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heavenbarnes · 3 years

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PLEASE STAND BY: Love is strange

Wanda Maximoff x female reader

Warning/Contains: spoilers for “WandaVision”, aspects of mind-control meaning reader isn’t truly consenting, parts of this don’t make sense and are designed to make you feel strange, alcohol, arguments, cheating, kissing, oral sex (f!receiving), some good old fashioned 1950s gender rolls

Word Count: 3.8k

it was a given that i would be writing for wanda, but i never expected to get to do something so exciting, i really hope you all enjoy! it’s going to get sexy, get retro, and get creepy x

MASTERLIST

The day you met Mr. Vision at the end of your driveway, he was on his way to work in the early morning, you’d only spoken to him for a second but he seemed to draw a feeling from you that you hadn’t ever seen around here. He had to be the first man you’d spoken to in a while who wasn’t two-dimensional, he had to be the first neighbor you’d ever actually spoken to.

“We’ve only just moved in, how long have you been here?” He lent against your letterbox where you’d just been checking for mail, you’d seen the postman hanging around but he’d never dropped anything off for you.

“Well,” You thought on it for a moment, face going thoughtful as you tried to draw on the memory of first arriving in this town. “You know sometimes it feels like a lifetime and others it feels like barely any time has passed!”

He shared a chuckle with you, nodding in agreement at how strange a thing like time can be. “You live with your husband?”

“Yes, my husband James, we moved here once he’d returned from service.”

“Ah, and what does he do now?”

Again, your eyes narrowed and lips turned down slightly as you thought over what your husband did in a day. “Well he, you see-”

Thinking of it, your husband wakes in the morning and goes to work, he returns to your home cooked meal and you never really discuss it past that. “I’m not really too sure, he goes to his office and then he comes home.”

Mr. Vision reassures you with a shared chuckle, nodding at how strange a thing like work can be. “Sometimes I feel the same, and I’m the one doing the job!”

“Yes, I’m not too convinced that he doesn’t cease to exist once he leaves our home, at least till he comes back looking for food!”

Your laughter tapered off into sighs of agreement slowly, nodding quietly but both still overcome with even the slightest expressions of confusion, unable to shake that there just might be something you’re both missing.

It seemed to break quickly enough, smiles both back on your faces as you gave Mr. Vision the chance to continue his way to work. He called over his shoulder as he was leaving, “I’m sure my wife would like a new friend, you must go introduce yourself.”

Now, didn’t that sound like a dream.

Every day for you was like the one before and the next, you woke and you tidied and you cooked and went to bed. Sometimes it felt like you were a background character in someone’s life, like they were out doing the fun things you longed for whilst you milled about tending to a rosebush and kissing your husband on the cheek on your front porch.

There were also the, well simply the things you couldn’t explain. The way there was always food in your fridge despite the fact you’d never bought a single grocery, and the way-

The way that- the what? What were you talking about?

You shook your head with a smile, turning back into the house to freshen yourself for a moment. Your hair was perfectly set but you had the urge to tuck a piece behind your ear, straightening the skirt of your dress before going to the kitchen.

Taking some of the biscuits you’d made maybe a day ago, you lay them on a plate, before draping a tea towel across them. Carrying them down the street, you made your way to the Vision residence, gingerly bringing your hand to the door to wrap your knuckles against.

Mrs. Vision would be the first neighbor you really spoke to your whole time being here, what if she was like the others, didn’t wish to make pleasant conversation and enjoy company together. The fear seemed to break quickly enough as the door swung open.

Seeing her, it was like you were on stage and had forgotten your lines, she took all the breath out of your lungs. Round eyes that seemed to sparkle even in a town with the dullest hue, her cheeks drew up as she smiled at you. She looked like, well, a Vision.

“Good morning, can I help?”

Brought back to reality, you offered your plate of biscuits forward as you spoke. “Good morning, I live just down the street and met your husband this morning on his way to work this morning,” You smiled kindly to match her own expression. “So I thought I’d come say hello, Mrs. Vision.”

She stepped aside to allow you the chance to step into her beautiful home. “What a lovely surprise, and please, call me Wanda.”

Wanda was a wonderful host, dipping into the kitchen for a moment before returning with a tray of coffee. “Wow,” You remarked, taking the steaming cup from her hand. “It’s almost like you knew I was coming.”

She dropped an eye into a wink as she made her own cup. “A good housewife is always prepared.”

Wanda made things seem perfect, she made you laugh and she made you feel like you were truly a part of things. This town was lovely, you were very lucky to be where you are but everything did seem to be so black-and-white, like your whole life was written out before you with no chance to change.

You didn’t feel that way around this woman, it was like she was made from that wonderful energy that ran through this town, like she was capable of the change and excitement that you needed.

“Tell me about yourself, you have a husband?”

“Yes, James!” You smiled as you thought of him and all his loveliness. “He provides for us and is a real whizz at fixing the Television set when it gives me jiff.”

Wanda laughed as you took a sip from your coffee, it was the most perfect temperature and so rich as it ran across your tongue. You were beginning to think Wanda held a secret, the secret to being the most perfect housewife.

“And Mr. Vision, he seems really nice?”

She smiled fondly as she thought of her husband. “He is, a really great man, the kind you just couldn’t live without.”

A somewhat strange thing to say but you agreed with her nonetheless, you loved your James with the whole of your heart, you weren’t sure what you’d do if he was plucked from your grasp. Wanda continued, “But even then he does do some very “man” things.”

You gave her a small confused chuckle as she laughed along with you, shrugging her shoulders. “You know how they can be? So oblivious to things!”

Still not quite catching on, eyebrows furrowing just a tad as you implored her to elaborate a bit more. She threw one of her hands in the air, the other still holding her coffee as she spoke, “We could lay across the table in nothing but our shoes and they would still ask if we were putting dinner on it later!”

Your cheeks ran hot at her words, a hand coming to cover your mouth in shock as Wanda just laughed. She had to have been a truly modern woman to come up with things such as those, you couldn’t believe how she spoke, it was so...exciting?

“You know what I mean?” She asked, tilting her head gently.

You shook yours, thinking of your husband fondly. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt, uh, neglected by him-”

Wanda was gently tapping a finger on her coffee cup, the sound being lost at the back of your mind as a thought suddenly overcame you. You most certainly wished your husband was more attentive, it was almost as if he didn’t notice you sometimes. Your tongue moved before you could control it.

“Some nights I think James is more interested in the sports section than he is in me, and I’m right beside him in our bed!”

You couldn’t believe your own words, how you seemed to forget yourself in that moment. Beginning to apologize profusely, Wanda laid a hand against your own to calm you down. It worked like a treat, the embarrassment fading from you in an instant.

“Men have a way of doing that, don’t they?” She took your coffee and placed it with her own on the table. “Sometimes, we just need a bit of attention.”

Like you had no control over your own mind, you were nodding in agreement. Plucking up the courage to look Wanda in the eye, that heat that had settled in your cheeks had spread across your whole being. She looked so kind, so interested in you, like the only person to really see you this whole time.

The feelings that came over you were unexplainable, you’d felt this way but only looking at your husband, somehow those feelings were rearing their heads every time Wanda moved beside you. It became clear to you that she still hadn’t moved that hand that was resting on your skin, she was still gently holding you and you weren’t doing a thing to stop it.

“Look at us,” Wanda sighed, thumb gently rubbing against your skin. “All this free time on our hands, enough time for attention.”

Your eyes flickered from her touch, to her lips as she spoke. Drawing them up to her eyes, without her saying a word you just knew what she was implying.

“Mr. Vision, he wouldn’t mind?”

“He’s a good man, he wants me happy, I know he wouldn’t mind.”

“My James-”

“He loves you doesn’t he? Wouldn’t want you feeling lonely?”

The feeling of reassurance was warm as it cast over you, wrapped around your shoulders and held you tightly. James would want you happy, making friends, feeling cared for. Something told you that he’d want this for you, he’d be pleased for you.

Nodding gently, Wanda slowly bridged the gap as she lent in towards you. Her lips were so soft as they pressed to the plush of your own. Such a gentle kiss, unrushed with all the time in the world, just perfect. Her tongue nearly moved inside your mouth, but drew back at the last minute, another gentle kiss lay against your lips before she drew back.

“It’s getting late, we should carry this on another time.”

Looking at the clock on her wall, it was already the afternoon, your husband would be home soon and dinner wasn’t even on! You’d sworn you had only been here an hour, but you must’ve let time get away on you.

Wanda showed you to the door, a sweet kiss pressed against your cheek as she said her goodbyes. “I hope I get to see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, of course you can.” You quietly looked forward to tomorrow already, you didn’t have to say a thing but from the look in her eyes, Wanda knew.

As you placed the meatloaf on the table before James, you sat before him, knife and fork in hand as you felt the urge to tell him about your day. “I made friends with our new neighbors today.”

“I’m really happy for you, doll.” He smiled back at you, taking a single bite of his dinner.

“She really gets me, understands me,” You too took a single bite of the food. “She even gave me quite a lovely kiss.”

James didn’t really react, he placed his cutlery down and smiled kindly. “Did you enjoy it?”

Dabbing your lips with a napkin and pushing your plate forward you nodded. “I really did, I cannot wait to see her tomorrow.”

“That’s great news, my love,” He stood from the table, collecting your plates. “How about we hit the hay, it’s been a long day.”

You were about to nod in agreement before you furrowed your brow for a moment. “Has it?”

James stopped for a second, looking at your almost full plates before back to you. “I- yes, I think it has been.”

You stood from the table and came to press a kiss on your cheek. “Good idea, I’ll go draw back the bed covers.”

Sitting in the sunshine with Wanda, they had the most glorious outdoor area, beautiful roses surrounding the space with a cobbled courtyard. You both sipped at the lemonade she’d made earlier as you simply enjoyed each others company.

That feeling of freedom was back to wash over you, the way she made you feel the most like yourself that you’d felt in some time. Sitting beside her on the lounger, you rolled your head towards her as she spoke, the cat eye sunglasses resting gentle on her button rose making her look like something out of a dream.

Your heart swelled as she spoke of nothing in particular, just happy to be around her and in good company, as she finished her sentence she let out a long draw of breath. Quietly, she took you in for a moment before tilting her glasses down a tad.

“Have you ever been with a woman before?”

“Never, James was my first,” You answered rather quickly before pausing. “I think.”

“Would you like me to show you what it’s like? How lovely it can be?”

You felt no hesitation, no doubt in your mind, you felt the words leaving your lips before Wanda had even finished her question. “Yes, please.”

Joining you on your lounger, she rested between your legs as her lips came to gently press to your own. She tasted of the lemonade and her own sweet taste, the way she moved against your mouth was enough to make you gasp into her mouth.

Her hands moved against your sides, gently tickling you and making just about every hair stand up on end. Wanda’s touch was nearly electric, so tantalizing and so new, unlike anything you’d felt. It was still so gentle and so loving, but there was something about what she knew, like it’d take you years to ever learn to do what she could. Like she was before her time.

Your head swirled with everything surrounding you, the pleasure, the excitement, the unknown. It was such a vulnerable position, laying beneath her as she moved down your body, pushing your skirt up your hips - yet it was almost as if you forgot to feel shame.

Maybe it was Wanda, when you were around her you were unable to feel embarrassment, she made everything feel so easy and so right, like you were always meant to end up here with her. She ran her touch along the skin of your thighs, making your breath jump as she brought her fingers to the high waistband of your underwear.

You allowed her to go wherever you wanted, you felt like you needed her all over you. Wanda was magnetic, pulled you in and captivated every one of your senses until you couldn’t stand it. You ran your hand along the side of her face as she smiled up at you, leaning into your touch.

“You’re so beautiful,” She bared her teeth as she spoke. “I’m so glad to have you here.”

The comment got lost in the air as her mouth lay against your most sensitive area, lips pursing against you as her tongue ran a long line along you. Your head pressed back into the cushions, a quite whimper escaping your lips as her tongue dove between your legs quickly.

Now this was nothing like you’d ever felt, the feeling was consuming, heat rising over your body and not just from the stream of sun that cast over the both of you. Wanda’s mouth worked expertly over you as your whole body tensed against her. She was magic, her mouth was magic, her touch was magic.

You cooed her name, fingers slotting into her perfectly done hair, seemingly not even messing it a bit as you gently pulled. Wanda moaned against you, tongue diving further into you, trying ardently to pull all sounds and reactions out of you.

Her hands ran up beneath your clothes, splaying across your belly and moving to the wire of your brassiere. You couldn’t remember the last time James touched you in this way, let alone a time ever where a woman had held you like this.

A woman’s touch was so gentle, it was so careful and so considered that it was enough to make your head spin. Wanda pulled you back in, mouth closing around that sensitive little bud that made your eyes roll back in your head. She suckled just enough to make you mewl, your chest rising so quickly with every ministration.

The feeling took over you so quickly, body locking up tight as she was sure to draw you straight to the edge and drive you crazy on the way there. Your eyes squeezed tight and you gripped Wanda’s shoulders, your mouth opening with a cry as you felt the tight band in your core snap.

She gently worked you down from your high, the flush of heat that had consumed you slowly dissipating as she sat up in front of you. Another sweet kiss against your mouth, gently and lovingly working against your lips.

“We should probably get ready, our men will be home soon.” She winked at you, the both of you giggling quietly to yourselves.

Sitting around the Vision’s dining table, the Steak Diane that Wanda had prepared looked incredibly inviting. James turned to Mr. Vision with a smile, “It’s very kind of you both to invite us to dinner.”

“We had to, after all our wives are getting along swimmingly.” He gestured to yourself and to Wanda, raising his wine glass without taking a sip.

You shared a coy look with Wanda, smiling and raising your brows as she chuckled, before the four of you picked up your cutlery to take a bite of the food. James finished his mouthful, turning to the lady of the house to make polite conversation as he placed his cutlery on his plate. “This was delicious, thank you.”

Agreeing as you finished your own mouthful, laying your napkin on the table, “Truly, Wanda, you are talented!”

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling bashfully as she turned to her husband who hadn’t touched his. “Ah, just one of my little tricks.”

James turned to Mr. Vision with a smile, nodding towards their plates. “What is it with wives and being so talented in the kitchen?”

“You’re absolutely right,” He laughed in agreement before looking to you. “You like to cook?”

“I do rather, I’m forever at the stove making something new.” It was your turn to sport a bashful grin.

“What’s your favorite meal to make? Wanda is always whipping up some incredible creations.”

“I quite like meatloaf, I-” You stopped for a moment, turning slowly to your husband. “I make it every night.”

Unsure of why you’d expressed your love for making “something new”, it dawned on you that you made the same meal every evening without fail. James’ expression seemed to match yours, remembering the dinner that you’d had the night before, and the one before that.

A strange feeling tightened in your chest, unease, a feeling that you weren’t able to shake. You looked to Wanda, and the feeling only grew. You’d never seen her look like that before, it wasn’t a look of anger, but one of discontent.

Quickly turning away from her, you looked between her husband and your own. “I make the same dinner every night.” You repeated, shaking your head slightly.

Mr. Vision looked confused, turning to his wife and furrowing his brow at the look she was casting over the table. He darted back to you, before crossing his gaze to James. Wanda spoke up finally, “Well if that’s your favorite meal, you tend to do that, completely normal.”

She pushed her plate back, lifting her wine glass to her lips as she locked eyes with her husband. “Completely normal.”

