#I tried writing it a few times but it's a very difficult concept - what event/idea is strong enough to undermine years of brainwashing?

[karanna1]

AU - Lena Luthor Saves Krypton

Lena is somehow sent back in time and finds herself on Krypton 30 years before the planet explodes. Kara doesn’t exist yet. Krypton has no idea what’s about to happen to them.

Lena realizes that with her knowledge of what’s to come and intellect to devise a solution, she can do two things. One, she can save an entire species from near extinction. Two, she can save Kara from ever having to experience the pain of losing her family, her home, and being abandoned. Kara could live a happy life and never know the burden of Supergirl or being the last daughter of Krypton.

So instead of trying to find a way back to Earth, back to her own time, she settles into life on Krypton, becomes fluent in Kryptonese, and sets about with a spectacularly single-minded focus of changing the future - to save this dying world (and Kara).

She succeeds...mostly. They can’t fix the damage that’s already been done to the planet. Their sun will die and destroy Krypton still, but with Lena’s help they’re able to locate a barren planet in another system that has a white star. It’s brand new, strong, and will live for untold trillions of years (provided Kryptonians didn’t try to harness its power again).

They terraform the planet and create “New Krypton” using the dome concept that Zor-El invented fused with Coluan bottling technology. All Kryptonians are instantly transported to their new home that’s identical to the old one save for one difference - the white sun grants them god-like powers that are beyond what Lena ever saw Kara and Clark capable of on Earth. Kryptonians are overwhelmed en masse by these powers. Some go power mad and attempt coups and form radical sects. Others realize the gift they’ve been given and, with Lena’s guidance, Kryptonian society develops under a new mission - to travel the galaxy and offer help to all those in need. Not just offering knowledge and technology this time, but themselves with their newfound powers.

Lena keeps her distance from the House of El as much as she can. It’s nearly impossible considering their standing with the Kryptonian High Council. Lena has to work very closely with the Council. Jor-El and his brother, Zor-El, are brilliant scientists and statesmen. Alura In-Ze is a rising star in the judicial system. Her marriage to Zor-El, second born son of the House of El, caused quite a few waves, but when Lara Lor-Van, a brilliant biologist and prominent noble of the House of Van, agrees to marry Jor-El, it’s all anyone can talk about. All 4 of them live very public lives due to their professions, their positions on the High Council, and their nobility.

They’re ever so fascinated by Lena Luthor, the human from Earth that appeared one day to save their entire planet. Their savior. The one their people have named “The New Dawn”. Lena wants nothing to do with the House of El. It’s too much. She can’t bear to be so close to Kara’s family without Kara. It feels wrong. Unfortunately, with how much Lena tries to avoid them, the 4 nobles think they’ve done something to offend her, and constantly attempt ways to make amends. It only makes Lena’s life that much more difficult.

But she still knows the exact date and time that Kara Zor-El steps into existence. Later, she will know the moment Kal-El is born (mostly because Lara’s natural birth is all anyone can talk about).

Lena meets Kara on New Krypton entirely by accident one day when Zor-El brings his brilliant young daughter, a prodigy in the Science Guild, to see Krypton’s finest laboratory entirely unannounced. The same laboratory that Lena founded and runs. She’s stricken, having tried to avoid this moment for as long as she could, knowing that eventually she’d have to see Kara as child, which would spell the end of every fanciful dream or slightest hope she had of a chance that someday she would find Kara, her best friend, again. Seeing the reality both warms her heart and breaks it all the same. This bouncing bundle of joy and inquisitiveness has the same blinding smile, in all its purity, with that same head of golden hair.

“You’re THE Lena Luthor?”

She kneels before her so they’re at eye level. “I suppose I am. And you’re THE Kara Zor-El?”

The ten year old gasps. “You know who I am?”

“Of course. I know all the important people. And you are a very important person, Kara.”

“I am?”

Zor-El interjects. “I’ve told Lena all about you, my dear. I’m sure she’s grown tired of my endless babbling about my wonderful daughter and her keen scientific mind.”

“Not at all,” Lena replies a bit flatly and tries to tune him out as she focuses on the young girl who will one day be a most extraordinary woman. “Do you enjoy the Science Guild, Kara?”

“Yes! I love to learn new things. As many things as I can! Sometimes father asks me to work with him in his laboratory at home and I help him with his projects!”

“That does sound like fun. I enjoy creating things as well.”

“You’re the most brilliant bio-engineer on Krypton! I’ve read all about you! You saved us.”

Lena shies away from the praise and instead fumbles her way forward, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of Zor-El, whom she’d never given the time of day until he walked in with his daughter.

“Tell me, Kara, do you like other subjects besides science?”

Kara fidgets, a little confused. “Well, I don’t...they don’t give you much time for other subjects. I-I do try to read about other things like art and history when I have free time, but I’m not really allowed—“

“She’s a hard worker and a wonderful student,” Zor-El interrupts again.

Lena ignores him. “Do you enjoy writing, Kara?”

“Writing?”

“Creation comes in many forms. I enjoy being able to create things with my hands. Machines. Technology. Things to help people. Science is my passion, but there are many other ways to help people. Ways that I’m not very good at, but others are. Writing takes a curious mind, creativity, and a way with words. I believe you might have a gift for that.”

“A gift for words?” Her little brow crinkles as she considers it.

Lena nods. “A writer can do a great many things that a scientist cannot. They are equally as powerful and important. What matters is doing what you love most, what inspires you most. You’re going to do great things one day, Kara. Maybe with the Science Guild, maybe with something else... The future is limitless for you.”

“You really think I could be that important someday?”

“You already are.” Lena smiles and breathes deeply. “Do you know what your name means where I come from?”

She shakes her head. “I have read about Earth. It’s very far away and my Aunt Astra says their civilization is primitive and filled with savages. They have my name there too?”

“Daughter, do not speak—“

Lena waves off Zor-El’s warning without looking at him.

“That’s not an unfair assessment of Earth compared to Krypton, but I do believe humanity would surprise a great many Kryptonians, including your Aunt. In my native language, Kara means ‘beloved friend’.”

Kara beams in a way that is so achingly familiar. It’s like an echo in Lena’s memory. Not exact, not complete, but the beginning of what it will become.

“I like that. Does that mean I’m your friend?”

Lena feels it in that moment. The melting warmth simultaneous with the absolute shattering of what was left of her heart.

“I will always be your friend, darling. Always.”

Kara leaves with her father and Lena’s coworkers are concerned when she goes off planet for an impromptu holiday without notice. She returns two months later and picks up as if she never left.

It’s around that time that one of the people she’s befriended in her years on Krypton remarks at how ageless she seems for a human that supposedly has a short life span. It sparks Lena’s curiosity. Indeed, it’s been nearly 30 years since she traveled back in time and found herself on a new planet. Yet you’d be hard pressed to find a single physical difference. Kryptonians aged slowly under a red star, and even slower still under the white star, but Lena was human. Her body wasn’t designed to accommodate solar radiation the way Kryptonians did. She was over 50 years old now, yet she still didn’t look a day over 28.

More years pass and New Krypton thrives. The galaxy is brought together through New Krypton’s diplomacy and thousands of planets and species are united under a banner of peace. There are always dissenters, but happiness and prosperity is widespread. Lena finds joy in friendships and attempts romantic relationships, but nothing ever really takes. Still, she’s content. She misses Earth, of course, and hopes to return one day before she dies, whenever that will be, but she’s found peace in knowing that she is able to be the one thing she’s always wanted - a force for good.

She’s at dinner with coworkers one night when Lara and Jor-El spot her. She sighs and straightens, preparing for their next attempt to get in her good graces.

“Do they never desist?” One of them mutters next to her ear. “Surely they’re intelligent enough to know when they’re not wanted?”

“Don’t be unkind, but help me keep it short if it goes on too long.”

“Lena! It’s wonderful to see you,” Lara says.

“You as well. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.”

Lena’s table has gone conspicuously, and therefore awkwardly, silent.

Lara and Jor-El look around at the group uncomfortably.

“We were wondering...well, our niece is being inducted to the—“

“The Science Council as First Order,” Lena finishes for her. “Yes, I’m aware. It’s a great honor. I’m sure the House of El is quite proud.”

“Indeed we are,” Jor-El jumps in. “She’s a most remarkable young woman and we couldn’t be prouder of who she’s become.”

“We are holding a celebration to mark the occasion and were wondering if you might honor us by attending? It will be quite the event.” Lara does a slight eyeroll. “Jor is insisting on all the fantastical things.”

Jor-El nods enthusiastically. “My brother isn’t one for celebrations so I’ve taken up the mantle. Kara deserves all the praise she’s earned with her hard work and dedication.”

“You’ll have to forgive my mate’s enthusiasm. He’s quite invested in Kara since she can share his passion for his life’s work while our son is—“

“Disgustingly hopeless,” Jor-El grumbles.

“Oh?” She raises an eyebrow. “A great disappointment he’s been then?”

“Goodness no!” Lara shakes her head and shoots a warning look at her husband. “Kal is a fine boy. Just...a little lost.”

“Perhaps he is simply in need of a different path than the one his father has in mind,” Lena finds the words tumbling out of her mouth without thinking twice. The couple stares at her agape, but she continues without care. “I can certainly sympathize with the need to step out of the shadow of a family’s overbearing legacy.” She sighs. “While I thank you for considering me, it’s simply not possible with my days usually booked from dawn to dusk. Besides, parties have never been altogether pleasant endeavors for me.”

The disappointment on their faces isn’t what changes her mind. It’s that as soon as she says the words, she regrets it. She’s, of course, kept up with Kara’s doings and was concerned when she heard about the recent move in the Science Guild. Was journalism just a secondary passion since she couldn’t truly use her mind on Earth the way she could on Krypton? Or was this a woman just following in her family’s footsteps because she believed it was the right thing to do? Lena hadn’t seen or spoken to Kara in 16 years. Not since the day Zor-El brought her to the lab.

In the end, it’s Lena’s concern and curiosity for Kara’s well being that wins out. Though she very well knows that the woman that existed in another life, on another planet, is not the woman who lives here now on New Krypton. Even if she shared the same name and the same face...maybe even the same bright eyes and sunny smile. Even then.

“Send me the invitation. I’ll see what I can do,” Lena says, to the surprise of everyone at her table, including the two standing next to it.

They nod, stunned but pleased, and say their goodbyes quickly, walking away.

Lena’s coworkers all turn to her in surprise, but she refuses to answer their questions and excuses herself early for the evening.

She doesn’t show for the celebration. She torments herself for a week coming up to it and can’t bring herself to go. The fear of the past and her memories being trod upon are too strong. But somehow she finds herself in the Starling Grove anyway, just as it comes to an end. The evening is late and guests slowly make their exit after the long day of partying. Lena practically sneaks in, staying in shadows, not knowing what she hopes to find or what she could see that would make all her fears come true.

Is it any wonder that fate would intervene? That there would be no circumstance in which Lena could fly so close to the sun and not be touched?

“If avoiding people is your specialty, you’re very skilled at it.”

It’s almost terrifying to hear her voice again. It’s a different language being spoken, but the voice is the same. As if it’d been snatched from the deepest recesses of Lena’s memories, of a different life and a different world, and brought to the present in flesh and blood with a bolt of lightning.

She turns and it’s Kara smiling at her. Not the sunny smile. The soft, tender, reassuring one. The one that she used to share with Lena when she had one of her harder days. Kara was no longer the small and precocious child she met all those years ago, the one that she could almost convince herself was a complete stranger and that there was no connection between the child and the woman she knew. But that was gone now. The Kara standing before her was the same one she’d left behind on Earth. The one she’d given up in order to save her. The one who walked into her office so many years ago, trailing behind her cousin, and Lena knew she was done for. 

Her eyes were so blue as she looked at her...bluer than Lena remembered and it seemed so impossible. Perhaps it wasn’t real. Perhaps she was dreaming. But she wasn’t...was she?

“My skills must be rusty since you were able to catch me.”

Kara put a finger to her smiling lips. “Shh. Finding people is one of my untold gifts.”

“I imagine you have a lot of those.”

Kara looks pleasantly flustered and she stammers over her words in a way that Lena knows so well that the sound of it squeezes her heart in a vise like grip.

She’s not the same person. She’s not your Kara. Your Kara doesn’t exist anymore. Over and over she repeats this in her head.

“Wait...” Kara finally collects herself and peers at Lena more closely. “You’re-you’re Lena Luthor! My Uncle said you might be here, but I never thought...”

“On my home world, they like to say it’s fashionable to be late. However, tonight was just a tad bit too far. I...I simply wanted to stop by and wish you well. A-and to congratulate you on your achievement.”

Did she manage to say that with any passing conviction?

“Thank you. That means a great deal coming from someone like you.”

“Are you happy?” She blurts before her good sense can kick in. “This life...does it make you happy?”

Kara looks at her oddly for a long moment, clearly thrown, but not put off. Lena doesn’t know what else to say that could fix her blunder. 

“Yes,” she says, a serene smile creeps across her face. “I’m very happy. I love my family and my friends. I enjoy my work. I hope to have a family of my own one day, but I don’t mind waiting for the right person. Everyone always wants to rush me into something, telling me that I shouldn’t be alone, but I don’t mind it. When it’s right, I know that it will be worth the wait.”

Lena’s heart stutters and freezes. “I-I’m glad to hear that. Truly. I shouldn’t take up anymore of your time though. I’m sure you have somewhere to be and it’s late so I really should be going anyway.”

“Oh! Um. Yes, of course.” She looks disappointed, but Lena can’t think about that. “Thank you for being here.”

Her legs feel as though they’re weighted with cement as she walks away. Her mind screams at her to run, but her body doesn’t seem to get the message. She doesn’t want to leave Kara’s side. Not like this. Not after she’s found her again.

But it’s not her. Not really.

“My Lady?”

She turns around at once. Kara stands there, fiddling with her hands, her head tilted to the side.

“Apologies. I-I remember reading that you never liked that title. You prefer...what was it...” She closes her eyes as she searches for it. “Oh!” Her eyes fly open again. “Miss Luthor. I should have addressed you as ‘Miss Luthor’, yes?”

The ‘Miss’ was heavily accented and sounded nothing like how she used to say it, but it still tore Lena apart.

“I never forgot what you said.”

The voice in Lena’s head screams again for her to run, but instead she draws closer. She needs to hear it. 

Her Kara.

No, it’s not her.

“What did I say?”

“I was a little girl. My father brought me to your lab to show me around.”

“I remember.”

Don’t let her do this. Don’t let her pull you in again. You can’t. For both of your sakes, you can’t.

“You talked about different ways of creating. Of passion. It’s silly, I know, and I’m sure you say it to all the children who read about you in school and have a serious case of hero worship, but...you told me I was important.”

“You are.” 

It’s a reflex. She can’t help it.

“And you said that I had a gift for words. I never understood why you would say that. How you could know...”

Lena chuckles awkwardly. “Looks like I was off the mark since you’ve just joined the Science Council.”

“But you weren’t.”

Lena’s breath hitches.

“I’ve never told anyone else this...” 

Kara steps closer, sharing a secret that Lena doesn’t know she deserves to hear. She wonders if she still knows how to breathe with Kara being this close after so long...so many years gone... 

“I started writing that day. That very night I went home and I tried it. I never stopped. I’ve never been happier than when I’m writing. Imagining stories or just writing my thoughts, putting memories into words, keeping a record of each day and what I’ve done, who I’ve seen, what my first thought is in the morning and my last thought at night. All of it.”

Kara was so close. She could smell her. Nothing like what she remembered. It was something altogether new and still...still... Lena’s heart beat so loudly, she was sure every Kryptonian within miles was wondering what that raucous drumming noise was. What must Kara think? Surely she could hear it. Lena was embarrassing herself.

“You inspired me.”

Lena doesn’t know how she manages it, but she somehow strings together coherent words. 

“But you continued to pursue...”

“The Science Guild, yes. I’m very good there. It comes easily. It makes my family proud.”

“It’s not your passion though.”

Kara shakes her head gently.

“What stops you?”

“Well, what if I’m not really good at writing after all? I’ve never told anyone about it. I’ve never let them read anything... What if I make a terrible mistake and humiliate myself and my family?”

“Following your heart isn’t a mistake.”

“That’s not a very Kryptonian sentiment.”

“No, but it is a human one.” Lena sighs. “I tried so hard, for so long, not to listen to mine. But it won out every time. Despite all the pain it brought me...I remind myself that it’s what brought me here. To this planet. To this time. To do good. To be good. Following your heart is the most terrifying notion, but in my experience, it has also led me to the greatest moments of joy and love that I’ve ever known.”

Kara stares at her in wonderment. Her long blonde locks flow over her shoulders. Her dress is white and flowing, almost luminescent under the glow of the evening flowers blooming in the garden. It became quickly apparent how very alone they were, the last guests and servers from the party were gone. The torches were still lit, but it was their own world.

Wasn’t it always?

It’s not her.

“I don’t think I could be as brave as you.”

“You have always been brave and I know that you are capable of the most extraordinary amount of courage...courage and boundless hope. You are the one who inspires me, Kara. You always have.”

“Me?” She replies in the softest utterance. “But I haven’t done anything nearly as incredible as you.”

“The kind of person you are is far more important than any sum of career achievements. Don’t let fear make you hide in the shadows, Kara. Step into the sun. You’ve always belonged there.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“When will you step out of the shadows, Miss Luthor?”

A voice calls for Kara in the distance. It’s jarring and breaks the spell that seemed to lock them together in time suspended.

They step away, now acutely aware of how close they’d been this whole time.

Kara blushes and opens her mouth to say something, but Lena can’t bear to hear it.

“Goodnight, Kara Zor-El. I hope you enjoyed your party.”

Another voice joins the first. Two people are calling for her now. Kara seems frustrated and turns back, yelling to them that she’d be there soon.

She turns back. “I—“

But Lena’s gone.

She leaves New Krypton again. Journeys to other planets under the guise of a holiday and scientific exploration. She wonders if now is the time to return to Earth. She can’t even call it home anymore, but it’s home...isn’t it? 45 years could be enough to make New Krypton home and maybe it was. Maybe it was more of a home than Earth. But New Krypton had spectres walking among the living. Lena’s past had caught up to her here as well. She was no longer alone. Would Earth be any better with a reminder at every street corner? A certain smell. A park bench. A pair of glasses. Food. All of the food on Earth. She would never truly escape there either. It has to be a different planet. Not New Krypton, not Earth, something else entirely. 

She searches across galaxies for it. Finally, one appeals to her. She can see herself settling down there. She can make a new life for herself...again. She returns to Krypton with determination. She resigns from her position, ignores the High Council’s pleas, ignores their more pointed demands, and even their attempted orders when it appeared that nothing else was working. She packs her things and bids farewell to her friends. They’ll visit now and again, but soon she won’t be seeing them at all. It doesn’t bother her all that much. She’d find replacements eventually. No one had ever been like... Well, she’d never let anyone get close enough to try.

She was walking out of her building for the last time, her luggage already sent ahead, and was headed to the transport when she heard her voice again on the wind, calling her name. Of course she would hear her now. This was exactly why she needed to leave this place. The sooner the better to end this torment.

The transport doors were nearly closed when a hand shot between them. The metal alloys were crushed in a powerful grip and the doors were jerkily pried open again.

Kara stood in front of her. Her hair windswept, almost what it used to look like when she would fly to Lena at breaking speed to rescue her. Did she fly here? Was she really here?

“Kara?”

“Lena, don’t go.”

“What are y—?”

“That’s government property!” someone shouts at Kara from further away. 

A Kelex zooms in beside her. “And you were flying within city limits which is strictly prohibited. Unfortunately, Lady Kara, this means we must place you under arrest.”

A patrolman, the one who shouted, walks up behind Kara, nodding his head in agreement.

“Arrest?” She rolls her eyes at the Kelex and turns to the patrolman. “The doors were an accident and sorry about the flying thing. I’ll pay the fines. I doubt Alura In-Ze will take kindly to you dragging someone in for petty infarctions, let alone that someone being her daughter.”

Lena finds herself walking out of the transport, entirely of her own volition, and watches it leave without her. Kara is arguing with the patrolman over what her fines should be, but suddenly Lena feels someone take her hand. She looks down and sees that indeed there is another hand holding hers. She drags her gaze up to find those blue eyes again. A ghost. A spectre. Everything she was trying to escape.

“I’m sorry to just...burst in on you like this. But you’ve been gone for months and I only just heard that you’d come back, planning to leave New Krypton for good. I didn’t...”

“You didn’t what?”

“I don’t know.” Her brow furrows in frustration. “I didn’t plan this. I just...when I heard, I felt like I had to stop you.”

Lena pulls her hand away and crosses her arms. She needs to get ahold of herself. This was all so out of control.

“Why?”

Kara is just as bewildered as she is. “Well, I...I’m not sure. But we’ve only just started.”

“What?”

“Don’t you feel it? I know you must.”

She swallows thickly. “Kara, I...”

“I think there’s a lot you haven’t told me. A lot that I hope you will tell me. You promised me once that you would always be my friend. Please, Lena. We both know that this...it’s not supposed to end here.”

“When is it supposed to end?”

“I hope not for very long time.”

“I’ve lived a lifetime already.”

Kara grins. “Then what’s one more? Should be easy if you’ve already done it.”

Lena shakes her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Somehow I do...and I don’t. I know it’s strange. I know what I sound like. But I think you understand. Don’t you?”

“Kara...”

“Are you hungry?” She interrupts. “I’m famished. The flying thing is really fun, but I always get so hungry after. How about it?”

“I’m supposed to be boarding a ship in 20 minutes.”

“We can eat fast!”

“I know you can eat fast, that’s not the point,” she mutters. “I have to go.”

“But you see? You say things like that. Like it’s normal to just know these things about me, but it’s not. How do you know? We’ve only met twice and both times it feels as though you know everything about me.”

