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jupitercomet · 1 year

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Unique in All the World

summary - He feels you smile against his lips and, in the back of his mind, Bradley thinks that he could get used to this. The feeling of somebody being so excited to see him, they couldn’t even wait longer than a second. But just not somebody, you.

And when Bradley loads his luggage into your trunk and you scamper up to him with a bouquet of flowers in your hand, he really feels it then too.

Three times you help heal Bradley’s inner child.

warnings - age gap relationship (Bradley is 38, reader is 25), language, talks of Bradley’s childhood, talks of death, I kind of made up Bradley’s timeline just go with it

word count - 3.9k

listen!! Bradley Bradshaw’s inner child is so personal to me. so yes I’m writing about these two four times in a row. they’re simply too powerful, it’s not my fault - bugs

i ain’t worried ‘bout it masterlist

The first time Bradley remembers it happening was a time as mundane as a Saturday morning.

He woke up to a completely empty bed, the sheets only holding the lingering warmth of your body temperature. It was quiet too, no sound of you rummaging through the kitchen or getting ready in the bathroom.

With a yawn and a stretch of his arms, Bradley gets up and meanders out of the bedroom. This is not the first, or second, or third time he’s spent the night at your place, so he navigates the apartment with ease. The morning sunlight is still a golden glow though the windows which is only more puzzling. Years of service have made Bradley a consistently early riser and you… are not, so it’s unusual for you to be out of bed and awake before him. Especially when it’s still early enough to catch the ends of sunrise.

When he steps into the small living area, he finds you sitting on the couch eating Lucky Charms and watching television.

“Hey,” you look up with a smile when you hear Bradley’s heavy footsteps. “Sorry, I was really craving cereal.”

“You weren’t there when I woke up. I missed you.”

“I’m here now—” You close your mouth abruptly when Bradley shuffles over to the couch only to pick up Pooh and hug him to his chest. “You’re real funny, Teddy.”

Bradley gives you a cheeky grin, sitting down next to you, Pooh still tucked under his arm. “What’re you watching?”

“Spongebob,” you shovel another spoonful of Lucky Charms into your mouth.

“...Why?”

You look at him like it’s obvious. “It’s Saturday morning and I’m eating cereal in my pajamas. We stick to theme around here, Bradshaw. Didn’t you ever watch morning cartoons as a kid?”

Bradley does not think he had a bad childhood by any means. He grew up with a mom who loved him more than anything and, though it is still somewhat painful to think about now, Maverick did his best to fill all the roles that Goose couldn’t.

But people always tend to equate being young with being stupid because they all acted like Bradley couldn’t see, clear as day, how much they were suffering—at least the first few years.

Bradley learned at age four and three quarters that Saturday mornings were somewhat hard for his mom. Carol would turn the portable radio on and whip up breakfast in the kitchen, and then suddenly a song would come on and she’d just stop moving, staring numbly into the bowl of pancake batter for several minutes.

And Bradley didn’t exactly know why his mother did this, but he knew that she did—because he was four and three quarters, not stupid. So he gave up Saturday cartoons to keep his mother company in the kitchen. He’d talk about what dream he had or what he did in preschool the day before or whatever his current favorite animal was and why it was still a shark, until Carol could hardly tell which song from which over her son’s rambling. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to do that. But at four and three quarters, Bradley made the decision that he’d just have to be a kid later and he’s been putting it off ever since.

Bradley isn’t quite sure how to articulate this to you, and he must have been taking too long to respond anyway, because your features soften in understanding and you get up from the couch. “Wait here.”

You come back with another bowl of Lucky Charms, handing it to him with a kiss on his forehead before you sit back down with your own bowl. “As the guest of honor, you can pick which cartoon we watch.” You search for the remote, but Bradley can only look down at the floating marshmallows in his cereal.

“Uh, Spongebob is fine.”

Bradley doesn’t understand why he suddenly feels so awkward, but the way he’s taking a bite of Lucky Charms is like an alien who’s never seen food before. Honestly he can’t remember the last time he had cereal, much less one as sugary as Lucky Charms. He keeps Cheerios or Raisin Bran stocked in his pantry, but that’s really just for show more than anything else. Jake got him hooked on “properly made” protein shakes back when they were still students at TOPGUN and Bradley has been living by those ever since.

You snuggle up to Bradley’s side, already reimmersing yourself in the colorful cartoon. “Spongebob is actually more than fine, but you’re new at this so I’ll let it slide.”

He watches as you happily munch on another bite of your cereal, indulging in the sugary treat easily as if you aren’t a grown adult who has grown adult Saturday mornings. Bradley takes in a second spoonful of Lucky Charms and chews slowly. He notices, between one of his next bites, that you’re saving most of the marshmallows for the end and he smiles because of course you do that—he starts saving them for the end too.

Before he knows it, Bradley’s finished his bowl of cereal, setting it aside on the coffee table, and is now laying his head in your lap, cheek squished against your thighs as he watches the TV intently. Your fingers are coming through his curls, taming his morning hair, and Bradley can’t help but press a kiss to the top of your knee whenever you giggle at something funny that happened on the screen.

Before you, Bradley didn’t watch a lot of TV—and certainly not kids cartoons like Spongebob—but there’s something nice about just being able to turn his brain off for a bit. That, for the morning, he can just watch something bright and nonsensical while you play with his hair and laugh against the back of his head.

Bradley’s smile grows when he sees three new characters entire the Spongebob episode. “Hey, honey?”

“Yeah, Teddy?”

“You wanna know something cool about sharks?”

Bradley didn’t like to think about his high school graduation. Over time he’d grown used to having no one there for graduations, or holiday breaks, or when he returned from deployment, but his high school graduation was the first time he felt that feeling. Walking off the stage with his high school diploma was the first time he remembered that “Oh. There’s nobody here but me.” feeling.

Because his mom had died and he wasn’t speaking to Maverick after he found out the older man pulled his papers from the academy. So on the day of Bradley’s graduation, he weaved through the crowds of families and other seniors, threw his cap and gown in the backseat of his car, stopped at a Dairy Queen drive-thru, and celebrated by eating ice cream alone.

Bradley only became more and more familiar with his feeling, but at 17 it still tasted bitter so his high school graduation hurt the most. If he had to put a positive spin on it, he’d say it prepared him for the many, many deployments he’d come back from without anyone waiting for him. It didn’t hurt so much see everyone else in his squad get greeted excitedly by family and loved ones.

And so Bradley walked to the baggage claim of LAX, listening Jake go on about some college football game to his right, fully ready to succumb to that “Oh.” feeling he’s so familiar with.

“TEDDY!”

Bradley only has a second to drop his carry on before you’re launching yourself into his arms. He stumbles back slightly, having to plant his feet against the tiled floor of the airport before you knock him over. You’re clinging to him like a koala, both your arms and legs locked around him, and Bradley’s hands have moved instinctively to support you around your middle.

“Sorry,” you pant, pulling away from his neck to hold his cheeks in excitement. “I know I should’ve waited for you to, like, weave through a wave of people to find me, ‘cause then it’s all romantic. But you were taking way too long and your old man eyes would’ve missed your suitcase like eight times before you realized it was yours and I couldn’t— Mmph!”

Contrary to popular belief, Bradley is not the biggest fan of PDA. He likes the actual affection part of it, the small things like holding hands or giving you quick pecks, but he has a philosophy that anything he wouldn’t do in front of Maverick, he wouldn’t do in front of strangers. Maybe his friends make fun of him too much, or maybe he is getting old, but Bradley is not the type to push you up against a wall and kiss you silly—no matter how crowded the Hard Deck might be.

But right now, Bradley is allowing himself an exception as he kisses you deeply smack dab in the middle of the LAX airport. Because, for the first time in two decades, Bradley Bradshaw walked out expecting to feel that “Oh.” feeling and instead he was met with an “Oh!” feeling and your weight in his hands.

“Damn, little lady, that homecoming for everybody?”

Despite your rocky introduction, you and Jake were on much better terms now. He apologized for his comments—due in part to threats from Bradley and Javy, but he did genuinely find himself meaning them when you presented a peace offering of yarn you thought “might look cool as a dog sweater maybe”. Since then, Bradley was horrified to find out, the two of you have become almost friends.

“No.” Bradley answers for you, narrowing his eyes at Jake, who only holds his hands up teasingly.

You’re still somewhat recovering from Bradley’s kiss when you hop down from his chest, so you just smile at Jake and welcome him home too while you grab Bradley’s hand.

“I brought you flowers,” you confess as Bradley picks up his carry on and leads you both to the baggage claim. “But I knew I’d probably get excited and squish them, so I left them in the car.”

It’s still hitting Bradley that he can hear you, and see you, and feel you, and again he can’t stop himself from ducking down for another—this time much shorter—kiss. He feels you smile against his lips and, in the back of his mind, Bradley thinks that he could get used to this. The feeling of somebody being so excited to see him, they couldn’t even wait longer than a second. But not just somebody, you.

And when Bradley loads his luggage into your trunk and you scamper up to him with a bouquet of flowers in your hand, he really feels it then too.

“Pfft,” you laugh when he takes them from you. “Kinda feels like you just graduated or something.”

Bradley’s hands freeze around the bouquet.

You lift yourself up on your toes, moving his ball cap from one side of his head to the other as a stand in tassel. “And look at that! Bradley Bradshaw - the super, super, super, super, super senior has finally graduated! The crowd goes wild—” You cup your hands over your mouth to emulate a cheering sound, before you stop and wrinkle your nose. “Sorry, that was lame. I’m just really excited to see you.”

“No, honey, it’s perfect,” he places a much softer kiss on your lips and he thinks he’s going to ask you how to press flowers because he wants to keep the ones in his hands forever. “I’m really excited to see you too.”

You always kind of knew when Bradley had a rough day. Maybe it was something about how the wind blew, maybe you had a spidey sense but for men who look like they shop exclusively at Kohl’s, but whatever it was you just knew when Bradley would come home in a sour mood.

So when Bradley came home, closing the door a little harder than necessary, and only greeting you with a quick peck before he left to take a shower, you weren’t surprised. For the most part, Bradley stewed in his emotions. You always do your best to remind him that you’re there if he needs it, but you know better than to push him and, mostly, he chooses to keep his bad mood to himself.

So you are somewhat surprised when, as you both sit on the couch a little after dinner, he starts talking suddenly.

“My dad died when I was four.”

You look up from your phone in wordless confusion.

“And, you know, I don’t even remember being four. I didn’t, like, watch him die. My mom didn’t even tell me what happened until I was 15,” Bradley takes a breath, yanking a frustrated hand through his hair. “But, for some fucking reason, I get in the air and suddenly it’s all I can think about.”

You watch as Bradley gets up from the couch, still lost in his head as he starts pacing the living room. “It happened 34 years ago and I didn’t even— I can’t even run simulations without thinking ‘oh, this is how my dad died, what if I die like this too?’. And now Mav’s talking again about how maybe I’m not ready—”

“Bradley—”

“And it’s bullshit, because if he had just let me when I was—”

“Bradley—”

“—It’s fucking pathetic! You know, Hangman used to bring it up constantly, and I couldn’t even say anything because he was right. I’m just—”

“Bradley, stop it!”

Bradley freezes, his chest heaving, his feet frozen mid-pace.

You take a breath and try to smile, but it’s weak and you have to bite your lip to keep your eyes from watering as you walk up to him slowly. “You were a kid,” you tell him and, gently, you cup his face in your hands. “You were just a kid, Bradley. Do you understand that? You did everything a kid could do, more than you ever should have had to. And I am so, so proud of you.”

Between your palms, Bradley’s face is unreadable. You’ve given up on holding back your tears, you can feel them welling up as you stroke his cheekbones with your thumbs. Bradley’s own eyes look glassy, that’s his only tell—every other feature stoic.

“I am so proud of you,” you whisper. “And I love you. With my whole heart. But I love that little boy in there too,” you drop a hand from his cheek to press it against his chest. “The one who’s so brave, and strong, and kind. I love him so much, Bradley. So I won’t sit here and listen to you talk about him like he isn’t good enough.”

You feel his heartbeat underneath your palm, a steady rhythm that’s so predictable, so reliable. Bradley still hasn’t looked away from you, doing nothing more than swallowing thickly. You watch his Adam’s apple bob, taking in the scars of his neck, the way they rise off his skin in thin, light lines.

Sucking in a breath, you suddenly feel self conscious, your thumb faltering from where it strokes Bradley’s cheek. “So— So, yeah, um—”

It takes only a second and then Bradley’s arms are wrapping around you, pushing the hand you have resting on his chest between the two of you. You feel him nose your hair, his arms tightening around you like he thinks you’ll run away from him if he lets go. You won’t though, you never would.

Slowly your hands meet at his back. There’s never really been a time that you felt as though you were holding Bradley—not when he’s so big and broad and solid all on his own—but right now you feel it, that he’s finally letting you hold him.

