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distort-opia · 2 years

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I love your Batman meta related posts, and I enjoy reading through them. I’ve noticed that a common theme in some of them revolve around Bruce being an abusive parent. I’m sorry if this is too much to ask, but may you please go over some examples of Bruce being abusive to the batfam, and how it’s not an OOC characterization for him?

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy my occasional Batman thoughts. Indeed, I've expressed more than once that I do believe Bruce is an abusive parent -- though I feel like others before me have articulated the reasons for it far better. Which is why I will offer some of my opinions below, but I will also redirect you to a couple of metas on this topic I myself agreed with and found interesting, which contain examples of Bruce being abusive (with comic receipts a lot of the time): here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here... look, pretty much go through the “Batman’s C+ parenting” tag of bitimdrake’s blog :)) Many bingeable good metas to read.

I think it's very important to note that abuse is a heavy and complicated topic. People perceive and deal with abuse very differently; and people become abusers in different ways. You can certainly encounter individuals who maliciously and intentionally use their power or privilege to abuse others, but more often than not it's not that simple. It's not that black and white. Sometimes, a parent might genuinely love their child, but they might have no idea how to express themselves healthily or raise them, and they might end up doing a lot of emotional damage to their child because of it. And in my opinion, Bruce falls in the second category. He doesn't intend to harm his children, emotionally or physically -- but he ends up doing it nonetheless, again and again. That’s not to say Bruce can’t be a good parent. He has been; he’s supported the Family, he’s praised them, he’s shown them he cares, and I’m pretty sure he’d die for them if he needed to. And that’s the most interesting part: he’s a realistic parent with abusive tendencies. He’s human. He’s fallible. He loves his children and he tries his best, and he’s learned a lot over time; but he also makes a lot of mistakes.

I’ll go into more detail on each type of abusive behavior he displays (so warning for that), and why I don’t consider it OOC, under the cut. Because I was like ‘haha I’ll just link some metas’ but then I got long again. Sigh.

It's a joke that's made a lot, how Batman is supposed to be a loner, and yet he has one of the most extensive Families and ally circles in DC. But once you get to know the character, it's not at all a contradiction. Bruce lost his family, and that trauma shaped him. It's the basis of Batman. It makes perfect sense that he'd yearn to create one of his own... but the problem is, his desire for connection is many times outweighed by his absolute, paralyzing fear of it. If he has a family, if he has people he cares about, then he can lose them. Bruce is terrified of loss, and this fear is one of the main roots of his pattern of emotional abuse.

This pattern tends to manifest in three forms. The first is neglect. He distances himself from his children, treats them as soldiers in his neverending war on crime, keeps them at arms length -- both because he wants it to hurt less if he loses them, and because he's never developed a healthy way of dealing with his own or others' emotions. In many ways, it's self-preservation, and not just towards the Family. In general, Bruce's repression, intellectualization, and emotional distancing is a way to avoid being hurt. This drives his belief that emotional attachments are, in the end, a weakness. He can't focus on the Mission if he's constantly worried about the people fighting alongside him... but he also needs them. And here one of Bruce's darker traits come in, too: his ruthlessness. He can't be everywhere all at once, he can't operate alone and be as efficient as when having a small army of trained soldiers at his side. For the sake of the Mission being fulfilled, and with the goal of protecting Gotham and saving as many people as possible, he allows the Batfamily to exist. Bruce is capable of 'turning off' his emotions and only acting in the interest of a higher goal, in a way that's hurt and pissed off his friends and Family multiple times. I'm not at all saying he doesn't love them, or care about them. That's the crux of the matter. He does care, and he's afraid of what happens when he cares, which again and again prompts him to act cold and distant and emotionally push them away. But, ironically enough, it's this exact same issue that leads him to display the third kind of emotionally abusive behavior: excessive control.

Bruce has been shown to be invasive and manipulative, wanting the Family to follow his orders and punishing them in various ways when they don’t -- because, if you're terrified of losing something, one way to ensure you're not going to lose it is to contain it, and never take your eyes off it. Carefully control it. See, he can't entirely cut all ties, both because he loves the Family and because he needs them from a utilitarian point of view. But he can try to emotionally protect himself by distancing, and he can try to protect them by controlling them... by knowing everything that goes on in their lives, and (sadly) trying to get them to make choices he would make. He’s got a bit of a thing when it comes to rewarding the Family for acting the same way he does. It’s a complicated mix of Bruce’s arrogance, God complex and that controlling overprotective streak I mentioned; it’s ‘I think of every worst-case scenario and prepare for everything and train for everything and essentially try to become God, so if you act the same way I do, you will be safer and less likely to get hurt.’

The third form of his emotionally abusive pattern is the expectation for others to prioritize and handle his emotions. This pretty much follows the other two kinds; Bruce does say very hurtful things, he pushes people away, he keeps secrets and refuses to ask for help or include his children in intimate aspects of his life; but he also expects them to not let him do it, and it's... this one is really tough. I don't think it's ever quite hit him, the realization of his egocentrism: the way he makes so many things about himself. His emotions and his state of being are the priority, for his kids, and they always watch out for Bruce's anger, for his self-destructive tendencies, for signs of him retreating so they can pull him back from the brink, and the thing is, that's not their job. The kid is not supposed to take care of the parent, it's supposed to be the other way around. But more often than not, it's not Bruce handling his childrens' emotions, it's them navigating his. Dick and Tim, especially, are subject to this. Hell, Tim basically became Robin because he saw how Bruce was spiralling and went 'is no one gonna take care of that??', stepping into the role himself when Dick refused to (and good for him). And thing is, while a huge part of why Bruce adopted and trained them is empathizing with their traumas and caring about them, another part of it is... a need for grounding himself. Bruce knows he's always walking the line. He knows he's got a lot of darkness that he's always fighting to keep contained, and he can't manage it alone. He keeps himself human through his connections, his attachments; his Family, most of all. And so, it's not surprising that his children end up having to chase Bruce and figure out his emotions and take care of him, make him socialize and act like a person -- it's part of why Bruce forged these relationships in the first place. But it's still not fair to any of them. And it's impacted them in various unhealthy ways. There's certainly an argument to be made that some of them began to base their value, and self-worth, in how useful they were to Bruce. Bruce's approval is something that's so deeply craved in the core Family circle, and it's... sigh. It's downright insidious, sometimes. Bruce does so many shitty things, but they keep coming back, often at token signs of apology from Bruce or barely any crumbs at all.

And if it were only that. But Bruce's grief and his fear of loss always turn to anger. Batman is fueled by that anger, and Bruce has... lots of issues in dealing with it and venting it in a healthy way (see the above general issues in handling his own emotions). And so, you have the pattern of physical abuse, and not just the emotional I described above. In his grief and his anger, Bruce has exploded and hit his children more than once. It's tough to say who suffered more from this: Dick or Jason. Maybe Jason, since Bruce's tremendous amount of guilt and self-hatred towards him just turns into more anger, and that translates into even more potential violence. Especially when Jason breaches Bruce's rules. He gets very angry when anyone breaches his imposed rules, especially the no-killing one, and here’s where his harmful need for absolute control and some of that arrogance come in. Bruce justifies this kind of behavior in various ways (and the narrative does too, because it has to -- Batman has to be the hero), the most prevalent excuse being his treatment of them as soldiers, or a downright refusal to admit he’s even viewed as a father figure by them. This is an overarching issue in itself, his reluctance to admit he’s wrong.

In the end, so much of this has roots in Bruce’s trauma, which is the main reason why I don’t see it as OOC. He tries to save everyone because he couldn’t save his parents back then. He’s so controlling because he cannot even conceive of ever being that helpless again; he’s terrified of losing the people he cares about and still so incandescently angry at the criminals that took them away. Needless to say, he’s plenty neurodivergent, too. And disappearing for over a decade and training for being Batman, being away from Alfred and having his parents taken away at such a young age... never afforded him the opportunity to learn healthy ways of emotionally regulating himself. Neither did it teach him to reach out to others in a healthy way. And all the resulting issues, that he’s never truly dealt with constructively, converge in all the ways Bruce has fallen into abusive behaviors as a parental figure.

Hope you’ve found this an interesting read! I tried to keep it as general as possible, seeing as the metas before I’ve linked are a lot more specific. I also want to assert that this is my personal assessment of Bruce’s character, and that (obviously) everyone is free to create their own interpretation; I take no issue with people who prefer to headcanon and write Bruce solely as a good parent. But the canon reality of him not being one does exist, and is still interesting to dissect.

#thank you for the ask anon!#in the end I did write meta too #Bruce you truly contain multitudes #asks #batman #bruce wayne #batman meta #bruce wayne meta #batfam #batfam meta #abuse #abuse cw #my meta

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zuppizup · 1 year

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do you have any tips you'd like to offer for fanfic writing? your fanfics are amazing snd and i just dont know how you do it

Oh Nonny, honestly you are just way too kind. I really don’t know what tips I can give because honestly, I don’t really know what I’m doing but I shall try. 😅

Writing absolutely is not my day job (far from it) and I have no formal training in it. I just kinda muddle my way through. I really appreciate your kind words though, so I’ll try and share some things I’ve found helpful in my fanfic writing journey.

Write - yep, it’s boring and you hear it all the time but practice makes, well, better. Week to week, month to month, and year to year I see improvement in my writing and so much of that is down to writing… just writing. Not all of it is fit to be seen, but challenging myself by writing often (I try to write something ever day, even if it’s just a thought or a line of dialogue that strikes me) honestly feels like the number one way my writing has improved over the years.

Actively reading stuff I enjoy. So if a fic or a piece of media really grabs me, makes me feel emotional and captivated I try and dissect that. What about it caught my interest? Was it the the character development or the descriptions, world building or how the creator built atmosphere and tension? It’s not about trying to emulate a work you admire, but learning what about it you like and enjoy and seeing how you can adapt that to your particular style.

Writing what you want to read. For me this is a major thing. I write the stories I am interested in. I fundamentally write for me, and so it’s easier to focus and get drawn in by a story because I want to see how it ends. It’s absolutely wonderful if other people are interested in what I write (and publish… coz a lot of it sits on my hard drive…) but I’d still be writing regardless, because I want to know how everything works out.

Try and find fandom friends to be unhinged with. Absolutely easier said than done but if you can and you’re that way inclined, then finding some fandom crazies can be so helpful. I have no idea how many stories I’ve written based off a random “hey guys, can you imagine-” comment that got enabled all to hell. (Hello, enablers!!!)

Have fun! Honestly, this is the most important thing about being a fan writer for me. I’m here to grab my blorbos and throw them into situations and get them out of that situation. I’ve done it repeatedly and I’ll do it again. Coz it’s fun. Because I’m enjoying myself. And I won’t lie, the wonderful community we have, the amazing friends I’ve made and have blast with, the support and kindness I get is beyond description but I’ve been playing in various sandboxes for years (mostly by myself) and I’ve still the most fun exploring my imagination and creativity.

I’m sure other, more articulate and well studied people have far better and more useful insights (there’s legit so much writing advice on YouTube) but those are my random thoughts on the subject. If anyone has something they’d like to add, please do! Because I am absolutely always open up to tips and insights myself. You can never stop learning ☺️

#anon asks #thanks for the ask #writing #fanfic #fanfic writing

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neonscandal · 1 year

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Manga With Me: JJK Crackpot Theories (But Maybe Not) Rapid Fire Edition

I have had a lot of thoughts lately without any time to properly articulate them so let’s start the new year off with a shotgun blast of my least founded hot takes because, why not? Some of them might have some context clues but others might just be ideas I know I’ll never use for fanfics so, now, we all have to suffer. Enjoy my “What Ifs” and weigh in with your own. 👇🏾

⚠️ Spoiler warning: as these are rapid fire takes, covers info through current chapter of 209 and JJK0.

Nobara isn’t dead, Megumi was just paying Yuji back with his vagueness.

I just think it would be such an unhinged turn of events for Nobara to be largely okay but Megumi played the long game because how dare Yuji go along with Gojo’s half baked plan and force him to feel things for a sustained period of time?? Like, no real benefit to the plot in concealing her status except as a prank. I feel like Akutami would totally pull something like that too just for the sake of trolling. But if she came back as a critical plot point!? Even better, she deserved more shine. We also haven't seen a satisfying end to Nobara's need to reunite with Saori so I won't confirm her death until it's conveyed explicitly.

We haven't seen the best side of Miwa

I maintain the Akutami has been pretty good about tying in even the slightest of details (okay bit of dickriding here, I know). I've written about the fact that Miwa may not have such humble origins but I believe the last time we saw Miwa sets her up for a big awakening as well. The Tokyo and Kyoto schools differ in many ways as the latter tends to toe the more traditional line in agreement with the reigning jujutsu elders. Yaga, an indicator of the Tokyo school's tendency toward progressiveness, was considered odd with his cursed puppets and this eccentricity is foundational to those who work and attend the Tokyo school.

During Yuta's introduction, Maki makes it a point to mention that the weak always gather in packs, sorcerers and curses. We see countless times that Kyoto school executes as a pack, whether that is during the Goodwill Event or even when going after Kenjaku!Geto. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Gojo presses his students to go on missions appropriate for sorcerers of his caliber unsupervised. Where the elders and Kyoto seem to be intent on pacification and predictable power scaling, Tokyo is home to those the established order would consider abominations and would rather see gone. Those too weird (Yuji, Panda, Maki, the third years, I believe even Inumaki is a bit of an outcast) or those too powerful to control (Gojo, Yuta). So, the last time we saw little old Miwa... why was she alone? Because her powered up debut is loading. ✨

Megumi will be the one to exorcise Sukuna.