“Everything?” She scoffs. “No. Never.”

“Well, the important things anyway.”

Lena falters.

“Please? Just...for a little while? There’s always another ship if you really must go.”

No.

No, I’ve been through this before. I saved you. I saved your people. You’re happy. I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged. This is your world. I don’t belong anywhere. I did what was right. I helped people. I still help people. But I won’t do this again.

“I’m pretty sure you know that a Kryptonian can tell when you’re lying. The white star brought us untold abilities. And the longer I’ve lived here, under this new sun, I’ve discovered more abilities. Would you like to know about them?”

Lena can only stare.

“If I’m close enough...and I concentrate hard enough...I can feel what you’re feeling. It’s not mind reading exactly, but something deeper. I can feel you right now.” She swallows hard. “What have I done to cause you such pain, Lena? I never thought that... If you have to go, I won’t stop you. I just thought...” She sighs defeatedly. “I don’t know what I thought. But it wasn’t this. It wasn’t pain. Or anger. Or betrayal.”

Lena’s eyes widen at the same time as Kara’s. She seemed to realize it only as she spoke the word aloud.

“Betrayal?” Kara whispers, half to herself. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand.”

“You’re lying.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t! Tell me what’s happening. How can you be so angry with me, but also feel...like this...when we don’t even know each other?”

“But we do.” 

At last she admits it. 

In the quietest whisper. 

“We did. Once. In another life.”

Kara nods slowly. “Where?”

“On Earth.”

“I’ve never been to Earth.”

“Not in this time. But in another...you were Earth’s Champion. Our Protector. The Paragon of Hope.”

“As you are the Protector of Krypton? Our Salvation. The New Dawn.”

Lena shrinks uncomfortably under the titles.

“Will you tell me more?”

“You believe me?”

“Of course I do. You’re Lena Luthor. Also, with my powers I can sense you’re telling the truth, so...” She shrugs lightly at that, a sheepish smile.

“Right. Well, I admit I’m still a bit resentful that after everything I’ve been through, I still didn’t get even a hint of those powers.”

Kara takes her hand again, tentatively this time. She probably thinks Lena will pull away.

She doesn’t.

“There’s been a rumor for ages that you’re immortal. Are you saying that’s not true? From what I’ve read, humans have a shorter life span than us. Your species only live about 85 years or so.”

“I’ve heard the rumor and, yes, the average human lifespan is shorter than a Kryptonian’s.”

“You look pretty darn good for your age if you’re preparing to join Rao in a few cycles.”

Lena has to laugh. She lets Kara lead her away from the platform and down to the street. They walk hand in hand.

“So you’re not immortal?”

“It remains to be seen.”

“Then maybe our white sun did give you a hint of something after all.”

“Maybe. I have yet to ascertain the cause.”

“I could help you with your study, should you choose to explore it further.”

“You want to study me?”

Kara blushes. “I...I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant—“

“I know what you meant.”

Silence falls between them.

“You’re still holding my hand.”

“You’re still letting me.”

“It’s strange.” She stares. “You’re different. You’re so different than you were before, a completely different person, but somehow...when I look at you, you’re exactly who you’ve always been.”

“Are you different now too?”

“Yes.” She shrugs. “I think so anyway.”

“But we’ve still found each other. That means something.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this? You might be angry with me. I...I made choices that changed your life. A great number of lives.”

“I want to hear everything. But even if I do get angry, I won’t leave. I promise.”

Lena starts at that. How could she know exactly—? The realization hits her. 

“My fears...you feel them right now, don’t you?”

Kara nods. “I won’t betray you, Lena. Whatever mistakes I’ve made before...in that other life...I won’t make them again.”

“You’ll make other mistakes.”

“Of course!” She laughs. “I’m gifted, but hardly perfect. You’ll make mistakes too, even if you are the Great New Dawn.”

“Two prodigies...” Lena raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know how people stand us. We must be insufferable to be around.”

“I can’t be held accountable for the jealousy of others.”

Lena chuckles. “Good to know you’re as competitive as ever.”

“And you? Are you competitive as well?”

“On occasion...when it comes to the right things.”

Kara grins. “Tell me more about Earth.”

“Earth or...you on Earth?”

“Both. Or just one. Whatever you like. We have all the time we need. We’ll get to it eventually.”

“Kara?”

“Yes?”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Of losing you? Yes, I’m afraid. I thought I did when you left me in the Grove that night.”

“It’s different this time though.”

“Different how?”

“You were afraid before. O-on Earth. So you lied to me. Hid things from me. You were afraid I’d reject you.”

“So I lost you anyway?”

“For a while.”

“I know who I am and I want to share all of that with you. I’m afraid I’ll lose you if I don’t. Do you think that means I learned my lesson with a second chance?”

“Even though you don’t remember the first?”

Kara tilts her head thoughtfully.  “Are you familiar with the theological concept of reincarnation?”

Lena nods.

“Many species and cultures detail it differently, but the belief that a soul does not reside in an afterlife fascinates me. The idea that one could instead be reborn and is destined to learn new lessons with each life that it failed to learn in the last. Maybe we found a way to do that without needing to die at all.”

“Are you sure you’re the First Order of the Science Council? Because that sounds an awful lot like preaching I’ve heard from the Religious Guild. You’re in the wrong profession.”

Kara rolls her eyes. “If anything, I should have joined the Artisans. But it’s too late for that.”

Lena’s quiet for a moment. They’re walking along streets she’s never seen before and doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.

“I think I’m learning...” she says softly, “that it’s never too late. If you want something enough, it’s never too late.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Lena looks around. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“No, I thought you did.”

“No. I guess we’re lost then.”

Kara shrugs with a charming, sunny smile that lights her whole face. It’s the one that Lena hasn’t seen in over 40 years and it takes her breath away.

“Oh well.” Kara squeezes Lena’s hand happily. “I suppose we’ll find our way together.”

#supergirl #supercorp #supercorp fanfic #supercorp fic #supercorp fanfiction #dont read this #im sorry #it was a rambling stream of conscious moment

[yesttoheaven]

AMOR FATI

pairing – neil x female!reader

wc – 3.8k

warnings – mention of death, self-blame, anxious/intrusive thoughts, questioning reality, refusal of help, guns, stalking, but I swear there's a light at the end of the tunnel haha

a/n – The last time I suffered so hard for the death of a character, was when Newt died (Maze Runner) and now Neil has captured all my attention and his death has hit me in the same way 😩 I needed a happy ending so I decided to write this!

The Eternal Return and Amor Fati mentioned in this fic are one of the main ideas of Nietzsche's philosophy.

English is not my first language. I am getting help from google translator and he is not always a good ally, so I apologize for any typos or grammar errors.

Y/N – your name

She approached the painting hanging on the wall, watching the details closely. Ouroboros. A serpent eating its own tail. Months ago, when Y/N was visiting an antique store in Mumbai, she saw that same symbol. The owner of the establishment approached when she realized her interest in the piece and explained that Ouroboros represents the ideas of movement, continuity and, in consequence, Eternal Return. A concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.

"Max finally fell asleep." Kat returned to the living room, attracting Y/N's attention.

She walked away from the painting, taking back her seat on the sofa and asked:

"How is he after everything that happened?"

For a moment, Kat looked at the painting on the wall and then at the friend she won in the midst of confusion over the Algorithm. At that time, despite being fighting on the front lines to prevent a possible Third World War, Y/N seems complete. Happy. Today that happiness no longer exists in her eyes.

Letting out a sigh, the woman sat next to her, answering:

"Sator was never a present father. He was always busy... now i can see the kind of work he was involved in. Anyway, Max just got used to his absence."

"It's notable that he's happier at your side. When we first met Max was a bit of an introvert, but today he is radiant." Y/N confessed, showing a small smile and the blonde shook her head, agreeing with her words. "How's everything?"

"Perfectly well. It's weird sometimes... After years of being stuck in a failed relationship, freedom is good."

"It seems like life is good for one of us." The woman let out a bitter laugh, putting the latest events on a scale, but she didn’t want her friend to think she wasn’t happy for her. She really was. "I'm sorry, I just..." The words remain stuck in her throat, while she covers her face with her hands. In addition to physical and mental fatigue, Y/N tried to hide her grief.

Kat touched her shoulder, showing that she was here.

"I know you're hurt, but it's been three months and you never talked about what happened that day... This is not good for you."

"What do I have to say, Kat? The guy I fell in love with was a fucking time traveler! And now he's dead and I don't know what to do. My life just... stopped without him."

"I can imagine how difficult it's for you to cross that line without Neil at your side, but giving up is not an option. Grief is consuming you little by little and you are just accepting it..."

"We are trained to contain our emotions and deal with death in the best possible way. It used to be easy for me, but then he came and turned my life upside down." Y/N put her hands on her knees and stood up, walking without an exact destination. "Neil was always one step ahead of us all..." She stepped forward too and found the painting again, but her mind was lost in thoughts about him. Neil knew her so well. And he had a charming smile, but completely arrogant at the same time. "I was sent to Mumbai to help two agents and when I arrived at Priya's penthouse that night, there he was. When he saw me, that was the first and only time that he let his guard down. I'll never forget how he looked at me, it was one of those breathtaking moments... Completely cliché, I know."

On the sofa, Kat was impressed. When Y/N turned towards her, there was a bright smile on her face. The simple memory brought her a breath of happiness and Kat enjoyed seeing her friend like that, but unfortunately that moment did not last long. Memories aren't enough. Neil is dead and nothing can change that.

"I miss him so much, Kat." The smile disappeared as soon as tears appeared in her eyes, cascading down her cheeks.

"My dear..." Worried about her, the woman got up quickly and approached Y/N, wrapping her in a tight hug. "I'm really sorry."

"I spent the last three months locked up in my a-apartment because I thought I could handle this situation on my own. At times I b-believed it was just a fever dream... Maybe I was losing my mind, but this is proof that everything was real." Through tears blurring her vision, she looked at the watch on her wrist, remembering that night.

Y/N was in a private cabin on the ship. The others were with Ives and Wheeler, going over the mission in search of any loose ends. A standard procedure. Y/N knew she should be with them, but she needed a moment alone to organize her thoughts. And that moment is now. The past few weeks had been a real mess. The inversion was difficult to explain and mainly to understand. She was used to field missions, but being an inverted soldier on the battlefield was not in her plans. Either way, she agreed to be a part of it and running away with biased assumptions was not going to help. Humanity depends on them.

Three knocking on the door caught Y/N's attention, but she remained silent, waiting for the person to give up and leave, but when it didn't, she just murmured 'Come in'.

"So, here you are." The man used a surprised tone of voice and closed the door behind him. "What will our superior think when he learns that you are running away from the briefing?"

She let out a laugh before answering in the same mood:

"Don't worry, I know this mission like the back of my hand. I just needed a moment."

"There's something wrong? Are you ok?" Neil spilled the questions quickly, visibly concerned for her.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Neil." Y/N smiled at him, but looked away just seconds later, confessing: "Maybe I'm a little surprised by the situation. I have spent years dealing with terrorists, but the inversion is really not my point."

"I'm not good with advice, but someone once said to me: Don't try to understand. Certain things in the world do not need an explanation."

"It's wise advice, but I'm a methodical person. Logic has always been my ally in missions."

"A methodical person, huh?" He asked with an arrogant smile playing on his lips and she just rolled her eyes. "I know how worried you were when Sator shot Kat, but we are using the inversion to save the world and you're one of the most brilliant agents I have ever seen. Everything will be fine."

"Are you praising me?"

"What's that? Can't I praise my partner's talent?" Neil pulled up a chair to sit across from her, crossing his arms.

"In that case, thank you. Remind me to put this on my resume." Those words made him laugh and that sound could easily be compared to music in her ears.

Touching her knee, Neil added:

"We are very confident with the mission. You don't need to worry."

"Are you sure?"

"I cannot say that unforeseen events do not happen, but we are prepared for that." Y/N knew he was right, but this mission is the biggest one so far. It's not about saving a country. It's about saving the entire world. This was arousing insecurities in her and it was like walking in a minefield. Ironically, she was familiar with this, but not in such catastrophic proportions. "I want you to have this." The man took his watch off his wrist and handed it to her.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" The question came out as a whisper from between her lips.

It didn't make sense. Why does everything in this conversation look like a farewell?

"We will be on opposite sides tomorrow, but i want you to know... I will always be with you, Y/N."

"I saw the way he looked at you... That's how I used to look at Sator before he became a monster in my life." Kat started, running a hand through Y/N's hair. "When I was lying on that stretcher and partially drugged with the medicines, I saw him beside you... watching you sleep. There was so much love in his eyes. Love for a lifetime, Y/N. So don't do this to yourself. The way he left hurt us all, but there was nothing you or any other agent could do to change what happened at Stalask-12. Neil saved the world. This gave us a second chance. You cannot give up now. This organization needs you. And keeping your mind busy at that moment is the first step towards a fresh start."

"N-No, I can't..." She broke the hug, shaking her head in denial. "I left the organization."

"What? Don't you work for Tenet anymore? But when we first met you told me that you can't imagine working in another area... And that this is your life's work."

"Being an agent is my life's work. I was in Yemen when Tenet found me and assigned me to this mission. My only job is to make this world a less hostile place, but the motto of this organization is not what I believe, Kat. What's happened's happened. Really? It doesn't work for me." Y/N ended the sentence with drops of anger in her voice and Kat did not say a single word.

Through the newspapers, Max's mother followed what was happening in Yemen over the years – a real endless war – and knowing that Y/N was in the middle of it, makes the situation unquestionable. People died in front of her eyes. Friends of the corporation. And then some time later, Tenet arrived with a fresh start, but in the end everything remained the same. She lost Neil. It is as if her life's work never had a happy ending because the world will never stop being a hostile place.

"He knows?" It was easy for Y/N to identify who she was talking about. The Protagonist. Or just TP.

"Here's another problem. I worked with him and indirectly worked for him at the same time! God, that man created this organization! And his name remains a mystery to us all!" She pinched the tip of her nose, feeling frustrated with all the secrets that haunt this organization. "And answering your question, yes, he knows, but he did not argue about it. I was a complete mess and he was not doing very well either... He stayed in my apartment for the first month, probably to make sure I didn't do anything stupid." And Y/N would be forever grateful for that. She likes him. Just as friends, of course. TP was a reserved man, but it was he who held her when everything was falling apart. "But we've had a fight. I blamed him for what happened at Stalask-12 and since then we haven't spoken anymore."

It was easy to see that they carried more pain than they could actually bear. Y/N lost her great love and the man lost his best friend. The situation just turned into a conflict between them and that was the result.

Realizing the sadness reflected in Y/N's eyes, Kat decided to change the subject of the conversation. Keeping that thought, she smiled and pointed to the painting on the wall. Maybe that could help.

"You seemed interested in this one."

"Oh yes, in my spare time I am a lover of art and its meanings. It is really attractive the way Ouroboros is connected to the Eternal Return..."

"And Amor Fati too." Kat completed, piquing Y/N's curiosity. This part was new to her. "It's impossible to affirm the Eternal Return without loving life. We need to learn that things happen as they do. Sometimes seemingly good. Sometimes seemingly bad. We don’t always get it our way... Unless we choose that whatever way it is, is our way. When we choose to Amor Fati, to love everything that happens, to love our fate, then we will always get it our way. Because the way it is, is the way it is. Unchangable. And therefore it must be good, even if it sucks."

These words touched Y/N's heart. This was a contradiction to what she is experiencing right now. Love your fate. She would like to understand and accept what happened, she really wanted, but why is it so difficult to move on?

Because Neil is dead.

That was the only explanation for her. The end of a relationship would be more acceptable. If he were alive, things would be completely different now. However, grief is overwhelming. How could she just accept what happened?

"I... I gotta go." That was all she managed to say before picking up her bag and leave the penthouse, ignoring Kat's protests.

When the elevator doors closed, an exhausted sigh left her mouth and the instant she saw her reflection in the mirror, Y/N wanted to cry again. After three months alone, she thought visiting her friend would be a good idea. Kat was willing to help, but the problem was that Y/N is not allowing herself to be helped. As soon as the doors opened, she left the metal box and found the hotel lobby partially empty. Her watch showed it was 3:13 AM, this explains the absence of people on the street as well. In front of her car, she searched the bag for the key and coincidentally her cell phone started to vibrate. Probably the text messages were from Kat, but confusion hit Y/N the instant she looked at the identifier and saw that the messages did not belong to any of her contacts.

Stay away from the car

They put a bomb

I'm on my way

Her first reaction was to take a few steps back and look around, trying to understand what’s going on and find the person responsible for these texts, but Y/N was alone in the dark street. When she thought it might be an unnecessary prank, a black SUV approached at high speed. The car stopped just a few meters away from where she was, but that was enough to make her body freeze.

"Y/N, come on!" The man exclaimed, the urgency in his voice would have made her run immediately, but she didn't move. Her feet had frozen on the floor. This cannot be real. "Come on, get in the car! We don't have much time!" He tried again, it was possible to hear the sound of the other cars approaching.

Y/N watched in slow motion the moment he left the car and ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"How is this possible?" She asked in a whisper, completely lost in his blue eyes.

"It's good to see you too." Neil admitted, feeling his heart race. She looked so fragile in his arms. Very different from the last time he saw her. "We have to go." He accompanied her to the car and as soon as Y/N took the passenger seat, he returned to his seat.

For her this moment was like a fever dream, so she just looked down and started counting her fingers. One, two, three, four, five... Neil noticed, but said nothing, just kept driving. The cars were fast approaching, but he would do everything possible and impossible to get Y/N away from these people.

"Give me your cell phone." He looked at her for a brief moment, but when Y/N didn’t react, he wasn't sure if she heard it, so he just took the phone from her hand and threw it out the window. That was enough to get her out of the numbness:

"What the fuck, Neil?!"

Despite the adrenaline rushing through his body, the man laughed.

"If I found you because of your cell phone, they can too." After that, he crossed the red light and made a risky turn, trying to end this chase. "Before you ask, no, this is not a dream. Unfortunately this is very real..." Neil didn't like what he saw when he adjusted the rearview mirror. "And now they are getting ready to shoot us."

That observation put Y/N on alert and she looked back, seeing a man with an AKS-74U and another with a Beretta M12.

"If you knew it wasn't a dream, why didn't you bring an armored car?" She ran her tongue between her lips, smiling at the man beside her. Neil tried to argue, but she just took off her seat belt and picked up the Glock 19 stuck in the vest he was wearing.

Y/N crawled out of the car and sat at the window opening. This encouraged the men in the two cars to start shooting, trying desperately to hit her. Neil shouted something that she couldn't understand and then she felt one of his hands on her thigh, giving her stability to continue with the plan. With her arm resting on the roof of the vehicle, Y/N aimed the gun at the car that was closest to them. Her intention was not to start a firefight in the middle of one of the main avenues in the city, but she had no other option. Holding her breath, she fired the first shot and the bullet hit the tire, taking the car out of circulation. Y/N celebrated while preparing for the second car, but dealing with this one was not an easy task. Now they were in a tunnel and, consequently, losing speed because of the other cars that came along the way. Neil left two pats on her leg, indicating that she had better get back in the car and that is what she did. Screams, honks and gunshots echoed through the tunnel, turning the place into a war zone. Whoever these men were, Y/N knew they weren't going to give up.

Tired of playing cat and mouse, she went to the back seat, getting on her knees. Through the broken glass above the trunk, Y/N adjusted the aim of her gun, ignoring the sniper and focusing on the driver. With another accurate shot, the bullet hit the man's chest and he lost control of the vehicle. The car overturned for a while, streaking the asphalt, but no other car was involved in the accident. Y/N sighed in relief and looked for another possible threat, just checking, but when she realized that the area was clean, she returned to the passenger seat, leaving the gun on the dashboard in front of her.

"Next time I'm going to get an armored car." Neil comments, stepping on the gas. "Nice shot, by the way."

"Anytime." Y/N smiled, trying to control her breathing.

With the adrenaline disappearing from her body, it was hard for her to believe that this was really happening. For many nights she cried, wondering what it would be like if Neil just came back to her, but now she was afraid to wake up and realize that it was just another vivid dream.

The sun was rising when they arrived in a shed away from the city. Seen from the outside, the place was a little scary, but the interior wasn't that bad. There was some equipment like trackers, walkie-talkie, bulletproof vests, weapons, ammunition; a table with a mess of papers and on the other side two beds and something that Y/N supposed to be a private bathroom.

"Where we are?"

We. That simple word echoed in her mind. Y/N thought that "we" didn't exist anymore.

"For now in a safe place. It's dangerous for you out there." He answered the question and took a bottle of water, handing it to her after taking a generous sip.

"Who are these people, Neil?" She wanted answers, lots of answers, and that frustrated the british spy because for the first time he didn't know what could happen.

Neil had a mission and that mission ended with him dying in Stalask-12, but after what TP did, everything changed.

"We have a name..." He wanted to say more, he wanted to reassure her, but that was all he had at the moment.

Y/N drank some water and left the bottle on the table, looking at some reports and photos. All photos were of the same man.

Lenard Vaher

"But apparently they don't just want you..."

It took a few seconds and when the realization hit Y/N, concern appeared on her face.

No, not him.

"Where's TP? He's safe, right?"

"He was going to see you when Lenard's men kidnapped him. This happened three weeks ago." And considering the anger in Neil's voice, finding TP was proving an almost impossible task, but in the midst of so much concern, one point attracted Y/N's attention.

"You said he was going to see me..."

"There was something he needed to tell you." Neil sighed, resting his hands on the table. A few strands of blond hair fell over his forehead, but he quickly shook his head back, as he always did. "He returned to Stalask-12, Y/N."

