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#and incredibly human grief follows us for the rest of the series
crimezi · 4 months
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okay so i was thinking about how the winners of the life series get assigned a celestial body that corresponds with their personalities
grian - the sun: the origin of life, an authority or divinity, that which everything revolves, light of the server, a ever burning source of shock and awe
scott - the stars: all the light that’s too far to reach, unchanging predictable path, always reliable, infinite and unattainable, a sort of destiny
pearl - the moon: that which inspires insanity, a constantly evolving and always present force, can change the tides, she’s got range <3
martyn - mars: the symbol of war for wars sake, rather easily manipulated despite his own knack for manipulation, ancient to the point of rusting, willing to betray everyone for a leg up in the terror
so i came up with at least my reasons for the rest >:3 i did my best to mix different symbolism and a few of them are more sound in their reasoning but i’m happy
mumbo - mercury: two sides of an extreme either too hot or too cold, constantly making insane twists in logic, a follower of sorts (he’s insane constantly in an out of control, seeks out information and spreads it around)
skizz- venus: the goddess of love <3, from afar a simple bright light but upclose the most volatile mix of elements, incapable of hosting life (he just wants to see everyone together but also he loves it when he’s given a reason to go a little crazy he’s so Aphrodite coded)
scar- earth: being returned to which sustains us, something something cycles and rebirth, potential, the roots that connect us, the feeling of stability and belonging, a strength that goes unnoticed (he is the flesh maggots adore, where would we be with out him)
gem- aurora borealis: the goddess of the dawn, circle of life, a connection to the dead, power and wonder (i only have so much to work with but also she is the embodiment of a spectacle the shimmering chaotic brightness and also dawn imagery is her thing)
bdubs- eclipses: a doom or foreboding sense of darkness, something so profound that can extinguish even the brightest light, seemingly inextricably connected livable chaos (bdubs is simultaneously very dark and very bright he’s always on edge and genuinely i think we should be more terrified of his ability to flip in a dime he’s very volatile and i love him)
jimmy - meteorshowers/shooting stars: gift from heaven, mystery beyond human comprehension, forces beyond control (boy falls so much, no but his brief but beautiful existence like transience, he moves so fast he burns himself always right before or at the beginning of the unravelling chaos)
cleo- ceres : the mother <3, death and rebirth, the rhythms of the seasons, fostering and adopting, unconditional love, all the issues of devotion, attachment, separation, sacrifice, loss and grief (big sad feelings every season, they always have a deep connection that’s brutally severed)
joel- jupiter: lonely despite all his efforts, all about improvement and good karma, lots of energy spent in forming relationships, calls forth miracles and changing fates, big eye for an eye vibes (he’s the big man!!, he’s always very focused on improving his game and making good deals but still incredibly stubborn)
etho- saturn: a very divorced married divorced planet, very focused in discipline and wisdom, lots of personal responsibility but can also represent shame and suffering (he’s got this very interesting balance going on between being very civil but also very anxious, i could study him for hours)
tango: uranus: hehehe, raw genius and eccentricity, upheaval and innovation hand in hand, out of balance a little rebellious!!! (tango is oops all unconventional ideas also he’s always better off in groups but his individuality and need to discover stop consistently leads him into unexpected sudden issues)
lizzie - neptune: the mystical realm the domain of dreams and delusions, always just a little to vague with intentions, idealism to a fault, a emphasis on creativity and intuition (she is confusion incarnate, listen everything about lizzie comes back to magic fairy shit)
bigb- pluto: a new approach and new perspective, the underbelly of emotions what lies beneath the surface, an unconscious mind exploring dark domains and cycles of harm, spirt over matter (listen bigb is the physical embodiment of ‘what happens if i exculswively go with the flow and just sorta stuble upon answers to questions nobody had?’ and i love him)
impulse- the void: all things ambiguous, the gap inbetween your real self and the replacement ego, incomprehensible emptiness (impulse always has like five facades up and behind all of that is nothing knowable there’s a gnawing sense of dread in all his seasons)
ren - supernova: an explosive transformation, change itself, unleashed potential, fusion in a strange and tragic ways, the afterlife, never ending chain of destinies (he’s just got so much energy he fucking exploded that’s why he’s not in the last 2 seasons he’s crazy powerful he’s just sets things in motion so often, he’s also very pretty <333)
okay i think all of that makes sense lmao
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cr-noble-writes · 3 months
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2023 Mass Effect Fic Recs
As we approach the end of the year, I want to shout out some really fantastic fics I've read this year. Some of them were posted this year, some of them were posted earlier, but I found them this year so they're going on the list.
Some of these deal with some pretty heavy issues, so mind the tags!
Natural Fissures by happychica
The necessities, the demands, and the endless pressure that is war finally crack the foundation that is Commander Shepard. Forced to face his demons, John is reminded once again that the people he fights for are willing to defend him, even from himself.
This fic is an ongoing longfic set during the ME3 timeline, and it is an absolutely incredible piece that follows not only Shepard, but the rest of the crew in their personal journeys alongside the crisis of The Reaper War.
Fugue by Swaps55
A few minutes more and they wouldn’t have even been on the ship. The Mako was scheduled and ready for drop, both of them suited up and ready with the final checklist completed.
A few minutes more, and they would have watched the Normandy burn from the surface of Alchera.
But they didn’t get those minutes.
Alchera, and the two year gap.  
Really, I recommend the entire Opus series, and everything related to it (really, anything that Swaps has written). Fugue is an absolutely beautiful depiction of the journey of grief and hope, and I honestly still don't have the words to express the things it made me feel.
Phoenix by mallaidhsomo
Shepard went down with his ship, only to wake two years later and find out the love of his life had gone down, too. Or so he thinks.
First off, I am an absolute sucker for Subject Zero!Kaidan. This fic is an incredible depiction of that, and I may be slightly just a little bit mildly in love with Sidney Shepard.
Descent by mallaidhsomo
Leo Shepard makes a promise to Ashley Williams that he intends to keep.
Or, relationships are complicated.
I adore Leo Shepard. I highly recommend reading all three posted parts of the Us Against The World series. The relationship building in this fic is just so good, and I have found my new favorite side character in Bolts the Drone.
An Unfortunately Sexy Man by missjlh
Jarun Tann is an obtuse fool. Unfortunately, he's an obtuse fool that Addison, Kandros and Kesh all have a crush on. The three of them get together to offer one another moral support through what is clearly the very worst thing to have happened thus far in Andromeda.
This fic is so god damn funny. I love it so much, and when I am having a particularly bad day, I go back and read it. It's such a well written comedic piece.
Volta by DanDenbo
At the outset of the war, Kaidan Alenko wonders about his path - whether to become a spectre, whether to rejoin the Normandy, and what to do about his feelings for Shepard. During a mission on Chalkhos, he finds his answers.
Non-binary Shepard/Kaidan battle couple. I feel like that honestly is enough of a recommendation. This is an incredibly well written piece. Shepard and Kaidan's relationship, and the complex nature of it, is just so well done.
Life Behind Enemy Lines by Otempora
The Illusive Man leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “We humans have a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Shepherd was familiar with the phrase, but turians didn’t think that way.
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Species swap AU, Human!Garrus/Turian!Shepard. ME2 retelling. Not a standalone.
I would kill and/or die for Shepherd and also for Gareth. An incredibly well done, intriguing, and captivating species swap. Shepherd is such a complex character, and she makes my heart hurt.
There are honestly a billion more fics I would recommend, but it would end up being the world's longest tumblr post, so I am gonna call it here for now.
Please enjoy!!
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natdrinkstea · 8 months
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tagged by @chiropteracupola and @dxppercxdxver :3 time for you all to judge my taste in books!
rules: list ten books that have stayed with you in some way, don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.
putting this under a cut because I hate making long posts. the rules up there say "don't take but a few minutes and don't think too hard" but I don't know how to do Either of those things. this post is Long. you've been warned.
1. is, of course, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Cat Valente. It's a wonderful, clever story that absolutely ruined the way I view fantasy, devotion, and girlhood at a young age. It's beautiful and magical and devastating AND I LOVE IT!!!!
2. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. I post about this series all the time but I never really express how much it means to me? It's about a friendship that's so strong it defies all odds, it's about finding magic in the mundane, it's about being a weird little guy with anxiety who's trying to be braver.
3. The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune (they are tied). SORRY FOR THE BOOKTOK MOMENT LOL but these novels are about finding love at an older age in an unexpected place!!! about relishing little moments with people you care about in a world that's beautiful! and the way klune writes introspection really feels like how I Think. it's like a magnifying glass into my brain
4. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. another one I post a lot about that seems very out of left field considering the rest of the list! but it was recommended to me at a hard time by one of my closest friends, and the incredibly intelligent and thoughtful way it uses Words and Language to express both Horror and Humanity has had SO MUCH influence on how I want to write
5. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White. This novel captures queer rage in a way that feels deeply personal and wildly cathartic, and the desperation and passion with which Benji views the world and the people he cares about feels the same. Also it helped me get over my fear of meat 👍hooray, meat!
6. Now this is getting hard. um. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir <3 sorry to put a popular book again but listen. it's about humanity and how ugly and brutal and full of love we are. it's about being so painfully Normal and Alive in a world that's trying to keep what you love from you. It's about eating breakfast and petting a dog and swimming in the sea and it's UNAPOLOGETIC IN IT'S HONESTY. IT'S SO HEALING TO THE INNER CHILD TO SEE NONA LOVE SO FIERCELY
7. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. listen. it's not a great book. it's stereotype-y and gross and kind of boring but. when you're in fifth grade and very neurodivergent but trying very, very hard not to let yourself show it, reading about a girl who is proudly Weird and Impulsive and Kind and Creative is like finally getting to see what you could be if you were a little less afraid. she was a manic pixie dream girl but she was mine, y'know?
8. (at this point I'm getting up to look at my bookshelf)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Again, hugely different from the rest of this list, but probably the book I read in high school that I felt was most worth my time. Stunning, earnest writing and a deeply human story. I could go on for probably an hour about how clever Ellison's imagery is, and how powerful a choice as small as leaving your protagonist nameless can be. If anything on this terrible list is required reading, it's this
9. similarly, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I read this book for school, but by choice, and I kind of hated it! Not gonna lie! But something about how batshit insane it is left a huge impression on me. While it's wildly unrealistic and often frustrating, there are little bits of earnest grief and uncomfortably close-to-home interactions that make it feel like it Could happen. The way it describes parent-child relationships makes me want to escape my mortal flesh due to feeling Too Seen.
IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!!!!! anyway @haijinks @neonphoenix @human-sweater-vest @lasaraleen @samwisegamwise I'd love to see your ten books but there is No Pressure :3 love u !
10. FINALLY THE END! FUCK YOU! PERCY JACKSON!!! it's so funny and clever and diverse and ACCURATE! twelve year olds are little shits who want desperately to run away from their parents and make friends and have adventures! it made my sense of humor what it is, it introduced me to a blonde female protagonist who was INTELLIGENT AND BRAVE (things I always thought I was but was afraid to be)!!!!! and, most importantly, my first thought upon receiving my adhd diagnosis a week ago (it's been about five years since I last read pjo), was "wow. I'm one step closer to being a half-blood".
EDIT: there are bonus books in the replies that my dumb brain forgot ab until rn if u wanna see :]
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glassamphibians · 3 years
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more people should have died in heroes of olympus :/
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"A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own...you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart." - Edward Elric
In honor of disability month and the FMA 20 year anniversary I wanted to address some Thoughts™️ about the series.
It's not often you see a disabled protagonist in media where their disability is integral to the story without taking up their entire character, even more so with anime. Yet, Fullmetal Alchemist has not just one disabled Protagonist, but two. The Elric Brothers are an exemplary representation of disability in media that I find myself reflecting on often as a disabled person myself. If you haven't completed the manga or Brotherhood, skip this as it will be brimming with spoilers.
(Mangahood will be my point of reference because while 03 is good on its own merits it's not as fresh within my immediate memory, and I am far less familiar with it. Keep this in mind, I've watched FMAB 10 and a half times whereas I've finished 03 only once years ago.)
The story highlights their disabilities immediately, Edward being a double amputee and Alphonse being without his ENTIRE body, only having the senses of proprioception, sight, and hearing left. Yet, despite this being key to the story and an integral part of their characterization, it is only one facet of their motivations and doesn't take center in the narrative, which is refreshing. It's not inherently negative to make a narrative centered on the characters' disabilities, but often this model of a story goes very wrong very fast and starts to feel hollow (no pun intended). FMA avoids this by making their disabilities a clear part of the plot and their motivations without allowing it to consume the entire story, so the Elric Brothers don't suffer the "my disability is all of my character" problem that many disabled characters are relegated to in a vast portion of media, all while being strong and competent.
Recap:
The brothers wished to revive their mother, but their good intentions cannot change the atrocity of their mistake, Truth makes this abundantly clear from the start. Edward loses his leg first, a punishment for "stepping" into God's shoes and transgressing the place of humans in their world. Alphonse loses his entire body, unable to feel any warmth or simple comforts like food and rest, when all he wanted was to feel the warmth and comfort of his mother's embrace again. At first, Alphonse's entire being is consumed by the gate, but Edward acts immediately, refusing to lose his little brother and refusing to allow his arrogance in this plan to cause his brother's death for only following his lead. Edward gives his right arm to have the gate give back Alphonse's soul, and stated clearly in his panic that he'd give his entire self to save Alphonse if that's what it would take, but Truth took his dominant arm only, showing something akin to mercy, although the character of Truth is capriciously strict and hard to describe as "merciful".
Through giving up his right arm, Edward regains his Right Hand Man, his little brother and best friend. His only remaining family, who he feels responsible for protecting in the absence of their parents. He felt immediately that he'd made a grave mistake, instantly full of regret as he realized the gate had taken his brother. In that moment he was willing to give anything to take it back and undo the suffering his arrogance caused his brother, yet Alphonse was still to suffer more to come. Ed tied Alphonse's disembodied soul to one of Hohenheim's collected suits of armor, managing to at least keep his brother alive in some way. One could say that Alphonse's punishment functioned as a secondary punishment for Edward, showing him how easily his hubris could have cost him what he has left in his obsession with regaining what they'd lost, their mother. A very clear symbolic reminder of the weight of his actions and how he'd misled his brother in his own naive ignorance. Even in giving another limb away to drag his brother's soul back out of the gate, he couldn't offer enough to bring him back intact. Thus is the law of equivalent exchange.
Now that we've reviewed some of that basic symbolism and the motifs the story draws upon with limbs and body parts in relation to characters, let's move on to each individual brother and break it down, shall we?
Edward Elric is a very realistic protagonist, this is one thing a majority of us familiar with this series can agree upon. He feels like a believable teen boy, with layers of complexity to his character while also showing arrogance and immaturity that is unsurprising at his age. He expresses unwillingness to kill and avoidance of unjust violence from the beginning, and has a strong moral code after the ordeal of committing the taboo.
In some characters his cocky personality would typically become grating, yet the story explains in itself why he is this way, then builds upon this to develop him into an incredibly mature character who is willing to admit when he's absolutely wrong and adapts to new information and context for the crisis unfolding around him as it comes, even if he remains crass. This arrogance is shown from the start to be a manifestation of insecurity, self loathing, and repressed guilt. Edward is a logic driven person, he has a very unique thought process, which is where my interpretation of him as autistic comes in. Edward's awkward social demeanor, somewhat abrasive and cold approach to some, and his trouble coping with nonsensical societal structures all stand out in this way. Furthermore he clearly shows hyperfixation, hyperactivity, special interest, and infodumping behaviors that are all too familiar. He's picky with food (*cough* the milk thing), has very little filter and speaks his mind bluntly even if this can warrant conflicting responses, yet at the same time struggles with vulnerable emotions, and he is frustrated when his own routine or itinerary are interrupted by forces beyond his control. All of these things Scream autism with comorbid ADHD. Many traits are shared between the brothers, and I'm quite certain they're both on the autism spectrum based on behavioral patterns. Neurodivergence aside, Edward's physical disabilities are undeniable.
Despite his bratty persona, Edward is fundamentally kind and uncharacteristically gentle and soft around the edges for a shonen protagonist in many ways. He cries openly on many occasions even if he struggles talking about his trauma and burdens in words at times, he feels pain, grief, and compassion so intensely it throws him into action on a regular basis in the narrative. In this way he's also a fantastic example of non-toxic masculinity (though in other ways he has displayed more toxic traits, he's just a kid). He acts on his heart, even if he's led by his mind and logic in most things. His humanity, value for life, and care for others will always win over his logic, and he shows a sense of personal responsibility for doing the right thing even if it harms him in the process. Ed is clearly shown having ghost pains in his lost limbs which is honestly an interesting detail to include, I don't think I've ever seen that aspect of amputation shown in media aside from FMA. It's also shown that when Ed's automail arm breaks this is a HUGE problem for him, but he's also shown to be very good at working around this in difficult circumstances. He doesn't become completely helpless, even if majorly weakened.
