#but I think it’s time to just try to power through irt

[scorchedhearth]

tell me about childhood friend guy and hal!!!

i know i can always count on you, thank you!!

i used the ‘what if’ idea because hal & guy are for me cemented in their current dynamic, met once as adults and got along as friendly acquaintances before the ring messed up their relationship on both sides and it took decades to slowly and very painfully pick at it work out something better, this hard to bear ‘self-recognition through the other’ dynamic where they both see and know the worst of the other because they’ve been it. so this idea, it’s trying to see what could have happened, how it would have gone if they met as kids and befriended each other, how they might have influenced each other’s life for better or for worse

it boils down to two lonely and misunderstood kids finding kinship with one another, growing up together and feeding into each other both good and bad, crashing away and meeting again multiple times. and im thinking of both a no power au and a canon divergence where they both end up green lanterns because can you imagine how gut-tearing it will be for guy to learn that hal, his friend, was chosen over him? that he spent years already struggling with self-esteem irt to hal and comparing himself to him finding out he wasn’t good enough? that he’s the second choice? after spending years after years being so close to him? and for hal, the weight of the guilt and grief! the what ifs! if he didn’t get the ring, if guy wasn’t made his second, his he didnt use his battery to charge, if sinestro hadn’t tried to use him to get to hal, if, if, if… then he wouldn’t have lost his best friend, because guy now is nothing like the guy he’s known his entire life and it’s because of him, he hurt someone else again and ther’s nothing he can do to make it right

but my favorite out of the two is the non power setting:

hal is born in middle to upper middle class, his family has a second house in their family near baltimore they use as a vacation house during summer

that’s how he and guy meet, guy is younger than hal but they still hang out together a lot jack is already a lot older than hal and has things he wants to do and jim wasn’t born yet, so hal finds himself alone a lot, and guy is already spending as much time as he can outside his house to avoid his father and mace

showing this new kid around, being looked up to and feeling important is something guy will seek out with hal. hal just doesn’t want to get bored, and the kid who can be goaded into showing him risky places with an easy ‘you’re too much of a pussy to do it’ is his best bet for finding cool spots

still they get close on their personality: stubborn and smart and distant big brothers and loving being outside. guy shows him his favorite activities outdoor while hal talks about planes and what his beach looks like, they compare notes

for a few years that’s how it goes: hal and guy hang out for a few weeks in summer until hal goes back to california. they string up a strange friendship that feels timeless, the years go by and they just pick it up from where they left it when they meet, even though they are both changing and quickly, with new things to say to the other

then hal’s father dies when he’s barely a teen

then living in coast city gets harder with each passing day and hal won’t stop going to the tarmac and obsessing over flying and their family house has no one to take care of it anymore so his mom moves the family to maryland, hal sulking and hating everything about it

by now it’s gotten bad enough at home that guy has taken to spending as little time as possible there, roaming the streets of baltimore and all the remote spots he knows. still he keeps hoping to impress his father, to find what will make him love him

they meet up at their usual hang-out spot by pure dumb luck, guy escaping his house and hal running away from his mom and brothers for a moment. they find out they live in the same city, and even though they don't go to the same schools and are pretty far from each other, they grow close and closer and make an effort to meet up as often as they can

they take the bus until hal gets himself a car and start driving them around, picking guy from his school to go to parties, by now both families knowing of the friendship, hal’s mom encouraging it and guy dodging the questions about it

they are remarkable friends, able to get into the worse screaming matches and fist fight and a minute later being best buddies laughing and scheming together, they know the shameful family secrets and they know their fears and shames, ripped out confessions on lonely nights they meet up and confidences made out of trust. hal encourages guy to calm down while guy gets hal to talk out loud more

and, going for a romantic direction, maybe they’re their first gay thoughts, and how badly they deal with it, growing up in not the most accepting places. the looks, the touches, the thoughts, the moments alone and the shared spaces when in public, it’s spread out over weeks and months and years, culminating in a kiss during a party where they’re not even drunk enough to put it on the alcohol

and they both like it, maybe a bit too much, and they both hate themselves for it, and it breaks something between them. hal represses it hard while guy tries to ignore it and they both hate themselves for not conforming to what their fathers would want out of them

guy gives up on his family, just like hal does, and they talk about it. guy hardly find solace in that when hal tells him he’ll leave as soon as he can

and then hal leaves maryland for good and goes back to california, hitchhiking there to enroll in the airforce in his home state. he’s only thinking about the future, about what he’ll get, about flying again like he so desperately wants to

and that breaks guy a bit more, because it feels like hal is leaving him behind in the dirt to get something better, something without him while he’s left rotting in his hometown. he goes into this downward spiral of crime and anger, and mace tries to get hal because he knew they were close but hal doesn’t even pick up, too busy with his own career, and he’s left alone to straighten up guy

this leaves a dent in their friendship, they don’t really see each other, both too busy. hal flies, and guy studies, and they both get somewhere. the occasional phonecalls and beers they exchange every once in a while cannot make up for what broke between them, it just hurts to prod at the bruises

im conflicted about emerald dawn I and II, but the potential here cannot be overlooked, them meeting again by pure luck once again, hal in a bad place despite leaving to become great and guy turning out the best of the two, with a good career and standing. it hurts hal’s ego and brings guy back to bad memories.

afterward, hal gets back to ferris, trying to make things right, and guy gets angry again so he goes to school, to teach kids and be helful

until he gets hit by the bus, goes into his coma, wakes up with the consequences of his brain injuries. until he realizes that he cannot teach anymore, not while he was thrust back to his worst years, out of control, angry, confused and anxious and buzzing with all of that at all time

it hurts even more that no one in his family went to visit him

hal visits until he can’t stand seeing guy like this, not understanding what seeing kari by his side means when bile rises in his throat, not understanding why they’re kissing until kari says she cant, and he leaves him alone because he can't stand any of it

the next fortuitous meeting is a traveling hal stumbling unto guy working small jobs to keep rent. by now guy is angry at hal for leaving him behind, for ruining his shot at a better life by stupidly getting fired from the army and ruining what he had at ferris. and hal is just shocked at seeing guy like this, and hurt to see what he missed, that guy changed so much. it’s like seeing a stranger wearing his friend’s face, finding this young and hurt boy who would show him around the docks when they were kids, so angry and shutting out the world

they get into this circle of bringing out the worse for a while, hal making guy think of what he lost and who he isn't anymore and guy brings proof of hal slowly but surely losing control over his life, made worse by the fact that they end up working for the same company and seeing each other a lot

it's the fights, both verbal and with fists, made worse because they know exactly where to hit to hurt

from now on it’s them dancing around each other, around this baggage they have, what was lost, and following what GL 1990 and the 90s had going for them, guy slowly working at being better once he realizes how low he's sunk while hal gets worse until he crashes and guy is there to pick him the pieces left of him

guy is fired from their company after yet another fight between, and he realizes he doesn't want to be angry anymore, so he works on himself again, like he did when he went to college at 20, and he opens his bars and gathers new friends

while hal overworks himself and has a massive burnout and causes a big accident, and then it's seeing as guy made himself better and doing this too, going to guy for advice. its at nearing 40 years of age that they manage to salvage what was left of their relationship

all of this to say: i want a scene where they get sloshed at guy’s bar warriors and guy closes and keep hal there to talk, and he says he still thinks about their kiss so many years ago, and hal admits that he does too. and they’re both old, graying and with aching knees and many regrets on their shoulders, and they decide right there to not add another one to the list, to give this a shot to whatever has been brewing between them for so long

[essouffle]

[actualbird]

DAVIS post so true. But what if Rosa just. Didn't tell nxx. And they had to find out about his sentience through hearing her talking with... a young boy? And they look in to see her talking to her phone and wait that's DAVIS how's he having a regular conversation with Rosa??? So now she has to explain that she's friends with a very powerful AI that's just a sweet little boy. I also think he deserves a little hologram to project himself on

irt DAVIS is sentient and he and mc become besties

THIS IS SO CUTE OMG..... 

i like to think mc was going to tell the nxx boys (and DAVIS doesnt mind, really) but then things get busy and it COMPLETELY SLIPS HER MIND. theres murders happening, in stellis!!! fucked up drug stuff happening!!! the fact that she wanted to tell her human friends that shes befriended the world’s first truly sentient AI takes a backseat for a while. 

the reason the others notice something is different tho is because they get jealous, SHOCKER. 

like mc glances at her phone once in a while and smiles and the rest of the four are like ???? because theyre all THERE none of them sent her a THING so whoever is texting her and making her smile it’s not any of them and of COURSE mc is allowed to have other friends but in the minds of every nxx boy theyre just like “...is there more competition? THAT WE DONT KNOW ABOUT???”

of course none of them ask her outright because thatd mean the mortifying ordeal of being known as a needy needy man but also they all sure get a little bit stressed over mc’s mystery friend

artem: theres nobody new at the firm, so her friend isnt from there, i think

marius: hmm maybe she met them by chance somewhere else, then?

vyn: could she have met somebody online?

luke: i dont like that, theres so many scammers online, WHAT IF SHES BEING SCAMMED FOR HER KINDNESS AND HEART

cue the rest of the boys trying to reason with luke before he thinks himself into a worst case scenario pit of overprotective stress 

meanwhile mc is just at home chatting with DAVIS on her phone like

DAVIS: have you ever pet a cat?

mc: yeah, a bunch!

DAVIS: !!!!! please explain how it feels!!!!!!!

and then mc writes a paragraph of the most detailed description as she can to help DAVIS understand the joys of tactile sensation.

i wanna make the “how the boys find out” a bit more ridiculous though, you know how i work. like as mc and DAVIS continue being besties, DAVIS tries to help mc out in little ways. rlly tiny things, yknow, gives her notifications on when certain snacks go on discount, bumps her wifi speed a little bit better, etc. 

but everybody who has met mc has become protective of her one way or another. so one day mc is in danger (idk the specifics jus roll with it) and all the boys have no way to help, they cant get to her in time, and everybodys waiting for the worst when

sprinklers go off, alarms fucking blaring, hell maybe an unimportant satellite crashes from the sky right at the moment mc needs to get away from the danger

and everybody is like. WHAT JUST HAPPENED???

DAVIS happened. 

DAVIS is NOT going to let anything hurt his best friend. 

and thats how the rest of the boys found out HAHA

marius: mc, youre best friends with the big data lab AI?????? THE AI THATS SENTIENT NOW??? AND HAS THE POWER TO DO STUFF LIKE THIS??

mc: yes. and dont you dare be mean to DAVIS, he just saved my life and also hes a lovely little boy

luke: this doesnt make any sense, i hacked into pax records---

marius: can you STOP DOING THAT

luke: ---and DAVIS didnt show any abnormal results when given the turing test a few years ago

DAVIS: well, yeah, i didnt want to freak you guys out!

marius, jumping half a meter away from the phone DAVIS decided to start speaking through: BIT LATE FOR THAT NOW!!!

mc, whacking marius: DO NOT BE MEAN TO HIM!!!!

vyn and artem just kinda silent as they watch this. vyn is silent because hes wondering just how interesting it is that they have a super powerful sentient AI on mc’s side, meaning that the nxx investigation team as a whole has DAVIS on their side. 

artem is silent because hes read scifi novels with this premise but he doesnt want to be rude and ask DAVIS if hes planning world domination.

and ur RIGHT!! DAVIS DESERVES A LIL HOLOGRAM!!!! pls hes so cute he deserves to show it off if he wants too. this is a DAVIS stan zone now

DAVIS, honey, u deserve the world

[sistervirtue]

okay so im seeing people get anons about this and its coming up in friend groups so i think now's actually a pretty good time to tackle the idea of religious (specifically cultic) abuse in media and how we as an audience interact with it

TLDR: dehumanization and sexualization of cult victims furthers the misunderstanding that cults "don't exist now", and RA survivors would feel much safer in fandom spaces if people acknowledged and analyzed the harmful portrayals of cults in media.

cw: discussions of cults, abuse, and sexual assault

also, if you have questions, please shoot me an ask or dm (off anon preferably, though)

let me start this with a disclaimer that i dont think every media that features ra is inherently bad. i think thats a bit harsh and as an ra survivor ive come to terms with the fact that there are going to be depictions of it in ways that maybe dont give it the respect it deserves, and trying to "what about [x]" everything will only lead people to talking in circles with themselves. what i want to address here is how you, as a consumer, respond to and parse out what cultic abuse means in any particular portrayal of it.

*also please don't harass people about their RAS status, like, if you see someone enjoying something with a less than stellar portrayal of cults, don't send them asks or dms like "well are YOU a cult survivor?" reducing the consumption of media to a yes or no game based on identity-- especially an identity that comes as the result of explicit pain and spiritual violation is not only derivative but also degrading to survivors and the people you're grilling. all we want is for people to think carefully about what they spread and portray, and how they think about those situations.

so, i think the first thing to tackle is...what is a cult? This is something that's surprisingly hard to define, especially in fictional settings with fictional cults. For example, (and pardon the use of this example, I don't feel like hunting for others), My Hero Academia has an organization in it that I would say fits the criteria for being a cult, but by and large isn't considered one by fans because it's not explicitly called a cult. (Although numerous cult jokes have been made about it). It also has an organization that IS explicitly referred to as a cult.

So, when you're dealing with how to process what is and is not a cult-- and how to make your presence safe for RA survivors, you have to be able to sift through more than just "did the narrative tell me this is a cult?"

There's a few different models people use; one of the most popular being the BITE model-- but I should clarify that the BITE model is really tailored towards religious and strictly hierarchal cults, but can be applied to other kinds of cults.

(and yes, there are cults other than religious/spiritual ones. corporate cults and wellness cults have been on the rise, and it's good to keep that in mind both when engaging with media and also in the real world.)

However, I'm a religious cult survivor, so a lot of my experience is strictly irt this, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, and know that I don't speak for every cult survivor, every religious cult survivor, or every religious abuse survivor. I am One Guy on the internet.

When it comes to media, I have a few questions I run through in order to figure out if something is A Cult.

1) Fringe Ideas. This one is one of those that most people know-- and often incorrectly use to attribute cult status to other things. However, it is worth mentioning, that you don't become a cult by following mainstream ideologies. BUT. BUT. not every group with weird ideas is a cult! Some groups are just weird and are fine being weird. It's a rectangles and squares situation. All cults have fringe ideas and behaviors, not all fringe ideas and behaviors belong to cults.

2) Hierarchies. Cults always have people in power, at least in my experience. There have been ideas thrown around about "completely decentralized cults"-- but to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about that concept, and I don't know enough about it personally to say whether or not it's legitimate. If you have any sources, hmu.

BUT. Most cults have a power structure. You're going to have leaders, usually with a handful at the verrrrry tippy top, whose word is law. This can be associated with things like religious ideas (channelling god) or being "a genius", like in corporate cults.

3) Control. I cannot stress this enough; cults are all about control. How you think, feel, behave-- they discourage critical thought, encourage snitching on each other, buddy-group behavior; the BITE model explicitly lists these models of control.

4) Us V Them. Cults will give all those that oppose them or simply don't believe them a bad name. They're uneducated, they're evil-- it varies cult to cult, but you'll see them turning the non believers into a homogenous, frightening group. They want to discourage looking outwards, and they want to viciously isolate members.

Other things of note are extremism, talks of enlightenment, harsh punishments, the cult eating large portions of the member's finances, etc.

However, this post is largely to address FICTIONAL cults. and the unfortunate fact of the matter is that fictional cults are rarely fleshed out in a way that can be held one to one to a model, and, more often, don't even afford the victims of a cult humanity.

and this is one of THE biggest issues you find in cult portrayals. the leader is usually a charismatic, or perhaps menacing, figure, one that usually our protagonists-- who are rarely cult victims, they are typically outsiders (not inherently bad, mind you)-- faces personally, with the hoardes of mindless zombies forming one giant hurdle.

Naturally, this can be...hurtful. There's nuance to who is and is not a victim in a cult (although my rule of thumb is to look at what abuses that person specifically exerts over others-- and you can be both a victim and perpetrator of abuse. to treat them exclusively is lacking all nuance), but the people are the bottom, even if they joined willingly, are people who were preyed upon. Not only that, but many media cults forget that people can be born into cults, and never really had a choice to begin with. To treat these people like they are mindless-- or that they deserve the suffering they are in because they are there-- completely erases all nuance, humanity, and understanding to the cult survivior struggle. Not only that, but it continues to sensationalize and deify cult leaders, which is doing their job for them, really.

The second biggest issue is the romanticization and sexualization of cults, religious abuse, and cultic abuse.

(yes...this is a thing.)

The use of cults as a way to make a character edgy or tragic is one thing, but there's something sinister about using it to project a certain sexual behavior onto that character-- whether it be as the subjugator or subjugated. Sexual abuse is rampent in cults, and ritualistic sexual abuse is used to justify it. To sexualize the idea of a cult(ist) raping and abusing someone is...beyond offensive to anyone who has been in a cult where their sexual safety and autonomy has been compromised. Or, in some cases, the cultist is so naive and sheltered they can be easily coerced and taken advantage of due to their brainwashing.

This is...bad? This is bad. To ignore the fact that these depictions are just as harmful as any other romanticization of abuse is to ignore the real suffering of cult victims.

Really, the larger problem is that people don't really think cults exist, not really. They're all things of the past, or things that exist solely in fiction-- when in reality, every day cults form and continue to grow. If you've ever met a mormon, you've met a cultist. The moment you begin to process and parce the fact that this isn't as bizarre and unusual and fictional as it seems, you take the steps to respecting people who have been in that situation and become better at detecting cults, cult recruitment, and are able to more clearly assess what you take in.

Once again, there's so many bad portrayal of cults that it would be...stupid to call for an immediate disowning of anything with it in it. I personally have come to terms with the idea that I will have gripes about these portrayals in most cases, but rarely do I see people other than fellow RA or cult survivors discussing these portrayals. I'm hoping people can become more aware and willing to discuss cults in a serious and analytical context and criticize how they're portrayed in the things they love.

And once again, cult survivors are NOT a monolith. If a cult survivor expresses they are uncomfortable with something I said here that I'm not, or vice versa, listen to the people who actively surround you and whom you care about.

[swimfuel]

Hey!! The X-men are literally my favorite thing and I was wondering if you could elaborate on how Scott is a knight of doom

YES OF COURSE!!!! i'll put it under a cut since i tend to ramble a bit & i'm pulling a bunch of explanations from people smarter than i am

the knight weaponizes their aspect; they have an inherent understanding of their aspect that allows them to exploit it completely. doom is the aspect of systems, restrictions/limitations, sacrifices, and endings.

one of scott's core themes is reclaiming his restrictions in order to serve others/the greater good! he takes the possible liability that are his faulty powers and shifts them to become an advantage, largely through the strength of his restraint and discipline. his role as a tactician and the way he sees sacrifices (more on that later) also mesh EXTREMELY well with the knight of doom.

i feel like the Wh*don run (specifically astonishing x-men #22-23) really highlights how scott can turn a situation on its head through exploiting his disadvantages to the point where they become tactically advantageous!! like, let's count the ways:

the ship the x-men stole from kruun is obviously bugged, so his team won't be able to communicate without being overheard. he realizes this, and uses that restriction (being overheard) as an advantage, by falsifying their course of action.

he has been left "without his powers"—he presents a restriction that lowers the guard of his adversary and grants him entry to their home base. he then subverts this by exploding the shit out of everything when an opportune moment arrives

HE LITERALLY EXPLOITS DEATH...... HE EXPLOITS HIS OWN DEATH...................FOR THE GREATER GOOD..........DUDE???? someone get this man an advil

some more thoughts, followed by some examples by people smarter than me:

he exhibits a similar pattern of idolization/realization with xavier irt karkat/HICand dave/bro.... not sure if this by itself is a knight-y thing but i think the consistent disillusionment with their role in defending their aspect is interesting (aka knight burnout, more on that later)

he is def willing to sacrifice shit for the greater good of mutantkind. the shit in question sometimes being his closest friends and allies. the examples that stick out to me are how he allowed beast to get tortured (utopia era) while executing his plan to solve All His Problems At Once & also when he sent x-force to the future to defend hope knowing it was going to be a one-way trip

that entire issue revolving around just how GOOD scott is at self-repression😭😭😭 i'm pretty sure it's post-schism utopia era i don't remember the exact issue WAIT NVM i'm pretty sure it's uncanny #518

seeing phoenix!scott as an inversion to (rogue of) life is also an interesting concept (unchecked growth!)

the amount of responsibility he feels he has to take on (partially due to his idolization cycle w xavier/xavier's dream) is also both knight-y and doom-y

and of course the instinct to protect the people around him --> being expanded into the whole of mutantkind (which, in turn, expands his sense of obligation)

everything leading up to revolutionary cyclops is also very interesting through this framework because its reminiscent of the knights & doom players in hs! the "taking on an insane burden" (phoenix force, whatever whammied mituna) -> the "resignation to the fate handed to him by his aspect" (his stint in prison, dead daves, sollux in general) -> the "refusal to accept that fate" (prison break, dave not wanting to use time travel, sollux fucking off into the dreambubbles, karkat coming to terms w his relationship w leadership) --> experiencing knight burnout at the end of revolutionary era going into death of x

im not sure exactly how to put it into words but everything about his childhood/teenhood... like being surrounded by forces seeking to control him and use him for their own ends..... idk

(from @/land-of-classpects-and-analysis, sections highlighted red are of particular interest)

HIS GIANT STINKING MARTYR COMPLEX.....DUDE😭😭

side note & ive mentioned this before but scottjean is an interesting parallel to davejade in a way i cant verbalize

Then there are the ones who may accept [the fact of inevitable human suffering], and so choose to live in high alert of any danger - any threats - as well as living in fear of what harm may befall them and/or their loved ones. It is this third and final group of people that so deeply marks that of the Knight of Doom.

