#maybe next year ill have enough animations to choose the people i want.

[starrysupercell]

All~ I Wanna Be Is Every Brawler At Once! (Shortened Version)

Last post of the year!

Brawl Stars has definitely had its downs lately but tbh I'm still here for the characters and a couple of people. 💙

Happy New Year, and see you guys next time I post~ 💫

[bonny-kookoo]

I have a request for Velvet Heart.

I'd like to know how or why things changed for Jungkook, what happened in the past that brought him so close to madness.

A/N: Obviously warning for Yandere content, psychological horror, mental illness. Don't read if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm not responsible for what you consume.

Jungkook has always been a little.. vulnerable, mentally. He's easily stressed, and stress makes him act irrationally sometimes- but no one ever thought it would become an issue, down the line.

He's just soft. It'll be fine when he grows older.

Wrong. It just got worse.

So much so that after yet another incident of someone finding out his phone number and mass calling him, he's brushed off as no issue at all. That he's old enough to deal with this on his own now- 'You're 21 now, that's an adult, Jungkook. And adults have to make their own decisions.'

Suddenly. Huh?

Suddenly he's supposed to be independent.

After years and years of being babied and belittled and having everything chewed up for him so he wouldn't have to use his teeth for anything. Suddenly he's supposed to hunt down his own food and provide for himself.

And it's when he realizes it, in the darkness of his small private apartment he got scolded for buying last year.

He's nothing but a product. No one actually cares for him- only for what he represents. A brand. A puppet. Something to buy. Nothing to love.

He's told to just ignore it, use another phone or request another number and just move on from it. But how can he move on if there's people out there who call him nothing but a dog for simply missing a comment on a livestream? He can't just play after everyone's tune, there's too much music at this point, beats bleeding into one another so much so that he can't find a spot to place his feet any longer.

He keeps tripping, and everyone blames him for it.

They've even taken his phone away from him entirely, years back. Now they're doing different things to control him. Tell him to concentrate, loose weight, gain it back, loose it again. Get surgery, don't get it, or rather get it but hide it. Promote this, just to get blamed if the brand does something stupid, stop promoting it just to get called a coward.

Die, but stay alive, but also die, but also keep going. What's going on?

Left?

Right?

Is there a middle to choose instead?

He's got no voice. He sings, loudly so, stable as ever- but his voice doesn't belong to himself. Is what's wanted, it's what fits the concept, just like the rest of him.

Interchangeable. Morphing, constantly.

One day he's the boyfriend, next he is the brother, then he's the boy next door, just to become the sexiest crush all the girls want. What is he?

Who is he?

He hasn't called back the company, has locked his doors and shut the blinds. He doesn't want to do this any longer, this is all just insanity, doesn't anyone see this? Is everyone just so obsessed with wealth that they don't care about being honest?

He's walking alongside Han River, hood deep over his head, facemask hiding what's exposed, clothes dark. He doesn't want to be known, by anyone, ever again. But even if he moved to the other end of the world, starting again as a no-name is a luxury he'll never be granted.

Someone's sitting on the ground, clothes wetly sticking to the skin. Long hair. A girl? He's not sure.

You're moving, barely so, shivering, body trembling in the cold temperature. He lends you his jacket, eyes wide open as they look at yours. You're like a scared little animal, nothing behind those eyes that's coherent, but most importantly-

there's no recognition.

Even when he pulls his mask down a little to test it- you don't seem to know who he is. You don't talk at all, even when asked for your name.

You just cry, scared, terrified, leaning closer to him when he tries to get up.

Is that affection? Or maybe what affection could feel like?

If so, this is affection without any thought behind it. Nothing to gain. Nothing to receive. You just want to be close to him. To him.

Not to him.

It's so wrong. God it's so wrong, it makes him nauseous, makes him panic a little when he realizes that he somehow managed to get you into his home, where you now sleep in his bed, freshly showered, arms wrapped in bandages, hair dried, dressed in his softest clothes, safely tucked beneath the covers.

He should call the cops. But then he'd be blamed, right? They'll think he's insane, a creep, a criminal- and when it get's out, he's a wanted man, even if he somehow doesn't get put into jail.

No. He can't do that.

He can't have that.

But he can have you.

And he wants to have you.

Someone who wants him.

And not the version of him staring back at him from the billboard across the street.

You're just what he needs.

And he'll become all that you'll need in return.

[storiesforallfandoms]

inspirational ~ corpse husband

word count: 1589

request?: yes!

“Hi! I was wondering if you could do a corpse husband imagine where the reader has a feeding tube? If you can’t that’s perfectly fine, I just haven’t been able to find one yet.”

description: in which the group plays with a popular streamer that has a feeding tube and corpse tells her how much she inspires him

pairing: corpse x female!reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of chronic pain and cancer, also i only know a little bit about feedings tubes, i tried to do research in order to make myself more familiar but if there’s a lot of inaccuracies or anything i am very sorry i’m gonna try my best

masterlist (one, two)

Corpse listened to his friends shouting at one another to accuse each other of being sus. As usual, there was no use in trying to get a word in. Corpse spoke so softly that no one would even hear him unless they wanted to hear what he was saying.

“(Y/N)!” Toast suddenly exclaimed. “You’re being very quiet right now.”

“Because my damn tube is mixed up in my headphone wires!” (Y/N) exclaimed, sounding like she was far away from her mic. The group chuckled and continued with their conversation about who they thought the imposter was.

(Y/N) was a known Twitch streamer and YouTuber that rose to popularity when she started a series on her YouTube channel to show her journey through cancer treatments. Long before his own sudden boom in popularity, Corpse had watched all of her videos and became invested in her Twitch streams as well. Being someone who also struggled with chronic illness and pain, Corpse felt a sense of hope watching (Y/N) go through her treatment and still seem to optimistic in life and so productive in her YouTube and Twitch channels.

When Toast messaged the Amigops group to ask if anyone wanted to join his Among Us lobby with (Y/N), Corpse jumped at the chance. He hadn’t had much time to speak with her alone, but he was hoping to be able to tell her how much watching her content lifted him up during his worst times.

The meeting ended with no one being voted and brought them back to the office of the Polus map. Since they were playing with proximity chat, the argument from the meeting immediately continued with Rae and Toast warning everyone to stay away from Sean, who they were susing at the second imposter after already voting out Charlie.

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink astronaut run out of the office, silent amongst the chaos. He waited a moment before deciding to follow her, hoping he could meet her somewhere alone so he could talk to her.

He ran into O2 and noticed a pink bean in the boiler room stood by the water wheels. He ran in and stood in the doorway a moment before speaking.

“Hello (Y/N).”

“Ah fuck!” (Y/N) exclaimed. “Corpse! Don’t scare me like that!”

Corpse chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll warn you next time.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m okay with that. I feel like being killed by Corpse Husband in Among Us is like a rite of passage at this point.”

Corpse slowly approached (Y/N) to which she quickly ran away from him to the other water wheel. He laughed again before assuring her, “I’m not an imposter, you can trust me.”

“I don’t think I can, but I will choose to trust,” she told him.

“I actually came looking for you because I wanted to talk to you.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There were so many things running through Corpse’s mind. He just wanted to blurt out everything he had thought about (Y/N) and her story, to thank her for giving him hope, to tell her what an inspiration she was. But his words caught in his throat and he struggled to get anything out.

Finally, he said, “What’s it like trying to be a streamer with your...with the um...”

“The feeding tube?” (Y/N) finished for him. “You can say it, Corpse. It’s not exactly a secret.”

He sighed, glad that she had a joking tone about it. “Yeah, with the feeding tube.”

“It’s annoying,” (Y/N) admitted. “Like...I’m assuming you’ve seen my streams or my videos but for the sake of anyone watching your stream who hasn’t: I have a nasogastric feeding tube, or an NG-tube, which is a feeding tube that goes in through the nose. As cliché as it is, just picture Hazel Grace from the Fault in our Stars. Additional cliché, I have it because I had cancer and the treatments left me so malnourished that I need a feeding tube even after I’ve gone into remission. So, because it’s tubes that are connected in my nose, I keep getting my headphone wires tangled in my tube or, very rarely, my mic wires, and it’s fucking annoying. It hurts like a bitch when I go to stand up and I yank the wires  by accident or something.”

“Does...does anything else hurt? Because of the cancer or the treatment or anything?”

“Not as much as it used to. I went into remission like nearly a year ago, so I’m doing better. It’s a process, but it’s had an amazing outcome in the end so I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“I find you really inspirational,” Corpse finally blurted.

He felt his face heat up with slight embarrassment as (Y/N) giggled. “You do?”

“Yeah. I followed your series about your recovery and I’ve watched some of your livestreams every now and then. What always stood out to me was when you talked about the negative side effects of your treatment, and eventually having to put the feeding tube in and how you’ve found that effects you, too. Being someone with chronic illness and constant pain, I’ve also had those days where it feels like even getting out of bed is too much work and I don’t feel like I can stream or make a video, but then my anxiety tells me that everyone is going to forget about me if I don’t make some type of content, so it’s just an internal struggle when really I should be resting.”

“Being a content creator and having an illness is tough,” (Y/N) agreed. “It feels like you can’t take a day off. I sometimes regret making that series because on days that I felt absolutely awful, I didn’t want to film or edit anything, but I felt like I had to because so many people were watching. Ironically enough, that became the topic of one of those videos; I just sat in front of my camera looking the worst I think I’ve ever looked on camera and talked about how exhausted I felt just from being alive, but felt like I couldn’t rest because of my channel. That’s when I started taking longer breaks between videos and streaming. Your fans won’t leave you, not the true fans anyways. They’ll always be by your side even if you decide to disappear from the Internet forever.”

Corpse half smiled to himself. “I’ve thought about doing that sometimes.”

“It’ll be easy for you to do that where you’re faceless. No one would bother you even after you left the Internet cause they’d have no idea it was you unless you spoke.”

A brief pause in their conversation caused them to hear Sean yelling as he ran past the room. (Y/N) giggled and walked out of the room. Corpse followed, hoping to continue the conversation somewhere else.

“It means a lot to me that you think that about me, though,” (Y/N) continued as she ran into the storage room. “I find you pretty inspirational too.”

This took Corpse by surprise. He didn’t know how to respond. Sure, he heard that all the time from his fans, and it always meant the world to him to know that people found him to be an inspiration, but it felt different to hear that from someone he had looked up to for so long.

“I wish I could’ve been a faceless creator like you,” she said when Corpse didn’t respond. “One of my biggest regrets is probably showing my face online. Although, it wouldn’t make sense for me not to show my face when I’m making a series about cancer treatment, but people can be mean. Even when someone is struggling with illness or a disease, the Internet doesn’t care. Whatever makes them feel better over someone else feeling like shit.”

“I still get a lot of hateful messages even though I’m faceless, though.”

“You do, but you’re so unbothered by it. Publicly anyways. When I get messages about how sickly I look I get so overwhelmed with sadness and I just wanna delete my channel forever. I can’t even fake not caring because it really does effect me.”

“Stick with me, I’ll teach you my ways. My favorite is trolling the troll.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “I’d like that a lot.”

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink bean approach his black one. “I’m glad we had this chat, Corpse. It made me really happy, but now it also makes doing this a lot harder.”

Corpse gasped as a kill animation popped up on the screen and (Y/N)’s astronaut quickly disappeared into the nearby vent. He was stunned into silence for a long time, just watching his ghost floating above his dead body. To make matters worse, (Y/N) had closed the door to storage so no one would find his body unless they had to go in there.

Charlie’s ghost floated through the walls and came to float next to Corpse’s. “Figured out Jack wasn’t the other imposter, huh?”

“Yeah,” Corpse said, laughing. “She really had me fooled. Buttered me up with compliments then killed me.”

“I taught her well,” Charlie comments before floating away again.

Corpse couldn’t help but laugh about the situation. He wasn’t mad, more impressed than anything. And he was a little happy; he got to talk to someone that had always been an inspiration to him and he made a new friend.

[upthenorthmountain]

Where the World is in the Making - Chapter 13

I wrote this for the Summer 2021 Frozine, huge thank you to @punkpoemprose​ for putting that together! And to @karis-the-fangirl​ as always. Here we go

Previous Chapters

Chapter 13

The Solheims had been good people. Still were, Kristoff was sure. It was Mrs Inga Solheim who had nursed his mother through her last illness, who had said to Kristoff, after - Well, get your things together. Don’t you want to see what it’s like out West? And he had - not that he had anything else to do or anywhere else to go - so he’d pulled together the few things that he was sure were his and joined them in the back of their covered wagon. They’d inched their way across the country, along with the other two wagons of Solheims (all three were brothers, and each had a wife, and between them six children when they set out and seven when they arrived, not counting Kristoff), and he’d been quiet and anxious, desperate to prove he could be useful, that he was worth taking all that way. He’d worked hard for them and learnt a lot, and until the day he died he’d be overwhelmingly grateful for the chance they’d given him.

And now, for something else.

There was an interesting item in the newspaper last week, Mrs Solheim had written. An article about how there aren’t enough women out West. Good men with good farms who can’t find a wife. And some have apparently been placing advertisements in the newspaper to find one! What an idea! But it seems some have been successful. You should try it, Kristoff! I’m sure you must be lonely.

What an idea, indeed. He’d rolled his eyes and ignored it, but she’d mentioned it again, and again, and eventually he’d done it just so she’d stop. He’d never in a million years thought he’d actually get an applicant. He hadn’t thought he’d wanted one.

Anna was weeding the vegetable garden. The plants were all full-grown now, tall and green, and she was kneeling - she never had much regard for her skirts - between them as she worked.

With her help, he’d been able to repair the fields after the storm, and lost far less than he’d feared. With her help, the chickens were happy and gave plenty of eggs; the cow was happy and gave plenty of milk (and the goat was happy, too, though his high spirits were not usually a cause for celebration). With her help, the garden had flourished, and was producing enough that she and Elsa had already spent a day with Marta Ogg preserving and canning and would have plenty more to put up before the season was over.

Anna suddenly jumped back onto her heels with an “Ouch!” and Kristoff hurried over.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh - yes - thank you -” she peered at her finger. “A little bit of something just ran under my fingernail. But it’s not bleeding so I guess it didn’t go too far. Is it nearly dinner?”

“I’ve been out in the fields, you tell me.”

 “Elsa’s cooking. I keep thinking I smell something but I can’t work out what.” She waved her hands at him until he backed up, then shuffled along on her knees to the next section of the vegetable bed. “I like it when she cooks. She’s a much better cook than I am.”

Kristoff opened his mouth and then closed it again, choosing to kneel next to her rather than speak. Anna laughed. “Thank you.”

“I don’t mean - the two of you have different talents.”

“Okay.”

“You complement each other.”

“Well, maybe that’s true.”

“She wouldn’t have much to cook without you here, doing this.”

Anna sat back and hugged her knees. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m here,” she said. “Sometimes everything before seems like a dream.”

She looked at him, and no matter how muddy her skirts or how much of the dirt had found its way to her face, her eyes were always that same perfect clear blue. 

“And I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad I’m not there any more.”

“Glad to be out of the city? Away from - people that were unkind?”

“No, you don’t understand. Before…” Anna sighed. “I didn’t do anything. I mean. I called on people, and I went out and danced and talked to more people, and I embroidered and I looked pretty and none of it had any point. Nothing I did made anyone’s life better, or easier. I was just - passing the time. My whole life. Looking pretty and passing time.”

Anna sighed again, then reached over and plucked another weed from the soil.

“There you go,” she said. “I pulled up one weed, and I’ve already been more useful than I would have been in a whole week back in the city.”

“You like to be useful.”

“I don’t like to be useless. Or pointless.”

They both sat there, among the green plants, beneath the endless sky. Kristoff could feel it, building, and he was leaning in towards her ever so slightly when Anna said abruptly, “I want to mean something,” and turned her eyes to his again, blue as the ocean and clear as the running stream.

It’s slow, sometimes, but it wears away bit by bit - or comes crashing through all at once - and nothing is the same after.

He leant towards her again, just as Elsa called them to the house for dinner.

-----

The narrow bed in the tiny room was familiar enough now. It almost felt cosy. Before coming here Anna had had her own bedroom for years, but it had never been quiet - there was always noise on the streets outside, or people passing in the corridors. Out here, being alone would have been deathly silent without the sound of Elsa’s breathing.

It wasn’t silent outside tonight, though. She could hear someone singing.

Or rather, not ‘someone’. It was a man’s voice, and there was only one man within miles, so it must be Kristoff singing. Anna couldn’t make out any words. She’d heard him whistling before, around the farm, but never singing.

She wriggled out of the bed. Elsa stirred and opened her eyes.

