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beepbeepbobop · 3 years

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Back again.

I was telling my friend (who isn’t a Baccano! fan, but listens to me ramble) about my take on immortals and Czeslaw, and I don’t know where to put it, so! It goes here. As a warning, this is mostly me rambling and probably treads ground that has been talked about a lot in the past, but I hope it’s interesting anyway.

(This and the Infinity Train post is not a sign that I’m going to be more active in the future. Social media and the prospect of interacting with other people’s posts still make me anxious. Maybe one day.)

So! The first thing to keep in mind is that change is a major theme in Baccano!. No one is incapable of changing, but people have different relationships with it depending on who they are. Czes can't believe that he has changed seventy years after Isaac & Miria stealing him despite clear evidence that he has. Meanwhile, Nile actively resists change: His greatest fear after becoming immortal was that he would become desensitized to the loss of human life and begin to devalue it, so he spent decades fighting in active war zones so that he'd never forget the reality of death. This backfired, and instead left him inured to loss of life...but it's clear that he doesn't want to be this way? Realizing that he's gotten to the point where his expression doesn't even change if someone dies is devastating for him. Chane is the opposite: While it's absolutely for the best that she stops being a hitwoman and killing machine for her father, softening up is terrifying to her because then she can't serve her father the way she wants to. Czes is on the opposite end of the spectrum, because he wants to be better because he thinks he's a bad person (later on, he decides that he's the only bad person left in the world. Sir.), but can't recognize it because he doesn't feel different.

And...this is pertinent to the older immortals in particular - I'd argue even moreso than with the younger ones. Aside from the fact that the Elixir literally stops you from changing in the sense of age or injury...it also has to place inhibitors on your brain. Your brain is, after all, a physical part of your body! There are some....weird aspects about immortality that no one is able to figure out (for example, immortals can give birth; someone also pointed out that there are no examples of crying in reverse even though that's also a part of your body), but it's still safe to say that the brain doesn't age either because then...then a lot of the cast would be catatonic from Alzheimer's. Even without that, the human body can only retain so many memories. If an immortal's brain had the ability to deteriorate over time or overload based off of the amount of memories it contains....well, I don't think any of the older immortals would be able to function. Szilard definitely wouldn't be able to function (and neither would Firo after he devours Szilard) because Szilard has the memories of over a dozen people running around in his brain. Which brings me to my next point: If an immortal's brain functioned like a human's, devouring would not work as a concept. One of the hallmarks of being immortal is gaining other people's memories. Imagine the strain that would cause. And yet, it doesn't seem to be a problem! The chief worry of those who have devoured other immortals is worrying that having the memories of the other person might change you consciously or subconsciously. This is Firo's concern over devouring Szilard.

So...the fact that the brain doesn't physically grow older or change (with some leniency given because real world science sure is iffy here)...feels relevant because, mn...

Many of the older immortals feel stagnant, or stuck in time. Firstly, if the immortals changed at the same pace as a human being, I don't think most of them would be recognizable from one era to the other. And yet, they are! The Victor Talbot of the 1700s is clearly the same person as the Victor Talbot of the 1930s, albeit with alterations (because what kind of person would stay exactly the same after centuries?). The answer to that question is Elmer, by the way. Everyone comments on how he acts just like the Elmer they remember back in the day. But Elmer is a special case, seeing as he's our local empty shell and probable sociopath (not that he has ASPD! ASPD, sociopathy and psychopathy all present and function entirely differently from each other, which makes it....strange that they're lumped under the same umbrella - but that's another matter). Secondly, immortals...Uhm, they all handle grief horribly, and seem to feel stuck in the past? Maiza, for instance, acts starkly different from his past as a rebellious noble-boy gang member, but he's never forgiven himself for giving Gretto the information that led to his death. (Gretto being his brother.) Huey's overarching goal is to bring his dead girlfriend back to life, and he's been working towards this goal for centuries. Sylvie, who admittedly was not an immortal when Gretto died, held off on drinking the Elixir until she was all grown up, then set out to finding Szilard to take revenge on him for killing the boy she had run away with. This lasted for, you guessed it, centuries.

This isn't to say that immortals don't change, or even that they don't change drastically. I mentioned Nile, who became inured to death after fighting in war for decades. Czes went from a trusting, innocent child to someone paranoid and self-centered enough to try and get an entire train car's worth of people killed for his own safety to someone who wants to be a good person, but thinks he never will be and that there's something fundamentally wrong with him. But changing appears to be very, very difficult, and happens over an extended period of time in response to extreme situations.

And...this is particularly relevant to Czes (who keeps coming up as an example because he's the main person I'm thinking about with this tangent) because....it arguably hits him harder than any of the others due to being a child. Only the best decisions were made aboard the Advenna Avis, which includes letting the eight year old drink the immortality elixir. But...mn. It's one thing to be perpetually in your thirties, or twenties, or sixties, and another altogether to perpetually be eight years old. Czes can't truly 'grow up' even though he has more life experience than most adults combined, and it shows in his extreme emotional reactions, his self-centeredness, ect. There's a certain misconception about anime-only fans that he's an adult in a child's body, but I think it's easier to tell in the light novels that that's not the case, especially since you see what he's like back before the Advenna Avis. (He is shy. Very shy. Did nothing wrong ever.) Also, the fact that SAMPLE goes, "Yes! The perfect sacrifice!" when they specifically take a child to target emphasizes this. It's not proof - I'm pretty sure that SAMPLE would focus on his physical age as an 'eternal child', and may or may not have the resources to analyze him and go, "This boy is still eight years old in his head," - , but it hammers the point home.

Then...mn. One thing that's stuck out to me ever since the start is how long Czes was with Fermet. There's such a thing as learned helplessness, and it's not like Czes had anywhere to go, so that's not what is odd to me...especially when Fermet is known for manipulating people, and could definitely seed the idea that Czes can't go anywhere. More than physical proximity, I think about how long Czes believed in Fermet. It's explicitly stated that Czes absorbing Fermet's memories is what made him realize that - oh, Fermet was just sadistic and everything he said was an excuse. And...I think this is both an example of being controlled in many respects, and....another example of an immortal being stuck in the past - but in a very, very different way.

First off, learning that the people you look up to want to harm you is...difficult at best, especially when you're younger? But being mentally 'stuck' at a certain age would make things worse, because Czes is perpetually an age where it's natural to depend on a parental figure, and at an age where the brain isn't equipped to make those kinds of calls or realizations. There's also the matter of cognitive dissonance! Cognitive dissonance means a lot of things, but essentially, it's the idea that you have two conflicting beliefs, but the actions you take can retroactively alter your beliefs/place emphasis on one more than the other, as the mind is predisposed to reduce dissonance. I...take issue with how cognitive dissonance is interpreted because many examples don't account for the beliefs or opinions not being equal in the first place, but that's not the point. The point is that, as a child, the impulse to reduce dissonance is present while also being played against difficulty reading intentions, perceiving the world outside of yourself, and thinking critically. (For what it's worth, abusers also tend to discourage critical thinking because it damages their narrative, which would also play a part.) So, for example...

Say that, theoretically, Czes was yelled at every time he questions the idea that Fermet's intentions are right, or that maybe Fermet doesn't have his best interests in mind. (Czes is insightful, and they lived with each other for a long time, so this probably happened at least once unless the text directly contradicts me.) This is tame compared to the things we know about his time with Fermet, but ignore that. The desire to not be yelled at would lead him to hurriedly agree later on, and cognitive dissonance means that you're inclined to try to make your beliefs agree with your actions. In other words, the more he plays along, the more his brain tells him that he definitely believes this, and it makes perfect sense to! Fermet has shown that he cares about him, and took him in after his grandfather died, so of course. It only makes sense. And it's even harder for him to bridge the gap to a different conclusion because of how difficult it seems to be for immortals to change. It's only when Czes devours Fermet (or...or at least gets his memories) that everything snaps into place, because he can't reconcile that no matter how hard he tries (coincidentally, this also happens when he gets memories of being an adult, and while I seriously doubt that Czes went through Fermet's memories willingly, it kind of hammers my point about how difficult being eternally young would make things). So of course he snaps as hard as he does. It'd be kind of amazing if he didn't, honestly.

TLDR: Being immortal made it even harder for him to recognize or comprehend his trauma. Sorry for that.

#baccano #baccano!#czeslaw meyer #nile (baccano)#I don't know who else I discussed enough to tag #but the segment about szilard made me wonder whether you would have more memories from devouring a dozen people or from living #for a couple centuries #I think it depends on how old the immortals were #discord ramblings

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goneseriesanalysis · 3 years

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Diana Ladris

Ok so here is my Diana analysis, finally. I was going to write this on Monday but now it’s Sunday and I honestly have no idea what I’ve done all week. Quick disclaimer that I am in love with Diana, so this is probably not the most objective analysis you will ever read. Please feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions on her. I would love to hear them!!

Spoilers for Gone down below

Original Opinion: I loved Diana. Snarky, dark-haired girls in fiction are the loves of my life. But didn’t remember much else about her personality other than that.

New Opinion: I still love her. She has such a complicated personality and I just want her to be happy.

1.) Diana’s Appearance:

Diana is another character that is described pretty poorly in the first book. We get no indication of her ethnicity or body type – but that seems to be pretty common for characters in this book. There are three main descriptions of Diana here, two from Sam in chapter 14 and one from Jack in chapter 40. And by main, I mean we get the slightest bit of information other than ‘she’s beautiful.’

The first time Sam sees Diana he describes her as a “dark-eyed, very beautiful girl.” In the first book Diana and Astrid are sort of made out to be binary opposites, much in the same way that Sam and Caine are. Astrid is light and fair, referencing her innocence and general ‘goodness’, whereas Diana is depicted a being darker, in both looks and personality, and is therefore much more morally ambiguous. I think this is perfectly fine for the first book, as none of the characters are thoroughly developed and so the stereotypical light = good and dark = bad isn’t too off-putting – especially seen as these two characters in particular definitely do evolve past these roles in later books. In fact, I think giving such as basic starting point for these characters actually works in Michael’s favour as it allows us as a reader to look back retrospectively and truly appreciate how much they have grown.

The parallel to Astrid doesn’t stop there either. The next line of description we are given of Diana so strongly reminds me of the second description we are given of Astrid, that it seems almost criminal not to do a side-by-side comparison:

“Her midnight eyes met his and he wanted to look away, feeling awkward, but somehow could not.” – Chapter 14 (referring to Diana)

Astrid looked right at him. He couldn’t look away like he normally would, because her gaze wasn’t challenging, sceptical like it usually was: it was scared. Her normally sharp, discerning blue eyes were wide, with way too much white showing” – Chapter 1 (referring to Astrid)

Not only do we get another light vs dark comparison, but Sam’s immediate reaction to them both is extremely similar. I’m not really sure what to make of this, although I’m 100% convinced that Michael did it on purpose. Was there originally going to be a love triangle, with Sam having such similar reactions to them both?? Was this meant to be a comment on Sam’s character and his reaction to the women around him?? Or was it meant to be a hint at Diana’s morality, showing that Sam saw something in her that she couldn’t at the time see in herself, something that reminded him of Astrid?? I’m not sure, but either way I love it and I would really like some other people’s opinions on it.

So, the last description that gives us any actual information on Diana’s appearance is from Jack’s POV in chapter 40, “He could see the outline of her face, her dark hair.” (Do you see how far I had to dig for literally anything!?!? Come on Michael.) Again, we have the dark hair further establishing her and Astrid as binary opposites. We also get the idea in chapter 36 that her hair is relatively long as Drake mentions it falling on his face when she talks to him. But yeah, this is all we get in terms of Diana’s appearance. It’s a little disappointing that she seems to be heavily sexualised but then again a lot of her character’s actions, especially in this book, are based on other people’s attraction towards her so it’s a tricky one to talk about. I think the main reason we get so little description is because of the lack of Caine POV’s, and as Diana’s main love interest Michael probably wanted him to give the more detailed descriptions of her as opposed to the two boys who get the most POV time in this book (Sam and Drake).

2.) Diana’s Personality:

I’ve split Diana’s personality into three categories in an attempt to make my thoughts more cohesive. From what I could gather in this book we see:

The snarky, slightly cruel side of Diana – this is the side of her that she projects most often and it seems to be the reason Caine “loves” her

The falsely kind and caring side of Diana – this is the side of her that we see most often with Jack, and sometimes with Caine. It is the tactic she uses to manipulate people

Diana’s actual personality – This is part of Diana that is so well hidden that she can’t even see it herself. While it is mostly only hinted at within this book (which I will talk about in Diana’s Morality), there is a scene where I truly think we see her raw, unfiltered personality.

So, I’ll start by talking about her snarky personality. I believe this side of Diana is mainly there to be a defence mechanism. She doesn’t like to show weakness, but cannot physically protect herself in a school where everyone is a bully. Or in a house where her mother’s boyfriends sneak up on her in the shower with no consequences. Or in a classroom where her science teacher tries to feel her up. So instead she tries to take people down with words. She makes them feel inferior by insulting them in clever ways, by poking fun at their insecurities (a tactic reminiscent of Astrid using her intelligence as a weapon). And I think after a while of doing this, it just became a part of her. She seems to enjoy making people uncomfortable. She definitely enjoys the effect she has on Jack and Caine, and seems to find Drake’s reactions to her quips amusing.

In chapter 20, when Caine is discovering that he and Sam are brothers, her first reaction is to embarrass him, “She stared at it [Sam’s birth certificate] and started laughing.” After seeing Caine turn pale, clearly having a hard time coping with this realisation, she continues with her method of attack “November twenty-second,’ Diana said, grinning spitefully.” She seems to have no sympathy for Caine or his emotional reaction to finding out that the people who he thought were his parents were… well, not. (I find this particularly interesting as not a page earlier she was teasing Drake for enjoying other people’s pain.) It seems like Diana enjoys the power that comes with being cruel. For quite a large portion of her life, people have tried to make her feel powerless, like an object whose sole purpose is for their gratification. And so Diana likes it when it’s the other way around. She likes making weak people feeling weaker and more vulnerable (such as Jack), and she especially enjoys poking fun at those with more power. By teasing Drake and Caine, she is subverting the narrative that has been fed to her all her life by the adults who have let her down. She is no longer there for their amusement. Instead, they are there for hers.

