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pontevoix · 4 months

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hc + geto for satoru from here | @chaoslulled

gojo satoru & his perspective on geto suguru

introduction.

if you feel dirty, then get clean. gojo satoru could spend days under boiling water & still not be clean of suguru geto’s betrayal. he could spend days with eyes shut & still see the signature of suguru geto’s cursed energy. he could spend days, & there could still be a lot of unknowns. because ( for better or for worse ) geto suguru had introduced a second part of him.

satoru refuses to feel grateful. he can’t quite stop himself from feeling devastated, though.

first world.

gojo satoru’s childhood is first defined by the family grounds. he spends his time training or with too much non-freedom. everything is his & promised to be his. the grounds are set firmly, legally. they’re set on paper.

the grounds aren’t the priority, even within the clan. so he takes it for granted. this is what he’s told by authority figures.

of course, he disagrees. it doesn’t feel like he’s taking it for granted, really, because he doesn’t care that much about the outcome —- still, he cannot deny (even as a child) that he feels inevitable.

the first version of himself that satoru imagines for himself is determined by the world of the gojo clan. the grounds are a secondary priority because the system matters more. jujutsu energy & cursed energy & that sort of thing —in other words, satoru gojo will be the strongest because the hierarchy of the system says so. everything else will follow.

it makes him a little flat. it makes him absorb values that are only partially his own. it makes him better than everyone, it objectifies him to everyone.

satoru hates the phrase to paint a target on someone because it’s naive; it doesn’t reflect that there are those who are born targets. the great are born to be targets. the great are great no matter what.

there’s a lot that he hates. there’s a lot of pride that he feels because he has to, because sometimes his head aches too much for him to imagine that the strength he has may be anything but a blessing.

there’s a lot that he forgets to hate, too. even if he was certain of being a target, of being distrusting — he had been young enough that he didn’t question how:

someone else chooses his clothing, chooses everything for him. touches are fleeting things. daylight sometimes hurts. he is kept at distance. cats should only have unofficial names. parts of the self are meant to collect dust.

this is how things should be.

he doesn’t question what it means to be the strongest, what it means to be the greatest.

in hindsight, forgetting to question was a mistake.

second world.

it had been a battle between someone & someone whether he should go to the tokyo school. satoru himself had been a part of that battle — he laughs in authority’s face; he makes threats. ultimately, he isn’t really sure if he cares either way, but —

it’s funny. as he gets older, the greater difficulty people have telling him no.

it’s funny, too. as he gets older, he can’t fully shake from his body the feeling of old laws & customs & authorities. ( as he grows older still, grows into adulthood — he does better about disagreeing with these old ways ).

still, satoru is the product of old worlds whether he likes it or not.

his family ( his clan ) expects him to act old when he goes to school. ideally, he would act with some sort of immovable elegance. to be frank, satoru expects it of himself as well. but then he gets there, & his teachers expect nothing of him.

they had worked with the children of the clans before. despite all expectations, the teachers keep discovering that children are always children when they are allowed the freedom.

satoru sinks into himself — trying things because he can, pushing boundaries because he can, feeling their consequences differently for maybe the first time.

amid all that :

it’s one thing to be told you’re the strongest. it’s another thing to not yet be the strongest. it’s a third thing to meet someone else who stands on strength the that satoru does. there’s shoko, of course; she stands on a mountain of strength that she builds for herself with measured components. & then there’s geto, self-made & making the earth rise beneath his feet. his mountain is self-made, but it feels like it’s a natural phenomenon.

suguru used to joke that he was the strongest of his family, too. & satoru found it funny because — yeah, he guesses so. what does that mean though ? to think of strength in the jujutsu world outside the influence of old families ?

either way, he & suguru work well together. grass sticks to their necks & knees when they collapse in the school’s field — training or laughing or something like that. they work well together in the way that satoru cracks with the energy recently released, that suguru ambles & commands space around him.

suguru is elegant in the way that satoru might have been. elegant, in the limited way that a teenager can be, soured with some attitude & presumption & attitude.

there’s no concrete moment that they become friends. but it feels as though suguru ( force of nature though he is ) instrumented it — there’s something about him that presides over forces of nature. it feels like he manages to make satoru grow taller.

. . . satoru supposes too that suguru is someone kind to him. even when they fight (& they fight often ) , bumping heads & sometimes sparring without pulling punches. suguru has a habit of tugging on satoru’s ear when he thinks satoru is being extremely annoying but —

suguru is a collage of habits & familiarities that satoru learns to trust.

third world.

riko amanai, of course, changed everything. & years later when satoru is twenty-eight, satoru waves a hand & says something like well, we all know how that went. he has a terrible habit of making light of serious things, of laughing a little at things that make him uncomfortable. honestly, he doesn’t know where the habit came from. it wasn’t something that he did as a child —

but then again, maybe he hadn’t felt discomfort like the way he does until riko amanai. the star plasma vessel. when satoru hears those words, he always pictures them in lights —- star plasma vessel. as though they were some fantastic spectacle on the american streets of vegas.

the star plasma vessel dies, of course. a couple of years after her death, satoru still can’t decide if he feels triumphant or sick at how the most visceral memory of all of that is not how she died, but how he felt when satoru himself died. his body keeps telling him that he died, & his body keeps telling him how good it felt when he survived.

he is certain that he remembers everything after he survived — how he found the dead girl, how he had found suguru. or maybe he hadn’t found them ? maybe someone else had found them ? but still satoru had seen them, probably, & his body had been so sick on survival that he didn’t care as much as he might have. he left before shoko got to suguru, but he knew that she was coming. he thinks he knew that she was coming.

it was very gojo of him, he supposes. the clan would approve.

he teleported for the first time.

he remembers everything after he survived — including how easily he had made toji fushijuro fall, how he had laughed.

he doesn’t remember the sound of people’s clapping at the girl’s death though.

suguru does.

in the aftermath, it’s not as though satoru doesn’t see that suguru is fraying. however, he also see suguru through a type of fog, built from both the residuals of continued survival & the things that he’s learning. satoru is just wired.

& besides that . . . suguru has always been consistent & reliable. satoru can’t quite bring himself not to have faith in suguru’s being who he knows him to be.

it is a mark of bias. maybe it’s because somewhere along the way, suguru became one of his firsts.

super cheesy to say, right? haha.

satoru has a terrible habit of making light of serious things, of laughing a little at things that make him uncomfortable. honestly, he doesn’t know where the habit came from.

satoru is certain that suguru knows.

fourth world.

whatever suguru knows about satoru, it doesn’t change things. & there’s room for self-blame there, too, of course. even if satoru remembers everything after he survived, he doesn’t remember everything about the aftermath. After all, there was that fog of residuals from continued survival & things that he was learning. he had been wired.

& he didn’t pay enough attention to stop suguru from massacring a village.

honestly, he doesn’t care much about the village. he cares more than he used to, probably. after the dead girl, satoru feels a little more that maybe he’s starting to see normal people as being more than weak contestants in survival of the fittest. he’s feeling a little proud of himself, because it’s something that suguru could agree with —-

except not any more. now suguru is slated for execution.

he starts to wonder sometimes if it comes back to what satoru hadn’t done to prevent haibara yu’s death.

for the record, there hadn’t been anything that satoru could have done to prevent his death. he hadn’t been on the scene until later. but even then, he was wired.

when thinking about the choice that suguru had made, it becomes apparent that this is the first time that that satoru hasn’t been enough, that there’s nothing he can do to be enough.

suguru becomes one of satoru’s firsts for more than just the good. he is the first that knows satoru too well, that knows weaknesses satoru hadn’t considered. he is the first to use himself against satoru.

he is the first time that another person can be satoru’s downfall.

the fourth world lasts years. & suguru keeps rubbing salt in open wounds, & it’s infuriating because it makes satoru think that suguru probably doesn’t believe everything he’s doing either. it makes satoru think that suguru is waiting to weaponize satoru, that he is intentionally using satoru as a mode of self-destruction.

satoru can’t clean himself of that feeling.

suguru mocks him on the street, outside of a cheap fried chicken chain. he challenges him, & satoru lets him. it’s weakness, & it is not in-line with the values of the gojo clan. it is not in-line with the values that satoru sets for himself. suguru claims checkmate.

a week later, shoko asks satoru if he can capture a curse for her. weapon, he hears. so he says a lot of nasty things, & he doesn’t mean them. she knows.

he starts to do better faking sunshine & fucking daises after that. hopefully, it’s not always fake, to be fair. satoru really likes teaching.

the fourth world lasts years.

until it doesn’t.

fifth world.

the new world doesn’t start when he walks away from the body of suguru geto. suguru geto shouldn’t have been allowed to fester, but satoru let him. suguru shouldn’t have been allowed as much sway over satoru as he did, but satoru let him. the night parade of a hundred demons shouldn’t have happened, but it did.

satoru walks away from suguru’s body smiling — because he’s a teacher, & he’s fixating on being a teacher, & it matters. for a lot of reasons, it matters.

satoru walks away from suguru’s body a loser. suguru’s destruction is his own.

as much as satoru has loved suguru geto, he cannot forgive him for making him do that.

suguru has given satoru has much opportunity for love as he has given him for hatred, for guilt.

incidentally, suguru has also given satoru a path forward.

the new world starts a week after he walks away from the body of suguru geto — when he washes his face in the morning, sees flecks of toothpaste on his mirror, & suddenly feels dirty.

if you feel dirty, then get clean. gojo satoru could spend days under boiling water & still not be clean of suguru geto’s betrayal. he could spend days with his eyes shut & still see the signature of suguru geto’s cursed energy. he could spend days & there could still be a lot of unknowns. because ( for better or for worse ) geto suguru had introduced worlds to him.

satoru refuses to feel grateful. he can’t quite stop himself from feeling devastated, though.

end.

then there’s more. then there’s the contamination called kenjaku.

betrayal from the grave, guilt sent to the grave. it’s the product of negligence.

it just feels like hurt.

#5. headcanon #i'm going to reblog this dsfgsdf a couple times i think bc i spent weeks on it but sdfgdf #cheers omg penny for thoughts dsfg #100. c. gojo #chaoslulled

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fr1d4y-wr1t1ng · 3 years

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Could you do a thing with the main 4 and an s/o that just- Loves bugs. Insects and arachnids out the wazoo- will climb something high/potentially dangerous, just to get a better look at a spider and tell you what species it is. Will** walk into the woods at night (and in the day) if not supervised. Might drag their s/o to a pond to look at pond life. Definitely buys crickets and stuff from the pet store, to secretly feed the things in the yard and or in the house.

BUGS BUGS BUGS BUGS BUGS I LOVE BUGS YES FUCKIN ID LOVE TO FUCKIN WRITE THIS GAHHHHH <3333 also it's 3 in the morning save me-

Request: yep!!

Genre: Romantic Headcanons!

CW: Bugs and maybe Foul Language.

Characters in Post: Edd, Matt, Tom, & Tord.

Descriptions: Bugs has always been your passion! Arachnids, crickets and much more just always interested you! But what happens when your boyfriend finds out about your... interesting hobby.

Edd:

He too kind of finds bugs interesting! Maybe not to the extent you do, but he still likes them!

So he's ok with the amount of bugs you own.

He does get a bit annoyed when they make SO much noise at night

But otherwise, mostly fine with the bugs around.

It's kinda like having extra tiny Ringos around?? What's the problem with that?

The only other problem he has is well... when you put yourself in danger for a bug.

Yeah, he'll keep you in sight 24/7 because the one time he didn't, you managed to climb onto the roof to get a look at a small family of spiders.

He's impressed by the fact you could tell what species the family was, common false widow spider, but he doesn't like you putting yourself in danger for a creature!

Your life doesn't matter more than it's!! With your knowledge he's sure that you can tell from the safe distance he tried to keep you at.

He's just mostly impressed by how much you know! He likes trying to get passionate about them with you, even of he finds the species a bit creepy.

Matt:

This poor thing is absolutely terrified of bugs.

He just thinks they look gross and they creep him out, so much so he may scream if he sees one.

He gets annoyed about how many bugs you have and sometimes will try to hint at you to get rid of it.

But one argument later and he won't bug you about it, because it's your passion and in all honesty... why should he care so much?

And his terror can spike when you put yourself in danger looking at one.

“Hey babe! Look at the moth I found! It's a garden tiger moth!!” “Y/N GET DOWN HERE YOULL BREAK YOUR PRETTY FACE!!”

He won't mind too badly if you drag him to look at a bug but he'll probably attempt to distract himself with something that reflects

All in all, he doesn't mind your love of bugs. He just doesn't like them himself.

Tom:

You like bugs? Sweet dude.

Like Edd, he doesn't mind it too much, it just kinda reminds him of his obsession with Frogs in secondary school (middle/high school for us Americans)

He gets very nervous holding one of your bugs though, he doesn't wanna accidentally smush one.

And having bugs in the house int as bad as the rest of the biys may make it seem.

But uh, he gets worried about how you'll risk yourself for a bug.

Like will climb up there as well to grab you and be like “hun, it's great that you know but can you not do that?”

But his favorite thing is when you drag him to look at life.

He genuinely enjoys hearing you ramble about how the ecosystem survives and how the bugs can help eachother.

And maybe if you ask (or just see a frog), Tom may indulge you in some nifty Frog facts.

Tord:

It's a love-hate relationship with your passion darling.

He doesn't see the point in having so many in the house, I mean your room is a living hive for fucks sake!

But still, he can't help but admire your abilities to be a dumbass about bugs.

He also doesn't see the point in it. “Its a small creature that'll die? Why is it so important to you??”

Tord will laugh at your stupid stunts to admire certain bugs, and will genuinely admire when you can tell the species.

And if you drag him out to see life, he isn't that happiest about it.

But he isn't complaining either. He kinda likes it in a weird way.

But mostly it's because of your stupid smile, duh.

#I finally wrote something #let's goooo #fanfic #fiction #imagines #my writing #eddsworld #eddsworld x reader #ew edd x reader #ew matt x reader #ew tom x reader #ew tord x reader

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devotion · 3 years

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say it right → t.h

summary: you show a little contempt towards something tom loves. maybe somehow coaxing you into liking it will change your mind. in other words, he fucks you.

prompts: college (uni), porn without plot (?), small town.

warnings: fluff? + smut 18+ minors dni!! extended warnings below the cut.

notes: this ticks my boxes for the prompts on @rosyparkers’s fic bingo! also, no hate towards anyone studying history (i love it) just !! got stumped a bit with the plot but you'll see ;)

word count: 3.2k+ | masterlist

❀───❀───❀

ex. warnings: mentions of alcohol, dom!tom, bratty behaviour, a bit of ice play, fingering, slight degradation, dirty talk, kitchen (unprotected) sex (be safe!), one orgasm denial, pussy slapping, creampie.

❀───❀───❀

"fucking finally."

tom groans, tossing his backpack to the side after greeting you in the kitchen. settling back into the sofa, he exhales loudly; 'mentally drained' would be putting it lightly and the only reason to explain his pain is because university is stabbing him in the gut lately. however, it's fortunate that it was his last day of term; almost a month of no classes to deal with. and the smell of food wafting in the air is enough for him to forget his worries for a while.

luckily, you took your time walking back from the same uni an hour or two ago, having finished class earlier. tom was at a trip at the time you told him, the slightest bit of upset now that you couldn't get ice-cream on the way back home; only a little custom you both arrange at the last day, and to start the break on a high note.

with a text saying he was almost home, you prepared him some tea─just the way he fancies it. he'd be lying if he said he didn't notice the littlest things, one of them right now being the frequent clink of your ring when you pick your cup of tea. being married and in a six-year long relationship does that. and it subtly makes him smile at the thought of how far you've come. together.

after placing the mug in front of him, you see tom extending an arm around your midriff and before you know it, you're on his lap, his mouth brushing your hairline. then, your lips─meeting them in a sweet kiss. his grip on your bare leg tightens only focussing on how soft he feels against your mouth, how addictively you invade all his senses. like every other time, that same carefree warmth permeates his senses as you're within his hold.

once you hear the timer go off, you pull away, pecking him on the nose. tom releases you, nose ticklish and feeling almost intoxicated after such a short kiss.

"did you have wine?" tom asks you, tongue swiping his lip, savouring the flavour, "can taste it."

you wink in response. "m' mate gave it. left some for you if you want." at that, you head into the kitchen.

"what you making?"

"you know that extra pizza you made a few days ago?" he inclines his head in understanding at your reply as he gets up. "got it out the freezer and popped it in the oven. and can i just tell ya, smells fucking amazing."

he chuckles. the cooking class as an extra-curricular activity works then.

tom tags along behind you, shrugging his blazer off on the way there and hooking it on the coat hanger. he rolls up his polo shirt too and disregards it, the material making him feel stuffy. he feels under-dressed anyway, with you in just a silk robe and no bra─which is normal.

switching the oven off, you spin to see tom only in his slacks and black vest─a perfect fit, for sure. though you don't see a difference if he went shirtless; it's been a while where all of his tank tops, shirts included, have just been showing every crevice and defined structure of his abs and chest.

every time he comes in the room shirtless─now because of weeks of training with his mate, harrison─you've been left in somewhat of a dizzy state. he looks far more than sexy when he arrives home from the gym, in a way you can't particularly describe. you haven't mentioned it in fear of slacking due to the exams you had these past two weeks, knowing full well what would happen if you did. though, you admit it would've helped if you pointed it out, instead of him coming in front of you every now and again like... this. it's like he just wants you to say it.

as if his ego isn't inflated enough.

you roll your eyes at the thought. unbeknownst to you, he catches it, smirking.

it's working, he thinks.

but immediately the buzz of his phone effaces the thought of prompting you further. he'd have to leave flexing his biceps later in the evening.

tom gets distracted by the photos he's taken earlier on in the day, rather than harrison's text. you're taking the pizza out of the oven when tom asks you, making you whip your head around, "wanna see where i went to today?"

tom raises an eyebrow at you, waiting for an answer.

you hum, knowing briefly what he's talking about. he had mentioned it a week ago saying he was to go to a place nearby─somewhere in cirencester─as a treat from the history department and studying your market town.

"c'mere, look," his eyes light up, phone in front of your face as he explains, "this building, right, is the 'cirencester lock-up' where the criminals were kept back in the day."

you sit atop the table as he moves to come stand in front of you, examining the pictures-- for almost a minute. then, compelled to do anything but frown, with both your hands, you tilt his head with your forefinger so he could look at you. mindful of his love for the subject, you question him, "this... is the place you went to on your trip, is it?"

"yeah," his ruffled eyebrow furrows, "why? is it not what you expected?"

"well... thought it would be more... grand is all. looks a bit, dunno... shabby─"

you hear him gasp before you have the chance to continue. "─this is history!" he exclaims, before shaking his head at you; he couldn't believe his ears. "big or small... it means so much to this area. sure, it looks old, but they're literal gems of time's past."

the distress on his face is evident - that you can see. it's beyond him why you feel like this. but then again─the drama gcse he took in secondary school offered him the ability to stress a light situation far too much. up till the point, it looks a bit silly when he's being dramatic. to you, this was one of those times.

meanwhile, when you stare tom down, eyebrow raised, the brief aspect swims in the forefront of his mind─that being, you have a tendency to become a puddle whenever he hopes to cajole you into anything, regardless of what he wants. right now, either due to his boredom or you underrating history, it doesn't matter. tonight he decides that it's just going to be about you and him. with a little fun twist.

"i'll just pretend you didn't say anything for my sanity..." he trails off, a slight teasing tone present in his voice, "for now."

"thank god," you mutter. the light of the sun outside reflects on tom's rolex, the same one you gifted him on your anniversary, almost blinding you as its redirecting near your eyes; it's dusk, and the blinds aren't closed yet─also revealing a really beautiful sunset outside which you haven't had time to admire yet because of him. "can you also not blind me? much appreciated."

advancing towards you, he laughs dryly, head coming in level with your own. his happy demeanour from the moment he came home has changed: he's biting his lip, gaze boring into your own with his jaw tight shut.

but then, what really gets to you, the most poignant sound that makes your heart drop is that... he tuts.

you swallow; knowing tom, you feel like it's not really the end. with that in mind, you're not prepared for what's to come. yet immediately, your thighs squeeze together because of the electrical-like current that passes through your body─all the way to where you want him.

in short, you know you're his. heart, pussy and soul - his. and he certainly acknowledges that. your legs slightly go apart at the thought, ready to give any indication for him to bury his head where it rightfully belongs. it's hard not to - especially with the warmth that's radiating from him, his breath hot as he's a few centimetres away, as if luring you already.

the sudden change in atmosphere brings a chill to your spine. the control within his hands is powerful. and you're his victim.

tom gets the message. yet, he doesn't give in all at once. he wants to enjoy you, savour you, adore you. to simply rush would ruin doing all of those things.