“But every night?” Mr. Vision spoke up, eyes flickering back to your visible unease. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m just not feeling my self this moment.” You explained, fiddling with your napkin as your chest still felt just as heavy.

“It’s really okay, nothing to get upset over,” Wanda nearly snapped, just enough control over her voice. “Don’t fuss it, Vis.”

“We do have it every night,” James joined, looking to you with wide eyes. “The same meatloaf, the same sides-”

Wanda cut him off with a curt laugh, “It is just meatloaf, it really doesn’t need this much issue.”

“But, my love, it seems to be affecting them a bit more than-”

“Well, that is only because you won’t leave it alone!”

In the heat of the conversation, you tried to readjust your plate but the action cause your wine glass to tip, the red wine falling and spraying across James’ crisp white shirt.

“Oh my word, I am so sorry, I really have forgotten myself.” You rushed up to dab your napkin against his shirt but it was no use, it was only setting.

“What is going on here, Wanda?” Mr. Vision seemed less fazed about the spill and more about the previous conversation.

“Oh, Vision! Would you please just drop it and get Bucky a damp cloth!”

Your frantic hands stopped in an instant, eyes snapping open wide as your husband’s hand came to wrap around your wrist. Eyes darting up to his, you both shared a look of sudden and unbridled fear.

Slowly turning to look at Wanda, her expression had fallen and that same look of discontent was taking over her. You felt a pressure in your head, right behind your eyes as you looked from her and back to your husband. Realization set in as he gripped tighter onto you.

It was as if you couldn’t move, shouldn’t move. Everything had changed in that moment, this thread of perfect that ran through the whole town had unraveled right in front of you, right across the dinner table.

“Wanda,” You began, voice shaking only slightly despite yourself. “I think you need-”

“No,” She spoke once and it held the air of being final. “No, thank you.”

James finished his mouthful, turning to the lady of the house to make polite conversation as he placed his cutlery on his plate. “This was delicious, thank you.”

Agreeing as you finished your own mouthful, laying your napkin on the table, “Truly, Wanda, you are talented!”

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling bashfully as she turned to her husband who hadn’t touched his. “Ah, just one of my little tricks.”

“Did we get anything?”

“They were close, very close, but the scene seemed to reset itself and now all we have is this.”

The TV glowed bright with a slight crackle against it, the technicolor strips took over the space with a single black strip for the only words on screen.

“PLEASE STAND BY.”

#so this is how it starts #we've got to ease in they will get progressively sexier dw #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff smut #scarlet witch x reader #scarlet witch x female reader #scarlet witch smut #wandavision smut #wandavision imagine #wandavision spoilers

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massivetyrantduck · 2 years

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Linked Universe tier list based on what kind of Spiderman/Peter Parker they would be

The categories are “Spiderman is the real me, I am the mask” “With great power comes great responsibility” “I must atone for the things I have done” “Idk fighting crime sounds fun” “Wanna see a cool party trick” “No one can ever know” Spiderman is the real me, I am the mask

Four: I feel like he would use spiderman as an outlet for the colors

Twilight: spiderman is another way for him to help others, but he feels truly free swinging across rooftops

Dark Link: i don’t really have an explanation it just fits

With great power comes great responsibility

Time: every spider ability he gains is a new way he can prevent terrible things from happening

Warriors: “If i had these powers during the war, i could have saved so many. but i can save civilians now”

Postman: we all know he would deliver mail TWICE as fast

Hyrule: “It is expected of me to be a hero and i will deliver”

I must atone for the things I have done

Legend: “i couldn’t save marin, but maybe she’ll see me from the sacred realm saving civilians and know i am trying”

Sky: “I caused this curse, but i can make up for it by lessening the evil in this world”

Wolfie: he is a very guilty spiderwolf who scared one child (Colin) and decides to repent by comforting every small child he sees

Idk fighting crime sounds fun

Ravio: “Me not here for long time, me here for good time”

Wild: “Maybe if i stop enough crimes, i’ll get pardoned of my crimes”

Wind: “Warriors look im a spider pirate! a spirate!”

Wanna see a cool party trick

Malon: *setting the table* *webs the bowls over instead of walking to the cabinet* this is nice

Linkle: she’s very lost all the time and she thinks climbing really high will help her find somewhere to go but she couldn’t unstick from the tree and...

Epona: just imagine a web slinging horse. yeah. Epona doesnt really do much but it’s hard for a horse to hide getting bitten by a radioactive spider

Bunny Legend: “Not only am i a badass rabbit, but i am also part spider!” *sticks to ceiling and freaks out his guests*

No one can ever know

Marin: She’s just an island girl there’s not much crime for her to stop. she prefers to not get weird looks

Sheerow: he witnessed Epona try to websling for three hours and decided flying was the safer option

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psychicpersonlover · 3 years

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Impossible Wishes

Authors Notes:

This was a Antsy Xiefan book that I was going to make on Ao3, but I quickly lost interest in the idea as I don’t think I’m that good at writing angst. Anyway, I hope someone can find it enjoyable. (Also don’t comment about grammar on my posts please I don’t edit these properly because these works would normally just get deleted. This is just a way for me to not feel like writing is a complete waste of time).

The game began as it always had. A loud alarm issuing us to leave the started positions.

The Minds Eye would surely begin decoding.

The Postman would do the same after sending a letter to The Mercenary making sure that he doesn’t panic about having to decode the machine.

Finally, The Batter, the new guy, wasn't told what to do.

It didn’t matter. We aren't told to care about that. All we have to do is find them. “Ready?” I ask the empty air around me. “Then let's go.” I began walking. Long legs carrying me quickly to a cipher machine. Gripping an umbrella in my hand I found a cipher machine. Looks like I’d catch the postman first. Dodging my weapon he jumped through a window his dog chasing after the fear-filled man. He was too far for me to catch him. At least on my own, I couldn't catch him.

I opened the umbrella throwing it in the air and felt my body dissolve into nothing.

Then it went dark.

It always went dark. I couldn’t see him. I just had to hope that he knew what was happening. We couldn't be together, at least according to the manor owner. Unless of course, they managed to impress the manor owners. If they could achieve a 4 man win 100 rounds in a row they could see each other again. Why else would they be so fierce to the survivors? They had to. They needed to see each other again. Survivors couldn't understand that. Hunters and survivors were forbidden to speak to the other. Hunters could talk to hunters, and survivors could speak to survivors. That’s all.

A feeling forced me out of my thoughts. He was done with his hunt. It was up to me now.

Closing my eyes and opening them once more I found myself back in the match. My other half seemed to have run into trouble. He had caught the postman, and he was halfway done with his time on the chair. Yet the mercenary had arrived to do his job, to save him. Forchanatly without me even thinking my soul catching ability activated and he was caught in illusions. Which caused him to collapse on the ground allowing me to hit him with the umbrella.

He was a fighter though and attempted to go back to the chair only to be hit again. Causing him to scream out. He fought. And he was determined to win. Managing to break the postman out of his chair's restraints before falling over. I managed to get a hit on the postman but with the help from the mercenary's fight, he was able to run off. Tide didn’t last long though. I chaired the mercenary and walked off after the other.

1 cipher remaining. That worried me. I had to find this postman. If they popped the cipher he could escape. He couldn’t let that happen.

10, they had a streak of 10 it was the closest they had gotten. It wasn’t much but it was close enough. They couldn’t risk losing this.

Luckily I was able to find the postman who was whimpering on the ground. The small dog seemed to cry to the man. Trying to help him. It was a rather upsetting sight. But it was one that I had gotten used to. It was hard not to feel bad for the blond man. He appeared to be kind. Hurting him made me feel like a monster. But rules were rules.

Slowly a bent down picking the man off of the ground. Just in time too as the last cipher popped. A mistake made by the batter no doubt. The mind's eye is far too experienced with the machines to do something like that. A smile emerged on my face. This would make things easier. Calmly I placed the postman on a rocket chair seeing sparks coming from the back of the chair where a large rocket was tied on the chair. One down. Three to go.

A noise alerted me that the mercenary was unable to escape his place on the chair, and was sent flying directly after the postman. Two to go.

Calmly I lifted my feet off the ground allowing myself to float over to an exit gate where the mind's eye was decoding. Noticing my arrival she began to run, however, she wouldn’t get far.

She was downed in moments due to an ability known as detention. She cried out for the batter to go to the dungeon. Leave her behind.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Quickly I picked her up and placed her on the chair. I had no clue where the dungeon or the batter could be.

So I threw the umbrella towards the opposite gate.

Fan can find him. I know he can. I felt myself fade back to nothing. He had to find him. I can’t keep on like this. I need him.

Time had passed. Lots of it. I had no way of telling if he had succeeded until we swapped places. Then I’d know if our win streak would continue.

Eventually, I felt myself being pulled back out. Closing my eyes I reappeared in a room. Our room. The walls of the room had white paint with black designs on them. There was no window in this room and it held a desk in the corner of the room. Over the desk was a large mirror. A large cabinet with all of our clothes inside. I sat on our large and empty bed my umbrella beside me as I looked forward. The match was over.

Slowly I stood up eyeing the room. Noticing a new paper on our desk. Or rather a letter addressed to me. “To Xie Bi’an” Written on the envelope written in rather neat handwriting. Fan’s handwriting. I knew it all too well. Whenever we weren’t in a match we would write and update each other on the situation. Slowly I opened the letter, being careful not to rip the envelope.

“Dearest Xie,

That was a close match. With the mind's eye decoding, the time was limited. Even more so than usual. We got lucky. I shouldn’t have taken so long getting that Postman. I’ll be better. Not that it seemed to matter. 4 men win. We are growing closer to be together again.

You not missing anything either. The manor was quiet as I arrived back. No one spoke a word to me.

Not that it matters. I only care for you, my dear.

I love you. Please do not be saddened by my words. We will be together soon enough. I know it.

Love always,

Fan Wujiu“

A smile appeared on my face. He always knew how to make me smile. I miss him dearly.

He has to be correct in what he said.

We will be together soon. Nothing can stop us. No one can stop us.

#xiefan #identity v #idv #idv wu chang #idv batter #idv postman #idv minds eye #idv mercenary

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something-very-special · 3 years

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Call Her Back

Probably already a post with this title from the Let’s Play but it’s appropriate.

Thoughts on Replicant up to Ending A (and change):

This game is pretty. I guess it didn’t really hit me because I’ve always thought that the original NIER was pretty, but this game can be very pretty.

This in particular just kind of struck me as I was going across the Northern Plains. It had been dominantly gray, overcast skies up to that point because Part II of the game is meant to be. You know. Bleak. But I walked out onto a bright, sunny day with an expanse of blues skies, the mountains in the backgrounds, the ivy a burst of green growing up the rusted sides of the train tracks and it just kind of hit me that the game can be very pretty.

(Then I got punched out by a Shade.)

It’s definitely not a matter of massive graphical overhaul. The models look much better (getting a good look at the Twins during the finale, they really are beautiful) and I’m sure the environmental poly count is much higher and just overall smoother, and there are little touches here and there and just the capacity for better atmospheric lighting... I mean it all helps. But NIER is a game that’s always had fantastic art direction, making the most out of its budget through atmospheric tuning. There’s something uniquely beautiful about its muted palette and the way it uses its spaces that elevates it beyond the its actual technical limitations. It doesn’t look like an end-of-generation PS4 game, but that’s not an insult; it looks very much like itself from ten years ago, with its solid art direction, but touched up where it matters.

Does the sidequest grind seem... better...? I haven’t really dug into the BEST part of the game (spending 30 hours grinding out weapon upgrades) but I mentioned before my theory about how the sidequest grind is supposed to be carried out across multiple playthroughs and that’s why it sucks. To my surprise I finished Ending A missing only one sidequest (your friend and mine, Life in the Sands), with all of the other ones being more or less... pretty natural? The only thing I really needed to go out of my way for was Memory Alloy but all the other components didn’t really give me the kind of grief I remember from my playthroughs of the original. ‘Grief’ of course being relative to getting the platinum trophy, but my first time through the game I gave up finishing a few outstanding sidequests (specifically, fixing the lighthouse broke me-- I could not find 10 Mysterious Switches!)

Maybe I just got lucky, especially with the Machine Oils. Maybe some weird muscle memory kicked in. I feel like there were a few purchasing options that weren’t open originally, too, to ameliorate some of the grind, but it might also be a case of those options being cost-prohibitive so I just didn’t really acknowledge them... whatever the case the sidequest grind felt overall pretty painless. I dunno!

I really need to know how to manipulate events. For literally seven playthroughs straight of the latter half of the game I always did the keystone quest as Junk Heap (start) - Forest of Myth - Junk Heap (end) - Facade - Aerie. It wasn’t until I did a run with my college roommates and Popola gave me the Aerie letter before the Facade in invite that I realized the Aerie wasn’t actually programmed to be the last event.

Absolutely blew my mind, and ever since I became aware of it, it feels like the game goes out of its way to make sure the Aerie always comes before Facade. When I did my Let’s Play of NIER I kept a save file from the start of the kystone collection so I could re-do the events in case they went ‘out of order’ (according to my headcanon)... which they did. I replayed the latter half of the game again in order to get things the way I wanted them to be, same order, and fortunately it cooperated the second time, but I still don’t understand what the trigger is, if there’s a way to manipulate it, or when the determination is even made.

And then they throw the Little Mermaid into the mix, which I wasn’t expecting (that is, I knew it was added, but I’ve been mostly avoiding spoilers -- and happily, the changes have largely been a delight, I’m so excited for the subsequent playthroughs -- but the way it was posted about made it seem like it would happen after and apart from the keystone quest. Not so, my friends).

The reason for this is just the emotional escalation of each factor of the quest. The Forest of Myth is weird and little else (at this juncture, of course). The Junk Heap is a personal tragedy, but the actual tragedy has already occurred and you’re just experiencing the fallout. Facade is a powerful and personal tragedy that deserves to be experienced later on. The Aerie is a terrible place and nobody misses it it’s an enormous loss and profoundly traumatic for the party, and it feels like the appropriate apex to basically force them to go to the Castle and finish the fight, having already lost far too much.

Also it’s just super weird to me that they see that devastation, they literally wipe an entire settlement off the map, and then the next day everybody’s super excited to go to a wedding.

It also becomes even weirder that you go to Popola post-Aerie and nobody mentions ‘yeah that didn’t go so well’ but coming out of Seafront they have a legitimate conversation about the loss of the ferryman and the people they’re never getting back. I guess that guy had a personality but I still think maybe somebody should mention the smoking crater where people used to be.

Then again it’s legitimately funny to me how basically everybody is just agreed the world is better off without it.

This might also just be an issue of familiarity. Maybe if I’d always ended on Facade, or actually known that they could be swapped out as they are, it wouldn’t feel so weird. I definitely got used to the pacing with the Aerie at the end and I feel like I got into a debate with somebody about how it’s more appropriate for Facade to come last so this might just be a personal thing. But it’s still a personal thing and I’m still vaguely irritated I can’t figure out how it works.

Anyway I blew up the Aerie So that’s that problem taken care of.

I feel like the ambiance surrounding Wendy was a little creepier this time. I swear I heard that good stock creepy child laughter in the background.