Alphonse is an extremely lovable and compassionate boy, brimming with altruism and care for others. Even in his noncorporeal state he pursues a better future and he's not helpless by any stretch. Edward clearly states Alphonse is the superior fighter for example, and it's not just because of his armor body being so large. He's *talented*, that's a fact. Al is every bit as clever and capable as Ed, moreso in some ways, and I love that about his character *because* he's so clearly disabled. He has no sense of pain, he is completely incapable of sleeping, he can't eat, can't relax or find comfort, he can only exist and think. This causes him to overthink in all his time alone, this is debilitating. He clearly is absolutely sick of the loneliness this causes, and he often feels helpless though he's not. He has doubts and fears that consume him in relation to his armor body, he questions his own personhood, even. Yet, Edward is stubborn and staunch in affirming that no matter what he's dealing with, he is fundamentally still a human being that is loved and irreplaceable. Alphonse is powerful and his body gives him some advantages, but it also sets him back, and the brothers know this even when others claim Alphonse's state is somehow a good thing. I have hEDS, a disability that comes with advantages as well as the major downsides, so I can understand and relate to Alphonse here. I too am told my disability is a boon because of flexibility and because I'm less likely to fracture bones, but I'm twice as likely to injure my ligaments and joints, which people ignore.
The brothers are both disabled, both flawed, both show weaknesses, but they are competent, determined, and strong in their own right. They are rounded characters that exist for more than to be pitied or condescended to by able bodied characters around them. They put their entire being in everything that they do no matter what that is, and they don't know the meaning of giving up. These traits that they're made of truly make them a shining example of disability in protagonists for others to look to for reference when writing their own disabled characters.
Even though by the end Edward has regained one limb and Al has regained his body, this also doesn't just deus ex machina reverse their disability or make it go away. It's clear that Alphonse's body is weak and has to be rehabilitated upon recovery, and Edward is still missing his leg and bears the scars and pieces of the port from his automail arm. They weren't suddenly made able bodied upon recovering these things, they reclaimed what was lost through struggle and grit, but the narrative didn't give the impression that their disability in itself was something to be fixed, which is important. They wanted to recover their bodies, but this doesn't erase the effects of their disability.
It was about Edward atoning for leading Alphonse into their mistake and saving his brother from suffering further, it was about them proving they can keep moving forward no matter what, not about getting rid of their disability in itself or putting themselves down because of the disabilities. This, to me, as a mentally and physically disabled viewer, is so important. They achieve their goal, but this doesn't in any way erase or undo the effects of their initial losses, they find ways to adapt and move on but they're still affected and still disabled. They always will be. That can be so important to see in comfort characters, and as a disabled individual who's had both brothers as comfort characters since I was a child, their impact on my own journey is surprisingly tangible for fiction.
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samanthadalton · 3 years
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Hello, first of all, I wanted to say I love your writing a lot, and I consider you a very talented person so I'd like to ask you something: Can you write a one-shot about Kamilah mourning MC, before she finds her in the park? I kinda want some a lot of angst hehehe 🙏🏻🙏🏻
thank you so much 🥺🥺🥺 i think you’re incredibly talented as well and thank you so much for this idea, i just had to write it, i hope you enjoy it
Gone
parings: Kamilah x Amy
mentions of death and blood reader discreation is advised
tag list: @alexlabhont @cloud9in @alleycat97 @kamilah-the-bloodqueen @thedaft1 @mrs-avamontjoy @justavampirefan @waterinathermostat @bloodkueen @sparklesoverlooked @thepotatobleh (i added people from the slowly falling tag list, hope you guys enjoy 💙)
Pain. That’s all she felt. That’s all she carried. She walks through the battered streets of New York, so engrossed in her own thoughts that the malodorous odour of dried blood and smoke couldn’t distract her from all the anguish of recent events. Usually she was so composed, so poised, but for the first time in centuries, she was anything but. She drags her feet along the street, as if she was physically carrying the pain of Amy’s dea- of Amy. Never in her life had she felt so useless, so powerless. But she recollects the way her hand uselessly hovered over the sword impaled in Amy’s chest, how the blood oozed out her body, how she held her dying body in her arms, watching as the light disappeared from her eyes, remembering the exact moment her body went limp in her arms.
She doesn’t remember what exactly happened afterwards, everything’s too much of a blur. She remembers screaming, she remembers letting the dam of 2000 years worth of tears break through and she remembers baring her fangs and biting down into Amy’s neck, despite the protests from Adrian and Jax. But she didn’t care. All she knew is that she needed Amy more than she ever needed anyone in her life ever. Once she saw the bite mark in Amy’s neck, her rationality began taking over and subconsciously her feet were already directing her towards the basement of the museum. Amy needed to be put somewhere dark, she had more of a fighting chance if she was placed somewhere desolated. She refused to move from her side, wanting to be the first thing Amy saw when she wakes up. She sat there and let the tears fall as Adrian, Lily and Jax began cleaning up the mess Gaius had left behind.
Kamilah was never religious, but she spent every minute waiting praying to anyone who was willing to listen, anyone who had the power to save her to help the woman she loves. It had been 8 hours and it was total silence from inside the coffin Kamilah had left Amy in, and no matter how much she wanted to deny it, it was irrefutable, Amy was dead. Kamilah held back her choked sobs as the rest of the group began mourning the girl, the girl who had saved them, the girl who was the glue of the group and brought them together in the first place. Kamilah agreed to prepare Amy’s body for the funeral but Lily knew the older vampire was already beginning to pull herself away, she could feel the icy layers that Amy had so easily broken up being built up again as Kamilah wordlessly placed the finishing touches of Amy’s makeup. Kamilah stared at her lover, her usual lively, bubbly persona now looked so barren, so cold, so… dead.
If Kamilah wasn’t so over wracked with grief, she would laugh at the irony of Gaius taking the one thing she loves the most, as Amy takes away the thing she hated the most.
But now she was back to being alone. After 2000 years she would’ve thought she would be used to solitude, but now it felt like she was drowning in it. Yet she couldn’t bear to face Adrian or anyone else, burying Amy had been hard enough, especially after she choked mid speech and couldn’t find the strength to carry on. She only hoped that Amy couldn’t see how lost she was without her. Just a couple of days ago, she and Amy were getting ready to build a future together, one where Kamilah would be free from the shackles that was Gaius’s control and be in control of her own destiny for once. But alas, loss and pain was a sentiment Kamilah had to feel all over again. Why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t it be me?
2000 years and she felt like she had reached the breaking point. She never had fallen for someone so quickly, had loved someone so intensely, had… mourned someone so deeply. Out of all people, it was a mortal that broke her icy walls, a simple human. The irony she thought, as she mindlessly walks along the broken streets of New York, she remembers the first time she saw Amy, the naive look on her face as they held eye contact for the first time. Kamilah remembers how she felt almost electric as their eyes met, charged off the wordless interaction, something she was definitely unfamiliar with. But it was that very same nativity, the optimism Amy had, that made Kamilah feel something she hadn’t felt in a very long time, hope. But that feeling was now long gone, a light that had gone out the very same moment it had left Amy’s eyes. It was a euphoric ephemeral feeling that Kamilah let slip away from her, wait. That smell. Why was it so familiar? And for the first time since Amy’s death, Kamilah could feel hope brimming in her chest.
She followed the scent, her eyes only seeing the destruction Gaius had caused on the city for the first time. She walks past her damaged roads, her mind purely fixated on the similar scent but when she hears a series of screams coming from ahead she follows the sound. The next thing she knows, she’s standing in the park, watching a bleeding woman with fear written all over her face as she crawls away from her attacker, and when Kamilah looks up at the assailant, all the hurt and pain disintegrates, “Amy.”
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yellow-mapleleaves · 3 years
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Realistic Personalities in Characters: Alice in Borderland
⚠ Spoilers ⚠
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Short Summary
Alice in Borderland  今際の国のアリス  is a Netflix original series about a young boy called Alice (Arisu) and his two friends who happens to find themselves trapped in an abandoned version of Tokyo in which they must take part in many life threatening games to survive.
I wanted to do a review on this series because I noticed that there were some characters that possessed very accurate and realistic behaviours and others that didn’t convey any emotion the entire show. I found it interesting that the mix of very different levels of well-displayed people was able to add to the already amazing plot of the series.
Characters Present:
Alice, Karube, Chota, Usagi, Kuina, Chishiya, Niragi
Alice - Protagonist
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The main protagonist of the series is not always the favourite in most tv shows, but from looking at different reviews and people’s comments about Yamazaki’s character Alice, I’ve noticed that he is actually rather popular in his own fictional world. He is honestly probably one of my favourite characters as well, and that’s based on how realistic his behaviours and emotions are conveyed.
Some aspects and scenes of Alice that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:
Being a normal young boy with no incredibly amazing skills
Not having god-like survival abilities just from being able to play battle-royal videogames well
Having flaws
Having only two close friends rather than a huge friendship group
Not being incredibly attractive and well-groomed
Not having a close relationship with his brother (not all siblings get along)
Having a bad relationship with his father
Having the very human instinct of survival by becoming willing to kill his friends to save his own life out of panic
Reacting badly to watching someone being killed (vomiting, screaming, trauma etc)
Not being incredibly serious all the time; actually having a sense of humour
Showing respect towards Usagi’s privacy
Having a very average style of clothing
Being awkward around people he doesn’t know
Excelling in one area (puzzles) but being quite disadvantaged at the rest
Making mistakes E.g. during the distance game, he doesn’t realize the trick of the game until it ends
Not being able to defend himself physically due to lack of strength
Not moving on after his friends’ deaths immediately like as if it doesn’t happen (it takes him a few days to even develop the energy to get up off the floor)
I would say I personally believe that Alice’s character has a strong and realistic personality, as Yamazaki’s acting and Alice’s reactions to certain experiences creates a sympathetic response from the audience.
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Karube - Deuteragonist
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Let’s be honest, everyone loves a bad boy character. During the short time that Karube was present during the show, I think he conveys both strong and weak personality traits. At some points I think the producers were trying too hard to bring a “tough man” façade to him, when I think he could show more realistic emotions and reactions.
Some aspects and scenes of Karube that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:
Having a fiery and defensive personality (although it can more than often come across as immature)
Having a sense of humour even in tough times
Having obvious advantage in strength related survival skills
Not being invincible to fear E.g. running from the tagger during the “Tag” game and not even trying to fight back at first
Dealing with work related issues
Actually having a realistic dream life rather than one that sounds almost impossible
Being flawed but not too flawed
Having a love interest that he is forbidden to love (she is with another man)
Conveying fear through anger when Alice tries to kill him to save himself
Not having the nicest of personalities (not everyone is friendly to everyone)
Not having a overly selfless personality
I think Karube should’ve been included in the series more than he is, because his character is very lovable and many fans of this show obviously show sympathy when he dies. His character has a big, extroverted and blunt personality, and I think it is conveyed very well during the time he is present.
____
Chota - Tertiary
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Although Chota is one of the main three characters in the beginning of the series, I honestly never felt that sympathetic for him. His character comes across as rather more annoying than weak to me. I understand that the point of his character is to have a weak and smaller personality to match Karube and Alice’s loud energy, but I think this person is kind of just there. He doesn’t do much, considering he almost loses his leg in the first episode and having to use crutches for the rest of the time he is alive.
Some aspects and scenes of Chota that makes him less realistic:
Being friends with people who obviously have dodgy jobs or no jobs at all when he is a successful technician himself
Doesn’t seem to have much of a life outside work and his friends, what are his hobbies?
Not exactly having much of a purpose in the show
Constantly having his guard up and being anxious or worried
Having too many flaws
Following a very different religion to that of his mother
Generally being incredibly different to Alice and Karube (I believe if their personalities were actually friends in real life, they would have too many arguments).
During the short time on the show that Chota had, it was more the point that his personality felt incredibly unneeded. It didn’t exactly serve a huge purpose in the storyline. As well as, he was hard to sympathize for.
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Usagi - Love Interest / Deuteragonist
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Usagi definitely has my most favourite back story of the series. Although, when researching about her I noticed that she is actually one of the characters that get the least recognition by the viewers, despite being in basically every episode and always being beside Alice. I have mixed emotions about the realism in her character, so I made both a positive and negative list to state both sides.
Some aspects and scenes of Usagi that makes her a more convincing and realistic personality:
Having a tragic yet realistic backstory
Using her mountain climbing skills as a huge advantage during physically challenging games
Showing obvious signs of grief for her father, even during the time she was placed in the game
Being insecure of her body
Fighting back against Niragi even when it’s obvious she won’t win
Having good survival instincts from past experiences
Willing to help others out when they need it E.g. during the “Tag” game she went along with Alice’s plan for everyone to work together
Having a obvious more introverted personality
Being too trusting, which ends up getting her hurt
Some aspects and scenes of Usagi that makes her a more unrealistic and poorly convincing personality:
Having too serious of a personality, not seeming to lay back and laugh for even a second
Seeming to have an unrealistic bravery E.g. during the tagger game, she didn’t seemed frightened at all despite that the tagger had a machine gun
Doesn’t react to graphic violent sights that would be traumatizing to humans
Not knowing what “The Beach” was despite being in the game for god knows how long
Overall, I think she is the awesome strong female character that a lot of thriller genres have. Although, I would love if for once a strong yet bad ass character didn’t act so mysterious and quiet all the time. But regardless, she is a good character that shows very human qualities.
____
Kuina - Confidante
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Kuina is one of the more popular characters in the show, which I honestly can understand. She has obvious very strong manipulation skills as well as physical strengths like martial arts. Although, I believe her backstory is what truly shapes her as a character and is the reason why the audience develops such an emotional connection with her.
Some aspects and scenes of Kuina that makes her a more convincing a realistic personality:
Having a trusting and good relationship with Chishiya
Having a personality that conveys carelessness
Both social butterfly and keeps to herself
Being a character part of the LGBTQ+ community
Having a realistic backstory
Although having a bad relationship with her Dad, she still respects what he taught her
Having a parent that accepts her rather than just being abandoned, which is what a lot of Transgender characters have been stereotyped as
Being able to defend herself incredibly well
Giving her a human flaw (smoking addiction)
Having a elaborate hairstyle
Showing that she is not mysterious, she just has a lot of walls up
Showing care for people she doesn’t know E.g. warning Alice and Usagi about the militants
I really like Kuina’s character for her strong personality and her ability to build good relationships with the members at the beach paradise. Although she is not featured a lot during season one, the times we have seen her have obviously been enough to make her character very loved by the audience.
____
Chishiya - Confidante
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I honestly could not find a more loved character if I tried. This character is such a small part of the show and yet you’d think he was the protagonist. I honestly think anyone would love a sly fox character though, because that’s exactly what he is. Although his personality would probably become annoying if he was a real person, in a genre like this he fits perfectly. So personally, I have mixed emotions about him, because I honestly didn’t get that emotionally attached to him as other audiences may have.
Some aspects and scenes of Chishiya that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:
Having a cocky attitude at times
Has a underdog appeal to him
Mimics that of a selfish manipulative personality
Showing obvious signs of high intelligence, yet doesn’t blab it around like it’s a trophy
Gives the audience some entertainment
Having a sassy remark, even when his life is on the line
Going out of his way to do things that only benefit him
Having a personality that everyone loves and hates at the same time
Having that personality in which you can’t tell if he’s a good guy or a bad guy
Having a trademark, his white hoodie
Having a caring relationship towards Kuina
Some aspects and scenes of Chishiya that makes him a more unrealistic and less convincing personality:
Attempting to kill Niragi with no hesitation after knowing him personally for so long (that would be difficult to do even if you hated the person)
Not showing human emotions such as fear, worry or anger
Sometimes his personality came across as too selfish to be realistic
Not showing any signs of fear E.g. when Niragi waved a machine gun in his face, he didn’t even flinch
Sometimes his fancy words became a bit annoying
Everyone trusts him, regardless of how manipulative they know he is
Overall, he is a very entertaining character. In my opinion he’s like the personality that throws a match into gasoline then walks away like he didn’t start it. Although his realism in character isn’t exactly good, he is definitely loved for his good looks and sly actions by the audience.
____
Niragi - Antagonist
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As much as I dislike this guy as a person in general, when it comes to creating a interesting and great character, he hit the nail on the head. He has one of the most realistic evil character developments probably in the whole series. His personality is so complicated and psychotic, which is what makes him an amazing antagonist and probably the second most popular character among the audience.
Some aspects and scenes of Niragi that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:
Has a tragic backstory, making the audience believe that’s why he’s so psychotic
Having the delusional mindset that human nature is violence
Makes the audience feel bad for him, despite being a horrible person
Being a hidden antagonist (didn’t expect him to cause all the trouble in the end)
Showing obvious signs of psychological trauma
Conveys positive (yet destructive) emotions and behaviour, which is always a good break when all the characters are serious 24/7
Hits a breaking point in his emotions and goes on a killing spree
Shows loyalty to Aguni
Being awful to everyone, probably due to the fact that everyone was awful to him when he was younger. It’s a way of revenge
Becoming embarrassed when someone challenges him
Scaring people into submission (tactic for some leaders)
Conveys no care for anyone, honestly just uses everyone for either his own entertainment or his own benefit
Has a trademark, his machine gun and checkered shirt
Being self-aware of how evil he is
As evil and bad as he is, he’s one  of the most endearing antagonists I’ve seen in a while. He is a very psychotic and emotionally wrecked personality to him, as if you know something traumatizing must have occurred in his life for him to be able to murder anyone without batting an eye.