This idea of Diana kind of revelling in their pain, especially Caine’s, is continued in chapter 39, with this scene, “Too bad Dr Phil’s not around. You could tell him all about it.” This is said in response to Caine opening up about feeling neglected by his adoptive parents, and is an excellent example of Diana’s mean streak. The comment itself is not horrible, Diana rarely says things that are truly cruel, but the way she so easily dismisses and ridicules his feelings, knowing that she is probably the first person he has ever spoken to about this, is really telling. I think she feels that if she gives Caine the emotional support that is so clearly craving here, that she is giving up control. The only control she has over Caine is through the manipulation of his feelings, so she is cruel and distant and untouchable 99% of the time. She will give him hints of affection, slight touches of it here and there, but never enough of it to feel like he has won. She still always retains this small line of defence (which really makes Lies and Plague a whole lot sadder for me).

Next we have what I like to call her false kindness. This refers to those small hints of affection that she gives to people in order to control them, to make her snarky persona more effective. We first see this in chapter 20, when after teasing Caine about his relation to Sam, “she was playing nice, as close to sympathetic as she ever managed to be.” Diana is very skilled at knowing when to attack and when to be sympathetic. She will tease those around her, making them feel small and inferior, and then offer her kindness. This way people will be less likely to try and hurt her. They all want the same thing from her, whether it be Caine, her science teacher or her mother’s boyfriends with their lust or whether it be Drake with his sick ways. They all want her to be theirs. Theirs to have or theirs to use or theirs to hurt. It’s awful and it makes me want to sit down and cry or else hug her or else smack any boy who’s ever looked at her. But she can stop them from forcefully taking away her autonomy (with the exception of Drake) by offering them the possibility that she may give it up freely. And so we see this side of her. The second aspect of her elaborate defence.

This method of manipulation seems to be most effective with Jack, at least in this book. Now, I don’t think that Jack wants Diana in the way that Caine does, and definitely NOT in the way that Drake does. He mentions that he thinks she’s beautiful, and I definitely think he likes her, but in a much more innocent way. He seems to want to impress her, but that’s all he seems to want. Her to be proud of him and impressed by him. And Diana, clever as she is, knows this. In chapter 29 Diana discovers Jack’s power, and her reaction to it is what first made me realise that it’s power that she wants after all:

“Are you asking me to protect you?’ Jack saw a ray of hope in his personal darkness. ‘Yes. Yes.’ ‘Say it.’ ‘Please protect me.’ Diana’s eyes seemed to melt, from ice cold to almost warm. She smiled. ‘I’ll protect you, Jack. But here’s the thing. From now on you belong to me.”

Diana has spent a large portion of her life feeling powerless. Even with her extensive defence mechanism, there are still multiple times within this book where the illusion of power is stripped away, and we are left with a Diana that is just so scared. And so, to me, this scene seems to be Diana’s attempt to hold power over someone in a way that is not directly related to her sexuality. Her relationship with Jack is much purer in that sense. He doesn’t do what she says because he’s hoping for a relationship, but because he wants her to protect him. He wants her to be to him what she can’t even be to herself. And that’s so sad?? Because the reaction she has is almost sweet, she has a moment where I can truly feel like she appreciates Jack for the way in which he wants her. And she keeps her promise. She does protect him from Drake’s threats and Caine’s derision. Right up until the moment where she sends him off to Sam.

And finally, we have a small glimpse of what I believe to be Diana’s real personality. The side of her that we don’t really see much of yet. This is, I think, what we see in chapter 36, and there are three specific quotes that I think perfectly highlight it:

“You have the saw?’ Diana’s voice asked. Not smug now, not smug at all, but raw and horrified.” – Chapter 36

“I’ll do it, ‘Diana said, disgusted. ‘You’re all such big tough guys. Give me the saw.” – Chapter 36

“Ok,’ Diana said. ‘Hold onto him. I’ll be as quick as I can be.” – Chapter 36

Now, the first reason that leads me to believe that these are examples of Diana’s true personality and not just further examples of her false kindness, is that this scene is told from Drake’s POV – and Drake has never been fooled by her personas. We know that she is not smug, but raw and horrified. Of course, this could just be due to the horrific nature of the injury, but I personally think it’s more than that. We get the idea throughout the book that Diana goes along with Caine’s schemes, but she doesn’t necessarily agree with them. She seems to be ok up until the point where she can see the consequences of their actions, in which point she shows horror, disgust and remorse. And right now, she is seeing a pretty big consequence. Sam burned Drake’s arm because Drake cemented them, something that Diana was also a part of, something that she allowed to happen to other people. Looking at the state he is in now, I don’t think Diana is just horrified by his injury, she is also scared. But not of Sam, necessarily. Get ready for another comparison to Astrid here: I find it interesting that Astrid is religious, but believes that free will dictates actions and consequences – as opposed to some higher power. But Diana is seemingly the opposite. She is not religious, but seems to always be fearful of some higher power punishing her for her sins – and this is something that, if I remember correctly, features quite heavily in other books.

To contrast this fear, however, she also shows immense bravery here. She again uses her snarky persona to shock and belittle Drake into remaining still (telling him that he wet himself), and is the only one brave enough out of a room full of bullies to actually cut off his arm. This may in part be because she already knows that he plans to hurt her, and so she doesn’t really have anything to lose in that regard. But I think it also shows that underneath her defensive persona and underneath her fear of being powerless, she really is a good person who is immensely strong and capable. Her “goodness” is also shown for the first time in this scene, even if it is only a glimpse. The line “I’ll be as quick as I can be.” I honestly think is one of the strongest acts of compassion in this book. Drake has made it clear that he hates her. That he wants to hurt her. Hell, he literally threatens to kill her moments before this scene. And yet she refuses to take any joy in it. She refuses to sink down to his level and prolong his pain. Instead she chooses to try her best to make it stop. It’s such an underrated Diana moment. I love her so much :(

3.) Diana’s Morality:

A large aspect of Diana’s character is her struggle with her morality, and we see the beginnings of this within this book. While she is always aligned with Caine here, she has small moments of doubt and remorse which nicely sets up her character arc in later books. Of course there are many reasons why one could argue that Diana, at least in the first book, is an immoral character. She stands by Caine through the cementing, his take-over of Perdido Beach, his attack on Sam and then leaves with him at the end of the book, despite being offered a place in Perdido Beach. She leaves Astrid with Drake, knowing what he’s capable of, and seems perfectly fine with Drake killing her and LP after they escape. And, of course, she is a class A manipulator, which is demonstrated with a multitude of characters. But…. She is not completely immoral – or at least she does have a conscience.

This is largely shown through her complaints in regards to Caine’s schemes. While she never leaves him, and never really acts on her complaints, she does voice disgust at the things he is doing/has done. This is first shown in chapters 31 and 32, when they find out that Andrew has stopped feeding the Coates kids:

“Diana snapped, ‘You’re letting these freaks starve. I can see why you’d be worried about being plastered.’ […] Drake, shoot the creep.” – Chapter 31

“Maybe you wake up in hell, ‘Diana said. ‘Where you belong.’ ‘I should pray,’ Andrew said. ‘God forgive me for being a stupid creep who starves people?’ Diana suggested.” – Chapter 32

Diana is clearly horrified by Andrew’s actions here, to the point where she tries to have Drake kill him. I think part of the reason why her reaction is so extreme may be a hint at her own guilt towards the part she played in the cementing. Her morality is such as difficult thing to decipher in this book, because she so clearly feels guilty about the things she has done/ allowed to happen – but does that really mean anything considering she did nothing to stop it from happening?? Considering that she still continues to support Caine now?? We know that she herself did not suggest and/ or condone the cementing from her line in chapter 42, “I told you to let the freaks go who didn’t want to play along. But no, you had to listen to Drake’s paranoid advice. I told you to go into Perdido Beach and make a quick deal for food.” – but that seems neither here nor there when you think about the horrific nature of the crime. Surely she should have done more to prevent it from happening?? I think Diana’s immorality comes from a lack of action rather than a lack of conscience – silence is violence after all. This makes her the perfect candidate for a redemption arc later on as we know from the beginning that she does have the capacity for good, it’s just a case of whether she decides to act on it.

That being said, there are two moments in the book where Diana does seem to act on these thoughts, the first being in chapter 40, when she send Jack to Perdido Beach to warn Sam about the poof:

“Jack, if Sam blinks out, Drake will turn on me, and Caine won’t be able to stop him. Drake is stronger than before. I need Sam alive. I need someone for Drake to hate. I need balance. Tell Sam about the temptation.”

Now, I will admit, as much as I love Diana, this probably isn’t the best quote to argue her morality with – but hear me out. Is she doing this for selfish reasons?? Yes, she admits that much herself. But she is still doing the right thing. And doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still a step in the right direction.

Now the second time she takes action is a much clearer example of her goodness. In the thanksgiving battle she becomes furious when Caine sets the coyotes on the littles, to the point where she actually demands him to make them stop. She tells him to drop Astrid. She tries to tell Sam about the poof. She actually DOES something. She acts on her conscience. And we see Caine clearly ignore her. Not only ignore her, but he actually physically attacks her… twice. Which really puts things into perspective. Because we see that Diana does not have as much control as she would have the reader believe. Her ability to manipulate Caine really relies on what he wants at the time. Is he currently thinking about how much he wants Diana?? If yes, then she is able to twist his arm, able to get him to do what she wants. If no?? Then she has absolutely no power over his actions, at least in this book. And so it seems like her lack of action is less a disinterest in his crimes, and more an attempt to protect herself. Now I’m not saying that makes her better, but it certainly makes you think.

Ok, so I’ve spoken a lot about Diana’s morality in relation to her affiliation with Caine, but let’s have a look at how she is when separate from him. We learn in chapter 29 why Diana was sent to Coates. Her father wouldn’t buy her a horse, so she told her mother about his mistress. During the following argument her mother fell down the stairs, and she falsely told the police that her father had done it. Now, while that’s certainly now a good thing to do, it’s nowhere near as bad as, sayyy shooting someone in the leg for ‘being annoying.’ We also learn that Diana’s mother never really recovered from the fall, she lived, but can’t really do much anymore. For that to happen, the fall must have been pretty bad. Now, I’m going to assume that Diana witnessed both the fight and the argument, otherwise she wouldn’t have been there to see whether her mother was pushed or not. So, just imagine this for a second. You’re a kid, at least under 14. You find out that your father is cheating on your mother and then during the, I assume pretty bad, argument that ensues because of this, your mother suffers a horrific injury. Would you not, on at least some level, blame your father?? You’ve just been traumatised, you’re not going to be thinking clearly. I’m not saying that Diana was right to lie, but I don’t think that was Coates worthy. The kid just needed therapy. But her parents clearly didn’t care about her enough to provide that. As for her telling her mother just because her dad wouldn’t buy her a horse. That’s another example of her doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. And again, she’s just a child – there are worse things children can do. Add all this onto Diana’s constant struggle with herself – her thinking that she’s incapable of feeling real love or anyone feeling real love for her, you get this picture of a young girl who has been failed repeatedly by the adults around her, and so is coping in the only way she knows how.

To me, it seems like Diana’s ‘immorality’ is a result of years of neglect and abuse from authority figures that has led to the development of a coping mechanism that is more destructive than productive. And now I’m gonna cry.

4.) Diana’s Loyalty to Caine:

Ok, so this kind of links in with my previous point about Diana’s morality. But I feel like there is a lot of nuance to it, and so it deserves its own bullet point. The main argument against Diana’s morality is her continuous affiliation with Caine. So, why does she stay?? I feel like the conclusion that mg wants us to come to, is that her ‘love’ for Caine is so strong that she can’t be without him. But I’m gonna be honest, that conclusion makes me want to throw up so I will be doing some literary gymnastics in order to reach a different one.

One thing that becomes pretty clear pretty early on is that Diana’s loyalty to Caine is…shaky. At best. She oddly seems to be loyal to him behind his back… but not to his face. In chapter 15, Diana seems upset that Edilio is digging a grave without Caine explicitly telling him to do it. But then later in the same chapter we see her lie to Caine’s face twice:

“Diana said, ‘Nowhere. He was just wandering, lost.” –

Jack had seen Diana take Sam’s hand. So he was amazed when Diana said, ‘No. I didn’t have a chance.”

And when you think about it, these are some pretty serious lies that could have had huge consequences. After finding Jack with Astrid, unsure as to whether Jack has told Astrid anything, she lies to Caine about where he was. Now, you could just put this down to my earlier point about Diana kind of liking Jack in her own way and so she protects him from Caine’s anger – IF she had followed up with Jack. But she doesn’t. She never makes any effort to find out what Jack and Astrid were talking about – Jack could have told Astrid everything, but she doesn’t seem to care. This could be interpreted two ways:

1 – She has such faith in Caine that she just isn’t worried about Sam and Astrid (doubtful)

2 – She is not fully loyal to Caine and is hoping to give Sam a chance to take over (imo, more likely)

To support point number two, she later lies about reading Sam’s power and finding out that he is a four bar. Later in the book, she tries to convince Jack that the reason she does this is to stop Caine from freaking out. But… I think that that is just another one of her lies. After all, she already knew that Caine did not trust Sam – and obviously knew about the plan to kidnap him in the school. I think if stopping Caine from doing something stupid was her main concern, then she would have told him the truth as soon as she saw that he was going to do something stupid anyway. But she doesn’t. Which tells me that her actual goal was to give Sam a chance to rise up and take control.

So the question is, what changed?? What happened between the beginning of the book, where her loyalty to Caine seems like nothing more than a façade, and the end, where this scene takes place:

“Sorry, Sam. The bad girl ends up with the bad boy. It’s the way the world works. Especially this world.’ She went to Caine. She did not take his extended hand, did not even look at him, but walked beside him as he descended the steps.” – Chapter 46

During this scene, she gets the chance to remain in Perdido Beach, to get away from Caine. But she doesn’t take it. Why?? This was the main question that I was left with when I finished the book, because in the beginning it seems so clear that she’s just biding her time, waiting for someone else to take over so she can defect from Caine’s side. She even tries this again in chapter 42, “I’ll go,’ Diana volunteered. It was foolish. She knew what he would say. And she could see the light of suspicion in his eyes.” And then, when she is finally given the chance to do so, she declines. She declines and then spends months taking care of him, living in fear of Drake, while he is in a coma. And not once does she think of returning to Perdido Beach. It makes no sense. If she does it out of love or affection, then why is she so disloyal at the beginning?? Surely those feelings couldn’t have developed over the course of the week that he was in charge. I mean, we were seeing the worst side of him. It took a few re-read of my notes, but I think I’ve finally come to a conclusion that I’m happy with.

