#his hair isn’t white but he embodies the spirit of the white haired guy you know?

[tarn-ati0n]

Most fucked up white haired Octopath guy tournament would work surprisingly well.

[britishassistant]

The Villainous Paranoiac Just Wants An Uneventful Holiday (Part 2)

You need a break from your break at this rate.

You are exhausted.

You and Grim arrived back at the dorm with maybe ten minutes to spare before the other students came back from the parade and immediately set about working on completing your escape route as quickly as possible.

Only for the guy you’ve mentally dubbed “Scarabia Student A” to come to your door and tell the pair of you apologetically that because of Grim’s threats, Asim-senpai had decreed that neither of you would be allowed lunch and needed to remain locked in your room until defensive magic practice that afternoon.

On the plus side, your impromptu imprisonment let you and Grim work on the escape route undisturbed for the next hour. On the down side, it meant you both were starving after the exertion of the parade march and the digging.

The only reason you two didn’t collapse during defensive magic practice was because Viper-senpai snuck you both some bread and dried meats when he came to let you out. He also took the trouble to invite you two to a secret meeting on Asim-senpai’s behavior after dinner tonight.

You have to grudgingly admit, he is good at what he’s doing.

He has Asim-senpai do something cruel, then appears to the victims of said cruelty as a “savior”, doing what he can to soothe their pain “in spite of” his subordinate position to Asim-senpai, cultivating feelings of gratitude and empathy towards himself and resentment towards his puppet.

Even if you know what he’s doing, it’s difficult to resist that instinctual response.

Grim’s subvocal grumbling of “It doesn’t look like that white-haired jerk’s being controlled, fgnah.” is proof enough of that.

This way, once Viper-senpai drives Asim-senpai to overblot, no one will question him fighting against the dorm head he claims to be so loyal to, and his behavior before and during the overblot will make him appear to be the ideal replacement for the “mentally unstable” dorm head.

He’s definitely aiming for the dorm head position. The little performance this morning where he blatantly usurped Asim-senpai’s role of water-provider is proof enough of that.

Still, you muse while shouting out directions to Grim during magic training. Viper-senpai’s either very confident in his magic abilities or very ignorant about overblot to think that inducing it in Asim-senpai is in any way a good idea.

Especially if he’s under the delusion that his Unique Magic could somehow control an overblotted Asim-senpai.

It’d be better to just frame Asim-senpai for the actions he’s already committed under the influence, maybe show him shirking some dorm head duties if that was insufficent. You just don’t understand why Viper-senpai’s going through all this trouble and making a move now instead of closer to whenever elections for dorm heads are held, to make his win seem more legitimate.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to gain more information once you and Grim go along to this evening’s meeting with your plan in mind.

The after-dinner meeting starts pretty much how you expect it to.

Viper-senpai plays on the feelings of the other Scarabia students masterfully, painting himself as a concerned friend who only wants what’s best for his dorm head, but is at a loss due to Asim-senpai’s refusal to listen to reason. You and Grim give the input he clearly wants when he subtly cues you to.

However, when Grim tells him to just challenge Kalim for the position, Viper-san crosses his arms and coldly states, “No. There’s no way I can do that.”

Wait.

What?

“Gak! Y-you were the one who asked for advice, yanno...” Grim mutters, clearly as off-kilter as you feel.

From there Viper-senpai subtly divulges the sordid details of his slavery to the Asim family due to the circumstances of his birth, and how that conglomorate has been interfering on Asim-senpai’s behalf and at Viper-senpai’s expense for the entirety of their time at Night Raven College.

And all the while you’re sitting here, head feeling like it’s spinning a million miles a minute, trying to stop yourself from over-empathizing with the vice dorm head and figure out what this all means.

You don’t doubt for a single second that what he’s saying about the Asim and Viper families is true. However, his actions thus far have shown he is gunning for the dorm head position, even using this show of vulnerability to manipulate the other students into following him.

But why put himself and his family in such jeopardy for a simple school title?

“Asim-senpai doesn’t embody ‘the spirit of Scarabia?’ What does that mean?” You ask, latching onto a thread of the conversation in hopes of getting some clarity.

“There are different requirements for the position of dorm head in each of the seven dorms that a candidate must meet, which are taken from the virtues of the Great Seven.” Viper-senpai explains. “Duels are just an easy way to determine if the current dorm head meets that criteria or not. For example, in Pomefiore, the dorm head must have the greatest expertise in poisons, like the Beautiful Queen before them.”

One of the other students says something about Viper-senpai’s prudence and tactical thinking is much more like the Sorcerer of the Sands than Asim-senpai, but it sounds distant and far away to your ears.

Your brain is too busy buzzing over this new piece of information.

The dorm heads are supposed to be those who best embody the Great Seven.

The same Great Seven who’ve been appearing in your dreams practically every night before the overblots in their corresponding dorms happen.

What if— what if the reason that all the overblots this far have been dorm heads isn’t because the position of dorm head itself and the stresses it causes?

What if it’s because the criteria for the position of dorm head corresponds to the member of the Great Seven that dorm represents, which might contribute to who goes over the edge somehow?

After all, if you’re going by magic use and stress alone, then Buchie-senpai would’ve been the most likely candidate for overblot during the Magift incident. He did Laugh With Me an entire horde of civilians to stampede the coliseum after all.

But it was Leona-senpai, who best embodied the positive and negative qualities of the King of the Savannah, who ultimately overblotted. You even said it to him yourself when you asked him for help in investigating potential overblots outside of Night Raven College before the break. You thought at the time that his overblot was just because of the level of mental stress he was under, but if his status as a personification played a major role somehow...

But, then that means—

That means Asim-senpai isn’t automatically guaranteed to overblot because he’s a dorm head.

But Viper-senpai’s plan just plays off the common denominator of past overblots to make him seem in enough danger of doing so that the authorities are forced to recognize the signs and remove him from the position that’s “stressing” him so much.

Even the Asim family can’t object if the school is acting in the interests of their son’s mental health. They likely as not would decide to remove him from the “toxic environment” of Night Raven College altogether, either by transferring him to Royal Sword Academy or by paying for Asim-senpai to graduate early.

Though wouldn’t that mean Viper-senpai, as Asim-senpai’s servant, would be forced to leave with him? Or does he think that he’ll be able to convince the Asims to let him stay somehow?

In any case, that’s why you and Grim are still trapped here—because Viper-senpai’s under the impression that you both have some direct line to that useless birdbrain of a headmaster and can report the situation back to him.

But the amount of magic needed to keep up the charade until the headmaster actually notices, combined with the fact that everyone is saying that Viper-senpai is the rightful embodiment of the Sorcerer of the Sands means—

“Viper-senpai, you’ve got to run!”

You seize onto him, desperation evident in your face.

Viper-senpai retreats a step or two, blinking in alarm as you follow him to not lose your grip on his hand or his clothes. “Prefect, what—?”

“You said it yourself!” You can barely keep your voice from edging into hysteria. “You’re closest to Asim-senpai, and the way things are going, he’s going to overblot just like Rosehearts-senpai did. A-and overblots are illogical, they’re practically insane with hatred! They go after the people closest to them— you remember how badly Buchie-senpai was hurt when Leona-senpai overblotted, right?!”

Viper-senpai’s eyes are fixed on you as you shake your head, reliving those awful memories. “The only reason Trey-senpai didn’t die when Rosehearts-senpai overblotted was because Ace and Deuce got in his way and pissed him off more. If you stay in Scarabia...Viper-senpai, you’re in more danger than anyone else here! You need to get out of here, please, just run!!”

Please, you mentally beg as you stare at him. Please take the out I’m giving you. Call it off here, get out, get away, change your name, do whatever you have to to escape. Just, please, please don’t overblot on me too.

Viper-senpai’s brow furrows.

He slowly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Prefect. Even if I wanted to, I’m bound to Kalim. I must follow him to the end.”

“But you could die.” You make no effort to hide your dismay, hands clenching around what they hold. “I-I can’t...pl-please don’t make me...”

His free hand begins moving towards your uninjured cheek—

CRASH!!

The sudden commotion makes the two of you leap apart, staring wildly at the source of the noise.

Grim sits dazed in the center of several overturned metal dishes and a golden lion-shaped tureen.

“Ow, ow, ow, that huuuurt!” He complains loudly, rubbing his little head. “What the heck, why’s this dumb thing empty if it smells good?! Aah, I’m so hun—”

“SSSHH!!” Practically everyone in the room hushes.

“Could you be any louder?!” Scarabia Student B hisses, looking around.

“Do you wanna just begin screaming for the Dorm Head, you stupid cat?!!” Scarabia Student A whispers furiously. “Seriously, if he wakes up and sees us here like this, we’re dead tomorrow, don’t you get that?!”

“Sheesh, I’m sorry.” Grim harrumphs, wandering back to his cushion. “It was just an accident, what’s gotten you all so worked up, fgnah?”

“Oh gee, I wonder why.” A third student somewhere near the back mutters.

“They were having a moment.” You think you hear a fourth student hiss, but you’re pretty sure you’ve misheard that one.

Viper-senpai clears his throat and goes to peer out into the hall. “...There’s no sign of movement. I think we’re safe, for the moment.”

You fiddle with your tie and collar, trying to straighten them as much as you can. “I-I apologize for my outburst. My behavior was inappropriate and not conducive to the matter at hand.”

Viper-senpai huffs a little laugh. “Don’t be. You’re only looking out for others’ wellbeing, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You know better than anyone how dangerous these kinds of things are, after all. You’ve survived three of them.”

“Four.” Grim corrects from his cushion, tail flicking back and forth. “There was that creepy one in the Dwarf Mines that broke Yuu’s ribs at the start of the year, right Yuu?”

Your tie feels a little tight as you finish adjusting it, fidgeting under everyone’s scrutiny. “...yes. It’s a long story.”

“Will the dorm-head really overblot though?” The kid you’ve mentally dubbed “Scarabia Student B” pipes up. “I just can’t see it...”

“Well, he has exhibited a lot of the symptoms shown by other dorm heads before their overblots.” You say carefully. “An obsession with achieving a certain goal is something Rosehearts-senpai, Leona-senpai, and Ashengrotto-senpai all had in common, and Asim-senpai’s desire to improve Scarabia does fit this pattern.”

“Is there nothing that can be done for him Prefect?” Viper-senpai urges, gripping your shoulders. “Kalim may be unreliable at times, but I grew up with him. He calls me his friend. Are you saying there’s no way we can stop him from overblotting?”

You shrug gently, trying not to dislodge him. You don’t want his hackles raised now. “I’ve yet to see an overblot prevented, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Keeping him from using too much magic would be a big plus, because the blot would have less of a chance to build up. Other than that, it might be best to prepare for the worst? Just in case.”

“Maybe call the family doctor on the sly!” Grim chips in. “See if he can come here to take Kalim home rather than the other way round!”

Viper-senpai nods slowly, like someone accepting news of an imminent loss. “I’ll certainly take your advice into consideration. However, I will not leave. I can’t abandon the dorm—can’t abandon Kalim— during this crisis. I won’t run and leave everyone to face the danger alone.”

“Vice dorm head!” One of the younger students chokes out.

It feels like something hard and unforgiving is lodged against your breastbone.

“I-I won’t let it.” You stammer, feeling yourself flush a deep red in embarrassment at your verbal blunder. “I won’t let it come to that, Viper-senpai. I’ll stop this overblot. No matter what it takes. I swear to you, on my life, I’ll stop it!”

Viper-senpai gives you a not unkind chuckle, meeting your gaze head-on. “Well then, Prefect. I’ll be in your care.”

You can’t hold it for more than a few moments, your breath hitching as you look away. It feels like there’s so much blood in your cheeks that the one Asim-senpai slapped earlier is beginning to hurt again.

“We-we’ll help out too, Jamil!” Scarabia Student A claims, standing up as well.

“Y-yeah! You’re much more fit to be dorm head than Kalim-senpai!” Two more students in the back push towards the front.

“Our dorm head should be someone who embodies the virtues of the Sorcerer of the Sands, not someone who paid their way in and is overblotting because they can’t take the heat.” A tall third year proclaims.

“Yeah!”

“You said it!”

“We’re all equal here!”

“You guys...” Viper-senpai looks genuinely touched, staring out at his sea of carefully handled supporters.

“What are you all doing here at this time of night?”

Asim-senpai stands in the doorway, glaring angrily at all of you.

You can’t quite help the two shaky steps back you take.

“Geh, he found us!” Grim mutters, hiding behind your leg.

“Ka-Kalim.” Viper-senpai says, hands held up placatingly. “We were just—”

“It seems I went to easy on you today, if you all are still overflowing with energy this late at night.” Asim-senpai says coldly. “You should go outside to the courtyard to practice magic until you hit your limits.”

A chill goes down your spine. “Asim-senpai, that’s really not a good idea, we were just—”

“You. Shut up.” The dorm head stalks towards you. “Do you think you can presume to order me around? Was one meal enough to make you think that lying tongue of yours could do whatever it wanted? Maybe we should switch to practice using offensive magic this time—you’d make a fine moving target.”

It’s suddenly much harder to breathe.

“D-dorm head!”

“Why you—!” Grim snarls.

“Kalim.” Viper-senpai steps in front of you, blocking you from Asim-senpai’s view. “The Prefect was only referring to your idea of starting the march two hours earlier tomorrow. Everyone needed to be notified of that, so we’ll be turning in now.”

“T-two hours?!” Scarabia Student B gasps, only to be quickly hushed by everyone around him.

“...” Asim-senpai seems to contemplate this for a moment, before closing his eyes. “Very well. But no one will be eating until dinner tomorrow for this failure to listen to directions the first time, understood?”

Viper-senpai opens his mouth to protest again, but then slumps. “...Yes, Kalim.”

Asim-senpai waves a hand. “Well? What are you all waiting for? You’re dismissed.”

The students of the dorm begin to slowly, sullenly file out into the hallway, many of them grumbling and muttering under their breath.

You take the opportunity to escape, scooping up Grim and clapping a cautious hand over your friend’s big mouth so he can’t say anything else as you edge past Asim-senpai.

“Thank you.” You mouth at Viper-senpai as you speed walk out of the room.

He shoots you a small smile in response.

The journey back to your shared room is quick and uneventful, though you feel constantly on edge the entire way there.

You aren’t able to relax until you’ve nodded a “goodnight” to Scarabia students A and B and shut the door firmly behind you, sagging against it.

You really should learn their names at some point.

“Well?” Grim asks after you hear the lock on your door click into place and the guards wander off for their patrol. “Did you get it?!”

The hard and unforgiving feeling against your breastbone hasn’t faded at all.

You turn your back and unbutton your shirt, removing the source of said feeling from its hiding place.

“Your timing with knocking that stuff over was perfect.” You turn back around and flash Viper-senpai’s magic pen. “But we need to get our escape route finished quick, he could notice it’s gone missing any second now.”

You’re sort of amazed that he hasn’t already. You kept expecting to hear someone begin chasing after you and Grim as you left, angrily screaming about the theft. If he hadn’t stepped in for you when you protested magic practice...

Thank Ace and Buchie-senpai that you somehow got away with this.

“Yes!! That’s my minion for ya!!” Grim cackles softly, grin sharp and savage as he leaps back into the hole in the floor. “I still wish I coulda bonked him over the head, but imagine his face once the idiot’s realized he’s been duped!”

“Just so long as that experience stays imaginary.” You mutter, bringing the pen over to the locked window and looking at it under the moonlight that seeps in through the slats.

There’s blot staining over half of the crimson gem.

You wince just looking at it. How much magic has Viper-senpai been using for this much for accumulate?

Still, he’s probably not so stupid that he’ll risk casting magic without it, so ar least he’ll be on magic-using probation for the duration of time that you have it.

All you have to do is keep it away from him until the blot’s dissipated and you can report his plan and living situation to Crowley and other teachers. The other teachers will force the dumb bird to actually do something about Viper-senpai’s slavery. He won’t have a reason to overblot anymore. Everyone wins.

Though unfortunately, you can’t do much about stress-induced blotting, and you have no idea if he can still overblot while separated from his magic pen. Maybe you should investigate whether or not you could just...smash it and get him a new, non-blotted magic pen as a replacement? They do those, right?

“It’s done!” Grim hisses, prompting you to stash the magic pen away again and button up your shirt. “It’ll be a kinda tight squeeze though.”

You purse your lips at the small hole. “...It’ll have to do. We don’t have any time to waste, c’mon.”

To say it’s cramped would be an understatement. You’re more covered in scrapes and dust than you’ve ever been by the time you drop onto the ground of the floor below, panting and wheezing for breath. Your bruised cheek is throbbing again.

“Now I know what it feels like when spaghetti gets made at least.” You whisper.

Grim nods. “You can say that again. Now, we’re in between guard patrols, but we’ve still gotta be extra quiet so they don’t hea—”

GRRRRRARGGHH

You stare at your monster cat’s stomach as its complaining rumble dies away.

“Hey! What’s that noise?!” Comes the patrolling student’s cry.

You close your eyes. “Grim.”

“What?!” He whispers back, ears flicking in embarrassment. “I didn’t get any lunch! I can’t help being super hungry!!”

“Grim.”

“Oi! The Prefect and the cat have broken out again!” A Scarabia guard yells as he rounds the corner. “But how?! I could’ve sworn Achmed said he locked their door!”

“Ah!!” His compatriot cries, pointing up at the hole in the ceiling. “Look!! They’ve totally destroyed the floor of their room! Is that how you pay us back for our hospitality?!”

“How dare you?!” The first guard gasps. “That stuff’s really expensive to fix! Everyone, get over here! We’ve got another escape attempt!!”

“Fgnah! Yuu, let’s go, before their buddies get here!” Grim yelps, taking off down the hallway with you hot on his heels.

You hear the door to your prison slam open behind you, accompanied by Viper-senpai’s infuriated roar of “PREFECT!!”

You bundle Grim under one arm and run faster.

You seriously need a break from your break at this rate.

Hopefully you’ll get one, if you can figure out how to make it out of this dorm alive.

[citrucentric]

Cranberry

The ideal Holmes is tall and dark with sharp edges and an intelligent look to him, but also posh and with a sense that you could fold him into origami if you really tried. Dresses well, but wouldn’t look out of place sprawled dramatically over a couch in a dressing gown with a pipe and surrounded by drug paraphernalia. Once made a pillow fort and sat in it to think. Caught somewhere between handsome, pretty, and weird looking. Emphasis can be on any of the three. CANNOT have facial hair.

Holmes Adaptations

S-Tier

Miss Sherlock (Yuko Takeuchi) - 95%

You’ll notice, of course, that nowhere in the earlier description did I say Holmes needed to be white, a man, or even human. None of those qualifiers or the lack-thereof prevent someone from looking the part -- it simply becomes necessary to compare them to the characters around them. And when I picture a female Sherlock Holmes, Yuko Takeuchi embodies the exact image in my mind. Her sharp edges, piercing eyes, and impeccable fashion, along with the powerful weird energy she brings to the role, fit Sherlock perfectly. She does look more than a bit like she could kick my ass, but more in the manner she dominates the room, which is perfect for the character.

Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) - 85%

I haven’t watched this adaptation, though I’ve been meaning to get around to it. So this ranking is based solely on screenshots and promotional images. And honestly, as ugly as i find this guy, he totally nails it. He even kind of looks like the illustrations in the stories. I won’t give him a perfect score because his hair could be darker and his face is a little small, and there’s just barely something missing. But as far as “canon” Holmes adaptations go, he’s the cream of the crop.

A-Tier

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (Benedict Cumberbatch) - 80%

Definitely the more accurate of the two Cumberbatch Holmes designs, the sleek fashion and slicked back hair complement Cumberbatch’s angular build and “somewhere between pretty and just weird” face. He’s tall, dark, and posh. If there’s anything holding him back it’s simply that even dressed up properly, there’s something still a bit modern looking about him.

Fate/Grand Order - 78%

Given that his design and presentation are a direct reference to both Brett and Cumberbatch’s portrayals, it’s a given he’d place so highly. It’s really hard to nail down a 2D Holmes, especially in the anime style this game employs, since it has a tendency to prettify characters by default. True to form, FGO Holmes is far neater and more precise than I’d like. But he’s by no means a bad design, and depending on the image he can really hit the spot for me; he’s definitely a chart topper in the realm of 2D Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes: The Furtive Festivity (Gregory Johnstone) - 75%

There aren’t many Holmes that we only get to see as an old man, in no small part due to the ACD estate’s notoriously malicious copyright practices. Johnstone ranks so highly not due necessarily to the details of his look, but the overall feel he embodies. This Holmes is soft, affectionate, more than a little floppy. His hair and costume portray a man well grown into his eccentric life, and his face is sharp and mature enough to suggest the brains underneath; even if that’s more wisdom than intelligence in this particular story. This is a Holmes designed by someone who really loves Sherlock Holmes, and it definitely shows.

BBC Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) - 75%

Cumberbatch’s features still naturally suit Holmes well, and he’s tall and striking enough to cover the rest. But this isn’t a rating of his acting performance aside from the visuals it supplies; it’s hard to modernize Holmes, especially since it makes perfect sense for Holmes to gel well with the changing times; he was always a man ahead of his era. BBC Holmes’s trademark trenchcoat and curly locks aren’t traditional Holmes, but they suit him well enough.

Yuukoku no Moriarty - 73%

The long hair is an unorthodox take, but I'm certainly not complaining. YnM's Holmes definitely nails the youthful scientific exuberance of an early Holmes. It's clear they were going for a sort of BBC/ACD mix, but with their own spin. Pretty -- he is an anime boy, after all -- but all sharp edges and full of energy. Decent, way better than most anime Holmes designs manage.

B-Tier

Basil of Baker Street [The Great Mouse Detective] - 70%

Comparing the character to those around them is especially important when it comes to non-human characters, who naturally don’t have the same features. Putting Basil next to Dawson makes this abundantly clear, as they make a perfect portrait of Holmes and Watson. For a mouse, he’s thin, angular, even a little ratlike; all decisions that suit Holmes well. I have some complaints about his ensemble, though; while the dressing gown suits him well, his normal brown coat and hat don’t work so well with his fur; the monochrome look makes him come off a bit scruffy and unrefined.

A Study in Black - 68%

Rules are made to be broken, they say; here’s a Holmes with well maintained facial hair and who’s shorter than Watson, and yet I can without question say they were the right decisions. This Holmes takes a very different design approach than any other on this list, even the other modern takes, but he embodies the spirit of Holmes much more than if he’d tried to match every detail. Holmes is still gaunt and striking, eccentric and fashionable. He looks absolutely great.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) - 62%

Stephens in this role is, I have to say, far too soft. But he’s playing a different sort of Holmes, and I can’t resist keeping him here. There are some parts of the look he has down; he certainly looks high class, and the softer elements of Holmes’ character look good on him. Holmes’ traditional costume, the hat and coat, look out of place on him. But that suits the message of the film, and may very well have been intentional.