“I just need to, um,” Anna said, knowing that Elsa would assume she was going to the outhouse; sure enough, her sister gave a little nod and closed her eyes again.

The summer air was warm and Anna barely regretted not picking up a shawl. As she pushed the barn door open she felt a brief pang, remembering another night that she’d come out to the barn in her nightdress - but that quickly disappeared, replaced by the sight in front of her. Kristoff was sitting against the far wall, with his straw hat upside down in his lap, and the hat was full of kittens; and he was singing to them in the warm glow of a lantern.

Anna stood there for one long, breathless moment. She didn’t know the song. She didn’t even know what language it was in, although she could guess that it was Norwegian. It was a soft song; a lullaby. The kittens seemed to be appreciating it, cuddling up together in the hat, and for a second Anna thought she was going to cry. Then Kristoff finished his verse, looked up and saw her.

“Anna,” he said, and cleared his throat, sitting up straighter to a chorus of irritated meows.

“I heard you singing,” she said, walking all the way into the barn and closing the door behind her. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you -”

“You didn’t. What song is that?” she said, sitting down next to him and tucking her feet beneath her.

Kristoff looked at his hands for a moment. “My mother used to sing it,” he said.

“When you were little?” 

He smiled. “Yes.” He hesitated again, then said “I don’t want to forget it.”

Sometimes Anna got so caught up in the everyday that she forgot all kinds of things. Like, for example, the fact that they were both orphans. She knew Kristoff’s childhood had been very different to her own. If she tried, Anna could remember her mother tucking her into bed with a soft lullaby, but she could more often remember a nursemaid putting her to bed and blowing out the candle. A goodnight from her mother was usually a brief kiss; a goodnight from her father was a nod. And every day it grew fainter and her memories rearranged themselves to match the handful of photographs in the bottom of her and Elsa’s trunk.

It was better to think about the present and the future than the past. She knew that. And her mind obligingly presented her with an image - Kristoff singing that lullaby to a baby. Or maybe to an older child, as he tucked the blankets around them, and then he’d look at his wife and smile -

Anna turned her face away - she knew she was blushing. Now she remembered long ago asking a nursemaid where babies came from, and being given a confusing story about storks and cabbage patches and parcels sent directly from Heaven by God Himself. Now she was here in the warm soft lantern glow with her husband, and when she looked up he was watching her. He’d nearly kissed her in the vegetable patch earlier, she was sure. Not too far from the cabbages. The thought made her laugh and she swallowed it in a yawn.

“You should go back to bed,” Kristoff said. He’d put his hat down, and the kittens had escaped; one was sitting on his foot.

“I’m not tired,” Anna said, sitting up straighter. “I couldn’t sleep, actually.”

“Really? I thought I was working you hard enough. Obviously not.”

“I’m surprised you can sleep out here at all.”

“I’m used to it.”

“It’s not fair. You work hard too.”

“I’m a man.”

“You’re a person.”

He smiled at her indignance. “Well, if we have a good harvest, maybe I can get some lumber.”

“Mr. Ogg said they’d help!”

“I can manage. I did the rest myself.”

“Mmhmm. Like you darned your own socks. A person can be too self-reliant.”

“What’s wrong with my house?”

“Nothing! Except -” Except we don’t have our own bedroom. No, she would never be bold enough to say that out loud, and now she was blushing again.

If he kisses me now, Anna thought, there’s no one to stop us. Every other person and animal within miles is sleeping. The thought made her heart thump in her chest, and she couldn’t think of anything to say to cover her embarrassment so instead she turned away, pretending she was watching one of the kittens.

She looked up when Kristoff put his hand on her left shoulder. “Anna,” he said, and ran his hand down her arm, stopping at her hand, raising it so that her ring shone in the light of the lantern. There was an ache in her chest when she met his gaze, and everything before this moment felt like a dream. The only thing that was real was right here and now, where all her choices had led her, to the perfect moment -

He kissed her. Anna knelt up, eager, and her slipper fell off and she caught her knee in her nightdress but Kristoff wrapped an arm round her waist and kissed her again. She still stumbled a little, and steadied herself with her arm on the floor; and then it only required Kristoff to make the smallest movement and they were lying on the blanket, side by side.

For a second they blinked at each other, his arm still round her waist, her hand on his shoulder. Then Anna pressed forward again, pulling herself towards him, kissing him with her whole body against his. She half-expected him to draw back, but he didn’t; instead he ran his hand up her back to her shoulders, holding her in place.

She felt giddy. There was no one to stop them and she didn’t want them to. Alright, maybe there was only a rough blanket over a dirt floor and whatever was in that sack Kristoff used as a pillow, maybe this wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured this, but -

But there was someone to stop them, and that was them. Kristoff pulled his lips from hers and rolled onto his back, exhaling deeply. He closed his eyes for a long second, then opened them and held out his arm. Anna hesitated.

“Come here,” he said. “You didn’t - do anything wrong. It’s just…”

Not like this, was what she knew he meant. As her heartbeat slowed back to normal, Anna realised she had a piece of straw poking her through the back of her nightdress, a kitten trying to climb her braid and a draught through a gap in the boards going places she wouldn’t care to mention. Much as she wished right now that her husband was slightly less considerate, he did have a point. She wriggled over to Kristoff and lay down with her head on his shoulder, smiling a little as she felt him pull the pointy straw off her back and throw it away.

He put his arm around her, his hand on her waist. Anna could hear his heart beating, feel his chest rise and fall with his breathing. It was so comfortable. 

She opened her eyes when Kristoff said “Hey. Anna. You don’t want to fall asleep out here.”

Maybe she did. “I‘m good.”

He opened his arm to release her. “Go to bed. It’s late.”

“You don’t want me to stay?”

He looked pained. “I want you to go to bed.”

So she left and went inside. But when she got into her bed, it somehow felt at once  both too small and too empty.

[eyrieofsynapses]

Alright, I finally got to the next two YJ Phantoms episodes, and can I just say: I am so incredibly impressed. Genuinely, I’m loving the heck out of these. The pacing is great, the animation is mindblowingly beautiful (seriously this is just absolutely gorgeous), the characters are well written, Conner and M’gann are wonderful... just, front to back, I’m really loving this. I’m not going to say it’s the same quality as the first season, per se. But I think I can safely say it’s better than the second and third so far. 

The only thing I worry about are the racism (and maybe trans?) parallels, as I don’t know enough to tell if those are being handled correctly, but from my perspective they seem decent. Greg’s also spoken about working with organizations who specialize in those areas--he mentioned GLAAD and OUT specifically regarding LGBTQ+--so I’m hoping that means it’s okay.

Anyway, some thoughts! Plus accidental mini-metas on a) M’gann and her family and b) the whole Gar deal. Spoilers for ep2: Needful and ep3: Volatile under the cut.

I’m just adoring Conner. I’ve loved him for a long time, but oh, goodness, he’s just... so amazing here. His growth shows beautifully. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still the person we met ten years ago, though, and they’re doing such a great job of showing that. Just... aaah. Also, his animation is top-notch. He’s gorgeous!

Oof, okay, so M’gann’s storyline with her siblings. Again, I don’t have a lot of experience regarding the racism parallels, but the whole “we were just kids” thing feels heartbreakingly right. They were just kids. But their parents do seem to genuinely love them. Even after what M’comm did, they still care about him. Maybe they didn’t do what was right for them... but they tried. 

In my experience, that’s very accurate. At the end of the day it’s a fact of life. We aren’t perfect, and families do hurt each other unintentionally. No one can claim that their parents were perfect. The trick is learning to understand that, accept it, and move on. That doesn’t mean forgetting it happened. But it doesn’t have to break families apart, if everyone is willing to work to be better. I sincerely love this storyline of M’gann’s family doing that.

There’s also M’gann threatening M’comm. I’m not a huge fan of the threat, but I like the fact that she literally can’t hurt people as she once did. She’s set herself a limit, recognized that what she was doing was terrible, and chosen not to let herself become infatuated with that power. It’s interesting to see how M’comm calls her out for it.

Then we have, again,”we were just kids.” Oh, my, do I hear that. I know what it’s like to have a younger sibling and see them struggling, and how terrifying it is when you can’t help the way you want to. I also know what it’s like to regret things you did with them when you were young. This hits home. If I were in M’gann’s shoes... oh, gods. She’s in such a tough position. 

And Gar. Oh, Gar. It was getting remarkably annoying how loud he was being, and it seemed slightly ridiculous that it was just homesickness and irritability with Perdita--but it was more than believable. It sincerely seemed that it was just the circumstances. It isn’t until they start dropping flashbacks in Volatile that we see what’s really going on, and I legitimately love that choice.

Because here’s the thing: it’s hard to tell from the outside what someone’s going through. It’s so very easy for someone who’s angry and irritable to just seem like they’re being a jerk to everybody because they’re annoyed at what’s going on. People often miss that it’s actually because they’re dealing with depression, PTSD, or other mental illnesses. We’re so ticked off that we don’t bother to think about their perspective.

Choosing to wait until later to reveal Gar’s flashbacks gives us a taste of that. Everyone missed it because they were willing to dismiss it over his homesickness. As an audience member, I missed it! And I know this stuff! It helps us see why M’gann and Conner don’t figure it out. 

But when they do show up? Oh, man. Ow. Because yeah, Gar is grieving Brion! Brion’s whole meltdown naturally had major consequences! Gar was under threat of death! YJ not only recognized that, but they explored the consequences and talked about how it affected him. His insecurity because he felt he failed the team, his desperation to protect Conner, the lingering grief of losing a friend and being betrayed at the same time... Gar’s been through so much in the last year or two, and that doesn’t even cover his prior trauma.

I’m just... oh, honey. 

And better yet, he’s comforted. Once they figure it out, everyone reaches out and offers comfort. Like. I want him to get all the hugs. But he will! Because he has M’gann and Conner, and when he gets home he’ll have the Outsiders, and he has a family to support him! Just, yes. Yes yes yes.

Also: this is an ongoing thread. We’ve been talking about this since the start of the second season, and that’s not repetitive--it’s good. It’s an acknowledgement that the road to recovery is long and hard and often lifelong.

This makes M’gann’s last message even more poignant. Yes, the psychic damage has been repaired, but that doesn’t “fix” things. You don’t “fix” this stuff. It’s not how it works. Gar’s got a lot of emotional trauma to work through on his own. His recovery will take work, and love, and a lot of time. It’s very truthful. 

It would be so easy for YJ to just have them do a deep dive in his mind and say “okay, everything’s good!” But they’re making the effort to be truthful and sensitive about how life really works. I appreciate that beyond belief. 

...aaaand I told myself I wouldn’t write a meta, and I did anyway. Well then.

On a lighter note: BABY BIOSHIP BABY BIOSHIP BABY BIOSHIP AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! She’s so cute!!! How do I even cope with the adorableness! It’s sad to see the older Bioship go, but I love the way they treat her like a living being. M’gann’s love for her and acceptance is so kind. 

Also, may I just say, Clark’s conversation with Lois about Jon? Precious. So unbelievably precious! I mean, that end was kind of concerning, but aaaahhh Clark being a dad! I just! YES!

Aaaaaand now I regret not reading anything on the Legion of Superheroes, because hoo boy this is big. I’ll have to do some research. But so far I’m very intrigued by this little band of three. 

Okay, well. There’s a lot more there, but I don’t have time nor the willpower to write about it all. The one thing I’m disappointed about is that we haven’t seen literally anyone from the original crew outside of M’gann and Conner. I sincerely appreciate that they aren’t jumping around in-episode--no, seriously, this is amazing, it’s thousands of times better than what they were doing in the last two seasons--but y’all! I miss Artemis and Dick and Kal and Roy and Zatanna and Raquel and all our lovely newbies! Pleeeaaaase let episode 4 be with some of them. PLEASE. 

[mxgilray]

Loki Season 1 Thoughts

Overall, I really liked this series. It has some issues without question, but I sincerely don't think it's the dumpster fire so many viewers on this site treat it as. Did it go how I expected? Not at all? Did I enjoy the heck out of it and look forward to it every Wednesday? Hell yeah!

Loki's Good Guy Personality

A big complaint many have had with it is how much Loki's demeanor has changed and how his emotional growth feels rushed or his personality is ooc. Truth is, he saw his entire future, saw what his angry, power hungry, I-work-alone persona would get him in the end, and it snapped him back to reality. He has always been shown to be quite emotional and craving attention and lacking in self assurance, it's just in the past movies he's masked it with violence and fake narcissism, and he's always been a secondary character so his perspective is rarely shown. But if you really pay attention it's obvious he isn't truly villainous; we all know that, it's largely why he has such a huge fan base.

Right after meeting Mobius, Loki got an infodump of his future, saw his parents both die, found out that free will means jack shit, and learned he's absolutely powerless in this realm. On top of that, this is 2012 Loki, fresh off of being under Thanos' control, suddenly being shown that the guy who controlled him is going to end up killing him. Frankly,, I think it all broke Loki. He was too shook up by it all and by the sheer helplessness he found himself in at the TVA that he let all his barriers down momentarily. Just long enough for him to open up to Mobius about his motivation and his lack of self confidence. And you know what I bet? Loki felt relieved after talking to Mobius. A weight was lifted, because he bore his heart to someone and wasn't rejected or laughed at or treated like a psycho. And after letting his walls down fully, Loki didn't feel the need to put all of them back up. He stayed guarded around other people, but he didn't need to pretend around Mobius. Mobius has seen under the mask, so Loki doesn't feel pressure to perform as an all knowing, all powerful God around Mobius. That freedom is life changing.

People who gravitate towards broken, pseudo-villain characters do so because we relate to their internal conflict, their mental illness, their need to fake it around everyone close to them. Their turmoil and depression and self destructive behavior are familiar and we see ourselves reflected in their actions. Now, when a person really truly let's their guard down, drops all their layers of facade, and embraces themself, they tend to change demeanor and even personality pretty drastically. It's jarring in real life, so of course when it happens to a fictional character who you usually relate to it is going to be jarring, maybe even more so because it feels like a change you yourself would never go through. I know this sounds bad and people might get at me for it, but...

I believe the issue here is that a large part of Loki's fan base doesn't want him to get better. They don't want him to move past his mental illness, to learn how to cope with anger and disappointment in healthier ways, to be happy. They like his damaged persona, they like the internal conflict. Maybe it's because they're still at that low place themself and feel like a relatable character is getting taken away from them, maybe it's because they don't understand how much being at peace with yourself can alter a person and to them it feels like he's been changed too much. To those of us mostly on the up and up from battling depression and mental illness, it's comforting to see Loki getting a chance to be genuinely happy and accepting of himself.

Sylki and Lokius

First things first, I'm not anti anything. Ship what you want, idc. Personally, I do not see the Sylki dynamic as romantic, but I get why people read it that way. I thought the series did a good job of showing unrequited love, namely Loki falling for Sylvie and Sylvie feeling zero romance towards him. This was aware of his attraction and in the end used it as a distraction so she could get the upper hand. The show played up the potential romance because we are viewing things from Loki's perspective and he's become smitten as a kitten. I do think in the long run they'll have a more sibling-like dynamic, one Loki realizes that you can feel extreme love and care for a person without it being romantic. I enjoyed how the show explored their relationship, though I do wish they hadn't had every character under the sun mention their moment on Lamentis-1 like it was some big deal to bond with someone you're about to die with.

I'm bitter towards the development of Lokius. It had a strong start in the beginning, and in ep 5 had some potential reignited, but then they had Mobius not know who Loki is at the end. I'm still hoping they're playing the long game with this ship and that it'll come to fruition partway through season 2. The chemistry is there, and Mobius knows Loki very intimately and isn't put off by his past. Loki also feels much more at ease around Mobius than he does around Sylvie. It's the comfort of a deep loving bond with Mobius verses the nervousness of a new crush that he feels for Sylvie.

I don't think Loki is quite aware of his feelings for Mobius, simply because it's based in friendship and mutual respect and isn't a hot and heavy lust. Plus, as soon as he was away from Mobius he was thrown into a near death experience with Sylvie and developed a surface crush during their heart to heart. Since Loki's still figuring out what genuine feelings are beyond anger and sadness, he sees the simplistic crush he has on Sylvie as love and the intimate bond he's been forming with Mobius as friendship. He doesn't understand his own feelings yet, but I think he'll figure it out next season. I mean, he was probably already rethinking his feelings for her after she kissed and betrayed him, mentally kicking himself for expecting her to not pull a Loki betrayal like he would've in the past.

