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#i just thought this poem was wonderful and kind of fits with the whole idea of the day court
greenerteacups · 4 days
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Hi! It’s me again, come to bother you about your writing process!
Over a year ago, I’d come across “the scenes which hold the waking world” & was instantly amazed by the idea. SOC characters?? In an Inception setting? I’ve never thought of it before! OH MY THAT IS SO PERFECT of course they’d be the most perfect team for dream thievery!!!
Unfortunately I’d forgotten the title but the idea of the whole thing was drifting through my mind, only to realise that hey… what’s this SOC work under GT’s works.. I have never clicked on anything faster! Instantly I was pulled in (as I always am with your work - you wield words in a beautiful assortment that just *fits* & so nicely next to each other! Idk how to explain it properly but the way you write just makes so much sense!)
I’m sorry if you’ve answered this before, but if you haven’t, what was your inspiration for this lovely story? How did you come up with each level of dreams! & oh! the chapter titles! when read together they form a whole poem?? was that intentional!
I knew this with Lionheart already, but I think reading this fic just cemented it for me. Believe me, I’m really not one to praise for the sake of, so I mean it genuinely from my heart when I say you are one of my most favourite authors. I hold everything you write so closely to my heart. If you published any work traditionally, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
All this to say that, GT! Thank you for being a writer! I am so grateful to be a reader when it means I get to enjoy such wonderful art like yours.
You're really so kind to me, and this comment is a complete treasure. I've hoarded it in my inbox for long enough, and it's time for me to let it back into the world.
A rare Six of Crows question is a treat, I don't get a whole lot of those these days! I guess I can tackle them in order of ease: the chapter titles aren't mine, they come from the song Sleepsong, by Bastille, which was my favorite band when I wrote the fic and still cracks my top 3-5 with some regularity. (The working title for Lionheart, "All Their Words for Glory," also came from a Bastille song.) In terms of inspiration, I just watched Inception a whole helluva lot, and I was on a heist kick (Inception, of course, being just a bunch of heists stacked on top of each other in a trench coat, directed by someone who shoots landscapes like he wants to make passionate love to them, and scored by the greatest composer alive). So I'd watched Ocean's 11, Ocean's 8, How to Steal a Million, and of course, the Fantastic Mr. Fox. That's probably why there's so much action and scenery porn in SWHTWW — because it was largely inspired by movies, not books.
I also love me a Pinterest board.
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aureentuluva70 · 2 years
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Spoilers for Rings of Power Ep 5: Partings
I must admit, this is the only episode so far that I'm kind of 'eh' about. Mostly because of the whole mithril-being-tied-to-the-fate-of-the-elves thing. But I'm going to put that aside for now and save it for last. First I'm going to talk about the highlights of this episode.
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The song This Wandering Day is absolutely beautiful and I have been listening to it on repeat constantly. It feels so Tolkienesque, and with the gorgeous cinematography of the landscapes the harfoots travel through, it fits perfectly. I hope the show continues to have songs like this one, especially considering the importance of music woven into the very fabric of Arda. Also, just as a quick analysis, these parts of the song remind me of Sam and Frodo's journey to Mordor thousands of years later."Past eyes of pale fire, black sand for my bed. I trade all I've known for the unknown ahead...of drink I have little, and food I have less. My strength tells me no, but the path demands yes! My legs are so short and the way is so long. I've no rest or comfort, no comfort but song." It just captures the two hobbit's struggle so well I doubt it's a coincidence. And of course how can I forget "at last comes their answer, through cold and through frost, that not all who wonder or wander are lost. No matter the sorrow, no matter the cost, that not all who wonder or wander are lost." I love the idea of that song being passed down over time, which Bilbo took inspiration from when writing the Strider poem.
Given how he acts in the harfoot storyline scenes, I'm starting to lean more into the theory of him being one of the wizards. He seems very self aware of the danger his powers pose to others, even pointing to himself and saying "I peril?" He seems genuinely worried about hurting others, something I can't imagine a malicious character like Sauron doing. Not to mention he protects the harfoots from the wolves, or whatever they are. Even when he accidentally starts freezing Nori's hand, he doesnt seem to realize he's doing it, and appears to feel bad about it afterwards. Perhaps thats why the wizards use staffs then? To channel their powers in a less dangerous way? But you can't forget the scene of the three mystics appearing at the Stranger's crash site, who are most likely Sauron's followers. One of the women there is holding something that has the same constellation the Stranger showed to Nori and Poppy. Do they think the Stranger is Sauron, and are tracking him down, only to find out it's not him? Or do they see him as a threat, and that's why they're searching for him? Either way it's bad news.
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Valandil to Isildur: "I hope you find something that you would be willing to sacrifice anything for."
Me, having ptsd flashbacks to Fellowship of the Ring when Isildur refuses to throw the ring into the fire: Oh no. No No No No NO NO NO NO. HECK. NO. THEY CAN'T DO THIS TO ME.
Also, Ontamo(one of Isildur's friends) confidently stating that "I wager it'll all be over by the time I get off the boat!" and the numenorean soldiers' very lighthearted attitude about going to war reminds me a lot of how young men during WWI thought the war was going to go. They thought it was going to be a fun little adventure and that they would come back home as war heroes, not the bloody, awful conflict that it turned out to be, either killed in the battles or left with a lifetime worth of trauma. Out of the three of Tolkien's close school friends, only one came back alive, Christopher Wiseman, and even then their friendship was never the same again. Though Tolkien would go on to name one of his sons Christopher after his friend.
Fun fact, you know who Isildur's close friend's name is? Valandil. Which just so happens to be the name of one of Isildur's sons. Crap, does this mean Valandil is going to get killed off at some point?
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The whole "mithril being tied to the fate of the elves" theory that Gil Galad seems convinced by and the song of hithaeglir now has me convinced that Sauron is none of the characters that we've seen onscreen as of yet, but already working with and tricking Celebrimbor. Tricking them into thinking that they need this valuable resource as fast as possible or else they'll all die, creating a divide between Elves and Dwarves and awakening Durin's Bane in the process, and providing the materials needed to make one of the elven rings? Sounds just like something Sauron would do.
Elrond himself says that the tale is considered apocryphal, and with the amount of times people have lied or at least only revealed a portion of the truth or telling others that they have been lied to("you have been told many lies. Some run so deep, even the rocks and the roots now believe them" comes to mind) in this show, I wouldn't be surprised if this tale was the same: Just fiction and nothing more. Even the way the story is shown through animation rather than a flashback seems to prove that it's just a legend, not actual truth. (I've seen people suggest that the prologue could actually be unreliable narration on Galadriel's part, and I dont think I'd be surprised if it was)
And the way the story presents good and evil as more yin and yang that when clashed together can create something new rather than matching Tolkien's philosophy of "Evil is only the absence of Good" and "the Shadow can only mock it cannot make" is a major red flag to me. I suppose it could be an allusion to Iluvatar telling Melkor that whatever evil he does, he's only adding to Eru's glory but I'm not too sure.
I guess I'm just confused as to why Gil Galad would believe the story. His entire characterization in this episode confuses me. It could be similar to Galadriel where over the course of the show we see her change and grow from a prideful warrior into a wiser sorceress, so I'm not jumping the bandwagon just yet when it comes to Gil Galad's characterization. It very well may be a part of his growth as a character. But that doesn't dismiss the fact that he was something of a jerk to Elrond in this episode, using his friendship with Durin to find out if they found mithril. Talk about manipulative. Like, you could have just told Elrond about your problem beforehand, it's not exactly that hard! (Even the way he called Elrond "peredhel" sounded like an insult)
Honestly, I think we're gonna have to wait and see how this goes before making any final judgements about it.
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Glad to see Theo finally got some sense knocked into him and stayed with his mother andi showed Arondir the dagger. The boy still has some logic left in that head of his! I really liked his interactions with Arondir. Heaven knows that boy needs a good father-figure in his life.
Adar continues to be as mysterious and fascinating as ever, but we have gotten more info on what he's trying to accomplish here. He talks about how he is going to miss the sunlight and wishes the orcs could feel it the same way as he does. He seems to want to create a place where Orcs can walk freely, that place becoming Mordor, and the dagger is the key to it all. My theory is that the season will end with the eruption of Mt. Doom, cloaking all the southlands in ash and shadow. Before that time Galadriel and the forces of Numenor have already arrived in defense of the low men of the Southlands, managing to save them, and are there to witness the eruption. There's even a photo of Galadriel covered in what looks to be ash:
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And these two of Galadriel presumably in the Southlands:
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(And at last we finally get an answer as to where Galadriel got that armor! I seriously wish we could have seen her reaction to it though. Seeing the distasteful look on her face before she reluctantly accepts it would have been peak comedy. Also if Elrond were to see her wearing it would be pure gold. I can see him smirking now...)
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scourgethewhorehog · 2 years
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fuck/fic/tive/kind dysphoria actually sucks i hate being an obscure character from a comic that isn't running anymore that most people hate or make fun of.
Long post incoming, venting and sys stuff
Literally sucks that I'm constantly embarrassed just bc I'm Me and on top of that past experiences make it hard to find places to talk abt it without fucking. Rambling on and being annoying to everyone I love bc Every mobian-centered 'kind space is a burned bridge and/or full of children.
Gotta just fucking swallow it I guess and rawdog the existence of being percieved as a cringe introject from a shitty comic adaptation that some dude who rewrote a Holocaust poem for Knuckles the Echidna gave Sega an excuse to shut down bc of his hissy fit no matter how like real it feels to me and a bunch of people in my head to not seem like I'm over reacting and completely unhinged because most people would just rag on me for being divorced from reality or try very gently to be like Focus On Now and it's like.
I am focusing on now! I'm doing my best! I'm managing so many things I wasn't previously! I'm not even dysfunctional I'm just fucking miserable over having to live day to day as another person but to be fair, nobody here gets to be them unless with our partner, ever.
There's no host, just people switching around and offering tasks and hoping the Dog Caretaker guy fronts for Dog Things and the Person who likes to wash Dishes can switch in for Kitchen Cleaning and now instead of Angel I front to Be Around People but I never did that.
I vacuum sometimes, talk to people when I want to, play roblox, clean our room, draw, and remember to brush our teeth. I didn't even know deodorant was a part of daily routine because I haven't been apart of bodily daily routine since I was fucking 10 years old.
Now suddenly instead of being around our mom sometimes, it's always. Every phone call and discussion and decision is suddenly on my lap and it's like I'm no longer just Me like I am in headspace I'm taking up the mantle of a person who hasn't really existed and just been a puppet passed on between many hands but now it's like, oh my god this is gonna be my life for now? The stress has made it so hard to communicate and it's like I'm in my own head by itself instead of hearing other people's thoughts swirling in predominantly, or at least equally, and sometimes it goes back to that co fronting chaos but it's like now I'm in the front seat of a car and they're in the passenger seats and the reality sets in where it's like, where I have to wake up and realize. Oh my god I'm just fucking me and I wake up every day and I'm me but I don't get to Be Me and in the place of a mental breakdown that typically is Angel thinking he's crazy and has been alone this whole time and made it all up I can't even touch that idea where it's more like, realizing there's a chance that this is a new normal for longer than I thought.
Some things are good, there's not this like, insane consistent exhaustion and fatigue that Angel felt fronting but god.
To Be Fair after all that's happened I. don't trust 80% of people outside of our like, closer inner friend group because even like, other otherkind and other systems have always kind of looked down on us for being Too Much and I experienced that a lottttt with um. the Mental Health Community Gang that my other system members got involved with at a certain point (which btw sick of it + would rather trade back to old cult shit if you're wondering how bad it felt to be present for me! I'm worming out of there as long as I'm around I don't feel like dealing with conditional acceptance LMAO )
This is just an Experience for me.
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t4tbruharvey · 2 years
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Oohhhhhh yess yesss that sounds so fun! Yeah werewolves as sort-of-highwaymen makes so much sense, especially because then maybe some people could also dismiss the rumors of werewolves existing as "this is just robber bands attacking people to steal from them" instead of. Y'know. Werewolf packs. Which makes me wonder: do your werewolves have guilds? Because werewolf guilds seems like a fun concept. Also I love the bit about identity!! Yeah becoming a werewolf would make you question your place in society, but with the "maybe society never accepted him in the first place" it's even better because yeah before the werewolf thing he probably would have been able to still 'blend in' somewhat by hiding the parts of himself that society doesn't want to see but being a werewolf would make that so much harder.. which actually does make me wonder how transness was seen in the renaissance or middle ages, because considering some of the things I now know about renaissance ideas of how gender works as well as some Ancient Greek myths I do feel like being transmasc might actually not have been as stigmatized as you'd expect (using the general you here. But also hell yeah to using stories as a way to deal with personal trauma, I hope writing it can be cathartic for you!! (also I hope this makes sense ahdhhd))
And yesss! Oh I love that idea with the reversed spell that's amazing it's so fun!!! Poor Ivy though ofc...do you have an idea why the sorcerer would do that to her if she was their apprentice? Jealousy about her abilities maybe or just an accident? (also Harley mistaking joker for a seelie fae would be so fun and makes a lot of sense in an AU context too...do you know the poem The Erlking ? Because it kind of reminds me of that)
And yes it's very interesting! But like I said it's also nsfw so I'm gonna write it down in a separate ask so that you don't have to publish it to answer or anything! Something non-nsfw about renaissance body things though: in the Middle Ages and the renaissance people thought that the body had a certain connection to the astral plane, specifically they thought that certain regions of the human body directly correlated to the zodiac signs. So if you had a certain malady then one solution would have been to let blood at the respective zodiac-sign-spot. The example our professor gave was that if someone had trouble with love (or the physical aspects of it) the bloodletter would let blood at the spot correlated to the zodiac sign cancer, since that one was associated with love and sexuality. Another fun thing would be the four humor theory (that's something I feel could well play into Harvey's whole deal actually) or the renaissance idea of how conception works and what causes children to be how they are (that one is very wild and very interesting and again probably would play into how those people see transness)
YES YES EXACTLY werewolf packs blaming werewolf activity is EXACTLY what they have going on. especially maroni bc his whole operation WAS a guild in that i pulled the byzantine concept of having warehouses on the docks as a specific semi-official channel and THAT was filled with essentially the mafia but they're all werewolves and maroni could just blame werewolf stuff on smugglers because he was basically just hiding in plain sight :)
and like the fitting into society thing is partly gender and sexuality stuff and partly his normal mental health issues that he tries to smooth over and present as perfect and that fosters jealousy from some people so they start looking for flaws which makes him put up even higher walls and it's this vicious cycle that does nothing for him and what does he get out of it? an idea of harvey dent? some sort of concept of the perfect man and in this au perfect knight? a chivalric ideal he'll never be able to live up to? man like who even wants to be part of society if that's the prize. gender is just another aspect of it and i think the heightened scrutiny might lead to a weirder slightly more uncomfortable relationship with gender than most people would have in that society, which is a nice contrast to harley who i think doesn't necessarily get to be stealth and maybe wouldn't really want to be because she has the protection of, uh. not living in a society.
i think with ivy it was DEFINITELY deliberate idk if it was jealousy or that she uncovered something more sinister yet but both of those will probably play into it because woodrue definitely 100% did that shit on purpose he just thought it would be instantaneous. also i haven't read the erlking the poem but i HAVE read the bloody chamber and that has a whole chapter devoted to it and i AM giving the joker greenish teeth because of it lol. and like the actual spooky parts of the erlking and the exploitative undertones but yeah i'm ripping a fair bit from the bloody chamber which RULES by the way for anyone who hasn't read it
i just got your other ask and i DO have tea so i'm gonna read it but yeah i vaguely know abt the humours theory i think? the conception stuff sounds so interesting and definitely is a theme bc dick is here in this au yaaay little guy hallie forced me to include him yaayyy and ZODIAC SPOTS??? little areas for the zodiac?? oooooooh man that sounds wild
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myelocin · 3 years
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ij(y)&m | miya a., akaashi k.
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synopsis: love is enough, until you think that it isn’t. to love and to lose; then whether to dive into the sea of ocean eyes or look into the skies in search of the sun.
genre: hurt/comfort, slice of life, longfic, happy ending, love triangle
wc: 17,500+
characters: miya atsumu, akaashi keiji
a/n: this is a commissioned piece by @23soong | i still can’t believe u trusted me w this giant fic but ilu i guezz
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commissions | ko-fi
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(April 16, 2021 | New York City.)
You like to eat cake.
The color lilac, ocean eyes, and the sky. The lyrics to Ayahuasca, and the hidden metaphors where the poem you uncover always looks like a different scenario than the next person. You know what you like, and it’s only this and that. Other days, when your reasoning is a little swayed, you suppose you can afford to think that you like this plus that.
It was a difference only you understood.
(—understand, you mean.)
(You always know what you understand.)
You like cake because you enjoy sweets, and that one shade of violet that borders right in between periwinkle and lilac, because it never looked like it was too much. It didn’t blend into the background like some of the warmer colors, nor make too much of a bold presence like the depth of scarlet. You suppose you like where you’ve always been, after all.
Being content with your own security had always been one of your stronger suits. There wasn’t a wall, nor a fortress around you, but even when you’re out in the open you felt okay. The shade in between lilac and periwinkle was enough because it was you.
Chocolate over cheesecake, because you’ve never been much of a fan, and that bakery down the end of street fifteen minutes away instead of the one right across where you lived. The windows were always tinted in the shade that gave away its age, but you suppose it was its charm. The old auntie who sits by the counter always wears her apron, even if all the pastries to be sold for the day were already prebaked and arranged on the front for display.
There’s an old comfort found in that auntie’s bakery, you think. You still don’t know her name, and you know she only smiles at you because you’re probably a regular by now. You know the pen she’d had clipped to her apron is the same one from eight months ago, probably never used, because the seal’s still intact by the cap. There wasn’t a table that you could call yours, nor a spot in the fall you would stare at and daydream on your rougher days. There was no music, to dull out the sounds of the world outside—but now that you actually give it a little more thought—that’s what gave you the most comfort.
It’s a known fact that when people tend to slip into a state of reclusion, they would search for a space in a world that they can cocoon themselves in. External factors, there, but ignored. Phone often switched to silent, where the spot they stared at along the cracks of the wall would show them a world they could live in—momentarily.
(And that was the problem—at least you think.)
A safe space, they say. And it had always been valid. When your sister would talk about the boy in her dreams who loved her under the rain, you can tell that she felt safe. Sometimes she looked a little farther away despite physically being with you in the moment, but she always looked warm—so you would just choose to sit shoulder to shoulder beside her, and let her be.
People worked differently; a simple this or that situation, and it’s always going to be like that.
Your comfort is just this.
Auntie’s bakery fifteen minutes away, where you’re some random seat inside because in all the years you’ve been coming here, you could never really pick a spot. The table by the window was nice, as was the one by the shelves. The AC hit you in the way you appreciate the most wherever you chose to settle, anyway.
A slice of chocolate cake on Mondays, then maybe again on Wednesdays, but Saturdays could also mean red velvet if you were feeling like it. The bells by the door sound out your entrance every time too, but even if one day there were gone, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Having a constant was okay, but not necessary. You’re here because you liked their selection better than the one closer to your place, and that was that.
Auntie’s bakery wasn’t your cocoon that kept you away from the world, but you liked it that way.
You found comfort in taking a seat in one of the ten tables inside, and setting your bag on the chair beside you as you got comfortable. You liked moving your hair to the other side, and slumping your shoulders because you know you'd enjoy this little break you decided to give yourself.
You had chocolate two days ago, and even if there was a new option for carrot cake today, you still bought chocolate again. You can hear the conversation from the group of teenagers outside the window every time the doors would open and the sounds of the world outside would filter in. The sound of traffic and life was dulled by the walls, but not muted. There’s still no music in the bakery, and you can sometimes hear every time the auntie behind the counter would shift and tap away at her phone.
This was your slice of comfort.
You didn’t escape the world, but you find yourself still. There was an underlying of connection that you found with the world when you’d have your one slice of cake after a job well done.
So you like to eat cake, because you deserve cake.
You finish the schedule you’d set for yourself, written in bullet points from top to bottom—additional notes scribbled in the margins so you wouldn’t forget, and spreadsheets written so that you keep yourself in line.
You like to eat cake, because it’s a reminder that you’re doing your part as a little cog in the machine that is this world. It’s not escaping that gives you comfort, but rather, the reminder that you’re still in this world, and you’re doing just fine.
(So you deserve your cake.)
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Until some days where you feel like you don’t.
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Your childhood looked something like this:
Air conditioned rooms, sniffling instead of crying, and the lilac blooms outside your window. There’s a sky, infinite as she’s always been, that watches. Sometimes she cries, but in your corner of the world, it’s more common to see her smile. Sometimes you wonder what she smiles about, but 7 year old you liked to think that she smiled for the same reasons you do.
A cool breeze in the summer, and paper kites folded every sunset. Your dreams of ocean eyes every time you’re close to the shore, as if it’s a foreshadow to the future still to come, but you’d always only stand by the edge and watch—never wading too far in.
It wasn’t a fear of the water, nor the depth, but you just always had a nagging thought behind your head that the waves would never truly be for you. You loved the sun, and the sky too much to give in to the waves.
Perhaps it’s a metaphor for something later on in life; perhaps it isn’t. You’ve never been curious enough to try to think much about it.
Ever since you were young, your idea of love never changed much from your initial thoughts.
Love felt like it should just be what’s written under the bullet points of your life schedule. Love, supposedly, looked like ocean eyes and dark roots for hair. He’d be a little more on the reserved side, and would conquer the world with you.
People always tell you that love should conquer the world for you, but it felt like too much of a selfish dream. Your whole life, you moved with a sense of purpose in mind. You buy cake after a job well done, because you know you’ll only deserve it by then. You do things only because you’ve done certain things, and it’s always been as black and white as that.
(It works.)
You’re in high school and you sit next to your best friend’s boyfriend from seven to five. You have a circle that loves you as much as you do them, and you still treat yourself to slices of chocolate cake from a bakery down the street. Their cake has a generic taste, you think, but it could be better.
Still, you settle. Settling is okay.
The idea that things would always be just okay in the black and white was okay. Your everyday life, and routine, looked like this. The people around you act like this, and you—in return, feel like this.
You laugh when things are funny, then cry when they aren’t. You appreciate the notes you’d find in your locker: the doodles and scribbled reminders alike. The difference in the handwriting and color choice of the sticky notes only reminds you that you’re part of something that isn’t just you.
You will always love your shade of lavender, or lilac, or periwinkle, but you found sentimentality and love in shades of peaches, scarlet, greys, and serenity blue too.
Routine is the kind that looks more lax than rigid, because bursts of serendipity still find you anyway.
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(March 13, 2015) Hyogo
Because it’s in your final year of highschool, where the idea of what it initially was is thrown right out the window.
Miya Atsumu.
Brown eyes that are the complete opposite of every hue of the ocean, and his god awful piss yellow hair.
When you meet him, there’s not much to romanticize about it. He sat a few seats away from where you are, and parked his bike purposely close to your sister’s by the gate. He raised his hand to the questions he didn’t know the answer to and would drag his chair beside your desk to say hello even when you’d turn away to focus on your paper during breaks.
Love was an abstract sort of thing, so you could guess that his peculiarity fits.
You were all the shades of lilac while he offered you the pale yellow of every sunshine you found solace in ever since you were young. The color on the opposite end of the color wheel, Miya Atsumu truly was your contrast.
He ate cheesecake and didn’t hide his face when he sneezed. He’d roll up his sleeves and fight the next person without thinking to talk it out first and scribbled his ideas from the center of the paper instead of listing them out from top to bottom, or left to right like you always did.
But he was the start.
“Hi, Len.” he said instead of the standard “hi, hello; what’s your name?” greeting, and it even if it baffles you how he got your name before you even had the chance to introduce yourself—you didn’t think you had it in you to be mad about it.
Third year highschool Miya Atsumu with the god awful piss yellow hair and black undercut smiled in the way that had the left corner of his mouth rising just a little higher than the right, and you were fucking hooked.
You didn’t show it at first, but you were hooked. He had the kind of lilt in his voice that you always thought was more endearing than attractive, and would often lean back in his seat with one arm slung over the back of his chair as he waited for you to finish up with your review for the day. He liked all the things you thought were okay at best, but he was who stayed.
Libraries were for those who found a little comfort and familiarity in the silence, and he was a wildfire. He fell asleep waiting for you as you studied, but would always have a whole lunchbox of soft snacks for you to munch on while you did your thing, checking off the bullet points of your list.
On Saturdays, he was the person waiting for you at the bleachers by the track field with a towel and water bottle, cheering you on as if he understood the sport. When you’d pass him, he’d wave, and holler at you like you just won even if you’ve just been running laps for warmup.
He was never a hello, because he was a whirlwind that caught you off guard straight from the start. Some would say this is like serendipity, and perhaps it is—he is—but you like to think that maybe he’s just part of the black and white of your life. You liked what you liked, whether it correlated with your plans or not, and it really was as simple as just that.
