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geekgirles · 3 years

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Mirrors

Disclaimer: This was originally going to be much longer (and it is very long already) but since I might have overdone it, I will be cutting it in two. The second part will feature the similarities and differences between Marinette and Kagami and some final thoughts.

Part 2

Kagami’s name means ‘mirror’ in Japanese, and according to Thomas Astruc, that’s not a coincidence. Indeed, she’s supposed to be a reflection of the main characters. This trait is best seen through her role as an alternative love interest for Adrien, but she is also a reflection of Marinette’s own character; more specifically, her own relationship with Adrien.

However, the way Kagami works as a mirror changes from one character to the other. For Adrien, she’s a direct parallel to many of the traits that make him who he is, only that she adds more nuance to them. For Marinette, despite their many similarities, they are also opposites.

In this analysis I will reflect (pun not-intended) on the way Kagami works as Adrien’s mirror, how she does the same for Marinette, and the way that affects her relationship with both of them.

Adrien and Kagami:

As Adrien’s alternative love interest over Ladybug, it is to be expected that Kagami would have enough things in common with him for Adrien to be able to relate to her and see her as something other than a friend.

And this is one of the reasons why Adrien has considered Kagami as his girlfriend and not Marinette; her proximity to his own situation.

Kagami’s introductory episode, Riposte, already focused a lot of its attention in highlighting how similar the two are. Aside from sharing a common interest in fencing (which allows them later on to spend time together outside of school or business-related occasions), Riposte already showed enough of Kagami’s background to make us understand why Adrien would bond with her. Their respective parents are both strict, expect nothing but the best from their kids’ performance in everything they do and, most importantly, they’re both very absent in their lives while simultaneously being present in every aspect of them.

We all know how Gabriel controls every single aspect of Adrien’s life while never spending time with his son at the same time, but Tomoe is just as controlling and overprotective. In Ikari Gozen she considered her daughter having friends should be at the bottom of her priority list, even hinting some trust issues with the sole idea.

And, despite that, in Riposte Kagami was all alone in the car, calling her mother to let her know that she had failed, but not showing any signs of expecting any sort of comfort from her. After all, she said it herself:

“There's no such thing as a second chance in my family.”

Another parallel between Adrien and Kagami is precisely the fact that Tomoe relies on someone else to look after her daughter, just like Gabriel tends to shove his responsibilities with Adrien onto Nathalie and Gorizilla. Except that in Tomoe’s case it’s even worse; she entrusts her daughter to Tatsu, an artificial intelligence, not a human being.

Of course, the similarities between them don’t end there. Adrien and Kagami are pretty much birds of a feather in the sense that both of them are very inexperienced with socialising. They’re both lonely, rich kids with a difficult home life who just want to be able to do things most kids their age do.

That’s why Adrien connected so well with Kagami; they’re on the same boat.

As I said earlier, Kagami acts as a mirror to Adrien, not only because of the similarities that have already been discussed, but also because her personality is very much like Adrien’s, except she either takes things to the extreme, or isn’t as similar to Adrien as she should.

Facing their parents:

Believe it or not, when it comes to calling out their parents for their behaviour, Adrien is more willing to face his father than Kagami her mother.

Ever since his mother disappeared, Adrien’s been trying to be there for his father. Pretty much everything he does that isn’t related to his friends or his life as Chat Noir he does it for Gabriel. He studies Chinese, goes to photoshoots, fences, plays the piano, and any other extracurricular activity I might have forgotten about because he thinks that’s what will make his father happy. Deep down, Adrien knows it’s unfair that he’s forced to live like that, he just sucks it up because he knows his father’s hurting and wants to alleviate that burden.

But whenever Gabriel’s behaviour becomes too unreasonable for even Adrien to excuse, he’s always ready to rebel against him in some way. In Origins he tried and succeeded in going to school instead of staying at home like his father wished. In Santa Claws he ran away from home because of Gabriel’s cold and distant attitude despite being the first Christmas without Emilie for the both of them. In Simon Says, as Chat Noir, he called his father out on his stubbornness and refusal to get help despite being an akuma’s main target. And in Feast he showed his disappointment and disapproval of the way Gabriel brushed Nathalie’s condition off.

And he did all that on his own, either for himself or for the sake of others.

Kagami, on the other hand, still relies on others to face her mother. In Ikari Gozen, despite going against her mother’s wishes, it wasn’t until Marinette had the guts to try and stand up to Tomoe that Kagami managed to put her foot down in her request to spend some time with her new friend. And unlike Adrien as Chat Noir in Simon Says where, despite having some help from the confidence his secret identity gives him, he confronted his father on his behaviour, Ryuuko confronted Ikari Gozen, not Tomoe. In other words, she stood her ground against an exaggeration of her mother’s flaws, not against her mother’s true self.

Moving on:

While the show has shown Adrien having difficulties letting go of Ladybug, the main difference between him and Kagami is that he has at least considered it. Since Frozer, Kagami has shown she will fight for Adrien until the very end.

In fact, of the four teens romantically involved with each other, Kagami is the only one who hasn’t expressed any sort of conformity with the idea of her love interest not choosing her in the end. Even Marinette and Adrien, despite hurting immensely, had considered letting go of their respective crushes and pursuing somebody else when it looked like they were getting nowhere.

In Frozer, despite acting nonchalant about it, Kagami was very clear to Adrien: “The day you realize you've got the wrong target, I'll be here.”

With that she makes it very obvious that she’s willing to wait for Adrien, no matter how long it takes him to realise his feelings for her. That’s Kagami’s approach: she prefers to wait before accepting defeat.

In a way, this makes her a foil to Luka as well.

Ever since Frozer, Luka has shown he will support Marinette if she chooses to go after Adrien instead of him in the end, whereas Kagami, while never outright declaring she won’t be there for Adrien if he weren’t to choose her, she never really hinted she would move on from him if he did, either.

The best example of this would, in a way, be what she said as Oni-Chan: “He's the only one who's worthy of me! And the only one I will ever love!”

If I’m being perfectly honest, this sentence doesn’t do Kagami’s character and her feelings for Adrien justice. The way it was written, it just makes her look unreasonable and like a yandere. And you might say it’s because she was akumatised. And you would be right, if it weren’t because Luka’s confession to Marinette also doubled as a declaration of protection and wasn’t painted in nowhere near the same negative light.

But back to the point.

Summing up, the kind of trouble Adrien has moving on he inherited from his father (in a, thankfully, less worrisome way), Kagami has too, but hers seems to be more severe. And there’s a high chance this will play an important role in Lies, or at least in season 4...

Making friends:

Now, as stated above, this is one of the points they have the most in common but also have the most differences in; their issues with socialising.

What makes the two of them so similar is that they’re both kids who’ve been sheltered their whole life, kids who long to have some friends of their own, and who, as a result, struggle greatly with reading social cues.

However, their respective personalities are what really makes the difference.

Adrien is kind, honest, and approachable, both on a superficial and deep level. Kagami, on the other hand, is all those things, but once you get to know her; at first glance she might seem cold, honest to the point of brutality, and difficult to connect with.

Unlike Lila, who got the class’ attention for her supposed life and high status, these two really are the children of influential people, and yet that’s not why the class appreciates Adrien, or even pretends to get along with Kagami for what it could give them. They’re not that shallow.

The class likes Adrien because he’s a cinnamon roll. And, judging by the girls’ reactions to Kagami in both Frozer and Desperada, they aren’t close to her because they only know her on a superficial, non-flattering level.

They’ve both been sheltered and yet, Adrien manages to connect with others better. While Kagami had to rely on an app to try and get along with Marinette, with rather awkward results. And, let’s not forget, it wasn’t until Marinette got to see Kagami was just like Adrien at the beginning that she realised that she’d misjudged her and actively tried to be her friend.

And now the three of them are close friends! (Leaving shipping drama aside…)

The main difference between the two is that, at first sight, Adrien is more approachable than Kagami.

Recklessness:

As the series progressed, we’ve seen little by little how these two tend to be reckless at times. Especially when handling their miraculouses.

Now, it is true that Marinette has made her fair share of mistakes as well because she was impulsive, but most of the time that flaw shone through as Marinette, not Ladybug. Whereas Adrien and Kagami appeared to be far more composed as their civilian selves (because they have to be due to their parents’ strictness) than their superhero selves.

When they both received their miraculouses they both made the same mistake: they transformed before learning everything they needed to in order to be effective users. In Adrien’s case, he didn’t listen to Plagg when he was about to tell him about the Cataclysm’s time limit. And in Kagami’s she transformed just as Longg was about to tell her about Ladybug’s plan.

As a result, Chat Noir wasted his power when facing off against Stone Heart, and Ryuuko allowed Ikari Gozen to capture Chat Noir.

Moreover, in both cases they viewed their newfound powers as a chance to escape their parents and their lifestyles, both literally and figuratively. Therefore, judging by these similarities as well as the others we have already discussed, I’m going to dub this impulsiveness they display as superheroes as the “Sheltered Rich Kid Syndrome.”

Even so, there is a difference between the two: Kagami was actually more reckless than Adrien when she first transformed.

In Origins, Chat Noir acted on his own not because he wanted to, but because Ladybug was still doubting herself to be of assistance. But, the moment she stepped in and took charge of the situation, Chat followed her plans without hesitation.

Kagami, on the other hand, fuelled by her own issues with her mother, her impulsiveness, and her newfound liberty, insisted on taking on Ikari Gozen by herself without a plan or even Ladybug and Chat Noir’s assistance (despite them being the seasoned heroes of Paris). And this decision lacked forethought because 1) she had no experience fighting akumas, 2) despite her experience fighting her mother, Kagami always loses (and that is when Tomoe has no superpowers), and 3) she obviously had no strategy.

It wasn’t until she ultimately failed and made things more complicated for the heroes that she realised her mistake.

In other words, while both Adrien and Kagami use their alter egos as an escape from their proverbial prisons, Adrien takes his responsibilities as Chat Noir and his loyalty to Ladybug more seriously than Kagami.

Honesty:

I did say earlier that Adrien and Kagami are both honest people. Even so, saying they’re at the same level of honesty would be a lie.

Adrien’s sincerity is what warmed Marinette up to him, just like it did for Kagami, but he’s nowhere near as honest as Kagami.

As @miraculouslycool and @flightfoot pointed out not long ago, Lila is actually what Adrien would have turned into if it weren’t for his redeeming qualities and the use he gives to his abilities. Because both are kids who have learned to be sneaky in order to get what they want. Adrien can’t afford to have his father finding out about the things he hides from him because it would lead to disastrous consequences, like when he pulled him out of school over the grimoire.

True, Adrien chooses to be honest, kind to others, and the best person he can possibly be. Major kudos for that. But he’s still not above lying or using relatively underhanded tactics to get the results he wants. The best example being his lie to Théo about being an item with Ladybug just to get him to back off.

In a way, that could be a reason why he’s so disgusted by Lila’s behaviour. Unlike him, she doesn’t use her lies and manipulation as a last resort, she uses them with everyone regardless of her interactions with them and the consequences of her actions just because she can.

But I’m getting off topic.

As stated above, Adrien chooses to be honest, but is perfectly capable of being sly and sneaky. He knows how to operate in the shadows.

Kagami doesn’t.

And that is probably because in her case not being honest is what can get her in serious trouble, let alone if she misbehaves or not. So, fear of the consequences tied with a natural disdain for lies have made Kagami to be honest to a fault.

And this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that she’s so honest, she becomes brutally honest; coming off as rude to others. To put it simply, Kagami doesn’t know how to sugarcoat things, for one reason or another. Which is why her assessment on Marinette’s personality based on her deduction of her blood type and a single question about her favourite season can be seen as rude or impolite. And it is perfectly fine to see it like that! After all, that is the conclusion many of us would arrive at if we were in Marinette’s situation and had no context on why the other person is acting like that.

Honestly, if I’d been in Marinette’s shoes, I would’ve been like, “Joke’s on you. I’m type A.”

Basically, while Adrien is used to working in the shadows, Kagami is forthright and prefers to face things head on, and both are mindsets and strategies with strengths and weaknesses.

The rings:

Now this is another delicious parallel between the two, just like Marinette and Luka both have earrings.

As we’ve been saying all along, Adrien and Kagami both have a lot on their plate. They have many responsibilities that can become a burden in the long run, especially when we keep in mind that they are still children. Just like Marinette is exhausted from having to be level-headed and responsible in so many scenarios.

However, the rings Adrien and Kagami wear are both parallels and opposites from one another. They both represent some kind of responsibility at their core, but the effects of said responsibility vary.

In Adrien’s case, he wields the black cat miraculous. Needless to say, this ties him with the duties that come from being Chat Noir and having the power of destruction by his side. A power that, as seen in Miraculer and the New York Special, can be disastrous if handled poorly. And yet, his miraculous actually represents the best part of his life, because it gives him freedom. Being Chat Noir has allowed him to be himself, without the restraint from his father’s presence. It gave him the chance to meet Ladybug who, aside from being the girl he loves, is also his best friend. The miraculous has just… given him a chance to live.

Adrien’s ring is his saving grace.

On the contrary, Kagami’s ring represents the kind of duties she’s far more familiar with. Her ring ties her to her family.

That ring is a constant reminder of the pressure she’s under, of her family’s expectations, of the person she’s been raised to believe she should be. Which is symbolised by her family’s kanji being engraved on the ring.

As seen in Riposte, when Kagami loses any kind of challenge she’s supposed to have been prepared for, she believes she has let her family down.

Kagami’s ring is the lock of her golden cage.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

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anna-pixie · 3 years

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padawan -> obi-wan kenobi {part one}

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me: has a witcher series to finish which is taking a lot of time

also me: starts a new series about a character i’ve never written for before!

{also trying out a new layout? unsure of what i think of it}

summary: you’re hopelessly in love with anakin skywalker, but he only has eyes for padmé amidala. your heartbreak is starting to effect your performance in the jedi temple, and your position as padawan to obi-wan kenobi is in jeopardy.

pairings: obi-wan kenobi x reader {eventually}

warnings: none

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╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Your face is blank as you watch Anakin from across the room, something you’ve learnt to do from many, many months of suppressing your emotions. Though your face no longer betrays you, the way your heart swells at the sight of his smiling face reminds you of your ever present love for the fiery Jedi.

Your warmth stutters, however, when a hand is placed on his shoulder, and Senator Amidala appears from behind him with a smile full of sunshine and grace. You can’t help but slightly purse your lips as Anakin’s whole body reacts to her touch, as though she is a magnet and he is made out of pure iron.

Anakin, whilst being a great Jedi and an exceptional pilot, is not as skilled at masking his emotions. Despite it technically still being a secret, you’re sure that everyone knows of his love for and marriage to the gleeful senator. It was like a punch in the gut when you had found out about their nuptials. You and Anakin had been close friends for years, your friendship was one of those will-they, won’t-they friendships, full of flirty banter and sexual tension. You had liked it that way, you were content that way. Until the day he arrived with the joyful news that he had settled down with Padmé. That was the day that your friendship changed forever, he withdrew from you, became more distant and treated you the way a Master would treat a Padawan - holding you at arms length as though you had never been close in the first place.

It suffices to say that you’re heartbroken, and you wake up every day just as heartbroken as the last. It’s a horrible cycle that has had devastating effects on your training. You’re unfocused, unwilling to put in any extra effort, unwilling to socialise the way you used to because everywhere you go, the two of them are there, as in love as the day they wed.

“Credit for your thoughts?” The melodious voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi floods your ears as he settles himself beside you on the black lounger.

“I’d like to think my thoughts are worth more than a singular credit, Master.” You joke, leaping to your usual defence mechanism of humor to deflect from the obvious sadness radiating from you. You’ve never met anyone as perceptive to the force as Obi-Wan, both a blessing due to his vast knowledge, but also a curse, due to the fact you can never quite hide your emotions from the Jedi Master.

You had trained under Obi-Wan at the same time as Anakin, however your recent slip ups had meant that while Anakin was promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight, you still remained a Padawan under the guidance of Obi-Wan.

“Of course, my Padawan, I apologize,” Humor laces his tone, before he turns to face you completely, his expression more serious as he holds eye contact with you, “I do require a serious conversation with you, Y/N, about your recent performance as my Padawan. Please join me in my quarters for a drink of tea. Be there around 7. Enjoy the rest of your day, young one.”

You watch with a fond smile as the older Jedi makes his leave from the bustling room, his robes swishing behind him as he goes. Truth be told, you had harboured a crush on your Master when you first began to train under him. The first few times you met him were spent with longing gazes and a lot of lip biting on your end, but eventually your attention was captured by the flirty, playful nature of Anakin. You wonder how things would’ve turned out if your focus had stayed on the older Jedi master, you know he is very set in his ways, but you wonder if maybe something would have bloomed between the two of you. You can imagine Obi-Wan to be a very gentle lover, in all aspects, the complete antithesis to the damned Skywalker boy you had fallen for.

With a shake of your head, you banish all thoughts of romance from your mind. You’re training to become a full fledged Jedi, attachments are not allowed. That doesn’t mean other things aren’t allowed, that stupid voice in your head reminds you. No, you won’t let yourself think about such things.

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Your head is hanging low as you stroll slowly through the hallway of the Jedi temple, on your way back to your residence after a long day of not really listening to the things the council had been droning on about. You can tell that people are starting to notice your wavering commitment to the cause, however you honestly cannot bring yourself to care.

A shriek escapes your mouth as a hard body barrels into your own, almost sending you to the ground had it not been for your quick reflexes summoning the force to keep your body upright. A smile forms on your lips as you hear the tell tale chuckles of Anakin, who seems to have quickly ran out from behind one of the pillars without first checking for passers-by.

“Y/N.” He breaths, an apologetic smile on his face as he gathers himself, brushing his chin length hair back into place, “Sorry about that.” His voice is sheepish and he scratches the back of his head.