The Time Variance Authority

I really like the concept of the TVA, the structure of it, the methods they use, the deeply fucked way they recruit employees, the cult like motto, shady Miss Minutes who is definitely playing her own long game, and the blind acceptance TVA agents have of the Time Keepers' will. It's all very well done... until your dig into the core, aka He Who Remains. They built up the idea that the Time Keepers created the TVA to prevent a multiverse war and that they created agents to enforce their will. Then the creating agents turned out to be fake, the Time Keepers were fake, I expected the reason for the TVA's existence to be fake to. It felt too simple to have it genuinely exist just to keep the multiverse in check. Why the anonymity, unless it's to keep from having agents target and prune versions of himself which.. songs like a decent solution. HWR made it sound as though the multiverse war was just a bunch of versions of himself screwing shit up, so why isn't the TVA's focus on eradicating every other variant of this guy? Sounds a lot easier and nicer than fucking with the free will of every other living being. So either Marvel made a bad call when choosing what HWR's motive was for creating the TVA, or he was lying about it all to cover up something sinister.

Overall Storyline

I'm fairly happy with the plot as a whole. There were some pacing issues and I think a few missed chances for deeper conversations between various characters. While I enjoyed the Loki variants, I honestly would've been happier seeing Tom playing most the variants (except Kid Loki and Classic Loki since they are clearly different age ranges). If there is supposed to be one sacred timeline, it seems off to me that Lokis would be allowed to vary so extremely without it causing a nexus event(an alligator, whose nexus wasn't that he's an animal who obviously can't do any magic much less command Thanos' army, but that he ate someone's cat) and not just in appearance but in life path (ie boastful Loki collected all the infinity stones but it wasn't till he had 6 that he caused a nexus event even though him gaining control of the Soul, Power, and Time stones should've each caused nexus events since on the sacred timeline he never interacts with those 3 and taking any one of them would've fucked up a lot of other timeline parts)

I love the display of Lokis raw power, and 2012 Loki coming to the realization that he's way more powerful than he ever thought. And it wasn't just Classic Loki who spent thousands of years alone honing his skills, 2012 Loki reversed time on a goddamn falling building! I also liked the small magic, the fireworks, the tablecloth blanket, Loki yanking Sylvie away from HWR with just magic.

As someone who is both bisexual and genderfluid, I would've really loved more concrete representation. The comment about there never being another female Loki hit me in the gut; it undermined the Easter egg "Sex: Fluid" on Loki's TVA file. With how big a deal Sylvie being female was made out to be throughout the season, I expected her gender to play a key role in taking down the head of the TVA, like it was foretold that only a female Loki could end it all or some shit.

I don't mind the idea of Loki finding love in a straight passing relationship. I don't even mind the selfcest all that much. It just feels so obvious to me that Sylvie is written as not having any romantic inclination towards Loki, while Mobius is clearly written as falling in love with someone he shouldn't and trying to maintain an heir of professionalism to keep from wrecking his bond with Loki. I really really hope they come through on season 2 and give Lokius the canon relationship and proper representation they deserve.

Mmkay I thinks that's all the thoughts I've got right now. If you've been feeling cheated or clowned by how things went this season, maybe my perspective of things can help ease your pain.

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 4)

We are at the turning point so things are about to get super fun! Pretty much everything we've gone over until now has been exposition and set-up for this arc.

More than ever there's a trigger warning here: we'll be discussing mental illness, depression, child abuse, and a genuine suicide attempt here so it will get quite heavy and dark.

Chapter Thirteen

We are approaching a significant turning point. This arc is heavy with things to analyze and important revelations about Natsume. Pretty much all the stuff I analyzed before now was just extended exposition, to be entirely honest. We were setting things up, establishing Natsume in every way we could and it will all come to a head right here. This is the arc we've been waiting for.

The chapter opens with Natsume, and from the start we can tell that we are in for a treat. We’ve never seen his perspective like this, only little snippets like “I know I used my alice on her”, or remembering Aoi’s hair-clip. Here, we have much more to work with, and we don’t have to do as much guesswork to make conclusions!

He’s having a nightmare, which is also what he calls it, much like the one he had in the anime. He’s running in darkness and there’s too many people’s voices. Being called a murderer, being told to obey or else… and all the while he’s telling them to shut up already. It’s enough to make anybody feel crowded. He just wants relief, to get out of the darkness, for the nightmare to end.

Even when he's all alone, he's bogged down by noise and taunts.

He wonders if he'll ever get real reprieve from the constant hell he's in. All he ever does is run, his life entirely enshrouded by darkness. He wants it to stop, and later we'll see how exactly he'll attempt to do so.

The fact that the arc begins with this scene despite the fact that Natsume does not feature heavily in this chapter or the next is foreshadowing that something must change by the end of it. He's despairing and hopeless now, and these points will all be brought up later as things come to a head, so something must shift by the end of the arc.

We later find out Natsume’s in the hospital, and then inevitably he gets kidnapped by Reo. He spends about two chapters unconscious, so we’ll be moving on to two of the most important chapters for Natsume’s development.

Chapter Fifteen

Natsume wakes up in the warehouse, but the way he wakes up is very interesting. He knows he’s in a strange place, not in a hospital bed. He thinks so much like a soldier or spy here, using his senses to observe his scary new surroundings and clinically filing away information until he opens his eyes and sees his classmates gnawing at each other’s binds. It’s fascinating to see inside his head, to see the dangerous ability training in action, that he doesn’t think like his peers would, or how any ten year old should.

He's intaking information, filing it, analyzing his situation, all before his eyes even open.

He is understandably irritated by the presence of his classmates, considering he’s been kidnapped, drugged, sick, and has to deal with an alice barrier on top of all that. He gets that he’s screwed, and, with Mikan and Sumire in the mix, his chances aren’t looking too great.

If you want to make yourself sad, it’s worth noting that Natsume doesn’t think he’s going to make it out of this situation alive. He’s processing his options and considering the best thing to do going forward, but he’s well aware that there’s also a good chance he might die tonight.

They manage to get into contact with Narumi, who instructs them to stall and keep quiet, also telling Natsume to use his alice. He’s strong enough to overpower the barrier, so it shouldn’t be an issue, but Natsume is sick. In order to get a small flame, he exhausts himself, and is even less of a state to run away than he already was. Their kidnappers realize the kids are awake because of the disturbance in the barrier, so they confront them to try and figure out their alices. Reo wants this information for nefarious purposes, planning on selling them. It’s already been said earlier in the story that alice children are more valuable in the human trafficking trade, so it’s in his best interest to know what exactly he’s selling.

Mikan has nullification, so the voice pheromone doesn’t work on her, but Sumire is affected, and about to reveal her alice when Natsume interferes. He’s exhausted, but he might have more or less already given up on himself. The most he can do now is try and protect his classmates who came to save him, even if it’s all he can do. So Reo does move on to confront him, taunting him by telling him all the plans they have for him. He’s to be assimilated into the organization, joining Z and becoming a child soldier for their ranks.

Reo brings up an excellent point: “What difference does it make if you start working for Z instead? Everyone there hates the academy like you do.” It’s true. Natsume might even prefer it slightly because it’s an anti-alice organization and he is by no means pro-academy (unlike in the anime where he becomes a poster boy for abuse apologism). At the academy, he’s surrounded by abusers and those subservient to the abusers, by bullies and kids who whisper behind his back, accusing him of murder and arson. Maybe at Z he could be around like-minded people (albeit people who are supportive of child trafficking).

But no.

Natsume doesn’t even consider it.

Maybe Reo should consider that Natsume doesn't want to be a child soldier at all, hmm?? Maybe he'd be better off just being a normal kid? Did that occur to him at all or...?

He immediately smacks Reo’s hand away. Even sick, even heavily under the effects of Reo’s alice, even despite being weak and drugged, he still resists. There’s not even a temptation or hesitation. His choice has been made for him.

Interestingly, Reo was also used by the academy. He knows how twisted the school can be, but he’s still confused and surprised by Natsume’s refusal. I’m assuming based on this that perhaps Natsume is a special case. It would be reasonable to assume most of the kids used in the dangerous ability class are threatened and cowed into obedience, their physical and mental safety in jeopardy if they rebel in any way. Natsume is a child, and we’ve seen him run from his own teacher in abject terror. He’s obviously not a fan of putting himself in physical and mental jeopardy. But the way to get to Natsume is not by threatening him; it’s by threatening Ruka, or Aoi, or Youichi, because Natsume doesn’t care about anything as much as he cares about them--not even his own life.

And that’s why Reo is surprised and confused that Natsume would say no to him and choose the academy over Z.

And it’s because Natsume is not actually choosing the academy over Z. He’s choosing Ruka and Aoi over Z, like he chooses them over everything. Natsume knows that resisting Z here is tantamount to suicide, but he’ll choose that, because he’ll choose his loved ones over his own life.

And then something surprising happens: Mikan gets in between Natsume and Reo, protecting Natsume.

This is new; Natsume is used to being the one doing the protecting. He was more than willing to take all Reo’s wrath to distract him from using his pheromones on Mikan and Sumire. He’s being protected now though, a little, but it’s really just a taste of what’s to come. Mikan stepping in is unexpected… and unwise.

Now Reo can conclude that she has the nullification alice. This is bad news in general, but a great opportunity. Reo and his goons are distracted and there’s enough time for Sumire to use her own alice and see where they are and what’s around.

Turns out there’s dynamite and other explosives a couple warehouses away. This instantly gets Natsume’s attention and he’s already formulating a plan.

He tells them to run for it, reassuring them that he can take care of himself. He says he’s only helping because he’d feel guilty otherwise, not because he actually cares much for what happens to them, because it’s their own fault they followed him.

We know this isn’t the truth. Since he woke up, Natsume has been prioritizing the girls over himself.

He can hardly stand up so the idea that he can escape on his own is a little ridiculous... but he knows that too and he's known it from the start.

The escape begins and the girls run for it, with Natsume distracting Reo and his goons by threatening to blow up the dynamite two warehouses away.

This is a genuine suicide attempt. Natsume has no intention to save himself. He considers himself a lost cause. He’s sick, exhausted, in no condition to run. He can stall long enough to let the girls escape, but he’s gonna blow up the dynamite, taking Reo and part of Z down with him. Reo’s kidnapping whim will prove fatal and catastrophic, and the Black Cat will be eliminated.

Chapter Sixteen

This arc turns so much darker.

Yes, Natsume seems to have no choice but to kill himself to protect his classmates and eliminate the Reo threat. The first page of Chapter Sixteen also establishes that this isn’t just Natsume’s own plan. He’s been commanded to commit suicide in this kind of situation by Persona. If he’s ever trapped and can’t escape, he’s to kill himself, so that he can’t be used against the academy. He’s too powerful. The academy would rather this child die than fall into Z’s hands. In fact, if Natsume were to rebel, in any way, even by not killing himself in such a situation, the academy will hurt the people he cares about.

This is a grown ass man telling a child that his life is only important if he can be a tool for the school and as soon as he can't be anymore, he ceases to have value and is better off dead.

I will once again mention that Natsume is ten years old. The academy is not just an abusive institution, it’s also a human rights violator, since child soldiers are prohibited by international law. A child soldier is any child under the age of 18 who is compelled to fight or otherwise service any state or non-state armed group (the academy counts as an armed group because it has a division of child soldiers with magical powers ready to kill and maim on command as well as teachers with magical powers willing to threaten these children into submission). Natsume is a child soldier and the fact that the dangerous ability class was never fully dissolved is an actual human rights violation.

Anyway, this arc is where we see Natsume clearly for the first time. Compared to all the fun and mischief of previous chapters, these chapters are dark and scary. There’s no exciting dodgeball game or howalon-related antics. This is life-or-death, suicide attempts, threats.

This marks the difference between the life the rest of the kids at the academy are living and the life Natsume has been struggling through. How do you live through missions like this, watching your life whittle away, being threatened on a regular basis, and then go back to school and pretend to care about math or about sports or friends? It makes perfect sense that Natsume would feel so isolated from everyone. His experiences are too different.

Of course, this whole thing is about to get a whole lot worse.

Reo asks why Natsume would even bother with this. Is there even a reason? He even gives a pretty good deal: If Natsume backs down, Sumire and Mikan will be spared.

But Natsume doesn’t bite. He’s ready to die, because the academy told him to, because he wants to protect his loved ones, because he wants to help Sumire and Mikan escape, and--most heart-breakingly--because he genuinely wants to die.

Now that Sumire and Mikan are gone, he doesn't have to lie about his plans anymore.

Natsume has been appearing in the last sixteen chapters, showing up to offer a sarcastic quip, set something on fire, and be generally unpleasant. But more than that, we’ve seen glimpses into what appears to be a horrible, miserable life. Natsume hates the academy, only has one friend, goes on life-threatening missions, frequently visits the hospital, despises his own alice, and he never smiles. All his appearances up to this point have been an explanation: this is why Natsume wants to kill himself.

Natsume isn’t just forced into a suicide attempt. There’s a reason he submits so easily to the idea of dying here. He’s ready. He’s been ready for a long time. He might have even been waiting for it; to get it over with because it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

He says he feels like he’s living his life cowering on his knees, like his head is constantly under a pool of shame. “I’m sick of the academy. I’m sick of you all. I’m sick of everything!”

Natsume is going to die in a few moments and he’s okay with it. He’s even happy about it, because there is really nothing worth living for. He doesn’t have a future, or hopes and dreams. This whole time he has been living for Ruka and his family, doing everything he can to keep them safe. Nothing he’s done in the past two years has been for himself. This may be the very first selfish thing he has done in all this time. He’s ready to die.

It’s not like he had something to look forward to anyway.

Natsume is about to die, until the wind is knocked out of him and he’s suddenly on the ground, with Mikan grabbing his shirt and screaming into his face that he’s an idiot. He’s lying on the floor because one of his stupid classmates--the one he hates the most, the stupid girl with the nullification alice and her head so full of rainbows and butterflies and happiness he could barf just thinking about her, the one that walked right into the worst thing that ever happened to him and smiled about it--tackled him and stopped his suicide attempt.

Just one split second changes everything and there's nothing he can do about it.

Yes, the previous chapters leading up to this explained why Natsume wants to die, and how miserable his life is, but they also mark another thing: the only fifteen and a half chapters where Natsume isn’t in love with Mikan.

In this moment, she saves his life. She risks her own safety on a whim to protect him, and she does. She didn’t come all this way for nothing! She’s willing to fight Reo and any henchmen to protect Natsume, who can’t even walk without help. Natsume was not expecting this.

He asks why she even came back, but she makes it clear it wasn’t a choice--they’re partners, after all! It’s her job to look after him.

The next few scenes are Mikan protecting Natsume, and it’s important to point out that nobody has ever done that before. Natsume is always the one doing the sacrificing and protecting, and he’s okay with that. He doesn’t want Ruka to be burdened by his hardships, or for Aoi to be held responsible for something she did under a dangerous fever. He will do the hard thing, will be the caretaker, because that’s who he’s always been.

It might be uncomfortable and strange for him, but Natsume is being taken care of here, led to hiding spots and being protected. When he tries again to convince her to leave him behind, he’s using all the insults he can think of. This is another way of protecting people: hurting them so that he can further distance himself from them and keep them safe.

But Mikan fights back, saying, “Who do you think I came back for?”

Here Natsume finally understands something. The girl he has hated ever since she voluntarily enrolled into the school that uses him as a human weapon is more than a bumbling idiot. Her sickening optimism and determination are the reason he’s still alive now. He gave up on himself, but she refuses to. She’s the kind of person who would risk her own life to save a boy who has caused her nothing but grief, because she can see value in his existence that he can’t.

Natsume's never thought of himself as even having a future before, let alone a happy one.

And she says, “Everyone is waiting for you.” Natsume used to look down on her optimism and rose-colored lenses, because how naive is it to think things will just work themselves out? That the future will be better? That there’s something worth working for, even if you aren’t sure what it is? It’s stupid. Natsume knows better: life sucks and then you die because you get kidnapped and you have to commit suicide or else your loved ones will get hurt. Relying on stupid things like positivity or hope is just a waste of time.

But not this time. This girl is saving him because there’s a bright future awaiting her, but more than that: she sees a bright future for him too. She thinks things will work out for him too, that he has moments to look forward to where he will laugh and cry and live--moments he hasn’t seen yet. There’s still so much life left for him to live, and he’s never thought of it that way.

For the first time in a long time, Natsume is thinking about his own future.

He doesn’t argue when Mikan stands up to protect him, or when she grabs his hand to try and lead him from danger. He trusts her now and even more, he wants to live.

And then Mikan gets overpowered by a goon, who slams her into the wall in order to get to Natsume.

And that pushes Natsume’s berserk button, because now he cares about Mikan, and he goes absolutely unhinged whenever someone he cares about is hurt.