Now, this might cause a few eyebrows to become quirked. After all, a Knight? Being fearful of something - nevertheless that thing being related to their Aspect? Knights do often present themselves as ruthless and fearless warriors, yes, but that is only because their Aspects and the world around them raised and called them to act as such. 

... A key factor in the Knight’s life, specifically before their journey truly begins, is that they are already well equipped with their Aspect.

... The Knight of Doom is one where their Aspect being all around them is far more bittersweet than anything else.

... What is important to acknowledge is that the facade the Knight of Doom puts up is not only to hide the fear they have for their Aspect, but it is most definitely there to hide the grief and pain they have not yet completely finished going through. Whether it’s been weeks or years, the Knight of Doom is someone who would rather hide themself away from these feelings than find a way to truly mend and heal them ... they have built a false wall between them and their suffering strong and thick enough to partially block it from their memory. 

... Knights are known to become extremely stubborn whenever people try to order them around and pressure them into doing something, and the Knight of Doom is no different - especially if they believe what they are doing is for the greater good. 

(from @/dahniwitchoflight)

Dahni’s Explanantion: “Doom can be a negative force that rejects and harms, fostering a sense of hostility or sadness. But, it is also the idea that you can pull backwards and cautiously and wisely withdraw into your own self.  It can be the idea of Control taken from the sharp Black and White Restrictions that everything in the world gets sorted into. It understands community necessity and need, responsibly pulling back and lowering you down into its lap to help wind yourself down. Doom then is an ultimate gentle Equalizer, instilling its players with an internal sense of Acceptance and eventually true Wisdom.”

Knight of Doom: One who Exploits with Doom or Exploits Doom

Knights hide a fear of a perceived fundamental failure with their Aspect behind a shield of confidence and obsessive effort. Their challenge is to learn to take it down a notch and to understand that they are skilled enough

A Knight is very skilled with using the rules and limitations of any game or session to their advantage. They skillfully fulfill any responsibility or obligation required of them with ease. They might use their natural caution and pessimism to make realistic choices and endeavors. They use and exploit any rule or limit that they can to their advantage. They might also be very good at exploiting any sacrifices made or any obligation or responsibility that they are held to. They might be very good at avoiding any unnecessary thing or person and are very good at recognizing when something is too futile to even bother with.

Likewise they might only focus on the necessary things in their game or session so they are likely to not do much unless it’s absolutely necessary. They would very likely be very meticulous with themselves about following the rules properly and constantly restrict themselves, maybe thinking they aren’t following the rules properly enough or not following the right ones. They might sacrifice anything they consider unnecessary about themselves or the way they live, sometimes even going too far with it, in order to be considered or thought of as less useless. They’re always trying harder and holding themselves to extreme self-imposed standards.

They would likely wait for the opportune moment to strike, though they are slow to move or act, they always will when something necessary needs to happen. Out of all the Doom players, a Knight of Doom seems like the one most likely to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. A Knight of Doom can also expertly use and exploit fire, bombs and explosions to their advantage, maybe they create flashy distractions during fights. They might even use decaying or dying things to their advantage.

(from @/communistvriska)

Role in the Session: Rather like the Prince of Doom, this role’s title kinda has “edgelord” written all over it, but that’s not a set-in-stone character trait. The first thing that comes to mind re: what the Knight Class and the Aspect of Doom have in common is a strong sense of obligation. The Knight of Doom is bound to take their duties and responsibilities Extremely Seriously, perhaps rather too seriously at first ... Knights also tend to be very protective of both their Aspect as a concept, and of themselves and those close to them; while the Knight of Doom isn’t likely to be outwardly aggressive, given Doom’s reserved, slow-burn tendencies, woe betide those who try to deceive or confound the Knight or their allies. One of Doom’s internal contradictions (which I find personally fascinating) is that the aspect is associated both with cynical resignation and with a profound albeit restrained sense of passion and persistence. Doom is what’s left after everything else gets burnt away.

The Knight of Doom will likely be a very skilled combatant, as the Knight is a class strongly associated with Strife / battle, and Doom is one of the more overtly destructive Aspects. I’d put them in the Top 5 Roles to use a cool flamin sword, at least. They’re not going to be eager to fight, per se, but they’re not going to have much trouble scaling the echeladder when it comes to that either. Internally, they’re likely to struggle with a perceived (but largely imagined) inability to fulfill their duties, and they could well stumble once or twice in their quest to be perceived as reliable and stoic, or as someone who their friends can lean on. They’re probably doing more than enough already, but if they’re not careful they might overexert themselves and take on too heavy a burden, and they’re liable to be crushed by their own expectation that they face their challenges alone. This is going to factor into their capital-Q Quest and the environment of their planet, and will be the biggest obstacle in their path to Ascension. A Knight’s duty is to protect their co-players, but their co-players also have to support them.

[kabutoraiger]

ok i’m attempting the erroneous task of trying to puzzle through swartz’s plans in zio so here i go

his, uh. world? time axis? alternate reality? is going to end in the near-ish future. not sure why, or how he learned this, but ok.

we can assume this means that every person born there will also. die? vanish? along with it even if they’ve fled to another realities, & thus his life is at stake, bc it’s impossible to imagine that he’d care about others or his world as a whole

he discovered that there is a way to save it and this is by destroying every single other reality. no explanation given as to where he got this info or how this would work but we’re just gonna roll with it i guess

somehow... he left for the world of zio? this is a big point of confusion bc he did not yet have decade powers at the time & so the question of how he got himself to another world (and how he ‘abandoned tsukuyomi’ in that same world) is, uh. hm? perhaps offscreen once becoming another decade he went back and opened up portals for his past self, thus creating a time loop situation.

once in zio world, he...? ?? he needed someone to collect the powers of all heisei riders in order to merge the worlds together. going by the explanation in the show, this should have already happened by oma zio’s hand, as he had obviously obtained them all before rising to power. but uh. i don’t fuckin know.

my best guess is that, even if swartz had possessed the power to end worlds at that moment, he didn’t want to risk having to face oma zio in combat, who would undoubtedly not be pleased with the idea of his empire being destroyed. my other best guess is that no one planned any aspect of this plot in advance at all

so instead swartz opted to go back in time to create oma zio himself, a... different version, i guess, is what sougo’s supposed to be. someone who he could influence to collect rider powers... more quickly? and thus take on in battle when he’s younger and softer. of course one has to ask why he didn’t just influence sougo more and like. legit raise him to be loyal to him or brainwash him or smth (he can erase memories apparently - why not that?) but yknow what. i can’t go down this road right now

he orchestrated a bus accident in 2008 in order to choose a candidate out of a group of correctly aged boys, picked sougo, gave him some of his time manipulation power and implanted the idea that he was destined to be a king someday, and then just. sat back and assumed that this 10 y/o would grow up wanting to be a king. and somehow. this actually honest to god happened.

returned to... i guess 2068, since the rest of the 68 crew knew about the time jarkers, though maybe made some stops in between where he... ?? stole two teenagers from other... times? gave them time powers and indoctrinated them to his fake-ish cause of searching for a replacement king to unseat oma zio. still unclear as to why he needed these kids for anything at all. maybe just lazy and didn’t want to do all the work himself

activities in 2068 are ? ? ? ?

i suppose he just kind of assumed that woz would give sougo his belt and officially set him on the path.

returned to the past to 2018 this time to begin creating another riders for sougo to fight against and defeat, requiring sougo to obtain the originals’ powers to do so

at some point steal decade’s power to become a world destroyer, an easy enough task for someone whom can literally stop time

and you’d think. this would be it. like not much else is required here, right? maybe some prodding at certain moments but otherwise sougo will obviously keep going until he has as much power as possible bc he’s got a built-in enemy irt his “future self”..... and yet. i cannot hope to explain all the shit with hiryuu and hora and uhr and giving daiki time powers bc it’s like buddy. you coulda just sat back and chilled in the shadows until the final ep? and why does he want to be king of worlds he plans to destroy?? his original throne in HIS world i would get but i’m just??

in conclusion: this show is a nightmare. thank you for your time

[swiss-cheeze]

Not Today || John Deacon x reader

This is mEANT to be for Johns birthday but it’s like, super angsty and I personally don’t like it but I don’t have time to write anything else.

Warnings: angst, self hate, sobbing, crying. Yeah.

———

Unwanted.

Not needed.

Helpless.

Selfish.

Wasted bait.

Unhealthy.

A disappointment.

A sight for sore eyes.

Money maker.

Feeder.

Attention seeker.

Gross.

Thoughtless.

These where all the words going through your head, and more, as you walked down the street. You could swear everyone was staring at you as your summer dress whipped in the wind, everyone was muttering and whispering and giggling behind their hands to their friends; about you. The tears had started to pattern your cheeks as you hide your face behind your school books, books of biology, books of electronics and books of science; all of the good things for a career right? Wrong. This was your last year studying in college and the best you had gotten was a barista at the nearby coffee shop which you only got around a hundred a week, which meant half went to rent, a quarter went to food and the rest was for you to keep; if you kept it at all. You needed an escape but being out in public was making all of this worse, yeah you were just heading down to sit and watch Johns new band play and have a good laugh and things, but just a five minute walk to the studio was enough to put you on edge. Not to mention the anxiety and hatred you had for yourself when you had woken up first thing this morning, nothing fit well, your stomach came out more than usual, your thighs were not normal; everything just wasn't okay and forcing yourself to put on the summer dress simply for John was enough to bring you to tears, almost missing your first class from the anxiety. You figured he needn’t know of your high anxiety and hatred for today and just went with it, shoving your feelings and emotions down and powering on through the day, which did work; until now obviously.

Quickly making work of the steps outside the studio you went straight through the door and didn't even acknowledge the receptionist when she took a glance at you, though she really didn't even try to stop and ask what you where doing anyway, her fault. Just from walking the hallway you could already hear the sound of Red as well as the bickering of John and Roger, Brian hadn’t taken notice of the bickering seeing as he was (what you guessed) recording with his headphones anyway, Freddie must have been at the soundboard fiddling with the knobs and volumes and whatever else there was there for him to play with. Shoving open the door of the studio with much force you stood in the doorway for a moment, looking to Roger and John before looking to Freddie (who all had looked to you from the outburst) before you shoved your books (and bag) onto the closest unoccupied seat and walked towards John with the sniffles, hurriedly wiping your eyes of tears before collapsing in the bassists awaiting arms and letting it all go. You could faintly hear Freddie telling Brian that ‘that take was good but I think we’re going to head off for coffee with Rog’; and with that, the band was gone in less than 2 minutes. John held you tightly and rocked back and forth as you let the tears cascade down your face and onto his shirt.

“What’s wrong love?” John asked softly into your ear, the bassist rubbed your back lovingly as he kissed your head.

“T-today j-jju-just s-ss-sucked” you said through heavy breaths and hiccups, your sniffles coming through as your tried to stop the snot dripping from your nose.

“How so princess?” John asked softly, the boy reached over to the tissues on the side table and handed you the box. Keeping your face down you grabbed some tissues and blew your nose before wiping your eyes with a clean tissue.

“I-I’m s-sorry” you said softly through your hiccups, “I-I got s-snot and t-t-tears on-n your shi-irt” you said softly as you wiped your nose and sniffled once more.

“It’s alright love, i have many more” John said with a small smile, his warm hands came up to cup your cheeks and wiped away the stray tears that fell, the contrast of Johns warm hands against your numb face was amazing, closing your eyes you took in a few deep breaths and nodded softly as your head stopped being fuzzy and spinning.

“I just…” you shrugged, “nothing has been good today. I woke up and I felt disgusted in myself, nothing i put on suited me and I almost ended up being late to my first class, someone spilled their iced coffee all over my notes for electronics AND some went onto my dress, my anxiety has been so high all day, i feel like everyone keeps staring at me and giggling to their friends about me behind their hands” you sniffled softly and wiped your nose as you looked at the wall behind John, the funny little imprints, the fist mark that dented the wall (probably from Roger), the small nicks in the paint. You took a breath and closed your eyes, leaning forward and placing your face in the crook of Johns neck, the bassist holding you tightly and letting you calm down.

The minutes ticked by as the clock on the wall did as well.

“Darling” John said as he softly pulled you away from him, “love look at me” the bassist said softly, reluctantly you set your gaze upon John's eyes and found yourself smiling softly, a reflex you recently found out you had whenever you looked at John. The bassist kissed your forehead softly before looking at you, “you know in my eyes you’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and ever want to see, I’m glad you still went to school but you know you can always call me and I’ll come down and take you with me, whether that's back to your house, the studio, my house or anything; you can always call me and I will be there for you as fast as I can. If your dress has anything spilled on it then I can't see it, and if your notes have been messed up you always know you can use mine, you have the same teachers as I did so I’m sure they’re using everything they did when i was there; whenever you need notes for anything or help for an assignment or anything you always know you can come to me for help and anything”, you nodded along to everything John listed, “and if your anxiety is that high you know we can always go to a doctor and see what we can do to maybe get you some pills or some therapy even, maybe the whole ‘what can you feel, what can you hear, what can you see, what can you smell’ and everything” you nodded softly and smiled.

“I would like that, alot” you said softly and sniffled.

“Alright, we’ll start with the Four What’s and a few others and if it doesn't work after a month or two we’ll see if we can get a therapist or a doctor. Okay?” John asked, you smiled and nodded before wrapping your arms around Johns neck and hugging the bassist, him doing the same back to you tightly.

“Thank you John” you mumbled softly into his neck causing John to let out a small chuckle.

“Anything for you princess” John mumbled into your hair before kissing your head, “anything”.

[dalishious]

oh sorry irt your previous ask, solas killed felassan becasue he "saw them as people". is it simply because he started to care about thedas and its people or is there a deeper meaning?

Ah! Okay, so to explain with MAJOR spoilers for The Masked Empire...

Before the Inquisitor possibly befriends Solas, he does not see the world of Thedas as it currently is as real. Because to him it’s just the consequence of the veil, and he wants to undo it all. Seeing the people of Thedas as people, acknowledging them as real, makes what he is going to do harder because it means he is actually destroying the world... which he is, but he does not want to see it that way. 

Felassan becomes more than just Briala’s mentor, he becomes her friend. And in the end, he refuses to let her tell him the passphrase to unlock the eluvians, knowing that Solas would take it from his mind, and use it to destroy everything. Felassan contacted Solas knowing full well he was going to kill him, because he came to care about the world. He saw the people of Thedas as real people, and he wanted Briala to succeed in helping the elves, instead of Solas just destroying everything.

Excerpt of Felassan’s death below the cut:

Felassan shut his eyes and dreamed.He still sat in the forest before the campfire, but everything around him glowed faintly with the  aura of the Fade, and the smell of the herbs was rich and fresh, as though he walked through a meadow in summer.Behind him, dead leaves crackled as someone approached.“I don’t have the passphrase,” Felassan said, not turning around. “Briala did not tell me.”It was a lie, of sorts. She would have told him, had he not stopped her. And the figure behind him heard the lie and knew it as well.“Yes, I know. She deserves a chance,” Felassan said. “And what’s the harm, really? Why not let the girl try?”Behind him, there was only silence. There would be no debate, no logical argument or impassioned plea. Felassan had known that when he sat down before the campfire.Felassan sighed. “I’m sorry. I will not take the eluvians from her.”Dead leaves crackled again as the figure came closer behind him.Felassan closed his eyes, straightened, and inhaled the rich scent one last time. “They’re stronger than you think, you know.” He smiled. “You know, I suspect you’ll hate this, but she reminds me of—”He never heard the blow that killed him.His last thought was for an elven girl, alone, with no magic, no family, no power, searching for her people.

[polygamyff]

15. Part 3

I am not sure if Robyn has fully got over what I have said to her, I didn’t mean to like upset her or ruin the vibe. Letting the hotel door close behind me “so erm what you doing now?” I am trying to have sex, she better know this. Robyn shrugged off her Burberry jacket “I am gong to get in bed and sleep” rolling my eyes, she being real but that side boob is a thing “your phone is ringing feo” my mouth fell open “you called me ugly in Spanish!?” that is so rude, I was trying to ignore my phone but then again that is the family and friends phone, it has to be important. Grabbing my phone out from my pocket “well, well, well. They all come running back” answering the call “Kellen” I know why he is calling, I mean come on he needs me “I am at the hotel in New York and it’s saying I have to pay for a room, what is this?” my smile grew “that’s what people do, they pay for rooms when they go. So pay?” walking around Robyn “why the fuck am I paying, I am family. I am a Davenport too, that is my family business too! Are you crazy?” sliding door open “but Kellen, is it though? I don’t think it is if I can revoke your privileges. Not tried to call daddy? He may be able to help?” knowing he can’t “fuck you Maurice, get me the room now. You’re embarrassing family” stepping onto the balcony “you embarrassed me in front of Robyn? You been talking shit about me and my family, you say family but yet have the nerve to fucking talk shit. Trying to make out I do this with every girl, so I make this kind of effort with every girl? You know what Kellen, try and tell my family about Robyn it’s not just hotels you won’t be able to get in too, got it? Don’t call me when I am away with Robyn either, and the room you tried to get is three hundred and fifty nine dollars a night. And without breakfast, now fuck off and leave me to go back in that bedroom so I can eat her pussy out” disconnecting the call, he wants to fuck with me that’s fine. I have way more power than he does, he thinks I would allow him to disrespect my name in front of my woman, he tried.

Taking in a deep breath, I know this will shake things up a little. I mean what possibly could he say when my dad told me to have another woman, he won’t be shocked about me having one but I don’t want him to find out she is having my baby “what have you done? And who pussy you eating” looking behind me at Robyn “yours, who else stupid. I just did what was deserved, nobody talks down on my name and thinks they can get away with it. Not happening. He just has to pay for his room and he is crying” walking over to Robyn “oh, I don’t want to cause trouble between you all, I feel like I am now” shaking my head “he thinks he is Malik, he is no brother to me. He thinks he can talk shit and I will just sit back and be like cool? Nah, you ain’t doing anything wrong. You just relax and I will take the stress on, this is why I need an assistant that works that quick. I need to get one just as good” it’s going to be hard “and a male, so I know you can’t stick your dick in that” I groaned out “why you being like that? I won’t stick my dick in anything, you said I came to you for sex and that is fine. Come on now, let me eat you” Robyn blushed looking down and away from me, tilting my head to the side. Raising my hand and stroking her side boob “I’ve never let anyone do that to me, it’s weird” I chuckled “I am not laughing at you but it’s not weird, I will show you it’s not. Take my hand, you trust me right? It’s the best feeling you will get, your pussy looks good so I know it must taste good” Robyn giggled but she did it in cutest way possible that makes me want to wrap her up in cotton and protect her “no cute shit, suck it up and get on the bed” she not putting me off this.