I think she was scared. It’s such a simple answer, but that’s really why it’s such a perfect one. And I don’t just mean she was scared of Caine. In chapter 34 we get this quick line, “Diana seemed torn, uncertain; then she bolted after Caine.” Upon my first re-read I barely payed attention to this. I was more focused on Caine and Drake’s reactions in this scene and so never really bothered to pay attention to Diana. But that hesitation is why I think she eventually decided to stay. She is obviously torn, here is the perfect opportunity to join Sam – to get away from Caine and Drake. But instead she follows, because she’s scared. Not of Sam, but of the Coates kids. She’s scared of what they’ll do to her now that they’re free. And, most importantly, she’s scared that she deserves it. That she doesn’t deserve to be saved. She thinks Sam is too good, and is scared that she’ll never fit in. So she turns and runs back to Caine, because no matter how bad she is, he is worse. He can never look down on her for being a bad person, because she’ll never be quite as bad as him.

And then of course, we do have to factor in her fear of Caine which, imo, also contributes to her remaining by his side. We get very few Diana POV’s in this book, but the ones we do get are full of great quotes, particularly in chapter 42:

“If Caine got his hands on Computer Jack, Diana had no doubt that the techie wizard would give her up. What would Caine do then? In the meantime, Diana had to play it smart. By pretending to be concerned by Jack’s escape or defection or whatever it should be called. It would throw Caine and Drake off the scent. Unless they captured Jack. She fought down a wave of fear and hid it by pouring herself a glass of water at the kitchen sink.”

Diana is clearly scared of Caine, despite what she may have him and others believe. She is afraid of what he will do to her if he no longer wants her. So she refers back to her tried and tested defence mechanism. Give him some affection, in this case choosing him, and maybe he won’t hurt her. Maybe she’ll be ok. I think Diana went with him because she felt safe nowhere, but it’s better to stick with the enemy you know rather than the one you don’t.

5.) Diana’s Power:

And finally, we have Diana’s power. Much like Caine, I feel like Diana’s power is an extension of her personality. As we have established, Diana’s number one defence mechanism is manipulation, the ability the read people and use that against them. So it makes sense that she would have the ability to read people’s power levels. I don’t really have anything else to say about this, I just think it is an interesting observation that I wanted to note.

Thank you so much for reading, and I apologise, once again for the length. The next analysis I’m planning on writing up is Drake and then I’m not sure. I might do a few other separate ones, or I might do the rest of the characters in few big posts together. Let me know if there are any that you are particularly interested in seeing :)

#the gone series #diana ladris #Gone

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retrocontinuity · 3 years

Text

rev, rev, fight the power: thoughts on the first half of chainsaw man

Spoilers through the end of the Bomb Girl Arc.

Devil Hunting in the Age of Fascism

As one of the cohosts of a podcast on Gundam Wing in 2020/2021, I've been thinking a lot about how authoritarian regimes and the concept of societal control is treated in anime. Which is to say: usually in a very limited sense, and based on the actions of a few bad actors, as demonstrated with its effects on a few unfortunate protagonists. It's not that creators don't care about the issue, but rather a sign that the genre (and yes, I do consider manga/anime to be a genre more than just a medium, but that's for another time) and its conventions are not particularly well-suited to showing you those effects.

So, Chainsaw Man. On an individual character level, Fujimoto has some stuff to say about the choice between death and life, and I do want to talk about that and what it says about the characters and what life means in CSM. But it's hard to tell whether or not he meant to create a world with some really fucked up institutions too.

For instance, the civilian, non-public sector Devil Hunters. These appear to be explicitly authorized by the Japanese government, to the point where it is a crime for the Public Safety division's hunters to kill a devil that a civilian is in the process of capturing. They don't have guns (this is Japan!) and I imagine they are only allowed to kill Devils, but just, like, think about this. What if you kill someone else in the process of trying to kill a Devil? What if you suspect someone is a Fiend but actually they're just acting weird? What if you kill someone, then claim later it's because you thought they were a Devil?

This is likely the American in me talking, but I can’t help thinking about how badly this would be abused and how horrible an idea that would be. And I can’t help but think about how the Devils allow the world of CSM to separate fears from human nature. By which I mean, in the world of CSM, evil is otherized in a very specific way; they’re represented by very individual, very distinct, and very monstrous representations. Here is the fear of scissors, the fear of sharks, the fear of the future, and so on. But in the real world, we know it isn’t just fear itself that is the problem; it’s people, well-meaning or otherwise, animated by those fears that create the most evil, or people harnessing those fears to gain power. This may be unfair—I don’t know what Fujimoto has planned for Makima, whose mythos and power seems very much wrapped up in the idea of using Devils to her own advantage. But there’s an assumption here that all actions taken towards eradication of the Devils, or maybe just one Gun Devil, is a de facto good. And in 2021, that’s a very unnerving position to take.

Death in Chainsaw Man is a sacrifice. In these early arcs of the series, death is a "contract," an expending of activation energy to achieve something else. So Pochita gives Denji life (which is really a contract repaid, for when Denji gave him life), so the Devil Hunters "trade" something in a contract with a Devil for power (like Aki giving away literal years of his life to his curse sword), so Denji dying to the Eternity Devil would have freed the rest of the team. But there are plenty of deaths in the series where nothing is traded, nothing is given. These tend to be nameless victims or, in one harrowing scene, convicted felons who die at the hands of Makima as she chases down Katana Devil.

What did they gain? What was the contract formed by the deaths of these 雑魚?

Makima says at some point when she's attacking the gangs that are affiliated with the Katana Devil that "the truly necessary evils are always kept collared and controlled by the state." Which I think is at its face about the fiends and Devils kept “collared” by the Public Safety Bureau. But maybe it’s also about the idea of sacrifice, about giving yourself over to the state, in order to control a world thrown into chaos. The contracts formed by the deaths of those ordinary citizens is meant to bring about an eradication of fear. It gives birth to the Public Safety Devil Hunters, to Devil Hunters in general, to the use of whatever means necessary to achieve an end. But whatever those consequences are, we only see them in the fates of Denji, Chainsaw Man, and the impossible characters around him.

A state under threat, a state that feels like it must collar evil in order to survive, will have ruinous consequences. I just hope we get to see what those are.

Just A Teenage Dirtbag, (Bomb) Baby

I read some reviews about Denji being the anti-shounen shounen manga hero which I can presume were written by people whose only frame of reference is Bleach, Naruto, or One Piece. Sure, the Big Three were, in their most simplistic forms, feel-good series, and CSM's first half is basically a feel-bad series, but that hardly makes it unusual. It's really not dissimilar from other manga like Homunculus, Freesia, and Oyasumi Punpun. Of course, only old fogies like me, who still remember getting scanlations of these series off of IRC, and query, of course, whether or not those series are shounen at all, or more like seinen. If it were up to me to name the genre, and of course it is not, I would call it “simply another line of stories about fucked up things happen to fucked up people.”

Many fucked up things have happened to Denji. I’d call it traumatic, but I don’t think “trauma” covers what this poor man has been through. The effect, though, has been to make Denji less than human, even in his human form.

Denji and Power's nonchalance towards the fate of their human coworkers who die to Katana Devil and Sawatari is framed by the manga through Denji as a potential sign of callousness. Kishibe notes it as a sign that they are "insane," in other words, "not like other humans," and thus capable of bringing down something like the Gun Devil, which would otherwise drive "normal humans" insane.

But like, huh? Denji and Power's reactions are, on the contrary, extremely human, because there’s no reason for them to extend feeling towards other humans. Simply put, they’ve never been human to the humans around them. They seem to be bonded most closely to each other, and in fact almost all the Fiends are, because the wider Public Safety employees treat them so poorly. Remember how the Infinity Devil Arc starts? Basically, they're told to be the advance guard, and threatened to be killed if they ever act out. Denji is kept on a short leash, and is so proud (in front of Reze) that he's allowed to go places on his own now.

Which, I'm not saying that that's wrong. Denji is incredibly dumb, holds monstrous power that could easily be tricked into using for horrible purposes, and appears to be the target of a number of Gun Devil's allies. Power is... well. I wouldn't let her out of sight either. But what Makima does that makes Denji feel so loyal, so utterly tied to her, is simply treating him as a human. She convinces him he has a heart, just like any other human. She tells him about all the love experiences he'll have in the future, because he's just a human teenager. And just like Makima, Reze is able to bond with Denji by treating him like an ordinary 16-year-old horny boy. Is it because as a Devil she knows what he wants the most? What he is craving, and never had? It doesn't matter that Denji had been just an ordinary human before fusing with Pochita or before he began his life as a Devil Hunter; as an orphan growing up on the street, unwanted and unloved, he was no more human than a Devil.

The ending of the Bomb Girl Arc—with Denji asking Reze to run away with him, only to be stood up—reminded me so very much of Aku no Hana. There's the classroom scenes between Reze and Denji, of course, but mostly I think about how Denji—betrayed, injured, manipulated Denji—still asks Reze to run away with him. I'd written about Aku no Hana before, how one of the saddest things about Nakamura is that she cannot imagine a world beyond her current circumstance (and, in fact, the manga ends up dooming her to stagnation). Denji and Reze are Nakamura and Kasuga's perverse mirror. It is because Denji doesn't have the capacity to imagine a larger world beyond his immediate now, three meals a day and a job and this woman who taught him how to swim, that he asks her to do this impossible thing, to run away with him knowing that to do would mean both of them betraying their masters. It is because Reze knows that it is impossible that she does not meet Denji at the cafe. Reze is more human than Denji, because she is capable of dreams, and because she is capable of dreaming, she knows she cannot afford their luxury. She knows too much about the world and its cruelty. And, so, she walks straight into its open maw, and straight into her death.

I don't think we can take Reze at her word that she wanted to be a town mouse, or rather we should say instead that Reze proves that the division between the town mouse and the country mouse is immaterial. The issue is that both, in the end, are only mice, dreaming of a safety they can never achieve. Safety, in the world of CSM, is neither town mouse nor country mouse. It is to not be mice at all. It is to be the dog that digs them out from the cold winter dirt.

It is, in fact, to be Makima, the person who orders the dogs to kill the mice.

Denji, aim for the top! Transcend the town mouse/country mouse divide! Or else you will constantly be hunted and used!

(Side note: CSM goes at a break-neck pace, and I think the speed through which Fujimoto rushes through these early storylines has made it very difficult for me to actually connect with the characters. Reze and Denji’s relationship is one of the victims to this pacing. Do I believe that Denji could fall for a girl and be willing to risk it all for her after about 3 chapters worth of interaction? Sure, he’s that kind of guy. But does it work for me? Not particularly. We’ve hardly had time to linger with Reze before she swears she’ll protect Denji forever, as long as he’ll run away with her. Though the reader at that point knows there’s something off about Reze, it’s still just not believable. Reze’s actions seem like someone trying to bulldoze her way into Denji’s affections, and though she herself is a bittersweet character, I just really feel like CSM could have spent less time with Bomb Devil vs Chainsaw Man and more time with Reze and Denji.)

No Ethical Women Under Capitalism

The Eternity Devil arc, for all its mini-boss game feel (it wouldn’t be out of place as one of the floors in Tower of God), struck a nerve with me, if only because it felt, however unintentionally, to be a story about working under modern capitalism. A floor you can never leave, that loops endless, where the only way to escape is to destroy it, literally, from the inside, by making it so painful, an eternal feedback loop of destroying ourselves and destroying it, before it opens its heart to us. The Capitalism Devil threatens us, tries to tear us apart. Asks us to sacrifice the strongest, the weakest, anybody among us, as if by climbing over the bodies of our friends and coworkers, we can come out ahead. It makes us suspicious of each other, ready to tear into any weakness for an advantage.

No wonder this is the chapter where Kobeni lays bare her reasons for joining the Public Safety bureau. She needed to work, to make money. Her options were to be a sex worker or a Devil Hunter. Either way, she was selling her body to the system. Kobeni is a victim of capitalism, which forces her to do what she hates, for goal that are not hers, and then gaslights us into thinking that she’s wrong for being crazy, she’s wrong for losing her shit, for not being able to handle it.

But... that's an asspull for me, even if it's my ass and I'm the one pulling. I'm truly not sure how to feel about Kobeni. Like, what is her deal?! I’m not sure what to make of her appearance in Chapter 20 in her sister’s hand-me-down. Are we supposed to pity her? See ourselves in her? Even in what I think was intended to be a mic-drop-ish line (at least for her), telling Aki that she didn’t quit because she was waiting on her bonus, landed flat for me, too deadpan to be pathetic and not sharp enough to be actually funny. Part of it may be because she is a character very much shaped by her circumstances as opposed to her personality or any interaction/action she does onscreen, but we don’t actually see her family situation in these chapters. We’re left with a painfully shy and cowardly woman who can’t seem to form any human connections with any of the other characters, who in multiple scenes is shown caving to the slightest pressure or threat.

Do the rest of the women fare any better? I’m not sure. Kobeni is unique in that she does not use her gender/sex appeal to manipulate the men around her and/or Denji (even Power lets Denji cop a feel to get her cat back!). Himeno, Makima, and Reze all hide their intentions for Denji behind the veil of his attraction to them (weak or strong) and are either unable or unwilling to be forthright in their desires and ambitions (Himeno to care for Aki; Reze, to accomplish whatever mission Gun Devil had her set out to do; and Makima, for fuck do I know at this point, but she’s up to something!!). Meanwhile, the men are straightforward to a fault. Did Fujimoto intend this? Is this just a subconscious reveal of his own conceptions of gender and Bitches Be Weird?

I’m not a person who needs to have a strong female narrative in a story, but when you start a story with a protagonist whose life ambition for many chapters was just to feel a boob, you better be careful, you know? CSM doesn’t lack for women; Makima and Power are both formidable characters in their own rights, self-assured and unbeholden to anyone but themselves. But so far almost every arc has featured a woman offering herself to Denji sexually in order to get him to do what they want. It’s getting real old real fast.

#chainsaw man #reading too deeply into the text

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jenroses · 3 years

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So 30 years ago today I almost died of a massive saddle pulmonary embolism caused by birth control pills and medical ignorance.

I went undiagnosed for 3 weeks despite telling every medical provider I saw from the moment I asked if it would be safe for me to take the pill, "my mother had a pulmonary embolism while pregnant, and then 2 more after she lost the baby."

I was told "It's not genetic" even though they just didn't know yet... Most coagulopathy that is genetic had not been figured out yet.

When I first told a care provider I got short of breath walking to the store, and that my mother had had an embolism while pregnant, and that I was on birth control pills, she said, "you're obviously depressed."

When I told the student health clinic that I was horribly short of breath just sitting up in bed and that I was concerned because my mother had nearly died of an embolism while pregnant and I was on birth control pills, they diagnosed me with asthma and bronchitis, gave me antibiotics and an inhaler, and said, "sleep here so we can keep an eye on you overnight."