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gaeilgeoirgay · 3 years
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Naimhde
This is also part of Pósadh Eagraithe :The Series and I hope you like it! It’s from Han Solo’s POV when he first realises that 1. Boba’s alive and 2. Boba is married to Din meaning that 3. He can’t shoot Boba :(
Ao3 Link
Naimhde= Enemies
Look, Han Solo was having a good day. Emphasis on was. Ben had slept through the night again so Han got his full recommended hours of rest. Then Leia had had the morning off from the Senate so they had all gone to the park together. Luke was on planet for once with the green frog child so Ben was able to play with him. Leia had told him days ago that they were required to attend a ball that was being hosted to celebrate the Republic getting a treaty with Mandalore so he’d already gone through the seven stages of grief about that.
Now, he’s at said ball and across the room from him, Boba fucking Fett is smirking at him. Han snarls at the look the bastard has on his (apparently very scarred?) face but Leia puts a warning hand on his shoulder. “I know that’s Fett but he’s the leader of the Tatooine crime syndicate now, and rumour has it he’s taken over a couple more of the Hutt Space planets. He’s powerful, Han, and he probably hates us enough. No fighting.” She hisses into his ear.
Of course Boba Fett came out of a fucking sarlacc pit to become a godsdamned crime lord. He shouldn’t have been surprised. And he clearly has some sort of power in Mandalore because Mandalorians aren’t naturally deferential but they seem to treat Fett with an extra bit of respect.
A silver Mandalorian comes over to Fett and says something lowly to him. Fett nods and saunters over to Han and Leia with the other Mando striding ahead of him. “That’s the Mand’alor, their king. No one knows his name or species and he never takes his helmet off in front of non-Mandalorians. He signed the treaty as ‘Mand’alor the Reclaimer’ and his people adore him. He’s rumoured to be absolutely deadly, so once again, Han, I don’t care if he’s coming over with Boba Fett, behave.” Leia whispers and Han suppresses his urge to punt Fett into the nearest star.
Contrary to popular belief, Han is smart enough not to piss off the ruler of a warrior culture that are supposedly the greatest fighters in the galaxy. He got lucky with Fett the first time, he’s not making the man’s whole planet mad at him by fucking with their king.
Their pretty intimidating king, he’s not gonna lie. There’s a veritable armoury on the Mand’alor’s person and Han can see the familiar shape of a lightsaber hilt at his waist. Leia had mentioned something about a ‘Darksaber’ and Han does not want to find out the difference between a Darksaber and a lightsaber firsthand.
The Mand’alor inclines his head in a regal greeting as he halts in front of Leia. “Senator Organa, it’s a pleasure to meet you in person. Luke mentions you often.” He says in a low, smooth voice. Huh. Han is absolutely loyal to Leia but if the Mando king ever offers a threesome…..
Wait, how does Mando know Luke? Leia seems confused too but she hides it well. “The honour is all mine, Your Majesty. I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with my brother though?” She says politely, voicing the question in a much more eloquent manner than Han would’ve.
Mando chuckles and answers her with a smile in his voice. “Cuun ad, Grogu, is one of Luke’s students. He’s the small green one with an affinity for frogs.” He explains and Han raises an eyebrow. Luke had said that Grogu would never grow to be taller than maybe hip height but Mando is of fairly average height for a humanoid species. 5’10 or ’11 maybe.
Leia smiles brightly. “Yes, I do know Grogu. Luke mentioned his father was a Mandalorian. That would be you, then?” She says, relaxing slightly. Talking about children is a safe topic, even when Boba Fett is part of the conversation, and no, Han is not letting that go, he’s a Senator’s trophy husband, he’s mastered the art of polite glaring.
Fett speaks up then, still smirking. “Both of his fathers are Mandalorians. I adopted Grogu when the two of us said the riduurok.” He says, looking directly at Han as his brain freezes in its tracks.
Boba Fett is married? Boba Fett is married to the king of Mandalore? Boba Fett is a father?
None of that computes. Han Solo and Boba Fett are not supposed to have anything in common and Boba Fett is most certainly not supposed to be a regular human being with a spouse and kids and apparently a job, if being a crime lord counts as one. But clearly he is and Han is mad about it. It may be irrational but the bastard froze him in carbonite for three years and he’s gotten away with it. Whenever Han imagined Fett it was as a corpse being digested by a plant monster, not as a successful husband and father. Oh, Han is so mad.
Leia squeezes his hand a little tighter than necessary and Han grits his teeth. No fighting. He can do this. He really doesn’t want to do this. Chandrila’s sun is actually quite hot, he knows Beskar has a high melting point but he reckons it wouldn’t hold up against a star. He could just get in the Falcon, with Fett, and then space him beside the star. Boom, problem solved.
Leia is congratulating Fett and the Mand’alor on their marriage and subsequent child. To be completely honest with himself, Han may or not be considering telling Luke to get Grogu into therapy. Having Boba Fett as a father would definitely fuck a kid up.
He tunes back into the conversation as the Mand’alor answers Leia and immediately wishes he hadn’t. “Yes, children are the most important part of our culture. I adopted Grogu before we got together and I actually only met Boba a little while before Luke began teaching him. Boba always knew Grogu was part of the picture and honestly, the kid loves him. His second vow after the riddurok was a gai bal manda for Grogu.” Mando says, helmet tilted towards Fett. It’s probably the armoured equivalent of a sappy look and Han resists the urge to scowl.
He doesn’t know what a riderock or a gabblemanda is but it’s clearly important to Mandalorians and Fett is smiling broadly at his husband. Ugh.
“Oh, that’s incredibly sweet. How did you two meet?” Leia asks and Han screams internally. “When I first Found Grogu, my tribe took on the Hunter’s Guild so we could escape. I was trying to find more Mandalorians and I came across an areuttise on Tatooine who had Boba’s armour. I helped him take down a krayt dragon that was attacking his village and in exchange, he returned the armour to a mando’ad. Boba tracked me to Tython and said he would help me protect Grogu if I gave him back his armour. We were attacked by Dark Troopers and they took Grogu for Moff Gideon. Boba helped me get Grogu back and once he’d taken over Tatooine, he joined our efforts to reclaim Mandalore.” Mando explains and Leia smiles.
“That sounds romantic. The first time I met Han I threatened him.” Leia says anecdotally and Han shoots her a betrayed look. Fett is so going to use that against him somehow, Han just knows it. Instead, Fett just shakes his head and explains further. “Both of us are sol’karta, ‘aromantic’ in Basic. The Mand’alor’s council were concerned about finding a Rid’alor and I was suggested. I accepted, as the Mand’alor is one of my closest friends. I love him dearly but we’re not in love with each other. We’re best friends raising an adorably mischievous ad’ika.” He says and the Mand’alor nods.
Huh. Han can’t say he’s ever heard of an arranged marriage where both parties are friends from the start. He’s sure that some spouses end up as friends but politically arranged marriages in the Core tend to be loveless affairs. He almost finds himself congratulating them on finding a good balance but then he remembers he would be congratulating Fett. Nope, he’s not doing that.
“Oh really? Luke did mention that Grogu has a habit of disappearing on him.” Leia says and Fett laughs. “Yeah, his Force osik enables him a lot. I never realised how much of parenting was going to be coaxing a grumpy toddler off of a ceiling.” He jokes and ugh, Han can relate to that and he’s mad about it. Leia says something in response but Han is too busy glaring at Fett to hear her. The bastard is still smirking, plus he’s not even paying attention to Han, like Han is beneath his notice.
“I know you two have a son, right? If you’re ever on Manda’yaim for diplomacy, perhaps they can hang out together. I know when I was a child, I hated being in boring meetings and Grogu would definitely appreciate a friend.” Fett suggests and Han nearly explodes. Boba Fett’s hellspawn child is not going to corrupt Ben!
“Oh, Ben and Grogu met earlier today actually! Luke is on-planet at the moment and he brought Grogu with him when he heard that your people would be here.” Leia says and Mando’s helmet tilts. It probably means something in Mando Armour Language but Han has no clue what. “Is Luke still on Chandrila?” He asks, seeming curious. “Grogu is due to come home to Manda’yaim next week but if Luke is here, then I might ask if we can bring him home now to save Luke the trip.”
Leia smiles and tells Mando where to find Luke. Mando says his goodbyes and leaves, but Fett stays. They seem to have some form of communicating that Han can’t understand because Fett doesn’t seem confused at all by his husband’s departure without him.
Fett rocks back on his heels before levelling Han with a smug grin. “If you ever feel like going into Fett Space, drop by my palace on Tatooine. I love getting visits from old friends.” He says before bowing to Leia and leaving to follow Mando before Han can splutter a rebuttal. Fett Space! Is he serious?
Apparently he is, as the New Republic receives a missive a few days later, announcing Mandalore’s official recognition of the former Hutt territories as under Boba Fett, their Consort’s, unequivocal rule. It means that if the Republic ever aggravates Mandalore, they would essentially be going to war with the majority of the Outer Rim between Fett’s planets, Mandalore’s vassal planets and the seemingly endless planets that have allied themselves with Mandalore instead of the Republic.
Han isn’t too concerned about the political ramifications, seeing as that’s Leia’s remit and he’s mostly retired, but fuck, he’s mad that he can’t even think about dropkicking Fett into a star without inciting a galaxy-wide conflict. And the bastard knows it. Every time he comes to Republic events as either the Mand’alor’s spouse or as the leader of Fett Space, he acts like the perfect model of decorum so Han can’t even argue that he was provoked.
Han is forty-three, he shouldn’t be having aneurysms but every time he sees Fett his brain stops getting the message. The worst part is that Leia has become friends with the Mandalorian king and Ben is fond of the green child, so Han is forced to interact with Fett on a far too regular basis. Forget Fett, Han is considering launching himself into a star.
Sadly, Leia won’t let him. So Han has to put up with Fett for just a while longer. Speaking of, how old is Fett? Can Han get away with measuring coffins yet? Please say the bastard is at least ninety, he was around during the Clone Wars, there can’t be much left in him. Please, Han is going to lose his mind if he has to play nice with Boba Fett again. And again. And again.
(systems away, Boba’s ears go hot and he knows that Solo is plotting his death once more. Grogu coos and Boba looks down to see the womprat chewing on his pendant again. He chuckles and grabs something softer for Grogu to gnaw at. He has more important things to think about than Solo.)
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MTMTE Headcannon Prompt
Enemy forces hack the Lost Light and deactivate the atmospheric controls, leading to a slow loss of oxygen in the hopes the damage to the ship's "pet" will give them an edge. While the rest of the crew struggles to fight off their attackers and restore these critical systems, the bot(s) you've come to love stays by your side as a guard while begging you to remain conscious, growing ever more panicked as you begin to fade... Until you're saved just in time, and then they're left grappling with the fact they nearly lost you.
(A lot more dramatic than my first prompt certainly, and way more involved so I can only do two bots per post... But I'll get to them all!)
Part One: You're Here!
Part Two: Here!
Part Three: Here!
Part Four: Here!
Part Five: Here!
Part Six: Here!
Part Seven: Here!
Part Eight: Here!
Part Nine: Here!
Part Ten: Here!
Part Eleven: Here!
Part Twelve: Here!
Rodimus
·You're chilling on the mess of blankets he uses as extra insulation in the berth, debating which movie you'll watch with him when he returns, when the ship gives a rumble. At the lack of emergency signals that follow, you assume something has just bumped against the shields, which happens so frequently you only shrug.
·Elsewhere on the bridge, Rodimus receives a taunting message from the enemy ambush, bragging about how impossibly easy it was to crash key programs on the Lost Light, like the air filtration system... which will make things awfully difficult for his pet as oxygen has started to leak. He goes from aggressive bantering to obvious horror, putting the pieces together just as a loud series of distant rumblings marks the deactivation of the filters providing the oxygen you need to survive.
·For once his commanding officers all know what to expect in unison, allowing them to take over the bridge when he abandons it in a desperate rush to your location, his pounding pedes leaving tire marks in his wake as he stumbles into a frantic transformation to cross the distance as fast possible.
·Unable to reach you on any channel, he loses all focus of his surroundings before skidding to a tumbling halt before your shared quarters, calling out your name and activating his scanner as he registers dangerously low and still dropping oxygen levels across the ship.
·You're unaware of anything amiss as you continue to relax, but that's mostly due to a growing fog of confusion settling over your thoughts and senses. It's so dense that it has already made you incapable of noticing that the air is unusually stale, and your befuddlement only grows when he barges in like the place is burning down, moreso than usual.
·Scooping you into his arms, his relief at seeing you alive and conscious turns to terror when he realizes you've already begun to suffer the effects, as your bleary smile and dizzy demeanor make clear. He doesn't need to be a human doctor to know you're already in a bad way.
·Just as he is halfway through an explanation you barely understand, he receives a communication through restored channels from the other commanding officers warning that the ship has been boarded by enemy forces, at which point he resolutely declares that nothing will reach you so long as his spark has so much as a flicker left. In your inability to grasp the danger his steadfast vigilance is heartwarming.
·A defensive unit is posted outside for your safety, but as the battle rages through the ship and oxygen levels continue to fall, he stops focusing on the invasion. Instead he cradles you and encourages you to be still and quiet while he tries to keep up a one sided conversation to keep you distracted, knowing that what oxygen remains must be rationed.
·For the first time in his life he can't fake a smile no matter how badly he tries, the sight of your increasingly strained breaths and fading eyes drawing tears to his optics and eventually forcing him to his knees as his meandering words turn to soft pleading, his voice cracking as he alternates between begging you to stay with him and apologizing for being unable to save you.
·As you hover over a warm blackness you're far too disoriented to be as afraid as you should be, and instead you offer comfort at the sight of the bot you've come to adore so readily, murmuring your love even as he gently shushes you and tears begin to fall down his face without reservation.
·Though the battle turns in favor of the crew and the room you're in is spared attack, the atmospheric systems remain inoperable for what he knows is too long, and the ticking seconds match the fluttering of your eyes as they try not to shut.
·You know he wants you awake, but you're so incredibly tired and he's so impossibly comfortable, why can't he just let you have a nap? It's not like you won't be able to see each other after, so why does he look so sad? You wish you could tell him not to be sad.
·When you inevitably slip into unconsciousness he's beside himself, panicking but doing everything he can to gently wake you up, tenderly rubbing his thumb over your cheek to encourage you to stir. The crushing grief just beginning to take hold is so great he actually doesn't notice he has a message until it forces itself through.
·He's barely able to recollect the conversation he has with Ratchet, save the order to get you to the medical bay, where they've restored just enough functionality to produce oxygen on a one human scale. The bots who saw him running afterwards said there was little more visible than a fiery blur with you in his arms.
·Cybertronian engineering combined with carefully studied earth medicine provides you with the air you need just in time, dredging you up slowly from deep unconsciousness to the sterile taste of a ventilation mask over your face. Your discomfort mattered precious little when you behold Rodimus at your side, servo cupping your body as his face still shines with tears.
·It takes moments for him to break when you're left alone together, his shoulders shaking as the helplessness continues to haunt him, and his apologies blend together in an endless tangle of self depreciation.
·As you've come to do when he's overwhelmed, you encourage him to come closer, hugging his helm to your smaller body as if he's laying it in your lap. The oxygen mask limits you, but you don't let it stop your quiet shushes as you stroke his crests. ·Without delay you slow his tears, reassuring him that everything is well until exhaustion claims him and he falls asleep at your bedside.
·The experience doesn't leave him for some time. Both in public and in private you catch him paying close attention to you, and you know he's double checking your breathing, still worrying that such a simple thing could steal you away so quickly.
· Finally, you take him aside and pull his hand to your chest, indicating the rythym of your body and how you know it better than anyone. If he can't trust the world, then he should at least trust you, and with that newfound perspective he starts to heal as well. Because he trusts you more than anything.
Magnus/Minimus
·You're in the berthroom the two of you share, distracted by preparations for what you hope will be a simple but relaxing night in. In the well protected room it's impossible to hear much going on outside, especially with you focused so intently on making everything just the way he likes it.
·He's in his office and armor completely focused on some important paperwork when he receives an urgent warning; they're being boarded, and the attackers have already managed to offline several key atmospheric regulators and security systems. The thought initially only spurs him to begin defensive measures, but the moment he sees that oxygen levels are starting to drop, protocol ceases to exist.