There’s a shake of his shoulders, a choked whimper, and then he’s unleashing painful sobs into your hair. His breath is ragged against your temple, coming out of his mouth audibly and shakily. Your own tears spill over your cheeks at the sound of his sheer grief and you rock your bodies slowly, your hand moving up to hold the back of his head.

Bradley’s back racks with sobs, you can feel them wetting your ear and temple. He breathes you in like you’re oxygen, like it’s the scent of your shampoo that pumps blood through his veins and the lingering notes of your perfume that cause his heart to pump at all.

His blunt fingernails dig into your skin. He holds you like the climax of a film—desperate, and raw, and so unsure of everything but you. And you hold him too, but like the end of a film—certain, and healed, and not quite back again but you know that you’ll get there. You hold Bradley like he’s worth staying for the credits, because you want to know every person in every role that makes up the movie of the man he is.

Bradley cries. And you don’t shush him, or tell him that it’ll be okay, or make promises that you both know you can’t keep. You hold him, and scratch his scalp, and rock him gently.

Bradley cries, but you know it’s not quite your Bradley who’s crying. It’s Bradley at age four, who cries muffled in his pillow because he knows it makes his mom upset to see him cry and he never wants to make his mom upset. It’s Bradley at age 17, who cries silently at a funeral, biting down on his cheek so hard he can taste blood as he tries to keep his composure. It’s Bradley at age 17 and 7 months, who cries loudly and unabashedly because he’s finally accepted the bitter truth that it doesn’t matter now because there’s not a single person left to hear him.

And you hold all of them, as tightly as you can, and, even though it’s not exactly your Bradley who’s crying, he’s finally allowing the rest of them to cry, so you hold him too.

You stroke his curls softly. “I’m so proud of you,” you whisper against the shell of his ear.

You repeat it over and over. Once for Bradley at age four. Once for Bradley at age 17. Once for Bradley at age 17 and 7 months. And once for Bradley at age 38. And you know it doesn’t fix everything, or make it all go away, but you don’t think that’s what Bradley wants anyway.

It’s a beautiful thing to be acknowledged. For someone to recognize that you’re here despite. When you say you’re proud of Bradley, you mean it. You’re proud of him when he presses a gentle kiss on your forehead every Wednesday morning because, for whatever reason, he and Natasha choose to surf at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am. You’re proud of him every time he plays piano at the Hard Deck, or drives his Bronco, or goes to work. You’re proud of him because he does all of that despite. He laughs, and sings, and forgives, and loves despite everything.

You feel Bradley pull away from you finally and he keeps one hand holding you as the other comes to wipe his eyes. “God, I— I haven’t cried like that in a long time,” he tries to joke.

“I know,” you let your hand drop to his neck, letting your fingers trace the skin. “And I’m proud of you for that too.”

Bradley looks at you almost like he doesn’t believe you're real. His lips quirk up into a small smile. “How do you always know just what to say?”

“Copious amounts of therapy,” you shrug lightly, playing with the curls at the nape of his neck.

Bradley lets out a watery laugh. “Right, of course.”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “I think I knew that one day I was gonna fall in love with an emotionally unavailable man who uses facial hair maintenance as a coping skill and that I needed to be prepared.”

“Oh, is that what you were doing while I was being an angsty teen?”

“Well, actually, when you were a teen, I think I was, like, learning what colors were, but— Teddy!” You let out a shriek when Bradley suddenly throws you over his shoulder.

You cling to the fabric of his shirt, resigning to the position as Bradley carries you into your bedroom. He drops you on the mattress with a teasing lack of care, but you can’t find it in yourself to so much as glare at him. Because when you look up, he’s staring at you with soft eyes.

“Thank you.” And you don’t entirely know what he’s thanking you for, but you know that he doesn’t have to, that you’d do it for him a thousand times and more.

You open your arms up for him and Bradley settles between them, laying on your chest as you weave your fingers through his hair. You like being in bed with Bradley, there’s something about it that feels like problems can’t touch you there. Both you and Bradley do your best to never go to bed angry, to never taint the little sanctuary you’ve found between cotton sheets and bodies only capable of love.

“Hey, Teddy?”

Bradley’s grip tightens around your waist. “Yeah, honey?”

“You know you’re my favorite person, right?” It comes out soft—vulnerable.

Bradley’s quiet for a moment, and then, “Yeah, honey.”

“And you know that I love you, right?” You swallow, keeping your gaze trained on your fingers that are lost in his caramel locks.

“Yeah, honey.”

“Good, because I do. So much.” your voice wavers as your hands tighten some in his hair. It’s silent for a moment and then you wet your lips. “Did you ever read The Little Prince as a kid?”

Bradley shakes his head against your collar bone.

“Well, in it, there’s this fox and he tells the Little Prince that the only way he’ll understand the fox and be the fox’s friend is if he tames him. And once the Little Prince tames him, they’ll need each other and be unique in all the world. But, he tells the Little Prince, that the thing everyone forgets is that you become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed—”

Bradley’s lashes brush against your skin and you know his eyes are closed.

“—As a kid, I remember thinking that forever seemed like a really long time to be responsible for something and so that must mean you really have to love that something if you’re going to tame it,” you pause, scratching Bradley’s scalp gently. “I think I knew from the minute I heard you laugh that you’d be unique in all the world to me.”

It takes a minute for you to get a reply, for a second you think he might have fallen asleep, exhausted from all the emotions that had cycled through him. But then his voice comes out hoarse, “Can you say it again?”

“You’re unique in all the world to me, Bradley Bradshaw,” you whisper against his temple.

You feel feather light kisses on your clavicle, his weight on you heavy and familiar as his lips move against your skin. “You’re unique in all the world to me,” he whispers back.

And you don’t quite fix everything, or make it go away. But to Bradley, you do something better. You love him despite. And you know that he loves you despite too.

I don’t have a taglist but feel free to follow my library @jupitercometgold if you want to be notified when I post

#bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw imagines #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fluff #bradley bradshaw angst #rooster imagine #rooster imagines #rooster x reader #rooster fluff #rooster angst #top gun maverick imagines #x reader #i ain't worried 'bout it #buggy's got a pen

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jadedresearcher · 10 months

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Thoughts on Liminal Horror

So this has been kicking around in my head a while, and I woke up with some actual coherent thoughts on it that I'm trying to capture before I lose them.

There was a tumblr post I saw before that I have long since lost about how liminal horror should NOT have a monster and isn't just "oh you're alone somewhere". And I couldn't agree more! But I haven't been able to articulate exactly why. Liminal, as a word on it's own, means transitional. Liminal spaces are real things that are places where you are on the WAY to somewhere. Liminal doesn't mean infinite spooky mazes, is my first point.

A liminal space could be hallways on the way to an office. Maybe you're trying to get some government bullshit completed. Maybe you're on the way to a doctor you're not entirely familiar with. A liminal space could be the terminals in an airport, as you try to make it to your flight in time. Or a highway you're driving on while looking for a particular exit. Or a carpark as you look for where you had parked among seemingly identical cars. You've been in liminal spaces so so many times. The point is that the spaces themselves aren't what you're really paying attention to. You're thinking of what you'll do when you get there, or going over the things you'll need to keep track of when you arrive. The directions you have to get there, maybe.

So in your MEMORY, and especially your dreams, these spaces take on a peculiar quality. They're SLIPPERY. It's hard to remember any details of them, because you weren't really focused on them. It's just a miasma of "i was in a hallway" or "i was on a road". Maybe a few weird details jump out on you, but it only serves to blend together the rest of the journey. So, when we elevate liminal spaces to HORROR, the first thing we do is lean into that. Impossible spaces because your memory genuinely does not care what any part of them is like save the ending.

Impossible spaces because we tap into that part of you deep down that is unsettled if you try to remember them, and wonders if maybe they really HAD been so weird when you were in them, and you just didn't notice.

This is getting longer than I thought, so may as well put in a cut!

So. I've explained WHAT liminal spatial horror is as well I was going to be able to, I think, but I haven't really articulated why a MONSTER feels like it kneecaps the entire premise.

Have you ever been lost in a liminal space? Keeping in mind that "liminal space" is a thing we all encounter constantly and not shorthand for creepy pastas. Have you ever wandered unfamiliar areas that normally you wouldn't even be paying attention to, increasingly desperate that you won't get to your destination in time? Are you going to miss your flight? What if you can't get your government bullshit taken care of in time? Or your doctor's appointment will skip you and you already waited so long to get it. Did you already miss your exit?

That fear is what I'm focused on here.

It's hard to make you feel that fear in an artificial way.

Even if we give a character in a game all sorts of motives to reach a destination by a certain time, you only feel annoyed at the time pressure, not really *scared*. And although the person lost in a liminal space rarely can just give up and leave, YOU, the player of a game, can.

So liminal spatial horror tends to distill it down to a single fear: where is the exit.

Of course, simply "wanting to leave" is rarely pressure enough to *rush*. And I can see why adding a monster is a quick trick to add that 'going so fast you can't navigate' vibe to the experience.

What I'm saying here is that the time spent is the POINT. That you can slowly build up to that desperate pressure to rush.

You can emphasize that desperation a more subtle way, a way my favorite instances of liminal spatial horror do: bodily needs. You are in a space clearly created by humans, and yet without a single human need met. There are no water fountains. There are no bathrooms. There are no vending machines. Nowhere to comfortably rest. If any of these things do exist they are empty or corrupt in some way.

The temperature, in my favorite experiences, is noted to be wildly incorrect. It's freezing cold. It's burning hot. It's not even remotely the temperature you'd expect an office building full of humans to be.

At first, this leans into this desire to reach a destination, ANY destination. Maybe you can't find the way OUT but maybe you can find out "The Truth"? Maybe if you keep going and going and going you can figure out why this place is LIKE this.

If a human made this space it had to be intentionally to torture people. How fucked up do you have to be to sink this many resources into doing something like this? How long did it take to make? Why did no one notice?

If a non-human intelligence made this space maybe you can find out WHY? Maybe... maybe they were trying their best but didn't realize how uncanny valley and dangerous it would be to a person? If no intelligence was behind it at all, maybe you can find out HOW? Maybe it's a reflection of our collective unconscious, or the planet mimicking the increasing amount of man-made works on itself? But as you continue on and on, as a real living human being in an impossible liminal space horror situation, you realize it doesn't matter how or why or when or any of the questions you dangled in front of yourself like a will-o-wisp driving you ever further in.

Because you realize you're going to die in here. Maybe it'll be the thirst. Humans can only go a few days without water. Maybe hunger will be what finally gets you. Its hard to tell how long you've been in here when any clocks you find in the hallways are all frozen to the same time and the sun hangs over the infinite highway like an immovable, swollen eye. But the hunger is ever present.

There's always exposure. Cold, hot, never anything between. How can you be freezing to death in an office hallway?

That isn't right. That isn't how it should be. Starving and freezing and dying of thirst is something that happens to people OUTSIDE civilization. It would make sense if you were lost in the woods but you can SEE sign after sign of civilization and other people for gods' sake!

How could this be happening? Why isn't anyone coming to help you?

And then we draw back, to you-who-is-consuming-this-fictional scenario. Because the point of horror is to get the person in the chair riled up, not just the character within the fictional premise.

Are you thinking about how often people starve and freeze and die of thirst in our own civilizations? Inches from the trappings of safety? With no help coming?

Are you thinking of how many desperate people navigate government mazes of plaster and brick and paper and online forms, driven forward by the hope of government aid or food stamps or HELP. How many people hunker down in a freezing subway or under a bridge on the highway or other public space knowing that no one SEES them because they're all transitioning from one space to another?

You probably aren't. Not directly. But we all know we're closer to freezing to death under a bridge or denied life-saving medical care in an office than we are to being a billionaire, right?

And there's something about that, deep in our gut, that resonates. That thread of reality in the safely fictional that keeps us coming back. Unable to articulate WHY but also thinking that liminal horror is somehow SCARIER than mere monsters. We all know that deadly predators are unlikely to get us. Adding a monster lets us move our too-real-fear to a safe target. And it's valid to want to do that! To decide spatial horror is too much, to want to thin it out like adding ranch dressing to a too-spicy chicken wing.

But that's why I think that the monsters are an artificial add on. And not a part of spatial horror.

#spatial horror #jr note #rambles #liminal spaces #if you add a monster to the backrooms i sleep #but you can if you want #its why i prefer the interpretation that the minotaur was not real in house of leaves #which is a valid interpretation the book itself brings up

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heyheydidjaknow · 8 months

Note

wake up babe heyheydidja let their creative brain juices flow and posted a fic

And on that note here’s another fic— longer this time— about another character I have written for exactly once. This time for the otome game! It’s been sitting in my drive for 2+ months and now it’s going to see the light of day. We’re breaking down fanfiction author stereotypes this week.