I took the meds as directed and lay there desperate for oxygen and waited for the nurse to come back so I could tell her that the meds were not helping. She never came back.

The next morning I dragged myself to the nurse's office and she wasn't there, so I used her phone to call my mother who said, basically, "why are you messing around with the student health clinic, go to the ER and tell them they need to rule out a blood clot."

The ER did not, in fact, rule it out.

A vq scan and angiogram later, they have me a then-experimental clot buster and told me not to move for 12 hours. I recovered most of my lung oxygenating capacity, eventually. I did not recover my ability to manage college effectively long term.

17 years later I had another embolism, and asked about the drug I've been given, and they said, "we don't use that for this. People are never quite the same, after."

If my first instinct had been to go to the ER and ask them to rule out a clot, i probably would not have needed that drug at all. Because the clot would have been so much smaller.

The entire time it was happening, I tried to minimize it, because I'd always been told that I made too much of things, that I just wanted attention.

What has been demonstrated time and time again in my life is that if anything, I routinely downplay how bad things are.

So a moment to be frank about my current health: it's not good. The ra is bad enough that we're far down the list of treatment options. The current drug is requiring me to take other meds to quell my reaction to it and this week it started wearing off on day 5, I did everything I do to prevent migraines, and I still developed an immediate headache.

RA is not usually considered "terminal" but it does shorten lives and my case... The numbers are very bad and my response to treatment has been mediocre to terrible. I have not been fully off steroids for more than a few months in 4 years.

This is not a request for money or fundraising. I'm blessed to have a secure home and double insurance. I'm not alone. I have a supportive spouse, caregivers who knows how to quarantine properly who take my health seriously, and most of the adaptive equipment that could possibly do any good and a source for the stuff I don't have yet.

What this is a request for is to take yourself and your health seriously.

If a doctor doesn't know why you are having symptoms or the treatment doesn't help, it's okay to say, "if you don't have an answer, please send me to a specialist."

If you think you know what might be the problem, challenge them to rule it out.

If they ask why you want the diagnosis, say, "obviously I don't want to be right, but I'd rather know what I'm dealing with so we don't try to treat the wrong problem." (The albuterol was probably dangerous given what it does to heart rate and blood pressure, with the massive clots.)

It may help to act a little bored by it. "I know this might be nothing but given my risk factors we don't get to guess."

They only get to decide it's anxiety or depression when they rule out more life threatening causes. I have both, partly because of, you know, The Medical Trauma. But sometimes something being seriously wrong will have anxiety or depression as a side effect. Most of the people I know with RA had new anxiety months before diagnosis.

The thing I heard the most?

"Oh, you're too young for an embolism!"

What they didn't know is that at the time I had two genetic risk factors on top of the pills. I now have several additional acquired risk factors. But the science wasn't there yet, and I had not been diagnosed yet.

I'd had four embolisms before we learned about the second genetic issue that makes me particularly likely to have multiple embolisms.

There's no tidy ending. One of my many health issues will probably get me sooner or later. I had to break it to my kid the other day that yes, I've been such his whole life and it's not looking like it's getting better but it's only getting worse slowly. He has no memory of me well. Sometimes I think I have no memory of that, either.

#medical trauma #pulmonary embolism #miscarriage mention #long post #reblogs okay

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sumeshi-t · 4 years

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past or present— a haikyuu smau

[oikawa x y/n x atsumu]

a/n: hi !! here we have sum words in between pictures 😔🤘🏻

part 10 > part 11 > part 12A | nav.

you place your phone down on the bedside table, sighing as you watched streaks of sunlight enter through the partially opened blinds.

to be honest, you didn't know what got into your head that made you say those words to atsumu. were you always this impulsive? no, not really. you preferred thinking things through.

perhaps deep inside, you just wanted to find out for yourself what it is that you really feel for the blonde miya, and what he genuinely felt for you too.

it wasn't that you wanted to settle down, or be in a committed relationship anytime soon. it's just that you felt like something was missing in your life even after treating your profession as your spouse. maybe you're just not used to all the flirting anymore. or maybe you were getting old, preferring a more direct approach to trivial matters like this.

trivial... matters? is this really something a person could call trivial?

the early morning thinking made your stomach grumble, prompting you to get off the bed to have breakfast.

'i'll save my appetite for later,' you thought before randomly pulling a bag of bread, then absentmindedly began eating its contents. as soon as you recognize the fluffy texture and creamy taste, a brunette setter flashed through the recesses of your mind.

you look down, noticing that indeed, you were eating milkbread. you faintly remembered how he–oikawa tooru–had once given you a whole month's supply of the food to help in increasing your height. his reasoning was ridiculous, but nonetheless, your dork of an ex was someone you really couldn't resist. 'is that why i was so helpless when we... when he broke up with me?'

just in time, your phone rang, snapping you back into attention. it was atsumu.

"hello?"

"y/n... you weren't kidding when you said you were gonna go here, right?"

that was the first time you heard a hint of hesitation in the usually cool, sure-of-himself, atsumu. the thought made you chuckle. "mhhm, i'll be there a little bit before lunch. what food do you want?"

you hear osamu's voice from a distance saying, "leave that to me,"

"well, you heard him. if you're worried he's gonna stick around later, i'll kick him out."

this makes you gasp, feeling a bit embarrassed of yourself for forgetting to consider his twin, "oh! is he gonna be there later? i... i thought he was gonna go work or... something..." you hiss at the end, slowly regretting your decision.

"yep, he has work don't worry." there was a brief pause and then, as he speaks, you could see it in your head that atsumu was smirking through the receiver; the smirk that seemed to have been embroidered on his handsome face since birth.

"you seem pretty dead set on getting me alone, y/n. why?"

you blush, cheeks heating up with all the blood that suddenly rushed underneath your skin. "b-because! i-it's... it's kind of like a date, right? why, are you two like a package since you're twins?" you berated yourself for stuttering (he was going to tease you for that later, that's for sure). at the same time, you heard something like a pot lid dropping to the floor.

"is... everything okay back there?"

"yeah, samu's fine,"

"...i'm on speaker, aren't i,"

"yep." atsumu pops the last syllable, then proceeds to not put you on speaker anymore. he took an intake of breath, you assumed he was stretching as he asked, "any movies you'd like to watch?"

you sighed, trying to tone down the feeling of embarrassment from the joke you made about the twins, hoping osamu would put it behind him. instead of dwelling on that, you answer atsumu's query, "just nothing too obnoxious, horror is fine, please no porn, cute animated ones are also good, i'm not really that picky with movies." you listed your terms as you get a glass of juice.

atsumu chuckles, snarky comeback ready, "but you do seem picky with the people you date,"

"that, i won't deny."

"and it's a valuable trait to have, right? besides, i think we're both making a good pick here."

you hum for an answer, before taking a quick sip, 'damn it, he's too good at this,' you thought, biting your lip at having been unable to come up with a retort.

atsumu notices that you haven't said anything so, with a soft smile that you couldn't see, he says, "well, i'm not gonna hold you up for long. see you later, y/n."

"osamu just chatted to ask if the food was okay. he's so sweet. i said the food was great. sooo, think you can bring those to training some time?" you say, before shooting a potato chip into your mouth.

you only brought some snacks–basically, junk–for when you two watched movies.

atsumu raises his brow, leaning back comfortably on his side of the sofa. you peep at him when he doesn't respond, then teasingly grins. "atsu, don't tell me: are you jealous i called your brother sweet?"

his ears became a little pink and he aggressively picks the remote up, "why would i be?" he murmurs under his breath. his reaction made you chuckle, before reaching out for his phone. "Ciri, pick a number between one and 20,"

"nice choice, perfectly fitting." atsumu remarks, after putting "50 first dates" on to play.

"right? because this is like our first–no, second–date. unless of course, you forgot about that already."

"i don't have short term memory loss, atsumu."

"no, keep calling me atsu. you're the only one who calls me that." he winks, before digging his hand into the bag of chips atop your lap.

the rest of the movie marathon afternoon was spent by laughing over the same jokes together, you getting emotional at any scene that made you feel emotional, with atsumu making sure to give you tissues and a bowl of ice cream to calm you down.

first, the two of you began the marathon sitting on either end of the sofa, and gradually, things began to get a little chaotic when the both of you became comfortable with each other; such as your feet on atsumu's lap, turning into atsumu sprawled on the floor with his arm on your leg, while you were on the couch, lying on your belly.

to be honest, atsumu spent more time watching you than focusing on the movies on the screen. he could watch them anytime he wanted to, but to observe you up close, and just being around you, your presence just for himself–atsumu felt that it was a once in a lifetime thing, and knew he shouldn't take this moment for granted.

there were more times he's caught himself smiling at you, whether it was when you got scared from a jumpscare (wherein you then laughed at him for flinching, and he ends up defending himself that it was your screaming that shocked him); or when you couldn't control the outburst if your loud laugh and snorting.

'i wish time would stop.' atsumu thinks. 'from here on out, what will become of us?'

sure he seems confident on the outside, but the truth is, this pro athlete is not much of a pro when it comes to dating. he's never really been interested in the prospect of romance, probably because he was surrounded by those who squeal in joy at the sight of him, and getting one would have probably come in easy for him. he even remembers calling his female fans as pigs (even though they were kinda cute–but they were ruining his game! well fuck, that doesn't matter now)

but you? oh y/n, he never said he didn't like a challenge.

now... should he be more direct than he already was? he was sure that he wanted you for himself, but... 'does y/n even want me that way? does she want... anything like that with me?'

it was suddenly quiet, as he immersed himself into his thoughts, losing track of which movie it was you were watching. atsumu took a quick glance at you, only to see that you were fast asleep, head on the edge of the seat. somehow you two ended up switching places, you on the floor and him on the couch.

all his previous thoughts were gone, your peaceful face giving him... peace.

his gentle fingers nimbly brushed a few strands of your hair out of your face. he inches his face closer, his lips just a few inches from your forehead, before you stirred in your sleep.

atsumu gave you one last look before pulling himself away. he smiles to himself, eyes intent on you.

then, he finally notices your horrible position on the floor, which was sure to give you either a back ache or a stiff neck if he was just going to let you be. atsumu sighs, shaking his head.

an idea pops into the blonde setter's mind, causing him to smirk. quickly, he reaches for his phone that was on the couch, swiped open the camera, before looking for a cute angle of yours and grinned at successfully taking a photo of you sleeping soundly without waking you up.

satisfied with his little victory, atsumu finally bends down, carefully wraps his strong arms around your form, and carries you to his shared bedroom. atsumu lays you down on his messy bed (because, he wasn't being possessive, it's just that there was no way he was going to let you end up on his twin's bed).

he took his brother's neat bed, and just let you sleep, toss and turn, while he would toss a ball while lying down. when he grew tired of doing so, and you had your back turned to him, atsumu just pulled his phone out once more and checked the photo he took.

atsumu gently smiles, "i'm so stupid... there's no need for us to rush, am i right y/n?" he murmurs softly, knowing you wouldn't be able to hear him anyway.

for now, he was just going to take his sweet time.

taglist: @tamcitrus @nerdyphantomlady @haikyuuincorrect @aurorahoneybuns @zoppzoop @takingyouruwus @jesquisser @blushinggray

#haikyuu #haikyuu smau #oikawa tooru x reader x atsumu miya #oikawa tooru #atsumu miya #miya atsumu #kuroo tetsurou #kenma kozume #bokuto koutarou #akaashi keiji

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flyingfoxwriter · 3 years

Link

Whispers, they echoed around; before, deadly silence. The only thing he had been able to feel was coldness, a horrible iciness, gripping all his being. Then, slight pain, added to the one of blood loss. Finally, warmth, intense at first, controlled after.

But that warmth changed. With more whispers he could not recognize, it stopped being familiar and committed.

The ghost had let go of him, leaving him to rest inside the workshop instead.

“I can’t be here when he wakes up.”

Arthur could not hear him, still fainted, but safer inside Lance’s office. The warmth his arms had provided in the night was now given by Mystery’s fur, who rested as weakly behind the blond. Both had sustained deep wounds, and had not yet woken up.

For him, it was a good thing, but not for her.

“You should be here, Lewis.” Their voices echoed, only them capable of distinguishing their hurt tonality and emotion. As she held onto his ghostly arm, they both exchanged a deep look, one they had not been able to share before. “I want you here. I need you.”

His name, it echoed inside the room, a hand stirred.

“You shouldn’t, Vivi. Look around you, at them. I did this. I don’t belong here.” Another stir, as she took a few steps closer while he snarled. “He certainly won’t want me near, he shouldn’t either.”

“First, there was also that scissor maniac. Second, I’ve just remembered you and your death. Lastly… he was looking everywhere for you.”

“So was I. So much, so fervently that I could even lose sight of you, Vivi. I wanted him dead, more than giving you my heart.”

“Do you really think you can become someone he’ll call-“

“Yes. Much more than that; I hunted him down, I will surely be in his nightmares. He was mine, in my fiery grasp, as I-“

“You let me fall.”

Both Lewis and Vivi jolted, hearing that whisper. Slowly, they turned to look back at the far corner; there in the dim light, the big kitsune on the ground, and on him… not a sleeping figure, but a very awake and alert one.

Lewis shuddered, pierced by those two lost distrustful eyes. Arthur was still resting against Mystery’s side, but he had already assumed a tense position. His expression was more confused than furious, but the hurt was there.

Arthur only looked away from the ghost in the shadows to do one thing. He moved his only available hand and reached for his own chest. His disoriented grimace only intensified, when he could not find the hole in his chest, the one he had felt and seen before blacking out. He lost sight of those ghostly eyes in the pain, and now he could not feel them on him anymore as he regained consciousness.

Lewis had averted his gaze. Before Vivi could say anything, he had floated slightly away, his hand grabbing what had been beating on a desk. She had assembled what was left of his locket, the only one daring to reach for it, as she once had tried to do when she first saw him.

And now, as Arthur looked frozen with no understanding of what happened, Lewis tried to leave.

He couldn’t. Vivi did try to get a grasp of his arm as he tried to phase through a wall, but it was another thing that made him halt dead on his tracks.

“Why.”

So many questions, in just one word: Why was he not dead? Why was he? Why had he pursued him, only for him to try to kill him?

There was nowhere to run here. He was cornered, battered, and Vivi would not be of much protection if the ghost really wanted to lunge on him. The intent had been there, fiery and unyielding. Yet… Lewis was not doing anything but look away. Even his ghostly form had shifted, to show his former self, the same sight Arthur had seen before plummeting.

Arthur’s heart was beating impossibly fast; still heartbroken, impossibly lost, wondering if all was just a nightmare, or just another pause in the chase, just thanks to her presence.