Mikan has become precious to Natsume only a few minutes ago, but he's kinda ride-or-die so it's like going from 0 to 100.

Just a few chapters ago, a middle-schooler grabbed Mikan and threatened to hurt her if Natsume didn’t back down and Natsume just laughed. Now he’s detonating a whole shipyard because somebody shoved her.

Yes, he does set off the dynamite, because he’s no longer thinking rationally and how dare someone hurt Mikan?

We’re not really sure what consequences this had, if he ended up inadvertently hurting himself or Mikan in the process of getting revenge against this man for hurting a girl who he just started having feelings for like five minutes ago, but both of them end up hospitalized.

Conclusion

This whole arc is a fucking MASTERPIECE. We’ve met Natsume before, but that was the old Natsume. That Natsume was miserable and didn’t have anything to look forward to. We’ve just met a new Natsume; a Natsume who has hopes and desires and will do selfish things because of them. His life is still dark and dreary and miserable, but there’s a light coming in now, and he’s content now just to be in the sun for a little bit until his life comes to a complete end, which will still be sooner than later.

<- Previous Next ->

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter One

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it's all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared. for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au, angst, fluff, slice of life etc word count :: 2.6k → click here for the next part !

Shock-waves of terror rush through your body. You can feel your heart thump erratically against your chest and your train of thought is a complete mess. All you know for sure is that your fate is certain, you're going to die. The illegitimate daughter of the Rambova family from the Negri Republic is going to be killed and it just so unfortunately happens to be you. Your eyes are coated in a fresh layer of tears and all you can do is sit there huddled in the corner of your room whilst you pray. Pray to who exactly? You're unsure of that detail.

The days of pain and neglect that you constantly endured ended with the war caused by a single man. That man who was rumored to be cruel enough to murder the child of another enemy noble in cold blood. The Duke of the Paradis Empire. Levi Ackerman. By the emperor's orders he took an army to conquer all of the rebelling, independent countries which surrounded Paradis, and unfortunately for you the Negri republic was one of them.

Soon, the Rambova family was the last of the nobles left within the nation.

"Y/N. Even a little pest like you has a role to play. You must stay back and protect the castle." that was the first and last thing your father said to you when news of the war spread. Your father threw you away and so did the rest of your household. Not even a thank you was issued when they all dashed past you towards the palace's back gates. Truth be told you were simply a child born out of convenience, born to marry another aristocrat to strengthen the family's reputation, but the war made you see your position with even more clarity.

No one ever loved you in this palace, it would be futile for you to say they did, lying would not ease the numbing ache in your heart.

"SEARCH EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY!" One of Duke Ackerman's men alerts the other soldiers and that's when you begin to shiver in pure terror. The shrill screams of the palace maids can be heard and are more than audible, they echo back and forth, settling in the shells of your ears. You really are going to die today and no one's going to save you. Who would? The servants who laughed at you because of your shameful origin? Those servants seem to be at deaths door themselves, you don't hold anything against them. Or would it be your "family" who treated you like the dirt beneath the crevices of their shoes? That "family" had ditched you and left you for dead in the palace. Duke Ackerman was a wild animal and you were a piece of bait to everyone else. No one was going to help you and this was the end of the line.

You gaze out your window and see even more of his army approach. There's not enough time for you to run, even if you attempt to do so you'll be killed in no time at all. Your mother's words echo in your mind. No one was willing to keep her around. A toy, that's what she was for your father, a play thing on the sidelines for when his real wife wasn't well. A few years after giving birth to you mother had fell gravely ill but father did nothing to help. The money needed for her treatment wouldn't have even made a dent in his riches but he did not see it fit to spend such a large sum on the likes of her. He wasn't going to help a courtesan who refused to abort what he deemed a nuisance. That's what you and your mother were - problems, issues, nuisances and inconveniences he wanted nothing to do with.

But right now all you can think about are her last words. They ring in your head and you feel your tears creep right back up. However, they subside when you take the true meaning in.

"Listen carefully, when the grim reaper comes for you, act proudly and look him in the eye without fear. You must do so for me." the one time you had seen her force a smile was then, on her death bed she had smiled so daintily it felt fake. Why did she have to act strong even in her last moments? Why did she have to try her damnedest to hide her pain and suffering from you?

Without a seconds thought you decide to follow her last instructions and what she taught you. Deciding to look death in the eyes, it's the way your mother wanted you to leave. To die proud of yourself was a privilege she never received.

Shakily, you walk towards your dresser and throw on your best dress. It isn't amazing considering the fact that your father barely invested any time in you let alone any money but you made do with it. Tying the faded baby blue ribbon that came with it around your waist you play around with the frilled sleeves. Screams are all you can hear but you swallow away your fear. Putting your hair up into a bun and pinning it back as tightly as you can, your face is in full view now, you won't be able to hide behind your hair when you're finally taken away.

With faith and hope in your heart, that is how you choose to exit. Faith that after this something better was coming. An after life with mother, one where she would be treated the way she deserved. A place where you'd be able to see her smile in sincere clarity. As you stick the last pin into your hair the door to your bedroom rumbles. It takes a matter of seconds for it to be knocked down by three soldiers.

Two of them march towards you and yank you away from where you are in front of your mirror, in the chaos a vase full of flowers shatters and hits the floor. The sound of the glass shattering and hitting the marble floor only makes the situation more intimidating.

The soldiers drag you through the hallways of the castle and the way they grip tightly onto your arms irks you slightly. They're quite literally dragging you towards the slaughter house yet they continue to handle you and the other innocent people within the palace's walls with this degree of brute force. You know you don't deserve to die, nobody here does.

At some point you're thrown to the floor of the main hall, a pain shoots up your side due to the impact of your hip hitting the floor but you soldier through it. You try to look death in the eye but it beats you to it.

Multiple bloody corpses are scattered across the floor. A heap of them are piled up in one corner and your eyes water in defense. The Palace's head chef is one of the latest additions to this pile, her guts hang out, she's been sliced open mercilessly. The contrast between her current form and her usual stern but soft face haunts you.

This was your fate, your body was going to be hauled atop of this pile of corpses. How were you to die? Would you be cut up into bite sized pieces? Would your heart be ripped out of your chest, left to bleed out until you and death would meet?

You place your hands in front of you and they land on the floor as you raggedly breathe in and out trying to calm yourself down. Mother said death was scary but you never thought death would be delivered to you in the form of cold blooded murder.

Your haphazard thoughts are suddenly put to a halt when you hear a deep, gravely voice from above your head.

"Child of the Rambova Family." He pauses and your head shoots up to see who's addressing you.

Shaking once again the tears you've been holding back spill out. You are face to face with death himself, the grim reaper in human form. Duke Ackerman. His feline eyes are devoid of any emotion and he looks down at you through his eyelashes as though you're an animal.

Looking you up and down as if you're nothing but a pest you can't help but smile at that. Everyone thought of you that way, you weren't ever good for anything right? Your thoughts make you wallow in even more sadness and you burst into an extensive crying fit in front of the Duke himself.

He murmurs something inaudible under his breath then you see him swing his leg backwards. He savagely kicks your left shoulder and you fly towards the cold hard floor."You're oh so, stupid."  Shrieking, as his boot drives further into you, the lump in your throat hardens. "For not." another kick is delivered to you this time, it hits your right shoulder angularly. "Running away." a final kick lands on the left side of your face and despite his boots digging into the hollows of your cheeks you don't cry out in pain like you did the first time. That is until he swiftly holds you by the neck and firmly slams you up against one of the marble walls to perfectly punctuate his point. Letting go of you midway, you crash to the ground again, gulping and gasping for air.

His eyes. They're stone cold. You can't sense any emotion behind him. Yet he kneels down to your level his slim fingers trace the tear stains across your cheeks. The coarse but warm texture of his hand catches you off guard, you aren't accustomed to human touch and by reflex you unintentionally move slightly closer to his warm palm. He sneers at you absolutely disgusted with the way you react to his touch.

"It's a shame that you're objectively my kind of woman." His eyes snake towards the ribbon which cinches your waist in and the tension you feel increases ten fold. His gaze then meanders to your collarbone which is now crudely exposed after your one sided fight. His eyes darken "What a shame indeed." He mutters.

You begin to think that maybe the man above you has some pity left in his heart and you reach your hand out to possibly negotiate but before you can the fatal sound of him unsheathing his sword is heard.

Not even a knife can cut the tension in the air but somehow the words he shamelessly announce next manage to do just that.

"I shall give you the honor of having me personally see to your death."

Your life flashes before you eyes. He darts towards you and the cold edge of his sword is as close as it can be to your neck.

Don't close your eyes, Don't close your eyes. Look him in the eyes for the sake of mother.

Defiantly, you glare at him through the tears which mingle with the perspiration which coats your face. The tears rain down your cheeks and a droplet lands on his hand.

He flinches at the damp feeling but you see the grip he has on his handle harden.

You hadn't noticed in the previous frenzy and chaos but he's covered head to toe in blood, the ugly sight causes you to try and hold in your external reaction. But you can't fight away the tears, you clamp down on your lips so tightly that blood gradually trickles down your chin.

There were so many activities you wanted to try. You wanted to wear a beautiful dress, you wanted to fall in love, you wanted to marry, you wanted to see the world and all it had to offer. You wish as hard as you can for some sort of help some sort of release. You feel terrible because you aren't facing death in the eye. You aren't proud, you've betrayed your mother. Your blood and tears mix together and you swear you see a glint of something from the corner of your eye, but that's not the issue right now. You're about to die. This is real. This is all real.

You watch in fear as he swings his blade above his head preparing to end it all, right here, right now but suddenly a flash of white light illuminates your surroundings, you and the Duke are both momentarily blinded by it. The light morphs into an intricately beautiful symbol. Then, the clatter of his sword falling to the floor is heard. Your thoughts race, what on Earth is going on? At that moment a streak of light pierces through Duke Ackerman's chest and he groans in pain.

Pulsing from the pattern is a strange, bright light. You watch it flicker, changing colors from silver, to a misty white, then it suddenly weaves itself into a sky blue. You clench your fists, your nails digging deeper into your palms. Threads of silver then engulf both you and the Duke. You both become a part of the stunning floral designs. It's whimsical being trapped inside the kaleidoscope of colour, it's all so beautifully horrifying.

Out of nowhere both you and the Duke are flinged to the floor and the performance evaporates away. Curled up in a ball you're far too fearful to look up and see what has happened. You hear his voice again.

"My lady, please forgive me for my rudeness." The Duke murmurs his words and you can't make out whether or not he's being condescending or is genuinely apologetic.

Then he does the unthinkable, he falls down on one knee.

"And please allow me to receive the pleasure of marrying you." He sticks his hand out gracefully expecting you to hold it but you stare at him in pure horror.

"From the moment I saw you my heart was simple ensnared by your beauty." He holds onto your cheek affectionately, it feels different this time, you can feel the love practically spill out of his voice and touch but you're ultimately confused. He can't possibly love you, you're strangers. Oh, and he did try to decapitate you a few seconds ago.

His eyes are the definition of infatuation, they seem to glint with happiness even in the dimly lit hall and you have no idea what to say to this sudden confession. You don't even know where this confession has come from.

Then realization dawns on you.

It does sound impossible but it's really the only thing you can find remotely believable at this point.

Has someone perhaps cast a spell on the Duke? And is that someone, you?

You stare at his hand apprehensively and you know you've got no other choice. Even if he is joking and ridiculing you, at least you know you've tried to not fall directly into death's expectant hands.

"I...am yet to except. However, I shall give you a fair trial to court me." You awkwardly agree and place your shaky palm into this hoping he isn't fooling around. Much to your relief he isn't, you witness the man's eyes soften as he faintly kisses your knuckle.

Your surroundings are a landscape of dead bodies, you want to jerk your hand away from the monster in front of you, but your goal is survival.

Thinking about what exactly you have got yourself into, it doesn't seem to be pretty at all.

[curiouslylazy]

On Law and the Immortality Surgery

[there are mild spoilers in this post for anime only viewers so read at your discretion]

Am I the only person who thinks that Law won’t be using the immortality surgery? On twitter and youtube any time I see Law dying brought up, almost everyone is quick to jump on the idea that he’ll be using the immortality surgery and lose his life in a sacrifice. They keep hammering in that Oda wouldn’t introduce this power if he didn’t intend to use it. While that is a route Oda can choose to go, I’m not ready to put all my money on it yet. For this theory to deserve the level of support it seems to have I think we need to gain more information and clear up some misconceptions first.

First we need to establish exactly what the immortality surgery does:

Does it give the recipient the remaining life force of the user and thus only elongate their life for X amount of years?

Does it give them an infinite lifespan so long as they are not killed by an outside force?

Does it give true immortality where the recipient will never age or die from any circumstances?

Is it a oneshot deal where the user can heal a mortal wound/cure an incurable illness/revive a recently deceased person at the expense of their life?

We honestly don’t have enough information to conclusively answer any of those questions yet.

Law says the ability grants eternal life at the expense of the surgeon’s own life. But as this is a translation we can’t determine the full accuracy of that statement. Furthermore Oda can change or add abilities at his pleasure. The implication at this moment however is that this isn’t just a oneshot deal. Dofflamingo probably wouldn’t waste time and resources on one day maybe needing a quick fix for an injury/illness. And nothing in Law’s explanation makes it seem like it’s a one time only get out of death card. Yet a lot of theories on Law using the immortality surgery seem to imply that it’ll work as a one time fix for some big injury. And if the people aren’t working off that assumption, they seem to think that immortality is the appropriate response to a deadly injury. That the recipient will have to contend with eternity just to turn the tides in one battle. Unless the recipient can later end their life at their will, I don’t see that happening.

Now let’s get into the potential beneficiaries for the immortality surgery. The most popular option is of course Luffy. The basic setup is Luffy will become mortally injured and Law will give up his life to save Luffy because Law owes Luffy for taking down Dofflamingo. I honestly don’t see this happening for many reasons.

Luffy states quite clearly that he is the only one who will decide where he dies. Law doesn’t get to make that choice. Furthermore Law doesn’t owe Luffy any debts. Law saved Luffy at Marineford first. Luffy is the one who cleared his balance at Dressrosa.

Luffy becoming immortal would be horrible for the story. From a plot standpoint it would decrease the tension severely for Luffy fights—and being a shounen protagonist already does that quite a bit, no need to double down. From a character standpoint, that would be the worst thing you could ever do to Luffy. Do you really want the person who said it’s worse to be alone than to get hurt to live forever as he watches all of his friends die?

As for other possible recipients of the immortality surgery, I don’t see any other “good guy” receiving it for the same reasons as Luffy. Law has even less of a connection or supposed debt to them than he would have to Luffy. I certainly don’t see him using it on a villain. Even under threat of lives close to him. He would not only be giving up his own life but also creating too much of a threat for his friends to deal with later—negating the whole purpose of a sacrificial move.

Next let’s discuss Law. A common sentiment I see thrown around is that he doesn’t have a purpose or drive anymore after Doflamingo’s defeat so his character is in a prime spot for dying. This is completely false.

Law wants to learn about the Will of D. He is actively searching for Poneglyphs for that purpose. Of course this doesn’t mean he’s safe from dying. A character dying before they meet their goal is excellent setup for a tragedy. And Law certainly has many death flags. He may in fact die saving Luffy, but even that doesn’t have to involve the immortality surgery necessarily.

Finally let’s talk about the narrative purpose of this ability existing. People keep saying that Oda wouldn’t bring up this ability if he didn’t intend for Law to use it. That Oda always callbacks to things he’s established before. While Oda is indeed the king of callbacks and payoff, I don’t think that has to be the case here. The immortality surgery existing has an established purpose in the story. It serves as the catalyst for Rosinante’s death and Law hating Dofflamingo. Yes the role of it is contained, but it set off the entire Dressrosa arc. I don’t think it needs to do more than that. It’s not wasted potential or a plot hole if Oda doesn’t bring it up again.

The one route of the immortality surgery being used that I find actually plausible is if it can do the reverse and take away immortality. I’ve seen it suggested for both Kaido and Imu that Law might need to take away their “immortality”/“invulnerability” so Luffy can finally defeat them. If that is something that can be done at all, I think that way of using the ability is the one that makes the most sense. I don’t think it’ll be needed for Kaido considering current events, but Imu is set up to be much more of a threat I think. But even then I don’t personally find the idea appealing. It would take away from the impact of Luffy’s victory if he only achieved it because Law needed to take away the character’s immortality. Luffy is meant to win against impossible odds. He doesn’t need his enemies brought down to his level. Luffy doesn’t need to kill his enemies anyway so there’s no need to take away their ability to not die.