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In high school you always liked to eat cake after exams. You liked chocolate because it was sweet, and you’ve always been the person who had a sweet tooth.
You write left to right, from top to bottom and keep your letters beside to eachother in print, because it makes sense.
Miya Atsumu, the boy who was the pale yellow to your lilac, was the one who offered you a pen when you’d misplace yours, even if he only had one with him in his bag.
And you liked him, you suppose, because you just do.
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(March 13, 2020) | Tokyo
Miya Atsumu was blunt, and freeing.
He was the sky, and not the sea, but love—later on, became the realization that you’re just freefalling.
After the initial introductions, there wasn’t a point where either of you felt like you were still supposed to be somewhere else. Like something you didn’t know had even been out of place sliding into it, instead of clicking. The skies would open, not just for you but for him as well.
While you saw all the colors of the sun and of the golden hour, Atsumu saw the shades of lilac in the earth.
What becomes is the love that’s felt in the silence, and on the way home.
It’s your voice that he hears chastise him to put down the donut and share it with Osamu when he’d been planning to leave him a third of the last at best. It’s the four letters of your name that he scribbles in the corners of receipts mindlessly, but would still fucking deny it every time he’d get caught.
Atsumu and his bike rides to school, along with his habit of catching up to you just to get off and walk beside you if he sees you nearing the gates.
A silent sort of company in the morning beside someone who was basically known at the most perfect personification of what noise would look like if it were to be redesigned into human form.
True love, and serendipity he thinks, is this. It’s you and all the witty remarks you’d make towards him, telling him to go away, that he never ends up taking seriously because you’d be blushing red before he even gets a chance to react.
The reaction he comes is delayed, but the epiphany that it’s you who becomes the face to love, isn’t.
You were the who when it came to answering the who, what, when, where, why, and how of love.
The what was answered love. The when, is yesterday, when you spilled a little bit of your chocolate milk on your desk and cursed in the way he never would have figured you saying, and today, when you looked out at the skies and smiled your private sort of smile towards the palette of the sunset.
The where was everywhere. Love, as you, in the sidewalks leading up to the gates, and on that desk on the row ahead, diagonal to him.
The why, was this. (It was everything.) (Running, then leaping. Flying, then soaring.) (Everything.)
He finally finds truth to the poems he usually tended to ignore in love songs, but it was great.
And the how, finally, was answered with a shrug.
How did he love you? Atsumu would always shrug because he just does.
Always, always does.
-
Along with the high, comes facing the reality that you must also fall. For the longest while, you’re climbing, climbing, climbing¸ until eventually, there’s nowhere else to go but down. The real face of love looked somewhat like that.
It’s one foot after the other, and steps towards the sky. There’s no staircase with a solid ground leading up, nor wings clasped behind you to lift you up even with through the absence of a breeze. (But love had you flying.)
It’s seeing the sights you’ve seen your whole life not with a new set of eyes, but a new vantage point. Atsumu’s the sun, all the while you still felt as if you were the child forever glancing up towards it. They tell you to never look at light straight on, but his glow never had you blinded.
Atsumu gave you clarity, showcased on a silver platter.
You understood all the priorly misunderstood parts of your life, where it felt like a new kind of exhilarating. Like having knowledge at the palm of your head, the world became as infinite as it became yours.
(And yours alone.)
Your hands that only grabbed just what was yours were suddenly reaching too far in the cookie jar. Greediness has never really been you, but eventually the fall—your fall—from the high looked like crumbs on your hands and shirt, and the absence of what once was where it should still be.
Atsumu never said a word, because it never was that way.
Still, you closed your eyes while still in the air. The view was right there, and Atsumu was beside you through the climb, the high, and the period where you just glide, telling you to open your eyes and look but you only did—for just a fraction of a second.
It’s the heaven that sits above the clouds that terrify you, you think. The unspoken truth that was kept as a hush is suddenly right in your ear screaming.
“He’s holding you to the clouds,” it taunts, then continues, “—But what have you given him in return?”
Atsumu’s never heard the demons in your head, nor was aware of its presence in the first place, but he always seemed to just have a way of knowing what to say, exactly when to say it.
Like now.
He’s sat in the bleachers, high on life, while you’re high on adrenaline. Six thirty in the summers meant the sun was just beginning to set, so he smiles, knowing that you’ve always thought of this moment as yours.
(And his, he adds mentally, a whisper to himself—a validation that you are his as much as he is yours.)
Truly.
“Hi Lena,” he grins; one side quirked up higher than the other, and under the bloom of scarlet and amber, he’s beautiful. “What’s your name?”
You’re laughing, as if you don’t carry the weight of all your demons on your shoulders. Amber against your deep brown eyes, and he’s caught. Like always. Fucking entranced, like always.
“Hi ‘Tsumu,” you voice back, leaning close and laughing at the way he scrunches his eyes close at your sudden display of brevity. It catches him off guard every time. He loves it, as much as he does you—but he’s still a boy inside.
You laugh anyway, pressing a kiss on his eyelids when he keeps his eyes closed, and you smile, softly, when you notice the way his shoulders relax.
“What’s your name?” you echo, then you’re both laughing at the inside jokes that you admittedly could never get sick of.
“I really don’t know,” he stretches further, enjoying the ay the moment became not just yours, but also truly his, with just a couple of words and some laughs. “I just can’t remember, Lena, but what’s your name?”
You laugh, throwing your hair up in a quick bun, before taking the seat beside him.”Atsumu we sound stupid.”
You don’t turn to return his stare, but you feel his eyes on your profile before he even tries to make something off of it. He smiles, and you feel that too.
You’re beautiful, he thinks to himself. A thought that comes to him more frequent than remembering the kanji for his own name, and Atsumu knows he’s rooted himself way too deep to even try to think of letting go.
“Fuck the status quo or whatever that shit says babe,” you hear him laugh in return.
You’re both sat shoulder to shoulder, eyes towards the sun, and the world feels like it only exists to be yours. (and his.)
A moment, where in your eyes, it feels like it’s just (him) and you.
Just him.
Love, as just Atsumu, because he has a way of being your forever anything and everything. A whirlwind of some sorts; a spontaneous wildfire wrapped with the pretty shades of serendipity, and it feels so right.
It’s quiet, but it’s the nice kind of quiet. The demons in your head are hushed, but if you know they’re probably just slumbering, you’re still overwhelmed with a newfound sense of comfort. The source feels like it’s meant to flow infinitely, and you smile—until you don’t. You remind yourself the virtue of never taking more than you can bother to use, so as you turn your head, watching him soak in the light once again, it takes so much inside you to remember that and fight back the urge.
“Don’t you have practice tonight?” you ask, curious.
His sports bag was placed beside him, and it takes you a little while to notice that he’s decked out in his training gear. The time on your clock tells you it’s six forty five, and you’ve always known that practice started at five.
“I do,” he hums.
You turn in response, poking his cheek before pinching it. “Then go.”
Atsumu sighs, in a too-dramatic-voice for a man who was well beyond those years, but you suppose that that was just one of his charms. “Wanna stay actually,” he pouts leaning his weight against yours, to which you’re quick to groan at, nudging your shoulder to try to get him away.
His chin settles on your shoulder anyway, but his other arm is quick to anchor you around the other side, making sure that he’s still holding you up, more than you holding him up. Atsumu’s face is close to yours, as is yours. It’s a position he’s always liked. When he looks at you, he can see the little dots on your face that other people never could get to see unless they were this close. When you blink, you do it slow, like you’re savoring the sight in front of you, and his heart thrums in a tender sort of happiness because even if you never looked much like the sentimental type, he knows you well enough to know that you really are that.
Atsumu juts his bottom lip, like he’s tired, and you laugh.
“Tsumu, go.”
“Tsumu,” he counters. “—stay.”
“Actually,” he corrects himself, shaking his head. “Lena,” he smiles. “Stay.”
-
“You don’t have to do anything,” he adds. “Just stay.”
His words hit you before you could even try to pull your walls back up, knowing that it’ll hit a spot you aren’t exactly keen on confronting just yet.
Just stay, his words echo in your ear, and you suppose that that’s really all you could do. Moments like this where love overwhelm you the most has you fearing love the most, if you were being honest with yourself. There was a fear that comes with love, because at the root of it all, love will always just be a risk.
The higher the climb, the harder the fall they say. The more you give, the more the world will take. You look at Atsumu, who faces you with his pouted lips and sunset painted across two pools of baby brown. He closes his eyes and leans forward, knowing that you’ll kiss his eyelids before you even say it. Like the earth letting itself pulled by gravity, you’re beckoned towards the sun, falling into orbit as time—the human concept of it anyway—begins to move slow and all you can do is spin in circles and marvel at the being that is the light.
“I love you,” he says, and he’s honest.
What terrifies you is the honesty in your voice too, when you reply with an “I love you,” of your own.
The higher the climb, the more painful the fall, you think. When Atsumu opens his eyes and allows for the silence to remain and blanket the piece of the world that is yours and his, you see that you’ve already made it to the highest summit.
The more you give, the more the world will take.
But the thing is, you don’t know what you’ve given him. Your hands are empty beside his, but he holds them anyway. You’re so fucking in love and it terrifies you because what is the earth next to the sun? It stays in a distance so it doesn’t burn, but now, even as you’re face to face with the being that embodies the essence of the light and life itself—you aren’t burning.
Then it hits you.
He is your everything.
You gave yours, so what else could the world take other than him?
-
And because love also wields the power to make you more fearful than you are in love, you admit to yourself that you’re fucking scared. Atsumu says “I love you,” again, and holds your empty hands in his that holds nothing but still feels all the ways full at the same time. It’s suddenly hard to swallow, and you’re cold.
The summit is beautiful, but you are cold.
You close your eyes, walk forward, lose your footing, then just freefall.
The scary part is, even if you do that, you know Atsumu will just think of it as an adventure and jump right after you—riding the current with you, even though you’re venturing into what’s unknown.
Still, you close your eyes.
You pull the parachute first, imagining that you’ve hit the ground before the winds would even get to you.
-
(March 13, 2021)
The funny thing about heartbreak is, Atsumu thinks, is that you recognize its presence before you see its face.
He felt you fading.
Fading from something, but it never fathomed to him that it was from him. You never pulled away when he held his hands, because he made it a point to consciously remind himself to wipe them clean beforehand every time so he supposes it wasn’t that.
“Are we okay?” he asks anyway, when you’re in his car, staring out the street that’s a couple ways from your house. Six-thirty’s already passed, and the skies are in shades of grey instead of the marmalade and amber the sunset always brings.
Atsumu’s voice is a break in the atmosphere, that you think wasn’t tense, but the way his voice quivers in the way only you can point out has you thinking otherwise.
You swallow.
“We are.”
Atsumu exhales, and at the way his voice seems to sound a little more amplified than usual, you realize that the engine’s turned off. Regardless of the nagging voice in your head to stop dragging this out, you turn away anyway.
You love him, and love to love him. You love kissing his eyelids when he naps on your thighs and associating him with the little things just because.
(You turn away, prolonging the inevitable, because you don’t want to associate him with the end—just yet.)
You think to yourself that you don’t deserve this—him—because he deserves better, but you want to have just one more bite. Fists clenched in the pocket of his hoodie you wear that still smells like him, and you want to cry.
Atsumu sighs again, tired. When you look at him, he’s already staring at you, for god knows how long now, and you wince because he looks exhausted.
“Are we?” he asks again, and when you open your mouth to try to find a couple words to string together as a reply, nothing comes out.
“Lena,” he says, and his voice is loud.
He’s only been whispering this whole time, and you’re aware of that, but it’s still loud. His car’s in park; the engine’s off, and when you shift your position from side to side to try to find your place, you can hear the fabric ruffle against each other.
“Len,” you hear again. “Lena.”
“Talk to me,” Atsumu says, and you’re baffled at the way that his voice sounds like a plea.
“I am talking to you,” you mumble. You shift again, but you’re still not comfortable; you don’t want to look at him. You don’t think that you deserve to look at him.
But his voice still comes to you, soft. He’s saying your name; again and again, but it still sounds like a fucking plea. Your shoulders shake, but you still it before he notices. The bullet points that come after the list you write left to right, from the top going to the bottom doesn’t give you an answer as to why he’s fucking pleading.
“Please look at me,” he’s whispering now. (Still loud.)
What is there to plead for?
“What’s wrong, Tsumu?”
“Babe, you gotta talk to me.”
The zipper drags across the plastic of the door, and makes a sound. Internally, you flinch right as you shift your position again because you’re still not fucking comfortable.
You look at him, then blink. He’s staring at you, desperate for words you don’t have, and suddenly your hands feel so empty.
What do I give you?
He shivers when a breeze floats in through the window, while you don’t. Then you blink again. Right, you think. This is his jacket that he gave you. He’s sitting beside you, at 23:10, half an hour away from his apartment, knowing full well there’s traffic in Tokyo regardless of the fucking hour.
Your thoughts, a battle between what can I even give you? and look at what you’ve given me.
“Tsumu I think this is it,” you suddenly whisper, the feeling of being so out of place finally dawning on you.
You keep shifting, uncomfortable in your position, because you’re not supposed to be here. You buy yourself a slice of cake after a job well done, but when you look at Atsumu—what have you done?
What have you given for you to receive so much?
His hoodie’s still warm, and your fingers clutch onto the fabric.
Atsumu stares at you, and even if you want to look away, you can’t. He holds your gaze like he’s held your heart for years now, and you know this won’t be a situation easy to break out of. His grip had always been solid despite the lack of bruises that tell the world of its presence.
“I think,” you sigh, swallowing down the urge to say it’s a joke, to take back your words.
“I think—“ you say again, but hesitate. Atsumu watches you nod your head, the look in your eye so far he doesn’t know if he can catch up by now. You’re whispering your words, the most of what you say phrases he can barely even understand, but he listens to you anyway.
You want to cry again, the tightness in your chest increasing tenfold, and the feeling of discomfort reminding you that you’re not supposed to be here. You don’t deserve this slice of cake, but you’re greedy.
Balled fists, hazy thoughts, and you’re cracking. You aren’t breaking, but you’re cracking.
The fallout is the same.
You nod your head again, and Atsumu watches, his eyebrows scrunched up and drawn together, as you seem to arrive at a conclusion without even letting him in the conversation. The haze clears from your eyes, and by the looks of it you’ve already rooted yourself someplace you don’t even want to stand in.
He tries to say your name, but you’re still shaking your head.
Then you’re shrugging off his jacket. Atsumu opens his mouth, still fucking confused because what are you doing?
You held his hand yesterday and kissed his eyelids goodnight three fucking hours ago.
“What are you doing?”
You hear him, but that’s all there is to it. You know you should be listening to him, but only the definition of the words register in your head. The meaning to be deciphered in the situation remains unseen, when the only thoughts in your head revolve around the fact that your hands are still so empty.
You think about what he says, though.
What are you doing, Lena?
He watches you unzip the zipper from the front, and hear the audible click when you unbuckle your seatbelt. He’s still watching, mouth parted in the silence in disbelief at what he thinks is the goodbye scenario he’s always avoided thinking about. You’re leaning forward, then it’s the left arm out before the right.
A breeze comes again, and even if your eyes are elsewhere, you catch a glimpse at him from your peripherals as he’s shivering—again. Frustration bubbles up in your chest, welling up into tears, but you don’t cry.
You remind yourself that you shouldn’t cry.
Balance was what kept the world in orbit, so therefore, you must only take, if you give.
Rewards are reserved for accomplishments, but what have you fucking offered?
Atsumu’s given you the world, but you still face him with empty hands and just an I love you.
Love was your certainty and your lifetime kind of truth, but what else is there? When Atsumu tells you he’s all yours, it’s enough, but when you do—why does it feel so little?
You take the risk, then the plunge, and look at him. When he blinks, and keeps his eyes shut just that while longer, you have to fight the urge to kiss his eyelids like you’ve always done. His hoodie’s folded on your lap now, but you still smell your honeydew on it.
How many times does he have to wash it to get the smell out? you think.
Atsumu swallows his words, his retaliations, because he knows you’ve anchored yourself before you even hit the water. If you had always been anything—other than the fact that you are always his everything—it was the fact that you are resolute.
So he lets you speak.
He already offers you his love even though he looks at heartbreak in the face.
And it’s your face he sees. Faraway eyes, your shoulders tense, and a shiver that makes your fingers tremble in the slightest. He sees every detail play out in slow motion, and even if his heart is hammering in his chest, just as yours probably is, he thinks to himself—you’re beautiful.
You, as the face of love from the hello, and still you, the face he puts to heartbreak as he listens to you say, “I think I have to let you go.”
‘Let what go?’ he thinks. When you let go of something, it’s to get rid of the bad—the dead weight.
Was he the dead weight?
“It’s for the best,” you say. (For your best, you think.)
“I don’t think we can keep doing this anymore.” (I don’t think I can keep doing this to you anymore.)
“I think this is the best for us.” (For you.)
“What—“
“Tsumu,” you say, cutting him off. Your voice doesn’t quiver but your hands hidden from his point of view clench then unclench.
“Atsumu,” you say again, this time with a smile. It isn’t forced, because you don’t think that you ever had to force a smile for him, but at the sight of him watching you, heartbreak written across his face, your heart can’t help but crack in the same pattern.
It runs a little deeper, you think. The kind of deep where you aren’t sure if even the scars will fade overtime.
“Lena—wait—“ he tries to interject, but you’re already opening the door and walking outside.
He knows your look when you’ve decided, and he knows that it looks something just like this. Still, he bites his lip, hoping that this would just blow off come daylight. He knew you had always been the type to feel the things that come, but never really dwell on it enough to process it. There was hesitance when you accepted things from others, and it never escapes his line of vision when you’d just duck your head a little lower when you didn’t have anything to offer back.
When he says I love you, he means it in both the verbal and in the silent way he tries to communicate with you.
Like leaving traces of himself in every little piece of everything, so that it’s there for you to have and just know.
“I love you,” he says again, and again.
In the silence, but you don’t hear it. On the walk home, you feel it but you turn away.
 -
This is the painful part of love, you think. You know that you’re frustrated, and that everything you hate which unfortunately comes with love is brewing so strong in your chest, that no words come out.
You tell yourself that you’re mad, but when you look at the mirror you turn away.
“My name is Lena,” you say, and you begin. In the world—or your world at least—chaos is swirling so in order to find organization for it, you close your eyes and center your thoughts on the first fact to keep you grounded.
“I like to eat cake, when I deserve it, because I still am victorious,” you say, then add, when a flash of pale yellow comes to mind, “—sometimes.”
“Yeah,” you say, then turn the corner to walk into the kitchen so sit at the table. You remember the slice of cake you bought this morning, meaning to save it for tonight, remembering that you just finished your exams after cramming for nearly two weeks.
In hindsight, you really should have expected it though. Your sister did mention that she just started her period the day before, and usually you never minded when she ate a couple of stuff that wasn’t yours—and you know this is isn’t the reason why you’re crumpled down on the kitchen floor with one fork in hand and no cake in the fridge, but you are.
You’re crying, and flustered, and the words that come out of your mouth sound more gibberish than coherent. You think that you’re saying Atsumu’s name, beside an apology, but truth be told you’re letting yourself go and blank out.
The cold air from the opened fridge hits you on your knees, and you really should be getting up by now to shut it close before your sister comes home and pokes at you for it, but you really can’t be bothered to think about caring.
This is the fall that comes with love, and what was taken was what you were given.
It’s you who gave him back, because the thoughts in your head are busy telling you that even if love was enough—was it really?
Were you enough was the ugly question you don’t face, so you close your eyes and convince yourself that you’re crying because of a fucking slice of cake and not because of the sun.
You ignore the memory of walking home, and still feeling Atsumu’s presence watch you with eagle eyes as he slowly drove with you down the sidewalk – “just so I know you’re home safe, at least give me that.”
-
Give, you think.
There was nothing that you had given him, and Atsumu had deserved something even greater than eternity itself.
-
It’s in the same hour of that same night where Miya Atsumu, who wore red eyes and slumped shoulders, that was standing outside the bakery an hour and fifteen minutes away from his place, wondering which kind of cake you’d like the most out of the thirteen in the display.
-
(September 13, 2021)
Time moves at a weird pace.
Yesterday feels like yesterday, and today feels just like today. It doesn’t move slow, because you know the clock keeps ticking, but still you move. Sunrise comes before sunset, but you stopped looking up and watching the in-betweens colors before that final stroke of marmalade, or even five thirty’s golden hour.
Gold reminded you of the sun, so you looked away. Love had you blinded, and you wanted to look at the world with the lens of practicality instead of the colored ones this time around.
Atsumu was still around, for the most part of it.
Graduation came, then summer, and you know even without you he kept blooming. Towards the end of the year, right before graduation, you still saw the posters on the wall, and heard his name in the announcements. There was always a congratulations right before, followed by a “we’re proud of you,” that never flew past your line of attention.
He deserved it, you think.
Miya Atsumu deserves the whole cake, and not just a slice, because he continuously still gives—his good deeds going well past just the title of a job well done.
You, on the other hand, both kept your distance and thoughts in order in the beginning.
He still said hello when you passed by him in the halls. The awkward timeframe right after a breakup didn’t spare either of you too. With you, opening your inbox and rereading the old messages; debating whether you should just archive the whole conversation or delete it altogether, then seeing Atsumu typing something for a whole five minutes before the indication stops and a message is never sent.
Where you’re stuck wondering what he could have said, because you know Atsumu’s always been the type to not only wear his heart on his sleeve, but rather, shout it out instead.
You never fit that bill, but you (love)d him anyway.
If you were being honest—at least to yourself—it took long, before Miya Atsumu became just the name of a contact in your phone, the text history buried at the bottom. Seven months’ worth of texts piled above his last, “hey, i’m outside,” that you never could bring yourself to delete.
For a while, you think, you deserved that slice of cake.
Just a slice, and not the whole thing, but for that while—it was all yours.
-
(December 2021)
Akaashi Keiji didn’t come into your life until another three months after you shut the book and pretended you never read its contents. You say you know the end, but really, you never flipped past page 223 despite the book ending at 416.
The end was a page that was skimmed over, and never really read through. A dog eared fold on the corner, instead of a bookmark, for the sake of it sitting on the shelf, looking finished. In the moment, you know it isn’t finished, and you’ll probably stumble upon the book again at some point, later down in time, but perhaps if you give yourself enough patience, you’ll forget that it was left to be unfinished in the first place.
Miya Atsumu was a story you started, where you read the start in a third person POV, then left it midway when you took the reins and rewrote what you think the ending would be from a first person perspective.
I am not enough for you, you said. I will take off this jacket and leave it here, because I haven’t offered you anything.
I will leave, and let you go because you deserve more.
(But it’s I love you, as the thought, that still will always remain.)
-
You have your books and bullet point notes, the days after today written in a list: from top to bottom with just a couple of scribbles along the margins. Akaashi met you like serendipity used to dictate, and this new book started like how it should have.
“Hello,” because that’s how it should start. Followed by a “how are you?” because that’s usually the next thing to say.
The conversation’s light before it dives deeper, and you think to yourself that you like it like that because it follows order. Atsumu gave you half his bento box two hours after you first met, while Akaashi offered you a napkin and his extra fork when yours fell.
Often, your friends would tell you that it probably wasn’t a good idea to compare the dynamic of the two, and you agree because if you were outside this situation you would be advising the exact same, but when you do things from first person, a lot of things become that much harder just because.
This wasn’t love, nor was this the replacement of love, but you can’t help but admit that Akaashi Keiji was the prince charming you wrote about in your diary when you were a kid. He was the ocean eyed prince charming every teenager dreamt of, and this was the slowburn kind of pace that love should be.
Atsumu barreled into you and made himself be known as the yellow in the color wheel opposite of your purple, and even if it didn’t clash, nor blend, it had a presence.
You think to yourself that Akaashi was all the shades of ocean blue, while you were that kind of purple right in between lavender and periwinkle.  You could stand next to him at the train station, or be squished next to eachother in the train during rush hour, and people would take one glance and assume you’re together.
Situating yourself beside the shade next to yours in the color wheel felt right. Blue to purple, or purple to blue. It worked. Neither of you had to jump far, or take a leap across the wheel, but only take a step and you’re right there.
He wasn’t love, but you didn’t let yourself think that he could be.
It’s two more years of this until your master’s is done, so you suppose reading a side story wouldn’t hurt much.
Only that this side story was getting a little more complicated than you initially just planned out. You jumped into this story without the thought of grabbing a bookmark, and Akaashi Keiji had been the type of person you knew hated dog eared bookmarks.
“What are your thoughts about this?” he asks you one day though, so completely out of the blue that it has you whipping your head to the side to stare at him, wide eyed. You’ve known him for a while now, and he was okay. Perhaps just the word great, at best, because whether you looked at this from a first person point of view or a third, your words would still be the same. Objective thoughts led you to thinking of coming to a conclusion based on the rubric of your childhood, and Akaashi fit the bill.
Maybe not your bill now, but he still fit it.
Akaashi Keiji was who your should have been prince charming looked like, with the ocean blue eyes and poetry for words.