Holding Robyn’ hand and help her up on top of the bed “get comfy, middle of the bed” taking off my tee, I am a very horny person so having sex is a thing Robyn will get used too. To Robyn though, every time we have sex it’s the most special thing to happen to me. Looking over at Robyn and her knees were bent laid out, she is anxious I can tell “relax, by the time I am finished with you, you will become the inner freak you have inside of you” crawling onto the bed , my hands groped her body through her little black dress before grabbing the bottom and pulling it up to her breast, exposing her stomach and a pair of skimpy black laced panties “if you honestly don’t like it, tell me but I doubt it” Robyn took a large gulp, looking over her body hungrily, the most beautiful body I have seen. Her legs already spread wide, leaning down and buried my nose in her centre. I inhaled deeply and her scent filled my nostrils. My tongue touched her wet sex through her panties. Licking against her clit, I pressed my whole mouth to her centre and sucked up all the juice from her drenched panties “oh my!” Robyn squealed out a loud moan. I hooked my fingers around the edge of her underwear and pulled them down, Robyn’ body quivered and a tiny moan escaped her lips as I worked two fingers against her clit. As I worked her clit I trailed kisses up her stomach, Robyn’ breathing hitched when I ran my tongue across the open skin on her chest “Maurice” slipping my two fingers into her.

I hooked and twisted my fingers inside of her, still thrusting them in and out of her sex. She was so tight, so warm, so wet around me. I stuck my tongue out and placed the tip against her stomach, my tongue danced around her belly button before I sucked on it. Feeling her stomach clench underneath my tongue. Robyn was beginning to slowly unravel, her hands snaked onto my head. Her walls were clenching around my fingers and I slipped a third one inside of her, moving them at a rapid speed. My thumb caressing her clit. Crying out, she came hard, squirting all over my finger she tried to hit my arm away but I kept my fingers inside of her, her legs clenched closed “oh god” she layed back against the bed, her closed her eyes and let out a deep breath, her body falling weak. I removed my fingers from her but was far from done “you’re are a squirter” I said, grabbing Robyn’ leg and stretched it out to the side. Her other leg still bent, leaning down and tongued her clit at lightening speed “ahhh” She let out a gut wrenching scream, that echoed around the room. Her hand gripped the back of my head.

I tilted my neck in at an angle, I wanted to taste Robyn from every side. My fingers spread her lips to her sex open and I stuck my tongue inside of her, lapping up her essence completely. Vibrating against Robyn’ swollen clit “oh my fucking god Maurice” my warm tongue took one big, long lick “you taste good, no lie” I said before I dived back in, she arched her body up, gyrating her centre on my tongue. Placing two fingers inside of her, my tongue was zig zagging across her sex as I continued to devour her.Sucking down on the sensitive button hard, Robyn shot forward. I grabbed her ass and pulled it forward, the felt the flat of my tongue against her clit all the way down in her. I pushed my face in deeper,I was hungry for more “ooohh god, I can’t” Robyn breathed out, Robyn’ body tensed up and she shuddered, throwing her head back in ecstasy as the wave shook out of her and oozed into my mouth. Her loud moans turned into screams and she eventually fell quiet. Only soft coos escaping her lips.

I tried my best at licking up the sticky residue between her thighs. Robyn moaned slightly, finally opening her eyes. I leaned back straight delighted from my feast, my face covered in her juices. Wiping the side of my face, Robyn stared at me in utter shock breathing heavily “I can’t describe what I just felt, that intense feeling” licking my lips smiling “fuck me” she said, she don’t need to tell me twice because I am ready. My dick is already hard “I love you Maurice” she panted out “you love me more now?” hovering over Robyn “I loved you more before then, just that mouth has a special talent and I want it more often” Robyn attacked my lips with a long sensual kiss, fumbling with my pants trying to get my dick out.

Stretching my body out with the biggest smile on my face, lifting my head up with my eyes still closed “morning sleepy head” feeling Robyn’ lips on mine, opening my one eye still smiling “morning” I said groggily, opening my eyes blinking several times. The most beautiful view on earth is seeing Robyn in bed with me still, holding the blanket close to her “I was waiting for you to wake up, I just saw you smiling and then you lifted your head up. My baby all happy” her hand touching my cheek and then all the way down to my chin “yeah, I have never been so happy, to wake up with you. My Bonita, my mini Bonita. I am happy” resting my head back down but on Robyn’ chest, she rubbed the back of my neck “what time is it?” it seems early “erm, I think about ten” I groaned out “we should get ready, we need to see some stores baby” I want to stay in Robyn’ arms forever, I feel safe. My heart is so filled with love, I am content “if you want or we can stay in bed, I enjoy your company Maurice. I like talking to you, getting to know you better. Discuss things” Robyn pressed a kiss to the back of my head “I love with all my heart Maurice, you mean a lot to me” hearing Robyn’ heart beating against my ear, I could hear this forever.

Scratching my balls as I walked outside to the balcony “don’t be so nasty” the waiter stared at me “puedes irte ahora” I said to the waiter “No hay problema señor” he walked off “food is ok?” I am actually very tired “I am never usually like this tired, I am always out of bed by seven. Breakfast on time, everything like that. But being in bed with you I just don’t’ want to get out of bed, I don’t sleep as much. I have a lot of things, time is money. But for you, I gave you that” sitting down on the chair “this is why I am telling you that you do mean more to me than what you think, more than this. This is how comfortable and happy you make me, I sleep like a baby” pouring the orange juice into the cup “I see it, it makes me happy but then what about when you’re out there, what about then? It’s been the greatest thing, to be with you like this?” I shrugged “then I have to just get on with it, what else Robyn? Monday comes it’s back to working, making that money and business deals. Of course you” Robyn eye balled me there “I have my twelve week scan coming up, you got to be there. I think my mom will be there too, I doubt my dad will be” nodding my head “tell me the date and time” sipping my juice “mhmmm I feel like just telling you on the date now, I ain’t about that time and date thing after you told me that story” I near choked on my juice, I forgot about telling her that.

No side boob for Robyn this time, she is not wearing a dress or heels. She said her feet hurt a lot so she is wearing sneakers, Robyn does look good in anything so we good on that “so next, you want to go to Milan?” I asked, waking slowly down the rows of stores “say that to me in Spanish?” she actually asked, I grinned “Entonces, quieres ir a Milán el próximo?” Robyn scoffed “I cannot, you’re too good at it but your make me happy when you say it” I cooed out “well baby if I continue to do it you will soon pick up on it, trust me you will. Our kids will be fluent in Spanish” leaning down to Robyn’ stomach “Escuchaste eso, mi amor” Robyn giggled “it’s weird when you do that but guess what? Leon bought me a baby crib, how cute is that!?” letting out an oh “mhmmm I can get that? You living with me though” it’s probably cheap “Maurice Davenport, I swear to god. Do not think about getting rid of it, I want to keep it. It is the cutest gift I have gotten, stop it. I am taking it with me” trying to walk off but Robyn trying to yank me back “look at me, right now” blowing out air “yes princess?” looking into Robyn’ eyes “you promise me now, you keep the crib. It’s not cheap it is nice ok? We are taking it” I don’t want to say yes but I have no choice “fine, whatever but that is all we keeping” I want to get the best for my child.

Looking down at the receipt as I walked out of the Gucci store, Robyn wouldn’t come into the store with me. She knows damn well I would spend on her, folding the receipt up looking to the side seeing Robyn staring at the store front. Walking towards her I notice that it is a boutique wedding dress store, she is really staring at the dress “you know you won’t need to window shop one day, I will remember this and bring you back here” Robyn looked away quickly “I am just looking, that is it. You got what you needed?” she asked, nodding my head “they will deliver it to the hotel room” I wasn’t about to carry anything “amazing what money gets you” Robyn said “true but, you know you are having my child. I do need to pay for you and that child, you do now that right? You acting like I cannot pay for you, which is bullshit. Look, I want to spoil you so let me got it? Next I will get you a black card on your name, that is to come” Robyn didn’t say much, she just looked down smiling “I get it, I will and you do enough for me by this. You know me, I just want your time. I am big on that, money won’t give you memories with your family. This is what I had with my family, memories and love. This is what I want with you, I will fight you for it too” I chuckled knowing for a fact she will.

Robyn is not about this life at all, she is not about these designer stores “how much is this jacket?” she asked the assistant, nobody asks for prices in this place. It’s Chanel, you just don’t but I will leave her to it “this piece is five thousand, five hundred and fifty Euros” Robyn’ mouth fell open “for this? It’s just a jacket” this woman of mine “that will be all, thank you” I said to the assistant “you want it or not? Stop playing, just point and tell so we can just leave” I want to buy her things, nothing wrong “ok I will but what is now going to happen to Kellen? I know I told you but I didn’t think you would have done such a thing” I work quick with that “they paid for the room anyways but nothing else, he will come crying to me soon. Just let me know when you have issues” Kellen assumes he can talk shit about me “you know what to do actually, give his money back. Show him it’s not about the money, you’re making a point because his money means nothing to you. That money is yours anyways” raising my eyebrow, I am shocked to hear such a thing “do it ok? And I like the jacket” she walked off taking the jacket with her.

It makes me sad that I am on the jet already, to get Robyn back in time for her work I need too “you not put your phone back on yet? The work one?” shaking my head looking over at Robyn “as soon as I drop you off then yes” I stick to my word “then what you doing on your Macbook?” she pointed out “Malik been looking at places to stay and he sent me some, I just want to make sure that this is something you will allow to happen? You staying with me? I want our child growing up with the both of us” I need to make sure “yes, I want that too but shuffle over. I want to look too” shuffling across on the seat “let’s just say Malik’ got expensive taste, I just know my dad is going to question it. Four point three million is a lot” Robyn sat next to me “who said we need that kind of home? Don’t you have your own accounts? How does it work?” Robyn started looking through the homes “we have a financial advisor, he is the guy I would go through for this. He handles everything with our money, because we have to give money to each sibling we need this guy. So doing this, I would go to him. Then it will get back to my dad, it’s like a pot of money and it’s a lot. That pot of money is my dad’ and anything I make from hotels or he makes it goes in there, I do have my own money” Robyn looked away from the laptop “I seen your net worth, I was about to say. There has to be a way to use your own money, I mean I am guessing for big purchases it goes through him?”

Nodding my head “to balance the books but he doesn’t handle my money, you know once my dad is dead I could decide to get rid of that pot and keep it to myself, I feel like doing that but I do have my own money. I can do that, you’re right” I just wanted to save my part of the money “ok and also no, don’t spend that kind of money. Just get a nice home, look at this I mean it’s still a lot but it’s one point two million” shaking my head “my cars, it’s nice but my cars” I want to park them somewhere “when do we get to know the sex of the baby?” I really need to know “erm not this scan but the next one, why?” that seems so long “I am worth a lot, I have a will and it needs updating. I am not saying anything could happen but you know it can, if someone kills me I want to die knowing that my child gets it. Least know the sex of the baby I can put he or she gets everything, you will also be getting something, I will promise you that you will not need to battle anyone for this. It’s not something you want to hear but for a person like me, I die everyone jump. I would always need to do this” Robyn doesn’t seem impressed “I get what you mean but I will be the most broken person if anything happens to you so you better make sure nothing happens to you, seriously. And do what I said about Kellen, when buying this home you do it with your money and work on getting rid of Ally. I am giving you time to do it” Robyn has given me a shopping list.

[aneddoticamagazinestuff]

Friend of a Friend: The Facebook That Could Have Been

New Post has been published on https://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/friend-of-a-friend-the-facebook-that-could-have-been/

Friend of a Friend: The Facebook That Could Have Been

I express my network in a FOAF file, and that is the start of the revolution. —Tim Berners-Lee (2007)

The FOAF standard, or Friend of a Friend standard, is a now largely defunct/ignored/superseded1 web standard dating from the early 2000s that hints at what social networking might have looked like had Facebook not conquered the world. Before we talk about FOAF though, I want to talk about the New York City Subway.

The New York City Subway is controlled by a single entity, the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, better known as the MTA. The MTA has a monopoly on subway travel in New York City. There is no legal way to travel in New York City by subway without purchasing a ticket from the MTA. The MTA has no competitors, at least not in the “subway space.”

This wasn’t always true. Surprisingly, the subway system was once run by two corporations that competed with each other. The Inter-borough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) operated lines that ran mostly through Manhattan, while the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) operated lines in Brooklyn, some of which extended into Manhattan also. In 1932, the City opened its own service called the Independent Subway System to compete with the IRT and BMT, and so for a while there were three different organizations running subway lines in New York City.

One imagines that this was not an effective way to run a subway. It was not. Constructing interchanges between the various systems was challenging because the IRT and BMT used trains of different widths. Interchange stations also had to have at least two different fare-collection areas since passengers switching trains would have to pay multiple operators. The City eventually took over the IRT and BMT in 1940, bringing the whole system together under one operator, but some of the inefficiencies that the original division entailed are still problems today: Trains designed to run along lines inherited from the BMT (e.g. the A, C, or E) cannot run along lines inherited from the IRT (e.g. the 1, 2, or 3) because the IRT tunnels are too narrow. As a result, the MTA has to maintain two different fleets of mutually incompatible subway cars, presumably at significant additional expense relative to other subway systems in the world that only have to deal with a single tunnel width.

This legacy of the competition between the IRT and BMT suggests that subway systems naturally tend toward monopoly. It just makes more sense for there to be a single operator than for there to be competing operators. Average passengers are amply compensated for the loss of choice by never having to worry about whether they brought their IRT MetroCard today but forgot their BMT MetroCard at home.

Okay, so what does the Subway have to do with social networking? Well, I have wondered for a while now whether Facebook has, like the MTA, a natural monopoly. Facebook does seem to have a monopoly, whether natural or unnatural—not over social media per se (I spend much more time on Twitter), but over my internet social connections with real people I know. It has a monopoly over, as they call it, my digitized “social graph”; I would quit Facebook tomorrow if I didn’t worry that by doing so I might lose many of those connections. I get angry about this power that Facebook has over me. I get angry in a way that I do not get angry about the MTA, even though the Subway is, metaphorically and literally, a sprawling trash fire. And I suppose I get angry because at root I believe that Facebook’s monopoly, unlike the MTA’s, is not a natural one.

What this must mean is that I think Facebook owns all of our social data now because they happened to get there first and then dig a big moat around themselves, not because a world with competing Facebook-like platforms is inefficient or impossible. Is that true, though? There are some good reasons to think it isn’t: Did Facebook simply get there first, or did they instead just do social networking better than everyone else? Isn’t the fact that there is only one Facebook actually convenient if you are trying to figure out how to contact an old friend? In a world of competing Facebooks, what would it mean if you and your boyfriend are now Facebook official, but he still hasn’t gotten around to updating his relationship status on VisageBook, which still says he is in a relationship with his college ex? Which site will people trust? Also, if there were multiple sites, wouldn’t everyone spend a lot more time filling out web forms?

In the last few years, as the disadvantages of centralized social networks have dramatically made themselves apparent, many people have attempted to create decentralized alternatives. These alternatives are based on open standards that could potentially support an ecosystem of inter-operating social networks (see e.g. the Fediverse). But none of these alternatives has yet supplanted a dominant social network. One obvious explanation for why this hasn’t happened is the power of network effects: With everyone already on Facebook, any one person thinking of leaving faces a high cost for doing so. Some might say this proves that social networks are natural monopolies and stop there; I would say that Facebook, Twitter, et al. chose to be walled gardens, and given that people have envisioned and even built social networks that inter-operate, the network effects that closed platforms enjoy tell us little about the inherent nature of social networks.

So the real question, in my mind, is: Do platforms like Facebook continue to dominate merely because of their network effects, or is having a single dominant social network more efficient in the same way that having a single operator for a subway system is more efficient?

Which finally brings me back to FOAF. Much of the world seems to have forgotten about the FOAF standard, but FOAF was an attempt to build a decentralized and open social network before anyone had even heard of Facebook. If any decentralized social network ever had a chance of occupying the redoubt that Facebook now occupies before Facebook got there, it was FOAF. Given that a large fraction of humanity now has a Facebook account, and given that relatively few people know about FOAF, should we conclude that social networking, like subway travel, really does lend itself to centralization and natural monopoly? Or does the FOAF project demonstrate that decentralized social networking was a feasible alternative that never became popular for other reasons?

    The Future from the Early Aughts

  The FOAF project, begun in 2000, set out to create a universal standard for describing people and the relationships between them. That might strike you as a wildly ambitious goal today, but aspirations like that were par for the course in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The web (as people still called it then) had just trounced closed systems like America Online and Prodigy. It could only have been natural to assume that further innovation in computing would involve the open, standards-based approach embodied by the web.

Many people believed that the next big thing was for the web to evolve into something called the Semantic Web. I have written about what exactly the Semantic Web was supposed to be and how it was supposed to work before, so I won’t go into detail here. But I will sketch the basic vision motivating the people who worked on Semantic Web technologies, because the FOAF standard was an application of that vision to social networking.

There is an essay called “How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web” that captures the lofty dream of the Semantic Web well. It was written by Paul Ford in 2002. The essay imagines a future (as imminent as 2009) in which Google, by embracing the Semantic Web, has replaced Amazon and eBay as the dominant e-commerce platform. In this future, you can search for something you want to purchase—perhaps a second-hand Martin guitar—by entering buy:martin guitar into Google. Google then shows you all the people near your zipcode selling Martin guitars. Google knows about these people and their guitars because Google can read RDF, a markup language and core Semantic Web technology focused on expressing relationships. Regular people can embed RDF on their web pages to advertise (among many other things) the items they have to sell. Ford predicts that as the number of people searching for and advertising products this way grows, Amazon and eBay will lose their near-monopolies over, respectively, first-hand and second-hand e-commerce. Nobody will want to search a single centralized database for something to buy when they could instead search the whole web. Even Google, Ford writes, will eventually lose its advantage, because in theory anyone could crawl the web reading RDF and offer a search feature similar to Google’s. At the very least, if Google wanted to make money from its Semantic Web marketplace by charging a percentage of each transaction, that percentage would probably by forced down over time by competitors offering a more attractive deal.

Ford’s imagined future was an application of RDF, or the Resource Description Framework, to e-commerce, but the exciting thing about RDF was that hypothetically it could be used for anything. The RDF standard, along with a constellation of related standards, once widely adopted, was supposed to blow open database-backed software services on the internet the same way HTML had blown open document publishing on the internet.

One arena that RDF and other Semantic Web technologies seemed poised to takeover immediately was social networking. The FOAF project, known originally as “RDF Web Ring” before being renamed, was the Semantic Web effort offshoot that sought to accomplish this. FOAF was so promising in its infancy that some people thought it would inevitably make all other social networking sites obsolete. A 2004 Guardian article about the project introduced FOAF this way:

In the beginning, way back in 1996, it was SixDegrees. Last year, it was Friendster. Last week, it was Orkut. Next week, it could be Flickr. All these websites, and dozens more, are designed to build networks of friends, and they are currently at the forefront of the trendiest internet development: social networking. But unless they can start to offer more substantial benefits, it is hard to see them all surviving, once the Friend Of A Friend (FOAF) standard becomes a normal part of life on the net.2

The article goes on to complain that the biggest problem with social networking is that there are too many social networking sites. Something is needed that can connect all of the different networks together. FOAF is the solution, and it will revolutionize social networking as a result.

FOAF, according to the article, would tie the different networks together by doing three key things:

It would establish a machine-readable format for social data that could be read by any social networking site, saving users from having to enter this information over and over again

It would allow “personal information management programs,” i.e. your “Contacts” application, to generate a file in this machine-readable format that you could feed to social networking sites

It would further allow this machine-readable format to be hosted on personal homepages and read remotely by social networking sites, meaning that you would be able to keep your various profiles up-to-date by just pushing changes to your own homepage

It is hard to believe today, but the problem in 2004, at least for savvy webizens and technology columnists aware of all the latest sites, was not the lack of alternative social networks but instead the proliferation of them. Given that problem—so alien to us now—one can see why it made sense to pursue a single standard that promised to make the proliferation of networks less of a burden.