This is perhaps the rawest of theories considering. But Megumi’s technique requires him to summon and effectively exorcise a different animal curse in order to successfully wield it. We saw the eldritch horror he summoned as a final “fuck you” before Sukuna intervened and saved him (seriously, what was that?). So what if Megumi, in the end has the power to exorcise and wield Sukuna (a la Rika to Yuta)? Like... is this the best case scenario to save our sunshine boy, Yuji? This theory is held together by silly string but I am going to stake it on the fact that we were given the hopeless backstory of Gojo and Geto as how things had gone wrong. As the reader, should we not expect that that new iteration of this dynamic would prove to be more victorious? I'm just holding out hope. *weeps in Itafushi*

Megumi is an integral piece of the future of jujutsu and emotional damage is in the forecast

In many ways, this is already apparent. Gojo, following Toji's last directive, plucked Megumi and Tsumiki from their lives alone knowing the value of Megumi's technique and birthright. In cultivating Megumi's talent, we find out that centuries ago their ancestors were powerful enough to fight one another and we already know Gojo is OP. Megumi, unsure of himself and still developing will be a force to be reckoned with. We've seen it in glimpses already. This potential is something that Sukuna also covets which speaks volumes. We've seen with Gojo’s origin story (and Spider-Man) that great power leads to great responsibility. End game, I believe Megumi will be tasked with exorcising or killing Yuji out of necessity. But, if things in the box go horrendously wrong, I also think he'll be responsible for putting Gojo down. Hell, it might simply come down to a painful choice between Yuji and Gojo and we’ve already seen that Megumi trends toward Yuji’s preservation. I won’t say current events put a decision between Yuji or Tsumiki but 👀

Worse, I fear there will be a reckoning when he realizes he didn't have the full story behind what went down between Gojo and Toji. Either way, Gojo has cast Megumi as his equal and so has Akutami. Historically, this has ended tragically and Gojo's heart would simply be torn asunder to be undone by his own beloved protege.

Toji isn’t actually as much of a piece of shit.

This isn’t actually a plot development. I think we, as the readers, are meant to contextualize a few things to comprehend what may come to light about him. 1. He named Megumi “blessing” which leads me to believe that, while he was demonstrably awful, Megumi’s birth could have been a turning point. Tbh I think something happened to Megumi’s mom (well before Toji met Tsumiki’s mom) which sent him back down the spiral of being a degenerate and ultimately selling off his kid. I wonder how much the elders may have had to do with her death. Whether those be the Zenin or Jujutsu elders is really up in the air. 2. Akutami, in interviews, implied that Gojo wasn’t really a monogamous person in that they couldn’t see him settling down with one woman. Mind you, they then slowly reveal the deeper connection to Geto which fills in some gaps to what I'm considering a deliberate misdirection. So I’m wondering if the implication about Toji being a broke ass bum, while valid, has additional context yet to be seen.

Yuji hasn't seen the last of Yuko Ozawa

Again, this is a raw ass theory considering, I can't even lie and call it half baked. But wouldn't it be crazy if Yuko makes it to the end fight, perhaps similarly motivated as Kurusu with some cursed entity within her seeking Sukuna's head but she'll retain an affinity toward Yuji or something? Like why introduce her and that precious history with Yuji if she's not going to boomerang back into the story? Even if all she'll be is sentimental cannon fodder (I'm looking at you Junpei).

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phantomchick · 1 year

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In Other Waters

Okay game rec time, I’m awfully late here as this one came out 2 years ago but I only just started it this year/finished my playthrough of it today. But regardless, In Other Waters is that golden indie game accidentally stumbled upon, that the entire indie game industry aims to be for people, I found this by accident and the quality of the game and the sheer emotional heft to the plot was so surprising and such a treat, it’s really really clear that this game was a labour of love by the developers.

I’ll try to keep this spoiler free, what is the game’s whole deal: You wake up on an alien planet with a strange woman talking to you, only to realise you’re the ai in her dive suit, but despite this dramatic premise the entire game is like a relaxing fantasy of being a marine biologist,personally I inched my way through the game collecting bits and pieces of animals and plants here and there whenever I was in the mood to play it, and I’m really glad I did because I feel like my appreciation of the story was fuller for not rushing it.

Ellery, the lady you’re helping navigate the waters of planet Gliese 677Cc, is here because her former coworker and ex lady love Minae (They’re are many benefits to being a xeno-marine biologist) sent for her and then when she arrived on the completely isolated planet was nowhere to be found and the dive suit she’s in has an AI not designed for so it take three clicks to move in any direction, (her priority is still Minae tho, whipped lol). She’s a very sympathetic character and you can really feel her wonder at all the life around you, her notes on the creatures you help her documents really bring the world to life, which is necessary as because you’re just a confused computer AI you can only see the vivid world she’s exploring vicariously through the notes she takes. Good thing she’s competent at her job. The gradual growth of your bond with her as her sole confidant in this vast world is really well articulated too.

The game can be frustrating at times when you’re looking for specific samples in areas you’ve been over more than once, but that was rare for me and kind of added to the realism of the whole thing, when I got really stuck I looked up a playthrough of the part I was at and then I was rolling again. I mostly ran into difficulty because I prioritised foraging over the plot a little too much and there are areas you can’t access even if they’re within areas you’ve already found, until you do certain story beats.

This game was honestly so chill and so fun. I especially love the ending, spoiler alert until the end of this paragraph: the complete acceptance of the damage humans have done at the end, I like that the unforgiveable crime humans have committed isn’t deflected as not Ellery’s fault for not being involved, she’s a human and she accepts responsibility at the same time as hoping death isn’t the only thing that humans will bring to this planet. - and the quiet resolve to do better, be better, and reach out in the hope that the relationship between humans and nature, humans and the artificers can change and heal really harmonised with the overall tone of the game. Ellery’s work ethic in regards to that goal, made me really happy and the refusal to act like Gliese 677Cc was only hers to decide the fate of really hammered home the evil of Baikal and the difference between them, woohoo science for science’ sake.

Anyway, in conclusion.

If you’re looking for a solid game to test the waters with. In Other Waters really hit it out of the park for me.

#In other waters #steam #in other waters game #dr ellery #game rec

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9w1ft · 1 year

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Thanks for answering, 9wing! I am on the same page as you, you just helped me to articulate my feelings better.

Some of the songs don't really necessarily feel like they'd be tied to the nighttime on their own (Bejeweled, LH except for the first lyric, Karma, Sweet Nothing, etc) but in my head, when I connect them to a certain narrative, they work better. That narrative is that the night starts out fun, she's staying out “too late” and separating away from the "Good Girl" image the media thrusts upon her (she's experimenting sonically, she's cussing freely even when she doesn't need to perse, she's saying things she normally doesn't do), but then as we get deeper into the night, the thrilling tipsiness transforms into alcoholically-influenced insecurities, paranoia, and guilt. The album order of the songs don't match my narrative, but it's something I like to imagine to further enhance my midnights streaming experience.

I also thought the same! Was definitely expecting her to dive into the 60s/70s/80s era based on those photoshoot, but I'm not unhappy with the results. Midnights definitely surpassed all expectations in a really different and unexpected way, I appreciate that Taylor isn't afraid to experiment and venture into new areas with her music and genres.

i love these thoughts! as with many of her albums i don’t get the sense these are in a specific chronological or thematic order from top do bottom (more the mosaic of love that lover is) but what you bring up is really interesting and i totally feel it with the openers vs closers and i’ll definitely think about it when listening.

you unearthed a tangent!

i think that for me in some cases, the “midnights” of it all helped me contextualize or picture some songs in very specific ways. like if you look at some of the songs from the perspective of them being set at midnight, certain interpretations make even more sense. and i kinda love the fun puzzly nature of that.

for example, what kind of midnight happens when you are singing kids songs and playing kids games in one room and your lover is in the kitchen humming? why would this be at an odd hour instead of during the day?

what kind of midnight do you find yourself telling your partner to breathe and comforting them about pain getting better and cracking small talk jokes with them and while you worry if you made the right life altering choice you are simultaneously realizing that, uh oh, you keep falling in love again and again. why would this be at an odd hour instead of during the day? what about that could be scary?

what kind of midnight is it, that you walk yourself to a house not a home all alone because nobody is there, when the ambient noises of the song doesn’t make it feel that way exactly. what is a kind of moment where you can be not necessarily alone but also feel alone and wanting to spill out truths and advice to anyone who would listen.

what kind of person would not ever say to much or read into emotions but stare at the ceiling with you in the middle of the night? what kind of person wouldn’t even be listening to taylor’s history, how could taylor be under scrutiny and have all this shit be somehow new to her? what about her situation could be new? of course this could just be a quiet lover or people could fit it to joe or say it’s about the start of kaylor or say that taylor talking about something new means it can’t be kaylor but come now, hasnt anything about kaylor in the past few years newly developed? something you’d do anything at all hours to protect? i can think of fun and fitting ideas.

i always have weird song interpretations so i’m not here to press all of them on anyone but, i really think this album can be listened to in a certain way that gives it all a certain ingeniousness ☺️ and i love it so much

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crimsonkaiser · 1 year

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「 @universestreasures | Ahmes / Aichi Sendou」 issued a challenge:

“Toshiki. When I become King, I promise I’ll set you free no matter what the cost may be. You don’t deserve to be trapped here with me and suffer because of me forever. If one of us can be free, it should be you. I want that for you more than anything.”

Even if that means he’ll be alone in the process. His love for the human was greater than his love for himself, something that’s been apparent since the night they met.

(Ahmes, definitely around the age he died so could this be where he does the nom on Toshiki to get the mark? UWU?)

Ahmes spoke of freedom once again. And once again Toshiki had to actively consider what that had meant. For himself, for Ahmes, for the both of them. What did the freedom the prince envision entail? Was it simply doing away with the collars and talismans? Taking away his pact of servitude to the prince? This had been Toshiki’s way of life since he was a boy, the memories of a time before were faded and far away by now.

If Ahmes was to grant him his idea of freedom, where would that leave Toshiki? Would he go back to his old home? Would there be anyone waiting for him there? Or did Ahmes expect him to start anew, after everything they’ve been through together?

He didn’t want to see Ahmes tortured by his own sufferings, just as Ahmes didn’t wish Toshiki to endure punishment after punishment in his stead. But Toshiki had long resolved himself to endure whatever was thrown at them, to stand again and again. Even if it may hurt himself or the prince he’d grown to care so deeply for, so long as they were alive and together at the end of it...

So he couldn’t picture it. Not at all. Freedom for only himself? It may have been against Ahmes’ wishes, but Toshiki didn’t even want to consider such a thing.

--If his freedom could only be attained by leaving Ahmes behind he didn’t want it.

❝ But... ❞ Toshiki starts, instantly moving to reach out and take Ahmes by the hems of his sleeves. He still had trouble articulating himself, so he often took to reenforcing his words with actions such as this. He tugs the prince by the sleeves until they were facing one another, his sapphire hues expressing his emotions far better then he could ever hope to achieve with his voice alone.

‘No matter the cost’... Something about that declaration made his insides twist terribly, so much so he nearly felt ill. More and more these days he feared Ahmes would go to extremes to fulfill this promise. If his freedom was at the sake of Ahmes’ own he didn’t think it to be worth it. To voice that would surly upset the prince. But still... He felt the need to deescalate before it had gone too far. Ahmes was still rather weak, it didn’t take much to have him be bedridden. An emotional outburst for Toshiki’s sake had been the cause of Ahmes’ collapse on more than one occasion, after all.

❝ ...I’m not trapped... And I’m not suffering... ❞

He sounded completely in denial. And it’s because he was. But his fetters were bestowed as an honor to his people, his pain was but judgement handed down to him by higher power. To Toshiki everything that has happened to him was well deserved, no matter how many times the prince would say he was undeserving of such treatment. The voice of a certain Liberator whispered to him from the depths of his mind-- reminding him of his sins for causing the prince such pain for his shortcomings.

Something in his expression seems to go dark then, and just as quickly he tried to comfort the prince he had begun to spiral. Seems he was a prisoner of his own mind as much as he was that of the vampires. His grip on Ahmes’ sleeves turn to stone, his entire body freezing as he tensed up all over.

❝ It’s me... It’s me who’s caused you so much trouble. Far more than I’m worth. So why... Why can’t it be you? Wouldn’t you be happier if you were the one who were free? Free...of me...? I’m cause for much of Prince Ahmes’ suffering, I’ve committed a great sin-- ❞

Words that usually would remained sealed away spill out without filter, for it was only a matter of time before the floodgates had burst. But they sound unnatural coming out of his mouth-- as if they were not his own, not at first at least.

He caused the prince to be willing to throw aside his own image of freedom. To deem Toshiki the one to be saved from this life by accepting his own fate of ascending the throne to do so. It was as if he was hearing Ahmes give up on the dreams he’s spoke so often of. It wasn’t right. Ahmes was the one who dreamed of freedom, not him. If anyone should attain such a thing it should be Ahmes! He shouldn’t have to endure a life he dreaded just to grant Toshiki something he couldn’t even begin to imagine without the other.

--It was his greatest fear coming to life.

The cost Ahmes was willing to pay... It was far too great. He feels at fault for such sacrifice to even be considered. The palms of his hands begin to ache with a dull pain, as if warning him of the imminent punishment that should soon follow such transgression.

❝ I don’t deserve freedom. I... I deserve... Judgment. ❞

The sentiment is repeated, over and over. Calls for his own judgment as he lowers himself to fall against Ahmes’ chest until his words are lost in the fabric adorning the prince’s front. It was almost as if... he was asking Ahmes himself to cast it upon him, begging for it even. To make right by his wrongs, looking to Ahmes to give him what he truly thought he deserved. He swore to himself he wouldn’t show such weakness again, knowing it was more of a burden to the prince than it was himself. But he failed him. Again. Truly, the only thing he deserved from the prince at that moment was his retribution. -

#.//some ahmeshiki for warmups :]#PICTURE IT「ic」#QUERY「asks」#VERSE.// THE PURGATORIAL FLAMES #universestreasures #THE LIGHT OF COURAGE「universestreasures | Aichi Sendou」#tw long post #tw enslavement #.//oh man past toshiki really has a way of being extra angsty doesn't he #.//HE AND AHMES BOTH TBH LOLOL #.//THEYRE BOTH SO SAD #.//their marking totally feels like two forbidden lovers running off to get married without the father's approval LOLOL #.//THE IRONY AHMES DIES SOON AFTER HIS PROMISE OF FREEDOM AND THEY BOTH INADVERTENTLY GET TRAPPED UNTIL KAI AND AICHI #.//GIVE THEM PEACE LOL #.//they're the Savers #.//soul saver moment #.//more Paladin archetypes LOLOL #.//ahmes: (blames himself). Toshiki: ok but what if I'M the one at fault here

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theesteemedladydebourgh · 2 years

Text

Why IF WE NEVER MEET AGAIN is Art, Capital Letters and I’ll never get over it

An Essay (by someone who has been ravaged by @thequibblah one too many times)

IWNMA is two months old! Wow, the time flies. 🥳 i read this fic on Halloween and it fucked me up even more (yes, more) than that dreaded anniversary. so this is mostly going to be me quoting my favorite bits, rambling and freaking out and occasionally trying to be coherent and actually talk about WHY it’s so brilliant. because it is brilliant, and if you haven’t read it that should be the only thing you need to know: it’s brilliant and sad and hopeful and sweet and yes, right back to brilliant. go read it.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully articulate what it is about this fic that captured my heart and makes me feeling a mixture of longing and confused. It makes my heart ache, in short, and after the first time I read it I wasn’t quite sure why. It took several rereads to put a finger on it—a mixture of beautiful prose enveloping and aiding incredibly crafted characters.

