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valentiwyo · 1 year

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UNTIL I FOUND YOU | WOOSAN - CHAPTER 2

genre »» childhood friends to lovers

pairing »» choi san x jung wooyoung

warning »» angst

"I came to you with my secret feelings and childhood. See, I'm grown and I'm still here, Wooyoung. I have never given up on you even though we fell out. I still love you as you are..."

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

SAN'S POV

"So tell me what it is. I wonder what have you wanted to say since morning and what is important enough to call me to your room."

Wooyoung was sitting on my bed, with his arms crossed, his gaze wandering over the me standing before him. I'd cleared my throat many times. Now I couldn't say a word when he was right in front of me. What kind of a cycle is this? Wasn't it unfair to love him enough to cause my heart suffer?

"Let me get straight to the point directly."

Wooyoung reached out his hand towards me, who was constantly spinning around, holding me by the arm and stopping me. "Stop it, you're knocking me dead." He grumbled, but all I thought about was his hand grasping my arm and how the heat running from there occupying the middle of my heart. I didn't know how to put words together. I'd always been a good speaker, but it was as if my words were stuck in my throat when in front of Wooyoung. All these feelings was turning me into a weak man.

"Why are you running away from me?" Silence fell between us the moment I asked what was on my mind, and after a while, since the silence started to become quite loud and seeing him pouting at me, I bit my lower lip and sat next to him.

"What made you think that?"

"I don't know. You've been here since we moved in the same house, but at the same time you're not. You are here, but you are not as you used to be"

"And that made you sad?"

I wasn't making eye contact, but his gaze didn't leave my face for a moment. He stared at my side profile so ceaselessly that I was embarrassed and lowered my head shyly. But then I turned to him with courage that was tightening my chest. "It made me worried"

"Your being distant from me makes me worried, Wooyoung."

Wooyoung nodded as if he was turning things over in his mind. Then he leaned back as his hands rested against the bed. I couldn't look back at him. I contented myself with just watching the white plain carpet in front of me.

"Some things do not stay the same, San, and you know this."

"Why? Am I boring now?"

The question I asked with a slight joke destroyed the tiny smile he displayed me on his face. It was replaced by a cold and blank stare that absorbed me in, and I couldn't make sense of that.

"No, we just changed. You should admit it."

I was feeling so offended that nothing bothered to slip out when there were so many things I wanted to say. Wooyoung wasn't content with some things, but he had no intention of telling me about it either. A feeling spread over my chest as if I was chasing somethig impossible.

"You're right.." I turned towards him and smiled at him without trying to hide the sadness in my eyes. As curved waves settled on the sides of my lips, I wanted him to realise what a resentful smile it actually was. Or not...

What would change anyways?

"Well... was that all you needed to say?"

We looked at each other for a while. I had known him for years and I had no idea what Wooyoung was pondering right now, who used to present all his feelings to me with a single expression.

I shook my head, then watched him get up slowly from my bed and walk to the door. He looked back at me for the last time, "I won't be home today," and left the room. I forgot all the pain Wooyoung had created in my heart in the last year, yes, I felt like this was the most painful of all now. It's like he indirectly told me that we couldn't be the same anymore. I hated this. I hated his absence, and the deep wounds caused by his presence.

I gazed into space for a while longer, I didn't even remember how I had spent the evening. If my phone didn't ring, I'd been ready to cover myself with my blanket all day and cry, but when I saw 'Wooyoung' on the screen at midnight, all we talked about in the morning suddenly slipped my mind, and instead, was replaced by a huge excitement that I immediately picked up the phone. I was worried in the fear that the phone would slip out of my hand.

"San?"

I frowned as I heard a foreign but also familiar voice coming from the other side.

"I'm Yunho, Wooyoung's friend."

"Why are you calling me?"

"Uhm..." He murmured. There was a sound of music in the background and there were human voices mixed with a lot of laughter. "Wooyoung got a little drunk. No, he's actually pretty drunk. If you don't mind, can you come and pick him up?"

"Drop me the location." I was resting the phone between my shoulder and ear and trying to put on my coat.

"Okay, doing it. Hurry up."

I don't remember how quickly I left the house after hanging up the phone and shoving it in my pocket. When I checked the location, I saw that it was close to the college. It was a small bar within walking distance, so I jogged on there. The only thing that was on my mind was what kind of trouble a drunk Wooyoung could be, proving it to me by running after him all night on his 19th birthday. So I quickly got into the bar whose door I arrived at.

As my eyes scanned inward, it wasn't very difficult for me to find the table they stood in front of, thanks to Yunho, who's 190cm tall. He and Mingi were both loosely all snuggled up together, and my eyes were still looking for Wooyoung.

"Hey Yunho, where is Wooyoung?"

"Wow, so you are here." When Yunho grinned and pointed to the scene with his head, I held my breath and looked there. After the view I witnessed, I closed my eyes tightly for a few seconds. Damn... As I opened it again, I took a deep breath and stepped towards Wooyoung, who was rocking in the middle of the stage. He was standing with a glass in his hand, not dancing, but staring into space and rocking back and forth. As I smiled at this state of him and leaned my hand against my face, I watched him from afar for a while. The collars of the black leather jacket on him were bent, his long oreo hair tied below, and his bangs closing his eyes.

When Wooyoung suddenly turned to me, when I came into his view, my hand slowly went down and my lips were parted. He was staring at me with his husky eyes and then suddenly he smiled. The moment he smiled, I felt like flowers had blossomed out all my wounds. The thorns that dug into my heart didn't hurt me that much anymore. My heart was beating so fast that before I could understand what was happening, Wooyoung walked towards me with quick steps and embraced me unexpectedly. As my mind got silent, so was the music and people's voices in the background. It was as if only the two of us were left on the stage. I can't believe he hugged me.

"Sannie, is that you?"

Even this tiny question he asked sounded so cute at that moment that I nodded as my hands slipped to hold his waist and cupped his face, which was buried in my neck, and raised it, and I stared at his beautiful face.

"Let's get out of here, okay?"

When my hand touched his, I was hesitant. But since I knew he was unconscious, a courage sweeped over me and this time I gripped his hand firmly.

"Sannie, are we heading our home?"

As Wooyoung was resting his head against my shoulder, I wrapped my arm around his waist while walking, and he turned his head, looking at me. His cheeks were red and his eyes were about to close. I nodded, smiling softly. Whenever he got drunk, he would start calling me by the name he gave when we were younger. "Yes, our home." Wooyoung was calling that house "our" for the first time...

As he held the collar of my coat tightly, I wrapped his waist tightly so that he wouldn't fall along the way, and it was as if my heartbeats, which normally beat like crazy, had stopped. My heart was frozen and I couldn't feel a single beat. As I felt Wooyoung's breath hitting my neck, I was holding mine.

"Sannie..."

"Yeah..?"

On one hand, I trying to unlock the door, and on the other hand, was trying to grasp his waist tightly and was in mortal fear that he wouldn't fall, because he was standing completely loosely: if he let go off my neck, he could fall flat on the ground.

When I unlocked the door and finally managed to get in, Wooyoung pulled me along with him as he leaned against the wall. I was shocked. While my hand was resting on there to get support from the wall, I had to take a deep breath and keep the smell of his alcohol inside. Only one-step distance... I could reach his lips if I wanted to, but then I gave up thinking about the consequences of doing this and being aware of it. I was content gazing at the face of the guy I fell in love with.

"What's wrong?"

He closed his eyes as his arms wrapped around my neck loosened.

"What if I lose, Sannie?"

"Lose what, Wooyoung?"

He didn't say anything. His head slowly fell on my shoulder, as his hands on my collars falling on both sides, and I realised that he dozed off when his breaths became louder. Although I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me, I didn't want to overthink it and pour salt on morning's wounds. I just smiled and grabbed him by the shoulders. When I picked him up, I gazed at his lips for a while. I don't know about him, but I had already lost...

When I entered his room, the last time was like three weeks ago, I looked around a little and then slowly put him to his bed. On his walls were posters of many other bands such as Slayer, Bullet For My Valentine, and Deftones. Unlike this edgy style, which he adopted during high school years and never changed again, and his strict attitude, he was actually a very sensitive guy. He had an electric guitar, hung on his wall next to his desk. On the other side of the wall, old vintage vinyls were hung. There was a black candle on his desk and it was covered with several books. He was a night person. The silence, darkness and coolness of the night would attract him. As cold as he was, Wooyoung was actually warm home inside. He was my home.

But after a while, he started to hide my self to himself too. He wasn't inviting me to the house that I found in him anymore, every time he was shutting the door in my face and saying that we can't stay the same. You don't belong here anymore.

I shook my head quickly to get rid of the thoughts I was immersed in. After taking off his shoes and leather jacket and throwing them aside, I crouched down next to him, leaning my elbows against the edge of his bed, and then for minutes, maybe even an hour, I sat there and watched him. Most often I pushed the bangs that fell before his eyes. My fingers ran softly over his soft lips. He couldn't wake up and scold me. So that night, I watched at him to my heart's desire.

Then, how dumb of me, I ended up falling asleep there...

#ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fluff #ateez san #ateez wooyoung #choi san #jung wooyoung #woosan #woosan au #woosan ship #woosan fanfic #woosan fluff #woosan angst #childhood friends to lovers

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kkyujikoo · 3 years

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These are my... 2...? Maybe 50, cents about the whole "freejk" thing. I'm gonna be extremely petty and at some points a whole lot sarcastic and it's gonna be long but I had to say it. As soon as I get my computer I'm gonna make it under read more, but the app does whatever it wants, as we know.

Listen, this ain't my first fan rodeo, and not even the first fan rodeo where I've been directly or indirectly accused of being some sort of pervert or delulu. I've been in fandom spaces since I was a teen, I was shipping mlm couples when queerbaiting in TV shows was still something that was seen as the norm rather than some cheap disgusting trick. I was there when fanfic spaces saw "slash" fics as something "different" and to be tagged with a more mature rating even when they just looked at each other.

I was in BBC's Sherlock's fandom and I shipped Johnlock during the hiatus between S3 and S4, at this point I'm not even feeling it when people call me delulu or a weirdo.

So, yeah, take this with a grain of salt: as a person who has seen thousands of times fandom drama unfolding and has lived too much of it... This whole situation is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. Like, yeah, it's maddening how people will blame anyone and everyone because they don't even see their own bias and homophobia, granted, but like... It also makes me laugh for the sheer dumbassery of the reasoning behind it all?

Like... Y'all are getting mad and for what? Because it sure as hell isn't the invasion of privacy, since y'all are watching the same content we're all watching and you're paying to see it the same way everyone else is. If you don't want to "invade their privacy", you should just... Stop watching content that isn't their music videos, RUN episodes or interviews. Memories and any kind of dvd/video that shows what they're doing behind the scenes shouldn't be part of their job as musicians, and therefore we're intruding in their privacy... Or aren't we?

Or maybe it's more nuanced than that: maybe the content they release on dvd/on their official channels is part of their job as entertainers, and it's been approved, and it's a small window THEY are granting us.

You know what's the REAL invasion of privacy and what REALLY invalidates someone autonomy? When you, who maybe aren't even paying to see that content (which is something I understand, like, dude, I'm not covered in money either), DEMAND what kind of behind the scenes content you want when I swear ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has asked you. Once again: you don't like it? You think it's some huge invasion of privacy? Don't buy it. Don't interact with it. Convince your friends to do the same. For all I care, just go and petition to boycott this kind of content. I know you won't do it, because... That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the invasion of privacy that bothers these people.

Y'all aren't mad because we get into their business or else you would have gotten real mad when we were privy to REAL private moments like people crying their hearts out.

No, no. Y'all are mad because it's "shipping content" and "fanservice" which apparently bothers you because it lacks authenticity.

Pick a side, lovelies: either you DON'T want to invade their privacy, and thus all the content they release should be focused on what fans want to see, or you WANT to know how they interact TRULY in private.

And here's the catch: "shipping content" can be anything. Shipping existed WAAAAAYYY before the word for it was invented, same way with fanfictions. Shipping means, literally, "seeing two (or more) people interact and thinking they would make a good romantic pair". That's it. That's quite literally it. Everything else is just some nuance of the concept of shipping, but at its core, it's nearly impossible to ban all shipping content when it's a group of seven people, because they should for real go in social distancing mode to do so. Most people who have parasocial relationships tend to have "ships" whether they know it or not, because we've all, at least once, looked at a dynamic from the outside and thought "oh man they look cute together". So, even if, o dear ones, your wishes were granted... What the hell do you mean by "shipping" content? Should they just film solo clips, avoiding talking about the other members? But wouldn't that be fanservice, since it's focused on pleasing the fans? (Which, ultimately, is what fanservice MEANS, and I hate to break it to y'all but the whole concept behind entertainment and thus all the content BTS releases it's... For the fans. Like, they're not going out of their way to just meet our expectations but they're certainly doing fanservice by the mere act of releasing bonus content.)

But it's not even quite that, is it? Because no one bats an eye if it's Tae kissing Nj's cheek. I've seen no hashtag against everyone - and I mean literally every one of them - wolf whistling at Nj. It's okay to show intimacy... Because they're bandmates and it's okay to be close to someone who you see basically 24/7, I hear you. And it's also okay when people see that and gush over that closeness, because it's such a nice thing to see.

Soooooo... We've got to free JK from whom exactly? From what?

Are y'all mad cause people pointed out there's very little way a bruise that stayed for a whole ass night could be a quick bite? Because that doesn't harm jk, at most makes fun of him and jimin and their poor excuses (seriously, guys, next time consider using mosquitoes or "I was doing stuff". It'll be equally embarrassing but at least the meme will be funny), and it's literally... A fair observation. Like. It's a hickey, people are gonna make jokes about seeing a hickey and poor excuses of covering it up in the exact same way they're gonna make jokes over jimin falling out of chairs. And yeah, a hickey is AT LEAST something that happens in a sensual context. Like, I could understand "people who are extremely familiar with each other will have different body language/touch in areas where usually you wouldn't see friends touching each other", but that's not. Not a hand on the thigh. It's a hickey on the neck. I don't even know a more stereotypical placing for a hickey. But once again, are y'all mad because someone is pointing it out? Because that's not being delulu or even being a shipper, really, it's just commenting on something that was approved to be shown and discussed in something that was released BY THEM.

Are y'all mad at hybe for showing something that literally fell onto their hands? Cause like, unless someone (I'm counting on Jimin, since as we know Jungkook was busy spinning him round and round and had both his hands busy) called at hybe headquarters to say "yo bang pd substitute, is it okay if I give my friend jk here a hickey? Cause he's being really annoying rn and he has to pay", I highly doubt anyone expected Jungkook to come to rehearsal all neatly marked up. Or idk, maybe someone at hybe asked them "we need Jungkook to come in with a hickey but refuse to say it's a hickey, so that fans will feel reeeeally served." That sounds perfectly plausible too. Or a good marketing strategy.

Now, if you're a big company and your objective is to have some footage of the rehearsals for a concert, and the fandom is too good at noticing stuff for their own good, and one of your artists comes in with a very visible mark, and he and his bff bropal4lyfe come n with a story about how they were playing and a bite happened, you've got three choices: 1. Cut the artist out of aaaaalll the footage. Someone would have noticed the "bite mark" anyway, you best believe that. If you don't want anyone to notice it, you gotta cut him in most of the footage where it's visible. 2. Keep the hickey, discard the explanations. You could do that, but also it would feel a lot more unfaithful to everyone involved. Also they clearly worked their ass off to invent an explanation, come on! They truly tried to do their best inventing something that was not "it's a mosquito bite", they should get some credit! 3. Keep the bite, keep the explanation.

Notice how none of these solutions include the biting never happening because... They couldn't prevent it? The only thing they have any control over is how they're framing each "accident". And that's not an easy job.

I applaud you, people on the editing team.

So... On whom should we cast the blame now? Ah, yes, I think it's finally time for the ultimate scapegoat of this fandom: Jimin. Which is funny, cause... You know... If this were really about privacy, or being "victims" of shipping... This should be about freeing him too, you know? But obviously Jimin does it for attention, while Jungkook, poor angel that he is, doesn't even know what shipping is.

Furthermore, don't we all know how much Jimin imposes himself in Jungkook's life? To the point where he, multimillionaire man feels compelled to share a car with Jimin even if they're both late in the process. And can't you see how uncomfortable he is, draping himself over Jimin, making Jimin drap himself over him?