Of course I can be completely wrong and the immortality surgery can be very important later on. I trust Oda to tell a satisfying story so I’m sure whichever route he picks will make sense and be enjoyable. These are just my thoughts on why I feel it’s a bit premature to think the surgery will definitely play a role. I’d love to hear from others and get their takes! Let me know if I’m not alone in my opinions or let me know if you disagree completely!!

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 51-56

This is the “Seras Coming of Age” part of Hellsing, but the chapters are all one-off titles: “Last Mission”, “Get Away”, “Yaksa”, “The Man I Love”, “Ogre Battle”, and “Angelous,”

Last time, Zorin Blitz’s company invaded the Hellsing HQ, and Seras managed to kill them all except for Zorin herself, and then she used her psychic whammy, forcing Seras to relive some traumatic moment.   We saw one of the Wild Geese get this same treatment, and he briefly saw his dead daughter before Zorin killed him.  As for Seras, she relives the deaths of her parents.   Years ago, two guys barged into their home and shot them.   The circumstances aren’t entirely clear, but they must have had some forewarning, since Seras’ mom hid her in a closet and told her not to come out no matter what.   But when she saw what they did to them, Seras became so enraged that she attackedthe men and stabbed one in the eye with a fork.  

The other guy shot Seras, and while she must have survived, she remembers laying on the floor as the guy she stabbed decides to rape her mother.   I’m not even sure “rape” is the right word, since she was already dead, but the guy doesn’t care because the body is “still warm.”   You’d think he’d be too upset about losing an eye, but maybe he’s high on cocaine or something.

I don’t think you need me to tell you this, gentle reader, but hol-ee shit this dark.   We knew Seras’ parents died when she was young, and it wouldn’t be hard to speculate that they died in some violent crime, but Seras watched it happen, and she stabbed a dude in the face, only to get shot herself, and she watched her mother’s body getting molested before she passed out.  

And this gives us some insight into what Alucard saw in her that night in Cheddar.  There, Seras was surrounded by ghouls, many of them her comrades in the police department, and a vampire who promised to rape her before drinking her blood.   Alucard found it remarkable how she persevered in this horror, but now we see that may not even be the worst thing that ever happened to her.  It’s not even the first time she got shot!  

And from the earlier flashback we saw, Seras was hellbound to become a police officer like her father.  After a trauma like this, it’s amazing that she’d want anything to do with the police, since those men killed her father for digging “too deep” into whatever they were involved in.  But Seras quietly, defiantly chose to follow in her father’s footsteps, only to suffer a similar fate. 

Because, let’s not forget, Seras is dead.   She died in Cheddar, because Alucard had to shoot through her to kill the vampire who had taken her hostage.   Then she agreed to become a vampire like him, and join the Hellsing Organization.   Once more, she has quietly, defiantly, chosen to carry on in this life of public service.  

But none of that matters to Zorin Blitz.   She just wanted to dredge up all this trauma to keep Seras preoccupied long enough for Zorin to do this...

Oh, also she lopped off Seras’ left arm, but I liked this impalement panel better. 

On top of that, Zorin slashes Seras’ eyes, which was pretty gruesome and shocking.   When I started watching the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, so I trawled YouTube for clips of Seras, so I had a pretty good idea where the character was headed, and noticed that late-story Seras was missing a left arm.   So Zorin cutting it off didn’t surprise me much, but everything else she did to her was a surprise.

Then, just as Zorin seems to be ready to finish Seras off, Pip Bernadotte gets the drop on her and whacks her with the butt of his rifle.    Machine gun?   Semiautomatic?   I don’t know from guns.    He hits her with it, is my point.   Then he shoots her with a different gun to put the exclamation point on it.

There’s two other guys left in the Wild Geese, and they toss smoke grenades to cover Pip as he tries to carry Seras to safety, but he’s wounded, and then a Millennium soldier wakes up and shoots him in the thighs.   Was that guy playing possum?  The Geese take him out, and Pip even makes it back to them, but I’m not sure what good that does anybody.   Then Zorin gets back up and cuts him down with her scythe.    I don’t think she chops him in half or anything, but he’s not getting back up again, that’s for sure. 

Seras calls out to him, and he steals another kiss.   I guess he forgot about the last time, because he acts like he “finally” managed to do this.   Then he asks Seras to drink his blood, which will allow her to win.   I guess someone must have explained enough vampire lore to Pip for him to have figured this out.    Maybe Seras herself told him how it worked, which makes it doubly-meaningful for him to say this to her now.  

And Seras starts wailing with grief, before Zorin finally mocks her for it, calling Pip an insect.   I’ve seen a few people poke fun at this scene, because it’s kind of weird for Zorin to just stand by while Pip and Seras have this final moment together, but Zorin’s a sadist.   Much of what she’s done in these past several chapters has been about reveling in her enemies’ suffering.    She took her sweet time with Seras earlier, which was the only reason Pip managed to help her, and now she’s taking her sweet time again, like she’s enjoying this drama. 

So Zorin uses her psychic whammy again, but this time it doesn’t work on Seras.   Maybe because Seras is already in the middle of a terrible trauma in the here and now.   She couldn’t do anything to avenge her parents back then, and she was powerless against the Cheddar Priest, but this time?   This time she knows exactly what to do.

VENIT AEVUS ILLE, O MESSIAH, O MESSIAH

YUDULIYA-VELE YUDULIYA-VELE

EN ESE MOMENTO ZORIN BLITZ SINTIO EL VERDADERO TERROR.

So yeah, this rocks.    The anime version does this cool thing where all the blood soaks up into her clothes and stains them red.   Maybe the manga was going for the same thing, but it’s harder to tell in black and white.   I find it kind of strange how Seras’ eyes grow back, but her left arm does not.    I’m pretty sure she could reform her arm, but chooses not to.   Instead, she’s got this black ectoplasm-y thing, like the same black stuff that Alucard uses when he’s not holding back as much.

Then Seras starts slaughtering Zorin’s men.   Didn’t she already kill them all?  Yeah, but there’s more.   The anime tries to cover for this by having Zorin explain that some “late arrivals” showed up.  Well, they did have to enter the building single file to get past the mines, so it makes sense that Zorin would keep some in reserve in case there were more traps inside. 

Seras is my favorite character in this whole thing, and since these pages of her kickin’ ass speak for themselves, I guess I’ll talk about why I like her so much.    I’m pretty sure I saw a cosplay photo of her on tumblr, and I found the design intriguing.   She’s a vampire, but dressed in something like a military uniform, kind of like the “Bridge Bunnies” in Macross. I looked up Seras to find out what she was from, and I was like “Oh, Hellsing was the show Team Four Star has been abridging, I guess I need to watch that anyway so I can watch the Abridged version and get the jokes.”

Mostly, I just like the idea of a vampire with a very professional mentality, as opposed to the whole Lost Boys/What We Do in the Shadows/Buffy kind of aesthetic.    Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we see that sort of thing all the time.   I’ve also seen a lot of “reluctant” vampires in my time.    Vampires who try to avoid doing any vampire stuff, or going about their business like the vampirism is just this inconvenient obstacle.   Hellsing presents this other option, where vampires like Alucard are used for the purpose of anti-vampire countermeasures.   He’s been turned into a weapon, but he’s basically just Dracula with a fresh coat of paint.   Seras is more firmly rooted in the concept.  Alucard was a vampire who became a sort of cop, and Seras is a cop who became a vampire. 

And while I liked the idea of Seras being like “Oh, well I didn’t want to be a vampire but I’ll try to make the best of it”, I quickly found out that she wasn’t just a cop with pointy teeth.   There’s moments where she can be scary and creepy too.   “Sir, yes sir, my Master.”  It sums her up very neatly.   This is a vampire who can be polite and respectful and professional, but she can also get very deep into the more horrific aspects of this thing.   She’s got layers.  Zorin Blitz tried to peel them back, and look how that’s working out for her.

Once the rank and file goons are dealt with, Seras goes after Blitz, and just wrecks her shit.   Blitz tries to punch Seras in the face and it does nothing.   Seras just bites all her fingers off and spits ‘em out.   Then she announces that she refuses to drink Zorin’s blood, not a single drop. This is important, because Seras was always reluctant to drink blood.  She said she feared that drinking blood would mean the end of something inside of her, but now she’s crossed that Rubicon.   One might suspect that she’d suddenly want to drink more blood, but no.  She drank Pip’s as a means to an end.   Zorin’s blood would serve no higher purpose, and I think there’s an implication that she doesn’t want to dishonor Pip’s sacrifice.  Desperate, Zorin tries to use her power on Seras a third time, and then this happens:

  Okay, so at first Zorin sees Seras’ memories, like before, but now there’s all this stuff from Pip’s memories, and then Warrant Officer Shrodinger, of all people, shows up.   Zorin is confused by this, but he explains that he’s “everywhere and nowhere,” which means he can appear in this psychic vision just as easily as he can teleport between Brazil and England.

Schrodinger is here to pass along a message from the Major.  See, Zorin disobeyed his orders, and he would normally punish her for this, but he and the Doctor are busy with a “most interesting toy”, so they’ll just leave it to Seras to take care of punishing Zorin.  

Yesterday, I think I figured out what Zorin’s disobedience was.    Before I was confused because she didn’t start attacking until Seras opened fire on her blimp, and that only happened because Seras was shooting at the rockets fired by the Major.   Everything that Zorin did afterwards could be considered a matter of self-defense, but therein lies the problem.    Namely, what was Zorin’s blimp doing in the line of fire to begin with?  

Because once Seras shot her down, everything Zorin did next was sort of her only option.   She pretty much had to attack the mansion, and brave its defenses, whatever those happened to be.   And the Major knew that this was a big unknown.   He warned Zorin about Seras Victoria and while he didn’t seem to know exactly what her abilities were, he regarded her as an “arch-enemy” on the same level as Alucard.  That’s why he wanted Zorin to hold off and wait for the rocket attack.   It was intended to probe the mansion’s defenses, and once it became clear that they had anti-aircraft guns, and that Seras was eagle-eyed enough to shoot down their rockets, then the Major could have ordered Zorin to find a different way.   

But instead she was too close and gave Seras a target, which precipitated everything else, up to and including this:

Yeah, Seras just drags Zorin across the walls until her whole head smears apart.   Cool!

With Zorin dead, Seras delcares her intention to take the fight to the enemy, and the last three Wild Geese salute her before she leaves.   One way or another, they realize that Pip has become a part of Seras now, and they pay their last respects to him through her. 

Then Seras flies toward London, using her left arm-thing to make cool bat wings.    And this is a good illustration of what Seras is all about.  Once, she might have been horrified at the thought of doing something like this, but now she sees it as a way to carry on with her duty.    This was what Alucard had been trying to get her to understand, but sometimes you just have to work these things out in your own way.   Seras is about utility, and now that she has a use for these vampiric powers, she’s finally prepared to embrace them as her own.

In London, Schrodinger reports back to the Major and informs him of Zorin Blitz’s death.  He’s not surprised, and even declares “our ruin has begun”.   Schrodinger points out that he’s leading everyone, friend and foe alike, into destruction, and the Major simply observes that this is war.   Millennium didn’t come to London to win, they came to London to fight.

Then the Ninth Crusade shows up.  Recall that, earlier, Enrico Maxwell organized a military response to deal with the Millennium invasion of London, but he hasn’t come here to save the civilian population.   Instead, he’s treating them as enemies, just like the Nazi vampires.    Somehow, there’s still living people in the city, and as dawn approaches, they see Maxwell’s helicopters putting off some sort of light show.  I don’t know what you call this, but the people on the ground think it’s angels, and then Maxwell orders his men to open fire.

I want to point out that the newly promoted Archbishop Maxwell is riding into this battle in a special truck with a glass box for him to sit in.   He’s surrounded by microphones so he can address his troops and the people below.   Also the truck is hanging from a helicopter.   It’s stupid and pointless and over-the-top, so naturally the Major is highly impressed with Maxwell’s style. 

[laurelnose]

monster! parasites!

you know how a few days ago i said we weren’t going to talk about monster parasites? that was a fucking lie.

the basis of my monster parasite thoughts are: every organism comes with its own internal ecosystem that goes with them everywhere. it’s like having built-in friends! ergo, when monsters crossed over to the witcher dimension during the Conjunction of Spheres they must have brought many new and delightful parasites with them. you know what fiend manes are full of? MITES. you know what drowners got on their skin? COPEPODS. what can we do with this information? anything we want.

i promise there are no pictures below the cut. i have tried to put warnings on all my sources but click any of the links below at your own risk. warning for internal and external parasites of animals, monsters, humans, and witchers; parasites altering the behavior of their hosts; and probably general body horror. if you read the eating-liver-flukes post that’s probably a decent baseline for how revolting you will find this post. 

also, super obvious bias towards aquatic parasites as referents. my degree is fisheries science not terrestrial ecology so that’s primarily what i’m drawing on even though nearly all of the witcher monsters are terrestrial. there is a TON i’m missing here bc of that bias! specifically i really wish i could talk about how parasites of invasive species often act as co-invaders with their hosts and monsters definitely count as invasive species and would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent but i don’t know enough about terrestrial ecosystems to speculate properly. (ETA: while i still think monsters would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent, I don’t actually think they’re invasive species anymore!) hopefully you enjoy it anyways!

it is, hilariously, canon that parasites are used for alchemy. according to The Last Wish, the Temple of Melitele’s grotto grows a bunch of different “rare specimens—those which made up the ingredients of a witcher’s medicines and elixirs, magical philters and a sorcerer’s decoctions” and some of those specimens are, uh, “clusters of nematodes.” nematodes being parasitic roundworms. this is really funny because it’s so fucking weird. also everything else in this description is a plant or a fungus and nematodes are definitely animals? i choose to believe the world makes sense and nematodes aren’t plants in the witcherverse. therefore parasites are alchemical ingredients, it’s canon, give me more witchers digging through monster intestines in search of worms and put a nematode colony in the basement of corvo bianco please and thank you

this actually leads right into my personal favorite drowner headcanon (hello yes i’m tumblr user Socks Laurelnose and i am always thinking about drowners)—you know those bits where drowners kind of have red blotches in their skin? those are nematodes, actually, because i said so. the reference is Clavinema mariae, a nematode that infests English sole. the worms are basically harmless but they’re dark red and you can see them through the skin. it freaks people out and makes it hard to sell sole. (IMAGE WARNING: a picture of an infected flatfish. it looks mostly normal but there’s a dark red lesion near the fin.) said lesion is probably a coiled-up Clavinema. sole have so many of these, it’s not even funny (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING for worms visible underneath skin of flatfishes. relevant images pointing out exactly how many worms on page 5). “but the red parts of drowners could just be flushed from blood”—no. worms. 

okay that was my main specific-parasite-for-specific-monster headcanon (except also succubi probably have a unique species of lice for their hairy legs. but that’s barely even a headcanon, basically all terrestrial vertebrates have a unique species of lice.) i wanted to start with it because i think that everyone should feel free to arbitrarily assign a totally benign but conceptually gross worm to their favorite monsters. why not, yanno? also it probably sets the tone for the rest of this post. 

carrying on: “what monsters might have nematodes, besides drowners,” you may be wondering? probably all of them! all of them are full of nematodes. nematodes are fucking everywhere. allow me to share a deeply unsettling quote from nematologist Nathan Cobb: 

“In short, if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable since, for every massing of human beings, there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”

jesus christ! thanks nathan, I hate it. nematodes are usually both benign and microscopic, but we’re talking witchers, we want some parasites we can fuckin get our hands on. sperm whale placentas are sometimes infested with nematodes up to 28 feet long but only a centimeter in diameter (Wikipedia link, no images). like an incredibly awful spaghetti! we don’t really seem to know if this bothers the sperm whales. also, i unfortunately do not know enough about the size of whale organs to tell you how big the placenta is in relation to this worm. the point is: real big monster? REAL BIG NEMATODES.

moving on from nematodes—okay, you know, since i mentioned eating deer liver flukes at the start of this post, let’s just go there. real life flukes max out at about 3 inches long, but hypothetical monster flukes could be much bigger and equally edible if desired. (if you’re wondering what a liver fluke would taste like: the flukes feed on the liver and they have very few organs of their own, so they would taste basically just like liver, just also long and flat like a fruit roll-up. if you’re going there, a witcher should not eat any flatworm live. if they’re digging them out of cockatrice livers or whatnot they should kill them before munching or save to cook later. it would probably be safe to eat one live, but you know that cliche “their tongues battled for dominance”? handling a live flatworm is like a handling very strong and energetic tongue complete with slime, okay, it wouldn’t be nice.)

parasites often need more than one host to complete the life cycle—for instance, Leucochloridium paradoxum (VIDEO WARNING: you may have seen this, it’s the one that makes snail eyes pulsating & green) has a bird stage and a snail stage, and it makes the snails look and act really weird in order to attract the birds. parasites altering host behavior to attract the next host in the life cycle is pretty well-documented; for instance, there’s an eye fluke that can make fish swim near the surface where predators can eat them (New Scientist article link, images of a microscope slide & a normal-looking fish) and a tapeworm that does the same and makes the dark silver fish turn white (JSTOR article, no images). i posit that at least some monsters are accompanied by “ill omens” of animals looking or acting strangely because they become infected with a stage of one of the monster’s parasites—usually, the mechanism is that internal parasites lay eggs that are passed in feces & transmitted that way. witchers who are up on their parasite ecology might be able to identify what monster is hanging around by observing exactly what kind of freaky-looking animals or animal behavior is going on around the area!