It’s down to me to fix it.

Vivi did not miss how Arthur flinched when Lewis moved next. He sunk back into Mystery’s fur when those ghostly eyes fixed on him again. But the fainted Kistune did not offer much solace as the ghost advanced towards him.

“Arthur.”

Right then, there was no doubt he had not dreamed seeing this ghost as Lewis. He was seeing it right now, again. The friend he was desperately looking for was right there, looming over him. Part of him expected him to reach for his collar to yank at him again, perhaps fire to shoot downwards like it did for the tire of his van… and part of him expected the familiarity of his slow crouch, the look he gave him next.

Gone was the skull; eye to eye, Lewis whispered, as Arthur seemed to stop fearing.

“I’ve been dead for a while.” Lewis did something he himself had not expected to do before. With a hesitant glance, he grasped his locket, and let it rest in his hand for Arthur to reach for, this time willingly. “I tried to kill you.”

It was no illusion. Arthur brushed again his chest, now recognizing some scars in the dim light. Then, he looked at that shattered heart, which had seemed to be pieced together. His only hand moved after some seconds of contemplation; Vivi had moved closer, and was now looming behind Lewis, with the most pained look he had ever seen on her face. Her eyes oversaw it all as his hand finally clasped onto the locket, a shiver running down his spine as he brushed Lewis’ fingers.

“You did.” Arthur held again the locket, and once more he opened it. The picture was there, as torn as the pieces, as well glued together. The smiles were still visible however, so contrasting to the grimaces the three now wore. “Do you hate me that much?”

“No. I do not; you surviving that night is not what has made me hurt you.” Arthur truly was struggling to understand, as Lewis now looked nothing like his ghostly self, but like the friend he had always known, just seemingly heartbroken as he spoke. “I can’t hate you, not now, perhaps not ever. I thought I did; but I did not know who my enemy truly was.”

A shake of head, a choked whisper.

“I don’t understand, Lewis.”

“I know.” Lewis looked over his shoulder, afraid. He met her blue eyes, which once had been tinted pink. “No words may help you do so.”

She whispered, slightly hesitant, but sure that the truth was much better than believing Lewis would want him dead just for living, for such a petty reason.

“He should know. If he wants to…”

She understood if Arthur perhaps preferred to move away; she would stay by Lewis instead.

It was the ghost who showed most reluctance; he could see Arthur try to puzzle together all he knew, of that night and this one. But there were too many pieces missing. He believed in an accident, but… he could never imagine a murder mystery. A murder he had not committed, but that he could blame on himself if he ever discovered that he had not slipped and fallen.

“Arthur.” He met his eyes again, even though the locket was pulsing impossibly rapidly in his hand. He warned, his former friend finding himself listening. “I can show you the reason of me becoming what you have seen and are seeing now. However… if I do, I need you to do one thing.”

The blond gulped, noting the deadly serious look in those gleaming eyes.

“W-what?”

“Do not dare blame yourself.”

Those words, they triggered a reaction instantly. Arthur’s face showed a deep grimace, his eyes narrowing suspiciously; but it was not directed to Lewis, but to himself.

“You… fell in that place. You did…” Arthur held his head, seemingly doubting his own words, something screaming inside him. His heart, which had recently felt so cold, seemed to beat with something unlocked, but still blurred. “You did, didn’t you…?”

Arthur shivered, for Lewis raised one hand. It loomed over his eyes, but stayed there, not daring to descend onto them.

“I won’t show you if you don’t promise. I rather be the one you hate the most.”

Instead of himself.

“How can you…” His memory, it was full of flashes of green, something that was slowly seeping, making him recall painfully. It was making him fear much more than Lewis could have ever had. “P-please don’t make me promise.”

All the wariness he had felt was gone. Lewis tried to move away after his words, but he found himself stopped. He shivered when Arthur leaned fast and latched his only hand on his suit, keeping him there as he asked with a haunted gaze.

“Show me.” Lewis leaned slightly away, but that only made Arthur beg. “P-please, Lewis.”

His name was said with familiarity, affection. It was not whispered with shock, incredibility and fear. That made him decide that the truth would allow for a future in which he could mend things, even if slowly and painfully.

Arthur did tremble as he placed his hand onto his eyes, but did not flinch away. Slowly, a violet fire began to spark from it, but he did not cower. The fear was there, but it was not for his ghostly capabilities, but what they would allow him to see.

Vivi knew now those violet hues. However, this time they brought clarity, not blindness. Still she wished she did not know what Arthur would see, and that none of them had to ever know of it. It should have never happened.

As the light grew, Lewis closed his own eyes. He did not have the strength to see them sink into Arthur’s.

For both were now seeing what he saw, all through his former living eyes. The cave, the mist; the sound of a dash, the feel of a hand pushing on his back. The rush of air, the last sight of a sharp smirk from above. A spike, blood. His grieving resentful heart pulsing to give birth to his wraith, a ghost. Then, all that he had seen, just in another perspective. His coffin opening, his chase, Vivi being taken away, the truck, the crash and his last grip on him over ghostly spikes.

Then… the grasp. The cold icy grasp of what had made him dash that night, this time capable of much more thanks to his dying breaths. The lashes, the leers, the murderous intent. Their hold, their hits. Eyes full of malice, but then cowardice. Release… then silence; regretful painful silence. His body safe in their grasp, much more caring that what had made him move.

Those visions, not his own, but so representative of his actions. When they ended, he could still feel the coldness, what had kept him oblivious and blind.

Violet hues fading, his eyes returned to normalcy. For normalcy was now always one of horror, terrible wonder.

Lewis was not surprised to hear Arthur gasp and hold his own head, finally releasing his tight hold. Even Vivi leaned to reach for his shoulder, to keep him from slumping in lightheadedness.

With deep breaths, he was trying to stop seeing blurry, reach some clarity. But clarity was still so terrible, so cold to embrace.

As cold as him.

“Lewis, I-“ A hiss, the sight of his own body dashing forward, overlapped in a cave and right outside this workshop. “I ki-“

He did not let him finish. Arthur huffed, for Lewis lunged indeed. But instead of doing so like he had done before, he did so with a feeling much more pain inducing, more clear and real.

And Arthur… could move away; he could free himself from that hug, so easily. Lewis was holding him tight, close, yet trembling, hesitantly, knowing what he had done himself.

So his only hand moved once more, to return the embrace as Lewis let out a sobbed assuring whisper.

“You didn’t.”

He whispered too, tears much more clear than the black ones falling on him.

“Neither did you.”

An admission, no trace of blame. Vivi sighed, crouching there, able to do nothing but let them feel each other’s presence, let time begin to heal.

They were heartbroken, but hopeful as well.

#msa #mystery skulls #mystery skulls animated #I KNOW LAST CHAPTER'S ENDING WAS TOO MUCH #I TRIED TO SOFTEN IT. HAPPY?!#Please don't lynch me. This bat only knows how to write pain

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7team7 · 4 years

Text

Choosing Fate: Chapter 1

SUMMARY: Sakura’s peaceful life is disrupted when she learns of her imminent marriage to Sasuke, the handsome boy she had only ever seen at the public market. Arranged marriage AU. Rated M.

A/N: I love a good arranged marriage AU, but I feel like all of the ones I’ve read are powerful political/royal types of things? So I wanted to write one about normal people because that’s of course more common and somewhat related to my own family history and ~normal~ ss is always good Also no major specifics because I’m a lazy researcher and I’ll leave it open to readers. Just know it’s set in the Past lol and in a literal village none of that built up Konoha shit

Like a good and dutiful son, Sasuke accepted the news that he was to be betrothed soon with a simple bow of his head. It had happened to his brother years ago, it was bound to be his time soon too. He would respect his parents’ choice. It’s all he really could do. Itachi and Izumi were having trouble conceiving a child, but the Uchiha bloodline needed to be continued.

Even if he wasn’t particularly interested in getting married, he wondered what kind of girl she would be. Was it someone he knew? Was she smart? What did she look like?

But after delivering the news, his father began eating and there was no more conversation for the rest of dinner.

Girlhood. Short lived and usually more bitter than sweet. Her family was poor, but Sakura had a decent life, and she was grateful. But like any selfish teenager, there were things she still yearned for. She daydreamed of a handsome, kind husband sweeping her off her feet and she hoped for a big house where she didn’t have to feel like her mere existence was taking up too much space.

So when her parents sighed before eating dinner and said she was to be betrothed soon, her world simultaneously collapsed and expanded.

She couldn’t help the tears from slipping out and her voice cracked when she asked, “Does that mean I have to stop going to school?”

Her parents nodded, knowing how much her education meant to her. Her siblings had just gotten old enough to allow Sakura some relief and the time to attend school again. But it simply wasn’t possible to fulfill the duties expected of a wife and attend school at the same time.

Sakura continued eating her dinner at the table but she didn’t chatter away like she normally did. She looked longingly at her youngest sister, Moegi, so innocent and carefree. She wondered if Ino would be allowed to stay longer than Sakura had. When would Naruto get married? Sakura would soon be living with a new person, a new family — and there was nothing she could do. Her parents couldn’t manage her and her siblings for much longer. As the oldest daughter, it was her time.

Mebuki’s secrecy made Sakura feel even more on edge. She was itching to know at least one small detail about her future husband, but for some reason her mother would not budge. Sakura wondered if she was doing it to save her.

Sakura wallowed in her own misery the entire trip to the meeting place, imagining him to be horrible, ugly, poor, cruel, childish. Gone were her silly dreams of a romantic marriage of choice. She knew no one would ever come to save her. Maybe if she hated him enough, he would just disappear.

So when she was faced with Uchiha Sasuke as her future husband, she was pleasantly surprised. They’d hardly ever spoken, but at least he was easy on the eyes, even if he wore a frozen mask of indifference.

Sasuke tried not to let his reaction show on his face. He knew Sakura was younger than he was, there was no way she was ready for marriage! Why did his parents make such a decision?

He got his answer soon, as their parents wasted no time and began relaying the exact details of their betrothal:

They would be married in six months time. The Uchihas were more well-off than the Harunos and they would bring Sakura into their household. Fugaku knew of Kizashi as a respectable farmer and found Sakura suitable enough for Sasuke. Her education made her an attractive candidate, and Fugaku appreciated the way Kizashi never tried to present her on a platter to the Uchihas, unlike some other neighboring families. Fugaku’s hand could never be forced.

They were both once again painfully reminded of their birth order: the younger son was nearly disposable, and the oldest daughter could only be of use through marriage and domestic activities.

Young Sasuke hadn’t minded living in Itachi’s shadow. In fact, he thought of himself as the shadow. If he followed Itachi’s steps exactly, then that meant he was doing something right. But as he got older, he realized that his actions didn’t really matter because he could never top the favored first son and his seeming perfection. He was honestly surprised by his father’s careful consideration of a marriage candidate.

Sakura closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down; the resentment made her throat feel tight. She was always expected to take care of her younger siblings, and now she was being given away to another family to make room in her house. Would she ever have a choice? Did her life even matter?

They were left to speak alone, although they both sensed their chaperone-parents lurking just around the corner.

“Uchiha-san,” she nodded.

“Haruno-san,” he returned.

They knew of each other, but had only ever exchanged a few words at the market. He’d seen her haggle with the toughest of merchants and successfully bring down the price of medicinal herbs. Sakura had watched him move with effortless grace throughout the market. He bought salt from her once.

And of course he noticed her appearance — pink hair and green eyes were hard to overlook. She was pretty, but he would never admit that.

And Sakura felt a little something like betrayal when the blush crept up her face. She had told herself to feign indifference, her own little form of rebellion, but how could she ignore someone like Uchiha Sasuke? But despite any of his attractive traits, he still represented the ultimate death of her freedom.

They stood next to each other, nearly a foot apart, in silence for ten more minutes until their parents came to collect them.

“You’re lucky,” her mother reminded her on the way home. “He’s handsome and only a few years older than you. You will never be poor again. I’m sure he will make a fine husband.”

“You’re lucky,” his mother commented when they returned to their house. “She’s a lovely girl, smart and beautiful. Be kind to her.”

A/N: Umm I know I keep saying I'll post/update one work then I do another instead LOL sowwy I cannot control this brain. I'm rating it M for now because hopefully I'll be able to include some spicy stuff but I'm /.\ shy so we'll see. I'm very busy but hopefully I can post updates sooner rather than later :)

#sasusaku #Sasuke Uchiha #sakura haruno #uchiha clan #my writing #fan fic #arranged marriage au

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alder-reid · 4 years

Text

Hot Ash Dead Match // Self Para

The interview was a blur.

He was muted, he knew, but the questions from Calix were muted too. Even his stylists seemed to have gotten the message- he’d been put in a dark, dull green suit and simple black button down. Quiet, humble, orderly. Hiding away the near fifteen pounds he’d dropped in two weeks, any relic of his traumas. Typically it would be full of prodding the Victor on the twists and turns of the Arena, but after his behavior his first time on-stage, they seemed to have set a very careful set of questions. Even if they had, Alder wasn’t going to yell again anyways- he was still tired, drugged, and lines of Peacekeepers were stationed at each side of the stage, at every entrance, ready to take him down again without abandon. He was tired. He’d already let people down. His thoughts were still fogged from the anesthesia from the days prior. He was escorted to a seat after Calix’s final call for applause, front and center, to watch the official Games recap. Though his time in the Arena was more prominently featured, all twenty-six tributes had moments, even the ones in the Bloodbath. It was painful seeing the people he cared about breathing and vibrant on the screen, despite the awful circumstances. Of course, all of Alder’s outbursts had been censored, too- it was like watching a completely different person that shared his face and voice walk through something that resembled his Games.

Alder did his best to keep his expression neutral as it played, but seeing Star smile, Memphis sing, and Marino show him magic tricks again made his chest ache with the emptiness of their loss and tears burn in his eyes. If he weren’t so drugged up, he certainly would have lost it in his seat, but he kept his jaw clenched and swallowed back tears for the cameras. It should be them. I should be dead.