Existential Horror

Luciel had been introduced to horror as a genre fairly early on all things considered. He had never been partial to classic literature— he was not really partial to literature in general once he fell into the rhythm of his new life and allowed himself to enjoy the World Wide Web and all its associated horrors— but in those early days spent waiting on bated breath for instruction from above, he had spent his time— rather, the time that was not spent worrying about his brother— reading whatever books his handler happened to have picked up and tossed aside. Vanderwood’s tastes rubbed off on him to an extent; by the time he had enough regular work to keep himself too busy to sit down and read a book, Seven had a thorough appreciation for the genre. But they did not enjoy their novels in the same way; when Vanderwood would ask Seven about them to break the suffocating silence that hung around him like a heavy fog back then, he was completely unable to engage in meaningful conversation with him about books they had both read. Luciel attributed this to Vanderwood’s lack of connection to the text. Vanderwood enjoyed the books, as far as he could tell, because he got a kick out of interacting with stories about people losing their minds to things beyond their control. Luciel was too close to it, the words too intimate and personal for him to see as anything but a perfectly rational articulation of a feeling he had always felt, would always feel. It was comforting, knowing that someone else— fictional as they may be— understood him.

It was still a challenge, years later, to articulate how he had been informed of his position. He imagined it would be a bit like a child trying to explain gravity; the mechanics were beyond him, but the truth of the matter was indubitable. He supposed it was in his programming to understand only in this most basic sense. He supposed it would be problematic if he understood more than he did. He doubted knowing beyond what he did would do him much good.

Your arrival— your avatar’s arrival— made things make sense. He knew as soon as he saw her face what her role was, and understood intrinsically who she was to him, to the world. A remarkably unremarkable yet decidedly beautiful woman so naive as to follow the words of a stranger on the internet to Rika’s apartment: she played her role as a stand-in beautifully and shined in all her hazy glory. Her words were perfectly intelligible yet decidedly lacked character, her visage was without distinguishable quality and was yet undeniably appealing, her voice stuck in the mind only in the same way the characters in books’ voices did and she did very little outside of sit, answer emails and make simple conversation. As she was destined to do, she caught the attention of every single member of the RFA— himself included. She would shower the members in praise and affection for the eleven days they had together, enter a relationship with them, enjoy domestic bliss for a nebulous period of time— he had given up trying to nail down numbers a long time ago— before the memories they had formed together gently disintegrated. All traces of her would be scrubbed from their lives and she would be reintroduced as a fresh face for the group to fawn over once again. When she was with Seven there would occasionally be a longer grace period in which he was allowed to reunite with his brother for a time before the cycle repeated itself but the ending stayed the same regardless of who she attached herself to.

Oddly enough, he did not mind the routine itself. It was hard to hate something so inherently sweet, something that felt— despite the objective reality of the situation— so simple and innocent. You— the nebulous you he knew to exist— were not acting maliciously. You were playing a game that he and everyone else happened to be a part of, and you had not, in your play, acted maliciously. You had made mistakes and encouraged behaviors that he and the other members of the RFA should not have engaged in, but you were never cruel. It was hard to hate you not only because of his position but also because you were genuinely hard to dislike, and while that was sometimes more frustrating than just hating you outright he could not help but continue to be drawn to you and your replacement by proxy.

He had memories of you. They were distant, but he swore had them. They were near indistinguishable from his memories of your proxy– which, themselves, were hardly concrete– but if he stayed up until his eyes could barely take it he could swear to know the echo of your smile, your voice, your fingers.

He tried not to think of you much. He liked to think he had more important things to worry about.

The night it started was normal enough. Everyone was in the RFA chat room late at night— odd in general but standard for the beginning of a route— and a stranger entered the chat room. There was general distress around the stranger’s arrival, Seven pretended to do a background check on the stranger— he had stopped bothering the third time through— and everyone else introduced themselves. The beats played themselves out, words flying by at the same pace they always did as the stranger explained their position and what they were doing in an allegedly dead woman’s apartment. Jokes were made, hits replayed, and everyone went to bed or back to whatever it was they had been doing before the stranger appeared. He had seen every single combination of words that she could send in response to the various threats and propositions you received; he barely bothered to read the wall of text that flew by. Nothing happened on the first day; no need to reread events already decidedly set in stone.

His first tip that something was up was when he went to text her. After her admission into the RFA, she was always a bit nervous– understandable, given the circumstances– so he always made the move to message her, to make her feel more comfortable even though it did not matter much in practice.

He introduced himself. He asked for any updates regarding the hacker. He welcomed her.

Her response was new.

‘It’s a pleasure, Seven. Sorry for freaking everyone out; hope I haven’t given you too much work lol’

He took his glasses off, wiping them on his shirt. He took a deep breath, put them back on, and reread the text.

It was the same as it had been a second ago. He reread it again.

Again.

The text did not change.

“You planning on staring at your phone all night?”

He sat straight up as though shaken awake, head snapping back to look at an otherwise undisturbed Vanderwood.

He did not bother to look up from the file on his lap. “If you’ve got time to dick around on your phone you have time to work. You know the deadline you were given wasn’t a suggestion, right?”

The laugh that came from Seven sounded forced even to him. “What, seriously?” He set his phone down on his desk face down, wiping his shaky hands off on his jeans. “I could have sworn I read somewhere time is relative.”

“For as high as you seem to be half the time you’re not orbiting the Earth yet.” He crossed one of his legs over the other. “Your tone isn't inspiring confidence either. Something happen?”

His heart was pounding in his throat. “Nothing,” he smiled brightly. “RFA got hacked is all.”

Vanderwood whistled.

“Right?” He swallowed. “I guess it serves me right not checking my work; guess that’s what I get for not having a good work-life balance!” He shrugged. “But it’s nothing serious; I’ll find who did it after I’m done with this.”

He reached down to grab his coffee. “You’re awfully chipper.”

Seven looked back at his computer. “You sound surprised.”

“For as much as you freak out about that server, I am.” He took a sip, setting it back down by his feet. “You lose your mind over the emotes not working but a security breach is no big deal?”

“Security breach, shemcurity breach.” He waved it off, fingers typing away at the keyboard. “If you stress everything that goes wrong you’ll never have time to live.”

“Those would be wise words coming from someone else’s mouth.”

Seven leaned back in his chair, beaming at his handler. “I have my moments.” He sat back up straight, grabbing his phone from the desk and shoving it into his pocket. “I’m going on a soda run. Want anything?”

“Bought some earlier.”

He stood up, kicking his chair back into place. “Then I’m grabbing dinner. Do you want anything?”

“You don’t eat dinner.”

He grabbed his keys. “Then I’m going to an undisclosed location for an undisclosed amount of time where snacks and food will be available, my true intentions known only to me. Do you want anything?”

Vanderwood looked up at him, giving him the same once-over he supposed most parents gave their older children. It had been a while since he had that look on his face, mild concern mixed with justified suspicion; the last time had been when he was still a kid.

Seven broke eye contact first. “I won’t be long,” he promised begrudgingly. “Three hours, tops. Just been inside too long is all.”

There was a long pause.

He sighed, looking back down at his file. “Bring back cream; I forgot some while I was out.”

Luciel was on the main road. The nearest gas station was an hour out. Luciel was not going to the nearest gas station. Luciel was going to the little grocery store an hour or so out from where she was. Luciel was also taking the long way and following all posted and implied traffic laws. Luciel wanted this to be a long trip. Luciel wanted it to be light out by the time he got back.

Twenty minutes in, he pulled over. Alone on a dark road in his silent cat, he pulled out his phone again and reread the message.

It had not changed. It was real.

Saeyoung knew she knew her position. He did not know if she knew the same way that he did what her role was, but he knew that she knew at least what she was meant to do. She acted the way she was meant to every time like clockwork, had said the same two things every time he had sent that first message. It had felt right every time. He knew in his bones that she had said exactly what she had been meant to every time from the very first reset. He knew how she texted. That was not her.

The original chatroom had been deleted. For whatever reason the first one always was. The profile of the new member was the same as it always was. A quick review of the CCTV footage— the same brief, unbothered look he always gave the footage at the beginning— showed that she was at Rika’s apartment. The person on the other end of the line, in theory, was her. All the same, he knew she was not.

He was meant to call now, at this time. He always did after she was done talking with Yoosung about LOLOL and his barely disguised predator-prey kink. He was never nervous to make the call— it was a stupid call, a joke call that did not and should not matter— but the thought of it going to you— not the woman sitting in his apartment but you, the real you— made him lightheaded. He barely knew how to process the idea that you might have access to the messenger. He could not even begin to comprehend how you could access the messenger directly considering your position; the idea was so far-fetched it bordered on unbelievable. But if you had…

He let his head fall against the steering wheel. The issue had gone from an abstract, quiet horror to a pressing matter of real consequence. You were not God, but you were closer to it than he was; you may not have created the universe, but your proxy and her presence did have a profound impact on their world. It was hard not to be taken aback by the prospect of interacting with a higher power. He barely knew how to process the confirmation of your existence— if this was a confirmation— let alone wrap his head around the mechanics of someone like you interacting with someone like him. You operated on a completely different plane than him. None of this should have been possible in the first place. How could he possibly—

Your profile picture showed up on his phone. You were calling him.

His thumb hovered over the accept button, fingers tingling. It was late. You should have been asleep. He should have been able to call you and not have you pick up. He should have been able to think this through further, to come up with a game plan.

He sank in his seat, pulling his headphones over his ears. He held his breath. He answered the call.

“Hello?”

Saeyoung had received his first pair of glasses eight years before. For most of his life, he had been largely unable to see anything further than his hand stretched out in front of him. He had been reluctant to see an optometrist when V had suggested it, had barely even noticed that he was unable to see because he had no other frame of reference. His brother, he had insisted, just had exceptionally good eyes; he could function perfectly fine without going through the trouble. V had insisted and had offered to pay for a sturdy pair out of pocket, and after much resistance, Saeyoung had agreed to it. Getting medical confirmation that he could not see was something of a shock, but not totally surprising. To see the world the way it was in pictures, on the other hand, to really know— to know in the basic sense as opposed to the intrinsic one— that trees were composed of intertwining limbs and leaves you could count as opposed to big masses of color had been revelatory. He had known what things looked like. He could point at a tree before he got glasses and identify it as such. But that was nothing compared to what he had when he could finally see.

It was about the same with you. He had known intrinsically what your voice was in the same way he knew that trees had leaves and branches: common sense mixed with grounded assumptions. He assumed— correctly— that your voice vaguely sounded like hers, that there was some element of you in her that attracted him. Your voice was not hers, though. It was similar in the way that all sweets taste sweet; her voice was so indistinct that your voice was similar by default. Your voice, to him, was what he had liked about her voice in a concentrated form, distinctly you and decided in its identity, and this concentrated dose of you— not the watered-down shit he got through her, but you, the person he was born to be in love with— was almost more than he could take.

You were talking. You were speaking English, mumbling obscenities about a button not working and how he must not be able to understand you because of the linguistic difference. “Maybe if I hang up—“

The words were out of his mouth before he could think what he was saying. “I speak English.”

Your laugh— nervous as it was— was yours and it was perfect. He had never really heard her laugh so he had little to compare it to, but the sound seemed to soothe an ache he had not known existed. “Holy— wow, that is good.” You cleared your throat. “You know, I wasn’t sure what you’d sound like, but you sound almost the same as you did before. It’s totally cool.”

A grin spread across his face. You liked his voice. You had told him that you liked his voice. “Thank you,” he said lamely. “I’m glad you like it.”

“That’s good. That you like that I like it, I mean.” You were cute. “I would be a bit bummed if you— well, not bummed, but I don’t know how I’d react if you disliked that I like your voice.”

At least you were nervous too. He had no idea why you of all people were nervous, but it made him feel less pathetic for being so on edge. “I don't know that I’ve ever been complimented on my voice before,” he admitted, trying to fall back into his usual rhythm. “But I don’t think many people would mind someone saying they like their voice.”

“I hope not.” There’s a cracking sound on your end. “It would be totally awkward if I called you something out of left field.”

He relaxed in his seat. As the shock of the situation wore off his brain kicked back into gear, the gaps in his mind beginning to fill themselves with this new information. He had never really considered the idea of meeting you, but he was unsurprised to find himself more comfortable like this– talking to you– than he had been speaking with the woman he had asked to be his wife in some distant memory. “Don’t worry; Vanderwood’s given me a thick skin over the years.”

You hummed in acknowledgment, not pointing out his slip up to his relief. “How long have you known her?”

He considered it. “Five, six years?”

“That’s a while.”

“Sort of.” He shrugged. “That’s twenty-five-point-two percent of my life give or take; in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t all that long.”

“In all fairness,” you point out, “it’s a bit unfair to count a few of those years; nobody remembers the first couple.”

He tutted. “Gotta disagree with you there. Just because I don’t have very many memories from when I was little doesn’t mean they shouldn’t count in the total.”