·In battle he's always been a foe to be reckoned with, but now he's like a force of nature barreling through the ship, and the single unit of enemies that tries to confront him becomes little more than scattered body parts before they can let off a single shot. His fury is so overwhelming even his allies flinch when he tears past them to reach your shared quarters. He can't contact you by communicator, and he's uncertain if it's due to downed channels, or something he can't bring himself to consider.
·The door stands little hope when he tears it open in rage that's quickly evolving into panic, shouting your name as a flood of terrifying possibilities torture him with all the ways you could already be suffering. He has no idea how much or how little oxygen you need, and for all he knows the deprivation is already killing you, making you suffer...
·It takes all of his incredible self control not to embrace you when you stumble into view, dizzy and weak as well as quite confused, and he realizes things are far from okay when you lean on his offered hand to prevent yourself from falling. You actually laugh thanks to the delirium, finding it adorable to see the big tough bot diving to catch you.
·He can't bring himself to be mad at you not taking this seriously, but he's certainly frustrated at himself for being absolutely helpless to assist you, even if there's nothing he can do in the midst of the chaos with no communication options in working order.
·Ever the tactician, he barricades the two of you as effectively as he can, knowing that you're vulnerable enough now that moving you through combat could be fatal. The entire time he's multitasking on a million fronts; trying to keep you still on the berth to conserve energy, working to reestablish communication with anyone, and internally punishing himself for not having prepared some kind of protocol for this situation.
·Due to his personality you're quite accustomed to seeing him worry, but you're hardly comfortable with it, and on reflex you keep trying to comfort and reassure him despite your weakening state. His insistence you stay resting makes as little sense as his explanations, all you know is he needs help.
·Every minute drags by like an eternity, yet his skill at spotting details makes it impossible for him to miss the toll each one takes in real time. Your breaths are growing more strained, your body is settling down onto the berth with less resistance, and your eyes are meeting his with increasing dullness.
·When you can't even sit up a part of him simply... snaps. All but throwing off his armor, he brings you into his arms in his base form, not admitting but knowing that if he can't save you, he wants this to be the last way you see him.
·In a pleasant haze of fading consciousness, you initially smile at the sight, having always preferred to see him as his true self as often as possible. You'd playfully pointed out how he still towered over you in this form so many times...
·With no traces of battle growing close, or of help arriving before it's too late, he can't help but lose sight of the world around him in its entirety. What does the universe matter if you won't be in it? What good are his abilities if he can't save you from something so apparently benign?
·Never before has he cried in the presence of anyone, so to see tears in those beautiful red optics gives you considerable pause, even as your vision grows dark around you. Something must have been terribly wrong for him to cry, but you care far more about comforting him than finding out what.
·Despite the weight in your limbs, you reach up as he holds you close to weakly cup his face, shushing him with a promise he'll be okay before slipping into darkness.
·It's a stroke of fortune that Ratchet arrives when he does, catching the smaller mech holding your limp form tight as his shoulders shake in silent sobs, as the broken bot would have never allowed your loss to go unpunished. He's bordering on incoherent himself when the medic explains that the attack has been stopped, and that while communications are still down, he was able to isolate a portable supply of oxygen for you.
·It's almost too much for him to believe when the mask is laid over your face and life returns to your peaceful form. The medic confirms you'll survive, and while there will be a road to recovery, you shouldn't suffer any ill effects from the close call. He's torn between relief and still further worry.
·Had you not been saved, he's certain he would have donned his armor and annihilated each attacker personally, with little intention of living to fight another day... But as you recover in the aftermath, he instead throws himself into crafting regulations, trying to come up with a series of safeguards and rules to ensure this can't happen again. He drafts it all at your bedside.
·When you wake up he's effusive in his apologies. How could he not have predicted this? It's such an obvious possibility! He takes your tiny hand in his as he alternates between admonishing his tactical failure and begging forgiveness, forcing you to interrupt and quiet him down before he can say anything else against himself.
·You remind him that it's not his purpose in life to protect you, as he should know better than anyone your size doesn't mean you need constant protection. All you need is for him to be there, just as he is, which is what he's done.
·Only a few tears fall this time, and you're eternally grateful to confirm that they're from blissful relief. He doesn't know how you manage to always remove the weight of the world from his shoulders, but you do, and he'll treasure that more completely from now on.
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aliendes · 4 years
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Natural Borns - Chapter Five
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Banner made by @thebannershop​
​Series info/genre: Angst, fluff, future smut - NSFW due to darker themes
Pairings: ot7 x fem reader (eventual)
Warnings: mentions of sex in exchange for favors but it doesn’t actually happen, mentions of suicide, anxiety, and depression. Mentions of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. Mentions of prescription drugs and medical stuff like blood. Insinuations of poly relationships, if this make you uncomfortable, this will be a reoccurring theme for the rest of the series. The boys love each other, that’s the point of this story. Mentions of skipping meals? If that’s a warning.  Warnings will be different for each chapter from here on out. 
Description: In the year 2613, over half of the world’s population are what scientists consider ‘designer babies’. YN is a small town girl who is a true natural born, someone born naturally without he help of a lab or gene splicing. Her DNA is greatly sought after, but what is she willing to do to protect it?
Word count: 4.2k ~ 
A/N: I’m really excited for this chapter! This is Yoongi’s backstory! Yay!! There is also some juicy info in this chapter that will be explored in the next one. Also, you guys voted for smut with romantic relationships, so please note that for the rest of the series, there will be smut, poly relationships, etc. If this makes you uncomfortable, I totally understand. If you want to be added/removed from the taglist please send me an ask! Enjoy!!
xx Des
Updated: 8/15/2020
As the day went on, and the sun started to set beyond the hills, your mind was plagued with the thoughts that this was all a horrible, horrible idea.  
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After you stormed out of the warehouse, the remaining four men in Yoongi’s room continued to argue about whether or not it would be a good idea to let you help with their plan. Seokjin and Jungkook were firmly against it. They felt enchanted by your personality and something about you was captivating to them. Hoseok and Yoongi were both incredibly unsure of your place in this family, not yet trusting of you. Yoongi obviously felt an attraction to you, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was anything beyond physical at this point. Though, he knew if he let it, it would fester into something much, much stronger. Whenever you were present he could feel himself start to slip. The cold exterior he always made a show of keeping up, crumbling to ash in his hands. He can’t deny the way his heart clenched in his chest when you ran out of the room. He wanted to run after you, tell you that he wouldn’t make you do anything you weren’t comfortable with. But he held himself back. He’s had plenty of practice holding himself back and not allowing his emotions to crack his icy walls. 
Namjoon was Yoongi’s first friend in the facility. They were both ‘bought’ from their mothers when they were teenagers, and since they were similar in age, they roomed together at Big Hit. Namjoon had already been at the lab for a few months before Yoongi showed up, disheveled and scared. Unlike Namjoon, Yoongi had a very hard time coping with the fact that he now had to live in a cramped room with another boy, be poked and prodded and experimented on. 
Namjoon had lived a pretty sheltered life, and didn’t have too many friends growing up. Yoongi was the complete opposite. He was seen as the ‘bad boy’ in his high school, always getting the girls because of his unusual good looks, smoking cigarettes behind the school, and causing trouble in his classes. He liked to think he had a lot of friends, but most of them were deadbeats who only hung around him because he stole cigarettes and alcohol from his mom’s boyfriends. Regardless, he enjoyed being out of the house and living his life the way he wanted to. When he was brought to Big Hit, all of that changed. His freedoms were stripped from him, even basic human needs were stripped from him. They would often go days without eating, only being given water, told that they had to ‘fast’ in order for certain experiments to work, or for certain blood work to be done. All of the torture they endured was ‘in the name of science’. Or so they were told. 
Yoongi went through the stages of grief pretty quickly in the lab. When he first arrived, he was extremely upset, in denial that any of that was actually happening to him. He would tell Namjoon that his mom would come get him any minute now, and all of this would be some horrible joke she played on him to get him back on the straight and narrow, get him to stop skipping school and drinking. After a few days went by, he realized she wasn’t coming, and anger quickly took over him. Yoongi attempted to break down the door in his and Namjoon’s tiny room, to no avail. Eventually the guards sedated him and Namjoon had to look after him for two days while he sweated out the medication, shaking and dehydrated from lack of fluids. After that happened, he started to bargain with the guards or the doctors that would come take him into exam rooms, telling them he would do anything for them to release him, even resorting to offering favors in exchange for freedom. He never followed through with any of his offers, but he would later hate himself for stooping that low. 
After a few weeks of this, Yoongi eventually developed severe depression, even being put on suicide watch at one point. After spending so much time together in their tiny dorm, Namjoon started to really care for the older boy and was extremely distraught over his behavior. He would tell Yoongi that everything would be ok, and one day they would get out of there. Some nights it got so bad Namjoon would slip into Yoongi’s bed and hold him close while he sobbed or when he woke up from nightmares. 
Yoongi would sleep away days at a time, not eating or drinking water. Namjoon would have to force water down his throat when he was getting delirious and having horrible migraines that prevented him from moving around too much. Namjoon would lay with him while he shook from dehydration mixed with the meds they gave him. Yoongi lost his will to live, lost his will to do anything but accept what the lab was doing to him. There was nothing he could do about it, and while Namjoon had remained optimistic about their future, Yoongi accepted their fate and allowed the doctors and technicians to do whatever they wanted with him. He became a shell of his former self, not getting out of bed unless carried by Namjoon or the technicians, staring at the wall for hours on end, and only speaking when he was forced by the doctors. Namjoon cried for his friend, only wanting to help, wanting to get him out of there. 
That was why Namjoon came up with the escape plan. One night, after Yoongi had been at the facility for nearly a year, Namjoon woke him up in the early hours of the morning. Apparently, the younger had been learning the rotations of the technicians and the guards when he was being moved from room to room. He would also listen in on their conversations while he was being given meds or having his blood drawn in the exam room, which was right next to the guard room. He didn’t tell Yoongi what he was doing because he didn’t want anyone to overhear them and ruin his plan, so Yoongi was completely shocked to learn he had all of this planned out.
Namjoon said that the guards would be on break in the guard room around 3:30 AM, and at 3:40 AM the technician on duty would rotate with the morning shift, who comes in at 3:45 AM and the guards would end their break around the same time, giving them a five minute window to get out of their rooms and down a hallway that led to the elevators. They both knew that this hallway led away from the exam rooms, and therefore, away from the guards. Yoongi was even more shocked when Namjoon pulled a keycard out of his back pocket that he took off one of the guards earlier when he was being given medication. That keycard would allow them to get onto the elevator and, hopefully, escape this place. 
Given all the things that could’ve gone wrong, Namjoon and Yoongi’s escape went relatively seamlessly, and once they were out of that God forsaken place, they moved from place to place together, sleeping on the streets, abandoned houses, and homeless shelters, until they met Seokjin and Jungkook. Two men who were at one point, also housed at Big Hit, but released for different reasons. They would later meet the others and form the family they know and love today. Yoongi was thankful for the six men, living with them, and growing with them. They had a shared traumatic experience that they helped each other through, leaned on each other, and eventually developed a bond that they never expected.
Even after all these years, Yoongi still admired Namjoon and was beyond thankful for him for being there through his darkest times. Quite literally keeping him alive in the facility when he had given up trying. He owed Namjoon his life and respected him more than anyone on this planet. He never wanted to disappoint him and has been helping him find other natural borns to further his vision of equality, even if he didn’t always want to. Yoongi would much rather it just be the seven of them for the rest of their lives, but he understood why Namjoon pushed for this, why he stood up for others that couldn’t stand up for themselves. It was one of the many reasons he admired the man. 
That is exactly why Yoongi is currently standing outside the warehouse, back against the large metal door you had run out of earlier today. The sun had set over an hour ago, meaning you had been gone most of the day. The others would have panicked by now, had it not been for Hoseok alerting them of your whereabouts. They were all shocked when Hobi had come into Yoongi’s room a few hours ago, letting them all know he had been watching you from the second floor, sitting on a rock down by the quarry. Jungkook and Seokjin had both wanted to go to you, but Namjoon talked them down, telling them you needed time to process everything that had happened to you. You were dealing with a lot, even now, and you didn’t even have the full story. They knew Namjoon’s words were true, having gone through something similar themselves. Though, they couldn’t imagine how you were feeling, having to suddenly leave your family with little explanation. 
It was only after Namjoon pulled Yoongi aside in the hallway, telling him again he needed to fix this, apologize to you, even if he didn’t want to. He needed to make sure you stayed with them because if you didn’t, you’d be in more danger than you realized. Yoongi would never let Namjoon down, and so, he made his way down to the water to make good on his promise to fix this. 
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You were vaguely aware that the sun had set a while ago, sat on a rock, knees pulled to your chest, and face resting upon your crossed arms. You weren’t sobbing anymore, just a few stray tears falling every now and then. You were sure your face was red and swollen with how much crying you’ve done today. 
The sound of the ripples on the water, the wind slowly blowing the trees around you, and the sound of chirping crickets was helping you relax, but with nightfall, brought cooler temperatures. Even though it was summer, it was still a bit chilly at night with how much humidity was in the air. Being right next to water wasn’t helping either. Just as a chill ran down your spine, causing you to shiver violently, you felt something warm being draped over your shoulder.
You startled, head snapping up at the new presence beside you, causing you to let out a curse as you nearly fell backwards. As you righted yourself, you were met with a pair of nearly black eyes that you least expected to see right now. “You’re shivering,” Yoongi coldly stated, face emotionless as he looked down at your pathetic state.
Way to state the obvious, you thought. But truthfully, you were thankful for the warmth of the leather jacket he had wrapped you in. You audibly gulped, looking up at him with eyes as wide as they could go, considering how puffy they were. “T- th- thanks…” you trailed off quietly, grabbing the sides of the jacket to pull it closer to you. You hadn’t realized just how cold you were. 
“You coming back up?”
You mulled over his question for a moment. You were cold. And hungry. And completely and utterly exhausted and probably dehydrated with the river of tears you’ve cried today. Yet, you didn’t feel all that welcome in their ‘home’ and you were unsure if you really wanted to go back. Yoongi seemed to notice your hesitancy, taking the opportunity to say what he had practiced all the way down here. Talking wasn’t his strong suit. “They’re really worried about you, you know,” he uttered, softer than before, but still monotone.
Is that what he came all the way down here to tell you? You furrowed your brows at him, “They can come down here if they want,” you were pretty sure your brazen attitude was stemming from your emotional state and the chilly breeze, “they didn’t have to send you.”
Yoongi pursed his lips into a thin line, biting his tongue from saying what he really wanted to say, you think I want to be here? Instead, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose and let out a long sigh. When he opened his eyes, he saw you still staring at him, daring him to say something. He liked it, the fire in you. You seemed like a shy girl, timid even. He hoped you still had that fire after you learned what a horrible, unjust world you all live in. 
Yoongi sat down on the rock next to you, not asking first, just making room for himself. You quickly scooted over, not feeling incredibly comfortable with him yet. “I’m sorry,” he began, staring down at his lap, “I was being unfair.” It almost sounded like the words were forced, like he didn’t really mean them, or want to say them, but you still took some comfort in the fact he was at least apologizing to you. Not that you thought he owed you an apology, but it still felt nice.
“No, you aren’t being unfair,” you murmured, looking out at the now cerulean blue water, “I’m sorry. Sorry I’m here.”
You sounded so small, so defeated. You reminded Yoongi of how he felt when he was first taken from his family. Scared, alone. Something in him wanted to reach out to you, comfort you, and he almost did, stopping his hand midair before it could reach your arm. You noticed his movement out of the corner of your eye and before he could retract his hand, you flinched. Actually flinched away from him. It was slight, but it still took Yoongi by surprise, jaw hanging slack, eyes widening at your apparent fear. Of him. Yoongi doesn’t think he’s ever felt shittier in his life. Was he so cold someone was actually afraid he’d hurt them? He’s never hurt anyone in his life. Sure, he was a ‘bad boy’, broke his fair share of laws, but he has never, ever, hurt another person. 
“YN -”, he retracted his hand immediately, bringing it behind his back, wanting to hide the offending appendage, “I - wh -” he wasn’t even sure how to finish his sentence. He watched you pull your knees closer to your chest and lay your forehead on them, letting out a breath you had been holding. You didn’t look scared, you looked exasperated, and he wasn’t sure if that made him feel any better at all. 
You didn’t actually think Yoongi would hurt you, you’ve just been so used to people treating you however they want, especially in high school. Boys would push you around in the hallways, girls would pull your hair in class and steal your backpack from under the lunch table. After high school, men would pull on your skirts or dresses at the market while you tried to sell flowers with a smile plastered on your face, which inevitably caused you to throw away any clothes that weren’t pants and baggy shirts. You were relatively afraid of people, and even though you trusted the men who took you in and have been helping you, you still didn’t know Yoongi, or the type of person he was. Now you felt remorse at the look on his face when you flinched away. He looks honestly heartbroken, regret written all over his features. You shook your head back and forth, forehead rubbing against your linen covered knees. 
“I’m sorry,” you sobbed quietly, not daring to look back at the blonde next to you.
