#i still feel at sea myself when it comes to academia

[artemish]

Sous chef: part 2 | opla!Sanji x fem!Reader

word count: 3.8k

genre/tags: Sanji x reader; first-person pov; fluff; pining (but is it mutual??); angst; hurt/comfort; friends to lovers

warnings: brief anxiety mention

summary: following their late night kitchen heart to heart, things become more complicated when the other Strawhats take notice…

a/n: thankful for the support for the last part! ♥️

Continuing my low key self indulgent series hehe.. 🤭 It took me longer than I wanted to write this next part but I was determined and here we are lol 😅

taglist 💕 @vespidphoenix @dark-academia-slut

𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘺𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰!

(。･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

“Nami, we are just friends.”

I stated this as matter-of-factly as I could.

“Right, and Zoro likes tea with his lunch instead of beer. Cut the shit, y/n.”

Our sweet navigator hadn’t budged from the spot she was judging me from.

Her eyes were determined to pierce through my shield, but I held fast. I flapped my arms up, exasperated by the fact that she kept pushing.

“Look, I couldn’t sleep so I came to the kitchen, I fell really hard and Sanji helped me feel better, that’s all.”

She smirked, “Oh, I’m sure he did.”

“No,” I scoffed in disgust, “not like that. He was also awake, taking note of our supplies, before I came in, got knocked by the swell, and he patched me up. Then we were talking for some time, and I guess we were both more tired than I thought. Just fell asleep, right then and there.”

“Look,” she said, standing up, placing her hands on her hips, “as much as I love him, I would love him even more if I didn’t have him flirting my way. So if he’s into you now, well that makes me a very happy woman who can finally navigate this boat in peace. That being said, I would still like to know what’s going on between you-“

“There’s nothing going on,” I snapped, “and there never will be.”

I didn’t intend to come off so aggressively and I saw her step back when she heard the anger in my voice.

“Sorry,” I breathed, “didn’t mean to get worked up like that.”

But she took no notice of my apology and pointed at me saying, “Does this have to do with the thing you still won’t tell me about? Is that what’s been holding you back?”

I rubbed my forehead with my hand, “yeah, it is.”

She shook her head and crossed her arms, as her frustration reached its peak.

“You know,” she said, this time with a knowing smirk, “secrets come out. They always do. With time and through fate, they always come out. I mean just look at me. I thought I had it all worked out, thought I could keep my secrets to myself.

“But what Luffy taught me, what this whole crew taught me, is that you shouldn’t have to carry your burdens alone. Secrets are better shared with those who can share the load.”

“I know, Nami,” I sighed, “but I can’t tell you, nor the crew, least of all Sanji. You know how he gets.”

“You know you can trust us, but you still don’t want to tell us? Why?”

“I can’t answer that.”

She looked up at the ceiling, as if asking the gods for help, but of course she got no reply.

“I’m not going to get anywhere with you on this, am I?” she sighed. I shook my head.

She paced about the room as I sat back down on my futon, bringing my knees up to my face. She sat down next to me, letting out a big sigh as she did.

“I’m sorry, Nami, but I promise when the time is right I’ll tell you.”

She glared back at me and looked like she was about to say something, but was cut off from a voice outside our door.

“Nami, have you seen y/n around? I’m trying to- oh. You’re here”

Sanji stood in our doorway, looking a bit flustered but still managing to flash us a wide grin.

“Morning ladies, you’re both looking as lovely as a golden sunrise on a calm sea.”

Nami and I rolled our eyes in unison.

“Morning Sanji, had a good sleep did we?” Nami poked, and I felt my cheeks flush red.

“It was good,” he sighed, “until the chill set in and I realised I was alone in the kitchen.”

“Oh,” she said, “were you with someone last night?”

I could have strangled her right then.

“What, oh no, I was ugh, counting beans and I must’ve dozed off. Didn’t realise I wasn’t in my cabin, you know with the others, yeah.”

“Counting… beans?” I could see her fighting every urge to cackle at his pathetic explanation.

“Ugh, yeah,” he stumbled through his words again, “the beans in the barrel. Coffee beans, green beans, soy beans-“

“Well, you should borrow a blanket or a shawl next time to stay warm, in case you fall asleep again. Y/n has a spare one, you should ask her for it.”

I shoved her shoulder and saw her biting down hard on her lip.

“I might,” he said, looking at me then, “as long as I know she’s keeping warm too.”

I couldn’t take this back and forth any longer, and I couldn’t stand the sight of him in the doorway, looking like a lovesick puppy dog waiting for a bone.

“Sanji,” I said finally, “hi, hello, good morning. Why are you here?”

“Oh well, madam, I was actually looking for you.”

“Me? Why were you looking for me?”

“Well, I’m taking you up on that offer, since breakfast is a big one today.”

“Offer? What offer?”

“You being my sous chef, remember?”

Shit, I thought, I’d forgot, I’m screwed!

“Oh of course, yes, just let me ugh change into something more chef-like. Yeah.”

“Alright, my swan, I’ll start prepping while you get ready.”

He flashed us both a grin and walked back to the kitchen, completely missing Nami’s face of pure joy.

It was as if what she had just witnessed between us was better than any treasure she could ever imagine to find in all the four seas and no amount of berry could be used to describe how much she enjoyed that.

Nami stretched out on my futon, exhaling loudly. She rested her head on my lap, and stared wistfully up at the ceiling. I was numb to her and everything around me.

I felt like I was losing my mind.

Ever since we met him at the Baratie, she noticed how he would go that little bit further with me, how his hugs lingered longer, and how his words were kinder.

And she had constantly reminded me of this fact.

“Even if I never get to know all your secrets,” she said quietly, “at least I can hold this one against you. You know, he only cuts your carrots into heart shapes, when he makes us soup.”

“Really?”, I lied, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Can you even cook?” she asked after another silent moment had passed between us.

I looked down at her. She knew what I was going to say.

“No.”

I changed into some black slacks and a t-shirt, and headed over to the kitchen.

The room was alive with the sounds of rashers of bacon sizzling intensely on the pan, the crackling of flames within the stone oven and the soft, rhythmic thumping of metal on wood. Smoke rose from the stove and the oven, hanging in the air and carrying the sweet scent of bread, the earthy aroma of mushrooms, butter and thyme, and salted meat to every corner of the room.

Sanji had his back to me as he sliced through potatoes in halves then quarters and then smaller still, probably for hash browns.

He moved the knife intently, with a ferocity that seemed barely human, and yet the potato pieces did not come out mangled or broken as one would expect from such intensity, but instead in perfect little cubes, each evenly portioned to form the hash shapes. To say I was intimidated was an understatement.

“Doesn’t really look like you need my help here.” I had moved back towards the doorway unconsciously, perhaps hoping I could get out unscathed.

“On the contrary, y/n,” he said over his shoulder, “I’m swamped this morning and your help would be invaluable.”

I couldn’t let him see how deeply underprepared I was, or how concerning it was that I had gotten this far in life without ever making a real meal or that I lacked any and every culinary skill there was. But it was too late now.

“Oh, ugh, are you sure? I mean you look like-“

“Grab that apron over there and come over.” He pointed to an apron hanging near the doorframe, without looking back at me, and continued to make his way slicing through various other vegetables he was adding to the meal. I begrudgingly put it on.

“Can you please crack those eggs over there into that bowl?”

He pointed to a large silver bowl that was on the counter, right of where he was dealing with the vegetables and meats.

“We’re going to make omelettes and everything else will go with them. We have to get as much as we can from this batter since we also have to eat, not just Luffy, so don’t worry about adding an egg or two extra.”

He smiled, and I melted like butter in a pan at the sight of him.

I stood beside him and stared down at the eggs in the carton, and at the other cartons stacked against the wall.

It was then that I felt my palms tingle and swell with moisture, as I tried to move my hand to pick up an egg. In an instant, I felt my throat dry up, and I felt a rising surge of heat from within me flush over my cheeks, and panic pulse through my chest.

Thump, thump, thump, THUMP.

The sound of my own heartbeat flooded my ears and nothing else.

My breath quickened and I became acutely aware of it. I tried to take in air in small, quick breaths. I didn’t even notice that Sanji had stopped cooking and had turned me to face him, holding my shoulders and calling my name.

“Y/n, are you alright? Can you hear me? Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay, y/n.”

But I couldn’t hear him. My vision blurred over, as my eyelids flickered sporadically. He stopped calling out to me, perhaps realising that it was no use in this state, but continued to hold me steady, rubbing my arms as he did.

My mouth still gaped wide, trying to take in breath but as he held me, my breathing began to even out.

Gods, I thought, this is what I panic about?

“Sanji,” I felt my mind returning, “Sanji. Oh, my gods, Sanji, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” he said, “don’t apologise. Are you okay?”

He stepped back, keeping one arm on me still, and reached for a glass of water. I faced the floor, too quickly perhaps. My head felt hollow.

“I should’ve told you upfront,” I began, “that I don’t know how to cook, that I’ve never learnt or tried, or rather had the patience to. I’ve just survived on the cooking of others. I shouldn’t have offered to be your sous chef last night, I don’t know what came over me.”

“Woah, hey, it’s alright, y/n.”

“I’m sorry, oh my gods. The truth is… I’m terrified.”

I could see a slight smirk appear on his face as he listened to me.

“Of me or of cooking?,’ he chuckled, “and please, don’t say me.”

“What if I said both?” I said, sheepishly.

“Well, then I’d say you have nothing to be afraid of and I can teach you how to handle both.”

I felt my breath catch again as butterflies began to flutter and whirl violently around inside me, and I thought about how he could probably use my face to light the pan again with the heat that radiated off my red cheeks.

“Sanji, stop that, I-I really know nothing about cooking. I don’t even know what to do with these eggs.” That seemed to get a genuinely worried reaction out of him, as he furrowed his brow in confusion.

“You don’t know how to crack an egg?”

“Oh, I didn’t even know that's what you wanted me to do with them.”

“How else would you make an omelette? How else… would they get in the bowl?”

I was silent. He inhaled deeply as he studied me with those sparkling blue eyes. A moment of realisation seemed to seize him then, as he guided me to the bench and sat me down.

He handed me the glass of water, made a motion with his hand for me to drink, and as I tipped the cooling swell down my throat he said, “I’m sorry if I made you anxious. I didn’t know you couldn’t cook, m’lady.

“Please, if you’re not comfortable, don’t feel like you have to stay here or like I’m forcing you to be here, it’s alright really, but just know that… well I do like your company all the same.”

Before I could speak, he put his hand up to gesture to wait, stepped away quickly to grab the bacon and mushroom mix in the pan off the stove, and put out the flames from the oven before coming back to squat down on his haunches in front of me, holding the bench to keep him steady.

He must’ve noticed how big my eyes looked staring at him.

He reached out his free hand hesitantly but I took it in both my hands, perhaps a little too eagerly, as he wobbled from being surprised by my grip.

“Sorry,” I said, helping him balance, “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because, well, I was embarrassed. You’re such an incredible cook and everything you make is so brilliant and delicious, I just couldn’t say no to you last night. But I feel like an idiot now, I should’ve just told you.”

I could’ve sworn I saw his cheeks turn pink as I spoke. I fidgeted nervously with his hand, feeling the coarseness of his fingertips and how soft his palms were in comparison.

“You know,” he began, “if you wanted to learn, all you had to do was ask, madam. But tell me, how’d you survive without cooking anything then?”

“I mostly ate whole foods,” I said, “things like bread, all sorts of bread, fruits, wheels of cheese and dried meats, things I knew would keep or could be eaten quickly. And if I had a pot, anything I could just chuck in with a bit of salt and pepper. Better to survive on that then nothing at all.”

He smiled a soft smile and brought his other hand to where our hands were and pulled me up to stand as he did. I had to look up as he said, “Well today I’m going to teach you how to crack an egg, and maybe make an omelette.”

I sat on a stool to face him, opposite to where he was cooking on the benchtop.

“Now watch carefully,” he said, “you hold the egg like this.”

He took the egg in his right hand, the bowl in his left.

“Crack it against the rim of the bowl, so that the break is clean.” With a deft hand, he tapped it firmly against the bowl, and split the shell with his fingers so the yoke fell out perfectly into the silver crater below. He made it look so easy.

“Now you,” he said, beckoning me to come to him. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

I stood in front of the bowl and eggs and he stood behind me. Taking my hands, he guided my left to hold the bowl and my right to hold the egg.

“Hold the bowl firm now,” he said and I nodded in reply. “Keep the egg sideways in your hand, so it’ll make a clean break in the shell.”

His mouth was so close to my ear as he leaned in and whispered his instructions, I felt the heat of his breath against my neck.

Goosebumps rose and trickled all across my body as I felt the strength of his hands against mine. Holding the top of my hand, he moved my arm to make the action.I suppose it made sense for a chef to have as firm a grip as he did, but I hadn’t thought about it before. And I also hadn’t thought about how that grip was making me feel.

“And now we just tap it firmly but still with power on that edge.”

As he brought my hand with the egg down to crack against the bowl, I was more aware of how good it felt to be touched by him, and that his face was only inches away from mine, and the goosebumps, and how if I just turned to the right, just a little…

CRACK!

The egg split and I jolted a little, as he guided my hand over the bowl and let the yoke fall out to mix in with the previous yoke.

“You’ve done it, madam, you’ve officially cracked an egg.”

I nudged him with my elbow as he laughed, and I hoped he didn’t see me blush.

He showed me how to whisk then, when we had cracked the amount he needed, and when to add the rest of the ingredients. He showed me how to butter the pan, told me oil was good too, showed me how to pour, and wait and flip, and how to watch the colour, how to make sure it didn’t burn.

He broke off a small bit, let me taste it, and I remembered tasting his finger a little too.

At the very end he showed me how to serve the dish and make it look beautiful.

“Almost as beautiful as you” he said, which forced me to bury the urges I felt even deeper down or I would’ve abandoned my oath right then and there.

I took it all in as best as I could but I found that I had made the most effort to memorise his touch, his breath, his smile, his sparkling eyes as they looked at me, and how it felt to be guided by those hands knowing I couldn’t guide them the way I wanted to. Or where I wanted.

By that time, everyone else had made their way to the kitchen and we seated ourselves around the bench. Usopp told tales of his daring adventures while Luffy reacted with wows and shouts of awe, and Zorro sat silently eating as much as Luffy it seemed. Nami gave me a wry smile as she sat between Sanji and me.