“Why not?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” He fiddled with the string of his hoodie. “I mean, just because someone gets blackout drunk doesn’t mean the time they spent blackout drunk didn't happen, right? And even if I don’t remember some stuff that’s happened,” he continued, a lump forming in his throat, “or I don’t have a good grasp of when things happened, they still happened, didn’t they? My memory can’t be the only thing that determines whether something’s happened, right?”

“Sure it is.” You did not seem to catch onto his mood switch; he was thankful for that. “I mean, photos can be doctored and videos can be faked and records altered; not to get philosophical on you, but what else can we trust besides our memories?” You sighed. “But then again, memories aren’t tangible and the human brain is famously unreliable, so maybe we’re all fucked and doomed to try to hold onto false memories and will them into being.”

He took a slow, deep breath. “Fair point.” He laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “I wish I took more photos; I should ask V to show me how.” His eyes softened as he tried to swallow the bad taste in his mouth. “At least if I have physical photos they’d be harder to alter, right? It’d be nice to have confirmation that my memories are trustworthy.”

“I guess if you have a place to keep them safe.”

He had tried taking pictures a few reboots in on a polaroid camera he ordered online. He had taken a photo of her and Jaehee and kept it in his phone case. It had disappeared when she reintroduced herself a while later.

You cleared your throat. “What do I call you? Seven? Luciel? Or would you rather something else?”

‘Do you remember?’ That was the question you meant to ask, whether you and he held the same bond as he did with her. In truth, the memories he had of his time with her were only a bit more tangible than you had been. They were recollections of dreams he knew to be true, fantasies played out by another version of himself. He had little idea of what their relationship– the one between him and her and her and you– meant to you, but he felt as strange about her calling him Saeyoung as he did about you doing the same.

“Seven’s fine.” He forced himself to relax, smiling into the receiver. “Or Seven O’ Seven. Or Supreme Defender of Justice Seven Zero Seven if you want to show your reverence.”

Your smile sounded more natural than his. “How humble of you.”

“One of my many virtues.” He twisted his headphone cord around his finger, stopped. “What should I call you?”

You told him your name.

He tried to compare it to her name in his head. He did not know if he had forgotten it or if he had never known it in the first place. He repeated it back to you, committing it to memory.

You moved your mouth closer to the receiver, signing heavily into it. “How’d you come up with your name? Seven Zero Seven, I mean; what’s its significance?”

“Oh, loads of things.” He looked out the windshield into the night sky. “It’s an area code, an error code, an angel number, a pop culture reference– it’s got layers.”

It sounded like you were on a bed. “Walk me through them.”

He sat up a bit in his seat. “Seven Zero Seven is the area code for the northwesternmost part of California, which was where I stayed to learn English before I started school. Seven Zero Seven is also an uncommon error code that I struggled to get down, which I thought was funny because the code itself is an error code for partial data retrieval.” He swallowed. “Seven Zero Seven in numerology is supposed to be symbolic of spiritual awakening– you can guess why I liked that– and seeing it a lot means you’re supposed to take time to focus on yourself instead of your relationships with other people, which was…” He trailed off. “Well, you can guess.” He cleared his throat. “And Seven O’ Seven is a play on Double O Seven, aka James Bond, which is also pretty cool.”

Your voice was soft. “You thought of all that?”

“I had a very long car ride.”

You snorted.

“It’s true!” He crisscrossed his legs on the seat. “I was in a ‘93 Oldsmobile Cutlass with a broken air conditioner in late September; I was going nuts sitting in the car so long so I told myself to finally decide on a name before we got to San Mateo for something to do and all the pieces just sort of fell together.”

“I’m not doubting that it happened,” you insisted. “I’m just– it’s really in character, you know? Like, it’s such a you thing to do.”

“Is that an insult?”

“Not at all.” You sounded sincere. “I really like you; I like learning more about you.”

His cheeks warmed. “Don’t get too used to it,” he warned, half joking. “I’m a very secretive person.”

You were a dream. “It’s funny; I feel like I know you so well already.”

“Maybe you did in a past life.” He closed his eyes, trying and failing to picture you, to make you real in his head. “Maybe you do know me and I just don’t know you.”

“Do you want to know me?”

His heart ached. “More than anything.”

“You have my permission, if you’re looking for it.” You swallowed. “I don’t know if I’m worth knowing, but you’re more than welcome to if you want.”

“You are.” He hoped he did not sound as earnest as he was. “I promise, you are.”

“You sound very sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

Your answer was polite, if nervous. “That’s really sweet of you to say.”

His sighed. “You don’t believe me.”

“Not because I don’t trust you,” you insisted quickly. “I just don’t know how you’d make that call, you know?”

“I have good intuition,” he insisted.

You laughed. “Nobody’s intuition’s that good.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do. Besides–” You caught yourself, scrambled to recover. “Well, in any case, I don’t know how well your intuition can work if you can only talk to someone through a phone.”

“You’d be surprised.” He sat up straighter. “I bet I can tell loads about you from your online presence.”

You hummed in acknowledgment. “Lay it on me, then.”

He took a deep breath. “You’re… lonely,” he decided. “That’s why you showed up in our lives, why you haven’t left yet. Maybe not all the time, maybe not around people, but in some capacity, you feel alone or felt alone and you feel better being here than dealing with your own loneliness.” He swallowed. “But you’re kind. You care about things and people even when their problems don’t directly affect you. You have a good sense of right and wrong and try to make do with the choices you’re given, even if they aren’t great.”

A pause, then, “You make me sound like a better person than I am.”

He smiled. “I have a feeling you’ll have more options than you’re used to this time around,” he teased. “If I’m right– which, not to brag, but I usually am– that means you’ll have plenty of opportunity to prove me wrong if you want.”

“I guess so.” Your voice sounded softer now. “I hope I’m not too much of a disappointment.”

“You won’t. You aren’t.” He checked the time. “Are you falling asleep?”

“A little.” You yawned. “But I’ve got to pay every time I make a phone call so I want to keep this going as long as possible.”

He rolled his eyes. “Go to sleep,” he urged. “If it’s that much trouble, I’ll call you, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

“But then you need to pay for the call.”

“I could stop working today and never have to work a day in my life; I can afford to call you.”

It was hard to tell if the worry he heard was real or not. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart.” He fixed his glasses. “Before I leave, though, can you understand what we type alright? I think I might have installed a translator a while ago for Yoosung to use to study but I don’t remember if it actually worked all that well.”

You hummed contentedly. “Works like a dream,” you promised sleepily. “Google Translate can eat its heart out.”

He chuckled. “Good, good.” He picked his phone back up, thumb hovering over the call button. “Well,” he supposed, “this is where I leave you.”

“So it is.”

A pause. His finger stayed where it was.

You snorted. “You are so you.” There was a rustling of blankets on your end. “Goodnight, Seven.”

“You too. Oh,” he started, “and one last thing?”

“Yeah?”

His face flushed. “Thank you,” he said. “For showing up, I mean. It means a lot.”

He hoped he did not imagine the affection he heard in your voice. “It means more to me, I promise.”

You hung up.

It took him a second to get back on the road.

A while ago, Luciel had taken the time to sit down and really, objectively consider his situation. He had come to the conclusion that if he were to assign a genre to his life he would call it an existential horror. You were an entity greater than himself whose whims he was held victim and whose intentions were barely understood. His limited understanding nearly crippled him, leaving him alone and stuck in a constant haze of half-formed memories he had no way of grounding. In any other life, he would have hated you. In any other circumstance, with any other person, he probably would wished for your death so he could at least have the chance to hold onto something permanent.

But he was not alone anymore.

You remembered. He had you.

And if the price of having you in any capacity was for him to live the way he did, he would.

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brilla-brilla-estrellita · 21 days

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Crafting Wings

I finally remembered today that tumblr is a blog, and that in addition to whatever fandom nonsense I reblog, I can also post bloggy things on it. Obvious, right?

I am making a set of dragon wings for an event coming up in mid-June. They are of course inspired by Simon Snow and will be red dragon wings (though the pattern I bought from them is technically for a wyvern). I'm hoping that posting progress updates here will help me stick to it and actually get it done in time. I'm breaking it down into teeny tiny easy peasy steps and only looking at the very next step to try to keep the overwhelm and executive dysfunction at bay. This is likely to lead me down a path of "If I'd thought about it earlier, I could have..." But you know what? I always end up there anyway.

So first, I spent a long long long long long (long long long...) time trying to decide how to make these wings. I really wanted articulated wings, bonus if I could move them without obviously pushing or pulling or something. But looking at how people had made that happen was overwhelming. They require so much time and skill and I am prone to procrastination and crying and quitting when I mess up. I finally settled on this DIY Mechanical Wing kit by Chimera Wings. That would give me the frame for the wings, but they also have a sewing pattern (with printed AND video instructions) to make the covers for them!

This is what the contents of the kit looked like when I got it:

And this is the completed build! I almost didn't post this because I don't like the way I look, but you know what? Fuck that. I built something cool (using very simple, easy-to-follow instructions, sure) and I don't want to have to find a better fancier more flattering way to film that, so. I'm getting over it.

You can tell that I kinda struggle with the wing on my right side. I clearly need to stretch my arms out before wearing these. Truly. I tried it after I stretched and it's no big deal. Or maybe I'll add some sort of pulley after all. (HAH. Like I'll have time for that.)

Otherwise, the kit and wings are fantastic. It was so easy to put together and they feel very cool to wear. I should probably go write them a review...

I didn't actually takes pics of the next step, but I printed out the pattern on regular 8.5x11 paper and taped it together. It... was not very well done, but I'm hoping I got it close enough to not have messed up the pattern dimensions. After taping and then cutting out the completed pattern, I could move on to working with actual fabric!

I'm making a mock-up out of old sheets first because I have never once done any sewing project successfully the first time. I decided to mock-up only one wing instead of both, so this will surely be my downfall when I move onto the real deal.

The next two pictures are the front and back pieces for a single wing. I decided to cut them separately instead of at the same time by folding the fabric in half because every time I do more than one layer at a time, at least one of the layers comes out real fucked up. I blame being a lefty in a right-handed world. Scissors are of the devil.

The next step was to make buttonholes that are actually strap holes. I have a little baby basic machine, and it has some limitations. I discovered one of these limitations during my buttonhole test runs. As you can see, the machine-provided "buttonhole" stitches are just... lacking. I messed with a screw that controls the length of these stitches, but for some reason it can only be used to balance out the stitch lengths, not make them overall longer or shorter. I have no control for generally change stitch length. I only have the options presented to me on my stitch chooser knob. Alas, I have less than optimal buttonholes.

Pictured above: (Left) One very sad buttonhole test. (Right) A second buttonhole test in which one side is almost respectable and the other should be ashamed to call itself a buttonhole stitch.

Finally, I gave up and balanced the stitch lengths and just went with it. When I do the real deal, I will likely go use my friend's much fancier machine. For the mock-up, this is sufficient. The next three pictures show, with increasing zoom and blurriness, the completed buttonholes.

I am intentionally using very bright, contrasting thread so that when I inevitably fuck up, I can hopefully see the point of fuck up more clearly so as to rectify it on my next attempt.

And that brings us up to speed! Next Step: Pin the pieces together. That's it. That's the whole step. How many days will it take to overcome executive dysfunction and do it? Only time will tell.

As long as I can remember to update regularly, future posts should be quite short.

#yes #i also read butthole every single time #it is an unfortunate word #chimera wings #articulated wings #simon snow #dragon wings #diy craft #sewing #cosplay #i know i'm missing some very obvious tags here

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ivan-fyodorovich-k · 2 months

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Death is Not a Teacher

a reflection on lessons human beings cannot learn

I put my grandfather in the ground last weekend. His death prompted the usual sorts of things that, as you will know from your attendance at funerals and experiences with people in mourning, tend to occur when someone dies. You know, as I know, that people say a lot of things, not because they are useful to say, but because one cannot escape the feeling that something must be said. You have perhaps tried to remain silent—but only for a time—as you will have found that it simply does not do. Eventually you say the same kinds of trite things that everyone else says.

His death cannot be said to have been unexpected. I watched his decline for what must have been at least twenty years. My wife remarked upon seeing him in his casket that he looked surprisingly like he did in life—a reflection of how very nearly dead he had been in his twilight.

I say that to say, now, that even watching his death come, as it were, from afar, even at a leisurely pace, when the end finally came, my father probably articulated best the sense among our branch of the departed man’s family.

“I really took him for granted.”

—

Because death involves reflection on life, and the life of the deceased, as one encounters people who knew the departed for longer, or in another capacity, were more or less close, we come to appreciate something we could have realized if we’d thought about it—that the person was in many ways unknown, that we mistook our small piece of their existence for a whole, that their life in its complexity and interiority involved many stages and many experiences they never shared with us. We didn’t know them at the time, they never volunteered the information, we never thought to ask.