There is something about suze’s writing that makes me want to be a better writer—in fact i think just reading her works DO make me a better writer because I inhale her beautiful prose and weep over her lovely characters and I take a tiny bit of them with me when I’m crafting my own stories.

I don’t know how to describe it other than: IWNMA perfectly captures the fact that words are nothing but strings of letters. Meaningless, except humans put so much meaning and yearning and love into existence, so these strings of letters make us feel absolutely incoherent things. (Incoherence, in general is how I react to suze. Both personally and professionally 😌)

now i’m going to be very embarrassingly emotive and generally freak out.

“I love you,” Lily says, quietly. The night holds the words for a moment, then releases them. She hasn’t yet looked at him. “I’m in love with you, and I’m tired of pretending I’m not.”

Everything splinters after that.

um. Opening lines? Killing me? I am such a sucker for starting the story in the middle and then going back because…Drama. and Showmanship.

I love the pure brilliance of the magazine headlines interspersed throughout and how they give us little details and sneak peeks, and show the complete divide between the Truth and the Show. It’s the flashy, gasp headline writing and when it’s contrasted with the quiet chaos behind the scenes it’s just…

There’s something almost suffocating about movie star AUs to me, because there is so much misunderstood and we know that a lot of them felt trapped, and I can feel that in IWNMA. Even if Lily’s not sitting around panicking, thinking ‘I feel trapped’, you can feel it in the writing, in the breaths taken, the spaces between them. The way she acts, the way the love story plays out behind and in front of the scenes.

“Long time,” James Potter says once he’s finished laughing, holding out his hand.

James Potter makes an introduction, and I Love Him.

I also love that the ex-husband is just…the ex-husband. He needs no space. No capital letters. begone.

To claim that she fell in love again on August 3rd might be stretching things. But Lily tastes possibility, light and sweet as summer fruit on her tongue, for the first time in a long time on that night.

She loses it, too, many times over. Wait — we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

I’m just going to keep repeating myself and saying ‘I love xyz’ but I love these lines. I love the summer fruit, and the lightness of possibility, and the way it feels like a story being told about them, while also a story that is very much Theirs.

“That,” he says, “is a fucking view. Your estate agent wasn’t kidding.”

Lily laughs. It’s maybe easier now to appreciate the stunning beauty of this house through someone else — though it was immediately apparent to her when she first scoped it out.

“Try waking up to it,” she says.

“I want to,” he says at once. “Seriously, I’ll buy it off you right now.”

He wakes up to it at the end I am so—

“I’d offer you my jacket,” says James, “but I have none, and also, it’s August.”

😭

Most of this is just me being In Love with James, until we get to P&P era and then he’s on thin fucking ice so…

“I’ve got two hands.”

“Two hands you’re using to not help me in the slightest.”

Suze I just know you meant this on purpose. You do not fool me. I know.

He says, with feeling, “Lily, take my jacket, it’ll protect you from this Arctic evening—”

She groans. “Fuck off, oh my God—”

“—your every moment of discomfort tears me apart—” With a flourish, he mimes removing a jacket and draping it over her shoulders.

“You’re a terrible actor,” she says, shrugging off the nonexistent jacket. “Charlie Chaplin’s rolling over in his grave. While weeping.”

Will I copy and paste this entire scene is the question. The answer could be yes, but the word count of this draft post is…embarrassing so close to 2022.

The Rome scenes are just…like, can I frame them and weep? It makes me want to be in Rome and also be in love and also have James Potter as my own, which is not a new feeling per se, but it’s certainly a very strong iteration of it.

Lily has decided she likes Italian bars best of all — drinks are the same everywhere you go, but the food, good God. (James makes a crack about how he’ll look unrecognisable at the end of filming if they go on like this every day. As if, she thinks, with a resentful glare. She’s seen him running around the neighbourhood each bloody morning.)

No comment, he’s ridiculous and the best.

“Oh, no,” James murmurs now, dropping the smile, “I hadn’t realised. I’ll do my best to be attractive for you.”

The entire bar scene, with the snipping and the laughter and how she’s just slightly unglued just by him being him…

Trelawney as the neurotic director is the best thing that’s ever happened, and suze is just so masterful in the way she’s woven the elegant and the silly and the uniquely longing to make this masterpiece.

“If you ask me, this is all for authenticity. Freddy absolutely wonders if Sabine knows he’s an okay kisser.”

“Freddy’s a great kisser,” James says, following.

“We’ll see, I guess.”

His hand closes around her upper arm, just above the elbow. Lily turns around. “What?”

But he simply looks at her without speaking. She waits for a long moment. Then, “Never mind.”

She shrugs, cool as you please, though she wants to stay wrapped in the sudden electricity, here. “See you on set, tiger.”

He chokes on his laughter.

Really all picking out my favorite parts is doing is making me realize how good of a writer she is. like…read these all in a row and tell me you’re not overwhelmed just from that, and then read the whole thing and tell me you didn’t weep.

The first kiss scene. Honestly? suze, you need to direct a movie. The screen and the setting is perfection and you would win awards for it, just saying (as you’ve won awards for this fic, which I’m glad it did, because I would’ve sulked for ages if it didn’t)

Trelawney calls cut!

“Again?” James can be heard saying. Lily stays there, behind the screen, trying to settle her racing heart.

“No,” Trelawney tells him, “that’s the one.”

“That’s the—? But we only—”

“That’s the take.”

😭 the implication that their first kiss was so genuine and perfect it fit the film.

“I’ll walk you,” says James.

She tries to wave him off. “It’s literally around the corner, James.”

“It’s late!”

“It’s half past ten.”

“Late,” he says again.

“Oh, all right,” she says, and tucks her hand into his elbow.

It’s the beginning and somehow it already feels sad (probably because the scroll is still very long, so we know they’re not going to be happy for the rest of it) and yet also euphoric and…I love secret relationships. Secret love affairs.

She’s aware of the rise and fall of his shoulders, in time with her own, and the part of his lips. But she’s not looking anywhere but his eyes, the rich hazel glimmer of them. She is quite helpless.

“You’re not— Are you drunk?” Lily says.

His brow furrows, but he answers, “No.”

She exhales, long and slow. “Then I think… It would be better to just get it out of our systems, yeah?”

When he nods, he seems relieved. “Upstairs?”

I absolutely love this scene because it seems quite abrupt—they haven’t discussed any of it—but the silence in all the words before it might as well have been a full on conversation because they know where they are (physically, at least) and that the other is there too, and so there’s only a few words required to make the jump (that isn’t even a jump, it’s more of a soft step)

“You’re — an okay kisser,” she tells him, left breathless.

😭

Afterwards she wonders about the semantics of this. Fucking one’s co-star seems de rigueur in the industry. But realistically they have not fucked, not unless the definition’s changed since last she checked. A one-and-done would feel separate from the rest of the world, safely so. Now she can still smell the earthy impression of rain on his skin, can still hear plucked strings and Doris Day. Lily realises, rather clinically, that she would like to do it again.

Really, really. She’d really, really like to do it again.

As if he can read her mind, James begins to sit up and get dressed. She watches in silence; when he’s finished, he curls one hand around her calf.

His smile is slanted, ironic. “Never again, then.”

She smiles back, though she’s sure she doesn’t look so poised. At least they’ve come to this realisation together.

And then even at the end they’re in sync. Even when they’re missing each other by miles, there’s this sense of in sync-ness (not the band), because they’re just built so perfectly to fall in love.

It is wrong, definitely wrong, on ethical, moral, certainly religious grounds, to feel a little flustered at the way he does up a zipper.

The scene in the trailer just makes me…have I mentioned I’m in love with this James yet?

“You’re brave,” James says, simple as that. “For holding onto someone when you found them, and even more so for letting go when you needed to.”

They get each other. A love story could be boiled down to that simple fact, and IWNMA is just two people who get each other (in a variety of torturous situations, thank u suze)

“We made something,” he says, softly.

There, he has voiced the thought she’s had since that last day of filming, since he spun her around and the world seemed forever changed once her feet landed on solid ground again. She’s made something — and she’s done it in collaboration with people, of course, it’s not about who owns how much of this. But she’s made something, and (heart tripping, breath catching) she’s done it with him.

This is one of the lines that actually made me tear up. This fic hurts to read sometimes, because it’s so earnest and it just…tugs right at the most aching, deep parts of you because it’s about the start of love, the making of art, and the two intertwined. I’m 😭

She shifted in her chair, crossed and uncrossed her legs. “I think if there’s one thing my romantic life proves, it’s that vetting by sex is not very thorough.”

“If it’s thoroughness you’re worried about,” Mary says seriously, “all the more reason to find Potter again and give him a few more goes.”

I love Mary. 🥰

Maybe the naïve reaction to that is to believe she was always made to be an actress, not a model. Lily knows it’s silly — no one is made to be anything — but she holds onto the childish impulse in that dark room.

Will I use something other than 😭 to describe my feelings maybe maybe not.

The moment might’ve come across as abrupt, but the camera lingers sweetly on Freddy’s face as he strides out of the garden. This is no guilty, hurried retreat, which was how Lily’d assumed it would appear.

Instead James milks every ounce of his natural earnestness for all it’s worth. Freddy is lit with wonder, giddy and flushed and quite appallingly in love. He lifts a hand to his mouth as he goes, not to wipe at it but just…to touch, as if to memorise through every sensation what he’s just experienced.

The film goes on, but, if she’s being perfectly honest, Lily stays there. Replays that lovely little smile, his thumb upon his lower lip, again and again.

That is what makes James Potter good at his job. Instinct. Sincerity. There is no doubt to the viewer that he absolutely believes what he’s doing.

He believes it because he’s in love with you, idiot.

You brought me all this way to say hello? she almost says. “Hi,” is what she actually says.

His mouth tilts into a half-smile. “You know something funny?”

No, she almost says. “What’s that?”

“Last year in Rome, when I left the villa and flew back home, I suppose I knew we’d have to see each other again—”

Now Lily manages to get her dig in, a well-placed elbow to the ribs. “Oh, you sound thrilled about it.”

He rolls his eyes. “Let me finish. I knew we’d both be at this premiere, but I felt as though you’d just…vanish. And I’d never see you again.”

She manages a blustery laugh. “That’s a touch ridiculous, no?”

“Oh, it’s quite ridiculous,” he says with a nod. “You know I enjoy giving you ammunition.”

Are her cheeks red? They must be. She feels like she’s had a dizzying number of shots in a too-short period of time.

The universe is playing some kind of joke on her, she thinks, because surely a thought that she’s had — on the night they first kissed, no less — didn’t organically occur to him too? Surely he can’t read minds?

Made for each other. Made for each other.

The LA scenes are right up against the Rome scenes for my favorite, because it just feels stingingly alive. You can feel the sun and the wind and the exhilaration and the plastic-life in every word, in all their actions and the studio sets. And I was waiting for them to get together the ENTIRE first time I read it and I was very miffed when they didn’t, but now I appreciate the space. It felt like it was time for them (unknowingly) to settle into love. Because...(yes, i’m going to say it), they’re best friends. 😭

“Please, Evans. We’re both having the time of our damn lives, and you know it.” He’s back to his relaxed position of earlier.

Lily arches a brow and does not feel a thrill in her stomach. “Are we?”

He glances at her, grinning that crooked grin of his. “Well, we’re in it together, aren’t we?”

Yeah, I had to get up and pace when I read this bit. You know the lines that bury themselves somewhere deep in your chest and fill you with restlessness and you need to take a break just to savor it and also to get out of the headspace of it, because it’s nearly too much to feel? This is that. It did it to me on my first, second, third and fourth rereads. I paced and made a cup of tea and then returned.

In a smooth American drawl James says, “You’re in El Ay, baby. Get used to it.”

This should not be as attractive to me as it is.

Drunk Remus is the best thing to ever exist, suze thank you for inventing him.

“No,” she says, nonchalant, “I didn’t think you looked cool.”

“Ouch.”

She shrugs, trying to think past the alcohol to put the sentiment to words. “I mean, you looked — like a person. Not like a movie star.”

“Ah,” he says.

At first he mulls this over in silence and she wonders if she’s misstepped. But then he laughs quietly, and she wants to kiss his dimple…only Mary floats into view in her mind’s eye. Her sex life is not something that happens to her.

“So you have to let me buy you a Fluffy Duck, anyway,” she says, hurriedly circumventing the past few minutes.

“They don’t feel the same way about Fluffy Ducks here,” James says.

She wraps a hand around his forearm, allows him to steer them to the bar. “Don’t they? Well, you’ll have to read me what’s on the menu, then.”

“Me?” He points at his specs.

“Hmm. We’re fucked.”

The bartender’s occupied, so they stop a ways off. She doesn’t let go of him as she squints at the board. His head tilts towards hers; he’s frowning at it too.

“Any luck?” Lily whispers.

“Can’t see a damn thing.”

“Just make up an innuendo. Half the cocktails are sex-related. You know, on the beach, in the sheets, what have you.”

He laughs, and she swells with pleasure. “Is that what you’ve learned today?”

She scoffs at his teasing tone. “You laugh, but I’ll go up to this bloke right now and say, ‘I’ll have a Slow Comfortable Screw on the Countertop,’ and he won’t even blink.”

James laughs even harder, a hand pressed to his ribs. “Sorry?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” With an exasperated sigh, she turns to say, right in his ear, “A slow, comfortable screw—” And then her brain catches up to what’s happening, and she stutters to a stop, wide-eyed.

James tips his head even nearer, hazel eyes so close. “No, go on,” he says, half-smiling.