(if geralt is involved you may desire to have him explain this totally non-supernatural mechanism for abrupt animal appearance or behavioral changes at excruciating length to the chagrin of all present. or maybe that’s just what i desire. it would be funny okay)

potentially even more hyperspecific application of dual-stage parasites: there’s a dinoflagellate parasite that, when it infects crabs, makes the meat chalky and bitter like aspirin (Smithsonian link, images of healthy crab and microscope slide). geralt hunts down dinner, digs in, and immediately sighs and grabs jaskier’s portion away from him to the poet’s complete bafflement before going to get his swords because judging by the flavor there’s definitely a shishiga nest in this forest. 

like. parasites are one of THE most hyperspecific things in biology. the majority of them have very specific hosts and life cycles, many of them are completely unique to a species, if you think a fictional parasite is too specific to be plausible you’re probably wrong, make it even more specific. “the witcher monster lore is so hyperspecific lol” IT AIN’T TRULY HYPERSPECIFIC UNTIL YOU CAN IDENTIFY EACH MONSTER SPECIES BY ITS UNIQUE PARASITIC LOAD, OKAY.

and, with regards to behavior-affecting parasites, before anyone brings up Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps, as of 2008): yeah that sure is a thing! if you weren’t aware, just a couple of years ago we found out it actually is not a mind control fungus!! it bypasses the brain entirely and affects the muscles (Arstechnica article, Atlantic article—photos of fuzzy ants and electron microscope pictures of fungi). or as Ed Yong puts it, “The ant ends its life as a prisoner in its own body. Its brain is still in the driver's seat, but the fungus has the wheel.” which is. significantly worse than the brain thing. awesome!! i bet there would absolutely be similar fungal parasites of endrega and arachasae. real Ophiocordyceps still very much does not affect humans, but you know what, if plants can be cursed into becoming archespores and cultivated by mages i see no reason why mages could not also curse endrega fungus to affect humans, just saying

aaaand quickly back to hyperspecificity: monsters in different geographical areas having different abilities because of their symbionts. forktails in vicovaro acquire a bioluminescent symbiont in their diet that forktails in other parts of the continent can’t get, and they can create flashes of light? that’s sure gonna fuck a witcher on Cat up when he comes in the cave expecting a normal forktail. (geographic location affecting bioluminescence is a thing that actually happens in midshipman fish—Wikipedia link, no parasites.) geographically-dependent symbionts can also produce different toxins and such for their hosts! this isn’t exactly a parasitism thing per se (although parasites are also symbionts because ‘symbiosis’ refers to two organisms in close association not two organisms in positive association) but like. it’s cool okay ecology is so cool

writing fic and tired of all these same-old monsters-of-the-week? quick and easy way to spice up either the horror factor or just make the hunt stand out slightly: just add parasites!! i know i’ve read fics where monsters were described with distinguishing old wounds. you can do the same with parasites! i would fucking swoon over a detail like an ancient water hag’s eyes glowing in the dark, one of them marred by a dangling parasite—geralt notes the blind spot and presses his advantage. (Wikipedia link, no images: this one is referencing an aquatic copepod called Ommatokoita.) also, please put barnacles on skelliger drowners, i want it so badly. just—some percentage of monsters should be Extra Grody on the inside and/or the outside, that’s how nature works. spicing up a mundane hunt by making the monster a little extra gross for its species is Valid, is what I’m saying.

also, every single time frozen specimens with obvious fungal/ectoparasite infections come into the lab we absolutely always take extra close-up pictures of those suckers and make sure everyone else gets to see them. witchers bringing field sketches and notes of the weirdest shit they found on the path back for winter. lambert declares they’ll never know if this alleged fiend tumor was a fungus or mange because geralt sucks at drawing. eskel, the man who hauled a katakan corpse all the way up the mountain so he could dissect it, produces actual skin samples of his own encounters for examination, possibly in the middle of dinner. this elicits mixed reactions.

quick detour into preservation, since I went there—witchers are probably immune to parasites that infect humans by virtue of having pretty different biology to begin with, and probably immune to parasitic infections from other sources by virtue of superhumanly boosted immune systems and all the poison they put into their bodies on a regular basis. picking up a monster parasite would probably not be a big deal for witchers, either in that they have total immunity or that they would only be minimally and briefly affected, but the field of monster biology is likely such that they probably just don’t actually know what would happen to them in the majority of cases. this has potential as a source of battle stories and/or stories intended to freak out trainees, i think. therefore, out of caution, a witcher harvesting/preparing parts for alchemy might want to be sure to treat them first. personally i think all monster parts should be preserved immediately anyways to avoid attracting necrophages, and given that alchemical concoctions in witcherverse are alcohol-based, preservation in strong alcohol is probably the best way to maintain potency and kill basically everything. (cons: alcohol is SUPER heavy and jars are fragile. tissues or organs which are thicker than perhaps half an inch or an inch require additional preparation for the alcohol to penetrate properly. other preservation methods are more efficient for travel. depends on how soon your witcher intends to use or offload their stash.)

also, here’s an absolutely wild marine parasite that would make it worth a witcher’s while to make certain everything was dead! pearlfishes are long eel-like fishes that live inside the anus and respiratory organs (which are attached to the anus) of sea cucumbers, and they have pretty nasty teeth (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING: dissected sea cucumbers literally stuffed to the gills with pearlfish). the highest number of pearlfish discovered in a single sea cucumber was sixteen (ResearchGate article, free PDF; no images). a different fact: we discovered tiger sharks eat each other in the womb because a researcher got bitten by a fetal tiger shark while he was dissecting the mother (NYT link, no images or parasites). what i’m saying is: parasites are often very small relative to the host and usually harmless to things rummaging around inside, but what if the monster’s parasites were also monstrous. give me a monster that has to be very dead or when you start rummaging around for alchemy ingredients the things in its intestines will lunge out and bite you. 

what happens if a human becomes infected with a monster parasite? bad things, probably, i mentioned before that parasites in the wrong host, if they don’t just die, often super fuck things up internally (if you get tapeworms outside of the intestine where they’re supposed to be... it’s not good y’all. CDC link, no images). host-jumping for parasites is actually fairly rare since most of them are highly specialized for their hosts, but it does happen. humans are very not my strong suit so i’m not going to dwell on this but it is entirely possible that something like necrophage infestations or monster-contaminated water sources or just being a little too involved on a witcher’s monster hunt could produce strange parasitic diseases in humans. up to you how well-known and/or how clouded in superstition these effects might be! opportunities for hideous whump? gross body horror? messy and horrifying parasite-driven behavioral changes? terrifying and potentially prolonged uncertainty over what the issue actually is because of minimal information about parasites? the decision whether or not to dose with a witcher potion? excellent possibilities.

okay last one, just because i think it would be fun: myxosporeans and sirens. Myxos are a parasitic relative of jellyfish that produce whirling disease in baby salmon. whirling disease causes neurological and skeletal damage and has a pretty high mortality rate, but it also makes infected fish do this, well, whirling behavior and it’s honestly fascinating. (video link: a pretty normal-looking young trout spinning like a fuckin top). imagine a siren doing that in the sky. i just think myxos are neat!

tl;dr: extra grody hyperspecific biology of monsters!!!

[cesabutterflywrites]

Will Bring You to Your Knees

Part [3] in An Angel’s Smile Series

“In his naked glory, the mortals wept at the witness of true divinity-and confessed to their many sins”

Summary: Janus Ethan Dannecker starts college with only a box, backpack, $300, and a ton of emotional baggage that is overwhelming. The broken home he came from cast a shadow on him that he refused to let anyone see. The scars on his body were no match for the scars on his soul. He made it his mission to never let anyone see where he came from. See what he was really made of. See how messed up he would always be.

That is, until Patton Mavers smiled at him.  Ao3 [First Part] [Previous Part] [Next Part Coming Soon] [Spotify Playlist]

Word Count:  1761

Story Warnings: past abusive childhood, angst, untreated/undiagnosed mental illness symptoms, detailed descriptions of abuse, cursing, implied/referenced substance abuse. Rated M for Mature audiences. Let me know if I need to add more, and read with caution!

Will Bring You to Your Knees

Janus woke up to the sound of Green Day’s ‘Holiday’. Well, more like he startled so hard he fell off of his bed and hit his head on the desk next to him. The sound of Virgil’s alarm blared in the small room obnoxiously. It was too early for that garage music, in his opinion. The assault on his ears seemed to have no effect on Virgil, who was the one who set the alarm  in the first place.  

 Janus hissed in pain, rubbing the spot and watching his roommate shuffle in his bed to turn off the alarm. Virgil didn't even get up, he just rolled over in his bed and immediately started snoring. Janus took a moment to stare incredulously. Who set an alarm so loud and startling only to just fall back asleep after turning it off? 

He cursed himself immediately. He had no right to judge how Virgil conducted his mornings. He was rude for even thinking about it. It was one more thing to hate about himself-the silent snap judgements about something that wasn’t that big of a deal. 

 He closed his eyes. He was so weary from his fitful sleep. He had once again been dreaming about his true self. The self he hid at all costs- the one who was evil. The version of him who was always screaming in his mind. He had dreamed of what his true self would say to Patton. He would break down. Scream in his face about how he would never be fine. 

 He sat there, leaning against the desk while he ran his hand through his greasy hair. He hadn’t been able to clean himself for a while before he arrived. He knew that the dorm had community showers, similar to what locker rooms were like. He had read about it in his brochure, and had dreaded the day he’d have to navigate the challenges it would pose.

 Janus sighed after he pulled himself up. He had his first class in two and a half hours, he noted after glancing at the clock by his bed. He took out his phone-an old model on its last legs, which would need replacing soon-and gazed at it intensely, as if begging the device to magically tell him whether or not he had time for a shower and crisis before getting to class.

 Realizing time was slipping away, he decided to go for it. He’d be in a dorm for a year, at least, and he needed to get over the fear of community showers at some point. It was ridiculous to be so embarrassed.  He could probably easily avoid having people see the scars all over his body...he hoped.

 Part of him thought it was too early in the morning to be paranoid. The other part laughed, because it wasn’t like Janus could ever settle down enough to let go of his insecurities. It was useless to even think he’d be done with his fear of the world. As long as his skin was marked, he would never be convinced of his freedom. 

 As he gathered his things, he started thinking of lies he could tell if anyone saw the marks covering his shoulders, back, and abdomen. He could say gruesome animal attack, but quickly discarded that. Too many follow up questions. Maybe a bully at school? No, too much sympathy. He grew frustrated at the lack of preparation for the inevitable question. 

 There was always the option of...not answering. Of saying it was private. There was the option for answering with that. Perhaps his father had been right after all.

 It was better for him to be silent.

 Especially his...if  the  angel were to ever see him bare chested. Those wonderful green eyes losing their light to the horrible sight. Janus conjured the image of Patton’s carefree face curled with disgust at the sight of him. He didn’t think of what he’d do in that scenario, and he wasn’t going to entertain that line of thinking further. 

 He grabbed his bag and towel. His heart was pounding as the worried thoughts fluttered through his mind like eagles diving towards their prey. He  felt his heartbeat in his ears. The halls seemed to grow never ending as he made his way through the groups of students also just waking up. He felt like everyone was already staring at him. Gazes of disgust were surely being thrown against his back as he walked past. If it weren’t for the tags scratching his neck, he’d think he was already naked. 

 Finally, as if the walk was five years instead of ten minutes, he made it outside the doors to the showers. He steeled himself, put on his brave mask, and walked in. 

 He nearly ran into a shirtless Roman. 

 “Woah, hey there Janus!” Roman greeted enthusiastically. His strawberry blond hair was dripping wet, which was a compliment to his wide grin. He seemed a little too chipper for that early in the morning. How was this man with someone like Virgil?

 “Hi,” Janus replied lamely. “Um…” 

 Roman was smarter than he looked, it seemed to Janus, because his face morphed into one of sympathy. His eyebrows scrunched together as he looked down at Janus. It was...unnerving.

  The pair scooted out of the way as another person came in. 

 “You’ve never used one of these before, huh?” Roman’s voice was quiet, and he held that damn oversweet sympathy in his eyes. What had Patton said to him?

 Janus just shook his head. He felt sick with himself, being so obviously out of his element, and the fact that Roman was being so kind about it made it even more of a slap to the face. Still, he stuck with the shy approach because defensiveness would not be helpful to him. Roman was probably trying to be kind.

 “Well, it’s not as scary as it seems. You hang your towel and bag on the hook right next to the door inside your stall, do your thing, and get out to change your clothes in the changing stalls if you don’t want to do it on the shower bench.” Roman winked at Janus, “Unless you forget your shirt like I did.” 

 “It looks like they’re all in use…” Janus commented, feeling very aware of the time ticking by. What if he was late to his first class? What if he couldn’t do this after all? How much time had passed?

 “Patton’s almost done I think, you can use that one after he’s done I’m sure.” Roman eyed Janus, his ocean blue eyes must have noticed more than Janus was choosing to show, because he offered to stay until a stall became available. 

 It was infuriating, on some level, to have people suddenly care about him. It was a blatant reminder that he was a fake. He wasn’t worth the attention. The only reason he was being treated nicely was because he had fooled Roman and the others that he was a likable person. 

 Then he had been rude to Patton. The angel with the loveable smile. His easy acceptance of Janus had been a shock, and he was met with dishonesty. Necessary little lies that Janus lived by. It was enough to affirm the belief that he wasn’t worth it. It was enough to make him want to confess it all to Patton-to keep him and the others away. 

 Janus denied the offer, but Roman stayed anyway. It was two minutes when the angel, that beautiful angel, walked out with a baby blue towel wrapped around his hips. His curly hair was a darker color from the wet, and barely touching his shoulders. The blue streak in his bangs was leaking some of it’s dye-Janus wondered if it would stain Patton’s skin.

 He was holding a black net bag that held his things.  His arms were thicker than Janus had realized, and it was obvious that Patton did some form of working out. He didn’t have a six pack, but his chest and abdomen were defined-with hints of softness where his hips and waist were. Janus refused to glance further, choosing to look back at the angel’s face again.

 Heat of attraction that he never felt before was at the edge of his consciousness. Blood made of desire made its way to his cheeks. He was sure that his heart had quickened its pace. The beauty, the magnificence, the light of this beautiful man’s aura caused Janus to feel grounded where he stood. 

 Janus’s mask crumbled. He knew he was ogling, but it was as if there was a halo of light in the mist around Patton as he made his way with his clothing bag to one of the changing stalls. The spell broke, and he was grateful Patton hadn’t noticed him. He let out a breath, and looked to see Roman grinning at him cheekily. 

 “Did you like the view?” Roman teased. He wasn’t being mean, of course. Roman didn’t seem the type to be malicious. 

 Janus’ annoyance with Roman slipped through as he rolled his eyes. He refused to acknowledge that he was still blushing. “Thank you for your help Roman. Have a good day.” 

 Janus passed as Patton walked out of the stall dressed in a blue polo shirt with khaki pants. His face was clear of the leaked dye, miraculously. His hair was starting to curl again. He was wearing his glasses, framing his face perfectly. He looked like a baseball dad more than a college student. His hair was still wet, but shaggier from the towel. His face brightened when he caught Janus’ arm.

 “Hi Janus,” he smiled, “Hope you have a good day. Good luck!” 

 Janus held onto that phrase. His arm was caught in tingles from the brief gesture of affection. He hadn’t even flinched! Even after he had acted rude the other night, Patton was still nice to him. Maybe the care the angel had for the stranger was real after all. Or maybe he was just nice to everyone. Either way, Janus felt a spark of what could be considered genuine joy. 

 “Darn it Roman, where is your shirt?” he heard Patton chastise his roommate. Roman naturally laughed off the question

 Janus giggled to himself, and braved his first shower with ease. As he made his way to class after, all he could think about was Patton telling him to have a good day. He hadn’t even had time to worry about how he looked in front of the angel. 