“Well done, sous chef,” she whispered, and I glanced up at Sanji to see if he heard her. He met my eyes with a grin.

“I hope you all enjoyed your omelettes this morning,” he said cheerfully, “you have the lovely y/n to thank for them today, I was merely her assistant.”

Luffy gaped, “you made this y/n?”

“Yes but-” I began, but he raised his goblet and said, “A toast to the best omelettes I have ever eaten in my life and the best cooks in the East Blue!”

Everyone raised the mugs in agreement and cheered and drank and laughed, and I could only blush and think how lucky I was to find this crew, even if it may only be for a short while longer.

* * *

I found Zoro on the lower deck, napping against the mast, as I made my way down to mop the deck. With one hand placed on his hilt and the other behind his neck, he slouched lazily, unbothered, as I began on the floor in front of him.

“So you like the waiter huh?” He said after I had been at it for some time.

He didn’t open his eyes.

I stopped and leaned on the mop. “I just asked him to teach me how to cook, that's all.”

“I don’t know what you see in him.”

“There’s nothing there, I just-”

He let out a loud “ha” sound and opened his eyes.

“Here I thought you were gonna stay low, keep your guard up and stay on until you needed to, like you told me in Shellstown, but now you're drooling in your soup over the waiter, who’s so eager to serve. So much for that plan of yours.”

I gripped the mop handle so hard I thought it would splinter into my hand.

I moved close to him so that my words came across as a whispered growl. “You know nothing.”

“I know that I risked my ass to bring you with us,” he growled back, “and that keeping you with us is an even greater risk. I know that if the others knew you were a swordsman, a hunted one at that, they’d ask more questions than was good for them or you. And I know I’m the only one you can trust out here and the only one who can help you track that Baroque works shithead before he gets you too. So please, don’t try to bullshit me.”

He was still slumped lazily against the mast but his eyes betrayed no sign of weakness. I crouched down so that I was eye level with him, holding the mop to steady myself.

“You don’t think I can keep my own feelings in check?”

“I’m not trying to piss you off, y/n,” he said, his demeanour unchanged, “but I can’t be quiet either. You said to call you out if I saw you get distracted.”

“He’s not a distraction.”

“But he won’t be safe either way.”

“Why are you so concerned all of a sudden,” I scowled, “it’s not like you give a shit about him. You two are such best friends, aren’t you?”

Zorro made a groan of frustration as he got up, his swords clinking against each other like bells. I rose to meet his eyes, still clinging to my mop.

“You swore to me that nothing would get in the way of you avenging what you lost and that you would lose nothing and no one else on your path. I swore that I would help you see it through to the end.” He clinked his swords as he rested his hand on top of the hilts. “So I’m warning you now,” he continued solemnly, “if you’re not more careful, you may keep that oath but lose something after all.”

He held my gaze for a moment, his eyes a fiery dark amber in the sunlight, before walking away slowly and down into the bowels of the ship.

My heart pounded in my ears.

My hands ached from where I had strangled the wooden mop handle.

As Zoro walked out of my view, I looked up to the balcony on the mid deck above and saw Sanji standing there, brooding it seemed.

No… watching me.

Swirling grey tendrils of smoke coiled in the air as he pulled a long breath and puffed out.

The glow of his cigarette reflected like fiery embers in the darkness of his glare.

[standardquip]

Dysphoria

A video representation of my experience with dysphoria. Made in 2020.

Video:Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari, Vision of Escaflowne, Escaflowne (movie), Revolutionary Girl Utena (movie), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Devil May Cry (anime), Fullmetal Alchemist, Noragami, Steins;Gate, Blue Exorcist, Guilty Crown, K (TV), Death Note, Death Parade, Akira (movie), Demon Slayer, KARAS, Children of the Sea, Dorohedoro, Psycho Pass, Nisemonogatari, Your Name, Paprika, Perfect Blue, Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters per Second, Charlotte, Attack on Titan, Black Clover, Bleach, Erased, Darwin's Game, Deadman Wonderland, Drifters, Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, Free!, Sunday Without God, Blood Blockade Battlefront, My Hero Academia, Owari no Seraph, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, Re: Zero, Rozen Maiden, Strike The Blood Third, Sword Art Online, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Macross Frontier Audio:JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk Premiere Date:2020 Status:Downloadable, Streamable Genre(s):Horror, LGBT+, Other, Artistic Cons/Awards: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2020 PRO Contest: won “Best Technical”, finalist in “Artistic” Agamacon 2021 – Honorable mention “Endless Nightmare” YoumaCon 2021 – “Now in Technicolor!” Award Outside Links:.org

Dysphoria AKA Skeptic’s Hypothesis AKA Multicultural Panic Attack

Started: 12 dec 2019 Finished: 11 aug 2020 Work time: 47hr 58min in premiere 26hr 16min After Effects

General Comments I started out wanting to make a weird/creepy glitch video. But as I started making it it became something way more personal.

The part where I over-explain everything

I joined AWA PRO in 2019 with a video that was completely forgettable (Exposure). I came away from that feeling very weirdly defensive of my editing skills so I set out to make something to prove I could edit. That was the AMV Esoterra, which was largely a shallow, showy piece. Aside from the technicals, it’s also just a type of video I don’t generally make because nostalgia/vibe things don’t interest me much.

While that video was coming along I got the urge to do something edgy, and I have always wanted to do text and glitch effects in a video. I’ve had a love affair with JT Bruce’s “Hypnic Jerk” for several years so worked on cutting it down to something usable (the track is ~10 minutes long). Once that was done I set it aside to make after Esoterra was done, to make sure I finished it before the pro deadline. I didn’t intend to finish Dysphoria for PRO, but I figured if I finished it in time (a big IF) I would submit it in addition to Esoterra.

Once I started on Dysphoria, the time went by so quick. I wanted something that would separate the viewer from reality and just focusing on the song would have been enough. But I got this idea to attach it to something real. And eventually decided to roll with it. It’s weird, because when you look at these 2 videos (Esoterra and Dysphoria) You’d probably think Dysphoria was the gimmicky one, but it’s much closer to my brain than Esoterra is.

I’m not super open about it, but I’m transgender. I also have clinical/major Depression. I wanted Dysphoria to be about the fight you have in your head with yourself on whether or not you want to change, or if what you’re dreaming is really something you want.

During my time in the Navy (2009 – 2012) I was constantly fighting with myself on what I wanted more– transition or to stay in the navy? DADT was repealed shortly after I enlisted, but trans people were still largely unknown and had to be closeted. This video helped me work through some of that, I think. I had a pretty good idea I was trans when I joined, but I wasn’t sure until after boot camp. And once I went on my first deployment things sort of snowballed, and I was constantly weighing the pros and cons of staying in or getting out to transition (Obama’s trans inclusion thing didn’t happen to shortly after I was discharged).

I wanted this video to be relatable to anyone imagining what a mental crisis was like. It was very important to me that it was still “gender dysphoria” but it didn’t beat you over the head with it. I wanted it to be subtle. Something that maybe trans people would get but cis people could still appreciate without feeling like the vid has a specific message. Gender dysphoria can be fairly insiduous. I don’t think many people realize how much it can affect things. It is also easily attributable to other factors, so can be very hard to identify as an issue if you aren’t already 100% sure you’re trans. I guess this video is just relaying feelings, and the general steps/phases/stages you try to work through during a mental crisis or psychological break.

For the text, I watched a lot of AMVs with text in them and I learned that text seemed to work better when you weren’t concerned with reading it. So I made the text hard to read and I used it more as an artistic framing device. Any time the character was feeling the text, I tried to put the text on the character, especially over their face. There are two “worlds” in this vid, one being reality (which is almost always starring a female character), and one being the dream/fantasy. Reality is dim, has washed out colors and hard to read text. Fantasy has easier to read text but it’s usually in another language. It’s also way more raw and emotional, and not the lyrics of the song/track.

And, as especially the case for the first minute, I started out the text being fairly legible but then got more screwed up and harder to read as time progressed. Because in the beginning you think you’ve got things figured out, but the more you think about stuff, the harder it becomes to decide, and the more frustrated you get. Especially true for ~0:28 – 0:34ish, screwing with the text in such a way to be artistic but also to purposefully frustrate you that you cannot read it.

Which introduced an ongoing problem into my video: How do you make things specifically frustrating (especially the later glitches) without it being so frustrating that the video is no longer “good”? That was an ongoing conversation I had with at least 3 different beta testers. Much more about the glitches than the text, because I had very specific visions for the text. In the end, I think I figured it out okay so there is a good balance between “messy” and “not done well”. But that took several tries to get right.

People suffering with mental crises generally feel alone. So I wanted the characters in reality to be relatable but have a barrier between them and the viewer. That being the text, blurs, VHS overlays, etc. I especially tried to pick scenes where the real characters were not looking right at you.

Dream world is brighter, vibrant, hopeful. The characters you see yourself as (the boys) are looking at you, and they’re for the most part cool, badass characters.

The glitches were predominantly hand-made using the very scenes they’re on top of. I did have some presets, but I’d say 80% – 90% of glitches were made from scratch. The presets mostly got used during the elevator scene around 2:13 – 2:17and 2:31 – 2:35. The only other help I had making this were VHS overlays which got peppered in throughout the video.

Despite Esoterra taking more time, I’d consider Dysphoria to be much more technical and difficult to edit. In Esoterra I was playing with, and learning about, flow, composition, and overlays. The time it took to effectively learn and apply those things was immediately used in Dysphoria which surprisingly has a lot of the same core concepts, just utilized differently. Despite them being nearly ideological opposites, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make Dysphoria as good as it is without having the experience of making Esoterra first.

Scene selection was incredibly intentional for every single part, and caused a lot of headache at times due to not finding what I wanted. Because my specific theme was gender dysphoria (and even more specifically, female to male) girls only show up at specific times: – the real world – the very first time the character goes into the dream world “at first it is a plunge into hyper reality” – when the character is actively fighting with themself (the yes / no sections) – after an implied suicide attempt at 1:32, when dream/fantasy start become one.

In the “Yes / no” parts of the video, the boy is always yes, and the girl is always no. That is specific to gender dysphoria, and to FTMs. When you visualize yourself? Is it as a girl or a boy? It was always a boy. But some trans people (myself included) will go through phases where they dream as their real-world (non-transitioned) self. For me, I went through a long period of denial, so would try to force being ok with myself, even though it brought me pain.

So all the scenes with girls in them are painful. The scenes of boys start out cool and confident, but then become trapped and locked away. They get angry and kill the girl around 1:20, which then results in the mental breakdown that follows. The suicide attempt, the male self saving the female self, the overall anger and confusion, and the “crisis” part of the video. The crisis is: Now you know you have to do something. Will you finally accept this part of yourself? Will you finally transition? The overlays at 1:53 signify the decision. Glass breaking, hands parting, and scissors cutting an umbilical cord.

The next section is “Help”. The character finally recognizes that they need help, because they are finally accepting that there is a problem. But just because you recognize there’s a problem doesn’t mean you’re any good at solving it. Therein goes the brief period of survival in the dream with the super clear picture of the man saving the woman. It works in two ways, one at surface gender dysphoria level because it’s a dude being cool, the secondary being that the masculine side is saving the feminine side. “Hey. You don’t have to die. You’re still a part of me. You might be transitioning to male but that doesn’t mean my feminine side disappears.”

The elevator section of the video was one of the first sections I edited, and so it is predominantly just a glitch fest as a way to transition from living in escapism to getting back to reality. It ends at the scene of the girl in bed. For me this symbolizes depression more than anything else. You know you need help, you are constantly thinking about how to get it, but sometimes you just can’t fucking do anything. So we have that scene and then shinji (the boy) appears as a reflection beneath. The video ends with shinji waking up in the hospital and the question “Are you awake?” It’s a throwback to the original video’s premise of a skeptic’s hypothesis… Can never know if you’re dreaming or not. But also a sort of ambiguous ending of never knowing if the character got the help they needed or not. Are they still living in their dream of being a boy? Or did they actually transition and this is reality now?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway that’s my over-explanation of this video. I put it off for so long, partly because I don’t like revealing this part of myself, and partly because I don’t think it’s right to force my interpretation/message on anyone. But overall decided the pros in putting this essay out there outweighed the cons.

Since I finished this video in August 2019, released it publicly in December, and only now just wrote this explanation at the end of February the following year, I forgot a lot of things maybe I wanted to touch on in between that time. But this is long enough as it is. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up I guess. Contact info in my profile.

Some things I want to point out just because As mentioned previously, all scene selection was super intentional. But a lot of it goes by so fast and seems kind of random so here’s some things I want to bring attention to lol.

0:02 – there’s an overlay here of more rain (dropping on the camera) and also some faint glowing eyes. I wanted to bring some paranoia into this video but this is the only part that panned out.

Beginning to 0:21 – Your Name was amazing to work with because it had the perfect amount of scenes of girls looking at boys and being sad about it. This establishes the character’s life up to this point as being unhappy with who she is. The scene of her staring in the mirror at the boy and then crying really sets up the whole gender dysphoria framing device without being obvious about it.

0:24 – anthy is a fragmented, bare, vulnerable individual with a trapped and tortured boy prince inside :)

1:20 – metaphor for self injury. Also foreshadowing of some other chest-based scenes. 1:23 – the result of the previous scene. This was the best anime representation I could find for ftm chest surgery. Obviously the scar is all wrong but it was the only chest scar scene I could find that looked kind of believable for what I was going for.

1:24 – 1:32 I synced the tracking dot to the beat lol. Also the text on the bed moves when she lays down on it.

1:57 – 1:59 is all scenes with barriers because the characters are all trapped. The last scene is a first person shot of looking down at boobs, which in context of all the suffering scenes leaning up to it are meant to imply that boobs are bad. Character has massive chest-related dysphoria. It’s a quick callback to the other 2 chest scenes.

2:01 – 2:05 is dilandau!! From Vision of Escaflowne. I won’t explain the scene because it’s a huge spoiler but if you know the anime/character you’ll know why I used it here. :)

Note: the (uncredited) live action footage is a recording of myself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my beta testers and our discussions about the intricacies of glitches: Ash, Dr. Derpface, TheLazyDaze

Thank you to Synaethesia for helping me with the VHS overlays.

Thank you to Kriegher for the help with including Hindi as a language.

