Tumgik
#this kind of continues from the idea
icecreampizzer · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media
Here's a little thing I made as a companion to this thing I wrote, whatever it is. Played around with the idea of Fabby and Prism bonding...Somehow.
96 notes · View notes
lunaryhues · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
What is Rayman? Well, he's a thingamajig. Next question.
(I got attached to my Betilla design)
424 notes · View notes
eight-pointed-star · 27 days
Text
Tumblr media
104 notes · View notes
quietwingsinthesky · 5 months
Text
thinking about how dean’s character gets simplified in fandom, or more specifically, the very black and white lens that gets applied to him. because integral to dean, from my point of view, is that he is both a victim of abuse and a perpetrator of it. that these two things do not cancel each other out or outweigh each other to the point that only one matters. he’s both, you cannot separate him from the fact that he’s both.
but very often, people do. dean is either a victim. or he’s an abuser. it’s like it’s hard for people to hold both those facts in their heads at once. dean went through incredible amount of trauma as a child and an adult, is routinely faced with violence, has resorted to alcohol abuse to cope with it. he’s also a violent person, someone who retreats into tactics of emotional abuse and control when he feels threatened, who hurts the people around him constantly and the people who are closest to him (ie Sam, Cas, later Jack) get the brunt of that abuse. these are just facts. they’re things that happened on the screen and cannot be denied.
and it’s. idk it’s weird to me (not unexpected, because he’s hardly the only character to ever get this treatment) that dean of all people is the one portrayed in such an either/or way when one of the defining moments of the show for him is that during his stint in Hell, he was tortured and then became a torturer to escape that, to feel like he had some control again, and he relished in it. it’s baked into who he is.
185 notes · View notes
canisalbus · 7 months
Note
Sorry but we were speaking about history in a part of one of my classes and when the Vatican came on. I had to draw the sad dog man.
Tumblr media
Machete is now immortalized in my class notes. It’s in spanish by the way, which is kind of funnily appropriate considering latin is very close to spanish.
.
302 notes · View notes
kaiiscottage · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
꒰ Yuuri’s blue prince ♡ ꒱
75 notes · View notes
radicalrobotz · 2 days
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
i like jasons hair in red son rising i like that hes got the 'stripe' in his hair from the start (later turns white cuz he gets fcking tased)
42 notes · View notes
thenegoteator · 9 days
Text
Tumblr media
27 notes · View notes
hii 📓
Okay so the thing is that I wanted a “the Zenin raised Megumi instead of Gojo” fic but the thing is that I’m absolutely convinced that if the Zenin were the ones that took Megumi they wouldn’t actually take tsumiki too. The fandom consensus I’ve personally seen has been that she would have been taken and mistreated by zenin for being a female non sorcerer but I personally think they would have just straight up left her behind.
They only bought Megumi. They keep non sorcerers and women as servants in their compound but all of them are Zenin themselves. Tsumiki isn’t related and I couldn’t really see any reason why they’d want her. Which turned this into a fic where Tsumiki loses her brother, but she’s trying to find him again, she swears. I think of it as my “siblings doomed by the narrative desperately try to write a new one where they can be together” fic.
The thing is that Tsumikis mom was one of those people who thought love and consumption were synonymous. She had a habit of getting caught up with assholes and just… having both of them chew on each other for a while until it turns into this horrible fucking bloodbath.
Tojis just another loser her mom got caught up in, but he’s Tsumiki’s favorite out of all the losers, because he gave her her brother. Her mom marries this random guy she barley knows and Tsumikis pretty sure she does it so they can both ditch their kids twice as much, secure in the knowledge that there’s supposedly another person checking in. It works out great for them, because they both stop coming entirely. It’s fine, because Tsumiki has Megumi and Megumi has Tsumiki and they don’t need anything else.
It’s one of those things where they were in really unhealthy circumstances and it made their relationship a little bit unhealthy but not necessarily bad. They both had to grow up way too fast and deal with way too much too soon and become codependent on each other because they are, in the most literal way possible, dependent on one another. Neither of them know how to love in a way that doesn’t involve sacrificing themselves for their sibling, mostly because they don’t have a way that doesn’t involve that.
They’re in a sinking ship and tsumiki knows it. Their parents aren’t coming back. The money is going to run out sooner or later. Their problems are stacking up.
Megumi has confessed to her that he sees things that no one else does. When she asks him how he knows no one else sees them, he explains that they’d say something if they did and won’t say anything else. And she doesn’t know what to believe but she refuses to call him crazy. He tells her that monsters cling to her back and he fights them off for her. She patches up his bruises and cuts and tells him he’s brave and tries to figure out if she’s just imagining that her back feels lighter after. He tells her that there are dogs that only he can see that have started following him around, and she tells him she believes him and can never remember, later, if she meant it or was just saying it.
The last time Toji came by, he left them more money than tsumikis ever seen in her life, took them to ice cream, told them that he was sorry he was so shit at this and that the money was Megumi’s share in a payment. It was for something he was going to help daddy with later. Tsumiki and him were to use it to take care of themselves and be healthy, because Megumi couldn’t help him later if he wasn’t. And tsumiki was always afraid of what he meant by that, but in the end, she let it slip her mind. After all, Toji hadn’t been by in ages. He probably wouldn’t come by at all.
And he didn’t. But others did. Two men she’s never met before are waiting outside their building one day, and when they see Megumi, they laugh. But the thing that Tsumiki can never get out of her mind later is that she swears they weren’t looking at Megumi directly. They were looking at his dogs.
Tsumiki basically tries to get Megumi and powerwalk past them, but they’re a lot bigger and a lot stronger and there’s nothing she can do, really. They have a brief conversation about whether they should take her too, before one decides that Toji only sold him his kid and to leave the other behind. This makes both of them try to run, but there’s nothing either of them can do to overpower the men, and the men say that “Naobito would go ballistic if they left the ten shadows behind” so they take Megumi and leave her.
They put Megumi in a car and shove Tsumiki to the curb outside of it, and she tried to hold onto his hand, she swears. She grabbed at the car door even when the car started moving, and she banged on the windows, and she watched as Megumi kicked and punched and screamed inside, until one of them hit him and he went still. She ends up falling and hitting her head when the car picks up speed, and when she wakes up again, the cars gone and she has no idea where it went.
And it becomes a foundational moment for who she is. I think she was just intensely lonely before Megumi and poured a lot of herself into this idea of a family together. Tsumikis never able to shake the moment of her being outside the car and Megumi being on the inside, and not being able to get into him. She can never again get what she felt in that moment out of her head.
She goes to the police and tells them that it’s her little brother, his dad sold him but she wants him back, and they’re like “…”. The issue is that apparently her mom can pick up the damn phone if the police call and she shows up, spins some lie about how her and the stepdad split up and he took the kid with him, they never adopted each others kids so it was within his rights, Tsumiki was taking the separation hard and acting out. She lies, basically, because toji hadn’t kept up his end of the deal and dropped in to check in (neither had she) and his kid wasn’t her responsibility, he could do what he wanted with him. She doesn’t want the police poking around the way she lives. Just let the kid go because he’s probably dead and not her real brother anyway.