Oh lordy, truly such an awful eight years Jungkook spent, choosing to have vacations with someone who made him uncomfortable, spending free time with him, even having to suck his ear in public to the point you can see his saliva just because Jimin was sad :( truly an all-around bad time for Jungkook, as evidenced by alllll those times when he said Jimin was pretty, cute, and all-around knowing every little thing about Jimin. I absolutely concur, the dude would be so much more happy if jimin was not in his life.

Did that sound weird and absolutely ridiculous and a really absurd joke? Because that's what y'all sound like to me. Like. Jungkook is out there living his best life, getting hickeys and showered in affection and y'all paint him as a fucking martyr??? I'm sure he's really truly desperate that Jimin holds him in such high regards 😭😭😭 I can see him suffering whenever he starts doing his own serendipity rendition 😭😭 and when he claimed you are me, I am you as his and Jimin's only 😭😭😭 I cannot believe this poor baby 😭😭😭

I've reached a point where every time I hear this stuff I laugh because the levels of twisting reality when it comes to jikook are extraordinary, Jungkook will have a literally blissed out face and people will cry in outrage.

But coming back to my point: let's pretend you're not mad at Jimin and the possibility that jikook are dating: are y'all mad... At the hickey? Because at this point it seems like the only feasible solution. And if you are, do not worry: I'm sure Jungkook's skin was throughly healed by his boo. A kiss soothes even the worst pain, doesn't it?

#jikook #that freejk dumbassery

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goldenkamuyhunting · 3 years

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The sad news of Kentaro Miura's death have shaken the world of manga (and I dare say of comic books or even pop culture). I was wondering how do you think his masterpiece, Berserk, compares to Golden Kamuy and if an influence of sorts of the former can somehow be found in the latter. The theme of ambition is certainly there, as the topos of the tough and scary main character briken by trauma but with a heart of gold. What do you think?

Well...

I honestly wouldn't compare the two because to me they're two very different works although both are seinen who won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.

"Berserk" was monthly first then semimonthly, "Golden Kamuy" is weekly, which might seems irrelevant but the release date affect the pacing of the story greatly.

"Berserk" belongs to the Dark Fantasy genre while "Golden Kamuy" is an Historical manga, which means the authors have to worry about completely different things when crafting their story which allows them to pursue their themes in different ways.

Even the way the manga are structured is different, although both have many characters, "Berserk" for a long time has tended to focus the most on Guts, while GK shows itself to be a coral work from very early on.

There are some things that are similar, war, ambition, wish for a place to belong, trauma, but exactly because one is a dark fantasy while the other is historical, they're handled very differently.

In a dark fantasy you can view situations as metaphorical, in real life no one can experience "the eclipse" the way Guts and Caska do or sacrifice people to the God Hand's "apostles" the way Griffith does, but such situations can stand for real life experiences if you're willing to engage in the text as such, you might even enjoy how it's tinged in themes that reminds Nietzsche's ideas... or you can keep distance from it and just view it as a dark fantasy in which there are monsters that do terrible things to the humans and that need to be destroyed but none of this will happen in the real world so you can just enjoy the ride.

In an historical manga the experiences of the characters are things many people experience in real life. The Russo-Japanese war happened and, while now wars are more 'modern', there are things that still are the same. Sugimoto's experiences during the war, his coming back from it psychologically scarred are things that happened to tons of men, an experience that will continue being done as long as war exist. It's more difficult to keep distance, because even if the characters are fictionals most of what is mentioned is so very real it's easier it pushes you to think.

Mind you, I'm not saying this to say one is better than the other, just to say the two are so very different it doesn't seem fair to compare them.

In their genres I think they're both very good works, very solid and well studied, which tackle strong themes but in different ways and that the reader of one might not necessarily like the other but that they both deserve to be read.

"Berserk" is what I consider to be a classic in the manga world, "Golden Kamuy" is too new to be considered a classic but I expect it to become one.

Did "Berserk" get to influence "Golden Kamuy"?

Berserk started in 1989 (LOL, I've been reading it from 1996, it was a lifetime ago... I even watched the first anime series and brought the cd... "Forces" is still one of the songs I love the most), which places it close to "Hokuto no Ken" (which started in 1983) and "JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken" (which started in 1987) while GK is comparatively a newborn, as it started in 2014. We know Noda referenced both "Hokuto no Ken" and "JoJo". Right now I can't remember him mentioning "Berserk" (but it can be he did) and we don't know how old Noda is but I think there's a chance those are works he grew up with and if you grow up with something that's on this level of good, chances are it will directly or indirectly influence you.

So yes, it's definitely possible Miura's work influenced Noda, but as we can't know for sure it's hard to say.

The tough and scary main character briken by trauma but with a heart of gold is a common trope in storyteling but honestly, although Guts and Sugimoto live some similar experiences, to me they look as very different characters.

Guts had a tragic birth, as his mother was hung while she was pregnant and he was found by a slightly insane woman under her hanging body. His adoptive mother loves him but dies of illness, his adoptive father is a monster who mistreates him and sells him out to another man while Guts is desperate for his love. After he kils his adoptive father he continues to live alone as a mercenary untill he'll stumble into Griffith who'll force him to join him.

Sugimoto is instead for most of his youth a normal boy who lives a normal life with his beloved family and his friends and would have continued to live a normal life hadn't his family died due to sickness whcih caused him too to be ostracized. As a result Sugimoto does a couple of bad but understandable choices which lead him to lose Umeko to Toraji. He ends up in Tokyo, accepts to work for Kikuta and ultimately decides to join the army.

Of course the stories of both characters progress but they'll keep on progressing in different ways.

Sugimoto's life isn't a bowl of cherries but, compared to Guts' is litterally heaven on earth.

After the Eclipse Guts will become bitter, when Guts met Puck he cares little about how the citizens will be killed, all he wants is to deal with the Snake Lord. He doesn't want companions, he doesn't want to be touched, he's a ball of rage and desperation.

Sugimoto will never reach this level of bitterness, rage or desperation. Although he becomes more murder prone he never deliberately sacrifices innocents for his goal, he remains friendly and when he keeps other away is to protect them.

Again this is not about who of the two is better.

As main characters they're both awesome and they both will make you suffer a lot for them... but in very different ways.

So, long story short, I think both Miura and Noda did an awesome work with their masterpieces but that "Berserk" and "Golden Kamuy" are ultimately very different and wouldn't do justice to neither to compare them.

To who has gotten curious about it, "Berserk" is one of the manga I find is a MUST READ, however it comes with some warning as not only it's a seinen, therefore a work for adults, but it's very explicit in showing sex and violence RIGHT FROM THE FIRST PAGE, and that includes scenes of rape, monsters and situations worth of a horror story and other terrible things, so it's definitely not for soft hearted.

The art is beautiful and detailed, albeith dark but this fits with how "Berserk" has often a dark atmosphere (lighter scenes often have lighter art), the characters are well studied and there are strong themes. As said before you can find in it references to Nietzsche and his philosophy which makes for interesting points to ponder.

For me the story started to get really cool around the end of Vol 3, with the beginning of the Golden Age but there's who loved it from the start.

So... hum... sorry, this isn't exactly the analysis you wanted but I still hope it can be of some interest to read it.

Thank you for your ask!

#Sugimoto Saichi #Ask

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eleanorbloom · 4 years

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[OH] When You’re Ready Ch. 03

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything of the Open Heart World. The name Eleanor Bloom and her story was created by me, though.

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 4.8k

Warning: Angst, adult language, and smut.

Summary: Bryce has decided to let go of Eleanor because she’s in love with Ethan Ramsey. But a turn in her relationship with the attending might change Bryce's plans.

A/N: Thank you so much for all your kind words and your support.

I have the urge to remind you all that English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes. As a perfectionist, I’ve been having a hard time trying to make this fic the more comprehensible as it can be. I know my English doesn’t suck, that your people understand what I write (lol) but I’m sure there are some idioms or, I don’t know, the order of the words that may seem off, and I can't help but feel bad about it. Just know that this happens because I’m a Spanish speaker trying to write a fanfic in English.

That’ll be all. Lots of love to my readers

Let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist! :)

Taglist: @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 @laiba-the-person @choicesficwriterscreations @shanzay44

______

Chapter Three: All I Ask.

It matters how this ends

‘Cause what if I never love again?

Eleanor walked into the locker room feeling her heart in her throat, a knot threatening to make her explode with rage and bitterness once again. When she reached for her locker, she found Sienna already fully dressed to leave Edenbrook.

“Oh my god, Ellie, are you okay?!” Sienna inquired as she perceived the mortified expression on her face.

“I’m not”

“What happened? Did you… Did you speak with Dr. Ramsey?”

“I did”

“And?”

Eleanor couldn’t help but let a few tears stream down her face, but she managed to avoid the sob.

“He’s going to the Amazon with the WHO”

“What?! Oh my god, that’s big”

"And he’s leaving tomorrow”

“Oh no. Ellie, I’m so sorry ”

Suddenly, all traces of sadness and rage disappeared from her. She wiped the tears off her face and cleared her throat.

“Don’t be. Let’s get outta here, I need a drink”

"Okay, I’ll text the others to meet at Donahue’s”

Sienna eyed Eleanor with concern. She wanted to tell her to stop suppressing her feelings, to stop pretending she didn’t care, but she preferred to keep it quiet, hoping that at some point she would explode and let everything out. Because she had spent all those weeks pretending that she didn’t care, that it didn’t hurt to ignore Ramsey, that it didn’t hurt that he didn’t care that she was ignoring him. Nearly five months of pent-up emotions.

An hour later, Eleanor was at Donahue’s with Bryce and her new best friend, the vodka. Elijah was with Phoebe choosing a few songs on the jukebox to dance to; Sienna was with Danny and other nurses playing darts and Jackie and Rafael were deep in conversation at the bar. Bryce had noticed her mood but didn’t want to ask her directly, since he guessed who was responsible. Instead, he preferred to join her to drink, without judging that she was almost drinking the entire bottle of vodka by herself without any coyness, although he was willing to make her stop when it became dangerous for her health.

Suddenly, Eleanor’s face sparkled with fury. Bryce turned to check the source of her discomfort, knowing perfectly well who it was. Ethan was at the bar talking to Reggie as he took a seat.

“You’re so predictable, Ethan Ramsey"—She muttered as she took the shot of vodka in one sip—"I bet he’ll have a couple of shots, waiting for the moment when I’m alone, and if doesn’t find me alone he’ll just switch to some non-alcohol drink because he will have to wait for me until I decide to go home. All that wait just to cry apologies for something he didn’t want to say, but said anyway”

Bryce smirked as he heard her rant.

"Do you want me to leave you alone so you can talk to him?”

“No! No, please, I don’t want to make it that easy for him. I want to see what he’s capable of. If he’s just going to be a shitty wary that’s going to expect to find me alone, or if he’s able to get right up to me. Please don’t leave me alone, Bryce.

“Don’t worry, Elle, I won’t leave you alone if that’s what you want”

“Thank you, Bryce. You are the best”

“I know I am. Cheers for that”

They clanged their glasses and took another shot.

“Why are you so mad, by the way?”

Eleanor told him their talk with the details that only a drunk and upset person can do it.

“So, he’s leaving then? And he didn’t even tell you?”

“No. He didn’t want to tell me”

“Oof, what a douche. Hun, why do you let him treat you like this?”

“I don't know. I don’t know why I have allowed this torment for so long. But I got tired. I don’t care anymore. If he stays, if he goes. I don’t know why should I care when he has never cared for how bad I’ve been all this time”

Bryce looked at her with a sad expression. He hated to see Eleanor that way. Crying, hopeless. Suffering. He took her hand tenderly.

“Eleanor, I’m so sorry”—He said, caressing the back of her hand—“You don’t deserve anything you’re going through. It’s okay to be angry, you can’t allow him to treat you like that”

“I know”—She replied in a tiny voice.

“And you can’t keep wasting your time with someone who doesn’t value you, Elle. He may love you, but if he really valued you, he wouldn’t treat you like that. He wouldn’t let you suffer like that”

Bryce stroked her cheek, looking right into her tear-filled eyes.

“You’re right, Bryce"—She stared right into his eyes without looking away, then wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“You deserve the world, Eleanor”

She couldn’t help but give him a big smile as her cheeks flushed.

Then she turned her gaze to the bar and realized that Ethan was with a tense posture making glances toward their table. Seeing Eleanor cry and be comforted by Bryce surely challenged his nerves more than he was willing to admit.

About fifteen minutes later, her friends began to return to the table to start the Karaoke session. They had fun with some of their favorite songs and other classics requested by other clients. Then was Eleanor’s turn to sing a song. She felt a twist on her stomach.

“Eleanor, it’s your turn, what did you request?”

“All I Ask”—She replied to Elijah, simply.

Everyone at the table stared at her.

"Eleanor…"—Bryce whispered—"Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I’m done hiding my feelings, pretending he didn’t hurt me just to make him feel the less uncomfortable”

The melody began to play, and Eleanor already felt her heart shatter without even having started the first line. Her friends stared at her for a few moments and then looked away at the awkward situation that was coming.

“I will leave my heart at the door

I won’t say a word

They’ve all been said before, you know”

Eleanor was heartbroken and drunk, and practically putting on a show in front of all Donahue’s, but deep down her friends knew that that was what Eleanor needed right now, to release all her feelings in front of Ethan, though not directly. Because Eleanor had been holding back all these months, resisting love, the desire to be with Ethan, resisting the urge to stand in his office or his home and ask him once again to stop pushing her away and to be together once and for all, more times than she had already done. She had swallowed the love, the pride, the pain in inhuman ways. But what had happened today was the culmination of too many repressed feelings, and if her way of finding catharsis was through the saddest, cheesiest, and most heartbreaking song Adele had ever written, then so be it.

“So why don’t we just play pretend

Like we’re not scared of what is coming next

Or scared of having nothing left”

Eleanor took all the courage she had and turned her gaze to Ethan, who was staring at her with the most mortifying look she had ever seen on him, and she had seen plenty: When Dolores passed away, when he found out Banerji had a month to live. He was not holding anything, the pain, the guilt, the embarrassment.

“Look, don't get me wrong

I know there is no tomorrow

All I ask is

If this is my last night with you

Hold me like I’m more than just a friend

Give me a memory I can use

Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do

It matters how this ends

‘Cause what if I never love again?”

At least Eleanor had a very good voice to sing the songs of Adele, so she wasn’t embarrassing herself too badly. Of course, she was not as good as Adele herself but made a few good notes, and the alcohol had given her too much courage to go for the high pitches, and the anger gave her too much feeling to sing with such a passion, that she astonished to all her friends. She was actually killing it.

-"I don’t need your honesty

It’s already in your eyes

And I’m sure my eyes, they speak for me

No one knows me like you do

Eleanor looked directly at Ethan again.

And since you’re the only one that mattered

Tell me who do I run to?"

The words came out with such rage from her core, that Ethan felt as if she had said it a few inches from him, and not indirectly through a song and standing several feet away from him. And he felt every one of her words, every look, every drop of anger and sadness. He acknowledged receipt of all this and accepted his responsibility. He felt broken at the sight of her because he wanted to do so much to ease her pain. But he couldn’t.

After the song was over, Eleanor returned to her place with tears on her face but not one iota of embarrassment.

“Eleanor, that was truly beautiful”—Sienna said, tears on her face too—"Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling better, I think it took a lot of weight off my shoulders”

“That is the important thing”

“You were very brave”—Bryce said caressing her back.

“Guys, I just ridiculed myself in front of the whole bar and you guys are treating me like I’ve won a war”

“You did something for yourself that you should have done months ago. Show how you really feel”—Sienna replied, serious.

“Well…”

“We are proud of you, Eleanor”— Elijah added.

“It’s about damn time you take care of yourself and don’t let Ramsey do whatever the fuck he wants”—Continued Jackie.

“Even if that means to sing a sad song in front of him”—Concluded Sienna.

After that, Eleanor was in a better mood and managed to distract herself from all she had been through that day. However, the presence of Ethan, sitting there at the bar, probably waiting for her, was a latent nuisance in her stomach.

A few hours later, Eleanor and her friends decided to go home. The moment she passed by his side, Ethan got up from his seat and walked towards her.

“Rookie”.

His disposition had changed from hell to heaven. She was no longer Dr. Bloom. She was Rookie again.

“What is it, Dr. Ramsey?”

Ethan looked at her sadly at the coldness in her response.

“Can we talk?”

Eleanor looked away to the floor, anger washing over her again. Then she looked back at him, who was waiting for her answer with pleading eyes.

“About what? I’m going home”

“I know … I-“

“I’ve been here the last four hours, I’m sure you could’ve looked for me in all this time… But obviously you waited for me to want to go home to do it?”

