#like in I still dream about you the main character is this suicidal middle aged former Miss Alabama

[connan-l]

More than a millennium - Day 6: Bad End

Fandom: The House in Fata Morgana

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death

Relationship: Michel Bollinger/Giselle

Summary: So that he could keep on holding her hand for more than a millenium.

Michel Bollinger's life is a very normal and boring one, except for his recurrent dreams of a maid with dead eyes he tries desperately to run away from.

Content Warning: Much like in Ending 2, there's a suicide attempt at the end, but it's only described very vaguely.

[A collection of unrelated one-shots for the @gischelweek prompts:

Day 1: Wedding Day

Day 2: Cooking/Baking Together

Day 3: Roleswap

Day 4: At the beach

Day 5: Proposal

Day 6: Bad End

Day 7: Domestic Family]

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Link on Archive of Our Own

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Notes: My favorite FataMoru bad endings are Ending 3 and Ending 5, so I was thinking about writing something about these at first, but in the end I decided to go with Ending 2 because I actually want to write something more detailed about these with fics on their own rather than as a one-shot prompt week. As a result I wasn’t super inspired by it though, so I hope it still feel satisfying enough lol.

I know in canon post-true ending, Michel’s modern family is completely different from his original one in the Middle Ages, but given in Ending 2 he didn’t get to come to terms with his past or with his brothers I thought it’d be interesting if he were to reincarnate with the same parents and siblings this time around (with maybe the exception of his brothers being a bit more supportive this time, especially Georges because of his former guilt?) Well, at least that’s how I wrote it here.

So anyway, this thus takes place during Ending 2: Coming for You, with spoilers for the entire main game.

______________________________________________________________

She is smiling.

The woman in his dream is always smiling.

She has very long braided black hair, surreal jade eyes, an old-fashion maid outfit — her hand is as cold as marble and she looks like a corpse, but she is always, perpetually smiling, like a picture, a statue stuck in place, forbidden to move with the flow of time.

Her grasp on him feel desperate, holding onto him so hard as if she’s afraid he’s going to slip away from her.

It had terrified him back then, but now, whenever he thinks about it, it only breaks his heart.

______________________________________________________________

He wakes up at the sound of his phone blaring next to his ears.

Every morning, he tells himself he really needs to change this awful alarm, and every time he forget to do it until it twists his eardrums all over again.

With difficulty, he rose from his bed, his hair getting all over his face — here, too, he often thinks about how he should just cut them off, but never end up doing it.

Maybe this is just his life’s philosophy at this point, honestly — thinking about how he should do stuff but then never doing them.

He has two missing calls from Georges on his phone, with whom he’s supposed to meet up with later on, but decides to ignores them and instead leisurely step inside his messy apartment’s bathroom.

He already knows he’s going to be late anyway — no need to hurry.

______________________________________________________________

Michel Bollinger’s life was a fairly normal one.

He was an engineer working for a company, lived in a small apartment in Paris, was single, didn’t really have any close friends but got along well with his coworkers and neighbors. He cut ties and was disinherited by his wealthy family when he was a teenager mostly because of his change in identity, and didn’t have any contact with them anymore with the exception of his brothers from times to times — but besides that, there was nothing much exceptional about him.

Michel Bollinger’s life was fine. Kind of boring, maybe, but it was not a bad life. His parents were shitty, but things have been better for his sanity since he stopped interacting with them — it could be worse.

He was a bit lonely, sometimes, but he just had to focus on his job and then it didn’t bother him that much.

Yes, his life was fine — or it should be, if it wasn’t for the deep emptiness he constantly felt afflicted with, and the absurd, surreal dreams he frequently woke up from.

He’s had those since he was a small child. They didn’t make much sense, and well, they’re dreams, right? It would be silly to try to get any meaning out of them either way.

That’s what he’d tell himself generally, but sometimes they’d just get a bit too vivid for his tastes, plaguing and infesting his mind like a leech, and he simply couldn’t get rid of them.

The most recurring one was when he’d find himself in a mansion. An old, ephemeral, decrepit mansion, in which he would wander around, all alone — until a maid would take him by the hand and they would wander together. When her hand grasped his, his heart instantly started aching — followed by a deep fear taking root in his heart.

But then sometimes he dreamed of a voice as sweet as honey and as sharp as a knife, of a white-haired girl, of a pair of siblings with golden hair, of a beast covered in blood or of a tanned businessman with arrogant eyes.

Sometimes the maid’s appearance would get blurry, and instead she reshaped into a young woman with short hair and a radiant smile.

Every times she appeared, something bloomed in his heart.

“Master,” she would say, and she would smile, and there was so much love in that smile that he wanted to cry.

He wanted to say her name.

But he can’t, and then he woke up, and he was back to his boring, normal, empty life.

______________________________________________________________

Michel sighed as he looked at his phone for the ninth times while sitting at a table in a café. It was almost six in the afternoon and Georges still wasn’t there.

They’d agreed to meet at five, and his idiot brother didn’t even bother to send him a text to apologize for being late. He should be used to it by now, but somehow he’s not. Michel doesn’t even know why he hasn’t left the café yet, or why he even accepted the offer at all. They rarely see each other anymore these days, and they are definitely not as close as when they were kids. Michel couldn’t even remember the last time he saw Didier.

It’s not as if he dislikes his brothers — in fact, he does love and owes them a whole lot. Unlike his parents, they’d come to accept him for who he was, and with the fallout he had with the family he would’ve been on the street with nothing if it had not been for Georges and Didier helping him out and finding him a place to stay at. But their relationship still became… a bit strained after all of this, and even when he could tell they tried to make an effort, there was like an invisible wall erected between them. Maybe some things were just irreparably damaged no matter how much you wanted or tried to fix them.

It was about fifteen minutes later that a man with dark wavy hair and an awkward smile burst inside the place and fell in the chair in front of Michel, grinning like a dumbass. He didn’t even have the decency to look sorry.

“Yo, Michel! You won’t believe what I got caught up into!”

“You’re probably right, and I’m also not interested in—”

“Now lemme tell ya, it was craaazy stuff! So y’see, I was in the street an’ that grandma walkin’ her dog—”

Michel sighed, knowing he had no choice but to have to hear Georges’ rambling until the end now. As usual with him, his story was utterly ridiculous, and only when he finally finished half an hour later did they start actually catching up with each other.

“Honestly, I never understood your career path,” Georges let out after inquiring about how his job was doing. “You should… I dunno, choose somethin’ more fun!”

“I’m not working to have fun, Georges,” Michel deadpanned.

The other man shrugged. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re boring.”

“At least I’m not the one who’s always broke asking Didier for money.”

“I-I don’t always asks him for money! And he’s the one who will inherit the most of Dad’s fortune, so it’s not like he can’t afford it. Anyway, let’s stop talkin’ ‘bout money! Ya just won’t believe the latest bullshit Aimée threw at me!”

Just saying her name managed to make Michel shudder, but he knew the topic was going to come up at some point so he might as well get it over with right now. Aimée was Georges’ ex-wife with whom he’s had two sons with. He’d divorced her a few years back, but the woman was an actual demon from hell who still to this day kept doing him all sorts of crass and had gotten full custody of their kids, which his brother desperately tried to get back in vain. So, she was effectively Georges’ ‘favorite’ topic whenever they saw each other, to Michel’s dismay as he also had far from good memories of the woman.

Still, he listened his brother complains about his demonic ex-wife until he finally sighed and asked a question Michel even less wanted to talk about.

“What ‘bout you then, little bro? Still no girlfriend?”

Michel snorted. “Of course not.”

“Why? You say this like it’s obvious, but c’mon! You’re almost thirty now, you don’t intend to spend the rest of your life all by yourself, yeah?”

Michel almost got the urge to reply ‘Why not?’ but he didn’t want to get into a fight with his brother so he instead simply deflected. His love life so far had been the extent of one girlfriend in high school that lasted a semester, one coworker he dated for a few months and another one whom he’d gone to take a drink with, with no further development. And, to be honest, it just… wasn’t something he was interest in or looking for.

It was odd, but there was… like something that prevented him from truly searching someone. Like a blockage; the idea instinctively rebutted him, and then a crippling feeling of guilt overwhelmed him. It was silly, he knew that, but well, as far as he was concerned he didn’t see any issue with not trying to pursue something that made him so intrinsically uncomfortable.

Even his feeling of loneliness and emptiness wasn’t enough to push him to find a partner. It didn’t feel like a lover would ever be able to truly fulfill what he was lacking, anyway.

Maybe there really was something wrong with him. Maybe he was just born broken.

Georges stared at him with what looked suspiciously like concern for a moment, and then he yet again rambled about some silly anecdote but Michel couldn’t bring himself to pay attention — when suddenly something caught his eyes and his heart stopped beating, freezing in his chest.

Long black hair flew just next to him; a glint of beautiful jade eyes sparkling to his right.

He stood up like by instinct, and ran through the café. Georges shrieked at his abrupt movement and then yelled his name, but Michel didn’t turn back; it was like everything around him had suddenly disappeared.

The only thing that mattered was the silhouette of the young woman who had just passed him by — his heart was beating so fast and his lungs were so tight and he knew her, he knew her, it had to be her, he had to say her name, she was—

“Gi—”

He grabbed her hand — the one he’d let go before, the one he’d failed — and the young woman turned around. Shocked green eyes stared back at him — and indeed, they were of the same emerald color he remembered them as. This was hair as black as ivory cascading behind her shoulders just like the one in his dreams.

But it wasn’t her.

Her features were different, her face more angular, her nose rounder. It wasn’t… wasn’t…

Who did he thought she was again?

“Um…?”

The woman stared at him strangely, cautiously; and suddenly the transient state Michel had found himself into vanished. He recalled he was in the middle of a café, that he’d just randomly grabbed a stranger, and that everyone was looking at him.

“W-Well, wow, real sorry ‘bout that, ma’am!” Georges suddenly popped up behind him, laughing nervously and making him let go of her hand forcefully. “My lil’ bro here’s been super tired lately, y’see, so sometimes he loses it a little. My bad, my bad!”

She look at the two of them weirdly, clearly debating if she should be more concerned about this, then finally decided to just ignore the whole thing and turned around without a word. Georges sighed before dragging Michel back to his seat.

“Hey, dude, what the hell was that? Is your head okay?”

Honestly, he wasn’t sure. Probably not.

Then again, he always felt like he’d never been very okay ever since he was a kid.

This empty spot in its heart seemed even wider than before.

Michel dreamed again, that night; of the same withered mansion, the same honeyed voice, and the same maid with jade eyes.

The one who didn’t want to let go of his hand.

The one he’d failed.

______________________________________________________________

“Michel? Were you daydreaming again?”

A giggle. A grasp on his hand.

“I swear, sometimes I feel like you just live in another dimension. I was asking you what you wanted for dinner tonight. You know we still have asparagus from last month, right?”

A sigh. She crossed her arms and pouted, looked at him impatiently.

“You do like asparagus, don’t you? It’s not parsley. Or carrots. …What do you mean, you ‘just don’t feel like eating it’?”

He doesn’t remember what he replied, but he remember the way she rolled her eyes at him exasperatedly, affectionately.

At this point in their relationship, she very rarely got annoyed at him without some hint of fondness in her gaze anymore; and he loved when she looked at him like that.

“Alright. Fine. Let’s do without the asparagus then. But if you don’t want to answer me, then I’ll just take the matter into my hands without letting you decide. You’re fine with this, right?”

She smiled mischievously at him, then stared, and then hesitated. Finally, she glanced right and left, looking a little shy, before tiptoeing on her feet and gently kissing his cheek.

“It’ll be a surprise, then.”

She smiled again, and her hand was still in his.

He knows he smiled back. He knows he didn’t want to let go.

He opens his mouth, and tries to say her name — but no sound comes out.

Then suddenly everything distorts around him, and the mansion take a darker turn.

It is the witch’s house now, and it is the maid in front of him, with the braided long hair and the empty eyes.

And she smiles at him again, but he cannot bear to stare back.

He cannot bear to see her like this.

She is too scary, too empty, too broken — and he doesn’t know who he is— but he knows someone is waiting for him and that’s not where he is meant to be— and this place is nauseous and suffocating and everything around him is so warped—

And so he let go of her hand, and desperately start running away from her.

After fumbling around in the dim corridors, his heart is beating fast with terror as he helplessly tries to open the large door of the mansion. When it finally does open, he barges outside, into the light, and her voice resounds in his mind, like an echo.

“Master! Please wait! You mustn’t go out there! Come back… quickly…!”

Looking behind his shoulder, she’s wavering like a mirage in the open door; reaching her hands out for him as he is already too far away.

Stuck in place inside the mansion, in the darkness. Like a statue.

She is not smiling anymore.

______________________________________________________________

The sky was gray.

It wasn’t raining yet, but with how heavy the clouds looked, Michel was certain it would soon enough.

He had just finished work, and had a missed call from Georges, and from Didier — a rare occurrence. But he is not in the mood to deal with either of them right now, so instead of attempting to answer to his family, he looked up at the sky, then stopped.

This was a sad day, and he felt even emptier than usual.

As he was just about to starts walking again, someone passed next to him.

Long white hair flying right next to his ear; a beautiful young girl, walking and gazing straight in front of her. She seemed too lost in her thoughts to pay him any mind, but Michel wasn’t, and he cannot help but stare at her in disbelief.

Because he knew her.

She’s just a teenager, and he has never seen her in his life — in this life — but he knew her. He knew that voice. He knew this pure white hair and ruby eyes that are just like his. He knew those gentle, soft features.

She has a fake red rose decorating her handbag. His heart stopped.

“Giselle.”

That wasn’t the young girl’s name, not her real one; but this was definitely the name he has been looking for all this time — suddenly coming back to him in a flash.

And as soon as the syllables escaped his lips, everything washed over to him.

The cursed mansion. The witch, Morgana. The cheerful, short-haired woman who barged into his life and made him feel alive again. How they met, hurt each other, fell in love. How he died, then came back a thousands years and three tragedies too late.

And then how he ran away from her just when she needed him the most.

His stomach turned, and alone with the overflowing memories and headache, he felt like he was going to throw up.

He abandoned her.

She was here, with him, right next to him, but he left her; he lost her, of his own volition.

Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he suddenly couldn’t breath, the only thing staying in his mind being that last moment he spent with the Maid — with Giselle — as she yelled after him while he ran, begging him to stay by her side, because he left her, left her, left her—

As if he’d just abruptly, finally woken up from a dream, his whole life suddenly made sense, and at the same time, nothing mattered anymore.

The way he lived those twenty-seven years in a nebulous bubble, as if unable to connect with anyone, with crippling unease and guilt that came from nowhere — from his sin — the dots connected very abruptly and hurts in an almost unbearable way.

And in the end he was just standing there in the middle of this street, and couldn’t understand what he was doing here.

He lost Giselle.

What was he doing, then, here all by himself? Without her? His family, his brothers, his work; none of it mattered without her. Not after what he did to her, condemning her to an eternity chained to this mansion.

His emotions were too staggering, and he never felt so much all at once; but one thing he knew for sure was that he couldn’t stay there. That was simply unacceptable.

He needed to find her back — needed to get back to her, save her, somehow; by any means — but as his desperate mind tried to rack his memories for any ways to do this—

His eyes stopped on the road.

He didn’t know if he could find her. He didn’t know if he could fix his worst mistake.

But he needed to try. He couldn’t go on without trying to apologize to her — to save her, make sure she had a chance at being happy again.

So he prayed to a God he never believed in, prayed to a witch who had only ever wished but for his ruin, and turned around.

From the corner of his eyes, he distinguished the white-haired girl staring at him.

He could feel her gaze on him, her red eyes suddenly widening in horror as she realized his intent.

But he ignored her; even when she ran towards him, even when she tried to talk or screamed at him.

Nothing mattered to him anymore but the ghost of a broken woman he had left behind, and as he stepped on the road, he vanished into the void in a vain search of her.