Tsumiki refuses to give up on him. They were both kids who no one cared about but they cared about each other and that had to be enough. But she’s seven with no support and zero idea on how to find him. She starts skipping school to look for him in random streets, puts up flyers, can’t go outside without looking for him. She gets held back a year in school because of how much she skips and she can’t bring herself to care. She buys him gifts on every birthday and writes him letters she can’t post because she’s going to find her brother and she’s going to prove to him that she never once stopped looking for him. She just. She needs him to know that she never stopped looking for him. She needs to find him and be able to honestly tell him she never stopped trying.
One day her mom comes back in clothes she can’t afford and comes with movers they shouldn’t be able to afford and announces a move they definitely can’t afford. Tsumikis absolutely opposed to going because if her brother comes to look for her, she needs to be in their old apartment so he can find her. She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. They have mysterious new benefactors who are setting up a trust to take care of tsumiki with a very generous stipend for her mom but they have to move to Sendai as a stipulation of getting the money.
It’s not until the attorney who’s managing her trust hands her a set of glittery blue butterfly hairpins that tsumiki realizes her mom sold her brother a second time.
The thing is that tsumiki had this one cheap set of butterfly hairpins she’d always stopped to look at in the store when she took Megumi to go grocery shopping. Shed never buy them, because they couldn’t afford it, but it was the thing she wanted most openly in front of him. She was always secretly really insecure about her hair, because they were the kind of poor where bar soap was a luxury they could only sometimes afford and kids at school made fun of how her hair was dirty and frayed. Megumi was the only one who ever saw how badly she wanted those stupid hair clips. If they had to give her a set of butterfly hair clips, it’s because he demanded that they did.
It’s basically implied that the Zenin are the ones paying for her care and upkeep due to an unspecified deal they cut with Megumi, but when they approached her mom with it, they added the caveat that Tsumiki had to be moved to a new city entirely and there could be no forwarding address left anywhere.
The zenins stance on tsumiki is, effectively, that she’s a weakness Megumi needs to be weaned off of. They honestly assumed he’d just like, forget she ever existed and he. Did not do that. He actually pitched a total bitch fit. Tried to scale the compound walls. Bit multiple people including the clan leader. But he’s got the ten shadows, he’s heir to the clan, and he can’t be caught up on some random non sorcerer who isn’t even a Zenin. They end up agreeing to pay for her to live very comfortably if he starts cooperating more but they want to make sure that he can’t ever find her again if he does ever succeed in running away.
Tsumiki is at once full of hope and hopeless, because on one hand, the butterfly clips prove that Megumi still loves her and remembers her, at least in her mind. But at the same time, she’s being moved to Sendai and doesn’t know how they’ll ever find each other again. She doesn’t honestly know if they’d recognize each other if they saw each other again. She wears the butterfly clips every day, even when she gets too old for the style, because she’s more confident about her brother recognizing them than her.
The thing about tsumiki is that she doesn’t understand hate. She just doesn’t. Her mom and toji always got caught up in these perceived slights and revenge and never once let go of the past. They’d destroy themselves if it meant taking down the people they hated with them. She never wanted that. She wanted to live with the people she loved and she’d happily turn around and forget everything, all the pain, all the searching, if it just meant she could go back to being megumis sister.
This isn’t about hate. This is about that moment outside the car, where her brother was inside and she couldn’t get in to him. This is about how helpless and small she felt when they shoved her to the curb and ripped megumis hand out of hers. She needs to make sure that when she finds Megumi, she can take him home again. So she decides she needs to learn how to fight.
Itadori Yuuji has the constitution of an ox and the strength to match it, and he is known for getting in fights with bullies and trouncing them so thoroughly that it’s never a question of who wins when the fight starts. He’s insanely physically capable and can hold his own in a fight with ease. He’s also nice and kind and Tsumiki’s comfortable enough asking him to teach her how to throw a punch or two.
She is bad at it.
So fucking bad at it.
But she never gives up, and Itadori is nice enough to keep teaching her despite how embarrassingly horrible she is at it all. He always asks her why she wants to learn so bad, she doesn’t seem to like it all, and she never answers his question honestly.
In their last year of middle school, their class has a trip to Kyoto. She, Itadori, and the rest of their group walk into some random restaurant in the city and have barely sat down when someone comes inside, starts searching every booth in the restaurant while shouting Tsumikis name.
And oh. They could recognize each other after all.
She looked for Megumi in every crowd she was ever in, but she didn’t consider that he was doing the same. Or that he would see her first.
Her brother grew up without her seeing it. Hes older, dressed in strange, expensive clothes, has a slightly bruised up face and split lip, but his eyes are the same, and he looks like the brother she remembered.
But a lot more nervous than Megumi ever was. He was a tiny, stoic child who didn’t take any shit and never showed fear, even when there were monsters that only he could see. But he’s nervous when he tells her that she probably doesn’t recognize him or remember him, but when she was a lot younger, he—
Megumi. He’s her little brother. Of course she remembers him. She’s been looking for him everywhere.
Megumi didn’t smile much as a child, but he smiles at her then. He tells her he doesn’t have a lot of time and she tells him that they can leave out the back, and he never let her hold his hand as a child but he takes her hand so easily in that second. And just for a second, she’s his sister again, and it’s everything she wanted.
They never make it out the back.
Two men come in. Megumi calls one of them uncle, and he goes stiff and flat the second he sees him. His uncle apologizes for his nephew, tells everyone that he always makes scenes when they’re out in public, tells him to apologize to the nice people and leave. Megumi was mistaken.
Tsumiki tríes to keep ahold of his hand. Really, she does. She tries to tell people to call the police. But megumis “uncle” steps towards her and Megumi slams him into a table, and then suddenly Megumi’s the one insisting that they leave immediately. They can go. It’s fine. They’re leaving. She loses ahold of his hand.
She tries to follow, but the other man restrains her. She learns that she’s better at slamming plates into peoples heads than she is at punching, and at this point itadoris Friend In Danger Override has been triggered and he fucking tackles the dude, which gives tsumiki the clearing that she needs to chase outside after her brother. She gets out just in time to see him be pushed into a car, and she’s had years to think about the last time this happened and figure out what to do differently. She throws herself in front of the car and refuses to move.
See her entire stance is that she’ll sooner get run over and killed in the street than let them do this a second time, but she also can see Megumi trying to fucking punch the drivers head in from behind because he’s about to hit his sister. His uncles trying to restrain him, and just for a second, she sees his hands make the shape of the shadow puppets he used to show her as children. Something invisible slams her out of the way just as his uncle knocks him out.
She picks up a rock and tries to smash in the fucking window with it, and itadori has to pull her out of the way to keep her from getting her feet run over when the car finally tears out of the parking lot. She goes ballistic on him for stopping her because her brother was right there and she lost him again and she didn’t even get the license plate. He was right there.
The police basically do jack all again. There’s no license plate, no names they can follow up on, and they’re still half convinced this is a settled custody issue even though tsumiki insists her brother was sold by his dad and is very plainly getting hurt wherever he is. Itadori is now a devoted advocate of finding tsumikis brother and reuniting them, and both basically kind of end up becoming really close to the other? He’s taking care of himself and his grandpa alone, she’s alone while her moms awol again, and they both become the others support system.