Yoongi’s heart broke further at the sound, “Can I touch you?” 
Though you were shocked at Yoongi’s sudden query, you didn’t lift your head. Slowly, you nodded up and down, hoping he could see it. Now that you were expecting the movement, you didn’t startle as Yoongi scooted closer to you on the rock and gently, softly, ran a large, warm hand up and down your spine. Yoongi inwardly noted that your bones were perhaps sticking out a little too far, that maybe you’ve skipped one too many meals lately. Or maybe, you didn’t have access to them. He wasn’t sure. He had no idea what kind of home you lived in. He had limited information, and most of it was about your father. That thought made him remember something, “Pearl?” Yoongi whispered cautiously, not sure how you would react to him having this knowledge. Hoping that you would find some sort of comfort in it, since your friends and mother called you that. 
You immediately stopped sniffling, body going stiff as a board. You sat up abruptly and looked Yoongi dead in the eyes, “What did you call me?” He could see the red rims of your swollen eyes, dried tear tracks being covered by new ones and another piece of his heart cracked off, swallowed by the ocean of his chest.
“Pearl,” he uttered again, a little more confidently, “isn’t that your nickname?”
“H-how?” You stuttered, staring into his vast ocean eyes. They held more emotion than you were accustomed to, coming from him. You gently shook your head back and forth to dislodge the tears that were gathering at the corners. 
Yoongi visibly blushed at your question, quickly avoiding your gaze and turning his head to the side and removing his hand from your back. You momentarily missed the warmth. He looked like he was gazing out at the water, but you could tell he was embarrassed. You narrowed your eyes at him. What was he hiding? “Yoongi?” You sniffled again, which caught his attention. He bit his cheek and looked at you through his lashes.
“I- I’m sorry.”
You were even more confused now. “For?”
“Everything,” he let out an exasperated sigh, “for yelling at you last night, for acting like sending you to Big Hit was a good idea, and…” he trailed off. You waited a moment, tears forgotten as you listened to the man be sincere for the first time since you met him, “for going through your phone.” His words were quiet, so quiet you almost asked him to repeat himself, but after a moment realization hit you.
“Y- you went through my phone?” Long gone was the remorse you felt for leaving your friends, the sorrow you felt at possibly losing your family. In its place, was anger. An ugly, red monster that was brewing in your chest. A part of you knew it was irrational, but the other part knew that he wouldn’t be ashamed if he didn’t feel like he did something wrong. This man, who yelled at you, made you feel small, made you think you didn’t matter… had invaded your privacy. Namjoon promised he would shut off service to your phone, making it untraceable. He promised it would be safe in their hands. You wouldn’t let your mind trace this back to Namjoon, no. He did nothing wrong. You were angry at the blonde sitting in front of you, wide-eyed with a mouth shaped like an “o”. 
He shook himself out of the momentary shock at your reaction, “Y- yes,” he dragged out before quickly adding, “and I’m so sorry YN, really I am. It was wrong of me, and I know that. I know that! I just…”
You cut him off before he could finish that thought, “If you knew it was wrong, why did you do it?”
There was a deep ‘v’ forming on your forehead. The face you wore didn’t resemble someone who was angry, more concerned. Or disappointed. Yeah, that was the right word, Yoongi thought. He felt small in this moment, like he was a child being scolded for stealing cookies. He sighed and looked down at his hands folded in his lap.
“I was scared,” was all he could come up with at the moment, feeling so incredibly guilty and having no other way to express it to you.
“Scared?” You scoffed, he hasn’t been acting very scared. In fact, it seemed more like he was putting on a tough guy persona to try and scare you. “Of what, exactly?” You were feeling brazened now, these boys were really bringing out the sides of you, weren’t they?
A beat passed before Yoongi uttered, “Of losing my soulmates.”
The anger you were feeling just moments ago, dissipated in tiny fractures until all that was left in its wake was empathy for the man sitting across from you. For the first time since you met him, you felt like you saw Yoongi’s rock solid wall, crack slightly. His expression was still blank, like usual, but there was something in his eyes that was calling out to you, for help. He was just like the others. Scared, alone, worried. He found a home in these men, his best friends, maybe even his lovers. Something you were just starting to realize you might be finding in them, too. You were all alike, in some way or another. All felt like you didn’t belong, and here, with each other, you did belong. If you could feel that, you can’t imagine what Yoongi must feel for the others, having spent so much time with them. 
You look away from Yoongi’s eyes, staring out at the water like he had been moments ago, cracking under the pressure of his intense gaze. Biting your lip to keep the dam from breaking again you whisper, “I shouldn’t be here.”
Yoongi wasn’t sure if he heard you correctly, but after a moment realized what you had meant by that. “That’s not what I meant, YN,” he sighed and ran a hand down his face, “really, it’s not.”
“No, I know, Yoongi,” you started, not turning to look at him just yet, “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I don’t want to walk in here and ruin what you guys have, get in the way of your friendships, or relationships,” you blushed at the insinuation, “I should go home. We don’t even know if my parents know anything, or if they even planned on giving me to Big Hit. I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions, they know that.”
Yoongi started to panic, not just because he knew Seokjin and Jungkook would be crushed if you chose to leave, but because he knew you didn’t know the whole truth. Should he tell you? Namjoon would kill him. He didn’t want to disappoint his best friend, his savior, his love. But, he also didn’t want to possibly endanger you by allowing you to return home. He was already starting to care deeply for you and was terrified of the possibility of you getting hurt. “YN -” he started before sucking his lips between his teeth, contemplating his next words. At his silence, you removed your gaze from the quarry and turned towards the nervous looking man. He was wringing his wrist between the fingers of his other hand, a nervous tick. 
You looked at him expectantly through long lashes, eyes still red rimmed from crying away most of the day. Yoongi still thought you looked ethereal, especially with the way the moon was reflecting in your eyes. It was like he could see the entire galaxy staring back at him, and it made him feel things he didn’t want to feel right now. Not when he was about to break your heart.
“YN I, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back. I know you don’t trust me,” he rushed out, making sure you weren’t going to cut him off again, “just let me explain why I’m saying this. I haven’t made the greatest impression on you, and for that I really am sorry. Like I said, I was scared. That’s not an excuse to treat someone poorly, but I hope you can understand that I love the others more than I love myself.”
Your eyes softened at his confession. You could see the love they shared for each other, but hearing him say it really solidified your observations. “Namjoon isn’t telling you the whole truth,” he noticed your eyes go wide, at mentally slapped himself for the poor choice of words before quickly saying, “it’s not what you think! You are like us. You are different. And you are in danger. But Namjoon knew if he told you just how much danger you were in, you probably wouldn’t trust him. He’s not a bad guy, in fact, he’s the exact opposite. He’s saved my life once before and I’m positive he’d do the same for you.”
If you weren’t confused before, you sure as hell are now. They were lying to you? “YN, your parents,” he let out another sigh hating the words he was about to say, “they are the ones lying to you. Hyunwoo and your father weren’t classmates. They worked together,” he felt like a traitor, like he was letting Namjoon down, “he’s a beneficiary of Big Hit. They’re already paying for you.”
To be continued... 
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taglist:  @minifruity​  @mrcleanheichou @arantxaglz​ @chim-possible​ @kooksremedy @irishhbamb​ @sugashaye​ @lovelyseomin​ 
copyright 2020 aliendes
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f0rever15elf · 4 years
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I Just Need Five Minutes: Part 1
Part 1 of the Maxwell Lord “I Just Need Five Minutes” Series: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4, Part 5 (Coming soon) Pairing: Maxwell Lord x f!reader Wordcount: 2,325 Rating: G  Warnings: Death mentions Part 2 (Coming soon...)
Summary: Lord Corp has become the top business contender on the global stage, lead by none other than Maxwell Lord IV. His rise to glory has taken him from the lives of those he once loved, and you can only watch as he slips further and further out of reach. You had to stop it, before it was too late. You had to get inside. 
A/N: This story is going to call a little bit on the comic book backstory of Maxwell Lord IV, most of which can be found in his wiki article, if you’re interested. I’m excited to write for Maxwell, his character has so much potential. And hopefully this will tide me over since the movie release has been delayed again.
Masterlist  |  Ao3
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He was a genius. Shrewd, cunning, and charismatic. His way with words had everyone coiled tightly around his finger; he could sell holy water to the Pope if he wanted to. And with that silver tongue, that guise he wore to stroke the egos of those who ate from his palm and were none the wiser, he continued to climb higher and higher. More and more power fell into his grasp.
But a glass can only hold so much, and as his brimmed and spilled over with power and influence, so did he lose his humanity.
“Maxwell...what have you done?”
~~~~
The sun shines brilliantly in the summer sky over the wide yard in front of the Lord estate. In the lush green grass, two children play, no more than five or six years old. A boy and a girl, giggling and laughing over jokes and stories told in funny voices. It is the picture of innocence, purity. The little girl picks up a flower from the small pile they had collected, tucking it behind her ear before finding a matching one, tucking it behind the boy’s.
“We match now!” she beams in a way only a child can. “It means that you and I will be together forever!” The boy blushes at her words, soft blonde hair blowing gently in the summer breeze. His face is gentle and kind, shy even as he watches her with bright brown eyes that shine in the light. Tentatively, he sticks out his hand to her, pinky finger extended.
“You gotta promise! It doesn’t work if you don’t promise!” His serious voice makes the girl giggle before she makes a serious face, wrapping her pinky around his tightly.
“I promise! Forever and ever.” The boy smiles and nods as she says so, repeating her words back to her before they both erupt into giggles. From the balcony, the mothers of the two children look on fondly over their cups of tea. The sound of the children laughing danced on the warm breeze, pleasant in their ears. If only things could stay like this forever.
~~~~
Your pinky twitches as you stand before the gilded doors of the Lord Building, looking up at its windows, blinding in the sunlight. You would get in. You had to. Things had been put into motion that you need to stop, but the only way to do so is from the inside. With a shake of your head and a sigh, your turn on your heel, heading down the street towards home. It seems that nearly every screen you pass on your way has Maxwell’s face on it, selling empty promises and loaded bargains. And every time you see his eyes, they look a little less like the boy you use to know.
~~~~
“Max can’t meet you today, dear,” your mother says, petting your hair. To an adult familiar with grief and loss, the tightness in her voice would betray the tumultuous emotions she feels. To you, she just sounds uncomfortable, and you tilt your head in confusion. Fourteen years doesn’t provide much time to become familiar with the concept of loss, so you shrug, saddened you wouldn’t get to see your friend today.
Gone were the days of sitting in the grass to play, tucking flowers into each other’s hair. Maxwell was always busy helping his father to run the family business, and you would go months without so much as a word from him before he would show up at your door with a lily, smiling that dimpled smile at you. Promises always poured from his lips that it wouldn’t be so long next time before he came to see you.
But today… Today would change everything. Today, Maxwell’s father died.
~~~~
The door to your apartment slams shut behind you with a thud, shutting out the hustle and bustle of Metropolis. It’s small, but cozy, filled with your plants to bring a little life to the drab living room and kitchen. Taking a seat in the living room, you pull out your computer from your bag as you flip on the TV. It’s Maxwell’s face again, smiling at you with the look of a used car salesman who swears he wants only the best for his favorite customer. You know it’s not a real smile. Maxwell has a dimple when he smiles, and this charade didn’t. You shake your head as his promises of whatever you want in this perfect future fill the room, your eyes refocusing on your laptop, refreshing your emails. One meeting...that was all you needed.
~~~~
You let out a frustrated sigh as the door slams closed, your mother letting out a cry of surprise at the sound before coming to find you, resting a concerned hand on your shoulder as you throw yourself onto the couch.
“He still won’t see you?” Her gentle words just cause your heart to ache further and you nod.
“His mom greeted me, invited me in and made me tea. We chatted, but as soon as I asked about Maxwell, she stood up and ushered me from the house, asking me to not come by anymore since I couldn’t seem to stop asking for him.” You turn to look at your mother, tears in your eyes. “Why won’t he see me, Mom? Did I do something wrong?” Your mother’s heart shatters at the broken light in your eyes. She knew how much Maxwell meant to you, and that having him refuse to see you was tearing you apart.
“My sweet, you’ve done nothing wrong. Maxwell has a lot of responsibility to take on now that he’s running his father’s company. He’s very busy and doesn’t have as much time to see friends as he use to.” She brushes your hair behind your ear with delicate fingers. “I’m sure he still cares about you.”
“I miss him, Mom. I miss my best friend. It’s been three years since I’ve seen him...” Seventeen years of life and you still struggle with keeping your emotions in check, especially when it comes to Maxwell.
“I know sweetheart...When the time is right, you will see him again…”
~~~~
The alert from your inbox pulls you from your reverie, your eyes refocusing on the screen. As they do, your heart stutters in your chest
‘To Whom It May Concern,
We graciously thank you for your interest in Lord Corp. Mr. Lord has personally reviewed your product and would like to arrange to meet you on Wednesday at 3 p.m. You will have thirty minutes to make your sales pitch and answer any questions he may have. The front desk will direct you when you arrive. Please bring a valid photo ID and copies of your pitch for convince. Do not be late, Mr. Lord’s time is incredibly valued.
Cordially,
Sam Preston
Personal Assistant to the CEO’
You had gotten it. That moment you needed on the inside...you had finally gotten it. A relieved smile graces your lips as you begin to amass your files. You had one shot at this, it had to be perfect.
~~~~
You stand alone in the cemetery as you watch the caretakers laying new sod over the fresh grave. Your heart feels hollow, and only the black lace veil conceals the tears streaming down your cheeks from the world around you. Today was beautiful; cool and still with the birds singing in the trees as the sun warmed the earth. It was too beautiful for a day filled with such grief.
As the caretakers pack up their tools, one stops to rest a hand on his shoulder, passing along his condolences before continuing on his way. You nod gratefully before kneeling beside the headstone. It is modest, small and simple with a delicate engraving of a singular rose by your mother’s name. Black-gloved fingers trace along each petal and letter, your shoulders shaking with silent cries. You were now well and truly alone.
You shouldn’t have had to be alone. He should have been there with you, you had made a promise to one another. You were there when his father passed, and his mother. He didn’t even have the time to attend his own mother’s funeral, but you did. You mourned for him as they lowered a woman close enough to be your second mother into the ground beside her husband. So why were you alone now?
Where are you Maxwell?
~~~~
Your hands work to smooth the front of your dress down before you enter the lobby of Lord Corp. Slate gray with a simple black belt that held nicely to your figure but didn’t reveal too much. Professional and classy, with a dash of sexy. Nothing beyond anything any self-respecting company owner would don. Head held high and the bag you specifically reserved for important business trips and meetings over your shoulder, you make your way inside, up to the front desk.
“Welcome to Lord Corp, where the future is yours, do you have an appointment?” The intern who greets you sounds like every last bit of his soul has been sapped from him, and you pity him. Giving him a sad smile, you nod, pulling out your ID.
“I do, at 3 pm with Mr. Lord.” You give him your name as he takes the card, looking you up in the system before nodding, handing you back your ID and a visitors badge which you quickly put around your neck.
“Lily Solutions, you’re still on schedule. I’ll have you head down the hall. Take your first left, you’ll find the elevators. Take it all the way to the top and have a seat on the bench outside the double doors at the end of the hall. Sam will come and get you when Mr. Lord is ready for you.” You smile sweetly at the young man, thanking him before following your instructions. Your ears pop on the way up and you grimace, pulling out the folder with your ‘sales pitch’ inside, flipping through to make sure everything is in order. As the doors slide open and you make your way down the hall, you sigh. This floor was so much more opulent than the ground floor and you feel so out of place. Floor to ceiling paintings like the walls, depicting grandiose battles. Priceless vases and sculptures sit along marble pedestals. It’s like walking through a museum rather than an office, and your jaw clenches as you think about how he had come to acquire some of these items. When you reach the bench, you take your seat and cross your ankles to wait, trying to calm your racing heart.
“Lily Solutions?” The voice that calls out for you immediately grates on your nerves, high pitched and nasally. Looking to your right, so you a man in a pressed navy blue suit make his way towards you, and you stand to meet him, taking his extended hand. “I am Sam Preston, Mr. Lord’s personal assistant. Did you bring your requested documents?” The way he looked down his nose at you makes your blood boil, but you paste on the sweetest smile you can, nodding as you hand over the folder.
“You’ll find copies of all requested articles inside, neatly labeled for yours and Mr. Lord’s personal convenience.” Sam makes a disinterested sound in the back of his throat, snapping the folder shut before checking his watch.
“Very good. This way.” He strides past you and as soon as he is in front of you, you drop the sweet smile. Maxwell, why hire someone like him? You shake your head as Sam opens the door at the end of the hall, getting your salesman smile in place. “Mr. Lord, your 3 o’clock is here from Lily Solutions.” Sam ushers you inside and you are taken aback once again at how over the top the design of the office is. Floor to ceiling windows line the whole back wall with arguably the best view in Metropolis and the curtains that hang every so often are of a rich red velvet with gold filigree.  The marble tiles cause the click of your heels to echo as you make your way to the center of the room beside Sam, your eyes locked on the man sitting at the large mahogany desk.