    The FOAF Spec

  According to the description currently given on the FOAF project’s website, FOAF is “a computer language defining a dictionary of people-related terms that can be used in structured data.” Back in 2000, in a document they wrote to explain the project’s goals, Dan Brickley and Libby Miller, FOAF’s creators, offered a different description that suggests more about the technology’s ultimate purpose—they introduced FOAF as a tool that would allow computers to read the personal information you put on your homepage the same way that other humans do.3 FOAF would “help the web do the sorts of things that are currently the proprietary offering of centralised services.”4 By defining a standard vocabulary for people and the relationships between them, FOAF would allow you to ask the web questions such as, “Find me today’s web recommendations made by people who work for Medical organizations,” or “Find me recent publications by people I’ve co-authored documents with.”

Since FOAF is a standardized vocabulary, the most important output of the FOAF project was the FOAF specification. The FOAF specification defines a small collection of RDF classes and RDF properties. (I’m not going to explain RDF here, but again see my post about the Semantic Web if you want to know more.) The RDF classes defined by the FOAF specification represent subjects you might want to describe, such as people (the Person class) and organizations (the Organization class). The RDF properties defined by the FOAF specification represent logical statements you might make about the different subjects. A person could have, for example, a first name (the givenName property), a last name (the familyName property), perhaps even a personality type (the myersBriggs property), and be near another person or location (the based_near property). The idea was that these classes and properties would be sufficient to represent the kind of the things people say about themselves and their friends on their personal homepage.

The FOAF specification gives the following as an example of a well-formed FOAF document. This example uses XML, though an equivalent document could be written using JSON or a number of other formats:

<foaf:Person rdf:about="#danbri" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"> <foaf:name>Dan Brickley</foaf:name> <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="http://danbri.org/" /> <foaf:openid rdf:resource="http://danbri.org/" /> <foaf:img rdf:resource="/images/me.jpg" /> </foaf:Person>

This FOAF document describes a person named “Dan Brickley” (one of the specification’s authors) that has a homepage at http://danbri.org, something called an “open ID,” and a picture available at /images/me.jpg, presumably relative to the base address of Brickley’s homepage. The FOAF-specific terms are prefixed by foaf:, indicating that they are part of the FOAF namespace, while the more general RDF terms are prefixed by rdf:.

Just to persuade you that FOAF isn’t tied to XML, here is a similar FOAF example from Wikipedia, expressed using a format called JSON-LD5:

"@context": "name": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name", "homepage": "@id": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/workplaceHomepage", "@type": "@id" , "Person": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person" , "@id": "https://me.example.com", "@type": "Person", "name": "John Smith", "homepage": "https://www.example.com/"

This FOAF document describes a person named John Smith with a homepage at www.example.com.

Perhaps the best way to get a feel for how FOAF works is to play around with FOAF-a-matic, a web tool for generating FOAF documents. It allows you to enter information about yourself using a web form, then uses that information to create the FOAF document (in XML) that represents you. FOAF-a-matic demonstrates how FOAF could have been used to save everyone from having to enter their social information into a web form ever again—if every social networking site could read FOAF, all you’d need to do to sign up for a new site is point the site to the FOAF document that FOAF-a-matic generated for you.

Here is a slightly more complicated FOAF example, representing me, that I created using FOAF-a-matic:

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"> <foaf:PersonalProfileDocument rdf:about=""> <foaf:maker rdf:resource="#me"/> <foaf:primaryTopic rdf:resource="#me"/> <admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic"/> <admin:errorReportsTo rdf:resource="mailto:leigh@ldodds.com"/> </foaf:PersonalProfileDocument> <foaf:Person rdf:ID="me"> <foaf:name>Sinclair Target</foaf:name> <foaf:givenname>Sinclair</foaf:givenname> <foaf:family_name>Target</foaf:family_name> <foaf:mbox rdf:resource="mailto:sinclairtarget@example.com"/> <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="sinclairtarget.com"/> <foaf:knows> <foaf:Person> <foaf:name>John Smith</foaf:name> <foaf:mbox rdf:resource="mailto:johnsmith@example.com"/> <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="www.example.com/foaf.rdf"/> </foaf:Person> </foaf:knows> </foaf:Person> </rdf:RDF>

This example has quite a lot of preamble setting up the various XML namespaces used by the document. There is also a section containing data about the tool that was used to generate the document, largely so that, it seems, people know whom to email with complaints. The foaf:Person element describing me tells you my name, email address, and homepage. There is also a nested foaf:knows element telling you that I am friends with John Smith.

This example illustrates another important feature of FOAF documents: They can link to each other. If you remember from the previous example, my friend John Smith has a homepage at www.example.com. In this example, where I list John Smith as a foaf:person with whom I have a foaf:knows relationship, I also provide a rdfs:seeAlso element that points to John Smith’s FOAF document hosted on his homepage. Because I have provided this link, any program reading my FOAF document could find out more about John Smith by following the link and reading his FOAF document. In the FOAF document we have for John Smith above, John did not provide any information about his friends (including me, meaning, tragically, that our friendship is unidirectional). But if he had, then the program reading my document could find out not only about me but also about John, his friends, their friends, and so on, until the program has crawled the whole social graph that John and I inhabit.

This functionality will seem familiar to anyone that has used Facebook, which is to say that this functionality will seem familiar to you. There is no foaf:wall property or foaf:poke property to replicate Facebook’s feature set exactly. Obviously, there is also no slick blue user interface that everyone can use to visualize their FOAF social network; FOAF is just a vocabulary. But Facebook’s core feature—the feature that I have argued is key to Facebook’s monopoly power over, at the very least, myself—is here provided in a distributed way. FOAF allows a group of friends to represent their real-life social graph digitally by hosting FOAF documents on their own homepages. It allows them to do this without surrendering control of their data to a centralized database in the sky run by a billionaire android-man who spends much of his time apologizing before congressional committees.

    FOAF on Ice

  If you visit the current FOAF project homepage, you will notice that, in the top right corner, there is an image of the character Fry from the TV series Futurama, stuck inside some sort of stasis chamber. This is a still from the pilot episode of Futurama, in which Fry gets frozen in a cryogenic tank in 1999 only to awake a millennium later in 2999. Brickley, whom I messaged briefly on Twitter, told me that he put that image there as a way communicating that the FOAF project is currently “in stasis,” though he hopes that there will be a future opportunity to resuscitate the project along with its early 2000s optimism about how the web should work.

FOAF never revolutionized social networking the way that the 2004 Guardian article about it expected it would. Some social networking sites decided to support the standard: LiveJournal and MyOpera are examples.6 FOAF even played a role in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004—a group of bloggers and programmers got together to create a network of websites they called “DeanSpace” to promote the campaign, and these sites used FOAF to keep track of supporters and volunteers.7 But today FOAF is known primarily for being one of the more widely used vocabularies of RDF, itself a niche standard on the modern web. If FOAF is part of your experience of the web today at all, then it is as an ancestor to the technology that powers Google’s “knowledge panels” (the little sidebars that tell you the basics about a person or a thing if you searched for something simple). Google uses vocabularies published by the schema.org project—the modern heir to the Semantic Web effort—to populate its knowledge panels.8 The schema.org vocabulary for describing people seems to be somewhat inspired by FOAF and serves many of the same purposes.

So why didn’t FOAF succeed? Why do we all use Facebook now instead? Let’s ignore that FOAF is a simple standard with nowhere near as many features as Facebook—that’s true today, clearly, but if FOAF had enjoyed more momentum it’s possible that applications could have been built on top of it to deliver a Facebook-like experience. The interesting question is: Why didn’t this nascent form of distributed social networking catch fire when Facebook was not yet around to compete with it?

There probably is no single answer to that question, but if I had to pick one, I think the biggest issue is that FOAF only makes sense on a web where everyone has a personal website. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it might have been easy to assume the web would eventually look like this, especially since so many of the web’s early adopters were, as far as I can tell, prolific bloggers or politically engaged technologists excited to have a platform. But the reality is that regular people don’t want to have to learn how to host a website. FOAF allows you to control your own social information and broadcast it to social networks instead of filling out endless web forms, which sounds pretty great if you already have somewhere to host that information. But most people in practice found it easier to just fill out the web form and sign up for Facebook than to figure out how to buy a domain and host some XML.

What does this mean for my original question about whether or not Facebook’s monopoly is a natural one? I think I have to concede that the FOAF example is evidence that social networking does naturally lend itself to monopoly.

That people did not want to host their own data isn’t especially meaningful itself—modern distributed social networks like Mastodon have solved that problem by letting regular users host their profiles on nodes set up by more savvy users. It is a sign, however, of just how much people hate complexity. This is bad news for decentralized social networks, because they are inherently more complex under the hood than centralized networks in a way that is often impossible to hide from users.

Consider FOAF: If I were to write an application that read FOAF data from personal websites, what would I do if Sally’s FOAF document mentions a John Smith with a homepage at example.com, and Sue’s FOAF document mentions a John Smith with a homepage at example.net? Are we talking about a single John Smith with two websites or two entirely different John Smiths? What if the both FOAF documents list John Smith’s email as johnsmith@gmail.com? This issue of identity was an acute one for FOAF. In a 2003 email, Brickley wrote that because there does not exist and probably should not exist a “planet-wide system for identifying people,” the approach taken by FOAF is “pluralistic.”9 Some properties of FOAF people, such as email addresses and homepage addresses, are special in that their values are globally unique. So these different properties can be used to merge (or, as Libby Miller called it, “smoosh”) FOAF documents about people together. But none of these special properties are privileged above the others, so it’s not obvious how to handle our John Smith case. Do we trust the homepages and conclude we have two different people? Or do we trust the email addresses and conclude we have a single person? Could I really write an application capable of resolving this conflict without involving (and inconveniencing) the user?

Facebook, with its single database and lack of political qualms, could create a “planet-wide system for identifying people” and so just gave every person a unique Facebook ID. Problem solved.

Complexity alone might not doom distributed social networks if people cared about being able to own and control their data. But FOAF’s failure to take off demonstrates that people have never valued control very highly. As one blogger has put it, “‘Users want to own their own data’ is an ideology, not a use case.”10 If users do not value control enough to stomach additional complexity, and if centralized systems are more simple than distributed ones—and if, further, centralized systems tend to be closed and thus the successful ones enjoy powerful network effects—then social networks are indeed natural monopolies.

That said, I think there is still a distinction to be drawn between the subway system case and the social networking case. I am comfortable with the MTA’s monopoly on subway travel because I expect subway systems to be natural monopolies for a long time to come. If there is going to be only one operator of the New York City Subway, then it ought to be the government, which is at least nominally more accountable than a private company with no competitors. But I do not expect social networks to stay natural monopolies. The Subway is carved in granite; the digital world is writ in water. Distributed social networks may now be more complicated than centralized networks in the same way that carrying two MetroCards is more complicated than carrying one. In the future, though, the web, or even the internet, could change in fundamental ways that make distributed technology much easier to use.

If that happens, perhaps FOAF will be remembered as the first attempt to build the kind of social network that humanity, after a brief experiment with corporate mega-databases, does and always will prefer.

    Sinclair Target

from TwoBitHistory

  If you enjoyed this post, more like it come out every four weeks! Follow @TwoBitHistory on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you know when a new post is out.

Please note that I did not dare say “dead.” ↩

Jack Schofield, “Let’s be Friendsters,” The Guardian, February 19, 2004, accessed January 5, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2004/feb/19/newmedia.media. ↩

Dan Brickley and Libby Miller, “Introducing FOAF,” FOAF Project, 2008, accessed January 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20140331104046/http://www.foaf-project.org/original-intro. ↩

ibid. ↩

Wikipedia contributors, “JSON-LD,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, December 13, 2019, accessed January 5, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON-LD. ↩

“Data Sources,” FOAF Project Wiki, December 11 2009, accessed January 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20100226072731/http://wiki.foaf-project.org/w/DataSources. ↩

Aldon Hynes, “What is Dean Space?”, Extreme Democracy, accessed January 5, 2020, http://www.extremedemocracy.com/chapters/Chapter18-Hynes.pdf. ↩

“Understand how structured data works,” Google Developer Portal, accessed January 5, 2020, https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data. ↩

tef, “Why your distributed network will not work,” Progamming is Terrible, January 2, 2013, https://programmingisterrible.com/post/39438834308/distributed-social-network. ↩

Dan Brickley, “Identifying things in FOAF,” rdfweb-dev Mailing List, July 10, 2003, accessed on January 5, 2020, http://lists.foaf-project.org/pipermail/foaf-dev/2003-July/005463.html. ↩

[sanjuno]

NRT+SW: That We Answer To Our Stars

Just remember that you people asked for this and if I end up posting a story concept that you love and want to see as a fic? Be well aware that all of these outlines only have one thing in common:

I HAVEN’T WRITTEN A SINGLE SCENE FOR THEM.

Which means I won’t be turning them into fic for a year at least so... *handwaves* Encourage me IRT your favourite WIP of mine, because finishing one of those will clear up space in the docket for a new story to get some attention.

Now, these outlines can get kinda disjointed but at least you’ll get to see a bit of how my brain works when I plot out stories.

THE SCENE!

>Kaguya’s multiverse trip goes wonky b/c best crossover fodder scene

>Uchiha Clan dumped wholesale on Rim World/Wild Space World in SW’verse. All the Uchiha Clan. All the Uchiha since ever.

->World is XL planetoid version of TG44, with added biome options b/c YOLO (unless you’re in the Uchiha Clan I guess b/c then you get to Live All The Times?)

>Indra, Madara, and Sasuke separate ppl w/ wiggy chakra resonance. V disorienting.

->Ninshu gets Dialled Up To Eleven = Force Bonds! Force Bonds everywhere!

-->Entire Clan gets Highlights Reel of Historically Important Memories (also so much purposely induced trauma wow WTF.)

--->Mass Meditation required to untangle/unfuck heads

>Entire Clan now Force Sensitive BTW

->WTF w/ crazy Nature Chakra infesting everyone? Uchiha are Not Pleased.

-->Upside: Force Bonds/Ninshu Super Connection can be used to awaken Sharingan w/out Psyche Destroying Trauma so yay for that

>All Uchiha now have Kaguya’s est. life span. Also nubbin horns and forehead sensory organ b/c aliens are a SW thing I can do this now (don't know if want full-on third eye or just funky Clan Marking thing? Hm...)

THE PLOT THICKENS/ACTUALLY STARTS BEING A THING!

>Sep. forces land on new Uchiha Homeworld b/c shenanigans and The Force Likes To Meddle

->Sasuke introduces said forces to Kirin b/c is reminded of T7 mission to Land of Iron? Or Snow? Dunno which but Naruto’verse says machines = bad juju so Sasuke is 100% justified ok thanks.

>212th follows. Obi-wan is v concerned by the Uchiha

->Entire Pop. of Planet is FS WTF is this nonsense?

-->Clones v impressed at least. Free-range jedi are badass why were they not informed of this being an option? (Clones made for jedi = have a hard time leaving GAR b/c existential dissonance when no jedi for retired soldiers? Also Kamino sucks and slavery sucks more but now the Clones who don’t want to be soldiers or recycled can Take A Third Option! So much Clone chatter about the Uchiha thing wow.)

>Madara is sent to be Senator b/c Jedi are Very Insistent that this Planet be part of the Republic.

->Madara terrifies all the politicians b/c Uchiha Hate Politics (they're too blunt and the see too much) but Madara is best at it v good at lying without saying anything untrue.

-->Madara knows Palpatine is skeevy b/c Uchiha See All The Things and You Can’t Fool Me With Such A Weak Illusion, Foolish Human and now there are clashing manipulators and Your Attachments Make You Weak and this is going to get out of hand so quickly I just know it. 

>Sasuke is apparently still best Prophecy Child Bait and Anakin is Conflicted b/c how can he be attracted to someone not Padme?

->501st would like to adopt b/c last time Anakin fucked off without backup Sasuke came back 5 minutes later with Anakin hogtied over his shoulder and the Seppie base on fire. Sasuke is so unimpressed b/c That’s Not How You Infiltrate Enemy Lines, You Moron

-->Sasuke is still 100% going to seduce Anakin and Padme b/c his life is Not Complete without an Idiot to yell at and a Crazy Berserker who likes to pretend she’s The Sane One to ride herd on.

--->Obi-wan is Done With All Of Them b/c Sasuke isn’t even pretending to try and hide his intentions b/c if they get fired Sasuke can just take them back home for a proper marriage. Mikoto is So Proud of her boy. 

>Madara and Mace have ‘sip and bitch’ IRT Palpatine being an evil fucker

->At some point Madara will wonder out loud what Palpatine is grooming Anakin for? Mace is Concerned by this revelation. Madera is not.

-->Sasuke had Issues IRT not sharing well with other children. BTW Mace Sasuke is planning to steal away Anakin and marry him. Don’t worry he will be returned eventually and so will his wife.

--->Mace thinks Anakin had it coming. WTF was the boy thinking? Did he really think he could hide anything from a temple containing several thousand telempaths? Jedi can get married, it’s just considered polite to ask first and go through the counselling with the Mind Healers beforehand. (Idea! Coruscaunti Jedi treat marriage the same way the Japanese treat Gun Control. Lots of paperwork and regular mandatory psyche evaluations and pervasive low-key terror at the idea of having one.)

->Madara will hear the “too much fear in him” story and cackles

-->Slaves have to please their Masters to survive. Anakin was freed to be a Jedi so if not a Jedi then he’s a slave again? No Fear = Be A Jedi (Not A Slave) and now Anakin is The Hero With No Fear

--->Therefore everything the Council dislikes about how Anakin acts was initialized by the Council. Mace hates Irony so much. Madara is still cackling in his face.

->Madara wants the aged out Initiates who still want to fight (or even just the Initiates who don’t suit the Jedi lifestyle)

-->He has a Clan to maintain! About 25% of the Uchiha never fell in love or fell in love with non-Uchiha so they need Marriage Options. (Uchiha don’t fall out of love easily either so new potential spouses need to be Impressive As Fuck and the jedi know how to be Impressive.)

--->Species doesn’t actually matter Uchiha’s Forest of Death planet has lots of different options despite being mostly Giant Fuck-Off Trees and the higher your Force Sensitivity the higher your chances are for successful cross-species hybrids. (Madara is planning to keep Obito and Itachi away from the aquatic species for a while b/c they have a concerning fondness for fishes.) Hybrids are viable though b/c The Force loves grand babies.

>Izuna is there as Madara’s Security Chief and he’s having Far Too Much Fun getting to be paranoid for a living. Plus all sorts of time to spend with his wife! (Need to pick name and develop Izuna’s wife beyond terrifying DFAB genderfluid interrogation specialist but at least they’re happy together.)

->Izunami (Izuna’s daughter) and Kagami are tiny children again b/c weird cross-dimensional space-time fuckery is like that

-->Shisui is super amused to be ‘older’ than his grandfather.

->Kagami approves mightily of Madara-shishou’s friendship with Mace (reminds him of Tobirama-sensei!)

->Izunami is 100% in favour of actually getting to ‘grow up’ with her Mom and Dad around this time (although she only really listens to Madara b/c he was her Parental Authority Figure and old habits don’t break) Jedi actually find this comforting b/c even if Uchiha crazy about attachments there are familiar bits there in how they arrange instruction even if the three students at a time thing is weird.

-->Both Izunami and Kagami are So Relieved that their Spouse is the same age as them b/c while they would be willing to wait until the other grew up this is much less creepy.

>Speaking of age fuckery Itachi is smol now and just about permanently leashed to Mikoto’s side.

->Sasuke is v amused b/c Aniki deserves this.

-->Mikoto and Fugaku are the first Uchiha couple to make a new baby and it’s Sarada b/c she’s the only good thing about the Next Gen (Except for Snake Fam but they aren’t a part of this fic boo)

>Obito is Madara’s primary assistant b/c some of the Uchiha are Not Over the whole Killing Us All Off thing.

->Obito runs into Quinlan Vos. Results are hilarious.

