#and he isolated them from the outside world meaning they lack so so much necessary knowledge and exposure

[haunted-xander]

BBS is a tragedy in many ways, but one of the things that gets me is that the catalyst, the one big thing that caused this mess to begin with, is so avoidable.

Like, the story starts primarily because Terra starts to fear himself (because of the darkness he has unwittingly 'used') and this causes a spiral of doubt and obsession. A spiral which he could've escaped from or maybe not even started if he just 1) had been taught the balance between light and dark properly (that darkness is more than just unquestionable evil, that light is more than unquestionable good, that they can and should co-exist in balance), and 2) had consistent socialization from more than the same 3 people.

Like. BBS is a cautionary tale about what happens when people aren't exposed to a wide enough variety of people and, therefore, end up naive and overly trusting because they never learned that people have ulterior motives. Terra is consistently manipulated and used by people literally everywhere he goes, because he can't see that they might not have the best intentions! He can't see the red flags because he doesn't know there are red flags to look for!

Xehanort knows this. It's why he targeted Terra to begin with: because he would be susceptable to his words. The main reason he couldn't use Aqua is because she was too confident in her own values, she didn't have the seed of doubt that Terra had. It's the only thing that prevents her from being used the same way he is, even though she is just as naive and trusting as he is.

Ven probably has it the worst socialization wise. Unlike Terra and Aqua who, presumably, has/had a family and life outside of the Land of Departure prior to beginning training there, Ven doesn't remember anything before then (not that he had much he'd be happy to remember anyway). And since he's the youngest and most 'fragile' one (due to being in recovery for most of his time here), he gets somewhat coddled and shielded by everyone else. Not to mention the way Eraqus completely forbid him from leaving and never intented for him to ever see worlds outside the Land of Departure. Sure, Terra and Aqua aren't typically supposed to leave either, but at least they'd be allowed in certain situations. Ven wouldn't.

Ven isn't allowed to interact with anyone outside of home. He's not allowed anything that involves the outer worlds. (He and Naminé are a bit alike in that sense. Though at least the people he's stuck with are nice to Ven and do genuinely care for him, unlike Naminé...)

BBS happens largely because Eraqus failed as both a teacher and a parental figure to all of them, but Terra most of all.

[mr-nauseam]

The Case of Lonely Mothers p. 2

A study about the "similarities" between Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen and their relationships with their respective children

Read only if you are interested in parallel Sejanus/Katniss. Otherwise just don't read it

For Juli (@julietasgf)

.

Remember I'm doing this for fun. I do not believe that such "parallel" between Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen is something Suzanne put in the text with intention, I just notice a lot of coincidences in them

First part here

.

IV. The Conclusion

"You cannot fathom how much I've mourned, what thousands of years of grief has done to me"

(Rebecca Sugar)

Sejanus Plinth and Katniss Everdeen are two teenagers, lacking the skills necessary to navigate the world they live in. They survive as best they can, on their own

Why are them by their own if they are so young? Because they had no one

Their fathers, unable to communicate with them and to guide them properly, either because there is a great Incompatibility that prevents them from being on the same channel or something greater, such as death, creates a barrier between them that is impossible to overcome, are not a option

Their mothers would naturally be the other option to consider to be their guides - and in reality it is socially expected that they are the ones in charge of raising them, and not their fathers, with all that implies. But if they have no one, this mean that their mothers are neither an option?

The answer is yes, and we will now explore this further

Let's pick up where we left off: Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen are women with previous stories of trauma, who are re-traumatized by an event of great magnitude that forever disrupts their lives (and their relationships with their children)

In Ma's case, it was the loss of home, of her family upon moving to the Capitol that plunged her into an eternal mourning of longing and sadness

For Mrs. Everdeen, it was the loss of the love of her life and the bleak future she saw before her that plunged her into catatonic depression and death mourning

Their pain ends up impacting and significantly altering their family dynamics

In the Plinth's case, Ma has many advantages that Mrs. Everdeen does not. First of all, her traumas do not have such severe effects on her body (catatonic state) and by having Strabo by her side, she has assured economic stability for her and her son, which alleviates many discomforts (they will never go hungry, they will always be warm), in fact, her privileged position within the Capitol saves her son from one of the most distressing and common experiences that parents live in Panem: the reaping ceremony, which represents the very real possibility of losing their children in a dehumanizing and cruel way

However, this does not prevent her depression, as her more fortunate position in certain respects still lacks important pillars for Ma person

Ma is isolated in a very particular way. Outside of her husband and son, she has no one to talk to, not only that, she lacks the ability to be vulnerable with another human being, as the people around her are hostile to her at every turn

While I don't believe Ma has suffered more than a few incidents of discrimination that were overly explicit verbally or physically, the Capitol is still a world of many delicate social rules, guided by microaggressions and a constant passive aggressive attitude, which makes for a very stressful environment, which for someone like Mrs. Plinth who could never adapt to the ways of the Capitol must be as overwhelming and stifling as it was for Sejanus, if not more so

For she had the responsibility of taking care of him, and having to deal with Sejanus' own trauma and xenophobic experiences (he suffering from bullying for example), placed her in a very complex decision to deal with

Which ended up causing her to become unable to handle it properly or ideally: Making her ends up becoming very dependent on Sejanus. He is her reason for staying in this world (and that may not sound so bad but it is a lot of pressure)

She don't do that with intent - in fact I would like to say that will is not something that intervenes in this analysis- but who else does she have?

No friends. No family. No community. No home. And full of emotions (sadness, frustration, homesickness, etc). She also many emotional needs that cannot be satisfied by anyone

I must say. Her relationship with Strabo doesn't seem to be bad but we know he may not be the best person to go to when it comes to her grieving for her home (he had a very strong opinion about this matter). In the text they seem to have talked about it (the mention of Strabo opining that for Sejanus' children the situation will be better), it's just that his comfort is not in tune with her emotions

But she had Sejanus and he suffers in a similar way to Ma. He can understand her and offer her the comfort she needs. They are each other's unconditional support -for Sejanus has no one to be completely vulnerable with either

The problem is that Sejanus was comforting his mother since he was 8 years old

Ma has been Sejanus' mother, she has been able to be. I'm not deny it, she's not in Mrs. Everdeen situation at the end of the day, but I don't think it's such a stretch to say that she has unwittingly forced Sejanus to meet her emotional needs

If we go with this assumption it is not strange to see why Ma Plinth could not teach her son to survive in the cruel world he was born into. For she does not know how to live in it either

Ma navigates the Capitol in the ways of the district. She doesn't fit in, she mismatches. She doesn't know how to make friends. She doesn't know how to stop the scorn of the people she lives with - or the people she left behind.

She doesn't have the tools so she can't pass them on

Mrs. Everdeen is a difficult case, and while her neglect of Katniss - and to a lesser extent of Prim - is undeniable, her circumstances were too harsh to expect her to get through them without a support system

I reiterate here something I already mentioned: willpower has nothing to do with these stories. It's not a question of if they would have wanted to / if they would have tried harder. Plain and simple, circumstances overcame them or at least impossibly - severely limiting their actions.

And this is essential to understand especially when we talk about Mrs. Everdeen. Let's review her context: she lives in District 12 -one of the most fucked districts in all Panem-, she grew up as part of the merchant class so she had certain privileges and then lost them. This influences the kind of lack she is used to face -how she lives it- and also the knowledge she has of how to survive in difficult circumstances -but let's remember that she is still a smart and capable woman, here I'm talking more about the facilities for adaptability

She falls in love and marries a miner from the Seam. The poorest and most oppressed area of D12. A totally new environment for her in which she does not know very well how to manage but she is fine because she has her husband to help her with the process. Her husband who has a high-risk job where it is possible he get injured a lot

Then they have two daughters. Whom she loves and they bring her joy, but in her world there are the hunger games. That monster on the prowl, threatening to take her daughters away from her; to kill them.

And Mrs. Everdeen knows better than anyone the suffering the games cause to the tributes and to their loved ones. Her best friend was chosen in the past, and in the midst of her grief she was forced to do interviews, without being allowed to grieve adequately for the hell that Maysilee lived through and then she perished in the arena

That nightmarish fate was more than a possibility for Katniss and Prim. What probably affected their bond, Mrs. Everdeen could not afford to love them too much without thinking about how quickly they would disappear when they reached the age of 12

There is a short time in her life where Mrs. Everdeen is happy, or as close to it as she can get. Her husband is with her. He comes home, her daughters are small and adorable. Her work as a healer flourishes, and it is a bitter reminder of their cruel reality but nothing impossible to cope with

Until a cave-in in the mines kills Mr. Everdeen. And everything falls apart

The man for she sacrificed everything to be with, her life partner, her support and joy is gone. Now only she is left, trapped in the Seam, and her poverty. Not only that, her daughters are also doomed, the girls -especially Katniss- have their own grief to face

Mrs. Everdeen will have to support them as they suffer unbearable pain, while her own will is shattered. And that is only the least of their worries. How will they live now?

Their budget was already limited for sure, but without the money Mr. Everdeen brought: What will happen to the food, to the clothes they will wear? She now has to support them financially on her own. Also her daughters could one day disappear at the games so Mrs. Everdeen is alone

She has no one who can offer her a helping hand, she gets depressed and her body betrays her. Mrs. Everdeen goes into a catatonic state. It's the only way she can cope with what she's going through

There is no treatment she can receive. There is nothing to be done. If Mrs. Everdeen couldn't take care of herself, how could she expect to take care of her daughters? How could she care Katniss? So she is neglectful of her because there is nothing to be done. No one will come to save her family and Mrs. Everdeen just can't do it

And as we know little Katniss has no choice but to be the one who tries. She doesn't want to die. Her little sister Prim can't die either and neither can her mother -even if she looks dead. So Katniss has to do it -and she does it after an act of kindness; she takes back and uses everything her father taught her, she can't ask for guidance from her mother, so she try to figure out the rest. Or as much as she can because she is still a child

Even if Katniss had no choice but to become the mother of Prim (and this is why I mentioned gender earlier, because while Katniss is inclined to follow typically male molds, she cannot escape the work that is expected of her as a woman)

Which reflects the somewhat strange and tragic cycle that surrounds motherhood and its relationship to powerlessness in the world of Panem, but before we delve deeper, let's conclude the case of Mrs. Everdeen

A woman whose grief forced her daughter to take her rightful place as the provider, and primary caretaker of her family after the death of her husband. Mrs. Everdeen was unable to care for Katniss. In fact she was cared by her, receiving her attentions, unwittingly taking away Katniss childhood and making her take care of her emotional needs and even her physical and mental health

Katniss navigate the world of Panem all by her own -before her games, where she ends up getting a strong support system and also we had other people in D12 giving her certain support later but that's another story

I'd like to end this with the theme of impotence /powerless as a characteristic feature of the motherhood that both characters experience

Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen can't overcome their traumas, they have no way of doing so and it impacts their parenting. Both faced heavy and crushing circumstances that prevented them from living a better life. Their world is Panem. A world that slowly kills their children

And there is nothing either can do to change the reality in which they live in any meaningful way; The Capitol. The subjugation of the Districts. The Hunger Games. They are institutions that determine their fatal circumstances, and to be changed, or destroyed takes more than they can do

The truth is that they are just powerless mothers

And there is something so brilliant and tragic that in the end Mrs. Everdeen who has lived with all the disadvantages on her side; gives birth to a daughter capable of making that change in her time and Mrs. Plinth who has lived with all the advantages on her side: gives birth to a son incapable of making that change in his time

.

And BYE

[gwiazdowe]

|| @vanillahub​ 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐃  —  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

|| favorite: Does your OC have a favorite article of clothing or accessory? What is it? What's the meaning behind it? Do they wear it all the time or do they wear it sparingly to keep it safe?

One of the few belongings Cirz got to keep from his youth is the tasuki sash he used to tie sleeves of his robes during lightsaber practice. He was fond of doing so as a youngling, and later in life he keeps the sash out of sentiment rather than it being necessary. He’s grown enough for it to be too small to tie around his torso, so he simply keeps it as a decoration around his belt. It is a simple silk sash and it has little monetary value. He just likes it. He wears it all the time. Cirz does not see a point in hoarding an item out of fear it might get damaged. All items get damaged eventually, so yeah he will usually display and use and wear down his clothing. But this is also because he does not keep many spares on himself he is pretty much the minimalist the jedi raised him as.

|| change: Has your OC ever drastically changed their appearance? Significant haircuts, big tattoos, complete wardrobe swap, etc? Why? How do they feel about the change?

Cirz was completely set on getting his forehead tattoo to honor the bond with master Enah (but they both know it was also because Cirz loves to match with the people he likes and he asked for it on a whim as children often do. He has not once regretted this decision)

The most drastic change came after the fall of the Jedi Order, since it was not safe for Cirz to present like a part of the Order, he had to alter his appearance to blend into the society. He chopped his padawan braid and long hair, and he had to replace his robes with second hand clothing that he considered poor fit. He was very upset to be stripped of identity like this, even if the change was superficial. The braid meant a lot for him as it does for any padawan.

He later dyed his hair black and concealed his tattoos to pose as a Wroonian and continued to do so for multiple years as he identified by fake documents to move around the galaxy. By that time he felt indifferent. It was but another temporary change out of necessity.

He grew facial hair like he always wanted and then shaved it off.

He came back to wearing traditional Jedi clothing after the fall of the Empire. This might seem strange and restricting to people who’d enjoy the lack of pressure to go back to old customs as the Order does not formally exist, but it is how Cirz uses his freedom to present how he wants without the law executing him for it.

Inquisitor timeline, Seventh Brother has little say over how he presents. His clothes and belongings are issued by the organization. The uniform is very different from what Cirz would wear. The armor complete with a helmet gives a feeling of isolation from the outside world and to an observer gives no indication of who the person inside is. The dark side and the practices of the organization change Seventh physically but none of these changes occur because he wants them (he has to get limb prosthetics, he gains many scars from battles or other causes, his face gets sunken and overall the wear of this lifestyle shows on him.) He doesn’t look much like himself.

|| alternate: What would your OC's alternate universe look be? If  they're a fantasy character, what's their modern look? If they're sci-fi, what's their fantasy look? What AU would you want to see your OC in, and how would they dress themself? Bonus: Prompt an AU!

I am not very invested in making these setting altering AUS so I don’t have any drawings, but without a doubt in a fantasy story Cirz would still be a magic-aligned character. Even though star wars refers to Jedi as ‘wizards’ on occasion, Cirz would be a sorcerer from a lore perspective in DnD, since sorcerers “are born with magic and use it instinctively” and this fits him. He could be a cleric or palladin too I guess. He would dress elegant and still somewhat contrasting with the world, and his clothes would feature detailed embroidery just because he doesn’t get any expensive outfits as a Jedi. Maybe he would be an elf because I’m biased for pointy ears. He would still be a red head and he would wear a mizura hairstyle.

In a “modern setting” he would look something like this. A stupidly proper dressed child.

[caffeinatedseri]

The Strength of Selfishness

Each character in BSD has a degree of selfishness or selflessness in themselves, but the way this concept is executed opens discussion on the nuance of “selfishness,” or specifically the flaws in believing selfishness is an inherently bad trait.