It’s been seventeen years since you last saw Maxwell, and your heart ached for the man who appraises you with shrewd and cunning eyes. With a wave of his hand, Sam nods, leaving the folder on the desk to make his way out of the room. The large oaken door closing echos ominously through the room as Maxwell stands, coming around his desk to face you, hands in his pockets. If he recognized you at all, he didn’t show it.
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Mr. Lord. I realize your time is very valuable, so I won’t keep you long.” Maxwell chuckles humorlessly at your greetings, leaning back against his desk.
“You say that, but you bring me this fake, garbage company in an attempt for a sales pitch?” His voice is rough and hard as flint, no trace of that gentle sound he once had. “What game are you playing?”
“No game, sir.”
“I don’t believe you.” He pushes off of his desk, walking back around it. “Everyone has a game they play, and if you’re not going to tell me yours, I’ll have you escorted out.” When he picks up the phone, your heart leaps into your throat and you dart forward pressing down on the receiver, cutting it off. He glares at you in disbelief. The audacity, he thinks, is astounding and he would make sure you suffer for it.
“Maxwell, please.” His eyes flash at the use of his first name, something in the way it sounds in your voice bringing him to pause. “I just need five minutes.”
~~~~~
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Cloudwalker Series: Mouse the Dragon
Alright, so here is Mouse’s little origin story... thing, because Mouse is precious and deserves all the loves. Oh, and you can meet Azeera, another sorcerer boi.
Drawing of Mouse Here
Warnings for mentions of death, grief, mentions of slavery, ‘animal’ cruelty (contained in a very small space).
Word Count: 1700
Tag List: @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi
Orrien hated busy places, he hated the noise, the stall owners drawing attention to their produce, the chatter of so many people, the chopping, the grinding, the sound of animals. He hated the mix of smells that didn’t go together at all, fish and cinnamon, fruit and dung.
He hated the heat, the buzz, the way he had to bustle past so many people that just didn’t even notice he was there. He kept his cloak pulled up high, hoping to keep his tattoos hidden. No one could know he was a sorcerer. It was dangerous. They’d assume the worst, that he’d escaped or was going to start an attack on behalf of a kingdom. Sorcerers were not simply free, certainly not in his land anyway.
He kept his head down, buying what he needed to get by until he could travel to the next kingdom. Always searching, desperately looking for a new purpose now that he had lost his only son, and the man who had loved his son had turned to darkness and death. Orrien needed time before he went back to the Red Hills, back to the land he’d been born and raised on.
“Mama, look over there!” a child cried. Orrien turned quickly, thinking perhaps they were looking at him. He heaved out a breath of relief, seeing she was pointing at a small market stall. The mother ushered the child away from whatever it is they had seen. Orrien couldn’t help but approach the emptier area of the city. Something drew him towards it and didn't fight the urge to follow. He saw the owner of the stall was a cloaked man. Orrien couldn’t see his face, but he knew enough about him already. He had light magic, Orrien could feel it, but that didn't necessarily make him a friend. 
Orrien pondered speaking to him, to find out who he was, but he was distracted by a strange tink noise. He turned his head to see a very small jar on the table, and at first Orrien thought it was a small lizard. He stepped closer, seeing that its grey skin was actually metal. He picked up the jar with care. The cloaked figure grunted, but that was all.
Orrien inspected the jar with more care, seeing that the small dragon inside looked incredibly scared. They were so small, only the size of his middle finger. They clawed at the metal with one foot, but the jar was so small they could barely move. They stared at Orrien with wide eyes. He felt so drawn to them. He couldn’t leave them trapped like this. It was cruel. It could kill them. Besides, a small companion like this would likely do him some good. He turned the little paper tag attached to the jar. Enchanted dragon, 100 pieces.
"A trinket has caught your eye, sir?" The man asked. Orrien recognised the voice somewhat, but he couldn't put a name to it. "Some 'trinket' for one hundred… You can’t put a price on a life, enchanted or otherwise. You know no one will ever buy such a small charm for so much. Distress them for too long and they will lose their magic. Why push for so much money?” “The enchantment on this dragon is... immense. They were made with incredible power- from love and care. They are practically alive with their own personality... My greatest work. They deserve a loving home, but are you worthy?"
"Money and power does not equate to kindness," he hissed. My greatest work. Orrien hoped he’d put the voice to the right face, and the fact that the dragon was enchanted. Reluctantly, he eased his hood back a fraction to show his face, his tattoos. "You of all people should know that. You say they deserve a loving home, but you treat them so harshly," he grunted before putting his hood back. "Trapping them like this. You should be ashamed… Azeera." The man carefully moved his hood away, showing bright green tattoos on either cheek, a sharp contrast on his dark skin. Orrien had been right after all, and his relief must have showed. He belonged to the Sorcerer's Circle, one of the eight. His enchantment magic was impressive.
 “Correct, though it seemed to take you a while, Orrien of the Red Hills, high sorcerer of the Kingdom of Everblade." He remarked. “Former,” Orrien corrected glumly. There was no kingdom left to serve, not that he’d ever enjoyed serving that wretched man. “Indeed. Word spreads fast. But here you are, in front of me, as I’d waited and hoped. Fate always finds a way, doesn’t it? In truth, I thought you were dead."
“Why would you think that?” Orrien frowned. “Well, the last I heard of Everblade, it was being called Everblood and had fallen. I wasn’t sure if your apprentice had turned on you also.” Orrien sighed. “That castle was so low it could not have fallen any further… Avizon has chosen a darker path, but he would never turn on me.” “Then… tell me, where is your son? Are the rumours true...” his voice faded off. Orrien looked away and kept his eyes on the dragon that was now headbutting the glass with a repetitive tinking noise. “He is… he’s gone. Avizon told me the king killed him while he rested from wounds gained by protecting the castle. That is why Avizon rebelled and attacked. I was a coward and left him. I wasn't going to stop him after what Halve had done, but nor could I stand by him…"
Azeera sighed and bowed his head. “That is indeed a terrible thing to hear, but this was Avizon’s path to walk, his destiny. Fate always finds a way, even if you had stayed behind. I don’t know how Ignium will feel about the whole affair, but I shan't be the one to tell him.” “Perhaps, but what does my son have to do with buying a dragon?” Orrien asked. "And if I may ask, why are you here? Are you not still serving Queen Daphne?”
Azeera shook his head. “Not all of us were kept on as short a chain as you, you know? I was allowed to leave the grounds, but alas, no. After… Everblade, the queen decided against magic defences, despite my years of unwavering loyalty. Royals are realising we are powerful, dangerous, and most importantly, unhappy. Her focus is on the army, on a group that won’t risk so much if one loses control. She did not care for the reasons why young Avizon turned on the castle. She reflected and I believe she feared his actions would influence me. She released me peacefully, no quarrels, and gave me a home to try to keep me from turning bitter. I consider it early retirement, and really you can’t consider freedom to be a punishment. So here I am, selling trinkets to pass the time."
"I see. For what it is worth, I am sorry for Avizon’s actions. I should have been able to do more to stop this.”
Azeera shrugged. “It is a difficult situation, but when I saw Avizon after you saved him… I didn’t expect him to turn to violence, but I cannot say I’m shocked. What Halve did to him was beyond human.” Orrien shuddered, he needed a change of topic. “So what is this fate you speak of?"
"Ah, yes, that. Orrien, I don't think he told you, that it was a surprise but your son saved my life only days before the attack. I offered him a favour in return.” Orrien looked back down at the dragon and stared. Was he leading to what he thought?
Orrien continued to stare. When he stared in the dragon's eyes, he could see their pleading. They dug at the glass desperately, but it was so cramped it barely equated to anything. It bit at his own tail, but it didn’t seem to damage itself at least. Did he imagine it, or was there a familiarity? All he knew was that he couldn’t leave them. His heart told him that he needed this little one. He gritted his teeth. Orrien pulled the cork out of the jar, ignoring Azeera’s grunt of a protest. The little dragon scrambled out and hid in Orrien’s palm. He opened his hand just enough to stroke their head. They seemed so much more relaxed now they had access to magic, that they could move.
“The only way to contain them was to take away their mobility. They’re quite the trouble maker and an escape artist. They had started with a very comfortable abode,” Azeera explained with a soft grumble. Orrien put his hand up to his shoulder, letting the dragon climb onto him. They hid behind Orrien’s ear, chewing nervously on it. Orrien couldn't help but brace to have to argue or fight, to have to run away and get to the horse, out of habit more than anything.
“You're tired and on edge, old friend. I can recommend you an inn or offer space in my home to rest? That little dragon is meant to be yours. They were the favour Ro asked of me. They were to be a gift… for you. He poured his heart and soul into helping me make it… After seeing what happened to the castle I left before I could give it to him. I assumed they would be forgotten about, that you were dead, and so I put them up for sale for a good home. Fate had other plans. Your son’s love drew you here.”
Orrien bit back tears. He had not expected anything like this. For Ro to have left him something so... pure. The dragon began to slide down the front of Orrien’s cloak, so he put his hand out as a platform. “My debt is paid, the offer of rest is still there? The inn is the Crooked Key. It is welcoming of our kind and my home is just around the corner."
Orrien nodded. "Thank you, for everything you have done for me."
Orrien bowed his head and left, cradling the little dragon in his hand. “You’re so quiet… so small, like a little mouse.” He stopped and smiled. “Yes, that will be your name. I think it would have annoyed Ro just as he’d have wanted,” he smiled softly. He scratched their back, enjoying  watching the dragon weave through his fingers and arch their back like a cat might.
“To get a favour from a sorcerer as powerful as Azeera and ask only for a trinket for your father… Oh, Ro, my poor boy… This world was not made for one as pure as you.” He forced himself to take deep breaths, to calm before he let the dragon back onto his shoulder and disappeared into the choking crowds.
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Best of Sundance 2021.
From pandemic-era stories, via portraits of grief, to the serendipitous 1969 trilogy, the Letterboxd crew recaps our favorite films from the first major festival of the year.
Sundance heralds a new season of storytelling, with insights into what’s concerning filmmakers at present, and what artistic innovations may be on the horizon. As with every film festival, there were spooky coincidences and intersecting themes, whether it was a proliferation of pandemic-era stories, or extraordinary portraits of women working through grief (Land, Hive, The World to Come), or the incredible serendipity of the festival’s ‘1969 trilogy’, covering pivotal moments in Black American history: Summer of Soul (...Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Judas and the Black Messiah and the joyful Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.
The hybrid model of this year’s Sundance meant more film lovers across the United States—a record number of you, in fact—‘attended’ the prestigious indie showcase. Our Festiville team (Gemma Gracewood, Aaron Yap, Ella Kemp, Selome Hailu, Jack Moulton and Dominic Corry) scanned your Letterboxd reviews and compared them with our notes to arrive at these seventeen feature-length documentary and narrative picks from Sundance 2021. There are plenty more we enjoyed, but these are the films we can’t stop thinking about.
Documentary features
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Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (AKA Questlove)
One hot summer five decades ago, there was a free concert series at a park in Harlem. It was huge, and it was lovely, and then it was forgotten. The Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 brought together some of the world’s most beloved Black artists to connect with Black audiences. The star power and the size of the crowds alone should have been enough to immortalize the event à la Woodstock—which happened the same summer, the film emphasizes. But no one cared to buy up the footage until Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, came along.
It would have been easy to oversimplify such a rich archive by stringing together the performances, seeking out some talking heads, and calling it a day. But Questlove was both careful and ebullient in his approach. “Summer of Soul is a monumental concert documentary and a fantastic piece of reclaimed archived footage. There is perhaps no one better suited to curate this essential footage than Questlove, whose expertise and passion for the music shines through,” writes Matthew on Letterboxd. The film is inventive with its use of present interviews, bringing in both artists and attendees not just to speak on their experiences, but to react to and relive the footage. The director reaches past the festival itself, providing thorough social context that takes in the moon landing, the assassinations of Black political figures, and more. By overlapping different styles of documentary filmmaking, Questlove’s directorial debut embraces the breadth and simultaneity of Black resilience and joy. A deserving winner of both the Grand Jury and Audience awards (and many of our unofficial Letterboxd awards). —SH
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Flee Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Flee is the type of discovery Sundance is designed for. Danish documentarian Jonas Poher Rasmussen tells the poignant story of his close friend and former classmate (using the pseudonym ‘Amin Nawabi’) and his daring escape from persecution in 1990s Afghanistan. Rasmussen always approaches tender topics with sensitivity and takes further steps to protect his friend’s identity by illustrating the film almost entirely in immersive animation, following in the footsteps of Waltz With Bashir and Tower. It’s a film aware of its subjectivity, allowing the animated scenes to alternate between the playful joy of nostalgia and the mournful pain of an unforgettable memory. However, these are intercepted by dramatic archive footage that oppressively brings the reality home.
“Remarkably singular, yet that is what makes it so universal,” writes Paul. “So many ugly truths about the immigration experience—the impossible choices forced upon people, and the inability to really be able to explain all of it to people in your new life… You can hear the longing in his voice, the fear in his whisper. Some don’t get the easy path.” Winner of the World Cinema (Documentary) Grand Jury Prize and quickly acquired by Neon, Flee is guaranteed to be a film you’ll hear a lot about for the rest of 2021. —JM
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Taming the Garden Directed by Salomé Jashi
There’s always a moment at a film festival when fatigue sets in, when the empathy machine overwhelms, and when I hit that moment in 2021, I took the advice of filmmaker and Sundance veteran Jim Cummings, who told us: “If you’re ever stressed or tired, watch a documentary to reset yourself.” Taming the Garden wasn’t initially on my hit-list, but it’s one of those moments when the ‘close your eyes and point at a random title’ trick paid off. Documentary director Salomé Jashi does the Lorax’s work, documenting the impact and grief caused by billionaire former Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili’s obsession with collecting ancient trees for his private arboretum.
“A movie that is strangely both infuriating and relaxing” writes Todd, of the long, locked-off wide shots showing the intense process of removing large, old trees from their village homes. There’s no narration, instead Jashi eavesdrops on locals as they gossip about Ivanishvili, argue about whether the money is worth it, and a feisty, irritated 90-year-old warns of the impending environmental fallout. “What you get out of it is absolutely proportional to what you put into it,” writes David, who recommends this film get the IMAX treatment. It’s arboriculture as ASMR, the timeline cleanse my Sundance needed. The extraordinary images of treasured trees being barged across the sea will become iconic. —GG
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The Most Beautiful Boy in the World Directed by Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström
Where Taming the Garden succeeds through pure observation, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World relies on the complete participation of its title subject, actor Björn Andrésen, who was thrust into the spotlight as a teenager. Cast by Italian director Lucino Visconti in Death in Venice, a 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella about obsession and fatal longing, Andrésen spent the 1970s as an object of lust, with a side-gig as a blonde pop star in Japan, inspiring many manga artists along the way.
As we know by now (Alex Winter’s Showbiz Kids is a handy companion to this film), young stardom comes at a price, one that Andrésen was not well-placed to pay even before his fateful audition for Visconti. But he’s still alive, still acting (he’s Dan in Midsommar), and ready to face the mysteries of his past. Like Benjamin Ree’s excellent The Painter and the Thief from last year, this documentary is a constantly unfolding detective story, notable for great archive footage, and a deep kindness towards its reticent yet wide-open subject. —GG
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All Light, Everywhere Directed by Theo Anthony
Threading the blind spots between Étienne-Jules Marey’s 19th-century “photographic rifle”, camera-carrying war pigeons and Axon’s body-cam tech, Theo Anthony’s inquisitive, mind-expanding doc about the false promise of the all-seeing eye is absorbing, scary, urgent. It’s the greatest Minority Report origin story you didn’t know you needed.
Augmented by Dan Deacon’s electronic soundscapes and Keaver Brenai’s lullingly robotic narration, All Light, Everywhere proves to be a captivating, intricately balanced experience that Harris describes as “one part Adam Curtis-esque cine-essay”, “one part structural experiment in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi” and “one part accidental character study of two of the most familiar yet strikingly unique evil, conservative capitalists…”. Yes, there’s a tremendous amount to download, but Anthony’s expert weaving, as AC writes, “make its numerous subjects burst with clarity and profundity.” For curious cinephiles, the oldest movie on Letterboxd, Jules Jenssen’s Passage de Vénus (1874), makes a cameo. —AY
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The Sparks Brothers Directed by Edgar Wright
Conceived at a Sparks gig in 2017 upon the encouragement of fellow writer-director Phil Lord, Edgar Wright broke his streak of riotous comedies with his first (of many, we hope) rockumentary. While somewhat overstuffed—this is, after all, his longest film by nearly fifteen minutes—The Sparks Brothers speaks only to Wright’s unrestrained passion for his art-pop Gods, exploring all the nooks and crannies of Sparks’ sprawling career, with unprecedented access to brothers and bandmates Ron and Russell Mael.
