#unless he suddenly loses the ability to write I know her story is going to be well handled

[fromtheseventhhell]

How it feels knowing I'll enjoy Arya's arc whether my theories are right or not because I'm a fan of what's written in the books, not what I projected onto her character

[fedzkun]

Villain Hunt Arc Meta: All For One’s Horrific Guide to Methodically Breaking Down Your Local OFA Holder

Ft. Turning the ‘Overpoweredness’ of OFA into a Setback, and AFO’s Successful Manipulations Of Midoriya Izuku

In which I also give AFO too much credit for all the pain he’s probably caused, and theorize that his plans to break Izuku actually started getting enacted even before he’d escaped Tartarus.

(A.k.a. me loving the angst because this is really good angst writing, but also hating it because the manga doesn’t come with a Angst with A Happy Ending tag unless you count Izuku’s ‘this is the story of how I became the greatest hero’ which isn’t really a guarantee of happiness )

So. What an arc! In the span of ten chapters (starting from the end of the War arc) Hori delivered a full-on Villain-looking, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku. Congratulations, Horikoshi, for finally introducing Akatani Mikumo!

The fast pacing and lack of breather panels are so fitting for this arc truly. AFO never gave them a moment’s rest. Yes, from henceforth as he’d promised... It’s always going to be his turn.

Izuku is making amazing progress with unlocking the full power of One For All. In his words, his abilities might as well already be on par with what a healthier All Might could do, and with no recoil to boot. Plus, there’s only one last quirk to unlock. For villain fights, I don’t think we need to worry about him losing, or him breaking anymore bones at this time.

Which, some might argue, makes Izuku too ‘OP.’

To start with, I want to talk first about the ‘overpoweredness’ of the One For All quirk. It’s a wonderful quirk truly, having inspired and amazed so many because of its sheer power. Used well, it could grant instant victories and restore the people’s wavering faith to the heroes. Because with a quirk like that on your side, everything’s going to be alright, right? There’s always gonna be that bit of hope that something is still strong enough to stand against the looming evil...right?

Yeah. That’s what the people who’d lived under All Might’s Era of Peace thought so too. History repeats.

OFA’s ‘OP-ness’ is both a great blessing and a great burden.

Here are some points on how the narrative has made OFA's 'overpoweredness' a setback:

1. All For One—that bastard—exploits the urge that comes with OFA. Just as ‘AFO the quirk’s’ goal is to steal OFA, OFA’s job is to defeat AFO, and Izuku is sacrificing himself to its cause.

Here’s another thing I want to point out: The conclusion that the heroes drew about AFO planning to capture Midoriya Izuku alive? In rereading, I’m starting to believe it’s nothing but a mere assumption of his plans. Aside from the deal made with Lady Nagant—of which I think AFO didn’t take seriously anyway and set her up for failure— (and while we as readers are already aware of his true intentions to wear Izuku down) it’s weird that nowhere had AFO directly mentioned to Izuku that he’s going to kidnap him and take his quirk from him.

2. OFA made Izuku so brilliant (e.g. Pros and former Pros alike going “This kid...”) that they really can't help but place all their hopes on him. Sighs. In an ideal world, this would be a dream come true of Izuku getting his due credit for all his heroic achievements Pro heroes have started to do to Izuku what they’ve done all their lives to All Might--which is to put him on the pedestal, while they fall back to cover him like guards/safety net. Hence, falling back to the One Pillar Model mindset.

3. OFA makes Izuku untouchable, not only to the villains, but also to his allies. Prime material to reinforce isolation. And if Izuku doesn't want to be caught, he won't make it easy for either side.

4. OFA IS SUS AF, OKAY? What are the Holders doing?! While gaining access to them makes it easier and convenient to have personal trainers in handling OFA, the vestiges prove to add a lot to Izuku’s mental load. If they’d allowed Izuku to come to the point of being caked with blood and filth, they’re not doing very well at guiding him. Realize that most of their arc interactions with Izuku is Quirk Talk. They, of all people, should know how AFO’s machinations work! Hey First, for the love of god, warn Izuku! He’s showing so many signs of being manipulated that you should be picking up on. please /sobs ;;

Tbf, like, I’m pretty sure that the Holders haven’t been as mentally okay either, which would feed into Izuku’s current mindset.

Now that the setbacks have been listed, let’s dive in to AFO’s plans to toy with Midoriya Izuku.

PHASE 1: Pre-Tartarus Breakout

Speaking of OFA being sus, there’s something that has been niggling at the back of my mind.

All For One basically tells Izuku: “You were my main interest that entire time I was in prison”. So, to pass the time in Tartarus (since he can’t use any(?) of his quirks), AFO has been doing nothing but apparently daydreaming and designing a personal hell for the Ninth Holder during that entire period. HOWEVER, it also made me wonder…

…Even before he’d broken out, had AFO made any moves at all in enacting his plans to break Izuku?

Yeah?

And here’s the kicker: he says that before Blackwhip bursted out.

AFO is a master manipulator. Assuming that Izuku doesn’t have any latent AFO quirk (for whatever reason *coughs* maybe dfo if you're a believer) or that Quirk Singularity has anything to do with it, what is the trigger to Izuku suddenly having access to Blackwhip?

I’d argue that it is All For One himself.

Why? What’s his goal? If you notice during the Joint Training arc, Izuku is feeling pretty confident about his progress. He’s rather happy and feeling blessed, and he is making leaps and bounds with base power OFA.

AFO can’t have that. He can’t allow the Ninth Holder to become too emotionally stable, or else he’d have a stronger will. So by somehow activating Blackwhip, AFO makes Izuku feel like he hasn’t made any progress with his quirk at all. During the evaluations, Izuku mentions that he still needs a lot to work on, and while not all of it is visible, with the way he behaves, it’s pretty evident that his self-confidence has taken a rather large hit.

But, wait! If AFO had tampered with OFA during the JT arc, paving the way to unlocking the rest (like he’d also done during the War arc when he tried to ‘steal’ it then), then wouldn’t AFO be sabotaging himself since he’d be making Izuku a more formidable opponent?

Sure. Except that the quirks inside OFA are mostly useless when it comes to the mental part of the fighting. The only thing they’re useful for is for the current Holder to be able to play keep-away in the physical realm. And AFO could easily just find counters for those through his work on Tomura.

You know how else the situation becomes advantageous for AFO? With every quirk unlocked, Izuku’s goalposts keep on getting away from him, and Izuku will always feel like he isn’t ready or prepared enough. Izuku will push and push himself to master OFA to its fullest, to become more powerful, at the cost of his mental/emotional stability and physical wellbeing as he wears himself down.

And every time Izuku grew more powerful, and became more ‘OP,’ he is burdened with all the aforementioned setbacks that came with it. He could be the most powerful person in the world, but it’s all for naught if he doesn’t take care of himself. This plan is both a high risk and high reward on AFO’s part, and as of the moment, with a bloody Izuku staggering all over, AFO is visibly reaping these high rewards.

PHASE 2: Post-Tartarus Breakout

He’s going to toy with Izuku until Izuku fucking breaks. What follows is his series of actions that instills the desired responses from Midoriya Izuku. Let’s see how the master manipulator plays this game of chess, shall we?

Izuku’s plan: Reach out to villains and try to save them.

AFO’s counter: Kill off those who turn their back against villainy and/or acknowledge Izuku as a true hero.

Izuku’s resulting response: Stop reaching out to villains. Gain an instant victory and move on.

After all, what do you get when you block a hero from showing sympathy? You get an unfeeling living weapon.

---

Izuku’s plan: Work with the top pro heroes to bring down AFO.

AFO’s counter: Make plans that will serve to highlight how the top pros are just slowing Izuku down. (e.g. Making moves while it’s raining, so as to divide them, but also to bring out No. 1 Hero Endeavor’s "slowness" in the rain. Nope, I don’t think that’s a throwaway line at all.)

Izuku’s resulting response: Grows more reckless, often leading the charge.

---

Izuku’s plan: Track AFO down.

AFO’s counter: Lead them to dead-ends. Or when they do supposedly reach something, endanger them.

Izuku’s resulting response: His tunnel vision worsens, as he grows more desperate.

---

Izuku’s plan: All Might following him around is okay since it would help All Might from worrying so much, and Izuku could simultaneously keep an eye on and protect All Might.

AFO’s counters: There are a lot to really fuck with this bond, damn you AFO.

Taint that passing the torch memory of ‘You’re Next.’

Declare that All Might no longer interests him. Liar. He outright stated before that he’s one for keeping a grudge

Send another assassin to Izuku [Underlying Message: You yourself are a walking danger zone to those whom you dearly care for.]

Izuku’s resulting response:

Interpret that memory of ‘You’re Next’ as taking up the position of being AFO’s shiny new plaything, and therefore supposedly sparing All Might from the torment (Unfortunately, making Izuku push AM away is just part of the torment ;A;)

Think that AM is no longer in the direct line of fire as long as AFO focuses on Izuku

Finally, push his last line of morale support away, and completely isolate himself.

Btw, I wonder how All Might feels about Izuku using Nana's quirk to get away from him.

---

The suffering doesn’t end.

Izuku’s plan: Save people.

AFO’s counters: (possibly offscreen) Send more villains and assassins to torment Izuku some more with the knowledge that he can’t save them. Sending villains out also puts innocents in danger.

Izuku’s resulting response: He won’t stop for anything. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t slow down. He will always do his best to save as long as someone is in danger.

His body will keep on moving and moving and MOVING on its own.

--- All For One is very effective as a supervillain. He has managed to make the heroes think that his only goal is to capture Izuku alive for his quirk. He has Izuku right where he wants him: dancing to his tune at the palm of his hand, utterly toyed with, left with no escape in sight.

Psychologically vaulted.

.

.

.

PHASE 3

And so, if Izuku is being manipulated to drive himself further and further into self-destruction, what then is there left for All For One to do?

So much more. Because, my god, I think AFO has mastered the art of traumatizing the OFA Holders.

All For One once told All Might, “I will destroy all that you’ve protected.” And boy, is he delivering. He's definitely not done with AM btw.

First, he destroys All Might's image. And he is manipulating Izuku to drive himself to that point. To looking into his absolute worst.

And when that point arrives, AFO will hammer the final nail home.

Something like...

BEHOLD

JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF PEACE.

And oh, how it'll hurt. To see All Might's pride and joy be flaunted about as looking nothing like a hero to the masses, for him to be so utterly humiliated.

"See what I did to All Might's successor."

AFO will be banking upon the possibility that the angry masses will not want to be saved by whom they're tricked into viewing as someone that's the cause of all the pain. Izuku might have the willpower to stay true to his resolve, but with him on the verge of total breakdown, what would happen when he is shunned by the very people he is trying to help?

I once wrote a post about how the current events seem to be a bastardization of Izuku's wildest fantasies: he's working with the top pros, he has the most powerful quirk, and he's working with All Might (whom technically acts as a sidekick to him rn).

AFO has warped all that into a never-ending nightmare. And Izuku...

Izuku is really in need of saving.

Last thoughts:

Let me just say that it shouldn't be a competition about who gets to get through to Izuku. Right now, he’s gonna need all the help he can get, and it can’t be delivered by only one or two people. Saving Izuku is going to be a team effort, a solid support system that sees Izuku as their classmate/friend/student/actual person that they care about. And there’s sufficient space for that.

More hands reaching out means more chances to catch him if he falls.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

I really like the snippets of the SVMs that you post, but I can’t help but think about how by the end of the series Charlaine Harris just decided to destroy the character of Eric. I read those last few novels and just fumed with anger. Were you happy with how they turned out?

You are absolutely correct, anon. Was I happy with how they turned out? Absolutely not. I have a lot of bones to pick with Charlaine Harris about what she did to Eric Northman, but more importantly, I have a lot of bones to pick with Sookie.

Initially, I thought that the problem in the latter books was that Harris got lazy with everyone's characterization when she was contracted to write three more novels and started writing these characters in ways that were inconsistent. Certainly, there are a few instances where Eric is portrayed in a manner inconsistent with earlier books. (He loses a lot of his humor and charm and suddenly has a very different perspective on the possibility of turning Sookie, which I attribute to bad writing.) But as I went back in the series to compile these quotes, I noticed that the problems I had with Sookie's character in the latter books manifested much earlier. I have been trying so desperately to wrap my head around her behavior, and I have come to the following conclusions about Book Sookie, which are not necessarily applicable to TV Sookie...

(major spoilers and an unedited 4,000 word essay ahead)

Sookie's mind-reading abilities have stunted her ability to read and empathize with others without the use of her powers.

The magical bond that is formed when she and Eric exchange blood circumvents this while it is active, enabling Sookie to feel Eric’s emotions rolling off him at the time. She knows he is terrified when his maker arrives in book 10, and she is even able to identify precisely why he is frightened: he doesn’t want to be under someone else’s control. But after she severs their bond in book 11, her ability to read him fails her. She has spent her entire life reading people’s minds, which has served as a crutch. Rather than developing the intuitive ability to read a person’s body language and read between the lines of what they are saying that most of us learn, Sookie relies on her abilities, which don’t work on vampires. As a result, their motives are often mysteries to her. She notes how stony-faced they are, how carefully controlled they are in expression, but she misses a lot of cues that convey their repressed feelings. This is particularly bad for Eric, who, like many men, shields himself with anger when he is feeling hurt. His anger is not excessive or violent—in fact it is often very well controlled—but it masks the tender feelings that hide under the surface. It is telling that Sookie never acknowledges the incredible pain and betrayal that Eric must feel when she severs their blood bond, or when she ultimately refuses to save him from being taken away from her. The only time she feels sympathy toward him in that respect is in one line at the very end of the series where she considers how lonely he will be—and then she purposefully smothers that thought, refusing to dwell on it further.

Sookie's trauma from her formative relationship with Bill renders her suspicious of the motives of others and unable to trust her future partners.

Bill is the first man she ever dated, fell in love with, or had sex with, and it is revealed to her through Eric’s intervention that their entire relationship was premised on a lie. This plot point is the same in the book as it is in the TV show. Once Sookie and Eric are together, there are numerous instances where she suspects his motives. She maintains the firm belief that Eric never does anything unless it would be beneficial to himself, which is probably true up to a point, but even after he has shown that he is deeply in love with her and that he has borne the personal cost of this love, she still doubts him. In fact, Sookie believes that the love they seemingly share is only the result of the magical blood bond between them, which renders it false. Eric repeatedly states that he does not care why he loves her, only that he does, but this is a problem that Sookie cannot get past. It results in her severing their bond without warning. Once the bond is severed, she insists that she does still love him “all on her own” but her love quickly begins to erode without the understanding that the bond created as they are besieged by numerous calamities. When the final obstacle to their love presents itself—a contract negotiated by Eric’s maker that would force him to marry the vampire Queen of Oklahoma against his will—Sookie is so blinded by her inability to trust him that she doubts every word he says about wanting to stay with her. He never expresses a desire to leave her for the queen, but remains stalwart in his insistence that he cannot escape the contract despite seeking every possible loophole. Yet Sookie believes he is attracted to the queen and the power that she possesses and attributes his insistence that he is trapped in the contract to a clever lie designed to dupe her. In the final days of their relationship, Eric reveals that he knows Sookie could save him with a magical object that grants her one wish, and repeatedly insists that she could stop him from being taken from her if she wanted to. He does not ask her to do it, nor does he mention the object explicitly, or ask where it is. His statements read like a man who is wounded by his lover’s unwillingness to save him, but one who perhaps has too much dignity to resort to begging her to intervene. Presumably he believes that he should not have to beg the woman who says she loves him to save him from “cushy slavery,” as Sookie calls it. Once Sookie realizes that Eric knows about her magical deus ex machina, she starts to wonder if he really just wants to take it from her, or use it for himself. She even entertains the possibility that maybe he orchestrated the entire dilemma in order to get his hands on it. When the thought enters her head, she admits that she never would have considered such a thing if it weren’t for Bill’s betrayal of her.

Sookie's affection for Eric is conditional upon his usefulness to her (including as a sexual object), and she never develops an appreciation or understanding for who he is as a person.

Perhaps this is the fatal flaw in their relationship from the very beginning. Sookie does not express an interest in Eric other than the fact that he is physically attractive until his numerous favors to her and the many instances where he has saved her life or protected her begin to add up. The blood bond between them is formed when he prevents a vampire who has authority over him from forcing blood on an unwilling Sookie, instead offering his own blood as a substitute. Their marriage was orchestrated by Eric when another vampire wanted to take Sookie away from her own against her will, and it allows Eric to serve as a barrier to any other vampire who would try to harm her. Once their romantic relationship is formed in earnest, it quickly becomes evident that it is lopsided. Eric praises Sookie for her beauty, but also for how brave she is and how hard she works and countless other virtues that are not physical in nature. In return, Sookie feels obligated to pay him a compliment, and all she can manage is that he has a nice body and is good in bed. She often deflects from serious conversations with him to have sex instead. Sookie clearly doesn’t believe Eric is a good person, expressing her own doubts about his moral code when he doesn’t display enough outward moral repugnance for her liking. When Eric tells her how his boss tortured and killed a human woman to punish a vampire, she asks him how the story made him feel. His answer—that it made him fearful it could happen to Sookie—is not good enough for her because he does not also express remorse for the woman in question. (It should be noted that he doesn’t revel in her pain either; he is merely concerned with applying the moral of the story to his own circumstances and the woman that he loves.) Sookie does not seem to acknowledge the good that other people attribute to Eric, such as when his new bartender tells her she requested to come work for him. Sookie cannot imagine why anyone would want to work for Eric, but the vampire explains that he is a good master to serve because he treats his people well, specifically pointing out that he doesn’t ask for sexual favors from his female subordinates like other sheriffs do. Sookie is not interested in his life, his business, or his world. When he attempts to explain the elaborate hierarchy of vampire politics to her in an effort to include her more in his affairs, she outwardly expresses so much disinterest that Eric takes offense. Their relationship treads water for a while, until Sookie is kidnapped and tortured by fairies and Eric is prevented from rescuing her. While she is being tortured, Sookie is certain that Eric will show up at any moment, but she doesn’t know that he has been forbidden from intervening by his boss. The other vampires bind Eric in silver chains to keep him from going to save her. He later tells her how anguished he was that he could feel her pain and do nothing to protect her, shedding tears as he talks about it, but she doesn’t want to hear it. That moment marks a turning point in their relationship. Sookie repeatedly affirms that she believes Eric is so big and strong and capable of handling anything, and any time he is not able to deliver on her expectations, she loses even more love for him.

Sookie's prejudice against vampires leads to her treating them as though they are not people.

Although Sookie does not express her prejudice explicitly as some characters do, she still exhibits a bias against vampires throughout the books and expresses a clear preference for humans or shapeshifters. She is disgusted, for example, by Eric’s suggestion that she should come work at Fangtasia, saying that she would hate to watch the fangbangers seek the attention of the undead among them. She believes that they do not feel emotions or possess empathy in any comparable measure to humans. (The thought that not all humans share the same depth of emotion or empathy does not seem to occur to her.) She also discounts their physical pain or suffering because they possess the ability to heal themselves. This happens numerous times when Eric is wounded, often while trying to protect her. In one case, Eric shoves himself in front of a car window and takes a bullet intended for her point blank. While he is injured, he fights off the werewolf who was trying to kill Sookie. Then he gets back in the car and drives her home with the bullet still lodged inside his chest. When they arrive back at her house, he asks her for blood, saying explicitly that he is in pain as his body pushes the bullet out of his chest. She tells him he’ll be fine and if he really needs it, he should stop at Merlotte’s and get some True Blood on his way home. Another time, Sookie comes upon Eric after he has been badly beaten and bound with silver. His arm is broken and his hands, she notes, look gruesome, because the silver was wrapped around them. As soon as she frees him, he springs into action and decapitates the vampire who had attacked him before said vampire can go for Sookie, who gets faint at the sight. (She is not injured.) Eric picks her up even though his arm is broken, and she takes the opportunity to internally romanticize the moment, imagining that she is Scarlet O’Hara. But a short while later, she asks Sam to drive her home without thinking about offering Eric a bottle of True Blood even though they’re right in front of the bar. The most egregious example of this phenomenon occurs when Eric’s vampire brother has massacred all of the staff at his home. Sookie arrives to find several vampires and humans slaughtered on the premises while Eric is desolate and in excruciating pain with his ribs ripped through his chest. He tells her that he needs her to push his ribs back into place and that Pam was there as well, and Sookie proceeds to chastise him for not springing into action to go after his brother. When tears form in his eyes, she grows impatient and questions why he hasn’t called someone to come clean up yet. It isn’t until midway through the conversation that she tells Jason to push Eric’s ribs in so he can heal, and it is only on accident that Jason happens to find Pam, who is thankfully not dead.

Sookie's system of morals is so rigid that, when she participates in violence, she suppresses her own personal responsibility and projects blame on the people around her in order to continue believing that she is a good person.

After the massacre referenced in the paragraph above, Eric and Sookie must fight his crazed brother and several fairies at her house, slaying his maker in the process. When they are victorious, Sookie is immediately revolted by the bloodshed. Eric, meanwhile, is flooded with relief that he is free of his maker, who subjected him to hundreds of years of rape and slavery when he was first turned into a vampire. Sookie knows this, and in fact can feel the emotions radiating from him, but she seems to despise Eric for feeling anything but repugnance in that moment. This appears to be her coping strategy any time she participates in violence—she negates her own culpability and creates moral distance between herself and Eric by judging his reaction to be grotesque. The same thing happens when they are able to kill the brutally cruel vampire regent who was actively trying to ruin Eric and was responsible for attempts on Sookie’s life and who refused permission for Pam to turn her human lover into a vampire before she died. Eric and Pam are joyous that they have won and that the regent cannot torment them any longer. Sookie, who helped plan the attack and in fact dealt part of the killing blow to the regent, is abruptly disgusted when Eric embraces her and kisses her. It does not occur to her that he might be relieved that she was unharmed in the battle and that the constant threat to them all has been eliminated. Instead, she assumes that he’s trying to have sex with her and tells him she’s not interested in a manner that clearly conveys her revulsion. Eric does not handle the conflict gracefully, and bites her harshly to drink from her after he tells her she’s being a hypocrite, which only gives her more reason to push her guilt away and project it onto him.

