're working with nearly every police force in the country to try and figure out where they're keeping her. We have a rough area," he clicked onto a photo of a map, one area to the far north highlighted in bright red. "But there's nothing we can do until then, we need a warrant and evidence."

"The life of a child isn't enough?" Midnight asked. "Especially such a beautiful girl?"

Everyone went quiet, the mood somber and heavy.

"Aizawa, you spent more time with this girl than anybody," one of the third year teachers said, "how likely is it that she'll find a way out on her own?"

"It's a possibility," Aizawa admitted. "She's a very capable student, on par with Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugou, but they know what she can do. Not to mention that sources tell us she was injured, though we aren't sure to what extent. And the longer she spends with them is more time Shouto has to figure out what's happening. Not to mention the other students. We need to get her out as soon as possible."

"Agreed," Hizashi added.

It was no secret that Present Mic and Eraserhead had both taken a liking to you when you were in Class 1-A, all of the teachers liked you, and you were a solid foundation for your classmates.

You were a calm presence, and everyone, Bakugou included, had gone to you for advice at some point, though it was all for different reasons.

You tend to be a level-headed person, but when you felt strongly about something, nothing was going to stop you.

People, Shouto mainly, would start to sense the lack of your presence, and Aizawa wasn't ashamed to admit that he wanted you back where you belonged.

"We can't keep him, Shouto I mean, in the dark about this," Hizashi murmured. "He's one of the best up and coming heroes."

"Not to mention," Aizawa added, "that we plan on flooding the streets with her photo. We've already sent it to all of the major hero agencies involved with the search, Endeavor's being one of them. If we don't tell him, his father will, and we all know how volatile that relationship is."

Everyone in the room shuddered at the mention of the father and son duo and nodded.

"Aizawa, All Might, it might be better if you both told him," Nezu said. "You both have the best relationship with him in this room, and you might be the only two that could hold him back if he reacts violently."

"And he will," Aizawa mumbled, already standing from his chair.

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

Shouto knew something was wrong.

He hadn't seen or heard from you in two days, almost three, and the teachers were acting suspicious. There were fewer of them in the halls, and Aizawa was even more tired than usual, with dark worry bags under his eyes that the students hadn't seen since the Bakugou Debacle in their first year.

The last he had heard, you were going on a raid for some gang members that were selling some sort of hallucinogenic drug based off of a mirage quirk.

You hadn't contacted him or come back since.

"Young Shouto, can we speak to you for a moment?" All Might asked, making everyone look up from what they were doing.

Despite the dorms no longer being completely necessary, (the League had backed off a little bit in recent days, and there hadn't been very many Nomu attacks lately), most of Class 1-A, now 2-A, had moved into the dorms for their second year, you and Shouto included.

"Does this have to do with (Y/F/N)?" he asked, standing quickly.

"Unfortunately, yes," Aizawa said, voice somber.

"Todoroki, do you want us to come with you?" Midoriya asked, getting that look on his face.

"If it's about (Y/F/N) then they all deserve to know too," Shouto said. "And I would feel better knowing they were here."

"Of-Of course," All Might replied, glancing at Aizawa nervously.

"(Y/L/N) has been kidnapped and is being held hostage as we speak," he told them, as blunt as ever.

Aizawa ripped his goggles off right before Shouto blew.

One half of his body erupted into blue tinted flames, and the other exploded in a rain of ice, but they evaporated quickly under Aizawa's gaze, and before any damage could be done to the dorms.

Everything went dark in his head, and his feet were moving before he even had a chance to fully process what his former teachers had been saying to him.

"And where do you think you're going?" Aizawa asked, raising an eyebrow as he moved to intercept him.

"To find her," Shouto snarled, and he didn't even recognize his own voice. It was several octaves lower than normal, and there was a rasp to it that had never been there before. "To get my girlfriend back."

"You don't even know where she is," Aizawa said. "We don't even know where she is. Besides, you're too emotionally involved."

"Too emotionally involved?" Shouto said, his voice too calm, his eyes too dead.

Everyone in the room took a step away from him. Everyone except Midoriya and Bakugou.

"Too emotionally involved?" he repeated.

"Oh shit," someone whispered, though Shouto didn't know who it was.

"That is my girlfriend. That is the love of my life and you're telling me that I can't get her back because . . . I'm too emotionally involved? What about when Midoriya went to get Eri? Was he too 'emotionally involved'?"

No one dared to point out that it was nowhere near the same thing, but there was a collective thought about it in the room.

"That is my fucking girlfriend out there," he snapped. "I will work harder than anyone to get her back. I will be the one person wholly invested in making sure that she stays safe."

"And that is why you can't be one of the people in on this," Aizawa told him. "The others are her friends, but you? You are way more than that, and that means that when it comes down to it, you can't make a clear-headed decision on whether it's worth it to try and grab her or not. Because she'll always be worth it to you."

"Damn right she will," Shouto said, staring Aizawa down.

No one had heard Shouto swear this much at once, if ever, depending on the person. He was starting to sound like Bakugou, and the others knew immediately that if you weren't back soon, he was going to blow.

"Look kid, I understand," Aizawa muttered. "I really do. I understand how you feel, I would do that same thing for Hizashi, but I also know what I would do, and we can't have that in the investigation. What would (Y/F/N) want?"

"She would want to be here!" Shouto shouted. "She would want to be teasing Bakugou in the kitchen, making sure that everyone had a blanket for movie night. She would want to be curled up with me on the couch watching bad romance movies that the girls cheated their way into picking out and making sure that I-!"

Shouto stopped as the emotions got lodged in his throat. Tears threatened to spill over as his vision got blurry, and the others were there to catch him as his knees gave out on him.

"We'll get her back kid," Aizawa assured him, crouching down, touching the top of his head softly. "We will get her back."

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

Your head was buzzing as you came back to consciousness and you suppressed a groan of pain.

Consciousness hurt.

You did a short mental tally of your injuries.

Your ribs were definitely a little bruised, if not cracked or broken. Your lips were split in at least four different places each. One shoulder was definitely dislocated, and the other was hurt in some way. Your left ankle was bruised and swollen, broken probably. Your head probably had a huge gash if the blood running down the side of your face was anything to go by, and you were definitely concussed on some level.

Apparently getting your head slammed into solid concrete by someone who had launched themselves off a ledge would do that to you.

You were in what looked like a basement of some sort. The walls were solid concrete, there were pipes running overhead and dripping on you randomly, which wasn't appreciated, and there was insulation and plaster showing through here and there.

"Finally awake sleeping beauty?"

Your head whipped around to see your kidnapper, but your head protested and so did your stomach, despite the fact that there was nothing in it.

You suppressed a groan, trying to keep your stomach where it belonged.

"Ready to tell us who the informant is?"

"Go straight to hell," you muttered, when you were certain you wouldn't throw up on yourself, glaring at them.

"I still can't believe you were fucking stupid enough to kidnap a child! She doesn't know shit," the other man snapped at the first.

"She has to know something!" the first guy snapped. "She was in on the raid!"

His quirk allowed him to change his voice, so he wasn't using the real one, he sounded like a guy that smoked twenty packs of cigarettes a day.

The other guy you had started calling Sandy in your head. His quirk was similar to yours, he was able to turn anything he touched into sand, and then use it. He mostly made sand storms, and that's how they had gotten the jump on you in the tunnels.

One had blinded you while the other had carried you away, much to chagrin of the Sandy.

"I'm in training," you rasped. "I'm hero-in-training Tempest, from Class 2-A at the school U.A."

They hadn't given you anything to drink in the last two days, from what you could even remember of it, and you knew that you weren't going to last much longer, having been dehydrated when they had taken you.

They had kidnapped you from the raid site, and then spent six hours driving around like morons trying to cover their tracks, before driving for an unknown amount of time before they had dumped you in here. You had been unconscious for the secondary part of the drive, and you knew that with everything going on, there was the possibility you were experiencing retrograde amnesia.

"They don't tell me the important stuff like that. I get told when we're going on raids, and what my part in them is, and that's on the very rare occasion that they happen during my shifts. Most of the time, I'm on patrols around the city," you told them, taking a break in your little speech to spit blood onto the floor by your leg. "You need directions, I'm your girl, but you need to know who's a rat, sorry, I can't help."

You would've shrugged, but your arms were chained to the wall behind you, and every time you moved your right arm it made an awful clicking noise that you knew wasn't natural. Your left shoulder was dislocated as well, meaning your arms were pretty much useless.

One leg was operational, but barely. You were so far out of commission you wouldn't be surprised if U.A. kicked you out to recuperate.

U.A. wouldn't, and couldn't, pay the ransom. You knew that. The best hope you had was that you could act your way out of this, or that they planned a raid to get you out.

They had done it for Bakugou, why not you, right?

Shouto passed through your thoughts, thoughts about what he might do to get you back, but you shut them down as soon as they entered your head.

You were trying to keep him in a safe place.

You hoped that Shouto never learned about this. About where they were keeping you, what they had already done to try and get you to talk.

He was your safe place now, safe and away from this building, wherever you were. You thought maybe if you could keep him out of your head here, it was a way of protecting him from the reality of your situation, even if he already knew.

"She's a kid," Sandy snarled, pointing at you viciously. "She's a kid. You know the Boss' rules about kids and you broke almost every one of them!"

"Yeah, well-"

"Guys, hey, I hate to interrupt," you interjected, "but I really have to go to the bathroom."

They both stared at you for a moment before Sandy asked, "Do you promise to not try and escape?"

"Buddy, I don't know if you've looked recently, but I doubt I'm doing anywhere," you quipped. "My ankle is obviously demolished, my head was cracked open like an egg, thanks to your buddy Darth Vader over there. Not to mention, I'm dehydrated and starving, and don't even get me started on how much my ribs are killing me right now, probably literally. Do I look like I'm in any shape to try and escape?"

Sandy frowned, glancing at you like this was the first time he was seeing the extent of what had been done to you.

"Alright, I'm going to undo the chains, but you can't try to escape, you'll only make things worse for yourself."

"Death seems preferable at this point," you grunted, trying to hide the pain you were in.

"Don't you have healing supplies?"

"How am I supposed to use them when I can't move my fucking arms?" you asked, wiggling your fingers in emphasis. "And you morons confiscated my belt, which had them all in it! You know what my quirk is! What did you think was in it? Explosives? No, I leave that to Dynamight."

"Fuck," Sandy muttered.

"Why do you care so much anyway?" the voice dude asked.

"Because if she dies then that means no money and no chance of surviving prison again. Do you know what happens to people who mess with kids in prison? Nothing good."

You logged that little piece of information away, trying to focus on their features, but with your concussion, your eyes weren't the hottest.

"Can you move?" Sandy asked you as he worked on unlocking your chains.

You couldn't help the cry of pain when your arms dropped to your sides, tearing stinging your eyes as you bit into your already roughed up lip.

"Shit. Can we get a medic in here?" Sandy shouted.

A door opened and someone stuck their head in. Sandy repeated his demand, and the door shut again.

"Why are you doing this?" you whimpered, trying to keep your voice even.

If they were sadists, any fear or pain you showed only gave them what they wanted.

"Because we don't have a choice," Sandy said. "The Boss gave us somewhere to belong, he gave us a place off the streets. We owe him. We would've died."

"Shut up," Smoker snapped, and you glanced at him.

"I have a headache, and it comes and goes as you talk. Please, for the love of all things holy, shut up," you hissed to Darth Vader, wanting to touch your head, but not being able to for multiple reasons.

Sandy touched your shoulder lightly and you cried out again, moving automatically to hit him, but your other arm twinged, bringing more tears to your eyes.

"Sorry," Sandy murmured, pulling his hands away.

You took a shaky breath, waiting for the pain to dull before you said, "There's no way I'm moving from this spot without being in pain, and I'm definitely going to need help."

"Holy fuck, you two morons were two lucky blows away from killing her."

You glanced over to see someone with a med kit strolling leisurely down the stairs.

"Hello Tempest," they said, giving you a bright smile.

"Hello Med Kit," you replied, giving them a grimace.

"You can call me Himo for now," Med Kit said. "Do you mind if I take a look?"

"You're going to whether I want you or not, but sure, go ahead," you muttered. "It's not really like you can make this any worse."

"I could break almost every bone in your body and keep you alive while doing it, so I could do so much worse, but that's not the goal here," Himo told you, setting to work.

"So what is the goal? Since I'm assuming that I'm never going to get out of here," you said, glancing around.

"Why do you think that?" Himo asked, ignoring your first question.

"Because I've seen your faces, I know your quirks, I know a general area of where I'm being kept, unless someone used a teleportation quirk of some sort. I know the school won't pay the ransom, my parents don't have that kind of money, and my boyfriend's father would never pay to see me safe and sound. He would probably twist his son's grief to get him to be compliant," you grumbled. "Besides, I'm a hero, hero-in-training, whatever, it's all semantics. I'm basically your arch-nemesis. Isn't that what every villain wants? To kill the person in their way?"

"We aren't villains," Sandy muttered.

"You break laws put in place to protect people, you attacked a minor, then kidnapped her after assaulting her, and you are trying to get a ransom for me," you pointed out. "That doesn't really scream 'hero' or 'civilian' to me."

"Have you ever though about who writes the rules? About how money can manipulate everything? The system is flawed, and we are going to make sure people know it," Darth Vader snarled. "Do you understand how unfair the world is?"

"Don't talk to me about the world being unfair," you whispered, your voice dropping, every muscle in your body tensing. "My boyfriend loves his mother more than pretty much anyone in the world. Her parents, his grandparents, arranged a quirk marriage, and she had four children she didn't necessarily want. Her husband drove her to near insanity, enough so that she poured a kettle of boiling water over my boyfriend's face because he looks like his father. His father has already managed to get one of his children killed, and he considers the other rejects because they don't have the quirk he wanted them to have. He's a different kind of monster, and he's not in jail.

"My own father verbally and mentally abused me for as long as I can remember. My mother and I were zombies until recently, when I decided I had had enough and my mother finally found the courage and will to leave his sorry ass in the gutters where it belongs. My father always had enough alcohol in his system to make him a human molotov cocktail. I had little to no self esteem until recently, and I still struggle to understand and comprehend that I am worth love. I am still learning to respect myself. So you don't get to preach to me about how unfair the world is buddy, we all know," you snarled.

"The hundreds, thousands of kids out on the street know. The women and men that get raped, and continue to see their own personal monster roam free know. The kids that get hit every day for not being what their parents want know. That's why people like me exist, to put away the monsters wearing human skin. That's why my friends and I try so hard to be heroes. It's not about the glory, or the money. It's about bring people to justice, it's about making sure that people feel safe. It's about giving other people something that we never had."

Silence echoed through the room as what you said sank in.

You hadn't meant to burst like that, but you were sick and tired of these guys using their shitty lives to make other people's lives shitty too.

"Why are you a hero, Tempest?" Himo asked.

"Because I want to save people," you replied. "I just told you that. I want to make sure that every child like me knows that they don't have to be their parents, that there is another option. I don't want the abused becoming the abuser. I want to make sure that the people doing the bad things get put where they belong. I want to help the kids that have nothing to lose, I want to help them realize that they have everything to gain. I want to give people like you hope."

There was no use in lying to them, they were probably going to kill you anyway. Besides, it might help you build rapport, and they might let you go when they realized that they made a mistake.

"People like us?"

"People who think that there isn't another option. People who have been shown nothing but the horrid parts of the world, the horrible parts of humanity. People who don't know what it's like to be loved completely by somebody, both good and bad. People who think that they owe someone who isn't worth one minute of their time. Good people who strayed too far from the path."

There was silence for a few minutes before you said, "I've seen a lot of real villains, people who aren't capable of basic human emotions, I've seen people who have no humanity in their eyes. They are the villains, they are the monster under our beds personified. People like you, you just simply wandered. You aren't lost, you're just further to the side than some other people. It would be easy for you to walk the path again."

You paused, thinking over what you said, then added, "Well, it wouldn't be easy necessarily, but it would be worth it."

"You still have the naivety of a child," Vader snarled.

"Call me what you want, naive, innocent, optimistic, I've heard it all, but in the end, I'm right," you told him.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because, at the end of the day, I know that every life I save isn't just one life," you replied. "That young woman I saved, she might have kids some day, or foster a child that needs a loving mother. That child I shoved out of the way might help the suicidal child in his class. Every life I save touches other people's lives. As hard as it is to believe, no one is ever truly alone in the world. Every smile I give to a stranger might make their day, might help them live long enough to find the thing that makes them happy. That's why I'm a hero."

More silence.

Your face heated, but there was something in their faces that told you they had never thought about it that way before.

"So, is there anything you can do to heal me?" you asked, breaking the silence.

"Like I said, these guys were two lucky blows away from killing you, I'm surprised that you're still alive, actually, everything considered. Your head will heal on it's own, but there might be a little scar left. However, your ribs might take longer. Three are cracked, and four are bruised. Your ankle might need surgery to get it back to the way it was. It's definitely broken, and there might be small bone particles floating around in there, I'm not entirely sure, my quirk isn't that detailed I'm afraid. Not to mention that, from what I can see, your shoulders just need to be popped back into place. One was dislocated more than the other, but it will hurt."

"Can't hurt worse than the state I'm in now. So what can you do? I'm assuming that taking me to a hospital is out of the question."

"Well, I can treat the cut on your head, relocate your shoulders, and I can see if someone else can take a look at your ankle, but everything else will have to heal on it's own."

"So there isn't much?"

"Nope, we don't have the equipment needed for your ankle here, and, like you said, no hospitals."

"Fucking gre- wait a minute, to you guys still have my belt?" you asked, perking up a little.

"Yeah, it's over here," Sandy said, walking over into the back corner, pulling your med belt out.

"Hand it over. I promise there's nothing too harmful in there. There are some painkillers, but it's just Midol. It's all medical stuff," you said, wincing as Sandy dropped it into your lap.

You opened it, taking out a small device.

"What does that thing even do?" Himo asked, looking at it warily.

"It's not a communicator or anything," you hurried to explain. "I made some friends in the support courses, so I asked if they could make me a device that works like an X-ray would. Himo, take it."

He took from you gently, which you appreciated, and turned it all around, trying to figure out how it worked.

"Alright, see that little button on the top left, yeah, right there. Click that button twice, like hitting the home button of a phone."

Himo did as he was told, and the screen blinked to life.

"Alright, hold the over my hurt ankle, and it should be able to show what's going on. Or," you added, "it'll blow up. Hatsume is kind of unpredictable like that."

Himo's hands tightened on it, but he did what you asked, and was clearly surprised when a detailed X-ray appeared on the screen.

"Holy shit, it worked!" you cheered, grinning.

"You have some very talented friends," Himo told you.

"I know right? She's a little quirky, but she's great at what she does!"

"How are you able to smile right now?" Sandy asked, looking at you with something akin to wonder.

"Don't get me wrong," you started. "I'm fucking terrified, but there's not much I can do in this situation. Besides, from what I can tell, other than the initial assault, you people don't want to hurt me. You want something from me. In this scenario, what I'm guessing, is that you want something from me, so you're going to be nice, and make me want to help you out, or make me feel like I owe you one, and then, when I don't comply, you'll either torture me to try and get what you want until I die, or you'll just kill me right off the bat."

Himo winced, and Sandy twitched.

"You guys really hate the thought of me dying, don't you?" you asked, cocking your head to the side, despite the protect of your brain. "Is this one of those scenarios where kids should be off limits?"

"We may be bad guys, but we have certain priorities," Sandy admitted. "Kids are a sore spot for most of us."

You nodded slightly. "I can see why. You guys said something about being on the streets? I know that sometimes kids band together, that's how they survive. I'm assuming you've lost friends."

"Smart kid," Himo murmured, eyes darting over the X-ray.

"Sometimes they give us profile training," you admitted. "Besides, I've been working on my psychology degree."

"Wicked smart kid," Sandy quipped.

"Alright, so I can set your ankle, there isn't anything wrong with it other than the obvious fact that it's broken," Himo said, handing the device back to you. "Riko, I'm gonna need your help."

"With what?" Sandy asked, looking skeptical.

"Can you hold her legs down? I need to relocate her shoulders before I do anything with her ankle, just because I have a feeling she attacks when she's hurt."

"Good instincts," you muttered.

"I'm a doctor," he confessed, grinning. "You learn a thing or two."

"Sorry about this," Sandy said.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," you told him. "As long as that's all you do I'll considerate your way of trying to make up from everything else."

Sandy snorted, holding your legs just below your knees.

"This is going to hurt," Himo warned.

"I would be surprised if it-"

You clenched your teeth to try and keep your scream in as Himo popped your right arm back into place.

The rest of your body bucked, trying to roll away, but Sandy, Riko, had a firm hold on you.

You panted as the pain started to fade a little in your arm.

"Sorry, I've found it works better when people aren't expecting it," he said.

"Son of a bitch," you gritted out, spitting blood off to the side. "I bit my tongue."

Riko chuckled, shaking his head.

"Alright, now for the other one," Himo murmured. "I really don't understand how you managed to take this much damage."

"At least I only broke my ankle. My friend Deku has broken both arms, both legs, and both hands before. I think he's broken almost every bone in his body sa-"

Himo popped your other arm back into place and you couldn't stop the tears that flowed down your cheeks at that one, your jaw almost cracking with how hard you clenched it to try and keep the noises in.

"Fucking fuck," you muttered when the pain pulsed into something a little bit more bearable.

"Better?" Himo asked, prodding your shoulders.

"Yeah," you admitted, moving them slowly. You dug around in your med belt, pulling out two pieces of metal and a small bottle.

"What is that for?" Himo asked.

You pushed a button on the metal, and they extended to the required length.

"It's for a splint, or a cast," you told him. "Once you set my ankle, you put the metal on either side, and I can spray this one. It's a special kind of plaster, don't ask me how it works, I have no idea what's in it, but it'll hold until my ankle is fully healed, then it'll fall off on it's own."

"Amazing!"

"Heroes, when the respond to disasters, often have to set up triages until other emergency responders can arrive, so we have to know a little bit about basic medical treatments in emergencies like that. So a lot of us have belts and such to keep medical stuff in. I also keep duct tape and glue in here. You never know when you're gonna need it."

You pulled out some painkillers, popping two in your mouth, taking them dry.

"How?" Vader asked, sounding horrified.

"Hate to break it to you, but when you're a teenage girl, especially one learning to be a hero, when you don't always have time for water, you learn to take pills dry."

"TMI," Vader muttered.

"Hey, jackass, you asked," you told him.

Riko and Himo chuckled.

"Alright. Riko, see if you can get a hold on her, this is gonna hurt like a bitch," Himo warned. "Li, hold her other leg down."

"Don't use my fucking name!" Vader shouted.

"You know, I wouldn't have known that was your real name if you hadn't reacted that way," you told him. "Heroes are also trained to pick up on certain behaviors like that."

Li grumbled, but did as he was asked.

Himo situated himself, then said, "Get ready."

The pain had you blacking out before you knew what happened.

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

"I knew something was wrong," Shouto muttered for the umpteenth time in the last ten minutes. "I should have gone with her!"

"Dude, it wasn't even your mission," Kaminari told him. "There was nothing you could've done for her."

"Yeah you half-and-half bastard," Bakugou chimed in. "Besides, we're gonna get her back, so shut up and try and think of something useful."

Everyone had leapt into action when it had sunk in that you were in serious danger. It didn't take long, and no one wanted to acknowledge that it was worrisome.

They had split up into teams.

Midoriya, Bakugou, Shouto, Kaminari, and Kirishima were working on the maps that had been given to the students.

Momo, Jirou, Uraraka, Mina, and Tsuyu were going over the interviews with raid members, trying to gather up information on what had happened, trying to see if there was a traitor among them, other than the undercover agent that they had been told about.

Tokoyami, Ojiro, Shoji, Sero, and Koda were helping the other heroes do recon missions and patrols in the area where they suspected you were being held.

Sato, Shinso, Hagaruke, and Iida were working on the case files of all the known members of the gang that you had been going after. Surprisingly, those four were the only ones able to hear about the things that some of the gang members had done.

Hagakure was crying softly to herself as she read, but no one could pull her away from the files.

"I have to know," she kept saying. "I need to know about what they did so I can help when we get her back."

Sato didn't know you as well as the others did, so he was a little less effected. He were itching to get you back, but the others had spent far more time with you personally.

Shinso, on the other hand, was powering through them, wanting to know what he had to avenge when they got to that building. He wanted to know what they might be doing to you so that he could have far more reason to get them arrested.

Iida just wanted something useful to do.

"They just cleared building seven in section 3-C!" Aoyama called from his spot the progress computer that they had set up in the common room.

Aoyama was in charge of letting them know what had been cleared, what was under suspicion, and what they had ruled out completely.

"Fuck, that pretty much clears that grid section," Bakugou muttered, forcefully crossing an abandoned apartment building off his map.

"They might need to expand their net," Midoriya added. "No one knows where she is. There's the possibility that they aren't even in that area."

"I hate this!" Shouto burst out. "I feel useless just sitting here!"

"It's either this or you get stuck back on the sidelines," Bakugou reminded him and he clenched his fists.

He just wanted you back safe and sound by his side, preferably with his arm around your shoulders.

He'd been trying to remember the last thing he said to you before you had gone on that raid, but he couldn't remember.