"let's focus on how good you've been for me these past few weeks, yeah?" he starts, retreating back to the freezer. he dives in and then, shuts it, an ice cube at hand.

the confusion on your face doesn't go unnoticed; firstly, only one? second, he doesn't use ice except with gin. and there's none of that in the house. unless...

placing the ice cube on the table next to you to stop it from melting, he continues, "maybe after, i can fuck that attitude out of you."

it takes seconds for you to remark, "just because of history? seriously?" you resist the urge to roll your eyes, turning your head to the side, "for the love of fuck."

he shrugs his shoulders, "yep, that's me. i love to fuck," his arms come on either side of you, "any excuse to fuck you."

"so you're basically admitting that you're being a dramatic bi-"

at once, your bottom lip is captured with tom's, swallowing your words altogether when you deepen the kiss yourself. pulling away a little, his voice is raspy when he speaks, "my girl is always so ready for anything."

he knows you're wet, you suppose. it only burns the fire within you moreso at your implication. just as the belt of your robe is untied, your breasts are being caressed by tom's large and callous hands.

tom moves to kiss the underside of your neck, "my woman," a nip at your sweet spot, "my wife," another kiss at your clavicle, "my everything." the primal desire in his kisses grows with each kiss and the affection in his words is sufficient for you to bring him closer, crying out to him for more.

you plead, "tommy-"

"always ready for my cock," he starts again, making your breath hitch in an instant. you bite back a moan at his brazen choice of wording.

"what was that?" he presses, "you can't take it can you? my pretty girl can't take it."

"'course i fuckin' can't."

tom brings the ice cube from earlier over your clothed pussy, grateful for the cold weather. the extreme difference in temperature makes you hiss in delight, body quivering. already, water drips from tom's hands, and it's hard to tell whether it's your arousal or the melting ice.

after moving your navy blue panties to the side, he swirls it around your bundle of nerves again, hips jerking upwards. not only do you notice the cheeky glint in your husband's eyes, but the absence of the ice cube too as his own thumb replaces it.

"already melted?" tom chuckles, "this─" his middle and forefinger slaps your clit with a slight force that makes you yelp, "─warm for me, yeah?"

he doesn't give you a chance to respond, a finger entering your wetness in a heartbeat. whilst his thumb circles your clit, he adds another digit, starting to move in and out in a slow manner─watching you unravel before him.

"you feel so good for me, princess," he coos, leaving a sloppy kiss on your cheek.

darkness soon prevails the room, though not fully, as the street lamp outside only grants tom the pleasant view of your yearning state. a few minutes go by with your chest heaving─letting out aching breaths of air that sears the walls of your lungs. the only thing that treat tom's ears is the squelching sound your cunt produces. his cock twitches at the noise, feeling it pulsing the more the seconds tick by. he feels restrained in his boxers; it's a shame you're not witnessing how hard he is as your eyes are shut tight.

but it's not too long when he feels you convulse around him, because he starts going on a pace that would be considered merciless at this point. whines turn into loud moans, the pressure building up.

owing to this, your legs are shaking, unable to lay off the climax that's approaching. instantly, when at the same moment you become so close, the coil inside you on the borderline of snapping, your attention is averted towards tom's ridiculous belief. again.

"history is what makes us today, don't you believe that?" he pants.

you knit your eyebrows together, trying to focus on cumming first. yet, you snap your eyes open, to see him licking his lips, "t-tom, please─" you falter, chest heaving.

"no," tom responds bluntly, ceasing his movements then and there. his fingers─wedged deep inside your pussy─tense as you somehow suck them in further at his disapproval. you were so near to what you wanted. he goes on, "say it─"

"─gosh, you're insufferable, tom."

he responds by pressing his thumb harshly on your throbbing clit, making you whimper.

"i said say it," tom repeats, "say it right so you get what you think you deserve."

"say what, tom, huh?" you snap through gritted teeth, "history is great?"

"yes, for crying out loud."

"do i get bonus points if i act like i care?" you prompt, seeking to provoke him further; if irritating him will get him to fuck you, then so be it.

he flares his nose, reluctantly pulling his fingers out your dripping cunt. you gulp as you see him remove his trousers as well as his boxers, his cock springing out bold and unbound. you're enticed at his length, no matter how many times you've seen it─stiff and thick and his tip leaking pre-cum. tom catches you licking your lips and you're now more aware than ever of the hunger that lingers in his gaze.

as he strokes his cock, tom's eyes darken as he scans your figure. your body yearns for more, and it shows; the way your body arches up, the way your hands clutch the edge of the counter so tightly─you look so beautiful under his torture.

"just have to prove it to me, darling," he draws closer, "scream my name," he growls, his tip prodding your entrance to which you shakily gasp at the familiar sensation, "when i stretch your walls, i fucking want people to know that i make you feel good,"

"you gonna do that for me, princess?"

his free hand grips your hip, sliding behind to your ass to bring you closer towards the edge of the surface. after squeezing your bum, he slaps it─evoking a sharp jolt of your hips to move forward. the abrupt action causes the aching tip of his cock to slip inside your warm hole whereupon you both groan at the contact.

"reckon i could make you cum in five minutes?"

you shake your head, smirking, "two."

he grins, shutting his eyes and sinking in ever so slowly. he breathes out, "fuckin' ell."

your head falls back, moaning in agreement. fucking hell, indeed; he feels so snug, your pussy accustomed to his size easily as he reaches further. like it was made for him.

whilst your fingers claw into his shoulders, tom moves down to kiss you, mouth hot and wet as it explores every inch of your own and tongues moulding each other repeatedly. you take the chance to clamp around his hips, placing your foot below his ass─allowing him to drive into you deeper.

tom recedes, grunting, "oh."

forget seeing stars─you feel like you can picture planets as he rocks into you. it goes to show how long you've gone without fucking. long enough for your orgasm to be building so soon. two minutes it is. or maybe tom understands your body too well, bottoming out as soon as he sees your jaw going slack. the angle that he's pounding in at is beyond perfect.

soon enough, the shockwaves that edges nearer in your stomach compels you to shove your hips, meeting his strong thrusts without thought. tom's name rolls off your tongue over and over again, the volume of your voice amplifying the more he hits that spot deep inside you─up till the point you're screaming. just like he asked you to before. and there you are, cumming, clenching around his dick as you fail to remember your surroundings. and unfortunately, your neighbours, too.

it's rather quick when you hear tom crying out your name into your neck after you. his thrusts become sloppy, given that he's draining as much of his cum inside you─spending of what he has in him. eventually, he comes to a stop, as well as the harsh bite of his teeth below your jaw. you feel turned on again but not adequate enough for your body to want to come again; you're absolutely spent.

"were you teasing me the whole time?" he mumbles into your chest a minute or two later, still inside you, creating circles with the pads of his fingers on your waist.

the answer you give him lies in the glimmer of your eyes when he looks up at you. "of course i love history, babe," you tease, "glad i pissed you off, though."

"this is why we can't have nice things," he whines, "you're always fucking my feelings over."

"awh no," you murmur, "you know i love you and your inner-nerd of history."

a blush appears on his cheeks. "forget it, now the pizza's cold," he pouts, head resting onto your shoulder.

"your fucking fault, babe," you remark, palms smoothing over the sides of his head, "now eat it."

he has different plans. "wouldn't mind eating you out actually. much better," he murmurs, hands coming to sit on the inside of your thighs. he stretches them again, cock slipping out of your cunt. the whimper you let out is because you feel empty.

you crave to feel stuffed again.

"you really know how to change the mood very quickly. innit, tom?" you ask.

he ignores you; once he's in line with your core, his eyes lock with yours, your breath hitching at the prospect of him giving you head. even after fucking you senseless, you feel like you won't be able to take it.

tom's tongue is already prepared to dive into your hole─some of his cum he's dumped inside moments before decorates your thighs and dribbles onto the floor, though more of his seed seems to still be confined inside you.

it looks heavenly. all his.

"may i?"

❀───❀───❀

#tom holland #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x reader smut #smut #tom holland preference #tom holland one shot #rosyficbingo #lmk what u think btw !!!!

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junhuiste · 3 years

Text

next level (ex-wip)

pairing: wonwoo x gn reader

word count: 2200

tags/warnings: fluff, angst, slightly suggestive, cursing, friends to enemies to lovers, college au

a/n: so i said i’d publish my other ex wips and here’s another one! i planned on making this a 3 parter where y/n asks wonwoo for help on a computer game even though they were enemies but before that they were friends …does that make any sense i didn’t think so! also this is an ex wip so sorry for the asterisks everywhere! those words were the ones i was gonna replace later on lmfao!!!! also i wrote this 2 years ago when i was 17 so my apologies if its utter bullshit 😭

as wonwoo help you leveled up, you wondered if you should do the same regarding your friendship…errr…enemyship….

It’d been an hour or so of Wonwoo verbally guiding you through the various moves and strategies but once he stood up your breath suddenly hitched, for whatever reason.

Breathing seemingly became somewhat harder as you saw from the corner of your eye that wonwoo was coming to stand behind you.

“it’s gonna get harder,” he said softly, his hand finding yours, “let me help you.”

as much as you appreciated his help, you didn’t need wonwoo to baby you; you were perfectly capable of taking verbal directions without needing guidance like a rookie. “i can do it; i swear!”

though it was hard to train your eyes on both wonwoo and the computer monitor simultaneously, you managed to do it anyway. “that’s not what you said last week when i offered you my help.”

it wasn’t that you didn’t need wonwoo’s help, and it wasn’t certainly that you didn’t want it, but there was something mischievous yet somehow alluring and amusing pushing him away. it was honestly quite ***horrible ** for you to admit it, but playing cat and mouse was refreshing, though it was a game hard to keep up with.

eventually you gave in and you took deep breaths slowly and surely as wonwoo’s hand rest atop yours. it was warm, but not sweaty; relaxed, but not ***heavy***. his head was most definitely closer to yours than last time, even though you tried to focus solely on the computer monitor, he was within an ear’s whisper from you. as he guided your hand, your thoughts glided slowly away from the game entirely and onto the boy behind you. it was hard, really, to ****focus*** on the 146th level of the game when the boy you liked a while back had his shoulder barely leaning into yours, with his warmth radiating onto you so so comfortably.

it hadn’t even been 10 minutes since wonwoo had stood up behind you that his arm was now resting ***comfortably***on yours. the weight of his top half ***barely*** on yours wasn’t even what went into consideration, for the most part. it what you could feel was ***slowly*** developing in the room, moment by moment, and it was excruciatingly painful how much time it took to build up. palms clammy, fingers ready to give out, and breathing ***most definitely*** not under control, you were ready to tap out and give into your instincts.

a mosh pit of psychedelic colors reflected onto both of your faces as the round ended. with the blinds only half drawn and how bright the screen was turned up, you winced at what seemed like a light source that envied the sun glared at you. the heat from the screen wasn’t the only **warmth**** prevalent, however. you certainly hadn’t forgotten about wonwoo’s shoulder ***leaning** onto yours.

avoiding all what you’d learned in high/secondary school about what freud said about the ego calming the id, you surpassed straying from your normal actions. you’d leaped from them, and it couldn’t be fathomed by anyone, by you or soonyoung, or especially jeon wonwoo, what lead you to remove your headphones and turn around in the computer chair and then kiss jeon wonwoo. what was most surprising was that he leaned in too, so much didn’t have to be done on your part.

as he leaned in closer, you pulled wonwoo closer, as if it were instinct and you’d kissed him a thousand times before. knowing him for quite some time, it was evident that he didn’t link up with anyone, whether that be for a single night of pleasure or months of commitment, so it was ***most definitely*** more than alike to a jack-in-the-box when he knew what he was doing, and so well too. his hand **softly*** stroking your cheek with your thumb and your hand ***softly **rubbing*** his neck were a pair you never would’ve expected in light years would be together. the whole ***thing** was just unbelievable…and undoubtedly **breathtaking***, as such as you would ***hate*** to ever tell him.

flashes of blue and red glossed wonwoo’s face again as you looked up at him. “would you look at that,” a slight tinge of satisfaction laced his tone and captured his expression, as you heard a faint “level 147 unlocked” behind you.

the exact reason you were at the dorm for you had completely abandoned; your endeavor was ***seemingly** cut short by your id, too strong for it to be tamed by your superego. in fact, all goals for the game were temporarily thrusted into the iceberg of your unconscious thoughts as you looked up at wonwoo again while tugging his shirt.

it was a precarious game of truth or dare you were playing with yourself, and you were losing to nothing none other than your current desires? mere attractions? repressed feelings? whatever it was, it didn’t really matter as wonwoo leaned into you again, this time more ***forcefully/intensely**, with both of you managing to slip a tongue in here and there. french kissing wonwoo? not exactly on your bucket list but something you were glad to have checked off, be it for lust, regret, or simply nostalgia of how you once felt for the boy who’s sweater you were tugging at to bring him closer and closer and closer.

it had **certainly** been more than a few good minutes of locking lips with jeon wonwoo, and what resulted was both of you panting heavily and looking each other in the eyes a little too intensely for your liking—not necessarily a look of sin but rather of repressed longing and ***regret**. the tension swore to engulf you and spit you out but what was sprinting through your mind instead was that wonwoo kissed you back.

had the naive, freshman you known that making out with jeon wonwoo would become a reality, you would’ve jumped at the thought. was he cute or irritating? bold or brazen? or was he simply just there that you immediately caved in and let your libido think for itself? it was just like that class where he palpated you; did feelings resurface because of a craving for affection? or was wonwoo a person you genuinely wanted to pursue something with. restating what he’d said earlier, that’s not what you’d thought a few months ago.

confusion. that’s what it was at most, at best, with the clearest label. wonwoo was there, yes, but he was also ***caring** (yet competitive), offering (yet **pretentious**), and someone you’d cared for back. the way he carried himself around you was *annoying** at times, sure, but he was never malicious. wonwoo had not one bad bone in his body, and you were willing to stand by that statement. his competitiveness and bold nature that peeked in once in a while were far outweighed by his humility.

no matter how many times he corrected you as naive and curious freshmen, you’d always find yourself falling back to feelings. just like now. but what was it really? did bubbles reappear just because of his hand on yours? because of his somewhat secret smiles when he knew you enjoyed his company? maybe. but it certainly wasn’t because he was just there.

even if bubbles popped and didn’t reappear, it would be better to get feelings out, right? it would lessen the blow, for both you and wonwoo. would you come to terms with what you once harbored for jeon wonwoo? maybe not.

sitting on the bed, wonwoo perked his head up at the sight of you in the chair finally facing him. “this…this isn't a heat of a moment thing…” you began, taking as much of your precious time as possible. if you were going to confront how you felt and didn't feel simultaneously, it might as well have taken some thought at the very least, especially for wonwoo’s sake.

the raven-haired** boy hunched over with a quirked eyebrow to continue to hear you out.

“i like you—i’m sorry, i mean i used to like you. like a lot. sometimes a lot for my own good. back in freshman year.” it was a struggle to get it all out in one breath. confrontation should be something you’d never have to do again. wonwoo stayed silent, his eyes no longer **trained* on yours, but shifted **somewhat** nervously to the floor. the way your heart pulsated mercilessly at the brutal sound of silence forced the temperature to shoot up suddenly.

it didn’t work; you didn’t feel clean, worse actually, and from what it looked like at the moment, wonwoo probably did as well. he usually did well when it all boiled down to fear, feelings, and *rationality* mixing, because he pushed it away. everyone knew that, and you especially. he didn’t take any hard hits when he was third-wheeling soonyoung or roaming mindlessly at one of **NCT’s** notorious frat parties.

maybe it was time to leave. perhaps those moments of silence where you had to recollect yourself, your dignity, and your feelings were a pure waste.

“i’m sorry, i don’t know why i just threw that at you. i’ll leave now—and uh, thanks for the help.” sometimes feelings weren’t merely felt, other times they were ruthless and just sprung up at the worst of times. maybe that’s why your body was unforgiving and threatening to prick your eyes with water. hurriedly, you grabbed your headphones and clenched them tightly in your fist before taking a step to leave.

however, a pang of something hit. it was unidentifiable, that thing that was keeping you from taking any more steps to leave wonwoo’s room. it was agonizing at the same intensity as it was delirious, and wild and tantalizing even. whatever it was, it was piercing you, forcing you to stay in place.

once again, the air around you was impassioned and the evident thumping and thrashing and thrusting in your chest occurred as wonwoo stood up in front of you. his tall stature didn’t threaten you, only how you felt did.

“how long?” he pried with a *cold** kind of warmth before sitting down in the computer chair. his knees were almost touching yours, and he leaned back with burning curiosity.

“i…don’t know. it was a while back…and for a long time; that’s all i remember.”

the unspoken miracle had graced you as river that almost formed around your eyes earlier had finally dried up.

wonwoo had that same look on his face he always had when no answers or solutions came to mind right away. it wasn’t expressionless, far from it. you didn't know if it was inquiry or discontent, or even a thrill; the latter you’d wished but was far from being a reality.

the way wonwoo struggled to get out what he wanted took you aback. he always knew what to say, whether witty, spiteful, or helpful, and to plain sight of him also choking on his words threw you for a numbing, yet throbbing** loop.

“do you still like me?” wonwoo finally made eye contact with you, the kind of eye contact someone makes when they itch for the answer to so badly be yes.

it was at that moment that he locked you in again. but you spent the last year convincing yourself you hated him. indeed, hate was too strong of a word for it. something else. and just as you’d told him, it was absolutely not the kiss that stirred you to confess in a half-assed manner. it was just so bothersome to not know what those feelings were.

it almost choked to say it, because you *genuinely* felt it, but didn’t know what exactly to do about it.

“i-i don’t know.” you couldn’t keep up with eye contact. it was much too biting.

wonwoo captured your eyes again, but this time it wasn’t the same confused gleam they held, but rather one of clouded elation. you couldn’t exactly tell, but you knew it was just electricity in there somewhere.

“do you want to kiss me again?” was the million dollar question that was lurking. wonwoo asked it with such subtle amusement. instead of taking advantage of your feelings and vulnerability in this situation, which he would never think to do, he decided to act upon his own.

there was an evident yearning in his tone, his body language, his eyes, everything. you knew the difference between when wonwoo was simply waiting for an answer and when he was aching for it immediately. this moment called for the latter.

his inclination provoked a smile out of you. whatever it was, you didn’t know how you felt; you just knew you needed to kiss him again.

you dropped everything you had been clenching so tightly in your hands and and bent down to hold his face in your hand as you leaned in. his soft lips finally met yours again, and unlike the first couple of kisses you shared, this time it was *softer***, slower, driven by an avid and throbbing want to be as close to the other person as possible. this time it had meaning. and you couldn’t find yourself pulling away as wonwoo’s hand came behind your thigh to pull you closer to him.

he was never one to make the first move, for most things, and it surprised you when he popped the question and pulled you to him. practically falling on him in the chair, you whispered out a faint “sorry”, as he rushed to hold you. he *giggled softly** before he continued to kiss you. eventually you repositioned yourself to straddle him in the chair and oh my god you were making out with jeon wonwoo.

videogames, huh?

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #wonwoo scenario #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo scenarios #wonwoo imagine #seventeen #wonwoo

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ingek73 · 3 years

Text

Juneteenth

STORY by Team at Archewell

Jun. 16, 2021

YOUNG POETS OF GET LIT SHARE POWERFUL WORDS TO COMMEMORATE THE DAY

In honor of Juneteenth, we, at Archewell, connected with our friends at Get Lit and asked them to share poetry to honor this important day. We hope their poignant words allow you to reflect on the significance of this newly declared federal holiday in the United States and its impact across this country and around the world.