Her face grows hot. “Erm.”

“You ordering, or what?” the bartender calls.

“Yeah,” says James at once. “She’s having…a Slow Comfortable Screw — any particulars on the where and the how of the slow comfortable screw, Evans?”

“Fuck off, oh my God—”

This entire thing—! Just makes me 🥰😭

Then she plucks their drinks off the counter, smiling at the bartender. “Here’s your slow hard fuck,” she tells James with a playful glare.

“Slow comfortable screw,” he says.

“Whatever, Potter.” She takes a sip, then hums approvingly.

James is watching closely. “Good, isn’t it?”

“It actually is. I never took you for such an expert on slow comfortable screws.”

His grin spreads wide. “Didn’t you?”

Lily’s mouth falls open. “You— Wow.” That’s the first time either of them have mentioned Rome. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“No need, I already know how you feel about it,” he says.

“Jesus Christ.”

❤️

“That was a better apology than my ex-husband’s,” she jokes, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

She’s ready for him to laugh in return. But instead, his eyes flash and his jaw clenches.

“Just for the record,” he says, his voice dropping to a low murmur, “fuck that guy, yeah?”

She’s so surprised she can’t do anything but make another joke. “Won’t be doing that again, actually.”

But James is utterly serious; he shakes his head. “Really, Lily. What a fucking moron he is.”

Her mouth is dry. It takes several tries at clearing her throat for her to speak again. “Yeah, I know. Erm. Thanks.”

He gives her an odd sort of look. “Don’t thank me.”

I’m running out of ways to say: I love James and this is amazing so…I love James and this is amazing.

After L.A., London is a strange place to live.

Or maybe that’s backwards — L.A. was a strange place to live, and in returning to London she’s discovering how much her notion of normal has changed. London is a place, but Los Angeles is a dream, a story breathed into life by the sun-bronzed hopefuls who crowd its streets. But even dreams can feel stifling sometimes.

just. How many ways can you make me incoherent.

“You look beautiful,” James murmurs into her hair.

“I know,” she says without thinking.

He laughs.

(Later her mother will cut out a photo of this moment from OK magazine, and Lily will look at it every time she’s in her kitchen.

Until she won’t anymore.)

Yeah now I’m enraged. Fuck you suze.

Don’t cry when you’re on divorce number two.

She doesn’t pull him towards the doors. She says, “And…what did you think?”

Something between an exhale and a laugh escapes him. “I didn’t think.”

She waits for him to elaborate, for one moment, then two, then three. He leans close, his breath warm against her ear, lips brushing her skin as he inhales. Now, he’ll say something, and the sparks skidding along the surface of her skin will be set to rest.

Then James draws back, brow furrowed. He makes no sound. For a moment Lily wonders if she did something to dissuade him, or if someone else called out to him — but she realises that it’s far simpler than that. He has nothing more to say.

He takes her hand, and they move towards the theatre.

I can feel myself heading straight for actual anger right now. The lovely shininess of this fic has been replaced by rage because we’re heading straight for P&P and…

😭 (not the good kind)

Desire tightens in her belly. How long, she wonders? Today? Just now, waiting for her to arrive at his door? Or is it an older imagining than this film, this set?

She pauses to shed her top, and James takes the time to remove his. She marvels at the breadth of his shoulders, at the lines and muscles she hasn’t seen like this in years. He’s filled out. She wants to map the new feeling beneath her fingers, re-learn the topography of him.

It’s absolutely insane how it feels so familiar and intimate despite the fact that they haven’t had sex in years.

“That’s it, baby,” he says, which is new — he’s only ever called her by her name in bed. It is so breathless as to seem involuntary. She pushes against him harder, desperate to see what else he might say.

if I wasn’t so upset about what’s coming I’d be screaming

Amelia seems not to have noticed the effect of her words because she adds, thoughtfully, “You’d be good for Shakespeare.”

“Macbeth,” says Lily, the same time as James says “Much Ado.” He squawks at her, horrified, and Amelia laughs.

“What d’you mean, Macbeth? I thought we miss being typecast!” he protests.

We, Lily registers, her smile warm, satisfied. “I’d make an exception here, we’d be an excellent pair of Macbeths. On the stage, I reckon. No cameras, loads of fake blood.”

“Ha bloody ha.”

“Quite literally, yeah.”

[…]

She shrugs, maybe so. “It’d be fun with you. Sexy, even.”

James laughs. “Murdering a king is sexy?”

“Being haunted by it afterwards is sexy,” she corrects.

“Sometimes I forget you read English at uni.”

“Well, I didn’t finish the degree, so there’s no need to sound that way about it.”

His smile has softened, the sun slipping towards the horizon. “Come to bed, Lily.”

The night is hers. She goes with him

Yeah still upset.

Lily drops her cigarette and squashes it beneath her heel. “I don’t think you’re that terrible a person, no.”

His smile is a little fainter than usual. “Oh? High praise, that.”

“Considering that for a very long time, I thought men were out to get me personally, especially the ones I was attracted to,” she says, “I think so, yes.”

James says, “Ah, so you are attracted to me.”

“Were you unsure?”

“Can’t a bloke have a bit of an ego boost from time to time?”

She lifts one sardonic brow. “And what is it we’re doing, shagging in secret, if not that?”

He grins and presses a kiss to her mouth. They’re alone, but still, his confidence is quite breathtaking. Then again, many things about him are.

When he pulls back, he says, still grinning, “You taste disgusting. Please quit smoking.”

Lily tells him to fuck off. He kisses her again before he goes.

Now I’m just angry and it’s entirely because the next scene is The Scene and I don’t even want to read it because it’s so well done and intimate that I feel like I’m intruding and also JAMES YOU CLOWN 💖 and the symbolism of the love confession, the unprotected sex, the walking away—

She looks at him then. He hasn’t yet taken off his specs, which he usually does by this point. She hopes he won’t try to, because she’ll tell him not to do it and will have to come up with a reason why.

Really, she’s not even sure she knows why. Maybe it’s because he looks most like himself with them on. Maybe she just wants him to see her.

This is the only bit I’m going to put in here, because otherwise i’d do the entire scene and then I’d be a mess for the rest of the day. Moving on.

“I fucking love you,” she says, without turning around. He might not even hear it. She’s basically professing her love for the door.

But she hopes he‘s heard. She hopes he sees the shadow of her leaving behind closed eyelids for days — I fucking love you. She’ll love him resentfully until she doesn’t anymore.

Lily lets the door swing shut behind her.

No no no nope nope nope NOPE this made me cry and pace too but this was in more of a rage-fueled upset.

Quietly, he says, “It was good, though, wasn’t it?”

[…]

“It was really good,” Lily says, “since you want to know so badly.”

She hitches up the skirt of her dress and walks away. That, she knows, is the last time she’ll see James Potter. Or the last time he’ll see her.

rageandcryingrageandcrying

“Is it as easy to you as it is for me?” she says, reaching for her car door.

He doesn’t ask her to clarify any aspect of that question. James only glances upward, momentarily, before saying, “It’s almost too easy.”

I think I’ve pinpointed what it is I love about this fic and it’s the whimsy and it’s how it’s two love stories in one. It’s a love letter to acting and it’s a love letter to people, and they’re falling in love so many times it’s like a constant rollercoaster you never get off. They just keep falling and falling and you wonder when they’ll realize it (or not be idiots about it jfc James)

“I just,” James says, then stops to close his eyes briefly. “I don’t want to pretend with you. I want things to be real and I want to make certain that they are, and I want to mean it when I say I love you.”

Lily’s breath hitches. When, she thinks. When. Only, maybe he didn’t mean it like that; maybe the wording is incidental.

She says, softly, “It’s all pretending. But I suppose when you’re in love you just…don’t mind them catching you slip up.”

A faint, desperate laugh escapes him. “I’m not ready. I’m sorry, but I’m— And you don’t deserve to have to wait, Lily.”

I’m so

Can I take back all my compliments and say I hate suze?

All the notes and flowers and messages sent back and forth through third parties is just longing and distance and the wrong timing and I’m physically antsy reading it because I want them to be in the same place at the same time so they can fucking fix it.

James being fucking James Bond.

The fucking PHONE CALL. If I’ve made it this far into the fic, I’m either beaming or weeping or snarling, there is no other options. (Today it’s a weep-beam)

“I read the interview too. It was a nice profile.”

She smiles, briefly placated. “Thanks.”

“You, er, said you wanted to make movies with me until you died.”

“Oh, God.” Lily laughs, palm to her forehead. But she finds herself not embarrassed, somehow; there’s a strange new feeling in this conversation, one she can’t remember from Love Ends, and it makes her comfortable. Something where there was nothing, or the pronounced absence of something else. “I did say that, didn’t I? In retrospect, maybe a bit much to admit in national press—”

“No, I’ve been trying to say it to the press for years,” James says. “My publicist is running out of favours to call in. Eventually I’ll see it in print, don’t you worry.”

“You should come into the party and let it slip. There’s bound to be some tosser here who’ll go running to the paps.”

😭😭😭😭😭

I hate the waiting…but that’s what makes it so sweet at the end.

There’s an odd moment of hesitation, and she wonders if the line has been disconnected. Then he says, “Yeah. Me too. Are you sure you’re having a good time?”

“Mm, positive. Why?”

“You answered as soon as I called. How did you hear the phone ring?”

Lily shifts so her back isn’t digging into a jar of something or other. “I was in the kitchen. Perfect timing, like it was meant to be.”

She hears his little exhale. Another pause. “Are you drunk?”

“Maybe,” she says, coyly. “So, you should really come inside, because I think I might fall asleep in my own pantry, and no one will find me. Then I’ll wake up with my neck totally fucked.”

James laughs again but it’s quiet this time, like something private. “Yeah, okay.”

The quiet, sunny feeling of this last part of the story is worse/better than a grand declaration. Grand declarations almost fit better to short-lived romances—ones that only last a few chapters—rather than ones sprawl out over years, where the love has been slipped into their bones, not just their hearts, and can’t be taken away. They both know this and so the ending is a quiet coming together, just like that first night in Rome. It’s an, I know we’re in the same place now. I know.

Now a montage of this perfect final scene.

“What?” He’s still frowning. “You said love ends.”

“Not this one,” she retorts.

[…]

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Lily says. “You could’ve told me on the bloody phone yesterday, and I’d have come to the phone box and snogged you senseless, and brought you back to the house, and—”

He’s starting to smile. “You were very drunk.”

“So?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I think you owe me eight or nine hours’ worth of kisses, James.”

“That’s a serious debt.” He reaches out haltingly, slides a hand around her waist. “Is that why you’ve come out in a bikini now? More available real estate to kiss, as it were?”

[…]

“But…you thought about it?”

“A lot,” he admits begrudgingly, and she adds a point to her tally, “but I tend to think about you a lot.” He kisses where her pulse trips frantically in her throat, glances up at her from under his lashes. “You really weren’t naked?”

Lily’s grin is broad, giddy. “You really aren’t James Bond?”

[…]

“And I won’t be on the cover of Vanity Fair all the time,” Lily muses, tangling her hands in his hair. “We can’t have you forgetting me.”

This laugh is big and incredulous; his eyes fly open. “As if, Lily. As bloody if.”

[…]

She shakes her head thoughtfully. “I can’t see myself swayed by any such loser. What about when some small-town coed with big dreams sidles up to you on the Strip and asks to buy you a Slow Comfortable Screw?”

“I get my slow comfortables elsewhere,” he assures her, teeth grazing her collarbone.

Lily takes his face between her hands, drops the act for a second. “Our schedules really won’t line up well. If we’re going to do this, we—”

He’s already nodding. “I’ll make the time. For you, anything.”

“So will I,” she says, a sudden warmth blooming in her cheeks.

She’s in love, and he loves her back. This is the sentiment on the tip of her tongue when he kisses her again.

[…]

“I am not,” he says, pausing to kiss her hard again, “going to forget you, Lily.”

“I know.” She has to blink forcefully to clear her vision, sure that she has some reasoning to give even as all conception of logic scatters from her head. “But I want you to keep me with you.” His eyes are such dark pools. She swallows, grasps for something lighter. “Think of it as an anniversary gift. Ten years to the occasion you first pretended to see Barry Manilow in my house.”

Fervently, James says, “Next year I’ll bring Barry here myself, I swear to God.”

Lily tips her head back and laughs. It hits her all over again, that she loves him.

[…]

She feels a shiver run through her and smiles, flicking open the button on his shorts. “So, you know I’m going to see you again.”

His gaze softens. He pushes up his specs, still balanced on his elbows to look at her. “I know I’m not letting you go.”

And of course the iconic:

yes i am writing a quick oneshot of the rest of the day before james goes back to malta, no it will NOT be 40k words thanks

xoxo quibblah

👀

HA. Love you suze 😘

(also maybe I’ll do this for IWEP on its 2 month anniversary, because we know I still haven’t gotten over ‘you’re my best friend’. like. At all. Still haunts my dreams).

the original draft of this post was basicallly just: hey suze you fucked me up answer for ur crimes.

so...

hey suze you fucked me up answer for ur crimes.

(tldr: if you haven’t read IWNMA READ IT and in conclusion we stan suze in this house)

❤️❤️❤️

#if we never meet again #thequibblah #jily fic recs #fic of my heart #jily #iwnma

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caretaker-au · 3 years

Photo

CHAPTER 10

Bright light spilled into Chara’s vision as the world manifested around them. Their body—heavy and fragile—struggled and dropped them to their knees.

As they fell forward Chara caught themselves with their hands. They stared out at their small, feeble fingers that were splayed on the lavender colored floor, each digit tipped with a dull, flat fingernail. Where were they? And what was that awful pounding sensation? They pulled a hand to their chest. That’s right. Their heart. No longer made from monster magic, Chara’s human flesh felt comparatively sluggish and dense. The body they were never supposed to return to. Chara crossed their arms and gripped themself tight. Fierce emotion flooded through their body: a touch of grief for their own death, relief for their survival, and most of all, rage.

“Asriel…” they breathed, their voice a shaking whisper, “How could you?”

After everything they had done, after all that they sacrificed for him, Asriel had betrayed them. Again. As he always had. It didn’t matter how hard Chara worked or how many timelines they chased, their wretched partner threw away everything they had to protect accursed humans. This time was the worst, however. Asriel’s betrayal ended in orchestrating a shared execution.