But all this is well known. The piece upon which I wish to focus is the always implicit, but often explicit, pang of regret, and attendant call to action. We ought to have spent more time with them. We ought to have asked them the questions it never occurred to us to ask. We ought to have told them how we felt about them.

We ought not to have taken them for granted.

—

These pangs and appeals add to their triteness a certain edge when death arrives suddenly. A friend’s mother recently passed; she’d had a cancer diagnosis a year or so prior, but one Friday took a dramatic turn for the worse, and by the end of the weekend she was gone. He reported with gratitude he had some time to tell her, as she laid in bed, how fortunate he had been to have her as a mother, &c &c. When my wife was 16, her mother died at 40. She’d gone to the hospital for what appeared to be a severe panic attack and was gone within hours. No goodbyes.

Be sure to tell people how you feel about them, because you do not know how long you will have them. So the wisdom goes.

In my final year of undergrad I became an eleventh hour addition to an honors colloquium that I had learned late I needed to take to complete the honors program. That spring the course was to be taught by a literature professor I had seen but did not know, and I and some two dozen students were to read The Brothers Karamazov. The course immediately took on a mystical significance; professors saw me carrying the book and gave me strange looks, cryptically referring to it as the greatest novel ever written. One class the professor mentioned the example of the novel had prevented a fellow professor from suicide. The novel appeared to carry and to portend mysterious powers.

It is perhaps impossible to overstate the significance of this man to my life. We became Facebook friends soon after I graduated and I stayed on that website in large part to maintain contact with him, commenting here and there on his posts, but, eventually I felt like I didn’t really have much to contribute to his conversations. They tended to unfold between himself and some old friends and I felt like I was sort of a third wheel, and so my admiration took on a greater distance.

I learned recently that in the spring of 2023, that professor threw himself from a bridge.

Suicide makes the question stranger still, because suicide carries a sting of implication. I have observed suicides in other circles, and we are often admonished that we must check in with the people we love and assure them we love them. We are told the warning signs but are told the warning signs are not obvious, and the formal resources our society has for the suicidal are so dramatic and themselves so life-altering we question when it is appropriate to summon them.

I ask you, if he had known that I love him, do you really suppose that would have stopped him from jumping?

Try to find someone in your life and tell them how you really feel. Think carefully of everything they mean to you, stare into their eyes, and say those unspeakable things. Can you even do it? Will they even believe you? You cannot, as you yourself know if you have lost someone, even know—know—what they mean to you until they are gone, in the same way that you cannot know what food means to you until you are starving, and what air means to you until you are suffocating.

—

Death’s lessons do not stop there. Consider this lyrical example from a song that I hate:

He said "I was finally the husband That most of the time I wasn't And I became a friend a friend would like to have And all of a sudden going fishin' Wasn't such an imposition And I went three times that year I lost my dad Well I, I finally read the Good Book, and I Took a good, long, hard look At what I'd do if I could do it all again And then I went skydiving I went Rocky Mountain climbing I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu And I loved deeper And I spoke sweeter And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying" And he said "Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dyin'"

The twee sentimentality of this saccharine appeal hides more than it shows. None of these things require a death sentence.

What do you suppose it would really mean “to live like you were dyin’” ? Would it look like this? If you knew death was a week away, if you could grasp that rue oblivion waited and soon, where would your time and your money go? Would your posture toward your credit cards change? How would you eat and drink? Where would you go? What would you say to people? How do you imagine a society that embraced this posture on principle would look? Will you go on living that way now?

As G.K. Chesterton wrote in Heretics of life under the shadow of Death:

Many of the most brilliant intellects of our time have urged us to the same self-conscious snatching at a rare delight. Walter Pater said that we were all under sentence of death, and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply for those moments’ sake. The same lesson was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people.

The threat of Death carries rather a more sinister implication than even Chesterton allowed. It is not solely a question unhappiness numbed through hollow pursuit of transient pleasure. For this we will turn to The Brothers Karamazov and the philosophy attributed to brother Ivan Fyodorovich, summarized in this instance by Pyotr Aleksandrovich Miusov:

Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesis that the whole natural law lies in that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism. That’s not all. He ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who does not believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to crime, must become not only lawful but even recognized as the inevitable, the most rational, even honorable outcome of his position. From this paradox, gentlemen, you can judge of the rest of our eccentric and paradoxical friend Ivan Fyodorovitch’s theories.

The lessons of Death include not merely fear but terror, narcissism, immiseration, dissipation, desperation, and resignation.

But it is not merely evil to take Death as your teacher, and to internalize these lessons.

I wish to submit to you, as you yourself know, that it is impossible.

—

Whenever anyone tries to take Death as their master, to live out these lessons, reality soon presses against them, and they set themselves at odds with the life they are seeking to cherish to its fullest. Those who “seize the day” in the form of the hedonism that the carpe diem religion encourages invariably hasten the very thing they seek to defy, their embrace of momentary pleasures soon landing themselves and others in misery, and often an early grave. We simply cannot live like we are “dyin’”.

More abstract but no less important, I rather doubt that you or perhaps anyone who has ever lived seriously believes that you will die someday. You know it will happen. Sometimes perhaps the awe of the realization creeps up on you and you become very close to grasping it but life itself soon whisks it away. Even when the philosophers and the theologians tell you memento mori, they are setting you up not to die, but to live. They tell you to remember this to impel you to orient yourself toward what follows your death, which is to say the thing you wish to outlast you, to live on, or else to mind your own eternal destiny.

Which is to say, they say it in expectation not that you will die but in fact that you will live for ever.

And here we come to an odd point. One of the exquisitely pious mourners at my grandfathers funeral said at one moment as an aside and with significant tone, “well, it is just sad, because, well, we tried to get him to go to church but he was just never very open to it, and so, it is sad...”

Did that person seriously believe he was in Hell? Does anyone seriously believe in this place? No, for the same reason that nobody seriously believes in Death. It is so astonishingly incapacitating that life simply refuses to allow you to go on in this posture. You may feel yourself come close to grasping it—close enough even for conversion—but the most devout, the most relentless, the most frantic evangelist cannot even at the very height of their exertion truly live out a belief that the vast majority of souls are destined for eternal misery. The magnitude of the prospect exhausts individual capacity far before it exhausts itself.

We find ourselves, when faced with That prospect, wondering things that sophisticated and dogmatic theologians tut-tut—asking simple questions to which they have powerful refutations, while forgiving quite easily offenses we know cannot be forgiven. We are faced with the impossible prospect, the great heresy, that we desire their good more than God Himself desires it.

As I reflect on my grandfather, who bore no visible sign of faith, I ask even as I know better, is it possible that I am more merficul than God? I reflect on my professor, who died committing a mortal sin, is it possible—is it possible—that I love my professor more than God?

—

The point that I wish to make is not a philosophical or a theological one, though it is those things, but a practical one.

Life itself forces us to live as though we will go on living. To connect as though we will connect forever, to love as though we will love forever.

Even to take people for granted, because we feel—even when we think we know otherwise—that it cannot ever be The End.

We will see them again.

#this is sort of a sketch of some thoughts that have been floating around a while

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voltdamage · 4 months

Text

It happened to me, there was nothing anyone could do to save me I ranked the EO portraits yeah. it was such a big wet sopping empty list I just had to give it treats. and little tier names. I could have spent much more time fine-tuning it and giving the tiers a better name scheme, but 80% perfect is perfect enough. Plus my opinion is subject to tiny shifts at regular intervals, so this could be dated given three months' time. I also could articulate why so-and-so is here or there ad infinitum, but I will spare us all and give only a few important points under the cut.

Top 5 wasn't intentionally so, I just happened to have those five in their little tippy top tier at the end.

Out of the top two tiers, the only portrait there that I haven't used in a main party is Surv 5. But like, look at 'em. C'mon.

The dark-haired alchemist in "Somewhat nice" would be in the tier just below, but someone once described them as "the hottest alchemist (girl)" and it rewired my thinking slightly.

Yeah that necromancer portrait is there on purpose. In my defense! I actually think it's a rad design if she would just pls put a shirt on.

"Unlikely to use" tier does sport one portrait that I have used. Which one? Your hint is that I saved their ass with the recoloring feature.

All the Untold storymoders are in the "would not use" category in a much more literal sense than the others. Because I would never play the story modes. It's just not the point of EO to me.

If you look at the list longer than I expect you to, you may pick up on the fact there is generally about one class per game whose portraits I just out-and-out don't like. Weird point of consistentcy, but consistency nonetheless.

As always if I dislike on some level the thing that you like, my apologies and feel free to help yourself to a "your opinion upset me and I want you to feel bad about it" coupon. I will do my best to feel bad about it when you redeem it.

#etrian odyssey #my favorite activity: sharing my unsolicited opinion and then talking about it at length

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renaultphile · 3 months

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Hello! I liked your observation about Ralph in your post about Edmund Gosse’s memoirs. It made me think of this comment of Ralph’s when he is talking about his mother: “Her [italics] parents were Plymouth Brethren”. MR must have had something specific in mind here. From your readings, do you have any insights about this and any other thoughts you’d like to share about Ralph’s upbringing in a “ Christian household”?

Thank you so much for this ask @eclare1000, sorry, it’s a long one! I warmly recommend ‘Father and Son’ in its own right, I loved its compassion, humour and insights into childhood, and for me there are many resonances with Ralph. We get so little, don’t we? Just the reference to the cruelty of ‘good women’, the PB reference and the bit about Laurie not being brought up in a ‘Christian home’ which is so bitter and angry.

I feel the emphasis with ‘her parents’ suggests his maternal grandparents are distant in some way, perhaps they cut off his mother when she ‘married out’? It could mean his mother is no longer PB (doesn’t feel likely though)? Or, it could mean that his father was PB too, but a convert, not born into the faith. I suppose it means her upbringing was very strict, and it left her at a loss to cope with something perfectly natural (two pre-pubescent children showing curiosity about their bodies). So he says ‘She couldn’t help how she felt’, as if she’d been programmed and couldn’t just be humane. I’m struck by her inability to articulate what she felt, which I think is such a major theme in the book.

In the Gosse, there is a very strong theme, particularly with his mother, of fatalism and letting God decide, a lack of agency. I wonder if that plays a part, and that’s why he is so bitter, because she abrogated responsibility. She failed to recognise perhaps that her religious upbringing was urging a kind of un-Christian cruelty on a helpless child. Is that why he feels so responsible, because religious faith let him down and he has taken all of it on himself?

I get the feeling that his father came from a less strict (but still Christian) background but went along with whatever his mother wanted to please her, and did the beating for her and the rather clichéd exhortation to ‘learn a clean life’.

I also wonder if completely unrealistic expectations were loaded onto Ralph as a young child (another theme in the Gosse), making the crimes of 6-year-old Ralph all the more heinous. And of course there is a similar fall at 19 – his expulsion being all the more scandalous for his immense prestige (as Laurie puts it).

There are some other resonances for me that are fascinating. I had already started to wonder about Ralph’s love of language and facility for making up stories and telling lies to get out of trouble. There are also several references to Laurie thinking he is just making things up about himself to please him! I wondered about the idea of fiction being a ‘forbidden thing’ in a religious household, and was amazed to discover that Edmund Gosse’s mother believed fiction a ‘sin’ and kept it out of the house – he did not have access to literature for much of his childhood. I sometimes feel that Ralph might have discovered the joys of telling stories relatively late, and relished their power.

Another thing that fascinates me about the Plymouth Brethren is that they are essentially rebellious – they were formed in defiance of organised religion. So Ralph’s mother grew up in a ‘rebellious household’ but was indoctrinated with ideas from a young age that she couldn’t properly articulate. Then she ‘rebelled’ on some level. For me this ties in with that very contradictory aspect of Ralph, that he is desperate to be part of a community, but he also makes up his own rules.

And related to this, bible-study is the key – PB do not accept intermediaries telling them what to believe. Gosse describes the way his parents spent hours discussing biblical texts together. I feel Ralph did this as a child, and when he discovered the Phaedrus, I imagine him reading it with the same fervour, poring over every word looking for a moral code he could live by – working up what he was into a religion.

I just checked that bit again about ‘good women’ and found this: “Suddenly he seemed to remember the text of his earlier sermon” Wow! Ralph is sermonising, but now he has found a new religion! PB were big on converting people and in ‘Father and Son’, Gosse refers to being expected to ask strangers he meets if they are saved. Hitherto I have felt that Ralph is in ‘Head boy’ mode or ‘school debate’ mode when he is arguing so forcefully with Laurie. But now I am seeing a passionate and fervent preacher. He is a proselytiser all right. Perhaps Mary wanted to give one of her most attractive and powerful characters a bit of religious fervour when stating his cause. After all, why should religious people have the monopoly on the right to be a decent human being?

