#featuring Far's dumbass cat mode

[fablegate]

eggmentals

[i-am-parsec]

Unaddressed Letters - Part V

                                                           Leaving Jacksonville - part I

The night they leave is warm and quiet. End of the summer, the streets downtown are still fairly crowed after the sun goes down, Stacy has some costumers roaming around the thrift shop while Chase, just across the street, sweats in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant, trying to leave no meat uncooked and no drink without ice.

During a brief moment of precious spare time, he checks his phone.

“Call me when you are done with the dishes, kitchen boy" reads the screen.

His heart skips a beat and he frowns. Of course she’s texting him, they are friends. They go back home together every single night after work. This is not something worth a heart-beat skipping, when the fuck is his brain going to get the memo?

He can’t continue his internal screaming - those burritos aren’t going to make themselves.

The young girl puts her phone away as an old man approaches the counter. Dark eyes, whitening short brown hair, a full goatee and about two heads taller than her. He doesn’t look scary per se, but neither does he look friendly and yet Stacy is invaded by an strange feeling of warm comfort when met by this unknown client and ponders, for a second, why. When it clicks, her hands freeze. She keeps her gaze glued on the light blue shirt she’s bagging, choking back the tears. It’s always like this, something ordinary, unimportant, pulls the trigger and the pain rushes to her eyes. She manages to snap out of it, but not without the man noticing.

“Is everything okay, ma’am?”

Fuck, even his voice is similar. She fails at smiling and looks away.

“Yes, sir, it’s just…you look a lot like...uh, my dad. Well, not a lot, it’s mostly the beard...I think…”

As she looks down, it’s impossible to deny the burn in her throat and the shaking of her hands. Not now, please, not here. Crying during working hours in a thrift shop that’s probably – totally – laundering drug money.

Well, that’s a new low.

“Did you lose him recently?” asks the man gently, prompting her to look up.

“No, I…I lost him when I was kid. He was shot…a robbery gone wrong…”

He nods, no trace of pity in his features, only compassion and understanding. Maybe he lives in town, maybe he also lost someone in the hands of the corrupted and greedy. Maybe he knows this pain too.

“I’m sorry to tell you, darling, that it won’t ever stop hurting, especially in your case, a loss so unfair, but let me tell you this…” the old man stops for a second, and then, with more conviction than Stacy has ever witnessed in her entire life “…you are strong enough to handle this and any other nonsense that life throws at you. You just gotta remember that, always."

Her phone buzzes for a long minute but she doesn’t pick up. She’s still holding her breath when he gives her the money. She wants to tell him to not worry about it, the shirt is on her, but with such a tight budget, every cent counts. All she can do is smile and thank him.

Another call. She tries her best to sound calm but Chase can tell something's wrong in the tiredness of her "hey". She explains quickly, hoping to ease his friend's mind - he's already anxious mess by default, wouldn't want to fuel it up - and after repeating at least ten times "yes, Chase, I swear I'm ok now", she sighs and then asks.

"Can we go down to the bar tonight?"

There's a second of silence. She hates drinking or, to be more precise, she hates seeing him drinking. She claims he likes it a bit too much for his own good. She continues.

"I'll hurry up and close this dumpster in a minute, and then we go straight down to Joe's, what do you say?"

He knows what his friend is doing, she's avoiding herself, avoiding the thinking, the pain and honestly, he can't blame her. He's been there, done that, and she always stayed by his side whenever he went into Emotionless Drunk Mess mode, so he has no problem returning the favor now.

"I say I'm covered in sweat, blood and other unknown bodily fluids so maybe we go home and take a shower first?"

When she laughs, he feels his heart become a little lighter.

"First of all: ew, gross; secondly: We take shower? Are you suggesting we take it together, Brody?"

And there it is, that's the Stacy he knows and loves - a teasing smart ass. This time though, he doesn't let her words fluster him - too much - and attacks back.

"Of course, Walters, we gotta do it for the environment's sake, you know? We gotta save water!"

"Oh, yeah, totally, that’s why, it has nothing to do with you dying to see me naked."

"I feel so insulted you would even dare to think that, young lady, I am a gentleman!"

"Oh, sure thing, perv. Okay, I'll finish here and meet you outside in a bit."

The smile on his face lingers all the way until he sees her walking out the store. He nods curiously at the bag on her hand. She smiles like a kid planning a prank and simply winks.

“I’m just borrowing a little something.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s called stealing, Stacy.”

She chuckles and then, as she usually does, starts a fire in his chest with just a short phrase.

“Don’t judge me, I just want to look pretty for our date.”

She’s joking, Brody, she’s fucking joking, like all friends do.

