#ever so determined to Help People First and Foremost

[gallusrostromegalus]

Why dies tousen hate horoscopes?

Scene: Ninth Division HQ, about 10 years after Turn Back The Pendulum and a few years into the regular publication of The Seireitei Bulletin, The Gotei-13's officially endorsed monthly periodical, produced by the 9th Division, of which one Captain Kaname Tousen is Editor-In-Chief: Tousen could feel the sizzling aura well before he ever set foot in the 9th divisions courtyard, and a good ten minutes before the loser of the hasty break room janken tournament coughed nervously at his office door.

"Yes, Hashimoto?" he sighed.

"The. Uh. The Captain-General is here to see you." Hashimoto stammered. "Actually he's right here in the hall if you want to-"

Yamamoto strolled up to the threshold of the door but did not quite step inside. There were rules, and even The Great Genryusai Yamamoto was beholden to them. "Captain Tousen." he spoke evenly.

"Sir." Kaname stood up and bowed as Hashimoto sprinted back down the hall. His footfalls did not entirely cover the sound of others slinking closer to eavesdrop. This was the 9th, and Kaname would be the first to admit he'd be a little disappointed if their meeting wasn't being carefully and discretely documented by several division members.

Now that he had been acknowledged, Yamamoto stepped in. "At ease." he nodded, and Tousen shifted positions a bit into an easier but no less cautious stance.

The Captain-General went to stand in front of the window beside Kaname's desk, looking down into the courtyard of the Ninth, or perhaps the extensive collection of Bird feeders a confused but earnest Ukitake had gifted Kaname over the years*. "...Captain Iba has been to see me."

Tousen winced. Third Division Captain Chikane Iba, mother of Young Tetsuzaemon and Astrology Fanatic, was Kaname Tousen's third-greatest personal nemesis, and that was only because he had not yet figured out how to Murder Aizen and Gin.

"She claims you were rather sharp with her when you turned down her proposal to include a Horoscope in The Bulletin." Yamamoto continued, watching an exceptionally round bird with dramatic black facial markings hop between feeders, sampling the wide variety of seeds available.

"The contents of the Seireitei Bulletin are not the concern of anyone except the Ninth save in terms of veracity, and to that end, there is not, and will never be, a Horoscope in The Bulletin." Tousen spoke as evenly as possible, but the acid in his voice dripped through.

"I am aware this is not actually my problem," Yamamoto nodded as the little bird settled on a feeder full of safflower seeds. "-But Captain Iba seems determined to make it my problem, so I am politely asking you to make it cease being a problem at all."

"As I said, the foremost requirement of any information or article in the bulletin is that it be, to the best of our ability, accurate and true. In that sense, no horoscope has ever managed to pass the first requirement of publication." Tousen stood up straighter. "I cannot help it if Captain Iba chooses to believe in patent nonsense, but I absolutely refuse to indulge her childish and cruel superstitions."

Yamamoto turned to look at Tousen. "Cruel?"

"A horoscope is, fundamentally, a means of arbitrarily grouping people into various stereotypes based on the accident of their birth. Several of the stereotypes are as cruel as they are inaccurate. For instance, everyone born in from late August through September is a quarrelsome slut, according to her favorite theory of divination."

"...That doesn't sound like Sajin at all." Yamamoto muttered.

"Putting the fraudulent pseudoscience and outright fabrication of all the Zodiac's so-called facts to the side for a moment- It encourages prejudice in a very literal sense. Deciding whether you will be worshipful of or nemeses with someone based entirely on a date, and not one hint of their actual conduct!" Kaname waved his hands evocatively, trying to avoid raising his voice in from of his commander. "Furthermore, predestination is a callous philosophy- to say that our fate is written in the stars is as good as saying that any unfortunate circumstance someone may be born with is 'just how things are' and encourages an apathetic neglect of one's fellow man- if this is destiny, why bother trying to improve things? Worse still- if the stars dictate that someone be born with some misfortune, it is implied also that they *deserved* this misfortune somehow, and heaps the further misfortunes of guilt and being perceived as wicked onto people who were already suffering!"

"...You can tell why I cannot give even the barest hint of endorsement to this kind of thinking." Tousen sighed, gesturing to his face.

"Hm." Yamamoto nodded, watching the birds for a moment. "Your point is well-taken, but this still leaves Captain Iba and her cohort to be dealt with."

"I can lead a horse to water sir, but I cannot make her think." Tousen shrugged.

Yamamoto snorted with amusement. "She did say you compared Astrology rather unfavorably to livestock waste. What was it, Stupider than..?"