After that statement, the only sound that could be heard was Neil's footsteps closing the distance between them and the first thing she did was put her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Neil smiled. And that was not one of his famous smiles. That was a shy smile. His heart was beating like a drum and it was all because of her. Loving Y/N was something so special and pure, that Neil accepted his fate without a second thought. Saving the world, he was giving her a second chance to live, but now he is the one who received a second chance.

"I missed you every day." Before she could begin to consider the meaning behind his words, he settled his mouth upon hers, robbing her of thought.

She closed her eyes and melted against him, flattening her hands on his arms. Neil caught her bottom lip in his teeth, nibbling and licking at it until she thought she might perish from the intensity of the feeling. She whimpered at the sensation, and he rewarded the sound by deepening the kiss, giving her everything she desired. His tongue stroked hers, slow and insistent. A lush, decadent pleasure unfolded within them, snaking through their veins as though it had lain coiled in anticipation for years.

Just waiting for this moment.

––––––––––––––––––––––––

a/n – really hope you enjoy it and thank you soooo much for reading ;)

#neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #neil tenet #neil #robert pattinson #robert pattinson x reader #robert pattinson imagine #tenet fanfic #tenet imagine #ives tenet #tenet #neil tenet one shot #neil tenet imagine #robert pattinson one shot #neil tenet x y/n #x y/n #amor fati #eternal return

[donttouchmeimsleeping]

Error the Protector of the Multiverse

Okay, so, since I have a good idea for a story to write for this concept, I am just going to write everything out. Here it is, the basics:

(I’m basing this Error’s personality, much like the Error in xX-AVJ-Xx’s ask-comic with the ship-child extinction.) 

What if in this multiverse, Error was in Ink’s place in helping the creators create AUs because of interference in the codes. Because of this interference in the codes, Error takes Ink’s place and Ink has to be annihilated. With balance now in order, the multiverse resets to the beginning, and Error is left with only the Original Undertale, the only AU, in the doodlesphere to look after. Error doesn’t take this alteration in the codes very well and tries to destroy an AU, but as soon as he does intense and immense pain cripples him to the floor. And there was enough pain to make him crash. After rebooting, Error very reluctantly accepts this new role. 

Being stuck in the doodlesphere, Error gradually bonds with the creators. Insert lots of insults, snarky remarks, talk back, and sarcasm from Error to the Creator voices. After a while of monitoring the Creator’s and their creations, Error goes on many adventures will all sorts of sanses. He resolves Nightmare’s and Dream’s quarrels as brothers, helps out X-tale in the weirdest way possible, makes sure that the council forms as a unit to help the AUs that now exist (considering he can’t opt them out), becomes a severe critic for the “creator voices” in the doodlesphere that he has to constantly put up with, helps with the better construction of the Omega timeline, and overall just visits the various of people he either has caused trouble for, caused trouble for him, or knows through his past experiences. 

Of course, most of these adventures he goes on, in the beginning, were forced, once Error concluded these were going to be a regular occurrence, he kind of started looking for the next “mission” the multiverse would send his way to complete. Though that was wasn’t the whole reason, Error had noticed whenever he finished these “missions” he felt a soothing and angelic sensation wash over his soul or a piercing and unbearable pain. Concluding that they acted as a value system of how positive or negative his decisions impact the multiverse’s existence. Therefore leading him to make more soothing and angelic sensation than anything. This action, on his part, led to the formation of his Cadre of Custodians, allies, admirers, and neutrals. But the rest of the multiverse calls them “The Custodians.”

It’s not long until Error meets his most difficult mission, and doesn’t realize it until his allies have to shove it in his face that this mission is meant to test his loyalty to this current multiverse. That is because the mission was to deal with a few insurgents from another multiverse. A multiverse exactly like his when he was once the Destroyer and God of Destruction.

Renaming things as this is Error’s domain now:

Places:

The Multiverse ↠ Vortex!Multiverse (VortexVerse/Vortexverse-)

The Anti-Void ↠ The Nexus

The Doodlesphere ↠ The MainStream

The Omega Timeline ↠ Ground Zero

The Multi-Void ↠ The Epicenter

The Star Sanses Club-house ↠ Polestar Pivot

Nightmare’s Castle ↠ Captial Convergence

The Save Screen ↠ The Linkscape

The Dreamscape ↠ The Affinity Realm

The Sunset Island (From Underverse) ↠ The Midway

The Void ↠ The Axis

People:

Ink, The Protector ↠ The Creator (Important to the climax of the plot // Explained why later, but he isn’t actually-)

Error, The Destroyer ↠ The Overseer (Extremely important to plot // Very important reason as to this title-)

Dream, Guardian of Positivity ↠ Defender of Positivity

Nightmare, Kind of Negativity ↠ Defender of Negativity

Night, Passive Nightmare ↠ Preserver of Feelings (Important to plot // explained later as to why-)

The Council ↠ The Commission

Core, Founder of the OT ↠ The Alloy

Events: 

The Apple Incident ↠ Nothing’s Changed

The X-Event ↠ The X-Trails (Important to plot // This fits very well as to what happens-)

Reactions:

Error’s: Will refuse to take the role, and be VERY reluctant when he does. Has a very different perspective on the multiverse and the system as a whole, but can’t/doesn’t question it, just voices it. Is very strict and rigid to pretty much everyone one he meets and interacts with. Is very intimidating to the other Sanses. Big softie as he goes through character development. Has big emotional impacts on other characters that will most likely put them through a character arch of their own.

Ink’s: Will start off fine until he pieces together what happened, and then will have an existential crisis. After recovering, he turns into a peanut gallery as he proceeds to spectate Error’s progression as the protector. Will have existential crisis’ from time to time, as he rethinks the decisions he’s made and their outcomes and compare to Error’s and seeing him have better impacts on the multiverse. 

The Stars and Originals: Dream specifically with go into a character arch of his own well first meeting Error. Error completely destroys Dream’s idea to go and face his brother right after coming out of the stone. He tells him, that he is not only weak but pathetic. Dream protests, but Error explains that it’s been around 500 hundred years since Dream has even fought Nightmare last, and Error knows for a fact that Dream will die if it happens again. Error tells Dream to train until he can find Error on his own with his own magic and then he’ll consider letting Dream help with handling Nightmare. As for the originals, Error makes each of them have their own short archs when Error starts intervening in the codes. He basically helps them defeat the player, and practically feel content in their Aus. They’ve only ever interacted with Error though his strings, as Error doesn’t actually go to any of the Aus. At least not yet. 

↪ Dream, Blue, Orange, Classic, Papi, Fell, Rus, Mauve, Vermillion, Danz, Salsa, Cosmic, Pluto etc. 

The Bad Sanses: Nightmare’s interaction with Error is strange, he immediately noticed in their first fight that Error give little to no effort in evading and reading his attacks. Which is odd, considering it’s only been their first encounter. Dust, Horror, and Killer get wrapped up in the multiverse mess later when the OP Sanses get involved. Cross specially is interesting, as the X-Event is never born thanks to Error. Because Error went about things differently when interacting with X-Gaster, the X-Event ceases to arise in this multiverse. Which makes Cross’s personality very different in a way.

↪ Nightmare, Dust, Horror, Killer, Cross etc.

The OP Sanses: When these guys come into play, Error immediately gets in their faces as they pose the next biggest threat in his multiverse, considering he is now out of the picture as he is no longer the Destroyer. Because of different encounters with them, Error has to leave the MainStream to deal with them, exposing his existence to the Aus he is protecting.

↪ Error 404, Fatal Error, King Multiverse, Bill, Alastor etc.

The Neutral Sanses: Still working on this part.

↪ Lust, Shears, Ethan, Halo, Night, Mint, Clouds, Decans, Fresh, Lavender etc.

#Overseer!Error!Sans #Error as the Protector of the Multiverse #Vortex!Mutliverse #VortexVerse #ink!sans #Error in Ink's place #dream!Sans #nightmare!sans #passive!nightmare #dust!Sans #horror!sans #Cross!Sans #swap au #fell au #outertale!au #underswap!au #underfell!au #swapfell!au #dancetale!au #fresh!sans

[nomazee]

saw you responded to my prompt idea (Heather) and I'm really sorry for not including a specific character the first time! i did send in a second ask as a follow up. but ushijima pls

Starting Over

(original ask: hi there 😎 hope you're doing well!! just dropping by to suggest a prompt idea!! IM THINKING; Heather by Conan Gray? There's flirty banter going on w/ u 2, and you think the feelings are mutual.. but then there's someone else in the picture. He's giving them all of his attention and you're kinda pushed to the side. Angst pls ): hurt my feelings but then hold my hand after. fluff maybe)

ushijima x reader; tendou & reader

word count: 3000+

content: unrequited crush, angst, loneliness, personal development

(thank you so so so much for this request!! don’t worry about forgetting to add the character, it’s completely alright!! i sort of strayed from the prompt a bit but i tried to maintain the primary concept as best as i could. i enjoyed writing this a lot and i hope you enjoy this!!

also just a fun fact--i was absolutely prepared to make the reader and wakatoshi’s gf fall in love with each other and elope and i’m very close to rewriting this and making it go down that route 😃

ALSO-ALSO—i have a multi-part series in the works right now (by “in the works” i mean BARE BONES PLANS) and im gonna share some details + a sneak peak soon!!! i’m kind of excited cause it’s gonna be the first long multipart series i’m gonna make, so i hope you guys are excited about it too!!

thank you all so much for the support recently, every like and commment and follower i receive motivates me so much and i love u all to bits <3

happy reading!!) 

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

Wakatoshi is not a romantic. You know that best out of anyone—knowing the boy for years gives you a decent awareness of what type of person he is. He doesn’t have much of an interest in things that aren’t volleyball. Even his friends are scarce, limited to you and Tendou and some of the other third-years on the volleyball team. It’s not like he’s lonely—he’s reserved by nature and choice, never really expanding his social circle and putting his energy into extra practices rather than nights out. 

You suppose that’s why you get along so well with him. You also suppose that’s why it was a shock to hear that Wakatoshi accepted someone’s confession. 

You were no stranger to hearing about these confessions—not because Wakatoshi tells you about them, but because you’re often the one who has to act as the messenger between the confessors of the week and Wakatoshi himself. It’s a bit draining, frankly, to be looked at as a tool to get closer to the ace, but you put up with it because at least you still have him. 

Her name is Hana, and she was one of the very few people who confessed to Wakatoshi personally. 

He told you the details while walking you to your dorm, and you were a little suspicious of how in-depth he seemed to go about the event. He was interested, you deduced, and in the moment you forced yourself to shove down the ball that rose white-hot in your throat. 

“She invited me to dinner on Sunday. Her family owns a restaurant. She said she’ll make me my favorite.” 

Oh, you think, I’ve made his favorite plenty of times—you cut that thought off in fear of sounding bitter over losing someone who was never really yours. 

“So you’re going, then?” 

It’s silent. You stare intently at the way your feet step against the concrete. At the persistent lull in the conversation, you glance up to Wakatoshi. 

His cheeks are red, and his gaze is trained pointedly away from you. 

He’s blushing, you realize. He’s blushing because he’s embarrassed, embarrassed that now he has someone he’s interested in. 

You know you should be happy, and the robotic voice in your head chants, “That’s cute! That’s great!” But you know yourself a little better than that, and decide that you aren’t the happiest with this epiphany. 

But you’ll sure as hell make it seem like you are, for Wakatoshi’s sake and Hana’s, too. 

You give a smile, one without crinkles at the corners of your eyes, and elbow him playfully. “That’s cute, Toshi. I’m surprised you found someone you’re interested in, but I’m really happy for you.” 

He’s smiling, now, and it’s a gentle smile you rarely see form in your presence. As you wave goodbye to him at the steps of your dorm building, you wonder if you’ll have to stop calling him Toshi in fear of upsetting Hana. 

---

You’re getting ahead of yourself, you think in the days following Wakatoshi’s unintentional admission of feelings. He’s just trying out a date for once. It’s not like you’re going to lose him immediately.

For the remainder of the week, Wakatoshi still walks you to your dorm after practice (you stay in the library until he’s done), and still lets you sit with him at lunch. By Friday, you make an excuse to avoid the cafeteria (read: avoid him, but you don’t tell him that) and tell him not to wait for you after practice. 

You text him on Sunday asking him to tell you how the date goes. He responds with, “It was very fun. I really like her :)” and you feel your heart crack under the strain of your unrequited feelings. But you suck it up, like a good friend, you think, and tell him “that’s great!! i’m so happy for you :)” 

On Monday, you go back to sitting with Wakatoshi at lunch. When you smile and place your bento box on the table, he waves awkwardly and blinks at you. 

Oh, you think, yet again. Maybe I shouldn’t be sitting here.

You feel a stifling lack of familiarity in the air, and it pains you to admit it. You nod back at Wakatoshi, then blink at your lunch tray, feeling too awkward to even open it up and start eating. 

He doesn’t say anything. You uncharacteristically take the initiative. 

“So… your date,” you begin. “Did you like it?” 

His eyelids flutter yet again, and a fond smile crosses his features. “Yes, I did. Her restaurant is very nice, and so is her family. The hayashi rice was very good. She wants to go out again this weekend.” 

“You’re going again?” It’s rhetorical. You know the answer already. He nods, and goes back to eating his lunch. A few minutes pass by, and you still can’t find the strength to pick at your bento. 

Just as you open your mouth again to babble about a random topic to fill the silence, Wakatoshi’s head darts up and his eyes focus on something behind you. You twist around to see what it is, but a cold feeling in your veins tells you you already know. 

She’s pretty, you think as she waves at you and Toshi and takes a seat next to him. Really pretty, actually. 

And an angel. She greets you politely, with a wide smile that makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. Her hands are soft and she has pastel yellow acrylics on her nails. “Hi! I’m Hana, it’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?” 

The question sends another wave of cold electricity through your system, and you feel like crying at the realization that Wakatoshi probably didn’t even talk about you. He probably never talks about you, you think, because there’s just not much to talk about when it comes to you. 

You give a smile. Your eyes don’t crinkle. “[Y/N],” you tell her. “I’m Ushijima’s friend.” 

Maybe the use of his family name is a bit petty, but you convince yourself that you’re just trying to make yourself distant, trying to make yourself appear as less of a threat to Hana. You think it’s natural that she might get antsy about another girl being in Wakatoshi’s life, but then think that she’s probably too kind to ever get jealous or upset. It only makes your heart ache more. 

You see the subtlest flinch from Wakatoshi at the use of his surname, but you assume he doesn’t really care much. Him and Hana start talking casually, and tears prick behind your eyes as Hana does her best to involve you in the conversation. She’s so nice, so so nice, and it isn’t fair for you to be so bitter. 

“I have to go study in the library now,” you tell them, picking up your untouched bento box from the table and standing up. “But it was really nice meeting you, Hana.” She smiles again, glossy lips and pearly teeth before Wakatoshi interrupts you. 

“You didn’t tell me you were leaving early?” 

You pause, and think of the irony of that—he didn’t tell you Hana was sitting with him, otherwise you would’ve left them alone in the first place. But you brush it off, and maintain your smile. “Yeah, I guess I forgot.” You huff a humorless laugh. “But I’ll see you guys later.”

You don't end up going to the library, instead settling for the nurse’s office. She’s nice, you think, nice enough to let you get away with a stomachache and sitting out of class for the remainder of the day. 

When you’re dismissed, you habitually wait for Wakatoshi at the side door of the school building. It’s a Monday, and he doesn’t have practice, so he’d be able to walk you back to your dorm rather than making you wait in the library. 

It’s a fruitless effort, and you hit yourself for not anticipating it earlier—maybe if you did , you would’ve been at your dorm already. If you did, you wouldn’t wait for twenty minutes with the empty hope that Wakatoshi would still walk you home. If you did, you wouldn’t have to watch them pass down the sidewalk together, his team jacket draped over Hana as they talked with each other, hands interlocked and smiles persistent. 

As you blink away tears and walk away from the scene, you think that Hana must really be someone special, to break down Wakatoshi’s walls so quickly and make him be so familiar with her in a matter of days. 

Either that, or you were never anything special. Just complacent with the relationship you had with the boy, which you think was only formulated out of the coincidence of growing up together. 

You try not to let the thoughts get to you, but after a heartbreak it’s a little difficult to think positively about yourself. You settle for taking a nap once you get to your dorm, and hope that the school’s library is open during lunch tomorrow. 

---

Thankfully, it is, and you wordlessly leave Hana and Wakatoshi to their own devices during lunch. He doesn’t question it, doesn’t text you, doesn’t ask you after lunch or during class about it. When you dismiss, you don’t wait for him to walk you to your dorm, and for the second time, you’re left walking alone. It’s a little nerve-wracking, having such a sudden change in your routine, and you’re starting to regret not expanding your social circle. If you did, you’d have someone to talk to at lunch, someone to walk with after dismissal, someone to hang out with during the weekends, another contact in your phone that wasn’t just your parents and Wakatoshi. 

The week ends. Wakatoshi never texts you, never asks you if you’re okay or questions why you’re so distant. It’s simultaneously painful and relieving—knowing that your presence could so easily be deducted from his life made you rethink a lot of things, but at the same time you think his lack of action makes it easier for you to deal with it. 

During lunch on Monday, you’re alone in the library. Until you’re not. 

Red flashes by your vision until you can properly process the form of a boy sitting across from you, chin resting in his palm as he looks at you curiously, a teasing expression on his face. 

It’s Tendou—you know him fairly well. You can’t consider him a friend just yet, but you’re somewhat close to him, what with both of you being friends with Wakatoshi. 

You blink at him, and cock your head to the side. He follows suit. He’s interesting, you think. 

“Hi, Tendou.” You greet. “What are you doing here?” 

He narrows his eyes at the stiff greeting, and the arm supporting his head drops to the table. A smile peeks through his features, and while his eyes don’t crinkle you can still tell it’s genuine and friendly. 

“Just wanted to say hi. I didn’t see you in the cafeteria with Wakatoshi like you usually are. Actually, I haven’t seen you there for a while now. It took me some time to find out where you go, but I’m here now!” 

You don’t know how to respond to that, so you settle for a blank stare. He huffs in mock annoyance, and throws his head back with a groan that nearly alerts the librarian. 

“Aren’t you happy? Now you can stop moping around and hang out instead.” A pause, then, “So what’s up with you and Toshi? Why don’t you sit with him anymore?” 

So this is a therapy session, you think sardonically. Alright, sure. I guess I can tell him. 

“He has a girlfriend.” You wince at how sad the words sound coming out of your mouth, and quickly try to defend your tone. “Which is a good thing! I’m not upset—” oh yeah, definitely not, “—but I wanted to leave them alone, so they can hang out. I don't want to get in their way.” 

Tendou doesn't respond immediately, instead settling for tilting his head and narrowing his eyes in suspicion. You’re sure he already knows the real reason, but give up on trying to clarify yourself any further. 

He gives a wordless hum, eyes darting to the bento box you’d set aside at the beginning of the period. “You’re not eating.” It’s not a question, more of an observation, and you tense up. Tendou isn’t a threat, you know that, but his hyper-awareness of everything and everyone around him intimidates you greatly. 

“Not hungry,” you respond, avoiding his scrutinizing gaze. “I eat breakfast, and I don’t normally get hungry until the afternoon.” 

“It is the afternoon.” Technically, he’s not wrong. It’s almost 1:30. Regardless, you huff at his technicalities and remain silent. 

His gaze is still locked on you. You wonder what he’s still here for, and jokingly tell yourself he’s going to give you a letter and ask you to give it to Wakatoshi like everyone else does. 

“You don’t have to stay alone just ‘cause Toshi got a girlfriend.” He’s blunt in his words, which you detest and appreciate at the same time. “He’s not your whole life—doesn’t have to be. You’ve got me now. I’m your new friend, Tendou Satori!” By the end of his spiel, he’s back to his playful self, tone turning childish as he strikes a pose and winks at you. 

You make an agreement (more like, he makes a proposition and forces you to comply) to wait for him in the library after school and let him walk you to your dorm. As he leads you to the building, chatting loudly and making you laugh harder than you have in weeks, a strong resolve plants itself in your head. 

You have a new friend, and his name is Tendou Satori. 

---

For the next week and a half, Tendou is complacent with your dismissive attitude regarding Wakatoshi and indulges you in mindless activities to distract you from any stresses. During the weekend, he takes you out to the mall, buys you boba, and forces you to try on clothes of his choice with the promise that you can do the same to him. While you both giggle in front of the mirror of the dressing room, he pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of you and him in the mirror, and posts it on his Snapchat. You don’t think much of that. It’s the most fun you’ve had in a while, and even before then you don’t remember enjoying your time with Wakatoshi as much. 

That epiphany makes you hurt a bit, but then you feel Tendou grasp your wrist and lead you off somewhere and things are better. Things are a lot better, really, until a new week approaches and Wakatoshi texts you for the first time in nearly a month. 

You hung out with Tendou? 

You blink. It’s an interesting way to start a conversation. You suppose Wakatoshi’s not one for formalities, and conclude that he must’ve seen Tendou’s post. Frankly, you’re a bit insulted that Wakatoshi seems shocked at the concept that you can make friends on your own, but you brush it off and text him back. 

yeah!! we started talking a while ago. he’s cool. 

Oh

Are you mad at me? 

You don’t know what to think of his question. You don’t know where it came from, or how to respond. Discerning his tone of voice is a bit difficult over text, even more so than it is in person. Nevertheless, you answer honestly. 

no? not really? why are you asking? 

It takes him a while to respond, and your anxiety grows with each passing second. 

You haven't talked to me recently. You don’t eat lunch in the cafeteria anymore. Did I do something wrong? 

You don’t know how to explain it to him—don’t really have the energy to go on a rant about how you were avoiding him for your sake, his sake, and his girlfriend’s sake, how you had feelings for him for years and he never noticed and how it was kind of a dick move to be upset over you avoiding him for a month and not even bothering to approach you about it in the first week you started going to the library or the nurse during lunch and walking to the dorms alone. 