Then the ferryman left This was a nice bit of foreshadowing; following the Aerie events I wanted to hop over to Seafront to take care of an extant sidequest only to find the ferry dock in the Northern Plains empty. I thought that maybe this was just a weird way of railroading you to make sure you went through the Village first, even though there were no scenes that would trigger just by being in the Village.

Alas.

Not gonna lie, when the couple was first introduced I thought for SURE it was going to be the wife who wound up dead. I guess it’s because the guy had a purpose as an NPC so yeah, I was tricked. Good design decision; the ferryman is talkative and bright and definitely difficult to forget and even though he was kinda obnoxious there’s a definite void where his dialogue was. It’s clever too that you’re forced to use the ferry at least once so you can’t escape the dialogue that you’re presented with, meaning that even if you don’t really make use of the ferry you’ll always have that contrast between him at the start of Part II and the other guy (his brother, maybe?) taking over the job and just not really talking to you afterward.

Episode Mermaid First of all, to be clear, I’ve not done the Route B playthrough yet. All I know about the Little Mermaid is what’s presented on the surface, what can be gleaned from there, what I remember reading in the Grimoire NieR short story. This is very much just an impression and reaction to the first encounter and it’s pretty cool.

I like that they managed to go into yet another genre style aping a point-and-click adventure.

I like the atmosphere of the wrecked ship. It really brought me back to the ‘ghost ship’ level archetype with its little hints of spookiness.

I appreciate that it ties subtly in to the Haunted Manor (technically the Part I Seafront dungeon) with Weiss’ utterly irrational fear of ghosts.

I love every excuse they find to get Kaine and Emil (and especially Kaine) out of a situation. It’s almost a running gag that Kaine keeps getting knocked out of dungeons and boss fights. None of them are quite as great as her getting Rules Lawyer’d in the Barren Temple, but there’s something delightful about “Let’s get you some fresh air, we’ll be right outside, be careful!” and then bookending it with Kaine and Emil just chilling at the end like “Well yeah there are a lot of holes in the hull we just popped in.”

(I forgot to go backward to see what happens if you try to take them into Seafront proper, gotta remember that next time.)

Interesting thing when you find some of the dropped apples is that Nier and Weiss talk about the dinner they had with the couple. This was actually a really sweet and oddly emotional conclusion to the added sidequest between the bickering couple-- entirely missable. I would assume the dialogue just doesn’t trigger if you didn’t do the quest but it was a nice touch.

I appreciate the use of dead bodies in the hold.

(That’s a sentence.)

But for the game’s focus on violence and excess of blood it’s very selective in how it uses actual corpses. Any time you see a dead body it really emphasizes the seriousness of the situation. The corpses in the hold and the blood spatter -- especially compared to how bright and clean Seafront as a whole is -- was surprisingly effective. Again, just good atmospheric buildup.

Bit of an anticlimax as a boss, though. It is a really cool boss, between the environmental buildup to the fight and then actually unveiling her, but for how big and scary she is the fight itself went by fairly quick, and the actual finale (the postman whacking her hand telling her to go away she’s groooooss) felt a bit weird in comparison to the way the boss fights in the rest of the game usually play out. Of course, I don’t have context of her dialogue (I can take my guesses, her holding out her hand to Hans as he freaks out and attacks her is already a palpable tragedy) and by the way the scene was framed I suspect the Route B reveal is where the most important part of the scenario lies.

And the seals came back! It’s the little things.

“I wish I was Fyra.” So in the original Replicant the conversation between Emil and Nier before Sech’s wedding was apparently an implication that Emil had a crush on Nier and wanted to marry him. It was ambiguous enough that people had to ask for clarification and some players interpreted it as a weird, childish expression of looking up to and respecting Brother Nier. It was clarified in the Grimoire NieR that Emil is gay and crushing hard on Brother Nier, and this line of dialogue here seems to have been... not made explicit, but changed even between RepliCant and ver. 1.22 to make the implication a little clearer, at least insofar as he isn’t interested in girls. (It winds up missing the implication that he’s into Nier specifically, though.)

...which is funny, because it colors his introduction to the King of Facade somewhat differently. These two meeting is honestly really sweet on a few levels (Sechs recognizing him from Nier’s descriptions, which implies that Nier’s been visiting Sechs regularly and so proud of his interactions with Emil he told the king of another nation all about him, and the King is legit excited to meet him) but then a couple of minutes later Emil is all ‘I’m so jealous of Fyra’. He isn’t crushing on Nier, but he is totally crushing on Sechs.

Endgame At this point in the game the distinction between Brother and Father has become mostly lost and the final charge is pretty much the same as

wait what’s up with the music in the Lost Shrine? This is Snow in Summer.

Or an arrangement thereof. That particular track level from Snow in Summer winds up getting used in a few new places and it has this kind of weird, vague sense of dread that makes it work pretty well. Utterly threw me off in the Lost Shrine, though (I think it’s appropriate given its connection to the Shadowlord/Gestalt Nier so slowly re-introducing it in the climb is pretty cool). It also builds insanely as you climb, which is a very cool effect but, um, I’m just here to pick up some sidequest items right now this feels like a little much.

There isn’t much to say regarding any impact or differences in the large part of this area of the game. It’s a good final dungeon, it carries good momentum, it works as well as it ever did (that is to say, rather well). The emotional beats are great and translate equally well between the protagonists, although I have to give the nod to Papa Nier during a lot of this just for the imagery of such a big, powerful man becoming so broken the further he goes in (and Kaine being strong enough to toss him around like a rag doll anyway).

The final flashback with Nier and Yonah also feels better with Papa Nier. I always read it as, of course, Papa Nier having his moment with Yonah, giving her the flower, and as he lays back down Yonah does the same big sigh like she’s trying to emulate her dad and it’s really sweet. This is another one of those moments where it’s not something that feels wrong in Replicant, but just having that comparison in the back of my head is something that I just can’t help.

Is Papa Nier still Best Neir? Yes.

But there’s room in my heart for Brother. I’m glad the bizarre marketing decision happened and both of these characters can exist.

...and then we reload the save. Okay, okay, so-- so here’s the thing-- I figured that’s a good place to conclude a session, right? Get to the ending, prepare for the next run. But I also know that Route B starts with Kaine’s unskippable novel segments. I’ve read them, of course, so I figure I’ll just reload into Route B so I can make a save after the novel sections, really get into the meat of Route B when I’m fresh.

So skim through those--

Beat up the Knave--

Skim through the rest--

Educated Warrior... didn’t pop...?--

Wait what’s this camera angle--

Why am I outs--

oh my god

KAINE AND EMIL HAVING GIGGLY GIRL TALK AROUND THE CAMPFIRE OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

THERE’S MORE.

THERE’S. MORE.

I legit short-circuited. Going in I knew they added the Little Mermaid. I knew they added Ending E. Those were things I suspected would be added and went out to specifically confirm; beyond that I’ve been keeping myself completely spoiler free.

I had no idea there was more. I had no idea this was happening.

I’m so excited.

And a goofy thought for the road

“I polished you with a special cloth, I poured warm water on you--”

“Wait, you poured water on me?”

/imagines Emil running blindfolded eight hours across the Southern Plains with an 8oz plastic water cup, getting to the library, splashing it on Kaine, waiting expectantly

/nothing happens

/walks dejectedly eight hours all the way back to the Manor

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Musings #Ramblings #OH MY GOD WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS #I AM SO GLAD NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS

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missgonnabeallrightsomeday · 4 years

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Best. Christmas. Films. You. Shouldn't. Miss. 🎄🎥

Heads up! It's the most beautiful time of the year again! Do you have plans for Christmas already? Or nah, because the pandemic got in the way? Because of the 2020 curse, it just doesn't feel like the holidays right now, don't you think? But I assure you a good ol' holiday film will definitely put you in the Christmas spirit. Like literally a Christmas ✨miracle✨ that you've been looking for. So take note, here are some of the perfect films to stream and set you in the mood for the holiday. Sit back, grab your hot chocolate and relax.

Klaus (2019)

Let's start off with an animated film to bring out the kid in you! Klaus is a 2019 English-language Spanish 2D-animated Christmas comedy film. Jesper Johansson, the lazy, spoiled son of the Royal Postmaster General, has been trying to flunk out of the postman academy, but his father sends him to the distant town of Smeerensburg; if Jesper fails to post 6,000 letters within a year, he will be cut off from his family's fortune. Jesper, befriends toymaker Klaus, their gifts melt an age-old feud and deliver a sleigh full of holiday traditions. Art style? Perfect. 2D animation? Perfect. Story plot? Incredible. This movie? Perfect for everyone!

Home Alone (1990)

Oh yes, a classic. A bratty 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) acts out the night before a family trip to Paris, and his mother makes him sleep in the attic. After the McCallisters mistakenly leave for the airport without Kevin, he awakens to an empty house and assumes his wish to have no family has come true. But his excitement sours when he realizes that two con men (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) plan to rob the McCallister residence, and that he alone must protect the family home. What a witty kid, I could learn from his tricks.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

Kevin again and his mischievousness. Kevin loses track of his father at the airport, he mistakenly gets on a plane headed for New York City -- while the rest of his family fly to Florida. Now alone in the Big Apple, Kevin heads into a room at the Plaza Hotel and begins his usual antics. But when Kevin discovers that the Wet Bandits that intruded his house before are on the loose, he struggles to stop them from robbing an elderly man's toy store just before Christmas. Then again, Kevin outwits the bad guys for the second time.

The Princess Switch (2018)

In the Princess Switch, High School Musical alum Vanessa Hudgens takes the lead(s). One week before Christmas, the duchess of Montenaro, Margaret Delacourt bumps into her doppelgänger Stacey DeNovo, a baker from Chicago, and they decide to switch places so the royal can experience, a “normal” life. And little did they know, they each fall in love with each other's beaus. Just enough fluff and romance for a warm Christmas you wish you had.

The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

Siblings Kate and Teddy Pierce hatch a scheme to capture Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Santa accidentally gets interrupted by the two kids on his Christmas Eve deliveries-- and crashes his sleigh, losing his presents in the process. Then the kids join forces with a somewhat jolly Saint Nick and his loyal elves to save the holiday before it's too late.

Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Are you down for a spooky winter? Also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and becomes obsessed with celebrating the holiday. He is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween Town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween -- instead of spreading Christmas joy, Santa Claus is put in jeopardy and his mission turns sideways and creates a total nightmare.

Last Christmas (2019)

Nothing seems to go right to a frustrated Londoner and young aspiring singer, Kate, who works as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop. Things soon take a turn for the better when she meets Tom-- a handsome charmer who seems too good to be true. As the city transforms into the most wonderful time of the year, Tom and Kate's growing attraction turns into the best gift for the both of them-- a Yuletide romance.

Dash & Lily (2020)

Dash & Lily is an eight-part romcom television series that is based on the romantic young adult novel Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. A whirlwind holiday romance builds as snarky Dash who hates Christmas and optimistic Lily who's the opposite of Dash and a certified Christmas enthusiast trade dares, dreams and desires in the notebook that they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City. Although polar opposites, they soon discover that they have a lot in common than they expected. The series will literally transport you to New York's festive vibe while figuring out Dash and Lily's journey on romance.

And that’s a wrap!

P. S. you can find more scenes of the movies on my blog! just scroll down (ꈍᴗꈍ)

#christmas #christmas movies #nightmare before christmas #dash and lily #klaus movie #home alone #the princess switch #the christmas chronicles #home alone 1 #home alone 2 #film #movies #last christmas #netflix

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radioactive-synth · 3 years

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random oc fact: about Olivia 'Libby' Zander:

under read more ‘cause its long

- born in 16 march 2019. parents originally from Cyprus, they moved in America before Olivia was born. has a younger sister named Helen. their mother died of an incurable disease when Olivia was 4 yrs old, Helen was 2 yrs old. Theodore, their dad, needed to raise them on his own and work to provide for them

- usually a more lonely wolf, she focused on her studies than to get out in world. during college, she went to a party held on Harvester Day (i guess) and met Ryan Hudson (7-8 yrs older than her) who back then, was a officer in the army and was charming and very kind. they had fun at the party and kept contact. she also met Michael Hudson, Ryan's brother.

- her dad, who was a very kind, but unphased man, was not so glad that her daughter started to date a soldier, or how he called him, military dog. he had a bad feeling towards Ryan, and even asked Olivia if she is sure or even should consider the other Hudson brother (he liked Michael more than Ryan). in the end, he gave up and let them marry, with the condition that Olivia keeps her last name, and any offspring they will have, all will have the last name Zander. Theodore considered that the Hudson name is too american.

- she got married when she was 24 years old, right after she graduated college

- almost 2 yrs before she had her son, Olivia has stepped in to help raise her nephew, Vincent Hudson, as his mother didnt cared at all, and Michael was away on his duty (was an army medic). taking care of Vincent made her wish to have her own child.

- she gave birth to her son, Vaughn Aleksandros Zander, when she was 26 yrs old, on 13 february 2045.

- in the first few years she has raised both boys on her own. her husband and her brother in law were away in their duty, while Vin's mother prefered to hang out with her friends than to take care of her son. when Vaughn was around 5 years old, Olivia took a job as pharmacist on night shift. she also taught both boys how to cook.

- when Vin was around 10 yrs old, his mother left the Hudson family for her boss and took Michael's car and money. he needed to go one more time in the army, then retired to take a postman job, so he can take care of his son. Olivia had expected this thing from her ex sister in law, and felt sorry for Michael. even that her husband disapproved, Olivia had helped Michael with money until he got up on his feet.

- Olivia and Michael are very close, and she stays more with him than with her own (mostly absent) husband. at some point, Michael started to have feelings for her, but never acted on her, as he waited for her first.

- continued her job as pharmacist, even taking extra shifts so she can afford books and everything Vaughn needed for his studies.

- when her nephew was drafted in the army, she was terrified for him, then faked her son's medical documents, making him unfit for drafting. she knew it was illegal and risked prison for doing this, but she couldnt let her son be drafted too.

- she had not knew anything on how her husband treated their son. she noticed that Ryan became cold and distant, but had no idea how he emotionally and physically abused Vaughn. her son didnt said anything about it as he knew that without Ryan's money they couldnt get by, but after 2 yrs when he got a job too, Vaughn said everything. in 2071, just before Ryan left again in his duty, Olivia divorced of him, and even wanted to move out of the flat with her son. a few weeks pass, and they get the news that Ryan was killed in an ambush. Olivia and Vaughn were happy to hear about and that they can keep the flat, but felt bad for Michael. a week pass, and get the news that Vin was also killed on the battlefield, which ruins them. they tried to take care of Michael, but he died of heartattack 2 weeks later. to make things way worst, Vaughn lost his job at the clinic as the army took it under their control.

- Eleanora Foster, who was dating Vaughn since his college years, had helped him with his depression, taking him out more the house. Olivia was heartbroken but continued to work. both her and her son barely could get by with money. Nora's parents worked in administration, and her father managed to get Vaughn a job as family doctor in the Medical Bay Center. in 2074, Vaughn married Nora. her family also bought them the house in Sanctuary and Codsworth.

- she wanted to get her dad and sister to her son's wedding, but they could not afford the tickets, and also her dad was sick. Olivia could not afford either to go visit them, and was heartbroken. she wished her dad and sister would finally meet Vaughn (as they moved out in Cyprus when Olivia married, so they never met Vaughn), but her son told her that as long as he has her, its all that matters.