What surprised him, though, was how much worse it was to see the people he did not know much about, the ones he’d killed, the ones he hadn’t bothered to get to know. First, Isabela. Smart, dangerous, every ounce as terrifying in her violent moments on screen as she had been in person, but then came Star’s death. Alder had expected it was an act of mercy of anyone apart from a Career. A cold chill poured down his spine as Isa approached Star, then... sat beside her. Held her. Sang her to sleep, before making sure Star didn’t feel the worst of it. Then the way she continued to hesitate. Continued to pity, continued to choose mercy over the torture she’d certainly been trained for since birth. Alder’s chest felt too tight, he’d seen her as nothing but a mindless, killing threat, but she’d been gentle, too. She’d done what he couldn’t for Star. Her pause over him on the final day had not been ineptitude, a lapse in judgement, as he’d assumed- it had to have been hesitation. Would she have shown him mercy if he’d given her the chance? Then Everett. He’d known about Delta, seen her flitting between stations at training and sulking in corners when the tributes were all forced to rally together. He hadn’t gotten to know her, hadn’t thought to. She was like him, didn’t stand a chance past the Bloodbath, he’d thought. He’d seen Everett as Career. Death obsessed. Lethal. With the girl from Four, though, he’d been soft. He’d abandoned the only alliance that might keep him alive and risked his own life again and again and again for her safety. Alder paled at the girl’s sudden, horrible death not long from the end. Could that have possibly been an accident, he thought? If Gamemakers controlled every detail of the Arena, what the hell was that? Then Everett walked her down to the sea. Gave her a goodbye. Alder had killed someone capable of such goodness, what did that mean? Memphis. That complicated everything. All of Everett’s kindness seemed to evaporate, any gentleness he once exhibited forgotten when he found Memphis on the beach. A fresh rage coursed through him, one he hadn’t felt since waking up, but it was accompanied by nausea. His only reaction through the entire ordeal that peeked through was that he had to turn away as Memphis died. He couldn’t watch that. A few tears did fall then, slipping through his fingers and down his hands. When he finally came back up, he was sure his eyes were red, but his hand went to his pocket. His fingertips found the last matchstick from Memphis, the piece of twine from Marino, still knotted, though they’d had to cut it from his finger to keep Alder from losing it. It only helped a little, but it was enough to collect himself. From there, he drifted, staring toward the screen, but mind only checking back in here and there to remind himself to shift a little, maybe change his expression a bit. He did not like the person he saw on the screen, the tribute with the anger in his eyes on the final day, who had lost his way. This was not what Alder had intended. This was not the Alder Reid from the interviews, from the early days in the Games. This was not a rebel, this was a tribute who had bowed to Capitol rule, played their game in his own cowardice and failures. After the final minutes of the Games closed and there was a roar of applause (had they not seen what he’d just seen?), he was escorted back on stage. Alder found himself eye to eye with Titaniara Battenberg, a golden circlet in her hands. Her eyes were coal-dark, calculating and cool. There was no joy in her expression, and Alder felt a lurch of contempt, of hatred so thick and ugly the world tilted for a split second. If he was a killer now, then he had no shame left in wanting her dead. If she did not want that, she should have never created him as Victor in her image. The circlet sank over Alder’s dark curls, too big for him, cold on his forehead. He’d burn the evil thing as soon as he was back in Seven. Then he’d plan to destroy her too.

#self para #122 #tw: death

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darkwoods-darkdreams · 4 years

Text

Imagine you’re helping to perform a ritual (II)

Weeks passed. You had lost count of how many days had passed. Only the meals you were given showed that time was actually passing. Usually it was some lower priest that delivered food to you on his own. Other times, the head priest would accompany them. He never stepped into the room they kept you in. He merely watched from the doorway. You never took the meal right away. You could wait until they left the room before you ate.

One day, however, just as the sun was setting, the head priest came by himself. He hesitated for a moment before stepping into the room. You sat with your back against the wall, not wanting to be close to him. You had trusted him the most out of everyone in the city and he had betrayed you. He had orchestrated this entire plot. He was the one that had decided you were a viable candidate for the torture of carrying the beast’s young.

He set the small tray down at the foot of the bed. You tensed. Something was wrong. You wouldn’t be able to reach it with the chain around your neck. There was a reason that he was withholding your food from you, especially when he needed you to survive and birth the pups the beast had put inside of you. If it was even half as nefarious as his plot against the witches, then you were in for a long, horrible night.

He closed the door, the loud noise causing you to jolt a bit. He wasn’t trying to be quiet. He turned to you, “On your back.”

You shook your head. It was too vulnerable of a position. You refused to give him any more of an advantage.

But he was losing his patience. He removed something from his robe, holding it out. A symbol of the church. He stepped forward.

At first, you wondered if he was scared of you. Perhaps he thought that you carrying a supernatural creature’s young had given you some sort of ethereal power. But no such thing had happened. It became clear once he took another step forward. Your womb clenched, rendering a cry of pain from your lips. The runes decorating your body glowed like a soft flame. You winced, tears forming in your eyes. It felt like your body was on fire. It wasn’t a reaction from you, but the young inside of you. They reacted poorly to anything holy. The beast was not of this world, after all. It shied away from anything that threatened its existence.

“Lie down,” He ordered, “Now.”

You shakily obeyed, your back arcing off of the ground as pain continued to course through your body. You watched as the head priest stood over you, the talisman in his hand swaying. He lowered his hand, the item moving closer to your swollen stomach. You screamed as the pain grew worse, the heat searing. The talisman twitched, having a reaction to the animals in your womb. After a long pause, he finally pulled the symbol away. He didn’t conceal it, leaving you in some discomfort, but it was better than the agony you felt before.

“There are three. A good gift for the beast,” He returned the talisman to its place around his neck, centered over his sternum. He nudged your legs apart with his foot. You didn’t have the energy to move. The pain was still sapping your strength. He knelt between your legs, lifting his robe.

You shook your head, looking away, “No, stop.”

“You’ve been in here for weeks,” He replied, the warmth and slight stickiness of his skin rubbing in circles over your distended belly. You didn’t need to look to know what he was doing, “They’re not growing at all. If you’re carrying three, then you should be getting bigger around the waist. But nothing is happening,” His fingers delved into your entrance, prodding without much gentleness. You groaned. You has to get away from him, but with the talisman visible, the pups were defensive. It would only get worse if you tried to lean forward and pull the talisman so you could throw it to the other side of the room, “But I suppose we haven’t been providing you with the proper environment to help them grow. They don’t feed on anything from the material world. Their father is summoned by war and sin. He feasts upon it,” Without warning, he forced himself inside of you. He grabbed your thighs, keeping your legs spread and angled back so he could bury himself to the hilt, “His children are the same.”

“Get off of me!” You shrieked, “Someone help me! Please!”

“Do you really think that anyone can hear you screaming in this dirty cell?” His thrusts were rough but slow. He didn’t want to put in much effort. The talisman swayed over your stomach, the runes lighting up beneath it, “No one outside of this church can hear you. And the other priests won’t dare stop me. I’m the one that has led them to salvation. They have served beneath me for years. They will not betray me. I could tell them to drink poison and they would gladly do so just because I ordered it.”

Tears streamed down your face and into your hair. Your breathing was ragged, your entire body tense in the presence of the talisman. Your muscles couldn’t move, your bones locked in place. Only the priest’s movements forced your legs to bend, but only slightly. The weight in your belly rocked back and forth gently, though it still tightened with every slight tilt of the talisman.

“So, this is the final thing I can offer those pups you’re carrying. Food and water does nothing. Time stands still for them. But perhaps my actions can spark their growth,” He moaned, a small heat spurting against your cervix. He hadn’t even withdrawn himself before your stomach grew. You screamed, horrified, as the runes were filled with a brighter light. The new weight pressed against your body. It was only a slight change, but you noticed it all too well. So did the priest. He laughed darkly, “I cannot give them war, but I can give them as many sins as it takes for you to birth them into this world.”

With that, he left, shutting the door behind him and surrounding you in darkness once again.

The next morning, the priests abandoned their usual schedule. Instead of providing you with some sorry excuse of a meal, they removed your collar and put a cloth bag over your head. At first, you wondered if they were taking you to some other location that they didn’t want you to know about. But the walk was too short. There was another purpose for it.

After walking for a few minutes, the creak of a door opening caught your attention. You were in some other room below the church. You didn’t know the way to get to the stairs and get out. You would get lost and someone would find you if you tried to run away. There were voices. Too many voices. They were people from the city. You struggled, not wanting to be naked in front of them. But the priests holding your arms continued to guide you forward. The whispers were too quiet for you to comprehend what they were saying, but you knew that the topic was centered on your nudity and your swollen belly. The priests leaned you forward, the shifting of wood trapping your head and wrists. A stock. You had seen them used in the city before. They held criminals in place so that they could be publicly ridiculed while also keeping them still. It was reserved for crimes that were considered socially unacceptable rather than dangerous in order to embarrass the offender into never repeating their actions. But this was different. With the bag over your head, no one would know who you were. The priests didn’t want anyone in the city to recognize you. Perhaps they would try to save you if they could see someone that they recognized rather than someone pregnant and covered in grime.

“This city is rotting,” The head priest began, “We are all dying from the inside out. Our sins are destroying us. Killing us. I have heard your concerns and I am here to provide you with a solution. I have brought you a vessel of evil and sin. By brandishing your sin and forcing it into her, you will be freed from your torment. You will see your sin be transferred right before your eyes. You will be cleansed. It is better for the city to be pure with the exception of one person, this woman. She had volunteered for this. She is willing to be a sacrifice for the sake of the city. Go on, rid yourself of your impurities.”

Silence. You almost sighed in relief that everyone thought that he was insane.

But someone shifted, moving closer to you. You quivered, trying to pull yourself from your bindings. Large hands settled onto your hips, keeping you still. Warmth spread over your back as the person leaned over.

“Say a word and I’ll remove that hood,” It was the head priest. He was trying to keep you quiet. If you tried to get someone to help you while still remaining anonymous, he would reveal your face. It was likely that he would make up some story about your pregnancy to bring more shame upon you. You would be brandished as something less than human. The entire city would either want you dead or chase you out, believing you to be a symbol of the cruel fate they feared so much.

He straightened, fabrics rustling before he buried himself inside of you. You couldn’t fight the cry of refusal that echoed in the chamber. Some members of the crowd gasped as he rolled his hips slowly and steadily. It would look as if he was bored with the spectacle or beyond lust, but you could tell that he was slipping. The end of each thrust was sharp, teetering on the edge of control. He was putting on a show for the people watching him, wanting to convince them that what he was doing would lead to their salvation.

“My sins will be her burden,” He explained, his voice level. His grip on your body became tight, nearly bruising as he stilled. You didn’t need to see to know what was happening. The runes on your body grew warm, then scorching against your skin. You groaned in pain, feeling the beasts in your womb grow. Your belly swelled to accommodate them. The crowd broke out into another bout of whispers. They had seen your body react to the head priest’s actions.

You could practically hear his smile as he removed himself from you, “My sins have been removed. And so shall yours.”

All at once, the people crowded around you. The priests carefully formed a queue, making sure that no one began fighting in an attempt to get to you. They had fallen for the trick so easily. They were so scared of the unknown that they would rather commit horrible crimes rather than not sinning in the first place. You knew that the city housed dark secrets and cruel people, but you didn’t think that so many felt guilty enough that they would force that blame onto you.

The first entered you, thrusting haphazardly. They were clearly in a rush to be rid of their sin as soon as possible. Or perhaps they had never had the opportunity to force themselves into something warm and soft. They finished quickly, your stomach growing once more. You had barely stopped swelling when the second stepped up and pushed inside of you.

You moaned, overwhelmed. There were so many people. You had lost count of how many there had been. They wouldn’t return for a second round, but it seemed that the line had no end. There were times that what was forced into your entrance felt inhuman. Cold. You supposed that there were someone without the proper anatomy to have you carry their sin, so they improvised. Or perhaps the church provided such instruments for them. It didn’t matter. Your womb reacted regardless of the instrument. Your back arched from the weight, your belly hanging low. Some held it as they came to release, wanting to feel their sin inside of you. The heat was rising, the beasts becoming livelier. You whimpered as the pups kicked and squirmed, pressing out against your skin. Your cervix was pressed from both sides at times, causing you to scream as your knees grew weak. There were some that were clearly aroused by the show, only inserting themselves and spilling their heat into your body before continuing on their way.

You could tell that your stomach had grown massive. The skin of your lower belly hit your thighs with the momentum of each thrust. The head priest had staged this on purpose. He wanted you to give birth and please the beast sooner rather than later. He was truly on a witch hunt, wanting to rid the city of anyone who opposed him. With the witches and their supporters gone, he would be one of the most influential people in the city.

Just as another person entered you and your belly finished growing, water gushed from your entrance. The walls of your womb clamped down. You howled in pain. The priest had succeeded. He would make his deal with the beast and he would get the supernatural power he desired.

But the line kept moving. Your contractions tore screams from your throat until you were hoarse. One of the pups finally moved into position, working its way down your birth canal. You bit your lip, tasting iron as you pushed when your body deemed it necessary.

“What?” The person currently inside of you withdrew, fingers delving into your entrance, “She’s giving birth. There’s no room.”

You could feel the fear in the rest of the queue. They spoke in hushed tones, but were becoming more and more scared by the second.

“Let me see,” Another stepped forward, shoving them away from you. They spread your open, wanting to see for themselves, “No, this can’t happen,” They pushed their hand inside, feeling the first pup halfway to freedom. You hissed, overfull. You just wanted to be done. But the people still waiting in line had more power. You gasped as the hand ascended, working further into your body and shoving the pup back. You could feel the legs bending, stretching you just below your cervix to give them more room to work with. The person behind you withdrew their hand, quickly using the ample space to empty themselves inside of you. You had hoped that the beasts wouldn’t reacted with them being so close to birth, but your hope was short-lived as the runes once again seared your skin. They were still feeding off of the treachery. The people continued, shouting at those who took a particularly long time with you. Any time you managed to wiggle the legs free, they were once again folding back against the bottom of your womb. You panted, trying to push despite being so tired. You were beginning to worry that, with so much growth, the pups would be too big for you to birth.

Finally, it seemed that the last person had had their turn, leaving you alone with the priests once more. Everyone else had the luxury of being able to go on with their lives and feel better about what had happened and what their future would hold. You were stuck with further torment.

“Please, let me out of this thing,” You pleaded between breaths as the hood was removed. You looked up at the head priest, “Please.”

But he made no move to free you. Even the priests that hesitated stopped when they saw that their leader wasn’t doing anything. You wilted, realizing that you would have to continue in such an awkward position. You shifted, trying to get just a bit more comfortable. You bared down with another contraction, the legs slipping from your body. You gasped for air. You couldn’t do it anymore. You were too tired. The legs shifted, moving upwards. You tensed, worried that someone was trying to push them back inside. It was another priest, trying to gently pull the pup from your entrance. But he yelped in pain and let go. The body was giving off steam, burning away the fluids it had been soaked in. You hadn’t noticed because the runes were still scorching hot. They wouldn’t be able to help you. You were on your own.