“Don’t worry about it, Ani, walk with me?” You throw out, averting your eyes as you nervously await his response. You don’t know why you even asked, you haven’t been alone with him for a while, he’ll definitely say n-

“Sure. You going back to the residences?” You nod at his question, too shocked by his agreement to form words at the moment. He sends you another smile as you start your trek back to your quarters, your legs moving of their own accord whilst your mind takes a moment to catch up with the current situation. You curse your heart for the way it swells instantly with happiness at the presence of Anakin, simply walking beside him, barely feeling the warmth of him under his robes, makes all the feelings you try so hard to suppress return to the surface.

A noise from behind grabs your attention, and the two of you turn your heads, only to be met with the sight of a giggling Padmé trying to sneak out from behind the same pillar Anakin came from. The familiar sadness hits you like a tidal wave as you face forwards once more, just catching the fond smile on Anakin’s face as he looks back at his wife. The fleeting happiness you get when you’re around him is not worth the floods of sadness that always follow, you think, as the two of you walk silently towards your residences.

“I haven’t seen much of you lately, Y/N. No one has, actually. I know Obi-Wan has been worried about you.” He speaks casually, his tone so breezy that it sounds as if your welfare never even crossed his mind. Obi-Wan is worried about you, fine. But is Anakin? He’s the source of all your pain to begin with.

“That’s nice of him.” You muse, not even glancing in his direction as you continue walking, hoping that your upbeat tone is enough to quell any curiosity he may have. However, it is not, and you’re stopped when he tugs at your elbow, gripping onto it with a slightly lax grip as he narrows his eyes at you.

“Seriously, Y/N, what on Tatooine is going on with you?.” His tone is firmer now, and your skin is heating at the feeling of his hand on the bare skin of your arm. You try to find your words as you gaze into his eyes and you quickly realise that you need to get yourself together, lest you want him to feel your true emotions through the force.

“Absolutely nothing.” A tight smile pulls across your lips and you wrench your elbow out of his grip, leaving him standing outside the temple with his suspicious gaze trained on your retreating figure.

By the time you return to your room, you only have an hour or so before you’re due to meet Obi-Wan for tea. You decide that you must do some meditation before you face your Master, knowing that his concern for your wellbeing will make him more perceptive when he analyses you.

You find brief tranquility, thinking of the lush skies and soft greenery of your home planet Alderaan. It’s not long before your mind is bombarded with the images of what Anakin and Padmé must’ve been getting upto behind the pillar of the temple, stealing secret kisses and laughs because they love each other so much that they can’t possibly wait until they are in private to be together.

Jealousy rolls off you in waves, thinking about how you wish it was you that he was so desperate to kiss, so desperate to hold and be in your presence even though it is forbidden. Accepting the fact that Obi-Wan will be able to sense your negative emotions from a mile away, you begin to get ready to join him.

You’ve never been in a Master’s quarters before, so you’re unsure of whether your usual outfit is appropriate attire for the occasion. A simple tank top, usually a light colour, and matching tight pants, with a sheer sarong wrapped around your waist. Deciding that you doubt Obi-Wan will care what you’re wearing, you decide to forgo any changes. You fix your hair and look in the mirror with a frown as your thoughts take over once more.

What does Padmé have that you don’t? Is it her position in the senate? Her maturity? Her outgoing personality? You had tried to be more like her, more vocal and social in your day to day life, but by nature you are cripplingly shy, so that failed miserably.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Come in, Padawan.” Your Master’s voice sounds from behind the large white door, and you wait patiently as it slides open for you at his command. He is still wearing his robes from the day, you note, as he pours two small cups of herbal tea at the small table next to his kitchenette.

All the Jedi Masters have larger, more equipped residences than the Padawans, and usually make food and eat in their own quarters rather than in the mess hall like the rest of you.

You take a moment to look around Obi-Wan’s room whilst he is momentarily distracted making your drinks. It’s very...him. He seems to have chosen to forgo the harsh, overhead lighting that adorns the rest of the residences, instead having a few dim lamps dotted around that spread a low, moody hue around the room. It is relatively clean, his bed is made, scattered with many comfy looking blankets, yet every free surface seems to be covered by piles and piles of books. You can tell that most of them are old Jedi texts, and a smile tugs at your lips at the dedication of your Master.

It’s strange to be in here, you feel like you’re completely surrounded by every aspect of him. You can see a spare change of robes hanging on the doors of his closet, probably ready to be worn tomorrow, and the door of his fresher is slightly ajar, allowing you to peek inside if you wish to. There is a dirty plate next to his sink, he must have just finished eating before you arrived, not having time to clean the dish properly. Seeing his room like this, he seems so human to you all of a sudden. He seems so… familiar to you.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” His voice is amused, and you turn to face him with a blush. He is sitting down now, in one of the chairs that surrounds the tiny table, opposite another one for you to sit on. You mumble an apology and make your way to the seat, awkwardly perching yourself on the edge of it.

“I like your room, Master Kenobi, it’s very… homely.” He smiles at your admission and gestures to your tea before taking a sip of his own.

“Thank you, Y/N. I like to have a place I enjoy spending time, I appreciate it when I return from long missions.” You hum at his response, letting out a pleased noise as you taste the tea he prepared. It is some sort of woodsy concoction, not what you’d usually go for, but it tastes like heaven on your tongue.

“So…” You clear your throat, the anticipation of this impending conversation almost killing you, “You wanted to talk to me, Master?”

“Ah yes, straight to it then?” He looks puzzled at first, as though he is unsure of how to approach the topic, before heaving a resigned sigh and placing his tea back onto the table with nary a drop spilt, “Y/N, you had so much potential. I chose you and Anakin to train under me because I saw something in the both of you. Anakin? He was hot headed, fueled by passion and rage and I thought it a good challenge to help him control it. You, on the other hand? You were quiet, reserved, overwhelmed by your shyness but absolutely simmering with potential. And we unlocked so much of it, did we not? You were excelling, even more so than Anakin. What happened, Y/N? You can’t expect me to believe that my best Padawan forgot everything she’d learnt overnight. No…” He leans forward now, not allowing your wide-eyed gaze to waver from his as he continues with his serious spiel, “You stopped trying, you gave up. I would like to know why, and you’re not leaving my quarters until you tell me. I’ve tried to be gentle with you, kind, but the council are threatening termination of your place in the Jedi temple.”

Silence descends on the tense room as your brain struggles to comprehend everything Obi-Wan just threw your way. Of course you knew the council weren’t happy with you, you’d seen the disapproving gazes from Mace Windu and Ki Adi-Mundi, but you never even considered it had reached the point that they were considering ending your training as a Jedi, and relieving you of your place in the temple.

The only sound that breaks the silence is your breathing getting quicker and quicker, until Obi-Wan realises he needs to try and calm you down. Your anxiety is so strong he feels as though it is hitting him, and he notices the way your eyes begin to well up, and you realise with a start that months and months of pent up emotions are making themselves known right now. Right here, in your Master’s quarters.

Luckily, General Kenobi is a master at diffusing situations, and is quick to kneel in front of you, taking both of your hands in his and gazing up at you with those kind eyes of his.

“If nothing else, Y/N, a Padawan should be able to trust their Master. Can you trust me? Whatever the problem is, it will not leave this room. I give you my word.”

You know you shouldn’t tell him, for Jedi’s should not love, but you crumble the second his thumb brushes over the skin of your hand. At this moment, you want to be comforted, and not just by anyone, by Obi-Wan specifically.

“I love him, Obi-Wan. I love Anakin so much it hurts, but he doesn’t love me, he loves her.” You sob, tears spilling freely from your eyes as you avert them from his own. When you hesitantly look back towards him, you expect him to look shocked, angry, in disbelief. Rather, he just gives you a sad smile that conveys the fact that your admission was exactly what he had expected you to say to him.

Has Obi-Wan known about your feelings for Anakin this whole time?

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iheartchv · 3 years

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ee im new to tumblr but i think this is how it works!!! if you’re still doing match ups, (preferably the 2012/2018 boys) heres mine!!

Im a 5’3 girl, with the INFJ-T personality type. i’m very introverted, but when i’m with someone familiar i can get SUPER energetic!! im an artist, and i spend most of my time in my room. i dont have many friends either. i love to play video games, and i love electro punk music. i’m a cat person. I also have a very hard time socialising with people. i collect plushies!

happy late birthday!!!❣️

🤔I think you'd be paired with... Donatello💜

Donnie would end up falling for you

He liked who he was when he was with you

Of course spending time with Mikey helped you get more comfortable and open up

And Donnie would start getting jealous

He likes spending time in his room/lab, too

He just enjoys the peace and quiet

He's socially awkward so it's hard for him to make friends, as well

He loves seeing the other side of you

But hates that he's been shy/seemed too distant to interact with you

One evening, he'd apologize for his behavior toward you, if it offended you

Once you accepted his apology, he'd gather the courage to tell you that he likes you, 'like' likes you... a lot

He's so happy when you tell him that you like him and would love to go out with him sometime

He loves your art, probably more than Mikey's (but don't tell him, okay😆)

Donnie will play video games with you

He loves electro music, as well, so he'll listen to whatever you're listening to

You've got a great taste in music, he'd say

Your plushie collection is comforting to him

He likes looking at the material they're made out of

And he takes notes on what you like, especially for the plushies

Your happiness, your smile, is everything to him

Don't worry about your height, you're perfect just the way you are

He'll love you no matter what

Donnie will protect you, at all costs, no matter what it takes

Hope this is alright and get who you wanted😆😅 thank you for the late birthday wish, too~💖💖💖

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #donnie #donatello #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2018 #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #ask #request #matchup #match up

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sailorsero · 3 years

Text

you know i’m stupid for you 1/?

author: claire (@sailorsero) ship: adult kaminari denki x reader prompt/genre: band/musician!au/poppunk!denki wordcount: 1483 warnings: swearing (for the moment, this is all) a/n: • written for the BNHarem Making Beautiful Music Collaboration - check out the masterlist to see everyone elses!) • thank you to @unbreakablekiribaku for the header! • i do not give permission for this (or any of my writing) to be reposted, by anyone, on this or any other website. please don’t do it! • title from ‘stupid for you’ by waterparks

you know i’m stupid for you part one

***

RIOT! PRESENTS: DYNAMIGHT - A ROTATING HEADLINE TOUR Combining forces for the second annual Riot! Radio/Magazine empire tour are punk pop staples Chargebolt, indie rockers Plus Ultra! and newcomers Rolling Thunder, fresh off the release of their debut album, ‘Revelry in the Dark’. The tour format of a different running order each night, the mix of genres and an abundance of talent promises a sick show you won’t want to miss! The tour starts tomorrow night in Fukuoka, ending in Sapporo at the end of the month. Tickets | Details

Day 1: Fukuoka

***

The past 24 hours had been hectic and overwhelming; the last minute preparations, the packing, the 17 FaceTime calls Mina insisted were necessary for packing, the flight to Fukuoka, the hotel, meeting the approximately 3674 people involved in the tour (okay, really approximately), the soundchecks, the press, making sure Todoroki didn’t get lost (again). It could have been enough to have you considering your plan B vocation of Professional Kitten Cuddler (you’d seen a Buzzfeed article once), if it wasn’t for this feeling, right here and now.

The house lights had dimmed away to almost nothing, causing the steady thrum of chatter from the crowd to surge into a roar of anticipation that matched your own perfectly; waiting sidestage in the dark knowing you were on the precipice of doing what you loved most always made you feel electric.

You’d followed Shinsou onto the stage as the eyewateringly bright lights hit, securing the strap of your bass before looking without seeing out at where you knew the crowd was. You were really here, on this stage, with your best friends, on the biggest tour you’d done so far as a band. You let yourself bask in the joy that brought for a moment longer, before turning towards your bandmates, tilting your head in silent question. Quick nods from Tokoyami and Shinsou and a peace sign from Mina were all you needed before you turned to Todoroki to count in. Everything after that was the most beautiful white noise.

***

8 songs flew by quicker than you could ever remember, Shinsou’s synths fading out as Mina yelled into the mic like she was going for Present Mic’s radio slot.

“Our record is available from the merch table and we are on all relevant social media - @ rollingthunder! Our TikToks are epic! We have been Rolling Thunder, you have been fucking beautiful - goodnight!!!”

“‘Our TikToks are epic’?!” Shinsou rounded on the lead singer as soon as you were all sidestage again.

Mina put her hands on her hips, giving off the energy of an elementary school teacher who had to do this a lot. “They are epic! It’s not my fault you never want to be in them!”

“Maybe that’s why they’re epic?” Todoroki deadpanned, removing the sweat-soaked towel from around his neck.

The snort you gave out at the impossible-to-tell-if-it-was-intended-as-an-insult-or-not-because-it’s-Todoroki insult died off early as you caught sight of him.

Fuck. He’d actually gotten hotter overnight.

Kaminari made a beeline straight for you from the door that lead to the backstage area, 100 watt smile firmly in place. “Hey, you. Great set out there! Totally dope!”

“You were watching?” You were too caught off guard to school your tone into anything less giddy, and you knew you’d be hearing about it until you could hide in your bunk on the tourbus. Maybe not even then if your bandmates didn’t respect the sanctity of the curtain.

“Yeah, of course! We were up on the balcony, in the private bit? You know?” You assumed Sero and Kirishima formed the ‘we’ he was talking about, as they appeared one after another through the same door, grinning widely.

“Yeah, totally, I remember they said there was somewhere to watch the other sets from...cool!”

A part of you died inside as you heard yourself reply and you wondered briefly if there was any chance your whole band wasn’t watching this interaction. Hearing ‘cool!!!’ mimicked in four wildly different attempts at your voice shut that down.

There was no way Kaminari hadn’t heard all four impressions, but he was nice enough to pretend he hadn’t.

“Yeah! So, uh...you could totally watch our set, now! If, you know, you want...” He trailed off, looking hesitantly hopeful and fiddling with one of his many, many earrings.

His golden eyes had been staring into yours for the whole of your conversation so far and you found yourself getting lost in his gaze, all of the noise of the crowd buzzing and the crew swapping the setup over becoming distant to your ears.

Until his bassist slapped him on his back - hard - shit-eating grin all over his face.

“Smooth like silk, Denks!”

“Shut up, Sero!” Kaminari whined, breaking eye contact with you to shove at his bandmate’s arm.

No one said anything for what felt like the longest seven seconds in history. Kirishima cleared his throat politely and smiled encouragingly, but seemed to run out of ideas after that.

“We’ll watch you guys! But only if you tell us how awesome we were!” Mina’s arm slid seamlessly to link with yours as you remembered how much you loved this pink-haired angel. She was a socialising expert and had rescued you all right before the silence had slid past the point of no return into Awkwardsville.

Kaminari seemed to share your sentiment, as it wasn’t with only a little relief he began to shower the rest of your band with praise. It was only when he’d rambled his way to complimenting the way Tokoyami held his guitar that Shinsou decided it was his turn to steer the conversation. “Don’t you have a drummer? Did he not want to watch our set?”

“Nah, he said he ‘didn’t wanna watch a bunch of electro emos with stupid hair sing about going to Hot Topic or what-the-fuck-whatever’,” Sero cheerfully announced, ignoring the choking sound the apparently-direct quote forced out of the blonde you couldn’t take your eyes off of.

“Wow. He’s charming.” Shinsou replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“He is, isn’t he?” Kirishima sighed, sounding like he’d have actual stars in his eyes if you could bring yoursef to stop looking at Kaminari and check. Which you Absolutely Could Not.

You’d met Kaminari at 1 this afternoon, and he’d been pretty much all you’d thought about since 1:01.

***

“Okay, so, Chargebolt - Eijirou Kirishima, Hanta Sero, Katsuki Bakugou, Denki Kaminari. Plus Ultra! - Izu...”

You were pretty sure one of the tour managers was still speaking, introducing the other band you were sharing this tour with, but you couldn’t focus on anything else. Kaminari. Denki. Denki Kaminari.

The ear you could see was adorned with multiple piercings, and the one you couldn’t was covered with a sweep of blonde hair with a black lightening bolt dyed into it. Golden eyes, pink lips. Not particularly tall, or jacked, but lean and muscled where you could see. A black Fatgum Records T-shirt over a black and white striped longsleeve, tucked into ripped jeans that fell into laced up boots. Were those fingers tattoos? It was definitely yellow nail polish and a multitude of silver rings. Talk about ‘exactly my type on paper’. Fuck!

You wondered for a second who exactly it was who had given this man the right. Then you realised he was moving - towards you.

“Hey! Y/N Y/L/N, right? I heard you guys on Present Mic’s show, the Live Lounge? That was incredible!”

Had your mouth been wide open the entire time he was talking? You really couldn’t be sure either way.

“Hey! Yeah, that’s uh...me! Thanks, I was really nervous but he was so cool.”

Kaminari nodded enthusiastically, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Present Mic? Yeah, what a legend! We haven’t been on for a hot minute but we’ll probably go back next album cycle.”

You were pretty sure you were supposed to be making introductions to everyone in the room right now, but before you knew it, it had been fifteen minutes and the only person you’d spoken to was Kaminari. A way-too-stressed-for-the-first-day-of-tour looking woman was trying to politely usher Kaminari away to wherever Chargebolt’s schedule had them being right now, but he hesitated after he said a (hopefully) reluctant goodbye.

“Yeah, so...it’s so cool to be working with you! And, y’know, that work is...touring together, so we could like...hang out! Yeah? If you want?”

You ignored your own manager materialising at your side tapping her watch for a moment longer to nod quickly and breathe out a response.

“Yeah, we could, I want.”

Kaminari’s face broke out into a smile as big as the gag Shinsou was doing behind him. “Yeah. Yeah! Great! See you later!”

You’d pretended not to watch them leave the room.

The rest of your band had been only too happy to inform you that you’d failed to pull it off.

***

i have decided to make this a multi-chapter fic and will post/link a masterlist and link to ao3 when i post there so you can follow this story if you would like to!

ao3 • collab masterlist

#my writing #bnha x reader #kaminari x reader #kaminari denki #denki x reader #kaminari #denki #mha x reader #bnharemcollab

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 3 years

Text

31 Days of Apex Legends

Little bit behind, but I combined Days 1 & 2 (Pride & Friendship)

Chapter 1 of an upcoming fic I am still writing.

