#and it does nothing but make light act weird against his body resulting in impossible shadows

[wtfgaylittlezooid]

i hate drawing my jons face: solution? give him one that breaks physics

[frodos-bizarre-adventure]

@gingerreggg thanks for the appreciation! TnT

Heads Up- Part 14 (Joseph x Bust! Caesar)

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

"Is that necessary?" Suzi complained, as Joseph placed a motion sensor on the table next to Caesar. "And where did you get that, even?"

Joseph grinned his characteristic smirk. "It's to keep the neighborhood kids from messing with my bike. I have to leave it outside cause I don't have a garage..."

"You sure are prepared for everything, Jojo!" she giggled.

Joseph always had the knack for expecting the unexpected, ever since they were kids. Perhaps that could partly explain why Joseph got used to having a talking art project so quickly. How he made it look so normal.

"Okay, Caesar. We're gonna have to get you to not move, not one twitch!" Joseph instructed him. "If you move even the slightest bit, this alarm goes off."

Caesar blinked, and the sensor immediately began to beep.

"Sorry bout that," Caesar apologized.

"You don't need to blink, don't you?" Joseph asked as he reset the sensor.

"It's a force of habit!" Caesar said defensively. "I know I don't even have any tear ducts but it's a reflex! Maybe Anthonio used to blink!"

"Of course he did, he was human," Suzi said.

It struck Joseph as odd that Caesar referred to Anthonio as someone else.

Did he not consider himself Anthonio? Or at least, not anymore? Suzi did, after all, say Caesar was less of a ghost, and more of a reincarnation. Maybe he'd found a new identity.

Maybe he'd found a new purpose.

The entire situation intrigued Joseph. "Say, Suzi, about those Mesoamerican lore of yours..." he asked, "How exactly do those 'spirit guardians' work?"

Suzi laughed. "You're really curious about all this, aren't you?"

Joseph shrugged. "I suppose."

"Hmm. Well, it says here in these old texts, that most spirit guardians were ancestors that returned to the mortal plane, when summoned by those in need, to act as a guardian angel of sorts."

"Heh! Guardian angel you say?" scoffed Caesar. "I'm just a goddamn head."

Suzi shot him an annoyed look and continued on. "Anyway, it's said that these new beings were usually a 'predescessor' of some way. Not necessarily by blood, per se, but by legacy-- say, a warrior could summon a spirit of a warrior before them, or a scientist that of an old philosopher..."

"...and I suppose Anthonio was a sculptor who sought to carry on his legacy in you."

"Then why don't I remember being Anthonio, then?" Caesar retorted.

"Because, Caesar," Suzi said, "the wisdom of the past is tainted with the memories, the identities of those who experience them. I can never be too sure, of course," she shrugged, "but I feel it's made that way to pass on their wisdom to a new worthy successor to their legacy-- yet from a whole new perspective unclouded by their own beliefs. So that Joseph's art would be inspired by Anthonio's, but still be Joseph's own."

Joseph laughed at the irony. "Like how I copied...er, based, Caesar's face off on the statue Anthonio made...which he'd actually based on his own face."

Destiny sometimes did strange twists to absurd results.

"Alright, let's do this one more time!" Joseph said, replacing the motion sensor.

--------

Day by day Caesar practiced standing still. Trying to look like a perfectly ordinary, non-living sculpture. Trying not to blink, or move reflexively, just staring vacantly into nothingness like the lifeless figure he originally was.

It helped that Caesar's eyes never felt dry, even without blinking, they were clay, after all. It didn't hurt, or feel very uncomfortable, but it did make him nervous.

But he fought said feelings, because he knew it was all for Joseph.

He was doing it for the person he loved the most. After all the things Joseph had done to make his life a happy one, this was the best way for Caesar to pay him back.

By serving his original purpose as Joseph's grand masterpiece.

And it was enough to motivate him to try his damned hardest.

"And that's eight hours!" Joseph exclaimed, checking his stopwatch. Caesar had managed to keep still without triggering the beeping of the motion sensor for a record period of time.

"You can relax now, Caesar. Eight hours is all we need."

Caesar blinked and sighed.

"See, you could do it!" Joseph encouraged. "Eight hours each day for two days. Enough for the gallery to hold you on exhibit, and have the judges grade you. And then, hopefully, I graduate and get to have you back."

"You promise?" Caesar asked, in almost a pleading tone.

"I'll try my hardest to get you back," Joseph told him, his mind lingering on the faint possibility that Caesar might be selected for permanent display.

Joseph used to want to make a sculpture so exquisitely defined that it would be put up there in the gallery, alongside those of the greatest artists, forever. How strange that he now wanted the opposite.

He'd made Caesar far too beautiful, and because of this he risked losing him.

"Say, about that thing you said earlier?" Suzi told Joseph. "You based him off an old sculpture by Anthonio, didn't you?"

"I mean, it wasn't a painted statue, so I doubt they'd see the similarities with Caesar all colored and all." Joseph added with his usual mischievous grin.

"Still, he does look a little plain," Suzi pondered, as she looked at the bust from different angles. "We ought to spice him up a little!"

"Oh great," Caesar complained. "More dress-ups."

Suzi pulled out a handful of ribbons, scarves and other accessories and began trying out a bunch of styles to make Caesar look more striking-- and hopefully disguise him from anyone who would suspect Joseph stole the design.

A bowler hat, necktie and a monocle. "This is stupid," Caesar grumbled.

A masquerade feather headdress and a colorful bead necklace. "Hell no," complained Caesar again.

A magenta beanie hat, heart sunglasses and a short shawl. "Are you kidding me?" Caesar cried irately.

But there was one set of gear that made an impact on Caesar, when Suzi put them on.

A headband, designed with a zigzagged line between orange and violet, with a pair of prominent white feathers on each of the temples, and a soft, pink scarf to complete the look.

Caesar opened his mouth to complain, and quickly shut it again as soon as he saw his reflection.

He...actually kind of liked this one.

"Say, that actually suits you well," Joseph said.

"I think so too," Caesar smiled, pivoting slightly on his neck base to see his reflection from another angle.

"So it's settled then?" Joseph asked. "You'll be wearing that to the exhibit?"

"Sure," Caesar agreed. "Anything that won't make you look like a ripoff."

Joseph smiled. He admired Caesar's getup: with the scarf and the headband, he looked positively divine. He looked lovelier than he'd ever had.

He knew that the judges would absolutely like him.

He just hoped they wouldn't like him enough to take him away.

-------

It wasn't long before the day of the exhibit, of Joseph's graduation, was close at hand.

Sleep came little to the troubled artist, as he lay on his bed, his eyes blankly fixed onto the ceiling. The room's only light came from a harsh, white table lamp.

It was three days, before he had to prove himself to the world.

To his mother, Professor Lisa, that he was worthy of her respect.

And to the legacy of his late grandfather, Jonathan, who had been his inspiration, as a child, to become an artist in the first place.

Joseph imagined his grandfather watching him from the stars, invisible but ever present. If only he could see him now. If only he could tell what he'd have thought of him.

His mind drifted back to Suzi's quote, about the spirit guardians being the souls of those who came before. To pass on their legacy.

He couldn't help but imagine. What if Grandpa Jonathan himself had possessed his project bust? He giggled at the thought of his beloved grandpa as a talking, bouncing clay sculpture.

But yet fate seemed to have chose Anthonio Zeppeli to be his guide.

There must have been something special about him that he needed to pass on.

Or maybe, it was just Anthonio himself being perfect for him. Strange that they had to meet in such an improbable way.

He was different now, reborn as another person entirely. Another person that Joseph adored the way he was. Body or no body.

Thinking about Caesar made Joseph's heart thump hard within his chest. Why did he feel this way? To a figure he created? Was it weird? Was it wrong?

And yet as he listened to the steady drum of his own heartbeat, he decided that no, it seemed like nothing felt more right. Caesar was his.

It was then Joseph realized that the steady thumps were getting louder. He first feared there was, perhaps, something wrong with his cardiac rhythm. But then he felt there was another source, that seemed to be coming from outside.

And as Joseph turned his head to look, right on cue, Caesar came bouncing into his room.

In the dim light, Joseph marveled at his bizarre, surreal beauty as he hopped across the floor, still clad in the headband and the scarf that he'd come to enjoy wearing.

Somehow, as ridiculous, slow and clumsy as his only mode of transportation was, Caesar looked oddly majestic.

The vigor and strength with which he pushed his neck against the floor with each hop. The gracefulness as his head turned upward at the highest point of each jump, his headband's feathers fluttering almost like tiny wings. The way his torso stump flexed as it barely cleared the floor with each little forward bounce. And of course, the sheer look of focused determination displayed on Caesar's face as he made his way toward the bed.

He was scarcely even half a man, but his spirit had the strength of many.

To even move his clay form along the distance from kitchen to bedroom took considerable effort, without the aid of arms and legs. And yet Caesar made it work. Caesar made the impossible possible. In spite of his tremendous handicap, he learned to persevere, to overcome.

And maybe Joseph realized why he admired Caesar so much.

Not just with his gorgeous, colorful clay exterior, but with the soul within, burning so bright with passion and determination, despite all odds that barred his way.

Perhaps this was why they were fated to meet.

"Jojo, you awake?" Caesar said, snapping Joseph out of his admiring stupor.

"Huh, yeah, I am now," Joseph mumbled. "What's the matter?"

Caesar looked downward, sadly. "I just feel lonely."

"And next you'll say, 'Can I sleep on your bed tonight, Jojo?' huh?" Joseph smirked.

"Can I sleep on your bed tonight, Jo--" Caesar began to say, before realizing it. "Huh? How did you know--?"

Joseph laughed warmly. "You don't even need to say it, Cae. You're always welcome with me. Anytime."

Gently, he lifted the bust up from the floor. By now, his heavy weight now felt familiar and no longer burdensome. He gently laid Caesar onto the pillow next to him, and, removing his scarf and headband and placing them onto his bedside table, lovingly laid a blanket over Caesar's stubby torso.

With his body, or lack thereof, covered by a quilt, Caesar looked less like a sculpture and more like Joseph's very own, perfectly typical roommate.

Joseph laid back down onto the bed, gently embracing what little body Caesar had, warmly and tenderly underneath the covers.

"Goodnight, Caesar," he said, resting his head against Caesar's soft, warm clay body.

"Goodnight too, Jojo," he responded, as he closed his eyes for the night.

Artist and artwork fondly embraced, within the dimly lit room without anyone else to witness. Suzi was at her home today. It was just him and Caesar, together alone, gently feeling each other's gentle warmth in a fleeting yet sincere moment, as rest soon enveloped their tired minds.

A fleeting yet sincere moment that Joseph wasn't sure he'd get to have again.

--------

(Previous Chapter)

(Next Chapter)

[maaji-maji-majima]

some kissing hcs for Majima?(if u can make it nsfw)

So I'm in a weird place with this. I don't want to leave you unanswered but I know you won't like the answer that I give. It has been a long time since I was active on tumblr and I'm not sure when along the timeline headcanon became synonymous with fanfiction. I appreciate fanfiction authors for their creativity, but I am not one myself. I use headcanon in the older definition of "this isn't in the source material, but it is true in my brain". They are either random things my half asleep mind thought of while walking home from work or a character analysis. At the same token your ask had crawled into my brainmeats and won't leave. So again, I apologize that this most definitely is not what you're looking for, but I hope someone out there finds this to be an interesting read.

Without further introduction, here is a character analysis of our favorite pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin in regards to relationships and why the he desperately needs therapy as brought to you by a different pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin who got therapy but probably needs more.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, self harm, mental disorders, poor coping strategies, unhealthy relationships, random tense changes, not fanfiction

Spoilers for the whole franchise, but very specifically for 0, K1, and 5.

Abuse does weird things to people's brains. In Yakuza 0 Majima has barely been out of the hole for a year. He might no longer be suffering the actual physical torture he had been subjected to the year prior, but he is still directly in the hands of his abusers and being watched every moment. He is still in a cage even if it doesn't look like one. He is depressed and likely suicidal, but doesn't follow through with those thoughts because he is determined to make sure Saejima has a home to come back to. He is willing to endure just about anything to allow Saejima a chance to exact that final moment of retribution because Saejima is the one who deserves it and Majima doesn't feel that there is any possibility for forgiveness. In all likelihood he hasn't sought out anyone for a hookup or paid company for an evening due to a combination of not feeling like he deserves anything that feels good and the fact that he's constantly being watched. The year in hole means he no longer really has a concept of privacy, but he's worried that getting close to someone, even for a few moments, could put them in danger if Sagawa or Shimano feels like holding something else over his head. It isn't worth accidentally dragging someone into his own personal hell. He no longer lives for the present, he is only living for that far-off future that he hopes isn't just a pipe dream.

Enter Makoto. At first she is a stand-in for Saejima's sister Yasuko, but it morphs rapidly from there. She is the light and kindness and hope that he hasn't seen in years and she's being dragged into his bullshit. He knows in his heart of hearts that she doesn't deserve what she is being forced into, so his mind snaps into the immediate and does everything he possibly can to save her. This is is the hill he wants to die on. Maybe, just maybe, he can end his miserable existence with a final act of good and he feels that Saejima might just be able to understand. But because he no longer has any relationships in his life that are not strictly professional or the abusers he cannot escape, he has little recollection of what a nuanced relationship or even friendship is any longer. Due to circumstance she is also the only person that he cannot keep at arm's length, no matter how desperately he tries. So he falls for her and falls hard. But in the end, after everything they go through he does the impossible. He lets her go. She has a life and a future, whereas he has neither of those. What would she do? Become his ane-san? Have some temporary happiness before she realizes she has a target on her back for the rest of her life? No. Majima believes she deserves so much more than that even though it hurts him deeply. What is one more hurt on top of everything else? He's gotten extremely good at burying his pain.

Getting to Tokyo flips a switch in Majima's brain. Like many people with mental trauma who don't have access to therapy he falls into excess as a way of self medicating. He fits virtually everything on the hedonism checklist. Drinking? Yeah. Violence? Hell yeah! Promiscuity? Yeah, but I ain't judging. Drugs? Probably, even though it isn't explicitly stated in game. Everything from his shift in personality to his wardrobe has become, intentionally or not, a defense mechanism. He has escaped from all of his abusers except for Shimano and he refuses to allow anyone to gain that kind of power over him again.

It is a double edged sword, however. His depression and PTSD are running unchecked. In all likelihood he hasn't fallen hard on vices as a way to reclaim ownership off his own body. Instead it seems more probable that he is dissociating. After everything he has been through he doesn't care what happens to his body in the long run because it isn't actually his anymore. Risky behavior, which is practically Majima's middle name, is also frequently used as a passive form of self harm because the end result is either temporarily feeling better thanks to endorphins and adrenaline or permanently feeling better after embracing death. He could achieve a similar feeling by taking up jogging and chasing a runners high, but that takes more time and energy than chugging a handle of whiskey or goading some chump into throwing hands. Sadly even now admitting to mental problems by seeking help is fairly stigmatized in Japan and it was only worse in the early 90s. Can't have a problem if no one tells you it's there, right?