"I believe my exact words were that if one were to channel the entire farm animal waste of the rukongai for 100 years into a single location, one would still not have a pile of shit as spectacular as this stupider-than-sheep-smegma attempt at prognostication. Sir." Kaname mumbled.

"...Your former career as a Librarian really enhances the quality of your work." Yamamoto nodded, turning from the window and stepping closer to Kaname, head bowed conspiratorially. "Would you like some advice?"

"Sir?" Kaname tilted his head to point an ear at the old man.

"Understand that you shouldn't follow this advice too often, but I feel like it might help in this situation." Yamamoto cautioned.

Kaname nodded, curious.

"If you do something badly enough the first time, you will not be asked to do it a second time." Yamamoto explained with an audible grin in his voice.

Kaname blinked a few times, processing that, then broke out in a small, hopeful smile of his own.

"You understand. Good man." Yamamoto nodded, affectionately clapping Tousen on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Sir." Kaname grinned. "If you can remind me, When is Captain Iba's Birthday again?"

"September Fourtheenth." Yamamoto replied with a speed that indicated he'd looked up and been waiting to tell Tousen that date all morning. "As you were then, Captain Tousen."

"Thank you, Sir." Kaname bowed.

"I look forward to your next publication with great anticipation!" Yamamoto cheerfully called over his shoulder as he turned to leave, chucking quietly at the sound of manic typing already emanating from Tousen's office.

---

*Upon Tousen's extremely unfortunate promotion to Captain, an entirely good-natured and generous Ukitake had asked Tousen if he had any hobbies, with the intent of trying to get the poor thing's mind off The Tragedy, and scoping out an appropriate end-of-year gift for his new colleague.

Unfortunately, Kaname had been in a foul mood on account of the horror show his life had become, and had sarcastically replied "Bird-watching."

"Oh of course!" Ukitake had replied without missing a beat "-You ryouken is so sensitive you can probably pick a thrush out of a thicket a mile off, and you must be excellent at identifying bird calls!" And then proceeded to gift Kaname varying types of bird feeders, baths and houses until the small porch outside Tousen's office had become a stronghold of the Audubon Society.

Kaname did have to admit, Ukitake was right- with a little practice he *had* gotten quite good at using his spiritual sense to identify the hundreds of birds that passed through the Ninth, and the Birdsong both a comforting blanket of white noise and early warning of Gin's approach were it to suddenly cease.

#AEIWAM #An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy #Bleach #Bleach Fanfic #kaname tosen #genryusai shigekuni yamamoto #No hate on recreational horoscopes but as a philosophy? they suck #There will be a Part 2 to this at some point #long post

[librarycards]

Hello! Sorry if you’ve posted about this somewhere already/if it’s redundant, but I thought your coinage of “transMad” was very cool and I’m wondering what that term means to you? I’m really happy to see other people talking about madness being intertwined w their gender/transness and looking forward to checking out your reading lists :))

thank you so much for asking about one of my favorite things to infodump about!! rather than rehash a bunch of stuff, if it's okay, I'm going to borrow a few quotes from past!me that i've published in different places // offer you some things of mine to read.

broadly, though, i use transMadness as a way to explore the identificatory, epistemological, methodological, and theoretical implications of an orientation (to use Sara Ahmed's term) toward bodymind noncompliance and self/selves-determination. this orientation refuses to delineate diagnostically between Maddened / transed experiences of the world/our many worlds, and instead takes this shared/overlapping ground as a jumping off point for solidarity and speculation - that is, something that allows us to imagine otherwise worlds / make them manifest through creativity and collaboration.

(Ha, and I claimed i wouldn't talk too much...famous autistic last words)

ANYWAY. here are some clips that might help explain more dimensions of transMadness. note that, in my dissertation-in-progress, i'm focusing on xeno/neogender and/as self-diagnostic cultures among queercrip and transMad internet users. i'm interested in the anti-psych liberatory potential of this digital community work, especially as it centers forms of knowledge and scholarship devalued within Academia Proper, especially because so much of it is made by and for disabled, Mad, queer, trans people, esp. youth. Onward to quotes!