“You really hate me that much?” Chara’s voice was little more than a shaking growl. They wanted to scream, to declare that they wouldn’t allow it, that they would find someone else who would respect them and carry out their plan. But they didn’t believe it.

“Chara?”

A small voice broke through the fury. Chara looked up and saw them. A child hesitating in a stone doorway just ahead of them: Frisk.

The child’s expression relaxed into a smile, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Anger flashed across Chara’s face. They pulled themselves to their feet, wavering slightly. They staggered towards Frisk with heavy steps, increasing their speed into a run. Frisk’s eyes widened for a moment before they scowled. The child braced themself and held out their arms, “Chara, stop!”

The caretaker grabbed Frisk by the collar and wrenched them up against the doorframe. The kid’s teeth chattered as their skull thudded against the stone behind them.

“Why?!” Chara barked, hatred seeping from their every pore, “You took everything from us! Our lives, our future, the salvation of all monsters!” Frisk turned their head away, clenching their eyes tight as Chara berated them. “Nothing was stopping you from leaving. So why?” Chara demanded, “Why did you return? To mock me? To torment me?”

“No…” Frisk answered quietly, “To save you.”

Their answer didn’t make any sense. Chara stared back, unable to even articulate a response. Instead, they slammed Frisk against the wall again. “Liar!” Chara cried out, “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth!” Frisk squirmed and pulled on Chara’s hands to no avail, “Escape isn’t worth anyone’s life. Not even yours, Chara!”

Chara’s fists clenched tighter around the slack of Frisk’s sweater. With a heave, they tossed the child to the side. Frisk splayed across the floor with a grunt.

“You are wrong,” Chara huffed, “And you… are a fool. Did you not learn the first time? I don’t care about your mercy.”

Frisk pulled themself to their feet. They straightened and returned Chara’s frenzied glare with a quiet gaze.

Chara continued, “I will not stop. This time I’ll take the souls, ignore you, and escape to the Surface. There, Asriel and I… we’ll…” Chara trailed off as Asriel’s face crossed their mind again. They sank to the floor, the air feeling heavier and heavier. “That traitor… he will never… he will never cooperate.”

The realization was like a knife twisting in their gut. Even with his betrayal, Asriel was always the most devoted. No one would be able to replace him. Despair crept into their heart as Chara realized they needed him more than Asriel needed them back. Chara had considered Frisk their greatest opponent, but it was Asriel who truly stood in their way.

Chara’s vision swam, so they turned their head away from Frisk, their hair falling in front of their face. Knowing the human was seeing them like this made their skin crawl, and they wished the ground would swallow them up. As Chara spoke, they held their breath to keep their voice from shaking. “Leave.”

Frisk hesitated, surely coming up with a response. Mockery? Pity? Chara wouldn’t bear it.

“Out of my sight! Now!” Chara shouted; their roar made the air tremble. Frisk didn’t wait to be told again. The sound of scuffling footsteps faded from earshot, and soon Chara was alone in the silence once more.

Finally, Chara let the tears fall from their eyes. They were disgusted with the way their breath hitched and sobbed no matter how much they tried to stifle it. Asriel did this to them. Asriel would have to pay.

Chara indulged in several minutes of sickening self pity before they finally wiped their face. Looking around, it took Chara a moment before they registered just where they were. They were deep within the Ruins, just outside the chamber Frisk had fallen into. But that didn’t make sense. From Chara’s experience, time could only be turned back to the most recently fixed point. Frisk should have been returned to just before their battle, perhaps in the jail. Instead, here they were, back to the moment they first met. Was Frisk not confined to the same limits of time travel?

Chara shook their head. They couldn't think about this now. Only one thing mattered: Asriel’s punishment. Drawing the will to stand, Chara pushed themselves upright to follow the child.

In one way or another, Frisk had made it past all the traps, through the house, and—presumably—out the exit. It was for the best; Chara couldn’t stand to cross paths with the child again. Inside the house, they paused to collect a large padlock they had stored in a table drawer. It was heavy and nearly the size of a text book with ornate designs engraved across it. The lock was imbued with abjuration magic, made specifically to lock the Ruins after Asriel was nearly killed by the human years ago. The lock would render any door unbreachable by human or monster, and Chara held the only key.

Chara carried the device with them into the basement, down the hall, and to the large exterior doors that lead to the snow draped forests beyond. The doors were slightly ajar, revealing a set of footprints that dotted the snow off into the distance.

Chara sighed, taking one last look at the snowy view, before pulling the doors shut. For decades, the lock had only been placed on the outside, removed only when Chara came through to patrol the ruins or escort monsters between Home and Snowdin. Today, for the first time, the doors would be locked from the inside with Chara within. They looped the padlock through the handles of the door, and when they snapped it into place, the doors shuddered and clamped together with a jolt. Chara traced a fingernail down the seam of the two doors. No one would be passing through without their permission.

Confronting Asriel directly was not an option. After all, any progress made with Asriel could be undone by Frisk. Not to mention they weren’t even sure what they could tell him. Asriel’s traitorous inclinations were buried deep into his core, waiting until Chara was at their most desperate to stab them in the back.

But there was one tactic that Frisk would be unable to interfere with. Silence. If Chara withdrew to the Ruins without a word, Asriel would surely blame himself for Chara’s sudden absence. Chara knew Asriel well: he’d beg for Chara’s return and apologize for things he didn’t do, all the while ignorant of his traitorous compulsions. Cruel, perhaps, but nothing was as cruel as what he had done in those erased timelines.

Chara checked their phone. They already had one message from Asriel inquiring as to when they’d return home. The caretaker marked it as read before slipping it back into their pocket.

---

As predicted, Asriel came to the door and stayed all night long. Knocking, calling, pleading-- Chara relished each pathetic attempt at reconciliation. He deserved to be confused, heartbroken, and alone, just as Chara was. Over the course of the day Chara received messages from Asgore, Toriel, and many other monsters. They all asked the same thing: Are you okay? Do you want to talk? We found this human named Frisk, do you know them? Even Muffet demanded an explanation. Chara would have to deal with her later.

Leaving everyone wondering and begging for answers was the only power Chara had left. Word was getting to the monsters in Home as well, evidenced by the additional messages piling up on their phone. Chara ignored them too. Eventually they would realize they were trapped on this side of the door as well, unwilling hostages in Chara’s scheme.

No matter. The monsters deserved to be trapped. Every one of them was just like Asriel: eager to please and sentimental to a fault. Chara had devoted their entire life to serving them and in return they never offered to help collect the souls that would free them. In fact, Chara had to resort to time travel to push them in the right direction for just an ounce of support. They all deserve to rot in this dark, claustrophobic hell.

---

“So you just let a human walk on by?” Muffet inquired in a sing-song voice, “That doesn’t seem much like the great caretaker at all!”

The two of them were sitting in her parlor, each on a lavish chair. A full tea set complete with baked goods sat on a low table between them, though Chara knew better than to partake in it. Spider legs stuck out of the scones like coarse hairs, and they couldn’t even imagine what the tea had been steeped with.

“Yes. Well.” Chara said, looking down at their lap, “There is not much I can do about it now.”

“Oh yes, I imagine the sweet thing is the new royal favorite, aren’t they?” Muffet’s fanged smile turned up in a mocking grin, “The queen has always had a soft spot for filthy little strays. You know that better than anyone, right, dearie?”

Chara bit back a retort. With time no longer under their control, they had to be careful while inside of her lair. It had been a week since they sealed the Ruins, and Muffet was the only person they had spoken to since. The crime lord wasn’t their first choice of confidant, of course, but she had been insisting on meeting and they knew better than to reject her invitation.

“I suppose so,” they responded softly.

Muffet giggled to herself, then suddenly reached for the plate of cookies between them. It was only after she grabbed a couple treats that Chara realized they had flinched when she moved. They tried to relax but the attempt only made them more tense.

“So, is that why you locked the exit? Had a bit of a falling out with the in-laws?”

“Something like that.” Chara frowned, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Oh of course, a lady like me wouldn’t dream of indulging in distasteful gossip! Instead, I have a business proposition~”

Chara straightened. In their current circumstance, they didn’t have much in the way of influence or leverage.

“How can I be of service?” they asked.

“I want to relocate,” Muffet paused to bite into one of her cookies. It sounded... crunchy. “You see, the Ruins are awfully drafty, and the cold isn’t good for my constitution. I was thinking about moving in the next year or so, but now that you’ve so... graciously sealed us all in here, I predict the traffic in my shop will be slowing down considerably.”

“Understood.” Chara nodded, “I will make an exception for you and open the d—”

“I wasn’t finished, Chara.” Muffet said, her voice lowering. There was a tense pause before she smiled again, “I want a limousine~”

“A—A what?” Chara asked, incredulous.

“A heated limousine that will chauffer my employees and I all the way to Hotland,” she gestured to the spiders that skittered between the tea cups, “A necessary luxury to ensure we make it safely through the biting cold of Snowdin. Should be a simple task for a monarch, correct?”

“Of course. Leave it to me.” Chara smiled, “Is that all?”

“Not much for business, are you, Chara?” Muffet smirked, “This is where you negotiate the terms of the agreement~”

“No need. I am happy to do this as a gesture of goodwill.” Chara outstretched their hand—it wasn’t trembling anymore, thankfully—and Muffet gave it a dainty shake.

Once Chara was safely out of Muffet’s lair, they heaved a sigh of relief. Somehow they had managed to leave in one piece despite Muffet’s attempts to bait them. Now they just had to figure out how to serve her outrageous demands. Chara fished their phone out of their pocket, dismissed several dozen missed calls and text notifications, and opened their address book. They were going to need to call in some discreet favors.

---

One month had passed since they sealed the Ruins. It wasn’t easy, but Chara managed to arrange for Muffet’s departure without alerting the Dreemurrs. Eventually, the royals found out the Ruins door had been briefly opened which led to a fresh barrage of calls, messages, and knocking on the resealed door, all of which Chara ignored, of course.

Chara walked the streets of Home late at night, the crystals in the ceiling sparkling above. They could feel the eyes of the monsters on them, but after weeks of Chara ignoring and scowling in return, the monsters had given up on approaching them. Wordlessly, they did their weekly shopping at the local market. As a member of the royal family, Chara had never needed to pay for any necessities, and it seemed the benefits even extended here. It was only fair compensation, of course. After all, Chara was still serving the undeserving monsters by patrolling the Ruins every day for human threats.

---

“Ugh, really?” Chara muttered. They were nearly done with their patrol, having reached the large trap of spikes that was circled with a moat. Chara pushed down on the edge of the spike panel’s pressure plate with their foot, but the spikes failed to retract completely, the deadly points standing out by a few inches. It wasn’t a good sign: the springs inside were starting to give out. And if the springs snapped while Chara was standing above it…

Chara shuddered. They had witnessed that messy result and they didn’t care to experience it first hand. Typically, Chara would order replacement parts and perform maintenance themself, but the machinist that created the pieces was in New Home. Unsealing the door again was out of the question.

“Of course this would happen now,” Chara grumbled. They moved their foot off the plate and the spikes shot back into place. How many more compressions would it tolerate before it broke? Before Frisk came to the Underground, Chara could risk it and undo any unpleasant accidents, but if the past five months were any indication, Frisk was not nearly as eager to manipulate time. In fact, time had been rolled back only two times since Chara let the child go.

It was inconceivable. How could Frisk resist the urge to erase the inevitable little mistakes that ruined every day? Embarrassing moments, broken tea cups, scraped knees… all could be fixed in an instant with the right application of their power. To have such power and yet choose to carry the weight of their failures—it defied reason.

More importantly, if Chara suffered a tragic accident while isolated here, no one would come to their rescue… whether through time manipulation or otherwise.

“Unfortunate.” Chara said to themself with a resigned sigh, “I will have to dismantle them. All of them.” They turned around and headed back home. While they didn’t have access to their machinist anymore, they did have a few hand tools and plenty of time.

---

Eight months had passed since Chara had let Frisk go. As they walked the path of the now defanged Ruins, they revised and repeated their old plan over and over. If they could just get one more soul to replace Frisk, they would have the seven required to break the barrier and purify the Surface. The only thing missing, of course, was a willing monster to absorb them.

They reached the end of their patrol: the entrance to the Underground for lost, unlucky humans. The chamber was empty, as it had been every day since Frisk fell in. Chara walked into the center of the room and stared up into the vacant darkness looming above. One hundred years had passed on the Surface and only eight humans had fallen in that time. How long would it take for another to arrive? Ten years? Thirty? Without the help of their powers Chara could very well die before seeing the next human soul.

Chara turned to leave, but did a double take as they glimpsed a glimmer of gold on the ground. They kneeled and pushed the grass aside to reveal a small yellow bud, barely beginning to open.

“It cannot be…” Chara breathed, “A Golden Flower?”

Golden Flowers were common on the Surface, but had no presence in the Underground. Chara was so sure of this that they had incorporated them into their original plan over 20 years ago. By requesting to see the wild flowers on their deathbed, Chara could ensure Asriel would cross the barrier with their corpse in tow.

Or at least, that was what should have happened.

Chara clenched their teeth at the bitter memory. It was the first of many perfect plans ruined by Asriel’s cowardice. The caretaker grasped the plant and ripped it out of the ground by the root.

Immediately, Chara felt a pang of regret. They stared down at the pathetic thing. Their favorite flower, somehow growing in this dark, sunless prison. When had it taken root? Did some seeds blow in from the Surface? Or were they brought in by a... passenger?

Chara shook their head. Regardless of how it was introduced to the Underground, it was now a part of the Ruins—their Ruins. It didn’t deserve to suffer for Asriel’s mistakes. Reflexively, Chara attempted to turn back time, but nothing happened.

With a sigh, they returned the flower to where it was and buried its roots back into the soil. The stem was bent and it wouldn’t stay upright, but weeds were resilient. With a little help, it might still make it.

---

Chara hesitated before their latest masterpiece, knife in hand. Resting on a serving plate was a beautiful, hand crafted chocolate ganache cake. Strawberries perched on top of the silky dark topping, and the intoxicating aroma filled the house. Somehow, even without their powers, it had turned out almost too perfect to eat.

Emphasis on "almost". Carefully, Chara slid the knife through the decadent construction and placed a slice on their plate. They paused to admire the moist cross section before sliding a fork through the end and taking a bite.