Somehow, you managed to keep going. You nearly passed out from the heat and the painful stretching. As soon as your head would loll to one side, you were doused with water in order to stay awake. You cried and screamed, desperate for it to be over. The first finally slid from your body, falling to the dirt between your feet. Your knees quivered, another wave of dizziness making you mind go blank. The pain and tension subsided, but only for a moment. The next creature moved into position, inching downwards with every weak push.

The room became hotter, the priests backing away from you. The beast had arrived, likely sensing that its young was about to be born. The first of its pups was already squirming around, whimpering. The beast nudged it gently. You could see it sit down in your periphery, patiently waiting for you to finish. You shut your eyes, trying to gather the rest of your strength and continue. Your wrists and neck were sore from being trapped in the stock. Your back ached, but it all paled in comparison to the heat of the runes and pups. You tried to angle yourself to have gravity help you, but it put pressure on your throat and kept you from breathing.

After what felt like an eternity, you were free. The beast had disappeared with its young. A priest opened the stock. You immediately removed your head and wrists, falling to the ground. The air felt cold compared to the heat you had suffered for what was probably hours. You lost consciousness.

When you woke up, you were back in your room. At home. For a moment, you wondered if everything had just been a dream. But when you pulled the sheets away and lifted your nightgown, the runes were still on your body. You quickly ran a bath, scrubbing the ink from your body. You would leave the city. You would never have anything to do with those involved. You could live in some quiet village.

You were halfway done when there was a knock at your door. You hastily dried yourself off and adjusted your clothes before answering it. It was two members of the city guard. You hesitated, unsure of their purpose, “…Good morning. Is there something wrong or-“

“We’ve received word that you are involved with dark rituals,” One of them stepped into your home, easily holding the door open when you tried to shut it. He grabbed your nightgown, yanking it upwards to reveal the runes you hadn’t removed.

“Wait,” You protested, “This isn’t- I wasn’t-“

“And now we have evidence. Such a thing is punishable by death. Fortunately, someone is willing to sponsor you. They will help you return to a life of purity.”

You noticed someone else step through. The head priest. You tensed. He had planned all of this. He had left the runes and then tipped off the guards so you would get caught. He would be named your guardian, but he would be more like a jailer. You tried to run, but the guard caught you, lifting you off of the ground. You screamed for help, as they pulled you into the street. Some had already left their homes when they heard the guards approaching, but no one tried to help you. They merely watched. They were all so afraid of what you were supposedly involved in that they didn’t bother to think if you were being falsely charged.

You knew that there was a reason for all of this. The head priest should have wanted to get rid of you, but instead he organized a situation where he could keep you and no one would question it. In fact, if you ever escaped, they would support you being brought back to him. He could only be planning one thing.

He wanted to use you again.

#bad ending route #fpreg #birth #non-con #human route #monster route #helping to perform a ritual #series

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magnoliasinbloom · 5 years

Text

Lullaby

AO3 :: Previously

Chapter 6

“Jamie, you don’t get it. I get sick just thinking about it.” True to my words, my stomach dropped like I was on an elevator. I nibbled on an apple as I held the mobile tightly, hiding in my closet again. Maybe I should just move in here and hide for the next nine months.

“Sassenach, dinna fash. This is one of the hardest things ye’ll have to do, ever. But once it’s over with—”

“I cannot even begin to think that this will be the hardest part. I seriously doubt that. What about later, you know, giving birth? Taking care of a newborn? I didn’t even play with dolls growing up!” Except my uncle Lamb’s Japanese netsuke dolls, but that was entirely different.

“Claire, ye ken ye can call me anytime. If they want to kick ye out—which I verra much doubt—I’ll pick ye up and ye can stay at Lallybroch. Okay?”

“Okay.” I sniffled. I’d called Jamie as soon as I got home after visiting Frank. He had been furious with him, so much so that I hoped Frank was lucky enough not to run into Jamie on campus. Chances were slim, but still. Jamie didn’t need to start a fight on my behalf, and certainly not one that would get him into a world of trouble. I had called him every night since then, and he offered me nothing but reassurance.

Frank’s sudden and complete lack of involvement filled me with dread whenever I thought of him—which was almost every minute of every day. We hadn’t talked at all since that night when he tried to convince me to get rid of the baby; remembering was enough to make me pulse with resentment, so I avoided the memory as much as I could.

He had been impossible to reach. His mobile was either shut off and went to voice mail immediately, or it rang endlessly and he did not pick up. He was avoiding me too, I knew. I considered calling from a different number, but the message was clear—he did not want to speak to me, he wanted nothing to do with me. With us.

And now I was on the verge of confessing to Mum and Dad to what extent I had betrayed their trust and their faith in my responsibility.

I really couldn’t put it off anymore. Mrs. Fitz, the manager at Waterstones, and my coworker Laoghaire had mentioned that I looked thinner. That was courtesy of the morning sickness. But I was bound to start swelling up any minute. The scale didn’t lie—I had dropped half a stone, but that couldn’t be healthy for the baby. It was too much to handle, and things were bound to start slipping through the cracks of my precarious sanity.

That Sunday night, all I could think about was how glad I was that I had work the next day, which served as a great distraction. No matter what, I had someplace to go tomorrow. When I hung up with Jamie, he had made promises to come see me at my parents’ soon and that everything would be alright. I tossed the apple core in the bin and left the closet. I looked around my bedroom: the bookcase, the shelves, my laptop, my clothes thrown about… pieces of my life that would hurt to leave behind. I knew my parents loved me, but I couldn’t be sure of their reaction.

Since I had seen the baby on the monitor, and especially since the horrible discussion with Frank, I had been hoping for the best, while preparing for the worst. It seemed like the most sensible plan in order to keep from losing my mind. I wouldn’t allow myself to hope for anything, though; I knew that to see those hopes extinguished so utterly and completely would only hurt worse in the end.

I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from under my mattress. I had written out everything I wanted to say to my parents. I didn’t trust my pregnancy brain to remember all the important points, particularly since I had found my house keys in the vegetable drawer that week.

We finished dinner that night, and while Mum was clearing the table I pulled the paper from my jeans pocket. “Mum? Dad?” My voice shook. “Could I talk to you? It’s important.”

Mum came back wiping her hands on a tea towel. She glanced at Dad, who shrugged. They sat next to each other at the table. I grasped the paper tightly in my hand. As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I began crying. I wanted to run, to be anywhere else but then and there about to dive off a cliff again. My parents looked confused by my barely controlled hysterics. They also looked very concerned, and Dad reached out to take my hand.

“Sweetheart, we’re listening. We’re here for you. What is it, lovey?”

I hiccupped, suppressing my sobs. “There’s something I need to tell you. Please, don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?” I took a deep breath and began in an unsteady voice. “I want to say this, and I don’t know how to begin because I’m afraid you’ll be furious. I don’t want to make you feel terrible, or angry, but I think you won’t be able to help it, and I’ll understand. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

“I’m pregnant.”

They froze. I could see my mum’s eyes widen and my father’s hand grip hers like a vise. Both swallowed hard, but said nothing, waiting for me to continue like I had asked. “I know you’ll think I’ve been incredibly stupid and irresponsible, and maybe I am, but I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I have several solutions. But I need to know if I can also count on you.”

A tear slipped down Mum’s face, and another to match down mine, just to see her try so hard not to cry. Dad slipped his arm around her. There was no yelling, no recriminations, no arguing. Something loosened inside me, and I kept going.

“Frank’s the father. He says he’ll support me, that he’ll help out. He said that I could live with him at the university. His parents don’t know yet, I think. But they’re traveling, so I don’t—” My voice caught. “If… if it doesn’t work out, I have a place to stay, with a friend, if you don’t want me to live here. I have a job now, and some money saved.”

My mum raised a hand towards me, but Dad wouldn’t let her interrupt. He nodded at me to continue, and I rushed through the rest of my note. “If you decide to help me, I promise, I will stay in school. I will go on to study nursing, like I’ve planned. I will help with all the expenses. I will pay you back every single pence you spend on me or give me.” I broke down, and amidst tears I finished with, “I will even pay rent, if you want. I can’t express how sorry I am to put you in this position. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry to disappoint you, and—”

Mum pushed back her chair with a scrape and came round the table. She pulled me into a tight hug, cutting off my rambling. I cried and cried into her shoulder, like I was five again. Dad embraced us both, and we sat there for a bit, the three of us connected.

After awhile, they sat down again, and Mum took my hand. “So Claire. You, and Frank. What’s going on?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. He’s been hard to reach lately, so I… I’m not sure. I’m having the baby, that’s for sure.” They shared another glance, but said nothing. “Frank, he couldn’t be here.”

“How far along are you?” Mum asked.

“Ten, twelve weeks,” I said. “I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you.”

“We understand,” said Dad. “We love you, Claire. This doesn’t change that.”

“Right, lovey. You’ll stay here, with us, of course. We’ll help you, with anything and everything you might need.” Mum squeezed my hand.

I breathed, joy filling the hole in my chest. A few more tears escaped and I brushed them away. I smiled, honestly, for the first time in months. Jamie had been right, as usual. My parents weren’t kicking me out, or screaming mad. They were loving, and supportive; I couldn’t wait to tell him.

“Oh, here!” I pulled the ultrasound image from my pocket, where it had nestled next to the paper all day. “I went to the doctor’s. This is the baby.”

They crowded around the picture, my mum crying in earnest now. “Look, Henry! It’s so small… we’ll be grandparents!”

In a few minutes, I couldn’t keep from yawning, I was so exhausted and more so after all the emotions of the day. My parents sent me upstairs; Dad pressed a kiss on my temple and Mum whispered I love you. My heart felt lighter than before. I turned out the light, stretched out on my bed in fuzzy pajamas. The elastic waistband was a little snug. I reflected upon everything that had happened. My parents now knew I was pregnant, and were incredibly caring and understanding—thrilled to be grandparents. But Frank…

My heart was lighter, but heavier.

#outlander #outlander fanfic #outlander au #jamie and claire #lullaby 6

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nyanzaya · 5 years

Note

I know this gonna be long story but please tell me about your boys i'm all ears all night (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`) i send this because you don't want to hijack my post, even if it's a good thing ( ˶ ❛ ꁞ ❛ ˶ ) please introduce me to this world of Iza and Zuo (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤

@if-that-so

Oh gosh lol I can try for sure since it’s all in my brain, I got something written but-- Let me see if I can explain what kind of world they are in to begin with because I mean they are like alts so they would obviously be in Ikebukuro/Japan. They are hybrids, you can sort of think of it as that typical neko-trope with cat girls and cat boys and a bunch of other hybrids and supernatural type creatures.

In Iza and Zuo’s world, basically the hybrids are seen as less than human, of course there are people who see them as normal people with added on traits that make them distinct from humans. There’s a lot of themes, even dark themes, that go into their world honestly lol I don’t personally touch on all of them because there are just some themes I just don’t bother with lmfao. That’s basically like the premise of their world really. It’s pretty normal with, not much that’s weird about it? Hybrids are a normal thing but depending some see them as ‘less than’ human and others see them as just human and then there’s probably some that see them as something special.

I’m not sure which boy would be more interesting but honestly I think Iza is more interesting because he’s pretty complicated so I’ll start with him. ((This also got really super long so i-- put it under a read more LOL)

His whole beginning; basically he was born into the “pet life” and was taken away from his mom when he was...I want to say when he was like a 6 months old? And was basically given away as a gift and the thing with his mom (who’s name is Kata) was she was prized and treasured for her unique colorings, a black Burmese and garnet colored eyes with tufted ears and was basically “bred” because her kittens(kids) would sell for a lot of yen lmfao--- I’m not going to get into that because that’s literally a whole different topic--- Well, Iza was basically treated and raised as a cat, but for his young age he was very intelligent(and even the Burmese breed on their own are VERY smart) and the fact he was human too he just learned by watching, as a result he is very good at reading body language but he can’t read facial expressions. He literally watched and observed his First Master for 12 years? And if I remember right his First didn’t exactly see Iza as a cat, he saw him as like his son but what happened was he got blackmailed and his company was literally being destroyed and failing from the inside out. I think his friend who gave him Iza only gave him Iza as a gift because his wife left Iza’s frist master and like he was depressed and felt like his whole life was out of control and just getting this rare black little cat gave him a reason to keep trying because animals/other people/things that depend on you do that to you. Well, while he was blackmailed he had to do horrible things to Iza and had to basically make him an obedient pleasure pet. He hated literally every second of it and then he gave Iza away to the man that blackmailed him and disappeared because he was so disgusted with himself. Iza actually, has a narrative poem about it but I don’t think I’ll ever post it, maybe I should because that’s literally Iza’s poem but... I can’t bring myself to post something that implies you know lmfao. He does have two other poems about the first half of his life with his second and then when he was about 19-21? I can link them if you’d be interested in reading them

Life with his second master was well, horrible. At first it was fine but well, as a pleasure pet he had to do things he was taught to do obediently or be disciplined. Iza at one point did try to escape, but he was caught and was whipped, he still has the scars on his back and he even suffers from nightmares and ptsd because of him. Then afterward he was collared/chained to his second master’s bed. While he lived with his second he met a wolf hybrid who then later became his obsession before they had disappeared when they were saved from his second master. Iza was only with his second, who’s name is Yasui Teijo for... maybe 3 or 4 years honestly?

When he was rescued from his Yasui Teijo he got placed with a third master who isn’t exactly relevant to his story. Iza did eventually end up killing his third master but he only did after he climbed up to a position of self-made power. He became an informant and the way he gets his information is through the cat in the city because he has the ability to speak to them quite fluently. He became really credible and he even hides under the guise of a Fashion Designer. Well, this is the part where Zuo comes in.

Now. Zuo was literally created to be Iza’s equal and opposite reaction. It was originally only supposed to be about Iza, but he became too powerful and even in normal roleplays and threads no one stopped him(besides Shizuo--but that’s a whole different situation and he isn’t part of Iza’s story). Literally, Iza was allowed to murder and assassinate whoever he wanted whenever he wanted and with that new found power he went and used it to get his third master assassinated among other people.

Zuo and Iza met when they were both around 19/20(Zuo is a year older than Iza) At this point in Zuo’s life, he had been out of pit fighting/the gladiator ring for about 4 years. What happened to Zuo was his mother Aiko was also a pet just like Iza’s mom but she escaped and Zuo was one of her only kitten that she had. Now, their life was hard. They had to live on the streets because they were homeless and when Zuo was, I want to say like 8 or 9 I think, he actually hurt another normal kid on accident and his mother basically told him to use his strength and power to help people, not harm them and he held onto that tightly. Well, I want to say Zuo was like 12 when he was basically kidnapped and was thrown into the arena to fight for his life. Because of that, he is physically powerful; as in he could up root a stop sign too but he can’t stop something extremely heavy like a crane. He fought for survival and eventually ended up becoming Champion(A long with a ton of scars, especially on his hands and chest) but he couldn’t live with himself for getting to the top because he had to kill the people he considered his friends, including his senpai and kohai. So, he’s got a lot of like, ptsd. Zuo forced his way out of the pit fighting by basically starting a rebellion within and broke out.