Ethan knew she was berating him. She shook her head.

“I was hoping you weren’t such a coward and would look for me directly. But you behave like a shy teenager who has never spoken to a woman in his life”

“Eleanor, are you coming?”—Jackie asked.

Her friends were at the door, first-hand witnesses of her exchange with Ethan.

“No, I stay. Don’t worry about me”

Eleanor looked at Ramsey coldly. They took a seat in the back of the bar so no one could hear them.

“So? I thought we were done”—She broke the silence between them.

“No, we are not done, Eleanor”

Ethan lowed her head, pondering his words.

“If… If I didn’t tell you about my trip to the Amazon, was because I wanted to make things less difficult for us. The last time we spoke I made myself clear that we can’t be together not because I don’t want to, but because we can’t. And when I noticed you started to avoid me, I thought maybe you finally understood my point, and I was okay with that”

“Then why you threw all over my face that I was ignoring you, like you weren’t okay with that?”

“Because I realized that you didn’t do it because you understood my point. You did it to piss me off. To return the favor. As vengeance. So, if you did actually ignore me with that motive in mind, you didn’t have the right to reclaim something from me”

“I…”—Her cheeks turned red.

“That’s not the point now, Eleanor”—He interrupted—"What I’m trying to say is… You can’t stop saying that everything I’ve done it’s because I want it, that I’m responsible of all your misery. But let me be clear. I don’t want it, Eleanor. I don’t want to be apart from you, I don’t want to ignore you. I’ve never wanted to spend the last five months ignoring your existence, not be able to talk to you, not to even look at you”

Eleanor observed his features, tracing all sense of honesty and determination. She knew he wasn’t lying or playing the victim.

“I’m not comfortable with this”—He continued—"I’m not okay with that but if that’s what allows me to be away from you to not interfere in your career, I’m willing to do that and more. I know it’s painful for you, that it’s not the best option for both of us. But this is the only way I can cope up with the situation”

“The only way… Ethan, are you sure not talking to me, not even looking at me the is the only option?”

“To me, it is”—He responded categorically—Eleanor, what I want is to be with you. If I could, I would’ve never let you leave my bed the first time we made love, or I would’ve never get up from your bed the last time we were together. If I could, I would live in that dream all my life. But I can’t”

Tears started to stream down her face. Again. His words broke her in million pieces. Because she couldn’t stop reliving those nights in all these months. Now she was realizing Ethan couldn’t either.

“I need you to understand that I’ve never wanted to hurt you. If my actions have hurt you, I’m sorry, but I mean it when I say I’ve never wanted anything of this to happen. I would love to make you happy in the ways you want. Believe me. But you have fought so hard to be here, Eleanor. Years to get to be at Edenbrook. Years and especially difficult months to get the Junior Fellow position. I can’t let you jeopardize your career nor your reputation”

Eleanor was speechless. She felt dumb, like a stupid teenager that let herself go on emotions and never thought through the real meaning of all his actions. She still felt a little pissed off, because there were still a lot of things Ethan should have avoided telling her and that were mean. But everything else he had done was… reasonable. Fair. Thoughtful.

“Ethan… I’m sorry for yelling at you like that. I feel embarrassed about how childish I was today”

“No, Eleanor. I still believe that you have every right to be mad at me because I didn’t tell you I would be out. I always knew I should’ve told you, but I was afraid. I’m a coward as you said. I didn’t want to face this conversation. Your pain. But you deserved more”

Eleanor nod.

“Well, yeah. You should’ve told me. But I made an outburst. I didn’t want to listen to you, I was being stubborn just to get what I want, but maybe I’ve never really put myself in your shoes”

“That’s all I ask. To understand why I’m doing this from my point of view”

Suddenly, Reggie approaches.

“Ethan, I’m sorry, but we are about to close”

“Thank you, Reggie”

Eleanor grabbed her purse and walked to the door followed by Ethan.

Eleanor turned to him.

“I believe you when you tell me you’ve never wanted to hurt me by staying away from me. But there have been plenty of times when you have hurt me by behaving like a dick to me, unnecessarily. Because one thing is avoiding to talk to me, but you have ignored me, you have been cruel, you have looked at me like you hate me”

“Yes. I know. I hope you can forgive me one day”

“I could forgive you, but I’ll only do it when I feel assured that you won’t do it again and I think there’s not enough time for that now”

Ethan stared without saying a word. He knew he couldn’t promise her that. He knew himself.

“Well, I think you can go in peace now that we have left everything clear, don’t we? Have a nice flight, I hope the mission is a success and you return safely. Bye”

Eleanor started to walk down the street to get a taxi.

“Why are you leaving like that? You’re not even going to say goodbye?”

“I said bye. That’s a goodbye. Or was it too informal? Goodbye Dr. Ramsey. There you have”

Ethan took her arm, forcing her to look into his eyes. Hers were reddened, tired, anguished. Like she was holding a ton of pain on her mind.

“Eleanor…”

“What, Ethan, what?“—She answered as her voice was breaking. She didn’t want him to go. But she had to let him go. To let that goodbye lingering more than necessary would only do her more harm than it had already done her.

“Let me take you home”

No. She would lose her mind if she let that happen. But she wanted it so bad.

“You were drinking”

“I drank whiskey when I arrived, after that, just lemonade, because I figured I’d have to wait until the end of the night to talk to you”

She wanted so bad to be with him as much time as possible. But she was trying to respect Ethan's intentions. But… He was leaving tomorrow. That was the last time she would see him in god knows how much time.

“Okay, let's go”—She agreed.

They walked silently back to the hospital, where Ethan had his car parked. The journey was silent. Ethan didn’t even dare to turn on the radio. They were only accompanied by the noise of the engine and other vehicles traveling through the streets of Boston at 3 am.

Eleanor wanted to say so many things, but it would make everything worse. So she lost herself in the smell of his car. Every time she sensed that smell on someone’s car o in any place, it reminded her of him.

She had always had a particularly olfactory memory, and although most of the time it brought her good memories of her childhood or adolescence, in terms of relationships it always brought her bittersweet memories, melancholy, regret.

She knew that smell—The smell of Ethan’s car, a scent of pine and musk—, or his smell — a fresh citric scent—would only bring her pain.

Ethan parked outside the apartment. The street was lonely, no one could be seen in the distance, and the only sound was the murmur of cars passing by the main avenue. A lump wove in her throat. She was afraid.

Eleanor turned to him to say goodbye. She wanted to make it simple. She could swear that she wanted to make it simple.

“Have a good trip, Ethan, I hope you get back safely”—She spoke softly as she hugged him.

"Thank you, Eleanor”

“Text me to know that you arrived safely, please”—Eleanor asked, looking straight into his eyes. Those sky-blue eyes that were always the beginning of all her madness.

Ethan caressed the nape of her neck with his thumb and then he closed his eyes while pressing his forehead into hers, trying to absorb all her presence, the silkiness of her hair, the sweet scent of her neck, the warmth of her skin, of her hands. Before Eleanor could pull away, he sighed:

“I hope one day you finally understand that everything I’ve done, everything I’m doing, is for you. Because it's never been about me, Eleanor. The only thing that matters to me is that you become the brilliant and successful doctor you really deserve to be”

There were so much sincerity and pain in his speech that Eleanor pulled away from him so she could see his eyes. She stroked his cheek.

“I know, in a way I understand it, Ethan… But I can’t accept that path has to be this painful… And so unfair”

“Life isn’t fair, Eleanor”

Eleanor wanted to refute him that in this case, life had nothing to do with it. Because life wasn’t being unfair to her. He was being unfair. But she was unable to say a word. She was mesmerized by Ethan’s look. His eyes that so many times had given her comfort, now they haunted her dreams, they didn’t let her sleep at night, and at that precise moment, was threatening the little sanity she had left.

After a few moments, they began to look at their lips, mere inches away from each other, until they finally gave in to the inevitable. A brush of lips so satisfying and full of redemption that they sighed in unison, to come together again in a more intense kiss, capturing and biting each other lips. Ethan felt Eleanor’s tears stream down his cheeks. To alleviate her own pain and avoid a sob, Eleanor stroked Ethan’s hair tightly in the back of his head, intensifying the kiss even more, sliding her tongue in his, and all over his lips.

Ethan didn’t have time to hesitate and was caught up by the same desire. Soon, he was sliding his hands under Eleanor’s coat, feeling the curve of her breasts, her waist, and her hips. It was a never-ending dance of lips, which was complemented by more caresses, and then Eleanor climbing on top of Ethan, straddling him with her legs.

On another occasion, she would have pulled herself together and walked away. But knowing that she wouldn’t see him again for a long time, it drove her crazy. And maybe not for a long time, but there was always the possibility that this would be the last time they would be together, that both of them would want each other. Because no one could foretell what would happen from now on, when both he and she had finally accepted that their relationship had reached a dead end and that it was up to Ethan to revive it, and he had been clear that that wouldn’t happen.

“Eleanor…”—He sighed, a glint of reluctancy in his tone. He gulped.

She ignored him and continued to kiss him passionately, as she began to move over Ethan’s lap gently.

"Deny that you want this"—She whispered a moments later—"Say that you don’t want me and I swear I’ll go”

Eleanor pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. It was dark, but she was able to see the sparkle in his eyes slightly. Eleanor’s anticipation was stifling as she felt Ethan’s bulge between her tights.

“I want you more than anything in this world”—He replied melting at the sight of her on top of him, his arms around her body.

Without wasting another second, she kissed him again, intensifying her movements over him.

“Eleanor"—He gasped, feeling an electric shock down his spine as he rested his hand over Eleanor's hips, pressing her against his crotch, rubbing each other as their moans began to invade the car.

Suddenly, Eleanor slid her hand between his tights, feeling his arousal under her fingers. He went to her pants, unbuttoned them, and shoved his hand under her panties. He felt her wetness, her desire. She sighed.

“Ohh, Ethan…”

“You’re so ready”

“Yes” She mumbled.

Ethan tried to lower her pants, but he couldn’t do much, due to the uncomfortable position. For a second, Eleanor thought they could have gone to her room but abandoned the idea immediately. She knew that Ethan could have second thoughts on their way to her apartment and she didn’t want to risk the possibility to be with him.

Instead, she returned to the passenger seat, took off her shoes, and after moving the seat backward, took off her pants and panties. Ethan imitated her and pushed the seat backward as well and began to unfasten his pants. Eleanor, anxious, unhooked his belt and pants before he could finish, and released his cock under the boxer, and lowered herself to slide her tongue in all his length, to finally cover the tip with his mouth and then go deep. After a few moments, she moved upwards, sucking him hard.

“Eleanor”—He sighed in pleasure.

The girl worked on him for a few moments, until Ethan stopped her and guided her to sit on his lap again. “Come here”

They kissed again, devouring each other, Ethan grazing her jaw, her neck greedily, while she was gasping loudly as the anticipation was taking her body, feeling his arousal right under her sex. Then he removed her sweater and pulled her shirt and bra up, exposing his breasts. He cupped them with both hands before taking his mouth straight to her chest and began to kiss them… and then to suck her nipples.

"Ethan” Eleanor moaned loudly “Yes!”

The sound of his breath while licking her nipples and the “smack” after his mouth sucked them resonated in the car, and it was just another source of pleasure for Eleanor. But there was still something both were missing. Eleanor shifted slightly as she directed his arousal towards her center.

“Fuck”—She sighed as Ethan was entering her.

It was a blessed feeling, although neither of them believed in God, least of all in religion. That pleasure, that ecstasy, was a catharsis after all those months containing their deepest feelings and desires, after reliving almost every night the precious time they had spent together and that now were long gone.

“Oh, I missed you"—He groaned, taking her butt harder, as he was picking up more speed.

“Fuck yes. I wanted you so bad”—She kissed him, tongues colliding, teeth biting and swollen lips asking for more and more.

“You feel amazing, Eleanor”

The noise of their bodies colliding filled the car, but they were soon muffled with the moans that each one was not able to suppress, in the face of the sensations that were overwhelming them.

If someone was passing by and they had caught them, they wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered at that moment, was the feeling of their bodies connected. The pleasure that one was producing in the other. The ecstasy, the madness of their touch. The smell of their bodies. Ethan went to her breasts taking one with her hand, sucking her nipples hard while the other hand was on her ass, gripping her roughly.

“Ethan, I’m close”

Ethan was holding back just to this moment. He grabbed her firmly by her hips and began to thrust her at an impossible pace. Eleanor couldn’t comprehend where all that sensations were coming from, how she started to melting so abruptly, because she climaxed just a few seconds later.

“Oh my god, ETHAN!”—She screamed as he felt her hot breath in his mouth. Her tights squeezed as she was climaxing and that was enough to make him cum crying out her name.

He saw Eleanor toppling over him resting her forehead into his. Ethan embraced her, trying to feel every inch of her exposed skin in his.

“I love you”—She whispered.

He tightened his embrace, just as he did the last time she had said those words, and Eleanor still couldn’t figure out if he did that to pent up and not say anything, or to catch some bravery to tell her something. Either way, she wasn’t waiting for an answer this time. She only wanted him to know, before leaving, that she still loved him.

After a few more seconds holding each other, Eleanor returned to the passenger seat. She took her clothes and began to put them on. He also fixed his clothes. Somehow, when she came back to reality, the atmosphere was just as tense and painful as before the kiss. Even though the orgasm was still latent between her tights, the fact of knowing that the goodbye had finally come, was shattering her.

She turned to him, look into his blue eyes for a brief second, and breathed:

“Have a good flight ”

And without further ado, she got out of the car towards the building.

“I love you too, Eleanor”—He said just as Eleanor closed the building’s door.

_____

Chapter 4.

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cosmicjoke · 4 years

Text

Garden of Light and the Processing of Grief

Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve reached the final conclusion of the story of Banana Fish, and all it’s characters. Man, I’m emotional.

Just like with Angel Eyes, I feel like there’s so much to explore and unpack regarding Garden of Light. But I want to focus on the main theme which runs through it, which is the weight of sorrow, and the processing of grief and guilt.

I want to actually talk about how the sorrow, grief and guilt we see both Eiji and Sing consumed by throughout this story relates back to Ash, and not simply in terms of the loss of Ash being the cause of those emotions for Eiji and Sing, but how, I think, it maybe led the two of them to eventually better understanding and accepting Ash’s death, and thus, processing and freeing themselves from their own pain.

Midway through the story, Sing seems really angry and overcome with guilt over the death of Ash, and in particular, how that death has affected and changed Eiji. He’s angry AT Ash for dying, almost as if he thinks Ash died on purpose so he could forever possess Eiji’s soul. He wants Ash to let Eiji go, so that Eiji can be happy again. And this actually relates directly back to Sing’s own pain and grief and sense of guilt, his own inability to let go of what happened, to let go of his guilt for, he thinks, letting Lao attack Ash in the first place. I think Sing is blaming himself, ultimately, for the pain Eiji is in, because he thinks it’s his fault that Lao attacked Ash, indirectly making Ash’s death Sing’s fault. It’s a really interesting reaction on Sing’s part then, the anger he expresses towards Ash, because I don’t think he’s actually truly angry at Ash at all. He’s angry at himself. He’s angry that he let this happen, that he didn’t talk to Lao when he had the chance to prevent this awful tragedy. He blames himself, then, for Eiji’s unhappiness.

Sing says “It’s been long enough Ash. You hear me? Let Eiji go now. If you don’t let him go- he’ll never be happy again. I need him to be happy. Because until he is, I can’t...”

He trails off then, because I don’t think Sing can bring himself to say the words. Until Eiji is happy, Sing can’t ever be happy either. He can’t ever let go of his own grief and guilt. He can’t ever forgive himself for what’s happened.

We later learn from Eiji that he always knew about the letter, and how it led to Ash’s death. He confesses to Sing that he’s always known, and that he let Sing suffer the weight of that horrible secret because he himself couldn’t bear the weight of his own guilt, his own sense of responsibility for Ash’s death, instead choosing to focus on hating Lao, and letting Sing carry the burden of that guilt.

Both of these reactions, Sing’s anger at Ash for still meaning so much to Eiji, for still having such a strong hold on him, that hold seeming to prevent Eiji from finding happiness, and Eiji’s failure to help Sing by unburdening him from the weight of the knowledge of how it was Ash was left vulnerable enough to be killed, are born from an instinct of self-preservation. Sing lashes out at Ash, because in reality, he’s drowning in his own sense of guilt over it being his own brother that killed him, and feeling responsible himself for Eiji’s grief. Eiji doesn’t tell Sing that he knew about the letter because he couldn’t face the pain of knowing it was his love for Ash that ultimately left him vulnerable enough to be killed, feeling himself responsible for Ash’s death. They both blame themselves for what happened.