Even though he asks you that now, when you’re seated in the passenger seat of his car parked outside your apartment building, you still can only bring yourself to just blink. You stay true to the fact that you are surprised, and you do admit that, but that’s all there is to it. Nothing feels like it’s leaping out of your chest, and there’s no flutter of anything in your stomach.
His words register in your head, but so does confusion.
“This?” you parrot, trying to find meaning through the limited context he provides.
Akaashi nods, hands still at 10 and 2 on the wheel, while his foot hovers over the brakes. You can see that the car’s in park, but he’s tense. He lets a couple more seconds pass—that felt like it was stretching a lot longer than what it really is—before inhaling and turning to face you.
“Yeah,” he nods, looking like he’s saying it to himself rather than towards you. “This,” he confirms, then after it looks like he convinced himself, he looks at you, and nods again.
You stare at two pools of the sea, that immediately has you wondering if it’s either the Atlantic or the Pacific. Your feet that had long been digging into the warmth of the sand on the shore are suddenly hit with the first cold kisses of the water, and you’re caught.
“This,” you sound out, and by now you’re already well aware of where the conversation’s headed. The both of you still skirt around the words anyway, the silence quickly settling in.
He’s breathing in and out, steady, and tapping his finger against the steering wheel—steady. You’re sat beside him wearing a jacket that’s always been yours, and the AC in his car is just the right kind of cold. When you shift, you’re not exactly comfortable enough to want to stay, but you aren’t uncomfortable to the point of wanting to leave right away either. The space between the both of you feel appropriate, and you know even if he leaves later, his place is only a ten minute drive away.
Convenience, you think; it’s an appropriate word to describe this.
So you turn to face him.
Ocean meets earth, and you’re aware of the cold waves touching your ankle now. You’re nodding your head when you hear the click of his seatbelt unbuckle, then keep your eyes on him when he leans close.
It’s like staying on the edge of the shore, hesitant for the long while, before the moon beyond the daylight loses patience and calls for the tide to favor the yearning of the sea as it grants the tips of its waves to reach further inland.
From your seat, you watch as the ocean comes to you.
Your hands are empty, still, but you did finish that paper two days early so you suppose a slice of something is okay.
“This is convenient,” he finally hears you say, and Akaashi wants to say something else, but he shuts himself up when he sees you finally look at him, like you found an answer to a question that’s boggled with your head for a while now.
He knows there was always something unanswered that bothered you, but he never had it in himself to breach past the boundary the both of you had situated right in the middle just for the sake of asking.
He was curious, but they did say that curiosity had its ways of killing the cat.
Akaashi doesn’t want to be killed—and because he didn’t want this to be killed either—he chose to keep his silence.
Still, he still has it in him to hesitate. The moon can only push the tides so much, and the water will only go so far to where it rarely ventures before it must recede back to where it should be come daylight.
It’s daylight that you yearn, and he sees that.
A faceless kind of sun—that he can only guess is the answer to all the questions he knows you still have.
What’s above the both of you is the gleam of moonlight now, he reasons, so he goes as far as he can and waits. You’re still standing by the shore—still sitting completely still—until he watches you break out of the hesitation laced with your thoughts, right as you move.
“What are we doing?” he hears you whisper, so Akaashi begs for the moon to push him forward just a little closer.
(He hopes you don’t pull away.)
“We’re doing what’s convenient,” he offers, a set of words strung together at the very last second that he knows is just a crafted lie, then prays for the best.
You’re nodding your head, and you give yourself just those few more seconds as you weigh your thoughts, deciding what’s still okay and what isn’t.
You think back to the bullet points of your journal, and mentally recite the facts written in an organized list.
You like to eat cake, and treat yourself a slice after a job well done, because that’s only when you deserve it. You (love)d Miya Atsumu for a whole novel of your life where the reason fell under just because instead of the specifics you try to fit in places for the sake of accuracy and detail. Miya Atsumu was the sun that was always with the sky, and you were never blinded even if you did always stare at him directly in the eye. (Next to that part is always a quickly scribbled why—but you don’t know the answer to it just yet.)
(You say you should really be getting back to it later, to fill in the blanks, and give it some closure—but you aren’t ready for a closure.)
(You aren’t ready to open page 223.)
Then next on the list is Akaashi Keiji. You had two classes with him and went to the same university for your masters and the most you know about him is that he likes his coffee with just a splash of caramel. He lives just a ten minute drive away from you, and he’s okay enough to share a laugh with on weekdays and breakfast with on weekends if you had class together that day. He’s okay with 7am lectures, even if he did have bags under his eyes, and he’s the type to always carry a bookmark with him or at least just a scrap of paper to fit in between the pages because he hated the idea of just folding the corners as substitute instead.
It’s not that he’s convenient, but rather this is convenient.
You got along well, and you suppose that you’re comfortable enough with the ocean to wade deep within it and still not drown.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” you hear him murmur, so you take a step and wade in a little deeper.
Ankle deep, and you’re unbuckling your seatbelt as you shift and fully face him.
Ocean blue, and the waves are swirling, swirling, swirling—you’re pulled in. Waist deep, and the water’s cold enough to wake you up and remind you that it’s fine. You’re fine, and you can breathe; you aren’t overwhelmed, and when you stretch your fingers and try to feel for the sand beneath the waves, you can still feel it. There’s a certain security found in being grounded, then you’re thinking to yourself that whatever this is, is okay.
You try to stare down, and face the waves, and will yourself to not think of the sky.
There’s no daylight, and the sun slumbers, so the waves around you heed to the call of the moon and move back and forth, in motion, but still, around your waist.
So it’s you who buckles your knees in waist deep water and pull yourself under.
It’s the feel of the water, cool and not exactly cold that greets you, as you push yourself forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt before pressing your lips against his.
Akaashi sighs against your lips, as if he’s already discovered the ending to a story he conceptualized himself but never really had the courage of writing out.
He’s kissing you right back, and it feels good—for the moment.
You try not to think of the nagging feeling that pokes at you again and again, saying that the warmth of the sand under the sun in daylight feels much more like home than the cool feel of the water.
-
You’ve always known to yourself that there was the undeniable contrast between Akaashi and Atsumu.
Comparing the two wasn’t a bright idea—it was stupid, if anything, and didn’t help with shit, honestly speaking. (You always were honest to yourself.)
Akaashi hummed his praises, and never was the type to really shout them out. He called you when he’d pull up to your building, instead of wait outside the door and surprise you with a couple pieces of chocolate and a cheesy grin that you swore to hell and back you hated to boot.
Atsumu was everything unpredictable and freeing, but Akaashi was predictable in the way that eventually grew sentimental. He, alone, had forever been great. You knew well that there was so many things he could take pride in, and never bothered to hide your compliments when it came to his achievements, because you knew he deserved the recognition.
Akaashi spoke to you in metaphors, while Atsumu told you like how it is. You admit to yourself, that even if there were some days where you liked the challenge of trying to understand what was written underneath the underneath—the days where you just wanted to hear it as it just is were just as equal.
For the next few months after the first, time still moved okay. Sixty minutes was still an hour, while twenty four hours was still one whole day. Whether Akaashi’s hand was on yours, or if his lips were on your neck in the car, time still just moved.
Your heart skipped a couple beats, when his thumb would always caress the corners of your lips before and after he kissed you, and your cheeks would bloom into all the shades of scarlet when he’d whisper your name in between the kisses that never felt rushed.
But it was just that.
You felt the rush of what love was supposed to be—the hype that it never failed to bring—in the car.
At 11PM, in the parking lot of your apartment building, the height of love thrived on the fumes of serendipity for an hour or two every couple of nights, and would trickle fast when you’d open the door and tell him goodnight.
Atsumu was goodnight, my love, with the cheesy smile and your montage of eye rolls but secret blushes when you’d turn your back and make your way inside your house. Akaashi, on the other hand, you think is just your goodnight, then go, because at the end of the day—because of convenience—the both of you are somehow dragging out the goodbye.
So you part from him, wipe your lips, and try to ignore the way his thumb lingers just a little longer on the corner of your lips. You turn away when the look in his eye turns softer, because it shouldn’t, and pretend like you didn’t just see the shift the both of you have been trying to get away from.
Just two years, then goodbye, you tell yourself.
This isn’t love, Akaashi thinks to himself, hand on the wheel and foot on the gas pedal instead of the brakes. He watches you walk past the hood of his car, the hand that was just balling up the collar of his shirt only moments ago raised to give him a goodnight wave as you walk past, and shit, he thinks.
He still smells honeydew even after you’ve shut the door, and he can’t help but notice how silent the car feels despite the low hum of the air conditioner blasting inside his car.
Akaashi sinks into his seat, forehead pressed to the steering wheel, before he sighs his deep exhale.
“Ah,” he mumbles. “Shit.”
This wasn’t supposed to be love.
-
If there was one thing he excelled at above the rest, and kept as a constant since day one, for Akaashi it was playing it safe.
This route was set to be the one he’d take when he’d drive home, because it was safe. Traffic was inevitable in the city, but this on had the least turns. A couple stoplights, and some convenience stores would be in every corner as well as a gas station at every couple of miles was convenient.
Safe, like choosing just plain vanilla for his cake flavors ever since he turned old enough to pick out his own cake, and safe, like just a splash of caramel in his coffee to lessen the bite of espresso.
You were what challenged him to walk a little ways outside the circle he’d always deemed as safe.
He didn’t run away from it, on the other hand, because he realizes that it’s curiosity that made him take the bait. You weren’t just the girl who shared a couple subjects with him and wrote her notes in the same order, the letters written in print instead of scribbled with questionable cursive.
Truth be told, it was before he even took the risk that night and begged for the moon to let him reach just a little further in the shore for him to unconsciously begin redesigning the face of love into the contours of your face.
You looked like love.
What it could just possibly be at the start, until he waded too far into the shore for that thought to turn into the beginnings of certainty.
And when Akaashi Keiji was certain, he took no time in looking for somewhere to bury his roots as deep as he can possibly go in.
It started with noticing that some weeks you prefer red velvet over chocolate mousse, then making a mental note to himself that you prefer the bakery on the east side of campus than the one on the west. You never made too much conversation with the teenagers that worked there part time, because he understands that there’s never really a point in doing that when you could just be on your way, but he took note of how you’d smile a little more towards the uncles that trimmed the hedges on the garden outside.  
In his eyes, not only did you look like the textbook definition of love, but you also looked like his dream of what love is supposed to be.
It’s supposed to be looking at someone, doing something so mundane, and realizing that having a name beside you written in a book that was supposed to just tell your journey wasn’t all that bad—at all.
And all it took was a Sunday morning, on the twenty first of some month he can’t quite recall in the moment, for him to catch a glimpse of you making your way to the library with a cup of what he knows is just boba in a coffee mug in hand. The sky behind you looks like it opens, as if there’s something with it that’s always been with you, and even though you’re at a distance—in his eyes, you’re glowing.
You smile at the uncle who’s trimming away at the hedges to your right, then right before you make a turn, you’re raising your hand as a good morning and giving him a smile.
And fuck, Akaashi thinks.
He holds a heart that beats, where for the moment it’s not because of the fact that he still needs to breathe.
He’s okay, and this is okay.
He thinks to himself that there’s a chance, because the both of you work. So it just means to say that this, can too.
“Okay,” he exhales, the whisper more as a reassurance to himself than to anyone else. The world covered in daylight slumbers at his words, and as he stands, his own schedule in place, he wishes for the blessing of the moon to push him with the tides back into the shore again.
“Tonight,” he texts you, instead.
“I’ll pick you up tonight.”
-
(March 13 2022)
In shades of grey, Akaashi Keiji loves you.
Grey car, oceanic yes that look grey under the stormy nights you’d always meet him in, and the rainclouds of tonight blending the skies into the muddled shades of one palette. Making out in his car, a couple times a week, because even if he wanted to hold your hand and kiss you out in the world—you always did pull back.
But he has this, and for an hour and some minutes, has you.
Your palms on his chest, where his breaths are huffed out and fucking heavy. There’s smoke out the engine, the air conditioner’s blasted in just the way he knows you like, but it’s those hazy eyes of yours he could never read that stare at him.
Or towards him, rather.
Akaashi thinks to himself that it’s always looked as if you mean to be staring at someone else other than him, living through the moment that was somewhere else but here. He knows love is meant to be screamed at the top of his lungs, so he tries to at least do that.
He’s never really thought the rest of the world should know, because all he really wants is for you to know.
Words don’t come out, and his hands are under your shirt before they even try to run through the skin of your neck like he usually does. Cold palms flat against the curve of your back, and you’re confused. Akaashi’s staring at you, breath held as he holds onto your smell of honeydew for as long as he can like it’s the lifeline he needs. Your eyes are even hazier, looking like you’re even more lost, and he’s frustrated.
He kisses you again, pulling you flush against him, until eventually you’re pushing at his chest when the center console begins to dig into your skin a little too much.
“We can go upstairs?” he usually tries to suggest, and now, looking at your red lips and mused hair, he wants to ask the same question again, but because he thinks he knows you like the back of his hand, he also knosws that you’ll just wave him off with a half hearted no chuckled out instead.
This is just a pit stop, and he knows. He is just your pit stop, and even if the agreement was the same on the flip side, it bothers him that he fucking knows.
“Someone will see us,” a thing you say, because he’s just your for now.
Akaashi Keiji, in your head, is going to be your almost mistake, almost enemy.
(And you don’t want to hate him. It’s not that his limbs have been too entangled with yours for you to come up with that decision, but rather, it was just how you just didn’t want to hate someone you shared slices of your truest you with.)
“Someone will see us, Keiji,” you warn again, ducking a little when a group of people make their way out of a building and head in the general direction of their car.
Akaashi knows that you’re aware of the tinted windows he had installed just two weeks before, and that they fucking worked, so why were you still hiding?
What is there to hide?
So it’s him saying, “I don’t care,” that lights a kind of flame in his gut. They travel up to the veins, reminding him of their existence.
It’s a risk, he thinks. He holds your face in between his hands, shaking. You allow yourself to finally tremble with him, because broken has been the only side of you that he’s ever known.
Akaashi’s frustrated, again, because watching you watch him in the dim—despite the haze of your dark brown, he still tries to jump at the chance that perhaps this could be love.
He wants to know what you look like in every shade in between black and white. There’s a lot of pastels and violet blended in with your choice of wardrobe, so it fits.
Akaashi wants to hear the sound of your voice at twenty three, and not just at a zero or a hundred. He knows your heart breaks a little more when October 5 around the calendar, but he wants to know why.
“Someone is going to fucking see,” you’re hissing now, but you still don’t pull away.
Akaashi knows he’s just the getaway car, but he still keeps his foot on the pedal, always ready to go when you are.
He sees the look in your eye and recognizes the tendrils of goodbye before it’s even completely thought out from your end, but he shuts his mouth, swallows his own doubts, and kisses you like you’re his.
(For tonight, you are.)
(Under the moonlight; away from daylight; within the waters, ever drowning in the depths—you’re his.)
So Akaashi locks his doors, starts the engine, and kisses you again and again and again and again like the world within this little space is all the world will ever be. He drowns out the voice in his head that tells him to pull away; to push you and himself away, because this isn’t okay—but tonight he is selfish.
“I don’t fucking care,” he repeats; in between the kisses and the façade.
“Lena I don’t care.”
You don’t understand, but at the same time you do.
You’re still kissing him anyway, and leaning into his touch. You only look at him when he opens his eyes, to pull yourself back into the water and away from the memory of daylight and sun and fucking sand because not yet—you think. You don’t want to think about the word deserve, just yet. There’s a fire that’s been lit in your veins, and the world feels like it’s kicking you off of somewhere again so you could just soar.
It’s not the same, the voice in your head cries.
And it’s not.
Love, is Miya Atsumu and daylight. He’s the whole tier of cake always put on display that you mean to buy, but never do because you feel like what you carry with you would never be enough. He’s the masterpiece against the skies, against the backdrop of your world, and he deserved nothing short of the greatness that he is too.
Akaashi’s lips are on your neck, where he mumbles your name, once, then twice, but never enough to feel like he’s endgame. There will never be a number to match to that what could be enough, you think, so you let it be and leave it at that.
Akaashi Keiji isn’t a secret, but you still shield whatever you have from something. You think you shield it from the sky, but some days has you feeling like it’s really meant to be understood as working like the other way around. He’s kissing you, still, then when his lips move to kiss the side of your forehead you still.
You know he means to leave a kiss on your eyelids, but you keep your eyes wide open—staring at him. It’s the ocean blue, but you’re not being pulled away, swept out to sea this time, because there’s no current. Within the depths, you see a reflection of the skies that always watch, and the clouds above look like they mean to weep.
Your toes hit the sand underneath the waves, and you take one step back—closer to the shore.
You’re not there, yet, but you’re headed there. Akaashi looks at you, looking a little more broken than whole, and while there’s an apology at the tips of your tongue, he beats you to the punch by saying “What’s wrong?”
He knows he’s asking a question he knows the answer to, and he probably shouldn’t be doing that, because it will only bring more harm than good at this point, but he says it anyway. At every chance that falls on his hands here he can at least try to make his presence be known, to root his name and him into the grounds of your earth, he’ll do it.
Pinpricks that poke and prod at his chest before they dig a little deeper, and a whole lot fucking deeper when you turn away from him and pull away, taking with you your traces of honeydew and love.
“Nothing,” you answer. A lie. You both know, but neither of you confront the clear sins of the other. “Nothing,” you say again, solidifying your answer.
The list comes reappears in your head, and the facts that you’ve been gathering lay themselves side by side beside you in the most cohesive order.
You like to eat cake when you did something worth celebrating for. Fact.
Your name is Lena, and there’s a lot about the lyrics to Ayahuasca that sends you spiraling. Fact.
Fruit tarts over cheesecake, because even if you didn’t mind cheese all that much, cheesecake felt weird. Fact.
Miya Atsumu, forever and always; spring to winter, will always be love. Fact.
You let him go because he deserved better. Fact.
You mark the pages of a book you haven’t finished reading by folding the corners of the pages into the little triangles resembling dog ears instead of buying an actual bookmark, while Akaashi Keiji, does the same. Fact.
Your truth is that even if he stares at you right now, with the eyes of a man in love, you know that the sinking feeling in your stomach is the fact that you think as if he’s just meant to be with you in the moment, but not after it passes.
“Keiji, I’m sorry.”
-
It’s the way you looked as you said the words instead of the words itself that sticks in Akaashi’s head the most. He’s up, awake at 2 in the morning, tossing and turning in bed, frustrated. There’s a misplaced sense of anger inside, but he knows it isn’t towards you.
He isn’t angry at himself, nor you, nor the two fucking words that sounds like a consolation prize if anything.
Akaashi sits up, back against the headboard and ponders to himself if this is the kind of extremity Bokuto had to face whenever he was going through the motions. It’s the kind of fire that bubbles up but never explodes. First, he remembers. Then, he’s angry. Next, he’s swallowing down the words he wants to say because the problem is—he doesn’t know who to say them to.
He could call you and ask what your fucking deal was, but he knows that’s out of pocket. Your deal had always been the black and the white. He knew you as someone who appreciated it most when things fell into what was in accordance to the list you always write in order. It’s always been either this, or that, and he should have drilled it into his head at the very least.
Then after those thoughts eventually settle into his head and accumulate into a pile in front of him, the anger that already had rose to the neck area suddenly simmers down.
Then, finally, Akaashi realizes, as the exact moment settles in—he’s just tired.
He’s a little sad, and tired. Slumped shoulders, tired eyes, and thoughts a whirlwind of just you, you, and you.
This wasn’t part of his norm, he thinks, but he thought you were. He thought all there was to you were boba or juice shoved in a coffee mug and friendly hellos to the uncles who trimmed the hedges. You were the color lilac despite having a love for all the shades found in the rainbow. There was probably a semblance of love, in your life, before him, but he knows that inn this part of your life—he was bound to meet someone who’ve had endings of their own.
He sighs again, realizing the truth that he doesn’t want you to be just an ending for him to reminisce over with a group of strangers some time later.
And of course, Akaashi Keiji was the type to demand answers, because it’s only minutes later here he finally makes up his mind, standing up in a rush and picking up his phone as he dials your number, the digits memorized despite your contact having been long saved.
You don’t pick up after the first ring, but it’s only two am and he sees your game activity on discord so he knows you’re up. He’s tapping his foot, a little impatient, but because tonight he made the abrupt decision to suddenly be selfish—just this once—he didn’t care.
The second ring still rings, but there’s silence. Your status changes from online to do not disturb, and by the third ring, he hangs up, and grabs his keys.
-
To be fair, you did count down from ten to one.
Akaashi’s at your door before you can even say hello. He doesn’t look like he’s lost much sleep, taking into consideration the fact that you already are well aware of how little he even sleeps, but it’s you who leans by your door and says hello anyway.
He shifts in his place, left leg supporting his whole weight before the other. You watch, somewhere between amused and indifferent as he parts his lips once or twice, shutting them close each time before he eventually just settles with looking away and murmuring, “Wanna go for a ride?”
“To make out?”
He looks at you, then sighs. “Just wanna talk.”
-
And to be fair on your end, even if he did say that, there really isn’t much talking going on. The both of you are only wearing your pyjamas, just a couple hops away from going to bed—until this—obviously. He’s driving around the street of the neighborhood park nearby in circles; the one with the two stoplights on either ends, and just one corner as the only way that lead to your house, while his route was the turn a couple more ways ahead.
He misses the turn to your home every time. It’s a fifteen minute walk at best, and truth be told, if you were already sick of this, you would have long gotten off and started walking already, but you suppose that tonight you were a little more patient.
There’s a lot of factors that have to deal with Akaashi being patient with you too, so you could guess that it’s safe to assume that this was just a give and take situation.
You give him your words, while he gives you his.
He gives you his time, then you give him his.
There’s a balance that needs to be maintained, so while he gives you silence, in return, you do the same.
Until he breaks it, saying, “What happened back there?”
“It is what is is, Keiji,” you hum, head turned to face the window to your right.  
“We were working out,” he reasons, and you widen your eyes, looking at him, baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“I thought we had an agreement, Ji,” you retaliate.
“We didn’t say anything, Lena,” he scoffs.
Scoffs, you think. Then it fucking dawns on you that he was actually already wading in the deep end, too fast, too hard.
You shake your head, always having been resolute with your decisions, as you were transparent with your intentions. Akaashi, on the other hand, seemed to just squint right through it and look at the mirage instead of the actual desert that was right there.
“But it was still said,” you tell him, and when he stops the car near the sidewalk just to gawk at you, it really fucking hits you that he was way too deep in something that was only waist deep in hindsight.
“That’s what you think,” Akaashi tells you, but he doesn’t sound angry. He doesn’t sound tired either, so it messes with you in a weird way to realize that this is just his truth.
“I can’t tell you what you can and can’t think just like how you can’t be putting words in my mouth that I never even said, Keiji,” you bite back, flustered and frankly a little appalled at the bluntness off his words. When you stare at him, you try to give it some reason that maybe he’s just tired, or maybe he just had a bad day and was spewing shit out of his mouth at best, because at the moment, absolutely nothing is making any fucking sense.
But then he’s sighing, tired. The back of his head thumps the car seat headrest when he leans back and loosens his grip on the wheel. The streetlights flicker, but stay, while the stoplight with the corner that has your turn on it signals yellow.
You bite the bullet and turn to him, but still slow yourself down.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean—“
From his peripherals, Akaashi sees the stoplight further up ahead that leads to his turn blink from green to red.
He pauses.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m—fuck. Fuck, okay,” he continues, pausing to rub his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Len, I didn’t mean to go off like that.”
“I think,” you begin, exhaling, and frankly feeling a little more worn out. “I think we were looking at different stoplights this whole time.”
Akaashi laughs, finding it a little out of your character to be speaking in metaphors, especially knowing that that was always his sort of thing. He nods, anyway, a little past worn out, and just fucking tired at this point. It dawns on him that it is three in the morning, and he’s pulled you out of your apartment just to try to find a common ground in something that had been completely one sided from the start.
You’re yawning, in your spot just beside him, but you still look at him anyway with blinking eyes that look more sleepy than anything, but he supposes he’d rather take that kind of look over frustration or sadness.
He fights the urge to tuck in the strand of hair behind your ear, looking away when you blink a little too long, because he knows that his lips will never find a home against the skin of your eyelids he knows he’ll still periodically think about from time to time when nostalgia decides to visit him a little later down the road.
He remembers his stoplight’s at red.
“This kinda feels like a breakup,” he laughs anyway, giving himself this little bit to stay in the moment and pretend like car rides with him, and you, will still be an okay thing for tomorrow.
“Does it?” you smile, slowing down, and thinking of yellow.
Yellow.
He smiles, but doesn’t say a word, and the conversation ends just like that.
“Let me drop you off at least,” he says, and you shake your head, eyes cast towards your stop light as the countdown to green begins to tick.
“I think I wanna take a walk.”
“At three AM?” he prods. “Alone? In Tokyo?”