Sookie’s youth and inexperience serves as a barrier to navigating the turbulent waters of a real relationship.

Sookie had never been in a relationship before Bill, and she only has one other relationship between breaking up with Bill and getting together with Eric. While she enjoys the ‘honeymoon’ phase of her relationships, she flounders when it comes time to address communication issues or outside pressures. Neither Sookie nor Eric find it easy to establish an open channel of communication, but Sookie actively seeks to end serious conversations early or avoid them altogether, while being stunned that Eric initiates conversations about their relationship, something that she thinks all men avoid. At one point, she tells Eric that they need to talk and then starts discussing what she refers to as their “irreconcilable differences.” The conversation seems to be veering into breakup territory, and they’re deeply involved in it when someone knocks on her door. She immediately invites her unexpected guests in and is relieved by the excuse to terminate the conversation abruptly even though Eric is still trying to figure out what’s going on. At other times, she observes that she loves Eric, but she’s not feeling the same lust or excitement when she thinks about him anymore. Anyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship knows that passions often wax and wane, and that it also takes work to sustain and strengthen a relationship over time. Sookie is unwilling to put in the work or even have an honest discussion about the things they need to work on. She talks about romance novels a lot, and it seems to me that she has an idealized concept of love where she believes that they should be effortless and that passions should always be as hot as they were at the beginning. There are also times when she behaves in an extremely childish manner in the midst of conflict. After she severs the magical bond between her and Eric, he comes to her house and her main concern is whether or not he’s mad, while he asks her if she still loves him. She stubbornly insists he has to answer her question first even though she’s the one who broke the bond. On another occasion, Eric’s king comes into town and he is required to be at the monarch’s beck and call. Sookie gets mad at him and tells him she doesn’t want to see him one day, then is even more irritated that he isn’t calling her the next. Soon after, Eric is dealing with an endless litany of personal disasters that he can’t control, and he is short with her. Sookie listens to him confide in her about his problems and then responds with sharp-edged, sarcastic contempt, telling him that she has information that might have helped him with his problems and she might have told him if he wasn’t neglecting her.

Sookie’s limited understand of cultures that are unlike her own leads to misguided assumptions and fatal misunderstandings.

As the books progress, Sookie’s knowledge about vampire culture and governance grows incrementally, but she never approaches their customs with the same open-mindedness that she uses when it comes to werewolves or shapeshifters and their customs. This proves to be a major problem in her relationship with Eric, where there are two unfamiliar cultures at play—the modern culture of vampires, and the ancient culture of Eric’s human life. Sookie often refers to Eric as her “big Viking,” but she never gleans any insight about the culture in which he was raised. She seems to believe that he does not have much respect for women and projects American pre-Women's liberation attitudes on him even though he does not express those beliefs. When he offers to have her come live with him, she assumes that he wants her to be a housewife who cooks and cleans for him. She takes offense, and Eric is confused by her response. As Sookie’s situation becomes more perilous and she is injured multiple times in attacks at Merlotte’s, Eric asks her repeatedly to come live with him and/or work at Fangtasia so that he can protect her. She rebuffs these proposals, believing that they are rooted in misogyny. Sookie is also disinterested in understanding vampire culture, tuning Eric out when he explains things to her and refusing to accept that their rules and customs are different from her own when they inconvenience her. In particular, she never seems to understand the feudal system of governance under which the vampires live. When Eric is obliged to obey his maker or wait on his king or queen, Sookie is consistently irritated that he is not paying enough attention to her. She either does not understand or will not accept that vampires are not free to do whatever they want. This becomes a huge problem in the latter three books after a king from another state annexes Louisiana and kills every sheriff except Eric, putting him in a precarious position. Backed into a corner, he must maneuver very carefully to protect himself and everyone who is loyal to him. At the same time, he learns that his maker entered into a contract to marry him to the vampire Queen of Oklahoma against his will. Sookie refuses to believe Eric when he tells her that there is no way out of the contract, repeatedly insisting that if he loved her enough, he would just refuse to honor it. She holds him to the standards of her own culture, remaining willfully ignorant of the horrible consequences that could befall them both if Eric were to disobey. When she learns she can intervene and save Eric from his fate, she refuses, adamant in her belief that he will find his own escape clause if he truly wants to. The end result of her refusal is that Eric is forced into 200 years of “cushy slavery,” as Sookie calls it, a fate that does not inspire any guilt or pity in her, presumably because she still sees herself as a jilted lover.

At the end of the day, Eric deserved a lot better than Sookie.

He also deserved a lot better from the author, and a lot of people were justifiably outraged with the ending that Charlaine Harris gave to him. Harris, by way of Sookie, repeatedly reminds the reader that the Queen of Oklahoma is a very attractive woman, and it seems that this is intended to excuse the fact that Eric would be contractually obligated to have sex with her whether he wanted to or not. Eric expresses no desire for the queen, constantly asserting his commitment to and love for Sookie. When he admits that he would be required to consummate the relationship with the queen, he seems discomforted and ashamed at the idea. (Harris specifically uses the word “abashed.”) It is revealed to Sookie that the queen conspired to put Eric in this predicament specifically because she knew he valued his independence too much to ever agree to it willingly. Sookie knows that Eric was forced to service his maker sexually against his will, and that what he hates above all else is to be subjugated. She also knows that he will not be a monarch if he marries the queen; he will be her consort, a position that carries with it no inherent power or authority unless the queen gives it to him, and he will not be able to ever succeed her. Even despite all of this, Sookie is completely unsympathetic toward Eric. The author never acknowledges that this ending for Eric essentially means that he will be raped. What astounds me is that I don’t think she would have made his choice for a female character, or if she did, she would not have framed it in the same way. Sookie’s casual dismissal of Eric being sold into “cushy slavery” implies that male rape is no big deal, which is incredibly harmful. It is astounding that she would subject the primary love interest of the entire series to such a fate, and it’s the final nail in the coffin for Sookie Stackhouse for me, at least in her book incarnation. If any of her other love interests had been put in similar circumstances, I can’t imagine what she would not do to try to save them. But because it was Eric—her big, strong Viking who she believes is incapable of feeling emotions or pain and must be invincible in order to be valued by her—Sookie thinks nothing of it. Nothing at all.

@grimeundglow @stevesharrlngtons @scxrsgxrd @grandpa-sweaters

[alpacaparkaseok]

7 Secrets <pt. 5>

GENRE: Soulmate!au BTS!

WARNINGS: none woohoo

WORD COUNT: 5594 lol sorry there was a lot to get through here but at the same time I'm not sorry

Part 5!!!! You guys I had so much fun writing this part. We are getting down to it. I’m literally so excited. Let me know what you guys think! Thanks for all the support! Also, if you guys have any requests for future stories regarding our boys, hit me up! <3

Minsuh is already waiting for me by the time I exit the building, and I slide into the passenger seat as quickly as possible.

“What’s going on? I have a missed call from Mr. Bang. Should I call him back right now?”

Minsuh looks over at me, and I pause at the look in her eyes. My stomach drops as I expect the worst. Even in the dim interior lighting of her car, I can see just how pale her face is.

“Beth…”

We’re still idling in front of the building, but I feel the whole world spinning around me too quickly.

“Minsuh, what’s going on? Did something happen?” I take a shaky breath. “Are the boys alright?”

Minsuh is quick to reach out and grab my hand, and I notice the tremor in her hand as I cling tightly to her.

“They’re fine, I’m so sorry, I should have clarified sooner.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. If something were to happen to the boys...I can’t finish that thought.

“Then what’s going on?”

Minsuh shakes her head, turning to face forward again before beginning to drive. Even though I feel immense relief knowing that the boys are alright, now I’m beginning to imagine other scenarios. Why would Mr. Bang call me? He never does unless it’s a schedule call to update me on something.

“Bang wanted to call us tonight, but it was a last minute thing. So he did, and we talked.” I wait for her to continue, and she looks like she’s struggling to even speak right now. “We wanted to wait for you, so he didn’t say much…”

“Well, what did he say? Does he want me to call him?”

“No, he’s still on Facetime with everybody. That’s why I came to get you, though. He said it’s really important and that everybody needs to be present.”

I run a hand through my hair, ignoring how it shakes. This morning when I felt so calm and happy seems like years ago.

“Wait, what did he say though?” I realize that Minsuh has done an excellent job at avoiding the question, which does nothing to quell my fears.

She simply shakes her head, focusing on the road. “I don’t think it’s my place to say, but I swear it’s good news. I’m just shaken up. That’s all.”

Good news? I highly doubt it’s that good if Minsuh looks like she’s about to pass out. In fact, she probably shouldn’t even be driving.

What on earth could Mr. Bang want? And so suddenly?

Of course, my mind wants to scream out at me it’s time it’s finally time, but I shove that voice down. I’ve been through too many close calls thinking that I was finally going to come face to face with my soulmate only to be shut down. That kind of thinking only ends up in heartache.

The drive that should have taken much longer than it did (Minsuh is definitely speeding), is suddenly coming to an end as I recognize the Udon place we ate at last night just a couple of blocks away from the apartment. With every passing second I feel like I’m speeding closer and closer to fate. My right foot reacts instinctively as it pumps the brakes only to realize that I can’t.

I realize for the second time in my life that I cannot control fate when it comes knocking. The only thing that I can control is myself.

By the time we park I’ve been practicing my breathing exercises, trying to get my rapid heart rate under control. The street is peaceful, the evening stars just peeking through the bright lights of the city.

Standing there just outside my apartment, I gaze up at the night sky and breathe. In and out, deeply. I cling to the sliver of peace that settles upon me, promising myself that no matter what happens tonight, the stars will still be there. Tonight, tomorrow, and beyond. Fate may toss whatever it wants at me, but the stars will not fail me.

A soft touch at my elbow alerts me to Minsuh’s presence, and she looks at me for a moment before wrapping her arms around me in a hug. I return the embrace, absorbing the unspoken love and support.

“Shall we?” I ask. Minsuh nods, linking her arm through mine as we enter the apartment.

I’m not sure what I expect to see when I go inside, but I know it wasn’t Bang PD’s face staring out at me from our television. Somebody must have connected their phone to the tv to make it easier for all seven of us to take the call.

“Ah, Bethany, how kind of you to stop by.” Mr. Bang’s warm tone carries the innocent-sounding sarcasm we often use with each other. I smirk up at him and I take off my shoes and hurry over to the couch, taking a place between Minsuh and Himari.

“I saw you called me. Sorry I missed it, some of us have work to do.” Mr. Bang grins down at me, and I hear Seohyun give out a strained chuckle. A quick observation shows everybody to be in a similar state to Minsuh. In fact, it looks like Minsuh is better off than most of them. Probably the reason why they sent her to pick me up in the first place.

Mr. Bang clears his throat, drawing my attention back to him. He’s looking beyond his screen, and my heart stutters as I wonder who else is in the room with him.

Please not Namjoon, please not Namjoon.

“So what’s going on? You don’t tend to call without scheduling it first.”

Himari slowly moves her arm until it’s linked through mine, her hand gently squeezing my forearm. I glance at her but her eyes remain glued to the tv.

“Well, remember that conversation we had a little while back, when you requested that I give you a 48 hour notice before meeting your soulmate so you could have enough time to catch a flight to Antarctica?”

I swear I hear a surprised laugh in the background of the call, but the pounding of my heart in my ears overpowers any other sound at the moment.

Breathe, now is not the time to pass out. Remember, that’s Aera’s job.

“Uh-huh,” I mumble out, then remind myself to not look like a zombie. “Yeah, I remember. Why do I get the feeling that I’m once again the last person to know about something important?”

When a few of the girls come out of their trances enough to chuckle knowingly, I suddenly lose the ability to move. Instead I sit there completely still, awaiting Mr. Bang.

Awaiting fate.

Which, in most cases, Mr. Bang and fate are pretty synonymous for me.

“Yeah, sorry about that. You’re just hard to get a hold of sometimes.” When I have no snarky reply for him, he continues. “Ok, Bethany. Consider this your 48 hour notice.”

It takes about five seconds for the weight of that sentence to really sink in.

I always thought that when I was given the long awaited news that I would shortly meet my soulmate, the world would slip away from under me and I would feel like I was floating among the stars. I would be happy, shocked, I don’t know. I would just float there and Namjoon would be the only one to bring me back to earth. Him, and only him. It would be beautiful, and that would be the beginning of everything.

Instead, the world suddenly comes into focus.

I’m blatantly aware of everything surrounding me. It’s like I’m seeing the living room for the first time, seeing the girls for the first time as they turn to assess my reaction. Everything is so tangible, so real.

I can’t tell if it makes me feel small or empowered or just extremely human. Whatever it is, I pull through the shock settling into my bones just enough to slip back into that sarcastic charm I’ve relied so heavily upon all my life.

“Alrighty then,” I mumble, frowning slightly when it comes out in English. Mr. Bang simply grins again. I get up from the couch, the sudden urge to move and feel the ground beneath me impossible to resist. “48 hours? I could probably pull some strings, make it to Antarctica in time. You don’t happen to have any pilot friends, do you?”

Tension that I didn’t know what there before fades from Mr. Bang’s face as he laughs at my ridiculous question. Again, his eyes trail away to look beyond his screen. Who is he looking at? I can’t muster up the courage to ask. Instead, I slip into professional mode. It’s easy enough, seeing as I was just in my meeting this afternoon, slipping into the same persona.

Right. This is just a meeting. We need to hash out the date and time, location. Just like any other meeting. Make it through this meeting, Beth, and then you can do whatever you need to do.

“Ok, I’m assuming that you already told everybody else all of this before I got here?”

“Yes, I did. Sorry, I couldn’t wait.”

“That’s fine. Did you already go over what time? Where?”

Mr. Bang straightens up at my tone, a flicker of an emotion similar to respect in his eyes. “No, I haven’t yet. Would you like to now?”

I nod, then scurry off to where I dropped my bag when I entered. Grabbing my phone from my purse and pulling up the notes app, I settle back down on the couch beside Himari.

“How are you not losing your mind right now?” Himari whispers beside me, so quietly that I almost don’t hear her.

I shoot her an amused look. “Because I think I already died.” I whisper back, and it’s enough to get her to laugh, some of the icy nerves retreating a bit. (and then returning as I remember that we’ve still got our microphones on for the documentary and they caught every word)

I shrug it off, bringing my attention back to the matter at hand.“Alright, let’s hear it.”

↔

The rest of the call passes by in a blur, with Mr. Bang sending us an email with all the needed details. He carefully goes through each point, giving an outline of what awaits the seven of us the day after tomorrow.

Which, as I notice that it’s already nearly 11 pm, is going to be here sooner than I think I want.

“So just go ahead and come up to my office on Thursday, and I’ll be there to help you out with everything else. Sounds good?”

Everybody numbly nods, the emotional exhaustion setting in. I can’t help but grin as I realize with a start that I was given the news about having a soulmate on a Thursday three years ago, and now I’ll finally meet him on a Thursday.

It would appear that fate has a thing for Thursdays.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to just drive there? It’s not that far from here.” I ask the question for the second time. It’s nice that he wants to send a van from the BigHit building, but it just makes me feel a little silly. Like we’re famous or something. Which, when I see Ichika sitting at her usual spot on the floor with a bowl of cereal at her feet, I note that we are anything but famous. I don’t even know when she got up to get cereal.

At least she’s eating. I’m not sure I can stomach anything right now.

“Don’t worry about it, please. I know that it’s going to be a stressful day for everybody, the last thing you need to worry about is driving. The van will be there at 5 pm sharp, just be ready.”

I nod, letting it go. It will be nice to not have to worry about driving, even though it’s only a half hour drive from here. I’ll just have to find something productive to do all day so I’m not losing my mind.

“Ok. That’s fine. Is there anything else?” I hide behind a yawn that quickly passes to Himari at my side.

“That should be everything. Double check the email in the morning after you’ve all rested, and let me know if you need anything.” Mr. Bang sighs, clearly as worn out as we are. “We’re all excited to see you.”

We. “By we you mean you and the staff, right?” I jokingly ask, earning a laugh.

“Obviously. And maybe a few other people as well. See you Thursday?”

“See you Thursday.”

He cuts the call, leaving the seven of us alone in the dimly lit room. I stand up, prepared to pace, but find that I’m too tired to even try. I end up laying down on the ground, staring up at the ceiling.

“Ok,” I start, running my hands through my hair for the fourteenth time tonight. “Can someone please explain to me what just happened?”

The others grunt in agreement, each of us just as much in shock as the other.

It’s silent for a couple of minutes as each of us try to process our thoughts. I close my eyes, mind going a million miles a minute as I try to fathom that after all this waiting, I’m finally going to meet my soulmate.

A sniffle breaks the silence, and my head shoots up as I see Minsuh with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she quietly sobs.

Everybody is quick to move, all of us surrounding her in a matter of seconds. Aera gently massages her shoulders before leaning forward and nuzzling her face into her neck.

“What’s wrong, Min?” Aera questions, and we exchange knowing glances.

“It’s just,” Minsuh continues crying into her sweater paws, the sight making my heart ache. “What if h-he’s disappointed? I just don-don’t want to disappoint him. I thought I would h-have more time…” Her sobs cut off the rest of her sentence, and my heart cracks on her behalf.

“Oh, Minsuh.”

“You’re not going to disappoint him, I promise.”

“Minsuh, you’re the best of us,” Ichika softly whispers, brushing the hair out of her face. “There’s no way Jungkook could be disappointed. Why do you think Bang PD called so suddenly? I bet Jungkook found out about you and couldn’t wait a second longer to have you in his life.”

Minsuh slowly looks up at Ichika, her eyes red and puffy. “You think so? I don’t think so. Do you think they even know about us yet? Maybe Mr. Bang hasn’t told them yet, a-and we’re just going to be an unwelcome surprise.”

I wince at her words, her fears similar to my own.

Ichika shakes her head firmly, her hand resting just beneath Minsuh’s chin as she looks into her eyes.

“Absolutely not. Minsuh, that’s not going to happen. You know what’s going to happen?” Minsuh shakes her head ‘no’, her eyes wide. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. We’re going to meet our boys,” Ichika’s voice wavers with emotion, but she continues on. “And it’s going to be the best, most memorable day of our lives. We are going to go together, because we’re sisters and we have each other’s backs through thick and thin. We’re going to walk in there and see them and you know what’s going to happen? Aera’s going to pass out, Soon is going to lose the ability to speak,” Soon chuckles, nodding her head in agreement. “Himari is probably going to trip over her own feet, I’m going to spill something on Taehyung, I’m certain about that. I’m not sure what Beth is going to do, but I can guarantee it’s going to be something embarrassing. Very, very embarrassing.” I gasp, pinching her. “Ow! And Seohyun is going to burst into song or something and not be able to stop.” Minsuh bites her lip, a little smile gracing her features. “But you know what? You’re probably going to waltz in there like a freaking princess, and Jungkook is going to be in absolute shock. You’ll make up for all of our clumsiness, and you’ll be so amazing because you already are.”

The seven of us stay like that for a long time, Minsuh’s quiet sobs finally subsiding some time later. At some point she falls asleep, and Aera curls up on the couch next to her, quickly following suit.

Seohyun gets up to go make some tea, Ichika offering to help.

“I’m making chamomile, to help me sleep. Anybody else want some?” The rest of us request it, knowing that we won’t be able to fall asleep as easily as Minsuh and Aera. Not when I keep startling myself every five seconds as I suddenly remember that I’m meeting my soulmate in less than two days.

Himari pats the cushion next to her, and I settle down with a grunt. She flops her head onto my shoulder, and we both stare out the far window into the street. Kyung-soon takes up a spot on the floor at our feet.

“I don’t think I’ll really be able to believe it’s happening until we’re there, actually meeting them,” Himari says.

“Me neither,” Kyung-soon fiddles with her blanket. “Do you think they’re freaking out as much as we are?”

“Oh definitely,” Himari chuckles.

The thought of the boys sitting together and talking like we are now warms me up like hot chocolate.

“Oh, no. What am I going to wear?” I wonder aloud. Everybody else groans in agreement. “Anybody down to go shopping tomorrow?” I ask, already mentally planning an outfit. Everybody is quick to agree.

By the time Ichika and Seohyun arrive with the tea, Aera has roused from her sleep, rubbing her neck.

“Were you guys talking about going shopping?”

Slowly but surely, the heavy shock begins to lift and a lighter feeling replaces it. As I look around the room at my soul sisters, a little pang of nostalgia strikes me. This is one of the last times we’ll be like this. Just the seven of us, with so much uncertainty hanging over us. I wonder how many times I’ll revisit this memory of us sitting together in the middle of the night, entertaining ideas about the boys, outfits, and all the possibilities life has yet to offer us. Future nostalgia indeed.

By the time we actually do decide to go to bed, it’s already 4:30 in the morning. The conversation had taken many different turns throughout the night, including all of us eventually talking about our concerns. We’re excited, yet so afraid.

Aera and I sneak up the stairs as quietly as possible, careful to not wake Minsuh who’s still sleeping on the couch.

“Hey,” Aera whispers before I slip into the darkness of my room. “You didn’t really say a lot about how you’re feeling with everything. Are you sure you’re ok?”

I nod slowly, exhaustion painting itself over my features. “I’m fine, I think. To be honest I think I’m so tired and shocked still that I don’t even know what to feel at this point.” Aera nods along, understanding perfectly. “Maybe I’ll know after I sleep. I think I’m happy, though. And terrified.”

“A great combination.”

“Yep. See you at breakfast.”