Then he meets Mirei. She's intense but not wild like Majima. At that moment in time she is everything he needs. Head strong, domineering, and very, very determined. She knows exactly what buttons to press to wrap him right around her finger. And he lets her take the reigns, lets her run his life because he realizes he was doing a terrible job on his own. Better her than Shimano, right? Doing something wrong results in the cold shoulder instead of a vicious beating, and doing something right leads to more than simply the relief of avoiding a beating. He decides that making her happy is enough to make him happy. Until suddenly it isn't. He never wanted to be a father, but even the idea that he could have been was enough to cause a fundamental shift in his entire outlook on life. He could have had someone to live for, instead of just survive for. But he had no say in the matter and didn't know until the decision had been made for him. When Mirei told him she had an abortion he snapped. He hit her. The one and only time he raised his hands against her. Disgusted with himself, and wounded by her decision, he left. If he was capable of that, he knew couldn't be the person she had been trying to mold him into. He realized he was nothing but a weight around her neck dragging her down. And so that day signals the end of their short marriage. He spends the next several decades drowning in guilt for his actions while still resenting her for her choice.

That leaves us with Kiryu. Poor, oblivious Kiryu. Majima's fixation is multifaceted but in no small part due to the fact that Kiryu is one of the few people strong enough to hurt him, but is the only one that doesn't want to. And Majima just doesn't understand. After everything, he only deserves to hurt, right? Saejima, Yasuko, Makoto, Mirei. Everyone who gets too close to him ends up worse for it, so why won't Kiryu and his sense of honor seek justice on their behalf? So he does everything he possibly can to wind up Kiryu enough to Pay Attention Damnit, Fight Me. But Kiryu's response is always just flustered awkwardness because he doesn't want like fighting, it's just a part of his job, like wearing a suit or answering a phone. To Kiryu fighting isn't a thing done because it's enjoyable, it's done because it has to be. But he's still the only one who doesn't flinch when Majima brandishes a knife inches from his face.

And then Kiryu is arrested and in jail for ten years. And ten years is a long time to build someone up onto a pedestal. Like only wanting to talk about the best of a person after they've died. The same thing happened with Saejima. Build them in his mind to what he wants or needs them to be since they are not there to actively correct it. The decade is pretty miserable, going through the motions and trying to not make waves with the bigwigs while terrifying the minions into obedience. When he hears Kiryu is being released it is like waking up again. He all but waits at the taxi stand at the entrance of Kamurocho on the day of Kiryu's release, all but vibrating with excitement. It's a fight he has been waiting on for a decade, too bad it was little more than a disappointment.

So Majima decides to bring him back up to spec in that very Majima flavored way. Small fights, big fights, surprise fights. Kiryu is still reluctant because he doesn't have a reason beyond Majima's dreamed up training program he doesn't actually want to be a part of. Of course this only leads Majima to do everything possible to get under Kiryu's skin, including sharing his personal vulnerabilities while disguising them as jokes just to cause fights, but Kiryu just kind of rolls with it which leads to confusion and frustration on both sides. After a while Majima starts to get into Kiryu's hobbies, like pocket circuit, ostensibly as another form of picking a fight. And he discovers he actually enjoys a lot of it. And they are both too dense and emotionally stunted to realize they're basically dating at this point. At multiple points Majima takes potentially lethal blows meant for Kiryu and the excuse that he is the only one allowed to kill Kiryu is very, very thin. He just can't quite admit out loud that he doesn't want to see Kiryu truly hurt because that's weakness and he is Not Weak (tm).

Shimano's death and Kiryu's departure from the clan come as a whirlwind that destroys him all over again. He's left directionless. So he leaves the Tojo in an attempt to find his own way in the world, for the first time in over twenty years.

I think I need to call it here for now. I know I've left out Saejima and Daigo, among others, but I've been working on this for days and my progress has been eaten twice and I just don't have the energy to keep going right at this time. Maybe some day in the future I'll find the time and energy to write out the rest for all the other games.

tl;dr What Majima wants and what he needs are two different things. He wants to fightfuck, but he needs to be bear hugged into submission so that he can have that mental breakdown he's been carefully bottling up for over thirty years. He needs a good, ugly cry. And therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

[perksofbeingaharrie]

PICTURE THIS - part:2

FRIENDS TO LOVERS FIC 

PART 2 is OUT NOW

The response to Part 1 has been so so nice! Thank you to everyone who is reading and appreciating. Here’s part 2 as promised!

The series takes on the angst part soon soon soon. GGAAHHH IM EXCITED. 

Look out for my works and like, reblog and comment plentiful!! Thank you so much. 

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut

PICTURE THIS - part:2

© perksofbeingaharrie

--

The tour of her life had only begun. But Harry Styles was on and off for his world tour.

With dates so close and bound, it was impossible that even a day of hers would go without setting up her camera, buying hundreds of SD cards from around the world and uploading, deleting and saving the best of the captured moments.

His day almost always coincided with hers. While he practiced, she clicked his pictures. When he lounged and relaxed, she came around with her soothing voice to indulge him in good thoughts. And when he performed, she looked up at him on stage with the biggest smile on her face.

All in all, there was never a moment when they were without one another. It was sometimes that he took the lead and sometimes her.

And when they were on breaks, he called her over for some personal, unplanned photoshoots. No extravagant lighting, no photoshop and no extra people. Just him and her and her camera.

She would dress him up, he would dress into his best. He would casually hang by the balcony, or his bed or by the kitchen, giggling, laughing out loud, sombre, dramatic and she would gladly click his beautiful face.

There was no barriers to when he was with her. She would ask him to strip down to his boxers and he would do so, of course with a little jest here and there but never with an intention.

She indulged in the comfort and casualness he exhibited when with her. It was almost so natural and she would do certain things in the flow of it like kiss him on the cheeks or stare at him for too long and it would never feel too weird. He was just so simple.

Harry couldn’t think of anything but breathe when around her. Breathe an amount full of hope, trust and honesty and exhale comfortably. She built this blanket around them, separating their world and the outside and for the few moments they were really together, Harry didn’t feel the need to fret or hesitate but just let go.

One day, while one of their photoshoots, he expressed one of his deepest desires.

“I want to try some makeup.”

She looked up from the floor where she had her bag wide open and camera ready to be pulled out.

His heart skipped a beat looking at her seem so alarmed at his proposal. He bit his lower lips and breathed too loud, scratching the back of his neck.

“Uh, um, like you know just for the pictures. Ju-Just to see if they look good…or-uh-“

“Sure.” Was all she said and then went back to setting up her tools.

He felt unsure but walked away anyway to change out of his usual clothes. When he returned, she is standing before the set up but not just with her camera, but with a small glittery pouch.

“This is all I could bring around for the tour. You see, I am not a big make-up fan.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners delicately. Harry swore he saw a halo over her head.

He chuckled back at her, shaking his head. “I guess we can begin with what we have?”

She nodded, gesturing grandly to the chair she set and he jogs his way to there. Down on the chair, he turned his face up and stared at her as she situated herself in front of him, nabbing her knees against his. With his legs now open, she slid in between them to begin her work.

“I’ll buy you some nice make-up too. We’ll need the foundation that is to your shade and I have too much nude shades – I think I’ll look up some peach and pinks for your skin to-“

“This isn’t weird, is it?”

She stopped midway in her work and looked down at him with assuring eyes. “There is nothing more beautiful than when you are this open to yourself, Harry.”

He gave a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“No,” She slid the first stroke of her brush against his cheek. “Thank you.”

And so he closed his eyes and let her do her magic. The results came out even better because somewhere her presence and her assurance made his heart smile from within.

This was all about her. The comfort and love of her was so uplifting to Harry in so many ways. He had been insecure before, his past friendships or relationships could never fathom to the kind of acceptance and acknowledgement he got from her. The way she talked, the way she shared and the way she acted – everything meant so much to him.

He liked her. Oh, he liked her so so much.

He thought about kissing her so many times.

But he just won’t. He never wanted to take this step to ruin what was already here for him.

Friends don’t talk for ages but they never forget you. Lovers don’t talk for some time and worlds are falling down. He cannot dare to commit to something now. He cannot wish to ruin what is here right in front of him now.

He hasn’t been the best when it comes to relationships. It is also been them at times, but he also admits it has been him at many many instances. He grows anxious over the thought to committing to someone and then hurting bad. He hates to even think that they get involved and it just does not work out.

Some people are just meant to fill in your life as friends. Best friends. They cannot be your lover.  

And so, he never commits.

--

“Harry!” She half whispers, half squeals.

They have been running for some time now. Further and further into the backdoors of the arena, Harry does not stop at all. He has his hand clasped around her wrist and she is having a hard time catching up thanks to his long legs taking twice as much as her steps.

“What the he-“

They finally pull into his make-up room. She is pushed in and he shuts the door behind them, panting with his back against it.

“The concert starts in 5 minutes, you!” She reminds him again, this time sterner.

He only laughs. She shakes her head at him, supressing the chuckle she herself feels coming up. Her heart has forgotten to feel weak since with him. Every day, every moment, it’s beating against her bones like it is the most excited child around the town and she is now used to this exhilarating feeling.

“I know, I know.” Harry reaches into the inside of his jacket’s pocket and pulls out a small whiskey bottle. Her eyes widen.

“Smuggled it from the VIP guests menu. I am not allowed to be taking this hard before the concert.” He uncaps the bottle giddily.

“And, what? I am your accomplice in this?” She tuts, crossing her arms over her chest.

He takes the first gulp, cringing at the burning taste travelling down his throat. “Yes.” He says to her, pushing the bottle towards her.

She shakes her head, but nevertheless, accepts the bottle. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“Don’t lie. You love this.” He walks behind her and leans back against the make-up dresser, ruffling his set hair.

“Geez.” She takes a sip, too big for her own liking and walks back to him to stand beside him.

He takes another sip and sets the bottle on the dresser. “Also, also.” He turns around, rummaging through the first drawer and pulls out a small palate of highlighter. “Put this on me?”

She smiles and takes the palate from him. Standing close to his leaning body, she applies some of the highlighter on the pad of her fingers and brings it close to his high cheekbones.

“You’re already so golden, Harry. What do you need more glitter for?”

He chuckles underneath her, eyes shut close as her fingers glide against his skin. “Even I realize this isn’t really needed. Just wanted this as a good luck from you.”

“I am always looking out for you.” She says, a smile in her voice.

He nods and opens his eyes, turning around to look at himself in the mirror. “Not bad.”

The door opens then and the production manager of the arena staggers in breathlessly. “Harry, Harry-“

“This is Dave, the production manager around here.” He turns to her. “And Dave, this is Y/N, photographer for the tour.”

Dave gives a courtesy smile and turns to Harry back again with panicking eyes. “The concert’s about to begin. Everyone’s going crazy looking for you!”

Harry sighs and turns to the mirror again. “I’m ready, I’m ready.” He brushes his hair again, admiring how the highlighter on his cheeks looks under the vanity lights.

She is ready with an encouraging smile when he turns and with one last wink to her, he is rushing out.

--

Jeff slings his arm around Harry, who is now changed out of his outfit into some comfortable joggers and shirt after the concert and they are headed back to their hotel.

“Can’t believe we’ll be leaving America soon.” He sighs. “We’ve played double the amount of events this time but it still feels like it’s coming to an end this soon.”

“I know right.” Harry agrees, sliding his arm around his waist.

“By the way,” He continues. “Have you seen Y/N? I haven’t been able to grab a hold of her since I came back from changing.”

Jeff nods. “Yeah, I saw her leave with the production manager of ours – what’s his name..”

“She left with Dave?” Harry stops mid-walking, turning to Jeff with a confused look on his face.

“Yeah. She told me they were going out for a drink.” Jeff shakes his head. “I completely forget – she told me to tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“This – that she is going out for drinks with Dave.”

“Oh, okay.” Harry sighs, returning from a daze he cannot even remember what for. “Well, she didn’t have to…”

They are walking again.

“Yeah, right. The girl’s having a good time. I am happy for her.” Jeff chuckles to himself.

Harry deems no reply. “I don’t understand though. We were supposed to meet up for our customary drinking post-concert…” He says more to himself.

“Why don’t you join us tonight then?” Jeff places a persuading hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s been a while.”

Harry opens his mouth and then closes it, thinking for a bit. She is out having her time and Harry does not want her or even him to feel the pressure that they depend on each other too much.

“Yeah, of course. I don’t want to feel lonely anyway.”

Jeff shakes his head, taking lead. “Oh, you with your shit again – c’mon let’s be quick then if we wanna catch up with the others.”

And Harry just realizes how much he is going to miss her tonight.

-

MASTERLIST   o   PART 1   o  PART 3  o  PART 4

PART 3 will be out tomorrow!

[dreamonhunters]

and i can tell just what you want, you don’t want to be alone

no trigger warnings!

my half of a trade with the legendary @fakenewsies ! dylan i literally love you with all my heart and i really hope you enjoy angsty yearning new misfits redfinch because i sure do!

read it here on ao3!

The room is silent, aside from the sound of someone clicking away at a keyboard. Finch likes to work in the dark. There’s a soft turquoise glow beneath his hands, occasionally blocked out by his fingers flashing across the keys. Artificial light from his monitor acts as a primary light source. Albert always scolds him, tells him he’ll strain his eyes. End his own career before he hits twenty-one. Finch ignores him.

“Hey, asshole. It’s 2am. Go to bed,” a bleary voice mumbles from somewhere behind him. Finch lifts his head just a little, enough to indicate he heard. He doesn’t reward his visitor with any kind of verbal response. Maybe if he stays quiet, the other boy will drop it and go back to bed.

Instead, there’s a quiet sigh from behind him. Footsteps. The chair next to him is now occupied by a taller boy, ginger hair gleaming dully in the blue light. His whiskey-coloured eyes flicker over Finch’s work in vague interest, but they both know he doesn’t understand the lines of code covering the screen.

“Go to bed,” Finch murmurs, eyes flicking between his screen and Albert’s face.

The screen illuminates the high points of his face, making those sharp cheekbones seem all the more dangerous. Albert’s eyes linger for just a little too long.

“Ain’t that what I just told you to do?” he teases, although there’s no real heat in his voice. If you listen close enough, there’s maybe a note of concern.

Finch doesn’t know why Albert acts surprised. He doesn’t sleep at night. It’s the most productive time of day. That’s something he’ll maintain until the end of time and nobody could convince him otherwise. No distractions, aside from the one sitting beside him right now.

“I got work to do,” Finch answers simply, taking another sip from the can beside him. One of those ridiculous energy drinks Albert got him hooked on. If they didn’t help him work so well, he might find it within him to be annoyed. “You gonna sit there all night?”

Albert yawns, stretches his arms about above his head. Shifts in the chair. That trademark smirk curls his lips upwards. “Sure,” he answers. “Why not?”

“Don’t you have work tomorrow?” he tries again. He’s not really trying to get rid of Albert. Not properly. There are much more effective methods for getting people out of his workspace, and those often involve the pistol strapped to his hip. Finch doesn’t take interruptions very well.

“I do. But I don’t have anything important planned. You know how it is,” Albert supplies. Drawls a little on the word important. “So I can afford to stay up a little.”

With a heavy sigh, Finch finally turns away from his work. He doesn’t shut off the computer just yet. Keeping up the pretence Albert is actually going to leave is another thing Finch won’t address. But it’s impossible to concentrate with the boy by his side, and he knows Albert won’t let him anyway.

“Fine. Whaddya want, idiot?” Finch relents, although his tone lacks any venom.

“You,” Albert answers, simple and quiet.

They play this game every day. Albert disrupts Finch’s work, that intention is clear as day, but they don’t really talk. Albert has a million people he can go to for a quick chat, and Finch isn’t one of them. Never will be one of them. There’s a little exchange back and forth, and Finch is kissing Albert, biting him, and Albert just grins against his lips. Takes whatever he can get. The next day, it’s the same. Nothing ever happened. Just part of their daily routines, a rite of passage they can’t rid themselves of. Finch can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it.

“That’s what you always say,” he snarks back, rolling his eyes. No fun if he doesn’t put up a fight, Finch always says.