At one point, there’s this random girl and boy who doesn’t speak who shows up to their school for indeterminate reasons. The girl is bored and twirling her glasses in one hand while the person in a suit that they’re with asks the principal questions, and when tsumikis eyes catch at the right angle, she sees an invisible monster clinging to a classmates back through them. She realizes it’s exactly what Megumi always talked about and still remembers that the people who took him could see his dogs. She corners the two others in a room and tries to demand information about the invisible monsters or see if they know her brother or the people who took him, and immediately gets blown off. The fight escalates until the girl tells him that actually, yeah. She knows tsumikis brother. He is a very special person to some very powerful people, and the only way she can ever help him is to tell him that she’s let go of him and that he needs to do the same to her. That’s the only message that the people who have him would ever let get through, and his life would get a lot better as soon as he got it.
The people who have him would give him anything in the world, except for her. He could be a lot happier and healthier than he is right now if he just agreed to stop trying to find tsumiki. If she really wants to help her brother, then she needs to let him go.
Tsumiki nails her in the back of the head with a milk carton when she tries to walk away. It sloshes out on her. Tsumiki did not intend this. She cannot admit that fact. There are some actions you just have to own when you do them. She tells the girl that he’s her brother and she’s never letting go of him. She’s going to find him. They can’t keep him from her forever. She doesn’t care how long it takes her.
For a second, tsumiki really thinks this girl is going to kick her ass, but she doesn’t. She wishes her luck and tells her she’ll need it, and it’s only later that tsumiki realizes she slipped the eyeglasses into her pocket.
And as it turns out, her brothers monsters were real all along.
There was a knife that toji left in the frame of his bed. Tsumiki confiscated it from Megumi as soon as he found it, and it was odd and strange and gave her bad feelings when she held it, and it can kill the things that gather on her back. When she follows Itadori to their local high school and joins the occult club in an attempt to find more people involved in this world of invisible monsters, she wears the eyeglasses and keeps the knife hidden in her bag.
It comes in handy when her senpais are trying to open this thing and suddenly there’s like a fucking portal opening and Actually Let’s Not Oh Too Late Let’s Run Let’s Fucking Run.
They run.
Meanwhile at the hospital Megumi found out in very quick succession that his sister has fucking sukunas finger and also that there’s a very over enthusiastic himbo who is the self appointed vice president of the Find Fushiguro Megumi And Bring Him Home Club who absolutely fucking refuses to leave his side. Sorry who are you. Why are you so enthusiastic about finding him. Megumi sort of was the one doing the finding there was a whole tracking situation and him waiting dramatically in the shadows like they just did it.
Anyway they run very very quickly to tsumikis school where she is dodging she is serpentining this is a fuckton of monsters oh holy fuck is that her brother?
The fight goes bad.
Tsumiki manages to follow itadori and her brother out at a much slower pace because she’s not a freak of nature like itadori and shows up just in time to see her brother shouting at itadori to not eat the fucking finger while itadori is absolutely trying to eat the fucking finger.
She chucks her shoe at him. The finger goes flying.
Then the monster eats it instead.
Tsumiki: :o
Yuuji: :o
Megumi: fuck
Now there’s a bigger monster and the fight goes even worse. There’s a lot of shouting. Itadori ends up with her knife. Then he ends up getting eaten and they’re down both a knife and itadori, who’s probably fucking dead. Then megumis insisting she run and she’s insisting he shut the fuck up because it’s sort of taken a decade to get this close to him again and she’s not fumbling the bag now because of a monster on the rampage. Have a sense of fucking priorities here.
Then itadori bursts out of the monsters stomach with the knife like the fucking Kool Aid Man and the fight is suddenly very over. Good job, team.
Gojo rolls up to his most stoic and eternally pissed off student having a dramatic and emotional reunion with his sister.
Yuuji, in a very bad whisper: no no so like she’s been looking for him for years but he saw her in the restaurant
Gojo: :o go on
Yuuji: and then he got caught by like, I don’t know, he said he was his uncle or something but the dude acted so weird and creepy and they put him in a car and Tsumiki tried to stop the car but they got away
Gojo: *gasp* what no
Yuuji: I know! Anyway then I start helping her look for him but we can’t find him anywhere until I’m at the hospital and he just walks up to me right?? And I’m like “dude I have been looking everywhere for you” and he’s like “I have no idea who you are, I’m here about that fucked up demon finger” and I’m like—
Megumi, really trying to have a moment here: we can both hear you
And megumis like “this is uh. My new teacher. I guess. I am his only student. And he is uh. Enthusiastic. Do not linger in conversation with him.”
Tsumiki is lingering. She needs fucking intel so he can’t disappear again. Where does he go to school and can she transfer there. It’s fucking wizard school? Will they take her even though she’s not a wizard? She cannot emphasize enough that she will study any fucking subject they want so that way she can be close with her brother again she does not care if it’s applicable to her education or life. She can throw things at people itadori tell the man tell him how enthusiastically she will throw things at monsters for their weird fucking wizard school.
Itadori: she hit me in the face with her shoe like five minutes ago
Tsumiki: see???
Megumi keeps trying to forbid her from wizard school but she’s technically the older sister so she has override rights. She will go to wizard school. How does she get wizard school to accept her.
And Gojos just really weird and off and keeps looking at Megumi and saying that he “didn’t know he had a sister.”
He really didn’t know that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with.
And then suddenly it’s like a switch is flipped and he’s back to his normal self telling them to leave everything to him, because he’ll make sure tsumiki can come back with them. And uh? Itadori? Weirdly physically capable kid who will apparently eat anything? Is he going to be good getting home after all this?
Itadori: actually if it’s not too much trouble can I go to wizard school too my grandpa sort of died half an hour ago and I don’t have plans for the rest of my life. Tsumikis kind of my best friend and I’d like to make sure she’s all good at wizard school. I’m a really good fighter and I stabbed the last monster so like can I come too because you know. Dead grandpa. No family or future to speak of. Haha.
Gojo:
Megumi:
Tsumiki, softly: dude
There’s more after they make it to jujutsu high but this is already really long so we leave it here
#ask games#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#continuing my streak of becoming obsessed with minor background characters#other highlights include itadori trying to platonically wingman for tsumiki with her brother (because it’s been like a decade and she knows#nothing about him and he knows nothing about her and she’s terrified he won’t like her once they get to know each other again) so that way#itadori can be the one asking the get to know you questions and tsumiki doesn’t have to admit out loud that she and her brother know nothing#about each other only the inherent problem is that her brother is actually unfairly pretty and has a sort of dry wit and is reserved but#when you get to know him he’s such a genuine dude and oh fuck oh no he’s in trouble this is his best friends long lost brother he has to be#violating some kind of code here. Kugisaki stop laughing at him this is a crisis.#gojo basically backed out of teenage fatherhood when he saw Megumi walking around with the divine dogs because it’s one thing to butt heads#with a major clan over an outcast member it’s another to do it for their most sacred technique#he thought that Megumi would be better taken care of than anyone else in the clan as the person with the ten shadows and that he’d probably#be better off than with an emotionally broken seventeen year old who works at least 28 days a month and has no idea how to raise a child#he never realized that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with who the Zenin separated him from#he tells himself he would have intervened if he had known because he’s been secretly worried and guilty about not taking in Megumi after all#since Maki showed up and said some worrying things about the clan heir and his standard of living and got the confirmation when he met#tsumiki and realized that he could have kept them together all those years ago and didnt. megumi and tsumiki kind of haunt him with lost#potential because not only could they have grown up a family but they could have grown up his family. megumi doesn’t know why satoru gojo#of all people is being so weirdly helpful and intense about about sponsoring tsumiki and keeping her close to him
66 notes · View notes
otterlyotterott · 1 month
Text
A cat sits alone in the cemetery
Inspired by @circuscountdowns's bishop death comic.
cw: grief, slow mental deterioration by way of immortality
Mortal minds were not meant to live forever. Not alone. 