AND HOLD, AND HOLD

CORTUNAY MINOR AND TAMIA JACKSON

youtube

WHY THEY WROTE THIS POEM:

“When I wrote this poem, just a few weeks before June 15th, Juneteenth wasn’t yet a federal or national holiday. It wasn’t something I’d given much thought to, but when I had recognized that fact, it wasn’t information, it was confirmation. At first, I was upset about it. My immediate thoughts were along the lines of, ‘Where are our fireworks? Where’s our three-day weekend?’ But in reflection, I realized that this was demonstrating continued deference to a supposedly superior entity. Juneteenth isn’t the ‘Black Independence Day,’ it’s the only Independence Day. To have that nationally recognized feels amazing. But whether or not the date is printed in every calendar does not validate this holiday. We do.”

WHY SHE ANIMATED THIS PIECE:

“This poem, especially for Juneteenth, really inspired me. The color palette expresses the somber yet hopeful emotions that happen when black freedom is discussed, and what it means to be a Black individual in America. This poem as well as the visuals really emphasizes the impact that Black people have by simply existing, and the importance of our breath. We know that as long as we’re still breathing there can and will be change, and ultimately full freedom.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cortunay Minor (she/they) is a performing artist who specializes in Stage Acting and Spoken Word Poetry. They are currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Theater from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. The theme and goal that Minor tries to hold in the heart of their artistry is liberation, be that emotional, intellectual, or otherwise. Expression and education are two of the most fruitful paths Minor has found that achieve that liberation, and she is immensely grateful to be able to participate in a craft that allows their simultaneous occurrence.

ABOUT THE ANIMATOR:

Tamia Jackson (animator) is a rising senior at the Rhode Island School of Design, receiving her BFA in Film/Animation/Video with a minor in Literary Arts and Studies. She has always been passionate in art, animation, and storytelling. She loves bringing stories of lesser voices, such as BIPOC, low income, female, etc., into a visual and cared-for light. Though not all of her stories or animations revolve around such identities, it is important that she shows diversity so that many people can relate and find comfort in the characters or art piece. Not only does Jackson enjoy spreading her own voice, but she also loves bringing others’ stories to life.

AND HOLD, AND HOLD

‘Holiday’ meaning ‘Holy Day’ meaning:

every second is sacred/every hour hibernates

within the spirit, huddled beneath the bosom.

To breathe is to commemorate:

inhale – exhale – cradle the thought – hold – and repeat.

When daybreak demotes breath to subconscious action,

the diaphragm still submits in reverence, still remembers that

This is Divine. This

is where jubilation begins:

in the suspension of

breathe in – breathe out – take maybe – and

forever hold the moment,

where the deferred dream stopped shriveling,

wavered in anticipation, remembered that expansion

can be soft,

recognized that it didn’t want soft

expansion.

Bodies were policied out of possession, but

the Black individual liberated their own being,

hollered themself out of state-sanctioned silence.

Words ignite, but presence sustains; this intake/expel maintains us

here

the dream explodes. The spirit absorbs the remnants and outpours,

‘holiday’ meaning ‘Holy Day’ meaning:

I hold this day as sovereign. Meaning:

I hope this day knows its home is in these lungs,

is in this breath, is in the repetition of:

inspire – expire – immortalize the memory – and hold – and hold – and release

POPLAR TREES

CYRUS ROBERTS

youtube

WHY HE WROTE AND DIRECTED THIS POEM:

“It’s easy to say “slavery was an atrocity and we need to do better” but it’s much more difficult to say “slave masters ripped babies from their mothers and used them as crocodile bait for sport.” In the average American lexicon, phrases like ‘Never Forget’ are commonplace but are rarely attributed to periods of fundamental, ongoing violence of a racial nature for the simple fact that our pain makes the people who benefitted from that pain uncomfortable. For me Juneteenth is a day of mourning; the Confederate holidays still celebrated today seem like a gruesome counterbalance. So this is my eulogy to both the country and my own being that could have been.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cyrus Roberts (he/him) writes, acts, and directs across poetry, theater, and film. While his work has been commissioned by organizations like Toms Shoes, Adidas, and March For Our Lives, he also enjoys working on cool independent projects, whether he’s self-publishing poetry compilations, creating movies with friends, or acting in his own plays. Roberts is currently a senior in UC Santa Barbara’s BFA Acting program. Look for him in the upcoming film Summertime, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada. His assistant director on the project was Mattie Kranz.

POPLAR TREES

Before you there was me. But before me there was (Nina Simone audio: “black bodies swinging”). And that was the gentler time period. Everything base within you, reflected in your actions. Please don’t censor me when I mention how you wrangled our teeth from our mouths and used them to seduce your own illnesses into submission. Or how you took an interest in the skin that had a monopoly on sunlight and then took what you wanted underneath the moon. Or how you used our babies as crocodile bait and our skin as shoe leather. Look right into the eyes of our demise and try to say those times are past, that I’m being rash, that I’m being bad and so full of woe and I should be glad I’m writing this on my MacBook Pro. Yeah? Who am I to complain about slavery? Because it ended, right? On June 19, 1865, Union Army general Gordon Granger made his way to Texas and proclaimed slavery’s supposed fall and us colored folk supposed to have a ball? I mean it was two and a half years after Lincoln already announced it, but we needed a white man to tell other white men what another white man already said. I mean that is until that white man found himself dead and Reconstruction found itself at a head and chain gangs, sharecropping, Jim Crow, private prison options, perc popping, bodies dropping, cops still stopping, guns cocking to ensure that (Nina Simone audio: “black bodies swinging”). Every 19th of June we celebrate the end of chattel slavery and every 20th we’re back to fighting its descendants. Private prisons / a cop’s knee is a modern lynching / it ain’t my decision to get busy dyin’ or busy living / I paid attention, to all the digitized depictions / all the people packing up pensions while we’re backed up by the system. Put your back into the system, this is wack how mother’s missing their babies kisses and I’m supposed to be celebrating? I’m sorry. Will you forgive me, I’m jaded. My grandmother looks at me and says confidently that I made it. That she can’t possibly imagine the life that I’m living, I owe a debt to her generation, and I hope that I pay it. I just get so angry, hazy laughter at the thought of thoughts and prayers ending enslavement. So after you hear me, I’ll forgive you if you’re jaded. But you still need to know the history to have an appreciation. It’s no mystery why it’s a mystery present in our education, presently the gatekeepers keep us from it and it’s heinous. On Juneteenth, Americans across the nation eat red foods in honor of the blood spilled before and during emancipation, we celebrate the secondary, pushed-to-the-side independence day, but you don’t have to know our proclamations of jubilation for us to be heard. We will be heard in our voices screaming thanks that we are not treated as herd. We dance and we sing hymns of freedom. Freedom: absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. Are my brothers and sisters in jail cells free? When there’s a glaring loophole in the 13th amendment smiling from cheek to cheek I’d imagine there’d be some incentive to ensure our purity is never free. And how can I be free when I can’t sleep because my dreams keep whispering I can’t breathe. Regardless of that fact, progress is still being made. But I fear progress is just an exchange of chains for other chains. Same way they changed our names for other names, I rest a bouquet on the graves of enslaved, singing regardless this day. In the hopes that I never again have to see (Nina Simone audio: “black bodies swinging”).

UNTITLED

SIERRA LEONE ANDERSON

youtube

WHY SHE WROTE THIS POEM:

“When writing this poem, I really made an effort to think back to my ancestors. What was their impact? Who did they inspire? How did they carve the path for the road I now choose to take? This poem is about legacy. I am calling back to the ancestors before me to give me the strength and courage to be the ancestor I want to be to future generations.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sierra Leone Anderson (poet) is a youth activist and professional spoken word artist from Los Angeles. Rooted in liberatory joy and armed with ancestral truth, Sierra Leone aims to bring light to the power of language, empowering Los Angeles youth of color to recognize the quantifiable influence of their voice. She has placed both second and first in Get Lit’s annual middle and high school Classic Slam respectively, co-wrote an article for the political column of USA Today, and has shared space with several influential changemakers including Dr. Melina Abdullah (co-founder of BLM-LA) and Cecily Myart-Cruz (president of UTLA). Her other organizing work includes collaborating with Students Deserve LA to make Black Lives Matter in and beyond schools. She is currently a ninth grade student at Girls Academic Leadership Academy and an avid lover of trashy teenage dramedies.

Her director and editor is Lukas Lane, an award-winning filmmaker and founding member of Literary Riot (started in his junior year of high school), and he is currently attending UC Berkeley.

UNTITLED

Every generation, the world gives birth to a new fleet of freedom fighters.

I am one of them.

I stand on the shoulders of tired women.

I dance in the footsteps of Pan-African poets, liberation fighters, and Black writers

who grew fires from a pit hungrier than a stomach. They call my name and I call theirs.

Malcolm X. Phyllis Wheatley. Maya Angelou. Sojourner Truth. Audre Lorde. Ida B. Wells.

Your resilience rivers through me. You are my founding fathers. The blueprint to a world we need to be brave enough to see, to seek.

Let us imagine a world in which we know each other’s palms

and never the fist. Not unless needed. Not unless united together.

Let us be the drum and not the war.

Let us know each other’s names and not the languages we cry in.

Let us be, let all us be more than a slave’s wildest dream

Let us beam past blueprints and what-ifs and start becoming the now we want to see, the now we want to be

Trees growing so far past the Earth, Allah would mistake our bodies for angels.

When I die, I want to ripple through lifetimes. I want my name to graffiti the mouths of the next 10 generations.

I don’t want to be forgotten. Or remembered for the way my feet wouldn’t stop running.

I wanna grow roots in this soil, in this American skin. Join the forest of my ancestors. Let my grandkids climb up my branches and tell stories of school.

And before the first pulse of morning, I want them to drip from their homes and gather at my roots.

I want to tell them my name before I forget it.

I want to tell them that morning is coming. And will always come. And will never wait for when you are ready.

I want to tell them that there is a point far beyond this tree, this forest, this temporary point in time, their bodies, their fears, their fathers, their memories. Where the sun is eternal and smiling. Where freedom rings and is never silent, never out of reach. It is called horizon. And it is right there.

#juneteenth #archewell #sierra leone anderson #cyrus roberts #cortunay minor #tamia jackson #get lit #poetry #poets #Youtube

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arizonaraine · 3 years

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X-Men Days of Future Past ala Sorting Hat Chats

This is my favorite X-Men movie! I’m focusing on the 70′s cast, but if you want me to sort the modern X-Men (Storm, Iceman, Kitty, etc.) let me know!

Erik: Double Lion. For a bit, I thought that he was a loyalist who only counted mutants as people. But it becomes apparent that he has no qualms about hurting the people closest to him for the sake of The Cause (TM). In First Class, he abandons Charles-- who has a BULLET IN HIS BACK. In Days of Future Past, his history with Raven doesn’t stop him from trying to kill her once he’s decided that it’s necessary for The Cause. For Erik, the ultimate good is the freedom/supremacy of mutants. He’s also a Lion secondary. His method of going things is to show up and use his powers to raise hell. He’s not a planner, he’s an improvisor. Not a Snake, though, he wants the world to recognize him (and all mutants) in their full glory.

Raven: Raven, unlike Erik, is a loyalist primary. One of her most telling moments in this film is when she tells Erik: “I’ve seen too many friends die... I don’t want a war. I only want the man who murdered them.” She clung to Erik and his cause for a while, but it becomes too much for her. I believe Raven is a Badger Primary, and I’ll cite another line from the movie for this. She tells Charles “I have compassion. Just not for Trask. He’s murdered too many of us.” That looks like some Badger-style dehumanization to me. There are also a few times in the movie where she has the opportunity to end lives, but she doesn’t. I think that’s a point for a Badger’s belief in the value of life. As for her secondary, Raven is a Lion. She had to build a Snake model to survive her early life, but I think that First Class breaks down that model for her. She bonds with Erik in First Class over that Lion Secondary. “Mutant and proud!” Once she’s embraced her power, she encourages Hank to be his true self too. She still uses the Snake model, literally changes faces, but she what she wants is to be accepted for who is really is.

Logan: Logan is another Lion secondary. He’s good at improvisation, and his gruff, upfront way of speaking and sarcastic sense of humor read as blunt Lion honesty to me. He method of doing things is to charge in and do what needs to be done-- seen when he says to rambling Charles: “I’m sorry, were you finished?” For his primary, I think Logan is a Badger. His community is the X-Men-- you see how he grows as a member of that community throughout the series. He also emphasizes that many humans tried to help save mutants from the Sentinels. This point reflects his belief in people.

Charles: Charles is the first person on this list who is not a Lion secondary. Charles is so bad at improvising. I mean... “We are... Special Operations... CB... FI...CD...” The dude struggles when things don’t go according to plan, that’s not his comfort zone. Charles’ skills are in community building. He built the school, created the X-Men, taught young mutants how to master their abilities, took in starving Raven as a child. He’s also a Badger primary, but at the beginning of Days of Future Past, he’s badly burned. He lost his community-- Erik, Raven, the X-Men, the students... and he’s lost hope as a result. If he were a Lion, he might cling to the cause-- teaching mutants to master their abilities-- even without the people. But Charles, without the community, suffers with their loss. He starts the process of unburning when Logan, a fellow Badger, and the future version of himself show him that he can have that community again. And then Charles settles down and does the work to bring back the school, gather the X-Men, and keep his promise to Logan. One of the most beautiful, Badger-y lines in the film is spoken by both past and future Charles: “Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.”

Hank: I think Hank is a double Bird. He models Badger secondary when taking care of Charles, but that’s not the tool that first falls to his hand. Hank has an arsenal of skills. He’s the team science guy. He built the X-Men’s jet, created the formula for Charles’ spine, monitored the news feed, and he pulls up all the blueprint information for the Pentagon. When Cerebro isn’t an option, he’s the guy who pulls out the phonebook. He’s also a Bird primary. He cites theories about the nature of time-- the stone in the river, the current correcting itself. He’s taking in external data and using that to shape his understanding of the world, his morality.

Peter: Peter, Peter, Peter. I think that there’s some Snake in him. He has no problems with lying, stealing, or breaking a prisoner out of the Pentagon-- which might raise some moral quandaries with other people. I think he’s a Snake primary, and his inner circle likely includes himself, his mom, and his sister. In the next movie, after he’s found out that Erik is his father, he’s willing to fight the main villain for him (I’ve only seen Apocalypse once, so I could be wrong in on this point). think that Peter, like his father, is a Lion secondary. He is great at improvising, he thrives in that space. He loves being ahead of everyone. He’s not going to hide what he is, his powers, because they’re “nothing anyone would believe if you told them”. He could be a Snake that just chills out in neutral, but I don’t think that’s the case (also, I really really want him to houseshare with Wanda. I’m so excited to see what becomes of Peter/Pietro in WandaVision).

TL;DR

Erik- Double Lion

Raven- Badger Lion, models Snake secondary when she has to.

Logan- Badger Lion

Charles- Double Badger, burned, may model Snake

Hank- Double Bird

Peter- Snake Lion

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thefossilwhale · 3 years

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i filled out this super cool button character profile by @extraordinarymage for sabrina! thank you for making this, it was a lot of fun to fill out <3 the bulk of it is under a cut and oh boy is it long !!!

Short, Quick Reference

Name: Sabrina Wiseman

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Love Interest: Kent

Main personality trait: Confidence

Secondary personality trait: Morbidity

Relationship with Nick: Full of love, haunted by unaddressed guilt and frustration. But mostly full of love.

Nickname for Nick: Saint Nick (used sparingly)

Resentful or accepting?: Slightly resentful

Main strategy (interpersonal, insightful, innovative?): Insightful

Ethical or expedient?: Expedient

GENERAL

Name: Sabrina Larkspur Wiseman

Nickname(s): Sab, used by anyone; Sabby, only Nick and Sally; and, of course, Button for Nick.

Birthday: I think I made her an October Libra for the purpose of a template I did months ago, but I’m not sure! No concrete birthday yet, I’m always very slow to nail down details like this.

Age: 20

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Hair color + style: Blonde. A little past shoulder length, sometimes wavy. Usually a middle part. For Aeon, tied back in a bun.

Eye color: Blue, entirely because of the section of Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency” that goes, “My eyes are vague blue, like the sky...”

Height: 5′5

Piercings: Multiple in each ear, but a couple have started to close.

Tattoos: None yet! Sab likes the idea of a tattoo but is worried about finding the perfect design, whether she’d end up hating it, that the pain might be greater than she expects and she’ll look like a baby in front of her tattoo artist. I’d like to think she eventually consults Sally and/or Glitch to come up with an idea that she falls in love with, but I haven’t come up with what that would be!

Clothing style: Mostly solid colors, not a lot of patterns. Nothing super bright, but a fairly varied mix of pastels, neutrals, dark colors, black. Partial to denim skirts and sweater tops. Ankle boots. Likes a good turtleneck. She’s bolder when it comes to formal wear, and especially loves suits. Big fan of silk and satin.

Since she has a pretty accurate face claim, I’ll link some gifsets I’ve rb’d for appearance ref if you are so inclined.

STATS

I’m always adjusting minor things and swapping scenes around, but these are from my most recent Sab run! Most scores hover somewhere around these values.

Personality:

Confidence: 53%

Humor: 5%

Morbidity: 22%

Resentful: 57% | Accepting: 43%

Strategy:

Interpersonal: 12%

Insightful: 50%

Innovative: 10%

Ethical: 43% | Expedient: 57%

KEY DECISIONS:

What is Nick’s nickname and why?: Saint Nick, used very rarely. It’s a joking reference to the time she thought Santa was an evil Ment out to ruin Christmas, and a point about Nick overdoing it with the cheer. “Saint Nick” is usually code for “I know you mean well, but please mind your own business.” Otherwise, she just calls him Nick.

What is their favorite type of cookie (and its name and why?): Salted caramel chocolate chip! No special name.

What was their initial reaction to Sally hugging them, as kids?: She just froze. That could just be me projecting adult Sabrina onto her childhood self; I don’t imagine that she was as uncomfortable around strangers or quite as cautious back then. But that’s what I’ll stick with.

How did they ace the ASE test?: The in-game option she takes is “My entire life has revolved around strategic avoidance,” but the one about being just plain smart also sounds like her. If Sab has the chance to thoroughly (over)prepare for something, she will do it. Her mind blindness also has her constantly (over)analyzing situations. So, hard work and relentless anxiety!

Did they manage to win their first assignment? How?: Yes, by having Sally block the door. I’ve headcanoned some slight differences in how it plays out, which I wrote about in-depth here. To summarize, Sab thinks of blocking the door as a desperate last resort, not a clever loophole, and she pushes back against Rosy’s praise because she wishes she could have done it the “real” way. Rosy goes from being impressed to being annoyed that she’s willfully missing the point.

What was the primary emotion Button felt during the Aeon bombing (love, gratitude, etc?): Guilt. She feels very guilty about how much Nick has given up for her in general, but I think that in the moment, it’s on a smaller scale. The fact that Nick was on the phone with her when it happened, coming to her rescue like always, becomes emblematic of their whole relationship for her, and she really fixates on that.

Who drove them home from the hospital from and why?: Glitch. Sab responds to her initial text with “Are you sure?”, and is relieved when Glitch takes that as “Yes, please.” She doesn’t relish the idea of being around someone more connected to her family or Nick at that point.

How do they feel about Nick riding around in their mind?: Worried, at first. Just because it’s so unknown and absolutely insane. After seeing Doctor Amari, she’s excited! Sab is thrilled to be a Pollard Five and intends to take full advantage of it. I am not looking forward to seeing how she reacts when that’s taken away from her.

Why did Button agree to do the undercover mission?: To prove she still deserves to be an MIV. Sabrina feels stupid and reckless for putting herself, Nick, and Aeon in this position, but she knows she’s smart, and she hasn’t worked this hard for nothing. She wants to prove what she could do with a normal Pollard Score and make herself too valuable to give up even when she’s back to Zero.

Told Glitch about your mind blindness?: Depends on the playthrough. I’m constantly going back and forth on whether Sab meets Glitch for coffee or wanders the city with Nick in her second chapter 5 slot (after trying to track down Kent). If she does meet Glitch, though, she absolutely tells her; with how touchy Sab is about privacy, she couldn’t stomach not warning Glitch that Nick could hear everything they said.