- in the year 2077, Nora had bought tickets for Vaughn and Olivia so they can visit their family in Cyprus for christmas and new years. the tickets were never used.

- had survived during the bombs, and after being locked in her flat for 3 weeks, she finally made courage to get out. she took a gas mask, a chest combat armor and a laser pistol (the only things from Ryan that she didnt sold) and got out. she was terrified how people were killing each other or barely living. she got in Sanctuary, but found Codsworth that was malfunctioning. she tried to get to the vault, but was stopped. hoping her son and his family are safe, she went back into the house and took any remaining food and supplies. she then went back to her flat and took some things with her: a backpack, clothes, food, medical supplies and photos with her family. she knew she must find a way to survive.

- she found a group of survivors that didnt shot her on sight. with time, they all transformed in ghouls. despite the radiation that changed her body, her eyes remained the same. she lost her hair, but found a wig that she dyed in her natural hair color, and tied in the same manner her son has: ronin bun.

- they became scavengers and traders. Olivia was also a medic and helped people if needed. not many people were used to ghouls yet, so they were marginalised a lot, or in worst cases, being shot at. there were also times when Olivia had ate nothing but drank alcohol to survive.

- she only presents herself as Libby, as it was the nickname that Michael and Vin called her

- she was never interested in any other romantic relationships. years ago, she realised too late that she really felt so close to Michael. she also thinks that she is asexual, as she never felt any interest in sex.

- after a few decades, Olivia split from her group as they were not aggreing that she was giving out free supplies. she was on her own for a few weeks, until she found Nix, a grieving mongrel mother who lost her cubs and was injured. she seen the scattered dead puppies and the crying mongrel and took care of her. Olivia knew what Nix feels, and the dog decided to stay with her. since then, Nix was her only friend.

- they travelled across America, doing trades, helping out, Olivia also teaching medical stuff to other people, helping children. she also helped new mothers delivering babies, installing new trading routes, and settling down arguments between groups of people.

- she became an excelent sniper, and she and Nix worked efficient in team

- she always had her family in her thoughts, and especially her son and nephew, and talked about them proudly. at some point, she thought that even Vin was her son, but remembered she gave birth once, and was 3 yrs difference between the boys.

- she also met my other ocs: my Vault Dweller, Nonè Smith, Chosen One Clovers Smith, Tamir (when she was 10 yrs old) and Gabriella Abbey, my Lone Wanderer.

- she also met mayor MacCready, after he nearly shot Nix. Olivia was more impressed by the kid than upset, and decided that she can help them out. she gave them supplies, helped them out, and all she wanted was to trade stories. despite MacCready's constant insults, they were good friends. he never forgot her kindness.

- around 2288, she hears stories about General Zander and how he saved the Commonwealth. she got interested to see who has her last name. she had no hope that it was her son, but one of the descendants.

- first arrived in Goodneighor and met Daisy, and got info on where to find General Zander

- reunited with her son in Sanctuary, and also met Oliver, her grandson, before being introduced to the Sanctuary family. also reunited with MacCready, and was so happy to see him ending up well and with his son Duncan

- she finally retires and becomes the mama and grandma she missed so much. in present, she moved into Vaughn's old house, which she decorated it. she takes care of the kids, spends time with her son and her new family. she loves Nick and Hancock and sees how good are for his son. she also organize their wedding.

- usually a very cheerful person, she has a certain sad look in her eyes at times. yet if she is asked if she is ok, she will smile and say that she is ok.

- shocks her son by drinking alcohol and smoking and even swearing, as she never done these things pre war. but overall, Vaughn still sees her as the mom he knew.

#oc olivia zander #fallout #fallout oc #fallout ocs #ghoul oc #fallout 4 #fo oc

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otomelavenderhaze · 4 years

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The mail threats, losing the job offer, denial - Episode 10 (mclll)

After the night out with Rosa and Alexy, Candy is awake in the morning by Rayan having a phonecall

Rayan: No, I understand, of course. Believe me, the first to lament it is me...

Candy: (He’s in a phonecall... I approached the coffee maker without interrupting the conversation).

Well, I'm glad I took my time to decide upon it...

Rayan: Thank you. For you too, Mrs. Yes, that’s right. Until one of these days...

Candy: Is everything alright? What was it, that early?

The dean of the Ivyfield university... She didn't pay attention to the time zone. (So, that job offer was THAT far away, well).

She wanted to let me know that, “in the face of circumstances”, they don’t want to hire me anymore. (I knew this would happen since last episode, but I still feel bad for him none less)

And they ask me to not talk about the fact that they contacted me before with a job offer.

That’s it... I already expected it. That was the last door closed on my nose.

Even if I had decided before that I would stay here before this all, it was nice to think that, in a certain way...

... That I wasn’t a complete outcast. But... what I was expecting...?

I should stop answering the phone or read the mail/letters we’re receiving.

Rayan: Lately I’ve been receiving only bad news and insults...

Candy: What? We’re receiving letters with insults? But I didn't see any of that...

Not only that. There’s threats too. I wanted to spare you from this. I throw everything away as soon the postman deliver them.

Well, I will not going to lie to you... it’s not only to spare you that I do this... (I think he’s admiting that he don’t want to look at them neither).

I know very well that humans are always ready to burn everything they ever liked...

Every single one of those letters makes me sadder...

Don’t get mad at me if we receive overdue bills...

Lately, I have the tendency of doing a clean epistolary for deflation...

Candy said that she understands.

To talk the truth, it’s funny you say this, because this night I thought about something...

Candy: In what? (there it comes)

Hmm, to tell the truth, I’m not sure if this is a good idea. But I thought about it as a way to change this...

I can very well analyze everything from every possible angle, but I can’t be mad at Marina.

Candy: a) No problem, because I bet I’m with enough anger for both of us. b) That’s very generous of you. c) This all makes me kinda lost, Rayan... I don’t know what to think. At the same time, I’m worried about her. (this one makes me laugh hard)

a) is either positive or neutral, my affinity didn’t drop.

I understand, but I will ask you to put it into parentheses, because...

I remain convinced that she was manipulated by Priya and that boss (Renata). And I wanted to take that story clear. (the worst idea you ever had, and look, you already had pretty bad ideas)

Rayan: That’s why I want you to... get in touch with Marina for me. I would like very much to talk with her.

Candy: What? With everything that is happening, you don’t think this is a little bit too late? It can turn bad to your case.

Maybe, but I don’t have anything else to lose. We could do it in a discreet place such as... the Cozy Bear.

And with witnesses, of course. We could even record the conversation. But I need clean this story!!

I’m sure if I could talk to her, even if for just 10 minutes, I would know if she believes in those lies or not. (I really don’t know how to break it down to him that she is the one who accused him and she is the main source of those lies).

What do you say? You would accept help me? I know I’m asking too much...

Rayan: I can’t put not even one foot on the campus, and, since she knows you, maybe she will listen to you.

Candy: a) Okay, I will talk to her. I also want to know why she decided tell that story... b) I’m sorry, but... I can’t do this to Priya... And behind her back even. c) I’m sorry... But this is a bad idea. If I try to get in touch with her, it can get your case worst.

Rayan: I know that my chances are low, but... I still want to believe this can be solved with a proper conversation.

Candy: And that’s what I like in you. If you think this could work, I will try.

Candy: But... where I could find her? (The view 10/10)

Hmmm... the exams will start soon. Maybe in Anteros’s library...

Candy: There I go then. I still have some time this morning. Dambi is taking care of the Cozy Bear. Better solve this soon. I keep you posted.

Rayan: Thank you, love! Without you, I would’ve fall apart already...

Candy: (I took my keys and left).

#my candy love #amour sucre #corazon de melon #amor doce #mclll #episode 10 mclll #spoilers #spoiler #screenshots #screenshot

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dennou-translations · 4 years

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Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Chapter 5

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“The Military School of Leidenschaftlich’s Army does not inquire people’s social ranks. The gates are open to all youths, and anyone at least fourteen years old can devote themselves to it regardless of their gender. National defense means protecting everything you love.”

Where had I seen a bulletin with these contents again? If I was certain, it had been in front of our business partner wholesale store, when I entered and exited it on an errand for my family. One particular sheet had been standing out on a board where the townsfolk stuck anything they felt like, from job hunts to searches for people. While biting into an apple that I had received from the store’s owner as recompense for the errand, my thirteen-year-old self had gazed at it intently. It was a good-quality paper rendered perfectly straight, firmly nailed by thumbtacks in all four corners. Pushed into the paper at the end of the text was a gold screw, as well as red sealing wax, bearing the emblem of Leidenschaftlich’s army.

As a child, I had thought that was a pretty cool life choice. How stupid. Even I would want to laugh at myself for being so naïve. Back then, I had not yet come to know the meaning of granting and taking away lives. Truth be told, once I tried becoming a soldier, reality ended up crushing many delusions of mine, but that’s a tale for later.

Let’s go back to my current story.

There were many reasons why I had decided that “yeah, I’ll become a soldier”. One was that I’m the second son of a merchant household, and since my older brother was the one who would take over the inheritances, I wasn’t needed there. Another one was that, as I had been raised in a big family, I wanted to hurry and become independent so that I could have my own space. Yet another was that the name my parents had given me was “Claudia”, which had made me think of wishing to become manly. Lastly, well... my older brother’s fiancée was a beautiful woman just my type, so I had wanted to keep a distance from her. The most important was that I desired to protect the family I loved but wanted to depart from, I guess.

The war had been progressively intensifying back then. A resources conflict between North and South. It was that one messy Continental War of a few years ago, where a religious confrontation between the West and the East became involved.

Leidenschaftlich was the continent’s southernmost extremity. If we had been attacked at that point, our defeat would have been certain and my family would likely have lost their lives. Because I was fond of my town and my people, and because I was fond of Leidenschaftlich, enlisting had been an inclination from my spontaneous feelings. The many things that had happened to me at the time boosted them... and so, I decided to become a soldier. I applied without telling my parents, and as for the entrance exam, I took it after lying that I was going to hang out with friends.

When a letter of acceptance was suddenly delivered by a postman to my home, my Pops beat the hell out of me. I hit him back, though. Pops was surprised at that. So was I. Like, “Pops is surprisingly weak”. During childhood, people think that their guardians are damn huge existences...

Yup. My parents had probably been worried. Choosing soldier as profession earns you a higher mortality rate than from leading a normal life.

In the Military School, all officers living inside the dorms was something enforced, so no one had a choice but let go of their parents. Still, I was stubborn, so I took a photo of my family with me as I left.

Two years after that, I guess, was when it happened. I met Gilbert.

Gilbert Bougainvillea and Claudia Hodgins

Do you know the true meaning of that flowering tree’s name?

They bloom every year. They’re planted all over the country as roadside trees, and when spring comes, lovely white buds sprout on them. When the petals fall, they form a pure-white carpet that never melts away. During that time, the colors of the city disappear like in a snowy country. People who go abroad have their mouths agape when coming back. You don’t see that sight anywhere else. No matter where I go, I remember that scenery whenever spring comes about. It’s like an extraordinarily fine woman that you get to spend only a single night with. If you listened to the music playing while the two of you were sleeping together, you’d remember her. Just like that, I’d reminisce to it. Whenever spring arrives, my memories summon the past along with the white of those flowers.

Gem-like emerald-green eyes hidden under a deeply burrowed military cap. Lifeless fingertips from pale hands that would not move after reaching out to the person walking away on him. Whispered words not conveyed.

I’d recall over and over again the Gilbert Bougainvillea of that time.

Gilbert... Gilbert Bougainvillea. Right, I started this story in order to talk about him. I spoke too much about myself. Let’s discuss him.

Bougainvillea, Bougainvillea. A clan named after a flower. If you live in this country and ask about the Bougainvillea family name, you’d know that it’s a famous family of military descent.

Didn’t you know? Statues and things like that of his ancestors are all over the city. After all, Leidenschaftlich has a history of having fought other nations that attacked and invaded it since the distant past. It’s easy for brilliant soldiers to be treated like legendary existences. It went to the point where it could be said that a soldier come from the Bougainvillea family was someone sure to take up employment. Even at present, this hasn’t changed.

He’s the young master of a well-off house. Actually, his bloodline is a high-class one. It also had matrimonial ties with the royal family of the monarchy period from before the country was administered by the military. The royal family is used as a symbol nowadays, though.

If times were better, he’s a person who we would not be allowed to talk about so casually. Yup, right on. This is why you exist now. They have that much power. Why I became friends with Gilbert, you ask?

It all began in early spring at the Military Service School of Leidenschaftlich.

The Military School was located near the national border. So that it could become a shield at the very front in case something happened, you see. The way it started from an all-seeing tower surrounded by a sturdy fort was just like a fortress city. If you went inside, you’d be sandwiched by narrow stone walls in a pathway that went on for long, and after passing through it, you’d finally be able to get out at the square. The city of Leiden was made like that too, right? If there was an attack, we’d defend it at the entrance, and then engage in confront at an open space.

Did you know that there’s a height limit to the buildings of Leiden? Most buildings were erected to the same height. But public institutions built inside the country were pretty big. Yup, that’s right. High-rise buildings were intentionally constructed in fixed intervals. For the sake of long-distance snipers. That’s the kind of country we live in. Hearing it that way, you might imagine it as some ostentatious building, but it’d turn into a beautiful thing when spring came. The roadside trees in our country will bud with white flowers every year, right? Yes, that kind. Strangely enough, its name is “bougainvillea”.

I don’t know why his household has that surname, but surely it’s got something to do with the fact that those vines were planted all over the country.

The completely white carpet that can be made out of those tiny flowers falling little by little is a gentle beauty. That sight is enough to be sometimes praised as the “residence of angel feathers”. Those vines surrounded the Military School in rows.

A few years after having enrolled into it, my hobby was going on idle strolls during that time of the year, so I was taking a walk. I got greeted by a passing freshman. “The place you’re about to enter is hell~,” I thought to myself while greeting back with a smile.

It was warm and pleasant under the lively sunlight, and just as it was about to melt the insides of my head, I found an eye-opening person. What kind of person was it? He was a beauty. Yep, he was... the kind of beauty that you don’t see around so often.

It was about as lengthy as yours. His long black hair formed a lenient curve and his eyes were a deep green. He had handsome facial features that gave off an androgynous impression, but the long limbs that he was gifted with and his well-trained body looked pretty cool in the white naval uniform he was dressed in. That’s what people would say. He was the kind of man that other men would fall for on sight, so to speak. That was the kind of person he was.

He was arguing with someone. As the two were side-by-side, I could soon tell they were siblings. The big discrepancy was that the boy who was presumably the younger brother was the one with a more awe-inspiring look. The two had not noticed that a passerby like me was walking their way.

It was weird for a guy wearing a naval uniform to be in front of the army’s Military School in the first place. They piqued my interest, so I couldn’t help standing there to eavesdrop. I could hear what they were talking about in bits.

“Brother, you’re selfish.”

“It’s for your sake; understand it, Gil.”

“Why do you never tell me anything?”

“Then cut off our ties as brothers.”

“All I ever do is say yes.”

When the younger brother said so, I got sad and felt like siding with him. I was at loss, so I stayed as a spectator.

After a while, the two stopped yelling at each other, and the older brother deliberately took off the military cap that the younger one was wearing, reached a hand toward his head and patted it messily. The younger brother was making a face that seemed like he was frustrated from the bottom of his heart. As if to hide that face, the older brother buried the cap deep onto the other’s head, turned his back to him and left. He didn’t even turn to look at the younger brother, who was probably crying.