Atsushi

Atsushi fits the description of selflessness, but I’d argue that he’s actually more selfish than he thinks he is (keeping in mind that being selfish isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Akutagawa points out how Atsushi will needlessly risk his life in order to protect others, which sounds like a pretty heroic act, but it comes with a cost. Atsushi isn’t invincible, especially at this point in the story when he hasn’t fully mastered his ability, but his insistence on protecting others puts him in constant danger.

At the end of the day, Atsushi would have a greater chance of surviving many of the dangerous situations he puts himself into if he was more selfish by protecting himself before others.

However, Atsushi is also somewhat selfish in his motivations for acting so virtuously. 

Once again, Akutagawa points out how Atsushi only acts this way because of his deeply rooted belief that he has to risk his life for someone else in order to give his life value. You could argue that Atsushi only saves others as an attempt to prove to himself that he’s worthy, an inherently selfish motive. If Atsushi actually died, he would be endangering the people he could save in the future.

Selfishness also includes self-centeredness. Particularly with Akutagawa, Atsushi’s tendency to focus solely on himself becomes especially noticeable. Atsushi constantly doubts himself and his strengths; he also ignores his privileges and the struggles of others, particularly when he can���t completely understand them — hence why he views Akutagawa so harshly but sees Kyouka and Lucy as people who need to be saved. 

Despite all of this, Atsushi still creates a positive impact in other people’s lives. His innately selfish motivation is what drives him to protect others, and he ultimately succeeds in doing that (case in point Kyouka and Lucy again). 

Akutagawa

Akutagawa is pretty similar to Atsushi in how his past led to his inevitably selfish motives, but his manifests in a different way. 

Akutagawa has to be selfish to protect himself, due to a mix of his past prior to joining the mafia and Dazai’s teachings that collectively reinforced the belief that if he’s weak, he can’t survive.

This results in Akutagawa taking other people’s lives, a direct contrast to how Atsushi saves others, in order to prove his worth as a strong individual that deserves to live. However, this sentiment narrowly crosses the line of hypocrisy when Akutagawa does the very same thing that he criticized Atsushi for: looking for value in his life through other people.

Akutagawa also unnecessarily risks his life in order to prove his strength, which is arguably more dangerous and selfish than what Atsushi does. 

When Akutagawa fights Hawthorne, he practically eggs on Hawthorne to kill him, or at the very least fight with the intent to kill. Akutagawa was also injured before entering this fight, so running away would’ve been all the more reasonable than continuing to fight.

Drawing another parallel to Atsushi, Akutagawa has that very same resolve of risking his life unnecessarily to prove his worth. 

It’s undeniable that Akutagawa has killed many people — which is arguably extremely selfish — and loss of life really isn’t something that I want to push as morally correct. However, I would like to push the idea of redemption: finding a way to escape this messy lifestyle. I sincerely doubt that the incessant cycle of killing is any good for Akutagawa, or that it’s the life that he wants to have. 

With Atsushi and Akutagawa, both of their character arcs will develop accordingly to this balance of selfishness and selflessness.

Ranpo

Ranpo is characterized in a slightly selfish way, but this mindset comes with good reason (relating to Ranpo’s past). 

When Atsushi was kidnapped, Ranpo places priority on protecting the agency. If he were to meddle with Atsushi’s problem, which was technically a personal issue, then the agency as an organization would be put at risk. This isn’t necessarily a “wrong” mindset, but it is self-centered.

Of course, this is one of many examples to showcase Ranpo’s arrogance, but his arrogance is actually a form of self-protection. 

“So his father knew, after all. He understood that Ranpo possessed an extraordinary gift. He knew his son had the special ability to observe, remember, and uncover the truth in the blink of an eye. That was why he sealed it away. He didn’t want Ranpo to go astray, to ever hurt others and make the world his enemy.  His father wanted Ranpo to learn virtue and what’s right just like any ordinary person until he had grown up with good judgment and knowledge.” —  LN 3, “The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency”

Before Ranpo met Fukuzawa, he was just a young, lost boy who didn’t recognize his extraordinary talents. His parents taught him to be modest to allow him to develop as a normal person, but he never truly understood who he was in comparison to other people because he was orphaned at a young age.

Thus, Ranpo had to embrace his superiority, in an albeit dramatic way, in order to accept the world and himself. If he believed that people weren’t as intelligent as him, then he wouldn’t have to hate himself for feeling like an outsider to a world he doesn’t understand. 

Similarly to Akutagawa, Ranpo’s selfishness isn’t born out of hatred or negligence for others, it’s simply a survivalist instinct. 

Dazai

Dazai’s case is a little trickier to define, but I feel that he’s changed a decent amount throughout the series. I’ve seen some people argue that Dazai only helps others because of Oda’s dying wish, which would make his motivations for doing so inherently selfish. This rings true for Dazai before becoming a part of the agency, but I’d say he’s changed a lot just from interacting with the other agency members.

Dazai’s shown to be capable of the selflessness that involves risking your life for others, but because he’s Dazai, he’s most likely never going to actually die (he has taken necessary precautions to make sure he doesn’t die like in Dead Apple). In this case, Dazai was willing to risk his life for intel from Fyodor, similar to how he got captured by the PM intentionally for intel on Atsushi.

What he says here is especially important: “Certainly, people are sinfully stupid. But what’s so wrong about that?” The Dazai that was once isolated from others, that lacked a sense of direction and purpose in life, has grown one step closer to finding that purpose.

It’s no secret that character to character relationships have a big impact on everyone in BSD, but it’s especially relevant for Dazai who’s growth comes from learning about human nature. He and Fyodor both share a level of super intelligence that ostracizes them from the rest of society, which consequently makes them incapable of understanding other people.

Dazai’s statement here just shows how he’s willing to look past people’s mistakes — yes, they may be sinful and/or stupid, but that’s just a part of human nature.

And in this case, he acts in a stupid way by risking his life for someone else. Yes, it may be stupid, but this selflessness is also a part of being human.

I’d also like to add that Dazai was somewhat selfish in leaving the PM so suddenly after Oda’s death. As an executive, he undoubtedly had some responsibilities to handle, and not to mention Chuuya who was dragged into the mafia because of him in the first place. However, leaving the mafia was ultimately better for his development, and you could argue that the PM is doing just fine with Mori remaining as the leader. Thus, Dazai is another example of how selfishness isn’t harmful in nature.

Mori

On the topic of Mori, he’s a character who outright acknowledges his selflessness as a necessity for the mafia’s advancement.

As I mentioned before, selflessness is a stereotypically heroic trait, but it’s flipped around in BSD. You see protagonists with greater selfish convictions than the antagonists, who live their life based on this idea of selflessness. 

Of course, just because Mori is an antagonist, this doesn’t mean that selflessness is an innately “evil” trait. In fact, this selflessness is how he grows his organization and gains respect from his subordinates. Mori’s selflessness is used for the benefit of everyone else in the PM (ignoring the obvious crimes that the mafia commits of course).

Oda

Oda is often seen as the role model example for a “good man,” in the world of BSD — which is true to a certain extent. We certainly know how he was selfless in a multitude of scenarios, from saving the orphans at the Dragon’s Head Conflict, to his resolve to not kill anyone, and his push for Dazai to leave the mafia. 

However, I’d like to discuss Oda’s selfishness. Oda was well-aware of Dazai’s issues during Dark Era, and he seemed like the only person who would understand Dazai at that level. Despite this, he still chose to die. 

“(Dazai) is just a child who’s too smart. Just a crying child who’s been left alone in the darkness, a world of nothingness far emptier than the world we can see.”

— LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

Oda is an idealist first and foremost; when reality fails to match his ideals, it becomes unbearable for him to continue living on. 

Oda was selfish in his conviction to die, because he knew he could’ve done more for Dazai, but he chose to leave him with a dying wish rather than staying with him to potentially fill that void of loneliness.

(I’d like to mention that Oda wasn’t wrong for his choice, because Dazai ended up on the right path in the end. It was simply an act of selfishness that ended for the better).

Kunikida

Kunikida is an idealist, much like Oda, but he also draws close to being a realist at certain moments.

Kunikida shares the same selfless resolve as Atsushi: to save everyone. His ideals seem unbreakable to the point where he would risk his life and succeed in the end no matter what, purely because he’s just that committed towards his goals.

This treads closely to Atsushi’s selfishness. In this case, for Kunikida, it’s somewhat a part of his self-fulfilling prophecy to make his ideals come true, but he acts selflessly because of these ideals that he believes in. 

An important thing to note here is Fyodor’s grin, because Fyodor — as an idealist — is well aware of the fact that the greater the ideals, the loftier these ideals become in reality. 

“By that very logic, then Miss Sasaki was not responsible for any of these recent events! She didn’t even want a world in which all criminals are rightly judged! She only— Tell me, Dazai! Was it right for her to die? Is this the ideal world I’ve sought for…”

— LN 1, “Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam”

At the end of the Azure Messenger Arc, Kunikida realizes the flaws in his ideals when he fails to uphold them. By trying to save both Rokuzou and Sasaki, he ended up losing the both of them. No matter how hard he tried to save them, there was no possible way for him to achieve the level of “justice” that he desired.

This teaches an incredibly valuable lesson to Kunikida that shifts his mindset towards a more selfish direction.

Kunikida’s experience leads him to teach Atsushi, another person strongly motivated by ideals, to not follow the same path as him. You could interpret this as a sign of Kunikida’s declining resolve, but I prefer to view it as another form of self-preservation.

Kunikida very well understands the pain that comes from not meeting his ideals, which could easily affect to Atsushi considering how difficult it would be to save Kyouka.

The scene in which Kunikida goes to save Atsushi parallels what Kunikida told him previously: “Your boat can only carry one person. If you let someone beyond salvation come aboard, you will only drown together.”

Notice how Kunikida is in a boat with plenty of space, but out of fear that his ideals won’t be upheld, he’ll lower them to an lesser standard. Instead of trying to save two people, he settles for one, despite the fact that he has the capacity for two. 

This instance is a moment of selfishness from Kunikida, an act of self-preservation to prevent the inevitable pain that comes with unmet ideals. 

However, Atsushi subverts his expectations by pushing himself to save Kyouka regardless of his sinking boat, because Atsushi’s own ideals motivate him to do so. Kunikida teaches Atsushi to be careful with the balance of selfishness and selflessness; Atsushi teaches Kunikida the beauty in being selfless.

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers DARK FATE ー Shuu Maniac [Prologue]

ー The scene starts in the shopping district

Yui: ( ...This place has not changed at all. Although I suppose that only makes sense given we weren’t away for that long. )

( There don’t seem to be any rumors about wolves or such either. )

Shuu: Oi. Keep walking.

Yui: Ah, right.

( Somehow the roles are reversed for once... )

Shuu: ...

Yui: ...? What’s wrong?

Shuu: You just thought ‘I don’t want you to be the one telling me that’, didn’t you?

Yui: I-I didn’t!

Shuu: Heh...Not that it’d matter. Let’s go.

Yui: ( ...Thank god. Seems like Shuu-san is back to being his usual self too. )

ー Shuu starts walking away

Yui: ( ...Huh? )

Uhm, Shuu-san? Are we dropping by somewhere on the way home?

( He’s going into the wrong direction. I wonder where he’s headed? )

Shuu: You’ll find out if you follow me.

Yui: ...?

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to the outside of the Mukami manor

Yui: ( This is... )

Shuu: Let’s go inside.

Yui: Eh!? Shuu-san...!

ー They enter the manor

*Creaaaak*

*Thud*

Shuu: ...Nobody’s around.

Yui: Shuu-san, this is the Mukami’s residence...Right?

Shuu: Yeah.

Yui: Are you sure this is fine?

Shuu: Entering this place uninvited, you mean? I don’t see the problem. This place technically belongs to the Old Man after all. 

I assume the Mukami’s fled to the Demon World in fear of the Wolves as well. We’re lucky it’s currently empty. (1)

Yui: ...

Shuu: Don’t worry.

Unlike at the Demon World, the lunar eclipse has come to an end already here. Its effects on us species have faded as well so rest assured.

We’re borrowing this manor just in case. The Sakamaki manor is being sniffed out by those wolves after all.

 Yui: ( Shuu-san actually thought things through. )

( He makes a valid point...I might have gotten worried for nothing. )

Shuu: Hm...So this is what this house looks like.

Even though we’re all Vampires, our lives are so different. It feels odd.

Yui: ( The atmosphere is most definitely different from the Sakamaki’s place. How should I put it? You could say the mood is more light-hearted...Ah. )

ー She walks over to the wall

Yui: ( It’s a photograph of the four Mukami brothers...! )

( They really are close. It looks like a family picture... )

Shuu-san, look at thiー Wait, huh? Shuu-san?

( He vanished into thin air...Where could he have gone? )

ー The scene shifts to the kitchen

Shuu: ...

Yui: Ah, there he is. Shuu-san, so this is where you’ve been. 

( I wonder what he’s doing, staring at the shelf with silverware? ...Ah. )

They’ve got color-coded silverware. Since there’s four kinds in total, I suppose they all got matching ones?

Shuu: ...They’re matching as brothers?

Yui: Looks like it. They really are close-knit...

Shuu: Is this what you’d call...’a family’? 

Yui: Eh?

Shuu: Taking pictures while smiling or using matching plates and cutlery...Those are things I can’t even fathom happening over at our place.

Yui: ( I can’t imagine the Sakamaki’s doing that either... )

Shuu: I’ve always felt disconnected from the concept of ‘a family’.

Yui: That’s not true. You have plenty of brothers, don’t you?

Shuu: Too many. Besides...With the Old Man being the way he is, you can hardly call us an ideal family.

I won’t deny that I’ve always been surrounded by other people for as long as I can remember but...I’m a little reluctant whether or not I can call them ‘family’.

Just having someone there by your side doesn’t necessarily make you feel fulfilled after all.

Yui: ( Shuu-san... )

( Perhaps he actually often felt lonely? )

( Even if he was always surrounded by others, they only stuck to his side because he is the eldest son of the family...So he might have actually been ‘alone’ this whole time. )

Shuu: ...How about your place?

Yui: My home?

( It’s rare for him to ask about me. )

Shuu: I don’t understand very well, but as a human, you can probably grasp the concept of a family very well, no? 

Yui: I wonder...My family might be a little different from the average household as well.

Shuu: Is that so?

Yui: I was raised by a single father after all. Father is my only family.

Therefore, I don’t think I can confidently say ‘this is a family’. However...

I am certain that a close-knit family like the Mukami’s is what an ideal family should be like!

Shuu: Ideal, huh...? Do you feel envious of them?

Yui: Just a little. Me and Father were close too but sometimes I did feel lonely by the lack of any other family members as well.

Shuu: You are actually capable of feeling lonely too? I had no idea.

...No, I suppose I never attempted to see it. I figured there was no point.

Even though we’ve spent so much time together...

Yui: Shuu-san?

Shuu: ...Wanna try becoming a family?

Yui: Eh...!?

Shuu: As fellow strangers to the concept. Well, we’re just gonna play pretend, of course.

Yui: Ah, play pretend...

( He startled me...Because he suddenly dropped the word ‘family’... )

Shuu: It would be best to try it out before we actually do become one, right?

Yui: ...!

( When he suddenly says these kinds of things, it’s bad for my heart... (2) )

( ...But, if it’s with Shuu-san. )

( Exactly because we’ve both experienced loneliness before...It might be nice to try and make our own ideal family here. )

( It’s just the two of us after all. Even if we’re just pretending...As long as I’m with the person I love. )

Then, can I make just one request?