Figured out K’s secret?: Nope. She finds enough of the clues to be given the “I knew it!” option in-game, but she didn’t actually put it together. Sab is too angry and embarrassed by learning that Kent is an AMO to find any reason to interrogate it. “The random guy I met before school just happens to be a jerk” is a perfectly sound explanation to her.

Found Noh’s clues?: Not at the metro station. Sometimes she sees the Vengeance brooms in chapter 5 (again, depending on the playthrough), but that’s it.

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP:

Love Interest: Kent

Why them?: Sab feels an immediate kinship with Kent after learning about the NPO program. It’s kind of funny how quickly he moves from the least sympathetic position in her eyes (Ment who got past me and read my mind without my knowledge) to the most sympathetic (non-powered child of a prominent family aiming a league above where he “belongs”). A lot of new respect for his competence. Her fate is sealed when she realizes that his kindness at the hospital wasn’t him trying to make up for some wrongdoing, but just him being very sweet. (She had scoffed over “You needed help.” But now she’s like, “Oh. He meant that?! Fuck.”)

As they spend more time together, Sab realizes how weirdly similar they are in other ways, too. And she starts to feel safe/secure around him in a way that she’s extremely not used to. Growing up surrounded by Ments, Sab has a lot of issues about being too much, too difficult, needing to “be worthy” of love. So someone like Kent who is not a Ment, who has no “obligation” to care about her, and whose judgement she trusts implicitly? Being around him and being loved by him mean a lot, and I think will go a long way towards helping her reflect on her other relationships!

What are their first impressions of each other?: Okay, there are like 3 first impressions with Kent. First: he’s tall and handsome and secretly adorable, and they have similar career goals, so she’s drafting a five-month plan to woo him and get his number. Second: he’s a lying, self-obsessed loser who owes her many explanations. Third: oh no, the first impression was true! And he’s been continually, selflessly kind to her in spite of her overt hostility. Scratch the five-month plan, because the crush was only fun when it was entirely superficial; now she really, really likes him and that just sucks.

We know that Button makes a good impression on K by stopping for their dogs, but apart from that... I mean, the “we confused each other” from chapter 7 is very apt. Sab has lots of shifting personas, and Kent sees pretty much every one within 24 hours. The prevailing impression before everything gets cleared up is probably just that she cares a lot? About everything? Her stopping for the dogs, how seriously she takes the first assignment, the way she seems so deeply affected by something he said or did that morning. It’s a rare side of her to meet first because she usually pretends to be above everything.

What feature does your Button find most attractive in their RO (ex. appearance, personality, etc.)?: Probably his composure. And his... steadfastness? The way he seems unruffled by anything, his soothing presence. She really admires that about him and finds the calm contagious.

What do they do to spend time together?: Going on drives together! Kent driving while Sab plays songs she thinks he’ll like, talking or not talking. Cuddling on the couch while reading their own separate books. Museum dates. Walking the dogs together.

Do they argue? How do they handle arguments and disagreements? How do they make up?: I imagine that the first month or so of their relationship would be difficult, just because they’re both bad at expressing themselves and not used to relying on other people. Kent kind of negates a lot of Sab’s impulses to get defensive or hostile, so instead of arguments, I think there are more likely to be awkward periods where she’s just stewing in something without addressing it. Most of their fights would be, like, one of them becoming really distant for a concerning number of days until the other tries to awkwardly check in on them.

What does their future look like?: Uhh some random lore: I think eventually they do get married, despite neither of them caring that much about it. Sabrina would be excited to have something to plan, and she knows it would make the people around her happy. They have a long engagement; there’s never really an “official” proposal, just an acknowledgement that yeah, they’ll get married one day, and then eventually they get rings. The engagement is almost Sab’s favorite part, honestly. She likes planning and showing off her ring and calling Kent her fiancé, a lot of fanfare on her part for a wedding that ends up being very modest and chill.

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (Feel free to go in depth!)

Relationship with Nick: When I first started developing Sab, I thought that with as difficult/prickly as she can be, her relationship with Nick would be worse than it is. Never bad, but certainly strained, with more jealousy/resentment on her side. However, she rejected this. She is resentful, but never towards Nick—she internalizes the negative parts of their relationship so they manifest as guilt instead. And that’s the problem, not resentment. Sab thinks he’s overprotective, but that doesn’t make her angry; it just makes her sad. She wishes things were different and he didn’t feel so responsible for her, but she also doesn’t know how she could manage without him taking on so many of her burdens. So, guilt! So much love, but always looming guilt.

Having Nick in her head has helped. It’s added a new kind of guilt (“I’m a horrible person for being so giddy that people can’t hear my thoughts even though that requires my brother to be in a coma”), but getting inside Nick’s head for once and really feeling his love for her changes things. Makes her feel way more secure, I guess? It’s easier to see her brother as human person, a friend who loves her, rather than a perfect selfless paragon who sacrificed everything to raise her, which is an important shift.

There are also Things happening with self-presentation in the fact that they’re both models, and flirts, and pretend to be shallow. And the ways that they’ve responded to vastly different expectations. And selflessness versus selfishness. But I have no idea how to talk about that yet.

Relationship with Father: Strained and distant. Sabrina doesn’t necessarily blame him for leaving, but she hates how he’s handled it. She’s incredibly frustrated that John insists on keeping them in this miserable limbo of uncomfortable visits, even though moving away was (to her) a tacit acknowledgement that she and her parents are better off without each other. He’s trying to force a relationship that Sab thinks is ultimately harmful for everyone involved. For Nick’s sake, she’s willing to grin and bear the visits, but it never works because John can obviously tell it’s an act. He pushes her, she gets defensive, and so on to infinity.

Relationship with Mother: Like with John, Sab doesn’t resent Hope for the incident itself, or for leaving afterward. It was terrifying, and the idea of being around Hope makes her panic—but she thinks of that as just another irrational anxiety symptom, and she’s trying to work through it. What she does resent Hope for is letting it get to that point at all. Sab is incredibly bitter that Hope will suffer silently to the point of almost killing her (during the incident) and potentially herself (with the BRS), while Sab has no choice but to be completely open. Especially because they’re so similar in that way—she’s almost jealous. “Oh, so your silence is allowed to almost kill me and it’s ‘nobody’s fault’ but I can’t pretend to enjoy a single lunch with Dad without him calling me out for lying?”

And even though she doesn’t hold the incident itself against her, Sab is very hung up on “Why are you never quiet? Why are you always there?” She knows, on some level, that this was not a Personal Judgement against her. But because Hope keeps so much quiet, this is the only honest expression of her mother’s feelings that she can remember! It would take a lot for Sab to believe that Hope was really, genuinely interested in reconnecting with her, rather than just pretending to love her "enough” this time because to do otherwise would reflect poorly on Hope as a mother.

Relationship with Sally: Besties <3 Sally is the only member of the Wiseman inner circle that Sab doesn’t have complicated feelings about. They both have hidden morbid streaks that they bring out in each other, and can laugh about. They both have competitive streaks that work well together because they’re always on the same team. And their wants/needs from the relationship complement each other well, I think. Sally has always felt valued because she’s useful and not because she’s loved, while Sab has always felt smothered by love/care without feeling like she genuinely adds value to other people’s lives. So it means a lot to both of them that they’re able to help each other practically, while also genuinely loving and supporting each other outside of that.

Relationship with Gray: Full of trust and genuine care, but predicated on distance. Sab loves him a lot for being so careful not to cross any boundaries, physical or emotional, with her. She’s grateful that he’s there for Nick in a way that she doesn’t feel she can be. But "I like Gray because he doesn’t push me and is good to Nick” means that any hand he extend makes her defensive, because she’ll either view him as an emissary of Nick or start to panic because their normal routine is being disrupted (she doesn’t tell him about Hope in ch 3, for example).

They get along very well in a friend-of-a-friend sort of way, and bond over being cautious counterparts to Nick. Also, Sab never had a crush on Gray, but she is not immune to tall superhero and thinks it’s fun to fake flirt with him. (You know Isabela’s “You have pretty eyes” routine from DA2? Sab does that to Gray when conversations steer towards things she’d rather not talk about.)

Relationship with Glitch: I’m really excited about these two! They click from the start, and Sabrina feels immediately comfortable around Glitch, which makes her feel distinctly uncomfortable whenever she catches herself. Externally, they have pretty different personalities, but they’re both perceptive and... socially manipulative? aware of their self-presentation?... in ways that they both pick up on right away. So it’s a lot of conversational maneuvering and trying to figure out what the other’s game is, while also genuinely enjoying each other’s company.

Relationship with Kent/Kenna: I could go truly insane here. See the romance section above instead.

Relationship with Kim: Sab wants him to like her sooooo bad. He’s one of the only people to ever really get through to her, re: my headcanon conversation after the first assignment. Authority figures tend to treat her as special, whether that’s negatively because of her mind blindness or positively because she’s such an overachiever. She had no idea how to respond to that not being the case (and didn’t handle it well at first), but chapter 6 solidifies her respect for him.

It also turns Rosy’s opinion of Sab around; he was impressed by her in class but left his office thinking she was self-absorbed and naive. But the bombing is a reality check, and her response is very measured and practical in a way that surprises him.

Relationship with Lev: She doesn’t mind the comparisons to Nick or the “maybe one day they’ll fix you” comments as much as you might think. They aren’t her favorite, but she prefers that sort of thing to the inspirational platitudes belied by coddling that she got from her family growing up. Sab has fond memories of Lev and is grateful that he’s always been kind to her, but doesn’t have any particular feelings apart from that.

Relationship with Clarence: Holds a grudge against him for causing a scene, making her late, and generally being a jerk. But she can’t fault him for being right, after what happened! Mostly she just wants to avoid him, but she’ll be thrilled to lord her success over him if/when she proves herself.

Relationship with Dean Branham: Like Rosy, another authority figure that Sab desperately wants to impress. But without the personal investment she has in Rosy’s validation, more “Oh, this person is in charge, so I should make her like me!” Despite Nick’s and Rosy’s reservations, Sabrina doesn’t really have a problem with being “strongarmed” or manipulated into cooperating; for now, she figures Branham was just doing her job and respects her tactics.

Relationship/attitude towards Ments in general: Mostly just uncomfortable and wary around them. Sab doesn’t want her mind read, and she figures that no Ment wants to be forced to read it either. So she has a pretty strict “no Ments” rule for close personal relationships (excluding Nick, Sally, and Gray, of course. But only Nick really counts because he’s the only one who can hear her thoughts whenever she’s nearby). Not out of hatred or resentment, just because she knows it will be easier for everyone in the long run.

Do they have any other important relationships, past or present? (Relatives, friends, etc.?): Not many, but yes! Sab dated around a lot in the 2 years before Aeon (more like year and a half, because she completely shut it down once she was more focused on preparing for the MIV program), but there are 2 relationships that were formative/important for her. A high school sweetheart, and someone Sab met through modeling. She doesn’t keep up with her high school ex, but the model is her best friend outside of Sally and Nick, and they still keep in touch! I’m still developing them/the relationships, and I’ll probably post more about them someday. They’re fun!

PERSONAL BIO

Describe their personality: Confusing and contradictory. She has two main modes that confuse people who meet both (e.g., Kent). She’s either cold, stuck-up, and sometimes hostile, OR she’s charming, frivolous, and sometimes flirty. Mode 1 is tense but stoic and inexpressive; mode 2 is seemingly relaxed but very posed and insincere. Mode 1 is for when she feels uncertain or has no agenda apart from “get to point B”; mode 2 is for when she’s more comfortable or trying to manipulate someone. Her actual personality is a bit closer to the second, but she doesn’t pretend not take things seriously or hide when she’s annoyed.

Strengths: Analytical, methodical, detail-oriented. Very driven and hardworking. May not always act like it, but does have social skills/charisma; a great liar, if you can’t read her mind. Unfailingly loyal and loving to her favorite people, so so so warm and affectionate and supportive if she really loves you. Very perceptive.

Weaknesses: Way too proud. Can be petty and vindictive. Self-absorbed (she doesn’t mean anything by it, but it’s hard for her to see past herself sometimes). Stubborn, hates being wrong. And... emotional isn’t the word, but strong negative emotions can really cloud her judgement. It ties into her being proud, petty, and stubborn; if she’s really upset about something, she can cling to that emotion instead of re-evaluating it or moving forward.

Phobias: From this ask about the phobias that are planned to show up in-game, there are a few that I could see fitting Sab, but I want to wait to see how they’re implemented before I fully commit. Which is very metagame-y, I know (and I am very metagame-y about IF), but “fear of X” is so broad that it really does depend on when/how it manifests in the text.

That being said, agoraphobia is almost a lock; crowds do make Sab very anxious if she can’t keep track of everyone within a certain distance, and if she can’t leave when she starts feeling antsy. Claustrophobia is a maybe. The choice that triggers it (in chapter 4, about hating MRI machines) suits Sab, but I’m not sure if she hates MRI machines because she hates tight spaces, or if it’s more related to her general anxiety about hospitals, medical tests, etc. Which she definitely has!

What activities/club did they do in school?: She avoided anything group-oriented as far as possible. She took piano (maybe violin?) lessons and did recitals, but wasn’t in orchestra. The one exception was maybe National Honor Society or some equivalent, which she would have joined for her resume’s sake. And I think she would have tutored!

Where do they escape to when they need space?: A little used library corner, where she can people watch without being seen/heard.

How do they feel about/cope with their mind blindness?: Sab hates it but tries not to dwell on it. She knows that it’s no one’s fault, and she mainly just tries to... minimize it? Drown out her thoughts, limit her contact with Ments. And, least healthily, very rigidly managing herself. Because there’s so much of her that exists outside of herself, without her control, she tries to either filter or completely suppress everything else. Part of why she got into modeling, she can perform and be perfect and have total control over the final product of her body in the photographs for whatever campaign. Some Day This Will Be Better. But definitely not where she is in current canon.

How has your Button changed since the Incident with Hope?: Developed many new anxieties and disorders and syndromes :) She also became way more self-conscious, as in literally conscious of and way more tightly monitoring herself, what she’s thinking, what she’s expressing, how she’s sitting, etc. Less emotive face, more rigid posture.

If they weren’t an Aeon student, what would they be doing?: Sab would have beaten herself up forever if she “proved everyone right” by avoiding Unity/Ments entirely, so she’d want to stay in the family business somehow. She probably would have ended up doing scientific research on mental agility. Maybe even working for Mirrortech or some other biotech company, which I imagine would have been an interesting conversation to have with the family.

RANDOM FACTS:

Zodiac sign: Like I said, I assigned her Libra months ago for the sake of a template. But I don’t know enough about astrology to commit. Libra or Leo, probably.

Hobbies: Music, reading poetry, “cooking” (i.e., sitting on the counter and not helping while Nick makes dinner)

Likes: Watching other people (Nick) play video games, dressing up, taking long showers/baths, dark chocolate with caramel, back hugs

Dislikes: Being patronized, hot weather, going to the doctor, driving, doing anything she is not good at

Type of bedsheets: Bamboo.

Drink of choice: Cucumber mint lemonade! For hot drinks, some kind of caramel coffee. For alcohol, she refuses to get drunk because she’s terrified of having even less control of her mental broadcast, but at home/around people she trusts she’ll have a glass or two of wine. Doesn’t know enough to be picky, but doesn’t like it too sweet.

Favorite food: Probably some pasta dish Nick makes with asparagus and tomatoes and a lot of garlic.

Favorite color: Like a light turquoise!

Favorite music: Music to her was another mind-shielding tactic before anything else, so she tends to like upbeat-ish electronic/pop stuff. Catchy and repetitive, and/or with lots of personality to drown out her own thoughts. On the other end of the spectrum, she does have a soft spot for crackly, lo-fi, old or old-sounding slow songs—something about fuzzy recordings simulating a weak telepathic signal.

Favorite season: Hmm, spring and autumn are both good. She likes either side of winter.

Anything else you’d like to share: My heart and a long, fulfilling marriage, with anyone who reads all this 💍

#wow this is so long. insanity luv lit ral insanity #this was super helpful for articulating certain things about sab's character so it's already done its job #pls do not feel pressured to read Thousands of words about sabrina my beloved. but if you read all or even some of this <333 a kiss for you #why am i embarrassed to overshare about my own ocs on my own blog. i live here #oc: sabrina wiseman #also this was very much a stream of consciousness deal but i tried to go back and make it comprehensible. good luck all ye who enter here

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 2, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 36 Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accusing him of trying to advance a “politicized and divisive agenda” in the teaching of American history. This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war.

On April 19, the Department of Education called for public comments on two priorities for the American History and Civics Education programs. Those programs work to improve the “quality of American history, civics, and government education by educating students about the history and principles of the Constitution of the United States, including the Bill of Rights; and… the quality of the teaching of American history, civics, and government in elementary schools and secondary schools, including the teaching of traditional American history.”

The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.”

History teaching that reflects our diverse history and the way our diversity supports democracy can help to improve racial equality in society, the document states. It calls out the 1619 Project of the New York Times, as well as the resources of the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History, to note how our understanding of diversity is changing. It notes that schools across the country are teaching “anti-racist practices,” which it follows scholar Ibram X. Kendi by identifying as “any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group.”

The Education Department invited comments on these priorities. The department does not have much at all to do with local school curricula.

McConnell’s letter in response to this call for comments is disingenuous, implying connections between the teaching of a diverse past, the sorry state of history education, and the fact that “American pride has plummeted to its lowest level in 20 years.” There is, of course, no apparent connection between them.

He complains that Cardona’s “proposal”—it’s a call for comments—would “distort bipartisan legislation that was led by former Senators Lamar Alexander, Ted Kennedy, and Robert Byrd.” That legislation was indeed landmark for the teaching of American history… but its funding was cut in 2012.

What McConnell’s letter is really designed to do is to throw a bone to Trump Republicans. On Thursday, Trump called for Senate Republicans to replace McConnell with a Trump loyalist, and embracing their conviction that our history is being hijacked by radicals is cheap and easy.

The prime object of Republican anger is the 1619 Project, called out in McConnell’s letter by name. The project launched in the New York Times Magazine in August 2019 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first landing of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans at the English colony of Virginia. Led by New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project placed race and Black Americans “at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.”

The 1619 Project argued that the landing of the Black slaves marked “the country’s very origin” since it “inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years.” From slavery “and the anti-black racism it required,” the editors claimed, grew “nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, its diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day.”

Their goal, they said, was “to reframe American history,” replacing 1776 with 1619 as the year of the nation’s birth.

The most explosive claim the project made was that one of the key reasons that the American colonists broke away from Britain was that they wanted to protect slavery. Scholars immediately pushed back. Northwestern University’s Dr. Leslie M. Harris, a scholar of colonial African American history, wrote: “Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war.” The project tempered its language over that issue but stood by its larger argument.

Trump Republicans conflated this project with so-called “Critical Race Theory,” a related scholarly concept that argues that racism is not simply the actions of a few bad actors, but rather is baked into our legal system, as well as the other institutions that make up our society. This is not a new concept, and it is not limited to Black Americans: historian Angie Debo’s And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes launched this argument in 1940 when it showed how Oklahoma’s legislators had written discrimination against Indigenous people into the law. But the idea that white people have an automatic leg up in our country has taken on modern political teeth as Trump Republicans argue that Black and Brown people, among others, are at the bottom of society not because of discriminatory systems but because they are inferior.

The former president railed against recent historical work emphasizing race as “a series of polemics grounded in poor scholarship” that has “vilified our Founders and our founding.” Calling them “one-sided and divisive,” he opposed their view of “America as an irredeemably and systemically racist country.” He claimed, without evidence, that “students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains.” He said that “this radicalized view of American history” threatens to “fray and ultimately erase the bonds that knit our country and culture together.”

On November 2, 2020, just before the election, former president Trump established a hand-picked commission inside the Department of Education to promote “patriotic education” in the nation’s schools, national parks, and museums.