Absolute bliss.

"Not bad for a humble birthday cake," Chara said to themself. They were thirty-seven today. Chara looked across the dining table into the empty living room. The only sound was the fire crackling in the hearth, emitting heat for a one person abode. They wished this house wasn’t nearly identical to the one in New Home; the similarities made it too easy to imagine Toriel in her chair, Asgore in the kitchen, and Asriel leaning on the table with his elbows, big goofy grin on his face. The Dreemurrs loved birthdays, always spending weeks preparing for a large and lavish party.

This was the first birthday they had spent alone since they were thirteen. They had forgotten how miserable it could be.

Chara checked their phone. They had over one hundred notifications that had come in just today. They scrolled through to find the only contact that mattered: Asriel.

“Happy birthday, Chara!!” the message read, “Mom and Dad and I are thinking about you lots! We even got you a gift, so I hope we can give it to you one day! Wherever you are, take good care of yourself, okay?” A line of party and heart related emojis followed.

Chara read the message over and over. Asriel’s texts would always fill them with disgust and hatred, but not today. Instead Chara just felt… lonely. It was a pathetic, shameful feeling, but a true feeling nonetheless. Despite all the ways Asriel had disrespected them, Chara couldn’t hide from the fact that they missed him.

The caretaker allowed themself to vocalize a thought they had been pushing out of their mind for months. “Maybe…” Chara spoke, their soft voice breaking the quiet, “Maybe it is time to go home.”

They sighed, resigning themself. The eternal silent treatment was never a realistic plan, and while Asriel was the intended subject of the punishment, it was unpleasant to Chara, too. Scrolling up through his messages, Asriel had sent hundreds upon hundreds over the past year begging them to “just talk”. All had gone unanswered. The confusion and desperation in those messages were clear; he was perfectly primed for a reconciliation.

But Chara wanted more than reconciliation. More important than companionship was freedom. Freedom not just for undeserving monsters, but most importantly, freedom for themself.

“There is still a way,” Chara muttered to themself, “I simply… pushed Asriel too quickly. Asriel always responded better to a softer approach.” Chara stood, pacing.

“We will delay soul fusion until the end of my natural life. Nothing barbaric or tragic. My dying wish will be to live on within him. He cannot turn down my final request.”

Chara nodded, they could see it now. After a few decades, Chara would peacefully pass from their old, frail body into Asriel’s strong, youthful one, a benefit of his species’ long life span.

“Then we gather the rest of the souls. But not right away. Asriel will need some time to adjust to sharing a vessel with me. But he will with time. Perhaps even the child can be convinced to willingly donate their soul to the cause.” Even though Frisk wouldn’t be a child anymore, it was hard to imagine Frisk as anything but a meddling brat. Honestly, they’d probably still be a brat in thirty years.

“If not, that is... fine. The child can be suffered to live.” The decision was a reluctant one, but giving mercy to such an undeserving creature gave Chara a pleasant feeling of self-righteousness. After all, it didn’t really matter if Frisk lived or died. The important thing was purifying the Surface and breaking the barrier. One human would not make a difference.

“Yes. This will work.” A smile crept onto Chara’s face and their heart thrummed with excitement. They would return to Asriel, who would embrace them with utmost relief and joy. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Asriel had shown no signs of giving up on them.

Chara would enjoy a long life in the company of their loved ones until the day they would embrace their prophesied purpose as the Underground’s savior.

It would require patience, but their splendid utopia was once again within reach. They began planning their grand return.

chapter 10 // end

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#undertale #chara #the caretaker of the ruins #undertale spoilers #main comic #chapter 10 #story summary #amazing that chapter 1-9 took place in one day #but this chapter is a year long

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

Text

Episode Review: ‘Together Again’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 3)

Airdate: May 20, 2021

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, Christina Catucci, Jesse Moynihan, Adam Muto

Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Maya Petersen, Serena Wu

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Across Adventure Time’s ten season run, the show explored a bevy of “mature” themes and story ideas—topics, like love, sexuality, depression, and grieving. The show also touched upon death, but the emphasis was usually placed on the emotional toll of a loved one dying, not really what happens when you die. We knew there were Dead Worlds and Death. We knew that there was reincarnation. But how does it all fit together? What does it mean? How does it work?

With “Together Again,” we finally have many of the answers.

This special opens with a marvelous fake-out episode simply called “Finn & Jake,” that sees the two steal a magical cartoon of 50-flavor ice cream before rescuing Turtle Princess and LSP from the clutches of the villainous Ice King. This is all deliberately anachronistic and over the top. Ice King is back to his season one ways, Finn has both arms, and he is still wielding his golden sword that he lost in season two’s “The Real You.” There’s lolrandom dialogue and silly monsters; it’s like a parody of seasons 1-2. But then, this adventure starts to get all wonky, and in time Finn realizes that he is in a some sort of trance or illusion: one that ends with Jake being buried in the ground. Suddenly, Finn awakens from his reverie. He’s an old man. And he’s dead. We’re then presented with a new title card that lets us know the episode is actually called “Finn & Jake Are Dead.”

Holy Glob! They actually went there.

Turns out Jake died years before Finn, so naturally Finn is super excited to see his best bud. But something’s wrong—he cannot find Jake!! They planned to spend eternity together. But all that Finn can find is his very own psychopomp, Mr. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich, whose purposefully stilted line readings are the epitome of delightful). Finn rightfully assumes that Jake is in a different Dead World, and so, being the ball of spunk and energy that he is, he demands to meet with Death, only to discover that there’s a New Death in town (voiced by Chris Fleming). The episode eventually explains that New Death was the son of Death and Life, and after New Death killed his father, he became the sovereign of the afterlife. New Death hates his job and decides to just blow up all the Dead Worlds so he doesn’t have to deal with it all. (I won’t get too much into the details here, because there would be a lot of story to parse out.)

Finn soon learns that Jake has reached nirvana in the 50th Dead World, where there is nothing but peace and serenity. Finn nevertheless tracks down Jake, pulls him from paradise, but in doing so, accidentally lets New Death in, who promptly obliterates Elysium, sending all the enlightened souls—including those from different levels of the afterlife—to the 1st Dead World. This gronks up the afterlife, temporarily halting the reincarnation process.

Well, Finn and Jake are rightfully ticked, and so they haunt the material plane looking for Princess Bubblegum. She’s not home (more on that later), but Peppermint Butler is! After Ghost Finn and Ghost Jake explain the situation, Peppermint Butler tells them what to do: They need to find Life and explain the situation. The duo manage just that, and Life is rightfully angry that her kid has stopped the transmigration of souls. After Life gives Finn a McGuffin sword that can hurt Death, Finn and Jake return to his abode. A brawl ensues wherein we learn that New Death has been possessed… by none other than that spirit of the Lich.

That’s right, it’s the Lich! He’s back, and boy is he evil.

The Lich explains that by possessing Death, he can destroy the afterlife, thereby destroying a key aspect of reality. Naturally, Finn and Jake are not cool with this, and they engage in combat. After Mr. Fox grabs the McGuffin sword and uses it to annihilate the Lich and New Death, he is proclaimed the New New Death and sets everything right. Finn is slated to be reincarnated, and Jake is slated to return to the 50th Dead World where he and Finn will one day be reunited. As Finn is pulled into the wheel of souls, Jake suddenly decides to go back with Finn, too, “Just for fun.” The episode ends with a card letting us know that the episode is neither called “Finn & Jake” nor “Finn & Jake Are Dead.” Instead, it is “Finn and Jake Are Together Again.”

As they say, “And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

If you were to tell me several years ago that the last episode to star Finn and Jake would revolve around them dying, I think I would’ve been upset. Not simply sad, but rather frustrated because “they all died” can feel like a cheap ending. But with “Together Again,” it all works. And a large reason that it works is because the show goes all in with their ideas. Finn and Jake don’t magically leap back into their old life (no, no, they very much do bite the dust). Instead, the special emphasizes the cyclical nature of life through the transmigration of souls. The episode ends with a beautiful scene of Finn and Jake, bound together as soul-brothers, being reborn into a new, mysterious (possibly Ooo 1000+?) world. It’s both aesthetically and emotionally pleasing; it doesn’t feel off the way over finales might. This is right. This is the way life works. “Round and round as nature goes,” and all that jazz.

I loved the series explanation of how death works. It seems that souls land in a specific Dead World, where they ‘marinate’ for a bit, presumably being rewarded or punished based on their life in our meat reality. After a time, they are then reborn. This process repeats, with each soul reaching higher and higher levels of enlightenment until they hit nirvana, which is the 50th Dead World. So in a sense, Adventure Time has a roughly Buddhist cosmology with a dash of Greco-Roman mythos thrown in for flavor. (As to what happens after a soul stays in the 50th Dead World for a long period is anyone’s guess, but I’d speculate that when all the souls in the multiverse have been purified and land in the 50th Dead World, they will all collapse into one another and form one perfect Monad. Perhaps this is the sphere of perfection that the beings who merged into Matthew thought they were connecting to? Who knows! It’s anyone’s guess!) I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see who Death, Prismo, Life, etc.’s boss was, but perhaps that’s a mystery better left up to the imagination!

One minor thing that I loved about this special was the number of characters who made cameos as well as all the callbacks that were made to previous episodes. Regarding the former: Finn and Jake’s canine family show up (including the oft-forgotten Jermaine!), as do Tree Trunks and her myriad husbands. Tiffany plays a major role in all these shenanigans as a “death cop” of all things. There is a delightful rogues gallery stuck in the 1st Dead World (including, among others, Maja, Sharon from “The Gut Grinder,” and Wyatt). In the 50th we find Ghost Princess and Clarence happily at peace next to Booshy, the weird spirit mentioned in the Pen Ward classic “High Strangeness.” As far as callbacks go, perhaps my favorite is the clap (from “James Baxter the Horse”) that Jake taught to Finn in case they ever do get separated in the afterlife. And of course, there are myriad references made to “Death in Bloom,” the episode that planted the seed for what this would grow into.

Going into the special suspecting that it would involve Death, I was curious how they were going to handle Miguel Ferrer’s character. (In case a reader is not aware, Ferrer played Death in episodes like “Death in Bloom” and “Betty,” but he sadly passed away a few years ago). The producers’ choice to feature him in a non-speaking cameo—despite playing a relatively significant role in the story—was wise; I’m not sure if I can articulate the exact reasons, but something about his role felt appropriate and not gross, as some post-mortem memorials can be. Speaking of which, the wonderful, lovely Polly Lou Livingston was featured for the last time in this episode as Tree Trunks, happily in heaven with her literal harem of husbands. It was funny, it really was, and I’m sure that Polly Lou would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing it on screen. (Also, this is a pro-Tree Trunks safe space. Any Tree Trunks haters will be chucked into the 1st Dead World with Wyatt.)

The biggest mystery in this whole thing, for me at least, is the question of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Several years ago, I wrote an essay about what could’ve happened to them in the Ooo 1000+ universe. I speculated that they peaced out and left Ooo behind. In this special, neither Bubblegum nor Marceline are to be found in the Candy Kingdom—Peppermint Butler seems to be the one in charge, given that he is now wearing Bubblegum’s crown. Likewise, the duo aren’t anywhere in the Dead Worlds either. Maybe the two of them skipped town and got a duplex in the Nightosphere? Who knows… I just want my favorite gals to be OK!

All things considered, “Together Again” was a marvel: An episode that managed to feel like a series finale even more than “Come Along with Me” already did without taking away from the series itself. An episode that managed to make the idea of dying funny. An episode that brought back the Lich in a way that wasn’t forced. An episode that made Mr. Fox the New New Death. An episode that gave us a beautiful ending to Finn and Jake’s story… as well as the beautiful beginning to a new one. I said it on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here: “Together Again” was the end of a sentence in a book with infinite pages. Truly, the fun will never end.

Mushroom War evidence: Everything takes place in the Dead Worlds, so not really. Perhaps a more eagle-eyed viewer can inform us...

Final Grade: That’s right, I’m gonna do it...

Post-script, I actually messaged Jesse Moynihan to ask about his writing credit. He told me that it was for an unused story idea that he had developed. I’m not certain, but I’ll bet it was a part of the cancelled TV movie they were trying to make during season 5, since that would’ve seen Finn and Orgalorg journey to the various Dead Worlds.

#adventure time #adventuretime #atimers #at #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #finn the human #jake the dog #together again #togetheragain #dead worlds #hanna k. nyström #Hanna K #adam muto #jack pendarvis

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reverieblue98 · 3 years

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Writing Emotions - Anger

Hello and welcome to the first of a little series I plan to make! Let’s explore different emotions, and how to emulate them better in your writing, starting with anger.

Common Body Language Habits

Usually, angry people will be tense and tight, and their bodies reflect that. Here’s a list of some common physical signs a person is mad:

Clenching teeth

Tight muscles (shoulders, jaw, etc.)

Balled up fists

Increased heartrate

Heavy breathing

Rubbing temples, head, etc.

Mouth in a firm line

Tense posture (Ready to fight)

Sweat or heat rash (red spots)

Tearing up

Verbal Habits

When you’re angry, it’s hard to focus on other things. You might find it hard to express your feelings, or maybe tend to be rude or even insulting to others, whether you intend to or not. Your character could be/say any of the following while being angry:

Overly sarcastic

Raising their voice

Hesitation, unable to put their thoughts into words

Arguing over meaningless things

Saying insults

Loss of humour

Not processing what’s being said to them

Sighing, scoffing

Wobbly voice, crying

How to Use These Traits

A side note before we begin: usually, anger can make people go one of two ways: so angry that they cry, or so angry that they get violent/aggressive. Be sure to sort out where your character lies first, so that your body language and verbal habits are not contradicting each other. We want the reader to understand the personality of the character, so try it make sure they are consistent.

Be careful when using body language! It’s super easy to over mention it or stick to more cliché signs on anger, and that can make your story boring. I suggest that you use the “show not tell” method for body language, as you can make it more clear what the character is feeling while adding very nice vivid description. Here’s an example:

Her vision blurred, and pain shot up her legs as her muscles tensed. The sharp taste of iron coated her tongue.

or...

Her eyes began to water, and she tensed her muscles. She bit tongue until she could taste blood.

