#watch me make the most unexpected and unpredictable conclusions out of nowhere

[posletsvet]

My thoughts keep circling back to some similarities I spotted a while back between the Hasaba twins and Nobara. There's a handful of them, really, from what I can gather -- even if we exclude the fact that both the twins and Nobara originally come from the countryside, which would be the most obvious coincidence.

Take, for instance, Nanako and Nobara's matching personalities: they both are outspoken, confident, brash and boisterous, with somewhat an air of a typical school bully around them. At first those traits might come off as off-putting and offensive, but when you delve deeper it becomes more apparent that such abrasive attitude might just serve as a defense mechanism of sorts and what it really shows is that these girls were taught, for better or worse, how to stand up for themselves.

Then there are curious similarities between their innate techniques. Techniques of all three of them require usage of inanimate objects, and in both Mimiko and Nobara's cases it's an effigy of the target, a voodoo doll -- whether stuffed one or made of straw. Their techniques also allow them to manipulate targets from afar.

Nobara also shows unusually high tolerance of pain, and it's something that keeps bothering me. And though we know that she was trained to be a sorcerer by her grandmother, and being a sorcerer involves adopting a certain mindset, that's not something one can simply order oneself to get used to.

One other thing that doesn't seem to escape my mind is how Nobara was only ever drawn to outsiders back in her childhood, and then proceeded to look up to Maki, finding it in particular admirable how she withstands the oppression of her own family. I guess it's also worth mentioning how Nobara doesn't believe people are excused just by the circumstances they grew up in. Again, I don't think that's an attitude one can afford without facing those hardships oneself.

So what if all the similarities really stem from the background they, Nobara and the twins, come from? I doubt that being a jujutsu sorcerer in a small, enclosed society such as found in a village in the middle of nowhere is a pleasant experience. People get nosy. They also get intolerant towards something they're not prepared to include in their tiny circle. We've already seen how an outsider unwilling to assimilate, Saori, was ostracized and driven out -- and she was just a city girl. We've also seen what being a sorcerer in an environment full of narrow-minded superstition costs.

How much bias and bigotry might Nobara face? Isn't it why she jumped at the first given opportunity to leave for the city? Why she only ever made friends with newcomers to the village? Why she considered all locals to be at least at some degree insane?

I don't know where I'm going with all this, really. If anything, it serves as yet another example of how the conservative mentality of those in charge of jujutsu society harms its sorcerers. Where both sides could've benefited from cooperation, non-sorcerers are left to ignorance and the misplaced antagonism towards sorcerers which that ignorance enables. I wonder if current, somewhat anachronistic, suspicion and superstition that still lingers with some parts of non-sorcerer population are fossilized remnants of the awareness their ancestors once possessed. What was it like to be a non-jujutsu user in the Golden Era of sorcery? Was it chaos and fear of that time which created an unbridgeable rift between sorcerers and non-sorcerers? I wonder what repercussions the current situation would have for the relationship between the two. Would it be history simply repeating itself, or is there an opportunity for real, substantial change, now that the system upheld by outdated tradition is utterly destroyed? Where are we heading with the story now?

#watch me make the most unexpected and unpredictable conclusions out of nowhere #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #nobara kugisaki #nanako hasaba #mimiko hasaba #hasaba twins #jjk analysis #kind of? #dunno #but i really do wonder if the mindset present in the countryside areas is just a result of fear and hatred ordinary people #might have felt towards sorcerers in the past #the negativity born out of helplessness couldn't have been targeted at curses which non-sorcerers can't even see #so through association it should've been targeted at sorcerers and jujutsu in general #god i really want gege to get into politics of his world #though the chances of it actually happening at this point are slim #i just miss these unbelievably strong determined uncomromising and sturdy girls so so much #I have so much admiration for them

[fightevilandthengetblownup]

FIC: ‘Tis The Damn Season III

---

The slap of the base of her flip-flops against the bottom of her foot was mute under the sound of the music trilling through her ears while she lay out on the sun-warmed towel below her.

This was exactly the type of thing she never would have imagined during her life. When she was in the cold Winters of the European countryside, frozen ground baron and her stomach achingly empty. The wind would be knives of ice across her skin instead of the warm, salty breeze that blew through her hair now. The skies would be a grey, gnawing mouth denying the briefest glimpse of sunshine unlike the warm sun shining down on her now below a crystal blue sky. The sapphire blue ocean that stretched out before her was truly clear and beautiful compared to those plains of white. The girl who’s eyes drank in the sight as happily as she did was blessed to have grown up in such an area.