He hoped that it was 'I love you' or something similar, but not knowing was killing him.

"Todoroki-kun," Midoriya said, laying a hand on his arm. "We will get her back."

"Yeah, we aren't giving up on her, no way in hell," Kaminari added, eyes flashing gold in the lights of the common room.

"She never gave up on us, it's not manly for us to give up on her," Kirishima chimed in.

"I know," Shouto said. "I trust you all."

It went unsaid, but understood, that when it came time to get her back, Shouto was going to be the one leading the rescue.

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

A week later, Himo came into the basement and said, "Do you think you can walk?"

"On one leg maybe. Why?" you asked.

Your ankle was wrapped in the cast that you had taken out, but your ankle was feeling a little better than it had been. It still throbbed every once in a while, but it could've been worse.

"The boss wants to see you."

"Oh, the big boss," you griped, rolling your eyes. "He wants to see me he can come down here himself."

Himo hesitated, but he nodded, heading back upstairs.

You had known that there was an undercover agent in the gang, but you had yet to figure out who it was.

Every member of the gang seemed to know that you were there, that, or they were much bigger than you had anticipated.

So far, Himo and Riko were your top two suspicions, given that they were the only two that were actually kind to you, but you had a small part of you that wasn't sure.

The door opening a few minutes later announced the arrival of the leader, and you steeled yourself.

"You fucking morons," the man muttered, rubbing his eyes like he had a headache. "What did I say about kids?"

"Sorry Boss, but we didn't have a choice," Li said, stepping out of the shadows.

He had been stay with you for the entire week, and it was clear that you didn't have the kind of rapport with him that you did with Riko and Himo.

You had been trying to make a storm, something, to let the someone know where you were, but you had idea of knowing whether it was working or not. You were in the experimental stages of the large storm capabilities of your quirk, and you were completely drained at the moment.

"What's your name kid?" the man asked.

His hands were covered in rings, and scars littered the little bit of skin his tailored suit showed off.

You had seen Shouto in high class clothes for gatherings that he was required by social convention to attend, so this guy was either rich, or so far into debt that he was on the run from the banks.

"You can call me Tempest," you said.

"(Y/N). Second year at U.A. Class 2-A student, and one of the new public favorites," Li said.

"Aw, you looked me up, how sweet," you taunted. "But like I said, I prefer Tempest, it sounds cooler."

"Far enough," the boss said.

He was wearing a mask that covered the top half of his face, and a fedora type hat, so there wasn't much to catalog, but you did anyway.

"Are you here to kill me?" you asked, crossing your arms over your chest, despite the way it made the chains rattle.

"No, not if you give me what I want," the man said. His voice was deep, and he looked like he was in his early thirties, but you weren't entirely sure.

"I don't know who your rat is," you stated.

"How do you know that's what I wanted?"

"When I woke up on day two, your Sandy man and Darth Vader over there were talking about it. Vader actually asked me about it." You paused, then said, "You guys do realize that I'm right under an intern right? I'm not high enough to know about UC's. Think of me like the intern's intern. I'm lucky I even got to go on the raid."

The man watched your for a moment before he said, "I hate it when people tell me the truth. It means I don't get to have any fun."

"Sucks to be you then," you replied. "So what happens now?"

"You get broken," the man said, reaching out to touch your forehead.

"Good luck with that," you muttered when he pulled away.

Then the visions started.

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

"Everybody get up!" Aoyama shouted. "Up, up, up! Someone called in a noise complaint late last night!"

Class 2-A poured into the common room.

Shouto, Midoriya, Bakugou, Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero ran in with no shirts on, and Kaminari fell trying to pull his shorts up over his Pikachu boxers. Shinso was already in there sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee clad in a t-shirt with a cat meme and dark jeans.

The girls poured in in a mix of pajamas and hoodies that they had stolen from the boys over the last week, their hair a mess and dark bags under their eyes.

"What's going on?" Shouto asked. He knew that his bags were darker than anyone's, and no one had seen him sleep in almost three days.

"Late last night someone called the tip line anonymously to complain about screaming from a condemned building smack dab in the middle of section 1-A. Someone checked into it and there has been a lot of activity in that area lately," Aoyama explained.

He had given up trying to keep up the sparkly attitude, though some of the French had stayed.

"Is there anything else?"

"Guess which gang has been operating in the middle of that area?" Shinso said, having stayed up with the sparkly blond.

"The Numerals," Shouto said.

"Tres bein!" Aoyama replied.

"Have the heroes been notified?"

"They started a conference at three this morning," Shinso said.

"And no one told us?" Shouto asked.

"They wanted to let us sleep. They know how hard we've been working," Shinso replied.

"I'll sleep when we get her back," Shouto snapped, heading for the conference room.

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

Aizawa shouldn't have been surprised when his former students streamed into the meeting that was being held to rescue (Y/L/N), but he was.

Though that might have been because most of the boys were shirtless and the girls were clad in their pajamas, and hoodies that were clearly not theirs.

"Catch us up," Shouto demanded.

"Shouto, what are you-"

"Shouto, you are aware that this is merely to scope out the building, correct?" Aizawa interrupted, glancing at his former class.

"We don't fucking care," Bakugou snarled. "You're going to catch us up, and you're going to let us join, because she's our friend, and we're the strongest team that you could ask for."

"We can't, in good conscience, let kids into-"

"Do we need to mention all the times that the League has attacked us in the last year? Not to mention Gentle Criminal, Stain, the whole Chisaki ordeal, should we go on?" Midoriya asked, frowning.

Endeavor went to talk again but more students started to talk.

"We can help," Kirishima chimed in. "We want to help."

"Besides," Kaminari added before any of the adults could chime in, "the more hands you have the better it'll be. We can capture more members and get her back. It's a win-win scenario. Gangs are known to be disorganized. If you can get word to your informant about a stealth mission, you might be able to get both them and (Y/L/N) out with minimal risk to them both."

"And we have useful quirks," Jirou supplied. "Kaminari can kill any power they have, Bakugou and Midoriya are good for taking stuff down, so are Kirishima and Sato. Todoroki is more than capable of restraining anyone that he comes across, and I can tell you where people are, how many and so on."

"Not to mention I can make communicators that are much harder to disconnect," Momo piped up.

"People don't really know about me yet," Shinso said, hands in his jeans pockets. "They don't know my quirk, so they're much more likely to fall for me, which is more than helpful for you, since it makes fighting back much less likely."

"We want to get her back, me more than anyone," Shouto said, arms crossed over his chest. "We can useful. Besides, I don't think I need to mention all the times that we've stepped in without your permission and gotten the objective completed while keeping everything legal."

Aizawa sighed.

"We really should just let them help," he said. "They're going to keep pushing, and I don't want any of them expelled and arrested. They are some of the best up and coming heroes. Besides, they all make good points."

"I feel the need to point out," Midoriya chimed in, "that the more of us you take, the more heroes you can have causing a distraction, or the more you can release to recharge and work on other things that are starting to take precedent, like the drug that the gang is manufacturing and selling."

There were more whispers, and finally the heroes sighed.

"Alright, but you're working with Eraserhead and Endeavor, since they're going to be leading the mission with Fatgum."

"We can work with that," Bakugou said. "But we want permission to engage if necessary."

"You would have that anyway," Fatgum said.

"We also want credit if we find her," Sero added. "We aren't going to let possible attackers think that we're defenseless. They take on one of us, they take on all of us."

"That can be discussed," Present Mic assured them.

"This should go without saying," Shouto began, "that I get to ride with her in the ambulance when we find her."

"Everyone assumed that anyway," Midnight told him. "Don't worry Todoroki, no one is going to keep you away from her."

Endeavor opened his mouth, but sharp looks from everyone had him shutting it again.

The students nodded.

"Now catch us up," Bakugou demanded.

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

You couldn't remember when you had stopped processing things the proper way.

You couldn't remember a time before the nightmares.

They talked to you, they wanted you to know about an informant. Sometimes Shouto appeared, smiling and reaching his hands out to you. Sometimes your father walked in, drunk as always, shouting at you to do better.

You retreated in on yourself.

You turned to that small part of your brain that you had made to wait out the fighting, the yelling, the hurt. You retreated into the part of yourself that you knew no one could ever enter but you.

Shouto was there like he always was. He wasn't entirely your Shouto, but he wasn't the nightmare either.

He was a figment of your imagination, but he made things a little bit better.

"I'll come," he assured you. "I'll find you."

You were lying in a meadow, a small clearing surrounded by trees that were bent over you to create a small dome of shade.

"I know you will," you told him, reaching your hand out to him.

He touched his fingers to yours, but you couldn't feel it.

You remembered someone in the past calling it dissociating, but you weren't a professional yet.

You had never done it at U.A. since you had never felt the need, but this wasn't something that you would ever be able to forget how to do.

You could still see the nightmares, but it was like it was far away, background noise.

"Do you think that you'll ever go back?" Shouto asked. "Do you think that you'll ever go back to me?"

"Maybe, if the nightmares ever stop. If I think that it's actually you that I'm going back to," you said, watching him carefully.

"Do you remember the last thing you said to me?" Shouto inquired.

"Yeah. I said, 'I'll always come back to you'. Why are you asking me that?"

"Do you remember what I said to you?"

"You said, 'Promise me you'll be safe?' I was about to go on the raid, and you were upset about not being able to go with me."

"Do you promise to remember that?" Shouto asked.

"Yeah, I promise," you told him, smiling a little.

"(Y/F/N)! Oh, darling, what did they do to you? (Y/F/N), can you hear me?"

The nightmare was getting better at looking like the real Shouto, and this one had the same voice.

"Go to him," the dream Shouto said, sitting up.

"Why?"

"(Y/F/N), blink if you can hear me," Shouto demanded.

You forced yourself to blink.

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

Shouto couldn't describe to absolute relief it was to see you blink.

He had seen the discarded cast off to the side of you, and he wasn't sure whether you would be able to hear him in that state.

"Hey darling, come on, we're gonna get you out of here, I promise," he murmured, touching your face lightly.

"Sh-Shouto," you rasped. "Shouto, wh-what was the last thing that you said to me?"

"Darling, don't try to speak," he told you, trying to figure out how to cut through the chains without hurting you.

"Shouto, what was the last thing that you said to me?" you asked again, reaching up to grab his hand.

"'Do you promise me that you'll be safe?'" he said, eyes roving over you to try and see any wounds. "That's what I said to you."

Your eyes widened in surprise before tears slipped out of your eyes.

"Sho, it really is you!"

"Darling, hey," he murmured, touching your face softly.

You were sobbing now, fully body sobs, and Shouto wanted so badly to take a moment to just relish in the fact that you were safe, but he had to get you out of there as soon as possilbe.

"Tsukuyomi," Shouto called. "Can Dark Shadow cut through chains?"

"Yes."

"I'm on the basement level of the building. I have Tempest, can you meet us down here?"

"On our way," Tokoyami assured him.

"Guys, I have her, she's in the basement with me, we're getting her out as we speak," Shouto declared over the coms, and he was met with cheers and relief that you were okay.

"How many of you are here?" you asked, wiping at your face.

"The whole class is here," Shouto told you. "Most of the hero agencies sent representatives that are here too."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, people were really upset that you were taken, especially with the role you played in apprehending Numeral gang members on the last raid, and the part you played in bringing the drug to light."

"Wow," you murmured, making Shouto laugh.

"Hold on just a little bit longer darling," he coaxed. "Our friends are on the way."

"I can't believe that it's really you," you whispered, touching his face softly, rubbing your thumb over his scar the way you did.

"Oh darling, what did they do to you?" he asked.

"For the past couple of days they've been trying to break me, they want to know who the undercover agent is. I don't know who it is though, so the leader of the Numerals used his quirk on me. He makes the drugs. His quirk makes you see things, makes you feel things. It's like he can burrow into your head and take the images out of your head."

You shuddered in his arms and he frowned as Tokoyami appeared in the doorway.

"Hello (Y/L/N)," he said, smiling at you.

"Hey little bird," you replied, your smile watery with emotions.

"Can Dark Shadow get through those chains?"

"Of course," Tokoyami told Shouto.

"Hello starlight," Dark Shadow said.

"Hi Dark Shadow," you murmured, stroking the sentinent creature before he tore through the chains like paper mache.

You rubbed at your wrists for a moment before you threw your arms around Shouto, burying your face in his neck.

"Sho," you sobbed, tears back full force.

"I've got you darling," he murmured. "I've got you. You're free, you're free."

You nodded, arms tight around him.

Shouto scooped you up, cradling you against his chest, letting you sob as much as you needed to.

The paramedics that had been called to the scene hadn't managed to get Shouto to let go of you, and you showed no signs of letting go of him, so they had managed to do everything they needed to with you clinging to him.

"She'll need physical therapy, not to mention professional trauma therapy. She's malnourished and dehydrated, not to mention suffering from exhaustion and a very severe concussion. Her ankle needs to be further inspected, and there's some internal damage, some cracked ribs that might need to be taken care of, but we can do some more thorough work at the hospital. I assume that you're coming with her?" the paramedic asked when he was finished.

"Yes, I'm her boyfriend," Shouto said.

"Alright, well, you have to let go of her so that we can get her hooked up to an IV and make sure that we don't make her concussion any worse. You really shouldn't have moved her, but there's only so much we can do about that now," the other paramedic told him.

"I-It's okay Shouto," you murmured, pulling away from him enough to wipe your face off.

Your breathing was ragged, and you looked like you wanted to go back to being unconscious, but you allowed the paramedics to get you onto an IV and a bed with a neck supporter.

"Shouto, will you stay with me?" you asked.

"Always darling," Shouto said, gripping your hand.

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

Forthree weeks afterwards, you were stuck in the hospital. Your ankle hadn't been as bad as it had been feared, you back on your feet in a week, and you were undergoing physical therapy.

You were back to a normal diet, and you were going to therapy three times a week. Well, the shrink came to you, but semantics.

Your class visited every day, bringing you your homework and recorded lessons, most of them crying, and more than elated that you were back, safe.

Shouto, after being given permission by your parents, was being counted as a family member, and he had been practically living in the hospital with you.

For the first week, he had refused to leave your hospital room. He had slept curled around you, despite the machines that you had been hooked up to, he had missed class, staying with you and keeping you company.

There was also the reason of him being the only one to be able to calm you down after a nightmare.

There were nightmares where you woke up sweaty and nervous, asking the nurse on the night shift to light the candles that were all around your room.

But there were some that had you hurtling to the small bathroom in your room, hurling the contents of your stomach up. Then there were the ones that got so bad that you locked yourself in the bathroom, hiding yourself away in a corner until someone noticed and got a hold of Shouto.

They were getting better, and you were getting better about people coming up behind you, the touching.

For a few days after being admitted to the hospital, the only person who could touch you was Shouto.

Your mother had been heart broken every time you flinched away from her touches.

Your father had only come once, and he had been carried out by hospital staff after Shouto had tossed him out of your room.

You had retreated into yourself after that, and had come clean to Shouto about some of what had happened while you were being held hostage.

The therapy was helping, and so was the massive support that you were getting from the public and other heroes that had been in similar situations.

Your friends were very understanding of you not touching them as much anymore, and you and Bakugou were closer than ever, since he had experienced something similar.

Today was your first day back in the dorms, and you weren't going to lie to yourself, you were nervous.

The class had slowly starting moving all the gifts that you were receiving into your room, so you were only carrying a small bag.

"Shouto," you began. "You know that you can walk away if I get to be too much right?"

It had been bothering you for a while, that he had stayed with you for so long. It had bothered you that he had given up so much of his time for you, while getting very little from you in return.

"Why would I do that?" Shouto asked cocking his head to the side in confusion.

"I just mean that . . . well, I know that I haven't been the easiest girlfriend to have recently, and I . . . I have more issues than when we first started dating, and things have changed. I'm way more high maintenance than I was. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted a different girl-"

"Stop it right there," he demanded, turning to you.

His eyes were hard, despite his soft tone of voice.

"(Y/F/N), I don't want anyone other than you," he said. "I don't care if you wake me up at three in the morning screaming. I don't care if you sometimes have days where you feel like you can't say anything to me. I don't care if you have days where you can't get out of bed. I love you. I love you more than anything, and those things are not going to stop me from loving you.

"You are one of the strongest women in my life, and I am not letting you go because you have some issues. We've all got issues, hell, I have issues we haven't even touched on. Those things are just another part of you that I get to love. Alright?"

You nodded, blinking back tears.

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" you asked softly, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He waited for a moment before he wrapped his arms around your waist.

You weren't entirely sure why touch was such a problem for you now. Other than the injuries you had received during the fight, nothing had happened to you that would explain it, nothing you could remember anyway.

There had been some retrograde amnesia that went along with your kidnapping, though the doctors had assured you that those memories would come back with enough time.

And they had. There were still a few blank spots, but there weren't nearly as many as there had been.

"All the right things," he murmured, kissing your forehead hesitantly.

"I love you too Shouto," you told him.

He smiled softly at you, then turned towards the doors.

They opened, revealing your friends and a huge banner with your characterized face on it.

"Surprise!" they all said, though they didn't yell it like you had thought they would.

"Welcome home (Y/F/N)," Shouto said, sliding his arm around your shoulders as you both walked out.

Yeah, this was home.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

Every Emma Woodhouse Ranked and Rated

With all my reviews of all the period-set adaptations now finished, I'm beginning my series in which I rate and rank each interpretation of all the principle characters, starting with our girl Emma!

Now I wanna be clear--I am not rating the actresses that played Emma. I am rating how the character was handled in general in each adaptation. The actresses are a factor, but they're not the sole factor, since the writer and director have as much, if not more, to do with how the character ends up in the finished product. So without futher ado, let's rank...

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her….

“The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much of her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages that threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.”

NUMBER 5: 1972

Portrayed by: Doran Godwin

Age at time of filming: 28

Clocking in as the oldest actress to play Austen’s famously TWENTY-ONE year old heroine (at the ripe age of 28), Doran Godwin also snags the coveted position as inhabiting the worst portrayal of the character (in my personal estimation) to date.

Just about everything about this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse is bad, from her seemingly automated recital of her lines to her all-too-intense, wide-eyed, hypnotic stare. The 1972 portrayal of Emma highlights all the character’s worst qualities while also failing to convincingly communicate her good qualities, such as her caring nature. The script is equally to blame for the awfulness of this interpretation, adding unnecessarily cruel and condescending lines, including one where she negs Harriet for being sad after Elton’s marriage, and then forces Harriet to come with her to meet the new Mrs. Elton, when Emma in the book did her best to shield Harriet from exactly that kind of situation.

Godwin couldn’t pass for 21 if her life had depended on it, and the worst part is that the script actually states Emma’s age, so she seems like a bit of a crazy spinster, preying on the naïve Harriet. Whether it’s her intent to bathe in Harriet’s blood to keep herself young, or to bake her into a pie is up for debate.

Rating: 1/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 4: 2020

Portrayed by: Anya Taylor Joy

Age at time of filming: 23

I thought long and hard about this. This movie is a modern period drama phenomenon. It’s gotten so many people into Jane Austen and satisfied long-time Austen fans by giving them an interpretation they never dared hope to see. It’s a gorgeous film.

But I don’t like this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse. Though Anya Taylor Joy is one of the youngest actresses to play Emma (only two years older than the character) she’s played with a careful stiffness that perhaps shows us a glimpse of the Lady Catherine she might turn into without swift intervention. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and this isn’t a commentary on Anya Taylor Joy either—her appearance or her acting ability—but I just don’t like her as Emma. And she’s not the sole problem, she turns in a solid performance, she’s a good actress, but something about this characterization is just off-color to me. Anya Taylor Joy plays a great mean-girl; but I think that’s one of the reasons why they thought she’d be a good choice for this role, and it’s one of the prime reasons I don’t think she wasright for it. Emma is a deeply flawed character and, of course, the biggest turning point in her story comes as a result of a thoughtlessly mean remark to someone who has only ever shown her deference, hospitality and gratitude.

All that said, Emma is not, at her core, a cruel person. Emma has gone all her life thinking condescending things about Miss Bates but it’s only when Frank comes along and validates her less kind commentaries that she actually starts to voice them in search of validation from a peer.

The problem with this in the context of 2020’s Emma Woodhouse is that Frank hardly gets a look-in in this adaptation. Emma’s relationship with him is severely underdeveloped and the actors don’t have enough chemistry to pull it off in the limited time they’re given. The result is that Emma appears to cross a line just to cross it, and it pushes Emma’s character from thoughtless to out-and-out frigid.

Still better than Doran Godwin, since she's identifiably human.

Rating: 2 1/2 / 5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 3: 1996 (MIRAMAX)

Portrayed by: Gwyneth Paltrow

Age at time of filming: 24

Despite the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow was an appalling casing choice for Emma Woodhouse (I will be forever salty that they passed over Joely Richardson), and I know there are some who will think me, at best, crazy (sacrilegious, at worst) for ranking 1996’s interpretation of Emma higher than 2020, I actually feel that solidly in the middle is right where this version of the character belongs.

There’s so much wrong with this Emma: she swings from mature to bizarrely infantile at the drop of a hat, much of her script is genuinely tragic, Gwyneth can’t convincingly portray Emma's social naiveté, her accent is overwhelmingly nasal and impossible to listen to, just for starters.

And yet… I don’t hate her. I don’t like her particularly either, but even though much of the dialogue re-working butchered Austen’s prose, there are a lot of things McGrath seems to have gotten right about Emma’s character. Her relationship with Knightley feels comfortable and playful, and, while Emma of the book probably doesn’t really care for Harriet Smith in the spirit of true bosom friendship, I believe she does care about her and wishes to spare her (further) pain. She shows exasperation with Harriet while still being patient with her, which is very much in the spirit of the book. Her concern for Harriet at the ball feels real, and her contrition at Box Hill following Knightley’s rebuke, while not profound, at least feels like contrition and not self-pity.

Perhaps, given the soft-take that the Miramax version is, it shouldn’t be surprising that the biggest faults in characterization rest on awkward writing and the biggest triumphs highlight Emma’s better side. It’s not a very in-depth take on the character, but it at least, is an adequate one.

Rating: 3/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 2: 1996/97 (ITV)

Portrayed by: Kate Beckinsale

Age at time of filming: 23

Those who’ve read my reviews of each adaptation of Emma might be surprised to see ITV’s portrayal of the title character sitting so high on my list. To be frank, it’s a distant second, and she may have stolen the number two spot only because she’s played by Kate Beckinsale and not Gwyneth Paltrow.

In truth, I see a lot of parallels between 1997’s Emma and 2020’s. Both actresses were 23 (or thereabouts) when they played the role, both have extremely childish moments, and both crumple down and burst into tears that don’t feel entirely genuine after Box Hill.

So why is 1997 on the good side of the number 3 spot and 2020 isn’t? I’m not precisely sure. I think it may be because Andrew Davies (and/or Diarmuid Lawrence) at least understood the scale of Emma Woodhouse’s wealth and status. This Emma feels sufficiently self-important, a bit haughty, sure—but she’s also believably naïve. You feel her isolation, you understand her caring relationship with her father, and she’s not as patently rude to Robert Martin compared to the 2020 version (she at least acknowledges his presence when he meets Emma and Harriet in the lane).

Grudging though this favorable placement may be, I can at least acknowledge that Emma herself is the least of my problems with this version, and even though Beckinsale’s acting is a bit sketchy at certain points, she also has some truly great moments, especially her interaction with Robert Martin at the end of the film. This portrayal is consistent, and Emma’s better qualities aren’t overpowered by her negative ones.

Rating: 4/5 Half-finished portraits

Number 1: 2009

Portrayed by: Romola Garai

Age at time of filming: 26

And in a shocking twist—I’m kidding this is neither shocking nor unexpected to anyone who knows me or has read my blog/reviews of the Emma adaptations. Am I totally biased? Probably. I don’t care, this is a completely subjective list. Here, finally—my first and true love as Emma Woodhouse—is Romola Garai. I suppose it’s also not surprising that the first actress I ever saw in the role would still be my favorite a decade on. I just love everything about this interpretation of the character. She rides the very difficult line of being bright, caring and intelligent, while also being completely naïve and lacking in social savvy (in her own age-group at least), coddled, and painfully sure of her own self-importance.

Even though Garai was 25 or 26 at the time (far too old for the character—almost as old as Doran Godwin) her energy and charisma are enough that she’s able to carry it off convincingly. Everything about this Emma screams youth, and when Emma’s child-like social ignorance is her most prominent characteristic, it feels authentic and natural. Equally authentic are her emotions—her love for her family, her dynamic with Knightley, he exasperation, patience, and concern with Harriet. Most of all though, this Emma seems to experience the most maturation in the last quarter of the story. Box Hill really feels like a turning point—not just a chastened young woman, but a true coming-of-age moment. Emma faces a reckoning here that begins a chain reaction culminating in her realization of her feelings for Knightley, and everything from the writing to Garai’s performance conveys the magnitude of this shift in Emma’s life.

This version of the character seems the most… complete to me. Somehow, between Romola Garai’s vibrancy, Sandy Welch’s screenplay and Jim O’Hanlon’s direction, this interpretation takes an extremely divisive character and helps the viewer understand just why everyone in Highbury loves Emma Woodhouse.