Nobody else can quite pin them down, so Wright dedicates his time to put every pin in them while he can, building a mythology and breaking it down, while coloring the film with irresistible dives into film history, whimsically animated anecdotes and cheeky captions. “Sparks rules. Edgar Wright rules. There’s no way this wasn’t going to rule”, proclaims Nick, “every Sparks song is its own world, with characters, rules, jokes and layers of narrative irony. What a lovely ode to a creative partnership that was founded on sticking to one’s artistic guns, no matter what may have been fashionable at the time.” —JM
Narrative features
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The Pink Cloud Written and directed by Iuli Gerbase
The Pink Cloud is disorienting and full of déjà vu. Brazilian writer-director Iuli Gerbase constructs characters that are damned to have to settle when it comes to human connection. Giovana and Yago’s pleasant one-night stand lasts longer than expected when the titular pink cloud emerges from the sky, full of a mysterious and deadly gas that forces everyone to stay locked where they stand. Sound familiar? Reserve your groans—The Pink Cloud wasn’t churned out to figure out “what it all means” before the pandemic is even over. Gerbase wrote and shot the film prior to the discovery of Covid-19.
It’s “striking in its ability to prophesize a pandemic and a feeling unknown at the time of its conception. What was once science fiction hits so close now,” writes Sam. As uncanny as the quarantine narrative feels, what’s truly harrowing is how well the film predicts and understands interiorities that the pandemic later exacerbated. Above all, Giovana is a woman with unmet needs. She is a good partner, good mother and good person even when she doesn’t want to be. Even those who love her cannot see how their expectations strip her of her personhood, and the film dares to ask what escape there might be when love itself leaves you lonely. —SH
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Together Together Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith
Every festival needs at least one indie relationship dramedy, and Together Together filled that role at Sundance 2021 with a healthy degree of subversion. It follows rom-com structure while ostensibly avoiding romance, instead focusing on how cultivating adult friendships can be just hard, if not harder.
Writer-director Nikole Beckwith warmly examines the limits of the platonic, and Patti Harrison and Ed Helms are brilliantly cast as the not-couple: a single soon-to-be father and the surrogate carrying his child. They poke at each other’s boundaries with a subtle desperation to know what makes a friendship appropriate or real. As Jacob writes: “It’s cute and serious, charming without being quirky. It’s a movie that deals with the struggle of being alone in this world, but offers a shimmer of hope that even if you don’t fall in fantastical, romantic, Hollywood love… there are people out there for you.” —SH
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Hive Written and directed by Blerta Basholli
Hive, for some, may fall into the “nothing much happens” slice-of-life genre, but Blerta Basholli’s directorial debut holds an ocean of pain in its small tale, asking us to consider the heavy lifting that women must always do in the aftermath of war. As Liz writes, “Hive is not just a story about grief and trauma in a patriarchy-dominated culture, but of perseverance and the bonds created by the survivors who must begin to consider the future without their husbands.”
Yllka Gashi is an understated hero as Fahrjie, a mother-of-two who sets about organizing work for the women of her village, while awaiting news of her missing husband—one of thousands unaccounted for, years after the Kosovo War has ended. The townsmen have many opinions about how women should and shouldn’t mourn, work, socialize, parent, drive cars and, basically, get on with living, but Fahrjie persists, and Basholli sticks close with an unfussy, tender eye. “It felt like I was a fly on the wall, witnessing something that was actually happening,” writes Arthur. Just as in Robin Wright’s Land and Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Hive pays off in the rare, beaming smile of its protagonist. —GG
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On the Count of Three Directed by Jerrod Carmichael, written by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch
It starts with an image: two best friends pointing guns at each other’s heads. There’s no anger, there’s no hatred—this is an act of merciful brotherly love. How do you have a bleak, gun-totin’ buddy-comedy in 2021 and be critically embraced without contradicting your gun-control retweets or appearing as though your film is the dying embers of Tarantino-tinged student films?
Comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s acerbic directorial debut On the Count of Three achieves this by calling it out every step of the way. Guns are a tool to give insecure men the illusion of power. They are indeed a tool too terrifying to trust in the hands of untrained citizens. Carmichael also stars, alongside Christopher Abbott, who has never been more hilarious or more tragic, bringing pathos to a cathartic rendition of Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’. Above all, Carmichael and Abbott’s shared struggle and bond communicates the millennial malaise: how can you save others if you can’t save yourself? “Here’s what it boils down to: life is fucking hard”, Laura sums up, “and sometimes the most we can hope for is to have a best friend who loves you [and] to be a best friend who loves. It doesn’t make life any easier, but it sure helps.” Sundance 2021 is one for the books when it comes to documentaries, but On the Count of Three stands out in the fiction lineup this year. —JM
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Censor Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, written by Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher
The first of several upcoming films inspired by the ‘video nasty’ moral panic over gory horror in mid-’80s Britain, Prano Bailey-Bond leans heavily into both the period and the genre in telling the story of a film censor (a phenomenal Niamh Algar—vulnerable and steely at the same time) who begins to suspect a banned movie may hold the key to her sister’s childhood disappearance. Often dreamlike, occasionally phantasmagorical and repeatedly traumatic, even if the worst gore presented (as seen in the impressively authentic fictional horrors being appraised) appears via a screen, providing a welcome degree of separation.
Nevertheless, Censor is definitely not for the faint of heart, but old-school horror aficionados will squeal with delight at the aesthetic commitment. “I’m so ecstatic that horror is in the hands of immensely talented women going absolutely batshit in front of and behind the camera.” writes Erik. (Same here!) “A great ode to the video-nasty era and paying tribute to the great horror auteurs of the ’80s such as Argento, De Palma and Cronenberg while also doing something new with the genre. Loved this!” writes John, effectively encapsulating Censor’s unfettered film-nerd appeal. —DC
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CODA Written and directed by Siân Heder
A film so earnest it shouldn’t work, with a heart so big it should surely not fit the size of the screen, CODA broke records (the first US dramatic film in Sundance history to win all three top prizes; the 25-million-dollar sale to Apple Studios), and won the world over like no other film. “A unique take on something we’ve seen so much,” writes Amanda, nailing the special appeal of Siân Heder’s coming-of-ager and family portrait. Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only hearing person in her deaf family, at war between the family business and her passion for singing. While Heder is technically remaking the French film La Famille Bélier, the decision to cast brilliant deaf actors—Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant—makes this feel brand new.
But it’s not just about representation for the sake of it. A sense of authenticity, in humor as much as affection, shines through. With a script that’s 40 per cent ASL, so many of the jokes are visual gags, poking fun at Tinder and rap music, but a lot of the film’s most poignant moments are silent as well. And in Ruby’s own world, too, choir kids will feel seen. “I approve of this very specific alto representation and the brilliant casting of the entire choir,” Laura confirms in her review. Come for the fearless, empathetic family portrait, stay for the High School Musical vibes that actually ring true. —EK
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We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Perhaps the most singular addition to the recent flurry of Extremely Online cinema—Searching, Spree, Host, et al—Jane Schoenbrun’s feature debut ushers the viewer into a haunted, hypno-drone miasma of delirium-inducing YouTube time-suck, tenebrous creepypasta lore and painfully intimate webcam confessionals. Featuring an extraordinarily unaffected, fearless performance by newcomer Anna Cobb, the film “unpacks the mythology of adolescence in a way that’s so harrowingly familiar and also so otherworldly”, writes Kristen. Not since Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse has there been such an eerily lonely, and at times strangely beautiful, evocation of the liminal spaces between virtual and real worlds.
For members of the trans community, it’s also a work that translates that experience to screen with uncommon authenticity. “What Schoenbrun has accomplished with the form of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is akin to catching a wisp of smoke,” writes Willow, “because the images, mood and aesthetic that they have brought to life is one that is understood completely by trans people as one of familiarity, without also plunging into the obvious melodrama, or liberal back-patting that is usually associated with ‘good’ direct representation.” One of the most original, compelling new voices to emerge from Sundance this year. —AY
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Judas and the Black Messiah Directed by Shaka King, written by King, Will Berson, Kenneth Lucas and Keith Lucas
It was always going to take a visionary, uncompromising filmmaker to bring the story of Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party, to life. Shaka King casts Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, and LaKeith Stanfield as William “Wild Bill” O’Neal, the FBI informant whose betrayal leads to Hampton’s assassination. Both actors have never been better, particularly Kaluuya who Fran Hoepfner calls “entrancing, magnetic, fizzling, romantic, riveting, endlessly watchable.”
Judas and the Black Messiah is an electric, involving watch: not just replaying history by following a certain biopic template. Instead, it’s a film with something to say—on power, on fear, on war and on freedom. “Shaka King’s name better reverberate through the halls of every studio after this,” writes Demi. A talent like this, capable of framing such a revolution, doesn’t come around so often. We’d better listen up. —EK
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Pleasure Directed by Ninja Thyberg, written by Thyberg and Peter Modestij
A24’s first purchase of 2021. Ironically titled on multiple levels, Pleasure is a brutal film that you endure more than enjoy. But one thing you can’t do is forget it. Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature follows a young Swedish woman (Sofia Kappel) who arrives in Los Angeles with dreams of porn stardom under the name ‘Bella Cherry’. Although Bella is clear-eyed about the business she’s getting into, Thyberg doesn’t shy away from any of the awfulness she faces in order to succeed in an industry rife with exploitation and abuse. Bella does make allies, and the film isn’t suggesting that porn is only stocked with villains, but the ultimate cost is clear, even if it ends on an ever-so-slightly ambiguous note.
Touching as it does on ambition, friendship and betrayal in the sex business, Pleasure is often oddly reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Or rather, the gritty film Showgirls was claiming to be, as opposed to the camp classic it became. There’s nothing campy here. Kappel is raw and fearless in the lead, but never lets the viewer lose touch with her humanity. Emma puts it well: “Kappel gives the hardest, most provocative and transfixing performance I’ve seen all festival.” “My whole body was physically tense during this,” writes Gillian, while Keegan perhaps speaks for most when she says “Great film, never want to see it again.” —DC
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Coming Home in the Dark Directed by James Ashcroft, written by Ashcroft and Eli Kent
A family camping trip amidst some typically stunnin—and casually foreboding— New Zealand scenery is upended by a shocking rug-pull of violence that gives way to sustained terror represented by Daniel Gillies’ disturbingly calm psychopath. The set-up of this thriller initially suggests a spin on the backwoods brutality thriller, but as Coming Home in the Dark progresses and hope dissipates, the motivations reveal themselves to be much more personal in nature, and informed on a thematic level by New Zealand’s colonial crimes against its Indigenous population. It’s a stark and haunting film that remains disorientating and unpredictable throughout, repeatedly daring the viewer to anticipate what will happen next, only to casually stomp on each glimmer of a positive outcome.
It’s so captivatingly bleak that a viewing of it, as Collins Ezeanyim’s eloquent reaction points out, does not lend itself to completing domestic tasks. The film marks an auspicious debut for director and co-writer James Ashcroft. Jacob writes that he “will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one”. Justin hits the nail on the head with his description: “Lean and exceptionally brutal road/revenge film … that trades in genre tropes, especially those of Ozploitation and ’70s Italian exploitation, but contextualizes them in the dark history of its country of origin.” —DC
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The World to Come Directed by Mona Fastvold, written by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard
Mona Fastvold has not made the first, nor probably the last, period romance about forbidden lesbian love. But The World to Come focuses on a specific pocket in time, a world contained in Jim Shepard’s short story ‘Love & Hydrogen’ from within the collection giving the film its name. Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby are Abigail and Tallie, farming neighbors, stifled by their husbands, who find brief moments of solace, of astonishment and joy, together. What shines here is the script, a verbose, delicate narration that emanates beauty more than pretence. “So beautifully restrained and yet I felt everything,” Iana writes.
And you can feel the fluidity and elegance in the way the film sounds, too: composer Daniel Blumberg’s clarinet theme converses with the dialogue and tells you when your heart can break, when you must pause, when the end is near. “So much heartache. So much hunger. So much longing. Waves of love and grief and love and grief,” writes Claira, capturing the ebb and flow of emotion that keeps The World to Come in your mind long after the screen has gone silent. —EK
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boomcomplains · 3 years
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It's typical. A loud noise sends a character back into a hostage situation, a war, or a gunfight. When faced with the majority of reporting on PTSD centers around combat-related PTSD (source), it makes sense that it's the shellshocked veteran we often see in books, TV, film and comics.  However, the civilian population that experiences PTSD is 13 times larger than its military counterpart. Of course, there are more civilians than those in the military, so naturally, that population is bigger. This article is not meant to dismiss those in the military who deal with very real and terrible side-effects from their time serving.
However, it does beg the question, what does a character with PTSD look like when their trauma is outside combat?
I think a very good study of this sort of character is Dr. Nicholas Rush from Stargate: Universe. There are many other characters out there that I could use, but I'm in a SGU mood today, so I hope you'll forgive me.
At the beginning of the show, Dr. Nicholas Rush is a difficult man. Unable to deal with his wife's terminal cancer, he drowns himself in work so he can avoid the pain of losing her. When she dies while he is off-world, this complicated grief drives him to focus on the mission of the ninth chevron because he has to make his absence from her deathbed mean something. After all, if he didn't succeed, he would not have an excuse. Without the excuse, he would confront the nasty truth that he didn't support his wife in her dying days because he couldn't handle the grief.
The ninth chevron leads him to the Destiny, a ship far beyond the reaches humanity could ever dream to go, with a singular but ultimately mysterious mission. His doggedness to stay on the ship, and follow the mission is likely a reaction to his own inability to come to terms with the trauma of losing his wife.
Because of this, he approaches situations from an ultra-logical world that doesn't exactly coincide with the emotional gray side of the human experience. That's why when he felt that Colonel Young was repeatedly putting lives and the mysterious mission of Destiny in danger, he decided to... frame him for murder... and when that didn't work, stage a coup.
I promise, within the confines of the show, those were actually both very rational decisions.
The coup was the last straw for Colonel Young, so he abandons Rush to die on a desert planet that has no stargate and therefore no possibility for escape. So, metaphorically, Young essentially commits the murder that Rush tried to frame him for.
It is there, on a sandy planet without food or water, that the narrative of Nicholas Rush's PTSD starts.
While attempting to escape, Rush alerts an alien race called the Nakai to his presence as tries to fix a crashed alien spaceship. For the Nakai, it's a lucky find because they are hell-bent on boarding Destiny. Why do they want to get on Destiny? I don't know. They're aliens. Sometimes you don't get to know the why when it comes to aliens.
On their ship, Rush is tortured and imprisoned in a water tank (this is important later). So for the PTSD counter, we have both abandonment and abuse to contend with. His feelings about Young essentially murdering him for doing what he thought was right for the ship are compounded with being mentally torn apart by the Nakai.
Flash forward, Rush is accidentally rescued from the Nakai's clutches due to a lot of plot points I'm not going to go into. Frankly, it's very likely most of you haven't seen the series—or have forgotten more about it than you remember—and the last thing I want to do is turn this article into a Stargate: Universe season recap.
So, back on the ship, Rush isn't sleeping, which you find out after he commiserates with fellow torture victim Chloe. It's assumed that it is for the same reasons as Chloe, which are vivid nightmares. For those of you keeping track, that is a classic sign of PTSD. The subsequent not sleeping because you're afraid of having more nightmares is also a very strong indicator.
Unfortunately, insomnia leads to emotional decision-making, usually based on your experiences in that trauma. But let's put a pin in that for just a moment, and we'll fast forward to a later episode entitled "Pain."
In "Pain", the crew accidentally bring a tick onboard that causes vivid hallucinations, some of which are paranoid delusions. For everyone who experiences this, there is little rhyme or reason why the hallucination starts, and they go with it unquestioningly.
Rush, however, is different. His hallucinations are all triggered. When under the influence of the tick, Sergeant Greer (a proponent for Young's leadership) threatens Rush. Because of this, Rush experiences flashbacks to the Nakai ship and sees everyone as a potential Nakai threat. Paranoid ideation is a symptom of PTSD. When I say "paranoid" though, I fear that this may be read dismissively. PTSD, in many ways, is a survival mechanism. It's a set of prefab reactions because you have already experienced something similar. Essentially, it's not paranoid ideation to you, because it's happened before.
It is unclear if Rush himself was affected by the alien organism, but it seems very likely that his reaction was hinged on the perceived/very real threat to his survival. The fact that it has been established that he has not been sleeping for episodes now, and his hallucinations are of past experiences—such as the room flooding with water, or seeing other members of the crew as Nakai —it seems more than likely that Rush's experiences in this episode are PTSD-related and not due to the tick.
This, however, is not our only brush with PTSD. Let's move forward to the next season, where he finds the bridge of Destiny and hides that discovery from the rest of the crew.
One of the cool things about Stargate: Universe in the first season is that they never find the bridge of the ship. They don't even know there is one because Destiny is so massive and broken, they haven't found it yet... or perhaps the Ancients were so culturally different at the time they didn't design the ship with a bridge in mind. Even if they did, there would be a fair chance the crew would have no idea how to use it.