#The House in Fata Morgana #FataMoru #Michel Bollinger #Gischel #GischelWeek #Gischel Week #Giselle FataMoru #Fanfiction #More than a millennium #Giselle Bollinger #Fata Morgana #Novect #Gischel Week 2022 #GischelWeek2022 #Fanfic #Giselle (The House in Fata Morgana) #Fata Morgana no Yakata #House in Fata Morgana

[inosukeslefttoe]

SO i just finished wonder egg priority and i think that with confidence i can say it has been one of my favorite animes like... ever ?? and not even from hyperfixation or obsession over it just... its so fucking real yet so simple in a way that i havent rlly seen shown in any other shows you feel ??

but first i wanna talk about how sexy the art and animation is real quick... HOMIE ITS SO GOOD LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT JUST... serotonin... the characters are all so unique and iconic and fun but not over the top in their designs yknow ??? they seem like regular every day girls but they stand out and theyre all sO CUTE !!!! also i love how the style is like this soft bubbly slice of life lookin stuff with bright happy colors and the most beautiful scenes you could find but they also have the SICKEST fight scenes complete with whimsical animal helpers and terrifying villains and crazy weapons unique to each character. and the animation. god DAMN shawty i am obsessed with everything in this show. i might make a post solely about the art later lol bc i wanna get into the other stuff.

so the themes in the show right ?? it starts just as this cute lil magical girl kinda deal but within the first episode we see that like.. oh damn... thats kinda heavy... tbh i was a little shocked and thought about stopping bc yknow bad mental health BUT i was so intrigued that i had to keep going and i am SO GLAD that i did. because this show just so beautifully discusses all these heavy topics in such an eloquent and artistically expressive way. and also like, , the juxtaposition of the charming childlike vibe with bright colors and 14 yr old girl protagonists against the dark themes of suicide and so much else,, i think is just perfect. bc a lot of heavy animes are more of the seinen genre and have some middle aged dude as a protag or make the entire color palette dim or offer little relief to the pain of these heavy themes right ?? but NO not wonder egg bitches B) because these problems arent just things that ppl face later in life or just problems that need to be talked about among adults or the edgy seinen watching squad,, these are REAL problems that face people of every age, gender etc and i think its awesome that wonder egg addresses that. some may cringe at the thought of their high schooler watching animes that discuss sexual harassment, suicide, abuse, self harm, eating disorders etc,, but in reality it is the most comforting thing i have ever come across and is basically jsut free anime therapy. because not only does wonder egg present these themes to the viewers as something real that happens to all kinds of people (making said people feel heard in a way that maybe they hadnt before), but it also makes sure to vanquish all of these forms of trauma. and the way the trauma is vanquished isnt always beautiful and it isnt always just magically gone with a poof. the struggles of overcoming or living with that sort of thing are shown in such a real and relatable way that addresses every hardship trauma survivors have to go through. and i just. god i cry bro. 

oh m y GOD and the lgbtq+ rep in this show ?? like shawty... as soon as i saw episode one i was picking up on some gay/lesbian themes but then again im sapphic and project that a lot so i tend to see that sort of stuff like... everywhere... but NE WAYS... episode ten made me FUKCING CRY BRO LIke i cant believe there was a whole trans character with a whole trans pride hoodie like LKGHKDGH my heart is just so.. so fucking full thinking about him. bc like yeah i know there are trans characters in anime but i feel like theyre always very ambiguous about actually being trans or not or erased or portrayed as a harmful stereotype or theyre constantly misgendered and still refered to as their assigned gender at birth and i hate it. HOWEVEr... Kaoru.. *chefs kiss* it was so amazing to see a character straight up say “yeah im trans” in such a casual yet powerful way bc i personally have never seen that before. and i love love loved how he went into his backstory and talked to momoe about gender bc i think thats what she rlly needed and that it helped her find herself and it makes me so happy oh my god,, and the way they talked about it never seemed forced or like it was the focal point of his existence yknow ?? like yeah he existed to help momoe overcome some of her trauma but he also just existed to be HIM yknow ?? also... personally, i headcanon momoe as a trans girl even though i dont remember it being explicitly stated plus the school scenes of her and stuff would seem like they suggest otherwise ??but,,, SHAWTY THE AMOUNT OF SUBTEXT and her complicated relationship w gender is... something i feel like a cis girl would not go through so harshly yknow ?? with all of the questioning and feeling detached from femininity or feeling like ppl dont see her as an actual girl and only like her as a guy or for her masculine traits,,, but dont take my word on this bc i myself am a cis girl but that was just my take on it as someone in the lgbtq+ community trying to educate myself on the transgender community :) either way,, wonder eggs portrayal of momoe and kaoru and the way that momoe becomes so passionate about expressing herself the way she wants to as a girl is just... good lord im gonna cry its so perfect,,,.so ... i just love this show way too much. i also am honestly super lost about the relationship btwn acca and ura-acca ?? bc i was gonna mention ura-acca as a canonically gay guy bc when i was watching i interpreted ep 11 as him being in love with acca and being jealous of Azusa (bc i mean,, they lived together (i swear to god there was only one bed in that apartment) and had a daughter together and def loved each other and also when Frill said they were husbands and then when ura-acca said he wasnt attracted to azusa but he was def jealous of their relationship ??) but then i saw somewhere that theyre brothers ?? which would make sense ig since they look kinda similar and accas daughter called ura-acca “uncle”.. but at the same time its ANIME SO THEY ALL LOOK SIMILAR and referring to gay couples as siblings is an EXTREMELY common euphemism soooo... IM JUST LOST HERE... but yeah i tried doing research and found different things so i cant say anything for sure >:( however,,, if they are canonically a lil fruity for each other... when frill refered to acca as ura-accas husband i imploded dude you never hear that sort of wording in anime.. but if theyre related i am so sorry. 

god this is so much longer than i planned it to be oops but i also love the theme about like.. relying on friends to help carry your weight but at the same time not becoming completely dependent on those friends and using their support to learn how to love yourself and rely on yourself yknow ?? bc that is exactly what healthy friendships look like. bc i think ai sort of had a codependency thing goin on with koito maybe ?? but now she has a whole squad of funky friends that are so so different but all struggle with different kinds of trauma and although they fight over it, they always get through it with each other together. and they push each other no matter what to be the best versions of themselves and they teach other that getting hurt is okay because theyre always gonna be there to pick up the pieces no matter what happens. they can give each other space when they need and adapt to meet each others needs but theyre always able to balance it out with their own needs and thats such a beautiful thing in friendships especially at their age like damn i wish i had that maturity when i was 14 but no all i had was depression. another thing is that through these friendships you get to see all the different sides of each girl; you get to see them being strong or a shining light to their friends when theyre hurting but you also get to see them being hurt and weak and allowing themselves to be on the receiving end of the comfort. their friendships allows them to have weaknesses but it also allows them to highlight their strengths and thrive off of each others. I LOVE FRIENDSHIP DUDE

next i wanna briefly mention some of the themes connected to suicide that ive noticed. a big one is the survivors guilt that ai feels once koito is dead. several times she screams that she wishes she couldve gone with koito and she dreams of a “perfect world” where they committed a double suicide. one of the main reasons for her troubles is that she blames herself for koitos death and feels like it should be her thats dead... but at the same time she feels like too much of a coward to do anything now that koito is gone. she just has all these complex and contradicting feelings that wear away at her in ways that ppl that havent gone through the suicide of a loved one could never imagine. a lot of the times when things like this are portrayed in media i feel like its more in a way thats meant to guilt trip those that have taken their own lives and paint suicide as this selfish sin thats unforgivable but... not only does wonder egg reject that idea and instead portray it as a heartbreaking tragedy with,,, so so many terrible reasons, but it focuses on the feelings of ai separate from koito without blaming her in any way. not once did i feel like the show antagonized koito or that ai blamed koito for doing any of this, but they simply mourned her loss and touched on ais reaction towards the event but separate from koito herself if that makes sense. and i think that discussing survivors guilt without painting koito as the bad guy is something so beautifully done in wonder egg that can really resonate with those that have lost a loved one to suicide and have struggled with these same things.

okay i think this is the last thing ill mention,,, but HOMIE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE BIT AT THE END. I AM. OBSESSED. i am such a whore for anything about the multiverse okay n e ways...,, not only did this make a super epic trippy ending of season one and add a little bit more magical girl whimsy to the show,, but it had such a powerful message. from the perspective of og ai,, finding out that you killed yourself in another world is... i mean its definitely not a surprise but at the same time it rlly makes you think how close og ai herself couldve been to that point and what decisions led her out of that dark place in her life. if i were in her shoes i would be terrified and id cry bc the thought of going back to such a dark place and actually going through with something like that is my worst fear and probably something that ai fears too. but at the same time,,, think from the perspective of ai two !!! like yeah its true that theres this awful terrible version of ai that dies but theres also a whole version of ai that is a superhero magical girl fighting off monsters to save countless ppls lives !! and she has a badass lizard and a gang of awesome friends !!! at first i was worried that ai two would be jealous of og ai and compare herself to her and feel inferior but like.. THEYRE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON AND CAPABLE OF THE SAME THINGS !!! and ai two realized that !! just within the span of one episode, she went from the version of ai who took her life,, to the version of ai jumping in front of a friend to take a bullet for them and save their life. and that just inspired THE SHIT OUT OF ME. i think that ai was sent another version of herself to sort of beat her own worst enemy yknow ?? those doubts and fears that shes no good or that shes that same bystander from episode one and that she hasnt changed at all. but getting to interact with her parallel self and see her grow was just what she needed to realize that while yeah sometimes the worst thing can happen and things can be terrible but on the other hand sometimes the most wonderful thing imaginable can happen because she has the power to do either. 

so im gonna go ahead and stop rambling bc i got all my thoughts out that i wanted to for this post :D but yeah lol i might make another if i feel like it sometime. long story short: this show is perfect and it is going on my favorite of all times.

#wonder egg priority #wonder egg spoilers #ai ohto #rika kawai #momoe sawaki #wonder egg priority neiru #i forgot neirus name #anime review #wonder egg ai #lgbtq anime

[oleandernodeath]

Wisteria 🌱

How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called?

I've read a few, not as much as I'd like to. I've been more interested in online stories and video essays. But I've read the following:

Rabbits for Food by by Binnie Kirshenbaum. A book I really really enjoyed about an unconventional but common story of someone with depression. Bunny, the main character, is a middle aged woman with a past of mistreatment from her family. But she's married, she's a homeowner, she has a group of friends, she should be happy right? She's not. Not at all. She spirals down a suicidal path, nearly following through at one point, that leads to her hospitalization. It's overall a great, darkly humorous, and painfully realistic story about mental illness and the mental health system's failures. Definitely recommend it.

(The rest are below the cut for length reasons, but they're worth looking in to too)

Whiskey Words & A Shovel by R.H. Sin. An impulse buy poetry book about love, loss, guilt, and grief. It feels a little um... "Rupi Kaur-ish" at times, but some of them really hit home. This one's my favourite:

gallows your past lingered like a rope around your neck and so i kicked over the chair beneath your feet

.

Gregg Shorthand by John Robert Gregg. An instructional guide on Gregg shorthand. Not very entertaining, but I did learn some basics.

.

Longing: Selected Poems translated by James Nolan. A book of Spanish and Hispanic poetry. Poetry about love, life, culture, expectations, and longing. Really, really gorgeous, profound, and well written poetry in this. Definitely recommend. One of my favourites:

If Only For a Moment If only for a moment, we long to stop. We dream of taking a break from ourselves. I'm not sure where but just about anywhere so long as life pulls us in its thorns.

A moment, maybe. And we slide back toward the two-faced past to shut out this terror we feel, same as the one we also knew then, day by day.

So many nights how quickly we forget, forget the sweat of upset nerves souring the greatest success, delivering us to it half-broken from the start except for that blank of getting it over with, the curious indifference to what is already done.

So every time this terror ambushes us, the terror forever wearing on our face we cry out calling up the past— calling up a past that never existed—

just to believe how really alive we are and life's more than this enormous whirling pause when our real mission, the one we staked our lives on then, what we called our self-respect was nothing more, now, than a mournful urge to hide.

.

A Feast of Lanterns by by L. Cranmer-Byng. A short anthology of translations of classic Chinese poetry. Such a beautiful exploration of Chinese culture and its poetry throughout history. All of them are just wonderful, it's hard to choose a favourite, but this one always stands out to me:

Spring Rhapsodies Ⅰ For these are the last days of Spring — the ending of spring's last days. Sadness of the heart takes hold of me, and no light weariness.

Away my thoughts! By the winding Khang, by the pouring rapids of Syan my plunging hands are hidden with fairy flowers— and still my thoughts have mastered me...

Each year this picture is the same. Spring comes — the flowers bloom But lo there is an end of them — and change comes over Spring

Swiftly, swiftly the long river speeds away its waters. I follow with my gaze the flowing waves and in thought I pass with them to the east, to the very sea.

Alas! 'tis even so with Spring — it stays not with us once time has come. Soon, too soon will Destiny send forth the breath of tottering age. Ah ! that I cannot fling a long, long rope over the blue sky and bind it with the white orb of light as it rushes on to setting!

.

So those are my recent reads, and I recommend all of them except Whiskey Words & A Shovel. Especially Rabbits for Food though, it really touched me as a mentally ill person who's gone through the institution.

#books #reading #bookblr #reading recommendations #book recs #book recommendations #ask game #rabbits for food #depression #poetry #longing #poems #poetry books #gregg shorthand #shorthand #poetry recs #poetry recommendations

[tams-writeblr]

Once I’m gone

Rating: M(ature)

Warnings: major character death

Category: F/M (main couple), Multi (side characters)

Fandom: Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin

Relationship: Mikasa Ackermann / Eren Jaeger | various side couples

Characters: Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackermann, Armin Arlelt, Zeke Jaeger, Hange Zoe, Floch Forster, Ymir, Reiner Braun, Pieck Finger, Historia Reiss, several others will make a cameo

Additional Tags: Modern AU | established relationship | toxic behaviour | Eren suffers from Huntington’s disease and tries to settle his matters before he dies | suicial blockhead Eren | aged up characters (by ten years) | suicide tw | depression tw | mental diseases tw | deathly diseases tw | this is clearly not write what you know, but I’m giving my very best to representate the topics as good as I can | this all basically came to me as a fever dream | you remember Thirteen from House, M.D.? I still have a huge crush on her so this version of Eren is greatly inspired by her <3

Language: English (not native, I’m trying my best you guys)

Stats: ongoing - Chapter 1/15 - Part 2/4 - 1507 of 3652 words

Summary: Eren Jaeger knew for years that he inherited Huntington’s disease from his late mother. When he first notices symptoms on him, his long protected plan, to end his life before reaching the critical state of his illness,  awakes. But there is still Mikasa, his girlfriend and the only person in the world he cares about more than about himself, and he can’t leave her alone and grieving. It’s time to find a substitute for when Eren is gone. With the help of a new friend Eren tries to scare away Mikasa while driving her into the arms of someone new.

__________________________________________________

Charlatans and Pills - Part 2/4

<<previous

“Hey Mama”, the small, dark haired boy said and pulled his hand towards the woman that sat sunk down on an uncomfortable looking chair.

She didn’t directly look at him, only giving his pulled out hand a small, arbitrary glance and looked up towards the man, standing behind Eren.

“But Carla, Dear”, Eren's father said with a cheerful tone. “Shake at least our Eren’s hand. Aren’t you happy that we are visiting you?”

A thin lipped smile crawled over Carla’s face and her light brown eyes finally found Eren’s glance. “Eren”, she sighed recognizing and rather than just taking his hand, she slipped down her chair and tightly hugged him.

Tighter than Eren would have liked it. He looked up to his father, seeking help, insecure how to behave. She still was his mother, the one that always loved him and guessed every wish from his eyes.

Eren had found out that she was sick, three years ago. Back then they also told him, he eventually would get the same sickness. She often dropped things and so she did on his eleventh birthday with a knife to cut his cake. It fell right on her foot and she had to go to the hospital. After this incident, she never returned to her old self. She behaved strangely ever so often, screaming at his dad for obviously no reason.

But the strangest was when Eren came home from school one day. His father was still at work, he had a small practice in the middle of town, and usually a delicious lunch was waiting for him when he returned home from school. But on this day nothing smelled nice through the house, on the contrary it stank horribly of burned food and everything was full with smoke. Eren found his mother in the upstairs bathroom, her hands were dripping with blood, he had found shards in the kitchen.

“What do you want?”, his mother screamed and held her blood stained hands in front of her face. “Get out! I have to hide from the smoke!”

Puzzled Eren neared his mother. “But Mama, you have to turn off the oven or else whatever's on there will burn even more. Did you cut yourself? Do you need a bandaid?”

“Get our!”, Carla yelled again. “Who the hell are you, how did you get into my house?”

Helpless tears wobbled out of big, green child’s eyes. “Mama”, he whined and ducked away under a roll of toilet paper his mother threw at him. Desperately the boy backed out of the bathroom and ran back to the kitchen where he pulled all knobs of the oven until the red control light went off, then he remembered what his father always had hammered inside his little head: to call him at work, when something was wrong with Mum.

“The number is pinned on the fridge”, he had told him again and again. “I’ll be with you within 15 minutes.” If not at this moment, when should he bother his father at work? Quickly the boy looked for the phone around the smoke filled house, luckily he found it in the living room and not like so often in his parents bedroom. He wouldn’t have dared to walk past the upper bathroom in which he still suspected his mother.

His father indeed arrived within minutes. He found Carla beneath the toilet, sunk down and asleep and immediately called an ambulance. “I’m so sorry”, he murmured again and again while pressing the sobbing and crying Eren against him. “You’ll never have to be alone with her again. Everything will be alright.”

His mother didn’t return home after this incident. His father explained to him that she would now live somewhere, where people could look after her more appropriately. There no knife would fall on her food ever again and she wouldn’t burn any more pans.

But Eren found the place where they brought her simply terrifying. There were only old people. Not old people like his father but really old, probably older than his grandparents. It always smelled strangely and scary sounds came from some chambers.

Eren curled out of his mother’s embrace and his father came to help him.

“There, there Carla, not so fiercely”, he laughed and directed her gently back towards her chair. Then he took place across from her and placed a hand on her knee. “Well my Dear, how are you feeling today?”

Carla looked at him for a long time with a stoic face. At that her left arm twitched permanently. It hit against her thigh and the seating of the chair.

Eren watched the movement hypnotized and flinched when his mother took a deep, loud breath.

“Grisha”, she said with unmistakable joy in her voice. her twitching arm raised and her hand landed accurately on her husband’s. A smile crept towards her lips. “My Dear…” Suddenly she was once again his mother, the pretty woman with light brown eyes and dark hair, sun kissed skin and the most beautiful smile in the world.

Eren felt lighter than before and placed his small child’s hand above his mother’s. She only looked at him briefly, out of the corner of her eyes, before taxing Grisha again. The three of them stayed like this for a while in total silence. Only a far away, old and male voice asked when it was finally time for dinner.