The commission released its report, written not by historians but by right-wing activists and politicians, on Martin Luther King Day, just two days before Trump left office. “The 1776 Report” highlighted the nation’s founding documents from the Revolutionary Era, especially the Declaration of Independence. It said that the principles written in the declaration “show how the American people have ever pursued freedom and justice.” It said “our history is… one of self-sacrifice, courage, and nobility.” No other nation, it said, had worked harder or done more to bring to life “the universal truths of equality, liberty, justice, and government by consent.”

Then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that multiculturalism [is]... not who America is.” It “distort[s] our glorious founding and what this country is all about.” Hannah-Jones retorted: "When you say that multiculturalism is 'not who America is' and 'distorts our glorious founding' you unwittingly confirm the argument of the 1619 Project: That though we were ... a multiracial nation from our founding, our founders set forth a government of white rule. Cool."

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden dissolved the 1776 Commission and took its report off the official government website.

But the fight goes on. The Pulitzer Center, which supports journalism but is not associated with Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prizes, produced a school curriculum based on the 1619 Project; Republican legislators in five states—Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota—filed virtually identical bills to cut funding to any school or college that used the material. Other Republican-led states have proposed funding “patriotic education.” In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves called for a $3 million fund to promote teaching that “educates the next generation in the incredible accomplishments of the American Way” to counter “far-left socialist teachings that emphasize America’s shortcomings over the exceptional achievements of this country.” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem proposed a curriculum that explains “why the U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world.”

——

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #racism #exceptionalism #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #multiculturalism

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mc-doppomine · 3 years

Text

Day 20 Bonus: Bad Ass Temple vs Matenrou

I’m just going in order of the battle dates at this point. And I’m just going to go from the music to the character stuff again because I feel it would just get long again. Look, I wanted to go for Bad Ass Temple. Sometimes you want to hope for an underdog. However when it comes to style...I just couldn’t get into BAT as much. Which is a shame because they have the same foundation of their team as MTR and going in the fight a similar way. But in terms of the individual songs, they’re actually pretty even. I didn’t have many songs that I really liked from either side besides One, Two, Law and Black or White.

I feel this is also the time that I have to say, with music a lot of the time, I’m basing it only as music. It’s lyrics and the like are secondary and mainly used to like inch any song forward if I was truly stuck. So sound wise, it’s been all over the place. Between having flashbacks to high school with Jyushi and feel like I’m being taken to church by Jakurai...it’s been a time. But of course the ones I like are the ones that are ultimately the ones about more mundane stuff I guess?

And with the group songs...I had to grow to like Kaigen. It’s just a personal thing with slow build up songs, I don’t usually have patience for them which is why I usually like fast paced songs over ballads (there’s always exceptions). But when you get to it though, it is good. I won’t deny that. (Yosh, Jyushi part and then him going off, is such a fuck yeah moment!) Well, Kirei, Kaigen is more fast paced than Tomoshibi, what gives? There’s always exceptions. One is that Tomoshibi doesn’t have as slow a build and that it caught my heart without me knowing what’s going on. Like a lot of my initially crying over Tomoshibi was over how it SOUNDS, not their lyrics. Also it’s slow but not ballad slow.

Which then brought us to the actual battle. And they would not make us wait. I was gut punched when they let Jakurai and Hitoya go from right out the gate. Anyone else notice how they mirrored each other’s final line of defeating the other with everything they have? Shivers! I initially wondered why these two were put together to fight but it makes sense after Light & Shadow because they have essentially the same ultimate desire of finding safety and growth with their teams but how they go about it is very different. Neither of them are wrong but it’s a matter of the clash between those difference.

If I had one thing that threw me so thoroughly in this battle though was Hitoya. Like I bet he was the real threat of BAT and I don’t feel I was wrong. But his angle was way different from what I was expecting. Like it seemed like his perspective changed before the 2nd DRB happened. Which ends up coming up really strange, at least for me, in this battle. Because HE is the one that initiated a fight with MTR by challenging Jakurai and was determined to take him down. Not that he still isn’t but he’s already had his chance of reflecting and changed why he’s fighting Jakurai from wanting to drag him down from his high horse to wanting to do this as a challenge against himself. Which isn’t bad, it just makes for a strange dynamic when it felt like it was set up for settling this grudge and he settled it himself before even getting on stage.

As for the rest of the battle, I don’t have as many memorable lines as they go so fast in this one. It’s a lot easier to lose them but considering this track was designed like a final boss encounter, I guess that’s to be expected. But overall...I just felt like Kuko and Jyushi were too...not that they didn’t take it serious but too green to this kind of scene? Like it reminds me of Jiro and Saburo in War War War except I think Kuko and Jyushi delivered some great lines such as ‘you’ve been so shaved off by society, there’s nothing left of you.’ But they also didn’t seem to hit with me? Although I guess there is a small bias there as like...I feel weird hearing them say ‘middle-aged men’ when I’m not that much younger than Hifumi or Doppo. And know that it’s really not that old...it reminds me of my younger sister.

Lyric wise, it felt like they were fighting two completely different ways and I don’t know how it worked out honestly for me. Like I’m really glad for the sound because a lot of it...wasn’t nonsensical but just didn’t feel like they were going at the same thing. Like MTR didn’t even seem to really focus on beating down on their opponents whereas BAT did. And it makes for such a weird confrontation. So I basically defaulted to what I usually do with the music and go with how I feel from the music and I felt MTR through it. To me, I felt more passion from their delivery and also I’d be lying if I I was living through Hifumi’s haughty laugh, Kuko’s roll of words and Doppo’s screaming (how does Itou-san do it???).

So yeah, MTR got me with music.

I said I did the character thing because it’d be shorter to do the music...I didn’t realize I had to so much to say about the music until I was writing. I’m so sorry that this just ends up being super long as I add the character/story aspects...which honestly I guess would be shorter because in the grand scheme both BAT and MTR just have a lot less to lose of going against other teams. Which could be argued is their charm but I don’t know if that alone could save them from future shenanigans to happen in this DRB. But let’s get to the team stuff

BAT vs DH would have to be the most even chance music wise for both teams because they’re new to this battle season. Although I am absolutely terrified of what kind of sound would come from mixing their sounds together. I’m sure all the talented folks behind the DRB music can do it...I just can’t imagine it. I can’t really think of the conflicts here since for the most part they don’t know each other outside of Kuko and Sasara being in MCD for a time.

BAT vs BB would be a chance to make the ‘koi yo Bad Ass,’ ‘Ou yo Bus Bros’ from Division Battle Anthem+ come true. I’ve hung onto that direct call out since I’ve heard it. There should be answers to their fall out. Ichiro didn’t forget it and feels like Kuko had to have some kind of revelation with it. This would be the chance to resolve this. Meanwhile I also entertain that this iust good hearted fun of like Ichiro, Kuko, Jyushi and Jiro all being around the same age and just being boys having fun. All the while, Hitoya is groaning as he pulls out another set of adoption papers.

BAT vs FP...I can’t think of anything really since they haven’t had any real connection outside of Ramuda--and I think it was OUR Ramuda--thinking Kuko was too irrelevant for his plans. What a kick that’d be for Kuko to be like ‘so, I heard you were talking shit!’

BAT vs MTC, I also have a problem seeing as much of an issue. Outside of Hitoya trying to not have a whole ass conniption. He needs to bring like most of these bastards to court. And also dadtoya because he would not want to drag Kuko and Jyushi around these guys. I fear of Jyuto eating Jyushi alive. Although there could be a slight chance of anger from Samatoki towards Kuko because he’s one of the few people that know the extent of Kuko’s abrupt departure left with Ichiro and even if he doesn’t forgive Ichiro, I don’t think that erases that nasty taste in his mouth.

And then to reverse around with MTR vs DH, I still think of it being more light-hearted of Hifumi and Doppo being like an accidental rival manzai to Sasara and Rosho. And just ending up petty over it. Watch Hifumi insult Sasara’s suit, ohmygod Hifumi can you not--And meanwhile I’m pretty sure Rei knows that Chuuoku is trying to use Jakurai’s rap ability and I can’t tell if he’s interested in how it goes or if he’d stop it. Because Rei I feel has less hesitance in doing extremes to eliminate what’s in his way. Be that incapacitating Jakurai’s ability or Jakurai himself or ruining Jakurai in a way that he can’t help...that’s all doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility for Rei to me.

MTR vs BB would also be a lighter affair as it just seems like bros just going against each other as I don’t know, I think MTR has a softer spot for BB than all the other teams. And to BB it’s like going against dad because I will die on the dadkurai hill.

MTR vs MTC is rematch REMATCH. DEATH RESPECT PART II. Let’s get it. But yeah outside of sore feelings from last time, I don’t think it’d be as bad as last time. It’s really a ‘nothing personal but you’re in my way’ sort of thing. There is a meeting for the anti-Honobono club that goes on, maybe? Maybe there could be some bad blood if Samatoki knew about Jakurai thinking of helping Chuuoku with perfecting the thing that, at least for a long time in his head, took Nemu from him.

But unsurprisingly most that would happen is if they did MTR vs FP. Because on one hand, it’s a REMATCH and one I’d personally love because their rap battle was my favorite. But they have the most story threads. I glossed it in the previous but it’s a chance for collaboration or using the other team if Honobono came up. Such as FP throwing MTR at her to distract her from getting Ramuda. They’re cutthroat enough to do it. Or if they could see past their rivalry and work together to save both of their sides from this mutual threat. I think this would be a time for Ramuda and Jakurai to REALLY go at each other.

Because despite their disdain of each other, I don’t think they hate each other as they like to proclaim. Chuuoku seems to know this feeling on Jakurai’s end as they dangle Ramuda’s well-being in front of him time and time again. Even if he can’t get along with Ramuda, he sure as fuck doesn’t want him DEAD. And it seems to get forgotten but Ramuda IS Jakurai’s MENTOR, the person that taught him to survive in the new direction of the world. Even if this was orchestrated, that bond still exists. And it’s not one-sided because I can’t imagine Ramuda being pleased with Jakurai willingly going with the bitches that made his life hell. He’d be pissed as to how Jakurai could roll over to them (as he might perceive) and his effort to keep Jakurai from them failing.

Phew...done...with the thing. But yeah in terms of like story/character....mmm, yeah that would have to go to MTR too. I really don’t feel like it’s BAT fault. I just think they’re at a disadvantage for coming new to a battle season.

#30 days of hypmic challenge #bad ass temple #matenrou #long post #I'm so sorry at the length #and dissolving into gibberish #kuko harai #jyushi aimono #hitoya amaguni #jakurai jinguji #hifumi izanami #doppo kannonzaka

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ravenbrenna09 · 4 years

Text

Jij Verliest - Chapter Three: Clip 6

master list previous (Woensdag Part One)

...

Woensdag 22:39

Sander’s final text message was a simple address to a nearby park, and while he knew little about what they were doing, as soon as he received it, Robbe grabbed his phone and his wallet and headed out of the flatshare. If his roommates noticed his abrupt exit, they didn’t ask about it. As Robbe biked to the address that Sander sent, the thrill of not knowing their plans—and meeting up with Sander—melted a little of the residual anger that bubbled up in the aftermath of Thomas and his texts.

At first, Robbe had been angry at Thomas for calling his mama. It was the reason that Robbe finally decided to text him back after the number of messages that he had left on read. But as soon as Thomas responded, his anger returned in full force because his ex-boyfriend wasn’t getting it. Why couldn’t Thomas simply take the watch and leave Robbe alone? Why was he making such a big deal about the fact that Robbe was returning a watch that he never used? As the conversation drew on, the explosion grew in his head, the anger at Thomas with it, and Robbe stopped the conversation, unable to take any more of it.

But his anger hadn’t gone away.

As he attempted to focus on his Bio notes in front of him, on the review that he was glancing over again, his focus kept drifting to his phone. Thomas was still sending him messages and each ding from his phone amplified the anger boiling inside of him. Robbe was not an angry person by nature. He didn’t like lashing out—hated it with a passion—but Thomas was getting close to causing an eruption with Robbe at the center. He needed to get away from the flatshare and distract himself until the anger went away, which was why he picked up his phone and messaged Sander without thinking.

And, here he was, biking to a park to meet Sander.

Even in near darkness, it was easy for Robbe to spot Sander once he arrived. With the bright full moon shining in the sky, Sander’s bleach-blond hair stood out, reflecting the silver moonlight. The tattoo artist in question was lying on what looked like a blanket in the middle of the grove with one arm tucked beneath his head. There seemed to be a small wicker basket next to his head, but Robbe didn’t have a clue on what was inside.

As Robbe approached, dragging his bike with him, Sander glanced away from the stars, his green eyes catching Robbe approaching, and a smile burst across his face. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Robbe grinned over at him. As Robbe leaned his bike against a nearby tree, Sander sat up on the blanket, crossing his legs beneath him. Robbe moved toward him and Sander patted the area beside him. He quickly sat down and crossed his legs beneath him. “Why does it not surprise me that you would be into stargazing?” Sander chuckled as he pulled the basket closer to him. “What did you bring?”

“I brought grapes, strawberries, and other fruits,” Sander said. He opened the basket to show Robbe before reaching in and pulling out two bottles of beer. “I also figured you might want at least one of these.”

“Yes,” Robbe said. Sander grinned, opening one before handing it over to him. Robbe quickly took a sip of it as Sander opened the other one. “You should’ve told me that you were bringing stuff. I would’ve stopped by and grabbed something on my way.”

“Nah, you had a lot on your mind,” Sander said. He pulled out a handful of strawberries from a plastic bag before proceeding to feed one to Robbe. He bit down on the fruit as Sander ate one himself. “So did you want to talk about it?” he asked before adding, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I just thought I would ask.”

“I just don’t understand,” Robbe said, frustrated. He took a swing of his beer before continuing. “He pulls away, he breaks up with me, and, as far as I’m aware, moves on. It takes him three months to get his clothes from my apartment. But as soon as I return this dumb watch that I wasn’t even using, he starts acting like I just pulled out a gun and shot him in the foot.”

“Maybe you should’ve.”

“I just don’t get it,” Robbe said. “I don’t get him.”

“I don’t get him either,” Sander echoed, grinning over at Robbe. “I mean, he broke up with you. I don’t see how anyone could possibly think of doing that.” Robbe felt his cheeks flush considerably and, judging from the way that Sander’s grin grew, he could tell. “Besides, I’m sure he’ll realize his mistake sooner or later.”

“I’m not sure I want him to,” Robbe admitted quietly. Sander glanced up over him, raising a dark eyebrow, as Robbe glanced at him. Their eyes met and Robbe shrugged before returning his gaze to his beer. “A few months ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance of us getting back together. But after this, after him just trying to force me to take a watch that I don’t even want, I don’t think I could ever go back to him.”

“I get it,” Sander said. There was a little sorrow in his voice as he leaned back, propping himself up on one arm. His eyes were directed up to the sky, to the stars twinkling above them, and he let out a sigh. “Like you finally saw their true colors and you don’t know how you missed it?”

Robbe nodded. “Yeah.”

“I had an ex-girlfriend who was really controlling. From what she told me, something happened in her last relationship and she was trying to fix what she had done wrong.” Sander paused, biting down on a grape before continuing. “So she was even more controlling than she even realized. I didn’t realize how much until we broke it off and Senne pointed it out. We’re still pretty decent friends now, but we’ve decided that we’re never going to give it another shot.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it was always me.”

“I’m sorry,” Robbe said.

“It’s okay. It was years ago.”

There was a comfortable silence between them. Robbe took a drink of his beer before glancing over at Sander, who was resting against the blanket. His bright green eyes were focused on Robbe and he couldn’t look away from them. Sander laid down, his eyes directed at the sky, before reaching out to pat the blanket behind Robbe. “Come on, I’ll share my wisdom about the night sky.”

“Is there going to be a pop quiz?” Robbe asked, taking a drink.

Sander grinned as Robbe laid down beside him. “Nope. Just a small lecture. If you can keep up.”

“If I had known that, I would’ve brought my notebook,” Robbe muttered, causing Sander to belt out a laugh next to him.

…

Woensdag 23:43

There were only a handful of constellations that Sander knew, or at least that he could accurately point out.

The first thing Sander had shown Robbe was the David Bowie constellation. It was shaped in the form of a lightning bolt and had a total of seven stars. According to Sander, the constellation sat in the vicinity of Mars, which was fitting because of some of his songs. Sander traced it out in the night sky and Robbe had to scoot closer to see the figure that he was drawing with the constellations. After showing him the depiction of his idol, Sander showed Robbe the constellations that he knew by heart. Once he had run out of those, they started looking up constellations on Google and searching for them.

Trying to find each of the specific stars in the masses of similar stars was a difficult task. More than once, the two of them found the wrong star in a sequence and would go searching for the right one. Occasionally, they would lose it and have to start all over again. But the two of them descended into laughter as they munched on the fruit and sipped the beer that had quickly gotten warm. Sander was nursing his first one and Robbe had reached the start of his third.

After the two of them were struggling to find one of the zodiac signs in the sky, Robbe asked, “What do your tattoos mean?” Sander glanced up from his phone, which cast a white glow across his face. Sander’s legs were crossed beneath him. Robbe’s were splayed out with one leg over Sander’s knee as he laid against the blanket staring at him. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I was just curious.”

A small smile spread on Sander’s face. “Not everyone gets tattoos that mean something to them. Some people just get tattoos that look good.”

“I know,” Robbe said, popping a grape in his mouth. In an effort to small-talk with Noor, he had asked her the same question and the majority of hers didn’t have a personal meaning. She had gotten them because she wanted them. “You just seem like the person who might have a few with a personal meaning.” There was a moment of silence between them. “Am I wrong?” he asked.

Sander smiled before reaching out his right arm toward Robbe. “One.”

“There’s only one with meaning?”

“No,” Sander said, grinning at him. “You can only learn about one of them at a time.”

“Aww, why?” Robbe complained. Despite that, he could feel a smile growing. Sander shook his head with a small smile on his face and Robbe pouted at him. He reached out, grabbing Sander’s right wrist in his hand, before looking the tattoos over. Sander’s skin was warm in his hand and he could feel Sander’s bright green eyes on it. Robbe glanced up at him. “Is there any way I can learn more than one?”

Sander chuckled. “Maybe if you bribe the teacher.”

Robbe smiled up at him, feeling the blush on his cheeks. His eyes dragged over the sunflower, the dragonflies, before settling on the trees. “What do the trees mean? I saw a photo of them on your Instagram.”

Sander smiled at him fondly. “The trees are the outline of the forest outside my grandparents’ home. When I was little, I used to go hiking in the woods with my dad. One time, I wandered away and my dad didn’t notice and I got lost. I was scared, but he eventually found me and took me back. Once I got to secondary school, I hit a rough spot and I started feeling that ‘lost in the woods’ feeling every day. When I got out of it, it was because of my family and my friends, so when I started designing my tattoos, I decided that I wanted the trees to be the base to remind myself that I’m not alone anymore.”

Robbe nodded, smiling a little. “That’s really sweet.”

“Don’t spread that around, it’ll ruin my reputation.”

“Your reputation as what?” Robbe asked, laughing.

As he waited for Sander’s response, he dragged his finger across the outline of the largest and darkest tree. The pad of his finger traced along every jagged edge of the tree, every branch, every twig that jetted out. It wasn’t a smooth silhouette of a tree but it added the realism to the tattoo. The tattoo looked like it had been traced exactly from the photo on his Insta. Sander shuddered beneath Robbe’s fingertip and he glanced up at him.

Sander’s bright green eyes were focused solely on him, connecting quickly with Robbe’s brown ones. As soon as their eyes were locked together, Robbe felt the same electric spark shoot through his nervous system again. His entire body felt warm—warmer where his hand was gripping onto Sander’s wrist. But it might be the mild night air and the lukewarm beer messing with Robbe’s mind. Glancing up at Sander, he watched as the bleach-blond glanced down at him, biting his lip beneath his teeth.

Gently, Sander pulled his wrist from Robbe’s featherlight grip. He rested his forearm by Robbe’s head, using it to brace himself as he leaned down. For a second, all Robbe could do was watch him, wondering what Sander was thinking, as his green eyes searched his brown ones. Then, Sander’s eyes flickered down to his lips. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but he caught it all the same. Robbe swallowed, tilting his head up a little, and his own eyes wandered to Sander’s mouth.

There was a determined look in Sander’s eye before he started leaning closer.