I also must mention ProstrateConstantly/ZaneWins, whose DESTRUCT vid and making of vid heavily inspired me to make my own glitch vid. And to CrackTheSky’s blog for mentioning DESTRUCT, as I otherwise never would’ve seen it. D E S T R U C T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878jSaMBtxw Making of DESTRUCT: CTS’s blog: https://crakthesky.wordpress.com/

Original track of JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk: https://www.jamendo.com/track/24044/hypnic-jerk?language=en https://open.spotify.com/track/0e3aRWcOl7XqYNWP1ss5AO

I did a large amount of work to the song to make it work- here’s a screencap of my Premiere timeline for the song:

In (approximately) September 2021, JT Bruce commented on the youtube video!

[nightshadedawn]

Shade's Masterpost

About Me

Hello, hello, hello! Please call me Shade! I accept use of all pronouns, but I do have the most fun with fae/faer, they/them, and ve/vir. I identify as queer simply because I could apply too many labels to myself. The one that takes up the largest part of my identity is my asexuality, so that's the only one I'll name. (I prefer sir to ma'am if you're going to use one, or captain if we're trying to be gender neutral, which I also accept, as it makes me feel like a pirate, which I am)

I've been strongly in fandom since 2014, a little late to the game compared to some! Especially since I always seem to be getting into fandoms as they're dying out. 🤣 My main contributing factors to fandom are fanfiction and videos, and occasionally rants and shitposts, but I'm not terribly good at either of those. But I tend to hang onto all my fandoms, revisiting them occasionally just to check on how they're doing, so I can't fully say I've ever left one. Speaking of, let's list some of those out for you.

My Fandoms

Free!

Haikyuu!!

Yuri on Ice!!!

Ouran High School Host Club

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Banana Fish

Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Sk8: The Infinity

Buddy Daddies

Persona 5

Persona 4

Fire Emblem: 3 Houses

Spy x Family

Obey Me!

Percy Jackson

Studio Ghibli

Good Omens

Mythology (Greek/Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Native American, anything else I can get my hands on)

Fairy Tales (og Grimms, Hans Christian Anderson, etc... not Disney things)

Musicals (Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, a plethora of more, please ask if you'd like to know!)

Our Flag Means Death

House of the Dragon/Fire & Blood (wasn't a fan of Game of Thrones)

Is that it? I think that's it for now. I have only written... for about half of them. Read for many. Most of my fanfiction is composed of anime fandoms, not going to lie about that. But I am always up for being prompted! Speaking of, let's look into the prompts.

Writing Prompts

How it works: You can send in a prompt of your own making, or you can choose one from these lists.

300 Words

Fire Emblem 3 Houses Bingo

More lists will be made regularly, and I'm always looking for prompts, especially around the holidays.

Choose one of the fandoms I know, send me a prompt, and we'll get jiggy with it. You can get more detailed, too, adding in what ship you'd like it to be for (I ship many, many things, and have often been convinced to write for ships I don't particularly care for, so don't hold back), or an AU if that's your thing. (It's certainly mine, I like AUs) If you specifically want it in cannon, might specify that too.

As a side note here, I use my Non-Binary Glossary for when I write nonbinary characters. Feel free to use it, and read through it if you see any words you might not immediately realize what they mean when I'm writing them.

My Tumblr Projects

You can find my fanfiction here at NightshadeDawn, but as I've mentioned, fanfiction isn't all I do. Let's dive into some of the other things I do, hm?

Persona 6: Genesis

A fan concept for Persona 6. An entire blog dedicated to it, with posts going through the entire plot of the game, character art created, maps planned out, and various other little things. It's been sort of put on the back burner, but it's still fun to look at sometimes.

Obsidian Sea DLC

A similar concept to Genesis, but so far faring better in the fact the actual story of it is in the works of being written. It's a hypothetical DLC for Fire Emblem: Three Houses that introduces three brand new units as part of Jeralt's Mercenaries, and makes Jeralt playable to round out as their fourth. The main plot of the DLC sees Jeralt's Mercenaries, Byleth, and their students going to Brigid to uncover the reason why people keep coming back from the dead with white hair and crests, then proceeding to turn into Demonic Beasts.

Verdant Wind: The Musical Twin AU

A series of videos edited in such a way that comes across as a musical retelling the story of the Verdant Wind route of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. With the idea that there's various parts that are incorrect either due to being lost to history or because of... "artistic vision."

The Gemini

A Persona 5 fangame that adds a social link for Shiho Suzui, making her a romanceable character while exploring her trauma and how she's growing as a person. Technically playable, but incomplete in my vision.

Ultimate Decades Drama

A collection of mini challenges for players of the Sims 4, specifically the Ultimate Decades Challenge. As I'm only a console player, I struggle with playing the challenge itself, but I love watching playthroughs. I heard a few people talk about struggling with stories or directions they wanted to take Sims, so I thought "Hey, I can tell stories. Let's see if I can translate that into something helpful."

Frequently Asked Questions

Technically, I have not had any of those yet. But I see this being updated every so often, so it's fine to leave this here.

In Conclusion...

Sifting through the reblogs, the anime stuff, the mild ramblings... be prepared for what you'll find if you continue down this blog. But you've made it thus far, and for that, I applaud you.

If there's anything you'd like to support, I do have a Kofi though I will be honest about not entirely knowing what I'm doing with it.

But now that you know all my deepest, darkest parts... is there anything else you'd like to know?

[jonquilandlace]

My youtube is currently flooded with videos of either -gen alpha wishing they were teenagers during the pandemic -people roasting gen alpha for wishing they were teenagers during the pandemic

As someone who turned 21 during the pandemic, first off it definitely wasn't as romanticized as the people wishing they were teenagers during it are imagining it was (like. my dad tried making me a whipped coffee one time and failed lmao, it was super sweet but no we did not have whipped coffee daily. I never made sourdough. I was struggling through some of my hardest college classes, just now online, was realizing my career path was about to shift entirely (I wanted to be a doctor, folks! And then the pandemic made me realize I did NOT want to deal with either being in a lab or being someone who had to respond to these situations permanently!) and also would regularly have panic attacks on my mom at about 2 am because circadian rhythm was not a thing that exists when you don't go outside and whoops my anxiety meds wore off and I still am not tired! My grandpa died during COVID in a nursing home. He had dementia and absolutely did not know what was happening, but the last time we got to see him was two days before the lockdown began, and even that was because I had heard of a case in the next city over from us and knew we needed to go see him or else we wouldn't get to. Thankfully (I say somewhat bitterly) he wanted cremated, so we finally were able to have a funeral for him last summer. I was absolutely terrified that if anyone in my family got COVID, we would die. We didn't get it for almost a year and a half, but we were exposed twice, and I legitimately cried myself to sleep over it repeatedly.)

But that said. I also feel like,,, the other side of it isn't quite right, either? Like there are things about the pandemic that I do admit to fucking missing. I miss being able to embroider in class. I miss my mom and I doing donut and coffee runs at least every other day because the drive throughs were safe (PLEASE respect essential workers, yall, they got hit so unfairly by this and the things I miss of the pandemic are heavily based on me being middle class and thus having the privilege to benefit from their work). I miss my cat sitting on my lap during meetings, and staying up until 2 am on the regular listening to soundtracks of musicals I'd never heard of before because there wasn't something to interrupt it. My parents are among the lucky few who still get to work from home, but I miss the even slight relief the stimulus checks gave us. As someone whose closest friends have never lived close to me, who live even further now, I miss Zoom game nights that now no one really wants to do anymore. (I will admit for my friend group there might be other reasons, ha, but the essence remains.) I know aesthetics are still a thing, and still a thing getting roasted, but I even loved that first week back to in-person uni, when "style" was so non-homogenous suddenly, when there wasn't a real "trend" because in lockdown everyone had just... done what they wanted! I came back in full Dark Academia blazers and button downs, and I sat across from someone dressed proto-Y2K and someone in cottagecore in my first class, and the difference was so much bigger than what you'd think if I said the same now! I miss the boy in my virtual creative writing class whose gimmick it was to sit next to a halloween skeleton in a hammock like they were roommates! I miss Among Us and Minecraft nights. I miss the (pre-corporate) Ratatouille the Musical phase of tiktok! I miss the sea shanty era! I miss wildlife coming back through cities they hadn't been in in ages, and pollution fading to where cities could see the stars. I miss just... making the best of it!

And yeah, this is absolutely romanticism! It's absolutely a sign of my privilege! But god, it was wonderful to have all this darkness and to see so many people trying so hard to bring back the light! The pandemic fucking sucked! But the human spirit during it was so beautiful nevertheless!

[recitedemise]

@solsung is unexpectedly sincere for once, her eyes serious as they hold gale's. " you deserve better than her, y'know that right? " she doesn't need to say her name for them both to feel it in the very air permeating them. solstice still wears her wedding band around her neck, but even that reminder of a love lost is sometimes too much. what must it be like to have mystra shadowing every waking moment? she wants to wring her neck. she wants to cuss her out. she leans in, brushing a lock out of gale's face. " and you're definitely better off without her. there's better fish in the sea. " a smirk then. " blonde haired fish with better fashion sense than a centuries old goddess, for one. "

You deserve better. You deserve more.

It isn't as though he believed her incapable of moments of sincerity. In fact, with the gleam of her eyes and the dawn-spackled color steeped gold in her hair, Gale had wagered that Solstice was stirring; in fact, if the mood so struck her, she could pale the suns. She likely bleeds like poets. She surely loves like their lot. So, her wedding band glimmers, and her gaze comes cleaving, and when her hand gently sweeps at his lock of grey hair, she's but summer and Flamerule and bee-swarmed noons.

Gale looks up. There is glimmer of surprise in his sprung-wide eyes. His shirt's slightly unbuttoned, a testament to the midsummer swelter, and the trails of his orb seem so deeply carven. He had fingered it idly, and she had saw.

Oh, Doctor Dekarios. There, alone in your office, were you haunted with those shadows of shame?

His brows furrow, and then he huffs. "You double careers in academia and testing the very boundaries of business casual. It's a rather unorthodox marrying of studies, but for it, there is no one quite like you." How sweet. Gale holds her gaze, tone gentle. He sets his pen down on his desk, and his lamp light flickers. Better, she says. Gale works that word carefully. His gaze drops, a slight furrow in his brows, and his heart feels bare. Is this her admission? "Wisdom dictates that I shouldn't hope, though the thought of doing so keeps me up most nights. To allow myself that desire to want... " Is this his? "I can't bring myself to apologize. I'm a creature of habit."

[serialreblogger]

I know you don't talk about school much, so feel very free to just pass this ask by, but how did you... make a decision for a degree and everything?

whooof a good question! short answer is, there’s a reason i don’t talk much about school, and that’s because i straightup don’t have a clue what i’m doing. but for the record: nobody? does?

there’s this idea that as soon as you hit grade 11 you need to get started planning the rest of your life out, and once you graduate high school you have to have like a ten-year career plan. but nobody, really, does. if you have a ten-year career plan in grade twelve, the only thing that guarantees is that you’ll be doing something dramatically different in ten years (and probably have at least one major identity crisis two to five years in).

because here’s the thing: it’s really, really unfair to put that kind of expectation on teenagers, to start with. you literally don’t have the necessary experience to make that kind of decision. you aren’t capable yet of making informed choices about the direction of your life, just because you haven’t LIVED enough, you don’t have enough information to draw from. and really, you’re also still a kid. you’ve been entirely dependent on your parents for survival up to now, and for a disproportionately high number of teens, that means accepting abuse, micromanagement, neglect and/or general unhealthy circumstances as a fact of life. none of that equips you to make any kind of balanced choice about the direction you want your life to take.

all of this is to say, first of all, if you’re planning to go to university just after high school, don’t hold yourself to an all-or-nothing standard when it comes to your course of study.

when you’re starting an undergrad, especially if you’re doing so within a year or two of finishing high school, don’t worry as much about picking a major that will serve your career path (look, i’m going to be honest with you, there’s seriously no undergrad degree that gives you a significant leg up in the job market at this point, and that includes the sciences. english majors + chemistry majors = equal difficulty finding work after graduating without either a master’s degree or some kind of nepotism. the only exception is maybe business majors, but they don’t really count because nobody trusts business majors). don’t worry about what you “should” be majoring in or whether the subjects that interest you are “practical.” None of the courses in university are practical.

That’s what I did, anyway. i didn’t declare my own major until halfway through my third year (and still graduated in four). My university had a whole bunch of core required courses for every major regardless of your field of study, which made that easier; i took an introductory course on plant biology, an english course where we studied dracula, a philosophy course, a course on “history of the Western World” (which was essentially colonialist propaganda + the black plague), and a theology class from the Catholic college partnered to my university. I don’t know if you know this about me, but i forkin adored every minute of that semester. That’s the second thing: if you hate high school, that is ABSOLUTELY not a guarantee you’ll hate university. In uni i finally got to learn about things that actually interested me, got to choose courses and drop ones i didn’t want to deal with, and was not only allowed but encouraged to engage critically with what i was being taught. it was brilliantly freeing.

So: if you’re looking for advice on how to pick your major when you first start college or university, i guess my main advice is don’t. Not that you shouldn’t declare a major if you have a pretty solid idea of what you genuinely want to do, but like. if you don’t have a solid idea. that’s OKAY. 90% of people don’t, because you just don’t have the necessary context to determine what you really enjoy and what you want to learn more about (let alone what you want to do for the rest of your life).

sign up for the things that interest you. drop the things that don’t. see where that takes you, and go from there.

(also, if after your first semester you think university just genuinely isn’t something that appeals to you, maybe take some time off. like i said, going to university doesn’t by any means guarantee a career. you can figure out who you are and who you want to be in settings that aren’t the suffocatingly stressful, high-stakes conditions of academia. i, personally, am overall glad i went to uni and value the ideas and facts and ways of thinking i learned there; but the fact remains that it took my anxiety from “bad enough to spawn eating disorder” to “i can’t bear being alive and also resonate way too hard with descartes’ ‘does anything even exist’ crisis oh god oh help” levels. also: student loans. if you find that learning for its own sake isn’t exciting or fun for you, take a break!! find something that IS exciting and fun, and try doing that for a bit instead. never feel like you have to put yourself through something that’s taking more from you than it gives.)

[mosaicc-brokenn-heartss]

- aesthetic playlists for specific moods -

r e s e t  &  d e t o x for days where you need to clear your head, heart, mind and soul. move on. welcome the growth and treasure the warmest parts of the past. slow down and breathe.

hanging out with myself when you're on your own, in your own space, with your own thoughts and alternating between being okay with that and not.

summer lovin’ how it feels to be in love with someone in the endless days of heat.

to the seaside salt, sand, sea. you and me. the air is easier to breathe here. 