Aera raises her eyebrows at me. “Breakfast? I don’t think so. I’ll see you at lunch.”

↔

For the second day in a row I wake up after 10. I blearily open my eyes, checking the time and grunting in indifference. I roll over again, trying to talk myself into sleeping in a little longer. I deserve it. Jet-lag, emotional exhaustion, and staying up until nearly 5 in the morning have done quite the number on me.

I’m nearly asleep again when I sit up straight in my bed, my brain remembering the reason why I was up so late last night.

“Holy freak, holy freak.”

Was that real? I’m still so tired that it feels like a dream.

I scramble to my bedside table again, pulling up my emails on my phone. Sure enough, the email Bang PD sent last night is still there. My eyes drink in the information as quickly as possible, triple checking the date before I finally allow myself to breathe again.

Oh yeah, it’s real. And it’s tomorrow.

The need to get up and move around is suffocating me, my heart already pounding like I’m running a marathon. I slip into the nearest clothes I can get my hands on, the blouse and jeans making me look way more put together than I feel, and I rush to the bathroom to throw my hair back into a ponytail and slap the bare minimum of makeup on my face.

I'm in such a rush that I nearly forget to brush my teeth, and before I know it I’m tiptoeing down the stairs and past Minsuh’s sleeping form still on the couch. I have no idea how she’s been able to sleep this long, I definitely envy her.

Before my brain even catches up with my body, I’ve grabbed my purse and shoes by the front door and slipped out into the morning. The second the door clicks shut behind me, I breathe in deep, closing my eyes as the sun warms me up.

It’s much easier to process everything once I’m outside of the apartment and back in the real world. My feet make their way about three blocks away, to a street vendor that I frequent on the days I have morning meetings.

There are a couple of free benches on the sidewalk, and I sit there as I eat my breakfast. I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, and my stomach is probably what really took control this morning. However, it’s still not enough to make me finish all of my food. I eat about half before I stop, my brain grinding its gears again now that I have some food in me.

As I watch the hustle and bustle of the city all around me, I feel like I’m in some sort of limbo. Everybody is going about their normal business, oblivious to the fact that my life is at a hinge-point and I’m not sure which way it's about to swing.

Try as I might, I’m still restless. There’s not much I can do to help that, I’m sure I’ll be like this until I’ve met my soulmate and put my worries to rest. I wonder if Namjoon is up and as restless and me right now.

Minsuh’s words from last night come back to haunt me. What if they don’t even know about us yet? I can’t decide which one is worse, them knowing and anticipating us, or a surprise visit.

I eventually muster up the strength to order six more meals before beginning the trek back to the apartment. The burn in my arms as I carry a heavy bag on each side brings me a sense of satisfaction, the energy I’m using acting as an excellent distraction.

It’s already noon when I walk through the door, and I see Seohyun talking quietly with a half-asleep Minsuh. “I’m back, and I brought food!”

Seohyun smiles readily at me, her smile contagious. “You left? I swear, we need to put a bell on you or something.”

“Do you want my food or not?”

It doesn’t take long before Seohyun is in the kitchen, divvying up the food to Minsuh and Kyung-soon, who’s still got a towel on her head from the shower.

“Is anybody else up?” I ask, and everybody shrugs in response.

“I thought I heard Himari get up not that long ago,” Kyung-soon offers, and I set off in search of my friend.

I follow my hunch, climbing the stairs as I make my way to the top floor of the apartment. I ponder waking Aera as I pass our floor, but go against it and continue up the stairs. There’s two bedrooms up here, which belong to Ichika and Himari. I knock on Ichika’s door and tell her that there’s food downstairs. Her response is a groan and a thud that sounds suspiciously like her body hitting the floor. I suppress a giggle and continue on my journey to the upper balcony.

Sure enough, Himari is lounging in a chair with her face turned up toward the sun. Her eyes jump open as soon as she hears me opening up the sliding door and sidling out.

“Hey Himi,” I greet.

“Hey. Is everybody else up?” Her voice sounds like she just woke up.

“Yeah, except for Aera. Who knows when she’ll get up. Probably not for another hour or so.” Himari nods, closing her eyes again. She has dark circles under her eyes. “Did you get any sleep?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“No, not for more than sixty seconds at a time. You?”

I nod a little, grateful for the good five hours I got. “Yeah, a bit. I went out and bought food for everyone if you’re hungry.”

Himari hums in acknowledgement, not making any move to get up. Instead I settle down on the chair beside her, propping my feet up on the railing.

We stay like that for a while, basking in the companionable silence. There’s so much to say, and yet I’m at a loss for words. What does one say in these kinds of situations? ‘Hey, don’t screw up meeting your soulmate tomorrow! Go, fight, win!’

It’s Himari who breaks the silence nearly ten minutes later, and I wonder if she dozed off for some of that time.

“I...I don’t know what to feel.”

I wait, knowing that more is coming. When she doesn’t speak for a while I prompt her. “What are you feeling right now?”

Himari sighs, sitting up and stretching. I notice that she’s wearing the same clothes as last night. She must have just came straight out here last night.

“I feel so tired that I can’t hardly think straight, but I’m so wired right now that I can’t sleep. I feel like I’m drowning, and like I won’t stop until tomorrow. And tomorrow feels so far away but at the same time it’s way too soon. I keep thinking that Hoseok must be feeling something similar, but what if he doesn’t even care? I think, more than anything…” she turns to look at me, and I wince at the fear I see in her eyes. “I keep imagining what he’s going to say when he finds out that his soulmate isn’t even Korean. Not that I think he would hold that against me, but I can’t help but think that he might be a little let down or uncomfortable knowing that his soulmate is from Japan.”

She settles back down with a huff, and I do too. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot, the fact that we’re not from here. Neither one of us care that our soulmates don’t share our nationality, but it’s something that I’ve worried about a lot, imagining what Namjoon will feel when it turns out his soulmate is very much an American.

Sitting here, looking at one of my best friends in the world, I can’t imagine Hoseok being anything less than elated. Himari is amazing. Loyal, hilarious, smart as a whip and one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen in real life.

I’ve told her as much every time we’ve had this conversation. There’s not a lot left to say. It’s a hopeless feeling, knowing that even the most honest statement will do little to mend another. So I choose a different approach.

“Well, if Hoseok is sad that you’re Japanese and not Korean, I’ll just tell everybody that Trump is my uncle or something and he’ll be so grateful to have you that it won’t even matter anymore.”

Himari looks at me like I have horns coming out of my head before she bursts out into laughter.

“Oh my gosh that’s the best idea you’ve ever had!” Her cackles fill up the street, and I find myself laughing alongside her. “Sounds good. Deal.”

↔

Nearly three hours later finds the seven of us piling out of two cars as we arrive at the shop Aera picked out. She finally stumbled down the stairs around 1, exhausted but ready to go shopping. It took some convincing to get her to eat first, but it paid off in the end.

I can’t help but gawk at the as we enter the store apparently owned by one of Aera’s friends within the designer circle.

“Holy cow,” I mutter under my breath. My friends chuckle at the English phrase, it always makes them laugh. “Are we even allowed to be in here?”

Aera laughs at my bewilderment even as Minsuh drags her away into the depths of the store. “Of course!”

Time seems to stand still as we spend hours in the shop, trying on different outfits and each of us vying for the attention of Aera as we trust her opinion the most. We bicker back and forth about how casual or formal we should dress, until Aera finally texts Bang PD to ask. He responds with “wear whatever you want” which does little to help.

“Ok,” Aera rounds us up like a preschool class. I munch on a churro that I snuck out and bought a few minutes ago, Himari eyeing me suspiciously. “Let’s just follow Mr. Bang’s advice and go for something we each feel comfortable in. I would advise a casual-nice outfit, we’re trying to make a good first impression after all. At the end of the day, though, I want you guys to stay true to what you like. I know you all very, very well, so I will know if you’re lying.”

Ichika salutes her before heading back into the mess of clothes she’s picked out. The clock above her has me dropping my chin to the floor.

“Um, what time does the store close?”

A worker pipes up from the cash register. “Don’t worry, we’re open until midnight.”

I sigh in relief, glad that we won’t be in too much of a rush even though we’ve already been in here for hours. My stomach protests staying in here without proper food for much longer, and I promise it that I’ll be done within the hour.

↔

An hour and a half later five of us waddle out of the store clutching our bags as we make our way to the nearest restaurant. Minsuh opted to stay behind with Aera, who had been so busy helping everybody else that she hadn’t even hardly begun looking for herself. She assured us with a wink that she wouldn’t take long. Apparently her professional eye had already picked out a few outfits throughout the day.

The five of us order food, settling our things into a corner booth as we complain about our feet hurting and discuss our outfits.

“We’re going to look so good.” Himari smiles, and I’m glad to see that her confidence has taken a boost since this morning.

“We need to make sure we get enough sleep tonight, though.” I add, giving her a knowing look.

“Ay ay, captain.”

The rest of the night passes in a blur, Aera staying true to her word and showing up with Minsuh only thirty minutes later. When she shows us her outfit, we all agree on it.

“How are you so good at these kinds of things?” Seohyun asks, bewildered. Seohyun has a reputation for being indecisive when it comes to her clothes, she relies heavily upon Aera’s expertise.

“Practice, practice, practice.”

“Speaking of practice,” Ichika interjects, “We need to practice not losing our minds tomorrow.”

People glance at us from their booths, clearly wondering what we’re talking about as we bounce ridiculous ideas off of each other. At one point Kyung-soon says she’s going to run laps around the BigHit building in order to burn off some steam before going in.

“Jin’s going to look outside the window and see you in your new outfit running laps around the building.”

“Yeah, and he’ll probably just say, ‘screw it, I’m joining her.’”

“Actually, that would totally happen.”

“Meanwhile the rest of us are hiding in the van.”

“Eating churros.”

“Oh, definitely eating churros.”

“Do they sell churros here? Now I’ve got a craving.”

By the time we make it back home we’ve eaten our fair share of churros (my second one of the day), Seohyun bought earrings, and we’ve come up with a code word for Aera when she feels like she’s about to pass out. (the code word is ‘holy cow’. Yes, in English. I’m dying for her to use it.)

We all go our separate ways, Ichika behind me as I climb the stairs to my room. She pauses to hug me goodnight before continuing up to the next level. It’s late enough for me to not even bother checking the time before I slip into my pajamas and fall into my bed. Who knew shopping could be so draining.

Fate is kind to me tonight, as I fall asleep in no time. The final thought on my mind is the fact that tomorrow is Thursday, and my life is going to change forever.

Previous - Next

Ok! I’m so excited for our girls to finally meet the boys! I’ll upload pictures of the outfits I was thinking of for everybody. I hope you enjoy! If you want to join the taglist, let me know! :)

taglist:  @heartblackerthancoffee @mae-musicbitch​ @taylorroe3​

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Can you do a little text with your opinion about the Volturi members? What you like and dislike, they personality, they story... Would be interesting! Kissessss and have a great day! 💜

Imma have a little fun and throw the very young me into the mix to. Let's see child me vs adult me's opinions on the Volturiiii.

Fun fact: I wasn't team Volturi until I was like fifteen. Before that I was team edward... I don't want to talk about that 🤔😒

Also I'm a sucker for villains. If it isn't obvious already, I like the villains more than the heroes. (We all love a bad boy though, don't we?--- TIK TOK NOW IS NOT THE TIMEE.)

So everything i say is just my opinion and should be taken just as that.

Aro: Younger me was like "this...is a terrible person. There really is no need to expand on this." However adult me has been like "GUYS this guy is possibly the SCARIEST character. This man rips off heads AND SMILES ABOUT IT." He gives me child snatcher vibes (from the movies in particular). I thoroughly enjoy the power hungry persona. He's really fitting to be the puppeteer behind the Volturi. Even if he makes it seem it's a group effort with himself, Marcus and Caius. Realistically, Aro gets what he wants and isn't afraid to do what it takes to get it...sorry Didyme. What's even darker about it, WHICH I LOVE, is that he isn't heartless. Smeyer wrote that Aro genuinely loved his sister. It's all good to have a character that's a evil heartless monster but what's more terrifying to me is the ability for someone to do evil despite their love and emotions. It doesn't hold them back and that's what I find particularly frightening now that child me didn't comprehend. Micheal Sheen, from what I remember of his interview years ago, played on the idea that vampires of Aro's age kinda begin to lose their mind. Which, hell freaking yes. However there is one thing I hate for Aro's character that happened in the movies. Breaking dawn part 2. That fucking laugh. Don't get me wrong, hilarious. I can't not laugh but for his character I felt it was too 'hey hey I'm a crazy man hehe'. It was a but too much, even for an eccentric Aro. However, I'm not to mad at it because again, it was funny to watch. I thoroughly enjoy the ‘friendship’ Aro and Carlisle share and i love that it is ‘maintained’ throughout the books. I think it’s just a really nice detail. (I love lore. I am a sucker for it.) The one thing that didnt sit right with me is Aro marrying someone so that he wasnt the alone one whilst his co-leaders were very much in love? Was a little off for me but i suppose that just adds to the character.

Caius: child me would shrink into the seat because what did I do to this man? High key still think I wouldn't want to be Caius' child because imagine doing something wrong and you get that glare? No thank you! Scary angry man. As an adult... "He's an angry boi but...DAYUM WHY IS HE SUDDENLY SO HOT?" Just...don't get angry with me. You'll get annoying real quick and you're too pretty for that. I enjoy the taking-no-shit attitude he has but felt it could have been a little more prominent in BDP2 where Aro asks if Caius' is challenging him. I full believe Caius to an extend would be like "yes, yes I am. Don't be an idiot Aro. Use that braincell!" Which is why I adore the meme vibes I see every now and then of Caius hating Carlisle because why does Aro love that blonde so much? CAIUS HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT LOYAL-- Anyways, I can totally get why Aro wants him on his team. Caius is so angry and has so much hatred that he’s a good asset to the coven, even if not having a special ability.I do find it hard to imagine that Caius is a century older than Aro though. Although I cant picture him over forty years old lol. Although i do personally enjoy the whole Caius x Athenodora route. IT’S TRUE LOVE! Okay so maybe thats a little dramatic but its better than Aro’s lmao.

Marcus: movie Marcus is absolutely not nineteen years old and that's just a fact. If anything, he's the forty year old one lmao. Child me couldn't care about this man. He was the man who said nothing and slumped on a throne. That was Marcus. That was his character summed up. Then adult me rolled in and OMG NO DON'T DO THIS TO THIS SWEET MAN. LET HIM BE IN LOVE. As an adult i definitely became more attached. I feel like i was too young back then to get why Marcus was in the Volturi. He seemed very out of place and like a filler co-leader more than anything. However as i’ve gotten older (and written for him), I recognised that's the point. That’s Marcus’ evident grief. He isn’t there by choice and losing Didyme caused him to fall out of line with the coven. He’s lost point or purpose. Almost like its become meaningless because the love of his life was gone and he couldn't save her.So what was the aims of the Volturi to protect vampire kind when they couldn’t protect their own? He couldnt protect her. I had never heard of anything like bond identification and once i had- i was shook, like it became clear why he had been so necessary in the first place. That really is handy to understand everyones bonds in a coven, he could direct Chelsea and the two alone could destroy covens by bonds alone. Marcus makes the Volturi more realistic in a lot of ways. Like in a family, there is the happy times, goofy people like Felix, the twins representing a close bond. Afton and Chelsea, love that cant be divided. The list really goes on. Marcus represents love and heartbreak, pain, loss grief, the sad moments every family goes through. In that way he makes the coven seem less invincible, a group of people who at the end of the day, have their own weaknesses and immortality doesn’t mean a perfect existence. Especially when, in my opinion, Bella fantasized about immortality and how perfect it would be. Even after her change, she waited for her happy ending because that was somehow guaranteed in some level. Which in the end, she got but not everyone gets that happy ending we all want. I also personally think Marcus is the most feeling of the Volturi, despite being apathetic. A result of heartbreak. It’s shown he can still feel more in his own ways when he voted against Renesmee being destroyed. Furthermore, he advocated that vampire hybrids were a lot like vampires. He made that relation openly before anyone. Its almost as though losing Didyme helped him value a life?

Jane and Alec: Child me thought these two were  badass...and that still remains in my adult life. It’s always been uncomfortable to me that someone so young is so sadistic and powerful. Jane is the older twin with the ability of pain illusion...yikes. Her ability was evident in her human life along with Alec’s. His gift is sensory deprivation and these two were my favourites in the whole Saga. Still kind of are if im honest. I thoroughly enjoy the twins backstory. It has the most detail. I have a tag for the twins. Canon!twins is the tag for the twins in their book age. Unless this tag is present, the twins have been aged up :). They are very much canon but I put a bit more emphasis on tantrums. If they get angry, they both have tantrums. So whilst (unless tagged) they aren't children they can be very childish and these tantrums are pretty deadly. They’re also very possessive? I dont even know if thats the right word i’m looking for in all honesty. Lets say they get very attached if they like you. These two are probably the most secluded out of the whole Volturi.

Felix: Felix! High ranking guard due to strength and speed. I am a major supporter of Felix being a gladiator when he was human. He as a lighter grey cloak meaning he isn’t as high ranked but is so good at what he does that he’s been kept for centuries...and a lot of them. Personality? FINALLY, WE’VE GOT ONE WITH PERSONALITY!! (Im writing these out of order and i’ve just finished a chunk of Volturi members who have personalities as invisible as Afton.) Flirtatious and Light hearted, we love flirtatious and light hearted! Basically a comedian! Helllll yes, keep it going! Extremely vicious and highly aggressive? You know what? I still like it. He wouldn’t be a Volturi without a dark side. Cold blooded murderer. Yes. 10/10. Finally, someone Smeyer seems to actually care about. He flirted with Bella a couple of times in the books and i was FOR IT ALL THE WAY. I was very sad i saw none of it in the movies but im used to heartbreak by now. Im in this fandom after all. We were robbed of a lot. Strongest vampire in the world? I believe you, he’s also a hecking treeeeee. HE DO BE A TALL BOI. He actually makes Demetri look small and that’s still hilarious to me. Demetri is actually tall. However, if it isnt obvious we clearly traded backstory for personality. I cant get both smh. So...as i said before I fully believe Felix was a gladiator back in the day, hence his physique and height and excellent fighting abilities he has even as a vampire but then it kind of ends. I will say from the dawn of time, i don’t think Felix is the most academic man, just because of his era. I also think majority of the Volturi couldn’t read of write in their human lives and had to learn much older, most learning as vampires. Felix was one of these vampires, Although even now he isnt the most great at it. Then a wonderful writer known as @wallwriterstuff included it and now it’s canon in my eyes. I fully believe Felix is a slow reader and writing isn’t his strong suit either. Wallwriter also includes the possibility that Felix could be dyslexic which im all for too. For a very long time i’ve considered writing a dyslexic reader with the Volturi but have always hesitated because i don’t have it and wouldn’t want to upset someone for any misunderstandings or inaccuracies. However what i will say is that i think vampires would be the most understanding to humans with dyslexia. Learning things like that in later development or as an adult is difficult and they wouldnt think any less of you for struggling with reading, writing, numeracy- you name it. You’ll probably find they’re with you in the struggle at least half of the time. He’s also the goofball of the Volturi, even though he’s not really a goofball in our eyes, he’s the closest to a goofball out of the whole Volturi ...Emmett beats him in the Goofball wars.

Demetri: Oh yeah, it's Demetri's turn! So Demetri was previously in Amun's coven. When Chelsea gave him the old razzle dazzle...I've said Chelsea's gift so many times at this point it's getting old. I have two characters left after Demetri 😂😂 Anyway, with that Demetri was like "welp, I'm in the Volturi now." And now that they had a better tracker the previous one was kicked out. He isn’t much of a talker, polite and formal. He’s elegant (more graceful than i could ever be) and charming...yeah he is, you can say that AGAIN. He is also very calm, when next to Felix, i think everyone is calm but you know, we’ll say he’s a very calm person. I like how he was originally in the Egyptian coven with Amun. Given Amun’s goals this a pretty nice detail. NOW LETS GO TO MY VERSION. He’s very charming, calm, polite, formal and even a lil’ but quiet, i kept him pretty canon because he actually had a description to go on :))))))))))  Moving on. Demetri can be a very successful flirt when he wants to be and does have a Casanova reputation. However beyond the charming Volturi guard who has a brutal side like the rest of them, he has a chewy centre, deep down. I added that he had a child in his human life, one he doesn’t remember and very few people know about. He remembers that they died of an illness very young (around six?) but can’t remember what they look like. For that reason he doesn’t like talking about his child, he feels awful he doesn’t remember them and the loss still hits a pang in his chest. 

