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darsynia · 1 year

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Just Right | Ch 3

(Steve Rogers x F!Reader, post-Ultron Multichapter)

Summary:

You’ve been in love with Steve Rogers for at least a year, but he treats you the same way he treats every other member of the team– with respect, but nothing more. It takes an inter-dimensional mistake and a whole second, more assertive, actually interested Steve for you to realize that you don’t want just any version of Steve Rogers– you want the one you’ve been pining for all this time.

Length: 3,119

FIC MASTERLIST | LAST CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

Dedicated to @ronearoundblindly who is the bestest! This story will be I THINK about 5 chapters, but don't pelt me with chickens if I'm wrong please!

Excerpt:

“What if it were you, Tony? Would you accept staying home and ‘out of the way’ if you could help? Or would you be threatening to fly there yourself?”

It’s Steve’s voice, but the context tells you it’s Gold Steve.

“You want to waste all the time I’ve been spending inventing a dimensional portal? Your me already has one! I’m not interested in being invaded by a pissier other self who’s raring to kick my ass for losing you.”

“If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for him,” Gold Steve points out.

An almost identical voice responds directly afterward. “It’s plenty safe.” There’s more talk, but you need to pay attention to your own intense little meeting, so you refocus on that.

“Hey, Brigandine, you wanna c’mere for a sec?” Stark calls out, right as you’re following the others out the door.

“Go on, plan for an extra person,” you whisper to Aeronautics, and turn around. Multiple Avengers are looking at you expectantly. “No, no, and no,” you groan, taking in Stark’s stubborn expression. “You’re making me the tiebreaker, aren’t you? No.”

“It’s in your contract,” he says with the supreme confidence of a person who knows there’s no time to check his facts.

Chapter Three

You’re trying to figure out how to dodge Gold Steve’s question and reconcile your mix-up of the two Steves when an alarm goes off.

The alarm.

It’s a call to assemble, telling everyone in earshot something’s happened that some or all of the Avengers can help with. That it’s happening at all is a compromise with Secretary Ross, the culmination of a month-long excruciating negotiation that allowed Steve and Natasha to stay out of jail, that lets Clint be a part-time Avenger and not have to choose between his family and heroism (though if he knew you were even thinking of it that way, he’d punch you in the shoulder. Hard), and loosely soothed the gaping wounds between the team, for the greater good.

Basically, the Avengers have an uneasy truce with the governments of the world, and you’re grateful for it-- but this is the first time that alarm has gone off since that agreement, the Modified, Extended Sokovian Settlement, as Tony calls it. The MESS.

You whip the towel off of your head and see that Gold Steve’s alert and concerned. Everyone else at the compound will know what to do, you’ve all trained for it. Everyone but Gold Steve.

Swearing under your breath, you grab his arm and head to the door, scanning your badge to open it.

“There’s not a silence protocol that goes along with that, is there?” he whispers as he follows you through multiple corridors to a second door.

“Nope.” You reach the building with the gathering point, and the two of you wait in the line to go inside.

“Technically, we could get in faster if I picked you up and speedran to the back door,” Gold Steve muses. Out loud. Where other people around you hear it and turn to look at the two of you.

“Funny,” you say tersely, hoping the turbulent terror in your stomach isn’t outwardly visible.

The MESS protocol designates each employee a level, and your meeting point depends on that level. Your level happens to be the highest there is, with the actual team, so you’re prepared for the feeling of unreality when you walk in there and see all the Avengers who are currently on-campus arrayed around the table. What you didn’t expect is for you and Gold Steve to be the last through the door, meaning all eyes are on the two of you as he pulls out a chair for you and finds a seat of his own.

As one of the high-level support team, you and a few others need to be present for the decision making, which made sense to you when reading the documents but now that you’re in the room, is both cool and intimidating. You’ve gotten to know most of the Avengers on a personal, friendly level, but individually, as they’ve met with you about their gear, but this? This is different. This is serious. You feel incredibly out of place.

You fix your gaze to the table as you hear some of the others in the room greeting Gold Steve before Maria Hill starts the breakdown of what’s happened.

It’s bad. In a combination of a radioactive event and possible HYDRA activity, local authorities in Romania have detected high levels of Cesium-137 in an abandoned factory that’s been doubling as a junkyard for years. They’ve contacted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for assistance, who are already on site. The underground complex they found on the site wired for electricity has set off alarm bells, and, well. Why overspend your containment budget when there’s a group of people who can take those risks for you? A group that desperately needs a win?

You’ve been sneaking glances at Gold Steve, feeling conflicted and guilty. There’s no way he would have wanted to be left out, but if this exists in your universe, does that mean your meeting reveals its existence to him prematurely? Assuming, of course, that he gets to go back.

“First, let me address the elephant in the room,” Stark is saying, gesturing towards Gold Steve. “I can see you making manfully conflicted expressions over there, but I don’t think anyone here doubts you would have made your way into this meeting as soon as you found out about it.” There’s some murmuring and many nods. “Frankly, I can’t bring myself to feel guilty if the first thing you do when I send you back home is show up at this place and mete out some justice.”

You look around the room, trying to get a sense of the general consensus. In the process, you catch the eye of your Steve, who was already looking at you. You offer him a smile, and he returns it, shifting his gaze away quickly.

After twenty minutes of debate, the group decides to send a team. Though Clint’s recon skills would be an asset on this one, he’s back in Missouri and this is time-sensitive, so they settle on Tony, Natasha, Sam, and Steve. Support staff is to immediately report to workstations to prep all equipment needed, so as soon as Hill calls an end to the meeting, you get up and head over to your colleagues.

As the group of you confer for a few seconds about your own timeline (everything needs to be ready before the firm head-out), you can hear an intense conversation happening back at the table.

“What if it were you, Tony? Would you accept staying home and ‘out of the way’ if you could help? Or would you be threatening to fly there yourself?”

It’s Steve’s voice, but the context tells you it’s Gold Steve.

“If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for him,” Gold Steve points out.

An almost identical voice responds directly afterward. “It’s plenty safe.” There’s more talk, but you need to pay attention to your own intense little meeting, so you refocus on that.

“Hey, Brigandine, you wanna c’mere for a sec?” Stark calls out, right as you’re following the others out the door.

“It’s in your contract,” he says with the supreme confidence of a person who knows there’s no time to check his facts.

You glare at him. “Okay, but don’t tell me who’s on what side. Steve?”

Gold Steve smiles and looks away, obviously knowing you aren’t referring to him. Your Steve looks at him, then at you, before he says, “Yes?”

“Do you think he should go?” It would just waste precious time to make them tell you the stuff you already overheard.

“Why are you asking him? I’m your boss!”

You’re so determined to explain yourself you forget everything else. “Because Steve’s the one with the most at stake, here, Stark. It’s Steve who’s focused on the team as a whole, Steve who always has everyone’s locations in mind, Steve who’s constantly running calculations in his head about whether what you’re about to do might put someone in danger!” You point somewhere behind you, picturing the other universe out there that’s missing their version of Steve Rogers. “And it’ll be Steve who feels the worst about it if he doesn’t bring himself back home, because every single person back there who is missing him feels guilty that they can’t just set off an assemble alarm to go get him back!”

Stark says a sullen, “Yeah, okay,” but the rest of the room is dead silent. Your throat hurts, which means you were yelling, and there’s zero fucking chance you’re going to look up at anyone to see if they’re showing expressions of dawning comprehension, because that? That was pretty damned revealing, right there.

“I need to go set up an extra set of gear,” you say in an admirably calm voice as you turn on your heel and walk swiftly toward the door. Once through, you rush.

Because you’ve done your job right, no one has to come pick up anything they’re missing for the mission, because it’s all at their ‘muster station’ in the armory. No one but Gold Steve, that is. When he shows up, you’ve already delivered some backup items for the Quinjet, and are running back through Steve’s checklist to ensure there’s a copy of everything for his copy.

“Thanks for that,” he says when he walks up, a clear look of admiration in his eyes.

You’re all business. “All right, this is the alternate to Steve’s usual uniform. It used to be the primary, but he ripped it a little while back doing an event with some first responders, and I had it in for repairs. Truth is, I haven’t done the whole round of testing to make sure it’s got the right integrity to go back in--”

“I’m sure it’s fine, I don’t need a run-down. I trust you.”

“That’s good, because the upshot to Stark making me a symbolic tiebreaker is I’m gonna feel responsible if anything does happen,” you sigh, avoiding Gold Steve’s eyes by packing up his things so he can get going.

The door opens behind him, but you don’t see who it is before he replies with, “I wish the guy in charge of our gear back home was half as diligent as you are. You should give yourself a break.”

Beside him, your Steve walks up, shooting a look between the two of you. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” he asks. Given Gold Steve’s Serious Eyebrows and the way you’re wringing your hands, you suppose it’s a reasonable question, but it sends your stomach through a trapeze routine that tangles up your tongue, as well.

“She’s stressing out about the suit you’re graciously lending me,” Gold Steve answers smoothly. “Said something about not sending it through all the testing protocols, but--”

Steve reaches over for it, holding it up with a critical eye. “I don’t even remember where it ripped, ‘Dine, I’m sure it’s fine. Thanks for being careful, though.” You get the feeling that he was only looking it over to reassure you, and the thoughtfulness of the gesture warms your heart. “You’d better get moving, wheels up in fifteen,” he tells Gold Steve.

The two men nod respectfully at each other, and once Gold Steve has left, you take stock of your workspace, just in case you forgot anything. Satisfied you haven’t, you start toward the lockers to check over there.

“Wait, ‘Dine--”

Steve catches your hand. He catches your wrist first, actually, but your momentum carries the gesture through to your hand. It’s as close to a caress as you’ve ever felt from him, and you suck in a shocked, delighted breath, freezing in place for a few seconds.

“Yes?” Your voice is breathy, and you feel hot embarrassment thick in your throat.

He doesn’t let go. “Can I talk to you later? When I get back?”

You can’t not look at him now, so you do, nodding as you turn your head, totally normal, your besotted heart isn’t doing cartwheels in your chest or anything. As you thought he might, once you make eye contact, Steve lets go, but it’s gentle, a pulling away, again like a wanted touch.

“Okay, then,” he says awkwardly, flashing you a brilliant smile before turning and jogging away.

Minutes later, you’re still bemused, repeating tasks, distracted. “Okay, maybe this was why there were fainting couches. Not because our predecessors were weak and flighty, but because they needed a minute to collect themselves. Things were too expensive back then to screw them up with your head in the clouds!” you mutter to yourself.

It’s late evening. The team’s expected to stay overnight tonight, and you’re in the ‘rec room’ area waiting for news. The tv is on, and Wanda’s showing Vision one of her favorite episodes of a vintage show. You’d seen the weapons master Carl pass through at one point, but you don’t know where he is now. You’re at one of the computer desks poring over a scan of some old SSR documents, trying to calm your mind so you can sleep tonight.

“Is that Howard Stark’s handwriting?” Vision asks from behind you.

“Yeah, good catch!” you say, sharing a wry look with him. He’d probably recognize a lot of more obscure people’s handwriting, but it’s the thought that counts. “I like to go over his notes sometimes. No need to reinvent the wheel.”

“Yes, I imagine certain observations would be already documented,” Vision agrees. You feel his hand light on the back of your computer chair as he steps closer. “‘Rates of Metabolic Healing After Exposure to Low-Level Ionizing Radiation in Subject Rogers, Stephen Grant,’” he reads aloud. “Ah.”

There’s an uncomfortable level of understanding in that single word, and it makes you want to note that Wanda Maximoff probably didn’t need to drift quite so close to him as she walked past on her way to the restroom. That would be unkind, however, and there’s a non-zero chance that Vision might genuinely not understand you if you did try to rib him about it.

You go with, “Yes. ‘Ah.’”

“I hope you find the peace of mind you’re seeking,” Vision says quietly before walking away.

In your head, you answer, Me too, Viz. Me too.

They come back three days later, arriving in early morning New York time after having left Romania in the afternoon. You’re already at work when one of the Steves comes in wearing the full kit, clearly having come directly from the Quinjet. Your heart does a dull, frightened flip-flop when you realize you literally cannot tell the two of them apart anymore. Not since they’ve both favored you with a look of warm appreciation that sent your whole body into shivers.

“I owe you an apology,” this Steve says, turning around with a blush-cheeked wince. Three inches under his ass is a gap in the fabric wide enough to show a swathe of muscular thigh. “Good news is it gave way when I got antsy to get out of there, mid-leap onto the Quinjet. I came here because I don’t want to make it worse, trying to take it off without speaking to you first.”

You’re not picturing that.

You’re not.

Not.

“Thoughtful of you,” you say, rushing to add, because your tone could be described as caustic, “Not mad at you, I promise. I took a risk with this fabric. It doesn’t really repair, which is why I’d hesitated putting it back into rotation. Might be back to the drawing board for materials.”

He’s still basically presenting his ass, looking over his shoulder to say, “So no problem if it gets worse taking it off, then?”

“None at all."

“Got it. Thanks!” Gold Steve says, leaving without pressing you for further conversation. You try not to take it personally-- he’s got a hole in his pants, after all. Still, every time you talk to him, you feel like you get a little glimpse of what it might be like if you and your universe’s version of Steve ever felt more comfortable with each other. It’s like a hopeful little time machine. Future Steve, almost.

That would, of course, require Now Steve to do something more than just look at you like you’re someone special that one time.

And grab your hand.

Say he’d like to talk to you when--

“Brigandine!”

You startle out of your lovesick reverie to see Steve standing in front of you in regular clothes. He looks full-on exasperated, and you stammer out an apology.

“I’m sorry, I-- honestly, the other Steve was in here and the uniform ripped again, meaning I’m going to need new fabric, if it won’t repair, and--”

“He was in here already?”

Crystalline regret precipitates from every blood vessel as you see actual disappointment in Steve’s eyes, and maybe something else. You don’t dare speculate on what it is, not when your careless words may have implied there was more to Gold Steve’s chair-pulling than mere politeness. Your frantic thoughts are racing faster than the horse second in line at Preakness. Is this Steve’s typical gallant leadership, defensive of ‘his’ team at the imposition of a stranger? Would he react that way when the stranger is himself?

Your innate truthfulness proceeds to make everything worse.

“He didn’t know how to take it off without making it worse, and since it’s yours-- ”

Steve actually starts pacing around away from you, and you have a split second of confusion as you go back over your words before you realize.

“Steve, I promise you, your other universe counterpart didn’t come in here to have me help him take your clothes off, okay?”

“Well, when you put it like that--”

“Oh my God, Tony’s got a recording of me saying that!” You slump into your seat, throw your arms down on it, and bury your head onto them, entirely embarrassed. You’re both terrified and elated at the idea that Steve might be in any way jealous of Gold Steve’s influence on you, mostly because of what that might mean about his own feelings. There’s nowhere to run to, no way to go back to the way things were before, and the yawning chasm of what ifs ahead scares the hell out of you.

“Somehow this whole visit got turned around,” Steve says. You let out a little noise of distress, and he chuckles. “How about a redo? Lunchtime?”

“You’re on, but my face is puffy and I’m hiding from Tony’s all-seeing eye,” you say with your head still buried, popping him a thumbs up.

“I can have a talk with FRIDAY if you want me to?”

His tone is so gentle that you sit up, desperate to know what his expression could be. Steve’s eyebrows are lifted, his head tipped to the side with a slight smile that grows broader on seeing you lift your head. If these subdued reactions are enough to intoxicate you, how on Earth would you survive anything stronger?

Before you can say anything, though, Steve heads for the door, pausing once he’s got it open to say, “Flustered looks good on you.”

He leaves without looking back.

Next chapter...

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x f!reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #captain america x f!reader #captain america x reader #captain america #steve rogers #mcu #mcu fanfiction #marvel #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #captain america x you #romance #pining

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palaeophilist · 8 months

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a letter to the unnameable you

Sometimes I like to write letters and not send them.

It helps to imagine a specific “you” to whom I relay some sweet detail about my day or my thoughts or my life in general. I like the way it filters my thoughts, and I think I also like the fantasy of connection sometimes just as well as I like actually connecting. Just now, as I sit on the patio where she has never sat and likely never will, I thought about writing to her — telling her the things that I will likely never tell her in reality. Twice this summer I reached out, and while she responded, she didn’t respond, you know? I imagine that she is, as she always was, in survival mode, and I happen to know the warrior woman who directs her movements when she’s in that mode, and therefore I shouldn’t take it personally, but it’s hard not to personally feel like my friendship to her didn’t matter, even though I know cognitively that it did.

That’s how it goes, though, sometimes, isn’t it? We love the people we love, and we lose them all the time. We lose them when they move away. We lose them when they get lost inside of themselves. We lose them when they adopt new identities — mother, girlfriend, soldier. We lose them to the ether, or to heaven, or to wherever our spirits go when we die.

In the four months since Scott passed, I wrote him two emails. Especially in the days after his death, he felt so present. The second time I wrote to him, he felt much less so, and even though I told LICM we’d have no regrets, I have a few. I can live with them, so I don’t want to pretend they aren’t there. Whether or not I did the best I could or thought there would be more time, the fact of the matter is the last time we were together, I didn’t even hug him goodbye.

But I suppose “lasts” and “firsts” are much less important that all that lies between. One of my friends recently moved her parenting schedule towards a 50-50 thing, and she wrote about that on a post at the beginning of the school year. She missed the first day of school this year, which was so uncommon for her as a mother, but even as she grieved the loss, she acknowledged that she’d be there for the second, and for so many other moments that aren’t typically picture-worthy or bragged about on social media. I loved that way to frame it. And I still think about something a friend told me a couple years ago: there’s never enough time with the people that we love, which consequently means, "not enough" is the wrong thing to focus on.

When we remember what we had, when we set out our actualities like little mementos on a shelf, we can hold all of it. Each memory can bring, perhaps in turn and perhaps simultaneously, depth and intrigue or drama and joy, can bring the flavor and textures that make up a life, which is maybe all we really have at the end of it all.

Today I didn’t write a letter to anyone. I didn’t ache for the confrontation of writing to KDT, or the particular ways that I let sentences run on and provide all the necessary context for AH. I didn’t invite the melancholy of writing to ST, whose email account will one day reject my offerings and it will break my heart a little. Instead, I guess, I wrote to myself? But also the invisible and unnameable You, for whatever it is ever worth.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the boys crash their scooters onto the grass again and again. The neighbor takes his clothes out of the dryer. They all get into a kerfuffle with Calvin’s scooter (a conflict which ultimately led to an intervention and an apology, which still counts even if it was explained by “My mom told me to”). Meanwhile, the world turns. The sun shifts its position in the visible sky. It is time for the business of living again. The spaghetti noodles await.

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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Anakin and the Jedi Babies: Names and Faces

Context: Anakin and the Jedi Babies, chrono

Word Count: 6,477

---------------

It goes like this:

Nobody wants to separate Anakin from the children in his care until they know more about why he’s here. The gamble paid off, to some degree, and he thanks the Force that it did.

He hasn’t felt that cold in years.

He knows the logic of why the Mandalorians he’s fallen in with aren’t doing anything yet. He’s an obvious Jedi, and they don’t know why he’s here or what he’s doing. Hedging on the Mando’a and the cultural obligation to childcare hadn’t been anything close to sure, but it was... enough. He got lucky that these Mandalorians leaned on those obligations, at least to the point of keeping them all in the same room. He can sense that much, even before he opens his eyes, and he has to be grateful.

The looming hypothermia had probably nudged things in his favor.

Anakin opens his eyes to a guest room of a cell, something well-furnished and cozy, but definitely not meant to be something he can escape from. His saber is gone, and there are Force-nullifying cuffs on his wrists, and he’s pretty sure they’ve taken his--yep, vibroblade’s gone.