Rating: 5/5 Half-finished portraits

~~~~

If you liked this, check out my rankings of Mr. and Mrs. Weston

[tg-headcanons]

You ever think about that whole argument (from the narrator/Ishida) that humans are just like ghouls because they eat animals to survive? So, so flawed. A LOT of people are vegetarian or vegan these days. It would have been better to make the argument that any animal's survival is dependent on the death of others, whether those 'others' are slaughtered or not. Circle of life and all that.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS

This is one of the ways in which tokyo ghoul gets close to a nuanced philosophy, but instead falls short into a tired old cliche. It’s just inches away from getting the point, but is held back by a major issue with Ishida’s writing style: Full focus on individual responsibility

We see it with how he portrays Kaneki alone with very little focus on countless other people who contributed as the catalyst for Change. We see it with how he portrays a handful of CCG members and Ghouls as “the bad ones who are making it worse for everyone else” rather than predictable products of their world’s system. And we see it with how he frames the world in a philosophical sense. There’s far too much focus on single people and simple goals. What will Kaneki do to save the world? What will Touka do to protect kaneki? What will Hinami do to decide if she’s a good person or not? It fails to take into account the sheer immensity of outside forces. It shouldn’t be “will X character choose to do Y?” it should be “how does Z effect X character’s ability or reason to do Y?”

Think about how Hinami had to kill Kureo because otherwise she and Touka would die horrifically. Was that even a choice? Could anyone blame her for fighting for her life when it was the only way to live? Or how Nishiki ate a piece of Kimi. Was he ever in a position to turn her offer of herself down? Was there any other way for him to survive then? Or how countless ghouls hunt down innocent people to eat. How else are they supposed to get food for themselves and their families? What other way can they survive starvation when every other Avenue is purposely blocked?

But I’m every single case, the situation these characters are in are set aside in favor of framing it as decisions they made with no other factors than their own desires

Now let’s compare that to how humans interact with meat. We’ve evolved for it, we sweat, see, and even support complex brains because we eat meat. Whether we like it or not we are predators, and that has been the case since the first hominids took down prey with sticks and rocks. We’ve been doing this for ages and it’s ingrained in our biology, cultures, and day to day life. Of course throughout history people have chosen not to. Whether it be for religious reasons, not liking it, or just being uncomfortable with the thought of eating animals some people have always been vegetarian, but in recent years there’s been way more. Sometimes it’s about diets, but other times people claim that to eat meat is unethical. “How could you eat a poor animal? How can you support factory farms? That’s disgusting I’m gonna email you a link to a poorly researched paper focused solely on Eurocentric ideas of consumption and terrible comparisons to actual human suffering that will guilt you into veganism”

The thing is, eating meat isn’t inherently evil. Not to sound like a cannibal or anything but I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with eating both humans and animals given that it’s done respectfully. The problem comes when we focus on what farming is like now, that animals are mistreated, that farm workers are mistreated, that it can harm the environment, but does that make people who eat meat evil? Are they supporting this when they get dinner?

No, of course not, and to understand why we need to look at the reasons. First and foremost, it’s just good for a lot of people. Many people can’t survive on vegan/vegetarian diets, many people struggle with food and animal products are what they can eat, and often animal products are the easiest and most affordable food out there. Even in urban areas it’s hard to find food without animal products that are affordable in the long term for everyone, and that’s in the best case scenario. Look at places like Alaska, food most take for granted costs so much that no one can reasonably live only off that, and people there have lived off of animals they’ve caught for millennia before diet crazes existed. And yes, there are so many ways in which the methods of farming are unethical and harmful and those should absolutely be called out, but the responsibility lies with those profiting from it. How much evil is someone tight on cash trying to make it last until their next paycheck doing by taking their family to McDonald’s rather than getting food so much less filling for the same amount of money or more?

There’s so much complication added by factoring in society and capitalism and colonization’s effect on the local environment and what kind of life our meat animals live, but in the end, predation is natural. Animals eat animals, and humans who have benefited so much from our rise on the food change as early hominids are the only ones who take issue with it. Some people believe it really is evil and unnatural to eat animals, and they are free to believe that for themselves, but it speaks volumes about their own privilege when they turn that judgement on the people just trying to eat enough to survive. It isn’t a massive personal stake, it’s trying to survive in a world that has so many roadblocks to something as simple as a full meal

So compare that to ghouls. They steal bodies and hunt and kill because they have to. The rich may be able to outsource the carnage and keep the blood off their hands so they seem ethical, but they contribute to the deaths of humans the same way people touting that the animal farming industry is killing the world will buy animal product substitutes that harm people and the ecosystem just as much. After all, is the agave syrup that some company tore up a shitload of land in a more exploitable country to farm any less harmful because you can pretend that no people or animals were hurt? They can feel bloodless, but that doesn’t make what they do more ethical. It just lets them feel like it

As for the poor ghouls? They have to hunt. They get to play the part of ravenous monster because they don’t have the time or money to have someone else get bodies for them. Even anteiku ghouls have a little privilege by finding bodies that are already dead. Not every ghoul has a car to pick up corpses, or bodies that can walk that distance, or the knowledge to find good spots. Most hunt since the people that have died naturally are locked away because humans think of themselves as too evolved to take part in the circle of life, and would rather ghouls keep killing than let their loved ones be eaten like most animals are

In the end you’re completely right. Any animal’s survival is dependent on the deaths of others. All we as people can control is how kindly that is done. Humans with the means to can choose not to eat meat, but humans who don’t and ghouls can’t, and that does not make them evil. If humans in the TG world were willing to give the dead to the ghouls, it’s entirely possible that they wouldn’t need to hunt anymore. Meat will always be necessary, but the way they get it can be better, and that change relies solely on the system preventing them from having ethically sourced food. The fault does not lie with the individuals who need to eat

Ishida fell just short of the point in favor of the boring and nihilistic “oOoOh HuMaNs ArE tHe REAL mOnStErS” thing because it’s edgy and easy, but not correct. There’s nothing evil about having a biological need to eat meat, there’s nothing evil even for humans who don’t need to to eat meat, it’s just the circle of life. Nature is gruesome sometimes, but claiming that people are inherently evil is just edgelord bullshit. We can make the ways we get meat better if the people profiting off of it are held accountable, and ghouls can too if the people profiting off of their slaughter are held accountable.

Humans and ghouls are alike. Neither are bad for feeding themselves, and both can benefit a whole lot by not fighting over who is worse and instead demanding that the people in charge of their world make it better

[storybookstalker]

Can I request yandere Melon from beastars? HC if you can sfw or nsfw would be amazing! Feminine darling who's also a hybrid that is a college student

→ ;SFW

It’s rather difficult to reel in this yandere, so congrats!

A hybrid darling would catch his attention more than other kinds of darlings, especially if she’s open about being a hybrid! He’s both impressed and envious, or rather, a better word might be “insecure”. Melon loathes his predator heritage, so he doesn’t understand how anyone could ever be so relaxed about it. He finds himself hating her for it; how dare she just flaunt it so openly? And in front of him, no less.

He doesn’t notice it at first, but his darling will quickly take up most of his thoughts. He thinks it’s because of how much he hates her. That must be the reason, Melon doesn’t understand how it could be otherwise. Maybe he wants to eat her? Whatever it is, he acts rather two-faced towards her. She’ll probably think she did something to offend him, or he hates her because of her hybrid nature.

It isn’t really until he catches her being flirty/someone flirting with her, that he notices how possessive he really towards his darling. Melon finds himself stepping in to control the situation and to ward off whatever filth that thinks it’s good enough to interact with his darling.

Sure, he’s confused (as is his darling) but now he knows that he wants them. Nothing else matters now, there’s nothing that can get between him and his darling once he realizes that he’s in love.

It’ll take him a while to get to that point, and darling will probably be very wary of him before this point.

Melon is a extremely possessive yandere, believing that his darling belongs to him and only him. Depending on how darling acts, he might even delude himself into thinking they were made for each other. After all, how common are hybrids? Not common at all, and he just happens to meet one? What are the odds? Clearly, only he understands what they’ve been through, the struggles of being a hybrid. Too much of a predator to ever be considered safe by smaller animals, and too much of a prey to ever be fully respected by predators. They’re meant to be together, and he’ll make sure they understand that very well; as Melon is not a very patient man.

→ n; SFW

↳ Warnings; Pregnancy mention; breeding mention; vague/implied non-con; pain kinks; aggressive and sexual yandere things.  

Melon enjoys pain; he enjoys inflicting it, and he relishes receiving it. As a fellow hybrid, he truly believes his darling must feel the same. As hybrids, they cannot taste anything, so pain is something to enjoy, right?

He’s not so deluded that he’ll force pain onto his darling, but he’ll make them hurt him instead. Especially if their claws are well developed. He enjoys having his darling “punish” him for being born as a hybrid, and likewise will happily take out his frustration on his darling. 

Melon is rough, violent. Sex is more of a flash of teeth and blood rather than the soft connection he believes it is. Aggressive and possessive, Melon isn’t the most romantic despite any effort he might put forth. Which is to say, not much effort at all.

He tends to flip a switch rather often; one day wanting to tie his darling down and rip into them, the next practically forcing his darling to hurt him in any way possible. 

Most of his kinks purely involve claiming one another (whether his darling wants to claim him or not). He’ll be rather upset if they refuse to claim him, taking it as rejection. It’s a little scary, having Melon ask her to tear into him, since his idea of claiming is causing permanent scarring. 

He does enjoy the idea of breeding his darling, very much so actually. The idea of marking her as his in any and all ways is intoxicating, and has him feeling higher than he ever has from pain. Though he’s terrified at the idea of her actually getting pregnant, sure, the idea of having physical proof of their love, of them being soulmates, is amazing; but on the other hand? He’s not sure he could handle becoming like his mother. The whole situation leaves him feeling out of control, so he’d rather it just not happen in the first place.

He’s really not even sure he could get his darling pregnant, and if the chances are low enough, he’ll just ignore the possibility of it happening. It’ll make him freak the fuck out sometimes, but not enough to keep him from holding his darling down and fucking them until they forget their own name. 

Melon is the type of yandere who’d happily carve his darling’s name into his flesh, or even tattoo it. He might force his darling to have his name on them too, but they could also get away with copying his melon leaves instead of name. 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 11x07: Promises Broken - Analysis

How did everyone like episode 11x07? This is going to be pretty short and sweet today. Right off the bat, I have less to say about this episode that I did about last week's. I've also seen episode 8 already, and it's phenomenal. I’ll have a lot more to say about next week’s as well. 11x07 is one of those episodes that sort of transitions between big events. They are still definitely some interesting developments that I’ll talk about. But not as much detail to go into.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 11x07. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

There were two major Beth callbacks that really grabbed my attention. I'll talk about both of them and then briefly about what happens at the Commonwealth. Tomorrow I’ll do Details as usual and honestly the rest the week may be Asks. Not only because I don't have much time this week to get new posts written, but also because the Asks are really building up in my inbox and I need to get them all answered.

First major Beth saw tie-in I saw:

We learned more about Elijah in this episode. I no longer worry about him being a plant or mole of any kind. He does seem to be disappearing at random times, but we learned in this episode that his sister was killed in the attack by the reapers (actually, we already knew that), but more specifically that she's a walker somewhere. He wasn't able to put her down.

In the opening scene, a teenage girl walker moves toward the group and Maggie kills her. She says that this young woman was Elijah's sister's best friend. We learn that Elijah’s sister is still out there somewhere.

If that's not a huge tie to Beth and what we believe happened during the missing 17 days, I don't know what is.

Later in the episode, as Maggie and Elijah are leading the walker horde toward Meridian, he looks over and sees his sister as a walker. It was somewhat reminiscent of Michonne in 4B. But mostly, it just screamed Beth to me.

Obviously, in this case, Elijah was able to find his sister and she truly is deceased. It was difficult because when he sees her, they are leading the walker horde, and therefore he couldn't actually put her down. If he had, it would've gotten the attention of the rest of the walkers and he and Maggie probably would've been eaten. But he started to cry, and Maggie held his hand. I thought it was very sweet and poignant. But I also couldn't help but think that Maggie is so very sympathetic toward him because she knows EXACTLY how he feels.

Second major Beth callback:

This one came through Daryl and Leah's storyline. They find a young family, who Pope tells them to kill. But Leah has an intense emotional reaction, especially when she sees the couple's son, who looks like he's probably not too many years older than Matthew was. She defies Pope’s order and doesn't kill the family. Instead, she tells the father and son to run away. The mother, who was badly hurt, and probably wouldn't have survived anyway, asks Leah to kill her. But Leah, still upset, can't do it. So, Daryl does it for her.

He walks up to retrieve his arrow and covers the woman with a blanket. This was a direct call back to the Rich Bitch walker in Still, who he covered the blue tarp to appease Beth. Remember that after Lenny was killed by the Claimers, he also almost covered him with the tarp, but then ended up not.

In this scene with Leah, Daryl then turns around and says, "Leah, I gotta tell you something." Obviously, he was going to tell her everything and try to bring her in on his plan. He doesn't end up doing it because just then Pope radios and tells them to get back to camp. (I assume that's because they see Maggie’s walker horde coming.)

I can't help but think that everything about Leah reminded Daryl of Beth in this scene. She still wearing her blonde ponytail, she got emotional about the situation and had sympathy for the family. The fact that she reminded him so much of Beth in that moment is probably why he covered the deceased woman. It was an almost unconscious action because he was thinking of Beth. And that is why he decided to trust Leah, even though he didn't actually do it.

You might say that we have a bit of a Darth Vader situation going on here. Daryl is trying to figure out whether there is still good in Leah and whether he can trust her. That's why he's always watching her interactions with Pope so closely. He sort of wants to turn her to the good side, or TF’s side. And no, I don't think it's because of anything romantic. AK has said that's over with. But that doesn't mean Leah can't be helpful to him in making sure that Maggie and the rest of the group survive.

So, what this is probably going to come down to is Daryl finally showing Leah his hand, and then it will depend on whether helps him save Maggie and the others or turns on him and outs him to Pope. MSF next week. Just sayin’. ;D

Let's talk briefly about the Commonwealth.

We had this really weird sequence where Eugene and Stephonie are clearing walkers, but they see two younger people walk by who are being a little bit snotty about being near where walkers are.

Later, they see these two kissing under the pavilion, with walkers coming up behind them. Eugene runs out and saves them from the walkers. Another one shows up while Eugene is arguing that the young man, who turns out to be a total tool. Stephonie kills that walker, spraying the young guy’s girlfriend with blood.

While watching, I couldn’t figure out where this was leading. It was just so bizarre. Yes, Eugene and Stephani saved them from walkers, and yes, they were being jerks about it, but why would there be walkers near them while they were on a date anyway? Why did Mercer lead them to a place with walkers nearby and then leave them alone? I just wasn't quite putting it all together.

We then learned that this young man is Pamela Milton’s son. That's why he so entitled, because his mother runs the community, so he thinks the world owes him something. Because Eugene hit him, poor Eugene finds himself in this in a cell again.

I didn't really put together what was going on until Hornsby showed up and said, "Now the price is higher. We need to know the name of your town and how to get there."

So, yeah. It was all a set up. They're wanted Eugene to do something else they could punish him for because they're trying to get the name of his settlement. It's no different than what they were trying to do in the interrogation. So, these people are pretty diabolical. They realized the interrogation wasn't working. Eugene's group wasn't intimidated by them and they knew they would get answers that way. So, they set up first the radio and then the situation with Pamela Milton’s son in order to try and force Eugene to give them the name of the name and location of Alexandria. 

At the end of the episode, it sounds like Eugene is thinking about caving, but we don't know whether he did or not in this episode.

Another thing of interest is that the real Stephanie who Eugene talked to on the radio seems to be Pamela Milton's receptionist. She and Yumiko did have some interaction in this episode.

Beyond that, we also did have a really interesting conversation between Maggie and Negan. Though there wasn’t much that was TD about it, I really did enjoy that scene.

I also still think they’re setting up something with Father Gabriel, but I’m still at a loss as to what it is.

That's it for today. Like I said, short and sweet. I'll be back with details and any developments from the talking dead tomorrow. How did everyone like this episode?

[dyketubbo]

my ask didnt send i am going to murder. anyway BEEP CLASSPECTING... now im thinking abt that and aimsey. from the top of my head/only briefly thinking, beep as rage or void vibes with me? (obvs not the typical rage player you see, more like the nuance we were discussing). and aimsey as a life player?

oooo void beep would be suuper cool :oc rage too, he is very fucking stubborn and does have outbursts rather often (also rage players in canon usually have connections to magic, and then the homestuck rage players all had religious themes so, god stuff). meanwhile void fits beeps heavy "this is all irrelevant and you could never understand any of this", and his own belief that even what he does just doesnt matter. personality under a veil (not necessarily a facade), fundamental inability to understand and truly perceive it all.

id say he doesnt fit rage enough, if only because rage players are fundamentally about survival instinct, and, well. beeps already dead, and he seems to be perfectly fine with the fact that one day he just wont exist at all. hes not scared, though he is easily pissed off, but in the end he just sort of likes messing with shit and being in control. lil dickhead (affectionate)

honestly, since he almost fits rage but not quite, he.. almost acts like a prince of hope (unfortunate eridan kinnie). destroying beliefs and asserting his reality as the Absolute Truth, dragging others like aimsey into his delusions and being in a situation where aimseys putting her faith into him even though hes not a good person because she feels the need to believe in him and connect with him, because she genuinely feels like hes the only friend they have left, and because aimsey wants desperately to believe in what beep is trying to show her, desperately wants to understand. he shuts down things he believes to be false, to the point where he can make them false by simply destroying the problem.

hes a force of outward destruction, destroying what he believes to be flaws in others. theyre heavily defensive, putting everyone beneath them, believing hes the one thats doing it Right, and ultimately, he believes its his right to control things. he doesnt trust anyone, he reacts to any fear he may have with anger, lashes out, and the "TELL. NO ONE" scene almost showcases beep shattering and hurting aimsey before he steps back and give a quick "sorry!". his arc seems to be leading up to him realizing he can care about aimsey, that he can trust her to believe him and in him, and he seems to be dealing with the concept of trusting aimsey with his beliefs

hes definitely not a general hope player, but specifically prince of hope could fit. onto possible void class combos, with, first, the notable fact that we dont know what kind of person beep may have been in the past, other than that he was destructive. we know about some events in his past, and how he feels about them (kinda), but generally, this means hes very versatile and has many class possibilities, depending on how we want to interpret what we do know.

for example, he could be a maid whose now in the apeshit stage, stubborn and repressive. its entirely possible he got so tired of listening to the other spirits that he got to the unhealthy stage, exploded, and now without anything stopping him, hes doing whatever the fuck he wants, because hes decided none of it matters, that its all irrelevant and he doesnt have to care because its his fucking universe and no one can stop him from playing god. he spends his time doing menial things, because to him, its all equally unimportant, so why not waste time? he cuts down unnecessary tasks, weeds out what he finds useless, etc etc. basically, he should still be independent, but he needs to be brought back down to earth (metaphorically), because hes kind of burnt himself out and is now fucking with things because he feels none of it matters anyways

sylph of void sort of works too, mainly his meddling and tendency to shut down anything that could reveal something he doesnt want revealed, as well as shutting down others viewpoints and he covers up shit whenever he wants. his motivations are, really, mostly unknown to us, other than that he seems to think this is fun. otherwise, he also has a tendency to try and fix things he thinks needs fixing (like getting rid of fairies and space creatures), and will often try to fix mistakes he sees in mortals. however, slyphs are ultimately healers, and beep just. is not a healer, and he doesnt necessarily invite creation of void in any way, since void isnt really destruction of anything, and what he does invite is destruction of things. hes also just too active to be a slyph

so, with the previous prince assession, theres also the possibility of him being a prince of light, which would mean he would act more like a void player. hed destroy light with light, destroy the importance of information with information. they strip away the importance of things, uses plain fact to force the perception that nothings really important. he dismisses the importance of things, purposefully acts ignorant to draw away from what he knows, destroys knowledge itself from a power standpoint (wiping aimseys memory), and in extreme cases, can physically destroy anything in his way, or assert over and over that what he said/did isnt real, that nothings true or important other than what hes saying. again, little shit. if i had to make up my mind, i think prince of light fits the most

as for aimsey, i think life does fit him really well, shes definitely got the similar "girl next door" kind of vibes, while still being really interesting in her own right. she definitely starts out as a typical fictional life player, enthusiastic, energetic, genuine, wanting to effect the world. shes a normal girl (and this isnt an insult, rather, her being so normal ties the magical themes of the bear smp together really well, and its a perfect way to use a life player, make them be a catalyst for both the normal life player and eccentric others to shine). however, as she struggles with losing trust in bear and not being treated well, not having anyone that cares about them specifically, the energy starts to falter, but comes back when they feel the need to be rebellious. notably, while aspects arent super literal, she contrasts beep so much in just how alive she is, which fits her being a life player rather well. except, as i said, aspects arent literal, which means aimsey being a life player translates to her showing what life means in a metaphorical sense.

life is about agency. its about what you do, your ability to do so, its about asserting your will. not what drives you, but simply you doing at all. interesting enough, life players can be hard to pin down because life is about desire and agency, while the players class defines their ideology. life players can become obsessed with an idea that they need to do something, that they need to change how systems work, and often can cloak their want to fulfill their individual desires as altruistic want to fulfill others needs and desires (i.e., aimsey wants a friend and someone who pays attention to her and is genuine towards her, she feels like shes found that in beep, and as such starts to cloak her want to be his friend as aimsey wanting to help beep rather than aimsey themself).

as for said class.. this was, hard. because of how heavily influenced life is by the class its paired with, and because aimseys arc right now is trying to deal with feeling like shes too much and unneeded, it means that i have to really consider how that connects with which classes struggles. so, i ended up with sylph. aimsey is a creator, and she tries to heal as well. "allowing creation/healing of life or inviting creation/healing through life". from a literal standpoint, she tries to help bear heal by trying to get him to open up, to live, to make friends and interact with people. this could almost seem like a blood player move, but while a lot of aimseys arc is about bonds and relationships, shes not really a strong connecter or leader, shes just good at inspiring others to be, to her own detriment.

also notably, unhealthy sylphs crave, whether craving more of their own aspect, or craving another aspect when they feel theirs is not enough. aimsey talks a lot about how she grew up doing things by her lonesome, and now that she feels like people are moving on without her, she may be craving blood (that sounds so awful out of context). she wants attachments, wants to be the person that brings everyone together, but.. she isnt, not in a way thats appreciated. and due to her insecurities, she sees this as a flaw within himself, and as something to fix. so, she latches onto beep, and desperately tries to have as much of an effect on their life as they do on hers. like life players in general, sylphs try to solve their problems under the guise of helping someone else with theirs. currently, aimsey seems to be trying to find what she needs to do, because when she tried to do what she thought she needed to do, she (from her perspective) failed, so now shes trying to make up for her perceived failure within herself by trying to help herself through helping beep. i would think into it even more but i think its probably best to just leave it here KEKW

[mistresseast]

can you explain in more detail why you think the PT weren't good friends for akiren? i'm not asking out of hate or to start drama, i just never interpreted things that way and i'm genuinely curious. i don't think them being brainwashed by maruki makes them "bad friends", but i don't know if that's what you meant either. i'd love to read a proper explanation on this that isn't just people arguing in the notes of that post.

Hi! Yeah, I know the ~discourse~ climate is pretty touchy and not a good place to exchange ideas, so I’ll do my best to put my thoughts on this matter into words. 

Settle in, bc this one is long.