The clearing of a throat crushed the family idly and Eren and his mother heavily flinched.

Carla’s head shot high to look at the creator of the noice’s face. Her own one suddenly started to twitch wildly.

“Mr. Jäger, can I please talk to you for a moment?”, a man in a white coat said. From his father Eren knew that doctors dressed like that.

Grisha got up and agreed with a dark look on his face. “Eren, sit down for so long. I’ll be right back.”

“You are a doctor?”, Eren heard the other man ask when he walked away with his father. The latter didn’t answer, maybe he had only nodded. “Then you must know about the condition your wife is in.”

Eren couldn’t hear more from the conversation. But from the look on his mother’s face, he could tell that her glance followed them.

He didn’t want to turn out like her. What was that for a life? Eren still couldn’t quite understand what was wrong with his mother, but he knew she always forgot things, sometimes even him or his father and that she always flapped around her arms. He didn’t want that, especially not the thing with forgetting. Carefully he took her hand between both of his. “I’m not gonna forget you, Mama”, he said tenderly and patted her hand that was gaunt and wiry. “I promise.”

Carla looked at her boy dumbfounded before pulling her eyebrows into a painful grimace. “Oh Eren, my little baby,” she cried and thick tears wobbled out of her eyes. Fragile and smaller as he remembered her she sat on that horribly uncomfortable chair, her hand between the small palms of her son.

Scared by her sudden burst of emotion Eren pulled his hands away. Two faces, so similar to each other that everyone would see their connection, looked at each other with a mixture of horror and hurt.

When his father returned, Eren asked him to leave.

“Come back soon!”, he heard his mother say softly when Grisha leaned down to her and kissed her.

He promised they would, of course he did. And of course they kept their promise. Eren couldn’t say how many hours of his youth he had spent in that foster home that cared for his mother. The doctors and nurses there did a wonderful job, they deeply cared for his mother, who visibly crumpled infront of her small family’s eyes. She got thinner and thinner and ever more erratic. Until she neither recognized Grisha nor Eren. Sometimes she remembered to have a son called Eren but in her memory he was still a ten-years-old that had broken his arm while wrestling with his friends. That the handsome young man infront of her was her small Eren, she wouldn’t get the idea despite their striking resemblance.

Finally her spasticies became so bad that it became too dangerous to let her eat solid food and she got a feeding tube. From this moment on, things went continuously down hill for Carla Jäger, whose husband was a doctor himself who slowly broke down by looking at her.

Almost exactly ten years after moving to the foster home and a little over 13 years after her diagnosis Carla died on a stormy fall evening. She hadn’t seen her son in four month, he just couldn’t take it anymore.

But losing his mother had broken something deep inside of Eren. Now a full grown man, he knew which fate his mother had handed down to him. But he also knew back than, how he would be reacting towards it, when his time came.

                                                                               >>next

__________________________________________________

Author’s Note: Hey, thank you for coming back to me! I hope you don’t mind when long flashbacks like this are all in Italics, I know they can be hard to read. Just for Context: Carla was 30 when she had Eren in this story and she dies at 51. Can’t have a main character without a tragic family backstory, can we? See you for the next part!

#attack on titan fanfiction #aot ff #eremika #eren jaeger #carla jaeger #grisha jaeger #once i'm gone #once i'm gone chap 1 #once i'm gone chap 1 part 2 #eren jaeger x mikasa ackerman #grisha jaeger x carla jaeger #writers on tumblr #fanfiction on tumblr #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

[stalactice]

A Stream of Consciousness Reaction to SnK

by a (newbie-ish) rivamika fan

Part 3: Jaegers Gonna Jaeger

(I'm not kidding, 85% of this part is just me ranting about the Jaeger family. I'm sorry.)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 (end)

Oh look! THE BASEMENT

Grisha Jaeger's flashback/books be like "we were a great people, we're gonna restore the Eldians!" and I think "dude, are you a terrorist?"

Zeke is Eren's brother??? I thought he would be his uncle or cousin holy moly

Ah yes, Grisha, turning your 5-7 year-old son into a child soldier. Great. Great parenting 101.

Zeke turning his parents into the authorities at 7 is cold af, but not that surprising

Is...Grisha's first wife the Smiling Titan??? The one that ate his...second wife?! That's a lot of family drama...

I'm not a drinking person, but if I lived in the snk world I would have to drink constantly Pixis has the right idea with that His poor lieutenant trying to get him to quite while I'm like "no let the man drink! don't have enough energy for this bs"

Of COURSE Eren is a namesake hahahahaha Grisha Jaeger: world's most unoriginal parent

There is so much going on in this panel: - Mikasa looks like she just woke up from an accidental nap - Levi looks like his internal monologue is "the idiot had one job—sit down and shut up—and still he's yelling" - Hanji is ready to call it a day - Eren looks like he just realized he left the stove on and forgot to wear pants under his coat

Levi and Hanji referring to Eren's outbursts as "that phase" is hilarious. Wonder how many of the corp cadets went through "that same phase.

Dang, Floch, I've only know you for a few chapters, but you have my respect. I'm down for anyone roasting Eren.

Arrested Development Narrator: This newfound respect stalactice found for Floch did not last long.

Eren with long hair looks like a scene kid my gosh GET A HAIRCUT

THEY REACHED THE OCEAN I freaking love and live for the Jean-Connie-Sasha friendship. They're such dorks, but they work so well together.

"I used to think 'why couldn't I become like Mikasa and Levi?'...and I thought I was trash." You are trash, Eren. *to the tune of Sound of Music* ~I hate main characters~ ...well, not always, but golly if Eren isn't the embodiment of most mc tropes I despise

"So if we kill our supposed enemy on the other side of this ocean, will we finally be free?"

Eren, for goodness sake, you just saw the ocean for the first time. This was one of your dreams and you're contemplating killing people on the other side of the water WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU Levi didn't kick him hard enough in the head

Guess I'll bang my hate drum for Eren to the masses

Reiner had a glow up daaaaaang

Zeke is...the worst motivational speaker in snk Must be a Jaeger thing

Reiner nearly committing suicide hits harder than I expected this manga to be

I've...been feeling the lack of Levi these past few chapters...

Eren's look to sneak into Marley is..........a choice

FLOCH I TRUSTED YOU FLOCH EREN IS OFF HIS ROCKER Friendship ended with Floch

Floch: Trying to wax poetic about Eren Jean: Y I K E S

Eren Jaeger, vilifying Reiner for wanting to be important or to be a hero at age TEN (which in his child brain was justified) is RICH considering you are very much an adult, EREN, just going on a killing spree of innocent civilians in the middle of a ghetto

Eren Jaeger has no rights in this household He and Sasuke can take their scene kid haircuts and their senses of entitlement and jump off a cliff together

[to be continued...]

#Rivamika #There's one crumb of rivamika in this sorry #stalactice reacts to snk

[ushiwakaa]

𝐈 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑.

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you’re a mangaka who draws from your own experiences to write your stories. your new editor disapproves this method.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: akaashi keiji x reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: angst, hanahaki au

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: suicidal thoughts/ideation, blood, vomit, major character death

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.2 k

𝐚/𝐧: this was written for the cheese cult’s hanahaki fic event !! djnfjdngjnjfnjnjngjn this took me so , so , so long to write because every version i wrote ended up hitting the same brick wall of unimaginable angst and believe it or not, this is probably the happiest version. i was supposed to post this two whole as days ago but hey , at least it happened

From over the cover of the fairytale he reads, the young boy boy peers at you with soft sage eyes — checking to see if you’re still awake. You are, but you’re careful to keep your eyes closed, face buried into the blanket. 

“The end,” the young boy finishes softly, closing his book.

He gingerly places the book to the side before sliding in next to you under the covers. You can feel his eyes on you for another moment before he takes a deep breath — there’s a secret, a confession, something on the tip of his tongue. 

You never hear it.

You wake up with a start, a cough half-way up your throat. You cough and cough and cough until the first bud breaks air, tickling the back of your throat. You reach your fingers into your mouth and pull. 

Bitterly, you stare at the withering bouquet in your hands. 

The flowers are wet with your saliva — only a hint of blood coating the white of the petals. 

When you went to the doctor about it, she said you were lucky. She said that your flowers were so small, you could go your entire life with an unrequited love and they would leave your respiratory system alone. She also added, no doctor in their right mind would perform a removal surgery on a person who was more likely to die on the table, then by their illness. 

While cultivating roses would be painful, at least it would be a quick death.

Like every other day, you toss out the pathetic string of baby’s breath in the garbage bin as you head into the washroom to wash out your mouth. 

You get off of the train at a quarter to ten — thankfully on time for your meeting. 

Kaori gives a friendly smile when you enter her office. Even behind her desk, you can see her burgeoning belly. Despite pushing eight months into her pregnancy, she beams. In her smile, she wears the name brand brightness that they all share — the people with a requited love, that is. The lucky ones whose flowers weren’t fed with misery and tears.

You try your best not to resent her but your jealousy bleeds when you sit in the glossy, apple green chair.

“How are you?” Kaori asks, her gentle eyes watching you.

You give a vague shrug, a small smile. “Sad that this is it.”

She’s pleased by this answer, giving a laugh. It reminds you of blue bells rustling in the wind. “I’ll be back and ready to work on your next series before you know it.”

You give an empty chuckle.

There’s a knock at the door and you both look. A man stands in the doorway — staring at Kaori dryly. His plain neutrals are out of place in her bright office but her brightness doesn’t flicker as she waves him in. You play with the sleeve of your severely drab cotton blouse as you wonder if that’s how you look here. 

“Akaashi! Glad you could make it.” 

He gives a slight bow to Kaori first, then you. You stop fiddling with your sleeve and return the bow while seated. He takes a seat in the chair opposite to you (Kaori dubbed it the pineapple throne after its piss yellow hue). He’s too tall for it. It’s almost comical. You might write that in for one of your characters.

“(Y/N), this is Akaashi Keiji. Akaashi, this is (L/N) (Y/N).” She turns to you. “He will be taking over as your editor for the last volume while I’m on maternity leave.” 

You look over at him — “Akaashi… Keiji?” 

At an arm's length, you can see the gentle slope of his nose and the delicate curl of the eyelashes that frame the muted green of his eyes. There’s something that’s strangely familiar about him but you can’t put your finger on it. You know him. You don’t know how, but you do.

“I look forward to working with you.”

You smile, but at the back of your throat, you can feel a familiar itch beginning to grow.

Despite the connection your body draws to him, Akaashi doesn’t show any recognition in return. 

He taps his pen lightly on the paper. “What’s going on here? What’s your plan for this girl?”

You peer over the desk to look at the character on trial — the panel shows the short haired girl spewing forget-me-nots into the trash bin. Immediately, you frown. It’s annoying that he doesn’t know her name. She is literally one of three main characters.

“Konoka?” You settle back into your seat. “She’s going to die.”

He looks up at you. “I gathered that much, but why?”

If the robot says it, it really must not make sense but then again, you doubt he even understood the nuances of the series if he couldn’t even remember Konoka’s name. “Because she has Hanahaki Disease.”

“Okay, but —” if you hadn’t been growing annoyed by his flat tone, you might’ve swooned at the softness, “forget-me-nots are small. She couldn’t possibly die of Hanahaki.”

“That’s why she kills herself.”

He’s silent for a moment, calculating his next words. “...You realize that she’s one of your most beloved characters, right? Your readers don’t want to see her die like that.”

“This is the trajectory the story has been on since she and Tanaka met again.” Your tone is more charged than you intend, but you can’t help but defend Konoka’s decision fiercely. “She has to commit suicide. It’s the only way she can move on.”

“Yes, but Kanoka—”

Pointedly, you cut him off, “Thank you for your opinion but I refuse to compromise on that.” 

He purses his lips. “I sincerely ask you to reconsider.”

“I will not compromise my artistic integrity for your comfort.”

“Killing characters off isn’t profound. It isn’t always necessary.”

“In this case, it is.” Your cheeks burn red as you stand up for yourself — this fight is on a personal level. “I’m not killing her for shock value. I’m killing her because every night, Konoka dreams about Tanaka, and everyday, she wakes up and throws up flowers because she knows he doesn’t love her back. I’m killing her because there’s no one else for her. I’m killing her because the flowers won’t and that — that’s more painful.”

The silence in the aftermath of your rant is deafening. He says nothing to you for another moment, staring into the smoulder of your eyes with a calculating stare. It might be a mistake to appeal to the emotional aspect of it — after all, you sort of doubt he has any at this point — but, at the root of it, that’s what it is: an emotional problem.

“Fine,” he says. “You still have to redo this panel, though.”

Your mouth burns with a minty tang as you walk back into your room — drawn over by the buzzing sound of your ringer. Looking at the caller I.D., you have half a mind to throw it across the room and get back under the covers. 

But, with all the professionalism you can muster at nine in the morning, you say, “Hello?”

“Are you finished with the second draft?” Akaashi’s flat drawl reverbs through the speaker.

You resist the urge to sigh. “Yes.”

“Can you come by the office to drop it off?”

“Today?” You scratch absently at your collarbone. “Uh… I can swing by tomorrow, but if you really need it today — you can pick it up from my apartment?” 

There’s silence on the other line — likely weighing the pros and cons. In the weeks you’ve worked under him, you’ve noticed that he does nothing without proper evaluation. 

“Is three o’clock alright?”

You’re in the middle of vacuuming when a knock at the door interrupts you. While you’re expecting it, you’re not any less annoyed. You open the door with a tight smile, manuscript already in hand. Akaashi gives a monotone greeting in his monotone clothes with his monotone face. 

“Hello. May I use your washroom?” 

You give a sigh as you open the door wider. “The door on the left.”

He enters your apartment, neatly putting his shoes by the door. You toss the manuscript back on the counter. You meant to send him on his way, but, because he’s already here, you put on a kettle to boil. 

“I sincerely hope you reconsider your plans.”

You turn around at the comment, looking at your editor with a raised brow. “I’m still killing Konoka.”

He’s a different person when you look at him. For once, there’s something behind his eyes — a sharpness to his gaze. That feeling returns — the one that sees flowers tickling at your trachea.

Gravely, he repeats. “I sincerely hope you reconsider your plans.” 

He must’ve seen your garbage bin. You feel ready to throw something else up now.

“Tell me about them,” Akaashi says.

“About who?”

“Whoever it is you’re willing to die for.”

“I…” You feel faint as you rub at your clavicle. “I don’t think you want to hear this.”

“That’s why I asked, isn’t it?” 

So you do. 

You swallow your pride as you tell him about the little boy you once knew. You tell him about the summer you didn’t leave each other’s side and how one day, while you were camping, you woke up next to him and he was coughing petals and buds and thorns. When his parents took him to the hospital, he never came back and you didn’t get to ask any questions before they moved away. 

You tell him that you started dying that day. That the doctors told your parents that the surgery was too risky for your age. That when you came back a few years later, they told you that it was still too risky when the chances of your death were slim. Some days are better than most, you tell him, but because you never stop thinking about him, you’ll never get better. 

It’s the same story that you are writing. 

Akaashi looks at you for a solemn moment, watching you with incredible disbelief. He’s going to call you an over-dramatic idiot for wanting to die over a childhood crush. If it wasn’t your reality, you’d agree with him too. What a stupid reason to die.

But then, he coughs. When he moves his hands from his mouth, both your stomachs drop while you stare in horror at the soft petal, sopping wet with his blood. 

His eyes widen the same time yours do. Immediately, the phone is in your hand, calling an ambulance.

He thinks he’s dying.

This feeling now, and the feeling from back then... They’re one in the same.

That night, you fell asleep facing him. Your button nose and dark lashes were illuminated by the glow created by his flashlight. It wasn’t until he peered over the cover of the book, he realized that you were knocked out cold.

“You’re so pretty,” he wanted to say.

Instead, a coughing fit seized him, which woke you in turn. He’d been complaining about a dry throat recently, so you disappeared to get him a water from the coolers outside of the tent. 

When you came back, the sleeping bag was littered with bloodied petals. The chilled bottle hit the floor as you gave a blood-curdling scream.

This time, when Akaashi wakes up in the hospital, he’s already coughing. In rapid succession, four blood-soaked petals of varying sizes, the round bud they were plucked from, and two thorns spew from his mouth. He looks at you, startled, more emotion than you’ve ever seen him exhibit. 

Your eyes are red rimmed and swollen.

Gently, you pick up the debris littering his lap and toss it into the garbage beside you. The thorns fall through the maze of baby’s breath you had also coughed up and hit the bottom of the bin with a dull thud. 

"Keiji?” you sniffle, your voice soft. “How do you feel?”

“Not good,” he answers. Akaashi chuckles but you can see the blood dribble from his mouth. You wipe at his chapped lips with a tissue.

“The doctor said to call him when you woke up. Let me just —” You feel dizzy as you stand, maybe a touch overwhelmed. “I’m going to go get him.”

There’s a minuscule tug at your hand. When you look down at Akaashi, he’s watching you. His eyes are still a faint shade of green, but there’s a new shine behind them.

“Can I tell you something first?” You hesitate for a second. Then, you nod. “I hope you reconsider your decision.” In the chaos of the past few hours, you had forgotten the matter that brought you here. “I want Konoka to choose herself over Tanaka. Even if she coughs up flowers everyday... I want her to live.”

You take Akaashi’s hand — large, smooth, and cold — in yours. “I can do that.”