C-Tier

Dai Gyakuten Saiban - 58%

Not the only blond Holmes on this list, but it doesn’t suit him as poorly. From a character design standpoint, it looks very good. As a Holmes, it’s unorthodox. He’s not gonna be a chart topper with it, but I wouldn’t rule it out. This Holmes’ real problem isn’t his coloration, merely that he’s much too conventionally attractive. His jaw is a bit too wide, curls a bit too lovely, the peek of lavender under his coat a bit too rich, and I can’t look at him for too long without blushing. Do some cocaine and get back to me.

Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) - 55%

Now, this one might be controversial. I don’t think Rathbone Holmes looks very good. I can’t put my finger on why; his head is the right shape, his nose very sharp, though his face looks very smooth and he seems overall vaguely packed in. Like he was plucked out of the sky just before walking on set. The shapes are all right, it just seems off to me. I guess what I’m getting is that his look is too obviously produced. He looks too much like an actor portraying Holmes, rather than Holmes. But I know he’s gonna be the guy a lot of people swear by, so I won’t defend this placement too hard.

Sherlock Hound - 45%

Really, what is up with the monochrome design on some of these cartoons. Sherlock Hound has the darker hat to make up for it, though, so it’s a little better. Applying the same rubric as Basil to him... doesn’t get the same results. As far as I can tell, this just looks like a normal dog. And a scruffy light-furred one, at that. There’s a contrast between him and Watson, sure, but it could’ve been pushed further. At the end of the day this is an average guy dressed as Sherlock.

D-Tier

Herlock Sholmes [Code: Realize] - 40%

This is a very pretty anime boy. I’d pick him first in whatever dating sim this is. ...Wait, this is supposed to be Holmes? How can you tell? Look, I know it’s hard to make an anime boy Holmes. Holmes’ key design elements aren’t his costume or his hair, they’re the things that make him unpolished. And anime dating sim boys don’t like to be unpolished. But really, this is just a steampunk boy who likes tea. Nothing here reads as Holmes to me.

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) - 35%

Now, I love this movie. RDJ got me back into Sherlock Holmes when I was younger. And as this character, he has a very specific and well designed look. ...Does that look gel with canon Holmes? I don’t think so. He’s rough, he’s scruffy, he’s short and wide and strong-jawed, and he refuses to go for a clean shave. I like him a lot, but he’s not very Holmesian. He does, however, nail the eccentricity and his costume design works for him well. I do like a messy Holmes. So I won’t go any lower than this.

F-Tier

Basil [Blush Blush] - 28%

So, he’s got the outfit. There’s that. But otherwise... This is just some soft ugly anime boy cosplaying Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t have a single trait that works in his favor. On top of that, he’s got the same problem the other Basil on this list had -- the all monochrome light brown just looks weird, and not Holmesian at all. And this boy doesn’t have the excuse of literally being a mouse. This is just an ugly design.

Elementary (Jonny Lee Miller) - 25%

Now, I've only watched a few scattered episodes of Elementary. Partially because I'm morally opposed to shows that only gender-flip half of the duo, partially because I’m absolutely outraged by the travesty they made Moriarty. But this isn’t a bad character, per-se.

But, like, this is just some dude. This isn't Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes [Clue] - 23%

I love Clue so much. That probably doesn’t surprise anyone. I have the season pass in this game, which automatically gives me every DLC character they add for free. So I was super excited to hear there was gonna be a Sherlock crossover. ...But this is just ugly. Another light haired square-jawed monochrome asshole pretending to be my favorite character. There’s nothing Holmes about this. (The rest of the designs in the pack are no better, but this isn’t about them.)

Skylar Holmes [Blossom Detective Holmes] - 20%

Now, Blossom Detective is a show that I famously disliked so much I immediately sat down and screenwrote my own Holmes cartoon on the spot. And Skylar certainly feels like she should be in the “part 2″ of this list, but a Holmes she is.

She's cute and she accessorizes well, but she's just not Sherlock Holmes by any stretch.

Sherlock Shellingford [Milky Holmes] - 10%

Now, look how cute she is! Sherlock Shellingford, present and accounted for. She’s got TWO Sherlock names so you know she’s the real deal. Now, this is just an objectively good design. She's exactly what she needs to be to serve the role she plays!

And that isn't Sherlock Holmes. Sorry.

Holmes & Watson (Will Ferrell) - 0%

Get out of my house.

Holmes Archetypes

Not all Holmes’ are meant to be the Canonical Sherlock Holmes, of course; some are just neat references, or characters who naturally fit into his role whether the author intended it or not. Let’s address them here, and remember that not looking the part doesn’t really reflect negatively on these ones as they’re stand-alone.

S-Tier

Dylan Reinhart [Instinct] (Alan Cumming) - 90%

Dylan is so point for point Sherlock Holmes that it’s hard to call him an archetype and not a straight adaptation, or possibly a rip-off if I’m being harsh. But I’m not supposed to be rating him by portrayal, just looks - and he’s really good. He’s the exact right blend of weird looking, though not as angular as he should be. His sharp eyebrows and nose and high hairline work fantastic, and he wears a suit very well. He’s a perfect little bundle of posh and nerves, and though he’s not perfect the fact that this isn’t actually supposed to be canon Sherlock Holmes makes this placement very unsurprising. He wouldn’t look out of place on the other list.

Hubert von Vestra [Fire Emblem: Three Houses] - 85%

Oh? What’s that? You don’t think Hubert von Vestra is a Sherlock Holmes archetype? Okay, then explain to me why he uses the word “sentiment” exactly twice in his supports. Atheists 1, Church of Seiros 0. Anyway. Let’s start with the obvious. Hubert looks like Benedict Cumberbatch. But, he looks like a vampire Benedict Cumberbatch who did a lot more cocaine. And if you don’t think Sherlock Holmes should look like a vampire, youre lying.

A-Tier

None yet. Please submit your Holmes and I will add them.

B-Tier

Heinwald [Dragalia Lost] - 67%

I would never look at this design and think "well, that's Sherlock Holmes". Heinwald looks more like a zombie or the bride of Frankenstein, very Halloween. His look being so specific does come at the expense of his Holmesness, but he's still got more than a few traits down and he’s an absolute treat.

L Lawliet [Death Note] - 65%

This is a very, very weird looking man. Key points: dark hair and eyes. gaunt, sharp, and mostly angular (though with a softer face). Extremely foldable. This man could 100% pass for Holmes, if someone else was dressing him. Put him in a suit, comb his hair? Yeah. It’d really work. But until then, he’s just most of the way there.

Kyoko Kirigiri [Danganronpa] - 63%

Kirigiri really gets jilted here, because she could be much higher. Unfortunately, she has to be part of a series that with only a few exceptions just reuses the same face and body for most of its female characters. Kirigiri definitely has the sharp and focused feel she needs to pass for Holmes, and she dresses well. The white hair is the opposite of the dark he usually touts, but it’s striking. Unfortunately, put her next to any other character in her series, and she blends back in.

Miles Edgeworth [Ace Attorney] - 60%

Feels a little weird to put Edgeworth on here when the actual Sherlock Holmes is in his game, but he fits the character much better if not the narrative role. So let’s go over the looks. His jaw is a bit wide, but he’s very pointy, and I certainly have never gotten the impression he’s a physically strong man. He’s very fashionable, and with his big cravat and sharp hair he makes a cutting silhouette. I’d say he needs a bit more to really nail the look, though.

C-Tier

Will Graham [Hannibal] (Hugh Dancy) - 45%

Despite being a noted Hannibal Lecter fan and possible homosexual, I still haven’t watched Hannibal. I’m taking people at their word that Will is a Sherlock; I definitely would have assumed otherwise looking at him. He reminds me deeply of BBC’s John Watson, and it’s hard to see anything else. But I don’t hate his look; he reads as clever, he looks good in darks, and I wouldn’t complain to see him cast as Holmes. He’s better than some of the lower-tiered canon Holmes actors, anyway.

Ranpo Edogawa [Bungo Stray Dogs] - 40%

This is another submission, and I don’t know who this boy is. I really doubt he’s actually a Holmes, given that he’s named after a real non-Doyle writer, but I was begged to include him. Let’s go. I really like his outfit. He’s got an aesthetic I like. Is it Holmes’? No. This kid looks like he’d fit way better as a Baker Street Irregular; maybe he should audition.

D-Tier

Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) - 35%

Take everything I said for Robert Downey Jr, and just mess up his hair a bit more. House is scruffy, poorly put together, and not wearing anything that costs over $100. As a Holmes, he’d work as one of his disguises; I wouldn’t be super surprised if this guy suddenly cleaned up and looked the part -- but it would take a lot of cleaning. I love his look, though -- again, he isn’t trying to be canon. House is an explicit Holmes parallel, but he’s still his own character.

F-Tier

Walnut Cookie [Cookie Run] - 20%

Given how much “Holmes costume” and “Detective costume” are conflated, it’s possible this gingerbread baby isn’t even supposed to be a Holmes reference, but I’ll take her. She’s an excellent design - but a standalone one. Shes too soft, warm, and curly looking to pull off canon Holmes.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Things Dobson mocks because he is too ignorant...

One “talent” Dobson seems to have, is the ability to alienate a lot of people through his opinions. And while he claims to be proud of that talent because he believes those he alienates are just assholes and racists who disagree with him CAUSE he attacks their abhorrent worldviews, the reality is much simpler; On average, people just don’t like him cause Dobson has no idea what he is talking about, which won’t however stop him from mocking the mere existence of certain things/interests and the people enjoying them. And those people tend not to be racists who want to see non-white people go extinct, but simply nerds and enthusiasts who like to enjoy their hobbies without the input of someone who won’t get over how he was bullied as a nerd back in school, but at the same time will bully you for being “nerdier”.

I could go into more detail how I mean that by analyzing a lot of his anime related SYAC strips as well as his soapbox strips on comic culture in a row. However, for the sake of “simplicity” I just like to go over one of his oldest strips, published around 2011. Back when Dobson was portraying himself still as a human. This strip alone will show how even a decade back, Dobson could just be an asshole to any “nerd” who dared to be into stuff he wasn’t, how he could manage to piss off many people all in one going AND be unfunny.

Now the first thing I want to put out is that I do not even think that Dobson’s primary intention with this strip was to mock others and their interests. See, one thing about So you are a cartoonist especially in its early days was, that it was in a way Dobson’s attempt to make himself look likeable in the eyes of others. He portrayed himself just as an Average Joe, wanting to make comics. This strip itself was even part of a series of strips I like to call “Things Dobson likes/dislikes”, which really were just him in each panel pointing at something he is into or not.

 And honestly, part of me does not mind it. It is just Dobson’s attempt to show others how “quirky” or contrarian he is. The problem really steams more from the following two facts: a) It is not really a cartoon or comic if you think about it, because there isn’t a joke, punchline or story attached to them, just Dobson showing off what kind of person he is and b) that his “things I do not understand” comic is really mean spirited compared to the others if you look just a bit deeper into it.

Right from the beginning the strip is just indicative that this will be more mean spirited than Dobson will later like to claim it was. Otherwise he would not feel the need to say “chillax” as a sort of semi defense mechanism, cause if he really intended to make his grievances heard through “good fun” he would not need to say that. So from the gate we can assume its snarkier and more hurtful than it needs to be. So lets get through the things he does not understand, shall we?

Sports: I will admit that I am not really into sports myself, neither as a fan or someone participating in it competitively. I go to the gym however in order to feel good about myself and do something for my health instead of going every Friday to McDonalds. In addition, as long as you do not go overboard with being a fan or participating in it, I understand how sport can unite people (see events like the Olympics and Soccer worldcups) , and while I am baffled upon the fact that the salary of many people in sports (particularly soccer and football) are ridiculous high in addition to money they make with advertisement deals etc. I have respect for them. Respect for how they can stick to a hard training schedule, can take injuries, will do stuff for charity etc. Furthermore, unlike Dobson, I do not believe people who are into sports are dumb. Yes, I know the stereotype about college footballers and sports who only graduated because of their sports activities and are otherwise “meatheads”, but that stereotype does not apply to everything in reality, Dobson. Ever heard of NFL lineman Duvernay-Tardif, who also has a degree as a surgeon? Granted, he made that title only in 2018, seven years after the comic was made, so look a bit further and see what we find… Oh, look: Myron Rolle, college football player and later members of the Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers around 2010/12: Has a bachelor degree in exercise science and in 2008 studied for a Master of science for medical anthropology in the UK.

Ron Mix, famous AFL and NFL football player forever immortalized in the Hall of Fame has a Juris Doctor Degree and after his work as a sports became an attorney.

 And that are just three examples googled up in relation to American football. Other famous sports worldwide have degrees in medical and sports related sciences. Heck, one of Europe’s most famous boxer’s in the 2000s, Vitali Klitschko, not only has a doctors degree in sports, he is nowadays head of the governing party of Ukraine, following the independence of the country in 2014.

So stop wiggling your three sets of eyebrows and cease your smug grin and shove that periodic table up your ass, Dobson. I bet you yourself don’t even fucking know the chemical symbol for silver or titanium you Agonizing Twat who never got over the fact some popular kids in school bullied him.

 Final Fantasy: I doubt Dobson ever even tried to play Final Fantasy or ANY JRPG, honestly. Heck, not only does Cloud look pretty wrong (anime hair seems to be another thing Dobson can not draw) but frankly, the statement of Cloud being an emo is false and is based on misinterpretation. Bear with me for a bit; Final Fantasy 7 is in my opinion a good game and it had a major impact on the series and the perception of JRPGs in the west. However, I do also believe that many people overhyped its quality over the years. Including SquareEnix themselves, who particularly around 2005 released all sorts of tie in and sequel games, including also the movie “Advent Children”. Or as I like to call those things, Tetsuya Nomura’s wankfest, because now all of sudden everything is related to some guy called Genesis, we have even more characters to supposedly care about than we already got through the original game, happy end override happens almost on every corner and “goth” aesthetics are everywhere. And Cloud himself became an embodiment of that emo/loner stereotype in anime and manga around that time, despite never having been like that in the original game if you ask me. Yes, Cloud in the original game went through a lot of emotional trauma and he was not like some happy go lucky laid back shonen manga protagonist. But he also didn’t come off as a pretentious fucktard who never showed emotions and shut himself off from his friends and allies. He was more of a determined person who still cared for others and wanted to stop Sephirot so no one suffered like he did. His most “depressing” moment was when Sephirot revealed his false memories, making Cloud question his own existence as an independent being to the point he was broken enough to hand the Meteor sphere to Sephirot, but that was about it.  But hey, “emos” sell better, so SquareEnix tried to sell that aesthetics and others were just so dumb and further misinterpreted it as emoness being Cloud’s main character trait, when in reality freaking Squall Leonhard in his original game was worse than Cloud in comparison.

I also find the implication of Dobson, that Final Fantasy is pretentious in that panel funny as fuck. Cause Final Fantasy 13s’ pretty dumb story and wankery of clicheed anime tropes not withstanding, the average Final Fantasy game has a straightforward fantasy plot of good guys vs bad guys, with some twists and anime tropes thrown into the mix. The most pretentious guys in those games really are just the bad guys when they talk on average about how the world is suffering and misery, and even that is just straightforward nihilism to justify why they want to destroy everything. It is in fact so straightforward, most little kids will get it particularly in the first 6 games of the series, which are just set in more “classic” fantasy worlds to begin with. I am not saying the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole is flawless (I really am not a fan of 13 and its sequels, but if you like it, you do your thing) but you do not need a thesaurus to get why people enjoy it or individual games from it. So stop hating on an entire game series, which btw has actually some pretty awesome female characters in protagonistic roles in it too.

 Twilight: Both an example of Dobson’s hypocricy and idiocy. Idiocy cause frankly, what is hard to understand why people liked the books? Twilight (in my opinion) was just a professionally published self insert fanfiction, in which Bella/the reader fell in love with the local bad boy who just happened to also be a vampire. Sure, a vampire in name only (seriously, if you asked me, the Cullens could be replaced with a lot of other fantasy creatures and it would barely affect anything), but that is beside the point. Shameless romance stories about someone falling in love with the bad boy who deep down has a heart of gold and just needs someone to fix them, are nothing new. So I was not surprised that people, particularly teenaged girls and other women, enjoyed it. It was the romance literature equivalent to fast food which just happened to explode in popularity because Young adult novels were a simultaneous hit and something needed to fill the void after Harry Potter. I read the first book myself and I thought nothing in particularly wrong with it, aside of the fact I thought the book itself was plotwise kinda dull. But that was not why people bought it, they wanted Bella getting together with the bad boy. The fact Dobson did not understand on what the popularity was build up on, is just an example for how Dobson does not even in theory understand how stories work and what it is on a pure technical level that makes them interesting and sell worthy to others.

As for the hypocritical aspect, that comes up nowadays when Dobson claims he feels bad for mocking Twilight all those years ago and how people were bad for making fun of it and Stephenie Meyer. That those who did it were like women hating assholes and still are if they do not apologize. Cause frankly, I feel a majority of people “apologizing” are just dishonest with themselves now. Apologizing primarily because in the eyes of some other people they look up to, if they do not they will be pariahs. Especially when extend of their initial childish disdain for Twilight becomes clear. I e.g. do not hate Lindsay Ellis aka the former Nostalgia Chick, but the fact she made a big apology video on Meyer was laughable when you see how she “stood” to her opinion back in the day to the point she wrote a novel to mock the kind of story Twilight did. Sure, she admitted to a lot of her own faults back in the day so there was also some self reflection to it and I respect that. But I think in a way this was also a tactic to just appease some other people and it does not take away that initially she had those thoughts about Twilight. And frankly, Twilight is problematic in a way.

Again, I read the first book and I did not consider it the worst thing in the world, just kinda dull for my taste. However, having read on a lot of things that happen in the book series itself, it is clear that Bella and Edward are some pretty horrid and selfish characters who barely get called out or face consequences for terrible actions. Take also into account the pacing of the story and you get on average a book series that deserved a certain amount of criticism from a technical point of view and Meyer’s at least being questioned about some of her decisions in the writing process. It did however not deserve book burnings or people mocking and harassing fans and the author, the former being mocked by Dobson here funnily enough.

 Transformers: And what is it you find weird about people caring for cars? This is not even me being a cars fan here or something, I just ask because even that “explanation” is no explanation at all. He is just saying “I don’t care for X because I also do not care much for Y”. The correlation between the two is missing.

As for why people care about those two things Dobson, perhaps it is for the following:

Cars because people like the aesthetics, the technics, like to build stuff or get a rush by driving them. Transformers, because people just like action as well as the lore to the franchise and think giant robots turning into vehicles is cool, as long as Michael Bay is not involved in creating a story.

Furries: As with cars, likely aesthetics. Anthropomorphic animals have been part of our culture even long before cartoons (just look at fables, fairy tales and legends all across the world involving animals) so I assume there is even something more subconsciously involved with it. And frankly, I like furries myself. Some of them are way better artists than Dobson could ever be. That said, I do as an individual draw a line at furries that harass other people and show creators, hurt animals or are combining their interests with some really weird sex fetishes (two words: diaper fur). Which I guess do many other people cause there is a healthy amount of furries and non furries who have standards. The thing is just Dobson seems to think all furries are the same. Not to forget that for a long time he did everything denying he was interested in furries, citing his college as a reason for it cause people there installed a hatred for furries into him. A wonder then he would even enjoy Looney Tunes anymore. And honestly, himof all people mocking people for having a “sick” fetish? I am sorry Dobson, but compared to the kind of inflation you drew, I would say the average furry (as in someone who just draws two adult fursonas making out with each other under consent) is less “disturbing” than you. Someone who did not just inflate the female, at times underaged victims, but also made them pop/killed them.

DnD: I wish I had the comment Dobson posted on deviantart under the comic, as in it he digged himself even deeper with every panel and the explanations he gave. Just to show I am not pulling it out of my ass when I say for DnD one of the main reasons he hated it was that he thought nerds made the fantasy genre even nerdier by adding math to it.

Oh no. The fact people have to add numbers from a couple of dices together is too high of a math concept for Dobson. So those people must have absolutely no lives and are all just fat, bald and with acne.

Seriously though, fuck off. I am not into table top gaming, but whoever is, they shall just have fun. And stop body shaming nerds with the way you draw the DnD player here (and in that other infamous DnD comic he did), especially when you yourself look like a shaved egg in real life. Heck, did you know of all people Vin Diesel enjoys DnD?

Just let the people enjoy their adventure campaigns and come together once in a while instead of being shut offs like you, whose only experience with an interactive fantasy story involves playing Skyrim at 10 fps.

And yes, I am aware that Dobson has changed his opinions on DnD now thanks to some podcast. But based on his record, I feel that Dobson only did join it because it is now the cool thing to care on average about DnD as nerd. In addition he also did not own up to his past “mistake” till people just called him out on his bullshit often enough.

Klingons: Okay, I am not much of a Trekkie myself, but again, I get that people just like the aesthetics of them and the story crafted around Klingon culture within the franchise. So, just let them have fun with it. What is even the “joke” here? That people enjoy it despite it “just” being black Asian barbaric samurai in space, which is a very simplistic, in my opinion even outright racist description based on the choice of words here? Frankly, I am glad he did not just also add a racist Japanese accent to the guy here.

So there you have it: Things Dobson does not understand and essentially mocks for existing. And don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Dobson not “getting” those things. Everyone has their own tastes, likes and dislikes as well as reasons why they are into it or not. I e.g. understand that people enjoy Bob’s Burger, but I myself really do not like the show much, because most characters come off as annoying to me in terms of personality and quirks. That said, I understand the visual appeal to it, if you like it that is fine and if you ass why I don’t like it I will give an explanation to it. What I will not do is make a comic mocking the existence of it, imply that my disinterest is correlated to me thinking there is also something inherently wrong with you if you enjoy it and build my disinterest on none existing issues with the thing in question.

Dobson however seems to have done that quite a couple of times and combined with his self righteous nature, it becomes kinda obvious why people began hating his stuff to the point that almost all of 4chan and tumblr developed a stern disdain for him.

[guksauce]

~TickledPink!~

Part Three

Pairing: Jjk x Reader Pregnant AU

Word Count: 2,641K

Rated: M

Book Warnings: Mentions of Sexual Assault, Mild Smut, Adult Language, Fluff City.

Author: @guksauce

Notes: Thank you to those that give this story and myself love 💖 This one was for Taehyung, getting to spread his wings and be the little artist he is!

Tag List: @jamkookies @jk97luv @1-in-abillion

All you know is whoever just threw open your curtains is in direct line of facing your wrath. Early, dramatically slanted, morning rays flood Jimin’s bedroom and your cracked eyes catch the way dust particles fall like glitter to the ground. The idea of waking up and having to leave this bed after Jimin had changed all the linen to clean sets last night, felt like a crime. His generosity spree came back to you in vivid colors; vibrant pink tufts of hair, borrowed fluffy white Chanel sweaters, smiling crescent eyes, and smoky white curled wisps of hot latte steam. Exchanging old stories about each other’s parents and home life from days gone by helped you to almost completely forget the argument you’d witnessed. The argument you’d caused. Jimin had begged you to not let it bother you so much and had shown you nothing but genuine friendship and support, that of which you would forever remain in his debt for doing so. But you would never fully forgive yourself for making a rift.