Shuu: What? Tell me.

Yui: I want plates and cups. Of course, matching ones. Is that okay?

Shuu: ...I don’t see why not?

Yui: Also let’s take a picture together too...What else?

Shuu: Sleep in the same bed, for example?

Yui: ...Can we?

Shuu: ...You’re weird today.

Yui: I mean...It’s a normal thing for family to do.

Let’s have our meals together too. It might not be bad to cook together every once in a while as well.

Shuu: ...

Yui: No?

Shuu: Oh well, why not? Even though it’s a drag. That’s what family does, no?

You can do as you wish. Whatever you desire, I do too.

Yui: Fufu, that sounds very family-like too. My family’s happiness is my happiness after all.

Shuu: I see. In that case���ー

ー Shuu moves closer

*Rustle*

Yui: ...!

Shuu: If I do something that makes me happy, it’ll please you too, no?

...Look my way.

Yui: ( I wonder if he’ll suck my blood...? )

Shuu: ...Nn...

*Smooch*

Yui: ( ...A kiss instead of sucking my blood...? )

Shuu: ...Somebody seems disappointed.

Yui: I’m not disappointed or anythi...

Shuu: Just be honest. You were looking forward to having your blood sucked, didn’t you?

That’s why this doesn’t satisfy you...Nn...

*Smooch*

Shuu: ...So, how do you truly feel?

Yui: ...I don’t feel dissatisfied... 

When it’s you...I feel happy no matter what.

Shuu: ...Hah, you really are a natural at flipping my switch, aren’t you?

I was going to leave it at just a kiss, but I’ve changed my mind.

Show me your neck. I’ll live up to those expectations...and suck your blood.

Nn...!

ー Shuu bites her

Shuu: Nn, nn...Phew...

Yui: ...

Shuu: Hah...You’re making a great expression right now.

From here on out...I’ll please you in tons of ways.

My family’s happiness is my happiness, was it? ...Yui.

Nn...

*SCENE SHIFTS*

ー The scene shifts to the entrance hall of the Sakamaki castle

Reiji: ...

Kanato: You’re still here, Reiji?

Why not give up already? They’re not coming back anyway.

Laito: Well, leaving Shuu aside, I do think losing Bitch-chan as well was a miscalculation on our part~

Reiji: My thoughts exactly. Why did she decide to chase after Shuu?

Shuu is to blame as well. We are being prompted to proceed with the preparations of the evening gala, yet, that good-for-nothing...

Now that it’s come to this, I shall take command and make the necessary prepaーー...

Laito: Speaking of which, where is Subaru-kun? I know that Ayato-kun can’t move just yet.

Kanato: He has isolated himself per usual. I assume he’s sulking because Yui-san is no longer around?

ー Subaru walks up to them

Subaru: ...Fuck off! Sulking, me!?

Laito: You’re so quick to react, Subaru-kun~ You must be dying from loneliness now that Bitch-chan’s gone, huh?

Subaru: Like I said, who are you callin’ lonely!? Imma fuckin’ end you!?

Reiji: Haah...Keep quiet, you lot!

...I suppose we have no other choice. We shall wait just a tad bit longer.

However, my patience is running thin. ...Shuu.

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) 助かる or ‘tasukaru’ literally means ‘to save’ or ‘to rescue’. However, the term ‘助かった’ or ‘sentence + が助かった’ is used to express relief or even gratitude towards a certain person or situation. In this case, the Mukami manor being empty works in favor of Shuu’s plan to hide there while the Wolves are possibly trailing them. 

(2) Technically Yui says she is ‘troubled’ by Shuu-san who will suddenly say those kinds of things. 

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

<- [ Dark Epilogue ] [ Maniac 01 ] ->

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, Se03, ep10 (part 1)

“ What to do? & how to do it? the answer & the method are so simple, so simple but difficult as hell. it was hard for me to get them, & that’s exactly why I treasure them/ makes them valuable”. kyo~ This is my favorite quote in all anime.

How many times a domestic abuse victim was told just leave this abusive partner? report them? easy. just make a call. Report your abusive parents? tell someone. easy. Just speak up. It is true. It is easy but difficult as hell. To believe it is your right to fight. No, to believe you deserve to fight. to Live. This abuse is not a punishment you must endure. Hope is not dead. How simple yet so difficult to do that. ugh! my heart!

- Seeing Death vs Facing Death: ( The abuser who was stopped):

Abuse is a form of slow death. An actual intentional murder of an innocent soul. Abusers suck the life out of their victims & kyo’s biological dad is the poster monster for that. His appearance:

thin deathly demeanor, lack of nourishment, excessive drinking, lack of desire get out of the abyss, wide eyes, tiny pupils, manic laughter. shaky body movement. pathetic outlook at things.

heavy breathing, lack of logic & distorted facts, blurry speech, bizarre mentality, toxic behavior, tendency to hurt, injure, both physically & verbally.

inability to grasp reality, desire for inflecting pain on others, finding joy in that as it justifies his entire toxic mentality.

Fear of being hurt like he hurt others & being paranoid since he KNOWS he should receive punishment.

Kyo stood watching this man spit, rage, shake, scream. The man from his past, the authoritative figure in his early tender years, the person who must always be right: a parent. Facing his dad, Kyo’s entire gradual change was fantastic:

Kyo went from feeling utter fear from this man, hatred towards him, grief at the loss of a father & a mother, to force himself to stand his ground & not leave” easy but difficult as hell“ , to talk ” easy but difficult as hell“ , to announce that isnt gonna die ” easy but difficult as hell“ to say I’m loved & I want to to be with someone ” easy but difficult as hell”

to then realize the source of his mom’s misery isnt him after all, but this jerk! & not crumble at this realization ” easy but difficult as hell“ to grief over his mom’s tragic life & still announce again that he’s anit throwing his life away ” easy but difficult as hell“ to still look at his dad with pity rather than immense hate & anger ” easy but difficult as hell“ to remove his hand & leave him behind in the past while he moves forward ” easy but difficult as hell“ to say “ i’ll come visit again, cuz I anit afraid of you anymore, I’m not running, but I’ll try to extend a hand if you wanna do the same one day. It is your choice to be the abuser who must be stopped or the one who is atoned! you can choose, dad! We heard his choice as kyo was leaving, didn’t we? locking himself in an eternal cage that he made for himself. After all, he is the monster in his own story by his own choice.

-Seeing death (1): Kyo watching his mom’s suicide is a traumatic experience especially considering she chose such a graphic way to exist this world. Kyo once said to tohru “ mom went flying”, he now said“ mom threw her life away” very graphic ways to explain her death both literally & figuratively. This alone coupled with his father accusing him, resulted in a 4 year old screaming” I’mma yuki & kill myself, this would make you happy, dad”. This explains kyo’s 2 meetings with yuki as kids“ I hate you” at the sohma estate, the 2nd meeting “ I hate you” at the street. Mimicking the toxic behavior of the dad. Why didn’t kyo mimic kazuma? cuz trauma doesn't work like that. Kids can live safely for time then one traumatic experience shatter their self-worth into an endless cycle of self-hurt, low self worth & anger issues or withdrawal. The writing that set kyo/yuki against each other is perfect.

-Seeing death (2): Kyo watching kyoko’s death hammers all the insecurities of child kyo deep down into teenage kyo. Kyoko too, went flying, blood everywhere. too much pain happening again, crashing hope & killing his fighting spirit over & over. Be with tohru? why? to kill her, too?

-Seeing death (3): Kyo watching tohru’s injured body. Yup. You caused this. not by pushing her or failing to catch her. No. but by hurting her with harsh words. by forcing her away from you.

-Facing death (1): Kyo facing his dad, the symbol of deadly-abuse. To stand & announce to live is huge. -Facing death (2): refuse death: being caged till death, -Facing death (3): To say, I wanna be loved & love someone, life is not just being outside, heck! kyo was outside for 17 years! life is abt being with those who give it meaning! -Facing death (4): To not demand others to die as a punishment. Walking away from his dad without igniting the cycle of revenge & hate. ahhhhhhhhhh~~~  Chef’s kiss!

-Seeing eye to eye: ( I don’t need to be you, but I appreciate you):

Kyo & yuki toxic relationship has been ongoing since their birth. The moment kyo’s dad was dismayed that he got the cat of all zodiac & the moment yuki’s mom was delighted she got the rat of all zodiacs. From that moment it became: look how lucky the rat parents? You shamed me? Look how pitiful that cat? eww! stay away from his filth. The explosive nature of kyo’s tragic fate tainted him with the blood of his mom & the daggers of his father’s hateful words, while the nature of yuki’s sheltered & locked fate tainted him with fear & isolation. They meet & both carry out the feelings of rejection & hate all while envying the other. The toxic nature of their relationship consist of fights & condensing words. Tohru connected both. Through her, they became civil. Even talking abt perverted shigure. Now that she is hurt, they are lost without her. Their lives are empty.

Yuki’s “ kyo has his own pain & reasons”  (to not see tohru) is my fave line! even better than all the epic lines after they confess their feelings. cuz this like happened before they connect. it shows that, I see his pain, I get he has his reasons. But whatever issues he have shouldn’t hurt tohru. this is when yuki interferes in kyo’s choices. For tohru. This is also when kyo really allows him to. For tohru. Had tohru nor be part of the fight, kyo wouldn’t even engage in it & yuki wouldn’t initiate it.

-“I wanted to be you!” : Kyo said it first. I loved this so much! Cuz kyo said I hate you first! it is so fulfilling that the truth is now out. From kyo first. Cuz really... that hate was all toxic inheritance from a toxic father & a toxic system.

- “Why do you have to say it firs!” Yuki was mad, cuz he was struggling with it for the longest time. to be kyo. He even mused on how kyo interacted with ppl in school, got himself his own mini kyo. lol. studied how kyo filled tohru’s world just by existing. yuki can't do that for tohru. he looked for someone whom he could do that for! yuki/machi scene at her house paralleled kyo/tohru scene at her room when she was sick (se01, e023) & when they eating the somen together (se02, e02), yuki/machi chalk scene paralleled kyo/tohru scene at the beach where he coaxed tohru to tell her mom’s story (se02, e07). Yuki really was having a hard time finding his true self & accepting it without needing to learn from kyo. It is hard to say “ i admired you” after being rejected by you! so kyo saying it first helped yuki say his after. Also, both boys were hella shocked they admire each other. Like both were deeply shocked! stupid boys! XD

Side Notes:

Kyo’s confrontation with his dad is furuba’s most powerful scene & most well-written one! From the fear of facing him, to talking to him with low voice, to physically stopping him, to the exposed last piece of locked memory abt the mother, to the freedom gained by walking forward! Heck, even how it was weaved psychologically to perfectly mimic children’s self-defense mechanisms & children copying their parents theme. The realistic depiction of abusers both in their most powerfully menacing moment & in their weakest cowardly moment. Top-tier writing! Hands down my fave furuba scene! Can’t ask for better! Can’t even imagine better! genius- writing Takaya-san!

The boys had a necessary fight & confrontation & the yuki’s entire speech was valid & perfect speech. However, as usual, I’m not a fan of how violence is depicted in furuba. I was actually “warned/ ordered” by an anon to not “ sh*t” on the boys fight scene. I don’t know why someone who’d read my reviews would think i’d have anything but love for both boys. I criticize the writing not the characters. Also, furuba fans have always been good to me, I state my opinion frankly & they talk to me! “ talk!”. You don’t have to throw virtual fists over different perspectives on fiction. Talking kindly does magic, also having different opinions is natural & normal for humans.

I love yuki so much, he’s one of my top faves in furuba & I get why the boys would quarrel & throw fists. I get the history between them, the current state of mind, their emotions & mentality & I get it’s fiction & drama that needs its “ OMG” moment. However, I cringe when I see violence used as a bonding moment in fiction in general. That’s just me. I wish the fight was done in a more artistic style without showing that scene where yuki corned kyo & punched him in full view of the screen. (again not hating on yuki nor the fact that they needed to fight). I’m jus saying I didn't need to see a one-sided beat up from a character I love to another one I love. That’s just me again~ feel free to enjoy this moment to its fullest. It’s fiction & I’m not judging anyone at all, nor hating anyone from real life or fiction <3<3<3.

Yuki’s last piece of character development is in my part 2 review! Along with machi. Also, yuki’s Japanese VA was awesome!!

Also, let yuki have deep various facial expressions!!!! ugh! In the fight scene they did yuki so dirty with his hair covering his eyes all the time! then followed by low quality shots of him breathing! Why?! The voice acting sold the entire excellent emotional rage more than the animation! Yuki can look pretty even when mad, heck! screw looking pretty! just give him deep facial expressions to mach his feelings! boy was hella mad like he never was his entire life! always forced to wear a mask or be diplomatic! now he’s screaming his lungs out, you hide his face??? really?? Sigh~ the anime always do this wit yuki, replace facial expressions with hair on eyes or having his eyes without light. I wanna see them expressive eyebrows so bad!!!

Another powerful VA performance was both kyo’s dad VAs! both the Japanese (with his excessive breathing) & the English VA (with his range). They sold the mad abusive character! they gave me chills!

Also, I sound like a broken record, but kyo’s both VAs did phenomenon in the dad’s scene & tohru’s scene. Honestly, I only watch the dub to hear Jerry! I learned his name & would watch the dub for him!

Akito, Arisa, Kureno in part 2 of my review as well.

Shigure/yuki returning home scene is call back to ep1. Ok, everybody loves a call back scene & the full circle thingy. but C’mon! you dont have to copy everything! the walk, the scenery, its purpose, dialogue & all! The anime really took advantage of kyo being missing. XD

Tohru’s dress/top color matches the color of kyo’s old hat (The hat). symbolic of him finding her? As if he did find her when they were children? cool. I love this detail. But i do NOT love this color on tohru at all !! lol. it is so dull on her. The dress style/ design mimics her same dress in se01, ep26 as she was talking to kazuma & kyo fought him. Their first intimate moment after nearly loosing the other. Heck! tohru was even hurt on her hand as well. but the color was a nice pastel yellow. It suited tohru. The hat’s bluish-greenish color matches tohru’s own pajama at home!!!! & kureno’s hospital pajama! T_T... why couldn't the hat be red!!!! a color that both represent kyo & yuki! both were compared to red before~ oh well~~ minor issue~

[codenamed-queenie]

Nap Time

Hear me out.

When you work the graveyard shift busting baddies and crushing cases, you likely average about two, maybe three hours of sleep a night. At most. There’s only so much time in the day, right? And Timothy Jackson Drake is not the only member of his family who’s dangerously sleep-deprived. 

So, upon Alfred’s insistence (and many isolated incidents involving brick walls, hot coffee, shaving cream, and a lack of pants)--

A bargain was struck. Deals were made. Schedules were rearranged. Employers and Teachers were generously bribed. 

All for one minor, but critically crucial thing:

Family Nap Time

It was actually Duke who had the idea, to everyone’s surprise. He stepped into the manor one day and witnessed a state of chaos on a scale only achievable by a family of the World’s Greatest Detectives:

Dick had climbed on top of the fridge and curled into a fetal position, clutching a cup of coffee like his very life depended on it. 

His eyes were unfocused, staring into the eyes of demons nobody else could see.

Jason was screaming at the toaster in Portuguese and hitting it repeatedly with a whisk. Said toaster was on fire.