If Albert hears him, he doesn’t grace that comment with a response. Instead he changes the subject, the ghost of a fond smile tugging at his lips.

“You remember when we met?”

Of course he does. How Finch could forget is a better question. But he can’t answer too quickly, because then Albert will know he thinks about him, and that ruins the whole illusion. So the resulting silence is prolonged, while Finch pretends to mull over the finer details.

Albert’s been part of the New Misfits movement far longer than Finch — sometimes he jokes about being born into it, having no other choice in life. His father has been Head Engineer since before the boy can remember. It only makes sense for his son to follow in his footsteps, and be handed a job as soon as he’s capable of building the required tech.

Finch, however, didn’t really know about the movement until he turned eighteen. Every child in Eastgate is fed the regulated propaganda throughout their school lives, even though Finch has always been just a little suspicious of how the most impoverished city in the country was now home to the most cutting-edge technology. Something is just a little too good to be true. There’s an ulterior motive somewhere.

Nobody questions it, though. To go against Cyber Mind Corporations is essentially treason.

Some kids get lucky, though. The job of the New Misfits’ recruiters is simple — shatter the rose-tinted glasses placed over their eyes, and hit the youngest, most impressionable members of society with a large dose of reality.

Finch feels like he cut himself on the glass. To this day, he credits a certain Jack Kelly with saving his life. The young boy makes him understand, promises him something better. Cyber Mind’s need for totalitarian control leaves no room for individuality — or even free thought. It was mind control, Jack tells him, and Finch can’t find a reason to argue back. The evidence is damning.

He accepts the invitation in a heartbeat.

When he first arrives, Jack explains something about moving him into a new building. State-of-the-art, completed shortly before Finch’s arrival. He isn’t really listening, though. He doesn’t care, truthfully, so long as he has somewhere quiet to work, as promised.

Albert more or less stumbles into his life three days later.

Originally, the young technician is sent over to help fix up his office. Someone else called out sick, and Albert’s the only person available. Other excuses in that vein. As ever, he doesn’t really listen to the string of apologies and explanations. Patience is a virtue that simply evades Finch. If it were up to him, this would have been done days before.

Even despite his best efforts to ignore it, Finch is drawn to him. He’s like a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else he’s met. Bright ginger hair, eyes that sparkle when he laughs, broad shoulders. Finch wants to hate him. Wants to slap that stupid smile off his face. He also wants to know how those hands would feel wrapped around his neck, just a little too much pressure. Albert works quickly, a cheeky grin plastered across his face as he cracks the occasional joke with enthusiasm you couldn’t possibly fake. He really isn’t the type of person Finch actively seeks out, and yet it’s simply impossible to deny the connection when you first encounter your soulmate.

(If you believe in soulmates, that is. Finch doesn’t.)

That’s how Finch eventually finds himself here, curled in an oversized chair with multiple brightly-lit monitors surrounding him, and the sound of another person breathing beside him. It’s quiet, almost serene, and he likes it that way.

Gradually, hushed conversations turn into fleeting touches and stolen kisses. They both pretend like they don’t want it, they’re not interested, they don’t need it, but there’s something addictive in the way their bodies press together in a darkened room. Albert’s lips are always slightly chapped as he kisses Finch. Strong hands on his waist. Warm. Inviting. He stays up through the night just to be beside the hacker. Finch can never bring himself to make Albert leave.

Most nights, they simply lay beside each other. Albert’s arm drapes lazily over Finch’s torso, tracing nonsensical patterns across pale skin. There’s a strange intimacy in simply lying beside someone, feeling the rise and fall of their chest. The sound of his heartbeat softly thudding when Finch lays his head down on his sternum. Albert’s fingertips are just a little calloused.

Sometimes Albert takes him apart, however he damn wants, while Finch whispers his name over and over like some sacred mantra. Funny, because Finch never really saw the point in religion. The boy above him could be one, though. Those nights are few and far between, nothing more than a carnal need, and the next day it’s almost forgotten. Almost. Those events are eternally emblazoned into both boy’s memories. Dark marks on Finch’s hips and shoulders and neck serve as a more visual reminder. There are some things you just don’t forget.

More often than not, they just sleep. Pure and simple as that. Finch wakes up the following afternoon alone, but that suits him just fine. Albert has his own life. The world doesn’t revolve around Finch.

Finch wouldn’t say he’s in love. Love is too complicated for such a simple arrangement. Words like that have a tendency to ruin. He just enjoys having Albert around. Maybe that’s the answer he finds himself searching for when he rolls onto the cold side of the bed in the afternoon sunlight. Thinking too hard makes his head hurt.

On that note, he’s been thinking too long. He should answer Albert’s question.

“Yeah. I do.”

There’s a smile on Albert’s face when Finch finally refocuses. Familiar. “I’m glad.”

Finch snorts. “You’re fucking weird.”

“Just the way you like me,” he answers. Always has a quick remark resting on the tip of his tongue.

“Who said I like you?” Finch challenges, bringing his long legs up to cross them beneath him. He considers switching the monitor off. No, not yet — that would fuel Albert’s ego just a little too much.

Albert just smiles. The fondness travels right to those damn eyes, the colour of honeyed whiskey when the light hits them just right. “Call it a sixth sense,” he replies. Finch can’t decide if he wants to slap him or kiss him.

Finch settles for rolling his eyes, shifting again to get comfortable. “What made you ask that?”

“Been two years today since you got here,” Albert explains. “Thought we should celebrate.”

Two years? Had it really been that long? Finch doesn’t bother to keep track of things like that. Anniversaries are far too sentimental. They’ll ruin a perfectly good day when those events inevitably become twisted by trauma.

“Damn,” he laughs, although the small smirk twisting his lips upwards betrays him. “Didn’t think I'd last that long.”

“You shut up,” Albert groans, reaching out to swat Finch’s hand away from the keyboard. Maybe he’ll stop working. “Shut the fuck up. Such a fuckin’ attention whore.”

“Any excuse to call me a whore,” Finch answers breezily, finally leaning forward to shut off the monitor. A silent invitation. He’s grown bored of the small talk, in that way he so often does. The sudden darkness makes Finch’s breath catch in his throat.

It’s practically pitch black, aside from a few coloured lights that glow dimly, to indicate the machines surrounding them still work as they should. Not quite enough to see properly, mind. He hears shifting from beside him.

Albert’s hand comes to rest on his hip, pulling Finch closer. “C’mere,” he breathes, and Finch doesn’t resist. He lets Albert guide him into his lap, those calloused hands on his body, straddling his waist. Lips press hard against his own, and suddenly Finch can’t focus on anything but the way Albert grips his waist, how their lips slot together messily.

“Mm, Al,” he mumbles, pulling away slightly. Their foreheads rest together, and Finch’s eyes glisten with something incomprehensible in the low light.

“Yeah?” Albert whispers. His lips ghost over Finch’s again. It takes everything not to pull him back in again, kiss him with a desperate passion that burns somewhere deep within Finch. He likes keeping Albert at an arm’s length, always on his toes. Doing that would only provide him with the answers to questions Finch would never hear.

So instead he rests his head on Albert’s shoulder, face tilted slightly so he can mouth at the boy’s throat. Normally he’ll bite, sink his teeth in until he can taste the first hint of blood on his tongue. Likes the way Albert’s skin tastes. Albert groans, and Finch feels the vibrations in his throat. Feels good. Brings him back to the reality of the situation. It’s the only answer he’ll provide, because he doesn’t want to think up a verbal response.

“We should head to bed,” Albert suggests, although any sense of urgency is lacking. They’re both happy to remain here a little longer.

“Whatever you want.” Finch replies sleepily, nipping at the column of Albert’s neck. He makes no movement to leave, and Albert doesn’t seem inclined to, either.

The silence drags on a little longer, and he listens to Albert’s heartbeat. Feels the way he breathes, how his fingers instinctively trace the sharp ridges of Finch’s spine. Neither boy moves.

“Do you love me?”

That question startles Finch, although he doesn’t make it obvious. If Albert was paying enough attention, he might notice the way Finch’s breath seems to falter a little. It’s unlikely he would.

“I dunno. Love’s weird.”

It’s not the answer Albert wants, but it’s the answer he’s getting. This is not the time for soul-searching, or trying to find answers Finch isn’t sure he wants to hear. Love is complex and messy and ends in flames. He’s never seen the point in labels.

Albert hides his reaction well. Doesn’t even flinch. Honestly, it’s almost impressive.

“Is that a no, then?” he asks, and if he’s trying to cover the hurt in his voice it’s slightly less successful.

“Did I say that?” Finch responds. No, he didn’t. “I said I don’t know. Not really an easy question, is it?”

“S’ppose not.”

The silence isn’t awkward, but it’s not as comfortable as usual. Finch shifts a little, loosens his grip around Albert’s neck. He doesn’t pull away completely, because that would send all the wrong messages, but he raises his head enough to meet those irritatingly beautiful eyes.

“Are you mad?” Finch asks, after just a few moments too long. The question lacks any kind of concern, because he can work that answer out for himself.

Albert hesitates. “Why would I be mad?”

“Because you’re in love with me.”

“I never said that.”

“Love is stupid.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

Finch laughs, and pulls himself upright. Slots their lips together. It’s not love, it never has been, but it’s something close. Albert reciprocates, because he always does.

“Don’t love me,” Finch whispers. “There are better ways to waste your time.”

Albert smirks, spotting the challenge in Finch’s eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself too much. That ego’s gettin’ too big for you.”

And just like that, the moment is gone. Albert blinks, and the weight on his lap vanishes. Finch stands right in front of him, a cocky smirk playing at his lips. Albert could kill him.

“Bedtime,” he instructs, the lilting quality of his voice akin to laughter. Finch doesn’t laugh very often. It’s the best Albert can get. “Don't want you oversleeping tomorrow.”

When Finch decides to play difficult, Albert surrenders. It’s the one battle he can’t win. So he relents, gets to his feet. Sitting in the same position for so long only rewards him with cramped muscles. Absently, he wonders how Finch copes. He stretches.

“Who’s place?” he asks. Finch doesn’t bother looking over his shoulder, already thumbing through a colourful keychain for his room key. It’s a slim plastic keycard, black with turquoise trim, the most easily distinguishable key on the whole keychain. Honestly, he’s fiddling with the keys to waste time.

“Mine’s closer.” Finch says. Albert doesn’t say anything, just follows close behind. Part of him wants to put his hands on Finch’s hips and draw the boy back, nipping at the nape of his neck. Biting. See what sounds he can draw from him.

But he doesn’t. He lets Finch walk away, and for a few moments he just stands there. Watches. That boy is a force to be reckoned with, in more ways than one. Albert loves that.

“You just gonna stand there?” he challenges, glancing over his shoulder to smirk at Albert with a cocky glint in his eyes. He’s got the upper hand now, and he knows it. That’s the thing with them. It’s like a constant power struggle, although nobody ever truly puts up a fight. Maybe it’s more like an involuntary exchange of power.

Albert just smiles back at him, no teeth, and lets Finch lead him into the darkened corridor. Most people would be asleep by now. Normal people would be asleep by now. In fact, they’re probably the only people still awake in this area of the complex. It’s nice.

Finch’s apartment is close to his office, located just round the corner towards the right wing of the building. Their hands brush against each other every so often as they walk, shoulders bumping together playfully. Albert doesn’t talk, and Finch has nothing to respond to. The silence is comfortable.

“Hey,” Albert murmurs, as Finch slides the card into the reader. It buzzes softly, and the lock clicks open.

Finch hums his acknowledgement, hitting a switch by the door as he enters and letting the bright, artificial lights sting his eyes. Takes a moment to adjust. It’s a small apartment, really — every member’s quarters were designed to accommodate their every living need, and little more than that. He’s not a man of material things, though, and minimalism suits him just fine.

Albert lets the door close behind them, automatic lock sliding into place. Listens to the little click. He didn’t expect a verbal answer, really. So he continues, “Are you happy here?”

“Loaded question,” Finch murmurs, keys clattering onto plastic as he passes a side table. Dark eyes are now fixating entirely on the neon cityscape visible through the obnoxiously large windows dominating the outer wall of his apartment. He won’t look at Albert. “Define ‘happy’.”

“Okay.” Albert smirks, leaning against the nearest wall. He observes the way Finch’s eyes flicker from building to building, taking in the lights. Eastgate always looks prettier by night. “Fulfilled, I guess. Like you’re doin’ something useful.”

Finch seems to consider those words, then nods slowly. His eyes never leave the window. He misses the stars, bleached out by the brightness of the city below. “It’s pretty obvious we’re doing something useful. Isn’t this whole thing about freeing people?”

“Well, yeah, that’s the whole point, but you’re…” he trails off, searches for the right words. “...difficult to read.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Finch mutters, but he does. Vulnerability is a weakness. So he builds his walls high and answers everything with the same set of generic responses, and it keeps people off his back. They can think what they like of him, truthfully, because Finch doesn’t care. Opinions get you shot.

Albert lets out a soft sigh, resignation colouring the sound. If Finch doesn’t want to talk, he won’t. There’s no way around that. “We should sleep,” he suggests, completely changing tack.

Finch doesn’t respond until a pair of arms wrap around his middle, the weight on his shoulder familiar as Albert rests his head there. It’s almost enough to tear his eyes away from the world outside. He leans into that familiar touch, exhales slowly. Albert’s chest is warm against his back.

“Do you trust me?” Albert asks.

In another time, maybe trust is a substitute for love. Finch isn’t too sure. There’s a strange feeling in his chest, a dull ache but a bright warmth at the same time. It’s only ever present when Albert is there, but Finch could never tell him. He doesn’t admit to things like that, not when there’s no good reason to.

“Almost.”

It’ll do, for now. It’s been two years, and still Finch hasn’t let his guard down entirely. He’s not sure why Albert’s surprised.

“Alright.”

And then the moment is gone, and Finch changes the topic with practised ease. “Come to bed,” he murmurs, hand slipping easily into Albert’s. It’s almost unfair how well their hands fit together. He wishes he didn’t like it so much.

He lets the smaller boy lead him to the bedroom, pulling his shirt over his head as he does so. Finch does the same, and when Albert turns around there’s a pair of lips pressing hard against his own. Thinly veiled desperation. Hands fall to grip his waist, and Finch’s arms loop around Albert’s shoulders.

When they break apart, Finch’s eyes are shiny and his lips are swollen. “I don’t love you, y’know,” he whispers, and Albert drops his head to nip at the column of his neck.

“I know,” Albert breathes, hot breath ghosting against his skin. “I don’t care.”

A soft, short laugh escapes Finch, and he lets Albert push him down onto the bed. He can taste skin between his teeth, the slight saltiness of sweat. Strong arms tangle around his slim waist, teeth painting dark stains across pale flesh. Albert holds him tight, the way he always does, and Finch feels a strange sense of completion.

It’s not long after that he falls asleep, head resting on Albert’s chest and one of the boy’s strong arms wrapped tight around his waist. The gentle thud of a heartbeat, the sound of somebody breathing, the occasional rustling of movement in his sleep.

Strangely intimate.

When Finch wakes up, the afternoon sunlight is streaming through the cracks beneath his door. He never closed the blinds. With a yawn, he rolls over, onto the cold side of the bed. He’s alone again.

[togafukagiftexchange]

@chimeras-and-company Hi there! I’m your gifter!! I wrote an one-shot for you, it’s with the prompt of a deadly raid and byakuya resulting more injured than Touko! It’s angsty at first, but get better at the end :D I hope you like it and had fun in the holidays ^^ umm idk what else to say honestly, i put a little of vent in there to make it more… powerful(?) i hope you enjoy itt

here we go! ******

“H-how did we end up like this?”