They’re both wrong, of course, in that the only person to really blame for Ash’s death is Lao. Lao chose to attack Ash. Lao’s the one who killed him.

But Eiji and Sing’s sense of guilt here, their sense of crushing sorrow and grief, and their inability to forgive themselves over what happened to Ash, can be related back to Ash’s own, overwhelming sense of pain and grief and guilt. Over Ash’s own need to leave his feelings unacknowledged and unprocessed, for the sake of self-preservation. Eiji and Sing’s trauma in Garden of Light is heavy like the trauma Ash carried around with him his whole life. And, I think, ultimately, both Eiji and Sing come to realize that. They come to better understand, through their own suffering here, maybe how Ash actually, truly felt. How Ash suffered every moment of every day, carrying the burden of the abuse he suffered through as a child, carrying the burden of his loneliness, carrying the burden of his remorse over the lives he had taken. I think they finally understood the true cost that such heavy pain can exact on a person, for their same inability to face or process their own, instead both of them running away from it, pretending it doesn’t exist, focusing their anger and pain on things and people who in reality have nothing to do with it. Ash never had anyone to share the weight of his trauma and pain with. He carried it around inside him, shoved down into the darkest corners of his being, never speaking of it to anyone, never unburdening himself to anyone, never allowed the process to grieve, to cry or deal with everything that had happened to him in his young, tragic life. We only see him truly grieve for what’s been done to him in the famous scene with Eiji, when he cries in Eiji’s lap, and Eiji promises to stay with him forever. It’s a single moment that Ash allows himself, and even in that moment, it’s but a fraction of the true horror of what Ash’s life consisted of. Ash never had the luxury of the grieving process, for how his life was constantly under threat, and to stop and process his trauma for even a moment, to allow himself even to acknowledge it, would have meant his end. He was never allowed to properly process the trauma of all the sexual abuse he suffered. He was never allowed to grieve for his friends Skip and Shorter. Never allowed to grieve for his brother, Griffin. Never allowed to process the rejection of his mother and father. Never allowed to come to terms with all he’d had to do in order to simply survive, out there on the streets. Eiji and Sing, I think, at last understand they themselves have something that they’ve been taking for granted, a privilege that Ash never had. The time to process their pain. The time to come to terms with their suffering. Another person, in one another, to share the weight of their shared guilt and sadness. Ash had no one he could ever really talk to, because he knew no one who had gone through the same things he had. His suffering was unique in it’s severity and nature. Eiji and Sing went through the loss of Ash together. They both shared the same hurt. And they found in one another a person who could understand what they felt, once they actually acknowledged what it was they were feeling.

Ash’s trauma, in the end, was a burden he couldn’t overcome. He never came to a place where he could love himself. He never came to a place where he could forgive himself. All of that pain, all of that sorrow, all of that loneliness and heartbreak, crushed him under it’s weight, and defined the parameters of his life in a way he could see no way out of. He could see no escape from. He dies in the end. He lets himself die. He lets himself go, into the peaceful embrace of death at last, Eiji’s love giving him the permission he always sought to let down the unbearable weight of his own pain.

I think, by the end of Garden of Light, Eiji and Sing understand this about Ash. Sing struggled so hard to understand what was going through Ash’s mind in those final hours of his life. Why he let himself suffer so much before death finally came for him. He struggled to understand why Ash would let go like that. And I don’t think he really understood until he allowed himself to acknowledge the pain of his own grief and guilt. Until he acknowledged his own inability to deal with his suffering. Eiji too. Until they both realized and admitted to themselves, and each other, that they’d been avoiding it and running away from it because they couldn’t bear it’s weight. I think then, Sing and Eiji both understood why Ash let go. They finally understood that Ash was carrying a burden that he just simply could no longer hold, because they too were carrying a burden that was crushing them. They understood that Ash letting go was his final release. His final freedom from the pain of his life. His salvation. Eiji says to Sing he could never forget Ash. That he wouldn’t ever want to forget him. He says “Ash lived all out, one hundred percent. You and I know that better than anybody else. I’m just grateful, and proud... that I got to spend at least a short while in the company of that brilliant, miraculous life force.” I think this is Eiji acknowledging that Ash always knew he was going to die young. That he burned too bright to burn for very long. That a person so brilliant and filled with light, so present and so real, simply couldn’t last. Like a shooting star, or a flash of lightening, so bright it lights up the all of the darkness around it for just a brief moment. And then it’s gone forever.

I think this is Eiji finally accepting that Ash was okay with dying, and that, ultimately, it was in death that Ash could finally find peace. That he at last found his rest, after a lifetime of fighting. I think it’s Eiji’s realization about how he was dealing with his own pain that helps him to understand this about Ash, to understand why Ash would WANT to let go. How, in the end, Ash could even find his one, true happiness in letting go. With the wings of Eiji’s love to carry him away from all of his suffering. Eiji’s love gave him permission to be free. To finally fly.

And I think in this understanding, in this realization, Eiji is at last able to let go of his own grief and guilt and pain. He’s able to accept Ash’s death, because he finally understands that Ash wanted more than anything to be free, and so finally, in death, he was. And in that release of Eiji’s pain, Sing too is able to let go of his burden. He too is able to again find happiness, because Eiji finds his own. They’ll never stop missing Ash, but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s a simple acceptance, an acknowledgement of their love for him, what he meant to them, and a gratitude for ever having gotten to spend time with such an extraordinary person at all. They’re freed from their guilt and sorrow by understanding that Ash’s death was his release from his own suffering. By the understanding that, for Ash, he found his own, true happiness in the end, knowing he loved, and was loved in return. That he felt his own, overwhelming gratitude for the brief time he got to spend with Eiji, as Eiji feels for having gotten to spend time with him. The acceptance that, for Ash, Eiji’s love was worth the price of his life. That, for Ash, that love was the ultimate happiness, and with that feeling of love in his heart, he could finally just... stop. Finally end his suffering and slip away. Eiji and Sing are able to set down their own unbearable burden, as Ash was able to set down his, because Eiji and Sing finally understand why Ash did. Why, in the end, he had to.

#Banana Fish #Garden of Light #Ash Lynx #Eiji Okumura #Sing Soo Ling

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autumnblogs · 4 years

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Day 53: Homosuck

https://homestuck.com/story/6244

Caliborn’s work is a parody of Homestuck, the very webcomic which he inhabits. On another note, just as happened nearly 200 pages ago, the Comic has again suffered a hostile takeover by another narrator.

I wonder what the point of this is other than to call attention to the existence of a narrator? It certainly helps us to get a better sense for what is specific to the tone of Andrew’s narration. In the case of Caliborn, it should be immediately apparent that he is a hostile narrator; he doesn’t have the best interest of his charges in mind.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/6247

The general rule with God Tier powers seems to be that they allow Gods to either interact with their environment umediated by gaming abstractions, or give them some level of heightened awareness of the narrative layer.

https://homestuck.com/story/6252

You, Me, and Him, are all the Same Guy. The Author, the Audience, and the Narrator are One.

https://homestuck.com/story/6257

While Caliborn is generally conceived of as being an asshole fan, I’ve always kind of gotten the impression that he’s a manifestation of Andrew’s internal critic. Like, is this what Andrew thinks of himself? A lame self-indulgent fraud who makes his job look way easier than it is?

A guy who just likes to fuck with people? Perhaps.

https://homestuck.com/story/6265

We see this immediately after John has reached into the Juju and come unmoored from Canon, and while John isn’t literally dead, due to the fact that he has been alienated from one of the few experiences that is pretty much universal - subordination to fate - couldn’t we describe John’s condition as a kind of Death and Rebirth? Hmm.

John is Dead; Long live John.

https://homestuck.com/story/6266

So Caliborn is in charge of the narrative now; and not for no reason. Even though we’re going to get the Supercartridge expansion shortly, here’s what we should expect - what Caliborn narrates here will be parallel to what happens in the actual story.

The reality is that, Caliborn’s narration, and his will to dominate everything has been manifest in canon all along, predetermining the material and immaterial conditions that governs the lives of the characters. Everything from the patriarchy, to the haemospectrum - within the narrative of Homestuck, that’s all Caliborn’s doing, directly or indirectly. He may not be the originator of it - it could be, like a Juju, just this thing comprised of arbitrary rules with no comprehensible origin - but he is the prime mover of hegemony and hierarchy in the universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/6278

Time for some more horrible glitches.

I believe that the glitches in the session, and the hostile takeover by an evil narrator correspond to the emotional condition of the protagonists - their despair is metaphysically intertwined with the collapse of the conditions of the reality that they inhabit.

Just as Terezi’s decision to go kill Vriska, and Rose’s decision to go kill Jack Noir correspond to the deterioration of Homestuck act the end of Act 5, the complete misery of everyone involved with the resumed session here midway through Act 6 causes the narrative itself to have a dissociative episode.

Everyone is too sad and angry, and as such, cannot currently be conveyed in a less shitty fashion.

https://homestuck.com/story/6293

So, here’s something interesting.

When Jade dies, she dies a Just death. Squashed underneath her own house like the Wicked Witch of the West.

What are we to gather from this? I think what we are to gather is that, while she is certainly being manipulated by her Imperious Condescension, we should take from her behavior that Jade is doing what she wants to do. She is considered to be basically responsible for her actions by her author.

We already know that Jade has anger issues, loves to be in control, and has doggy urges. I think in the same way that Crocker-Tier Jane helps to reveal a lot of the issues that Jane has buried deep down, Grimbark Jade helps us to see that all is not well in Waffleville with Jade.

https://homestuck.com/story/6302

Yet another little detail I missed on my previous readthroughs; Dave hasn’t said much explicitly in Act 6 but the fact that he has confronted how he really feels about Bro is manifest - the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff graffiti he drew in his bedroom in his sleep is now visible while he’s awake too.

https://homestuck.com/story/6313

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Dave doesn’t have an insincere bone in his body. He is, as Nepeta might put it, a guy who likes to play games.

https://homestuck.com/story/6314

Poor guy’s reaction to his own emotions is one of guilt and shame - he literally cringes when John appears from nowhere and catches him in his little outburst.

https://homestuck.com/story/6323

I wonder exactly what is making Dave have such an emotional reaction to encountering Caledfwlch again. Like, is it just Sburb-trauma? Is it really a Karkatian outburst? Is his specific ire directed at his quest related to his rejection of his Bro’s worldview? I think any or all of those things could be true, but I don’t have an opinion formed yet.

https://homestuck.com/story/6327

Two things.

I think it’s fascinating that, in spite of her enjoyment of nasty clowns, the Condesce’s emissaries do actually express a way with words in terms of conveying her desires. Maybe this is the classy sophistication that Dirk talks about.

Also, attacking Karkat’s failure to breed a healthy frog is really the lowest blow possible. She’s the only one he confided that in.

https://homestuck.com/story/6349

Rose is completely awash. She has been since her Mom died, of course, with the exception of some brief moments of absolutely necessary sobriety. But she hasn’t had a clue what she’s supposed to do with herself ever since her Mom died, and it’s absolutely destroying her.

https://homestuck.com/story/6382

Think we’ll pause here for the evening.

As always, it is a pleasure to be your guide through this human emotion called Homestuck.

I beat Manus, Father of the Abyss for the first time in Dark Souls today, at least the “Right” way. You can cheese him by shooting him with huge arrows from outside of his boss arena, but I’m pretty stoked about it. Oh yeah, in case I haven’t mentioned (and I think I probably have), aside from the fact that I am a Homestuck aficionado, my more impressive credential is that I have, in fact, beaten Dark Souls.

Anyway, enough of that horseshit. See you tomorrow, Same Cam Time, Same Cam Channel.

#liveblogging #commentary

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missaudreyhorney · 4 years

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David Harbour’s GoldDerby Interview

This whole thing is just going to be me gushing so can I first say how beautiful that was? Like I don’t just mean “Oh, that was cool hearing about the next season”, I mean like it was an experience to me. Maybe I’m just being hyperbolic because I’m going through a tough time right now but watching this interview made my chest ache.

It was such a bittersweet feeling to find out (in the AOL Build Series interview, IIRC) how difficult it was for him to film the first season of Stranger Things, and apparently the third season was no different. The fact that he struggled in filming the car scene with Finn and the stuff he says about the final episode makes me feel like his hand is squeezing my heart. It adds another layer, a whole other dimension to his performance in this show. My familiarity with the American Method, as he calls it, only deepens and enhances my already immense respect for him as an actor and the work that he does. To know that he suffers for his art (forgive the cliche) makes it so much more...enjoyable, in a personal, palpable way. I already watch season three on a pretty regular basis but knowing that it was a hard process for him makes me appreciate it even more than I did before, which I didn’t think was possible.

Relating back to my “me talking about David Harbour” post, there is something about him that is just so incredibly drop dead sexy and I can’t even put my finger on exactly what it is. Yes, the beard is magnificent, even more glorious looking than it was during the D&D game but it’s not just the beard alone. His dark blue eyes are even darker here, so much so that they almost appear brown at certain points in the video. I cringed in May when he showed off the seemingly hackjob haircut that Lily gave him but as it’s grown more in the past month, it’s really working for him in the best way.

As much as I rave about his looks and how absolutely gorgeous he is, that sexiness about him that literally makes me short of breath comes from everything about him. Everything all put together in this one stunning package. His face, body, voice, pain, trauma, sadness, triumph, honesty, and intellect. In so many interviews, he has stated directly or indirectly that allowing himself to be imperfect is what caused him to flourish and I wholeheartedly agree with that. He would still be very physically attractive without these complex inner qualities, but it is truly his humanity that makes him so irresistible to me.

Here’s the youtube link so you can watch the interview I’m talking about and tell me that I’m being a crazy fangirl and “it’s not actually that deep, bro” https://youtu.be/awSCyDQLAME

#David Harbour #Stranger Things 3 #Jim Hopper #I love David Harbour #I love him so much #personal post #praise

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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 5 years

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Spoilers.

Okay I can’t hold it in anymore, I need to yell about Star Trek.

SO.

In light of the revelations we got from Picard ep8 and ep9, I have come to the conclusion that the plot is a giant fucking mess. Lemme explain. (Buckle up, it’s long and VERY spoilery). First, a recap: 300 000 years ago, synthetic lifeforms from another galaxy dragged eight suns together (or maybe created them) and put a sign on the planet in the middle, saying “hey synth pals, when the organics decide to destroy you, give us a call, we’ll destroy them.” The Romulans stumbled upon it, understood only the “synth, organics, destroy” part and decided to hunt and kill robots before they evolved. So far, the robotic higher beings have only succeeded in making the organics hate the synths, so good job. Using the Romulan rescue, Oh makes synths illegal through the attack on Mars, causing the death of most of her people (and incidentally, of the entire Vulcan race in another timeline. Thanks, Oh!). I’ll give her points for dedication, at least this isn’t a “save my people and screw the rest of the Federation” scenario. She’s actually willing to sacrifice her planet to save the whole galaxy. (Doesn’t make it moral, but still, pretty selfless, in a dark a twisted way.) Again, this is the robotic higher beings’ fault.

Moving on, The surviving synths try to make first contact with Starfleet, resulting in the death of Jana, Beautiful Flower and Vandermeer, which has overall very little consequence on the bigger plot. AGAIN, this is indirectly the robotic higher beings’ fault. (Maybe losing her sister is what makes Sutra such a bitch? Don’t think so though, we’ll get to that.) Maddox, learning nothing from the Ibn Majid, decides to learn the truth about the ban and sends two synthetic girls that look exactly like Jana to investigate (my god is he stupid), while not actually telling them what it is they’re supposed to find (oh, Bruce. Oh my god). It leads to the Romulans realizing that there’s an entire planet of synths. Outstanding work, dumbass.

Picard does his thing and decides to save the synths and advocate for their lives, Sutra realizes what the Admonition actually meant, and decides that killing all the organics sounds like a great idea. She doesn’t hesitate to let Narek kill one of her sisters to unite her people, showing that she’s exactly the same kind of psycho bitch as Oh. The problem is: SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES. The robotic higher beings are fucking IDIOTS!! They’re supposed to have seen many civilisations rise and fall, so they should know what to do and what not to do, and their rational still is “organics will kill us anyway, so let’s kill them,” leading to the organics being like “oh shit, the synths want to kill us, let’s stop making them,” leading to Sutra being like “welp they’ve already started hating us, our robot overlords were right, let’s kill organics.” OH. MY. GOD!!!