#Edmund Gosse #Father and Son #the charioteer #ralph lanyon #Plymouth Brethren #Religious upbringing #Thank you so much for this ask!

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bulkhummus · 2 years

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Do you think Kevin and Carlos got together in DOW? Or do you think that Kevin had feelings for him????? I’m so curious about your thoughts on it after seeing your Earl and Cecil drawings.

What interests me more about this scenario, is Carlos lying by omission, and deciding what’s best for other people without consulting them first.

He does this to Cecil, and also to Kevin. Which is interesting.

I think all Kevin really wanted was a friend. He was alone. And you can love a friend— can be in love with them too. Losing a friend sometimes hurts more than losing a lover. And here comes Carlos, who is not great at communicating but very available to be there for Kevin in that capacity. And Carlos couldn’t leave him, like literally— but especially if he continued to feel he had important work to do there, and could build a life — so it was a safe relationship to indulge in too. And even if Kevin wasn’t really sure how to have a healthy friendship, and ultimately a relationship, (ie. talking over and being dismissive of Carlos, encouraging him to unhealthily indulge in work etc etc) I think it never occurred to him that Carlos would leave. And he does. He leaves. He writes a sad letter, and he makes his own peace, and leaves without having to deal with the consequences of this supposed friend of ten years that he just hurt. If I were Kevin— I’d be devastated, livid, and wondering what I could have done differently.

And then with Cecil— Carlos says that he is ‘sparing Cecil the pain’ of knowing he was there for a decade, but in reality, it’s Carlos deciding that it is information that Cecil didn’t need/ doesn’t get to have. That’s context that Cecil doesn’t have access to to apply to their future relationship, and the town tbh, every time it creates more problems for the two of them, because Carlos won’t/doesn’t want to/ doesn’t know how to talk about it. Despite Carlos’ pure intentions, actions have consequences, and lying by omission is still lying. Even traumatized, even through grief, how you behave with people is still your responsibility— and It Devours! shows us plain as day that he is not handling his grief well.

The thing about the year apart (or ten respectively) is that they both needed to grow as characters in a story. Cecil needed to be more independent, and Carlos needed to find purpose outside of his job. At this point in their relationship, they both were proceeding as if they would continue to be together— which is why Carlos omitting this info, to me, is complicated. It’s the very new relationship quandary— you’re not thinking about your life as part of a larger whole which is ultimately what happens if you marry and if you choose to begin a family.

If, hypothetically, I was in Cecil’s position, and found out that my partner, who has trouble articulating and processing emotions, spent 9 years longer with someone I hated because they took over my home town and hurt my cat and stole my job, and happened to look a lot like me, and became close enough friends with them that they had to write a break up letter, I would feel betrayed.

Even if nothing happened, lying about it makes things seem WORSE from Cecil’s pov. And outside of the drama of ‘did they hook up— did they catch feelings’ it doesn’t matter — Carlos lied. And it’s delectable. Carlos not thinking its important for Cecil to know that Kevin was there, or how long they were together, can mean nothing to him — but because he chose not to tell Cecil, schrödinger’s Anything could have happened— cheating, emotional cheating, nothing— so while he was well within his personal right to do so (for whatever reason that is valid for him) he didn’t account for other people possibly being hurt by that choice, or losing their trust. And this ofc, is all my own bias/hc’s BUT I do think that really Carlos is protecting himself by not telling Cecil. When in media has ‘sparing someone [insert devastating info]’ gone well? Almost never. Especially because it creates a morally gray area that makes it difficult to pinpoint what it is that is upsetting. Ugh its so GOOD.

So— one abandoned for the other. Cecil and Kevin are both the one and the other. Truly each other’s double. It’s so good. And I think they both deserve an apology from one scientist.

(i do think kevin tried to hit that tho, for himself, but also because carlos was cecil’s boyfriend but— like 109% sure he tried and carlos just Didn’t Get It)

#im sorry anon i know you wanted me to state my vulgar thoughts but media analysis took the reigns #that anxious thought of ‘well if you didnt think THIS was important enough to tell me what else are you not telling me’ dilemma #ugh so so so good #juicy #wtnv #ask tag #anon #wtdb #i also think often about cecil being in awe that carlos loved him all that time — but time is also so subjective to him #would he even care that carlos was there for ten years? What is time for cecil?? u know??#im so thirsty i need to drink water #i gotta do some relistening also sorry if some of this is not ‘accurate’#sorry its long #long lost

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mairablue · 8 months

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Hi(^3^)/ I was wondering if you could write a story where mc meets Tauxolouve during a royal ball? Please add a bitter sweet ending. Thank you 💗

SCM- Department of Wishes

Tauxolouve ♐ - Together For A Day

A/N: Thank you for requesting anon.💓 This is my first ever Tauxolouve fic, so please have mercy on my poor soul.🥺 I hope you enjoy reading this. ❤

You found yourself standing on the balcony. The moon shore brightly, illuminating the forest below. The cold wind brought shivers down your spine.

In this otherworldly atmosphere, your thoughts wandered through the meticulously tended gardens of the palace, before serenely descending into the captivating depths of the encompassing woodland. Nevertheless, the tranquility of your mind was abruptly disrupted by the delicate resonance of a refined yet resolute voice, gracefully guiding you back to the present moment.

" May I humbly inquire about the motive behind your isolation amidst these captivating surroundings?" The gentle articulation of this inquiry was directed towards you.

" I came here to get some fresh air." you answered.

" Then, i hope you do not mind me being here?"

A youthful gentleman gracefully approached, his presence exuding both strength and gentleness, as he stood beside you.

" I do not." you said. " What is your name? " you asked as your eyes wandered off into the forest.

" Tauxolouve." he answered. " ( Name)" you offered your name in return. " Why weren't you dancing? Do you not like to dance? " he asked; his voice laced with genuine curiosity.

" I do. I just don't know anyone around here." you replied in a quiet voice, not willing to spare any more details.

" I see "

" Will you dance with me? ", he asked, extending his hand towards you, " I can be your friend, if you want? " he added with a smile.

His eyes held neither arrogance nor malice.

After some consideration you placed your hand in his and entered the ball room.

The talented musicians filled your heart with warmth and joy through their beautiful melodies, while numerous elegant couples gracefully glided across the dance floor, capturing your gaze. You exchanged a smile with Tauxolouve, who mirrored your gentle expression. Taking the lead, the two of you danced in perfect harmony with the rest of the couples, never separating from each other's presence.

The minutes flew by swiftly, without either of you realizing. He relished the time spent with you, and you also grew to appreciate his presence. The ordinary evening turned into a delightful one.

The melodies produced by the violins, harps, and pianos altered, resulting in the conclusion of that particular song.

The moon had risen high in the sky at midnight, and a sense of dread began to overwhelm you, compelling you to depart. Your face showed uneasiness, causing Tauxolouve, who had been closely studying your shifting expressions, to hesitate. He comprehended your feelings of despair.

" ( Name )", he said; his voice coming out as a wishper. " Will i ever see you again? " his eyes were solemn, there was a longing in his heart. " I don't know", you wishpered. You could no longer hold his gaze; those gentle brown eyes held a sadness which was unbearable to look upon.

Time was running out, you had to hurry. " Farewell my friend. " He held you hands one last time, softly placing a kiss on your knuckles. You put aside those forlone thoughts and met his gaze one last time. He put on his best smile, as if to say, he was grateful to have met you.

" Farewell." you said.

The door opened and you quickly slipped out.

#star crossed myth #scm tauxolouve #scm scorpio #scm aigonorus #scm dui #scm huedhaut #scm ichthys #scm karno #scm krioff #scm #scm teorus #scm leon #scm zyglavis #scm partheno #scm fanfic

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gffa · 1 year

Text

I felt about about looking up the ending for Death’s End before finishing these last 200 pages of the book, but I was so desperate to know where all of this was going, and I felt bad about that at first, like I’d ruined the surprise for myself. But as I’m still going through these final chapters, I’m gaining a new appreciation for the decision. I don’t think it would have worked to look it up before I read the book ahead of time, I had to experience the majority of the story without expectations, and maybe it would have been even better had I stuck to that. But I’m gaining a new appreciation for what this series does, why it had to be told the way it was, why all these big and small desperate choices being made all along the way. SPOILERS FOR THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM SERIES BEYOND THIS POINT.

I’m at the point where Cao Bin is taking Cheng Xin on a tour and they’ve gotten to Lightspeed II, which is empty and utterly eerie for it, because the flickering light is spooky as hell. Turns out, it’s the space dust falling into a black hole that’s 5km away, just a tiny one, is what’s making it like this--and it’s connected to the research into the Black Domain project, where they would create a black hole to lower the speed of light in the Solar System so they would no longer be a threat. And it struck me. That’s it, that’s what this whole story is about. All these civilizations just like humanity, desperately looking for a way to just survive, being forced into this warfare for existence, so they create black holes to show that they can never escape their own system and won’t be a threat, and it rips apart the fabric of the galaxy just a little more. Or every time an advanced civilization comes along and will annihilate them by destroying the plane of existence they live unless they re-engineer themselves to be able to live in one lower dimension, which rips apart another layer of the universe. I spent so much of this book wondering if humanity would find a way to stand with the other titans of the galaxy, if their ability to learn these concepts within mere centuries would save them, if they could learn to navigate the higher dimensions, if they would learn how to create light-speed travel, etc. And that’s it, that’s the trap! Every step they take, whether it makes them more powerful or deliberately handicaps them, whether they do it to themselves or another civilization does it to them, it’s another step on changing the fabric of the universe, until it rips another dimension away, until it lowers the speed of light in the galaxy, until eventually the whole thing is going to collapse everywhere. Knowing the end of the story, knowing where all of this is going, adds another layer of horror to that tiny little black hole off the side of Lightspeed II, one that’s not necessarily affecting anything, other than people can’t live here, but it slammed into me everything else that’s been going on, everything humanity has been desperately trying to achieve to save themselves, and all of it, all of it, is just helping bring their own eventual death on, because that’s the trap. If you leave everything alone, others will kill you. If you handicap yourself, you’re destroying the galaxy around you. If you keep progressing, you’re ripping into the fabric of the universe. There was never any way out of this, once you cross a certain threshold of progress. It’s chilling, but I can’t say it’s without hope. The universe doesn’t have to be forever for it to be worth something, all those lives that lived their time in the ways they could, all the people that got to experience things or had their friends and family around them, that still mattered, even when the bigger picture was much darker. I think I’m glad I knew the ending exactly where I did, it helped me articulate a lot of the feelings I had about the series, and I gained a hell of an appreciation for why it was structured the way it was. Every step of the way was an illustration of why the universe is the way it is, goddamn.

#the three body problem #the three body problem spoilers #lumi.txt

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scary-senpai · 2 years

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What about "Litost"? If I'm not mistaken I've seen you post about that word before... I'm also curious about "the body electric".

💖Ah, Treasured Mutual, can I tell you, this ask made me so happy? 💖

Seriously, it’s absolutely perfect because

1.) you picked the two WIPs which happen to be connected and

2.) you’ve spent time thinking about socio-economics/mental health/public health happens (or doesn’t) in the OPM-verse and

3.) these are the ones I’ve been working on the longest (and hardest!) trying to get right but

4.) even though I’m constantly thinking about them, I don’t talk about them, because they’re multi-part longfics I haven’t finished yet.

😭So thank you from the bottom of my heart, I mean it😭-- you made my day yesterday, this question is a blessing an a gift.

...Did I make that weird? I hope I didn’t make it weird.

In summary, The Body Electric (new title: Imperfect Creatures) and Litost are two series, and they are both comprised of multiple fics. Most can be read as stand-alones, for example: “scars” (which is on ao3 now) takes place in this universe, as does “Collateral Damage” (which is still a WIP, although I’ve posted some drafts here already).

The endgame for both Garou/Genos, but really there’s a lot more to it than that -- for example, both of the aforementioned stories are genfics: while interpersonal relationships are a focal point, they’re either familial or platonic. There is a slow burn, but it’s more of a character study than anything.

Specifically, I’ve always wondered why monsters get presented as an environmental/public health issue (because uncontrollable anger is a health concern), but nobody seems to be taking a preventative approach to the problem—even though that’s kind of a heavy detail to slip into your story just for funsies.

…So I created a third grassroots group that’s just trying to be a neutral party in all this. They’re out to help everyone (and everything) that comes to them—they won’t ask questions. But they are also conducting their own research projects (which is another inclination I have, I guess, when it comes to interpreting the manga: “monster” is just a catch-all term for things we don’t understand, but need to).

Anyway, this group is a little secretive (not everyone likes/agrees with what they are doing), but they have a specific tell: they use the word “creatures” where you’d expect them to use words like “humans,” “people” or “monster.” So, “The Body Electric” was the working title, but the official one (at least, as it stands right now) is “Imperfect Creatures.”