“I know that it hurts, but she needs to know that means she’s alive.” You squeeze lightly as his words resonate within you. “I haven’t felt pain in a decade. But, that means I haven’t felt anything. Right now?” He gives you a small smile. “I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.”

Gently letting go of him, you say, “I’ll get you the doctor.” 

You wince when he coughs again — loud and wet. A confession in this final hour won’t do anything. The withered flowers have to come out somehow. 

Still, “I love you,” you try. 

He smiles weakly back at you. “I love you too.”

𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @akaashichigo @drainedjaz @haikkeiji @annalyn-annalyn @mlkytobio @sosugasweet @cali-writes-sometimes @simping4ratsumu @shishinoya @from-left-to-write @akaashit-baeji  @kxgeyamasmilk @agaassi @hanibuni @cupofkenma  @kawanisshi @milk-n-writings @thiccbokuto @shinsukestan @sufiawrites @wakaitoshi @skyguy-peach @fern-writes-ig @briswriting @kawaiikraykray @bubbleteaa @miyuswriting @raevaioli @ouikarwa @hakueishirei @pineapplekween @estherwritess @keiji-n @achoohq​ @badlywritten-hq​ @mochibeaa​ @oinkanna​ @chxrry-wxne​ @spudicide​ @airybby​ @asranomical​ @karmasuna​

#akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x you #haikyuu fanfiction #cheesecultficevent #hanahacheese #akaashi keiji #tw suicidal thought #tw suicidal ideation #tw major character death #tw blood #tw vomit #writing

[blue-bird-lamentation]

this the story post: melohax[.]tumblr[.]com/post/639167543643340800/warning-spoilers-ahoy-only-read-this-if-youve the game has like so many secret scenes it shocked me

Thank you so much for the link!!!

I really liked reading it. I tried to skip the hikikomori route part as I will try to calmly play it, but I‘ve read a few and, as a person who saw that seen of a man trying to cut a tree and saying “you’re not my son” it intrigued me a lot what kind of information I will get from there.

I’m still puzzled and still didn’t try to see what would happen if I collected the wrong letters and if I has opened the door to Mari.

I went far on this answer and wrote a lot of random topics that are also mentioned in that post and other things I remembered too. It’s still too messy, but my memory is fresh and I decided to write about what I was thinking, even if not organized. Sorry for using your ask, but I was inspired by the link, which I think it’s a very interesting reading. I’m also sorry for the mistakes and I may come back later to correct them. There are so many fascinating things in the game, and so many others I haven’t yet explored, besided I feel good writting all of this as it is kind of asfixiating to thing about it and not having anyone to discuss it with.

This game was a rollercoaster. I knew from the begining that the cute artstyle and the pastel colours in the begining were deceiving, especially when you start in a weird whitespace room and take a knife. Omori as a black and white coloured character among the other paster colours also felt weird.

One really interesting comment I received from my brother when he watched me playing a bit, in a fight, was  “oh your character is the real neutral one, the others seem happy” while all of them were in neutral mode. Also his happy expression was scary and he was the one who got to maniac aside from villains (at least for me). The fact he has a knife intrigued me a lot if I should really fight but at first it looked like there were no consequences (aside from feeling tremendously bad for being called bunny killer. Also about these little enemies, it’s interesting how many of them were bunnies when the person we find who has a bunny is Aubrey, which is also the girl from the group that is now “against us”, at least most of the time in the real world).

Also about the knife, there are two other moments that totally hit me:

- the suicide in whitespace, which could foreshadow his suicide in some routes, but is also the means to wake up;

- Kel and Aubrey in the real world who call us out for bringing a knife, which, since the begining, was the correct thing to do.

I really wonder a lot about his family and their decisions.

It’s been 4 years. I wonder if Sunny’s mom ever put him into some kind of therapy, I wonder if her absence was on purpose because she wanted him to say goodbye to his old friends one last time. I wonder if Kel’s visit wasn’t a coincidence. I wonder if Hero coming back was also part of a last chance to bring Sunny back. I don’t know if the other route answers it, but seeing the notes and messages that mother leaves, she seems to be worried about him. I would say a mix of worry and fear, so there must be some strong reason why she’s not there besides going to buy some furniture or whatever.

Saying this, I think only Sunny’s parents know more or less what happened, but not from their son’s mouth, from autopsy report perhaps. The house was adapted to the changes: no family picture, as opposed to what I saw in Kel’s house (and I wonder if it’s only because of Mari or also with his father too as described by the cutting tree scene. I had thought this was directed to Omori and not to Sunny, but this is also part of the dream realm, so it could be Sunny’s interpretation to the end of his parents marriage which was related to Mari’s death), Mari’s bed is gone (which made the scene when she knocks the door even creepier. I never got to open the door because I was scared, but I’m also curious). Also about the 4 years,  I liked the detail of the 4th floor sign in Last Resort, which was resting there on the floor, as the number is also cursed because it symbolizes death.

I find fascinating how the complexity of the situation is represented in the dream world. His team is composed by his old friends, which are human. Mari and Basil are also human but they weren’t totally present. Mari is the safe point and overprotective of Omori, but she is also the element who encourages him to face his fears. As he faces his fears, he unravels more information about what he repressed, also helped by the presence of the blackspace Basil. But it’s ironic as the more he unravels, the more corrupted the story seems to evolve, but also the more they lose the main purpose of rescuing Basil, which is more evident in the deeper well.

I believe the human figures are the most important to him, and then there are the elements that combine real world figures with fantasy, as the candyshop girl and the fiction space boyfriend. Each story is fascinating but it also makes you lose focus on what you were supposed to do. And in my case, there was a point where I just wanted to wander around in these stories because I was to afraid to face the real story that was masked by this fictional colourful world.

These olde friends represent perhaps what Sunny never wanted to have lost, but also what he does not want to face.

When Sunny woke up in the hospital, I first followed the kids, and no, that wasn’t the right path. That was the safe path, where there is no confrontation with reality. As it was when Sunny was with company. I think it is Aubrey who says he doesn’t like to be alone, and well, that was me the whole game, imploring to not be left alone, because once the character was alone, his world seemed to be corrupted by the black space, which was also a stepping stone to reach the truth, the dark truth.

And I really like how this is all Sunny’s mental effort, which, I would say, it’s helped by him leaving his house and meeting his friends once again, as well as facing Basil one more time.

I was really sad with how the story developed. What started I was assuming it was a facing your fears story, transformed into an overcoming someone’s death, which at first I thought it would be Basil’s, to go to Mari (which was a total mystery to me why had she died (my ingenuity believed it could have been some traffic accident or something else) at first), to go to save Basil again, but now with some dark remarks about the character himself. In the middle of this development, first time the character wakes up, it is clear that the dream world character is not the same as the real world one, age wise, but is part of him.

I had written that at first I was reluctant about the fights, but well, they were necessary to me to face the villains of each arc. But at the same time thery were never too difficult (I think the most difficult part to me was to be strong enough for the Dino Dig and the rest was pretty easy). When, at the end Sunny had to face Omori I was shocked. So, the guy I had been training which was very seemingly sadistic, did I simply train him so that if Sunny wanted to face his trauma, he would hunt him with his strenght? Like the stronger I made him, ther bigger the reluctance to overcome the past. And while this sadistic character seems to be what I would compare to a Chara in Undertale, to me it was the harsh self conscious, critical part of him who could never forgive for what he had done. And which was also manifested as the monster surrounding him and Basil. It was their perception that what they had done was unforgivable, but at the same time neither of them wanted to carry that burden alone: Sunny “forgot” it, Basil manifests it by making those toxic remarks like “you aren’t going to leave me alone again, are you?”.

I don’t know if we get to see more of Basil’s backstory but he also got me curious. I think that what both of them did was bad, but given what happened between Sunny and Mari, it was really hard to know how to face it. I don’t think it makes them willingly villains, but scared children who were very self conscious and didn’t know what would happen if people found it out.

However, hadn’t Basil been there, Sunny would have been found right away next to Mari’s corpse. So I wonder what led Basil to propose such idea and to make Sunny’s burden heavier, which made him ambiguity of his disappearance with the will to save him as a friend.

I don’t think it was an ill intention, but Basil created excuses to protect Sunny because he was important to him and to the group. As the photo album showed, Sunny was the younger element, seen as the baby of the group, and he was shy, but he loved his friends even if he looked the most expressionless.

I think these elements awoke in him the need to protect Sunny from the darkness that lied ahead his actions, but he didn’t realise how heavy of a burden that would be. At the same time he probably had some issued regardin expectations and self worth which probably told him that they could never be tied to such a cruel action, even if it was accidental.

In my perspective he didn’t see the dark shadow surrounding Sunny at the time, but he engraved the memory as an act not commited by Sunny but by something surrounding him, pretty much like when he started attacking him at the end.

I like to think that, good ending wise, the malevolent side, Omori is not necessarily a potential evil that was always within Sunny, but the self guilt and lack of self worth. The fact the Sunny wouldn’t leave the house and didn’t even take good care of his health shows it. He is self destructive, because guilt consumes him, not a person who needs to apply suffering in the outter world for his own satisfaction. The whole struggle is within Sunny and not ot become a bad person per se.

Some of Basil’s dialogue was too much for me, mainly when he kept repeating for Sunny to not leave him. However I totally understand why. Sunny covered the what had happened while Sunny had to live those years knowing what they had done, as if he was the only one carrying the burden.

It’s a real complicated story where everyone was the victim.

It was so hard to see how sad and angry Aubrey was, and how she had to make new friends to overcome, how alone she was all the time. How Kel kept being such a good person, however had to move away because he didn’t know how to face the others, afraid of being misinterpreted. Hero’s pictures with Mari break me everytime. “A match made in heaven” Basil had written in the description of one of the photos. The fact that he is the element in the group that cooks, but 4 years later he had given up. The fact he can’t face Mari’s grave. The way Kel describes his struggle over Mari’s death. The way he didn’t make new friends in college, although he says it was lack of time. Basil is completely broken and can’t even touch the camera anymore and tries to “destroy” the old memories, which Aubrey discovers. Sunny’s parents, as their life turned upside down. And probably everyone around was too afraid to know how to act around them.

I really like how despite everything, the human figure that Sunny creates of Mari is forgiveful and so cheerful. Mari is such a good influence that wants to help him overcome the trauma for himself (especially when she helps him overcoming the fear of drowning and calls him Sunny for the first time. The ways she asked for his forgiveness for pushing him so hard into playing the recital. It is still part of Sunny’s dream but it’s so in Mari’s character. I believe this part is also connected to the scene where we see her saving Sunny in the real world).

I will end this text here. I will eventually come back to it, and to the omori tag, because this is certainly a very good game with a lot of space for debate and reflection.

#omori #omori spoilers #tw: knife #tw: suicide

[irelise]

Fic “Behind the Scenes” - Alex Rider

Trying to dip my toes back into writing, so I thought I’d ramble about some fics I’ve already written! This started off as ranting about my title choice and how they’re usually Final Fantasy XIV songs I butcher in order to forcibly fit the fic, but it expanded into musings about things that didn’t make the cut into the final fic, and potential sequels/things that happen down the line.

Just doing Alex Rider fics for now since that’s my current active fandom, but drop me an ask if there are any fics you’re especially interested in from any fandom!

Starting off with: Time (2368 words, gen, Alex & Yassen focused) aka my untagged Inception-flavoured AU where the plot twist was that it was a dream all along That said, this title was probably one of the easiest to come up with and was obviously from the main theme of Inception, Time! Which is fantastic like the whole movie aaaa i love Inception AUs and this fic is probably the one I’m most likely to expand into longfic if I dredge up the motivation from somewhere. It would be a mission style fic, possibly a heist, where Alex and Yassen are seemingly working together in order to steal some valuable intel from another group. Of course, it’s all a dream! Through copious dream symbolism and mind fuckery the real mission was set up by MI6 for Alex to extract intel from Yassen, who by this point is steadily losing his grip on dreams and reality after months, possibly years, spent under sedation.

Yassen has a few tricks up his sleeve, though. He’s aware that he’s (probably) dreaming and he can see the fractures in Alex’s resolve after such a long time of being used and manipulated by MI6. It would only take a little nudge to get Alex to defect -- or, at the very least, to escape.

So while Alex is busy trying to extract information from Yassen, Yassen is trying to do the opposite: inception.

The rest below cut for length and also because they’re nsfw since most of my writing was for the kink meme! Warning for general fucked-upness and unhealthy relationships

at the end, on a dusty road  (8154 words, Yassen/Alex) aka the reputation sabotage fic, aka where’s part 3b?!

Title from Origa’s Polyushka Polye:

The wind scatters your brave songs Across the green field. Songs of the past, Leaving them alone with your glory, And right at the end, on a dusty road…

i just wanted something wistful and Russian about past soldiers and fading glory ok....... I came pretty close to titling the fic leaving them alone with your past glory but decided it didn’t make much sense out of context.

ANYWAY my first Yalex fic! Very much inspired by a hodgepodge of comments on Discord about how MI6 would react if they ever saw Yassen paying Alex visits in the middle of the night - “Could they be exchanging information?” “The whole night? Maybe the answer is something more obvious...”

ANYWAY the ending at the moment is pretty open - there’s two main ways I see it going:

1) Yassen comes back shortly afterwards, realises he had fucked up colossally, stays and helps Alex rebuild even though Alex (very justifiably) no longer trusts him. Very slow reconciliation and healing but ultimately happy ending.

2) aka the one where I broke Nanibun’s shipper heart over Discord: Alex and Yassen eventually reunite, but it isn’t until years later, when Alex is nearing middle age and Yassen has faded into obscurity. Alex managed to pick up the pieces of his life and even moved on properly from MI6, and now lives a fulfilling life. Married, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, the whole lot. So what if his marriage is more for partnership than for love? He’s content with the direction his life had taken and has strong ties to his community. He even managed to forgive Yassen, even though it took him a long time.

He and Yassen meet for the last time in a sunlit cafe in spring. Alex looks at Yassen and sees only a stranger with lines crinkling under his eyes.Yassen is getting old, he realizes. He thinks he should be happy that Yassen even had the chance to get old, but all he feels is relief that their paths had diverged. Alex is done with that life and he can never trust Yassen again. All that old passion had burned away to nothing, not even a flickering flame. Even though the initial parting had been painful, Alex had managed to find peace long ago, and he hopes Yassen will be able to do the same. But it's a distant, unemotional hope, the sort of hope you'd have for a distant acquaintance you haven't seen in years. The type of well wishes that are etiquette more than actual sentiment.

He's glad when their drinks are finished and Yassen melts away into the chattering springtime crowd, one final dangling chapter of his life closed at last.

.

...............or, 3) Alex throws himself into increasingly dangerous situations in an attempt to feel something and dies young.

(part 3b is coming someday i swear! it’s the alternate path where Yassen has second thoughts, tells Alex the truth, and doesn’t send the sex tape to MI6)

---

Lemniscate  (3562 words, Julia Rothman/Yassen) Not a whole lot to say about this one, except after I finished I realised it was really similar to another fic I previously wrote which also involved a young man desperate to reinvent himself completely being taken advantage of by his superior............ i have a Type

Title - I was jamming out to Locus while writing this which is a song all about an inability to escape from cycles - When fighting back right out of this system/Means falling back right into this space ; When falling back is better than simply/Falling back into pieces again  - but it was long and unwieldy so I thought about shortening it to Moebius but that was a bit overdone... In the end I settled with Lemniscate which is also an infinity symbol, Moebius-like shape. Mostly it’s a reference to how Yassen never quite breaks free of his “cycle” even though he’s with Scorpia now - he was Sharkovsky’s slave and bedwarmer and...now he plays basically the same role for Julia Rothman. (Just with a bit more murder and moral erosion!)

---

This probably needs a special content warning - major character death (gun suicide from the second Russian roulette scene), gore, necrophilia

closing the circle (3650 words, John Rider & Yassen) aka is it still a gen fic if there’s offscreen necrophilia?

This was originally written for a kink meme prompt for corpse mutilation + necrophilia but then the John and Yassen plot thread kind of took over and I never actually ended up writing the gory stuff oops since it was too out of place compared to the rest. So everything below can be considered not “canon” since the fic diverged so heavily from its original plan (which is why the section numbers skip around - I cut out Yassen’s bits). But if you’re curious, here’s the details for what I originally planned to happen to Yassen (well, his corpse) and the Sharkovsky family, copy-pasted straight from my notes and full of as much karma as I could stuff in:

Yassen’s death, Sharkovsky shoves his fingers in the bullet hole and spits on the body in disgust. Yassen regains consciousness halfway through this; he can feel what Sharkovsky is doing

Ivan comes running in, attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Sharkovsky tells him to do what he likes with the body as long as it’s disposed of in the end. Necrophilia scene? Afterwards Ivan disposes of the body by locking it in the cellar alone with the Dalmatian for a few days

Yassen starts getting his revenge. Ivan is the first to go when he comes to let the Dalmatian out – the Dalmatian savages him and tears out his throat before it’s finally shot. Yassen’s bones get buried along with the Dalmatian. Ivan’s body is kept in the cold storage room in the basement where they kept the old food taster’s body while they decide what to do with him.

Maya, Sharkovsky’s wife, is next. She passes away in the middle of the night. Sharkovsky wakes up next to a cooling corpse.

There are whispers that there is some sort of curse. One of the maids talk about finding blood on the carpet of Sharkovsky’s study. She’s the next to disappear. Some other workers stop turning up.

Finally it’s Sharkovsky’s turn. He dies of poison. The dacha burns down that same night.