Just as they get to their stop, their bus arrives.

“This must be our lucky night” exclaims Stacy surprised. Once they are settled in their seats, she rests her head  on his shoulder and grabs his hand. Chase simply does his best to not suffer a stroke.

“We have to get out of here, dude. Soon.”

“That’s the plan” stutters the young man, wishing he could sound a bit less nervous by something that they have been doing for years now.

“Yeah, I know, but we always talk about it as a goal in the future and I…I don’t know. I feel like we shouldn’t wait too long or we might end up never leave this town” mutters Stacy with a sudden grim tone.

“Don’t say that, dude, of course we are doing it,” says her friend as her grabs her chin, looking for her eyes, all awkwardness replaced by the imperative need to bring her smile back “we promised we would, didn’t we?”

She nods half-heartedly and snuggles up against him, like a lost dog hides from the rain under a frail tree. As he hugs her, bringing her closer, he whispers against her dark hair: “Let’s set a date.”

“For our wedding? Sorry, Brody, but you haven’t even proposed to me yet” she jokes dryly.

Ignoring the sudden rush of heat on his body, he replies: “No, dumbass, for our escape!”

She come out of her shelter and looks at him with a hint of excitement on her eyes.

“A date?”

“Yeah, a date. Tell me when you want to leave.”

She bites her lower lip - one of her many quirks that drives him insane - and inhales slowly. As she breathes out, she answers: “End of this year. That should give us enough time to save a decent amount of money, make a good plan and maybe find a place to rent.”

“Well, end of the year it is. December 31 we are getting the fuck out of Jacksonville.”

And when he laughs, she feels the whole world become a little lighter.

More info, previous chapters, tag list AND HEADCANONS under the cut

First and foremost, I apologize for any mistakes in the chapter. This one wasn’t proof-read either and on top of that I wrote it on a rush but hopefully it’s decent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All chapters in chronological order, here. Previous chapter, here. Next chapter, here.

SO, yes, this is a two-part chapter - truth be told, I’m only posting this now and not both parts as one since I’m quite busy and have no time to finish writing it but I still wanted to post something now as, idk, a christmas special???? whatever, I just wanted to post it, lol

Anyways, HEADCANON TIME:

* As you may have noticed in the last chapter, Chase and Stacy’s daughter - Esperanza (which, by the way, means Hope in Spanish) - has a VERY Latino name, well, that’s because my hc is that Stacy is latina! Well, half latina, her mom is latina, her dad is white and because Stacy is white-passing and her mom knew about the struggles of being a Latina woman in the US, Stacy’s parents decided to give her a very white first name, so she would have it “easier” in life. Spoiler alert: she didn’t have it easier in life. Like, at all.

* Despite that, she still has a very Latino second name - Dolores (which means Pains in Spanish *winkwink*) - that she loves just as much as she loves her Latino heritage, and that’s why she named her daughter like that - Chase 100% loves the name as well.

* This is kinda spoilerish (because I will explore this headcanon in far more depth later on the fic) but I still feel you guys should know: Before they were the best of friends, Henrik and Chase were penpals - they met through an elementary school penpal project and kept writing each other all the way until adulthood, when they finally met face to face.

* Neither Chase or Stacy had pets - or were allowed to have any - by the time they became friends, but they both love animals and started feeding a cat they always came across on their way to school. They named the cat Sam.

* Stacy is allergic to cats. She loved Sam from a distance.

* Chase knows quite a bit of Spanish Stacy taugh him. She didn’t teach him just for funsies but because she ended up getting him a job in a Mexican restaurant and the owners didn’t speak English. She was very impressed by how easy it was for him to get used to the Latino enviroment and how good he turned out to be at cooking.

* Chase knows Stacy likes her second name better than her first, but sucks at pronuncing it correctly so he only call her Dolores jokingly andsometimeswhentheyhavesex

* They weren’t each others “first”, but Stacy told Chase after they did it for the first time that she had never enjoyed sex before him (and Chase almost cried because of such huge compliment).

* Esperanza is fluent in Spanish and English and knows a bit of German thanks to Uncle Henrik. Henrik is also Esperanza’s godfather.