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Title: Pride & Assumed Prejudice

Chapter 1: Masks

Something sour lingered on the tip of his tongue, on the razor’s edge of every thought; like a granule of poison sinking slowly into a beverage, unseen as the hapless victim takes a sip. Unnecessary, unnerving, and oddly enough, inducing a curiously debilitating sensation of anxiety for the first time in well over a decade. An emotion long-ago thought cordoned off, and utterly aggravating in its resurgence.

One could theoretically shut it out with enough mental fortitude and regimented distraction, but this tended to only provide short-term relief, for it always returned; faster, stronger, more pervasive than the last time. A creeping sense of wrongness that seemed to seep through every vein, clutching tightly to each breath as it worked to enter his lungs, twisting his stomach at random intervals, and reigniting old memories best left buried in unmarked graves. Unmourned and unwelcome.

At least, that is what Caustic tells himself.

There seems to be some level of psychological impairment at work, he rationalises in the depths of the night when he can barely think for the voiceless fears that make his heart race and air withdraw from ravaged lungs before it can fully impart its gift. The only hypothesis that makes even the vaguest sense is that there is likely a chemical agent of some kind, a poison, being introduced into some facet of his daily routine that is affecting his mental faculties?

Caustic is perplexed to find that his bloodwork runs clean each time, as do random samples of his food stores, lab equipment, clothing, cleaning products, furniture, air filtration units, plants and even toothpaste. Though he runs them often, at random, in hopes of locating the culprit for these uncomfortable sensations, these distractions from his research. Randomising events on his mental schedule each day in order to avoid any other human or non-organic being from identifying his routine again; if they ever even had. And yet, it persists.

Denial is perhaps the only shield that he will not admit to using, in this instance. Though for all his great logic, his knowledge and emphatic belief in the fundamental laws of science… there is still a strange feeling that persists in coursing through his veins. If he would allow himself but a moment to acknowledge it, to let it in and experience the sensation then it may lead to a breakthrough… but at what cost? If the facade falls, then who would he be?

Yet still his whole body feels electrified from within; as if sensing a change coming, like the increased atmospheric pressure before a thunderstorm. Everything that had been built was starting to decay, and it was not clear why now, why this year… why this ridiculous event was the catalyst. Even though such an obvious connection between this heightened emotional state and the particular time of year never actually occurred to the unnaturally overwrought man.

As the days between the present and the event grew shorter, and the other Legends began to ramp up their ridiculous displays of personal expression, the odd physiological effects increased exponentially, until simply existing in the same dwelling had become almost unbearable. It was merely because the others were younger, more prone to ludicrous displays of ebullience, constantly impeding his research with their tomfoolery… yes, that must be it. The reassurances ring hollow, even to his own mind.

Yet still the simple fact remained… that the year previous, as a new Legend, this whole event had been laughably easy to ignore. So why did it bring such distress, such melancholy? What variable had changed between these two points in time that was bringing this insidious juggernaut of disruption to his mind, body and experiment schedule?

Despite what he, at the time, perceived as his best efforts to provide a front of general indifference and borderline contempt for the ‘nonsensical festivities’ of the majority of the other Legends; it became apparent that these actions were not nearly enough to stave off the eyes of the irritating coworkers. Without even realising, Caustic was shrinking away, becoming distant once more and this, in turn, naturally raised a few eyebrows.

Certainly, he was not the most extroverted or beloved amongst their ranks, but at the insistence of Miss Pacquette, that damnable Gibraltar, and the unerringly difficult to evade Salvonian he had been making small forays into socialising in the name of increasing battle compatibility with the others. In the name of increasing battle efficiency, of course.

Caustic’s sudden detraction from even the few low-key communal activities he had begrudgingly begun to attend on a generally regular basis in their shared lodgings, such as the occasional movie night or weekly shared meal, was a blatant signal to the more empathetic and suspicious of the Legends that something was not right here. Some moved immediately to paranoid delusions, others queried if the scientist was unwell or had been caught up in work and forgot; Caustic could always feel Miss Pacquette’s eyes on him these days. Waiting for him to do something she could no longer forgive.

The sting of her derision only made matters worse, silencing all explanations he might give to the others when they arrived at his assigned room; so that all any who arrived saw was a brief silhouette before the door slammed shut in their faces. Assuming hostility, when the words were simply trapped inside; not wanting to admit this disgusting weakness that clawed, bit and screamed every moment of every day.

However, it was the unintended actions that gave rise to what came next; and he could blame none other than himself. For, as the foolish often do, a handful of those in the complex began to conjecture… rumour, if you will, and they spread like an unchecked wildfire. Caustic was not able to tell if they had been an errant thought turned unintentionally malicious or the deliberate attempt of one of his detractors like Loba or Crypto; and as much as he wished to close off the side of himself that felt anguish at these new beliefs swirling between his coworkers… he could not.

To say the rumours were incorrect would be an understatement, but even he could see how the gossip-mongers amongst their ranks had extrapolated a tenuous but alluring hypothesis that slandered his character, from such limited data points as were available. Especially after their foray to… the planet of his youth, most recently.

It seemed wherever he went, that blasted Crypto seemed to be hovering nearby with a smug look on his face; as if waiting for the opportune moment to mention a few inconvenient truths. Did the younger man realise what was happening to him? Could he use that drone of his to deliver a toxic compound into Caustic’s chambers when the scientist was absent? No, no of course not. Mystik would never forgive him… unless he could provide a plausible alibi. Even that particular train of thought was beginning to wear on him, feeling more tangible each time his brain brought the concept up. Actual poison was not the hacker’s style; but social poison, the slow and cruel kind that seeped from mouth to mouth, assassinating without a blade… that might be plausible.

These days, Caustic found his pulse always quickened when he caught sight of the hacker in the living complex, the anxiety making his mind rush through the worst possible scenarios of his secret being openly divulged to the masses without warning; even though some seemed utterly ridiculous. What would happen, after all? The worst case scenario? Repulsion from the others would be one thing, a natural consequence of their newfound awareness of his misdeeds and discovering the depths of his past, somewhat less than legal, activities. A strong possibility that perhaps the Legends would take the rash step of immediately contacting authorities to attend the Legend dwellings; something even Caustic would understand as rational.

Yet still, with his normally formidable intellect being absolutely and utterly subsumed under false assumptions and fallacies; the kind only a mind shuddering on the verge of collapse could generate… far worse fates arose like apparitions behind his eyelids. Such as the bizarre and somewhat infuriating insistence of his anxiety-ridden mind that the other Legends could hear of his past and simply decide to take matters into their own hands; pretending all is well until an opportunity arose to publicly execute Caustic themselves, mid-match with his beacon deactivated, for all the world to see. To denounce him in such a way that none could ever assume they had kept his secret; the disgust on their faces as they would wipe his blood from their skin would be proof enough.

Often in the depths of night Caustic muses on this highly improbable outcome. Yet, he finds that the variable of the scenario that keeps him awake is simply that, in this outcome there was the uncomfortably very real possibility of his Mother inadvertently bearing witness to the second death of her son; a thought that makes his chest constrict with a nameless horror. She loved to watch the games, according to that brat she favoured so much… and he could not put her through that grief again.

No matter how nonsensical, the idea and an uncountable number of similarly impossible scenarios would repeat over and over again every waking moment of the day. And again throughout every second of sleep he managed to wrest from this endless void of uncertainty, until it felt like the only true outcome. Caustic was aware he was not thinking logically, or even assessing all the variables… but his mind clouded it all out with whispered worries to distract, to isolate and distress.

These imagined ends and their outcomes added an almost unfathomable heaviness to his existence; adding unearned gravitas to the myriad of little concerns, worries and secret guilts until they felt like a thick fog that obscured all rational thought. Every little concern, so often hidden from his own conscious mind by a never-ending series of experiments and day-to-day tasks he employed to quiet the thoughts he did not wish to entertain, was now screaming inside. Some days he felt not unlike a speaker, reverberating from the harsh beating of his heart, and almost surprised none other than himself could hear.

No, this was ridiculous. He could not allow this to continue, not if he wished to remain Caustic. As a Legend, as a researcher with endless funding as long as he gave the right results in battle, as a scientist seeking additional data, and… as reluctant as Caustic was to admit it, as a member of the rag-tag team that shared the Apex-funded lodgings. A collective, almost like a-...

The thought always shut off there, twisting to a rapid mental analysis of the other Legends for the sake of anything else to focus on. Certainly some of the other ‘champions’ were irritating and he found it difficult to deal with them for long; but others he had to concede were fascinating, and startlingly brilliant in their fields, many of whom were willing to engage in discussions about their expertise and experiences. Even with mild distrust guarding their words to begin with, until passion for the subject overtook their misgivings.

But, as loathe as he was to admit this to even himself; to Caustic... the legends themselves were something he was starting to feel part of. Somewhat like they were a-... the word lodged in his chest like a blunt knife, something that could cause harm if he ever admitted how far he had fallen into the illogical void of social intelligence. He railed against the term, but logically it was the only apt one available to describe this group of strange people; and that was… family.

Bile scorched the back of his throat as he allowed the thought to flow through him like a soundwave, the sentiment of it far more distressing than the physical sensations; as Caustic been under the strong impression of having successfully managed to cut off all sense of sentimentality, along with his fingers, on Gaea. This feeling, this potential vulnerability, was therefore repulsive.

However… it could not be denied that recently the increased socialisation had brought out some surprising connections and insights with the others. Even simple interactions such as providing a gruff thank you to a teammate for pinging a weapon component whilst looting was noted by the others; and the way that Caustic made certain to inoculate his squadmates before a match. Inconsequential activities, but seen… apparently. He had never noticed their eyes on him during these moments before… and now he felt as if they never ceased their burning gazes on his every breath, every twitch and thought.

As it stood, he was closer to some Legends than others; and had forged several, somewhat tenuous but holding, connections he was not wholly ashamed to admit.

For example, Caustic found Horizon’s expertise on astrological matters an excellent way to pass sleepless nights, when both found themselves in the kitchen for coffee at 2am. Minds full of half formed ideas, or regrets, and unable to speak them aloud to anyone; there was an odd companionship between the Legends, so close in age and so vastly apart in lived experiences. Or, at the least, the experiences of their alibis.

Even through the distress he felt, Caustic could not help but smile as he recalled that their first two meetings at such a location and hour had not gone quite so well as in recent times. For the good Dr Somers had been blissfully unaware that a rather prominent side effect of Caustic’s initial and continued toxin exposure often expressed itself as a bright green glow about his irises; therefore the first time they had met in the pitch-black kitchen at an ungodly hour, the astrophysicist had said some truly profane things and thrown a mug of hot coffee in his direction. Lifeline had not been pleased to deal with burns at that time, no matter how Horizon had insisted they needed a proper assessment of the damage, but the young woman seemed to have found the whole situation quite humorous in hindsight. Often making smart ‘Be careful, Doctor, that’s hot!’ quips when she caught either of them holding coffee.

Ah, but their second meeting of this nature had been different. Caustic had merely been resting his eyes at the kitchen island when Horizon had carefully crept inside the darkened room, footsteps barely audible, and proceeded to make herself coffee on the quietest setting possible. It was, in fact, the sound of her sipping the beverage that had roused Caustic, and Horizon had promptly performed an almost perfect spit take in shock at his ‘sudden appearance’. The stain in the wall had never quite come out and neither of the older Legends had bothered to inform the younger Legends how it had manifested. Though some had their suspicions...

There was a calming energy to Dr Somers, and she seemed to have a distance in her eyes that he could relate to without ever broaching the subject. When they spoke of stars, of technology to traverse the time and space between the worlds, there was a communion of unspoken camaraderie there that soothed in an inexplicable manner.

Of the others, Caustic had occasionally found himself ensconced in fascinating discussions and discourse with Mirage when the pair had found themselves trapped in a social setting, such as lunch in the common area, fumbling for topics. Or more accurately, Mirage visibly sifting for a safe topic to be polite, and Caustic pointing at whatever the man was tinkering with at that moment, in silent question. It was rather intriguing how the younger man’s stutter settled when he was intensely focused on a subject he enjoyed. Although it must be said that now the scientist knew entirely far too much about holographic projection technology, and he was hard pressed to find an application for just such knowledge in his research.

On a more irritating note, was Gibraltar’s continued attempts to convince Caustic that attending events such as karaoke night or some roleplaying adventure evening with the rest of the Legends would be fun, positive, and a good bonding experience; and not at all humiliating, bizarre or definitely subjecting himself to the mortifying ordeal of being known by the other champions. Disgustingly, Makoa Gibraltar was a weapons-grade optimist with a sharp mind behind that disarming smile of his.

Recognising that the current stratagem was not working as it allowed the subject too much free will, Gibraltar had added additional variables to his socialisation experiments with Caustic. Even since, Gibraltar had been occasionally dropping by with a small portion of some homemade meal or other; often with one of the other Legends as an unspoken form of backup. More often than not, in recent times, Fuse would be the person of choice.

The rescue specialist was a very large, very polite man who had gracefully accepted the times Caustic would shut the door in his face to avoid allowing anyone to breach his inner sanctum of isolation and research. Walter Fitzroy was decidedly not.

Fuse was a very charming man, but he genuinely believed that any closed door was an invitation to trial his knuckle clusters on it, ‘in the name of friendship’. The pair would then invite themselves inside, and somehow a conversation would occur about the most randomised of topics, amidst the hidden garden-like interior of Caustic’s quarters. After weathering the scientist’s myriad of multisyllabic protestations about property damage and right to privacy, with mildly amused expressions on their faces, of course. Now that he thought about the subject in detail, the visits had been increasing in duration rapidly in the past two months or so; detracting from his research, yes, but at the same time… Caustic had begun to find himself not wanting to reduce this contact in the slightest.

Rampart had recently asked Caustic, in a quiet moment, if he wanted something strong enough to withstand a knuckle cluster barrage whipped up, because he was more often without a door than with one these days. Caustic had found himself smiling under the mask as he declined; not catching her sly grin of understanding in response. “It’s your funeral mate…” she teased as she left. He still had not had a chance to analyse her meaning or motives in relation to that interaction.

Still skeptical of his motives, but warming, was Lifeline. On the odd occasion, the healer would simply come into the common area to ‘hang out’ with whomsoever was present, and initially this had been a frustrating strain on his limited social endurance. Especially if the runner joined in, or she decided that the volume was far too low for her chosen programs at the time. They had engaged in arguments, which tended to resolve when he left, seeking solitude and silence in his own quarters.

Although, to review the past month or so in subjective data; Caustic was intrigued to find himself less irritated by Lifeline’s choice of audible and visual entertainment than previously.

However, the woman’s unerringly pleasant but smug grin as she would turn and catch Caustic’s fingers tapping the datafile laden table in subconscious adherence to the rhythm of the background music, was still a nuisance. At present, if he attempted to tell her so, Lifeline would laugh or roll her eyes and throw a quick, ‘Whatever yuh say, Doctor…’ in his direction.

Caustic believed that the newfound camaraderie between Lifline and himself was either in relation to a number of recent matches wherein he had had to shield her bodily from a hail of incoming fire while she revived a teammate; or pertaining to his begrudging assistance in formulating an altered version of stim for Octane, with lower health impacts. While it seemed counterintuitive to his stated goal of wiping out humanity; the challenge of forcing a volatile substance into a different composition to improve health on use rather than detract from it, had been exhilarating. While the current formula, Stim 2.3, was by no means perfect, it could always be improved in future testing. In fact, Caustic had been surprised to find himself looking forwards to improving upon the newly created formula with Miss Che in future. Her mind was agile, quick and experienced around medical, political and Octane-related matters. Verbal sparring with Miss Che was akin to mainlining caffeine, and possibly her persuasive arguments may have something to do with how thin his facade was feeling at present. How he was starting to regret his actions, when previously they were buried deep, untouchable, as Lifeline skillfully pointed out fallacies in his logic and ideologies.

Of all the Legends, the hunter Bloodhound, he hunter, was a mystery that continued to intrigue and distract from his research. Caustic had honestly been certain that there it would be highly improbable for the pair to have anything in common; given they were from a world that despised the very technology that his homeworld had embraced with open arms.

He had also felt that perhaps the hunter would avoid him, given Gaea’s reputation around such things as diversity in attraction and gender identification; he knew what was said and not all of it undeserved.

Somewhat surprisingly, it was a shared interest in plants that began their interactions; as the hunter had peered from their room at the right moment to catch Caustic returning home with a new specimen of unknown origin. The GAVN 1.2 bot stationed at the nearby Solace City plant nursery had no knowledge of what species it may be of, but the important matter was that the machine had recalled Caustic’s request to contact him if anything ‘interesting’ came through. Bloodhound had stopped him to ask how a Crentular Vynth bush had made its way to this planet; and Caustic had been so distracted by the conversation that followed that he did not realise they had moved to Bloodhound’s room until his second cup of herbal tea.

That had been the oddly auspicious beginning of… whatever this was. Whether they were now coworkers, or something slightly below comrades in arms, their companionship had been cemented nearly a full three months later on Olympus, when a bullet shattered Caustic’s mask mid-match.

Things had not been going optimally at the time. Their third squadmate was dead; some nameless human who had dreamt of glory and fame, and was now likely in a respawn pod beyond the arena commiserating their loss with the other failures.

Bloodhound was in the process of scouting for activity within and without the building they were currently camping inside; at the far end, if the faintest of footsteps could be believed. Skirting carefully about Caustic’s traps despite the pre-match inoculation provided that assured temporary immunity for the other two.

He had been calculating the potential ring trajectory of the next round, and automatically reloading the mozambique in his hands mechanically, when a careless step had placed him directly before one of the many damnable slatted windows of the building. The first he became aware was a crack, and a split-second realisation that made him jerk back just in time for the kraber shot to hurl his mask clean off and away.

Ducking automatically, not risking a second looking for the person who was definitely chambering a new round in anticipation of taking him out, Caustic had snatched the shattered mask up and slid through the rails to the floor below. Landing with a jarring impact that raised dust, forced air from his lungs, and inspired a violent coughing fit. Panic began to stir, as the reality of his vulnerability became apparent.

