#eventually i might draw what i had in mind for the imagery here but for now this is all ya get lmao

[the-redacted-workshop]

@flockrest

Hi Ray! Uhh it’s your resident lurker, the one who wrote that long-ass ask about Link and Tulin being so similar? Y’know how I said the colors post was giving me some brainrot? Yeah, uh.. this is in part inspired by that. I hope you enjoy? A!! (And seriously, no pressure to respond!! + if you'd like me to remove this for whatever reason, then please let me know!!)

(Also a warning, this is long as shit, like. Almost 2000 words according to google docs, so it is MOST CERTAINLY under a read more! There are TOTK endgame spoilers so. Watch out, reader, if for whatever reason you haven't gotten that far!)

Ganondorf could not kill them. Nor could he kill their spirits, their drive, their care for eachother.

But what he did do to to them sure as hell killed Link’s creativity, for a couple months.

Even now that Sonia and Rauru had returned his arm to him, unscarred and without its old aches and pains, Link found it harder than ever to create with that hand. Maybe the aforementioned is all the reason he needs- it feels nothing like how it should feel. It doesn’t feel like his anymore.

It was one thing when his pains were tangible, physical- he could do something about them, or take something for them. But the phantom pains, both from his scars of days past and his time with the ‘gift’ of Rauru’s arm? There’s so little to be done about them.

But eventually, Link does what he has always done: fight through his discomfort and pain to achieve his goals. Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t slow going, but he doesn’t bother to note it as often as he used to, these days. Time passing, ‘wasted’, is no problem, now that the threats to his home and friends are gone once more.

He has a new project he’s working on. Gifts, one for all of his friends- Zelda, the sages, so many people that have helped them all along the way. Yona especially, a marriage gift for her for when the time comes.

He makes Zelda’s first. A scarf, themed after her dragon form and lined with beads made of the shards that would break off the spikes of her spine. She has mixed feelings when he first presents it, but the way the beads help her relax turns the tide, and Link doesn't miss how she takes very cooler day as an opportunity to wear it.

Yunobo’s has to wait until Link has all his strength back- it requires stone-carving and metal-working, and he can’t do that comfortably yet- not from a pain standpoint, more inexperience. Same for Sidon and Yona’s gifts, but theirs will come first.

Riju gets a new plush for her collection, fashioned after her favorite sandseal. It wears a plush version of the Lightning Helm crooked on its head, and Link very kindly does not comment when Riju starts getting teary in his home, after a dinner with him and Zelda. The two of them have always been rather sentimental people, at heart, and he will allow her to keep the facade of being anything else if she so wishes.

Then comes Tulin. Tulin, for as long as Link can remember, has been an adventurer at heart. He has all he needs at his home village, all he could ever ask, and the wilds give him all he could ever want, but comfort in the latter isn’t easy to come by sometimes. So Link's idea is something.. seemingly simple, but not so much to make.

Link takes months to make it, longer than any of the other gifts. He has to mine and buy rubies, both of which take time and energy. He has to carefully dye all the thread and fabric he needs, but Sayge is kind enough to lend their services- as well as their keen eye for color. Riju takes the rubies to Gerudo Town so they can be prepared by a proper expert on them, the best anyone could ever know. Link loves the jewels that come from Isha, he knew when he got the finished product returned that he made the right investment.

And eventually, a rhythm builds. Piece by piece, color by color, the gift comes together. And it’s ready by the time Link goes to Rito Village next to join Tulin on a journey.

The day goes as it always does, when Link visits. Tulin still wears the Secret Stone around his ankle, and the colors of the band holding it are still as vivid and clear as they were the day he received it. He even wears a similar, braided band Link made to ‘counterbalance’ on the opposing ankle.

Green, Red, Yellow. May the Windlines carry you far, and come home to me alive. You won’t fight alone.

Link had made it, admittedly clumsily, when Tulin first became a Sage. Link promised to make a nicer one, when he could, but Tulin had refused. He was attached to the gift, it seemed. For the best- Link never found the time to make a better one, as much as he hated that fact.

Link finds Tulin in the Village, assuring and reassuring too many times over that he would be fine. He’d be back in a few weeks with Link, and it wasn’t like they were going to go fight Gleeoks or anything- though Link was sure Tulin would beg to do so.

Maybe they would, but Link would be the one to determine that.

They spend about an hour at the nearest Skyview tower after, Tulin watching the Purah Pad over Link's shoulder as the Hylian points out all the destinations he wants to hit with Tulin- major hotspots for big monsters (no Gleeoks yet, to Tulin’s disappointment), historic landmarks and cool scenery he thinks Tulin would like. There’s no shortage to what he wants to show the young Rito, and there is no shortage to what Tulin wants to see.

So they head to the Leviathan Skeleton there in Hebra, first. Then through the snowfields, carefully avoiding the Gleeok there, to Mount Drena. Tulin meets the Great Fairy (after Link has a long, long talk with Mija about appropriate behavior with Tulin, which she respects) and gets some of his gear upgraded.

Then they go farther east. They check out Thyphlo Ruins, and that’s where they stop for the night, next to the Skyview tower. They set up camp, with Tulin helping clear out and scatter any monster bones they find so that no Stal-monsters pop up first, and then they start to settle the camp itself.

Tulin usually brings a hammock to sleep in, when they go on trips, and when Link returns from checking for any wandering monsters, Tulin is setting up the poles for that. Link takes a deep breath, hand resting on the Purah Pad as he walks over.

Once he’s gotten the boy’s attention with a couple of short, chirp-like whistles, his hands rise to talk. “So, before you set that up any further, I wanna show you something.” He signs slower than he normally would, knowing Tulin can understand him but not always keep up.

“What’s that? I thought we saw all there was to see here.” Tulin perches on one of the poles he has set up, a perfect T-shape for doing so. “Is it something you brought?” His head tilts, eyes shining with a youthful curiosity that Link has to adore. The boy still has that, Link kinda hopes he always will.

“Yes, I actually made something. It’s a gift for you. I’m sorry it took me so long to make it for you, I wasn’t sure what to make until a couple months ago."

Tulin perks up, hopping off the perch and landing right in front of Link, making the older step back a little. “Really? It better not be a new band, I told you I didn’t want a new one!"

“No no no,” Link signs rapidly, “It’s way cooler than the band. Step back and cover your eyes, I want you to be surprised.” When Tulin doesn’t do as Link asks, Link repeats the instructions twice before Tulin finally groans and walks away, wings over his head.

Link quickly lays out his gift next to Tulin’s setup, making sure it’s not too close to the fire and smoothing it out as best as he can.

When it’s ready, Link whistles again for Tulin’s attention, and he is flying over in an instant. He lands next to the laid out gift, and he seems confused for a few moments before he starts bouncing and flapping around, excited enough to start chirping.

It’s a new hammock, made in the same standard adult size that Tulin usually uses for long trips. Technically it’s far too big for Tulin now, not that the other one wasn't, but it should last long enough for Tulin to grow into. It’s all quilted and embroidered, a feat that took him almost every second of the months he spent on it.

It's all made of the same durable material that Link’s paraglider is made of, made to last and endure the elements- all the elements, even Death Mountain in Link’s experience.

The quilted part itself is an image. Tulin from the front, head bowed, hands cupped to hold his Secret Stone. The symbol on the Secret Stone is embroidered in white and blue, and the symbol is repeated on the backing as well. Green and blue swirls behind the young Rito’s image, like the shrines that have long since dissolved from Hyrule.

The border of the quilt is a rhythm of colors.

Yellow - You’re part of my family, and I am part of yours, as long as you will have me.

Orange - I aspire to keep up with your skill, your stories will be told with awe as you grow.

Dark Green - The Windlines favor you, as your family does, as I do. May they carry you far.

White - These Colors don’t define you though. Don’t be tied down by them, make your own. I know you can. I know you will.

Red - Above all, brother, come home to us, and come home safe.

Every Red patch bears a ruby, and every Yellow patch a piece of the Light Dragon’s spikes, all rounded like beads, all held there by thin but sturdy wiring sewn under the patch, and Link knows the magic in them will keep Tulin warm in any blizzard, any horrid winter. Link won't let him be stuck in a mess like that unprepared, not again.

Tulin looks like he might cry. Link isn’t sure if all he wants to convey to the boy gets across quite right, but Tulin seems to understand the gist of it, judging by how he outright tackles Link after a little bit of Tulin's excited hopping.

He starts rambling, and Link stumbles around a bit as he wraps his arms around the Rito who’s clinging to his torso like he’s a tree in a storm. Link can make out a vast appreciation of the gift, he hears an I love it somewhere in there, and if Link wasn't already grinning (he was), he wouldve then.

Eventually, Tulin untangles from the Hylian, and they set up the hammock together. Tulin is far too careful as he hops in, and Link laughs, signing that “you don’t need to be so careful Tulin, just don't purposefully rip it with your talons and it’ll be fine!”

And that night, Tulin sleeps soundly, deeper in his dreams than a Frok in the Depths. And Link finds himself proud. He thinks he made the right choice, as he himself drifts to sleep. He will not have such a peaceful sleep, he rarely does, but it is made slightly more gentle by the knowledge that Tulin will.

[dark-and-kawaii]

HA Fiend here with that that gift for you and guccitrashbags! I wrote a prequel to your first soft Haarlep that spun off into the delightful series it is now. A part 0, if you will. 🤭

This was hardly the first time Haarlep had seen her ill at ease. After all, Tav was a mortal soul living in the Hells and the truly fearless rarely tend to last long here. Even so, Tav had always, eventually, recovered. It wasn't a brazen defiance that hardened her like infernal iron or some kind of self-confident assurance she'd prevail that kept her as steady as a stony cliff face against the battering waves of the sea - though the incubus knew she was more than capable of drawing from both. Generally, it seemed Tav drew from what could only be described as a subtle kind of stubbornness. She was less the towering oak that would resist the winds of the storm until its trunk splintered, but rather the blossom bending in those winds. For all the blossom's perceived fragility, it endured and refused to be uprooted; it would choose to adapt however it saw fit, sprouting thorns to pierce any who'd try to harm it with force, perhaps changing which direction it grew when need be, but never letting go of whatever it chose to grasp among its roots - what it chose to make a part of its foundation.

Now though, as Haarlep looked upon Tav's sleeping form, she was curling into herself, her face contorted in fear and sadness, and her whole body was shaking...

It was as if Tav was wilting and shriveling up into herself.

And that sight felt so very wrong.

Haarlep isn't sure when they had reached out - it certainly hadn't been a conscious decision - nor were they sure if it had been the tip of their claws or their tail that had brushed against her first, just that the brief featherlight touch had been enough for her to awaken with a start. For a time, Tav just stared blankly ahead, her eyes wide but seeing nothing. When she finally looked over to Haarlep, the incubus realized that they had frozen the moment she had jolted awake, as if afraid that at the slightest movement she'd scare like the 'little mouse' they so often called her - though the words had long since become more a term of endearment than the playful condescension it had started as. Before Haarlep had the chance to worry over what they must look like, what their expression might be giving away, Tav threw herself into the fiend's arms, burying her face into their chest.

After a few shaky breaths, she answered the question Haarlep had been debating how to ask, "I was back on the nautiloid again."

Ah, so that's what she had been dreaming about.

The incubus waited a beat for Tav to continue, still at a loss for what to do, but when she remained silent Haarlep brought their wings to wrap around her shaking frame. She tensed at first and Haarlep almost withdrew before they felt Tav all but completely ease against them.

Mind finally catching up with the situation at hand, Haarlep couldn't help the bemusement they felt at the whole ordeal. Tav knew better than to let herself be so openly vulnerable before a fiend, or at least she should. Eventually, though, her breathing evened out, indicating the little mouse had fallen asleep in the claws of the cat.

Or, rather a cat.

Later, when letting her relax within their embrace had almost become a norm between the two, Haarlep would wonder if maybe they should have known better, too. If they should have known that Raphael would inevitably find out. If they should have known how the master of the house would react.

*gasps* I-I don’t even know where to start, like truly I’m at a loss for words because this was literally everything!!!

Something you did that is a huge favorite of mine, personally, is the use of sensory imagery.

“Haarlep isn't sure when they had reached out it certainly hadn't been a conscious decision- nor were they sure if it had been the tip of their claws or their tail that had brushed against her first, just that the brief featherlight touch had been enough for her to awaken with a start.” <- to me, this adds so much depth to a story. Especially in this scenario since Haarlep is trying to figure things out.

The way Tav seeks comfort in Haarlep's embrace shows the trust she has in Haarlep and I can just picture their face when she buries herself into them.

Allllsoooo another thing!!! Tavs resilience, depicted not as a loud battle cry but as a quiet, enduring whisper, resonates deeply by comparing her to a "blossom bending in the winds," you evoke a sense of grace in survival and an acceptance of change as an essential part of her.

Sorry I’m kinda all over the place with complimenting your writing/gift!!!!

I love how tender yet dangerous this is because she’s still with a Fiend, but because she trusts them it comes off as a tender moment; “The little mouse had fallen alseep in the cats claws”

*chefs kiss* ( ੭ ˘ ³˘)੭‎°｡⋆♡‧₊˚

Everyone please give Ha Fiend a round of applause!!! They truly deserve it!!!

Also a big big big fan of metaphors and similes!!! Bravo *claps* you did an excellent job!!!!

I will 100% be rereading this tonight before I crash out for the night!!! Thank you so much for this lovely present!!! I’m going to cherish it!!!

And if it’s okay with you I’d like to add this on my masterlist so everyone else can enjoy it as well and know how awesome you are!!! It ties in perfectly with the story!!! Especially as a part 0!!!

I say it every time and I’m sorry if it’s getting old, but I love you and cherish you Ha Fiend. I hope the world is treating you right, because you reallllllly deserve it.

- 𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝒦𝒾𝓌𝒾 𝓍𝑜𝓍𝑜

[twistedtummies2]

Artists in Wonderland - Number 4

Welcome to Artists in Wonderland! Running till the 4th of July, I’m counting down My Top 10 Favorite Illustrators for “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!” The Lewis Carroll stories of Alice are as immortal as they are odd, and many great artists have handled them in different ways. This countdown will pay homage to just a few of them. Our 4th Place illustrator will definitely get some attention. Today’s artist is none other than Lewis Carroll himself!

Now, some of you are probably confused by this: Lewis Carroll was the writer of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” not the illustrator, after all. Well, to explain this one, I need do a bit of history-diving, because this is a special sort of deal.

Here’s the short version of things: Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He worked as a mathematics instructor at Christ Church College, and was ordained as a reverend. For a time, Dodgson was friends with the Dean of the college, Henry Liddell, and became a frequent playmate of three of his daughters: Edith, Lorina…and Alice. On July 4th, 1862, Carroll brought the girls on a boating trip - alongside a friend of his, Robinson Duckworth - and, to keep them entertained, told them a story he called “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” about a little girl called Alice who followed a White Rabbit into a magical land of madness and mischief. Alice was enamored with the story of “her” adventures, and begged Dodgson to write them down. So, Dodgson - with as much of the memory as he could muster - decided to do just that. This is where the illustrations come in: Dodgson decided to give Alice a Christmas gift in the form of a fully bound and illustrated hand-crafted manuscript for “Alice’s Adventures Underground.” However, Carroll didn’t consider himself much of an artist, so he did extensive research on various subjects before beginning work on his hand-drawn sketches for the story. He managed to complete work on the manuscript in time, presented it to Alice Liddell…and that was where history REALLY began to change. It should be noted that I was actually hesitant to include Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures Underground” because I was not sure if it would go against my own rules. You see, the manuscript - which was eventually found and then published itself in a couple of editions - differs from the final text in several ways. The chapters “Pig and Pepper” and “A Mad Tea Party” are nonexistent, and the characters present in them, therefore, never pop up at all. (So no Cheshire Cat and no Mad Hatter, for instance.) The poems are slightly different, and a few details are a little different, too. For instance, instead of carrying a fan and gloves in the Hall of Doors, the Rabbit is shown carrying a nosegay; it’s by smelling the flowers that Alice shrinks down. (I guess this means the Rabbit had a thing for the Queen in the original manuscript? That’s…not pleasant to think about…) However, I decided that a.) this was too historically significant to completely ignore, and b.) it’s the author’s own work, writing-wise, so I guess it might as well be included. Carroll may not have considered himself much of an artist, and truth be told, his drawings are somewhat crude compared to later interpretations. However, they are fascinating because they give us a look into the mind of the creator, and his own imaginings for what these characters were supposed to look and behave like. There’s a sense of chaos and irreverent wildness to Carroll’s original drawings, rather than the more detailed and grotesque imagery Tenniel would conjure up in the final print. Carroll’s imaginings are always bizarre, and at times a bit scary, but they’re also highly inventive. Optical illusions and a sense of real motion litter these illustrations, as the characters so often seem to bounce off the walls. I will confess that I’m not sure how successful “Alice” would have been if this was the rendition we got, but it’s still worth checking out if you’re a fan, and his interpretations are just as strong as those of many other artists. As I said, “Alice’s Adventures Underground” HAS been reprinted and published in years since, and while it’s not as easy to get hold of as the actual “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” it’s not TOO hard to find, either. If you’re curious about how Alice began, it’s worth looking up. Fun fact, these illustrations have actually been given life onscreen a couple times! Most notably, for the 1960s TV Play version of “Alice in Wonderland,” directed by Jonathan Miller, Carroll’s illustrations for “Underground” were used to create an elaborate end credits sequence. So if you ever want to see them, but don’t want to buy the book, you can find a lot of them there. :P

Come back down the rabbit hole tomorrow as we move into the Top 3! Don’t be late! ;)

[thehomothings]

Analysis of Kite's conflicting moralities, relationship with death, and the toll reincarnation may take on one's psyche

So, today I decided to compile all the thoughts I have had about Kite's interesting worldview since the first time I saw him into one post, mostly for my own sake, really. If you're familiar with the few posts I've made, you know it's gonna be a mess, but hopefully a comprehensible mess.

A heads up, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and very much deal with subjects of death and dying as a whole. Also, some of these conclusions are drawn from my own experiences and close brushes with death, I'm not going to go into much detail but it might get personal and definitely dark. I'm not even sure if I can call this a meta-analysis, and I'm obviously no expert, so mayhaps take all of this with a grain of salt.

Been getting into drawing lately, and during the more simple and mindless part of the painstaking process of dotting every single star in this, I let my thoughts wander through the latest part of the fic I'm writing, and I got a better grasp on what exactly made Kite such an elusive character to me.

I'm not quite sure why I got so attached to Kite. Perhaps it was the air of tragedy surrounding him, how despite his sordid past he remained still open and gentle even if outlined by a healthy dose of cynicism.

But sometimes, I think it's the fact that he is so paradoxical. He's brave, yet fears death to such a degree that creates a whole Nen ability around it, is a pacifist yet will not hesitate to spill blood for his own sake or someone else's. Despite the many ultimatums and warnings of 'I will not protect you', he gave his arm and then his life to save Gon and Killua. He approaches each hunt and battle with a clear plan of action in mind, but his Hatsu takes the form of a roulette that gives him random weapons which are never what he wants, but what he seems to need for that exact situation, which he cannot dispel without using. When he draws a weapon, the decision is locked in and his or his opponent's fate is sealed. That's why each time he dubbs his weapon a bad roll. Every time he has to gamble, he sees himself as having run out of luck. When it comes to having to choose between himself and somebody else...well, there had never been a choice. In fact his aversion to using it may feed into its sheer power that we, unfortunately, saw too little of.

Let's go over his very first appearance when he saves Gon from the mother Foxbear.

It's not hard to see the strain searching for Ging has put on him; he's rash, prone to anger and punching a child for daring to get into trouble. In his mind, he's failing at his most important task, has not yet earned the right to call himself a hunter despite being in possession of his very own hunter license.

After killing the mother Foxbear and raging about having done so, he says this interesting line:

So yes, he finds killing for any reason rather irksome as most would do, yet I think something deeper caused him to absolutely lose it in this scene:

He had not been aware of Gon's identity, and despite being an animal lover and a naturalist, he made a choice to save the human instead of allowing nature to run its course. In fact, he says: 'No beast that harms a human must be allowed to live.'

How does one weight one life against another? How is the worth of it determined? The value of life... an impossible choice he's faced with and a choice which he seems to regret to some degree.

The Foxbear cub.

Here, he's speaking from experience, a tangible loss he has felt himself, and a hard and bitter life he does not want to impose on the cub.

His backstory is exclusive to the 2011 anime adaptation but there are hints alluding to it in the manga, for example, the fact that he does not seem to know his birthplace, or:

The choice of words is chilling.

Reading between the lines, one could draw the conclusion that he is an orphan. Something supporting this hypothesis is how he visibly deflates after Gon tells him his parents have (presumably) died.

So we see he is willing to go against his own moral code of not killing as to not doom another living being to the life he led, a lonely, hopeless existence that could barely be called one. He saw it best to put down the cub rather than leave it to die a painful, slow death.

The reason Kite himself isn't as cynical and cold-hearted as one would be after witnessing cruelty in its rawest form is those small crumbs of human kindness which he may have found in Ging.

It was not only a chance at an honorable life being Ging's apprentice gave him, but it also 'saved' him from being broken and twisted into what he hated and worst of all, death.

If we take that one minute of backstory as canon to his character-which I find myself inclined to do- these quirks of his make much more sense. He lived on the run. He lived on the knife's edge between giving up or pushing forwards. He lived as so a wrong move could be the difference between survival and the end.

Between rock and a hard place creates a mentality of black and white, absolute good or extreme evil, this or that. Except in reality, it's much harder than that. Deciding who to save and who to strike down is a heavy burden to bear.

It's almost easy to see how struggling to keep surviving could lend itself to a crippling fear of death and subsequently developing a Nen ability which once more goes against his own moral code in order to give himself a second chance...yet something about it strikes me as unlikely when I look at it this way.

Living life knowing it could end at any moment has the opposite effect, at least for me it did. One comes to accept that it is fleeting and while not eager to let it go, when death eventually and inevitably does come, there is no fighting it.

Especially when there is no hope that tomorrow will be a better day than this one.

Frequent near-death experiences numb one's fear in a way, even if it drives them to take precautions that render it unlikely to happen again and results in c-PTSD, but still, it does. It sparks a certain nihilistic view of 'if it all can end so easily, then what's the point of it all?'

Unless there are things to live for, a sure promise of a better future, and Ging gave Kite that. When he faced the threat of losing his second chance at life:

Really, what else could lead someone to develop the ability of 'the hell I'm going to die like this'?

I think a separate event, an even more brutal near-death experience that almost cost him his life as the hunter he so strived to be set him off to develop the secret roll of Crazy Slots, what I call Roll No.0, Ars moriendi. Unlike other weapons, it cannot come up in random and is directly summoned by him, or better said, summon by his overwhelming will to keep going and hopelessness of fighting a losing battle. I don't believe roll No.3 was the weapon that allowed him to reincarnate. I've named that one Wand of Fortune, a sort of armor instead of an offensive weapon since I find it hard to believe Kite, a Conjurer, would not focus on defences as well, and I will go into both mechanisms of these weapons hopefully in his backstory.

Despite knowing this battle to be a pointless one and being acutely aware of his soon to be demise, he did not immediately draw Ars moriendi, no, he stayed back and fought for the sake of the boys, kept Neferpitou occupied until they could reach safety. We can see evidence of this in the aftermath of the battle that seemed to have gone on until dawn, a torn apart landscape only signaling a fraction of the devastation that was Kite's power unleashed. It still wasn't enough.

In the anime sub I watched, when Gon apologizes to Ging about Kite's death, Ging said a sentence that infuriated me, because it belittled the utter suffering of the NGL trio.

"He would not die in your place." (No screenshot, sorry)

And I remember practically shouting at the screen, screaming 'how could you possibly say that? Of course he did. He absolutely did die in their place. How could you not know your own apprentice? Why-'

It was only last night that it hit me why Ging would say that.

Once upon a time, maybe Kite would not have given his life for anybody under any circumstances, even if he had a way out of it all. He would still need to die to come back to life.

His Thanatophobia could be attributed to the (possibly untreated) PTSD of the near-death experience in his later life, being so certain of dying that finding himself alive afterwards drove him to never want to go through that again. He quieted his fear by creating a sort of a loophole, that even if he lost the battle he would remain. Ging remembered that, but as evidence shows, something changed. Maybe he healed a bit, perhaps growing up dulled his fear to a certain degree, but eventually when it came down to his life or another's, he didn't choose himself.

Now, I can hear you saying 'but he didn't die, so what are you going on about??' And so I reply: Yes, he is alive, but he did die. He experienced that painful, horrible moment of staring death in the eyes and thinking 'This is it, this is the end', went through the actual process of having his soul removed from his body. And that moment stretches into infinity, ten lifetimes condensed into the mere seconds before oblivion.

Dying isn't so hard if one stays dead.

It's not so easy to open one's eyes and find oneself alive again after that, no matter how much that is the heart's desire. It's difficult, nigh-impossible to reconcile with life and walk amongst the living when everything had been so final, when death had been accepted to its fullest.

So Kite awakens, the twin of Meruem and back from the dead, his mind and identity both intact and fractured. In that he is Kite is no mistaking, yet he is not the same gentle pacifist whose first reaction upon sensing a monster's aura was to shield two kids from it at the cost of his arm.

I don't think many of you are familiar with Zoroastrian ideology, but Togashi is known for loving his religious imagery, and it's not only Christianism he derives inspiration from (evidence of which can be seen all over Kite's character and resurrection).

In Zurvanism-a branch of Zoroastrianism- there is talk of the twin spirits: Ahura Mazda -epitome of all that is good- and Ahriman -epitome of all that is evil-, the parent god Zurvin decides that the firstborn may rule in order to bring "heaven, hell, and everything in between."

Upon becoming aware of this fact, Ahriman forcibly tears through the womb to emerge first. Sounding familiar yet?

Zurvan relents to this turn of events only on one condition: Ahriman is given kingship for 9000 years, and then Ahura Mazda may rule for eternity.

Meruem ruled for 40 days, his death leaving the throne vacant for ant Kite, wearing a dead girl's face and seeming to be brewing some nefarious plan. No more is there any sign of that unrelenting pacifism and the sanctity of life he held so high, losing his own may have only served to show him how meaningless the pain and suffering he went through had been, dying only to be reborn as a member of the species that killed him. It may be that he has no desire to rule over the remaining Chimera ants or create an army of his own-

Yet I dread to think what a broken mind possessing limitless power might do to the world.