Heidi: Alright im ready for this one! Child me didn’t necessarily enjoy Heidi? I was rather passive about her. It was all ‘pretty vampire used for her looks’ in my eyes back then and i was never comfortable with that. I’ll get into my take on Heidi in a moment, roll on the backstory!  So Heidi knew Victoria as they used to be coven mates and we’re going to continue on as though Heidi didn’t care when she was killed? Like...its genuinely a burning question in my mind! If she didn't care, could that show the extent of Chelsea’s power in action!? (can we tell im enthusiastic about this coven yet?) It’s quite smart to have someone lure in prey. I wont lie, Heidi has quite the badass role in the coven. I wouldn't have thought about that I reckon. I’ve always thought that showed a kind of superiority. Oh you guys need to hunt your prey? pfft, ours literally comes to us. Her backstory really starts with Heidi being mistreated in her human life...a common theme Smeyer has. It can get old- i wont lie but when i give it some thought it kind of makes sense. Rosalie said it herself in eclipse, if any one of them had their happy ending, they’d be six feet under but i’d love a little bit more creativity. I could go on about how male vampires ended up being changed in comparison to female vampires but i’ll swiftly move on because that’s a whole other thing alone. Heidi was changed out of pity. (Which kinda infuriates me just to type, a pity change? Really? Really Hilda? we’ll see why it annoys me when i explain my take on Heidi.) Heidi was happy in her coven with Hilda, Victoria etc, which is hell yes. We love that. This is around the time she discovered her gift. Vampires were attracted to her and humans fell prey to her easily. Yup okay. I’ll take that. After a newborn vampire caused ‘too much attention’ Aro spared Heidi and Chelsea used her gift on Heidi. Nice, very nice aaaaand that’s where it stops and im left hanging.  Personality time with Smeyer! Lets goooo.  From what i remember and can find- she didn’t fucking have one. Apparently being pretty is enough for everyone.  Which in hindsight, fair enough on a human Bella’s perspective, its literally Heidi’s gift to lure you in no matter what. She could tell you she’s a serial killer (and technically is lmao) and is about to sell your kidneys on the black market as to which you’ll be like ‘sign me the fuck up, want my liver too? Here, let me lie on the table for you. I’m down.’ without even realising what just happened. But even beyond that...Heidi has no personality traits mentioned. In New Moon she appears to be a little flirty which im all for, why the hell not? But...thats it? Thats all I get? Then we get into fanfictions, because i read them growing up. Heidi was depicted as flirtatious, promiscuous and then it varied between manipulative or she wasnt very smart. Which i’m knocking absolutely no one for. I think you can get a badass character who is incredibly dumb. I think all characters are actually valid whether they’re a genius or flat out dumb. I love them all. However it never really sat with me. I was never quite satisfied which i was fine with until i started writing for myself. That’s when i knew i’d have to really think about what my version of Heidi would be or i’d never be happy with my work. That and you also begin to fill in the blanks? The more you write the more you flesh out a character for yourself and so that rolls into my version of Heidi! So for my Heidi, she often gets the same trope of ‘she’s pretty and rich, those types of girls have easy lives who always had everything given to them.’ Then when it’s discovered she didn’t have a good human life. It turns to the next assumption of ‘oh she’s pretty and stupid enough to be used and manipulated’. In a lot of ways, that’s what Heidi wants everyone to think. Underestimate her, please, its all the easier to manipulate you if you do.  She’s actually very smart and her rough human life made her more tough and intelligent. She’s very manipulative and yes she’s very flirty. You can look but you cant touch! She enjoys the attention her beauty gets her but if only these people would care more about what she’s like as a person. She’s not a barbie doll she will play you if she needs to. The only one who’s actually gotten far enough to sleep with Heidi is Demetri and even then the two don’t see each other romantically. They’re good friends who thinks the other is very attractive but that's where it ends. They’re basically friends with benefits some times lmao. However, Demetri got that far because he see’s the intellect Heidi actually has and acknowledges it. He thinks shes a queen who should be treated as such. She could take anything she wanted, a storm that people can only hope to survive in one piece.  Secretly she enjoys a family setting. Whilst she never really wanted children (especially when she was expected to when human), she couldn't help but melt inside seeing little human children with their loving parents. She wants that for all children. Whether that's because she lacked such affection growing up, no one knows. She’s also a really good friend, you bet she’ll have your back. Crappy ex? Well we’ll show them, wont we (Y/N)? She’ll be a bitch and enjoy every second of it. She also loves the single life, believe it or not, you’ll have more difficulty getting Heidi to settle down than you would Demetri which speaks volumes.  So yeah, move past her gift and really get to know her and you might have a very good friend.  I also don’t see Heidi having a preference between male or females and that’s in all honesty. Times have changed and if she is attracted to another female then she wont be ashamed of it. She never has been (Demetri was the first to figure that out, Felix may be the last.) Even when the times weren’t approving of different sexualities, she didn't care. She will flirt with you and find it ridiculously cute if you get flustered.

Sulpicia: Sulpicia was an orphan which i used to develop my own version of her. Sulpicia grew to love Aro which im on the fence about but yup, i’ll take it. You’ll see what happens with my version in a bit lmao. and that’s where it stops. I get no personality again but do you know what we do in this fandom? We create one and fill in the blanks baby! So i write Sulpicia very materialistic and vain, she’s most snobbish of the wives and due to the other two, also considered the meaner one. She didnt have such things as a child being an orphan so when she got the opportunity to have it-she jumped. She isnt easily impressed and married Aro not for love but for immortality, money and status. (He’s only married you for your money, princess Jasmine! HE ONLY MARRIED YOU FOR YOUR MONEY! Damn it tik tok, but make it princess Aro) Which works well, because Aro doesnt necessarily love her either, he just wanted a mate so he wasnt the odd one out.He literally created her because he was like “Yup, you’ll do.” The two recognised they made a great team and image so they kinda grew to love each other? A little bit? Sure we’ll say its love...sorta. ANYWAY, It’s a highlight to Sulpicia being locked in that tower where she doesnt need to see Aro every little moment, it’s better than having a husband who she’d need to see everyday. ...Yeah my Sulpicia is something else lmao.

Athenodora:  Athenodora is one of the oldest vampires in existence which kinda has me shook but I'll take it. She met Caius when he was fleeing from the Romanians, the two travelled together until they met Aro. Whilst on their nomadic travels they seemingly became mates. That's all we know about that. As to which the Volturi coven was made. Athenodora is completely loyal to Caius as well as highly dependent on him and I think that's very realistic given her circumstances. That's where their story ends...maybe for Smeyer but not for me! 😁 So I picture Caius and Athenodora being different sides of the same coin. Athenodora really mellows Caius, she is no where near is violent and sadistic as he is but due to her unwavering loyalty and dependency, she doesn't feel inclination to go against him...also because of Chelsea and Corin but I've said that so many times in this post I think we get the point. I think she's actually more gentle and soft spoken but that being said. She is very reserved and if she were to be angered she'd very much change. She could cut you down with words alone. Caius loves it. However beyond this is someone who is very maternal. Caius would appreciate it more if the two had children but instead it has created empathy. Caius doesn't want that when he can rip their head off. She struggles a little more with the 'no second chances' and that's another reason why Caius keeps her locked away and away from it. These two love each other more than words can describe. After being through so much with someone, the love can only grow. The two would happily risk their life for the other. Caius is saddened that he could never give her the family she wanted. He knows that to this day, Athenodora tries to reign in that side of her. He's a very supportive husband who's very different around his wife. He's much more tolerant, and angry. Simply more at ease. If anything happened to Athenodora, to put it simply...there would be hell to pay.

Didyme: Married to Marcus and Aro’s biological sister. Cute, me likely, keepy going. Her gift was happiness induction. VERY ADORABLE- Dont be as menacing as your brother...please. She was born several years after Aro and was changed by Aro ten and a half years after he was turned. (Dont tease me with all this lore Smeyer, I know what you’re gonna do) Aro was deeply disappointed her gift was just to make people happy- its okay Didyme, we love you. Aro is just...Aro. Her gift made many fall in love with her and its so freaking cute i CANT- but she only felt the same feelings for Marcus. MY HEART IS SO WARMMMM. Unfortunately they were so happy together that they lost interest in anything Volturi and were ready to leave. (Uh oh.) Aro, being the sneaky fellow he is, was like “I’m really happy for y’all of course you can leave. I love you my babies. My best friend and my sisterrrrrrr, I am the captain of this SHIP.” but was actually like “wait, no, no, no, not my Marcus. D-D-Did-Didyme I NEED him.” Think Sid the Sloth from ice age in the first movie when Sid really wants the baby. So this man is like...gonna have to do it to em and murder. He killed Didyme secretly (dunno how he pulled the secret part off- like i know how he did it but how did no one hear or see anything or even suspect anything IT WAS LITERAL FRIENDLY FIRE but we love the drama so continue.) Ironically enough she was very close with Aro and the two actually did love each other, Aro is just...murderous apparently, to the extent that even his sister isnt safe. And that’s it. That’s Didyme. Which im like...alright Smeyer i see you. I like this and expanded on this with my Didyme.  i get the vibes that Didyme is the most innocent and kind of all the Volturi. Losing her meant losing the consciousness within the Volturi making them all the more ruthless because there was no one to say. “Guys, maybe lets rethink this? and quickly because i cant get Caius to put down the torch thats currently on fire.” Losing Didyme made Marcus mostly become passive and would rarely stop anything that happened. I often wonder if that provoked a lot of guilt for Marcus later on. (However thats a spoiler for something im currently writing...;) ) I also think of her as a major daydreamer and the most soft, gentle person anyone will ever meet. Like its difficult not to like her despite being in the Volturi, even the Romanians would have struggled if they met her. So in the long run...i hate nothing about Didyme, only find more and more love lmao.

Corin: So im going to be honest and tell you i have no idea what Corin would look like. I’ve got nothing and when i was younger i wasnt even sure if Corin was male or female. Like a lot of these names, i had never heard of the name ‘Corin’. I dont write for her as of yet because im still trying to figure her out. I think she’s quite quiet, she lets her gift do most of the work for her in keeping the wives, Chelsea and Caius when he doesnt get to go on a rampage, content. She was brought in also after Didyme died but Marcus refused her gift.That’s all i’ve got for her. Her gift is amazing, pretty underrated in my personal opinion since like Chelsea, she really helps keep the Volturi unified but other than that, I dont have much to say about her. :(

Afton:  Another character i basically filled the blanks in for myself. So what we’re told is that he’s Chelsea’s mate and has the ability to disappear . Whilst thats a pretty cool trick...the volturi dont necessarily need it but they have to keep Chelsea happy and she demands that Afton stays so welcome to the family Afton! I also recently learned that if you hide behind Afton and he goes invisible infront of an opponent, you too will also be invisible. I figure that is until the opponent moves and basically changes their perspective but i could be wrong with that last part. That’s all we get so time for my unnecessary input!  SO AFTON IS A TOTAL SWEETHEART. He’s very shy but polite. This is a complete opposite to his mate Chelsea. It’s actually what she liked about him. At first is was just be flirtatious to the shy vampire but when she actually got to know him... she fell hard. It was also Chelsea who had made the first move since Afton was so shy. Of course she’d never say so and Afton would never want to embarrass her so that was never really disclosed to anyone who wasn’t around at that time. She brings Afton out of his shell a lot and it wasn’t long before the two were mates. Chelsea is the light of his life. Hands down. He puts up with a lot for her and is happy to do so. She could ask anything of him and he’d do it and she doesn’t even need to use her gift. He buys are anything she wants almost instantly. He cant help but adore her passionate personality, like how hooked she can get on era’s such as the 1920′s, her love for jazz music and her ability to gush on and on about anything. The two had what the other lacked and that made them an excellent team. I love their relationship. I cant help it. However, as i said before Afton is very shy and tends to keep to himself. Sadly that, paired with Chelsea’s demand to keep him in the Volturi has left Afton a little bit outcasted. All the other permanent guards were wanted and considered important whilst Afton...not so much. Although that isn’t to say the other guards are mean to him or anything. They aren’t! (Except the twins who are...the twins.) Felix and Demetri tried to include him a lot but it was very difficult to break him out of his shell. That doesn’t mean to say they wont invite Afton when he’s around. Chelsea always appreciates their efforts. Afton is notably good friends with Santiago, who often preferred solitude as well. 

(Guard to the left is who I imagine Afton is)

Chelsea: So supposedly Chelsea’s original name is Charmion? When i was younger i didnt really care much about her. I only really knew her gift and that she was the reason Afton was kept in the Volturi, since they were mates. From what im aware Chelsea basically wasnt in the movies/not identified. There wasnt much said about her in the books either. So since then i’ve kind of developed my own persona of Chelsea that could be completely inaccurate to canon but canon was my foundations with characters like these. She was always a red head in my eyes with ringlets, a copper kind of red head. I also pictured her to be small. However the newest addition to her character would have to be the mid-Atlantic accent. I blame Poppy Hill for this one. That character screamed Chelsea to me. She was very close to how i imagine Chelsea to be. So now Chelsea has an accent that i have no clue how she managed to maintain being in Italy so long and being born in Greece. LMAO. We’ll say she was very attached to that time. However, I think the time she joined the Volturi was actually very good for the story. She first came around just after Marcus had lost Didyme and Aro had her use her ability to keep Marcus in the coven. it’s really cool how she could really make or break the coven. Although, Aro was smart enough to not fully rely on her, using Corin’s ability on Chelsea to make sure she’d be happy and stay within the Volturi. Thats where the information on Chelsea really ends Over the years Chelsea has appeared in my writing and so beyond this point, Chelsea’s character is only my depiction.  I figure Chelsea is a talker, like she can talk her way in and out of situations with ease. She enjoys being manipulated and even more so, being needed.Much like her gift, she gets under people’s skin- not in terms that she’s annoying but more so she can figure out people very well. Her mate is the complete opposite and so she often speaks on the behalf of them. Chelsea is very social and charismatic. She along with Heidi are the only two Volturi members who will be out and interacting with humans if necessary. Heidi for her ability but Chelsea purely for her social skills. She’s also the most interested in human culture. She loves the parties- the 1920′s being her favourite era in terms of fashion. She has no issue changing her name and has done so multiple times when the names run out of fashion.It’s like playing dress up! I’d actually love to write more about her. I’ve really grown to love her character, even if i filled in some blanks for myself. I think she and Afton’s relationship is one of the best, up there with Carlisle and Esme- despite the two being very different. It’s a part of their dynamic!

(I always imagined Chelsea to be a red head but Poppy Hill from THOHH is a very close depiction to Chelsea in my eyes)

Renata: A stressed little bean that lives on stress. I remember thinking when i was younger she was the big threat since she was Aro’s shield but now that im older i see...a stressed little five foot bean. I have no idea what she looks like but always imagine her dark hair tied in a tight bun, looking almost painful. Another who wears heels, like Heidi but she is very rigid just as she has been described. Her uncle is a bit of an ass considering he begged her to go with the Volturi so there wouldn’t be a threat. Dude, can you not just...hand over your niece? At least hesitate! Just like that, thanks to Chelsea, she’d give her life to protect Aro and...I have nothing else. Yes it does drive me mad that there are two named guards i know next to nothing about.

Santiago:So what’s known about Santiago is that he doesn’t actually have an ability. He’s just very good at battle techniques and fighting which is why he’s kept around. If they need fighters, they’re top three are Felix, Demetri and Santiago...in that order. Santiago is also much faster than a regular vampire (as shown in breaking dawn part 2- he caught up to Jacob and Renesmee quite fast despite the two having a running start and wolves supposedly being very fast- much like a vampire) That’s all we know of him so then i got in there and this is how I write Santiago. I gave him the background of coming from a superstitious family. Like he would be told tales of demons and witches growing up as well as things like voodoo. He knew an awful lot of urban legends and whilst he stopped believing in the bad luck his family taught him, he still held interest and couldn’t help the instinct of unease when witnessing such things as rituals. It’s ironic really. However Santiago always deems that humans have it all wrong. These forces are beyond human understanding and shouldn’t be played with. In that way, perhaps Santiago still has some belief in things such as superstition. He’s very secretive about it and would never clarify it for you. Santiago keeps to himself and can be quite standoffish. He can also be blunt even if it’s insulting- he doesn’t tend to care. Although he and Afton became quite good friends since the Afton was an outcast and Santiago didn’t enjoy large groups, or most people in general.

[okay-victoria]

Love of My Second Life: Tanya & Romance

This is both my take on why, despite seeming like the easiest and healthiest relationship to write, TanyaxVisha is up there with TanyaxMary in difficulty level for pulling off successfully, what I’ve seen go wrong in fanfic so far, and what needs to make it/any romance go right.

Where to start, where to start...um, a warning, for obvious reasons I’m going to have to talk about sex.

The Age Difference

This has the joy of being a bit creepy on both ends of the spectrum! Yay.

Visha Being Creepy

Visha is probably 5 - 6 years older than Tanya. While as more mature adults that age difference is relatively negligible, Tanya being 17/18 and Visha being in her early 20s doesn’t make it suddenly a non-issue. If you and a coworker, both in your first job out of college, went to happy hour and you met his/her significant other and they were a senior in high school, would you feel good about that?

The age-of-consent laws in bygone eras may help your case for why in-story characters give a pass to such things, but it doesn’t really help explain it to your readers. Unless I’m missing something, no one is reading this story from 1920s/30s Germany, and so it needs to have the relationship explained in a way that tries to work for modern standards. Additionally, I think people tend to mix up age-of-consent with “people found this generally appropriate”. A 19 year old dating a 59 year old violates no laws in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that most people are going to consider it a loving and healthy relationship without any proof. Even your in-story characters are probably going to have some thoughts.

The final issue, from Visha’s end of the spectrum, is that even when Tanya is aged up to 18+ and has gained some secondary sexual characteristics, she is sometimes still presented as being an “eternal loli” who can be easily be mistaken for someone around 14/15, an age at which girls normally have some secondary sex characteristics, but distinctly immature ones. I imagine this problem stems from two places:

1) Scenes when Tanya’s lolidom is brought up are not the same scenes as the romantic ones, so the problem is not as obvious to the author and

2) Author forgets that “short+small boobs+doesn’t have wrinkles yet” does not actually result in people looking like they are mid-puberty. Without being really creepy, as women age, their breast tissue drops down and to the side, waist/hip/leg ratios change, and the face loses its baby fat, among other things. Writing that references Tanya as looking like a teen comes along with the unfortunate implication that she actually looks like she is still mid-puberty, and Visha...is into that, instead of being someone who is attracted to petite POST pubescent women.

These are all extremely fixable problems. Really, all an author has to do is make Visha acknowledge that it’s weird, and probably try to talk to Tanya about her reservations before she starts trying to seduce her. It’s the handwave that is the issue. For the last/puberty problem, unless there is some reason I probably don’t want to know about that the author only wants to write the relationship if Tanya looks 14, simply describe her as a petite but adult woman, and if you need to use her looking young as a plot point, have her make an effort to adapt her adult characteristics to suit or hope that nobody looks hard enough to tell the difference.

Tanya Being Creepy

While Tanya is physically the junior member of the relationship, mentally, she is the senior, and by a lot. Tanya knows this. While I don’t necessarily think Salaryman is the Earth’s most morally-pure man, I have a high enough opinion of him to think that he was not pursuing college girls when he was like 35. Tanya should also have a moment of thought over this, or the relationship needs to wait until Visha is closer to her late 20s, when she is approaching a similar level of life maturity that Salaryman would have felt was close to his own.

Even if you think that Salaryman’s logical side would have been eroded by his “but I’m a guy, I can’t help it, college girls are hot” side [I’m side-eyeing you], I think it’s very unlikely that living as Tanya, and being on the receiving end of that kind of stuff, wouldn’t make her reconsider her stance on it, at least a little.

I know, I know, Visha’s been to war! She’s not the same as some random college girl in 2020! While this is allowable as a partial justification, because it is true, it ignores a whole lot.

First off, maturity is not a straightforward drive. All parts of you do not mentally mature at the same time. If you want to write early 20s Visha as a mature-enough partner for Tanya, a bit of time needs to be spent on what Visha loses because of it - she never has, and never will, get to be that happy-go-lucky girl. While making fun of young women for being dramatic gossips, obsessing about non-serious things, etc remains a popular sport, thinking that you are doing Visha a favor by taking that time of her life away from her says pretty terrible things about how society values women’s relationships with each other. If you don’t mean for your fanfic to accidentally imply that, it’s something that needs some love & care.

Alternatively, you could write a story in which Visha, while being a competent adult, still gets space to explore her “girly” side. If doing so, you are going to have to make a really strong case for why Tanya is willing to put up with this, as Salaryman does not come off as someone who would judge it a good use of time & effort to be constantly letting his girlfriend rattle off about things he thinks are silly and immature - there’s a lot of other fish in the sea, why not find one that is a competent adult *and* isn’t often talking about things you don’t care about.

The Canonical Setup of Visha & Tanya’s relationship

Opposite Goals

In a nutshell, Tanya is presented as a person that wants to live a safe, boring, and non-notable life, is doing her best to get there, and is constantly failing and being stressed about it because she needs to figure out a new plan. Visha is presented as someone who has major qualms about Tanya as a human being, but has a nigh-worshipful respect for her heroic officer side.

This is a massive, and I mean MASSIVE problem. You absolutely cannot ignore that what makes the characters happy is diametrically opposed to each other. Can you overcome it? Yes, by slowly developing the characters towards a compromise, but you can’t just not acknowledge it and expect me to think this relationship has any hope of leaving both partners happy. Either Tanya never escapes her never-ending stress cycle, or she does, and the entire basis of Visha’s attachment to Tanya disappears.

This can be fixed by: 1) Tanya coming to terms with a new side of herself, one that wants to be that hero. This cannot just be a one-paragraph epiphany. Tanya is shown to hate when she thinks her internal self is being changed by her new experiences and she needs a lot of work to get to a point where she is willing to acknowledge this in herself.

2) Visha has to go through a rocky part where she second-guesses herself - she thought she wanted Tanya, but turns out, Tanya isn’t the person she thought she is? How and why does she decide that she likes the person Tanya has become? This is probably the easier route, but I think runs the risk of having an author have Visha *say* Tanya does all these other good things for her, but never really show it happening.

3) The happiest medium is probably one where Visha *mostly* adapts towards Tanya, so Tanya gets to live a quiet but not too quiet life, and Visha learns to love another side. As Visha is compromising more in this sense, a healthy relationship is going to include Tanya realizing what is happening and deciding to make an effort to appeal to Visha and not just be like “Take me as I am. Or don’t.” and Visha unilaterally decides to accept that.

Why Does Tanya want to be in a relationship with Visha?

Tanya betrays no actual emotional attachment to Visha in the light novels. While you can read in rationalization to the reasons Tanya gives to her actions, she herself does not believe that it is because of an emotional connection.

Canonically, Tanya is portrayed as liking Visha because of how well Visha passes the “usefulness” test. This brings up another MASSIVE problem - does Tanya, in any way, shape, or form, actually like Visha as an individual, or just  her ability to conform to the role Tanya wants her to play?