At 17 he decided “Fuck this shit. Fuck all those horrible people. I’m going to do what my mom wanted me to do and protect people and help people who need help.” It kind of back fires. He became very prone to aggression and anger and would outright attack people instead, but would be remorseful about it. It would happen because he was still in that mindset of ‘This person wants to kill me. I have to kill them first so I can survive.” and it took him years to get out of that mental state. So when he met Iza when he was about 20 he was better, of course he still had his issues but he was in better control of himself and became a vigilante to do justice in the city; because at the same time Iza was gaining more power and had eventually gotten 2 or 3 police officers in his pocket and Zuo became frustrated because some police were not exactly doing good. He saw the police force as corrupt and took it upon himself to make things right in the city.

Zuo meets Iza, but he mistook Iza for a woman at first because Iza can and he does cross-dress. (he was supposed to be a drag queen but I decided against it) It’s not written in the original drabble, and if i were to rewrite it, I would mention that Zuo had gotten a strange feeling of “knowing” who Iza was, but he couldn’t exactly place where he knew him from because Zuo remembers his past lives. You end up finding out that Iza and Zuo had been chasing after each other in previous past lives and they always ended up opposite sides so they were always fighting since the beginning of their soul’s birth. Their souls, were predestined to always be at odds and everyone in their world has someone who is their opposite, whether they end up in love or hating each other always depended on the circumstances but the “good end” would be for them to end up together and be in love and the “Bad end” would be for them to always be apart. So, it’s almost like a WHOLE multiverse type thing, as in, in one universe they are happy together, but in an alternate of that same universe they are enemies. It sounds complex but basically every decision you make splits the universe so you have a universe where you did the thing and another one where you didn’t do the thing basically lol. WELL ANYWAY- Zuo ends up having mixed feelings for Iza because Iza got in his way from stopping a man from human trafficking and then Iza ended up killing that man in the same night. They were always after the same people, but the way they went about “stopping” them was opposite but in a sense it was the same? Iza used violence and ended up killing the people, but Zuo refrained from violence and only used it when he needed too which ended up being often.

I haven’t written how they actually got together but I’m thinking the way they got into a relationship was they talked and decided to work together instead. This was when they were like, 22/23. While together they felt “complete” but, because of Iza’s skewed vision of love he ended up manipulating and reverting Zuo back into someone violent and someone who used violence and justified it by “it’s for the greater good.” Eventually, Zuo realized what he was doing was wrong when I think he saw Iza kill some innocent people and realized that he had gotten drunk off the power and chaos. It’s in his birthday drabble but here’s the exert:

Iza laughed.

And laughed before abruptly, he stopped. He gave a side-glance to the pole that had embedded itself in the wall, grinning. “Tom, just give into your true nature already. This-” He gestured to the fallen men before himself. “This is what you’re meant to do. Don’t you get it? Together, you and I could actually change something. Isn’t that what yo-”

“Shut up! This- this isn’t what I fucking want. It’s what you want.” Zuo spat, the fur on his tail was fluffed, his ears laid back in defensiveness.

These men Iza gestured to wasn’t the work of Zuo. The iron in the air wasn’t the fault of Zuo.

It was Iza that drew blood and he was covered in it. The tips of his ears to the tip of his tail. He wasn’t drenched but it was easy to tell that the blood on his clothing didn’t belong to him.“Don’t shift this...this shit on to me. You did it.”

Iza’s ears twitched. Rejection was a bitter taste. “I’m doing you a favor, Dear. Isn’t the scent wonderful? It tells us that we are survivors. So, why don’t you draw some blood as well?”

A light flickered and suddenly Zuo felt a pain on his cheek. His brows furrowed. Iza flung a blade a him. The smell of iron further increased his rage. He didn’t want to return to being a brawler. Zuo was done being a gladiator for the entertainment of others and he sure as hell was not going to give into what Iza wanted. He brought a hand to his wounded cheek before he looked at his hand. Zuo saw the blood on his fingers.

“Enough..” He spoke softly, his hand was shaking.

Iza was quiet, watching Zuo. “Enough? Enough of what? This is the only way.”

“How is this the only way?” Zuo’s closed his blood-tipped hand, as if to show his resolve on the situation.

The black feline paced, taking a blade out of his pocket and twirled it between his fingers. “How? Haven’t you heard of the saying: ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’? To allow these...humans to continue to use us and further lower our quality of life and longevity would be horrendous, no? We are just as capable as they are.”

“Fuck off with your ‘we’ shit! There is no ‘we’. It’s just you against everyone else.” Zuo growled, flexing his hands before he brought them together to crack his knuckles.

Iza stopped pacing taking in Zuo’s words. No we? He understood now. Even Zuo was an enemy of his now. This feeling in his chest hurt. It hurt to feel how Zuo rejected him. They were together, though Iza supposed that was impossible. There was a sting at his eyes but he wasn’t going to let Zuo see him fall into tears. Without thinking, Iza flung his knife. He almost missed his target, but his blade had impaled itself in Zuo’s shoulder.

“Well, well. If there is no ‘we’ then there can never be an ‘us’.”

Zuo knew Iza twisted his words. That wasn’t what he meant but if that’s what Iza saw, then all he could do now was to stop them from this senseless killing.

These were innocent people. All Zuo saw in front of him was someone who was crazed, lusting after more bloodshed. Someone who, Zuo was fond of. It hurt to see Iza turn into someone he didn’t know, or perhaps he had known who he was all along but had never seen it from a different perspective. Perhaps, Zuo had tolerated this behavior until it was too much.

How could he save them?

The cream-colored feline pulled the knife from his shoulder. “You threw your knife at me. So, I’ll assume you meant to hit a pressure point. That’s what you do, huh? So, that means you wanted to disable me to kill me then, huh?”

Iza’s ears leaned back.

Zuo brought his other hand to the other side of the blade, snapping it in half before dropping it to the floor. Another solid resolve. Zuo was going to be the one to stop Iza. He had to be. To let the black feline running wild with power? He understood now that Iza couldn’t handle the power; the rush of the high of being on top of the world.

Zuo would bring them back to earth. Even if it meant that this was their fate: To fight and oppose each other until the end.

That’s basically when they broke up but they officially stated they are not together.

Zuo and Iza both have the same exact goal: To save their kin from being seen as less than human but they go about it so differently that they will always butt heads.

Someone had to stop Iza from senseless bloodshed.

There’s definitely more facts to them for sure, like how they made a community together before they “split up” and how they were actually really in love with each other but the timing was off. They are like 27/28 now and by the time Iza is like 35 or 36 their kin would be “free” from being used for profits like animals but canonically, Iza ends up dying and leaving Zuo. I’m debating if I want to have it so Zuo dies too but LOL It would make sense if their souls are “bound together” in a spiritual sense.

But that’s pretty much their story. There’s a lot of details I didn’t add in honestly lol there’s so much more but this is already super long aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

#im sorry its so long LOL I can talk like hours about my boys #there's a lot....like a lot a lot....#About Iza #About Zuo #if-that-so

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skippyv20 · 5 years

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Love this! Thank you🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Angel encounters

Jackie B. believes that her guardian angel came to her aid on two occasions to help her avoid serious injury. According to her testimony, she actually physically felt and heard this protective force. Both encounters happened when she was a child of kindergarten age.

The first experience took place at a popular sledding hill, where Jackie was enjoying the day with her family. The young girl decided to try sledding down the steepest part of the hill. She closed her eyes and started down. “I apparently hit someone going down and I was spinning out of control. I was heading for the metal guardrail. I didn’t know what to do,” says Jackie. “I suddenly felt something push my chest down. I came within less than a half inch of the rail but didn’t hit it. I could have lost my nose.”

Jackie’s second experience occurred during her birthday celebration at school. She had run across the playground to place her crown on a bench. While running back to her friends, three boys tripped her.The playground was filled with metal objects and wood chips. Jackie went flying, and something hit her just below the eye. “But I felt something pull me back when I fell,” Jackie says. “The teachers said that they saw me sort of fly forward then fly back at the same time. As they hurried me to the nurse’s office, I heard an unfamiliar voice keep telling me, 'Don’t worry. I’m here.’”

D. Bay entered the hospital in 1994 with acute pain from “a fibroid tumor the size of a grapefruit” in her uterus. The surgery was successful but more complicated than expected, and her troubles weren’t over. She recalls that she was in horrible pain. She had an allergic reaction to the morphine she was given, and the doctors tried to counteract it with other medications. This made a bad experience even worse. She had just had a major surgery, and now she was dealing with the pain of an acute drug reaction.

After receiving more pain medication, she was able to sleep for a few hours. “I awoke in the middle of the night. According to the wall clock, it was 2:45. I heard someone speaking and realized someone was at my bedside,” she says. “It was a young woman with short brown hair and wearing a white hospital staff uniform. She was sitting and reading aloud from the Bible. I said to her, ‘Am I alright? Why are you here with me?’”

The woman visiting her stopped reading but did not look up. “She simply said, 'I was sent here to make sure you’d be alright. You are going to be fine. Now you should get some rest and go back to sleep.’ She began to read again and I drifted off back to sleep.”

The next morning, she explained the experience to her doctor, who checked and said that no staff had visited her overnight. She asked all of the nurses and no one knew of this visitor.

“To this day,” she says, “I believe that I was visited by my guardian angel that night. She was sent to comfort me and assure me that I would be okay. Coincidentally, the time on the clock that night, 2:45 a.m., is the exact time recorded on my birth certificate that I was born!”

Dean S. experienced this pain as he was going through a divorce at the age of 26. The thought of being apart from his two young daughters was almost more than he could bear. But on one night of stormy darkness, Dean was given renewed hope.

At the time, he was working as a derrickman on a drill rig. That night, he was having serious thoughts of taking his life as he looked down from the 128-foot derrick.

“My family and I have strong beliefs in Jesus, but it was hard not to contemplate suicide,” recalls Dean. “In the worst thunderstorm I’d ever seen, I climbed the derrick to take my position to pull pipe out of the hole we were drilling.”

His co-workers urged him not to climb the derrick, saying they’d rather have downtime than risk someone’s life. Dean ignored this and began to climb.

“Lightning flashed all around me, thunder boomed. I cried to God to take me. If I couldn’t have my family, I didn’t want to live … but I couldn’t take my own life in suicide. God spared me. I don’t know how I survived that night, but I did.

"A couple of weeks later, I bought a small Bible and traveled to the Peace River Hills, where my family has lived for so long. I sat down on top of one of the green hills and started to read. I had such a warm feeling enter into me as the sun parted through the clouds and shone on me. It was raining all around me, but I was dry and warm in my small spot on top of that hill.”

Dean says that these moments changed his life for the better. He met his new wife and fell in love. They started a family together that includes his two daughters. He says, “Thank you, Lord Jesus and the angels you sent that day to touch my soul!”

In 1998, Luke was diagnosed with bone cancer at the tender age of eight. As sometimes happens, he came down with an infection, which meant he had to go to the hospital. He was there for about two weeks, and that’s when something remarkable happened.

One evening, Luke’s mother was sitting at his bedside quietly praying as he slept. A nurse came into the room to check Luke’s temperature, but his mother noted something rather peculiar about her.

The nurse was wearing an old-fashioned uniform of the type that would have been common 30 years earlier, in the 1960s. The nurse noticed that Luke’s mother had a Bible by the side of his bed. She said that she was a Christian, too, and said she would pray for Luke’s healing. Luke’s family had never seen this odd nurse before, and they never saw her again in Luke’s remaining time at the hospital.

“I came out of the hospital fully healed of my infection,” says Luke, who was 19 when he told his story. Remarkably, he is now completely free of cancer. “My mom believes this nurse could have been a guardian angel coming down to give my mom some hope,” Luke says. “If she wasn’t an angel, why would she be wearing 1960s old-fashioned nurse clothing?”

Back in 1980, Deb was a single mother with two infants living in San Bernardino County, California. She occasionally needed reliable babysitters. Fortunately, her parents lived only about 30 miles away in Alta Loma. Deb would usually drop off the children at her parents’ house, go do what she needed to do, then pick them up in the evening. One night, Deb had retrieved her babies from her parents’ place and was heading home. It was relatively late, about 11:30 p.m. Deb was driving her “old clunker.” Among the car’s many deficiencies, the gas gauge was broken, requiring her to guess when the old thing needed fuel. Occasionally, her guessing was off.

“Halfway home, the car started to putter,” Deb remembers, “and I realized I was on empty. I pulled off the first off ramp I could, and it just happened to be one that was slightly uphill. Almost at the top of the exit, my car died and there was absolutely nothing around except empty fields and distant lights at a truck stop about a quarter of a mile down the road.

With no cars in sight, Deb didn’t know what to do. The kids were asleep and walking miles while carrying two kids in the middle of the night was not a good option. This was before cell phones, so she could not call for help.

"I put my head on the steering wheel while saying a short and panicky prayer,” she says. “I hadn’t even finished when I heard a few taps on my window.” When she looked up, she saw a clean-cut young man standing there, who Deb estimated to be about 21 years old. He motioned for her to roll down her window. “I remember I was surprised,” Deb says, “but I wasn’t even the slightest bit afraid, even though I normally would have been terrified.”

The young man was dressed well and had a faint smell of soap. He didn’t ask if she needed help. Instead, he told her to put the car in neutral and he would help her over that last, small hill toward a place where she could get gas. “I thanked him and followed his instructions. The car started moving. I steered it toward the lights of the truck stop and turned around to yell 'thank you’ again to him,” Deb says.

“He was so nice! My car kept moving, but the young man was nowhere in sight. I mean, this area was completely remote. There was absolutely nowhere he could have gone that quickly, even if there was somewhere to go. I don’t even know where he came from to begin with.” Deb’s car continued to roll down the hill until it reached the truck stop. She was able to get the gas she needed, and the kids remained sound asleep.

“I’ve always trusted in God to take care of us, but in relating that story many times to my children, who are now 30 and 32, they know for a fact that angels do exist and are sent to us if we just believe.

"I always thought it was so amazing that we were sent someone who I would trust instinctively without question. Since that incident, I’ve come to believe that we probably encounter angels all the time, and take for granted who they really are. I think they come in all shapes and sizes, young and old … and sometimes when we least expect them.”

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