I get that the lesson is that fear is the great enemy, and in this case it’s really well demonstrated (gotta give credit where it’s due), but still! It’s so frustrating!!

My biggest problem with that convoluted plot is that we (the viewers) are supposed to see the synths as the organics’ equals. Their plight is supposed to be equal to the Federation’s. Except NO. I’m sorry, NO.

(More on in-universe morality and out-of-universe viewer experience under the cut, because I took pity on your dashboards.)

I get wanting to survive from the Romulan attack, okay. (There is la Sirena for that, just as a reminder.) But Sutra saying that the Federation banning them was essentially genocide? NO. They are made. They aren’t born naturally. A government telling its people to stop making procreating isn’t the same thing as a government killing every kid younger that ten! Parents refusing to conceive isn’t the same as murdering their children (I won’t open the can of worms that is the abortion debate, the point stands).

We as an audience are still supposed to see the Zhat Vash as the bad guys, because Oh, Narissa and Narek are villains, and because they have caused untold suffering. (By the way, linking Cris’ personal tragedy to the synth crisis is a massive plot contrivance to make us hate the Zhat Vash more, which I found frustrating watching ep8. Losing people in a horrible way happens even without grand global conspiracies, and Cris had already been established as going out of his way to help people even when there was nothing in it for him. We didn’t need the connection to empathise with his pain, and he didn’t need the added incentive. Seriously, how small is that galaxy? Are everybody’s demons linked to Picard’s heroic quest? How convenient.)

But are the Zhat Vash really the bad guys? (Even Cris questions that despite arguably being the Sirena crewmember who as per ep8 had lost the most because of them, along with Elnor.) I’m sorry, if Sutra does try to call the robotic overlords, I say burn Cappelius to the ground. Lemme continue to explain. There are what, 50 synths? 50 robots. And the show tries to make me (again, the viewer) accept that risking the survival of the entire Federation (trillions of people) to save them is actually a question worth asking? From an in-universe moral standpoint, perhaps.

From an outsider’s perspective (the audience), not even close. Robots having souls and being equal to humans isn’t even a discussion we’re having in real life. I don’t believe androids will ever be self-aware, and capable of emotion and love. Sure, in the Star Trek universe they apparently are. So what? Suspension of disbelief only goes so far. The show can’t expect me to accept that many IFs. I get the very one-the-nose “fear of the Other,” “make love not war,” “different races have equal rights to life” analogy. The message is very much worthy, the show’s depiction of it really pisses me off. The show isn’t asking me to decide whether or not it would be moral to kill the last survivors of a human (or even alien) tribe to save the world, it’s asking “but what if we were basically God and we fucked up, how would we fix it? What if the stuff we made eventually had feelings? Then it’d be bad to destroy it, right?”

Aside from the sheer hubris of that premise, I don’t know that the robots have feelings. I know it looks like they do, and that they believe that they do, but again, how am I to know? From a biological viewpoint, they’re certainly not alive:

“Life” (biological def taken from the web) Definition. noun, plural: lives. noun, plural: lives. (1) A distinctive characteristic of a living organism from dead organism or non-living thing, as specifically distinguished by the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond (to stimuli), adapt, and reproduce.

Do the synths grow? Nah. Do they metabolize? Yes. Respond to stimuli? Yes but debatable as it’s programmed. Adapt? Yes. Reproduce? NOPE. 2.5/5 on the living scale lol. That’s not that great. (From an in-universe moral perspective, this time. I know, TNG did an ep on that, sorry.)

Still the show tries reaaaally hard to sell their sentience, and the one time that really didn’t sit well with me was that “robotic finger touching the human finger” image. WOW, last place where I expected to find religious imagery, a show that questions what it means to be human and what creating beings in our image would entail *sarcasm*.

Except they twist the imagery. In the Bible, human lives are sacred because they are in the image of the perfect God, and He values us (=> so human worth come directly from God attributing worth to us because we’re meant to reflect His goodness). Humans being imperfect due to their fall, creating something in their own image is called an idol - it’s a false god, it’s not sentient, it’s even more imperfect, and it’s wrong. And if humans don’t value it and and it doesn’t reflect who they are anymore, well, it would make the idol even more worthless, right? (clearer explanation because my arguing skills suck => drawing on the Bible’s imagery, either humans are not gods and the images they created are worthless, or the series means for them to have God’s place, in which case refusing to attribute worth to their images makes those worthless. That invalidates the question that I previously said the show was asking.) So all in all, reminding us of the Christian take on the issue right in the middle of the Admonition claiming that synths are perfect is thus completely counterproductive, both in universe and from a viewer’s pov.

But but but, I hear you protest, what about Data? He had worth!

This may be controversial, but Data mattered to us because of the character he was, not because he was supposed to be human. He was adorable and losing him meant losing an interesting and enjoyable element in the show, which would make us sad. I love him like I love Cris’ holos, the Voyager Doctor, Wall-E and Eve, R2-D2, Jarvis and Chappie. They’re (very) likeable fictional creatures that can be used as metaphors for real life issues, nothing more. In any show/movie I’d be really sad if one of them had to be sacrificed to save the world, but I’d accept it (looking at you, Infinity War Captain America). If the question arose in real life, would I question the morality of it? No.

So, are the new synths the same? I already tackled the metaphor thing, it’s not handled that well and Detroit Become Human did it first. (Again, it’s hard to portray the otherness of other real life-cultures that we may unjustly fear by using things whose living status is so easily questionable!!) Is killing off the synths wrong from an out-of-universe perspective because the audience loves them? Let’s see... Are the new synths adorable/likeable? Heck no, give me Emil and Enoch over them any day. Would we lose something in the show if they died? Nah. We didn’t even know they existed until one episode ago. Picard would get angsty and Agnes would get upset, but it’s nothing a few fluffy fics wouldn’t fix. Do we know the synths as characters? We know that Sutra is crazy, violent and bloodthirsty, Jana was probably nice (?), Dahj had a cute boyfriend (outstanding characterization) and Soji... Welp... *sigh* I guess Soji is okay, even though she’s the least relatable and interesting character of the whole Sirena crew? We know that their creators and biggest advocates, Soong Jr and Maddox, are(/were) creepy old dudes with warped ethics, half a brain between the two of them, really toxic interactions with Agnes, and enough hubris to bring the entire greek demigod population to shame. They would race Icarus to the sun, seriously. We know that Captain Vendermeer killed himself over two robots, permanently damaging one of the nicest and most beloved characters of the series. Yeah, real incentive for me wanting to see the Federation risk destruction for the androids, guys.

But seriously, the last time a psycho AI tried to destroy the galaxy and make it in its image (*cough* Control) the protagonists spent a season trying to destroy the thing, and they were right! Future-control was self-aware and demonstrated anger and fear! Make up your mind, CBS!!

And by the way? THE SYNTHS HAVE A MEANS OF ESCAPE!! No, I’m sorry, if they don’t decide to go aboard la Sirena and choose to endanger the Federation instead, then for all plot issues I’m siding with the Zhat Vash. Go on, destroy the synths. As part of the audience, I don’t care, and the show attempts at making me care by trying to make it a moral issue feel clumsy and forced.

Also. Q exists in the Star Trek universe! He’s a deus ex-machina machine!! (Pun intended.) It’s hard to take big issues like that seriously when he could just swoop in and teleport the synths out of the galaxy/destroy the Romulan armada/put the robotic overlords in their place. JL, please, give Q a call. Yeah, yeah, it’d take away from the moral stakes because you can’t solve your irl problem with a snap of your fingers and you have to make actual decisions - but as I already said, I feel like the moral stakes are dumb and contrived. Give me the deus ex-machina, please.

This has been a Star Trek rant. I know that I tackled two separate issues here: the in-universe morality of the synths’ death (I will admit that from the crew’s perspective it’s not right, because they can’t know if the synths are alive or not for sure) and the out-of-universe viewer experience. I apologize if it came across as really confused and complicated.

I still like the show and love the actual characters (meaning, la Sirena’s colorful crew), and the show writers are not incompetent, or stupid, or wrong for writing their show how they want. They are really skilled and talented and they have created mostly compelling characters - I’m just unhappy with the direction taken by the story.

#star trek picard #star trek: picard #jean-luc picard #sutra #noonien soong #bruce maddox #cappelius #et in arcadia ego #picard episode 8 #picard 1x09 #spoilers #picard spoilers #rant #meta #synthetic life #my meta #st talk #not sw

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soncfseed · 4 years

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reposted from my old blog

i want to post some links so people can better understand what bpd is and what a personality disorder is and is not. then, i’ll do a quick rundown of the 9 bpd symptoms and which ones ethan has/displays and how they manifest for him.

here is a quick ref of some common misconceptions about the disorder. tldr version: a lot of people think bpd isnt real, or that people with bpd are just crazy assholes but its a legitimate mental health problem that has multiple factors including ones that seem to be genetic and environmental.

a personality disorder is defined by the mayo clinic as: “a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people. This causes significant problems and limitations in relationships, social activities, work and school. In some cases, you may not realize that you have a personality disorder because your way of thinking and behaving seems natural to you.” basically, its not that a person has a bad personality in terms of poor character or is intentionally acting in a way that may seem irrational or explosive, but rather that the person has functional differences in how their brain reacts to things. personality is defined as: “the combination of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that makes you unique. It’s the way you view, understand and relate to the outside world, as well as how you see yourself.” it isn’t just behaviour nor is it something people consciously control 100% of the time. borderline personality disorder has been linked to physical differences in the brain and its functioning, particularly of neurotransmitters and brain chemicals similar to mood disorders like depression. it is a type of neurodivergence, not a skewed moral compass, a choice, or something that people with bpd typically enjoy. the symptoms are very stress inducing and cause a lot of turmoil for the affected person, and when poor coping skills have been ingrained and then create further stress or complications in the person’s life, particularly in interpersonal relationships.

ok now we’re gonna hit the 9 symptoms and 4 domains of bpd and how ethan fits into it. the dsm-5 requires 5 symptoms out of 9 for a person to be diagnosed with bpd. ethan displays, in my opinion, 8/9 symptoms and would be a candidate for diagnosis in my experience.

domain a - emotional regulation 1) “Affective (emotional) instability including intense, episodic emotional anguish, irritability, and anxiety/panic attacks” ✅ generally, this is episodes of intense sadness, anger, irritability, insecurity and self doubt for ethan. he doesnt usually have anxiety or panic attacks, but he has had a few in extremely stressful situations. his symptoms of an anxiety attack tend to lean more towards irritability and emotional outbursts.

2) “Anger that is inappropriate, intense and difficult to control” ✅ while ethan does become rightfully frustrated when the captain returns the book, the fact that he has what seems like a minute long complete meltdown including hitting/smashing objects, that would be a good example of the kind of situationally inappropriate anger and displays of temper ethan has. his anger spikes rapidly and it makes it hard to control his actions at times.

3) “Chronic feelings of emptiness” ✅ while we don’t necessarily see this explicitly in game, i’d argue that’s part of his experience of bpd. he often feels a lack of purpose, a lack of self, and substitutes that with his role as the leader of new eden.

theres additional symptoms described as such: “In addition, if you suffer from borderline disorder, you may also experience emotional hyper-reactivity (“emotional storms”), or emotional responses that are occasionally under- reactive, and frequent episodes of loneliness, and boredom. “ ethan definitely experiences emotional storms, and episodes of loneliness particularly. thats amplified by the fact that hes not particularly close to anyone in new eden besides maybe the judge. between a lack of substantial interpersonal ties with his community and his disorder, his episodes of loneliness are often very intense and distressing.

domain b - harmful impulsive behaviors 4) “Self-damaging acts such as excessive spending, unsafe and inappropriate sexual conduct, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating” ✅ ethan deals with this to an extent, but not these specific self damaging behaviours. for ethan, its usually not eating or not sleeping for periods of time, or going on particularly dangerous missions to find the book. hunting also serves as an adrenaline rush, but because it sustains new eden its less impulsive than it is an acceptable way of spending a day

5) “Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-injurious behavior such as cutting or hitting yourself.” ❌ ethan has suicidal ideations, but doesn’t have a history of engaging in self harm or suicide attempts.

though not an explicit symptom, dangerous impulsivity that affects the self or others is a common symptom, and one ethan does deal with. his decision to turn new eden over to the highwaymen was in part spurred by his impulsive thinking and behaviour.

domain c - perceptions of self and others 6) “A markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of yourself (your perceptions of yourself, your identity)” ✅ ethan definitely experiences shifts in this realm. this is part of why he ties himself so strongly to his identity as the leader of new eden in light of his poor relationship with his father (which will come up again). when that is threatened, it sends him spiraling because of his unstable self image. this applies to ethan’s image of himself as a person morally, his worth relative to others, and even how he feels about his body and appearance.

7) “Suspiciousness of others thoughts about you, and even paranoid ideation, or transient and stress related dissociative episodes during which you feel that you or your surroundings appear unreal.” ✅ ethan is absolutely suspicious of others and it goes beyond his learned suspicion of outsiders that all of new eden seems to have. he is particularly suspicious of his father, and of people within his own community. some of this is completely rational, but it often extends beyond that. he experiences, in my hc, dissociative episodes and bouts of depersonalization where parts of his body don’t feel real or don’t feel attached to him/belonging to him.

“Other symptoms in this Domain include split- or “all-or-nothing” thinking, difficulty “pulling” your thoughts together so they make sense, and rational problem solving, especially in social conflicts.” ethan deals with all of these issues generally speaking. this is in part why his decision to burn down new eden was so extreme; he has difficulty at times with regulating what is rational and what is not (and making nuanced decisions), particularly when under extreme emotional duress like during an explosive emotional episode or mood swing.

domain d - unstable relationships 8) “You may engage in frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.”✅ this is part of why he looked so hard for the book, why he pushes himself so hard to be the leader of new eden and why he turns on them so aggressively at the end. sometimes this can manifest as lashing out, a way to “get them before they get me” mentality. he has particularly strong responses to feeling abandoned or ignored.

9) “Your relationships may be very intense, unstable, & alternate between the extremes of overidealizing and undervaluing people who are important to you.” ✅ this is definitely something ethan struggles with, especially with his father. this is also why he was willing to let new eden burn and its people suffer with it. he had swung too far back from feeling rejected that went completely into “new eden bad”, undervaluing everyone there to the point that he was able to rationalize destroying the place at the expense of the people who lived there.

none of this is meant to excuse his poor decision making, but in the context of my hc for him, it explains why he can act so irrationally at times, and so extremely. in reality, people with bpd are more likely to hurt themselves through self harm, suicide attempts, impuslive behavior, and self destructive behavior. ethan seed is 1) not a real person and 2) living under some very intense and unusual circumstances with probably the WORST person to parent someone with bpd, joseph “i talk to god and he says your soul is tainted” seed. he also doesn’t know he has a disorder and doesn’t have the knowledge or resources to get mental health treatment for his disorder. as it stands, however, he’s made some pretty bad and pretty horrible decisions, and at times can be a bad person. this doesn’t mean, however, that he is 100% bad or always awful, or that bpd is the sole cause of his behaviours. it isnt. lots of people (including myself) have bpd and we haven’t been directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of anyone; we’ve never burned down our hometowns or tried to get our fathers killed. ethan’s display of bpd is more of a tool to explain and contextualize his behavior and character rather than to condemn him, condone him, or excuse his actions.

tldr ethan has bpd and so do i thanks 4 listening to my ted talk

#hc #long post #repost from old blog

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avenger-hawk · 5 years

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i just read one of your asks about your future fics. have you considered writing about sasukes interactions with karin?? not sasukarin (but sasukarin is still a good ship!!) but i really like your karin meta and would love to see her in your fics, even if she isnt part of a ship!!

wow Anon I just realized in the last nice ask I received about my writing I forgot to mention a suisasu oneshot I started writing as a drabble here…I haven’t thought about writing something centered on Sasuke and Karin, usually I wrote about Team Taka as a team, as in my Team Taka headcanons here, here and in bits of In Power (ff.net/ ao3) and What He Wanted (ff.net/ ao3).

I know what you mean when you love a character like Karin and you want to see her more, even in a not shippy context. And I totally agree that SasuKarin really IS a good ship, the only worthy Sasuke ship with a girl, tbh. (I think Sasuino would be ok too but I’m not interested in it all all as I find it boring, and I prefer Saiino anyway).