You settle, once again, for something simpler. 

don’t worry about it :) i wasn't avoiding you, but i wanted to give you and hana time alone, so that i didn’t bother you.

Are you and Tendou dating? 

You’re sure you’re going to get whiplash from this conversation. You let out a breathy chuckle and tap away on your phone. 

no, ushijima, we’re just friends 

Oh. Okay

Would you like to sit with me and Hana at lunch tomorrow? 

You read the text, then reread it, and lean back in your chair with a sigh. You’re not sure that Wakatoshi knows what he’s doing, but you still appreciate the intended kindness behind the words. You straighten out your posture, look at the blinking line in the message box, and turn your phone off. 

The library doors open, and Tendou bounds through with a cute little hop, immediately going to your usual table with a smile. 

“Ready to go?” He asks. You check the time—it’s nearly half past six. Tendou notices and apologizes. 

“Sorry for making you wait so long. Practice ran a little longer than usual and I didn’t get the chance to text you about it. Wakatoshi was kind of out of it, so Coach made us all suffer the consequences.” He coupled his statements with a laugh, and it eased the unpleasant feeling that arose with his last sentence. His thin fingers wrapped around your wrist carefully, and he tugged you out of your seat to lead you back home. 

Wakatoshi left a bit of an empty gap in your life. And you knew that you’d still be reminded of him often and that pain in your chest will return sometimes. The doubt of your previous friendship and the personal guilt of not trying to get closer to him sooner would still linger for a while. But Tendou Satori was a good distraction, and a great friend.

#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu fanfiction #hq fanfiction #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #wakatoshi ushijima #ushijima #wakatoshi #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #wakatoshi ushijima x reader #wakatoshi x reader #ushijima x reader #tendou satori #tendou satori x reader #tendou x reader

[nanowrimo]

How to Plan a Novel (By Not Planning It)

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Novlr, a 2020 NaNo sponsor, is the smart writers’ choice for novel writing software. Today, Novlr Community Manager Crystal Lynn Kamm shares some tips for all the pantsers out there who want to get ready to write their NaNoWriMo novel without actually planning it:

NaNoWriMo 2020 is fast approaching and writers everywhere are working hard on their novel ideas. Some of you have already meticulously planned everything you're going to write next month, while others have decided it wing it by sliding into their computer chairs on November 1st without a single plan. And probably most people are somewhere between these two polar opposites. Which type of writer are you?

I’ll be honest, I’m the kind of writer who likes to plan for success. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (and Camp NaNoWriMo) quite a few times, but I find that the years where I come in with a plan, I do better. 

Before you get too worried, “a plan” doesn’t have to be as big of a deal as you might think. Many writers thrive off the understanding that the novel unfolds as it will, making pre-planning difficult. As a self-proclaimed “organized pantser,” I would completely agree with that sentiment. (Side note, have you heard about the difference between planners and pantsers, a.k.a. one who “flies by the seat of their pants”?) 

Here are some methods of writing planning that I love to employ before I get started on a big writing project:

Outline 

When people talk about planning, they almost always mean outlining. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like outlines at all. They are very restrictive! But, that being said, they can be helpful at times. If possible, I recommend at least planning out the main plot points of your novel. Identifying what the characters’ goals are, what big things happen, and how they’re ultimately resolved can save you from a lot of aimless wandering at the drafting stage!

Brainstorm

What if you don’t know what your main plot points are? That’s a completely valid issue, especially if you’re a pantser like me. I sometimes like to brainstorm ideas for what those plot points might be so that I can play with a few scenarios during the drafting process and see which ones work best for my characters. 

Writing exercise

Getting to know your characters is one of the best ways to figure out what they would or wouldn’t do. Once you know that, a whole new assortment of possibilities will show up for your novel’s plot. Follow @novlrtweets on Twitter to get some great interaction and writing prompts for helping you dig deeper into your fiction!

Freewrite or journal

Sometimes prompts take your writing a direction that you weren’t intending on going with your novel and freewriting is a better choice. Freewriting or journaling about your novel can really help you to clear away the cobwebs and dig into your writing process. I like to free write about my novel almost every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. I write about my struggles, my plot holes, my character frustrations, anything that’s on my mind. Sometimes I get life-changing epiphanies, but let’s be honest, that’s not the norm. Just working through the questions will often give you a change of perspective and the added bit of motivation you need just to keep going. 

Story bible

If you’ve really got some time on your hands or want to make sense of a very complicated world that you’re building for your story, creating a “bible” can be an incredible exercise in organization. The idea of creating a “bible” for a story is a system used in TV show writing. A bible will contain a bio and picture for every character, plus a breakdown of what motivates them and how they fit into the plot, every setting, and every unique system in the story. This can be an essential element in high-concept stories where characters are using magic, fighting powerful enemies, engaging in extremely technical science, or moving around in a complex world with lots of unusual settings. 

The best part about all of these preparatory exercises is that they don’t actually have to be done first. You can “prepare” for your novel at any stage of the writing process, whether you’ve only written a page or you’re in your third full draft. Be sure to let me know if you’ve tried any of these methods before and whether they’ve worked for you! What methods of novel prep do you swear by? I can’t wait to hear from you in the comments!

Try Novlr

Novlr has chapter organization and separate note organization so you can write your thoughts down whenever they come to you and manage it all in one place. Sign up for a free two-week trial of Novlr and use the 40% off promo code when you decide to subscribe: gMR3xpnR. 

Crystal Lynn Kamm is Community Manager for Novlr, the leading online writing tool. She is a professional writer and novelist; passionate storyteller and prolific NaNoWriMo participant (and winner!). She’ll be working on her novel right alongside all of you this year. Follow her progress and more Novlr advice and resources on NaNoWriMo, Twitter (@novlrtweets), and Instagram (@novlrofficial).

Top photo by Ferenc Horvath on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #nano prep #pantser #planner #by nano sponsor #novlr

[kiribakuhappiness]

👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent?

Ahh, this question is always so interesting!

First I just want to define the terms above - in case some people aren't aware of their meaning!

Planner: Relatively self-explanatory, a planner is someone who plans out their entire story from start to finish before they even think about writing it. Character backstories, settings, relationship connections, timelines, order of events and their significance, important symbolic details, everything is entirely fleshed out before that pen hits that paper or before those fingertips start tapping away at that keyboard!

Pros: - No need to stop writing for every new plot point/chapter - Generally very well fleshed out characters and scenes. - Plenty of room for constructing well thought-out foreshadowing.

Cons: - Takes a lot of time and effort before the writing process can even begin. - Generally very difficult to tweak details later on, as it creates a domino effect regarding the remainder of the preemptive planning.

Panster: Coined from the term "by the seat of one's pants," a panster is someone who gets a vague idea for a story and takes off running with it. No direction or planned events needed, just their juicy inspiration and a blank document! Pansters are also usually known for writing scenes out of order.

Pros: - Lots of creative freedom. - No feeling of being weighed down by a predetermined path/plot. - Great technique when writing a story that will contain a lot of plot twists.

Cons: - So. Much. Editing. - Will generally end up doing everything that a Planner would do, just later on in the game. - Character motivations + plot structures can suffer by becoming cloudy and unclear/unexplained.

Planster: Probably the easiest to identify/define after learning about the other two, but a planster is someone who is a healthy mix of both! Most writers are plansters, as the range is much more varied and so, by default, contains the medium average. Plansters will get a new story idea, make a few notes or plan out a few important scenes/details, and then use that like a vague roadmap for their stories similar to the dodgy early-2000's Google Maps Directions.

Pros: - A healthy amount of creative freedom when coming up with new scenes and characters. - Easier to make midcourse adjustments in regard to plot devices, foreshadowing, etc.

Cons: - Writer's block can set in when struggling to connect one vague predetermined plot point to the next.

As for my answer, I am very much a Planster, leaning more towards Panster! Usually when I come up with a new story idea, it's a very vague concept, but a concept nonetheless.

So, take Why Is Everything So Weird With the Lights Off? as an example!

When I started that fic, my only notes going into it were these (copy + pasted from my notes app):

Bakugou appears at Kirishima's door; he's been drinking (third year, reasonable age to engage in such activity). Kirishima's first time seeing Bakugou drunk. Bakugou has come to confess his feelings - Kirishima can't imagine why Bakugou would think that midnight on a school night is a good time to strike up a conversation, but what kind of friend would he be if he turned him away? Kirishima's chivalry to be a good friend battles internally with his desire to be with Bakugou as the night progresses. Bakugou is uncharacteristically touchy and honest about his wants to hang out with Kirishima (internally, he's frustrated that he keeps fucking up his attempts to confess, and so tries to stay later and later to get it right). "'M not fuckin' comfortable," he [Bakugou] says [from the makeshift bed on the floor], louder and firmer, as if that will change anything. From beginning - no attraction/romance detected between them. As story progresses - lines start to cross and blur and Kirishima's buried feelings for Bakugou become more apparent to the reader. (Their relationship has started to subtly change, as all relationships tend to do.)

As you can see, there's very little in-depth details here. I don't really go into long-winded explanations and I don't really focus on anything regarding the setting or plot points. Of course, the type of notes I take and the amount of attention to details I give vary drastically regarding the project, but the entire idea is at least glossed over so I don't forget it, and I always try my best to be firm when considering Character Motive (ie; Bakugou drunkenly arrives with the one and only goal to finally confess his feelings to Kirishima), the rest of the fic and all of its minor details come as a result from these motives.

I'll give another example where I went into A LOT more detail, again, copy + pasted from my notes app! Disclaimer: major spoilers for unwritten chapters regarding Fighting Tooth and Claw to Get Back to You.

[Upon UA Katsuki + Fantasy Katsuki meeting for the first time]

"It is fucking winter?"

"Yeah. It's fuckin' winter."

[Right before they switch back] - UA Katsuki experiences a darkness where he finally meets Barbarian Bakugou face-to-face. They approach each other, movements mirrored, and it's UA Katsuki who raises a hand out towards him first, which Barbarian Bakugou hesitates to accept (he is resentful and ashamed of UA Katsuki and believes him to be ignorant and immature). But UA Katsuki needs to know what happened right before the switch, he needs to unlock that memory, and Barbarian Bakugou is reluctantly curious about his unwavering determination, so they clasp their hands together in a strong grip and are thrust into a new place - sunny and filled with green grass. The barbarian clan is there, Dragon Eijirou included, as they prepare to train for several moons straight before migrating away for the winter. Barbarian Bakugou and Dragon Eijirou leave to go train on their own, unbeknownst to them that Eri is following. They banter for a bit and kiss before bakugou wraps an intimidating hand around his neck and jaw. "Are you going to fight me or not?" Dragon Eijirou grins at that, still giving him a sultry, distracted look despite the fingers clasped threateningly around his neck. "What do I get if I win?" He teases. Barbarian Bakugou smirks before he gives Dragon Eijirou's head a light shove in the opposite direction, who steps out of his space again just as easily as he had entered it. "Off, you dumb lizard," Barbarian Bakugou grumbled, still looking amused before he reached over and pulled the glinting, golden sword (All Might) from its holster on his hip and brandished it towards Eijirou, whose red eyes glisten with a new kind of want as he stared at it - the dragon part of him yearning to collect such a valuable treasure. "You would look good as a King, Katsuki," he tells him. Katsuki's smirk grows wider. "And you as a dragon, if you'd ever hurry the fuck up." He gave the sword a vague sway through the space between them and Eijirou's eyes flash dangerously. "Come and take it from me. I know you want to," Katsuki goaded. Eijirou turns into a dragon and they fight.

[Choice made when Imperial soldiers attack during their training session (mentioned at beginning of story by Sero)] - All Might (sword) is falling off the cliff's edge, while Dragon Eijirou is about to get shot by a piercing arrow. Barbarian Bakugou chooses to try and save Dragon Eijirou (abandoning the sword and his future Kingdom), who calls out "NO" even as a dragon who shouldn't be able to speak (he doesn't want Bakugou to lose his throne just for him), which causes Barbarian Bakugou to stop abruptly in shock. The arrow is shot and pierces Dragon Eijirou's underbelly. He lets out a loud roar before he plummets down into the forest out of sight (leading to his capture). Barbarian Bakugou sees red, reaching down to grab the nearest abandoned steel sword (one shown at beginning of story that UA Kirishima shatters) that he then uses to swing down and slice into the shoulder of the soldier that had shot Dragon Eijirou. More soldiers descend into the valley. Katsuki hears a scream and turns to see Eri lying on the ground, terrified as a soldier holds up a crossbow at her. "TO THE END OF ALL DRAGONS!" The man yelled (revealing that Eri, in the fantasy timeline, is also a dragon, and explains her fondness for Barbarian Bakugou when she joins their group and observes how he treats Dragon Eijirou with kindness instead of prejudiced fear). Barbarian Bakugou's feet move without thinking as he lunges in front of Eri, just as her fingertips reach out and graze along his shoulder before everything goes black.

When UA Katsuki awakes again, he is in the hospital on campus, and Kirishima is sleeping in the chair beside him.

[fantasy setting, after the switch back. Barbarian Bakugou - despite still being offered the throne for Musutafu - declines. Izuku and Todoroki are preparing to go back to the kingdom with the news of the vanquish of the Imperial Army, gazing out at Bakugou's barbarian clan as he absently moves about the crowd, barking orders and preparing his clan for travel. Dragon Eijirou joins them to watch as well.] "I am surprised to learn of Kacchan's abandonment of the throne. I thought there was nothing in this world that could replace his desire to be King," Izuku mused out loud to him. "He would have made a great leader."

Dragon Eijirou grinned from beside him. "You're wrong, Izuku," he states simply. "He already is a great leader."

Because of the complexity of the story, with all its many plot twists and such a large cast of important characters, my notes are far more in depth here than they are for my other fic - however, these notes wouldn't necessarily be structured enough to be considered a Planner-mindset, as there is still plenty of room for added details, dialogue, etc.

Phew! What a fucking post :,D a big ole chonker - I hope you enjoyed reading at least, if you've made it this far! 🧡

Fanfic Ask Game - send me a question! ☺️

#fic ask game #kiribaku #writing #personal #asks

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. About ten or fifteen years ago, I tried to read this and was totally overwhelmed by it. I kept it around, hoping maybe someday I might be able to read it. I finally have, and here are my impressions: WHY SO MANY NAMES. WHY YOU HAVE TO NAME EVERYBODY, AND EVERY TRIBE OF PEOPLES, AND EVERY INANIMATE OBJECT, AND EVERY LANDSCAPE FEATURE. WHY. *ahem* So. I have a general comprehension of the events of The Silmarillion, but I dealt with it by doing what you do for an impressionist painting. I (mentally) stepped way back and let all the names flow by me, and if there were names that were repeated a lot, then I mentally attached appropriate plot points and character details to those names so I could track with who they were and what they were doing. And, actually, I found myself able to hang on and enjoy the book for the most part. This is going to lead into a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings books, since I haven’t read those in about as long…

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I haven’t read some of these books since pre-teen years, with one required re-read of The Two Towers in high school (i.e. it’s been many an age since I’ve read these and my memory of the stories has been far more heavily influenced by the movies). In re-reading the first book, I was struck by the extreme tone shift for the Elves and Dwarves. Elves seem much closer to happy, mischievous fairies than these ethereal, solemn pillars of elegance and grace the movies show them to be. And Dwarves are far more bumbling and craftsmanlike than the movies show. Aside from that, The Hobbit was a pretty solid adaptation from the book, and the book also reminded me that this story was the first time I experienced “NO, MAIN CHARACTERS DON’T DIE, HOW DARE YOU,” and probably was the first book to make me cry. I must have been 8 or 10 years old. I FORGOT HOW MUCH THIS STORY INFLUENCED ME.

A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. I have a longer-than-usual list of things to say about this book. First is that it was just that level of difficult that I was struggling to understand while reading it (on Audible), but I think I got it. Sowell has several base concepts that I see repeated throughout his books, though he does like to dedicate whole books to specific aspects of the same topic. He is pretty damn thorough that way. So, for example, I would put this book in the middle of a three-book spectrum of similar concepts: Intellectuals and Society (most concrete and easiest to read), A Conflict of Visions (next-level abstraction, a little difficult to read), Knowledge and Decisions (root abstract concept, very difficult, I have not been able to get past chapter 2). The second thing I have to say is about a couple interesting concepts it proposes. Its whole point is to help readers understand the roots of two ways of seeing the world that come into severe conflict politically, and he calls them by their root titles: the constrained and the unconstrained visions. He traces the path of each back through the intellectuals that most spoke of them (tending to contrast Adam Smith with William Godwin and Condorcet). Though he leans heavily toward the constrained vision (based on reading his other works) he does his best to make this book an academic study of both, with both of the visions' strengths and flaws and reasoning and internal consistencies fairly laid out. In doing so, he helped me understand a few things that make this situation really difficult for people on opposing sides to communicate. One of them is that root words and concepts literally mean different things to different people. I had some vague notion of this before, but he laid out three examples in detail: Equality, Power, and Justice. It was kind of astounding to see just how differently these three words can be defined. It makes me think that arguing about any specific issues rooted in these concepts is fruitless until first an understanding has been reached on terms, because otherwise two parties are endlessly talking past each other. Another really interesting idea he brought up is the existence of “hybrid visions” and he named both Marxism and Fascism as hybrid visions. This was especially fascinating to me because I have seen the accusation of “Nazi” flung around ad nauseam and I wondered how it was that both sides were able to fling it at each other so readily. Well, it’s because Fascism is actually a hybrid vision, so both sides have a grain of truth but miss the whole on that particular point. In any case, this was a little difficult to read but had some fascinating information. For people who are wondering what on earth this gap is between political visions, how on earth to bridge the gap, or why the gap even exists in the first place, this is a really informative piece.

Movies

The Hobbit & Fellowship trilogies (movies). I mean, it’s definitely not my first watch, not even my second. But I went through it with Sergey this time and that means the run-time is double because we pause to talk and discuss details. This watch came about partly due to Sergey’s contention that Gandalf’s reputation far outstrips his actual powers, so we ended up noting down every instance of Gandalf’s power to see if that was true. Conclusion: Gandalf is actually a decently powerful wizard, but tends to use the truly kickass powers in less-than-dire circumstances. That aside, this movie series was always a favorite for me. I rated The Hobbit trilogy lower the first time I saw it but, frankly, all together the six movies are fantastic and a great way to sink deep into lore-heavy fantasy for a while. And I’m catching way more easter-egg type details after having read the Silmarillion so it’s even more enjoyable. (finally, after about a week of binge-watching) I forgot how much this story impacted me. I forgot how wrenchingly bittersweet the ending is. I forgot how much of a mark that reading and watching this story left on my writing.

Upside-Down Magic. Effects were good. Actors were clearly having fun and enjoying everything. Story didn’t make enough sense for my taste, but it was a decent way to kill flight time.

Wish Dragon. So, yes, it’s basically an Aladdin rewrite, but it’s genuinely a cheesy good fluff fest that made me grin a whole lot.

Plays

Esther (Sight and Sound Theatres). < background info > This is my third time to this theatre. There are only two of these in existence and they only run productions of stories out of the Bible. The first time I went I saw a production of Noah, the second time I saw a production of Jesus. My middle sister has moved all the way out to Lancaster, PA in hopes of working at this theatre. My husband and I came out to visit her. < /background info > So. Esther. They really pulled out all the stops on the costumes and set. I mean, REALLY pulled out all the stops. And the three-quarters wrap-around stage is used to great effect. I tend to have a general problem of not understanding all the words in the songs, but I understood enough. I highly recommend sitting close to the front for immersive experiences. This theatre puts on incredible productions and if you ever, ever, EVER have the opportunity to go, take it. Even if you think it's nothing but a bunch of fairy tales, STILL GO. I doubt you'll ever see a fairy tale produced on another stage with equal dedication to immersion.

Shows

The Mandalorian (first two seasons). Well. This was pretty thoroughly enjoyable. It felt very Star-Wars, and I’d kind of given up after recent movies. Felt like it slipped into some preaching toward the end? Not sure, I could be overly sensitive about it, but I enjoyed this a lot (though I did need to turn to my housemate and ask where the flip in the timeline we were because I did NOT realize that the little green kid IS NOT ACTUALLY Yoda).

Games

Portal & Portal 2. Portal is probably the first video game I ever tried to play, back when I had no idea what I was doing. Back then, I attempted to play it on my not-for-gaming Mac laptop. Using my trackpad. Once the jumping-for-extra-velocity mechanic came into play, I just about lost my mind trying to do this with a trackpad and gave up. Later I returned to the game and played it with my then-boyfriend on a proper gaming computer. Now, after having played several games and gotten better at "reading the language" of video games, I decided I wanted to see if I could beat the Portal games by myself. Guess what. I BEAT 'EM. Yes, I remembered most of the puzzles in Portal so that's a little bit of a cheat, but I'd say a good 2/3 of Portal 2 was new puzzles to me. It is crazy how proud I feel of myself that I could beat Portal 2, especially. Learning how to play video games at this age has really knocked down the lie, "You can't learn anything." Though I still suck at platformers and games that require precision. Since I find those types frustrating, I probably won't be playing many. Games are about enjoyment, so I'll push myself a little, but not to the point where I can't stand what I'm playing.

The Observer. I like the concept and the art but I don't think I could keep trying to play this game. It's really depressing. My in-game family members all died of illness or accident or committed suicide. I also kept getting executed by the state. In order to keep us all alive I'd have to do pretty terrible things that I have a hard enough time contemplating even in a fictional setting.

Baba Is You. Fun and interesting concept, but I got stuck pretty early on. Don't think I want to push as hard on this one.