I felt bad for the boy and tried to go talk to him. But when I saw him raising his lowered head, I stopped. He wasn’t crying. As if none of the emotions that were there until just then had ever existed, his expression became cold and he went through the gates of the Military School.

That was the first instant I saw Gilbert. I had never seen a boy make a face like that before, so I just continued staring at his back as if I had grown senile.

It became the topic that a son of the family of national heroes had enrolled as the top student among the freshmen that year. I had skipped the freshmen’s entrance ceremony and didn’t see anything, so I had no idea, but thinking back about it now, that was him.

Despite all of us being fellow students, we didn’t get to interact with each other if our school years were different. Even if we had joined training, it was impossible to make a distinction since it was just men. What caused the occasion for us to properly meet face-to-face was a small incident.

The ratio of enrollment in the Army Service School of Leidenschaftlich was of seven men to every three women. The women’s duties were normally of telegraph soldiers or replenishment troops, so our curriculums were different, and of course, our dorms were separate too. Our curriculum? Running, running, running. Building muscle. Firing guns, firing, firing, running, running, running. A repetition of that. The rest was classroom lectures. We’d learn how to form strategies, set up camps and use communication equipment. There were also the subjects learned at ordinary schools like normal. The girls had it easier than us, but it didn’t change that it was hard for everyone.

Guys and girls who devoted themselves to national defense day and night getting into relationships away from the eyes of our demon-like instructors was something, well, natural. After all, we didn’t have any other form of amusement. Romance was an amusement.

I’d also played around with countless people myself, but I never had a love that went as far as making my body burn. In that point, I’m sure I might’ve never had a true love. I never stuck to only one person. I like all women, so loving just one feels weird.

No biggie for me. Romance was a diversion anyhow. But diversions can cause some pretty dangerous stuff to follow you around. There were times when it was just pleasure for me but the other person was betting their life on it.

Maybe due to that attitude of mine being the one to blame, one of the girls I had fooled around with pushed a letter of challenge onto me. A letter of challenge. Do you know them? Letters with contents like, “I hate you very much”, “I’ll send you flying”, “Be here on X day of X month”. That’s right. There are letters like those in the world too.

It seemed she was going out with me with the intention of getting married. I had no idea. No, really. I didn’t even lay a hand on her, y’know? Did we ever go as far as kissing? I’m serious, I tell you. Kissing is a greeting to me.

“I’ve got no choice but to apologize wholeheartedly for this in my own way.” Just as I thought so, when I went to the place I had been called over to, there he was. Who?

Gilbert Bougainvillea.

That boy I had seen on the day of the entrance ceremony, standing fleetingly in the middle of those white flowers with his head hanging down, was there. From the very start, he had been piercing me with a scornful emerald-green gaze as I walked over. He was fourteen, I was sixteen.

“Are you Claudia Hodgins?” was the first thing he said. Just like his face, his voice was gallant.

At fourteen years of age, Gilbert somewhat gave off the feeling of a small adult. His black hair was settled down in a way that not a single thread would dishevel. He had dignified facial traits even though he was young. From his voice tone to his gestures, the man named Gilbert Bougainvillea was already pre-made. He had come from a family of soldiers, so from his point of view, maybe the Military School was just an extension of his home.

Surrounded by trees under the shadow of the school building, those training barracks were a place that didn’t have any popularity, but other than Gilbert, the girl who had sent me the letter of challenge and quite a number of onlookers were there too.

“Don’t say ‘Claudia’ ever again. If I get called by this name, it’ll turn into a chronic toothache for me. And you are…?”

“I’m Gilbert Bougainvillea. I’m your junior, but in this situation, I’m in a position equal to yours as her representative in the duel that she requested. Therefore, I will be omitting honorifics and protect her dignity as just a man. I shall be your opponent in her stead.”

He was a kid with way of talking that quite reeked of seriousness, I thought. I was also a child with not too big a difference in age from him, but if a fourteen-year-old boy talked like that, you’d be surprised, right? More than anything, I was surprised at that fateful chance meeting. I had only seen him for a moment, but the Gilbert of that time and that scenery of white flowering trees had stayed seared into my heart, and he was a person remarkable enough to make you remember him unintentionally out of the blue.

I beckoned him with a, “C’mere, c’mere” and whispered into his ear, “Gilbert – can I call you Gilbert? Why’s an underclassman like you getting involved in the fight between me and that girl? Are you her new boyfriend and got mad after she told you about me?”

“I don’t mind being called Gilbert. You’re wrong about that. I’m not her lover. I just happened to come across her when she was crying by coincidence, and after I heard about her circumstances, I was put in charge of representing her in the duel. I’m also not willing to fight an upperclassman... one that I don’t hold a personal grudge against, to boot... but I have no choice. If she will be at ease with this, I mean. It seems you’re a pretty terrible man.”

I looked at the girl who was the source of that comedy-rather-than-tragedy over Gilbert’s shoulder. I didn’t have any memory of our relationship being anything other than drinking tea together a number of times.

“What’d she say I’ve done to her?”

“The kind of indecent things that I can’t say aloud at all.”

I was so embarrassed at being called “indecent” by that boy that I couldn’t bear it.

“I didn’t do it; I definitely didn’t do it. There’re girls who’ve slept by my side, but I haven’t slept with that one. We’ve dated. But I haven’t laid a hand on her. I guess I’ve so much as kissed her on the cheek. But relatives do that too, right?”

“Then, why would she lie to me?”

“‘Cause she wants to catch my attention, doesn’t she?”

“And probably yours too,” I added in my mind.

“If she tried to catch your attention with ill intent, it wouldn’t be effective, would it?”

At that statement, I felt the cleverness of the young Gilbert, but at the same time, I thought he was a child who still didn’t know what the crudeness of the world was like.

“Gilbert, you’ve never gone out with a woman before, have you? There’re two paths that guys and girls broken by love go through most of the times: to get attached or to hate each other. When one hates the other, they try to push the other down both social and materially.”

“Even though it’s someone they fell for?”

“It’s exactly because it’s someone they fell for.”

Gilbert furrowed his brows, looking troubled, and then turned his back to me, saying he was going to properly ask the girl once again about her story. He was a serious guy.

I grabbed his arm and prevented him from doing it. “Listen, Gilbert-boy, this is a fight that you got involved in because of some boring sense of justice. Act out your role until the end. If you don’t, you won’t get to protect her dignity, right?”

“It’s not ‘boy’. Are you... okay with this? If what you said is true, you’d be accusing yourself of a wrongdoing that you didn’t commit and fighting for no reason. And it’d mean that I’m being lied to and used by her. Seems so foolish...”

“With all due respect, Young Master, but there’s a limit to how much of a goody-two-shoes you can be to accept being someone’s duel representative in itself, and I think it’s also a foolish action, y’know?”

“It seems I’ll have to shoot your words back at you as well and I’m sorry for that, but there’s no way anyone could not listen to a lady’s story if they saw her crying along the way... even if the result of it weren’t something good.”

Gilbert had whispered coldly with a bitter expression, but I mostly got a positive impression from that reply. He was a young man with a will that you’d rarely see in recent years.

I took the hand of the arm that I had been holding and forcefully shook it. Perhaps because I swung it too broadly, his body rocked along with the swaying of the handshake.

“I agree with that. What, so you’re an appreciator too? A women praiser?”

“I was merely educated like that by my parents.”

He was just a high-pedigree dog. I felt let down.

“That so? Well, it’s fine. Anyway, from your words just now, the points that our interests have in common became clear. What’s important here isn’t the face-saving of guys who got rounded up for a fight, but the feelings of a girl broken by love. She wants to feel better by giving me a blow, right? Why don’t we do that?”

“You’re saying you’ll lose on purpose?”

“I committed the sin of making a girl cry. I can do as much as let my face lie on the ground and get some mud on it.”

The shade of disdain in his eyes of a rare emerald-green color disappeared and I could see a bit of admiration sprout in them. “By the looks of it, I’ve misunderstood you. My deepest apologies for speaking impolitely to you, my senior.”

“No problem at all. We’re the ones who got you involved in the conflict.”

“It’s my first time in a duel like this and I don’t know how it goes, so it’d be helpful if you could tell me.”

“We can hit each other however we see fit and I’ll fall down after they watch us roll over, so twist my arm or something and end it there. I’ll act in a way that the onlookers will know it’s your win.”

“Speaking of which, do you know who those spectators are?”

“Gambling customers I called over. I’ll get twenty percent of the earnings from the leader of the gamblers, so it’s half of that for you and me.”

“I take back everything I said before. I’ll knock you down.” I didn’t understand very well why, but Gilbert started referring rudely to me and clearly ruined the mood.

Then, the gong of the fight resounded with a “clang, clang, clang”. Having grown tired of waiting for us since we wouldn’t stop talking, the boss of the gamblers played a battle-start tune with a pot and ladle. My relationship with Gilbert began originally from that fistfight.

“You’d better regret starting this stupid wager,” Gilbert cursed upon me, letting go of the stand-up collar of his school uniform’s jacket onto the ground.

We both measured a chance for the first blow. In contrast to me, who firmly kept my arms glued to my sides and balled my fists, Gilbert shook his arms as if adapting them.

——What? I’ve never seen this stance before.

Since my older brother and Pops used to throw fists with me and I to throw back by way of playing around, and since there was also a time when I would do nothing but get into fights in the city, that type of fistfight was part of my lifework. I was totally thinking that my opponent would come at me with Leidenschaftlich army-style martial arts. After all, he was the son of a family of soldiers. If you were to talk about martial arts learned by men who lived in Leiden, that was it. But Gilbert’s stance was different.

My principle in fights was to first observe the other’s attitude with non-aggressive defense. Following that principle, I waited for my opponent’s move. Yet it seemed that the same applied to Gilbert, so we just sluggishly watched each other’s battle preparation. When the audience jeered at us to “hurry and start beating each other”, I clicked my tongue.

The performance was important for the gambling. Left without a choice, I struck him with a big kick after drawing my leg to behind my back as a test. He dodged once. I hit his tight the second time, but he acted as if nothing had happened. The third time, he grabbed my foot and knocked me down face-up just like that. He dealt me a series of consecutive straight punches to the stomach after dropping onto me. It wasn’t a heavy attack, given that he was a boy who still weighted light, but it could make even my eight-pack abs scream.

It’d be boring if I lost in that way, right?

Taking advantage of my flexibility, which had a favorable reputation with the girls, I squeezed his neck with my legs and twisted him upturned to the side. He was light, you see. Being light also means being astute. He escaped from my leg technique smooth and quickly. We both stood back up to readying ourselves once again.

“Hodgins, don’t play around! We’re betting on you!”

“You two, don’t get injured because of me!”

“That’s the spot! Do it, do it, do it!”

The spectators were loud, but even as I heard them, it all only came in from one ear and left from the other. That was because my senses of sight, smell and many others were directed at Gilbert Bougainvillea.

Maybe having finished studying my way of fighting, Gilbert started actively hitting me. Of course, I also counter-attacked and hit him back. Nothing to be proud of, but my fists are heavy and they hurt. An attack where I socked with all of the weight in my body, which was a congregation of muscles that I had polished, would usually cause my opponents to collapse after I hit them three times, but I didn’t manage to settle it on him straight away.

Gilbert had converted his battle style into one of simultaneous offense and defense. I hit him. While Gilbert covered with one hand, he at the same time shoved his other fist into my stomach. It wasn’t just that his movements were agile. His fighting method was something you couldn’t manage unless you had trained a lot. To top it off, even though that guy was getting hit, he had a face like he wasn’t feeling a thing.

“Gilbert, where’d you learn that stuff?”

Gilbert sleekly avoided both my kick and my question, “Well, where was it again?”

——You really fourteen?

Just as those words had come up to my throat, Gilbert said, “Let’s end this already.”

Gilbert’s fists suddenly became heavy. Annoyingly enough, it seemed he had been holding back until then. He came aiming accurately for my body’s vitals with a calm expression – so dirty of him. I became defensive-only and eventually fell on my ass. Gilbert looked down at me from above with a face that said, “Now, lose just like you wanted”.

“Gilbert, you’d better review your attitude towards your elders.”

By then, I’d forgotten that I had to lose on purpose. I surrendered my body to the blood going up my head, raised it from my position of having collapsed onto the ground, placed my hands on the soil, and rammed his beautiful face hard with a lateral kick using as much strength as possible. That was my favorite stunt. A tactic I didn’t use for just anything.

The one who had rolled onto the ground now was Gilbert. I merrily mounted him and punched his body. Enveloped in a swirl of excitement, the onlookers rose in whispers. It was also a pleasure for me to hold down the guy that had been scorning at me until just a few seconds before.

No, wait a minute. Stop judging me with those big eyes of yours! This is the past. A story about the past! Yep, yep, listen closely to the continuation, ‘kay?

While I became absorbed with self-satisfaction and beat the crap out of Gilbert, with no regard for appearances, Gilbert grabbed a handful of dirt from nearby and smacked it into my eyes. It also got in my mouth. Tasted of earth. I spat it together with saliva.

“Bastard, that was unfair!”

“Tell that to yourself.”

Unexpected, quite unexpected. Apparently, he’d do anything to win. I thought he had seemed like a more scrupulous guy.

He pushed me aside and made an escape, and after taking a large distance, he swiftly did an approach run and came back my way. What I could see with my field of vision clouded by the dirt were the shoe soles of his military boots.

First of all, his right foot sent a blow to my chest, and as my body rotated midair, his left leg kicked for the second and third times, then his right leg attacked me again after I had rotated once. Having received three kicks in a row in the span of an instant, I collapsed onto my back.

——What kinda attack is this?!

Above thinking of it as terrifying, irritating or anything like that, I honestly thought it was “cool”. Nowadays, I know there are people of superhuman fighting races such as you and Benedict, so I wouldn’t be too shocked if I were shown a feat like that. But back then, it was impactful for me. Yeah, it was impactful.

Gilbert Bougainvillea was to me a new type of human being who had suddenly revealed himself. His rotational kicks hadn’t overwhelmed just my body. He took my heart too.

What we did after that? Beat each other muddily without paying any mind to the observers. Tired of waiting for the outcome of the match, everyone gradually left.

It seemed the girl who was the center of the whirlpool at that time had attempted playing tragic heroine at the beginning, but one of the onlookers came to talk to her midway, and she hit it off with him and vanished. The only ones watching in the end were a friend of mine who the head of the gamblers had trusted with the task and people with too much free time.

“Hey, when are they gonna settle it?”

We didn’t settle it.

At last, it was decided that we were at a tie and both of us were sent to the infirmary. Our fight was found out too, so the two of us had to take penal regulations on cordial terms with each other from our group of instructors. As to prioritize the medical treatment of our injuries, the disciplinary measures were the light punishment of ordering us clean up the bathrooms of every facility.

I had done something bad to him. It would’ve been fine if I had just lost right away, yet I got serious... Well, he’d gotten serious too, so it wasn’t just my fault in that point. No, I’m sorry. It was my fault.

In a way, I apologized, but Gilbert said with a look of disdain that he never again wanted to be involved with me when we were cleaning the bathrooms. There was no helping that, since his brilliant school history, which had been about to start from there, ended up being tainted by the fight that he had with a senior as soon as he enrolled. We were of different ages and had different personalities too. The truth was that we were supposed to be alienated from each other.