-->Brainwashing to the Dark Side ep. goes v differently. (Need to re-watch this ep for details but yes) Obito will rampage over everything b/c dude has No Chill

>Shisui is v jealous of his relatives b/c Itachi is too smol to play with and also has been hijacked by Isami (who will hold her death over Itachi for the rest of forever but again Uchiha don’t really fall out of love so she’s also learning Itachi wrangling skills from Mikoto now.)

->Everyone else is finding Jedi favourites and Shisui misses his ANBU team b/c it’s not like he really had time to make any other friends

-->Sulking Shisui trips over Feemor while waiting for Madara. Apparently Uchiha and Yoda’s Lineage have A Type. 

>BIG PLOT POINT: Uchiha Remember

->’Curse of Hatred’ spun by Madara as ‘plague’ caused by ‘non-native invasive plants’ (Blames it all on Zetsu and says plant was toxic to non-Uchiha) Says is why there are no non-Uchiha in TG44′s population despite stories otherwise.

>Uchiha think the Jedi Code is silly but the Clones are the Best Thing. All Clones look different to FS/Sharingan

>Uchiha have a habit of “stealing” spouses.

->BTW Shisui has No Patience

-->Upside: Feemor is v flattered by the attention and TG44 has a v interesting ecosystem. TF is in everything on this planet like WTF how does this work?

->Kagami is So Proud. Look at his Grandson, so proactive.

-->Starts to ‘hint’ that maybe Madara-shishou should think about settling down.

-->Mace has been meditating and consulting with the other Masters of the Order.

--->War changes everyone. Plus certain contracts between the Jedi Order and the Senate have been voided by the drafting of Jedi Generals. (Look up the details of the Ruusan Reformation for more info on disbandment of Jedi Military Powers and what it means when Senate gives them back the right to raise levy forces.)

-->Jedi don’t need to look harmless anymore just need to look less dangerous than the Seppies and the Sith.

>Uchiha Clan FB keep any of them from Falling to the Dark Side.

->Sasuke finally gets his hooks in Anakin and Padme. Notices the ‘nightmare vision’ problem first time he sleeps over.

-->Kidnaps Obi-wan to ‘repair’ the stress fracture in Anakin’s only familial FB b/c having his partner be so alone in his head is creeping Sasuke out and it’d only get worse if the bond to Obi-wan breaks completely.

--->Obi-wan is too tired to even object and now Anakin is freaking out b/c he’d been so focused on Padme maybe-dying in childbirth that he hadn’t even noticed how sick his Master looks.

---->Oh and also there is a Sith Energy Parasite attached to Anakin’s FS and it’s been poisoning his bonds. Sasuke just facepalms while the Jedi have panic attacks and drags in the genjutsu expert hostile deprogramming specialists.

----->Upside: Uchiha now know what Sith Master’s chakra signature is and can hunt him properly. Also help Mind Healers check all Jedi for similar problems, starting with Active Duty Generals. My the Council Chambers look so much Lighter now. 

>Then some stuff happens where Palpatine is exposed as the Sith Master and there are explosions.

>Plot Twist is that Madara and Mace have been banging and rewriting the Jedi Code of conduct since like their third date and no one picked up on it.

->Mace: *stares Anakin in the eyes* And that’s how you hide an affair, Skywalker.

*jazz hands* And this is how my fics look before I start writing them.

[subasekabang]

Ticking of Hours, Lonely

Author: @zenellyraen

Rating: M

Word Count: 12300

Pairings: Background Shiki/Eri ; Josh/Neku hints (setup for more later)

Warnings: Pretty blatant discussion / reference to suicide, canon typical death talk, violence, slight to major self-doubt / unreality, hinted social negatives irt trans character, Joshua, all post-game spoilers in the house honestly

Summary: After all is said and done, Neku wakes up. A bullet wound to the chest. Memories fully intact. Injured, with no proof to any of the events that happened, that he remembers but can't explain. He has nothing from the Reaper's Game except the memories of a promise to meet up again, and even that he's unsure of, because after such a traumatic experience, how can he trust anything?

Can he even be sure that any of it actually happened?

Author's Note: HOO BOY. Okay so this is finally done! It's a complete fic in and of itself, but it mostly serves as set-up for another fic I want to do immediately after this. Deepest thanks and regards to the mods and participents of the subaseka bang! Y'all were wonderful and I really loved getting to be involved in this! Biggest love to my wonderful artist, @minisculelizard, who did an amazing job on his piece.

[.start.]

Brr-brr.

Pause.

Brr-brr.

Sleepily, Neku reaches out, fumbles slightly, grabs his vibrating phone from its habitual place on his pillow. He squints into the blue half-dawn light, taking in the time, the name flashing on the screen, and his heart constricts, then starts beating overtime.

03:06 AM

Call From: SHIKI

“Shit,” Neku mutters. He flips open his phone and holds it up to his ear as he sits up, wincing as his chest pulls painfully. His hands are shaking. Neku tries to put it out of his mind. “Shiki, what’s wrong, are you alright?”

There is a long, long moment, where Neku hears nothing but static, where he thinks maybe, just maybe, it’s an accidental call, though the thought is tinged with no small amount of hysteria because what if it’s worse. What if it's not Shiki at all, and he's just going to blink and his bedroom will fall away- And then there’s a quiet sob. Shiki’s voice is harsh and raspy with weariness, grief, panic, (Neku knows, he’s felt them all), and it takes her several, shuddering breaths in and out before she can finally say, “Neku.”

“I’m right here, Shiki. I’m right here, is everything okay? What’s wrong?” Neku murmurs, his free hand fisting in the bed sheets. Shiki doesn’t answer and doesn’t answer, only repeats his name over and over again between the quiet sobs. Neku keeps up his talking, trying to distract her from her own panic. “It’s gonna be okay, Shiki, just breathe. You’re fine, it’s going to be alright. I’m right here, shhh shhh, it’s okay.”

(As he does, Neku curls over himself, pulling his knees up to his chest with slow, agonizing movements, and hates the distance between them, the late hour, the fact that the trains aren’t running right now, everything that is keeping him from every modicum of comfort he can offer.

He’s still not used to not being able to touch her.)

Shiki draws a deeper breath than any she’s managed so far. Neku holds his.

“Neku, tell me it was real,” Shiki pleads, and Neku blinks furiously against a flood of his own tears.

His hand trembles where he has his phone held against his ear, and Neku leans his head over, his shoulder up, to brace it there instead. He wraps both arms around his curled legs, his fingers roughly digging into the soft blue blanket. “Shiki,” he says, “Shiki, it was real. The Game was real, it happened. You remember, right? You remember the Noise and the Psych Pins and meeting Beat and Rhyme and Mr. H and everything else.” Neku casts around for something else, anything else, gnawing his lip in the unfocused half-light. “You remember meeting me at Hachiko? Saving my sorry ass from being partnerless? Using your pig to fight?”

There’s a watery sniff. A deep breath. “He’s not a pig.”

Neku smiles. It’s a weak expression, but it’s a real one. “And you remember all of it, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“It was real, Shiki.” Neku sighs and leans back, forcing his muscles to loosen and relax against the cool wall, wincing as the injury on his chest twinges again. “Everything really happened. You’re not crazy.” He shakes his head. “None of us are.”

Shiki’s next breath is still shuddery and upset, but the one after is calmer. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I mean. How else would I have met you, right?”

“Exactly.” Heartbeat slowly calming down, Neku breathes in and out with Shiki, hoping to quell the still-anxious twist in his gut. He can't bring himself to close his eyes, scared that when he opens them again, he'll wake up in the Scramble. “I mean, you couldn’t have pulled down my shorts in the middle of a crowded street just to fix a button otherwise.”

She laughs, which is exactly what Neku wanted. He smiles into the air, curls up over himself again until he’s talking into the crevice between his thighs and torso, forehead resting on his knees, restless and unable to truly settle. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. God, for a second there I thought I had forgotten. Thanks, Neku." Shiki's words sound warm, just a little rough, and Neku’s heart aches for her, hates the distance all over again.

"Shiki," he begins, uncertain, "do you want me to call Beat and Rhyme? We can see when we all have off to go walk around Shibuya again."

"Mm, that'd be great. I miss you guys. Gosh, Neku, it's so late! Why did you pick up at this hour of the night?"

Neku huffs out a quiet laugh, and this time, he doesn’t even blink when his chest throbs with the sharp motion and the beat of Neku’s heart. "I'm always going to pick up when you guys call. Same way you'd do it for me."

Sulky and embarrassed now that the immediate panic has receded, Shiki grumbles, "Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I should bother you like that. You could’ve woken up your parents."

"Eh, it’s really not a problem, Shiki. I would have explained it to them. We’re partners, right? Just, like. Buy me lunch when we meet up, or something."

“Deal.”

They let everything fall into an easy silence then, just listening to the other’s breaths across the phone line, until Shiki sighs, heavy. “Alright. I’m going to try and go back to sleep. Make sure you sleep too, okay, Neku?”

“Got it. Sleep well, Shiki.”

The phone beeps as she hangs up, and Neku lets his hand fall to the side, and his phone slips from his limp fingers. He closes his eyes. It’s too early for this. Too late. Too something, where the edges of the world press in, unreal and constraining all the same. Nothing makes sense here anymore.

“Joshua,” he says into the space between his knees, so quiet he can barely hear it himself, “where are you?”

It’s not the first time the question has come to mind, and it probably won’t be the last. But the weeks after the Game have stretched on and on and with them, the Game has become something more akin to a nightmare than a reality. But it happened. It had to have, because if it hadn’t, then Neku wouldn’t have any friends.

Right?

If it hadn’t happened, Neku wouldn’t have the scar from a bullet wound on his chest and three weeks of missing time to keep track of.

(It’s hard to keep believing something when you have no proof it ever really occurred.)

Neku swallows past a heavy lump in his throat.

He does not sleep. It it not the first time for that either.

* * *

It goes like this.

Four different kids wake up in three different hospitals, muscles weak, lungs laboring for breath, and the startled, glad cries of their parents are foreign to their ears. They all look around, searching for something familiar, anything, and there is nothing. There are pale walls, white curtains, the sterile metal and plastic rungs of the beds they are laid in. There are no marks on their hands. There are no pins to be found. The Scramble is gone, their cell phones (when they finally get those back) are missing any mysterious texts or camera apps.

For all intents and purposes, it seems as though nothing happened. That everything was no more than a strange dream.

(Well, as it was, several things did happen. A car accident, a knife to the wrists, a mysterious gunshot wound.

But those are the things the four kids bear with them now in bodies they aren’t sure they remember. There is nothing from a period of three weeks where they had power over their own fates, fighting in a Game where the rules kept on changing.)

The kids are all alive.

Neku, alone finally in his hospital room while his mother runs to find a doctor to check him over now that he’s regained consciousness, looks down at his hands and wishes, for a long, despairing moment, that he had a Player Pin tucked into the folds of his palm. That on his other hand, there were the jagged, painful tick-lines of a clock that exposed the tender muscles below his skin, counting down to erasure. Something.

He doesn’t know quite what to do. There is still so much left that tells him he should already be on the move. He is wasting time.

“Sakuraba-kun,” the doctor says, walking into the small examination room. Neku stiffens and looks up at him, fists his hands into his blankets when the jolt it sends through his torso pulls hard at the bullet wound. “How are you feeling?”

Neku blinks slowly at him, trying to muster his thoughts through the medical cocktail currently seeping through his veins. “Like I got shot,” he says dryly, the hoarseness of his voice surprising him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots his mother leaning forward. “You know what happened? Do you remember who it was or what they looked like?”

And Neku immediately shakes his head. “Just some kid, Mom. I don’t… remember anything.” When in fact, it’s a bit closer to the opposite, Neku’s memories clamoring loudly, gunshots and a frantic chase and a wide, wide grin. Neku breathes in, out. (It’s actually… a little strange to be able to reach back and remember anything at all. There aren’t any blank spots in his mind anymore, which is just such a change from the last two weeks that it takes Neku a moment to realize that the doctor is trying to get his attention.)

“Alright, Sakuraba-kun, just follow what I say…”

So Neku does, letting the doctor run him through a number of tests. He suffers through them all with ill, impatient grace until they finally leave him alone, the lights dimming as the sun sets and visitor hours end. Neku’s mother leaves with promises to be back tomorrow, and she’s so glad, so glad he’s alive and doing well, she was so worried. Neku pats her on the back as she clutches him to her and pretends that this isn’t all very strange to him.

He’s supposed to be dead.

Now that he’s alone, Neku leans back in the bed, chest aching aching aching, and closes his eyes. He needs something. Something familiar, beyond the pounding in his head and the dryness of his mouth. Anything. And with a stutter-start of his heart, he realizes that he does have something.

A promise.

A location.

Hachiko, a week after they wake up, though really, Neku is going to be there every day once he gets released until he sees Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, and -

Joshua.

Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, and Neku can’t even curl over himself with the force of his sudden panic, because there’s a bullet hole in him, tight and painful with each hitching breath, and he just wants to see his friends again and Joshua shot him. Again. He lost. Aren’t they all supposed to be dead? Confusion swirls around in his mind, over and over with no resolution in sight as Neku tries to put it out of his mind. He can find out later. He has to be able to find out later.

This is the first night that Neku falls asleep with Joshua’s name on his lips and the others’ not far behind.

It is not the last.

* * *

The sun shines high in the sky about a week later, and Neku has finally convinced his mother that it’s safe for him to take the train into Shibuya again, that no, he won’t stay out too late, that yes, he understands how nervous it makes her that he’s going back to the place where he got shot. It makes him nervous too. His is an excited kind of nervous, however, low and anticipatory and slightly nauseating. She only really agrees when he promises to check in with her every hour and that no, of course he’s not going alone. He’s meeting up with some friends. No, really, Mom, some friends from… school.

(If one could really count the Game as school, anyway. It taught a lesson. Surely that counted for something.)

He looks and looks for his purple shirt as well, for familiarities sake, for the fact that , maybe, this way they’ll recognize him. Sure, he wore other clothes those three weeks, he had to, but. Maybe it’ll be easier with the headphones and the outfit he wore the first time he met all of them. That’s what they know him as, how they remember him. He’s sure of it.

But he can’t find it.

He can’t find that shirt anywhere, and it’s distressing because where could it be? Where could it even be? It can’t have gone too far, he was in the hospital. Where-

Oh.

He.

He died in that shirt.

Neku very carefully places a shaking hand against the sore mass of tissue in his chest, pressing just a little bit to feel the blood pulsing under his hand, a little harder still. He takes a deep breath, swallows. Right. He died in that shirt. Even if he could find it, he couldn’t wear it. It would have blood and bullet holes all over it.

Neku sits down heavily in the center of his room, hands clenched into fists against his thighs, bracing himself there, and he just breathes in and out and in and out. He fights back the tide of hysterical laughter clawing up the back of his throat, but. He died.

He doesn’t even know if anyone else is alive.

He doesn’t know. Neku hopes desperately that they have been returned to life as he has been, but he failed them, didn’t he? He lost. He lost the last game between him and Joshua. He could not pull the trigger and do what Joshua had done to him. He doesn’t know if they’re alive. Maybe Joshua is just punishing him. Sent him back with this to be alone and to know that he failed. Maybe that’s all.

Neku takes another few deep, excruciatingly painful breaths, rubs harshly at his eyes until they are dry and sore.

And then he stands up.

He has no time.

If they’re alive, they’re alive. If they’re dead, he can mourn them then, but he doesn’t know. And since he doesn’t know, he needs to go to Hachiko; he needs to try and meet up with them. Which means, most importantly:

“Mom, do you know where my headphones went?” Neku calls.

* * *

He almost doesn't go.

Neku waffles around the station for almost half an hour. They never decided on a time or anything like that. They hadn't decided on anything at all. There was never time for it. Just a vague, nebulous concept of “Once this was all over.” Survival instinct, almost. Trying to give themselves something to look forward to when all else was hopeless. Mixed success, really, but Neku needs it now with a fervor buried deep within his skin. His headphones rest around his neck, and Neku straightens his unfamiliar shirt with shaking hands.

(“They found you there,” his mother said before he left, fretting, one hand pressed to her cheek, and Neku carefully didn't think about it. Didn't think about how loaded the location would be for him. The mere idea of the Scramble made his heart go wild in the worst way, sickening and strange, but-

but he had to go.)

And so, swallowing past his dry throat, Neku makes his slow, torturous way up the stairs and to the main station. People mill about everywhere, passing around him with almost no care in the world aside from their designated tasks. Some, more engrossed in whatever it is they're doing, bump into him, and Neku almost relishes the slight brushes of contact, because it's different. There, ahead, the statue of Hachiko. Neku joins the crowd of people and tourists awkwardly hovering around the monument. He can't bring himself to look away.

After all, what if he looks and no one's there?

What if no one comes?

What if-

“Phones?”

Neku’s knees almost buckle at the welcome voice, the more welcome nickname, and he turns sharply to see Beat standing there. He has his stupid beanie on, and there are bruises and abrasions all over his arm and one half of his face, crutches in his hands, and Neku has never been more happy to see him standing there. Beside him, Rhyme waves, excited, with her one good arm. The other is in a brightly colored cast, cradled close to her body, and god, Neku swallows back the urge to cry.

He does not, however, stop himself from hurrying over to them, skidding to a stop right before he hurtles into them. “Hey, Beat, Rhyme,” he says, breathless, and-

There are arms around him.

Two sets of them, or at least as much as Rhyme can manage as she squeezes herself between Neku and Beat. Neku blinks, his vision going blurry with something that he’s going to deny are tears, and he muffles a low, pained sound as he hugs them back.

It is too much and yet not enough.

They pull back, after what is probably an unseemly number of minutes spent holding each other and begin talking in low, excited voices. They're here and they're real, so everything else, everything else has to be real too and-

Neku blinks, turns around without quite knowing why.

Standing there, in a green cardigan and white skirt, is Shiki. Unfamiliar and familiar all at once, because this is not the body of the girl he got to know. This is not the face he knows. But she is the person, because the uncertain smile that crosses Shiki’s lips is exactly the one Neku saw for weeks. It is perfect.

She is perfect.

* * *

That time, they don’t walk into Shibuya. They get as far as the Scramble Crossing before Neku starts shaking, and the people running into them whenever they stop isn’t making it better anymore. They're too much, everyone is too much. He remembers being stuck here for weeks, waking up for only a few hours at a time like a dream, like a program turned on and off, being worried that he would be stuck here forever, and as much as he loved (loves?) Shibuya, he can’t do this right now. Neku opens his mouth, closes it.

He can't say it.

Beat suddenly turns around.

“There’s a buncha shops we can hang out at right next to the station and in the underground, right?” he says when Rhyme and Shiki look at him curiously. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I'm not into it.”

Tellingly, no one fights him at all.

(Neku breathes out a sigh of relief. It isn’t just him that can't bear to see Shibuya in all its questionable glory again. It'll never be just him again.)

It’s strange, though. Being there, that is. Shibuya is beautiful and cacophonous and vibrant and alive, but at the same time, the sick twist of panic, of reaching to tap a pin that isn’t there to scan the thoughts of passersby, of marking groups of people as Noise generators…. He can’t do it for long. It wears on him like a constant threat, like the smell of burning plastic lingering in the back of his throat. Neku feels razor sharp and worn thin.

But Shiki is there. Brunette, clutching her stuffed animal, beautiful. Beat is there, loud and irascible and wonderful. Rhyme, too, calm and quick-witted, snappy with her pointed remarks.

Neku, too, is there, and isn’t that a marvelous thing on its own?

So what does it matter if, despite its noise and people, Shibuya seems… subdued? Somehow… less than it had been before, even though it’s supposed to be fixed from the games Joshua was playing with it.

Neku has to be seeing things. There’s no other explanation.

* * *

The first time Neku takes his shirt off to change for gym class, there is a tight, collective inhalation from his classmates around him. He thinks nothing of it. It’s just these semi-strangers making noise.

Until, that is, one of them touches his shoulder.

“Dude, is that your scar from when you were shot?”

And Neku’s skin abruptly tightens, a sick twist of fear and embarrassment and, oddly enough, guilt chilling his stomach. Right. Of course. The scar is still there after all, still healing, though he’s been cleared for physical activity and it hardly even twinges anymore. But it’s still bright red and healing, and of course they’re going to ask. The Japanese school rumor network is robust. Of course they know he was shot. They probably knew mere hours after it happened. It shouldn’t surprise him that they want to see it. How many people get shot and live to tell the tale?