With his back pressed against the ground, Robbe felt like he was witnessing the moment in slow motion. The seconds dragged on and blended together in one hazy motion. There was a part of him that felt like he should stop Sander before they kissed because it all felt too soon and too fast. But at the same time, Robbe didn’t want it to stop. He could see that Sander was watching him closely, his eyes silently analyzing his every move, waiting for Robbe to speak up—to say no, to ask him to stop, to push him away—but Robbe didn’t. He didn’t want Sander to stop.

In fact, Robbe wanted Sander to come closer—faster—until their lips crashed together.

Robbe felt his eyes fluttering close as he waited for the kiss—for Sander’s kiss. He felt Sander’s other hand press against his thigh. Even through his jeans, he could feel Sander’s body heat, adding to the electric buzz he was feeling. From the second that their noses brushed together, Robbe felt his body crane up for the kiss, trying to meet Sander somewhere in the middle, trying to connect their lips a little bit sooner.

Sander was so close that Robbe could practically feel the upturn of his smile. Sander tilted his head, moving that much closer, and Robbe reached up, searching for the curve of his jaw. For a split second, as their lips grazed, Robbe wondered if he would be able to taste the grapes and strawberries on his lips or the beer on his tongue—

Like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown on them, his phone rang out in the quiet space between them.

Robbe had never been more annoyed at his phone in his life. Letting out a disgruntled noise, Robbe blindly searched for his phone, not wanting to open his eyes. Once he felt Sander moving away from him, he opened his eyes. Sander was sitting straight up again, reaching for something. As soon as Sander found his phone and held it in his hand, a thought rang through Robbe’s head, practically begging the universe: please, please, don’t be Thomas. Sander held up the phone for him to see.

Lucas.

Robbe let out a relieved breath, reaching for the phone. Once it was in his hand, he answered it quickly with a tense, “Hello?”

“Hey,” Lucas said, sounding tense. “It’s safe for you to come home.”

“Lucas,” Robbe groaned, running a hand through his hair. His leg was still draped over Sander’s and neither of them made any effort to move it. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Thomas stopped by,” Lucas said. Robbe felt his blood run cold and he resisted the urge to bolt upright. “He said that he needed to talk to you ‘face-to-face’ about that fucking watch. When I told him that you weren’t here, he didn’t believe me until I showed him your empty room.”

“Please tell me you told him to fuck off.”

“I did not,” Lucas said. “He seemed pissed and I didn’t want to test him. I didn’t know if that was why you left earlier so I thought I would let you know that it was safe.”

“No, I didn’t know he was coming by or I would’ve warned you. It wasn’t why I left,” Robbe said. Before his flatmate and friend could question about where he was, Robbe quickly added, “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll see you when I get back.”

As soon as the call ended, his notifications lit up the screen. The vast majority of them were text messages or calls from Thomas, trying desperately to get in touch with him. The text messages increased in threats of coming over if there was no response and the number of calls went into the double digits. Robbe let out a sigh, nearly tossing the phone aside before he saw the clock.

It was past 23:00.

“Is everything okay?” Sander asked.

Robbe sat up and shook his head. “No,” he said, staring up at Sander’s green eyes which were focused solely on him. “It’s past 23:00 and I’ve still got to study a little more before I go to sleep. And I have an early morning class tomorrow morning that I don’t want to go to.”

To emphasize his point, Robbe pouted which caused Sander to snort.

Sander smiled softly. “Well, you better get home and study before you get some sleep for that beautiful brain of yours.”

At his comment, Robbe felt his cheeks flush, burning hot and bright in the summer night. But he didn’t get up from the spot and Sander didn’t move from beneath him. As Robbe lingered on the ground, his leg still draped over Sander’s knee, he wondered—or, rather, hoped—that Sander would lean forward to press their lips together, to actually finish the almost-kiss that had been so rudely interrupted.

Instead, Sander patted his knee and motioned toward his bike, which was still leaning against the tree. “Go on,” Sander urged. “I’ll pick up the blanket and food. You need to study.”

Robbe nodded, biting back the mild disappointment in his chest. “Okay,” he whispered. “Thank you for meeting up with me.” Sander nodded, grinning genuinely at him before patting his knee again.

He moved his leg off Sander before standing up on the edge of the blanket. Once he grabbed his phone and his bike, Robbe headed to leave. As he did, he glanced over behind him to see Sander picking up their makeshift picnic. For a few moments, Robbe watched his rhythmic movements before climbing on his bike and heading back to the flatshare.

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polaristranslations · 3 years

Text

The Twelfth Box

■ ■

Well, we've come a long way, but my story is finally reaching its climax—however, as for what lessons you'll take away from this story, I do not know. Calling it a lesson might be a bit of an exaggeration, but a tale, no matter its nature—as long as it is a tale told from one person to another—is a conversation. Even if the listener is listening in silence while the speaker is speaking, I believe it is still a conversation—I believe they are still exchanging words. Until one day in the future, when science has further developed and tales become entertainment that is machine-generated, I believe that tales, or episodes passed down from generation to generation, are a means of communication.

Even this story revolving around Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee—it's a tale that's an unpleasant memory, a painful memory, and, in some places, a bittersweet memory for me. But in the end, it was not so much what was told but the act of telling it that was more meaningful.

And there was meaning in you listening to it.

So what I want to say is, thank you for listening to me.

■ ■

Chinu Namaji told me.

The reasons for my loss in the Formation Game.

"Well, I've been beating around the bush, but it wasn't any particular strategy worth putting on airs about—I'm sure even you've managed to guess at most of it, Kurokami-chan. You gathered only strong players, and I—well, it would be a bit mean to call them weak, but it might even be too presumptuous to call them players—I gathered only amateur players. If you think about it normally, your team had the overwhelming advantage, but the reason my team was able to win was exactly that—the reason it seemed like an advantage and actually was an advantage was the reason you lost, Kurokami-chan."

I listened to Chinu-senpai's words. I simply stayed quiet and listened.

Part of it was due to wanting to hear the reason I lost, but it seemed to me that she was trying to tell me something else, and if that was the case, I couldn't miss a single word of it.

That was the conversation between me and her.

Although, to that attitude of mine, Chinu-senpai laughed.

"Ahaha, it's not something you need to listen to so attentively. You'll be disappointed if you concentrate so hard—the point is, gathering only the strongest people does not make a strong team. This is why the theoretically viable all-star team is not necessarily the strongest team in the world. It's all about balance."

"Balance—are you saying that if everyone is at the same level of strength, then balance comes naturally?"

"Sort of, but not quite—strength is after all, limited to just one position. Even if you gathered nine pitchers that could throw a fastball at 150 km/h, that team isn't going to win the Best Nine Award, right?"

At the time, I didn't know very much about baseball, so I didn't understand the example itself, but now, there wasn't a metaphor more apt than this—of course, a metaphor was just a metaphor, so it wasn't like it applied directly to basketball.

But it was true that I hadn't thought about balance.

I simply called out to seniors that seemed to be athletic—maybe that would've been fine for individual games, but because it was a team game, it apparently backfired.

Backfired?

No, that wasn't it.

That sort of plan wouldn't just backfire normally—normally, anyone would gather players just as I did in order to form their team. That was the obvious strategy, and in fact, Chinu-senpai herself had guided me into following that strategy. She explained the rules of the game as if who I scouted was important—thinking about it, her going on about all-star teams and so forth was preparation, laying down the groundwork, wasn't it?

On the other hand, she must have quickly finished gathering her members in order to use the time spent waiting for me to instruct the five people she gathered on how to fight as a team.

How to handle the ball and pass it—in other words, teamwork.

Normally, if she were going to discuss why she won, that would be all—but the real reason she won was because she was able to make me not realize that this game was a team game. She'd made me think that it was an extension of an individual game—and, with me not seeing it as a team game, there was no way that frame of mind would be enough to beat her.

Rather than backfiring.

It never fired to begin with.[?]

"Well, in this case, your strong players ended up getting a bit arrogant, which made them unsuited for an off-the-cuff team game—in contrast, my weak players knew their own limits, and thus were able to follow my instructions perfectly. But that might just be secondary—after all, when I lost to President Kumagawa, we were definitely trying to face him with our teamwork."

"When you—lost to President Kumagawa?"

"If I said that, would it be a bit misleading?"

Chinu-senpai said.

With a lighthearted tone.

I wondered why she was being so lighthearted, but perhaps it was to keep the atmosphere from growing too heavy—in that sense, you could say her attempt was fruitless.

"After all, after that match ended, he said something like this—'Again, I couldn't win'."

Again, I couldn't win.

Chinu Namaji had said she'd lost, and Kumagawa Misogi had said he couldn't win.

In that case—it was a game with no victor.

Of course, it shouldn't need to be said now that that was basically Kumagawa Misogi's forte, but at the time, I couldn't believe that it was possible for a game to end with those results.

"By the way, the game we played was a game based on rules quite different from those of the Formation Game—however, the strategy he used was mostly the same. I... No, the girls' basketball team ended up being thoroughly beaten by his 'weakness'. We were beaten to a pulp, beaten so badly that we couldn't get up again—and then everybody quit."

"Quit—the club?"

The deserted gymnasium.

The solo club activities.

I figured that was the reason, but the reality was slightly different—the members that had been beaten up by Kumagawa Misogi were no longer here, not because they had sent in their resignations from the club.

They hadn't even sent in their resignations.

"What they quit wasn't the club, but basketball itself,"

said Chinu-senpai.

"They were unable to renew themselves, to flip the switch on their lives—they're still being dragged along by their defeat. Being dragged along slowly, and continuing to live slowly... No, continuing to lose slowly—it's tragic."

That's why I'm here,

said Chinu-senpai.

"That's why I resigned as Student Council Treasurer—I guess if I wanted to say it in a cool way, then I wanted to make sure they had a place to return to, I guess? But it's not anything that cool. It's more like atonement."

"...And by atonement, you mean?"

"So basically, I ended up getting those girls mixed up in the match between me and President Kumagawa—although the actual circumstances were a bit more complicated."

From then on, she began to speak evasively. Instead of getting to the point, her explanation felt far more ambiguous than her prior explanations—so at the time, it was a little hard for me to understand, but now, I understood the circumstances. And I understood why it was so hard for her to speak.

To sum it up, it was like this.

Chinu Namaji, who had been appointed as Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee Treasurer, was also a major player in the girls' basketball team—it didn't seem like she was forced to make a decision between the two, but I suppose it depends on how you look at it. The facts may not be so simple, but it was likely the club members thought that if Chinu-senpai were not involved in Student Council activities, she would concentrate more on basketball—it was likely they even wanted her to quit the Student Council. So, it seemed that the Student Council and the basketball team collided. The actual details were a bit more complex—perhaps Chinu-senpai couldn't excuse her teammates getting involved with the Student Council Executive Committee led by the infamous Kumagawa Misogi—basically, the girls' basketball team recklessly bet everything on their team leader, Chinu Namaji, and challenged Kumagawa Misogi to a match.

And then—they lost.

"...Well, this doesn't just apply to athletes—anyone who normally puts in the effort and works hard would think like this. No matter how much you may regret losing to someone better or greater than you, it's not impossible to accept that loss. It's just a math problem. It's natural that 2 is bigger than 1—and if you reflect upon not having been 3, not having been able to become 3, then that can become your next goal. But, if you're 2 and you lose to 1, or even lose to a minus, then what is there to reflect upon? How can you use that loss to proceed? Do you just accept that the world is like that and give up? Just accept that being better is not always rated highly, that excellence is not always recognized? Yeah—and so, everybody gave up."

No, not everyone.

After all, there's me,

murmured Chinu-senpai.

"Being better is not always rated highly, and excellence is not always recognized, but whatever—I can deal with that. Even if the world doesn't understand, it's fine as long as I understand—or so I put on a bold front. But what I can't deal with is when something that's stupid or worthless is given a high rating by society—that just kills my motivation to live. I wasn't able to accept my powerless defeat. It felt like all my effort, all the hard work we'd put in together—it all came to nothing. Like I'd been thrust with the idea that our lives were meaningless. And I lost all motivation for everything."

Born without meaning, live without relations, and die without worth.

That was what had been said.

By Chinu-senpai—and by Kumagawa Misogi.

"Well, ironically enough, with that as the reason, I was able to resign from the position of Treasurer, and keep watch over the basketball team. So in that sense, President Kumagawa wasn't able to win."

That was true.

He hadn't achieved the results he wanted—with the result being him losing one of his officers, what exactly was he trying to do? As a result of the match, both the basketball team and the Student Council Executive Committee had experienced losses. Well, that was more or less what Kumagawa Misogi was made of—but to me at the time, it just seemed like an uncanny act.

"Basically, that's why I quit the Student Council Executive Committee—and why you became my successor, Kurokami-chan. Do you understand now?"

"......"

I had no choice but to respond that I did understand—it wasn't like I could just deny her past. However, it was hard to tell what exactly I did understand. I had certainly wanted to learn why Chinu-senpai had quit the Student Council Executive Committee, and why the girls' basketball team was in this state... But now that I'd learned it, now that I'd understood, all that was left was a feeling of dissatisfaction.

No.

Perhaps I was angry.

Not at President Kumagawa—but at Chinu-senpai.

It might be a bit irrational, but why didn't she try and face President Kumagawa again, try and have a rematch with everyone in the girls' basketball team?—I may have felt that way.

It wasn't the time to give up, it wasn't the time to just wallow in your powerlessness—I may have wanted to say something like that.. But I couldn't. There was no way I could. So that I couldn't say something like that, she had made me play this Formation Game—in the same way she lost to Kumagawa Misogi, she made me suffer a defeat.

And that was probably a fraction, less than one-hundredth, of the "sense of defeat" experienced after coming face-to-face with President Kumagawa—at the very least, after having felt it, I couldn't bring myself to criticize the members of the girls' basketball team.

"Well, no need to concern yourself with us—that's our problem. It's not like I'm trying to tell you to take down our foe for us, to get revenge for us, or anything like that."

"Eh—but!"

Revenge was a strong word, but.

I'd been sure that that was what she was trying to say.

After all, Chinu-senpai had just said something to the effect of "taking Kumagawa Misogi down"—hadn't she? With even the condition of "using that same method"—so, that's what I had assumed all this time.

However, that wasn't it.

Instead of that—it was, to say the least, for her junior.

And for her successor, some pertinent advice.

"In the near future, you'll end up facing off against President Kumagawa—I don't know how it'll happen, and I don't know what will cause it, but there's no way a person like you and a person like him won't collide at some point. But when that time comes, challenging his 1 with your 2, challenging his minus with your plus—that's all meaningless to him. He won't take any damage at all from that. Kurokami-chan. If you want to win against Kumagawa Misogi—you will first have to begin by losing to him."

■ ■

Chinu-senpai's words were like some sort of Zen dialogue, so at the time, it was hard for me to comprehend them—and rather than a Zen dialogue, it felt more like an impossible dialogue. However, it was still frighteningly pertinent advice.

In fact, when the time came for me to settle things with Kumagawa Misogi here at Hakoniwa Academy, we unexpectedly ended up settling things in such a way—Former President Hinokage's "Evilize Training Camp" was made with that in mind, too. However, this basically meant that I had been unable to follow or make use of the advice given to me in middle school, which meant that I'd failed to fulfill the request of Chinu-senpai.

I'm ashamed of myself.

After losing the match, I couldn't even carry out the request that I got as the penalty—if the news would reach Chinu-senpai's ears that belatedly... After three years, I was able to settle things with him, then it would be a great comfort to me.

However, there was nothing special about Chinu-senpai.

In the sense that she had been a part of the Student Council Executive Committee, she was a special case, but like her, there were students all over the school whose lives had been turned upside down by President Kumagawa. There were students all over the school, including myself, who were ruined by the mixture of good and evil, mixed with victory and defeat.

I'd even go so far as to say that the entire school was like that—

With the exception of my brother and the Vice President.

However, it went without saying that when I heard the story from Chinu-senpai—when I heard the story from her through the form of a competition—it was a clear turning point for me.

The next day.

After school, I headed for the Student Council office.

Of course, I'd gone there once early in the morning, but at that time, the office had been empty—despite mustering all that motivation, it felt like a huge letdown in the end. But I didn't falter, pulled myself together, and opened the door to the Student Council office after school.

This time, President Kumagawa.

Kumagawa Misogi was there.

He was alone—neither the Vice President nor the Secretary nor the General Affairs Manager was there.

I hadn't intended on changing my plans had anyone been there, but this was certainly a favorable situation for me.

If I was going to confront him, then one-on-one was ideal.

「Heya, Medaka-chan—what's the matter? With such a dignified look on your face,」

President Kumagawa said.

「Although, Medaka-chan, I guess you're always making that dignified face, aren't you—even though you'd be better off living your life a bit more cheerfully and loosely. Then you'd be more popular.」

To those cheerful and loose words of his, I said,

"President Kumagawa."

It was a proclamation.

"The responsibility of the Treasurer position of the Student Council Executive Committee—I will humbly accept."

「...Huh? I thought we'd already finished discussing that matter?」

"No. To me, this is the starting line."

It was true that I'd been performing my duties as Treasurer in the Student Council Executive Committee for a couple of days now—but now, I was truly determined to fulfill my duties.

It was this very moment that I was truly "promoted" as the Treasurer, in the truest sense.

That I decided to work under Kumagawa Misogi—that I decided to fight against Kumagawa Misogi.

As a comparison, it was sort of like how a shogi piece gets "promoted" after entering enemy lines—although it was more like a betrayal than a simple turnover.

「Hmm. I'm just thankful to hear that, but... What led to this change of mind? Should I hear it?」

"I spoke with Chinu-senpai,"

I said. I had no intention of hiding it from him.

"I learned—about my predecessor, and the details that led to her being relieved of her position."

In actuality, instead of being relieved, she resigned on her own—President Kumagawa actually tried to hold her back—but this was neither a misunderstanding nor an attempt to mislead.

But even so, I expected a rebuttal.

And yet,

「Chinu...?」

said President Kumagawa, tilting is head.

「...Who's that?」

That was.

The reaction of someone who'd heard the name for the first time—as if he wasn't even sure that the word was supposed to be a name.

「Also, what do you mean by predecessor? The 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee's Treasurer has always been only you, Medaka-chan.」

"...Is that so."

There was no meaning to disputing it.

Whether he'd actually forgotten, or whether he was simply concealing it, I had no desire to even think about it—however, I keenly felt it.

From now on—this was the opponent I would have to fight against.

I resolved myself to face off against Kumagawa Misogi—the Minus that crawls from chaos, Kumagawa Misogi. It was like a joke, pitting a Treasurer against an incalculable man, but this was my reality here at Hakobune Middle School.

「Is that all you wanted to say? Then, get to work, Medaka-chan. Maguro-chan and Kouki-chan will be here soon—along with Anshin'in-san, too.」

"Anshin'in-sa—"

「Don't worry, you might not be used to it in the beginning, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in an instant, Medaka-chan. I look forward to our long relationship together.」

Kumagawa said with a smile.

It was a smile with no emotion behind it.

「I'm sure it'll be an unforgettable experience.」

■ ■

And so, Hakobune Middle School's 66th Generation Student Council Executive Committee was established. What happened after that, you should know very well—we fought, we broke down, we rampaged, and we became a mess.

There were disagreements, there were misunderstandings, and there were mistakes.

Things didn't go the way I planned, and of course, Kumagawa Misogi never had any plans to begin with, so we never arrived at a future that had been predicted by anybody—power and intrigue only swirled, finesse only flailed, and eagerness never saw the light of day.

It was out of anyone's hands, and no one could be held responsible.

A battle with no victors, that would make no one happy, began and ended.

No, it failed to even end.

It simply carried on, unsettled.

I didn't know what Chinu-senpai felt as she watched it happen—perhaps she was disappointed in me, or perhaps she never expected anything from me to begin with, thinking, "Ah, of course".

At any rate, I failed. And I don't think I managed to recover from it here in Hakoniwa Academy. That—those things—were a failure that cannot be recovered from.

There were too many things that couldn't come back—and there were too many people that couldn't return.

And so, for you—for you all—I want you to not repeat the same mistakes I made. That's what I wish. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that you don't make the same mistakes again—I know you're going to say that you would never do something like that, but you know, something like that can happen to anyone.