It hits green, and you stifle a laugh, a little drunk on the kind of adrenaline that doesn’t make you feel like running, but rather, soaring, instead.
“Yeah,” you snort. “At three AM, alone, in Tokyo.”
He knows he probably should have said something to at least get you close enough so that your building can be seen, but by the looks of it, your mind’s already long made up as you open your door, and walk out, shutting the same door softly behind you. Akaashi’s quick to lower the windows on that side, tilting his head as you do the same, leaning down give him a little smile.
“I really don’t mind dropping you off just so that I know you’re safe,” he says.
“And I really am okay,” you laugh, waving him off. “No need to be so nice, I just probably broke your heart.”
“Probably’s an understatement,” he laughs, but waves you off when you look like you’re about to say something.
“Why are you being nice to me? I didn’t do anything to you,” you laugh again.
Then you watch as Akaashi shrugs, smiling the kind of smile that you think he does when he’s alone as he looks at your stoplight turning to green ahead instead of the one on his. “You don’t need to do anything for anyone to get stuff, Len.”
“—You really don’t.”
-
It isn’t as much as looking at heartbreak straight in the face, Akaashi thinks to himself. It was really just a matter of pulling his head out of his own ass and realizing that the first look of a break of his mundane isn’t what fate has in store. Serendipity works weird, he realizes. People say it’s the happily ever after you’re supposed to be craving for, but he realizes it’s a lesson.
You were a lesson, to which the exact words he can’t exactly have a solid grasp of as of now, but he knows in time he’ll find them.
The reality of heartbreak is that it just comes, for the sake of being there. It doesn’t trickle slow, or give a warning. In his case, Akaashi realizes that it’s just there because it’s the result of something.
He’s driving down a street, passing your turn, where he has to peel his eyes away at the sight of you walking past a no U-Turn sign, because it just hits him that you were never for his to cradle to begin with.
There’s not much about you, but he can just about tell that you look like the kind of woman who holds on to the best kind of book, shoving it away during the best part, because you’re afraid of the inevitable that the story will still end.
He taps at his steering wheel, coming to another stop at the red light of his street, where he turns on his signal to turn to the right when he’s given a go. For a moment, his eyes flicker towards the passenger seat, where you were just hours ago, in the exact same moment where he was high on something and thinking that the world was just made of 2.
Akaashi looks at heartbreak in the face, but it’s just fragments of you, and a couple sentences he can’t connect to each other, and just like that he knows that this little slice of your life will just be a piece of a puzzle he isn’t a part of.
It’s okay.
It will be okay.
But right now the light’s red, and he allows himself to feel that it isn’t. He tells himself that it’s not because he isn’t enough, but rather, he’s not enough for the kind of fulfillment you were looking for. Perhaps love and happiness looked like the skies, and not the seas, because that would explain why most of his memories with you always involved you facing the clouds, as if caught in a daydream.
Akaashi laughs to himself, a little dryly, when the lights turn green and he’s easing off of the brakes. His world will always be in motion, and he’ll always be headed towards something—but right now he thinks of the moment as a metaphor that he’s heading out of something.
Out of the first phase of love; where it’s just an idea and not exactly it.
He was the getaway car, but it was okay. In shades of grey he supposes he’ll always see you, but perhaps one day he’ll find the perfect shade of orange to let the blue in his eyes finally come into a full bloom.
-
It’s in the exact same moment that you pass by the no U-Turn sign that you’ve always just ignored on your street, where a lot of things hit you.
First is the memory of Atsumu.
At first, you feel bad, because you know you probably just walked out of a situation that had to deal with you breaking a heart instead of healing it, but your truth had always been your truth and there was no point in sugar coating something whose end was prewritten right from the start.
So you shake away the thoughts, and remember Atsumu again.
It’s undeniable, that who he was had always been your truth regarding what love would always be. Miya Atsumu as the gold to your lavender, and even if the color wasn’t just your neighbor in the palette, standing beside him fit.
It fit, but just saying that it does doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
The No U-Turn sign stares at you in the face, so you stop.
You’re standing in the sidewalk again, like all those years ago, and even if you’re pretty sure that you just broke a heart only some moments ago, the only name running through your head in the moment was Atsumu’s.
Love was as ugly as it was beautiful. Selfish as it was selfless.
No U-Turn, so you keep walking.
You pull back from the waters, and ignore the moon, and stare at the skies, pretending that you’re in the presence of the sun where the sky that blankets your side of the world is bathed in the colors of daylight. Every shade of the sky saturated, where the sun looks more of a gold than a blinding yellow.
You laugh, briefly recalling the time when he decided to let you be with the spiral of your thoughts, and it’s tonight where you come into a full realization that he only did that because he knew this was the something you needed to go through yourself before even letting him in.
Your thoughts drift, and you look up to the sky, searching for the big ball of light, because in your heart, you’re calling for love. You’re alone in the streets, at three in the morning just loitering around in your pyjamas that don’t match in any angle, but love is what drives you to keep walking home.
No fucking U-Turn, and it hits you like a damn truck.
Miya Atsumu will always be the love that you’ll still find in the silence. In every shade of yellow and gold, and every walk home. He’s the presence—or a fucking entity, you laugh to yourself—that drives slow next to you who decides to take it slow and just walk home, talking the long route on the sidewalk.
There are streetlights that glow in the distance like fireflies, and you’re suddenly thankful for the burst of light.
Light, like your Atsumu, who will always be the face of your love.
You don’t know if you deserve it, but it truly had to take reading a damn side story and coming into terms that the most you could ever give the rest of the world was an honest I’m sorry.
“You don’t need to do stuff for anyone to get stuff,” you hear Akaashi’s voice chorus in your ear again, so you smile to yourself, not exactly changed, but a little enlightened at most.
Change and acceptance doesn’t happen overnight, but like love, who came into your life like a rush, epiphanies also held the nature of just arriving without warning.
The tears that begin to dribble down your face afterwards worked sort of like that. You recall sitting on the floor of your kitchen, tears on your hands, down your cheeks, on the floor, and on your shirts. You told yourself again and again that you were crying because of the cake and not because of how unkind you were to yourself, because even if your hands were empty—you know that word is only subjective at best.
You’re walking down the streets now, along the streets with the lights that look like fireflies at three am and you could just feel Atsumu smirking beside you if he was here.
Tears that feel warm, but it’s liberating.
Nothing strikes you one minute, only to change you a whole 180 in the very next because it just doesn’t work like that, but what does stay is Akaashi’s words. They swirl in your head again and again, like a broken record that has you realizing isn’t playing such a bad song at all.
Love is as selfish as it is selfless.
You loved Atsumu selflessly, but now you want to hold on to a semblance of him again—albeit it just being a memory, for now, and love with the intention to take.
It’s to accept, he would correct you, if he was there, but then again, those will always just be the words that you are yet to hear.
But for now you walk along the sidewalks and reminisce. You reminisce the view of the summit, and the feeling of being so high up. You think of Akaashi and the ocean blue eyes you thought were just great at best, and whisper another apology into the universe you pray will deliver your words to the rightful ears, because right now, you just want to love selfishly.
There’s a book on your shelf with a dog eared bookmark on page 223, and you think that tonight you’ll pull it out and at least dust the cover.
When you look in the mirror, you know that you’re in love and that fact alone is as undeniable as the truth that your name is Lena.
It’s okay to be in love, and a little broken, and it’s okay to eat a slice of cake just because.
You’re crying still, when you stumble out your door again, Atsumu’s hoodie around your frame, as you drive to that only bakery in town, forty five minutes away, because you know that they sell the best kind of red velvet.
The funny thing about epiphany is that once the smallest bit of it strikes you, it keeps coming. Reality is messy, you think, and your eye opening moment doesn’t happen like how it does in the books where every moment plays out one before the other in perfect order.
There’s a method to the madness that is life, where the order is called spontaneity because the very nature of it is to defy just that.
Serendipity that’s always found you through the face of Miya Atsumu and the amber skies that were yours and his every six thirty. Eyelid kisses and I love you, just because. Climbing from one straight to a hundred, and even a fucking thousand that quick because love is as much of a whirlwind as it is a slow burn.
You tell yourself time and time again that all you do is take without giving, but at this point it’s the universe that wishes for you to understand that there is no such thing as ever giving too little.
Love, as selflessness and purity will keep giving because even if you open your hands and offer it nothing, it will only smile back fondly, telling you that you are always deserving—as you are.
You surpass the word enough—as you are.
You are loved—as you are.
There will always be someone who will sit behind the door and eat cake with you in the silence.
-
Right now, it’s just you, but you make do anyway.
You’re in the driver’s seat of your car, frankly a mess, primarily because of three things.
The first, you’re finally feeling everything you’ve told yourself you shouldn’t be feeling—all at once. Second, the cake is really good, and you don’t feel guilty about eating it this time around.
And third, the auntie selling you cake commented that there was a gentleman just last week who wore the exact same kind of jacket that you’re wearing, buying all thirteen flavors of cake and taste tested each one on the table by the window. She asked him if he was waiting for someone, and apparently he’d always say that he is, but she was just taking her time getting caught up in a little something, but “she’s worth the wait,” he’d repeat.
“She’s worth a lot of things, so waiting a little bit is okay.”
Apparently he would buy everything but cheesecake, even if he did stare at the piece a little longer, looking like he wanted to try.
You’re crying at the thought that there was still a piece of him that was all you, even after all the one sided conclusions you didn’t even talk him through with.
“Okay,” you say, whispering to no one but yourself in particular. The container with your one slice of red velvet is on your lap, while there’s an unopened one that’s the mango cheesecake you would never in a million years order, in the passenger seat of your car.
“What do we do now?” you say again, looking at the reflection of yourself in the reflection of your windshield.
You’re nodding your head, the words to write beside the bullet points in your head already listing themselves out in a neat line, written in print. You shake your head afterwards, for the first time without the presence of anyone really, overwhelmed with all the things you thought would be your end, showing you all the epiphanies you’ve been pretending you never saw all this time.
There’s a comfort found in listening to the sound of your own sniffles in the car, your own arms around you like the anchor Atsumu’s have always been, and just like that you break down again because not only are you in love with him, you’re also giving yourself the kindness your soul has been needing to realize that you need to love yourself just as much too.
It’s not easy, but it’s tangible.
Accepting love, as the selfless something, and not just a factor that worked like the give and take system was also not right here, but in time you’ll be right there with it where it’s tangible.
“I’ll eat cake today, just because,” you finally say, and at your first bite of red velvet, the weight of your demons lessen just a little bit.
 -
April 16, 2024 | New York City, USA
-
Miya Atsumu has always thought to himself that love worked in an oddly sadistic way. It came without explanation, stayed without boundaries, then would just fucking up and leave like it didn’t just build a whole world and there would be no consequences.
Thankfully for him, love was the one thing that never left.
He saw you through a myriad of what you think are your lessons, and Atsumu smiles at every candid memory of you.
He saw you think to yourself that you were falling for ocean eyes, then saw you again, a few months after what he assumes was the fall out, at your graduation.
You wore your cap the other way the first time, and he chuckles, snapping a photo from the distance—to which you rapidly turn your head towards his direction at—a feat of yours that he can never guess how it was made possible. He was there, from a distance, cheering when your name was called, and you walked to the stage. Lilac flowers and every slice of chocolate was something he dedicated forever to you, and every time he’d close his eyes before a serve he would lightly tap at his eyelids reminding himself that that will always be yours and his.
-
The future is where time moves slow, and then it doesn’t.
The demons are there, but you suppose that it’s because they’re sort of a lifetime deal. Somedays you’ll still look away from the slice of cake you’ve been meaning to eat after a job well done, but the better days also come right after the plunge where you’ll drive yourself to the auntie’s bakery located in the OK part of New York at three in the morning just because.
You were connected to the world, despite your demons, and it was okay.
New York had went from just a postcard on your wall to the skyline that greeted you every morning before you went to work.
The smell of coffee and the feel of sunlight at 9am. Love, as the something you can still hear in the silence, because it works just like that.
Silence, as the word that’s nothing more than the absolute contrast to what New York is, but it was you dulling even the noise that comes with Time’s Square to realize that this is the kind of atmosphere good for you.
-
And because serendipity works like a bitch, it really shouldn’t have surprised you when through the crowd, it’s still Miya fucking Atsumu who you see staring back at you like he’s found you far longer than you found him.
(Perhaps there’s more than just truth to that.)
You don’t think you want to cry, because the love that’s always been there still feels the same, and when you walk towards him, a pace like your usual, you feel weightless.
There’s a comfort about meeting smack in the middle, and you think that this is it. You gave your twenty steps while he gave his. Maybe some days he gives you a little more than just twenty, and maybe some days you’ll find yourself in bed, taking zero steps while he’ll go as far as flying some thousands of kilometers just to be with you.
You let serendipity be, as you stand before him, feeling like no time has passed.
A little over three years has passed, but see the same streaks of amber in his eyes of earth, and you think that love, also has a face that looks timeless.
And it’s this.
It’s you, and it’s him—in a city that uses noise that works like silence.
It’s New York and the sea of lights. Miya Atsumu and his dopey smile, that somehow still crossed more than just a couple oceans to a land foreign to him, and he still managed to come to you halfway, like a whirlwind.
An unprecedented presence that you welcome anyway, because love, you suppose, will forever be so many things.
It’s one face that one name that holds all of that though, Atsumu thinks.
He’s looking at you, where in his head he’s already laughing because your lipstick’s smudged on the left side, the culprit obviously being the piece of croissant looking a little lame in your hand.
“I love you, still, but I think you know that,” he says immediately, as if he’s just continuing a conversation.
(In a way he is; the last you talked to him, you never really heard a reply. You said goodbye and then you left, and Atsumu never got a chance to get a word in.)
And as if he read your expression, he laughs, hands low on his waist as he stands in front of you, present. “I wanted to tell you that then so I’ll say it now too I guess. My voice has got a little deeper so it probably has more effect now.”
You shake your head, already past the state of disbelief considering the rollercoaster that is your life. “It still has the same effect,” you mumble, croissant long forgotten.
You think that you want to cry again, but Atsumu’s grinning and you feel breathless.
It’s like mercy that greets you after you think you’ve done nothing but sin—you’re breathless but your lungs feel full.
So it’s Atsumu walking up to you, looking at you like you’re his daydream, saying “Hi Lena, what’s your name?” that grounds you back to the earth after freefalling from the summit.
The world has always looked different from the view at the very top, and even if you closed your eyes throughout the fall, there was a certain comfort you realize only now and that’s the fact that the whole time you were falling—it was the sky that held on to you and never let you go since.
“Hi ‘Tsumu,” you say back, closing your eyes when you lean in halfway as he reaches forward and pulls you the rest of the way, towards him—towards love, and towards home.
“I’m sorry I don’t have something with me right now to give you,” you mumble out anyway, and your heart bursts at the feel of his hand stroking the back of your hair, as his voice anchors you down again to keep you from floating right by your ear.
He kisses your eyelids, then your forehead, and the white noise of New York has you feeling both connected and safe.
“You’re okay,” he says. “You’ve always got me like how I’ve got you, and I’ve never thought there was anything more that I could try to ask for other than that.”
“You are everything that love will always ever be and that’s it for me, Len.”
He smiles, and while things still don’t fully click into place because healing has a habit of doing just that—you also let yourself feel the lightness of just this.
“You don’t need to do anything. I got you,” he says. “You got me too,” he reassures, and you believe him.
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seance · 3 years
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› gif maker appreciation tag
rules: answer the first half of the questions with gifsets of your own, then answer the second half by tagging gif makers you love!
in honor of dia’s wonderful two years gif-iversary ♡ i was tagged by a bunch of cuties: @iridescentides / @flynncarter / @molinareggie / @miriammaisel / @juliesdahlia / @madeline-kahn / @malikjavaddzayn / @faeryglass / @winterfrosted
LINK A GIFSET › 
Link a gifset you’re really proud of:
on this old ass five gifset, i don’t know there’s something about it i guess, the fact that i managed to keep it simple (i have a problem with overcomplicating things, making them way too messy) but still got the point and the feeling i was going for across › NEVER FINISH A WAR WITHOUT STARTING ANOTHER
Link a gifset where you tried something new:
I WANTED TO BE STRONGER › this was one of the first gifsets where i really went all the way with the style experimentation and where i had the idea of the ‘blubble frame’ as i like to call it, which i love using from time to time
SHADOW AND BONE MAIN CAST › i actually first used this particular style in one of my assassin’s creed edit (NO BOOKS, NO WISDOM) but that never on my main so!
THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY EDITORIAL › i still like this edit a lot, completely different from my usual style but it came out neat!
JATP SCRAPBOOK › experimenting with textures and blending modes!
Link a gifset that features your favorite character or celebrity:
WICKER PEOPLE › my favorite chaotic disasters and special mention to THE RAIN WILL EVENTUALLY COME because this poem just kills me.
Link a gifset that you want more people to see:
i think maybe my last shadow and bone one? HERE COMES JUDGMENT DAY just because it took forever and i’m kinda proud of that first gif + i made it feeling super ill so it’s double the value agsgs- 
Link a gifset that you had fun making:
this JATP + BODIES OF WATER one, cause i absolute love finding things to associate characters to and i’m very happy how the blending turned out in the end!
Link a gifset that you created as part of a meme, challenge, or series:
FAVORITE S1 EPISODE › when i still used to gif somehow normally ahah 
Link a gifset of yours that makes you smile:
YOU WERE ALWAYS GOLD TO ME › this song and these characters just mean a lot to me and i poured my whole heart in this gifset!
Link a gifset that you made for someone else:
the love i feel for my friends is stored in the random gifsets
READY OR NOT for @overzonen
NO LULLABY / PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS for @number5theboy
ON LOVE AND ANGER for @evakant
TAG SOMEONE WHO ›
Tag someone who inspired you to start making gifs:
Oh gosh, I think I started around 2011 so I really can’t remember. I never really stopped but I had some kind of renaissance last summer, in july and I owe that to all the amazing creators in the Umbrella Academy fandom.
Tag someone who makes great vibrant gifs:
@captainheroism @meliorn @ughmerlin and @nina-zenyk all make such unique use of colors, in their own personalized styles but with such consistency and I never fail to recognize their edits on my dash, they stand out in the best of ways!
Tag someone who makes great pale/pastel gifs:
I’m not really a fan of pale or bw gifs, I live and breathe colors but! @ciriofcintras is the only one I follow who edits  like that and the only one I need because everything she makes is amazing, neat, and sharp. Always the right balance of shades. special mention to my girl @mariathorpe use of muted colors that always fit the mood so well!
Tag someone who gifs for a fandom you love:
Well, too many to count I think. If we’re mutuals, there’s a good 90% chance that’s because you’re gifmaker too and we share fandoms! To name a few, @number5theboy you already know I’m ride or die for lizzie but the thoughtfulness she puts in each gifset makes it extra special! @andyoudoctor myra is constantly improving and dishing out amazing content
Tag someone who uses text/typography really well in their gifsets:
becca @inejz-ghafa engy @alina-mal and ava @anya-chalotra are my go to for this particular type of inspiration! their careful placements and gradient and font work is always lovely, you can feel the effort behind it. typhography is the thing i waste more time on when i gif so i can really appreciate their art!
Tag someone who motivates you to step up your game:
miss ava for sure, becca again, @ogaferoga is a artist in their own right and no one does it like them. honestly ALL the people i’ve tagged here are the reason why i always strive to try new things and experiment more, i feel like we’re all learning together, at our own pace but together nevertheless and that’s so inspiring and comforting ♥
Tag someone who you have taken inspiration from:
again, i won’t ever deny the huge impact @anya-chalotra had on my current style. i try not to go with the exact type of edits of other gifmakers, unless it’s a particularly popular trend that doesn’t involve a particular attention to composition both out of respect and because i like to experiment on my own. but that’s exactly what ava pushed me to do, her edits showed me how much potential photoshop had that i wasn’t really exploiting so i got down to learn more about it! she remains my # editing goals for sure ♥
Tag gif makers who you admire and appreciate!: i love you guys so much, keep doing your thing and being awesome! @arnos @alethiometry @milkovivhs @allisonshargreeve @rockyblue @evakant @dykejaskiers @arthurpendragonns @starkkov @jessiemeili 
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mvnvgedmischief · 3 years
Text
unremarkable days.
summary: sirius black is trying to be a good man, a good brother, a good person. Sirius has a steady job designing book covers for a publishing house, a flat he never leaves, and a traumatized brother who was just removed from the custody of his parents. All in all, it's wildly unremarkable.
chapter:  4/?
characters: sirius black, regulus black, wolfstar, background marauders
tags: tw: canon compliant abuse, child abuse, social services, abuse
words: 3. 8 k
read it on ao3 here
read the last chapter here
Sirius knew that work was going to be high stress all day. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking about the way he would continuously have to talk to people, when all he wanted was some peace. He wanted downtime. Time when he didn’t have to think about how he needed his paycheck to put food on the table, clothes on his brother’s back, pay bills to keep his lights on, wifi for homework. Regulus occupied his thoughts at all times, protecting him was Sirius’s only priority these days. He didn’t have time for anything else. Not his friends, not his interests, not music. Nothing could come between his focus and his brother’s wellbeing, because if it did, Sirius would never forgive himself. The consequences were too dire. So instead, he just wished for downtime that wouldn’t come, and prayed for the weekend to approach even faster. 
The weekend, when he could finally sleep again, albeit not well. The weekend, when he had the time to take a breath, even if it was only brief. Because his weekends were also spent finding ways to better equip his apartment for his younger brother, going to long grocery runs so Regulus had lunch to take to school, meal prepping all of the things he couldn’t bring himself to eat for dinner. He was definitely tired of all of the ways his mind was spiraling out, he didn’t have the time. He didn’t fault Regulus for it, it wasn’t the teen's presence in his life that was causing all this stress. It really was his own fault. A bit of crying at that first hearing had given Walburga and Orion the satisfaction of a victory over him at that first hearing, and they seemed to crave more of that chaos. They wanted to watch their children suffer, and this was how they chose to do that. So instead he spiraled in the privacy of his own home, because he could practically hear the words they burned into his mind whenever he saw them, and feel the ache of old beatings. 
But it was only Thursday, and that meant he still had to do this all day, and  then get berated by the rest of the team for not attending their weekly bonding happy hour. If he was lucky,  no  one would ask him to go. He knew he should be less terrified of them asking, most of the people on his team were his friends. There was simply the question of Remus, and Sirius didn’t have the time to be thinking about him in the first place. 
He didn’t have time to think about  the way his hair curled just the right way to fall into his eyes when he slept, or the way his caramel freckles made him look sunkist. He didn’t have time to think about the  pink scars that ran down Remus’s face or how they got there. He definitely didn;’t have time to think of the comfort  of his hand combing through Sirius’s own mop of unruly curls. So instead, he needs to  put  all of that out  of his mind. It wasn’t going to help him do well at work. It wasn’t going to solve his problems. He didn’t have the  time for this, nor did he have the emotional bandwidth. Perhaps that was why Sirius was conveniently avoiding the idea that he had asked Remus on a date. With some luck, Remus would think he was just an asshole who ghosted him. That was definitely complicated by the fact that they worked together, that he couldn’t just disappear. He wanted to, he really did, because there was simply no time. 
He set up his deliverables as though he had made tons of them, because his employment in this company  rode on it. Just two months ago, he was pegged to be promoted within the next two cycles, and now he could barely hold on to his sanity enough to handle his workload. He was so fucking tired, and he had so much on his plate. He needed to mentally prepare himself for the long day of meetings ahead of him. He had no true motivation to do his job right now, all he knew was that his exhaustion was no excuse. He knew that his boss, Alice, was giving him a whole lot of leeway right now. She was probably doing more than she should to help him. Being a mentor on the senior design team didn’t mean she needed to keep tabs on his personal life and pick up his slack. 
“Sirius–” 
When Sirius focused back into the meeting he was calling into, it occurred to him that they’re talking to him. So he did what he always did, blamed it on a shoddy connection. 
“Oh, sorry, can you repeat that? My audio cut out.” 
“Remus was saying that some of  the poems could probably use illustrations, and he was wondering if you had any ideas on which ones needed it.” 
“Thanks, Peter.” Sirius was glad that he knew the people on this team, that Peter and James were as close to him as anyone could be. Because otherwise, he’d probably be fucked. 
“So I was looking through them, and I was thinking Bite, Magick, and Love I could probably use larger scale illustrations. But at the same time, we don’t want to crowd the book. How attached are you to the current order or page arrangement?” 
It felt too close, but he was lucky that he had at least read the titles of some of the poems in the first half of the book. Sirius knew Remus didn’t actually know what his level of involvement was. He thought it was just doodles, but Sirius would be responsible for presenting everything from kearning and font choice within the pages, to illustration and cover art to the design team. He was integral to the success of this book as a product, and he  needed to start acting like it. 
“I’m pretty attached.” Remus sounded cold to Sirius, and he wondered what exactly he had done wrong in this meeting. And yet, he didn’t have time to think on it. He needed to keep things moving, keep getting valuable information out of the author. Hook up be damned, Sirius needed this book to actually get off the ground. 