I’ll start off by saying I don’t dislike the PT, nor do I think they’re bad people, and honestly I think they love Joker a lot! Ryuji calling Akira after his fake death and talking about how his ideas on what makes a hero have changed because of Akira genuinely makes me emotional, along with dozens of other scenes with the thieves! They’re good kids who could be really good friends to Akira but that’s not what’s shown in the game. I don’t think it’s controversial to say Akira’s relationships with all of his friends are transactional. That’s kind of the point, all of his confidants arise out of deals, give and take, and in the metanarrative of the game, that’s how it works. You as the player help these characters solve their problems, and through ranking their confidants up, you get access to more gameplay perks. So it’s pretty even!! But like,,Akira, the character, isn’t the player. There’s no in-story mechanic by which he can cash in friendship points for being-good-at-killing-things prizes. Yes, he uses those abilities to not die in the metaverse, but there is no literal, in-universe way to explain how hanging out with someone translates to [insert gameplay perk here]. So you have to look at what is physically happening in the story. Akira hangs out with the PT, stands there while they have drama with another irrelevant character, and then one way or another their problems get solved and they swear to be Akira’s blood brother or whatever. Akira is a crutch for these characters, and they say multiple times that they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did without him. So all of their shit gets handled and Akira gets?? Like actually gets?? What? Inquiries about his well-being? Offers to help him? Questions about his life, his interests? No,,,not really,, But he gets access to a super powerful persona!! Yay!!! Bc everyone knows he’s just a little shadow-killing machine, right? And even the relationships he does get something tangible (as in separate from the mechanics of the game) out of, like Kawakami’s, are built on the notion that if Akira stops providing for whatever reason, the relationship will end. So essentially, Akira is under the pressure of filling whatever role his friends need him in for however long at any time, and he’s been led to believe that if he stops or fails, he will stop receiving any reciprocal care and acceptance.

(And I know this is all gameplay stuff, I know it has to be like this to codify the complicated process of human relationships, I know all of that, I’m just trying to find a deeper layer bc that’s what I do.)

This whole thing comes into pretty clear focus for me during the third semester when you visit everyone in the false reality. Everyone is happy to see him, of course, but they’re clearly wrapped up in their own happiness. Which is understandable, again, I’m not saying the PT need to be attached to Akira to be good friends, but it all still feels off to me.

If they know Joker, then they’d know it’s weird that he just shows up and starts asking these pointed questions while they’re in the middle of something. All of their other interactions with him have been led by them. Yeah, Joker approaches them bc the player has decided to hang out with them, but the other character always chooses the activity and leads the discussion. Akira showing up out of nowhere and asking them to “remember” and “move on” and whatnot should be raising some major red flags. And it clearly does, since their memories do start to return, but they’re all too scared of losing their happiness that they nope out of the conversation as soon as possible, without stopping to consider why Joker might be trying to reach out to them like that. They’re his friends; they should know he wouldn’t just be trying to hurt them or make them unhappy. After all, their entire relationship with him up til that point has been exclusively about Joker trying to help them. This doesn’t make the PT bad people, running away is a totally natural reaction in that situation. They’re just kids, and their minds have been manipulated to a point, but it’s not like they don’t remember Joker or the way they’ve grown since meeting him. In fact many of them mention how much they’ve matured recently, but they never actually relate that back to Akira, despite him being the primary driving force behind most of their personal arcs, even though they definitely remember him. Translation vagueness or deliberate nod to the idea that the PT don’t actually credit Akira with all the hard work he did after their initial lip service? Hmmm. Anyway, their failure to recognize that Joker is struggling just demonstrates to me what was set up all throughout their confidant links, that their relationships are transactional and that they don’t necessarily consider Joker and his individual needs outside of what he provides for them. And when they no longer need him bc that hole has been filled, he simply doesn’t occupy the same place of importance in their lives. 

Makoto’s flashback in particular stood out to me, bc it was from a moment where she was specifically talking about feeling like she finally found a place to belong with the Phantom Thieves (and by extension, with Joker), but then she desperately tries to brush it off. Obviously that sense of belonging wasn’t meaningful enough to her for her to want it back. And I’m not blaming her, of course, any teenager would choose to have their father back over being in a vigilante group lmao, I just thought it was telling that the devs decided to show us a scene that was originally meant to be heartwarming as an example of the harsh reality Makoto wants to forget. All of the flashbacks are from defining moments for the thieves, but that one specifically got me like *thinking emoji*

So his friends are hesitant, despite the fact that they must know something is wrong. It’s understandable, they all stand to lose a lot if someone messes with the status quo. I genuinely don’t think I would react any differently. But there is someone who reacts differently and against his own self-interest. It’s Goro, the one who has arguably the most to lose, who doesn’t turn away from Akira. He seeks Akira out and teams up with him to uncover what’s really going on, even though he has every reason to believe that prodding too deep will literally mean the end of his life. He forces Akira and himself to face the truth because he knows anything else would just be an insult to what they’ve suffered so far. He’s the only one who never flinches, and that, more than any of his friends’ come-to-jesusing (which Akira still has to initiate) is what Akira needs in that situation. For the first time (outside of the brief instances in the tutorial levels), we see a situation where Akira is actually the dependent one, the one who needs help, who needs support. And the only one who has ever provided that, unconditionally, without demanding anything in return, is Goro. I could go into how Goro’s confidant blows all of the others out of the water in terms of building both himself AND Akira as characters, but it’s been said already and by smarter people than me. But basically, despite competition being a core theme of their relationship, Goro is the only character who is portrayed as Akira’s equal. Their contests are all in the name of improving not just Goro, but Akira too. Goro is the only character who expresses an interest in Akira’s inner life and development, and as such he knows Akira better than anyone else. So when Maruki tries to trap them all in a gilded birdcage, Goro won’t stand for it and he knows Akira won’t stand for it either. That’s why he’s so betrayed if you choose to accept the dreamworld. You’re negating the basis of your entire relationship with him and going against your own principles. Out of every character in the game, the one who knows Akira best and refuses to abandon him even when that could mean his own death is Goro Akechi.

I want to reiterate: I do not hate or even dislike the PT!! And tbh I don’t really think they “abandoned” Akira. That post, imo, is supposed to be kind of hyperbolic. Unless it’s referring to how many of them literally sprint away when he comes to talk to them lol. I look at it more like a commentary on how thoughtlessly the PT act as soon as their wishes are granted. I know it’s set up linearly for story purposes, but isn’t it kind of sad how no one checks up on Akira in the week he’s going around talking to people? Especially after he’s been acting so comparatively weird? It’s not unusual that they might be caught up in other stuff, but while you’re going around and visiting everyone, you don’t get a single text or call from ANY of the thieves, for a whole week!! Goro even comments on it directly with his pointed little “I’m sure you’re just as close as you were before” comment. God, he’s such a bitch. Ultimately, the PT do get their acts together, and it’s partially out of the realization that Akira is struggling alone against something and needs their help, which I love and appreciate. I think they are good friends who want to support Akira, but they can’t understand him past the role they’ve placed him in, and until they do, they’ll never be able to be what he needs. Akira loves his friends and knows he can rely on them in most ways, but those relationships will always be dogged by the pervasive fear that he must constantly earn the right to have the relationship at all. What he needs MOST is someone he doesn’t have to perform for, and from what we see in the game, none of the thieves fit that bill. Except Goro. 

I know this was long and rambly and probably pretty disjointed but I wanted to be as thorough as possible and all of my thoughts just sort of gushed out. Obviously ymmv about all of this depending on how you interpret the game, but this is what I arrived at thanks to my analysis so this is what I have for you! Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[riverleyk]

RECOVERED: Lost Mafia Kids files.

Mafia kids: 12 signatures as been my passion project all the way back since high school... like... 6 or 5 years ago? Oh my god... I'm getting old. This dates back to 2018.

CHAPTER 1

My high school years will be memories that I look over with more and more horror as I get older. At the time, I wasn’t afraid and I was too naive to realize the real danger I was in. However, I will never regret what I did. I was only trying to help.

It started with my dad losing his job. My family depended on him financially, my mom never worked too much, my brother, Kevin, was too young to even work, and even if I was old enough to work at the time, I didn’t want to and I felt as though I was allowed not to. Pretty selfish, right? But the minimum wage I could have gotten wouldn’t have helped in this situation; my family used to be rich, but once my dad was fired, we lost all the money and the benefits that came along with it. I assume it’s because my father liked to show off and so we were living above our means.

We moved to the slums of the big city, it was the most dangerous place in the area, but the cheapest. We stopped buying nice things like we used to, now we lived on bare essentials. Kevin took this hard, but I tried to adapt. I went to a new school too. It was the only school in the ghetto closest to our house, but it was infamous for being filled with child delinquents. Not only that, but it was infamously known as the worst school out there, in the poorest neighborhood.

I was so foolish… I really expected to be accepted there. In my old school, I was a bit bullied but I had a large group of friends, and we all got a long great! I was a really social and friendly person, so I wasn’t worried about going and making new friends in this hostile environment, but I was so, so, SO stupid!

From the second I walked in, I was stunned by how diverse it was there, there were few white people, and most of the kids there were racial minorities. I stuck out like a sore thumb… I went to school wearing my favorite rainbow pastel dress, I had even curled my hair and showered before my first day of school! I smelled of flowers and I was so cute looking. That however… That was my first mistake!

The others kids looked dirty… I don’t want to sound mean but they did! Their shirts were covered with stains. They seemed tired and unkempt. It was really a shocking contrast to the private school I went to before, but I tried not to judge. I acted super friendly and nice to everybody I saw. I introduced myself and I did a curtsy, I was so prim and proper!

“Hello there! My name’s Safara Grace, I’m new to this school. How are you?” Is what I’d say, but people seemed to hate me even more.

But not only that… I was white… Pure white. No, I don’t think you understand just how pale my skin is, it looks like I’ve never been outside before. Why? Because I’m an albino! Yes, my skin is pale, my eyes are purple and my hair is bleach white. Every time people see me, they look stunned and ask if I’m faking it. I’ve been dealing with this my whole life. I was born this way. Albinos are so rare, so the best way I can make you understand what my life is like on a daily basis is to make you imagine something…

So imagine you’re a kid… A black kid...going to school, but everybody there is white. They've never seen a black kid before and you are the only black kid around.

Imagine the bullying or the weird stares… Yeah! That’s my life all the time! Except I have no refuge with other albino people like the black kid does, I just have me! Being such a rare trait, I don’t even know another who looks like me… Oh and also, my skin is very irritable to sun light, so I walk around with a parasol all the time.

But anyways, I made no friends. For the first time ever, I was unable to make friends! I was heart broken and confused. I became very lonely. I hated this school so much… Everybody was so different… They hated me because I looked rich and I was so freakishly white. I told myself that the racism against me for being white was justified. I mean, white people were very racist in the past… But I soon stopped when I realized the few other white kids in the school weren’t getting bullied at all! Well… Except for one… I noticed this boy who always did group projects and sat alone at lunch like I did... He never spoke and nobody ever dared talk about him. I started hanging out with him, and I soon learned why…

CHAPTER 2

Yeah, that boy was creepy. He was tall, bone thin skinny, and he had extremely messy dark brown hair, tipped with gold. He was sort of attractive in the “I look almost dead inside but I’m super hot” kind of way. He wore a blue dress shirt with a grey hoodie on top. He was…strange.

He looked so tired with black bags hung under his eyes. His skin was gray and bruised all over. He had this depressing aura that lingered around him. To any normal person, just staring at him would send off red flags and make you stay away. To me though, a desperate and lonely teenage girl, he was perfect.

I quickly understood why everybody stopped bullying me when I started hanging out with him; they pitied me! They used to call me names and shove me into walls, but they stopped when I met him.

One day, a popular girl told me she would be my friend if I stopped hanging out with him. “Uh… why? I’m sorry but this sounds like a trap.” I replied to her, rolling my eyes.

“I know this looks cheap but I’m not kidding…”, she paused, “that guy is NUTS. He’s too weird for such an innocent li'l girl like you. Look, I promise to be nicer and I’ll tell everybody in school that you’re cool, but seriously…not him…hang out with anybody except him…”

“Why? Why is he so crazy to you?” I was so insulted by her pleas.

“Because he’s…he’s… I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”, she yelled at me. “The guy’s a fucking creeper and he’s unstable! Not only that, but rumors around school say that he’s addicted to the worst kinds of drugs, but nobody is even sure of that. Others say he’s mental, but it doesn’t matter what his problem is, he’s gonna rip you apart, Safari!”

“My name is Safara…”, I said in a dead pan tone. All I could do was walk away.

I think I did the right thing in that moment… That girl was a bitch to me. She spread lies around the school about my father and how he lost his job for cheating on my mom. Everybody believed it only because she was popular. I hated her and I wasn’t going to take her advice.

But, no matter how I spin it… She was absolutely right. Bonding with that guy was harder than I thought… More often than not, I felt uncomfortable around him. Getting him to speak was hard enough, he would ignore me and stay silent but when he did talk, it was…

IT WAS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND HIM! He spoke like an emotionless robot! His tone of voice was this constant bored and tired tone, yet sometimes he’d say a joke or act sarcastic, but it wouldn’t make any sense because he sounded exactly the same as his normal tone!

It took me a whole month to get him to talk to me. I felt bad for pestering him around… I’d force my way into working with him during group projects in class, I’d eat with him at lunch, and I'd hang out with him in the library.

I remember the first time I got him to talk to me. I had opened up my sketch book and tried showing him my clothing designs. He looked at them blankly. He seemed uninterested at most of the drawings.

"They're pretty good.", he said in an uncaring tone.

"Oh...you...like them? For real?" I couldn't help but smile anyway.

“Yeah.” He replied simply. “You’re good.”

"Oh, thank you..." I pointed to my favorite ones. "You see how my dresses are colorful? Well, I do that just cause these days all the clothes are boring and black. I like making my stuff stand out, but I also like pastel colors too."

I assumed he didn't care because he sounded bored. Also he's was a boy. Boys don't like fashion like girls do.

He tilted his head slightly, "Yeah..I can see that.”. He sounded just as lifeless as ever.

I was surprised by this interaction, but after this he seemed to open up to me. He spoke to me about the things his liked; those being science and history, but he still didn’t talk much.

It was funny, because after a while I got used to him. I was able to read his sarcasm from his honesty even if the tone of his voice didn’t give any clues… I was so used to his weirdness that I stopped questioning him about all the bruises he had on his body. Heck, I even forgot that I didn’t know his name!

But luckily, one day he told me it out of the blue. We were in class working on a english oral presentation and we were both writing our parts and then he suddenly looked at me, straight in the eyes and said:

“Dimitrius Atkins.”

“What?”, I replied, not even bothering to look back at him.

“That’s my name. I know your name.” He replied. “But you don’t know mine… a-and that’s not fair.”

“Oh… You’re right! I sort of forgot about asking you after a while.”, I said, surprised. “Dimitrius… That’s an uncommon name..” “Please call me Dimitri though.” He corrected me with a monotone expression. “I don’t like Dimitrius.”

“Oh… why don’t you?”

“It sounds too serious. I’m a goofy guy. It’s not very fitting.”, he said seriously. How ironic.

I just giggled and went back to work.

From then on, we sort of became friends. The more he spoke, the more concern grew in me. He wasn’t crazy like everybody said he was, but there was something wrong with him.

He showed up to school with blood stains on his sleeves and scars all over him sometimes. I can’t forget the time he showed up to class late… He limped over to his desk, bruises all over his hands and he had a black eye. That was my wake up call. After that, I started noticing more.

I guess the first thing was his sarcasm. I assumed it was sarcasm.

“Hey Dimitri, what’s up!?”, I’d say excitedly.

“No… He’s not here right now.”, he’d reply.

Or other nonsensical replies.

“Hey Dimitri, for the project, do you want me to write the introduction or should I do the conclusion?”

“No, Safara, the world won’t have a conclusion.”, he said blankly.

“Dimitri, I mean the project!”, I exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” He said looking away from me.

These sort of situations would come out of nowhere. Like I said, I thought it was him being sarcastic or making jokes, but the more we talked, the more I realized: he wasn’t joking. He was giving me these nonsense answers because he thought they were appropriate but it just made no sense…

I asked my mother, a psychologist, about it. I told her everything about him.

“Oh Safara… Your friend sounds like he’s mentally ill.”, she answered with concern in her eyes.

“You sure? I know he’s weird but…”

“Safara, this sounds serious. Maybe you should invite him over someday… I would love to talk to him.”

“Ok mom, I will.” I told her.

CHAPTER 3

The day after, I went to school with a mission. I was going to invite Dimitri to my house! I was so anxious about it that my legs were fidgeting all day.

I saw him sitting at his usual spot, alone in the library, reading a book about robotics like he always did. His hair was combed that day, he looked good for once! Well, looking good for him is pretty easy. He just has to look like he wasn't beat up 10 minutes ago and had washed his hair in the past 20 years.

I walked over to him, and Dimitri greeted me!

“Hey there, angel girl.”, he quietly said. He sounded tired.

I was caught off guard. Was he complimenting me? I sat down next to him.

“Hey there. So…do you want to go out?”, I said jokingly. I wanted to see him get flustered. I was pretty disappointed when he just nodded and continued reading. I think I may have spotted his cheeks get a little flushed, however.

“No, I mean, do you want to eat dinner with my family this weekend?”

“No.” He said dryly.

“Oh… Do you want to hang out this weekend?” I tried again.

“Sure.”

“At my house?”

“No.”

“Then where do you want to hang out?”, I snapped at him impatiently. I was shushed by the librarian.

“At the park.”, he whispered back.

“Oh. Cool.” I was a bit surprised. I didn’t know there was a park near by. “See ya there then.”

“Bye.” He waved at me and very obviously forced a smile. “Dimitri... I’m not leaving.” I laughed quietly but the librarian heard it. He promptly kicked me out of the library.

I got up and walked out.

“Bye again.”, he said while waving at me. This time his smile seemed more genuine, which hurt me a lot.

I muttered curse words under my breath and walked out embarrassed. My mission was a failure, but I was going to meet him at the park that Friday after school, so I felt proud either way.

Friday night finally came. The wait was unbearable. We met outside of the school. He gave a look, but it was more like a blank stare. He gave me a signal to walk over to him. Once I was close to him, he said carefully,

“Watch out for people who follow us. The park is safe but the path there is dangerous.”

I was unsure of how to reply so I just nodded. He put up his hood and lead the way. I followed him, walking by his side, trying not to get my parasol in the way. I tried to make small talk, but he stayed mostly quiet.

He asked me about my family, so I told him why I moved here.

“That’s too bad.”. He sounded careless, like he didn’t mean it. “This place is a bad place to live in.”

“I… Yeah…”. I agreed with him but I felt bad doing so, knowing that he lived here.

Looking around me, I saw trash all over the streets. People weren’t dressed as well as they used to be back in my previous neighborhood. People looked tired or overworked. There were hobos all over the place. Not to mention the buildings looked old and worn down.

“This place is so different from where I used to live.”, I told him.

“This is what poverty looks like.”, he said bluntly, “everybody here is suffering.”

“I know…”. I was hurt just seeing it all. I felt so sad for these people. “I want to help them.”

“Don’t.”

“W-why not?”. I stammered over my words, shocked by his apathy.

“They just take and take. They will never get out of this.”. He looked at me blankly. “Nobody gets out of poverty once they fall into it.”

“But… what about me?!”, I said, insulted.

“Start getting a job. Save up.”. He looked around behind his shoulder. “You can dream too.”

I stopped talking to him until we reached the park. I didn’t like him being so mean but what he said had truth to it.

The park was surprisingly isolated. It was full of trees and trash littered the ground. It was peaceful and it looked like a forest with hiking trails.

“You like to walk?”, he asked emotionlessly.

“Yes, and I love nature too.”, I said smiling, pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the park. “There’s a lot of trash here but it’s still nice to have a forest in the middle of the city.”

“That’s good.”, he replied, “nobody likes to come here…”

“Oh? Why not? It’s so pretty!”

“Um… well.”, he started, “there was once a big mafia that was running this part of the city. They committed many crimes. This park used to be popular for kids in the summer, but then they realized that the mafia was burying their victims here…. A police investigation was launched and they dug up over 22 bodies…”

“Oh my god…”, I whispered.

“Exactly.” He nodded. “People weren’t allowed in during the investigation…but once it was over, people didn’t want to come back in here. I’ve only ever seen one other guy here.” “They are afraid… and for good reason.”

“And nobody wants to buy this land cause it’s “haunted” apparently.” He forces a small laugh like it’s funny. “I’ve been here a lot and I haven’t seen anything here.”

“Well… heh… I can’t say I’m exactly too thrilled to take a stroll in here now.” I joked even though it was half true.

He didn’t reply. He just started walking. We walked in silence for a bit. It was making me feel really uncomfortable. I started looking around the forest. We could still hear the cars whooshing past us, as the streets were just behind the tree line, but as we walked further and further away, the sound faded.

I felt at peace, listening to the rustle of the wind in the leaves and the birds in the trees.

As a city girl, I don’t go to forest that often. My closest experience to animals are the bird feeders in my back yard and the squirrels. This walk was giving me nostalgic memories of the times I went camping.

I turns to look at what was to my left and I jumped a bit, seeing Dimitri besides me was startling as he was so quiet I forgot he was there. Though now, I was staring at him…. subtly! So he wouldn’t notice… I spotted a couple of bruises on his hands, neck and a faded scar on his cheek. Now that I was up close to him, I could see there was a lot more signs of injuries on him then I had previously thought.

“Hey Dimitri…”, I mumbled to him timidly.

He almost robotically turned to look at me. “Yeah?”

“Sorry for asking this… It might be personal. Why do you have a lot of bruises on your skin?”, I asked him. Instantly regretting the invasive question, I stammered out another sentence. “It’s nosey of me, I know, but it’s a hard detail to miss. It’s concerning…”

He went back to looking in front of him. He didn’t reply for a solid minute. The silence and wait was unbearable.

“I just get into a lot of fights.” He answered simply.

“But how?” My interest was peaked.

“Well you know… it’s a bad neighborhood. Gangs are everywhere.” He turned to look at me. “You better be careful.”

The words lingered in my head, sending a chill down my spine. The way he said it, cold and uncaringly, sent implications that were not spoken. Was he…threatening to attack me? Or was he warning me of other people doing so? He creeped me out.

“T-thanks… I will.”

Finally we reached a small river that ran along through the city and this park. We stopped and Dimitri told me a story about how a kid drowned in it. He’s not a very cheerful guy but I tried to ignore it…

We sat along the edge of the river. There were ducks passing by. Dimitri pulled a whole loaf of bread out of his back pack and handed me a few slices.

“Do you always carry around bread in your bag?” I laughed.

“Yep.” He said throwing a piece of bread into the water.

I laughed even harder. “So you do this often?”

“Yep.”

A pack of ducks were gathered around us now, fighting over the pieces of bread we were tossing into the water. We fed the ducks together while chatting. Eventually the topic of family came up.

“Well… I have a little brother. He’s a little brat. What about you?”, I asked.

“I’m a single child.”, he said, concentrated on the ducks.

“Aw, that must be lonely, isn’t it?”

“It is… But not because of my lack of siblings.”, he answered robotically.

“Oh how so?” I was probing for more information.

“Well I don’t have a father… Um… no. I do have a dad, he’s just not around much at all. And my mom? I avoid her.” He said hesitantly.

“Why is your dad gone? Why do you avoid your mom?”, I asked, concerned for him.

He forced a smile and looked at me. “No. Everything is fine.”

“Dimitri…” I gave him my “I know you’re lying to me” face and his smile faded away back to his neutral expression.

“My mom isn’t a nice woman… And my dad is in prison.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.” I felt bad for pushing him to say it.

But a thought clicked in my head. He came to school everyday with bruises and cuts and he admitted that his mother wasn’t “nice”. Was this abuse?

“D-Dimitri… does your mom hurt?” I questioned.

“No.” He said simply.

“But you-”

“No.” he said a bit louder. “She doesn’t like me. But she doesn’t not like me either.” He said calmly. “Now stop asking me crappy questions.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s ok. I forgive you.”

We finished the bread and the ducks looked satisfied. They swam off and we walked off. He chatted a little back to the streets. I offered Dimitri the dinner invitation again and he accepted. We scheduled it, and I went home.

CHAPTER 4

It was the big day! Dimitri was gonna come over, we were going to hang out, eat dinner and somehow I’d persuade him to talk to my mom so she could figure out what was wrong with him.

I know I sound weird, trying to stalk him and get him diagnosed by my mom, but I obsessively want to help people and sometimes I take it too far. This is one of those times.

Dimitri showed up at our door. He was wearing a blue dress shirt and his hair was combed but still messy. He had a black eye and a bloody nose. He didn’t seemed fazed by it at all.

My brother heared the knocking first, unknowing of what our guest would look like. To his surprise, he was met by a disheveled young man at our door, standing like nothing was the matter. All he could do was stare.

Dimitri was so shy he didn’t say anything, just bleeding out of his nose. The blood was dripping down his face and leaking down his neck. He had just been seriously punched in the face, but my brother was too choked up and confused to know what to do.

“What the fuck happened to you!?”, Kevin yelled in disgust.

“I um..” He stammered. “I was mugged before coming here…”

Kevin just gave him a look of astonishment and ran into the kitchen to call for our mother.

Dimitri just let himself in. At that point I had heard the commotion and promptly came down the stairs. I froze up, seeing Dimitri bleeding like that.

“Hi Safara!” He waved cheerfully to me.

My mother came rushing in and bombarded the boy with questions, giving him a towel for his nose and a wet rag for his eye.

Dimitri seemed oddly perky. Usually, he was emotionless, making him come across as bored or slightly annoyed with everything. However, now he seemed to have a hint of happiness in his demeanor. I won’t ever complain about Dimitri being actually happy for once, but it was so different from his normal self that it weirded me out.

My mother, brother and I gave him a lot of attention while trying to help his wounds heal. He just sat there and gave us a small smile. He was giggling randomly from time to time. He seemed to be really enjoying himself even thought nothing much was happening.

“So what happened to you, eh?” Kevin asked.

“Oh... I was walking over here from my house. I was taking the back roads to avoid the traffic.” He started to explain.

“Back roads? Traffic? You were walking! How could there be traffic?” Kevin interrupted.