Look, I don’t need Tanya to be in LOVE with Visha in the way we usually talk about people being in love to believe that Tanya can be in a relationship successfully. I’m fully on board with a portrayal in which Tanya can’t quite summon that level of emotion. However, she needs to like and respect Visha as an individual person, and summon a level of emotion beyond friend with benefits.

IMO, it is really hard to do that without showing Tanya and Visha disagreeing on a major piece of Tanya’s philosophy and Tanya actually listening and responding positively to it, not simply agreeing to disagree because it isn’t worth upsetting her useful sidekick, or whatever. There needs to be character development of both characters - Visha finding it in herself to be comfortable rocking the boat, and Tanya having a compelling enough reason to change something that she has clung to for two lives.

Everyone wants to be a lesbian

While I get it, the Empire is not the exact same as Germany, and yes, I know that Weimar Germany was relatively sexually progressive, it’s really not something that a well-written romance should handwave.

“Weimar Culture” in many ways developed as a result of how WW1 went for Germany. If you have a story where WW1 doesn’t go that way for Germany, gay culture is unlikely to flourish to the same degree.

All that aside, Tanya isn’t someone that is going to easily shrug her shoulders and say “you know, sometimes you need to jeopardize your career for the sake of hot sex/love”. She’s pretty clear on which she prioritizes. A lesbian relationship is not going to help her here, and she’s going to be aware of it. She needs to struggle with that choice.

Visha not struggling to accept herself as a lesbian is also somewhat of an oversight. It’s pretty unlikely that a woman born in her time period would come to terms with that easily. Visha is also never shown being attracted to other women besides Tanya, which carries a weird “I’m only a lesbian for you” vibe that is like a gross parallel of a straight guy wanting a lesbian to be so attracted to him she can’t help it, she wants the D.

And now, we enter the realm of Tanya’s relationship with her identity and sexuality.

Tanya is shown to have mental qualms both about entering a straight or lesbian relationship in her new life. The reasons behind those qualms are not explored at all in the LN, but they should be in a story in which Tanya goes into a relationship.

No matter which path puberty takes her down, there is the issue of Tanya being comfortable having sex as a woman. Even if it is with another woman, it is not going to be particular similar to the way she had sex with women as a man. That type of thing is pretty tied up with our identity. Tanya hates having her internal, I haven’t changed identity threatened, and not being able to give sexual pleasure/needing to receive it differently is the type of thing that is probably going to come along with some emotional reservations on her part.

Again, sexual identity being a part of our overall identity, while Tanya may remain attracted to women, that means her identity is now as a gay person, not a straight person. Given her biases from both growing up in Japan and the state of gay rights in her new life, it would seem atypical that she would consider this a non-issue and it wouldn’t make her question her priorities or the type of person she thought she was.

But...The Sex?

Look, I get it, sometimes you wanna see certain characters bang. We’ve all been there.

While yes, I recognize that many humans make terrible decisions solely in pursuit of sex, and so it’s perfectly realistic to have Tanya and Visha do the same and say that’s why you’re handwaving everything else, it is an extremely lazy storytelling technique, especially since neither character seems likely to go to extremes for it.

Because people focus so much on sex appeal, unfortunately, they use it as a substitute for making a good case for the relationship. Visha/Tanya is so attracted to Tanya/Visha, that now they are willing to undergo character development, because the pulsing loins urge them to. Really?

Do at least some of it first, lay the groundwork for romantic attraction before you slam them with physical attraction. While it often works the opposite direction in real life, that undercuts the romantic side in fictional story-telling.

I also think that because of the focus on their attraction to each other, what ends up missing in all TanyaxVisha fanfics I’ve seen so far is the tension. That makes it boring, I don’t care about it, and the entire reason I don’t care about it is because the choice to handwave the inconvenient facts means there is nothing in the way besides Tanya being a dumbass, which you can only do for so long without it becoming boring.

They are both attracted to each other, and admit it to themselves. Neither sees any real problem with the relationship other than not knowing if the other person likes them, but they aren’t even hung up on it and mostly work on straightforwardly winning the other person.

When in doubt, blame it on The Patriarchy

As far as we know, Tanya isn’t pining for relationship, and never thinks about a romantic relationship from her old life. Combined with other things Tanya says, it is hard to imagine Salaryman ever had a “considering marriage” relationship - more like, he may have felt partnership had some desirable aspects, but probably never was able to compromise on his kind of extreme worldview enough to try to make it work with someone, just figuring he’d find “the one” one day that wasn’t going to make him compromise.

While of course, you should not need to change everything about who you are for a romantic partner to like you, saying “you should like me for me” and then putting in exactly zero effort to do things because you know they are important to your partner, even if they aren’t for you, is not one of the keys to a successful relationship.

While it is not a problem inherent to Tanya & Visha’s relationship like the above sections, it is a problem in all forms of how I’ve seen the relationship written. It fails to answer a fundamental question: WHAT CHANGED?

Why did Tanya want love/a relationship/a wife in this life, and not in her last? If she did want it in her last life, why did she successfully find love/a relationship/a wife in this life, and not in her last?

Unfortunately, skipping the answer to this question implies that nothing changed. The success is then entirely reliant and Visha, and that brings along with it a really ugly answer.

Visha’s professional I’ll-do-anything-for-you is equated to a personal I’ll-do-anything-for-you, and she very much accepts Tanya for who she is, through all the flaws that are definitely there and that presumably no woman in Salaryman’s life was willing to put up with. Tanya doesn’t have to undergo any character development to be capable of making the relationship work.

This has some really, really unfortunate undertones. It is the very reason why even legal-but-large age difference relationships often aren’t healthy, because the older partner, instead of trying to be someone capable of contributing to the life of someone their own age, decides it’s easier to find someone younger who doesn’t know better and is more willing to put up with their bullshit. That, then, turns into a creepy grooming undertone - you make the less experienced partner think this is normal.

It really isn’t normal or good that Visha should have to put up with a relationship in which she never discovers who she wants to be because she’s so caught up Tanya’s idea of how to live your life. That is borderline emotional abuse, I am sure no one intends it to be there, but without giving some serious treatment to character development, unfortunately, it is.

To me, this has some of the worst overtones of the worst types of male fantasy - My Manic Pixie Dream Girl is completely devoted to me, and instead of emotionally adding to her life and/or our relationship, she is completely fine with me substituting being a Strong Heroic Man who occasionally buys her Nice Things. She demands I change nothing of myself and completely agrees with my Logical Man worldview, no matter what she needs to change about herself to get there. She’s hot, and I get to simultaneously be a straight man and have hot lesbian sex. Even better, because she’s a “strong” woman who is capable in her own right, not only am I physically satisfied, but I get the ego boost of “earning” the submission and subordination of a woman who is better than most people, because she knows I’m better than her.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the grosser it gets, so as far as fanfic goes I just try to ignore it and understand that the authors intention wasn’t to bring along all this baggage. However, to truly write a good Tanya x Visha story that gets away from all these unfortunate implications is a big undertaking, and it’s really impossible for it to make for a compelling side-plot that doesn’t get much screentime.

I’m generally fine with handwaving issues for sideplots, but if Tanya is making decisions because of her relationship with Visha that are now affecting the main plot, it really isn’t something that *should* be handwaved.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[a-crimson-lion]

My Thoughts On Chapter 257 and Why I Think The Bakudeku Dynamic Is Still Fundamentally Broken

[Spoilers and Bakugo-Bashing ahead. Long post. Avoid if you don't want to see.]

Look, I can kind of see why people enjoy the idea of Izuku and Katsuki making up and being friends again after all the crap Katsuki did. Honestly, if Horikoshi had set it up right, I might have been rooting for them, too. Of course, I don't root for it, because I don't see much improvement in the dynamic, especially on Katsuki's part.

Before I get started, remember: if you like the dynamic between Izuku and Bakugo, that's fine. This post probably isn't for you, and that's fine, too. I'm not writing this post to attack anyone personally, but if you feel offended, feel free to ignore this post and go about your day. I'd like it if we could be respectful of one another's opinions. Sound good? Good.

Now, let's begin...

So the big thing in this chapter (257 chapters, dear God...) is that we're finally learning a bit more about the OFA Holders. For starters, we now know the Black Whip user's name: Banjo Daigoro (heads up, the "Go (五)" in Daigoro means "Five," continuing the trend of OFA Holders having their wielder number in their names). We've also learned that Nana's Quirk was "Float" or "Levitation," which makes a lot of sense.

(I mean, Flight is one of the most iconic superpowers besides super strength, and since Nana is Izuku's metaphorical grandmother, it's incredible for her to be using such a by the book super power. Plus, it only compliments her friendship with Gran Torino, another hero with a flight Quirk.)

I'm rambling at this point. As intriguing as the Quirks of the previous holders is, my attention (as well as other readers' attention) was pulled towards Katsuki. Most say that the relationship between Katsuki and Izuku was adorable in this chapter. Others say Katsuki was a gremlin, but they still love him for it.

Well, pardon my pessimism, but if I'm using the phrase right, it looks like I'm gonna be playing devil's advocate.

[Keep in mind, the official translations haven't dropped yet, so this might screw up my analysis a bit.]

There's another meeting about OFA between Izuku, Toshinori, and of course Katsuki. Toshinori talks a bit about how he couldn't find everything for the previous holders, and what does Katsuki say?

If you don't know it then just leave it at that, I'm waisting my precious time on you guys.

There are a handful of other rude/passive-aggressive ways Katsuki could have phrased that. He could have made it sound like "That's nice and all, but could we skip to the important stuff?" But no, even though this information is crucial to Izuku, even though Katsuki has every right to just stay out of the room since the conversation won't benefit him, he says they're wasting his "precious time." Once again, Katsuki is being self-centered, but that isn't anything new.

A little later, Katsuki is taking a loom at the notebook, and he remarks that all the Quirks Izuku got must have been lame. Katsuki is immediately writing the Quirks off just because they aren't upfront with their badassery. Izuku appreciates all Quirks because he wasn't born with one, but Katsuki only appreciates strong Quirks because that's what society and his own self image have taught him up to this point.

Think of it this way: A man with diamonds can't understand why a man is happy with silver, but a man with nothing understands the value of both.

Katsuki's Quirk is admittedly versatile and efficient, and I can respect the work he put into it. However, immediately dissing less flashy Quirk's might be his downfall. Characters like Sir Nighteye don't have "powerful" Quirks, but are still capable adversaries thanks to how they use them in tandem with their other abilities. Foresight might not be a powerful Quirk in a fight, but Nighteye's own strategy, deceivingly ripped physique, and his high-density stamps help round him out as a capable opponent. We've seen Izuku utilize Black Whip in ways which can be definitely declared badass. Even Nana's Quirk can be used in incredible ways, especially considering Izuku's strategy and relentnesses.

Speaking of Nana's Quirk, here comes the part I hate the most...

Lots of readers talk about how Katsuki and Izuku's dynamic has grown a lot since their middle school days. That's not to say the statement isn't true, because there has been some growth, but I feel like most of it is exaggerated. Katsuki and Izuku haven't had an introspection (or at least a meaningful one) on themselves where they've come to grips with their faults and have vowed to change for the better. Izuku doesn't stop to think that maybe Katsuki shouldn't have treated him the way he did since they were kids, because Izuku's more concerned about heroism, mastering OFA, and (ugh) proving to Katsuki that he'll surpass him, being his image of victory. Katsuki hasn't really thought about his actions aside from that one time after the Provisional License Exams that ultimately amounted to nothing. It's been said time and time again by several in the fandom that Katsuki hasn't really changed, and for as much growth (or lack thereof) as he's had throughout the entire course of the series, the statement is not without merit. Case and point: the very first thing Katsuki spits out to Izuku when All Might reveals Nana's Quirk?

I WON!

He's more concerned about his own image and pride then about Izuku's progress. He's already got flight down, so instead of leaving it at that or (highly unlikely) offering to help Izuku figure out the whole flight thing, he decides it's a great thing that Izuku will waste his time learning something Katsuki already knows so Katsuki can make sure he can beat Izuku yet again. He's not adding anything to the conversation, and while Izuku isn't personally bothered, Katsuki's next words are not okay, even if they're relatively tame.

Before you tell me that Katsuki is just trying to encourage Izuku or something like that along those lines, let's take a look at their proceeding dialogue:

T-that's not true! I'll just master it and catch up to you!!

You're just going to panic again! Explode and go to Hell!

Buy I managed to get the gist of Blackwhip, so...

DIE!!

No hesitation...!

...Katsuki is not being encouraging in any way, shape, or form. He's being discouraging; in spite of Izuku's protest, Katsuki insists that Izuku is going to crash and burn once more. Never mind that Izuku isn't bothered by it, what Katsuki is saying is not okay. No one can be the best but him, so no one can improve... including Izuku. Forget about Izuku's previous feats, forget the fact that he learned to use the base Quirk without damaging himself AND a second Quirk in less than a year. As long as Katsuki can pull ahead, stupid Deku won't be able to catch up and he'll prove that he'll forever be the best.

...can you feel my frustration with this character?

And then there are the panels where Izuku looks like he reading the journal, and Katsuki is making a gremlin face while make the "kill" gesture across his neck, and All Might's looking at it like it's something precious. Other people called this scene adorable, but for me, it only proves that Katsuki hasn't changed and WHY he hasn't changed. He still treats Izuku as someone lesser instead of as an equal; he might not be Quirkless anymore, but for Katsuki, Izuku just another extra to surpass. And then Izuku tries to be civil with Katsuki, but... the boy really does not care about him. And then people like All Might don't know the full depth of their relationship and consider this a massive improvement, and see no reason to confront Katsuki or Izuku about their issues.

Seriously, the narrative is so contrived in Katsuki's favor, I'm losing hope that Horikoshi will ever try to fix it properly.

And before you give me Izuku's whole spiel about:

I never thought the day would come where I could speak so naturally with Kacchan.

NARRATORS! CAN! BE! BIASED!!!

Just because Izuku is the protagonist and overall honest does not mean his views/relationship with Katsuki are ultimately well. I'm not saying he's an unreliable narrator, since he hasn't really gone to Delusion City as he's told us the story, but it's very clear that he doesn't give Katsuki's actions too much thought. Him suddenly being able to talk casually with Katsuki is not a major feat: EVERYONE ELSE can casually talk to Katsuki just as well even if his personality is, quoting Denki, "flaming crap mixed with sewage." At this point, I'm just tuning out all the times the narrative tries to claim that Izuku is completely mentally sound, or that Katsuki has made significant progress.

You can keep shouting it from every roof top you want to, but unless you're showing CONSISTENCY, you're not showing substance.

So, TL;DR This chapter continues to push the Bakudeku rival dynamic while instead showing how Katsuki has ultimately barely changed and is continually enabled by other characters and the narrative to continue his behavior because virtually everyone around him has an abnormally high tolerance for his bulls***.

That's all I can write right now. Thank you for reading.

-Crimson Lion (18 January 2020)

[limerental]

geraskier fic recs

aka everything i remembered to bookmark on ao3 just vomited into a tumblr post because i want to yell about them (and there are more than this that I enjoyed dearly i am just very silly and forget to save them)

under a cut to spare your dashboard

b-sides and rarities by fathomfive, 6.4k

note: i am weak for pining, long meandering but inevitable feeling journeys toward one another, deeply felt landscape description and melancholy ballads and this fic is all of those

excerpt:

He plays a few idle notes, and then slides smoothly into a tune that’s at once familiar and new. It’s a walking song, a good steady-paced melody without flourishes. He plucks a note, holds it in his throat and hums, and sings. Morning came over the mountains, there I was, there we were.

Noon burned above the broken path, you left but I return.

A season’s span to where I find you, call and I return.

O the light fades in the valley, I’ll return, return.

here, where the world is quiet by @drawlight, 5.4k, explicit

note: the jaskier pov in this is very, very lovely and it was hard to pick an excerpt because all the prose is lovely and jaskier’s descriptions of geralt are particularly lovely

excerpt:

“But if you ever wanted,” Jaskier spreads his hands, his long fingers, spreading out the wrinkles of the bedsheets. The weight of Geralt next to him is constant. A promise. They constantly circle, dance to unsung songs. Geralt never dances, except here, around Jaskier. (You can run so far away, Witcher, but space is not that forgiving. There is so much nothingness, nothing to block, nothing to get in the way. On a good night, from a clear plain with little light pollution, one can see twenty-quadrillion miles into the sky. Jaskier thinks this number sounds absurd but he trusts the arithmancers and knows in his heart, in his blood, his bones that it is the truth. Jaskier knows there is nowhere to hide; he has tried.)

The Ballad of Pots and Pans by 6th_magnitude, 8.1k

note: this one’s got oblivious geralt realizing all of jaskier’s songs, even the less obvious ones, are actually about him and excellent banter and some poignant and painful bits about jaskier’s mortality and also just a bunch of really great ballads.

excerpt:

Jaskier startles, and looks at Geralt a little dazedly. “Nothing. It’s – oh, I just wanted to write something good and true to capture everything I feel in this moment, and I cannot for the life of me write it at all! What good is being a poet if you cannot translate the most important feelings of your life to pen and paper? What good is it if I cannot write you a song, so that one day you might remember this morning?”

“I’ll remember it,” Geralt replies quietly. “I don’t need a song to remember it.”

Jaskier smiles at him, his eyes shining a little with unshed tears of frustration. “Even so, I would like to memorialise this feeling, record every detail, so I might recall it later. The human memory is so fallible, you know. It’s why we make songs and stories – to remember feelings, even when facts have faded from all memory.”

“I’ll remember it,” Geralt says again, sleepily. “I’ll remember this feeling. No matter what.”

swallow my breath and take what is mine by @anacaoris, 6.5k, explicit

note: this has got jaskier giving all sorts of nice things to geralt that he doesn’t feel he deserves and misunderstandings and geralt not knowing how to use his words or brain cell and oh also there’s smut

excerpt: 

Fingers flex in his hair, running a shudder down his spine at the spark of it. Part of him wishes he knew better what to say, that this could be simpler. That he was born with the same poetry spilling from him enough to say all that he tucks in his lungs but he’s not, he’s better with action, better with showing just what he needs to mean so Geralt brings a hand up, curls it around Jaskier’s and keeps it in messy locks, still damp from the bath as he sinks to his knees.  “Sweet merciful blessings, I will, ah, I’ll take this as a ye-ehs.” 

Companionship by ArliaDevi, 4.1k

note: really fun take on their relationship in ciri pov and i love found family domesticity so much and geralt teaching ciri things and glimpses of tender moments

excerpt:

When Geralt gets back, covered in what Ciri is quite sure is intestines, they eat quietly in the corner of the inn. Jaskier plays his music, his hat out for coins. He sings well, Ciri has to admit, and there’s an entrancing quality about the way he performs, luring all eyes to him. Even Geralt’s eyes seem to wander back to Jaskier, lingering on him just long enough that Ciri manages to steal a few mouthfuls of ale.

‘Don’t think I didn’t notice that,’ Geralt mutters as Ciri slides the large stein back in place.

‘Girls in Cintra drink at ten,’ Ciri replies matter-of-factly.

‘No, they don’t.’ Geralt takes another mouthful of ale before sliding it towards Ciri. ‘Don’t let Jaskier see.’

‘Stealth training?’

Geralt rolls his eyes. ‘Sure.’

look what you made me do by @cicaklah, 6.5k, explicit

note: is just another in the “jaskier’s songs are all about geralt and geralt is a dumbass” genre and also there’s deeply immersive scenery details and also also there’s a truly filthy sequel that is not on this list only because i still have some level of shame but it’s here in spirit

excerpt(s):

They ride half a day, Geralt chatting to Roach about all the injustices in the world, most of which are food related, with Roach hrumphing every now and then in response. Around them the fallow fields are untouched, resembling plush, perfect eiderdowns, with gnarled trees like the posts of a fine bed, fit for a giant. The sky is clear after the storm, bluer than at the height of summer and vast, their clouds stolen for the ground.

and

Geralt understands how long sex can last, always feels sorry and guilty for the women he beds who don’t understand that stamina was one of the most successful mutations he gained. He hates how easy it is to push that little bit too far into pain unless he’s careful (and he’s always careful, he loves women, loves their pleasure, never lets himself get carried away) but now there’s a man behind him and he realises that he can take it, that they made him perfectly for this by accident, so he can take all that male stamina and strength into himself and enjoy it like a glutton, enjoy it in the way he only has been able to a handful of times in his life, match every stroke with his own power.

Dawn by Sylvalum, 3.5k

note: this one is a bit different to the others on this list but it’s got delightful yen & jaskier developing friendship and a touch o the ole melancholy that i so very much crave

excerpt:

Yennefer doesn’t say anything, so eventually Jasker turns back to the grave and lowers the body, then starts to shovel the earth back in, rich soil and sandy dirt and tufts of dead grass. He tries to cover the dead sorceress carefully, to send her off into the eternal night gently, but he fumbles too much and works too fast. Impatience and fear have burnt away his flesh so now there’s only nerve endings left to hide his ragged bones. It’s… it’s been a long day. He’s been digging for most of it.

Yennefer simply watches, standing behind Jaskier like a disapproving mother. Until suddenly she says in an oddly quiet voice,   “Her name was Sabrina.”

And Jaskier stills. Haltingly, Yennefer steps forward to stand and look at the grave for a moment.

And after that, she starts to help Jaskier dig the graves.

To Sleep Perchance To by sospes, 16.9k, canon-typical violence & gore

note: it isn’t a fic rec list by me unless it’s got angst on the list so warning for torture and unreliable reality and general gnarly descriptions of violence and psychological damage. this broke my heart a wee bit and it may just break yours.

excerpt:

In those quiet, maybe-false moments, Jaskier knows that if this goes on much longer, he’s going to lose his mind. It’s not a panicked thought, not a terrified thought, it’s a cool, calm, logical realisation that he doesn’t think he can get away from. He’s losing the ability to know what’s real and what isn’t. He’s spending every waking second in a nightmare of blood and betrayal. And there’s nothing he can do to escape.