A Scorpia agent was sent to tie up loose ends (Scorpia didn’t know Sharkovsky is already dead); Yassen kills him too. He has no loyalty to Scorpia and just wants to be left alone.

Hunter is sent to investigate. He and Yassen talk, in the end, Hunter invites Yassen to come with him, Yassen agrees. But when they leave the dacha and Hunter looks back, he finds that Yassen is gone.

And an excerpt:

Yassen is dead. He does not remember dying. There are some things the human mind tries to shield itself from, and the memory of a bullet traveling through bone and brain to erupt on the other side in a shower of gore is one of those things.

Yassen is dead. He had hoped death would mean oblivion. At his most naïve and optimistic, he had hoped death would mean reunion. Happiness. A return to simpler days.

He discovers, instead, that death is not so different from life, except he is even more powerless now than before.

There is a body on the floor of Sharkovsky’s study. Its hair had once been pale white-blond, but now it is matted with coagulating blood. That same blood spreads in a dark pool against the carpet, clotting the fibres together into ugly clumps, stiff and flaking. The fire in the hearth is still burning sullenly. Its light glistens against the grotesque strands of viscera splattered against the ground, the furniture, the wall. A round hole had been punched into the side of the corpse’s head, piercing bone and brain. That was how the man who had once been Yassen Gregorovich had killed himself. The fingers of the corpse remain loosely curled around the old-fashioned revolver that had been the instrument of death.

The only living person in the room rises slowly from his wheelchair. Sharkovsky’s skeletal face is twisted into an ugly grimace of anger. He totters over to the corpse, nudging it with the tip of one polished leather shoe. “Waste of time,” he says coldly. “Ruining a perfectly good carpet, and for what?”

In a sudden fit of temper, he lashes out with a kick. Once, it would have been strong enough to break several ribs (Yassen knows from intimate experience). Now, the corpse merely flops limply to one side. It incenses Sharkovsky further. He drops heavily to his knees, breathing harshly, and backhands the corpse across the face with one shaking hand.

#fandom: alex rider #My writing #meta

[kdramalifee]

What are your most favorite/recommended dramas? I've honestly only have watched 4 cause never know where to start once I finish one. Thank you!! 💕

Sorry of the late reply ❤

Here’s a “few” dramas that I enjoyed. Some of them fall into more than one category so I’ve written what categories I feel they fall into for each one. I’m going to write the amount of episodes for each show, but I’ll only be counting by (approx.) hour, so if the drama has 32 episodes where each “episode” is half an hour, I’ll write it as 16 episodes. Also some of these have several names, so I’ve just used the one they use on mydramalist. I’ve bolded my favourites.

This list might seem a bit daunting (as it is quite long) but I recommend looking at the specific genres you know you enjoy and just pick one you think seems interesting (there’s no shame in dropping a drama if it doesn’t grip you). If you can’t decide which one to start first, send me a message with the ones you’re trying to choose between and I’ll help you decide ^^

Action/suspense/Crime:

Bad Guys: 11 episodes, Action, Thriller, Psychological. A police detective gathers a team of criminals to combat crime in exchange for reducing their sentence. Throughout the drama, secrets are revealed. 

Class of Lies: 16 episodes, Suspense, School, Mystery, Law. A highly successful lawyer falls from grace after the fallout from one of his cases. He fakes his identity to get the position as a teacher at the school connected to this case in an attempt to uncover the truth and save his reputation. 

Cross: 16 episodes, Medical, Suspense. To get revenge for the death of his father, Kang In Kyu becomes a (highly skilled) doctor/surgeon and gets a job at the prison where his father’s killer resides in order to kill him.

Doubtful Victory: 20 episodes, Mystery, Crime. A man who was wrongfully sentenced to death when he was younger escapes from prison and fakes his identity as a police officer to help prove his innocence.  (Just a heads up: I don’t think a lot of people liked this drama (it gets a bit draggy in the middle). I liked it, but I think that’s an unpopular opinion)  

Kill It: 12 episodes, Action, Thriller. Kim Soo Hyun is a veterinarian who is also a professional killer. One day he is hired in exchange for information about his past. At the same time a detective is trying to find Kim Soo Hyun. They both uncover a mystery regarding their shared past. 

Healer: 20 episodes, Romance, Action, Mystery.  "Healer” is a special kind of night courier, that gets his clients whatever they want, as long as it doesn't involve murder. He is hired by a famous reporter to collect information on a second-rate tabloid writer. He begins to uncover the mystery of his own shared past with the two reporters, thus putting them all in danger. (This is a very popular drama that a lot of people have seen, so if you haven’t seen it I would recommend it.)

Mad Dog: 16 episodes, Action, Investigation, Mystery. A group calling themselves “Mad Dog” fights against insurance scams. They start working with Kim Min Joon, the brother of the man who crashed a plane killing the child and wife of the leader of Mad Dog. They try to uncover the truth behind the plane crash.

Player: 14 episodes, Action, Investigation. A private investigation team consisting of a swindler, a fighter, an elite hacker, and a talented driver is asked to take back property hidden away by criminals.

Save Me: 16 episodes, Psychological, Suspense. Following the failure of her father's business, Sang Mi and her family move to Muji-gun where they have no friends or relatives. After a tragic event, the family is taken in by the “Spiritual Father” resulting in them being trapped in a cult. Four young men try to save her.  

Stranger: 16 episodes, Investigation, Mystery.  Hwang Shi Mok had brain surgery when he was a child, which caused him to lack emotion. Now, Hwang Shi Mok works as a prosecutor. He meets Police Lieutenant Han Yeo Jin at a murder crime scene and they work together to eradicate corruption at the prosecutor's office and solve a serial murder case.

The Guardians: 16 episodes, Action, Thriller.  After the murder of her daughter, Jo Soo Ji joins forces with a few other people to monitor criminals 24 hours a day and rescue potential victims before the crime is committed. Together with these people she fights to get justice for her daughter, who’s murderer is still free.

WATCHER: 16 episodes, Action, Suspense, Investigation. Kim Young Goon became a police officer after his father was imprisoned for the murder of his mother. The detective who imprisoned his father is the leader of the internal affairs investigation team and gets Young Goon to join in order to fight against corruption and uncover the truth behind the tragic incident.  

Fantasy/sci-fi: 

Angels Last Mission: Love: 16 episodes, Romance, Fantasy.  Lee Yeon Seo is the prima ballerina, but after an accident she has to give up her dream. After her parents' sudden death, she doesn’t trust anyone since there are a lot of people lurking around her and her inherited money. Kim Dan is an optimistic, carefree angel who is always getting into trouble. In order to return to heaven, he is tasked with a mission to find true love for the talented but emotionally distant ballerina

Are You Human Too?: 18 episodes, Romace, Sci-fi. After loosing her son to her father in law, a woman creates an android to replace him. Years later the android called Nam Shin III must pretend to be the son of the rich family when the real Nam Shin falls into a coma.

Chicago Typewriter: 16 episodes, Fantasy/Supernatural, Romance. The story of a popular writer suffering from writers block, a fan of said author and a literal GHOST writer who starts writing for the main character. In a past life, these three people were all members of the resistance wanting to free Korea from the Japanese occupation. The story is set in modern times and in the 1930′s. 

Circle: 12 episodes, Alien, Sci-fi, Mystery. This drama is set in both 2017 and the year 2037. In 2017 we follow the story of a college student working together with a woman that looks identical to a girl he knew as a child to investigate suicides that she insists are actually murders. In 2037 technology has advanced to the point where you can control human emotion (creating a city without crime). A detective enters this city in order to investigate a missing persons case from 2017. (The first half of each episode is set in 2017, the other half in 2037). 

Duel: 16 episodes, Sci-fi, Crime, Suspense. After his daughter gets kidnapped a detective tries all he can to get her back. Suddenly the culprit shows up without any memories, denying that he has anything to do with the case. They work together to find the detectives daughter and uncover secrets along the way. 

EXIT: 2 episodes (drama special), Sci-fi, Psychological.  Kang Soo is a loan shark that tries to get by day to day in his depressing reality. No matter how hard he tries, he can't escape the nightmare of his reality, and when he was about to give up on his life, he sees a flier asking, "Do you want to become happy?" He goes to the research center, however, he learns that happiness comes at a steep price of 300,000 dollars. He decides to steal the money.

Extraordinary You: 16 episodes, Romance, Fantasy, School.  Eun Dan Oh, a 17 year-old high-school student, experiences gaps in her memory and eventually comes to the realization that she’s living in a comic book. Not only that, but she is also a secondary character who’s supposed to die later on in the story due to a heart condition. She decides to change her fate and defy the writer to get a happy ending for herself. 

Go Back Couple: 12 episodes, Fantasy, Life, Romance.  Choi Ban Do and Ma Jin Joo are both 38-years-old and a married couple. Choi Ban Do has been burdened with being the breadwinner and Ma Jin Joo is a housewife with low self-esteem. Even though they loved each other when they married, they now hate each other. They both regret marrying at such a young age. The couple travels through time and finds themselves as 20-year-old university students when they met for the first time.

He is Psychometric: 16 episodes, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery, Comedy. After losing his parents in a fire, Lee Ahn acquires the power of psychometry, the ability to read a person or an object's past through physical contact, and he decides to use it to take bad people down. While he does not know how to control his power yet, he meets Yoon Jae In who tries her best to hide her painful secrets. Together with his foster guardian, prosecutor Kang Sung Mo, and the latter's colleague, investigator Eun Ji Soo, they team up to solve an elusive case that has been haunting the lives of Ahn, Sung Mo, and Jae In.

Life on Mars: 16 episodes, Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense. As leader of a crime investigation team, Han Tae Joo has propelled his career and risen through the ranks by trusting data over all else. One day, while investigating a serial murder case, he has an accident. When he wakes up, he suddenly finds himself in the winter of 1988. He doesn't know why, but he's now a detective appointed to work at a police station in a small city. To get back to the present day, Han Tae Joo tries to solve the case.

Signal: 16 episodes, Mystery, Fantasy, Crime.  Fifteen years ago, a young girl was kidnapped on the way from school, and Park Hae Yeong, who was an elementary school student at that time, witnessed the crime. A few days later, the girl was found dead, and the police were not able to find the culprit. As time went by, Hae Yeong started distrusting the police. Fifteen years later, Hae Yeong is now a police officer and criminal profiler. One day, he finds a walkie-talkie that allows him to get in contact with Detective Lee Jae Han who is in the past. They then set out on a journey to solve cold cases.

Splash Splash Love: 2 episodes (Drama Special), Romance, Fantasy. Dan Bi is a high school senior who has given up on math. On the day she is about to take the KSAT for college, she is transported back into the past during a freak rain shower. She finds herself hundreds of years in the past at the height of the Joseon Kingdom, which is suffering from a severe drought. She encounters King Lee Do who yearns to learn advanced mathematics and falls in love with him.

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon: 16 episodes, Romance, Fantasy. Bong Soon is a woman with supernatural strenght who pines after a childhood crush who now works as a police officer. She is approached by the CEO of a gaming company who has a distrust for the police and she starts working as a bodyguard for him. (There are some problematic elements to this show, but the romance is really sweet) 

The Guest: 16 episodes, Supernatural, Horror, Mystery. It centers around three characters who had their lives ruined by a demon called “Son” (the guest) when they were kids. Yoon Hwa Pyung is a psychic that can see ghosts and who was once possessed by “Son” causing his mother and his grandmother to die and his father to try to kill him. Kang Gil Young is a detective whose mother was killed by the demon and Choi Yoon/ Mateo is a catholic priest that exorcises demons and whose brother was once possessed by “Son” causing him to kill his family. They band together to find and stop “Son”.

You Who Came From the Stars: 21 episodes, Romance, Fantasy. Do Min Joon is an alien who landed on Earth 400 years ago during the Joseon Dynasty period. He possesses a near perfect appearance and enhanced physical abilities involving his vision, hearing and speed. Later, he discovers that he has three months left on Earth. And that is when he meets Cheon Song Yi, the biggest Hallyu star in Korea.

Romance:

Come and Hug Me: 16 episodes, Suspense, Romance, Melodrama. When they were children, Yoon Na Moo and Gil Nak Won were each others first love. They are forced to break apart when Na Moo's father Yoon Hee Jae, a psychopath serial killer, murders Nak Won's parents. 12 years later, Jae Yi has become a popular actress and Do Jin is now an experienced detective trying to repent for his fathers sins. They meet again and start to develop a relationship.

Descendants of the Sun: 16 episodes, Romance, Medical, Action. Kang Mo Yeon works as a cardiothoracic surgeon and Yoo Shi Jin is the Captain and team leader of Alpha Team. They both get sent into an area of conflict, and start to devolop a relationship.

Hospital Ship: 20 episodes, Romance, Medical. This drama is about army doctors aboard a hospital ship, which is a floating hospital that serves people who live on remote islands. Eun Jae, a cold perfectionist surgeon whose fast-track career was derailed, starts working at the ship.

Just Between Lovers: 16 episodes, Romance, Melodrama. A shopping center collapses killing many people. When he was 15, Lee Gang Doo dreamed of playing for the Korean national soccer team, but a serious injury sustained as a result of the accident destroys those dreams. In the years after the accident, Gang Doo spends his days fighting through physical and emotional pain, struggling to support his sister and pay back a hefty debt, and working as a construction worker. When she was 15, Ha Moon Soo lived through the accident, and years later she is still plagued by nightmares. She lives above the women’s bath house that her mother runs and specializes in making architectural models that are an important safety element in any major building planning process. Years after the incident, a construction project is due to kick-off at the accident site, and they both get involved in the project, causing them to develop a relationship while struggling with the painful memories it brings back. 

Shopping King Louie: 16 episodes, Romance. The story of “Shopaholic Louie” revolves around a handsome shopaholic named Louie, who is the successor of a vast business empire but becomes homeless after suffering from amnesia. Meanwhile, Koh Bok Shil, a country girl who lives a life that is worlds apart from the rich and famous, encounters Louie in Seoul. They develop a relationship.

Thirty but Seventeen: 16 episodes, Romance. Woo Seo Ri, a violin prodigy at 17 who was about to study in Germany, got into a bus accident and fell into a coma waking up 13 years later. Mentally she is still only 17, while physically she is now 30. Due to a trauma he experienced 13 years before, Gong Woo Jin does not want to have a relationship with others. They get to know each other and try and open the door to the happiness that they once thought had been closed to them.

When the Camellia Blooms: 20 episodes, Romance, Thriller, Life. Dong Baek is a single mother living in the small town of Ongsan. She runs the bar-restaurant Camellia, while also taking care of her son Pil Gu. The people of Ongsan frequently gossip about Dong Baek. She grew up as an orphan, is a single mother and runs a bar where many of the men in Ongsan frequent. Regardless of what the locals may whisper about Dong Baek, local police officer Hwang Yong Shik is deeply in love with her. Meanwhile, Dong Baek's ex-boyfriend Kang Jong Ryeol suddenly reappears in her life. He is a famous baseball player, that hid their relationship when they dated. While Dong Baek tries to find happiness, something truly sinister lurks in the background. A serial killer roams Ongsan and Dong Baek may be a target.

Historical:

Kingdom: 6 episodes, Action, Historical, Zombie. The King falls ill to smallpox and rumors start to spread that he has actually died. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Lee Chang is labeled a traitor by the Haewon Cho Clan, the clan of the current pregnant Queen and her father, Chief State Councillor Cho Hak Joo. While trying to uncover the mystery of what happened to his father, the Crown Prince goes with his guard, Moo Young, to Dongnae to look for the physician that treated his father, only to be stuck with Assistant Physician Seo Bi and a mysterious man named Young Shin in a village plagued with a terrifying disease.

My Country: 16 episodes, Historical, Action, Romance, Tragedy. Two friends ends up on opposite sides in a conflict involving the fight for the crown. Confronted with betrayal the two of them have to learn how to fight against their best friend all while trying to stay good in a cruel world.  

The Tale of Nokdu: 16 episodes, Action, Romance, Comedy. One day, Nok Du’s father and older brother are attacked by a group of female assassins. Jeon Nok Du chases after one of the assassins to the capital. To find out why his family was attacked, Jeon Nok Du disguises himself as a woman and enters a widow village where the assassins are hiding. There, he meets Dong Dong Ju who is an apprentice to become a gisaeng.

Misc:

Age of Youth: 12 episodes, Friendship, Life.  Five girls in their twenties come to live together in a house called "Belle Epoque. As the girls feel a bond of sympathy and become closer, they also deal with their personal issues as they live out their eventful twenties. The drama follows their struggles and incidents dealing with relationships - within their circles, with dating, and with each other - and a variety of events they are experiencing including credits, part-time jobs, drinking, hopes and dreams. (This drama also has a second season)

Avengers Social Club: 12 episodes, Friendship, Life.  Features three women from different walks of life coming together for revenge: a fish store ajumma who envisioned a better life for herself, a housewife, and a chaebol’s daughter who was raised like a delicate greenhouse flower. They’re an unlikely trio who would never otherwise meet, but they join forces to carry out their individual revenges. Although they start out as co-conspirators, along the way they’ll build a strong friendship.

Chief Kim: 20 episodes, Business, Comedy. Kim Sung Ryong is a skilled accountant who works for gangsters. He makes his way into a company called TQ Group as a middle manager in the accounting department with the intention of embezzling money from the company. As he contends with hot-shot accountant Yoon Ha Kyung, financial prodigy Seo Yul and peppy intern Hong Ga Eun, Sung Ryong finds himself embroiled in office politics and notices other shenanigans by those in power that threaten to bring down the company. Sung Ryong slowly comes to realize that he’d rather fight against corporate corruption and fight for employees’ rights than complete the mission he originally came to do. 