The ‘hospital’ of the Future Foundation was silent. Too silent, its patients being all quiet, even when the floor was filled with injured people and blood.

“Y-you said… you were a-alright…”

All the deaths, the despair, made just by an annoying child… Nobody would’ve thought that Monaca still had that many robots in her control, edifices filled with black and white bears while the Future Foundation agents were scarce.

“I… y-you are great, Master, but you’re n-not immortal…”

Byakuya was one of the injured. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, yet he was close to death. Thanks to bruises and scratches, that were darker and deeper getting closer to his head.

“M-maybe you thought that y-you were fine”, Touko whispered, looking at her Master, her friend, with tears falling over the white blankets that covered his chest. “A-and… you h-had covered your neck. Why d-did you cover your neck, M-Master? If Hagakure w-wasn’t with you when you p-passed out, you would’ve been d-dead. Dead!”

Touko covered her mouth when she realized she was shouting, when the doctors and nurses looked at her with pity. Nobody got angry at her; all of them knew very well that the ex-heir would probably never wake up. And she knew it. The writer knew that Byakuya could die in his coma, she was preparing herself to hear the news, but it was just the night after he passed out and the pain was raw, too recent, too fictional to be true. Nothing could be done, yet she cried and cried, whispering to him as if they were talking, as if he wasn’t dying. It made things less painful, allowing herself to act like he was alright and awake and didn’t got a brain aneurysm because of a stupid robot-

“Touko, it’s late”, Komaru exclaimed at her side, placing a hand in her friend’s shoulder. “We have to go back. Makoto is waiting for us.”

The doctors weren’t the only ones that pitied Touko. Komaru’s voice was sweet, soft: a careful whisper. She was thinking about her words, swiftly choosing them to try and comfort the writer. But she knew, she noticed it the same moment that Komaru opened her mouth. She didn’t like it at all, she didn’t need pity.

Who she needed was asleep in front of her, and wasn’t going to wake up in a long, long time.

‘If he ever does’, the voice of reason hissed in her head, with a thought that Touko was trying to hide. To deny the obvious fact; she had to, or despair would consume her soul.

~

Her ex-classmates were the only ones that didn’t pity her(at all). Even if everyone knew about her crush on Byakuya, they were the only ones that didn’t look at her like she was a lost puppy. They were close to her Master too, and suffered his soon-to-be loss as she did. Maybe in a smaller proportion, but most people only saw him as a cold, skilled man. Not many people saw his honesty, his intelligence, or his-

“Fufu, are you alright? You didn’t answer my question”. Hiroko snapped Touko back to the present, outside of her thoughts, and the girl kept quiet. When the writer didn’t say anything, she simply sighed. “I asked if you feel pain somewhere. You had pretty deep cuts and burns, it’s impossible to have recovered in just three days”, the woman explained, looking at Touko with calmness. 

“I-I’m fine”, Touko replied, chewing one of her nails. Hiroko’s gaze was still on her, one eye closed with suspicion, in complete silence. “… w-well, my back started to ache a-again. B-but…”

“I won’t make fun of you, Fufu. The injuries can get infected if untreated, they will hurt more and more”, Hiroko commented, guiding her to a patient bed. The writer frowned, doubtful, but she knew she could trust her. She didn’t know why she was being so defensive against her, against everyone.

Touko’s skin was filled with cloth, used as a quick bandage, and dust, dry blood decorating her torso. She wasn’t sure when she would be safe enough to bathe (Komaru would’ve insisted, if she wasn’t the one patching her when they came back from the raid). Her stun-gun failed in the worst moment, and she was forced to fight with her own weak arms and hands. A robot exploded behind her, and she was lucky to not obtain third-degree burns… 

“Geez, this looks bad. And Koko used the wrong bandage…”, Hiroko whispered, concentrating in her task. She moved stuff from inside a first aid kit, and gently placed a gloved hand in the brunette’s back. “This will hurt”, she warned with a soft tone.

Cloth was almost glued to the burns, to the borders of the skin, and Touko couldn’t remember something as painful as removing sticky bandages from that injury. She silently thanked Hiroko for the warning, cursing under her breath without tears falling under her chin. And she made a mental note about checking the type of bandages she was going to use to an injury, before actually using it.

~

After her burn was properly healed, Touko was allowed to visit her Master again. An entire week away from him, nothing compared to the time she spent in Towa City with Komaru. But in that occasion, she didn’t fear for his life. Now, the writer sat at his side holding his warm hand, eyes closed and head dropping thanks to tiredness. Kyoko was with them too, observing in silence. 

She has been quiet since the raid, answering with monosyllabic words at every question. Her serious face fooled most people, but you could tell that she was sad just by looking at her eyes. The writer used that strategy with her Master too. He appeared to be cold, but he wasn’t. Deep enough, the Killing game survivors had a place in his heart… Touko’s being the most important for him, showing it with his caring words and the mails they shared. Or, that’s what she wanted to believe.

Her Master’s hand felt warm, and his fingers moved. She opened her eyes, with a grin now decorating her face. Kyoko showed a tiny smile, and a nurse entered the room. They had to leave, thanks to some privacy policies that no one was in the mood to break. When both girls were in the hospital hallway, Touko started to talk with excitement, clasping her hands over her chest.

“H-he moved”, she quickly explained to her friend, who just stared at her. “H-he’s going to wake up!”

“Probably”, Kyoko replied, the longest word she pronounced in a week.

“He’ll w-wake up”, the writer whispered to herself, holding to that hope that shined brightly under her skin.

It darkened later that day, when the nurse told them that Byakuya almost died again. That he was safe now, but he couldn’t breathe alone anymore and had to use an oxygen mask.

~

Touko couldn’t dodge the fact that the raid wasn’t successful. That any healthy agent had to keep fighting, and only ten members of each branch could stay in the base. She was an intern, and they took advantage of that, sending her to finish the raids alongside Komaru and countless of unknown people. At least her back didn’t hurt anymore…

Now, her heart was in her throat, beating quickly as she gasped for air. Syo had been in control for… how many hours? Had she switched with her stun-gun, or passed out? Touko couldn’t tell. The sky was always red, and the sun didn’t light the cities anymore. Having to use a watch to know the time instead of just looking up was something awful, something that the girl still had to start doing.

She was alone in the unknown, pink staining her body. As if she was injured, even if she felt no pain. Had the genocider killed someone else? Her Master would be so disappointed of her…

“Touko! You’re awake!”, a distant voice exclaimed, as if its owner was behind a window. When the writer scanned the room, she found Komaru smiling. Relaxed, as if she had something heavy in her shoulders and could finally drop it to the ground.

“K-Komaru…?”. Touko could feel the soreness in her throat, the pain, the screams that her alter should’ve done to let their body in this state. “W-what happened?”

Her senses were waking up with her, and her alter’s feelings were still hidden in her chest. Disgust, hate, fear… Syo probably discovered what happened to her Master. But why did she felt the need to kill, after almost two years?

“We won”, Komaru whispered, looking at someone at her side. “Syo helped us in the raid, but…”

The disgust faded from her mind, and was quickly replaced with dizziness. Blood was everywhere; in the ground, her clothes, her hands… Her mouth felt weird, dry, and her stomach growled.

“She killed Tengan. And, uh, tried to starve herself when… we tried giving her medicine”. The mysterious person accompanying her friend let themselves be seen; a girl with pale grey hair, with a mask hiding her mouth. “Munakata thinks that she has to go, since we finally defeated Monaca.”

“W-well… what are you waiting f-for? I’m here n-now, give me the medicine”, Touko hissed, coming close to the dense window that separated the three girls. 

“… don’t you want to know why Syo killed our leader?”. The stranger- Kimura, was it?- seemed dubious. She wasn’t staring at Touko, neither was Komaru.

“I d-don’t care”, the brunette admitted, crossing her arms over her chest. Kimura sighed, giving a small nod, and a hidden door was opened close to the window. 

Touko entered to the other room, noticing clean clothes and curry over a table and sat there, eating the food with excitement. She wasn’t interrupted. When she finished her (long-desired?) meal, Komaru placed a hand on her shoulder, and talked.

“Tengan said that keeping Togami alive was a waste of resources”, her friend explained, dodging her gaze. “He gave the orders in front of Syo, after the raid was won.”

“… He d-deserved it”, Touko muttered with a frown, and Kimura gave her a purple pill. She inspected it; it was big, almost rectangular, and she didn’t know if she could just take it or not.

After some seconds, she remembered Kimura’s talent: (Former) Ultimate Pharmacist. The girl made remedies and vitamins, discovering properties of already known substances that made her win her title. She was safe… probably.

“If you don’t swallow it, Munakata won’t let you see Togami”, Kimura admitted, looking at her eyes. She was calm, her voice steady, and Touko was convinced mostly by her statement. Kimura later explained that she would’ve to take the medicine every day, but it wasn’t a problem for her.

~

The world became a quieter place in just two years. No more raids, no more robots… the sky became blue again, and flowers bloomed everywhere you could look. There wasn’t as many people as before, and the streets felt… empty. Even if Touko detested crowds, it was weird that they simply disappeared from existence, abandoning entire cities in mere days.

'That’s the only good thing of all of this’, the writer thought in her seat, playing with her hair while the bus was in a stop.

She was in her way to the hospital. Byakuya was still asleep, barely reacting to anyone’s presence. The nurses said that he should be waking up soon, as the pollution was almost gone and it was healthy to breathe again. That he was alright.

And so, Touko visited her friend every week. Komaru or the other survivors sometimes went with her, but not this time. She had to say goodbye to him.

Writing wasn’t a valuable skill in a post-apocalyptic world. Towa City was the less… affected by The Tragedy, and they wanted to post her new writings. Being in the new Kibougamine school wasn’t bad, but working of something she loved was better. Plus, they would pay well. 

The decision was already made. Touko wasn’t going to change her mind; the papers had been filled, even if she wasn’t going to go until New Year had passed.

That’s what she had planned to say to him, her sleeping beauty. 

He was completely still, his golden mane reaching his ribs now; Aloysius said that Byakuya could like it that way, that he did in the past, and didn’t let anyone cut his hair.

Touko grabbed his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin as a contrast to the coldness of the start of Winter. She smiled softly, closing her eyes to rest at his side.

“It’s a cold d-day, isn’t it?”, the girl whispered, saving her glasses inside a pocket in her shirt. “Not cold enough for s-snow, but it’s still annoying.”

As expected, she got no response. Byakuya didn’t move this time, didn’t grab her hand like he did in the past. Touko sighed, gently brushing his hair with her fingers.

“I won’t be here after D-December, Byakuya”, she added, looking at the floor under her feet. “Komaru wants to come w-with me, I won’t be alone. Towa City is the o-only place that needs a writer right now…”

After another sigh, the girl left a gentle kiss on his wrist. She didn’t cry, not this time. Practicing this hurt, but now… a weight was gone, something that made her shoulders ache but not anymore. She felt free, safe, for the first time in years.

“S-so… search me if you wake up. I will wait”, Touko said, smiling again. She finally looked at his calm face, noticing a soft movement in his eyelids. 

A reflex, probably; he didn’t open his eyes the last time he did that, he wasn’t going to do it now. With this in mind, she turned to leave the room, not looking back. She wouldn’t go if she saw his face one more time, stuck at his side until something happened.

Something, anything… for better or worse.

“Miss Fukawa, where are you going?”, Aloysius (her friend’s butler, who was allowed to stay with Byakuya as he was closer with him than anyone else) wondered, having been waiting outside the room. In the Future Foundation there could be more than one visitor at a time, but not in a regular hospital. 

“I can’t w-wait anymore… He’ll probably won’t w-wake up, Aloysius, and I have a n-new job”, Touko answered, playing with her only braid. “I have to prepare e-everything for New Year…”

“Are you sure about that?”. The man offered her a biscuit from a paper bag, sitting in one of the chairs of the hallways. Chatter came from other rooms, making the girl feel calmer. “Won’t you feel lonely?”

Touko knew what he tried to do. She sat at his side anyways, grabbing the food he offered with a sigh. Aoi wasn’t the only one trying to convince her to stay, he was doing that too and the writer didn’t know why.

“K-Komaru will come with me”, she explained, taking a bit from the biscuit. It tasted good, with chocolate chips and a soft vanilla flavor. “I won’t be alone.”

“… Excuse me for interrogating you, Miss Fukawa. It is just… you and I are the only regular visitors that my young Master has”, Aloysius admitted, giving the girl a polite smile. “I know that he can seem harsh, or cold; a lack of visitors confirms that. So I gained curiosity about you.”

“Are we r-really the only ones that come here?”. Touko played with her fingers, a frown appearing in her face. The chatter from the other rooms had reduced to mere whispers and the occasional groans, and nurses took care of each patient that was in there. “I’ll h-have a talk with my classmates before I go away…”

“No, they do come. I was trying to say that we are the only ones that come every week, that make a space for him in our routines”, the man corrected, negating with his head. “Do not be angry at them, Miss Fukawa. It was my bad, as I had not expressed my thoughts as I should have.”

“O-oh… it’s alright, Aloysius”, the girl said, finishing her biscuit and smiling to him. “It was d-delicious, thank you.”

“My pleasure”, he answered, imitating her gesture. Someone moved behind them, and before they could say anything else, a nurse came out of a room(his), with wide eyes and sweat in her face. She recognized Touko, and stood in front of her as quick as possible, and the writer feared. Byakuya was dead, even if no alarm beeped from the monitors and machines that kept him healthy.

“You-”, the nurse interrupted herself, now noticing Aloysius. She sighed before continuing. “He wants to see you two.”

“He’s a-awake”, Touko exclaimed, her eyes barely holding tears that she forced herself to hide. “A-Aloysius, y-you were right, he w-woke up!”

Her companion just smiled, and the two were allowed to see her friend again, conscious after so long; Byakuya was laying in his bed, his pale blue gaze resting first in his butler, and then in Touko. She cleaned her tears, aware of how disgusting she looked with them, and Aloysius hugged him. He blinked, moving his arms at a slow pace to return the hug.

“What happened?”, were his first words in a while, said with a deep yet shaky tone, revealing the lack of use of his voice. Touko got closer to him, and the boy blinked again. “You said you had to go”, he remarked, squinting where she stood.

“Y-you w-woke up, and- and you r-remember… what I s-said”, the girl replied, making a grin to him even if he couldn’t see her well.

He smiled back and grabbed her hand, for the first time with both conscience and joy.

~

One good thing about living in a world that was recovering from despair, was the care that everyone gave to plants. Even in Winter, trees were strong and were in every corner.

The hospital had a small park, leaves from evergreens and snow mixed in its ground as the year was coming to an end. Nobody was out, coldness winning against the excitement of seeing the huge garden of the place.

Touko was a person that hated cold. She got sick thanks to it, and the feeling was horrible… but Byakuya had to exercise, recover mobility or something, and she just couldn’t say no to something so important regarding his health.

They were walking in silence, following a pebble road. Bare trunks were at each side of the path, looking a bit odd without their typical green tones.

“Have I been asleep for this long?”, Byakuya whispered to himself once they reached a bench, grabbing his friend’s arm to sit in a comfortable way. “It was April when we first raided Monaca.”

“Y-you were in a coma, Byakuya”, Touko gently reminded him, sitting at his side. “F-for… two years, almost three.”

“… It still is an unbelievable thing”, he admitted, unknotting his hair with his fingers. He didn’t want to cut it(and he honestly looked better with long hair, in Touko’s opinion). “The air is breathable. No acid falls from the sky when there is a storm… and all was solved so quickly.”