And that's it. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you found it interesting, stay tuned, as I think a lot and I will make it your problem.

[theartofdreaming1]

As usual, my thoughts regarding this week’s prompts and random thoughts on chapters 25-27 are below the cut.

heart

The imagery that really caught my attention this time was Peeta pointing out the changes in the moon to Katniss: The only indication of the passage of time lies in the heavens, the subtle shift of the moon. So Peeta begins pointing it out to me, insisting I acknowledge its progress and sometimes, for just a moment I feel a flicker of hope before the agony of the night engulfs me again. - So for one, we see another example of Peeta focusing on the small details in life (which I’ve previously hypothesized to being an important element in his recovery from his hijacking) as well as Peeta being the one to give Katniss hope, even if it’s just for a brief moment. Also, it’s a nice parallel to Katniss looking at the moon and desperately wishing for it to be “her moon” back in chapter 23. As a nocturnal person, I also love watching the moon from my living room window🌙

mind

Hmmh, I don’t think that Katniss and Peeta’s win was predetermined - although I do believe that by introducing the romantic angle, they significantly improved their odds. A Career winning the Games is not really that special and exciting, since it happens so often (although Careers generally satisfy that excitement for violence/blood/gore, that plenty of Capitol people seem to share). As a volunteer from District 12, who achieved an extremely good training score and proved herself to be very capable in the arena already, Katniss definitely had an edge by playing into the classic underdog story, which offered another exciting “narrative” for the Capitolites to follow - that, coupled (heh) with the romance angle Peeta introduced? Katniss (and Peeta) definitely had the entertainment (and excitement through novelty) factor on their side. Ironically, Cato’s chances of winning were not as good as he expected, precisely because he was playing it by the book.

soul

Poor Peeta (and Katniss), it hurts that their relationship was in such a rocky place by the end of the book. Especially those weeks right after the end of Book 1, when there were still cameras around District 12 and they had to pretend while hurting must have sucked big time🥺

Chapter 25

Ugh, the muttations are just so unsettling... *shudder*

Honestly, I’m just so impressed by Peeta’s presence of mind to draw that X on Cato’s hand, after he had just most of his calf ripped off, only to be grabbed and put in a headlock by Cato! He and Katniss work insanely well under pressure

God, Cato’s death is just so gruesome and awful... In the end, his “gift” from the Feast doesn’t help him win at all, but instead ends up prolonging his suffering a cruel amount... I wonder if in general these “gifts” come with a string attached (aside from the expected danger of trying to get them, I mean) - because the Gamemakers also intend for Katniss’s “gift” (medicine for Peeta) to force an even more cruel outcome on her - saving him from blood poisoning only to be forced into killing him herself... 🤔

I’m not sure if this is exactly medical protocol, but I’m terrified that if he drifts off he’ll never wake again. “Are you cold?” he asks. He unzips his jacket and I press against him as he fastens it around me. - Katniss is terrified of the idea of Peeta dying; at the same time, Peeta worries about her freezing - I can’t with these two 😩

Peeta begins to doze off now, and each time he does, I find myself yelling his name louder and louder because if he goes and dies on me now, I know I’ll go completely insane. He’s fighting it, probably more for me than for him - Katniss can’t lose any more people she cares about 😢; on a different note, Peeta fighting his unconsciousness “probably more for [Katniss] than for him” points out one of the crucial elements Katniss brings into Peeta’s life - she is that someone for whom he will fight - including for his own life and well-being - even when it feels easier to give up... Having that person in your life that keeps you going can make all the difference - if Katniss hadn’t had Prim and promised her “to really, really try” to win (and later also made Rue the same promise), I’m not sure she would have made it this far; it’s the thought of Prim anxiously watching her after Rue’s death, that forces Katniss to keep going, to not give in to despair after that particular traumatic event - Peeta, on the other hand, didn’t really have that kind of person in his life, as he will point out on the beach in CF (and Katniss acknowledges herself that the only person who will be devasted if Peeta dies is her)... that is not to say that neither Katniss nor Peeta aren’t fighters on their own - but it helps to have someone that inspires you to not give up

the adrenaline pumping through my body would never allow me to follow him, so I can’t let him go. I just can’t. - We’ll see the mirrored version of this by the end of Mockinjay 

Pity, not vengeance, sends my arrow flying into [Cato’s] skull. - Another act of rebellion, technically (sure, this can be spun as Katniss killing Cato so she and Peeta may win - before Peeta dies from blood loss - but we know better - Katniss’s motivation was compassion for her supposed enemy)

We inch down to the tail of the horn and fall to the ground. If the stiffness in my limbs is this bad, how can Peeta even move? - Peeta is tough as nails, yo!

Before I am even aware of my actions, my bow is loaded with the arrow pointed straight at his heart [...] I drop my weapons and take a step back, my face burning in what can only be shame. “No,” he says. “Do it.” [...] “I can’t,” I say, “I won’t.” - In spite of her initial reflex, Katniss chooses Peeta/ chooses not to kill him; it’s a recurring theme in their relationship (despite her wariness of others, she chooses to open up to Peeta eventually; although she vowed to never marry and have children, she’ll choose to have a family with Peeta); also, my psychology-brain just noticed how this moment illustrates how harmful thoughts/impulses don’t have to determine your actions and are not an indicator of who you are - it’s about what you choose to do

“You’re not leaving me here alone,” I say. Because if he dies, I’ll never go home, not really. I’ll spend the rest of my life in this areny trying to think my way out. - Again, makes me think of MJ; also, I think that from this point onwards, Katniss and Peeta are officially linked together forever; the bond they forged during this traumatic experience will connect them to each other until the day they die

“On the count of three?” Peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. “The count of three,” he says. - My heart😭

Chapter 26

... while our muscles are immobile, nothing is preventing the blood from draining out of Peeta’s leg. Sure enough, the minute the door closes behind us and the current stops, he slumps to the floor unconscious  [...] Through the glass, I see the doctors working feverishly on Peeta, their brows creased in concentration [...] I’m not sure, but I think his heart stops twice. - Peeta was in such a bad shape by the end of the Games; I’m still kinda salty that the movie really glossed over this fact :/

... they’re taking Peeta but leaving me behind the door. I start hurling myself against the glass, shrieking and I think I just catch a glimpse of pink hair - it must be Effie, it has to be Effie coming to my rescue - when the needle jabs me from behind. - Oh geez, in Catching Fire Katniss will also get sedated in a hovercraft because she’s upset about being separated from Peeta 😢 (also, Katniss thinking that Effie is coming to her rescue 😭)

While she [Lavinia, the avox] adjusts my pillows, I risk one question. I say it out loud, as clearly as my rusty voice will allow, so nothing will seem secretive. “Did Peeta make it?” She gives me a nod, and as she slips a spoon into my hand, I feel the pressure of friendship. - Katniss is so considerate of Lavinia’s situation, and Lavinia’s giving her a gesture of comfort and support; they’ve never been able to have a proper conversation (Katniss doesn’t even know Lavinia’s name), but still they managed to build up such a bond - compassion certainly is a strong thing to behold 😭 (and this whole scene is just through and through about compassion, with Katniss asking how Peeta is doing!)

Home! Prim and my mother! Gale! Even the thought of Prim’s scruffy old cat makes me smile. Soon I will be home! - Katniss is so excited to see her home and her loved ones again

I want to get out of this bed. To see Peeta and Cinna - Aww, the two people she grew closest to over the course of the past weeks (Haymitch will be added to that list in just a smidge)

Or do I hear a man’s voice yelling? Not in the Capitol accent, but in the rougher cadences of home. And I can’t help having a vague, comforting feeling that someone is looking out for me. - Thank God for Haymitch! 

And behind one of them [doors] must be Peeta. Now that I’m conscious and moving, I’m growing more and more anxious about him [...] “Peeta!” I call out, since there’s no one to ask - Katniss is sick with worry over Peeta; romantic feelings or not, she cares so fricking much for him by now!

I run for them [Effie, Haymitch, and Cinna] and surprise even myself when I launch into Haymitch’s arms first. When he whispers in my ear, “Nice job, sweetheart,” it doesn’t sound sarcastic. - These reunion scenes are so intense and heartwarming! And then Katniss asks about Portia and Peeta because their presence would make this scene complete 

when I asks for seconds, I’m refused. “No, no, no. They don’t want it all coming back up on the stage,” says Octavia, but she secretly slips me an extra roll under the table to let me know she’s on my side - It’s moments like these that help humanize Katniss’s prep team - they might be shallow, they might be completely oblivious and ignorant, but they aren’t that bad [of course, the prep team chattering about their mundane lives while talking about the event that ended with the deaths of 22 children shortly after, leaves a bad taste in our mouths]

I immediately notice the padding over my breasts, adding curves that hunger has stolen from my body. My hands go to my chest and I frown. “I know,” says Cinna before I can object. “But the Gamemakers wanted to alter you surgically. Haymitch had a huge fight with them over it. This was the compromise.” - God, the idea that the Gamemakers wanted to give a boob job to an unconscious, malnourished 16-year-old girl makes me sick 🤢 (Also, what’s the flipping deal about boobs?! As a pretty flat-chested gal, I’ve always been annoyed that there are barely any bras my cup size that are not push-up ones; I’m not self-conscious about it, so stop making me pretend that I’m bustier than I actually am!)

“I thought it’d be something more... sophisticated-looking,” I say. “I thought Peeta would like this better,” he [Cinna] answers carefully. Peeta? No, it’s not about Peeta. It’s about the Capitol and the Gamemakers and the audience. Although I do not yet understand Cinna’s design, it’s a reminder the Games are not quite finished. - Ugh, that sinking feeling when Katniss and the reader realize that the Games are still not over... Sidenote: Peeta flirted up a storm with grimy, bloodied Katniss and complimented her when she wore Cinna’s first, absolutely badass costume (”You should wear flames more often”)... Katniss’s girlish outfit  has nothing to do with Peeta and she knows it... Cinna could have dressed Katniss up in a trash bag and Peeta would have been smitten - although a trash bag by Cinna would probably still look pretty good ;)

“How about a hug for luck?” Okay, that’s an odd request from Haymitch but, after all we are victors. Maybe a hug for luck is in order. - Aww, Katniss actually wouldn’t have minded giving Haymitch a hug just because - sadly, this is about survival tips instead :/

But what was it Haymitch said when I asked it he had told Peeta the situation? That he had to pretend to be desperately in love? “Don’t have to. He’s already there.” Already thinking ahead of me in the Games again and well aware of the danger we’re in? Or... already desperately in love? I don’t know. I haven’t even begun to separate out my feelings about Peeta. It’s too complicated. - Poor Katniss... she didn’t have the time and peace of mind to sort out her feelings regarding Peeta before they all got tied up and muddled with her need for survival. Now she’ll be having an even harder time trying to untangle that mess :(

Chapter 27

Then there’s Peeta just a few yards away. He looks so clean and healthy and beautiful, I can hardly recognize him. But his smile is the same whether in mud or in the Capitol and when I see it, I take about three steps and fling myself into his arms [...] He rights himself and we just cling to each other while the audience goes insane. He’s kissing me and all the time I’m thinking, Do you know? Do you know how much danger we’re in? After about ten minutes of this, Caesar Flickerman taps on his choulder to continue the show, and Peeta just pushes him aside without even glancing at him. - Man, their reunion here always gets me - it would be so fricking good if Katniss didn’t have to worry about their potential doom 😒😔 - she barely has time to just be happy to see Peeta alive and well before slipping back into survival mode while Peeta is just genuinely thrilled to have her in his arms, completely unaware of the pressure and immediate danger Katniss experiences in this moment... It hurts so bad

I’m with Katniss - How did the previous victors endure rewatching those horrible moments from the Games?! I guess because they had to, but oof... I think I’d just completely shut down, blocking out the footage shown, ugh

But I do notice they omit the part where I covered her [Rue] in flowers. Right. Because even that smacks of rebellion. - In such a callous and cruel place as Panem, any act of compassion can be regarded as rebellion, it’s crazy. In a place filled with apathy, hedonism, greed, and cruelty, the most radical things you can exhibit are love, kindness, and respect!

A wave of gratitude to the filmmakers sweeps over me when they end not with the announcement of our victory, but with me pounding on the glass door of the hovercraft, screaming Peeta’s name as they try to revive him. In terms of survival, it’s my best moment all night. - Again, another instance where Katniss’s genuine feelings/reactions to Peeta are get muddled with her need for survival

The one thing I never do is let go of Peeta’s hand. - irrevocably linked with each other

Despite Haymitch’s running interference, I’m determined to see Peeta privately. - Katniss just wants to have an honest and open talk with Peeta 😢 (I get where Haymitch is coming from, and maybe in this instance it’s the right call, but we’ll see a similar situation in the beginning of CF when Haymitch advises Katniss not to tell Peeta about President Snow’s visit and that time, it doesn’t go so well...)

Then Peeta’s there looking handsome in red and white - for someone who isn’t sure whether she’s into him or not, Katniss sure mentions how good Peeta’s looking a lot 😏

“Well, there’s just this and we go home. Then he can’t watch us all the time,” says Peeta. - 👀👀 Peeta is so thirsty here; reminds me of when he pulled Katniss close to him in the cave before they set out to hunt... He clearly believes she’s also “already there” regarding their relationship; he’s never this “suggestive” (can’t think of a better word right now) with her once she lets him know that she doesn’t really know how she feels about him - I feel a sort of shiver run through me and there’s no time to analyze why - Katniss totally isn’t averse to what Peeta’s suggesting here, either (though there’s probably also a healthy amount of fear mixed in with the thrill of being wanted - letting people in can be terrifying)

I can feel Peeta press his forehead into my temple and he asks, “So now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?” I turn in to him. “Put you somewhere you can’t get hurt.” And when he kisses me, people in the room actually sigh. - It’s me; I’m people 🙋🏼‍♀️ (also, the “turn in to him”?!?!! it just suggests such a closeness, I can’t-)

Katniss burying her face in Peeta’s shirt when she’s afraid she might cry learning that he lost his leg 🥺 (how awful it must be to be constantly on display while you’re dealing with your private feelings, ugh)

“... The moment when you pulled out those berries. What was going on in your mind... hm?” [...] It seems to call for a big, dramatic speech, but all I get out is one almost inaudible sentences. “I don’t know, I just... couldn’t bear the thought of... being without him.” - It might not be a super eloquent way to put what she was supposed to say, but this way, Katniss is being perfectly honest (and frankly, if she’d had the chance to properly process her feelings, she would have been able to voice this sentiment with less hesitation)

I go back to my room to collect a few things and find there’s nothing to take but the mockingjay pin Madge gave me. Someone returned it to my room after the Games. - For one, Katniss didn’t think of that pin (again), but also - was the pin returned to her simply because it’s standard procedure or did someone (like Plutarch, for example) arrange for Katniss to get the pin back, to keep her connection to this symbol going?

I stare in the mirror as I try to remember who I am and who I am not. - Poor Katniss! She’s been through so much, experienced so many traumatic events in short succession recently (aside from the trauma she already had), already had problems defining her identity beyond sheer survival, and now the Capitol also keeps pushing an identity onto her and a romantic relationship, when she hadn’t even had the chance to figure out how she felt about that yet

“... Haymitch has been coaching me through the last few days. So I didn’t make it worse,” I say. “Coaching you? But not me,” says Peeta. “He knew you were smart enough to get it right,” I say. “I didn’t know there was anything to get right,” says Peeta. - Oh boy. It’s always so painful to see Peeta realize that he’s been completely out of the loop; again, we’ll see how Katniss and Haymitch adopt a similar strategy in the beginning of CF: banking on Peeta’s good social skills and eloquence and keeping him in the dark. In a way, it’s a sort of compliment they pay to Peeta for being good with people, but, by not telling him, they are also using him for their purpose (which is motivated by caring for and wanting to protect Peeta, but still). Peeta is right to be upset about it - he has always been very clear about not wanting to be used as a piece in anyone’s games, really. And, as we will see later in CF, they are way more effective as a team when they are open and honest with each other.

“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.” “Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding on to my flowers. “Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what’s going to be left when we get home?” he says. “I don’t know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation, but none’s forthcoming. “Well, let me know when you work it out,” he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable. - It’s just so goddamn painful😢 They’ve both been done so dirty by that forced star-crossed lovers of Distrct 12 routine. (Sidenote: I appreciate that Peeta actually gives Katniss the chance to explain herself here - still, it’s too much to deal with on the spot so I can understand why Katniss ended up dropping the ball, even though it’s frustrating to read.)

That it’s not good loving me because I’m never going to get married anyway and he’d just end up hating me later instead of sooner. That if I do have feelings for him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children. And how can he? How can he after what we’ve just been through? - Oh Katniss, you certainly are skipping a couple of steps here; I’m pretty sure there are some options in between dating and being married with kids you could look into. Also, she’s just assuming that this is what Peeta wants, but she doesn’t know that at all - As someone who also has this stupid habit of imagining how whole conversations could possibly transpire and then resigning myself to the hypothetical outcome of said imagined conversation instead of actually having them: Don’t do that. ‘Never assume - it makes an ASS out of U and ME.’ 

I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. “One more time? For the audience?” he says. His voice isn’ t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me. I take his hand, holding it tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go. - Ma babies! They are both so hurt and both just want to be with each other 😭 But they’ll need some time apart, to figure things out before they can do that.

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Queer Subtext in The Illusion of Living - Part 5/5

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: Henry.

Joey tries very, very hard to ‘no homo’ his relationship with the man:

“His presence was helpful, I can happily admit, but his absence was even more so. Not having him at the studio ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to it. Of course, the funny thing is, I couldn't have not had him without having him in the first place. Just like you can't appreciate the light if you haven't spent time in the dark, so too does a person's absence become clear only if he has been around.” TIOL, page 154

“A letter from Henry. You might not think I'd keep such a thing, but I do. I have no ill will toward the man as you know. Him leaving, as I said, was the best thing that could have happened to the studio. His letter reminds me of that.” TIOL, page 218

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The only hint we get regarding Joey’s true feelings for Henry is the following note by Nathan:

“NateA: Joey has always been a professional person, far more so in many ways than me. That is why this section of the book is so forgiving of the man who abandoned the studio he helped create. Joey can't help but see the good in people. That being said, as a good friend of Joey's, I know that Henry's departure was a great upheaval for him and a great personal betrayal. Joey never truly forgave Henry, and I don't think he should have felt obligated to. The fact that Joey is so gracious in this part of the book is a reflection of his incredible generosity in allowing Henry Stein to be stainless in the eyes of history. I think, had he lived longer, Joey might have in later years called it his greatest illusion.” TIOL, page 155

I’m very surprised by the harshness in Nathan’s tone here. Especially since Henry appears to believe that he and Joey have parted on good terms, and Joey admits that they have continued to exchange letters for a while after Henry’s departure. We’ve also seen Henry’s note to Joey in the game, and it comes across as warm and supportive:

It really doesn’t sound like anything ugly happened between him and Joey. So then why are both Joey and Nathan convinced that Henry is a monster?

While I can believe that Joey is pathetic enough to consider anyone who slights him his worst enemy, Nathan comes across as a more level-headed person. So for him to voice his approval for Joey’s petty grudge must mean that he knows something that we don’t. But what could it be?

Honestly, nothing else comes to mind except for romantic heartbreak. It’s the only thing that could justify a man holding such a deep grudge for so many years. This isn’t Joey’s first friendship that grew apart over the years - his army friends have moved on with their life as well. It’s a normal part of life and there’s nothing in TIOL that would suggest Joey is unable to cope with that. We also know that the studio did fine for quite some time after Henry’s departure, so it’s not like Henry left Joey deep in debt. Henry wasn’t even the only animator at the studio:

“When the studio opened I surrounded him with artists of all skill levels, and the Writing Department had its own de facto leader in Mr. Hemmings, and so the whole of Creative was well managed for that first year of the company before I had to part ways with Henry.“ TIOL, page 155

And so we’re left with only one rational explanation: that Joey isn’t so much hurt by Henry leaving his job, as by the fact that Henry left specifically for the sake of his marriage.

Try as I might, I found no reference to Linda in TIOL. Even though Joey claims to have been friends with Henry for many years, he makes zero mention of ever having met Linda. While there are some hints that Henry wasn’t yet married to her at the time when he and Joey opened the studio together (such as the fact that he claims he hasn’t seen her in “days” even though he presumably slept at home, implying that he and Linda weren’t living together at the time. A shopping list among his notes in the Handbook also suggests that he cooked his own meals, which would be unusual for a married man with a demanding job), the two were already a couple by then, and must have known each other for a while already. Surely, as Henry’s friend, Joey would have met her?

Even when talking about Henry leaving, Joey uses a cryptic language:

“Henry left for his own reasons, and the correspondence between us became less and less. To be honest, it was almost like a weight off when he left. He had grown more sensitive as the studio became more successful and giving him pep talks had become exhausting for me. All the good qualities he brought, the hard work and diligence, were being undermined by a restless need for something different. Something that wasn't Bendy. I will never understand that drive. Bendy was and is perfection.“ TIOL, page 177

In DCTL Norman claims that Henry left to spend time with his wife. Why doesn’t Joey say that? It doesn’t make him look bad to admit that an employee left to enjoy a quiet family life. It’s almost like he refuses to acknowledge Linda’s existence at all. Like it’s too painful for him to speak of her.

Perhaps the “personal betrayal” that Nathan is referring to is related to Henry choosing a real family, over the “studio family”, and the possibility of having a real child, as opposed to a fictional one?

The symbolic image of Bendy as a child shows up multiple times in the game: for example the drawing from Henry appears to depict Bendy, Alice and Boris as a happy family, with Bendy holding onto their hands like a child would:

There’s also Alice using a womb imagery to describe the ink machine:

And of course, the final monologue is centered on Henry’s choice to pursue a family:

That monologue is very interesting if we assume Joey to be gay. Because a gay man would never have been able to follow Henry’s road. Gay!Joey could never choose to have a real family with a man he loved, because that option was denied to him by the homophobic society he was living in. The studio is the closest thing to a family that gay!Joey could ever hope to have. 

And evidently, that was not enough for Henry.

If Joey’s indeed gay, that must have felt incredibly unfair to him - knowing that he had no chance of happiness in marital bliss from the start, through no fault of his own. This would explain his desire to create a real, living, breathing Bendy, no matter the cost, just to prove to Henry that Joey’s “child” can be just as real as the one Linda could give him.

“Bendy was Joey's child, and he felt just as strongly about Bendy as I feel about my flesh-and-blood son.“ TIOL, page 2

This idea of an illusory choice very much resembles the choice between the Angel Path and the Devil Path in Chapter 3. It’s the only choice that Henry ever gets to make in the game, yet no matter which way he chooses, he still ends up in the same corridor. Some of the golden messages highlight his helplessness:

The symbolic meaning of the choice between the Angel and the Devil also shows up TIOL. There’s a scene in the book, where Joey writes a play about an Angel and a Devil fighting over the soul of a human man. Eventually, the Devil confesses that he doesn’t want the human to make his choice, because then one of them would have to leave. The play was supposed to end with the man making his choice, but according to Joey they lacked a third actor, so the ending was never played out.

I believe that the play is symbolic of the relationship between Henry and Joey, specifically with regards to Henry choosing a relationship with Linda over his friendship with Joey.

There are several reasons that lead me to believe this:

The human in the play making a choice between the Angel and the Devil is reminiscent of Henry choosing between Devil Path and Angel path in BATIM.

The play highlights that the Devil is on the left side of the human, while the Angel is on his right side:

“ANGEL: Spending my time with a devil has been an enlightening experience. Working with you over these years with you sitting on that left shoulder, so far and yet so near, all our debates, they were invigorating for the spirit. 

DEVIL: I won't miss you! Fighting all the time, trying to trick you into agreeing with me, trying to push you off that right shoulder of yours. The violence and the anger. I won't miss it at all!”, TIOL page 89

Much like the Devil Path is on the left side in the game, while the Angel path is on the right side:

The Devil is obviously a stand-in for Bendy. Joey even dances on the stage at one point, and one of Bendy’s nicknames is “The Dancing Demon”. Joey also claims that the Devil from the play was an inspiration for Bendy:

“Let's start with the basic idea of a cartoon.You need a main character. Someone who has adventures and who the audience relates to." I did. I needed that. I needed a character who didn't just reflect the general population back to itself, but a more exciting version. I had no interest in moralizing, besides I didn't think moralizing was particularly realistic. People don't see the world as one populated by do-gooders. I thought of the angel in my play. She could never be a lead character. The devil on the other hand…” TIOL, 165

The fact that Joey claims the ending was never played out is strongly reminiscent of the missing ending of the Tombstone Picnic

It’s possible that Joey is lying about the ending not having been played out, to hide Henry’s role in the success of the play, much like he removed his part in Tombstone Picnic. After all, what would be the point of writing a play for 3 actors, when you only have 2? Why not ask someone to play the 3rd?

Although the play itself is centered more on the relationship between the Devil and the Angel, rather than their relationship with the human, there is still a strong queer symbolism in the play:

“Abby shifted nervously next to me the whole evening. She was in a dress for the first time in a long time, white and soft. I was pleased she'd come in character. For my part the only red thing I owned was a garish bow tie, so that was all I was able to contribute visually.” TIOL, page 82

The angel is played by a woman, who usually wears men’s clothing, but of course, the Angel being a symbol of Christian values couldn’t possibly be portrayed breaking the gender norms. She had to wear a dress, though Abby is clearly uncomfortable in it. She’s essentially performing heteronormative feminity. Next to her we have Joey as the Devil, dressed in a red bow tie, which as I’ve mentioned in the first part of this analysis, used to be a symbol of homosexuality. 

This contrast between the uncomfortably heteronormative Angel and flamboyantly queer Devil is striking. It’s also very much in line with the views of the society in the 1920s. For something to be the symbol of purity and goodness, it has to be heterosexual, and the Devil is queer, because he’s also the symbol of sin.

That symbolism could be indicative of Joey’s own internalized homophobia. Back in his army days, his friends used to bully him for breaking gender norms. Joey likes to present himself as the hero, who was easily able to outsmart the bullies, but many of his later remarks in the book and in DCTL show that some of that attitude has left a deep mark on him.