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TAGLIST: @omgsomeonesomewhereonearth , @deceits-left-glove ​ , @louistownsmyass

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[Masterpost of all my writings]

[sisterofiris]

Everyday life in the Hittite empire

Have you ever wondered what your life would have been like if you had been born in central Anatolia 3500 years ago? No? Now that I’ve brought it up, are you curious to find out?

Well you’re in luck, because that’s just what this post is about. So sit back, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in Anatolia - that is, modern Turkey. Are you ready? Can you see the mountains, the red river and the towering buildings of your capital, Ḫattuša? Can you hear the chariots driving up the road? Can you feel the electric brewing of a storm in the distance?

Then let’s go.

(With a brief disclaimer: while I study Hittitology, this is not intended as an academic-level post. It was written to give general, approachable insights into Hittite culture and can be used as writing inspiration or to titillate curious history nerds around you, but if you’re writing an academic paper on the subject, I would recommend you check out the bibliography instead.)

About you

First things first, are you older than five? If so, congratulations on being alive. Child mortality in this place and time is very high, so you’re one of the luckier ones among your siblings. You probably have at least a couple of those; you may even have as many as six or seven, especially if you come from a well-to-do family with access to good healthcare. When you were little, your parents might have told you the tale of Zalpa, in which the queen of Neša gives birth to thirty sons then thirty daughters who marry each other, but you know this only happens in the stories - not to normal people.

When you were born, your parents rejoiced regardless of your sex, as sons and daughters are equally valued in your society (albeit for different reasons). Your father took you on his knee and gave you a good Hittite name: maybe Armawiya, Ḫarapšili, Kilušḫepa or Šiwanaḫšušar for a girl, or Anuwanza, Kantuzili, Muwaziti or Tarḫuzalma for a boy. Gender-neutral names, such as Anna, Muwa and Šummiri, would also have been an option. Many people around you have Hurrian or Luwian names, even if they are not ethnically Hurrian or Luwian themselves. (This is comparable to the modern popularity of Hispanic names like Diego, or French names like Isabelle.)

It’s hard to say what you would have done during childhood. While your earliest years would have been spent playing and babbling in grammatically incorrect Hittite, by the age of six or seven you may well have already started training in the family profession. If a girl, you would have been taught to weave by your mother; if a boy, you might have helped your father out on the farm, tried your hand at making pottery, or spent long hours learning cuneiform. (There may have been careers requiring gender non-conformity, as there was in Mesopotamia, but as far as I am aware this has not been proven.) You know that even the noblest children are given responsibilities - king Ḫattušili himself was once a stable boy.

Now, as an adult, you are a working professional contributing directly to Hittite society. You look the very portrait of a Hittite: as a woman, you have long, dark hair that you probably keep veiled, and as a man, your hair is around shoulder-length and your face clean-shaven. Ethnically, though, you are likely a mixture of Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, Hattian, and depending on when and where exactly you live, maybe Assyrian, Canaanite or even Greek. There’s a fair chance Hittite might not actually be your native language. Still, you consider yourself a Hittite, and a subject of the Hittite king.

Well, now you know who you are, let’s get along with your day!

Your home and environment

Your day begins the way most people’s days do: you wake up at home, in your bed. As an average Hittite, you probably sleep on the floor rather than on elevated furniture. Your floor is either paved or of beaten earth, and your house itself has stone foundations and mud brick walls, with a flat roof supported by timber beams. Windows are scarce and small, to keep the indoor temperature stable.

Outside, the rest of the settlement is waking up too. Statistically, you live in a village or small town, surrounded by forest and mountains. Summers here are hot and dry, and winters cold and snowy, with spring and autumn being marked by thunderstorms. Most inhabitants work as farmers, relying on the weather for their survival. Contagious illnesses are a constant threat - under king Muršili II, the land suffered a deadly plague for twenty years - as are enemy invasions. If you live within the bend of the red river, in the Hittite heartland, consider yourself lucky; if not, your settlement could well be shifting from one kingdom’s property to another and falling prey to both sides’ raids on a yearly basis.

Admitting no enemy forces are in the area today, you take your time to get up. You might tiredly stumble to the outhouse to go pee. Eventually, you’ll want to get dressed.

Clothing

As a man, your clothes comprise of a kilt or sleeved tunic, with a belt of cloth or leather. As a woman, you wear a long dress and, if you are married, a veil. All clothing is made from wool or linen, and a variety of dyes exist: red, yellow, blue, green, black and white are all colours mentioned in texts. If you are rich enough, you may be able to import purple-dyed fabric from Lazpa (Greek Lesbos) or the Levant. You will also want to flaunt your wealth with jewellery, regardless of gender.

Of course, your shoes have upturned ends in the Hittite style. Historians will tease you for this. Don’t listen to them. You look awesome.

Mealtime!

It’s now time for one of your two daily meals (the other will take place in the evening, after your work for the day is done). This will be prepared at the hearth, a vital element of every home, and which is likely connected to an oven. The staple of your diet is bread; in fact, it is so common that “bread”, in cuneiform texts, is used as a general term for food. It is usually made from wheat or barley, but can also be made from beans or lentils.

Worried you’ll get bored of it? You needn’t be: your society has enough types of bread that you could eat a different one each day for a whole season. Fig bread, sour bread, flat bread and honey bread are just some of your options, along with spear bread and moon bread... yes, in other words, baguettes and croissants. (Something tells me the Hittites and the French would have a lot to talk about.)

You also have various fruits and vegetables available: cucumber, leek, carrots, peas, chickpeas, lentils, beans, olives, figs, dates, grapes, pomegranates, onions, garlic, and more. Your diet is completed by animal products, including cheese, milk, butter, and meat, mainly from sheep and goats but also cows and wild game. Honey, too, is common.

These ingredients can be combined into all sorts of dishes. Porridge is popular, as are stews, both vegetarian and meat-based. Meat can also be broiled and quite possibly skewered onto kebabs. And of course, food would be boring without spices, so you have a variety of those to choose from too: coriander are cumin are just two of them.

As for drinks, you can have beer, wine, beer-wine (good luck figuring out what that is), milk or water. If you’re well-to-do enough, you may own a rhyton, a drinking vessel shaped like an animal such as a stag or bull. Don’t forget to libate to the Gods before drinking your share.

Daily work

The next thing on your plate, after food, is work. What you do depends on your social status and gender, and most likely, you do the same work as your parents did before you. You could be something well-known like a king, priest, scribe, merchant, farmer or slave, but don’t assume those are all the possibilities; you could also be, for example, a gardener, doctor, ritual practitioner, potter, weaver, tavern keeper, or perfume maker.

It’s impossible to go into detail on every career option you would have in Hittite society, so for the sake of brevity, let’s just discuss four - two male-dominated, and two female-specific.

Farmer

As a farmer, you are the backbone of your society. You and your peers are responsible for putting food on the plates of Hittites everywhere, thus ensuring the survival of the empire.

Like many farmers, you live on a small estate, most likely with both crops (or an orchard) and livestock to take care of. You may own cows, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, and/or ducks. Your daily routine and tools aren’t that different from other pre-industrial cultures, though you have it a little rougher than most due to the Anatolian mountain terrain. If you have the means, you hire seasonal workers - both male and female - to help out as farmhands, and you may own a few slaves.

You get up early to milk the cows, and at the onset of summer, you or a hired herdsman may lead your livestock up to mountain pastures to graze. Depending on the season and the work that needs to be done, you may spend your day ploughing the fields, harvesting grain or fruit, tending livestock, shearing sheep, birthing a calf, repairing the barn, or various other tasks. Make sure to take proper care of everything: new animals are expensive, and losing one could get you into a precarious situation. In particular, you’ll want to keep an eye out for bears, wolves, foxes, and even lions and leopards.

Scribe

Few people are literate in Hittite society, and you are one of the lucky ones. You have been learning to read and write in three languages (Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite) since childhood, and after long years of copying lexical lists and ancient myths, your education is now complete.

As a scribe, you are the dreaded bureaucrat. In a small town, you likely work alongside the town administrator, recording tax collections and enemy sightings as well as corresponding with other towns, and with the capital. You and your peers are the go-to people for officialising marriage agreements and divorces, drawing up work contracts, and creating sales receipts. If not in the town administration, you could also work in a temple, recording the results of oracles, cross-checking the correct procedures for a ritual, and making sure everything necessary for a festival is available. If you are particularly lucky, you may be employed by the nobility or even the palace, and be entrusted with such confidential tasks as writing the king’s annals or drafting an international treaty.

Regardless of where you are, two things are essential to your job: a stylus and a tablet. You may be a “scribe of the clay tablets”, in which case you will need to carry around a bit of clay wherever you go (and some water to moisten it). Otherwise, you are a “scribe of the wooden tablets”, in which case you use a wax tablet in a wooden frame, which requires less maintenance. It’s unclear whether these types of tablet are used for different purposes.

Fun fact: you likely have a few pen pals around the Hittite empire. After corresponding with other scribes for so long, you’ve started writing each other messages at the bottom of your tablets, asking each other how you’re doing and to say hi to each other’s families. Your employers needn’t know.

Weaver

Weaving, to a Hittite like you, is the quintessential female activity, along with textile-making in general. Like farming, this is a backbone of your society: without weaving, there would be no clothes, and without clothes, well, you can’t do much.

As a weaver, you produce textiles for your family and in many cases also for sale. You work in an atelier within your home, along with the other women of the household, keeping an eye on your smallest children as they play nearby. While your husband, brothers or sons may transport and sell your handiwork, you are the head of your own business.

You are skilled in multiple weaving techniques, and can do embroidery and sew fabric into various shapes (including sleeves - take that, Classical Greeks). You create clothing for all sorts of occasions, including rituals and festivals, outdoor work, and winter weather, and if you are lucky enough to be commissioned by the nobility, you put your best efforts into clothing that will show off their status. Don’t try to cheat anyone out of their money, though; prices are fixed by law.

Old Woman

Contrary to what you might expect, you don’t need to be old to be an Old Woman - this is a career just like any other, though it probably does require a certain amount of life experience and earned respect. As an Old Woman, you are a trained ritual practitioner and active in all sorts of cultic, divinatory and magical ceremonies.

Most commonly, you are hired for rituals protecting against or removing evil. Your services may solve domestic quarrels, cure a sick child, or shield someone from sorcery (a constant threat in your society). This is done through symbolic acts like cutting pieces of string, breaking objects, and sacrificing and burning animals, which are of course accompanied by incantations - sometimes in Hittite, sometimes in other languages, like Hurrian.

Far from a village witch, you are high-placed in Hittite society and trusted by the royal family itself. You have taken part in major rituals and festivals, including funerals, and you perform divinatory oracles too. This last responsibility gives you a large amount of influence over the king and queen; if you establish that something should be done, then it almost certainly will be. Use this power well... or not.

Your loved ones

After a long day ploughing fields, writing tablets, weaving clothes or reciting incantations, it’s finally time to reunite with your loved ones. For adults, these likely - but not necessarily! - include a spouse and children. You may just live with your nuclear family, but living with extended family is also common, and there may be as many as twenty people in your household. Siblings, aunts and uncles, parents, grandparents, children and babies all share the evening meal with you, and some nights, you might gather afterwards to sing and dance, tell stories, and play games.

You also have relationships outside of home. Friendship is valued by Hittite society, with close friends calling each other “brother” and sister”. You might meet up with them regularly at the local tavern for a beer and a bit of fun. Someone there might even catch your eye... Interestingly, there are no laws against that person being of the same gender as you. So, same or different gender, why not try your luck tonight?

Greater powers

It’s impossible to spend a day in the Hittite empire without encountering religion. The Land of a Thousand Gods is aptly named: Gods are in everything, from the sun to the mountains to the stream at the back of your house to fire to a chair. You should always be conscious of their power, and treat them with respect. Though there are few traces of it, you may have a household shrine where you make libations or offer a portion of your meal. Your Gods may be represented by anthropomorphic statues, by animals such as a bull, by symbols such as gold disks, or even by a stone. Either way, treat these objects well; the divine is literally present in them.

You should also be wary of sorcery. Never make clay figures of someone, or kill a snake while speaking someone’s name, or you will face the death penalty. Likewise, always dispose of impurities carefully, especially those left over from a purification ritual (such as mud, ashes, or body hair). Never toss them onto someone else’s property. Has misfortune suddenly struck your household? Is your family or livestock getting sick and dying? These are signs that someone has bewitched you.

Some days are more sacred than others. You participate in over a hundred festivals every year, some lasting less than a day, some lasting a month, some local, some celebrated by the entire Hittite empire. The most important of these are the crocus festival and the purulli festival in spring, the festival of haste in autumn, and the gate-house festival, possibly also in autumn. The statues of the Gods are brought out of the temples, great feasts are held, and entertainment is provided through music, dance and sports contests. Depending on how important your town is, the king, queen or a prince might even be in attendance. All this excitement is a nice break from your regular work!

Sleep and dreams

Phew, what a busy day it’s been. The sun, snared in the trees’ branches, has set on the Hittite land, and you are ready for bed. Time to wrap yourself snugly in blankets and go to sleep.

You may dream, in which case, try to remember as much as you can. Dreams can be a vehicle for omens. Maybe, if the Gods are kind, you might catch a glimpse of what the next days, months and years hold in store for you.

Good night!

Bibliography

Beckman, Gary, “Birth and Motherhood among the Hittites”, in Budin, Stephanie Lynn, Macintosh Turfa, Jean, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World, Abingdon 2016 (pp. 319-328).

Bryce, Trevor, Life and Society in the Hittite World, Oxford 2002.

Bryce, Trevor, “The Role and Status of Women in Hittite Society”, in Budin, Stephanie Lynn, Macintosh Turfa, Jean, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World, Abingdon 2016 (pp. 303-318).

Golec-Islam, Joanna, The Food of Gods and Humans in the Hittite World, BA thesis, Warszawa 2016.

Hoffner, Harry A., “Birth and name-giving in Hittite texts”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27/3 (1968), pp. 198-203.

Hoffner, Harry A., “Daily life among the Hittites”, in Averbeck, Richard E., Chavalas, Marc W., Weisberg, David B., Life and Culture in the Ancient Near East, Bethesda 2003 (pp. 95-118).

Marcuson, Hannah, “Word of the Old Woman”: Studies in Female Ritual Practice in Hittite Anatolia, PhD thesis, Chicago 2016.

Wilhelm, Gernot, “Demographic Data from Hittite Land Donation Tablets”, in Pecchioli Daddi, Franca, Torri, Giulia, Corti, Carlo, Central-North Anatolia in the Hittite Period: New Perspectives in Light of Recent Research, Roma 2009 (pp. 223-233).

[centrally-unplanned]

A follow-up to my Avatar: The Last Airbender post yesterday, not something I normally respond to but I thought it was noteworthy. I had a number of people say something along the lines of “you are judging it for being immature, but its a kids show. You have to evaluate it as a kids shows, not as a show you as an adult would enjoy.” Now, I was criticizing the show - lets see if, when *praising* the show, the world uses the same standard!

Lets just select from literally the first page of google results and took a look and how people discuss this kids show for kids. What do you have for me Insider, a magazine whose sections include “Tech”, “Finance” and, Jesus Christ, “Executive Lifestyle”:

Huh, maybe the text specifies a “for children” disclaimer?

Hm, between the “masterclass in animation” and “complex storytelling” not seeing an “if you are 10 years old” footnote - maybe the HTML hover text is broken? 

Lets try another one from Google, next up we have...Vox, a magazine devoted to analysis of public policy and current events, just taking a break to discuss some kids shows:

Wow, one of greatest ever overall, not even in animation! Lets go to the text:

Man, when I discuss the 8-11 year old cartoon market, the phrase “the broader public” is absolutely what I would choose to communicate that demographic, mea culpa guys. 

Moving on, next we have The Cut, with its topics of “Style, Self, Culture, Power”. What I said to myself in the mirror before heading off to my first day of elementary school, way to target the demo! Lets see their take:

Tsk tsk, you and Vox should have coordinated those headlines there. And the text?

I remember the good ol’ days, hanging out on the playground at recess, discussing with my friends whether my birthday party should be themed after ATLA, The Wire, or Rome. Got anything else for us, The Cut?

Oh yeah, all the porn ads the 8 year olds are clicking thr - wait a second okay that is *extremely relatable* as a kid and definitely something that happened to me, never mind lets move on.