You couldn’t even be mad at the curtain culprit, especially not when his face was all the best parts of happiness embodied. Childishly puffed cheeks under smoldering taupe eyes, and heart shaped lips curved into a smile so unimaginably warm. He exuded a coziness so genuine it was impossible to feel anything but whimsical.

“Good morning Y/n-ssi.” Protests to even being talked to yet leave your throat in gargled groans as you cover your eyes, providing some relief from the sunlight.

“Good morning Taehyung-ah. What time is it?” Not that it matters, it’s obviously too early to care about times or anything for that matter. Tae’s mood is high above you, raining down in feathery words and soft chuckles. You feel bad for not being more of a morning person so that you could enjoy being rained on by Tae while being warmed by the sun, but he doesn’t seem to mind the groggy attitude you wear as he waltzes to the door.

“It’s 11am. I was going to let you sleep in longer, but I’ve been working on a surprise for you that I would really love for you to see.” Long strides leave behind the potent but endearing scent of fresh paint. It mixes with a familiar cologne and you decide that this is probably what Tae smells like all the time; art.

“A surprise for me? But why?” Before you can question it further, he’s taking your hand and pulling you from your heap of warm blankets and leading you out of the comfort of Jimin’s bedroom. It was the first time you’d been outside of his room since last night amidst the chaos and youd be lying if you said the air outside of the room felt sticky with remnants of tension. You squeeze Tae’s hand as you scan the halls and nearby rooms with wide eyes in fear of being seen by one of the other members.

“They’re gone. They went out shopping for the day, so you can relax.” The gesture isn’t a lot, but the way Tae slows his steps to fall in line with you and gives your hand a much needed reassuring squeeze back, keeps you from gulping for air when you think you might just break down in the middle of the hallway. “Ok! This is where you have to cover your eyes.” You do as you’re told and cover your face with your hands. Tae makes a sound of approval just before you spread your fingers enough to peek through.

“No, no, no! No peeking.” He laughs and uses his own hand to double cover your eyes. The sound of a handle turning is heard, as well as his voice behind you guiding you to the surprise. The smell of paint becomes more pungent as it fills your nostrils, along with a gust of cold morning air through an open window. There’s a dull ache in your head but its worth it when Tae uncovers your eyes and lets out a small “Tada!”

Together you stand in an empty room. Except it doesn’t feel so empty. Instead its full. Very full. Of what, you’re uncertain but you can feel that it holds something powerful. It reminds you of the feeling Jungkook and Jimin described last night; pure elation, as though you aren’t the only two standing in this room.

“Taehyung…You did all of this?” In this room stands tall walls similar to that of Jimin’s room except all of these walls are a beautiful lavender purple. Despite the overwhelming aroma of paint, somehow it morphs into fields of tall stalks of tiny purple flowers and the autumn winds turn into balmy summer breezes carrying tiny white dandelion seeds.

“Yup! We wanted to make sure you had a space of your own and I got to thinking last night that it would be fun to customize it for you.” Crisp white trim kept the room bright and the purple filtered out any harshness that an all-white room would have. It was comforting and calm and Zen.

“You really didn’t have to do this Tae. This is too much.” You say shaking your head as you take one last look around.

“Ah, what’s a little paint? It took no time at all and it wasn’t hard.” Taehyung watches you closely as you look around. He sees the moment your features change from awe to guilt; smiling eyes pointed up to the sky fall to your cheeks and a wide grin droops to pouting lips that you try to hide by walking to the window. He seizes the opportunity. “Damn it, I missed a spot.” He says through a full smile when you turn around. Taking in his appearance, you finally see the hard work built up on his clothes. His white shirt is forever stained with purple paint where he’d spattered it everywhere from the roller, and his black sweatpants artfully ruined with full on handprints in both purple and white.

When he holds out a paintbrush to you and the smile returns to your face, he hopes you wont mind being covered as well.

“You know, as wonderful as this is, I don’t know if ill be staying here. I don’t want to ruin Yoongi and Namjoon’s relationship any more than I already have.” You take the brush from Tae’s hand and stare at the bristle’s already muddied with wet lavender paint.

“I think you should stay. Just because Yoongi was mad doesn’t mean you are disliked.” Tae says softly and you nod. Turning to the wall, you dip your brush into the paint and smearing it onto the surface in patterns that look like the thoughts swimming in your mind. There should probably be a pattern. Up, down. Up, down. Or side to side even but you fill the white spaces with swirls and circles. Tae pauses and almost protests but tilts his head to the side as he considers this a window into how you see the world. He joins you with a lop-sided smile on his lips, trying his best to blend his designs with yours.

“This rooms been empty forever. I’m glad you’re filling it. And from what I heard from Jungkook and Jimin this morning, for more reasons than why you were brought here, they are too.” Out of the corner of your eyes you can see the way Tae turns his head to see your reaction to his words and you can’t help but smile.

“I feel like…I’ve tainted this place.” You admit and he bathes in those words, soaking up whatever meaning he found in them.

“Any family of Namjoon’s, is family of ours.” He says firmly, pausing to choose his next words very carefully. “It’s been just us for so long…I think for all of us its hard to imagine there being anyone else. But really its nice.” Tae peeks again in your direction to gauge your reaction. Your smile is thin and small but it’s there and that’s all he needs to push forward. “Sometimes we forget why we do what we do. Becoming more of an image for others has really blended in with the fame, you know? Sometimes things start to merge, and we get caught up in the work of it all and forget to remember where the power comes from. It comes from our connection with people. With our fans. With our family. With you. I think you coming into our lives has reminded us just how fortunate we are to be where we are and who we are and how we are together.” At this point, Taehyung has lost himself in his self-realization and his words get quieter as he begins to talk more to himself and less to you.

It continues this way while you each fill in the blank space on the wall, talking nonstop to each other. Mostly its Taehyung. His easy-going attitude and free-spirited aura breaks your wall of nerves. He tells you everything from his life on the farm with his parents, to his beginnings with the guys and how fond he’s grown of them over the years. His story is long and really you don’t mind listening because it’s amazing he’s even come this far in such a short amount of time. Your proud of him because really, it’s a lot and you can’t imagine having to cope with all of this fame and fortune and recognition at such a young age.

It makes you admire him a little more as you watch him fill in the last strip of white paint with the purple color, he picked out for you. For you…

“Thank you.” It’s cold on the floor where you’ve made a small nest in the protective sheet covering the floor. The paintbrush in your hand feels heavy and your limbs feel like they might fall off if you raise them above your head again. In hindsight you probably should have let Tae take care of the top half and you the bottom half but being next to each other seemed to work better for conversation.

“It was really no trouble Y/n. It was fun. Its been a long time since I’ve had another person to talk to. Don’t get me wrong,” He starts, wiping his hands on his shirt leaving streaks where more droplets fell onto the fabric, and turns to you on the floor. “I love my brothers. Their great and talking to them is always…well…great. But talking to you about my journey has been really new and refreshing.” Kneeling to you he smiles a thousand-watt smile that all but blinds you. “So, thank YOU for reminding me of who I am and who I’ve become.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome.” You see his smile and raise him a bigger one followed by a much-needed hug. “If anything, you’ve only given us a new layer of glue. It was a test of our friendship and it survived. Sometimes we aren’t so sure we belong together but its moments like this where we feel like we can. Like we Will.” His embrace is warm and welcoming and you’re sad you hadn’t gotten to know him a lot sooner. Curse Namjoon for being so-

“Taehyungie! We’re home!” Down the hall the lock on the door clicks and the handle creeks slowly. Jimin’s voice is the first to echo the walls of the apartment.

“Can you come help us carry in groceries!” Hoseok asks, the sound of his shoes squeaking on the hardwood floors of the foyer. Everything in your body begs you to run, the muscles in your legs clenching as you try to tug away from Tae’s embrace.

“Don’t run, Y/n. You don’t have to run.” Tae doesn’t know what’s happened to you, so he doesn’t realize the way he’s triggered you by holding you in place until you’ve frozen in his arms.

“I just...I have to get some things from Jimin’s room. I forgot to clean up some stuff and…and.” Footsteps approach your purple room and though being clung to makes your heart beat wildly in your chest, you hold Tae tighter the closer they get.

“Taehyung have you seen Y/n? She’s not in Ji-oh.” You let out a deep breath when you connect the voice with the face that appears in the doorway to your new room. It’s much brighter than the first time you’d seen it. In fact, Jungkook was glowing. He didn’t look plagued with sleepiness or twisted with anger at Yoongi. Instead he was fresh and glowing and…beyond handsome. Gently you step away from Taehyungs hug and wave awkwardly.

“Hey.” You say.

“Hey.” He responds, an adorable smile pulling at his lips. The way the sunlight pours in from the window behind you, it catches strands of his long hair and turns them to warm melting chocolate.

“I was just thanking Tae for painting this room for me. It’s my favorite color.” You smile fondly at Taehyung who bows formally like the little prince he is and turn back to Jungkook. He nods and takes another look around with his hands folded behind his back.

“It’s pretty. He did a good job.” He states, taking a step closer to you. The smile lingering on his face melts you into a puddle as you observe him. For a second you feel bad for leaving Tae standing alone in the corner of your room while you gawk at Jungkook, but he’s content with admiring his work. “And I see you helped.” Kook chuckles as he reaches up before he realizes what he’s doing and wipes your chin, revealing a purple smudge on the pad of his thumb when he pulls away. The gesture is harmless to everything but your heart. You flush immediately and laugh as you rush to start pulling up sheets from the floor.

“I did! It was really fun. Tae and I had a great time. He told me all about his family and how he met all of you and-. “

“What’s this?” The voice that fills the room isn’t smoldering like Tae’s or lifting like Jungkook’s. Instead its deep and layered with mild disappointment.

“I painted Y/n’s room so she will be more comfortable here.” Taehyung says with no signs of wavering as he moves closer to you. His voice doesn’t shake like your knees do.

“Mm.” Unable to read Yoongi’s emotion, you stay glued to your spot in the far corner of the room as his eyes scan the room before settling on the sheets in your arms. “Ill take those.”

“Um…I can take them…” Momentarily you’re surprised that he would even offer to take the sheets. Why would he want to help you after the unintentional tear you’ve made? No. Don’t. Tae said you…you’re the glue.

“I’m doing laundry tonight so I should just wash them.” This time when he holds his hands out in your direction, its no longer a question. He’s taking the sheets. You rush across the room, scooping up the last sheet on your way and keep your focus on the ground beneath you as you hand them over. He doesn’t tug them away from you like you expect him to. Neither does he make any sounds or signs of protest or disgust and really you feel like begging him to punch you square in the face for the trouble you’ve caused. Stop! Tae said you’re family.

“Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes.” Yoongi says no more and no less and it’s a blessing. A blessing because this is normal for him and normal is better than yelling at Namjoon or cursing at Jungkook. You consider this a win and bow softly as Yoongi departs, leaving the feeling of your new purple room in the same condition it was before; happy.

Part Two

Master List

Part Four

[murroyilodel]

The Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo (link) | Esmeralda (link) | Frollo (link) | Phoebus (link) | Clopin (link)

The Misshapen Bell-ringer

The character and his journey from oppression to freedom aroused empathy in many key contributors to the project. Marshall Toomey, the cleanup key for the character and an African-American, asserts, “I’ve lived Quasimodo’s life. I was one of the first people to get bussed in the early 1960s. I got called all kinds of names. I felt so inferior and so ugly. I know what’s in Quasimodo’s heart because of what I’ve been through in my life.” Writer Noni White asserts, “Someone once said that anti-Semitism is a light sleeper. All bigotry is a light sleeper. Because Quasimodo and the [Romani] are outcasts, the story touches a universal theme: Why can’t we see each other as human beings and not judge one another based on looks, beliefs, or race?”

Full write-up behind Read-More

Taking that step forward required the filmmakers to extract the essence of some of literature’s more memorable and sharply etched characters Hugo evokes Quasimodo, for instance, as “a giant broken in pieces and badly reassembled,” with “a huge head sprouting red hair; between the two shoulders an enormous hump, the repercussions of which were evident at the front; a system of thighs and legs so strangely warped that they met only at the knees and looked, from the front, like two scythe-blades joined at the handle; broad feet and monstrous hands.” Still, beneath the surface, “There was a radiance about that somber and unhappy face.”

In the novel Quasimodo may be viewed as a symbol of the unacknowledged evil of his guardian, Claude Frollo, as well as a scapegoat for the fears and superstitions of the medieval populace. Yet the Disney filmmakers saw that behind these misconceptions lay another Quasimodo entirely. Observes concept artist Jean Gillmore, “Quasimodo was limited not so much by his own physical restrictions as by people’s opinions of him. People of that time feared anything out of the ordinary, and Quasimodo embodied those fears, fuelled by the superstitions and dogma of the church. To them something that hideous on the outside must also be hideous inside.”

Rather than dwell solely on the physical qualities of the character, whom Hugo variously describes as “a living chimera,” and “hunchbacked, one-eyed, and lame,” and with a “dome for a back and twisted columns for legs,” the Disney moviemakers chose to dramatize Quasimodo’s internal struggle with the shame, insecurities, and self-loathing Frollo has created in him. Don Hahn, who previously produced Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King before being asked to produce The Hunchback of Notre Dame, views Quasimodo as “an abused child who has to struggle far less with his physical challenges than with the huge oppression of being told by his father figure, Frollo, that he is a monster, a freak unfit to venture out into the world.” Kirk Wise terms the relationship of Quasimodo and Frollo “classically dysfunctional. Frollo constantly reminds Quasimodo of how ugly, how worthless, he is and whenever the poor kid gets his hopes up, Frollo smashes them down. It’s almost like some insidious form of brainwashing that keeps Quasimodo in a trance.”

The moviemakers determined that their Quasimodo should hew close to the age Hugo ascribes to him, about twenty, rather than the fortyish man he appears to be in previous film versions. The choice lends him an innocent appeal. Hugo’s conception that Quasimodo was “vicious in fact because he was anti-social; he was anti-social because he was ugly” evolved in the filmmakers’ minds to a more modern conceit. Gary Trousdale maintains that it was crucial for Quasimodo to not be “malevolent, bitter, and vicious, but a put-upon guy who, beneath his surface appearance and his being emotionally stunted, has a loving heart of gold.” “It’s not so much how much he looks, it’s a really his inner soul trying to break free,” concurs Kirk Wise.

No Disney animated character, from Mickey Mouse to Captain John Smith or from Snow White to Pocahontas, has sprung easily into existence. Few could have presented more challenges than Quasimodo, whose transcendent spirit can be glimpsed only be those willing to see beyond his unconventional outward appearance. Key decisions were required as to how he would look and move, and how great his physical challenges should be. It had been suggested, for instance, that half his face might be deformed, but hidden under a cascade of beautiful hair. The filmmakers vetoed that notion because, as writer Bob Tzudiker put it, “This is a story of someone who must overcome his perception of his own deformity. If we hid his deformity, we’d be avoiding telling the story.” Many of the Studio’s most gifted artists – among them Joe Grant, Burny Mattinson, Ed Gombert, Jean Gillmore, Thom Enriquez, Rick Maki, Geefwee Boedoe, Kevin Harkey, James Baxter, and Rowland Wilson – created prototypical inspirational approaches to the character that ranged from nightmare creatures to singular-looking boys. In the end, a blend of the designs of illustrator Peter DeSeve, whose surrealistic style is perhaps known best from his New Yorker work, and animator James Baxter, best known for his work on Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, were chosen to balance Hugo’s Quasimodo with Disney’s. From the first moment Quasimodo appears on screen, lovingly urging a hesitant, frightened young pigeon to at last fly free of Notre Dame, the character, as animated by Baxter, appears sympathetic, psychologically battered, winsome, a full-hearted and appealing underdog. “James Baxter’s animation of Quasimodo is so moving, that it’s easy to forget that the performance as created with a pencil and paper,” producer Don Hahn says. “The energy from his animation is something audiences can feel when they look at the screen.”

Baxter designed Quasimodo with a stress on horizontal shapes rather than vertical ones. Says Baxter, “His shape contrasts deliberately with the other major characters, especially Frollo, who is very tall and Gothic. Frollo seems to fit in with the Gothic architecture while Quasi doesn’t.” Despite Quasimodo’s physical appearance, he had to be designed to be very adept and active. “He’s deformed but not disabled,” says Baxter. “His being bent over was a metaphor for his wanting to hide. We wanted him wrapped in on himself, able to bend over and cower in his most oppressed moments.”

The artists of the layout, background and effects departments worked to create an environment for Quasimodo which reflected his character and his moods. Psychologically, the cathedral is, in Baxter’s words, “Quasi’s comfort zone. When he’s on his own or with the gargoyles he’s at ease; it’s very different from when he’s in the square.” Says head of layout Ed Ghertner, “There are places in the belltower where Quasimodo has all these found and manufactured objects and they really tell you a lot about who he is, what his preoccupations are.” As the movie progresses the color and environment change subtly to suggest changes in Quasi’s mood. “Though his environment starts out cold, it becomes warmer when he shows his space to Esmeralda and magical and ethereal when he dreams of heaven’s light,” says head of backgrounds Lisa Keene.

It is through his relationship with another element of the cathedral, the gargoyles Hugo, Victor, and Laverne, that the directors chose to reveal an important aspect of Quasimodo’s character. Voiced by Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, and Mary Wickes, respectively (Jane Withers took on the role of Laverne after Mary Wickes passed away in October 1995), “the gargoyles help us see the warm and funny side of Quasi that shuts down when Frollo’s around,” says Gary Trousdale. “Not only does this add humour and lightness to the film, it shows an aspect of his character you wouldn’t otherwise see, an aspect that he isn’t allowed to express to others.”

The character and his journey from oppression to freedom aroused empathy in many key contributors to the project. Marshall Toomey, the cleanup key for the character and an African-American, asserts, “I’ve lived Quasimodo’s life. I was one of the first people to get bussed in the early 1960s. I got called all kinds of names. I felt so inferior and so ugly. I know what’s in Quasimodo’s heart because of what I’ve been through in my life.” Writer Noni White asserts, “Someone once said that anti-Semitism is a light sleeper. All bigotry is a light sleeper. Because Quasimodo and the [Romani] are outcasts, the story touches a universal theme: Why can’t we see each other as human beings and not judge one another based on looks, beliefs, or race?”

To voice and sing the character, Tom Hulce, an Oscar nominee for his role as Mozart in Amadeus, was, according to coproducer Roy Cohn, “the guy as soon as we heard him sing because he has this wonderful, innocent quality to his voice, yet it still has the kind of power and depth you’d expect from Quasimodo.” Hulce got put to the test on “Out There,” the song written for Quasimodo by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz in which the character’s feelings well up, compelling him to express his longing for one sing day amid the throngs he watches from the distant heights of the belltower:

            All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day,             Not above them,             But part of them…

For Gary Trousdale, the song “defines Quasimodo as a yearning, child-like guy watching life pass him by from the belltower, as frustrated as anyone might be if the Tournament of Roses Parade or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade passed by your window, but you could never go.” Victor Hugo probably never imagined his malformed, melancholy creation breaking forth into song. Yet, Baxter’s animation, Menken’s melody, and Schwartz’s lyrics speak powerfully of the character’s lonely isolation, oppression, and feeling of being an outsider.

[bersonwriter]

Uchideshi at Integral Dojo, in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel, Middle East. Month 1 of 2 / May-June 2018

I think it’s time to write again.

If any of you have been visiting this blog/site from time-to-time to see if I’d posted, and seen that I had not, I’m sorry about that. A lot has been happening and up until the last few days, I’ve had fairly low-energy and have been sort of exhausted, or at least fairly worn out, most of the time, In fact, I haven’t really felt that good for the most part the last couple of weeks. There’s a shift happening though in my time here for the better, and I’m starting to feel it again. And so, I thought I’d use this new energy and spirit to return to the internet and write my time here.

Being an “uchi deshi”, which like I said last time is a Japanese term for “ inside student,” or “live-in student,” is hard.  The following is written about it on the website for the place I am living and studying in and through my time here.

“As an uchi deshi you are making a greater commitment to a developmental life through Aikido and related practices, in a full time, total emersion environment. This residential apprenticeship program is designed to develop your Aikido and deepen your understanding of the art.”

“If you think you are ready to immerse yourself in the art of Integral Aikido and walk the path of practice, embodiment, and meditation, then you are welcome to apply to our uchi deshi program, and come to train and live with us in the Integral Dojo, in Tel-Aviv.”

It is basically 2x a day classes 6 days a week, with one class only on Friday the exception, and no class on Saturdays. It’s hard. Sometimes it’s been amazing and focused and other times I’ve felt like resting or reading a book or taking a break. And to be straight, he has been open to me missing a class if something comes up or I need it, as long as I’m also communicating about it. There’s also the ongoing maintenance and cleaning of the dojo, somethings daily and others weekly. Like I said, it’s not easy. That being said, it is very, very much worth it. I still know I am exactly where I want to be right now in life. 

Part of that has to do with the last few days and meeting some people and a local community space, that has group dinners and workshops and yoga classes and music events. And its not far from where I live, maybe 10-15 minute walk from here. I want to know some of the people more, I really like some of them. I’ve really liked the people I practice/train with here at dojo too, but I haven’t really spent time with them outside of that environment. These people are also committed to well-being, connection, and embodying a sort of humanistic and even loving intention (to try and use a few terms that might describe the sort of ethos or spirit of the people I seem to connect to most in a depth-way). And they’re almost all Israeli. And, on of them is a Scot. 

That was fucking brilliant. I’ll write more about that later, but I met a guy from Glasgow, 35 and living here in Israel for a few years, a Jew but most definitely Scottish. I wasn’t expected that. I’m still trying to figure out how making it to the UK is going to work and what will happen there. It was sort of synchronicitious (word? of a synchronicistic quality) to meet a Scottish person here. And he’s a climber. And does yoga, too. And after a night learned about “Pele”, the community space and learning how to become a volunteer which I think I’ll do for the rest of my time here, I found out he used to do Aikido too. We’re exchanged contact information and he said when/if I make it to Scotland, I can stay with his “mum” (as they say in that part of the world) for dinner if want a place to go. I think we’ll be meeting up again soon... I’ve always wanted to know a Scot, and I’m looks like that is happening which is really something.

Okay, this isn’t going to be as uber-long as the last one. The frequency of these writings seem to not be happening as much as I thought, but I want to try and keep to the lengths. I know people are interested in following this, but I also want to make it work with people’s limited time, not against it. And so I’m going to take a minute to sit here in front of my laptop, close my eyes, breathe... and be with the where I’m at and how the last month has been here. Then I’m going to open them, and like I did last post/entry, start writing out some images and moments of the last 4 weeks in this city and what I’ve seen and experienced here. And then I’ll finish it off, and you can all go back to living your lives. Which, I hope, is going alright, wherever you are and whatever it is your experiencing. All of it.

Okay. I’ll start with what just happened, as it does about if not everyday in the mornings, and go from there:

A man yelling outside my window coming from the garage body shop down below, which seems to be happen at exactly 9am throughout the week, who’s words are still unintelligible to me. Something like “bira shratav hestratif! Behema destrev asafif!” Again, not that but maybe close to it. Its muffled and not that clear, but I can’t make out any Hebrew words I know. If anything it sounds more Arabic. Who knows.