The symbolism could also be intentional. Joey boasts about having personal ties to Noel Coward, a real life gay playwright, who was known for his many affairs with men, and for putting an ungodly amount of queer symbolism in his works:

“The old woman took a liking to me, and she was nice enough. Besides, her connections were incredible. She knew everyone, she even had the playwright Noel Coward come to stay with her whenever he was in town.” TIOL, page 144

There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the play being symbolic of Henry’s choice between his relationship with Linda and with Joey. But it’s also symbolic of Henry’s choice between Bendy, and a real child. The studio family, and a traditional family. Heteronormative relationship vs a queer relationship. 

Although there’s no indication in canon that Henry might be bisexual, he doesn’t need to be. The game has beaten into our heads that the “choice” is an illusion. Henry was never going to choose the Devil, or at least that’s what Joey believes. Although we’re never told what choice the human in the play was going to make, we’re told that he was supposed to be dressed in white, which suggests that he chose the Angel. 

“(The door stage right opens. A man all in white enters calmly and chooses a seat, brushes it off carefully and sits. He takes his hat off and holds it gingerly in his lap.) (Quiet.) (Curtain.) THE END” TIOL, page 91

That might be why the Devil in the play confesses that he doesn’t want the human to make his choice, fearing that one of them will have to leave once such a choice is made:

“DEVIL: You think he has made a choice? 

ANGEL: It is possible. 

DEVIL: Do you think he might be all bad? 

ANGEL: I hope he is all good. 

DEVIL: If he is all bad, my job here is done. If he is all good, you can go home. 

DEVIL: Strange. If we win we also lose. You would think that would be something I would find delightful. 

ANGEL: You would think I would love to make such a personal sacrifice.” TIOL, page 89

The line about a “personal sacrifice” is very interesting in this context. The Angel and the Devil clearly care for each other and for the human, and don’t want their relationship to come to an end. Though the Devil in the play seems to make gestures that the audience interprets as romantic in nature, Joey insists that it isn’t the case:

“I leaned in and placed a hand on Abby's knee. There was a gasp from someone in the audience, but I knew Abby wouldn't be flustered by it. That wasn't the nature of our relationship.” TIOL, page 89 

It makes me wonder if perhaps Linda and Joey used to be friends at some point, and both competed over Henry’s attention.

There’s a much overused trope in fiction where two men compete over a woman, which ends up ruining their friendship. It would be really interesting and subversive to see a man and a woman competing over a man instead.

EDIT: I can’t believe I forgot to add this part:

"Joey, thanks for coming," said Henry, approaching from behind us. I turned to look at him He had dressed up for the event but every item of clothing looked slightly wrong. The sleeves of his shirt a bit short, his vest a bit long, his tie askew. He smiled, though, with such confidence that I couldn't help admire him. I still do.” TIOL, page 160

Joey fell for Henry’s smile, how romantic!

“We watched in silence as he worked. Despite his lack of genius, to this day, I will always say that watching Henry work was a real pleasure.“ TIOL, page 173

“It's fascinating. Henry was never the showman like I was. He didn't tend to be easily remembered by those who met him when we did business. I was invariably the face of the company, the one introduced first at a gala, the one to whom people slipped their business cards.Yet in the end he ended up setting up camp in this small corner of my memory. I can't deny that he is tied to the creation of Bendy, to the creation of the studio itself. That at one time, in one small apartment, one too warm evening, we had shaken hands. That once upon a time we had been partners. He'll always be there, in the dark recesses of my mind. Always linked to me that way. Funny how the forgettable man is now forever in my mind” TIOL, page 177

[imhaitusncarnate]

I have very mixed feelings on that aot ending

Ok so the politics of Attack on Titan have been discussed by a lot of people, some of whom have a very surface- level understanding of the story. I would like to start by giving my disclaimer that Attack on Tiatan ABSOLUTELY isn’t fascist, its anti racism, anti bigotry and anti discrimination themes are extremely apparent in it’s examination of the Eldians inside Marley, and fascist views held by characters such as Gabi are explicitly condemned in the text and made clear to be misguided and false. 

I would now like to draw everyone’s attention to the openings of seasons 1 and 2. 

Images like these combined with lyrics like these:

You pigs who sneer at our will to step over corpses and march onwards Enjoy the peace of livestock false prosperity "freedom" of the dying wolves that hunger

We dedicate and sacrifice our hearts

And also the use of german lyrics:

Sie sind das Essen und Wir sind die Jaeger! (they are the food and we are the hunters)

O, mein Freund! Jetzt hier ist ein Sieg. Dies ist der erste Glorie. O, mein Freund! Feiern wir diesen Sieg, für den nächsten Kampf!

(O, my friend! Now, here is a victory. This is the first glory. O, my friend! Let us celebrate this victory for the next battle!)

This is the stuff that lead me to believe that this is a deliberate use of fascist imagery. If the show just wanted to go for a militaristic vibe for the aesthetic of it, references this explicit to fascist propaganda and the use of German lyrics was not necessary. Also, lines like this:

And plenty of evidence that things were not what they seemed it the world of aot and that the overly simplistic view of good vs evil (humans vs the titans) was incorrect led me to believe that Attack on Titan was a deliberate deconstruction. That it was putting the audience into the mindset of the fascists to pull the rug from under their feet later. And I was right. Sort of.

As the story progresses, the world becomes a more and more complex political landscape and we are led to believe that this black and white mentality is wrong. We are also informed that the people who can transform into titans, the Eldians, are an opressed minority, explicitly paralleled to the Jews during nazi Germany, from their living in internment camps, to them being called devils, to their armbands, to a large number of them (our heroes) being confined in an island with walls circling them, which is revealed by Isayama to be Madagascar. The island that the nazis originally meant to confine the Jewish population in before arriving at the conclusion that that would be too costly, and that genocide was preferable. 

This is the first of the story’s mixed metaphors. While the show’s heart is in the right place, being sympathetic to the Eldians and showing their plight under marleyan opression and persecution, there is one problem. The reason for the opression of the Eldians is because the world is afraid of their power, as they are a race with the ability to transform into titans. There is, therefore, a tangible, justification for their internment. The Jews were not in any conceivable way a danger to anyone, they were simply scapegoated for the complex socioeconomic problems of Germany in the time period. Also, if we take a look at those openings again, we observe that the Eldians (our main characters) who wish to free themselves from their shackles are framed as fascists. So... what is that saying?

 The idea, as I see it, is that the story is condemning fanaticism in general, as a biproduct of a militaristic black and white worldview. The monstrous titans that our (framed as fascist) heroes fight against are revealed to be human, just like them.

The same is the case for the Eldian “devils” that the Marleyans fight against. Gabi, the character who is most fanatically against Eldians (despite being an Eldian herself) is comfronted with the humanity of the people she hates once she gets to know them.

Again, Isayama’s heart is on the right place here, trying to condemn bigotry, however the explicit referencing of history is the imagery is kind of misplaced, for the reasons I previously mentioned. Now let’s have a look at Eren Yeager.

Eren starts the story as a kind of messed up kid. He kills the human traffickers who kidnapped Mikasa while screaming:

I mean, in this case he is certainly justified, but his rage and anger are definitely not normal for a child his age.

This is Eren. He can’t stand injustice when he sees it. And injustice is what happens to him when the titans attack. His already fiery attitude and mindset is what leads him to this declaration of revenge:

That side of Eren is visible throughout the story and it’s foreshadowing for what he will later become

Eren, however, is a natural product of his environment. Ravaged by socioconomic inequality, with the rich living in the centre of the walls and the poor living in the outskirts, constantly under the threat of the titans and unable to obtain any kind of freedom, Eren’s philosophy of the need to be strong to overcome one’s enemies makes sense. The mantra “the strong prey on the weak”, that he ends up teaching Mikasa (another allusion to fascist ideology) is a biproduct of the world he lives in. He does not know of the political intricasies outside the walls. All he knows is he must kill the titans.

Eren’s titan is described as the “manifestation of humanity’s rage. It is huge and monstrous, and could be seen as a metaphor for vengeful hatred in general. Keep that in mind, it’s relevant for the ending.

This manufactured and false black and white worldview shapes him as a character, and it’s what eventually, after the arrival at the much desired ocean, leads him to this:

“Will we finally be free?”

In the continuation of the story, Eren falls toward the dark side more and more, to the point of committing atrocities and war crimes that are explicitly framed as being similar to what he suffered as a child (see his actions in Liberio). He even acknowledges that, telling Reiner, the person who committed said war crimes against him, that he essentially has no hard feelings and understands that the two of them are similar, doing what “needs to be done”. The character of Gabi, who, after what happens in Liberio, becomes obsessed with revenge against the Eldian “devils” is meant to be a foil for Eren, and his obsession with killing the titans after what happened to him. 

Extremely interesting is the way in which certain ideas and images are flipped in the later seasons. Namely, in season 4, we see a character who idolizes Mikasa and supports Eren’s plans in a scene where she spouts the same mantra of “the strong prey on the weak” and says that Mikasa saving her is what showed her that only with strength she can defeat her enemies. Mikasa tells her to shut up, and she proceeds to do the salute, that has been so glamorized by the show’s openings thus far. Now, it is done by a person from a military faction with a fanatic worldview. The direction doesn’t glamorize it at all. It is a nuanced, almost masterful deconstruction. 

Levi, who has always looked for reasons for why his comrades had t die, justifying their heroism and convincing himself that their deaths were not pointless, ends up here:

At this point, I was in love with Attack on Titan. From here, it only figures that Eren ends up attempting a genocide of the people outside the walls. He has essentally become what he hated the most, and he’s a natural result of the world that created him. Despite his noble intentions, he has turned into a monster. Mikasa, the prerson who loved him the most, completes her character arc by killing him, thus rejecting her blind devotion to him and being free, while at the same time continuing to love the person he once was. It’s a sad and tragic ending, painting Eren as a tragic character and making a pretty strong political point, despite having a few mixed metaphors.

And then, chapter 139 came out...

And Eren apparently pulled a Lelouch. This is a “I purposfully turned myself into a monster to save the world and make my friends into heroes for killing me” kind of thing. It is important to state that the manga makes it clear that Eren would have trampled the world even if they didn’t stop him, because of his urge to be free. However, that urge, that fighting spirit, end up being a good thing. The death of our heroes in battle apparently wasn’t pointless after all. They say goodbye with a salute

The Yeagerists, who were previously framed as fanatics, end up in charge of the government

It is important to state that the real event, the catalyst of the ending, is that killing Eren, who has turned himself literally into the manifestation of humanity’s rage (which has now, through the intricacies of the story, taken the political meaning of hatred and intergenerational trauma), eliminates the power of the titans. The titans are no more. This, in of itself, is good, and in keeping with the spirit of the political commentary thus far. However, the war, is still not over, and Eren’s mantra ends up being correct

So the only way for the war to end is one of the races to be wiped out? 

Also, despite Eren’s genocide being wrong, it is, in the end, justified, as a necessary evil by the story. An Ozymandias kind of moment in which the ends justify the means, but Eren himself has to die, because his crime was too great for him not to suffer punishment. Essentially, this chapter undoes all of the insightful commentary the story had made so far, by proving the ideology of its main character right. Story- wise this isn’t a bad ending, but if we take into account the political references the series has made, and its desire to explicitly tie itself with such imagery makes the ending leave a really bad taste in my mouth. What it essentally says, is that, yes, bigotry and racism are bad, yes, blind hatred is bad, but the general idea of might makes right and the impossibility of reconciliation are true. Armin, who has, throughuout the story, been Eren’s opposite, in terms of looking for peaceful solutions to conflict is rendered meaningless in the end, because him alongside with the other characters were all playing into Eren’s plans. The hearts of our main characters as recruits were in the right place, their fighting spirit admirable, and the overall worldview we are presented with in the beginning of the story remains more or less unchallenged. 

So where does that leave this imagery?

The conclusion is that one must think very carefully before including allegory in their work. I am not accusing Isayama for fascism, and I appreciate the efforts at deconstructing it throughout the story. However, in the end he did an oops I accidentally justified the mentality I was trying to condemn. I still like Attack on Titan, I believe it has artistic value and is overall a pretty good anime, I even agree with its politics to an extent. However, it is very important to critically examine the things we like, and see where they may have gone south. And this ending is that for me.

[yurimother]

Interview: Shilin Huang, Creator of Amongst Us and Carciphona

Shilin Huang ( @okolnir​​ )is a Canadian freelance artist and comic creator, known for her long-running series Carciphona. She has a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Western Ontario. Carciphona is a long-form fantasy story set in a world where demon-magic is forbidden. The series follows a young sorceress named Veloce, and the mythical assassin assigned to kill her, Blackbird.

Shilin’s newest book, Amongst Us, based on the webcomic of the same name, is an alternate universe comic that reimagines Veloce and Blackbird as musicians and girlfriends in the modern world. You can support the physical release for Amongst Us book 1 on Kickstarter today.

The first book of Amongst Us is coming soon. How do you feel about the release?

Eager and relieved!! I had worked for so long to make the web format viable for print format, as well doing all the extra drawings that were necessary--like covers--that I had to keep under wraps, it felt great to know that that part is finally done and I can release my child into the wild. I was very worried too before the launch of the Kickstarter, because though I am the one who made this story, I am not quite a slice-of-life type of person myself, and it was hard for me to see value in this mundane, not-plot-driven kind of story as a printed book. But I was very lucky to have that worry dispelled!

What drew you towards creating comics and artwork? Was it a dream of yours?

I’ve been drawing since before elementary school because I enjoyed it, and somewhere along the way, I wanted to create my own characters, and then I wanted stories for them. It was always just me doing what I felt like doing, more so than something that I aspired towards achieving consciously. If I had to analyze the allure myself, maybe it was because people and the world are so interesting, I’ve always loved thinking about their nature and circumstances, and art/storytelling was the best way for me to explore and share those thoughts.

Could you briefly walk us through your creative process for making a page of Carciphona or an episode of Amongst Us?

Carciphona is a long, plot-driven story, and so the scale of preparation required before the page eclipses the actual drawing of the page itself. [A] small moment has some larger impact in the plot, character development, and accuracy of world-building. So I usually spend about half a year or more writing out an entire volume, read it over many times over the course of the years, before I do the same thing with sketching the entire volume on the computer, rearranging pages and panels and entire scenes for best delivery, before I finally commit to drawing out each page in detail on the computer. 

Where Carciphona is like an elaborate set course where I chop up and measure ingredients and time their cooking with a careful game plan so everything can be served as they should, Amongst Us is more like an omelette that I’m making to taste. There is still planning and writing ahead of time, but each episode is much more self-contained, and I do more of the planning of the episode within the episode itself, adding and taking away details as I see fit before I feel like it reads naturally enough for me to fine line, colour, and paint.

You talk about being a self-taught artist, how did you learn to create artwork? What are some of your favorite educational resources?

While I did come across many tutorials, they were mostly short ones here and there made by my peers, so I don’t have any favourites in my mind that I can share ): . I learned by just looking at the art of my peers at the time and drawing a lot myself, thinking about what I could learn from each time I see something great, and what I could try next time to make the next drawing look better to me. When I had just started drawing digitally, the internet was quite new, drawing tablets expensive and uncommon, with no social media to share art or find resources. Over time, I did try to learn more properly by doing studies and seeking out professional tutorials, but I found that I hated it and decided that I’d rather learn and make mistakes at my own pace and be happy than to commit to effective and efficient learning and make myself dislike drawing.

Amongst Us is, of course, an Alternate Universe comic featuring characters from Carciphona. What inspired you to put your characters into a GL slice of life work?

Back in 2006, when I started drawing Carciphona, I had no plans of this frenemies dynamic for the two main characters, Blackbird and Veloce, and when the thought had occurred to me as I continue to tweak the story, canon GL relationships were still rare and rarely accepted. I was even told on many occasions by readers that they hope the two do not end up with some couples dynamic, or they will no longer be interested in the story. Ultimately, Carciphona was a fantasy story about an entire world, and I wasn’t going to risk the story’s reception over a small detail like whether or not Blackbird and Veloce sleep together, so I just played with the ideas of their relationship on the side, in paintings of many different AUs. Eventually, all that did was make me become so attached to the idea that I decided to say, screw it, I need someplace where they could be together, and I’m drawing an AU for real.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work? Both Amongst Us and Carciphona.

I love a lot of things, feelings, aesthetics, and I eat up all of that and take it back out in the form of my stories. The inspiration is everywhere, from beautiful imagery I witness in pictures and in real life, to [the] lives of people that I hear about or experience firsthand, to the ethics and structures of professions from mechanics to medicine… In feelings, knowledge, and perspective, there’s an infinite amount of things that makes me think, and that thinking is what creates AU and Carciphona, whether or not that line of inspiration can be clearly drawn back to the root of the thought.

What are some of your biggest challenges or fears creating Amongst Us? Was there any realization or advice that helped you overcome those difficulties?

My biggest fear is always in relatability because it’s a difference between me and the reader that I do not and cannot have a solution for because it involves another person. In such a relatable genre as slice of life/comedy/romance, where the readers have more experience and therefore more varied but stronger expectations of a version of life that is relatable to them, I know that even if somehow I become a master writer, I still would not be able [to] say whether I could story that others would get or would be interested in, especially because I am aware I am an oddball when it comes to how I think, how I live, and what I value. What helped me the most was simply seeing that there were readers who did enjoy the stories for what it was, and reminding myself that I’m telling the stories to find those who might enjoy it, not to avoid those who might not. It’s a different perspective, rather than a solution, so the worry constantly resurfaces, but I hope it becomes easier over time as I am proven wrong more often!

Amongst Us readers have gotten to see Veloce and Blackbird as an established couple, and now we are witnessing flashbacks to how they first met. Where do you hope to take the series in the future?

I intend to tell both of these timelines concurrently, so as the couple timeline ended at episode 20, I intend to end the flashback at around episode 40, and then switch again at episode 60, and so on. While this kills the momentum for each arc, I made AU so that I can have the cake and eat it too--I want both their back story and a happy ending at the same time without having to wait 10-20 years for it, like I do with Carciphona’s plot haha!

What is one dream or aspiration you would like to accomplish? Even if it is unrealistic.

My only dream right now is just to finish both Carciphona and AU before my time’s up! Funny how unrealistic is specified, it made me realize that I rarely consider unrealistic dreams/aspirations as worth thinking about as they are unlikely to happen when there are so many other things I want to do that are actually possible. Most of my unrealistic dreams actually revolve around music, a profession I had left behind with an aching heart. I dream to play a concerto with an orchestra someday, or even learn to conduct, but for now, drawing my dreams out feels enjoyable and fulfilling enough a compromise!

What advice do you have for people wanting to create artwork and comics?

The true challenge these days I feel like is rarely in the work itself; there are so many readily available free resources that anyone who is capable of working hard and thinking critically will sooner or later be able to master skills they acquire to some degree. What is truly challenging is finding, and then accepting, what paths work for you. Someone might find great joy in working in a studio with a group on something big, while someone else might only enjoy drawing what they feel. Both, in this current climate, will be compelled to adhere to the standards of drawing what others want to see in order to gain recognition and financial stability, one will thrive, one will not. 

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is understanding what you want out of drawing/creating, and why. Understanding yourself is often not as straight-forward as it may seem, everyone has different circumstances that subtly motivates them to sometimes misdirect energy and misinterpret what it is they truly want. Some people need to be understood, some people want an excuse to execute, and some people want fame, money, recognition, validation. Whatever it is, and all valid, understanding and accepting your own motivations to create can tremendously help you find the path forward that is suitable for you, not anyone else, even if it might mean following an impractical path that no one else recommends.

Finally, after the release of the first Amongst Us book, what is next for you? Anything special your fans can look forward to?

My game plan through the decades has always been to just keep going. I did choose long-form projects such as the comics that I draw, and the best thing I can do is to just keep it up and reach those exciting points of the story that I’ve always worked towards, no matter how uneventful that may make my work routine sound. However, I do have a little side thing with a(nother) recurring theme that I’ve been doing here and there for fun whenever I had time, people who keep up with my social media art posts may have noticed. If I ever accumulate enough material, maybe there will be some bonus snacks for my readers on the horizon!

Read Carciphona and Amongst Us online now and be sure to support the physical release on Amongst Us book 1 on Kickstarter today. Also, be sure to follow Shilin on Twitter @Okolnir.

[sledgefuweek]

Each year we take a close look at the prompts for Sledgefu Week, for those who may be stuck for ideas or not quite sure about what the prompts could entail. Below the readmore are all seven prompts, as well as a short write-up exploring what they mean and some ideas to help get the creative juices going. Enjoy!!

Sickfic

This is a really popular and well-known fanfic trope that I feel probably needs little explanation, but I’ll write a little bit about it anyway! It essentially covers fic where one character is ill and the other cares for them -- it could encompass any kind of illness at all, (including chronic illnesses) and there’s a lot of room to get creative with it. You can go for angst, hurt/comfort, or fluff: it’s just a really good general prompt that I think works nicely to kick the week off!

It suits for Sledgefu pretty well, considering Snafu’s canon mild hypochondria, as well as the fact that Eugene’s dad is a doctor. It could be fun to lean into it: make Eugene play doctor for an actually-sick Snafu, and it could be just as fun to subvert it! There’s really endless options for canon fic: shrapnel wounds turned bad, heat-sickness, seasickness, illness from bad food or bad water or any kind of tropical disease you can think of (malaria is a big one!). You could make one of them (or both) a medic; you could genderswap them and write the gay field nurse fic this fandom sorely needs. And of course if you choose to branch out into modern AU you can begin to think of what might afflict them outside of a war setting: has Eugene been working too much and come down with a cold? Are they hungover, and need mutual care (and lots of takeout)? A lot of the time sickfic focuses on one character doing the comforting and the other character feeling unwell, but there’s nothing to say they can’t both be feeling shitty! I think we say this every year but there’s really no rules at all, you do whatever you feel inspired to do. With Sickfic, just be mindful to tag anything that others might be affected by eg. vomiting, blood, needles, etc.

Tarot

I feel like Tarot is pretty well-known to the Sledgefu fandom, or at least to those who like to write Snafu or his family a little witchy. In case you just have a vague idea of what Tarot actually is and what its purpose or origins are, I’ll explain it as concisely as I can! Tarot decks started life in Europe as playing cards, but eventually began to be used for divination. It’s made up of four suits, or the Minor Arcana, (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) as well as a twenty-two card Major Arcana (the imagery of which you’re probably very familiar with). Commonly, tarot decks and tarot reading is used as a means of communicating with the higher self, deities, or with the universe. They can be used as a way to see the future, answer questions, or to give/receive advice. There are different ways of reading them too, depending on how one lays out the cards: I don’t want to make this too wordy, but if you’re curious I encourage you to check out this site to learn more!

For writers, there’s a lot of places this prompt could take you! Probably the most obvious will be fortune teller fic; a classic. Lean into Snafu’s Louisiana roots and have him telling fortunes in the depths of the French Quarter, or go against the grain and have Eugene reading cards and palms and tea leaves as a practice passed down through his family. Or maybe more casual: modern AU Sledgefu flirting through amateur tarot readings with a deck picked up from a junk shop. If you read Tarot and have a connection to it, you can express that through writing! It’s a pretty open-ended prompt, especially if you consider some of the meanings of the cards; you could even write a story inspired by that! The Hermit: Snafu withdrawing, leaving Eugene on the train to spend the next few months in solitude, working through things. The Moon: Snafu and Eugene hitting a rough patch, hiding things from each other. The opportunities really become endless once you start taking the readings of the cards into account! And for visual artists, this must be such a fun prompt: I feel like it’s so a visually rich, whether you’re re-drawing the cards to encompass Snafu and Eugene within them, or making a collage based around some of the things mentioned above: fortune tellers shops, witches cottages, etc.

Trinket

Every Sledgefu Week we tend to have a couple prompts that are a little more open to interpretation, and this year’s ‘Trinket’ is one of those. It might be difficult to try and think of something to base a whole fic or piece of art around, but we really encourage you to let your imagination run wild! There’s already some great trinkets in the show itself: Eugene’s ring, the lighter that Gunny Haney gave him, Snafu’s stolen gold teeth, or their dog tags. Think of small, special objects that you might have: what imbues them with comfort or meaning? What makes you love them? You could have Eugene giving Snafu his ring, or have Eugene musing over war and death and loss while smoking a cigarette lit by his lighter. If you’re into Modern AUs, how could these objects carry through to modern day? Once you start thinking about it, the ideas start rolling in. Feel free to invent special trinkets for them: or maybe trinkets that they hate and want to get rid of, trinkets that remind them of bad times. Trinkets that remind them of each other, or family, or war. So much meaning can be held in the things we own, and I think it’s such a lovely concept to explore!

Crossover

So this prompt was born from the sheer number of suggestions we had for various movie, TV, and book AUs. We didn’t want to put them all to the poll and risk a lot of you feeling disappointed over the one you wanted not being selected, so thought it’d work best to condense them into a ‘Crossover’ prompt so everyone could do whatever they liked. So this is a very very broad one! It would be impossible for me to really go through the prompt and highlight some things that you could do for it, because you can really do anything you want to! Anything! It encompasses movies, video games, TV, books, musicals... if something tells a story, you can do a crossover. So if there’s ever been a film/book/etc. AU you wanted to do for Sledgefu Week but couldn’t quite get it to match the prompts, now is the time!

Vacation

A pretty self explanatory prompt, and one that I think can appeal to people who prefer canonverse and those who like modern AU too! Do you want to send Snafu and Eugene on the holiday of their dreams, or are they gonna be bickering in a gas station over who gets control of the map? Is Snafu gonna drive across a couple states to surprise Eugene by visiting? Is Eugene gonna do the same? There’s a lot of scenarios you can apply to the backdrop of them vacationing, and a lot of emotional journeys you can take them through! And for the canonverse crowd, you have the extra addition of letting them go have fun on an R&R, or taking a road trip post-war, visiting 1950s Paris... you can really do whatever you like!

Historical

This was another prompt like ‘Crossover’ that came from a lot of various suggestions that all boiled down to a similar thing: different historical events or periods. So like Crossover, I won’t linger too long on it (this post is long enough already) except just to say again: do whatever you’re inspired to do! There’s no rules here, you could even take everyone out of the Pacific and put them over in Germany: give them a different experience of war. In fact, you can do that with any war if you wanted to! Wanna do a M*A*S*H AU but made something else for Crossover? You could do it here! Want to put them in the 1920s? You got it. In the 1850s? Yeehaw, they’re cowboys now. 1969, Summer of Love? 1600s, make Snafu a prince? Literally the world is your oyster!