Fuck.

His body doesn’t want to move, and he’s still shivering a bit, but he’s mostly back to normal. When he sits up, he notices that there is, in fact, only one Force-nullifying cuff. They detached his arm.

He closes his eyes and breathes deep and tells himself it was probably medically necessary. Large pieces of metal aren’t great for maintaining homeostasis. He’ll get it back.

Probably.

“Ah!”

The voice makes him jolt, and his eyes fly open.

Two cribs, one much bigger than the other. Both are occupied. The larger one has bars, and through it...

“Snips,” he breathes, lurching to his feet and then crashing to his knees, about as graceful as a newborn eopie.

“Bah!”

“Just--just one second,” Anakin grits out, grimacing as he tries to pull himself to standing again. The fact that he’s down an arm doesn’t impact him much, but the shakiness of his legs is... a problem.

“Owwww,” Ahsoka coos with an exaggerated grimace, reacting to his pain with the innocent sympathy of a toddler. She looks, what, two? Maybe? He’s not sure if there’s anything particular about how Togruta babies age. She’s too young for words, clearly.

“I’m fine,” Anakin assures her, even as his heart sinks. She’s Ahsoka, clearly, he knows her in the Force and it can’t be anyone else, but her memories...

She recognizes him, but that’s not saying much.

He manages to get over to the chair next to the crib, but doesn’t trust himself to take her out right now. The snow and the mess of a fight before that haven’t been kind to him. Instead, he just sticks his hand through the bars and lets her grab at his fingers.

He can’t help but smile, really. She’s adorable, and she’s so damn happy to see him.

“Skyguy!”

“Oh, so you are talking,” Anakin says, part of him relaxing just a tad. “I was worried.”

“Mine,” she stresses, patting at his wrist.

“Yeah, your Skyguy,” he says. So she remembers... some things, at least. “And you’re my Snips.”

She squeals and yanks on his hand, just enough that the Force-suppressing cuff clanks against the bars of the crib. “Sky, Sky, Sky!”

Oh, she’s precious.

“You having fun?” he asks, filling the air with words faster than his head can fill with doubts. “Has everyone been nice?”

“Mmmmm,” she grumbles, falling to her butt with a huff. “Doc!”

“Oh, a doctor?” he asks, wondering at his own tone. He never expected to be one for baby-talk. “Was the doctor mean?”

“Cold!” she tells him. “Cold here!”

She taps at her chest, right where someone might check her heartbeat or breathing; the metal would be cold, and also necessary. He doesn’t fault anyone for it. Considering how poorly Anakin had fared, he’s just happy they’re all alive and mostly fine.

He doesn’t know what year it is. He knows he’s not in the year he should be. He’s vaguely aware of the name Jaster--one of the Mandos had said it while bringing him in--but he doesn’t know when Mereel’s reign ended and Fett’s began. He does know both are supposed to be dead.

Has Anakin been born yet? Has Ahsoka? Hell, has Obi-Wan?

Can he give out any real names?

A series of small, upset noises start coming up from the other, smaller crib.

He stands, but Ahsoka clings to his hand and refuses to let go. He can’t pry her off, not without his other arm, but he pulls away with quiet reassurances that he just has to check on... on...

Her brother, he says, aware that there’s more than a slight chance someone has the room bugged. He’s a Jedi in Mando custody. They aren’t stupid, and neither is he.

Obi-Wan’s the most likely to have already been born. Having the same name and face will draw attention, will cause questions, but... he can’t just rename his master like a recently-adopted pet. That’s just... wrong.

Anakin’s less shaky than when he first woke up, but he still has no way of safely picking up the kids. He reaches into the small crib, something twisting behind his sternum, and tickles under Obi-Wan’s chin.

The baby--the infant--looks up at him with wide eyes, too blue for the Obi-Wan he knows, but full of wonder and--

Love, the Force whispers through the cracks in the effects of the cuff.

“Love you too,” Anakin whispers, though he wonders if Obi-Wan would really feel like this as an adult again. Babies love easily, he thinks, and he’s the only adult that Obi-Wan knows right now. Maybe it’s just chemicals.

He stands there for longer than is probably a good idea, with the state of his body, but he can’t help it. Obi-Wan keeps grabbing at his finger and kicking with tiny legs, and sticking a tiny, tiny fist in his mouth as he tries watches Anakin.

It’s all Anakin can do to mutter a stream of meaningless nonsense as he struggles not to cry. He’s always had too many emotions, and right now he’s the only person these two can rely on. He’s the adult.

The door whooshes open.

“The medic said you were awake.”

He knows that voice. He closes his eyes and doesn’t turn, because there are a million feelings in his chest and he’s not sure which one is going to come out first.

“Sky?” Ahsoka questions, likely feeling his worry. “Issokay! Good!”

No, she wouldn’t have the mind to recognize why this familiar face she knows as friend is quite the opposite.

Anakin turns away from the crib, and smiles. “Mando.”

“Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker,” the teenager in the door says. He’s not wearing his bucket, but the rest of his armor is in place. Anakin would peg him as younger than Ahsoka was, before. Not by much, but... fourteen, maybe fifteen. The face is painfully familiar, and stays utterly neutral as he answers the question Anakin didn’t ask. “We found your Ident card after you passed out.”

Cool, so, Anakin definitely can’t change his name.

“Are they yours?” the teenager that will one day create an army says.

“They have no one else,” Anakin tells him. It’s true enough. Still, he gets the feeling that’s not what Fett’s asking. “They’re family.”

Jango squints at him. “I was told Jedi can’t have families.”

Anakin’s mind flashes to Padme and the fantasies he’d long harbored of children born free, and tears himself away. He can’t think about that right now. He can’t think of who he’s--

“Jetii!”

Anakin’s head snaps up, and he realizes he’s shaking. Fett’s not neutral anymore, just... concerned.

“I’m fine,” Anakin spits out, and leans on the crib behind him. He can hear the little ones whimpering. He has to pull his thoughts in and bundle them up into something that won’t hurt the incredibly Force-Sensitive babies behind him. “I’m--I’m all they have. They’re all I have. Are the exact words important?”

Fett doesn’t grimace, exactly, but his expression isn’t pleasant. “I guess.”

Anakin waits to see if there’s anything else coming, but no. Just an awkward silence. He holds onto his frustration, but it still gets the better of him.

“What are my chances of getting my arm back?” he asks.

“Hm?”

Anakin waves what’s left of that arm, the tied-off sleeve flapping about. “My arm. If you don’t want to give me mine back, can I at least have some kind of placeholder? I can’t pick up the babies without worrying that I’m going to drop them.”

“I can ask the medics,” Fett says. He stares at Anakin for a little more, and then asks, “Aren’t you going to ask about our plans for you, or...?”

“If you wanted to kill me, you already would have,” Anakin mutters. “Right now, these two are my only priority. I’m more likely to keep them safe and alive here than I am if I try to break out. I can be patient. I would also assume they wouldn’t have been left in a room with me, alone, if any of us were in danger of medical complications.”

Fett flushes and turns. “I’ll tell buir you’re up and active. There’s a nurse droid in the hall, I can have it handle feedings until you get an arm.”

“Thanks,” Anakin drawls, aware that he’s a little bitchy right now, but not in any mood to temper himself.

He settles himself on the floor next to Ahsoka’s crib, lets her play with his hair while the nurse droid feeds Obi-Wan, and then feeds Ahsoka herself. Anakin thinks he could probably pull the droid apart for an escape attempt if it came down to it. He hopes it won’t be necessary. He’s barely existing in the moment as it is. The droid asks Anakin if he needs anything, and he... shrugs.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Perhaps some non-perishables,” the nurse droids suggests. “Ration bars, for if you are hungry before one of the Mando’ade returns.”

Anakin shrugs again. “Alright.”

He ignores the droid after that. He’s only mostly cut off from the Force by the single cuff. He can’t blanket his Master and Padawan in his own Force presence, try to make them feel safe and calm with the fact that he’s here and ready to protect them, but he can monitor them. He can meditate, even if it’s not the way he prefers to do it. He doesn’t have the strength for moving meditation right now, but a regular meditation... he can do that.

He needs to do that, because no other stress relief option is available to him right now.

Anakin lets himself feel the babies fall asleep, the two of them radiating contentment and warmth. He lets himself trust that, for the moment, he doesn’t need to worry. He lets himself sink into an absence of thought, and then the Force guides him deeper still.

“Anakin!”

His eyes fly open.

This is not the real world.

This is not the room-cell in the Haat Mando’ade base he’s managed to stumble across.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says again, a smile hidden in a beard and worn laugh lines about his eyes. The right age, the right size, reaching for him and--

There’s only a moment’s hesitation for Anakin to process, and then he sprints forward and yanks his Master into a hug.

“You’re good,” Obi-Wan mutters to him, rubbing his back as they both sink to their knees. There’s a click of bootheels against the empty white not-space that they’re in, and Ahsoka buries herself into their sides. Anakin pulls her in a little closer too.

They stay that for longer than is maybe necessary, but Anakin’s stress levels are sky high right now, and he needs this. A hug, even one that’s technically only taking place in his head, is important.

“Sorry, Skyguy,” Ahsoka whispers. “Thinking in the real world is... really hard right now.”

He pulls away from the desperate hug he’d started them off with, rearranges things so he’s leaning against Obi-Wan, lets Ahsoka lie down with her head in his lap, on her back and legs stretched out across the white nothingness.

“I don’t know what happened,” Anakin says. “I mean, Sith stuff, probably, but... we’re in the wrong year.”

“I’d wondered,” Obi-Wan admits. “I thought it odd that I couldn’t feel the clones, but I only have so much energy to think right now...”

“Please tell me there’s a way to fix it,” Anakin begs. “I can’t be the adult, Obi-Wan. I haven’t even been born yet, that’s how far back we are. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t just bang around making bad decisions without you there to pull me back and--”

“Breathe,” Obi-Wan tells him.

“We’re in the Force,” Anakin says, just a little hysterically. “We don’t need to breathe!”

“Actually, I think we’re in your head,” Ahsoka says. She’s pointing and stretching her feet like a dancer, but looks up to grin at Anakin like the little shit she is. “You’re the only one whose brain is big enough right now.”

“Hey,” Anakin complains, putting his entire palm over her face as revenge. She giggles and swats him away. “That any way to talk to the guy who taught you how to kill five guys in one move?”

She sticks her tongue out at him. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand over her montrals, smiling when she wriggles and makes a little chirruping noise.

“She’s not wrong,” Obi-Wan says. “Though the phrasing was unfortunate, it does stand to reason that as the only person without the brain of a toddler, you’re hosting. Our minds can’t handle the strain of our own selves, let alone sharing space.”

“Infant.”

“Hm?”

“Ahsoka’s a toddler. You’re an infant. Maybe six months.” Anakin grins, just this side of brittle. He doesn’t want to joke about a problem he can’t fix, but what else is there? “You’re the literal baby of the lineage now.”

Obi-Wan sighs over the riot of Ahsoka’s laugh. “Of course I am.”

“It’s okay, Master,” Ahsoka assures him. “Skyguy’s gonna take care of us until we can fight again.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, grimacing slightly. “I am sorry for you being put in such a position, Anakin. It’s certainly not an easy one.”

Anakin wishes he could say that his immediate reaction isn’t a sense of hurt, a you don’t trust me, a you don’t think I can do this, a you’re disappointed someone else wasn’t here to handle things instead.

He wishes he could make that claim and have anyone believe him, but they are in a shared meditation, and in this moment there are very, very few secrets. He does not make the effort to hide his reaction in time, and Obi-Wan catches it.

Anakin turns away as Obi-Wan’s face fills with surprise and horror. “Anakin--”

“Can we just pretend you didn’t feel that?” Anakin asks, and flinches when Ahsoka pops up from where she lies and scurries around to hug him like a vise. “Can we just pretend I’m not--”

“Dear one, there are very few people I would trust as much as you in this,” Obi-Wan says. “Those who match up are largely the people who helped me raise me when I was actually this age.”

“Being completely reliant on your padawan isn’t--”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, cutting him off there. “I can trust you to care for me in ways that don’t just come down to making me a useful general again. I already trust you to risk your life and safety and freedom to see us survive, given what little I remember of that storm.”

“You handed yourself over to Mandalorians you knew nothing about so we’d be safe,” Ahsoka mutters into the fabric somewhere over his ribs. “That could have gone really badly, and you still did it because you were worried about us.”

“We trust you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, pulling Anakin to his chest and resting his chin on Anakin’s head. “We know you.”

“You don’t even know what happened in the storm,” Anakin mutters. “You were asleep.”

“I caught enough listening to the doctors,” Obi-Wan says. He runs a hand over Anakin’s head and through his hair. “You did well, Anakin.”

Anakin wonders why they don’t do this in real life. Obi-Wan doesn’t usually hug him, let alone cuddle. Maybe it’s because they’re all stuck in too much truth in this shared meditation, and the other two are currently stuck in child bodies that crave physical affection in ways they don’t realize they’re expressing in here as well. Maybe it’s the stress.

“What even can you hear?” Anakin mutters, still in Obi-Wan’s arms. Ahsoka giggles at him, nuzzling into his side in a way he doesn’t think she’d ever let herself, normally.

“We can’t really think in the real world right now,” she muses. “Only when we’re sleeping, and probably when we’re meditating once we’re bigger. If I try to think too hard, my head hurts worse than that time Ventress got me in the head with the back of her saber.”

“Everything takes up more space than it should,” Obi-Wan adds. “It’s... all of my senses are bigger and brighter and take up more of my attention, but they aren’t very clear, really. They’re just more. I can’t focus on anything, either, except... well, the feedings.”

Ahsoka makes an annoyed noise. “The whole diapers and bottles thing is really embarrassing, by the way. Only here, though, I barely notice when I’m awake because...”

“Because you’re a toddler,” Anakin says drily.

She huffs. “How would you feel if you were stuck like that?”

That’s fair.

“I don’t remember much,” Obi-Wan says carefully. “But part of me recognizes familiar things, even if I can’t quite make the connection.”

“Was that Fett, earlier?” Ahsoka asks. “Because I thought I saw a friend, and I pretty much forgot the face as soon as they left, but--”

“It’s Fett,” Anakin confirms. “But I guess that’s good to know? You saw his face and your baby brain just assumed it was one of the clones?”

“Pretty much.”

“And we know we trust you,” Obi-Wan adds, and tightens the hug when Anakin stiffens. “Anakin, I can barely understand the world around me at all right now. It’s like being on the painkillers that don’t knock you out but leave you saying only the most ridiculous things that come to mind. You have a general understanding of what’s going on, but all your emotions are too much and the room spins, you can’t stay on one track mentally, you can’t remember what you’ve done and what you haven’t--”

“You can’t control your bladder,” Ahsoka mutters, just a touch spitefully.

Obi-Wan grimaces and nods. “An unfortunate commonality in the experiences, yes. What I was aiming to address, however, is the fact that I only remember a very few things with any reliability. Most of my adult mind, so to speak, appears to be stored in a stasis form in the Force itself, because the infant mind can only handle the barest edges of who I am. But what that infant mind knows, and what I remember thinking once I have some sense of my full self in sleep, is that there is no one I react to as positively as you, Anakin.”

“What he’s trying to say,” Ahsoka interrupts, “but can’t because he’s trying to be a serene Jedi Councilor who definitely doesn’t break the code, nosiree, is that we don’t remember much about ourselves when we’re awake, but we remember you, and we know that we love you, Skyguy.”

Anakin stares at her, and then twists around to look at Obi-Wan instead.

“Master Kenobi,” Ahsoka croons. “Stop being emotionally constipated. We’re literal babies right not, which sucks, but we’re like 90% emotion. Tell Skyguy.”

“Yes, er, Ahsoka was not incorrect,” Obi-Wan says, stroking his beard and refusing to meet Anakin’s eyes. “I, that is to say, we...”

“Master Kenobi,” Ahsoka says, a touch sharper than she might have dared if not for the reversal of their ages.

“I do love you, Anakin, and it’s one of the only things my child mind knows consistently.”

The Force does, in fact, sing with the truth of this. It circles them like a delighted tornado of emotional reality, pulsing like a coat of positivity.

Anakin buries his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder and hugs him as tightly as possible.

“Oh! Oh dear, I--Anakin, really, this isn’t news.”

“Master Kenobi, you’re allergic to actually talking about your emotions. Let him hug you.”

“Anakin, I’ve raised you since you were nine, it would be nearly impossible for me to not care, why are you--”

“Master Kenobi, stop questioning him!” Ahsoka whines. “It’s affirmation time.”

“Ahsoka, have you been spending time with the mind healers again?”

“I was a teenager in a warzone and also Barriss bullied me into it for my own good.” Ahsoka shrugs. “I learned some stuff. You two should have gone, too. You were more karked up than I was.”

“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan scolds.

“What are you going to do, spit up on me? You can’t exactly make me run laps, Master.”

“Both of you shut up,” Anakin mumbles, and tries to push as much of his own affection as possible into a little ball of feelings that he can just drop on the two of them while he’s still in his own brain and not somewhere he can’t touch the Force. “Just--just shut.”

Apparently, Anakin’s feelings are a lot, because Ahsoka bursts into tears and Obi-Wan zones out so hard Anakin starts worrying about him.

They’re in a mindscape, a thing that he didn’t really think happened, but does. He shouldn’t have to worry about his--

“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, pulling him in tighter. “Why did you...”

“Skyguy, I don’t think you planned on putting in the part where you worry about nobody loving you back as much as you loved them,” Ahsoka says, raw and uneven. “Because, uh, we got that? Skyguy, that’s really wrong!”

Oh shit.

“No, you were... you were not supposed to get that,” he says, just a little strangled. “I am so sorry, that wasn’t--”

“Be our dad.”

Anakin stares down at his Padawan. She stares determinedly back.

“What?”

“Fett asked if we were yours, and you edged around the question by saying we were family, but he was asking if you were our dad. I’m guessing you didn’t want to claim that when we couldn’t agree to it, so I’m telling you now: do it. Adopt us the Mandalorian way or whatever. You were already my older brother, basically, this is just a step sideways in how we talk about it.”

He stares at her a bit more. He doesn’t have words, and his emotions are such a cyclone of conflicting thoughts that he’s surprised the Force hasn’t tossed him out.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be born, but if I am, then I need a name so I don’t have the same one as future me,” she says. She takes his hands, holds them tight and leans in close. “You’re going to be raising us anyway. The Force already made it clear there’s no fixing this, we tried asking while you were unconscious, it wants us to grow up the long way. You’re going to be our dad. Just make it official. Make me a Skywalker.”

Anakin sits up straight, looks her up and down, the determination and affection and--

He turns to look at Obi-Wan. “Master?”

“...yes, Anakin?”

“I know she said ‘we’ and ‘us,’ but I’m not letting anyone speak for anyone else. Not for something this important.”

Obi-Wan blinks at him, and then rearranges himself to something a tad more formal. He takes one of Anakin’s hands in his own. “Anakin, we’ve been family since you were nine. This is just redefining the terms. We can adjust as we go forward, but for all intents and purposes, the majority of the time, I will be that youngling in the cot. For all intents and purposes, I will be your child, and... and I would be honored for you to make that official.”

“Even if it breaks the Code?” Anakin presses.

“All is as the Force wills it,” Obi-Wan says, almost but not quite overriding Ahsoka’s, “This doesn’t break the Code.”