Speaking of these “Imperfect Creatures,” let’s talk characterization. I like writing about about Garou and Genos for the reasons I mentioned earlier: I perceive them as characters that aren’t going towards strength as much as they’re running away from perceived weakness, and abandoning their human bodies has become an integral part of that journey for them. And that’s the response you’d expect, given the things that they’ve witnessed even from a young age.

...What I find interesting about this is that trauma responses often live in the body just as much as the mind. When humans (and animals) experience traumatic events (either in isolation as with Genos, or repeatedly/over time as like Garou did), their figurative alarm bells start sounding and they essentially never stop. This can lead to violent outbursts, difficulty connecting with others, failure to perceive any situation as safe (and projecting one’s trauma onto one’s surroundings), inability to articulate emotions, and profound disconnection from one’s physical body—some survivor’s reach a point where they can no longer recognize their own reflection. Others paradoxically find themselves drawn to life-or-death situations, because that’s the only time they feel alive.

…Garou, in particular, always struck me as a kid who has forgotten you can also get serotonin from hugs as well as punches. I could write a whole essay about it (and I probably will, honestly). The key point, though, is that “feeling safe in your own body” is key to recovering from trauma.

As I mentioned, I started this project in early 2020, and I’ve been working very a long time to get it right. This includes honing my writing skills (it it soooo much more than putting words in order!!!!) and also doing additional research into canon and these other elements that I’m weaving in.

The Body Electric is the first series, and Litost is the sequel. “The body electric” (“TBE” for short) was a working title--it’s also the name of a Walt Whitman poem. I could go on a tangent about Transcendalist poets and espouse the interconnectivity of the universe and one-ness of everything and the joy of inhabiting oneself fully, but I’ll spare you: I chose the working title before I re-read the poem, and that was a mistake because hoooo boy let me tell you, WALT WHITMAN IS A HORNY-ASS MAN. They didn’t tell us that in English class. Go figure.

(And if I finish the series, all of my betas will get a mug that says exactly that. Or “titties out for Walt Whitman,” I haven’t decided yet.)

TBE has gone through a lot of iterations: my biggest challenge was getting these two emotionally closed off characters (Garou and Genos) together in a way that seemed believable and sincere. It started as a Comedy of Errors type deal, which fit canon (a little too much actually, considering recent events haha) but it also felt unfulfilling—why have your characters grow or make choices if Fate is going to push them in that direction, anyway?

…So next I tried “Accidental Meet Cute” but that didn’t work for me (neither character is wont to let a pretty face distract them from their goals), then “Hurt/Comfort” but that also didn’t square, because Garou never really lets his injuries get him down. So right now, I have them both coming from the same village, and I think (fingers crossed!) I can make that work—the biggest challenge is when/how they recognize each other, and at what point they admit it.

At first, I leaned into the idea that Genos had lost some of his memories as an unintentional consequence of the cyborgification process because body and brain are connected, and some aspects of memory are stored somatically, but “amnesia as plot device” never really felt authentic here, either. In summary, though, it felt like the plot was held together with shoestrings and chewing gum for a long time, which is why I was reticent to share anything even though brainstorming with others probably would have helped.

As the story stands right now (which is still subject to change), Garou was home visiting family when the attack happened. Genos knows that, and therefore has no reason to believe that Garou survived. Likewise, Garou has no reason to believe Genos survived (and Genos doesn’t share any details of his background with the public), but still makes a subconscious decision to leave Demon Cyborg out of his Hero Hunt, much in the same way he avoids Silverfang. Demon Cyborg hasn’t actually trained his body, Garou reasons, he’s just replaced it. That’s cheating, Garou rationalizes. Not worth my time. He’s probably not even worthy of being S-Class, he just got bonus points for being pretty…

Ah, it kills me that in the WC, Garou stays on to fight Genos rather than flee because he’s “unfairly handsome”...

“TBE” begins before Garou’s first manga appearance, and I think it ends before his Hero Hunt begins in earnest. I have Garou at the dojo during the Giant Meteor Arc, because sending Bang to die in front of a space rock adds a bit more depth to his hatred of the HA without detracting from his viciousness at all--this is yet another problem Garou could have solved by sharing his feelings (”I can’t stand to see you acting reckless. What if you’re the only family I have...”), but he isn’t there yet.. and Bang isn’t one to notice these things. Assuming a worst-case scenario, Bang reasons, I’m leaving the dojo in good hands.

The road to hell really is paved with good intentions, isn’t it? >:)

Basically I don’t want to worry too too much about being canon compliant, and maybe I’ll rewrite a few canon scenes but I also don’t want to break off into an entirely different universe, because TBE ends the same way—with Saitama fighting Garou, and Garou losing. But since Saitama knows Garou quite well by now, and he knows how much Genos cares about him, it makes their final fight much more painful. So, imagine the scene where Garou is thinking about all the things he’s tried to defeat Saitama, only to have them fail? I’m imagining that scene, inside Saitama’s head:

I tried to relate to him.

I tried asking questions.

I tried talking.

I tried talking to the kid.

I tried talking about the old man.

I tried to show you that you’re good.

I tried being nice.

-I tried being stern.

Please, Garou. Don’t make me do this.

Which brings us to “Litost” — you’re right, that’s a term that I’ve used before. Specifically, I’ve joked that it’s Saitama’s true superpower:

“Litost is a state of torment caused by a sudden insight into one’s own miserable self... Litost works like a two-stroke motor. First comes a feeling of torment, then a desire for revenge.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The story takes place after the Monster Association, and it's mostly about the first two parts (Torment, and Insight)--everyone's trying to move forward, without thinking so much about revenge anymore.

If I make it that far, I might indulge myself and get a little experimental. I've been toying with the idea that Saitama actually starts losing his strength, and it's unclear why-- he just knows that every time he fights anything, he sees some weird, confused kid, and that makes him hesitate.

Right now, I'm just collecting scenes and I haven't thought too much about how to interweave them. I know that Garou untangles his relationship with Bang ("no, he's not a great person but yes, he has positively impacted my life, but also while huring me?") and learns more about Bang's past. Genos also begins to see Saitama in a more critical light, and grapples with similar questions-- although he hasn't hurt Genos, he hurt Garou (whom Genos cares deeply about), and Saitama had specifically promised not to. Maybe infinite strength wasn’t the answer, after all.

But other than that, though... I’ll just screencap my “thesis statement” from Discord, because that’s how I’ve taken to organizing my WIPs (multiple Discord servers, among other things). “Cw” doesn’t stand for “content warning”—those are just my initials, so it’s essentially a note to self:

Yeah, so that’s... a whole lot of stuff, I guess. Thank you again for the ask, I really appreciate it! I really enjoy any chance to talk about stories--my own, or somebody else’s. <3

#one punch man fanfic #opm fanfic #my writing #wip #wilf #(work I'd like to finish)#garou x genos #gearou

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zhuhongs · 2 years

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Once again thinking a lot about childhood and how we grow up and its left me with two thoughts I’ve had for a while but just figured out how to articulate:

1. I really feel like i should've gotten into fights more often when i was a kid. Like, so much of school is teaching you how to be obedient and how to stay in line and not cause trouble. And to an extent I do this too as a teacher, and to an extent it is needed. Like kids cannot constantly be pushing and touching people for no reason. It causes a lot of unnecessary harm. But schools also strip kids of the ability to fight when they need to. We often teach kids to look the other way and let things happen to them that they should protest more. And now I understand why I became weirdly violent in my late teens. It’s because that anger was never satisfied. I held in so much anger that I just popped. I had a childs wrath sitting inside the body of an adult and it had to come out. So it did. But tbh I really feel like i should’ve fought in those moments. It lead to a lifetime of never fighting back and always taking. I wish that we had those conversations as children about how to identify the situations that warrant a fight and for the adults around us to support us when aggression was justified and correct us when that aggression was misguided. Like, I know that’s really hard. like I have experienced how hard it is to do this. But fuck... just bc I can’t fix it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t think abt it yk.

2. This isn’t really a full thought, but something that apart of a larger thing I’ve been processing for a while. I felt like I raised myself and spent my childhood focusing on myself as an individual bc I couldn’t connect to others. Because of this I;ve spent my college years learning about how others live at all stage of life. Part of this I;ve noticed is in their interests. So when i was a kid I always wanted to do the hardest things and consume the most adult media I could, or at least something one step above where I should've been. I thought this desire to grow up quickly was natural and that i needed to persuade kids to act their age a little longer. But now that I am with kids so often I realize that the majority kids aren’t like this. Or at least, not to the extent that I was as a child. i was the outlier. Most kids stick to age appropriate things. I realized that things that are “for kids” are like that because they appeal to kids, not because we deem them to be this way. Kindergarteners don’t want to play the games that the big kids do. THey know what's too hard for them and they like simpler things because they are little. They need to go through the gradual process of getting better at things. i was the one that placed astronomical expectations on myself. I was the one that wanted to grow up too fast. This isn’t indicative of every child. There will always be the few that want to grow up immediately, but most kids do indeed treasure being kids. Not that many of them are in a rush. I was just different because of my environment. Most of the kids that feel the way that I do are this way bc they are in a similar environment and I need to look out for them especially. I’m starting to get it now. I’m starting to really understand why my experiences are not universal. i’ve always known this, its obvious but now i understand the little ways that everyone is different and that I can’t project my experiences onto others. It’s so interesting.

I’m just, really really glad I found this job and ended up in this field at this moment. I needed it. I don’t want to be in this field forever, I don’t want to be a teacher, but being here right now is teaching me how to reconcile my past with my present and how that past brought me here. I forgot my childhood so much, it all just looks like beige bricks in a tower but now these bricks have gained color. I can distinguish a lot and remember a lot about how I was. The way I am is not how I always was. and that is okay.

#i've also thought a lot about what I want these kids to learn from me. i know they wont remember me in a year or two but I really hope I #could impart of love of making things #a love of doing stuff with your hands and being proud of creating. thats what I want to encourage i hope i can suceed #I know these kids will leave and forget me and I will leave and forget about them. but ik a few will stay. and this time will be meaningful #in my first camp experience the naturalist spent the last day imparting the idea that this will be #the last time we will all be together at the same time but that regardless some memory will linger. its been 5 years since then and I still #think about that. It was a beautiful sentiment. the memories indeed linger #I hope their memory of me is a good one. it doesnt need to be of me but hopefully my lessons instilled some sort of joy. thats all i want #🐌.txt

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aurora-carries-the-sky · 5 months

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Character Questionnaire

From here. Thank you!

This is looooooong.

Full name:

Her name before she took on a new one with her Exaltation: Aurora Averla

After Exaltation: Aurora Carries the Sky

Preferred name/nickname

She's perfectly fine just being called "Aurora" but she introduces herself as "Aurora Carries the Sky" first.

Appearance.

HEIGHT: Somewhere between 5'5 and 5'6.

BUILD: She's very fit. Muscular. Something of a runner's or high jumper's build.

HAIR: Dark brown with lighter brown/golden highlights. She used to wear it short (no longer than to her shoulders), but has recently grown it out long. It's thick, wavy, and messy with many small braids.

SKIN: Olive

EYES: Brown with gold flecks.

MOUTH: Her lips are neither super full nor thin. There's a slight downturn to the corners that might make her neutral expression seem like she's overly serious, agitated, or deep in thought.

NOSE: Aquiline. A bit prominent with a curved bridge. She does not feel remotely self conscious about her nose; she actually rather likes it.

HANDS: Her hands would look rather elegant if they were pampered at all. Her fingers are long and slender, but it's obvious she's spent a great deal of time outdoors and no time at all manicuring her short fingernails.

SCARS: Aurora has a small, -almost- imperceptible scar on the left corner of her mouth and across her left eyebrow. There are a few scars on her upper arms and another across her collarbone.

CLOTHES: Nothing fancy. Mostly linen or cotton, fabrics that breathe and feel comfortable. She tends towards black, white, and soft browns but there's usually a small splash of color somewhere (a scarf, a belt, fabric braided into her hair, etc...) that keeps her from looking too drab. Notably, she does have a fondness for more expensive, fancy clothes- but her lifestyle keeps her from purchasing and wearing anything too nice for fear of getting it torn up. If she has nice things it's important to her to protect and care for them.

She doesn't wear many high collars if she can avoid it because she hates the feel of them on her neck. She also prefers short sleeves or no sleeves at all because she's very proud of her arms and likes the opportunity to show them off.

Speech.

ACCENT: Her native language is Rivertongue. I imagine she has a noticeable accent when she speaks in other languages. I'm not sure how that accent would sound though...

VERBAL TICKS: She starts and restarts sentences multiple times when she's flustered or frustrated. It's not so much a stutter as her speaking faster than she's thinking and needing to start over once her brain catches up with her mouth. She often uses "Ok" as a punctuation mark to start a new topic. "Ok. What we need to do is get the--- no. Ok. We need to visit the--. No. No! Ok! I got it. Here's the plan. We are going to blah blah blah..."