Though not with the same level of service, Ruby thought to herself as she raised a hand in the air and snapped her fingers in a sharp crack. Within a moment there was a cool glass placed at her finger tips and pulling the bamboo strawed drink down to enjoy the refreshing rum mojito, the demon smiled to herself as she could relax back. If dying twice was what it took to finally have her ideal life - or something like it - she wished she could have known that earlier.

Continuing to tap her foot in time with her music, the blonde sat her drink down before picking her notebook again. She might appear to be just writing a few ideas or working on some story, but the actual words were anything but. Detailed information, coded and recoded, translated and restranslated through several languages before the words would make any sense at all, on her darkest passages and some of the spells she was investigating at present that if anyone actually could understand the contents would make their hair curl. Just because it was the holidays didn’t mean the demon could stop working for her own happiness and freedom.

Sighing as a cloud crossed past the sun, Ruby let out a groan as the shadow didn’t seem to move after a moment. It took another minute for her to actually realise that it was the shadow of a person, and slipping her earbud out she growled pissily, “Hey, buddy, fucking move it.”

“Polite as always, darling.” The voice was completely unexpected but not unfamiliar, and slipping her sunglasses down her nose slightly, Ruby looked up in surprise to see a bemused smirk on the other being’s face. “Was I in your sun?”

“What do you think?” “Probably yes.” “Well then-” “Especially as I was in your sun.” “Mhmm…”

“Going to ask me to move nicely, gorgeous?” Gabriel quirked a brow up at her as he flung out a hand unseeingly and moved it back with a drink of his own in a wooden tiki glass, complete with vibrant umbrella and sticks of tropical fruit. “Or are you going to go for a little glare and pout today?”

It took another second as the blonde slipped her sunglasses on top of her head and titled her head assessing what options she had before waving a hand towards the empty sunbed beside herself.

“Perhaps the easier answer - sit your ass down if you want, pagan, or get out of my sunlight.” Ruby quipped back caustically, sliding her sunglasses off of her head and onto the small table between the chairs. “Do I even want to know what you’re doing in this neck of the woods this time of year?”

It didn’t surprise her to see the other move with a huffed laugh, before stretching out on the other sunbed with an ever present smile. Gabriel seemed far too at ease from what she could tell - the open shirt and tank top combination with the shorts and what looked to be truly horrendous blue and white flip-flops - and glancing around the way he melded in to the exact same style as every other man walking past along the sand felt hilariously in keeping. 

“Well, you see, beautiful,” Gabe seemed to pause to himself for a moment as he leaned back into the other sunbed with a contented groan. Waving a hand about and another moment to himself for a sip of his drink, the flair for the dramatic wasn’t at all lost on Ruby as she tried not to let the corners of her lips twist in bemusement at the antics. “Why would I stay in North America or even more dismaly within the European areas when I could fly south for the winter and get an extra dose of summer?”

“A very good excuse, of course.” Ruby replied as she shuffled in her seat for a moment before letting out a sigh and shifting to lean on her hip facing the other rather than towards the umbrella above her. Chewing thoughtfully upon the end of her straw, she tilted her head thoughtfully before she eventually raised a manicured brow. “So - who are you avoiding up North?”

“Excuse me?” “A pretty story, sure, but which pagan got a bit too close to you, viking?” “I don’t know what you might be thinking-” “Of course not.”

“You really think you’ve got me pegged, don’t you Ruby.” The slight gravel in his voice caught her off guard for a moment as the crackle of electricity seemed to fill the humid air across the beach in waves. Looking over her shoulder, the blonde demon could see more than a handful of locals looking skywards - as if searching for gathering grey clouds that should have been there for such an atmospheric change but were nowhere to be seen in the bright blue sky above. Of course it suited the other to be here right then, where the air was thick like honey in the humidity and lent itself to the shifts of power that a trigger-happy anger response for such a powerful being could be. The unpredictability of the Queensland weather feeling in keeping with the new arrival. Gabriel’s jaw was set a little harder as she turned her face back to his, a darkness in his eyes that spoke to the little part of her that used to search out every weakness, every opening and every opportunity for manipulation that this was a dangerous game for a demon to be playing right there. “You think you can predict what I - the one who successfully impersonated one of the most famous Tricksters in the world for centuries - do and why?”

“Predict?” Ruby blinked her eyes as innocently as possible, wide-eyed and baleful, as she met his stare for a long hard moment. 