Horror

Past Sledgefu Week prompts have included things that could come under the horror umbrella (Supernatural, for example) but didn’t necessarily have to be made 'horrific’. For the ‘Horror’ prompt this year, we want to see frightening! Disquieting, uncomfortable; creations that either cross over with existing horror franchises, or lean on horrific things you come up with yourself. Horror movies, or TV shows, or books or podcasts or pieces of art all seek to elicit a sense of fear: this can be done by tapping into common phobias, or nightmares, those things which are universally and almost instinctively scary. We want to see things which lean into that, in whatever way you want to do it! 

I’m no horror media expert (not by a long shot) but the opportunities for this prompt are really vast simply because horror has so many subgenres to work with. You could go gothic horror; Dracula, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights (a personal favourite AU -- Eugene soaked out on the moors, searching for Heathcliff-Snafu? Divine). Or you could go to the opposite end of the spectrum: Jennifer’s Body AU, Final Girl AU -- there’s no set way to do horror, in fact you could even bring horror into canonverse if you don’t like AUs. Think the Terror: some unknown beast lurking beyond the borders of their camp on Pavuvu, or Okinawa. Or you could even take the prompt entirely literally and explore the horrors of war and the toll it takes on them both. Please don’t feel stuck into needing to do Scary: horror is about fear and revulsion and dread, and these feelings don’t necessarily need to come from a haunting! (This is also a prompt ripe for monsterfucking, just FYI).

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So that’s the prompts for this year! They’re all really really great, and have a lot of potential to make some fantastic stuff :~) And to reiterate something I said right at the start, there are no rules here! I think every year we normally get at least one person unsure whether their idea will be okay for the prompt they’d like to make it for, so I just wanna say here: don’t second-guess yourself! As long as it can be linked back to the prompt in some way or another (can literally be the vaguest way possible) you’ll be absolutely fine. We don’t vet submissions at all, especially not for their content relating to the prompts. All we ask is that you remember to stay respectful in what you’re writing, and when the time comes to post it, you tag and warn appropriately :~)

On the subject of writing respectfully, we’d like to just take a moment to link the document on mindful writing re: race and gender that was made last year. Please take a look at it, even if you read it last year! It’s always good to keep these things at the front of your mind, as fandom is a community sport and we want to keep it fun and safe for everyone involved! So thank you if you’ve made it this far through this whole post, check out the doc, and enjoy the rest of the run-up to Sledgefu Week!

[impulstor]

explanations behind my song choice for my 3lsmp playlist under the read more! keep in mind, some of these songs don't really have a reason beyond just... vibes. and that some ideas have changed over time. anyway!

playlist here

anti-hero — originally added as an etho song, and still applies. with him being prepared to fight & kill for ren + the rest of the red army. also, he tends to be a bit unpredictable and has a very different moral standing from someone like, say, martyn.

kill the sun — fits with the series as a whole, with shifting alliances and friendships, and with people killing and being killed by one another.

special — this ones for all the mfs who didn't pick a side until really late, or were bouncing between factions for a while 💪. especially for tango, as an example, making friends with someone who he can also consider his enemy, and being completely unsure where he stands in any group, though he wants to have their faith.

villain — this song is just really good for making a mental amv for lmao. it's good for demonstrating differing alliances n sides, n of course that applies here.

oh, death — not a lot of specific thoughts for this, just. yknow, death, vibes, dying for someone, watching your friend die, etc.

6up 5oh cop-out — first of all, I'm just a slut for will wood sometimes. second, a lot of the lyrics on their own could 100% be applied to events in the series (I mean I did use some from it for my etho n tango drawing for funsies) so. it's a strange song but the vibes fit well, in my opinion :]

kill of the night — a bit self explanatory, I think. in a series about trying to outlive, and to eventually kill your friends? no doubt you're going to end up hunting certain people down, hmmm? revenge, n all that. works well for multiple characters, really.

you're gonna go far, kid — impulse. just like. tango, or maybe etho, at impulse. "with a thousand lies and a good disguise, hit em right between the eyes" I meaaan 🤔 how is it NOT impulse lmao

kill the lights — once again, killing, death, murder, yknow. good vibes. also people lying and betraying one another, and watching as their friends and enemies die in front of them, people being changed by the events that transpire.. also technically they ARE actors sooo. kill the actor, yknow

mad IQs — mostly this song just slaps (thank you eexer 🙏) but also the lyrics fit well with the events! death, murder, killing your friends, burning. there is a lot of fire.

go get your gun — works very well for the whole war goin on. one side vs another, fighting and losing allies, fighting to win for their fallen allies, cheating fate if they DO win. also the line "when this is over, we'll raise a glass straight up to the sun" could be seen as like. everyone coming together to be friends once it's all over bc they are!

c'est la vie — it fits well. bad things happen, you lose people, you hurt, karma kicks your ass, but that's just life, and that's the game. c'est la vie.

i'm gonna win — fits for how they're all fighting to be the last one standing. and also with having to work through literally dying and to not give up, if you want to win.

mr capgras... — once again, I just like will wood. also fits well with people fighting each other, mostly with the chorus. "you'll never take me alive" / "you better pray that I die" likjkeeeee 👀 you could make art fitting those lyrics tbh

curses — red & green duos (at least. when they were intact :/) sticking together, taking care of one another when everything is going to hell, people are dying, and it's getting intense. they trust each other, at least.

under the pressure — don't really have something specific, it just fits well, with the lyrics. honestly this one fits well as a skizz song, now that I'm thinking about it. he went from trying to be friends with a lotta people to taking two out for good and went out in a blaze of glory. yea. that's what I got lol

everybody wants to rule the world — I dont think I really need an explanation for this one. it just fits well with everyone trying to win the whole game, and with everything slowly ramping up in intensity

rebels — for scar and grian being crime bros for the first while :] everything IS burning, good for them!

outrunning karma — impulse once again. playing everyone, playing to everyones good sides as much as he could, until the act didnt matter anymore. but karma might really kick him in the ass, if he ends up as one of the last survivors, and others turn on him for betraying everyone earlier on.

you're nobody til somebody wants you dead — shrug emoji. just fits well mostly. friends fighting eachother, betrayal, yadda yadda.

thanks i hate it — mmm,, tango? idk, im just a tango enjoyer, and he has spent quite a bit of effort trying to please certain groups to like. no avail. especially team crastle. like tbh he was solidly on board with em for a while, and mightve gone back to them on his own. but cleo blackmailed him anyway. rip tango.

the riddle — ALL OF IT. the whole series. it fits

crazy = genius — i dont rly like brendan urie like at all. so i might remove it from the playlist at some point. but it does fit with scar and grian being villains.

icarus — mmm fits well with grian. with the wing imagery, and with the fact that he made SO many enemies by working with scar. and he never reaallllyyyyy apologized, did he? he's walking a dangerous line, with few allies,

cradles — idk lmao. vibes only.

wolf in sheeps clothing — impulse again mostly lol. sung by skizz or etho probably. betrayal <3

how villains are made — again, for those neutral parties that had to choose a side. its about being torn between two sides & having to choose. honestly, I could see it fitting bigb, if he does some funky villain stuff next session. he deserves it I think <3

killing butterflies — trauma, ouchie, angst, murder your friends. everything hurts.

king — ren!! that's it.

little lion man — bruh if ren dies and leaves martyn alone.... ghost ren to martyn.... ouch.

gives you hell — red army @ sand people. specifically etho and ren get to be petty at scar i think

wine red — [gestures vaguely] all of it

i bet my life — red and green duos again. though it could be after some of them permadie.

miss missing you — (thanks again eexer this one also slaps <3) ouch impulse and tango angst. or impulse and etho angst. OR etho and tango angst. THEM. :(

youth — all of it but like. after it's over. just like going back and looking at how it all went down.

a gorey demise — i just think it would be fun to animate everyone's different deaths to this song tbh

another one bites the dust — they are once again Dying. but it's not angsty and dramatic this time.

god rest ye merry gentlemen — 😔 the whole thing again. pain

[mercury-retrograde-concept]

Mark and Haechan relationship: February 2021 tarot reading

A few days ago I received an ask about Mark and Haechan’s current relationship. Today I finally had the time to do that reading!

Note: Due to the question I received, this reading is centered more around attraction rather than friendship. I’m using the concept of ‘attraction’ in a very broad way. If you’re close to someone - as these two appear to be - there’s something that draws you to one another, and sometimes it’s totally platonic. Likewise, you can also be physically attracted to someone as annoying as hell. Basically I’ll go into this type of reading with an open mind, but if I see indicators of physical attraction I will note it (but I’m not assuming it either!)

Disclaimer: This tarot reading is for entertainment purposes only. All speculation comes from my interpretation only.

Current state of relationship: Three of Swords, The Magician

Clarifier card: Five of Swords (Reversed), Eight of Cups

Recent past: The Hierophant (Reversed), King of Swords Near future: Three of Pentacles, Knight of Pentacles Mark's role in the relationship: Student Archetype Card What Mark finds attractive about Haechan: Knight of Cups (Reversed), The Emperor (Reversed) What Mark finds unattractive about Haechan: Page of Swords, Judgement (Reversed) Haechan's role in the relationship: God Archetype Card What Haechan finds attractive about Mark: Page of Cups, Two of Wands What Haechan finds unattractive about Mark: Nine of Swords, Two of Pentacles

Uh, so... They had some conflict recently, again. Imagine that sheepishly smiling/sweat drop emoji here.

I don’t know if it was that big a deal though, at least relative to the 2017 conflict. I did go “ohhhh boy” when I pulled Three of Swords as the very first card, admittedly. For those who are new to tarot imagery, Three of Swords is a card often associated with heartbreak and in Rider-Waite imagery it looks like this:

Except, I’m using the After Tarot deck for this reading, which takes imagery from the Rider-Waite cards and shows the images a few moments later. Consequently, this is what I actually got for Three of Swords during this reading:

An image of the first few steps of healing. And I did pull a bunch of cards around this one that indicated reconciliation. From what I was able to ascertain, it looks like the blandness of life during COVID was wearing them down and they were picking fights with each other. There might even have been Words about how they would definitely not renew their contracts in a few years if it means being coworkers. (Seriously, where is that sweat-dropping emoji when I need it.)

Eventually, though, they realized that boredom and stagnation was their real enemy. They also seem to have become frustrated with SM’s controlling ways in general, and are mutually determined to take more control over their creative output. Kind of strikes me as a delayed rebellious teen phase. They also focused on channeling some of that frustration into their work. They have some passion projects they plan to bring to fruition, and the near future will involve them working away at this. Very curious about their next comeback to be honest.

Mark’s role within their relationship/friendship seems to be constantly in flux. He’s very in tune to Haechan’s ways and moods and will shape his behavior accordingly (or - if he’s pissed off - deliberately do the opposite of what Haechan probably wants.) While this means Haechan holds a lot of power in the relationship, it can sort of difficult for him to get a grasp on what Mark is really like.

Haechan’s enthusiastic nature is probably the thing Mark finds most attractive about Haechan. Haechan is dramatic, passionate, and full of stories/gossip. He can be incredibly fun to hang out with when work is otherwise grueling and boring. He can also be quick with comments and flattery, which Mark enjoys. It’s a nice balm to all the critiques he inevitably gets from management, because Mark always takes those seriously. On the flip-side, though, Haechan can also be exhausting. He won’t let anything go and is very prone to arguing, just for the sake of being right. He can also be scatterbrained when Mark just wants to focus. Furthermore, whenever Haechan is feeling insecure, it tends to exacerbate these same qualities that Mark finds deeply annoying.

As for Haechan’s feelings towards Mark ... well he does seem to find Mark’s base personality very cute, haha. For Haechan, Mark is an idealistic, sensitive presence, but he’s also assertive enough about his own career to be decisive and willing to take risks. I feel like Haechan thinks a lot of people fail to notice Mark’s confidence/occasional implacability. Haechan is very aware of it, meanwhile. In fact, he likes to encourage these tendencies in Mark, because a lot of people in management tend to treat Mark like a workhorse. Yes, Mark can seemingly do it all, but Mark also has ideas of his own and Haechan appreciates that aspect of him. As I stated above, Mark can sometimes be something of a emotional shapeshifter with Haechan, so it’s kind of a personal victory for Haehan whenever he can get Mark to be decisive about something.

All that being said, Haechan also dislikes Mark’s tendency towards moodiness. Haechan doesn’t know why Mark gets overwhelmed so easily and takes so many things to heart. Sometimes Haechan is sympathetic, but sometimes Haechan just interprets this as Mark thinking he’s the only one with issues. This seems to be something rather irreconcilable between these two because I got similar vibes for my reading for their 2017 fight. It looks as though they handle things in a more mature way, now, but this will always be a fundamental point of contention between the two of them maybe.

Looking at these cards as a whole, it’s pretty interesting. I’m getting the vibes of a relationship where they do not get each other in a lot of key ways. Sometimes these differences are deeply annoying, but they also find these differences engaging and exciting a lot of the time, too.

[sophi-s]

Cost of Kindness

Chapter I: Chance encounter

By: sophi-s

Fandom: Darksiders video games

Words: 6,471

Characters: Original female character (OC), Raphael

Warnings: Graphic description of corpses, blood and injuries, disturbing imagery, swearing

Summary:

Life of a human after the apocalypse is difficult. The world seems to always be against them. Still, they keep on living. But one day something unexpected happens to one of the inhabitants of Haven. A woman named Nicola discovered something... or rather someone... who seemed to be in equally as sorry state as her entire race put together. Nothing was the same ever since. It's curious how one seemingly random event can change everything...

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Nicola got lost again. All the promises she made to both Ulthane and Jones have gone into trash when with a pang of worry she's suddenly realised she does not know where Haven is. It was supposed to be a short supply run, a little trip to some ruined store in search of food and maybe some medicine if luck wished to be on her side and it turned into a whole day long journey. She hadn't been careful enough and ended up getting spotted. She was too fast for that Trauma to get to her before she disappeared into a narrow alley but she successfully lost her orientation.

Navigating through the city used to be so easy before all this apocalypse nonsense. Nicola knew her way around better than anyone honestly. Now everything looked different. What once was her home now seemed sinister and the animosity could be felt in every, even the tiniest speck of dust. All streets, previously so familiar to her, looked exactly the same, often cut in half by obsidian spikes and pits of boiling magma which made moving around even more troubling. In short words, the entire place was a wreckage. With each moment of aimless wandering, her panic was growing. Inwardly cursing, thinking about all the reprimanding she would get after she somehow finds her way back and the fact that she's most likely going to get grounded forever, she tried to move through the street as quietly as possible, without causing any unnecessary noises. Becoming an evening snack for a pack of Goreclaws or a Trauma wasn't a very attractive fate. The latter could still be around here somewhere and the blood spilling from a cut on her forehead she got when she accidentally ran into a wooden beam protruding from a wall wasn't going to make it harder for it to eventually find her again.. It was very unlikely that the Trauma could've gotten stuck in that alley after it tried to get to her. They are dumb. But not that dumb. Though the mental image alone was quite hilarious now that she thinks about it.. To some extent imagining a Trauma helplessly shuffling to try and unstuck itself from a narrow pathway made her feel a tad better, even crack a little smile. Still, she had to think of something. She'd already lived through too much to just die at this point.

Evening? Clutching a shotgun in her shaking hands, Nicola looks out at the amber sky and her heart hastens when she realises that it really is getting late. The last rays of sun were slowly sinking behind the horizon, slowly turning the sky from warm orange to indigo as the tall buildings bathed the city in deep shadows stretching over the ground like dark omens. Just perfect. There was no other choice for her than to hide somewhere and wait until dawn and resume her search tomorrow, hoping someone will start looking for her. Going anywhere after the dusk was an equivalent of a  suicide. Demons and the Wicked tend to be especially active after the nightfall.. Nicola would rather not bump into one of the Suffering either, those things are especially nasty. Hulking, four-armed abominations melded with bodies of the dead, bringing back all those poor souls who weren't lucky enough to get away… she shudders at the thought and hastens her pace.

Most of the houses were already destroyed and usually infested with all kinds of detestable creatures she'd rather avoid - from Wicked, through all kinds of demons and Duskwings, to enormous spiders ready to cocoon any unfortunate passerby for a snack - unfit to be a shelter. But honestly, what wasn't crawling with Hellspawn these days? They were everywhere, as far as the sight can reach. Heaving out a long suffering sigh, Nicola decided to hide underneath the city, hoping she won't find any monsters there.

That was not one of her most brilliant ideas but in truth whatever she chose, it would be just as bad and she hardly cared at this point. Her legs felt as though they went a couple of inches up her arse from all day of walking and running and her empty stomach growled hungrily as she didn't get a chance to stop and eat a sandwich hidden in her backpack. It didn't take long to find a lid of a well leading to the sewers below. Just in case, Nicola dug some new shells out from her backpack and shoved them into her pocket to have easy access to them before pulling the lid out and uncovering a stinking hole in the pavement. The strong "aroma" that drifted out hit her like a brick to the face.

"Ugh.."

Nicola groaned, pinching her nose. Even after the literal armageddon, she still found sewers to be one of the grossest things ever. Like, come on, that's where all the piss and shit goes and a person who enters the sewers for even a minute comes out coated in this stench. Oh well.. It can't be worse than getting torn to shreds by a Goreclaw, can it? Up here was definitely worse than below. Everything she'd met so far - except for Ulthane, Yarin and Elanya - was trying to kill her lately. At least there was no sign of the Big Bad anywhere… Nicola had seen the so-called Destroyer only once and it was enough to last her a lifetime, considering how close she'd been back then. The fact that he didn't spot her, she probably owed the fact that she was somewhere to his right and from what she'd seen his right eye wasn't exactly in good condition. Though, she couldn't deny that the dragon did look sick as Hell - she cringed inwardly at the bad joke her mind produced - and if she wasn't scared shittless and in danger of getting eaten or burned alive, she probably would've taken out her notebook and tried to sketch him. Not often does one see a dragon up this close and Nicola had a habit of drawing anything even remotely interesting she sees. And the more challenging the thing is, the better. In her sketchbook, she already had Ulthane and his younger companions, Vulgrim, some other demons and a Fallen. The last thing she did see pretty damn close. Too close for her liking.

Pulling her stained, dark-blue neckerchief up to her nose as a mostly useless mask against the foul smell, she crouches down and with a loose piece of a brick scratches out a message on the ground, hoping either Jones or some other survivor will find it.

I'M IN THE SEWER

NIKA <3

Just to make it clear, she tears a piece of her already ragged sleeve off and places it under the aforementioned brick next to the message. It's not much but it has to be enough… Without further ado, Nicola slid inside the dark hole and closed the lid above her head. Utter blackness immediately closed around her like a thick coverlet. A quiet sound of dripping, echoing through the tunnel was all that she could hear.

Plip. Plop. Plip. Plop.

Should've thought about taking out a flashlight before cutting off the only source of light.

Grumbling under her breath, Nicola jumped down from a small ladder. But instead of landing on the hard and straight ground, her feet connected with something soft and uneven. With a small yelp, she lost her balance and fell flat onto the actual floor with a wet "Thwack!". Please just be regular water… She begged the puddle underneath her as she scrambled to her feet and pulled the backpack from her shoulders. For a few minutes, she blindly searched through her things, probing for the light source. When her fingers found the flashlight and she turned it on however, she nearly screamed.

That thing she landed on wasn't a mound of garbage like she previously assumed but a body. Body of a dead Phantom General. Its skin was in an unhealthy pallid shade, misty eyes were bulging out of their sockets. And the squishy bit she landed on was its face. Nicola nervously laughs to herself

"Maybe the stench killed him?"

The thought of a large demon dying in a sewer just because it smells bad was kind of amusing and a little comforting. But then she realised that if that was the case, then there's nothing to laugh at. What if there are some poisonous gases in here? Hydrogen sulfide, for example? If it killed a demon, undoubtedly much more hearty, then why shouldn't it do so with a human?

"Shit.. I hope not…"

Nicola curses and immediately presses the neckerchief closer to her face like it would do her any good. Well, no point in wondering about it now. If she were to get poisoned then she probably already was so… Father would be so disappointed if he found out she died in a sewer by inhaling toxic gas. I should've paid more attention to chemistry lessons…  Anyway.. Standing here will not make it any better. She might as well find herself a place to rest for a while or forever. Unless healing shards work on that stuff, she had nothing on her to help should she get poisoned. Flinging her backpack over her shoulder, Nicola turns away from the corpse and peers into the dark pathway which opened before her like a gullet of a gargantuan monster waiting to swallow her whole. Having absolutely no idea that this choice would change her miserable life forever, she takes a breath and bravely moves onward.

The Phantom General wasn't the only one. As Nicola walked deeper into the dark, stinking corridor, she noticed more bodies. Goreclaws, Wicked, Phantom Guards, even a couple of Duskwings and - this was the most unsettling discovery - the serpentine Shadowcaster… all of them pale and wizened. An unnerving feeling grew in her stomach. Nicola had seen much death as of late but this… this was horrifying. It was like walking through a tomb or a mass grave. Up close she could see something she hadn't noticed before. Something that made her mouth turn sandpaper. All of the bodies seemed… dried for the lack of a better word. As though something had drained them of their blood, leaving only shriveled husks behind. But there were no wounds, no markings. Nicola gulps at the thought that whatever killed them might still be down here with her.

Backing away, she takes a turn into another section and curls up in a corner by a metal grate blocking the way ahead. Nicola turns the flashlight off and hugs her knees to her chest, trying to control her fearful breathing. Climbing down into the sewers wasn't such a good idea after all. What if… what if there are things far worse down here than the demons she'd already seen? Her parents often scared her with stories of monsters lurking in the dark pipes and winding tunnels when she was a child but those were only supposed to keep her away from the sewers. The true reason was always the toxic miasma drifting through them. Or so she thought as she grew older. Now it seems that the former turned out to be true… And if it murdered a Shadowcaster just like that, then it was a creature to be reckoned with, no doubt.

Whatever it is that hides in here, Nicola didn't want to meet it. Whether it was a classic sewer monster, grotesque, with teeth and tentacles, or something else it didn't matter. Looking down at her left wrist, where her blessedly still working electrical watch with sun batteries was, she squinted at the numbers it showed.

7:48 P.M.

This was going to be a long night… If she survives this, she would get out and return to the Tree, and tell Ulthane she will never leave again. Essentially, she'd ground herself for him. If she could find her way back, that is.. And this might prove rather tricky. Maybe if she could find a Serpent Hole and bribe Vulgrim to take her to Haven, it would be much easier. But then again, she will have to give him something. Aside from her soul, she had nothing he would be interested in and that she could still make use of. Damn it, why is it so cold in here? Pulling the zip of her vest up to her chin, she curls up even more and hides her hands in her pockets to seek any warmth she could find. The stench wasn't even phasing her anymore. Nicola got used to it after the first few minutes. Besides, her fear was what she was mostly focused on. At least she didn't feel anything that would hint at being poisoned.. Whatever deadly stuff was down here before must've dispersed some time after the apocalypse after the disuse of the sewers. And thank God for that..

Meow…

Her head snapped up at the echo coming from the tunnel she backed out from. It was very weak and quiet but she definitely heard something that sounded vaguely like a cat. A very small and very scared cat.

Meow…

There it was again. This time accompanied by a barely visible flash of light coming from the tunnel further down. Cursing her innate curiosity, she pulled herself up to her feet and snuck towards the entrance to her little hidey-hole. The light appeared again before slowly fading. It looked a little like… like someone was coming here with a broken flashlight. Could it… could it be someone from the Tree? Maybe another survivor lost their way in the sewers? Picking up her shotgun, she decides to check it out, the thoughts of a monster not forgotten per se, but definitely pushed to the back of her mind. Wary of every step she makes, she follows the light and the sounds of a distressed animal. Sleep was never an option anyway..

As she walked onwards, the lights were getting brighter, the meowing louder and the pounding of her heart faster. There were more corpses in various states of decay and skeletons strewn about the further she headed but she decided to stay brave. Should anything attack her, she has the shotgun at the ready. Something in her head laughed at her hysterically. How can she be so naive to think that if there's a monster down here her pathetic shotgun can do it much harm? It didn't have a problem with killing all those things. Why would it have a problem with Nicola and her weak human weapon? Besides, even if she did manage to defend herself, one shot from that thing would bring half of the city down on her head. And that was something she definitely wanted to avoid.

Meow!

Another flash. Her surroundings were slowly starting to change. The bodies were left behind and she started to notice wooden crates lying here and there as though someone meant to hide the passage further down. Was this a hide out if some sort? Flash again.

Meow!

And then…

"Hush, little one… I won't let them hurt you again…"

Nicola's heart hastened when a shaky voice reached her. There really was someone down here! However, she doesn't let her ecstasy control her. They don't necessarily have to be friendly. Everyone is permanently scared and paranoid since the apocalypse and if she jumped out from a dark sewer without a warning she's more likely to receive a bullet to the face than a warm welcome. A flash, very bright this time. Before, she didn't notice it but the light was actually… green? Soft, soothing shade of green. Who uses a green flashlight? Someone who didn't have any other. We're in an apocalypse, for God's sake. Shrugging, she sneaks up towards the turn and carefully peeks into the new corridor, unable to take the anticipation any longer. And she freezes.

There were many things Nicola expected to find. Even the sewer monster was higher on her list of possibilities. But not this. Before her, approximately fifteen feet or so, in a makeshift shelter made out of ratty curtains and wooden boxes sat a humanoid figure. They were wearing some sort of metal shoulder pads on their ragged, dark green clothing, worn and stained, once undoubtedly fine knee-high boots, and a tattered and dirty hood. The gilded edges of their pauldrons were smudged and tarnished, as were the clips of the belts on their hips and across their chest. A pair of disheveled, dusted grey, feathery wings was closed around them like two shields protecting their sides and keeping the warmth in the resulting heat cave. Through a gap between the feathers, she noticed strands of long, white hair in the similar state as the wings spilling from under the hood.

This was one of those… those angels who came as the apocalypse began. Only… This one didn't seem like the rest. They didn't look like one of the warriors. And were unarmed at that, she realises once she doesn't catch a sight of any sort of weapon nearby. 

Meow!