They both turn to look at her. She shrugs. “What? You guys are always arguing about it and Skyguy was married. I went and did some digging about what is and isn’t allowed. This adoption would be skirting the edges of some rules, since we should be taken to the creche to be raised in a communal manner, and official adoptions are discouraged for reasons relating to later padawan stuff, but since the Force is also insisting we stay with the Mandalorians, I think it qualifies as an exception and will be treated as such, retroactively, by the Council. You also won’t be able to take either of us as Padawan once that time comes. It does not, however, violate the Code in and of itself.”

“What the hell, Snips?”

“I’m impressed, young one,” Obi-Wan says, with a smile Anakin can feel. “I could have expected to see you in court in a few years, with an argument like that.”

“You knew I was married?” Anakin squeaks.

“Rex isn’t a very good liar,” she says. She then droops. “Or, he wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. He tried, at least, but I caught on. That was against the Code, though. Just so you know.”

Anakin runs a hand over his face, tries very hard not to think about what and whom he’s left behind. He can save that breakdown for later.

He chances a look at Obi-Wan.

He gets a raised eyebrow in response.

“You’re not mad?”

“I knew you and the Senator were close, considering all the kissing you did in the Arena,” Obi-Wan says drily. Anakin isn’t stupid enough to ask how he knows it’s Padme. “I didn’t know you were married, and am a little disappointed you didn’t at least tell me, or consult me before you did it, considering you were still a padawan... but no, I’m not mad. Even if I were--and I am not--we’ve time-traveled, so I’m fairly certain that qualifies as annulment. It’s a non-issue.”

Anakin pushes down the tidal wave of grief for people who haven’t been born yet, and just breathes instead. This is important. This is too important for him to just kriff it up.

“Names,” he says.

“I still want part of it to be ‘Soka,’ if you don’t think it’s too risky.”

Obi-Wan shrugs with a smile. “Almost every time I’ve posed as a Mandalorian, since my first mission with Satine, I’ve gone by Ben. It would be fitting that, now that we’re here and apparently staying, I take the name for real.”

Anakin nods. He closes his eyes, and breathes deep, and thinks that they may be among Mandalorians on a world of snow, but he has the desert in his bones and will never forget it.

“Ahsoka Tano, sister of my heart,” he says, hoping he’s getting the words right, and takes her hands in his. It’ll have more meaning here and now, where they’re both of full mind. He holds her gaze. “You ask to join my family, to be of those who walk the sky. You shed your old name as you shed the chains of your past. You become my daughter, not of blood, but of love, loyalty, and survival. My wells are your wells, and all I own and earn is to set the path of your freedom. I name you Sokanth Skywalker, she who slips through every hunter’s trap, and you are my child.”

She smiles brightly at him, and looks like she might cry. He presses his lips to her forehead. He turns to his Master. He hesitates, because it’s one thing to redefine his little sister, but...

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, father of my heart,” he says, his voice catching where it shouldn’t. He can do this. It’s weird but he can do this. “You ask to join my family, to be of those who walk the sky. You shed your old name as you shed the chains of your past. You become my son, not of blood, but of love, loyalty, and survival. My wells are your wells, and all I own and earn is to set the path of your freedom. I name you Ylliben Skywalker, he who hunts the monsters of the darkest nights, and you are my child.”

The man before him almost laughs, well aware of how absurd it is for Anakin to be the one adopting him, but keeps it limited to just a twinkle in his eye and a quirk to his lips. Anakin presses his lips to his teacher’s forehead.

He pulls both of them in close. Padawan and Master. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan.

Daughter and son. Soka and Ben. His.

“I’m still gonna call you Skyguy,” Soka says wetly. “But Mas--um, Ben. Ben can call you buir, all the Mandos are gonna love it.”

“Fine by me,” Anakin says. “I’m going to be telling you Tatooine bedtime stories, by the way. You’ll remember creche stories as you grow, but these’ll be new.”

“I do believe that would be appropriate,” Ben says, laughing just a touch. “I also think we should perhaps disband this, unless you have something else to address. You’re going to be dealing with two very cranky younglings soon.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have headaches after this,” Soka laughs, rubbing her face against his shoulder. “But it’s okay, we got what we ne--”

“No, shut up, what you do mean, headaches? You said that was only when you were awake!”

“I mean, we’d be sobbing after like three minutes if we were awake,” Soka says cheerfully. “This way, it’s been like... an hour or whatever between all the talking and the hugging and the crying and the feelings, and we’re just gonna be grumpy.”

“Oh my--wake up!” Anakin growls at both of them. “I’m responsible for you now, wake up.”

He ignores Soka’s laughter and drags himself back to wakefulness. Behind him, he feels slight confusion and pain mixed with love and delight. Ben starts fussing.

Anakin drags a hand over his face and groans. He gets to his feet, nods to the nurse droid, and steps over to the cribs.

“Can we put them in the same one until I get my arm back?” he asks. The droid obliges, moving Ben to Soka’s crib. She immediately crawls over to him and envelops him in a hug. She pouts up at Anakin, eyes going watery, and he drops into the chair next to her and offers his hand through the bars. She grabs it.

“You’re going to be trouble for a long, long time, huh?”

She sticks her tongue out at him, and he smiles at her. Yes, trouble in spades, his Snips.

He starts telling her one of the fables of Tatooine, the really sanitized ones meant for children her age, before they got to the slave stories and haunt-tales. She falls asleep for real, no Force Shenanigans, shortly after. Ben is dead to the world by that point, making small snuffling noises whenever the blanket tickles his nose.

Anakin knows he’s got the galaxy’s dopiest smile on his face. It’s fine.

It’s a few more hours before someone stops by. He’s used the fresher by that point, helped the nurse droid coax Ben through a feeding, and helped Soka play with the little stuffed eopie they’ve given her.

“They got names, aruetti?”

He looks up and over. “Yes.”

The middle-aged man ambles over, arms crossed. “Jango said you claimed to be all they had left.”

He is. “They’re family. I’ve had a few hours to think it over, now that I’m not getting shot at or dying in the snow. To any system that allows it, I’ll be their father.”

“No chance of returning them to their people?”

Anakin shakes his head. “Soka has none who would recognize her, and I already--I already babysat her regularly, and she thought of me as a brother. It’s an easy next step.”

“And the human?”

“I... the master-padawan relationship is often one that is compared to that of parent and child,” Anakin says carefully. “My own master was like a father to me, and Ben is... Ben is all I have left of him.”

There. Not quite the truth, but... technically not lying.

Ben makes a small noise in his sleep, fussing, and Anakin reaches through the bars to brush his thumb across the infant’s chubby cheek. He smiles helplessly as Ben whines and curls in tighter on himself, pressing a tiny fist to his mouth.

“You’re good,” Anakin whispers. “We’re fine, Ylliben.”

“I don’t know what you’re hiding,” the Mando says. “But I do believe you’re doing what you can for those kids.”

“That’s all that matters,” Anakin agrees, finally looking away from his... his son.

Mine, the greedy krayt in his chest whispers.

“When are you planning on going back to Coruscanta?”

“I’m not,” Anakin says, standing and looking the man head-on. Anakin’s taller than him. That’s usually useful. “I don’t know why, but the Force wants me to stay here, or at least with the Mandalorians.”

“You want me to believe that you support my cause?”

“I don’t know your cause,” Anakin admits. “But I don’t like Death Watch, and I know you don’t either. Nobody on Coruscant is going to know to miss me, and the Force is warning me away from trying to go back. Whatever it is that needs doing, I’m supposed to be doing it here.”

The man steps forward. “Anyone tell you who I am?”

“No.”

“I’m Jaster Mereel.”

Good for you, Anakin thinks, and doesn’t say. “I’m pretty sure you already know my name.”

“I do,” Mereel says. “Wanna tell me how a Knight with a seemingly valid ident card claims nobody will know to miss him?”

“No.”

Mereel doesn’t even blink. “Try that again.”

“It means exactly what I said,” Anakin says. “The ident card is real. My training and rank are earned and deserved and bestowed by protocol. All of it was done at the Temple in Coruscant, but if you phone up the Temple with my name and face, nobody will know who I am.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why,” Mereel grouses. “What’s stopping me from calling them up anyway and asking them to come fetch your hypothermic ass?”

“...the fact that I already offered to help you?” Anakin manages. “I... I did say that part, right? That I’d help?”

“What’s stopping you from wanting to go back? And don’t give me any of that ‘will of the force’ banthashit.”

“I broke the Code,” Anakain says. The words sit heavy in his mouth, but one of his violations is lesser than the other, and-- “I married, and we’re not supposed to do that. She’s... not around anymore, but it still stands that I did it.”

The Tuskens weigh on his mind, suddenly and intensely. He hasn’t thought about them in ages, has always pushed those memories down, down, down, but--

“And they won’t take you back?”

“They might,” Anakin admits. They probably would, with his full title and everything, especially if he told them about the future. “But they wouldn’t let me keep the kids.”

Understanding flickers. “Not allowed kids?”

“It’s not... technically against the code,” he hedges. “But they’d find out about my marriage while investigating my past--” maybe, he’s not sure what kind of investigation they’d justify for a complete stranger of a knight, especially to confirm the future, but if they had a psychometric so much as touch his saber or arm, once he gets those back, there’d be a risk, “--and after already breaking the code by marrying, they’d be far less willing to bend the rules about the babies.”

He doesn’t realize how likely the risk is until after he says it, because he’s just been focusing on staying alive and following the Force, but.. they’d want the kids in the creche. He’s broken the code enough that any investigation they set to prove he’s legitimately a Jedi Knight that isn’t recorded and isn’t in the system is going to uncover something through the Force. They might not let him keep his family.

“What are their names?”

“I already--”

“Jango kept his last name,” Mereel cuts him off. “Did yours?”

Anakin looks the man in the eye, and then attempts to cross his arms in response, to mirror the pose and hold his ground. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten that he’s only got the one arm, which is really kriffing irritating.

“I gave them my name,” he says. “They’ll know where they came from, but they are mine.”

Yeah, no shit they’ll know where they came from.

Mereel’s face twitches, but the man is unreadable in the Force. Still, there’s something in the air... “So, those names?”

“Sokanth and Ylliben Skywalker,” Anakin tells him. He spells it out when the droid asks. He assumes it’s just for the medical data their droids are collecting.

“How well can you fight without your laser sword?”

“You mean unarmed?” Anakin asks, and then smiles brightly and tauntingly and waves his empty sleeve around. Mereel does not appreciate the humor. “Pretty well, but I do better when I have the Force, and am not still recovering from hypothermia. And I’m a fair shot with a blaster, but no specialist.”

Mereel eyes him for a moment, and then nods. “One of my snipers is Force-Sensitive. Never was enough to get more than some basic training in mental shields and the control to not hurt herself, but when we mentioned bringing in a Jetii, someone asked her what she thought. Came by the room while you were unconscious and said she thought you felt sad, angry, and desperate... but that she had a good feeling about where you’d be going.”

“Sad, angry, and desperate?” Anakin repeats, a little offended.

“You act like a veteran, kid,” Mereel says. He shrugs. “Damn near everyone that goes through some kind of war has all that going on. S’normal. You got Kamira’s approval, though, and that means a damn sight more. Keep your secrets for now. We’ll get there eventually.”

No we won’t, Anakin thinks. Out loud, he asks, “So, how much of what kind of work would I have to do to borrow a ship to Tatooine and earn enough to free a slave girl?”

#disaster lineage #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #jango fett #jaster mereel #time travel #mandalore #tatooine #de aging #babies #phoenix files #Anakin and the Jedi Babies

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neonacity · 3 years

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LUCID | NCT DREAM ‘00 LINE X READER | CH.4

LUCID DREAMS - A TYPE OF DREAM WHEREIN THE PERSON IS AWARE THAT THEY ARE CAUGHT IN A DREAM WORLD.

Summary: It was supposed to be a harmless, professional transaction. You were to tutor a group of boys, get your pay at the end of the day, and go home to your loving fiance. Kids aren’t supposed to be dangerous, right? So why, then, are you caught up in a web of madness that slowly makes you feel like you’re in a living nightmare?

NOTE:This is a yandere plot featuring NCT Dream ‘00 line which means there will be mature themes in the story as well as obsessive, toxic behavior. If you’re a minor, please refrain from interacting. If this isn’t your thing, then just scroll and skip. In no way am I condoning anything written here— this is not love, this is obsession—nor do I think that any of the people mentioned here will act any way like in this story. This is purely a work of fiction.

Genre: yandere, horror, suspense

TW: abuse, obsessive behavior, toxic relationships, suggestive scenes, stalking, possible kidnapping, mental health. Age gap–though nothing dramatic. Everyone is of legal age. Creepy, creepy, creepy! This will be updated as the story goes along.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

“Deep into that darkness, peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared dream before”

— Edgar Allan Poe

"Is she going to be okay?"

"Yes. I checked the results of her scans and there seems to be no broken bones. But she did hit her head hard so I would suggest she take a rest for a couple of days."

The voices dipped in and out of your swimming consciousness like broken records. There were words that you caught and tried to grasp, but you couldn't quite make out what they mean while you struggled to emerge from your half asleep state. A searing pain ran down the left side of your head and you winced, before a particularly harsh throbbing there finally sent your eyes flying open.

The first thing you saw were the red velvet drapes hanging from the middle of what looked like the ceiling of a four poster. You frowned at it, not quite understanding what exactly it is you were looking at, when another painful throb on your temple had your hand flying towards it.

You were too focused on trying to grit back the pain that you missed the hurried rustling from beside your bed. When your vision finally focused again, you saw five heads peer at you wearing identical worried expressions.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Taeyong asked softly, concern written all over his face. He raised his hand slowly to reach out to you, but then something snapped deep down in your consciousness that sent you bolting up into a sitting position, your feet scrambling against the mattress until your back hit the headboard. Your eyes jumped from one face to the next, heart thudding harshly against your chest.

Taeyong's expression shifted from that of shock into pain at your reaction. He didn't make any other move, his gaze briefly moving instead to the person standing beside the head of your bed.

"Taeil-hyung…"

You felt a gentle hand rest on your shoulders then. For the first time, you noticed the man in a white jacket leaning towards you. He looked unfamiliar, but there was something about him that calmed you down. He peered closer into you now, brown eyes quickly scanning your features.

"Shh… everything's okay. How are you feeling?"

His soft voice slowed your heartbeat down a little. You tried to give him an answer, wincing at the scratchiness of your throat.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a doctor. Do you know where you are right now?"

Your gaze moved from him, then back to the others who are still standing on the fringes of your bed. Now that you are much calmer, you could finally properly recognize the rest of the group in the room. Taeyong sat closest to you while Haechan and Renjun hovered by the foot of the bed wearing identical frowns. Jaemin stood by the other side, his hand wrapped around Jisung's shoulders loosely. The youngest boy looked on to you, eyes rimmed with red.

You slowly nodded after swallowing the dryness in your mouth.

"The… manor…"

You visibly saw the rest of the group give a collective sigh of relief. Taeil moved to sit beside you and gently moved your face to him to quickly check your eyes with his pen light.

"She's still a little bit confused from the fall. She does look okay though," he said and you figured he was talking to the others instead of you. You frowned as you felt him take your wrist to check your pulse.

"I… fell?"

His brown eyes glanced at you briefly.

"You did. You don't remember anything?"

Before you could even respond, you heard Taeyong gently speak from your side.

"You fell on a ravine. We heard Jisung crying when we came back and came looking for you guys as fast as we could. You were unconscious when we found you…"

You let his words sink in slowly. Little by little, your memories came slipping back like little puzzle pieces that arranged themselves slowly in the back of your mind.

You remember Chenle's screams, you running into the forest, and then the feeling of falling into nothingness. Your hands balled over the blanket covering you as your head throbbed again.

"I'm so sorry, noona," your attention moved to Jisung who leaned just a little bit closer to you. He looked like he had been crying. "Chenle and I took our playing too far. We didn't think that this would happen…" he trailed off and you saw Jaemin try to soothe him by rubbing his arm.

"Where's Chenle…? Is he alright?" You asked, remembering that the boy was calling for help before your own accident.

"Yes. He's still unconscious from the anesthesia. He broke his leg from his fall but we were able to rush him to the clinic with you," Taeyong answered again.

"Is your head hurting? We had to make a couple of stitches on you, but your scans turned out fine," the doctor, who you figured out is named Taeil, asked again. Your hand raised once more to the side of your head and noticed the bandages there for the first time. One side of your skull alternated from throbbing dully to stinging sharply.

"Um...it hurts a little bit."

Taeil simply nodded and grabbed his pen to write something on the file he was holding. "That's normal. I thought you would have some short-term memory loss so it's good that you're only dealing with pain. I'll prescribe you painkillers for it."

You listened silently to what he was saying, only half understanding the context of his words. You still felt confused… like there was something you are missing.

As if he read your mind, Taeil glanced up at you again.

"Feeling confused is normal since you hit your head. You should also expect some intense headaches for a couple of weeks, maybe even some mild hallucinations. We'll try to control that with the medicine I'll give you but we're not sure how your body will react to them so just prepare yourself for the possibility, okay?"

You numbly nodded as you watched him finish scribbling something on a smaller piece of paper.

"Other than that, you don't need to be admitted to the hospital. But feel free to come back when you don't feel better after two weeks. You do have someone at home to watch over you, right?"

That made you stop, remembering that you would be alone for a couple of days. Taeil patiently waited for your answer, hand still hovering over his files.

"I… uh… I'm alone for three days but my boyfriend will be back after that…'' you finally managed to say. He frowned slightly at your answer.

"You don't have any relatives who can watch over you?"

You shook your head.

"You can stay here with us," you heard someone say and you looked over to Renjun who was still watching you with a worried expression on his face. "At least until you have someone with you at home."

The rest of the group seemed to have been taken by surprise by his suggestion as much as you were. The boy simply looked at his brothers in answer, however, a frown settling between his brows.

"It's the least we could do, right? Technically, it is our fault. And she got in an accident while at work. We can't just leave her on her own."

Taeil looked from the group, then at you. "That's not a bad idea… you do need to be under observation at least for a couple of days."

You honestly didn't know what to answer. Something told you to say no to the offer, but another part of you simply didn't have the energy to argue with the proposition. Before you could even give a reply, Jisung untangled himself from Jaemin to hold your hand. When you looked at him, he seemed on the verge of tears again.

"Please, noona? Can I make it up to you?"

You watched him, torn by the expression on his face. Finally, you gave a sigh.

"Okay… but I do need to tell my boyfriend that I'll stay over. And I don't really have anything with me…"

"You can borrow our mom's wardrobe. I think you are about the same size," Haechan offered. "Then we can just buy your other things."

You didn't know what to feel about that but nodded at the suggestion, at least for now. With the decision finalized, Taeil finally turned to Taeyong and handed him the paper he had been writing on.

"Here’s her prescription then. I have bottles of the painkillers with me but you might need to drive back to town for the sleeping pills," he said as he turned towards the older boy. "She might need it in case she gets trouble sleeping."

Taeyong nodded as his eyes quickly scanned the paper handed over to him. "About Chenle, do I also need to get him something?"

"We can talk about that separately. How about we go check him now? He must be up around this time, too."

The older boy threw you a glance and a parting apologetic smile before following Taeil who had already picked up his bag and started heading towards the door. Beside you, Jisung quickly let go of your hand to follow the doctor.

"Taeyong-hyung, I'll go with you. Noona, I'll be back later."

You watched silently as the group left and closed the door softly behind them. You still felt a little out of it that you didn't really give notice to the three boys left inside your room until you felt your mattress dip a little. A finger to your chin broke you from your reverie, and when you turned to your side, you saw Jaemin peering at you closely.

"Does it still hurt, noona?"

You blinked at his closeness, but you still felt too weak to even panic or move away. So instead, you simply nodded, goosebumps rising on your flesh as he moved to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear.