Walking down through the neighborhoods of Montefiore, the area of Tel Aviv I live in here. Loud and noisy filled streets or honking and buses are not too far away to one side, the main Ayalon highway (route 20) a few streets to the other side, but here it’s relatively quiet and nice. Residential apartment buildings alongside with auto body shops, mechanic garages, an office building or two, an AM:PM (the 24 hr convenience store here, sort of like Israel’s 7-11 or C-Stop), a music store, synagogue, and some other corner stores, cafes, and food places.

Bus Stop at HaChashmonaim, Hamesger, and Derech Manachem Begin, always different people, a diversity I only somewhat expected to see here:

     - Middle-eastern-looking young men of different build more often than not very fit and athletic looking, in T-shirts and jeans around my age, maybe sunglasses, very short hair maybe some facial hair, usually not a lot of it. Also more “white” looking men, that is more “Ashkenazik,” or Jews of European, as opposed to those more middle-eastern “tsefardi” or “yemenite” in background.

      - Israeli women of all heights and ages, seemingly from my own, (20s) all the way through 30s and 40s, less commonly older, in anything from professional business clothes to light dresses to jeans and blouses and t shirts as well. And its hard not to walk the streets of Tel Aviv for more than a few minutes and not see an attractive woman somewhere around you.

    - Occasionally a religious Jew, either wearing ordinary clothes with a kippa, maybe tzit tzit, and sometimes too dressed fully in black and white as is often the way of the very orthodox here and elsewhere in the world.  

- To put it descriptively, “black people.” That’s the term an American would use, because that is who they most resemble from our own culture and country. That is, both men and women, usually young or middle-aged, who look very much of African descent because, well, they are. Though they are a wide range of black people here, from all different countries of origins and appearances too. Some are Ethiopian Jews who came here for refuge, though because I’m close to south Tel Aviv, which is very much an immigrant area, many came for jobs as migrant workers from places in Africa such as Eritrea, Somalia, and other places. Apparently their are some tensions with this minority and the the majority of the population of Israelis there. 

- Bicycles, with any of the previous demographics, riding by all the time.

- And motor-scooters, too. So many damn motor-scooters. It’s very characteristic of Tel Aviv, I’ve seen. They’re everywhere. Its a little ridiculous. More so are the little scooters people ride around on everywhere, where upright handles and all, on the sidewalks. They’re like as common here as long boards in California.

All of those types of people could be seen at the closest bus stop 5 minute walk from the dojo where I live, where the main streets of Hamesger and HaChashmonaim and Derech Menachem Begin all converge in one place, a hub of sorts.

There’s so much else I could write, but it’d take hours. Pages and pages of descriptions, let alone if I want to write reflections on it. I can tell you about the night I walked down Meir Diezengoff street, full of its well-known Tel Aviv night life of cafes and bars and stores open until really late, maybe 2, 3am. 

It was like 9, 10pm and I walked alone passed countless restaurants and food places packed with young Israeli’s crowded at outdoor tables watching the world cup and eating and drinking together, and then looking over and seeing a homeless man laying with his head away from people on the pavement behind a bus stop with a box in front of him for money. I remember looking at this and stopping myself to see it and feel it, because I realized that although I noticed and it did effect me, there was a thought of acknowledgement and empathy but not deeply felt compassion... which is what I think people like that need most... not the ignoring and not looking that most people do to have it not ruin their night out, but still not where I know I to be and exist from in this world.

 I recall looking at him asleep there, and this beautiful girl walked by with a friend, and buses flew past, and the air had cooled off because it was evening and was full of activity and sound of people having a time, and there I was walking alone, so much where I wanted to be doing in my life, but also with a “hole in my soul” to quote that song, which I hope and believe soon will be finally taken care of as well. As I walked on I saw two religious Jews next to each other on a bench, intensely conversing, while girls overly dressed up to go partying walk by in tall heels, and others, others, so much stimulus, so much humanity, so much dichotomy of both the lively and exciting and sad and painful and for me, freedom and as some know its occasional companion, loneliness.. is there too.

All part of this existence on earth, now in the 21st century, as people in this world. It’s not all good. So much of it is, and I’m experiencing that more and more. And here in Tel Aviv, this urban center in the middle of the opposite side of the planet from home in the United States, I’m developing myself to really be able to sustainable and with centeredness and well-being navigate it all, right now and when I return home, into and through the future.

To finish off I’ll say this, somewhat in reference to my comment in the last paragraph; if things happen the way I hope, not only will I be cultivating the abilities I am here with being an Uchideshi of centeredness, focused mind, open and relaxed but alert body, and embodied awareness and intent, but also find someone and people to open my heart again. That’s the one thing that’s missing from this picture, and there are possibilities there. I sense it happening soon. Maybe. Possibly. For sure maybe.

Hope you all are having an okay time back home. My parents reminded me recently its the 4th next week there. I hope you find a way to not just have a great time but develop in someway, even work on as some of the language is the Sensei’s words here, “evolve”. The idea of really working with life, and conflict, our experiences good and bad and neutral, and ourselves.. and developing into better and better humans, both for our own well being and longevity, but for that of all people in our lives and the the ones we continuously encounter throughout our days and weeks through time.

Final note: I am immeasurably grateful and appreciate to have the opportunity to do this trip and experience what I am here. I am from time-to-time aware, as I focus on the intensity of my training and self-development, that most of the people in this world will never have an opportunity to do something like this, even if they really wanted to and it could be really something for them and their life, too. It’s either because of time, or money, or both. I think of all the people I pass on the streets, everyone going to work, here and back home. I think of people from all classes back in the States, both the 40 year old working class parents who work two jobs just to pay the rent, or the more middle-class and affluent ones like my own parents and background, who might live more comfortably but only at the cost of non-stop working, frequent stress, and not a lot of time for themselves. I think of all the people pursuing advance degrees and further education, from people my peers, millennial in and finishing graduate school, in academics or in trade schools trying to secure financial security and a reliable future. 

I  from the soldiers my own age on the streets everywhere here, in uniform and looked very much like ordinary kids- kids, listen to me. They’re younger than me, that’s clear. They’re very much not kids though. 18, 19, maybe 20. They’re my sister’s age, and very much young adults. They are committed to this duty, and some of them might never live to be my age and live the rest of their lives. Most will. There are no wars happening here, only ongoing tension and conflict on and off. Still.. I thought of this as I passed a cafe with a few eating together yesterday not far from here. 

All of this again makes me so fucking appreciate to be here. To be focusing on my being. So much of it is really honing my consciousness, making my my body supple, flexible, and even powerful, and the idea is in this process, create a form that is me that can handle anything, throughout the rest of my life. It’ll be an ongoing process endlessly, of knowing myself and who I am, and the world and other people, but this existential effort... to know oneself, and hone oneself too... it’s all about being more “on point”, as I and others sometimes call it. 

This and hopefully soon more fully opening my heart to the vast array of emotions and human feelings that are possible that even now are still not really a part of my experience of life... it’s like that overused mission statement used these days, from the Y to other business and non-profits and education and medicine, somewhat cliche but based in truth so its actually valuable “for the body, mind, and spirit”. 

If body is our physical form and its external strength and flexibility as well as internal processes and wellness, and mind is cognition and emotion, identity and personal history/memory/life story, as well as thought... I think “spirit”, or maybe “soul”, is that “somethingness” that holds it all together. It’s the ethos and life-force, the sort of half consciousness, half heart, that love and truth and connection come from, both our awareness of ourselves, and that which we base our ethics, and therefore our choices, on each moment of our lives.  The reflection I’ll leave you with is this; I’m not in graduate school, and I’m not working. I have 2 jobs back home, but no career. And yet, I have a vision. I really believe now that if you strive to optimize and enhance your being, your spirit/body/mind connection of who you are, things can and likely will fall into place. To be both fully in life, and in yourself, integrated and focused and open and with intent, is to be really alive and in touch with things. From there, each conversation is valuable, each time you’re with someone it has meaning, and each breath is “life-spirit” entering your lungs and blood and running through you with all the molecules of energy and sustenance from the environment and earth itself. 

Alright, I’m really finishing now. Breath. It’s so important. Breath. Breathe. Inhale, exhale. “Life-spirit” might be a poetic term I just came up with in writing, but there is more truth to it that most realize. It is the difference between going through your days, and really living. Being. It nourishes your internal organs, and opens your body, if done right and full as often as possible. It can clear the mind and help navigate emotional states and feelings of all kind. It can return us to center. 

It is the only link between the mind and body that is both voluntarily, and involuntarily controlled. It is the foundation of meditation practices, though you never to meditate to know its truth. If you can’t having a sitting practice or do yoga, or even if you do, make life your meditation. 

Breathe. It’s the link. When you, I, we, are with it... we’re really there. Here.

Josh Berson, alonaryk.

[elementsofemotion]

Chapter 1: The Forest Prince

Birds chirped in greeting to the morning sun as it lazily climbed its way up into the eastern sky, it's brilliant rays peeking through the tall oaks and only coming to a stop when its light was scattered about the forest floor.

Deep within the forest, at its very center and towering above the rest, stood the Great Tree, home of the Nature Goddess. The forest was her kingdom, and she loved it as much as it loved her. Though the tree was mostly hollowed out as living quarters, it still lived and flourished beautifully thanks to the Goddess’ power. It was the landmark of the Eternal Forest.

It was at the top of this landmark that a tiny nature sprite flew out from the leaves. Sprites were a common resident of the Eternal Forest, along with the other realms, as helpers of mana regulation. Their bodies were almost humanoid, though more rounded and undefined with nubby, slender legs and tiny hands. Their faces were almost reptile like, also rounded and with soft features that made their large eyes stand out. The humans often called them fairies, though it wasn’t a term the sprites were fond of.

The nature sprite’s translucent wings were multiple shades of orange and pink, arranged in a pattern reminiscent of a monarch butterfly. His skin was a deep emerald green, with darker green markings adorning his arms, legs, and nubs that continued into the antennae on the top of his head. His tail was long and slender, with leaf-like extremities that eventually ended into a pink lily.

The sprite paused in midair, quickly taking in his surroundings before quickly dropping down to the forest floor, like a falcon diving down onto its prey.

Down among the tangled roots of the great oak was the person he was looking for. The boy was considered extremely young for a spirit, only existing in the world for a mere 120 or so years, as opposed to those who had lived for millenia. On the outskirts of the long reaching roots, his home was in a shallow burrow. Moss and giant flowers gave him excellent bedding to sleep on, with the roots above him providing adequate protection from the elements.

The boy slept soundly, curled up into a tight ball in the center of a particularly large flower. Though he was down below the roots, light still reached him in plentiful amounts, dotting the area around him with the warm, yellow sunshine. Six magnificent wings- black with white tips on the right side, white with black on the left- covered him like a blanket, protecting him in a warm shell from the outside world. His feathers shifted ever so slightly with each breath.

He had messy, rosey-brown hair with a small, nubby set of black horns sprouting up from it. Black and silver Headphones covered his ears, the band carefully pushed behind his horns in an attempt to make it stay in place. He wore an unusual looking army green jacket with white fur trim, over-sized for his small frame. His undershirt was white, and black ripped-up pants were tucked into black and white converse boots. As if to match his horns, a devil-like tail was curled up around him as he rested.

The sprite landed hard on top of the boy’s folded wings with little regard to his feathers. He didn’t stir even as the sprite began to jump up and down, his weight barely noticeable.

“Caelian!” He called, sliding down the boy’s wings and landing down on the floor near his head. “Caelian! Wake up! Come on, you lazy bird!”

Caelian’s wings shuddered, before they slowly opened up around him, revealing the small boy they were protecting. He blinked his azure blue eyes groggily, not bothering to stifle his yawn as his wings neatly folded against his back and he lifted his head.

“What is it, Nathaniel?” He asked, his usually soft voice slightly hoarse from sleep.

The Sprite flitted up from the root he was standing on to the top of Caelian’s head, plopping down into a sitting position in one swift motion.

“Gaia wants to see you!”

“Oh, really?” He let out another yawn. “That’s all?”

“Yeah, she- HEY,” Nathaniel let out a shriek as Calian plopped his head back into the soft patch of moss he had been using as a pillow, causing the sprite to roll off into the roots. He let out puffs of annoyance as he climbed back up, dramatically slapping his tiny hands on top of the large root as he pulled himself up without his wings for assistance.

“Okay wise guy, no. You’ve had ENOUGH sleep, it’s time to WAKE. UP,” He emphasized the last two words as he pushed against Caelian’s face, earning little reaction.

“It’s warm out- and I’m tired- Let me sleep, Gaia won’t mind.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure Gaia will appreciate her disciple not taking his job seriously. Not like she needs anyone to help monitor the barrier and take care of the forest denizens.”

Caelian cracked open an eye.

“Poor Gaia, having someone so young and lazy as a disciple. Surely, her work is cut out for her,” Nathaniel sighed dramatically as he turned away from Caelian, shrugging his hands and shoulders. “So busy regulating the forest’s mana, y’know, so the realm doesn’t fall apart- but I suppose she’ll just have to somehow deal with everything herself since her disciple can’t even do his job. I mean, for anyone else it would be a great honor to serve as the right hand to one of the Gods, but hey, if you’re tired, go back to dreamland.”

Caelian had fully opened his eyes while Nathaniel spoke, giving the sprite a very blank look. Beside him, a soft green light began to dimly glow, growing in intensity over the span of several seconds. A moment later, a lantern materialized, the intense light quickly pulled into a sphere that floated inside of the lightly tinted glass. Vines and flowers sprung to life, twisting and turning around the lantern’s exterior as they appeared from seemingly nowhere. Finally, the light inside of the lantern dimmed again, leaving it enveloped in a sparkling green aura.

Caelian pushed himself up into a sitting position. He gave himself a light shake, stretching out his wings slightly and ruffling his feathers.

“I do take it seriously,” he said. “It is an honor to serve Gaia.”

“Then up!” Nathaniel huffed. “Up, up, up!”

He didn’t wait for Nathaniel as he climbed up and out of the tangled roots, though the sprite hardly needed him to wait, as he quickly flitted up through the roots much faster than he ever could. Nathaniel waited, hovering patiently in the air as Caelian climbed out into the beams of sunlight. He momentarily squinted against the increased amount of light, before stretching out his wings to their full length, unable to do so back in the confined space.

“Great! Let’s go!” Nathaniel darted upwards towards the hollow he had descended out of, only to pause a moment later and look back down at Caelian, who hadn’t moved. He wore a blank expression on his face as Nathaniel smugly called down to him.

“Come on! Make your wings useful for something!”

“You know I can’t, Nath,” Caelian said as the sprite zipped back down, stopping a foot in front of his face.

“Man,” Nathaniel stuck out his tongue. “Six wings and you can’t even fly. What's the point of having them? Can’t you just learn already?”

“I’ve tried, it doesn’t work.”

“Oh come on! I can fly with just two wings! Six wings has to be like, super easy!”

“I can’t, Nath,” Caelian repeated.

“Sure you can! Just flap them a few times and fwoosh, you’re flying!”

Nathaniel hung in the air, his arms raised up in exaggeration as Caelian stared quietly at him. After a few moments of silence Nathaniel sighed, mimicking a sitting position in the air as he rested his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. “Man, teasing you is no fun. You never get riled up.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” He asked.

“It's no fun,” Nathaniel sighed. “You’re so boring when you have Nyxidae out. Whatever, let's go the long way.”

Caelian glanced over to the green lantern that hung in the air beside him as Nathaniel flew away. Nyxidae was the name of the elemental within the lantern: The green light that hummed softly within the glass. The elemental was also what would influence his current personality and emotions.

He set off to follow Nathaniel to the base of the giant tree. Surrounding it, blending into the wood seamlessly as if naturally formed, was a staircase that twisted around the entire circumference of the trunk, leading all the way up to the top. It was quite the trek, and one Caelian was familiar with.

Nathaniel waited as Caelian took the first few steps up the stairs, before flying off far ahead of him, only to stop and wait again for the boy to catch up.

Caelian still vividly remembered when he was younger and unable to feel anything. It was assumed he was born without any sort of emotion, if such a thing were even possible. It wasn’t for certain if he was born that way or if something else had occurred to cause the loss of emotion, as he really had no memory of his early childhood. It wasn’t until Gaia found him wandering lost in the forest and took him under her wing that he received a gift of four elementals that allowed him to finally experience emotion. To feel something. To finally experience being alive.

Back when he felt nothing, he never could understand that he was missing something the others had. The smiling, laughing- He couldn’t understand what made people do such strange things. Until Reimos, his Fire Elemental, showed him that same feeling of happiness. It was then he understood. Gaia had given him what was possibly the greatest gifts he could have ever asked for, and he hoped to never have to revert into the lifeless, blank slate he used to be.

Nyxidae was the name of his Nature Elemental. The feelings she embodied were things such as Tranquility, Hope, and Peace. She also enabled him to feel a strong sense of duty for his position as Gaia’s disciple.

It was a while later that Caelian finally reached the top of the winding stairs. At some point during the trek, Nathaniel had gotten tired and decided to take a rest on top of his head. The staircase ended into the treetop, where a large platform was laid out underneath the canopy of leaves. Woven branches made a solid footing for Caelian to step onto. In the center of the canopy sat Gaia, a being several times larger than Caelian or any other person.

Her long brown hair flowed gently down along her body, brushing against her glowing tanned skin that had flowing vines and leaves growing along it. Beautiful white wings sprouted from her back, gently fanning themselves in the air. Atop her head two magnificent antlers rose, their bases hidden by the flowers weaved into her hair.

She appeared to be resting against an enormous ball of moss, her eyes closed and her breathing light. It wasn’t until Caelian stepped closer to her that she slowly opened her eyes with a smile.

“Good morning, Caelian” Her voice reverberated throughout the room. It was a soft, soothing voice that gave the feeling of safety and comfort, like a gentle breeze among the leaves.

In response, Caelian quickly dropped into a deep bow, causing Nathaniel to let out a squeak and grab onto his horns to prevent himself from falling off.

“Good morning, Gaia.”

He remained bowed until he glanced up at the sound of Gaia setting her hand down in front of him, her palm facing upward.

“Come, now. I’ve told you that you don’t need to be so formal with me.”

Caelian gave her an unsure look as he straightened back up, Nathaniel letting out a sigh of relief before quickly removing himself from Caelian’s head and flitting off somewhere out of sight.

“Come. It’s fine.”

Caelian gently clambered up onto her hand, fitting neatly into her palm. He sat with his hands resting in front of him, steadying himself as Gaia slowly raised her hand up, stopping when Caelian was close to her freckled face. Her sky blue eyes gazed at him lovingly as she lifted her other hand, using a single finger to gently stroke the top of his head.

“There you are,” She hummed as Caelian leaned into the finger that was now gently stroking the side of his face. “Are you only allowing Nyxidae out? You should just be yourself, Caelian. Don’t worry about appearing diligent in front of me.”

With that, three more lights began to shine around Caelian, before growing in intensity and materializing into lanterns, just as his first one had. Blue, Red, and Yellow colored elementals- Water, Fire and Celestial-were added alongside his green nature sprite, each with their own unique aura and decorations.

“There, isn’t that much better?” She laughed as Caelian was now making a sound reminiscent of a purr as he pushed himself into the fingers that were stroking him. His tail wagged excitedly behind him, and the feathers on his wings were puffed up to look twice their size.

“My silly little sprout, you don’t need to force yourself to one elemental at a time. They're designed to all work in tandem with each other.”

“I want to be a good disciple,” Caelian said, his cheek pressed against Gaia’s fingertip. “Only Nyxidae really helps with that.”

“You are a good Disciple, Caelian,” Gaia smiled. “Besides that, you’re my darling little sprout, and I’d never wish for you to limit your emotions like that. Now, tell me, what have you been up to since I last asked for you?”

“Um, I’ve been checking the borders of the realm every day like you’ve asked me to,” Caelian said as he placed his hands against Gaia’s thumb. “Your barrier still feels strong- nothing should be able to get in and… So… Um- What are we keeping out, again?”

“There’s just been some rumors floating around and I want to take precaution. It’s nothing for you to worry about, dear.”

“Yeah, but...”

Gaia stroked Caelian’s head again. “What about the forest? Everything seems normal?” She asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the barrier.

“Oh! Yeah, everything seems fine… I played with some deer the other day!”

“Oh?” Gaia grinned. “Did you, now? What did you play?”

“The headbutt game!”

“I see, is that what the cut on your cheek is from?” She mused, gently rubbing his cheek with her pinky finger. “Well, did you win?”

“Nope!”

Gaia laughed. “Perhaps next time, then. But please be careful, I don’t want you to get too hurt.”

“It’s okay, the deer are nice! They wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” She smiled. “Now, what about the forest denizens? Have they had any problems recently?”

Gaia’s expression fell into a soft frown as Caelian grew quiet and looked away from her.

“Caelian...”

“I don’t like talking to them.” He said.

“I understand, Caelian. But as my disciple, it’s part of your job to assist them with any problems they can’t handle by themselves.”

“But they never even tell me if they need help with anything. I don’t see the point. Nathaniel always asks me if I feel upset when they call me things, but… Hey, Gaia, what does that mean? To be upset?”

Gaia gently stroked Caelian’s head and let out a soft sigh. “Oh, Caelian… it’s better if you don’t feel that way. Just think of it as… not liking something.”

“But isn’t it strange?” Caelian frowned. “I thought you granted me the ability to feel all of the emotions?”

“There’s some I’m not able to give you. But they’re all negative emotions, so perhaps it's for the better.”

“But… How can some emotions be bad? Emotions are linked to the elements, so… are… are there bad spirits as well?”

“I’ll explain it all to you someday, my little sprout,” Gaia said softly. “For now, I want you to go to the town and try talking to the villagers. Can you do that for me, please?”

“Yeah.. I can try,” Caelian said as Gaia lowered her hand back to the ground.

“Don’t be afraid to put your foot down if they disrespect you, Caelian,” Gaia said in a gentle voice as Caelian climbed out of her hand. “I understand you’ve ended up caught up in the middle of the dispute of who they think I should have chosen. But the decision was mine and mine alone, and I have chosen you to be my disciple.”

“Why did you choose me, anyways?” Caelian asked as he stared up at her. “Everyone says I’m… unqualified.”

Gaia slowly lowered her head down to Caelian’s level, resting her chin on her hands as her eyes met his.

“It’s true that you’re young, Caelian. I don’t doubt there are others that feel they would have been more qualified for the position. However,” She lifted her head enough to release one hand, using it to gently stroke the top of Caelian’s head with a fingertip. “I sense great things from you. I firmly believe you’ll grow into something amazing.”

Caelian seemed pleased with this answer, letting out a purr as his feathers ruffled up.

“Now, go ahead and run along,” Gaia urged with a smile. “Come back and see me when you’ve finished checking in on them.”

“Okay!” Caelian said before turning and running back across the root platform and towards the shining light of the sun.

Nathaniel, who had been waiting for Caelian outside, turned to see him just as he exited the canopy.