To counter this, Caustic set off a nearby gastrap deliberately, obscuring himself amidst the swirling green smog; allowing a moment to focus purely on the issue at hand, and forestall the intense anxiety that the cameras could be observing his features or condition too closely. He could already see the mask was beyond repair, the hoses hissing upon his shoulders as his filtered supply fed into nothing; despair was starting to claw at his chest, tightening it until it burned...

And then Bloodhound was there. Without a word, those impassive goggles took in the scene in its entirety as they crouched down by his side; pulling a small spare mask from one of the many pouches on their belt, without the slightest hesitation, and pressing it to Caustic’s face. “Here, breathe easy felagi fighter.” they said, nothing more, nothing less.

The filtration hoses hissed a moment more before the hunter had them shut off at the valve, so as not to waste more of the carefully balanced components. The mask adhering quickly and filtering the more violent components out of the air automatically; as Bloodhound needed, given their own damaged airways. Caustic may not believe in their All-Father, but he could almost admit to himself that it was very fortuitous they had been there that day.

When the smog cleared, vanishing as it dispersed to a minimal level, the crisis was over and his panic subsumed. Bloodhound clapped a hand to his shoulder and rose, making a statement of thanks in relation to receiving ammunition. A weak cover, but one they hoped viewers would be satisfied with; feel no great desire to dig for more information on this brief ‘green-out’.

“Come, there are three squads remaining, we have foes to slatra.” they offer, and he rises quickly to follow. Win or Lose, Caustic had felt confusingly like he had already received some small victory that day; though to put it in words was beyond even his skill.

Unfortunately, the downside of increased awareness of other human beings was that they tended to request opportunities to strengthen the bond. Of all things, the Hunter and the Salvonian now wished Caustic to go camping with them; in Kings Canyon or some equally feral locale, where they may all die of undercooked food or rabid wildlife. As disagreeable as he found the idea, Caustic found himself rapidly running out of excuses as to barriers that would forestall his presence on such an experience. And just the other day, before this intense sensation of dread descended, he found himself considering purchasing a prowler-proof sleeping bag… which had been a definite call for self-reflection at the time.

Indeed, when he thought back over the past few months… Caustic found that he had had at least one small interaction of moderate-to-positive success with all of the other Legends. Even with that know-it-all Crypto. Though Caustic strictly maintained that the whole scenario had been pure happenstance; and not any display of coworkerly or implied sibling affection.

If the young brat had just so happened to be tinkering with his little drone at the kitchen island and required a tool that Caustic, also present and working on his own project, had just so happened to have on him at the time… so be it. Truly, Caustic was not even certain if Park had realised who had supplied the multitool that had readily slipped into his grip on request; although, the fact that it had been returned nonetheless to his quarters, possibly by drone through a window he had forgotten to close overnight, gave a different impression.

Ironically, whenever Caustic finds himself thinking about the other Legends recently, shades of distress, distrust and uncertainty began to fill his limbs with lead and his mind with a million illogical questions. Did Loba’s smile at breakfast mean she was intending to out him to the others? Was it normal for Revenant to ask to view his research on gases with compounds that could corrode organic metals? Was the laughter between Wattson and Wraith about him? What made Bangalore watch him instead of the screen during the movie night two weeks before? Why did so many whispers stop when he moved closer? When was the last time Gibraltar had used the phrase ‘hey buddy, you doin’ okay?’ with any other Legend?

Who. When. Why. How. What. An endless merry-go-round in a carnival of horrors, all of his own devising… and there was no way to signal to the ride operator that he wished to exit. What was wrong with him?

Or, was there something wrong with him, at all?

Perhaps this was normal, for someone whose life was close to its ending. Didn’t people feel distress over regrets and mistakes in their life?

Desperate for a concrete reason, Caustic ran diagnostics on his blood and biometrics at least twice a day, and yet felt disappointed to find no significant progression in the disease. For if not the disease… then what was this?

Days wore on as he remained confined to his quarters for all but the most necessary outings. He did not see or hear how the household was becoming more and more colourful and the Legends pre-celebrating. Glancing out his window at the billboards in the city beyond, his lip curled derisively; ah, the corporations became more sycophantic as time wore on, disgusting. But all he could focus on was the manner in which this swelling sensation of anxiety was drowning him; Caustic was awash in a sea of tumultuous negative emotions with no sign of rescue. Quietly hoping that none would come.

It felt, constantly, as if he had an anchor bound to his ankles; the chain a cruel twisting thing, cold and rattling in the currents, always just long enough so he could bob above the despair for short periods of time before another wave crashed down. Caustic was beginning to wonder if it was worth trying not to drown at all...

Unbeknownst to the scientist, his absence was noted, and some were more concerned than others. The sudden withdrawal from household life drew attention from concerned parties with irritating accuracy; and he found himself subject to gentle half-questions that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing, his hands balling into fists to hide their shaking, and his mind racing to decode the hidden trap within the questions. Overwhelmed, Caustic responded by pulling back from the internal life of the Legends with greater fervour, trying to handle this situation himself; hating that it had come to such a ludicrous turn of events as this.

It was only when he was in the depths of despair and fighting to hide this from himself, that Caustic himself began to hear the rumours swirling about. Abhorrent, pervasive, and inaccurate… but easily believable if you lacked critical thinking skills. They made him feel more vile and misrepresented than the original advertisement campaigns for his arrival as a legend ever had. All that fabricated nonsense about being a verified and diagnosed sociopath; when it was only partially true, mixed with showman’s flare for the sake of selling him as the villain to the public. But these rumours… gossip rag conjecture, utter debasement and filth. Easy to believe… and in the mouths, hearts and minds of the people he had somewhat began to trust.

~)0(~

“It ain’t his fault, he’s from Gaea, yuh know?” whispers one legend to another, in a tone so casual that the sentence was doubly alarming to have come from seemingly out of nowhere. Caustic nearly drops the mug he is holding, mind shocked into momentary pause, at the statement. At the implication behind it.

The other sighs, “I know they’re, uh, different about things… but I thought that being in Solace City this whole time might have…” There’s a pause. “Well, you know, shown him a different reality… he’s already made progress in being an okay human, or something like it. Thought things were going okay, caught him smiling at one of Rampart’s jokes the other day… ”

“Yuh best keep it quiet though, don’t want the media gettin’ wind of this or it’ll be a problem.” hisses the first, acutely aware of how the media at large takes any vague hint of something, right or wrong, and runs with it. For the last six months magazines had been declaring that she was ‘going to propose to Wraith anyday now’ because they’d been snapped shared a sandwich at a Legend event a while back. The online forums were a constant minefield, even if some of the fanart was well-done.

“Oh yeah, I’m not going to put anyone through that deliberately, my dearest fiance-to-be…” the other laughed back. “You think surprise-portalling him into the middle of the parade would help? Or do Gaeans drop dead if confronted with new ideas without any warning?”

Just as despair was filling his heart like a lead weight, the rumours like tiny knives in his heart, filleting the memories he held about someone now lost… another combatant enters the ring. So to speak.

“Enough!” snaps a third, highly unexpected but nonetheless welcome, voice. The word hissing between what can only be clenched teeth, in a normally serene face.

Caustic finds himself holding his breath as he presses close to the kitchen wall nearest the common room entrance; desperate to hear more, despite his stomach churning, wanting him to flee this whole situation. It boggled the mind, after all he had done… Miss Pacquette, coming to his defence? How could she find it in herself to speak on the behalf of such as him?

“Listen to me, and hear me when I say that not all of Gaea’s citizens think in such a backwards manner… you cannot assume because people are poor, from a small place on their world, or work on farms that they all perceive things so narrow-mindedly. There is acceptance on Gaea, in much the same way that there are pockets of intolerant people on Psamanthe and Salvo who believe that robots are not sentient, or people of different races cannot be allowed to love one another. There are good people there too...” Wattson says, voice rising with the internal fervour of righteous anger. She was so very like her father, unable to allow someone she cared about to go undefended when people brought slander to their doorsteps. If someone raised a knife to his back, she would put up a fence to bar their way, and then continue to tell him off for his inappropriate actions from the months before.

In the brief silence following her statement, shuffling is heard, and it is clear something is happening though he dare not attempt to see in. He would be sighted for certain.

In a calmer tone, almost too soft, Wattson continues. “I once knew a man from Gaea when I was very small. He was… very important to my Papa, and to me. They worked together for many years, and I believe that they loved each other just as deeply as Papa and Mama did. He was always very kind to me, like a father you could say, even on his darkest days he was always ready to make me feel happy.” She took in a shaky breath. “Many of my youngest memories involve him, from my first baking soda volcano, to my recovery from the ‘ghost’ incident; not to mention the first attempt to create my sparks… and then the hour or so we spent resetting the powergrid for the whole map due to the short we made. He was a good man, if very obsessed with his work; as Papa was. Driven, you could say.” She sighed sadly, in a way that made even Caustic’s shaking arms want to wrap around the younger woman in comfort. “But he was forced to go home many years ago because he was having a disagreement with the company overseers about a new project they assigned to his research team. He was so angry when he left, and I wish I could have had a happier memory to keep of him. I only discovered later why he was so… you see, Papa mentioned that his team was assigned the goal of manufacturing a way of purging unwanted biological urges through aerosolised disbursement in the general population, and, well… he did not agree.”

There’s a sharp inhalation of breath from a few too many voices for simply two other people to be present in the common room. Given what the ruling bodies of Gaea were known to stand against, it did not take much guesswork around the applications of such a project.

Caustic had always liked to break accepted ethical conduct on the odd occasion to get breakthroughs that pushed science to the edge of a new frontier, but even he had been abhorred by the very concept. Caustic closed his eyes, recalling the very arguments he had had with his then-superiors about the situation; and how he had even held out the ‘impeding human rights’ card as a final way to thwart the project. The cold smirk on thin lipped faces as he was informed that none who would be affected could be counted as a true human until they were cured of their odd notions… it was a miracle he had restrained from using his fists there and then.

His ‘compliance’ was bought with a simple reminder of how very important the company’s healthcare policy was to Caustic’s mother, at the time, and how it would be a shame to have it terminated alongside his employment. Feigning defeat, and hating himself, he had made a show of deferring to their wishes. Those pompous, self-inflated fools had taken him at his word. That was their first mistake.

Caustic jerks slightly, as if he has fallen out of his own memories and back to the present, bodily. Finding Miss Pacquette still speaking, her voice growing ragged with emotion.

“He… he died shortly after leaving us. I was devastated that he was gone, but even more so for the way it had happened. I could not imagine the fear and sadness he must have felt as the lab burned around him, with his entire research team. All they ever found was a charred corpse and two fingers that had enough DNA remaining to confirm his identity.” A soft sob shocked out, before she masterfully pushed it back. “U-Unfortunately for the company it seemed that all of his research and specimens on the topic burned with him; and some kind of alternate chemical residue coating the lab after the fire made the building unusable. Sometimes… I wonder if it was deliberate, for him to have taken it all with him. To be honest it would not surprise me in the least, he was as stubborn as Papa…” Natalie trailed off, clearly upset by the recollections. “Oh mon dieu, I do not mean to be so silly… I just miss him and Papa so much! And now you are all being so awful about the only person who… who reminds me of them, and I know he is difficult but there is good there, somewhere.”

Caustic’s teeth grind until it is agony. He longs to comfort her, even now as a full fledged adult and not the doe-eyed little girl who always wanted his attention... but how would that look to their comrades? Would she accept it after what he had tried to do? The anxiety wrings his stomach out like a wet rag, and locks both legs firmly in place. The scientist is disgusted with his weakness, debasing himself internally even as he countered with the simple truth of not being able to fight your own brain when it had decided on a Freeze response to distress.

He can clearly hear Lifeline and Wraith providing quiet soothing statements to Miss Pacquette, and it lessens his own distress over hers. Until he hears the one voice he would prefer never have been party to the conversation, speak up. “What was his name?” A general query, curiosity and a hint of foreboding there, as if the puzzle pieces were sliding together in the younger man’s mind.

Caustic’s heart freezes in his chest. Of all the Legends, why must Park be the one to overhear this tale? He who knows too much already...

There’s a soft muffled sniffle, muted most likely by Wraith’s shoulder, before Wattson replies; utterly unaware of how she was putting the final nail in his aliases’ coffin. “Oh, did I not say? His name was Alex… or I suppose Alexander. Dr Alexander Nox…”

The sound of Crypto’s drone clattering to the floor almost swallows the high pitched shattering of the ceramic mug meeting the kitchen floor. Almost, being the operative word.

By the time anyone has a chance to check the kitchen, Caustic has long since made a tactical retreat to his room. The racing thoughts feel like they are wrapped about his throat, constricting his chest until he can barely breathe. Hoping that none saw his frantic flight back to the safety of familiar walls.

~)0(~

#apex legends #caustic #please tell me if its too ooc #i have been agonising over chapter 2 #it was meant to be a short little fic and now chapter 2 feels very ooc #31 days of apex

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dojae-huh · 3 years

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Yes, the book was recommended, I believe. I have always heard that only a dissenting mind can think out of the box. Jae is really agreeable when it comes to individual relationships while Do is more stubborn. But when it comes to the society as a whole, Jae I believe is more rebellious than Do whom I believe goes with the society. This contradiction is quite interesting, or am I seeing things wrong?

You are right! Let me find the post on the topic... here.

On one hand, Doyoung cares about society and opinion of others, has disposition to follow norms and traditions. On the other hand, he wants to build connections and climb the social ladder. He is dependent, but is involved as well. He is ready to fight for his place and for his opinion.

Socialisation is Jaehyun's weaker side (remember how awkward he was during JCC in the designers' studio? WinWin, his best friend, said Jae looked cold and distant at first), he prefers to avoid confrontations, not to fight. However, he is not dependent on the opinion of others, on cultural norms and rules as much. He lives by his own rules. Of course he follows some conventions, but only those he agrees with or must.

Doyoung is shackled by his dependance on society, but he is smart and greedy for power enough to overcome it, at least were it matters for him. For example, education is super important in Korea, and yet Do easily dropped out of school. He is not afraid to tell fans off, when they cross the line. He can question actions and expertise of higher ups.

Jaehyun (and Taeyong, plus being in 127, working with foreigners overall) helps Doyoung to expand his vision, make his box bigger, get interested in and try new things. Doyoung helps Jaehyun to deal with emotional blows (antis), come to terms with the requirements of the idol job, shows a direction.

Doyoung decided he wants to sing and did everything to progress. Jaehyun also liked to sing, participated in school performances, but he was ready to study rap as SM told him, and a baritone is disadvantageous in k-pop, Jae is still a second violine and doesn't really need to progress, being the visual and a lead dancer. Luckly, Doyoung appeared, Jaehyun got new initiative to pursue singing in earnest.

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ailec-12 · 3 years

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Prompt: AU, bored and exploring Malfoy Manor at a social function, young Sirius Black finds an old diary belonging to T.M. Riddle.

Thanks so much for this prompt, Anon! To be honest, at first I had no idea what to do with it, but it would seem Tom’s diary possessed me as well, because once I started, I couldn’t stop. I’ve enjoyed writing teen Sirius a lot, so I hope you’ll also like it.

Shout-out to @mariagvogel for making this one shot better with her comments. It can also be read on AO3.

Sirius hated them all —every fucking member of his family. Nothing could really top his hatred for his mother, who insisted on dragging him to those pure-blood parties no matter how much her eldest son embarrassed her. He was wandering around, sneering at the portraits that lined up the walls of the Malfoy mansion.

Those events were always supremely boring, but Sirius had never felt so utterly alone. Regulus was socialising with their cousins like the good Black son he was. Yet, the only cousin that really mattered, Andromeda, was not present and no one talked about her. Her face still decorated the Black family tapestry, but Sirius did not think it would last long. It was a very odd feeling. When Andromeda talked about cutting ties with her family, they used to laugh about going out in style. He had not seen his cousin in months, though, and, if she had concocted any plans with her Muggle-born boyfriend, she had not breathed a single word about it to Sirius.

The dark corridor he was crossing at the moment threatened to be as dull as the guests downstairs. At least he had managed to slip unnoticed from the party. He could not have shown his distaste as freely there. A somewhat distant crack startled him out of his thoughts. He froze on the spot. That must be Dobby. Although Sirius could not say he liked the house-elf —who was always too overexcited—, he pitied anyone who had to live under the thumb of a prat like Lucius Malfoy. Dobby was also far nicer than Kreacher. Even so, if he saw Sirius snooping around, he would be forced to tell his masters. Sirius would rather avoid angering his mother so soon when there was still a long evening ahead of them.

Thinking on his feet, he walked quickly to the end of the corridor, where a door hid the stairs to the attic. Andromeda and Cissy had discovered that one dragging a very young Sirius with them. He could no longer remember the exact reason, but they had been hiding. It felt like a very far memory.

Sirius closed the door carefully behind him and waited until he heard the second crack that meant Dobby had left. The party seemed not to exist in the absolute stillness of the stairs and Sirius let out a long-suffering sigh. Glancing up, he decided to head for the attic. It was a good hiding place if nothing else.

The room looked dirtier and more abandoned than Sirius remembered. It actually reminded him of their attic at home, full of useless and forgotten pure-blood memorabilia. He stepped around the worn-out furniture, dodging the odd-shaped items scattered in some parts. He could not help thinking that, if the rest of his friends were with him, poking around Malfoy’s stuff would have sounded much more exciting. Alone, however, Sirius did not truly feel like exploring.

Looking round in order to find at least something to distract him from the fact that there was no one to share his findings with, his eyes fell on a small bookcase. The dust made his eyes itch when he got closer and most books did not even have a title on the spine. He gazed at them blankly for a moment longer, trying to decide whether picking them up was worth the effort. His interest was suddenly piqued when he saw a small rectangular item wrapped in fading brown fabric. That time, he took it with no hesitation, revealing a black leather book. It was rather thin and the year on the cover —1942— let him know it was not a recently purchased item. As he opened it, he was disappointed to find there was nothing on the blank pages except for a name on top of the first one: T. M. Riddle.