“I don’t like the big streets with too many cars…” He snarled. “Anyways… I passed by an alley way when a sketchy little girl jumped in front of me. She said something about me needing to go somewhere with her to meet somebody and to learn “about the past.” But I didn’t want to be late so I “kindly explained” to her that I needed to be somewhere and she got “upset” with me. Then, she punched me in the face and walked off.”

“That’s… odd.” I interjected. “Are you ok though?”

“Well I’m here aren’t I?” He smiles brightly.

I was just more unnerved. This was too out of character for him… But I tried to ignore it.

Dimitri was popular with my family. My dad and him made jokes together. My brother and him ran off to play video games. (By the way, he sucks at gaming. I would haven’t guessed he’d be terrible…)

My mother approached me.

“Safara, you said he was off, but he doesn’t seem like it now.”

“I know but he’s never acted like this before. He’s usually cold and apathetic to everything.” I turned to face her. “He’s like emotionless all the time and the other kids at school say he’s crazy and talks to himself. I don’t get it! He’s the complete opposite to how he asks at school.”

My mother just stared at me for a moment. “Have you noticed that he was giggling at nothing earlier?”

“Yes?”

“He’s high.” She said with a really serious tone.

“WHAT?” I gasped.

“QUIET! It’s only a guess… But I’ve seen this behavior before. He doesn’t have any redness in the eyes, though… So I don’t know what it is that he’s on. Oh, but there's also other factors. Maybe at school, he’s just really depressed and outside of school he feels more free to open up?” She hypothesized.

“That can’t be it. When we went to the park, he was acting the same.” I argued.

“Well then.” She rolled her eyes. “We should let him get comfortable and then we can get our improv therapy session, but only if he cooperates.”

The night went on. Dimitri's enthusiasm diminished so much so during the night that he was back to his emotionless self when dinner came around. He was so quiet that my family ignored him for the whole supper. He was extremely shy. I tried to talk to him but he would only nod his head in response to anything.

After dinner, he and I went up to my room. I gave him a “grand tour” which mainly consisted of me showing him my stuff and him just listening. He was barely talking. I felt bad.

“Dimitri… are you ok?”

He just nodded meekly.

“It’s ok if you aren’t. Do you want to go home?” I asked him, sitting down on my bed.

Dimitri sat down next to me. I started getting nervous and my heart was beating fast. He was so close to me I could feel his body heat radiating.

“No… I like it here a lot. Your new house is very lovely, Safara.” He answered quietly.

My heart started pumping faster. I was my shot to convince him to talk to my mother. I had to ask him!

“So Dimitri…”

“Yes!?” He interrupted me suddenly.

“My mom is a psychologist and I know you have some problems… I was wondering if maybe you could talk to her and she could help you, like a therapy session. You wanna try it?”

He just blankly stared at me. His face was draining of blood and he was losing color.

“Yeah… but she won’t talk to you about it, right?”

“Oh no! That would be breaking the confidentiality rules! She won’t tell me anything. Even if I asked her, she’s very serious about her job.”

“Uh… ok. But not now…” He hesitated.

“Oh that's alright.” I leaned over to put my head on his shoulder.

I felt him shutter from the touch but he didn’t move away from it. He posed his head on mine and we sat like this for a while. It was peaceful and warm. I closed my eyes and held his hand. His palms were sweaty and he was trembling a bit.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

“No.” He answered.

“Good.” I held his hand tightly.

“I d-didn’t think this was a date.” He stammered.

“It’s not…”

“Then why are you doi- holdi- uh… UMM-”

“Sorry.” I back away and let go. “I’m just a huggy person. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m just…” he shivers a bit. “Not used to getting touched affectionately.”

“Oh Dimitri.” I giggled. “I don’t really consider this affection, I just think of hugs as casual things friends do.”

“Oh ok.” He replied.

We watched a little bit of TV, not saying much. After the episode ended, He got up and walked out. I thought he was going to the bathroom and he’d come back quickly but he never did.

After 20 minutes, I left the room and looked around.

Kevin was in the kitchen, sneaking cookies out of my parents’ secret spot for them.

“Hey bro, where’s Dimi?” I asked him, taking a cookie for myself.

“He’shh- wiff mom.” He said, mouth utterly stuffed with cookies.

“Thanks.” I put the cookies away and I went back to my room to wait for him.

I think Dimitri stayed there for 2 hours. I was watching the TV for a ridiculously long time. When he did come back, he looked drained.

“Sorry about that. I was expecting a little chat but I couldn’t shut myself up so I started ranting for a while.” He explained.

“Oh it’s ok. It is therapy.” I excused him.

He smiled and hugged me. I was taken aback but I held him tightly. I could feel his body. He was so frail and skinny under those clothes. It was calming for that half a second we that were close.

Then he left.

I felt so lonely with him gone.

But then I realized…

“SHIT! WE SHOULD HAVE GIVEN HIM A RIDE HOME!”

CHAPTER 5

Nothing changed much at school. Dimitri was his typical robot self. There is one thing that was very welcomed though… Dimitri seemed to be forcing himself to act more. He would talk with more hand gestures and smiles (but his smiles were very awkward looking because he was forcing them).

Dimitri also became really friendly with my family. He would come over once a week after his first session with my mother. She really liked talking to him.

Neither Dimitri or my mother told me what they would talk about, but I knew it was serious. She would walk around with her note book after the sessions and often times, she’d be the one to invite him over.

One day, I knew something was up. She sat me down to talk about him.

“Safara, what has he told you about his life?” She asked me with a sternness in her voice.

“Not much…” Then I repeated all that he told me.

“I see. He is trying to hide it…” She flipped through her notes. “I can’t tell you much, with out his consent, but Dimitri allowed me to tell you this yesterday.”

“Oh…” I could feel that what she was about to say really important.

She looked me dead in the eyes and straightened her glasses. “He’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 15 years old.”

A wave of shock zipped through my body. I was speechless.

“He has vivid hallucinations. Safara, that’s why he acts emotionless.” She told me.

“But what about when he comes here and acts all… alive?” I asked, completely baffled.

“That I don’t know.” She sighed. “But Safara, I want you to be extremely careful with him.”

“I am!”

“No… just…” She smiles at me. “Please keep being nice to him. You mean a lot to him.”

I blushed and nodded.

“That’s all I’m allowed to say. You should try to talk to him about his issues. He trusts you to keep these a secret, however. You got that, right?”

“Yes mother, I understand.” I got up to leave.

“Wait! I forgot to mention something.”

I sat back down.

“Would you mind if Dimitri lived with us?” She asked me.

My eyes widened. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

“I am. He has a bad home life, and I know that one of the only ways he can get better is by having a better family, so I asked him if could move in with us. It will be temporary, like maybe a few months or so.” She explained, justifying her decision. “I’ve already spoken to your father about this and he agrees. Dimitri wouldn’t be that huge of an addition to the family, we’d just need more food and that’s it.”

“Oh I don’t mind but don’t adopt him, ok? It would be weird to have a brother that looks so different from us.” I joked.

“Oh but that's what adoption is all about, sweetie! And he isn’t that different from us. I mean you are the most different of us all.” She touched my hair and poked my cheek, giggling the whole time.

This gesture really annoyed me. “...Thanks mom. But also, I just don’t want another brother. Kevin is enough of a brat as it is.”

“Dimitri’s a sweet young man” She said as she was getting up. “Anyways, I’m going to tell Kevin the news.”

I went back up to my room and I could hear my li'l bro wailing down stairs. He cried, “BUT THAT’S TOO MANY PEEEEOPLE!”. I snickered to myself.

CHAPTER 6

Dimitri came up to me at school the next day. He asked me if my mom told me the stuff and about the “news”.

“Oh. I’m so happy to be moving in with you.” He forced a smile but still sounded monotone.

“Me too! We’d get to hang out all the time!” I hugged him from excitement.

Dimitri grabbed me and spun around with me in his arms. He gently put me down. I looked up at him, confused but I saw a genuine smile on his face and my heart melted.

Dimitri being HAPPY is the cutest thing ever.

“Sorry. I’m just so excited.” He shook my hand for some reason. “I’ve just always wanted to leave home.”

“Oh… why?” I asked with concern.

“Well uh… Never mind!” He suddenly laughed awkwardly. “But yeah I’ll tell you in private. By the way, I’m sleeping in your basement.

“I’m really happy for you though.” I held his hand as we walked off to class. I didn’t care if the other students were watching. Dimitri seemingly lost his enthusiasm and got really quiet after that.

CHAPTER 7

Moving Dimitri into our basement wasn’t that hard and it didn’t take long. All he had was trash bags full of his clothes, a box that was full to the brim, labelled “parts”, and a mattress he used as a bed. All we did was put his stuff down and he organized it by himself.

Two hours later, he went up to my room. “Want a room tour, Saf?”

“Sure!” I went down the stairs alongside him.

His bed was just a mattress on the floor with a pillow and blanket. There was a desk that was particularly lacking the normal desk-clutter, and a simple wooden chair. My parents emptied out a shelf and he put his clothes there. There were no doors on the shelf so I could see his shirts, pants, and (Oh my gosh!) boxers! (Is it pervert to stare at a guy’s underpants??? It made me super uncomfortable to see those!)

Dimitri’s box of parts was untouched in the corner. All in all, the room was pretty small but it still had looked like he barely filled it. I walked over to his box and pointed at it.

“Need help unpacking this?” I asked.

“Oh!” He stared. “No. Don’t touch that, it’s fragile.”

“Ok, sorry.” I said. “So how do you like your new crib?”

“Super cool. I never really cared for the decorations, as long as it’s warm and I can eat and sleep, I’ll be fine.”

“Neat. So what now?” I asked.

He scratched his chin and looked up. “I don’t know. Want to watch a movie?”

“Sure! I just got a new horror movie from the store. I think it’s a slasher flick of something. I got it for my brother but he was too scared to watch it. I’m not a fan of those movies but I liked to get scared every once in a while. What do ya' say?”

He just went flush red and became really quiet. “Oh uh…” He scratched the back of his head. “Um… Ok.”

“What? You don’t like horror?” I asked, seeing how uncomfortable he was.

“N- I do like that. Let’s watch it.” His smile was meant to reassure me but it was so obvious it was forced.

So we went to my room to watch the movie. I really embarrassed with how much I yelped at each jump scare. Oh, and how I needed to cover my eyes during the violent scenes! Though, Dimitri barely had reaction. He was blushing from ear to ear and biting his lower lip. He would flinch during the fight scenes but, yeah. That was it. I thought he would be judging me for being a wimp! But half way through he got up and left, so I finished without him.

A hour later, I went downstairs to his room. I knocked on the door and he yelled. “It’s unlocked.” I walked in to see him fiddling around with metallic parts and tools. I approached cautiously.

“What are you doing?” I questioned, tilting my head to the side.

“Tinkering.” He replied expressionlessly.

I watched him open up the box to pull a toy robot he was going to disassemble. He leaned over to take a screw driver and started to remove pieces from the toy.

I leaned over to get a closer look. “Why are you breaking it?”

“I’m not breaking it.” He replied calmly. “I’m taking it apart… and rebuilding it.”

“Oh, why?”

“Well, it helps me understand how it’s made and the techniques they used.”

“Oh that sounds neat. You like making robots?” I asked him, overly interested in what he was doing.

I sat down next to him. He just looked at me and said nothing. I think he was confused but yet again, he had no emotion. Just his regular expressionless glare. His eyes felt like they were piercing deep into my soul… those glass-like, grayish-blue eyes. They creeped me out.

“Tell me about your robots, Dimitrius.” I muttered. “I’m curious…”

He raised an eye brow for a second but then went back to tinkering.

“So I like making stuff with my hands… Though, I have a whole system for it.” he paused and looked at me again. “You don’t mind me rambling?”

“Oh, Dimitri...you barely talk. I like your voice! Go ahead.” I encouraged him to go on.

“So uh…” he forced a smile. It was so cute. “I like making my own custom robots for tournaments and stuff, but I’m not that good at making my own parts, so I take them from other bots that I buy.”

I listened, completely fascinated in it. His voice was monotone and boring but he sounded calm. As he went on, there was a hint of happiness with him being able to talk about his passion.

“I take them apart then I rebuild them.” He continued. “...W-with out instruction manuals. The point is to know the purpose of all the parts, where they go, and how they work. I repeat breaking them down and building them back up again until I know the bots perfectly.”

“Is it time consuming?” I tilted my head and picked up one of his tools.

“It is but it depends on how complex the model is. Though, once I understand the bot perfectly, I can take its pieces and use them to make my own bot… or if I like the robot, I mod them to make them more efficient or stronger. Whatever I feel like doing to it, basically.” He took the piece from my hand. “This is a screw driver….”

“Oh my god! You think I didn’t know what a screw driver was!” I laughed at him but I stopped when I saw that he looked nervous.

“Sorry, Dimitri. I like what you do with the robots. It’s really cool.”

“Thank you…” He replied timidly.

Suddenly the door opened, and someone appeared from the newly escaping light. Dad. He sternly yelled, “SAFARA! IT’S BED TIME.”

I called back to him, "I'M COMING, ONE SECOND!". I gave Dimitri a hug.

“Good night, Dimi!”, I said as I was running up the stairs.

Dimitri just stares at dad, mouth agape. His cheeks were the reddest I've ever seen. “Y-you too, angel…” He stammered and muttered.

SIDE CHAPTER 1

-MONSTERS-

A woman paced around the room and stopped in front of a mirror hung up on the wall, putting on a pearl necklace. She grabbed a comb and brushed over the bangs of her long, silky, brown hair. She was very tall and slim. Like a stick, she adorned barely any curves. As she stared at herself in the mirror, she smiled. She was all dressed up in all of her best clothes.

A man walked into her room. He was smiling. Wearing a suit with a green tie, matching with the color of his eyes. He was giving a piggy back ride to his son, a cute little boy with short blond hair.

The woman walked up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Are you two ready to go to church?”, she asked with her sing song voice.

“Of course.”, the man replied with a wink and smile. “How’s his outfit?”

The lady examined her son’s clothing then she nodded.

“Yes, it’s good.” She walked out. “Come along now! We don’t want to be late for our lord.”

Behind her back, the man rolled his eyes and put his son down. Once on the ground, the toddler stumbled toward the front door.

The car ride over to the church was pretty uneventful. The little boy wasn’t listening to his parents bickering in the front, he was fascinated by the trees rolling by, yet the clouds being seemingly suspended and frozen in the sky. He held out his hands and tried to grab the birds, freely flying across the beautiful blue sky.

Once inside the church, the little boy held his mother’s hand and followed her. The outside of the church was colossal and grand. It towered over the little boy. A statue stood over the entrance. It was of winged humans saving Earth's people from certain doom while the rest had already met their demise. They all wore faces filled with utter terror, as they were burning and being eaten by horrifying monsters. Each time the boy saw this statue, he’d start to cry and his parents would scold him for it. This time would be different! He put on his brave face and stared down the statue as he walked in, but he held back the tears. His mother and father didn’t notice.

Once inside, he thought he was going to have an easier time, but he had forgotten that inside there were monsters here too. Big paintings of the monsters were hung on the walls. Luckily, they were much less scary than the statue.

They sat down and listened to a man in a robe speak. The boy was so bored that he fell asleep, lying his head down on his father’s lap. Each time they needed to stand or sing songs, his mother would elbow him really hard in the shoulder to wake him up. It always happened like this. He’s come home with bruise on his shoulder and it didn’t matter where he sat, his parents forced him to sit in the middle of them so that they could watch his behavior better. He was used to it by now, but sometimes he’d cry on the way back home. He wasn’t allowed to cry at church, people would stare.

He was ecstatic it when they sang the songs, though. He loved to sing. He'd yell out the lyrics of the hymns as loud as he could so he could drown out all the other voices. It was the point of the game for him.

Eventually, his mother took his hand and walked up to the display area. He was confused, they only let people walk up there to get the bread and wine. He wasn’t allowed to go up there because he didn’t have his First Holy Communion yet…

She picked up him in her arms. He was heavy since he wasn’t exactly her little baby anymore, but she could still manage. While in her arms, he stared back at the crowd. Everybody was staring at him and her. He felt a pressure build up in his chest and he wanted to run but he couldn’t. She was holding on too tightly.

He stared up at the wall that was behind the crowd, it had a massive painting of a winged human with a shiny circle around their head. They were impaling a red monster with big horns and a tail. It was like the statue but, much more scary and gruesome!

He felt tears welling up in his eyes and he squirmed to get away. Suddenly, his mom lowered him and submerged his head under water. The few seconds he spent under there felt like an hour, but he was soon pulled out.

He coughed violently for a while after. The pastor gave him a speech he could barely hear or focus on.

The car ride home was terrible. He was so scared of the monsters and confused by the water. He sobbed quietly, trying not to bother his parents who were still bickering to each other.

CHAPTER 8

Dimitri became accustomed to living with us after 3 weeks of residing here. However, he was really weird about being seen with me outside of the house. I took the bus to school but he’d still walk there. When he did take the bus, he would avoid me like the plague and get off at completely random stops.

It was obvious that he was paranoid. Constantly looking over his shoulder, keeping a distance from people when he could, and when he had to be around people, he had his hood up and ignored everyone. Being invisible was his goal. I hated it.

He was hiding something from me.

Thursday night, after school. Dimitri went to the basement and I went to my room. I was finishing up my homework when I got stumped by a math problem. I went down to see him, hoping he could help me out.

I slowly crept down the stairs to his room. I caught him at his desk working on robots and wearing glasses. I rarely ever see him wear them, but I really liked them. It made him look so sophisticated and intelligent. He was already really smart, but it made him look the part too.

He looked up at me as I got closer.

“What’s up, angel girl?” He asked.

I giggled. “Oh, why do you keep calling me that?”

“Because you are an angel.” He smiled.

My heart melted. Usually, he was so robotic in his actions and speech but it was so cute to see him smile with out forcing it.

I pulled up a chair and sat next to him. I asked him for help with the homework and he effortlessly solved it, and then taught me the process step-by-step. He was much more help than the teacher was. After we solved that one, we just kept going through all of the other questions I didn't get.

After that was done, I didn’t want to leave him just yet. I liked his company.

“Hey Dimitri… Thank you.” I hugged him.

He didn’t say anything, he just gave me a small smile and nodded. He put his arms around me and I felt his heart beating fast in his chest. I let go of him after a few seconds.

“I was wondering though…” I began to explain to him that I thought weird to be so paranoid out in public and I was wondering why he acted that way.

He was visibly nervous, he started tapping his fingers on the desk and darting his eyes around.

“I can’t tell you… It’s better if people don’t see us hanging out in public… I tried to get you to avoid me at school but you didn’t get the message so I gave up.”

“But why?” I asked, confused as ever.

“You’ll throw me out of the house if you knew- He paused. ...You’d hate me…Oh, Safara.. I’m so sorry.” He was expressionless but hints of remorse were seeping in.

“Dimitri… You can tell me anything. I won’t ever hate you.” I put my hand on his shoulder.

He sighed. “Safara. I’m targeted. I’m dangerous. Being around me might make you targeted too. I don’t want you to be hurt, so I try to avoid you and others in public.”

“I-I'm not following. Can you explain more?"

He bowed his head in shame. “I’m the son of Tony Drey. Remember the story I told you at the park? It was about him.”

I gasped. “You’re father was a mob boss?!”

He nodded. “Yeah… He did terrible things… He’s infamous throughout this entire city. His claim to fame was being elected to office as representative of this district of the city. He was passing laws that corrupt the governmental system. He was a well known anarchist and his plan was to dismantle all government. Though, he did much, much, more before that.

He did pretty much everything. Prostitution, drug dealing, robbery, scamming, and yes… he murdered people. He didn't do it himself, though… At least I don’t think he did.

It’s complicated. Basically, he was the leader of his own gang, but it was well organized, so calling it a gang would be an insult. It was a full blown mafia and criminal organization. Everything was run by him and he had loyal followers.

Then he was caught… Put on trial and sent to jail. That's when a woman came out saying that they were seduced by him and had his kids. My mother was devastated but whatever, fuck her.” He said the last part with hatred staining his words.

“Anyways, he was imprisoned and put on death row. He’s still there. He has to serve his 20 year term before he does.” He continued on. “And you’d think my troubles and there but they don’t. That fucker and I look the same!”

I pulled out my phone and quickly googled Tony Drey and I found his mug shot. What stunned me the most is that Dimitri was completely right. They were very similar, but there were some obvious differences too. Tony had green eyes, opposed to Dimitri’s blue, with dark black hair that was beginning to turn white, Dimitri’s was brown. Their haircuts were different, Dimitri’s was longer and a lot messier. Not to mention his dad had stubble and, well, Dimitri was lacking there.

“Yeah… He sure does look like you. Family resemblance…” ////*********************/////

“Exactly. But yeah my looks cause a lot of problems… You see, his followers want me to take his place because that his “official” son would be the heir to the throne and It pisses me off. I don’t want to be that. I want to be a police officer to put sickos like him

in prison where they belong. But not only do I have weirdos forcing me to give them orders, but I also have other people trying to kidnap me for ransom, and some who just want to kill me. So ya know the bruises and cuts on my body when you see me at school?”

I nodded weakly.

“That’s them starting fights with him and I need to protect myself. I fight back. That’s why I can’t have anybody hand out with me ever. But…” He avoided eye contact with me. “It’s so lonely isolating yourself from every one… I longed for somebody to confide in and you came to me. I wanted you to go but I wanted you there with me. It was a guilty pleasure to have you around.” He blushed a little. “I really appreciated our little chats, but I was so shy I could barely talk to you… and now I’m living with you. It’s a dream come true to have a friend like you with me Safara.”

“Oh Dimitri… That’s so sweet.” I was so touched. I was smiling and blushing hard.

“But yeah… I couldn’t bare to see my angel get hurt. You can’t be with t school or in public. I think people are watching me… And once they find out we’re friends they’ll try to hut you so they can hurt me. People are cruel, Safara, they’d attack you even if you are innocent.”

“But Dimitri, you can’t just let them rule over your life like this. You should call the police and get on the witness protection program!”

“You think I haven’t tried that? The cops in this city don’t care. This district is so corrupt, nobody cares about anything you do. That’s how my dad got into power, that’s why the crime rate is so high here.” He rolled his eyes.

“What if I helped?” I shot up the idea suddenly.

“And how would you do that?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Dimitri, what if I could fight along side you? You can’t fight them alone. They’ll over power you someday.” I held his hand in mine and squeezed it. “You said you didn’t want me to get hurt, well, I don’t want you to get hurt or killed either. I want to protect you…”

He was speechless for a moment. He was touched by it obviously because his whole face turned red and he didn’t look at me in the eyes for the rest of the conversation.

“I can’t let you fight for me… If you get hurt, it’s my fault. But… I like the idea.”

“You could train me how to fight! I took karate classes as a kid and self defense!” I pleaded with him.

“I can’t teach you but I can bring you to the guy who taught me… But Safara, this is serious. You sure about it? It’s painful and it will take a lot of time for you to get good.” He explained with a dead pan tone.

“I want to be there for you Dimitri.”

I sealed myself to him in that moment and from then on, we were stuck together.

I was his and he was mine. I was naive. I saw a troubled young man who’d lived a hard life and I just wanted to save him. He called me his angel, and I felt the burden of living up to that title. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I wasn’t ready but I didn’t care. I was there to help. That’s what I thought I was doing.

Little did I know then, but the time Dimitrius and I would spend together would be the worst years of my life because from that day forward, I was brought into his suffering and I would not drown and suffocate in it until out mission was over.

That was the day I became an honorary mafia kid.

SIDE CHAPTER 2

-CRYING-

His mother stopped giving him attention. He’d come home to the sound of weeping or sobbing. At first he didn’t understand. He thought that once people reached adulthood, they stopped crying. He was hoping that would the case for him at least.

He knocked on on his mother’s bed room door. She ignored him, the crying just got louder, so he let himself in.

“Mommy, why are sad?” He whined as he walked over to her.

She was hunched over on the bed, pulling out her hair. She turned to look at him. Her face was so ugly when she cried. Tears staining her pillow and her face showing all the pain she feels inside. The little took a few steps back, frightened by his own mother’s appearance. Gestured to him to come closer. He hesitated but he did so. He sat next to her on the bed and he hugged and caressed his dirty blond hair.

“Dimitrius… Sometimes adults get sad too. Everybody has a different way of coping with sadness.” She explained.

“What’s coping?” He asked.

“Everybody is different and everybody needs to take of themselves.” She brushed off his question. “Mommy needs alone time, dearest.” She kisses him on the forehead.

He got off the bed. “So you want me to leave you alone?”

“Yes dear… I’ll come out and tell you when I feel better, ok?”

“Oh… Ok mommy!” He said as left the room, closing the door behind.

He waited for her to get better.

She never did.

CHAPTER 9

Dimitri Brought me to see one of his dad’s followers. The man was a huge muscular black guy named “Mufa” but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his real name because he greeted Dimitrius by called him “Damien” instead. Also, he told me that I wasn’t allowed my real name on the streets. I had difficulty coming up with a new name for myself but Dimitrius comforted me and said it was ok for me to take time to think it over. I eventually settled with “Sophia”.

The first time was just basic training for fighting. It was pretty fun. On the way home after it, Dimitri was acting all nervous.

“Hey, um, are you sure about this? You really wanna go back to training?” He asked.

“Yes! Let’s go back twice a week, ok?” I set up our routine and Dimitri just nodded.

That’s what we did together from then on. School, hanging out and training with Mufa. It was so difficult for a while. My body ached but Dimitri was so supportive and he cheered me on. He was always there watching me from the side lines.

One day, we were walking to the candy store after the training when suddenly, a man hit Dimitri in the back with an empty bottle of wine. I jumped when I heard the hard “THUD” and Dimitri’s sharp gasp. It was happening! My first fight. Dimitri coughed and turned around. It was the bottle brothers.

Mufa had mentioned that the bottle brothers were two men from the opposing gang. They used bottles of wine as their weapons, they duel wielded them, using them as basic melee weapon.

The man swung at Dimitri again but this time, he took a step back and got out of the way. I was shaking, distancing myself from them. They ganged up on him. I was so helpless, watching them battering Dimitri.

He got a chance to grab the bottle out of one of their hands and he smashed it on the other brother’s head. I screamed as the bottle shattered in half. He fell to the floor, blood pooling all over with shards of glass all over the ground. This brutality shocked the brother and he froze watching his partner fall to the ground: that was his fatal mistake. Dimitri spun around with the broken bottle griped firmly in his hand and stabbed him in the stomach with the sharp broken part of the bottle.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran off and headed towards the park. Once there, I stopped to take a second to breath. Suddenly, my face was in the dirty. It happened so fast I couldn’t even scream.