On transMad epistemologies: citation/power/knowledge:

I’ll spend most of this piece looking not at what transMad is, but what it does. First and foremost, transMad cites. Even its name alludes to other portmanteaus: neuroqueer and queercrip being the best-known among them. Many people have offered many different (ever-“working”!) definitions of these terms; today, I offer co-coiner Nick Walker’s (2021) definition of neuroqueer: a verb and an adjective “encompass[ing] the queering of neurocognitive norms as well as gender norms” (p. 196). In terms of queercrip, I also return to its coiner, Carrie Sandahl (2003), who for whom the queercrip (as person and as method/movement) confuses the diagnostic gaze, bears sociopolitical witness, and performs glitchful[4], incongruous, confusing in(ter)ventions into possible community. At base, “queer” and “crip” appear as analogous, reclaimed slurs signifying marginalized transgression. When combined, they describe a loop, perhaps a Möbius strip: crip (ani)mates queer, queer tells-on crip. The specter of crip haunts queer—and even more explicitly, as we will see, trans—and the crip(ped) bodymind holds, moves, and fucks queerly. Who knows where “queer” stops and “crip” and “neuro” begin? Likewise, transMad, whose citational style leaves little room for diagnostic clarity amidst a pastiche of noncompliant text.

On transMad epistemologies: multiplicity (h/t @materialisnt):

They encourage us to remove others’ names from our bodies, to reign in unruly citations, to set “boundaries” which violate Mad, crip ethics of care (see Fletcher, 2019). In truth, any framing of individual authorship in which the body text is “mine” and the citations gesture “elsewhere” belie the inherent interdependence of all intellectual life, and particularly of transMad intellectual life. transMad plural scholar mix. alan moss (2022) argues in relation to the pathologization of multiple systems: “all people, indeed all that exists, is a system that itself is constantly enmeshed in several overlapping and interconnected systems.” In short, I am full of Is, and will continue as many more. Just as disability justice helps us understand all life as interdependent and deserving of access, a transMad approach sees our selves as numerous and fuzzy. We have permission to dispense with the need for tidy texts, with our interlocutors, edits, and iterations either obfuscated entirely or exclusively relegated to a bibliography. transMad citation may thus be considered akin to visible mending[6], creating flamboyantly messy, multiplicitous work that does not seek to pass as objective or discrete.

On the value of (crip) failure and/as "virtuality":

Don’t get me wrong: Zoom PhD work is a failing enterprise. That is to say, it is a queercrip, transMad enterprise, which is to say, it is a beautiful, beautiful project. Mitchell, Snyder, and Ware describe such “fortunate failures” in the context of “curricular cripistemologies.”5 Coined by Merri Lisa Johnson, the term “cripistemologies,” refers to “embodied ways of knowing in relation, knowing-with, knowing-alongside, knowing-across-difference, and unknowing,” ways which frequently exist outside the purview of mainstream academia.6 Curricular cripistemologies, then, refer to an intentional, queercrip deviation from normative pedagogical approaches which trades the corrective impulse of “special ed” and other rehabilitative programs, and offers instead a generative noncompliance.7 That is, rather than trying to identify, isolate, and ameliorate difference, curricular cripistemologies lean into difference as it is experienced by disabled students ourselves, querying how atmospheres of in/accessibility shape normative approaches to education and how the embrace of “failure,” not as a last-resort but as a first choice, poses potentially transformative possibilities.

On transMadness and fat liberation: (for @trans-axolotl's Psych Survivor Zine)

A transMad, fat approach to disorderly eating requires making connections with humility and understanding, and, as I discussed above, engaging in compassionate, critical interrogation of our own anti-fatness.

[...]

A transMad, fat, abolitionist politic is one that makes room. We imagine beyond the cage, even if the details of that imagining are not yet clear. Just as we have carved micro-sites of support within violent digital and in-person contexts, just as we have learned to think about our lifeworlds beyond the paradigm of “recovery or death,” we can also reconceptualize fatness not as the enemy, but as another form of bodymind noncompliance in alliance and/or entanglement with disorderly eating practices. For thin disorderly eaters, this requires us to fundamentally challenge the way we view food and embodiment, even while maintaining a Mad respect for alternative ways of approaching reality.

On xenogenders, virtuality, and self-determination:

It is this very “irrationality” –– the “unrealness,” the “you’ve-got-to-be-kiddinghood,” that is most frequently weaponized against xenogenders, as well as their newly-coined sets of xenopronouns. The perceived and actual virtuality of xenogenders is often placed against the notion of “actuality,” in this case, of “real” (or “practical”) genders and pronouns to be used in one’s “real life.” Disabled activists have rightly resisted the distinction between online and (presumed-offline) “real life,” given that this categorically excludes homebound bodyminds, as well as those without IRL social and support circles. That said, I believe the virtual –– as almost, not-quite, proximite, making-do –– is incredibly useful in thinking about xenoidentities as transMad tools –– particularly, as transMad tools of underground collaboration / co-liberation.

[...]