You’re here now because this didn’t happen.

Ever since the fight had ended, I stalked Gilbert. Calling it “stalking” is heavy-handed, but thinking back about how I was at the time, no matter how you look at it, there’s no way of wording it other than that.

“Gilbert, I’ll treat you. See, as an apology for back then.”

“Not necessary.”

“You’re reserved with others, huh. We both took the same punishment, right? No need for formal language. You using that at this stage of the game makes me feel itchy. I’ll introduce you to a girl, then. What’s your type? And the breast size?”

“I’m begging you, don’t follow me.”

I’d invite him for meals despite his unwillingness, have him learn the taste of adulthood through alcohol that I had managed to get my hands on in secret, and occasionally bicker with him. I was also the one who taught him how to smoke. He didn’t know most of the general forms of amusement, so even when I taught him card games, the reactions he’d show were entertaining. Soon enough, the guys from my year that I hung out with started doting on him too.

Gilbert was the type that older people got attached to. But what I’m talking about is a different way of showing affection. I mean, he wasn’t affectionate. I guess the right way to put it is that he piqued my interest.

From the get-go, I had been so, so interested in him that I couldn’t help myself.

About that, the same could be said of you. I’m not hitting on you, though. Huhu, not hitting on you.

It was different from that... In retrospect, ours might’ve been a relationship where I did nothing but chase after him. He was kind of... a hard-to-figure person. Though he had a strong sense of justice, he was rather cold-blooded, and if he had a reason that compelled him to gain victory in a given situation even if through an unfair move, he’d do it just fine. He had a man-of-character side to him, but he was also self-interested and prideful. He had a charm that drew people to him, but he himself didn’t have much interest in others. He was a man who only ever thought about how he’d tread the pure-white path towards his own future that had been laid out to him.

I once asked what had been best out of the things that I taught him. “Smoking. It’s not bad as a means of exchanging information,” was what he said.

I found out why he had turned out like that later on. It feels awkward to tell you about this, but it’s an episode that can’t be left out if we’re talking about his past.

Gilbert Bougainvillea had a fiancée.

He told me that when I was about to graduate. At the time, we were in a state where the two of us hanging out with each other was something that looked extremely normal to the people around us.

What happened? Well, nothing. Just a repetition of the same stuff. I’d follow Gilbert around, tease him, give in most of the time, occasionally apologize to Gilbert... We became normal friends.

The instructions had told me severely, “Don’t pay mind to the Bougainvillea heir” and things like that, but I didn’t listen to them. Gilbert had also seemed to warn me with a “don’t get involved with me”, but I didn’t listen to him either. In that point, I wasn’t a good kid. I probably knew him better than his buddies of the same age as him did. That’s exactly why learning such new information when I was already going to graduate had been so shocking to me.

He came to talk to me during a recess day in the Military School. Said he had a favor to ask.

“I’m going to eat out with my fiancée right now... Can’t you come too? We’re in a slightly complicated situation, so I want to request the help of a third party.”

“I’ll go. Of course I’ll go. Hah? Speaking of which, you up and got a fiancée behind my back? Since when? ‘Since six years ago’? You—How old were you back then? ‘Ten’? Why didn’t you tell me?! Could it be you’ve been going on dates with her or something during the holidays without me knowing? You have? Gilbert, you bastard!” I followed him while saying stuff like that.

We properly took written permission to leave campus, making meticulous arrangements. Even though he had intended to take me along from the beginning, the part of earning consent was just like him.

The meeting spot was a small café located halfway the road from the Military School to Leiden. I’d also gone there sometimes to have tea. The shop had a nice feeling to it.

Well, we met her there. Skip. All right, next topic.

Eh? What kind of person was she, you ask? Hm~, I don’t wanna talk about that. If I were forced to say it, she gave off the feeling of a Young Mistress from a fine household. Didn’t seem like she went out... I really don’t want to talk about her. Why...? Because I feel Gilbert would definitely get mad at me.

As for why he had called me... just like he had said, they were in a slightly complicated situation.

At the beginning, the fiancée wasn’t Gilbert’s. There’s that older brother of his, and the brother was the one supposed to take over the family inheritances, but – who knows what he was thinking – he had enrolled into the navy’s Military School as practically a runaway. That even though the men of their family are set to join the army.

Since you’re an ex-soldier, you know about it, right? Though both are national defense organs, there’s this unseen ditch between the army and the navy. Like in the ratio of defense expenditures and stuff. It’s an adults’ problem.

Yeah. Looks like the Big Bro didn’t get along well with his family. I heard he had a spontaneous personality. With that, it was doubtlessly painful for him to have grown up in an authoritarian household. Thinking about it now, the man that had been with Gilbert when I first saw him had been that very brother. And the Big Bro had run away from home, so everything was pushed onto the ten-year-old Gilbert, because both his parents had decided he was going to be the family head and made Gilbert take over the fiancée too.

This is rude to both of them, but they gave off a feeling of keeping a distance from each other. Unlike his brother, Gilbert was the kind of guy who wouldn’t suffer if pressured to live as the role model of the Bougainvilleas... so everyone around him naturally chose to place their expectations on him instead of rectifying his brother. It seemed that Gilbert was also cherishing the fiancée, in his own Gilbert way. But the fiancée had a wish, and Gilbert decided to fulfill it.

Eloping. The thing that men and women would do to oppose the flow of the world and escape from their status in the social ladder to satisfy their love.

Not with Gilbert. You see, the fiancée... had tried to fall for Gilbert, but hadn’t managed to. And then she fell for another guy. A butler from her house, she had said. It was romance, after all.

Making him listen with ridiculous earnestness while his own fiancée confessed this to him and then going as far as requesting him to help her elope had been insensitive of her. But Gilbert had acknowledged it with a two-worded response and summoned me for an assistance plan.

When listening to the story, I wondered if he actually had the function called emotions running inside his body.

I wanted to scold his fiancée. Like, “You go do as you please on your own”, “Don’t get Gilbert involved”. But Gilbert started studying escape routes into other countries with shit-eating seriousness.

“The access from the border is monitored strictly. Hodgins, your home was a store that also deals with imported goods, right? Of course, it probably also has permission from the government to ship them. Couldn’t you have them mixed in and get them out of the country? If it’s possible, we could change the migration route to water transportation afterward... and avoid the conflict zones, no matter how much of a detour it is,” he said, dispassionate and business-like. “How much can you spend? It’s better for you to convert into money every possession that you can manage freely while there’s time. This or you can make wheat into products of your preference... That won’t be enough. It’s uncertain whether you’ll be able to set up a basis for your livelihood right away. I understand. I’ll provide aid too. No, this much is just... There’s the whole matter with my brother, after all.”

The more level-headed Gilbert remained, the more rage bubbled up and erupted inside me.

The conversation that had my help as prerequisite came to an end. On the way back, I asked Gilbert if he didn’t like her. If he didn’t feel even just a little bit of sadness or irritation at those circumstances – they had been engaged for several years, after all, no matter whether it was something that their parents had decided.

Gilbert, who had been walking silently, looked my way. The flowering trees that painted the roads white in early spring had lost their petals and were dyed green. Yet even though we were in a world with a different scenery, as expected, Gilbert was reflected in my eyes as a remarkably exceptional existence.

With the corners of his lips curling up just a little, Gilbert said, “The fact that there’s no meaning in chasing someone who’s departing has been drilled into my body with my brother’s case.” Again, he was aloof. His mouth moved as if being made to speak borrowed words. “I can’t say I don’t have empathy for her, but... if I were asked whether I have attachment, I don’t. That person wasn’t mine from the very start.”

“‘Yours’, you say... You...”

“Bad way of wording it, huh. It’s not like I’m referring to her as a property because she’s a woman or anything.”

“No, that’s not it... You...”

Aah, so this is it, I thought.

——Since it’s you, you’re always...

I felt for the first time right then that I’d come in contact with the essence of the person named Gilbert Bougainvillea.

——That’s why, even if you’re surrounded by a big number of people, you’re always...

That guy didn’t have a sense of attachment.

——No matter how much positivity you get or how praised you are...

It’s possible that his brother who had left was the one he had some sort of attachment towards. But even if it weren’t just that, he was surely...

——You look alone.

...a person who had gotten used to giving up on things. That’s why he treated all sorts of matters and people in a measured way. Even if his true intentions weren’t so.

“To begin with, we’ve caused trouble for their daughter thanks to my brother. Doing this much is nothing.”

——But where do your feelings go?

“Our parents will certainly have something to say about it, but mine will just match me with someone new to become my wife.”

——Aren’t you disturbed by having the person that will accompany you for the rest of your life decided for you like a board game piece?

“The eldest son of her household is the one who will take over the inheritances, so there’ll be no problem for them other than their reputation. If they can continue being related to us through my generation, it’ll be solved with that.”

No matter how much Gilbert talked in order to convince me, I never said, “That’s right”.

The one by my side was a young man still in his teens. He was a child who, as a result of being demanded reasonability, didn’t look for meaning in his own existence other than just as something “convenient” for people. He saw himself and others as nothing but assets.

“I was... happy that you had a fiancée, still. I did get pissed at you for hiding it from me, though.” For some reason, I was the one who’d gotten sad and my voice broke into falsetto because of suppressed tears. Gilbert asked what was wrong, but I deceived him by pretending to cough.

You know, I had... seen Gilbert’s future. No matter how much glory he achieved, or how long he walked through a brilliant path without deviating from it, there’d be hardly anything left in the palm of his hands. Throwing things and people away when he had no business with them and not caring if he himself were thrown away, he would merely continue treading the narrow, risky, pure-white path that had been laid out to him in a world of complete darkness. But he’d likely cross it in an extremely beautiful way, more skillfully than anyone.

What his hands were holding onto was already nothing but guns.

I’m a selfish person. Which is why I was simply sad at the truth that, even though I thought of Gilbert as my number one friend, it was probably not the same for him.

Yeah, the eloping was a success.

I have no idea where those two are or what they’re doing now, but they trampled over my friend’s dignity, so I hope they’re happy. The aftermath was full of trouble, but the problem with the Bougainvillea heir’s fiancée running away soon wiped out.

Gilbert’s Old Man had died all of a sudden.

Just as we pushed the rude lovebirds into my family’s business truck and the two of us came back with nonchalant faces like, “My, my, it’s over”, an instructor called Gilbert to stop him, his facial expression altered.

“Where have you been? What were you doing? We were looking for you. He passed away. You didn’t make it to his last moments.”

The instructor must’ve been panicking too. He bombarded the stunned Gilbert with a hail of words mayhem. Gilbert did get agitated, but not confused. He’s the kind of guy who can cut off his emotions and do what he’s supposed to do. He said he understood and immediately went back to his home.

I wasn’t allowed to accompany him, leaving the campus only with permission to go to the funeral. My relatives were mostly healthy people, so my first time attending someone’s burial was the one of Gilbert’s Old Man. As I nervously went to it, there he was before me, performing the role of chief mourner with a grounded appearance... Gilbert, who had become the head of the Bougainvilleas in both name and substance, was discreetly clearing his throat.

“Why, if I knew this would happen, they wouldn’t have had to elope... Now that their main obstacle is gone, I could have pulled out of it... I’ve done that person wrong,” he said.

He called his father an “obstacle”.

That was surely because of the way Gilbert had been raised, as a “tool” of the Bougainvillea family who would give continuation to the household. He had been treated in a way so that he’d live as a strategic arrangement for the prosperity of the clan. It had swerved him. People give back what others do to them.

The closer you are to him, the better you understand. He’s a kind-hearted but lonely guy. Even though he’s got a cute face when he laughs, he hardly does so. He knows it’s not something suitable of his role.

I thought that when I... when I... died... either this, or if I ever disappeared from before him... the only thing I didn’t want was for him to treat me like an object. I couldn’t take it.

Whenever the dices of fate rolled in his emerald-green eyes, he didn’t see anything other than a windingly stretched future. He’d just earnestly stare at a path that wasn’t the one of a human being.

Was there ever gonna come a day that a man like him would chase after someone? Somebody – anyone would do. Someone, someone. A person that he wouldn’t be able not to be affectionate with.

Would he ever get to have that?

Hodgins cut the words short at that point, reaching out his hand. His fingertips touched the hair of Violet, who was tucked in her bed. He slowly ripped off a thread that had become sticky due to sweat.

“Then, President Hodgins, after you graduated... when... did you reunite with that person?”

Upon being requested a continuation of the story with long wheezy breaths typical of those whose bronchi were suffering, Hodgins gave a strained smile. He stood up from the chair he had been sitting on, placing the blanked that stopped at Violet’s chest securely up to her neck. “Let’s continue this after you’re cured from your cold,” he whispered with utmost tenderness and a soft gaze. The ends of his statement overflowed with an affection similar to paternity.

They were inside a room large enough for two people to live in. It had light blue flowery wallpaper and a chandelier decorated with violas. On a round table sitting at the center of the room, there were boxes, bags and fruits baskets wrapped in ways that made clear they were get-well gifts. The interior of the bedroom was not too cold, yet wood burned in the fireplace, popping into sparks with a snap. The windows, which had its curtains closed, shook clatteringly due to the wind. The needles of the room’s clock pointed an hour just before evening.

“This surprises even me. I wonder if it is because I have distanced myself from the battlefields... To think I would grow this weak. My apologies for not managing to keep control of my health.”

“What’re you saying? The reason why you had a fever was that the difference in temperature got to you, right? The place you were commissioned to was a northernmost land, after all... Sorry for making you push yourself. Don’t mind it and go to sleep, ‘kay?” while speaking, he gently caressed the slightly dark circles under Violet’s blue eyes with his index finger. It was not as if they would disappear with that at all, but it was a display of his wish for them to do so. “We’re keeping in touch with the clients that booked you, and most of them want to rely on you even if you’re late, so there weren’t any cancellations to the requests. Don’t worry about anything and take your time, Little Violet. You look pretty tired.”

“I shall cure myself soon. By tomorrow even.”

“No can do, no can do. Take at least three days to rest from work counting with today. ‘Cause I’ll come over after these three days to decide whether or not you’ll be in condition to go back. Sorry for forbidding visits from the others.”

“No, it would be terrible if they caught this. President Hodgins, you too... My apologies for having you talk about so many things in addition to making you come here... I have caused you to stay too long.”

“I’m fine. If catching it would cure you, Little Violet, then I’d rather catch it. After all... I was something like your foster parent, though for a short while. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

At that response, Hodgins smiled with his whole face. “The book that Little Lux asked me to give you is in the brown package. I ended up seeing the contents, and turns out it’s a popular romance novel. If your eyes get tired, make sure to stop reading immediately.”

“Yes.”

“The rest is from the members of the company. Benedict told me to say ‘take care’. Cattleya’s scheduled to be back tomorrow, but even if she comes here on her own accord, you shouldn’t keep her company.”

“Yes.”

“Tell the people here at home if there’s anything you want me to do. I’ll leave work and rush over.”

“No, Lux would cry, so please do your job.”

Hodgins bid his farewells and attempted giving her a kiss on the cheek, but his lips were blocked by the palm of a hand burning with heat. As he asked with a sad voice if she did not want it, Violet replied that he could catch her cold, so it was dangerous.

Intentionally making a noise, he kissed the palm covering his lips. “G’night, Little Violet.”