I have way more headcanons but all of them are incredibly spoilery, so this is all you get for now. Now let’s move on to the next chap-

❤  Tag list ❤: @amyxmiaplay, @beck-pma, @closedworldofmathiel, @darktrash-drash, @fanfictionrecommendations-com, @flyingfishflopsthings, @fruitycasket, @happysingingturtles, @hiimizzyxoxo, @hishex, @kitnkas, @mcomegalletas, @mijako98, @mjjau, @mysterious-cupcake-ninja, @mysticalanimallover, @novasingalaxies, @plutoandpolaris, @probablyghosting, @randomartdudette, @saltyweirdbi, @sassy-in-glasses, @scarlet--raven, @septicuniverse, @skyewardlight, @thevampireauthoress, @youllnevertaketheskyfromme

Thank you so much for reading, hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please reblog, that helps me a lot ❤

[lottesseenaghoul]

RE:169 quick thoughts before I go into rabbit hole of tg posts on tumbler (edited)

So I was expecting the scans to come out on Thursday but was surprised to see some fresh panels in the uta tag and FLIPPED.jpeg at my behavioural economics lecture. Honestly not the best place for getting a nosebleed xdd

Anyways here are some of hot takes I got from reading the chapter. More nuanced meta probably on its way. I read it on mangastream and I did screenshots there.

The chapter starts with the first part of Uta’s tattoo quote and ends with the second part, forming a sort of narrative framework to read it.

We jump straight into the fray, with contrasting shots of Yomo’s damn fine looking face and Uta’s there as well, clearly guided by very basic thinking and mostly intuitive, emotional impulses:

Like this is typical, stereotypical “unhinged” face people do in mangas. A mix of enthusiasm and bloodlust, it says this guy went “insane”. Ugh. Uta’s mental health warrants a LOT of unpacking nevertheless so let’s leave this face’ implications for later. 

We glimpse their fight styles then:

Uta is on the offensive, honestly his is such forceful, visceral way of attacking here - straight up fuck up your opponent with the sheer force of your blow. He is shown to be a lot more nuanced and deliberate in previous fights, steering clear from attacking and content with evading the blows, dealing some psychological damage afterwards. But that is Uta just half-assedly toying - clearly he doesn’t stop himself with Yomo. The reasons can be manifold - that’s how they’ve always done it; he’s so pumped, he stops thinking and loses himself in pure bloodlust; he’s in a serious crisis - this is my preferred angle.

Now his fighting style, besides the raw strength behind it, is also quick and agile. In a second Uta gets behind Yomo, and tries to strike through his body mid-air. His face looks like this:

Very unstable.

Uta’s pupils are incredibly large here - again, a visual reminder how little conscious control he might have in this situation. OR how vicious his intents are.

My impression is that when he’s led by such murderous motivation (whatever its composing parts), Uta moves intuitively, we don’t see him playing around or allowing to be struck. Here he has the initiative but Yomo can so far fend off or otherwise deal with his attacks.

I’m honestly so thirsty for Yomo in this chapter, just look at this fine motherfucker:

{I’m interjecting to thank my lord satan for my pan-shipping, slutty heart because now UtaRen became another ship I love. Add in some Itori and you have another one. This one just keeps on giving <3}

Also Uta is so messy here, my baby all playful like a rabid hyena. 

Despite all the refinements older Uta keeps about himself (suave clothing, neat hair, designer mask studio, antiques in glass cases, chess), he didn’t seem to have done much growing up, emotionally. Donato comments on it like that:

You just gotta love the fact that for most of the manga Uta keeps the facade of actually being the least reckless of the ghouls. But I trust Donato on this, who seems to know Uta’s darker impulses fairly well. Possibly better than Yomo and that dude got his fair of beating from Uta too.

What got me interested is how Amon had commented how pointless Clowns endeavours were. Initially I thought it’s Donato who said it, but later on he tells Amon that he would soon understand...

Oh Amon looks fine AF too. Be still my slutty heart!

Furuta says something possibly pivotal for the incoming plot arc:

(IDK wtf this is, but if even Furuta comments on it as if he was both grossed out/scared, it must be important. Oh, he meets Kaneki too, no biggie. “That’s just freaky!!”, I love you Nimura)

Back to my boys, Yomo is getting beat up but mostly evades Uta’s attacks and looks more and more pissed. Uta just looks like a dumbass. Or rather as stupid as cats who torture smaller critters for fun and recreation do:

Also we get a glimpse of his kagune. It seems to be very elastic, easily changing shapes as Uta sees fit. It was just this gigantic mass of RC cells in the beginning panels, now it’s much more resembling the spider legs en masse that we remember from his fight with Juuzou:

But what is most important here, we finally get the first shot of Itori. She is wearing a mask in the beginning, and it’s important in context of what Uta will be saying shortly: edit: It’s Itori speaking, thoughts on that in a different post.