Nicola heard it clearly now, and trying to track down the source of the sound, her eyes wandered to a hand of the angel, one which they held close to their chest. And there, on their large palm rested a tiny ball of fluff with its fur clogged with blood. The angel was hunched over a wounded kitten, and from time to time they brought up the other hand and gently ran their trembling fingers wrapped in stained bandages over the jagged claw mark along its spine. The green light flared up from angel's fingertips as gradually the wound was stitching itself. A sorcerer then. If meeting Shadowcasters was any indicator, then it would be better not to mess with this one.

Meow!

The kitten cried again and the angel, now she was pretty sure it was a male, spoke with a soft and calming, but shaking voice that reached to the depth of her soul.

"Fret not… it will be over. Soon enough."

In honesty, Nicola really had to stop herself from making a loud "awww" noise as she watched this angel treat a tiny injured kitten. How did he get here in the first place? Shouldn't he be with the rest of his buddies? She honestly never thought one of them would ever fall so low as to hide in a sewer of all places. Unless there was no other option. He must've gotten lost or something.. She thinks, almost snickering at how similar to hers this situation was.

To make no mistake, she didn't want to approach the angel, especially after what she'd seen during the apocalypse - most of them didn't give two shits about what happen to her race - and so Nicola decided, even if slightly disappointed that it wasn't another human survivor or someone looking for her like she previously assumed, to go away and leave him be with his kitten. The angels the apocalypse has shown to her were hardly the kind and thoroughly good creatures the image of she grew up with.. But then, nature decided to play a cruel prank on her and a horrifyingly loud sound of her stomach rumbling was carried over the immediate vicinity.

Nicola cursed inwardly at her stupid stomach - really, she would've eaten that sandwich but the smell of the server was very unappetizing - when the angel quickly looked up before gently placing the cat down on a piece of folded cloth and snapping his fingers to produce a small wisp of normal, white light. Now, his face wasn't obscured by the shadow of his hood. It was just like a face of a human, especially with all the grime smeared over it, just more… how to describe it? Features were more apparent, simultaneously sharp and smooth. Like those of a sculpture. Almost overly perfect. However, he looked ill, emaciated with his cheeks collapsed like this and sunken eyes, seemingly too large for his head. His eyes… brilliant white with faint silvery pupils, glowing like two wisps, opened wide in an absolutely blank, emotionless stare, not unlike that of a man in feverish delirium. How long had he been down here?

"Who.. who's there..?"

His lips barely moved as he spoke, his wide eyes darted around in panic as he searched for intruders. Not that she could blame him. Her stomach sounded like a starving demon and as far as she's concerned, his kind isn't really fond of those.. The angel looked a little like a terrified, wounded animal that had been cornered by predators with no apparent way out. It was… sad somehow. Since she'd already been heard, Nicola carefully stepped out of her hiding spot. The reaction she got however, was far different from what she's been expecting. The angel gasped, his wings shot up like two enormous flags as he lifted his hands. Green magic crackled along his slender fingers with most of the nails broken and bloodied as she froze where she stood.

"G- get away! Back off, foul creature!"

He stuttered but didn't attack just yet. Swallowing a lump of fear Nicola forced herself to very, very slowly and carefully take a few steps closer to enter the illuminated area around the scared angel to make him realise this is a misunderstanding and she means no harm. She even left her gun on the floor not to make him feel threatened and kept her hands up, palms forward where he could see them. He squinted but this hollow look in his eyes remained. Disturbing… Even more so when he started to mutter nervously to himself, rubbing his eyebrows with his thumb.

"No… not a demon, nor an angel, a human perhaps…? Yes, yes… has to be… But that's not possible.. They're… they're all gone. Dead, killed, stone dead… Who is this and what do you want? Your tricks won't work on me.."

"I- I'm not trying to trick you, I swear! I am a human. I'm Nicola.."

She assures the angel, hoping that giving him her name will make him feel a little less threatened. A quiet sigh of relief slipped past Nicola's lips when the magic in his hands faded as he curiously - a little like a small, inquisitive puppy - tilted his head to the left.

"Nic… ola…"

He breathed, mulling over her name, testing it on his tongue but his wings still remained aggressively flared above his head. The kitten meowed again, too weak to stand up from the bedding the angel made for it. He seemed to calm down a bit as he glanced down at it and with a flick of his finger made the animal lazily blink before it curled into a ball and immediately fell asleep. The wound on its back wasn't so large anymore and it wasn't bleeding so the black fluff with white feet and collar wasn't in any immediate danger. Angel's attention shifted back to her. But Nicola was the first one to speak.

"Who are you? How'd you get down here?

"Don't know… Human… a human. How did you get in my study? You really shouldn't be here. What is it you want from me? I'm working on improving my shards…"

"I-... Wait, your what ?"

Nicola's face scrunched up in confusion. Get in where? Working on improving his what??

"No, this isn't right… they need more energy…"

At this point she had absolutely no idea what the angel was rambling on about but she could clearly see he was completely out of his mind. Frankly speaking, she wasn't actually sure if he knows what he's babbling either.. There was only one thing that came to her mind when he spoke of shards and so she dug into her pocket, trying to find the one she'd been carrying with her just in case as he clutched at his head, tangling his fingers into his hair under his hood…

"It worked… I did it, I can… but it hurts… Creator, how it hurts… Cold.. so cold…"

His voice was starting to break as his unsteady breathing turned into something akin to sobbing but no tears were shed and he started to rock back and forth, still muttering something unintelligible. Something in Nicola's gut squirmed - or maybe it was the hunger again - as she looked at the scrawny angel mercifully. Whatever happened to him, it must've been horrible. It takes a very traumatic experience to bring a human to such a state but an angel is a different story. Seeing anyone like this saddened her. Finally, her fingers found what they were searching for and she extracted a small healing shard from her vest.

"You mean like…"

At the gentle, green glow the shard was emitting, the angel looked up astonished and let his mouth fall open. He stopped shaking and grasping his head.

"Yes… yes, my shard. I need… My blade. Where's my blade? Who…? My name? My name… I remember, I swear."

This talk of a blade was mildly unsettling to say the least but something in her chest twisted with pity and all fear left her. A little more bravely, Nicola approached the murmuring angel who attempted to scratch something out on the floor beside his knee but only successfully broke one of his nails again and hissed quietly. What happened to you, you poor thing? When she crouched next to him, he stared at her as though he'd seen a ghost when she realised he isn't looking into her eyes anymore. But at her forehead.

"You're… injured…"

He stated as matter of factly. Oh. Right. That was true. It barely hurt anymore though… and wasn't even bleeding. She's certainly had much worse. It will heal on its own in no time.

"Let me just-"

Suddenly he leaned forward to grab at her, making her heart leap up to her throat as she cried out in fear and jumped away from him. Instinctively, Nicola booked it for the tunnel she came from when she heard a heavy thud and a pained groan behind her.. It was her good hearted nature what ultimately made her stop in her tracks and look over her shoulder. To see the angel on the floor, weakly propping himself on his elbows and breathing heavily. He was very weakened. It's unclear how long he'd been down here but it certainly has taken its toll. Nicola looked out into the dark tunnel. Whatever awaited her in this darkness and out in the city surely isn't nicer than this poor sod behind her. She wasn't even sure if he actually meant to hurt her or not. It was a reflex. Then she turned to look back at the angel shivering on the wet floor.. Her throat tightened. God, she couldn't just leave it like this, could she?

"H- hey… are- are you okay?"

Nicola approaches the angel warily and squats before him as he lifts his head to look at her. And in his eyes she sees pain. Horrible, unimaginable pain, somewhere deep within, that made his crusted lips tremble. Such a sight would be enough to break even the coldest hearts. And definitely more than enough to break hers. He eyes her hands when she hesitantly takes him by the arm - careful when she notices a rag stained with fresh blood above his left elbow - and tries to pull him up to his feet or at least to a sitting position but he doesn't recoil. He simply kept staring at her hands in bewilderment. To her surprise, he was much lighter than he looked, probably because of how thin he was, and she managed to do what she intended but she could see that his legs won't uphold his weight as meager as it is. The angel glanced at the cut on her head and once again, albeit far more cautiously, reached out towards it.

"I can… I can heal it. Just hold still.. It will take a second.."

And in spite of herself, Nicola gives him a chance this time. He extended two fingers and as their tips started to glow with green, he gently tapped against her damaged skin. It felt… odd. It wasn't painful but still strange. The edges of the wound grew numb and prickly as the patch of comforting warmth fell over her forehead. And what was even odder, the angel smiled slightly, whispering

"There… It is done.. I.. remember. Was it…? It was, wasn't it… Raphael?"

"Wh- what? What are you talking about, who's Raphael?"

Nicola asks, probing the new, thin scar that was now formed in place of the cut. He really did heal her. Curious. And it did take a second.. For a moment, his face scrunched up in confusion but only for this second before he brightened and some of the strange mist fell from his white eyes as he brought both of his hands up and repeatedly poked his chest with all of his fingers.

"Me.. Raphael is… it's me! And you…"

He extended one finger and aimed it at her head.

"You are Nicola. "

"Y- yeah. Nice to meet you, I guess…"

She hesitantly replies as the circumstances of this meeting weren't exactly "nice". In a dark, damp sewer filled with stench and corpses with a possible monster lurking nearby? Far from nice if someone would ask her.

"What.. huh. What is this place?"

Raphael unexpectedly asked, looking around with his large, white eyes, blinking in confusion. Nicola pulls a face, unsure how to tackle the odd angel.

"You… don't know? You've been living here."

"Have I? Hmmm.. Strange…"

He murmured thoughtfully, scratching at his white goatee also painted with blood that surely spilled from the cut on his lower lip. Then his face shifted into concern as he tried to pull himself up with a strained grunt, clutching at an old, but not healed yet, gash over his ribs.

"I… I have to get back.. they need me in the White City…"

As she was expecting, he collapsed back onto the floor with a tired sigh not even a second later. Where and what was the "White City" he spoke of, she had no idea. What she did know however, was that in his condition Raphael isn't going anywhere. Even if he managed to get up, she could bet her right hand that he would make ten steps at most before collapsing again. Nicola winces and tilts her head to the side.

"Pal, I don't think you're in shape for walking or flying right now.."

"No, I suppose not… they cannot see me like this. I cannot return.."

At this point she wasn't surprised that Raphael kept muttering to himself about things her human brain couldn't hope to comprehend. Nicola got long used to this however. Ever since the armageddon there were very few things she could understand. It wasn't a normal day if something new and weird didn't happen to her or one of her remaining friends. Any hostility the angel showed before has faded now, his wings folded back around him as he leaned over the sleeping kitten to continue treating it. The gentleness he did it with, the uncertain smile on his face were making Nicola's heart melt. Raphael didn't seem like his friends indeed. He was different somehow. Kinder, softer. Less aggressive. More fitting the image of a stereotypical angel. But also definitely not quite… right. Up in the head.

Oh, well. Who is totally normal these days, honestly?

She wants to chuckle to herself when something gives her a pause. A horrifyingly familiar sound coming from the tunnel behind her. Panting, scraping and growling. Inevitably getting closer and closer. Her heart plummets to her heels. This sound… she would recognise it everywhere. The sound that haunted her dreams ever since the demon tore her twin brother, Nicholas, to shreds. This demon.. a Goreclaw, as Ulthane called it. Whipping around, she just managed to spot the quadrupedal monster - the size of your average Caucasian Shepherd (which was still awfully large for its kind), with long, lashing tail and sharp fangs constantly bared in a disturbing grin - appear in the entrance, cutting off the only escape route.

It must've heard Nicola's startled scream and followed it all the way here, hoping for an easy prey. Her breath caught in her throat as she stands paralyzed by the blood-hungry glare of multiple red eyes. This ugly mug, covered in blood of her sibling was still fresh in her mind, keeping her absolutely petrified. Unable to do anything, she kicks herself for leaving her shotgun behind. Now it was resting between the clawed paws of the demon who screeched in excitement as it prepared to pounce at her. Though honestly, with how rigid her body turned, she doubts she'd be able to aim, not to mention pulling the trigger.

This is it. She thinks, feeling blood leave her face. I'm gonna die. After all she's been through.. Killed by a single Goreclaw, ripped apart in a stinking sewer like an ungrateful little shite. Ulthane did so much to rescue her from the claws of that Fallen and now all his efforts are going to go to waste.. Crying out in dismay, she shields herself from the oncoming attack with her arms and shuts her eyes.

Something shifted behind her as the demon jumped at her and… nothing happened. Opening her eyes, horrified and shocked, Nicola almost gags when she sees the Goreclaw standing before her and just… gawking with its jaw slack as though it got hit on the head with something heavy. Faint golden light running around its body like tiny veins didn't escape her attention. That's when she noticed that the demon was trying to move, straining with its own stiff muscles and growling. But couldn't. It was completely paralyzed. A quiet, barely audible thrumming filled the air around Nicola and she began to feel something strange. Something she could only describe as magic. The arcane static began to nip and the bite at her skin like miniscule locusts when a green haze enveloped the Goreclaw before her. The same light fell onto her back, laying her quivering shadow out at her feet. A realisation hit her.

Raphael. He's still there.

After the apocalypse, Nicola had no delusions that angels, even the kindest ones, are ever defenseless. Before she could turn to face the angel, her would-be killer suddenly let out a soul-rending shriek that yet again almost made her drop dead or simply puke out of pure fear. Freed from the paralysis, it fell to the floor, writhing, clawing at its own chest and screeching the most ungodly noise Nicola had ever heard. What's happening?! Absolutely petrified, she watched as the demon's skin seemed to dry and wrinkle as its eyes were nearly popping out of its skull. Life - and color - was frighteningly quickly seeping out of the demon as it squirmed in agony, wailing, unable to fight the power that got a hold of it.

All this looked like taken straight out of a horror movie. And Nicola, on the contrary to Nicholas, was never a fan of those… It all took merely a few seconds of unimaginable torment before the unfortunate Goreclaw wheezed and eventually fell still with its jaws opened and tongue lolled out, wide eyes dull and unblinking, and didn't move ever again. Dead. The memory of all those corpses she has found passed through her head. The Goreclaw looked just like them… Afraid to move a muscle, she stared at the light that moved away from the dead demon, following its movement to the sight that made her back up aghast.

Raphael. The same seemingly gentle angel who healed a small, hurt animal - who healed her - was suspended in midair, tattered robes and disheveled hair billowing, with his wings flared and bristled. This soft smile was replaced by an absolute lack of any expression whatsoever as his wide eyes burned with the whitest white of unbridled anger she'd ever seen. Green streaks of magic - the same green she found so soothing before, now ominous and frightening - bathing the surroundings in brightness, were swirling around his arms, hands with fingers curled into vicious claws. For this moment he looked much stronger, a little younger… and far more dangerous than he seemed before.

"As long as I live.. I shall not stand suffering !"

Raphael bellowed at the corpse at her feet even though it was long dead and already turning cold, caring very little about how horrified she was. He didn't even seem to care how much suffering the demon had experienced before it blessedly lost its hold on life. Not that Nicola thought it didn't deserve that but still it was… pretty gruesome.. Raphael's wounded and weakened body absorbed the life-force drained from the demon and only then did he slowly descend onto the floor and landed on his feet, breathing out with relief. The magic gradually dissipated along with the sharp prickling sensation until only the tiny golden wisp hovering next to Raphael's head remained. His wings fell into their place against his back, this furious light faded out of his bright eyes before he turned to Nicola to shoot her a disarming, awkward smile as though nothing had happened at all. This tiny smile was hardly comforting.. Quite the opposite in fact. It chilled her to the bone like the coldest winter wind.

Oh fuck.

Swallowing thickly, Nicola looked up at Raphael, now standing on his own legs, clearly revitalized by the stolen energy, and felt a little fearful tear roll down her face. Then she shifted her gaze to the demon. Then back to Raphael, who seemed so small and weak before but stood at least two, maybe three feet taller than Nicola - her head reached the bottom of his sternum. I was wrong. She realises with a pang of panic, feeling a little sick in the stomach at the mere thought that this kind healer was as capable of killing her where she stood as any demon up above her head. All he had to do was flick his wrist and look at her and she wouldn't have been able to do a thing to defend herself. It suddenly made sense. There was no sewer monster down here. No beast that would threaten her. No foul creature that could suck the blood from her body and leave ber as a mummified corpse. All this death, all these bodies… The horrifying monster Nicola was expecting to find...

It was him.

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So yeah. That was the chapter I. I'll try to make more but I don't promise anything XD

The moral of this story? Don't piss off/spook angel sorcerers. Especially the crazy ones.

Also, the art at the end was once again inspired by @coloredgravity 's rendition of Raphael (I drew this mostly out of memory 😂). In addition I gave him a symbol of virtue from Darkest Dungeon over his head. He's mad, true. But he still tries to hold it together :3

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Loretta's First Lesson

Heart racing, she dropped the parasol and took the machete from where it had clattered onto the floor. She swung it up, high over her head, standing above two men locked in a deathly struggle.

The blade sliced through the air and hacked into the skull with much more ease than she expected, yet still sending painful shockwaves into her wrists with the impact, preceding how the blade slowed and stopped.

Squelching sounds accompanied its removal, yanked out of the wiry old man's head from whatever bone and brain matter gripped it tightly. The train's freight wagon rattled and shook rhythmically, the steam locomotive howled.

Pushing the dead man aside, the other man—whose life she had just saved—stared up at her. Though one eye focused on her, piercing and smoldering, the other—the dead eye—caught her attention for far longer: framed by a claw-torn scar and a milky-white iris where color should be. Their gazes met in that moment, and she cracked.

She turned and ran.

The doorway did not take her to the next train car, but into a dark room. A quiet place. A single cone of light shone down from a blinding little hole in the ceiling, bathing a small green statuette in its cone of illumination.

The fist-sized object sat on the obsidian floor before her, staring at her like the marshal. It looked hideous, like a small jade gargoyle hugging its own clawed legs, enveloped in its bat wings, and with what looked like tentacles where a mouth should be.

It whispered incomprehensibly. Words that pierced her thoughts and she understood instinctively without knowing the language.

Take me, it pleaded. Take me and run far away. Take me to where I belong.

Take me to where you belong.

She knelt by the little statuette and her trembling hand reached out. Instead of a cool surface, it felt hot and silky, like living skin. It had a pulse.

She awoke. Snapped right out of her nightmare, startling awake where she sat in the train, as it rhythmically rumbled and rolled and shook, heading down the tracks from Dead End to Louisville.

Loretta Charlotte Brubaker had been running away from everything for a while now. She had run away from her overbearing and violent husband several days ago, traveling out west from the coast to escape that life with whatever money she had stolen from him.

She had abandoned the last vestige of that mental prison, having now even abandoned the last fancy dress to adorn her lithe figure, which she had still owned when she met the U.S. Marshal one day prior, on the train, on that fateful day.

Now, she was running from Dead End and that same U.S. Marshal. Some other purpose drove him, but she was not going to stick around and wait for him to find out about her and arrest her once he knew. She had seen wanted signs posted before, and always expected to see her name and face appear on one. Anytime now.

One mere night she had spent in that rugged frontier town, recovering from the shock of helping the marshal kill that crazy old man in the train car. The sound that accompanied her pulling that machete from his skull still haunted her. First time she ever killed man.

The marshal checked in on her on the eve of arrival, but she dismissed him immediately and had no interest in talking. A terrible nightmare arrived on the wings of her next slumber, and now it returned the moment she dozed away in the next train, right back out of town.

That very same day, she had abandoned her old clothing and started dressing as a man, drawing a driving cap deep over her brow to obscure her feminine facial features. A conductor already addressed her with "mister" when she boarded the train, which had left her both surprised—and feeling oddly comfortable. Maybe she could assume a man's identity to start her new life.

For now, one of the other passengers gawked at her with an arched brow from the seat across from her. Even though he looked pale and frail and unthreatening—hugging a heavy black bag and a pair of thick spectacles resting on his nose—she avoided eye contact once she recognized the curiosity inherent in his stare. Likely wondering about her gender.

The world outside the train's window trailed by. A beautiful landscape by any measure, the horizon comprised of a forest's thick canopy danced under the late morning sun. Thin white clouds streaked across a sky shaping up to be a deep blue, like the ocean.

Noticing how the monotony of that landscape rolling past them almost had a hypnotic effect, Loretta blinked and rubbed her tired eyes with a thumb and a finger alike. The nightmares had afforded her little rest and she was not inclined to experience another one by dozing off again.

She got up and took a stroll through the train, eventually stopping at an open window where she could stand and lean out. The cool breeze enveloping the moving train washed over her, sweet with the smell of steam that billowed out from the locomotive's stacks.

Although tears had once blurred her vision as a stranger consoled her after that harrowing experience of killing a man with her own two hands, it had all been so recent. The image of the world around her had etched itself into her memory, and she looked to the woodlands around her to see if she could spot any landmarks that caught her eye.

They were getting close to the place she sought. Her nightmares were guiding her. The statuette wanted her to find it. To take it. Whenever she closed her eyes, even in waking moments, she saw this object that she herself had never laid eyes upon. She knew without knowing that it once rested in that cargo car.

The one the marshal had decoupled and let loose from the end of the train, moments before it turned into a fireball with a deafening thunderclap.

Smooth and indestructible, the jade statuette had survived the blast somehow, untouched, sitting in the wreckage before greedy hands found it first and whisked it away. She had seen all this in her dreams.

In her nightmares, she saw many things. Many people. Sensed she needed to get that statuette before it stayed in wrong hands for too long. For what it might summon.

The patches of woodland narrowed around the tracks, beginning to resemble the region where the freight wagon exploded. The train tracks had been cleared, but she could spot scorched earth around them from afar.

It was time.

She returned to where she had left her satchel in the booth with the skinny, scholarly-looking man. He flashed Loretta a nervous smile but then immediately avoided eye contact like she had before. She ignored him and snagged her bag, shouldered it, and headed farther down the train, crossing through sets of doors, crossing from wagon to wagon through the connecting little bridges exposed to the air.

The new revolver in her satchel burned a hole into it. Out of the rest of her meager belongings and the money, it weighed the most, bobbing up and down as she walked, and making itself acutely felt with each of her steps.

Her heart began to race once she exited the final door, arriving behind the coal container of the train's locomotive engine. No more easy walking from here on out.

Loretta swallowed her fear as her eyes scanned the sides of the front. Stories of bandits taking over trains surfaced in her thoughts. Her mind's inner eye played back imagery of how she envisioned this to play out.

Grappling with thin handholds turned out to be scarier than she initially thought. The noise of the machinery churning the metal wheels drowned out everything else, though her own heart hammered against her rib cage like a drum. She held onto the side of the coal cart for her dear life, dreading what might happen if she fell off the side. She inched closer and closer towards the front, where a conductor managed the machinery, his back turned to her while he shoveled coal into the furnace, and oblivious of her slow but steady advance.

Gaining foothold in the conductor's front cabin, she paused to catch her breath and calm her nerves.

"What in the blazes do you think you're doin' here?" shouted the conductor at her. Either due to anger, or because of the deafening noise all around them.

The conductor had finally noticed her. He held a large wrench in his hands, clearly ready to use it like a club. Goggles hid his eyes and smears of grit and coal stained his cheeks, but his face was unmistakably contorted in anger. That mien changed instantly when she whipped out the pistol and shoved its muzzle into the skin under his chin.

"I need you to stop the train, now," she ordered him through gritted teeth, then repeating it in a shout, both for emphasis and so he could hear her clearly over the noise.

"W-woah, woah—slow d-d-down—alright," he stammered away.

As he backed away, his hands raised in surrender, she stretched her arm out straight and kept the gun trained on him.

"I have no quarrel with you," she said to reassure him. "Not stealing anything, either. I just wanna get off before we reach Louisville."

The locomotive howled and steel screeched as the train came to a halt. Holding him at gunpoint all the while, she observed carefully and believed she could operate a train herself now, if she put her mind to it. The realization that she was going to have to hike out of the woods around here once this train carried on only now started to dawn on her.

She had not thought this through.

Hopping down off the side, she maintained her aim on the man all the while.

"Alright. So long," she shouted up at the conductor.

She backed up and stumbled over a tree's root, tripping backwards. All that he and other passengers on the train must have seen, now leaning out of windows, and watching, was how the forest swallowed her whole.

Branches snapped and whipped at her as she walked into the woods. The train's howl pierced the air again, carrying on without Loretta. Once it had vanished down the winding tracks, she left the fringe of the forest again and doubled back.

She returned to the spot where the grass around the tracks had turned bald from scorching. Yellowed and dead. Scrap heaps of twisted metal littered the edges of the forest on both sides around the tracks, framed by where the fire had spread, but miraculously never managed to fully reach the tree lines.

Several people had cleared the tracks with tools and moved most of the wreckage out of the way so the train could safely pass again. Where flames and crushing weight had not ruined the lonesome patch of nature, shoes and men had trampled it down.

A singular set of human tracks left the site of the destroyed car, heading into the dark depths of the woods.

Loretta had always been drawn to the outdoors. Growing up with her family outside of Boston before they wed her off to that son of a bitch, Thomas Brubaker, she always felt more at home in the forest, anyway.

Knew all the tell-tale signs. The trails that people left behind. Broken twigs here and there, branches bent and caught upon others where a grown man had marched.

And way too deep into the woods for it to have been one of the laborers clearing out the tracks. Not just someone walking out there to relieve himself or get some peace and quiet, but someone who had emerged from the woods—and returned to them.

Loretta had heard many stories about things in the unclaimed, untamed wilds. Superstitions ran rampant even in her family, but owed to her childhood, she believed in none of them. Although she had sometimes heard strange things in the forest, she had never seen anything out of the ordinary, always felt at home in such places.

Here, she felt out of place. Felt watched.

But whenever she blinked, she saw that jade statuette before her inner eye. That awful little gargoyle, sitting in darkness, staring back at her. Beckoning her to retrieve it.

She watched back. Knew she had to find it.

So she marched, following the stranger's trails.

With no way to track the time, she could only guess that her wandering must have taken hours. Long enough for her to realize that she had come here ill-prepared, with no supplies. Though she knew how to find water, and had an inkling on what things she might eat and what she might avoid out here, the realization really set in.

The realization that she really had not thought this through.

Panic stayed at bay, but it trailed behind her only far enough that its little brother, fear, crept up on her. A revolver and some bullets were all she had. She feared less the thought of unnatural things that may dwell in such remote abodes of nature, and feared more of men, bereft of sanity, living out here alone.