"in love with my future" for manifesting and holding onto hope for the idealised dream of being independent, happy and stable

green fingers 🌿 a playlist for gardening, planting and watering my plants... to help them grow, feel loved and safe.

what if we hold hands and lay in a field of wild flowers? (plural noun): a flower of an uncultivated variety or a flower growing freely without human intervention. // romantic picnic bitch energy - for getting lost in the long grass and making daisy chains. a blanket. a basket. a nice book. wearing a sundress. a warm breeze.

little adventures for all of life's mini adventures: supermarket trips, museums, getting lost in the countryside, taking detours, walking down quiet streets... climbing, exploring, taking it all in.

young, free and in love with your friends you'll never be this young again. you are free to be whoever you need to be. you can explore. you're filled with premature nostalgia for the moments you are currently living. you love the things and people around you with all of your being. 

your eyes meet across the room you've never seen them before and don't know their name but you want to find out every secret they've ever had. you'd spend the rest of the night at their side. the colour of their eyes is your new favourite shade.

sunset songs tunes for when the sun goes down. time to unwind and process the day.

up to the roof let's climb up as high as this city can take us and look down at the world beneath us. let's remember how small we are and find some comfort in it.

the days when the sadness is quiet it's never gone, not really, but some days your heart feels overwhelmingly lighter, you feel at ease with the hurt and it's easier to breathe. you feel back in your body, brought back to life again.

classics that make me feel something songs you can't remember actually learning the lyrics to, that set your soul on fire.

political angst make your voice heard. fight with everything you have. don’t let them stop your power.

you + me in the backseat in the backseat of the car. your soundtrack drowns out anything but your feelings. fire burns inside you.

memory lane walking hand in hand through the past. shattered fragments of your old self are lodged into your palms. reminders of things you tried to forget haunt you. the nostalgia comes in like a fog. 

not me, dissociating staring into space or back at yourself in the mirror. doubting everything you know. wondering how you'll ever have the strength to rejoin the world around you.

under the stars come sit with me. we'll trace constellations in the sky.

we’re driving and your hand is on my knee the wind is in your hair. the streets are empty. the radio is too loud. all you know is that you're in love with the person in the seat beside you. 

stay close to me for the kind of love you hope stays forever. for the kind of love you never want to put down. 

oh no, i’m in love the penny has dropped. you don’t know how to hold it in. everything feels brighter now. 

slow mornings with you warmth seeping through the curtains. knowing you have nowhere to be. before toothpaste. stillness. contentment. being with your person.

the end of the world the sun is rising over the hill for the last time. you don't have enough hands to hold everyone. all of the hate you once had doesn't matter anymore. you cling onto the memories and take a deep breath.

it’s 2am and i’m thinking about the good and bad i should probably sleep.

slow dancing in the kitchen barefoot in the kitchen, swaying with hips pressed together, noses brushing, comforted by each other's laughs, soft singing voices and declarations of happiness at being close to the other person.

goodbye to us you're unsure how or why you got here, but now it's over and you can't stop feeling. your heart aches. your head is heavy. you can't bear to move.

longing for escape take my hand. we’ve been stuck for too long. let's get out of this town. we won't look back.

rainy daze rainy days and mondays always get me down

eiffel for you a paris summer. you drink coffee and eat a pastry at a café on the seine. beautiful women and couples in love stroll by. the air is crisp and sweet.

eternal (adjective: eternal; noun: Eternal): lasting or existing forever; without end.

ethereal goddess shit 🌙 pov: you are an ethereal goddess and everything you touch and embody is magic.

academia forever for memories of university days and cathedral views.

new city, big dreams a place just for you. boxes of your past life surround you. a new life awaiting. your look out at the city. it's been waiting for you.

bookstore full of dust and secrets bibliophile (noun): a person who collects or has a great love of books.

hometown nostalgia you know every street corner. you remember everything and everyone you loved here.

i'd do it all over again a million times over without regret.

sneaking out to meet you at midnight the thrill of climbing out the window, making you way to your secret hiding place and having a person to pour all your romanticism into waiting for you. 

coffee breath you can tell a lot about a person from the way they take their coffee.

let’s drink wine and feel things 🍷 songs for late night wine drunk dancing, tears and feelings. 

touch starved for when you just really need to be touched.

seething for slamming doors and punching walls. when your blood boils. when you need to be alone.

[gentlemancrow]

OH MAN I MADE MYSELF SAD WITH THIS ONE OH NO OH JEEZ OH CROW WE'RE REALLY IN IT NOW. But this one was FUN. 83. I mean the prompt also just SCREAMS for something truly fucked up for Jmart and UHHHH I HOPE I DELIVERED? ENJOY EVERYONE!

Oct 5th: Nightmare/ “It’s not enough anymore.” (CWs for major character death SORT OF? References to major character death?? unreality and dreams!)

The Archivist surveys his domain from a broken throne. Crimson cast in the long fingers of light from a dying sun, what was once a wonderland, a cornucopia of horrifying delights, is now just a gutted-out carapace, gnawed clean and bleached red. Everything is sand and rusted girders and shattered glass and bone and hungry silence. What few things that still exist to shiver and be afraid are wrung dry, lifeless creatures more of sorrow and resignation, of defeat and yearning for oblivion than of fear. Sorrow still tastes of fear, in a way, but it is thin and malnourishing, a placebo to glut distended bellies on limbs too thin and weak to carry them on through the wasteland.

He has never had need to leave his ivory tower to wander, however. He can see everything, after all. The mylar veins and nerves of him root him to the core of the Earth and had drunk their fill for countless eons. He had watched from ocular buds and many-eyed vultures feeding the green dandelion iris of him sitting high in his panopticon as all of existence knelt and cracked open their skulls and chests and spilled their secrets unto his waiting pastures. There is nothing now.

No secrets, no history, no science or art or books, just the fluttering of crumpled black strips of mylar tape. The sky falls, piece by piece, and there are no stars in the wounds left behind, only the void of nothingness and crouches with wide-open jaws ready to breathe in the dust of them when they are gone. Something else bellows out, a foghorn headed thing echolocating blindly in the emptiness, searching in the hollows of a lonesome world for that feeling which cannot exist within itself. There is no one left to miss, no one left to watch, no one left to stalk in the dark, no porous flesh to make a home, no stories left to tell. No one even to bury. Their time is ending. His monarchy crumbles around him and all he has left to do is bow his crown and weep.

Tears flow from countless eyes to water the newly fecund soil beneath him and in a few scraggly, achingly defiant bursts of color, fearless primordial life makes its final stand, heedless that it too, will soon blink out of existence. The delicate, starry petaled blooms trace out an ancient shape and memorialize a long-forgotten form in final repose beside him. Always beside him, no matter where he went. They grow between eternally reaching fingers, up through the cathedral of crumbling ribs, in a halo around the head laid forever in reverence and love at his feet, lively pink and sky blue and purple for him. He lays what once must have been a head, a blushing cheek, the corner of a mouth full of teeth like marble commandments, down upon the crumbling cage of bone. If he searches long enough through the endless annals of his knowledge, he can find the sound of the heart that once beat there. There must have been a voice once. Laughter. A smile. But they’re so far away, buried so deep, and he is so weak.

He wonders if maybe he will be waiting for him, wherever he is going, wherever things like him go, if they have not exchanged existences too many times to do so just once more. He wonders if maybe one day he will close all his myriad eyes for the final time and open them again into a sea of cobalt blue. He wonders if maybe there is peace beyond the stars, if they can both lay their heads down in the silken crystal fires of creation and sleep at last, together. There is a twinge of old excitement in a thing he does not know. There is hope again in that word, maybe. Just maybe. Maybe he can see him again. For now, The Archivist just curls against the remains of that thunderous, bright chest, winds a few tendrils of tape around the half-buried fingers, and waits for extinction. Or a dream. Whichever comes for him first.

And then Jon wakes up with a strangled cry from where he was snuggled into Martin’s chest, eyes wild, streaming with sweat and fighting to fill his lungs with air. Martin catches him immediately, envelops him up in his strong arms and blankets and love and softness, peppers kisses all over his face and brings him back down into the comfort of their bed.

“Shhhh, shhhh… it’s alright, you’re alright, Jon. It was just a nightmare. I’m here, I’ve got you,” he murmurs, his voice a cosmic hymn in the wake of such complete oblivion.

“S-Sorry… I’m sorry,” Jon whispers tremulously into his chest, “It was just… it was awful.”

“I’m sorry, too. D-Did you want to talk about it…?”

Fingers glide through his hair, shedding warped images like sand into the sheets.

“Maybe. I-I… It’s hard to… put into words. Feelings mostly. Not good ones… E-Everything still feels a little fuzzy.”

Martin chuckles a little.

“They say you can tell if you’re dreaming if you try to read. Can’t read in dreams, you know.”

Jon manages a lopsided smirk.

“Is that so?”

There is a stack of books on Martin’s nightstand. Jon does not allow their titles to catch his eye.

“Aren’t you supposed to know everything now, hmmm?”

“What is there to know about dreams? We don’t know why we have them. As far as we know they serve no discernible purpose, they may as well not even exist,” he replies, tetchy academia bleeding into his still sleep-thick voice.

“But they do exist, they are something, a memory, a feeling, a fear…”

“Or all of them at once.”

Silence swells between them, punctuated by the ticking of the clock on the wall. A chaffinch sings an aria somewhere unseen.

“…Are you afraid, Jon?”

“…All the time.”

“Why don’t you have a peek at the clock, then? Clocks can tell you, too. Time doesn’t work right in dreams,” Martin continues sweetly.

Jon does not look.

“You don’t work right in dreams,” he teases instead as the edges of unreality begin to crumble.

“Oh, very original…”

Jon pays for his crimes by being tackled into the mattress and tickled, and he forgets for just a moment, the smell of desiccated plastic and sand in his nostrils and the cool touch-polished bone against his cheek. He forgets with his fingers tangled in russet curls, forgets in their tussling and kissing and laughing in the billowy cloud of their comforter, their bed, forgets until it all bleeds together into a muffled blur in his ears. He steals a furtive glance at the clock on the wall as Martin kisses his neck and shoulder and envelops him utterly.

The second-hand ticks backward just once.

And Jon no longer knows which one of them is having the nightmare, and which one of them is the nightmare.

[estherdedlock]

@herste wrote:

The thing I find comically ironic is that The Secret History, dark academia’s so called ‘bible’, is, to me, a cautionary tale against the whole idea of embodying the aesthetic.

As I said in my post last week, I felt such a disconnect between the Dark Academia aesthetic and The Secret History that...here I am a month later still trying to figure it out. I don’t know if Donna Tartt intended to write a cautionary tale, but I was definitely shaken by this narrative of the consequences of shutting out reality in favor of a insular, curated fantasy.

Thirty years ago, Tartt couldn’t have had any idea of what an “internet aesthetic” was, but her characters are aesthetes. Certainly Henry is an aesthete, at least in his very particular way, so this manner of living is very real to him. And Richard is so needy that his fascination with the group and the way they live is very real for him too. But for Francis, Charles, Camilla, and Bunny, isn’t it all rather an elaborate big-kids’ game of make-believe? There’s no suggestion that they actually care deeply about art, music, Greek, the classics, or any of it. They’re kids playing dress-up, only instead of sitting in a playhouse and pouring pretend tea, they’ve got cocktails and cigarettes and a deliberately anachronistic pantomime of adult sophistication in the way they dress and talk and act. 

I love how Tartt so submerges us in this make-believe that we don’t even know how far under we are until we’re drowning with the rest of them. And then when Charles says to Richard:

Those people had never seen anything like Henry in their lives. I’ll tell you the sort of thing he was worried about. Like if he was carrying around the right book, if Homer would make a better impression than Thomas Aquinas. He was like something from another planet.

It’s such a slap of ice-cold water. The little post-adolescent fantasy we’ve been living, in which Henry’s peculiarities are a welcome addition to this beautifully propped set, just falls apart in the glare of non-aesthetic daylight. Reality gets the final say.

I have to go back to Brideshead Revisited again, because it presents a strikingly similar conflict between fantasy and reality, which the narrator himself acknowledges. When Charles Ryder breaks with the Marchmain clan and leaves Brideshead for what he thinks is the last time, he reflects:

I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed. “I have left behind illusion,” I said to myself. “Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions---with the aid of my five senses.

It’s easy to imagine Richard and the whole group (except Henry and Bunny, of course) feeling the same way after their own self-imposed “captivity” in aesthetic unreality led to so many horrifying mistakes. Better to live in the light of common day than to sink into an illusion---however attractive---that prevents you from seeing things as they are. 

But how differently things work out in these two stories. Brideshead is ultimately a parable of faith, not fantasy. When Ryder says “I have since learned that there is no such world,” (i.e. one of three dimensions), he’s not standing up for the pleasures of beauty and art, he’s professing the reality of things unseen: God, sin, redemption, forgiveness, grace. The "enchanted garden” that he first discovered at Oxford and then at Brideshead has led him to a deeper truth.

Our Hampden friends have no such comforts---their enchantment was manufactured, a collection of curated images, not the gateway to epiphany. Both books end with an epilogue that takes place years after the main events of the story, but the contrast between the final scenes couldn’t be more heartbreaking:

Brideshead Revisited:

Something quite remote from anything the builders intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played...a small red flame...relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle...It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

I quickened my pace and reached the hut which served us for our ante-room.

“You’re looking unusually cheerful to-day,” said the second-in-command.

The Secret History:

In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple...click click click...the Pyramids...the Parthenon. History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice at my elbow.

It was Henry...There was so much I wanted to ask him...

“Are you happy here?” I said at last.

“Not particularly,” he said. “But you’re not very happy where you are, either.”