What if gender was a project we wanted to fail? That is, what if trans- was a process not of getting better, not of moving-toward a bodymind more sane, more straight, and more cisheteropatriarchially desirable, but rather a line of flight on a longer trail to illegibility? Indeed, what if we replaced pathology’s narrow “path” with a trail lighted by the language of our comrades, whose linguistic interventions make and break gender in ways heretofore unimaginable? Xenoidentities, both individually and as a trans-gressive M.O., are fundamental to a broader transMad project of crafted, collective illegibility; intersubjective citation (imagine what it feels like for someone to be the gender that you coined!); and collective care that refuses a politics of cure. Crucially both virtual and digital, xenoidentities are furthermore a manifestation of the power of trans, predominantly disabled digital counterpublics, who overturn the hierarchy which places the IRL-real above the digital-unreal, making unruly, Mad space in which (with apologies to Donna Haraway) a hundred xenoselves might bloom.

On Maddening queer "diagnosis":

In her indictment of all “Kwik-Fix Drugs,” Gray further indicates the practice of forced treatment as in and of itself as a project of violent normalization, regardless of specific target or reason. The intentional ambiguity between her narrative of Madness and her narrative of asexuality disrupt mounting demands for a healthy (sanitized, neoliberal, and consumable) queerness. A Mad ace approach identifies these demands as, indeed, comparable with cis heteronormative notions of sexual maturity and responsibility – the idea that participation in culturally-normative sexual practices is a prerequisite for health (Kim, 2011, 481) and thus, personal autonomy (Meerai, Abdillahi, and Poole 2016, 21). By fusing the “lack of sexual appetite” attributed to her medications for bipolar disorder with her asexuality, Gray destabilizes the binary between healthy-sexual-diversity and unhealthy-psychopathology. She is once again disrupting contemporary queer impulses to dissociate from ongoing histories of pathologization. Here, Mad and queer/asexual activism are as inseparable in text as they are in Gray. Gray and her comrades collectively refuse both sexuality-as-“rehabilitation” (See Kim 2011, 486) and asexual acceptance predicated upon normative “health” (Kim 2010, 158) – that is, they Madden asexuality. Twoey, in her own voice, remixes the sources of her own pathologization, staggering the supposedly-divine pronouncement of the DSM across pages and bookending its extracts with her own writing and art. In this undermining of the DSM’s epistemological polish, Gray disrupts the domination of written prose over poetry and visual art, while also critiquing the role of the DSM in commercialized health “care.” Her zine opens with the lines “sex sells and sex is sold / sex was being sold and i didn’t buy” (Gray 2018, n.p.). Gray indicates a pathology perceived not only in a refusal to practice sex, but also in a refusal to buy (into) it. After all, a refusal to buy into existing sexual paradigms is for her also a refusal to buy into a feminized reproductive mandate.

#sector-v #thank you genuinely! #ask #transmad #antipsychiatry #xenogender #epistemology #madness

[dayfalwastaken]

The Devil meets the Rabbit's proxy.

“I do hate to see squandered potential. You understand. Your ex-employer, Mr. Afton, had neglected to inform you of… well, everything that was important. Things you should have known before you were sent to act independently, as much as you could have, anyway… given your particular… predicament.” He walked around her. Slowly, and almost gracefully, taking careful steps and speaking as if he was disappointed, though also a bit amused. “In spite of your lack of general, er- information, however… you have performed spectacularly.” He stopped right before her, holding his hands in front of himself like one would do when saying a prayer. “Such performance warrants… reward.”

She didn’t wait for him to continue. Her mind went to the one thing she’d wanted since the start. Above his promises and certainties about her future, above her own goals, small as they were. She’d never forgotten why she’d started this in the first place. Ever since her “birth”, the sole purpose for pushing so far…

“I want-” She couldn’t get three words out before the other’s expression turned pitying.

“-I apologize, Miss Vanny, but I cannot bring your mother back.”

She felt like screaming. Like she would rip her hair off and claw her eyes out the next second.

Finally, after the hell she’d endured for almost two years, she’d found someone who could have helped her. Saved the remainders of her mental well-being. Saved…

Because despite those memories not belonging to her, she had them all the same. Vanny remembered the lies she had told at the pressure of her old man- the betrayed look on her mother’s face as she lost the court battle. And later, the police coming to inform them of what had happened. It was all there, always. The guilt, first and foremost, followed by the determination. The pain too. Not just Vanessa’s.

And just as hope had begun to shine her way, there was nothing. Again. As it had been with Afton. A possibility of peace ripped out of her grasp.

She supposed she did not deserve it after all the lives she’d cut short.

She didn’t know why she kept going. Why she put herself through this hell instead of trying her hardest to fight back. There was nothing left to lose, after all. Nothing to be threatened with. Vanessa had had her life striped of any source of joy long ago, and with her… so had Vanny’s.