“Y-yeah, it’s weird at first”, the writer agreed, her head resting in Byakuya’s shoulder. He just stared at her, no complains leaving his mouth. “But it’s a-alright, we finally d-defeated Monaca, and everyone is working h-hard to not ruin the world again.”

“Defeat? What is this, a video game?”, he asked in an irritated tone, crossing his arms over his chest. “I doubt she was killed so easily, as she has been a pest like Enoshima was.”

“S-she did live in the space for two months.”

“See? A pest, adapted to live in any environment”, Byakuya finished, smirking as he relaxed again. Touko searched for his blue gaze, and was quickly drowned in the two puddles of his eyes. Byakuya separated her head from his shoulder as he stood up, looking at the ground instead of her face; he also stopped unknotting his hair.

His body was warm, warmer than what was expected in a snowy day, and Touko just wanted to hug him, to feel that sensation again…

“It is getting late. Let’s go back.”

He was dubious about something, yet the girl knew that he wouldn’t say a word about it. Too many worries, and he could get ill again…

“A-alright”, she replied, extending her hand to him. Byakuya hold it, and Touko could’ve swear she saw a reddish tone in his cheeks.

Touko smiled to herself and, damn, the work in Towa City wasn’t worthy of not being at his side. Writing was an escape from the rain, and her Sun had returned brighter than when the clouds covered it.

He was still processing everything, but a new softness was there, formed by the memories of tears and kisses in the hands, of whispers about casual things and books.

Both of them were happy how they were, in their own unique way, that they still had to decipher themselves.

[beesmygod]

this is what riverdale is about (part 3)

part 1

part 2

first, i have to start this description of the first season by begging you to stay with me for all 3 seasons; the first season is hilariously quaint in hindsight to whatever the fuck i just watched in season 3. the first season does deal with some weirdly heavy subjects for a comic that was at one point about getting a malt down at the shop with your best girl (for example, a plot point in season 1 is a predatory teacher/student relationship) but the third season is freaked out on pcp comparatively. the descent into madness this show demonstrates as time goes on should act as a warning to all who desire to write fanfiction: there but for the grace of god goes YOU.

anyway, my approach to doing this is that i will describe each episode of the season briefly. in some episodes, nothing of major consequence happens. in some, i will describe interactions i found especially bizarre or accidentally funny or iconic. you may want to keep the list of characters handy but i will try to explain the new, incidental ones as they pop up.

an odd side note: you will notice many of the episode titles are taken from movie titles. “riverdale” LOVES making references to movies. i mean hell, so do i, but you will notice some of the references are............on the nose.

images are from the riverdale wiki

SEASON ONE (PART 1):

the river’s edge: jughead, as the series narrator, describes a july 4th boating incident that led to the death of jason blossom, cheryl’s twin brother. cheryl is found by some off-brand boy scouts on the riverbank looking like a fabulous drowned rat. when the town comes to gawk at the spectacle, betty’s mother is hella pumped at the idea of jason being dead because he broke up with betty’s sister, polly (betty’s mom is later revealed to be prejudiced against all redheads, including archie). jason’s body is not recovered.

veronica and her mother arrive at riverdale to stay in a 5 star hotel that inexplicably exists in this podunk little shithole of a town. they discuss her father’s recent arrest for various financial crimes and decide to get a burger. betty, across town, is thinking the same thing...but love is on her mind...

betty wants to confess her feelings to archie, who she watches dress from the house next door. he is huge and beefy, having worked on his dad’s construction site during the summer. betty on the other hand, organized a toni morrison release party (?!), which she describes to archie as they catch up over a burger. archie wants to make music now. music is the ONLY thing that gives his life meaning (spoilers: he only feels this way for about half a season), except for football. betty is about to confess her feelings but veronica busts the door open and ruins everything.

there is an insane scene here where veronica meets kevin at school the next day and “concludes” he’s gay using her powers of deduction and also the fact that he talked to her about a gay bar in town (i cannot believe the riverdale gay bar has never come up again wtf). based on this information alone, she wants to be best friends. great stuff.

archie tries to join the pussycats and they tell him to fuck right off. josie gets a weird monologue about her cat ears. archie makes weird eye contact with the music teacher at riverdale high, ms. grundy (who is like 22 years old and hot now, instead of ancient and withered), who is revealed to have had a VERY uncomfortable sexual relationship with him. the visual coding of the flashback scene is bananas; she’s wearing the heart-shaped pink “lolita” glasses from the kubrick movie. 

through a flashback scene, it is revealed that one of archie and grundy’s sexual trysts that took place on the date and location jason died was interrupted by a gunshot. meanwhile, betty and veronica gay kiss to try to get on the cheerleading team but cheryl is unimpressed, commenting that it is SO 1990s. nevertheless, they make the team.

at the semi-formal, betty confesses to archie, who reacts like she handed him a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. cheryl thinks this is hella funny and sets up a scenario at her after party that gets veronica and archie together for a round of “7 minutes in heaven”. betty flees. jughead writes his novel in pop tate’s chocklit shoppe. kevin and moose (a closeted football player) try to fuck down by the murder river but the mood is ruined by jason’s body floating to the shore.

OKAY that’s the longest one. we had to establish a bunch of shit. stick with me now.

a touch of evil: archie confronts grundy about the gunshot they heard, now that it is certain that jason was killed by a gunshot to the head. betty and archie make up and become friends again, beginning the cycle of riverdale drama that wraps itself up in less than 12 hours. cheryl uses the school p.a. system to demand the killer reveal himself so they can put him in the chair. alice cooper pays off the mortician for information about jason’s corpse so she can run an expose about the murder in the front page of the local newspaper. jughead witnesses archie sharing a way too intimate hug with grundy. veronica’s mom works at pop tate’s and meets archie for the first time at work, commenting on how handsome he is, like his father. archie andrews is certified milf-bait for whatever reason.

betty invites cheryl to her house for mani-pedis to spite veronica. cheryl uses the opportunity to accuse betty’s sister of killing jason. betty responds by telling cheryl to get out or she’ll fucking kill her. normal stuff. meanwhile, jughead confronts archie about grundy and finds out pretty much everything, from the inappropriate relationship to the gunshot. he urges archie to go to the cops but archie won’t do it because *~what he and grundy has is sPeCiAl~*. jughead tells archie he’s a fucking idiot and brushes off archie’s attempts to threaten him.

betty asks about her sister, who is revealed to be in a mental hospital in a catatonic state as a result of the relationship breakdown between her and jason.

jughead gets brutally owned by jocks who call him “donnie darko” and “suicide squad” while implying he fucked jason’s corpse. archie defends jughead and they make up right before the pep rally. the heartless bastards at riverdale high inexplicably gave archie jason’s football jersey instead of retiring it and cheryl has a real meltdown about her brother’s death, fleeing into the girl’s locker room to sob her heart out. she confesses to veronica, the only person who goes to comfort her, that jason was supposed to come back.

the next day, the cops arrest cheryl in the middle of class and handcuff her. it turns out jason didn’t die july 4th, but a week after.

body double: despite confessing to being guilty at the end of the last ep, cheryl starts this ep by saying “let me clarify what i meant by guilty” which is the first of many times riverdale immediately recons its own writing for no apparent reason. cheryl confesses she lied about what happened the day of his disappearance; they weren’t simply having a little boat ride, but trying to facilitate jason’s escape to a farm away from the clutches of his family. he was supposed to contact cheryl once he got somewhere safe, but he didn’t. meanwhile, betty’s mom apparently didn’t get the “not guilty” memo and publishes a sensational article about jason accusing cheryl of being the murderer. through this, it is revealed to the audience that betty’s mom and dad own and operate the local newspaper. just them. no one else. cool.

archie finally tells the sheriff about the gunshot but lies about grundy’s existence. kevin comments offhandedly that everyone should re-watch “making a murderer” on netflix, making this what i think is the first plug of an irl property/brand in the show. from here on out they get more brazen and batshit. veronica reveals she has a date with the football coach’s son, chuck clayton, but everyone warns her he’s a player. betty re-opens the school newspaper to compete with her parents and get the REAL story out. she hires jughead to interview the kids who found cheryl the day jason disappeared.

okay, dear readers, please listen to me attempt to explain the next part of this episode. veronica goes on a chaste date with chuck which ends in some light making out. the next day, it is all over social media that chuck gave her a “sticky maple” which is, as far as i can tell, some maple syrup photoshopped onto a photo of her to replicate cum. this is impossible to explain via text, so please look at this helpful screencap.

the theme of this episode suddenly sidewinds from “we must solve jasons murder” to “we must avenge veronica being slut-shamed”. they consider going to the authorities briefly but decide to storm into the boys locker room which accomplishes nothing. this story line is briefly put on hold so jughead can unsuccessfully interview some not-boy scouts and cheryl can repay archie’s attempt to clear her name by setting him up with music lessons from josie and the pussycats.

ethel muggs, a slightly more unpopular and more dowdy girl who pops up from time to time in the plot over the course of the three seasons, reveals that she is one of chuck’s victims too. she tells of a “playbook” kept by chuck that details sex acts the football team engages in (presumably with girls and not each other). 

jughead successfully squeezes a not-boy scout into revealing that the scoutmaster (who is like a 15 year old boy) fired the shot everyone heard at the river, but he was just practicing on targets he set up. the scoutmaster is a hardcore survivalist (a fact that becomes vital in later seasons). so ultimately the gunshot meant nothing.

archie offers to write songs for the pussycats and josie tells him to shut the fuck up, white boy.

kevin, betty, veronica and ethel break into the school after hours to find the playbook. cheryl inexplicably shows up wearing red thigh high boots to help them. no one except for me, the audience, is excited about this development. the book they find reveals that jason had a sexual relationship with betty’s sister, implying a sort of pump and dump situation between the two. betty goes apeshit and pledges revenge against chuck.

okay. just. stay with me now.

betty puts on red lipstick and somehow successfully convinces chuck to have sex with her at ethel’s house while ethel and her parents are out of town. when chuck arrives, veronica is there, claiming that she and betty want to “share” chuck. i cannot believe he falls for this for real. betty then comes out wearing a uma thurman “pulp fiction” wig and lingerie.

betty then roofies chuck, who wakes up handcuffed to the hot tub. while veronica records the scene, betty threatens to boil him alive in the hot tub and waterboards him with maple syrup unless he confesses to his crimes, the crimes of jason and for “destroying her”. after torturing him for an uncomfortable amount of time, they take their evidence to the principal. why they didn’t just do this in the first place i’ll never know. anyway chuck leaves the school and cheryl says, out loud, “#justiceforethel”. 

meanwhile, archie gets a soundproof place in the garage to practice his music after spending the episode arguing with his dad. dilton doiley, the scoutmaster, tells jughead and betty he saw grundy’s car at the river the day of jason disappearance. episode END.

this turned out to be so much longer than i thought it would be, so i’m splitting it here. these are so long im sorry. god bless you and im sorry you had to read this. we still have like 10 eps left. i didnt know it would be like this but i need you to understand and believe how insane this series is.

thanks for readin

[ardenttheories]

So do you hate the epilogue or love it? Also I feel like the exposition provided on Hope was interesting in Candy. Besides that I’m curious as to what your full thoughts are

So, I’m still kind of torn on this. I’ve tried to think it over a few times, to really chew on my thoughts while I was reading the two Epilogues into a singular coherent idea, but all I’ve really come up with is a sort of mushy, oversweet mess that’s pretty indistinguishable from roiling confusion.

I still stand by my mentality that the Epilogues are really well written. There’s something about them that, although it sometimes doesn’t read like Homestuck used to, still really comes across as enticing and interesting. Even when the characters are at their worst - and even though a lot of them have had weird character developments or evolutions - the actual characterisation within the foundation of what’s been set in the Epilogues is believable. I can believe that a Dirk who acts like Meat!Dirk does would think and feel that way; that a Roxy who’s under the sort of narrative pressures of Candy!Roxy would end up as demure as she does. It’s believable, in the same way a well written fanfic is believable - which is, ultimately, the point. 

But do I like it? As an English Literature university student, yes. Oh, yes, I love the Epilogues. There’s so much to think over, to sink your teeth into, to really and thoroughly enjoy on a literary level. 

The inter-connectivity between the texts is fantastic. You can get an idea from both on their own, but only when they’re put together does the full picture come out. Knowing that Alternate!Calliope has influence over the narrative in Meat gives you a good chance to realise that she’s bringing canonicity back into Candy well before she even confirms it herself.

For instance, the reason Roxy’s so wildly offbeat that even John notices it is that they’ve departed so far from canon that her canonical developments and foundations have become worthless. She doesn’t bother going through her identity stuff because there’s ultimately no point in focusing on it; character development doesn’t matter anymore, and without anyone to help her focus on it, there’s just no reason for her to think about it. It’s only with the presence of Alternate!Calliope that things slowly start to get better. It’s why, when Alternate!Calliope is at her most present, Roxy starts to become herself again - why during her conversation with John she’s able to stand up for herself and admit that something has been wrong the whole time. Alternate!Calliope brings them back towards a faux sense of canonicity, and as a result, Roxy’s development suddenly becomes relevant again (even if it isn’t allowed to flourish fully, because that goes against what Calliope is trying to do). 

The sort of narrative theory it brings up is incredibly interesting, too. Having to read both sides of the same story isn’t exactly new, but this sort of interconnectivity is incredibly rare. The way that Meat and Candy work as concepts are also beautifully interesting; as I’ve said before, Dirk’s logic on Meat is that without a plot, there’s no relevance or importance in anything that they do, but the inhabitants of Candy frequently remind John that even if what they’re doing is inconsequential to the plot, it still matters to them. Maybe Jane being a fascist in Candy isn’t going to have a rippling effect on Paradox Space, but it matters to every single inhabitant of Candy’s Earth C. Calliope sees the importance of these moments; Dirk doesn’t. It brings about a firm point that if you try and make a story too plot-focused, you’ll ultimately make a story that’s too much of a slog to read, too depressing, to heavy - but if you try to make the story too fluff-based, then nothing of relevance will happen, you’ll have characters that never grow or develop down a natural path, events will happen in ways they were never meant to or don’t happen at all, and might be interesting but won’t be enough.

Plus, just reading through how A!Calliope explains the narrative voice and how it can be used is phenomenal, and I think a lot of literature should start to question that. Even in a text without a specific narrator, is the text completely without a narrative speaker? She basically explains what Dirk does in the sense of the boiling frog; he allows the narrative to seem like it’s speakerless so that everyone he’s whispering in the minds of don’t recognise that something is wrong until it’s too late, and he’s fully in control. He puts everyone in the cool waters of nonbiased narrative and slowly turns up the heat of his own opinions and inflections until he’s boiling their self identity and independence and free will alive with biased narrative. 

In that sense, I love the Epilogues. 

For thoughts on the actual story, though… I kinda love it. 

For what it is, it’s incredibly interesting. The dichotomy of Dirk controlling Meat while Alternate!Calliope controls Candy, being the respective narrators, is oh-so incredible. A!Calliope even says, in her dialogue to Aradia on page 40 of Candy, that sometimes narrative voices don’t bring themselves forward; sometimes the narrative is speakerless, sure, as we think Candy is - but that sometimes the speaker of the narrative simply doesn’t want to show herself. As much as Dirk overtly influences the events of Meat, I think A!Calliope influences the events in Candy - she just hides her narrative voice, and lets us figure out if it’s actually her doing the talking, or if there’s no narrative voice at all. 