Steph was dutifully trying to put out the fire with the extinguisher Alfred always kept within reaching distance of the oven (for obvious reasons). 

The only problem? She was nowhere near the toaster.

Instead, she was spraying the potted Ficus on the opposite end of the kitchen, screaming ‘aaaaayyyyyyyyyy’ in complete monotone. 

Harper, who’d ‘spent the night’ to catch a quick hour and a half of sleep, was perched, bird-like, on the bar stool at the counter squeezing mustard into her Frosted Flakes. She stared, unblinking, at the bowl. 

Whether she thought it was milk, or whether she was perfectly aware of what was in her hand and just didn’t care what she was doing is unclear. 

Damian was hugging a struggling Alfred the cat like a teddy bear, and standing with his face in the corner of the room. Unmoving. Just...standing there. 

Tim was wearing swim trunks (they were actually Dick’s, and had little yellow rubber duckies on them) and sitting in the kitchen sink. Said sink was running. Tim’s head was tipped back. He stared at the ceiling while water continued to overflow onto the floor. 

Cass was nowhere to be seen. At least, at first. 

Bruce walked in, wearing nothing but a pair of his best underwear and Selina’s fluffiest bathrobe. He was holding a carton of orange juice. He nodded at Duke, and, as the most lucid of the bunch, said, 

“Morning, son. Breakfast?”

He stepped over to the fridge, and Cass was clinging koala-style to his back. 

Whether Bruce was aware of this fact was also unclear. 

Duke was fine. He operated during the daylight hours, and therefore had the best REM cycle in the family. But still...he had Concerns. 

So, collaborating with Alfred (a.k.a. the Only One Anyone Actually Listens To) they came up with Family Nap Time. 

The rules are simple:

At exactly 6am EST report to Wayne Manor

Family Nap Time shall take place at least three (3) times per week

Refer to the Family Group Messages for more info

Bring: 

Your fluffiest blanket

If you do not have a fluffiest blanket, one will be provided for you

One or more pillow(s)

Body Pillows are Highly Encouraged

(But if necessary, a younger sibling will serve the same purpose)

Fuzzy or Comfy Pajamas (and Socks)

Not required

(But you must be wearing CLOTHES, MASTER JASON)

A raffle shall be had each week to determine who gets to pick the white noise played in the background.

Those who would like to opt out of background noise will be supplied with foam earplugs. 

No, Master Timothy, the Bee Movie Script is not adequate white noise.

Master Jason, please take this seriously. Sirens, car horns, and explosions are not conducive to a positive sleep environment. I don’t care if that is what helps you sleep at night, why can’t you be more like Miss Cassandra and select wind chimes or ocean waves?

Everyone shall gather in the living room. 

You are free to sleep anywhere you would like

Couches, the rug, by the hearth, all are excellent choices. 

No, Master Timothy, you may not sleep in the chimney

Master Dick, the coffee table is an...interesting choice, but--

Miss Brown, please keep your hands to yourself

Especially within view of young Master Damian.

No cellular devices allowed

This means all of you

Yes, ALL of you

Even you Master Bruce, don’t give me that look

The Lights will be dimmed, and the curtains drawn.

This signals that it is time to Sleep

Glowsticks are banned, Miss Brown, I’m sorry. 

Everyone must sleep for at least 3 hours, but you are free to stay as long as you would like. 

Within reason

We made an exception one time, Master Timothy

But you cannot continue to spend the week on the sofa, no matter how little sleep you’ve gotten this past month.

There’s actual work that needs to be done

Failure to attend shall result in Mandatory Leave from all patrols and other related Vigilante Activity, to allow for the opportunity to sleep on your own time.

Either way, Sleep is a NECESSITY not a SUGGESTION

Needless to say, there’s some bumps in the road, and a few debates to be settled and rules to be tweaked. But all in all? Family Nap Time is a huge hit.

The rest of the heroes in the Super Community are well aware of this practice, as well. 

Tim was teased about it at a Titans’ briefing only once. (The other Titans are still attending group therapy.)

Roy negged Jason about it a few times, then stopped once he started to notice how the dark bags under his friend’s eyes started to slowly disappear. 

The Birds of Prey pick up the slack while Babs heads over to Wayne Manor to join the siesta festivities (Siestivities?) She always helps Alfred make chamomile tea for the others. 

And lastly, 

Barry Allen, the poor fool, burst into Wayne Manor one day and shouted something about an emergency in space that the League needed Bruce for, asap!

Twelve heads perked up out of a nest made of pillows, sheets and blankets set up in the living room, glaring daggers

It was at that moment, Barry knew

He. F****d. Up.

All he remembers is the unholy sound of shrieking, fingernails, fists, and being stuffed somewhere dark (the broom closet)

Anything past that? Gonzo.

Wally had to pick him up after Alfred gave the all-clear.

It’s become a sacred, but unspoken, rule for any hero outside of Gotham: 

Let the Bats Sleep...or else

[whattheheehaw]

What are your thoughts on women in the Fire Nation seemingly having more agency than women in the NWT?

Logically speaking, incorporating women into the workforce and the military would greatly benefit the Fire Nation's economy and war efforts. Why not utilize the entire population to further your position in the war? Not doing so could be a fatal mistake. And I think part of the reason why the Northern Water Tribe doesn’t utilize women outside of the private sphere (i.e. domestic responsibilities), is because they’re mostly sheltered from the war. They don’t send their men to go actively fight against the Fire Nation unlike the Southern Water Tribe. I don’t think many raids had happened on the Northern Water Tribe prior to the Siege of the North, if any. They’re pretty much isolated from the rest of the world—even their sister tribe—so I don’t see why they would need to incorporate women into the workforce or train them to fight if the tribe is not actively participating in the war. Additionally, there’s the fact that men and women have most likely been segregated into their own sections of society for such a long time that culturally, there are probably expectations that men and women will continue to stay in those designated parts of society.

Also, the Fire Nation is much more technologically advanced, and with industrialization comes more job opportunities, especially for women. This usually happens because growth in factories means an increase in demand for unskilled labor. Workers are easier to replace because of the fact that these jobs are unskilled, and wages are pretty low. The lack of job security and low wages aren’t very steady sources of income, which means that women (and often times children as well) have to find jobs to provide for the family in addition to the man of the house. In the case of the Fire Nation, I imagine that a decent majority of men would be fighting for their country abroad or stationed in the colonies, leaving many job openings for women to take, including the home guard as well. 

I can’t remember if every Fire Nation woman was taught how to fight, but the women that we did see fight probably had a good reason to be taught how to. Guards would need to know how to capture escaping prisoners, the guards/soldiers stationed at the Fire Nation capital’s harbor would need to know how to fight, etc. As for Mai and Ty Lee, I would think that it would be important for them to learn how to defend themselves as well, considering that they’re part of Azula’s inner circle and being that close to royalty might mean an increased risk of assassination attempts. Also, I’m pretty sure Azula would want her squad to consist of excellent fighters as a sign of strength and power.

As for Azula’s involvement in politics, I think that occurs more from circumstance than anything else. I mean, her brother has been banished and she’s pretty much next in line for the throne unless he manages to find the Avatar that’s been missing for the past century. So of course she would become invested in politics as the heir. Also, I think that Ozai getting rid of Zuko was more of a strategic move on his part so that he can make sure Azula becomes his heir. She’s got the intelligence and knack for military strategy that would be necessary for a ruler of a warmongering nation.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that just because women in the Fire Nation have more agency than women in the Northern Water Tribe, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything special. Sometimes I see people say that it’s weird how a nation that committed genocide could have more gender equality than a nation that’s part of the “good guys”. And well, here’s my somewhat nuanced explanation for how that could happen. 

[cupidhaos]

desk buddies

pairing: bambam x female reader

word count: 2.3k

genre: fluff, slight angst, slice of life

summary: bambam would soon come to realize, that his ‘annoying desk buddy’ would be one of the most important people in his life

warnings: none

a/n: i was listening to cherry by rina sawayama when i was writing this and that fact is honestly not relevant to the fic at all i just wanted to tell everyone that they should listen to it too

[part of my What is Love? series]

for most of his life, bambam kept his circle close. he never thought that he needed anyone else other than yugyeom in his life. the two boys had known each other since they were young - being the other’s first friend and all. all throughout elementary school, he had never found it necessary to reach out to anybody else. i mean he and yugyeom had each other - why would he need anyone else?

“you know - you should try to make friends other than me.” yugyeom told him one day on their way from school. it was only a couple more months until they would start middle school.

bambam frowned from where he walked by his best friend “why? if i have you then why would i need anybody else?”

it was yugyeom’s turn to frown “isn’t it better to have someone other than me though?”

the other boy just huffed in response “it’s not like you’re making any effort in making other friends either. besides, everyone else is irrelevant anyways. i don’t need any other friends if they’re just going to leave in the end and go off with someone else.”

the frown on yugyeom’s face deepens as the two of them walk in silence for a while. “i mean… that’s true… but you know i’m not good with making friends! at least you can talk to others.” yugyeom speaks up after time passes. bambam just rolls his eyes at him.

“if i have you then there’s no point in needing anybody else.”

the first day of middle school, bambam felt his world stop. him and yugyeom - for the first time since they have met each other, were now in different classes.

“i know it sucks bam, but it can’t be helped” yugyeom tells his friend who continues to stare at the sheet of paper listing their classes in disbelief. bambam didn’t know how to respond back as he just continued to look at the paper as if it were going to change the harder he stared.

before he knew it - he was sitting in his class filled with unfamiliar faces. he wondered how yugyeom was doing and was dreading the rest of the school year as he stared out of the window - an uninterested look on his face that made everyone avoid going near him.

‘see yugyeom. this is exactly why i don’t reach out and try to make friends. everyone here is all fake and irrelevant anyways. none of them even want to look my way and they’re all avoiding me anyways. who needs anyone else-’

bambam’s angry inner monologue came to a stop as he heard movement coming from the seat next to his. he looks up to see a girl setting up her materials and putting her stationary into the desk next to his. his eyes drift to a familiar wand-like pen peeking out of her pencil pouch.

“... sailor moon?” he accidentally slips out. the girl follows his gaze towards her pen and her eyes widen. she hurriedly shoves the pen back into her pencil pouch as her face visibly reddens. “what? no! haha i’ve never watched sailor moon in my entire life i have no idea who that is at all and it’s not like i’m a fan that i’d buy her merch or anything what? i mean - why are you peeking in my desk!”

bambam watches her ramble on with a confused look on his face. he had no idea why she was talking to him and why she was even defending herself in the first place.

‘wait - why was she accusing me?’

a frown takes up bambam’s face as he met her eyes. “i wasn’t peeking in your desk! you sit right next to me it’s in my vision!”

“well maybe you should keep your eyes on your own desk!”

an offended scoff leaves bambam’s lips at the comment. who the hell does this girl think she is?

“well maybe you should have better taste in anime!” “excuse me?!”

“you heard me! sailor moon sucks! she can’t even beat naruto!”

a loud and offended noise leaves her lips once she hears the comment. she clenches her fist angrily, neither of them noticing the attention of the classroom slowly being shifted towards them.

“not true at all! sailor moon can beat naruto’s ass in seconds!”

“nuh-uh!”

“yuh-huh!”

“y/n! bambam! is there a reason the two of you are arguing in class right now?”

the pair both turned towards their teacher with wide eyes before pointing an accusing finger at the other.

“she started it!”

“he started it!”

that was how the two of them were sent into the hallway on the first day of middle school. the two classmates stand on opposite sides of the hallway as they sit against the wall with their hands above their heads.

bambam looks over towards the supposed ‘y/n’ who sits there with a pout on her lips he feels. a tinge of guilt in his chest as he looked at her.

‘maybe i should apologize…’

“... naruto is still better than sailor moon” he mumbles.

and that was how they got into another argument for the second time that day.

after their first encounter - the two would get into arguments daily. since they were also desk partners, it was inevitable for them not to find something to fight about. whether it was y/n’s eraser shavings accidentally finding its way onto bambam’s desk - or it was bambam’s elbow accidentally bumping into y/n while she was writing, the two always found a reason to fight with the other.

over time though, arguments had turned more into friendly banter and teasing. y/n even began greeting him outside of class instead of the typical death glare that the two would share with each other if they saw the other during passing periods.

“you’ve been acting different” yugyeom says one day as the two were hanging out at his house. bambam looks up from his homework with a confused expression on his face “different? how?”

yugyeom just shrugs as he continues writing out the math problem on his worksheet. “i don’t know - you seem much happier and you’re even more talkative.”

bambam feels his eyes widen at his best friend’s observation. “i… have?”

the other boy just nods as he looks up at him with a mischievous smile “you have, is it because of that girl you’re always talking to in the hall?”

bambam feels his entire face heat up at the question and gives yugyeom an incredulous look. “what?! ew! y/n?! that’s so gross like i’d ever like her!”

the smirk on yugyeom’s face just grows at his friend’s response “i never asked if you liked her”

seconds later bambam has yugyeom in a headlock as yugyeom laughs loudly at his best friend’s behavior.

after that comment, bambam tried his best to shake off the happy feeling he got when he was around y/n. the two of them weren’t friends - he didn’t want to be her friend, was what he continuously tried to convince himself. it even came to the point where he tried his best to ignore her and isolate himself from the other.

another day passes by as he did his best to ignore y/n. but y/n was never one to back down easily.

“psst… bambam…!” she whispers from where she sat next to him. bambam just ignores her though as he continues on with doing his work. y/n pouts at the lack of reaction before trying again. after being ignored a second time she gives up.

bambam sighs in relief internally as he realized she was probably thinking of giving up of attempts to be her friend.

‘i’m really not surprised. this is how it usually turns out.’

seconds later though - a folded piece of paper makes its way onto his notebook. bambam stops what he’s writing and slowly turns to look at y/n with an unamused look on his face. y/n is turned away from him though as she looks into the other direction. her eyes slowly go to look at him and she gestures at the folded paper with her head. with a tired sigh, bambam opens up the folded paper to read the contents inside.

stop ignoring me >:(

was what was written in the paper. bambam rolls his eyes and y/n watches from her side view as he writes something down. he folds the paper back up and slides it over to her desk.

i’m not ignoring you. why do you even care.

bambam could hear her huff angrily and the sound of rapid writing next to him. the paper is then thrown back onto his desk.

um maybe because i’m your friend STUPID -_-

his eyes widened at the message. she considered him… a friend?

i never said we were friends. now stop bothering me.

okay well too bad because we’re friends now so tell me why you’re ignoring me

we are not friends. i hate you go away.

oh so you’re the tsundere type ~ well that sucks because i’m not going anywhere! ^u^

just leave me alone!!

`3` you’re so cruel T__T but fine, i’ll leave you alone for now - bestie ;P

bambam turns away from y/n as he reads the last message, he can hear snickering from behind him though as his face begins to turn red. the paper is quickly snatched out of his hands though before he could even respond. he turns around to face y/n but pauses once he finally gets a good look at her.

y/n looks at him with a playful smile as she teasingly waves the note at him. it was like the light around her glowed as bambam looked towards her and he felt a warm feeling rise up in his chest.

‘did she always glow like that?’ he wondered. the moment was cut short though as the note is quickly snatched from y/n’s hand. the two look up at their teacher who gave the two of them an unamused look.