For it was the trail of one such man that she followed into the woods while the sun began to set. Not a native, either, for he plodded along without any semblance of being in tune with his environment; an oaf who stumbled about like a fish out of water.

The chirping of birds made way to the chirping and buzzing of insects. The occasional snap of twigs nearby heralded the arrival and departure of woodland creatures, always just out of sight, avoiding her as much as she wanted to avoid them.

She froze. Stared into glistening, intelligent eyes. A deer stared back at her. Then the animal bolted, darting away between the trees with little sound and leaving only the stink of fear behind.

Loretta continued and twilight engulfed the forest. The canopy suffocated the last rays of light. But the glow of fire drew her. A camp in a not-so-far-distance awaited her, in the direction of the tracks she followed.

The statuette had to be there.

Soft voices reached her from that camp. Between small tents and around a bonfire, a little group of men spoke with a drawl, native to the white man settling in this region. Language she might understand once she snuck close enough to decipher the words.

They all wore white pointy hoods, roosting atop long white robes emblazoned with an odd cross each. Together, they performed some sort of ritual around the fire. Where she understood fragments of sentences here and there, she failed to comprehend whatever they chanted next. Something foreign that sent chills down her spine.

From her hiding place behind the mound of a massive, uprooted tree, she watched. They side-stepped around their bonfire, conducting their strange rite, their ringleader singing off-key in that awful tongue.

Then he held it up.

His meaty fingers clutched the green statuette, wrapped around it as he held it high above his head. Chanting that gibberish.

Loretta first deemed it nonsense, but it sounded too clear, too deliberate. Patterns that grated on her nerves, guttural and sharp sounds enunciated with enough precision to unsettle her.

She waited till they stopped.

"Now, brothers, we sleep," said the leader.

And she would wait longer, biding her time.

They shuffled about. One went to urinate in the woods, dangerously close, but blind to Loretta hiding nearby. One of them spat and ate something that made him chew a lot. They removed their hoods and none of them looked alike. Not a family; all possessing different hair colors and facial features. Some looked filthy, others cleanly. One splashed his face with murky water from a wide tub.

The leader removed his hood with one hand, still feverishly gripping the statuette in his other. Black rings lined his eyes, and his face was sullen. Haunted. He was first to disappear into one of the tents.

One by one, they all retired into their makeshift living quarters.

At the saloon, Loretta had heard that some of the locals of Dead End had driven the Klansmen out of town due to some recent incident. Paying no mind at the time, she now wondered why.

First time seeing the death cult in person, their entire presence and mannerisms left her with an uncomfortable sinking feeling in her gut. She stayed in hiding. She would wait until the right moment to strike. To get that statuette.

She rubbed dirt and soil between her hands and smeared it onto her face. Fearing her pale complexion might give her away once any of the Klansmen's eyes adjusted to the dark, she hoped to camouflage her skin somewhat. Gratitude greeted her at the thought that she had gotten rid of her fancier clothing with its bright whites and garish colors, knowing the muddy brown and black tones of her newly acquired attire served her well in this unexpected situation.

Whiling away the time, she waited like this, peeking over the edge of her hiding spot at the camp. The more she studied its layout and denizens, planning her approach and getaway, the more it became clear that these six men had not been living out here like this for long. Clothing and strips of game had been draped over racks, haphazardly fashioned out of branches and prone to draw vermin and disease.

Tubs and buckets, likely filled with what had to be stale or even unclean water from a pond or stream somewhere nearby, served them as supplies for drinking and washing. Two heavy chests stood outside, stacked in between the tents, and the one on top was packed to the brim with kitchen supplies and expensive-looking silverware.

And they all looked like "gentlemen"—for the lack of a better word. The clothing they sported underneath the stark white robes was too fancy for rugged folk who lived off the land, the figure on a few of them suggested a life of being well-fed by gilded spoons.

One of them loitered around by the campfire as the height of its flames waned. The hours dragged on and Loretta cautiously shifted her weight every now and then to prevent her own limbs from falling asleep. The only thing to keep her company were thoughts of the recent days—how her life had taken another drastic turn after already taking before that—and her fear of being discovered by these men.

Although her muscles screamed for oxygen, so much so did she force herself to breathe shallowly and quietly, she had no intention of leaving without the statuette. Every time she blinked, there it was, staring back at her. Admonishing her for taking this long. Whispering to her to claim it.

Deep down, she knew it to be in wrong hands here. It was the first time that she saw Klansmen up this close. Her family had taught her to stay away from them for their brutal ways, and these men before her eyes gave off an even worse impression. They lived out here, not like animals—more like parasites. Every one of them exuded an air of menace. Two of them especially moved like they owned the place, oozing unearned confidence and irreverence with their every motion.

One of them stirred in his tent and exited it, stumbling around in a drunken haze. He wandered away from the camp, finding a place between the trees, on the edge of the fire's glow—and too close to Loretta for comfort. There, he dropped his pants and groaned as diarrhea exploded out of his behind.

Loretta covered her mouth in disgust and squinted, trying not to watch the abhorrent spectacle, but unable to look away. He panted and groaned and eventually ripped off some leaves to wipe—from an ivy bound to give him a rash, no less, cementing her impression of a lack of outdoors savvy.

As if life itself conspired to sabotage her, and out of all the worst possible times for this to happen, Loretta's stomach growled. The man grunted and pulled his pants back up. She gritted her teeth and nestled against the dirt and roots nearby, hoping her clothing was dark enough to not be perceived.

Diarrhea man peered out into the darkness of the woods. The dancing flames cast just enough light to eerily outline his silhouette, but not enough to indicate where his gaze swept through the shadows, scanning, and looking for where a sound might have come from.

His stomach emitted a similar noise and he groaned again as he buckled his belt back up. He returned to the camp and Loretta waited several moments before she allowed herself to breathe again, ignoring the silent screaming within the walls of her tortured lungs.

The diarrhea man approached the watchman by the fire and murmured a few words in exchange with him. Diarrhea man waved a hand dismissively and hunkered down by the fire while the other retired into another tent.

Loretta waited yet longer, praying for the sickly watchman to fall asleep on the job. His eyelids drowsily dipped every now and then and she could watch his exhaustion quickly creeping up on him.

She would have to move fast. She produced the pistol again, cradling its cool grip in her palm, feeling gravity and the weight of its deadly charges join forces to drag her hand down.

Soon, she kept reassuring herself. Soon, he would slip into the dream realm and she could sneak in there, grab the ominous statuette, and sneak back out. She had no clue about where to go, but her thoughts returned to the marshal and Dead End. If she could make her way back there without stopping, she might be able to broker for the lawman's help or protection before the sun even rose.

Word traveled fast, but what were the odds of him having heard of her criminal background already? Impossible, she wagered. The marshal had at least made the appearance of genuinely being concerned about her safety and the well-being of the other people on the train they had arrived in Dead End on.

Not once did she stop to question why she felt compelled to retrieve the statuette from a wagon that he had decoupled from said train, detonating it with whatever had been on board back there.

Or how it survived the blast and the fire.

Diarrhea man's head slumped down, and his plump jawline wrinkled with fat. Loretta waited longer until she heard the sound of sawing wood erupt from his nose, and she let him snore away for several minutes before deciding that he had passed out.

With careful steps, she crept ever closer to the campsite, curving around the perimeter, and targeting the leader's tent. She only needed to get the statuette. In drawing closer, she now heard more snoring, sawing faintly from the other tents.

First, her muscles screamed, then her lungs, as she held her breath almost entirely again, ensuring she made no sound whatsoever. Paces away from the camp, a stench hit her nose, so foul that it almost made her knees buckle and nearly provoked her to retch. A strange smell of decay and death permeated the air.

How could these madmen tolerate this?

Her eyes darted up and down, to and fro, always carefully looking where she stepped, to not make any noise when she moved, and eyeing the single watchman and the tents while the sheer suspense painfully knotted her stomach.

With trembling fingers, she opened the tent flap and felt the statuette's presence. Almost there. Almost out of here.

Her eyes transfixed on it, she crawled inside the tent, prowling like a cat, quiet as the thief she was. The stench waned in power in here, perhaps attached to one of the other men outside or to something about their camp she had not yet discerned.

The leader had curled up into a fetal position, his back turned to her and most of his body covered in fuzzy blankets. The statuette lay on a fine little carpet of unusual beauty, sitting there and staring at her. Just like in the dream. The thin beam of light from the campfire, pouring in through the crack in between the tent flaps, landed on the small green object with uncanny symmetry.

She took it. Grabbed it. Just like in the dream—the nightmare—it felt warm and silky-smooth to the touch, like snakeskin. Not like what a small green stone object should feel like.

The leader's body spasmed, as if he had jolted awake from a dream of his own. Loretta froze and hoped he might not be awake enough to sense her presence. His head swiveled and his eyes burned into hers as they locked gazes.

His eyes carried the air of something hopeless. And something deeply troubled. The glint of campfire reflecting in them accompanied the flames of fury bubbling up, flaring up in his visage.

In a flash, she had gritted her teeth and jammed the revolver into his face with such force that she heard a sickening crack. Her imagination painted a future in which he cried out in pain and alerted the others.

Instead, he displayed no such pain, only rage. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Someone has come to take our treasure! Come! Come to me, brothers!"

In a split second, she knew she could not take him hostage to get out of here. In a snap decision, she shot him in the face. This did not silence him forever, instead leaving him in a helpless heap on the ground inside the tent in a growing pool of blood, orchestrated by gurgling sounds as he twitched and moaned in pain.

She tumbled back out of the tent, only to stare into the faces of three of the Klansmen. One of them held out a knife at her. The other balled his hands into fists, raising them to fight; and the third grabbed a small wood axe from the fire. The remaining two emerged from their tents, surprise written across their faces.

All of them stared at Loretta and her eyes darted back and forth between them, letting the aim down the sights of her smoking barrel follow her nervous gaze.

"Stay away, gents. I have enough bullets for every one of ya," she said.

Only problem was with how she delivered that threat. Her voice quaked more and more with every subsequent word until the last of the sentence died a croaking death in her throat.

And these men, well—they had murder in the eyes now.

The pistol cracked as she fired more shots, possibly missing here and there while backing away, but it was too late. They lunged at her, some of them were hit but did not go down yet, and the weapon clicked ineffectively after several pulls of the trigger.

The forest grounds cracked with breaking twigs and turf getting kicked up as she fled in a hopeless dash from the Klansmen's camp while they gave chase.

Loretta tripped, stumbled, and a hand grabbing her forearm slid down the length of it, yanking the spent pistol from her palm and causing her to tumble sideways through the bushes. She emitted a clipped yelp and then started screaming as three of the men converged on her.

She swung and flailed about but several hands grabbed hold of her and wrestled her down to the cold forest ground.

And that stench.

That awful stench, it had fully engulfed her. Made her eyes water, and her nostrils burn like fire.

They must have smelled it too, for their faces crinkled. But not enough to quell the anger. Loretta barely noticed that the other two had collapsed before they could give chase on her short and failed escape, but the remaining three were two too many for her to handle with an empty gun.

That's when she saw the eyes. Through the blur of her tears, despite her field of vision narrowing, they stared at her. Piercing, yet hollow. Yellow, but dead. Looming far above the three men on top of her, while they pushed her down.

Behind them. She almost wanted to warn them of it.

A face that vaguely resembled the face of an owl, opening its beak. Hungry.

Between the trees, she could barely see its slender frame and spindly limbs. Tall. Standing taller than any of the men, as tall as a house. Arms like twigs reached out, creeping up closer behind the men, who were fully engrossed in pinning her down and strangling the life from her.

Loretta thrashed even harder against their grip, tried to throw them off—wanted even more desperately to escape that thing behind them than the men themselves—but to no avail. A filthy hand pressed down over her mouth and she bit into it, but he held it there, muffling her screams. Screams of pure terror.

That owl-like face crept closer. Hands like thin knives sunk down, ever deeper, treacherously close to the men on top of Loretta. So busy were they with unleashing their vengeance upon her and uttering threats of things they intended to do to her that they failed to see where she was truly looking.

One of the men began to gurgle and shriek and violently convulse. Only with tremendous delay did the other two rear their heads and slowly notice what was happening.

Claws as long as swords had pierced the convulsing man's torso and blood dripped from their sharp tips where they emerged from his ruptured chest. When those claws vanished, withdrawing back inside of him, warm hot fluids sprayed out in every direction, showering Loretta and the other two men with buckets of blood.

The man's screams pierced the air, and the other two soon joined him. Violent yells of pain became a chorus of panic. One of the Klansmen stumbled away, crawling, and tripping, and eating dirt as he fell again before he could get back up on his feet to run away. The other rose to his full height, still dwarfed by the thin giant with the owl's face. Paralyzed with fear, his yells died in his mouth.

It grabbed him and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing.

Loretta screamed at the top of her lungs as she watched the creature wrench one of the man's arms from its socket, connected only by the wet threads of sinew and tendons from which more showers of blood exploded, splattering onto the dry forest grounds and onto the shrieking woman. Then the creature fully removed it, severing those fleshy threads.

Backing away, she crawled best she could through the dirt without averting her eyes from the creature, until a sharp pain shot through her skull: the result of bumping her head into a tree's trunk.

The third man did not get far. The thin giant needed barely move to lurch forward. Its arms could cross a street with how long they were, allowing it to sink its claws into the third man's chest with frightening ease. Gliding like a hot knife through butter.

The owl's beak opened, and a gleeful cackle escaped it, echoing through the woods like a thousand voices. A puff of smoke billowed out in its company and it began tearing the third man into ribbons. His screams took far too long to cease under the torturous dismemberment.

None of them would survive as the thin giant with the owl's head always cut them short from escaping, dragging them back into the shadows where they had piled onto Loretta, and removing limbs or piercing them with the blades of its fingers, all so freakishly gaunt that they looked dangerously close to snapping under pressure, yet displaying sheer strength that defied anything natural.

It raised a torn-off human arm to its beak and shoved twitching fingers inside. Instead of gorging itself fully on the digits, the sounds that followed resembled more suckling and slurping.

Loretta stopped screaming, terrified by how the giant seemingly ignored her, but fearing for her life as she knew that she only needed to draw its attention to suffer the same fate as the Klansmen.

As if on cue, it turned its head and stared at her through its dead eyes. The yellow in them did not glow, glassy and corpse-like, instead swallowed by the shadows of their sockets, barely visible save for the faint glow from the campfire reflecting in their corners.

The arm in its skinny claws shriveled up and desiccated before her eyes, blood stopped dripping from the severed stump, and the creature drained it of all life as it continued to stare at her.

The statuette. It was what had brought her here, and her quest was to remove it, come heaven or hell. Some part of her knew that if she could not let it stay in the hands of these men, then she sure as hell could not leave it with a monstrosity such as this.

Tears still blurred her vision and stung in the scratches upon her cheeks, but she had regained some composure. Desperation overrode the urge to scream.

She thrust her fist out at the monster, gripping that jade statuette in her hand, and holding in front of her like a holy cross being wielded to ward off a demon.

The owl-giant began to chew on the severed arm and the crunch of bone sounded almost like the snapping of twigs underneath Loretta, only wetter. More revolting.

It suddenly shoved the length of the human arm into its maw, offering a glimpse of rows of tiny sharp teeth clamping down on it. As it gorged itself upon the arm, it chewed, and crunched and swallowed.

And the thing grew even larger, looming over Loretta, rendering its thin limbs even more grotesque to behold. It closed in on her, not at all deterred by the jade statuette in her hand, slowly, but surely.

Her knuckles turned white as her grip upon the object tightened and her entire body quivered with dread.

The monster emitted another cackle, another chorus of tortured souls. And up close like this, its dead eyes betrayed something else.

Pure evil.

Ancient, all-knowing. Like it had watched mountains rise from the dirt, and oceans dry out, while sucking the marrow from the bones of giant beasts before they bleached under the eternal sun, and all turned to dust before man walked those plains.

It spoke. What at first sounded like hissing and snapping noises almost made sense. Formed patterns.

Like the words of the Klansmen's now-dead leader. A dead language, something alien. Something Loretta could not comprehend, invading her mind with every syllable, and feeling utterly wrong in its entirety.

The creature stopped closing in on her, but it snorted, and a gust of fog billowed out from its beak, like steam from the stacks on the locomotive, clouding her vision and enveloping Loretta in ghostly mist.

Through it, she saw those dead eyes surface, piercing the fog and staring into her soul.

Gravelly, growling, it spoke again. Unsettling all the while, like someone who tried to speak while inhaling. Yet each word poured out from it as slowly as tar, as it said, "You—you may leave."

The mist refused to dissipate, trapping her inside this suffocating tunnel of swirling fog. She felt incapable of tearing her gaze off the dreadful stare of this creature.

"W-why me?"

More cackling, like hundreds of voices and riding on the backs of muffled screams—including her own, mimicking her shouts of terror from mere moments ago—all echoing between the trees and causing the mist to roil.

"Why? You are as thin as I. And you have left me plenty upon which I may feast."

A thin blade pierced the fog. The tip of one of its fingers. It took Loretta moments to register the shape of its claws balled up, like a human hand forming a fist but pointing at the statuette with its index finger.

The bony tip, black and dripping with blood, it clicked as it connected with the green statuette.

"This is a thing of the deepest seas. It belongs not here. It belongs far away, to which you must take it," spoke the creature.

It withdrew its finger and had it not been for the pained sounds of a man sobbing in the vicinity, crying for his mother, then silence would have draped itself long enough over the creature and Loretta for her mind to race with a multitude of disjointed thoughts.

"Once you remove it from here, you return. Then, I teach. Then I teach you my ways," it said.

No—it commanded.

Where Loretta offered no response, her stomach growled in her place.

This elicited more cackles from the monster. Its face withdrew, swallowed by the unnatural bank of fog around them. The dead yellow of its eyes remained, and the overpowering stench of death faded.

"If you hunger, then find new feasts. This one—this one is mine to take from you, and yours to offer, little one," the thing spoke, reaching her ears in seven calm voices simultaneously.

The man's sobbing turned into a whimpering not unlike a dog's, then rose sharply into higher-pitched territories until a snapping sound turned him silent.

Loretta would not be warned twice.

Kicking up turf behind her as she fled through the forest, stumbling through patches of ivy, breaking through brushes, she refused to stop until she could see no light of a campfire anywhere.

Her lungs now on fire, her skin burning everywhere from myriads of scratches into which sweat had trickled, she finally dared to pause. She leaned against her knees to catch her breath, wheezing, and looking around in a persistent panic. The blood still rushed in her ears and the adrenaline still filled her every fiber.

She looked behind her, unclear on where she had gotten lost in the woods. If she continued to gain more distance from that… that thing… then she might live. She had to get out of this forest quickly. Back to Dead End.

The jade statuette in her hand throbbed. Only ever so briefly.

She lifted it to her face to peer at it through the veil of night, wondering how much more trouble this eerie object would get her into.

She tore her eyes off it and looked back in whatever direction she believed to have run from. She could see no thin giant, no owl's face, no yellow eyes. No strange mist that smelled like bad breath, no putrid odor that reeked of death.

Yet she felt watched. Like it continued to stalk her. Like the six dead men it could feast on would never sate its voracious appetite. Like she might be next if it only changed its mind.

Loretta continued her nightly odyssey. She wrapped her jacket more tightly around her and hugged herself, only now feeling the cold. Alone in the dark woods, she marched on. Always looking over her shoulder, wary of the thing out here, feeling like it followed only steps behind her. Looking up, to see if she could spot its ghastly outlines lurking between the trees.

The night would be long, and she would never stop until the sun rose. And even then, she would continue marching on, not taking a break until she had crossed the invisible borders between this merciless wilderness and re-entered the rugged frontier town.

For a moment, when her stomach growled, her mind flashed to the sight of those men being torn asunder, and to the sounds that revealed how the creature devoured them, piece by piece. She shook her head and perished those invasive thoughts. They fed on her hunger, unlike her own mind, feeding dark urges for her to sate herself upon human flesh so the hunger would subside.

She winced and forced those thoughts away. She had no intention of returning here whatsoever.

Never again.

Some part of her told herself—whispers aloud which she only noticed herself muttering to herself after the fact—that she need not pay heed to any words from such unnatural beings. That whatever lessons this thing may have offered to impart on her, that its every word was poison. She sensed it in her bones: this creature spoke treachery fluently.

Such ancient evils always did.

This was only the first of many lessons for Loretta to learn.

—Submitted by Wratts

[cesraeborgia]

Hey! This is a cool thing you're doing and thought I'd ask something!

I feel like ur gonna get asked this a lot but, realistically, what do you think is going to happen with keenler in the upcoming eps? Like obviously we'd love them to happily get together, but this is the Blacklist, and nothing is ever that simple.

Thoughts?

Hey!!! I’m happy to say your my first ask :)) !!!  If you want to chat with me about keenler, my fics, send me prompts, or just say hello!! feel free to drop me an ask here

I had a lot to say so I did a keep reading thing haha. Also, warning, spoilers for the last two eps. 

Personally, I think there’s an extremely interesting dynamic at play here that is similar to when Liz was on the run the first time. I can’t help but draw parallels between Ressler’s interactions with Liz in season 3 and his interactions with her now, and I think that Liz’s plot line this season is going to put her at odds with Ressler both professionally and personally. The fact of the matter is (and this might be a rogue opinion) that in the long run, I don’t see this causing issues for them romantically. The thing about Ressler is that he’s already crossed that line for Liz in the past - when pitted against his job and Liz, the choices he makes always boil down to one thing: whether or not the decision he makes keeps Liz safe. Because Ressler is always acting with Liz’s safety in mind, This might prove to be a problem for Liz, who is used to those who love her (Tom, Reddington) dropping everything on a dime to help her in any situation no matter the cost to her personal safety. This is partially why Ressler was at a crossroads in the last episode: he knew that the path Liz was going down was dangerous, and he was unwilling to help her if it affected her safety in a negative way, or if it contributed to her continued progression down a darkened path, which Ressler does not view to be her destiny, like Reddington does. In keeping with this characterization of Ressler (which, Lord knows if the show will actually do that; they are pretty consistent when it comes to him but still not great) I could see them continuing to work together, even if its not to the result that Liz wants. 

I think that Ressler brings out the best of Liz’s humanity (this is why I always use day/sun imagery when writing Ressler, and night/moon imagery when writing Liz) and that eventually Liz is going to be faced with deciding between embracing Reddington’s idea of her ‘destiny’ or embracing what she wanted her life to be like in the pilot. Obviously, going to war with Reddington posits one end of that spectrum, with exploring her relationship with Ressler being on the other side. 

(Real quick sidebar: I don’t like to describe female characters in relation to male characters; I’m not trying to say that Liz has to decide between the two men, I’m just saying that they symbolically represent the decision she’s going to have to make. If I were less tired I would go on a poststructural feminist rant that would make my dear sweet Judith Butler proud, but, alas, I’m exhausted)

I think that there’s three key things that SHOULD (key word being should, seeing as the writers are who the writers are) be factors in keenler’s progression this season. 

1.) Liz is alone on the run this time. This means that she’s most likely going to turn to Ressler for support, seeing as her sister is gone for the moment being, Tom is dead, her mother is dead, Reddington is pretty much dead to her, and the only person left in her life who she really trusts is Ressler. Now, there could be an interesting plot twist here. (this has been marinating in the back of my mind for the last couple of seasons.) Remember in like season 6 (I want to say??) when Liz let that one blacklister go and was starting to collect names for her own blacklist... let’s just say I wouldn’t be shocked if that plot line was unceremoniously picked up again sometime this season. That might be the only real shot she has at having allies besides Ressler or people who want to see Reddington dead. Ask me more on this later, once I watch the next episode in January haha.

2.) The issue of the taskforce and Reddington. As we can all see, Reddington has no qualms using Ressler as a pawn in his scheme to get to Liz, and I can envision Ressler acting in the role of messenger between the two warring sides during the rest of this season, which would allow for Liz and Ressler to continue to explore their developing relationship within this paradigm. I could also see =, however, Reddington using Ressler to gain an audience with Liz, and or threatening Ressler in order to get Liz to comply. 

In this category there is also the issue of the taskforce itself. As we all know, Cooper was pissed that Ressler had been running off without his knowledge to see Liz, and I can assure you that this is going to cause some problems between the rest of the taskforce and Ressler. (Aram may be a sleeper cell, because it’s Aram, but other than that I can see this getting to be extremely painful for Ressler, Cooper, and Park). I can see Cooper either sidelining Ressler, monitoring his phone, or pairing him off with Park so that she can keep an eye on him, or a combination of all three. I think that this dynamic is where we’re going to see the biggest obstacle to their relationship. 

3.) Finally, the trust issues. I can’t say I’m shocked that the blacklist has never confronted the fact that Ressler is blatantly in love with a woman who continuously lies to him (I love both of them to death, I mean this from a good place) and who has never really shown any signs of remorse about it. Now, while its a good thing that Liz opened up to Ressler later last season, it’s still problematic that she won’t share her cards with him when she knows he won’t be happy about what she’s doing. I personally would love to see Ressler confront her about this (I hope to god he does), but again, this will probably get swept under the rug. I have a lot of problems with this, which is why when I write them, I always try to address the imbalance of power between them and try to put them on a more equal playing field. I would be curious to see how the writers do this (if they decide to). 

I’m sorry that this has turned into a novella-length response, but also I’m not because I have had a lot of this stuff simmering in my brain for the last couple of years. I must also apologize for the random rants in the middle of this - that would be due to my raging ADHD and exhaustion. In conclusion, I would say that I can see keenler happening, however, it is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows, but, rather, a game which may involve using Ressler as bait. 

I hope that answers your question :))

[katelynn-a-fan]

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Chapter 8

First | Previous | Next | Masterlist | Ao3

Summary: Roman and Remus have two very similar, but very different conversations. One might be more... eye-opening than the other. But both of them has something they have to deal with.

Word count: 8k (8008)

Warnings: Self-deprecation, slight Remus-style imagery

Tapping his fingers restlessly on his knee, Roman’s breathlessness abated as Remus and Janus disappeared around the doorframe. A pressure suddenly lifted from his lungs as Roman was sure Remus was finally out of the picture for a while. 

A sigh naturally escaped from his lips. Roman hoped it sounded more tired or long-suffering than relieved. Patton shouldn’t have to worry about Roman or anyone else right now. 

Patton’s love, if barely a day old love, was obvious the moment anyone would look at him. 