Just like how Chinu-senpai wasn't anyone special.

Kurokami Medaka and Kumagawa Misogi weren't anyone special, either.

When two people meet and get involved, a tale is born—though the two of us in middle school could only produce a bad ending like this. But even if it's a bad ending, even if it's a childish, or even juvenile—there is no doubt that it is still a tale.

As long as I can tell it to you like this.

Torai Kudaki.

Hakoniwa Academy's 100th Generation Student Council Executive Committee General Affairs Manager Torai Kudaki—I can no longer participate in whatever Student Council activities you'll perform now, but if there's any advice I can give you as a pioneer on the front lines and as a defeated soldier, it is to be the hero of a tale that you can tell, a tale that you are willing to tell to someone else.

And then, someday, you should tell it to a junior that admires you.

The battle you fought—and, of course, the happy ending you achieved.

■ ■

Hm? Chinu-senpai?

What happened to Chinu-senpai after that?

She's still well, even today—in Hakobune Middle School, the basketball team never managed to be reformed, but she was able to move on to high school as a competent player, running across the court even now.

Yes, that was one thing that President Kumagawa taught me.

Even if a tale ends with a bad ending—

People do not end with a bad ending.

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xfadingstarx · 4 years

Text

A Bleach Retrospective: In defense of Bleach

These are opinions, please respect that.

_______________________________

My Journey with Bleach (please skip if you want to go straight to the analysis):

On September the 8th, 2006 YTV’s weekend evening anime programming block (Bionix) aired the first episode of Bleach. I, unfortunately, did not catch this episode, instead, I caught the second episode on September 15th the following week. I was ten and from then on, Bleach fascinated me. It had an interesting concept, tight pacing, catchy music, a good story, and unique character designs. I also really enjoyed how Bleach lacked the same kind of emotional labour that Naruto demanded (as child who survived off of constantly seeking validation from others because of absentee parents, Naruto is way too much work).

My fascination with Bleach got me started in the fandom communities of yesteryear, for I was a child with zero internet supervision. My introduction to fanfiction was because I loved Hitsugaya Toshiro.

Bleach was my entry into poetry (poem at the start of every volume).

But alas, all good things were not meant to last and by the summer of 2009, I was officially done with Bleach. It had felt stilted for some time before then. Over the years, I would gradually revisit bits and pieces of Bleach, but I would not read it in its entirety until months after its finish, about a decade after I had first saw Bleach on my TV. Between the time I stopped reading and the series ended, I became friends with people who didn’t think highly of Bleach and I also started seeing criticism I had made about Bleach in 2011 being repeated by fans on the internet, I started to think that maybe Bleach was bad, but I knew what bad writing looked like —I started reading fanfiction through Bleach fanfiction AMVs on YouTube — and somehow Bleach didn’t sit right with me in the “bad writing category”.

I sit back now, a decade and ahalf later from when I first started and ask, “was Bleach really that bad, and if so, why do I keep coming back to it?”

-----------------------------------------------

What Made Bleach So Good?

Unique story and aesthetics: When Bleach first started in 2001, it was one of the first manga series to talk about souls and death in a poetic way and with such coherence. Bleach clearly knew what it wanted to say about life and death. It also had a very unique aesthetic, very similar to that of “The World Ends With You” or “Persona 5″ — an urban Japanese take on R&B kind of vibe. Also, Bleach had the most “realistic” and minimalist art style amongst the Big 3.

Cool Music: Bleach had cool music, from very solid rock’n’roll and R&B style songs in its OPs and EDs to very funky OST music with lots of pizzazz. Many singers feature by Bleach ended up successful (to varying degrees) outside of anime, eg: Orange Range, UVERworld, YUI, sid, etc.

Versatile tone: Bleach was edgy, there’s no doubt about that. It was willing to show a lot of blood and bodily violence, especially in the manga (eg half of people blowing up and bits of bone still attached). Despite this though, it was not pretentious about its edginess — it didn’t revel in it. To contrast the edginess, there is a lot of humour in Bleach with character interactions. It was able to be laid back enough with its strong characters that it would rely on the characters’ relationships for comedic relief. The post-credit skits and the fillers really helped to add to this overall feel as well.

Maturity of the Story: Bleach was very willing to handle topics that made people think. For example, the Ulquiorra - Orihime subarc was treated with a sense of carefulness about it, as if to reflect Ulquiorra’s own cautious curiosity about the heart. A less emotionally mature story would’ve gone for the cheap rape/torture porn, but instead we are treated to determined strong Orihime, who has found strength through the heart after the death of her brother, clashing with the nihilistic hollow who wants to know if there is happiness outside of emptiness. It’s a very loaded question and one that requires both perspective and life experience to fully understand both parties. As well, Bleach always knew what it wanted to say about life and death as the final conflict of Bleach is between Ichigo, who has accepted his transient life and Yhwach, who is scared of death. And ultimately, underneath all that action, Bleach produced takes on its themes that were hard to relate to unless the reader themselves had a certain level of emotional maturity (eg: 12 year old me got nothing out of the Ulqui-Ori arc, but 20 year old me spent a good 10 mins crying after)

Strong characters: Contrary to popular belief, Bleach does have quite solid characterization. In fact, Bleach is the journey of Ichigo as a character, from grappling with his weakness and pain to finally accepting all the parts of himself and his history in order to defeat Yhwach and protect those he cares about. Even the secondary characters of Bleach receive a sizable amount of backstory and/or development. Bleach also managed to have more proactive female characters. Even the damsel in distress Orihime stands up to Ulquiorra and slaps him. As a result of these strong characters, Bleach was able to rely on them and their relationships to drive aspects of the story (eg Ichigo crying in the Fullbringer arc).

Willingness to Deal with Emotion: Given that Ichigo is an internally motivated character, it was obvious Bleach would deal with emotion at some point in time. Making Ichigo just a normal high school boy also relives the previous edginess. Bleach also clearly too the time to make its readers feel in its early years. We are treated to beautiful panelling and very real displays of strong negative emotions. Bleach is also very good at giving its characters room to breathe and be sad. Eg: moping Orihime, moping Ichigo, etc. As well, Kubo went to extraordinary lengths to break Ichigo down during the Fullbringers Arc.

Interesting Character Designs: Every character in Bleach feels vibrant and unique with their personality showing through in their designs. For example: Shunshi’s sloppily tied up hair, visible stubble, and overcoat-hidden-haori show that he is both easy going and not looking for a fight; meanwhile Byakuya’s neatly pulled back hair and neck covered by scarf show that he is both someone who likes structure and is conservative.

Poetry and Symbolism: Kubo manages to weave poetry into Bleach in the beginning of each volume. The poem was said by the character on the volume. It gave the reader insight to this character and it gave Kubo a chance to flex his poetic chops. Further proof of this is the fact that many people don’t realize that the name “Bleach” refers to the bleaching of soul that is key to the story. Kubo loves to use rain to set sad scenes. It rains when Ichigo fights Grand Fisher, Zangetsu tells Ichigo that he hates the rain, etc. Kubo also specifies that he wishes for the reader to read certain volumes on stormy, rainy nights.

Panelling: Many people like to criticize Kubo for the lack of effort with the Bleach manga, but Kubo has stated that he uses negative space (i.e., foregoing backgrounds) to focus more on his character’s expressions. This not only further proves that Bleach cares a lot about its characters, but it’s done well enough that the average reader likely doesn’t notice the lack of background on the first read through. As well, Bleach has very cinematic panelling. Kubo uses the format of manga well, utilizing the human mind’s ability to fill blanks in with clever panelling to create tone and build tension and the feeling of movement through a scene.

In fact, in finding pages for this analysis, I found myself noticing that Bleach panels very similarly to slice-of-life shoujo but with a boy MC manga like "Horimiya": focus on expression through intimate angles and use of panels and breaks to create mood and the feeling of cinema; whereas something like DBZ panels like a shounen action manga with many hard lines and action shots, instead of a focus on subtle details and emotions.

Some Examples:

Notice now in Chapter 197: The approaching danger, Kubo uses a gradual zoom to build tension and the black background to add intensity and signal to the reader that Hitsugaya is relaying important information.

Here in Chapter 234: Not Negotiation, the immediate close up to Ulquiorra’s eye from the full body shots creates a sense of intimidation and unease with its sudden intimacy. As well, the immediate zoom in from Ulquiorra’s side full body shot to his facial profile creates tension and the change from the dark background to the white face with Orihime releases this tension (very fitting with considering the line for this panel is “but not you”). (This scene also ties into Ulquiorra’s central dogma of “that which is not reflected in my eyes does not exist’.)

Again in the same chapter, this gradual zoom in on the two creates tension that is then release in the next panel and summarily cements Ulquiorra as a terrifying BAMF.

In Chapter 262: Unblendable, Kubo uses the negative space to create a feeling of isolation, similar to how Orihime is supposed to be feeling.

In the same chapter, notice how Kubo creates a sense of intimacy (not in the romance sense) with the relationship of Ulquiorra and Orihime. He creates tension gradually with the zooming into Orihime’s eye and releases it with the zoom out to Ulquiorra. Through this scene, Kubo has shown us that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a tense relationship and with the implication of eye contact through the shots and panel breaks creating both the intimacy and showing Orihime’s defiance.

(Interestingly, I’ve noticed that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a lot of these intimate zoom shot-reverse-shot eye panels)

___________________

What are the Bad Parts of Bleach?

Okay, so by now, you’re probably thinking that I’m ignoring the massive amounts of critique that Bleach gets and don’t get me wrong, while Bleach does have a very special place in my heart, I’m also not maudlin enough to pretend that Bleach was all good.

Pacing:

Pacing in the First Half of Bleach (Karakura Town - Arrancar)

When Bleach first started out the pacing was excellent. Kubo showed great mastery of pace to control the tone and highlight the emotions throughout the first two arcs. Mid-way through the Arrancar arc, the fatigue sets in and it was hard to keep up with, especially since Kubo would interrupt one exciting fight set up to go set up more plot elsewhere (eg Fake Karakura town right as Ichigo and Ulquiorra were about to battle). Whilst looking back and reading it all at once does help with the pacing, it was frustrating if you were reading/watching on a weekly basis.

Pacing in the Anime:

I don’t ascribe to a simplistic belief of “fillers bad” simply because I think that sometimes fillers can be a good thing, for example, since every chapter is ~15-20pp, some character interactions have to be cut for the sake for space, so filler is a great opportunity to add those moments back into your story. For example, a lot of early Bleach fillers are just the people of Karakura town just hanging out. That being said, Bleach does have an unfortunate amount of fillers, with some of them even interrupting tense fights (eg the Beast Sword Arc interrupts Ichigo’s battle with Ulquiorra). However, the padding that the fillers provided did wonders for the transition between Soul Society to Arrancar Arc in the anime. Ultimately, the Bleach anime adaption was a long-running anime made for syndication and that’s okay.

******* Brief Aside: many people like(d?) to point out that Bleach has a very cyclical plot structure. I used to think this way too; however, this is not the case. There are many other long running stories that repeat similar goals. The problem lies not in the idea, but the execution. The main complaint about the Orihime rescue was not that it was uninteresting, but instead that it felt a rehash of the plot of the previous arc. This is largely because the story was not given enough time to breath between similar character arcs. For example, in One Piece, Luffy and Co have to save Nami and by extension, her home village so she can join them; however, the next time a Straw Hat needs to be saved is 227 chapters (2 whole story arcs) later. In between saving Rukia and Orihime, there is only a really an arrancar encounter, a bit of training, cheering up Ichigo, and a Grimmjow encounter before Orihime goes with Ulquiorra, thus making the goal of this arc “save Orihime” in only ~59 chapters vs 227. These two similar arc goals so close to each other does indeed create the sense of repetition.

Pacing from Fullbringer to End:

This is where Bleach really lost a lot of people. If you weren’t gone after the Ulquiorra fight, you probably were by this arc.This arc went at breakneck speed, and ngl, during my first full read through I almost gave up here too. I mention earlier that Ichigo had been broken down in this arc, but it was hard to feel his despair and the weight on his shoulders because there wasn’t enough for the reader to take a beat and breathe. The Thousand Year Blood War, similarly suffered from sloppy pacing, with many readers feeling like story lines of Squad 0 and the Soul King were anti-climactic. As well, this arc started with a massacre and feature the deaths of many fan-favourite characters, and unfortunately due to the pacing, their deaths were not given a sense of gravity.

Missed Opportunities and Forgotten Story lines: Many people felt that Kubo forgot about a lot of his characters after the Aizen arc. Many thought the Fullbringer Arc was going to be a Chad/Orihime Arc. Whatever happened to Uryuu lolol? We all just collectively forgot about him for a large portion of the last half of Bleach. At one point in time, there was a rumour going around that Kubo had written out the story for Bleach and lost it. Idk if there is any credibility to it. However, in a 2017 interview, Kubo did say that he did end the series exactly the way he wanted to.

(If anyone wants to see me write an entire ass text post about Orihime and her treatment in Bleach, please let me know because I will do it)

Too mature:Even though above, I praised Bleach's mature handle on its themes, an unfortunate side effect of this is forgetting that the characters are only 15 at the beginning and for the first half of Bleach. This unfortunately, leads to some readers feeling disconnected from Bleach.

Epilogue: THE DESTROYER OF SHIPS!!! A lot of people hated this ending. Many people felt like the romance was shoe-horned in, others didn’t like the pairings, and there were some people who actually liked it. Personally, I didn’t like it too much, but it was a cute conclusion nonetheless. Since it didn't add anything to the story except for a "where are they now" look and because of that, I low-key felt like it was unnecessary, but w/e.

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Perspective

Making a long-running weekly serialized story is hard and doing it for 15 years is gruelling (obligatory “fuck capitalism” here). Like many artists of long-running manga, Kubo destroyed his health for the sake of publishing Bleach weekly. Kubo on his health after Bleach (photo from AshitanoGin on Twitter):

Given this insight, I think it’s only fair to be respectful and grateful for Kubo’s contribution to the anime-sphere. Also, through his work, Kubo seems to be a very understanding person and artist. I’m sure he knows better than anyone where Bleach went wrong, but there’s nothing that can be done now. Despite him having a twitter, he is not Joanne and doesn’t feel the need to constantly hemorrhage out word of god info about Bleach (and thank god for that).

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Final Thoughts

It’s hard to forget my happy memories when I think about Bleach. It had my first adolescent crush and first OTP. As a result, I think the best way to enjoy Bleach is to take what you want out of it. People always think that something has to be 100% without flaw for it to be good, but that is not true at all. It is totally okay to just like the parts that you like without engaging with anything else. It’s special to you for a reason, you know?

There’s no use in fretting over what Bleach could’ve been, besides, very rarely is the reality better than the fantasy in your head.

I do think though that a lot of Kubo’s issues could’ve been fixed if he planned the story better but not all of us can be “I've been planning One Piece since elementary school” Oda Eiichiro.

Other voices on this issue: here

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Wow. I can’t believe you made it this far down. Congratulations! Thanks for reading my 2:30am non-sober take on Bleach (it only took me 7 hours to write). Here's a cookie <3

#bleach #pro bleach #analysis #writing #characters #ramblings #pro orihime #orihime #ichigo #ulquiorra cifer #hot take #quarantine thoughts #late night #weebshit #criticism #critique #anime review #manga #i'm still bleach

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milgrammer · 4 years

Text

[Theory] First Trial: Haruka

Introduction:

Disclaimer: this post will mention sensitive themes such as homicide, animal abuse, and developmental disorders. Discretion while reading is advised. Furthermore, we are not health professionals. Any diagnoses made within this theory are purely based on independent research.

So, I posted the first draft of this on the MV under the username ‘Mai x’, but the character limit for a single YouTube comment is stingy—even had to split it into two. This theory has progressed since. Honestly, there’s no point in reading the original.

In Short:

This theory is founded on the three arguments as follows, strongest to weakest:

Haruka has some degree of autism

Haruka has a brother, likely a twin

The MV retells his memories in chronological order

Haruka and his twin brother grew up with equal amounts of affection until it became apparent that Haruka was mentally developing slower in comparison. Consequently, his mother (figure) engaged with his brother more by going outside with him etc, while Haruka was left with the assistance dog. For this reason, he viewed his brother as competition for attention and began to bully him.

Later, Haruka fell in love with a girl, possibly named Mirai, but she couldn’t reciprocate those feelings since she favoured his brother, which drove Haruka to strangle her. The authorities caught him in the act, and she survived. His mother (figure), concerned about Haruka’s behaviour, tries to interact with him more, but he is dismissive and believes that she does not believe his explanations. However, still craving her attention and mistaking her frantic words for praise, he continues to hurt other children.

His brother played with Haruka’s assistance dog. Upset, Haruka lured it away. His brother went into the woods looking for it and followed the pawprints. He saw Haruka beating the dog with a stone and tried to stop him, resulting in his hands being dirtied with blood as well. The authorities discover Haruka again, and this time, their mother (figure) had to give them up.

Completely distraught, Haruka blames his brother and drowns him. He is once again discovered by the authorities, but now finally realises that he had been misunderstanding everyone his whole life, and admits that he was the one, who was truly mistaken.

IN-DEPTH UNDER THE CUT

Some Clarifications:

Heads up. If all three statements are falsified, we’ll be back at square one.

There’s strong evidence to suggest Haruka does have autism as he exhibits many common signs, such as lack of eye contact, having little danger awareness, not understanding social cues, deficits in language comprehension, and so on. The list could continue, but I encourage you to look them up yourself. In my opinion, he exhibits far too many for it to be considered coincidental.

I’m more of a linguistic descriptivist, so when I describe certain phrases as “unnatural/odd” or “expected”, a prescriptivist would consider them to be grammatically “incorrect” or “correct” respectively.

The existence of his twin is based on the young boy in the MV, and how closely he resembles Haruka. A common interpretation is that this boy is Haruka’s younger self, but there’s more evidence to suggest the former, which will be explained later.

Assuming that the MV retells Haruka’s memories in chronological order is admittedly just a leap of faith. However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as crucial.

Compared to the English version, the original Japanese lyrics are far more ambiguous and have more possible interpretations. It’s partly due to the Japanese language itself, and partly due to Haruka’s grammar. In my opinion, the translated lyrics portray Haruka’s mindset more clearly, so referenced both in this write-up. Any re-translations aren’t meant to discredit the original but should serve as alternatives. After all, I can only imagine how much fun the official translator had with these lyrics.

I’ll be referring to the following, so please acquaint yourself with them:

Weakness MV

Undercover MV

Haruka’s drama CD

Haruka’s profile

Es’ drama CD

Ambiguity/Uncertainties:

It’s safe to assume the lady in the MV is Haruka’s mother, adoptive parent or some sort of guardian, however, there’s not enough evidence to confirm which she is—the difference in hair colours is throwing me off. The line 『ねえどうして変わらないでよ』 (Hey, tell me why. Please don’t change) has two possible interpretations. The first is that his mother’s attitude towards him had changed, and the second is that his aunt or another woman resembling his mother had adopted them, but Haruka thought that they were the same person. This could also explain why no father figure was shown. For now, she’ll be referred to as the “mother (figure)”.

We can’t determine whether his brother is autistic as well, albeit high-functioning, or if he’s neurotypical since studies show that if one twin has autism, the other is likely to have it as well¹. The latter is more likely, but what could’ve happened is that Haruka was diagnosed and they assumed his brother also had it. The scene, where his brother plays with the assistance dog, is bugging me.

The number of ‘sins’ Haruka has committed is unknown. The minimum is 3, the girl, the dog, and his brother, while the maximum is indefinite. The line 『昨日をくり返してあきらめって大事だけど』 (I repeated yesterday, though it’s important to give up) could imply that he had hurt several of his peers in a similar manner, and consequently lost hope in establishing relationships with others. He also appears to have morphology and syntax deficits judging from the grammar used there and throughout the song.

Poster Analysis:

This tweet was posted by Mana Inoue on the visual creation team and showcases the main symbols used in the MV.

Bear in mind, botany isn’t my strong point. In the comment, I claimed they were yellow carnations, which would represent disappointment and rejection. However, they might be a breed of yellow roses, symbolising jealousy. The more I look at them, the more confused I become. It’s not something worth lamenting over though. Both meanings fit with his storyline.