It’s the middle of the night and they kneel before the grave. In one of their hands they grip a shovel that had been gifted to them a long time ago. At the base of the handle is an engraving that matches the stone crown on the gravestone.
There is a pendant on their chest, and it gleams gold in the moonlight.
They close their eyes, and breathe. Out slow, in slow.  
Camellias smell like sugar and dirt, like three thousand years of longing. The flowers on this grave are always fresh. always redder than blood, even in the winter, when every other plant on cult grounds wilts and turns bare and hibernates. The camellias on his grave are always there, always beautiful. One might call them blessed.
They are not afraid of dying—they are devoted to Death. They simply cannot die yet. Their Gods and leaders need them. The rest of the flock needs their wisdom. Someone who can speak to them as an equal, but who knows more and has seen more than the rest. 
Mortal minds were not meant to live forever, but they’re still doing pretty well. They lose days or weeks sometimes, but it’s not a problem yet. They suspect it’ll take another five thousand or so before their mind becomes a problem, assuming something else doesn’t kill them first.
So, they cannot leave. Not of their own accord. They have no need to.
They want to stay, to be content with the impossible life they live, but something is missing. They’ve been missing the sandpaper edges of his voice for the last few centuries. They’ve been yearning for the feel of his fur on their own—green and yellow, a sunbeam shining over a bed of moss.
He left them. They agreed to it. He was tired. They understood, or thought they did. They were with him for the rest of his life, and they loved him, and he died, in the end, like a mortal, but his heart was full, and when he was gone for good, they realized that their heart had gone with him. Stolen in a final prank.
At first they figured the pain would lie in the loss itself, but true moments of pain were every time they would forget that he was gone. It was every time they would look beside them, to whisper to him something that he would yell aloud to embarrass them both, only to find no one was there. It was every odd hole in the ground that they would feel the urge to crouch down beside, to talk to him, coax him out, before someone would ask what they were doing and they would remember that he wasn't there. It was every time they remembered that holes in the ground were for plants, and not Gods.
He would be severely annoyed to see them do anything but smile, but it was getting hard to smile without him.
And, and he would want this, wouldn’t he? Even if getting woken back up annoyed him at first.
His After was probably boring without them.
He'd think it was funny.
He’d grin impossibly wide and say, “ABOUT TIME YOU DID SOMETHING SELFISH.”
They stare at the old stone. The crown of the God of Chaos stares back. It's only another life. He won't even have to put on a necklace this time around.
Mortal minds were not meant to live forever. Not alone.
So, they stand and lurch forward. They take the shovel into both their hands, and they drive it like a spear into the dirt, into Leshy's grave. 
They don’t know how the ritual works, but they know they’ll need his bones for it. They'll figure the rest out later.
17 notes · View notes
coldshrugs · 4 months
Text
landmark
pairing: io laithe / estinien varlineau word count: 4.6k summary: [modern au] estinien meets io in a support group for grieving youths. set five years before this.
Tumblr media
Estinien is early—the first one in the room, as usual, even before Counselor Miounne arrives. It’s part of the ritual.
Hit the lights and dim them to three-quarters. Turn on the fancy instant coffeemaker, make sure there are enough of those little fucking pods for everyone. Sugar and powdered creamer too. Music on, some unobtrusive classical harp thing he doesn’t care for. Then he arranges nine chairs in a loose circle and, selfishly, puts the least squeaky one in his spot across from the window.
It helps, to do these tasks before their sessions. The work allows him to mentally prepare for this, because when is it easy to circle death’s drain for two hours?
With the space set up, he slings his backpack over his claimed chair and waits.
They stroll into the meeting in ones and twos. They make their coffee, ask about their weeks (in the casual way, where you’re supposed to answer “fine” even if it wasn’t; the real answers will come later). Eventually, Miounne enters and everyone finds a seat.
He isn’t great with names, but he knows a few by now. Lyse, the one with the sister and dad, and one of the youngest members. Leofard, the one with the mom. He knows all the faces though, and the one hovering by the door is new.
She’s tall, but slouching a little, crossing her arms like she’s scared to take up space or trying not to be seen. Inky blue hair is piled into a loose bun on top of her head, with long wavy strands hanging around her freckled face. Her eyes are bloodshot, almost too focused. She must be new.
As he watches her, her gaze cuts over to him—
“Estinien,” Miounne calls. His attention snaps from the girl at the door to his counselor. “Another chair, please?”
“Yeah, sure.” He quickly grabs one from the nearest stack, looking for a decent place to put it. Two kids slide their chairs apart so he can fit this one between them. Right in front of the window.
He sits again and Miounne claps softly, still standing in the center of the circle.
“Hi friends,” she says, more gently than usual. “It’s been a while since we’ve welcomed a new face, hasn’t it? I know we’re all capable of extending warmth and patience to those who need it, so let’s be mindful of that as we welcome Io to our group, okay?”
She gestures to the door, beckoning the new girl in. Io. He’ll try to remember that. He wonders who she lost and when, and tries not to wonder how. The how never matters anyway. Gone is gone.
“Welcome to Haven: Youth Grief Counseling, Io. Take a seat, just there, sweetie.”
Io sits down and Estinien regrets this seating arrangement; he’s lost the window view. She glances around the circle, her polite smile is a tight line. Her eyes flick to him once more, then back to the floor.
Miounne sits too. She claps one more time and they begin.
Tumblr media
Next week starts the same. His chin is in his hand, elbow propped on his bouncing knee as they arrive. Lyse. Leofard. New girl.
Leo takes his seat next to Estinien and leans over. Oh god.
“Estinien,” he whispers loud enough for almost everyone to hear. His eyes flash to the new girl making coffee by herself. “I found out what her deal is.”
“Happy for you,” Estinien says. That’s not his business. But he stupidly glances at Leo anyway.
“She’s like you. Total wipeout—we’re talking mom, dad, two younger siblings—about a year ago. Just now going back to school, apparently.” He looks at her again, taking a bold head-to-toe survey, and Estinien follows. She’s tall, willowy, and there’s something disciplined about her posture; the set of her shoulders feels intentional even in her depression slump. Her ears tilt, and he turns back around. Leofard is still staring. “Wonder what else she’s ready to get back into…” He winks at Estinien.
“Probably best to leave her alone. She’s not here to find a date,” he says.
Leo huffs in fake offense. “Well, neither am I but if it happens, it happens.”