“passing notes in the middle of class y/n? you as well bambam?” 

and that was how they both ended up out in the hallway for a second time. its quiet between the two of them as they sit against the wall with their arms above their heads.

“listen… i understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore, i get it” bambam quietly tells y/n as they both sit at a distance from each other in the hallway. y/n looks up a him and gives him a confused expression “huh? what are you talking about?” “i’ve been ignoring you and i said some pretty mean things to you… it’s okay if you don’t want to talk anymore i wouldn’t be that surprised. i’m used to not having many friends.” he adds on. its quiet again before y/n breaks the silence with her loud laughter.

bambam turns to look at y/n with the same confused look that she had just moments ago. “are you mocking me now?” he asks her, annoyance was hinted at his tone. y/n just shakes her head at his question though before turning to meet his eyes.

“i swear i’m not i just - i knew that yugyeom said you weren’t used to having friends but i didn’t know he meant it” y/n explains in between her laughs. bambam gives y/n a horrified look “how do you know yugyeom?!”

y/n’s laughter stops as she stops to think back. “hmm i met him a couple of days ago through mingyu since they’re in the same class. he came over to gyu’s the same time that i was there and he told me he was your friend” she explains. the look of terror doesn’t leave bambam’s face the more he heard y/n speak “what?! what did he say to you?!”

she just responds with a mischievous look on her face as she sends him a playful wink “that’s a secret”. all bambam could do was groan in response as the two people he didn’t want interacting had already met each other without him even knowing.

“he explained to me how you didn’t like making friends since you ‘didn’t need anyone else other than him’ or something like that.” y/n adds on and bambam turns away from his classmate in embarrassment “yeah! what about it! friends are irrelevant! they could just leave you at any time they want anyways.”

she just nods in understanding at his words “i mean, yeah thats true and all but isn’t it kinda lonely? besides - theres no harm in making any friends anyways. if they leave then they leave and then you can grow from it. but then again you also have to give people the benefit of the doubt from time to time you know”

his eyes widen at her words and he looks back up at her. y/n stares back at him with a small smile on her face which just causes thirteen year old bambam to blush even harder.

“it sucks being alone - don’t you think?”

and it was in that moment, bambam realized that she was someone he didn’t want to let go of anytime soon. it was because of her words, that he had came to the realization that he was just trying to convince himself by saying he didn’t want to let people in.

“yeah… it does”

just like that - it was like a switch inside of bambam had flipped. from wanting nothing to do with anyone else other than yugyeom, he now craved for friends and social interaction with others.

from feeling like he was in a dark room all by himself - he now felt as if the door to that room was opened, and it was all because of her. he wanted to keep staying by her side, he didn’t want her to leave.

moments of love masterlist

[alistonjdrake]

June’s World Building Cheat Sheet Part Nine: Multicultural

I kind of touched on these subjects before but as I’ve been doing lately I’ve had more thoughts and I want to do a deeper dive. 

Honestly while I’ve been thinking about this for a while and briefly mentioned it in a previous post, it really hit me when I was playing Crusader King’s 3 and my character became the Norwegian-Irish Emperor of Britannia and France, and a lot of my subjects had some qualms with my cultural identity and as I watched areas of England get Norwegian-nized and names changed I started thinking about cultural markers. 

To put it simply, a “cultural marker” is basically just something to quickly pinpoint where someone is from or what their heritage is. Of course these are not always super specific and there is overlap. Like, me saying I speak English does not immediately make it obvious that I’m American. But if I talked about what I grew up eating, regional slang, some things people wore commonly, you would probably be able to narrow it down. There’s also what I tend to refer to as the stereotypical cultural markers so if someone was to say “I’m from X” what’s the first thing that comes to people’s mind that they relate to that place and that culture?

I also started thinking deeply about language and language as an extension of someone’s identity. This also stood out to me in the case of empires or in places were dozens of cultures have blended. At some point, language either is or isn’t an extension of someone’s background but the language someone does speak can say a lot about them or the area they grew up as I mentioned in my last post with regional dialects or when a certain language might be considered the “default” among some characters.

Now, as always, I have to say I do not think it’s extremely pressing to give fantasy cultures so many layers. I don’t think it’s always necessary to have a throwaway line about people speaking multiple languages in your metropolitan city or the fact that the culture is either not a monolith on its own or new people have moved in. Do I think it spices things up a little bit? Of course. That’s why I’m talking about it.

The lack of especially falls short to me in settings, as mentioned, that are empires or densely populated or considered “centers” of the world. How many times have I read a fantasy university or guild settings or these expansive cities and all the characters were more or less from the exact same place, all spoke the same language, pretty much ate the same things, and had the same opinions on anything not a huge plot point. 

So Let’s Talk About Language (Again)

I’m not gonna lie. My nerd brain loved it when my Norwegian-Irish emperor took over England and instead of the names of familiar places changing completely they were just changed to sound slightly more Norwegian while still looking enough like what it used to be. I am upset with myself for never considering this before in my own work or thinking about it when I craft fantasy worlds, especially in settings where one group or place takes over another. The language would change or there would be shifts due to either

The sounds for the original thing they’re trying to say do not exist in their language

That’s simply how they pronounce it

Maybe they were feeling frisky that day and decided to change it just because. 

I think we see this most often especially with borrowed words. When a word more or less exists in several languages maybe because they’re taking on a title or a position, it’s not so much that the word changes but each one has to put their spin on it. Not always intentionally it might just be how they say it given either the limitations of their own tongue or how they heard it. 

In my last post I began to touch on this with the introduction of people speaking the same language differently in my Grazan Escan vs “regular” Escan dialect (the basis of this discussion just that people who live in Graza in my setting speak the language slightly different than non-Grazans which sometimes makes the language hard to understand for even native speakers). Last night I had another breakdown about how much I hate the common tongue and the concept of the common tongue and I’d like to also mention that if there is going to be a “common” language in a setting, I myself tend to use Escan as the common language because Escan is an imperial nation and have intentionally spread their language all over the place so a lot of my characters speak it, I think it is important to have some context as to why a language would be so widespread/ common. Someone would have had to go to these far places and teach people how to speak this language (and somehow walk away with it having no regional differences). Why would people in this setting think it a good idea to even learn this language if they have their own and rarely communicate with people outside of their community? What is the impact of a character having to take up another language in order to? In my recently finished draft of The Night Court, due to my own temporarily fleeting memory I forgot one of the main characters was going to a place where he could not speak the language and spent that entire half of the book asking for translations and not being able to speak to certain characters directly. Which, now that I’m done with the draft I appreciate more because I’ve definitely been in situations where I’m in a new place and my poor planning and education made me the only one who couldn’t speak the language and I had to have friends help me.  

This is where language as an extension of identity comes in. Could this character have assumed that his first language was dominant enough where he could travel to new places and not have to learn anything else? Or was it just bad luck and now he feels isolated in a setting where he cannot speak to anyone? What are the implications behind someone’s first language based on where they live? I just wrote two posts now talking about Prince Toli of the Escana Empire’s first language not being Escan and how that impacted his early life and how he appears by the time we meet him in the books. What does it say about the world characters live in where what language they speak and what language they learned to speak first has such an impact?

And in the reverse, what is the perception of someone being multilingual? It is expected in a setting? It is a bonus? A requirement of certain jobs or positions? A necessity to live in certain areas? Given how much court intrigue and political scheming I write I tend to have characters switch languages to avoid spies or eavesdroppers but on the other hand it’s also easier to make new allies if you extend the branch by speaking their language. 

Are there official languages? Court languages? Trade tongues? Coded languages you’d only learn for very specific purposes? 

Clothes And Culture: Sumptuary Laws & The Fashion Police.

This is a point I missed completely in my fashion post and I’m sorry about that. As with all my “advice” I feel it important to note I don’t ever expect anyone to go the extra mile nor do I usually think people need to. These are just things I like to sprinkle into a setting to give in breathing room or background information so it doesn’t feel like it was created just to serve a story purpose, but that it’s a world people live in. 

On that note. I’m very passionate about clothing. I’m encountered a lot of fantasy fashion in my day and I understand why people don’t ever find it relevant to mention certain things but as my setting is a late 18th century world in which the common people are starting to realize that royalty kinda sucks, it’s something I can talk about.

Like, the extensive labor that goes into making sure my royal characters have 100s of different outfits. Fashion is cheaper than its ever been but that was not always the case. There’s a reason why often see people in ye old days with only like 2 outfits for any given occasion. Characters and people who had constant changes weren’t just fashion forward, they were showing off wealth whether or not that was front of mind. To give some context as a lover of historical fashion and beautifully detailed garments, I did some quick math to see how long it would take me to recreate one of my favorite gowns by and. Given the intricate details, all the delicate beading and lace and all the fabric I’d have to buy (I didn’t even get into costs) it would have taken me at minimum 50 years. 

Now does anyone need characters going around talking about how Princess Zurina is wearing a gown that would have taken one man 50 years if not for the staff of seamstresses who likely work on her wardrobe? No. If a character in a setting is a seamstress or if the story has anything to do with wealth distribution and the extravagance and waste of the super rich, sure maybe throw it in there. One half of the book I’m working on is about political cartoons criticizing the royalty and wouldn’t you know if I go back to the time period I’m basing my work off of, you can find a lot of jokes and slights towards outrageous dress because people back then understand the labor that went into these garments. 

This is where I’m going to mention sumptuary laws. Basically, whenever I do my dives into fashion history I’ll find a lot of policing towards the way people dress. I mean we still have them now but maybe they’re not as apparent to us? And a lot of them used to be more class-oriented. One should not dress above their “means” or status which is where we get certain fabrics or colors meant only for certain types of people. But it also happened in the reverse where certain groups are designated things to wear so other members of the community know who and what they are. People not being allowed to wear certain things either because they would be related to deviance or offensive. Like characters in my setting cannot wear any shade of green around the king because dark green is the Escana mourning color and it would be considered as cursing the king to die.

Are there punishments for wearing the “wrong” thing? Is exaggerated wealth or having too many outfit changes something calls criticism if the character is at the top of the food chain (or maybe criticism them no mater social standing)? Are there any unwritten dress codes in a setting that people unknowingly follow? In settings where multiple cultures might exist or people from different backgrounds exist in the same place, do their choices in dress reflect cultural markers? And is there a stark difference between traditional (to a culture) clothing and modern dress? 

I think really I’m spewing this out because I want to see more culturally rich settings that reflect some of the stuff that I think is the most interesting things about a person which is what they wear and how they speak. But again, this is a personal preference and it’s just stuff I think about. 

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Strangers Au (Pt.5)

-------------------------

It had been exactly six weeks since Virgil had stopped recognizing his husband for the man he once was.

It had been exactly six weeks since Virgil had seen his best friends.

It had been exactly six weeks since Virgil had all but sold his freedom in exchange for some semblance of normalcy from a man he barely recognized.

It had been exactly six weeks since Virgil Liddell had understood anything about the world he lived in and what to do in it.

At this point Virgil's only connections to the outside world were through Romulus, and certainly not from a lack of effort.

Virgil knew he was isolated, and he tried as often as possible to get out of the cage he seemed stuck in, but every step he made it seemed Romulus was twenty steps ahead.

It was no help trying to sleep away his imprisonment, it seemed every time he closed his eyes he was met with another vision of the girl who bared an all to uncomfortable resemblance to a version of himself he scarcely wished to think about.

"Princess! Breakfast's ready!" Virgil's stomach twisted as Romulus called him from the kitchen.

A new pet name like songbird was one thing, but to take one of Roman's favorite affectionate names and twist it into something so vile, it made Virgil sick to think about.

"Coming darling!" Virgil said as he sat up, the air felt cold and frozen compared to the soft warmth of the blankets.

It seemed like Romulus' appearance changed more and more each day, Virgil could've sworn that the whites of his eyes were darkening now.

Virgil sat down at the dining room table and stared blankly as Romulus placed a plate of food in front of him.

"Romulus?. . ." Virgil said, barely above a whisper.

"What is it Princess?" Romulus ran a hand through Virgil's hair as he lay one arm on the back of his chair.

"Can I go out for a bit? To visit Patton and Janus? I havent seen them in ages, they must be getting worried. . ." Virgil said, still not daring to raise his voice enough to sound at all hopeful.

"Princess. . . You dont need them! You have me! Anything you want to do with them we can do together just as easily," Romulus replied sympathetically.

"I know. . ." Virgil said.

And then he had an idea.

He sniffled slightly, blinking his eyes a few times as though trying to hide crying.

"Princess! Nonono dont cry my songbird, I didnt mean to upset you, you can visit them for a little while, but I'm going with you ok?" Said Romulus, now looking concerned.

"Thank you!!!" Virgil said, throwing his arms around Romulus' neck and burying his head in his chest.

"So- Romulus, we haven't you or Virgil at a game night in quite a while, certainly it must be something serious?" Janus hadnt been all that happy to see Romulus on the doorstep next to Virgil; hence why Virgil was left sitting between he and Patton, and Romulus was left on his own separate couch.

"Poor Virgil was sick with something, hes only just now starting to get better, hasnt been able to leave in weeks," Romulus said silkly, a perfectly sincere smile on his face.

"Oh Virgil! Why didnt you call us! We couldve sent you a care package or something!" Patton said, a worried look on his face. Janus however, didnt look convinced.

"I- uh-" Virgil's hands gripped the couch tightly.

"He couldn't do or say very much, completely immobile, I'm sure you've had sick periods like that before," Romulus said dismissively.

"Oh? Well surely you must have taken him to the doctor then? They cant have let him out of the hospital very easily if it was that bad," Janus said, narrowing his eyes.

Everything was quiet for a while, Virgil wished desperately to disappear into the couch cushions.

"Well, I can sense that we arent wanted, Virgil, let's go," Romulus got up and made his way toward Virgil, only to be stopped as Janus grabbed his cane from behind the couch.

"Virgil wont be going anywhere with you I'm afraid," Janus' tone had shifted almost instantaneously to a low growl.

"Hes my husband and he should come home with me when I say he should." Romulus replied, attempting to force the cane away from him.

"Hes practically my son. And I wotn allow you to continue your abuse of him as though he's nothing more than a mere stepping stone in whatever plans you may have." Janus said, glaring pointedly at Romulus' necklace.

"Now you can either leave now and allow Virgil to return to your side when he feels as though he is safe with you, or, you can continue trying to coerce him unwillingly back to an environment in which he feels afraid and neglected, and force my own husband and I to take direct action," Janus snarled.

And once again the room was left in uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Romulus stood up to his full height.

"Very well, Virgil, I should hope to see you home before dinner," said Romulus, casting a glare that sent shivers down Virgil's spine before walking out the door.

Virgil broke into sobs almost as soon as he heard the front door slam shut.

"Oh you poor thing, shhh, it's alright, he cant hurt you here, now tell me what he did, tell me how much retribution is necessary," Janus' voice was soft again as he pulled Virgil closer, Virgil buried his face in Janus' chest.

"Janus I dont think now is the best time. . ." Patton said, running a hand through Virgil's hair.

"I can talk. . ." Virgil whispered.

And so he did.

He went on for hours about Romulus' attempts to keep him inside, about the nicknames and the strange feelings of the house and food and drinks.

And finally he told them about his nightmares.

"And this. . . Girl, she looked exactly like you used to?" Janus said pensively.

"To the letter," Virgil replied.

"Well that. . . Is something we must look into, but for tonight you need your rest, we'll do some research in the morning," said Janus, ushering Virgil towards one of the guest bedrooms.