I think the woman with two angels is meant to be a homage to the various depictions of “Madonna and Child with Two Angels”. The ‘Madonna’ represents the mother figure, while the two angels represent Haruka and his brother, vying for her attention.

The blue-green gradient of the poster frame and the dressing table mirror at the centre of the poster reflecting an underwater image both tie in with how he drowned his brother.

The red moon in the background is considered to be a bad omen in fiction, especially when referred to as a ‘blood moon’, but since Haruka is seen to constantly be waking up from nightmares, we can use Freud’s dream interpretations. In this case, the moon is a yonic symbol and would represent Haruka’s desire for maternal affection.

MV Analysis:

Things to point out beforehand:

Haruka is an unreliable narrator. His lyrics, especially, shouldn’t be taken at face value.

The title 『弱肉共食』 is an alteration of the idiom 『弱肉強食』 which translated literally would be ‘The weak are meat, the strong eat’ otherwise known as ‘the law of the jungle’ or ‘survival of the fittest’ in English. However, 『強』 is replaced with 『共』 which represents ‘sameness’, so the go-to translation would be ‘weak meat cannibalism’, but to preserve the nature of the idiom, I’d view it as ‘the weak are meat, eat your kin’.

The original idiom encompasses the notion of ‘competition’, which arises from scarcity. So, why and for what is Haruka competing? Slightly obvious, but it’s attention/affection. He likely viewed it as some sort of rival good i.e. the more the mother figure paid attention to his brother, the less attention Haruka would receive for himself, therefore no brother would equal more attention. Sounds grim, but siblicide isn’t uncommon in the animal kingdom, especially if resources are sparse. This also hints at how Haruka likely had a twin, rather than a younger or older brother since the original would’ve fit just as well were it the latter.

The Japanese subtitles often spell words with hiragana and katakana, where kanji characters would more likely be used. Haruka is around high school age, but, judging from his kanji usage, his comprehension is estimated to be at a sixth grader’s level max. The kanji 『降』 in 『下降』 (kakou/descend) is taught in 6th grade, and the others he uses are taught even earlier. Despite words such as 『僕』 (boku/I) and 『犠牲』 (gisei/sacrifice) being repeated, they’re still written in hiragana. This is probably because they’re normally taught at secondary education, which explains why middle-school level kanji such as 『違』 in 『間違う』 (machigau/to misunderstand) and 『繰』 in 『繰り返す』 (kurikaesu/to repeat) are written with hiragana instead. The implication is that Haruka has learning difficulties—another feature associated with autism.

0:00 It begins with Haruka at a dressing table, implied to be his mother (figure)’s from the cosmetics. The necklace he wears likely belonged to her. Notice its green centre and purple outer layer—those colours are also used for the eyes seen within the MV. This could symbolise his mother (figure) watching over him, and since he wished for her attention, it’d explain why he continues to wear it.

0:05 The reflection in the mirror flickers between Haruka and his twin. This might symbolise how Haruka fears his twin might replace him and highlights their resemblance to one another. The scene transitions to Haruka sinking in a body of water. This water motif suggests that drowning his brother was Haruka’s main sin.

0:20 The drawing of a lady and a boy represents his mother (figure) and his twin—the hand of the boy is outstretched, touching Haruka’s, which implies they were a family of three. He asks why his mother (figure) is distancing herself and if it’s his fault. What might’ve happened was his mother (figure) spent more time outside with his brother, and left Haruka indoors with the assistance dog. His jealousy could’ve clouded his judgment though, and she might’ve spent equal time with them in reality.

Haruka is in the shadows, avoiding the lights, which could imply that he was never in the ‘spotlight’. The assistance dog wears a harness and appears to be a mix between a Labrador and a German Shepherd—both common breeds used for this line of work. There might’ve been more than one dog and Haruka’s memories fused them together.

0:29 The boy smiles brightly. Some claim that this boy is a representation of Haruka’s younger self, but I’m doubtful. His resentful lyrics are at a dissonance with the boy’s cheerfulness. Plus, a major sign of autism in children is ‘not reciprocating a smile’, so it’s unlikely for the little boy to be Haruka. I understand that autism is complicated and surfaces differently according to the individual, but Haruka is fictional, and it’d be logical to assume that his character was written with some of the major signs in mind. Not to mention, the only time we see 17-year-old Haruka smile is at the end of the MV after he’s killed his brother.

0:36 The fire-breathing dragon, according to dream interpretations, symbolises being emotionally overwhelmed. Also, the lyrics ‘the words I tried to say were: “you’re unfair/cowardly”’ are probably directed towards his brother. The implication is that Haruka was jealous of his brother, believing that he ‘made himself look weaker’ to receive more attention, but couldn’t express this through words since his language competence was so low. Consequently, Haruka used rudimentary methods to express himself e.g. physical aggression and crying.

In this scene, Haruka pulls his brother’s shirt collar and his frightened expression as he hesitantly looks up at Haruka implies that he already knows what the repercussions for clinging to their mother (figure) are.

0:39 There’s a monster drawing behind Haruka; this represents Haruka’s self-perception and/or his brother’s perception of him, emphasising how he’s viewed as inhuman.

『ダメ』 [dame] is messy to translate without context. The Japanese subtitles read 『ダメだね』 [dame da ne] but I believe Haruka had misheard his mother (figure) and what she actually said was 『ダメダメ』 [dame dame]. Only one phoneme off. Even though the first could be translated as “You’re hopeless” when used to describe a person, it’s probably a misunderstanding on Haruka’s behalf. In certain contexts or when repeated like this, 『ダメ』 is used to ask someone to stop—a lighter version of 『止めて』 (yamete/stop) and arguably more common. So, his mother (figure) tried telling Haruka to stop bullying his brother i.e. grabbing him and pushing him into puddles etc, but Haruka thought she was insulting him instead. In short, he struggles to understand the contextual use of words.

0:42 “If only I could do what anyone else could do” likely refers to social interactions and the ability to communicate smoothly.

『違った筈の未来は不平等に恋をした』 are the lyrics in a ‘standardised’ form. Some meaning is lost when it’s translated as “The right future unfairly chose the wrong me”, but the translator probably chose it to preserve its ambiguity. A closer version would be “The future, which was supposed to be different, fell in love unequally.” However, 『未来』 (mirai/future) can also be a girl’s name, so it could be translated as “Mirai, who was supposed to be different, fell in love unequally.” Even if that isn’t her name, the gist remains the same—she preferred Haruka’s brother. Some have suggested that she’s their sister, but 『恋をする』 has clear romantic connotations. Doesn’t fully discredit it, but it’s unlikely. Her “falling in love unequally” could be another misunderstanding made by Haruka, which parallels how he viewed the treatment from his mother (figure).

The scene, set as the thumbnail as of now, where Haruka is covering his ears and closing his eyes, depicts him suffering from sensory overload since autism is linked to light and sound sensitivity², and this event takes place at presumably some sort of festival or theme park, judging by the fireworks. He probably still enjoyed the outing since candyfloss is one of his favourite foods.

0:56 His brother steals his girl. What a madlad. As a result, Haruka screams and cries—one of the rudimentary forms of self-expression. This time Haruka uses the verb 『愛する』 [aisuru] a more versatile way of saying ‘to love’, which implies how he craves love in any form.

What was Haruka denying? Many things probably. He thought that his brother was the root problem, everyone was actively against him and he wasn’t at fault, etc.

It's important to note that Haruka has a habit of forming sentences using: noun + 『をする』 or 『をしていた』 in the MV, which is the past progressive. It's sometimes common e.g. 『否定をしていた』 (I was in denial) but other times it's unnatural, such as 『悲鳴をしていた』. 『悲鳴を上げていた』 (himei wo agete ita/I was screaming) is the expected form. It can use 『が』 instead of the 『を』 depending on the context, but it takes 『上げる』 not 『する』.

It's similar to saying "I was doing a scream" You can understand what the speaker is trying to say, but the wording is odd. More of these sentence structures are present later on.

The faces of his mother (figure) and the little girl are scribbled out probably because he can’t remember them or what expressions they made. A simplistic explanation, but ASD is linked with having lower development in face processing³, so it’s likely.

1:04 Haruka is shown shrouded in those yellow flowers. How aesthetic. (Snapchat filter idea?) He then extends his arm towards the girl, but she’s out of his reach—metaphorically. What did Haruka want to confirm? His previously mentioned beliefs. This is why he seems to develop some self-awareness at the end. With his brother out of the picture, there’d be no one else to blame.

1:07 The chorus clarifies that his motive was to gain attention. The 『あっはっは』 is laughter, but I don’t think it’s out of malice. Those with autism often exhibit expressions, which would be considered inappropriate in given social scenarios e.g. laughing at a funeral. I believe that Haruka was frustrated and emotionally overwhelmed, so when he laughed, he was actually trying to weep as he did at the end of the MV.

During the scene where the girl’s shadow is between his hands, no scribbles are present, which represent blood/death. This hints at how he hurt the girl, perhaps by strangulation, but didn’t kill her. Judging from his expression and the round light, probably from a flashlight, he was caught by either a stranger or the authorities.

Some have suggested that he killed the girl as well, however it’d make more logical sense for the severity of repercussions to reflect the severity of his ‘sins’. Why would the authorities later separate his mother (figure) from him after the dog incident, but pardon him for homicide? Things wouldn’t add up.

1:30 A lack of cooperative behaviour, i.e. not sharing or taking turns, is associated with ASD⁴, so if his mother (figure) knew, she might’ve been encouraging the two to share. Another possibility is that Haruka might’ve been diagnosed with anxiety or depression, while his autism went undetected. That scene really bugs me. Can you tell? Either way, Haruka isn’t too happy about it.

His repetition of “I’m fine” implies that he’s brushing off his mother (figure), who’s trying to find out why he’s behaving this way. He misunderstands the word 『外れ』 [hazure]. Another messy word to translate out of context. It roughly means “to miss/be off”. Sometimes you say it when someone answers a question incorrectly or if someone hasn’t gotten the point. To express disappointment, you’d usually say 『期待外れ』 (kitai hazure/not living up to one’s expectations), but the fact that he excluded 『期待』 (kitai/expectation) implies that he’s misunderstood someone again.

His mother (figure) looks at him disagreeably when he tries to explain his viewpoint. This is probably because he views the entire world as being against him.

Haruka lures the dog into the woods and his brother searches for it—having his brother discover the corpse might’ve been his plan as well

He mistakes 『狂ってる』 [kurutteru] for praise. This can mean “You’re crazy”, but there’s neither a subject nor topic marker present, so she could just be saying “this (situation) is insane”. However, this misunderstanding is probably why he continues committing ‘sins’. He’ll take whatever attention he can get, he doesn’t understand the reality of his actions and believes that doing these deeds will make him more ‘human’.

2:00 『犠牲をしていた』is another instance of the aforementioned sentence structuring.『犠牲にしてた』 with the 『に』 particle would be the expected form, which could mean “I was making a sacrifice”. However, I suspect he was trying to say something like 『僕のことを犠牲にしていた』 or 『僕が犠牲になった』 roughly translating to “you did it at my expense” or “it was at my expense”. That would explain why the official translation was “I became a victim”.

“My loneliness was desired” could entail that he wanted to either be an only child or he purposely pushed people away—might explain why he was trying to brush off his mother earlier. It could also be interpreted as “You desired my loneliness”. In that sense, Haruka would be accusing his brother of trying to isolate him from other people.

2:10『下降をしていた』 is translated as ‘I was falling’, but since the subject is omitted, he could also be referring to a multitude of things, such as his well-being, grades, reputation, etc. Again, 『下降していた』 would be the expected form and the verb itself is rarely seen outside of technical reports.『下げる』 (sageru/to lower) or 『落ちる』 (ochiru/to fall) would be more commonly used in the vernacular. I can’t provide a direct equivalent since there’s too little context, but I suspect that Haruka heard/read the word somewhere and assumed it to generally mean ‘to go downwards’.

He goes on to state that his “starting position in life was wrong”; it implies how he’s realised that his way of thinking was innately different from others. We then see the circular light shining over his hands, signifying that the authorities have found out once again.

2:30 Some trippy visuals. The background is a collage of his afterimages. The Haruka-like silhouette might represent how his brother would’ve grown up by this time had Haruka not killed him.

2:40 This is likely the last memory Haruka had of his mother (figure) and an odd one at that—she stands alone, her posture stiff, the line of suspended lamps being the only other item of interest. I think it depicts her being taken to court. Law isn’t my speciality, but the scene composition does resemble the typical layout of a Japanese courtroom. With the mother (figure) at the witness stand, the lamps could either represent the judicial panel or the prosecution/defence. She might’ve been arrested under the suspicion of child abuse since the various incidents of Haruka’s aggression could be regarded as warning signs. Also, if Haruka’s recounts aligned with his lyrics, it wouldn’t aid her case.

Were the authorities instead concerned about Haruka himself, he would’ve been classified as a juvenile. By this time, I suspect his age to be around 5 to 10. Since the Penal Code of Japan provides that the acts committed by those under 14 aren’t punishable, they probably referred the twins to a correctional facility. In this case, their resemblance and/or the dirtying of his brother’s hands likely played a role since Haruka was separated from his mother, but not him. That wouldn’t be possible if Haruka was admitted alone.

In either scenario, their case would’ve been dealt with in a family court. It’s unclear whether she was separated from them during an investigation or because they’d already taken protective measures, but, either way, this was the probably last time they saw her.

2:45 Haruka is probably referring to his mother (figure) at this point in the MV and wonders where she is. After the incident with the dog, she likely had to relinquish her parental responsibility/guardianship. We no longer see those green-purple eyes after she leaves, which could symbolise how she’s no longer there to watch over him. It’s interesting how Haruka cries from his right eye, while the silhouette among the afterimages cries from its left. I think it’s hinting at how the silhouette is not Haruka, but his brother. This may also imply that when they were both alive, they could’ve been mistaken for one another, which could link to the last line of the song, “it was me”.

2:52 In a final attempt to get his mother back or to ‘punish’ his brother, which he thought of as the wrongdoer, Haruka drowns him. His lifeless body, indicated by the scribbles, is soaked and Haruka cries atop of him, realising that his brother wasn’t the problem. From Es’ “Undercover” we can see Haruka pushing his brother, represented by Es, into the water, and his brother gasping for air.

3:28 At the end of the MV, we see the same light, implying that the authorities discovered him once again. Judging by his expression, Haruka finally understands that he was the one at fault. His speech in the background is a repetition of the lyrics without the “ahaha”. From how he speaks, I think the lines 『誰か気づいてよ』 and 『間違っていたのは僕だった』 should instead be treated as a run-on rather than end-stops. And if that’s the case, his spoken lines may be translated as follows: “Please notice me. Someone, please notice that I was the one who was wrong. Yeah, it was me.” It hints at how he not only wants his existence acknowledged, but he also wants someone to understand that his way of thinking is dissimilar to others and especially was during that period. Those last words “yes, it was me” alongside his second file 『申し訳ないなと思っています』 (It’s inexcusable/I feel bad about it) heavily imply that he now understands the reality of his actions and feels remorse.

Drama CD Analysis:

Key points to note:

Haruka fails to understand the complex constructions Es uses at the beginning and struggles to form them as well. Es notices this and uses easier, more straight-forward sentences later in the interview

He stutters and pauses frequently

He fails to recognise the different meanings of homonyms, in this case, 『起きる』 (to happen/wake up)

He uses 『ごめんなさい』 [gomennasai] when 『すみません』 [sumimasen] would be more contextually appropriate. Both can be translated as ‘sorry’, but the former is far heavier, similar to ‘please forgive me’, whereas the latter is lighter, equivalent to ‘excuse me’ or ‘my bad’. He doesn’t seem to be aware of the contextual difference

Haruka puts heavy emphasis on ‘speaking’. This could suggest that he received speech therapy at some sort of psychiatric institution or rehabilitation centre judging from his clothes. Furthermore, he might’ve enjoyed it or he feels at ease when talking to others since he can finally be ‘understood’

More than other prisoners, he seems attached to Yuno and Mahiru, both being young women with warm demeanours. He eagerly mentions them to Es and when he lists the prisoners he often talks to, he immediately states their names again and leaves pause before mentioning others. He likely enjoys female attention because of his desire for maternal affection.

He’s afraid of ‘adults’ like Kazui and Shido. It’s unclear if it’s adults in general or specifically adult men, which would make more sense as there’s no father figure present in the MV

He’s afraid of Amane and claims that children her age evoke bad memories. He also seems to be fiddling his hands during that topic. Probably a coping mechanism. He likely committed all of his sins at an age even younger than hers.

He’s afraid of Kotoko, but honestly who isn’t? It’s strange how Haruka gets along with Futa since Kotoko and Futa both have ‘harsh’ personalities. She might remind him of his mother (figure)

Es comments on how Haruka appears to have a lack of fear and has unnatural responses to given situations e.g. smiling when being interrogated

Haruka has a fear of abandonment, claiming if others were to find out about his wrongdoings, he'd be ‘thrown away’

Extras to note:

His type is AB, associated with being ‘dual-natured’. It highlights how he fluctuates between being weak/reserved and having aggressive outbursts

His horoscope is cancer, a water sign. Links in with how his brother was killed

『遥』 His name is written with the kanji meaning ‘far off’ and ‘distant’

In his profile, Haruka says 『僕は人も殺しています』. Interesting how he attached the 『も』 particle to 『人』 (hito/person) rather than 『僕』 (boku/I). Had he attached it to the latter, it would’ve given the impression that he ‘killed someone just like everybody else in the prison’, however, his usage implies that he ‘killed a person as well as something else’. You can work it out, can’t you?

Haruka likely suffers from perpetration-induced traumatic stress (PITS) or perpertator trauma for short. He’s shown to have various PTSD symptoms; for example, nightmares (shown by how he constantly wakes up with a frightened expression on his face in the MV), flashbacks and physical sensations a result of them (both implied in the drama CD). Haruka also seemingly tries to avoid remembering his actions or talking about them, which is another sign of PTSD. We know he dislikes young children since they bring back “bad memories”, so the same likely goes for animals as well. Some sufferers of perpetrator trauma may have nightmares in which they act out the events as the victim rather than the offender. This isn’t as concrete since Haruka and his brother might just look similar, but the boy in the MV could be Haruka in his younger form re-enacting as him. The corpse in the final scene is in the outline of a young boy, but we can’t see his features. Haruka might’ve also forgotten what his brother looked like.

Judgment/Conclusion:

In the future, I’ll probably never be this insistent again, but in Haruka’s case, I’d highly recommend voting “forgive”. I didn’t draw that conclusion out of bias or sympathy; it’s a strategic move. The next set of MVs are based on this trial’s judgment and Jackalope also mentioned in Es’ drama CD (paraphrased): “open up his heart and you’ll hear lots from him”. Therefore, choosing “don't forgive” would likely be to our detriment as the opposite may happen, i.e. he’ll become more reserved or try to suppress his memories even further.

Other than that, there are other valid reasons to vote him as forgivable, e.g. his age, his mental state, his remorse, etc. I suspect some will vote him as unforgivable solely because of the dog incident. After all, the death of an animal tends to evoke a stronger reaction than homicide in fiction... It’s just a hunch.

References:

Tick, B., Bolton, P., Happé, F., Rutter, M. and Rijsdijk, F., 2015. Heritability of autism spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis of twin studies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(5), pp.585-595.

Colman, R., Frankel, F., Ritvo, E. and Freeman, B., 1976. The effects of fluorescent and incandescent illumination upon repetitive behaviours in autistic children. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia, 6(2), pp.157-162.

Dawson, G., Webb, S. and McPartland, J., 2005. Understanding the Nature of Face Processing Impairment in Autism: Insights From Behavioral and Electrophysiological Studies. Developmental Neuropsychology, 27(3), pp.403-424.

Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. Signs & Symptoms | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | NCBDDD | CDC. [online] Available at: <https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/signs.html

#I've replayed the song so many times that I've forgotten how lovely it actually sounds #might buy that lap pillow off Yuno now #haruka sakurai #haruka #milgram #ミルグラム考察 #ミルグラム #deco*27 #theory #弱肉共食 #桜井遙

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