Tumblr media
A month passes, one week bleeding into the next, and Estinien is always early to Haven. But someone is earlier today, of all days. The door is open, the light is on, and the chairs are in their circle.
Io is waiting.
He remembers her name now. It’s easy to remember the girl who hasn’t said anything in five sessions. It’s unusual, but understandable; they’re all strangers to her, and if what Leofard said is true, he’s impressed she’s showing up at all.
Estinien recalls what his loss was like a fresh wound—the anger throbbing in his chest, sobbing his voice raw for days, not eating or sleeping. He wouldn’t speak to Alberic at first, either. It feels so childish to him now. But looking at her… those feelings echo in his chest, and he is sharply reminded that grief doesn’t shrink.
He shoots her a courtesy smile as he starts the coffeemaker and CD player.
“Sorry about the shitty music,” he says as the sound of softly plucked strings fills the space. When he looks over, she’s staring at the floor again, eyes wide—that awkward “what the fuck” face—and his stomach flips. He said something wrong.
Cool.
He takes his seat across from her, trying to bury the urge to wait on the bench just outside the room when his chair squeaks. Great. He takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes. To deal or not to deal? He is, unfortunately, too big for the noise to keep from happening and he can’t be annoyed for the next two hours. What does he care if she thinks he looks crazy?
He stands up and jostles the next chair, which is better but not great. He tries the next. Even worse.
“What are you doing?”
The rasp of her voice is so quiet that he doesn’t fully catch the words.
He looks up from the red plastic in his hand. “What?”
She looks like she wishes she’d not asked at all, rubbing a hand anxiously over her arm. She sighs. “With the chairs. What are you doing with the chairs?”
“Trying to find one that doesn’t squeak. I usually—”
“I took that one.” She glances up at him, grimacing, but there’s a light in her eyes. It’s the least miserable he’s seen her so far. She thinks this is funny. “Sorry. You can have it back.”
He puts a hand up when she stands. He’s not taking the chair from the sad girl. “Uh… no. No, you can take it. There’s probably another one that isn’t annoying as fuck, I’ll find it.”
“Then let me help you. It’s only fair, since I disturbed your whole—” she gestures slowly around the meeting room— “process.” God, her voice is in shreds.
He can’t say no when this is the first sign of life she’s shown in over a month, at least here. He nods. “Sure, if you want.”
They go through the chairs in the circle, then the others neatly stacked in the corner. They don’t really talk, besides simple directions: “I tried that one already,” and “will you pass me another,” and “holy shit, that’s the worst one yet.” Estinien is keenly aware of her shifting around him, slowly at first, and then with less hesitation. Finally, they find a chair that doesn’t creak when he sits or moves. It goes in his spot and they clean up the rest.
“Hey,” Io says, and the word is conspiratorial. She catches his gaze, and something about hers makes him feel like glass, like they almost know each other. Like he’s seen her before, a blurry smile littering the backgrounds of photos in the album he managed to salvage, only viewed in profile or half out of frame, obscured by the barely remembered vacation or birthday party in the foreground. He swallows as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a black marker. “Should we make sure we never lose these again?”
“Vandalism? In our therapy group?” He squints, shoving down the fondness she’s conjured in just a few minutes. “Do you even need to ask?”
She laughs, or tries to. It comes out weak and cracked as she crosses to his side of the circle and kneels beside him. She pops the cap off the marker. “It’s Estinien, right?”
He nods, “Yeah.”
“I’m Io. The other total wipeout”—she air quotes Leo’s label—“but you already knew that.” She scribbles a small “E” on the side of the chair then heads back over to her own, where she writes an “I.”
It’s almost time for group to start.
“Are you gonna talk about it today?” Estinien asks. It’s just them sitting directly across from one another, surrounded by empty chairs.
Io shrugs, and her body seems to fold in on itself. Making herself small again. “I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about it at all. I’ll try?”
“You don’t have to. But it does help, in a weird way.”
The others drift in at the usual leisurely pace, Miounne claps, and they begin.
First question: “How are you feeling today?”
They go in a circle starting at Miounne’s left. Some answers are simple, like Leo’s.
“Pretty good. I started planning a trip for fall break, somewhere I think Mom would’ve liked to see. I’m looking forward to telling you guys about the trouble I got into when I’m back.”
Sometimes there’s a follow-up, sometimes Miounne will let it hang. Estinien has no idea how she gauges that, but it feels right.
He’s third to answer.
How does he feel today? He picks at the frayed edge of a hole in his jeans.
“I’m kind of anxious today. I declared my major this year so everything feels… more real, I guess. I’m trying to study for a couple of tests next week but I read the page and it may as well be blank. Nothing sticks. I keep worrying I might…” He pauses. This is normally when he’d look out the window; when something heavy rises to the surface, it’s easier to look outside, but for five weeks, Io has been sitting in front of him. The broken habit means he shares less. But how can he encourage her if he can’t bend a little himself?
He looks up, and there she is—dark, curious, and strangely calming, her eyes burn a hole right through him. Behind her, the trees in the courtyard are starting to take on shades of autumn, gold and bronze intensified by the sunlight filtering through the leaves. It’s a view he can deal with. Io gives him an almost imperceptible nod.
“I worry I might let them down. It feels stupid to say out loud,” he laughs with a short snorted breath. “It’s always in the back of my mind though: what would they think of me now? What does this action mean to them? I guess it doesn’t mean anything and I should just study for the damn test so I can actually be someone they’d be proud of. Anyway… yeah, I’m anxious today.”
Miounne reclines a little in her seat. “Have you tried anything to help you study, to shift that focus on what your family would think towards something more current?”
He nods, looking from Io to Miounne. “Yeah, uh, I’ve asked a friend to join me. We’re going to try that today. He’s been pretty supportive since learning about all of this, and his grades are better than mine anyway. And I try to think about Alberic, my former guardian, I guess. I think he’d be proud of me no matter how I end up, so that helps.”
“Excellent,” she says, looking around at the others before spelling out the lesson. “Leaning on others is a great way to remind ourselves how loved and valued we are, especially when lower moods may make you want to isolate. Re-establishing bonds of friendship, or building new ones, helps bring your focus to just how strong your current support system is, or where it’s lacking. I think you’re doing that beautifully, Estinien. Thank you.”
He exhales, shying away from the praise and returning his focus to his frayed hem. Maybe that’s enough sharing for this week.
They keep going. Io is second to last, and though everyone expects silence by now, Miounne asks anyway.
“How are you feeling today, Io? Anything you want to share?”
He looks up again—will she actually say something today?—and she’s focused on him now. The room is empty again, except for the two of them in the empty circle. Fresh sharpie smell rising from their initials on the chairs.
“Hey,” she says, raising her hand in a little wave. “Sorry for being weird. I’m trying.”
“No such thing as weird in this room,” Miounne offers.
Io doesn’t look away from Estinien. She brushes a stray lock of hair from her eyes, and the tiniest hint of a smile pulls at the corners of her lips.
“I’m feeling okay today. As okay as I think I can feel right now, anyway. I cleaned my apartment this morning. And I’ve been working really hard on a piece for my school’s symphony showcase before fall break. I even invited some friends I haven’t talked to in… too long.”