"But what about-"

"Dont worry about Romulus, hes not worth the trouble,"

But Virgil was worrying.

And that worry only elevated as he was once again met with dreams of his mysterious twin, and the more troubling vision of the prince with a bloodstained axe, just before he woke up.

----------------------------------------------

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[ddarker-dreams]

Out of all the yanderes that you write for, which ones would be the most possessive/protective of their darling?

Bakugou: 

Bakugou might not be the type to compliment you often, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think highly of you. For someone with as high standards for people as Bakugou, that doesn’t come without some weight to it. He holds you in high regards so he figures that other people feel the same about you. If he thinks you’re amazing, everyone else most likely does right?

This adds with it a sense of competitiveness and concern that someone might try to take you from him. He doesn’t think he’s unworthy of you or anything, far from it. Just that you being so likable means others might try. He doesn’t think you’d ever betray him in that way, but his trust doesn’t extend to others. 

This all creates a perfect storm for his possessive nature. Under the guise of wanting to be a caring boyfriend, he’s deluded himself into thinking cutting others off from you is for the best. That they’d only try to poison you with their thinking, and he’s fending them off for your own good. 

It also goes without saying that he keeps an eye out for you at every given opportunity. If you were in class together, he’d try to protect you during training exercises and the like. It’ll be accompanied by him chastising you, but he secretly feels content when he keeps you safe. It makes him feel like he’s the only person that could do this for you, and really validates him. 

Todoroki: 

Todoroki feels a sense of unworthiness when he’s with you. He adores you and puts you in such high regard, that he can’t help but notice how everyone else looks at you as well. Of course you’d be desirable to others, look at what you’re able to do to him! It makes him sick to his stomach, just the mere thought of someone else taking an interest in you.

He is protective over you to an overbearing extent. Always looking out for you, constantly going out of his way to ensure your safety. What he lacks in words he makes up for in action. Unfortunately for you this makes him desire to kidnap you as soon as possible. He views it as the ultimate form of protection, since no one else could interact with you.

He can be suffocating in subtle ways, not wanting to clue you in to just how delusional he is. Texting you almost too often but just stopping shy of being creepy, stuff like that. There’s a line that he comes close to crossing but before you’ve been kidnapped he stops himself from crossing it. Just for now anyways. 

Shigaraki:

Shigaraki wouldn’t have an issue with the immoral side of being possessive as much as most would. He doesn’t rush to try and justify his actions to himself, he simply just doesn’t see the point in that. He feels that he wants you, and he should have you. This means there’s no limit to his possessiveness over you.

On the off chance that he hasn’t kidnapped you yet, he would stalk you whenever he had free time. This means anyone you’re often in contact with would be observed as well. Anyone that acted a little too friendly for Shigaraki’s liking would be disposed off without any issue, their deaths ranging in intensity depending on how upset he felt about their relationship with you.

He’s not the textbook definition of protective, but he wouldn’t let you get into any situations where you’d be hurt. If he were to ever be watching you and saw someone trying to hurt you, they’d be suffering an awful fate for even making an attempt. It wouldn’t be a “knight in shining armor” situation either since he’s mostly upset about someone approaching you more than your actual safety being in jeopardy. 

He doesn’t know what to do with all the feelings you inflict upon him. It can be overwhelming at times, since he doesn’t have a good outlet for all the extreme emotions. Shigaraki doesn’t want to lash out on you, however, but that means someone else will get it instead. Most likely someone you were just talking to, or giving more attention to instead of him. 

Izaya:

For someone that likes humans and observing them in various situations, Izaya would not be keen on sharing you with the outside world. He wants all your new experiences to be related only to him, and no one else. He’s definitely the type to isolate you due to his own possessive nature, slowly making it so you rely only on him. 

He would take measures to prevent you from harming yourself. He isn’t protective in the traditional sense, since he doesn’t have any qualms to exposing you to extreme situations. But he wouldn’t ever want you to be mortally hurt or anything, his life wouldn’t be the same without you after all. 

Izaya definitely threatens those close to you into backing off before he kidnaps you. The range of subtly and severity of the threats depends on their relationship with you, but it’s enough to be effective. This is his way of isolating you and having you more open to him, but also satisfies his desire for you to only be with him.

Giorno: 

Giorno tries not to be extreme with his methods, opting on escalating things only if it’s necessary. He tries the traditional methods of getting you to fall for him before moving to anything else. But if you’re apprehensive about getting into a relationship with him, that’s when he starts to use less desirable methods. 

He often has someone watching over you, reporting back to him about what you’ve been doing and who you’ve been talking to. Every aspect of your life is fully exposed to him, as he starts to pull strings behind the scenes. 

Things such as your job suddenly firing you, a random eviction notice at your apartment… all so that you have to rely solely on him. It isn’t done with any ill will towards you, rather, he wants to set himself up to be a hero in your eyes. He would even say that your past rejection is already forgiven, and that he’d do anything that you needed. 

This set up would put you exactly where he wants. He’ll kindly offer you a place at his villa, as if he wasn’t the source of all your troubles. He’d be able to look after you better this way, and ensure your safety. 

[masterthespianduchovny]

I may have made a post about this before, but I truly struggle with Scully/Other stories, which is why I tend to stay away from them.

I always have to spoil myself because usually it follows the logic that Mulder should be lucky Scully choose him in the end. Which, to be honest, is viewer logic and not Scully logic.

Typically these S/O have Scully "empower" herself and "take back her life." She sees how much she gave up and Mulder needs to earn her or not fuck up and risk losing her.

And it's like...Scully wouldn't view any potential relationship with Mulder that way, IMO, even if she broke up with someone to be with Mulder. Her relationship and feelings for Mulder are so special and sacred to her. Scully knows he messes up and can be an ass at times, but his heart is there.

Although Scully can stand her ground with Mulder, when it comes to her feelings she'd definitely be vulnerable no matter how much she improved her life. Being with Mulder is a big step and I can't imagine her viewing him like that: Don't fuck up, Mulder, or I'll leave you in a second flat.

She'd definitely have her boundaries and express her expectations with Mulder, however, this "you better be lucky I chose you, Mulder" Scully that many writers have Scully believe, totally takes me out of the story.

It also doesn't mean I want to read about Scully dating assholes either. I guess some people in the fandom want to prove that Scully can have it all and the perfect guy, so her being with Mulder is a choice and not her only option. But it gives, "I can do better, but I choose you, Mulder; be lucky I didn't stay with the other guy."

I like my Scully's conflicted not because she has the perfect guy, but because as much as she enjoys this man, there is something about Mulder she can't shake. Something about Mulder that she has to see through. I like her considering staying because she's scared of what her and Mulder can be.

Sure there are other interpretations of Scully and I'm not saying my opinion is the right opinion, I'm just always miffed when I read "Mulder better be lucky" interpretations, especially because that's not the Scully we saw.

This is where Scully taking back control of her life comes in, however, Scully taking back control of her life would also likely be her being forward and honest with Mulder about her feelings. Nervously telling Mulder how she feels and saying, "Well...I believe you feel the same. I want to be with you, Mulder. I think we've waited long enough."

Scully doesn't have to say to Mulder she could be happy with another man because it's unnecessary and Mulder likely already believes that. This is not about what she left behind or hypotheticals with other men, this moment, her revealing her feelings to Mulder, is about what they can have and finally putting their cards on the table.

I know people want Scully to have an option (all while loathing the same for Mulder, which is honestly weird because he's more isolated than her), but I don't mind it because Scully didn't want options, she wanted Mulder. However, I don't think she pined over Mulder, I believe Scully was in a place where she wasn't interested in actively dating and she didn't understand the full scope and complexities of her feelings for Mulder. Their relationship was intense, confusing, and unconventional. It takes time and perspective to understand those types of relationships.

We see Scully put her career and Mulder first when she declines another date with Rob to go listen to a professor talk about paranormal shit on her off time. Scully dated, but she wanted to be challenged by her career, which top priority. At the same time, she was so intrigued by Mulder, she allowed him to seep into the crevices of her personal life and career ambitions. She wanted him to trust and invest in her and exposed herself to him, which in turn made them become entangled and lost in each other.

Scully finding out she had cancer understandably sent in her in a tailspin. Mulder had consumed so much of her life, personal and professional, that he cannot differentiate where his ends and hers begins. This is when Scully becomes annoyed and uncomfortable about the lack of concrete boundaries. How dare he make assumptions on her life? But most importantly, she starts thinking about her legacy and the mark she left not on the world, but in Mulder's life. He says she's important to him, but she doesn't even have a desk. He bosses her around (their power dynamic is more complicated than that because they operate as partners and implicitly hand over the reigns when necessary).

She got too comfortable and let her guard down and needs to rebel to assert her power. Mulder instantly went from the bad boy to an authority/father figure when Scully realized how smart, capable, and sane he was. She placed a title on him that he didn't ask for, which is why he's confused by her rebellion. This isn't to argue that Scully was wrong, it's to say Scully projected things on Mulder than he never saw himself as and largely didn't treat her the way she viewed.

So she rebels with Ed. She likes doing something out of character and not expected. Scully is doing what she wants and not what's expected. What's fascinating to me are the people who believed that Ed deserved a second chance. Scully and Ed had no real shot of ever being more than that one night. For starters, Scully was rebelling and Ed was the right person to act out with. When Scully centered herself again, even if Ed hadn't attacked her, she would've ended things and that's assuming she allowed the encounter to be more than her Philadelphia trip. They were doomed from the beginning because Scully wasn't herself and she needed an outlet. His temperament, pre poison, wasn't compatible with her normal temperament.

After Scully reveals her cancer diagnosis to Mulder, things return back to normal. She's accepted that she has cancer and wants things to go back to normal. That's how she can control her fate even though she isn't long for the world.

Scully's journey after cancer is first accepting her life as is, and then understanding this was where she was meant to be. She was happy, but caught up in "what ifs." She was concerned about why she didn't want the life other women her age wanted and had. Like, yeah, she wanted kids, but she had no desire for a stereotypical life.

I'm not against Scully having (female) friends, however many fanfic writers try to have her have a roaring social life when they go down the "taking back control over my life" narrative. Some people have very full lives with one or two friends and being homebodies. With the life Scully lived, I can imagine her being content being in the house and occasionally socializing with the outside world

As I've said months ago, Scully asking Mulder to get out of the car wasn't abut wanting a normal life, but wanting moments of normalcy with Mulder. She's asking a man obsessed with work to slow down and enjoy life, but really, she's unknowingly asking him to slow down and enjoy life with her. Because why is she in the car on her off day? She could be doing anything else. Mulder didn't make her get in the car.

Just like in HTGSC, why did she show up to a haunted house on Christmas Eve? Admittedly, Mulder did steal her keys, but the point is: she showed up. Then later admitted that she was there because she wanted to be there.

Scully lived a life that it's hard to regularly hang out with people who don't "get it."

Again, I'm all for Scully having friends and I even don't have an issue with reading S/O to MSR, but some people's interpretations just don't gel with how I see Scully and how she navigates the world.

[dothwrites]

part v of mafia!au 

part i | part ii | part iii | part iv

---

Dean’s never been so happy to see Sam in his entire life. 

His gangly little brother sits behind the wheel of the Impala, face drawn tight with worry. He relaxes in stages as he sees Dean, sees the blood on his clothes, then sees that little of it belongs to him. 

“Where’s Gabriel?” Sam demands as he rushes to open the backseat for Dean. His eyes widen as he takes in the ruin of Castiel, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“I don’t know,” Dean says, grunting as he hefts Cas’ unconscious body into the backseat. “Get his legs.” 

Between the two of them, they get Cas into the backseat, though not as gently as Dean could hope for. If a few extra bruises are the price which Cas has to pay for his freedom, then Dean’s willing to fork that payment over. 

He collapses against the Impala’s sturdy frame, chest heaving. Carrying Cas wasn’t easy; despite all his jabs about Cas being a nerdy little dude, Cas is solid, and carrying his deadweight through the halls of the Novak mansion counts as a workout. Sweat dapples the back of his neck, cooling unpleasantly as Dean waits. 

Once again, he’s in the garage of the Novak mansion. He tries to keep his eyes away from the spot where he last saw Cas, though he can’t stop his morbid fascination with the place. He wonders if there’s a bloodstain there. 

“Where the fuck is Gabriel?” Dean growls, when his body temperature changes from overheated to clammy. “We can’t risk sticking around here too much longer.” 

As if in response to his prayers, Gabriel comes tearing down the staircase. He races towards them at a dead sprint, tossing a few flashbangs behind him. “Get in the car, get in the car!” he shouts, heaving himself in the passenger seat. Dean doesn’t wait for another invitation, but gets into the backseat, arranging Cas’ head on his lap. Sam spares him one shocked look before he gets behind the wheel. 

Sam slams on the gas too hard, causing the Impala’s wheels to squeal and smoke against the concrete of the floor, but when he eases off a little, she jumps forward, as eager for freedom as the rest of them. Dean doesn’t breathe until they crash through the gates and the outline of the mansion disappears in the rearview. 

After weeks, they’re all finally free. 

---

Only when the mansion vanishes completely does Dean dare to look at Castiel. 

Once he does, he regrets it. 

He got a few glimpses when he first saw Cas, but he hadn’t been too interested at cataloging injuries. At that moment, escape was the only thought in his mind and Cas’ injuries were only obstacles to be overcome. 

They have time now, or at least a lack of pursuit. In their world, it amounts to same thing. Dean flicks aside the tattered remains of Cas’ shirt and looks down at the bleeding ruin of his chest. His gorge rises as he looks at the wounds littered over Cas’ torso. Some of them are still bleeding.

Bruises spread over his skin in varying shades of purple, yellow, and green. There are several puncture wounds that Dean recognizes as belonging to a taser. Rage clouds up high and sour in his throat as he considers the varying stages of healing of the wounds. They’ve been hurting Cas from the first day they had him. 

Rage and nausea rise in Dean until he thinks he might choke on them. The bastards turned Cas into a canvas.

“Son of a bitch.” He looks up to see Gabriel leaning over the front seat. Thin white lines of fury etch along his mouth and eyes. 

In the past few weeks, he and Gabriel have come to understand each other as partners and allies, pushing aside their prejudices in favor of a common goal. Dean trusts him as much as he trusts anyone other than Sam, but for the first time since he began working with Gabriel, a little tendril of fear pokes at him. 

“He’s alive,” Dean says, the barest form of comfort he can offer while being truthful. “He’ll be ok. He’s strong.” 

A muscle twitches in the corner of Gabriel’s jaw as he stretches out his hand to brush through Cas’ hair. A soft noise caught between contentment and distress escapes through Cas’ lips and Gabriel withdraws his touch. 

“Just get us home,” Dean tells Sam. 

---

In hindsight, he should have expected the nightmares. 

They made it back to their safehouse without anyone following, which makes Dean stupidly think that they’re out of the woods. Sure, they probably have both the Novak and Winchester families gunning for them, but he, Sam, Gabriel, and Cas are all under one roof. Together they’ve got enough brains, skills, and ruthlessness to take down any threat. 

Dean thinks that right up until the first scream splits the peace of the night. 

He bolts upright, gun already in hand, eyes darting wildly around in search of the potential threat. When he finds none in the immediate vicinity, he runs out of the room, already calling for Sam. 