First things first was Patton’s face, the obvious place to go to at first. The small yet sad smile on Patton’s face as well as the soft but bright look in his eyes as he seemed to stare at Thomas’s face for hours. Patton was obviously hoping for Thomas’s swift recovery, but Roman thought back on Dr. Kagan’s words. Thomas likely wouldn’t wake up for a while.

Even still, at least for Patton’s sake, Roman was glad Thomas was okay.

Roman’s eyes traced Patton's face to his arm and then down to his hand, where Patton’s hand gently rested on the bed, lightly gripping Thomas’s tiny hand. The grip was protective but gentle. Like a dad who was holding his newborn baby for the first time or the love between anyone committed to living the rest of their lives with someone, romantically or otherwise all in one handhold. 

Unconditional love. A love that asked for nothing, but gave everything it had no matter what.

That’s Patton alright, he’ll do anything for you, but Lisa Minnelli help you if you try to do anything for him. Tomatoes? They’ve got nothing on a Patton who’s just been told you did something for him. 

It was because of Patton’s obvious love for Thomas that Roman missed that Patton was actually speaking to him.

“-oman!” Patton's voice finally cut through Roman’s thoughts.

Jumping slightly as he had been caught off guard, Roman glanced back up to Patton. Expecting what he found when he looked up, Patton was tilting his head and had his lips pursed slightly. The muscles in his face were tense, especially in Patton’s forehead, wrinkles forming as his brow dipped down towards his eyes.

Roman wrung his hands a little, because how long had Patton been calling him? He cleared his throat.

“Uh, yeah Pat? I- uh didn’t catch what you said. Did- did you say something?” Roman managed to smile a little, but it was definitely mostly fake. Patton frowned but didn’t comment on it. Instead, he shifted himself to face Roman more. His gaze was softer after that, though.

“I haven’t said much of anything yet. I was mostly just trying to get your attention.” 

Shoulders drawing up as he averted eye contact, Roman’s voice grew moderately quieter.

“Sorry, I uh… got distracted.”

Patton shifted yet again on the edges of Roman’s vision and Roman nearly startled when Patton’s fingers brushed his knee.

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize. We all get distracted sometimes, it’s no biggie.”

His shoulders beginning to relax nearly as quickly as they tensed, Roman looked up only to get slapped in the face with the look in Patton’s eyes that thirty seconds ago had been reserved just for Thomas. Unconditional love, a kind of love with enough patience to rival a stone’s. A stone could wait centuries to only shift an inch.

 “Okay... What- uh... What were you going to ask me?” Roman prompted, turning the focus back on what Patton was wanting to ask Roman about. Certainly it was not to direct away from the heat on Roman’s cheeks. Certainly not.

Patton blinked slowly, a frown dipping onto his face before Patton’s brow shot up.

“Oh yeah! I guess I got distracted as well. I- I wanted to ask you because I never got the chance before Remus came. Why were you and Janus able to come home so early? Did- did you-”

Roman put his hand gently up to stop Patton’s eyes from progressively gathering more and more moisture as obvious tears began to threaten falling from Patton’s eyes.

“Hey. Everything went fine. We were just able to get away earlier and got an earlier flight as well. I’m confident in Janus’s abilities and his performance for this time, like every time. What kind of friend/employee would I be if I wasn’t confident in Janus’s abilities?”

Patton’s hand skirted across Roman’s knee again.

“Still a great one, Roman. I- It’s not that I’m not confident in Janus’s abilities, but that they don’t see that and pass him over for a role… I’m s-” Patton suddenly slammed his mouth shut, glancing away from Roman as his shoulders dipped down. 

Roman smirked, crossing his arms as he let the smug expression flood across his face.

“You were about to apologize, weren’t you? Now, what did you say about that? I wonder.”

Tone lightening considerably, Roman’s smirk grew when Patton’s face bloomed into a smile much less smug than Roman’s at the obvious teasing.

“Oh shut up, you.” Patton’s expression went rosy as he rolled his eyes at Roman, but something made Patton’s expression suddenly drop as fast it became rosy.

Roman leaned towards Patton as he tilted his head as Patton had a minute before. His elbows rested on his legs to balance himself.

“Patton?” It was apparently Roman’s turn to try to get Patton’s attention as Patton stared at a random spot on the hospital bed. Roman’s heart sped up in his chest as Patton didn’t respond at first.

This is probably what Patton felt like when I was distracted by him and Thomas. I don’t like this feeling.

However, unlike with Roman, Patton snapped out of it of his own accord. Without a sound at first, Patton turned back to Roman, abruptly beginning to fidget and fumble with the edge of his own sleeve with his free hand leaving Roman’s knee.

“Patton? You okay? You look upset…”

Fumbling stopping for a moment, Patton met Roman’s eyes, strangely frantic.

“What were you saying when you got here… I- you said something about thinking I was… something. What did you think I was?”

Roman sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck

”Um well you see… Why-”

-

“-did you bring me out here?” Remus whispered to Janus as he waited for Janus to catch up with him in the hall after going first out the door.

Letting the silence drag on, Janus didn’t respond at first, not stopping when Remus joined up right beside him. It didn’t click why until Remus caught a Janus glancing back at the door. That was the reason, Janus didn’t want Rom- them to hear. 

Taking a few more steps, Janus finally cleared his throat.

“Well, we are legitimately getting food. I wasn’t lying about that.” 

Remus frowned. “I didn’t think you were, but I can tell walking with me isn’t just for the sake of walking with me. There’s a reason beyond that, I can tell.” 

Janus’s footsteps stuttered a moment before slowing gently to a stop. Now obviously glancing back at the door, Janus’s body tensed and relaxed in waves, his muscles pumping in a strange almost heart looking way as Janus nearly backed up into the wall. His hand approached his ears slowly, but Remus couldn’t hear anything loud. Remus’s stomach dropped.

Is he hearing something? I don’t know what to do, um… grab his shoulder. Yeah.. that’ll work.

Luckily, whatever spiral Janus had been stuck in ended the moment Remus gripped Janus’s shoulder.

As Janus looked up, Janus’s eyes were wide, but quickly went back to normal as Janus eyes lit up in recognition of Remus, like Remus hadn’t already been there the whole time.

“Oh, yes, uh. It’s not just about the food…” Janus pushed himself away from the wall with a slight head shake, glancing around at his surroundings as if he was seeing them for the first time. “I wanted to talk about you and your brother.”

Suddenly rooted to the spot, Remus' knees went weak, but not from exhaustion. Oh no, it was like everything was suddenly happening at once and Remus’s voice suddenly never existed. 

A list of places to hide popped into his head as his mind was demanding him to run, but his body wasn’t cooperating with him. All he managed to do instead was walk straight into Janus in one step.

“Woah, Remus. I’m right in front of you, no need to get closer.”

That’s not what- Remus cut himself off as his mind finally caught up to what his body was doing. He shoved himself back hard but was stopped almost immediately by Janus’s steady hands.

“Remus, hey, I’m not trying to pull one over on you or anything. Honestly, I'm going behind Roman’s back to even do this because he hasn’t ever actually told me what actually happened between you two.”

Remus’s mind automatically quieted at that news.

“Wait… you don’t? I thought...”

Staring at the ground intently, Remus ran his hand through his hair, 

How-? Janus is Roman’s partner, of all the people it should be Janus he tells… though… Patton doesn’t know either, so… 

“You thought I knew why Roman hates you? ...No, I don’t, but that’s fair, I thought you knew that I didn’t know what is between you either. We both made some broad assumptions, so we’ll just call this even and move on I guess.”

Remus met Janus face to face at that. A sudden lump in Remus’s throat made it hard to swallow, but eventually Remus gulped down the saliva that had been pooling his mouth while he was frozen.

“So, uh, my brother? He- we are, of course, brothers and twins. When we were young we had our own language and had our own little world with our own social rules that dominated both our childhoods. We were inseparable, but that didn’t stop us from fighting… a lot. It was never too bad, but it was never completely good either. I got him into trouble sometimes because we’re twins and they mistook him for me. But then… I drew a mustache on my lips every day and that stopped being a problem unless someone didn’t know about the difference or when I still wanted to be a little shit and cause some chaos to try to see if I could get Roman in trouble.”

Remus blinked, his tangent cut off as his face drifted into a dreamy smile as he looked back on his childhood. He immediately dropped his smile, straightening up again.

“That is to say we were very close before everything happened.”

Janus frowned, eyes skating up and down Remus for a long moment which made Remus want to squirm under the scrutiny. It brought thoughts of his own that he would rather not think about Janus with him not even three or four feet in front of him.

“Okay, then. Why-”

-

“-did I ask something about that? That’s a very good question.” Roman’s voice dropped to a mutter as Patton’s stare seemed to pin him down, making Roman fidget in his chair, tapping like he had been as Remus left the room.

When Roman doesn’t continue, Patton fills the silence instead.

“And? I’m… starting to worry about this… You’re so hesitant to talk about anything. Maybe, I shouldn’t ask you to talk about it, you don’t have to-” Patton started to turn away from Roman back to Thomas, but Roman grabbed Patton’s  free hand, pausing his hand where it had been still fiddling with Patton’s sweater. 

Patton turned back around to Roman, a small exhalation of air leaking from Patton’s lips.

“Patton. I want to, I’m just… worried about how you might react, but… you have to know. I promise it’s not as bad as any of the worst-case scenarios you can come up with.”

Roman paused, searching Patton’s face, yet avoiding direct eye contact with him.

Deciding he could stall no longer, Roman inhaling and exhaling out again slowly before he began to explain.

”Well, we came back to the house and I tried to surprise you with a grand entrance, went all out with it with the voice too, but you weren’t there of course,” Patton rolled his eyes fondly, a smirk on his face at the dramatics despite not even having experienced it in person. “So we looked around the living room a bit and talked for a little bit.”

A pang in Roman’s gut erupted as he failed to mention that it was less talking and more arguing or more accurately a tense silence instead. Patton shouldn’t have to learn about that part of the conversation, so Roman just… didn’t mention it. 

Wiping his brow with the back of his wrist, Roman gazed down at the ground for a moment, pausing before he continued his retelling.

“At a point in the convo, Janus noticed that the kitchen light was on and-”

Eyes going wide, Patton stiffened a little, his grip on Roman’s hand tightening. His voice was higher pitched than normal when he exclaimed.

“It was? Dog it! I never meant to do that, I don’t want you guys to pay more than you have to on the electric.”

Roman smiled, squeezing Patton’s hand gently back. His own shoulders relaxed as Patton’s posture began to slowly relax, Roman’s voice taking on a soothing quality.

“You didn’t mean to, Patton. That’s all that matters. Plus, leaving one simple light on without being needed for half a day is nothing compared to the TV or other lights we have on on a regular basis. I know you care about that a lot, but I won’t be angry with you over one or two missed lights.”

Breathing out slowly through his nose, Patton closed his eyes. Slowly, he offered Roman a small but growing smile even with his eyes still closed. When Patton opened his again, they were steady and clear. It lightened the grip that had come around Roman’s heart when Patton had first asked about what they had been so concerned about.

“I know. It’s… hard sometimes. I don’t nearly contribute to payments as much as I want and I want to be able to pay my share instead of making you both pay more.” 

“Patton.”

Roman gave his voice the weight it needed but still held back. Having curled up a little, knees drawing up into the seat of the hospital chair, Patton looked up.

“We don’t care about the money. Please don’t feel obligated to work yourself too hard because you can pay your ‘fair share,’” Roman put up air quotes, putting a fair amount of emphasis on the words. “We are happy with whatever you are able to contribute now. Please don’t worry about that.”

Patton nodded, though it was much less genuine looking as he avoided Roman’s eye contact and gave a weak laugh.

“Okay…”

Roman didn’t continue for a long moment staring at Patton and his (once again) slowly tensing posture, but something in him instructed him to leave the topic alone, if just for a moment. He kept his voice soft at first once he continued, slowly growing back to a normal tone as he went on.

“Alright. So… we- well, he noticed that and turned it off. We knew you’d never want to leave a light on like that, so we got worried that something had happened to you. At first, we thought you were sick, so we went to your room. We thought you were still asleep, so we didn’t barge in. But when we saw that your bed was empty, we immediately went into investigation mode searching the whole house for you.” Roman shook his head as Patton cringed, forging on to lessen the time Patton would have to hear about this. “So we each searched parts of the house, Janus found a drawer ajar in the study and-”

Patton flinched, his fingers twitching around Thomas’s hand.. 

“Oh. I got an ice scraper from there because it was snowing and everything and that was the only way to see.”

Roman began to nod but froze when what was next was something that might upset Patton. Letting out a nervous laugh, Roman subtly wrung his hands as he glanced away from Patton.

How could I even put this lightly?

“That’s smart, Pat,” Roman let his shoulders relax just a little bit again when Patton beamed at the praise. ”Going back to what happened, um… we thought you had been taken or kidnapped because the drawer had within it long and semi heavy things in there and we thought that was proof that you grabbed something to defend yourself with. We called you in case you weren’t actually taken, but you didn’t pick up…”

Patton’s free hand went down to his pocket immediately, resting on the obvious outline of his phone in his pocket. Giving a strange look that Roman couldn’t decipher at him, Patton pulled out his phone with one hand and fiddled with it for a moment before pausing. 

“What are you…” Roman asked.

Tapping the screen, Patton held up his phone as Roman’s voice suddenly came through the speakers.

The words Roman remembered uttering flooded into his ears.

“Hey Patton, I- We don’t know where you are right now, just know that you’re going to be okay. We're going to find you, I promise. I love… you...Patton.”

Patton’s hand nearly dropped the phone when it began to tremble. Without a second thought, Roman grabbed Patton’s hand between the two of his and held tight. 

However, instead of being sad, Patton looked up with a smile on his face.It was certainly not a full one, but it was much more genuine than the half-smiles either of them had been barely committing to. Roman’s mouth almost fell open on the spot.

“Thank you, Roman. You’re so thoughtful.”

Roman sat there on the verge of his jaw-dropping straight to the floor before he straightened up again, coughing awkwardly away from Patton. His cheeks were heating up way too fast and he wanted them to stop. Even as his cheeks still were blazing fires, Roman was turning back to Patton again almost immediately.

“Um... To finish off, I did that and then we found the blood from Thomas on the couch blankets and the vase in the trash, saw Remus’s car and connected the dots, and then came here. You know the rest.”

Patton pursed his lips, face drawing together until his face cleared. His eyes opened wide as he softly gasped.

“Oh yeah, I did break the vase… Remus… must have cleaned that up while I was attempting to find my keys and wallet.”

Roman blinked. 

Remus?

“Remus cleaned the vase? I thought that must have been you?”

The corners of Patton’s mouth dipped a little as Patton shook his head resolutely.

“No, I would remember something like that. I’m-” Patton stuttered, his mouth faltering. “I’m sor- I… didn’t mean to make you fear for my safety so much.”

Roman shook his head.

“It’s fine. Emotions were running high for you and you had a child to worry about. I can see how you might not have had ‘contacting your partners about what had happened when they were supposed to still be coming back’ high on your priorities then. Even if you had told us anything, it would’ve likely had the same effect on how you feel right now with how you didn’t want us to worry after the fact. Your emotions are valid, but please don’t feel obligated to do anything for me and Janus, alright? We love you.”

Patton was silent for a long couple of moments before his mouth opened and his free hand suddenly shot out. 

“Thank you.”

Slamming into Roman’s shoulder with quite a bit of force, Patton’s hand came down forcefully enough that Roman might have had his knees buckle under him at the very least if he were standing.

-

 Janus’s hand was heavy and firm on Remus’s shoulder. Having brought his hand down fairly heavily on Remus’s shoulder, it definitely caught Remus’s attention. It was heavy enough that Remus couldn’t ignore it being there, but it was just enough to not be unbearable.

“I- I still don’t understand. Roman is never this harsh, this… sharp, this… glare-y, unless he’s really serious. He’s told me not to bring you up and I thoughtlessly did this morning and we nearly got in a fight over it. I can’t imagine… I want to believe what Roman implies with all of his harshness towards you, that you did something bad or insulted or something.”

Remus bit lip as he cringed, turning his back to Janus to try to quickly hide the actual genuine emotion that statement elicited in Remus’s heart. And it wasn’t a nice emotion, it was a twisting pain in Remus’s heart that made Remus want to scream.

He had no idea who he wanted to scream at, Janus? Roman? Everyone in particular who looked down upon him or hated him because of who he was or what he did in the past? Honestly, did it really matter who he was going to scream at? 

Other than Patton. Out of everyone, Patton was the only one Remus may never say a bad word about, much less scream wordlessly at him in frustration of nothing in particular. 

Janus is actually being nice to me for a change, do I really want to scream at him? It’s not my fault Roman only expressed his vague dislike for me and not my side. I can’t blame him for preferring his actual boyfriend over me.

“Remus? Are you okay? Do you need to go back to Thom- his hospital room?”

Oh, yeah. 

Remus was staring down at the intersection of the hospital wall and the floor.

I should probably turn back to Janus. Now that I am not about to scream in his face, it’s only fair to face him again.

Only fair.

Plastering a hopefully believable grin that was nowhere near the caliber of his usual borderline insane looking grin, though it did fit exactly how tired he was, Remus met Janus’s eyes, no longer facing the wall away from him.

“Nah, I’m fine, Short and Snaky, just still trying to wake up a little. I wouldn’t have come if I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it.” 

Janus didn’t even try to appear like he believed Remus, crossing his arms and angling a questioning brow to him in a very obvious way of saying: Oh really? With all the sarcasm that Janus had in him, which was probably a lot.

Without Janus even having to speak, Remus was dropping once again, letting everything visibly hang on him. It was like 10-pound weights were added to most of his body at once. Looking away once again, Remus focused back down on the ground purposefully this time.

“Okay… okay. That… did sting a bit, the comment about me being less believable or whatever, but that’s par for the course. You’re not the first to think that either. Roman’s always been the ‘golden child’ and I haven’t. I’m used to it though. It’s fine.”

Remus didn’t wait for the agreement that was surely going to come from Janus. Starting to walk away, he merely expedited the process of getting on with getting to the cafeteria by leading them down the hall again. He had held both of them up enough.

But a hand on his arm stopped Remus in his tracks, his eyes widened and he stiffened as he turned back to Janus to get whatever scorn he was bound to get. More of the usual? He was used to that from anyone who didn’t know him that well.

Except, that in his surprise he glanced up at Janus’s face and it was… not that at all. If anything, it was incredibly gentle, the opposite of scornful.

“Remus, that’s not fine… You aren’t supposed to feel that way, or… no one should’ve made you feel that that is the case at all. Even if your parents were obvious in who they liked more or whatever, that’s no excuse to talk down to you about something you could never change or that whoever you are wasn’t  something worth valuing!”

Remus blinked, a lot. His blinking was almost like a strobe light, his eyes spending as much time closed as open.

“Uh....” Remus offered, at a very rare loss for words.

Thankfully, Janus continued on for him, a light squeeze on Remus’s shoulder accompanying him.

“You shouldn’t have to think that. You don’t seem too… non-goldeny to me. They probably said things because they just don’t understand you, and you probably did things back then because you didn't understand them. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think either of you tried to understand each other, Roman included.”

Shaking his head Janus squeezed Remus’s shoulder again, the grip finally not feeling harsh or condemning despite its utmost gentleness. Still shaking his head, Janus leaned back, removing his hand from Remus’s shoulder.

“You… don’t have to talk about what happened between you two at all if you don’t want to. Just know you aren’t bad or whatever self-deprecating words are bouncing around in your cranium up there.” Remus flinched, closing one of his eyes when Janus brought his fist up. However, Janus simply rapped his knuckles on Remus’s head. “You can never be ‘bad’ if you're always trying to be better. Just because you fail doesn’t mean you didn’t try.”

Smiling slightly wider for a moment, Janus lingered his fist on Remus’s head before pulling his hand down and just waited.

It took a long moment of staring blankly back at Janus before it hit Remus that Janus was simply… waiting.

Straightening up with an awkward cough, Remus brushed out the wrinkles that had formed in his nurse’s uniform. He paused for a moment at the fact that he still had it on, though the fact that he hadn’t remembered taking it off would serve to prove that it would still be what he was wearing. 

Why does it suddenly feel weird to have this on? I’m still here at the hospital, so why does this suddenly feel out of place? Maybe it’s just… everything. My brain doesn’t know what to feel anymore, so everything just feels off.

Clearing his throat conspicuously once more, Remus stepped over to the wall. He placed his back on it, trying to alleviate the sense of wrong coursing through him as he prepared to talk about his brother after not daring to for… Remus couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken about it other than his own partners. Remus just wanted someone to talk to again, to stop this hiding...    

The moment his back did hit the wall, most of the sensation of wrongness melted away, only leaving the tension of admitting to someone who was quite nearly a stranger one of his most vulnerable secrets or conflict. 

Janus stepped towards him abruptly, but the move was obviously more of a following step as Remus had moved away from where he was than an advancing step judging by how Janus was remaining the same distance away as before.

Measuring his breathing, Remus took a moment to clear his mind the best he could. To let himself think about everything clearly without inward distractions no matter how much it hurt to think about. Sure, all of the daily thoughts that ran through his mind were still there, churning and writhing in the back of his mind, but they were slowly drowned out by all the memories pertaining to him and his brother.

The memories were sharp and pointy, like knives or needles, poking Remus painfully if he tried to squirm an inch in thought. Scenes of the hurt and anger and just… bad feelings replayed in his mind as he faced them head-on for the first time since they had been created.

Once Remus was ready, he opened his eyes, not knowing when he closed them, and began.

“The truth is…” Remus ignored the sudden impulse to finish the phrase with ‘I am Iron Man’ like at the end of the first Iron Man movie, this was a serious moment. 

“I… don’t know why Roman hates me.”

Waiting for Janus’s reaction, Remus glanced up to find an expression on Janus’s face that he didn’t expect.

“What?”

-

“-can’t you make mistakes?” Gripping Patton’s hand on his shoulder, Roman squeezed Patton’s hand in what he hoped was a comforting way. 

When Patton didn’t immediately respond, Roman’s face softened, his forehead smoothing out a little. Something about Patton’s expression, his mouth pressed carefully into a thin line and the slight avoidance for eye contact namely, told him that Patton didn’t think he could make mistakes.

“Oh habibi, darling, please don’t fret. You’re human, I’m human. I can make mistakes, right?”

Roman gripped Patton’s hand tighter, pulling it from his shoulder and cradling it into his chest as if he were carrying his most prized possession. His eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, if he opened them any wider.

Just being in the room with Remus has him rubbing off on me… I… no… I can’t think about him right now. Patton’s the priority.

Keeping his head bowed for another moment, Patton finally looked up, eyes just as wide as Roman’s if not even wider. Painfully conflicted, Roman’s heart nearly combusted at the sight of the conflict in Patton’s eyes. As if the fact that he could make mistakes was something that was hard to grasp for Patton.

How are you, so perfect and beautiful in all you do, doubtful of your own abilities? If I was half the man you were...

Patton squeaked, the notes slightly strangled, and suddenly slammed his face into Roman’s chest. 

“Uh- Um… You okay there, Pat?” Roman stammered, his cheeks tinging the lightest shade pink at the sudden initiate gesture.

Patton muttered something into Roman’s chest that didn’t quite reach Roman’s ears. Eyes trailing down from how Patton’s hand was still intertwined with Thomas’s somehow, Roman frowned down at Patton.

“What… what’d you say there Pat?”

Patton pulled back from Roman’s chest just enough to be decipherable, his face still not visible for Roman. Though he could swear he saw a blush coloring Patton’s cheeks, what could be the cause of that?

“I asked you if you really thought that, the… perfect and beautiful stuff? I… don’t deserve…”

Roman’s body stiffened. Pulling himself away from Roman as he himself stiffened, Patton snatched his hand away like Roman was a hot stove.

“Oh…Oops I… said that out loud? Oh.” Roman sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck before his mind latched onto what Patton had said at the end. His eyes narrowed. “Wait, were you about to say you didn’t deserve that praise? I’ll have you know that you deserve all of the praise that I can give to you and more. You’re usually the one that gets on us about self-deprecation. It’s time to listen to your own advice, Pat.”

Gaping his mouth open like a fish, Patton looked about ready to protest before he closed his mouth suddenly.

“I… feel bad about being a hypocrite, but… yeah… I should listen to myself a bit more.” Patton offered a small smile once again.

Tutting, Roman cupped Patton’s chin, watching as Patton’s eyes drooped. 

“What am I going to do with you, dapdoub? My little teddy bear?”

Leaning into Roman’s gentle caress, Patton’s eyes closed for a moment before almost immediately snapping open again. Under him, Roman’s chair shifted a little and Roman had to look down at what the disturbance was. Patton was lightly tugging at the chair with a suspiciously innocent expression on his face, doe-eyed and unassuming.

“How about cuddles? Because that’s what you do with your Daddoub, cuddle them?” Roman caught a ghost of a smirk flashing across Patton’s face, but plausible deniability served that it could have just been Roman’s imagination.

Roman rolled his eyes but didn’t comment on that or the pun.

“Fine. But it’s because I wanted to, anyway.”

Roman was too busy scooting his chair forwards to look, but when he spoke, Patton’s voice was very, very smirky sounding.

“Alright, Roman.”

When Roman was finally in range, he opened his arms and let Patton guide him onto his chest, but something struck him.

“Wait, a teddy bear’s not supposed to be Big Spoon or… whatever it’s called. You’re supposed to…” Roman was stopped mid-sentence by a playful finger to his lips.

“Shh, it doesn’t matter because cuddles.”

“I-”

“Cuddles.”

Roman huffed, but didn’t protest as he let himself be pressed gently against Patton’s taller and slightly broader chest. 

If Patton cuddled up against me, he would be much more uncomfortable having to bend down… So this is fine…

They stayed like that in silence, Roman beginning to want to trace his eyes down Patton’s arm again to find if Patton was still holding Thomas’s hand.

That was until one simple but sudden sound had both of them startled.

Bee-

-

-eep!

Both Remus and Janus jumped as a loud beeping came from the vicinity of Janus. The moment of confusion was momentarily broken as Janus plunged his hand into the noticeable sagging pocket of his pants. Remus looked silently on as the sound was now revealing to be Janus’s phone. After a moment of fiddling with his phone, brow furrowing in concentration, the beeping stopped and Janus refocused on Remus with a slightly pained expression. Biting his lip, Janus quickly slipped his phone back into his pocket.