Geralt comes and presses him up against the cold stone wall of the cold stone cell, pinning his wrists above his head with one impossibly strong hand. He kisses him, slow and languid, and then he sucks a bruise into the side of his neck, using too much teeth and too much tongue. “I’ve missed you,” he murmurs into Jaskier’s throat, and Jaskier takes the opportunity to knee him in the balls.

let us shake the abacus by @et-in-arkadia, 3k, explicit

note: this is simple, shameless smut and i am only allowing myself to slap it at the bottom of this list because i’m fond of the author’s work in general and also the dynamic, man, this dynamic is what it’s all about

Resigned to his poor decision-making for the evening, Geralt breaks away from where he's sucked a bruise into the soft skin of Jaskier's neck. Jaskier is moving against him like a ship on an unruly sea, increasingly impatient and unmoored.

"Tell me," Jaskier insists. He scratches lines down Geralt's back, then grabs Geralt's ass to haul him closer. "Geralt. Tell me."

This is also different: Jaskier likes to hear him talk, prefers to hear, above all else, Geralt's intent. Jaskier's need for words is limitless, unquenchable—Geralt has made him come all but untouched by whispering into Jaskier's ear the things that he'd do, given the time. It's really quite extraordinary. Which is perhaps why Geralt entertains the request, despite not being exactly given over to loquaciousness himself.

[mere-mortifer]

Valentine’s Day Exchange  🎈 Masterlist

Thank you to everyone who took part in the exchange! Some works are still being updated, and others will be posted in the next few days, but I didn’t want to post this too long after Valentine’s day itself. 

❧  Ships: 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

Richie Tozier/Mike Hanlon

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

Stanely Uris/Bill Denbrough

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

Beverly Marsh/Stanley Uris/Richie Tozier 

🎈 Ao3 collection 🎈 | Links and summaries after the cut! 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

❧  by @illwriteyouatragedy

1. cherry cordial | E | 1/1 He’s staring down hard at his phone, scrolling aimlessly through Facebook without reading anything, when someone bumps into him. Whoever it is grabs the pole, their hands brushing against each other’s. Right in his ear, the guy says, “Fucking shit, you’re hot.” Eddie’s head jerks up, startled, and he meets the bright blue eyes of a man at least eight inches taller than him. The guy’s got a pink knit cap tugged down over his head and a spill of curls falling down from it, his glasses fogging up in the warmth of the train car. “What?” Eddie demands.

2. dark chocolate strawberries | T | 1/1 The way Eddie's looking at Stan— Richie’s been on the receiving end of enough of Eddie’s playfully-mad looks to know this isn’t one of them. His heart starts pounding again. He has to be overthinking things. There’s no fucking way he’s not. After all this time, how could he not be, since— Well. Then again, what the fuck does he have to lose? Maybe it’s the boxed wine talking, or the fact that his ability to keep in his own secret is hanging on by a fucking thread, or the way Eddie truly seems pissed that other people are kissing Richie like this, but— Regardless. Regardless, Richie wants to keep testing this theory.

❧ We reconnected by @kaspbrak-tozier-reddie | T | 1/1 Eddie had unexpectedly arranged a date for valentine's day with a guy who he had met online just to get over his nemesis, Richie. Richie owns a tattoo parlour right by Eddie's innocent flower shop but with Richie's loud music, Eddie is at a constant battle to keep his customers in the shop rather them leaving.

No matter how obnoxious and frustrating Richie is, Eddie can't help but wonder if the boy he knew before high school is still in there. Especially when he loses a fight with his store gate and Richie patches him up. If only Eddie could love his online friend as much as he loves Richie.

❧ You Don’t Even Like Boys by @tinyangryeddie | E | 1/1 The sign for the event looks significantly different than the invitation. “A Valentine’s dance?” Eddie squeaks at him, grinding his rolly suitcase to a halt. Sure enough, a loopy red cursive “after-auction Valentine’s Day dance” accompanies the ridiculous imagery. Richie wants to laugh - or maybe cry - it’s hard to tell the difference with Eddie staring at him like he personally assigned the theme and bought the tacky heart-shaped balloons to pile into the lobby. “I didn’t… know,” is all Richie can come up with.

❧ One for the money, two for the show by @mere-mortifer-writing | E | 1/3 Richie's not sure if he's about to get punched or something more pleasant, and as he's placing a bet with himself on which option is more likely, the stranger surges up to close the distance between them, and suddenly they're kissing. Or: Richie is a famous actor, and Eddie a college student who has never hear of him before. When they get papped arguing in public about a bad parking job, the media spins to story to make Richie seem like an homophobic asshole-nevermind that Eddie and him were already making out minutes after the photos were taken. There's one obvious way to clear Richie's name: pretend that Eddie and him had been dating all along.

❧ Sweet Like Sugar Venom by @sippingonsouthernrains | M | 1/1 Being Eddie’s sugar baby was nice. Being Richie’s was fun. Being both? Fucking exhausting. Or, the thrilling tale of one Stanley Uris acting as the human-embodiment of an eye roll as Richie and Eddie claim to compete for his affections. Of course, Stan recognizes that they’re only competing for each other’s affections, and it takes about two minutes for him to get completely tired of being in the middle of it.

❧ It’s not gay if you’re practicing to kiss girls! by @space-is-out-there | G | 1/1 Richie gets the losers invited to one of the biggest parties of the year! They’re prepared for booze, music, and lots of spin the bottle. The only issue? Eddie and Richie have never kissed anyone before and wouldn’t know where to start! Haha... unless 😳

❧ little pieces of nothing that fall by @spunknbite | E | 1/1 Eddie shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.” This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot. Or, the one where it's 1998 and Richie sits down at the bar next to an asshole with a Palm Pilot.

❧ He loves me, he loves me not by Sirius_1910 | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming and the Losers getting together to celebrate at the clubhouse, two boys try speaking feelings, but forget how messy they are on a daily basis. 

❧ Red washcloths and Bloody knuckles. by @toziersspaghettihead | T | 3/3 This shit should’ve been easy, y’know? You pretend to date your best friend so everyone else thinks you have found your soulmate. Richie had been praying for years that he would find the person made specifically for him. However at seventeen and he had yet to have his soulmark- It was concerning, He was starting to think that.. Maybe, Well maybe he was just one of the unlucky few that never found their other half. So the plan came along easily, One day- He was sprawled out on his bed, His best friend. It was late August and he was fucking melting in the heat, Eddie had his legs on top of Richie’s just laid out trying to cool off, With a Comic held above his face. Richie wasn’t as easily distracted that day, He was lost in thought, His music blaring- He prefered loud obnoxious songs any day compared to silence. Yet, His thoughts were running rampant. “Eds, Do you think I’ll ever find my soulmate?” The question had Eddie seizing. “Yeah, Obviously..Everyone has them.” He dropped his comic down onto the bed and sat himself up.

❧ simple words by @birightsrichie | T | 1/1 Eddie had spent his entire life dreading meeting his soulmate. Mainly because the first thing said soulmate was going to say to him was, "Do you come here often?" and Eddie did not want to spend his life with the type of person that would say something like that. He figured they would be extremely annoying and cheesy and probably a bit of an asshole, too. 

❧ Bolt by Satanders | T | 1/1 It's their first Valentine's day together and Eddie wants to surprise Richie, but Richie is not easily romanceable... 

❧ Fake It ‘Till You Make It by Jojosugay | G | 1/1 Richie takes Eddie to his managers valentine's day party pretending to be married.

❧  Welcome to the losers club by jack05writes | T | 1/1  Since bill had quit as the bassist of the losers club, he desperately needed replacing... Enter eddie kaspbrak.

❧  the townhouse by uhohcanteen | E | 1/1 richie snaps out of it faster than pennywise had anticipated. now, as richie rolls them both out of the way and start running away, they have got a lot ahead of them, including a night to remember. 

❧  Just Another Coffee Shop AU by @stardust-writer | T | 1/1 “You’re just jealous,” his friend Beverly would say. “You wish your lonely ass had someone to make out with today, but you’re stuck with me, a strictly platonic best friend.” “Correction, I was stuck with you,” Eddie says, holding up a finger. “Now that you’re dating Ben, I am, as you put it, a lonely ass.” Beverly laughs and then pulls him along, trying to appease her friend. And it’s not like she was wrong, Eddie just didn’t like to admit she was right. Because she tended to get smug when she was right and that was almost all the time. He already had to put up with it on a daily basis, he would rather it didn’t double on this godforsaken holiday. Or: It's Valentine's Day and Eddie is single.

❧  Illegal Moves by @northwindscookie | T | 1/1 Pizza plus beer plus our two favorite gay dumbasses equals a recipe for a Reddie's Valentine's Day. 

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

❧  butterflies and storms and ooey-gooey feelings by @lo-v-ers | T | 1/1 Ben Hanscom is the human definition of sunshine weaved into a warm heart and a generous soul and everything good that a person could possibly be. They met in their English 101 class freshman year, and they just clicked, and Bill has never felt as understood as he did when Ben looked him in the eyes and smiled and nodded and spoke with wisdom that an eighteen year old shouldn’t have. (Ben looks at Bill and sees the stars, glimmering and beautiful and breathtaking. He looks when Bill isn’t looking and he smiles and feels his heart flutter with joy and something else, but Bill doesn’t know that.) (At least, he doesn’t know it yet.)

Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier

❧  head in the clouds but my gravity's centered by @queermccoy | G | 1/1 “There’s a situation,” he tells Eddie, who is sitting at his desk surrounded by textbooks and yellow legal pads filled with drawings of complex chemical and Matchbox 20 lyrics. “What is it?” Eddie asks, dropping his pen and turning in his rickety chair. There’s an edge of panic in his tone, like he isn’t there yet but could be in no time at all. “Mike Hanlon asked me to go see a movie!” Richie practically yells, hands in the air. He’s still huffing and puffing from running through campus and up the stairs. “So?” Eddie blinks, “We see movies with Mikey all the time. How is that a situation?” “Because he asked me to go out on Valentine’s Day!” Richie says and falls on his bed dramatically.

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧ making out is hard to do by winkyjinki | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming up, Stanley Uris faces his biggest challenge since defeating an evil clown: getting his first kiss. 

❧ The Truth Is That I Think I've Had Enough by @reddie4thesinbin | E | 1/1 For the first time since Stan developed feelings for his best friend, Richie was finally single on Valentine’s Day, and Stan was fully planning on taking advantage of it. He invited Richie on a camping trip, just wanting one night where he could pretend, but Richie had different plans. 

❧  Moon Secrets by @the-ben-handsome | T | 1/1 When it gets to be a certain hour of the night is when everything gets all weird; truth or dare reveals secrets shared under the moonlight. 

Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris 

❧  The Bluejay In The Corner by  @adore-affection | T | 1/? He couldn’t keep it in any longer, but he couldn’t just tell someone, it was too dangerous. When he got up to his room he pulled out a thick page of blue stationery and began to write. 

❧ Reasons Why I Want To Fuck My Student's Brother by @aleckisverygay​ | Not rated  | 4/4 When Richie and Stanley find themselves hard-pressed for money, they decide to go job hunting in order to afford their bills and keep from being thrown onto the street in the middle of January. Little does Stanley know, a tutoring job quickly turns to something more when he meets Bill Denbrough, his student’s charming brother. Shenanigans ensue, Stanley has a sexual awakening and Georgie is hell-bent on hooking his brother up with the cute tutor.

Who knew a story about rampant libidos could be so emotionally fulfilling and have, like, meaning?

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

❧  Happiness and Love Revolve Around You by CoolestLemon | M | 1/1 A cute little peek into Mike and Stan's relationship, especially as they try to buy their dream home. 

Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧  Our Man-At-Arms by SevlinRipley | T | 1/1 Beverly is often the one to pull the trigger. 

[sonicringbond]

Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey - Scene 52

Hopefully as everyone is reading this things have improved for me. My mental state has been a bit of mess at the time of writing this. I’ve had fears for the future of the AU and my ability to write it at all. While I have big plans and changes in store, it’s surprisingly difficult to stay enthusiastic. Strangely, only my primary villain seems to keep me motivated. But they won’t appear here, too an extent I suppose, but there is another villain who returns in this scene. I’ll let you see who now in...

    “Oh~! I see more flowers,” Blister began as she stepped through the Ring Gate and watched Zooey embrace Tails. She grew distracted a moment however as she took in the sight of the Ring Gate Beacon room. The ceiling of shifting blocks covered in glowing geometric patterns was almost mesmerizing. “Wow~. I have to get one of these on my ship.”

    “Maybe later,” Tails stated as he put his hands on Zooey’s shoulders and pushed her back, although as gently as he could. “Right now, we have to support Sonic. Zooey, can we map out the catacombs from the bridge.”

    “The Engineers and I already have a map in place,” Zooey confided in Tails, though still peeked around him curiously at Draw and Blister. Tails’ urgency pulled her back however as she felt his grip tighten on her shoulders. “We can use the same sonar method we used to map the city to keep track of Sonic and give him a heads up if anything goes sideways.”

    “That’s great,” Tails sighed relieved and started to hurry for the bridge, stopping only long enough to look back and ask Zooey another question. “Is it sensitive enough to pick out people?”

    “I don’t believe it is, but the catacombs should be large enough for the Tornado to fly through.”

~|~

    “Ho! An aeroplane of all things to best Claymore the Purple,” Claymore scoffed as he strode through brick halls that were open on one side to a cavernous hall beyond. “How the mage caused so much trouble with so small a force. No less he bought the time to take to the skies again. Ho! It is like that I would do well to remember the name Sonic the Hedgehog, unless I should stop him and my other guest all at once.”

    Weighing the thought of confronting two Ring Mage’s, Claymore chuckled nervously to himself. “Ho! My first real battle since waking and I must face two Ring Mages. Would that I could be joined in battle by my fellow knights.”

~|~

    “I don’t like it,” Rosy puffed up her cheeks, her problems multifold.

    “Well, you’ll just have to bear with it,” Sonic encouraged Rosy to not let the situation get to her. As he was sitting on top of her pressing her deeper into the cockpit of the Tornado, his words seemed uncaring. Though they were no meant to bet, he had his own problems controlling the biplane as he had one hand occupied holding onto Rosy’s tarot card case. “Just consider it for your own protection.”

    “I don’t need protected,” Rosy puffed her cheeks up even more. “Besides, if what Tails said is true, we won’t have time for me to be kept safe. We have to go stop Ix.”

    “You know who you’re talking to, right kid?” Sonic feigned being hurt. But Rosy was not feeling playful.

    Beyond the cockpit, even squished uncomfortably behind Sonic as she was, Rosy could see Yoluku in the sky, the upside-down sunset becoming a tighter and more sinister smile with each passing moment. A chill ran through Rosy looking at it, and she could swear even without her cards that she heard those same whispers.

    It’s fine. This is fun isn’t it? Enjoying a desperate adventure to save the world with your true love. How entertaining!

    “Hrm~!” Rosy emitted a low growl and puffed up her cheeks more. Not liking the voice in her head, she contorted herself as best she could behind Sonic and managed to get access to her wrist device.

    “Tai~ls!” Rosy whined into it. “Please tell me you have somewhere for us to go!”

    -I do!- Tails’ voice came back across the radio.

    ~I want to feel relieved while Tails guides Sonic through how he needs to fly the Tornado into the catacombs. It’s actually a lot of fun too, the way Sonic pilots his plane around the towers of the city and down into a chasm I didn’t know was in the city. Ooh~! It’s so exciting, but the situation isn’t good. Yolk is… I don’t know what Yolk is any more, but I have a really bad feeling.

     ~It’s not like me to have bad feelings, especially when Sonic is here. I know he’ll save the day, but something isn’t right. I just have a hard time believing Ix was seen so easily. He had me and everyone else fooled when I first met him, so to think he would be seen going into these oversized catacombs. It just doesn’t feel right. I wonder if this is supposed to be a trap. But for who? Did he even know I was going to be here? Ooh~! I don’t like this!~

    “We’re going on foot from here,” Sonic stated as he landed the Tornado on a small ledge, bringing the short flight to an end. As he left the plane, he worked he wrist device under his ow glove cuff. “I’ll relay back to you what I see Tails, but you’re going to have to be on your game to get us to where you think our uninvited party crasher is going.”

    -No problem, Sonic!- Tails’ voice chirped confidently across the wrist device’s radio. -Just watch out for traps.-

    “No worries there,” Sonic laughed. “In case you haven’t forgotten, I have a world class rascal here to take care of them for me.”

    “Soni~c!”

    ~Sonic’s ability to stay cheerful, even in the face of danger is always so inspiring and always helps me forget that people call me strange for doing the same. I can’t help but smile running with him through these ancient stone tunnels. Though it would be nice if there were less traps. But, well, a lot of traps that needed to be tripped were already tripped as Sonic and I ran past them. It’s hard to say running so fast, but they look more like they were disarmed rather than tripped. I shouldn’t be surprised, but… I kind of feel like it looks too familiar how they’ve been disarmed.~

~|~

    “Alright, how much further do you want to drag me into this place! It’s been nothing but trap after trap and no rewards worth the risk!"

    “Silence, treasure hunter! I must endure this humility and so will you.”

    “Yikes! Don’t lose your feathers old man!”

    “An old man who will outlive you, treasure hunter!”

    “Alright, alright! Just put my gun down. I’ll stop asking questions.”

    “Perhaps it would be best if you both focused.”

    “Yeah, well if I could I’d leave you both under a pile of rubble if I thought it’d do anything you talkative pile of rocks.”

    “Keep talking, treasure hunter. It fascinates me how your mouth is able to dig a grave.”

    “Yikes!”

    Watching the antics of Doctor Fukurokov, former leader of the now all but defunct Battle Kukku Armada, and Fang the Sniper, the troublesome treasure hunter who introduced Rosy to the world of adventure for his own gains, Ix would have sighed if his stone form possessed lungs. The two were anything but dignified. Though at least Fang put on no airs of false dignity like Doctor Fukurokov.

    Still, Ix’s plans required both, lest he had been rid of them ages ago having learned all he needed from them via a forced Ring Bond.

    “There will be time for you to torment the Child of Chaos yet, Child of the Heavens,” Ix at last interceded by walking between the owl and jerboa-wolf hybrid. His actions were meant to do more than break line of sight between them however, as he continued forward causing Fang to panic.

    “Watch where you’re walking you blasted statue! You’re going to get us all killed!”

    Fang’s excited shouting carried through the catacombs, straight into the twitching ear of a certain pink hedgehog girl. “Fang!”

    “Him again, huh?” Sonic sighed in response to Rosy’s exclamation.

    “Ooh~! Don’t be like that Sonic!” Rosy chided Sonic before suddenly picking her own route deeper into the catacombs.

    “Hey! Amy! That’s not the way Tails is–”

    “It sounds like Fang is with Ix!” Rosy interrupted Sonic and dashed off, following the sounds of the voices and her intuition.

    “This isn’t a great time Amy! AMY!”

    Left with little choice, Sonic took off after Rosy. It was going to be far from a difficult task to catch her either. For as much as she did her best to run at Sonic’s speed, her stumbling and general clumsiness was not the practiced and instinctual scrambling that Sonic performed that allowed him to run freely nigh anywhere. As large as the catacombs were, however, Fang did not possess Sonic’s speed. As he was the one searching for traps, he was the one controlling the pace at which Ix’s party progressed.

    “Yeesh, the weasel, the surprisingly resilient birdbrain, and the statue who really would have been better served staying in bed,” Sonic remarked as he skidded to a halt and saw the odd group. Or at least odd to Rosy who did not see the panic on Fang’s face as anything but a desperate plea for help. Naturally, Sonic saw it differently. “So how are you going to lie your way out of this one, weasel?”

    “Ho! Funny, Ring Mage,” the voice of Claymore boomed from beyond Ix. “I was aiming to ask you and the medium the same.”

    “And now, all of the players are present,” Ix remarked, his blue glowing eyes taking in the autogolem knight, the treasure hunter and pirate, and the two hedgehog’s who he silently deemed the most troublesome of all his obstacles.

Scene 52 · CLEARED Party Crashing, to be continued

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And there we go. Two scenes left to finish up Season 1. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and hopefully I’ll be able to have Sonic meet my main villain. It’s just there is so much to cover, and it’ll likely inflate the scenes. The smart thing to do would be to stretch it out, but I really want to end the season inline with the anime season. So, if everything went well after I wrote this, in one week Season 1 will be finished and Season 2 will be quite different in it’s handling. Please look forward to it!

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Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – Insatiable (From “Final Fantasy XIV”) - Vocaloid Version – Azina, Masayoshi Soken – Insatiable (From “Final Fantasy XIV”)

[aethelredism]

@maywemeetagaincommandr this is a summary of titus andronicus to the best of my abilities. i’m probably leaving out some stuff and forgetting some details but i will hit the major points. i also wanna point out that this play is SO GORY AND GROSS that it was not performed, like, AT ALL from the late 17th century until the mid 20th century. people thought it was the worst shakespeare play ever written because they had no taste.

so titus andronicus is this great war hero in ancient rome. when the play starts, he’s just conquered the goths and the roman emperor has just died, leaving his two sons, saturninus and bassianus, to argue over who will become emperor. during this, titus returns to rome and brings tamora, queen of the goths, her sons alarbus, chiron, and demetrius, and her lover, aaron the moor. aaron and tamora are like if iago and lady macbeth were on steroids and also having an affair so naturally they are my favorite #powercouple. as revenge for losing some of his sons in war, titus kills tamora’s oldest son alarbus, and she immediately decides to do everything in her power to fuck him up.

so everyone is like titus is such a good war hero let’s make him emperor!! but he refuses because Honor and gives the throne to saturninus. saturninus declares he wants to marry titus’ daughter lavinia, but she’s already engaged to bassianus, and this fight breaks out where titus KILLS HIS OWN SON. 