“That’s wonderful, Io!” Miounne leans forward, elbows on her knees. “I read you major in music at RSU? What do you play?”
Her eyes fall to her lap. “Pedal harp. Mostly classical, but sometimes I make arrangements of new music, for fun.”
Shit.
“Thank you for sharing today, Io. We appreciate the opportunity to get to know you.” Miounne moves on, and so does everyone else.
But Estinien is stuck on this one thing. His stomach ties itself in a knot. Without knowing, he insulted her, and then she helped him with the stupid chairs… And it doesn’t even matter, because she doesn’t know him. They don’t go to the same university, and the only things they have in common are their dead families and the two hours a week they spend in this room. He has no notions of being friends with her, and definitely nothing like what Leofard has in mind. Still, he can’t stop it gnawing at him.
The session wraps and he approaches Io before she leaves.
“Io?”
She turns to him, for once standing at her full height, and they’re almost eye to eye. The almost-smile is back, and that gnaws at him too. “Hey, thanks for the nudge earlier. You were right.”
“Yeah, well,” He fidgets with his keys. “I’m sorry for calling the music shitty. I didn’t know harp was, like, a thing for you.”
Her laugh is stronger than before. “Wait, are you serious? You had no way to know that, and I’m not the music police. You don’t have to like it.”
He shrugs. “Still not a cool thing to say. I mean, I only really know it from this place anyway.”
“Would you… want to come to my concert?” She asks slowly, then shakes her head. “That might be dumb. That’s all the way across town and we basically just met. I—”
A strand of hair falls into her eyes and his fingers twitch as she tucks it in with the rest. She’s still rambling when the words rush out of him before he considers them.
“Yeah, I’ll come.”
“—Oh.” Wide, surprised eyes blink up at him. “Okay, great! You can bring a friend, or a date, or whatever. I’ll bring tickets for you next week?”
Estinien pockets his keys. “Sure. I’ll see you then.” Despite his clumsy apology to someone who may as well be a stranger, as Io leaves, he feels the same wave of nostalgia from earlier. Some things are true no matter how you fight them.
Tumblr media
Estinien enters his dorm with two tickets in hand. Keys in the bowl by the door, backpack under his desk, shoes in the closet. He falls onto his bed with a little bounce, holding the shiny slips of paper up to the light.
“What took you so long?” Aymeric asks from his bed on the other side of the room. He’s reclined on a few pillows, and it looks like he’s alternating between two books. “I’m starving.”
Estinien shrugs. “Got caught up talking to someone after the session. She invited me to her concert in a couple of weeks. Wanna go?” He holds the tickets out for Aymeric’s inspection.
He looks them over, brows raising in slight surprise. “You actually want to go to this?”
“I don’t know, but I said I would.” Estinien sits up. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“Is she cute, whoever she is?” Aymeric lazily passes the tickets across the canyon between their beds. “Can’t see why you’d want to go otherwise. I mean, I definitely want to go, it sounds kind of fancy, but you… Hmm.”
“Shut up,” he laughs. There are other reasons, but the most important is making amends for being a dick, even by accident. “Her name is Io. She’s nice, seems cool now that she talks. She’s new to the group.”
“We can go, but you didn’t answer the question.”
“Look, it’s nothing like that. She even said I could bring a date.” Estinien places the tickets in his nightstand drawer, regretting the decision to ask for company.
Aymeric shakes his head and returns to his reading. “You poor, sad muppet. Order a pizza already.”
Tumblr media
They stand outside the theater in their untucked button-downs over jeans. Estinien hasn’t been on this campus before, but Aymeric has; thanks to an on-again-off-again thing with some miqo’te guy who goes here, they were able to find the place quickly.
“Are we meeting her before the show?” Ayms asks, scanning the crowd. He’s been eager to learn more about Io in the days leading up to this.
“Nah, she’s backstage, but said I could text her after. It’ll be quick. She has other friends coming, so I’ll just say hi.” It sounds simple enough, but anxiety prickles across his chest.
Inside, they find their seats in the front row of the balcony—a surprisingly nice view.
“Not bad,” Aymeric admires the architecture, comparing things to this venue to the one on their campus, but Estinien hasn’t been in that one either. He only catches half of what’s said, eyes focused on the stage. Aymeric nudges him with an elbow. “She’s the harpist, right?”
He nods. “Yeah, she has a solo at some point.” He rubs his hands on his jeans, sitting forward in the seat a little as the lights go down and the musicians file onto the stage.
“Relax,” Aymeric whispers. “You might enjoy it if you chill out. Look, there she is.”
He points through the dark as she approaches the harp in the back center, almost directly in front of him, and he’s reminded of how they sit during Haven. She’s wearing long black boots and a short dress of the same color, with loose sleeves he can see through. Her hair is down tonight, but pulled back from her face. She’s pretty, even from here.
“Whoa.” Aymeric sits forward too. “You couldn’t just say she’s cute, could you?”
“I told you, it’s not like that. She just lost her fami—”
“SHH!”
Aymeric’s smile is infuriating, cradling his chin in his hand. Estinien shoots him a dark look, then passes a hand over his face as anxiety twists into hot embarrassment, thankful for the darkness as the music starts.
And it’s the music he can’t look away from. There’s more movement in it than he expected, a rawness the CDs or digital streams just don’t portray. Everyone is working to build part of a whole, and each of them can be heard in the larger sound.
Then there is Io.
Admittedly, his experience is limited, but he’s never seen her like this. Every motion is fluid, yet deliberate, even while supporting such a heavy-looking instrument. She is focused, on her hands, on the sheet music in front of her, on the others playing around her. And she looks… serene. Happy.
The tempo slows during the fourth song and a godlight falls on her, a little spot of brightness that eclipses all else. Her solo. Estinien holds his breath.
She builds suspense with sound, then her hands move faster than he can make sense of. Sometimes she places a hand flat against the strings to still them, and that is what hollows out his chest. The elegant control in what he thought was so simple. This is nothing like the CD in their support group. He could listen to this forever.
The rest of the orchestra gradually rises around her until the lights on them lift once more. He might be disappointed if the whole thing didn’t work so well. They bring the song to a close, then stand to take their bows while the audience applauds.
Estinien pulls out his phone. He’s supposed to text her, but how does he follow that? Aymeric hovers over his shoulder, watching him type and delete the same sentence three times.
“What do I say?”
Aymeric rests his chin on Estinien’s shoulder, loudly um-ing and ah-ing, and he almost regrets asking. “How about this: ‘Loved the show. I’m still around if you want to meet up.’ Simple, right? And contextually open-ended, in the unlikely case you get a grip.”
He rolls his eyes but types and sends it while she’s still on stage. It’s several minutes after the musicians exit the stage that he gets a reply: “I’m so glad you came! Take the exit to the left and the door immediately to the right, and tell the attendant you’re with me, see you soon!”
They follow the instructions to a cramped backstage area. People are carrying flowers. Should he have brought flowers? Too late now.
They wander the crowd aimlessly, and his anxiety creeps in with each passing second. There’s a touch at his elbow, light but guiding.
“Estinien,” Io’s voice. Her quiet rasp is familiar to him now, and she sounds far more healthy than when she first spoke to him. He turns to her, and she beams. “Thank you for coming!”