“Do not look so downcast, my dear. There is something else I can offer… Something that I know you would find of… equal value.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” She barked back, venom dripping from her tone. She was tired of everyone’s bullshit.

The Shadow Freddy tipped his head forward, dots of light gleaming brighter in the darkness that surrounded most of his form. She didn’t have to see him smile to know he had done so.

“Agency.”

The void enveloped him once again, and in his place a spotlight shined, illuminating a round wooden table with a VR headset on top.

“Put on the headset, Miss Vanny. Put it on and… face your reflection.”

...

(This is a a preview of chapter 23, but I just had to get it out. Y'know, to let people know of what comes after. I guess I shouldn't be wondering why it's taking me so long to post the next chapter if I'm working ahead, should I XD 😅?)

#Shadow Freddy #Vanny #sb vanny #fnaf shadow freddy #fnaf vanny #fnaf vanessa #Vannesa A. #Security Breach #fnaf sb #fnaf security breach #ATSAT #fnaf fanfic #preview #snippet #out of context #chapter 23 #subject to change

[thefirstknife]

thoughts on the lore seeming to imply the young wolf might be one of, if not the most powerful active guardian? (example: old farm ambient dialogue indicating that between rise of iron and the red war, the guardian defeated shaxx in the crucible 3-2 https://youtu.be/S1r4wOUFR-4, the only guardian aside from ikora to do so). i personally don't mind it and actually think it's kinda cool, but a lot of people seem really opposed to the idea so im just wondering what your opinion is

Oh that's a cool line, haven't heard it before.

Yeah, I think the Young Wolf is for sure among the stronger Guardians. We are, first and foremost, some sort of an outlier, almost like an anomaly, that affects timelines. In all previous timelines that Elsie knows about, there was never a Young Wolf and we never killed the Black Heart and that one single divergence doomed all other timelines. It's the sole reason why Elsie popped up in D1 to help us with the Black Heart, as it was one of the possible options she hadn't tried yet.

And ever since, we've definitely fulfilled the role of this outlier figure. Obviously, it's hard to say, like, which specific parametres to use to determine how strong a Guardian is and all, but I definitely think that we should count as some of the strongest ever, especially with how well we're capable of commanding both Light and Darkness. There's a reason why Osiris considers us his equal and expects a lot from us.

#destiny 2 #young wolf #ask #ofc anyone's young wolf is their own so if you want your yw to not be super powerful that works too #not sure why people would be opposed to the idea that we're among the strongest #we're clearly super capable and attuned to the paracausal forces and save the universe every 3 months

[oumagines]

Kokichi With A Shy Age Regressor S/O Who Loves Pink And Girly Things

Anonymous Asked: "Could I request kokichi with a shy age regressor s/o?One who really likes pink and girly things? Thank you!! Sorry if it's a lot!"

Warnings: Kidnapping, mention of DD/LG, gang violence (?)

Reader Pronouns: They/Them

Rating: 🍊

Notes: Oh, you don't need to apologize!! This request is so cute!! And this is actually quite a simple request, and it was really fun to write!!

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Kokichi Ouma is a man whose feelings seem to fluctuate at random. But however, the one time you'd truly see a glimpse into how much he loves you is when you're little. The littler you are, the kinder he is to you.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ For one thing, he won't see the need to hurt or punish you for the most part. Or at the very least, if he does, it won't be nearly as harsh as if you weren't agere.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ First and foremost, he's willing to go out and buy literally anything little you might ask for, and forcefully willfully becomes your cg, since that will entrench him into your life.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ And best part? Everything he brings you is some shade of pink if he can find it, otherwise it'll be purple or red, the closest colors to pink. He also likes to bring them in pastels so it's harder to distinguish between the actual pink and his "failures".

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Practically every single time he goes out, something will catch Kokichi's eye that reminds him of you, and he'll get it for you. Whether it's a cute little plushy, some adorable pink hair ribbons, or other toys you could play with when little, he'll purchase them immediately and be pretty much buzzing on the way back home.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ If anyone were to question his sudden influx of more childish purchases, he'd probably make up something about volunteering at an orphanage or babysitting some neighbors' kids.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ But when he returns home, he knows he's setting up for the day he finally kidnaps you, wanting you to be as comfortable as you can possibly be.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ So naturally, when you do get kidnapped, you're understandably confused about how this room is so completely ideal to you.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Enter your cg, telling you that he brought you here because the world is just too dangerous for someone so soft and sweet, and that you're too little for all that... That only he can protect you...