She probably could predict his choice to flee to the southern hemisphere if she really tried. It was likely for the same reason she was as well. She could probably draw a conclusion right now, or follow her old tactics and slowly draw out his responses until she caught upon the right thread. She could probably just easily assume it was one of the normal troubles - family or romantic, given work didn’t quite cross her mind when thinking on what would ever trouble the carefree Pagan-playing man - and extrapolate from there. Ask who he was hiding from this time around. Which war or fight he didn’t want to be having that he flew the coop and found his feathered butt drawn to the warming sun and surf. Who he was trying to avoid the confrontation with as much as she was. 

But that would be the old Ruby, she thought to herself with a small shake of her head. That was the Ruby that was all darkness and cruelty. The one that was the best and awesome and felt herself burning from the insides out as the blade ran right through her. That was even the Ruby that pressed a shoe against a poor innocent guy’s knee to force out from him that a woman made him happy. That was the Ruby that let herself get caught in deals she didn’t want to under the threat of yet another blade - one that would likely tear her apart that time - driven through her. That was the Ruby she’d swore not to be any more and was the one she’d left behind when she handed the bloody dagger into her fellow blonde’s hand with a smooth lie - the last one she intended to tell really. That wasn’t the new Ruby she was trying to be ever since she’d spotted the glowing warmth of a certain hunter’s existence into her world again.

Shaking her head again, Ruby glanced back towards him before batting her eyes more than a few times with the sweetest smile full of warmth and danger and daggers of white teeth as she looked back towards the far too serious look on the other’s face. “That’d suggest I know you any at all, Sir Loki-Like. I’d never dare to presume as much.”

“Really, madame, the cheek on you.” Gabriel had tilted his own head for a moment as he stared her down, and Ruby could see a tiny flash of that previous anger in the depths of his eyes before the good humor washed it away. The wicked smirk she got in return as the slightly electric feeling in the air faded back let her release a silent and invisible breath that had caught in her throat for a moment as the archangel arched a brow back at her in return. “Someone would think you’ve got a brain under that pretty blonde hair of yours.”

Ruby let out a responding laugh, tossing said hair over a shoulder for a second that would look flirtatious to any outsider and would be taken as such alongside a joke by the other. Shaking her head, she shrugged a shoulder before she finished the last of her drink and toyed with the straw. “Oh don’t go letting anyone know that there’s more to me than a pretty face, Gabe, or we both might just find ourselves in trouble.”

“Some very hot water-” “Exactly.” “Count me as mute then, gorgeous.”

The mutual grin of appreciation that both lounging beings sent one another was another point in Ruby’s mind for the disruption right now not being wholly unwelcome. Australia and the beach was fun and all, and time to herself to do some of her preferred focuses such as accumulating powerful defenses for herself and uncovering things others think too far hidden or too outlandish to be real was always a good time - but it did get dull being all on her own so much sometimes. 

Last year she hadn’t been so alone. Her watching - that’s what it was, it wasn’t stalking, no matter what the object of her watching had to say about it - had paid off and she’d been able to spend a whole evening and night basking in a light even warmer and hotter and more fulfilling to the dark twisted thing that was her soul than even the sunlight above was. She had had a good Winter, especially when she’d managed a second full meal seated across from the long haired hunter, staring at the slopes of his cheeks and those honey speckled eyes that made her giddy. It had been a small space of time that she felt she could even possibly get close to something that was accepting company, but after the year she’d had since then - letting her secrets out and sharing what she probably shouldn’t’ve - Ruby’s winter had loomed cold and dark and as such the call of beaches and sunshine that might just maybe keep her warm like last year was the drawer. And yet alone on the sand and soaking in the suns rays was missing the good company to make it better.

As her mind whirled through her thoughts, Ruby found herself giving a long, deep sigh as she glanced across at the trickster looking at her with a mix of curiosity and bemusement as he finished off his own fruity drink. “Oh fuck…” Ruby mumbled to herself with a deep groan as she watched the other’s face break into a much much wider grin of amusement at her. Shaking her head, she rolled onto her back with another mute sigh, and then adding with a sideways glance. “So - what are we doing for dinner tonight, viking?”

The warm laugh she got in response as both of their drinks were refilled with a finger snap was answer enough for her that the presumption wasn’t wrong at all - if nothing else, she thought as she took a sip of her drink and reset her sunglasses back on her nose, she was going to have some excellent company again for a little while this year.

—

#cc #ca #rubypov