“OHMYGODSAFARAAREYOUOK?” Dimitri spoke so fast in panic as he grabbed me by the waist and picked me up.

I was violent yanked off the the ground and held tenderly in his arms. He was trembling as he wiped the dirt off of my face.

I was stunned. I opened my eyes and I could see him, but it was blurry. It took me a few seconds for his anxious face to come into focus.

He swallowed some of his anxiety and held me tighter. “Are you ok? I d-didn’t mean to run into you.”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded slowly. The motion of my head bopping like that made me dizzy.

“Y-you started running after I was done with those guys.” He said.

“No. I’m ok.” I tried talking but it came out raspy and quiet. “I was just scared.”

He nodded and lifted me up. He threw me up into the air and I fell on my back into his arms.

He forced a reassuring smile. “I dealt with them. Let’s go home.”

He walks out of the park carrying me around bridal style. I was really confused by this but my head to much for me to question it.

As we walked home, people stared at us. They gave us weird looks. I glared back at them. Dimitri was doing something nice and people were staring at him like he was kidnapping me. I looked up at his face. He had no emotion on his face. I wasn’t sure if he was noticing it too and didn’t care or if he was oblivious.

I put my arm around his shoulders and hugged him for the rest of the walk.

“Dimitrius…”

“Don’t call me that.” He glared down at me.

“Sorry. My mom once told me you have schizophrenia.” I said.

“Oh? What else did she say?”

“You were diagnosed with it when you were 15.” I curled up to him. “That’s all I know.”

“Oh. Well what about it?” He sounded almost offended, but with him, any tone he has in his voice is best to be left ignored. He always sounds like a robot or a chronically annoyed mumbling teen age boy.

“You hallucinate. Mom said that… Do you hear voices?”

“Um.. Not exactly. Sometimes what people say to me gets mixed up, I mean, they’ll say something and I’ll hear the words out of orders.” He explained.

“What’s it like being schizophrenic?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve had it for such a long time that I’ve gotten used to it.” He replied.

“Oh but what do you hallucinate?”

“Well I can’t tell you that.” He forced a small laugh. It was cute. “You’d think I’m crazy.”

“I’m curious though and I won’t judge you.” I reassured him.

He gave me a cautious look, like he was unsure. I gave him puppy dog eyes and that convinced him. He stoped walked and pointed at a group of men.

“Well, right there, there are 3 demons talking to each other.” He said.

“Demons? There 3 guys.”

“They are all black and shadowy. They have arrow shaped tails and big horns. Their eyes and mouths are like light poking through the darkness.” He described as he continued walking.

“So… You seem demons.”

“Yep. Every stranger is a demon to me.”

“Was I a demon when we met?” I asked, kneading my fingers in his hoodie.

“Yes.” He looked down at me. “But you turned into an angel as we got to know each other.”

“Wait what? I’m an angel?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Well aren’t you?” He said with concern.

“I’m a human, Dimitri.”

“B-but you have wings and a halo, you’re so beautiful and shiny… you’re an angel.”

My heart fell into my stomach but I also felt the butterflies fly around in there too. I didn’t know if Dimitri think this about me would be dangerous or if I should be flattered.

“Do you really see me like this?” I asked trying not to sound nervous.

“Yeah. All the time.”

“Hey Dimitri, do you know that your hallucinations aren’t real, right?”

He glared at me. No filter, no held back emotions, he looked actually angry. For real.

“You can walk.” He said and dropped me at on the ground.

I fell down right on my butt. He stepped aside and walked away. It really hurt but seeing him leave me hurt more. I jumped up and I was about to yell at him but I stoped. I lowered my fist.

I remember what my mother said to me. To be careful with him.

Schizophrenics can be really dangerous if you don’t treat them right…

I cocked my head to the side and grinned. Just trying to push it aside. I walked up to him.

“I wonder what it’s like to see how you see the world… It must be interesting.” I said cheerfully, but I was trying not to punch him with all my might.

He looked up. “I could show you, but it’s a little risky.”

I snapped out of my anger and stared at him in confusion. “Wait… How?”

“I did it once before, but if we do it, you need to follow my instructions very carefully.”

“what do we have to do to achieve it?”

“Well, it’s like a ritual… It helped you see inside of the other person’s head. You drink some water in a dark room and the person who want to share their mind has to describe everything to the other person.” He paused for a second and stared at me. “It relies on imagination.”

“Oh… so it’s not actually going into somebody’s mind?” He smirked “No that’s scientifically impossible, but this ritual is as close to it as it gets. Do you want to try it?”

“Sure, why not?” I shrugged.

“Ok! I’m gonna run off to the store and buy some candles. Go home with out me, ok?” He said as he ran off.

“Dimitri! Wait!” I called out to him but he was already gone.

[life-rewritten]

Flower of Evil: Loving someone who does not know what love is Episode 8

Do you love her?” Do Hae Su asks, she can see that Hyun So has changed, it seems crazy to her that he developed a new identity, talks about his daughter and his wife like they are the most precious things to him, and speaks about them with so much energy and excitement. Her brother has changed, there’s a bounce to him, a spring, a light, so it shocks her when he answers coldly “No I’ve never thought that way”

Loving Someone who does not know what love is

That’s my own narration of that scene in episode 8. You know the scene, the one where Jiwon goes to find out about her husband and realises he reunited with his sister, and that he’s not the serial killer everyone thinks he is. Only to be brought down, shattered and betrayed by one dialogue. Hyun So is asked if he loves his wife, the wife he’s been married to and is the relationship that is the envy of everyone in the show, that wife that he’s been married for over 5 years, he says he doesn’t love her. He says it with such definitiveness, and assurance that she knows he’s not lying. He says it so coldly like what they have meant nothing. And she goes with it. Jiwon decides that he’s been using her from the first time he gave into her; he’s been using her for his own gain and to not get caught by the police...

Except this doesn’t add up to an audience who has just seen the whole truth about Hyun So, we’ve experienced with him his actual crisis; 

His self hate for his disorder which causes people to pull away from him. 

 the abuse and trials he went through because of his disorder.

 And we know he’s not a cold-blooded killer. 

So what gives? Does he really think he doesn’t love his wife? Does he not love her? Really? What? How!!!

 It was a painful moment in the show and the audience is forced to come up with answers to deal with the pain.

 He doesn’t know he loves her because he can’t feel emotions  because of trauma formed from abuse in his past and betrayals from people.

 He does know he doesn’t love her and is using her for logical means; most likely to make his father stop haunting him, and to protect his identity being her husband. 

He doesn’t know he loves her because he really can’t fall in love because of his ‘ASPD’/disorder which makes him unable to feel emotions.

The whole question is based again on understanding more about the perceived antisocial personality disorder that we the audience have been told/shown Do Hyun So has. And it brings the question in Jiwon’s head when she hears it; 

Can Sociopath’s fall in love? 

Can they be attached and obsessed with someone instead? 

Can they act like they are in love forever as long as it fulfils their ambitions? 

Will our ship/couple get the happy ending they deserve choosing to fight with each other against the world no matter what? 

Or are we doomed to see them separate amicably? 

It’s a lot of questions all surrounding ASPD, and just like Jiwon, we’re left feeling stressed and determined to get to the end to see where the show wants to go. 

But I’m someone who needs evidence, I’m someone who doesn’t take things face value. The subtext, evidence, actions we’ve been shown in the show is already showing that there’s a misdirection, misunderstanding and miscommunication somewhere. One of the parts aren’t fitting together. 

And the answers lie on  Hyun So’s perspective on relationships and feelings of love. Think about it from episode 1 to 8 we’ve watched these two’s involvement, we’ve seen how they began, their marriage with a  daughter and now their current downfall. There is no way on earth that there isn’t some kind of love/want/obsession here. So I’m going to break it down using what’s been given so far to explore these options

Can Hyun So fall in love?

Disorders and Nature

We’ve been told and shown that Hyun So was diagnosed with Anti Social Personality Disorder  at a very young age even though there was not enough information for it at that time. We’ve been told (remember been told not shown) that he’s prone to anger, hurting animals, and lacking empathy and sympathy for situations and people. This means that he is unable to feel the emotions of love because love requires empathy and compassion. 

We are then shown how Hyun So interacts with people so far, this is narrated by Moojin in episode 8, he confirms that Hyun So has been selfish, and doesn’t communicate properly with people, isn’t helpful when someone is going through a crisis and makes situations worse because he says things he’s not meant to. He doesn’t care who he hurts with his words or actions. 

We are also shown Hyun So’s own point of view of this question when he rejects Jiwon at first. He tells her he has issues understanding and being friendly to people, he doesn’t understand emotions, and he struggles to emote feelings because he enjoys beating people up. He warns her that he won’t be able to love her accurately the way she wants. And she tells him it’s okay she’ll help him learn to love. She should have remembered this conversation when she heard he doesn’t love her. (If he was going to lie to her and pretend he loves her he wouldn’t have tried so hard to stop her from being with him at the beginning). We also see that after he says he doesn’t love her, he admits that he doesn’t know what that feeling is, so he can’t say he does. So, for now, he thinks he doesn’t. Let’s look away from his disorder for a bit and focus on the second thing stopping him from being able to love. 

Trauma and Grooming

There’s a saying about murderer’s and people who seem of; were they born with it or made to become it? Was it nature vs nurture? Nature so far is connected with his inability to love because of his ‘ASPD’. Nurture is to do with the environment around him. Hyun So’s father, first of all, is shown to be intrigued by violence, murder and seems manipulative and calculating. He’s also the notorious serial killer Do Min Seok, who killed many victims continuously before he was caught. This environment already suggests grooming of his son and trauma, causing Hyun So to not want to love someone. The basement Jiwon takes Hyun So in episode 7 is where the killings apparently happen, Hyun So is triggered by whatever memories he has there, and Jiwon can see he’s traumatised by his past. 

Evidence of grooming is also shown in episode 5 and 8;

 His father coerces Hyun So to kill the person he has managed to fight (the guy who stole his money), and Hyun so fights with himself to not do so. 

Next, his father in another flashback gave Hyun So the animals he was said to hurt and told him to do anything with it. Hinting that he was okay with Hyun So’s ASPD and wanted him to continue being more cold and unfeeling and hurtful to life. This again suggests that Hyun So’s stunted growth of feelings and emotions was embedded in him by grooming of his father so he could one day become like him, and kill people. This suggests again that Hyun So is right, he has not had the opportunity to know what romantic love is because the love he was taught and received was colder and more manipulative and hurtful. 

We also have his sister (who is the antithesis of his father) she is the person who has been by his side and sees him for who he is, she’s defensive and protective of him. Still, she also encourages stunted growth as shown in the flashback when she tells Hyun So to never fight or say no to his father. She tells him to do what the father tells him to do and not argue. This relationship is the only thing that shows proof that he might have received some kind of love, but this love is not still the same as romantic love. 

For Trauma:

There’s also the mystery and trauma of his cassette player, a woman is singing a lullaby, and it triggers Hyun So whenever someone tries to take it from him or listen to it. He sees it like his precious object, and he likes listening to it. He’s fiercely protective and will hurt whoever tries to take it away. We can guess that this is his mother or a woman who is important to him. This woman’s humming seems gentle and full of love and because it seems that he’s fiercely protective of this is because the woman is no longer near him, it suggests death and loss, and again shows the failure of the people who could have helped Hyun So feel love. 

The people in his village/town are also connected to the lack of respect around Hyun So, they violently abuse him for his disorder, called him names and feared him. He couldn’t trust friends as they betrayed him, and used him to steal money, or whatever they wanted. And the only romantic love he was exposed to his sister and her boyfriend Moojin became laughable because Moojin became cruel once he found out who the father really was, calling her names and breaking up with her.

 The environment he was groomed in continued to support the stunted growth of feelings and emotions and prevented him from knowing what real romantic love is. So yes, he doesn’t know what love is. 

So far the answer to this question taking account all of this is that no, Hyun So cannot fall in love because he was born with the ability not to love and was forced to be in an environment when love was not supported/trusted. Love was hurtful. This then brings the question: With Jiwon, can he get attached to her romantically?

Can Hyun So feel attached to Jiwon instead? 

Obsession and Attachment

Whenever I researched about ASPD and sociopathy, especially with the question, can they fall in love? I’m always told that they can not fall in love, but they can be attached because of obsession and addiction. 

I’ve seen an example of this idea in the show Psycho but it’s okay where we were led to believe that the main character with ASPD Moon Young was actually just obsessed with Gang Tae at first, This is before we learnt that she doesn’t have ASPD but was groomed to have it by her mother with the disorder and she can feel love and emotions. The idea of obsession with someone and addiction comes off as toxic co-dependency. It’s not a healthy relationship when one clings to someone obsessively normally. 

So what could be the clues that instead of loving Jiwon, he’s become obsessed with her and can’t let her go?

 Well, when they first meet, he realises that Jiwon makes his dad go away each time he kisses her. Being with her prevents him from feeling trauma and fear from the memories of his father. Being with her removes the haunting and visions(This is similar to Psycho, but it’s okay as well). Thus like Moon Young, he could become obsessed with Jiwon, needing her by his side because she helps fulfil that one needs to stop seeing his father. 

We  then know that if there is something he really wants as he finally admits in episode 8, it’s to keep living on as Baek Hee Sung. This could be because he just wants to not be captured by the police and arrested for his past, or does not want to go through what he went through in his past. He is comfortable the way he is. In order to continue living as Hee Sung, he told his adoptive parents that he’s using Jiwon to keep on living that identity. He also now is attached to her because she is the key to staying Baek Hee Sung. 

Logically he needs her to continue being his wife so that: 

 People don’t ask questions

 He can be safe from the police and know intel (she’s a detective)

 He needs to pretend to love her to make sure his goal is accomplished, to stay Baek Hee Sung. He mentions to his adoptive parents in episode 1 that he’s married to her because she sees what she wants to see, so he can easily manipulate and give her what she wants to see and stay safe. Her gullibility (though we know he doesn’t think she’s gullible) and her love for him could be manipulated in many ways to keeping his goals. 

Once we look at this option we can say Hyun So is right he doesn’t love Jiwon, but he is attached to her because she makes life easy for him. He’s only acting to be in love her because he’s researched how to do so, and it’s not automatic or real. This also answers the third question as long as she’s useful to him, he’ll keep pretending to love her but once she’s not, he can discard away everything because she’s not essential to him.

 However, I feel like this is where this all falls apart, and that’s their very first interactions. Hyun So shows that these three questions don’t apply to him by one act. He stayed outside to protect her in the night and ensure her store doesn’t get robbed. That one action disproves all of the queries. 

Does Hyun So love Jiwon?

Proof and Subtext

It disproves that his ASPD prevents him from feeling emotions or worry. Because he didn’t have to care about her store, or about her feeling safe. He didn’t have to wait there because he did not need to protect her. He automatically listens to her worries and goes out and helps her (he doesn’t know however that she will know of this moment and fall for him from then on) This one action shows that he’s capable of listening and caring without knowing that he is caring. This one action is also the catalyst for her feelings for him and makes sure she continues to try and make him let her love him. If his ASPD was meant to prevent him from caring, he would have left after she told him about the robbery, he would have not stayed to watch over her until the lights come back up in the cold, and he would have been crueller to her when she continued to pester her. 

It disproves him using her because she makes his dad disappear. He didn’t know by then she causes his dad to leave, he only realises it after he kisses her. His actions there was just because he wanted to protect her. 

It disproves him using her because she helps him keep the identity Baek Hee Sung, it’s repeated a lot in the show that the unparents did not want him and Jiwon to marry, he did it because he wanted to, he fought them on it and wanted her by his side, they actually thought she would end his secret identity because she’s a risk and a detective. They believe she’ll be his downfall of their plans. He’s the one who fights for her to be by his side; this could be because she makes his father disappear. But there’s a hint there that subconsciously he’s already connected to her and he does care about her. 

This action disproves him only helping or protecting Jiwon because she’s useful, to manipulate her or she maintains his goals because she wasn’t relevant yet at this time. He just did it to protect her. There’s other instances that show he’s capable of feeling and caring about people and loving someone. But this one action shows that Jiwon was someone he had cared initially for before everything else before he knew she would fall for him the way she did. I also think him warning her not to choose him was also a sign that he cares about her and isn’t with her because he’s coldblooded and she fulfils his goals and there’s the scene in episode 4 where he uses his body to shield her from getting hurt as they are fighting in the dark.

Logic vs Feelings

So with all this analysis, my answer is clear, one he doesn’t know what love is because of his circumstances and because of that he does not know if what he’s doing is love or not and that’s why he can’t say he loves her for sure. However, his actions and automatic choices, his panic attacks at the thought of her leaving or discovering who he is, show that there is love there he just doesn’t know he feels it. There is attachment there, and it’s not for only harmful purposes, but it also is a feeling of emotion connected to her. He also is fiercely protective and caring of Jiwon, and he regrets always hurting her. He begs her (not knowing it’s her) that he won’t be Do Hyun So again because he saw her panic in the pool trying to save his life. He may not understand it, but seeing her that way affected him and made him more desperate to keep the secret away from her, he doesn’t like seeing her hurt. That’s why he says he regrets ever meeting her because he feels sorry for her loving him. There’s a hint of emotion, care and worry tinged in melancholy at the fact that being with her hurts her.  Also really focus on the dialogue “I’ve never thought that way” this is all to do with his thoughts not his feelings, he’s probably felt that way but he didn’t realise it, he didn’t know it was love so there’s no way he can think that it is.  

I believe sociopaths can love and fall in love, and I think Hyun So loves his wife just as much as she loves him. He just doesn’t understand the intricacies of the relationship, and he’s never experienced romantic love before. His answer is no because it’s a logical response, it’s the answer that’s, on the one hand, the most accurate. He does not love her because he doesn’t know what love is. It’s not a lie. He answered it truthfully even though it ended up hurting Jiwon who only follows logic and evidence. The evidence was him saying it as a matter of fact, even if his actions show otherwise. 

[concealeddarkness13]

Another Bring Me That Horizon Powerpoint!

Since I have made so many more characters for this story, I decided to make a Powerpoint for these characters! Here is the first Powerpoint, and here, here, and here are other posts about this story. Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @merigreenleaf, and @maple-writes! Also tagging: @incandescent-creativity​, since this is a Powerpoint!

[Image Description: A title page titled: Bring Me That Horizon Extra Characters!

AKA: I love making characters too much. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Tess

One of the pirates

She’s married to Raian

She’s the same age as Triel and Nesri, but they still act like she’s old because she’s married

Smokes and drinks and has amazing advice

She’s the reason why Shine has the sign on the engine room door that tells no one to come in unless it’s an emergency

One time, one of the engines wasn’t working, and Shine wasn’t there, so she went into the engine room and pounded on random machines with a wrench

Needless to say, that didn’t work

Raian and Tess have one brain cell between them, and Raian hogs it. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Raian

One of the pirates

Married to Tess

One of the calmest people in the world; nothing surprises him

One of the most reliable pirates, fighting for the most reliable with Shine

He’s the one who normally stays behind with the ship when everyone else is out on a mission. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Captain Reeves

She’s the pirate captain who raised Triel

Her full name is Theria Reeves

She looks like she could snap someone in half, and she prefers to shoot first, ask questions later

But she’s actually got a very strategic mind, so she knows when a situation requires someone else with different talents

She chooses her crew based on their different skill sets

Gruff, normally isn’t ver touchy feely

But she lets Triel hug her whenever she wants

Captain Reeves has a parrot she has called (unironically) Mini Reeves

That parrot sasses whoever talks to Captain Reeves who is not part of the pirate crew

She taught Triel to fight. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Graem

He’s the first mate in Captain Reeves’s pirate crew

He also looks like he could snap someone in half, but his specialties lie in manipulation and lying

It’s hard for his crew to even tell when he’s lying

Triel learned everything she knows from him

He’s pretty laid back and jovial. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Kiryth

He works for the navy for the government

After the pirates capture Lynne, the rulers tell the navy to be on high alert for the pirates to rescue Lynne

He’s on the ship of the group that pursues Triel’s crew the most

And it doesn’t help that he is Nesri’s ex boyfriend

They still love each other, but they both agreed it wouldn’t work

He’s horrible at lying, and he’s a little naive

He has a crooked smile that makes Nesri melt

He probably has the most sympathetic feelings for the pirates on his navy ship. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Captain Ladras

She is the captain of the navy ship that Kiryth is on

Her full name is Nevir Ladras, but everyone on her ship just calls her Captain Ladras

Few people call her by her first name

She is strict and follows orders complete

She doesn’t really get sarcasm, she’s no-nonsense

Everyone on her crew respects her, she’s not afraid to do what would be considered “lowly” jobs (such as cleaning the deck, kitchen duty, etc.)

Her parents wanted her to be a guard for the royal family, not a naval officer, mostly because they wanted her to catch the eyes of Prince Alastair and elevate her family’s prestige

In her one rebellious act, she refused, and she even got a tattoo rebelliously too (not a small tattoo, this one spans her shoulders and upper back and is a tattoo of the sunset on the water)

She’s badass and has never failed a mission. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Gideon

The information specialist on Lira’s thief team

He actually won’t be on Lira’s team most of the story because Lynne’s adoptive parents hired him to personally find Lynne and bring her back

He grins all the time, he loves the thrill of the hunt

He knows everything about everyone: at one point he’s going to have an information-off against Triel

He’s very friendly, and he compliments his opponents

He actually knows Shine’s sign language, so he interacts with them (rivals to friends to possibly lovers perhaps?)

Just a lot of fun; he isn’t a jerk. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Espen

The weapons specialist in Lira’s team

She buys weapons, makes them better, and resells them for an expensive price

She will talk about weapons for hours to anyone who will listen

I don’t know tons about her, but she’s a dork

She’s small, but if there was a scene where the thief team has to surrender all their weapons, she would be there the whole time, giving up increasingly ridiculous weapons. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Vaia

She’s the leader of Lira’s thief team

She has to keep this ragtag team together somehow

Too tired for this

But she’ll never miss the chance to pickpocket someone

She’s the one who decides to take the request to steal a person with the glowy magic, and she accepted because it hadn’t been done before

Ambitious. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Kallias

He was born with a father who has the glowy magic and a mother who does not

So, he has diluted glowy magic

His mom put him up for adoption anonymously so that she could protect him and his father

He started showing his diluted magic around five years old, and his adoptive parents (who think that the Shades are wonderful) contacted the Shades, and they took him up to the top layer

They were furious that he had diluted glowy magic without their say, so they tormented him

Since he’s not easily controlled, they decided to wear him out instead: they pushed more magic into him and forced him to crystallize the blood and other fluids in his arms, and then they cut off his arms, so that he can only use his arms when he activates his magic (which drains his strength); the crystals are embedded in his muscles on his shoulders, so it would be too painful to take away the crystals completely

The Shades called him monster or boy until one of the shades (Meras) decided to call him Kallias (which means beauty)

Tired 24/7

Will fight you 24/7

Survivor

Thrives on sarcasm

Would probably fight you if you hugged him, but he needs one. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Lev

She is a scientist who is employed by the royal family to research the glowy magic and figure out how it works so that they can lessen their dependence on the Shades

She’s a little too excited about the prospect of studying the magic, and she doesn’t care about ethics

Since the Shades are watching everything, she has to be careful about how she studies the magic, so she hasn’t gotten very far

She only contracts out one person with the glowy magic for a few days to perform experiments

But she has the brilliant idea to use her son (Vani, his father is another scientist: he is not married to Lev, but they do love each other; unfortunately, Lev’s love for Vani only stems from how useful he could be in her experiments)

She somehow convinces the Shades to take Vani, give him the magic, and when he comes back, she contracts him out for a lot longer, under the excuse that he is her beloved son

Instead, she’s just going to use all her tests on him

Very devoted to her work, forgets to eat if she’s too engrossed. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Vani

He’s Lev’s son, but she didn’t raise him with love, so he doesn’t really care about her

She used him to test the glowy magic, but a week into the tests after she contracted him out, he escapes from her

He’s pissed off, and he wants to fight the Shades and his mom

While he’s wandering, trying to come up with some kind of plan, he stumbles upon a small group of mosquagons (mosquito sized dragons), and he protects them (they have been hunted by the Shades for years, so they’re almost extinct; they can give people with the glowy magic elemental magic as well, and they eat the crystals the people with the glowy magic make)

He gets lightning magic from a mosquagon

He will protect his mosquagon with his life

He pretends like he doesn’t care about anyone, but he actually does; it’s just hard to find

The protagonists will randomly run into him during their journey. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Churi

One of the Shades: he is an important Shade

Cocky and thinks he’s better than everyone else and is always one step ahead of everyone (at least he thinks so, and he is usually right about that)

Smirks at everyone because he’s better than them

He especially tormented Nesri, and he will also given Lynne special attention

Thinks of the people with the glowy magic as the Shades’ property (actually they all do). End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Meras