#recent media consumed #n00b gamer child #child loves books #child loves movies #child loves shows

[pebblysand]

[the thoughts on canon-compliance you did not ask for.]

last night between 2 and 3 in the morning (look, i couldn’t sleep, got up to write, then got caught up, okay? don’t judge me for my terrible sleeping patterns please) i had a super interesting discussion with a few people on the hinny discord channel about the definition of canon-compliant-ness. i think this is fascinating because to be honest, before getting into the hp fandom, i didn’t even think this was something one could disagree about. to me there was what was canon, and what wasn’t. a very black-and-white sort of system. i’m finding that it’s not.

through the discussions that i’ve had both on my fics and other people’s fics, it seems that i can narrow down - in the hp fandom - three elements of canon.

i. the events of the books/films

now, as a general disclaimer, you can obviously argue about whether the films are ‘canon.’ you can also argue whether cursed child is canon. there’s a lot of elements which differ between those and lots of opinions about how to look at them. personally, i tend to ignore cursed child. as to the books v. films, i pick and choose what suits my story more. generally, that’ll be the books. but for instance, i’m writing a harry&hermione friendship one shot right now, and there are a lot of movie-isms in that story because that is an aspect that was more explored in the films. however, for the purposes of this post, i’m mainly considering the source material to be the seven books. nothing more or less.

having said that, to me personally, that’s what ‘canon’ is: the events of the story and the characters that gravitate around those events, as described in the source material. things like: tom riddle killing lily and james, or harry, ron and hermione rescuing the philosopher’s stone. anything departing from that is, de facto, an ‘au.’ the whole world of what-if scenarios: what if Harry was sorted into slytherin, what if dudley was a wizard, all of those, to me, are aus.

generally, both as a reader and a writer, those are not scenarios i’m particularly drawn to. my default answer to those what-if scenarios is: ‘well, if harry is sorted into slytherin, there’s no story.’ or at the very least, there’s no story as i know it, and if there’s no story as i know it, then i’d rather read/write original fiction. it’s obviously a very personal preference and there are exceptions to this preference. i loved the changeling [1] for instance, and love the self-aware style of dirgewithoutmusic’s aus [2]. but as a general rule, that is not my preferred genre.

now, aside from the what-if scenarios, there’s also the question of filling in the gaps of the story itself. like, i find it interesting that we only make tsunamis [3] is labelled as ‘canon-compliant’ because i get the feeling that a lot of people would disagree that a fic in which hermione is harry’s first kiss is canon compliant. but, by exploiting the silence sometimes left by the author and turning it to your advantage, are you writing an au? is a negative space canon? is silence canon?

again, as a matter of personal opinion, i would not push my definition of canon-compliance as including blank spaces. to me, as long as it does not contradict the letter of the text, adding in events to the books to suit your story (i’ll address character in point ii) does not make your fic an au. to give another example that was brought up to me regarding my own work, i don’t believe that the events described in chapter nine of castles [4] are au because they exist in a blank space of the books. the fact that harry didn’t notice the 1:1s between ginny and amycus doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, it just means that they’re not in the positive space described by the books.

ii. the characters/characterisation

(as a quick vocab note, please note that below, i’m using the terms ‘ooc’ to mean that the characterisation of a character in a fic is not canon-compliant. they’re synonyms to me.)

now, while the above was pretty straight forward, i believe that this is where i perhaps differ from the masses in my interpretation of what “canon-compliance” means. more i discuss with people, the more i realise that i don’t really think there’s a real ‘canon’ characterisation. or at least not in the big things. like, yeah, it’s canon that harry likes treacle tart, because that’s a fact. but anything that is down to psychology or perspective of the character is, to me, generally up for grabs.

as a human, i believe that there’s things that people do, events that they go through, that condition them to act a certain way. while there is a core to every human being, i personally believe that in life, anyone would basically be capable of doing anything, given the right circumstances. i’ve recently - rightfully - been told my writing is all about the power of choice in our life, the reasons why we make those choices and the people those choices lead us to be. for example, do i think i might murder someone tomorrow? probably not. do i think i might be capable of murdering someone in wartime? perhaps? i don’t know, that’s not the world i live in and my life choices have not lead me to find out the answer to that. however, my point is: to me, good ‘characterisation’ is down to the circumstances and choices outlined in any work of fiction. hence, good characterisation is essentially, to me, equal to good writing.

i often say that good writing could make me believe anything and i mean it. i don’t tend to gravitate towards these fics because these ships are not my personal taste but i genuinely believe that good writing could make me believe in drarry or rarry if it tried. it’s funny because over the course of the discussion yesterday on discord, this was brought up ‘well, no one tags drarry as canon compliant,’ and i’m kind of like, i don’t know whether or not they do because i don’t read it but if they did and none of it contradicted the events as detailed in the books, perhaps it could be? like, that would take really good writing (imo), but good writing has - on occasion - made me believe in dramione a couple of times, so why not? in ‘til the sirens come calling [5], good writing made me 100% believe that harry and hermione would have an affair together. in we only make tsunamis [3], it makes me believe that they had this quiet little relationship building throughout hogwarts that we never knew about.

now, though, i suppose the question isn’t: do i believe it? the question is: is it canon? and, i think that’s where i differ from most people because to me, it is. to take ‘til the sirens come calling [5] as an example, i believe the fic is an au because hermione marries victor krum in the end. that’s going against the hard fact presented by the epilogue, and thus makes it an au. but i don’t believe the concept of a harmony affair is inherently au, because nothing is inherently au, character-wise. it’s about how you write it. how those people get to that place. that’s what makes canon-compliantness, in my opinion.

for example, for that fic, truth be told, we don’t know what those nineteen years include per canon, so they could very much include an h/hr affair. and whilst i don’t believe that the characters as they are in the books would have an affair together, i believe that the characters as they are presented in the fic, with the events and hardships that they go through, definitely would. good writing, to me, is - in part - recognising that characters are moving on a spectrum and that whilst their decisions/actions might not make sense in book-verse, they make sense in fic-verse. good writing is convincingly moving your characters from book-verse to fic-verse, and it not feeling ‘off.’

if it does feel off, that is bad writing to me, and that is also ooc-ness/non-canon compliant. it means that for whatever reason, the writer has not successfully transitioned and explained said transition through the events outlined in the story. with the right prose, you could make me believe draco decided to take on a career as a ballerina dancer after the war, and it would still be ‘canon-compliant’ to me. on the other hand, i have read fics (i won’t name them because that would be shit and also i don’t keep track of my ‘bad’ reads) where harry, ginny, hermione, or ron all act according to book canon and yet, their motivations felt off to me and completely ooc because the writing didn’t successfully lure me in. specifically, there was a lack of character evolution that i found uninteresting. i read mostly post-war stuff because i want to see my characters grow up [6].

as a last, additional note on characters, i also think that the characters in a story only exist within the prism of how we view them. this means that to me, locking my own understanding of a character's personality as 'canon' is particularly difficult because my understanding of a character is unique. i believe there are as many harry-s or ginny-s or hermione-s as there are readers. so i think saying someone's interpretation of a character isn't canon-compliant is odd because i don't actually believe there's any wrong or right answer. as i said, do i believe it likely that draco would become a professional ballerina? no. but if that works within your understanding of his character as described in the books, who am i to say that is or isn't canon compliant? i'll admit, the idea makes me sort of lol though.

iii. tone

lastly, i’ve come to find (in potter particularly) that canon-compliance might include tone. as in: hp is a story that is a) written in a certain style and b) written for children/young adults.

regarding style at a), this is honestly the main reason why it took me 15 years to write potter fic, despite the fact that i’ve been a fan for even longer than that. i genuinely thought you had to write like jkr. and i, well, don’t write like jkr. i love the books, but i don’t even particularly like her style. i like: camus, and sorj chalandon, and sally rooney, and dirgewithoutmusic and copper_dust [7]. i have zero ambition to write like jkr and don’t particularly want to read stuff that is written like her stuff either. it’s a style that imo works for her, but it doesn’t work for me as written by other people. i don’t particularly think you need to stick to her style to be canon-compliant.

which brings me onto my actual point: b) hp is a story written for children. young adults perhaps, for the later books. it sometimes explores dark themes but the writing style, the tone, etc. is lighthearted enough that it appeals to a younger audience. there’s snogging but there’s no sex, there’s violence but the torture is mostly off-screen, etc. issues like sexual assault, substance abuse, etc. aren’t explicitely brought up in the books, although they would one hundred percent fit in a book about a war that wasn’t necessarily aimed at children. the question is whether this setting and tone is part of what we call ‘canon-compliance.’

honestly, i don’t know. i didn’t think so until it was brought up to me that castles might be a dark!au and i was like: maybe? like, if you want it to be? i know what i like to read in fanfic: i love the exploration of serious themes that were not explored in the books, or explored differently due to the fact that they were written for children. one thing i will say and insist on is that i don’t think castles is all dark. i actually make a point of having lighthearted moments in each and every chapter, even just a notch, because i am attached to the fact that life as a concept is a mixture of good and bad, and you could laugh at the funeral of someone you loved, again in the right circumstances. but yeah, to me the post-war world is dark. so if tone is part of canon-compliance, then yeah in that way castles (as well as most of the stuff i read, to be honest), is a dark!au.

as a last side note, i’m not sure what that means for my other, lighter stuff though. like are the wolf’s just a puppy [8] or slipped [9] more canon-compliant than castles? i never thought about it in those terms but perhaps? it really opens up a world of questions in my mind and i don’t really have the answers to them.

conclusion:

so in sum, as a reader, what i mean as ‘canon compliant’ is basically a) the events as described in the source material and b) the characterisation of characters as they are at the start of the fic. if character evolution is sufficiently justified and well-written in the following thousands of words that the fic has, then said characterisation can still be canon-compliant, even if the characters act different than they would have in the source material itself. i’m a fan of good writing and good writing can make me buy into literally anything. it takes me places that i've never been before and convinces me that those places are the ones i should be in.

as a writer, i hope that regardless of 'compliance,' whatever i write at least makes ‘sense’ to people within the universe, even if they don’t consider it canon-compliant, per se. i feel like i can’t really be the judge of that. from the discussions we had last night, i feel like there are as many versions of what is and isn't canon-compliant as there are people.

.

.

---

[1] the changeling by annerb

[2] the boy with a scar series by dirgewithoutmusic

[3] we only make tsunamis by disOrdely

[4] castles by yours truly

[5] ‘til the sirens come calling by vexmybones

[6] as a side note and to take my own stuff as an another example, i totally agree that harry in castles isn’t harry in the books. i don’t think there’s much debate to be had in that assertion. i wrote him like this frankly because every other fic i’d read didn’t. they often had him sort of continue to be perfectly himself after the war, which i felt wasn’t speaking to me on a deeper level. imo, i think the war’s done a lot of scarring and the fic is about him growing into a new version of himself. so, to me, if i get a comment that says ‘i don’t think harry would act this way but i really love your writing’ it’s somewhat flattering but also confusing because i don’t really understand how one can enjoy the writing but not the characterisation. to me, they’re so intrinsically linked. what the comment tells me is: i think you did a very poor job at explaining character evolution and justifying character x’s [harry’s] choices but i still like your writing, somehow? i suppose that’s nice, but it doesn’t particularly compute in my brain. like, if the character feels off, it means the writing feels off and thus, why are you still reading? i appreciate all and every comment that i get but it doesn’t mean they always make sense in my own brain. if i’m honest, these comments often send me into an ocean of self-doubt about how shit my writing must be.

[7] copper_dust’s work and profile.

[8] the wolf’s just a puppy (and the door’s double locked), again by yours truly

[9] slipped (and said something sort of like your name), same.

#writing #fic writing #canon compliant #the meaning of words #pebblysand goes off a tangent #also general disclaimer that these are my thoughts #there's no wrong or right answer #it's just my own thoughts about the meanings of words

[lihikainanea]

What if Bill brought Tiger her stuffed tiger to help her memory? maybe she would get some flashes of something but nothing she could really grasp. And Bill is trying to tell her about the stuffed animal all emotional and the exhaustion is really getting him frazzled. Maybe Alex or Gustaf have to step in to get him to sleep a few hours since he is so out of it. He is no help if he even feels he could be snippy towards her. she is ready for stranger Bill break. Brother seems calmer. better energy.

Ohhhh my. How I love this.

It was a very difficult balance to write Bill in this situation because I wanted to emphasize the trouble he is having with all of this, without like...making him out to be a selfish brat.

You’re absolutely right that he is her source of calm, her soothing balm in all of this--but man, he's being put through hell too. All of these thoughts of like...what if she’s different? What if she doesn’t want him anymore? What if she never remembers their history, how much they mean to each other? What if it all changes from here? And Bill needs to really take the time to process his own emotions too, to work through them, because this is going to have a big impact on him--and he’s no damn good to her if he’s frazzled and emotionally exhausted. He can’t be who she needs right now if he is too worked up, too emotional, too anxious--all of that. Bill has the very hard job of having to process and deal with his emotions so that he can then be who tiger needs him to be at that moment.

And I love this idea of the stuffed tiger (I may steal it, babes--if that’s okay?), and I am also so in love with the concept that like...maybe Bill’s bros force him to take a step back. It’s probably Gustaf, isn’t it? It’s definitely Gustaf. Maybe throughout this whole thing, maybe Gustaf becomes Bill’s sort of...salve. His sounding board. Gustaf checks in daily, both because he’s concerned about tiger but he’s also looking out for his little bro, who is going through hell. Maybe G makes sure he’s around, pops in for a visit or two when tiger is feeling up for it. Tiger can’t remember him for shit but she likes his vibe--he’s...calm. He’s zen. And she likes the way Bill reacts to him, likes how much calmer Bill gets. And let’s face it, tiger recognizing that she is very attached to Bill without understanding why is like, my favourite thing. She doesn’t remember Bill, but for some reason something very deeply engrained in her wants him to be happy and comfortable. She loves seeing him smile, hearing him laugh, and that comes a little more frequently when Gustaf is around so by default--she loves Gustaf.

And maybe it’s because she doesn’t feel the same kind of pressure from Gustaf, this sort of expectation to remember, so their interactions are not as forced. And maybe it’s kind of a real bad day for Bill, he’s just exhausted and he’s anxious and he’s in total mental turmoil--and it’s exacerbated because maybe he also tries to hide that from tiger, so that she doesn’t get upset and think it’s because of her. It’s not her fault. But then Gustaf shows up, and Bill is just...calmer. Maybe Gustaf insists that Bill just gets out for a bit--goes to see the family, goes for a walk. Tiger is in good hands. He checks with her like, a million times but tiger likes Gustaf. He feels like good people. Bill leaves, but not without a quasi-serious order that tiger not fall in love with Gustaf. She would laugh but uh, he seems serious.

And maybe while Bill is gone Gustaf just chats with her. He chats with her about anything except her current situation and all that has happened. He talks about current events. He talks about meditation. He talks about his job. And eventually tiger loosens up, and maybe she kind of starts to ask some questions. About his family, about Bill. Gustaf is just so open and so incredibly calm that it puts her at ease--he answers every single one of her questions like they matter (because they do), he gives them some thought, and he answers openly and honestly. Maybe Gustaf helps shed some light about her, about her bond with Bill. Maybe he’s the one that picks up the stuffed tiger from the couch, and tells her a little bit about it. His story differs a bit from Bill’s. Bill’s take was that he saw it and it reminded him of her, so he got it. Gustaf’s take is that Bill really misses her when he’s away, sometimes he gets all out of sorts (she is as much his sense of calm as he is hers), that he got it for himself so he could cuddle it and when he came home, he gave it to her. Gustaf tells her that Bill always has the stuffed tiger with him when they’re apart, and that he once nearly shut an airport down all because he accidentally left it on a plane.

Bill is a modest dude, Gustaf tells her, and he’s rather self-effacing. Gustaf tells her all about his little bro. And at the end of it all, tiger kept true to her word and didn’t fall in love with Gustaf--but she sure fell in love a little bit more with Bill.

#bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard drabble #BFF!Bill #family drama

[linklethehistorian]

New Working Link to DarkestJay’s English Translation of Fifteen & Commentary on the Discrepancies Therein (PLEASE READ)

Information below the cut for length, as well as spoiler information relating to my article.

If recently you’ve tried to access DarkestJay8686’s English Translation of Fifteen on WattPad through the link I provided at the beginning of my article, you’ve probably already noticed that that link is, unfortunately, very dead; the reason that this has happened is because, sadly, as of late, they — and other translators in the fandom who also post their works to WattPad — have been facing a struggle with their works constantly being flagged on the site and forcibly removed for copyright reasons multiple times over, forcing them to eventually give up and move their content somewhere else where it would be safe from harm.

Upon learning of their arrival on a new, safer platform, I had considered simply exchanging the old link out for the new one at the beginning of my article, where it was before, and altering my notes to reflect this, and I’m sure that I still will as soon as I can find the time to rework everything properly, but in the meanwhile, there’s something I’ve also badly needed to discuss with you all about these translations for some time, and what better time and way, I thought, than to do it in this post where I provide you with the new link?

I’m sure that many of you reading both my article and their translation have noticed that back in the Arcade scene, there was something I had mentioned happening in the novel that didn’t quite match up with DarkestJay’s presentation of those events — namely, Sheep being the first to leave the building, instead of Dazai and Chuuya; well, that difference is actually quite important as one of the main reasons why, while their work may overall be excellent and I do encourage everyone to read it regardless, I still personally would never recommend making it the only thing you read if you want to truly understand Fifteen and all of its events 100% correctly.

Yes, I am saying exactly what you think I’m saying: my information within my article was NOT incorrect — Jay’s translation of the scene, however, was, and if you don’t believe me, you can go read Lea’s translation of the scene and see it for yourself.

Now, before I say anything else, I want to make this 100% clear: I in no way am intending to imply that Jay’s work on the whole is anything but exceptional, nor am I even remotely saying that you shouldn’t read at all; in fact, I highly recommend you do read it in its entirety, because despite a few small mis-steps, as someone who owns two copies of the original Japanese light novel, has read many an English translation, and knows this story extensively well, I will be the first to very enthusiastically say that this translation is actually quite good and very, very helpful overall — an absolutely essential resource for anyone who does not speak the original language but still wants to read, experience and understand Fifteen as if they could. I am extremely, extremely grateful and appreciative of their hard work in making that possible for all English speakers, and I don’t ever want to come across as anything else or make it seem like any of that is any less than true.

That being said, though, it nevertheless absolutely cannot and should not be your only resource on the matter, because if it is, you will unavoidably end up being misled on some matters — unintentionally, of course, but still misled all the same.

Because this was translated well after the anime came out — unlike Lea’s partial but nonetheless equally wonderful translation, which came into existence very shortly after the novel was first handed out in theaters alongside DEAD APPLE, a whole year before the animated adaption was even a concept — DarkestJay’s translation does have some points where it is extremely clear that said television show’s rather poorly handled and highly inaccurate interpretation very heavily affected the OP’s perception of things, and thus caused the OP, Jay, to incorrectly interpret and translate certain parts of some scenes and/or dialogue that otherwise might not have been super clear to someone not fully, extensively familiar with the language.

Specifically, as I mentioned above, there is the one particular instance among the many that I can easily point out: due to the pre-knowledge of the anime’s awful take on the story, there is a point in this translation where Jay simply assumes it to be true that Dazai and Chuuya were the ones to leave the Arcade, with Sheep calling out to their retreating backs, and thus incorrectly translates it as such, when in fact it unfolds in exactly the opposite manner in the original version of the tale; likewise, there are also many bits of dialogue throughout the entirety of the book where the perceived “understanding” of the characters’ nature’s as the show wrongly presented them caused Jay to take the liberty of wording things in certain different ways, or make certain alterations to the type of punctuation used that Jay believed suited them, rather than leaving them in their unaltered states, as they were intended to be read.

This is the major issue with going into a project like this with this kind of confirmation bias; no matter how good your intentions may be, because you expect that you already understand something or know what’s going to happen, you’re much more likely to think it’s safe to cut corners, and rather than carefully researching the context, tone, and other specifics and particulars of every line before you write it out and post it — the way you would if you started with a completely blank slate and no idea of what would happen in it — you will more often than not just assume that it plays out in the way you expect it to if it seems close enough, and quickly go with that presumption as if it is fact without bothering to make 100% sure of it.

Again, no offense to OP, because translation work is very hard, and as I said, overall, it is a wonderful translation and I do think it’s well worth the read, but problems like this are why I personally recommend anyone reading this to also check out Lea’s translated summary with excerpts and translation of the bonus chapter in conjunction with Jay’s, as Lea’s came out long before a Fifteen anime was even a concept and, as such, was completely unbiased — therefore being an excellent source to check facts against where possible.

Of course, there are definitely also some points where both translations are different but neither is actually wrong — as while Lea’s is less literal about every phrasing so it’s not super awkward sounding in English and flows better to read, Jay’s is almost always more literal instead, and thus differences in personal preference for wording can easily diverge while still getting the point across fine in both — but these instances are much different from the ones where it is clear Jay actually slipped up, so I’m sure you won’t have trouble defining them. As much as I would like to be of help in this regard, I must sadly inform you that I will not personally be pointing out all of these slip-ups here at this time, nor do I have any plan to do so at any time in the foreseeable future. for I have neither the time nor the desire to go about critiquing a fellow fan’s work when I’m already dedicating enough time and energy just to writing about the mountain of mistakes that the anime made without also adding more difficult and unnecessary extra work onto that.

If you have any questions about a particular line in the translation and if it indeed is correct, you can absolutely feel free to send me an ask about it and I will try to help you with it to the best of my ability, but beyond that, I will not be engaging with the matter much farther than I already have.

(However, on one last note, I will, for now, add that — as I expect this might become a point of much contention and is something that will come up in my article later on, anyway — the “it must be because I love you” scene that you will find in Jay’s translation is actually not exactly one such instance where a mistake was made, at least in regards to the “‘I love you” bit; if you’re curious about the exact details of how that all works, you can read about it in my post here. So yes, that does indeed exist, and you are free to take it in whatever way you want. I’m not personally an SKK shipper myself, but if that’s your thing, then good for you — go for it and enjoy it; it can be canon support for your ship if you want it to be.)