Both of these are great, just different! The second one is a little more direct. It doesn’t require the reader to imagine the scene as much as the second one, but if that’s not a priority for you, don’t worry about it! Sometimes, using show not tell can create very interesting descriptions, so I suggest trying it out anyway. In the end, it’s up to you!

Expressing emotion in dialogue is probably easier. This will be different for everyone, so disregard what the words in this example are, and focus on how I describe how it’s being said.

“You’re a liar,” he whispered, afraid if he got any louder his voice would break.

“So what?” she laughed. “What’s it to you, hmm? I thought you didn’t care about them.”

His mouth was open, but the words didn’t come. his throat became tight, and eyes blurry.

I hope you got the impression that while he is mad, he is also so mad that he can’t articulate his thoughts. He’s on the verge of tears, and he can’t trust his voice to hold steady. This is common for many people in real life, when they are experiencing very big emotions. Bonus points if your character previously had been emotionally strong, and is now crying. This shows a more vulnerable side to a character, and will leave an impact on the reader. It’s like when your favourite super badass hero suddenly breaks down, too angry to think. It shows you just how emotionally overloaded they are, and how they are developing. Same goes for a character who is very bad at controlling their emotions, and cries often. If they become strong because they have the motivation to do something important, that also shows the reader how important this scene is to the character, and will bond them. It also leads to good character development!

Thank you for reading this big post! I hope that it helped you out. If you’re interested in some more posts surrounding writing emotions, let me know! I’ll be happy to deliver. Anyway, thanks and happy writing!

-RB

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shipwreckedshadows · 2 years

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Some ideas about Swatch, Queen and the Tasque Manager (I’ll be tagging these as “Pandora Box Canon”):

- The Tasque Manager is Queen’s second in command. She is like a souped up version of a personal assistant. She knows every program that’s ever been installed on, opened on, and deleted from Queen’s memory banks. Tasque’s are physical representations of each running program + their little dog tags display the name of the program for easy identification. TM is very good at optimizing processing so that Queen can run at proper speeds.

- Queen and Tasque Manager are like Alfred and Batman. Queen’s always doing whatever she wants and Tasque Manager has to either do damage control along the way or persuade Queen not to be so reckless.

- Queen can summon Tasque Manager with a command that makes her instantly apparate to wherever Queen is standing. Its an emergency protocol but Queen uses it like its a texting service.

Tasque Manager, standing in the throne room soaping wet: What was so important that you had to pull me away from my personal self-care?

Queen, ignoring her apparent nudity: I want your input on my outfit.

TM: My liege... this doesn’t qualify as an emergency.

Swatch, polishing a vase as an excuse to be in the vicinity: I’d say that it does.

- After one too many of these incidents, Tasque Manager hires Swatch (originally relegated to head butler) to manage all the interior affairs of the palace. Swatch is like MS Paint software-adjacent so they’re really good with colours and spacial solutions. They’re actually better at this job than they were at being a butler. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t the head honcho of the palace staff. After a lot of time spent in the palace, Swatch grows closer to Queen and they both find that their chemestries really jive together.

- Swatch is always very emotional, compared to Queen’s downplayed, cold expressions. Both her programming + the dark fountain magic make it so that she puts on a mask of amusement (and sometimes very sombre rage) and its hard for her to really express much else. Swatch uses their high emotional intelligence + emphatic intuition to help Queen articulate more complex emotions, like guilt, sadness and embarrassment. They also help her parse out others’ emotions since she’s not very good at doing that by herself.

- This dynamic naturally brings them very close together. Swatch understands Queen really well and by spending a lot of time with them, Queen learns how to read and respond to Swatch’s specific emotional tells + behaviours.

- Queen and Swatch are the Girl dad/NB mom duo who occasionally like to have dirty fun together.

- They gossip about every thing in the castle. Queen loves hanging out at the cafe whenever she's not handling royal responsibilities. She says its so she can keep tabs on whats happening in the mansion (Swatch has an impressive web of information sources that extends all the way to the trash zone) but really she just likes spending time with her bestie.

- Because Swatch is the MS Paint analogue, they create swatchlings (dubbed playfully by Queen) which are essentially .jpeg files with very specific instructions to carry out tasks.

- Queen dotes on the swatchlings excessively. They each get their own rooms complete w personalized furnishings. Swatch thinks she spoils them too much

#Queen #Swatch #Tasque Manager #Swatchqueen #pandora box canon #alumnix canon

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bakatenshii · 4 years

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Flushed

Dabi x Reader (BNHA)

word count: 5.1k

TW: 18+, smut, dub/noncon, drug use/abuse, corruption, virginity, (mild) blood

A/N: I am 12 days late for Sunny’s birthday, but my heart beats for one person and one person only— the light of my life, my wife @blahkugo, who wrote me two (2!!) Shig fics for my bday Charity & Sludge, that I reread on the daily like the morning news. Cheeky shoutout to @thisisthehardestthing for writing one iconic sentence in here that I would have framed if I could.

flushed

/fləSHt/

(of a person's skin) red and hot, typically as the result of illness or strong emotion.

cleanse (something) by causing large quantities of water to pass through it.

Dabi doesn’t prowl for prey, he’s not on the lookout for fowl to take home for dinner. No, they come to him. It’s easy, always so obvious, he plucks them out like chicken in a hen house, ripe for breeding.

It wasn’t hard to spot a desperate girl burning out, Hell, the campus’ full of them. But you had something more, something fun, something that made his lips quirk up and his dick twitch— you were uncorrupted.

He can just tell, despite the airs you try to give, the aura of a virgin’s akin to an omega in heat to a starving alpha. Sweet, honeysuckle, the tiny flinches when a man gets too close, the breathy lilt in your voice when they propose something too risque; he inhales it all, commits it all to memory like you were desperately trying to do as you chewed on the tip of your pen and scratched out lines on the book in front of you.

He didn’t need to push, you were already teetering the line, but he did it anyways— because it was fun.

It was elating to watch you stumble into class the next day, eyes dark with sleepless anxiety, misery painted into every crevice of your features while your notes were tucked neatly into the drawer in his room. Really, you shouldn’t have left them so open on the lecture hall table, it’s like inviting a robber home and cooking him a three course meal.

Finals season marked the end of your social life, and the beginning of Dabi’s career. It was almost boring, the repetitive nature of his job; too easy, too simple, a mockery of the entitled bookworms who look down on scummy repeaters like him. But the entitlement is what fuels him, over-achievers fearing for two simple digits on a crumpled sheet of paper as if it’s worse than death itself.

He thrives off of their stubbornness to accept anything below perfect; the hilarity of it all, the irony that their insurance to achieve higher standards than that of a scum like him only fuels his lifestyle, bringing him deeper down the depths of degeneracy.

He sat behind you closer than usual, spoke a lil louder than usual, dropped in the most nonchalant comment about a study drug kids are crazing over these days. He watched as you flinched, hands stopped moving to listen in to the spiel he was spewing, the fishing hook he was dangling in front of you.

A magic pill, one that’ll help you concentrate, kill any sleepiness, get you buzzed for hours on end— best of all, it’s totally legal, he gets it from a pharmacist, scout’s honour.

That’s what he told you when you turned around to him at the end of class, whispering in hushed fear, nerves bouncing off your skin in goosebumps on your exposed arms.

Why he’s selling it? Because he needs some extra cash, he said. He knew you didn’t believe him, but he knew you were desperate enough not to care.

When you met him in the dead of night at the empty carpark of his building, he knew he’s got you; hook, line, and sinker. No self-respecting girl would meet bottom-barrel trash like him in a deserted location at half three in the morning, no, you were untainted, but you weren’t pure.

He didn’t need to know it worked, doesn’t matter what your test results reflected, all that mattered was that you came back to him a few weeks later, met him at the same dingy carpark, hands trembling slightly less this time.

He pretended to scold you, reveled in the way your lips curled into a soft pout, and warned you that tolerance builds fast. Do it in moderation, he had said— he’s the world’s biggest hypocrite.

You came to him only a week later this time, and Dabi had pretended to be shocked. He wasn’t, he gave you a lower dosage the last time, there was no way you’d have been satisfied. Microdosing leads the unsuspecting to addiction, the one fact he learned from school. He lectured you, asked you if you’d built up tolerance too fast, if you wanted to try something different?

He watched as your eyes lit up, pupils dilating in excitement at the promise of something different, something better. It really was too easy. You were too easy.

That night he invited himself over to yours, said he’d wanted to make sure you didn’t have any side effects. It was new, after all, and it was stronger. He’d sit there and be quiet, he promised; it was all out of the kindness of his own heart.

It was almost embarrassing how eagerly you’d lie to yourself in hopes of a better grade.

Dabi wasn’t gonna do anything to you that night, trust takes time to build up after all. Besides, it’s no fun to pounce on the prey before they started running. You studied the nonsensical scribbling on annotated novels, he studied your tiny movements, twitches, nervous habits; etched them into his brain for future use.

A too-long breath, a gasp, a clench of the fist signaled your come-up. He timed it, approximately thirty-five minutes for the initial peak, then smaller spikes at half hour intervals, totaling in four hours before you came down. Impressive, still, considering he’d given you the same dosage as the first time.

He stuck to his words, staying quiet only until prompted, offered you water every once in a while, really, he deserved an Oscar for playing the best supporting dealer. It only took two more sessions before your tolerance peaked again, calculated and timed to perfection right before the next assignment.

The beauty of seeking out an English major was that they’re always searching, reaching into the void for any type of inspiration to translate into eloquently formed words. The beauty of seeking out you, was that you were already in too deep, hooked by the lil pills and plunged into the bottom of the ocean.

Your grades rose while your inhibitions sank, a dramatic irony, isn’t that what they called it?

It’s cute, really, he only had to give you a nudge this time. Asked you how your assignment was going, played the sympathetic friend, and offered you something completely new, completely different. ‘Have you ever tried 2CB?’

Silly question, rhetorical, almost; of course you hadn’t. Innocent sweet girl like you never would’ve even touched weed, much less a hallucinogen. But he poses it to you in an eager tone like he’s genuinely waiting on an answer, like this isn’t just one big game to him. He laughed when you said no, asked him what it was— do you want him to show you?

You trust him, don’t you? He’s helped you through your exams, supported you through your assignments, honestly, he deserved a pat on the back. Don’t tell him you didn’t trust him, come on now, that’d break his heart.

He didn’t expect you to put up a fight, but you gave in almost too easily, guess those lil pills really did migrate and nest in your bloodstream.

The safety of your own dorm room was always granted to you, a faux-sense of security to veil you in, shield you from the true depth of depravity you’ve sunken to. He held you underwater in a net, ensuring you that he’d pull you up whenever— ‘just say the word.’

The net had long been cut, he’d admired the way you’d comforted down there, paddling aimlessly in hopeful conviction.

It’s become routine, almost. Dabi lets himself in easily, settles into the couch across your desk, pulls out a baggy and passes it to you. “A psychedelic,” he explains, “you’ll see colours you’d never seen, find beauty in everything, an artist’s best friend,” if he does say so himself.

He watches you pop the lil pill in your mouth, follow the stream of water pour down your throat, traveling the rips and divots of your tongue, before it drops down your throat into your bloodstream with a bob of your larynx. You’re so pliant, so obedient, he reminds himself to thank your parents for grooming such a cute lil doll.

You let out a loud gasp an hour and a half later, and he watches your fingers curl into themselves; and for the first time he speaks unprompted.

“You good?” It’s almost genuine; the curiosity, at least. He wants to know how articulate you are, needs to know how deeply submerged your consciousness has become.

He watches as you meet his gaze, little tongue dashing out to wet your lips, and nods once, twice, slowly. You shake your head almost immediately after, croaking out an, “I feel ill,” before pushing meekly at your desk to stand your body up. Cute, weak.

Just how he likes them.

He reaches an arm out to you, pulling you into his chest easily and nests your head into the crook of his neck. “Nauseous, aren’t you?” You nod, and he smirks. “Don’t worry princess, it’s just a rough come-up. I’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

It’s almost believable, how sickly sweet he sounds. Too many sitcoms accumulated in recycled dialogues to woo girls in any situation; mix and match, simple yet effective.

He can feel the restless rise and fall of your chest pressing against his, short quick pants as if gasping for air, a small hand scraping at his arm; yeah, you’re definitely coming up.

He picks you up and nestles you into your own couch, so easily as if handling a ragdoll, then walks to the kitchen and pours you some water. The perfect friend, the perfect support, the perfect dealer. You’re so vulnerable, so exposed, you don’t even know it; it makes his brain fog over with carnal desire to pounce— but he doesn’t. Not yet.

He lays back on the couch with you, arm snaking around your shoulder to coax you into a subdued euphoria. All the words he’s garnered throughout the years of fishing for his next meal come bubbling out so naturally in practiced scripts, “It’s okay princess, it’s a stronger pill. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.” He’s promising a whole lot, tonight.

“Hey,” he tips your face to meet his with all the tenderness of a lion stalking its prey, “I’m here, right? You trust me, don’t you? I’ve never let you down. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

It’s hard to force down the gagging noise on cue with his disgustingly fake, rom-com lines, but the way he can feel your body loosen, relax, and mold into his tells him he’s close. So close.

This is the best part, this is what he’s good at; the last stretch of patience while stalking his prey, with footsteps so light, treading so carefully, until the air slows down around him and he can taste your scent wafting through the air.

It happens in an instant, a whole-body jolt as you tense up, euphoria announced with a sharp gasp. The smile that crawls up his face is nothing short of sinister, predatory, but he knows you don’t notice. You can’t. Your eyes are strewn shut, basking in the high, and he takes the moment to swallow the pill he’s held under his tongue.

It’s no fun to tripsit, he doesn’t get anything out of that, and Dabi doesn’t do things for free. He feels your head fall back onto his shoulder, short breaths warming a ripple of goosebumps up his neck, and watches as you push your heavy lids open to gaze at the ceiling.

He can feel your giggles reverberating through his chest before he hears them, innocent, pure, unsuspecting. He presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, because virtuous girls like you like to be treasured, made to feel special, safe— he can make you feel safe; no one’s told him not to play with his food before he eats it.

He watches as you flutter your eyelids at him, sigh into his touch, really, you’re the textbook prototype, he doesn’t even need to adjust his tactics. “You feelin’ good?” A hot breath into your ear, and he revels in the way your lips pout to let out a soft sigh.