"I'm sorry… now your pretty face is all scratched up, too. I don't think they'll leave marks though… so we don't have to worry about that, hmm…?" His eyes roamed your features slowly and deliberately. You swallowed and finally moved away for a bit.

"Do you remember what happened? Did you slip?"

Renjun's question was the distraction you were looking for. Turning to him, you gave yourself some time to process an answer, slowly shifting through the memories that were still painful and hazy for you to fully grasp. Still, you tried to recall what you could manage, your confusion only growing as you shifted through the bits and pieces of what you could remember.

There were a few things that didn't make sense to you and a few that you were also sure to be true, the most glaring one being the impossibility of you slipping down that cliff. No, you didn’t lose your footing.

You were pushed.

"No… I didn't. Something… something hit me," you finally managed to mumble. The three boys looked at each other, mild confusion in their expressions.

"Hit you? Like an animal?" Haechan asked with a concerned tone. You slightly shook your head as you thought over that possibility as well.

The thing is… you were sure there were no other people in the woods because everyone was accounted for when the accident happened. Taeyong and the kids weren't back yet from their trip and you were sure Jisung and Chenle were in another part of the forest since you heard them call out to you. Jeno is the only one left… but the chances of him being in the woods with you were also slim because of his injury. So that only leaves two possibilities—one, being a wild animal as the culprit behind your fall, or two, that someone else who isn't part of Rosewood manor was there with you in the woods.

Personally, you desperately wanted the first one to be true, but a gnawing feeling inside of you told you no. Your head might still feel a little hazy, but there's one thing you can be sure of.

The force that sent you hurtling down the cliff? That was no animal.

They were human hands.

"Might be… an animal," you whispered more to yourself than to address the boys in the room after a while. You didn't know what pushed you to lie through your teeth, but your gut feeling told you it is the right thing to do at the moment.

Haechan, Jaemin, and Renjun exchanged worried glances amongst themselves, obviously not buying what you just said. Fortunately, they didn't seem to push it for now.

"Well...we'll leave you alone tonight so you can rest. Haechan and I will try to look for clothes that could fit you so you can get changed. If you need anything, you can just press 0 on that intercom. It connects you to Taeyong-hyung," Renjun explained gently and pointed towards a small machine on the wall beside your bed. You nodded and gathered the blankets closer to you.

"We'll go now. Rest well, noona," Haechan said as he turned towards the door. Renjun followed after giving you another apologetic smile.

You waited for Jaemin to finally pick himself up from your bed as well before allowing yourself to relax. Silently, you moved your gaze towards him, only to be met by his smile. It was strange… how even though he looked so kind and gentle, the way he stared at you still sent chills running down your spine.

"Don't worry. We'll make it up to you. We'll take care of you really well…"

----- "I can drive back tonight and pick you up early tomorrow," Jaehyun said over the phone, his voice barely concealing his worry and agitation. You gnawed on your lower lip as you stared at the view outside of your room, the night sky looking foreboding without any presence of stars. You have managed to prop yourself up against the seat in front of your window out of your sheer desperation to temporarily escape the bed. It is quite ironic, maybe even strange, how you feel claustrophobic inside despite the expansive space of your quarters.

"It's fine, Jae. I'm doing much better now," you finally managed to say as you forced yourself to look away from the view of the forest beyond. Just looking at it gave you chills even though you know you should feel safe in the confines of the manor now.

"Baby, you have stitches on your head," Jaehyun tried to say that evenly, though you know just how much he is panicking right now. For a stranger, your fiance can easily pass off as unbothered and calm most of the time, but you know him enough to read him like an open book. To be honest though... you can't really blame him for how he is reacting right now.

"Yes, but I'm feeling fine now. I don't really want you to drive back this late…and besides, your workshop just started. It's only for three days anyway,” you tried to reason out, though another part of you desperately wants him by your side at the moment. You tried your best to fight it off, however, knowing how important this business trip is for him. “I think it’s okay if I stay here temporarily while I wait for you,” you added, trying your best to sound convincing.

Jaehyun was silent at the other end of the line and you patiently waited for him to speak again, knowing full well that he is just looking for another possible compromise to the situation. Finally, he sighed.

"Are you sure you are safe there though?" He asked quietly after a while. His question made you stop for a little bit, your eyes moving towards the view of the woods from your window again.

"...yes. I have a very private room right now so I can rest well," you answered as you tore your eyes away from it and forced yourself to look at the interiors of your quarters instead. Studying it now, it looks a lot like the layout of Jeno's room so you figured you must be in the same hallway.

"That's not what I mean," Jaehyun said, and you already know what he is going to say next. "What I mean is, are you sure you can trust the people there?"

It took you a few seconds to answer that. You would be lying to yourself if you say you don't feel strange and jumpy right now, but at the same time, you also feel a little guilty for harboring such emotions when the family was nice enough to offer you temporary space and care. Sure, your accident still remains a mystery, but it’s not like you can assume that anyone wanted it to happen, especially since Chenle also ended up injured. It’s because of that reason that you simply swallowed back your nerves, chalking up your odd feelings as after effects for your fall.

"Yes, of course. They haven't really bothered me that much. I don't think we should worry about it…"

Jaehyun's silence said that he wasn't entirely convinced. It took a moment for him to finally give a resigned gust of breath.

"Fine. Keep yourself safe, okay? I will call you back again tomorrow morning. Make sure you rest tonight."

"Okay...Don't worry about me too much," you said, smiling even though you know he couldn’t see you right now.

"I will still try and see if I can cut my trip shorter, alright?"

You chuckled. There it is, the compromise.

"Okay…"

"I love you. Stay safe."

"I will… Love you too."

"Oh, and honey?" You were about to cut the call when his voice stopped you again. You pressed the phone closer to your ear once more, waiting for his last words.

"Lock the door."

Your eyes flew towards the dark oak door at the other end of the room at his words.

"Okay, I will. Goodnight, baby."

You let out a tired sigh when you finally finished the call. Maybe Jaehyun was right… Maybe it wouldn't hurt if he could cut his trip and go home earlier than planned. For now though, you don't have any other choice but at least spend the first night here to recover a little more. Your wound has honestly started stinging again, maybe because the effect of the first painkillers are finally starting to wear off.

You gave one long look around your quarters before throwing your phone on the wide four poster bed. When your gaze landed on the door once more, you heard Jaehyun's reminder echoing in your mind again.

Slowly, you walked towards it, feet padding over the lush rug that covered the whole floor of the room. You noticed that there was a double lock system installed on it at least—a knob one, and a bolt-type that can be maneuvered from the inside. You gave an internal sigh of relief when you took notice of the latter, knowing that you have at least a level of protection even from those who have keys to the house. You have started to reach out to fix both locks when the door swung open all of a sudden, causing you to stumble back a little in shock.

Haechan looked back at you with the same look of surprise on his face at the threshold. For a while the two of you just stood there, staring at each other.

"Ah, I'm sorry, noona. I forgot to knock. I'm not really used to having guests here," he smiled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head. His apologetic chuckles finally made you unfreeze from your spot.

"Tha-that's fine. I was just surprised. Why… are you here?"

"Oh, I just have to give you this," he extended his hands over to you, and for the first time, you noticed the folded garment that he was holding. You gingerly took it, feeling the softness of silk brushing your fingers.

"Renjun and I tried to look for an old night gown of our mom's that would fit you. It is a little bit old fashioned but it's clean and still holds up together so I think that would work, at least for now."

At his words, you took a closer look at the dress on your hands before unfurling it to its full length. He was right, it does look a little dated with its long sleeves, laced collar, and embroidered hem that would probably fall mid-leg on you, but the size looks just enough for your frame. You looked up at Haechan again with a smile.

"Thank you. I think this will work… But, are you sure it is okay for me to borrow it?" You asked hesitantly, eyes falling briefly again on the dress. After all, you do know the story behind their parents, and there are some people who can get a little sensitive about the possessions of their passed on loved ones. The least you could do is to bring up the question.

Haechan, however, looked the least bit bothered. You didn't catch it because you were studying the lacework on one of the cuffs under the light, but one end of his lips curled up into a smirk as his hooded gaze moved to study the dress on your hands before grazing your form from head to toe.

"No. We don't mind. It's the only female clothing that we can offer for now, unless you want to borrow one of our clothes~?"

That immediately made your eyes snap back to him. His words were innocent, but the way his voice curled made your cheeks feel hot all of a sudden.

"No, that's not what I meant—"

The embarrassment on your face must have looked too obvious because the boy suddenly burst out laughing, his giggles sounding like a lilting tune as it floated down the hallway. You've always noticed how beautiful his voice is, but it is only now that you realized how calming it is to the ears, despite your current flustered state.

"Yah, I'm kidding, noona. I was just trying to make you feel better," he said after his laughter calmed down. You tried to give him an apologetic smile and looked down on the dress in your hands, your fingers unconsciously finding comfort from the smoothness of the silk. Haechan drank your expression silently with his eyes in the brief moment that you were distracted. You have always had this independent and confident air around you normally, but you have a more subdued nature now, probably because you are hurt.

He studied you silently as a thought formed in his mind. He may like the way you carry yourself on an everyday basis, but the way you are now?

He loves it.

"Besides… I think you'll look pretty on it," he said softly, voice sounding like whispers on skin. You looked up to see him smiling at you fondly, as if he is remembering a distant memory.

You cleared your throat before nodding. "Thank you. I'll change to this tonight. Please say thanks to Renjun as well."

Haechan gave you his signature smile and clasped his hands behind his back.

"No problem. We'll check on you tomorrow again. Goodnight, noona."

You were about to close the door when you suddenly stopped halfway as you remembered something.

"Oh, sorry. Another thing."

The boy turned back to you to give you a questioning look. You smiled at him apologetically.

"Can I ask to have some of my medications? I don't know who has it but I think Taeyong was handed my prescription. It's just that, my head is hurting again so I’d like to take some before going to sleep…"

Haechan's brows raised slightly at the realization.

"Oh, Taeyong-hyung hasn't visited you yet then? Ah… I think it's because he is still busy with Chenle. I can get them for you, noona."

"Will that be okay? Really sorry for asking this."

"Stop apologizing, it's fine," he winked and you managed to return it with a grateful smile. "I'll look for Taeyong-hyung and bring you your meds. Maybe you can get changed for now."

"Thank you, Haechan."

"I'll be back," he nodded before turning on his heels again, a spring on his step.

------- "Shhh… sweetie, don't cry. You know I don't like it when you do that, right?"

A woman bent over a boy not older than seven who was currently cowering against the shadowed corner of the room. The space didn't have any lights on, but the sliver of moonlight that passed between the small crack of curtains shone on the tear-streaked face of the child. The female in front of him gently reached out for his face, cradling his cheeks lovingly between long, slender fingers.

"Look at you, you look like a mess now… stop crying, okay?" Her voice was soft and angelic when she spoke, enough to calm down the sobs wrecking the thin frame of the child before her. The boy gave a small nod which made her smile, her dainty features glowing with happiness.

"Very good. Now… you do know we have to go through this, right? You've been a bad boy so you leave me with no other choice."

The child froze in fear but softened his stance after a few heartbeats. He mumbled softly, trying his best to keep his voice from breaking.

"Yes… mother."

The woman's expression remained somber, as if she was in pain. She gently moved her hand to run her thumb over the boy's cheek, wetting her sharp fingernail with his tears.

"You do know that even if it will hurt, mother still loves you a lot, right? Mama is doing this because she cares for you a lot and she wants you to be good... my sunshine... my precious, precious boy…"

Her soothing voice mixed with her words made the boy stop crying entirely. Instead, his eyes shone with pure adoration for her.

"Yes, mama… I know that."

The lady smiled. Her eyes scanned the features of the child momentarily before finally letting her hand holding his face drop to her side. Slowly, she straightened up again to her full height, but not before grabbing for something from the floor beside her. The moonlight caught it before it got swallowed by the darkness of the room again—a leather belt so thin it almost looks like a whip.

The woman raised her hand gracefully above her head before giving one last loving smile at the boy on the floor.

"Now, try not to scream too much… we don't want to hurt your voice."

---- Haechan softly hummed a happy tune as he walked through the wing of the house where their private quarters are. It was late at night and the rest of his brothers had retreated back into their own rooms despite all the excitement that happened in the past few hours. His gaze touched each door as he passed them, a smile curling the tips of his lips as he did.

There are a few things that Haechan believes sets him apart from the rest of his family. He isn't as physically strong as Jeno, as charismatic as Jaemin, or as patient and quiet as Renjun. He isn't as friendly and likable as Mark, nor is he also as innocent and magnetic as Jisung and Chenle.

What Haechan is, however...is smart and cunning…

He is smart enough to always be two steps ahead of everyone and cunning enough to move the pieces that he set without having to lift a finger if he wanted to. There is a subtleness in him that doesn't make red flags flash in someone’s head unlike Jaemin does whenever he can't control his neediness, but he has enough pull to get under someone's skin if he wanted to unlike Renjun who prefers the quiet and watchful approach. Oh and Jeno? He knows how to use Jeno's strength well.

He knows it enough to suggest to his brother to give a little friendly push to the right direction—or rather, to the right cliff—so the wheel can finally move. Sure, it might hurt someone, maybe even break a bone or two, but that's normal. After all, when you love, you should be willing to hurt a little.

His hums died when he finally stopped at the last room down the hallway, mind trying to picture what's on the other side. His gaze quickly glanced at the small tray in his hands carrying a small glass of water and a variety of pills that gleamed under the dim lighting. He smiled. Finally, he raised his hand to gently tap on the oak door in front of him.

"Noona, can I come in? I have your medicine with me."

He heard a soft rustling from the other side before the door finally opened. Silently, Haechan took a calming breath and tried his best to look casual at the vision that welcomed him. Of course he was right. The dress looked perfect on her, almost as if she was the original owner of it. She looked like she stepped out from a dream… his dreams.

Oh and what he would do to keep her there.

He gave her a friendly smile now as he pushed the tray to her hands. She returned it with a grateful look before studying the oddly matched colors of pills there silently. They shone dully under the dim lighting of the hallway, as if officially warning the start of something.

Yes, Haechan believes that there are a few things that starkly sets him apart from the rest of his brothers. But if he were to choose one, he would say he is ruthless. Ruthless enough to drag someone down a little, all the while wearing that sunny smile on his face.

After all, a little nightmare won't hurt anyone.

"Don't forget to take them so you can feel better, okay noona?"

---

CHAPTER 5

A/N: Okaaay so the core four have finally been covered. Guess it’s time to ask now who is the scariest? JK. Taglist below!

@negincho, @jhornytrash, @jaeminhyuckiii, @jungwoosswhore, @jsturkey, @aj–7, @pukupukupawpau, @tomiesgirlfren, @vsszn, @those-winternights, ---

#nct dream fic #nct dream yandere #nct dream 00 liner yandere #nct dream 00 line x reader #haechan x reader #jeno x reader #jaemin x reader #renjun x reader #nct chenle #nct jisung #nct taeyong #nct taeil #nct yandere imagines #jaehyun x reader #nct horror au #nct dream yandere au #nct dream 00 line yandere fic #nct-writers

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writingwithcolor · 4 years

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Announcement: No Longer Answering Rubber Stamp Questions

Introduction

Here at Writing With Color, we’ve noticed a shift in the questions we are receiving. In the past, the majority of questions challenged the necessity of diversity in fiction or asked for assistance in making diversity seem more plausible in world-building. We also received many questions on how to describe and characterize people of color in respectful ways that didn’t demonize different races, ethnicities and religions.

By and large, we see that our followers understand why these concepts are important, and for that we congratulate you! This kind of progress takes real, long-term, internal work. Our team hopes that any advice or input you received from us over the years has helped you continue to develop as a writer. We hope you will continue to support us in the future and are especially pleased to hear from our non-white commenters who have let us know when our content has let them feel seen or heard.

However…

We have noticed a recent trend in asks that is discouraging. Many askers seem concerned with receiving our blanket approval of a particular concept or character. These asks often don’t provide us with the direction and context crucial to providing advice from a race or ethnicity-based perspective. Examples include:

“I’m writing a character from [insert background] who has [insert traits]. Is this ok?”

“I’m creating a world where I have made [insert concept] the basis of my world-building. Is this allowed?”

Hi, I’m a [insert identity]. Is it problematic to have [concept/ character] in my story?

“I’m creating a [Race A] character with [these] traits, a [Ethnicity 1] character with [those] traits, a [Race B] character with [some other traits] and a [sex/ gender minority] character with a [different set of traits]. Is this combination offensive?

We call these questions rubber stamp questions. If this describes your question, there’s no need to feel bad. We realize that there was never an explicit explanation of this concept. In addition, our team is mindful of the changing demographics of tumblr that might make it mean we are receiving questions from a younger user-base are not yet familiar with many of the principles we outline on this website. However, on that note…

What is Rubber Stamping?

Rubber stamping refers to the practice of seeking an endorsement without questioning or seeking to alter the status quo. The purpose of Writing With Color is to be a focal point for discussion about diversity in writing rather than simply prescribe a series of corrective measures. Without knowing the asker’s intent (Which we can’t, since we aren’t mind readers), our moderators are not in a position to provide you with carte blanche for your writing concept in the name of all other non-white people. Yes, we have a certain level of skill and expertise on many of these topics, but we are not here to take on the burden of all PoC to approve your writing choices. Nor would it be fair to other PoC if you took our response as a reason to dismiss the perspectives of other PoC (An unfortunately common phenomenon).

Bluntly, on the moderator end, these asks are also incredibly frustrating because they are vague and thus:

Time consuming

Labor intensive (mentally and emotionally)

The last example from the previous section (AKA “Laundry lists”) is particularly time consuming because multiple moderators must collaborate to produce an answer that boils down to each moderator saying, “I guess it depends??? *shrug*” but in slightly different ways.

Perhaps the biggest problem with rubber stamp asks is they feel (to us) like they are more about the asker’s desire for closure/ approval/ virtue signaling than a willingness to participate in the kind of education and discussion on diversity we are trying to foster on this blog.

To that effect: We will no longer be answering such questions.

(If you sent in such ask before this goes up on November 15th, 2020, a moderator may reach out to you individually to better address your inquiry as submitted.)

However: Don’t worry! We also are here to teach you how to makes these questions better!

Fixing Rubber Stamp questions:

1. Be specific.

Instead of Can I/ May I, try “How can I” or “When can I” or “What can I”?

Thus instead of: “I’m Christian. May I create a Jewish character seeking to become an actress in 1920s Hollywood?” —> “How do I, as a Christian, create a compelling Jewish character while being mindful of the interplay between my own intrinsic bias and historical accounts of prominent Jewish figures in early Hollywood?”Or, instead of: “I want to write a story about a modern day piracy in the East Indian Ocean, but with magic. Is this problematic? —> “Given the continuation of modern day piracy in the East Indian Ocean, what are some tropes I should avoid if I decide to go with a modern fantasy set in this region?”

2. Remember: The goal is improved understanding, not approval. Sometimes, you really just want to know *why* you can’t use a particular concept, and that curiosity is good! Questions that ask “Why?” in good faith are often how you can learn a lot about your own intrinsic biases and the limits of your own knowledge.

Thus, instead of: If I write about [controversial topic], am I a bad person? —> Why is it better for someone like me to not write about [controversial topic]?

This approach has the bonus effect of making us feel like you actually care about what we think.

3. Write your question as a draft: Edit your ask at least once or twice to provide as much information as possible while being concise. I’ve told this to college students before, but I can tell when a person wrote their assignment by the quality of the writing. Writing done late at night, when sleep deprived and without at least one edit contains extraneous information while not having a clear point.

Going through your question (Preferably a day after you wrote it) will help you narrow down what you really want to know.