Sirius let it fall, huffing. An empty diary whose owner did not even have the right surname for the house. He did not really care if it had been someone who had married into the family or if some Malfoy had stolen it. Somehow, Sirius was not able to picture someone staying for a sleepover and leaving their diary behind.

Bored, he sat down on the floor, near the diary. He could already see the others’ faces when he returned downstairs having ruined his new, shiny robes. The mere thought brought a smirk to his face and lifted his spirits lightly. He picked the diary back up. Perhaps no one would ever see it, but Sirius wanted to leave his mark in case someone else found the old thing.

He searched through the drawers and found a couple of broken quills, but no ink. He cursed out loud, remembering the Muggle drawing kit that Moony had gifted him last Christmas. He would carry a pen everywhere if he was not certain his mother would enjoy burning it while Sirius was still carrying it.

Nevertheless, he found a small piece of charcoal and did not hesitate to open the diary at the first page. In big capital letters, just under the name, he wrote, FUCK PURE-BLOODS —SB. He had to admit it looked lamer than it had sounded in his head, so he was trying to come up with another epithet when the words faded away. Blinking, he stared down at the yellowish pages. If it was a means of communication like the two-way mirror he used with Prongs, he might be screwed.

The diary answered right away.

Interesting choice of words to write on someone else’s diary. And who might you be?

Sirius looked at the words for a few seconds. It had been quite a prompt answer for an object that had seemed abandoned just a moment ago.

I’m not telling you my name, he decided to write at last. He was not that much of an idiot.

As you wish. Mine is Tom.

Again, the reply was quick. Sirius bit his lip, rolling the charcoal between his fingers.

Are you friends with the Malfoys?

I might be, came Tom’s enigmatic answer. They must not have taken great care of my diary if you have got your hands on it, though.

The calligraphy was elegant, although not as flowery as Sirius’s. For all his faults, the Malfoys were not as exclusive as the Blacks. Tom’s elusive comments sparked the boy’s imagination and he was already picturing Riddle as the offspring of a marriage between a Malfoy and someone of not such a high standing.

Focusing back on the pages, which had returned to their original state, he decided to try his luck.

Do you write to them often?

I can’t say I do.

Sirius could almost hear the playful tone behind those words.

What would you do if I took you with me?

Write to you, what else?

Sirius’s smirk grew bigger as he closed the diary and threw away the charcoal.

II.

In the end, getting away from the gathering had indeed been worth it. His parents had not been able to do much in public, since they knew sending him home would actually have been a reward. By the time they had got back, both of them had been too inebriated to punish him properly. Sirius had got away with just his hurt pride at having had to apologise to the Malfoys plus a quick stinging hex before being sent to bed. Still, his leg hurt like hell from the surprisingly well-aimed spell.

He was lying on his bed, groaning into his pillow and with absolutely no intention of sleeping. He would like to contact James through the mirror —he did not think anyone would hear him despite the absolute silence—, but he did not want to come across as needy. He could wait until tomorrow to whine and tell his friends all his woes.

Turning around, he sat up and examined his leg. He concluded it would be better not to risk asking Kreacher for a pain potion, since it would lead to his mother hearing about it. In a couple of hours, it would no longer sting. Making what felt like an enormous effort, he stood up and started disrobing. It was only then that he remembered Tom. Still half dressed, he hurried to get ink and quill and got comfortable in his bed. It was pretty late, so he told himself he might have to wait until the morning for an answer.

Are you there?

Of course.

Sirius smiled at the immediate reply.

I —don’t— regret to inform you that you are no longer with the Malfoys.

His grin grew bigger as he felt clever. He would keep talking to Tom if it was going to help him forget about his misery for a while.

You sound like more interesting company anyway. I take it that you had fun and the event is over?

Sirius scoffed loudly.

I don’t think a single one in that bloody bunch of old snobs know what having fun is like.

You may be right, but why would you want fun when you already have power?

Reading those words gave him chills and sobered him up. Perhaps it was because Tom’s phrasing urged him to agree at first. He frowned and put down the diary to physically distance himself from that feeling. Almost right away, though, he picked it up again.

Do you believe that blood supremacy crap?

He felt something akin to disappointment and had to rein in the impulse to throw a cruder accusation.

What I believe does not matter. It is a fact they have power, is it not?

Sirius liked that answer even less and he felt his frown deepen. He stared as the ink faded, considering what he should retort. Apparently, Tom found his words sooner.

You benefit from that power, don’t you, S?

An inexplicable, overwhelming anger rose in the boy’s throat and he was scribbling furiously before he was aware of it.

Fuck you. My name is Sirius.

He slammed the diary shut and threw it in his trunk.

III.

I’m a fucking tosser.

It was the first thing he wrote in two weeks and the black letters were blurry.

Do tell.

Tom’s response came at once as usual, but it felt oddly impersonal. It was just what Sirius needed, because the last thing he wanted was a friendly ear. He was determined to avoid thinking about the next letter he would have to write to Prongs.

I was going to spend half the summer at a friend’s, but I crossed my mother and ruined everything. I’m not going anywhere now.

A little splash smeared the ink before it disappeared completely. He wiped his eyes furiously while he waited for Tom to say something.

Oh, boo-hoo. Why would you act out if you needed her permission?

Didn’t plan on it, you twat. Just happened. You’d also scream at her if you’d met her, he added before a reply could come.

I think not. I’ve been told I’m a great actor.

Pretentious prick, Sirius shot back. He was feeling calmer, though, and not truly annoyed.

Tom offered no reaction to that, but Sirius did not want to finish their conversation so soon. It was a very welcome distraction from the pain and humiliation that usually followed an argument with his mother.

I don’t know how I’m to survive an entire summer locked up in this house.

Have you tried to escape?

I’m only 14. The Ministry will find me as soon as I try to do magic.

Of course, living as a Muggle is out of question.

Sirius frowned, not liking one bit the mockery he could feel behind the words.

It is when I have neither Muggle clothes nor Muggle money, he retorted.

And your friend? Wouldn’t he take you in?

James would, he was certain of it. However, that would require detailing exactly how bad things were at home. It was not worth it, Sirius told himself as he had a thousand times before. It was only three more years until he could do magic and then no one, not even his mother, could stop him —after all, his fourteenth birthday was just a few months away.

My family would not allow it, he wrote instead.

Are you important or something?

Again that derisive feeling. Sirius could not explain why he felt the other’s intentions so distinctly.

Or something, he agreed noncommittally. He was about to add something else when a knock on his door startled him.

Swallowing with difficulty, he reminded himself that only one person in their household would knock before entering. Not that his dear brother waited for an answer. Sirius had barely had time to close the diary when the door opened. At least, Regulus was not in the habit of barging in.

“What do you want?” Sirius snapped right away, feeling anger consuming everything within him once again.

Any tentativeness disappeared from his brother’s demeanour and his young face hardened. He closed the door after coming in, but did not step closer.

“Don’t take it out on me. I did nothing.”

“Yeah, I think that might be the problem. You never do anything. The perfect son,” snarled Sirius, in a well-rehearsed course of action.

“What d’you expect to get when you insult the whole family? Couldn’t you just go along with it for once and say what she wants to hear?”

Regulus was frustrated, but his controlled manner paled in comparison to the ire running through his older brother, who jumped off the chair, not caring about the noise.

“I’ll never stand by while she badmouths my friends,” he said, barely restraining from shouting. “But of course you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. You’d need to have some friends for that.”

The jab hit Regulus as hard as Sirius had intended and his pain was plainly visible on his face. He refused to regret having caused it.

“I just came to see if you were all right, you imbecile.”

Regulus practically spat the words before turning around and taking hold of the doorknob.

“Hurry up and move along, then. I’m fine.”

Regulus opened the door and stared back one last time. His mouth was a hard line and his eyes glistened. He looked too old for his age.

“You’re a liar.”

IV.

Have you ever been trapped with no option to escape?

It was the middle of the night of a perfectly ordinary day, but Sirius could not sleep. Luckily, it seemed that neither could Tom.

Most people have at one point or another, came the answer, swift and vague as ever.

His friends were taking too long to reply to his letters and Prongs had forgotten the two-way mirror at home when he had packed for his holidays. Talking to Tom felt just as good, though.

More letters appeared in the centre of the page while he was lost in thought.

What matters is your ability to break free when the time is right.

What is ailing you this time? I can tell you didn’t steal an enchanted diary to complain about your house-elf’s cooking.

Their correspondence was getting more familiar and Tom did not hesitate to cut his ramblings short. Sirius decided not to beat around the bush, either.

Do you come from a pure-blood family?

I have old blood running through my veins, yes.

Sirius had never felt so grateful for Tom’s pretentious nature. He had a feeling the other would understand.

They burnt my cousin Andromeda’s face off the family tapestry. She has married a Muggle-born, so they say she’s tarnished our blood.

And you fear to suffer the same fate?

I’d fear to stay in this house forever, but

He hesitated. Sometimes, he felt as if he were offering up too much information, although nothing he had said so far was truly a secret.

she is my favourite cousin.

The words faded away slowly, as if the diary were absorbing Sirius’s strong feelings behind them, too.

I think she’s forgotten me, he wrote in a rush, feeling extremely self-conscious.

That time, Tom seemed to take an eternity to answer.

Pure-bloods are good at holding power, but their short-sightedness will be the death of them.

The words took Sirius aback and he did not think about his next response.

I thought you fancied that blood crap.

I told you. What I may believe or feel is not important. Ignoring the talent of those who do not fit the ideal perfectly will hardly do us any favours.

Sirius blinked, uneasy at how reasonable Tom sounded. He needed to think, so he wrote goodbye and returned the diary to its safe place. After a while, he realised he could contact Andromeda once he was back at school.

VI.

Sirius skimmed through Prongs’s last letter. He still needed to get back to Moony and Wormtail as well. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not shake off the feeling that his friends were far too predictable. James told him all about his brilliant family holidays, whereas Remus was as bored and lonely as Sirius. And he really could not bring himself to care about Peter’s latest crush.

On top of his apathy, he was worn out all the time. The bright side of it was that he was usually too tired to pick a fight with his parents. He spent most of his time locked in his bedroom, listening to Muggle music or just staring up at the dark ceiling —or writing to Tom. Sirius could not consider him a friend since the bloke had not revealed much information about himself. Yet, during their exchanges, Sirius did not feel quite so sad or angry, just sort of entertained.

There was only a week and a half until the beginning of the new school year. The rest of the Marauders would not be surprised if Sirius told them he had been too lazy to reply to their last batch of letters. Thus, he picked up the diary, willing to forget about the world for a while.

VII.

You didn’t write yesterday.

Sirius felt a pang of culpability upon seeing the message. In fact, he had felt guilty ever since school had started. Normally, he waited until his friends had gone to sleep to take out the diary and write on it, sheltered by his drawn drapes. At first, he had looked forward to that nightly encounter, even if it made him feel like he was lying to his friends. During the day, Moony and Prongs were set on finding out what was wrong with him. Nothing Sirius told them stopped their nagging. He could admit he was bloody irritable around everyone those days, but it did not truly warrant their insistence. At least with Tom he had not needed to worry about reining in his temper so as to avoid worried looks.

Nevertheless, eventually, even Moony had let the matter of his bad mood drop. It had led to a more relaxed atmosphere in their friend group and, for the first time since their return, the previous night Sirius had gone to bed knackered and happy and, especially not feeling like he needed to seek out someone else’s company. Frankly, he had not thought Tom would care, but now the guilt rose back up and it was not because he was hiding something from his friends.

I was busy.

It was a lame excuse, but Sirius told himself he did not need to explain his reasons to a perfect stranger.

Hanging out with Hagrid again?

Distaste dripped from the ink of every one of those words.

No, planning a prank for a greasy git. He won’t know what hit him. Sirius’s smirk vanished before it fully formed. He frowned, still thinking about Tom’s comment. What have you got against Hagrid, anyway? He is all right.

That is because you do not know what he is capable of.

Sirius rolled his eyes at the condescending reply. He had known Hagrid for over three years and, while the man had his quirks, he was one of the nicest people Sirius had ever met.

Another sentence appeared as the first one was absorbed by the page.

Want me to show you?

He read the question a few times, trying to understand what it could possibly mean. Tom had never implied they could send anything other than messages through the diary.

“Can’t you– What are you doing?”

It was barely a whisper, but he had already jumped when Moony drew the curtains back and so, he ended up spilling ink all over himself and the diary. His wand was knocked off as well, falling to the floor with its tip still lit up. Sirius barely spared a glance at his friend as he attempted to get away from the mess.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

“I’m so sorry,” Remus apologised right away. Turning around for a moment, he retrieved his own wand from his bedside table. “I’ll clean it up.”

With a circular movement, he managed to summon the ink and get it back into the bottle. The diary was intact, not a black trace on it, although Sirius suspected not all the ink had been collected by Moony’s magic.

“Thanks,” he grumbled, because his friend was looking at him with soft eyes full of uncertainty.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just couldn’t sleep and saw the light from your wand.”

“It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep, either.” Sirius huffed, unable to stand the awkwardness any longer. “Sit down, for Merlin’s sake. Unlike others, I don’t bite.”

He received a brief, albeit quite powerful glare as expected, which in return brought a grin to his face as he closed the diary and put it in a drawer for the time being.

“Was that… a diary?”

Moony’s incredulity was obvious, so Sirius forced himself to let out a dismissive snort.

“Just brainstorming our next pranks. Prongs and I still have to take revenge on that Seventh Year Ravenclaw prick for laughing at us when Snivellus and Evans dumped us in the lake.”

“To be fair—”

“I don’t want to be fair, Moony. I want to laugh at Mr Brainy.”

Remus rolled his eyes, but a long yawn interrupted whatever he was going to add. Right on cue, Sirius also yawned.

“I think I’ll go back to bed now. You should try to get some sleep, too.”

“I will,” promised Sirius, smiling fondly at his always responsible friend.

He drew the drapes and snuggled up under the blankets, having forgotten all about Tom and Hagrid.

VIII.

Guess who is not going home for Christmas?

Sirius was feeling light as a feather and needed to share his enthusiasm.

Did you get your face burnt off the family tree as well?

Not yet, he replied, beaming in the semi-darkness. His penmanship was messier than usual, because his brain was going too fast for his hand to keep up. I’m going to spend the break with Prongs. His parents have invited me to go with them to ski. The entire hols! he added, trying to convey his utter delight, for he felt like exploding every time he thought about the letter he had just received.

My mother will be furious, he kept on, not waiting for an answer. She will have to explain her disgraceful heir has once again chosen blood traitors over the family.

You do realise that, by cutting ties with them, you are only making things harder for yourself, don’t you?

As if I cared. I’m not going to put up with their pompous arses one minute longer than I need to.

Well, perhaps there is something better that you can do at school if you stay.

“What?” Sirius almost yelled, turning it into a whisper at the last moment.

I’m not staying, he wrote quickly.

Why did Tom feel the need to sour his mood like that? He had said he was not upset by the lack of daily updates on Sirius’s part, but he may have lied.

You never let me show you that memory about Hagrid. I could show you things about Hogwarts, places no other person knows about but me.

Sirius felt his hair stand on end. No one should sound so alluring through a written message. Without another thought, he slammed the diary shut and pushed it off his lap. He was suddenly afraid of how much he had longed to accept Tom’s offer.

As if a veil had just been lifted, he realised the diary was an object taken from a family with close links to dark magic and even darker social circles. He had been tired all summer and his bad temper had persisted after getting away from his family. He had only started to feel better once he had stopped writing to Tom every day.

He nearly tossed the diary out of the window, but he stopped when he took it in his hands. Surely, he was overreacting. He had been talking to Tom for months and, even though the other gave him the creeps from time to time, he had felt no dark influences trying to control him. Prongs always said he was paranoid about everything that had to do with dark magic and he reluctantly had to admit his friend may be right.

Tom must be even lonelier than he was to keep him company after all that time, for Sirius would not describe his life as fascinating. He was happier than he had ever been at Hogwarts, certainly, but Tom had put up with his continuous complaints about his family the entire summer. Perhaps it was only fair that he felt ignored since school had begun, because Sirius had indeed been writing less and less frequently as days passed. He felt like a terrible friend —even if they were not such—, so he picked up the quill again, dipped it in the ink and wrote,

Why do you like talking with me?

I thought you were braver. I thought you’d dare uncover Hogwarts’ deepest secrets.

The ink faded away slowly as Sirius found himself unable to tear his gaze away. New words appeared before he could think of an answer.

Let me show you, insisted Tom. It all started when

Sirius slammed the diary shut for the second time that day, although on that occasion his decision was fuelled by blind rage. The urge to know was still there, whispering in his ear that he should continue reading, continue writing. However, another feeling flooded him and he distinguished the sting of something else besides his hurt pride. He was under no delusions that they were friends, but he had hoped —believed— that the other’s interest meant he shared his feeling of comfortable attachment. Sirius had enjoyed being able to say anything without fear of being judged or pitied, but right then, he only felt manipulated.

Truthfully, he had very much longed to know the answer when he had asked why. Instead, Tom had insisted on talking about his own damn secrets and mysteries. In fact, Tom had elegantly sidestepped every personal question and had always sounded more invested in reading about Sirius’s troubles than any good news he brought up.

The hurt cleared his thoughts in the most painful way possible. At that very moment, he could not care less whether he was indeed paranoid or losing his mind. He had itched to know whatever Tom had been about to tell, but curiosity had played no role in it. The pull had been far less innocent than that and, once he could recognise it, he realised it had been there for a while. However, he had never expected that darkness would feel so sweet and intoxicating —so inoffensive.

Damn, he truly was a bloody idiot.

IX.

Sirius had bravely fought the temptation to write on the diary again to curse its very existence and, so far, he had won. Still, he had buried the blasted thing at the bottom of his trunk and only taken it out on their last day before the holidays. He was currently waiting for his brother outside the Great Hall, while the students who had already finished their dinner passed by while animatedly chatting about their upcoming plans.

At last, he saw the familiar pale face and hurried towards the small group of Slytherins.