Thank you for reading, and, as promised, here is the link to Jay’s new account, as well as their Twitter, and where you can currently access their translation of Fifteen. Enjoy.

[See the recent related addendum]

[View the masterlist of my article]

#linklethehistorian #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd spoilers #spoilers #bsd season 3 #bsd novels #fifteen #Arthur Rimbaud #bsd arthur rimbaud #Randou #justiceforrandou2k19 #justiceforrandou2k20 #justiceforrandou2k21 #fifteen article #Randou and the Sins of Season 3’s Fifteen Adaption #Disclaimer and Notes #writing #My writing #Episode 27 — The God of Fire #my thoughts #New Working Link to DarkestJay’s English Translation of Fifteen & Commentary on the Discrepancies Therein (PLEASE READ)

[hoodwinkd1]

the stars that shine Ch 2

Ch 1 here.

Chapter 2: woke up to find that summer gone

Evangeline sat at the dark cherry desk in her bedroom, staring down at the piece of parchment which seemed to be staring right back at her. She had picked up a pen almost half an hour ago and had successfully written one line.

Dear Lys,

“Damn this!” Tossing the pen to the side, she stood and began pacing around the bed. Normally, her letters back to Caraverre were pages and pages of stories, filled with every minute detail and every silly joke that Lysandra and Aedion might enjoy. Tonight, she could barely get her thoughts in order enough to discuss what she’d eaten for dinner two hours ago.

Evangeline knew exactly who to blame for this conundrum. Hollin Havilliard.

Her first two weeks in Rifthold were amazing. Ever the social butterfly and lacking peer friendships back in Terrasen, Evangeline absolutely loved getting to know the other students in her lessons.

“You should come shopping with us next week,” Regina suggested, her smile genuine. As the third eldest daughter of the Callot family, the largest noble support of Adarlan’s fashion industry, Regina would certainly have good taste. “Anya and I are looking for springtime outfits.”

The other girl had jumped in then. “How long will you be staying? My parents always plan a trip to the country house right after the Spring Solstice and I can bring a few friends.”

So yes, Evangeline had no problem making friends. She was downright delightful and ready to try anything, go on any adventure.

Her lessons were equally wonderful. Part of the reason she came to Rifthold was to expand her education, filling in gaps that Darrow had no expertise in, and she enjoyed the challenge immensely.

Point being, she should have plenty to write home about. The shopping trip, the mathematics concept she finally mastered, even the amazing duck stew she tried two nights ago.

Unfortunately, the fond memory of her duck stew faded when she remembered what had immediately followed.

Dear Lys,

I had the most awkward night of my life. I’m relatively confident I’ve made my first enemy and I may never go back to the ballet after this traumatizing experience.

No, she couldn’t possibly send that. Aedion would charge into the palace and demand revenge at the mere thought of anyone disliking Evangeline, if he didn’t laugh himself to death trying to imagine the concept first.

Her popularity aside, she was still in disbelief. Hollin had approached her first, offering to escort her to the royal box at the Rifthold Theater for a travelling dance troupe that evening. Evangeline accepted (delightfully and more than ready for an adventure). She even dug through her closet for the stunning cerulean gown Aelin had gifted for her fourteenth birthday.

And then the prince proceeded to ignore her. All night.

“Who goes two entire hours without speaking one word?” Evangeline grumbled, moving towards her closet to grab a nightgown. The letter could wait until tomorrow. “Why bother inviting me in the first place?”

Whatever. She would be just fine with her new friends, who’s families also owned boxes at the theater.

----

“It’s been two days.” Dorian dropped into the chair next to Hollin. “Two whole days, and I haven’t heard a word from either of you. Quite rude, if you ask me, considering it was my idea to take her to the ballet.”

Hollin kept his eyes on the book in front of him. “Some people think it’s rude to speak in a library. And yet, here we are.”

The king sighed, as if his little brother’s social life was as draining as running a nation. “At least tell me if you enjoyed yourself. Or if you think Eva enjoyed herself.”

“The dancers were talented.” Hollin turned a page. “I can’t speak for someone else’s opinion.”

Dorian huffed. “I meant, did you enjoy spending time with her?”

Hollin shut the book with a bit more force than needed. “Do you have nothing better to do than force me to go on dates with your friends’ wards? I’m working on something here.”

“It wasn’t meant to be a date!” Dorian protested. “Just...Evangeline is so delightful. And friendly. I thought she could, you know, be a friend?” His words trailed off at the end.

He heard the unspoken words. Hollin was not delightful and not friendly. Dorian probably hoped this picture-perfect girl could change him, mold him into a better prince.

“She has friends. And I have work to do.” He looked pointedly at the book strewn across his lap.

Dorian, finally, took the hint. “Fine. Enjoy your suspicious research.” He stood up, fixing his tunic. “I expect to see you at the merchant’s council dinner tomorrow night.”

Hollin waved him off. “See you then.” He’d been searching for some excuse to get out of that event, some way to avoid all the grouchy, greedy men that tried to grab the king’s attention.

Maybe if he fell off a horse, he could avoid politics for a few days.

----

The two months passed quite quickly. Evangeline was expected home in time for Aedion’s birthday celebration, so she took the last day in Rifthold to search for a gift. He might grumble about her spending money on him, letting his annoyance over aging take over his usual good mood, but Eva knew he would secretly cherish something special.

Anya had offered to join her, commandeering her family’s carriage for the trip. The two of them, along with Regina, had become inseparable during Evangeline’s stay.

She had never had friendships that were entirely her own before, outside of her family’s vast and unyielding legacy. Spending the day shopping tasted like freedom and youth.

“Where are we heading first?” Anya asked, shifting her long skirt to make room for Evangeline to sit on the bench next to her. “What does one even buy for the most infamous General in the world?”

So maybe she never could fully escape that legacy. Evangeline chose to ignore the honorific. “Aedion? He can be quite the sentimental type. I was imagining some sort of calendar he could use; one that I’d add drawings and photos and secret notes to. Something useful, but still personalized.”

“Oh, thank the Gods. I was terrified you would drag me to some boring weapons shop.” Anya fanned herself in mock horror. “Minsky’s has the best stationery.”

Once they arrived, Evangeline lost herself in the rows of parchment. She adored the smell of the shop, somewhere between a library and perfumery, thanks to the variety of candles that lined the walls.

She wandered for a while, enjoying the feel of books, journals, scrolls, and other trinkets underneath her fingertips. Anya struck up a conversation with Minsky, the elderly owner who apparently had very strong opinions about what time of day one should light lavender candles.

Evangeline stopped in front of the rack she’d been looking for, eyeing the different color choices. Each calendar looked sturdy and durable, perfect for Aedion’s regular travels, but only a few had carrier cases. She selected the emerald one, to match Lysandra’s eyes.

“Oh that’s lovely!” Anya beamed as Evangeline joined them at the counter. “Very practical.”

Minksy nodded solemnly as they checked the price. “Smart child, finding a way to stay organized.”

“It’s actually a gift,” Evangeline corrected. “Would you have any wrapping supplies?”

They pulled out a few choices of paper, and the girls left the shop with the package securely tucked under Evangeline’s arm.

Anya opened the door of the carriage to let her enter first. “Do we have any other errands - Gods!” Her question was cut off with a curse. “Galen, you scared the life out of me.”

Evangeline found herself face first with Anya’s older brother. He shot her an apologetic look.

“I spotted the carriage and didn’t fancy a walk back to the house,” he explained, musing at his dark locks with one hand. “Any change you two lovely ladies want to go out for lunch?”

“You are unbelievably annoying,” Anya sighed. She moved to sit next to him, glancing at Evangeline. “What do you think? One last meal before you go?”

Galen turned to face her as well. “Leaving so soon?”

Evangeline hadn’t had many interactions with the older boy. Galen had danced with her at one of their parents’ parties, and had teased her a couple times when she joined them for dinner. But all of a sudden, Evangeline found herself wishing for some more time in Rifthold for an entirely new reason.

“I have to return to Caraverre tomorrow,” she informed him. “It’s my....it’s Aedion’s birthday.” Explaining their relationship was difficult enough, and easily avoided since everyone knew exactly who he was.

“Pity,” Galen replied. “But that just means I have to treat you to the best sandwiches Rifthold has to offer before you go.”

Anya groaned. “He always drags us to this tiny little place, when there are plenty of nice restaurants around.”

“A tiny little place sounds perfect,” Evangeline reassured. The carriage jolted forward, carrying them away from the main streets.

An hour later, she wasn’t lying in the slightest when she praised her meal. The sandwiches were really quite good. And the twinkle in Galen’s eyes when she stole one of his chips was even better.

“Oh goodness,” Anya interrupted as they stepped outside into the twilight hour. “I left my pouch at the table. Be right back.” She strode back into the restaurant, leaving Galen and Evangeline alone by the doorway.

Galen leaned against the stone. “Do you have plans to return to Adarlan?”

“Not in the next half-year,” Evangeline admitted. Her thumb rubbed the edge of her pointer finger, a nervous tick despite her calm tone. Was there meaning behind his question? “I’m due to spend two months with one of my mentors in Arran after some time at home.”

“Pity.” He offered her a light smile. She prayed to the former Gods to keep her face from turning pink. “Next time you come around, I’ll have to move faster. Ask you on a date at the beginning of your stay, instead of the end.”

Evangeline couldn’t hold back a wide grin. “Yes, I suppose you will.”

---

Hollin threw himself onto his bed, head spinning a bit from the wine he snuck during dinner. Evangeline was leaving tomorrow, a fact that wouldn’t affect his life much since Dorian had stopped forcing a friendship between them.

Maybe the wine was a mistake. The prince didn’t like alcohol much, knew he was far too young to start drinking, but insomnia had plagued him for weeks now. Hollin tried so many home remedies, from herbal teas to meditation, before attempting to drink himself to sleep that night.

It wasn’t working.

He still couldn’t force his mind to relax. Ideas for new experiments and inventions swirled around, mixed with memories of his most recent failures that stabbed him with self-doubt. Then came the childhood memories, the horror of being raised by the devil without noticing and the shame of past cruelties keeping him far from relaxation.

Hollin groaned into his pillow. He wanted someone to talk to. It was such a simple solution, one that most people would find easy. Dorian had even hired a specialist, a healer who worked with minds as well as bodies, for palace staff who needed help after a traumatizing war. Hollin had paced by their office more times than he could count, never entering.

Somehow, he fell asleep before sunrise. A sharp knock at the door yanked him out of restless dreams.

“Hollin?” He recognized Herina’s voice, one of his personal servants who was years past using formalities. Changing a baby's diaper gave one that privilege. “I have your schedule for the day.”

Hollin stood up, blindly feeling for the robe hanging next to his dresser. “Come in, thank you.”

She pushed the door open, pulling a cart of food behind her. “I didn’t see you eat nearly enough at dinner last night, certainly not enough to be stealing drinks of wine like you did.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but shut it quickly. “I - thank you,” he said again, too tired to form a better sentence.

Herina left the cart by the entrance and walked further into the chamber. “You have a couple lessons scheduled, one before lunch and one in the evening. Light day.”

“Not too terrible.” Hollin took the parchment from her. “Herina..” He trailed off.

“Yes?”

“Could you - do you know how to add things to my schedule?” he asked.

She nodded. “Of course. What grabbed your interest?”

He pushed past his discomfort at the idea. If he didn’t sleep well after, that would be the end of it. “Training. Physical, that is. I’d like to learn how to fight.”

Herina eyed him warily, no doubt taking in the lanky and awkward features that haunted most fourteen year old boys. “You know the king would never expect you to fight. He knows that isn’t where your interests lie.”

“I know.” Gods, he was blushing now. “It’s for myself, just a new hobby.”

Thankfully she moved on. “Well, alright then. Don’t be late today.”

With a final meaningful look at the breakfast, she left. Hollin thought about ignoring the food and falling immediately back to sleep, but his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. He would need the calories if he planned to actually follow through with his new training idea.

If getting knocked on his ass for two hours a day didn’t help him fall asleep, then nothing would,

#tog #throne of glass #fanfic #sjm #evangeline vuolo #hollin havilliard #dorian #dorian havilliard

[baconpal]

talkin bout fuckig manga

hey it’s me, haven’t had internet for over a week and i’ve been sick and uni and blah blah blah time for a rant about manga

this time its about  "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru", tl;dr, good manga read it idk

lots of bullshit below the cut

Before anything I say gets too confusing or I go off on an insane tangent, just know my recommendation is that you read "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru". It's not very easy to find online since it has an official English release (which my recommendation extends far enough to suggest I might pick up in the future, just to have it, but I am very stingy), but there's an alright torrent of all the volumes on your local anime torrenting website, and is at the very least worth the trouble of reading as such. There is also an anime that gets better as it goes, but the manga is my primary recommendation. Beyond this point I'm not gonna give much regard to what I write, so get ready for anything, read the manga and see if you agree with me, or don't and see if I care:

BOUT THE ANIME: The SoreMachi anime is one of those rare comedy anime you find where the animation and overall production is just really extra the entire time. Hopefully you know what I mean because I won't really be able to explain it any other way, it's simply one of those shows where the jokes are decent and it's a fun time for the most part. Unfortunately, the anime makes a couple of critical missteps that kept me from getting far into it when I first tried watching it about a year ago, and in retrospect seem even less reasonable.

Starting with the good, as an adaptation it does a good job with most chapters it covers, it properly sources where each chapter comes from incase you intend to read the manga and skip around to catch up, and the anime adapts some sections to have additional jokes that fit very naturally in to the story. It also covers up some of those problems only manga can have like having a concert segment without any actual music involved, until they invent mp3-paper it's just something we'll have to live with. Translation work was pretty good (I watched the [WhyNot] release for those who care), which is extra important for something as difficult to translate as jokes from another language. The set of episodes they chose to end on was very good, and was expanded to be a lot more impactful in the anime. If it wasn't for the last episode being as strong as it was I may have given up on finding the manga when I saw it wasn't super easy to read online.

As for what the anime fails in, some episodes feature some really blatant over-acting that doesn't really help make characters believable, and there's this obnoxious gag that continues the whole where through where most scenes have a few seconds long line from what is essentially a forced mascot character, which usually mean nothing and only serve to harm the pacing of many episodes (there isn't even any sort of equivalent bit in the manga so I really don't know why they did it, most of the anime original jokes are pretty good so I just really don't get it). The biggest issue the anime faces is that the source material is about 140 chapters, while the anime is only able to cover 24 chapters. This comes with a LOT of problems, the first being what I'd call the "required reading". SoreMachi is not a 1-note simple comedy where you can skip to any chapter and be completely okay; There are many small but meaningful subplots lying beneath, and characters have a fair bit of development throughout. What this means for the anime is that the first 3-4 episodes are just the first few chapters of the manga, which are a bit rough and not as good as the majority of the work, which is true of a lot of comics (god fuck I promise there will be more than a first chapter of my comic I promise it'll get better fuck). In terms of the anime by itself, I'd say episode 1 is decent, 2 is middling, and by 3/4 their still taking a while to introduce members of the cast, and I didn't immediately want to finish it. I put the show down for a long time until my internet started dying and I wanted to watch something fun. Slapping it back on at episode 5 I immediately had a great time and watched the rest of the show pretty soon after. While I understand the reasoning behind doing this, the anime does not pay off this structure, as beyond the first few episodes, the chapters start being presented out of release order and out of chronological order, kind of destroying any consistent throughline. This decision in and of itself isn't the worst, since the comic isn't always chronological, and the volume ordering is a bit different from the release ordering, but the inconsistency makes the first few episodes feel lessened without reason. The other large failure that comes with only animating about 1/7th of the entire work is that many themes and concepts that are core to the manga are not represented in the anime well at all. One of the biggest is the rare but unnerving supernatural chapters, of which only one is animated, and not a particularly good one. In order to talk about these themes I'll have to transition into talking about the manga itself, since they aren't part of the anime.

DA MANGA: So one last recommendation that you read the manga, the whole damn thing. Cus we're gettin into themes and character moments that take a long time to pay off, and obviously is all part of my interpretations, so if that stuff means anything to you don't let me ruin it for ya.

The title of the manga is, in essence, the entire manga's "punchline" in that every chapter could meaningfully end with simply the text "And yet the town still turns..." (My translation of the title, fuck "And yet, the town revolves" or "But the town moves"); by this I mean most chapters end in an anti-climax where a mystery is left unsolved, or a mystery is solved and undercut by the realization that life simply keeps on going without much change. This is used to essentially force your eyes open to all possibilities when reading, as the main character spends her time acting like a detective, and these mysteries end up as either misunderstandings, secrets, riddles, and sometimes something out of the ordinary happens that makes you unable to pin anything down firmly. Similarly, these endings aren't always read-and-forget scenarios. Several chapters come back in the form of a continued joke, a continued mystery, or contribute to some greater purpose later. Readers are properly rewarded for keeping everything they can in mind, while also tormenting such people with loose ends.

I enjoy Hotori as a protagonist due to her character being defined not in flaws and strengths, but in mindedness. Hotori seems like a simple "haha she's dumb" character to start, but consistently throughout she proves that her strengths are in memory, observation, and deduction, while lacking in some more common sense and abilities. Her brain works in strange ways that some people may or may not understand, such as her need to think through even the most trivial fictional scenarios, which I relate to deeply.

The art and paneling throughout are wonderful. Ishiguro Masakazu is one of those artists who draws very simple characters, but knows how to use details and depth to breath so much life into the artwork. He also clearly uses the occasional supernatural happenings as an excuse to draw what he loved, as all sorts of artistic depictions of the supernatural come out that simply look satisfying. These parts obviously meant a lot to him since he's been working on a primarily mystery-action manga that has a lot more of that stuff in it. (Also, as hindsight is 20/20, if you've read any of his new work you'll notice that the main character of it is eerily similar to a character who shows up very late in SoreMachi that the author obviously fell in love with, cus she just keeps coming back and even ends up with a really unsettling end to her character arc despite only being introduced as a component in a harmless mystery. Feel free to call me out for the same shit 30 years from now when I'll probably do the same shit)

I'd like to get into some of the major themes of this work, as a lot of them hit very close to my mind (which I guess is true of any theme you recognize for yourself, you wouldn't really "get it" if it didn't mean something to you...).

The simplest theme, again, comes from the title. The main character, Hotori, expresses a desire that the town she lives in continues going on, unchanged forever. This is obviously a fear of change, which ya know, same, but also an exploration of what it means to fear change. Hotori actively tries to keep businesses from closing down, keep friends from leaving, and keep relationships from changing, while simultaneously making all sorts of new relationships and solving mysteries. Hotori even comes to realize that simply learning the truth about something changes the world through your own perspective, and that such changes can't be undone. In spite of this, Hotori mostly gets her wish, any time she fears that a large change will impact the town, its resolved about the same as any other issue. Whether its a message that even time can't keep you from your loved ones and that change isn't worth fearing, or a concession that large changes to the setting would be a bad idea in terms of humor, I can't really decide. This theme reaches it's conclusion in what is one in a series of "ending" kinda chapters at the end of the series. Hotori is faced with a supernatural ethical situation, save her town from destruction at the cost of her existence, or live through the disaster, knowing her town and the people in it will forever be changed. While the actual result is that nobody disappears and nothing is lost, and the event may have simply been a strange dream, Hotori confidently decides that sparing the people in her town from a life altering event is worth giving up her memories with them. A kind of bold spit-in-the-face to the idea that change is okay, where we find that Hotori didn't fear change for herself, but rather for the people around her.

There's another major idea in this manga, which takes a very long time to pay off, and completes its arc at the very very very actual end of the series, the idea of "leading someone to be something". A character that rides that line between main and side character, Shizuka, is a writer of detective novels, who feels the best person to judge her works would be a version of herself without the bias of being the author. She tries to achieve this by leading Hotori to be interested in detective works (including her own) and generally be just like her, starting from a young age. The end result is a young girl dead set on being a detective herself (or at least another novelist), while Shizuka keeps her identity as an author secret. She then uses Hotori as a scapegoat for herself, attempting to see how she would solve various mysteries and use that as inspiration, and this is depicted as though Shizuka were some sort of villain, which she may feel like she is. The end result of it all, though, is that Hotori was likely already a detective-minded person, and that even if Shizuka pushed her down that path, it was Hotori's decision to continue down it, and the very end of the manga is a scene revealing that Hotori figured out Shizuka's secret at some point, and even still respected Shizuka and aspired to reach her, and the two accept each other for who they are. I enjoy this ending a lot, since as an artist I've worried that some of my love or aspirations for and from other artists came with an ulterior motive of wanting a better community for art to exist in, but people are people and will make their own decisions, and some day everyone may be able to become equals in a truly meaningful sense, where everyone is inspired by and guiding each other together.

So that probably didn't mean shit to nobody and I didn't even really talk about anything in the comic like most of the main characters or any of the shit goin on but ya know fuck you go read it, and thanks for reading this.

#long ass post #also gonna have finals on my birthday this week so awesome #im having a good time this year h-haha

[waterrunstogether]

Rites of Passage in the Fifth World

I’ve been thinking lately about the absence of real rites of passage in modern “western culture”. A rite of passage is a sort of ritualized event (that may or may not be endorsed/organized by a community) in which a person is believed to exit from one stage of life and enter the next, usually from childhood to adulthood. Other than the humiliation of high school proms/frat hazing, or getting your driver’s license, or turning 21 and getting shitfaced, my culture in the United States has little to offer in the way of true rites of passage. 

The result is a population of confused, somewhat disillusioned children driving around and going to work or university and pretending to be adults while hopelessly stuck in the liminal space between youth and adulthood.