She’s an observer in that panel, very significantly voiceless, not shown to be nearly as amused as Nico here:

Uta’s Itori’s words are honestly a key to Clown’s philosophy and deserve a meta of its own. [In the beginning I thought these were Itori’s words, especially after I saw “Kanekichi” being mentioned; it’s how she had referred to Kaneki before.] - no wonder, it was my brain’s way to remind me I was far too concentrated on Uta to consider the awesomest queen Itori :/

Uta Itori says something very interesting here:

Obviously, if he were to be an OEK, first or the second one, that would be right up the alley. But even if not, it hints at very interesting possibilities. I want to see Ishida expand on it in some flashbacks. 

The most important words are coupled with shots of Itori slowly taking her mask off. It has a very dramatic effect.

Theres a heck ton to unpack here. Honestly I would never think Uta would look at his value system from that particular angle. Edit - and he wouldn’t because he is currently in the midst of a mayor meltdown. It’s Itori who actually bothers with explaining.

He She refers to the coldness of their existence as ghouls, of how senseless it is - like a vast, cold void stretching infintiely in front of them. 

Uta’s ways of searching for warmth are probably the only ones somebody as uprooted as him could come up with - he sees drawing blood, wounding (but also getting wounded - Uta seems to have a very laissez faire attitude to him perishing eventually as we remember from his talk with Donato).

According to Uta  Itori, Yomo is the warm one. For him her, it’s via bloodletting that he can get closer to taste it. Edit Uta def seconds that in the panels to come with his own actions

 I still think there’s some theatrics involved in this speech, as the next panel shows....

God, way to make your opponent unsuspecting of your next move Uta. 

And we get another important shot of Itori. She’s clearly positioned as somewhat stradling the line between Uta and Yomo but this series consistently shows her as being closer to Uta nevertheless.

Her eyes are shining so bright here, it’s clear she’s in deep thought and possibly a bit torn apart with what’s happening here. What Uta says clearly strikes a cord but her taking the mask off, idk it may signal some important differences between her and Uta’s worldview. That or it’s a sign she identifies with his words deeply. Edit ditto, these are her words and the scene took entirely different meaning and made me Love Itori, the first time since reading the series.

Honestly Uta is just beginning tho, as he has some creepy words about dreaming of the day where he would get his hands stained with Yomo’s blood. He actually left Yomo on the ground to have this mini speech properly. He’s posturing as far as my impressions go - Uta reverts to his younger persona, sans earlier sentiments of not wanting to cut his fun short by killing the only one ghoul who could match him somewhat. 

The most important thing in this chapter is what Yomo says next...

Here Uta is, going off about his strange blood kink and Yomo goes all shonen manga on him. But it’s not the same shonen posturing he did in previous chapter. We don’t see his eyes - we see Uta’s and that dude is honestly #shook. 

Naturally he reacts in ways only Ishida can think of. Honestly how Yomo’s words are literally drowned out by Uta’s uncontrollable and histerical laughter is such a masterful move:

This is the guy who dug up Ren from the ground because he was his “friend”. Now he’s just a mouth apparently.

Idk but this seems like the key panel for analyzing Uta from psychological angle. This dude most pronounced feature is his mouth which is nothing like human’s or ghoul alike. It’s like he’s truly the chaotic trickster god with none of the sentiments he was hinted to possess.

I was talking with @gaiajulz and I love how she pointed out that it seems like Uta is actually drowning out Yomo’s heartfelt words and he isn’t even fully aware he’s doing it. With Uta’s firm worldview, he’d rather go full crisis-mode instead of acknowledging how vulnerable and in need of closeness he is. 

Honestly Uta is soo Washuu-like in this panel, like Furuta’s older brother or something. First screech like a  Cthulu monster and then do a little happy dance!

What’s important is how Uta links what he sees as Yomo’s nivete with his emotional honesty and lack of any hidden agendas. Yomo is pure and good and this is why he is naive enough to trust a world like this. Uta saw so many sides to it, he literally sees no other option than to play the fool, including fooling around with one of the precious few of potentially close people in his life.

I also think he kind of looks like crying? From laughing so hard maybe. 

The chapter ends with my baby going full kakuja (predictably it’s his shifty face that’s the most inhuman part here, just a mass of flesh) and this flirty words:

Renji seems so shocked, it’s possible he had never seen this form. Either way he’s speechless.

And Uta’s philosophy is hinted at again - he’s willing to trample his friend just to feel anything. 

What we are dearly in need of is some good meta on Uta’s mental health, how his values feature into it and how his own actions contribute to it unraveling. Obviously such speculations are about as scientific as psych profiling but I feel it would be very important to try and understand this character better.

And boy, is there a lot to unpack here... 

Edit - crossed the parts where it’s suggested it’s Uta who summarizes Clown’s philosophy. It’s Itori and I don’t get my brain could hint at the discrepancies in my own thinking but not make the definite link. Gotta love that sweet ADHD folks.