“Oh good, there you are. Did Gaia- Hey- Hey Cae- CAELIAN WAIT PLEASE NO NOT TODAY DON’T-”

Nathaniel’s screaming was ignored as Caelian kept running to the edge of the platform and jumped off, doing a forward flip as he tumbled out of view.

He grinned as the wind ripped past him, tussling his hair and making the tail of his coat flap violently. His wings remained firmly pinned against his back, his feathers ruffling fiercely from the wind. The wind urged them to open, to catch the wing between his feathers and soar. But he knew better.

He took a moment to admire the forest during his long fall, since it was only from high up in the sky that you could really take in the vastness of the forest. As he grew closer to the ground, he turned himself so that he was facing upright with his legs neatly tucked underneath him.

The blue lantern’s light that followed behind began to grow in intensity until water shot out of the lantern, spiraling and wrapping itself around Caelian. It formed a sphere around him, encapsulating him in a giant bubble.

As it hit the ground, the water rippled heavily as it absorbed the shock of the fall and bounced back up into the air a few feet. Caelian was thrown around inside for a bit as the bubble continued to bounce from the kinetic energy, before finally settling into a soft roll along the ground.

The bubble of water burst just as Nathaniel made his way down to where Caelian was sitting, sighing as he looked at the now drenched boy.

“Seriously?” He asked.

“It’s quicker,” Caelian said nonchalantly as he stood up, shaking some of the water from his clothing.

“Thanks, Iaestia.”

The blue lantern, whose light had now dimmed back to normal, made a satisfying chiming noise as it circled around Caelian.

“You’re going to get hurt one of these days,” Nathaniel sighed. “It’s good that you trust in your elementals to protect you, but… Jeez, I never realized how terrifying someone that doesn’t experience fear can be.”

Caelian shrugged. “I still don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Nathaniel grumbled as he landed on the ground, folding his arms as he glowered up at Caelian. “You don’t feel afraid so you don’t stop and think about the possible consequences of your actions.”

When Caelian only gave him a confused look, Nathaniel let out another sigh. “Well, whatever. Gaia asked you to go to the village, right?”

“Yeah… You’ll come with me, right?”

“Of course,” Nathaniel huffed. “Someone needs to be there to get angry when they all start being assholes to you.”

Caelian tapped his fingertips together as Nathaniel darted back up into the air. “It feels weird, though- I know they’re being rude and not saying nice things to me, but… I don’t really feel anything from it.”

“I mean, it doesn’t make you feel good , does it?”

Caelian paused before slowly shaking his head. “No… I don’t feel happy from it… or comforted, or anything else… The only thing I really feel is when the children throw rocks at me. It uh, hurts... in a physical sense, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, if we see those brats again I’m sending a blast of nature magic their way, kids or not.”

“Don’t hurt them, Nathaniel,” Caelian frowned. “They’re just kids.”

“Kids that throw rocks,” Nathaniel snorted. “Whatever, fine. Let’s just get going.”

Nathaniel flew ahead again, albeit this time at a much slower pace. Caelian took a moment to try and shake more of the water off, before following Nathaniel off into the overgrown forest.

[artemismoon12writes]

Title: Autumn Boy, or The Halloween Special

Summer Boy speculation. 

“Whatever, you’re here now and I get to subject you to an entire Hollywood party.” Julian said turning towards the mirror as Sneakers mewed happily at Dwight’s scritches. “You’re going to freak out so much, Cameron went all out with his costume.” 

 “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here.” Julian said, leaning out over the balcony of his mother’s Hollywood Hills mansion. The night was cool in the October air, but never missing the promise of humidity below the surface that permeated California even on the driest summer days. “What? You were the one who invited me.” Dwight sounded hurt. It shouldn’t surprise him, but surely Dwight should know better by now that Julian did most things not expecting a yes. “You texted me asking if I wanted to come to your Halloween party; and it sounded better than whatever Windsor was thinking up.” “I swore you’d have better things to do. Like I don’t know, make sure the Tweedles don’t contact the wrong spirits with an Ouija board?” Julian suggested. “Hold a séance? Hunt ghosts trapped on the mortal plane?” Dwight shrugged, “If they choose to mess with an Ouija board that’s on them. I leave those tools to Sadie because she’s better at the procedure than I am. If I have to clean up their horror movie later, well it’s better I don’t cringe at their bad execution.” “There’s a procedure?” “Yeah, it’s kind of necessary for any summoning spell.” Dwight didn’t sound surprised he didn’t know that; but unlike a few months back, he wasn’t freaking out that Julian didn’t know what might be fairly standard supernatural knowledge. “You have to cleanse the area before and after, make sure you’re not summoning any malicious spirits, and you need to release the spirits after the encounter or else you trap them in the circle… that is if you even create a circle in the first place. I doubt the twins will do that… I’m just going to prepare for the worst when I get back.” “Which might be a total haunted house?” “There are so many ghosts already in Dalton Academy so having them concentrated might actually make them easier to hunt.” Dwight shrugged, “Besides, Kurt is already cursed so Windsor might be the same when I get back.” “Cursed?” Julian tried to hide him amusement at the description of his frenemy. “I mean I didn’t like the guy but that’s pretty harsh.” “I’ll get Morgan to teach you how to see auras- his is all messed up. I blame that school he used to go to, it’s like on a whole ‘nother dimensional plane of weird. So probably not his fault.” Dwight leant against the railing. “You have a weird aura as well, not cursed but not normal though either.” Julian smirked. “I’m anything but normal Dwight, you should know that by now.” “Yeah.” Dwight smiled indulgently. “Not many people can get me on a plane; let alone to the West Coast. The traffic is horrible by the way, it took me far too long to get here from the airport.” “You say that like you didn’t meant to be late. You just wanted to avoid meeting my mom. That’s so unfair.” Julian pushed himself off the railing, heading back inside to where his costume was hanging over a chair. He’d already gotten his stylist to put something together earlier, and his mother’s makeup artist had already stopped by to help him out before putting his mother into her own Red Riding Hood outfit (she was going to a party at George Clooney’s house, so it wasn’t one for a true horror costume). Dwight followed, looking out of place in the soft greys and whites of the new bedroom that Dolce Larson had set up for her son (before his things arrived from their beach house). Just as out of place as Julian had looked in his he supposed; a dark figure against the fluffy white blanket on the bed, where Sneakers mewed softly up at him. Dwight didn’t seem to have any issues sitting on the edge of the bed, continuing the conversation. “It’s not unfair if it’s an honest mistake.” Dwight let Sneakers climb into his lap, getting white fur all over his black jeans. “Your mom is probably half as chill as mine, and the circumstances are probably much better.” What he doesn’t mention is that Dolce probably would eject him from the house as soon as he squirted her with holy water- which he did to Carlos, the cook hired for the party, and Julian, as he encountered them in that order. Julian, practically used to this by now, had already warned the makeup artist to use her strongest setting agents. The deep red painted down his chin didn’t even smudge. “Whatever, you’re here now and I get to subject you to an entire Hollywood party.” Julian said turning towards the mirror as Sneakers mewed happily at Dwight’s scritches. “You’re going to freak out so much, Cameron went all out with his costume.” “As in he actually made a deal to look like a demon?” Dwight asked. “No, as in he hired a great prosthetics team to make him look like a demon. Which, what’s the difference in this town?” Julian said, touching up the deep red dripping down from the corner of his mouth. There wasn’t much else to the look besides covering up non-existent blemishes but it wouldn’t look the same if he smudged it. “What are you even supposed to be?” Dwight asked, already at the mercy of the small kitten and was laying back across the bed with Sneakers padding all over his chest. “A vampire? I would have thought you’d get fangs in or something.” Julian rummaged through the pockets of the draped burgundy and black fabric over the chair, studded with faux decaying flowers and artfully torn edges before he found what he was looking for. He held the pomegranate up with a smirk, “I thought you’d appreciate it. Dramatic huh?” “Literally?” Dwight rolled his eyes. “Persephone? Why not Hades? I thought you weren’t trying to smack people over the head with your coming out, but ease them into it. It’s not a dress is it?” “Half toga and leather pants, again, I thought you’d appreciate it.” Julian tossed the prop over to have Dwight juggle with that and the demanding kitten on him. “You’re killing me here Larson.” Dwight said as Julian shook out, yep, genuine leather pants, from the pile of clothing. “I thought we were staying friends here.” “It’s up to you how you chose to interpret that.” Julian said. “Besides, I like the revisionist stories that are floating around. I have an idea to use one for an upcoming pitch- young beautiful god stolen away to the underworld, only to find her own power down there and come out more terrifying and strong than ever.” “So you’re going with Persephone, Queen of the Dead interpretation? You could have still done that with Hades, maligned of the three sons of Kronus who chose to rule the worst realm in the best way.” Dwight said, tossing the pomegranate into the air before catching it again. Sneakers batted at his hand and he paused to let the kitten inspect the prop and find it wanting before continuing. “You could still wear leather pants for that if you wanted. Hot modern Hades or something.” “Yeah, but Persephone is hotter.” Julian shrugged, “I also kind of wanted to make a point. I got dragged to hell, but I own it now.” Dwight looked up at the top part of the costume, noting the cluster of decaying flowers were in fact, half dead red roses. He let out a soft ‘oh’ and nodded. “I personally think my stylist went above and beyond for this personally.” Julian continued like he hadn’t brought down the mood a bit. “There’s also a collar involved, and arm bands. Got to make it look more Grecian even if it is a modern twist.” “You’re such a shit. A collar? Really? Do you want the internet to speculate for days? Your twitter mentions are going to be hell until Thanksgiving.” Julian clasped the silver band on anyways and had the distinct pleasure of hearing Dwight protest mostly to himself. “You’re so predictable White Knight.” “Yeah well you’re full of shit Cheshire.” Dwight propped himself up to Sneaker’s loud mewing protest. “Also, speaking of, the twins know.” Julian looked back. Dwight shrugged, already knowing the question Julian was about to ask. “I didn’t tell them. But they did ask me to say hi.” Hmm. Logan must have said something. “Do you mind them knowing?” “Well, they haven’t said anything yet. But I don’t really mind, again, I’m not the one in the closet.” “I’m working on it. It’s a delicate process.” “I know, I know. That wasn’t an attack, just the truth.” Dwight held up his hands. He tossed the prop back to Julian, who placed it on the desk. “What’s your costume anyways?” Julian asked, pulling off his shirt to put the costume on. “If I known you hadn’t brought one, I’d have gotten a Hades thrown together.” Dwight glared at Julian’s wicked grin. “You’re awful. I’m already wearing it, isn’t it obvious?” He picked up Sneakers and plopped him to the side as Julian adjusted the sleeves of his costume shirt. The armbands came next, but he was still paying attention to Dwight’s gesturing at his outfit, long trenchcoat, black everything, maybe a little more steampunk than normal but… pretty par for the course with Dwight. “You’re the Columbine shooter? That’s messed up.” Julian said ignoring Dwight’s swearing protest. “I’m not-“ “I know, I know. But you always wear a trenchcoat, it doesn’t even look like you tried.” Julian fastened the last band around his wrist. Dwight sighed, “Okay, maybe not without the hat, lemme grab it.” He got the hat from the corner of the room, and the dissembled crossbow he’d somehow gotten through security- again, pretty normal for Dwight. He shook his hair out of it’s ponytail and tried his innane gesturing again. “See?” “Nope.” Julian lent against the chair. “Unless you’re a Nice Guy who studies the blade in his mom’s basement.” “Come on! I’m Van Helsing! Even you should know that version of him!” Dwight was genuinely disappointed he hadn’t gotten it. But Julian just snorted. “You’re the living embodiment of Van Helsing day to day, excuse me if I don’t get your shitty movie references.” Julian was smiling though. “Hey, I thought you liked Hugh Jackman.” “It was a shitty movie. Admit it, this is just an excuse to be able to spray people with holy water and say you’re ‘in character’; it’s very method, I approve.” “Your standards for costumes are way too high. This is a new coat.” Dwight crossed his arms, annoyed. “I just have high standards. Luckily for you, you’re pretty.” Julian brushed his hair out of his face, knowing full well he was being a little shit and was completely uncaring about it. “Just friends remember?” Dwight said looking pained. “And friends help friends into their leather pants so they can knock everyone out at their Halloween Party. Sorry I don’t make the rules.” Sneakers wound through Dwight’s legs and mewed, as if agreeing with his owner. Dwight looked down and glared, “sure ‘into’. That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.” “It’s an excuse though.” Julian said, not bothering with subtle as he placed his hands on Dwight’s chest. “Take it or leave it?” “This is really not helping the demon theory.” Dwight said monotone. “You already did the test, you just want plausible deniability for when Sadie asks you what you did when you go back.” Julian let his hands go lower. “Shut up.” And they did. Or at least until Carlos knocked on the door saying the guests were arriving soon, and it probably wouldn’t do to have the host missing… or pantsless with another guest until at least after midnight. Point made.

[poetrybooksya]

#EMPTYSHELFIE Spookie Shelfie TBR

  Empty Shelfie is a year-long reading challenge to empty your incredibly long TBR list. For the Halloween season this month, here are 7 challenges from 7 hosts: Heather at Zether Books, Taylor at Bookish Taylor, Roya at Unicorn Hunter Books, Britt at Britt, Ali at Hardback Hoarder, and Desi at Libri Labra Twitter. Challenges: Serial Killer POV Read a book involving a spell or curse Supernatural/paranormal elements Freakish characters Read a book with a Mask in title or cover Black and orange cover Concept of a person/place/thing that terrifies you

I'm not a huge fan of horror or supernatural genre, so my TBR will be pretty small, compared to last month. Challenges:

Serial Killer POV - Because You Love to Hate Me by  Ameriie, Renee Ahdieh, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, Nicola Yoon, Sasha Alsberg, Whitney Atkinson, Tina Burke, Catriona Feeney, Jesse George, Zoë Herdt, Samantha Lane, Sophia Lee, Raeleen Lemay, Regan Perusse, Christine Riccio, Steph Sinclair, Kat Kennedy, Ben Alderson  Best-selling authors working with Booktubers on the perspectives of villians? Yes, please!! Summary: Leave it to the heroes to save the world--villains just want to rule the world. In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view. These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like "Medusa," Sherlock Holmes, and "Jack and the Beanstalk" provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains' acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage--and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on. No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again! Featuring writing from . . . Authors: Renée Ahdieh, Ameriie, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, and Nicola Yoon BookTubers: Benjamin Alderson (Benjaminoftomes), Sasha Alsberg (abookutopia), Whitney Atkinson (WhittyNovels), Tina Burke (ChristinaReadsYA blog and TheLushables), Catriona Feeney (LittleBookOwl), Jesse George (JessetheReader), Zoë Herdt (readbyzoe), Samantha Lane (Thoughts on Tomes), Sophia Lee (thebookbasement), Raeleen Lemay (padfootandprongs07), Regan Perusse (PeruseProject), Christine Riccio (polandbananasBOOKS), and Steph Sinclair & Kat Kennedy (Cuddlebuggery blog and channel). 

Read a book involving a spell or curse - One Wish Away by Ingrid Seymour I'm a member of Ingrid's ARC team, but I haven't read her latest works since her first book, Ignite the Shadows back in 2014. So I'm excited to try to get into this one for this challenge.  Summary: Faris is a Djinn with a secret and Marielle the first master to give him hope. Will she be the one to break his curse? There is no telling. All he really knows is she's ONE WISH AWAY from breaking his heart. When Marielle was little, she used to believe Grandpa about his wish-granting Djinn. But now that she’s older, her beliefs have changed, and things like lousy ex-boyfriends and alcoholic fathers have become her reality. Life isn’t done shattering her truths, though, and when Grandpa dies and the Djinn he warned her never to trust shows up at her doorstep, the world becomes a dangerous, magical place she never knew existed. Reeling for her once-normal life, Marielle soon realizes there’s no going back—not when she’s become part of a mortal conflict between two spell-bound Djinn. Faris—her handsome slave. And Zet—his vengeance-hungry brother. They both want something from her. One, her love. The other one, her life. Now she’s afraid she will die in love. One Wish Away is a young adult paranormal romance that will appeal to lovers of Hush Hush, Twilight, and the Fallen series. 

Supernatural/paranormal elements - Unreality by Ingrid Seymour (blog tour with Marked by Fate box set, where the book is from) Summary: Ever since she helped solve her mother’s gruesome murder twelve years ago, Meadow Bright has kept her psychic abilities locked away. As a five-year-old, the brutal visions of her mother’s death nearly destroyed her. Now, a senior in high school, she still fears her nature and what opening up could do to her. But when a classmate is found viciously tortured and murdered, her powers return with a vengeance, flooding her mind with new visions and opening old wounds. Worst of all, the new victim wears the signature of her mother’s killer, a man who’s still in jail under a life sentence without parole. It seems that, all those years ago, she made a mistake and helped put the wrong man in jail. Now, she must redeem herself before more people die.

Freakish characters - Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older Summary: Cassandra Clare meets Caribbean legend in SHADOWSHAPER, an action-packed urban fantasy from a bold new talent. Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra's near-comatose abuelo begins to say "Lo siento" over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep.... Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on. Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order's secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick's supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family's past, present, and future.   Read a book with a Mask in title or cover - Sadly, I can't think of a book that can fill in this prompt, so I'll skip it. 

Black and orange cover - Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Pena Summary: Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five mile an hour fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound he loses it. But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny’ s brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico. That’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. Only, to find himself, he may just have to face the demons he refuses to see--the demons that are right in front of his face. And open up to a friendship he never saw coming. Set in the alleys and on the ball fields of San Diego County, Mexican Whiteboy is a story of friendship, acceptance, and the struggle to find your identity in a world of definitions. 

Concept of a person/place/thing that terrifies you - The First Hour I Believed by Wally Lamb Not only does the cover haunt me, but the summary does too. Columbine High School shooting? Trauma? PTSD? Whoa...what an experience.  Summary: Wally Lamb's two previous novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, struck a chord with readers. They responded to the intensely introspective nature of the books, and to their lively narrative styles and biting humor. In The Hour I First Believed, Lamb travels well beyond his earlier work and embodies in his fiction myth, psychology, family history stretching back many generations, and the questions of faith that lie at the heart of everyday life. The result is an extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character. When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues. While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface. As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary -- and American. The Hour I First Believed is a profound and heart-rending work of fiction. Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller, assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity. What's your TBR list for Empty Shelfie's Spookie Shelfie season? Leave comments below!

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[black-is-no-colour]

a meeting of minds: john galliano, tim walker and grace coddington

Through his work for Maison Margiela, John Galliano is analysing the times we live in and inspiring an emerging generation of designers to do the same. In a special collaboration, Galliano, Tim Walker and legendary stylist Grace Coddington come together to celebrate the Maison’s spring/summer 17 Artisanal collection.

by Anders Christian Madsen, on 19 April 2017, for i-d.vice

The black Mercedes-Benz parked on the curb outside the subtle Maison Margiela building in Paris' gritty 11th arrondissement gives it away. He's in there. I'm whisked through the labyrinthine corridors of the former convent where everything is covered in white paint: an antechamber, a staircase, a room, another room, another staircase, a courtyard, through doors, around corners - and there he materialises, at the back of a great, long studio, perched on a gilded salon chair, John Galliano, smiling. "Hello," he greets me. I've always thought of him as a unicorn. The image first came to me a few years ago when I saw him on a bench in Les Marais in some majestic outfit, alone, scribbling in a notebook in all his rare magnificence. He looked so otherworldly there, in the midst of the everyday routine in pedestrian Paris. The light shines differently on John Galliano. Since he joined Maison Margiela in 2014, he's become one of the most relevant and elusive designers in fashion all at once. He's not anonymous the way Martin Margiela was, but the triumphant runway bows that once embodied his fashion royalty are now replaced with an alluring absence. He doesn't come out for a bow. His elaborate collection narratives, once so publicised, are now merely implied in third-person statements from the house. He rarely speaks to the press.

Through this transition, as fashion gawps at his enigmatic collections for Maison Margiela and seeks to uncover what he's trying to say, Galliano's voice has grown stronger than ever. As has his myth. Here, in the heart of his creative world, alive and kicking, he's still as otherworldly as ever, no statement as straightforward as his jaunty demeanour might lead you to believe. At Maison Margiela, everything is veiled in filters. It's perhaps the reason why the Instagram generation worships its legacy so much. The digital communication that's changing our social language is the premise for Galliano's spring/summer 17 Artisanal collection, the house term for haute couture, summed up this season in an avant-garde futuristic folklore. He's days away from showing it on the runway. "I think I very gaily said at the end of ready-to-wear, 'oh fuck it, let's just grab our rucksack, roll up our yoga mats, and let's all pray,'" he recounts, referring to a 2016 defined by the terror attacks that transformed the Paris he calls home. "I read somewhere that people reached out to the Dalai Lama to help find a solution, and asked would he pray to God? And he said, 'No. You made this problem. You need to sort it out.' That led me to Snapchat and how people communicate today."

Galliano speaks with the kind of prophetic clarity that makes people listen when he decides to talk. "Because," he continues, "communication is so much easier today, isn't it? Yet, I read somewhere that 50% of the population is still lonely. Can you imagine? And 49% of them are on Snapchat and social media. There's this loneliness or melancholia, if you like," he pauses. "It's like we build higher and higher and can't see the sky anymore." You get the impression he's equal parts fascinated and cautious about the social media sphere. On his personal Instagram, he takes part in the online community but his posts are infrequent and highly selective. Instead, in suitable Margiela style, he observes from behind the scenes, watching the innate digital communication of people like Paolina Russo, a Central Saint Martins student from Toronto currently on a placement at the house. She looks like a human rainbow: dressed like a Fabergé egg, she graphically paints her face in multi-colours similar to the illustrations she posts on Instagram (@calurvillade), and at 21, speaks the digital language with intrinsic fluency. "She has a relationship with a young guy in London, and they communicate in symbols and emojis," Galliano says, referring to Russo's set designer boyfriend Aidan Zamiri.

"I was talking to Paolina about the feeling and she said, 'Yeah, yeah, I can relate, he tattoos me and I tattoo him.' She's quite an amazing spirit." The feeling, as it were, refers to the collection, which employs a new technique Galliano calls decortiqué. In the background, Joan Baez is lamenting lost love on Diamonds and Rust from 1975, which is playing on repeat. He'll use it for the show soundtrack, too. "I think Joan wrote it after she split up with Bob Dylan. It's full of poetry and she communicates it so beautifully, what she's feeling," he says. "If you listen to these lyrics it's like emotions only come from memories. So often we go into things with an emotion that comes from a memory. She's quite fearless in what she's saying." He stops, dwelling on the haunting lyrics. "So we're bringing everything down to just the memory of a shirt, the memory of a coat. We call it decortiqué, which means to take a fish off the bone. You bring it right down to the essence." It's Galliano's translation of the digital language into haute couture, the tongue he's most fluent in: a multi-layering of fabric as filters, deconstructed to reconstruct new images within the single garment they make up. "When you put all these layers together you get the communication: the full picture," he explains.