Miss Hammurabi: 16 episodes, Law, Romance. Park Cha Oh Reum is a newly appointed judge who is assigned to the 44th Civil Affairs Department at the Seoul Central District. She is always on the lookout for injustice and is able to profoundly empathize with others. Compared to her, Im Ba Reun is a cool-headed man of principle with the creed of ‘Court that is equal to all’, and he is displeased with junior judge Park Cha Oh Reum who is overly sympathetic when it comes to cases. (There is one moment in the first episode (I believe) where something problematic occurs, but I think its only that one thing). 

Psychopath Diary: 16 episodes, Comedy, Mystery.  Yook Dong Sik is a 34-year-old office worker who is so weak and timid that he is used by everybody around him. After an incident, he becomes the scapegoat of his company, and so facing losing his job and his family turning their back on him, he decides to commit suicide. While doing so, he unexpectedly stumbles across a murder scene, but gets into an accident while running from the murderer. He wakes up with amnesia with the psychopath's diary in his possession. With no clues to his true nature other than the diary,and his fragmented memory lining up with the diary entry, he begins to believe that he is in fact a psychopath serial killer.

Happy watching! 

#ask #arminartlet #kdrama #im starting to realise i might have seen too many kdramas #and yes after a while i got tired of writing the synopsis so i just copied them from mydramalist #and just edited the ones i felt were too long

[imaginedcreaderinsert]

Am I really that unlovable? — Jason Todd x Reader (x Dick Grayson)

WORD COUNT: 2129 +/-

WARNINGS: mixed feelings (idea of cheating?); light angst and comfort, slight fluff.

You know it’s not the right thing to do. You should probably go to Dick – should probably bury your head in his chest and cry, while he murmurs sweet nothings and kisses your hair from time to time. It would be the right and correct thing to do, but he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t get it. It hurts you sometimes how perfect he is – how shiny he is in comparison to your darkness; how broken you feel a lot of nights.

Gotham is cruel and has taken a toll in a lot of civilians, their minds; you being one of them. Dick doesn’t know, he wasn’t the one that saved you after all, but he was the one that took care of you when you couldn’t even lift yourself. He was the one strong enough to lift you when others couldn’t, when others wouldn’t dare. He loved you and protected you, numbed you enough from your life that the only worry you have as of now is that of breathing and reliving the trauma of that terrifying three hours trapped in debris and blood, darkness and death-

—Hey kitty, you there? I got your-

You run into his arms, his very comfortable and safe arms. Red Hood, Jason Todd was the first face in the light that you saw, the first one to rescue and protect you in his arms, awkwardly reassuring you that everything was over and that you were fine and very much alive. Maybe it’s something a notion that you connect now with him, that of safety and security with his scent, his heart beating.

The Wayne’s made sure you were fully accommodated, that you wouldn’t have to worry about your living anymore, or jobs; that’s how you got closer to Dick, he being the messenger and being kind enough to assist you the first nights when you couldn’t sleep a wink, and you passed from exhaustion. Slowly his kisses healed you, and you were finally able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour (for them, at least, 3AM was as good as one could get).

Even when your bond with Dick was stronger, you thought at times he was the love of your life, you were both meant to be, Jason was the hard one to crack, the interesting one with whom you’ve gotten close without really trying, the one you started to miss – few were the people that could keep up with your reading habits, and now with little else to occupy your mind with, it seemed natural that you two spent at least one or two days every two weeks commenting on last readings, short particularly interesting stories… Did your heart yearned for him? No, not really. Your lips searched Dick’s like it was natural, they were magnetic; and it was not about lust. You knew early of the concept, and you quickly discovered it didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t with someone you loved, you wanted – but the urge didn’t come, the need to have him wasn’t something that particularly called you. Dick had tried, but you had always told him the limits, and he has been complying enough, understanding enough.

He makes you feel broken. You become aware of it when you have been at least three months together: you are a doll trapped in a house of fragile crystals, a very delicate empire of cards; and he is perfect, the golden boy, the perfect smirk, looks, naturally good character, charming enough. You weren’t. Jason didn’t make you feel broken or less; he made you feel enough, and you liked him maybe even more because of that.

You confided in him about your very difficult relationship with your family, from which you have been cut off. Being a writer! What nonsense, they had thought – and were they right? You had published short stories which had gained the attention of the public, but every time you sat in front of a blank page now, you got blocked. It was pure anxiety, pressure; something similar to a PTSD, you suppose, because every time the only thing you see, is an enormous building falling inevitably over you, about to crush you, end your existence, and the rush of everything, the powerlessness you feel is similar to the shouts of your mother. You see it like an enormous wave about to engulf you – it will try to drown you down, and you will fight it, just like you had tried to fight off your mother in public, in private, with sarcastic and cynical comments about your writing experience, life, what you want to pursue.

Your most famous publications, the ones that gained the most attention, were the ones on your family. Your mom divorced your dad at an early age, and you have been feeling the pressure since then; he was a cruel man, he often made the attempt to hit her when he was too enraged, he couldn’t think clearly, and she shouted enough to bring him back, make you try and camouflage in the wall of your bedroom. Do you miss him?, Jason one night asks. No, you answer with a sad smile. There’s no one to miss when there has been no one to fill the place.

—You only care about yourself!—. She shouts, stomping the magazine against the crystal of her new coffee table. You close your eyes, flinch in surprise – and of course you knew her reaction would be just that, but you still can’t deal with the shouting, can’t deal with her hovering over you with all of her power in her voice—. I always knew you were determined, but you are heartless, just like your father. Unlovable.

She spits the word out, and you know you should go. You cry on the metro, but no one says anything; everyone is dealing with their own demons, and yours just happened to come out publicly today. You almost have to thank them, even if you haven’t stop when you reach your house, your door.

And yes, Dick should be the one you should be texting, but it’s Todd the one you end up going for. The makeup you hide behind has almost come off, and you look a bit like a raccoon; cleaning is easy enough, and it helps you calm yourself down, relax and breathe a couple of times before you start the process.

. . .

She looks nice enough to look like one of those noisy reporters, but her eyes are full of silence, her mouth twitches when she attempts to speak but ends up awkwardly smiling. He likes her – likes her company, her comforting presence, the nursing abilities she unknowingly presents when she holds him dear in the sofa of her apartment, the bed – it’s innocent enough, so there’s no questions raised, no one says anything and surely Dick never heard of it. But does he know? Does he consider him, Jason Todd, innocent enough to not worry?

Honestly, he is not a womanizer. He is awkward, hates small talk, and is impatient. He can’t be bothered most of the time with flirty pick-up lines, hates the strong smell of perfume and the hellish complements that women call heels. He doesn’t like them trying hard, trying to achieve or take something out of him – it makes him feel used, like an object, a figure or icon they just want to fuck. It’s stupid, truly, and anyone that listens to his rants might just complain about “how hard” he has it, but he is truly terrified of coming close to anyone else. Roy is the only exception, and it might just be because the suicidal tendencies, the recklessness that ties them both, he jokes one day before turning to her very sad face, a pity one. And hell, he was about to complain and say it was all a big fat joke, that he was a virgin or some other shit, lie, but instead she hugs him enough: and truly, really, all he wants to do for a second is cry. Of course, he holds himself back just as he hugs her enough to hurt, to complain.

He gets close enough to kiss those lips, that mouth he has been dreaming of for some time now, but ultimately stops. Jason has been good, is making progress – he won’t fuck it up.

. . .

You tell him everything that she has ever shouted, that has destroyed you over the years. He listens in silence, in your bed while you snuggle close to his chest. You hate crying with other people around because your eyes get puffy, your voice broken and most of all you are vulnerable. You got to know Him - presence like that of a God you tried to believe on for a couple of years - a bit, and everything that stuck of him in you was that “the weak must go” and you didn’t want him to go, not ever – but it might be the reason why you can’t stop at times, you feel the need to be perfect, comply with that imposed social norm that doesn’t or has ever pressured you. But to your mother it matters, mattered – which is why you did it.

—And I can’t. I hate when people shout, and can’t stand people leaving. Why does everyone do so? Is there something really wrong in me, something broken and insufferable? I know-I know how I am, how difficult I can get to be, but I try. I truly do, even when it comes out wrong-I-I try to make up for it! But… But they still leave. It may take months or weeks, but they just do and I just don’t know if I am too intense or too cold. I can’t seem to grasp the middle ground, and I’m afraid I will… I will just be forever alone.

There are tears in your eyes that don’t fall, that Jason takes with his fingers soft enough to make you cry more. He touches you sometimes like you are a precious metal, and no one has ever treated you like that. Dick is suffocating, but you love him – can’t or won’t live without him because he is the one that has truly seen you for who you are. He has hugged you for hours in your bed, has kissed you for days when you weren’t strong enough to get up and has tried everything and more to make you happy. And you are… Most of the time. He says so at least: “It’s okay to not be okay all the time”. He tries his best; you can be the worst but-but he loves you. Undeniably. And you love him back, you probably will always do, which is the main reason why you never attempt to kiss Jason, get close enough.

You cry in his arms and he takes comfort in your warmth, but that’s it. Only one night when you are truly exhausted in his arms, have fallen sleep just like that, you make the attempt to brush his lips with the fingertips of your hands: he is the one that treats you like you are a precious marble, but asleep, he looks like he could be shattered with a blow. You trace his nose, his perfect nose, and then again his lips, his gorgeous lips until he frowns and the dreams die behind his eyelids: it’s beautiful, you’ve never seen anything like it, and thus you hold it close like a treasure to your chest.

And in the morning, when the rays bathe your face, you find he is gone, long gone probably – but then you hear the coffee machine and almost jump out of bed.

(And no, you are not wearing his shirt, anything of his; just your very ridiculous and fluffy green pajamas that are slightly big on the hips and tight on your waist).

—Hey, Jaybird.

—Do you know you are in the cover?—. It’s the first thing he does: shoot the magazine at you, which you incredibly catch even with your horrible morning reflexes—. Fuck, (Y/N), you are doing it! It’s actually really good. A bit chilling, can relate more than I should, but it’s perfect. Congrats, truly, little wing.

And even when you know that your name is in there, on the cover among other titles, you still feign you are surprised – you told him almost everything. Of course, the story is about your family; and your mother, a past editor of the famous “U” magazine had been presented the first copy the night before. And she got incredibly angry, she made you cry, but now, under the rays of sun and light…

You think you will be okay.

—Don’t add so much sugar, please! It’s disgusting—. You put, before laughing at the pout he mimics back.

—But I like it sweet!

Casually, me too.

#jason todd #jason todd fanfic #jason todd x reader #reader insert #dcu #dcu x reader #red hood x reader #dick grayson #dick Grayson x reader #light angst #fluff and comfort #light fluff

[charliejrogers]

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Or, What Many Will Think About Midway Through This Movie)

You may be expecting a long review for this movie. I mean, let’s be honest, I dissected the shit out of Birds of Prey, to the point that it was almost inappropriate for the kind of movie it was. But this movie? The arthouse classic-to-be from the much-revered Charlie Kaufman (both writer and director here), I’m Thinking of Ending Things? A movie filled to the brim with symbolism and which refuses to commut itself to any one point of view or plane or reality? This guy’s gonna write about it for fucking eternity.

Well, no. It won’t be the case. Why? Because I don’t think I really got it. Sure, I could try to wax poetic about my thoughts on aging, time, whether there’s meaning in relationships, meaning to our lives (all themes the film raises and which serve as its central core) But it would just kinda sound bullshit coming from me.

So, yeah, this isn’t much of a plot movie. It starts with a young woman (Jessie Buckley) waiting in the street of a snowy quiet country town’s downtown for her boyfriend, Jake, (Jesse Plemons) of one month (or longer?) so that the two can join Jake’s parents for dinner. Despite taking this proverbial big step in her relationship, she’s wondering (evoking the film’s title) whether she should end things. Or is that really what the title is about. Like everything in this movie, every piece of dialogue every character, every suggestion of a chronology, things are laden with a second meaning. Part of your enjoyment from the film will derive from whether or not you enjoy being strung along for 135 minutes without ever really understanding what’s going on, what’s really being said, who these characters really are, or when/where the hell are we in the world?

Despite those tantalizing and exciting questions, I’m here to warn you now, nothing big or exciting happens in this film, at least by conventional movie standards. We watch the couple drive to the Jake’s parents’ house and that takes about 25 minutes of film time. We’re in the house with his parents for probably about 45 minutes. Then the drive home takes another 20-25 minutes. The scenes about driving are just that: two people in a car talking to one another without much event. It’s like the car ride scenes from your favorite buddy/road trip movie but with all the fun adventures taken out. Instead what we get are long, confusing conversations more akin to Matthew McConaughey’s time spent in a car on True Detective.

But one thing becomes exceedingly clear when we finally get to Jake’s parents’ house: the film’s banal settings (a country road, a farmhouse, a rural high school) belie a truth about the film. It is not set in our reality. Jake and the woman’s conversation on the car ride is full of reflections on the nature of time, aging, depression, and life. Jake is a slightly insufferable intellectual. He’s the kind of guy who says he doesn’t know a whole lot about musical theater and then proceed to list 15-20 musicals of various fame and obscurity. The whole scene feels as quirky and just-shy of overwritten, i.e. par for the course of a pretentious art house film such as this. But the mannerisms of Jake’s parents are more than can be attributed to a quirky film. His mother is a jealous, possessive neurotic played by Toni Collette in a way only she could and a twitchy, and his father is a lecherous rival obsessed with his girlfriend played by David Thewlis (a favorite actor of mine). And throughout the meal, the confident, know-it-all we knew from the drive regresses into the behavior of a weak, embarrassed child. These are caricatures taken word from word from a textbook on Freudian psychology more than they are believable humans. The film admits and confirms the Freudian aping rather explicitly.

But just when you think you understand what the film’s up to, it switches course. After dinner, the woman starts to explore their house and starts a journey through time (but, again, with none of the excitement that sentence would normally imply.) It’s my second favorite sequence in the film (the first being an interpretive dance that occurs towards the film’s end… yes, it’s THAT kind of film). It’s filmed and framed in the trappings of a horror movie, but there’s no jump scares or horrible truth to be found. It’s how I imagine someone would adapt the tone of the superb video game Gone Home (yes, I’m one of THOSE people). But yeah, there’s no horrible truth… except if you consider the inevitability of human decay and disease to be a terrible truth. Every room the woman stumbles upon finds Jake’s parents appear to be a different age and health than when she first got to the house, ranging from a mother decked out in 50s/60s apparel to old, feeble gentleman. From there the movie continues to refuse to stay in one place and becomes odder and odder. It’s then I realized to think of this movie of a totally abstract piece of art, like the dream sequences of The Sopranos or Buffy.

So what do I think is going on? Obviously spoilers for here on out. Despite getting the majority of the screen time, this is NOT a movie about the young woman. At the very beginning of the film we are introduced, briefly, to an older, portly gentleman in his late 70s, looking out a window. The film cuts back to that exact same room and window 30 seconds later, but in the old man’s place is Jesse Plemons’ Jake. From that I take it to mean the two are the same person, with Plemons representing the older Jake younger self (or imagined younger self). Alongside the main plot, we occasionally get images and short scenes of the older Jake, a janitor at a rural high school who lives alone. The intellect (or perhaps false sense of intellect) of his younger self is clearly not meeting its potential. He is mocked by students for his age and fragility. What I think we’re watching is this older Jake trying to make sense of what it means to be old and who is currently on the verge of suicide unable to see its meaning. Although I compared the film to a dream sequence, I don’t think it’s fair to reduce the whole thing to Jake’s dream. More I feel like we are seeing a manifestation of Jake’s subconscious thoughts on screen play out.

Who is the young woman then? I’m not sure. I doubt she represents any actual woman – she’s given a variety of names. She almost plays the part of our (and his) guide into Jake’s subconscious like Virgil to Dante, but she’s more than a void. I think she represents what Jake would want in a woman in his life, a confident woman who can see through Jake’s faults (but notably sees them and sees them clearly). She’s not overtly sexual like the women at the ice cream who clearly make Jake uncomfortable. But yet, it’s telling that even in his deepest, most private thoughts that I think we’re seeing, he cannot imagine that even his ideal woman would want to be with him.

We get lots of reasons for why Jake thinks things are like this. Clearly he holds resentment for his parents, even if he feels like it’s cliché to do so. But time is his true nemesis. For me the most telling scenes for my understanding of the movie comes at the end with the interpretive dance, which shows Jake and the young woman (or, at least, stand-ins for those two) engage in a beautiful display of courtship, love, and marriage, only for the young Jake stand-in to be violently by a representation of the older janitor Jake. Clearly Jake thinks of his current self as something wholly distinct from his younger self, and that the creature he is now, a creature created by time, has destroyed who he once was. Like many of us (or as many of us think), he peaked in high school, the last place where people gave him awards for being who he is. This detail adds a sadness to the fact that he works as a janitor at one now. And it is notable that the film’s journey ends there, at a high school, where inexplicably he is being awarded a lifetime achievement award. Achievement in what? It’s unclear. What is clear that the person receiving the award is not the janitor Jake, but the younger Jake (Jesse Plemons) with old-age make-up on. With his dying breath he is able to see the self he loves, his younger self, grow up and live the life he wanted. There’s no sense at all of his present circumstances or person. Then we cut to a shot of janitor Jake’s truck buried in snow, presumably (on my interpretation) with janitor Jake frozen inside, dead.