(he has a bunch of sons, but for those keeping score at home, he is now down to 3 sons)

and then saturninus is like. actually. i will marry tamora :)

because why not

so there’s a hunt the next day, and aaron goes up to tamora’s sons chiron and demetrius and he’s like hey. you know what you should do. is murder bassianus and rape lavinia.

and they’re like

okay

and they fucking do it! they murder bassianus and brutally rape lavinia (offstage of course) and then, to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone, they cut off her hands and cut out her tongue. her first onstage appearance after this is TERRIFYING.

and then aaron forges a letter from titus’ sons martius and quintus making it look like they killed bassianus. and saturninus is like what the fuck, arrest them. 

so titus is still reeling from not only his sons being murderers but also lavinia, you know, missing her hands and her tongue, when aaron comes to him and he’s like brooooo saturninus is gonna kill your sons unless you, your brother, or your remaining son lucius cut off a hand and send it to the emperor. so titus has aaron cut off his left hand and sends it to saturninus.

EXCEPT AARON WAS LYING AND SATURNINUS ALREADY KILLED MARCUS AND QUINTUS

okay here’s where it gets fun. 

so lavinia learns to USE HER STUMPS to write with a stick in the dirt and tell her dad what happened. he sends lucius to raise the goths and march on rome. 

MEANWHILE, tamora has just secretly given birth to her and aaron’s mixed race lovechild, leading to the greatest exchange in the canon:

chiron: thou hast undone our mother.  aaron: villain, i have done thy mother.

(THOSE ARE THE REAL LINES)

so obviously saturninus can’t know about this baby that is visibly not his, so tamora gives it to aaron and is like hey go yeet this for me please. and aaron is on the way to like, put the baby in a dumpster when lucius runs into him and is like HEY I WILL KILL THIS BABY IF YOU DON’T TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

and aaron, who has always taken such pride in being Pure Evil, is suddenly confronted with EMOTIONS and a MORAL COMPASS and COMPASSION FOR SOMEONE WHO ISN’T HIM, and he’s like oh god okay fine here’s what tamora is doing, please don’t kill my baby :(

okay okay okay so. tamora and her sons find out that titus is raising an army so they. DRESS UP LIKE SPIRITS. AND HAUNT TITUS. they come to him like titusssss...we are spiritsssssss...don’t attack roooooommmmeeeeee...

and he’s like damn okay spirits

EXCEPT

he figures it out. and he kills chiron and demetrius. unbeknownst to tamora and saturninus, who he invites to his house for dinner. and saturninus is like yeah, let’s put an end to the bad blood, thanks for inviting us over for dinner :)

so they’re at dinner and titus is like. hey saturninus. i have a question for you about the law. say a father finds out that his daughter has been raped. does honor demand he kill her to spare her reputation?

and saturninus is like uuuuhhhhh weird question but sure

and titus is like. okay :)

and he kills lavinia then and there

and saturninus is like BRO WHAT

and titus tells him that chiron and demetrius raped lavinia so as a father he was doing his duty in killing her.

and saturninus is like whoa okay slow down there, let’s get chiron and demetrius in here.

and titus is like. they already are :)

and saturninus and tamora are like ???

and titus is like. check the pie :)

because turns out he put chiron and demetrius in a meat grinder and put them into the pie that tamora and saturninus were eating.

MRS. LOVETT WHOMST?

so this fight breaks out where titus kills tamora, saturninus kills titus, and then lucius arrives just in time to kill saturninus and avenge his father. and lucius is the Last Man Standing in the tragedy who like sums up the story and announces how he’s going to honor his father and sister and how he’s going to like leave tamora’s corpse for the animals and then he’s going to give aaron a slow and painful death.

and aaron gets dragged onstage to make this great speech:

O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb? I am no baby, I, that with base prayers I should repent the evils I have done: Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform, if I might have my will; If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HIM

anyway that is the greatest play in the canon

[lesbianechinocereus]

wip meta post

tagged by @svpphicwrites (ily)

im tagging @linariouswrites @radiomacbeth @howdy-writes

it's long so under a cut

setting info:

the backstory starts with a group of seven or so astronauts who find something powerful in deep space and make a deal with it. the entity itself isn’t characterized too heavily because i want the story to be about people

that’s a theme i guess, that the monster we should be afraid of isn’t some eldritch horror sleeping under the ocean but the kind of person who has too much power and doesn’t care who he steps on to get more of it

so there is a glamorous high class society out there somewhere but the protagonists never see it until the very end of the first arc, the story takes place on dingy spaceships and entire planets that have been cordoned off as landfills and mining areas

our protagonists have to reckon with that, since when they try to look after themselves they’re accidentally striking at the foundations of what’s allowing people who aren’t them to lead much better lives. you can have borderline magical technology but the materials to build it have to come from somewhere

there is a theme to how the fountain works and an underlying rule to the setting: when a person uses it, they become powerful but they have to lose a key part of themselves in the process. it tends to follow patterns with what you can give up and what comes out on the other end, but everything actually magical is a result of people reaching the capital planet where the fountain is and making these deals or being forced to on someone’s behalf

that’s another theme, people cheating the idea of sacrificing something to be more powerful by making other people pay and stealing the benefits for themselves. hahahaha real world parallels

the people who initially found the fountain are worshipped as gods and people don’t really have room to argue with that when one of them can mind control millions of people at once and another throws around planets with his mind. this comes up later though, since most of the people on the outskirts only pay lip service to the established religion. most of them haven’t seen someone affected by the fountain personally and don’t believe the stories

Characters:

every character is paired with the person trapped inside the robot they pilot. the robots got the dealmaking part of the fountain in their bargain, they can give some of their power to the person who pilots them in exchange for having to share a body with them for life

both people are always conscious, inhabiting the humans body unless the mech is being piloted. if one wants to do something the other one doesnt want to they have to out will them, which is easier for the human in the human body or the mech in the mech body

the pilots gain their mechs abilities, for example the knight can conjure weapons for itself and wolfsige himself later learns to do that, so even cornering the pilot outside their mech is difficult

the #theme is people whove been through A Lot learning to work together and trust each other, at first because they have to to survive and later because they care about one another

all of the robots were turned into robots as punishment for crimes and were sedated to give their original pilots full control, so the moment they stop being machines and let themselves feel things it hits hard and the humans are the ones to be there for them

the human characters are also going through a ton, most of them have never fought before the story starts and have little time to deal with the fallout because things keep falling on their heads

all of the characters though are dealing with not knowing what to do with themselves and if they want to accept having that chosen for themselves. when they do become a small fighting force its on their own terms, against the choice to cut and run and leave everyone behind

wolfsige just wants to run a junkyard in the middle of nowhere, but quickly becomes team leader just because he can’t leave someone else to suffer and charges into things

the knight was an attendant in the system where the fountain was, put in a machine for trying to use it for itself, out of a fear of dying. he got his wish but lost his life and struggles finding something new to live for

z is a self-proclaimed explorer and scavenger, she originally wanted to just keep her mech for study. however her and the mech form the best friendship of the three pairs and suddenly the world’s problems are her problems as her friend was plotting against the space govt

the witch was a bodyguard for a sector governor who became mechrd for failing an assassination attempt and as an insult was left to be piloted by the person she tried to kill. initially helps z and co out of gratitude they killed her pilot even though she doesn’t believe in any of what they say, but she learns to have hope again when she sees she can help

bonus: z is partly inspired by the story about a ww2 pilot who was believed to handle flying better thanks to his missing legs

liana is initially on board, as she’s a runaway from a wealthy sector because of things she saw go down and had hired z to take her away. she has a crisis of faith when she’s forced to fight her old friends but finds new resolve when she realizes she was never treated that well back home to begin with

the spider has in fact actually done nothing wrong and is the victim of a framing by a close friend, outright refusing to trust anyone and only working with the party out of necessity until they prove themselves reliable

misc+story:

the story follows these people being dragged way over their heads by circumstances not of their own doing

they find an abandoned mech by accident, not realizing that turning it on makes them a target

they’re forced to fend off several more, the other two the protags use are ‘rescued’ the only way they can be made to change hands: killing the current pilot

this just so happens to be the inciting factor for a series of revolts on a nearby series of mining planets, and so our protagonists are dragged into all out war

im only planning this up to the first ‘arc’, whether or not i end it there will depend on how i feel then

[bonesaldente]

Caliginous I Darth Maul x Reader

Chapter 9: The Problem-Solving

read this on ao3

last chapter

words: 2600+

I have a question at the end so let me know what your thoughts are <3

______

As usual when you sleep on a spaceship, you wonder if you have reached your destination when you finally wake up. It’s only then that you realize you’re probably not even flying anywhere until you have come up with a plan on how to take care of the bounty hunter situation you’re in, so chances are, you’re just floating around in space.

You open your eyes, secretly hoping Maul is still sleeping in the sleeping compartment a few feet away from you, which of course is delusional considering you have probably been out for much longer than he’d ever be.

 “You’re awake” He states, turning in his chair to look at you when you leave the lift, freshly out of the refresher.

“Guess so.” The hint of a smile plays around your lips. “I’ve been thinking about the bounty hunters.” You lazily lean against the wall that partially separates the cockpit from the passengers seating area..

“If we don’t get rid of the source, we are going to have this problem for a long time.”

“You’re saying we should go back to Kessel?”

You nod, not too happy about it either.

“Kessel is over two days from here.” He says while typing the coordinates into the system.

“All the more time to figure out a more detailed plan.” You note.

“Something else has been on my mind,” you begin. “Are you still… reading my mind? Like, on a regular basis?”

The zabrak flinches.

“Since I have seen your dislike towards it, I have tried… avoiding it. But I can't help feeling your mood through the force.” He turns his full attention to you now. “And when you are upset by something, or excited, your thoughts are loud. It’s hard not to listen.”

You let the information sink in, before you get an idea. “Can you- can you project your thoughts?”

He closes his eyes in focus, when all of a sudden, you hear his voice inside your head:

‘Yes, I can. I assumed you would consider it too… intrusive.’

You widen your eyes in fascination.

‘So we can communicate just like this?’

‘If you want to.’

Images of possibilities to use this ability flash before your inner eye.

“So, if we were in, say, a crowd, would you hear everyone’s thoughts equally?”

“It’s easier to pick out familiar energies.”

He seems slightly amused at your childlike fascination with the force.

“Is there anything else?”

You think for a second. “Just one more thing,” if you’re already bombarding him with questions, you might as well ask all of them, “How long have you been trained to be a Sith… apprentice?” You hope you used the right term.

He looks away from you now, looking into the endless distance in front of him, not answering for a while.

“Our lives have played out very… similar to each other.” He speaks slowly, each word well thought out.

“How so?”

“I was born a nightbrother, born to serve the order of the nightsisters, a group of force users on Dathomir.” You’ve heard of the society on Dathomir before, but never paid much mind to the stories of the witches living there.

“Like you, I was taken in by my master, and made to be… more.” He pauses, still staring into the emptiness of space. “Maybe this similarity is the reason I am so… that my mind is so occupied with you.” He faces you with the kind of raw emotion in his eyes that makes your breath stutter a little. You wonder if he can feel your emotions right now, when you yourself aren’t even sure what they are.

“Jumping to Hyperspace in one minute ”

“You should” he clears his throat, “sit down.”

Panic.

There is no doubt that he can feel it, there is hardly anything else on your mind at this very moment, only panic at the prospect of jumping into hyperspace again, the thought of your body accelerating and you not being in control of it making you lose sense of your surroundings. It wasn’t this bad last time, why now? Your breathing is picking up speed as you look around you to find something to protect yourself from the invisible impending threat, forgetting about the Sith’s presence until he grabs your hand and quickly leads you around the wall, sitting down in the corner with his back against it, gently tugging on your hand to ask you to follow his lead. Not nearly as gracefully and with shaky legs, you slide down on the wall beside him. He covers your hand with his other one and closes his eyes. At first you don’t understand what he is doing, but then you feel a surge of calmness wash over you, drowning the panic in soft waves. Even as you sense the sudden acceleration, you remain relaxed, eyes closed, Maul’s hand clutched tightly in yours. Your breathing slows, and when you feel the ship remaining at one speed, you finally open your eyes again.

“That was… good,” you manage to say. He hasn’t let go of your hand yet, despite not affecting your emotional state anymore - not with the force, that is. Remaining in his cross-legged position on the floor, he looks at you.

“How is your injury?”

For a moment you don’t know what he is talking about, until you remember the cut on your back. “My… Oh, yeah, it’s fine. Healing well.” You shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

Even the tattoos had hurt more when you got them, which was intended, you are sure. There were more modern and less painful ways to get tattooed at the time, but Magnus wanted you to feel every prick of the needle, so he chose the traditional way. It took two days to complete, and you had no appreciation whatsoever for what was probably a stunning piece of art on your body.

The thought of tattoos got you curious again, remembering what you were doing before you were rudely interrupted.

You bring his hand closer to your face to get a better look at the black lines on his skin. “What do your tattoos mean?”

He waits a moment before responding, as you would expect from such a collected, reserved individual as him.

“The meanings vary,” he finally replies, “some of them were given to me on Dathomir, some stem from my master.”

Sliding his loose sleeve up just a little, you examine the pattern. “What about these?”

“Dathomir.”

“And their meaning?”

A brief frown darts over his features, as if the question had brought up unhappy memories.

“I was taken before I was old enough to understand the… cultural significance.”

You move your eyes back to his arm, which seems to ease him slightly.

“However, I have done some reading.” His other hand moves up to point at one of the longer lines that runs up from his wrist to his lower bicep, which you can’t help but notice is immensely muscular.

“Vertical lines stand for agility, speed and strength. Horizontal lines like this one” his hand moves back down to a line branching off right before his wrist, “signify resourcefulness and inner strength.”

You’re in awe of the beauty on his skin, as well as how calm and deep his voice is so close to you.

“There are others I believe hold personal meaning, like family, or the place I was born. But without anyone who knows the culture…” His voice trails off.

You suddenly feel his muscles tense up as if he only now realized how vulnerable he has made himself.

“What’s your plan once we arrive on Kessel?”

You grimace at the change of topic, then sigh. “We need to get to Magnus, he is the only one I know well enough to get close to, and he is also the only one who is not an immediate threat… physically.”

“You know where to find him?”

Nodding, you recall the red brick house that he had claimed as his own, despite the guild voicing numerous concerns about his safety; he refused to live in the quarters provided at their headquarters, similar to you. ‘What’s life without a place to live?’ He asked dramatically, arguing that the quarters of the Concinnity could hardly be considered ‘livable’, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Do we have any leverage against them?”

Now, that is a good question. You have thought about this before, many times since you left, and the only thing you could come up with was information. The location of the headquarters, the members, the suppliers, the clients, the past involvement in political assassinations... There is a reason why they do not allow for members to leave.

“I can threaten to leak information about them. If I document what I know and deposit the data chip somewhere, they’ll have to listen to what I say.”

 You know more than you originally thought you did, which you only now realize as you are writing down anything that the Concinnity might not want people to know about them. You don’t necessarily feel guilty about exposing the organization itself, it’s the members that you only reluctantly write down. They had never been your friends, but they were people you’ve known most of your life. It feels wrong to betray them like this, especially when they haven’t wronged you themselves: It’s the organization that you are working to bring down - unless, of course, everything goes according to plan and they call off the bounty hunters. Then, nobody will be harmed.

Maul is looking over your shoulder with curiosity when you get to the past jobs you know of. Senators, ambassadors, business people - some of the assassinations of your guild have been big news across the galaxy.

“This information should be enough to blackmail them, don’t you think?”

You nod with more conviction than you actually feel. What if it’s not? What if they capture you and… You shudder when old memories surface.

“Your fear of them seems out of proportion considering the dangers you face on a regular basis. What is it about them that scares you so much?”

“I…” He is still standing behind you, unable to see your face, which makes talking about the event much easier. “Three years back, one of the women in the guild, Lyanna, tried to leave. We were close in age, so I knew her about as well as anyone could know her.” You gulp. “She had taken a lover, and they ran off together. I remember the leaders being furious, sending a whole group out to find her. They didn’t pick me for the task, so I don’t know where she hid, but they brought her back, and locked her and the boy up.” Your breath hitches as the memory plays out before your eyes. “I heard her screams night after night, until one night, they stopped. The next morning they made the younger ones of us… look.”

You stop yourself there, unwilling to describe what it was you had seen. Instead, Maul hesitantly lifts his hand to lightly touch your temple, looking for himself what it is that has shaken you this badly.

After a second he pulls away his hand as if he had burned it on your skin, which tells you he has seen the image that still haunts you to this day, the almost unrecognizable body of this poor girl.

“This won’t happen to you.” He determines firmly. You bury your face in your hands, discarding the datapad on the table.

“You are not alone. I won’t… I won’t let them do this. It won’t get to this.”

Warmth spreads inside your chest at the unfamiliar feeling of someone looking out for you. Not being alone anymore. You still don’t lift your head, but you know he can feel you relaxing. As if to reassure you of your safety, he gently places a hand on your back, right next to where the Concinnity tattoo is still scarring your skin.

You two remain like this in silence for a few moments, but there are still things left to be taken care of.

*

A weird calamity surrounds you as you wait for the ramp to extend. You should be nervous, shaking in your boots, wanting to turn around and never look back, but instead, you feel safe standing next to Maul.

It’s not long until you reach the city, and you pull your hood even deeper into your already unrecognizable face; you’re wearing mask that only leaves your eyes barely uncovered. As expected, the streets are busy, and there are a worrying amount of bounty hunters roaming through the crowds. Are they all here for you?

You weave through the masses confidently, knowing exactly where you’re going. You haven’t been to Magnus’ house very often, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know where it’s located, especially since you know this city like the back of your hand. As you get closer to the building, you pull on Maul’s sleeve and slip into an alley that should lead around the house so you can scale the building without being seen.

“Do you want to climb through the viewport up there?” Maul points to the closest viewport about fifteen feet in the air.

“Yes, let’s try that.” both of your voices are hushed as you keep on looking around you nervously.

You are about to get out a rope, when Maul shoves you against the wall and immediately turns his back to you, hand at the handle of his lightsaber. You didn’t bring yours - at the moment it is a bigger risk to you than an asset.

“What’s the mat-” You don’t get to finish your hissed question when three figures jump off a nearby building and land right before you. They are not wearing hoods, and you instantly recognize their faces: Brent, Jiinan and Sovi. All of them except for Jiinan have been Concinnity members for longer than you have and all three of them are deadly.

Brent steps forward.

“Traitor!” He sneers. “You are deep in it now. You know what we do with people like you.”

Sovi pipes up. “You remember what happened to Lyanna, don’t you?” She smiles cruelly.

You lose all inhibitions you previously had, now absolutely ready to fight them.

“You don’t need to get caught up in this. What I do is none of your business, and as long as you don’t get in the way, we do not need to fight.” You try to keep a steady voice, your muscles flexing at your sides.

Yes, in a one on one fight, you would be able to win against them, and with Maul by your side, your odds are much better, but still, they are strong and there are dozens of bounty hunters nearby.

“What happened to you, hiding behind some guy? You have become weak, have you not?” Sovi’s scornful tone makes you shoot out from your protected position behind Maul, raising your chin high while unsheathing your sword.

‘They are going to attack any second now.’ You think as clearly as you can, hoping Maul can hear your thoughts.

‘I’ll take the two on the left’ is his response.

Sovi, who has always been the most aggressive one of the three, is the first one to attack. The second she moves toward you, Maul ignites his lightsaber, and attacks the two men.

The female is fast and vicious, but so are you. Groans from your left inform you that Maul is unsurprisingly not struggling with his two opponents, and soon Sovi is pulled away from you with the force. Blood is trickling down her skin from a deep gash on her arm, and the choking sounds coming from her are music to your ears - you never liked her in the first place.

All of a sudden, footsteps from your right make you whip your head around, too late to dodge the net that is shot at you. Electricity courses through your being as the net envelops you, throwing you to the ground. Stars appear in your vision, then everything goes black.

________

next chapter

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Thank you for reading! this chapter was kinddd of a pain in the butt and i don't know why. i just don't... love it, but I hope you guys still enjoyed it. I am also currently planning the end of this story, since canon is going to catch up to us soon, my dudes. I could totally see myself doing a second book of this, one that takes place during the Clone wars, but I still need to do some proper research to do that. In the meantime I'd like to try and write some one shots. I have one commander wolffe oneshot written out, working on one for the mandalorian and i have some other ideas too. Another question: smut? yes or no? i didnt originally rate this 'mature' so I'd hate to make people uncomfortable. Let me know what you think!

@princessayveke @spaghetti-666

[joyfulsongbird]

Bruises And All- Chapter 3

Orpheus can see the girl pulling herself away but he can already feel a melody building in him.

***

ORPHEUS thinks the girl is pretty. it’s a problem and Mister Hermes gives him a look when they pass each other in the hall upstairs. there is too much to unpack in the entire look but he mostly understands the sentiment of “do not get attached”. the same sentiment that was said whenever Orpheus would bring home something from the forest. funny how, this time, it’s Mister Hermes who brought something back with him. and that something is very pretty and has this energy like he could write songs about her for ages.

he’s already humming a melody under his breath when he starts down the stairs, his fingers are already tapping out a rhythm on the side of his leg. he wants to get out his guitar and put the two together, add some lyrics and sing it as loud as he can. proclaim that he has this new song in his head and he must get it out or else he may lose the right rhythm, the right notes, he may never get the melody exactly right again.

he distracted from his music however, when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and spots the girl, now slumped over in a seat, her whole body trembling. clothed in what looks like one of his old t-shirts. he tries to ignore the latter and focus on everything else.