(needless to say: SS shippers, don’t read, this is not for you. And since it’s properly tagged as anti, don’t bitch)

It’s only a matter of personal taste, I’m usually more interested in rarer pairings, and because when I think of Team Taka ships I’m more intrigued by suisasu and juusasu that in my opinion have room for both ‘healthy’ dynamics and darker ones. But if I weren’t so slow and full of future writing projects as you read, I’d totally like to write them. In fact, I’m gonna leave some random headcanons here cause I’m sorry I’m not able to write all the things I have in mind and you guys mention, AND because I’m so late replying to this ask that I feel guilty xD

My favourite things to read and write isn’t romance but dark stuff and hurt/comfort, so I would love some hurt/comfort between them, and there is a lot of possibility for this, just thinking about canon. I actually see SK hurt/comfort as canon behind the screen so you may have an idea already, both for shippy and non-shippy stuff.

For example, there’s nothing about Sasuke’s years at Otogakure but we know he was always with Orochimaru, not only training or taking poisons/drugs to get stronger, but also visiting other hideouts and assisting to his horrible experiments as well as seeing/meeting Suigetsu and Karin, mostly, as she was not a prisoner but a subordinate, kinda like Kabuto. She saw more about Sasuke than the others in Team Taka, and this may mean a lot of things. For example like in this fanart, inspired by that Karin-centric filler episode (I think 331) where she witnesses Orochimaru taking Sasuke in a dark room which seems quite creepy and may be interpreted as…eh, you get it. And there’s also Kabuto telling her that Sasuke sought Orochimaru, that he came her by his own choice…that, in this dark context, that he is ok with things being done to him (it’s the price for power).

So it’s interesting to imagine Karin being more and more intrigued by this person, who saved her in the past, when they were genin, and who now came to her creepy leader that she knows very well, and ‘lets’ him do all sorts of things to him. Some random headcanons coming, more or less connected

-(tw: pain) Otogakure: she’s doing some work and she overhears someone moaning in pain, and she sees Sasuke shirtless, strapped to a table/bed and kind of squirming, as he’s been injected poison for his training and he’s clearly suffering.

(She takes his hand and tries to comfort him. She thinks he was in too much pain to remember but some time later he tells her ‘thank you. For being beside me that day’)

-(tw: r*pe) Orochimaru leaves the creepy room and tells her to heal Sasuke. When she enters she sees him battered bruised and bloodied everywhere, looking in pain and lost, defeated, and it’s easy to understand what happened, and that it’s neither a first nor a last time, but when he sees her he puts up a tough face, cause he doesn’t know her and he doesn’t know if he can trust her as maybe she’s like Kabuto. He can’t imagine that she (like in my Team Taka headcanons part 2) was r*ped too by Orochimaru, that most of his ‘most interesting subjects’ have been at least once. He’s the most special which means Oro always comes to him ‘to toughen him up’ and ‘train’ him or ‘just’ to be repayed for making him stronger, and he’s constantly manipulated by him (that he’s not as strong as Itachi, that he needs him to be stronger and defeat his brother, and so on) and she knows this. She, too, is wary of him cause he might be so manipulated that he supports him and if she says something wrong he might tell Oro who might punish her and she is ok with him now, he leaves her be without molesting her, so she wants to keep the peace. So she’s discreet and heals him, not in the impersonal way Kabuto does though. Sasuke appreciates silently.

-(tw: random violence and blood) Inspired by this amazing fanart by @lisimba-art. Sasuke is trained to use his curse mark, but it’s hard to completely control his powers in that form, with those weird wings and everything. So it’s exhausting for his body but also for his mind, he can’t even think straight at some point, and he can’t control his emotions either, even though he tries hard cause he can’t be weak. Orochimaru makes him fight against other ‘test subjects’ with the curse mark or with other powers he developed on them, and Sasuke kills them…he hates killing, as there is only one person he wants to kill. He feels his body move and he can’t avoid it, he feels his nails slashing another human and can’t avoid it, it’s horrible, it’s like being trapped in a nightmare.

Karin stumbles on the fighting ground and sees him. They know each other by then, she is worried about him, many in Oto bet on how long he will last, if he will last, when Orochimaru will ‘devour’ him, if the curse mark will ‘devour’ him first. When she sees him Orochimaru, who was observing him with Kabuto, left already. Sasuke is standing alone, a few corpses around him. She approaches him, talking slowly and calmly, to check his wounds. Nothing too serious, the most worrying thing is his mental/emotional state, cause he looks around without actually seeing things, he seems lost, troubled.

It takes a few minutes for him to see the one who’s speaking to him, and when he does he’s not in his usual state anyway, Karin can tell not just from his chakra but from his body language. He’s standing so, so close to her, his shoulders are hunched and his eyes are empty, or somewhere else still. Or maybe they want to be somewhere else, she can’t tell. She should feel the heat radiating from his toned body -she dreamt of a moment like this- but the tanned version of what is normally pale is so cold..maybe he got so close because she’s warm instead.

“Sasuke…bite me, you’ll get some chakra back and you won’t feel cold anymore,“ she tells him, but he just hovers over her, silent as a hawk watching its prey, but unlike it, just staring at her.

“I killed all of them” Sasuke’s voice is low and raspy, but he’s back, she’s glad but also sad because he’s clearly upset by what happened and she knows why. Everyone does.

- (tw: mentions of blood/violence/r*pe) This works both for Otogakure and for Hebi/Taka travelling. Night time, Karin hears some low pained sounds and she realizes it’s Sasuke having a nightmare, about either the above mentioned moment where he was forced to kill random people, or about some abuse Orochimaru inflicted on him, either directly or through someone else like Kabuto. He suddenly wakes up and realizes Karin was there. She tries comforting him by saying that she knows what he felt back then cause she was done similar things, and also Suigetsu and Kabuto and others, even though she doesn’t minimize his experience (as Oro’s favourite he took more than others of whom he soon got tired). It’s a hurt/comfort moment where they share intimate traumatic experiences and bond.

Bonus dark points if the experience Sasuke had a nightmare of, involved the aforementioned indirect abuse inflicted by Orochimaru but indirectly, through his current comrades Suigetsu and Juugo, ofc hypnotized/drugged/in some trance. Karin connects with the way he sometimes looks at them when he’s more tired and vulnerable, almost imperceptibly but she can see chakra shifts. They talk, he doesn’t say anything but the things he said in his sleep were obvious so she tries to make him admit and he does, as he’s honest. He doesn’t blame them, he knows they were under Orochimaru’s power just like he was during his curse mark mode when he wasn’t able to control it.

He thinks that Suigetsu and Juugo don’t even remember that experience but they do, exactly like he does with his killing random people in curse mode form.

More bonus dark points if Karin assisted to the traumatic thing cause she was Oro’s assistant too, sort of.

Related to my Akatsuki AU that is mostly in my mind for now (how unexpected lol) and it’s Itachi/Sasuke centric but there’s also a lot of Sasuke interactions (like, with Deidara a lot, I just like the idea) and lots of Team Taka that exists in this context first as Orochimaru’s subordinates along with Kabuto, then as Sasuke’s comrades, cause while Itachi is a full fledged Akatsuki, like Orochimaru (he never left Akatsuki in my AU), Sasuke is not, and like Orochimaru has subordinates affiliates to the Akatsuki, Itachi has Sasuke. Unlike Akatsuki wearing cloaks with red clouds, Akatsuki ‘lesser’ members wear black cloaks like Sasuke and Team Taka wore in canon. They are given missions too, they’re younger and less experienced that the others and their interactions and dynamics are similar to canon ones.

Uh Anon why did you make me think of more interesting scenarios tho, I had too many already lol

#sasukarin #karin #sasuke uchiha #uchiha sasuke #uzumaki karin #karin uzumaki #team taka #anti-sasusaku #team taka is the best #vivalarevolution: visions #vivalarevolution #headcanons #my writing #akatsuki au #I love karin can you tell #also she likes sasuke when he's battered and wounded so

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jenowinkle · 6 years

Text

l o v e d .

boyfriend au! haechan ❀

genre; angst × fluff

pairing; haechan × reader

word count; 2.7k

warning; mentions of bullying and a singular bad word

requested by anon; Haechan From Nct 127 imagine where you want to break up with him cuz he has been treating you very meanly and in the end you make up????? Please and thank you! I’m thirsty for some drama in my life with cute endings I’m so sorry I’m a mess! I love you 💕💕💕💕💕😂

to note;

haechan pov

this is haechan of 127, not dream; so he isn’t soft × fluffy oof

i’m just kidding, he still is,,, at some points

i hope this isn’t too cliché ><

author’s note; thank you for the request anon!!! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶ ah i’m so excited to write this and i hope this isn’t too disappointing,,, i love you vvvvv much (❁´‿`❁) i’m really sorry this took so long;;; (,,•́ . •̀,,) there may be grammer errors here and there so please excuse that ahh but enjoy~

let’s go:

12 a.m.

“get out… please,”

haechan let out a self-depreciating chuckle, quirking the left corner of his lip as your broken voice resonated in his mind. the look of distraught and profound sadness never left your face as haechan heed your orders, stepping out of your once-homely, shared apartment. he walked along the sidewalk that led to the nearby park, nibbling at his lower lip. what went wrong? that was the question that bothered him so much. all he could do now was to walk, walk down his path of regrets. silently, the tears flowed down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. he was too sad to cry out or wail, and eventually, he slumped down onto a bench while the magnitude of his loss swept over him. the loss of you, his beloved. was he at fault? no, it couldn’t have been. haechan buried his head into the palms of his warm hands, sobbing at maximum strength. unconsciously, his mind wondered to the forbidden realms of how he had first met you. it was not the appropriate time to think about such things but he just couldn’t help it.

❃

“hey, i’m haechan. i find you real cute, so just call me hyukkie~”

yes, that was the first thing he had said to you five years prior. what a smooth talker, huh. but haechan was known for that, his specialty people might call it even. he had always been the happy virus of the class, the beloved jokester, a natural flirt and dare he say, the most outgoing one in the school. he was popular, as in, very well known and loved by the school. his outrageous antics, be it on friends or teachers, never failed to humor the class; even the teachers would find it amusing enough to let him off the hook, sometimes, encouraging it to lighten up the mood.

the thing is, he had everyone begging for his attention — romantically, that is. each and every day, he had a constant supply of food and love notes to the point where you’d wonder if he was secretly an idol or something. however, unfortunately for him, the one he had eyes for, never blinked an eye at him. you were always an exception — you never seemed to laugh at his jokes, much less even flinched at his pranks. whatever haechan threw at you, you somehow managed to avoid it. and of course, this gave haechan’s ego a big hammering down. he didn’t know what to do, always dumbfound by your unaffected emotions. at that moment, he was at his wits’ end. to be very honest, he didn’t know what made him so attracted to you. did you cast some magic spell on him? because my, were you bewitching, or so it seemed like that to him. he adored you so much but didn’t know a single thing about you. it was a hilarious situation, really. maybe it was your immunity to react to his comedic statements, maybe it was your quiet, stand-offish personality, or maybe it was your laugh.

it was the most unexpected thing. the moment the flirtatious words left haechan’s mouth, you were flabbergasted at his introduction but let out such a charming laugh, he became the one tongue-tied and then poof, a wild crush on you appeared. so, you were the typical new kid of the class, having been transferred from your last school at the middle of the year for the terrible classmates you had. what you had not known was how lady luck wanted to torment you a little longer before giving you the happiness you deserved. haechan became highly aware of his affections for you and showered you with lots of love and attention. oh, what had been thought a blessing, turned out to be your worst nightmare. for everything he gave, it was always backed up with death threats from his admirers. this drove you to the edge. the constant bullying that was waiting for you at the end of every day, the occasional egg being thrown at you and the rare moments of you actually getting along with someone, eventually being your best and only friend. — you tolerated all of that, but haechan never knew. and that was when you started to really distant yourself from him. he was the cause of the toxic relationships you had with your fellow schoolmates. he was the cause for all the pain that you had to suffer. he was the cause of everything, yet he knew nothing.

❃

it was finally senior year, the year everyone had been waiting for, the year all seniors would graduate, the year for prom. that was haechan’s chance, his last chance, to ask you out. he had been trying for the past two years, ever since you transferred. haechan came to know about his tyrant admirers from his best friend, mark. of course, he was vehement to say the least. upon seeing the two-faced girls in the corridor one day, he lashed out at their appalling behavior towards you, never stopping to take a breather from his scolding. you were there when that happened, and honestly, like everyone else, you had never seen him so infuriated before. it was a first, and you were astounded that it was because of you. fortunately for him, that was his redeeming ticket to something he had never directly caused. you truly appreciated his willingness to stand up for your sake, but well, haechan knew he was indirectly the cause for your mistreatment and he had to do you justice.

and that was the turning point of your relationship.

“be my sunflower?”

he asked you out to prom.

❃

“be my sun?”

haechan held a stunning bouquet of crimson red roses in his clammy, trembling hands, shyly looking up at you as he asked you to be his significant other a year after prom. unexpectedly, haechan received a soft, tender kiss on the lips as he felt a smooth hand lay on his cheek, your thumb grazing over his supple cheeks. overjoyed were you, as you gently took the bouquet with your free hand. your smile was so genuinely sweet, with just the right amount of shyness, haechan couldn’t help but feel his heart burst with a sudden surge of warmth and joy.

❅

1 a.m.

that was a memory he held so dear to his heart. one in many, that is.

you were his sun as much as he was to everyone else. you were his sunflower, so beautiful, warm, and positive; and ultimately, you were his source of happiness. he didn’t deserve you and he reminded himself of that every single day. it tormented him, it made him work harder to make up for whatever he thought he lacked, it made him love you unconditionally. but was that really enough? he was conflicted, fighting off as many tears as he could. pathetic, he despised himself. dragging himself off the bench, he lifted his right fist up and threw it to an unsuspecting tree. an unimaginable pain blossomed in his knuckles, as drops of blood started to ooze out from the rips in his skin. a sharp hiss escaped his lips as he clenched his jaw, regretting his impulsive and stupid move. that pain however, is incomparable to the one he felt in his heart.

❃

college students. two-year love birds. the couple of the campus. that was you and haechan, alright. everything was the same, yet so different in college. he was still the prankster gangster that he was, topped with more mischief, that is. definitely still a hit with everyone, but thankfully in the friendly sense. on the other hand, you became the campus sweetheart. oh my, boys fell for you left and right, even with the knowledge that you were long taken. you became famed for your endearing and kind personality, cute to the core, as haechan described. nevertheless, this soon became a problem, a problem that would escalate to heights unimaginably high. haechan became overcome with dread the moment he saw a random boy from your psychology class trot on to you, hands gripping onto a box of chocolates. he witnessed the entire moment, from where the boy had confessed, he presumed, to when he got rejected, as he noticed the droop of the boy’s head as he slowly turned around to walk away. conjointly, he looked to see your perplexed expression as you passed the chocolates to a friend that happened to pass by. initially, all was good as haechan was always notified by you whenever you received a confession of love.

howbeit, after a few months later, things had seemingly changed. you had grown distant, yet again, with different circumstances this time however. you went out with guys haechan never even knew existed. you spent less time together. there were lesser kisses and hugs; lesser “i love you”s. he placed more effort into the relationship, buying you weekly flowers, cooking for you when you came back to the dorm late — haechan became desperate. his self-esteem hit rock bottom. insecurity about his looks, envy about the amount of attention you gave to others instead of him, fear that he would lose you. he became possessive. it drove him insane.

❅

11 p.m.

“haechan, why have you been acting like this?”

those words floated out of your mouth so simply, like it meant nothing. why? it was lunatic, how you weren’t aware about how horribly you were treating him, how you didn’t understand his feelings, how you never asked about his day anymore, how you never ranted about your problems to him anymore, how you never told him you loved him anymore. haechan was so sick of it, he had to deal with the constant stress the professors put on him daily, them breathing up his neck and then deal with the constant reminder that you were probably out with friends, more specifically, male friends. so, his possessiveness caught up to him, causing him to come off as mean or more accurately, manipulative. wherever you went, he demanded for a report of everything you did. whoever you called, he accused you of cheating on him. whenever you laughed at something, he cursed at the source of your laughter. what he adored most had become something he dreaded most.

“you actually want to know why? finally? when did you start caring about me again, huh?”

rage. that was all haechan felt. the spur of anger stirred in his whole entire being. he spat on the ground separating the two of you.

“you’ve become someone i don’t recognize, haechan,”

a roar of laughter bubbled up to his lips. what a hypocrite, his lips curled into a snarl. haechan was seeing red, angered to the point of no return. his mouth opened, spewing out the toxins he had been storing in his body for months, via words. continuously without stop, he yelled at you, who started to cower in fear of the person haechan had become.