Funny how differently you react when you’re high out of your mind, maybe it’s the drug, or maybe it’s just Dabi? You’ve always wanted a bad boy like him, didn’t you? Good girls like bad guys; it’s textbook cliché, and you’re the blueprint.

He doesn’t wait on an answer, he knows it: you’re feeling good, great— divine. He’ll be right there with you soon, he promises.

“Tell me what you see, princess,” Dabi’s not listening when a cascade of nonsensical descriptions come bubbling out, he doesn’t care. It’s all to get you to keep talking, shift your attention elsewhere while his hand slithers down your arm to play with the hem of your shirt.

At the first brush of his finger on the bare skin of your waist, he feels you purr into him, eyes rolling back in bliss. It’s his cue to give you more, invitation for him to snake his other hand up your naked thigh and knead the flesh gently.

Gentle does it, he’ll bring you higher as you go.

He ghosts a breath just under your ear, nipping at your lobe, and admires the full body shiver tumbling through. Moans, loud and needy, come panting out past your lips and echoes off the walls before bouncing back to him. He lets you symphonize short breaths and whiney pleas with each lick and suck traveling down your neck, painting blooms of purple and red as his hand travels dangerously high.

A firm grip is all the warning he gives you before he tucks his fingers into the crease of your thigh, laughing almost at how obediently you spread your legs. What happened to that pure, innocent girl? Guess under all that laid a dirty whore, just like the rest of ‘em.

It was slick, so wet, pussy dripping past the delicate lace and drooling over his fingers. Lace, befitting of a slut who lured him in with the fake charms of a virgin. He slides a finger down your slit, gathering up all the juices before presenting it to you.

“What do you see?” He holds up his finger, slick dripping down like syrup, and watches your pupils dilate in effort to focus. He can see the way your lips part, string of saliva connecting the two soft molds, before gasping out, “melting ice cream.”

“Want a taste?”

You clamp over his finger before he even asks you to, sucks on the digit like it’s a melting ice lolly, before your eyes shoot open and mouth twists in disgust. Of course it doesn’t taste nice, normal food isn’t even edible when you’re rolling like this. You’re sticking your tongue out, in an attempt to air out the taste, or maybe you’re just a dumb dog, a dumb bitch, he’s not sure. He doesn’t really care.

The same hand, now slick with saliva, grips your chin and crashes your lips into his. His tongue finds yours first, tip licking up the crevice of yours lolling out, and he sucks it into his mouth like it’s a crime for it to be kissing the air.

There’s no modesty, no gentleness, his tongue pries your lips open, and he feels the weakest form of resistance before he’s thrusting the muscle down your throat. He lapping over the back of your teeth, traces over each bump and rugae on the gummy sides, and snickers at your shit attempt to kiss him back with your slack mouth drooling out the corners.

He feels a pawing at his arm— your hand meekly grabbing at the sleeve of his shirt to bring him in closer, press his chest into your soft tits, crowd him into you more, more, more.

It’s cute; it’s stupidly desperate.

He gets it though, it’s no worries. Human nature is all it is; the desire to climb higher and higher— he wonders if he can get one out of you before the pill hits him.

There’s no gentleness in the way his hand slots between your legs and cups your dripping cunt this time. He wishes he has more time to admire the way your legs quiver and twitch with every firm pat against your clit, but he’s on a time crunch. There’s so much time to spare, he can play with it all he wants later.

He can feel your needy moan vibrate through his lips and reverberate straight into his brain, sloppy mouths working simultaneously together and against each other as he rips your panties and shorts off in one go. Any self respecting girl would shut their legs in shame, in embarrassment, any attempt to protect their dignity, but you don’t. He doesn’t let you, anyways.

A hand moves under your shirt to roughly grip at your tits in the same breath he sinks a finger into your sopping hole. Inhale; squeeze, thrust, exhale— you moan. It’s tight, as tight as a virgin pussy should be, but not too tight that it fights against the foreign digit ramming into it at a relentless pace too rough and quick to befit an unexplored hole.

He can feel the pulsing around him, gummy walls milking his finger for all its worth, and he digs his palm into your swollen bud; it’s all he needed for you to come undone. You don’t squeal, you don’t scream, the 2CB in your system rendering you incapable of anything except long breathy sobs of his name.

His finger pops out with a wet squelch, and he brings it to his mouth to taste it; tarty, thick— he’s still sober. You’re blubbering out drivel about the stars you saw, the colours swirling around at the peak of your euphoria, you think you saw God— is Dabi God?

Dabi had to laugh, pat you on the head with his hand covered in syrupy slick, watch it leak and clump your strands of hair. He picks you up with your shorts and panties drenched through dangling at your ankles, and walks you to your bed.

You don’t notice, still basking in the afterglow; he knows this. Not that you’d push him off, tell him to stop. Not in your state anyways. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

He drops you once the bed’s in frame at the same time he feels his pulse rise, heart palpitate, and a wave of nausea threatens to bubble over. It doesn’t; he doesn’t let it. An experienced veteran would never. It’s a welcomed sensation, one he’s all too familiar with, and he gives himself a brief minute to breathe it in, savour it, before glancing back down at your limp body on the bed.

Is it your body? He can trace your silhouette from the dip of your waist, the full of your hips, something glistening, gleaming in the light— your pretty little virgin cunt. His eyes roll back at the next inhale before he finds himself landing on the bed on top of you, forearms digging into the soft mattress of your bed.

He hears your voice singing into his brain, soft lulls of his name stringing out in DabiDabiDabi— the desperation and need shooting straight to his cock, he doesn’t even need to look down at your soft pliant body, welcoming him, inviting him in.

“Feels good, yeah?” His voice comes out rougher than usual, low and strained, and laughs at how eagerly you nod, watches your chin catch the air and paint strokes of colour following the route it takes, “Who makes you feel this good?”

He knows, he knows because it’s all you’ve been able to say the past while, the only word on your mind that you can even blubber out—

“You, Dabi,” your pants grow heavier; his pants grow tighter, “it’s you Dabi, please—“

A hand reaches up to cradle his cheek, your soft, uncalloused, hand, and he grips it by the wrist before bringing it up to his face. He traces every line that curves and meets on your palm with his tongue, letting it be covered entirely with drool before wrenching it down under his joggers and into his boxers to cup his aching erection.

His hips rut into your palm almost immediately as a knee-jerk reaction, every hump into your tiny hand has him panting into your face, sweat beading at his temples. His tongue drops down to lick at your lips, asking for entrance, begging for access. Your lips might’ve parted just a fraction, maybe just to let out a breathe, but Dabi takes it as permission to thrust his tongue in and prod at your dormant one.

He can feel you gag at the sudden intrusion, throat convulsing to push back the unfamiliar slimy muscle, and he briefly considers yanking your hand out and shoving his cock down that pretty little mouth of yours.

But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t have the patience. He needs it urgently, needs your tight virgin cunny stretching and agonizing over his overbearing size, needs to feel the flutter of the gummy walls with each thrust; he needs it bad, he needs it now—

Your hand is wrenched away as he yanks both waistbands down to his thighs. He looks at you, eyes blurring through kaleidoscopic vision, and makes out your disoriented gaze staring back at him. Disoriented with toxins, disoriented with need, lust, desperation— a hand reaches behind Dabi’s neck and pulls him back down to crash bruised lips together.

It’s all the invitation he needs, not that he needs it, no, what he needs is to sink his painfully hard cock into that sweet, sweet cunt of yours. There’s a faint squealing coming from underneath him, and he thinks he can feel nails digging crescents into his nape, but all he can feel is your warm, wet walls clenching around him.

There was no need to prepare you for any longer, there’s no point if he doesn’t stretch your virgin pussy out with his own cock; it’s wasted on fingers, his fingers don’t deserve to feel the way you walls quiver and contract around it. The pitched cries stop eventually as he feels your body go pliant and soft, and he has half a mind to realize you’re probably starting to come down soon.

He doesn’t wanna deal with that, you won’t be sober for another few hours, but you’ve peaked already, and not with him; that’s not fair, that’s no fun. His cock stills inside you with half still unsheathed and he reaches down into his pocket to take out a baggy of powder. There’s a spoon in, thank fuck, and he feeds a small bump right up to your nose.

“Inhale,” he slots it right up your nostril, “it’ll make you feel good, didn’t you feel good?” Your head lowers to nod, bumps the edge of the spoon right into the cartilage of your nose, and inhale. Good girl.

The baggy is tossed haphazardly before he’s working his dick into you again, cockhead pushing through the doughy walls in search of that pocket at the end of your pussy.

You don’t struggle anymore, instead clinging onto his shoulders and carving half-moons into the flesh. It hurts a lil, and Dabi doesn’t like it when it hurts, not when he’s the one hurting.

He snatches your hands off him and pushes them above your head, into the plush forgiving mattress. His teeth are back on your neck, biting over the ripples of purple and green and red and blue, reveling in your cries and moans that come out in symphonies.

It feels good, great— divine, it’s what he deserves for bringing you to Nirvana. He’s basically your muse, after all, how can you truly describe rapture without experiencing it first?

He can hear your moans ringing out from underneath, can see them traveling in the air in hues of reds and pinks and reds and reds— there’s red on your bedsheets, of course there is. He forgot that’s what comes with a virgin cunt; blood, mixing with the translucent coating his cock, dripping down and painting the crisp white sheet red, drifting into the air and congesting the whole room with red.

He inhales the colour, sucks it into his lungs, and uses it to fuel the pistoning of his hips. Your breaths turn to pants, turns to sobs of his name leaving your lips again, and he thinks you look good, so good, taking his cock like this. You should thank him for bringing you to your second orgasm.

Just look at you, crazy isn’t it? Crazy what a lil pill can do. But he’s got something better, something so much better, something that’ll bring you to a new dimension. You want that, don’t you? C’mon don’t be shy, Dabi will bring you right there, don’t you worry.

There’s still the faint cries from your orgasm when he flips you over and pushes your face into the untainted sheets. He watches as your hands sprawl up to grip and grasp at something, anything, and his hands ease up on the hold on your skull for a second to let you wheeze and greedily gasp for air.

He flickers a trail of blue down your back, watches the flames dance and rage in a mirage, every bouquet indented by the ligament of each tender rib, and there’s a faint scream. The pitch rises with the flames, taunting it to go higher, faster, paint murals in every swell of your back until he can’t see anything except ash coal char.

Dabi blinks, squints his eyes as he throws his head back to focus on the paint chipping on the ceiling. It cracks and crinkles, shying away from his pointed glare, before he sucks in a deep breath and looks back down at you.

There’s no ash, no char, only warm tanned flesh, pressed flush against the pristine white sheets underneath. It burns against the pads of his long fingers splayed out across your back, and he winces in annoyance at the irony.

You don’t seem to notice his pause, too fucked out or fucked up to register what’s going around you probably. A mixture of both; Dabi can’t really remember what he’s given you or how long he’s been there.

He can’t decide if he wants to stay there anymore, can’t make out the pros and cons of either. He counts them off with each painful yank of your hair, each harsh thrust into your abused virgin cunt— it was that, wasn’t it?

He was there because he sniffed out a cute lil virgin, one so untainted and untouched, one begging for him to corrupt. He’s not known to be very generous, but sometimes he gets into one of those moods; it can’t be helped when there’s a desperate doll waiting to be torn apart.

He knows what you want, can read you with his eyes closed— you don’t need eyes to feel the pulse of a greedy cunny; it clenches with every slap of the face, damn near clamps down entirely as his slender fingers slither around to the front of your throat.

Two fingers shove past your lolling tongue and yanks your head back by the digits hooked on the corner of your mouth. There’s drool, and spit, and so many fluids coming and entering all at once— and then you’re coming, again, probably, for the third time that night. Fourth?

It’s methodical, straightforward, he reads the instruction manual once, maybe twice if the first one’s a bit faulty, and he’s got it down to muscle memory.

At the sound of heaving he looks back down again, admires the feel of two of his fingertips fucked straight into the back of your throat, and pushes down on the rugged gummy wall. You gag, and he laughs. It’s cute, so cute, you’re real cute, you know?

“Such a good lil whore aren’t you?” He digs his nails into the flesh of your hip and rams his cockhead until he can feel the kiss from your puckered cervix. “All fucked out of your mind, bet you can’t even hear me, can you?”

He watches as you gurgle out words past his fingers wedged down your slack mouth, and choke on the pools of saliva drooling out. It’s the funniest sight, fascinates him to death, really.

A slap to the face might bring you out of your daze, so he slips his hand back out of your sloppy mouth and revels at your body propelling forward straight into the headboard. He grasps at the tips of your hair and wrench your body back towards him before any satisfying impact could sound out. It’s a shame, but concussions are not in his agenda.

“Been fucked so loose, filthy slut can’t even keep your body up,” he rolls your hair around his hands and yanks back until your skull meets his chin; it’s excruciatingly painful, probably, and that’s why it’s the best.

It’s the perfect way for your mouth to fall open naturally, to scream, squeal, fluster around in attempt to be freed from the position— it creates the perfect hole for him to spit in. He watches as your face contorts in disgust, tongue pushed out to let his spit drool out the sides, but that’s no fun, not very nice of you, is it?

“Swallow,” he assists you with an extra hard thrust, and you choke on the moan coming out. His hand comes forward from your hip to rest under your chin before pushing it up so it clamps shut, “I said, swallow.”

Your eyes flood with tears that waterfall down your face, and God, he thinks you look the best like this— wrecked on his cock, body littered in purple and red, covered in sweat and blood and cum; his perfect lil cocksleeve, just for him.

It’s emotional, almost— religious, even, he can feel the palpitations in his heart thumping against his chest echoing off the headboard banging against the wall, and lets the euphoria consume him, wash over him as he coats your walls with hot ropes of cream and white, hips stuttering with your greedy cunny fluttering and clenching around it, milking and sucking in his cock in deeper, deeper, more.

He thinks you might’ve cum, might still be cumming, but all he can hear is the Messiah calling for him, choir singing lulling him into an infinite jubilation; he closes his eyes to bathe in it, let himself be cleansed and washed over with ecstasy.

When he pulls out, your body flops onto the mattress, and he watches as white dribbles out your quivering hole, mixing with the red on the sheets, creating a puddle of pink and magenta, before passing out in the fuschia.

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