“Hey, Regulus!”

His brother glared at him, but murmured something to his companions and they promptly left towards the dungeons. Sirius could not help frowning at their backs —if the tables had been turned and it was him asking to be alone with a Slytherin, he would have expected a little resistance from his friends. Focusing his attention back on the younger boy, he saw the scowl was still very much present.

“What do you want?”

Sirius swallowed the urge to snap back, irked by Regulus’s defensiveness.

“I’m not going back home these hols, so I need you to make sure this gets back to the Malfoys.”

He handed out the diary, wrapped in the brown fabric, but his brother made no move to take it. Instead, he asked,

“You aren’t coming home?”

All of a sudden, Sirius felt his mouth dry at the vulnerability clearly present in the question.

“Um, I’m… I’m not.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not that bad, though, is it? Mother will be in a foul mood when she finds out, sure, but I won’t be there to aggravate you all every day.”

His light tone was weak and did not get a reaction from Regulus beyond a renewed glower.

“So what, you want me to deliver one of your funny pranks to Malfoy now that he no longer attends Hogwarts?”

“Don’t be daft, I’d never let you take the blame and steal my spotlight.” Regulus refused to say anything and so, a tense silence ensued. Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius noticed they had drawn the attention of some students. He pushed the diary against his brother’s crossed arms. “It’s something I took from them at the beginning of the summer. I’m not interested in it anymore.”

Finally, Regulus took it and started to unwrap it. Sirius hurried to still his hands. Physical contact between the brothers had become rare nowadays, but neither seemed to realise.

“Nuh-uh. Everyone’s always going on and on about how you’re so much smarter than I am, so show a bit of brains. It’s one of those diaries you can’t stop writing on. Took me a bit to figure it out.”

It was not all the truth, but he did not know what the diary was exactly and hoped it was enough to deter Regulus from giving in to his own curiosity.

His brother was still looking back at him with plenty of mistrust in his clear eyes, but he would not keep an item like that —Sirius was sure of it.

“You can give it to Cousin Cissy,” he joked, breaking the silence once more. “I’m sure she’ll be delighted to have a reason to call on the Malfoys and insult the white sheep of the family at the same time.”

He wanted to add something else, either wish Regulus good luck or happy Christmas. In the end, the right words never came to him and his brother walked away after uttering a curt, ‘Goodbye, Sirius.’

It turned out that getting rid of that diary was the best decision he had made in a while. James’s parents had also invited Remus and Peter to their winter house for a week —carefully chosen by the boys so that Moony would not have to deal with any furry problems.

Not even Walburga’s Howler managed to shatter his happiness. It had arrived one morning, while they were all having breakfast. Sirius had prayed for the ground to open up and swallow him whole when he had seen Euphemia’s and Fleamont’s faces as they heard the usual string of slurs and threats —fortunately, Prongs was used to those Howlers by then. For a very long moment, Sirius had also feared what they would think of him after learning he was a thief.

In fact, he had barely dared look up when an ominous silence had returned to their table. However, it had soon been broken by a new string of voices, only that time there was a mix of indignation and reassurance and it was all in his favour. Sirius’s eyes had been suspiciously wet when his friend had clapped him on the back and he had had to talk the adults out of seeing Walburga Black before they went back to school.

Even if he did not manage to find an excuse to stay at Hogwarts during the next break, he would not have to face her in months. It was a very freeing, hopeful thought. He knew that his little stunt would bring other, more serious consequences eventually, but he was not very worried about whatever hell his mother had promised. Hell could not scare him when he already knew what it was like to live in it.

#Harry Potter fanfiction #HP #Sirius Black #Young Sirius Black #Marauders #Prompt #My fics #100 Followers Celebration #*

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relativelyrational · 3 years

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Anxiety - The Cycle of Me

Anxiety and my struggle with it have been present in my life for as long as I can remember. While for some the smells and colours of spring bring about ideas of renewal and growth they have always taken me back to weekly moments of panic brought on by whatever track meeting that I felt obliged to attend. This weekly cycle of tension and release gradually building as the events supposed importance increased. At the age of 10, I was unaware of what these feelings of fear and self-doubt actually meant and assumed they were a necessary part of the 'athletic' experience. It was only at 15 once I left sports behind did I realise that these feeling were not just byproducts of competition but personal aspects of my own being.

I can recall pinning the entirety of these intense sessions of panic on competition and team-related activities and assured myself that if I only gave up on these pursuits which I did not particularly enjoy I would be free of stress. I was naive. To my disappointment, the focus of my anxiety which as of then was yet to be named switched to social situations. I could no longer walk to a shop located mere yards away from my home without obsessing about the various people who I could meet along the way and the awkward interactions I could have with the owners who at this point had known me my whole life. It was also at this point I began to find myself obsessing about being attacked by groups of teenagers. If returning from a walk or home from school I would turn around if I noticed a group in the distance, I would try to find an alternative path home only to turn again when a new group appeared. This process would sometimes take an hour or more just to walk what would have been a few minutes.

I was 16 when I began to struggle with the friend group I had built in school. I had developed friendships built around common interests and ideas and at school and lucky to feel safe an included but I struggled to take this outside of this environment. My friends live further away, I will have to meet new people, walking home could be dangerous. I was constantly coming up with excuses as to why I couldn't meet them. Even after, pushing myself to my limits and making the effort to get involved after a couple of months I couldn't continue. The fear became too much. I retreated to my room.

At this point, my lack of effort was being noticed by my friends. My relationship with them in school became strained and I found myself being the butt of many of their jokes. They even coined a new term for backing out of something based on my nickname which would be used for years into the future. I didn't blame them then and I still don't. They presumed I didn't care about it and I couldn't tell them otherwise. Despite developing a distant attitude I yearned to be out with them. I would build myself up each week, let them know I would be there and then as the event grew closer develop an overwhelming fear and uncertainty and drop out, sometimes without letting them know. I would spend all night ruminating about what I had missed out on and have this confirmed on Monday mornings. When asked I would say I was busy again, despite wanting to let them know that I was sorry and I wish I could have gone. After a year of this, I was exhausted. I felt lost and alone and couldn't bring myself to tell anyone. Luckily, my parents had noticed and stepped in to guide me to help.

My relationship with my parents had always been great and I realise the privilege this gave me. They set up a meeting with a therapist and over the course of a few months, we learned about the anxiety I was facing as well as ways of helping me build passed it. Even now, I can clearly remember an underlying feeling of fear. A fear that if it didn't work out or last what would I do then, what would be next because I couldn't go back to the way I was.

Luckily, my therapy sessions gave me a new way of dealing with situations that scared me and I found myself able to return to socialising, being less fearful of what people thought about me and every possible danger I may face walking through Dublin on a Tuesday afternoon. It was freeing. A door was opened to a world I- never thought I would get to be a part of. I even managed to meet a girl. Which at the time seemed an impossibility. The new life I had created for myself almost matched the lofty goals I had set for myself on those weekend evenings alone in my room. I also succeeded in getting accepted to a university studying science which had been a goal of mine since I was a child. Everything looked so bright and the fear that things would return to how they were subsided as that idea felt less realistic each passing day.

#anxiety #life

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aziraphaleandcrowley · 4 years

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Tldr: me word vomiting lots of random emotions and thoughts I’ve been having about my life. Would put under a read more but tumblr mobile is shite. Ignore if you wanna, I just needed to throw this into the world cos I’ve been so socially distant from everyone in my life that I haven’t spoken to anyone about this, and I’m not sure I would’ve even if I actually replied to my friends more than once in a blue moon

...............................................................

Me: honestly convinced I’m never gonna find romantic love cos I’m ace and probably aro - at the very least I’ve never been attracted to/interested in someone enough to want to date them and the whole being sexually attracted to someone and looking a people and wanting to have sex with them sounds fake and doesn’t resonate with me at all.

Me: is theoretically a very sex favourable and positive person but the idea of sex with someone I’m not dating is just so weird to me but damn do I wish there was someone who knew me and my likes and dislikes to be intimate with

Me: is super duper disappointed to not experience love/sex but is simultaneously doing literally zero to create opportunities cos I just don’t speak to anyone outside of my family and colleagues, and the one single guy I had any interest in at work is gay and has left.

Me: reads fanfic constantly and I’m now wondering whether it is beneficial in distracting me from my loneliness or enhancing it. I think both. I think I need a break from fanfic at the very least but honestly don’t know what I’d do without it cos it’s been my go to hobby for so many years and I legit read for 30+ hours a week and that’s soo much time to fill???

Me: really doesn’t want to have kids in the future cos I don’t understand kids in the slightest and pregnancy is terrifying and I still feel like a child myself and I know this is something which may change in the future but I don’t think so and my mum bringing up wanting grandkids on a near weekly basis recently is kinda starting to put me on edge cos I’m already starting to feel like a disappointment cos I’m an only child and I’m the only opportunity for grandkids - which I know is ridiculous but it how I feel and that’s valid

Me: with my grandad in hospital (he’s gonna be fine, he would be out of hospital if he actually did what the doctors and nurses said about doing exercises etc) it has made me think about the family I do have which is: my mum, my dad, my grandad and my uncle. That’s it. I have two other uncles and several cousins etc who I see maybe once a year but they don’t really count.

Me: has a handful of really amazing friends who I haven’t spoken to in months and I don’t even really know why. They’ve all messaged me and I just havent replied. I’m not trying to actively push them away like I did with a friend in the past who I just felt drained with in the end whenever we interacted, but honestly every time I get a message I just feel exhausted at the prospect of ongoing social interaction. And it’s silly cos I know exactly the kind of thing I could message people about to start a conversation, like I could talk to Emily about finally watching Hamilton and how it’s been two weeks and I’m still listening to song on repeat and how she was right about how good it is and yet it’s been a week and a half since I’ve thought about sending that message and yet I haven’t and just uggghhhh @me

Me: is horrified by the idea of being alone for life romantically, and knowing that between my ever dwindling family and me not talking to my friends that being alone if more likely that I ever want to think about

Me: wants to live a happy life of my own but don’t know how to. I want to move out but can’t afford to on my own and it’s super impractical when I can live with my parents for £20 per week for food. But god forbid if anything happens to one of my parents I’m gonna be stuck at home forever cos I have so little family and my parents have literally no one else to turn to.

Me: wants to do a masters in gender and sexuality studies writing about representations of asexuality on screen but I know I could write and entire book which would be great for phd level but I missed the deadline to apply cos June was crazy and all I’ve been doing recently is working 6 days a week then working on my car for a day before working another 6 days. And even if I did a masters and maybe eventually a phd I have no idea what I’d actually do with it? I have so little ambition for anything right now and the future is just a void of mystery in which I don’t even know what I want???

Me: is starting to think I might actually be kinda depressed. I’ve thought it on and off for longer than I’ll ever admit but I’d do quizzes online and they’d say I wasn’t so I didn’t really think too much more about it (and yes I know an online quiz is shit and means nothing but there’s no one I would want to talk to about it cos I feel like I have to be strong for the people around me and shit but yeah). I know I’m not happy, but that doesn’t necessarily equal depressed. All I know is I’m uninspired and I feel kinda empty. Doing stuff I do enjoy, if I actually do it, just makes me feel tired half the time so I end up trying to nap instead but then I don’t sleep great either, waking up in the night or when my dad is getting ready for work so I very rarely get a solid 8 hours of sleep. I’m irritable a lot too...

Me: even if I am depressed what does it matter? Like it does matter ofc, but my mum is on media for depression and it’s taking her weeks to get an appointment with the doctor to try and get a different dosage. I’m not a danger to myself or others, I’m unhappy, but who isn’t with COVID going on and there are people who need mental health services more than me. Which is really hypocritical of me to say cos I’ve told my best friend so many times that trauma and mental health etc aren’t competitions of who has it worse but it’s the truth. Also my mum and colleagues access the only mental health resources in town and I do not want to deal with interactions with people I know whilst trying to improve my mental health.

Me: I don’t know how many times I’ve said it in posts like this but something needs to change. I was set on a good course at the start of the year. I was getting out, socialising, doing new things, inspired to cook, learn to new music and change my lifestyle, and then COVID happened and since all of that has slowly drained away and I need to find a change to revitalise that. I’d hoped getting back to having driving lessons and working on my car would be a start, and to be fair it’s been less than two week since I restarted doing that, so maybe I can find a new spark of inspiration still. Within a couple of months I will pass my driving test. Hopefully it won’t take much longer than that to get my car finished and on the road (hopefully it’ll take two weeks to finish putting the rear end back together so we can finally get my car back on four wheels, then it’s just lots of little jobs which hopefully won’t take too long). The weather is supposed to be decent this week so I might work up the effort to go for a walk down the fields which always seems to relax me a little. And the cinema reopens at the end of the month so I’d finally have an excuse to get out of the house (I know COVID is not over and things should not be going back to normal any time soon, but I need to do something other than go work for 4 hours everyday and spend 90% of my time at home and most of that time in bed because I have nowhere else to go). I don’t know what else I can be hopeful for in the coming weeks but that’s a start and just listing them out here has made me feel a little better so.

I keep thinking about Patrick from Schitt s Creek, leaving his hometown to escape a life which didn’t fit him and finding everything he needed in a tiny town in rural Canada, and wishing I could do the same, but I know I’d just end up even more alone because I am not a social person in the slightest and don’t kno how to be despite knowing that me making changes is the only way to improve myself.

And then a line from Hamilton about death is easy, living is harder, and I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not in any way, shape or form want to die, but living is hard and I have an easy life. I have enough money that I was able to loan my dad the money to buy a car, and still have more savings after that than he does, I have a good that if not particularly well paid I do enjoy and I’m good at, my family live me in their own way, even tho I feel that part of my social distance and reluctantance towards others is because no one in my family is particularly socially inclined.

Maybe I just really need a hug.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore but I just had so much build of of words in my brain that they had to go somewhere and this has turned into my go to word vomit place

Things will get better. I don’t know when or how but they will. But they won’t if I don’t get enough sleep for a starters. So off to bed I go. If you’ve read all this thank you, I guess, for listening cos I’m not sharing this with anyone irl just yet. And I’m sorry this is so long but tumblr mobile doesn’t let me put in a read now but I want this out in the world even tho no one will see it

#anyway ignore me #long post for ts #sorry #tmi #rebecca speaks #again #with the amount of posts i jave like this on here im really starting to think i need to find an actual person to discuss stuff with #not sure what therapy options there are in the uk cos all my knowledge come from here which is so us centric #but i think im gonna do some research #tomorrow tho #long post #personal

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thesparkjournal · 4 years

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THE CONTRADICTIONS OF CAPITALISM AND TECHNOCRATIC UTOPIAN FUTUROLOGY

A CRITIQUE OF FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM Review by Roger Perkins

[Author Aaron Bastani, formerly known as Aaron Peters, one-time contributor to the UCL Conservative Society newspaper and researcher for the Blairite thinktank Demos]

There is no single contradiction or combination of contradictions that will make capitalism miraculously dissolve away into a communist nirvana. Capitalism in severe crisis does not collapse or fade away. Capitalism always fights back, searching for out-of-the-box configurations that give it new life. Therefore, capitalism must be consciously brought down and replaced with a new consciously-built socialist society. This imperative, the most important in human history, must begin, if not yesterday, then certainly today.

Contemporary capitalism is split by serious contradictions and seismic fault cleavages under increasing stress. The basic contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation. In Anti-Dühring, Engels stated:

The contradiction between socialised production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie. (Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works, Volume 25, page 256)

The resulting class struggle together with numerous economic crises and cycles have proven in the short and medium term to be features of a more or less “stable” capitalism and do not by themselves threaten the immediate collapse of capitalism.

However from time to time Marxists, non-Marxists, and even a few capitalists have sought out the fatal contradiction of capitalism. For example, it was postulated that the “Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall” would cause capitalism to grind to a halt. Investment would end if profit was no longer likely. But a tendency for the rate of profit to fall is not the same as an iron-clad law mandating the rate of profit to always fall. Counter tendencies, in theory and observed in practice, can bring about a rise. This was the view of Marx. Although Marx asserted that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall was “the most important law of modern political economy” and “the most essential one for comprehending the most complex relationships ….” (Collected Works, Volume 29, page 133; Penguin Grundrisse, page 748) he nevertheless also stated that this law “operates only as a tendency. And it is only under certain circumstances and only after long periods that its effects become strikingly pronounced”. (Capital, Volume III, Collected Works, Volume 37, page 237; Penguin translation of Capital, Volume III, page 346) Only until capitalism is finally declared dead on a world-wide basis and the inevitable socialist forensic autopsy is performed will one be able to determine the extent a “falling rate of profit” played in its demise.

A more recent attempt to single out a possible fatal contradiction of capitalism occurred in conjunction with the so-called “greening of Marxism”. James O’Connor, founding editor of the eco-socialist journal Capitalism, Socialism, Nature, put forth the view that the “contradiction between the forces and relations of production” resulting in overproduction, crises, etc. is now in the process of being overshadowed by a Great Second Contradiction of Capitalism. Expandor-die capitalism is incapable of greening itself or reversing its expansion imperative to become a stable, steady-state capitalism. The dynamic logic of capitalism forces it to foul its own nest with run-away civilization imperiling climate change, environment destroying pollution and depletion of necessary resources. In addition to O’Connor’s “forces of production and relations of production” the conditions of production have now allegedly risen to prominence and will severely, even fatally, log-jam capitalism to a halt. Capitalist think-tanks are busy in search of ways to overcome this Great Second Contradiction of Capitalism while staying within the boundaries of a still recognizable capitalism and not straying over the border into obvious socialist solutions. So far they have not been anywhere near successful.

While O’Connor’s Great Second Contradiction of Capitalism is said to be located in production (conditions of production), the contradictions engendered by ever-increasing automation are observed in the sphere of consumption. At first automation was said to create as many new jobs as it displaced. But as the twentieth century progressed it became clear that the new jobs were mostly low-paid, precarious jobs for those who were able to obtain them and long-term, debilitating unemployment for those who did not. The working class, to an even greater extent than before, no longer had the purchasing power to buy what it produced – thus an under-consumption crisis.