Which brings us back to Russo's face illustrations. They have informed embroideries on transparent tulle; layered over the garments like a graphic Snapchat filter come to life. "Almost like a computer screen, the filters build up in an image. It's how we're all fragmenting into tribes, almost, aren't we?" Galliano pauses. "The biologic, the ecologic, the macrobiotic - in search for some kind of truth today, I think." He possesses the rare oxymoron of homespun splendour, in big knitted socks and no shoes, long shorts and an oversized chunky knit, and an artist's headband that holds back his long, tied-up hair. But Galliano still looks like the fairy-tale admiral that took those regal bows during the first part of his career, his kind eyes sparkling with supernatural glint. Next to the gilded chair is a delicate tea set, an indication of his healthy lifestyle. Back on the topic of social media, he continues: "You know, all that stuff has now scientifically been proven to produce dopamine. No one's talking about it. You've got no friends, you hook up to ten, you get ten replies and you're like, 'Great! He loves me!'" He'll occasionally break out in exuberant exclamations like that, snapping you out of the spell his hypnotising voice puts you under. "It's happening. It's a reality of today. You've got Kendall, who actually closed her account to detox," he says, referring to Jenner, who temporarily shut down her Instagram last year citing digital dependency. "How genius was that, to have millions of followers and say that to young little girls?" He speaks like no one else, in a kind of ennobled South London accent, a grand and slightly grainy bass that curls around each word and makes it his own. In the privacy Maison Margiela has given him by proxy, Galliano has become a designers' designer, much in the vein of what David Bowie, Prince or Michael Jackson represented to the music industry. Like them, he's a living substance of captivating star quality: that unicorn force, which is now marvelling a new generation of young designers and fans, who connect with his legacy of grand and often emotional fashion gestures. They're watching his old shows on YouTube, from his eponymous John Galliano collections (1989-2011) to his shows for Givenchy (1995-96) and his epic tenure at Christian Dior (1996-2011), enthralled with the opulent theatricality and storytelling he's always executed with such precision.

Galliano is now fusing his prolific haute couture with the Belgian avant-garde codes of Maison Margiela, which Martin Margiela sold to the Only The Brave group in 2002 and eventually left in 2009. "A lot of it is rooted in reality: normcore shapes reconfigured," he says of the Artisanal collection at hand, pretty much summing up the essence of the Maison. In recent years, no house has had as big an effect on emerging fashion as the ingenious codes of Margiela's legacy. New generation Paris brands like Vetements and Off-White openly appropriate Martin Margiela's deconstructivist and elevated normcore, while in London emerging designers like Charles Jeffrey and Matty Bovan identify with John Galliano's historicist and eclectic grandeur. In a sweeping turn of magic, Maison Margiela now represents the synergy of what compels the broad young guard of designers most: the mystery of Martin Margiela and the myth of John Galliano. Jeffrey and Bovan got to meet him last year when Tim Walker invited them to style a shoot with the designer for Love. "It was in a context different to him having interns, I think," Charles Jeffrey reflects when I ask him how it went. "It was more like, 'we are two people, who are heavily inspired by you and your work and what you stand for.' We were both looking really colourful - Matty is like a painting - and you could see John analysing us," he smiles.

Next to their work, the two young designers share Galliano's affinity for expressing themselves through their personal looks. Unlike the dressed-down designers, who ruled the fashion scene for much of the 2010s, these emerging creatives represent a self-staging more in touch with what Galliano has often embodied. "Meeting John was an amazing moment," Matty Bovan says. "From a young age he was a huge inspiration to me - the grand master of creativity. Just the pure vision in each collection and the way it's presented, the sensitivity to detail and the spectacle done with such a hand," he reflects. "The references always so fully researched and kind of mashed together in an amazingly instinctive, beautiful way." If London's young fashion industry loves Galliano, it's reciprocated at Maison Margiela where you'll hear a few London accents in the corridors. Back in the ateliers, Galliano's assistant - clad in the lab coat everyone wears - brings out look 24 from the Artisanal collection. 

A collaboration with Benjamin Shine, a young artist Galliano has imported from London, it's a white trench coat lined in black tulle pouring out from the inside and flowing around the coat to form a three-dimensional face made entirely in tulle, hand-crafted to the coat by Shine. A few weeks after the show, which gets rave reviews, the designer's friend Grace Coddington styles the dress in a story shot by Tim Walker for these pages, which Galliano collaborates on. It's the legendary stylist's first editorial away from US Vogue since stepping down last year from the creative director position she held at the magazine for 30 years. And it's all Galliano's spring/summer 17 Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela, an indication of the emotional bonds tied to him and his work not only by a new guard of fans, but by every generation in this industry. In late March, while working on this feature, I receive a message from him: "I would like to add," Galliano writes, "what an honour it was to work with Grace, Tim and i-D." His gesture makes me think of the statement put out by Maison Margiela in collective wording - true to house tradition - after the show in January: "This collection is about adding filters but as much about removing them," the house wrote. "Sharing is about connecting with a community, becoming part of a union, and relating through mutual emotions rooted in memories."

Taken from i-d.vice.com

[acakaos-archived]

A quick look into the general everyday happenings of my astral work. Dragon lichs and ghouls. Haven’t publicly written anything like this in a while but I have to be up in an hour and can’t sleep. If anyone is interested in me keeping up with writing more spirit experiences, maybe one more exciting idk, let me know and maybe I will do so

Usual disclaimer that my personal spirits are not yours to approach. Also a disclaimer that you shouldn’t be working with these types of spirits unless you know what you’re doing, I have pre-established relationships with the individuals and species and am not responsible for stupid decisions.

One of my darlings who I’ll call Vulture for right here was my comrade for this. I brought him into this astral realm to meet an old friend of mine, since they have about the same line of work. The lands surrounding our destination are rocky crags and near vertical mountains. Inhabiting the upper world are mainly avians: a few varieties of harpies, great shrieking birds who act as apex predators, gargoyles which blend into the mountainside and move only to spear passersby, and other things not as easily explained. Some of the mountains sprout tendrils, which are the jaws of plants that nestle in the cracks.

Our destination is a cave entrance nearby where I opened the gateway. No matter where you come from, it’s only accessible by either flight or falling down the mountainside and shattering your body on jutting boulders. Nothing lies outside the cave, no remains of prey, but anything which comes near has clear intuition to stay far away from the entrance.

Very quickly within the cave’s downward descent the light from outside fails to pierce through the darkness, the sort of lightless space where it isn’t like being in a dark cave as much as it is like being blind. The form I currently took had bioluminescent pores, so this dim glow from myself was the only aid to our sight. Other senses were not very helpful: your nose found only the diffused smells of dried flesh and other cave scents, it’s difficult to navigate by hearing when you are constantly mislead by skitters and scratchy movements around you, and the energy in this particular place warped and twisted around in itself far too much to give you an accurate picture of your surroundings.

It wasn’t far into the cave where I led us into a downwards passage of stone stairs, carved with symbols and filament styles of which were long lost to anything living. The passage of stairs is where you really descended into its realm. Here, the small bit of space we could see was swirled with heavy particles and the air felt thick and enclosing. My body illuminated the bones littered on the stairs and Vulture took my example of not looking directly at them. While nothing breathed, there was a sense of waiting, as if we were tiptoeing around things we did not want to regain awareness (that’s exactly what we were doing).

Even after having made this trip many times it was fairly unnerving, and my companion questioned if I was sure we should be there. I replied with, “It’s fine hun, just keep it at a whisper and no loud movements.”

Sometimes there would be sounds of the bones creaking and dragging against the floor. We especially ignored those and didn’t look back. Not looking behind you is a good idea whether you are dealing with spirits or in a spook movie. There were also sounds of scuttling movement just outside the tiny range of my bioluminescence, which we also ignored. The walls of the stairwell rumbled further in and a throbbing could be heard from their essence.

The deeper we traveled, the more we came across skeletons which were completely formed and yet stood motionless, unseeing. We did our best to give them a wider berth while also acting as if we hadn’t seen them at all. The cave, too, increased in its rumbling and became thicker with the energy of what we were looking for.

A group of spirits had followed us from the second we step foot in the darkness but waited until much later to draw closer. They were only ghouls, quite possibly one of the least dangerous things here, so I wasn’t particularly worried. Their eyes glowed yellow and they made sounds like mountain lions and other big cats. Although ghouls typically feed on rotting flesh, that doesn’t mean they’re safe; this particular type would devise traps for prey or slowly kill them through infections, their untiring natures making it easy to follow anything weakened. They hung carcasses from the ceilings or walls of their chosen caves to rot to the perfect eating state, sometimes using trees if living in smaller dens in the upper lands, and their energy hurried the rotting process. A single ghoul might be easy to fend off but even the stronger predators of these lands were in trouble if surrounded by a pack.

It’s never clear how much time you spend on the stairwell. It could be minutes or hours or days, time doesn’t cooperate well in that place. You could tell when you were reaching the bottom because of the insane energy shift, as if you had stepped into a different plane. The real dragon lichs, the ones who were intelligent and whole rather than the simple revenants lying in scattered bones, awaited at the bottom. They took many forms, from skeletons to corpses to masses of meat and muscle to things stranger.

The gatekeeper of the end of the stairs was a dragon lich made of meat. Its neck had twisted as if wringed and broken many times, and thus its head lay limp on the ground and dragged like a tail with travel. Every movement was jerky, the motions of something splintering internally and shifting its broken innards against itself. One of its eyes had bloated to nearly half the size of its head and burst as would a juicy fruit, leaving behind a large membrane and the dragging remains of fluids. Admittedly the gatekeeper is not one of my favorite spirits to interact with, its posture is very unnerving and its energy is not friendly, but I performed the proper rites to be allowed within.

The spirit we came for rested in the central chamber of unknown size. Like the chamber, the spirit itself was so vast and all-encompassing that it was difficult to gain a grip on where it was or its exact size. There are dragon lichs, and then there is this entity that is more ancient than your mind comprehends. It feels like an embodiment of the realm itself, although more accurately the realm is a manifestation of the dragon. I greeted it with an honorary motion and introduced my companion along with our reason for approaching. It responded with a hum of energy that was still so large as to resonate like an earthquake, and a few words meant for myself. “It has been too long since you came to us,” it hissed at the end.

I presented the dragon with a harmful of crystals, glowing with a dark green light and clearly thick with magic and energy. “They’re filled with your preferred necrotic energy and flavored with the pestilence from [],” I said to it along with a necessary phrase of respect. I placed the crystals on the ground and stepped back to where my companion and I could barely see them. When the dragon accepted the offering, it seemed as if the darkness merely swallowed them up.

I spoke for a short time of business then allowed my companion to approach with his own business. While he did so, I gave a bit of privacy by stepping into a different section of the central chamber. In this realm past the steps there were pockets of sickly glowing energy to see by, even if faint. The pack of ghouls had followed even past the stairs so I let them approach now, flexing my limbs for them to sniff and then staying motionless as to not set them into startled violence. A couple gnawed socially at me but their teeth weren’t enough to scratch my exoskeleton and there were no energetic concerns.

The type of ghoul found here was fairly intelligent. Even if they rarely spoke in words and preferred either energetic impressions or more animalistic sounds, they understood and reasoned very well. Since they could understand me fine as opposed to types of ghouls with little cognitive reasoning, I scratched a few of them on the head like you would a cat and coddled them for a bit. One of them frequently croaked out an imitation of human words they had once heard, “Please close the door before leaving.”

One of the dragon lichs watched from nearby and sat closer after a short time. The color of their remaining hide was difficult to make out in the darkness, it seemed dark green but that may have only been from the color of the energy pockets. Their head had a bulbous shape favoring a large lower jaw with fangs like a deep sea fish and bulging eyes to match. Rather than having wings like extra limbs, their wings were attached to the entire length of their body like sails and released a green dust-like substance when opened. “I am from sickness,” they told me while showing an impression of their energy. “I am pestilence.” They had horns curled downwards from their head with dimly lit lanterns hanging from each, but I didn’t ask about them.

One of the things I’m known for when on business trips in the astral is storytime, so I invited the ghouls to rest around me and listen. The new lich stayed as well, cocking their head with endless curiosity and obviously a fan of such tales. I won’t bore you guys with my story here, but before it was finished Vulture approached. My listeners were a bit unhappy with the sudden cut off, of course, the dragon especially did not appreciate it. They shied away from the man walking behind, however: tall and gaunt with white hair and no eyes, wearing elaborate, flowing robes from a dead civilization. While in this form the central lich was easier to focus on, but its energy and voice still echoed from within every space and crevice within the cave.

We exchanged a few words until one of the ghouls hissed a little too loudly. I wondered for a second if the central lich would unleash some godly power and turn them all into dust, but it merely commanded, “Take those scavengers when you leave. They’re overpopulating.” I nodded. Not that I would disobey anyway.

After we performed the leaving rites to journey back up the stairs, the other dragon with the lanterns followed as well, saying that it was their duty to herd the ghouls and there were plenty of others with the same task on the cave’s population so they might as well come along to continue elsewhere. The rest of the journey was pretty much the same as the beginning. I sang the ghouls to rest after sheltering them elsewhere but not much else occurred.

[kuriquinn]

The Flip Side

Summary: “This is probably the most useless thing you’ve ever done to get my attention,” she informs him later, as the sun begins to set. “And considering you shaved your head that time Chōji told you I liked boys with short hair…” [SasuSaku Festival 2017 – Day 9 – Prompt: “Community Service”]

Disclaimer: This story utilises characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelisations, comics or short stories is intended by KuriQuinn in any way, shape or form. This fan-oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All plot and Original Characters except for those introduced in the canon books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn. (© KuriQuinn 2016- )

Rating: T

Warning: AUish. Deals with evens from the Naruto Movie Road to Ninja. OOCish. Because RTN version of our beloved characters. 

Author’s Note: Sasuke was very interesting to write in this one. It’s like, the total opposite of who he is. And it was soooo hard to write Sakura! I have such a hard time imagining a world where isn’t utterly smitten with him!

Beta Reader: Sakura’s Unicorn

Sakura arrives at Training Ground Three bright and early to find the familiar sight of Sasuke and Menma glaring at one another.

Under normal circumstances, she would brush it off as their never-ending competition—they are so alike in temperament and skill that they’ve always been natural rivals. Since the three of them were assigned to Team 7, it’s been a constant string of one-upmanship. Sakura had to become Tsunade’s apprentice just to keep up with them (although she usually tells them it’s to get a break from the testosterone).

Today, though, when she approaches the boys, she gets the sense she’s stumbled onto something else.

“Hey,” she greets, inwardly preening a little when Menma is the first to glance her way.

“Sakura,” he says quietly, nodding in her direction.

Sasuke turns around, brightening at the sight of her. “Hey, kitten. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Sakura glowers at him. “Stop calling me that!”

Geez! He has to start right away!

“Ah, Sakura! There you are!” Kakashi declares, straightening up from the ground where he’s been doing push-ups. She wouldn’t have seen him except for the white shock of hair. “It’s odd that you’re late. I remember when we ran missions together; you were as dedicated to punctuality as Konoha’s White Beast of Prey!”

“He still talks about himself in the third person?” Sasuke inquires with a yawn.

Menma nods. “It would seem so.”

“He’s right, though,” Sasuke agrees. “You’re never late.” An expression of concern passes over his face. “Are you still tired from being stuck in that other world?”

“I’m fine,” she shrugs him off. “I only found out from Lady Tsunade and Shizune just now that I had to come here. They wouldn’t say what it was about, so what gives?” Menma frowns, looking down at his feet, and Sasuke scowls. “Have I missed something?”

“Not at all, my most esteemed and youthful student!” Kakashi declares. “For your sake, I will gladly repeat the mission! You see, in light of the recent attack on the village, Lady Tsunade has decided that you’re all to be placed on probation!”

There’s silence. Then –

“EHHH?!”

Sakura exclaims, “What? Why?”  

“Tch. I guess it’s better than I expected,” Sasuke muses.

Kakashi rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I imagine it has to do with the fact that one of you almost destroyed the village, the other went AWOL during an all-hands-on-deck emergency situation, and the third defaced Hokage Rock. I’ll let you fine young people ponder who exactly did what.”

Menma tenses, still looking at his shoes, and Sakura’s gaze softens.

Since being back from her strange visit to another world, she’s heard bits and pieces of what happened from Ino. How Menma somehow came to possess the Nine-Tailed Fox spirit that everyone thought was sealed inside his mother, and how it corrupted him. If it weren’t for the other Sakura and Menma—No, wait, they called him Naruto, didn’t they?—he might’ve been lost for good.

As it is, he’s being treated like a pariah lately while the village tries to come to terms with what happened.  

And he’s not the only one…

Whatever happened while she was gone, the girl who everyone thought was her went missing during the attack on the village. Instead of organizing evacuations and directing field medics to help the villagers, her doppelgänger was nowhere to be found. But everyone thinks that it was Sakura who abandoned her post.

So that explains the first two offences, but not…

Her brain catches up with what Kakashi said and her head whips around to stare at the Hokage monument just visible through the trees. Lord Hashirama’s sombre expression has been altered with several slashes of paint, and the blue and red that speckles Lord Tobirama’s face makes him look like a prostitute. She didn’t even notice this morning because she was in such a hurry to meet with her master.

If Menma was battling his doppelgänger and she was in another world, that leaves—

“What the hell, Sasuke?!” she demands, rounding on her teammate. “Why would you spray paint all over Hokage Rock, you stupid ass?!”

Sasuke is unbothered by her outburst and instead offers her his usual flirtatious smile. “So I could ensure I spent more time with you, of course. We haven’t seen each other in a while—ow!” She bashes him on the head, only just reigning in her strength to keep it from turning it into a skull-crushing blow. “Come on, Sakura! I didn’t—ow—do anything to your father’s face—ow—you know I wouldn’t—ow!”

“You two are an embarrassment,” Menma sighs.

“Embarrassment or not, the Hokage has tasked us with an important array of community service tasks,” Kakashi says. “With the village recovering, we’ve been put in a precarious situation. Anyone who might try to take advantage of Konoha in the interim needs to know we’re still able to do our jobs! So, all our away missions must continue! And while our shinobi forces are dealing with that, it means there are fewer people here to fix the place up.”

“And by fewer people, you mean no one,” Sasuke says.

“Exactly! Until further notice, we will be carrying out community service missions that other shinobi don’t have time to do. The responsibility falls to you three!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Kakashi-sensei, but if all of these tasks are so important, shouldn’t there be more people doing them?” Sakura wants to know.

“Weeeeell, originally Lady Tsunade suggested a team of squads, but that wouldn’t be a penalty—or a challenge—at all! I told her we could manage all of the work ourselves, and she should focus the efforts of the other teams elsewhere.”

Menma, Sakura, and Sasuke groan in unison.

Typical…

“Besides, not only will it give us all time to re-forge our team bond, it will be character-building and boost morale among the villagers! After all, who better to lead by example than those who embody all the finest qualities of our immaculate village! The students of the Legendary Sannin!”

“You realise that name is more of a joke than anything else, right?” Sasuke deadpans. “More like the legendary monk, crone, and shut-in.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Menma orders. “Lord Jiraiya was a great man and he sacrificed a lot to keep Konoha safe. Unlike your master.”

Which is true, more or less. Orochimaru is basically a prisoner of the village these days, living in a library and reading up on obscure jutsu. The only reason he ever agreed to train Sasuke was because the guy hounded him every day for weeks after Menma left with Jiraiya. Orochimaru was once Akatsuki, which means he is the best link Sasuke has to his estranged older brother.

“And yet mine is still alive,” Sasuke muses out loud.

More glaring.

“All right, you two. Put away the measuring sticks,” Sakura grumbles, once again playing peacemaker. She addresses Kakashi. “Let’s just get this over with. How long do we have to do this for, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Act as if you’ll do it for the rest of your life!” Kakashi crows and brandishes a scroll. When he unfurls it, the list of tasks pools on the ground.

“Oh, man! I’m going to be older than Lady Tsunade when we finish all this,” Sakura complains.

“I promise I’ll still find you attractive,” Sasuke informs her magnanimously.

A vein pulses in her temple and, with a growl, Sakura knocks him out.

ロードトウニンジャ

It’s as if, overnight, their entire team has been demoted back to genin rank.

While the rest of their friends and the active shinobi corps carry out important jobs—rebuilding fallen structures, repairing collapsed watermains, organizing field clinics, and even leaving the village on away-missions—Team 7 is left with barely D-ranked missions.

They can’t even complain to Kakashi about it, either.

The first day, he appointed himself as official messenger of the village, zooming around, bringing notes and memos to people. Then he got the bright idea to use his Sharingan to teleport himself across town to save on time, and knocked himself out for the next few days.

Idiot…

“So much for a team-bonding exercise,” Menma mutters as they pack emergency supply crates to distribute later.

“Are you really surprised?” Sasuke challenges.

“Oh, admit it. You’d think something was wrong if he wasn’t so enthusiastic,” Sakura points out.

“I can’t even imagine it,” Menma admits. He pauses. “Was he like that in…in the other world?”

Sakura starts at this, realising suddenly she hasn’t actually had a chance to tell her teammates about her strange experience. There’s only been the debriefing with Lady Tsunade, and then she was sent straight to this community service punishment.

“I don’t know. I didn’t run into him while I was there. Maybe?”

“What else did you see?”

“It was completely insane,” she tells them. “Think of the most backwards world you could think of, and that’s what it was.” She shudders. “Everyone was different. It was like I walked through a mirror.”

“What do you mean?” Sasuke asks.

“Like…like Hinata was really shy and quiet and she was actually nice to me. Kiba got along with Akamaru, and Shino actually liked bugs and—”

“Hinata?” Sasuke snorts. “Nice? That is bizarre.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Hinata,” Menma points out sagely. “She’s the heiress to the Hyūga and the first woman to lead them. She’s got a lot to deal with. And when you factor in that she’s related to someone as perverted as Neji…”

Sakura’s heart sinks. “You’re defending her a lot stronger than usual.”

“Never mind that,” Sasuke interrupts. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“Was I different in this other world?” he asks and then strikes a pose. “Or just as handsome and talented as I am here?”

Sakura rolls her eyes. “I have no idea.”

“What? Why?”

“You weren’t there.”

“What do you mean, I wasn’t there? Where would I be?” He is puzzled.

“Well, Ino said—the Ino from over there—she said that you were out of the village.”

Menma frowns. “A solo mission perhaps?”

“How many chūnin do you know get assigned solo missions?” Sasuke counters.

“Maybe your alternate version is just a lot more talented than you are.”

“Says the idiot who got his ass handed to him by his own doppelgänger.”

“Guys!” Sakura snaps, cutting off the usual detour into bickering.

Luckily, the cart for the next supply delivery returns, and Sakura can busy herself with loading it up. All by herself, as usual, because the guys are such complete wimps when it comes to heavy lifting.

Angry grudge match to the death? No problem! Let’s destroy an ancient waterfall! Moving a few boxes? Oh no, Sakura. We couldn’t possibly. One of us might break a nail…

Still, as she loads the crates, she can’t help but think back to that strange world she was pulled into.