“Good night, President Hodgins.”

Silently leaving the room, Hodgins walked through the broad corridor with a quick pace. On the way, he informed a passing servant of his intention to take his leave. His aspect of haste also showed after that in the way he drove his car.

Perhaps because the residence he had visited was located away from the capital Leiden, the Sun was about to set when he arrived to the city. The madder red sky was gradually starting to envelop itself in dark colors.

By the looks of it, today was a day of strong winds. Hodgins’s classic car swayed unsteadily during the fear-inspiring journey.

The place Hodgins headed to was a lodging facilities district in a place a little out of the townscape of Leidenschaftlich’s capital, Leiden. Inside it, there were not only the types of inn that one could stop by unexpectedly without reservations but also inns that one could not pass through the gates into the site unless an inviter let them. The kind of inn that he rang the bell of was exactly the latter.

The first floor was the entrance for the residents, as well as the level of employees who carried out the administration of everything. There were five floors above it. Despite the single-storied buildings being tall and three-floor ones being mainstream, the building could be considered quite a high-rise amongst them. Only contractors could live in each floor. It was a high-class one-floor-rent inn, where the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, etc. had all been designed in a luxurious fashion. Even just a one-night stay required quite a sum. Incidentally, the residents were chosen ones.

As he rang the bell of the top floor’s apartment, there were footsteps from the inside.

“Who might it be?”

Hodgins grinned at the well-mannered words. “It’s me. The little fox who saved you on that day.”

“I don’t have a fox for acquaintance.” The voice of the residence’s owner suddenly grew lower as he recognized the other person.

“Then, the one who threw fists with you in our first meeting on that day, Hodgins.”

“Wait there. I’ll open now.”

The chosen resident who opened the oak door with a gun at hand was a man past his twenties at the prime of his working life, as well as the head of a family that no one knew not of within Leidenschaftlich’s army. Despite it being the middle of the night, he was dressed in his military uniform. Only his collar was loose, unbuttoned at the neck. Perhaps due to him having no time to rest, his hair, usually combed down flatly over his forehead, lay disheveled and he had grown a stubble. He had also removed his eyepatch, displaying his lacerated eye.

“How’s Violet?”

Hodgins shrugged at the words said to him the instant their gazes met. “‘Hodgins, you’ve worked hard late into the night. Good evening.’ – Can’t you ask after you tell me that?”

“Hodgins, you’ve worked hard late into the night. Good evening... I’m exhausted.”

Unable to bear the look that said, “Just tell me the situation already”, he answered, “It’s just a cold. I told you not to worry, didn’t I? If you’re gonna visit her tomorrow, isn’t it useless getting a report from me?”

“I was concerned...”

Maybe because he had been reminiscing to the past, he felt that the current Gilbert had become quite amicable. To think that he, who used to be so prickly during his boyhood, now loved somebody. Hodgins bit down a laughter that suddenly came out of him.

“Hey, what was that? Why did you laugh?”

“I didn’t. By the way, it seems so expensive here... Did you finish paying for the place you were living in a while ago?”

“I’m renting it for a cheap price thanks to my household’s connections. I’m in the middle of looking for an apartment... so this is a temporary residence. I was... moving houses periodically so that Violet wouldn’t find me before, but the need for that is gone...”

After the train hijacking incident, Gilbert apologized to Hodgins and the Evergarden family, stopped hiding himself and continued interacting with Violet. The two were working things out with each other.

As one was a colonel of the army and one was a demanded Auto-Memories Doll, they had little time to meet. The moments and places where they could be alone with each other were valuable.

“Aah, no wonder you wouldn’t want to go back to the main residence where your honorable mother and sisters are.”

Gilbert nodded. “I don’t want to call her over there... Hodgins, you telling me about her situation directly has helped me out. Come in.”

He probably was truly tired. The words he uttered had frequent pauses.

Hodgins was let into the largest room. Perhaps because the lights inside said room were not properly lit, it was dark. Only a lamp sitting on a chest in a corner of the room illuminated the area around it.

“Don’t open the window. The papers will fly.”

The desk in front of the chair that Hodgins silently sat on had an awl, binding rope and piled-up documents. There were also other things, such as sealing wax, a fountain pen and stationery left half-written. A heap of letters tied with rope lay next to the stationary.

Showing a face of surprise, Hodgins quietly reached a hand toward the stationary. Gilbert had left him and gone to the kitchen. While reading the stationary, Hodgins asked with a placid expression, “Were you sleeping?”

The sound of a clock’s corkscrew ensued.

“Yeah, until just a bit ago. Hodgins, I’m going to make dinner, but will you eat it?”

“Huun, you were pretty worn-out, huh. It’s gonna be a feast. Gilbert, you gonna be having a drink while you cook?”

A sweet scent had suddenly drifted towards him.

“I’m not you... I’ll put it in the food.”

“So you do stuff like cooking.”

“I do it when my friend comes over at least.”

The eyes that had been reading stopped completely and Hodgins turned his head to the direction of the kitchen. Gilbert was not visible from that room.

“Liar. You’re simply hungry ‘cause you just woke up, aren’t you?” Hodgins spoke with a smile in his voice, yet he was by no means smiling.

“Then I’ll eat all this by myself.”

“Y’know, you’ve been calling me ‘friend’ out of the blue lately. What kinda service is that?”

“‘Lately’...? Is that so? But what other definition should I use? We’ve had this relationship for over a decade. Why is calling you my friend a service?”

The words smoothly replied to him pierced his chest.

“No, I mean, you... treat nice people like tools. You don’t show respect for me even though I’m older than you.”

“About the matters regarding Violet, I’m sorry. About not showing respect for you, why would I have to show respect due to age difference at this point?”

Silence.

“Hodgins?”

Despite being called, Hodgins wordlessly returned his gaze to the letter for a moment. It was his first time reading one of those, but Hodgins knew about them. After all, whenever Hodgins visited his room, there would be a sealed letter with no addressee somewhere. Hodgins knew one more person who used to accumulate letters without sending them.

“You’re an idiot.”

Just as Gilbert said, they had had that relationship for over a decade. They had also had a period of breaking contact. Within the letter that he was finally seeing again after those years, the feelings towards a certain girl that Gilbert had been unable to back from writing down were registered. He probably intended to throw away the old ones and hand over new responses. Written in them were his repeated apologies for what he had done until that point, as well as his words of gratitude thanking her for sending him countless letters.

Hodgins twisted his neck, observing Gilbert’s back as he stood in the kitchen. The same was valid for him, but Hodgins thought that both of them had aged quite some.

——To think that those two who had parted ways would meet again.

It was a common love story, which seemed like it could happen anywhere. But that was precisely why...

——...I think I want them to be happy enough to make up for their detours.

He and she. Both of them were irreplaceable people for Hodgins.

“Gilbert.”

“What?”

“Back to the topic... Y’know, I believe that friendships can also be unrequited.”

“Yeah.” Gilbert did not negate the exorbitant statement.

Hodgins felt he was giving an empty answer without actually listening to the talk. His feeling of discontentment accidentally seeped into his manner of speaking. “You say ‘yeah’, but do you really get it? I think you don’t... I’ve felt that way with you for many years. Gilbert, you can definitely make do without friends. But I’m not like that. Yet I really didn’t want us to be like... like this, with me being the only one... who wishes for you to stay that way, doing fine. Or who wants to see you every now and then to talk about trivial stuff. Like, ‘Is it just me who likes you?’... You’re a cold one, after all. That’s why I’ve been surprised with you lately. You... You probably don’t get these feelings of mine, though.”

Both knew of each other’s temperament and comprehended that their friendship existed. They also certainly trusted one another. The proof of it was that Gilbert entrusted Hodgins with the person he was currently attempting to protect by putting his life at stake. However, Hodgins nevertheless thought that, to Gilbert, he was not in the position that he had in mind. He had not once voiced it, for such attachments seemed foolish in male friendships.

After having said that, Hodgins soon regretted it. He regretted it, and yet...

“No, I understand. I don’t have any friends except for you.”

Perhaps because he had been holding the paper in his hands with force, it wrinkled a little. Hodgins desperately placed it on the desk and carefully stretched it. Still, he heard Gilbert’s footsteps approaching while he was at it and returned the letter to its previous spot.

The two remained silent once they faced each other.

Maybe finally having noticed the half-written letter, he mixed it together with his documents and quickly cleared it away from Hodgins’s eyes. Hodgins followed the letter’s trajectory from the corners of his eyes.

Upon sorting them out thoroughly, Gilbert exhaled a long breath that sounded like a sigh. “You said I probably didn’t get it, but even I understand,” little by little, his voice trailed off into silence. “You were always surrounded by a large number of companions. But you’re my only friend.”

——That’s a lie.

Even without companions that he had a relationship of associating himself with in the way he did with Hodgins, Gilbert was already a person who attracted those around him. He was not the type to act like a lone wolf. He would attend the class reunions and socialization banquets during their days in the Military School. He could flawlessly hold a conversation with anyone.

But before Hodgins was able to deny it with words, Gilbert spoke, “I have many acquaintances but you’re my only true friend. After you graduated... I thought it would’ve been great if I’d been born two years earlier for my student days.” His way of speaking seemed sulky.

The illusion of a fourteen-year-old boy overlapped with the figure of a battered man in his thirties. Hodgins felt that he himself had returned to when he was sixteen as well. Back then, he was always chasing after Gilbert and fooling around with him.

——We were always together.

The pain that had pierced his chest gradually tinged with warmth. A smile crept in his egoistic heart, unable to help itself.

——Gilbert, you...

The man named Gilbert Bougainvillea was not the kind to say such things at all. Over a long time, he had become able to show a side of himself other than being an “asset” that served for smoothly administrating himself and his surroundings.

——That side of you is unfair.

And strangely enough, the girl who Gilbert loved had also been a “tool” for his sake. Yet that “tool” was becoming able to gently undo the ropes firmly tied around her and show a humane face. Just who had been the one responsible for the biggest part of those achievements?

Claudia Hodgins, indifferent to his own deeds, merely rejoiced and smiled broadly at his friend’s bashful face. “Hu—Ahah, ahahahaha!”

“Hey, don’t laugh. You made me say something embarrassing. As if I’ll ever say that again in my life.”

“Ahahah, no... you’ve got it wrong. It’s not like I’m making fun of... Ah, Gilbert. Is the stuff you left in the oven okay? It’s kinda making a weird noise.”

“It’s not okay.”

Hodgins stood up and followed Gilbert as he clatteringly returned to the kitchen. A familiar quarrel flowed comfortably throughout the apartment, turning into a nightly tune.

And the same applied to time, no matter how much of it flowed. For two people who had a relation called friendship, it would go back to their bosom days regardless of there being a period where they had not seen each other.

“Move over, I’m gonna sprinkle the seasoning.”

“Fool, you’re mistaken, that’s not salt.”

“You’ve got no spices at all. D’you live off just salt and sugar?”

“I’ve had a long-standing habit of eating out. Hodgins, let’s stop it already. This isn’t food.”

“Don’t spout nonsense. There’s nothing that can’t be recovered.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. Don’t give up.”

No matter how many hundreds, thousands of years they lived, the two would go back to the versions of themselves from that time.

To the fourteen-year-old Gilbert and the sixteen-year-old Hodgins.

#violet evergarden #fyeahvioletevergarden #violet evergarden gaiden #gilbert bougainvillea #claudia hogdins #kyoani #kyoto animation #novel #akatsuki kana #takase akiko #my translation

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themuzzleofnemesis · 4 years

Text

7–Memory of the God; Scene 5

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 244-255

A vast plain.

A world with nothing in it.

I stood now at its center.

Postman—no, the “Servant of Evil” Allen Avadonia, stood by my side.

“Welcome back.”

It was a short greeting.

Where in the world had I returned to?

I knew the answer to that, now.

This was—the real world.

A nothing world after it had been brought to ruin.

--The world I had destroyed.

That clinic.

That laboratory.

And me, working there.

Allen told me that it was all a delusion.

But that wasn’t right.

It had also been a truth.

Before this world had been born.

The world that I had lived in.

That was the way it had looked before it fell.

Before we had “run away” to space.

That was me from the days I had fought there.

“What I’d like to ask first,” I said to Allen. “Is how you’re here on the ground world now, when you died centuries ago.”

Allen replied, smiling slightly, “It’s not just me. Everyone is here. Everyone who once lived in this world.”

“Even though the world was destroyed?”

“It’s because it was destroyed. Almost all of the souls are here on the ground world as a result of the barrier between this place and the hellish yard being broken.”

“Then are you a soul too?”

I didn’t really need to ask that.

I had just said it myself.

He died centuries ago.

“I see…Everyone’s a soul. Then there’s no more living people in this world, I suppose.”

“Wrong.” Allen shook his head. “There is one.”

“Huh?”

“—You. The sole living thing in this world…is you. On the world’s last day, a deranged Nemesis fired the weapon of mass destruction “Punishment” all over the world.”

“…Inside Nemesis’ spirit was a ‘malice’ that sought destruction--one of the ‘gods’ that had once been locked up in the ark. The voice of her ‘other self’ that Nemesis heard was the ‘malice’ that slept inside her.”

Inside that ark, I had wished for the world’s destruction.

I suppose that meant that in a sense, after a thousand years I had finally achieved my original aim.

…Though it wasn’t all that satisfying now.

“The world was obliterated by ‘Punishment’. But how am I still—”

“Don’t you know? A demon contractor—can’t commit suicide. Your body was blown away by ‘Punishment’. However, as long as a single scrap of your flesh remains, you’ll be revived eventually.”

I had destroyed the world, and I alone survived.

“Never has there been a more bothersome suicide attempt.”

“Ha ha, I guess so. …Your body was reformed. But you hadn’t gone back to normal exactly. Your shattered heart wasn’t restored.”

“I don’t care much for your wording.”

“Then let’s reword it as ‘your body and spirit were separated’. Nemesis’ soulless body continued to wander through the empty world, and meanwhile the spirit locked itself up inside a delusion world of its own creation.”

So that delusion had been the laboratory in the clinic.

“But why did you come inside the delusion to meet me?”

“Nemesis’ body was solely devoted to repeating the last actions that she had taken. Wandering eternally through the same moment forever, neither moving into the past nor the future.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The world’s destruction by ‘Punishment’—Her body was trying to repeat it.”

“But…such a thing is impossible, isn’t it?”

If everything was destroyed then even ‘Punishment’ wouldn’t exist anymore.

“You’d think so. But even without ‘Punishment’ there’s still the thing it was based off of.”

“…The ‘Boy’.”

“Yes, the creature that brings destruction. Seth created various things with that as his starting point, such as ‘ghoul children’ and ‘Grim the End’. The ‘boy’ was also caught up in the world’s destruction, but…as a living creature he had a soul. That yet remains in the depths of Lunaca Labora—the ‘grave yard’.” Allen pointed to the ground. “Nemesis’ body went to the ‘grave yard’ looking for the ‘boy’’s soul, and tried to carry out her destruction once more. ...It took a great deal of effort to put a stop to her.”

“But there’s nothing left on the ground world to destroy, right?”

“The ‘boy’ as he is now is a soul. So then the targets of his destruction would be other souls like himself. If I hadn’t stopped Nemesis’ actions, then even the beings that wander the ground world like us would have been erased. Once that happened the world truly would have ended.”

“…I see.”