Another one of the Shades

She especially tormented Kallias

She doesn’t really care about anyone unless she finds them pretty

And then she thinks she should be with them all the time

She won’t be as involved in the story as Churi, at least until Kallias escapes and becomes a pirate. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Lily

So, there will only be seven pirates on Triel’s crew

And Lily is one of them

She is always chilling in the crow’s nest; she loves being up high

She has a prosthetic arm and leg that Shine made for her; she stores knives and guns in them

Even so, she’s not really a fighter

Very quiet, but once she knows you, she’ll talk a lot more. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Tauren

He’s part of Triel’s crew

He’s a shoot first, ask questions later kind of dude

He hates the Shades because his twin brother was taken by them

His parents condemned him, saying that he should have tried to trade for his twin brother because Tauren’s the “useless one”

He ran away and joined Triel’s crew, but he does want to try and help his brother, if he can

Quiet, broody, Nesri forces him to spar with her as often as possible

And he beats her about 75% of the time. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Iri

He is the person who raised Lynne on the streets

He named Lynne Microburst, and she ran with the weather-related names and named him Strongwinds (when she was four)

He is an information gatherer, but he’s not as good as his mom

He raised dozens of kids on the streets, so he has connections

One of those kids works for the navy (on the same ship as Kiryth), and he was able to let Iri on with the excuse that Iri knows Lynne best

And Iri went with the navy because he was worried about Lynne

He’s pretty serious. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Cahira

Iri’s mom

She is 70 years old and still kicking ass

She’s mostly an information gatherer, but she will fight anyone and win if she needs to

She’s mostly going to be working with Lira, her team, and Aster once the story gets going as they try to change the government enough to so they wouldn’t rely on the Shades anymore

The most emotionally stable character; you can rely on her for anything. End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Finn

He is Lira’s childhood friend who was taken by the Shades

After dealing with the Shades for so long, he’s learned to be nonchalant and just deal with whatever happens; he doesn’t try to fight back anymore and he’s forced himself to not care about anyone

That resolve does fade when he sees Lira while she’s trying to pretend to be the person her team stole

He’s normally contracted out to go on dates with people because he’s handsome

During their time together during Lira’s mission, they will both learn how to heal from what happened to them to make them so closed off to others. End Description]

[Image Description: A page titled: Billie

She is one of the people who has the living crystal magic that evolved from the regular glowy magic

She’s pretty average with the magic, but she specializes in poisons

She’s kind of a mom friend: if she sees someone who has low self esteem, she’ll bug them until they feel better about themselves

She wants to go fight the Shades and just ignore the prophecy (there’s a prophecy among the people with living crystal magic that says that a specific person will go defeat the Shades, but no one has completely fit the description yet). End Description]

[Image Description: A picture titled: Aylin

He is also one of the people with the living crystal magic

He fit the description of the prophecy for a while, and everyone thought he was the chosen one, but something happened, and now he doesn’t fit the description anymore

He feels awful about that, like he failed his people

He’s really good at the living crystal magic; he can even make a living crystal that can drain other living crystals of their lives

But he has super low self esteem (he already had low self esteem before he failed the prophecy)

That’s one of the reasons why Billie is his friend

Deep down, he still wants to go fight the Shades. End Description]

[sortinghatchats]

On Slytherin Primaries

Slytherins believe in the importance of taking care of their own. Everyone else is a person, but so are they, so a Slytherin’s job, before everything else, is taking care of them and theirs. This makes what Slytherin are known for, their ambition and ruthlessness, stand out strikingly even while a Slytherin’s core is not inherently selfish or cut-throat.

All of the Houses contain people with great ambitions and great desire for accomplishment and the furthering of their goals. Gryffindors will take on the world to do what they think is right, and are willing to make sacrifices and overrule those who would compromise on what needs to be done, and that’s nothing if not ambition. What makes the Slytherin ambition stand out so significantly is that it’s seen as a selfish ambition, and a guiltlessly selfish one at that. That drive is tied to personal achievement instead of idealistic achievement, and that makes it easier to point at. 

But this is key: selfish ambition is idealistic ambition for a Slytherin. A Slytherin’s first priority is to their loved ones not because they love deeper or harder than the other Houses (they don’t), but because it is wrong to betray or abandon your people and right to defend and promote them. Loyalty and defense of your own is an inherent part of the Slytherin morality.

A Slytherin does not generally feel guilty for valuing themselves, for taking time for their own mental or physical health, or for sacrificing other things for the safety and happiness of the people they love. They might feel vulnerable, or judged, or guilty for not feeling guilty, especially if they live in the kind of family or culture where humility and self sacrifice are seen as the greatest goods– but without watching eyes and the words of peers and authority figures bouncing around their skulls, a Slytherin would feel comfortable and even validated in the idea that they have both a right and duty to take care of their own selves before anything or anyone else. 

An exception to this is a Slytherin who’s managed to kick themselves out of their inner circle. For whatever reason, they don’t feel like they deserve their own help or kindnesses. Their “me and mine” priorities are still apparent but now it’s only “mine.” They fiercely and selflessly prioritize the individuals they love, value, or feel responsible for, while excluding their own self. A Slytherin like this can look somewhat like a Hufflepuff Primary, erring towards selflessness, but take a look at how they prioritize between their best friend v. a stranger in need. If they feel guilty for abandoning the stranger, they’re probably a Puff; Slytherins feel desperately like they owe things to their people, but they don’t feel like they owe people in general. (Also keep an eye out for a Burned Hufflepuff in this example, though– a Slytherin wouldn’t care strongly about not helping the stranger, except for general empathetic tickles; a Hufflepuff would be survivably eaten up inside; a Burned Puff would force themselves not to care because it’s the only practical thing). 

Not prioritizing their own would feel wrong to a Slytherin. It would feel selfish, and might feel like giving into social pressures instead of standing up for what matters to them. This can hold true emotionally even when logically, prioritizing you and yours is not the best thing to do. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, a Slytherin Primary who only wants her family to be safe, almost runs away from her place as an important political symbol on the chance that she and her loved ones could make it on their own, hiding from the capitol. She doesn’t– but she really wants to, and when things go wrong she feels guilty for not acting to put her loved ones first. 

Canonical Basis

Individual loyalty is something tied to Slytherins in the books and movies, but isn’t something that gets focused on. “Or perhaps in Slytherin you’ll make your real friends,” the Sorting Hat says in the song from Harry’s first year. It doesn’t explicitly use the loyal like it does for Hufflepuff, but that’s consistent because often, Slytherins don’t look loyal. If you’re not one of their most important people, who you can often count on one hand, they’re not particularly loyal. Loyalty doesn’t have an inherent worth for Slytherins the way it does for Hufflepuffs. Loyalty is less given and more earned.

And we have canonical examples of Slytherin loyalty, extreme and dramatic as it is. Slytherin loyalty is Narcissa Malfoy abandoning her Dark Lord for the sake of her son. Slytherin loyalty is the way Pansy Parkinson freaks out every time something injures Draco, and the way she was willing to sacrifice Harry to save herself and her friends (and the way she expected other people to agree with that judgement call). 

It’s Slughorn’s guiltless willingness to distance himself from Dumbledore’s war–until old Dumbly gave him a reason to risk his own precious skin. It’s Snape, unwilling to let go of Lily Potter even after decades have passed and her son has grown up an orphan; even when there is nothing still to gain from holding onto his loyalty to her, and even when he hates her son. 

Moving outside of canon (because there are nearly no positive descriptions of Slytherins with canon– Narcissa is a bigot, Pansy a bully, Slughorn a spineless creep, Snape a child abuser): 

Slytherin is Ender Wiggin going back to Battle School not to save the world but because his sister asked him to, and Bean going to Battle School because he could get an education there that would save himself and then staying to save Ender. Slytherin is Pepper Potts telling Tony that, to hell with the world, he needs to take care of himself first. It’s Andrea from The Walking Dead pulling a gun on the people who try to get between her and her sister’s body. It’s Toph Beifong not giving any fucks except that hey, Twinkle Toes needs her. It’s Briar Moss of Circle of Magicplunging into death itself, refusing to let Rosethorn go. 

Where Molly Weasley, in HP canon, weeps but drops her son Percy when he turns on them for the Ministry, blood purist and loyal daughter of House Black Narcissa Malfoy betrays the Dark Lord and saves Harry Potter for Draco’s sake. As the final, epic battle of good and evil culminates and commences in Hogwarts, Narcissa takes her family and she disappears. The ideals of her war were only her priority until her son was in direct danger. 

Slytherin v. Hufflepuff

Slytherin and Hufflepuff are the two Loyalist Primaries. People, and not ideals, are at the core of their judgement calls. But where Hufflepuffs tend to bond to groups, Slytherins bond with individuals.

Slytherin Primaries are horrified to see someone let down a friend. To turn on a loved one for words as insubstantial as truth or justice or the greater good feels like a very particular kind of madness. Sure that’s what you’re supposed to do, a Slytherin might say, but that’s not what you actually want, is it? Your person is right here. They are real, and they are breathing, and they need you, and they are yours. It’s an extreme Slytherin who would let the whole world burn for the sake of a friend, but every Slytherin Primary would be at the very least tempted.

We discuss in the Hufflepuff Primary post how when someone is dropped from a Hufflepuff’s group of “people,” it is a dramatic fall into becoming a dehumanized “thing.” This Hufflepuff dehumanization can take many forms– outsiders, “other”ing people, having strong beliefs in the justification behind more institutionalized types of exclusion like racism, sexism, classism. But it’s a divide where there are people who are people, and then there are people who are not-people. 

The Slytherin divide is very different. There is no mechanism inherent to the Primary that removes someone of their personhood. Rather, they are removed of their status. There is a possessive drive to Slytherin, and while that varies in intensity across different individuals, it puts the divide on the basic line of “mine” and “not mine.” We find it helpful to talk about it in terms of being in someone’s inner circle, but it’s not usually that binary. Like it is with everyone, loyalty comes in a gradient. 

But Slytherin’s loyalty is more selective than the other Houses’. Where a Hufflepuff extends some initial degree of loyalty on the basis of your being a person, with a Slytherin any loyalty you gain is earned from the bottom up; you start at 0. 

A Decided House

But when the major part of your moral system that you feel viscerally is to protect yourself and your people, there are a lot of gaps in how you interact with the world and with moral situations. What do Slytherins do when confronted with gross wrongs like slavery, like murder, like unjust war–wrongs that don’t touch their people? It depends on the Slytherin. But this is why we count a Slytherin as a Decided house along with Ravenclaw, despite the core of their moral system being very much felt. 

Some Slytherins simply don’t care–they opt out of the moral complications of the rest of the world and what touches other people and choose a contented apathy about the things that don’t intrude on their space– but other Slytherins construct ways to interact with these situations. 

Perhaps they do so by understanding that other people have connections as strong and important as their own, or by building something more complex. Sometimes Slytherins can build systems that look like Ravenclaw systems– systems based on observational data, on adopted systems, or by keeping the moral guidance that they were taught growing up. The defining difference between these constructed additional Slytherin systems and the Ravenclaw Primary system is that the Slytherins are aiming for function and don’t have the same drive for truth. It matters much less if the system they build is true than if it is functional. The system should optimize for what they care about and what makes them happy, but this moral code is not viscerally driving like a Slytherin’s desire to protect those closest to them. 

Some Slytherins latch specifically on to the morality of their most important person (or people), either because they trust them or because they value them. Samwise Gamgee, the loyal hobbit who follows Frodo through hell and back, adopts Frodo’s system. Sam does great good, bravely and well, but he does it, “For Mr. Frodo! For the Shire! And for my Gaffer!” Jeff Winger from Community also sometimes follows this pattern, absorbing the moralities of his study group and best friends. Both these characters are, to put it simplistically, wearing bracelets that read “What Would Mr. Frodo Do?” and “What Would The Study Group Do?” etc. For Jeff, it’s a bit more because Annie will pout at him if he’s doesn’t at least try. 

Aang, from Avatar the Last Airbender, builds himself a stunning replica of his beloved deceased father figure Gyatso’s ethical system and he lives in it all his life. Latching onto a parental figure or early (sometimes, in media, deceased) influence’s morality is a form of love common for young Slytherins. Train Heartnet of Black Cat (who Saya changes so completely), Kai of Korra (who takes in Jinora’s culture like it’s his own morality), and Edward Cullen of Twilight (who takes Carlisle’s pacifism to self-hating extremes), are all examples of that. 

Alternatively, a Slytherin might spend a lot of their time living in a Primary model–it might matter deeply to them to do good and right. If they have that drive for truth, they might have a Ravenclaw Primary model as opposed to just a Slytherin’s functional construction. They might also have a Gryffindor Primary or a Hufflepuff Primary model. They could even have a Slytherin Primary model– but one that is loyal and dedicated to a larger group of people, like a whole peer group, the population of a whole city, or even humanity in general. (This can look a bit like a Hufflepuff– one major visible difference is that particularly Slytherin sense of possessiveness.) They could live in that model for all conflicts and decisions that are separate from and non-threatening toward their most important people and be very functional with that. 

MCU’s Tony Stark is an example of this type. (He’s also an example of a Slytherin who has kicked himself out of his own inner circle). He is a Slytherin Primary dedicated to Pepper and Rhodey (and, as of Avengers 2, he’s likely coming to value the other Avengers this way), but he has built a driving model to allow him to interact ethically with the rest of the world. It is this model that drives Iron Man and his sustainability and charity projects. This model (we think it’s probably Gryffindor Primary) is likely also what will drive him to one side or the other in Civil War. As long as Pepper or one of his own is not in direct danger (though the danger to himself is irrelevant), Tony will act firmly in service of his model. 

But dropping that model in order to stand by someone you love, or in order to protect yourself, doesn’t feel like a failing. Sticking to that modelled morality at the expense of betraying or abandoning one of their own would make a Slytherin feel guilty and wrong. Being able to put the things and concepts you like aside for the sake of the people who need you feels more righteous than any moral posturing. It feels practical and it feels right, just as strongly as a Gryffindor Primary’s internal moral compass points them. 

It’s a people based system, but it’s still an intuitive model of right and wrong. Betraying your own is the worst kind of crime. Loyalty is precious and terrible; it makes you vulnerable. It’s given sparingly, deeply, and a Slytherin will stand by their loyalties through the same death and fire that a Gryffindor would brave for the sake of doing the right thing, or a Hufflepuff to help someone in need.

In the same vein, when a Slytherin realizes that someone else doesn’t put the same value on the people they profess loyalty to, they might react similarly to a Gryffindor realizing that morality isn’t intuitive to everyone. Some things are just wrong, a Gryffindor might protest. But they’re your child–your spouse–your friend, a Slytherin will cry, confused and unsettled. How could you?

Petrified or Burned Slytherin

While there are certainly Slytherin Primaries who don’t care about any people who aren’t theirs, many Slytherins, especially ones who enjoy being more social, have wide circles of friends and acquaintances; people they will go out of their way to help, and whose company they enjoy, whose confidence they trust (to a point). What defines a Slytherin is not a lack of these concentric circles, but rather how sharply those lines of stratification are drawn. Wanting to help someone doesn’t mean you’re loyal to them. Wanting to help them at the expense of your comforts, your values, your commitments and sometimes even your self–that does. 

You end up with Slytherin Primaries on both ends of the spectrum: ones who have decided that a huge group of people are “theirs” (to the extreme of: the world is my responsibility and I have bonded to every single individual contained in it), and ones who have decided that they themselves are not one of their most important people, but maybe a friend or lover is. 

You can also get Slytherins whose only important person is themselves. This can be done healthily, especially for short periods of times, but when it’s driven by a fear of those close attachments, it becomes a phenomenon we call the Burned or Petrified Slytherin. 

The Petrified Slytherin is a Slytherin who has no inner circle and no plans to get one. Whether through death, betrayal, abandonment (from either side), or through never having had any to begin with, the Petrified Slytherin has decided that having important people is too dangerous. Having those strong ties leaves you open to pain and weakness, and the pleasure of those connections aren’t worth the despair that comes from their seemingly inevitable loss. In this way, they close themselves off to meaningful connections out of what is ultimately fear (though from the inside, it’s far more likely to be experienced as a rational, sensible decision given the circumstances of the world), and gives them a stony exterior that seems impenetrable, resolute, and cold. 

Even when not Petrified, though, the Slytherin Primary often seems cold. This comes not from any actual inherent coldness, but because they often show their warmth only to their inner circle. This is hugely influenced by your other houses, especially when you get the warmth of the Hufflepuff Secondary involved, or have a warm model– but even then, there is a special and somewhat exclusive kind of warmth saved for those who are held the closest. 

A Slytherin Primary in our system is defined first and foremost by the intensity and priority of their loyalties to individual people, however few or many. And the way to break a Slytherin– whether you’re stopping their plans or crushing their will– is to either take away their people or to threaten to. Narcissa betrays Voldemort, fully aware of what that could mean for the safety of herself and her husband, because Draco was more important than anyone or anything. Azula of Avatar the Last Airbender, for all her coldness and lack of mercy, does what she does because she wants desperately to be loved and accepted by her father. When Annabeth, his friends, or his mother are threatened, Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson loses all other priorities– his canonical fatal flaw is that he would let the world burn to save a friend. Nothing brings out the fierceness in a Slytherin like getting in between them and their loved ones.

To a Slytherin the inner circle of close loyalties is likely to be a much smaller number than the people they care about and consider friends. A petrified Slytherin is therefore not necessarily someone who is friendless, or who has no social ties, or who lacks affection for people. It’s not even a Slytherin without some sort of a hierarchy of important people.

A petrified Slytherin is a Slytherin who has decided, either consciously or not, that letting people into that inner circle– devoting themselves to someone with that deep, thoughtless Narcissa-type or Azula-type loyalty– is too dangerous. It’s too terrifying. When someone is that close, they become a huge risk. They might die, or you they might stop loving you, or stop liking you, or something awful might happen to them and it might be your fault. Something awful might happen to you because someone might threaten your people and use them against you, and you would be helpless. If you couldn’t find a way to maneuver through the situation, you would have to do whatever was demanded of you to keep your people safe, because nothing would be worse than losing them and having it be your own fault.

Surviving a situation like that (losing someone or having their lives used as collateral against you) is one of the ways we see Petrification often happen. 

Not all Slytherins will Petrify in such a situation– Finnick from The Hunger Games, a Slytherin Primary whose only people are Mags and Annie, has resisted Petrifying even when there are good arguments that it would be a far more adaptive thing to do. The Capitol’s only way of controlling him is by threatening to hurt the people he loves, and even after Mags is killed, he stays resolutely attached to Annie. It gives him the strength to carry on, but is also the weakness that the Capitol is exploiting. If Annie died, Finnick would be very likely to Petrify.

Bean, in Ender’s Shadow, is a Petrified Slytherin for most of the book. He likes people, and sometimes idolizes people, but their main purpose in his life is the utility of them. His connections are a cold, logical thing, closer to an alliance than to a friendship, and often not mutually so. Bean is interesting because we never see the Petrification process. He’s born into a survival situation and is cold and hard and determined to live from the first page. It is only at the very end, when he grows attached to Nikolai and allows himself to consider the possibility that he, too, could have a family who he loves and who loves him, that we see that Petrification begin to melt away. 

Jeff Winger from Community is another example. A ruthless lawyer only out for his own gain and without an attachment in the world except to maybe his car, he’s the perfect example of a Petrified Slytherin. His tentative, slow-moving back and forth journey into attachment to the other characters is a character arc of un-Petrifying. He’s better at it some days than others. 

With female characters in particular, the petrified Slytherin is hugely tied to the trope of the Ice Queen. From TV Tropes: “Her signature characteristic is that she is cold; the ambiguity comes from what “cold” means. She has a cold heart, a frosty demeanor; she attracts but will never be wooed.” Characters who fit this trope are not always Petrified Slytherins, but the trope is an important parallel if not just because of the imagery they share: cold, hard, unyielding, nothing to lose. 

When a Slytherin loses their closest attachments, they are left with only their personal ambitions and with the morality system that is usually constructed around those loyalties. In the sense that the way that they now primarily frame their interactions with the world is constructed, they often appear to look like Ravenclaw Primaries here. The most visible and useful difference here, especially from the outside, is that they don’t have the Ravenclaw drive for truth. Their system doesn’t have to be true or right, but simply functional. If they have a Ravenclaw Primary model that gives them some of that drive, then they might be indistinguishable from the Ravenclaw Primary unless there are are counterexamples of Slytherin loyalty from other points in their life. 

Despite it seeming to at least be a trend, not all Petrified Slytherins look like Ravenclaw Primaries. Petrified Slytherins with models of other Primaries might happily and healthily inhabit those models as their main way of interacting with the world, and this has the potential to be entirely functional. The reason that the model would remain a model though, and not indicate an actual change in Primary, would be that first, there still remains the possibility to un-petrify, and second, even if there is nothing substantial underneath it, the model could still be dropped.

This potential for to drop that model and fall to an underlying lack of structure and direction is part of what gives desperate Slytherins their reputation of being fearsome. Azula is a great, if extreme, example of this when she loses everything at the end of season 3 of Avatar. Mental illness (in the form of at the very least hallucinations and almost definitely a lot more) and trauma also have of course a huge influence on the intensity of everything that happens, but that basic directionlessness, the way that Azula has nothing left after she loses her father, the way she’s so susceptible to being haunted by her mother’s memory, hits so hard because she had structured everything around her Slytherin morality. She had no real goals or ideals underneath that, and so she had no structure to keep her up when that crumbled.

One of the good things about Petrification, as scary and awful as it is, is that it’s a good way to survive a bad situation and it’s possible to un-petrify (see: Defrosted Ice Queen). Because fear of attachment is at the heart of petrification, instead of needing reality to prove your doubts wrong (as the other fallen Houses must), you only need one person to prove that attachment is worth the risk. 

Elementary’s Jamie Moriarty follows a common path here in that, despite her pretending to be un-petrifying for our protagonist Sherlock, the one person she ends up actually attaching to her is her daughter. She is the Slytherin woman who un-petrifies upon becoming a mother. Regina in Once Upon a Time also follows this path, becoming through that a subversion of the Evil Queen, who is often a Petrified Slytherin who does not un-petrify (see her mother, Cora, and the symbolic plot of removing her heart so that no one can use it against her). 

It’s really common in media for characters who have closed themselves off to attachments to be called psychopaths, both by the fans and the writers, when they are, in fact, not. A lot of them have empathy, or at least the capacity for it, and are instead Petrified.The definitive and intentional split between the self and meaningful attachments, due to loss, trauma, selfishness, or fear, is different from the inability to intuitively create those attachments. Calling this “petrification,” rather than inaccurately calling it “psychopathy,” gives the character flexibility to recover from it that doesn’t end up as either a contradiction of established character or as a downplaying of actual serious mental illness.

To sum: Petrification happens when a Slytherin cares about their important people so intensely that pain from their loss, or the potential for future loss, outweighs the positives of having important people. It stops being worth it. Even if it leaves the Slytherin with a directionless system and a cold center where there is an aching potential for great warmth, it feels safer and better to not attach to anyone that strongly.

tl;dr Slytherin Primary

Slytherin is a Decided House, and Internal House, and a Loyalist House. 

As a Decided House, Slytherins, unlike Hufflepuffs (our other loyalists), prioritize "their" people first. Those people are found and chosen by the Slytherin. It's not about who is in front of them,  or who needs them most, but who they have decided to love.

As a Internal House, like Gryffindor, Slytherin Primaries carry a certainty and a moral fortitude inside of themselves. When they are sure they are right, in the defense of themselves or their loved ones, they will not be swayed by outside influence or pressure.

As a Loyalist House, Slytherin puts people first. Unlike the Hufflepuff, they put their people first. They’re content with valuing some people over others without necessarily thinking some people are better than or worth more than others. In fact, putting their own people first feels right. This is something owed. Not valuing the people you profess loyalty to most would be a betrayal, a cowardice, an abandonment. The best thing you can be is there for the people you love. 

Ambitions live in all Houses but Slytherins’ is notorious because it often looks the most selfish– it often is the most selfish. Part of a Slytherin’s morality is understanding that your first duty is to yourself and the people you love– higher minded goals are all pomp and circumstance, trying to make yourself feel good. At the heart of things, this is why we are here: for ourselves.

[that-banana-headed-bovine]

Knight Rider 2000

WARNING

This post contains spoilers for Knight Rider 2000, the 1991 film which attempts to expand on the canonical universe of Knight Rider (1982-1986).  Key word, attempts.  I know that this film came out almost 30 years ago at this point, but I also know that this fandom grows a little bit every day, and there will ALWAYS be people who haven’t seen every episode (myself included), let alone every movie!  I happened to catch it on Charge! for Hoff's birthday (yes I'm hella late posting this LOL) with my good friend @trust-doesnt-oxidize​, and boy let me tell you, it was… Something.