 “Okay, well we should get a meeting on the calender to discuss. What poems and what scale of illustrations you want–” 
“Shouldn’t you be deciding what the illustrations look like and the logistics of those. Isn’t that what you  get paid for?” Remus really wasn’t making this easy on Sirius. But he had dealt with bigger demons and divas then whatever this attitude was. So he put on a light and airy smile, one they’d never know didn’t reach his eyes over the low quality webcam and nodded. 
“If you’d like to take a hands off approach with the design work, that can absolutely be arranged. But in the case of a fledgling project with a new author, the design team, myself included, really hope to prioritize your artistic license so that we can get a better sense of your vision for your literature, should Quill move forward with other publications in the future.  We can provide a completely in-house service, with as much input as you feel necessary during the design process, and deliver collateral towards the end of the project when final edits are done, if you would prefer, Mister Lupin.” 
Sirius practically wanted to scream. He needed Remus to stop fucking with his job, with his livelihood. He couldn’t lose this project. He needed all of the billable hours he could get if he was going to justify the overtime he needed in order to provide for his brother. This was ridiculous. But his clinical and polite answer must have thrown Remus, because he didn’t get much more attitude out of him. The back and forth had ended. So instead, Sirius pulled up his deliverables for the week, which included new iterations for the covers, and twelve illustrations for the three poems he had mentioned. 
He noticed the way Remus looked at his drawings, like he was pained by whatever his thoughts were, and Sirius wants to scream that he’s under no obligation to think that they’re good. But then he remembers that Remus seemed to be nitpicking on purpose, based on his critique of the design system itself. Sirius didn’t have the time to deal with that level of petty, just because he hadn’t been answering. He was too busy. He had too much on his plate. So instead he continues his presentation. 
“I don’t like any of these. Maybe you should start over.” Remus sounded vindictive, even mean. Like he was doing this out of spite.  Sirius could feel his heart drop in that moment. He didn’t want to start over. He didn’t have the time. 
“What do you not like about them?” Sirius is trying to salvage his work while he can. 
“The vibe is off.”
“Oh, is there something specific that throws it off or...” Sirius trailed off, wondering what exactly he needed to change. 
“No, it’s the whole thing. All of them are just off.” 
Sirius needed to think quick on his feet. He didn’t have the time to start from scratch, so he pulled up his original thumbnails that he had discussed with Remus. 
“These are the original sketches we discussed. I moved forward with the ones we talked about. I’m happy to rework those sketches,” no, he wasn’t. “But if there’s another sketch that you think would fit your vision better, please let me know.” He felt like he was pleading with Remus not to hate his artwork. He’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t a blow to his self esteem to hear that everything that he did was bad. 
“No, I would suggest you start over.” 
Sirius nodded, his mind immediately whirring with ways he could start over and re-design this project. He really didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to do hundreds of thumbnails to get set on thirty, only to be destroyed in a meeting again. Especially when Remus seemed so excited about all of his illustrations before the meetings. It felt like too much. He didn’t have the energy for this kind of behavior. 
Luckily, Marlene directed the conversation away from Sirius’s work. The rest of the call went on without a hitch, like the only person who’s work Remus had a problem with was Sirius’s. He knew that it was more likely for Remus to have a problem with him, because design work was usually something an artist thought of as easy; however, this felt calculated and cold. If Sirius had been avoiding Remus before, it definitely wasn’t about to get better. So instead, he listened to the end of the meeting, and started the project all over again. He could do this. It was an unremarkable critique. It didn’t matter.
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uwuwriting · 4 years
Text
The writings on his skin Shinsou Soulmate au
Soulmate au with communication via writing on their skin.
Oh god this is bad, I’m not happy with it at all. My original draft got deleted and I had to rewrite this at 2 am and I’m dead. I didn’t proof read it because I swear I’m gonna pass out so I’m so terribly sorry for butchering this. I love Hitoshi to the moon and back I hope he has the most wonderful birthday I LOVE HIM. Hope this doesn’t suck that much. Love ya. 💖💖💖💖💖
Rules 
warnings: mentions of bullying, some angst, fluff
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When Hitoshi was young he used to believe in soulmates. He couldn’t wait to meet the person that would fit him like a puzzle piece. In the early age of five, Shinsou Hitoshi was filled with positivity and hope. Hope that in the future he would get to enjoy all the things he liked with someone special. 
He was so excited for the first day of school. some of the kids from his neighborhood would be in his class; they didn’t like him they were really afraid of his quirk and would make fun of him all the time, but he didn’t care. He would make new friends and just ignore them. Stepping into the classroom he was met with about 18 new faces. 18 possible friends. A smile spread across his face as he made eye contact with one of the kids. The boy was playing with some LEGOs as Hitoshi made his way to him. 
“Hi I’m Shin-”
“AHH IT’S THE MONSTER!!!” the boy cried out as he stumbled backwards putting a respectful distance between them. The whole class turned to look at them and one by one all the kids slowly took a step back. They were all afraid of him. They all wanted nothing to do with him. They-they.
“He’s a villain!!!”
“Someone call All Might!!!!” 
More children joined the mocking and the cries for help. A group of boys, two of which he knew, walked up to him growls leaving their mouths as -even though Hitoshi was a tall child- they towered over him. Pushing him to the ground, one of them snatched his backpack emptying the contents on him before throwing it at a corner of the room. 
“Villains are not allowed here! Jihiko-sensei will kick you out, villain!” Right on cue, Jihiko-sensei stepped into the room, her eyes landing immediately at his wide eyed face and trembling form. 
“Boys that’s rude!” grabbing his backpack she started putting back his scattered supplies.“Apologise to Shinsou right now!”
Reluctantly the four boys bowed their heads, mumbling an apology before rising their noses up in the air and walking away, leaving a terrified Hitoshi on the floor. 
During the first day of school he knew that he wouldn’t be getting new friends and with that his doubts of even having a soulmate bloomed to life. 
Middle school was not as bad as elementary. He had gotten used to the teasing and the name calling. He couldn’t say that it didn’t bother him; it really did but he had learned not to show it. Even now, years after that fateful first day in kindergarten, he had no friends. All of them pushed him away, some more politely than others, leaving the word ‘villain’ lumming over their heads as they turned him down. He was fine though. No soulmate mark had appeared but at this point he couldn’t really be disappointed. After all, someone like him -a monster, a villain- didn’t deserve to have a soulmate.
It was a normal day in his boring middle school. So boring that Hitoshi had turned to doodling on his arm. It was not a habit, he hadn’t done it before since he saw the doodles as tattoos and he didn’t want to give others more reasons to call him evil. Plus he liked his arms clean. But he was bored and it was hot and he wasn’t functioning correctly. At some point during his history class, he fell asleep. He woke up to a light tickling sensation running up his arm and a dim shine appeared on a spot near his wrist. 
‘You can’t draw….’ 
He blinked once, twice expecting the words to disappear but they didn’t. They didn’t fade, they were real. Bold black letters stared back at him as he marveled at the sight. He … he had a soulmate and he could actually speak to them. Snapping out of his trance he scrambled for a pen and thought of a response. He didn’t wanna seem desperate. Deciding on sarcasm he wrote beside their own message. 
‘Well excuse me Picasso’
 He waited for a response for what felt like centuries. This was amazing, incredible, astonishing all of those long pretty words writers use to describe their female characters in poems. Would they want to meet him? Did they live nearby? Were they the same age? So many questions swirled inside his head he almost missed the mandala pattern that appeared on his wrist. The design became more vibrant and visible as the minutes ticked by. It was beautiful. 
‘What’s your favorite color?’
‘Purple….why?’
‘Be patient sweet soulmate of mine, you’ll see.’ 
His heart skipped a beat. Oh lord he hadn’t even met them yet and he was already getting butterflies in his stomach. Slowly purple highlights started to appear on his skin, matching the black outlines perfectly. They truly were a Picasso. 
‘There now you have true art on your hand.’
‘Confident are we?’
‘Only when it comes to inter-soulmate communications.’ 
He liked them. He knew that from the first moment. A smile took its place on his face as he saw new letters forming on his skin, warmth blooming in his chest as he stared at their conversation. Soulmate...maybe he wasn’t so lonely after all. 
UA High. This is it. He was finally here. A place where heroes were made. It’s his time to show all those pesky brats that called him a villain that he could be a hero. A fine one at that. Getting placed in the general department was a disappointment and kind of a let down. He thought he did well on the exam. Apparently, having a grape quirk was more hero material than his brainwash. He wasn’t fazed though and neither was his soulmate. They hadn’t stopped speaking since their first conversation back in middle school. His day would start with a small, sloppy good morning scribbled on his wrist. They were there for him whenever he needed someone to rant to and he was always their shoulder to cry on. Well inky shoulder? They had agreed to keep their identities a secret along with their gender leaving everything to the hands of fate. 
‘She shall bring us together, babe.’ They always called him that, not that he minded. 
‘Well she should hurry up kitten.’ And he in return he given them that pet name. They never complained. He hadn’t mentioned which school he applied to, only that he would be becoming a hero. So when they mentioned something about a Bakugou Katsuki he was intrigued. 
‘Yeah he is in my class. Super annoying 0/10 would not recommend.’
 They went to the same school. What a coincidence. Maybe fate did work fast. Choosing his next words wisely he replied. 
‘So you are in class 1-A huh? Funny.’
‘How do you know that?????’
‘I’m in the general department that’s why.’
There was no response for some time. He knew Aizawa was a harsh teacher when it came to discipline, he gets a taste of his discipline every afternoon at six,  so he didn’t write anything else. Later that day, during his training, the familiar tingle distracted him. Glancing down on his arm, he totally missed Aizawa’s capture tool coming straight for his leg. Before he knew it, he was swiped off his feet and started hanging upside down from a branch of a nearby tree. 
“You are distracted Shinsou!” Aizawa sighed below him. Hitoshi read the message quickly before turning his attention back to his teacher. 
“I’m sorry Aizawa-sensei.” 
“Yeah yeah just don’t be like that during your training with my class. You remember that it starts tomorrow right?” Aizawa said as he got him down, letting him fall with a loud thud. 
“Yes sensei I know.”
“Great, now go get some rest I don’t want you passing out the moment you step in the forest.” 
Shinsou had never gathered his things quicker. Draping his jacket over his shoulders he sprinted to his dorm, an idea forming in his mind. He didn’t know if you wanted to meet him yet but he sure as hell wanted to see you. Grabbing a pen from his desk he scribbled under your previous message. 
‘Can you draw one of your mandalas on my wrist?’ 
Y/N was late. Like super late. She had missed her first alarm and had only gotten up because of the pounding at her door. She had stayed up the previous night drawing something for her soulmate. She kept messing up and redoing her work one too many times. Reaching her classroom she slid the door open and tiptoed to her seat seeing as Aizawa-sensei hadn’t gotten out of his sleeping back yet. Sitting down she let out a sigh of relief as her friend leaned over to her. 
“Late night with your soulmate???” She sang teasingly which only made Y/N roll her eyes. 
“Shut up Sky!” Soon they were instructed to put on their hero costumes and meet their homeroom teacher at the edge of the mini forest right in the outskirts of the school grounds. 
Skipping out of the girls locker room she looked down at her wrist where the mandala from last night looked back at her. She ran her fingers over the lines wishing she could see the design on the recipients skin.  
“Come on man! We’re gonna miss the intro move your ass!” Sky grabbed her arm and yanked her forward, ruining her moment of longing as they made their way to the forest. 
Aizawa-sensei was accompanied by another person. A boy almost at his height with vibrant purple hair and the most tired eyes Y/N had ever seen. He was staring at the class giving small nods when someone asked him something. 
“This is Shinsou Hitoshi. Most of you will know him from the sports festival, he fought the problem child.” Midoriya hid his face in his palms at the name. “He will be joining the hero course come next year so have fun training with him.”
Shinsou raised his hand to scratch his neck, a nervous habit Y/N concluded, when she saw the intertwining lines on his wrist. The purple stood out. It was more vibrant on her design, slightly losing it’s shine on his pale skin possibly because he received it. Was that? Was he? 
“Who wants to pair up with him?” at that her arm shot up instantly, without even thinking. Aizawa motioned for the rest of the students to find their partner as she made her way to him. He was taller up close, her head barely reaching his chin. Extending her drawn on hand she greeted him. 
“Y/N L/N, nice to finally meet you Shinsou.”
Bonus:
The house was quiet. Oddly quiet. Hitoshi let his bag drop next to the coat hanger as he took off his shoes. The TV could be heard playing from the living room but no voices accompanied it. Where was she? Making his way to the kitchen he found a bowl full with steaming soup that looked like it had just been made. He left it on the table, his first priority being to find the girl he was looking for. Slowly walking up the stair he heard a humming coming from the room down the hall. 
Once at the top he made his way to the pastel violet door, grasping the knob and pushing it open. He was met with the back of his soulmate, humming the soft tune he had heard earlier as she rocked steadily back and forth. The mess of purple hair on her shoulder raised its head revealing those stunning e/c eyes he adored so much. 
“Daddy…” the little girl in Y/N’s arms let out a low sleepy mumble. Turning around she saw her husband standing in the doorway of the nursery, a smile adorning his face as he looked at Kei. Kei, at the sight of her father, started doing grabbing motions trying to leave her mother’s embrace. Hitoshi let out a low chuckle as he took the two year old in his arms, letting her wrap her chubby arms around his neck and nuzzle into his neck. 
“Happy birthday Toshi.”
Shinsou Hitoshi could have never imagined he would be here today, holding his daughter as his soulmate stared back at him. He was happy, beyond happy actually. Words could not express. Extending an arm out to her, she took it tucking herself under his chin as one of her hands came to rest on the back of her baby. Kissing both of his girls, he squeezed them closer to him.  
 “Thank you kitten. For everything.”   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TAG TEAM AY:
@iwaqchan​ @the-arcana-fan-fic​ @angelwritings​ @axerrri​ @reinyrei​
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Text
Rainy Days (Part 4 of 4)
Link to AO3 -----  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Summary: Emma and Julian are in charge of the London Institute for a week and find a box that once belonged to Cordelia Carstairs and contains poems written to her by James Herondale. The story switches between Emma and Julian and oneshots about things that happened in Jordelia's life to inspire the poems.
Sorry if the formatting for the poems is messed up, I tried.
Thank you all so much for reading this story, I really enjoyed writing it <3
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“Daisies must have been her favorite flower or something” Emma says as they look around the room. Looking now that was a very obvious statement. Even some of the blankets neatly folded on the end of the bed had daisies embroidered on them. The wall paper was lined with a daisy print and on the box itself was intricately carved flowers. There are also some very old flowers that were carefully pressed and put in the box next to the poems. They were afraid to touch them for fear that they would fall apart. 
“Yeah, maybe I will do a painting of her when we go home,” Julian says thoughtfully, “I should include some daisies if I do.” 
“I’m sure it will be great,” Emma says thinking of his other paintings. He has done so many great pieces that if he was a mundane she was sure his work would be in an art gallery. The institute itself had turned into a sort of gallery these days, some people visited just to see the murals Julian painted on the walls.
They both were laying back on the bed and Jules had his arm around Emma. This was a nice day off after the busy day they had yesterday, they had run into some demons by the river and were outnumbered. Luckily, Emma is the best shadowhunter of their generation. Her wielding Cortana was definitely a scene he wanted to paint when he got home. The grace of her movements when she was fighting was like a dance, he could never quite capture the movement with a set of acrylics. 
He checked his watch, they had plenty of time before Jem and Tessa would get here. 
“We should read another poem,” he suggested. “They are kind of interesting to see what they said to each other 100 years ago.”
“Ok, I will,” she says, reaching into the box again for another poem. There was one titled Rainy Days.
“That seems fitting for today,” Julian says, glancing out the window. Emma reads the poem aloud.
Rainy Days
Outside the sky is dark and gray, The rain falls in puddles on the ground, We are in the library by the fireplace, Listening as it down pours all afternoon.
The heat of the flames warms the room, You by my side warms my heart. Even on the darkest of dreary days, You light up everything by being there.
Now you are asleep next to me, While I write about our day. I'm starting to think that I quite like, These warm and rainy days.
It was another rainy spring day in London, the snow had just melted and it was still very cold out. You could hear the wind blowing all around outside, it was quite the stormy day. None of the merry thieves or their family members would be venturing out today, they too were curled up by a fire, just like Cordelia and James. 
James now looked at the sleeping Cordelia on his lap, she looked so at peace. Her soft red hair was undone and free from it’s unusual style, he combed his fingers gently through it. He thought about the day they had had. Today was very good weather for writing. With a notebook in his hand he began to come up with ideas. 
------
“Good morning,” Cordelia says, sitting next to James at the kitchen table. She poured a cup of tea and looked out the window, it was raining very hard and forming puddles in the street. 
“Good morning” James responds, reaching for some breakfast, “Looks like any plans for today are cancelled”
“I think it is far too cold to go adventuring in London,” Cordelia says with a shiver, it was almost spring but they still had many cold days ahead of them. 
They finished their breakfast talking about rain and what crazy things their friends have been up to lately. Christopher had been working on a new invention, Mathew caused some trouble at the Hell Ruelle, nothing much different than usual. They then decided to head upstairs to the study where they could sit by the warm fire and play a game of chess. 
“Shâm-Mât” Cordelia says, winning her 12th consecutive game in a row. James just laughs as they reset the board for another game. There isn’t much to do and he is still holding on to hope that he can win at least one round.
“You're too good at this,” James says with a smirk. She has always been brilliant at battle strategy, she could outsmart any opponent she faced. He looked at her with a smile as she planned her next move, her face was full of concentration. He could feel her plotting his demise. 
They played chess until it was time for lunch, the sky was still gray with rain clouds. They then decided to venture to the library to look for a book to read on this cold and rainy day. James walked over to put more wood on the fire while Cordelia went to look for a book. They settled on the couch by the fire, Cordelia leaning her head against James’s shoulder while he read from an old volume of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. There were a lot of Dickens novels in the library mostly from James’s parents' fascination with the author. Will and Tessa were both staying in Wales for a week and were not at the institute, it was just James and Cordelia. 
She began to fall asleep and he smiled as he see the book on the night stand. He grabbed his notebook and began to write. 
---------
So now James was still sitting on the couch trying to write a poem about the letter but he realized the poem wasn’t what he should be writing about, he spent the whole day with Cordelia and she was more fierce and interesting than any storm. 
______________________________
“That was very fitting for today,” Emma says, putting the poems back in the box. She looks at the time quickly, Jem and Tessa would be there soon. 
“It must rain here a lot,” Julian says, “I miss the beach” They laugh, they would be back in LA soon enough to deal with the chaos that ensues there. 
They had just renovated the institute more and had been busy painting more murals on the walls. They also updated their computer and Jules got a laptop which made some things easier and more organized. 
They hear footsteps coming down the hall and Tessa looks into the room. 
“I see you found James and Cordelia’s room,” she says with a smile. 
“I haven’t been here in years,” Jem says looking around the room. Tessa was looking at the box in Emma’s hands. 
“I see you found Cordelia’s jewelry box,” Tessa smiles as though she is remembering her, “She is an ancestor of yours, she was a Carstairs before she married my son.” 
“James, right? Did he write poetry?” Emma asks. Tessa looked a bit confused.
“Yes, he did. But I thought I had all his notebooks saved at my house, did you find one?” 
“We didn’t find a whole notebook but we did find a few poems he wrote to Cordelia.” Jules says. Emma opens the box and pulls out the pieces of paper. 
“I always wondered where the ripped out pages went, I always assumed they were just rough drafts that got tossed away.” She paused for a moment, “did you two happen to find a book called The Beautiful Cordelia. I have been looking for it for a while now and I know Cordelia had it.”
Emma pointed over to the shelf they had originally found the box on. Tessa pulled out the leather bound book that had The Beautiful Cordelia across the top in fancy calligraphy and a small “by Lucie Herondale” on the bottom. 
“Thank you,” Tessa said, holding the book. Jem was looking at something across the room. 
“Hey, did some of our stuff get moved up here too,” he asked, picking up a stele. 
“I think so, did you find something?” Tessa asks. 
“This was Will’s stele,” He says, handing it to her and looking slightly incredulous. “How much of our stuff is still here?” Tessa laughs.
“Leave some for the other generations, we don’t want to fill our house with 100 years worth of clutter.” 
They all turn to leave and go get something to eat. They would never forget the poems they found, the remnants of someone else's rainy day, of another time period far away yet so near to them. While the day was dreary, dark, and wet, never let the weather depict whether there is a storm cloud raining on your day off.
_____________________________
Cordelia looks at the poems one more time with a smile before placing them in her new jewelry box. It had been an anniversary gift from James. It is wooden with her name and intricate little daisies carved onto it. The box truly is beautiful. It had been raining so she took the opportunity to organize a bit but now the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. 
James walked over and kissed her on the cheek while she latched the box shut. 
“ We were invited to a picnic in the park, just the usual group. Do you want to go?” He asks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 
“That sounds lovely,” she says, standing up from the bed and carrying the box over to the shelf. She puts it between The Beautiful Cordelia and a book of persian mythology her mother had given her. She slipped on her shoes and took James’s hand. They walked off happy as can be, standing in the sun for a change instead of being stuck inside on those rainy days.
Tag list: @fortheloveofthecarstairs  @thehotfaeriethreesome  @shadowrunner2000  @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @surrounded-by-exquisite-clutter @gabtapia  @niathesanctuary-bolastair-kanej
Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list :)
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spiritualgateway · 3 years
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The Next Wave
written by Steven Black:
We seem to be experiencing a boom of old conspiracy theories. Sometimes woven into a new coat, but at the core they are the same old black and white stories. Is it also true that all the conjecture, relativization, fake news and various conspiracy theories that are currently surfacing annoy the hell out of you? I have to be very careful about the sarcastic part of myself and therefore I keep myself from commenting. Not always, but mostly.
Whenever I open my FB Stream lately, I notice a real war being waged by the self-proclaimed awakened against the alleged sleeping sheep. One „have to know“ after the other is posted and „THE Truth About“ is announced – daily. I know this all too well.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
Yes, I went through a phase myself where I believed a lot of bullshit or at least thought it was possible. It started in the late 90’s and ended in 2012, and during that time I probably inhaled every existing conspiracy theory and read all the authors who spread it with a fervor of conviction. Starting with David Icke, Jan van Helsing, Robin de Ruiter and countless others, up to Alex Jones. Hell, I myself have contributed to the spread of such stories. The subjects they dealt with back then were not really different from what they are today.  
Me and many other people, we thought we were „awakened“ then, because we believed we could understand the world more and better, like everyone else. Critical comments were countered with „inform yourself properly“ and immediately some links of „alternative points of view“ were thrown behind, which confirmed our own statement. And one could be sure that other participants who took the same bubble would shout down the critic as „mainstream sleep sheep“. No matter what argument came up – it did not reach anyone. In this phase one is not accessible to criticism, one fends it off. But if the criticism is so valid that it cannot be negated, one still had the recourse to some whataboutism.
It was a time when it was all about „the rise“ and all the political or economic daily news was seen as „there is light coming into the darkness“. We knew that the „end of the matrix“ was near and that a worldwide recalibration of consciousness was coming. We thought of ourselves as light warriors, critics of the system, rebels for the good and enlighteners. Fervently inspired by the conviction that we had all taken the „red pill“ and would now be the only ones to see clearly, we wanted to wake up and enlighten „the sleeping sheep“. In doing so, we constantly reminded them that it was absolutely (!) necessary to do research, think for oneself and question everything! Only WE knew, all others were of course stupid, brainwashed or sleeping. We were the judges, jurors and executioners of the worldly realities – self-proclaimed world policemen and smartass activists. We alone knew how the rabbit had to hop and how it „should be right“.
Pffff. When I look back on it now, I can laugh about it heartily. God, what a wonderful mindfuck.  
Yes, if we had done it like that.. If we had heeded this „winged advice“ that we had thrown at everyone, we would have taken it to heart ourselves. If we had questioned the sources we referred to and believed. Instead, our own thinking, research and questioning was limited to almost everything that came from alternative media and supported our views. Official facts, whether political, economic or otherwise, were „mainstream“ and thus fundamentally untrustworthy. It was all just propaganda … (yes no, that’s clear).
This made us susceptible to believe people and media that had either a political or other agenda. Starting with racist Jew haters, religiously dressed up ideologues, political muddle-heads, esoteric concepts without any grounding, up to „doomsday fanatics“.
But we had heard a call from the universe that the time had come for an expansion of consciousness. It felt like a kind of magical awakening. And I, as well as everyone else in that time who was like that, we were not the first. There have been recurring, rather small movements since the 1950s. But there was a really big, concentrated shift of consciousness in 1986, at the time of the so-called „Harmonic Convergence“. One can certainly call this the first great wave of lightworkers and truth seekers that the world has perceived.      