“hey.” he calls, speeding his steps to reach her before she can get up and leave... leave? where is she going to go? he slows down. her head lifts up suddenly and he has this strange feeling that if she were anywhere else, anywhere with a door leading out to a place that isn’t storming, she would run. go anywhere but talk to him. which is saddening because he’d do anything just to hear her voice again. like tiny silver bells, her voice. if she sang, he wouldn’t be surprised. her speaking voice, from what few words she has said, already sounds melodic.

“are- are you okay?” he asks. his voice shakes, for what reason? he’s nervous, she scares him because of how much he wants to know her. he looks in her eyes and it’s like he’s seen them before. it’s like he’s known her before this lifetime but doesn’t know her name, doesn’t know her face. his arms ache to hold her, to wrap them around her body and just sway there. if he was a gambler, he would bet that her hair smelled like flowers. he doesn’t know why but looking at her, he can imagine a red flower tucked behind her ear. it would contrast with her dark hair, bring out the pinkness in those cheeks of hers. he’d like to present her with a flower, get down on one knee and give her something. but all he has is his words, and though he is not as comfortable with those as he is with song, it will have to do.

she shifts her body to face him, every movement filled with hesitancy.

“what happened to your neck?” he blurts out. he regrets the words immediately, knows that he’s made a mistake. even more dark fills the girl’s eyes, her entire body seems to cave into itself.

before she can even begin to answer, if she was going to answer at all, he begins on his tirade of furtive apologies.

“I’m sorry- I didn’t mean- I’m really sorry... it’s not my business I know. I really am sorry, I know I’m not supposed to ask things like that. I’m sorry, sor-”

finally, she holds up her hand. “It’s fine. really.”

that voice. full of light for someone who looks so acquainted with darkness.

“what’s your name?” he asks, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. he has to ask, he has to try, but he knows that as soon as he knows her name he’ll never be able to let her go. she doesn’t answer, instead shifts to sit facing the table.

he sits down in the seat opposite her. at the same time, tries not to stare at the bruises that lie so plainly on her neck, purple and painful and so obviously... fresh. new. recent.

“do you need ice?” he licks his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. “for your...” he gestures to his own neck.

she shakes her head. “no.”

“sorry, it just looks painful...” she ducks her head, but he catches the faintest of soft laughs.

“you apologize too much.” she says. the longest sentence he’s gotten out of her yet. a win at the very least.

“yeah,” he smiles at her, beaming practically. “I get that a lot.”

she observes him strangely, him with his wide smile, him with his folding and unfolding hands on the table, he must look so strange to her. Orpheus doesn’t know why he’s always regarded as an oddity but she seems like an oddity too, so maybe they can coexist as creatures together.

“when I was still in school,” he begins. she narrows her eyes at him. “I fell off of a tree once. and I got this big giant bruise up the side of my face. all of my teachers thought someone had punched me. they called home and everything.”

“what are-”

“I tried to tell them that no one had hurt me, that it had been my stupid self who’d climbed all the way up up in that big pine tree just to see what it looked like from up there, from all the way up there. but it was worth it, even if on my climb down gravity pulled me to the forest floor. I told them that it was my fault that I had the bruise, and they kept telling me that they were sure it hadn’t been my fault and I didn’t deserve to get hurt. no one believed me. until they called Mister Hermes and he told them what a clumsy kid I was and how all I ever wanted to do was climb in trees all the time. It was so stupid, they didn’t believe me until an adult told them the exact same thing. I still like climbing trees though. not as much as I used to.”

silence falls between them and he feels his cheeks burning bright red, redder than the flower that he invisions in her hair. brighter than the light of the hearth downstairs in the furnace.

“sorry, I talk a lot when I’m-”

“what did I say about apologizing, kid?” she leans back in her chair, arms crossed against her midriff.

“that I... do it too much.” her laces his fingers together briefly, decides that looks too awkward and unlaces them. instead placing them flatly on his lap.

“so don’t do it anymore.”

“but-”

“apologizing is only for people who deserve it. don’t say it unless it’s necessary. too many apologies have been wasted on people who don’t deserve it.” her beams at the comment, she won’t meet his eye and he doesn’t mind. no one really looks him in the eyes except for Mister Hermes, he’s used to it. “and besides, I liked your story... it was nice.”

“thank you. and you do deserve apologies. I’ll just figure out something else to apologize for me. I mean, you deserve apologies, I won’t apologize for nothing but you deserve good things.”

she opens her mouth, closes it again. speechless. for good reasons? he can never be sure. he doesn’t know what to do with his hands anymore.

“I’m not good with words-”

“this sounds like an apology.”

“it isn’t, I promise.” she turns her head to the side, staring at the floor under the table. carefully avoiding him, maybe hoping that when she looks up, he’ll be gone. he’s good with that, he can come to terms with that.

“I’m not good with words, but you’re really nice-”

“nice?” she covers her mouth to conceal a laugh.

“and hurt and I’d like to help you and be your friend.”

she’s still laughing, covering her face from the nose down with her hands. her shoulders are shaking up and down. it seems, to him, that she hasn’t laughed in awhile. it’s rusty, with these little hiccups sprinkled in. he wants to bottle this sound, save it for later as a reminder for her that she can laugh. that it is an ability she has. he’s afraid he’ll never hear this sound again. he’s afraid that he’ll go his whole life without hearing her laugh again. this is the kind of laugh that can, at any moment, make a complete 360 degree turn into sobs. and it isn’t long before it does.

a laugh turns into a sniff and he’s already getting up out of his seat, and kneeling down by her chair. he isn’t sure if this is too close, if it’s too intimate, if she’s going to stand up and move to a different table.

to his surprise, she turns to look at him and shakes her head. “I’m not nice.”

“you are.” he insists. “you’re really nice.”

“no. I’m not.” she firmly says it this time. with a fervor of someone who’s been told it before, who has said it to herself many times.

“well, even if you aren’t, I think you are.” he smiles at her, looking up. “and you’re really pretty and I think you should stay.”

“stay?” she quickly wipes the wetness from under her eyes, as if she can pretend it wasn’t there in the first place.

“after the storm is over, you should stay here.”

“Orpheus, you don’t even know my name, for god’s’ sakes. you don’t even know where I came from, or who I am. you don’t know what you’re inviting into your home without consideration.”

“you could tell me your name.” he takes one of her hands in his, tentatively, watching her for a reaction. if she wanted to pull away, she could. he keeps his grip loose, making sure that it never feels as if he is pinning her down.

“I could,” she looks at their touching hands, at their fingers close together. “but then you’d get attached. you don’t name something unless you plan on keeping it.”

“that’s not true.” he says lightly. “you name something because you care.”

“you don’t care. you don’t even know me. it’s impossible for someone to care that fast.”

he purses his lips, trying to think of a way he can get through to her. he won’t force her to stay but he wants to try.

“can I sing you a song?” her lips perk up into a forced half smile.

“sure, sing a song, kid.” he can hear the hope behind her words. the implication that this is how she will escape, that the song will mean nothing and do nothing and so she has no reason to stay. or a love song will give her a reason to leave. he will not be using the word love in this song, it isn’t a love to her. it’s a love song to humanity, that’s what he calls it.

he grabs his guitar from its stand over by the bar and sits in a chair close to the girl. he prays to the gods that Mister Hermes doesn’t come downstairs right at this moment, he begins to play. and as he begins to pluck out the first few notes, he starts to incorporate that theme he has had in his head since he first laid eyes on her. the one he’d been humming in the hall and on the stairs. the two melodies mix together beautifully and he opens his mouth to sing.

la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la

la la la la la la

the song is short, but sweet. it wasn’t perfect, it isn’t finished but, man, if he isn’t content with how it’s coming along he doesn’t know what will make him happy. he’s so caught up in the progress that he made while playing it aloud he’d briefly forgotten his live audience.

“why are you crying again?” he stands up, concern rippling through him.

“I’m not-” she has to stop because of something lodged in her throat, something stuck there that prevents her from defending her useless case.

she stands from her place at the table and meets him halfway. she’s much smaller than he expected her to be, standing face to face, on level ground, she has to tilt her head up to meet his eye. and she finally meets his eye.

she reaches up and lays a hand on his cheek, “my name is Eurydice.”

her name is like a melody.

[fruitquake]

A Dorlene fic to the song ‘She’ by Dodie for a prompt?

soo i kinda ended up straying from the prompt quite a bit. i really loved the prompt and tried to write something inspired by it, but it ended up pretty different. hope you still enjoy this tho!

note: there’s a part of this that seems like it’s leading up to some nsfw stuff. nothing nsfw actually happens in this story but it’s still worth noting!

(also yes sirius and marlene are dating cause they are both very closeted)

-

A strand of Dorcas’ dark curly hair fell in front of her face as she leaned over her book. Although the bouncy curls covered most of her face, Marlene could easily imagine the focused look in her eyes, and how her lips moved ever so slightly as she read to herself. 

Dorcas must’ve felt Marlene’s eyes on her: She looked up from her book and their eyes met, Marlene on the couch by the fireplace, Dorcas by a table at the other end of the common room. She smiled sweetly and Marlene’s heart did a somersault. She sat there, paralyzed for a moment. Perhaps she should smile back, or wave at Dorcas, or maybe even walk over and sit next to her. But before she could do any of those things, Dorcas had turned her gaze back to the book she was reading, and the bubbly warm feeling in Marlene’s chest slowly faded away, leaving only that strange aching that always snuck up on her when looking at, or even thinking about, Dorcas. 

“Marls?” 

Marlene tore her eyes away from her friend and turned around. She’d almost forgotten about Sirius, sitting next to her on the couch. 

“Are you even listening to me?” he asked in a pouty tone, wrapping an arm around her. 

Marlene couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt. She felt… dirty. How could she sit there, looking at her best friend in such a way, when she should be listening to Sirius? She didn’t even know what he’d been talking about. 

“Sorry, babe,” she said, twisting her body so she could reach his lips. He returned the kiss, wrapping his other arm around her as well. It didn’t feel like anything, kissing him. Was it supposed to?

“Ha, you two are gross.” 

The sound of her friend’s giggle, light and playful, made Marlene’s heart flutter. She broke the kiss with Sirius, turning around to see Dorcas standing next to the couch, clutching the book she’d been reading in her arms. “I’m going to class,” she said to Marlene. “You coming?”

There it was again, the feeling, a bittersweet sort of pain in her chest as she looked at her best friend. She was so… beautiful. 

No. No. Marlene looked away from Dorcas, trying to shake the thoughts away. These thoughts were wrong. 

“Sorry, Dorc,” she said, in what she hoped was a casual voice. “I think Sirius and I are gonna, you know… stay here for a while.”

Dorcas’ eyes widened as she looked between the two of them, sitting so close they could’ve been one person. “Gross,” she said. “I don’t want to know. See you after class, Marls.” And with that, she was out of the portrait hole, leaving only Sirius and Marlene, and a few other students skipping class, in the common room. 

Marlene turned towards Sirius again. He looked handsome, attractive… hot? Yeah, Sirius was hot. Marlene liked him, of course she did. 

“I’m ready to go all the way.” The words surprised Marlene herself as much as they surprised Sirius.

“All- all the way?” he asked, eyes wide.

Marlene nodded. “Unless you don’t want to.”

It only took a moment for Sirius to compose himself. “No,” he said. “No, I want to. Maybe we could meet up after class, or this evening, or…?”

“No.” Marlene shook her head. “We’re doing it now.”

She put on her best flirtatious smile, grabbing Sirius’ hand and pulling him off the couch.

“Now?” Sirius asked, a mild panic in his eyes. “As in right now?”

Marlene sighed, letting go of his hand. “Not unless you’re ready,” she told him. 

Sirius was quiet for a moment before nodding and this time, he was the one to take Marlene’s hand. “Let’s do it,” he said. 

The boys’ dormitory was a bloody mess. Marlene wondered when the house-elves had last dared go in there: clothes, books, and sweets were scattered on the floor and only of the beds had been made; it was probably Remus’. 

Sirius touched Marlene’s cheek, turned her face towards his, and kissing her. 

Maybe this was what it was supposed to feel like. Maybe all those people pretending they loved kissing were just… overreacting? Or maybe Marlene wasn’t putting enough effort in. 

She reached up, running her hands through Sirius’ hair: that was something people did, right? 

Sirius’ hand hovered over the buttons of her shirt. “Can I-?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Marlene said. “Come on, get on with it.”

With untrained hands, Sirius unbuttoned her shirt. She helped with the last few buttons and let the shirt fall onto the floor. It felt strange, being so exposed in front of him, and Sirius seemed to feel the same way: he was looking away, probably waiting for a clue that it was okay to look. 

“Do you, uhm… Do you want me to take off your bra, too?” he asked, so quietly she could barely hear him. His face had gone red. 

“All things in due time,” Marlene said, sounding so much more confident than she felt. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him onto the bed behind him. It felt so unnatural, like they were acting out bad porn. 

She sat down next to him on the bed. Was it weird that he was lying down and she was sitting up? Where were they even supposed to go from here? How were they supposed to go from being almost fully clothed to sex?

Sirius propped himself up on his elbows, looking at her with furrowed brows. “Marls?” he asked. “You okay?”

“Of course,” she said. “Come on, take off your shirt.” 

She helped him get it off his head, leaning in to kiss him and again, it reminded her an awful lot of being an actor, doing it for show and not enjoyment. 

Sirius wasn’t a muscular guy but he did have the slightest hint of abs. Marlene let her hands run over them, then realized how weird that was and retracted her hand.

“So, uhm…” Sirius swallowed, cheeks red. “Can I take your bra off?”

Right, shit, the bra. Marlene felt paralyzed, unsure what to do or say, but she must’ve nodded, cause she could suddenly feel Sirius’ hands trying to undo her bra.

He struggled with it for almost a minute, before Marlene couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop!” The words caught in her throat, but Sirius got the message, immediately letting go. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to overstep any… Marlene, are you crying?”

Fuck, she was. Marlene turned her back to Sirius, a sob escaping her.

“Shit,” Sirius muttered. He sounded quite worried, even panicked. “I’m so sorry if I did something wrong.”

“No, it’s not you,” Marlene said in between sobs. She was suddenly very aware that both of them were topless. She fumbled for her shirt, then remembered it was on the floor. “I’m sorry if I let you on or anything-”

“No, no.” Sirius shook his head, handing her a blanket that had been lying on the bed. “Here.”

She pulled the blanket around her.

“We really don’t have to do this if you’re not ready, Marls,” Sirius told her. “In fact, we don’t have to do it ever.”

Marlene nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Right,” she said. “I’m sorry for… all of this. I guess I thought I was ready.”

She finally turned back around to look at Sirius. He was still watching her, looking slightly concerned, but smiled when she looked at him. “You really don’t need to apologize,” he reassured her. “Let’s just both put our shirts back on and get to class, alright?”

Marlene let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

-

“Marls, I didn’t see you in class!” Dorcas has to run to keep up with her. “Did you and Sirius really…?” She trailed off when she saw Marlene’s face. “Have you been crying?”

Was it really that obvious? Marlene rubbed her eyes, putting on a smile for Dorcas. “No, it’s just… allergies,” she reassured her.

Dorcas gave her a skeptical look. “You’re not allergic to anything.”

Marlene sighed and looked away. Before she knew it, Dorcas’ arms were wrapped around her in a hug. 

She froze. Dorcas, this close to her, touching her… Her hair smelled of the shampoo she’d been using since 1st year, along with something else. Marlene couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. 

She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath before Dorcas let go of her and she noticed how her lungs were screaming for air. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Dorcas asked, gently touching her arm.

Marlene nodded, unable to speak. Oh, how beautiful Dorcas looked in the sun, which fell through a nearby window. It made her eyes glow like amber. 

This was how it had to stay, Marlene pretending she didn’t lose the ability to breathe whenever Dorcas was near. Sure, it was painful, keeping up this masquerade, but Marlene knew it was necessary. Perhaps she would have to keep on the mask forever. Perhaps she would settle down with Sirius, spending the rest of her days playing dollhouse. The thought made her chest tighten into a knot that made her eyes water, but what choice did she have? 

“Hey,” Dorcas said. “I promised Lily I’d study with her in the library. Do you wanna tag along?”

Marlene blinked, pulling herself out of her thoughts. “Err,” she said. “I think I’ll just go back to the common room and, you know…” She trailed off, trying trying to think of an excuse.

“Oh.” Dorcas chuckled. “Yeah, say no more. I’ll just tell Lily you and Sirius are busy.” She winked.

Her and Sirius? What was Dorcas talking about? Marlene just put on a smile. “Right, me and Sirius. Thanks, Dorc.”

As she watched Dorcas walk down the hallway, the feeling returned: The feeling of having lost something she never even had in the first place. This was fine, she told herself. She could keep up the masquerade. She had to. 

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: How Junji Ito Exaggerated Real-World Fears to Become a True Horror Master

  I love horror. In all of its forms. Stephen King books and zombie-filled video games. Anthology TV shows and comic book adaptations. Meta, irreverent, comedy-driven slashers and arthouse foreign subtitled films. It's all wonderful and it's all for me. There are many fantastic horror and horror-adjacent titles in anime. Even genres that aren't exactly horror-driven can provide some legitimate "nightmare fuel" moments from time to time. But if there's one name that most anime fans think of when they think of horror, it's Junji Ito. Oh, and it also happens to be Junji Ito's birthday! To celebrate, let's take a look at what makes this horror master's work so horrific.

For horror movie watchers that are actually affected by the content (as opposed to just being bored or whatever) experts believe the fight or flight response is activated, resulting in one of two scenarios. Around 10 percent of those watching should feel some sense of relief — causing an association between horror and positive emotions. However, some struggle to reconcile the knowledge that what they are watching is fake with the psychological aspects of horror and will have nothing but negative emotions toward the genre.

    Why the science lesson? Because I mostly fit into that 10 percent camp. I do not have any negative emotions toward horror, quite the opposite. I can watch a scary movie and laugh. The horror family is my happy place. This is not to say that I live without fear. I'm actually quite a scaredy-cat in most situations. I'm pretty germaphobic. I'm terrified of airplanes. I once called 9-1-1 because I used to live in a rather dangerous neighborhood and a weird combination of a ceiling fan and my then-toddler son's new nightlight made some unfortunately humanoid shadows on the window (we had actually had strangers come up and tap on the windows late at night before, so this wasn't totally paranoid). And yet, there have only ever been two horror offerings that genuinely scared me: Final Destination and the Junji Ito Collection.

  Final Destination might be a pretty obvious choice. You might outrun Mr. Ghostface (and the odds ever meeting him are slim in the first place) but you can't outrun death itself  (and the odds of meeting death, well). And, hey, I was pretty young when that one came out. That makes sense. Even if the over-the-top scenes aren't very likely to actually happen (death by tea kettle, anyone?) the overarching theme, that death is inescapable, is an indisputable fact.

    So what is it about Junji Ito's work that has this same effect on me? Unless we suddenly find ourselves in some weird parallel universe, I'm never going to turn into a slug girl. Peeping toms will never have multiple rows of eyes up and down their faces. But bugs are real. Peeping toms are real (remember my dumb but very justified 9-1-1 story?). And Junji Ito knows this. He feels it. And he knows that by simply adding an extra layer of macabre (or in this case, a few extra rows of eyes) he's amplifying what makes a scenario scary.

That's the other thing that sets Junji Ito's work apart from your standard horror fare — he genuinely fears his own creations. He has been very open about his personal fears in interviews, growing up scared of everything from war to bugs — very real things that incite fear in many people for a variety of reasons. But Junji Ito goes beyond everyday fears. Along with being a great big scaredy-cat himself, he's also very curious (you know what they say about cats and curiosity). The manga creator admits that his curiosity often gets away from him, causing him to find the morbidity in everyday situations.

    Junji Ito's morbid curiosity is most readily apparent in his iconic artwork. His art is messy, beautiful, disturbing, and fascinating — it's all the dark and light aspects of life rolled into one emotional package. It's body horror, not the gross kind you can't stand to look at but the intriguing kind you can't take your eyes off of — while being deeply disturbed by it the entire time, anyway. There's a reason that sharp-toothed cannibal made it as a successful supermodel, after all. In the end, that's what makes Junji Ito's work so effective, he takes real-world terror and exaggerates it. It's a perfect marriage of realistic threats and imaginative fantasies — so, there's something for everyone to be afraid of! Lots of people are scared of weirdos harassing them, imagine if your neighbor constantly interrupted your sleep every night even after you told them to stop. Now imagine that neighbor's window kept bulging out of their house, growing steadily closer to your own. (In the horror community the first time that window gets even a centimeter closer to yours is known as the, "Yo, you should move out of that house" moment.)

    Or, take "Gentle Goodbye" and its message of loss and the march of time. Everyone wants some kind of legacy. We all want to leave our mark. And most of us are not prepared to lose those that we love when the time comes. You would think having the ability to slowly say goodbye to your dead relatives over a long period of time would be a good thing. You can prepare for the inevitable. You can face death on your terms, more or less. But ultimately, the after images in "Gentle Goodbye" lose their charm. The still-living family members grow accustomed to their presence until the after images become afterthoughts. That's the real terror in this particular story, that we might be more forgettable than we hope. And that's the kind of thing Junji Ito is especially good at — getting to the core of what makes us afraid and why. And then taking that core and tugging and pulling at it until it becomes a bizarre, alternate-dimension version of what you thought you knew. Lots of people fear school violence and bullies, not so many people are worried about a weirdo kid with a love of voodoo. But again, this is what makes Souichi Tsujii such a compelling character. He taps into both real-world and otherworldly terrors in one conveniently horrifying package.

That's why I love this anthology so much. And it's why today I celebrate such an effective horror creator. Happy birthday, Junji Ito. Have yourself a big, ol' piece of haunted Spiral Cake. You've earned it.

        What’s your favorite scary movie? Let me know in the comments!

          Carolyn is the Crunchyroll Features Editor. She's also on Twitter and Instagram. Follow her maybe?

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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