~ 20 year old me pretending to know what’s going on ~

I have thought about quinceañeras and baptisms, religious rites of passage commonly practiced still, but considering the traumatic experience that my parents’ organized religion was for me, I don’t believe now that my baptism was a helpful event facilitating my transition into maturity. I think it was a blindingly painful event whose toxicity I needed to overcome in what I now believe was the true rite of passage. 

I first dropped acid when I was traveling in Bulgaria. My partner was in her hometown across the country and I was visiting Plovdiv with a friend. We had just finished traveling the world, or at least Eurasia, meeting new faces and trying new things and taking wild risks in Thailand and Turkey and India and Malaysia, to name a few. I had also just escaped the cult I was born and raised in which had hammered into me from birth that my sexual and romantic orientation was an abomination, as a woman I was to obey men, God loved me and wanted me to fear him (that is to say, love = fear), the leaders of the church were to be obeyed and respected all the time (even if they were obviously wrong) and so on and so forth. It was an insane transition between being trapped in these religious handcuffs and learning that I could break free all along. In fact, I carried so much self hatred and internalized homophobia with me into my supposed new life that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Despite being outwardly happier than I had ever been before with a wonderful partner and community who truly loved and supported me for who I was, inwardly I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown due to all of the conflicting thoughts and beliefs I was carrying and creating within myself.

The experience of that first trip was an interesting one. Every step of the way my body seemed to pull me towards the letting go of all of the toxicity that was so thick and had built up like plaque in the arteries of my energetic being--yet, I remained me throughout the trip, at the end feeling somewhat empowered but not yet finished with the transformation.

A few months later I took psilocybin, AKA magic mushrooms, with my little brother on a rainy Summer day in D.C. The whole come up of the trip was talking to trees and observing the movements of leaves, running my fingers over the moss growing on the exposed, knotty roots of tree in front of our house. But at the end of the trip, something changed. Once again my body requested, begged me, to let go of the still-prevalent toxicity inside of me. My health was in rough shape, mentally and physically, and my body knew the culprit. But once more I felt I couldn’t let go just yet, it would be too much for me, I wasn’t ready. So I spent the entire come down and then some, maybe four hours, weeping uncontrollably on the basement floor.

The second time I dropped acid was yesterday, with my partner, here in Berlin. It changed everything.

During the come up I was taken aback by how strong the effect it had on me was. My partner, bless her heart, had taken a larger dose than me, yet felt no effect the entire time. Her tolerance has always been naturally higher than mine for every kind of intoxicating substance, and LSD was no exception. 

As time went on I came to realize that her high tolerance was incredibly fortunate for me and my trip. The initial come up was amusing, as flashes of white light began to fill up my eyes, closed and open; but very quickly I began to get paranoid, strange little thoughts about being set up and targeted running through my mind as my sense of self slowly began to dissipate, just nonsense that the ego conjures up to protect itself. But my partner’s calming reassurances that she loved me and that I was safe effectively calmed me down.

Once I began to enjoy the ride up, holding a half of a pomegranate and appreciating its beauty, touching a slice of orange and loving how soft it felt in my hands, admiring the fractals of color creating all kinds of geometric shapes on the walls and snow outside the window, I became comfortable with my loss of identity. At some point I realized that I didn’t even know my name, and I didn’t care, because it was irrelevant. All that was relevant was experience. 

Imagine experiencing and interacting with the world around you without the barrier of the thing that we are so used to that it’s difficult to think of it as a barrier at all: your concept of self. Ideas about names and races and gender and desire and anger and malice and hatred just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In this state, all that made sense was goodness and beauty and love. All that I understood was harmony and mutually beneficial behavior. My preconceived notions about who I was and what that meant were being shattered and shredded before my very eyes, exposed for what they were: nonsense.

Once I plateaued and began to slowly come down after about four or five hours I was able to contemplate what these things meant, what they would mean for me going forward. I went into the bathroom around hour 7 and decided that it was time to look into the mirror.

Many people will tell you not to look into the mirror during an acid trip, that it’ll give you the dreaded “bad trip” and you’ll have a shit time. I completely disagree. If you are like me and need to come to terms with yourself through the wonderful, horrific, beautiful, terrifying experience that is an “ego death”, I’m afraid that you’ll have no choice but to look into the mirror at some point. 

So, I stared myself down in the mirror and admitted what I couldn’t admit for so long, due to being taught that I was essentially evil since the day I was born. I’d called myself a sinner, wicked, worthless, ugly, an abomination and just about every other mean word in the evangelical dictionary. But as I stood there looking at my body in the mirror, egoless and impartial, I said, “You have done and thought some cruel things to yourself for some time now. But you know what? You are a kind person. You are a wonderful person. You treat people with respect and love, you treat everyone you’ve ever met with so much empathy, so much caring. You love the truth, you love to be generous, you love to be a good friend. You must begin to treat yourself the same way. I know you’ve had so much hatred in your heart contaminating your energy for so long, but that is enough. That is enough. No more. I am a kind person. I am a kind person. I love you. Remember that night so long ago? Beneath the stars, where they submerged you in the baptismal water and tried to destroy you, saying these sacred waters would wash all your sins away, along with your fragile, meaningless identity? Well, they simply added more to your ego, a darker side. You built up so much negativity for so long. Well, look at you now. Your identity, all of the ideas and concepts that you’ve built up around who you really are to protect you from the hurt of Life, it’s all gone. Now you’re going to baptize yourself again. You’ll be truly reborn, this time dedicated not to destroying yourself for the sake of a religion, but dedicated to renewing and becoming and becoming and becoming.” As I looking into the mirror my silhouette became filled in with the velvet black of the night sky, full of bright stars.

I turned on the water and was baptized once again, by my own hands.

When I returned to the room I felt happier than I had ever felt in my life, light as air, free. I told several people about how much I love them and described my love for them in detail, not as this thing that’s an extension of my own ego, but my love for them was a little bit of energy that I had the honor of holding in me, in this body, and sharing between us for a time, for the wonderful events that we call our lives. I could actually see love. I understood that I was not all of the concepts I’ve built around myself, but an expression of energy in this space and time, connected to every other expression of energy in all of history, from the beginning and until the end. My matter, my body, was simply a vehicle for the energy, and would be recycled into new vehicles after I die. My energy would be transferred into new vehicles as well. That’s what we perceive as death: just a simple transfer of energy and recycling of matter. My ego would not live on, thankfully. My consciousness as conflated with ego would cease to exist with me. But the underlying animating force behind all things in the universe, the true source of consciousness, would never be destroyed or created, simply recycled again and again and again and again. Becoming and becoming and becoming and becoming.

The hilarious and bizarre world of reality is hilarious and bizarre. It’s so beautiful and mystical and wonderful and honestly, nothing I write here could ever explain how I experienced being alive in that sixteen hour trip. Words don’t convey it, words can’t convey it. Reality is visceral, experiential, impartial and impossible to quantify in something as crude as human language. 

All I know is that, today, I am a fundamentally changed person. I’d feared ego death for so long, feared that it would be too much, too painful. And it was so, so painful--but it was so worth it. I am happy and proud to exist, grateful for everything I have accomplished and can accomplish in this miraculous, tiny little vessel during this ephemeral event that is my life. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow if tomorrow exists, and unleash all of my love on everyone who’ll have it. Love is the energy that unites us with our own bodies and the entire world around us. How lucky and strange it is to be anything at all.

May you have a peaceful day. The universe smiles upon you.

[sunsetinmyvein]

The Radio Station - Chapter Four - That’s All I Have to Say

8th of October, 2015

  Despite their best attempts to stay in touch, eventually busy schedules got the better of the both of them. They’d texted a bit initially after their night at the bar, but as soon as Matty was on tour, time differences made it difficult to keep up any form of routine. However, she knew that he’d be back in London soon enough. Surely that would be their time to catch up. She reached out to him in January when she knew he was back, hoping for the best, but his schedule was too packed between press for the album, shows and trying to see family and friends that he was obligated to catch up with whenever he was at home. So, she dropped it. And eventually, communication stopped. Her career started escalating at a much quicker pace than what it had before. The two guys who ran the usual morning peak hour shift went on to do their own thing, which left the prime-time slot open for application. She had considered applying, but before she’d even filled out the forms the station asked her directly if she wanted the position. They’d seen how much of a positive reaction she was getting on her show, it would make sense for her to fill that spot. Of course, she took it - it would be insane not to. The pay was much the same as what she was already on, but the chances for bigger and better shows at that hour were endless.

 Matty was also on his own rollercoaster of a career. The 1975 was only getting more and more popular as their debut album began reaching all corners of the planet. What they had expected wasn’t going to go much further than their circle of close friends, was suddenly spreading to places they couldn’t have even dreamed. They toured and interviewed and did meet and greets non-stop to try and keep the hype going. It wasn’t until they started properly discussing a second album release that Matty finally had to stop for a moment and take a (small) breather. He needed the time to work out what he wanted their next step to be. Once the band had the majority of the album planned out, and a few songs properly sorted, they figured it was time to start releasing some material. And in an incredibly convenient turn of events, they found themselves back at home while they were looking for a way to debut their lead track. So, what better way to get their new material out there than to broadcast it live across national radio? Of course, Matty had been pretty quick to suggest where they should do that.

  It had been over two years since he’d last been on her show. Both of them were acutely aware of that as he knocked on the glass door the morning of the interview. She hadn’t been keeping up with the band’s trajectory as much as what she had in the past, mainly for simply not having the time to. Which meant that his new look came as a slight surprise. His hair looked like he’d been letting it grow out much longer than what she’d seen on him previously. He was currently trying to tame this mop of unruly curls by having them tied back in a bun. His jeans had a big enough chunk of denim missing from them that she would’ve thought they’d deserve to be discounted for how much fabric was missing. He was wearing a floral button-up shirt, but she suspected that the buttons clearly didn’t get much use for how few of them he had done up now, his chest tattoo almost on full display. And this seemed to be in contradiction to the obscenely heavy woollen coat that was over the top of it. As he pulled her in for a tight hug, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of stale cigarettes and wine. She hesitantly hugged him back, hoping that the scent wouldn’t linger on her own clothes.

“What’s with the shades?” She asked as he moved back, eyeing the sunglasses still perched on the bridge of his nose. It made sense for him to wear them on his way here, but she wasn’t sure if he was aware that he was still wearing them inside the studio.

“Hungover.” He answered with a shrug. She just nodded, supposing that it was a Saturday, it would make sense for him to have been out last night.

  “I can’t believe it’s been over two years!” He said as he plopped himself down across from her, setting an opaque water bottle down on the desk.

“Yeah, I think we’ve both been pretty busy.” She nodded in agreement.

“Told you that you’d get bumped up to a peak hour slot eventually.” He grinned. His smile forced an uncomfortable flutter through her chest, but she couldn’t deny that she was incredibly proud of that accomplishment.

“You did.” She smiled back. “The early mornings have been a rough routine to get into, but it’s been nice having new goals to work towards.” She nodded, thinking back for a second on all the things she’d manage to accomplish in the short time she’d been in her new role. “I’m sure you’ve got many stories of your own.”

He chuckled lightly, “Yeah, a few.” He scratched at the back of his neck as he glanced down at the table. “I’ll save them for the interview.”                                      

 Now that she had a more structured show, she had a bit more of a routine to adhere to with her interviews. Which definitely made things a lot easier. It meant that she didn’t have to wing it as much knowing each interview would have the same intros. “So, you guys played two shows at Alexandra Palace this week-” She started as the intros finished up, before Matty cut her off.

“Yeah, we’ve been in London for the last week or so for those shows.” He confirmed.

“Oh.” She said, suddenly finding a million thoughts running through her head. He’d been in London for a week already and he’d not tried to catch up? She knew he was a busy guy but a week was a long time to be stuck in a part of the country that wasn’t where you actually lived. Trying to ignore the pang of hurt in her chest, she continued, “Are you keeping busy?”

“Just trying to keep writing and recording for the new album, seeing my girlfriend when I can.” He said with a nod. Ah. Girlfriend. Suddenly not trying to get in touch made a lot more sense.

She cleared her throat before continuing, “How’s that going?” Things already felt like they didn’t flow as well as what they had the last time that they saw each other. Too much time had passed to just pick up and act like nothing had happened in that gap. She felt almost like she was back at square one, meeting this man for the first time.

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He shot back. She frowned in response. “I’m sorry, I just… don’t like discussing that stuff in interviews. Relationship problems shouldn’t be hashed out through headlines.” He explained.

  There was a pause as she tried to catch up to the path his brain had decided to take, rather than what she had intended. “I meant the album.” She corrected him.

“Ah, yeah! That’s going well.” He laughed. “We’ve been getting heaps of material recorded while we’ve been up here.”

“When will it be out?”

He hummed thoughtfully as he pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, “In about six months, I reckon. We’re thinking sometime around February.”

“That’s not too far away. I’ve heard the album described as ‘a bunch of eclectic sounds’, do you think that’s an accurate way to define it?” She questioned.

“We didn’t know what to do after the first album. I think that we made a decision that we just wanted to be truly expressive and for it to be in pursuit of the truth. That’s why the album is called I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful, Yet So Unaware Of It, because we were scared about making a new record. And I thought ‘you know what? I’m gonna – it’s just about making decisions. About making bold decisions.’ “ He had a look of conviction as he said this, “The record is kind of comprised of that attitude. It was called that before we’d even written any of it.”

  “That’s a very dramatic album title.” She pointed out.

“Well… we’re very dramatic boys.” He said with a grin.

“It’s definitely going to be a mouthful for anyone asking about it.”

“It was just something I said to a girlfriend of mine, at the time. It kind of laid the foundations for the bold decisions thing. If it’s called that, then there’s no rules as to what it could be. But it’s subjective, it could be perceived as quite sweet, it could be perceived as quite voyeuristic.” He answered with a shrug.

“If people weren’t aware of you guys before, having an album title like that and making bold decisions,” She emphasised the words as she quoted him, “is for sure going to get you on the map.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, that does seem to be the direction we’re headed in…” He agreed. “You know, sometimes I think about toning it down, but then I remember who I am and think… nah.” He dwelled on this for a moment, before pulling himself back on track. “The first record, the idea of being judged just wasn’t there, because nobody had heard it or was potentially gonna hear it. The preservation of that idea, and the cultivation of it in the face of this knowing of how many people are gonna hear it – that was the most important thing to the record. Writing from the purest place.”

  “It’s sounding like it will be very different from your last album.”

“Mmhm.”

“And even from what you’re saying, it sounds like this album, much like the last, will be very different within itself. In light of that, would you say the concept of genre is dead?” She asked, leaning back in her seat as she watched him process his answer.

“Yeah.” He eventually said. “They’ve never really mattered. Genres, I mean. Imagine if you woke up one morning right, and you had your record collection, and the concept of genre just didn’t exist. The purity of that experience, of listening to music without those rules, it’s like a blissful idea.” He let out a sigh before shaking his head. “I really don’t care, to be honest with you. It’s so irrelevant to me.”

She figured that was as good a time as any to segue into her next line of questioning, “It’s been a while since we had you in the studio. The last time was right after your debut self-titled album came out. But you have released the track Medicine since then.”

“Yep.”

“I feel it’s a very…” She searched for a second for the right word to describe it, “minimalistic track?”

He nodded slightly before speaking, “We wanted it to sound like Velvet Underground produced by Trevor Horn, you know? That was kind of the vibe.” He made a vague hand gesture at this. “But I wouldn’t say it’s very representative of our next record. It’s kind of a return to the sound of our EPs. It was weird with us, because for a lot of people the first thing they heard was the album. But we released that after a year of releasing EPs, which really embedded us in the musical culture we wanted to be in. We kind of came from the left field and moved slightly to the middle. But a lot of people saw us immediately with Chocolate and Girls and misinterpreted the irony of some of the kind of pop elements of that.”

  “The 1975 have definitely had their fair share of poppy radio hits.” She concurred.

“Yeah, you guys are playing us non-stop.” He chuckled.

“All of that attention on the airwaves has gotten you a few pretty awesome gigs, too. Have you got a favourite festival that you’ve played across the last few summers?” She asked as he took a swig from his water bottle.

“Glastonbury.” He answered instantly, before feeling the need to elaborate. “Uh, Glastonbury’s kind of… It’s Glastonbury. If you’re from the UK it’s kind of the festival.” He said with a pointed look. “And Glastonbury is one of the only festivals where we can walk around, because it’s so enormous. They leave you alone a little bit there. I managed to walk around kind of… freely… But we did like… pfft,” He looked like he was counting in his head for a split second, “three festivals a weekend all summer or something like that. We’ve been everywhere from Finland to Latvia to Singapore.”

“Playing so many shows now, and meeting so many people, are you finding the fans are getting kind of crazy? You guys must nearly be at boyband status in some parts of the world.”

“The shows are very intense. It’s weird because there’s a lot of young… well, you know I don’t mean young,” He scrunched his face up as he corrected himself, “when I say the main core audience is say sixteen to nineteen. But it’s a lot of young kid’s first shows. So, the first twenty-five minutes of the show is just…” He tried to find the right words, before letting out a laugh, “It’s a shit show. Just people getting pulled out, fighting, passing out… There’s so much fainting.” He answered as he began trying to pluck a hair off the microphone that was stuck to it.

  “Well, you guys might be about to cause even more passing out now.” She began, taking a glance at the clock and seeing that it was nearly halfway through their allotted interview time.

“Oh?” He mumbled in confusion.

“Because right now, we are going to give people the first listen of a brand-new track from your upcoming album.” She clarified, mostly for the sake of listeners but it seemed that Matty himself had forgotten the reason he was here.

“Oh! That’s right.”

“You heard right, folks. Coming up right now is going to be the live debut of The 1975’s new track, Love Me. Any final words Matty before it’s out there in the world?” She asked as her finger hovered over the switch to fade their audio out and switch to the music.

He thought for a second. “Nah, not really. Enjoy it, I suppose.”

  She switched off the interview track and pressed play on the new song, instantly seeing the text line overflowing with incoming messages from fans. For a second, she tried to read a few, before eventually minimising the window for now to avoid giving herself a headache. Looking back to the man sitting across from her, she had expected him to have been waiting to say something, or for him to have already been halfway through a story, but he was just staring at his phone, his headset still sitting on his head. Considering how hard it seemed to be to get in touch, she felt it would’ve been nice to have at least, you know, three minutes to try and catch up. This suddenly made the fact that he had been in London for a week without dropping a message make more sense, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. Their breaks between songs had previously been filled with light hearted conversation, and now the silence just felt suffocating. Had he really changed that much in two years to not even wanna talk? She let the song play through, then played a few snippets of interview introduction to segue back into them talking before switching the microphones back on.

  “You just heard The 1975’s new song, Love Me, for the very first time. A special live debut off their new album for all of you lovely listeners. We had a lot of messages coming in from fans telling us their thoughts.” She spoke, before Matty chimed in.

“What did you think?” He asked as he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on the desk.

“I liked it.” She answered truthfully.

“Did you listen to it prior to hearing it now?” He asked in curiosity.

“Yeah, I listened when it was emailed to me this morning, in case I happened to miss it this time around.” She nodded. He just let out a noise of appreciation before leaning back into his seat. “You were right, it’s very different to what you’ve done in the past.”

“We’ve made a record where every song sounds different from the other ones. Back to the concept of genre, we don’t listen to just once genre anymore. We consume whatever sounds good. So, we want to create in that same way that we consume. And we just thought that, er, our choices of songs that we put out had to be based on confidence. Bold decisions, as I said before.” He said with a dismissive wave. “I think this first track is... quite bombastic? George said to me once that ‘if we don’t go with it now, when are we going to go with it?’ And he was right. It’s a bit of a big ballsy song.”

  “That’s a pretty good way to describe it.” She agreed with a nod. “I’ve heard that there are quite a few songs on this album where, lyrically, you’re exploring a few new concepts? Like ego and sexuality. Can you elaborate on that?” She questioned.

“I think if I elaborated on a lot of stuff, it wouldn’t symbolise things in a certain way. You know, if everything was laid open. Like Medicine isn’t a love song about a girl for example,” He said that offhandedly, but suddenly she found herself thinking on what the song is about, if not that. But he continued talking over her thoughts. “but I don’t talk about those things. I like to let the music speak for itself. Erm… well, yeah. I think the idea of a conflicted sexuality is something loads of people go through. The shared experiences that loads of people go through, the shared fears of humanity like love, death. I don’t think there’s any question for anyone who knows my band that I’m slightly odd in a sexual way.” He made a face as he said this before laughing at himself. “I’m not exactly the most manly man in the world. But there’s just… stuff about sexuality and the superficiality of it and what it really means. But I’m still writing parts of it at the moment. It’s a bit of a weird time doing press right now.”

  “You always seem to have a hell of a vocabulary in your lyrics, so I’m sure whatever themes you end up writing about, you’ll end up doing it in some kind of poetic way.” She prompted, but he just continued on his own tangent.

“It’s erm… The whole point of this was…” It looked like he was struggling to find the right words as he adjusted his sunnies. “It goes back to identity, and it goes back to… there’s a lot of stuff on this record, where I’m answering questions from the first album, and I’m making references to the first album. And I’m talking about y’know, being wiser now and more naïve then. And there’s this back and forth between the album that preceded this album and this album that our fans will really, really understand the subtext of.” He said, before figuring he should probably round back to what she had said. “So, I suppose that is kind of poetic, yeah.”

“And you have that knack for imagery and storytelling through you as the main focus of the lyrics that people latch onto.”

“One of the things that I always want people to be aware of, is if I’m talking with a sense of kind of… dissatisfaction about behaviour in my songs? Is that I’m normally talking about me. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m saying those things. It’s often my reactions to those things being said.” He explained.

  “A few more light-hearted questions before we round out this interview.” She said as she stretched her arms above her head. Trying to maintain the same sense of chemistry that had existed in their last interview was taking its toll, she was eager for this to be over. “I’ve seen that there’s a petition going around about you guys.” Matty instantly groaned. “Will you ever play Antichrist live?” She asked.