[liliamoon]

✧ dark academia playlist part II ✧

part I: https://liliamoon.tumblr.com/post/668291394223423488/dark-academia-playlist

old money — lana del rey “cold cash divine, cashmere, cologne, and hot sunshine... and we were young and pretty.”

midas — skott “midas, you’re used to hearing that you’re something above the ordinary, golden. You want to be the one and only— doesn’t it get lonely?”

anyway — noah kahan “and all your falling— does it get exhausting? have you gotten sleep?”

love scene — baekhyun “I look out the window all by myself. You’re coming all the way from there. It looks like a movie scene.”

the louvre — lorde “blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you. But we’re the greatest, they’ll hang us in the Louvre.”

icarus — bastille “look who’s digging their own grave. That is what they all say; you’ll drink yourself to death. Look who makes their own bed, lies down right with it.”

the other side — ruelle “is it fair or is it fate? No one knows. The stars choose their lovers.”

wicked game — daisy gray “the world was on fire and no one could save me but you. Strange what desire will make foolish people do.”

arsonist’s lullaby — hozier “I thought it ended when I knew love’s perfect ache. But my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake.”

lover of mine — five seconds of summer “lead to where your secrets are, where we’ve been a thousand times. Swallow every single lie, take all of me.”

bad blood — bastille “all this bad blood here; won’t you let it dry? It’s been cold for years.”

love and war — fleurie “broken pieces of the night sing like hollow lullabies. You and I, always in disguises.”

roslyn — bon iver “sea and the rock below, cocked to the undertow... wings wouldn’t help you.”

the mystery of love — sufjan stevens “drowned in living waters, cursed by the love I received... like Hephaestion, who died Alexander’s lover.”

like real people do — hozier “why were you digging? what did you bury before those hands pulled me from the earth?”

black swan — bts “heartbeat pulsing slow in my ears, trying to escape with no avail. No song affects me anymore.”

indigo night — tamino “I have seen the world's most beautiful places. Still I feel as if I'm a walking machine... there is nothing in between to me. This might as well not be real.”

[shuadotcom]

Convention Crush | KNJ

➛ Summary: You’re spending your first anime convention alone, in one half of a couple’s cosplay, until you meet a new group of friends and your other fictional half. ➛ Pairing: Namjoon x Gender Neutral!Reader ➛ Genre: Fluff, slice of life ➛ Rating: PG ➛ Warnings: Like two curse words but nothing else ➛ Word Count: 1.7k ➛ A/N: For BHQ’s Anime Club Event! Thank you @nightowls388​ for the prompts! 💚

nightowls388 said: Carese darling!! May I has Namjoon in spirited away with dialogue prompt 10 please :D

The hotel is loud and bustling with life as you walk through the doors. A group of teenagers dressed as various Naruto characters runs past you, arms back and backs bent in classic “Naruto run” stance. You weave through a group of My Hero Academia cosplayers to the registration table to get your convention pass.

Once the lanyard is around your neck, you beeline for the hotel’s attached Starbucks. You’ll need the caffeine if you want to survive your first anime convention alone. You’re supposed to be here with your best friend, but Jungkook decided to catch the flu two days ago. The four-day pass was non-refundable, and you weren’t about to lose out on $70 that you barely had to begin with. So, here you are, alone in a sea of over-excited cosplayers and exhausted parents, in one half of a couple’s costume, not even sure where to begin.

“Hi!” A group of teenagers dressed in various Studio Ghibli cosplays approaches you as you head to the escalator for the main convention floor. “You’re Chihiro, right?” A girl dressed as Princess Mononoke asks, gesturing to your pink bathhouse uniform.

“I am.” You offer a nervous smile, unsure where this is going.

“Can we take a picture with you?! We don’t have anyone from Spirited Away in our group!”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” They all crowd around you, squishing you between a Howl and a Kiki as they get a passerby to take a picture of you all. As soon as the camera shutter goes off a few times, they all thank you in a rush and are gone just as quickly, sprinting up the escalator and disappearing into the crowd.

Still reeling from how fast-paced the interaction was, you finally step onto the escalator and fish the convention schedule from your backpack to scan the upcoming events. An ask the cast panel for Demon Slayer could be interesting, not that you’re sure what that consists of, but that’s one of your favorite anime and you have to start somewhere.

Too absorbed in the schedule, you don’t notice the group of men crossing in front of you at the same time you step off the escalator until you bump into one of them, dropping the pamphlet.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” you reach down to grab the dropped paper, luckily still clutching your coffee safely to your chest.

“No problem, I got it,” One of the men bends at the same time as you and picks your pamphlet up. It’s not until you really look at him that you notice the black bob wig, blue pants, and white Haori.

“Oh! You’re Haku!”

He flashes you a dimpled smile as he takes in your outfit. “And you’re Chihiro. What are the odds.” You share a laugh, both of your hands grasping either side of the pamphlet longer than is probably necessary.

“Ahem.” A throat clear next to you has you both snapping out of the moment you share, remembering the other people he’s with. You make eye contact with a grey-haired man wearing the signature volleyball costume from Haikyuu. Checking the number on his jersey, you deduce he’s dressed as Sugawara. “This is a super cute moment and all, but the AMV contest starts in like fifteen minutes, and we need to get good seats. You can come with us if you want.” He proposes the last part to you.

“Ah, well I was going to go to an ask the cast panel.” Haku, Sugawara, and the other two men with them dressed as Ash Ketchum and Eren Yeager all give you the same pointed look.

“Is this your first anime convention?” Haku asks.

“Yes...how did you know?”

“No one who comes to these things often would ever put themselves through an ask the cast panel. It’s just a bunch of high schoolers being loud and obnoxious, pretending to be the characters. Total shit show.” Sugawara says matter of factly. “Were your friends really gonna have you suffer through that?”

“I’m actually here alone.” The four of them share a look before Haku turns back to you.

“That means you have to hang out with us. We can’t let you fall into any first-timer traps.” He shoots you another smile that’s all dimples, and you feel your pulse quicken. Even under the wig, he’s the most attractive man you’ve seen all day. Maybe even all your life.

“Okay.” You may have just met these men, but you don’t have any internal alarm bells going off about spending time with them. Your possible blooming crush on Haku aside, you don’t feel any negative vibes.

“Now that that’s settled let’s go! I’m not sitting in the back of the room for the contest!” Sugawara takes the lead as you all fall in line and follow him to one of the main meeting rooms.

As the day wears on, you’re more than happy that you decided to spend your time with your new friends instead of wandering alone, letting the four of them take you to various panels that they deem worthy of your time. Haku, whom you now know as Namjoon, is nothing but sweet to you all day. He explains that he and his friends have been going to anime conventions since high school, and now that they’re all seasoned college students, they still make it a point to attend. He mentions that he’s dressed as Haku because Jin, his roommate who’s the most handsome Erin Yeager you’ve witnessed at the convention, was supposed to be Chihiro but backed out last minute for the “cooler” cosplay instead.

Sugawara, who you find out is named Yoongi, is roommates with the fourth member of the quartet, Hoseok, dressed as a very compelling Ash Ketchum. When you compliment him, he flashes you the biggest, sunniest smile you’ve ever laid eyes on. After the AMV contest, they take you to a History of Horror in Manga discussion, much to Hoseok’s constant complaints. Around lunchtime, the five of you leave the hotel and cross the street to look for food. After Jin and Hoseok argue over sushi versus burgers they ultimately have you choose. You opt for chicken, much to everyone’s delight.

Out of everyone, you find yourself talking more one on one to Namjoon, finding out you have quite a few things in common. You both share a love for music and nature and are plant parents, although you tend to kill more plants than keep them alive. Namjoon promises he’ll give you tips on keeping your plant babies alive and grins at you for what feels like the fiftieth time of the day. Each time, your stomach does somersaults, and you feel your skin heat up.

At the end of the night, as you’re all leaving the 18+ Bad Fanfiction Reading panel, you almost don’t want to part ways.

“We can’t let you leave without getting your number!” Jin shoves his phone into your hands, demanding you put your digits in. The other men do the same, with Namjoon being last, hand shaking as he presents his phone. A series of four beeps come through on your phone, signifying the text messages from the group.

All of you are staying upstairs in the hotel rooms, so together, you head for the guest-only elevators as Yoongi announces the panels and events he’s planning for you all to go to tomorrow. Hoseok makes it a point to say that you’re included and that you’re now friends, therefore you have no choice but to spend the rest of the convention with them. Of course, you don’t object and agree to meet them downstairs tomorrow morning.

Your room is on the 8th floor, while their rooms are on the 10th, so you reach your floor first. Preparing to say your goodbyes for the night, you step out of the elevator and send a wave, but before the doors close, Namjoon is shoved out beside you.

“Joon will walk you to your room!” Hoseok calls as the doors close.

“Yeah, we’ll see you in a few, Namjoon!” Yoongi adds, then the doors are shut, and the elevator keeps going up.

Namjoon scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh, please lead the way. I’ll make sure you get to your room, okay.”

Feeling nervous yourself, you simply nod as he follows you the short distance to your room.

“This is me,” you move to the door, and you both stop in front of it. Seconds tick by with the two of you staring at one another while you try and come up with something to say.

“Today was great,” Namjoon says at the same time you do, making both of you chuckle. “Sorry, go ahead first.”

“I just wanted to say thank you for inviting me along with you all today. I had a lot of fun and didn’t think I could’ve done so if I was by myself.”

“Really?” Namjoon says, looking surprised. “I thought we would’ve been a little too high energy for you. You really had a good time? Today made you happy?”

“Yes. I am happy. Because I was able to meet someone like you.” You blurt the latter part out and watch as his eyes widen and a dark shade of red blossoms over his cheeks.

“I, uh, I’m glad you feel that way. I’m really happy I was able to meet someone like you too.” Namjoon’s eyes dart down to your lips momentarily before he lets out a cough. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning. Make sure to meet us downstairs at ten on the dot. If you’re late, Jin will probably nag you for the rest of the convention.” He hesitates momentarily, then reaches out to pull you into a hug. You instantly melt in his hold, inhaling the warm cinnamon scent of whatever Namjoon’s got on.

Your grip on his waist tightens at the same time his arms around your shoulders do. You’re not sure who pulls away first, but reluctantly, you do release each other. Namjoon gives you another goodbye, and then he’s shuffling down the hallway and back towards the elevator.

Once he’s around the corner, you let yourself into your room, his scent still in your nose, and the feeling of his toned arms around you still lingering. How you managed to run into a great group of friends on the first day, you don’t know, but you’re not about to question it. The only thing you worry about is how you can make your cosplay planned for day two as cute as possible, now that you’ve got someone to impress.

[sockablock]

(prev) + (start) + (next)

Chapter 12: The Petals on Her Brow

“No.”

“But—”

“No. Close your eyes.”

“This is boring! Do I really have to—”

“Yes.”

“But—"

“Yes. You do. I will not tell you twice.”

— — —

Back in the cabin, Team Regular People had set up camp in the living room.

Only about an hour had passed since breakfast, but in that time, they’d already managed to turn the couches into literary chaos. On the coffee table, stacks of atlases and maps had been supplemented—then supplanted—by the hundreds of pages of chemistry notes that Nott was supposed to be preparing for the summer semester. Jester similarly had strewn all her summer homework onto the carpet. Fjord was half-slouched in an armchair buried nose-deep in a tome titled The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, looking for all the world like would rather throw himself into the ocean than keep reading.

And as those three languished in the rigors of academia, Caleb, Beau, and Caduceus were sitting at the kitchen table, hunting for Yasha’s mystery flower. So far, they had already eliminated almost everything growing in Eastern Europe, though Caleb had been convinced for a while that the flower was liverwort.

“Its name is ‘Leberblümchen’ in German,” he said. “We used to see it in our garden.”

Beau stared critically at the page, then turned to examine Yasha’s drawing. “Your thing isn’t pointy enough,” she said. “And it doesn’t have enough of those…stringy things in the middle.”

“Liverwort is usually blue, too,” Caduceus said. “Sorry, Mister Caleb.”

He sighed. “It is fine, perhaps we should move farther south.”

Beau pulled over another book and started flipping through the pages. “Do you miss being home?” she asked idly. “I know you haven’t been back there in a while.”

She mentally kicked herself when she noticed Caleb’s smile turn melancholy.

“Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean to remind you—”

He shook his head. “No, no, it is alright, Beauregard. I do miss it, of course. In many parts. Your beer in America is piss poor, for example.”

She immediately rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you say that all the time.”

“It’s a sticking point. Oh, and your trains are very bad—”

“Ugh, I know—”

“—and none of your restaurants know what eggs and soldiers is.”

“No one knows what the hell that is.”

“I don’t,” Caduceus piped up. “What is that?”

“It is a soft egg eaten with little strips of toast. It is the only way to eat toast,” Caleb said wistfully.

“It sounds like you haven’t been back in a while.” Caduceus dipped his head. “It must be difficult, being so far from your family like that.”

“Ah.” Caleb’s expression changed. It was subtle, but the softness in his eyes went still. “That is…I do not have family there, anymore.”

“Oh, I—Caleb, I’m sorry—”

He raised his hand. “It is alright, Caduceus. You did not know. It is not, ah….”

“He doesn’t go around advertising it,” Beau said.

“Well,” Caleb huffed, though not at all angrily, “that is certainly one way to put it. And…yes, to elaborate a little more, since the rest of these people already know, I…some time ago, something happened back home and I decided to leave. It…was not an easy choice, but inevitable, I think, in some ways. And while I do miss Germany, as I said, being here, with my friends, has helped me quite a lot. I am…I find that when I say ‘I’m okay,’ lately, I mean that more and more.”

“You should’ve seen him before,” Beau grinned. “He had such a stick shoved up his ass he could barely smile—though, uh, I guess that’s not surprising since—”

She shut her mouth. She opened it.

“I’m going to go back to staring at flowers now.”

Caleb snorted. He slid another book across the table. “Here, try this one,” he said. “Plants of Italy. If it is not in here, we switch to the Americas.”

She took it. “Thanks. Here’s hoping.”

“Let’s go for another thirty minutes,” Caduceus said. “Don’t forget, it’s important to stretch and take breaks.”

— — —

“Seriously, if you don’t let me, I’ll die.”

“You will not.”

“I will. I swear, I will. I have to take a break. Ten minutes. Five minutes! Sixty seconds, at least, or I drop dead.”

From her perch on the large grey boulder that lay at the edge of the woods behind the cabin, Yasha opened one eye and saw that Mollymauk was already lying down.

He’d rolled off his log and was even in the grass. She frowned. “You are not even trying.”

“I tried, but none of this makes any sense! Sit still and try to ‘feel myself’?” He made air quotes. “Yasha, dear, if that’s what you really wanted, I definitely would not be sitting still.”

He waggled his eyebrows. She ignored him.

“Controlling your energy instinctive,” she said instead. “It is tied to our ability to see and read auras. But because you do not know how to do either, I am doing my best to explain it to you. This is the only way I know how. You are really not taking this seriously.”