“you became a whore, (y/n)!”

that was the breaking point; for both haechan and you. he went too far. he knew he did. but he didn’t even try to stop the words from spilling out.

s m a c k .

skin against skin, palm against cheek. haechan felt the tingly burn on his cheek after your hand had connected with it, causing a loud smack to ripple apart the deafening silence that engulfed you two, moments prior. he looked up at you, holding his cheek, only to see pearl-like tears rolling down your cheeks from wide, luminous eyes. your eyes that once shined like the stars in the vast night sky, held so much pain and regret. haechan could see it so clearly but he refused to look away, he refused to back down, not after all the nights he had spent looking at the mirror, wondering why he was not good enough for your wandering eyes. his dark lashes started to brim heavy with tears, hands clenched into shaking fists, in a desperate battle of grief and hatred.

“let’s break up,”

❅

1:30 a.m.

what happened that night was not something haechan was proud of. after beating up the innocent tree, bloodied hands were his payment for his offence. his anger slowly dissipated, turning into complete sadness. he loved you. no, he loves you. after everything, he knows that you didn’t know what you were doing, you were just suddenly showered by affection from other people that you didn’t realize how you were treating haechan, he knew you didn’t mean to break up with him, and he knew you were still in love with him, as much as he was with you. he was willing to forgive you, he wanted to. he wanted to hold you in his arms, and breathe in your scent again. he wanted to whisper sweet nothings. he just wanted you back.

closing his eyes, haechan went back to the bench and plopped himself on it. the cool, night wind tickled his neck, almost as if to comfort him. the gentle swishing of the leaves seemed to whisper to him that everything would work out. it had to, haechan thought, as another gush of tears came swimming to his eyelids. one by one, they slipped past his closed gates, sliding down his cheeks in big, fat droplets. the warmth they brought along comforted him, until eventually becoming cold too, like the world was to him now, as they drop of his chin. it’s going to be a long night, he sighed.

❅

2:00 a.m.

“haechan, wake up! haechan, please… i-i still love you. please wake up, please be alright, oh my god, i’m so sorry. i don’t deserve you one bit,”

it can’t be.. it just can’t be. haechan knew he was asleep but that voice, it sounded so… real. he didn’t know if he could believe it, after all he had been delusional for a few months now. gathering all of his strength, he peeked through an eye as he felt the sudden drop of a tear on his hand, his palms receiving an intense amount of warmth, and a melancholy-sounding voice drifted up to his ears.

“h-hyukkie… i don’t even deserve to call you that anymore. i thought about what you said, and i realized how badly i’ve been treating you this past few months. i never meant that to happen, i was so caught up with everything that i,, no, that’s no excuse for my behavior. if you wake up, i hope you know that you were always the sun, and the only reason why i could be a sunflower was because of you. you gave me so much love that i could never repay you back, no matter how hard i try. never in my life have i received so much attention from a single person, i’m so lucky to have you but i never appreciated you enough. i was never good enough for you, i’m so sorry—“

haechan had heard enough, enough to understand that the feelings between both of you were mutual. you two still loved each other, and that was enough. you had grasped onto his blood-stained hands so tightly, he knew you were genuine. the look of utter distraught stirred his heart, he knew you were truly apologetic. the moment he removed his hand to touch your cheek, your head shot up at once, cutting off your ramble, taken aback by his actions but more importantly, the fact that he was alright. at once, haechan was engulfed by a humongous hug as he was squeezed by the love of his life. aghast was he, but responded by hugging you back, burying his head into the hollow of your neck, leaving fluttery little kisses all the way up. your giggles were music to haechan’s ears. god, he had missed you so much. after what seemed like eternity in each others’ comforting embrace, you two separated, smiling like the goofballs both of you were.

“so, we good here?”

haechan rolled his eyes at your a-bit-too-late-to-ask statement, chortling. gazing lovingly into your mystifying eyes, haechan let out a relief sigh, ecstatic to have you back.

“for everything that you’ve done, my favorite would always be you loving me,”

#asdghja the tags aren't working again help #idk what to feel about this;;;;#haechan #haechan imagines #haechan scenarios #nct #nct 127 #nct dream #lee donghyuck #scenarios #imagines #nct 2018

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freezingwintah · 6 years

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Don't worry about me, I'll probably be fine

It all began when he met him. Over time it became clear they were on the same wavelength and pretty much in sync on everything. The dynamic duo – PBG and Jeff.

Or so he thought, until he coughed up white petals nine months ago. At first, Jeff couldn’t believe it, when he saw a few of those in his palm.

The question was – his unrequited love – who was it? He didn’t even realize he was in love.

Time Skip 9 months

A new girl who transferred into Asagao Academy got a lot of attention. It wasn’t just because of her pink hair, she was cheerful and outgoing. Jeff wasn’t the only one who liked those traits in people, as was seen later when the girl, Hana befriended the Normal Boots.

Hana grew close to one of his best friends, which was... mildly concerning. Jeff vividly remembered when Peebs told him Hana is his childhood friend and he loved her since they were little kids. Something painful knotted up inside him; he felt light headed, but tried to appear happy for PBG’s sake.

“That’s great! You can resume your friendship where you left it off.”

PBG scratched his chin and his face was flushed as if he ran a marathon. “Well, you see I’m going to Flower Festival with her. As a r- romantic interest. It’s a date.”

Oh. A date.

Romantic date?

That’s when his condition showed its thorns and he excused himself, running to the nearest toilet to throw up those petals. He retched violently into the sink and the sight was somewhat out of horror. The white petals were mixed with red, which he recognized as blood upon feeling the iron taste in his mouth.

His condition got a lot worse. Jeff now fully understood who was the cause of this. He loved PBG, but his love won’t be reciprocated now that Hana’s in the picture.

So this is what having a broken heart felt like.

Jeff cleaned up the mess he made, leaving for his dorm room. Hopefully Ian won’t be around, he couldn’t handle these emotions. He felt like crying until he ran out of tears and became dull to the world. Maybe that would make this disease go away.

He didn’t look at faces, it all became a blur to him; a swirl of faces as he dejectedly dragged his feet to his room. He went in and sunk on his bed, where he let loose of his bottled up feelings.

This helplessness was devastating; there was nothing he could do. Upon learning whom he loved, that person was whisked away by another person.

It’s not fair. Now I can’t even confess, since I know he loves Hana.

Jeff let those silent tears fall, sobbing quietly into his pillow, which was getting soaked. But he didn’t care for anything at the moment.

He smacked into the pillow and sheets a few times in frustration, his despair getting deeper and deeper.

Why did it have to be Peebs of all people. The one who was like my brother.

The hushed sobbing went on until he truly ran out of tears, emptying out his heart, only feelings left were dullness and tiredness.

He stirred on the bed, taking a look around his room. The room was encased in semi – darkness. He must have missed dinner. A bright light shone directly at him. Jeff tried to cover his tear – stained face and puffy eyes, but Ian’s stoic face stared him down with a frown.

Ian held up his phone, using the flashlight on it. He shook head. “Jeff, you look horrible. What happened?” He cut to the chase, expecting answer from the heartbroken boy.

“What happened? I got my heart broken and I’m coughing up bloody petals.”

Ian stood up, crossed the room in three long steps and hugged him on the bed, trying to comfort. “Oh Jeff...”

Drained of energy, he bitterly laughed. “I missed my chance. I missed my chance and now I’m afraid to face him.”

His friend raised a brow at that. It was another guy? But who could it be? “Who is it?” He asked, knowing he won’t probably get an answer.

“It doesn’t matter, he’s happy and that’s what matters.”

Ian scoffed. “Now you’re spouting bullshit. Show a bit of your selfish side for once! Confess and maybe it’ll turn out good.”

“It won’t turn out good.” Jeff spoke softly, when that feeling came up again. He abruptly pushed Ian off and he coughed up the evidence of his illness.

His friend came up to him and patted his back, unsure what to do or say; he never met a person with this rare disease before. But if it was truly as hopeless as Jeff made it out, he should get rid of it.

“Jeff, since when did you show symptoms?”

He threw the petals into the bin and wiped his palms into his pants. Jeff didn’t want to answer, since he felt like a big fool now, for keeping it secret from his friends, especially Ian. But, at least one person ought to know. He glanced at Ian’s feet, unable to handle the mother – hen gaze. “Nine months. I learned only today who it was I loved. And today was the first time I threw up blood.”

“Nine months!? NINE MONTHS!?? ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU CAN DIE FROM THAT!!” Ian’s usual composure was gone and he became vocal with his worrying. He realized he raised his voice and apologized.

“I know I’m an idiot. Hopelessly stuck on a love that will never work out. We’ll never be together.”

“Jeff, it’s getting too dangerous. You have to go to surgery. As soon as possible.”

He stood there, like a lost child left in the rain. “I can’t do that. I’ll lose more than the love, I’ll lose all the memories I made with that person. It was like he and I never met. If I go and have that surgery done; after that we’ll meet and I won’t recognize him. At all. It’s... horrible.”

Ian tried to reason with him. “It’s better than dying! Jeff, listen to me! You can’t do this, this pain is consuming your from inside out. The sooner you get rid of it, the better!”

“I’ll think about it.” Jeff’s tone was definitive, ending the discussion. Ian sighed, knowing there was no persuading him. At least not now. “Fine. I guess you want to keep it between us?”

Jeff nodded.

“You’re impossible. If I find who the guy is, I’m making him take a look at the picture of misery standing beside me and telling him it’s his fault for causing you so much pain.”

“No, it’s not his fault. If someone’s at fault here, it’s me. He deserves better.”

“Really? Is that your disease speaking or your severely impaired rationality?”

Jeff plopped down on his bed, laying on stomach. “Both probably. I’m sorry, but would you mind bunking up with someone else tonight? I want to be alone.”

Ian crossed his arms defiantly, but his thoughts of protesting ceased when he saw Jeff’s face. “Alright, I’ll do what you want, but only tonight.” He grabbed his phone and at the door, he threw one last glance at his friend who just blankly stared at the wall.

He left, shutting the door with a thud. Jeff switched to lay on his side, the numbness consumed him. There were only two options. Suffer a horrible death... or get surgery done. He didn’t want to die, there was so much more he wanted to achieve in life, to see with his own eyes.

How much more until the disease claims him...?

Jeff’s phone buzzed, indicating he received a text message. Apathetically, he clicked into his feed.

PBG – Jeff, I hope you’re okay now. Is your stomach upset? Must be from the stress you’re under. Remember to take it easy and relax sometimes. Gotta go, I’m live on PB&J! :D

He turned off his phone and stood up to lock the door. He laid back on bed with a lot on mind.

Ian was right, it had to be done. No regrets. He has one last talk with PBG tomorrow and then....

I won’t remember him. I will hurt him indirectly when he meets ‘me’ after the operation.

Another wave of sadness rushed him.

I’ll say my final goodbye.

When he gazed at his mirror reflection the next day, he looked as bad as he felt, if not worse. Over night, he packed most of his essentials and the suitcase now stood in the left corner of dorm room like a grim reminder that he has to leave for a while.

There was no point postponing the inevitable. Jeff only changed clothes, shedding off his Hidden Block yellow & black jacket, leaving it slung over his chair.

Jeff had no appetite, but he headed towards cafeteria anyway. PBG would be there.

He entered and spotted him sitting at Normal Boots table, only ones there with him were Satch and Shane. And of course, his club was there, too at the usual table. With a weary smile he approached the table, and all conversations ceased.

“Why do you have casual clothes on? Where’s your uniform?”

“I’m leaving today. Ian will tell you more. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I’m sorry...” He bowed and his friends gaped at him, shocked and at loss at words. Ian, however knew a bit more and he had that look of deep understanding.

Now, there was only one matter, he turned on heel and strut to Normal Boots table. Jeff patted him on shoulder to get his attention. PBG looked up from his plate. “Jeff?”

“Can we talk somewhere private?”

PBG’s expression turned from worried to serious, as he nodded and abandoned the table, walking behind Jeff who had to remind himself to put one foot in front of another to keep walking.

Jeff led him to the theater. PBG would lie if he wasn’t intrigued why he wanted to talk in private and in such a desolate location, but he followed after his friend.

PBG shut the door and Jeff halted, standing near the stage. Peebs closed the distance, troubled by Jeff’s odd behavior. “I can feel something’s wrong. Also why aren’t you wearing your school uniform?” He asked.

“I’m not wearing the uniform because I’m leaving. I’ve had the Hanahaki Disease for a while now, but yesterday it got ten times worse. I need to get the surgery done.”

I won’t remember you at all.

PBG heard of that before, but he never thought a close friend would be afflicted. “So that’s why you run yesterday, to... uh... throw up petals...?”

His throat tightened, so he simply nodded. PBG raised a hand, reaching for him, but retreated in the last second. Somehow, he felt the last thing Jeff wanted now from his was empathy.

“But, why are you telling me this?”

Because I love you so damn much it’s killing me.

“You’re my best friend, I thought you should know.” Jeff lied, avoiding PBG’s gaze intentionally.

To his surprise, Peebs wrapped his arms around him and Jeff barely contained his tears.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry...

He wished he could stay in his arms forever, but he had to face the reality; which was he’ll always be a friend. Nothing more. But, just for this moment, just this one last time...

Let me enjoy this moment.

Jeff rested his head on PBG’s shoulder, while the other boy patted his back rather awkwardly. “Is it really that bad? Do you have to leave? Flower Festival is tomorrow...”

“The more I wait, the more I risk it getting worse. I need to book an appointment.” Jeff muttered into his shoulder. “I... I understand. But who is the girl you like? She must be blind not to love you back.”

He chuckled at the irony. “Let’s just say it wasn’t gonna work out between us.” Jeff pried himself off from his chest, turning his back on him.

His knew very well this was the last goodbye. Jeff strut to the theater entrance, he balled up his fists, nails digging into his palms.

“Jeff!” Peebs yelled out when his hands were on the door handle. In that split second, he almost believed it would have a different ending. The desperation in PBG’s voice did a number with his heart.

Cocking head to the side, he got to see him with tears dripping down his cheeks. “Will you be alright after that?”

You dummy, don’t cry or else I’ll cry, too.

Jeff pulled up one his best goofy grins. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll probably be fine.” He sighed, looking outside the door he just opened wide.

It was so sunny and bright.

Goodbye Peebs. I know Hana will make you happy.

He walked out and felt this bittersweet feeling envelop around him as he walked back to Bluebell, tears he didn’t even bother hiding flowed out on their own.

On the train, he wiped his face clean and called his parents, informing them of the situation.

After all that was done, he was exhausted and let the train lull him along.

#asagao academy #hanahaki disease #but with a twist #surgery causes not only feelings to be removed but also memories of knowing the person #pb&jeff #ian is a good friend

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teachmixerofficial · 4 years

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How Women With Infertility Are Similar to Trauma Survivors

The term "infertility survivor" came up during a Twitter exchange. The conversation was good for these two reasons:

It helped me rethink the term infertility survivor and decide on something else.

It pushed me to write on how outsiders see the emotional distress of infertility.

Tweeter @mominisrael, aka Hannah Katsman of A Mother in Israel, felt my use of the term survivor was "unhelpful." When I asked her for other suggestions, as I was open to new ideas, she wrote, "don't know, but while infertility is traumatic, it shouldn't be compared to cancer, Holocaust, etc." It's "not life-threatening," she said.

What Women with Cancer and Infertility Have in Common

I was taken aback by her response and assured her that I didn't intend to put infertility into the same category as the Holocaust or cancer survivors.

@mominisrael replied, "When I hear the term, I think of life-threatening events. I know you weren't comparing it."

However, research in 1992 found that women experiencing infertility have emotional stress levels similar to cancer patients and cardiac rehabilitation patients.

Regarding the research study, @mominisrael replied, "They couldn't study the dead ones. :) I'm not disputing the trauma, but still think it's a bad term."

Why Do Outsiders to Infertility Have So Much Trouble Understanding Us

This highlights the inability of those outside of the infertility experience to understand just how much emotional pain and stress is experienced when going through infertility. When having your own child is a struggle or actually impossible.

This isn't the first time I've had someone tell me they don't believe this research study could be accurate. I wonder if it goes back to the "Who Has It Worse, Who Has It Better" game, where we think we can judge another's distress or emotional pain.

I'm pretty sure that if you asked someone, "Which would you rather experience, infertility or cancer?" the majority of people would say infertility. Mainly because people want to live, even if their lives are difficult.