So ultimately whether or not you like this movie depends on your tolerance for head-up-its-butt dialogue about the grand questions of life combined with its purposefully obtuse presentation. As one of the biggest douchebags I know, I liked it, but didn’t fall head over heels for it. The only other associated Kaufmann production I’ve seen is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but from what I understand, this movie is Kaufmann at its Kaufmann-iest. I have a great respect for the planning and thought behind every second of the film and I can honestly say I was never not entertained. I loved the film’s mood and atmosphere and that I was always on my toes. It’s a movie that truly has gotten better as I’ve continued to think about it over the last three days. But still, I don’t think I always understood what was going on and it’s a little too obtuse/abstract for it to be an all-time classic. I respect that for some people this may be their favorite movie of all time, and for others it may be a crock of shit. I’m somewhere in the middle, and cautiously recommend this film to those of you who are open to some abstract art in film. If you are, definitely try it out, you won’t forget it. If you are not open to it, skip it; you will have no qualms about endings things early.

***1/4 (Three and one-fourth stars out of four)

#charlie kaufman #i'm thinking of ending things

[themostexpensiveboningknife]

Murakami

I’ve been meaning to write something about Haruki Marakami for a while now. Whenever I’m reading his books I oscillate between enjoyment and displeasure, between feeling its probably offensive trite to being captivated by what feels like deeply wrought meditations on humanity. A pretty wide spectrum of feelings. Perhaps part of the appeal sometimes lies in this unstable reading experience. But anyway, I want to write a bit on his books and my relationship to them, something that will allow me to extrapolate on this instability and perhaps even produce a more tangible and secure grasp on my feelings for this infamous author. 

Clarity time, I’ve read: Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, 1Q84, the short story collection Men Without Women, and the nonfiction What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. So not a huge amount, probably a bit less than 20% of what has been published. Enough though, I think, to have an opinion.  

Before getting to my stylistic and formal gripes, there’s a more fundamental and jarring issue, one that so much of Murakami’s narrative seems to rest on: his treatment of female characters. There are the overly idealised and sexualised ones—young, good looking, cute, pale skin, fit, skimpy clothing—who inevitably fall into sexual encounters as if this is the main reason for their appearances. Then there are the older female characters, old age seeming to be their chief attribute and greatest failure, who nonetheless also occasionally move teleologically towards sexual encounters. Kafka on the Shore has the young and free Sakura, who the main character has sex with (and rapes in a dream), and Miss Saeki, the older owner of the a library, who also has sex with the main character. Norwegian Wood has the beautiful Naoko, who after sexual encounters with the main character Toru commits suicide. As well as Midori, who after sexual encounters with Toru becomes his girlfriend. Finally, there’s also Reiko, a patient at the mental asylum, older and wrinkled, who Murakami seems to make have sex with Toru at the end of the novel just for the sake of it. 1Q84, and looky what we have here, the main female character, beautiful and slim, poses as a call girl to kill selected men, while Fuka-Eri, an enigmatic young, beautiful of course, girl moves towards a dreamlike sexual encounter with one of the chief male characters. Short stories: Drive My Car, where the driver relays stories to his employer about his love for his ex-wife, ultimately focusing on the fact that she cheated on him. An Independent Organ, the life of an old bachelor committed to no one woman, but passionate about short relationships with married older females. The bachelor eventually gives up on life after a woman that he finally fell in love with abandons both him and her husband for a third lover. Enough examples, now.

In certain of these instances it is a stretch to suggest that the female character’s sole raison d’être is as an erotic object of desire for male characters, although in most cases this doesn’t seem an unfair supposition. Whether or not this stands for all or most of these characters, I still find it to be an uncomfortable characterisation of these characters that inevitably leads to shallow development (young, hot and for sex or old, over and not). And while in each of these stories it might be said that much of the main male characters’ narrative drive is also related to sex, they also exist for much more than this, existing beyond being an object of erotic desire. And look, I’m not a prude by any means, I know that in many ways the world runs on eroticism and sex, but Murakami’s female characters invariably exist purely as vessels for this feeling. Just one final point here, the more I attempt my own fiction writing the more I do appreciate a bit more Murakami’s position. He seems to be an author whose writing is deeply anchored to his own experiences, his own feelings and emotions, in which case it’s little wonder that his male characters are given greater scope for development versus female characters, since the latter are a subset that Murakami must struggle to appreciate the personal experiences of and therefore to write a more fulfilling depiction of.

Ok sex done. Another problem I have (or is it a problem?) is the simplicity of the writing, the unadorned syntax, like a plain white T Shirt with Black Vans, simple but not as effective as it could be, or as much as I think it could be. Sometimes I feel like Murakami writes the perfect children’s books for adults. I can’t be certain how much of this lays with the translators, but with various texts and various translators and all following a similar style it makes sense to see this as Murakami’s writing style. Why do I wonder if it’s actually a problem? Well I’m often enamoured and carried along by this easygoing writing. As I said before, I oscillate between enjoyment and displeasure. It sometimes just feels like the writing is dumbed down, that’s it. Perhaps, though this helps to explain his vast appeal to millions across the globe. I should also say though that I don’t think I know of another writer who so perfectly forms deeply emotive metaphors and similes; I often have to stop reading for a second because of how intrusive the imagery that is created from the formation of a few simple words is.

One final issue I have, and surely a much more personal one. I can’t help but feel that the music references that Murakami makes on such a regular basis are just so basic. Middle of the road, mediocre pop music, tired archetypal examples of classical music, hotel lift jazz music. No wonder I sometimes feel like I’m reading a children’s book for adults. 

Enough picking at Murakami. His book about running was great for me, it got me thinking about exercise in a totally different way. His writing style is surely more complex and poignant than I’m giving him credit for, his musical selections probably also. But I still can’t unstick this sense that he needs to work towards developing better female characters. Maybe they already exist in his work... I guess I should read more of his novels and get back to you. 

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

BFCD Reviews by Nesha: Summertime on Netflix

This is what I’m gonna do... I’ll be doing more structured reviews later and most likely liveblogging suggested stuff and tagging with “Nesha Watches (Insert Title) for all liveblog posts. For this first review, I won’t be as structured, because I didn’t really plan on reviewing, so this is basically all of my comments to friends @chenoahchantel and @daintyurbanprincess that were made whilst I was watching this show suggested to me by @rbaifzau 

It didn’t take me long to be annoyed with the white boy in this show. It doesn’t take much anyways, but one episode in and I’m over him already. This dude saw her at a party, she got pushed into the pool accidentally, he gave her a dry shirt, and two minutes later tried to kiss her… TF..  

Girl, this bout to be IGNANT...

Chile... She was like, "What are you doing?" And he looked surprised. Like whet. And in episode 2 after having seen her thrice and spoken to her once, he telling his best friend, "I'm pretty sure I like her a lot." I HATE stuff like this. Why did I tell old girl I'd watch this and discuss it with her? 😭

But she like him, so like??? 😭

And her daddy, who we haven't seen yet is presumably a rolling stone. Only one negro in this town and the nigga gotta be probably running around on his wife? 🙄 I'm like, OH, so the one Black man in the show gotta be a rolling stone? And even though his wife is also highly irresponsible as a parent, she's sort of made out to be the victim of his dreams. They never portray Black mothers doing things on their own as victims. That woman was messing up left and right and it's all on her husband not being there, when that's only part of the problem.

Also, if she IS the only present parent and made the decision to do that, she should be doing it instead of leaning on Summer all of the time. 

And she got a close friend that have an obvious crush on her but she seems oblivious. I hate dis

This dude reminds me of Max Theriot. He always looked musty to me. 🤣🤣🤣 He look like him breaf stank. Him and Jack Griffo were working on something where they play soldiers and I absolutely said, "He still look like he stank" when I saw him on Instagram…

This is basically the same mold of dude and it looks moldy and should be tossed out. None for me, thanks.

But, there are moments in this show that's really cracking me up. 🤣🤣🤣 It's like, I feel like I should enjoy it for the messiness of it, but the main characters can be infuriating.

She called him an asshole and he said, "You don't even know me." No duh dipshit. She ain't know you when you tried to kiss her neither. NOR when you was talmbout you like her. 

This girl kissing her friend!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. She's gonna hurt this boy! My Gwad. He finna be discombobulated. 😭😭😭 He all happy today and she don't even see him like that. Lordt.

He walked up and she look uncomfortable AF. Her younger sister is like, "You're being weird." 🤣🤣🤣 Even SHE hip to something. He on the beach talmbout "It's hot today, don't you think?" And took his shirt off. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I like Summer's friends and feel bad for them because she really didn't treat them kindly. She used Edo whenever she was upset by Ale and then she just completely ditched Sofie on her birthday and didn't even text her or anything. Just had her waiting on her and didn't even apologize. Like, I love that she gets a chance to be human, but being an asshole to the people who you're supposed to be friends with is such an upsetting trope to me.

And the connection between her and Ale is so weird. He comes across as super predatory in the beginning and I don't understand why she liked him in the first place, but also whenever he does something by mistake, she is so angry at him, even though she's been just as inconsiderate when it comes to her friends.

NOW... HE HARASSING HER AT HER JOB. 

WOTTICE DIS HUNNY??? 

Talmbout if she got a boyfriend he'll "take care of him" 😖 After she told him to leave and he said he'd wait for her outside, she asked her coworker, "What do you do to let a guy know you like him back?"

NOW, she went outside and he's there, but her friend showed up to surprise her after work. 🤣 Whoever made this HATES me

He stole a book out her locker and left a card with his phone number. How is this the start of a romance???

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. FRIEND IS TALKING ABOUT THE KISS...He said it was perfect........

Chile... And she don't even wanna tell their other best friend. Bruh. He said, "What we have doesn't need to be discussed." Summy PLEASE tell this young man...HE TRIED TO KISS HER AGAIN AND SHE SAID, "We just talked about last night's mistake" 😭😭😭

And she done hurt my friend this way, but she worried about Maxface because his mama can't reach him on the phone??? Girl.. go.. girl...

The gag is that she got mad at Ale because she saw him talking to his ex and she had to cover for him at work, but you've now ACTUALLY put your best friend in a bad space. And he ran into her mom and little sister and looked so uncomfortable but kept it short and sweet. These are people he loves. Idk. I feel bad for him and also like she kind of a hypocrite.

That was what REALLY bothered me. I don't expect her to be perfect, by all means. Black girls should be allowed their imperfections and their mistakes, but the fact that she knows what it's like to have the people you love be so absent and that she would treat her friends this way because of one guy who she's only known for a couple of months was disappointing for her character. She could have been written imperfectly without this glaring problem that I don't believe a real person in her position would actually have. 

I think in real life, the girl who raises her sister and basically has to lift her mother up all the time would overextend herself to her friends, but instead, she just leaves them in her dust as soon as she gets some dick. 😭

He is now hanging out with her little sister. 😭😭😭She goes to school with them but she looks tiny. I'm cringing at everything.

BRUH. Like... I can't tell if they're trying to or not, but I wouldn't be surprised because he's cool with the sister too, but they've been friends a while, so I didn't think much of it until Summer hurt him.I thought she liked him earlier, so idk if he is noticing her or I just EXPECT it. 

OAN, this man realized his son had a motorcycle accident on purpose and got mad instead of concerned

At one point, they say he's been riding bikes for 20 years, and whenever his father is mad that he had his accident on purpose (which I'll come back to) he says that he's never made a mistake like that, not even was he was 4, so Ale is AT LEAST 24 and she JUST turned 18. Which is WILD to me, even though at 18 I dated someone who was 23 (he was possessive and abusive, so I have a real suspicion of age gaps). 

But, aside from that - she gets mad at him any time she sees him with his ex when It is perfectly fine to speak with your ex and whenever she did see them together, it was always innocent and she didn't give him a chance to explain.

But then, when he does something questionable, like whenever he tried to kiss her the first day they met, or whenever he came to her job to ask her out and she told him to leave but he said he was going to wait outside (toxic AF and presumptuous) she is fine with those things.

Now, back to Ale's accident. I really felt so bad for him whenever we discover he did this on purpose, because his father is mad, when they should be concerned. His mother says, "You could have died" and he agrees...

How did they not notice that meant that this young man was so disappointed with his life as a biker that he was literally suicidal? They just grazed past it and whenever he vanished on them, there wasn't a huge call to find him,even though he'd just admitted to purposefully filling a possibly fatal mistake.

I'm prepared for nothing but disappointment. ALL these people outta there. Ale's best friend is in love with his ex. 😭 IT'S SUMMER'S 18TH BIRTHDAY. MYNIGGA She really stood her other best friend up to go get some dick on a little ass boat

The little sister shot her shot! 😭😭😭 He told her she's like his little sister and she burnt off mad denna muffugga

This child drunk, walking down the street in the middle of the night without her glasses...

OMG AS I WAS TYPING THAT SHE GOT HIT BY A DAMN CAR

I was really upset by these things coming to light, and also whenever Blue gets hit by a car, because all of the reviews that I've seen on this site have been that it's a cute love story with likable characters, but nobody mentions the problematic content, the dark portions of the story that can be triggering - like suicide and alcohol incidents and literally seeing a young Black girl be hit and run by a car??? 

I wasn't prepared for that shit in a "cute love story." I think that this story is less cute and more dark than people have made it out to be, and that's one of my problems with it. It isn't marketed as a dramatic coming of age story. It's marketed as a romantic comedy, when it is more serious than that and has a lot of issues that should be considered.

The lesbian best friend is in love with her too??????????????????? I. Hate. This.

My favorite person in this whole thing is the lesbian in the background, Irene. And also Dario.

I was entertained a lot of the times. Just heavily confused because I couldn't figure out what the tone was supposed to be. 😁

In conclusion - it's maybe a dark comedy, not a cute comedy, IS a coming of age about a young Black girl who is kind of an asshole, but Black girls should be free to be assholes too. White dudes do it all the time and are valued characters. The dude is weird AF for chasing around this 17 year old girl and he's in his 20s. Idk if that's normal in Italy. It's nasty to me. Their beginning is young people foolishness and there's not much that we see their relationship built upon, but that happens, yanno. You young, tired and silly and some pushy dude makes his move whenever he see you. Slap some discount sex in a dinghy on it and you have this show. I don't recommend it, but a lot of folk loved it, so I guess it did what it meant to do.

#BFCD Reviews by Nesha #Nesha Watches Summertime with Regrets #Nesha Watches Summertime #It's just called Summertime. I watched it with regrets but #Here was my takeaway #Summer Bennati #Summertime #summertime netflix #Nesha Watches

[msjr0119]

Hold On

Part 8- This is all my fault

Nobody got injured at the Homecoming ball, they all get separated into different safe houses- for safety.

Riley and Drake had confirmed that they had feelings for each other, however Drake believed Riley should be with Liam. Heartbroken, she moves back to New York. Only keeping in touch with Hana, Maxwell and Olivia.

Riley meets lawyer, Nate Cooper and begins a relationship with him. In Cordonia, Drake begins to court Kiara.

Nine months after Riley had left Cordonia- there is a reunion, but not the reunion the friends had hoped for.

*Characters belong to Pixelberry*

If you are under 18 please do not read this series. If you do, you are consenting that you are over the age.

Series warnings: Suicide, domestic abuse, swearing, stabbing, smut 🍋. If any of these triggers affect you do not read!

Tags- @annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @fbloveschoices @cmestrella @choices97

Bit of a rubbish chapter- but the next one is the one that you’ll all be waiting for 😊

********

“Drake?”

Liam fixated on his friends frown- shit! He didn’t want Drake to find out about his child like this. This was the literal description of a ‘bombshell’. He knew Drake would arrive soon, but didn’t expect him to sneak in like a burglar.

“Well Li? Aren’t you going to answer the Duchess and myself?”

“Drake, I’m not talking about this here. It’s not appropriate. It was Riley’s secret, that she trusted two friends with. I found out by mistake, whilst sat with her. Let’s go for a walk?”

“Liam, I’m exhausted. I’ve just been on a tiring flight here- not knowing why I had to come. I don’t want to go for a walk. Can someone just explain what is happening? And why we are all at a hospital!”

All the friends face gazed down to floor. Liam led his friend into the quiet room where Beth was still holding her childhood friends hand- talking about the past. The men entered quietly. Beth didn’t realise and continued talking...

“Ri, you have to wake up soon. Remember at middle school, when some girl picked on me. Who was there at my side? It was you. You had all this spunk, and everyone stopped picking on me because you was my friend. I’ll do anything to help you. I wished you’d opened up about Nate. Myself and Leo had our suspicions. We are here for you. Everyone is....”

“Hi Beth.”

Beth wiped her tears on her hoody- her mascara smudged mimicking the look of a panda bear, before noticing she had company.

“Hi Liam, sorry I didn’t know anyone was here. I assume you are Drake? I’ll leave you both to it.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you finally Beth.”

******

When Beth had left, Drake looked over to Riley, noticing how poorly and fragile she looked - hooked up to different machines. His heart nearly leapt out of his chest when he realised this was real- and not an awful dream. He felt as if he was going to stop breathing, his breathing increased rapidly- until he couldn’t control it. Liam ushered him to sit down and told him to breathe.

“What happened Li?”

“She, she tried to take her own life. Life hasn’t been a walk in the park since she left Drake. When we saw Olivia and the others rushing away- they were coming here. Leo had informed them about Riley’s situation. Some people jumped in the river and pulled her out.”