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ After all, there are a lot of people who would think of your agere as a kink, rather than seeing it for the coping mechanism that it is. And someone as pure and soft as you doesn't deserve to have that innocence tainted by something so vulgar, or so he thinks.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ He also tends to gush over your shyness, but in a teasing way.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ "Aww~! Why, my S/O is so shy, aren't they? So cute, tiny, and timid! That's what you want to hear, right?"

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ If you ever call him "Papa" or "Big" while little, congrats! You get to see his heart melt in his chest!

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ As long as you aren't fighting back, you probably never get punished, to be honest. He likes seeing you smile much more than seeing you cry, because if he makes you cry, the guilt of knowing that he hurt someone who's supposed to trust him will just... crush him.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ He will 100% pretend his favorite color is pink and start wearing it just so you two have something to gush over together. And in truth, it isn't a lie. But it's only his favorite because it reminds him of you. If not for that, it'd be useless to him.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Kokichi has sacrificed a lot for D.I.C.E.. It was his duty as their leader. So when someone or something makes Kokichi as happy as you do, you can expect D.I.C.E. to be practically your biggest fans aside from Kokichi, himself. Meaning they won't save you from being kidnapped and may even help Kokichi cover his tracks. I mean, he isn't violent with you, so... no point in not doing it, right?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Whether you're little or not when you go to bed determines the way you sleep. If you're little, Kokichi will pull your head into his chest and rest his chin on the back of your head, using his hands to caress your back as you drift off. If you're big enough, he'll hold your hand and... that's pretty much it. You sleep mostly independent of each other except for the fact that he's not letting go of that hand. You probably didn't need it- /lh

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ All in all, you get a mostly wholesome Kokichi. And although you're safe from the punishments... that doesn't mean everyone else is.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ :)

#drv3 kokichi #kokichi ouma #ouma kokichi #kokichi oma #oma kokichi #yandere kokichi #kokichi x y/n #kokichi x you #kokichi x reader #yandere danganronpa #danganronpa #drv3 ouma #ndrv3 kokichi #oumakokichi #kokichi danganronpa #danganronpa ouma #danganronpa kokichi #sfw agere #agere #if you tag this as kink I'll break your fucking knees #this world is mine! i am the king! 🎲 request completed

[ceterisparibus116]

Could you talk about the things you think the fandom gets wrong about Matt? I’m very curious 😆

Okay, so this is gonna be a controversial take, I’m sure. I definitely don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I welcome healthy discussion!

Also, this is incredibly subjective. I’m only speaking to the bits of fandom I’ve observed. And the Daredevil fandom is big enough that I can’t say I’ve seen all of it or the majority of it.

That said, here goes.

First and foremost: Matt is not a bad person. I don’t know how much of fandom actually means it when they call him an ass, a bad friend, etc., vs just saying it in the tongue-and-cheek “human disaster” sort of way. But I don’t think Matt’s a bad person at all, nor do I think he’s a bad friend (although this second one is admittedly more complicated).

What makes a person bad? I think I’ve talked about this a little before in other posts, but you can evaluate badness on at least two spectrums: intent and outcome. I don’t think anyone can deny that Matt’s intentions are incredibly good. He deeply desires to help other people. He makes dumb choices, sure, but even those dumb choices are usually inspired by a desire to help.

Of course, sometimes his intentions are less about helping others, and more about something else. That “something else” is most often, I think, self-protectiveness. Like, does he keep his survival of Midland Circle a secret because he thinks Foggy and Karen are better off without him (a dumb but also selfless, others-centered intention)? I think so. Does he also keep his survival a secret because he’s afraid of their rejection (a self-protective intention)? I think so.

But self-protectiveness is clearly rooted in specific traumas, like the rejection he’s experienced from Stick and Elektra and even Foggy and Karen. Personally, I see that as a mitigating factor. I challenge any of us to go through rejections like that and not end up self-protective. Does that make us bad? No. It makes us hurt.

(And this leads to a third factor: capability, or, at least, a person's capability at the moment. I don't think I touched on this the last time when I talked about intent and outcome, but capability is very important to me when determining if I think a person is good or bad. Someone who's been raised with privilege and who's been taught how to treat others well, and yet fails to do so...I'm more likely to believe that this is a person who's either intentionally or negligently treating others poorly. But someone who's never been shown how to treat others well is acting within their capabilities if they treat others poorly. This matters for someone like Matt. I don't see any evidence that Matt was ever taught how to handle even the normal types of complications that come up in human relationships, let alone how to handle something as bizarre as heightened senses and vigilantism. Instead, what was modeled to Matt was that when relationships get complicated, you walk away. Maggie did it first, then Stick, then Elektra. AND YET MATT DOESN’T WALK AWAY. He...uh, pushes people away. But he doesn’t leave them himself, which is what you’d expect, given what he was shown over and over growing up. Also, Matt's capability is clearly capable of expanding as he matures, especially as seen in Season 3. But I think his capability for trust and honesty in Seasons 1 and 2 is lower - and that's not his fault.)