By ‘souls’ he was talking about spirit data.

“Even after capturing Nemesis that didn’t mean everything was settled. Without bodies ourselves we couldn’t hold her back forever.”

“So then you came to see me—Nemesis’ soul.”

“Yes. We needed to get her back to normal. …However, it wasn’t a straight-forward issue getting inside your spirit world. I had to satisfy various conditions. One among them was that I needed to disguise myself as ‘someone who existed in Nemesis’ memories’.”

“That’s why you were dressed as Postman.”

“Going as myself wouldn’t have cut it. I had met ‘Elluka Clockworker’ before, but ‘Nemesis’ was different. They’re based on the same person, but when you ‘swapped’ into Nemesis you lost your memories.”

But Allen hadn’t entered that spirit world alone.

I hadn’t seen them directly, but I could sense other people there.

--And I had another question as well.

“What was that ‘Irregular System’?”

“Well, that was a last resort to get you to remember everything. It was difficult for me to perform on my own, so I relied on some help.” Allen snapped his fingers. “—Elluka Clockworker’s apprentices.”

The two of them suddenly appeared from nowhere.

--Michaela, who had inherited Held’s remains and become a god of the forest.

--Gumillia, who had become Master of the Hellish Yard after the duel of Merrigod Plateau.

The two of them had always watched over me after I was reborn as Nemesis.

I spoke to a smiling Michaela, “So then, the true identity of the ‘Will of the Forest’—I know that now. You were the one who tried to save me.”

“Haha…Were you alright when it came to Lich?”

“In the end I never met him as Nemesis even once. Well, I have finally remembered…the connection between the two of you. Though I know to be cautious of him, to an extent.”

Next I approached Gumillia, expressionless as ever.

She was wearing a mask.

Yes, it was the mask of the “Demon of Wrath”.

“You’re the one who sent Mr. Ziz to me.”

“…Because I, couldn’t leave the Hellish Yard. But, frankly, he wasn’t much help. On the contrary, actually, he made things more complicated.”

I could hear a voice coming from the mask.

“That’s true. …Thank you for everything, Mr. Ziz—or rather, Seth,” I thanked the mask.

<…Hmph. You and I have an old debt with each other. Don’t think this makes us even>

“That’s my line. Come on, let’s set aside our quarrels for now.”

Michaela giggled as she watched us from the side.

“What’s so funny, Michaela?” I asked. Still smiling, Michaela handed me a mirror.

“Oh, it’s you and Gumillia. When you two are lined up like that you’re almost like twins.”

I accepted the mirror and looked at my face.

--Reflected there was no longer Levia.

It was Nemesis’ face.

That was proof that my body and spirit had once more become one.

“…Now that you mention it, is there a reason why Nemesis and Gumillia look so much like each other?”

Allen was the one to answer my simple question. “Events like that were occurring all over the world just before its destruction…Though asking the one who created the “World’s Rules” might be the fastest method for answering that, don’t you think?”

“You mean the sun god—Sickle.”

“He is currently in the ‘heavenly yard’. We can go there, but…I don’t know if we’ll be able to return to the ground world once we do. That’s why—there’s something I want to do here before then."

“I haven’t got any urgent business, so that’s fine…What is it?”

“There’s still many ‘mysteries’ left on the ground world. I’d like to solve them…and there are also some people I want to see. First—let’s head to ‘Evils Theater’.”

“…What do you mean? Are you saying that theater is still around?”

“Surprisingly, yeah. That alone is still around, despite the fact that everything else has burned down.”

That theater had also survived unscathed when the prototype “Punishment” was fired at the Millennium Tree Forest as well.

That was certainly a curious point.

“Will you come with me? L—Er, what name would you prefer I call you by?”

“It doesn’t matter to me. Levia, Elluka, Nemesis. The fact remains that all are me.”

When I said that, the other people around us started to voice their various opinions.

“Hmm, I think maybe her real name of Levia would be better.”

“…Elluka.”

<No, she’s Nemesis right now>

Listening to the three of them quibble from the side, I answered Allen, “—Alright. I’ll go with you. It’ll help me ‘kill time’, yeah?”

“Thank you very much. That’s reassuring.”

“But the world is already in ruins—What’s your ultimate goal here?”

When I asked him that, Allen replied, his expression full of self-confidence:

“Naturally—to save the world.”

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How intense psychotherapy and a Bel-Air love nest led to John Lennon's classic debut album

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/how-intense-psychotherapy-and-a-bel-air-love-nest-led-to-john-lennons-classic-debut-album/

How intense psychotherapy and a Bel-Air love nest led to John Lennon's classic debut album

John Lennon and Yoko Ono in January 1970. (Richard DiLello / Yoko Ono Lennon)

In the months before John Lennon and Yoko Ono entered Abbey Road Studios in London to start work on what would become the album “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” the couple were renting a home on Nimes Road in one of L.A.’s fanciest neighborhoods, Bel-Air.

The Beatles were still the most famous group in the world but were in the midst of breaking up, with members traveling to and from London to finish “Abbey Road,” work on various solo projects for their label Apple Records and argue about release schedules and royalties.

Living along a curvy lane behind walls that afforded complete privacy and overwhelming views of the city, Lennon and Ono were a world away from that drama. They woke to the sounds of chirping birds, sprinklers and lawnmowers, enjoyed their tea alone and, when so inclined, chilled by the pool. Lennon worked on some songs, including “Working Class Hero,” “Mother,” “Well, Well, Well” and “God.”

Then, each morning, Lennon would drive down Beverly Glen to psychologist Arthur Janov’s West Hollywood office, enter a darkened, soundproof room and scream as loudly and violently as he could.

“He used to finish a session feeling incredibly good,” Janov once recalled.

This backdrop set the tone for “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” which came out in December 1970 and is the subject of an exhaustively documented box set just released by Capitol/UME and the Lennon estate. Called “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (The Ultimate Collection),” it comes with six CDs, two Blu-ray discs, a hardbound book, poster and postcards. It’s a revelatory set, especially for those with access to hi-fi gear and a darkened, soundproof room.

Newly mixed to increase Lennon’s vocal presence from fresh high-resolution transfers, the set features 87 recordings that have never been officially released, including rehearsal sessions, demo tapes recorded on Nimes Road and a series of alternative mixes drawn from unused tracks — congas on “Hold On” are a revelation, for example. An accompanying coffee table book, “John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band,” offers an even deeper dive into the couple’s creative partnership.

Story continues

“During 1970, we did extensive Primal Scream therapy for six months, which was very beneficial for us and many of the songs were inspired as a result of those sessions,” writes Ono in the preface to the coffee table book, adding that “John’s songs were a literate expression of his feelings.” (Ono declined an interview request for this article.)

John Lennon relaxing by the swimming pool at his and Yoko Ono’s rented home in Bel-Air during the summer of 1970. (Yoko Ono Lennon)

The result, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” was Lennon’s debut solo album. It was issued the same day as Ono’s companion album, “Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band,” and found Lennon in an intimate setting with a few friends purging unfiltered emotions into songs about “freaks on the phone,” isolation, leaders who “tortured and scared you for 20-odd years” and his lack of belief in, among concepts, Jesus, magic, Adolf Hitler, the I Ching, the Buddha, yoga, kings and the Beatles.

“He had changed a hell of a lot because of this primal scream thing, and that was really heavy,” says Klaus Voormann, who played bass on the album, on the phone from Germany. “It was heavy for him, it was heavy for Yoko, and it was heavy for us.”

As with most things Beatle-related, the critics loved Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band” when it came out. Creem’s Dave Marsh wrote that it was “interesting and even enlightening to see a man working out his trauma on black plastic but more than that, it’s totally enthralling to see that Lennon has once again unified, to some degree, his life and his music into a truly whole statement.”

The Times’ Robert Hilburn called it “nothing short of a masterpiece,” and “a work that is filled with pain and sorrow, searching and struggle. It is frightfully honest, profoundly moving.” That its emotion is tied to a bestselling psychology self-help book is often overlooked, but it played a central role in Hilburn’s review.

Arthur Janov in 1998. (Ann Summa/Getty Images)

“Primal therapy has to do with the traumas you’ve undergone in the womb, at birth, in infancy and childhood,” Janov explained in an interview excerpted in the book. “We have needs that we are all born with, and when those basic needs are not met, we hurt. And when that hurt is big enough, it’s imprinted in the system. It changes our whole physiologic system and all those pains are held in storage, causing tension, anxiety and depression.”

After Lennon and Ono read Janov’s book, “The Primal Scream” (subtitled “Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis”), Ono asked that Janov travel to them in London, which he did. “He was in bad shape. He couldn’t leave his room,” Janov said of Lennon. But Janov had work in L.A., so Lennon and Ono followed him back and rented a home in Bel-Air. Lennon wasn’t the only one enduring pain. He and Ono had been trying to have a baby, but she had suffered two miscarriages.

Forced to return to England six months later to deal with visa issues, Lennon and Ono were barely off the plane before they entered Abbey Road. The sparse, emotionally raw Lennon solo album is dense with echoes of his West Hollywood wails, and the sessions were the same, Voormann says.

Voormann, best known for creating the art for “Revolver,” had met Lennon and the rest of the Beatles long before Beatlemania took hold, when they were rocking the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s, and he remained within the band’s inner circle. At the end of the decade, Voormann had just concluded a run with Manfred Mann when Lennon called to ask whether he’d join him, Ono, Ringo Starr and producer Phil Spector at Abbey Road. Needless to say, it was a welcome invitation.

At Abbey Road, Voormann described walking into “a whole vibe. There was crying. There was laughing. There was happiness. There was hugging each other. And we were all part of this amazing atmosphere.”

John Lennon at EMI Studios in London on Oct. 9, 1970. (Yoko Ono Lennon)

Simon Hilton, the box set’s producer and production manager, said that contrary to reports that Lennon “was angry and throwing headphones and stuff and making a fuss” during the week at Abbey Road, “there’s no evidence of that at all.”

Listening to the rehearsal tapes, which find Lennon, Starr and Voormann working through classics including “Honey Don’t,” “Mystery Train,” “Glad All Over” and the Beatles’ “Get Back,” Hilton continues, “you can hear what an amazing time they were having.”

The three were “obviously working really hard but also really enjoying being in each other’s presence. They were such good mates and I’m sure after the tensions of sitting in the room with Paul and George and Ringo, this was a huge relief.” (Hilton stresses that “John never had any beef with Ringo, ever.”)

“There is a playfulness among the three main musicians that in no way represents how earnest the songs are,” says Rob Stevens, who worked as a mixing engineer on “The Ultimate Collection” and oversaw the raw studio mix recordings and outtakes. “The laser beam is turned on right when the take starts and it’s turned off at the end — and there’s some real silliness before and afterwards.”

A Klaus Voormann illustration from the “John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band” sessions in October 1970. (Klaus Voormann)

All you need to do is listen to “Mother,” the wrenching opening song on the album, to appreciate the ways in which primal scream therapy informed the sessions.

Voormann remembers worrying about Lennon’s vocal cords as he sung the track’s climactic ending, which finds the singer pushing his limits. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I hope he’s not going to lose his voice.'” Lennon, the bassist adds, was never trained as a singer, and cited as an example once requesting “Please Mr. Postman” during the Hamburg days. Lennon declined. “He said, ‘No, let’s do it as the last number because if I do that now, I’m going to be hoarse all night.'”

Lennon is on the cusp of hoarseness, Voormann says, in the final version of “Mother,” which is a song that addresses Lennon’s relationship with his mom, Julia, who as a young parent left Lennon to live with his Aunt Mimi and only sporadically reached out after that. (“I lost her twice,” Lennon recalled during an interview. “Once as a 5-year-old when I was moved in with my aunty, and once again when she actually physically died.”)

“His voice is already starting to break on the record,” Voormann says, “and it’s fantastic because he is really screaming as much and as long as he can. He wanted to get that out of his system. The wounds were opened up inside of him, and these wounds he put into those songs.”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono in London on Feb. 11, 1970. (Richard DiLello / Yoko Ono Lennon)

If there was a flaw, for Ono it was in the final mix. Lennon’s voice wasn’t prominent enough. For this new remaster, Ono suggested the engineers make it more prominent. “That was Yoko’s directive right from the beginning,” says Paul Hicks, who mixed and engineered much of the new set. “‘Bring John’s voice out to the fore’ and ‘You’ll find all the emotion in John’s voice.'”

Adds Rob Stevens of Lennon and Ono’s Lenono Archives, “Bringing John’s voice up was a real revelation for just about anybody who had listened to anything else that he had done.” Referring to a microphone effect that adds a sharp echo, Stevens added that Lennon “covered his voice up with a ton of slap. There’s a ton of reverb.” Stevens says that in the process of working on the recordings, he was able to remove the reverb and hear the unfiltered Lennon. “What was there was the same emotion but more nuanced because there wasn’t a slap or two or three behind it.”

The producer and engineer John Leckie was 20 when he landed a coveted entry-level job running tape at Abbey Road Studios in London. He started in January 1970 and, not long after, was in the studio recording “All Things Must Pass” with George Harrison, and half a year later he was working on Lennon’s record.

Leckie, who has gone on to produce essential records by the Fall, Radiohead, XTC, Elastica, My Morning Jacket and dozens more, says that he recalls this early Lennon session as being a relaxed, comfortable environment. Spector was a quiet, unobtrusive presence — there was no “Wall of Sound” at Abbey Road — and Ono was more involved with the creative back and forth.

“Phil wasn’t there all the time, but my memory is that he was there a lot of time and when he was there, it was really good vibes. It’s funny, because when people ask me about this record, they always seem to think there was this angst — dreadful, painful. ‘What was it like to be in the room with John pouring out all this angst about his abuse over the years and the terrible terror he was going through?'”

Leckie continues, “It wasn’t like that at all, and you can tell by this box and the outtakes it was great fun. He was playing with his best friends. He was playing with Ringo and Klaus Voormann, and he’d known Klaus since Hamburg.”

Voormann underscores the sense of camaraderie at play, an experience jarred by hearing the rehearsal tapes anew. “All this came back to me. It felt so good having certainty knowing we were really a group — this little tiny group, just Ringo, me and John.”

Lennon’s solo debut, in hindsight, was an outlier. He started recording its follow-up, “Imagine,” less than a year later, and not long after that, he and Ono separated. Lennon moved back to L.A. and commenced a bender that many nights led him just a block from Janov’s office, getting drunk with Harry Nilsson at the Troubadour. Lennon and Ono reconciled a few years later. The five studio albums that followed “Plastic Ono Band,” while accomplished, seldom matched the feral energy and sharpened pen found on his debut.

Meanwhile, by 1974, Janov was in the pages of The Times being lumped in with Dear Abby, Billy Graham, radio talk show hosts and witches, as a guru who “professes to have an answer for sale.” A documentary called “Primal Process” followed a few years later. One reviewer praised the film but warned that “the continuous crying can be taxing.” In the 1980s, the English new wave group Tears for Fears took its name from Janov’s therapeutic method, and the similarly inspired “Shout” became one of its signature hits.

Janov, for the record, loved “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.” Speaking to Hilburn in 1970, the therapist and author, who died in 2017, described it as “a very dialectic album. It is the most personal statement imaginable, yet it has a universal language. It could only be written by someone who has arrived at a state of understanding himself. It isn’t something that any kid with a guitar could sit down and write.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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