This can be illustrated by the famous legendary encounter between Walter Reuther, head of the United Autoworkers of America (UAW) and a Ford Motor Company executive who had invited Reuther to tour the just-opened automated Ford plant in Cleveland. Reuther was confronted with acres of automated machines and robots. The usual assembly line of workers was nowhere to be seen. Instead a few thinly-dispersed technicians stood before a panel of green and yellow flashing lights making occasional adjustments to the production process. The Ford executive, with a gloating and gleeful grin turned to Reuther and confidently declared, “These robots, of course, receive no wages, zero pensions, never go on strike and they don’t pay any union dues to you!” Reuther immediately replied: “And neither do they buy any of your cars.”

The natural tendency of capitalism to cause a crisis of overproduction with the resulting temporary layoff of workers is said to have been morphed into the permanent massive disappearance of jobs accompanied by massive underconsuption.

In addition to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the destruction of the conditions of production and everincreasing automation there are many other contradictions of capitalism. For those who want to explore further, the following books may be of use:

Seventeen Contradictions of Capitalism, David Harvey, 2014

Breakdown of Capitalism: History of the Idea in Western Marxism 1883-1983, F. R. Hansen 1985, reprinted 2017

Capitalism’s Contradictions: Studies of Economic Thought Before and After Marx, Henryk Grossman, reprinted 2017

Contemporary Capitalism: New Developments and Contradictions, N. Inozemtsev, Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1974

The Scientific and Technological Revolution and the Contradictions of Capitalism, N. Inozemtsev, Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1982

With the arrival of the twenty-first century, Aaron Bastani, the author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto, believes a new third qualitative leap in human history is about to take place. The first qualitative leap was the invention of agriculture, which was vastly superior to hunting and gathering. The second was the Industrial Revolution, particularly the invention of the steam engine which accelerated capitalism and sped it down the tracks to eventual world dominance. And three, the epoch we are now entering, one of boundless abundance made possible by hyper-fast quantum computers exhibiting high levels of artificial intelligence (AI).

In Bastani’s mind automation itself will undergo a capitalism-ending giant qualitative leap which, while ironically solving most of the existing contradictions of capitalism, will nevertheless become the fatal contradiction of capitalism. This new artificial intelligence (AI) society will result in the vanishing of the working class because living labour power will no longer be hired. The working class has been digitized into computer zeros and ones. Variable capital has now become constant capital – or so Bastani claims.

The author states that all of our material needs will be produced very, very cheaply – almost for free – by gigantic computer-commanded 3-D printers. Bastani operates under the slogan “Information Wants to be Free” and gives the example of music now being free (but perhaps illegal) on the internet after having been digitized. This AI/knowledge society will be incompatible with a capitalist market economy, thus negating capitalism as well. But, according to the logic of Bastani, capitalists without a market would find themselves disoriented and confused. Under the infinite weight of AI technology they would not resist their inevitable demise. Therefore there would be no need to consciously overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. Capitalism just becomes irrelevant and sublimates away like dry ice. Such a view has more in common with 1950s social democracy than Marxism – an extreme version of “peaceful transition”.

And all of this will happen, not in some indefinite distant future when lowerstage socialism has evolved into communism, but only a few short decades away from now– maybe as little as only two decades away (around the 2040s). If only these fantastic predictions of Bastani were true! Communism is only twenty years or so hence and no revolution or socialist transition period necessary!

[Bourgeois futurologist pulp dates gracelessly in capitalist society: the above book chokes up the dollar bins of the English-speaking world]

Unfortunately, the author has combined some of the worst features of early utopian socialism with the speculative endeavors of modern bourgeois futurologists. Marx was hesitant to describe the future in more than a sketchy outline and certainly not in the fleshed-out and extensive details of the utopian socialists. Bastani on the other hand has no such hesitation. Meat would be grown in vats of nutrient fluid. There would be no need to cut down the oxygen-generating Amazon rain forest to create grazing land for methane-emitting cattle which would then get slaughtered for McDonald’s burgers. Declining scarce resources on Earth? Just get them from the moon or other planets – or, better yet, lasso a mineral-rich asteroid and tow it into a near-earth orbit. The author fails to mention any breakthrough regarding nuclear fusion on Earth, but why bother, we already have the sun. The new AI society will tap this free energy. No need to burn fossil fuels and Voila!, the climate change crisis solved.

The author provides technological solutions to most of the problems facing capitalism today, including health care (genetic modification and AI designed super drugs) and growing poverty (food, clothing and shelter – almost free due to AI mass production).

But the predictions of futurologists have often proven quite wrong. For instance, sixty years ago it was believed that by the year 2000 we would all be driving flying cars. It didn’t happen. This is most fortunate because automobiles raining down from the sky after an aerial freeway pile-up would be a very dangerous hazard indeed. A new category of statistical information would be necessary – death by falling vehicle.

Bastani doesn’t seriously consider that predictions are just that – predictions. He projects observed trends into the future as certainties, even having them manifest themselves almost within the same decade – a very unlikely occurrence. Even if one trend came true as predicted, he ignores the fact that a collectivity of many and different, interacting trends complicates accurate forecasting to an extreme degree. His thinking is mechanical, linear and not dialectical. He does not comprehend that all trends are subject to various contingencies, unintended consequences and even collateral damage to other trends, thereby altering the development path projected. Nevertheless Bastani plunges into the future with a fully elaborated utopian scheme – Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC). The author utilizes cherry-picked quotes from Marx throughout his book but is, in reality, much more a utopian technocratic futurologist than a clear-headed Marxist.

Who then is Aaron Bastani?

Bastani, UK-born and with a Ph.D. in political communication from the University of London, started his political journey with a family-inherited Tory outlook. He later opted for the Green Party, read Marx, continued his journey to the left and has now parked himself in the Labour Party recently led by Jeremy Corbyn. Along the way he co-founded Novara Media – a British left-leaning alternative media platform. However, Bastani’s media appearances are not confined to Novara and other fringe outlets. He is often invited as a guest on establishment media as well – BBC, Sky News, etc., where he sometimes dons a black T-shirt emblazoned with the message: “I am a Communist”. But is Bastani , his subjective beliefs notwithstanding, really a communist? Only by expanding the meaning of the word to its outermost fuzzy boundary, can Bastani be hesitantly identified as some sort of technocratic utopian “communist”. His views are not at all compatible with those of Marx, Lenin or historical materialists of today. The author’s political journey has definitely not arrived at the place called “Marxism”.

For Marxists, class is of the essence. For Bastani, class forces play little role. It is the forces of AI technology that have taken over. The working class (a prominent feature of Marxism) seems to have “died and gone to heaven”. It has been replaced by zeroes and ones and can no longer be exploited by capital because it has been absorbed into capital itself. As for the bourgeoisie, its class power has been sucked into the black hole of ever- increasing artificial intelligence. There is, however, a technocratic, vanguard-elite stratum of the population in his vision of society, but nowhere does the author state outright that it has become a new ruling class. What we are left with is some sort of amorphous multitude where class concepts are no longer applicable.

The political expression of this multitudinous blob of humanity Bastani calls “luxury populism”. Because Bastani believes the soon-to-arrive FALC is so overwhelming and inevitable, he doesn’t envision much political self-activity from the declassed and depoliticized masses. Although the author believes “the party form … makes increasingly little sense”(p.194), he flip-flops and advocates a FALC-led electoral party not too dissimilar from the Labour Party of 2019 – one of the very few instances where he recommends any sort of political action whatsoever. This party is necessary because the not-to-be trusted masses of Luxury Populism could go astray if not guided by the wisdom of committed FALC-ites. This party of “communist” technocracy would organize perfunctory “demonstration elections” because “people do not care about politics" and “it is only around elections” that the multitude is “open to new possibilities.”(p.195).The author is oblivious to other events that cause people to “care about politics” and become “open to new possibilities” – e.g. general strikes, wars, revolutionary situations, etc.

Apparently humankind’s path from capitalism to communism doesn’t include general strikes or revolutionary situations.

As for the possibility of war – imperialist nuclear war that could kill billions and set humanity back many thousands of years – Bastani obviously sees little danger because he fails to discuss this horrible possibility. If so, he is walking towards his “inevitable” utopian future with his eyes closed.

Though ignoring the working class in general the author does issue advice to present-day trade unions. To resist austerity is okay, but traditional trade union demands against capital should be shunted aside. Instead, unions should reorient themselves and attack the necessity of work itself. They should force corporations to introduce AI as soon as possible and as deeply as possible!

There is an anti-communist white thread running throughout the book. The only type of communism Bastani approves of is the “communism” of his own concoction –FALC. The author claims FALC differs from traditional communism in that it “recognizes the centrality of human rights, most importantly the right of personal happiness”(page 193). He gives no examples whatsoever to support this slanderous assertion. In answer to this anti-communist slop, let it be stated that communists are, of course, strongly in support of personal happiness and hold that it is achieved not in individual isolation but in the practice of a collective /individual dialectic. Human rights must be viewed not in the abstract in a form devoid of class content. They must be viewed concretely and the following question asked: “human rights” for whom and for what purpose? A capitalist whose bank has been nationalized would surely claim that the human right of ownership has been violated. That capitalist would also probably claim that the right to a job, healthcare and education are not human rights. And then there is “human rights imperialism”. Let us hope that Bastani has not fallen victim to such lying hypocrisy. But his “new communism” must, by any means necessary, be strongly marked off from the “old” communism.

Although Bastani does not extensively attack Lenin and the Russian Revolution, he does make his views known. He identifies with the Mensheviks who claimed that Russia was too technologically backward to even consider setting out on the path towards socialism/communism. The fact that he often quotes Marx but not Lenin is telling in itself (Marx good; Lenin bad). He describes the Bolshevik Revolution as an “anti-liberal coup” (p. 193). He condemns Leninism by falsely claiming that it “views production, and by extension working class subjectivity, as critical while ignoring a world whose ideas and technologies are hugely changed” (p. 196). But it is Bastani himself who views technological AI production as critical while failing to grasp that workingclass subjectivity (consciousness) is indeed one of the most important necessities in the defeat of capitalism.

Bastani instinctively knows that Communists would be highly critical of his smooth and speedy road to Fully Automated Luxury Communism – therefore Marxism Leninism must be run-over and left behind as road-kill.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns famously said that the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. No doubt reality itself will cause Bastani’s grandiose FALC to crash to earth. Will the author then concoct another and different utopian blueprint or will he become a disillusioned and cynical Labourite and maybe concentrate more on his business ventures? Or will he continue his political hopscotch and jump to the left and finally become a clear-headed Marxist (and Leninist)? It’s unlikely, but let us hope so. Or will he instead jump to the right and follow in the footsteps of former Labour Member of Parliament Sir Oswald Mosley, who had been considered a potential Labour Prime Minister? Mosley, however, defected from the Labour Party and founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Mosley’s mentor, Benito Mussolini, was also once a “socialist”. This reviewer will make no speculative predictions concerning the exact arrangement of Bastani’s future political kaleidoscope. It is his present political orientation as expressed in FALC that should cause concern.

The 1989 Hollywood hit movie Field of Dreams gave us the classic dialogue quote: “If you build it they will come.” In contrast Bastani’s 2019 science- fiction Field of Dreams tells us: Don’t build it and communism will come.

By relying on the almost infinite power of a qualitatively new artificial intelligence the author ignores the revolutionary practice of oppressed classes. No need to build any foundational construction that prepares for a revolutionary situation. Technological determinism has run amok. Just let the fatal contradiction of capitalism do its thing. The author leaves us with the impression that even if all anti-capitalists, revolutionaries and militant workers were to be placed in the deep sleep of suspended animation until after 2040 they would wake-up to Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Revolutionary cadres and a revolutionary organization not needed. This book is worse than seriously flawed; it is even dangerous, because it leaves us with the impression that passivity is a viable option.

Communists are not Luddite opponents of automation and AI. Many of the predictions of FALC will eventually become true although on a varied and much-altered time scale and under very different conditions than those envisioned by the author. But, however embodied or personified AI becomes, it cannot by itself function as avatar or proxy agent for qualitative change from one socioeconomic system (capitalism) to another (socialism/ communism). That role still belongs to a new and always changing working class. For Bastani the working class is not an agent of social change – only flotsam in the AI tsunami. For revolutionaries the working class, its party and allies must be recognized as the decisive core of the coming revolutionary process. The publishing of Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism will not get him rewarded with rapture to AI heaven. Instead, without decisive working-class action he will find himself engulfed in the flames of a capitalist hell-on-earth.

In conclusion: The declassed technological delusions and utopian visions of Aaron Bastani are dangerously wrong. The publisher, Verso Books, has given us a lemon, the lemonade of which is useful only to those who undertake grand “thought experiments” or seek truth via the maze of error.

Furthermore, speculations about the fatal contradiction of capitalism must be subordinated to the organization of a consciously socialist working class whose party is ready for and knowledgeable regarding what Lenin called a “revolutionary situation”. There is no single contradiction or combination of contradictions that will make capitalism miraculously dissolve away into a communist nirvana. Capitalism in severe crisis does not collapse or fade away. Capitalism always fights back, searching for out-of-the-box configurations that give it new life. Therefore, capitalism must be consciously brought down and replaced with a new consciously-built socialist society. This imperative, the most important in human history, must begin, if not yesterday, then certainly today.

#Communist Party of Canada #Aaron Bastani #Reformism #Marxism Leninism

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eno-shima-jot · 4 years

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YELLOW || homare arisugawa

a/n: this is an old songfic i had from yoh kamiyama’s song “yellow” and i listened to it and i was like “ITS LITERALLY HOMARE ITS HOMARE!!” so uh here it is my boys and girls and everything that lie outside and in betwixt !!

In other words I was trapped in curiosity Breaking through anything precious A whole cake with no radiance I was dancing with a wooden puppet of you

Homare wasn't quite sure if he had always been like this, or if it was some inadequacy of his that had developed somehow like a cancerous tumor. It was a hindrance to his personality, it made him feel so incomprehensibly alienated, and also caused him to alienate others without meaning to. He sometimes found himself wishing that he had discovered some other art, anything that may have lead him to become someone different. A zeal for life inspired him, but his inability to properly care for the lives surrounding him left him sitting at a desk writing outlandish rhymes.

It was silly. He knew it may be a slight issue, but it exploded in his face so suddenly with his previous romantic partner. Romance was... Something else. It was a spice to life, and a relationship was a labour of love. So why had his partner cried so much during their time with him? On worse nights, he recited the conversations he had with them and tried to pin what things he had done wrong. Tsumugi's words echoed in his head sometimes. 'I know you mean well, but sometimes there's a line you just don't cross.'

Once again, in the closet Huddling our small bodies inside We'll sleep, we'll change It's safer to think that way

Homare had lived an entire twenty-seven years observing others. It wasn't something he would call a guilty habit. He couldn't find anything wrong with people-watching. It was simple, impassive, and he got to see life continuing on right before him without him setting anything off. In all of those twenty-seven years, a slow realisation crept up on him. It was cold and lonely, icy tendrils that infiltrated through all physical barriers and wrapped around his very soul. The things he saw were irreplaceable memories, commonplace and fleeting, but never the same. The joy he felt from seeing a child blowing a dandelion at the park, the tenderness in his chest when he witnessed an old couple feeding pigeons, the determined energy he traced off of people who jogged at the edge of grass that was barely dried of morning dew, it was all going to fade away and never be acknowledged again. Maybe they'd be reclaimed in deep dreams, but that had to be a rare occurrence. So he began to journal, filling pages up with the wonderful things he saw in scratchy handwriting by junior high. All of those disorganised thoughts began to refine themselves into flowing lilts in his mind by the time he was in high school, and his handwriting became easier on the eyes and on the wrist from frequency and practise. He people-watched when he could, finding a routine spot to sit and view the sights without thinking much to actually interact with the world stretching in front of him. It was the first day of third year when he found a girl sitting where he normally sat during lunch. He had quietly sat next to her and made no statements when a small group of girls joined her and they all began to talk. He wrote in his journal quietly, a small poem about a flock of birds that gathered to relay messages that were decreed late at night. "Hey, you there." a slightly rough voice called to him and one of the girls leveled him with a mild glare. "What are you writing in that diary of yours? Nothing weird, right?" she challenged. Homare blinked at her a few times and then grinned broadly, sliding his notebook into the crowd of curious underclassmen with a hint of pride. He watched the girls scan it with interest, sharing looks with each other that he couldn't quite place. The girl who questioned him slid the notebook back to him and eyed him dubiously. "Man, what the hell is that stuff? Are you in lala land?" she scoffed a little. An unfamiliar feeling had hit Homare at that moment, one that he would later come to describe as humiliation. "That's too harsh!" the girl who had originally sat at the table gasped, returning Homare's notebook quickly. Like a lagging robot, Homare took a few seconds to actually grab it. He was stunned by one of his first in depth social interactions. "I think your writing's really interesting." she tacked on. He wasn't sure if she was trying to be nice, or if it was a sincere compliment with unfortunate timing. He grabbed his notebook, bowed to the group of girls, and left. For the rest of the year, he spent lunch bouncing around locations to people-watch, but he didn't go to that same bench again. He could still remember it perfectly years after he graduated though. It was a fond setting he sewed together in fragments to send himself off into sleep. Sometimes he'd jolt awake at the faint muttering of a gruff female voice, but it wasn't so hard to return to sleep after that.

"Don't abandon me, for I'm just a foolish child" Awaken your naive eyes before my muddled identity All the toys were put away last night I still want to stay as innocent as ever...