It’s clear that in Meat, Dirk is the only reason there’s any sort of canonicity. He’s forcing events to happen to keep everyone relevant in the way they’re not in Candy - and Candy is what he actively fears, because Candy is A!Calliope’s answer to Meat. Dirk needs plot and relevance to exist; A!Calliope specifically needs that void of plot and importance for her plans to work - and both directly influence the other. Dirk is literally so scared by the concept of Candy that he over-controls in Meat because the idea of irrelevance just doesn’t work in his mind. There has to be some bigger picture, something to work towards - but for Alternate!Calliope, the simple concept of existing and allowing things to play out naturally, without interference, is the better way, even if there’s no bigger picture to strive towards, and irrelevance is left in her wake. Both Epilogues happen side by side to allow both narrative players their chance to reach their full potential, to present what they think is the best form of narrative. Meat is Dirk’s answer to Candy; Candy is A!Calliope’s answer to Meat.

To borrow from the previous ask, “In his suicide, Dirk destroys the last piece of narrative importance in the Candy Epilogue. He is the narrative importance in Meat after all; with him gone, there is no narrative entity to keep it going.” Without Dirk, the characters slip so far away from canon that everything becomes meaningless. All those foundations the characters are based on disappear, and they become horrific caricatures of themselves. A!Calliope brings stability back to this unstable, noncanon world. This is why Roxy’s gender reveal ends up being less “I’m able to decide who I am, and I am more comfortable using he/him pronouns and presenting as masculine” and more “I’m not feminine, and I don’t need to cling to the feminine gender; my body is a machine of flesh, and nothing more”. She still comes to the same sort of conclusion, but it’s only half way there - because A!Calliope isn’t bringing a full plot back to that timeline. Just enough to stop it from self destructing. 

Additionally, the fact that the black hole wasn’t so much of a black hole as a wormhole from canon into non canon. That brings up so much interest. Does Dirk even realise that’s what happened? I don’t think so. He seems to think that Davepeta really did complete a suicide mission, but if the same thing happens to them as happened to the troll ghosts then all that’ll happen is they’ll come out the other side, still clinging to Lord English, into the Candy timeline. Does Dirk realise that he’s been played? He essentially set into motion what needed to happen for A!Calliope’s plan in Candy to work. But maybe that’s the beauty of the duality? They’re opposing each other, but they also rely on each other for their own parts of the Epilogues to work. 

I’m interested in seeing where this goes. At this point, I’ve read enough to be invested. I’ve gone on about some of the Meat aspects in depth, so I won’t really go over that much more, but I love Candy’s portrayal of relevance. How fatalistic John becomes when he realises that everyone’s just completely fake - fake to themselves, fake to who they were, fake to what they could become - and how (Vriska) goes on to talk about John’s overall importance - that he’s probably one of the most powerful beings going because he has the ability to decide the entire fate of canon without even realising he’s doing it (as we’ve seen in Meat and Candy; both are a direct consequence of actions he taken without realising the dire effects it will have on the timeline).

But do I love it as a fan? 

I definitely enjoyed the exposition on Hope. It essentially confirmed a theory I had on this blog ages back; that Hope’s Belief was sort of the other side of the coin for Light’s Truth, and that the Belief of something to a strong enough degree is ultimately what makes it True. Maybe that’s why everyone was acting so fake? John believed with his whole heart that everything was wrong, and fake, and impossible, and he let that overwhelm him. Of course, the fact of the matter is that these things really were taking place, but I’m at least 87% sure that it was worsened by John’s own morbid attitude towards his fate and the lives of everyone around him. 

There are some parts I definitely liked. Confirmation about Jade’s weird gender situation in Candy, confirmation that Callie is they/them and Roxy is he/him in Meat (and that, regardless of the timeline, he’d always recognise that he has some sort of issues regarding his gender and figure out some way of understanding himself and his identity), the canonisation of DaveKat in Meat (although I firmly believe it could have ended up as DaveJadeKat if she’d still been in the picture, but a much healthier version than we see in Candy), the relationship between John and Terezi, the exposition we get on Candy!(Vriska) (finally realising a lot of the things fans have said about her for a while, especially in regards to (Vriska) in the comic), and now that I’m coming to terms with it, the plot’s pretty okay, too. For what it is, and the route they went down, I’m getting through the stages of grief to reach acceptance. 

But no, I don’t really like the Epilogues. 

Fundamentally, I hate the route they chose. I hate that after three years, rather than just be told “you can decide whatever you want, because even the noncanon things have validity and we’re well aware that we can’t please everyone, so making your own ending to suit your needs not only works best but also fits the theme of Homestuck well”, they went to all this effort of making a plot and characterisation that ruined so many of these characters we love. 

I have a lot of issues with Dirk. It’s bad narrative crafting to set a character so far back in his development. I can understand how the development works in the way that they’ve done it, but I’m also very aware of the fact that this, in no way, had to be canon. For all that Bro is a splinter of Dirk, and that emotionally stunted Dirks must also exist across Paradox Space, there are also plenty of other splinters and versions of Dirk that must have gone through beneficial emotional development. Out of every outcome that Hussie and the team could have chosen, I’m disappointed and upset that this is the route they took - after three years of waiting. 

This was an outcome that could happen, yes, but it didn’t have to be the official outcome. Regardless of how much anyone prattles on about canon and non-canon, people are always going to regard something that’s official as The Most Canon. If the point of these Epilogues is “you can make your own, valid ending”, then it’s overshadowed by the notion that this ending, these endings that we’re being given, are the ones that Hussie himself devised, and sees as most plausible. You can’t scrub the Official ™ mark from the Epilogues. You can’t get rid of the connotations of canonicity that comes from that. 

It’s a bad ending to Homestuck. No matter how you look at it, viewing just Meat or just Candy or both together, it still sucks as a fan to try and reconcile with the idea that this is how Homestuck’s officially going to finish. I’ve got no doubts that there’s more to come - cliffhangers like these are just begging to be finished, and if Hussie’s going to this much effort to make an interconnected story then it’d be weird to leave it hanging - but I’m still slightly bitter about the fact that this is what we get. Two relatively unhappy, upsetting, triggering endings that really give across a good statement, but not as much of a good conclusion to the people who have been following this story along for ten years. They’re hard to read - emotionally and physically - they’re unpleasant to try and get through, and although I’ve read both and am glad I did… I’m well aware of the fact that I could have not read the Epilogues and probably been better off. 

I actually go more into this aspect of it in a few other posts. I’ll link them below, so please give them a read, because they’re more eloquent and definitely explain what I mean a bit more. But that gives the overall gist of how I feel. I’ll also be including a few posts that explain how I feel a bit more, not written by me, because hell yes I want to share that good shit. 

So, yeah. I’m accepting of the Epilogues at the moment; I love them in a literary sense; I hate them as a fan. 

“Thoughts On The Upd8; Honestly Strikes Me As A Cop-out” - Kienansidhe

“The Dirk Thing And Why It’s Bad Storytelling” - Stormsbourne

“A Common Defence Of The Epilogues” - Unionhack

My thoughts on Candy

Why I hate the Epilogues (3 year drop) 

My thoughts on Meat

[rebelwheelssoapbox]

Disability Rights & The Woes of Political Isolation

by Rebelwheels NYC Although it is true that disabled people exist within every marginalized demographic, and thus every issue impacts the disability community, (as a person can be disabled and black, disabled and transgender, disabled and a refugee etc), I am going to be talking about some issues that don't normally get the spotlight and some theories as to why that is the case.

There are many obstacles in the path of advancement when it comes to Disability Rights in the U.S. Politicians being one - and not just Republicans, my friends. Sometimes it’s not just the elephant in the room, sometimes the donkey is truly an ass.

[photo of disabled activist and editor in chief for Rooted In Rights, Emily Landau who is sitting in her wheelchair, holding up a sign that reads “Because of the Americans With Disabilties Act, I can get around my community! # Hands Off My ADA #Stop HR 620, because there were people in the Republican AND Democratic party who voted to gut the ADA. ] But I digress. Another major influence is the severe lack of disability representation in the media (TV, Movies, etc.) When there is representation, (besides there being a total lack of diversity), more than not the stories are written by able bodied people, the disabled characters are played by able bodied actors, and the plot is usually some recycled trope.

Disability is tragic, pitiful and the only chance of happiness is a cure... or death. Disability is a trick, where the character presents themselves as disabled but ha ha ha, plot twist! They are not disabled at all. Fakers! Cheating the system, swindling us all. And of course, the dangerous disabled man, usually blind and/or mentally ill, who should be feared and is typically some sort of murderer. But let's not forget the disabled character who might as well be called Angel, because they never complain or frown and pretty much exist to inspire and uplift the able bodied audience.

[A poster for the movie Me Before You, where the disabled character kills himself in the end, leaving all of his money to his able bodied love interest, because while the tagline of the film was to live boldly, apparently the film did not intend that message to include disabled people. In the image the able bodied character is sitting on the disabled character’s lap, as the disabled character sits in his motorized wheelchair.] People seem to love disabled people when we’re presented as this trope-based concept, but when we present ourselves as full fledged human beings, fighting for and deserving of civil rights? Well, that “plot line” just doesn't seem to be as interesting.

Many people don't even know the word ableism. When we are oppressed, it's not oppression, people are just being “mean”. As a result, you have this weird mix of experience (if your disability is visible) where when you're out in public, random people gawk at you, hyper aware of your existence, and yet, when it's time to talk about cuts to healthcare (as an example), such as medicare and medicaid, it's disabled who? Disabled what? Never heard of it.

[image of a disabled activist in a wheelchair being taken away by the police. A lot of people seemed to forget how disabled activists, including those from ADAPT, put their bodies on the line, when protesting Trumpcare in solidarity with the resistance. Photo source: Getty Images/PS Mag.] Now, mix all of that with the fact that there is so much injustice going on in the world, to the point where it's practically impossible to keep up with everything, and well, disability rights issues pretty much go unnoticed. But wait a minute. Is it really that simple? After all, a number of people were up in arms when there was talks of major cuts to The Special Olympics. My local politicians had pinned tweets (posts on social media) with petitions, outraged and pledging to take action, but as an example, when New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo was (and continues to) talk about major cuts to medicaid programs like the CDPA , with the exception of some minor local media coverage and a small pocket within the disability rights movement, it was pretty much crickets.

[A disabled athlete poses in front of a red backdrop with the white special olympics logo. She flexes her muscles and smiles, and has several medals around her neck] Now, it is true, Special Olympics is a federal program, where as the proposed cuts to the CDPA were only state-wide. More than that, one is a televised program where disabled athletes compete for medals and glory. There are lights, there are cameras, it's a whole production with corporate sponsors eager to scoop up that good PR. The mission is to empower people with intellectual disabilities to find purpose and confidence via sports and competition, while also inspiring [able bodied] “people in their communities and elsewhere to open their hearts to a wider world of human talents and potential.” And then we have The CDPA, lesser known but a program nonetheless, that empowers disabled people (like myself) who rely on home services, to hire their own personal attendants, thus giving them a choice as to who comes into their homes, who bathes their bodies, who makes their meals (or even helps them eat – if this is what is needed. Needs vary of course.) And while there are no lights, no cameras, no tickets to the show – it does create over 100,000 jobs, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[photo of New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo who stands at a podium. Behind him is a blue backdrop that reads “2019 Justice Agenda”. Sadly, his justice agenda is not justice for ALL New Yorkers and in many ways, throws disabled New Yorkers under the bus] But there is another factor here that can not be ignored. The name. While I am not a fan of the term “special” when in regard to disability, when it comes to a name like Special Olympics, you can get an idea of what will be involved. There are sports, there is competition, and there are people with “special needs” aka disabled people. And then, we have the CDPA ...what the hell is the CDPA? Even if it's spelled out: Consumer Direction Personal Assistance. How many people even read the whole title? Furthermore, after reading it, do you have any better idea as to what it's about? And that is one (of many) problems that the Disability Rights movement faces. Because a lot of disability rights (at least on a systemic level, opposed to identity and the more social side of ableism), it's pretty much policy based, which is just not that interesting to most people, especially when these policies are given names like Disability Integration Act, Consumer Direction Personal Assistance. None of these names invoke any kind of emotion or intrigue.

Now, of course the disability community can't help what the government chooses to name the policies, but what if when talking about them to the public, the community referred to them with something more exciting and informative? What if the policies were given direct but intriguing Reference Names?

[photo of disabled activists from ADAPT, taken from their website: Adapt.org ] For an example, let's take the DIA or Disability Integration Act. What if that same act was now referred to as the Stop Warehousing Disabled People Act? In that moment, you now have an idea of what the DIA is about. Of course, it would be the call of organizers to pick a reference name and it would still be connected to the legal name.  Example: The Stop Warehousing Disabled People Act (otherwise known as the DIA) is an act that would prevent the state from being able to force disabled people against their will into institutions and nursing homes (because yes, that’s a thing.) And while the legal name would mostly be used when talking to people in the government, the reference name would be used when talking about it to the public, and even within our own community. The other day, I was chatting with a friend of mine, who is also in the disability community, about the DIA and he replied, “...What's the DIA?”. “You know, Disability Integration Act?” “Never heard of it.”

[photo of a man with a  confused look on his face] Given the obstacles that the community faces when trying to gain public empathy and solidarity in response to the attacks from the system, one of the last things we need is to be held back by a lack of accessible and easy to understand language / marketing.

This includes how we describe the details of the policies as well. Several times, when I’ve attempted to comprehend the details of a policy that directly impacts myself and/or my peoples, I've had to ask a dear friend in the disability community (who is a former policy analyst) to literally translate the details into layman's terms. Not only does this show that the language is not accessible, but it also begs the question, how many people won't even bother to ask? Now of course, the issue of disability and political isolation is a very complicated topic, and in no way am I suggesting that these two ideas are the solution to all that ails our community. It should also be noted that in no way is this intended to disparage the efforts of the disability activists who work incredibly hard for the liberation of our people. That said, using language that is easier to understand, that invokes some kind of emotion, beyond our immediate disability activist circle, is only a step in the right direction, and may even lessen the woes of political isolation. 

[Photo of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo in mid speech. source: The New York Post. ] TAKE ACTION!

If you think Governor Cuomo's massive cuts to a program that not only empowers disabled and/or elderly people to choose who enters their homes and takes care of them, but also creates over 100,000 jobs for the community, then tell Cuomo, in the name of disability and worker solidarity to leave the CDPA alone. #SaveCDPA Call him at 518-474-8390 and press 2 to talk to his assistant. If you are unable to make a phone call, you can send him a message via his website: https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form or reach him on twitter @NYGovCuomo

[curieminery96]

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[grimmseye]

After The Fact

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou

Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou, Fat Gum (Brief)

Other Tags: Set immediately after the current arc, Hurt Kirishima (Physical and Emotional), Bakugou Doesn’t Know How To Handle Emotions, Hurt/Comfort

(A note: You know, the adults in this world are incredibly irresponsible. Letting fifteen year old newbie heroes-in-training participate in this kind of rescue, resulting in at least one of them getting beaten within an inch of his life...)

Read on Ao3 here

— — — —

They come back late at night. 

Two days. They’d been gone for two days: Uraraka, Tsuyu, Deku. A couple of upper classmen, too. Aizawa-sensei. 

Kirishima. 

The class did not know the details beyond this: their classmates were helping the pro heroes. They would not be updated any further. It was a murmur of excitement, some jealousy — “Man,” Kaminari laments, “Kirishima’s been getting all the fame, huh?” So much for having a weak, style-less quirk. Kirishima didn’t need flashy: he was strong as hell on his own. 