Remember: You all have free will and can write whatever you please. We presume that you seek WWC’s input because you wish to write on issues pertaining to people of color with greater levels of awareness. On a practical note, we recognize that social media, trolling, call-outs, doxxing and other dimensions of cyberbullying make writers online hesitant to do anything unless they think they have the majority of the public on their side. There are times when it is obvious that the asker is asking more because they need approval to feel less anxious when they share their work with others.

However, if the above is your worry, either you aren’t ready to write on this topic or you need to rethink the boundaries you set with the online communities/ individuals you interact with as well as how you manage your internet presence. With respect to personal anxieties when it comes to writing, morality, your conscience and so forth, we recommend turning to your own support systems IRL. As relative strangers on the internet, we are not well-qualified to allay personal concerns.

Remember: Writing with diversity is like training for a marathon. Give yourself permission to expand your comfort zone at the pace your research capabilities and experience allow!

We appreciate that you all trust us to provide helpful, well-thought out feedback for your ideas, and we also thank you for respecting our perspectives even if you may disagree. In the same vein, we request that you put the level of thought into your questions you think appropriate given that another human being is going to spend, at a minimum, several hours coming up with their response. We look forward to hearing from you!

- The WWC Team

(A link to this article will be added to the pinned FAQ for everyone’s reference)

#WWC #Announcements #Housekeeping #FAQ article #Rubber Stamp #Question Guidelines #Updates #WWC Updates

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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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modew · 3 years

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I am not sex averse, but please don’t call the ace police

On good days the ace community emphasizes how everything is on a spectrum and how people can have any number of labels and experiences.

On bad days interacting with fellow ace folk just makes me feel doubly excluded. There is the corner that seems to keep screaming in my face that asexuals aren’t robots and can in fact have romantic relationships. As aromantic ace I’m like ‘I see you and I see what you are fighting for’, but my compassion wax and wanes. I understand the importance of your struggle, it’s just not mine.

To make matters ‘worse’ I am not sex averse or repulsed so the whole cake thing doesn’t really speak to me either. I know all these memes mean a lot to you and it’s great that your experience is represented and all but in the meantime I’m just over here trying to not utter the word ‘sex’ in fear of repercussions. I think if I had discovered asexuality on tumblr, or God forbid AVEN I would never have adopted the identity. As it is, I watched Bojack (multiple times) and nothing ever clicked for me.

I want to recount how I actually realized I was asexual, mostly so I can quote the content that made me feel included. Maybe it will be as validating to others as it was for me.

Me realizing I was asexual started by stumbling upon it in a series of books. Namely, ‘Criminal Intentions’ by Cole McCade. He is on the ace spec himself and I want to quote from a Q&A he wrote:

“Asexuality is a spectrum, and different asexual people experience it to different degrees. [...] Some never experience physical desire at all, with or without attraction; some experience desire, physical arousal, etc. but just not in the context of being aroused by physical attraction to another person. Some are sex-repulsed; some aren’t. You can have an active and frequent sex life and still be asexual; you can never have sex at all and be asexual; you can have sex infrequently and only in conditional circumstances, and still be asexual. It’s not about sexual activity or capability unless a specific asexual person wants it to be. […] We’re all different, and our asexuality is generally nuanced and highly specific/personal to us.”

After picking up more novels with ace representation (I wasn’t yet ready for non-fictional research), I finally started listening to the podcast ‘Sounds Fake But Okay’ by two hosts on the aspec. Here is a quote from their website:

“As we mentioned before, sexual attraction is not the same as someone’s sex drive or their libido. Someone’s sex drive is just that — their drive to have sex. If someone has a high sex drive or libido, they may enjoy sex a lot and want to do it a lot. Someone with a low sex drive may think sex is just okay and doesn’t feel the need to engage in it often.

This is not the same as sexual attraction or asexuality. Asexuality and other sexualities deal with which people you are or are not attracted to, not your desire or interest in sex in general.”

(https://www.soundsfakepod.com/what-is-asexuality)

Finally, I picked up the book ‘ACE’ by Angela Chen. I am going to quote something that's in a similar vein to the above quotes because I feel like I have to prove that those perspectives exist. Clearly I am feeling defensive and I might be laying it on thick. But maybe there are others who need to read something like this if they are once again driven to doubt their identity.

“To the best I can tell, sexual attraction is the desire to have sex with a specific person for physical reasons. Sexual attraction can be instantaneous and involuntary: a heightened awareness, a physical alertness combined with mental wanting. My allo friends say they feel sexually attracted to people they have just met, to people whose company they don’t enjoy, to people they don’t like or even find good-looking.[...] Aces don’t experience this. Aces can still find people beautiful, have a libido, masturbate, and seek out porn. Aces can enjoy sex and like kink and be in relationships of all kinds. To many allos, this is unexpected. [...] Sexual attraction is so often conflated with sexual drive and other types of attraction. These things are distinct, but [...] when any two things often go together, people wrongly assume that they must always go together.”

As you might have noticed from the quotes I chose I have feelings about asexuality being equated with not wanting to have sex.

I have encountered a lot of people on AVEN that weren’t sure whether they had the right to claim the asexual label. So many posts by questioning people were answered with ‘If you want sex, you aren’t asexual’.

I am glad I had other resources and perspectives at hand. There is only so many times you can read ‘asexuals don’t want to have sex’ and feel confident about belonging.

At this stage I don’t doubt my identity anymore. Sometimes I even reach this heightened state of mind where I don’t even care what other people say.

I want to plead for more inclusion but I don’t really know how to ask for it. Being a minority means to not be represented. Being a minority in a minority even more so. When I type asexuality into tumblr I don’t expect all the content to reflect my experience. And it’s not like I don’t want people to stop celebrating that they don’t want to have sex and that that is ok....

I am coming to a dead end. Maybe I am just tired. I guess all I wanted to express was my frustration at sometimes feeling not represented and other times downright excluded. Just stating it as is because I know there are people out there who feel similarly. Sadly people drift away from the community. Which of course doesn’t help with more diverse representation.

In the end, I guess what I can ask for is to acknowledge the diversity of the ace spectrum. I see the posts that already do. But I also see aromantic aces and aces that have sex(or are interested in sex) feeling excluded and alienated.

#asexuality #ace spectrum #aro spectrum #ace representation #ace solidarity #aroace #asexual #sex positivity

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cryoftheplanet · 3 years

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The Unifying Theme of FFVII

So I recently got an ask that was very interesting and which I think I did a piss poor job answering. Republished here:

what is the biggest theme of FF7 that ties every character together to you? life? pro environmentalism? identity? connections?

My answer was, in a nutshell, "existentialism." It's broadly true, and was certainly an influence on the game (see: Martin Heidegger, Existentialist philosopher and known bastard) but it's a reductive and Western take overall.

So, here's the long version, and a disclaimer up-front that I'm a simple Western weeb doing internet research to the best of my ability; apologies to those who know more than me.

Square has always stated that the theme of the game is "life". This is wholly accurate, but comes off as a little twee to a Western ear. This is because "life" is a translation of the Japanese word "inochi" (命). It is a broader, more holistic concept than the English "life," with different nuances and connotations.

For a longer and much more informed read on inochi specifically, see The Concept of Life in Contemporary Japan by Masahiro Morioka. Otherwise, keep reading after the cut!

In addition to meaning life or lifespan, "inochi" also encompasses the idea of a "spirit" or vital force. It extends beyond referring to life in the general sense. Much like any one person's mind, spirit, and lived existence isn't interchangeable with anyone else's, one's "inochi" is unique and individualistic.

This concept extends beyond just human life. Animals, mountains, rivers, and trees all have "inochi" too. An illuminating quote From Aspects of Shinto in Japanese Communication by Kazuya Hara (and his primary source):

From the viewpoint of Shinto, nature itself is seen to have a spirit and life. For example, Japanese people have looked upon even a tree, a rock, or a river in nature as a figure of life. Kamata (2000) argues that the Japanese word inochi connotes the dynamic motion, flow, and circulation of all the universe.

That circulation also includes the idea that "inochi" does not refer to only a single individual life, but a chain of all the lives that have gone before. It encompasses the fleeting and finite life of the individual as well as the ecosystem in which they lived, and the influence and impact which will survive them and create the next link in the chain.

You'll recognize many of these concepts as being expressed through the Lifestream, and extant in the environmentalist elements of the game. Navigating the apparent paradox of a finite and infinite "inochi" also pulls our cast in, all of whom are characters struggling with their individual existence in the context of a greater, deeply interconnected crisis.

"Inochi" is also connected to FFVII's strong themes of navigating identity and uncovering the fundamental self. The word can also be used to refer to the core or fundamental part of something, its "most essential quality." This echoes Cloud's journey to rediscover himself, and it's noteworthy that he find again within the Lifestream, the manifestation of "inochi" itself.

"Inochi" is definitely a very accurate unifying theme. We've touched on how that connects to Shinto themes, but Buddhist philosophies of life and existence are just as culturally prevalent in Japan and influential on the themes of VII in turn. So, let's talk about Buddhism, with another disclaimer that I'm not expert by any means whatsoever.

A foundational concept in Buddhism is the Three Marks of Existence: Impermanence, the non-self, and suffering. We'll mainly focus on the first two.

The first, impermanence, is as it says on the tin. According to Buddhist thought, impermanence is inherent to the natural world, and failing to recognize this will bring suffering. The bad passes along with the good, the big as well as the small. The strain of Buddhist thought through the game is part of why FFVII's original ending is so appropriate, and Aeris' death so integral to the rest of its themes.

The second is the non-self. Related to the concept of impermanence, the idea here is that there is no permanent incarnation of the self, and there is no way to separate the self as an individual from its myriad pieces and its context. From What Are The Three Marks of Existence by Dana Nourie:

When you start to see how you aren’t a solid, unchanging self, but a impermanent, dynamic person, you also loosen your clinging to thoughts, ideas, emotions, and the idea of a “real you”.

The connection to Cloud's personal journey throughout the game is obvious - an abundance of attachment to an artificial self causes him to suffer until he is able to reconcile it and let it go. Sephiroth, meanwhile, faces a similar challenge to his own identity and slips sideways into Nihilism, unable to overcome (or even admit) his own suffering.

There's a connection between Buddhist and Existentialist/Existential Nihilist thought. While Buddhism incorporates the concept of suffering as an inherent and endless facet of life until nirvana can be reached, Existentialists struggle with a post-modern feeling of dread or anxiety fundamental to living in a meaningless and chaotic world. There's also been plenty of cultural exchange between eastern and western concepts here - Heidegger is one notable participant.

Another is Keiji Nishitani from the influential Kyoto University of Philosophy. Engaging with western Existentialist thinkers, he wrote Religion and Nothingness on the connection between the concept of the non-self and the western philosophy of Nihilism. He compared the similarities between the two, while ultimately refuting Nietzche's perspective. This quote (helpfully, from his Wikipedia page) seems particularly instructive, especially in returning back to some of the initial concepts expressed by "inochi":

"All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other. Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to every other thing."

My original answer to this question was Existentialism because there simply isn't a word or a tidy concept in my vocabulary that can convey all of this disparate information. Existentialism seemed to me like the most familiar and broad concept to encompass these themes, always in the form of questions: How do we live? How do we separate subjectivity from objective truth? How do we preserve the sense that our lives are meaningful?

You must decide for yourself; you must remember your connections to other lives; you must let go.

#final fantasy vii #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #video games #philosophy

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Takeru’s character song “Focus”

I alluded to this in a prior post (and, to be a bit honest about it, was a little concerned about how it would be received), but I had some friends ask about what I meant about this, so I decided to go more into detail with it! This is also partially in light of the occasion of the Best Partner albums also becoming a topic of interest again, so it feels like a good time as ever!

02 was a pretty prolific time for merchandising and side material as far as the franchise goes, and one of the many things that came out of it was the “Best Partner” series of character song albums (a whole 36 songs for all 12 Adventure and 02 kids plus their partners!). Of these, Takeru’s song “Focus” has been a particular topic of interest for many in the fanbase to its suspiciously loaded language and the fact that, well...it comes off as a romantic song, which is very unusual in a series that infamously didn’t touch on the topic of romance very much in terms of the actual series. Speculation has constantly abounded on what it’s supposed to imply, why it’s written this way, and what it could possibly mean...

But if you look at it closely? It’s probably not meant to be romantic, and it most likely refers to Patamon.

One thing that I do need to point out is context. Many who have been cynical about the song’s alleged romantic implications have generally put forth the idea that the music department was technically separate from the anime staff, so it’s possible that the music staff wanted to bait or provoke fanservice without much connection from the anime production. It is, undoubtedly, true that the music department isn’t necessarily fully tied in with the anime department, and has been fully willing to indulge in questionably-canon silliness (while 02′s Christmas Fantasy is certainly in-character, its placement in actual canon timeline has to be finagled with because of what we know about 02′s actual Christmas, and Tamers’s Christmas Illusion is far more comedic than the series itself actually permits), and, exacerbating this further is the fact that Hikari has her own extremely romantically loaded song, Reflection, which is often submitted as evidence that Focus must be made in the same vein, but tends to omit the fact that the album it comes from (Girls Festival) needs to be taken with a very heavy grain of salt given that it’s a notorious fanservice album that deliberately plays up the “maiden-like” characteristics of all of the girls involved for the sake of, ah, a certain subsection of the audience. (It was also made in 2002, long after 02′s production had ended.)

The notable thing about the Best Partner albums is that all of the material on it is extremely in-character, and this is especially notable because the song lyrics are significantly more obviously relevant to each character in 02 and their relationship with their partner than even the original Adventure character songs were (with said Adventure character songs often toeing into rather vague glosses that are only tangentially relevant to each character, and Mimi’s song on there pretty blatantly being an AiM single shoved onto the album for the sake of being called a Mimi song). Moreover, Focus isn’t just written by some random lyricist they grabbed for it, but regular Digimon lyricist Yamada Hiroshi himself, who was very involved in the anime production in terms of writing 02′s inserts Break up! and Beat Hit!, and, considering everything this series is about, you’d imagine he’d probably have been given some kind of details about what to do with Takeru’s representative song. It would be quite strange if, for some reason, Takeru’s song were the only one to go really off the rails about shipping bait instead of being, well, actually about his character arc.

I should emphasize that the fact that this song is so commonly read as romantic persists in Japan as well, so whether it was via mishap or not, undeniably, the way the lyrics are phrased definitely make the romantic reading a very reasonable one to pull. The language in the song is extremely “loaded”, and, if it weren’t for the unique circumstances I’m about to describe, most reasonable people can’t really be blamed for taking it this way. However, I will say that all of the most common English translations of various parts of the songs have tended to assume the romantic interpretation as well, and have thus followed up with it by definitively translating it in ways that make it near impossible to read otherwise. So what I’m saying here is that I don’t think it was unreasonable for people to have taken the romantic interpretation, and I don’t particularly intend to blame or criticize the translators who handled this song for also taking it this way, but I also want to make clear that this is not the only way to read the song, and that there’s a very high possibility that this wasn’t the case to begin with.

(Also, since I mentioned Yamada Hiroshi earlier: it’s actually not all that uncommon for him to use heavily-loaded language like this in songs he’s written for the series -- refer to Beat Hit! -- it’s just that people haven’t traditionally taken them as shipping because the context and identity of the songs’ topic matters were so obvious that there wasn’t much need to do speculation about it.)

Let’s take a look into all of the parts of the song that have been traditionally taken as romantic:

"We were together since we were little”

One thing that’s interesting about how this line is phrased in Japanese is that it doesn’t actually specify who was little. And, obviously, if you’re talking about a relationship between humans, you’d think that childhood friends would grow up together, so you’d default to “we”...but, actually, the Japanese text doesn’t rule out the possibility of reading this as “since I was little”. Which means that, yes, Patamon isn’t out of the ruling here -- because, indeed, they met when Takeru was young.

In fact, this actually is a line that arguably should rule out anyone else, especially including the most common speculated topic for this song, Hikari -- because he and Hikari weren’t actually that close during Adventure, and their time “together” was relatively short compared to the rest of the adventure. Remember that the Adventure kids weren’t very close to each other after the events of the series, and Hikari and Takeru didn’t keep close contact between Adventure and 02 -- contrast Patamon being close to Takeru during the entirety of the series, and, bar their periods of disconnect between Adventure and 02, you could say that he’s been the closest to Takeru since this time, especially since Yamato hadn’t been able to be as present for him as he’d wanted.

"Running, rolling around, and always laughing"

Again, this is a line that practically excludes nearly anyone else from consideration. Nobody ever did this with Takeru in Adventure but Patamon, especially since Takeru was trying to present himself as a well-behaved kid in the presence of his elders, and it’s entirely possible he wouldn’t have been willing to do this with anyone else but the outwardly childish Patamon. It definitely would not have been Hikari, who was arguably even more reserved than him during this time.

“It would have been better if I hadn’t realized”/“I have a lot of things I want to tell you, but I can’t really say it”/“I can’t ask that”

Sentiments like “I can’t admit it”, or difficulty with accepting one’s own feelings, is usually associated with developing romantic feelings for another person and being touchy about admitting them, but the thing is that this is intended to be a representative character song, and Takeru is actually abysmally bad at admitting anything in general. And yes, that includes not being able to be straightforward with Patamon himself about parsing his trauma over his death.

Takeru was never able to have a straightforward conversation with even Patamon about the whole issue, because of his nasty habit of never opening up about his problems and never being honest about them. That’s why Iori had to be the one to take matters into his own hands and go out of his way to understand Takeru, because Takeru sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to work through this on his own, or even with Patamon.

“I can’t get you off my mind”

This one’s actually a stock phrase in Japanese that can refer to “being interested” in someone (romantically), but can also refer to something just not really being able to leave your head in general (from being bothered by it, or being very worried). So yes, this could mean anything from a romantic fixation...to simply being constantly worried and concerned about one’s welfare.

“You were always crying”

As far as people around Takeru’s periphery who apparently cried a lot goes, there aren’t a lot! The description doesn’t seem to fit Hikari much, either (she had her moments, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d imagine this kind of extreme descriptor for). Hm, but there is someone who might fit that description...

Certainly, enough that Takeru would remember.

(By the way, Patamon gets sent on the verge of tears in the middle of his own solo song...)

"The door that I couldn't reach that day, no matter how far I stretched out"

Very important part here: that day. There was a very important “day” that seems to be on Takeru’s mind here. What’s repeatedly referred to in 02 as one of the most traumatic and impactful days of Takeru’s life?

Incidentally, Takeru and Patamon’s duet song for this album also just so happens to use “opening door” imagery...

“You’re now standing in the light”

That use of “light” is usually submitted as evidence that it’s referring to Hikari via a pun on her name, but, well, “light” does happen to just mean “light”, after all (and it’s used in many contexts that don’t necessarily have to refer to Hikari in 02 itself). And, well...

Pretty apt description there, no?

"We were always being protected"

It could refer to Hikari, or anyone else Takeru was with during Adventure, but remember that Patamon was always the slowest to evolve (especially given the many circumstances that happened with him in Adventure that kept him unable to actively join the fight effectively for a very, very long time), and Takeru himself also had a pretty nasty complex about holding everyone back.

So, in conclusion...

Despite how loaded the language is, in the end, it’s probably meant to be a song about Takeru handling his trauma regarding Patamon very poorly at the time of 02. Which is, well, what his character arc in 02 was about, so it tracks, doesn’t it?