“You think I’m not taking this seriously?” He scoffed. “Do you really think I would put myself through any of this if I didn’t think I had to? Need I remind you that my family was attacked by those crazy bikers as well?”

“What? They are not your family,” she blinked. “We were your family. But you left us when you fell.”

He made a show of dramatic incredulity. “Then I also need to remind you, dear, that I haven’t the faintest idea what that means. I’ve got amnesia, remember? Accidental hellfire and devilish charms aside, I really am not a demon. Not culturally.”

She frowned. “Culturally?”

“And I’d really prefer not to dwell on it,” he continued. “As far as I’m concerned, as soon as I get this ‘aura’ nonsense under control, I’m going to go home and get back to living an extraordinary, charmed, non-demonic life.”

Her frown took on a confused note. “But…you are a demon. That is that.”

“No, no, you’re not getting it, Yasha.” He rolled over and looked her in the eye. “Listen to me. Whoever had this body before, maybe, maybe that person could’ve been a demon. But whoever that was, they weren’t me. They were just some stupid asshole who got buried in the earth for, for—I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t even care. Because it’s no concern of mine.”

“Er…buried?”

“Long story,” he shrugged. “Not important. What is important is that the person you see now, that person is me—Mollymauk Tealeaf. Fortune-teller, sword-spinner, lover of…well, lover. You aren’t going to get anywhere until you at least understand that. Alright?”

He rolled back over, crossed his arms on his chest.

“Besides, it seems as if—at least, from the context clues that I’ve pulled together myself—you’re missing a few memories too, aren’t you, Angel? Maybe you should try reinvention.”

Yasha was silent a moment. Eventually, “But I still know who I am. I did not lose that.”

“A pity.”

“It is…no, it is not a pity. It means I still have a purpose. And a past.”

Molly scoffed. “A past isn’t worth bragging about. The present, though, now the present is something.”

She titled her head. “Er…meaning?”

He waved a hand. “Well—well, okay, for example, can you honestly tell me that you aren’t enjoying what you have right now? In this cute little cabin? I still happen to be offended that you don’t think the carnival is my family, but you seem to have found one of your own, too. These people, here, and their delicious pancakes.”

“W—yes, the pancakes are good, but—"

“And those tiny little blueberries, delicious!” he sighed. “I haven’t had berries that sweet since…who knows?”

“You…like sweet things?” Yasha blinked. “Wait, go back, what was it that you said about family?”

“Oh, so you do care that you upset me?”

“I did?”

“Of course you did! My god, The Fletching and Moondrop might not’ve been the most functional of units, it might not’ve been the most traditional, but I certainly cared about them a lot. They found me when I had nothing, was no one. They gave me a home. They took care of me. They were my whole world, and trying to deny me that is basically like—it’s spitting in my face!”

Her gaze drifted downward. “I did not know. I am sorry.”

“Oh, cheer up, cheer up!” He scrambled upright. “You didn’t know, it’s alright, Yasha. God, have I just made an angel feel guilty? Isn’t it supposed to be your job to do that?”

Her brow furrowed. “I have been trying to do my job for two hours. I am supposed to teach you. You do not listen.”

“Because that’s boring. Sitting still is no fun.”

“I explained it already, Mollymauk. You are not just sitting still, you are centering yourself to connect with the world’s energy, then turning it inward—”

“Oh, I know! Why don’t I teach you, instead?”

She stopped. Her brow furrowed. “You…what?”

“Let me teach you something!” He clapped his hands together, eyes shining with glee. “Come on, come on, what do you say? It can be anything you like! Tarot reading!”

“No, what—”

“Alright, alright, it’s not for everyone, okay…how about sword spinning?”

She frowned. “Why would you do that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Why not? It’s flashy, exciting, and you can show off your skills! What, think won’t don’t have the dexterity for it?”

Something in Yasha bristled. “I am good with swords.”

“Then prove it! I’ll go back into the house right now and fetch the glass ones, then—"

The fog cleared; she caught on. “Wait, wait. If you go in, I am sure that you will not come back out.”

He laughed, completely unashamed. “Fine, fine, how about…oh! Why don’t I teach you to make flower crowns?”

She immediately opened her mouth in protest, but for some reason, somewhere along the line, the response that came out was a semi-choked, “Huh?”

“Flower crowns!” He grinned again, sensing weakness. “Come on, it’s great if you like flowers. Don’t tell me you don’t have those in Heaven.”

“I…it is called Elys—of course we have flowers.”

“Perfect! Do you have a favorite kind?” He leaned forward. “C’mon, I promise it’ll be quick, and then I’ll absolutely pay attention to the energy stuff. Just ten minutes! Only ten.”

She wanted to argue again. She knew she had to, it was her duty, her responsibility to tell him no way, to pick him up and throw him over her shoulder and sit him up straight and threaten him until he listened…

But what she said was:

“…fine. Ten minutes, and then we start again.”

“Yes!”

— — —

“Do you think he’d look good with pink instead?” Jester let a strand of Caleb’s hair fall from her hand and back onto his shoulders. “Caduceus could probably help, too. Couldn’t you, Caddy?”

“Sure I could.”

“I don’t know,” Nott rubbed her chin. “I mean, pink, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great color—”

“Thank you.”

“—but close to the original. If we’re going to do a dye job, it should be wild.”

Caleb counted to ten. “The ‘if’ in your statement should sound more hypothetical,” he said.

“Well, it’s only if you want it, Caleb. But you know, you’d look really cool with dyed hair!” Jester gushed. “How about a streak? Like Fjord? To be stylish?”

“I’m glad you think I’m stylish,” Fjord called from his armchair, Conventions now draped across his face. “But you know I didn’t do this on purpose.”

“Right, right—”

“What, really?” Nott glanced at him. “What happened? Don’t tell me it was a prank someone pulled.”

“Why?” he grunted. “Upset you didn’t do it first?”

“Yes! Of course I am!”

He sighed, and tugged the book off his face. He ran a hand through his short black hair and found the shock of white streaking through it.

“I got it in the accident. With the shipping company, remember? That whole thing with the engine malfunction. Big storm, boat went down, but, uh, I got rescued.”

“Yeah,” said Nott, immediately relenting. “I…remember. You nearly drowned.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged. “I noticed this grey streak after leaving the hospital. So…either a nurse used some real strong hair dye, or…I dunno, maybe it was from the stress?”

Jester very quickly reached over and squeezed his hand.

He gave a tiny smile. “It’s alright, it’s been a while since it happened. And you know, thanks to all the bad press they got after, they had to do something for me. So…it balanced out.”

“They sent you to college,” said Caduceus, remembering. “The scholarship?”

“Yeah. And an offer to work for them again after I graduate.”

“Hell no!” screeched Nott. “Are you kidding me? After everything that happened, do they really expect you to work for them again? Or even to go out on the water?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “I really liked sailing, I…I miss it sometimes, actually. But I probably shouldn’t go back to them, that’s true.”

“What was the name of the company?” she demanded. “I’m going to leave them terrible reviews.”

“I don’t think you can do that for corporations.”

“Just give me a name, Fjord, it’ll make me feel better, if not you.”

He sighed and put his book back on his head. “U.K. Toa Shipping Industries. Have fun.”

“U.K.?” Caleb gently tugged himself free. “It is British?”

Fjord was quiet for a moment. “Huh,” he said. “You know, I don’t actually know. I always assumed so, but I guess I never asked.”

“That’s it,” Caduceus suddenly said.

They all turned.

“That’s what, Caddy?” Jester said.

“Fjord’s accent,” he grinned. He sounded incredibly satisfied. “You’re British now, aren’t you? I knew there was something different.”

A pause. Then:

“Oh my god, I completely forgot—”

“Nott—”

“That’s right! You did do that, Fjord—”

“Jester, I’m begging—”

“You told me you were Texan,” Caduceus nodded. “You talked all…twangy, before. In freshman year.”

“He did, didn’t he?” Nott all but beamed.

“I want to die,” Fjord moaned. “I want to die, it was—it wasn’t a phase, but…oh god…” He sunk down even lower in his chair.

“It’s a sweet reason,” Jester said supportively. “Real sweet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Fjord, can I tell him?” she asked.

He vaguely waved his hand and Jester removed his book to tap him on the nose.

“Well, you see, Fjord did it partially ‘cause he was going to America and he didn’t want to stick out as the British kid. But he also did it because he wanted to remember his old captain. Vandren.”

“He was Texan,” Fjord mumbled. “And it wasn’t just, you know, remembering by itself, it was also…I dunno, I wanted to emulate him. He was…he had this way of commanding a room that just…you know.” He shifted awkwardly. “I…I wasn’t the…most confident person, before. When I was younger, especially. But putting on a mask, pretending to be Vandren, it…helped. Especially since nobody knew me here.”

Caduceus hummed his understanding, and nodded.

“What changed?”

Fjord’s cheeks colored. “Well…you know. After a while, I realized it was…pretending to be Vandren was preventing anyone from knowing me. The mask was comfortable, but it wasn’t…true.”

Caduceus smiled. “Jester was right. That is very sweet. I’m happy for you. And this accent isn’t bad.”

Fjord chuckled. “Thank you,” he tipped his book like a hat. “That is—thank you kindly, partner.”

“It’s tragic that you decided to be genuine,” Nott sighed, leaning back into a cushion. “Your southern accent was way hotter—”

“I got it!”

This outburst came from Beau, who had ended her break early to resume the search. Fjord all but threw himself out of the living room in pursuit of this new distraction.

“What?” he asked, sliding into the kitchen. “Is it a match?”

“Fuck yeah it is, look! Everyone, look!”

The rest trailed in behind him and gathered around Beau, who was practically vibrating.

“Trientalis borealis! The starflower!” she yelled. “Here it is—” she slapped Yasha’s drawing onto a page displaying a faded photo. “It’s a perfect match, seven pointed petals, a lot of yellow stringy stuff in the middle. And it’s tiny. Half an inch wide.”

“The starflower is one of the more common spring wildflowers native to eastern North America,” Caleb read, sitting down in the chair next to her. “The species name borealis refers to being from the north, although this plant is also distributed in the Midwest and the higher elevations of the southern Appalachian Mountains. Depending on latitude and altitude, starflowers generally bloom from mid to late spring into early summer.”

He leaned back, and gave Beau an amazed look. “You are right, this photo is exactly the same. You…you did it, Beauregard, that is…incredible.”

She punched the air. “Now who’s the king of nerds?! Wait, gross…”

— — —

“—little longer, you just need a second color. Something, hm…maybe blue. Or yellow. Preference?”

“P—what? Oh, uh…either is fine.”

Yasha and Molly had drifted away from their makeshift stools and into the forest, coming through the grass for summer blooms. Molly was flitting from flowerbed to flowerbed, plucking up stems and laughing when bumblebees had to spiral out of his way. Yasha had taken to sitting below a tree trunk, moving as little as angelically possible, so as to not disturb her crown.

Molly had placed it atop her head, and she could feel the petals on her brow. They were purple wildflowers. They were soft.

Yasha was always surprised by just how soft flowers could get—after all, they had to live outside all the time and there was so much danger, so much weather, it was a miracle they could grow at all. Still, it made her nervous to touch flowers; she was worried that her big, calloused hands would break them, maybe damage or ruin them somehow—

“Don’t be silly, love. You could never do such a thing.”

Yasha flinched, startled. “What?”

“Er…I just asked if you liked these,” Molly frowned. He’d flopped back down beside her and was showing off a hand of pudgy yellow blossoms. “Are you alright, dear?”

“Oh, er…yes. I am fine.” She blinked, and that whispered voice was gone. A second later, she wasn’t sure if it’d been there at all.

“In that case, look, look, what do you think?” He held the flowers up to the sun. “Nice, right?”

Yasha felt her face soften. A tiny smile crept into the corners of her mou—

“Hey, where’d they go? Yasha? Mollymauk? Where are you guys?!”

“I think I see them, through there—"

“Uh-oh.” Molly turned to Yasha and grinned. “I think we’ve been made.”

She groaned, and shut her eyes.

— — —

“—you understand how important this is?! We told you what the stakes were, I can’t believe you were picking flowers!”

“Hey! Why does everyone think I don’t understand anything? And anyway, Yasha was with me the whole time—”

“Oh, right, pin it on her, you asshole—”

“Fuck you, I’m not pinning anything on anyone—”

“Hey, hey, okay, calm down,” Fjord stepped between them and raised his hands. “Whoa, déjà-vu. Anyway, let’s just relax. Please?”

“She’s accusing me for no reason,” Molly said, hackles lowered but still with a bite.

“And he’s slacking off,” Beau glared.

“Yasha did say they agreed to take the break together,” Fjord reminded her. “And it’s the first day. It’ll take time to perfect the, uh, formula, right, Yasha?”

The three of them turned to look at Yasha, who was standing back with the rest of their friends, wearing an expression of absolute discomfort.

“Er…er…yes, right,” she said clumsily. “We just got…carried away.” She gave Beau a nervous nod. “Sorry.”

This was enough to soothe Beau’s foul mood. She sighed. “I don’t blame you, Yasha, I blame that one.” She jabbed a halfhearted thumb at Molly.

“Hey!”

“Just let her have this,” Fjord said.

“It’s not your fault,” Beau continued, ignoring them. “And—ugh, I hate being the bigger person—I get it. It’ll take time. You need breaks. I’m…sorry I freaked out.”

“Thank—” Molly began.

“Not you.”

“Well, It was worth a try.”

Yasha seemed more than relieved by Beau’s words. “You do not need to be sorry either, but thank you. And I will be more, ah, better next time.”

“Next time,” Molly grumbled. “Well, as long as she isn’t there, next time.”

“That is right,” Yasha tilted her head. “Beauregard, why did you come outside?”

From the back, Jester grinned. “Oh, Yasha, it’s so exciting!”

“That’s right!” Beau’s face lit up immediately, her annoyance at Molly all but melting away. “Guess what?”

“Er…what?”

She whipped out a book, small and bound with a soft green cover.

“I found it. Your flower.”

Yasha’s eyes widened. “You—what? You did? Where is it? What is it called?”

Her grin widened as she turned the pages. “It’s the Trientalis borealis, let me show you the picture—"

“Tren…” Yasha frowned in concentration. “The…three-foot…no, one-third—”

Beau actually laughed, then flipped the book around, pointing to a small picture beneath text. “Its common name’s ‘starflower.’ Sound familiar?”