I’ll exert some agency here and end off with the text of the Peabody Award for Excellence in Storytelling Avatar won in 2008:

Almost as complex as the Lord of the Rings! Ill grant the average nerdy 10 year old has tried to read LOTR at least, though I question with what success. But I’ll credit the Peabody Awards, they do admit at the end it being “aimed” at 8-9 year olds before saying it transcended it.

By the way, “American made” - that is, in my opinion, at least partially a lie. I don’t think the Peabody commission is overly familiar with the animation global supply chain though, hard to blame them there.

Look, the “its for kids” response is a *classic* Motte-and-Bailey. When people are recommending ATLA, they do not say “oh yeah have your 10 year old watch it” or “yeah you have to put yourself in a childlike frame of mind or it won’t hit”, its adults telling adults its amazing, they will love it, its the greatest thing ever. If heavens-save-us Vox is publishing articles about it, they think you being an adult will be no problem for you. Which is fine if you believe that - but then you *can’t* turn around and deflect criticism by saying “well sure its not *supposed* to be good for adults, its a niche product”. When its the ~best TV show ever made~, its not niche! Its the definitional opposite of niche.

If your stance has always been “its a good kids show, not beyond that” then that’s fair enough, you are internally consistent. But you have to recognize that opinion is not at all the default, and is in fact very much a minority opinion. The rest of the world treats it like universal, all-ages media, if you don’t want to go along with that its on you to build that framework.

[erikthedead]

entry #4

Started reading FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY’s ‘Notes from the Underground,’ and I just got into the second half of him rambling and reflecting on his behaviour in detail. I never would have thought a Russian man from the 19th century would make me feel a little bit less alone in this world (or at least the ‘character’ delivering the narrative). Yet the more I read about what goes on in peoples’ heads the less insane I feel, or at least comforted by realising that everyone is a little bit insane, as long as they’re being honest. Should that be comforting? I feel like that should actually be disturbing, but I kinda like being disturbed. The bit that struck me to get writing about myself was how he recurringly mentions this need to be seen and heard and be a noble member of society, but flip flops between that and a state of isolating himself and being a recluse, ashamed by how his own face looks. I hope I’m interpreting it right, as I’m not so sure I’m smart enough to fully understand everything the man was trying to convey. The whole thing reads as him trying to make sense of himself, if anything. But if I am right in that, I can totally relate, and it causes me much distress as it seemed to have tormented him too.  His way was to throw himself into busy streets and bars, never feeling comfortable with it from what I’ve read, and possibly did it on purpose to feel uncomfortable, because he was getting bored with the current discomfort of isolating himself in his room with his books. That’s the interesting thing about it, he never once says he ‘leaves the comfort’ of his own home, like you’ll hear many well-adjusted introverts say. People who are content on their own. He obviously wasn’t content, he was bored, sick of his own brain, he tells us how he would break down into tearful fits from some sort of mental anguish that he tried to escape from through consumption of literature. I do exactly the same thing with media of all kinds, not because I ENJOY spending time with myself and my things, but because it helps me COPE with it. I am so envious of consistently introverted people who relish in their alone time. That SHOULD BE ME. All the same, it annoys me to death when someone complains about being ‘stuck in the house’ all day when they want to go out and mingle and see the world, because that is too exhausting a thing to wish for compared to creature comforts and solitude, surely. Both of them irritate me because I’m jealous of their seemingly consistent understanding of themselves, their desires and what makes them content on a regular, general basis. I’ve been trying to hard to figure out my own. I’m twenty-six now, yet I still feel juvenile as hell. I still feel like a child that goes up to the next thing that catches its eye and wants to ask, ‘can I have a go?’ And of course, to an innocent child, you let them have a go, without any expectations. You don’t get that luxury as an adult. You are expected to choose, commit, KNOW what you want. But again, I can’t help but think this isn’t me being special, that everyone probably feels this way, you certainly hear it from a lot of old people who humbly state that they are still always learning and discovering new things. Then again maybe they miss the point. Discovering things is fine, all the time. Learning is appreciated and encouraged. But actually changing or choosing not to change (both can be bad, right?), that is unsettling. We’ve given up good and evil for behaviourism and yet still people like me, Fyodor and to name a few other people I relate to when I read their autobiographies, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry, Steve-O (oh yes I compare myself to the greats, in all my unheard mighty feats), people like us can’t even get that right. Creative, expressive, bipolar people. People with big heads and sensitive souls, I’d say. Although I connect deeply to people like this I’d never want to be around them for too long. I know their torment and quite frankly my own is enough to contend with. There is a feeling of ‘pay attention to me but leave me alone.’ ‘Love me more than anything but don’t care too much about me because I’m bound to hurt you or make a fool of myself.’ Actually, in Notes from the Underground, Fyodor talks about man’s unconscious desire to smash up something he has been building, because he is unconsciously terrified of what to do what he has completed it, and Brand actually mentions this quite a bit in his Bookywooks. How he’d personally reach a level of fame and notoriety but then sabotage it, fearing the peak or what comes after – the come down. I hope I’ve interpreted these guys correctly, because it does make sense to me. The only thing that really sets me aside from these guys is my utter lack of ambition. At least in these peoples’ hypomanic states they were achieving something. What do I do? I’m the classic, slightly mentally ill underachiever that never sticks to anything. The sheer magnitude of my unconscientiousness could be used as an example of how not to be during a Jordan Peterson lecture. My downfalls were not self-sabotages, conscious or unconscious for the first half of my life. The rest you can blame on me, that’s fair enough, but puberty hit me early and like a train, and all that meant was I was spotty and got a bullied a bit, but that didn’t excuse me from performing well in my exams and essays. I was predicted to come out with some of the top grades in the whole school. I even started finding my confidence and standing up for myself to bullies after a few years adjusting to adolescence. Then my mother died suddenly one night from an overdose when I was fourteen, and my whole world flipped upside down. Like an anime main character backstory right there. It wasn’t perfect beforehand, anyone who knows my whole childhood situation will agree, but I had a bloody good chance up until she died. After that, I became nihilistic, rebellious, promiscuous and generally self-destructive. ‘How would your mother feel if she could see you now? She wouldn’t have wanted this.’ Oh how I wish I slapped anyone that said this to me. How dare they even try to assume what she would have wanted, having never known her. Of course, I said it to myself all the time, I still do sometimes, but I have that right. The rest of you don’t. Hah, rights. What a joke, even as I try to be dominant through typing to imaginary figments of the past and the future, I’m not even convincing myself.

The inconsistency, of my desires, my attitudes, my cognitions, my emotions and ultimately my behaviour is what pains me. I would rather be a complete abolition that was sure in himself than be like this. What’s even more frustrating is that it’s not that uncommon for people to be like me in that sense, but they just go with the flow with it, seemingly unaware of their inconsistency, and become incredibly defensive when you point it out. It’s understandable, I get defensive with myself, which could be an early sign of schizophrenia, who knows, time will tell. At the moment though I am without doubt an anxious, depressive, inconsistent muddled mess of a person, and even the HOPE for my future self comes and goes in powerful forms. I have the grandiose fantasies of being interviewed by people because I’m just that interesting and my achievements are that remarkable, and I also have the sheer terror while preparing to talk to the shop assistant when I’m buying something. Oh yeah, buying things, that’s a tricky one for me an’ all! The trick with me is not to give me too much choice, because if I have I will never decide, or I will make a silly last minute decision or pick the third thing after debating with myself for ten minutes between choosing from the first and the second. Not only indecisiveness, but impulsiveness plagues me. Not just buying things I don’t need, or don’t even want yet because I haven’t finished the last thing, but even charitably so. I saw a stranger E-begging by chance and decided to send him money. I have no idea why. Am I just a good person? I don’t have enough money for myself, and even if I do have some to spare, that should go to others who have helped me financially before a stranger on the internet. Maybe I’m not a good person, and I just did it to cleanse myself of some feeling of shame or guilt for wasting money on myself. As well as the positive fantasies of my future where I am destined to greatness through nothing other than my own conviction and virtues, I have the other vision in the crystal ball that shows myself destitute and addicted to hard drugs, homeless or institutionalised, ultimately suicided. Addiction and suicide run through my veins afterall, and I’ve been close to becoming the 3rd generation of my bloodline to go out by my own hand. The decently sized scar on my arm from a self-inflicted slash that was intended for my neck, that nearly severed my nerves and would have left me with a malfunctioning left hand had I gone any deeper. Sometimes I look at it and feel ashamed for doing it, for trying to throw away my beautiful, special life, and other times I look at it and feel ashamed for missing my real target, my consciousness. I battle with my consciousness a lot, I try to minimise it through drink and drugs or healthy mental exercises, distract it with my media, sublimate it through writing and drawing, but rarely do I get peace from it. Then other times, I count my blessings and praise the universe for bestowing onto me just the ability to think and feel and be a person. Neither approach to life is crazy to me, what’s crazy to me is not being able to bloody pick one and settle on it for more than a couple of days at a time. Like Fyodor describes his character going out into a busy bustling area in his urges to be part of society after a stint of isolation, I will go out some weekends and do the same, but that’s only a more recent, probably more healthy advance in my development than what I have been doing for a long time which is going online to provoke and debate people with my thoughts and opinions, and sometimes cheeky insults. I really resent when people who know me call it ‘trolling’ when I go off on these episodes. Trolling to me is when you put something out there that you don’t actually stand by, but you know will get a reaction out of people because you’re bored and want to mess with people. Now fair enough, there’s a lot to be said for that last part, but I have no reason to say things I don’t really think/feel/believe when the things I say genuinely are enough to upset people on their own, things I sincerely believe are correct. I’ll feel ever so right and convicted during these online tirades, then the next day want to delete all my social media and wipe my name from the planetary database. Perhaps I could just delete my existence while I’m at it. Seems like my self-doubt and my self-assuredness play equal part in my misery, because like everything else, I can’t choose one. The same happens if I go out and meet new people on the weekend, I’ll exchange numbers and add people with all intention of meeting up in the future, only to ghost them afterwards. I don’t know why.

[askavettech]

Do you believe there is such a thing as a no kill shelter? Why or why not ?

So I know I have a backlog of unanswered questions that came in before this one. But I think that this is a really interesting topic that a lot of people don’t know the full scope of. I really wanted to talk about it and hopefully make things a little clearer. So here we go.

   The difference between a “kill shelter” and a “no-kill” shelter, at its bare bones, is choice. 

                                        Let me explain:

“Kill” shelters are considered as such because they euthanize potentially adoptable animals due to overcrowding. (I will explain why I use "potentially" soon.) These are going to be your city/county animal shelters.

    The entire reason that they have to use this practice, is because they cannot turn any animals away.

If animal control brings in a stray - they have to take it.

If a citizen surrenders a pet - they have to take it. 

If someone hits an animal with their car and dumps it on their doorstep - they have to take it.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

    They can never say no to an animal, which leads to a high volume of animals in their shelters. But, they only have so much room. It's a sad truth, but it is a reality.

    When an animal is euthanized in a shelter, many factors go into making that decision. It's not just a “pick whoever we want” sort of deal. However, some can make an animal more likely to be euthanized in a shelter. 

The very young and the very old are at risk for euthanization in shelters.

Neonates, or newborn babies, have high euthanization rates in shelters.

The fact is, shelter staff are already stretched thin and simply do not have the time (or funding for that matter) to be feeding babies every 2 hours.

Geriatric pets, generally over 7 years of age, are also at high risk of euthanization.

The sad truth is, most adopters don’t want older pets. They want a new puppy. So these pets are not considered highly adaptable. 

Sick pets are also likely to be euthanized.

Once again, shelter staff cannot devote an exorbitant amount of time and money to a single pet that is very sick.

Now, that’s not to say that shelters do not take care of sick pets.

My clinic works very closely with our local shelter. They treat many common illnesses such as upper respiratory infections in kittens, heartworm disease, cut and abrasions, and other minor afflictions.

However, if a pet is severely ill, it may be more humane to euthanize. Putting an animal through rigorous, costly treatments, only to have them ultimately not be adopted, becomes a fruitless effort.

Any pets that demonstrate “unadoptable” characteristics. (See, I told you I’d explain.)

If you have a very aggressive or nervous animal, they are less likely to get adopted.

“But wait!” I hear you cry, “Just work with them, they’ll get better!”

Yeah, maybe. But not always. 

This is an underfunded, understaffed shelter we’re talking about, which doesn't have the time or resources to do those things.

The staff may try their hardest, especially with a nervous animal. But, if enough time has passed with no improvement and space is needed...Well, we know the drill.

Length of an animal's stay in the shelter may also play a role in the decision to euthanize.

An animal with any of the issues listed above and that has been been in the shelter for an extended period have an increased chance of being euthanized.

                                                      NOW:

I will say this and say this in bold. THESE ANIMALS ARE NOT GOING TO BE EUTHANIZED UNLESS SPACE IS NEEDED. Shelters try everything in their power to save these animals.

             No one works at a shelter just because. They do it because they                                        want to save animals. 

Some of the things they do to try and combat overcrowding are as follows:

Many shelters have foster programs. 

These programs take pets, especially those who are not doing well in a shelter setting, and place them into people’s homes for a short time until adopters can be found.

This is a great way to 

1) Make more room at the shelter itself, allowing them to take in more animals.

2) This helps the animals to become more accustomed to life in a home with people, making them more adoptable.

Some very nervous or shy pets really blossom and come out of their shells in foster homes, which makes them much more appealing to adopters.

A friendly cat that wants to headbutt you that you meet in someone’s home is much more appealing than one that is hiding in the back of a cage at a shelter.

Some shelters even do outreach work with what we would consider “no-kill”, rescue groups, or specialty shelters.

These have become very popular recently. 

Be is breed-specific, geriatric, special needs, or neonatal - there's pretty much a rescue group for everything.

These are very helpful when a shelter is very full or has a particular case that they know they cannot take care of.

Neonates are the perfect example. The shelter staff does not have the time to care for newborns, but a foster parent or a rescue group devoted to neonates can come and take those tiny babies. They have the resources and time to give them the proper attention and care they need. 

So, in reality, your local “kill” shelter isn’t doing anything wrong. They are taking in strays and unwanted pets and trying their very best to provide them a safe place to stay until they can be adopted. They can get overcrowded, which yes, does lead to euthanasia, but they do everything in their power to avoid that. 

"No-kill” shelters are usually privately run organizations and can be selective about which pets they take in. They can turn away more “undesirable” pets that they think will not get adopted.

   What this means is that they do have to take animals from animal control. They do not have to take surrendered animals from citizens. They don’t have to take anything that they don’t “like.” Many of these “shelters” take the form of breed-specific rescues. But, they can also be huge facilities that do not specialize.

      A lot of people assume that a “no-kill” shelter is more humane than a “kill” shelter, but that is based on miss information.    The biggest difference between the two is that “no-kills” choose which animals to bring into their facilities, which means they do not get overcrowded and do not have to euthanize animals for space. But, by turning away animals, “no-kill” shelters are not helping the animals they deem “undesirable.” 

      Now, I will say, not all “no-kill” shelters just select desirable animals. Some specialize in “unadoptable animals. There are “no-kill” shelters or rescue groups that will pull sick, injured, geriatric, or otherwise deemed unadoptable animals from shelters. These pets either remain with the rescue permanently or are adopted out to individuals who know how to take care of special needs animals. This is a way that “no-kill” shelters and rescue groups being selective is a very good thing.  

      So, with all of that information, to answer the original question; Yes. There is such a thing as a “no-kill” shelter.

      There are shelters that do not, by definition, euthanize animals for space. However, these shelters are not better than “kill” shelters, because they select only animals that they deem the most adaptable, and turn the rest away.

      I think that demonizing normal shelters because of the rise of “no-kill” shelters has done more harm than good. Normal shelters need your donations and needs you to adopt pets from them. If you adopt a pet from a normal shelter you are saving not only that life but also making room for the next pet who can be saved. When you adopt from a “no-kill” shelter, they are selecting and have space, if they so choose. This is not true of all “no-kill,” as we discussed, with the specialty rescue groups that help save unadoptable animals.

                    I think the ultimate takeaway is this:

Adopt a pet from a shelter and don’t be tricked by labels like “kill” and “no-kill.”       Shelters are there to save animals and find them forever homes, no matter what type it is.        If you’re looking for a pet, go to a shelter first. And, if you’re able, donate (either monetarily, time, or even supplies!) to your local shelter.       If you’d like to read an article about this, I found this one from the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Medicine: 

                      Animal shelters and animal welfare: Raising the bar

      I thought it was interesting and it touched on a lot of challenges that are faced within a shelter setting that I didn't talk about. It’s a quick read, but very informative! 

      What do you guys think about shelters in general?              Does anyone have a different shelter experience?                         Please ask questions and let me know!