So, Rush—who is established to still not be sleeping after an incursion with the Lucian Alliance—finds the bridge of the Destiny. Until now, he and the Science Team had been interfacing with the ship in what I think is probably a janitor's closet, so this is an incredibly important find because it is vital for the survival of the ship and the crew. Naturally, that means Rush should want to share it, knowing what we know of him from before he was abandoned on the planet and then tortured by the Nakai. Before, it was the greater good. Now, it's survival is first and foremost.
But no. Rush, instead, reasons that Young cannot be trusted with this find, and starts to lead a double life of surreptitiously guiding the ship (to disastrous results) and pretending like he's still doing things from the Control Interface Room/Janitor's closet.
But what led him to do this? After all, keeping this find under wraps leads to dire situations that compromise the survival of the crew, and indeed causes the death of one member. It is not a rational decision.
Except that it is. If there is one thing I want to make very plainly clear in this article, PTSD-sufferers reactions are rational, even if they don't seem that way to an outsider. I think oftentimes we nitpick plots in fiction because characters make decisions that seem illogical to us. Sometimes this is deserved because an author did not sufficiently help us empathize with a character, other times I think it is because we don't understand what it means to have PTSD.
You don't have to be triggered to have PTSD affect your decision-making process. You see, unmanaged, PTSD gets you stuck in survival mode. It's an undertow that drags you down with things that were true but aren't necessarily true now.
So in Rush's sleep-deprived, and exhausted state-of-my-mind, he reverts back to Young being the threat despite all the work they had done to repair the relationship. While some may be frustrated with this backstep, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that about his character. It explains the rationale for doing something irrational, and makes his character so much deeper.
The beauty of Stargate Universe is that it shows PTSD as it is. Even better, no one is excusing Rush's actions because of it, and/or invalidating his experience. It simply is.
PTSD is so misunderstood, it deserves logical, rational representation, and it gets that with logical, rational Dr. Rush. I mean, let's face it, there is logic to what goes on in a PTSD-sufferers brain, but it's logic from a different time period. Dismissing it as irrational is insulting, and I love that Stargate: Universe never does that, and I think it is exactly why Rush is such a deep and meaningful character.
In the end, I think there is a lesson writers can draw from this: don't be afraid to explore this within some of your characters. Understand their viewpoint, and what drives them to make their choices. If you do that, you will never have a boring story.
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corneliusironwood · 4 years
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Fun meta asks for writers
Tagged by @anonwrite, thank you for the kick in the rear I needed to get started writing this morning.
1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? It’s a high fantasy novel with aspects of psychological horror. It’s about a man trying not to lose himself in his journey to ensure that his dead husband is remembered. I have a decent outline and have written a few chapters, but there’s still quite a lot of details in the worldbuilding side of things that I’m trying to manage. I really love my main characters and am not looking forward to what I’m going to put them through, but I know the journey will be satisfying and compelling when it’s all done. 2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – There’s a big reveal scene where both the reader and the main character realize that he is actually the “bad guy” he has been wanting to destroy. 3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) My entire WIP is this exact thing. It has been a pain setting up a world and a culture for the story to work in, but it has a message I want to share, so I’m trying to make it work.
4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like) I like this paragraph because it’s just the right amount of horror combined with hope. It’s the curse that kicks off the whole story and the thing that leads to both family’s downfalls. The implications of this one paragraph on the rest of the story are huge. (I’d be lying if I said this trope wasn’t inspired by Shakespeare). [Thurin returned to the cooling body of his mate, his hands covered in fresh blood and his face blacked with char. Solde's belly still thrashed with life, a child struggling to survive within a corpse. With a gasping wail of grief, Thurin slid the tip of his hunting knife across his wife's belly, freeing the child within. Though her body was cold with death, the baby was warm, hot as fire. It wailed and within its throat was the same fiery cry that Thurin carried in his lungs. He shushed the baby, holding it to his chest where it nuzzled against his heart. Thurin opened his mouth and a plea to the gods spilled forth. "From this day on shall our families be divided. Let no Ravenmind bind themselves to a Baerhart, and may the Baerhart line end in misery, and in violence. Let them know no peace until their line is ended." And the gods heeded his prayer.] 5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with? My main character. He shares many of my traits and a lot of my faults. (Sorry, bud.) 6. What character do you have the most fun writing? My as-yet-unnamed Harpy character. She’s sweet, she’s family-oriented and she’s innocent. She’s a perfect foil to my other main character and she’s so much fun to write because her speech and mannerisms are so not human. 7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree? I describe things. A lot. Often too much. I would say most of my readers would agree, though some of them seem to enjoy it when I spend three paragraphs describing one thing, idk. I also tend to like to use several timelines and sink them within one another, so a character in one timeline maybe thinking about (and thereby briefly narrating) another timeline. 8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read? Yes. I often write things because they don’t exist yet and I want something to read that I know I’ll enjoy. 9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other? Longfic for sure. A combination of both, though my best ideas come from pantsing. I don’t really wish I was a particular one, I’m just glad when my stories turn out. 10.How would you describe your writing process? Pain. Pain and coffee. I write best when I’m bothered about something, feeling anxious or depressed. All of my most popular work was born out of some strong emotion I was feeling when I was planning it. I often sit down and write specifically to channel my emotions into something productive. 11. What do you envy in other writers? I’m pretty envious of writers who get good social media following and get published. 12. Do you want your writing to be famous? Yes, but that’s mostly because I’d like a reason to justify being just a writer and not having to have a full-time job.  13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself? Yes, I’ve written quite a lot of fanfiction because I know I can’t copyright or make money on it, so I don’t mind sharing it and it’s good practice for original writing since it requires good characterization to be enjoyable for readers. I keep most of my planned original works pretty close to my chest. I’ll share them when they’re published. 14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title? Once the story is done. I feel like titling it first biases me, though I have stumbled on good titles while writing and I save them and decide if I want to keep them once the story is finished. 15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? Summaries. I am a person of many words and I have a hard time whittling down a long tale to a short paragraph that gets people interested in what I have written. 16. Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?) Worldbuilding! This most recent project requires extensive worldbuilding because it’s not set in our universe and it’s not based on any fandom. I’ve had to draw maps, come up with religions and stars and cultures. It has been INCREDIBLY helpful with getting me to want to write because it is intensely interesting even if the process can be overwhelming. 17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations? A lot of people seem to enjoy my fanfics, but I won’t know about my original works until I start sharing those more. So far on my fanfics I have gotten the reader reactions I set out to achieve, so I think the way they perceive them is relatively in line with my own expectations. I think a lot of my readers would be surprised to know that many of my stories were written to make a subtle point about something I care about (not a big in your face “moral of the story,” but something for them to think about). I don’t know how well I achieve it, but that’s what I try for when I write. 18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them. I have a lot of abandoned scenes that exist only to explore characterizations. Often I will have something truly terrible happen to a character to explore how they might react, but that scene will never see the final project because it doesn’t actually happen in the story. Sometimes I place them in a situation so I can experiment with how they might act in a slightly different setting, or how they might hold trauma, or what would make them snap. As far as abandoned plotlines, I think I’ve got at least one for each fic I have published on AO3. Current WIP has had a few cut or heavily modified. 19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?) Facial expressions. I focus a little too much on what the character’s faces are doing, where their eyes are looking, if they’re blushing, or pursing their lips or clenching their jaws. I know I need to rein it in a bit because it’s a very “fanfiction writer” thing to do and I’d like to publish traditionally one of these days. 20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?) I write a bit of psychological horror, so callbacks and clues are huge for me. My goal in my latest WIP is to leave behind clues for the big twists, but not enough that most readers figure it out before the big reveal. Ideally, I like for my horror works to require two readings. First to find out what happens, and the second to find out how the reader missed what was actually going on. It brings me so much joy when readers tell me they read it twice just to see where I left the breadcrumbs for them to follow. My latest WIP has a lot of literary devices I’ve been dying to use. Extreme character foiling, the use of prophecy, unreliable narrator, hidden timeline changes, foreshadowing. 21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?) Film would be challenging but doable, I think it would do really well as a webcomic or a podcast. 22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them? I do. I don’t hate them, and I like most of them, though I frequently find typos, which is absolutely infuriating when I try my best to catch them and still end up mis sing them. 23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest? Something similar to the one I’m working on right now. It’s about identity and losing oneself in a search for success. 24. Would you say your writing has changed over time? I’d like to think it has gotten better with practice. I know I’ve developed a few bad habits writing fanfics, but I know my vocabulary has gotten better and I know I have improved a lot at characterization and story planning so I don’t write myself into a dead end as frequently. 25. What part of writing is the most fun? Writing character interactions. Full stop. I love writing dialogue and acting it out to make sure it sounds like something real people would say.
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dailyservingofhope · 4 years
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Bodies (Chapter 2)
Kyoko noticed first.
Maybe it was the monotone voice, or the way my eyelids drooped with world-weary cynicism. Something about me betrayed that I was no longer myself in the most literal way possible.
She lurched back, "It's him!"
The fifteen seconds that followed were a roller-coaster. Not those rickety, old wooden coasters. I'm talking about the metal ones that hurl you screaming through dives, loops, and corkscrews so fast, you can't even anticipate the next section before you've already rocketed through it.
After Kyoko alerted the room to Izuru's presence, an armed security team appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and just an arm's reach away. They must have hid themselves in the shadows, but even then, shouldn't I have heard them close in? And why were they raising their guns at an empty pod? By the time I realized they were aiming at MY pod, and that I had closed the distance without even noticing, my hands had already disarmed the nearest guard with a few deft movements. Then my legs whipped around in a tornado kick that sent her flying into the other guards, knocking them over like bowling pins.
Finally, Izuru raised my arm, which still held the confiscated handgun, and fired a series of quick, perfect shots aimed to cripple each guard's trigger finger. Their weapons clattered to the ground.
Izuru's power and apathy stunned me. So much blood, and the noise from the gunfire was incredible, yet Izuru strolled through the carnage, collecting the remaining guns as casually as a kid picking flowers. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn't even control that.
"Stop!" Makoto shouted, laughably late. He ran in front of Izuru and stretched out his arms protectively. He seemed so small next to Izuru's overwhelming presence, but his bravery was admirable. This was the person we all put our trust in.
Izuru said, "I have no intention of harming any of you so long as you do not harm Hajime. There's no sense in violence between us. However, I will not allow you to point weapons at him." His voice through my mouth unsettled me, like when you hear yourself speak in an audio recording for the first time. It's technically you, but something just seems off about it.
"They're under my orders not to fire unless I say so, and I don't plan on saying so," Makoto said before turning his attention to a communication device pinned to his suit. "I need medical assistance in the pod room."
As Makoto and the rest of the trio tried to appease the moaning, pissed-off guards, I overheard Kyoko whisper to Byakuya, "Sedating the survivors was a good idea. Letting them all wake up at once probably wouldn't have ended well."
It was true. We were still dangerous. Even I was afraid of us.
The nurses quickly arrived and began escorting the wounded away when Izuru spoke up, "Hajime is hurt too." He raised my fists to show the broken skin on my knuckles from punching the glass lid.
Everyone gaped at him.
I almost laughed at how ridiculous it was. The guy who just shot up an entire security team was now worried about a few cuts and scrapes. I wondered why he even bothered asking when he seemed content to act on his own in every other way. Was he trying to... work with them?
Makoto forgot how to speak for a moment. His jaw worked until his words caught up, "Yeah, can someone please assist him with that? Oh, and Izuru? We'll be there shortly to ask you some questions."
"I will answer any question I deem acceptable." Izuru said while a very terrified-looking nurse led him away.
-
A fragment of glass plinked into a dish, then another. Izuru, armed with a pair of tweezers, cleared the debris from my wounds with a level of care that I didn't expect from him. The nurse offered to help, but he refused, insisting that he could do a better job himself. It was astoundingly rude, but I couldn't deny how painless it was when Izuru handled it.
Still, there was no way I'd give him a compliment after what he did. I scowled at him, however one scowls without a face of their own.
He ignored me, focusing instead on washing my wounds with soap and warm water. It felt strange, but pleasant. The hand he used to massage my wounded knuckles felt like it belonged to another person, like it belonged to Izuru. I blushed at the sensation of him sliding his soapy palm up and down my hand.
"Do you want me to stop?" Izuru transmitted.
 "Uh... Yeah, I think they're clean enough."
He dried my hand and applied ointment, then finished with a bandage. "I know you're unhappy not being in control, but this will go more quickly and easily for you if you let me answer their questions."
 "Fine, but once you're done, this body is mine."
 "I predict you will decide otherwise when you hear what I have to say. So calm down, elevated levels of cortisol are linked to a variety of health problems."
I was about to transmit a big "fuck off" when Kyoko entered the room.
"If you're ready, please come with us."
-
Compared to the futuristic pod room, the conference room looked dilapidated. The lack of cobwebs and dust told me someone cleaned it recently, but long term structural damage from years of neglect couldn't be wiped away with a wet cloth. The walls cracked and water damage warped the floor. It was obvious they spent all their resources on the pod room. On us.
My shame at being powerless to control Izuru, after everything they did for us, made me feel tiny and pathetic. I wished I had the confidence to vow never to let it happen again, but at that moment, I was like a child locked away in a room. I was at the mercy of someone stronger; someone that my small, reserve-course mind didn't know how to reason with.
I sulked in the background as Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya interrogated Izuru. His answers helped me to fill some gaps in my memory, but there was one thing I kept asking myself.
As if he could read my thoughts, Makoto asked for me, "Why did you do this? Why did you upload the Junko AI into the simulation?"
"I had a question. Of hope and despair, I needed to weigh their merits and decide once and for all which side I would take. But I couldn't determine the answer with the knowledge I had on hand, so I ran an experiment. I learned of the simulation you were developing and concluded it would be a sufficient stage."
"There's something I don't understand. You seem to want to protect Hajime, yet you allowed that to happen to him?"
"I did not foresee him being harmed in any of my calculations."
Did I hear him right? Did he really just say that?
What kind of soulless freak did those scientists turn me into? All the death, the fear, the doubt, the grief. He didn't consider that harmful? My friends and I could have been happy! We could have walked out of that simulation, together! Now, we were either dead or traumatized. All because of him. Not harmed? I wanted to scream! I wanted to wrap my fingers around my own throat! I wanted to stand up and...
Somehow, the force of my emotions was enough to reclaim control. Rage flooded my chest until it burned away the cold of Izuru's grip on me. I leaped out of my chair, slammed my hands on the table and shouted, "That's wrong!"
Everyone looked surprised, including me. I'd fought Izuru and won. Even if it was only this one battle, that still meant something. And now that I could speak again, I just wanted to be heard. "I WAS harmed! It hurt to see my friends die! It hurt to live in fear every day that I would be next! I'm covered in wounds you can't even see!"
Emotionally spent, I flopped back in my chair and wept. I didn't care that others could see me cry. I was tired. So tired.
Through my sobs I thought I heard Izuru transmit a faint "I'm sorry", but that couldn't be right.
After my quaking body relaxed, Kyoko said softly, "Hajime, I assume we're talking to you now. I'm sorry, we misunderstood your situation. When we spoke to you and Izuru as distinct, separate individuals, we thought you were like a friend of ours who has a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder. Do you know what that is?"
"Yeah, I've heard of it," I said, wiping my face with a hand. "It's like multiple personalities right?"
"Something like that... Although most people with that disorder aren't aware of their other 'personalities' and don't know what they say or do when they're in control. We assumed you were dormant. Hajime, if we had known you were aware and listening this entire time, this would have gone differently."
"Why are you so worried about me, you should be locking me up. I can't control him." I muttered.
Makoto looked horrified, "We didn't release you just to lock you up again! Don't give up hope. Izuru seems to care about you. Maybe we can convince him to not take control without asking."
Byakuya stood up, "Makoto, I've let you try things your way, but your naivete is going to kill us. Izuru is clearly using Hajime as a shield. He's counting on our leniency because whatever we do to Izuru, we do to Hajime. There must be something he still wants from us. That's why we're not dead."
"We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but that is something I've been wondering about," Kyoko said. "Do you know why he's so protective of you, Hajime?"
That now familiar sensation of cold water once again flooded through me. Izuru regained control and held it fast.
"That is not an acceptable question," he said.
Why was he so flighty around the subject of me? I suddenly found myself intensely curious. Maybe I could find a weakness in that nearly impenetrable armor.
"He's Izuru again." Kyoko sighed, "Do you realize it's unfair to Hajime to keep taking over without asking? Bodily autonomy is a basic human right."
"You misunderstand. I have no interest in taking control of his life. There's nothing I want out here. As soon as I've done my job, the body is his."
Makoto smiled, "That's great! Thanks for being so reasonable about it!"
"Wait," Byakuya said. "What is this 'job' exactly?"
"Hajime's friends who died in the simulation, I can revive them. All of them."
44 notes · View notes