From here on out, I’m not holding back from sharing my impression of the film based on specific details from it, so if you want a spoiler-free viewing, go watch it and come back!!  Or… don’t, it’s kind of awful.  I can only think of one thing in canon that it may spoil, and even that appears in early Season 2 and is fairly minor, so if you are curious about it, I HIGHLY recommend watching it BEFORE reading this.  The scenes with the most impact are touching because they come as a surprise, so even if you know the general plot of the film, I would recommend watching it first.

Also this is really rambley because I have a lot of emotions about this series and, by extension, this movie.  I really don’t blame you if you click away here, but if you DO read it all the way through, I would love to hear anything you would like to add, agree or disagree!

OKAY!  Knight Rider 2000 is a movie that exists!  And I hate it!

The film sets up an interesting argument between two groups of people whose names I don’t remember because they were boring (except for Devon, I know his name at this point).  In this interpretation of the “future,” gun control has been implemented to,,, some extent, I can’t entirely tell if there have been some policies implemented across the country or if it is all localized in this one city that even the Wikipedia page for this movie doesn’t bother to mention.  And no, this city is NOT in California for once!  Usually I would be happy to see a change of setting, but considering that everything in this film felt so foreign to the Knight Rider that we know, it would have been nice to at least have a familiar setting.  Anyway, gun control stuff.  The debate between whether these gun control policies are ethical or not is very interesting.  Innocent people are dying because the wrong people have guns and the police are rendered useless when they themselves don’t have access to weapons.  This argument happens to support my perspective on the issue, so I appreciated how it took a look at that side WITHOUT it sounding like we are crazy murderer people, but I digress.  It makes sense that the ban happened in the first place, because much like how the main conflict in Pixar’s latest film Incredibles 2 revolves around society’s over-reliance on superheroes, I could see Knight Rider’s society becoming dependent on technology to save them.  It can be easy to seem like the most advanced tech in that society is present only in KITT and KIFT, and to SOME extent that is true.  However, Shawn does say that it is relatively common in this society for people to have memory chips in their brain.  That counts for something.  And the police DO have a defense mechanism according to the Wikipedia page for this movie, it’s just nonlethal.

So as you can see, I am very interested in the conflict this world sets up.  I sure hope they expand on these conflicting ideologies throughout the film, giving us a clearer idea of why the bans were set in place AND giving us insight into what exactly has caused some revolt against it.  That subject is seemingly timeless, and with how decently the introduction tackled it, I have some confidence that this film could pull it off in a tasteful way.  Wouldn’t that be amazing?   It’s some of the most serious subject matter Knight Rider has ever tackled.  It’s so interesting!

Yeah they pretty much abandon that plot in place of a very, very bad copy of the original show’s “Hearts of Stone” (season 1, episode 14).  Illegal guns exist and are bad, but we don’t really know why.  I may know a little better if I had been listening closer, but I was trying to not get so bored that I missed Kitt’s parts!

At some point during this sequence, we are introduced to Shawn, a happy police officer who is happy to have a family on a happy birthday.  And then she gets shot!  Due to head force trauma rendering her unconscious, she’s sent to the hospital.  She goes in for a risky operation that miraculously saves her life against all odds.

Then, Michael wakes up with Garthe Knight’s face and hears a great story about how one man CAN make a difference!… I mean what?  

Jokes aside, it’s kind of amazing how much this very Michael-esque sequence comes across very differently.  It’s almost the perfect example of why I don’t like this movie.  The surgery is weirdly realistic for a Knight Rider entity.  There’s blood and screens and surgeons and a sterile white room for operations.  Michael woke up in a Medieval castle with one doctor and two random people he’d never met at his side.  Shawn’s situation clearly makes more sense, but is it half as fun and whimsical?  No, no it’s not.  This whole film comes across as depressing to me, and it’s only worsened by what’s to come.  Apparently, she had KITT’s CPU/Microprocessor/something sciencey implanted into her brain.  That’s especially strange since all that I saw was a yellow liquid being injected directly into her skull!  That’s a lovely image, and��definitely gave me the idea that there was a full computer chip going in there???  (It may have actually been explained more clearly, and I just looked away because eek weirdly bloody operation scene)  This caused her personality to do a full 180.  So, Shawn is going to be fun, snarky, and full of personality like KITT is because they share memories now!  Right?  Right???

I think they tried to do that, but it came across flat.  So flat.  She speaks in a purposefully monotone, robotic voice and delivers downright mean comments that leave Michael and KITT scratching their heads.  She seems to lack basic empathy until her own memories start flooding back, and at that point, the emotions she show seem so foreign to the character we see that it’s not remotely believable.  You want me to believe that this robotic woman with -10 personality points started nearly crying after one string of memories, albeit a very traumatic one, entered her mind?  This would have been believable if she was entirely changed afterwards, coming across as far more human, but that was only the case sometimes.  It also would have been believable if the film had the same energy that the original Knight Rider show does, where suspending one’s disbelief is necessary to make it past the opening credits.  However, this movie tries to be so grounded that the kind of dramatic beats that would work in the original seem forced here.

Shawn is not the only character who I take issue with, though.  Let’s start with the most potentially problematic change from the usual canon in the entire film: KITT’s personality.  I have very mixed feelings on how he is portrayed.  If you’ve seen as much as a spattering of quotes from this movie, you probably could sense that KITT was… off.  When KITT first comes on screen, he slams Michael with a wave of insults, and none of them come off as their normal joking around.  However, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that because he has the proper motivation to be very, very upset.  He is sitting on a desk as a heap of loosely connected parts that have just enough power to make the signature red scanner whir and make an oddly terrifying red light eyeball thing (Hal???) move.  The first thing he hears is Devon nonchalantly saying something along the lines of, “I’m afraid he was recycled” to explain why KITT has been deactivated for OVER A DECADE and is not currently in anything that moves (my Charge! stream thing lagged at this point but @trust-doesnt-oxidize​ has since told me that Devon DID appear upset about KITT's being sold, but KITT likely wouldn't have heard that and what Devon said seemed to be moreso directed at HOW the chip was sold and not the fact that it was sold in the first place).  KITT is justifiably mad, and if they had kept KITT’s actions in character while his emotions said otherwise, I would have no problem with it at all.

However, once KITT’s CPU is somehow implanted into Michael’s Chevrolet, KITT does not act in character.  Shawn drives, not Michael, so it stands to reason that he would not necessarily listen to her.  She stole his CPU, his life for over a decade.  KITT does tend to listen to human companions, regardless of whether he is programmed to or not, but I can see where this would be an exception.  However, Michael soon intercedes and essentially tells him to cut it out.  Based on everything that the original Knight Rider told us, KITT no longer has a choice of whether to listen or not.  Michael is ultimately the one who calls the shots because of KITT’s very programming.  And yet, in this scene, KITT doesn’t listen to Michael and apparently gets so angry that he downright stops functioning.  Because that happens all the time in the original series!

And if you’re wondering where I got the conclusion that KITT frustrated his circuits to the point where they could no longer work, he said that.  KITT.  Admitted to having feelings.  In fact, he did not just admit to being angry in the moment.  He told Michael that, while it may seem like he is an emotionless robot, he does have a “feelings chip.”  A FEELINGS CHIP-

I am for recognizing KITT’s obvious emotions as much as the next guy.  I think they are often overlooked when discussing his character.  While I don’t think that real artificial intelligence will ever reach the level of human consciousness, the entire energy of Knight Rider comes from playing with this concept by portraying an AI character who clearly emotes interacting with a human who doesn’t seem to know that.  But the thing that makes this show feel so sincere is that neither character plays too heavily into that trope.  While not always knowing how much KITT feels and by extension hurting those feelings alarmingly often, Michael recognizes it enough to work in concert with KITT, apologize for his more major flubs, and consider KITT a friend.  And KITT subverts the trope by never recognizing that he has feelings to begin with.  He will say that he cannot feel sadness but, in the next breath, say that something upset him.  He will say he cannot hold a grudge only to immediately rattle off a string of insults directed at the person he clearly has a grudge on.  The show is magic in how these two characters display a subtle chemistry that always has room to grow because both characters are slowly coming to see each other for who they truly are and supporting one another along the way.  From what I can tell, the original show never fully concludes that arc, and it may even start regressing after Season 1.  However, we can feasibly see how Michael could slowly come to understand that KITT really does feel things just as much as he does.  And we can imagine the relief KITT would feel knowing that Michael was never bothered by that possibility.

So, you can see where I have a big problem with KITT spelling it out so plainly.  The audience gets full confirmation about what has been displayed to us through nuanced hints throughout the series, which sounds a lot more satisfying than it really ends up being in this film.  But worse than an underwhelming conclusion to a thrilling story, Michael knows it plain as day.  There is very little buildup to KITT admitting this.  He barely even sounds moved.  Instead, in this movie, the “feelings chip” is a fact of life that does not need to be covered up in the slightest.  Michael himself doesn’t really… react.  He just kind of nods along, as if he’s saying, “Huh, makes sense, alright.”  After everything these two have been through, if there really was such a simple explanation for why KITT is the way he is… why arguments went south, why the mere mention of a Chevrolet was enough to get a seemingly jealous response, why inconsequential things like music taste and gambling were subjects of debate, why KITT had always acted so exaggeratedly dismissive when topics of emotional significance struck a chord, why every little sarcastic banter had a hint of happiness until it didn’t… don’t you think Michael would do something?  Whether that something would be a gentle, “I always knew that, pal”; a shocked, “Why didn’tchya tell me sooner?!”; or even a sarcastic, disbelieving, “Yeah, right” is up to interpretation.  But there would be something.

And yet, even that concept is flawed.  We learn a lot from KARR’s inclusion in the original series, and what I take away from it boils down to a simple sentiment.  FLAG never meant for their AIs to be human.  I do realize that directly contradicts what Devon says within this film, but I see that as another way for the film to steer the plot in this direction, not as a tie in to the original.  When Wilton says that one man CAN make a difference, he means that.  He isn’t considering that KITT is just as much a person as Michael.  He’s not seeing that, at the end of the day, teamwork is what makes the show work, even if Michael is the glue that holds it together.  So, I think that to say that there is a “feelings chip” is to disregard the entire point of the original, that in this world life finds a way of inserting itself and that KITT’s (and KARR’s for that matter) humanity is an anomaly, not the rule.  At the end of the day, KITT’s humanity can’t be explained away with science.  And really, I don’t think it should be explained away at all.  The show has had an amazing trend of showing us how KITT feels, in all its unorthodox glory, alongside private moments that had me sobbing like a baby.  The movie should just be like a longer, more complex episode of Knight Rider… Although I cannot pinpoint exactly how it should be done in the context of this film, I know there are ways that Michael could have been shown that KITT feels rather than being told.

One last complaint, albeit a more minor one, is the idea that he has to listen to what Shawn says over Michael's authority.  I have spent a decent amount of time thinking about this one point, which has caused a lot of the delay in posting this.  There's multiple reasons why this flies right in the face of what is canon in the original series.  Perhaps the most obvious of these problems is the fact that, in the original pilot episode, it's made very clear that KITT can't assume control of the Knight 2000 without Michael's express permission unless Michael is unconcious.  Devon makes it quite clear in this episode that KITT is programmed specifically to listen to Michael, not just anyone who happens to be piloting the vehicle at the time.  In case there was any doubt about this, KITT ejects two people who are attempting to steal him later in the episode (well, ok, later in the two-parter, I don't know if it was the same episode or not).  The show isn't SUPER strict about this in future episodes, but it does at least acknowledge Michael's authority in a few pivotal moments throughout Season 1 (I can't comment on episodes that I haven't seen yet, but I suspect that this pattern continues).  Of all the rules set up throughout the series, it actually seems to be the most loyal to this one.  One moment that stands out to me is in Trust Doesn't Rust when KITT attempts to stop Michael from causing a head-on collision with KARR, but Michael then overrides him and the climax unfolds.  If one of the most iconic moments in the series is caused by this one bit of programming, to throw it out in the film is to disrespect the basis of the original series.

Speaking of KARR, he provides yet another reason niglecting this detail is such a big problem.  From what we can tell, KARR isn't programmed to one specific driver (at least, not anymore[?]), and so he can override anyone in the pilot's seat.  This is something they seem to highlight in TDR as well, although not so plainly as the previous point.  KARR ends up ditching Tony to gain speed and get an upper hand in the chase with Michael and KITT (although a scene they deleted would have made this a mUCH MORE SENSIBLE ACTION THAT R E A L L Y ISN'T A BETRAYAL but y'know what this post isn't about that) whereas KITT has to listen to Michael even to his own detriment.  If this one feature is indeed one of the major things that separates KITT from KARR, the idea that Shawn can override all of that cheapens the original conflict between KITT and KARR.

...Well okay, let's be real, KARR was never that compelling as an antagonist to begin with because he's a LOYAL SWEETIEPIE-- I'll stop.

And finally, we have the biggest, most bizarre reason that this is a problem:

If Shawn can override Michael's authority, that means KITT can override Michael's authority.

Why?  This would be the first time (outside of episodes where some sort of reprogramming or mind control was involved) in the series that KITT had not only listened to another human instead of Michael, but also listened to that person OVER Michael.  The only difference I can see between Shawn and quite literally anyone else in the show's history is that Shawn has KITT's chip implant thing.  If that's the reason her opinion has more credence than Michael's, then wouldn't that mean KITT's own opinion has that authority?  If that is the case, literally every example I've gone through in the last couple of paragraphs is not just challenged but rather negated entirely.

The most frustrating thing about this scene is that it simply didn't have to happen.  Michael could have gone along with KITT's plan, showing him (and us) that he does trust his former partner even after all these years.  Shawn could have convinced Michael to go along with it using her... feelings chip.  Blegh.  Or we could have had a stubborn Michael force this scene to be delayed, likely improving the pacing overall.  Maybe we could have even seen a frustrated and emotionally exhausted Shawn wait until Michael is not in the car and then plead KITT to give her the truth, no matter what Michael says.  We have seen KITT control his actions without Michael's input plenty of times, and we could have seen some more of his humanity show through if he could relate to Shawn's struggles... after all, he too has missing memories because she has his chip.  They're both going through a bit of an identity crisis.  I'm sure that he could find some workaround in his programming to help her if Michael wasn't there insisting that he does not take this course of action.

But even after all of that fussing over what has been done wrong with KITT, I can’t deny that he is the heart and soul of this film.  There was only one scene in this film that brought me near tears.  I got more of an emotional impact from this one clip than I have from a lot of movies that are undeniably much better.  Michael’s old-fashioned Chevrolet does not hold up in the year 2000, and it is clear that the usual car chase sequence won’t work as police vehicles quickly creep up on them.  I was personally very curious what they would do here.  I figured that KITT would find some way to outsmart the drivers of the police cars, maybe by ending up on an elevated mountain road that trips up the other drivers and causes them to waste time turning around and hopping on that same path.  Or, maybe, KITT would access a road that’s too narrow for the relatively bulky police cars.  However, it quickly becomes clear that this city is made up of wide roads on the ground.  As KITT veers off the road and tells Michael to trust him, the I found myself having to trust him.  This isn’t the way Knight Rider chases usually go, and with all these odds stacked against him, the only thing we can do is hold our breath.  The way this scene is staged to send us into this just as blind as Michael is, frankly, genius.  Water slowly creeps into the frame as a feeling of dread builds at the thought of what KITT might do.

Surely, we are led to think, he will knock into some boxes and turn right back around.  Right?  We’re reminded of the fact that this is not the Knight 2000, that there is no chance of this car floating.  That if KITT does what he really seems to be doing, there’s no chance… but he wouldn’t, would he?  This is the only action sequence in the film that had me at the edge of my seat, staring wide eyed at the screen.  And then, the turn that you want so badly to come doesn’t, and you have to wonder what’s about to happen.  What was KITT thinking?  Won’t Michael and Shawn drown?  And, most prominently in my mind, won’t KITT drown?

For a moment, this scene plays us into believing that, because magic FLAG science that is pretty par for the course, everything is fine.  KITT explains that they have an airtight cab and over 20 minutes of oxygen.  Everyone lets out a collective breath of relief.  We see it in Michael and Shawn, and I know I felt myself relax.

And then there’s a flicker in the screen, and that pit in the bottom of my stomach came right back.  Michael is confused, and KITT explains what we should have realized was inevitable.  This is KITT sacrificing himself.  He even goes as far as to let Shawn know that she can use any of his computer chips that she may need.  This comes off as strange at first, but it goes to show that KITT is, at his core, the same kind soul we always knew.  He acts angry because he feels betrayed, but given the choice, he will chose another person’s life over his own, always.  Even the microprocessor that he is most frustrated over, the thing that seems to drive a wedge between him and Shawn, is just how he is expressing his hurt.  Now, thinking it is the end, he offers it up freely, and Shawn doesn’t seem to know how to respond.  KITT is calm as he says his final goodbyes.  And this is the first place in the film that we get to hear the amazingly nuanced  voice acting that William Daniels is so great at.  KITT sounds collected and at peace with what is to come, but there are also subtle hints that he is at least a bit nervous, a bit sad.  “I know.  I guess this is goodbye.”  He doesn’t want to leave his friends, but he knows that he has to for them to be safe.  Even if the pacing of the film seems to actively try to undermine this moment, it stands out to me as an amazing scene, even if the reaction from Michael is underwhelming at best and the reaction from Shawn is… as much as can be expected from Shawn, but that’s not saying much.  As far as KITT knows in that moment, these are his last words: “Michael, take care of yourself.”  Down to the last moment, Michael is everything to him.

IjustwannamakeitclearquicklythatIthinktheirrelationshipisentirelyplatonicokthankyou

And I felt sad, big time sad.  The movie up until that point was unbelievably boring to me, and this wasn’t a turning point where the movie suddenly became great.  It was a moment so darn good that I almost don’t think the movie deserved for it to have as big of an impact as it did.  But that shows just how powerful this universe is, how wonderfully honest these characters are.  Even after being butchered practically beyond recognition, one scene in-character can still bring you to tears because you have connected with them so deeply throughout the TV series.

AND THEN DEVON DIED IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS :D

I don’t like Devon.

Devon was actually more tolerable in this movie than normal, and I can see where people who don’t hate him could be sad that he died  I just,,, he has hurt or talked down to KITT and KARR so many times that I actually could not sympathize.  What’s even more frustrating about that is that Devon’s death is the one that Michael got all sad over when KITT sacrificed his life for him and Devon got kidnapped randomly but okay go off movie you can’t ruin that scene for me.  I knew going in that Devon died, but I was expecting them to spend a lot more time setting it up and making it as dramatic as possible.  Nope, he just got a shot to the old air tanks I guess?  My view of it is nothing more than that it’s a thing that happened.

OH AND DEVON DID PULL ONE HEINOUS ACT.  He said that KIFT was better than KITT in every way other than that KITT has humanity.  SINCE WHEN HAS DEVON GIVEN ONE SINGULAR HOOT ABOUT THE AI’S BEING ALIVE???  TELL KARR THAT???  HECK, TELL DEACTIVATED KITT THAT YOU WERE JUST FINE SELLING OFF AT AUCTION THAT?!?!  Also also, KIFT DOES NOT C O M P A R E TO KITT.  We are coming back to KIFT in a moment, don’t you worry.  For now, I just.  Low blow, Devon, low blow.

Michael was fine too, he played a weirdly small part and that felt off but everything he said seemed pretty in character.  The most out of character parts were when he said nothing at all.  OH AND WHERE HE WAS REPLACING BONNIE but that’s besides the point, no Bonnie OR April… no Bonnie OR April… I’m fine…

…

It feels like this movie wants you to forget that Michael exists because Shawn is here she’s more interesting, right?  Right???

She’s really not.

So back to KIFT.  My favorite part of KIFT is that pronouncing KIFT in your head sounds funny.  It’s like “gift” but if the gift were actually an underwhelming villain of sorts that is overtaken in a garage, parked, by Michael either removing his microprocessor entirely or moving it to a Chevrolet.

I was surprised how not bad KIFT looked.  I had seen stills from the movie that looked really uninteresting compared to the regular designs, and while I still agree to some extent, it was a lot more epic than I would have thought.  Something about how the paint shines on it is captivating.  I was genuinely happy when KITT was moved to the snazzy red vehicle, although a big part of that could have been how disgusting mint green looks with red.  Seriously, including the red scanner on that bizarre seafoamy-bluey car (and yes, I do think it is a very pretty car by itself) was like when people say movies were “inspired” but in the opposite direction.  And the scanner looked weirdly small?  Was it just me?

Am I the only one who feels w e i r d just looking at this??

I think this is the most normal thing to be categorized as being in uncanny valley but there we go, I did it.  It’s not right.

Anyway, as neat as KIFT looks, it is no comparison to the classic Knight 2000 or even Season 3 KARR.  Red can be striking, but not when the classic scanner is also red.  No contrast!

KIFT is absurdly easy to forget, and I don’t think that the car’s design has anything to do with it.  KITT spends most of the movie piloting that car, and while it is not what we are used to, it doesn’t come across as super lame to me, either…or at least, not because of the design.  The biggest problem with KIFT is, I think, simply his voice.  His voice feels so out of place in the movie, and it’s so strange to me considering that Daniels’ voice is integrated just fine.  The recording sounds too crisp, too clean.  KITT’s voice always has a great deal of character, a very Earthy-sounding voice for an AI character.  I actually think that this incongruity is purposeful, and it’s a very clever concept.  We are supposed to recognize that KIFT isn’t human like KITT is.  KIFT sounds out of place in the real world among real people; he’s too neat around the edges.  It’s especially obvious when KITT and KIFT talk to each other.  This is also mirrored by how KITT occupies a well-loved Chevrolet that has little imperfections that make it feel real whereas KIFT is in this red… whatever it is that feels like it comes out of a sci-fi film.  This effect would have really worked if we had enough time with KIFT to understand his personality–or, more aptly, his lack of personality.  What makes this not work is the fact that we spend practically no time with KIFT.  We don’t get to hear what he feels he is programmed to do, we don’t get to hear him deliver the sort of lifeless lines that Shawn did that made her so unlikable, and we don’t even get to hear his voice more than 4-5 times.  Every time comes as a shock, taking us out of the moment of the film.  We could have gotten used to his crisp sound if he had spoken more, and we may have seen the actual plot significance of it.  Instead, it pulls you right out of the movie.

Oh yeah, and the only line(s?) that KIFT delivers to KITT are full-on taunting… that’s not very lifeless of you KIFT.

Alright, just one last thing to really hammer home a point from earlier and conclude this whole thing.  You know what I was saying about this movie lacking the whimsical nature of the TV show?  Well, the final chase puts the icing on this oddly sullen crab cake.

Yes, crab cake. 

Because the pinchy crab that is Shawn makes it quite painful to get this particular cake and icing doesn’t even belong on it anyway.

KITT is racing down the street in this bright red car that I just explained is thematically wrong for him to be driving tbh but whatever, he’s racing in it and comes up to a barricade of randomly stacked up cars.

Oh Yeah, we all know what is coming.

The music swells.  Michael looks at the upcoming barricade with furrowed eyebrows and quietly asks KITT what the heck they’re going to do now.

OH YEAH, we definitely know what is coming.

And at last, for the first time in the film…

KITT veers off to the right and they drive on water.  “It’s really sink or swim with you, isn’t it?” Michael asks, pretending that’s funny as if I am not still emotionally raw from that scene that happened an hour ago.

Apparently, KIFT had that one obscure feature from “Return to Cadiz,” the Season 2 episode where April forces KITT to follow KARR into the ocean on the hopes that waterproof wheels might work maybe, directly ignoring his many attempts to get out of it.  Yay.  I love references to That Episode.  That Episode which baited me with an opening that looked like KARR could have been discovered underwater only to show me that not only was there no KARR, but KITT was going to be bullied into repeating what his brother did when he died.  Wholesome.  Lovely.  Fantastic.  And how did KITT know for sure that would work?  KITT clearly still has some technical hiccups in his own CPU from Michael tampering with it, that was an awful lot of confidence to place in a maybe.

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY…

THIS MOVIE DID NOT HAVE A TURBO BOOST

A TURBO BOOST

I cannot believe that a movie based around Knight Rider did not have a turbo boost (or for that matter, the THEMESONG???).  Like I am honestly still surprised by it.  Almost every episode of the original show had at least one turbo boost, and there is a reason.  The idea of a talking car jumping in midair, sometimes with Michael “WOO!”-ing like a girl, is so fantastically fun that nobody even tries to question how impossible it is.  I think we all know how impossible it is, and that doesn’t matter, it is yet another thing that embodies the heart of this show.

And… not even one.

…

So yeah, that just happened.  I think this is technically a small novel.  Wow.

  I know that I'm still missing a lot... I have a lot of thoughts about this movie, and if you for some reason want more please ask!  I would also love to hear your thoughts on this!  Do you agree with my analysis?  Do you disagree entirely?  Did you notice something that I failed to mention entirely?  Pleasepleaseplease send ideas, I would love to hear them!  Also know that, no matter how much I was disappointed by the movie itself, I am fully open to hearing your ideas about how to improve or expand upon it.  I truly believe that this film introduced some great concepts, and I would absolutely adore seeing them reworked in a way that's more true to the original.  Thank you for reading! :D