LANGUAGE: River, High Realm, and Old Realm.

ARTICULATION: If she gets too lost in her head she is very clumsy with her speech. There are many false starts, she speaks too quickly, she leaves out important information, she trips over her tongue, etc... That said, when she feels confident about her message or she recognizes someone else -needs- her confidence, she can become surprisingly well-spoken.

EDUCATION: This is something of a sore spot for her. She had the privilege of a very good education and did not have the patience for it when she was younger. She did not pay attention to it and didn't much think it mattered. Now that she's older she wishes she'd tried harder.

LAUGHTER: Infectious. She laughs easily and openly. She isn't demure, shy, or terribly quiet about it. Unfortunately, there have definitely been times she should not have laughed at something and could not stop herself. "Obnoxious" might be a good descriptor of her laughter in those cases.

GRUMP: Hahaha! I just like the word "Grump." Anyway, when she's grumpy she sighs through her nose. A lot.

Mannerisms.

FACE: Aurora's face is ridiculously expressive. Though her neutral expression might have some RBF going on, if she's actively engaged in something her face very clearly gives away what she's thinking and how she feels. When she's angry, her expression visibly darkens. Happy? Her grin lights up her face. Sad? Her eyes are already glistening with tears before -she- even knows how sad she is. She doesn't have a good poker face at all.

HANDS: Though her face is very expressive and very active, she is very much in control of her body. She does use her hands when she gets excited telling a story, but if she is asked not to, it is very easy for her to keep her hands to her side. She doesn't tap nervously on tables or fidget too much. She keeps her hands at rest, folded on her lap or on armrests or by her sides.

LEGS/FEET: Likewise, she doesn't tap her feet or have restless legs. She doesn't frequently shift her weight when standing. In fact, she has exceedingly good posture and physical control. It's emotional control she struggles with.

EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS: Aurora is usually laid-back and just looking to have a nice time. This might make someone assume she's incapable of being serious. And that's really just not true at all. She's extremely capable of being serious when it's called for. And, if pushed once she's elected to be serious, it's very easy to push her buttons and move her straight from serious to absolutely pissed off. Or to despair. Or... Really anything. She is easy to emotionally manipulate and it is not difficult to read her emotions.

POSTURE: Her posture is ridiculously good. Perhaps a little rigid at times, but extremely practiced. Her great posture has confused people into thinking she is a few inches taller than she is at times. Even when she's "at ease" and lounging, there's something about the way she does it that seems somehow less slouched than someone else sitting the same way.

WALKING POSTURE: She doesn't march everywhere. That'd be stupid. But even her casual walk, with her chin up, shoulders back, and back straight make it so very easy to identify her as someone who has had military training.

PERSONAL SPACE: She likes being close to others. She accidentally invades personal spaces because her own personal bubble is so small as to be almost non-existent. She clasps other people's shoulders and hands. She squeezes arms. She is quick to hug them. Just as quick to lift them off their feet if they let her. She warmly kisses cheeks in greeting if allowed. She will also do NONE of that if it makes someone uncomfortable.

Health:

DIET: Aurora LOVES to eat, though admittedly she will often forget to if she's focusing on something else. She has a strong preference for spicy foods, particularly heavily spiced soups and stews. She is not bad at camp cooking and is skilled at fishing. She takes pride in her ability to make robust, tasty meals with relatively few ingredients.

She has a weakness for sweet breads and pastries and always beelines towards bakeries in any new city she finds herself in.

SLEEP: She also LOVES sleep. And rarely gets enough of it. Like eating, she'll just forego sleep if something important needs to get done.

The exception is when she gets to stay in inns. If given the chance, she'd do almost nothing BUT sleep when given a nice, clean, comfortable bed.

EXERCISE: Yes. Yes, yes, very yes. She does this for fun. It's not for discipline, even if she says it is, it's because she just genuinely enjoys it. Disgusting.

ACTIVITY: Very active. Always looking for ways to be MORE active.

CLEANLINESS: She is as clean as she can be and very self-conscious about it! She spends so much of her time being active and sweating outdoors that she's certain she must smell terrible. She doesn't actually smell nearly as bad as she imagines she must.

ODOUR: She smells like soap or sweat, probably. While she might wear a little perfume if going somewhere nice, she typically doesn't. It feels very odd to her to put perfume on to hike, explore nature, or train. But she does try to bathe as often as she can and she collects different kinds of soaps to carry with her so she can feel like she's really living a life of luxury as she, once again, has a cold outdoor bath.

RECREATIONAL DRUGS: Sure. She's not opposed! I don't think she seeks them out, but it's not because she has any problem with them.

ADDICTIONS: Nah. I don't think so atm.

INJURIES: Every now and then the long scar on her collarbone feels sore again and irritates her.

PARASITES: Um. Nope.

Personal.

OPTIMIST/PESSIMIST: She is trying to be more optimistic these days-- but it's still a bit of an act. Because things -have- to get better and she -has- to play a part in that, she won't allow herself to consider any alternative. If she does, she'll get disheartened, and when she's disheartened she becomes pessimistic.

GENDER: It isn't anything she really thinks about, actually. I suppose she thinks of herself as female, but I don't think her gender is all that important to her.

SEXUALITY: Bisexual. People are so attractive in so many different ways; why limit herself?

ROMANTIC: She fantasizes about big, grand, romantic scenarios but she doesn't have any experience with that reality. Life hasn't given her much of an opportunity for romance so far and she wouldn't have a clue what to do if it did, but she's definitely the romantic sort in theory!

MEMORY: She doesn't have a great memory for finer details. She's great at remembering the general shape of things, but struggles with trivia/lists of facts.

PLANNING: Aurora takes planning seriously... To a point. Like her memory, she is good at planning in broad strokes but not at nailing down every detail. In fact, she prefers not to go over every detail because (proving her optimism is an act she's putting on) she assumes something will always go wrong. If she doesn't leave room in her plans for the inevitable failure then everything will go to shit. Instead, there's got to be room to improvise. There's no sense getting attached to all the details because it could lead to inflexibility when (not if) the plan falls apart.

PROBLEM SOLVING: She's quick to identify problems and quick to try to solve them. She's absolutely a woman of action. Does that mean her solutions to problems are the best ways to solve them? Absolutely fucking not.

GOALS:

+ She needs to do something major, something indisputably GOOD, that makes a meaningful difference in the world and she has to do it with the name "Aurora Carries the Sky". This is how she'll carry on Sky's legacy. This is how she'll keep him alive.

+ She needs to make many powerful allies. Ideally, they'll continue making huge, positive changes in the world, of course, but her ultimate reason for this is because she intends to build an army strong enough to take back Thorns from the Mask of Winters.

+ She needs to find the man who killed Unbroken Sky and murder him. Making the world a better place is a gift for Sky. Getting revenge? That's for herself.

INSECURITIES:

She has no idea why the Unconquered Sun chose her or why Sky believed in her. She looks back on her life and all she sees is failure. She failed to protect everything she loved and all she thinks she's ever succeeded at is running from one mistake right into another one. She worries she's not strong enough or smart enough to see any of her goals through and, in the course of trying, that she'll be unable to protect the people she cares about. The only thing that keeps her going despite her nearly crippling insecurities is just the realization that she CAN'T stop. There's too much to be done. She can't waste the gifts she's been given even if it feels like they were given to the wrong person.

ACHIEVEMENTS: [Anything they're proud of?]

She has helped a great number of people since becoming Exalted. So far it hasn't been a grand, world changing kind of help that she can say, "That's it! That's my gift to Sky!" but she's wise enough to know that to every individual whose life has been positively changed in some way by her presence that it -feels- to them like a grand, world changing good. And that feels like an achievement.

The Past.

PARENTS/GUARDIANS: [Did they have a good relationship with their parents while they were growing up?]

So so. She was something of a disappointment to her parents. Her family was fairly well known for being skilled poets, musicians, and scholars. She didn't excel at any of the above pursuits. And the more she was pushed to find her "calling" by her parents the more opportunities she had to disappoint them by not finding it. Despite this tension, there was no lack of love in the family and Aurora was very fond of them. If she wasn't, she wouldn't have tried so hard to please them. And later she never would have volunteered to join the military when they suggested it to her.

SCHOOL: [Did they do well at school, or did they struggle?]

Oh, it was a struggle. She didn't enjoy school. She was an average student but being "average" felt like another failure.

FURTHER EDUCATION: [Did they go to college? University? What did they study, and how well did they do?]

She did not seek out further education having written that off as another thing just not meant for her. Instead, she joined the military.

WORST DAY OF THEIR LIFE:

Learning her hometown, with her family inside it, had become a Shadowland, for sure.

BEST DAY OF THEIR LIFE:

One evening after saving a caravan from attacking bandits with Sky and members of his entourage. She'd held her own. No innocent people were lost or hurt. There was a celebration with music, dancing, story telling and drinks. She stayed up late and Sky has stayed up with her. He told her that it was moments like that that he lived for and that he hoped one day he could do something so spectacular that it'd change a million more lives for the better. He was proud of his fighting skills, sure, but he wanted his legacy to be using them for something indisputably -good- and, better yet, he wanted her to be there for it. He was certain that with her by his side it was something that could be accomplished. And she believed it, too. It felt right. For the first time she felt she could and -would- accomplish something.

And she still believes that. And she'll still do that. With him. Even if just in spirit.

LESSONS: [What are the most important things they have learned through experience?]

+ Small victories are just as important as the big ones. It's the small ones that make big ones possible. If she can convince enough small groups of people that every good deed they do makes a -world- of difference to the people it helps, maybe she can one day gather many, many small groups of activists to do something monumentally good.

+ She can't waste time doubting herself. It's not useful. It doesn't help. She'd rather pretend she's confident and that she has no concerns because she's seen how horrible and useless she becomes when she doubts herself. She can feel insecure later AFTER she's accomplished her goals. There's no time for it right now.

Relationships.

FAMILY:

Aurora Averla grew up as a middle child. She had a mother, a father, an older sister, a twin brother, and a younger sister. She loved all of them but she was closest to her twin brother. She butt heads the most with her older sister and her mother.

FRIENDSHIPS: [Do they have lots of friends, or just one or two close friends?]

She tends to make all sorts of friendly acquaintances but isn't usually in one area long enough to make many long term friendships. She hopes to change that.

ANNOYANCES: [How do they deal with arguments and disagreements with friends or partner?]

Usually with fairly good humor. If it gets bad enough she has a temper tantrum she later regrets and then runs off to brood on her own.

ROMANCE: [If applicable: how do they woo a potential partner? What do they look for in a potential partner?]

Aurora is not quick to fall for someone. She enjoys fantasizing about "what if" situations, but she takes none of it seriously. It's really a long, slow burn with her: evening heart to hearts, daydreaming together, building connections through shared dreams and a looooong period of time flirting. She's much faster to bed someone. That takes no time at all if there's an immediate spark or curiosity. But romantic love? Partnership? Anyone in a hurry is going to want to just keep looking. She doesn't especially -want- to fall in love. She's really got no time for it. And she thinks it's probably if both parties just agree there's no sense in getting caught up in anything too serious. It's easier that way. Safer.

But when she -does- fall in love it's desperately. And the more she tries to deny it the harder she falls.

She's openly affectionate, loyal, protective, and all about romantic gestures (both small and grand). Knowing she's done something to make her partner's day even slightly better gives her a high that can last an entire day.

She -doesn't- look for potential partners. But if we set that aside and pretend that she does and that she has a shopping list it'd be:

Active, easily amused, willing to jump into danger at a moment's notice to help someone else, easy to talk to, enthusiastic, all about big, bold, grand gestures and declarations, ridiculously confident, and looks good in sleeveless shirts.

ADVERSARIES: [What would turn them off a friendship or romance?]

Turn offs are:

Selfish/Indifferent to others, power hungry, someone who gets a thrill out of making other people do things for them, unearned arrogance (earned arrogance is, unfortunately, kind of a turn on), being cagey/secretive/deceptive, sloppily dressed.

ENEMIES: [What would make them hate someone enough to call them an enemy?]

Oh, threaten or hurt someone she cares about right in front of her. That'll do it. Easy! Mission accomplished! Congratulations on making yourself memorable enough to her that she fantasizes more about getting revenge on you than on happier, more worthwhile fantasies.

WORST ENEMY: [If applicable - who do they consider to be their worst enemy?]

That'd be Forgotten Sun's brother and absolutely anyone that participated in the downfall of her hometown. In desperate bouts of horrible depression she includes herself on that list.

RESPECT: [Do they respect their enemies, even if they don’t like them?]

Not so far, no!

Then again, she hasn't exactly had long, philosophical conversations with any of them that might change her opinion of them.

Then again again, she prefers her that way. She's not interested in talking. The disrespect and anger drives her. She doesn't want to lose that. That'd be like losing herself and everything she's fought for at that point.

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