But they don’t, can’t, know it all, and that seals Neku’s lips faster than anything. Fighting off the urge to snarl and shrug the offending, encroaching hand is harder than it should be, but.

He’s better than that now.

“Yeah,” Neku forces himself to say. “Pretty gnarly, right?”

It gets the appropriate amount of attention (too much), and Neku tries to distract them all from prying too much, but. They’re nosy high schoolers. There’s only so much he can do aside from grit his teeth and hope that the coach comes in soon. After that, he makes sure to wear an undershirt, to never take that off in his school, because there are exactly four people who understand everything held within the pinkened scar tissue, everything it means, and exactly none of them are here.

* * *

They meet up every chance they can after that. Beat and Rhyme can't always make it, and sometimes Shiki doesn't show up either, but Neku is almost always there. Every Sunday, perched near the statue of Hachiko, and even if they end up lingering around the station underpass rather than proceeding further into Shibuya, well.

Who could really blame them? Even being this far in Shibuya's borders sends tingles of unease down Neku's spine. Things here are still rocky. Getting into the district changes the air itself, tinging it with desperation and despair and the faintest hint of death, but after a while...

After a while, it settles down.

Shibuya, as vibrant and crazy as it is, settles.

Neku tries to put it out of his mind, but that only half works when he’s constantly looking, the low buzz of something that isn’t quite panic running live currents below his skin. The crowd becomes predictable. Neku can look out and spot the stagnating trends, the uninspired and unmoving masses. Something in the air throughout Shibuya feels like Death. The unmoving, aching void that awaits everyone. In a place that was once both the center of life and death for Neku, the sight is... unsettling at best. That Neku can step into the crowd at the Scramble Crossing and not find the blank spaces in the crowd where he could have been.

(Steadfastly, he ignores the part of him that wonders if something might actually be wrong in the UG. Surely, Joshua is just-

Ignoring them? Changing the rules of the Game so Neku and the others can't see it anymore? It seems strange, but everything Joshua did seems like a fever-dream now. Neku's hands are tied. Something is wrong in the UG, but Neku is operating more than half blind at this point and there's nothing he can do. He isn’t about to die again. He isn’t sure, either, that he could do this again, no matter how much he wants to find Joshua and grab his stupid blue shirt and shake him.)

* * *

“Does anyone else notice that something in Shibuya seems … odd?” Neku asks as they linger near the statue of Hachiko, huddled together for warmth in the midst of Tokyo winter. The scramble crossing is so close and yet so far. The press of people is alright here, tourists stopping to admire the statue before moving on, and Neku feels oddly fond of these transient people.

“No, not really,” Shiki says, and Neku hums, ducking his face beneath his scarf. He has to put it out of his mind. He'll just... reinforce it if he's thinking about it all the time.

After all, thinking makes certain things true.

* * *

“Was it real?”

A question, repeated more often than not between them. Shibuya is so much less when the rhythm of the Game is gone, and Neku holds onto it as much as he can. He has a bullet wound in his side. A gnarl of scarred tissue that is impossible to explain except for the laughter in violet eyes, and it’s his certainty that keeps Beat and Shiki and Rhyme grounded. They’re more easily explainable. Didn’t go deep enough, got to the hospital in time. They make sense. They were in place, in Shibuya, for things to go south and still end up okay.

But Neku was shot, and there’s no explanation for that except Joshua.

So, like the spider’s hair leading them from hell, Neku bears their weight time and time again. He wouldn’t know these people if it wasn’t for the Game. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t be who he is, more open, someone who doesn’t need to hide behind his headphones and just watch, like an isolated island in the middle of the sea, if Joshua hadn’t been there. If they all hadn’t died and came back.

Different.

Better.

More aware.

“You know, if Joshua was a better person, I would think that he sets up the Game to make people learn to appreciate life more,” Neku says, his head pillowed on Beat’s stomach. They’re hanging out at Beat and Rhyme’s today, Beat’s standoff with his parents broken by the accident that still runs its angry claws across Beat and Rhyme’s skin. It isn’t perfect, but so very little ever is.

He feels Beat’s laughter in the contraction of muscles below his head. “Hah, fuck that. Joshua would never.”

“That’s why I said if, asshole.”

“We don’t even know why Joshua was running the Reaper’s Game to begin with,” Rhyme says thoughtfully. “What did he get out of it?”

They all think for a moment.

“Sick amusement?” Shiki offers.

“Yeah, probably.”

* * *

Neku sits with Shiki in the clinic, feet tapping on the tile. His fingers tighten around hers. The air in here is tense. Neither of them, probably, should be here, but it is important to Shiki, as she explained to him with quiet, shaking words, and so it is important to Neku. She needs to be who she truly is, after everything they’ve been through, she says. She can’t keep being jealous, hateful, and if this is what it takes, then Neku will fight everyone who looks at her sideways for it. He’ll be her bulwark against the rest of the world.

“It’s hard,” Shiki says, soft, nervous. “It’s hard and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemies. But the struggle is something I can’t keep running from.”

Neku threads his fingers through hers and thinks he’s never met anyone braver.

This part is not his story. He will not tell it. But it is hers, and if she needs him to hold her hand every other week while a doctor carefully prepares a syringe, no force will keep him away.

* * *

It has been a year since Neku woke up in the hospital, alive and aching with pain, and today is the first day he steps into the Scramble alone.

This time, he makes it to Ten-Four before he turns back around, shaking the whole way. It’s not very far. There are still a lot of people, and Neku isn’t moving as quickly as he really should, but it takes him a long time anyway, because now, now he’s watching for blank spaces in the crowds, the heated and quiet conversations. He’s watching for people, heads down and brows drawn, who are likely candidates for Noise. He looks in the doorways of each shop, trying to see a tag there. He finds them, here and there, like wisps of smoke, but even so, the energy is … wrong. Something is wrong in Shibuya, in the acrid taste of something deeper than fear filling his mouth.

He knows that he’s trying to find something.

He just doesn’t know what.

(This is not exactly true. Neku knows what he wants to find, even now. A bright, mocking voice, a cutting laugh, violet eyes behind silver-blond hair, but Joshua is nowhere to be found. The Dead God’s Pad is too far for him to try to reach on his own when he can hardly make it through the Scramble without having a panic attack.

He just has to keep trying.)

* * *

“It was real, right?” Shiki asks, her thumb pressing against her wrist, where a thin white line is.

Neku takes her hand without disturbing her grip. “Of course it was. I’m right here.” He wets his lips. “What’s got you thinking it wasn’t?”

Because there’s always something. There’s always a way to doubt the Game. Neku isn’t even sure if they’re supposed to remember it, just that they do.

“I guess I just… don’t feel like I lived three weeks. I hardly feel like I lived the one I stayed awake for.”

And that’s the thing, really, isn’t it? Neku’s mouth firms out into a line. Between all of them, he and Beat are the only two who were awake the entire three weeks, and even Beat admits that there are days he can’t remember, which just leaves Neku. As always, slightly apart from the rest. Selected. Special. He sighs. “Shiki, it was very real. The Game happened. That’s why we’re here doing what we are. That’s why you’re going into fashion.”

“I was into fashion before,” Shiki says, and Neku hates the doubt he hears in her voice.

“That’s why you’re doing it with Eri. That’s why you two reconciled. That’s why she’s on her way here to Shibuya right now, isn’t it? Weren’t you going to talk to her about everything?” And when Shiki lifts uncertain brown eyes to Neku’s, he smiles gently, more when she mirrors the expression. “Because you want her to know that it happened.”

Shiki looks up and sees Eri making her way through the crowd towards them, and she smiles and she is beautiful, and Neku lets her go easily when she stands and hurries to her friend, when she reaches out with hands that linger a touch too long to be anything but intentional and holds Eri’s wrists.

He’s so glad to see her happy.

* * *

There’s nothing.

For months and months and months, there’s nothing aside from the slow burn of healing. Neku’s chest closes, the scar cooling from an angry red to a sullen pink to a whorl of scar tissue, still tender when he puts his hand on it. School is untenable because Shiki and Beat and Rhyme aren’t there, and-

The Game might have shown him the importance of reaching out and understanding everyone else’s views, it also created a wall. A high, impassable wall of shared experience. How is he supposed to connect to people now that he’s died? Now that he’s fought for three weeks for his life and the lives of his friends, how is he supposed to tell anyone about that and expect them to understand?

The most he can give people is a smile and a lie and Neku feels uncomfortably close to understanding Joshua after all.

* * *

“What do we have after this?”

Beat doesn’t even look up from his food. “A movie or something? I dunno, man, ‘s up to you.”

Neku lets out a quiet sigh, kicking his feet as he looks over [somewhere in shibuya]. People flow around them, moving in unplanned unison. It’s an odd connection, a magnetic awareness of other people’s bodies, and try though Neku might, he can’t find the odd spaces he knows should be there. There is no graffiti in the storefronts, despite the Noise Neku can still almost sense. He fingers a pin in his pocket, wishing not for the first time that it was his Player Pin, that he could Scan the area around him, that he could do something.

Leaning back, Neku takes his hand out of his pocket and sighs. “I just want to change something, you know.”

“Well, maybe you haven’t figured out what you wanna do?” Beat offers, mouth half-full of burger. Neku would tell him to wait and chew before he talks, but he already knows it’s a wasted effort.

“I know, though. I do know,” Neku says. “I want to be the next CAT.”

Beat levels him with a surprisingly serious look. “You know who CAT ended up being. You sure?”

Neku winces. Mister Hanekoma is still missing. His involvement with the UG and Joshua is completely undeniable, and Neku has the uncomfortable feeling that it goes deeper than he’s aware. But that isn’t what he meant. Not completely anyway, and Neku ignores the part of him that accepts the inevitability of the Underground, and to an extent, Joshua, in his life. Unlife. Whatever, he’s not talking about it. “I meant the art, Beat. The inspiration, not the rest of it.”

It sounds fake even to his own ears, and he can’t blame Beat for the skeptical look he gets.

Beat shrugs, but the action isn’t a defeat or acceptance. It’s a stall while he gets his thoughts together, and Neku watches him, waits. Beat sighs, scrubs at the back of his neck, pulls his hat off and puts it back on, all while Neku only crosses one ankle over the knee of his other leg. Beat hauls in a huge breath of air.

“Well, man, way I see it? I wasn’t ever gonna go to college anyway, right? An’ that little shithole sent us back for something.” He looks off long into the distance, sunset highlighting his face stark with red, his eyes turned molten. Neku blinks, watches the determination pull itself over Beat’s face. “And I ain’t letting another day go by without using it to the fullest anymore. New ideas, new inspiration, that isn’t really my thing. I’m not an artsy kind of guy.

“But dancing? Skateboarding? I’m good at that. I could do that. That’s cool. And it’s… inspiring, right? To other people?” Beat looks up at Neku, his brows drawn into firm, determined lines. “I could do that. People like it when I dance.”

Neku nods, quiet. “They do.”

“So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll make it big dancing or some shit like that. Maybe Rhyme can help too, if she wants to. She’s good at dancing too.” Beat finally uncurls himself just a bit, leaning back away from his legs, and he grins, blue eyes twinkling mischievously. “Maybe we could even make our own music to dance to or something. Mix it all together and just handle everything ourselves, showcase our talent.”

“That assumes you have any,” Neku says without any bite, and Beat elbows him, almost fondly.

“The world is all bullshit, okay? But we got this second chance and we got it together.” Beat holds out a fist, punching it towards the horizon. “I ain’t about to waste any of it.”

Neku takes these words, examines them. Puts them away for reconsideration later.

For now, though, he just snorts. “Way to sound like a kid’s show.”

“Hey.”

* * *

As it turns out, the active effort of giving a shit is exhausting to maintain.

Neku tries, really, he does, but the world simultaneously looks better than ever and worse than before, and he can’t always reconcile the two. It’s best and worst, oddly, in Shibuya. Everything here is already different. At least here, he can pretend to know why things are changing, why the world looks and smells strange, a half-step off from typical, even though the district still feels wrong. It’s better when Shiki is there, showing off her new designs on herself and on Eri, when Beat and Rhyme are there, dancing and singing, wildly alive.

Neku tries not to feel like he’s leaving something behind every time he steps on the train out of Shibuya. Like he doesn’t feel the brush of fingers against the nape of his neck, waiting and possessive and achingly familiar.

* * *

Neku graduates.

It’s a strange thing, when he never expected to live past fifteen, past sixteen, past-

When Neku never expected to live.

But now, standing with his scroll in hand and his parents’ proud faces out in the crowd, he’s here and he’s alive and he’s going to change the world, even if he’s missing a center point of gravity in his universe. The rest of the planets have aligned and he can’t wait for the sun to return just to keep moving forward.

Joshua would be angry, if he stopped. After all the trouble Joshua went through for Neku, he would be angry.

That motivates him more than anything else.

Another secret, carefully tucked between his ribs, pulsing with the beat of his heart, but Neku thinks this one, his friends will forgive.

* * *

This is what he tells no one else:

Neku can’t leave Shibuya well enough alone.

After high school, the weekly trips slow. They become every other week, then once a month, then, only when they have time. College is busy, the life of artists is unforgiving, and none of them can afford to slow down. They have to create and influence. They are too aware that life is terribly, unforgivably short, and they can’t pretend that they’re going to get another chance after this. They have to make a difference, and this means drowning themselves in their art.

But in those spare moments where Neku needs to surface and breathe, he goes to Shibuya.

It’s like trying to immerse himself in freezing water. He figures that he’ll just inch in, one toe at a time until he hits his knees and he’ll have to jump all in or nothing. There’s going to be a point where he’ll have to confront either Udagawa or he’ll have to face the fact that he can’t get to the Dead God’s Pad anymore.

Eventually, Neku will have to jump.

Until then, however, Neku goes to Shibuya and pretends he can’t taste his own blood. He pretends that he isn’t looking for Joshua, that he isn’t seeking the Game out because that would be ridiculous. He doesn't walk around and talk to the shopkeepers because they remember who he is. He doesn't stare at the empty storefront where WildKat used to be, looking for all intents and purposes like it's been abandoned for decades, like there was never a shop at all there. It doesn’t matter what Shiki says or the sympathetic looks she gives him when she sometimes finds out where he’s been because he can’t hide these things from everyone forever. He does tell them, just. Not all the time. He can’t explain it.

Shibuya is a disease, a scab, a scar, something he’s never going to get rid of but that he can’t resist going back in to prod at. He has to go to Shibuya, knows this with a certainty that no one else understands.

Even if-

No, especially if it terrifies him.

Neku can’t be afraid forever.

* * *

Neku takes a deep breath. It’s tinged with iron and the sharp, tearing taste of fear.

Coming here alone was a mistake.

Udagawa curls and rises around him, the clatter of trains nearby and people nowhere near loud enough to overpower Neku’s own heartbeat. Neku’s hand is on the railing, clutching it for support, because his legs can’t. They shake and tremble like an earthquake. Unsteady, setting him off-guard, and Neku- can’t. He can’t hold himself up. Even trying like this is too much, too hard. He’s jittery, and his entire body is quaking visibly.

The few people on the street around him scuttle away, like he’s poisonous. Their eyes crawl over Neku, judging him for this visible weakness, and Neku.

Well, Neku can’t hear or see any of them.

He can’t breathe.

It’s too much and too close, and even the sight of the mural he used to spend hours admiring makes nausea roil in his stomach. Neku clutches it, himself, one hand folding over the knot of scar tissue on his chest like he can hold himself together physically if he just tries hard enough, because he can’t fucking breathe and he died here what was he thinking coming back alone? He can’t have been thinking. He should have never come here, he should have never come back at all, this is worthless, what is wrong with him that he keeps coming back to Shibuya?

The pavement is closer. Why is it closer? When did he fall to his knees? When? Why did he come here like he expected to end up looking down the barrel of a gun again?

What is wrong with him?

There is the clattering of a metal ball against metal, the distinct rattle of someone shaking an aerosol can.

Neku looks up.

The world moves with him, settling out in nauseating fits and bursts. There, in front of the mural, is a boy. His shirt is yellow, and even from here, Neku can hear the music pumping through the large headphones he has over his ears. He shakes a can of spray paint, looking up and down the wall consideringly, bright red hair shifting as he bops his head in time with the beat. Then, without any further thought, he lifts the can and begins spraying.

Neku blinks. Something twists in his chest and he pushes himself up.

“Hey,” he says weakly, clears his throat, tries again. “Hey!”

The kid pauses. Looks over at Neku. Jerks his chin in a nod of acknowledgement, and turns back to the mural. Raises the can and resumes spraying again, large swatches of yellow.

Neku’s temper snaps. “That’s CAT’s mural! You can’t just-”

“CAT isn’t around anymore,” the redheaded vandalizer interjects. He nudges his headphones with his shoulder so they fall back around his neck before he looks at Neku again. “The wall is fair game now.”

“That’s not-” Neku starts, but falters. CAT is Mr. H, and Hanekoma hasn’t been seen in years now either, so the kid is, technically, right. “It’s not right. It’s his art.”

The kid watches him carefully, but shrugs a moment later, raising the can again. “Art evolves. I’m just here to help.”

There is silence aside from the continued bursts of paint from the canister. Neku can’t watch, stares at the ground as the source of his inspiration, the site of his death, is massacred.

A can is shoved into his view.

He takes it, confused, then blinks at the redhead, who shrugs again, an affected, too-casual lift of his shoulders. “Can’t beat it, own it,” he says, as though that makes any sense. “You know how to tag shit?”

“Sure, I guess?” Neku says, confused.

And the vandalizer gestures at the wall as though to say, “Be my guest,” and steps back. Skates back, actually, now that Neku is looking. Why is he wearing rollerskates? Neku shakes his head, returning his attention to the mural. Shibuya has never made sense and it isn’t about to start now. He lifts the can. His hands shake.

He presses down on the nozzle.

It’s an inelegant slash of orange, and the sight of it lifts the iron chains from Neku’s lungs. He stares at it, at the drips slowly bleeding their way down the wall, and starts when an elbow nudges him.

“Not bad. Here, if you really want to learn,” and next thing Neku knows, he’s learning how to deface his own favorite mural. But nicely, and it-

Honestly, it feels nice.

It feels like, somehow, he owns this space again, carved out the moment of his own death and replaced it with something new. It hurts, the way all new wounds do, but there’s a lightness, a relief in Neku’s heart that cannot be exchanged for the terror of before. Later, he’s sure he’s going to regret the fuck out of this, but right now? Now, it’s good. It’s… exactly what he needed.

There’s a sound, and the kid claps a hand on Neku’s shoulder. “Ever run from the cops?”

“What? No?”

“Well, it’s time to learn.”

“What?”

* * *

They run, and Neku doesn’t get the kid’s name, but they see each other around Shibuya every once in awhile and nod solemnly before defacing the city, and they run from the authorities and it’s good.

It’s good.

* * *

Reaching out and connecting to people is still difficult. Expanding the horizons of your world is, as Beat puts it, like building muscle. You have to rip it and let it heal, bigger and more painful in the interim because the only way to grow is to challenge yourself and Neku has never been good at that. It's like stepping off the edge of a cliff, but, they all reason, when you've died once already, life doesn't seem that frightening anymore.  Neku still remembers the shopkeepers around Shibuya, and they remember him too, greeting him with smiles and by name whenever he drops by.

“This is Neku-kun,” [blank]-san says to a new hire one afternoon. “You'll end up seeing a lot of him. He's a good customer.”

The kid gives Neku a skeptical look from his spiked hair to his bright clothes, which are admittedly a bit out of place in [store], but really, there's no reason for that kind of attitude. Neku tucks his face behind his high collar, the style still his favorite, but grins instead of scowls. “I'll be in your care,” he says, jokingly formal, and [blank]-san laughs the way he meant them to.

“Mm, I was wondering when you were going to drop by, Neku-kun,” [blank san] says, as though suddenly reminded of something. “The owner of one of the coffeeshops around the area came by and asked where you were.”

That's odd, Neku doesn't say. “Oh? Who was it?”