He isn’t sure what to do, and he has no token of congratulations to give her. “Thanks for inviting me. Inviting us, I guess.”
“Us?” Io looks over his shoulder, where Aymeric is practically buzzing as he waits to be introduced.
Ayms extends a hand, “Io, it’s wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you—”
“He asked constantly. I didn’t want to tell him anything—”
“—and it’s nice being able to put a beautiful face to a beautiful name.”
Estinien covers his face with his hands. “A merciful god would’ve killed me by now.”
Io accepts the handshake, “And you are?”
“Aymeric. Estinien’s roommate and, because he won’t say it out loud, his best friend.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Aymeric. I’m glad you guys came; I know it’s a big ask and it’s not everyone’s taste but—”
“It was amazing,” Estinien’s mouth moves before his mind catches up, something that seems to be common in her presence. Io and Aymeric stare at him, brows lifting in unison. Her neck has flushed red. “I just… didn’t know what to expect, but it was impressive.”
Io’s half-smile, the one he’s learning she wears when she’s nervous, lifts the corner of her lips. “Thank you. I wasn’t trying to change your life or anything. I just thought it’d be cool to show you what I do, and maybe get to know you better too. You know, the “bonds” Miounne is always talking about.”
“Io!” A group of people call out from several feet behind them, waving her over.
She waves to them, then turns to him with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, those are my friends. I’ll be right back.” He watches as she walks away and they sweep her into a noisy group hug.
“Dude,” Aymeric whispers, “Should I go? Do you want me to go?”
“Go where?”
“Go! Home!”
Estinien glances back at Io, and her friends are definitely looking over at them. “And leave me with them?”
Ayms grimaces, balling his hands into fists. “With her!”
Estinien shakes his head. “No, just give me a second and we can both go.” Aymeric silently fakes a scream.
Io returns, wringing her hands as she says, “We’re going to grab some dinner from a place nearby; you guys are welcome to join us.”
He hesitates. Maybe Aymeric is right and he should stay, or maybe assuming someone working through her grief wants anything more than a friendship with him is not in either of their best interests. “We should probably get back. We’ve both got to pack before break starts.”
Io’s expression dampens. “Oh, okay. Well, thanks again for coming out. I’ll see you at Haven in a couple of weeks?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “See you there.”
Tumblr media
Estinien turns on the light and adjusts the dimmer. It’s been a while since he’s been first, but Io shows up right after him.
“Hey,” she says quietly, heading to the CD player while he starts the coffee maker. The ritual is no longer just his.
“Hi.” He’s rummaging through the cabinet beneath the coffee station, gathering the supplies, when she starts the music. It’s not their usual instrumental album… “This is from your concert?”
She starts on the chairs. “I hope it’s okay. I emailed Miounne when I got the recording to ask if I could bring it in, to show everyone what I’ve been working on and that I’m kind of normal outside of all this. But I can switch it back, if you’d rather keep the routine.”
His eyes fall closed and he is back in the theater, watching her play in a beam of light, arms unfurling around the strings like flightless wings and he doesn’t think “normal” is a good description of her at all.
“Estinien?”
He opens his eyes.
“No, this is fine.” He stands and arranges the little coffee bar. “I meant it. I thought it was great.”
“That’s a relief,” she laughs a little. “I mean, I believed you, but…”
He frees the rest of the chairs from their neat stack. Their initials are on the last two. He passes her the “I.”
“But what?”
Io crosses her arms behind her chair, bites her lip. The early evening sun illuminates the courtyard, and as it streams through the window little specks of its light catch in her hair. “I don’t know, I always feel nervous trying to make friends.”
Ah.
It’s like he thought. He can tell Aymeric once and for all there’s nothing else going on here. Which is fine, of course. It’s fine. He wants to learn more about her, and let her get to know him too. He doesn’t have a ton, but he thinks he’s a decent friend. He could be a good friend to Io.
“Yeah,” he says, ignoring the heavy, unnameable thing settling in his stomach. “Me too. But it kind of feels like we’re already friends, right? So don’t worry about it too much.”
Io’s smile pokes through her bitten lip as she takes her seat across from him, the sun at her back. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
She is still smiling when everyone joins them, when the session begins, when Miounne asks how she’s feeling today, and when she bids him goodbye with the promise to text him this week. He knows because he can’t help but look at her.
Some things are true no matter how you fight them.
16 notes · View notes
gregoftom · 1 year
Text
GOD i am trying so fucking hard not to read into the fact that tom repressed the shit out of how he actually felt when he learned he probably won’t go to jail and then when he went to greg, he could. express it. you know. he could be himself. i really hate so much what i read into it BECAUSE I SHOULDN’T BC I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS LATER AND I SHOULDN’T TRUST THIS SHIT BUT ARHJARHA HOW CAN I NOT WHEN HE’S REPRESSED ASF PER USUAL BUT THE MOMENT HE GOES TO GREG OR IS ALONE WITH GREG HE EXPRESSES HIMSELF FULLY, HIS RAGE, PAIN, [MANIC] HAPPINESS, AFFECTION. I HATE THIS SO MUCH. AND GREG IS IN THE CORNER COWERING BC HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THAT THE REASON TOM ACTS THIS WAY AROUND HIM IS. no. i Refuse to read That into it. but yall get what i’m saying right. 
AND THEN THIS
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
are you fucking kidding me. like was that really fucking necessary.