“Sorry, that was the alarm I set so that we didn’t waste too much time talking and not getting back. I don’t want them suspecting anything.” Janus gestured ahead of them, moving his arm back and forth more and more rapidly as Remus still hadn’t moved at first. “Come on, let’s walk and talk. I’m honestly getting hungry despite everything that’s happened.”

Janus’s stomach growled right then, eliciting a kind of barking laugh from Remus at the perfect timing of it, finally moving Remus forward as his mind quickly caught up with what was happening.

“Me too, Jan, me too,” Remus repeated as he passed Janus. 

Immediately stepping off with Remus, Janus kept pace with Remus. It took a few moments for Janus to finally speak again, continuing where he let off.

“What the fuck?” 

Remus nearly stumbled as Janus’s voice abruptly exclaimed nearly straight into his ear. His hand came up instinctively to cup his ears.

“Huh?”

“What do you mean, huh? Not to be an asshole or whatever, but how- How do you not know why your twin hates you?”

Remus blinks, he blinks until the moisture in his eyes starts to cloud his vision. Gripping his nurse’s uniform, the uniform that was wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Wrong!

Remus gulped.

Is that stomach acid or am I just really that stupid that I’m actually crying over this? Figures. Same old me that never changes and is still that stupid old… monster.

“Because I just don’t!” Remus nearly shouted, catching a few looks from strangers walking past. But he didn’t care, he couldn’t care, he shouldn’t. 

Twisting his outfit in his hands, a wave of emotions carried him as his mouth moved without him putting much thought into his words.

“I don’t know what I did or what he thinks I did, but he hasn’t ever given me a chance to explain! The last time I tried to talk to him about it, he threw his complete collection of Shakespeare’s plays at me. I still have a scar from it. Ever since then, it’s been tense and we’ve ignored the problem when we’re forced to interact. I can see that he’s hurt and I’ve wanted to help, but the motherfucker won’t ever just talk! Still think the best I can of the guy and he just-”

Cut off, Remus’s voice caught in his throat at the same moment Janus placed a gentle hand on his chest, stopping him in his tracks, audibly and physically. 

Wishing the blurriness in his eyes would go away, Remus clenched his outfit harder, not keeping eye contact with Janus, who was desperately trying to meet his eyes.

God, the one guy who usually can’t look me in the eye usually is the one desperately trying to! Such a fuck up, he shouldn’t have to do that! You’re forcing him to do that.

Pulled apart by two conflicting impulses, Remus was frozen until a grip on his chin forced his head up near painfully. Meeting Janus’s startling heterochromic eyes, Remus squirmed immediately to try and get away

“Remus, breathe. You’re almost hyperventilating.”

Oh… that was why Remus was nearly bouncing up and down. His gasps of air that weren’t nearly enough had nearly taken over his whole body. 

With Janus’s hands guiding him, he distantly sat down, or he must have at some point in his oxygen-deprived haze, as he was suddenly sitting with his back pressed against the wall. A hand that could only be Janus rubbing small circles on his arm and as far back on his back as it could reach.

That touch was what finally snapped Remus back, the steady feeling of right, right, rightness, slowly leaking back into his bones instead. Like a broken record, Remus looked up slowly into Janus’s eyes, ready for scorn once again because he was actually crying and panicking for no reason. But instead, Janus’s eyes were only filled with obvious concern, forehead wrinkled but as soft as it could be drawn together.

Choking back the bile and saliva and maybe snot that accumulated in his emotional fugue, Remus’s body shuddered in a sob as he tried to speak. His throat was still closed off, even when he had already removed the physical barrier for him to do so.

“Don’t worry, you don’t need to speak right now. Is it okay if I leave you here to go get the food for everyone? I can-” Remus surged forward abruptly, cutting off Janus as he held tight to Janus’s sleeve. He was still unable to say anything, but Remus opened his eyes wide in what he hoped was the same kind of way we had experienced Patton’s own puppy dog-like eyes.

It seemed to work, Janus huffing before swatting at Remus’s grip on his sleeve.

“Alright, alright, we’ll go together. Just don’t think this is over, your eyes will give you away. Do… you want Roman’s glasses? I swiped them from him when he wasn’t looking.” Janus said as he dug around in his other pocket and produced a pair of black sunglasses that were almost comically large. Remus stared at them, half of him in disbelief and the other half wanting to laugh at the absurdity of them. But… they would work.

Remus nodded minutely, carefully taking the sunglasses before shoving them onto his face and trying to push himself to his feet. Unfortunately, his body apparently was revolting as his attempts only resulted in the resounding thud of his head on the wall.

Blinking, Remus groaned but obliged the grip that he had to search a moment for in his suddenly dim surroundings.

Wow, these glasses are pretty strong, was what Remus wanted to say, but his voice was still betraying him, but by how he stretched his hands out, Janus still responded.

“Oh… yeah, those are pretty strong. They are technically mine, but Roman usually wears them when I don’t need them. He says it helps his look, which is mostly bullshit.” Remus full-on snorted, trying to hide it behind the thin excuse of a cough. Smirking, Janus offered his hand for Remus to grab and yanked Remus up, linking their arms once Remus was situated upright. “Yeah, I know, but he loves it and I love- I love him, so I tolerate the borderline thievery.”

His free hand flying to his face, Remus stifled another snort that definitely wasn’t a cough at Janus’s joke.

Wishing that his voice had worked, Remus let Janus lead him into the more bustling cafeteria, leaving the more secluded alcove near the cafeteria. Because if his voice had been working, Remus would’ve been absolutely howling in laughter.

Instead, Remus supplied a firm squeeze to Janus’s upper arm when he finally pulled  his hand away from his mouth. Without looking at Remus, Janus lifted the side of his mouth in a smirk, not doing too much to react as they stepped into the very short line to get what they needed: yummy, yummy food.

“You decide what you want, I’ll see what I know everyone else would like.” Remus nodded as Janus unlinked their elbows, placing his hand on his chin thoughtfully as he began to analyze the menu. However, a flicker of a glance from Janus made clear Janus wasn’t completely disregarding Remus, after all, he had just had… a panic attack? Was that what that was? He hated that feeling. Now he got why Virgil was so distraught during and after the experience.

Oh yeah, they’ll be back soon, I’ll text them later… I don’t think I even have my phone right now.

Remus patted his pockets, eventually outlining the vague shape of his phone indeed in his pocket, separate from everything else he needed in case of emergencies, most of which he had at the very least considered using on Thomas when he came in. He was grateful that he had already put on his scrubs before Patton called or he would’ve had to change rapidly into them or just deal with not having the materials he could easily get with scrubs on. 

Finally gazing up at the menu, it took a few moments for Remus to tip Janus’s sunglasses down because there was no way he was going to read the menu with them on. 

It was a quick look over before Remus had in his mind exactly what he wanted, really there was no question. Janus wasn’t done by that point, though, and he waited patiently, pushing his sunglasses back over his likely red-rimmed eyes. 

Good thing they have brunch, cause those actual chocolate chip pancakes look good. I hope they aren’t like the trash version of pancakes that we had at school.

As Remus waited, his stomach growled, the first indication since this whole ordeal started that he was actually hungry. Listening to his stomach for the first time in nearly a day, he began to fantasize about how the food would taste, how the sensation would feel. He usually liked eating new foods, which he was quickly running out of because there were only so many different foods until there weren’t any more, but right now he just wanted something familiar after all of… that.

That’s not something you see every day, me wanting something traditional. Who is this man?

Remus smirked before a grip on his arm signaled Janus was done.

“What do you want, Remus? Have you decided yet?” Remus nodded, not bothering to actually make eye contact as no one could see his eyes, so why bother when you could just… don’t. He pointed to the chocolate chip pancakes and frowned when Janus did a double-take at the menu, frowning himself.

“Huh, that’s what Roman likes too… Though, I guess twins have similar tastes. Ok, hello! I’m gonna get a thing of...” Janus kept talking, but his voice became background noise as Remus stared up at the menu, instinctively following Janus without a word.

Though he couldn’t make out the words properly behind the sunglasses, Remus stared right at where it had been as his thoughts washed over him.

Roman… still eats chocolate chip pancakes? Why would he do that? It was… our thing, our twin power fuel. I can’t even eat them without remembering that, why would he still be-

Remus almost heaved up the non-contents of his stomach without the slightest warning, which cut his thoughts short as if he hadn’t been yearning for food desperately just moments earlier. The movement was small and halted the moment it began, but that was enough for Janus to turn to Remus with a very subtle frown.

“Hold on a moment, I apologize. Remus, are you okay?” Remus nodded his head fervently, not wanting to alarm Janus or make a scene. Janus, however, leveled a simple eyebrow raise at Remus that had him instantly deflating. Waving a hand at Janus, Remus stepped over to the side, right beside the end of the counter.

Frowning even more, Janus lingered in place, fully focused on Remus before he snapped back to the person behind the counter. Remus wasn’t even paying attention to the people behind the counter, they were a ghost of an afterthought. Instead, his eyes were either on Janus or on a random spot in the room that wasn’t a person.

Body numb, Remus stood at the end of the counter as Janus moved closer and closer. Janus interacted with the undetermined person behind the counter before pushing a bag of food into Remus’s chest.

“Come on, let’s get back quick.”

Staring blankly at the bag for a few moments, it took a few moments before Remus wrapped his arm under the bag with one hand and grabbed the loops at the top of the bag that Janus was holding out for him.

Acting first, Janus stepped towards the exit and Remus wasted no time in following.

It wasn’t until the hallway that Janus dared to speak.

“Remus, I know I’ve asked already, but… are you really okay? You paled halfway through that and I was half expecting you to collapse or throw up or something.”

Remus jumped.

How does he know my tells so well? We’ve just met- wait… Roman’s my twin, of course we’re going to be a bit similar, so… I guess…

Remus sighed, running his right hand through his hair. “Later, just… I remembered something I hadn’t thought of in a while. Please don’t push me.”

His hand paused in his hair, though he never stopped walking. Drifting down, Remus ran his finger across his lips over and over. Remus’s voice was back.

“Oh, your voice is back. And don’t worry, I won’t push it. But… What did happen? I know you don’t know why, but when was the first time Roman was angry with you?”

“I- um..”

Remus stayed silent for a while once again, but found his voice just as there was a commotion behind them and a doctor that looked vaguely familiar flew past them. They were yelling something as, but everything was hectic enough that neither man caught what was said.

“Don’t turn left. Don’t turn left.  Don’t turn left.” Remus muttered after the doctor. 

And of course, the doctor reached the end of the hallways and ran left.

Exchanging only a single glance, both Janus and Remus began to pick up the pace. They were almost full-on running with how fast they were hurrying, the bags in their hands jostling the to-go boxes in them noisily.

“Did you recognize that doctor? I thought… wasn’t it..?”

Remus’s chest tightened painfully as he connected the details he’d noticed of the fleeting doctor. His face definitely paled.

“Dr. Kagan?”

Janus made an indescribable noise from beside Remus. The cacophony of the boxes still backdropped their heavy gasps of air as they ran down the halls back to Thomas’s room.

“Yeah, fuck!”

Through the twisting and turning hallways, it was only a matter of time before Janus turned off the wrong way.

“Wrong way, Jan. Come on!”

Cursing, Janus turned on his heel and speed-walked back to Remus, barely able to keep up with him now. 

Before they turned the last corner to Thomas’s room, something stopped both of them in their tracks. Remus’s feet glue themselves to the spot and so did Janus.

Patton’s high, ear-piercing wail reverberated down the hallway, breaking both of their hearts in half.

[dwellordream]

“In February 1924, Illustreret Fagblad for danske Damefrisorer, one of the leading trade journals for Danish women's hairdressers, reported that short haircuts for women were becoming increasingly common throughout most of Europe. Although the trend had not yet reached Denmark, it was likely to do so, the journal predicted, since "we have seen within the last couple of months the first signs of .. . shorn hair here in Copenhagen." The prediction proved correct. In July 1925, Ugens Spejl, another trade journal, reported that the new fashion was spreading "like fire in old houses." That same year, the president of the Ladies' Hairdressers Association estimated that 25 percent of Copenhagen's female population had their hair cut short.

The following year, one Copenhagen barber claimed that no less than 75 percent of women under the age of 30 had adopted the new styles, leading the editor of yet another trade journal, Danmarks Barber-og Frisortidende to conclude that "there is something almost epidemically contagious about the advancing shingling. Each and everyone who lets her locks fall for the scissors immediately draws four or five others with her." Although contemporaries may have exaggerated the numbers, contemporary street photography and surviving photo albums suggest that a significant number of young women did in fact dispose of their long hair in the second half of the 1920s. 

It is also telling that no fewer than 48 of the 59 women interviewed for this project recalled having their hair cut short before 1930. As Anne Bruun explained many years later, "That was just what you did. If you were young and wanted to be in style, that was definitely the look. Anybody who wanted to be up-to-date did that." Helene Berg agreed. "Short hair made you look chic, made you look modern," she claimed. Besides, as Louise Ege pointed out, short hair "kind of fit with the other things that were fashionable. Short dresses and all that." But despite their enthusiasm for the new hairstyles, actually acquiring one of the fashionable bobs was not always easy. While the number of beauty salons had been growing since the turn of the century, women's hairdressers generally shied away from providing their female customers with the short haircuts they desired.

For decades women's hairdressers had worked hard to create a respectable female profession by promoting themselves as specialists in hygiene and conventional feminine beauty, an accomplishment they were not willing to sacrifice by embracing the controversial new styles. Moreover, since most hairdressers were only used to working with combs, brushes, and curlers, few were actually competent to cut hair. As a result, many women had to enter male barbershops to have their hair cut, a step many took with considerable trepidation. The difficulties of finding a stylist both willing and able to cut a woman's hair was not the only obstacle to a fashionable appearance. Many fathers and husbands explicitly prohibited the new styles. Others let their disapproval be known more indirectly.

As Magda Gammelgaard Jensen recalled, "I really wanted to get my hair [cut] short, but I didn't know how to go about it. It wasn't so easy when there was a man around." According to Mr. H. M. Christensen, the president of the Danish Grooming, Toilet and Sanitary Workers' Union, many women therefore chose to "have their hair cut at a time when their husbands and fathers [were] not at home." Outside the private sphere, other forces also strove to contain "that unfortunate tendency among young ladies to shear their hair." Some workplaces openly discriminated against women who adhered to the new fashion. Several prominent department stores did not hire women who sported the new hairstyles. Others fired employees after a visit to the hairdresser. 

In 1924, the personnel director at Crome & Goldschmidt, one of the leading clothing stores in Copenhagen, flatly declared that he "would absolutely not engage or employ any young woman with bobbed hair." Other businesses had similar policies. The president of Salomon David Jr. Inc., Inger Diemer, explained that she had "banned bobbed hair." "I demand," she continued, "that the women who work with us, sign [a contract] that they will not wear short hair. In my mind, that is not proper in an old, highly esteemed firm." The director of Bispebjerg Hospital, Charlotte Munck, also banned short hair for all nurses under her supervision.

Even women in less publicly visible occupations faced ostracism if they chose to adopt the modern styles. Inger Mangart, for example, who worked as a part-time cleaning assistant in a private home in the late 1920s, recalled being dismissed the first day she arrived with short hair. The press was equally adamant in its stance against the new styles. To discourage young women from following fashion, newspapers and popular magazines delighted in sensationalist stories about domestic turmoil caused by short hair. Divorces, physical abuse, family disintegration, and even murders were described as tragic, but predictable, outcomes of women's changed appearances.

Assuming, however, that young women were more likely to follow fashion prescription than sensible guidance, journalists and other commentators figured that the most efficient way to combat the modern styles was simply to declare them unfashionable. "Bobbed hair is no longer in style," one beauty advice columnist thus warned as early as 1922, several years before the new styles hit Denmark. "We hardly have to repeat that bobbed hair has already received the death sentence abroad," another fashion expert claimed that same year. "There is no doubt that this fad, the short hair, is coming to an end," Ugebladet asserted a couple of years later, and in 1925, B.T. was pleased to report that "all countries now agree that the fashion of short hair is finally on the retreat."

Yet despite these elaborate efforts to suppress the new haircuts, women's enthusiasm did not wane. Many critics therefore felt compelled to explain the dangers of the new styles in the hope that young women would be swayed by their arguments. Some journalists and beauty advice columnists sought to discourage young women from having their hair cut through use of the kind of racist imagery that permeated early twentieth century European culture. By labeling the new styles "Hottentot hair" or "Apache cuts," they strove to impress upon young women the incompatibility of short hair with refined Western womanhood. "Surely, no young lady wants to look like a monkey," one reporter thus argued, apparently hoping that young women would recognize the similarity between women's short hair and animal fur. 

Other observers claimed that short hair simply made women look ugly and unattractive. Cutting one's hair was therefore inevitably at the risk of losing "the man's admiration and desire." Although some men admitted that a short-haired woman might serve "as a drinking buddy," those who participated in the public debate all insisted that the new styles did not mix with marriage and motherhood, implying that short-haired women could expect to live out their lives as spinsters and old maids— an argument that presumably would dissuade any young woman from such reckless behavior. While most female critics tended to focus on the aesthetic aspects of the new styles, it was quite different considerations that fueled much of the vehement male opposition. 

Like many other people in the early twentieth century, these commentators believed there was a direct correlation between external appearance and internal self. When a woman cut her hair, she was not only defying conventional standards of femininity but was also prone to develop some of those mental traits that usually characterized people with short hair—namely, men. As Ludvig Brandt-Meller, a male hairdresser who opposed the new styles, explained, "Short hair tends to emancipate the woman. It is as if it affects her psychologically." Others found that short-haired women became "like men in character and gestures," insisting that "that 99 out of 100 women with short hair have simultaneously acquired boyish or mannish manners."'

A few alarmists saw even greater dangers ahead. The very act of cutting a woman's hair, they argued, would eventually alter a woman's biological constitution and turn her into a man. Believing that the mass of hair on a human body was constant, some argued that short hair would necessarily cause women to grow beards. Others predicted the advent of female baldness. "The evidence is right there, since 60 percent of all men over forty [who presumably had cut their hair since childhood] are bald, while less than 0.1 percent of all women [who had never previously cut their hair] suffer from this weakness," another critic of the new styles explained. 

While men had tended to object to short dresses because they rendered women too attractive, their reactions to short hair were therefore quite different. According to male critics, short hair "emancipated" women and made then unwomanly, even masculine, and not attractive enough, a violation of gender norms that seemed to them much graver and ultimately more unpleasant than women being overly sexy and seductive. Even those who did not necessarily believe that short hair would actually turn women into men found this quite disturbing because, as one correspondent wrote to the editor of the newspaper B.T. in 1925, "If there is something we men cannot stand, it is precisely women void of femininity. "

Young women's seeming disregard of men's opinions about the new styles only made matters worse. Apparently, young women were no longer pursuing physical beauty and style for the purposes of male pleasure and admiration. How, then, were men to understand women's enthusiasm for short hair as anything but a sign that women cared less about male approval than about their own "emancipation"? Some even feared that the popularity of the new styles might indicate an explicit sexual and emotional detachment from men. In comparison with those who defended short dresses when they first appeared, supporters of the new hairstyles were therefore faced with a much more difficult task. 

The opposition to women's short hair was much fiercer than the opposition to short dresses had ever been, as short hair connoted emancipation, female defiance, and rebellion against men's judgment in a way that short skirts never had. During this entire controversy, the voices of women who cut their hair were rarely heard in public. Under heavy fire, most young women seemingly preferred to avoid the discursive battles that raged around them. On the few occasions that any of these women did speak up, they generally adopted a very cautious stance, seeking to diffuse the opposition by reassuring critics of their whole-hearted commitment to femininity and respectable womanhood. 

In 1925, one young woman who described herself as "old-fashioned" despite her short hair thus sought to counter criticisms of the new styles by denying that there was any link between appearance and identity. "Why in the world should a young girl not be equally feminine and good whether she has bobbed hair or long hair?," she wondered. "It does, after all, not change the nature of the young girl to have her hair cut off." More often, young women simply tried to skirt criticisms by emphasizing the very pragmatic concerns that allegedly had led them to the barbershop. "Much can be said both for and against the bobbed hair, but the fact that it is a practical way of wearing one's hair, nobody can deny," one woman argued.

Nonetheless, the relative silence on the part of the women who wore the new hairstyles did not mean that no voices were raised in their defense. Complicating the picture of vocal male opponents and a largely silent group of female supporters, the chief public advocates of short hair for women in the 1920s were in fact male barbers. Not that barbers were a particularly fashion-conscious bunch or especially committed to young women's right to determine their own appearance. These men simply saw the new styles as a means to propel their profession out of the crisis in which it had lingered for decades. 

The rise of the medical and dental professions had dealt the first blow to the former surgeon-barbers, eliminating what had been the most profitable areas of their occupation. Later, when men began to shave themselves rather than frequenting the barber twice or three times weekly, the financial base of most barbershops had been further undercut, and scattered attempts at cultivating new areas of business expertise such as facial massage and manicure had contributed only little to their economy. 

In this context, the fashionable new styles for women seemed a god-send for barbers eager to cultivate both a new clientele and new sources of income, and since women's hairdressers generally opposed the short hairstyles and most often refused to cut women's hair, barbers were left with the uncontested responsibility for providing young women with the look they desired. Of course, barbers were not oblivious to the offense women's short hair provoked or the wrath they might incur by accommodating female customers. 

It was therefore in their own best interest to counter the opposition, and toward that end they adopted the same strategy that fashion advocates had successfully used a few years earlier, namely, to attempt to disassociate short hair from any kind of subversive intentions on the part of women. Short hair, they insisted, had nothing to do with defiance of feminine conventions or even modern fashions. It was a style adopted for reasons of comfort, ease, and practicality only. "It is not the senseless mimicking of fashion follies that has led women to allow their hair to be cut off," one barber thus insisted in 1926. "Rather, it is the natural development in all social strata that has forced the women to choose a practical hairstyle."

To give credibility to this claim, barbers traced the origins of women's short hair not to feminist rebels or decadent fashions, but to that highly respectable, self-sacrificing female heroine, Florence Nightingale. "When a war begins," one writer explained, "masses of younger and older women who wish to be nurses in the army immediately sign up. The healthiest among them are selected, and the first step on the road to their new vocation is to cut their hair as short as men's, first, because the daily care takes too long time, and secondly, because a nurse cannot run around with a zoo of carnivores [sicl] in her long hair." Upon their return, the reasoning continued, admirers adopted similar hair styles. 

Although there was little historical evidence to support such an explanation—after all, Florence Nightingale's reputation had been established during the Crimean War almost three quarters of a century earlier, and few women had followed her example in the intervening years —this argument had several advantages. First, it disassociated short hair from any kind of female defiance. Second, it sought to ground the popularity of the new hairstyles in admirable, patriotic concerns. And third, it tied short hair to notions of health and hygiene. From the mid-1920s, particularly the latter, combined with arguments about the practical requirements of the labor market, formed the core in the defense of women's short hair. 

In addition, barbers also sought to address anxieties over the seeming dissipation of gender differences by calling attention to the cultural and historical versatility of hair styles. In an article entitled "Masculine Girl Hair and Feminine Boy Hair," the author set out to prove that "women have not been 'the long-haired sex' for as long as we believe." A sampling of Greek, Roman, and Persian traditions led him to conclude that "long hair appears just as frequently on men as on women when one examines history, which is why hair has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual character." 

Just as long hair did not make men less masculine, short hair would not eradicate women's femininity. In fact, some argued, it held the potential of actually heightening it by drawing attention to women's fine facial features. "The shape of the face, the beauty of the skin, as well as the soft lines of the neck" were accentuated by short hair, one barber wrote, poetically comparing a woman's face to a "painting [that] is also seen more clearly in a simple frame." In the case of modern dresses, fashion advocates had gradually managed to convince most critics of their compatibility with conventional womanhood. Short hair fared differently. 

Short, simple haircuts for women never gained acceptance in the 1920s, at least not among the men and women who publicly expressed their opinions. The controversy over women's hair only died down at the end of the decade, when a new, modified style of short hair became popular. Ironically, this new short style, which eventually appeased critics, emerged from the beauty salon run by women's hairdressers. Having been entirely unsuccessful in their attempts to coax women into preserving their long hair and eager to regain some of the professional territory lost to barbers, women's hairdressers found themselves forced to dispense with their rejection of the short fashions. 

Still unwilling, however, to embrace the bobbed look, they devised a new strategy. Arguing that short hair unfortunately had been "carried to extremes... by the less cultivated segments of the female population" and was sported by "each and every factory and shop-girl," (middle-class) women were offered a chance to distinguish themselves as "finer ladies" through "feminine and graceful styles with curls and waves" while they were waiting for their hair to grow out again. By fashioning themselves as aides to women concerned with the reestablishment of their femininity and by presenting their care for short hair as a form of damage control, hairdressers were able to legitimize their growing interest in women's new hairstyles. 

With relatively few ideological scruples they were therefore able to plunge into this profitable market during the last years of the 1920s, gradually recapturing the patronage of most women. However, that women left the barbershop and (re)turned to the beauty salon did not indicate that long hair was regaining its popularity. Fashionable hairstyles for women remained short for the rest of the decade. What did change was the way short hair actually looked. Female hairdressers, one fashion columnist noted with applause, did "everything to give the short style a more feminine air than earlier." 

Permanent waves and curls, artificial hair pieces, decorative combs, ribbons, and barrettes all contributed to this goal. This new, feminized version of short hair quickly gained popularity among women interested in variation and possibly weary of public hostility. Within just a few years the original simple, straight styles had virtually been abandoned. Customers, one hairdresser noted with pleasure in 1927, now wanted "to become more feminine, not with completely long hair, but with longer short hair, enough to be curly in the back and around the face .. . so that the repulsive boyish head becomes beautified and more feminine."

Thus, after a brief but troubling intermission where women's adoption of short hair seemed to be blurring gender differences, new curlier versions of bobbed hair marked the reestablishment of gender distinctions in fashionable self-presentation. Even though women continued to cut their hair, the clear stylistic differences between short hair for men and short hair for women soothed critics, and gradually their opposition faded. With their confidence in the stability of sexual difference restored, some of the harshest opponents were even able to admit a few years later that they actually found short hair quite charming and attractive—if not on their wives, then at least on their daughters.”

- Birgitte Soland, “The Emergence of the Modern Look.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s