Drake couldn’t comprehend what was being explained. Frozen in shock, Drake’s phone began to vibrate constantly awaking him from his trance. NOT NOW KIARA - he muttered under his breath. Liam had a feeling who was on the phone, as Drake slammed it onto the table. He believed he owed Drake answers on behalf on Riley, then Drake could explain the situation to Kiara.

“You know the one and only time you slept with her?”

“Yeah....”

“She became pregnant. She was going to tell you. Possibly come back. Until Maxwell informed her that you was courting Kiara. She lost your baby six months ago. I’m so sorry Drake. If she didn’t... you... you’d have been at a hospital holding your newborn baby.”

“This is all my fault!”

Drake put his head in his hands, he couldn’t believe everything that had happened. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret. Many emotions ran through his mind- he now wondered if this was the reason no one told him immediately. Liam knelt down next to his friend, placing a comforting hand on his forearm. His baby blues fixated on his friends muddy brown eyes.

“Drake, I’m to blame too. At the masquerade ball, if I told my father I didn’t want a social season and gave Riley a chance, we could have been married. If she loved me back that much. As time went on, I wanted her as my Queen, I was ready to pull out of the sham wedding- but she refused to see me. I now understand, that you was probably that factor as to why. The only thing we are to be blamed for was letting the woman we love slip through our fingers; for not protecting her, for not keeping her safe.”

“Li, you know that I would have never left her on own- I’d have never pushed her towards you, if I could foresee that she was carrying my child. Is ... is she going to wake up?”

Liam bit his lip. That was hard to hear- it was as if, because she was pregnant she meant something to Drake. But without the baby, she meant nothing to him. Liam didn’t know how to respond to that without causing friction- so just elaborated on the last question Drake asked.

“The staff said she was lucky. It’s just a waiting game now.”

Liam sat next to Riley’s bedside, held her hand as he had been doing the last few days. However, in front of Drake he missed out that one regular gesture - kissing her hand and holding it close.

“Ri, Drake is here now. I told you we’d get him here. Come on Riley, you’re a fighter. It’s been days now. We all want you to wake up- to see the beautiful adventurous spirit we call our friend....”

Drake, looked down at Riley and then at Liam. He was trying his hardest to wake her up by talking to her. Was the others doing this too? Maybe I should try?

“Hey Brooks, I always told you that you was going to be trouble...”

Liam looked at Drake and gave him an encouraging smile to continue. He knew this type of thing wasn’t his friends forte.

“Well, I love how you all kept it a secret from me. I care about you Brooks. That last conversation we had.... it... it was all a lie. Every word of it was a lie.... I’m so sorry. I don’t know, if you’ll ever forgive me for everything I’ve done since?”

Liam gazed at his heartbroken friend. He cared for them both, so couldn’t berate them for them falling for each other. Knowing now was not the time to be selfish, he needed to push his own feelings towards Riley away. Concentrating on helping his best friend, after the bombshell that had just hit him like a ton of bricks was his priority. He bent down into the locker and pulled the scan out- passing it to Drake.

“Here. She had two copies in her purse. One was for you. She still kept it close to her after all this time. Read the note, that’s attached to it. I assume this was the first scan she had? And that she never got the chance to give it to Lady Hana or Lord Max.”

Dear Hana and Max,

Please pass this onto Drake if he ever finds out about the baby. I want to tell him myself but I can’t find the words. He’s already rejected me- I’m not giving him this as a way to win him back. I don’t care about that. This little ones true father has a right to know. I’m not wanting to break him and Kiara up either, he will always be my friend and I will be happy for him. But if he wants to be a part of their life he has the chance to be. I’m not going to force him. Love ya both. Ri x

“I never got the chance to be in their life... it got taken away from me. She hates me. All the fake ‘I’ll be happy for him’ ...I don’t care what you say Liam, this is all my fault. You wouldn’t have done this. Bertrand did exactly what I did. And I hated him for him. But I’m just the same.”

“If I had Riley tell me she loved me, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight Drake. I’d keep her close to me. You had that opportunity, and messed it up. And then you jumped straight into Kiara’s bed the minute it messed up. The only difference between you and I, is that I’d have not gone to the nearest girl, I’d have been fighting for this one. I didn’t have the opportunity like you did. She never allowed me to get close to her after I messed up with my coronation choice.”

The two men remained in silence. All that was heard was the beeping from the machines keeping Riley alive and the echo of the staff running up and down the corridors saving people’s lives.

*****

“So who was the daddy?”

Olivia said, demanding an answer from Max - knowing he was the closest to Riley. Everyone’s prying eyes watching and ears listening.

“Erm, it was Drake.”

“And no one told him? Told us! That baby was my nephew or niece! My moms grandchild!”

“It doesn’t matter now Savannah. There’s no baby. And Drake is fucking Kiara. You really think Drake would step up after he fucked Riley over?”

Olivia raised her eyebrows at the other Walker, who also ran away whilst pregnant- she wasn’t little miss perfect either.

“Liv! It was still his baby! It was a Walker!”

Liam walked out of the room, into the middle of all the commotion- leaving Drake alone with Riley.

“Olivia! Savannah! That is enough! He’s staring at the scan of his baby. Riley is lying there not waking up. We don’t need this right now. If and when Riley wakes up she can explain to him- if she wants. This is between the both of them, no one else.”

“Sorry Liam.”

Savannah muttered before she ran out of the waiting room grieving for her niece/nephew that she never knew about. She was cross with her brother and his actions. She didn’t want to see Drake- she knew all about his conversation with Riley before she left, and now because he lied about his true feelings- they had all lost a part of their family.

“How can you be like that Liam? You’re still in love with her- but are pushing her back towards the person who left her- the person who broke her heart. And who is may I remind you, now with Miss France.”

“If she wakes up, she will decide what she wants to do Liv- until then, I think we should not discuss her personal matters. But yes, I am in love with her. I always was. Ever since I met her in that bar, I loved her. It was love at first sight. But I also let her go, I also broke her heart. None of this is just Drakes fault. Love makes you do crazy things....”

#theroyalromance #bertrand beaumont #choices trr #drakewalker #hanalee #maxwell beaumont #olivia nevrakis #riley brooks #kingliam #drake x riley #liam x mc #drake x liam

[insomniacowl]

Book review of: The places we called from by Miaki Sugaru (2015)

This entry in Miaki’s bibliography comes in two titles. ‘The place you called from’, and ‘The place I called from’. For simplicity, I referred to them as ‘The places we called from’ in the title of this review.

Starting this review from the afterword, Miaki talks of a concept he came up with called ‘summer complex’, a feeling or a memory of an ideal holiday that you believe you should have spent in your teenage years. It is supposed to have been filled with activities that are fun, active, social, mellow, calming, etc. The ideal components differing based on your personality but an ideal that you dream of and wish you would have had none the less. Yet it is ideal, it does not exist, and thus you feel a certain void or the fear that you missed out an opportunity of you youthful days, making it imperfect due to the absence of the experience of this perfection.

I can only imagine that with the proliferation of bombardment of images due to our ever-increasing connectivity, more and more people may come to suffer this ‘summer complex’.

But this Ideal is one that can never be achieved. Even if someone was able to perform every activity in the book to achieve that perfection, they will not be able to perceive it as perfect. This is due to the insatiable greed people are conditioned into in capitalistic mode of production relation, but also, and perhaps more importantly that perfection does not exist in any subject or object, but somewhere between the two. Like how the grass is greener on the other side, even if it is not. The perfection lies in between the subject, and the object of desire.

A way Miaki, who admits to suffering from the summer complex as well, tries to cope with it by writing this story, one about the imperfect summer. Perhaps due to that, his characters, for the first time in his writing, are in their teens, sixteen-years old. This book shows great improvements compared to his previous titles in terms of coherent character development, a more natural conversation among characters, and minimal misogyny. However, he still delves into pop-philosophy, misinterpreting thought experiments such as the ship of Theseus, and Xeno’s paradox.

A core theme of the story is jealousy. The surface theme is of coping with one’s psychological complexes, brought on either by physical, mental, or experiential circumstances. So when the heroine of the story, Hajikano’s character develops, recovering from her trauma of guilt from her two friends ending their lives in front of her, and the self-hatred born out of the failure to stop them from doing so, this experience that painfully parallels my own, to me Hajikano becomes the character I relate strongly within this story. And it is also nice, that in this re-reading, I now feel happy that when she sets out on that journey for recovery at the end, that I can see myself reflected on the writing.

In Japanese folktale, there is a story of Yaobikuni, an Eight-hundred-year-old female monk that gained immortality when she was sixteen by mistakenly consuming the meat of a mermaid, that in Japanese myth, has the ability to grant immortality. This folktale serves as the framing device of the story, and Yaobikuni herself serves as a key character in it.

The main character, Yusuke, was born with a large birthmark that covered half of his face, and as a result, became withdrawn and nihilistic at a young age. It is only Hajikano that shows him compassion during their days in elementary school. They part ways, entering different middle school and end up in the same high school years later, this is where the story starts. This is when Yusuke makes a wager with the Yaobikuni, in removing the birthmark, Yusuke has to attempt to make Hajikano fall in love with him in fifty days or he will die in Yaobikuni’s hands. The further provide conflict to the story, Hajikano has developed a similar birthmark on her face during middle school that resulted in her perfect and well-loved appearance and personality becoming that of the complete opposite. This got her to join a new group of friends who suffered from an inferiority complex due to their own individual traits and attempts to take their lives along with Hajikano’s. She survives by escaping but suffers additional mental trauma. All this resulting in her own suicide attempt at the beginning of the story.

Other than Yusuke and Hajikano, there are two other supporting characters, Chigusa and Hinohira. The four become pals to help Hajikano rehabilitate after said attempt, and it is in this interaction that the jealousy arises from.

#Miaki Sugaru #japanese #novelist #boymeetsgirl #complex #trauma #Myth #Folklore #book review

[awkwardbsd]

dazai pls? :)

No problem! I am always happy to receive asks. This one was a little delayed because I napped during the middle of asking it. This is gonna get a little bit long (the other ones were long, but I never put a line whoops). This one gets into both anime (Dead Apple and otherwise) and manga spoiler territory. You have been warned! 

First impression

I’ll be honest, I almost dropped this series a few times because of Dazai. I found the way that they introduced him was very… nonsensical and almost insensitive. It was definitely not what we would qualify as “politically correct” by today’s standards, and his appearance certainly was off-putting as well with the bandages flapping in the wind. He came off as a good-for-nothing scoundrel who was a little distasteful.

Current Impression

Well, he’s certainly changed! He went from being an irresponsible reckless fool to an irresponsible reckless fool with impeccable (and overpowered) intelligence and a purpose! 

Favourite moment

Odasaku’s death scene and really any moments with Odasaku (pre and post-death). I know that those scenes were much more of a highlight for Odasaku, but it was also a pivotal moment for Dazai’s character. 

Idea for a story

I was just talking about this idea today! It was in response to my BSD Questionnaire (which I’m having a lot of fun reading the answers for)

@dreaming-of-butterflies​ actually brought it up again (hehe)

I’m about to go on a bit of a tangent. Forgive my awful writing. The last fanfiction I wrote was for Peppa Pig meeting Dazai. I wish I was kidding, but yeah, my last fanfic was Peppa Pig facing off against Dazai.

It was early on a Saturday afternoon with the exhausted sun shining over Yokohama just before the curtain call which would call it a day. The Detective Agency was slow but still running when a man knocked on the door. He opened it apprehensively.

“Is there anything we can help you with, sir?” Atsushi asked.

The man stumbled back slightly. His voice croaked and trembled, “My name is Eliot… Thomas Stearns Eliot.” He glanced over at Atsushi as if there was something right next to him.

“Is something wrong?” Atsushi asked. He looked over to his side. There was no one there.

“It’s just that…” he slowly pointed, “there is a man there.”

“Pardon–”

“He is there. He is a tall stern man in a white coat. He keeps mouthing over and over again, ‘You cannot forgive me.’”

Atsushi staggered and lost his balance. His hands were trembling. Why? What was this man saying? The man from the orphanage, the headmaster, was there? He was dead! He was ecstatic about it. Words couldn’t form from his mouth.

“Atsushi? What’s wrong?” Tanizaki asked. 

“I knew he was dead. He’s dead.” Atsushi mumbled under his breath.

The man was frazzled, “My ability… it’s called Until Human Voices Wake Us. It requires me to pass on messages from people who are dead. I must say these things or else something within me will vanish. If I ignore a spirit’s request to make contact, I lose a memory from my past. I want to know how to remove it! That’s why I came here! I want this ability gone! It has ruined too many people. I can’t take it anymore.”

“You!” he pointed to Kyouka who was on the opposite side of the room. “You have two people standing by your side. They look just like you.” He paused, “Your parents… they truly loved you. They are so happy for you. They say they are sorry for not being able to stay by your side. They wanted to protect you… they really wanted to protect you.” The man was now crying a little. “They said that they love you more than anything in the world and that they wish that they could’ve done something different than to spare you the pain of witnessing their deaths. ‘Please forgive us Kyouka. We promise to never leave your side. We will always love you.’”

Dazai walked into the room. The man flinched. The man opened his mouth, “There is a man with reddish brown hair next to you.” Dazai’s eyes opened wide. He had eavesdropped on the conversation, but he didn’t know that Odasaku would be at his side, not at a time like this.

“The man standing next to you… he has five kids, four boys and a girl. He’s smiling. He’s saying, ‘I’m proud of you.’” He was about to say more when Dazai placed his hand on the man’s shoulder nullifying his ability. Dazai looked like he had tears in his eye but not a single one was shed.

Unpopular opinion

I wish Ranpo got more of a spotlight than Dazai for his intelligence and capabilities. Ranpo is the smartest, but they always rely on Dazai to compete and solve all these problems. He’s always the one facing off with Fyodor and giving the exposition on “how we solved this”. I want to see Ranpo doing it because we don’t always get enough of it, and Ranpo is more than an ongoing side plot that plays into the main story. We need our crime-solving sleuth back! Dazai can be smart and he can solve things, but let’s not lose focus on the true #1 detective!

Favourite relationship

I can go on about Dazai and Atsushi, but I think that ones really clear on why their dynamic is so great. This time, I’m going to focus on the Dark Era Trio and Odazai!

I’m going to be copying and pasting a lot of my previous post’s points. [Source] (also, sorry for OP because looking back on it, I completely hijacked their post and I’m really sorry for that)

Dazai still lives in the same body and soul that he did when he was in the Mafia. Despite moving from the Port Mafia to the ADA, he couldn’t pull the complete 180 on himself. He still lives in a shadow of his previous actions, and that’s why he truly doesn’t believe he’s a good person.

Odasaku saw that good in Dazai even during his darkest moments. If he didn’t believe in Dazai, he wouldn’t have told him to be on the side that saves people. Odasaku saw Dazai beyond his depression, suicidal urges, and the suffering he’s been through. He trusted him to carry on the legacy he left behind.

Dazai still can’t completely get over the death of his best friend. Look at the first set of screenshots.

Dazai: “Does it look like I’m visiting a grave to you?”Atsushi: “It does. [Why?]”

That look on his face is shock. He is still shaken. He still hangs and loiters by Odasaku’s grave as if he’s still alive. It’s not like he’s expecting him to get up, but he acts like he’s still existing.

Dazai, to me, is one of those people that would buy a crab and a plate of curry. He would place the curry on the gravestone of Odasaku. He eats some of the crab he brought for himself. He brings some alcohol. He talks to him all night and says all that has happened. He talks about the agency, Atsushi, Kunikida, and he talks about how he misses the trio. He admits he didn’t know what Ango has been up to.

Just look at this Wan! cover

Ango himself isn’t over the death either. Ango is the one who covered for the both of them so that Dazai would be able to leave the Mafia.

“I made use of it only once. Four years ago… so that Dazai-kun could live outside the Mafia. I erased his past sins.”“Why did you get your hands dirty only once?”“For a friend who is no longer here. To repent, at least minimally, for my sins to him.”

[Quote Source]

That’s why they’re my favourites!

Favourite headcanon

As previously mentioned, Dazai sits by Oda’s grave and has a meal.

Another mini-excursion because I feel like it. Again, forgive my awful writing because I really can’t write (probably because I don’t read).

“Yo Odasaku!” Dazai leaned against the grave of Sakunosuke Oda. He placed a plate of curry on the opposite side of the grave. Dazai tore open the shell of a crab and began eating it. Two glasses of alcohol were placed.

“Be on the side that saves people,” Dazai mumbled. “You know, the Detective Agency is a lot better than the Mafia! There are all kinds of fun people, and best of all, I don’t have to deal with that asshat Chuuya! You know, I got to blow up his car before I left. Thank goodness for Ango.” He paused and took a bite and a swig. “Speaking of Ango, I still really miss us. Lupin just isn’t the same without you. I haven’t talked to Ango in ages either… the guy works for the government now too.” He sighed then smiled, “But yeah, the Detective Agency is great! Chuuya isn’t there, Ranpo is the world’s greatest detective, I get to mess with Kunikida, Shachou is so cool, Yosano used to be in the Mafia but managed to escape, and Atsushi… you would love Atsushi! He’s so naive and difficult, he cries so often, but his heart… it reminds me of yours.”

#Dazai Osamu #ask #bsd #ask game #bungou stray dogs #not awkward #odasaku #Oda Sakunosuke #odazai