So was, apparently, Deku. Enough that they, fucking freshmen heroes in training, were chosen to go on a mission with pros. That should have been Bakugou. The upperclassmen make sense. Aizawa, too, and hell he can even respect Uraraka and Kirishima and Tsuyu being there cause, yeah, they’re pretty damn good at what they do.

But Deku. 

He doesn’t know what to think about Deku any longer. There’s this knee-jerk disgust and need to snarl and bite and tear into him and reduce him to bloody shreds because how the fuck is Deku there but not Bakugou. 

But that’s not what matters right now. 

A quarter before one in the morning, Bakugou gets out of bed. He knows that the teachers are alerted when the doors open past curfew, but hell if he’s going to let that stop him. Those fuckers are back — he knows because he saw them clambering out of a truck together, and he can recognize Deku’s obnoxious fucking hair from a mile away. 

No one comes to stop him, anyway. They must be too damn busy giving a hero’s welcome to bother with some kid sneaking out late at night. Bakugou sneers. He’d going to find out what’s going on if he has to beat it out of Kirishima. The asshole had his lips sealed tight up until he fucked off for the last two days. Didn’t even say a god damn word. 

Outside, it’s cold. The air is still. He should have brought a jacket, but it’s too late now, so Bakugou trudges onwards in nothing but his shoes and pajamas towards the front of the school. There are voices, low, impossible to make out their words, but enough to tell him the majority of the faculty is up. Something big had happened. 

His eyes find Deku first. He looks somehow more pathetic than usual, small and beaten, though not physically. He’s sitting beside that piece of shit that decimated the entire freshman class: lemon million or some other bullshit name like that, Bakugou doesn’t really care. 

He drags his eyes away from Deku before he starts to feel sick. There are Uraraka and Tsuyu. The upperclassman that stuttered worse than Deku. Aizawa. 

Where was... 

He didn’t see him immediately, because Kirishima was bright and loud and colorful in Bakugou’s mind. It was hard to take that image of him and place it into what he was seeing. But, it was absolutely Kirishima. Hair down, and sitting in a wheelchair. A man Bakugou didn’t recognize was holding onto his chair, tall and twiggy. A build like All Might’s, but with actual muscle on his bones. 

His heart stuttered before Bakugou stormed forward. Uraraka was the first to notice him, gasping and going, “Hey—!”

“Not now,” he growled, clipping her with his shoulder as she tried to stop him. She didn’t really try, actually. She was smarter than to get in the way of Bakugou’s warpath. 

The teachers took notice of him next, a collective babble of his name and scolding and “What’s he doing?” “Someone get him out of here.” 

“It’s fine.” Aizawa’s weary voice broke out over them all. “He’s here for his friend, let him be.”

It was a sensation Bakugou had never felt towards a teacher. Something warm and pleasant, yet at the same time it left him feeling he couldn’t breathe. To be fair, gratitude wasn’t something he felt much at all. He’d stomp it down later.

“Hey,” he barked, catching the tall-skinny-muscled guy’s attention. His body looked weird, like there were gaps where there shouldn’t be. Stretch marks, too, visible even in the low light. Bakugou ignored him. “Shitty-hair.” 

Kirishima raised his head, lethargically slow. He looked a wreck: his skin was discolored, scratched and scuffed. There were faint lines that suggested Recovery Girl or someone with a similar quirk had already gotten to him. The fact that he was still in a fucking wheelchair didn’t spell anything good. “B-Bakugou?” He asked. Even his voice came out slow.

“Easy there, Riot.” The skinny fucker set a hand on his shoulder. He gave Bakugou a look that was as curious as critical. “He needs t’ rest, kid. You his friend?”

“I’m —” Bakugou grimaced, eyes flickering to Kirishima. “Yes, whatever. The fuck happened?”

Kirishima gave a shaky laugh. “I got my ass handed to me,” he said, a hint of shame in his voice that Bakugou despised. 

“What he means,” skinny fucker cut in, teeth stretching into a grin, “‘s that he saved my ass. Took a beating that was blowing right through my armor and lasted long enough to turn the tides.”

Kirishima mumbled, ducking his head in what Bakugou knew to be bashfulness. “That sounds more like it,” he snorted. “I’ll take the fucker. He needs to get to the med bay.”

“Right you are.” The man’s face shifted, regarding Bakugou with approval. “What’s yer name, kid?”

“Does it fucking matter?” He shouldered his way in to grab the handles of Kirishima’s wheelchair. “Bakugou.”

“Ooooh yer that kid. Shoulda guessed Riot would hang with the wild types.” The man gave a quiet, fond laugh. “I’m Fat Gum, by the way. I know it’s hard ta believe right now, but gimme a week ‘r two and I’ll be back at full health. An’ take care a’ Riot for me. I’ll be back to visit you as soon as I’m done with this mess, ‘kay, hero?” His voice softened, the last words directed at Kirishima.

He got a mumbled, “Mmmmkay,” before Bakugou decided he’d had enough with the sappy bullshit and wheeled him away. 

“So ‘m I being interrogated?” Kirishima yawned.

Bakugou looked down at him. When he passed the doors, the fluorescent lights filtering over them from above, he could really get a look at how beat up Kirishima was. His chest was a mottling of bruises. His arms were bandaged from the wrists up to the shoulders. It looked like all he’d received was a step above emergency first aid after the healing quirk took effect. “Later,” he grumbled at last. “You look too braindead to answer shit.”

“Sssounds good.” His head lolled, but he didn’t seem to be going to sleep. 

When they reached the med bay, Bakugou wheeled him right up to a bed. His first attempt to lift Kirishima left him gasping, recoiling from Bakugou’s touch. Bakugou jerked his hands away. “Fuck! Jesus christ, Shitty-Hair!”

“Sorry!” He breathed out, lowering his arms from the protective cross over his torso. “There’s just. A lot of damage.”

“God just fucking tell me before I — shit.” He clenched his jaw. “Does it not hurt anywhere?”

Kirishima thought on it for a moment. “Um. No?”

Perfect. 

“Okay, well I need to get you up in the fucking bed so just grit your goddamn teeth.” He didn’t know how to get someone into a bed without hurting him. That wasn’t his fucking job. Where the hell was Recovery Girl — had the idiots outside not thought to wake her up? 

It was an awkward sort of shuffling, but Bakugou managed to get one arm under Kirishima’s legs and the other beneath his arms. Kirishima hissed and whimpered and Bakugou’s stomach twisted but he got him into the bed. The instant he let go, Kirishima was curling in on himself, trembling.

“God, this is pathetic,” Kirishima groaned out, voice shaking. “Not manly at all.”

“Your entire body is bruised,” Bakugou snapped back. “Shut the fuck up, it’s going to hurt, don’t act like you’re supposed to be tougher than that or some bullshit.”

Kirishima blinked at him. His eyes were a bit glassy. “You’re, um. Giving me some mixed signals here."

Bakugou grumbled. He searched the area of the bed, looking for the — there. He jabbed the ‘Call Nurse’ button a couple dozen times and hoped it would get someone up off their incompetent ass. He was gonna track them down and blow them to kingdom come otherwise — after they gave Kirishima some painkillers. 

He set about thieving the pillows from other beds to shove beneath Kirishima’s head. Then pushed another bed right up against Kirishima’s and hopped in cause fuck if he was just gonna sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair while the doctors took their sweet ass time. 

“So you got beat to a fucking pulp,” Bakugou stated. 

Kirishima wilted. “Yeah. I wasn’t. I broke. I mean, my quirk did, it wasn’t strong enough. I had to keep layering on more and more just to withstand it all.”

He gave the redhead a furious look, snapping, “So? That sounds pretty fucking tenacious to me. ‘My skin fucking shattered so I just hardened the next layer so that could shatter too’ do you even fucking listen to yourself? Like anyone else would have the fucking guts to stay on their feet pulling that.” He crossed his arms. Kirishima was so incredibly fucking stupid. It was an insult to himself and to Bakugou for god’s sake.

“I guess that’s... another way of putting it.” Kirishima’s voice was soft. His fingers were clenching and unclenching. “I kept thinking of you, you know. About what you’ve said in the past, about my quirk, about what makes a hero strong.”

“In the middle of a fight?” 

Kirishima gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah. Like, I could hear your voice, telling me to push harder. I guess that sounds weird, doesn’t it. Hearing voices and stuff...” 

In, out. His fingers curled and released, trembling with the strain. Bakugou growled under his breath and snatched his hand. “Quit that,” he huffed. “It hurts, doesn’t it? And quit worrying about useless shit in general, like if you heard my voice telling you to get off your ass then congratu-fucking-lations. It worked, didn’t it?”

It was a little pleasing, too. Kirishima latching onto his words, remembering them in the middle of a fight. He at least had the intelligence to understand Bakugou’s words for what they meant. 

Kirishima’s hand was limp in his own. When Bakugou went to pull away, he made a quiet noise, fingers twitching until he stopped. 

Even his breaths were raspy. Whatever beating he’d taken was enough to crack his armor — who knew what it had broken underneath? 

“We were saving a little girl.”

Kirishima’s rasp trickled into the silence. Bakugou looked up at him again, but his eyes were distant. “Her dad was using her blood to make that quirk-elimination drug. He would force her to do it. And if she didn’t listen, he’d hurt her. It didn’t matter how far he went cause he can put bodies back together.” His jaw started to tremble. “Isn’t that disgusting? How could — how could a parent — how could anyone —” 

His voice broke. Bakugou didn’t know what to do. There were tears sliding down his face, hitching, aborted breaths in his chest. 

“You saved her, didn’t you?” Bakugou said more than asked. 

"We did.” Kirishima choked out the words. “But — but how —”

“That’s why you’re a god damn hero, isn’t it?” Bakugou held his hand the way one would a baby bird. A squeeze too tight and...

It was so strange to think of Kirishima as something delicate. But god, he was. His body, in this moment. But it was his heart more than anything, exposed no matter how tough his armor, always too ready to feel and to love and to hurt. He was going to destroy himself this way, but Bakugou didn’t know how to make him stop, so he just kept Kirishima’s hand in his own. Maybe it would keep him from crumbling into pieces. Maybe it would be enough. 

[sadrien]

fragile ones

on ao3

title taken from 10am gare du nord by keaton henson. i love his music so much its just so....open and raw? it felt fitting for a fic like this, it just really works for late nights and emotional talks idk

i started this fic back at the end of august on a bad night and there isnt much plot to it just...speculation i guess. a character study of alya? but in this au?? im not sure. theres not much to it at all and its a little all over, but it was a fic i felt like i had to write

enjoy

Alya wakes up with her heart in her throat and her hands tearing at her hair. She groans and rests her forehead on her knees.

If only he’d shut up.

She checks the time. It’s only three, because of course it’s unreasonable to ask for a full night’s sleep. She stays where she is for a little while longer, curled up in a ball and hugging a pillow, letting her heart rate level out and her head slow its spin. When she stops feeling like she’ll throw up if she moves, she slides out of bed and pads into the bathroom.

Alya avoids the floorboards that creak and is careful to close the door softly, but it doesn’t really matter. After a few months, her family got used to her getting up at strange hours and wandering around the house. Once she stopped screaming, it was easier for them to sleep through her nightmares.

She leaves the lights off and washes her face in the dark. She doesn’t want to have to adjust to bright lights right now. She twists her hair up into a messy bun. She’s up now. No point in going back.

Alya makes herself comfortable at her desk with her laptop. She scrolls through tumblr, drafting posts to post to the Ladyblog tumblr later. Usually she’d try to write or do something more productive, but she feels too raw and drained for anything more than mindless clicking right now.

She knows there are forums that she could go to, she’s the one that set them up. There are probably other people up reliving the worst day of their life right now. But she still hates talking about it.

It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that the entire world knows that she got upset and lost control.

But it’s worse than that. It’s worse because she remembers. They all do. They don’t talk about it, not to people who haven’t been akumatized. It’s almost better to pretend that they don’t. Because they didn’t. For a little while. At first there’s nothing and then it comes back in flashes and nightmares and terrifying thoughts.

There’s nothing like having someone else take control of you. Having someone take your most negative thoughts and make them some of your only thoughts. Until you’re barely yourself. All your principals? Gone. Morals? Gone. Desires? Other than revenge, gone.

Hawk Moth makes nothing but revenge and the miraculous important.

Thinking about it makes Alya feel lightheaded.

She remembers pausing Chloé. She remembers restraining Ladybug and locking Chat Noir in the freezer. She remembers teleporting through phones, her molecules turning to pixels and back, the feeling of her consciousness and body being nothing but code.

Alya pushes away from her desk to get her phone. She sends Nino a quick text. If he’s not up now, he’ll see it in the morning, and that’s what matters.

Alya considers herself lucky. She didn’t actually do that much damage as Lady WiFi. She’s heard horror stories from the other akuma victims. She doesn’t know if she could handle anything more than what she did.

She had tried to broadcast Ladybug’s secret identity to the entire world.

She wonders if people have noticed that she doesn’t push the issue so much anymore.

Alya has too much time to think now. Far too much. Sure, weird hours of the morning like this can be great if she’s actually working on something — she’s far too tired to care about quality so she can pump out way more words than she does during daylight hours — but they aren’t good for wandering around as an empty shell. It gives her too much time to think and regret. And regret and regret and regret.

It’s given her dark circles and tired eyes. If she wants to be positive, she’s now a master at makeup. It’s one of the few things she can bring herself to do at hours like this. Google makeup tips and figure out how to make herself look more alive and less traumatized. And she’s not the only one.

She’s seen Chloé caking on concealer in the bathroom. Sabrina follows Chloé’s lead. Juleka and Rose check each other’s makeup in the morning to make sure it looks somewhat natural. Nathanael has sunk in even more on himself, letting his hair grow even longer to cover his face. Kim makes up excuses for his dark bags that get more and more dramatic by the day while Max just says he was up playing video games. Alya taught Nino how to use basic concealer once at two thirty in the morning and Ivan’s glare is a little darker. Mylené’s cheerful personality acts as a heavy cover up.

Of all their classmates, only Lila is the one who seems to have taken akumatization with grace. Snarky grace that makes Alya want to punch her in the nose and see horror in her eyes for once.

It’s awful to think, especially since Alya is trying to control her emotions a lot more now and not let them flare up, but Lila makes it impossible. Especially after long nights with hard dreams and Hawk Moth’s voice echoing in her head. To see Lila almost completely unaffected is jarring and painful. And she seems to know that she’s alone in feeling the way she does, because she rubs it in their faces with an irritating amount of glee.

Nearly the entire class has been akumatized. Alya has seen the way Chloé glares at Lila. Kim has rolled his eyes while Alix snapped pencils and a haunted look crossed Nino’s face. One of these days, Lila will get what’s coming to her.

Alya likes to think that if Marinette knew, she would shut Lila down in less than a minute. It’s not that Alya can’t, she can and she will, but there’s something nice about your friend taking someone down for you. But Marinette doesn’t know. Because Marinette is one of the two people who hasn’t been akumatized.

Marinette and Adrien.

And they just make it…awkward. Because if they weren’t there, whenever the teacher is out of the room, the class would be able to talk about their experiences. But they can’t. It feels like they’re all tip-toeing around Marinette and Adrien. Like they’re children who can’t know the adults’ secrets yet. It feels almost trivializing.

But all Alya would get from them is sympathy. And she doesn’t want sympathy. She’s had enough from people who don’t think she remembers. She doesn’t want to know what sympathy would be like from people who know she remembers what she does. Who know that some very small part of her enjoyed it and relished in the power. She hates that part of herself. Almost as much as she hates lying.