Bear in mind that, again, this is basically “one readable interpretation of it”, which I also personally happen to back very strongly because I think the evidence simply tracks too much given context -- the details described in the song rule out almost every other candidate that would be relevant to Takeru’s character arc, also happen to describe the events of Adventure too well, and certainly would track much better with everything else in this particular album series mostly being relevant to everyone’s character as reflected in 02. Song lyrics are song lyrics, and interpretation might be in the eyes of the beholder...but, you know, food for thought.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #takaishi takeru #takeru takaishi #shihameta

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lylethewarblerguy · 3 years

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I wanna talk about a glee storyline that I have a bit of an issue with. (cw: mentions of suicide)

You all know the Dave Karofsky suicide storyline right? And how in that episode there’s a scene where Mr Shue sits down with all the students and discuss suicide and how they have so much to live for? On the surface I really like that scene. It’s a little cheesy and I don’t like the whole peanut butter part of it for other reasons, but overall I think it’s a good scene. Telling students anecdotes from your own life to relate to their experiences can be very helpful, especially with dark topics such as suicide. (That being said you should never divulge too much information and you should always be offering information about your own life in order to help students and never to help yourself) But there’s something that really bothers me about that scene in the context of the episode.

Dave tries to take his own life because of homophobia. Him being queer is a vital part of his attempt. And the show kinda half touches on this by having Kurt telling Quinn not to judge Dave because she doesn’t know what it’s like. It also kinda hints at it with the scene with Sebastian that only has queer characters in it. But really the only time the show faces the homophobia part of Daves attempt head on (if you could even consider it that) is the scene with Kurt at the end when he’s telling Dave how it gets better and stuff. But throughout the episode they also have other, cishet, characters getting all emotional because “life is short” and shit.

Idk, I just really hate how that episode brushes over the queer aspect of the storyline. Like with that scene, Mr Shue sits down all the students to discuss suicide as if it’s just a thing that they’re all equally at risk of doing. But we never once see a scene of him reaching out to the queer students specifically. Or even a scene of the queer students meaningfully talking about it together. And in that very scene Mr Shue tells them that they’re gonna talk about suicide and Rachel (if I remember correctly) is like “I don’t think any of us would try that” and Mr Shue is like “I did” and then starts talking about his own experiences. A cishet student tells him that they aren’t at risk of suicide and he, also cishet, responds by explaining how you never know and everyone has a breaking point. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking about teen suicides and cishet people are definitely also at risk. But suicide is not a thing that just kinda happens and you can’t address suicide attempts without addressing the cause of the attempt.

Dave tried to take his own life because of the homophobia he received as a result of his queer identity. And to remove that context from his attempt and treat the suicide attempt of a young queer kid as a general PSA on how “sometimes teens just try to off themselves I guess” just feels wrong.

#glee #cw suicide #lyle the rant guy #if anyone reading this is queer themselves and disagrees then please let me know #because I wanna know if this is just me or not #but it just feels wrong to use queer attempts as a springboard to teach cishet people how precious life is #you know?#glee meta

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shepherds-of-haven · 3 years

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Hi Lena 💙 once again on my bullshit thinking/writing/pondering about baby stuff, so naturally I have a culture/worldbuilding question: are there traditions/celebrations/superstitions when it comes to pregnancy or the arrival of a child? Anything specific to any culture/region/ancestry?

Hi kingdom, thanks for your question! 👀

Babies are very important and revered in pretty much all cultures, and there is also a lot of focus on names and naming the baby as soon as it’s born!

To get into it in more detail, there’s this superstition prevalent among most cultures (except the Norms) that a baby only achieves personhood once it has a name (hence why “Birthdays” are slightly different from “Namedays” though they almost always fall on the same day and are used interchangeably anyway): in this belief system, there’s something about the act of naming that gives the baby a nature and identity, and the name is tied up into its spirit.

(There are interconnected names, one being more temporary and practical and superficial, the birthname--this is not a permanent descriptor for the baby and can be changed, forgotten, etc. over time with no consequences; and the other, their True Name, is more metaphysical/quantum/spiritual, serving as a Platonic blueprint and description of everything about a person, from their internal organs to their very soul. Access to this True Name gives a person power over the named being; this is how Mages summon demons and spirits and control them, by first learning their True Name and using it in their magic. The birthname/physical name has no sway over a person because it’s like a surface reflection, ripples on a pond or the small tip of an immense underwater iceberg that can be changed without altering the iceberg’s, or pond’s, nature. However, one name cannot exist without the other.)

Delaying giving the baby a name (and therefore a True Name) risks a demon or spirit stealing that name for nefarious purposes. Some people even believe that if an Endarkened gets ahold of your True Name before it’s given/attached to you, the demon can then use it to impersonate you perfectly, replace you with itself, or even control you and hold you in thrall from a young age!

Thus, a lot of emphasis around a baby’s birth is placed on naming it as well; the naming is often seen as the baby’s official welcoming into the world. So, with that context:

Elves: the Elves go NUTS over celebrations for babies, because among their people, babies are quite rare and only happen every few decades, if then. Huge festival-like celebrations are thrown upon the baby’s safe arrival (imagine giving birth and looking outside to find that all your neighbors, family, and friends are throwing a huge block party), and a special amulet engraved with the baby’s planned name is prepared; it is vital that this amulet is placed on the baby’s chest/in their blankets as quickly as possible after the birth, as doing so will immediately protect them from having their names and souls stolen away by demons, fairies, or spirits. The most superstitious parents hang this amulet over the baby’s crib as a protective talisman for the first year. Songs detailing the baby’s lineage and deeds of their parents and family are sung well into the baby’s first night. Also, some clans make a big deal about specific family members (not the parents, but grandparents, godparents, etc. if applicable) helping to give the baby its first bath, to symbolize that the parents are not alone in raising the child and that the community is there to help them.

Mages: Mages will generally have a witness present either during the birth or directly after the birth to witness the baby’s official naming and crossing over from “little shapeless spirit” to personhood. The witness is generally going to be the godparent or emergency guardian of the child, or is otherwise a close family member or friend of the parents, and their position is one of distinct honor (like standing as Best Man/Maid of Honor at their wedding). Some regions will paint the baby’s name on their right foot to ensure additional protection from demons; birthmarks are also celebrated because demon changelings/impersonations usually don’t have them (lol). Typically, friends and family come to visit one-by-one and are generally expected to bring one dried flower symbolizing their hopes or feelings about the newborn; these flowers are collected, arranged into a bouquet, and hung as a protective charm in the baby’s nursery until they’re older. Generally the bouquet is kept as a souvenir of the birth for the rest of their life, too!

Ket: In Ket culture, it’s thought that the mom’s food cravings are indicative of either the baby’s gender or even its relative strength and arma. If Mom is eating a ton during her pregnancy, baby is going to come out big and strong and with a chockful of arma; if she doesn’t have much of an appetite or is sick, baby may be physically frail. It’s taboo to try to influence the pregnancy (no one is forcing mom to eat in an effort to make their baby stronger, it just is what it is), but doctors and midwives do take note of her food intake for these purposes, regardless. Also, a big deal is made out of what time of day baby is born; nighttime babies are almost certainly destined to be Khehi warriors, while daytime babies are most likely going to be civilians or Sen leaders. Baby showers aren’t really a thing--traditionally, the parents and baby are expected to be left in privacy for at least three days--but presents are delivered and left on doorsteps and porches along with notes of well-wishing! People who come to visit the baby afterwards can’t bring any “bad energy” with them, either; if they’re fresh off the battlefield, they’re expected to do cleansing rituals, and people who are in debt, frequently sick, have dirty homes, or etc. are expected to get their act together before they can visit the baby. Some parents don’t care, and others can be very protective about this!

Hunters: before the baby is born, many super-traditional Hunters in the Reach will clear the windowsills of the planned nurseries and prepare them specially to tempt birds into creating nests and homes there. Birds are seen as messengers of Narthax, especially golden eagles, and it’s thought that having them watch over your baby will mean your baby is protected by Narthax for life. People who succeed in building these little ecosystems will even rent out their bird-nested nurseries to other hopeful parents (after their own babies are grown, of course) who want the same blessing for their children! Also, totems are carved (usually out of wood or stone) by friends and family and placed on a shelf in the baby’s room to protect them. In the Reach, a special bell is rung to announce the baby’s safe birth to the community!

Norms: Norms don’t really care about the name thing, so none of that figures into their birthing ceremonies. Norm moms are given a special ceremonial drink after birth, consisting of milk, sugar/honey, cinnamon, and cloves. For the birth of their first child, they’re also not allowed to do any household duties like cooking or cleaning for the first month, and are generally assisted by other relatives and family members while the parents are preoccupied with caring for their baby. (Ironically, this practice does not apply after your first birth, lol.) Directly after the birth, they also take a perfumed bath with flower petals (sometimes even bathing in milk) to aid their healthy recovery. Also, many with long enough hair wear it in a special crown-braid that new mothers wear for the first few months so neighbors and people in the community will know to come congratulate them or help them out!

#Shepherds of Haven #baby #babies #childbirth #birth #pregnancy #parents #parenthood #worldbuilding #races #kingdom-dance

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years

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Comte AU Event

Aight because I have Comte brainworms (is this a surprise to anybody I sure hope not), there’s something I’ve just been thinking about a lot ever since completing one of the story events a month ago:

The cover art being very sexy aside, I naturally did Comte’s story event and I have yet to move on. Namely because of one specific line. (Disclaimer: Keep in mind I don’t mean to say I’m an expert, I just translate for fun--I don’t have the same prowess as an official linguist. That being said starts the circus music let the show go on)

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

This is the line I want to dive into, but before I can really talk about it, we need proper context.

Event spoilers below:

This event is a little different since it’s an AU, so the mansion and its residents don’t exist. (Comte lives in the mansion on his own, but it’s not the same one we know.) Instead Comte, Leo, and Arthur are stand alone suitors who have turned MC into a vampire. Because MC has no clear memory of how and/or why it happened, MC is seeking vengeance against her paired hottie--and fully intends to end their life one way or another.

Aside from how sexy revenge is and how much I love the enemies to lovers trope, Comte’s entire storyline gave me more life than I can humanly convey. Here goes nothing!

So it begins with MC knocking on his door and Comte answers it and literally just stares at her silently like some kind of Furby. MC starts out by saying she’s been trying to narrow down the bastard that ruined her life and her search has finally brought her to his doorstep. She basically demands the truth from him and he just keeps. Staring owlishly (lmao). He eventually relents and tells her that a conversation is much better held inside, and invites her into his home to talk.

She's sus as hell but enters the house, and he asks if she's had blood. This stops her in her tracks, shook, and her monologue drifts to explain a few things. When she woke up years ago, a new vampire, she had instructions to approach the Rouge/Blanc dispensary for what she needed. The staff there told her that everything was paid for, and she continued to receive support from an unnamed benefactor. She asked them for the identity of this person, but they were beholden to customer confidentiality. As such, she's been searching for information to narrow down her target for years until she finally found him tonight.

Despite the years it doesn't mean she's any more comfortable with her new existence. She notes that she still tends to stick to drinking Blanc--only drinking Rouge (in other words, blood) when she has no other choice. When Comte puts the Rouge on the table, she becomes notably unsettled. She's thirsty, but she won't concede to his request that she drink it; she refuses.

(I feel like he can probably tell because he's her sire/because of his experience with vampires). Comte--naturally--refuses to let her go hungry, so he knocks it back and kisses her to get her to drink it. He lets go as soon as she's swallowed it, and doesn't resist when she shoves him off. She rails at him about how awful he is for doing that, he agrees. She asks if he was the one that killed her parents, he confirms with blasé indifference. She's fuming quietly, but she notes that he doesn't really look happy or triumphant about it. What he's saying isn't reaching his eyes; his gaze is distant and sad. And it's confusing her. Isn't he supposed to be the enemy?

She's lost in her thoughts and unresponsive until there's a loud cry from outside the house, the shriek of a nearby owl. She snaps out of her daze to see that she still has his hand in a vice grip from when she shoved him off, and his skin is blanched--she cut off his circulation from the pressure. She releases him, startled, but he says nothing.

She's trying to sort out what's going on, and doesn't have enough information to really piece anything together. She wants to hate him but things aren't making sense. Why did her parents have to die in the first place? Why does he bother keeping her alive at his own expense? Even just now, what he did felt more like an attempt to get her to eat than anything else. Why isn’t he more malicious? This MC is desperate for answers, and she says as much: "What are you hiding…?"

Comte doesn't answer her, just averts his gaze and remains silent. MC decides she won't do anything until she learns the full extent of what happened the night she was turned. Furthermore, she's well aware of Comte’s status being a problem. If she goes too far without proper motive, the aristocracy could come back to bite her in the ass. (The implication here is that she's more concerned about being wrong and living with that regret, rather than any necessity to protect herself. The state of his gaze--the melancholy there--keeps eating at her. Until she knows why, she won't move forward.)

Comte is shocked that she demands to live alongside him in the mansion, but he doesn't take any issue with it. He says the mansion is pointlessly huge for one person anyway--she's welcome to stay. Either way she wins with this arrangement: either she gets the truth or she finds an effective way to destroy him by the end. And so their little cohabitation begins!

After a timeskip, MC recounts how she's been spending her days in the mansion. She's been tidying around the house, both in the hopes of finding evidence and/or in the hopes of repaying all the years of living on his assistance. He doesn't stop her, letting her do as she pleases and keeping his distance.

One day, she's about to step out into town to grab some groceries. Comte approaches at the front door, cautioning her to be safe--there have been many reports of scuffles/dangerous encounters. MC brushes him off, unsurprised he knows what's going on in town. He's very well connected to the aristocracy, and she notes that he's often at dinner gatherings and parties when he's not home. She insists she can't let her guard down, that he can't be trusted; no matter how kind he is to her face.

Another day, he asks her to attend a ball later in the week. He tells her she's under no obligation to stay with him while they're there, just that he wants her to take some time and relax--to have fun. She tries to insist that going to something like that would be more stressful than fun but he won’t hear of any protest, walking away before she can fully reject the outing. (Comte, an idiot, speed-walking out of the room: and that is what we call finessed). She sighs, thinking she'll be nothing but a burden to him given her lack of knowledge about events like that. She doesn't really know the proper etiquette or how to dance, it’s completely out of her depth.

Surprising no one at all Comte buys MC a dress and accessories to match regardless, and when she comes down the staircase leading to the front door he's awestruck. He tells her she's beautiful and she's miffed by the raw sincerity, trying to remind herself that he is eeeeevil. He knows how to talk to women given his status, he's just smooth talking... (She's trying to convince herself, essentially.)

And so they go, and she's a bit of a wallflower. He leaves her alone--doesn't want to bother her--while she sticks close to one wall. Several men ask her to dance, but she politely declines. Her monologue explains that, given what she is and the fact that she’s only living for revenge, she sees no merit in trying to court human men. She sees it as irresponsible and inevitably disastrous, and…

[Given the nature of what I am I just can't. I can't fall in love with a human man. Besides, the only person I really want to dance with is...as much as I hate it, my line of sight keeps drifting to Comte. Suddenly he looks up and meets my gaze, but I hurriedly look away--my heart pounding in my chest. Why. In a room full to the brim with people, why do my eyes keep looking for him. Whatever, time to go cool off for a bit.]

She leaves the ballroom--mortified at herself--to get some fresh air. Not five minutes into trying to figure out whatever the hell is going on with her shitshow of a life, a man appears asking what she’s doing alone. And da da da d a Zelda treasure chest sound effect he whips out a knife covered in blood and tries to stab MC. Naturally, because I’m an idiot, my first thought was:

TW: knife attack

TW: homicides by serial killer

But it turns out our local serial killer remains nameless in this event, so I can point no fingers. MC is panicking about needing to run and frozen in place from the shock, but Comte appears to pull her out of range--knife sinking into his back. He doesn’t react much to the violence as the attacker runs away, yanking out the knife and focused on checking her for any wounds. She’s still reeling from how quickly he reacted, and he reassures her (probably at the sight of her bewildered/worried look) that law enforcement is on alert in the area. They’ll find him, they’ll arrest him.

She tries to ask him why. Why would he protect her like that? His first instinct was to take the hit and ensure her safety first, and it doesn’t make sense. Comte reassures her again, joking that purebloods are sturdy. See? The wound’s already healed c:

[Even though I've been spending all this time trying to get my revenge on him, my heart stopped when he was attacked. As if to reassure me, frozen and speechless, Comte smiles gently. This person.......I can't do it. I can't kill him without meaning, without being sure of the truth.]

"...Comte, I can tell you're a good person. What happened that night, so many years ago?" Because even now, he's still protecting me. "Please...tell me the truth. I want to know."

[I know this isn't the time or place, but if I don't know I can't worry about him with a clear head.]

TW: human trafficking and drugging unconscious

Comte concedes and goes into what happened that night so many years ago. Apparently he was acquainted with her parents long before the incident, and they fell into debt as a result of gambling. He approached their home in the hopes of paying them a visit, checking up on them, only to encounter tragedy. They intended to sell their daughter off and the man they ended up making a deal with more or less slaughtered them all in cold blood. The reason MC doesn’t remember any of this was because her parents drugged her the night it happened. No consciousness, no resistance.

"In that room suffused in the odor of blood and despair, I found you, MC." Her pained, struggling cry is what led him into that room--and seeing how desperately she was fighting to survive, he turned her against all his better judgement. Feeling certain she would hate him forever for the choice he made compounded by her terrible circumstance, he bailed, leaving her instructions and resources to survive on her own.

"Sold off by your own parents, attacked by a serial killer, seconds from death. I thought....I thought telling you about it would only bring you pain, that it would leave you numb from the shock and despair. That's why I kept it from you.”

"...After turning you, I was consumed by regret. I felt certain you would hate me for the choice I made. So I left." [When I don't know what to say, he keeps talking.] "But I was worried about you even so. I tailed you quietly, making sure you were getting along okay. I was fully aware you wanted to kill me for what I'd done. Even so, I wanted to check on you."

And that is where the line comes in.

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

He admits that he fell in love with her after a point. And she’s baffled, considering she’s been looking for every reason to tear him apart--assuming he was the perpetrator when he actually saved her life. She protests immediately, asking how he could possibly feel that way after the level of vitriol and judgement she’s levied against him when he was only trying to help.

"That's not true at all. At heart, you're a very kind young lady. You haven't raised a hand against me all this time. And even when you considered me to be a repulsive presence, you were worried about me."

At this MC is conflicted--because his words are a further extension of his equanimity. He’s well aware that he brought about all the confusion by not being honest, but it’s also clear there was no ill intent involved in that decision. He was concerned; hitting her with that level of misfortune and senseless terror all at once could have been incredibly destructive to her health. (This isn’t to say he made the ‘right’ decision; I don’t think there is any right decision in the face of such a complex situation. Given he takes full responsibility for what happened and does his best to help her, I think that’s a fair response.)

This is essentially where the common rt ends. But because I’m feral for Comte and enjoy talking about him, I’ll finish up the summary and then go on to do my analysis.

After that riveting assault, MC is feeling very lost about how to move forward. Her fury at Comte’s injustice has all but evaporated, which means a complete re-evaluation of how she’s going to move forward from now on. Does she continue with her revenge anyway, still angry for the dishonesty? Or does she try something new?

If you do the premium end that means choosing to forgive Comte and climb him (as he deserves). Therefore I, being an intellectual, chose to ride him into the sunset.

The premium end begins with Comte taking her to another ball because the first one kind of went to shit and he feels bad about it (retraumatization was not in the plan...). And so MC basically does the same thing as the first time, just vibin and taking in the scenery, thinking things over. Comte’s concerned about her not having fun, so he approaches her to ask if she’s feeling okay. He makes it clear that he really doesn’t mind if she dances with someone else--even if he admitted his feelings for her. She doesn’t owe him anything, and he has no intention of imposing on her future.