He let out a dry laugh. “I like it lyrically, but it so doesn’t sound like us.” He huffed, before frowning. “We might play it.” He said eventually.

“I’m sure a lot of fans will be excited to hear that it’s not off the table just yet. Next one, in your travels in the last couple of years, have you met any celebrities that you’ve been starstruck by?”

“Not really… There’s been a few, but nobody I’ve been properly starstruck by.” The gears were visibly turning in his head as you could see him running through people in his mind. “I wanna meet Miley Cyrus…” He said under his breath, before looking across the desk to her. “I wanna meet her so much. Why’ve I not met her yet? I’ve met loads of people in that world that I’m not that impressed with.”

“One last question that I saw come up on the text line, if you had a biography written about yourself, what would you title it?”

“FUCKING LEGEND.” He shouted without a second thought. Eventually, once he stopped laughing, he considered the question seriously. “What would I call it..? Probably something to do with my hair. The only thing people care about is my fuckin’ hair.” He resigned as he absentmindedly brought his hand up to said hair.

  “That’s all we’ve got time for, Matty.” She said as she let out a relieved breath.

“Aw, shame.” He pouted.

“I’m sure you’ll be off to your next great adventure in no time.” She assured him, putting on the interview charisma. “But for now, it was lovely to have you on.”

“Always great to be on.” He beamed.

“All the best with recording the new album.”

“I’m sure we’ll be back out here soon.” He said with a nod, but given their track record she had a feeling that he didn’t mean that.

“That was Matthew Healy of The 1975, on the show here this morning to debut their new song Love Me off their upcoming album, I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful, Yet So Unaware Of It.” As she spoke, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Matty began getting up and gathering his things. “We’ll be playing it for you again in the next hour, so keep listening out if you want that replay.” She said as she queued up the next set of tracks and faded her audio out.

  Once she had taken her headset off, Matty came around to her side of the desk. He didn’t seem to dawdle as much this time waiting for her to be free to speak to him, but he also didn’t seem entirely at ease as he tried to casually sit against it. “Come out for a drink with me.” He suggested as he stole a glance at her over the rim of his sunglasses.

The abrupt offer caught her off guard and she had to think for a moment about what to say. “It’s mid-morning?” She asked in confusion. “And I’m at work?”

“After that.” He shrugged casually.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” She questioned, suddenly finding herself feeling like she knew less and less about this Matty the more he spoke today.

“What does that have to do with anything?” He asked with a frown.

That was the final straw. He’d done more than enough in the half-hour he’d been here to make her grateful that they hadn’t stayed in touch. “Look, I know you’re an attractive guy and all but that doesn’t mean you can just get away with whatever you want.” She shot back.

He suddenly had a look of surprise on his face as he tried to backpedal, “Hang on, that’s not-“

“And I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression before.” She added.

“That isn’t-“

“The interview’s over. I think you should get going.” She said finally, watching as his face fell. She expected him to look angry or defiant, to want to argue the point, but instead he just seemed… disappointed?

“Yeah... Sounds like I should.” He mumbled as he left the studio.

Taglist:  @imagine-that-100 @dot-writes @tooshhhy @robinrunsfiction @approved-by-dentists

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#Matthew Healy x Reader #Matty Healy x Reader #Sunsetinmyvein

[reversecreek]

clicks onto the dash wearing kitten heels n coyly holding my bang....... hi. me again. it took me so long to select a gif to use on cricket’s intro n i settled on this one bc he looks so unsure abt his smile n it’s rly his essence <3 u can find his pinterest board here n his (work in progress) spotify playlist here. hmu to plot!!! 

* alex wolff, cis male + he/him | you know cricket donahue, right? they’re twenty-two, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, all of their life, on and off? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to should have known better by sufjan stevens like, a million times this year, which slipping on wet leaves to photograph a tree struck alight by lightning, delivering a tedtalk to your own reflection to hype yourself up to buy groceries, hiding your hands inside of your sleeves in case you grew an impromptu megan fox thumb overnight thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is october 1st, so they’re a libra, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nai, 24, gmt, she/her )

HISTORY:

cricket ws born to a couple tht lived in lilac ridge. their trailer was tucked closest to the woods n always fell under the shade. it was like the leaves wanted to pretend they were a perpetual hanging cloud on the family n that was kind of fitting. their only reason fr having him in the first place was a kind of shrugged like........... we’re under the income bracket we’d get child benefits so why not! may as well try it to rake in some extra cash! needless to say they didn’t rly think it thru or anticipate all of the responsibilities tht came w children n wound up seeing him as an extremely large burden n boy didn’t he know it!

(child neglect & abuse tw) i’ll try to keep this part vague n brief but things were Not Good for cricket growing up. people in lilac ridge didn’t like his parents n it was for a gd reason. he remembers foggy things. being little n wandering around combing the grass with a stick to search for wrappers to suck on bc he was hungry. feeling uneasy when the front door opened. finding out his name was cricket bc the insects used to crawl into their trailer thru the vents n his parents liked to squish them into the carpet -- his mum told him as much once. i think this says a lot. to excessively trim the fat of the story he wound up entering the system at around 8 after his latest and most serious hospital visit. his parents hd to deal w the authorities n last he heard they bounced to evade charges.

(anxiety & violence & trauma tw) cricket sustained a few lifelong injuries from his time in lilac ridge. his knee didn’t heal right which meant he had (n still has to this day) a limp n he’s partially deaf in one ear. he’s always been an incredibly insecure n anxious person so this mde him rly self conscious going into a strange n new environment tht wld b difficult fr any kid to adjust to, nvm w these added worries. he jst felt like something weird to ogle at honestly. he probably wld have felt like that no matter where he was or what he looked like. he cld be in a huge hall of 200 people all wearing the same uniform n he’d still feel like the odd one out. needless to say this didn’t rly help him make friends

cricket’s coping mechanisms were romanticising the things tht other people found ugly or embarrassing or painfully ordinary. he liked it when the rain hit clunky drops against school windows n forbid everyone from playing outside bc he could feel the vibrations through the rubber soles of his shoes n it was a little bit like hearing all of the world at once fr just a moment. he liked medieval fantasy lore about stout gnomes w crumbs in their beards n cheeks red from ale. he liked fallen nests with the remnants of hatched eggs still dirty from the branches n soil they’d hit on the way down. he liked the way the sunlight leaked thru the leaves of the trees in the woods and how, when he sat very still, he could tune into the ringing that was always in his ear n pretend it was coming from the same place, that light thru the leaves, that the angels were trying to talk to him.

he spent a lot of time in the red room at his high skl (i’m begging u this is not a 50 shades reference) (after googling i jst realised it’s called a darkroom bt i’m leaving this fr the sake of sexy bimbo authenticity) n felt quite at home in there. he borrowed a camera whenever he cld (maybe he did yearbook) n photography became his way of immortalising the world as the romanticised version he wanted it to be. his memories were bad bt his photos were beautiful. maybe if he took enough they’d paste over n bleed into each other. maybe bad cld be replaced w beautiful if he tried his very best.

he got placed into fostering w a family once bt apparently didn’t meet the vibe check of their tastes so he wound up returning to the group home he’d initially been placed in. overall this is where he grew up n he aged out the system rather than getting adopted. there was a sense of floundering/isolation/not feeling gd enough in tht bt cricket made do the best he knew how. 

that said there were some gd points! (shocking i kno bc his life hs been so fking bleak so far bt please it’s ok........) (is it?) (🤔). basically he interned as an assistant at this local photography studio during high skl working under this kind of whimsical yet endearing old man. suspected wizard possibly in cricket’s eyes, as an avid fantasy genre reader. for one of his bdays said old man / his boss bought him his very own film camera n cricket cried bc he’d never been bought a bday gift. this ws rly embarrassing bc this old man didn’t know how to emote n neither did cricket so he ws jst sort of sat wiping his eyes n sniffling saying he wasn’t crying as the old man pretended to suddenly clean his lenses. when cricket graduated he offered him a full time position there. they do like. wedding photographs n family portraits n all kinds of things...... pay isn’t huge bt it’s something n he Loves taking photos so it’s sexy <3

PERSONALITY:

SUCH an anxious person it’s actually unreal. overthinks absolutely everything he’s ever said. one morning he might hv put green socks on n for the rest of the day he’s nervously looking around like omggggggg they’re all looking at my socks probably thinking im a little green sock boy thinking i’m a fool n a jester this is all everyone’s probably thinking about i hv to hide my green socks..... even tho literally no-one cares

once saw a girl eating a chicken wing n in his head was like ok she likes chicken good future gift idea..... n turned up at her house with an entire rotisserie chicken

probably thinks WAY too hard abt what to write in bday cards n googles like generic ideas that he can use.... u open a card from cricket n it always says smthn weird like “Warmest wishes and love on your birthday and always!” or “You deserve everything happy. Wishing you that all year long!” tht he got off google

nervously fiddles w things a lot. literally anything. his hair. the cuffs of his sleeves. a thread on his bag. u name it

struggles w eye contact sometimes............ it’s like. he wants to talk to ppl n make friends bt he’s honestly so bad at it. he’s fumbling thru life like a nervous headless chicken

ALWAYS has his camera on him. like always. will tke a photo of u bc he thinks u look nice then be like im so sorry im so sorry...... bowing his head shakily holding his camera bc he doesn’t even kno what possessed him he jst thought it’d be a nice photograph bt boundaries exist. probably breathes very heavily over this later in his room panicking thinking he nw seems like hannibal lecter

probably more confident online bc he has time to think abt what he says more.......... i can see him hving a group of online friends tht he’s more confident w. honestly he’s pretty witty at heart he jst has a hard time verbalising things so ppl overlook him sometimes bt once u get to know him more / he’s more comfy he can b a funny little man.....

loves photographs where he cuts something out of them. loves missing spaces n voids. thinks it’s a rly interesting concept when something that isn’t there becomes the focus of a photograph where everything else is. probably loses his mind fr a collage like a front row 1d stan. likes experimenting w light n perception. pretty artistic honestly hs probably made a stop motion film in the past bc that’s just an extended form of photography in his mind bt i doubt he showed anyone

ummm...... very sweet bt like. he reminds me a lot of this quote. “he had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise.” feel like tht sums him up quite nicely

WANTED CONNECTIONS

someone he met at a wedding: cricket probably ws forced to photograph a wedding fr his boss one time n it cld b interesting as a place to meet from that....... like. i can imagine either it being rly awkward maybe he accidentally spilled a drink on ur muse n was stuttering rly apologetic n it ws just a train wreck. or mayb they took pity on him or even (in a shocking turn of events) a shine to him n invited him to drink n dance. omgggg the thought of cricket trying to dance makes me wna die n probably mkes cricket wna hyperventilate bt idk maybe he went wild n let loose. mayb they wound up damaging the camera somehow. mayb they had to scramble to get another one n ur muse covered the cost n it was a strange late night excursion tht cricket thought about a lot since. cricket probably vowed to pay them bk somehow no matter what. idk. we can work things out. lots of diff options here. doesn’t have to b a wedding either can b any event tht required a photographer

ppl he went to school w: pretty self explanatory i suppose...... maybe they were frm completely different worlds..... mayb ur muse was popular n cricket was definitely not but they got paired fr an assignment n had to work on a project together....... mayb cricket asked ur muse on a date one time n it was completely embarrassing bc he didn’t realise they had a bf n it haunts cricket at night still bc he’s rly dramatic.... mayb ur muse felt sry fr him n ate lunch w him n inducted him into their group like a lost puppy finding a home.... world’s our oyster

neighbours from his brief time at lilac ridge: not to reference taylor swift but i’m gna reference taylor swift n say we cld do a seven inspired plot here. sighs a little..... then sighs a lot. he was here ages 0-8 so idk. we cld work out childhood plots perhaps....

sickening simp: i mean.............. cricket probably gets crushes on ppl so easily like just. anyone who’s the slightest bit nice to him.................. he’s a disgrace. ok i take it back. bt also please get it together freak............... i didn’t say that. he’d probably b extra nice to this person n try n pay close attention to things they liked so he cld get them little gifts. just a bit embarrassing n lovestruck bless his heart. wldn’t expect anything back tho honestly that just isn’t something he tends to do.

let’s go gays: cricket’s bi but he probably was rly in his head abt liking boys n tried to sort of squash it internally during his younger yrs...... i think he’s more comfy w it now MAYBE idk bt back then i picture him having a friend tht ws kind of like. similarly loserish as him perhaps (no offence to ur muse potentially filling this plot or cricket bt let’s face the facts) n they’d hang out n play games a lot n one time it jst kind of happened n he was like............. *struts in looking around sharply* What going on here? except not. bc it’s cricket. more like *shambles in looking around anxiously* What’s, uh... What’s... the happenings? S--... I’m sorry. (immediate apology for saying what’s the happenings bc nobody talks like that n it was an impulsive panic bc he didn’t know what else to say)

those who grew up in the system w him: maybe at the group home or i’d also like the family that fostered him n said sayonara. honestly i imagine the parents just thought he ws a bit too much of a handful / had too much baggage which is rly quite merciless n terrible but. if u think that aligns w ur muses home situation hmu......

um. can’t think of more bt just anything honestly. jst go wild.......

#irvingintro #abuse tw #neglect tw #trauma tw #anxiety tw #violence tw #DOES A LITTLE JIG #admittedly i didnt include a formative moments section like my other intros bc idk what kind of superpowers i was inhaling the fumes of #for those intros but #i'm a mere mortal now.

[msaluna]

The Moon Well

This story is a mini fic of Luna in a Corruption AU, giving hints on how she became corrupted by an event while overseas. All of Luna’s backstory is relatively the same with only this one event causing her sudden shift in corruption. Enjoy. -RayMun

================

The night of her return was not a pleasant one, the woman known by so few in the town as the local witch, and even fewer by actual name passes through the magical portkey door. The one that leads back to a mansion overseas owned by a man she no longer cares for. Her body still humming with magic from the events that only happened the night before. 

She closes the door behind her, waving a hand over the door, it vanishes in a shimmer of powerful magic. The house creaks with what could only be heard to Luna as a sound of concern. 

"I am okay dear friend," Luna said to what would be emptiness. "But I think we’ve outgrown this town."

Luna places a satchel of books she has been holding onto the table as she goes to prepare for her “Move” to another location. The books weren’t hers to keep but she felt every right to take it. The contents were a mix of rituals, spells, and Fay knowledge along with one black journal. It was written in cursive french, but she didn't have to translate it to know of its contents. Because she saw through the torching visions of the Moon Well what secrets it and its previous owners kept. 

Without much preparation time, Luna focused her magic to the condition of the house. Her eyes and body glow in pale gold light, a phantom image of moth wings expand from the woman’s back. The house around her binds and twists, creaking as the Relocation spell takes hold. Markings and symbols write themselves in light along the walls and ceiling of the rooms. And in a matter of minutes, the house once known as Sun & Moons Fortunes is now an empty shell in the small town. Making the new residence to the Witch of Secrets currently unknown.

VVV[Open Read More to see the Journal Entry]VVV

[Research of the Moon Well] 

[Owner: Viktor Frollo]

[Contact: XXX-XXXX-XXXX]

[Date: 21/12]

The Moon Well, I have only seen it in tales and vague mentions in old documents but now I have been convinced the place or more accurately this phenomenon truly exists. This year, during my visit to that drabby campus, invited to the Yule ball as per usual, I was expecting it to be the same as last year. Boring. Typical meet and greet while reconnecting and reassuring some of my former contacts that I was being a well-behaved gentleman. Seeing the most mature and basic of magical potential. Such cowards. They do not realize untapped magic is waiting to be discovered if they simply opened their eyes and looked. 

But no, they fail to even realize that one of their own students has talents that are far more than just a prodigy witch. This time, even I was allowed the opportunity to peek behind that curtain that hides the secrets of the moon. A student by the name of Luna Eirian allowed me to see past this veil during her performance for the winter moon. It was stunning in more ways than one, truly something to behold. But what was more shocking than the skills she possessed was the display of natural magic being displayed through her voice and music, it was the fact that no one realized what I had at that very moment. She was performing Fay magic! Specifically Moon Fay! At least, this is what I strongly believe just from the scene I experienced this evening. 

I can hardly steady my hand as I write my excitement of this discovery. The only thing now is to convince Ms. Eirian to allow me to be her patron or mentor. She will never be able to reach her true potential through the cowardly teachings of that establishment. This will be difficult, as she is already suspicious of me from her reaction to my presence at the Ball. Even when asking her if she would like a patron to fund any projects she wishes to undertake, she politely declined. Sadly, she isn't like any of the women, like the ones who pursue me in the hopes I would give them my time. It would have made this situation easier. 

[Date: 22/12]

I have sent a request to Ms. Eirian's counselor to have her study under my watch. Seeing as we are both viewed as porridge witches from the same university, it was fairly easy to convince the council. However, Ms. Eirian herself seems to be a paranoid sort of individual or at least highly instinctual when someone takes interest in her. I did not see any hint of shyness in her demeanor when asked, so her rejection of me doesn't stem from bashfulness. At least she isn't a gullible idiot, that much is a blessing and frankly, I believe it adds to her charm. 

[Date: 28/12]

It has been a week since the Yule Ball and I have managed to convince Ms. Eirian to stay at the estate while I help her with a project. A broom. Simple enough, but now that she is here, I can proceed with providing her with information about her talents. And I can finally push her to limits that will break that veil once again, without interference with those cowards at the university. Hopefully, the promise of more knowledge from my collection of books will entice her to stay longer than intended. She seems to be very fond of learning about magic. 

[Date: 10/01]

A new discovery, even if she didn't have her Fay heritage, Ms. Eirian has proven to be quite clever and knowledgeable. She has only relied on her Fay powers less than a handful of times while under my watch. It is truly impressive, we would have many quite the collaborative team if she lived on this side of the ocean. Or have come to the university when I was attending. I still intend to study her Fay capabilities, but even I have to admit that her presence here has significantly warmed the chilly atmosphere of this estate. 

I need to move the project forward if I am to hope to achieve my goal of studying Luna before I become distracted.

I will be moving the project forward a little faster than usual. Now that she is less suspicious of my movements, I will be able to gather samples to perform further studies.

---

[Date: 16/01]

Today, I took a gamble. I handed Ms. Eirian a book that normal human eyes are not typically allowed to read. It is one of the few Fay-written books I have managed to find without being tarnished or fake. It was worrisome, I had a story prepared to explain why I had the book and why I was handing it to her without explanation. However, a surprising thing happened...she didn't question the book or the contents. She didn't even ask how she could read it. Ms. Eirian...do you trust me this much with your secrets? Or in bittersweet irony, are you truly unaware of why I drew close to you?

The way she smiled at me with excitement about the contents of the book tells me she does not know. And for some reason, at that moment in time, I felt sad. I pitied her more than being pleased with the concept of her unknowingly being part Fay. She truly didn't know how special she was to me. And the idea of knowing a secret she didn't know she had, pained me.

---

[Date: 21/01]

Our relationship has grown closer over these past few weeks. She has opened up quite a bit, and it makes things easier. But there seems to be an issue that I wasn't expecting to have, I purely played with the idea of returning her affection to keep her close but now, I wish to keep her close regardless. However, the issue is that I still would like to pursue knowledge about the Moon Fay while she is still by my side.

 In a few days, the super moon will be rising and I need to be prepared. 

Forgive me Luna, but maybe you will if my studies help you control this Fay magic inside. Once I see and record my findings, I promise that I will tell you everything. No more secrets between us. 

I promise.

---

[Date: 31/01]

I am not sure what happened, all I could say is the display of magic and the veil tearing was unlike anything I have ever seen before. The power of the ritual could be viewed as a success to a typical scholar, I know my past self would have seen it as such but seeing Luna---Apologize for my notes at this moment. 

The ritual is supposed to be performed during a normal full moon but my eagerness to see a positive result has led to a miscalculation. The Moon Well does exist and it can be accessed by a half-Fay heritage of moon descent. However, due to the mythical powers of the supermoon, the results have left --the subject-- Luna in an almost comatose state. Possibly overwhelmed with the sudden flow of magic, knowledge, or both that came to her. She was screaming by the end of the ritual and I, admittedly in a panic, tried to cut her ties off to the connection of the well---

*the writing seems to be shaking more and more as the journal goes on*

She was babbling in Fay for hours nearly four hours, I can barely pick out a few words that I know, "too loud" and "stop the voices" were some of the few I could trasl translate as I got her to some care. Her body is strangely chilly to even myself. Body limp but strangely light as a feather now that I recall. Her body glo was glowing softly, still full of magic I presume. Apologies again for any miss-spelling or illegibility, my hands are still shaking from shock. I will be staying by her side for the remainder of the night to make sure that her condition didn't worsen. 

*the writing is a little more steady, assuming after a pause to calm themselves* 

Luna's condition had improved in the last few hours of the night, maybe due to the peak of the moon finally reaching its end. It is only a hypothesis. Luna is still restless in her sleep though, but the chill has gone away. Thank God. The glowing has also faded somewhat but her hair has clearly changed, adding more blond to her caramel hair. Upon further inspection, the freckles on her body have also burned into her skin, only now do I realize that her markings on her back fit perfectly as the constellations of the night sky. 

This experiment should not be replicated without further research and understanding of Fay magic. And also should not be proceeded without less secretive tactics to any 'subject' performing the ritual. I believe, if I wasn't a coward in that very moment, if Luna knew about her heritage before performing the ritual, the results would have been less catastrophic and dangerous to her livelihood. Hopefully, Luna will wake from her sleep soon, so I can apologize to her properly. For now, I will leave this journal here for a time while I rest and wait for her to awake.

Luna. I am so sorry. 

---

#Corruption AU #Fanfic #MSA OC #Luna #Viktor #Character Lore #Moon Well