And then we have the outcomes. Matt certainly causes bad outcomes. But do those bad outcomes outweigh the good? Really? Does the heartbreak he causes Foggy and Karen outweigh the lives he’s saved and the people he’s protected from the unthinkable? I don’t believe so, not at all.

Personally, I think both his intentions and the sum total of the outcomes of his life are all good, so to the extent that we measure the goodness of a person that way at all, I’d say he’s solidly “good.”

What about being a bad friend? This is more difficult. Matt is certainly a high-maintenance friend. He’s a difficult friend. But is he a bad friend? This is a much more subjective question, but I personally don’t think he is. I don’t think every high-maintenance and difficult person is a bad friend.

Do you have a friend in your life who struggles with mental illness and trauma which causes them to make choices that hurt you? Does that make them a bad friend?

Do you have a friend in your life who has a job that’s stressful or dangerous, and it worries you? Does that make them a bad friend?

Well, maybe they are a bad friend insofar as they’re not a good fit for you. But for someone else, those issues may not be obstructions. That doesn't make them a bad friend, that merely makes them a bad friend for you.

Honestly, I’m a high-maintenance friend. I’m a person who cares deeply about the problems of others, and it’s hardly unusual for me to call my friends in tears because someone I care about is hurting or because I’ve run into a problem in the world that I can’t fix. This puts a burden on my friends that I'm sure they don't always enjoy.

I’m also a difficult friend because I’m opinionated and argumentative. Sometimes I don’t control that very well. I’ve hurt people in arguments and not realized it, and sometimes I’ve hurt people and realized it and just...kept going. Although I will note that I try not to do this and try to apologize when I do. Still, there are some people who would never want me to be their friend because they don’t want to be friends with an opinionated and argumentative person. I would definitely be a bad friend for them.

Additionally, as a prosecutor, my job is incredibly stressful, and if I end up prosecuting the types of people I desire to prosecute (sex traffickers), then my job will also be dangerous. It means long hours when I’m simply not free to go out for drinks with friends, and it means heavy conversations, and it might very well mean, in the future, that my friends will worry about me if I don’t answer their calls.

Am I a bad friend?

I mean, maybe, lol. But my point is: those things by themselves don’t make me a bad friend; they merely make me a high-maintenance and sometimes difficult friend—and that's not the same thing.

I’ve said it before: if Foggy or Karen can’t handle the stress involved with being Matt’s friend, both due to his choices as Daredevil and due to the impact of his mental health issues, then they need to evaluate whether the friendship is a good fit for them—but that doesn’t mean Matt is a bad friend. The truth is, Matt is a person who is high-maintenance and stressful, but who loves his friends intensely and struggles to treat them well but (and this is key) actively tries to do better, as seen in Season 3.

That’s not a bad friend. A bad friend is someone who hurts their friends and doesn’t care. A bad friend is someone who willfully or negligently takes advantage of their friends. A bad friend is someone who doesn’t bother trying to do better.

Matt doesn’t do any of these things.

Next up, another thing I’ve noticed is that…I don’t agree with how Daredevil fandom seems to think about what it means for Matt to be happy. That’s what a lot of us want, right? We want Matt to be happy. We want him to find healing.

But a lot of fics, posts, etc. seem to focus on happiness as Matt finding more stability in his relationships, be they romantic or platonic. Like, Foggy or Karen or Frank or whomever supporting him. And although I certainly think that would contribute to his happiness, I think there’s a lot more at play.

Matt is a character who is deeply self-judgmental. Which is not to say that he constantly loathes himself; to the contrary, he clearly takes pride in several parts of himself. He is, overall, pleased with his abilities as a lawyer, with his competence as a fighter, and he’s even sometimes pleased with his ability to flirt. ;) What I mean when I say that Matt is self-judgmental is that Matt is constantly evaluating himself. He’s constantly trying to figure out if he’s doing the right thing, if he’s meeting the standards to which he holds himself.

From my perspective, a lot of fandom acts like if other people reassure him, then that will soothe his self-judgmentalness (shut up, tumblr, I know that’s not a word). But the thing is, it WON’T. Matt is not a person whose view of himself depends on how others view him. Even when everyone around him says he’s doing something wrong, he can be convinced that he’s doing something right. Even when everyone around him says he’s doing something right, he can be convinced that he’s doing something wrong.