She didn’t notice then, being so busy trying to acclimate to new surroundings and regain her memories, but thinking on it now… The other Ino seemed sad and uncomfortable about how Sakura reacted to Sasuke not being there.

Like if he had been there, he would’ve jogged my memory or something? I wonder if it’s possible that the other Sakura and the other Sasuke were…?

She shrugs and shakes her head. That other girl must have no self-respect, especially if the other Sasuke is as big a playboy as her Sasuke is.

My world’s Sasuke, she corrects herself, and determinedly puts her focus back on the task at hand.

The next few days pass quickly.

Team 7 makes coffee and runs lunches across the village to all the workers then they wash dishes. One morning, they babysit a group of kids who are too young to be at the Academy, but whose parents are busy with the reconstruction process. They fetch groceries, do laundry, paint fences, mow lawns—

Even Kiba is more useful than we are, and he’s running a Find-Your-Cat shelter!

They spend several days working at the soup kitchen that’s been set up in the centre of town. The three of them are given aprons and hair nets to wear while they dish out mass portions of ramen. Menma spends most of that day sick (the smell of ramen always makes him ill) so they give him the job of cleaning up after people have finished eating. Sasuke isn’t given the same opportunity to escape doling out noodles, and every time he sees one of his relatives in the area, he cringes.

Most of them don’t say anything. According to Sasuke, they’re all giving him the cold shoulder for embarrassing the clan with immature antics. But the curly-haired man named Shisui teases him something merciless. If it weren’t for Sakura holding Sasuke back, he’d probably set his cousin on fire.

Then it’s back to picking up litter, removing debris from the streets, painting over scorch marks on buildings, cleaning windows—one day they’re expected to clean up the area around a busted sewage line.

The three of them stare at it until Sakura makes an executive decision.

“This one’s all yours,” she says, clapping both boys on the back and walking away. When Sasuke and Menma open their mouths to argue, she only has to crack her knuckles once and utter silence reigns.

The jobs are endless, and they are mind-numbingly boring. Sakura returns to her empty house every day without the energy to even eat, collapses on her bed, and sleeps until her alarm sounds. And then prepares for another cycle of never-ending, repetitive scut-work.

Given how busy she is, it’s understandable it takes a week before realises the graffiti still hasn’t been cleaned off Hokage Rock.

Understandable, but still unacceptable!

“It’s on the list of things that need doing, but it’s not a priority right now,” Shizune says the next day when she asks about it.

“But it’s an important symbol for the village!” Sakura protests.

“Perhaps in another week or two. Right now, even the smallest child is helping to restore our village, and the extra labour can’t be spared. Even those of you on probation.”

“The monument will be put to rights once I know everyone in my village is properly cared for,” Lady Tsunade declares gravely. “If you want to fix it before then, you’ll have to do it on your own and during time not spent carrying out the community service tasks you and your team have been assigned.”

ロードトウニンジャ

In the end, that’s what she does.

Sakura gets tired of seeing the graffiti all over the rock, even if her father’s monument hasn’t been touched. It’s an insult to the office of Hokage, which she intends to become one day, and in her view, it’s just as important as picking up litter and watching children.

And so, at the end of the next day, she stops at home to change into something old and worn, and heads for the caretaker shed behind the monument. There’s bound to be tools and cleaning equipment there, and even if she can’t get it all done, she can at least get started.

Which is why she’s utterly shocked upon arriving to find Sasuke with several buckets of paint remover and water.

“Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of doing it, if you’re going to clean it off without someone telling you to?” she asks, climbing down to the scaffold in front of the Second Hokage’s face.

“Who says someone didn’t tell me to?” he counters. She raises an eyebrow and he grumbles, shoulders stooped. “No one told me to. I heard you speaking to Tsunade earlier and figured, if it meant something to you, I’d fix it.”

“You wouldn’t have to fix anything if you didn’t do it in the first place,” she reminds him, picking up a rag and dousing it with solvent.

“I admit: not one of my best ideas.”

“So much for being a genius.”

He knocks her shoulder with his, and for a while, they work in companionable silence. Sasuke isn’t so bad when he isn’t being the epitome of a hormonal teenaged boy.

“This is probably the most useless thing you’ve ever done to get my attention,” she informs him later, as the sun begins to set. “And considering you shaved your head that time Chōji told you I liked boys with short hair…”

Sasuke scowls. “You promised not to mention that again.”

“You promised to stop doing stupid stuff like this.”

Sasuke scrubs furiously.

“It wasn’t really to get your attention,” he admits eventually. “I said that because Menma was around, and bringing up the real reason…” He shrugs. “He feels bad enough for being the cause of all this, and it wasn’t really his fault.”

“That’s oddly magnanimous of you.”

“Hey, just because I call him on his shit doesn’t mean I don’t recognise when the guy could use a break. And considering he didn’t say anything when…” He trails off, shakes his head, and then tells her, “The Hokage hired Akatsuki during the attack. To rescue the other you.”

Sakura’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

Itachi Uchiha is the black sheep of the Uchiha clan. Once hailed as a prodigy, the next clan leader, and possibly the first Uchiha who might wear the mantle of Hokage, he instead chose to flee the village at the age of thirteen and become a mercenary. His parents disowned him and for that reason, Sasuke is now next in line to be head of the clan.

It’s a position that comes with a lot of expectations, and having met Sasuke’s parents, Sakura knows it isn’t an easy destiny. On top of all that, he and Itachi were close. She remembers the older boy picking Sasuke up after classes so he could train him.

“He was here and he didn’t tell anyone,” Sasuke continues now through clenched teeth, hands balled into fists. “It was just a damn job to him, and he didn’t bother to… I just wanted to speak to him! If I’d known he was here, if someone had just told me—!”

“You would have dropped everything and gone after him,” Sakura says gently. “Then there’d be more than one of us on this team who went AWOL in an emergency. And unlike him, you’d be considered a missing nin if you didn’t come back.”

The only reason Itachi isn’t considered a criminal is because he sends reports back to the Hokage about the situations in other countries. Akatsuki’s reach is far, and it offers him the opportunity to travel. She thinks this might make Sasuke more resentful than anything else.

“All I want is for him and my father to sit down and talk,” Sasuke confides. “If they’d just do that, they could figure out this whole mess and things would be good again. And I wouldn’t have to worry about my mother bursting into tears every time someone even mentions his name.” He shoots her an apologetic look. “Never mind. I shouldn’t be saying all this to you.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s always best to talk about things that bother you. No one ever benefitted from bottling those kinds of feelings up.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… You must think I’m pathetic, complaining about my family problems when you…you’ve lost yours. I’m being an ass.”

“No, you’re not. You care about Itachi. And your entire clan acts as if he’s dead. You’re allowed to be hurt. And who says my pain is more important than someone else’s?”

Sasuke offers her a grateful smile, and for a moment, all is right with the world.

Then he reaches forward and swipes a thumb across her chin. “You’ve got a little paint just here—”

“Oh for the—! Are you serious!” she demands. “Why do you always have to cheapen the moment with your crappy pick-up lines?”

“That wasn’t a line! You actually do have paint there. So what if I happen to capitalise on that fact?”

“You really can’t take no for an answer, can you?” she groans. “Geez, you’re so annoying.”

“No, I’m persistent,” he says, all charm.

“That’s another word for annoying.”

“I’m just being patient. If I wait long enough, eventually, you’ll appreciate my feelings.”

“You’ll wait a long time then.”

“Not as long as you’ll be waiting for Menma,” he quips.

Sakura chokes and rounds on him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

He ducks out of her way.

“Just what everyone else knows,” he replies, apologetic. “He doesn’t care for you that way. You’re more like a sister to him. He knows as well as I do that you’d have a boring, unhappy life together if you settled for each other.”

“S-settled?!” she sputters. “H-have you two been talking behind my back?” She lashes out and grabs the front of his shirt. “And what the hell do you mean, settled? As if he could do better than me? My father was the Fourth Hokage and I’m the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage! Or maybe I could do better than him? We’re the students of Sannin, the top shinobi in our year. We’re friends. We get along. We agree about everything—”

“Exactly,” Sasuke nods. “You’d be bored within a week of actually being with him.”

“So you say!”

“So I know,” Sasuke snorts. “Trust me, kitten, relationships are my forte.”

“You’ve never had a relationship!”

“Well, I’ve done a lot of research.”

“Reading Gai-sensei’s Icha Icha series does not count as research!”

“Spoken by someone who has no appreciation for the genre,” he retorts. “The problem with you two ever being a relationship is that there’s no passion between you. For a relationship to work out, one has to be able to bond—to fill in the parts of you that are missing with the parts of your lover.”

Sakura’s eye begins to twitch, her cheeks flooding with warmth. “Are you serious?”

“You two are both too focussed on success and results. You make decisions with your heads, but never your heart,” Sasuke continues matter-of-factly. “Any relationship between you would be cold, or at worst, a duty.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but she cuts off when he suddenly leans closer, his eyes soft and humorous.

“You deserve someone who’ll bring a spark into your life. Someone who’ll go to the ends of the earth to make you smile and laugh and cry. Someone who doesn’t care what you look like when you roll out of bed, or who appreciates those tasteless, off-colour jokes you make under your breath when you think no one is listening.”

She thinks her cheeks are rivalling tomatoes in colour right now.

 “Th-this is ridiculous,” she attempts.

“No, it’s not. It’s the kind of relationship you deserve. The kind my parents have. The kind your parents had.”

The warmth in her face abruptly drains and she narrows her eyes. “Don’t you pretend to know what my parents—”

“I’m not insulting your parents,” he cuts her off, a note of exasperation in his voice. “I’m saying what they had, their relationship, was worth envying. They cared for each other, so much that your mother refused to leave your father’s side even in the end.”

Sakura looks away, angry. “Yeah, she loved him so much that she wanted to be dead instead of being with me.”

“She wanted to give you your best chance. And going with your father, she was making sure that his sacrifice did what it was supposed to do: save the village. Even the most unpleasant members of my clan think she was honorable for what she did,” Sasuke tells her. “And that love that she had…that’s what I want some day. And I want it with you.”

Her chest constricts, and her eyes snap to him, wide. She can’t hide the shock at this because Sasuke flirts—he does that as easy as breathing—but he’s never said anything as direct as this before.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not expecting you to return my feelings right now,” he tells her softly. “Menma is the one in your heart, I know that. He’s the first guy you’ve ever cared for. I know that’s not something so easily forgotten.” He leans closer. “But one day, when you see for yourself that you two aren’t suited, when you realise you’re much better off as friends, I’ll be there. Because I intend to be the last man you ever love.”

Sakura makes a strangled noise in her throat.

“How can you…how can you say those things! When all you do is trawl around the village, flirting with every girl you see and handing out your stupid roses!” she snaps, shoving him back with one hand. “They hear you and think you’re swearing to be with them forever, and then they get their hearts broken when they realise you say that to everyone!”

A bitter memory surfaces of their Academy days, clutching a broken rose and watching him blithely hand out others with the same pretty words he’s given her. She vowed back then not to fall for anything Sasuke had to say ever again.

He raises an eyebrow at this. “So, you worry about who I give roses to?”

“Of course not,” she huffs. “That’s your business. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy. You’re talking about love, and you can’t remember the names of the girls you go out with.”

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone, Sakura. It’s to make them feel special. Any girl having a bad day gets her spirits lifted when someone is nice to her and gives her a gift. And I have rose bushes behind my house, and a lot of them would just wither and die without being appreciated if I left them,” Sasuke explains. “Why not give them out? For an hour, a girl can be happy, the centre of the universe. Is that so wrong?”

She shifts uncomfortably, not liking that she might possibly agree with that argument.

“Exactly,” he says, taking her silence for agreement. “Making someone happy for an hour, it’s such a small thing. But you—” His eyes become intense and she imagines flames behind them. It’s as if, in this moment, there’s no one else in the world but her. “—you deserve more than an hour. You deserve our entire lives. And one day, I’m going to give you that.”

Her heart thumps against her chest, the utter conviction in his words faintly frightening. She’s only ever seen Sasuke intense about one thing, and that’s finding his brother. The idea that he believes she is as important as that…

She shivers, half-uncomfortable, half-thrilled despite her brain’s tired insistence of but you like Menma!

“You…shouldn’t say exaggerated stuff like that,” she tells him with forced levity.  “You’re an Uchiha. You’re the heir to the Uchiha. As the next head of the clan, your parents are probably expecting you to settle down with someone from the clan. Aren’t you practically engaged to Izumi now anyway?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes. “That’s my father’s plan, not mine. He doesn’t seem to get that Izumi won’t agree to marry anyone while Itachi is still breathing somewhere in the world,” he scoffs. “Even so, I don’t want her.”

“Because you’re convinced you want me. You wouldn’t if I was just some normal girl, I bet.”

The intense look in his eye is back. “Even if you were a civilian, even if you had no talented shinobi relatives, and if you hadn’t been a prodigy since our Academy days, I would still choose you. Because you are kind and good and strong and being around you makes the world better somehow. Even when it’s horrible.” His gaze softens, and his tone turns gentle. “There’s no one else that I’ve ever felt like that about.”

He leans over, their faces getting closer together, and Sakura finds herself frozen.

“So, I constantly live in hope that maybe…”

Oh my! He’s going to kiss me!

“…just maybe…”

And I think…I think I’m going to let him!

Her lungs are tight, and she realises she isn’t breathing, just waiting there in anticipation as Sasuke looks down at her. And just when she expects his lips to lower to hers—

Tap!

His index and middle finger rap lightly against her forehead.

“…maybe the next time we have this conversation, you’ll have me in your heart instead of Menma,” he concludes and calmly turns back to scrubbing paint off the rock.

Sakura gapes noiselessly at his back for several seconds, trying to reorient herself and figure out what the hell just happened. Then she emits a howl of frustration and throws the nearest bucket at his head.

“You…big…jerk! Shannaro!”

終わり

Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome, but if you feel like keeping me caffeinated out of the goodness of your heart, it certainly would be appreciated! I’m also starting to post original works to my patreon.

I’m only able to keep writing as I do thanks to the support of readers like you, so every bit helps!

栗

[sasusakufestival]

The Flip Side

Summary: [SasuSaku Festival 2017 – Day 9 – Prompt: “Community Service”]

Disclaimer: This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author’s own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. You will be forced to scrub away graffiti with a toothbrush if you are found plagiarizing.

Warning: AUish. Deals with evens from the Naruto Movie Road to Ninja. OOCish. Because RTN version of our beloved characters. And not edited, because I didn’t have time.

AN: Sasuke was very interesting to write in this one. It’s like, the total opposite of who he is. And it was soooo hard to write Sakura! I have such a hard time imagining a world where isn’t utterly smitten with him!

_______________________________________________

Sakura arrives at Training Ground Three bright and early to find the familiar sight of Sasuke and Menma glaring at one another.

Under normal circumstances, she would brush it off as just being their never-ending competitiveness – they are so alike in temperament and skill that they have always been natural rivals. Since the three of them were assigned to Team 7, it’s just a constant string of one-upmanship. Sakura had to become Tsunade’s apprentice just to keep up with them (although she usually tells them it’s to get a break from the constant testosterone).

Today, though, when she approaches the boys, she gets the sense she’s stumbled onto something else.

“Hey…” she greets, inwardly preening a little when Menma is the first to glance her way.

“Sakura,” he says quietly, nodding in her direction.

Sasuke straightens up and turns around, brightening at the sight of her. “Hey, kitten. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Sakura glowers at him.

“Stop calling me that!”

Geez, he has to start right away in the morning!

“Ah, Sakura, there you are!” Kakashi declares, straightening up from the ground where he’s been doing push-ups. She wouldn’t have seen him except for the white shock of hair. “It’s odd that you’re late. I remember when we ran missions together you were as dedicated to punctuality as the White Beast of Prey!”

“He still talks about himself in the third person?” Sasuke inquires with a yawn.

Menma nods. “It would seem so…”

“He’s right though,” Sasuke agrees. “You’re never late.” An expression of concern passes over his face. “Are you still tired from being stuck in that other world?”

“I’m fine,” she shrugs him off. “I only found out from Lady Tsunade and Shizune just now that I had to come here. They wouldn’t say what it was about, so what gives?” Menma frowns, looking down at his feet, and Sasuke scowls. “Have I missed something?”

“Not at all, my most esteemed and youthful student!” Kakashi declares. “For your sake, I will gladly repeat the mission! You see, in light of the recent attack on the village, Lady Tsunade has decided that you’re all to be placed on probation!”

There’s silence. Then –

“Well, it’s better than I expected,” Sasuke muses.

 “EHHH?!” Sakura exclaims. “What? Why?”

Kakashi rubs his chin thoughtfully.

“Well, I imagine it has to do with the fact that one of you almost destroyed the village, the other went AWOL during an all-hands-on-deck emergency situation and the third defaced Hokage Rock. I’ll let you fine young people ponder who exactly did what.”

Menma tenses, still looking at his shoes and Sakura’s gaze softens.

Since being back from her strange visit to another world, she has heard bits and pieces of what happened from Ino. How Menma somehow came to possess the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit that everyone thought was sealed inside his mother, and how it corrupted him. If it weren’t for the other Sakura and Menma – No, wait, they called him Naruto, didn’t they? – he might have been lost for good. As it is, he’s being treated like a pariah lately while the village tries to come to terms with what happened.

And he’s not the only one…

Whatever happened while she was gone, the girl that everyone thought was her went missing during the attack on the village. Instead of organizing evacuations and directing field medics to help the villagers, her doppelganger was nowhere to be found. But everyone thinks that it was Sakura who abandoned her post.

So that explains the first two offences, but not…

Her brain catches up with what Kakashi said and her head whips around to stare at the Hokage monument, just visible through the trees. Lord Hashirama’s sombre expression has been altered with several slashes of paint, and Lord Tobirama’s face is speckled with blue and red that makes him look like a prostitute. She didn’t even notice this morning, because she was in such a hurry to meet with her master.

If Menma was battling his doppleganger and she was in another world, that leaves –

“What the hell, Sasuke?!” she demands, rounding on her teammate. “Why would you spray paint all over Hokage Rock, you stupid ass!”

Sasuke is unbothered by her outburst and instead offers her his usual flirtatious smile. “So I could ensure I spent more time with you, of course. I told we haven’t seen each other in a while – ow!” She bashes him on the head, only just reigning in her strength from turning it into a skull-crushing blow. “Come on, Sakura, I didn’t – ow – do anything to your father’s face – ow – you know I wouldn’t – ow – !”

“You two are an embarrassment,” Menma sighs.

“Embarrassment or not, the Hokage has tasked us with an important array of community service tasks,” Kakashi says. “With the village recovering, we’ve been put in a precarious situation. Anyone who might try to take advantage of Konoha in the interim needs to know we’re still able to do our jobs! So all of our away missions must continue! And while our shinobi forces are dealing with that, it means there are fewer people here to fix the place up.”

“And by fewer people, you mean no one,” Sasuke says.

“Exactly! Until further notice, we will be carrying out community service missions that other shinobi don’t have time to do. So the responsibility falls to you three!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Kakashi-sensei, but if all of these tasks are so important, shouldn’t there be more people doing them?” Sakura wants to know.

“Weeeeell, originally Lady Tsunade suggested a team of squads, but that wouldn’t be a penalty – or a challenge – at all! I told her we could manage all of the work ourselves, and she should focus the efforts of the other teams elsewhere.”

Menma, Sakura and Sasuke groan in unison.

Typical…

“Besides, not only will it give us all time to re-forge our team bond, it will be character building and boost the morale among the villagers! After all, who better to lead by example than those who embody all the finest qualities of our immaculate village! The students of the Legendary Sannin!”

“You realise that name is more of a joke than anything else, right?” Sasuke deadpans. “More like the legendary monk, drone and shut-in.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Menma orders. “Lord Jiraiya was a great man and he sacrificed a lot to keep Konoha safe. Unlike your master.”

Which is true, more or less. Orochimaru is basically a prisoner of the village these days, living in a library and reading up on obscure jutsu. The only reason he ever agreed to train Sasuke was because the guy hounded him every day for weeks after Menma left with Jiraiya. Orochimaru was once Akatsuki, which means he is the best link Sasuke has to his estranged older brother.

“And yet mine is still alive,” Sasuke muses out loud.

More glaring.

“Alright, you two, put away the measuring sticks,” Sakura grumbles, once again playing peacemaker. She addresses Kakashi. “Let’s just get this over with – how long do we have to do this for, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Act as if you’ll do it for the rest of your life!” Kakashi crows, and brandishes a scroll. When he unfurls it, the list of tasks pools on the ground.

“Oh, man, I’m going to be older than Lady Tsunade when we finish all this,” Sakura complains.

“I promise I’ll still find you attractive,” Sasuke informs her magnanimously.

A vein pulses in her temple, and with a growl, Sakura knocks him out.

ロードトウニンジャ

It’s as if overnight, their entire team has been demoted back to genin-level.

While the rest of their friends and the active shinobi corps carry out important jobs – rebuilding fallen buildings, repairing collapsed watermains, organizing field clinics and even leave the village on away-missions – Team 7 is left with barely D-ranked missions.

They can’t even complain to Kakashi about it, either.

The first day, he appointed himself as official messenger of the village, zooming around bringing notes and memos to people. Then he got the bright idea to use his Sharingan to teleport himself across town to save on time – and knocked himself out for the next few days.

Idiot…

“So much for a team bonding exercise,” Menma mutters as they pack emergency supply crates to distribute later.

“Are you really surprised?” Sasuke challenges.

“Oh, admit it, you’d think something was wrong if he wasn’t so enthusiastic,” Sakura points out.

“I can’t even imagine it,” Menma admits. He pauses. “Was he like that in…the other world?”

Sakura starts at this, realising suddenly she hasn’t actually had a chance to tell her teammates about her strange experience. There’s only been the debriefing with Lady Tsunade, and then she was sent straight to this community service punishment.

“I don’t know. I didn’t run into him while I was there. Maybe?”

“What else did you see?”

“It was completely insane,” she tells them. “Think of the most backwards world you could think of, and that’s what it was.” She shudders. “Everyone was different, it was like I walked through a mirror.”

“What do you mean?” Sasuke asks.

“Like…like Hinata was really shy and quiet and she was actually nice to me. And Kiba got along with Akamaru, and Shino actually liked bugs and –”

“Hinata?” Sasuke snorts. “Nice? That is bizarre.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Hinata,” Menma points out sagely. “She’s the heiress to the Hyūga and the first woman to lead them, she’s got a lot to deal with. And when you factor in that she’s related to someone as perverted as Neji…”

Sakura’s heart sinks. “You’re defending her a lot stronger than usual.”

“Never mind that,” Sasuke interrupts. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“Was I different in this other world?” he asks, and then strikes a pose. “Or just as handsome and talented as I am here?”

Sakura rolls her eyes. “I have no idea.”

“What? Why?”

“You weren’t there.”

“What do you mean, I wasn’t there? Where would I be?” He is utterly puzzled.

“Well, Ino said – the Ino from over there – she said that you were out of the village.”

Menma frowns. “A solo mission perhaps?”

“How many chūnin do you know get assigned solo missions?” Sasuke counters.