Sam’s head pokes out of his room, hair sleep tousled and eyes heavy with interrupted slumber, but he looks confused instead of terrified. The fear on his face is directed outward instead of for himself. “Dean? What’s going on?”

Another scream rips through the night. This time Dean recognizes the voice underneath the terror. 

“Cas,” he murmurs, thundering down the hallway. 

The door opens under his touch into a horror show. Cas writhes in the middle of the bed, sheets tangled around his body. His back bends into a rigid, impossible arch as his fingers claw at the mattress. Tendons in his neck bulge as he forces a scream out through clenched teeth. His feet kick uselessly, forcing Gabriel to try and dodge his inadvertent blows. Blood trickles down Cas’ bare chest as his wounds reopen. 

“Cas, you’re ok, you’re all right, come on Cas.” Gabriel’s voice is frantic as he tries to pin Cas’ flailing body. “Easy Cas, easy!” 

Cas screams again. The raw sound tears through the quiet night like a knife blade. The safehouse is removed from civilization, but not so far away as to be isolated, and Cas’ shrieks are loud enough to break glass. 

“Sam, go get my bag,” Dean says. His heart is pounding so hard it’s amazing he hasn’t fainted. His gun is heavy in his hand, pulling his whole arm down to the ground. “There’s a sedative in there; it should be enough to knock him out.” 

“No!” 

Gabriel’s voice cracks like a whip, stopping Sam in his tracks. “What the hell?” A ragged, tortured sound rips out of Cas’ throat. It seems impossible that a single person could hold that much tension in their body without snapping in half. 

Wild eyes and bared teeth are all Dean sees of Gabriel. “You are not putting anymore drugs into him!” 

Dean’s eyes fall to Cas’ arm, to the series of haphazard bruises blossoming along the vulnerable flesh of his inner arm. An awful, terrible picture paints itself in Dean’s mind, one which explains Cas’ state of mind, his hazy eyes and wandering train of thought. It’s not real, none of this is real...in my head, there are things, there are people, and they lie--

Dean thinks he might be sick.

Without consciously realizing it, Dean finds himself moving forward. At first, he means to do nothing more than to help Gabriel restrain Cas from hurting himself, but then he finds himself murmuring soft reassurances, things that his father would have slapped out of his mouth if he could. 

“Hey Cas, you’re all right, you’re all right, you’re ok, I’ve got you, me and Gabe are here, you’re ok now--” 

He runs his hand over Cas’ forehead, wiping sweat away from his skin. “You’re safe, you’re all right. No one’s going to hurt you, I’ve got you.” 

He’s aware of the weight of Sam and Gabriel’s eyes, but he keeps his eyes focused on Cas. One last, thin wail rips from his throat and then, like a puppet cut from his strings, Cas collapses bonelessly onto the mattress. He shudders once and is still. 

Dean holds his breath for ten seconds. Then, when Cas sleeps peacefully on, he lets it out in one long whoosh. His knees buckle, threatening to send him crashing onto the mattress right beside Cas. 

“Go back to bed, Sam.” A few hesitant protests come from Sam, but they’re swiftly silenced with a sharp bark of his name. 

“Call me if anything changes,” Sam shoots off as a parting salvo, but Dean doesn’t think it’ll be necessary. If Cas has another screaming fit, Sam will know.

Sam’s door closes and Dean takes a few steps backward. His shaky legs give out just as his back hits the wall, and he slides down until his ass hits the ground. “Jesus,” he breathes. He buries his face in his hands, unwilling to allow Gabriel this view of his weakness. “God, oh god.” 

For thirty seconds, he allows his horror, and anger free reign. Then, with effort, he pulls himself back together, stitching together reason and rationality until he’s able to think. He looks up at the bed, where Gabriel’s head is bowed low over the mattress. 

“Drugs?” Dean finally asks, his voice a hoarse rasp. 

Gabriel’s head rises like it’s moving on rusty hinges. His golden eyes are bleak. 

“I recognize the handiwork. It’s from Naomi, one of Dad’s pets. She likes to experiment. Pump them full of hallucinogens, tear them apart, and see what falls out. By the end, they’re reprogrammed into something else they wouldn’t even recognize. Stands to reason they’d set her loose on Cas.” 

Bile rises in Dean’s throat. Cas is brilliant, his mind sharper than a steel trap. Behind blue eyes, thousands of gears are constantly turning. To think of someone rummaging around in that machine, upsetting the delicate balances and systems...It’s perverse, an upsetting of the natural order. Dean doesn’t believe in God, never has, but the idea of Cas losing his reason due to outside influences is as close to blasphemy as anything else. 

“Why don’t you get some sleep? I can stay with him.” 

Gabriel’s scoff isn’t as strong as it could be. Instead, he just looks weary and defeated. “You know, when I first thought of a Winchester taking my place, I thought I was going to kill you myself. And now...” He shakes his head, dismissing whatever he was going to say next. “I’m going to get a few hours worth of sleep. I’ll come get you then.” 

For a moment, Dean thinks Gabriel might go so far as to pat him on the shoulder. His hand hovers awkwardly in mid-air before it drops to his side. Gabriel shuffles towards the door, each step taking an eternity to accomplish. He waves at Dean, a limp gesture, before he heads down the hallway to his bedroom. It shuts behind him, leaving Dean alone with Cas. 

It takes almost all of Dean’s energy to make his way to the opposite side of the room. He collapses into the armchair, still warm from Gabriel’s ass. 

Blood dries tacky on Cas’ chest. None of the wounds he ripped open were deep enough to really hurt him, but seeing the reminders of his treatment torn stark red on Cas’ chest is still like getting a punch to the gut. 

It seems wrong, somehow, for him to see Cas brought low. He knows Cas wouldn’t want to be seen like this. When he wakes up, Cas will probably either punch him or shoot him, and that’ll be fine. It’ll be worth it to see Cas’ eyes open and shine with lucidity. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. His voice sounds harsh in the quiet of the room. The very air molecules bristle with disapproval. It’s nothing compared to the contempt which Dean feels for himself. 

“If it hadn’t been for me, you never would have been caught up in this. For whatever reason, you looked at me and you saw someone worth saving. I don’t know why you thought that. I don’t know what I did to make you think that I was ever worth this.” 

Dean’s fingers crawl across the mattress to take Cas’ hand in his. Cas’ fingers are cold and limp. Blood is caked into his cuticles. In his sleep, Cas murmurs. Whether it’s a sound of distress or happiness, Dean doesn’t know. He’s afraid to know. 

The first time he saw Cas was at the exchange. The Novaks were lined up on one side of the hotel and the Winchesters on the other. Dean had barely been able to swallow his rage at being sold off like a pawn, all so his father could swagger around the city like he owned something. He’d focused that rage on the family who, up until a few weeks ago, it was his purpose to thwart in any way possible, death not excluded. Now he was expected to join them, with nary a word spoken otherwise. 

He recognized Michael Novak and he’d gotten intimately familiar with Gabriel Novak’s file. Neither of those Novaks were as interesting as the Novak who stood at the back of the room. 

Even without knowing his name or anything else about him, Castiel was the Novak who caught his attention. He moved through the rest of them like a panther moving through wolves, all coiled grace and tightly bound intent. Where the other Novaks were stiff, he was fluid, where they were cold, he burned hot. Dean looked at him and saw the proverbial diamond in the rough, one jewel amidst a sea of imposters. 

And now here he is, shattered into a thousand pieces, a sacrifice laid in front of the altar of Dean Winchester. 

“I’m sorry.” Dean’s voice croaks on the last syllable. “Cas, I’m so sorry.” His instincts tell him to crush Cas’ hand in his, to bring him back with nothing more than sheer force of will, but he already knows that’s not an option. He needs to learn how to hold things without destroying them, how to love something without smothering it. 

“I wasn’t worth it. Whatever you thought you saw, it wasn’t worth this.” Heat prickles behind Dean’s eyes and works its way up his throat. “I’m so sorry Cas.” 

Misery forces his head low and Dean presses his forehead against Cas’ knuckles. Cas’ hand is so cold. The rise and fall of his chest is subtle, worryingly so. Dean doesn’t know how it feels to fall asleep without the taste of fear thick and sour on his tongue. 

He falls asleep with his lips still shaping the word sorry. 

---

Dean drags himself up from the pit of sleep, roused by a stimulus so weak it might as well be nonexistent. It’s still enough to pull him out of a troubled slumber, heart pounding. 

It takes his pupils a few seconds to adjust to the lack of light. When they do, they immediately find Cas. He lies, flat on his back, but his hand reaches out towards Dean. The weight of his hand is almost like a whisper as his fingers ruffle through his hair. 

“Cas,” Dean croaks, his pulse suddenly racing like a runaway carriage. “Cas, are you awake?” Are you ok, are you whole, please, tell me you’re all right, tell me that I didn’t destroy you like I destroy everything else in my godforsaken life-

A faint smile creeps over Cas’ face, like the sun struggling to break through the darkness of night. It’s a faint sliver of a thing, but it’s there, inescapable and wondrous. 

“Hello Dean.” 

[hisoknen]

♡ Chrollo Yandere Alphabet ♡

 My first yandere alphabet! It was a lot of fun to write, send in more prompts!

tw: noncon, dubcon, blood, abduction, mentions of food restriction, forced isolation/captivity, manipulation, and mind break. this is a yandere alpabet. If you do not like yandere content, you can also black list my #yanderealphabet to avoid it showing up on your feed in the future

a/n: thank you @candychronicles​ for looking over the draft and helping out with ideas :)

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Chrollo would show his affection by keeping you around him at all times. He values those in the Troupe over his own life and he would treat you with this same affection. Words, physical affection and protection are his ways to communicate affection. But unfortunately for you the only way to keep you safe is to make sure you are within reach at all times. 

As the leader of the troupe, his goal is to collect and sell valuable items. However, after acquiring you at the auction he couldn’t quite place it but there was just something about you that made need to keep you.

Blood:  How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Chrollo isn’t one who is squeamish around blood. If his darling faces the threat of danger he will eliminate the cause immediately without a second thought, even if the masses will come to suffer. No matter the age, sex or money they may posses, he will eliminate them to protect his darling.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

While he may want to keep you around for some unknown reason, Chrollo does not see the difference between a human and a puppet. You are his to do with as he pleases, but he does wish for you to stop fighting against him and accept your role by his side. He wouldn’t mock you but he would punish you for being disobedient. All things that would in turn make you more dependent on his care and affection. He would probably take to isolate you at first, being the only one allowed in your presence. Taking a break from his duties to properly train you. Slowly gracing you with more affection. The slightest touch from him would feed your skin hunger. A conversation here and there would fuel your core human desires and you would cling to him.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Chrollo is torn between breaking you to the point mentally where you will willingly do anything for him and morphing you physically, and sexually to withstand his requests, in time. He desires to cultivate a caregiving relationship where you can come to him for your needs, but he has desires as well. 

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Chrollo wouldn’t let his darling in on the inner workings of his heart. While he is very fascinated with humans, especially and the way they process and function, he himself is quite oblivious to the way he feels. The more time you spend together the more he would desire to open up but there is something deep down that just won’t allow him to do that. He has shared his lack of fear in death with you and the more you are broken down to relying on him and him alone this would make you anxious and cling to him, hoping that he will let you in. He seems so lonely, even when you’re around. As if he is in an eternal cycle of grief.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Chrollo would feel troubled if his darling fought back. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but if you left him no other option he would subdue you as swiftly and painlessly as he could. He would never kill you, maybe knock you out, take away the privilege of conversation and touch. However this would hurt him as much as it would hurt you so he would be sure to only utilize this punishment when necessary.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

To Chrollo your safety isn’t to be taken lightly. There are many people out there looking for his weak points. He would be less than forgiving in the case that you ever made it out of the hideout. Confining and leaving you to dwell on your choices. Without you in his sight, he can’t be sure that you won’t be put into harm's way and when you try escaping him you are only putting yourself in danger, which is the last thing he wants. Why didn’t you understand that?

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Your worst experience with Chrollo would be within the first few months of being abducted. As someone with a strong will and knowledge of Nen, you would make things very difficult for him. There would be weeks on end where you would hear nothing but white noise. Depending on how much of a racket you would make would determine the food and clothing rations you would receive. It was a cold, dark and lonely time. A time that Chrollo wishes to never repeat. Your cheeks were sunken in, wounds infected, swollen, mind hazy and hallucinating. When you’d finally thought you could take no more, your captor took you in with a warm embrace and soft empty words.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

In an ideal world, Chrollo would have you in the Troupe. This would not only allow him to take you with him everywhere, but also mean that you had grown in strength enough that he could be more lenient with you. He wants you by his side as he reigns terror, what better place for a Queen but with her King. However in order to become a member you would have to kill an existing member and he cherishes the spiders dearly. He may just have to settle for his Queen to remain in his kingdom. In a world where death is inevitable he sees no purpose for marriage. His only desire is that you accept him and his desires for your future together. That you accept all of him and your place by his side.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

At first Chrollo was quick to jealousy or whatever you call it. When he’d first let you out of captivity, you would try to flirt with the members of the Troupe, attempting to find an escape. While he wouldn’t kill a member of the spiders, he would show them what it meant to even consider betraying him. The topic of Hisoka made him the most irritable. When Hisoka had first arrived, he could tell that the jester had taken a liking to you. Stealing glances your way exchanging words with you in moments that he would look away. The way your eyes seemed to twinkle at his advances made his blood boil. Hisoka being a member meant that he couldn’t kill him so he instead confined you once again. Punishing you with silence.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Chrollo, being an avid people watcher, had always seen the way that “couples” would interact. He studied the ways that people sought “affection with those they loved”. The kisses, hand holding, cuddling, passionate sex. While not at first being very touchy with his darling, unsure how he himself could do it and what he would get out of it. The way you would melt into his arms made something in him feel proud. He would let you lead, learning the way you desired to be touched and became fond of tracing patterns into your skin. When you are around the Troupe, he always has a hold on you, whether it be you on his lap, your head on his legs, hand on your back…. He would never allow anyone to see the way he touches you when you are being intimate. That was only a privilege he had and the thought of someone else seeing the way you reacted to his touch was a repulsing thought.

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

A day around a year after your last visit to the silent chamber you had your head laid across Chrollo’s lap on a flight of stairs as he read from his book. He’d been thinking about how to court you since the moment he had acquired you at the auction. He wanted to make sure you were at a place that you would accept happily not because you felt like you had to. You had gotten to a point where you desired to be within his grasp at all times. Trying to make him laugh and telling him all about your childhood and plans with him for the future. “Y/N, I would like for you to be mine and I would like to be yours.” he would look down at you, putting his book away and searching your eyes. “Was I not yours from the start?” you would giggle and pinch at his cheeks. While he didn’t smile at your response, when he looked into your eyes he could tell that he had finally obtained his greatest treasure.

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

For the most part he is very similar around you as he is with most other people. Calm, methodical, charismatic, confident and emotionally closed off. However there are moments of softness with him that only you see. While he shows a lack of emotion outwardly, he does care and will show that to you at times. The biggest difference would be his inability to physically harm you, something that he would never hesitate to do to someone before. He is still the same man with others, a formidable opponent. 

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

If punishment is absolutely necessary, he will do so by isolating his darling. Forcing them to be alone and without his comfort. The silent cave is the place you dread most in the world. It is without his touch, his words, his smell and the feeling of his skin beneath yours. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but when he feels that you really won’t be able to understand his disappointment in you, he would prefer to not see you suffer. 