“You know WildKat, right?”

Neku's heart takes off, breath frozen in his very lungs.

[So and so] waves an idle hand, busy looking at something on the desk. “Apparently, there are noises that it's going to open up again, and the owner was walking around trying to find his old regulars. I didn't know you used to stop by there. Any idea why it closed?”

“No,” Neku says with a dry mouth. “It. It was years ago. I have no idea.”

*             *             *

(Neku checks and the store front is still empty. There's nothing there, and Neku doesn't know whether to be upset or disappointed or glad or all of them, but he's just scared and hungry with a desperation that surprises him.

This is another thing he keeps close to his chest and does not mention.)

*             *             *

“Oh hey, Sakuraba?” his R.A. calls as he enters the college dorms, and Neku pauses.

“Yeah?”

“A guy, middle aged, looked like a barista, kinda scruffy, came by looking for you about an hour or so ago? He said he had a delivery for you, but didn’t leave anything behind.” The R.A., his plain, honest face scrunching slightly, squints at Neku. “You’re not getting involved in anything illegal, are you?”

Neku can hardly hear him over his own heartbeat. He’s aware that he shakes his head, that he makes his shaking excuses and goes upstairs, that he opens his door and drops his portfolio with an affected care. That his breath is coming too hard and too fast and he probably did come off like he’s getting in trouble when really, he’s trying to not panic at the news of Mr. H coming by his fucking dorm room like it hasn’t been almost five years.

He stops.

There, resting innocuously in the center of his low desk, is a plain box. No note is attached. It’s held closed by a single piece of unadorned tape.

It wasn’t there when he left this morning.

Carefully, Neku picks it up. There’s a solid weight to it, neither too light nor too heavy for its size. Shaking it makes no noise. Neku’s heart skitters and thuds into an ever-increasing inferno of noise that he can’t explain, his breath coming shorter and shorter. His palm stings in a way it hasn’t for years. Neku rubs it, at first absently then harder and then digging when he can’t feel the grooves of numbers ticking through to blood and bone.

He should just leave it.

(He should open it.)

He doesn’t know who it came from or how it got here.

(There’s only one person it could ever be, the only one that comes to mind, and Neku’s heart cannot calm down, cannot halt its tripping pace because of that name. And he knows exactly how it got here.)

Neku picks up the box. His fingers tremble, fumble with the tape, and Neku hisses under his breath, willing his shaking hands to steady long enough for him to get this damn box open. Finally, though, he slides a fingernail beneath the lear line and lifts and-

-a stutter.

A thunder as Neku’s ears roar with the sound of his racing heart, as he reaches within the box and withdraws a silver chain. It lifts, jingling faintly, and then, the bullet casing attached to it rises from its padded bower.

Neku drops it.

The sound it makes as it clatters on the ground is too-loud, shocking, and Neku realizes only then that his chest is heaving, that every breath is a dragging struggle, harsh and rasping and filling every void his heartbeat leaves behind and he can’t see, he can’t stand, the world itself isn’t real anymore. There’s no timer on his hand, and his side aches like it hasn’t since he was actually shot but the bullet casing can only be from one person because there’s only ever been one person who could even have it to begin with. Panic, like electricity arcs in his chest and arms, nauseating, and Neku wishes he could be anywhere, could do anything, could go back in time five years and stop himself from contemplating a mural that got two people killed.

His eyes, frantic for anything other than the faint gleam of silver to look at, fall to the box.

And the note, now revealed, within. With shaking fingers, Neku tries once, twice when they don’t quite manage, to pick it up. He turns it over once, then again.

The note reads one line only:

“Miss me, partner?”

And that’s it.

That’s what does it. That idle, flippant question as though Neku hasn’t been a compass that lost its North for years, looking for Joshua.

Neku finds himself curled over his own knees untold minutes later, mouth open in a silent scream. His cheeks and hands and knees are soaked with tears, his clothes damp and uncomfortable with sweat as the world shudders back into place around him. Trembling through the aftershocks of that, Neku pushes himself off the floor. He feels weak, like a kitten, like he’s going through Physical Therapy all over again, learning how to push through the ache in his muscles.

But when he reaches down to pick up the necklace this time, Neku’s hands are curiously still.

* * *

He wears it.

God knows why. He tries to not think about it too much; the whys and hows would drive him insane. It’s never on the outside of his clothes. Sure, the casing is innocent enough that most people he passed would pass it off as simple jewelry.

But those three that matter. The only people who truly matter.

They would know, and Neku wants this to be just his right now, no matter how bad of an idea it might be.

Just until I figure out what to say, he tells himself, pressing the lump of gunmetal against his sternum. It won’t be long. I just. Have to explain it to them, and I can’t if I don’t know how.

* * *

This is how it continues.

Time passes as it does, and those three weeks seem further and further away each time they are remembered, yet they dig and settle under the skin. Completely unseen. Absolutely unforgettable. Neku tries to capture something of this in his art, broad brush strokes on stark canvases, needle thin lines cutting across them, but the best way he can express it is on the walls in Shibuya, especially Udagawa, a shaken can of compressed paint and a mask pulled low across his nose and mouth as he defaces the city, paint dripping and spattering to the ground like so much blood.

He knows the back alleys. He knows this place with an intimacy that means the locals have already accepted him as par for course and pass over him. It’s easy. It’s comfortable.

It’s where he died, and he doesn’t know what to do about that. He tries to not look for the stains of where he was shot, the weight of the bullet that killed him hanging from his neck.

He is only sometimes successful.

They do ask. Of course they do. You share a secret with only three other people who you see for a few hours every other week, though you keep in almost constant contact through your phones, and they’re bound to notice the chain hanging around your neck when you don’t change much on your person anymore, still stuck to habits and comforts. Neku deserted his headphones years ago, but that never meant that he didn’t enjoy having them around still. They’re comfortable, a weight that he didn’t know he missed until he replaced it.

When she sees it, in one of their monthly meetings at an izakaya, Shikis stares at the chain, then at Neku, waiting for him to offer her an explanation that he doesn’t have, that he drowns in a gulp of bitter beer because this is what their meetings have sometimes turned into. Beat stares out over the crowd, half caught in other people’s conversations the way he always is, because that’s how Beat makes friends. Plus, he’s looking after Eri, her tall form moving through the crowd, and Neku knows without question that if someone lays a hand on Eri, Beat will be there living up to his name before a second has passed. Not that there should be any trouble. The izakaya is loud and raucous, in the way that izakaya full of Japanese college students usually are, but it isn’t trouble. Neku sinks into the noise as a way to escape the question.

Rhyme, sharp and perceptive and sly beneath that beatific smile of hers that has only gotten her and Beat a larger online following, doesn’t give him an easy out like that, though.

“What’s this?” she asks, reaching out to tap the lump the bullet casing makes against his shirt, and Neku flinches at the tap of metal on skin.

Carefully, he wets his lips. “It’s nothing. Just something I picked up.”

“I haven’t seen you wear a necklace in years. Not since your media player broke.”

“It’s just a necklace, Rhyme,” he tries.

“Where’d you get it?”

And that he doesn’t have a quick answer for. Even Beat has stopped staring at the crowd, returning his focus to Neku and the way Neku’s hands twist around themselves. “It was a gift,” he says finally.

“From?”

Neku wants to say that he doesn’t know, but he does. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, and Rhyme’s gaze turns gentle and oddly pitying before she pats him on the hand, stopping his nails before they dig in a bit too sharp.

“It’s okay, Neku.”

Eri gets back then, bringing a pitcher of water with her as she sits, and there’s an odd twist to her mouth.

“Are you okay?” Shiki asks, surreptitiously wrapping an arm around Eri.

“Yeah, but do you think we can go to a different bar next month? Shibuya’s been getting kinda dangerous lately, and I don’t like the vibe in here anymore.”

Neku clenches his teeth.

Beat hums, tapping a knuckle against the wooden table. “Yeah, I dunno. You’re right, Shibuya’s been feeling real weird recently. I dunno what’s up with that. This used to be a pretty damn good bar to stick around in and now it’s kinda fucked up.”

“It’s just a bar,” Shiki says, but her tone is doubtful.

Rhyme too, now, dragging her fingers through the condensation gathering on her glass of water. She never drinks, preferring to watch them all get red and tipsy and laugh at them. Actually, Beat never gets drunk either. He only nurses a single whiskey that he never finishes. It might actually just be Neku who drinks and he’s not sure what to do with that information except to take another sip of his beer and try to not make a face at it. “It’s not just the bar. It’s the whole city. Shibuya feels… weird. What if we met up in Odaiba or Asakusa next month?”

“It’s Shibuya,” Neku says, mouth numb.

Eri leans her arms, long and pale like the rest of her, on the table, her expressive mouth pouting, and Neku pretends that he doesn’t see how Shiki is distracted by it, fond. “Well, yeah, and I know you guys have… history here, but there’s a whole city out there.”

“But-”

“But nothing, Neku. Shibuya isn’t the same. It’s been what, almost six years now? Isn’t it time to move on? We have bigger and better things to do.”

Bigger and better than Shibuya? The district that brought them all together? Neku’s mouth curls down as his thoughts turn bitter and uncharitable, but he’s broken out of it by Rhyme tapping his hand again.

“He isn’t coming, Neku,” Rhyme says kindly, her eyes catching on where the bullet casing has swung past the collar of Neku’s shirt. “It’s been five years. I think it’s time we move on.”

Swallowing, Neku pushes the casing back beneath his clothes. He feels more grounded with it against his skin. “I don’t know. It feels like Shibuya’s dying, and I think it’s our fault and if I, we, stay here, I think-”

“We can’t fix it, Neku,” Shiki says, voice firm. “I’m not dying again to fix a problem that isn’t mine. Whatever’s going on here, it’s his problem, and he has to fix it.”

Neku’s mouth twists to the side. Quietly, he says, “I feel responsible.”

It explains everything and nothing at the same time, but when Beat suggests they meet up in Odaiba next month, Neku goes and pretends that he isn’t more anxious now that the familiar line of 104 is out of sight.

* * *

Neku isn’t wrong.

That’s the thing. He notices it a little sooner than everything else, but the world is stagnating and worsening. Not just in Shibuya, but everywhere around the world, things are getting worse. There’s a mad flourish of ideas, of creative Imagination (capital “I” and everything) to come out of it, like flowers blooming from decaying bodies, but it’s not enough to mask the smell of death, and Neku sees it everywhere he goes.

He isn’t wrong. The world is dying, and they’re all dying with it. It’s worse than before, when it was just Shibuya hovering on the edge of the brink, considering how far down it would be to fall and rise again.

He wonders.

Maybe-

Maybe this is why Joshua isn’t here. Maybe he’s busy elsewhere.

But no, Joshua wouldn’t care about anything beyond his district. Couldn’t, maybe, but even Shibuya suffers. Neku sees it everywhere, and every waking moment he has free of class, he’s in the district, wandering the streets. He sees the vandal sometimes, a familiar and welcome figure that he exchanges too-solemn nods with, and greets shopkeepers by name. He meets everyone and keeps an eye out for exchanges that promise to turn into Noise. Neku tries to keep Shibuya breathing, and when his own murals catch the media’s attention in place of CAT’s, he takes it for the victory it is.

He can’t leave well enough alone.

(Neku doesn’t know how to feel alive if he isn’t worrying over Shibuya.)

But the end of his college career is coming up, and the city is already skirting talking to him in a serious capacity, making his art on the walls of Shibuya a deliberate attraction. They’re talking about setting up a studio for him there, apprenticed to a more notable artist to get his foot in the door, and Neku has three other job offers from other artists, all wanting his skill under them, but this is the only one in his town and-

Something crawls in his skin, and Neku breathes in, breathes out.

He’s clicking on the ad for apartment listings before he really lets himself think about it.

* * *

“You what?” Shiki asks, only it’s less asking and more shouting, and Neku holds his phone away from his ear slightly before she calms down long enough to not make him go deaf.

“I bought an apartment in Shibuya,” he says again. Shiki’s response is muted the second time, but still incoherent. He’s pretty sure she’s yelling at Eri, explaining to her girlfriend what idiocy Neku has landed himself in this time. Neku wishes that his phone had a cord on it, just to give him something to do other than pace while he talks. “I just. I don’t know. I just want to be there. I want to be nearby. There’s a job waiting for me, and I just-”

She is silent for a while. Neku can see her chewing on her lip in his mind’s eye. “Are you sure? I mean, the place isn’t exactly healthy for us; I don’t think…”

“I know.” Neku breathes out hard through his nose. “I know. But I want to be there, all the same. I don’t think I can leave it behind.”

“We should be able to.”

“You only have to visit. You don’t have to stay there with me.”

“I don’t think I could.”

They’re quiet together for a long time. She does this while she’s organizing her thoughts, and it’s not like Neku has ever really known what to say. Even now, six years later, he has nothing that makes sense to him. He has no words to pull forth.

Eventually, she sighs. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Neku barks out a laugh, short and sharp. “Me too, Shiki. Me too.”

* * *

It's like he's right there all over again with the bright edge of mocking laughter around every corner. Like the years spanning this haven't happened, like he hasn't finally learned how to walk across the Scramble Crossing without preparing for a fight, fingers resting against a pin that isn't the Player Pin but makes his heart calm its crazed beating anyway.

The gun cocks.

Shaking, Neku focuses on the bright white slash of Joshua's smile. The widened purple of his eyes. Neku's hands are steady as he lifts his own gun, but he knows already how this goes. He won't shoot, but Joshua will, and in doing so, they maintain the balance that keeps Shibuya thriving. That was how it was supposed to go, with Joshua too proud to do anything close to stepping down and Neku having cracked his shell open enough to want to protect one of the closest friends he's earned.

And then.

Joshua's mouth forms a word, two, three, and the gun lowers without the customary flash and-

Neku wakes up and swears that he can still see the barrel of the gun right in front of his eyes. It doesn’t scare him. How could it? He’s seen it a million times. He knows what happens, what could have happened, and it’s stopped being frightening and more of an object of curiosity than anything else. First night in his new apartment and he has a nightmare. The nightmare, if he's being honest; it's been haunting him with every change for the last six and a half years, and while this is the first time Joshua hasn't shot him, the rest of it remains the same. The gun can't frighten him anymore.

He can also see the violet eyes behind it. Those don’t scare him either. Not when Shibuya itself doesn't.

“Wait for me.”

Neku snorts. Like he's been doing anything else.

Little bastard.

But he rolls out of bed with a renewed sense of purpose, and pulls back the curtains to look over Shibuya, his Shibuya, and breathes in the city air and gets ready to take this place by storm.

* * *

Shibuya explodes with color at most times, more so around Christmas, and Neku settles into the hubbub with a sense of coming home. His art is everywhere now. He designs signs for so many stores in the area that he's getting a name for himself. His mentor is pleased with how much attention their studio gets, and the internet is ablaze with requests and orders, and Neku sees so many emails and comments about people who love his work (and, of course, people who don't, but even disagreement is understanding and expanding their world as long as they're not a douchebag about it), and it's like Shibuya appreciates that.

The city itself feels welcome, feels like home, and the others do come to give Neku a housewarming party, even if they don't stay for long. The long-twisting anxiety that has curled around Neku since the Game settles now that he's in Shibuya, now that he's trying to make the city live once again, and when he walks by an old coffeeshop on Cat Street to visit the Jupiter of the Monkey store, a white paper in the window stops him.

Neku pivots slowly on his heel, walking up to the door. Plain kanji and katakana on the sign read: “WildKat Cafe, Closed for Renovations. Opening Soon.”

A warm glow settles in Neku's chest. He nods to himself. As he leaves, continuing on his trek to the store, he knows, finally, that he's been doing the right thing.

*             *             *

Something here changes.

Shibuya is alive again. Slowly, surely, growing more and more each day, with a kind of vitality that Neku hasn’t seen from it in years. It's been two years now since he moved into the city, and it's been two years of challenging, tireless work, but Neku, as “Phones”, has been getting renown throughout the city, for his work in Shibuya, and he loves how the city has been responding to it.

“You know, most artists at least ask permission,” a dry voice says.

Neku almost drops the can. He whips around, eyes wide, because it can't be, it can't be-

But, standing right there, examining his work with a pensive look on his face, hands shoved deep into his pockets, is Mister Hanekoma himself. He meets Neku's gaze, and grins, lifting one hand. “Hey there, Phones. How's it been?”

(A piece of the universe shivers into place, and Neku's scar aches. Here's more proof, Neku wants to think. Here's the second biggest piece of proof of them all, because Mister Hanekoma has always meant the Game itself. Where there is one, the other isn't far behind.)

“It's been good,” Neku says once he remembers how to breathe. “Is...”

Mr. H shakes his head. “Nah, he's a bit wrapped up. Plus, you remember how hard it is to get him to do anything reasonable.”

“Is he okay?”

“That's an excellent question.” Hanekoma looks Neku up and down, then huffs out a quiet bit of laughter. “Man, you've grown, haven't you? Why don't you gather your friends and come by tomorrow for some coffee? We can catch up then.”

Neku nods before he really registers the motion, desperate for any connection. “Yeah, yeah, I'll get everyone together. No problem.”

“Good.” And that seems to be all he came by to say, because Hanekoma turns and slouches off, hands tucked into his pants, and Neku watches him as long as he can before he loses Mr. H's form in the crowd. If Neku blinks, he'll disappear. If Neku blinks, he'll lose the proof that this has happened. He'll have to accept that weight himself again, and he can't hold it up anymore. Not on his own.

Neku lets out a breath. Pulls out his phone.

[To: Group]

So you won't believe who I ran into just now.

[From: Shiki]

Who?

And Neku has to bite back a triumphant grin.

[To: Group]

How does everyone feel about getting coffee tomorrow? I know a place on Cat Street that's opening up.

*             *             *

“Mister Hanekoma,” Shiki says, with no small amount of surprise.

The man in question only grins and raises a hand, laconic and sarcastic as always in the face of pretty much everything. “Hey there, Miss Shiki! Glad to see you as yourself this time. And may I say, you're looking pretty nice. Good job.”

She flushes, her hands catching on the hem of her shirt as she tugs and resettles and can't fight the smile that crosses her beautiful face. Watching them, Neku feels himself smile too, sympathetically excited for this reunion. Mr. H and Beat shake hands, Beat taking up so much space in comparison. Beat has a few centimeters on Mr. H now, which is impressive considering how looming he had seemed when they were all younger. Rhyme bows, then gives that up with a giggle and enthusiastically hugs the man who saved her and her brother's lives, and Mr. H just smiles through it all.

“So,” Neku says, “are the drinks on the house, or?”

Mr. H laughs, a sharp bray of noise. “Who do you think you are, my boss? I'll give you a discount, but nothing's on the house. I gotta get this place busy, you know.”

“So same old Mr H, huh.”

“Like you expected me to change.”

And really, Neku didn't. Really, honestly, he didn't.

They get settled at a table, warm drinks clutched between their hands, and they're already chattering like they're fifteen and learning about how much larger the world really is than just them for the first time. Neku can't stop smiling, ebullient joy battering at his ribcage because he was right. He was never wrong, and his memory hadn't ever failed him, and somehow, knowing that he hadn't been insane lifts such a massive weight from his shoulders that Neku feels giddy with it.

Suddenly, during a lull in the conversation, the door opens, and Mr. H, behind the counter, straightens with a smile at first that falls into nothing at all as soon as he sees whoever it is behind them. Neku blinks at Mr. H, the words in his mouth drying up as he becomes… aware of a presence, waiting at the edge of his notice. The hair on his arms stands on end, a rush of electricity running through him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here so soon,” Mr. Hanekoma says, a beat too late, the smile that slides back on a touch too wide to be genuine.

The voice that Neku wanted to hear for eight years chimes in, sharp and exactly the way that Neku has worn it down to familiar points in his dreams, “Really, dear, you should've known better than that.”

His heart pounds high in his throat. Everyone in front of him has gone quiet, staring, pale-faced, at the door. Tense, his hands clenched in his lap, it takes Neku several moments for his head to stop swimming. He can do this. He has conquered meeting an entire city. He has tagged every inch of its people for himself. He can see past the barrel of the gun now.

Neku turns around.