Her phone starts vibrating in her hands and she answers it without even bothering to see who’s calling. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Nino mumbles sleepily. “You’re up?”

Alya pulls her knees up against her chest, spinning slowly in her desk chair. “Yeah.”

“WiFi?”

“Mhm.” Alya has decided that forums are good when she wants to discuss and dissect herself. She’s decided that Nino is better for early morning panic talks. She’s decided that Nino is just better in general. “You?”

He sighs. “Freaking bubbles.”

She rests her chin in her hand. “Anything new?”

“Not really ‘new’,” Nino says with a sigh. “Just…different.”

Alya hums in agreement. She can understand that. Sometimes the situation isn’t different, but the voice in her head is or the perspective is or the burning cold sensation in the pit of her stomach when she wakes up with a jolt. Sometimes it’s just Hawk Moth’s voice, haunting her and terrorizing her. “Are you headed back to bed?” she asks, desperate to hear Nino’s voice again. She’s already losing herself to Hawk Moth.

“Nah, not worth it. I’ve been listening to this one song over and over again and there’s something off about it and I can’t place it. I think I’m losing it.”

“How long have you been listening to it?”

“Maybe two hours.”

Alya smiles softly. “Turn it off, babe.”

“But—”

“I’ll listen to it in a few hours when you can play it for me,” she promises, “but you’re not going to find what’s wrong with it right now. What do you always tell me to do when I get stuck on an article?”

Nino sighs. “Take a break and step away.”

“Exactly.” Alya slows the chair’s spin. “It’s what I do with the physics homework too.”

He snorts. “You didn’t finish it, did you?”

“Do I ever?” she asks. “I need Adrien’s help. I’m completely lost on springs.”

“Simple harmonic motions,” Nino says dutifully.

“Please stop,” she groans, covering her eyes with her free hand.

“F = -kx,” he continues. “This is known as Hooke’s Law. The proportionality constant, k, is called the spring constant and tells us how strong the spring is. The greater the value of k, the stiffer and stronger the spring is. The minus sign in Hooke’s Law tells us, uh, that…the force is a restoring force.” He pauses for a long moment. “What’s a restoring force?”

“Done reciting our textbook to me?” Alya teases.

“Googling…” Nino says slowly, “‘what’s a restoring force’…”

She closes her eyes and listens to him hum softly ask he scrolls through the search results. If she’s being honest, she’d be perfectly fine listening to him reading their physics book for the rest of the night. Nino’s voice is soothing and calming, and she’s not afraid to admit that she’s a little bit in love with it. At least, not at this time of night.

“The force which is responsible to restore original size and shape is called restoring force.”

Alya laughs. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Neither did I.” She hears his textbook shut. “You’re right. We need Adrien.”

She glances to her window, looking out to the sleeping city. “Too bad it’s three forty-five in the morning,” she murmurs.

“Someone in our class needs to have a normal sleep schedule,” Nino says. “And we both know that it can’t be Marinette.”

“Do you ever want to tell them?” she whispers after a long pause. She can’t draw her eyes away from the streetlights she can see out her window, spots of light in the darkness of night. There’s probably something poetic in the quiet of the city, but Alya feels too drained for anything like that. Too many nights where she woke up with horrors screaming in her head.

“You know I do.”

Ivan hadn’t told anyone when he started to remember. Probably because it’s in his nature to say little. But then akuma victims had continued to stay quiet on their memories.

If Ivan had said something, everything would be different. If anyone had spoken up, if she had spoken up, everything would be different.

Alya doesn’t know if that’d be better or worse.

“You still with me, Al?” Nino asks when she’s been quiet for a few minutes longer than he’s used to. She’s fallen asleep on these late night calls and so has he. They tried video chatting once, but seeing someone else’s face made everything too real and raw. Most nights, all they can handle is each other’s voices.

Alya breathes slowly before she says anything else. “Yeah. Just…thinking, I guess.”  

“Anything you want to say out loud?”

She’s had far too many thoughts that are too scary to voice. Lots that have made her shrink back and shudder. “I don’t know,” she says. “They’re just… I don’t know, they’re there. Being…weird.”

“I feel that,” Nino says. “Sometimes I think stuff and I’m like whoa, slow down there brain. Chill out a little. We don’t want to be thinking that.”

Alya smiles and rests her chin on her knees. “I thought Chloé was going to punch Lila during the last akuma attack,” she admits.   

“Is it bad that I would pay to see that?” Nino asks. Alya snorts. “It’s not like I hate Lila, I mean she seems pretty cool and all, but she was just getting on my nerves with this whole thing. I don’t know if she brought up getting akumatized because she doesn’t realize how screwed up this was for the rest of us or because she likes making us uncomfortable.”

“Kind of tone deaf,” Alya murmurs. “She was nice enough during that group project, but it was really awkward.”

“Oh right,” Nino remembers. “You, her, and Adrien.”

“Mhm. It was…weird.”

“If you want weird, try me bonding with Chloé during that project. That was weird.”

“Oh?” Alya asks in surprise. This is the first she’s heard of this.

“Yeah she started ranting about something or another and I encouraged her because I wanted to procrastinate—”

“Of course.”

“Shut up, you haven’t finished your physics homework.”

“Okay true. Continue.”

“Anyway I was encouraging her rant and then she got on the topic of Marinette and then we started arguing because I couldn’t have that and then… I don’t know, we started talking about what we remember. And then we just kept talking. I mean the project didn’t get done at all but… Yeah it was weird. We bonded.”

“I would’ve thought it was over Adrien,” Alya admits.

Nino sighs. “I mean, Adrien totally came up. Several times. But like, in relation to the akuma stuff. ‘Cause Chloé was saying…that it was weird not telling him everything. And I kind of relate.”

Alya picks at the hem of her shirt. “I know what you mean,” she mutters. She constantly finds herself stopping herself from telling Marinette. Because Marinette— Marinette tells her everything and Alya isn’t able to return the favor and it’s awful.

“I hope they don’t get akumatized,” Nino says suddenly. “As rad as it would be to be able to talk to them about stuff like this, I don’t want this to happen to them. It sucks. It’s just… It’s awful and I don’t want either of them to have to go through it.”

There’s one traitorous part of Alya that has thought about Marinette and Adrien getting akumatized before and was glad because that was two less people she had to keep this from, two people she cares about very much. And she hates that part of herself. She’s pushed it far back into the dark corner of her mind with all of her memories. Because she wouldn’t wish this on anyone. “I don’t want them to either,” she whispers. “I’d keep this from them for the rest of time if it meant they could sleep through the night.”

“Ever consider taking sleeping pills?” Nino asks. “I know Chloé tried that.”

Alya shudders. “It made the nightmares worse.” More vivid, harder to break out of.

“Okay, let’s not do that again.”

She hears him yawn and suddenly feels incredibly guilty for keeping him up again. “Babe, if you want to go to bed—”

“I’m stopping you right there,” Nino interrupts. “I’m fine. Just out of it.”

She makes a distressed noise and puts a foot down on the ground to spin her chair in a fast circle.

“I’m kind of tired, but aren’t we all?”

“You should sleep.” She spins herself again and again, faster and faster until she knows she’ll fall over when she stands up. If she stands up.

“Hey, Al,” Nino says after a few more rotations, “is it cool if I put on some music? I promise I’ll try to sleep if you do too.”

Her foot hits the floor to stop the spin.

“Promise?” Alya asks, voice tight.

“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle that I’d probably have to steal from Mari in my eye.”

Alya forces a laugh and wobbles as she stands. She holds onto the edge of her desk as the room tips and spins violently. “I’ll try to sleep,” she promises. She plugs her phone into her charger and puts it on speaker.

“Night then,” Nino says. Soft, gentle music from a playlist Alya almost knows by heart floats through her phone.

“Goodnight,” she whispers back. She curls up on her bed and focuses on the music, letting it carry her away. It fights off Hawk Moth as she dreams, the carefully chosen notes drowning out his wicked grin and charming voice.

It’s only for a few hours, but Alya sleeps.

[njawaidofficial]

Natalie Portman’s New Sci-Fi Movie Is Going To Frustrate The Hell Out Of People

https://styleveryday.com/2018/02/26/natalie-portmans-new-sci-fi-movie-is-going-to-frustrate-the-hell-out-of-people/

Natalie Portman’s New Sci-Fi Movie Is Going To Frustrate The Hell Out Of People

Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, and a mutant gator in Annihilation.

Peter Mountain / Paramount Pictures

Annihilation is a movie so prepared to alienate audiences that it comes with its own built-in version of a dissatisfied viewer. His name is Lomax, he’s played by a gruff, hazmat-suited Benedict Wong, and he appears to work for the secret agency responsible for sending expeditions into Area X, a stretch of swampy wilderness that’s been taken over by a mysterious atmospheric phenomenon nicknamed “the Shimmer.” In the opening scene of the film, Lomax stands over the lone survivor of the latest expedition, a dazed biologist named Lena (Natalie Portman), and demands answers she doesn’t know how to provide — and that the movie doesn’t really care to.

He wants to know what happened to the other scientists, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny, who were part of Lena’s team. He wants to know what explanation they found for the Shimmer, which has claimed the lives of almost everyone else who ventured into it. He wants to know how Lena survived for the four months she was gone when she only had food to last two weeks.

Lena doesn’t remember eating at all when she was in Area X. Maybe she didn’t have to. It doesn’t seem all that important when compared to the rainbow fungi peppering the trees in Area X, like Seussian tumors, or the attacking alligator with rows of teeth like a shark, or the churning guts revealed in a vivisected stomach, spinning impossibly like a coiled snake trying to escape.

Thompson and Gina Rodriguez.

Peter Mountain / Paramount Pictures

The expedition, unfurling like an acid trip gradually going wrong, makes up the bulk of Annihilation. The result is less welcoming than you might expect, considering it’s the hotly anticipated second feature from Ex Machina director Alex Garland, adapted loosely (and with some controversy) from the 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer, with a cast full of interesting women and an Oscar winner in the lead role. Lomax is, effectively, Annihilation‘s on-screen acknowledgement of how frustrating the movie will be to viewers who expect explanations rather than allegory, and who are waiting on its dream logic to firm up into something more orderly.

The film periodically snaps back to that containment room, where Lomax looms over Lena, trying to make sense out of an account that refuses to be made sense of, assigning motivations and arriving at solutions that aren’t inadequate so much as beside the point. Lomax may be a character in the movie, but he’s also a misguided consumer of the story it tells, impatiently demanding to know why and what it all means. Anyone hoping to find out might realize that’s not going to happen around the time one character appears to turn into a plant, but if not, they can always stick around to see another transform into a floating space blob.

We’ve been trained to expect neatness, to log every detail in a story as indicative of some wiki-worthy overall mythology.

Annihilation is some heady nightmare fuel, but its most striking quality may be how little it has in common with the current trends in mainstream science fiction. The film is a throwback to a period when sci-fi was an oddball genre instead of a dominant and increasingly fan-driven one; it heavily references Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, and its surreal ending brings to mind Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 2018, deep into the era of the “cinematic universe” and series like Westworld, whose very structure begs to be diagrammed, Annihilation‘s hallucinatory haziness feels bracingly out of step with the direction expansive sci-fi has been taking. It plays like a response to the age of fan theories and puzzle box fiction, in which stories are set up to be pieced together, with every element eventually snapping into place. When something as mild as the nonrevelations regarding Rey’s parentage in Star Wars: The Last Jedi could turn out to be wildly divisive, the lyrical loose ends and relationship-driven interludes in Annihilation might as well be a raised middle finger.

At the very least, that ambiguity reminds viewers how narrow our relationship with the narratives we watch has become — how prone we are, as a viewing public, to assume our demands will be met. We’ve been trained to expect neatness, to log every detail in a story as indicative of some wiki-worthy overall mythology, or as some clue to what’s next. Annihilation tips its hat to the fact that audiences today are less inclined to have patience for brain-melting metaphors and psychedelia, but it doesn’t cater to those more literal tendencies. It even seems, at times, to be actively at odds with them. Garland has noted in interviews that he’s not concerned about audiences keeping up with how much of the information in his film has to be inferred, saying that “the key thing would be about strangeness.”

There really isn’t much room for ambiguity in the multiplexes, and, tellingly, there’s not much room for Annihilation in them, either — Paramount, the studio that produced the film, lost faith in the resulting weirdness of the finished project and sold off most of the international rights to Netflix (which has been making itself a home for sci-fi studio discards recently). But the beautifully disturbing visuals of Annihilation are made for the big screen: verdant mutant landscapes and prismatic light, the days seeming to skip right to late afternoon, the sun hanging low in the sky.

Peter Mountain / Paramount Pictures

Something is extremely off inside Area X, something that seems to radiate from the lighthouse that is the explorers’ ultimate destination, causing their bodies and minds to start fragmenting, making them lose time and lose their way. But as they come across troubling traces of expeditions that have come before, including the one from which Lena’s husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), returned sick and changed, the question of what’s in the lighthouse starts to seem less pressing than the question of why people keep signing up for a journey there’s so little chance of surviving.

The most radical choice of all in Annihilation isn’t everything it leaves unsolved, but the way it reveals itself to be a movie more invested in personal impulses than possible extraterrestrial invasions. It wants to examine the kind of people who’d willingly walk into oblivion, to hold them up to the splintering light — people who, as Novotny’s character Cass puts it, are by nature a little broken. One of the explorers is solitary and dying, another a recovering addict in search of a replacement high. A third is a soft-spoken embodiment of depression, and the fourth, Cass, is a mother who lost a child.

That last bit of backstory is becoming something perilously close to a genre cliche, also figuring in different ways into the backgrounds of the heroines of Gravity, Arrival, and, more recently, The Cloverfield Paradox. Maternal grief has become a shorthand for filling out a female character and giving her something personal to reckon with. But that’s not the case for Cass, who doesn’t relinquish the pain from the loss of her child, or process it, or triumph over it. Instead, she describes it as a kind of personal death, something she’ll never really get over. She may still be around, but the person she used to be is gone forever.

The real enigma isn’t the glimmering, matter-warping nature of Area X — it’s the darkest part of the human heart.

The person Kane used to be is gone, too, when he returns from his yearlong expedition into Area X acting nothing like the man we glimpse in Lena’s flashbacks. The more we get to see of their marriage, the more that relationship, and not the lighthouse, seems key to the movie. We gradually gain a better understanding of the emotions that drove Lena into Area X, a morass of guilt and love and determination as deep as any anomalous swamp. She’s not a character the movie bothers to make you like, but she’s the lens through which it considers something bitterly complicated — those inexplicable whims people can have to destroy things dear to them, or to try to destroy themselves. She is, like her fellow travelers, a fractured thing, but unlike them, she needs to come back from the strange beyond.

She does, of course. The opening scene makes it clear that Lena survives, though not what it might have cost her. The real enigma isn’t the glimmering, matter-warping nature of Area X, despite how intoxicating it looks on screen — it’s the darkest part of the human heart, that desire to break ourselves open, even if it’s just a little bit, in rebellion against our animal instincts toward self-preservation. As Lena recounts what happened to her, she repeats sentiments that are blockbuster taboos — that she doesn’t know, that she can’t explain the Shimmer or what it was after — statements that are bound to exasperate the Lomaxes in the audiences as much as the Lomax in the movie. But to give too much emphasis to those unanswered questions is to treat Annihilation like it’s a different sort of movie, one that’s trying to gratify rather than unsettle. There’s something to be gained from letting the mystery be, surrendering to the experience of the film, and to the reminder that in real life, there’s so much we never get to know. ●

The Shimmer.

Paramount Pictures