“Star…flower.” Yasha hesitated. “That sounds…I’m not sure…”

“It would be ‘ʢƾʯɬƺƛᵿɿʑʖɕʚɬ,’ I think—” Caduceus said.

“Yeah?” Beau asked hopefully.

Yasha nodded. Her frown had vanished, and now she was staring at the book, nearly frozen, glued to the image of a little white flower. “…starflower,” she murmured. “ʢƾʯɬƺƛᵿɿʑʖɕʚɬ. You found it.”

“Hell, yes!” cheered Nott from between the others.

Yasha managed to tear her gaze away and this time, it fell on Beauregard.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “You…found it. Thank you.”

Beau’s cheeks flushed. She forced herself to stay still. “Oh, well, you know, it was…it…nothing.”

She did not resist as Yasha took the book, moving it closer to get a better look. “No, it is everything,” she said. “You did it.”

“Well—fuck, I mean, you know,” she scratched her neck and looked down, “I told you I would.”

“And you did. Thank you.”

“Now that she has found the flower,” Caleb cut in, both to Beau’s relief and disappointment, “we can start narrowing down a region. In fact, we already know from this book that the starflower is endemic to the United States.”

Yasha patiently waited for him to elaborate.

“That is, it grows near us. It is common on the east and west coasts, and is usually found in the early summer.”

He stepped forward, and with Yasha’s permission, flipped the page and showed her a map. Much of the US and Canada were blue.

She traced this with a finger. “Wait, then…does that mean I might have been in Iothia this whole time? Or right next to it?”

“That remains to be seen. It depends on how big Iothia is,” Caleb said. “And of course, again, exactly where it is. But we can use this map, and the geographical features we know, to compile a list of locations that would give you the most likely areas of Iothia.”

He gave Yasha a satisfied nod. “You are well on your way to going home, Engel.”

Her gaze fell back to the book. She turned the page to look at the flower.

Its name is ‘starflower.’ Isn’t that funny?

“Wha—why is that funny?” she said out loud.

“Hm?” Caleb cocked his head. “Why is what funny?”

She frowned. “The…name of the flower, I think. Or the…stars?”

“Actually, I was thinking that too,” Nott said. “Since, you know, you fell from the sky, right? And I guess these little flowers did too!”

Beau groaned. “So, this whole time, we were looking for a pun?”

“I think that’s irony, actually—” Fjord began.

Yasha blinked.

—and that whispered voice was gone…

When she looked up again, everyone was staring at her.

“Are you okay?” Jester asked. “You…is everything alright?”

—a second later, she wasn’t sure if it’d been there at all—

She shook her head, then realized that looked like a negative and managed to produce a weird, swooping nod.

“I am very happy,” she said quickly. “I am just…it is just a lot to take in. The flower. This…memory, it was…something important.”

Caduceus smiled. “Then it gets to be important again. This time, it’ll help you find your way home.”

Seven little petals. Bright like a star. Tiny enough to fit in someone’s hand.

She passed the open book back to Beau. She noticed Beau’s hand brush the flower.

“I…you are right,” she said, half to herself. “I think it will.”

“We all will,” Beau grinned.

—

✨ Ko-Fi Link in Bio! ✨ | Requests are OPEN!

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 1 for the first time. Random thoughts.

This show is kind of nice because I have no memories of the original She-Ra show, or even any of He-Man, honestly. I'm not sure if I ever watched the original, so I have no frame of reference for how the series is "supposed" to be. I can just take it and judge it as is.

Of the bat, all I know is that supposedly She-Ra and Catra get together as a romantic couple later, but I'm also a huge My Hero Academia fan and the fandom around me ships every character with every other character, so for all I know that might just be shipper wishful thinking I've been seeing and hearing. Given fandoms for Gravity Falls, Thor, and Supernatural ship even siblings together, I've learned not to trust anything except for what I see in the series for myself.

By the way, this isn't a review, just random thoughts and comments I'm having as I'm going through season 1 for the first time.

Episodes 1 and 2: Right off, I really like Catra's "No duh" response to Adora about the truth of the horde. She knows they've been lying to them and have been doing terrible things, she just doesn't care. If she and Adora play their cards right they could end up being the ones in charge and then they'd have all that power. Not necessarily to make things better but enough to where they could do whatever and live however they want. That's a good build for an antagonist. Not ignorant to the fact what they're doing is wrong, just simply so selfish that they don't care.

Episode 3: It really feels like there was no good reason why Glimmer didn't just outright introduce Adora to her mother and every reason she should have known it was a bad idea to try and hide her for a surprise. Being a former horde soldier she'd probably get treated with hostility if Glimmer brought her to the front gate but you'd almost guarantee Adora would get arrested or outright killed if she got caught while no one else knew she was there.

On the other side, we have Hordak being pretty intelligent in promoting Catra. He probably knows Shadow Weaver already doesn't like him, so it's not like he's losing anything making her upset with him, and it's clear she favors Adora way more than Catra, so that little bit of advancement towards Catra probably goes a long way in earning her loyalty to him and a person on the inside with Shadow Weaver.

Also, I'm not the only one who saw Madam Razz and immediately thought Adora had found her Yoda, right?

Episode 4: I don't know how it was in the original She-Ra and He-Man series but I kind of like She-Ra being this title from legend. Adora is not the first She-Ra, given what Razz was talking about with a Mara, so instead of being something new, impressing everyone with abilities they've never seen before, and creating the legend, Adora is placed in a position WAY over her head where she's having to live up to what came before her.

Episode 5: Calling it now, as long as her personality is genuine I think Scorpia is going to be one of my favorite characters in this show. She's...endearing, I think is the best word. She's like a mix of Kronk and a nicer Shego.

For a little bit I thought Mermista was voiced by the same actress who played Poison Ivy in the Harley Quinn animated series. She's not but they do have the same kind of Daria-ish inflections, thus by confusion. Given the prom episode, Sea Hawk feels kind of like her Kite Man.

Episode 6: Okay, now it's between Scorpia and Entrapta who are likely to be my favorites by the end of this. She's fun and quirky.

Episode 7: Quite the lore drop. Shadow Weaver was once a Mystacor sorceress known as Light Spinner. I like to imagine we'll get more on that later. Her haunting Adora reminded me of the Teen Titans' episode where Robin was similarly haunted by Slade. This didn't go as far as that but that's probably for the best, since TT had two and a half seasons to build that dynamic up with Robin and Slade while we're only now halfway through the first season.

Episode 8: Well dang. Again, I don't know for sure if Adora and Catra do end up together but boy do I buy why they're shipped together after that dance. Also, good on Bow for standing up for himself. It's clear that he'll always be Glimmer's friend and this won't change that but that doesn't mean he has to just accommodate her. I understand where her issues stem from but I am still glad he gave her a reality check. It helps him feel a little more like his own character.

Also, another nice little bit of lore and worldbuilding. Scorpia's a princess, the horde landed where her people lived, and they seemed to join them willingly.

Episode 9: Surprisingly don't have a lot to say about this other than I don't buy for a second that Entrapta is dead (EDIT: She's not). This was mostly action.

Episode 10: Not going to lie, this one kind of annoyed me a little, at least the first half. The conversation between Glimmer and her mother saved it a bit. It was a bit of a trifecta. You have the alliance breaking apart, saying that the loss of Entrapta only happened because they were all together...even though Entrapta only "died" because of her own machine obsession that caused her to deliberately walk back into the purging chamber. You have Entrapta who might be turning to the horde's side because she feels abandoned by the other princesses...even though they thought she was dead, and again it was her fault they got separated. And you have Glimmer refusing to tell her mother that Shadow Weaver's dark magic has caused her powers to go on the fritz and is causing her great pain. It just feels like none of this would be an issue if most of these people would stop being self-absorbed for three seconds and talk like any normal person would. It feels very CW drama, like something I'd see in a bad season of Arrow or The Flash. The only person whose issues I buy is Adora, who is basically a soldier who was never properly raised to deal with emotion or loss and is already struggling with the burden of being She-Ra, the legendary savior. I get why she's beating down on herself for not being able to do more even if nothing that happened was her fault.

Episode 11: JEEEEEEEEEZZZZ, that was such a good episode! Focused entirely on Adora and Catra and their past together. Like, just showing someone this episode alone could probably get them to want to watch the series. That was everything you needed to know about their dynamic and history together.

Also, that moment when Catra and her past self are looking at each other, while obviously Catra takes the opposite lesson, it reminded me of this fanart I'd once seen of Jason Todd, the Red Hood, looking at his past self as Robin. The past says to the future "You ruined everything". Catra could be happy but, ironically for someone who hates Shadow Weaver, she's probably going to be a lot like her, sacrificing everything for power and ambition.

Given the way she looked, I'm guessing Shadow Weaver is either addicted to the power of the Black Garnet or she suffered some kind of past injury and its power is the only thing keeping her going. Or both.

Episode 12: I'll be honest, Swiftwind being able to talk kind of gobsmacked and I needed a moment to recover. What a great voice they chose for that character.

So She-Ra is kind of like the legendary heroes from Rising of the Shield Hero, coming from a long line of people chosen to wield the sword. I tend to dislike chosen one types of stories because I think prophecy takes a lot of weight out of the character's actions, so this and Avatar are more what I like. The MC is special but not the only one who's ever been special and they can still easily fail. Their destiny was only to be able to use the weapon, not that they would succeed in any specific purpose.

And dang, Catra's turn against Shadow Weaver happened faster than I thought it would but I'm not complaining. That great "This is what you've really been preparing me for" speech and Hordak, again, being an intelligent villain. "Oh, this experiment could net me a MASSIVE gain and all it could potentially cost me is this rock I already gave away to someone who lately hasn't been producing any results and has been consistently disobeying me. Yeah, I'm going to let this play out."

Episode 13: That was kind of a brutal fight between Adora and Catra. Not the worst I've ever seen even in other shows for this age range (Samurai Jack, for example) but those punches are connecting and those claws are leaving marks.

Also, maybe I'm just misunderstanding the exact situation but shouldn't the good guys' side be called the Resistance instead of the Rebellion? Being a rebellion would imply they are rebelling against an established power or rule over them, but the actual conflict we are shown is the established power and rule that is the kingdoms of Eternia resisting an outside force that wishes to establish a new order over them.

Season 1 verdict: I'm into it. I'm definitely more invested in the villains' side of things but that's not a fault of the series, that stuff is just way more geared towards me than the current princess stuff. I actively am at attention whenever the horde main characters are on screen. For the good guys it's mostly Adora and the She-Ra stuff I'm invested it. That isn't to say I have any real dislikes for that side. Bow especially I'm liking much more than I thought I might. He has kind of this gravitational pull around him. You will be his friend regardless of how much you might want to resist. He's definitely the rock for everyone else to hold onto.

Minor side note, kind of like Korra in Legend of Korra, I love how even when her powers aren't active Adora is shown to still be pretty strong physically with how easily she was lifting people up at the prom.

And I was right, Scorpia is my favorite side character.

On to season 2!

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/nyll2e/going_in_blind_watching_season_1_for_the_first/

[ao3feed-hitoshi-shinsou]

I Don't Want to Wake Up (Lightning Fields of Love)

I Don't Want to Wake Up (Lightning Fields of Love) by Jazbel760

"Tell me, If a person falls apart alone in the dark, does it make a sound? And if it does make a sound, is it as loud and devastating as a decaying broken heart when it is finally found? Or is it the sound of soft strangulation that we miss all the time behind words like 'I'm fine'" - Nikita Gill, Your Heart is the Sea Or: Kaminari is coping with Shinsou's death. Dreams are a blessing and a curse. Sequel to Come Back, I Still Need You. Based on Lightning Fields by The Killers TW: Death, Car Crash, Brief mention of exposed bones, falling, mild gore????

Words: 1096, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Kaminari Angst

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death

Categories: M/M

Characters: Kaminari Denki, Shinsou Hitoshi, Kirishima Eijirou, Kaminari Denki's Mother

Relationships: Kaminari Denki/Shinsou Hitoshi, Kaminari Denki & Shinsou Hitoshi, Kaminari Denki & Kirishima Eijirou (mentioned)

Additional Tags: Mentioned Kaminari's Mom, Mentioned Kirishima Eijirou, Dreams, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Past Character Death, Coping, Grief/Mourning, Kaminari Denki Angst, Kaminari Denki Needs a Hug, Angst, Heavy Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Car Accidents, The Author Regrets Nothing, I Made Myself Cry, I'm Sorry, i'm actually not, dreams are weird, Sequel, Not Beta Read We Die Like Shinsou Did in the Last Oneshot, Based on Lightning Fields (The Killers)

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31686290

[oceanspirit9]

Hi bestie 🖤 for the spring ask game:

April, meadow and you

✨ALSO I LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU✨

Hey there, lovely! Thanks for the love and I'm sending it right back to you 🖤

April: What's your favorite time of the year?

I've grown to appreciate all seasons, for each has their own particular mood, but, here are some very specific moments I always cherish:

🌷 The first real spring day, when the trees are blossoming all around and the ground is covered in petals; that casual walk you take with a friend in the warm sun, taking the long way home just to have another tiny bit of fresh air

☀️ The midst of summer, when the scorching heat lingers heavy over your skin, when you walk around, sun-kissed and smelling of salt; early summer mornings when the birds are chirping and you wake up to an ice-cream for breakfast; late summer evenings, when you're lying on the floor fan in hand, music blasting from your open window; star-gazing on a grassy meadow; water splashing at your feet; floating in the sea, aimlessly, purposelessly; longer days and an overall sense of calm; summer thunderstorms that charge the air with electricity, the ground trembling with the weight of massive thunders

🍂 And then the leaves start falling when autumn approaches; pulling out your favorite sweaters; taking a walk through the park and taking 2013-inspired Tumblr photos of your Converse and the leaves; the dark academia playlists and the sense of belonging to your small town; Halloween preparations and horror movies; sharp decline in temperatures that make you cuddle up inside your room; perfect time and weather for some writing/reading

🧊 The smell of winter, the crisp white snow and the trails your boots leave in it; that all-encompassing sense of warmth as you come home from a long day out; putting your frozen hands under hot water; travelling back home for the holidays

Meadow: Do you prefer the beach or the woods?

I live by the sea, so you'd think it would be obvious. And I do love the sea, the way waves crash into the sand, the way the sun reflects off its smooth surface. But the woods make me feel like I'm living in a magical world (and ever since I read The Raven Boys all those years back the magic of the forest and the smell of the pine will always make me feel safe). On top of that, with The Raven Boys, Percy Jackson, Twilight, etc. how can you not experience a sense of belonging. It's intoxicating to me.