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

You would have the right of your privacy stripped from the moment you were taken captive. Outside of your time in the cave, you had no time to yourself. You are to be at his side at all times, if need be, within earshot, eyes on you at all times. Outside of not being allowed outside of the hideout, you also haven’t been able to contact anyone you'd known before the auction, you’d begged relentlessly to talk to your family and he always refused, saying that they had forgotten about you already. His reason for this was he’d already gotten rid of all of them, to ensure that you would have no one other than him to turn to, but if he told you that, there was the chance that you would turn on him.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Chrollo is very patient with you generally speaking. When you do have days or moments of retaliation, he treats you much like how one treats a child when they throw a tantrum. He won’t engage and ignores your attempts to rile him up. 

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

If you left, he would hunt you down, no questions. You wouldn’t be gone for long that is for sure. If you died he wouldn’t know what to do. If not by natural causes, he would be sure to rampage, killing anyone with a connection to the incident. He would be unlikely to move on, seeing as before you had come along he’d never had the desire to keep a prized possession for so long. 

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Chrollo wouldn’t feel guilt for abducting you. If not for him, you could have fallen in the arms of someone horrible, anything he was grateful that he’d stumbled across your cage in the first place anything he was grateful that he’d stumbled across your cage in the first place. Chrollo has insomnia and some nights when he’s awake and looking down at your sleeping face, he does wonder how things would be had the circumstances been any different.  That is the exact reason he would never let you go. A little bird like you wouldn’t be able to survive without him looking after you, he was sure of that. 

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

What brought out this side in Chrollo’s was his upbringing in Meteor City. Growing up in the tattered city filled with outcasts, he’d always been fond of collecting pretty things, it helped keep away the loneliness. His favorite things to collect were old books. They gave him an idea or a fantasy of what could be beyond the city. He would protect these books and small trinkets with all of his might. If they were ever taken, he would stop at nothing to retrieve them.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He would prefer not to see his darling in tears. If it was out of fear of him, he would simply lick away your tears and shower you with affection. When you

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Something that Chrollo does differently than the classic yandere is not physically hurting his darling. No matter how he may desire to get a point across that she is his, he feels that much like how you would train a cat or raise a child, subjecting them to physical fear would leave them untrusting of him. 

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

His desire to keep you, along with the long nights of solitude in the cave you attain from acting out. 

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

He would mentally hurt his darling, threatening their family, friends and privileges but he would never physically harm them.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over? (will come back to)

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Since he found his darling at the auction there was no pining or a snap. He simply took them.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

That’s what he’s been doing since the start. Breaking you and molding you to conform to his lifestyle and treatment of you. While not physically harming you, he is quite the emotional sadist and will break you mentally.

[softschofield]

i’m so perpetually frustrated with the audience members who criticise 1917 for having “no backstory or development for the characters”

like, yes, it’s subtle. because they’re friends and friends don’t talk to each other like “oh, yes, remember all these details of my life i’m conveniently and clearly reiterating for an omniscient third party?” but fuck dude, if you pay attention and know basic facts about war or do your goddam research, there is SO MUCH DETAIL TO THEIR BACKSTORIES

like, just from one TINY DETAIL, you get so much: schofield’s wounded stripe on the left sleeve of his uniform. to get a wounded stripe in world war 1, you had to be officially listed in dispatches as being a CASUALTY, not just having been in a field hospital, meaning the wound was BAD. but, wait, what kind of wound could be so well-hidden and subtle? it could be a gunshot wound or trenchfoot, but there were also two categories that could earn a soldier the wounded stripe: gas, or shellshock. it’s therefore entirely possible that he was suffering from trauma rather than a physical wound before he met blake. given that 60,000 rounds of field artillery and 45,000 rounds of heavy artillery were fired in the first DAY of fighting, and one german described the experience of the shelling as “the earth shook, the sky seemed like a boiling cauldron [...] the ability to think logically, and the feeling of gravity, both seemed to have been removed”, shellshock is a very plausible diagnosis.

so, we know he fought in the somme, and we know which battle he fought, meaning he had been at the front for at the very LEAST 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS. that is a LONG time to be in the trenches, and it is a STAGGERING amount of time to have withstood the horror and still come out of it soft, gentle, and compassionate - think on THAT when y’all say schofield is a flat character. think about what kind of a person could kill and see people killed and live in the constant, crushing, claustrophobic terror and boredom and nothing of the trenches for most likely LONGER than that and stay kind and quiet. NEED i say any the fuck more, NEXT

just from that, we then know that blake did NOT fight in the somme, meaning he arrived at the front some time after november 1916. and, judging by his excited and fearful reaction to the front line trench before a predicted push, there’s the distinct possibility he had never seen a battle, meaning his arrival can be placed after the 18th of december 1916 and that he was still deeply innocent.

if he arrived in december and the film begins on the 6th of april, that ALSO means that they had known each other at the most for just over 3 months, very possibly less, and that they had formed a very close bond in that time.

which brings me to my next point: where are their other friends? all the other soldiers are shown to have close-knit groups, so where are theirs? why is it only them? why are they even friends in the first place? why is blake, a new recruit who had only just arrived, already the same rank as a veteran who had been there for very possibly up to or more than a year? why is a veteran hanging around with a chattery, bushy-tailed, never-seen-battle replacement? why isn’t he hanging out with his own cohort of soldiers who has been there the same amount of time as him and could much more easily relate to his trauma and exhaustion? WHY is a middle-class-sounding guy even hanging around with a lower-class farmboy in the first place?

the most plausible answer? all of schofield’s friends he went through training with are dead - probably in the somme - and he’s purposefully isolated himself to grieve with his survivor’s guilt. he was most likely wounded, lonely, and agonisingly depressed for months until a cheerful replacement arrived at the front and befriended him. and THAT’S where schofield’s fanatic devotion to him comes from, and THAT’S what “he saved my life” means, more than in the literal sense - he was lost, and broken, and numb, and blake saved him.

furthermore, because boy have i got more, blake’s backstory, in case someone out there has seen this film and still wants to hit me with that fucking “we know nothing about these characters”: we know he has an older brother, we know he has a female dog called myrtle, we know they live with their mum in a farm in the countryside with a cherry orchard, and we know his father isn’t in the picture and that he most likely hasn’t been for a long, long time, judging by blake’s lack of bitterness and daddy issues, his closeness with his mother, and the fact he isn’t in blake’s family photo. we know, from interviews, that he enlisted as soon as he came of age because his brother was an officer and he idolised him, and we know he was barely this side of 18.

another thing? the story about wilko. blake knows stories about men schofield has almost certainly known for far longer - but he didn’t interact and wasn’t told, and blake did, and he was more familiar with all of them and had stories to tell that schofield would have known if he’d been sitting in the same circle when the gossip was told. how’s THAT for subtle characterisation, chumps.

and if you just think about it, there’s so much depth to blake’s overly trusting nature - because he’s still naive, he’s still innocent, he’s still young. schofield tucks the things most special or necessary away in his inside pocket, where’s it most safe, because he’s learned lessons the hard way; blake puts them carelessly in his trouser pockets where they could fall out. schofield keeps his rifle with him even as he’s going to fetch water for the german pilot; blake discards his rifle and leaves himself vulnerable. if you just LOOK, it’s all there!

FURTHERMORE, we know schofield is in his early 20s and older than blake. we know he has a much more refined accent, and we know from interviews that he’s from cookham, berkshire. we know he has two daughters and a wife (or a sister and nieces, it’s open to interpretation, go to town), we know he suffers from shellshock, we know he most likely couldn’t face going home on his last leave and instead stayed in france and gave his medal away to a french captain, we know the subject of home is deeply triggering for him, we know he refuses to talk about his daughters, we know that his family haunts him as much as he longs for it, and we know that he didn’t receive any mail from his wife - interesting, considering blake received a letter just telling him his dog was having puppies.

and don’t even get me started on the “lack of character development”. watch me scream here about that.

also, some more backstory because now i’m on a fucking roll: lance corporals were typically the second-in-commands or heads of sections, of which there were 4 within each platoon, each comprising 12 soldiers, it's likely blake and schofield were in command of different sections in the same platoon. where does that come into play? well, scho seemed to slip very easily into a position of authority when the convoy got stuck in the mud, didn’t he? MOVING ON.

more? i have more. another little tidbit: lieutenant leslie asks schofield and blake if they are his relief, and then asks when the fuck they’re getting there when they say they aren’t. he and his men are exhausted and it was said by another soldier that “they had been blown to hell a few nights ago” - they’ve clearly been at the front a long time, which, again, is interesting, considering front line soldiers were typically rotated back into reserve after 8 days. clearly, it’s been a lot longer than that, meaning order and routine have completely broken down and a new type of despair, hopelessness, and mess has taken root. there, more backstory again. 

“oh, it’s just a shitty saving private ryan” “oh, it’s definitely no all quiet on the western front”. FIRST OF ALL, it fucking IS all quiet on the western front, have you literally even read it? baumer goes to such lengths to hardly ever use the word enemy because he doesn’t view the soldiers in the other trenches as bad, just as other innocents swept up in a war that no one should be fighting. he spends a whole chapter sobbing over the only man he’s ever killed in close combat. it’s a hundred times slower than 1917 and it hasn’t even GOT a plot. what the FUCK are you talking about?

oh, and it’s just saving private ryan? show me WHERE. a bunch of soldiers have to go into enemy territory to rescue a soldier because all his brothers have been killed in action and his family wants him home. two soldiers are sent into enemy territory with a letter to stop an attack. i am LITERALLY struggling to think of any more similarities than that and even THOSE are fucking reaching.

also, it’s literally a different war. who are you and why are you saying these things to me i am BEGGING you to please use your fucking head for just a few seconds and actually THINK

“it was so convenient that the river just happened to take him to the devons” ??? “the river. it goes there” did you just entirely miss everything lauri told him? the river quite literally flows exactly past where he is supposed to go, that’s the entire POINT, that’s WHY he jumped into it, because he KNEW it would take him there, oh my GOD

“if the convoy was going exactly where he needed to go, why didn’t erinmore tell him to meet it?” i know it might be a shocking concept, but even a general may not have known exactly the route a convoy of trucks was going to take, especially in the confused wasteland the germans had left behind in their retreat. in fact, he might not have known about the convoy at all if they were coming from a different sector of the front - WHICH, guess what, THEY WERE. captain smith mentioned they crossed no man’s land just outside bapaume, which was much further south, in the old somme battlefields. scho and blake’s trench was somewhere near boyelles, 11km north of bapaume. 

“it’s unbelievable that scho would just sit quietly and relax in the convoy truck, and then get out to give orders and take command, after what he’d just been through - and, plus, he would have gotten to écoust quicker if he’d just walked” there’s this thing called trauma. shock. dissociating. compartmentalisation. just shutting down in the face of too much grief when you don’t have the time nor capacity to let yourself feel it, acknowledge it, register it. in the script, scho is said to “almost disappear into the noise of the men.” and, honestly, the emotional illusion of regaining a scrap of control over a situation he was utterly out of control of would have been enough to prompt him to get out and give orders - but as it is that wasn’t the only thing driving him: he was desperate, and an NCO, and he needed to go. AND “he would have gotten there quicker if he’d walked”?? ???????? first of all, he didn’t know that? second of all, scho said it would take them nine hours AT THE MOST to get there and, given the fact they weren’t attacking until dawn and it was most likely morning when he and blake set off, he wasn’t in a TERRIBLE rush. THIRD of all, it was a direct order from a captain. FOURTH OF ALL, do you really think he felt like walking all that way when a truck was RIGHT THERE?

“there are too many coincidences” films are built on coincidences. they are conveniently put with a character who will end up being their soulmate at the end of it all. they conveniently uncover information that would take people in real life months to find. coincidences drive stories - one of the greatest tools of screenwriting? “don’t write what would happen, write what could happen.” what could happen is that scho finds a teenage girl and an orphaned baby sheltering in a ruined town - in a war. what could happen is that a convoy of trucks heading north towards the battle of arras logically uses the road running alongside a farmhouse. what could happen is that scho jumps into a river that he knows runs east. i just don’t understand what you’re trying to say

“oooohh for soldiers on a life-or-death mission to save one of their brothers, they sure do take their time to sight-see” they’ve seen absolutely fucking nothing but the walls of a trench and the reserve camp for months. also, it’s pretty much just common sense to clear out a building before you turn your back on it and keep walking. also, they had 8 hours, scho ended up getting there in under two hours, and blake is allowed to feel more than one emotion at a time and to be excited about exploring new places, ESPECIALLY when it’s almost certain that neither he nor schofield had ever even been out of england. war or not, the french countryside was still beautiful and blake is allowed to appreciate that. next question 

“how was there a milk pail full of milk if there was no one around to milk the cow” german soldiers were stationed in the farmhouse before they got the order to move out. “they’re not long gone.” they left an hour before hand, someone probably milked the cow before they knew they were leaving. you don’t have to read the script to have a functioning braincell 

“unbelievable that they weren’t killed by the tripwire explosion” it detonated in the tunnels, not in the bunker. they wanted to collapse the escape routes first and foremost. please, i am begging you, use your head

“why did they pull an enemy out of the plane” basic human decency. i cannot believe i have to explain this concept. soldiers in the first world war were especially conscious of the humanity of the men in the other trench. you say blake had no character and then get mad when he’s shown to be so kind and selfless that he’ll burn himself rescuing a german. i don’t know what you want from me, get out of my kitchen 

“schofield was an idiot for stopping to interact with lauri and the baby” he was concussed. he knew there was somewhere he had to be but he didn’t remember what or where until he heard the church bells. also, for people who criticise the “lack of character development and backstory”, ya hate to see character building moments. it clearly wasn’t the first time he’s recited that poem to a baby. make the connection dipshits 

“the germans shot like fucking stormtroopers, how did they not hit him?” point one: one of them was blind drunk. when muller is ranting while scho is strangling baumer, he says that maybe they should head back and that maybe they won’t realise they’ve been missing. the implication? either they’ve gone AWOL, or they’re stragglers from the retreat back to the new line. either way, at least one, and very possibly all of them are off their fucking faces, considering the one by the burning church tripped over his own goddamn feet chasing scho. point two: not in a thousand years would they have expected a lone english soldier to just pop up out of nowhere in ecoust. it was so unexpected that you really can’t blame them for being flustered and confused.

“how the FUCK did the letter survive the river in one piece?” he put it in his tin. there’s literally an entire 30 seconds of the convoy scene just devoted to showing scho tucking it in there. i don’t understand how i have to say this

“it’s too gruesome” aside from the hand in the corpse and the dead horses, where? where? also, it’s the first world war. i can’t believe what i’m hearing. who are you people

“it’s not exciting enough, it’s slow, it’s dull” IT’S SUPPOSED TO SHOW THE CONSEQUENCES AND AFTERMATH OF WAR INSTED OF THE SHALLOW EXCITEMENT OF IT YOU DUNCE

in conclusion, suck my ASS anyone who says they didn’t have backstory or development or that there are ~raging plot holes~. FUCK

anyone who doesn’t want the actual soft and only good person in the world William Schofield to live a happy life in peace just isn’t valid and that’s all i’ll ever say on the matter you fucking degenerate scum rotten tomato reviewers