"Whatever it is you choose to do, I don't mind. I just want you to be happy"

[This person is so, so gentle...His words penetrate deep and settle with warmth over my heart, my chest light.] "Comte I.......I don't want to dance with anyone but you." [I still don't know what to do about the future, but for now I think following what my heart is telling me is the best move]

"!!!....well then, if you insist..."

Comte’s just:

He’s beyond shocked, but accepts her invitation when she confirms it’s what she wants to do. Leading her in all his infinite grace, MC marvels at his ability to dance so elegantly--even with a partner who’s deadweight, like her. She also finds it astounding how easily he makes her forget what they are, how easily she just enjoys the moment; no turmoil, no lingering in the worst of her miseries. She’s just...having fun? For the first time in so very long.

[Comte murmurs in the short distance, clear remorse on his face--as though he can't help it.]

"MC, it's kind of you, honestly. That you'd give me the time of day, that you'd agree to dance with me. But I...I'm the one that turned you. There's no denying or escaping that fact. If it's you, I'm ready to accept any consequence. If you want me gone, you're free to attack me. If you just want to be as far away from me as possible--to live your life in peace and solitude--I will do everything in my power to help you."

[He said it as if he was trying to convince himself. Like he was trying to remember why he couldn't assume more of this single dance together, why he couldn't let hope emerge from this single shared moment.]

[.....I'm not that kind, Comte. I asked because it's you.....Feeling his warmth beneath my hands, I come to a decision.]

There’s a timeskip, and then MC--being the badass that she is--knocks on Comte’s door the night of the crescent moon. He lets her inside more than ready to accept her judgement, whatever it may be. MC asks about his feelings, seeks to confirm that he still loves her before she confesses herself.

"Comte. Comte you said--that you loved me right?"

"Yes that's correct...no matter how much you might hate me, these feelings won't change. I love you."

[Hearing those words again sets my chest on fire. And I decide to tell him my honest feelings.]

"I love you too. But......I've held a misguided grudge against you for so long, is it okay for me to love you now?"

[Can that misunderstanding really be forgiven? Am I allowed to love you? Comte's eyes widen, and the breathtaking gold of his eyes shimmer/waver.]

"...shouldn't that be my line? I mean even despite the circumstances, I still made the choice to turn you :o Can you really forgive me?"

"...If I'm honest, I still have a hard time drinking blood and I'm a little scared of an immortal life. But......I think if I could spend that eternity at your side, I could find the means to smile again. And....the thing is....I also want to see you smile, to make sure you remember how to smile."

".................." [Le Comte stared at me, before extending his hand. And he hugged me so, so tightly.] "MC......."

[In that single word all the raw emotion of ten years can be heard. It was an indescribable sound--one that spoke of an unimaginable, impossible love. This person loves me so very dearly.]

The event ends with them biting each other as proof of their bond, essentially a vow to stay together moving forward. It felt very much like the shared act of biting was a promise of love, how vampires might get married or commit to each other romantically. The summary essentially ends here.

Here’s where the semi-meta comes in, because I literally just can’t stop thinking about the implications of this event.

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

I just...I just don’t even know where to begin with how hard this line hits. Comte’s MS conveys this sentiment powerfully too, but there’s just something about them choosing to emphasize it yet again. The reason Comte falls in love every time has to do with his MC’s strength, her ability to surmount remarkable obstacles with so much poise. She’s deeply in tune with her reality, but no less relentlessly positive. She won’t burden others with her problems, and she’ll do everything in her power to move forward in constructive ways.

Even when every day was a living hell. Both Comte and Leonardo perceive eternity to be something of a curse; an endless sentence. Whether it means suffering boredom, reliving tragedy, or going nigh numb from the loneliness--being an immortal creature isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.

And that’s exactly why I think he fell in love with this MC? I don’t think his feelings would have run half as deep if it was just anyone. He doesn’t strike me as the type to get attached easily. Because if he’s going to have a life partner, he needs someone who's going to be able to roll with whatever life throws their way for conceivable lifetimes. Somebody that loses heart quickly or is easily prone to delusion would suffer eternally, and the last thing he wants is to subject a person to that. MC gives him hope certainly, but she’s also emblematic of a kind of fortitude he both needs on a personal level and she would need to be beside him. It’s interesting because it’s a responsible choice on his part, but also just very befitting of his nature. He’s somebody that staunchly believes in the ability of good to prevail, but he’s also realistic about it. He knows doing the right thing isn’t necessarily easy; he does it because he could never live with himself if he did otherwise.

(Think about Comte’s approach with Jeanne. It meant years of being on the receiving end of hatred he didn’t deserve, but he didn’t mind if it meant Jeanne could find a way to heal. It’s not the most practical or immediate solution, but it is the most restorative option. Comte doesn’t care that he spends years living alongside Jeanne’s outspoken displeasure and even violent outbursts. Why? Because it’s all a means to a greater, better end. If he has to suffer a little discomfort, he’s willing to make that sacrifice. That’s the thing with Comte; intentionality is everything. Comte’s intention is to help. Whether that’s a short or long process, a smooth or rough process, he’s going to do what he can within his means.)

That dynamic is reflected in his respect for this MC who is filled with fury on behalf of all the life that she lost unfairly, her relentless pursuit for the truth of what happened to her. Notice, she’s more interested in truth than retaliation. She refuses to lay an intentionally violent hand on Comte until she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was worthy of being on the receiving end of that retribution. Who does that sound like? If you guessed Comte himself, then you see where I’m going with this. What MC and Comte have in common is that they have a sharp emotional fortitude that they keep under tight, rational control. They will react with sizable passion or hurt or warmth--but their externalized reaction will vary depending on the situation. If it’s a minor annoyance, they have the patience to diffuse and try to alleviate the problem. If it’s on a larger scale or it’s an egregious violation of their personhood, then they up the ante accordingly.

Think about it. MC appears on Comte’s doorstep full of righteous rage and even when he confirms what he’s “done,” she hesitates. Her emotional intelligence is telling her something isn’t aligning properly; something isn’t quite right. She forgoes immediate revenge for proper answers instead. MC and Comte have this kind of balance, where they are more than happy to hear people out--but there is a limit to that propensity. Push them too far? They’ll bust your head. I guess I’m particularly interested in the way Comte seems to yearn for that kind of identification with a partner. Somebody who has similar values: not merciless, but also won’t bend when a situation requires confrontation.

All that being said, there was one more aspect of the story that I was endlessly interested in. I’m going to link the post here, in that it’s tangentially related to this meta; it really made me better able to articulate what I mean to say.

“Never let generosity hold hostages; courtesy is an essential tool, but a cruel master.”

I’m gonna let that sink in for a moment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because it’s very rare that I read something once and I’m forced to read it several more times before I begin to understand it. My interpretation of that line is to say that benevolence can showcase your good will to others; it can be a reliable proof of good character, and a way to help someone. But the problem comes when people do conventionally/perceived generous things with the explicit intent of repayment by some measure. While it is only responsible to care for others as they care for you, you shouldn’t make impossible sacrifices with the expectation that the other person is indebted to you--especially if the other party had no ability to consent to that sacrifice.

How does this apply to Comte in this event story? Er, in almost every way humanly (vampirely?) possible, in my view. Comte turns MC into a vampire after seeing her plight, largely because he gets the impression that she was fighting for her life--had impossibly survived against all odds. The situation is complicated though. MC wasn’t fully conscious when it happened, so she doesn’t have a proper understanding of how everything went down. So what does Comte do? If he can’t bear to face her or reveal the truth of how horribly she died, he at least gives her every means to survive and makes sure she’s doing okay since she’s technically an orphan now. He doesn’t interfere with her life, or demand recognition for the life he gave her. He fully understands that she wasn’t able to properly consent to his decision in that split second moment, and even if she had he doesn’t see it as a debt she owes him now. He was able to help save her life for at least a little while longer, and so he did. It was as simple as that. He had the ability, she had the need. That’s the end.

But Comte’s emotional acuity doesn’t just end here. Even when she comes after him to kill him, he doesn’t respond with anger because he knows full well he hasn’t explained. Sure he’s sacrificing their relationship (the ability to get along on half-decent terms) but if it means she can find a reason to live, then so be it. He doesn’t lord that sacrifice over her head by any extension; he’s just sad about it because he thinks she’s a wonderful person, and he doesn’t want to be estranged from her. But in his view, her needs supercede his wants.

He doesn’t force her to do chores around the house during her stay, she does it to keep herself busy and search for the truth about his intentions. He even asks her to take breaks and look after herself first, more concerned with her well-being than the state of the mansion. At the ball, he doesn’t force her to linger around him or dance with him despite inviting her there and giving her the dress/jewelry to attend. He leaves her alone as she wishes, only glancing at her to make sure she’s doing okay. When he takes the hit from the violent stranger--a knife straight to the back--he jokes about being s t r o n k, never once blaming her for the wound he sustains no matter how brief.

He explains that he didn’t tell her the truth because it was incredibly traumatic, and it’s only in the safety of the moment--after years of having conceived of her own selfhood beyond the event--that she’s able to take the weight of what happened without falling apart. The premium end just keeps hammering this shit home. He openly tells her she doesn’t have to dance with him at all, that she doesn’t owe him anything just because he likes her. He’s aware it’s unrequited (he thinks) and he doesn’t go on and on about all the sacrifices he made for her with the expectation she’ll reciprocate. He just did what he wanted to do, nothing more. If she feels the same way by some miracle, that’s amazing! If she doesn’t, as it would be valid if not, that’s fair too; no hard feelings.

She has to be the one to invite him to dance and insist. She’s the one that smiles fondly when he’s telling her that she can choose whatever outcome she pleases, even if it means wanting to live as far as possible from him. There is no guilt trip, no expectation, and no pressure. She has the freedom to leave or stay. It is entirely dependent on her own will. For the first time in a lifetime of loss, her agency is restored to her. That’s huge.

She even admits that she feels bad about being so angry when he really was just trying to help, now that she can understand what he’s doing. And he’s openly shocked to hear it. He had no intention of expecting or asking for an apology. He understands it was his own imposition, both biting her and obscuring the truth, that led to her setting her mind on vengeance.

I’ve probably hit it home harder than necessary, but Comte just feels like the epitome of good will in the best way possible. One can argue he’s a little selfish for keeping the truth from her for so long, but honestly? Given the horrific trauma of her situation--and his personal fear of making her miserable for an eternity when all he wanted was to give her a second chance away from all that hurt--I feel like his reaction was closer to considerate and reasonable. Comte doesn’t sacrifice anything he isn’t unwilling to give, or anything that would cripple him to give. Furthermore, he doesn’t make love out to be a kind of 1:1. He recognizes that while he might know her well, she doesn’t know squat about him. And, as such, he doesn’t expect her to trust his intentions or reciprocate his feelings in any capacity. It’s just a delightful surprise when she does. When he tells her that he loves her that first time, it’s an explanation. Not a guilt trip. He knows she won’t be satisfied years of protecting her simply because “he wanted to” and he promised her the truth, so he tells her. Not only that, in the aftermath he repeatedly reminds her she isn’t bound to him. She commits to him before he relies on any kind of active bond between both of them.

I don’t know, maybe I think too hard about it, but I feel like the older I get the more I see a shortage of this kind of fine-tuned caring about the other person in a relationship. I guess I just enjoy seeing a man give a woman her health and agency without treating her wellness/happiness like it’s a burden to his life? First and foremost Comte really is concerned with her self-actualization before his feelings can have any place in their relationship. And even when he does confess his love, it isn’t a way to force her to feel indebted to him; it’s an attempt to erase any false pretenses. MC loves him, not because she has nowhere else to go, but because he’s proven himself time and again a worthy companion. Always putting her first, always worried about her feelings, paying such close attention that he sees her to the core of who she is despite her iron front--kind, beneath all that hurt. They spend so much of this event really listening to each other despite such difficult circumstances, and it leads to a deep and abiding love against all odds. And I find that incredibly moving...

Oh and, before I forget? Let me circle back for a moment:

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

The best part about this event is that--while Comte says this about MC--this is also precisely the reason MC falls in love with Comte too, even if it’s never stated outright. Because despite how lonely and tired he may be of eternity, no matter how many troubles he’s facing himself, he never stops trying to help and support others (namely MC) in any way he can.

Drops mic

#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp jpn spoilers #ikevamp meta #ikevamp au event #comte propaganda #fangdad propaganda #i love him so very dearly #this event just made the feelings come rushing back #can't have five minutes without comte giving me heart palpitations huh #i feel so personally attacked #anywho i hope yall enjoy this wild ride as much as i did #minnie finna peace out and sleep for 70 hrs #**dives into bed beside comte**#rambles #not incorrect quotes

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septembercfawkes · 3 years

Text

How Theme is Your Story's Shadow

Something that has been coming into my conversations lately, is the idea that theme is like your story's shadow. Or perhaps, more accurately, its shadow puppet.

Setting, characters, and plot are more concrete. They are (more or less) physical. But theme comes out of them when an outside intelligence (writer or reader) shines light on them. This casts a shadow to form a shape, or a puppet.

Learning about and writing theme can be difficult, in part, because you can't hold and mold a shadow itself.

You have to shift what casts the shadow.

To create the right shadow puppet, you have to rearrange the hands--the story elements--the right way.

And if you cast an incoherent blob on the wall and claim it makes a cat, it's not going to be effective.

This is the equivalent of a writer trying to slap on a thematic argument through "telling," when the story itself doesn't "show" or back up the argument. This usually manifests in a character being philosophical or preachy somewhere in the story--trying to force a meaningful discussion on a topic that is irrelevant enough to be un-meaningful.

On the other hand, a professional-level writer may understand how to arrange the characters and plot in a beautiful, coherent way, so that it casts an elaborate shadow--even if the writer never looks beyond the story.

This is why you can sometimes find powerful, thematic literature, written by someone who doesn't know how theme works. Just this last week, I was listening to a hugely successful writer talk for hours about his approach to writing, without even addressing theme. Yet I've seen his work used by others when discussing theme.

He surely knows all about rearranging the hands appropriately, so when anyone intelligent comes to look, they shine the light on them to find the thematic shadow. It doesn't matter so much that he doesn't understand theme. He understands the underlying principles that make up the theme.

For the rest of us, we need some help. And understanding theme before we get to a professional level, will help us reach that level faster. Furthermore, I have sometimes wondered how much better a successful writer would be, if they did properly understand theme. I mean, imagine if their stories were even more impactful!

In order to cast a great thematic shadow, we need to understand its physical counterparts.

Here are the critical pieces:

1. Your protagonist's dominating qualities, worldview, and/or lifestyle

Your protagonist has dominating qualities. She might be a survivalist like Katniss. Innocent like Frodo. Miserly like Scrooge. Overly protective and codependent like Marlin in Finding Nemo. Or something else. One, if not multiple, of these qualities tap into the theme.

2. Your protagonist's arc

How your protagonist changes or remains the same because of the plot, regarding those qualities, conveys a value of those qualities. Scrooge gives up his miserly ways to live a better life. This implies that being miserly can hold one back from a better life.

What a character wants versus what a character needs can also play into this.

3. Antagonistic force's qualities and worldview

Because the antagonist is opposing the protagonist, the antagonist is also challenging the protagonist's dominating qualities. The antagonist either leads to the protagonist changing those qualities or at least tests the protagonist's commitment to those qualities. At some point, in some way, the antagonist is usually thematically opposite of the protagonist.

4. How that antagonistic force is resolved

At the climax, the protagonist and antagonistic force go head to head. It's what makes the climax, the climax.

Who wins and how, conveys a teaching about those qualities and worldviews. Katniss must defeat the antagonistic force by proving she will do more than simply save herself and survive (which is what they expect). She must be willing to risk dying to save Peeta and beat the Games.

To defeat death, Scrooge must be willing to let go of his miserly ways and realize real wealth comes from relationships and helping others.

In the denouement, those who gain something greater (and this may only be internal), are those who have the "correct" view, while those who are punished have the "wrong" view. The "correct" view is the theme.

Here are the supporting pieces:

1. Influence Character

I actually debate where to put this one, because I think it's more important than the other supporting pieces, but not as important as the critical pieces.

The Influence Character is important because they influence or impact the protagonist. The Influence Character and protagonist are connected in some way, but they usually have different methods or views when it comes to dealing with life. These differences tap into the theme.

Most of the time, the Influence Character has a worldview that the protagonist comes to understand and adopt--a worldview that is "correct." This embodies the theme. However, in some stories, this will be reversed. (And there can be variations.)

2. Supporting Cast

Ideally, the supporting characters will also be feeding into the theme, by providing different perspectives related to the protagonist's and/or antagonists dominating qualities and worldviews. For example, in Arrival--which centers on the theme topic of communication--the protagonist must interact with characters who don't understand, respect, or fully value language. In Moana, each of the side characters has a different view on identity--Tamatoa says identity comes from your appearance, while Moana's father argues identity comes from your place on the island.

3. Secondary Plots

Often secondary plots will mirror or foil the main conflict, which means they mirror or foil the thematic argument. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the thematic argument is that what one chooses is more important than what one is--as demonstrated by the fact that Harry, who lacks a pure bloodline and "should" have been in Slytherin, is able to defeat the Heir of Slytherin with the Gryffindor sword. This proves that Harry's choices (to be in Gryffindor) are more important than what he is--since he defeats the antagonistic force who is arguing that one's value is based on what one is (a pureblood).

In addition to the primary plot, the thematic argument is explored in the other conflicts: Hermione being bullied for being a Mudblood, despite being the best at magic; Nearly-Headless Nick attempting repeatedly to join the Headless Hunt, who argues he doesn't qualify; Hagrid being a scapegoat for being half-giant; Dobby being forced to serve the Malfoys because he's a house-elf; Filch trying to learn magic as a squib.

The critical pieces are the "bones" of the shadow puppet. The supporting points provide the "flesh" (they add breadth, density, or depth to the shadow).

Because the critical pieces are the bones, they inherently make the shadow puppet when the light shines on them. You can't cast a shadow that doesn't match the bones. This is why every story you write says something about life, even if you don't want it to.

And this is why some writers accidentally say something in their themes, that they didn't mean to. For example, if Katniss killed Peeta to win the Games--and was rewarded for that--then the argument may be that survival at all costs, including killing a friend, is the correct way to live. A completely different thematic statement.

This is why trying to slap on an irrelevant theme through some character monologuing, doesn't ring true. Because the bones said the theme was something different. The bones showed the theme was something different.

You can never cast a shadow that doesn't match the bones.

The supporting pieces aren't as vital, so they give you more wiggle room. Still, a shadow is usually easier to see when it has some depth.

The supporting pieces may simply, ultimately reinforce the main argument, which may make the theme more straightforward. For example, Hermione being bullied for being a Muggleborn, when she's actually the best in her class, simply reinforces the idea that what we choose (to study hard) is more important than what we are (Muggleborn). Notice, however, that this doesn't necessarily make the journey "easy." After all, feelings were hurt, and tears were shed.

On the other hand, the supporting pieces may contrast the main argument, which may make the theme more complex. In Zootopia, Judy dreams of being a bunny cop to prove to everyone that you can be anything you want. However, when we meet Nick, he shares the idea that a baby fox wants to grow up to be an elephant. This is an impossibility. No matter what, a fox can't be an elephant.

This means that the idea that we "can be anything," is actually more nuanced and complex. It needs some refining. In the right context, we "can be anything." There are certain limitations. . . . Although, maybe these days, one might argue that a fox could identify as an elephant--but that's a different argument outside that story's.

(Also, just a note on a technicality, the idea that "we can be anything" is actually a secondary theme of the story, not the primary theme (which is about bias), but the principle holds true regardless. Someday I'll talk about secondary themes.)