You: What's one thing you like about yourself? What's one thing you dislike about yourself?

That's a hard one. I dislike a lot about who I am and how I react to things. But if I had to go with just one, it has to be my insecurity. I have all these amazing people in my life supporting me in everything, encouraging me and being so damn kind, yet I still cannot accept I'm actually good at anything. So, there is much to be done in this department.

In terms of what I like about myself, hmm, perhaps the way I write. This might be narcissistic, but I love how long I spend on perfecting every single sentence of a work, making sure no words repeat and that they flow into each other. Bonus round, I also like how visual I am. You play me a song, I already have a playlist to build around it, a Pinterest board and a scene to write inspired by it!

So, yeah. Thank you @brown-eyed-babes for asking all of this, I might have gone off but I needed the distraction. It was therapeutic.

[ampleappleamble]

Hey uh so I'm trying something out. Basically, I wrote a fanfiction detailing my OG Watcher Axa Mala's arrival in the Dyrwood, and if you wanna read it, that would be super cool and good of you ♡ I'm trying to get a more fleshed out, proper voice for Axa, and I figured the best place to start would be... at the start.

Please feel free to leave feedback if you end up reading this; I haven't written anything like this in years and I wanted to try and get my sea legs under me again. I've got a few asks I want to try and answer first, but I would very much like to continue this. Let me know what you think!

No real title yet. I think about possible title candidates literally all day.

---

Pillars of Eternity: An Historical Account of the Life and Exploits of Axa Mala, Watcher of Caed Nua

---

I made a promise.

The little woman sat at the back of the crowded little wagon. Her head lolled on her shoulders and her eyes were closed, but she wasn't asleep-- although she was as close to it as her body and mind would allow.

He made a promise. To me.

Still, sleep refused to take her entirely, and so her thoughts drifted through the haze in her mind like dead leaves floating on a pond, tormenting her. Reminding her of everything she was hoping sleep would allow her to forget for a while.

He lied to me.

The wagon jostled her to and fro, her small frame tossed to and fro against the other passengers. Her burgundy hair hung in loose curls over her face, her long, tapered ears limp against her cheeks.

He... betrayed me.

The stale air in the covered wagon, the stuffy miasma of the breath and body odor of other kith, combined with the wagon's insistent swaying-- it reached her even through her dozing, making her head swim. Soon she began to squirm and groan, started feeling flushed and weak.

He betrayed... us. Both--

...All of us.

Even as another passenger gently gripped her shoulder, asking if she was feeling alright, she found herself unable to fully wake. All of a sudden her whole world was the pounding of her heart, the fever on her brow, the thoughts racing through her foggy, half-sleeping mind, whirling madly, a half-dream almost spoken aloud:

traitor-- promise-- liar-- devotion--

She writhed, trembling, teeth chattering, as a nearby folk man trundled to the front of the wagon, hollering for the caravan master to stop. A dwarf seated by her reached across the gap between them and squeezed her hand gently.

"Hey, there. Come on now, you'll be alright. We'll tell the caravan master to stop for you, and we'll get you taken care of. We little kith have to watch each other's backs, after all." She winked, and the orlan only moaned weakly in response, dazed and frightened.

What do I do now? Without them? ...Him. Am I-- I'm--

And finally, she shuddered violently, waking. Her violet eyes snapped open to stare blearily at her shaking hands in her lap.

I... I feel...

...Oh. Gods.

...I never should have done this. Any of this.

.........Where are we?

The man who'd alerted the driver had returned, looking paler than before. The caravan had stopped, but not because of her.

---

"There." The hired guard gestured toward a large bush bristling with small, pink berries. "Berries Odema told y' 'bout. Let's get y' fixed up, c'mon."

Axa shuffled miserably behind the blond woman, shivering and panting as her cheeks flushed with fever again. It comes and goes, she thought, gritting her pointed teeth, wiping her brow. What in Hel is this malady?

The exertion from fighting off the local fauna wasn't making her condition any easier to bear, and although the caravan master had told her her illness was common and not very severe, it was bad enough to make taking down a single juvenile wolf a struggle. Been in the books too much perhaps, she thought grimly as she caught up to the folk woman. Another favor academia's done me: Now I'm out of shape and out of friends.

As she knelt before the bush, she couldn't help but heave a long, shaky sigh. Well. Maybe I ought to be a bit easier on myself. I've had a... difficult month. And now, this shit on top of it all. Maybe I should find a temple, make a sacrifice to Rymrgand... She tried to laugh, but it came out a weak cough instead.

Calisca side-eyed the little woman as they harvested the berries together, a slight smirk playing on her chapped lips. Maybe it was the orlan's small stature making her resemble a folk child, or maybe it was her stubborn, sulky silence, but she couldn't help but be reminded of her youngest brother. He was a studious, taciturn lad who had yearned to be taken seriously, but always pouted and whined at any little splinter or bruise. Not to say she thought the orlan was faking it, just that she seemed to be acting worse off than she looked. She knew orlans were intense by nature, so maybe she was just being dramatic. After all, she'd flirted with that Aedyre merchant back at camp easily enough.

But when she really thought about it, the fuzzy little redhead had been quiet and withdrawn the whole trip down, ever since they'd rolled out of Ixamitl. None of the other travelers had had much to say about her when asked, other than that she was apparently a former lore college student who seemed content to keep to herself. And Calisca had suffered the Rumbling Rot herself enough times to know that it didn't render a kith this out of sorts. So either she was exaggerating, Odema was talking complete horseshit, or she had something weighing her down besides the fever and chills.

Each answer was as likely as the other, and Calisca's response was the same either way: try and get her talking, lighten her up. Didn't need her bringing the mood down further for the other caravanners, making a bad situation worse. Better to try and make friendly, put her at ease. It'd certainly make this shitshow of a night pass easier.

"People're talkin' about you at camp, like kith will. Word is you're a loremaster from the Plains." Calisca paused her berry picking to glance around, scanning for any movement from the underbrush. "Or somethin' like that anyway. What was it you used to study?"

Axa snorted and winced simultaneously. She could understand and appreciate an attempt at small talk, but the other woman had chosen the worst possible avenue of inquiry. Maybe if she had asked about her love life, that would be worse...

"Loremaster? Hardly. Scholar. ...Of history." The orlan's response was short and clipped, but her voice was deep and rich, clearly accustomed to song and public speaking. Her Ixamitl accent was only partially obfuscated by her easy proficiency in Aedyran. "Well. Linguistics, really. And naturalism. Studying cultures and languages, you know. History is more of a catch-all term..." She gestured vaguely, waving one hand about, dropping half of her harvest in the process. Calisca snorted this time, and she couldn't deny the relief she felt when the little woman laughed along with her instead of getting offended.

"History and language, huh?" The fighter bent down to collect the fallen fruit, a wry grin on her ruddy face. "Come out here to study how we Dyrwoodans been butcherin' Aedyran with our accents and cussin'? ...Truth be told, I might like to read that paper." She rolled her head around on her shoulders, stretching her neck. "Well... maybe have someone read it to me."

"I'm... No, I'm not here on behalf of any college. I'm not here for anyone." She wasn't smiling anymore. Another awkward silence. Calisca was getting ready to just change the topic to something less incendiary when Axa looked away--

just explain before you have to suffer the humiliation of being asked!!

-- and sighed. "I was expelled. I... made a poor choice, trusted someone I shouldn't have, and I was forced out of my community." If the fever hadn't reddened her face, this confession certainly had. The berries bled juice from between her fingers, smashed in her shaking fists. "I lost my academic standing, my career, my... everything. So now I'm here. Because it was this or killing myself, and with my luck that would probably just piss off Berath."

There. That's all. You've said the essentials, you've admitted it out loud, it counts as the truth, and you don't need to say it again if you don't want to. Axa looked at the ground, angry at herself, at her shame, at the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. It wasn't that bad, wasn't that bad, wasn't...

If Calisca was at all shocked by the former scholar's outburst, she hid it well. "Damn rough turn, that," she drawled, shaking her head slowly. "...Well, gods know we've all done shit we ain't proud of. Made moves we've regretted. Important thing's to learn from it. And considering you made a living at it once, you're probably pretty good at learnin'. Ain't that right, scholar?" She tried a heartening smile, and found it came more easily than she'd thought it would. "That's what the Dyrwood's all about. Second chances."

Self-pity and gratitude washed over Axa in equal measure. A complete stranger had to be the one to do it-- a mercenary at that-- but at long last, someone had finally sympathized with her, taken her at her word, and given her a few words of encouragement. How had this taken so long?

"I... yes, I suppose you're right." She wiped her hands on the grass and groped for another berry-laden branch. "I have to admit, it does help to hear someone else actually say it. Academia is infested with egoists who refuse to back down, who never learn from their mistakes. It's refreshing to be reassured by a fellow kith of the universal truth that... we are all fuck-ups from time to time." She grinned. "And that the point of life is to learn. A cool hand on a hot brow." Axa looked up at the other woman. "Thank you, Calisca."

And with that, Calisca finally felt herself relax. Despite the blocked road, the sick passenger, the dangerous ruins, the threatening weather-- despite it all, she had actually managed to get through to this girl and turn a potential shitshow into a manageable little fiasco. Not bad at all. And Odema thinks he pays me more than my work's worth! She chuckled to herself as she turned back to the task at hand.

"So. Have a destination in mind?" She plucked a few more of the riper-looking berries. Her hands moved at a leisurely pace; they were nearly finished already.

"Gilded Vale. Local lord is practically giving away land." Axa picked slowly, too, still groggy and fatigued from fever and chills.

Calisca nodded. "I heard about that. Got a sister in Gilded Vale myself." The mercenary smiled at the thought of Aufra, but her stomach twisted with anxiety when she remembered that letter. She pushed it out of her mind.

"Any idea what you'll be occupying yourself with? Bein' honest, don't know what kinda life a professional book reader might carve out for herself in a little farming community like the Vale." The blonde woman smiled at her to reassure her that she was joking, but Axa was staring into the middle distance and didn't notice.

The orlan woman sighed, long and slow and heavy. "I have... no idea what I'm going to do next," she murmured.

This was not an exaggeration.

---

"Don't trust them! They mean to kill us all!"

It had all happened in a flash. The Glanfathans had appeared out of nowhere, slaughtered the poor travellers, gutted Odema, and Heodan had thought himself Berath's for certain. But he'd hoped against hope that maybe, maybe someone would discover the grisly scene and come charging in to save the day. ...Preferably before he got his throat slit.

He had nearly cried out with relief when he saw Calisca step into the light before him, sword raised high. Almost hadn't noticed the woman at her side, before recognizing her as the sick passenger he'd sold a dagger to not 40 minutes prior. But when the stinking savage holding him hostage responded to the women's presence by pressing his blade to Heodan's throat, he'd been shocked to see that timid, sullen little orlan suddenly leap to his defense.

She had recognized them as Glanfathans, and she had been clever enough to try to mollify them by explicitly stating that they did not disturb the ruins. But her calls for amnesty had fallen on deaf ears, and Heodan had warned her as a last resort. Now the orlan woman stood stock still, her eyes darting around frantically as she puzzled over how best to proceed.

superstition-- passionate-- galawain-- belligerent--

Focus, please. She drew a deep, calming breath.

...They won't be pacified by words alone, it seems. So... time to push our luck.

For a few terrifying moments, Heodan thought she might actually surrender her weapon trying to appease the madman. But instead she stepped forward, lowering her sabre but not relinquishing it. "Tell me, man of Eir Glanfath. Do you truly think your hunter god smiles upon your deeds?" She stared steadily into his eyes, her face an impassive mask. "Protecting these crumbling stones, long after their builders have been reclaimed by the Wheel... seems to run counter to Galawain's tenet of the young and strong overthrowing and replacing the old. Wouldn't you say?" Axa glanced at Heodan, a clear "I'm trying, please hang in there" in her wide, panicky eyes.

The axe at Heodan's throat shifted slightly, the man holding it leaning forward in his fervor to defend his beliefs. Heodan winced against the assault of the man's hot, stinking breath on his cheek, the roar of his raspy voice.

"You know nothing of our ways, estramor! My people have followed the Lord of Beasts for centuries, known of his sacred decrees for longer than your miserable bloodline has stood! Galawain charged my people with the sacred task of safeguarding--"

Oh, horseshit! Don't let him--

"You call this holy work?" Axa cried, gesturing at the bodies surrounding them. "Brutalizing innocent travelers to 'defend' an empty temple? If you believe that, you'd believe anything-- anything so long as it allows you to kill who you please, no matter how helpless." Her eyes bore into the man, disgust and indignance plain on her face. "I see what you really are, coward."

It only lasted a second, but a second was all he needed. The Glanfathan faltered under the woman's verbal assault, and Heodan took full advantage, dropping out of his grip and falling into an evasive roll. He heard the warrior scream with fury, heard Calisca roar a ragged battle cry, heard the orlan woman start chanting...

And after the deed was done, before they could even catch their breath, the bîaŵac was upon them.

---

I know him.

She stood, but only just barely.

How do I know him?

Calisca and Heodan... did not stand. Would not stand again. That man, the masked man--

...He did this.

Oh gods. Oh fuck, I'm in trouble.

She stumbled over the ancient, uneven cobblestones, the fever and chills a distant memory. She could swear she heard voices, and telling them apart from her own jumbled, raving thoughts was becoming more and more difficult.

He did this, he killed them, just like he killed--

...like he

The ghostly image of a woman burning alive on a wooden stake sprung up in front of her, and the little woman fell to her knees, covering her face, screaming--

i can't i can't i can't i can't i can't i can't do this i can't take this please--

-- but when she lowered her shaking hands again, she saw only the grass, the stones, the ruins. Ther pillar and the machine.

Axa made a sound she didn't have a name for, something between a sob and a scream and a bark of crazed laughter. She had honestly believed, when she had woken up this morning, that her life could not possibly get any worse.

...I have to get out of here.

The orlan rose to her feet, slowly, stumbling toward the dirt road leading into the open meadows beyond. The path away from this place.

But she couldn't help looking over her shoulder one last time. At the base of the pillar, where that man

are you prepared, initiate

had stood.

What has he done...? Axa clutched at her head, trembling all over. Her thoughts, it seemed, were still not entirely her own.

What has he done this time...?

She mumbled a prayer to Wael, too exhausted to think anymore, as she slowly started off toward Gilded Vale.