They did not fare much better either. These people, too, had to rummage through various horror scenarios, actual and imagined injustices, as well as their own overflowing imagination. But the basic themes were the same as they still are today. They are power topics (power and powerlessness), money topics, resistance to living, dying and all kinds of heavy, undigested emotional burdens. At that time, all of this was going on a little more quietly, at least in the eyes of the public. These topics were only discussed in small forums on the early Internet.
And today?
Today, the „social media“ are full of them and various shit storms are spilling over into the media mainstream.
Today the exact same process is taking place, in a new wave of people who have come in the beginning of their own awakening process. Awakened can not be spoken of, it is a slow awakening and it usually takes years.
One „wakes up“ from years of unconscious dwelling within one’s own personality structure, which has usually become quite rigid. One gradually enters into a new process of self-discovery, where many things are simply thrown over, which were normal and acceptable until then. The sense behind this is a broadening of perspective and a restructuring of mental expression.
Yeah, right. They got a call from the universe.
And at first you are thrown into confusion and disorientation. You will also have the feeling of stumbling around in a seemingly endless labyrinth. Individually varying degrees of identity loss can occur, which additionally creates fear. Many things seem to make no sense anymore, you part with friends, views and previously held beliefs, while at the same time you have the feeling that you can no longer find a secure hold anywhere. A well known, often observable reaction to this is a devaluation of the human being, the body, the mind or the human identity itself. In the course of this process one stumbles from one conspiracy theory to the next, constantly stepping on a bullshit cookie and sometimes not knowing whether one is male or female.
Can you prevent this? No idea. Most probably not.
That doesn’t mean that everyone who gets into this process is clinging to conspiracy theories and thinking they are THE thing or the only and pure truth. But a lot of people do just that. In a time of great personal uncertainty, the one-dimensional black and white images of conspiracy theories seem to simulate an unpleasant but seemingly stable reality.
Basically, an essential scenario is happening here – your consciousness is being twisted through the wringer and a kind of battle is taking place inside you. A battle between your old consciousness and the new, unknown. The old consciousness knows only defense and projection, but the new one wants to reflect and express itself mainly through self-reflection.
This inner fight has nothing to do with any Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Bill Gates, vaccinations, cash bans, paedophile satanists, mind control or whatever. In reality, „the universe“ is fucking your old consciousness to break you open and dissolve old encrusted structures. And the first, basic reaction is mostly projection and defense.
Hiking through your own darkness
There is a spiritual metaphor that says: „The dark night of the soul. This term goes back to the Spanish Carmelite and mystic John of the Cross. It is a poem written in the 15th century – in prison. For John of the Cross it was about the mystical union of the soul with God. Nowadays this metaphor is used to describe the difficult period of a spiritual development process, where the human personality has to struggle with disorientation, depression and confusion. Its purpose is actually to achieve a continuous, increasing and lasting reconnection with one’s own soul consciousness. This is a time when many things that once seemed normal and safe for the human personality simply seem to break away. Where instead depressive states are experienced, where crises, insecurity and loss of orientation prevail.
I actually believe that we are all in some kind of global dark night – the entire human species, the entire human family. And, of course, that means a process that will last for several years and probably decades. We are going through personal and global, very individual crises and we are coming into contact with our own darkness. With many things that we have been carrying for a long time, but which we are very often simply not really aware of. And a whole lot of situations and emotions are being washed up inside of us, so that we have the opportunity to check if it still fits for us. Yes, in the end it is years of trials …  
It takes a while to understand that expanding consciousness has little to do with any external enemies, but rather with what is going on inside and how to deal with it. Nevertheless, it is apparently unavoidable that you first shoot yourself on everything you find in the world of Scheixxe and what you judge to be „that shouldn’t be like that“. And so one wades for a while through all kinds of dirt, horror ideas, laments about injustice and deals with horror scenarios. Starting with worldwide mind control, up to some omnipotent enemies of mankind. As an antipole you read channelings or inform yourself about natural food.
Basically, projections are a defense mechanism of the psyche. The term projection describes the transfer and shifting of one or more inner psychological conflicts to other persons, groups of people, living beings or various objects of the outside world.
Relatively harmless projections are when we ascribe characteristics, deficiencies or problems to other people, which we ourselves carry openly or hidden within ourselves. A far more serious form of transference is when I believe that the whole world is conspiring against me (or humanity, the whole earth, health, freedom, morality, faith, etc.).
Whatever the case may be, when we project, we thus transfer our own issues, fears or worries, to other people, organizations or groups of people, so that we do not have to feel it with ourselves. And then link these fears to certain events or circumstances that we do not like, which is then considered „proof“. The point is – what we project and transfer to other people are either unrecognized, personal qualities or unprocessed, emotional problems from our past, which we transfer to the present. And often, both variants intermingle. Projection allows us to transfer self-experienced situations or predominant emotional states, in our own consciousness, that are perceived as unbearable, to ward off these emotions from ourselves by transferring them to x-any situation, people and organizations.
And this, whether we want it or not, is unavoidable in a real wake-up process.
We push away what is inside of us and project it onto politicians, Illuminati, cabal, deep state mind control or whatever. To explain to us why we have certain feelings or thoughts. In this way we can continue to fool ourselves that everything is okay with US – only with THOSE out there, there is something wrong with them.
Talmud: „We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are“.
You can of course now despise all this fear porn of various conspiracy theories and call it bullshit – which of course is a good 99% (in my opinion) of all conspiracy theories. But in the end, they seem to fulfill a need that is not quite visible on the surface.
When you get into such a wake-up process – process, mind you – your entire identity structure is „attacked“. All the things and experiences that we hid from ourselves and that we repressed will be flushed up from our inner self over time and our protective and defensive shields will become porous. Most of the time, we have buried them so deeply that we can no longer feel or perceive many things. Deep, formative experiences that reach far back into childhood. All our deep fears, the inner insecurity, the doubts or our real self-esteem will gradually creep to the surface and say hello. Everything that has been quietly there all along will suddenly start screaming very loudly inside us.
Conspiracy theories are theories, not facts. They are extremely simplified black-and-white images and, moreover, highly exaggerated descriptions of a seemingly alternative reality. Mixed and connected with actual, clearly criticizable, political, social or economic processes. Whereby, however, the really criticizable things are completely lost, because the context with which they are interpreted is completely far-fetched.
BUT …
Now, if a Xavier Naidoo in a video cries because allegedly thousands of children are being freed from an underground torture prison where they were abused as human lab rats to obtain an alleged super drug called Adrenochrome and you react emotionally to it, it is because this extremely shocking horror show is arguing with certain experiences of your own past. Maybe from a past life, maybe in this life – does not matter in the end.
But you can suddenly feel THAT. It breaks down your protective shields and your emotional numbness. You can feel this nameless horror inside you, what it must mean to be tortured, abused and trapped. Powerless, to be exposed innocently and helplessly to something. But at the moment you can’t realize that this might have something to do with yourself. And you do not want to feel all the unpleasant things that have to do with you personally. You do not want to feel your personal powerlessness, helplessness or fears. You want to get rid of that.
I’m not saying that conspiracy theories are good. But everyone has to go through his own processes, even if that means having to go through a nonsense of denial of reality. If you bought into it, then you have to go through it. Okay, whatever makes you descend into your own darkness is good.
Of course, there is no such underground bunker and no tortured children to produce adrenochromes. And of course, „St. Donald Trump“ has not freed anyone. This Q Anon story is completely free of meaning and serves nothing else but to secure Donald Trump’s re-election and keep his conservative voters happy. Apart from the fact that there is child trafficking, that there is organized sexual and also ritual abuse of children, there is no truth in the story itself.
These and other conspiracy theories, however, bring you in touch with your own feelings and emotions that are buried deep inside you. The stronger you react to it, the more outraged and angry your reaction is, the more emotional charge you have built up.
The dark and heavy energy, such formatted information, docks fundamentally to the inner parts of the person that are in pain, traumatized or disoriented. This inner pain is often so well hidden and suppressed, so great and unspeakable – because never processed or admitted by us that only a supermonstrous, absolutely malignant source can explain it, who must be behind it. This kind of milkmaid’s calculation, of an omnipotent conspiracy feeds and triggers the fragmented inner child within us, which then becomes angry and projects its hatred, its rage and despair onto the world.
What do you think it does to you when you wallow in assertions and views that the eternal sacrificial existence enshrines? What does it do to you when you think the world is in the iron grip of a global conspiracy, a supposed elite, with the aim of undermining moral principles and ultimately reducing humanity? If you believe that some malevolent aliens have allied themselves with various leaders or secret organizations to rule the earth? And you yourself are completely powerless in this?
Does it make life much more fun? Does it create meaning, love or harmony for yourself and more connection to the world? Does it produce improvements in your personal life? You will have to admit that this is not the case. On the contrary – you clearly feel worse. If you roll around in dirt, you don’t get cleaner, but naturally dirtier.
If you go through this phase, the day will come when you are „done with the world“. Where you feel so weakened, depressed and trapped in your own darkness that you will experience a kind of inner breakdown. You will approach a state where you give up. Which, as weird as this may sound, is a good thing. When your inner resistance and your defense strategies no longer work and collapse, there is only one way out – to work through your emotional burdens. In reality, this is not a breakdown, even if it feels that way – it is a breakthrough.
This is the moment when the real challenge begins and you are so „backed up“ that you are ready to face your own personal issues. And in the end it’s all about that and nothing else. It is about you, not about politics, economics, Illuminati, cabal, Donald Trump, Rothschilds, Soros, Bill Gates or Rockefeller. It is about you personally, in this process. How you feel with yourself, your body and your life.
The Rothschilds are not responsible for how you feel or whether you have too little money in your pocket. Donald Trump is not coming to save you, Germany or the world. God or the universe will not transport you to a light-filled 5 D world where you don’t have to feel all the pain anymore. George Soros is not to blame if you do not take responsibility for yourself. The pharmaceutical industry is not to blame if you are sick. The slaughterhouses are not to blame if you are meat. Reptilian shape-shifters have nothing to do with it if you don’t feel comfortable with yourself or your body. Illuminati or Kabale are not responsible if your relationship breaks down or you are no longer satisfied with it. No one is responsible for whether you can accept yourself, with all your apparent faults or inadequacies. No one, except ourselves …
All these are deeply personal issues and conflicts that should be looked at. No one will come to save you miraculously. You are the one you are waiting for. You are the one who can „save“ yourself.
It is about making new friends with yourself and life. It is about self-acceptance and self-acceptance, exactly as you are. And you will only achieve this if you really deal deeply with yourself. Everything else is just an attempt to avoid yourself. To avoid the pain, loneliness, loss, anger and many other conditions that have accumulated in you for years. And it takes a lot of courage to venture into a therapeutic reappraisal process and to face your personal stories mercilessly.
This is a very critical time when you are extremely vulnerable and unfortunately some people do not manage to take the necessary step and get stuck in the old stories. They get stuck in conspiracy theories and cling to them desperately. And bullet through one wave of outrage into the next. If you don’t do transformation work and don’t integrate all the unpleasant emotions into yourself, you can get stuck in it for a very long time.
I recommend to everyone who wants to hear it, an examination of the Inner Person Model. And I strongly recommend feeling work. Get professional help if you are in this process. You will find it very difficult to get through on your own and if so, you will have to spend much more time with it. So take care of yourself and your consciousness …
Man is basically not a prisoner of fate, Illuminati, Freemasons, aliens, etc., but of his own consciousness, which he does not care about. When you deal with your inner conflicts, your emotional nebulas and diffuse mental states, you regain clarity – above all clarity about yourself. If you are clear with yourself again, many strange convictions you had about x – any external processes will also be cleared. You will then realize that you don’t need conspiracy theories to criticize various processes or states in our society. There are enough factual, fact-based and also technically competent arguments for this.  
For those of us who have been through it for a long time, for those who find it a bit annoying to see all this old stuff reappearing so massively in the social media. But we should remember that we once experienced a similar phase and had to go through it. No, of course these people are not stupid, even if a part of me has the perception that the concentrated stupidity seems to take over the power at the moment. They are merely in a process of transition and one can only wish them good luck and good luck with it. They are not the first and will not be the last. In fact, I believe that this will intensify.
I have a part of me that thinks it could save people from their own experience if they only had enough information. This part of me thinks he would abandon his tribe if he didn’t say anything about it. And so I sometimes make comments to some people when I feel it would make sense to correct the statement. Most of the time it doesn’t take 2 minutes of googling to find out the facts. Meanwhile I make such comments only once, sometimes even twice. But if I constantly get answers to them, which my 20 years younger self has known for a long time, because he himself answered criticism like this, then I stop.
Because the adult in me knows that it makes no further sense and the person has to go through this experience until the end. Once you are in it, there is no other way out than to go all the way through it. Then I just keep my mouth shut and sometimes I unfriend or put people on „sleep“. Especially those who share particularly annoying „alternative theories“. This is pure self-protection. I just try to keep some distance to the experiences of others that don’t fit (anymore) to mine.
It took me a lot of persuasion to make this part of me understand that it cannot protect or prevent anyone from their personal experience. And to feel all the sadness and regret, at the thought that in this process some will „fall under the table“ and may not be able to rise from there. This part of my personality has now understood that his tribe has to do its own personal, very individual work to come to terms with the situation and that this is entirely his responsibility. Or he will get stuck in his experience.
I am also aware that the term conspiracy theorist is considered offensive by many who are in it. Well, they should thank those people who, by mixing up thoroughly criticizable topics with phobias, paranoia, hysteria and pure fantasy, led to a huge accumulation of absurd theories that no clear-thinking person can take seriously. And no, the term conspiracist was not invented by the CIA to silence critics of the Kennedy assassination. It goes back to the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, who coined the term conspiracy theory as early as 1948.
From where I stand today, conspiracy theories make no sense at all. They are packed with emotional dramas and personal imbalances, cause doubt, create fear and feed the hysterical inner child. Never have conspiracy theories led to anything constructive. They simply invite you to let your hatred, resistance, lack of empathy and inner drama queen out and let the proverbial sow run free. To understand this, just look through the commentary columns under some VT Post.
And it is not at all about the fact that there have been or are actual conspiracies throughout human history. But all the things that are manufactured and suspected about it today, so bizarre and excessive, can’t be put on any cow skin anymore. Conspiracies are by definition top secret – they are so secret that any fool with computer access can find them neatly listed on the Internet. Michael from Recklinghausen knows them all, maybe the CIA should hire him …
Makes totally sense, right?
But okay, it’s just basic personal issues that are transported in this way. Apparently, for some of us it is necessary to exaggerate things so much that we are capable of an emotional reaction. Because no matter which horror story is given for the best – it is always MY personal fear that is then triggered. My anxiety, my paranoia, my hysteria – all kinds of emotional instability that exists within myself is reflected.    
And when you are in there, you believe that it is all real. That some reptiles rule the world, that George Soros is using refugees to destroy Christianity, that Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and white-vultures are still reptiles in human form, that the Corona crisis is a hoax, that it’s the pretext for establishing a dictatorship, that all the famous Hollywood actors or politicians are pedophiles and that Donald Trump is liberating Germany. That the Corona crisis would be the final wake-up call for the rise to 5D or would be used by the elite to initiate a system crash and abolish cash or put all of humanity under mind control … etc., etc., etc.
It’s like a huge buffet where you can eat according to your personal taste. You can buy into any of these narratives – but a real danger is that they will swallow and eat you.
Ironically, it doesn’t really matter if things actually have any truth to them. The only criterion is whether or not we believe the narrated things. And what we believe is in turn related to a certain kind of identity. If there is already a deep conviction in our identity structure that we are victims, helplessly exposed to things and life, then it is not very difficult to convince ourselves of a world in which ALL people are victims of a huge conspiracy.
We all know, the world can sometimes be a terrible, unfeeling and cold place. But it can also be a beautiful, uplifting place, full of beautiful people and experiences. Everything this world holds in store is always an expression of people, of dynamics and personal, national and global processes and the consequences of these. If you look at the world in general with a sober view, you can see what a long way we as humanity still have to go.
It is a war that is raging inside us and that reflects its expression on the outside. The war between all the unredeemed and burdensome emotional content, the mental beliefs built around it and the painful attempts to control it and keep it away from us – but which we always lose because the elaborate stories we tell ourselves about it to rationalize and explain the pain away collapse sooner or later and the pain comes back to us with all its force. We can’t run away from it, because we can’t run away from ourselves.
None of us can „save“ the world, but we can „save“ ourselves and do our inner processing work. Imagine that everyone would do this? In no time we would see a completely different world. But since we refuse most of it and think that we ourselves do not need it – it will probably take some time. Nevertheless, this is the path we must take.
Until next time same station …
DISCLAIMER: Nothing you read here is THE truth. It is my truth, my perception and how I see things – now, in this moment.
THE INFORMATION SPACE
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writing5ever · 3 years
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How did you realise you were non-binary?
I am tempted to give a sarcastic answer, because my sharp tongue likes flicking too much nonsense. But for this one, where one is questioning their identity? I won‘t.
Forgive me if I end up explaining the whole process.
The answer is I didn’t. Not at first at least.
Like most people know, children who don‘t fit the heteronormative norm. Get a label slapped on them. Boys who were dresses, are teased as girls. And girls who don’t are teased as guys. I got the latter slapped on me.
That’s fine. Younger me thought. I like to play in the mud and chase and scream anyways. I don’t act like other girls.
And a decade of that passed with my tomboy label being a sense of pride. At the age of ten however I learnt about the hush hush word. No, not fuck. Gays. Sad reality. Yes, but what dI’d you expect?
Gays are bad. Gays are wrong. I must have heard that a million times at the age of ten. When crushes were new and some were suffering from early puberty. If a guy stood too close to another. “Gay!” Would come shooting out of oblivious children’s mouths. We all know better now, social media and morality at out fingertips. Some of us however, are still stuck being oblivious ten year olds.
Back then that was that. If you were out of the norm. You were wrong. Much hasn’t changed of that worldview. So I hope it doesn’t come as much of a shock when I tell you, I tried to make myself act more like a girl. Too scared with expectations of parents to grow up and fear of being called something I told myself I wasn’t and a crippling pain of knowing that I couldn’t do anything about it.
And you must be thinking. Oh, poor you! Yes poor me. But also poor all those people who did that to a child. And are still doing that.
School never allowed anything beyond braided hair, right uniform and small earrings. So I was good in that regard. But home became a personal hell, and going to the bathroom suddenly became talks about this new dress or this lipstick they would wear once they were older. It was torture.
Then came, what most people like to call a gay revelation. I moved countries. And arrived in Singapore, exhausted from jet lag wide eyed at the cemented roads. And eating candy that I‘d only seen rich kids brag about when they back from summer holidays.
Everyone was interested in the new kid who hadn’t got their uniform yet, and was wearing coloured clothes that didn’t look like they belonged on their body. A year passed, I was 11 now. And I had yet to make a distinct identity for myself. When it came, “the revelation.”
The substitute teacher walked in, and conducted the poem recitation that was due that day. I gave mine flawlessly. But the kid whose name fell right int the middle of the attendance list, stood up with a confidence that was put on. And stuttered through the entire poem.
The poem was Daffodils and to this day I can recite it to you. But to whoever is familiar with that poem. They will know that the word ‘happy’ is replaced with ‘gay’ which mean the same thing in the context. The poor child stuttering the way she was, stuttered at that very line. And the class laughed. You might be asking, did you? It is a proud moment for me to say I didn’t. That might have been more because this child was a friend of mine. And after all who laughs at friends? Even if they stutter the hush hush word?
The teacher drew to her full height which wasn’t much. And silenced the class. Calmly in the way you know you’re in trouble she asked why we were laughing.
Gay. Was on everyone’s minds, but no one said it. These were her words and so I kid you not when I tell you I still remember them.
“If you’re laughing at her stutter shame on your lack of compassion, if you’re laughing at the word ‘gay’ then shame on your lack of acceptance. They are still human. Like you, and you and you. Would you devoid them of their love because you think they are a joke?”
Silence was cast on the room that not even the strictest teacher could enforce. And it was jarring. But there was odd sense of relief.
They are still human. Was something that had never been used in front of me in reference to gay people. They are still human.
The next day, I wore my hair sideways with a bunch of press on earrings decorating my right ear. And my back pack stuck with badges and quotes of my favourite books. I applied for the basketball team where for roughly three years I was one of the most feared players in the interschool and inter house matches.
I got the label ‘tomboy‘ slapped back on me. Eleven year old me didn’t give a fuck.
Now you must be wondering, gosh where are they going with this. Bear with me a little longer. I turned twelve and one of my best friends came out to me. Terrified and crying his eyes out. And we just stayed in the small alcove behind the stairs, hugging even as the bell rung for class.
What words were whispered and what platonic love was shared that day is something that will never go beyond the two of us.
A little searching through the internet, a little butterflies in my stomach every time my other friend passed by, and a week later. I came out as bisexual.
... In a truth or dare game.
Not my best moment. But certainly my friends’s. They heard me, listened the shrugged it off as though I had just said what I had for lunch. And there was that.
Family problems happened and we moved away from the place that had become a heaven for me. And back to India. I got into writing. And more family problems happened. Writing. Family problems. And suddenly it didn’t feel so human to be this anymore.
I had come out to my new school expecting the same supportive or indifferent treatment. It didn’t come.
What came was me being blocked off the toilets. And guys would only let me in if I showed my penis. I’ll have you know I got held back after school to sort out the janitor’s closet because I punched the guy who asked me that. Teachers had no idea, and for good reason, since their views on the matter would have been clear. And soon there were rumours about me about how I had sex with the entire outcast group. Which consisted of, you guessed it, me and other kids who were less than normal.
Soon I wasn’t even allowed to eat with the outcast kids. Writing turned from a hobby to passion to obsession. Anne Frank from the diary of little had been right. Paper has more patience than people. And perhaps even more kindness.
Jump skip to when I stumbled into tumblr and became attached to receiving likes on my stories during the lockdown. The inevitable happened. As it was bound to, from Wattpad, Pinterest and Tumblr. I learnt more about the lbgtq+.
To those who knew me from the very start, will remember a post about trying on a homemade binder and the label of a trans man. Then up came along the wakkadoodle game of pick the label! Genderfluid was next. Along with pansexual.
Like putting on a wrongly fitting dress just before a party. I made it fit. Told it firmly that it had to stick around. The devious thing it was, only made me feel more uncomfortable in my skin.
The hallelujah moment didn’t arrive in the way they broadcast on TV. It came with a 13 about to turn 14 kid, crying into their pillow. Wrapped around their favourite stuffed toy after their father had walked out of the house from another fight.
That night that was too light to be night anymore. The substitute teachers words came back to me.
“They’re still human.” Became “I am still human.”
I don’t know what came over me. But I grabbed my iPad got into the bathroom, and looked up on google. I didn’t find anything that night but more confusion.
But wait it’s important to what I am about to tell you. The next day on tumblr I was bombarded with non binary posts. It wasn’t even non binary day! And it not like I never heard about it before. Come on, it’s tumblr. Not to mention I was researching about these stuff.
The next week, to the small group of friends I had left. I asked if they could use they/them for me now. It didn’t fit at first. I was so disappointed to hit another dead end.
Turns out I didn’t hit another dead end. It started to fit. And this time I wasn’t putting it on. This time I was wearing it with colours of Pride. I was taking part in fests where I made the protagonist non binary. I wa beaming every time someone used gender neutral terms. And I was comfortable enough to dress feminine when I felt like it.
Now you must be wondering. Then why didn’t you just say that at first?
One: Because someone needed to hear that they are still human.
Two: I could never pin point the time at which I figured it out.
and three the most important: Because someone maybe even you, needed to know it’s okay to jump from label to label.
And to be honest. This one might not be fixed either. But at least this time around I know that however I am, whatever label I choose next to summarise me. I will always be human. And valid.
No one can change that. Not even me.
I really hope that answered your question. If not, I am terribly sorry.
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beauregardlionett · 3 years
Text
this poem is my confessional (loving you isn’t a sin)
AO3 Link
A/N: big shout out to my man @sadwizardvibes for the inspiration AND for writing me a fucking song to go with this piece thanks for fueling my beauyasha brainrot man <3
If she was honest with herself, giving Beau that poem had been entirely an impulse decision. Yasha had told Jester she would work on it—which she did—and that she would find a special moment for it. But most of the moments she shared with Beau were special to her, so that didn’t exactly narrow things down. She cherished every conversation and tried her hardest to keep Beau safe. Especially after the events at the chantry, Yasha appreciated every moment she got with Beau.
So, she had handed the paper over and prayed she didn’t embarrass herself.
Beau had seemed flustered, touched, and Yasha had wanted nothing more than to kiss her then and there. But she had held back, because she wanted Beau to at least read the poem before anything else happened.
And then all of that insanity with Vess and Molly—no, Lucien—had happened, and Yasha found herself grateful nothing else had transpired between her and Beau. She hated to think the memory of their potential first kiss might have been marred by the events following.
Regardless, they were underway toward Aeor; the snowy landscapes were taxing, endless, and a little boring. Supposedly it was a good thing they had encountered none of the foretold beasts, but Yasha harbored a lot of pent up frustration and nerves. It would be nice to have something to take that out on.