Because the supporting pieces can reinforce or contrast the critical pieces, you can write all kinds of things in those spots. However, it can be helpful and beneficial to know what you are doing so you can create the best shadow puppet shape you want.

It also helps you evaluate how one idea may fit better in your story than another and keeps you from arguing something you didn't intend. Just as an example, if I did want to argue that indeed "we can be anything," then I may not want to include Nick's elephant idea, and if I did, I'd want to refute it by showing a fox could be an elephant when he grew up.

What's not a good idea is to put in a bunch of stuff that is irrelevant to the theme. Suppose J. K. Rowling decided to include the secondary plot of Ron's relationship with Lavender Brown in Chamber of Secrets instead of Half-blood Prince. It waters down and takes away from the theme, because it has little to do with what someone chooses or what someone is. It needs to stay in Half-blood Prince, which explores one's inability/ability to love, along with counterfeit love.

However, with that said, one may argue you can take that plotline and rework it to highlight Ron's choices and maybe argue that Lavendar only likes him because of what he is--a keeper on the quidditch team. That would make that plotline more supportive of the theme. And it may be that by the time the story is publish-ready, it has naturally come to that point.

Needless to say, you can flesh out the bones all kinds of ways. And I'm sure I will talk some more about that in the future.

For now, just remember that in order to convey theme, you need to shift the "physical" pieces, so that when someone shines light on them, they can see the right shadow. The critical pieces definitively make up the theme, and the supporting pieces reinforce or add complexity to it. While it is possible to write a great story without understanding theme, it's probably better to use it to your advantage.

#writing tips #writing tips and tricks #writeblr #fanfic #writing theme #writing reference #writing help

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gaymershigh · 4 years

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Hi, can u write headcanons of Jamil, Azul, Cater, Rook and Idia discovering that their S/O (male) is their favorite singer/idol in a disguise? Sorry if it sounds too boring

Thanks and I love your blog <3333

It's not boring at all! I love this request so much 💗 the reader has to not be a different world like Yuu so it makes sense in context as to why they're popular in twisted wonderland, just to clear things up!

Also yes, I'm doing other requests before redoing that damned unfinished draft-

Jamil, Azul, Cater, Rook and Idia discovering their boyfriend is a popular idol

You want to tell him so bad but you just don't the guts to.

It's not like you don't trust Jamil or anything. It's just that Kalim's 99% always nearby him and try don't him to overhear your confession and cause a huge hassle.

But sometimes secrets are broken by itself. You can be your own secret breaker.

While you were listening to songs from the Land of Hot Sands that was recommended by Jamil, he was picking random songs from your country.

His eyes slightly widen when one of the songs he picked's singer sounds just like you but with a different name.

“He sounds just like you.” he stated and that made you panicked. That is one of your newer songs from a few weeks ago.

He got curious when your words started getting shaky and your face getting sweaty. This led him to researching your stage name, making you even more scared.

“He even looks like you too, could it be?.. ” if you kept lying, it will go into a dead end. The only thing to do it to spill the beans even if you don't want to.

Your hesitant nod was followed by silence and then a normal 'ok' from your lover like nothing was out of the ordinary. You were shocked.

In the inside however, he was different. He was baffled, these things only happen in fairytails!

He's not complaining though, he loves the feeling of being special.

Even if don't mind, he wouldn't be the type to be brag about your relationship together. Maybe with Kalim but other than that, nah.

“I see. Don't worry, ya amar, I'll keep this a secret. just the two of us only.”

How can you keep this secret away from him for that long? Colour me and him impressed.

Jamil is reasonable as to why he doesn't know about your secret identity because he doesn't keep up with the trends but Azul? He definitely spends more time on the internet than Jamil would ever.

But of course he would find out eventually. Of course, it's Azul.

You were giving him some song recommendations and avoiding your own so it wouldn't raise suspicion.

Unfortunately, you weren't fast enough as he realized you kept skipping a few songs right before the song hits the 3 second mark.

When he asked you why you kept skipping a few songs. You sweated and lied about the singer is not so good. You basically degraded yourself.

If course, it's not easy to fool your boyfriend. He snatched your phone away and looked at the current song you're about to skip.

He covered his mouth in shock. There was no doubt about it, that really is you. The voice, the looks, the stage name sounds like something you would name yourself, everything!

“Darling, why didn't you tell me? Do you not trust me?” You had to reassure him that was not the case and you just prefer not to get the attention and not make anyone annoy him about asking him questions about you.

You're just so special, aren't you? You're an idol beloved by everyone but you don't want the publicity and cause any problems, you're so sweet and precious.

He'll only brag occasionally. It's unprofessional for him to be cocky every single time of the day and he'll probably show off only to intentionally piss off someone.

“Darling, you shouldn't insult yourself! You're very good in singing and you amazingly breathtaking! So handsome.”

Seriously, how did you get away from him, Cater Diamond himself??

He's a social media God and even if he does suspects you several times, he's supposed to catch on sooner.

You have to admit, it was harder to hide away from him since he follows your account. Everytime he takes a selfie with the both of you, a lot of people comment asking him is that (stage name).

He would usually reply 'I wish lol but imagine if that happens 😳'. This makes you nervously laugh.

He always comments about how you always look like (S/N) all the time and you always nervously scratched your neck, feeling guilty.

He also joked about your voice being incredibly similar and how you could be the idol in disguise. My god you couldn't describe how much you want to run out of there as soon and possible.

You thought everything is going smoothly until the most dreadful statement came out of your boyfriend.

“(Y/N), do you want to go to (S/N)'S concert on Friday this week?” You had enough. You can't handle the torturous moments and can't keep up with the lies anymore. You have to tell him with a little twist to it. You said you were busy which means you have to keep denying your cute pouty sweetheart.

When you finally finished your concert, you called your boyfriend from the stage to go to the backstage. You can see the excitement in his eyes.

When you confessed that his statements about his number 1 favorite idol is also his boyfriend he's been dating for months, he went form speechless to hugging you tightly while screaming.

“Holy shit, I can't believe it, (Y/N)! I'm gonna tell everyone!” You sighed in relief as he reached out for his phone.

He's definitely gonna brag no matter what universe he's in. The publicity and increase amount of his followers in magicam is gonna be unbelievable. Just like Azul, he's gonna shove your relationship to everyone's face just to annoy them.

“(Y/N)-chan is so mean hiding such amazing secrets away from me, you're gonna pay the price~”

He's gonna be so surprised as to how you hide from him for more than 3 days. He's got good eyesight and very good at reading your heart.

You're sometimes we're scared that he caught on as he kept praising you like your fanbase would usually do. You never felt so relieved when you found out he's just like that.

He sometimes does comments how you look like your other side and how your voice sounds uncomfortably similar but that's just it.

It's a little bit easier to get away from him when it's about social media since he's not really the type to look to check social media daily.

He kept persistently asking you if that singer he adores so much was you, which you kept replying with of course, no.

But every single time you answered the same reply, your tone and confidence seems to be different, lowering down specifically. He probably already knew you are (S/N) now but he really wants you just give him a 'yes' instead of just believing in his own word.

While you were cuddling with him on his bed and about to fall asleep, you were playing a few songs as white noise to make you go to dreamland faster.

You didn't even realise your song was playing, your eyes were bleary and you could black out any moment.

Rook took the opportunity to asked you again if you were (S/N), he was both surprised and please when he finally got the answer he waited for.

With no hesitance, you said yes before drifting to sleep. He won this time, checkmate.

When you woke up, he told you about what happened last night with the usual smile while you're mouth was agape.

He might unintentionally brag by telling the whole campus how handsome you are, your angelic voice, how lovable and huggable your figure is, Vil is jealous.

“Mon trésor, there is no need to repent about your beauty, you are lovely in any shape of form, my sweet delicate dove~”

He adores your idol version of yourself and is probably the only real idol that he admires, the rest is probably his anime waifus or whatever.

Doesn't mean he doesn't love your backstage form too, he loves you too very much and thinks you're very handsome :)

It's just that your face reminds him of his favorite singer of all time. He's always making conspiracy theories about how you're (S/N)'s clone and you'll just laugh, knowing everything.

He once said that maybe you're an idol in secret, this made you sweat nervously as you shook it off.

Everytime he talks about your idol self to you, Ortho always asks if you're ok or not because you always felt a bit anxious and shaky as if you were about to get killed.

This made Idia raise suspicion. He wanted an answer as to why so he made up a plan.

He makes Ortho note your condition everytime he talks about (S/N).

His suspicions were right, you're always uncomfortable everytime he asks you if you're the idol version of yourself.

If he thinks he has enough tapes and audios of you literally shaking, he started negotiate you.

You had no escape as Ortho has trapped you in his room alone with your boyfriend. He kept taunting you with the same question 'are you (S/N)?' until you finally give in and told the truth.

Even though he got his victory, he still felt bad since you don't wanna talk to him for 3 days, causing him to cry like a baby.

He seriously can't believe it though, he just experienced something out of his mangas! He's beaming with joy.

He's only bragging on the internet only, there is no way he's gonna say anything in real life as you're wayyyy out of his league.

“You could have just told me, you know! I won't tell anyone if you're uncomfortable, I promise!”

You have no idea how much I loved writing this one but I got a creativity burnout when writing Idia lol~

-𝕸𝖎𝖗𝖎

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robinrunsfiction · 3 years

Note

Hello!! Could you write a vampire gerard x reader one day..? And it's kind of fluffy with Gerard being overprotective or jealous? If so thank you and have a good day!!

Vampire-tine’s Day 2021 - Day 2

Pairing: Vampire Gerard Way x Female Reader Rating: General Requested By: Anon Word Count: ~2,000 Author’s Note: When I started this request, I kinda missed the “fluffy” part and the beginning part was angsty AF. But! Luckily I have @mariawritesfanfic in my life (for like a billion reasons) who gave me an idea, direction, and helped me basically get this story where it is today! Hope you all enjoy! Also sorry it’s late, I didn’t intend to put this one up tonight, but I failed to get the one I meant to post today done sooo

It was another bitterly cold night, but Gerard couldn't feel it, and it didn't matter anyway. What mattered was him was making sure (YN) got home safely. He watched from the shadows and the rooftops as she approached her building, but in the distance Gerard heard something that caught his attention. In a flash, the monster was in front of her fangs gleaming and Gerard launched into action as well.

“Don’t touch her,” Gerard snarled as jumped in front of (YN).

“I won’t hesitate to go through you to get to her,” the vampire snapped back. “I want a fresh meal, and this one smells delicious.”

Gerard heard a small whimper behind him before he threw himself at the offending creature. It wasn’t long before the monster, weak from hunger, gave up, running off to tend to his wounds.

“(YN),” Gerard murmured as he turned to find her still frozen in fear, hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide.

“Ge-Gerard?” She stammered. “Gerard, what was that? What are you?!”

“I can explain, but let’s get inside before he comes back. Can I come inside with you?”

(YN) nodded as she reached in her bag with shaking hands to pull out her keys.

“Gerard, can you please explain what just happened?” (YN) asked when she shut the door behind them.

Gerard sighed. “There’s been a rise in vampire attacks, and I know you work late so I’ve been watching to make sure you get home safe.”

(YN)’s face softened at his words, before she was shaking her head in confusion again. “Vampire attacks?! And how have I never noticed you behind me? Are you telling me you’re a,” she trailed off.

“Vampire? Yea, I probably should have mentioned it before,” Gerard replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "To be fair, I'd only just gotten turned when we met."

“Well this answers a lot of questions I’ve had,” (YN) murmured to herself as she made her way to the couch, lost in thought.

“What?”

“Huh? Nothing!” She replied quickly, blushing as she looked up at him. “But how do you keep yourself from wanting to bite me?”

Gerard swallowed hard. He wanted to close the distance between them and take her in his arms and show her how he felt, but he couldn’t. All he could do was be mostly honest. “Because I’d be devastated if anything happened to you. More than anything I want to keep you safe.”

(YN) ducked her head awkwardly, trying to hide the blush on her cheeks. “I can’t ask you to follow me around forever like my own personal bodyguard.”

“There is another way, but I’d understand if you wanna say no. Please don’t feel like you have to do this,” he said starting to pace nervously.

“Wha-what is it?” She asked, her voice sounding a bit strained.

“It’s called a protection mark. It’d help me sense when you’re in a dangerous situation, and I could be there in a flash to help protect you.”

(YN) nodded thoughtfully, taking in his words. “But you wouldn’t know everything I’d be thinking or feeling or doing, right?”

“Right,” he nodded. “Just when you need protecting.”

“I… I guess that would be a good idea,” she replied.

“If you aren’t sure, you don’t have to,” he reassured her.

“No! I, I mean, I think it’d be the best idea. I’d really not like to be bitten by a vampire.”

Gerard winced. “Umm… that’s part of the process.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her hand going to her neck protectively.

“It won’t be deep, just a small wound, I promise.”

“And you won’t turn into a bloodthirsty monster?”

“No, I’d never do anything to hurt you,” he said softly, sitting down next to her.

(YN) nodded. “Ok, I trust you, Gerard.”

Gerard took a steadying breath and leaned in, feeling overwhelmed with nerves. He knew how to do this, Ray had explained it all before, but being this close to (YN) in this context was something else all together. He tried to ignore the vampire instincts screaming in his brain about how good her blood smelled, how amazing it would taste, that’s not what he was doing.

He bared his fangs, and sank into the soft skin of (YN)’s neck. She let out a whine that turned into a whimper and he wanted to stop, but he had to make the wound deep enough. As he drew back, the taste of her blood hit his tongue and he had to stop himself from drinking more.

“The worst is done,” he said encouragingly to her. She opened her eyes and he smiled, hoping to reassure her.

“You can, umm, the bit that’s bled, you can have it,” she said, stumbling over her words, cheeks heating up at the offer.

Gerard’s heart would have been beating a mile a minute if he was still a human. He leaned back in and carefully licked away the small rivulets of blood. It was better than anything he could have imagined. The best meals he had as a human were nothing compared to her.

Once the bleeding stopped, he brought his fingertip to his fang, piercing the skin. It took a moment for a bead of blood to pool up before he held it over the wound, allowing it to drip in. He drew another droplet and let it fall into the other hole.

“My blood is now mixed in yours,” he explained softly, looking up at her again. “Not enough to turn you into a vampire, but just enough for me to know when you’re in danger.”

“Now what?” She asked just as softly.

“You don't need me hanging around you anymore, so I can go,” he said, getting up.

“No,” she said quickly, reaching out and grabbing his hand. "I mean, you can stay and hang out if you want. I'd love to hear about being a vampire, if you wouldn't mind telling me about it."

Gerard smiled and sat back down next to her. "Yea, I don't really get to talk about it much. What do you wanna know?"

Gerard stayed until just before dawn, having spent all night talking with (YN). They'd been friends for a while, but no longer having to hide his true identity made him feel even closer to her. It also did nothing to help the crush he had on (YN), as well as his instinct to protect her at all costs.

When he returned to his basement apartment, he typed out a quick message to Ray, letting him know what happened that night and climbed into bed. But sleep wasn't coming anytime soon, as all he could think about was (YN).

A few nights later, Gerard was walking into a party at someone's house. He wasn't the type to go out without good reason, but a text from (YN) inviting him was more than good enough.

"Gerard!" She called when she saw him, waving him over.

"Hey," he smiled as he reached her. She threw her arms around him, giving him a tight hug, before pulling back sheepishly. "Sorry, I guess I missed you," she laughed nervously.

He smiled back. "That's ok, I missed you too. You've been ok?"

"Yea. So far so good I think," she shrugged and that's when Gerard realized he was holding her hand. He wasn't even sure when it happened, but he liked the way they fit together. "I haven't had to work as late so I'm not walking alone in the dark, but I'm still glad to know you're there if I need you."

They settled into a comfortable, easy conversation, as if they were the only two people in the entire party.

"Hey Gee. Gee… Gerard Way!" Ray shouted, finally getting Gerard's attention.

"What?" Gerard asked a little annoyed, and (YN) giggled.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Ray asked.

"Yea, sure," he said, giving (YN) 's hand a reassuring squeeze before following Ray out to the back deck.

Outside, Ray's breath came out in clouds, filling the bitter night air. Gerard noted that the moon was nearly full and that meant the werewolves would be out in a night or two and he should warn (YN), just to be safe.

“How’s it going with (YN)?” Ray asked, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

“Everything seems fine so far,” Gerard replied hesitantly.

“But?”

“You know that I’ve had feelings for her for a long time, but ever since giving her that protection mark,” Gerard trailed off.

“Oh Gerard,” Ray sighed.

“What?!”

“You didn’t know tha-”

“Wait, shit, I think (YN)’s in trouble,” Gerard cut his friend off.

“At a party?” Ray asked skeptically, watching his friend run back inside.

Gerard pushed through the crowd, as if being led by an invisible thread to (YN). When he found her, she was backed into a corner, a tall, hulking man was looming over her, and she was clearly very uncomfortable and nervous.

“Gee!” She exclaimed when she spotted him.

“(YN), are you ok? Is this guy bothering you?” Gerard asked.

“She’s fine,” the man snarled. “She doesn’t need any help from some greasy dork like you.”

“She’s not, and you need to leave her alone,” Gerard said trying to keep his voice calm.

“Make me,” the other man laughed darkly.

Gerard stepped forward and shoved him with all of the strength he could muster, launching the jerk across the room. His friends, noticing the commotion, started to make their way to where Gerard was standing protectively in front of (YN) once again.

“Hey Gee, let’s get outta here!” Ray called from by the door. Gerard grabbed (YN)’s hand and led her quickly out of the house. Once they were away from the party and certain they weren’t being followed, the three of friends settled into a comfortable pace

“Are you ok?” Gerard asked, squeezing (YN)’s hand.

“Yea, thanks,” she smiled. “How’d you know I needed help back there? Was it the protection mark?”

“I think so?” Gerard replied, turning to look at Ray, who sighed again, stopping under a streetlight.

“I tried to explain this to you Gee, but I think you were a bit distracted,” Ray explained in an amused tone, shooting a glance toward (YN). “While the protection mark alerts the protector to when the bearer of the mark is in danger, it will also increase the bond between the protector and the bearer. Ya know, enhance anything that is already there.”

Gerard glanced over at (YN), she was already looking at him, and they both looked away nervously.

“Anyway, this is my place, I’ll see you two later,” Ray said, with a wave and heading up to the building they were in front of, leaving (YN) and Gerard alone.

“I’m sorry (YN), I wasn’t paying attention when Ray explained it all to me. I didn’t mean to make you, I mean, all I wanted,” he groaned, hanging his head in defeat.

“Gerard,” she said, reaching out and tilting his head up so she could look in his eyes. "You can tell me."

"I just like you so much, I asked Ray for advice and I got distracted imagining being your hero when he was explaining everything," he laughed, but his voice was tinged with sadness. He had a feeling (YN) was about to ask him to leave her alone forever.

But she was smiling softly up at him, her hand still resting gently on his cheek. That's when she leaned in, pressing her lips to his sweetly. The moment took him aback for a moment, but when he realized what was happening, he kissed her back with every bit of emotion he had been holding for her in his cold, unbeating heart. When she pulled back she was blushing lightly.

"Gee, remember what Ray said? It enhances feelings that are already there. I already liked you too. And now I know you like me back."

Gerard grinned. "Do you wanna come over to my place, it's not far."

"I'd love to," she smiled. "Hey, look, it’s almost the full moon. I don't have to worry about werewolves running around, do I?" She laughed.

Gerard just wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her tight against him as they headed down the street. "Oh (YN), I think I have a lot to tell you."

#Anon #gerard way x reader #gerard way fan fic #gerard way fan fiction #gerard way imagine #my chemical romance fan fic #my chemical romance fan fiction #vampire gerard way x reader

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