#tomgreg#god i hate thi IS S how#im gonan. i gotta sit down for a sec i'm jahving a jhemmhorrage#hemorrage#mhem?? you know that ththing#oh yall are prob expecting a novel in the tags wel like i said in the post. i think it's interesting that tom is like. Himself. around greg.#when they're alone. he can be like. maybe his core self? i don't know. maybe it's some kind of. parallel.#to how he tries to be a roy. which can be compared to say. roman. who was confirmed to have had the concept.#of being gay. like. they put on a show right. like roman's true self is he'd die for his family. but he won't say it outright.#and in fact hates being called out on it/makes excuses for it.#you see where i'm going with this. they pretend to be. yk. something they're not.#but around greg HES SO EXPLOSIVE and SO AFFECTIONATE and so PLAYFUL. like i said. he's like a schoolboy.#we get glimpses of that with shiv but she doesn't seem to like it so he learns to repress it.#when greg refused his little wrestle to the ground [by the way. ok gayass] he got snippy and took it as a rejection.#but it won't stop him from continuing to be himself around greg bc there's something about him i guess.#like obviously i'm trying really hard to think rationally about this bc i don't know if i can trust the writers with something like this.#and i'm getting conflicting thoughts and feelings and ideas from stuff i've seen about season 4.#but like. yeah. i don't know. it's interesting to me. this scene was interesting to me.#i'm not gonna cap the whole tom going koo koo bananas bc well he flipped a desk and beat his chest unga bunga. but. yeah.#ALSO GREG ASKNG ''IS IT REAL'' BEFORE TOM KISSES HIM GOD SEND THE FLOOD#DONT FUCKING DO THAT#anYWYA IM GOING MY BLOOD PRESSURE IS RISING little lord fuckleroy has left the call#txt#SORRY SORRY ALSO tom calling them the waystar two hAHHhhhhhfdne wowowoewoewd what is he your fucking boywife. fuck outta here
60 notes · View notes
sysig · 5 days
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Giving nicknames, testing boundaries (Patreon)
#Doodles#SCII#Helix#Max Vyer#Dexter Favin#How /did/ Max come to like him so much in just two years? I have my theories :3#More Teen Max!! Nothing has changed I just continue to love him lol#Two years is a pretty quick turnaround for such a stubborn kid - though I guess for a child two years can be a long time haha#Went from just hating Dex's guts of trying to drive him away and make him quit and hating being kept on a short leash#Does make me wonder how much of him kissing him was an impulse - I mean obviously lol but how much was genuine attraction!#Certainly seemed like a lot :0 Even upon being rejected he couldn't give it up! Still took him another several years to act again tho haha#I mean - in the text lol who knows what they got up to in the time skips hehe ♪#AnyWay lol - them getting used to each other of slowly working into tolerating each other#Max said something in one of his wake-ups that as I read it implied Dexter was something of a polyglot?? Which - love that ♪#If not conversationally-fluent then at tourist-fluent y'know I think that's great <3#Which got me thinking about other languages and insults and curses haha#I like the idea of Dex only really strong-arming Max about Actual deviant behaviour - something that puts himself or others at risk#Harmless little things like any teen would do - like name-calling! Haha - just get a kind of neutral ''Huh''#As well as interest <3 Not an outright dismissal not a lecture but at least the appearance of investment!#Considering Max's home life I can't imagine he had all that many people genuinely (or fake) interested in his shenanigans#All about suppressing the symptoms more than rooting out the cause it's amazing what just showing a little interest can do#I also just think it's cute of Max getting away with something silly and harmless but totally biting and mean! <in his mind haha#Silly lad <3
7 notes · View notes
chilled-ice-cubes · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
one of my favourite small bits of makima characterisation is the opening of the katana arc which starts with makima remembering the drinking session the devil hunter gang had
Tumblr media Tumblr media
and ends with her almost-disappointed but unsurprised when kurose and tendou quickly say that they won’t transfer to the special division. what she says out loud is that they’ll be missing out on the restaurants tokyo has. fujimoto shows bonding through the sharing of food (denji sharing food with pochita, aki cooking for power and denji) and it feels like he’s underlining how makima can’t connect with others - the two devil hunters who witness her abilities immediately rush to go back to kyoto.
Tumblr media
kurose and tendou also reiterate the division between makima and the other devil hunters - even in a dangerous profession where people die quickly, makima is still not part of the group. in part two, denji as chainsaw man is in makima’s position - he’s feared, respected and hero worshiped but its precisely because of this that he feels unsatisfied. can you really connect properly when you’re a higher existence, a “hero” to others? hierarchies naturally create isolation. fujimoto explores isolation both through ostracisation as well as worship.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
yuko is ostracised and seeks to become like chainsaw man so she will be loved but ends up having to leave behind asa, the one friend she’s made. meanwhile denji tries to reveal his true identity so that someone can see him as denji and not as chainsaw man and still love him.
102 notes · View notes
caramelmochacrow · 3 months
Text
um. *taps mic* hello other yukaeso fans... uhhhh im planning a yukaeso week and i kind of need help with what sounds good and planning things (please help me...)
(put a cut bc im talking a lot and dont want to disturb people)
i originally wanted it to go from when peaky stormy story began (stormy link) and the event went from september 17 to 26. problem is the 17th is in the middle of the week. i could make it start from the 15th to the 21st or the 22nd to the 28th but they only stay in the event's runthrough for only five days.
another thing i could do (similar to naru//mitsu or sayo//tsugu) is use yuka and esora's full names with numeric substitution so i can figure out the first day of the week (here we go--)
9 in japan is sometimes pronounced as 'kyu' so it can make up the 'yu' of yuka. 5 in japan is pronounced as 'go' or 'ka' sometimes as well so yuka's name would be '95' or 'kyu-ka'. for her last name, it would be 335 or 'sa-sa-go'.
the english transliteration of 8 in japanese is 'eito', the closest thing i can get to 'eso'. 6 covers the other part of esora since it can also be read as ra. so her first name would be 86 or 'eito-ra'. (<- im stretching this i think) for her last name it would be 43 or 'shi-mittsu'. (shimizu)
so with all of these facts, the week can start at 9/8 (kyu-eito or yu[ka]eso) or 8/9 (eito-kyu or esoyu[ka]) if you want to go for their first names. for their last names (i think going for this is a bad idea to be honest with you) it would start at '3/4' (sa[sa]-shi), 4/5 (shi-go) or 3/3 (sa[sa]-mittsu).
the only dates that go on sunday is 9/8 and 3/3. if you want to go for monday, it would be 3/4 only. so, to me, it would be best to start at one of the sunday ones.
another fact i'd like to tell is the fact that esora's birthday is 9/9 so one of the prompts could be 'birthday'. (problem tho is that idk what to prompt i would pair it with)
also, speaking of prompts, ive already decided a 2 prompt pairs. (haven't decided what days they'll be or if theyre good)
summer and winter (summer bc of how summer-y these two are and winter bc of christmas being the important day of peaky)
ao to natsu and fuwafuwa time (solo covers about love, the first one being someone deciding to seek out the love they want while the other is them not knowing how to go about getting their love)
im not sure what. uh. stuff to pair up and also what would be good prompts (im not good at that....) so. yeah. that's all ive got.
the last day, i know, is gonna be a free day. so. i p much dont know what to do. im stuck. pls help.
8 notes · View notes
saintchaser · 1 year
Text
when i die, don't look for me in the sunsets...
sirius — look for me in the sky. i know it's a cliché, but there is where you will see me. am i scared of death? no, of course not. i am endless, i am invincible, i am bright; i am the brightest star, actually. i will reach out for you, and i will light up your way. you will find me.
james — look for me in the sky. you will see the sun, bright and scorching. i will warm you up when you will grieve for me, and i will bring closure to you. i might be gone, but i haven't left you alone. i am here, still. and i always will be.
remus — look for me in the river. see the stones, smooth and cold. look at the water, running. its way is freedom, isn't it? it's all ended; it's over. however, that does not mean you can't go on. fall in love. live. without me. we'll meet again soon.
peter — look for me somewhere quiet. there is beauty in quiet, although some people can't see it. it's peaceful. come sit with me, won't you? death is imminent, of course; however, why won't we make the most of life?
dorcas — look for me in my lover's arms. i have been deceived so many times, death does not scare me anymore; it's the last bit of closure i have. look for me in the little things, where i hide. many do not see me, yet i am here. you just have to look for me.
lily — look for me at home. everything has a start and an ending, and i am always coming back. look for me where i can be myself, where everything is warm. look for me at home. maybe, one day, it will be ours to share.
mary — look for me somewhere bright. the sky, maybe. or somewhere colourful. it helps me forget how alone i am, really. i forget about the loneliness that aches in me. someday, i wish you'd search for me. for now, grieve.
marlene — look for me somewhere loud. it helps me forget. scared of death? of course, so i don't think of it. i let myself be washed away with adrenaline, pumped through my brain, and with a moment of pleasure. life is short, after all.
42 notes · View notes