“Maybe your alternate version is just a lot more talented than you are.”

“Says the idiot that got his ass handed to him by his own doppelganger.”

“Guys!” Sakura snaps, cutting off the usual detour into bickering.

Luckily, the cart making the next supply crate delivery returns, and Sakura can busy herself with loading it up. All by herself as usual, because the guys are such complete wimps when it comes to heavy lifting.

Angry grudge match to the death? No problem, let’s destroy an ancient waterfall. Moving a few boxes? Oh, no, Sakura, we couldn’t possibly, we might break a nail…

But as she loads the crates, she can’t help think back to that strange world she was pulled into.

She didn’t notice immediately then, being so busy trying to acclimate to new surroundings and regain her memories, but thinking on it now… The other Ino seemed really sad and uncomfortable about how Sakura reacted to Sasuke not being there.

Like if he had been there he would have jogged my memory or something? I wonder if it’s possible that the other Sakura and the other Sasuke were…?

She shrugs and shakes her head.

That other girl must have no self-respect, especially if the other Sasuke is as big a playboy as her Sasuke is.

My world’s Sasuke, she corrects herself, and determinedly puts her focus back on her tasks.

The next few days pass quickly.

Team 7 make coffee and run lunch across the village to all the workers and wash dishes. One morning they babysit the group of kids that are too young to be at the Academy, but whose parents are busy with the reconstruction process. They fetch groceries, do laundry, paint fences, mow lawns –

Even Kiba is more useful than we are, and he’s running a Find-Your-Cat-Shelter!

They spend several days working at the soup kitchen that has been set up in the centre of town. The three of them are given aprons and hair nets and dish out mass portions of ramen. Menma spends most of that day sick – the smell of ramen always makes him ill – and they give him the job of cleaning up after people have finished eating. Sasuke isn’t given the same opportunity to escape doling out noodles, and every time he sees one of his relatives in the area he cringes.

Most of them don’t say anything – according to Sasuke, they’re all giving him to cold shoulder for embarrassing the clan with immature antics – but the curly-haired man called Shisui teases something merciless and if it weren’t for Sakura holding Sasuke back, he’d probably set his cousin on fire.

Then it’s back to picking up litter, removing debris from the streets, painting over scorch marks on buildings, cleaning windows – one day they are expected to clean up the area around a busted sewage line.

The three of them stare at it, and then Sakura makes an executive decision.

“This one’s all yours,” she says, clapping both boys on the back and walking away. When both Sasuke and Menma open their mouths to argue, she only has to crack her knuckles once and utter silence reigns.

The jobs are many and endless, and keep them all busy – but they are mind-numbingly boring. Sakura returns to her empty house every day without even the energy to eat, collapses on her bed and sleeps until her alarm sounds. And then prepares for another cycle of endless, repetitive scutwork.

Given how busy she is, it’s understandable that she doesn’t realise the grafitti still hasn’t been cleaned off the Hokage Rock until a week later.

Understandable, but still unacceptable!

“It’s on the list of thing that need doing, but it’s not the priority right now,” Shizune says the next day when she asks about it.

“But it’s an important symbol for the village!” Sakura protests.

“Perhaps in another week or two. Right now, even the smallest child is helping to restore our village, and the extra labour can’t be spared. Even those of you on probation.”

“The monument will be put to rights once I know everyone in my village is properly cared for,” Lady Tsunade declares gravely. “If you want to fix it before then, you’ll have to do it on your own and during time not spent carrying out the community service tasks you and your team have been assigned.”

ロードトウニンジャ

In the end, it’s what she does.

Sakura gets tired of seeing the graffiti all over the rock, even if her father’s monument hasn’t been touched. It’s an insult the office of Hokage, which she intends to become one day, and in her view, it’s just as important as picking up litter and watching children.

And so, at the end of the next day, she stops at home to change into something old and worn, and heads for the caretaker shed behind the monument. There’s bound to be tools and cleaning equipment there, and even if she can’t get it all done, she can at least get a start.

Which is why she’s utterly shocked upon arriving there to find Sasuke, with several buckets of paint remover and water.

“Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of doing it, if you’re going to clean it off without someone telling you to?” she asks, climbing down on the scaffold that has been set up in front of the Second Hokage’s face.

“Who says someone didn’t tell me to?” he counters. She raises an eyebrow and he grumbles, shoulders stooped. “No one told me to. I heard you speaking to Tsunade earlier and figured if it meant something to you, I’d fix it.”

“You wouldn’t have to fix anything if you didn’t do it in the first place,” she reminds him, picking up a rag and dousing it with the solvent.

“I admit – not one of my best thought out ideas.”

“So much for being a genius.”

He knocks her shoulder with his, and for a while they just work in companionable silence. Sasuke isn’t actually so bad when he isn’t being the epitome of a hormonal teenaged boy.

“This is probably the most useless thing you’ve ever done to get my attention,” she informs him later, as the sun begins to set. “And considering you shaved your head once because Choji told you I liked boys with short hair…”

Sasuke scowls. “You promised not to mention that again.”

“You promised to stop doing stupid stuff like this.”

Sasuke scrubs furiously.

“It wasn’t really to get your attention,” he admits eventually. “I said that because Menma was around, and bringing up the real reason…” He shrugs. “He feels bad enough for being the cause of all this, and it wasn’t really his fault.”

“That’s oddly magnanimous of you.”

“Hey, just because I call him on his shit doesn’t mean I don’t recognise when the guy could use a break. And considering he didn’t say anything when…” He trails off, shakes his head and then tells her, “The Hokage hired Akatsuki during the attack. To rescue the other you.”

Sakura’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

Itachi Uchiha is the black sheep of the entire Uchiha clan. Once hailed as a prodigy, the next leader and possible the first Uchiha who might wear the mantle of Hokage, he instead chose to flee the village at the age of thirteen and become a mercenary. Their parents disowned him and for that reason, Sasuke is now the head of the clan.

It’s a position that comes with a lot of expectations, and having met Sasuke’s parents, Sakura knows it isn’t an easy destiny. On top of all that, he and Itachi were close. She remembers the older boy picking Sasuke up after classes so he could train him.

“He was here and he didn’t tell anyone,” Sasuke continues now through clenched teeth, hands balled into fists. “It was just a damn job to him, and he didn’t bother to…I just wanted to speak to him. And if I had known he was here, if someone had just told me –”

“You would have dropped everything and gone after him,” Sakura says gently. “Then there’d be more than one of us on this team that went AWOL in an emergency. And unlike him, you’d be considered a missing nin if you didn’t come back.”

The only reason Itachi isn’t considered a criminal is because he sends reports back to the Hokage about the situations in other countries. Akatsuki’s reach is far, and offers him the opportunity to travel. She thinks this might make Sasuke resentful more than anything else.

“All I want is for him and my father to sit down and talk,” Sasuke confides. “If they’d just do that, they could figure out this whole mess and things would be good again. And I wouldn’t have to worry about my mother bursting into tears every time someone even mentions his name.” He shoots her an apologetic look. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be saying all this to you.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s always best to talk about things that bother you. No one ever benefitted from bottling those kinds of feelings up.”

“No, it’s not that…it’s just, you must think I’m pathetic, complaining about my family problems, when you…you really have lost your family. I’m being selfish.”

“No, you’re not. You care about Itachi, and your entire clan acts as if he’s dead. You’re allowed to be hurt – and who says my pain is more important than someone else’s?”

Sasuke offers her a grateful smile, and for a moment all is right with the world.

Then he reaches forward and swipes a thumb across her chin. “You’ve got a little pain, just here –”

“Oh for the – are you serious!” she demands. “Why do you always have to cheapen the moment with your crappy pick-up lines?”

“That wasn’t a line, you actually do have paint there. So what if I happen to capitalise on that fact?”

“You really can’t take no for an answer, can you?” she groans. “Geez, you’re so annoying.”

“No, I’m persistent,” he says, all charm.

“That’s another word for annoying.”

“I’m just being patient. If I wait long enough, eventually you’ll appreciate my feelings.”

“You’ll wait a long time then.”

“Not as long as you’ll be waiting for Menma,” he quips.

Sakura chokes and rounds on him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

He ducks out of her way.

“Just what everyone else knows,” he replies, apologetic. “He doesn’t care for you in that way. You’re more like a sister to him. He knows as well as I do that you would have a boring, unhappy life together if you settled for each other.”

“S-settled?!” she sputters. “H-have you two been talking behind my back?” She lashes out and grabs the front of his shirt. “And what the hell do you mean, “settled”? As if he could do better than me? My father was the Hokage and I’m the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage! Or I could do better than him? We’re the students of Sannin, the top shinobi in our year, we’re friends, we get along, we agree about everything –”

“Exactly,” Sasuke nods. “You’d be bored within a week of actually being with him.”

“So you say!”

“So I know,” Sasuke snorts. “Trust me, kitten, relationships are my forte.”

“You’ve never had a relationship!”

“Well, I’ve done a lot of research.”

“Reading Gai-sensei’s Icha Icha and series does not count as research!”

“Spoken by someone who has no appreciation for the genre,” he retorts. “The problem with you two ever being a relationship is there’s no passion between you. For a relationship to work out, one has to have be able to bond – to fill in the parts of you that are missing without the parts of your lover.”

Sakura’s eye begins to twitch, her cheeks flooding with warmth. “Are you serious…?”

“You are both too focussed on success and results. You make decisions with your heads, but never your heart,” Sasuke continues matter-of-factly. “Any relationship between you would be cold, or at worst, a duty.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but she cuts off when he suddenly leans closer, his eyes soft and humorous.

“You deserve someone to bring a spark into your life. Someone that will go to the ends of the earth to make you smile and laugh and cry and irritated. Someone that doesn’t care what you look like when you roll out of bed, or who appreciates those tasteless, off-colour jokes you make under your breath when you think no one is listening.”

She thinks her cheeks are rivalling tomatoes in colour right now.

He’s actually heard me…?

“Th-this is ridiculous,” she attempts.

“No, it’s not. It’s the kind of relationship you deserve. The kind my parents have. The kind your parents had.”

The warmth in her face abruptly drains, and she narrows her eyes. “Don’t you pretend to know what my parents –!”

“I’m not insulting your parents,” he cuts her off, a note of exasperation in his voice. “I’m saying what they had, their relationship, was worth envying. They cared for each other – so much that your mother refused to leave your father’s side even in the end.”

Sakura looks away, angry. “Yeah, she loved him so much that she wanted to be dead instead of being with me.”

“She wanted to give you your best chance – and going with your father, she was making sure that his sacrifice did what it was supposed to do. Save the village. Even the most unpleasant members of my clan think she was honorable for what she did,” Sasuke tells her. “And that love that she had…that’s what I want some day. And I want it with you.”

Her chest constricts and her eyes snap to him, wide. She can’t hide the shock at this because Sasuke flirts – he does that as easy as breathing – but he has never said anything as direct as this before.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not expecting you to return my feelings right now,” he tells her softly. “Menma is the one in your heart, I know that. He’s the first guy you’ve ever cared for. I know that’s not something so easily forgotten.” He leans closer. “But one day, when you see for yourself that you two aren’t suited, when you realise you’re much better off as friends, I’ll be there. Because I intend to be the last man you ever love.”

Sakura makes a strangled noise in her throat.

“How can you…how can you say those things! When all you do is troll around the village, flirting with every girl you see and handing out your stupid roses!” she snaps, shoving him back with one hand. “They hear you and think you’re swearing to be with them forever, and then they get their hearts broken when they realise you just do that to everyone!”

A bitter memory surfaces, of their Academy days, clutching a broken rose in hand and watching him blithely hand out others with the same pretty words he’s given her. She vowed back then not to fall for anything Sasuke had to say, ever again.

He raises an eyebrow at this. “So, you worry about who I give roses to?”

“Of course not,” she huffs. “That’s your business. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy. You’re talking about love, and you can’t remember the names of the girls you go out with.”

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone, Sakura. It’s to make them feel special. Any girl having a bad day gets her spirits lifted when someone is nice to her and gives her a gift. And I have rose bushes behind my house, and a lot of them would just wither and die without being appreciated if I left them,” Sasuke explains. “Why not give them out? For an hour, a girl can be happy, the centre of the universe. Is that so wrong?”

She shifts uncomfortably, not liking that she might possibly agree with that argument.

“Exactly,” he says, taking her silence for agreement. “Making someone happy for an hour, it’s such a small thing. But you –” His eyes become intense here, and she imagines invisible flames behind them. It’s as if in this moment, there is nothing else in the world but her. “ – you deserve more than an hour. You deserve our entire lives. And one day, I’m going to give you that.”

Her heart thumps against her chest, the utter conviction in his words faintly frightening. She’s only ever seen Sasuke intense about one thing, and that’s finding his brother. The idea that he believes she is as important as that…

She shivers, half-uncomfortable, half-thrilled despite her brain’s tired insistence of but you like Menma!

“You…shouldn’t say exaggerated stuff like that,” she tells him with forced levity.  “You’re an Uchiha. You’re the heir to the Uchiha. As the next head of the clan, your parents are probably expecting you to settle down with someone from the clan. Aren’t you practically engaged to Izumi now anyway?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes.

“That’s my father’s plan, not mine. He doesn’t seem to get that Izumi won’t agree to marry anyone while Itachi is somewhere in the world still breathing,” he scoffs. “Even so, I don’t want her.”

“Because you’re convinced you want me. You wouldn’t if I was just some normal girl, I bet.”

The intense look in his eye is back. “Even if you were a civilian – even if you had no talented shinobi relatives, and if you hadn’t been a prodigy since our Academy days, I would still choose you. Because you are kind and good and strong, and being around you makes the world better somehow. Even when it’s horrible.” His gaze softens, and his tone turns gentle. “There’s no one else that I’ve ever felt like that with.”

He leans over, their faces getting closer together, and Sakura finds herself frozen.

“So, I constantly live in hope that maybe…”

Oh my -! He’s going to kiss me!

“…just maybe…”

And I think…I think I’m going to let him…!

Her lungs are tight and she realise she isn’t breathing, just waiting there in anticipation as Sasuke looks down at her. And just when she expects his lips to lower to hers –

Tap!

His index and middle finger rap lightly against her forehead.

“…maybe the next time we have this conversation, you’ll have me in your heart instead of Menma,” he concludes.

And he calmly turns back to scraping the paint off the rock.

Sakura gapes noiselessly at his back for several seconds, trying to reorient herself and figure out what the hell just happened.

Then she emits a howl of frustration and throws the nearest bucket at his head.

“You…big…idiot! Shannaro!”

_______________________________________________

終わり

I hope you enjoyed the story! As part of the SasuSakuFestival, please go to the ssfest page and vote, like and/or reblog, it would be majorly appreciated!

クリ

[leofemt]

seasons; romance

A year of shibakimi romance. Moods are dictated by the weather, sometimes.

NOTE: this is dumb. written to the song romance by cheeze. maybe give it a listen while you read. it'll help set the tone.

on ao3.

act i: summer

Cicadas.

The air is warm, slightly humid, sticking to everything it touches. Streetlamps buzz in tune with the insect songs, lights flickering down damp-feeling alleys, and the sky is purple-blue, like a galaxy of a bruise.

Sweat drips down Kimishita's nose.

He dribbles the soccer ball between his feet again, footwork light, quick, and pops it in the air to catch it again with the top of his foot. His control is impeccable, he knows, but he doesn't stop. His tank top sticks to the wetness across his shoulders and in the small of his back.

"Kimishita."

A voice.

Not one out of place- the other player does have reason to be around here, especially during summer break, but the fact that he's been in the same area, seen Kimishita, and deigned to come over and talk to him makes him look around and up, eyes narrowed.

"Kiichi." He says, the same measured, even tone.

Ooshiba stops in front of him, hands in the pockets of his shorts. He's sweating a little, dampness collecting at his temples and flushing his cheeks. They watch each other in silence for a moment, neither willing to test the waters first.

The cicadas keep humming, a patterned, monotone buzz.

"What?" Kimishita finally starts again, beginning to get irritated. "Did you come up to me just to stare?"

Ooshiba's head turns, just a tiny fraction but Kimishita's known him for years, can read him like a book. He's always so easy to read, as though he's emitting his feelings on the same wavelength as those cicada's chirpings.

"Want to play?" He asks, looking Kimishita back in the eye, glancing at the ball trapped under his foot.

Kimishita processes.

"...play." He says, eyebrows tensing just a fraction. "With me."

Ooshiba doesn't blush. He sticks his nose in the air.

"It's almost dark." He replies, and Kimishita restrains the urge to respond sarcastically. "You shouldn't be playing too late, anyways."

Kimishita almost smiles.

"What's brought this on?" He asks, shifting but never letting his gaze waver.

Ooshiba stares at him, hands still in his pockets. His shorts are green, and his shirt is white, a stark contrast to the dim, muted shadows of the street behind him.

"I need a vice captain." He answers, finally, meeting Kimishita's honest inquiry head on with an honest answer. He doesn't say anything about it having to be him, but Kimishita understands, and drops his head to hide his chuckle.

Ooshiba frowns down at the unusual display- concerned? upset at being taken lightly? childish?- but Kimishita looks back up, letting his grin creep a little bit of the way back up his face.

"Fine." He challenges, kicking the ball over to Ooshiba, who stops it with his foot. "If you can keep up, Kiichi."

Ooshiba almost smirks back.

act ii: fall

Fall brings color.

The best kind of autumn day- the leaves light, crisp, and the air is cool against exposed skin. Ooshiba straighens his collar and glances at the pink tips of his fingers.

Kimishita is waiting for him outside the entrance to the school.

"Took you long enough." He sighs when Ooshiba draws within hearing distance, watching his face with examination-table eyes. "Was it difficult, coming to school without your driver?"

Ooshiba grits his teeth, because this guy knows how to get him riled up sometimes, but pushes it back down, no matter how much he wants to crease the crisply pressed front of Kimshita's uniform with his fingers. He smooths his palm against his slacks instead.

"Funny." He replies instead, watching Kimishita from the corner of his eye, starting down the walk that leaves . "You should be careful, the underclassmen won't be scared of you if you keep being so funny."

Sarcasm drips off his words, but they're quickly crisped by the cool air and flutter away like brightly colored leaves.

"They'll be scared of me." Kimishita scoffs, as though he can't imagine anything different. Their footsteps carry through the air more clearly than usual. Ooshiba's hand twitches, as though beginning a motion, even though he hasn't thought of one to make.

There's a tone to his voice, though, that makes Ooshiba's breath stop in his chest- something like hunger. Kimishita wants to win. Kimishita... wants to win.

Of course Kimishita wants to win.

"We're going to win." Ooshiba says.

act iii: winter

Kimishita shivers.

It's freezing. He can see his breath hang in the air when he exhales. Black ice is slick and slippery in patches on the ground, glinting in the light from nearby streetlamps. He and Ooshiba are seated on a bench in a bus stop, waiting for for the next arrival. Snow is falling from the grey-black sky outside, and it's in Kimishita's hair and scarf, delicate specks of white that catch the light and melt warmly.

Ooshiba glances over at him.

"Cold?" He asks.

"No shit." Kimishita grumbles, sticking his hands in his pockets. Ooshiba exhales, watches the water vapor dissolve into the air above him, and shrugs the shoulders of his jacket to give him enough margin to wrap his arm around Kimishita's shoulders.

The other boy looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed.

"What are you doing?" He asks, looking less angry, like he might have two months ago, and more- taken aback, confused, a tint of suspicious.

Ooshiba feels blood rise to his cheeks but doesn't pull away. He doesn't respond, either, and after a moment, Kimishita leans slightly into him, and stops shivering.

"You should have brought a thicker coat." Ooshiba murmurs, breath gusting out of him to warm the air around him by the smallest fraction of a degree, and Kimishita sighs and sinks deeper into his coat.

"I don't need one." He mumbles. "Didn't think we'd miss the bus."

Ooshiba snickers.

"You know-it-all." He slides his arm more comfortably in position, and Kimishita lets out the tiniest sigh. The snow is still falling outside, and his breath still hangs in the air, but somehow it feels a sliver warmer.

act iv: spring

Cherry blossoms.

Spring wind is warm, breezing through the soccer pitch, bringing with it renewed enthusiasm- Kimishita and Ooshiba stand in the middle of the field, back to back, and pink and green bloom vividly around them. The air has a tint of pollen. Every inhale sends a tiny thrill, a tiny boost in spirit and hope and the possibility of a chance, through them.

"This is our year, I guess." Kimishita smiles. It's warmer than the spring sun in the hazy sky.

Ooshiba laughs, freely.

"Yeah." He replies, pressing back the tiniest bit, to feel the other player solidly there.

There's a moment of silence, tempered only by the environment.

"Do you remember," Ooshiba starts, not glancing back, "when we first met?"

Kimishita scoffs.

"When you almost hit me with your car?" He asks. "Yeah, I remember that."

Ooshiba shakes his head, smiling.

"Nah." He says. "I saw you before that."

Kimishita does look around now- Ooshiba is staring out at the green, green expanse of land that stretches out before him, an unusual feeling of contented optimism rising in his chest.

"Eh?" Kimishita glances up at him. "Before?"

Ooshiba turns and looks at him.

"I saw you play." He confesses, something warm quirking his lips, and it's strange that he looks so composed. Maybe it's the reality of being third-years settling in. "On the field, before the first practice."

Kimishita blinks, and chuckes incredulously.

"Hah." He breathes. "Figures."

Ooshiba laughs out loud, cheerfully, happily, and for a moment it's like he embodies the bright gleam of springtime- Kimishita can't look away, and doubly so when Ooshiba leans down and kisses him, nothing but joy in the act. It feels like a flood of sunlight through his bloodstream. He kisses back.

When they part, softly, he grins.

Seiseki's new team- their team- is emerging from the locker room.

"Ready?" Kimishita gestures at them, cheeks pink, smiling. It's the happiest he's been in a while.

Ooshiba exhales, giddiness springing up in him like an overflowing well.

"Ready." He affirms, watching their underclassmen from across the pitch.

act v: coda

"What are Kimishita-senpai and Ooshiba-senpai talking about?" Tsukamoto asks, shielding his eyes with his hand, pausing in his warmup stretches to peer at the aforementioned characters standing in the middle of the pitch.

Kurusu flicks him in the arm.

"Probably captain stuff." He grouses. "Keep stretching! You don't want to get hurt on the first day back, idiot!"

Kazama laughs and ruffles both boys' hair- Kurusu jumps up with an indignant squawk, running his fingers back upwards through his hair, and Tsukamoto laughs happily.

"Don't think about it too much!" Kazama grins, hair like sunshine. "It's a great day, isn't it?"

act vi: coda ii

"Taira." Mizuki tightens the laces on his cleats and stands back up. "The opponent we're facing today-"

Taira cuts him off, tying back his hair.

"I know." He says, glancing at his teammate. "He's a tough one. I heard he stole a starting position within three months."

Mizuki nods silently.

When they walk out, the grandstands cheer uproarously.

Across the field, Mizuki's attention focuses on one specifically messy head of hair.

Indou Kaoru notices, and waves.

Mizuki turns away and slips on his black gloves, preparing for the match to come.