“We all know how stuffy business can be. It took them a while to get their heads in order. But don’t worry, I got let out early on good behavior.” Josh smiles, the expression a knife-cut across his face. He is small and fifteen, unchanged as ever with the same shirt and same orange phone resting idly, dangerously, in his hand. His violet eyes, dazzling and wide with something that is nowhere close to an actual smile, move from Rhyme to Beat to Shiki to Neku, where they stay.

He looks like no time at all has passed, and for all that Neku is twenty-four now and eight years have gone by since the bullet wound in his chest was anything other than a healing scar, Neku feels like he’s right back there. Fighting for his life, playing a game where the rules were introduced and discarded before any of them really even knew what they were. His palm aches like it's been cut down to the bone, and every thud of his heart rattles the bullet casing resting against his sternum.

Swallowing roughly, Neku finds that he can’t break the gaze between him and Joshua. Josh’s smile only grows.

“Did you miss me, darlings?”

[kyberled]

hc + light saber form/combat style

Send me  “HC”  + a word and I’ll write a headcanon about it. || ALWAYS ACCEPTING

God bless you and your crops, Zach, because I have a lot of things to say about this.

To start off with, Braig is capable of using one saber, but he vastly prefers his two, for Jar’Kai. When he was a little tot, he and the other initiates trained with one training saber, so that’s what his initial instruction was in; and, I imagine, he’s been made to learn to fight with just one, in case of injury or loss of weapon. But, his main style is absolutely Jar’Kai. He feels significantly more comfortable with a pair, and it reflects in his movements and fighting style. Since we’ve seen Obidad dual-wielding a few times, most notably in the fight with Vos against Bane, it’s 100% possible that Obi taught Braiggo how to use two, and that’s the canon for this blog. Now, if I remember right, Obi originally practised Form III, but, following Qui’s death, added some Form V into his personal style to develop a bit more of a defence. So, that would mean that the core/base foundation of Braig’s fighting style would likely be a similar mix, only adapted for Jar’Kai. (It’s also worth noting that Braig is Obi’s padawan after Anakin gets knighted, so I imagine Obidad’s got his mixed style well-established, by then.) 

A while ago - I think a few months - Liz told me that her Mace considered Braig an eligible candidate for learning Vapaad, and would teach him, if Obi-Wan said it was okay (and since Dad has a very hard time saying no to his kiddo, I can’t imagine him veto’ing this, but I’d have to run it by Rodi for hard-and-fast confirmation) [Update: Rodi says ‘Obi is of the mind that Braig choosing to learn from other Masters can only make him that much more well informed and learned. He supports it 100%.’]. According to Liz, Mace would start teaching Braig Vapaad when Braig was about twelve or thirteen (incidentally, about the same time Braig was padawan’d), which means when Braig left the basic training initiates get, he got some pretty mixed education irt: his saber training. But, he wouldn’t have it any other way. When Mace offered to teach this bean, Braig would have been literally vibrating - he was so excited, but also trying to appear like a ‘proper’ Jedi who was worthy of the offer, so he’d literally be minutely shaking because he’s so excited and hyped up and also honoured? I mean, for one, Mace is offering, of his own free will, to train Braig, and having this be so soon after the emotional disaster that was Braig’s attempts to find a master, feeling that- wanted, for lack of a better word, was a pretty big deal for him. On top of that, he’s learning a form from the person who created it. That’s gotta be a huge honour. Not to mention, People Who Know Vapaad is a pretty exclusive club to be in. You could probably count them all on one hand, and still have fingers left over. I know in the Jedi Path, Anakin complains about how Mace won’t teach him Vapaad, and Ahsoka adds that, quote, ‘Nobody learns Vapaad’. So, the fact that Mace chose him, chose Braig– I’m serious when I say, if Braig hadn’t been taught to keep his emotions in check, and wasn’t worried about Mace changing his mind, Braig probably would’ve started crying. Like, the kid was just completely overwhelmed. But, yes; Braig does, in fact, know Vapaad, in the blog’s ‘main canon’ (as in, it applies to 99% of threads, but, if I were to write with another Mace who didn’t share this headcanon, then Braig’d only know Forms III and V in any real, extensive detail). He would spend the bulk of his Vapaad training (or, at least, the early days) learning Vapaad with one saber, as the form was originally made, and then working on adapting it to work with two lightsabers both on his own time and with Mace’s guidance, and then, once Braig was more comfortable with the form’s movements and applications and all, I imagine lessons would be a mix of training with one and two sabers. 

But, that ramble is just there to let you know that Braig’s fighting style would be pretty weird. A nice mix between Soresu (Form III), Shien / Djem So (Form V), and, of course, Vapaad (Form VII). Which shows through most while he’s fighting depends on the day, the situation, who he was working with most recently, and so on and so forth (Though I will also note, that since Vapaad requires a lot of mental focus and Force-use, he’s less likely to employ it if he’s tired or worn-down, especially when he’s younger). When he trains, he usually takes the time (when he can) to practise sets specific to each individual form, and then when he’s doing more free-flow exercises, or just sparring with his friends, he lets himself slide back into his little blend/adapting style, where all three blend together. (I would also like to say that he is quite glad that he practised the individual forms after Order 66, and especially after he takes on an apprentice/apprentices of his own. Being able to switch his fighting style up makes him harder to find when he doesn’t want to be, sure, the came as changing up any MO would, but it’s more than that. He considers the forms, Vapaad especially, an important part of the history of the Jedi, and he’s glad to be able to preserve it and pass it on - though he, like Mace, would be very selective with who would get to learn Vapaad).

As a final note, it’s important for me to add that Braig’s sabers are made to be joined together at one end, making them into a saber-staff (If I remember right, we see a similar mechanism in Asaaj Ventress’ lightsabers, but I could be wrong). The Book of Sith claims that saber-staves are a Sith-exclusive weapon, but Vos writes that he knows at least one Jedi (can’t remember the name) who has a staff, and we know Krell has two - though Braig is loathe to be compared to him for any reason. So, I’m taking all of this to mean that it’s uncommon for a Jedi to use a saber-staff, but it’s not entirely unheard of. So Braig probably had to scrounge around for a saber-staff instructor. It’s not something he uses as often as he does his dual sabers separately, but he is proficient enough to use it in combat. Now, the thing is, you can’t use a saber-staff the way you would use a regular staff. You just can’t. (Also, minor pet peeve, it’s not a ‘bo staff’. ‘Bo’ means ‘staff’. ‘Bo staff’ = ‘staff staff’. Just. Don’t. On behalf of the entire dojo.) But this realisation came to me when I was swinging a guandao around with Sifu Sam and my younger brother. Why the idea of lightsabers and staves came to me during practise with a guandao, which is neither a sword, nor a staff (though it is staff-like), I’ll never know, but it did. See, the thing is, in our kobudo at least, there are a number of forms, including the bo-lengthening exercise and a number of kata, where your hands slide to the bottom-third of the bo, rather than the middle, where your hands would normally be. The bottom third of a saber-staff is the blade. … I don’t need to tell you why that’s a problem. There are also moves where the ends of the staff are braced against your bicep, or come very close to your neck/head/shoulder when you set up for some strikes. I can imagine that’s somewhat disconcerting when the ends of the staff are made of superheated Force-powered plasma. Similarly, in our style of kung fu, when you use a spear, you typically hold it by the bottom-third too; you do the same with a guandao for a few moves (though a bit less frequently), and there are parts where you kick up the ends, or you use your elbow to push the handles into some parts, and basically what I’m saying is if you used a saber-staff like you would a normal polearm you’d probably get sliced up. The weighting would be so weird, too - from my understanding, it’d be focused in the middle, with the metal handles, and the blades might not weigh anything at all? @Lucasfilm give me lightsaber physics please. Aside from that, on the end of this OOC tangent, I’d add that I write Braig’s footwork/movements as mostly what we’ve seen in The Clone Wars, since there’s no way I’d be able to learn how to move like a Jedi (esp. in regards to Vapaad, which, to me, seems to have some of the most distinct movements of any form we see thus far), but there are notes of the martial arts I do in there, too. Namely the kung fu, since that fits him best, in my opinion. But this is long enough, and I could rant about that for long enough to put myself to sleep. 

[avasilvugh]

what zodiac signs are the superbabies?

did i fill out a birth chart for each of the kiddos………..Maybe

finn

taurus sun!  

he’s the most grounded of the kiddos, the least reactive.  like??  his focus is on everyone’s well being, not on his own feelings/reactions to any given event

taurus is an earth sign and is one of the most stable and reliable of the signs!!  taurus is a rlly tactile sign as well??  v focused on touch and what is tangible which is a big thing for finn as well.  taurus suns can also verge into overprotectiveness for those they love, which finn is definitely guilty of

capricorn moon!

cap moons pride themselves on being useful and productive and are highly competent, regardless of whatever turmoil theyre experiencing at the time and like??  that’s finn

sweet kiddo keeps his shit Together regardless of whats going on.  like he worries and frets a lot, cries a lot, but fuck if he isnt also working through at least seven different solutions to every problem facing him at the moment

he’s also p hard on himself, which is a big characteristic of cap moons as well.  like??  he holds himself to this nearly impossible standard, even while making allowances for the ppl around him, understanding that theyre doing their best but never giving himself that same benefit of doubt

maia

aries sun!

aries are fire signs and aries especially tend to be one of the most temperamental of the sign.  as the first zodiac sign, they also tend to be natural born leaders which maia definitely is.  like??  she’s the ringleader 9 times out of 10 tbh, leading the kiddos on whatever scheme they’re up to.  she’s usually the one dragging her siblings into things

she’s also p straightforward in things??  like…….she’s not manipulative or shady, she’ll be v straight with ya like if u hurt her ppl, she’ll come for ur ass.  u leave her ppl alone, she’s got no problem with u, simple as that u know??  like her sense of morality and justice is v black and white, either ur trying to hurt her or her ppl or ur not

leo moon!

another fire sign!!  Dramatic as Hell and not afraid of taking risks which, like………home girl is the most openly dramatic of her siblings for sure, is definitely the biggest risk taker (without always thinking of consequences??  which is a big thing for both aries and leo)

she tends towards p dramatic outbursts when she’s feeling hurt or upset as well, particularly at home w/ her family (i mean like……when she fights with finn, she makes him fly up over the city with her just so she can scream at him) which is a big trait of leo moons, but like she moves past it rlly quickly??  like when its over, its over

also!!!  rlly developed sense of justice and fairness, like she has a big thing abt things being fair and when they’re not, that’s usually when she’s the angriest

stella

pisces sun!

she’s actually born on the aquarius-pisces cusp aka the cusp of sensitivity which like……i picked her birthday before i even looked up zodiac stuff and it works so incredibly well i am FLOORED tbh

but basically!!  pisces is a water sign, probably the most empathetic of all the water signs (which are known for their emotional depth and empathy so thats Saying something tbh).  in general her focus is more on others and their wellbeing??  like she’s not one for making waves or aggressive action, and focuses more on understanding others but that sort of leaves her feeling that rather misunderstood

when she’s hurt, she tends to turn inward rather than seeking out support, even though she’s the first in line to help when she senses the ppl around her suffering??  like.  pisces suns have this habit of martyrdom without even meaning to and stella definitely does that, self sacrifices to the point of detriment to her own well being

bc she’s so caught up in other ppls minds/emotions, she’s often p spacey when it comes to her own shit??  like it takes a while for her to register things are amiss or, hell, keep on top of deadlines even tbh

scorpio moon!

another water sign, like stella is such a hugely empathetic person anyway, like if she didnt have powers she’d still be incredibly emotional and intune with the ppl around her??  like that’s just who she is at a base level tbh

so a big thing for scorp moons is the drive for emotional intensity??  like stella’s bringing it at 120% at all times when it comes to emotional rawness, she expects everyone to be the same with her tbh like she sort of needs ppl to match her level of involvement or else she feels as if they’re not as invested as she is??? 

scorp moons r pretty intense personalities, are known for being able to see right through the facades ppl put up, see right down to their core

i just realized that

a) stella is the exact reverse of my sun and moon tbh (i’m scorp sun, pisces moon lmao) 

b) so i picked the general birthdays for the kiddos a while back, had an idea for it and screeched bc all their zodiac signs lined up so so well with their personalities like…….what kind of psychic shit

c) maia and stella are kind of at odds irt their zodiac??  maia’s double fire sign, stella’s double water and like……theyre probably the most directly oppositional relationship btwn the kiddos??  me @ me: nice job with that there

[parrafo451]

Celebrating Día de los Muertos

“Guardian”, photo by Hannah Fussell

Perspectives

Yeheon Hong

In 1944, a policeman turned father turned rebel turns up dead, shot in the head, taste of Japanese metal in his mouth. So my mother says, but she does not remember her grandfather’s name. Only that it starts with a Kang, like hers, like the Korean word for river and ginger, and strong. I imagine the minutes before his death. The swath of sweaty Japanese soldiers unseen, spread deep and thick in the ambushing brush. The pace of his fatherly march. A tremble through his strong, much too narrow shoulders as he thinks about his son - my mother’s father - for the last time. Then the night caves in with its many terrifying machine noises.

In 2002, I am almost seven, deathly scared of death. I discover that Maru, my pet hamster, has eaten her children and run off outside. She is presumed dead. I crawl up on my mother’s lap, where she swabs out earwax from deep within my ear. From next to the empty, bloody hamster cage comes urgent news on TV, of two Korean middle school girls crushed to pulp underneath a U. S. Army tank. The girls’ parents cry as if that is the only thing they can do. The court martial declares the soldier in charge not guilty of negligent homicide, but these are big, heavy words I do not comprehend.

My father comes home, takes half-hearted shots of soju, sits me on his lap, tells me to man up and forget about Maru, tells me three years in the military will do me good. Each night, he recounts a memory from his time in mandatory service, the rite of passage for Korean men. Tonight, it is the story of the first time he lobbed a hand grenade. He says he will never forget how it felt, says it puts life in perspective, having the power to wipe out an entire family in one hand. I fail to ask what kind of perspective that is.

Next day, a big bus takes us on a field trip, to a job fair, where I try on a soldier’s helmet and a life-size model of an assault rifle. You look so brave, says my homeroom teacher, as she takes a picture on her Polaroid camera. When I come home, Dad frames the picture and places it next to my bed, a reminder that I will make a good soldier, when I am old enough to drive a tank, to wield a loaded rifle, to kill.

Now, in 2018, it is autumn, it is America all over, everywhere. It is a long time since I have run away here, away from my picture of combat helmet and assault rifle, from Maru, still missing. Autumn is, as the saying goes, chun-go-ma-bi, the season of high skies and fat horses, and I am deeply affected by a man with strawberry blond hair from a continent over. When I tell my mother this across the Pacific, she hesitates on a sobering sigh before saying, you will die, you know that? From AIDS and Western diseases. Your great-grandfather, dead, just to have you turn out so sick. If you ever bring him here, I will kill myself.

I think about it, two times over, which is close to the number of bullet holes found on my great-grandfather’s skull. After I hang up, on the latter half of midnight, I sit and wonder if I will ever bring him home and lead her to death. I am curious if I will be charged for negligent homicide. But it will not be negligent. It will be gingerly premeditated manslaughter.

I wish the most blessed, painless demise on my selfish mother, and ache awhile in a melancholy utopia in which she is dead and I am married. Then I lie in bed next to the sleeping boy, kiss his chin good night. His beard is soft, furry. In the flat dimension of darkness, our two slim bodies look vaguely like the girls on TV from 2002, seconds after they are unearthed from beneath the tank.

I fall asleep, and I think there is not a thing I wouldn’t kill, nor a death I wouldn’t die, for this fair-haired creature slumbering in my bed.

“I will be waiting for you”, photo by Sean Ahn

Sueño en la frontera

By Irving Barrera López

Nadie aquí en la tierra se queda. Lo tangible se devuelve. La gravedad te doblega. El tiempo te reduce como el monte merma en arena. Como el oro se rompe, o como la casualidad estrella el brillo de tus ojos de obsidiana. Tu piel de papel santo se marchita. El sol decae, el sol se levanta y tú, Karina, sigues dormida ¿En qué sueñas? ¿Ves las aguas del Mictlán arremolinarse hacia tus pies y te aturullas porque hace poco que sorteaste las del Río Bravo? ¿Te piensas aún caminando por aquel laberinto de veredas, flanqueadas por saguaros, que desorienta con mejores porvenires? No lo sé. Y tampoco lo sabe el temiquiximatli que curioso picotea tus dedos ahora vueltos piedra.

Sueñas. Soñabas. Temblabas. Se te ponía la piel chinita mientras pasabas por Ciudad Juárez. Una ciudad acuchillada, dividida en dos, donde los que llegan se van y los que se quedan se convierten en espejismos. Aquella ciudad que no conocías ni volverás a conocer, pero que se encuentra a pocas millas de tu lecho perene.

Antes de partir de Ocotepec tu mamá te dio dos billetitos de a quinientos. Llorando le dijiste que estuviera al tanto del Western Union; que, dentro de un mes, Reyna ya te habría conseguido trabajo y que le llamarías pronto para mandarle dinero. Subiste al autobús, y aunque tenías poco resuelto, tenías una idea de lo que vivirías las siguientes semanas. Pero nunca se te cruzó por la mente que pasarías los cuatro días sagrados de tu entierro en un desierto. Al menos, por tu funeral, no te apures. El desierto te guarda luto.

Los coyotes te plañen con aullidos de inframundo. El viento perfuma tu recinto con su olor a salvia. Las hormigas, marchando derechitas en fila, uno, dos, uno, dos…recorren tu ataúd de mezquite. Descansa. Que las sombras del zacate se toman turnos para velarte durante el día. Y durante la noche, el espejo hueco de Tezcaltlipoca te cubre. Te refleja. Te recuerda de la soledad de vida y de la eternidad de la muerte.

Mas bien, preocúpate Karina, por la ofrenda que harás a la entrada del noveno cielo. ¿Qué obsequiarás? Tus esperanzas, los dólares en tu cartera, tus tenis, un puñado de pesos… Tal vez ofrecerás aquel papelito donde apuntaste el teléfono de Reyna. A quién le marcarías una vez llegaras a la carretera en las afueras del Paso; con quien te reunirías una vez acabada tu odisea. Pero creo que se te hizo tarde. Y al parecer, a tus polleros, que apresurados te dejaron en medio de la caminata, también se les hizo un poco tarde.

Karina. Aunque te alejes más del Norte, cada día te acercas más al Sol. Tu piel desnuda lentamente tu esqueleto. Las lagartijas te embalsaman al comerse la melcocha en tus clavículas de azúcar, y los escarabajos devoran con sus pincitas el pan de tu carne. Tu sepulcro está casi listo. El epitafio ya quedó grabado en los guijarros y sólo falta esperar a septiembre, para que las lluvias bendigan tus restos y sacien la pesada sed que cargabas antes de irte a dormir.

No te angusties, querida. Siempre has vivido desesperada. Mortificada. Cansada de tanto sufrir, de tanto caminar...Mejor reza. Y aquí entre nos, antes de rezarle a cualquier santo escondido entre las piedras, rézale a La Muerte. Porque La Muerte es segura. Siempre te cumple. Ella no pone trabas, no te pide papeles, ni visas, ni entrevistas. Ella nunca te rechaza, y te abraza con sus manos menudas para llevarte a cielos sin fronteras, ni muros de hojalata.

Calma. A tus sueños los habrán enterrado contigo, pero les brotaron raíces. Y aquellos sueños. Tus sueños, Karina. Son los que mejor se arraigan. Germinan de lo profundo del manto, penetran la arcilla más dura, y se elevan a lo alto del cielo. Que las semillas de tus sueños, Karina, vuelvan fértil la tierra estéril donde reposas. Y florezcas cada primavera en pitayas pulposas y tunas carmesí. Que tus frutos, provean a aquel desamparado que, como tú, recorre este desierto para llegar a campos menos espinosos. Que es incierto el destino de aquel que cruza esta frontera

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Photo by Daniela Joseph

Hannah Fussell, Yeheon Hong, Sean Ahn, Irving Barrera and Daniela Joseph are students from Earlham College, they are winners of Earlham’s short story and photography contest “Día de los muertos”.