At the end of their second day, Caleb set up his tower. He ushered them all inside to a haven of warmth and stained glass they were becoming steadily more familiar with. Dagon seemed understandably impressed with the magical structure and grateful for the guest room he was directed to.
Usually they would gather up for dinner together, but there seemed to be a silent, unanimous decision that exhaustion took precedence. They retired to their various rooms with yawns and quiet ‘good nights’, safe for the time being. Yasha lay on her back on the cot in the room with the floral mural. She traced an absent gaze over the patterns, identifying flowers in her head and hoping it would lull her anxious mind to sleep.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Molly—Lucien—and what they would do when they caught up to him. Yasha couldn’t stop thinking about Beau, about the poem she carefully tucked away to read later. Yasha couldn’t help but remember of Zualla as she stared at the flowers on her wall.
There was a knock at her door.
Pushing to her feet after a moment, Yasha walked to her door to poke her head out. She was confused about who might be at her door at this hour until her eyes found Beau fidgeting on the other side of the threshold.
“Hi,” Beau mumbled, hands behind her back.
“Hi,” Yasha breathed back, opening the door a little wider. “Are you okay? It’s late.”
“Yeah,” Beau said, voice pitching up a little at the end in a tell Yasha quickly realized meant she was nervous. “Yeah, I just uh…”
Yasha raised an eyebrow at Beau’s nerves, unused to a Beau who floundered. She realized in the second before Beau pulled the piece of parchment out from behind her back what this was about. The Aasimar flushed pink and her eyes flicked to the ground, embarrassed.
“This was…really beautiful, Yasha,” Beau mumbled, fingers fiddling with the edges of the paper. “But I uh…I noticed this.”
Yasha chanced a look up, Beau extending the paper and pointing to a tiny note scrawled in the bottom corner. She had forgotten about that.
In her messy, cramped handwriting, Yasha had scrawled the word harp? She had been considering turning her poem into a song, because it was always easier for her to express things through music. Plus, she knew that Beau enjoyed her music, so why wouldn’t she put it to chords? But Yasha ended up pushing the idea aside. It was one thing for Beau to like Yasha’s wordless performances, and a whole other for Yasha to direct poetry with music toward the woman of her affection.
“It was…just an idea,” Yasha said with a half-hearted dismissive gesture.
“Would you play it for me?”
Yasha felt her cheeks grow warmer, more red than pink now. But before she could give it too much thought, the Aasimar felt herself nodding. She stood aside and let Beau into her room, leading the monk back into the chamber painted with flowers.
Beau sat cross-legged on the floor across from Yasha as the Aasimar tuned her harp. She took a little longer with the task than strictly necessary, just so she could freak out in silence.
Of course, she had prepared chords for this, because she had run with the idea. But Yasha shied away from it, losing her courage. Music was something that had helped Yasha heal, a meditation in her own way. It brought her peace and offered her an outlet for emotions she didn’t quite know how to express. So, to have Beau sitting before her, eyes trained solely on Yasha, was intense and nerve-wracking.
If Yasha had learned anything, though, it was that she could trust Beau. The monk had been looking out for her, and for the entire group, since day one. Before Beau had trusted any of them, she had still been looking out for them. It was something Yasha admired about Beau—her capacity to care and to love despite everything she had been through. Beau inspired Yasha to keep fighting.
The least she could do was play this for her.
She didn’t need the parchment back. Yasha had spent hours pouring over the words and the chords to make sure it sounded perfect.
Oh, oh Beau, I’m grateful for you.
You waited while I wandered,
While everyone was wondering
If I’d ever come back, you stayed true.
Her voice faltered slightly at the start, uncertain and underused, but she persisted. Beau’s eyes on her simultaneously made her nervous and strengthened her resolve.
Oh, oh Beau, you mean so much to me,
I’ve lost so many people,
I cannot fathom losing
The woman who has loved so fearlessly.
Yasha rarely sang. She used to sing for Zualla in those quiet stolen moments years ago. When they were out in the fields alone, walking or hunting or just existing to stare at the stars. She sang once for Molly, both of them a little past tipsy after a good night for the circus. He had told her she possessed a voice fit for performances, but Yasha had waved him off.
Her voice was sweet, higher than her speaking voice because she sang from her nose and her head. It threw most people for a loop, but Beau merely sat there and stared. Her blue eyes were wide with awe, lips slightly parted. If Yasha didn’t know Beau couldn’t be charmed, she would almost think the monk under a spell.
And I’ve ambled and trekked over miles and miles,
Every step lead me straight back to you.
You gave me the space to learn where I belong
And I’ll tell you right now, it’s the truth.
It was almost like nothing else existed. Yasha’s fingertips buzzed against the taut strings of the harp, her voice vibrated in her chest, and Beau’s eyes stayed fixated on Yasha’s face. This was all that mattered right now, and Yasha couldn’t think of what existed before this, or what might exist after.
Oh, oh Beau, the one I’m thinking of,
I want to hold your hand and
Stand quietly beside you.
I want to confess, you’re my love.
The last strum of her harp faded into silence, and Yasha reveled in the peace vibrating through her veins. She had rarely known stillness like this before discovering music.
Beau sniffed, and Yasha twitched as she startled, eyes snapping up to Beau’s face. The monk still stared at her, eyes wide and watering.
No one’s ever written me a poem before. Yasha remembered the soft-spoken admission as a tear tumbled down Beau’s cheek. She guessed without asking that no one ever sung for Beau before, either.
“Yasha…” Beau breathed. “That was incredible. Your voice…”
The Aasimar ducked her head, not even trying to suppress the smile pulling at her lips. Beau’s awe was so genuine, Yasha barely knew how to face it head on.
“I didn’t know if you would…y’know want to hear it like that. Or if you would just rather read it,” Yasha rambled, running her fingers with absent focus up and down one string on her harp. “So…yeah, I mean, it’s a song, too. But it was originally a poem. For you.”
“Yeah,” Beau’s voice cracked. “I don’t—Yasha, that was…incredible. You’re incredible. You wrote that? For me?”
“Of course,” Yasha said, looking up again with a small frown. The note of disbelief in Beau’s voice upset her. Why wouldn’t she write a poem for Beau?
“Thank you,” Beau said, her voice overflowing with an emotion Yasha could empathize with, but couldn’t name.
“I am glad you liked it,” Yasha said as she set her harp aside. She didn’t know where to go from here. Jester had said Beau was waiting for Yasha to make the first move, and this…was this enough? It felt weird to question that kind of thing because Yasha had been married before. Theoretically, she should know how to do this. But then again, everything she and Zualla had done had been in secret. Yasha never learned how to express affection for someone openly.
And knowing what she did about Beau, Yasha figured that the monk had no better clue in any of this than she did.
“Maybe uhm…” Yasha started, but stopped. She didn’t want to mess this up. “Maybe after we finish this job…we could, y’know…get dinner? Just us?”
Watching a slow smile spread and pull at Beau’s lips was like watching a sunrise. It began slowly, a little hesitantly, colors bleeding into and washing away the darkness of Beau’s uncertainty. It was a gentle harbinger that lasted a lifetime in no time at all. Then, between one blink and the next, the sun. Beau grinned with wild abandon, lips pulled wide to reveal her teeth, and eyes scrunching at the corners with the force of it. Yasha’s heart went giddy in her chest at the mere sight of Beau’s joy.
“I’d like that,” Beau whispered. There was the same quiet, awed excitement in her voice from when she first received Yasha’s poem.
Yasha’s cheeks hurt from how hard she was smiling. “It’s a date.”
55 notes · View notes
ghostiesblog · 3 years
Note
happy 100 followers!!!!!!!!! could you write a small flarrie secret admirer drabble? if not that’s totally ok!! congrats again!!!
Thank you anon!!! This is NOT a small drabble lmao I have no concept of doing anything in moderation. Might even edit it a bit in a while and post it on ao3. Thank you for the awesome prompt. Here ya go:
I'm not magical, I can't read your mind
Pairings: Flarrie | Warnings: none
There’s a rose on Flynn’s desk. There’s a rose on Flynn’s desk. And she has no idea who put it there.
Well- she does know who put it there, she knows that it’s Nick’s job this year to distribute the Valentine’s Day roses and messages, a school tradition that Flynn normally despises and mocks to no end. But someone must have bought the rose, addressed it to her and handed it in and Flynn absolutely cannot fathom who would do that for her.
Definitely not the person she wishes this was from. But now is not the time to think about that.
Almost frantically, she scans the rose for an attached message, or at least an indication about who the sender is.
Nothing. In fact, it looks like the cardboard tag has been ripped off, leaving only the corner with her own name, attached to a piece of string.
“Ooh”, Julie says, waggling her eyebrows, when she spots Flynn puzzling over her flower. “Who’s this from?”
“No idea”, Flynn says, dragging her thumb across the jagged edges of the destroyed tag. “No idea…”
-
Later in the hallway, Flynn tries her best to stealthily transfer the rose from her backpack into her locker. She fails, obviously, because she when she looks around she catches Carrie blatantly staring at her from a few feet away.
“What?” she snaps, irritably. Yes, Carrie has very clearly been trying to be nicer to both her and Julie, but Flynn is still weary of this new found peace.
She also might be a bit annoyed simply because she got a rose and it isn’t from Carrie.
Immediately, something in Carrie’s posture changes and her face scrunches up.
“Nothing”, she says. “Just wondering who’s stupid enough to send you a rose.”
Flynn feels like she’s been punched in the chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?!” she says incredulously.
“Don’t you hate valentine’s day?” Carrie asks and now Flynn is just confused. Why does she still remember that?
“It’s anonymously”, Julie chimes in unhelpfully. “From a secret admirer”
She sings those last words teasingly, like she’s done all the way through English lesson. Like she has any room to talk with the songs Luke and her write about each other on the daily.
Carrie raises an eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed.
“Someone sent you a rose and didn’t even write their name? That’s so stupid.”
“It’s not-“, Flynn starts and then breaks off. Why does she suddenly feel defensive over this anonymous sender?
“Sounds like a coward to me”, Carrie says with a sickly sweet smile before turning away. “See you in music”, she calls and disappears down the hallway.
“What has made her revert back to demon today?” Julie says, sounding as confused as Flynn feels.
-
Flynn doesn’t expect any follow up after the rose on Valentine’s Day. It has been fun coming up with more and more wild theories with Julie and the band (the latest being that it’s a ghost who has fallen for Flynn when they saw her setting up the lightshow at the Orpheum), but to Flynn at least it is clear that that was the end of it.
So when she finds a small envelope on her desk the next morning, it takes her a bit to figure out what’s happening here.
Inside, she finds a small piece of paper with, curiously enough, words clearly written by a real typewriter on it.
>
To: Flynn
I’m sorry I’m a mess,
But you simply make me speechless.
I couldn’t let you go without a note,
After I trashed the first one I wrote,
So let me just say, though this is nothing new,
I seem to have hopelessly fallen for you.
>
When Carrie catches Julie and Flynn pouring over the poem during lunch while walking past their table, she scoffs.
“A bit cliché, don’t you think?”
Flynn scowls and hides the note with her hand. “Go away Carrie”
“The meter’s off”, Carrie says haughtily before stalking off.
“How did she spot that so fast?” Julie exclaims incredulously.
-
The next note shows up in Flynn’s bag while she’s working on a Spanish presentation with Nick and Carrie.
>
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I like your music,
And your rapping too
>
“Now that’s just tacky”, Carrie says, while spying over Flynn’s shoulder.
Flynn rolls her eyes.
-
>
Flynn,
No poem today, just wanted to say that your smile made my day.
>
“They’re not even trying anymore, are they?” Carrie mocks.
-
>
With your gentle soul and your kind eyes,
You chase away the clouds in the skies,
Never met a person, so loyal and strong
And anyone who had you, would be a lucky one.
>
“Skies? This sounds ridiculous!”
Flynn curses the fact that Carrie keeps seeing these.
-
>
I’d write you a song, but no melody is beautiful enough to fit you.
>
Even Julie calls that one cheesy but for once, even though she sits right there with them, Carrie has nothing to say.
Flynn looks on confused while Carrie scribbles into her notebook with a pinched expression on her face, pen gripped so tightly that it looks like it might break any second.
“She needs to finish this new Dirty Candy song by tomorrow”, Nick explains.
“Yeah and I hate everything I write the second it’s on the page!” Carrie growls, clearly completely lost in whatever she’s dealing with.
-
>
I try to tell you every day,
But you just take my breath away
These rhymes seem silly and never enough
Forgive me, I am blinded by love
>
“Coming on a bit strong there.”
And she’s back.
-
>
Hi Flynn,
I think I’m giving up on the rhyming- It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Also I swear I’m not a stalker! Just a girl who likes you a lot and is too scared to tell you.
You looked so pretty at the dance yesterday, and you were awesome as a DJ- you always are.
>
“Surely you must be fed up with this nonsense by now?” Carrie asks, when Flynn passes her on her way out of the classroom, the newest note folded neatly in her hand.
The thing is- Flynn is annoyed. But not exactly by the letters. Her secret admirer is sweet and earnest, seems to love music as much as Flynn and all of her friends do and the little poems always brighten her day.
What’s annoying is that she still can’t figure out who this mysterious person with a crush on her is. And that the person she wishes it was is intend on mocking the whole thing to the best of her abilities.
Every time a new note shows up, Carrie is there, ready to tear it into pieces with pointed words and vicious critiques.
Flynn tries to not let it affect her too much. Otherwise, Carrie has been perfectly civil, friendly even and it feels like a bit of their old friendship is restoring, slowly, piece by piece. And what she says about the letters is mostly directed at this person that none of them really know, not at Flynn herself.
It still feels personal, somehow.
-
>
Flynn,
I had a bad day today, but you were really nice to me. It made it all a bit better. Thank you.
>
-
It’s when Carrie one day snatches one of the notes right out of Flynn’s hand to call it “embarrassing”, “awkward” and “clumsy”, that something in her just snaps.
“You know what Carrie”, she says, loudly, almost shouting it even, “can you, for once, just keep your unnecessary comments to yourself?”
Almost immediately, Carrie’s arrogant smile falls and Flynn uses the moment of surprise to steal back her piece of paper.
“You’ve been so mean to this person. I don’t know what your issue is here but I need you to back off on the attitude. I might not know who this is from, so I don’t even know if I like whoever is writing these but I like the letters.”
Carrie looks absolutely shocked, completely frozen in place, her jaw clenched tightly. Good.
“Yes, they might not be perfect”, Flynn barrels on, “but they’re honest, and raw and so, so kind and I can tell that they come from the heart and isn’t that the most important thing?!”
Without waiting for an answer, Flynn picks up her bag that she leaned against the lockers when she discovered the note and brushes past Carrie. She knows she’s a bit too worked up, but it has been a trying week.
Only a few moments later she realizes that she saw tears forming in Carrie’s eyes.
-
In Spanish class, Flynn notices the glaring absence of Carrie in the seat in front of her and a little bit of guilt starts building up inside of her. She has no idea what’s going on, but something clearly is up so after their teacher finally lets them go, Flynn goes on to try and find Carrie.
The music room is one of the first places Flynn thinks of and sure enough, she can hear gentle piano notes and Carrie’s voice singing very quietly drifting through the slightly cracked door.
Before barging in, Flynn stops short when she recognizes parts of the lyrics. Is that- one of the poems she received only a week ago?
Slowly, she tiptoes into the room. What she sees is Carrie, cross-legged at the piano, bent over her notebook full of scribbles that she’s clearly reading from and that somehow contain parts of the poetry that has been a big mystery to Flynn and all of her friends for so long. Just now Carrie’s singing the words that are undeniable not just poems, but song lyrics, and she has added onto them and-
Flynn doesn’t understand anything anymore.
“Carrie!” she says, before she can stop herself. Carrie flinches and bolts away from the piano, the chair clattering down to the floor in the process.
“Flynn”, she breathes, looking terrified.
“I-“, Flynn stutters, “What’s going on? Is this some kind of prank?” She doesn’t think she could take that.
“No!” Carrie yells and immediately winces at her volume. “No, I would never do that to you”
“Then why-“, Flynn is getting more confused every second, “you wrote those? I thought you hated- the notes, I though you hated the notes”
To her horror, Carrie is now actually crying.
“I do hate the notes, I mean I feel so stupid, you hate Valentine’s Day and then I send you a rose, but I just- I like so much and I didn’t know what to do and I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t and then I wrote you those notes but they always sounded so stupid to me”
Carrie is full on panic rambling now and Flynn is barely processing all this new information that is thrown at her.
“I just couldn’t stop myself and then you said you actually like the notes? But I know you’d never like me, as a person, I mean I am awesome as a performer but horrible as a friend, let alone as a girlfriend and-“
“Carrie-“, Flynn tries to intersect, “Carrie!”
Carrie stops and finally looks at her, wide eyed.
“I do like you, as a person”, Flynn says. Her heart is beating out of her chest but she is not letting this go.
“I- what?” Carrie looks as confused as Flynn felt just a minute ago. “You do?”
“Yes”, Flynn says and now she can’t stop the smile on her face, “I really like you. Actually, I always wished those notes were from you.”
Carrie blinks. “You. Okay. Okay. Um- I really didn’t-“
Flynn laughs. “Deep Breaths Carrie.”
“I don’t really know what to do with this now, I’m not good at all this”, Carrie says, waving her hands around but she’s smiling too now, wider with every moment.
“How about a date? Milkshakes?” Flynn asks and she doesn’t even feel afraid anymore.
“Yes”, Carrie says, her eyes sparkling with happiness. “I’d love that.”
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popculturebuffet · 3 years
Text
Carl Barks: Back to the Klondike Review: Blinkus of the Thinkus
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Welcome one and all! If your a longtime reader of this blog, you know I love a good birthday celebration, having started with my first year reviewing animation last year with Donald’s and deciding to do Mickey and Scrooge’s later that year. But since I misseda  LOT of disney birthdays, and found several Non-disney birthdays and anniversaries I just gotta celebrate, this year i’m making it up and style and have a whole calender set up to tack these big milestones to the wall. So over the year expect tributes to the greats of disney, looney tunes, and mgm both behind and in front of the scenes, as well as to various shows I like. It’s gonna be a good time. 
So to start us off, it’s only fitting my first duck birthday since Scrooge, is for the love of his life and the stealer of his wallet, Glittering Goldie O Gilt! And I felt the best way to celebrate this storied day was to go back to her very FIRST apperance, one of earliest Scrooge headlined comics and a forever fan faviorite, Back to the Klondike!
But before we get into that, a little history on our gal in gold. Goldie was created for this story by comics god, the late great Carl Barks. Barks ended up just using her once, which is a shame but understandable as he probably only thought of her for that one adventure. While some characters like Gyro ended up being used again and again he probably just didn’t have any more stories in mind for her and figured Scrooge would return to her one day or he wouldn’t, but it wasn’t up to him.  Fans however loved the character, her feisty dynamic with scrooge, and the fact she brought out his good side, so naturally other writers would bring her back. In paticular Barks Superfan Don Rosa cemented her as the love of his life and wrote several more stories with her, fleshing out their backstory and saying that at least in his personal canon, Scrooge retired to spend his final years with her. And while his fanboy was clearly showing, and that can end nasitly just ask Dan “Hates Wally West because he’s not barry allen” DiDio, glad he’s gone.. Rosa’s work with goldie is an example of what happens when it’s done right. Less DiDio or Bendis and more Al Ewing. Using the continuity and what’s there to build on a character who deserved better.. to me that’s one of the BEST things you can do in comics and Rosa’s work is proof of that, ironing out the.. questionable elements we’ll get to and leaving the gold in.  So Rosa’s work combined with Ducktales not only adapting this story but bringing Goldie back a few times after that has elevated the character to a storied and permenat part of the duck canon, with her excellent heavily revamped Reboot counterpart currently carrying the torch with the help of the wonderful Allison Janey, perfect casting there. So with a legacy of gold behind her, let’s take a look at where it’s started and see if it still glitters after all these years under the cut. 
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We begin our story at the Money Bin. Scrooge has been counting his money.. but has already forgotten, and forgot where he put the slip he wrote the number on and even forgets who Donald is when he shows up until Donald, while having some fun with him as Scrooge is trying to phone him while he’s right there. As for how he got into the most secure place in the bin.. the story actually answers that both worringly and hilariously: Scrooge left the door unlocked.  Naturally he’s not happy about this and Donald states the simple solution: Go see a doctor something’s CLEARLY very wrong, and the fact this could possibly be something like Demntia is VERY bad for someone who runs a zillion dollar company. Scrooge of course scoffs at “wasting his precious money” But Donald not only points out the obvious, that two bucks now saves him from having someone rob EVERYTHING, but Scrooge’s attempt to tie a string around his finger.. instead triggers a trap. And this entire sequence is decent with some good gags.. it’s just hampered a bit by making light of something that’s kinda bad. Not old people forgetting things.. but an old person with a disease as we find out forgetting things. Not helping is I laughed at first at the gags.. till I remembered a kind, old, friend of the family who had it and forgot me entirely by the end. So yeah, not the worst gags and the boxing glove and donald bits aren’t terrible, but it hurts now my brain’s made that connection. 
Our heroes head to the doctor’s office where Scrooge is diagnosed with... 
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That.. might be the best name for a fictional illness i’ve ever heard in my life.. just inching out “Brain Cloud” and “Whale Cancer”. Still not the most SENSITIVE gag.. but it was the 50′s and mental issues weren’t given a lot of respect. IT’s why the above sequence and this whole part of the plot dosen’t scuttle things: It’s not the most repsectful.. but it wasn’t a time where these things were givne proper respect, treatment or knowledge, so barks wasn’t being an insentive douche on purpose, he just didn’t know. It dosen’t make it 100% okay btu it dosen’t wreck the story like say his blatant racist caractures in Voodoo Hoodoo. Seriously that’s.. not okay, and given he’s the kind of guy who researched locations he used, unlike with mental illness i expect BETTER of him than most men at the time. Still respect the guy, but it dosen’t mean i’ll overlook the fact he made some pretty bad mistakes. Same way while I love and miss Stan Lee I won’t ignore his blatant sexisim or racisim towards Chinese and Vitamise people. You CAN like a creator even if their work has some questionable and unjustifable elements, times do change and people do mamke mistakes when their young. It just depends on exactly WHAT they did or wrote that makes that distinctoin.  So on that bombshell, Scrooge is given medication after a needle gag. He needs to take his pills every 12 hours. It’s then he starts to remember something, mubling abotu skagway, goldie and dawson and telling Donald to get the boys, their going to Alaska! Once they get on the boat Scrooge explains: he remembered thanks to the medcince he left a stash of gold nuggets there from his prospecting days.. and part of why this story ended up being one of the single most important to Scrooge’s character. While it establishes some character traits, something I dind’t realize till wikipedia pointed it out, it also establishes Scrooge’s days as a prospector. While other things made him what he was and got him to that point as Don Rosa would later flesh out, it was his days in the yukon that, for better or worse defined who he is now and shaped him into the man he is today: Tough, fair, badass as all hell, mean as the devil and richer than god.  This time would be used a lot to set up stories, which made sense as it was the cleast and most agreed upon part of his past by all writers, and him at his abosltuely peak physically and mentally and the gold rush motif of the time perfectly fits someone defined by being rich. It’s also honestly nice that the Yukon is used, as Canada sometimes gets lost in the shuffle wise and hell until reading life and times I gneuinely had no idea what the Yukon was or where Calvin was headed when he and hobbes ran away from home. 
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Scrooge also first mentions Goldie and while clearly remembering her fondly.. goes into a rant about her howing him a thousand dollars which has compounded to a billion the second the boys catch on he was sweet on her with Donald assuming he’s just not a good person. But this is really just setting up another vital part of his character and the other thing: his heart. Before he’d been show as a pretty heartless, greedy asshole. While the previous story, Only a Poor Old Man, had softened him up a bit, this is the first to show that beneath the pile of greed and mean lurks a decent human being. Just don’t tell anyone or he’ll throw his money at you.. then tell you to bring it back to him. It’s what makes the character who he is: he’s cruel, onrey and selfish.. but he CAN care when the chips are down and can do the right thing.. as we’ll see later. 
God I love the little poems Bill Watterson would put in the books. I didn’t as much as a kid, but god I do now. Anyways before our heroes can get going Yukon Ho, they stop in Skagway for suplies before heading out, Scrooge softing at taking a plane as “Soft” and him and the nephews hiking a week.. before running into the same flying service again, and finding out Scrooge OWNS it and forgot, because being scrooge he forgot to take his meds. Something I can relate to and i’m not proud of as staying on them is important to my well being. Seriously always take your meds. Unless their not working for you then talk with your doctor to get new ones. 
So we arrive in Dawson, as our heroes will have to walk rest of the day Scrooge takes the boys to the Black Jack Ballroom, which used to be a hot spot and was where he met Goldie for the first time. After another covering for his reminscing with greedy bollocks, he tells the boys the story.. one that was cut from the original printing despite introducing goldie and something the editors dind’t bother to tell carl till they berated him over trying to sneak a blackjack saloon and a kidnapping in there... and to them, or their long dead skeletons probably, I say. 