But this doesn't change the levels of emotional stress they may experience. A disease being life-threatening doesn't always lead to deeper depression or higher levels of stress. In fact, I know a few people who became life-lovers after cancer. Staring death in the face made them appreciate this world more.

When Your Genetic Life-Line Ends With You

At the same time, I know those suffering from infertility who had such deep levels of distress and depression that they considered suicide. And, sadly, some people do commit suicide from untreated infertility-related depression. So who could possibly judge "who has it worse"?

While infertility does not threaten your life, it does threaten your genetic continuation. If you never have biological children, your gene pool stops with you. It's a sort of death of the future generations.

I can't say how conscious we are of this aspect of infertility, but it's there. We are, whether we like to admit it or not, biological beings. Biological beings are programmed to create new life.

When Your Friends Are Less Stressed, They Assume You Should Be Too

My point here isn't to prove to anyone that infertility can bring on the emotional pain levels of cancer. Research has already done so. I just am wondering out loud why so many people who have not experienced infertility have trouble considering that this may be true.

If we compare the stress levels of friends and family, those who love someone with cancer or infertility, I suspect it's much harder for the cancer patient's support circle. No one wants to see their friend die or visibly suffer during treatment.

On the other hand, as many fertility-challenged people know, friends and family rarely feel distressed over infertility in a loved one. The emotional (and physical) pain tends to be less visible and therefore, much harder for others to feel empathy towards.

Comments from Readers

Here are some comments readers have shared with me on this sensitive topic.

"I am a rape survivor. In that context, the word “survivor” is used instead of “victim,” to indicate that I lived, I healed, I have not let the rape define, control or destroy me. I have my life back, so please do not call me a rape victim anymore.

"Unfortunately, I am also one of infertility’s victims. Six years, two failed IVF, 5 miscarriages have wrecked my body and my mind. (Also my friendships, family connections, bank account, and nearly my marriage.) I cannot yet say I have survived infertility. Some days it feels like I won’t–my heart hurts so bad I wonder how it can keep beating. I go to bed at night and secretly hope I won’t wake up. I am in treatment but it is very, very hard to find hope. This is not a disease one can conquer with strength or determination; it is not an attacker you can fight off or run away from or call 911.

"I think the term “infertility survivor” is absolutely apt, and I hope to someday consider myself one."

"As with any term of identity, no one gets to choose for anyone else how they identify. Don’t like the term “survivor” for infertility issues? Great–don’t use it. But you don’t get to tell anyone else what they can or can’t use to define and describe their experience. To survive means to come through, to still be standing at the end, to make it. The agonizing battle which is fertility is certainly “survived.”"

"I am a cancer survivor who also suffers from PCOS and am infertile. I think you referring to yourself as a survivor is an apt description. I have survived my cancer. But I still must survive every day my infertility which is a much more difficult thing to have to face.

"With my cancer they could cut it out, I could take pills and undergo other treatments for it and the same goes for my PCOS.

"But there is nothing that can be done for my infertility and that destroys me more than anything I have had to face.

"With my cancer, there were many wonderful avenues of support and understanding that I could to turn to. Whereas with my inability to have children, everyone just blithely comments that we can always adopt.

"They don’t understand that that is not what we want to hear and it doesn’t make things magically better.

"You survive living with that sadness and emptiness every day. You swallow it down and paste on that smile when you have to go to your friends' baby showers and when they plaster those pictures of their children all over their Facebook. Don’t let anyone make you feel like your issues are less than someone else's."

"After reading this, you are correct in saying that people aren’t as empathetic or sympathetic regarding infertility.

"My husband went through leukemia when he was 18 – just after we got together. I was with him every day, and people were always asking how he was, if everything was okay, and all distressed. After a while though, they stopped being as concerned, they still asked questions, but the answer was the same as before – he is getting through it. The days are tough, and the nights also.

"And then recently, he got told he was infertile, due to the radiotherapy. It was a massive shock, as one of his life goals is to have his own children. When I told some of my friends, I had a very mixed emotion range. Between my two closest friends even. One said that they were heartbroken because they were thinking positively about the whole situation, and the other said to just keep thinking positively.

"I am not the one directly going through being infertile, that is my husband. BUT – none the less, it affects me too.

"When he was going through his cancer, he barely thought about it. The first few weeks were the worst, that’s when he was so upset about it, BECAUSE he was thinking about it. After those few weeks, it just became a routine for him. However, talking about infertility, he has basically ignored it because it's too painful for him to think about."

"This is an interesting take on infertility. I am both a cancer survivor and an infertility survivor and from my personal point of view, cancer that is treatable (though with terrible side effects) is a little easier to handle than infertility.

"My infertility was a direct effect of chemotherapy (I was 25 when I underwent chemo and I did not have children then). Living without hair and eyelashes was less daunting than what I am currently going through – the possibility of never having my own child.

"Somehow infertility hits a woman very hard... where it hurts. Also indirectly people start blaming you for being infertile as if you did something wrong to become infertile. Whereas, with cancer people mostly accept that cancer just happens (unless it's a proven case due to smoking or genetics, etc).

"Infertility is a huge issue for a woman. But end of the day, you are entitled to a happy life whether or not you bear children.

"Years of conditioning that women need to bear children is the root cause of this misery. Some people have ailing hearts, some have bad liver, some have tumours in the brain... so is infertility…It’s an organ or some hormone malfunctioning or being weak. It has nothing to do with how good we are or how bad we are.

"No matter how hard you try sometimes there’s only so much you can do about a thing like infertility. The better we accept that and we accept that one of our organs is just not in great condition, we can move on.

"If we love children immensely, we can try other means. We shouldn’t care about what others feel. Growing up a child is a massive project – an enlightening one. To a great extent, it’s going to ease the pain of being infertile.

"All of this struggle only makes you stronger and more empathetic. Each of us need to find ways to tackle the depression and lead a happy life.

"I guess with time, things will improve for women. The alarming rate of increase of infertility will necessitate action and thought."

Are you feeling depressed? Please reach out for help!

More on coping with friends and family when trying to get pregnant:

12 Things Not to Say to Someone With Infertility

10 Things to Stop Doing if You Want to Support Someone with Infertility

How Can I Support a Friend with Infertility?

Should You Tell Your Friends and Family About Your Infertility?

10 Ways to Cope When Trying to Conceive Overwhelms You

Schwerdtfeger KL, Shreffler KM. Trauma of pregnancy loss and infertility among mothers and involuntarily childless women in the United States. Journal of Loss and Trauma. 2009;14(3):211–227. doi:10.1080/15325020802537468.

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leilani-lily · 7 years

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Pitch x Sandy Fanfic

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE~! And a very Merry Christmas to @sylphidine; you were my @rotgsecretsanta! Surprise!! Must say, I loved your prompts, and was super excited to write this for you!! (I so wanted to do a Phantom crossover cause I think it worKS SO PERFECTLY but alas, this idea popped into my head first!) Anyways, I hope you enjoy it, and once again, Merry Christmas!!

.:To Catch a Shooting Star:.

~A Rise of the Guardians Pitch x Sandy fanfic~ By Leilani-Lily

Life can be unpredictable; one may think they know exactly how it will pan out, but the truth is things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes changes happen for the best, and sometimes for the worse. No one really know how their life will be played out in the end. And these unexpected turn of event’s don’t just happen to humans, oh goodness no. Even immortal beings face these challenges, it being especially hard for them since they continue to live on for generations. If anything, they suffer with not knowing what the future may hold more than anyone else.

One spirit being Pitch Black specifically.

Never had the man ever thought that in one lifetime, he would be General Kozmotis Pitchiner; the hero of the Golden Age that cast away the fearlings and was beloved by all the Lunars. He never could have believed he would then become ‘the Boogeyman’, a fabled creature that hid under beds or in closets and would snatch children away and gobble them up.

But never, ever, had Pitch ever imagined he would fall in love with the Sandman.

And incredibly enough, have the Sandman fall in love with him.

Yet here they are; the two celestial spirits sitting on the edge of Sandy’s castle, the ocean’s waves lapping at their feet, and the stars twinkling high above in the sky. It was quiet and peaceful, no land for miles around, meaning no light pollution to ruin the view of space. Both heads were tilted up, looking up at the tiny lights that lit up the darkness. It was a comforting silence, a silence that Pitch had grown used to and came to rather enjoy. Sandy’s Guardian friends were rather boisterous and, quite honestly, annoying to Pitch. But with Sandy, everything was calm and relaxing, which is what he preferred.

Pitch’s eyebrows furrowed as he though more about Sandy’s companions. No one knew of their relationship quite yet. It wasn’t really something that could be brought up so easily. They were enemies for countless years, and to eventually become companions and then lovers soon after, Pitch was afraid of how the Guardians would respond. It hurt Sandy a little, that he couldn’t tell his closest friends of his new-found relationship. But the sweet, caring man understood Pitch’s feelings, and decided that they would only tell when Pitch was comfortable.

Now together for 15 years, which to an immortal being is but a mere blink of an eye, Pitch had gotten used to their time together, and rather looked forward to it. He and Sandy would have secret rendezvous’, sometimes staying at each others places for days on end. At first Pitch was rather secluded and wasn’t used to physical affection, but Sandy was patient and helped ease the dark spirit into contact. Brief touches of the hand or arm turned into delicate kisses on the cheek, to actual kisses and then… well. The rest is history.

Pitch felt a small, soft hand rest atop his long thin one, making the boogeyman snap out of his thoughts and turn to the golden Guardian. Sandy gave him a loving smile as they locked eyes for a moment, before the rotund spirit tilted his head, a question mark floating appearing out of dream sand. The darker man chuckled softly.

“Just pondering how life is so… unpredictable,” Pitch mused, lowering his gaze to the tiny hand resting atop his, “It’s crazy to think about what we’ve lived through, how both our lives have changed…” He gave Sandy’s hand a light squeeze, his eyes flitted to Sandy’s just for a moment before turning his head back to the stars. He was about to drift into his own thoughts again when he felt Sandy’s eyes burning into his body. The dark spirit turned his head back slightly, noticing the Guardian smiling, looking at him curiously and scooting closer. More question marks floated over his head. Pitch smiled.

“It’s nothing Sandy, really,” he shook his head, “nothing to trouble your little head about.” But apparently that wasn’t a good enough answer for Sandy. The Guardian scotched closer to Pitch, faced him directly, and placed both his hands on the dark spirit’s shoulder. Sandy then rested his head on his hands, and indirectly on Pitch’s broad shoulder, and looked at him inquiringly, his eyes sparkling with playfulness. Pitch looked at the short spirit amusingly for a moment, before a soft snort escaped his lips. He shook his head once again and turned his face to the lights twinkling above.

“Well,” he began, “I was thinking about the Golden Age… How I was a General, and you were Sanderson Mansnoozie, the best shooting star pilot to ever exist…” Sandy rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Pitch interrupted, “No no, you truly were, don’t even deny it.” Pitch held up a finger, causing Sandy to finally shrug his shoulders and accept the fact.

“I was thinking how I fell to the darkness eventually, and how I shot down your shooing star all those hundreds of years ago…” Pitch felt his heart contract for a moment before swallowing it down and continuing, “How I became ‘The Boogeyman’ and you became ‘The Sandman’. How we were enemies for so long… and now…” Pitch looked up to the sky as if asking for guidance and strength for what he was about to say next. Sandy noticed Pitch’s pause, and almost questioned him about it before Pitch spoke up again.

“I can’t help but think about how different our lives might have been if I hadn’t been taken over by the fearlings. I never would’ve shot your ship down and stranded you on Earth, I never would’ve become a being ever child feared, I never would have pulled my arrow back on that fateful night and…” Pitch couldn’t continue, the memory of killing Sandy that one night shook him. Sandy’s own heart sank, watching Pitch’s face contort with sadness, anger, and hopelessness. The Guardian brought up on hand to gently rub Pitch’s back, the other grasping for his hand. The only sound was the waves gently washing up on the shore before Pitch continued.

“I think about the past and wonder how you could possibly forgive me, let alone begin to love me,” he sighed, “My love for you can’t even begin to make up for the wrongs I have done in the past… I find it almost unbearable, how lucky I am to be with you, yet I feel as if I don’t deserve it; I don’t deserve to be happy…”

That was enough for Sandy to hear. The golden man immediately flew in front of Pitch and clasped both hands into his. He placed both hands over his chest as he worriedly looked at his lover. Pitch looked appalled as Sandy began shaking his head over and over again, millions of sand images speeding over his head. Pitch could feel Sandy’s heartbeat beating wildly against his chest.

“Sandy, Sandy calm down love,” Pitch pulled away one of his hands to graze Sandy’s cheek, “I can’t understand what your saying when you talk so fast,” it was hard not to crack a small smile seeing his rotund Guardian so distraught after hearing what he said. Sandy stopped shaking his head and looked Pitch in the eyes before taking a deep calming breath. Finally entering himself, Sandy began ‘speaking’ again.

Multiple images came over his head, him pointing and gesturing with his hands in his silent language. To others it may be confusing, but Pitch has known Sandy longer than anyone, and was quick to pick up the secret tongue. An ‘X’ appeared over his head, followed by his shooting star ship, then two mini figures of Pitch and himself drifting away. A recycle sign then appeared, then the two men holding hands. What it all meant made what Pitch thought was his non-existing heart flutter.

If Pitch hadn’t turn evil and never shot down Sandy’s star ship, then the pair would most likely have never met. And Sandy knew the love that he received from Pitch was worth all the wrong doing’s done before. Sandy would do it all again in a heartbeat if meant he could be happily in love with his Nightmare King.

Pitch had to remind himself to breathe. Sandy’s hand once again clung to Pitch’s, the golden man’s eyes shining with love and hope. More symbols began flying over Sandy’s head. Another ‘X’ above an old calendar, and a clock zooming forward in time. A question mark appeared, but he shrugged his shoulders happily. Then a dozen little golden hearts appeared as Sandy brought Pitch’s hand up to his lips and gingerly kissed his knuckles.

Pitch shuddered pleasantly, not only at the soft touch of his lovers lips, but by what he said. The past was the past, but Sandy said to look towards the future. No one really know what the future may hold, but it doesn’t matter. Because Sandy was going to stick by his side and love him no matter what.

The dark spirit’s eyes were wide at this proclamation of love. And the gentle kisses on his hand only made his cold heart hammer against his chest. Sandy continued his work, peppering his palm with his lips, kissing each long, slender finger multiple times, each pad on the very tips.

Pitch couldn’t believe how lucky he was. To have such a loving and understanding partner by his side. He never thought he’d be able to find love again after his wife and child died, but here Sandy was, promising his heart to him and vowing to stick with him through thick and thin. He had to do something. To show how much he loved the little man.

“… I want to tell them.”

Sandy stopped his butterfly kisses and looked up at the taller man, tilting his head as though he didn’t understand what he was saying. Pitch didn’t hesitate to say it again.

“I want to tell them. The Guardians. I want to tell them about us.”

Pitch suddenly grabbed onto Sandy’s hands, making the shorter man silently gasp and his heart leap into his throat. Could… Could this really be happening?

“I want to tell them how much I love you. How much you mean to me and how I’m going to love you until the end of time. And if they have a problem I don’t care. Not anymore. I want everyone to know that you’re taken, and are mine and mine alone. That I am the lucky bastard who apparently did something right in his lifetime to ever have you as a partner.”

Sandy’s face was fully hot and red, his heart soaring upon hearing those words. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sandy sprung onto Pitch and knocked him over in a hug, sending both spirits lying flat on the beach, Sandy on top of Pitch. Chiming rings of laughter filled the air, Sandy being so joyous at what Pitch said and felt. Pitch couldn’t help but chuckle himself, a little surprised at Sandy’s surprise attack, but too happy to care.

You could even say he was over the moon.

Sandy continued to silently giggle as he looked at his lover square in the eye, his eyes crinkling with glee. He slid his arms up to Pitch’s face and cupped his hands to his jawline. Pitch sighed peacefully, looking up at the ray of sunshine before him, the stars twinkling in the distance behind him. A cheeky grin began to form.

“You know, the stars truly are beautiful tonight,” he mused, bringing a hand up and brushing it into Sandy’s hair, “but nothing bring me more joy, or is more marvellous than the shooting star before me now.”

That’s all it took. Sandy dove in for a kiss after those words, to which Pitch happily returned, savouring the honey, cinnamon twist of his lover’s warm lips. The waves continued to lap softly against the golden sand, the only sound to be heard as multiple kisses were shared that night. And this significant night was one neither Sandy nor Pitch would ever forget as they moved onward into the unknown future, hand in hand, and hearts beating as one.

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