Homare's small taste of companionship from that one underclassman had him intrigued. It wrapped a string around his heart that tugged him towards more interactions until he had found that people-watching turned into true socialisation. He wrote a lot less at school. It should have bothered him that it took until his last year of his school youth to actually seriously partake in social events, but he still felt that people-watching was never a waste. He learned about others through that, after all. Now he was just taking a more hands on approach. Learning people though; it wasn't something that split between learning types where you could find the one you were best at and capitalise on it. Homare had originally thought that the gateway to people and their souls was philosophy, a careful exposing of the human condition that so many could drone on about for hours, but people had a tendency to turn their nose up at it and call him just a little bit pretentious when he brought it up to spark conversations. It wasn't that Homare hated it, but mundane conversation felt like pulling teeth for him. Hearing it and listening had brought him a bit of joy when it was two other people, but the magic was sucked out as soon as he tried. "Good morning, Akito. How are you today?" Homare cast another line out into the sea of people and waited for a tug. The boy in question looked up with defeated slumping shoulders and dark circles under his eyes. "I'm alright." Akito said halfheartedly. Homare could see the lie from a mile away. He wanted to help, to see order restored to that little slice of life in front of him. "You don't look alright. Your girlfriend broke up with you, so of course you'd be upset since she did it at a festival." Homare pointed out. Akito's shoulders tensed at Homare's words. "You have the right to be upset. We can talk about it, if it makes you feel any better." "Leave me alone, Arisugawa." Akito requested quietly. His eyes narrowed and his face soured even further like a sheet of paper being scrunched up after water spilled over it. The distant use of last names made Homare pull back and disengage. He knew he messed up. It wasn't the first time, but it always felt awful. After some bad encounters, he had learned to relent when people said something. "Have a good day, Akito." Homare excused himself quietly, turning his face towards the front of the room to wait for homeroom to begin. Akito didn't talk to Homare much after that, cold and curt and always itching to start a conversation with anyone else in the mornings. Homare found himself wishing that he could have just stayed in his little box on the map, people-watching forever without consequence.

Affections are just 'high' to throw away Skinning away that precious memory But if you regret this 'low-life' Shall a summer with a hopeless wish come

Love was a sacred thing to Homare, even if it was something that he wanted to give out freely and without restraint. It was an infinite resource meant to be tapped into to enrich the lives of everyone. That why he felt so betrayed by society when he found out that the people who buzzed like bees around him hadn't acknowledged its sanctity. Betrayed was a harsh word. It wasn't quite that he had felt betrayed; he never asked for anything in the first place. He was disappointed by how trivial love had become in a modern setting. There was no longer the grand exclamations, unashamed and passionate, or the gentleness of courtship. Love itself had become one of those things that fell away from the extremities of aesthetics. Homare was infinitely disappointed in those sorts of things. The world had become less aesthetic about the things that mattered and the childlike wonder that Homare got from people-watching fell away quickly when he became an adult going to bars to see what happened. So he developed a new intense love for pragmatism. A new world for him to be inspired and moved by the world around him. How compact paint bottles became! How economic apartments were! How sleek and streamlined vehicles got! But he missed the sight of people ducking their top halves under the hoods of cars when it wouldn't start. He missed the charm of a bulky disconnected refrigerator. He missed the ugliness of old paint bottles, tin caps crusted shut from a person's earlier artistic ventures. He missed aestheticism. A part of him screamed at him to continue being a romantic about life, but it was so much effort to put into such a wishy-washy world that used extremes for mundane and useless things.

It seems like he was killed by curiosity Testing it with sly means Nothing will raise from such independence, I sang with a wholehearted smile

Had he learned the art of compromise and nuance, Homare would have been fine when he entered his first relationship. It wasn't so dispassionate, but he had mostly done it out of curiosity without realising how strongly his partner felt about it. If he had watched himself from a third person view at the same time that he was engaging with the relationship, he would have felt the same bitter disappointment of the pure despondence of love on his side. He had come to love them, of course. There was no question about that. He had loved them, but there was a ravine between them that he always failed to cross. Whenever certain things came up, he hopped onto the tightrope in an attempt to make it to their side, but every time he would become stuck. As a result, his partner would try to meet him halfway, but they always suffered and lost their balance before they could help him. Was it his fault? He had trouble figuring out what he did wrong to cause them to hurt so much. He was hardly ever angry or resentful of them. He couldn't imagine snapping at them or raising voice or hand to them. They were younger than him, but something made them much wiser and they became the leader of the relationship until they just... Stopped. Perhaps it was because they were so tired of falling into the deep dark ravine so many times. Homare couldn't blame them for being tired. All of his efforts to find a different approach were always wrong.

Once again, in the closet Waiting alone is always like this it'll change, it'll end, it's confirmed Continue to seek that worth, worth, worth

Without anyone at the wheel of the relationship, it very quickly swerved off of the road and crashed in a blazing fire. Homare watched it veer sharply, but he didn't find any courage within himself to reach out and redirect it, to save it. His partner had sad obsolete and empty, curled up like a hurt animal in the driver's seat. A relationship was a huge investment, but Homare had been unlucky enough to find within his first one that sometimes all that hard work lead to nowhere. The resentment bubbled over eventually, but Homare couldn't say it wasn't deserved. After making his partner cry so much, after burning out the light of passion that they had tried to extend to him, he could only listen to their words and seriously reconsider himself as a human being. By the time it had all come to pass, Homare found himself alone again. Looking at his notebook filled with strange musings, he was terrified to find that all of his words sounded shallow. Any poems dedicated to his partner were so abstract that he couldn't help but wonder if they had smiled and thanked him for them out of pity. He knew love. He knew it from seeing it everywhere, but he had failed to execute it. He didn't know what the problem was called until it was pointed out to him directly by a bartender once. It was an issue of emotional maturity. Emotional intelligence. He had failed to grasp that in his formative years, and drifted so much that he was so terribly ill equipped by adulthood that he could see things exactly as they were and still manage to do the exact wrong thing. Homare became a pragmatist in his poetry after that. The different approach lead to a surreal style that fans ate up, but he sometimes worried about the state of mind of his fans if they accepted what he wrote without question.

As the second hand approaches Roll it up till it's deep Eventually, both Heaven and Earth goes upside down Why? How come? See it got all blurred and transparent "I still remember that scenery I saw out the window" The 'yellow' that is better off to disappear

It wasn't quite a renunciation of romance itself. Homare was not a bitter man who would dwell on such things. He still wholeheartedly believed in love and romance, but hearing the rest of the Winter Troupe discussing their love lives hit him with a certain tugging again. It bordered between that slight disappointment, but there was something else too. In hearing about the love lives of everyone around him, he had to wonder how it felt for them. Save Azuma, the descriptions had been fairly vague. Homare admired how calmly Tsumugi talked about breaking it off with his previous girlfriend just for acting. The weight of different sorts of love was another thing Homare couldn't fathom. He didn't understand the point of rejecting one sort of love for another because love was such an infinite source that he couldn't imagine having to turn any one type down. The conversation fell around him like comforting raindrops on a window until he was asked about his own love life. The memories of it flashed by him, blurring past with only a fragment of the emotions he had felt at the time. The camera roll violently turned and turned on different scenes, only offering him a glimpse, until he was looking his old partner in the eye again as they told him of all of his shortcomings. "I have nothing to discuss." Homare dug in his heels at the prospect of having to divulge any of his love life. "No romantic experience?" Tasuku prodded, not quite processing that Homare was avoiding eye contact. It was hard to believe, given that Homare was nearly thirty years old. "No type?" Tsumugi added with an encouraging smile. "Nothing." Homare confirmed, frowning sternly. "Really? No romantic opinions either?" Izumi asked, a little bit pleading really. "Nothing at all." as the speculation continued around him, without his input, he focused on trying to redirect the conversation away from such an ugly memory. He had broken through with a sudden poem, an empty poem that he had written in his youth when he had the dream of having a partner at all. The heavily romanticised words struck hollow and bounced off of the image of his previous lover like gravel on a car wheel. It was so superficial that he felt bad to think he may have subjected someone to such juvenile idealism.

You've purposely mistaken that; that day will not arrive Collapsed, divergence and disengagement There's no salvation within your reach Yet still, I recall your warmth...

At first, he had taken no interest in another new face who had dropped into the Mankai Company. There was nothing special about them and their affiliations at first, but then they started to speak. Speak about themselves, speak about the others, they just spoke about life. They had such an enthralling voice when they talked of normal everyday occurences that he felt like he was reading a long lost letter that never made it to its intended destination. He was quite clear about that fact as well, as soon as they had walked through the door and identified themselves. Homare had lost his belief in most superstition and idioms, but his heart was subtly set alight. He didn't even realise it was happening until it was completely on fire. The flame had licked at its base and then slowly engulfed and seared it. There was a sudden passion and love that he had forgotten existed within him. It was different from his inspired moments from life, something that tugged at his ribcage and tangled it until it could constrict it at will. Inspiration would pick at his brain until he put it down on paper, and he did feel some upon becoming better acquainted with them. By the time he had written a poem dedicated to them as a gift for becoming his friend, he remembered very suddenly those feelings. What he felt had slipped between pragmatism and aestheticism, but he jumped down into the gutters of that place along with the rest of those proclaimed 'plebeians' just to grab it again. It was a dark and confusing swarm and he felt like he was drowning in molasses, a sea bird caught in an oil spill. He tried to imagine it, a romantic future with them, and his hand tingled at the thought of intertwining fingers. A ghost of a touch had latched on and dragged him back to land before he could completely drown, but he exited that place feeling heavy and weighed down.

Affections are just 'high' to throw away Skinning away that precious memory But if you regret this 'low-life' Shall a summer with a hopeless wish come

Who was Homare to compete? He hardly competed for anything in his life. He never competed in the publishing industry. He had rolled with the initial punches and suddenly found himself with a following without much effort. Of course, it was a far cry from Banri's effortless life, but it was still considerable when he had realised that it seemed that the arrival, his new friend and flame, had him completely beat out in the books of love and its vastness. They weren't particularly open about it, but Homare was good at discerning people's emotions. He was almost as good as Azuma. But he was worse than everyone else at doing anything about it. It was not for lack of trying, but because he had never managed to find that emotional intelligence that was so essential to forming functioning relationships. Even now, he was still maturing with the help of the Mankai Company. Slowly but surely, he was starting to pick things up without having to use that Loupe as a crutch, but... Everyone else was always leaps and bounds ahead of him, especially outside of the Winter Troupe where mere children had solved deep issues within days. Homare wasn't an envious man. He stayed in his lane most of the time, and so he could accept that easily. What he couldn't accept was the possibility of repeating the same mistakes with someone else. The newcomer had dispensed love like an infinite fountain, but it seemed that his previous partner could do that too. What if he snuffed that flame too? What if he hadn't learned a single thing after all this time? His bonds in the Mankai Company had grown stronger, but romance was a different level of emotional awareness that Homare hadn't dipped his feet into since the fall of his previous relationship.

That's why he had quickly sidelined himself, giving the rest of the men wide berth and only interacting with them as if they were anyone else. Because if he treated them differently, wouldn't that just inevitably lead to the same kind of memories? Homare had felt upset at the world's inability to devote romance to any extremes, but he had learned the hard way that doing so was harmful. So he stood back and resolved to grow as much as he could. If they had left by the time he was ready, then it would be another regret to add onto his romantic life. But it was better, he felt, if things ended that way. There was a once touched upon path that lead to a much more painful alternative.

#a3! homare #a3!#homare arisugawa #idk if i could call this an x reader because i originally titled it its homare arisugawa's scheduled character assassination hour #mod bing #act! addict! actors!

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iztarshi · 4 years

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Boatswain’s Call

In which I reread the episode and, despite how much I love him, will probably wind up dragging Peter Lukas.

Why is Peter drinking black coffee in a seedy bar? It does serve black coffee so he can’t be the only one, but still.

Even by those standards he was very pale, weirdly so for someone who apparently lived their life on the sea.

This could be a Spooky Lukas Thing, or it could be because Peter never comes out of his cabin.

His eyes only moved a fraction of an inch to focus on me, but it felt as though the movement had the weight of a heavy stone door. Like a tomb. Don’t know why that’s what popped into my head, but there you go. I asked if he was Peter Lukas, and he said, “Yes”. I’d gone blank on what to say next, and it was then that I noticed the silence. I looked around to see that the place was now completely empty.

Spooky! Also really funny once you know Peter, although it probably does feel like stone doors and tombs to have someone suddenly focus on you while connected to the Lonely.

He seems to drag them halfway into the Lonely, which might be because he doesn’t want this conversation overheard, or might just be that she startled him while he was having a quiet coffee and not paying attention to his surroundings.

He’s much less talkative than with Martin, but he always initiates social contact with Martin, so I think we see him there having actively prepared to be “on”.

Tadeas Dahl is very interesting. Presumably that’s a fake name, because Peter decided to be weird about names, but he’s someone who almost fades into the background of a “Lukas statement” despite doing 90% of the work in it. He’s the one who both carries and uses the Boatswain’s Call. Normally contact with an artefact for that length of time either messes someone up or converts them into an avatar eventually, but he appears to not threaten the Lukas monopoly on the Lonely, or at least he doesn’t automatically spook people the way Peter does.

It was like they were doing everything in their power not to think about each other. It took me less than a day of ignored hellos and grunted answers before I fell into line, becoming just as quiet as my crewmates.

This seems to be a reaction to what they’re about to do, but they don’t just avoid the new crew members who are likely to be sacrificed, but others too. Later someone says it “wasn’t an easy choice”, implying they may vote (rather than Peter choosing), meaning it’s possible any of them could be in danger even if it’s nearly always the new crew members.

The only person who spoke was Tadeas Dahl. The mate would walk among the crew, giving instructions and orders in a dozen different languages, as the crew scrambled to carry out his commands. He was just as composed as he had been when I met him, and it soon became clear that, if he had emotions, he kept a tight wrap on them.

He’s clearly a very useful person, since I am very sure Peter only speaks English. Not to mention that Peter doesn’t actually run the ship anyway. Tadeas seems to be the Martin of the Tundra, the one who actually knows how to do the job that Peter has officially. But it does make me wonder about his relationship with Peter -- Peter lumps him in with the crew as “loyal to my money” but Peter also lumps Simon -- who is visibly fond of him -- in with avatars who can’t be bothered to murder him. So I don’t necessarily take his word for it.

I didn’t see Captain Lukas at all that first week. I only knew he was onboard because every meal time the cooks would hand a tray of food to the mate, who’d take it up to the captain’s cabin.

See? Not doing his job.

Also, as @odetoviscera pointed out to me, Tadeas feeds Peter both physically and metaphysically.

Which made me think, because the only other place we see that relationship is Eugene making candles for Agnes. It’s clear you can feed an avatar on someone else’s work, but it’s very rare.

I’m hoping for Tadeas to turn up in season 5, tbh.

There was one crewmember who did catch my eye. He was a young guy, white and, from what I could tell, Scottish.

Does Peter specifically eat white people?? With a crew implied to be heavily multi-racial heading out from a port in Brazil, he’s somehow picked up two white people from the UK as potential snacks.

Then there’s the racial profiling of the Silence Tower Block.

If this is racism it’s a really weird form of it.

From a distance it looked fine, new paint shining in the sun, but looking closer I saw that it had rusted all the way through. Not just that, but checking out where the rod connected to the container, it became clear that they had rusted together.

Peter, WHY!?

Why on multiple levels at that.

First he’s travelling cargo routes with a full crew, it would take nearly no extra effort to ship cargo.

Second, he can take the time to have someone paint over it but not to get new containers? Or clean up the rust?

Is this just his aesthetic?

I like that the lifeboats are not the lumpy orange modern ones. First, those actually would be more awkward to get in and out of regularly. Second, they would definitely ruin the aesthetic.

The only time Peter turns up and it’s to get in the lifeboat with the rest of them. Is his presence actually necessary? Does he just want to be there? Is the Boatswain’s Call powerful enough it would actually be a bad idea for him to remain?

I have never heard a whistle sound like that. It was shrill, so high and piercing that I felt my hair stand on end, but it also seemed distant. Like I was hearing it from far, far away. I don’t know how long he blew that boatswain’s call for, but by the end, I realised we were surrounded by thick sea smoke. We should have far too far south for it, but it rolled and billowed around the lifeboat, obscuring the Tundra.

The Boatswain’s Call is really complete overkill for what it’s used for? It engulfs the ship in order to throw one person into the Lonely, something Peter can do on his own without disturbing people in the next office.

I suppose the spookiness and the fear it spreads among the crew are also ends in themselves.

No-one said a word, but I could have sworn a few of my shipmates were crying.

Peter says in his statement that his crew have no qualms about what they do. Which is either him being extremely unobservant or lying to himself (I doubt he can lie to Jon at that point) given that some of them are crying here.

I don’t know how he feels about it either. He seems to have no trouble throwing people into the Lonely, either physically or emotionally, when he’s working at the Archives. But here he seems to prefer to have as little to do with any of it as possible. He’s just sort of there while it happens.

Possibly he’s just lazy and/or depressed, because “not doing anything” seems to be Peter’s default state.

After that night, the atmosphere on board changed. People talked, and you’d occasionally hear actual laughter on board. Games were played, people drank, and there was this sense of relief to it all.

It might just be a relief once you’re not waiting to commit murder? It doesn’t seem like it’s a Lonely ship, though. The crew are probably lonely, isolated by what they do, but they only act unwilling to socialise while waiting for the ritual to happen.

I didn’t even think about my pay until it came through a couple of days later: twenty-five thousand pounds. For barely two weeks work. I don’t mind telling you, it was almost enough to tempt me back.

Does Peter just have infinite funds? No one in his family seems to care how he spends their money, and he never makes any.

Solus Shipping PLC, a company founded and majority owned by Nathaniel Lukas.

Did Nathaniel found a shipping company just so the family heirloom can get some use? Or does he actually ship things on other ships? Or is Peter not the only Lukas out there on a boat?

The Lukases funding the Magnus institute is also interesting, although this statement isn’t the first time we hear about it. A lot of their pull -- and a lot of what Peter is implied to use to carry out his deal with Martin -- is more to do with them funding other avatars than being dangerous to them. Both money and favours get traded a lot, and of course for Peter there’s gambling.

Even though the official crew manifest for the Tundra has remained the same for the last ten years.

Obviously the immediate implication here is that Peter doesn’t register people he’s going to eat as crew. But I also wonder whether ten years ago marks when he went back to sea after the Silence.

#tma #peter lukas

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