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Yeah not wanting that in a kids story, while bollocks, tha’ts their perogative.. not having him send in replacement pages to keep story flow.. is dickish and underestimates kids intellegence as Don Rosa, while loving the story felt something was off till he saw the missing pages years later thanks to a fellow fan. So yeah kids, and adults, into the work noticed. Nice job. Again I can’t BLAME them for not wanting Scrooge to be a kidnapper as we’ll see and Don Rosa had to massage the hell out of that, but I can blame them for not caring enough to fix the obvious hole int he story. Though it’s now complete and unabriged and has been since the 80′s so there's that. 
So in a nutshell Scrooge came to town for a coffee, and while the bartender ignored him he didn’t once he plunked down his goose egg nugget, what made his fortune and one of Scrooge’s most treasured possessions. It’s here we meet Goldie. 
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Yup.. just in case you thought her being a thief and greedy as hell was a new thing, and I kinda forgot how much, she dirves for the nugget, has Coffee with scrooge.. and drugs it, but makes the mistake of NOT clearing town, so Scrooge fights his way through the ballroom to her, gets the nugget back, forces her to sign the money for the iou he spent.. and then uh.. kindaps her to force her to work on his claim for 50 cents to try and teach her how to work honestly. 
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Yeahhhh as I said Don Rosa tried his best to fix this , and did so in his final story, which we’ll get to some day, revealing Goldie had a shot gun on her the whole time and was going along entirely to find out where Scrooge’s claim was. That.. actually makes more sense with the character and is far less horrifying and Scrooge finds this out fairly quick, so them forming an attraction out of this becomes 100% more plausable. So yeah good on Don Rosa for fixing the implications here. I may give out on him from time to time.. but he is a genuinely talented writer and did what a good comic book writer in an established continuity should do: update elements so they aren’t so... eugguuhhh after they become horrifingly outdated. And look YES she did do horrible shit to him.. but you still can’t kidnap someone over that. just put her in jail. What was any of that. 
Anyways Scrooge HAS been taking his medicine, and proves it by showing the boys his pills and the next day they head to Scrooge’s old claim.. only someone’s living there and using it, and his old cabin.. and a shot gun. Yeah so they aren’t getting through in the day what about the night.. well they get attacked by Blackjack, who turns out to be owned by the claim jumper.. and is also you know a bear> And Donald left his back in new quackmore so their outmatched. 
So outgunned and outplanned, if not outnumbered or outmanned, our heroes make a camp fire and whiel Donald again suggests the obvious, call the police.. Scrooge can’t. He didn’t pay taxes on the claim so he’s technically jumping his own claim and techincally she has a right to it. So techncially.. Scrooge is the bad guy here as he left the money here, didn’t pay his taxes and didn’t ever come back for it. Still beats trying to terrify your nephews or deny orphans a train because your an asshole buffet. 
So the next morning Scrooge dosen’t want to rush her because “We Daren’t Get Rough with an old woman”. Two things.. 1... think before you put images in my head scrooge.. brrrrrrrrr. I mean Goldie. is not in the best shape in thie story as you’ll see and neither are you. In the reboot sure you two kept up a lot better but here.
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And it’s not even an old people thing. Ann Margret was still fine so fine by the time of Grumpy Old Men, not to get creepy jut to prove i’m not being ageist. For a still alive example Keith David is also still a smokeshow at the tender age of 64. So yeah, not an age thing just not these paticular old people. 
But they need a plan so the boy suggest luring the bear into a trap with honey. Donald and Scrooge build the cage while the boys.. find the jar of honey. 
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Regardless since the boys won’t do it for what Scrooge pays and neither will donald Scrooge goes to lure the bear with the honey. Once that’s done, and Scrooge is being covered with honey and licked by a bear...
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So while he washes that off, the boys come up with another plan: they run around back while Donald makes noise to draw Goldie’s fire, with that being Dewey’s plan to meet her since he’s figured this out already. But Goldie has a backup plan and when she figures out they disabled Blackjack unleashes mosquitos... ugh. Having been stung like hornets about 50 times in animal crossing I feel you boys. So while Scrooge and Donald run off naked... troy if you will. 
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Thank you Troy, the boys confront Goldie who reveals her identity... and that she’s broke, her dance hall having failed with the rush and this claim being all she has.. and her suspecting scrooge woudl gladly take it. The boys vow not to tell scrooge.. but he’s on his way so they kinda have to and he primps to go visit and Donald starts to see through his BS about collecting the debt. Sure enough despite being taken aback by her putting on her old dress , he takes her for all she has and is.. genuinely suprised as she thought she’d have more and she’d actually changed since the old days, donating her profits to orphans from mining disasters. Scrooge.. is clearly rattled by this. Whiel it turns out to my shock he was clealry after the money, though givne who we’re dealing with I shoudln’t of been really, he still cares and still realizes he’s being kind of a dick. So he challengers her to a gold digging race, and if she wins the claim is hers and any gold she finds.. and naturally, while he seemingly puts her soemwhere where there isn’t she finds the claim and Scrooge bemoans not taking his pill.. but while the boys boo him for it, Goldie who fondly waves them off and Donald know better: Donald points out he counted the pills this morning.. and recently. SCrooge DID take one today... he’s just has his cane shoved firmly up his ass with pride so he coudln’t ADMIT he was wrong and instead simply staged that whole thing with the full knowledge Goldie would win. It, again, sets up one of his defniing traits; how he keeps people at arms length. How he’s just so proud and full of himself he can’t bear to admit anything resembling weakness.. but WILl find a way to do the right thing without that or forgoe it as a last resort. He may project being a stingy cretionus old man.. because he is.. but he’s got a heart as big as that nugget.. it’s just locked tight in it’s own bin... his body is complicated and weird that way Final Thoughts:
This story is a classic with a decent setup, great backstory for scrooge, and a great guest character and unquestionable impact on the character. However.. it does have it’s problem; As Don Rosa, who as i’ll remind you is both a huge barks fanboy and huge scoldie shipper, himself pointed out he wrote his final story, and had planned to for years ENTIRELY because this one never quite explains how Scrooge and Goldie went from old enmies to lovers.It did lead to one of his best stories and one of the first I read post life and times so, props to that. And of course as I pointed out some things have just.. not aged well, especially the kidnapping so their relationship kinda comes off like stockholm syndrom as a result of both of these. 
That being said.. warts and all.. it’s still a really damn good story and a good one to try if your intrested in barks work or where Goldie came from: it has adventure, some really good jokes and if you can get past the dated bits the plot is solid. And while it goes without saying i’ll say it anyway Barks art is goregous as always ESPECIALLY in the flashback sequence. Overall not the best AGED Scrooge story, though not the worst either see Voodoo Hoodoo, good god, but defintely a classic for a reason.  If you liked this review, follow me for more, and for more duck content as I still have more of the three cablleros to work through, another chapter of life and times coming up this week befor ewe break again for feburary, and some other fun stuff. Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 
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missnight0wl · 4 years
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Unpopular opinion: I wish dating was never introduced to HPHM.
I was always rather open about the fact that I don’t have much interest in dating content in HPHM, so you might say it’s very subjective rambling. But I think I also have some more objective arguments for that statement, so… hear me out (or don’t; I can’t tell you what to do).
Some spoilers for the Festival Fun TLSQ, the Celestial Ball TLSQ, the First Date TLSQ, the Valentine’s Day TLSQ, the All-Wizards Tournament TLSQ, and “Cooking Up Trouble” SQ.
First of all, I want to address the most obvious counterargument for my wish: “but people want dating!”. Yeah, I know. But here’s a thing. A long time ago, almost at the very beginning of the game’s existence, when we were only speculating about any love interests, people were referencing one article. The article where the creators claimed that romance is planned for the future (among other things). And if you ask me, it was their mistake. It was a mistake because it created expectations which they had to react to. The problem is that they were never ready to introduce such type of content. I mean, just look at the past events. Andre mentioned dating when he was first introduced back in Y3 (!), and he said then that most people don’t date until they’re in the fourth year. And yes, the Celestial Ball was eventually placed as Y4 Achievement, but the main story was well into Y5 already! What I take from this is that at best, they had only a rough idea for the ball when they wrote Andre’s comment in Y3 (if it took them so long to actually create the quest). And so, I have to wonder – why they even talked about dating in Y3 if they were not ready? Now, I’m not saying that nobody would ask for dating if Jam City didn’t mention it in that article, or Andre omitted that topic in Y3. There’d definitely be people still wishing for some romance. But there’d be no actual reasons to expect that. Because HPHM was created as a mystery story (even if people don’t remember about it anymore), and a mystery story doesn’t really need romance.
The second thing I’d like to point out for the sake of this discussion is that the dating quests require quite a lot of work from the devs team. Admittedly, the quality of those efforts is sometimes questionable, but still. I’m also no tech or game design expert, but here are some things which I believe make dating quests more time-consuming than most of the others:
Designing outfits. Each of the datable characters is given a new outfit (+ new outfits for MC). I also want to notice that most of those outfits are one-time-use. Well, except maybe for the bundles available to buy for real money…
Creating new locations/characters. To be fair, some of “regular” quests require those too, although the majority uses things already existing and being used in the main story.
Creating new animations: dancing, holding hands, pecks on the cheek, more (new) dancing.
Creating multiple routes for different date options – and even if it’s mostly copy-paste, it takes time nonetheless.
To be clear, creating new things for the game is not bad. My point is that basically every dating adventure required ALL of that invested in one single quest – and pretty much none of that can be reused outside of dating. In fact, they’re not even reusing those animations completely for each new date. The kiss from the Valentine’s Day was different from the recent one, the Festival had new dances added to make it more diverse in comparison to the Celestial Ball etc. And what those unique quests have to offer? One cute moment with your date, which is… kind of meaningless. I’m sorry, but dating stories are basically irrelevant in the bigger picture. I mean, yeah, they’re adorable, but that’s it. And it’s just NOT proportional to all the work put into them. Because look…
The dating quests add very little to nothing to flesh out the characters – and if they do, it has nothing to do with dating.
The Celestial Ball did a pretty great job at adding to Rowan and Ben. People often criticise MC for “forcing” them to come to the party, but the problem was clearly about them feeling not good enough to go (not necessarily about them not wanting to go), and so I really loved working on their self-confidence. Bill also grew a lot in that quest, overcoming his rejection from Emily Tyler. Andre discovered his styling talent, so he was no longer “just” a brilliant Quidditch player. Even Penny had some insecurities to face as she wanted to prove that she’s not only popular but she can also create fantastic decorations. So… couldn’t it just be a quest about FRIENDSHIP and our friends growing? The whole dating subplot felt kind of forced to me, or maybe rather detached. Not to mention that THAT was kind of a dick move to leave Rowan and Ben after using the argument:
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The next quests were more oriented on dating itself, but at the same time, they’re focused less on the characters’ individual personalities. Sure, there are some differences between dates, but it’s more about distinction than adding anything new. For instance, in the Festival Fun TLSQ, every character yells out loud that you’re on a date (unless you chose to keep it a secret), MC just points out that it’s unlike them in the case of Talbott, Jae, and Chiara. Next example: I thought it’s pretty amusing that Jae writes dreadful poems with cheap rhymes, but it turns out that the note with Butterbeer could also be left by Barnaby. I know that in MY playthrough, Barnaby didn’t leave it, but I can’t see it as Jae’s characteristic, simply because it wasn’t written for his character – it was written to fit Jae and Barnaby, so it’s kinda meaningless in my eyes.
Another thing is that even if those dates added something individual, it’d be relevant only for a limited audience. Like, I’m really happy for people who wanted to date Badeea, but for me, she barely existed in this quest. It added NOTHING to her character. During the First Date quest, Tulip revealed that girls in her family are being named after flowers (her cousin is called Marigold), which is a pretty neat fact, but I wouldn’t know it if I didn’t put extra effort to see different options. And believe me, there’s a big part of the payers who don’t do it. I’m still seeing on social media people being surprised that Rowan’s gender and House are connected to MC’s.
And speaking of that already: this is why the dating options are being cut off. And honestly, it sucks, but I get it, I really do. The devs have to spend the same amount of time on a character dated by 6% of the players as on a character dated by 36% of the players. Let’s add real money to that, and let’s say that 10% of all players buy gems/energy on TLSQs. Jam City will make more money out of that 36% than out of 6% - it’s as simple as that. At the end of the day, they are a business. Would it be nice to make all players happy? Of course, but it’s easier to keep the majority happy.
The dating quests don’t really matter for the main story – and they won’t matter more in the future.
Why? Because it’d be too complicated at this point. All we’re getting (and what we’ll ever get) are subtle differences in dialogues. And you know what? Even that doesn’t matter much. For example, in Y6, there’s a scene where Talbott calls MC to the Owlery and offers his help in searching through the letters. He talks then about their friendship, and if you took him on a date, he mentions it as well. The thing is that Talbott is pretty heart-warming here in general, how he opens on us being friends:
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Sure, that one additional line is pretty cute, but again, is it really a satisfying pay-off from the dating quest, considering how much was put into it? And I don’t think they even can do more because they always have to keep in mind the players who didn’t manage to finish TLSQs in time or just didn’t want to do it.
I don’t want to be only negative about dating because that’s not really my point, so here are some ideas on how to invest all of that time better (and no, it’s not just the lore and in-depth history of the Cursed Vaults because I know I’m in the minority who cares about it):
More outfits for NPCs which could be used for variety. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing characters like Penny, Merula, Ben, or Talbott in their full school robes ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Ideally, I wish every character to have three outfits: full school robes, some variety of a uniform (so something like Tulip and Barnaby) used in the school but outside of classes, and something totally casual used outside of the castle.
More animations between characters like hugs, patting on the arm etc. Anything which could be used almost on a daily basis, and which would make our interactions looks more natural and less stiff. Seriously, I’ll take a supportive hug instead of a peck on the cheek ANY DAY.
More character-centric quests. So many of our friends need their own SQ: Tulip, Badeea, Liz, Diego. The rest could probably also use them to expand their characters – because those SQs do a great job at this. Like, I took Jae to the festival, and it was alright, but to be completely honest, his “Cooking Up Troubles” SQ was SO MUCH BETTER for his character. We learnt new things about Jae, we had some really cute friendship moments (like this and this)… And it was a super simple quest with only seven parts in total! It just needed to be written: no new locations, animations etc. Yet, the pay-off was just… better, more meaningful.
Another thing that could be done in those character-centric quests is more focus on the relationships between our friends because, in my opinion, this is needed as well. I want to talk here a little about the “All-Wizards Tournament” TLSQ, which I think is really underrated. This is probably because of people claiming that Jam City is reaching too much to reference the books events AND because of Rowan’s absence. And don’t get me wrong, those are valid objections. But when it comes to the characters… this TLSQ was pretty great. We saw a lot of our friends' insecurities (Barnaby, Jae, Liz), we saw their more competitive side (Andre, Badeea)… Badeea was especially interesting to me as she showed that she can be quite cunning when she somehow learnt about the first task. She also didn’t reveal that information to Merula and Ismelda because they were occupying the training dummies, but she did share with MC (meaning that you really want to have her on your side…).
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It somehow made me think about the situation from Y5 when she admitted that she tricked Jae into thinking that she knows Apparition by using an Invisibility Cloak. It’s nice to know there’s more to her than meets the eye, which was also cohesive with the main story (even if we don’t see it much). The TLSQ also showed some dynamics between our friends, like Jae and Andre (which I mentioned here). And of course, I really enjoyed the ending conclusion: that some tasks can be dealt with only when you work together. Again, I’d love to see this theme being explored more because it creates such a compelling contrast between Jacob and MC. Jacob didn’t have many friends at school. We only know about Duncan and Olivia, and it’s still unclear if Olivia was an actual friend or a colleague they worked with. Not to mention that it was implied that for some time, Jacob was working all alone. Meanwhile, MC has basically the whole army at this point. It’d be interesting to see that this is one of the things which makes MC stronger than their brother.
Now, the reason why the “All-Wizards Tournament” TLSQ could focus on all of that is because we didn’t waste the time on all of “secret admires mystery”, “oh, who should I choose” etc. So, just as a thought experiment, let’s think about how the Festival Fun could improve if we’d eliminate the dating aspect. First of all, more characters could get more screen time, like Badeea, maybe Tulip… Liz? Diego (our dancer!)? Ismelda? Even Talbott didn’t have a big role unless you chose him as a date. The plot could also be more dynamic instead of a whole bunch of stalling. I’d leave the investigation with Andre because I think it’s a great addition to his character, but it’s also fucking sad that any development he’s getting is around dating. Like, the boy deserves so much better. So, let’s change that! Let’s say he asks MC for help because he’s styling some summer outfits for the upcoming festival, but one of his fabrics is missing. Perhaps it’s a bit more expensive material, so they suspect that Jae might’ve “borrowed” it to make some money. Jae, of course, is deeply insulted because he’s a smuggler and an occasional cheater, but not a thief! They argue with Andre, but eventually, they come to understanding. Then, MC remembers that Badeea wanted to experiment with painting methods, so perhaps she decided to incorporate some fabric into that. We find Badeea and Barnaby, they don’t have what we’re looking for, but there’s some action going on there, maybe including Talbott… Long story short, it turns out that Tulip needed it in preparation for Cruppies race or something. I don’t know, I’m coming up with it pretty much as I write. The point is that the time spent on talking about dating could’ve been used on something more specific, individual, which could be more meaningful in the light of the main story. And since there’d be no routes, all of that would be relevant for everyone after completing the quest. Want it to be even better? Make it a regular side quest, not time-limited.
All right, but couldn’t we just have both: characters development and dating? Of course, that’d be ideal. But as I said before, Jam City is a business and rarely any business is ideal. They’ll always prioritise a limited number of things, and since people whine about dating, we’re getting dating. And again, I’m not saying that dating is totally worthless, and I get that people find it cute and whatnot. I just believe that what dating ultimately adds to the game is not proportionate to the time and effort those quests require to be created. That it could’ve been invested better. Dating is basically stopping us from getting better content (at least in some areas). And we’re kind of asking for that…
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theramenbandit · 3 years
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To Whom It May Concern
It catches her quite by surprise. On a Wednesday, of all days. Well actually, surprise is an understatement. It really was more like she got hit by a ton of bricks. 
Kara has a favorite park bench. It's the one under the sprawling oak tree, right across from the chess tables. She loves it because it's shady, it's far enough away from the noisier side of the park, and it lets her observe people without drawing attention to herself. One day, at lunch, she hears a peculiar heartbeat. It isn't particularly loud, but it stands out to her for some reason, and as she begins to listen intently, it drowns everything else out. Its rhythm is strong, steady, beautiful, even. As Kara listens, she feels something bloom in her own chest. Something like warmth, like freedom, like coming home. And when she snaps out of it, the heartbeat is gone. It's a strange experience, to say the least, but not at all unpleasant. She writes about it in her journal later that day. 
The professor was talking about the concept of space-time and the beings caught in it. Kara was enthralled by the idea of such an unbreakable bond, an immeasurable force. It wasn’t just romantic. It was something more. It went beyond the heart, it probably went even beyond the soul. It made her think if she will ever find something like that for herself. 
She hears it again, that same heartbeat from weeks ago. This time she tries looking for the owner, but a Supergirl emergency keeps her from doing just that. She starts going to the park more often, in hopes of finding that heart, and perhaps, oh perhaps more importantly, whom it belongs to. 
Was it even possible to pine for someone you hadn't even met yet? 
She’d read stories, epic tales, poems, and legends from her world and many others, and she realized its transcendence. How beautiful it was for two beings to be connected by some invisible, inseparable tie. How wonderful it might be if, after centuries and universes of separation, they found each other again.  
The next time Kara hears it, she's doing rounds near the city limits. She tries to home in on the sound and soon she's following a car driving away from National City. She's about to swoop in on the vehicle and finally know who this person is who owns this heartbeat that keeps finding her and at the same time keeps eluding her, but just then her phone rings. It's Winn. Crap. Game Night. And she was hosting. Double Crap. And now that she was so close to finding out. Figures. She follows the sound until it fades away, committing it to memory, etching it into her heart, then heaves a frustrated sigh and flies back home. 
She's distracted and they lose, badly. Alex knows that something is up (because of course she does) and asks if she's alright. Kara says she's just tired, thankful when her sister doesn't push. She wraps the party up before ten. She lays in bed and has half a mind to figure out where that car was headed, but it's late and she has to meet with Clark early the next day about some Luthor business or whatever. She falls into a fitful sleep, punctuated by weird half-dreams of willows and glaciers and stars. 
She's too cranky to notice it when she and Clark walk up to the building. Too cranky to notice it when the dark-haired woman walks into the room, too grumpy to notice it when Clark starts speaking with her. Then the woman reaches out to shake her hand in introduction and Kara is too annoyed to-- There it is. That familiar cadence. And it's coming from the person standing right in front of her. 
“Hello, I'm Lena Luthor.”    
“It's… It's you.”
“Yes,” Lena answers with a mildly amused sort of expression. “It's… Me.” 
Kara barely hears it over the sound of her own heart thundering in her ears. She almost misses the proffered hand as she extends her own to shake it, her gaze transfixed. 
Lena Luthor has the greenest eyes she had ever seen. 
The interview passes by in a blur. Kara won't remember half of it. What she will remember is Lena's heartbeat, along with that low-pitched voice and melodic lilt, soothing her, distracting her. Ensnaring her. 
Clark sounds far away when he finally asks "so, Miss Luthor, with L-Corp now under your supervision, what can we look forward to?"
Lena smiles at the both of them, "what do you know about Quantum Entanglement?" 
Clark answers her with something about Einstein or that dude with the car named after him. It completely slips past because Lena is positively beaming and Kara is absolutely mesmerized. 
"Well, when you see what we're doing with them," Lena was looking directly at her now, her eyes holding her captive, "it'll blow you away." 
Kara doesn't flinch, even as her breath is stolen. She holds Lena's gaze and with absolutely no resistance, lets herself be taken. "I can't wait." 
-
Sunlight filters in through the gap in the curtains, the rays illuminating a bunch of dust motes. Kara watches as they float around lazily, drifting apart, then colliding, then drifting away again, but always coming back towards each other. It reminds her of one particular Wednesday. 
“You're up, course you're up,” comes a bleary voice from under her chin. 
“And a bright good morning to you as well,” Kara says in mock offense. A sleepy chuckle bubbles up out of Lena, and Kara can't help but plant a kiss to her temple.
“What were you thinking about?” 
“Remember when you asked me about Quantum Entanglement?” 
“Yeah, you gave me your best goldfish impression.” 
“I knew what it was.” 
“Yeah? But why didn't you say anything?” 
“You know how you once told me that you used to know all the words to Email My Heart?” 
“Oh god, don't remind me,” Lena says as she shuts her eyes in embarrassment and buries her face in Kara's shirt. 
“And that they practically vanished completely from your memory because you hadn't heard it in so long? That's kinda what happened back then. The first time I'd heard of Quantum Entanglement (we didn’t call it that) was in auridhrinn-- that's like 4th grade Earth school. Logically, it shouldn't be possible, but then the teacher showed us pictures of it: two particles, across universes, basically being two parts of one whole. I thought it was beautiful.”
“And then?” 
“And then, I guess I forgot about it. Until I heard your heartbeat in the park and then you mentioned working with the technology during our interview that day. Then I remembered. I remembered everything.”
“OK, back up. The park?” Lena says with as much incredulity as her un-caffeinated state would permit her. 
“Yeah.” 
“Huh.”
“I feel like there's a story there.” 
“Get me some coffee, maybe we'll talk.” 
Kara chuckles and kisses her hair, "deal," as Lena snuggles back into her side. Neither of them says anything for a spell, and Kara feels herself drifting back to sleep when Lena suddenly rears her head and makes a cartoonish face. “Is it science? Is it magic?” she enunciates playfully. Kara laughs as a wave of affection takes over her heart and permeates her chest. The light is hitting Lena's eyes just so; sparkling isn’t nearly a good enough word for what they’re doing, and she momentarily gets lost in them. Green and blue and flecked with gold. Like willows. Like glaciers. Like stars. 
Kara tenderly cups her cheek and brushes her thumb against her warm skin. “It's you and me, Lena. You're my particle.”
Lena looks down at her fondly and then adorably scrunches her nose. “You're so sappy in the morning.” 
Kara smiles against her lips. “Only with you.”
-
Lena would go to the park, too, Kara later learns. She hadn't moved into the city just yet. She was taking in the surroundings, discreetly laying the groundwork for her company, for when she eventually would relocate, rebrand, start over. She'd 'kind of just sit there' and 'disappear' into the city for a bit, and would think over what it was about this place that made her so sure this was where she was supposed to be. Kara then stumbled (Hey, I sauntered, Babe, jabbing at her with the drippy piece of pancake stuck to her fork) into her life and she started to wonder if moving here just 'made business sense' or if it was something more. Turns out it was a bit of both. 
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