So bringing Matt to a point where he’s happy needs to address this. Either: a) his standards need to lower so that he can meet them where he is; b) he needs to see that he is meeting his standards where he is, even if he thought he wasn’t; c) he needs to grow in the specific ways required for him to meet those standards; or d) he needs to somehow, despite his self-judgmentalness, become okay with not meeting his own standards.

None of those things automatically follow from his friends being supportive. The closest would be (b) and possibly (d), but I rarely see fics and posts actually address those specific elements of supportiveness.

Similarly, some fics and posts seem to suggest that Matt will be happy if he stops / lessens his Daredeviling. This is a complicated subject because there’s a wide range of how Matt would go about doing this. Is it simply spending less time in the mask? Is it fighting less dangerous bad guys? Is it taking backup? Is it getting better medical care? Is it letting other people know where he is so they know if he doesn’t come home? What, exactly, does that mean?

The problem is that some of these answers, namely “spending less time in the mask” and “fighting less dangerous bad guys,” risk leaving him feeling like he’s not meeting his standards, and he's not okay with that. As he tells Foggy, people get hurt when he takes a night off. So it’s not enough to get him to Daredevil less in those two regards; he has to also believe that he’s still doing the right thing. And I sometimes see that addressed, usually in a utilitarian “you’ll be able to help more people if you’re not on the verge of collapse” sort of way. But although there’s a certain logic to that perspective, it doesn’t really get at the heart of what it means for Matt to believe he’s a good person, you know?

And I mean, I get that a lot of fics and posts aren’t trying to do a deep-dive into Matt’s understanding of what a good person is, especially as applied to himself. This is just a thing that I happen to think about a lot, so I notice when it seems like it’s getting skimmed over.

The final thing that’s probably more controversial is Matt’s relationship to his faith. You can’t scroll though his tag on tumblr or AO3 without seeing “religious trauma” and “Catholic guilt” somewhere.

And here I want to pause to acknowledge my own bias. I’m religious, and I love it. My faith has made my life infinitely better. It has some sort-of downsides (in ways that I believe are similar to what Matt experiences, in that the downsides don't actually come from the faith itself but rather from my misunderstanding/misapplication of my faith), but it’s overall my favorite thing about myself.

I also need to acknowledge that many people in the Daredevil fandom have been hurt by religion. I in no way want to diminish that, nor do I want to diminish the value of Matt as a comfort character to anyone.

But what I’m trying to do is set aside my personal experiences and set aside other people’s personal experiences, and just evaluate Matt within the confines of the story as told on Netflix. Factually, objectively, what is his relationship with religion?

I don’t think it overall is one of trauma or even guilt.

Here’s my understanding of his relationship with religion:

As a child, he’s told by his grandmother that he has the devil inside. He may not know exactly what she meant by that, but he certainly has his own idea: the devil is a scary sort of rage that hurts people. He sees it in his dad, and he sees it in himself. Even as an adult, he still remembers that phrase and still identifies with it to the point that he continually brings it up with Father Lantom, clearly seeking some sort of explanation of it and guidance for how to deal with it.

He believes in damnation. He believes, specifically, that killing someone will lead to damnation.

He believes in redemption. He believes anyone and everyone, no matter what they’ve done, can be redeemed. (Apparently redemption triumphs over damnation, at least in theory, because when Frank talks about giving killers a chance to kill again, Matt doesn’t hesitate to argue that they should have the chance to try again—because redemption is still possible, even for them.)

He believes God made everyone for a purpose. He believes this includes himself, although he’s not certain how that works out in the context of Daredevil, where God’s purpose seems to clash with (or perhaps take advantage of?) the “devil inside.”

He believes God hears people’s prayers, and believes God has given him his abilities so he can answer those prayers.

He believes God hears him and expects God to answer him—and is confused and hurt when it appears that God is silent. But although we don’t see him pray often, he makes the sign of the cross before making hard/questionable decisions (like…to kill someone), and he prays desperately over Elektra when he thought he was losing her. (I also think he prayed when he hugged Karen after Frank shot at the hospital, but I’m not entirely sure.)

He comes to believe that God is not silent, but instead that God is at work subtly in and through him, as well as in and through the people around him, to bring about good in the world.

His faith brings him comfort when confronting the hard things in life—not always, but sometimes. (Unless he’s not being honest with Karen about that, back in Season 1.)

He finds comfort and guidance in talking to religious characters like Maggie and Father Lantom. He seemed to distance himself from religion for a while before the show started, but eventually the need for that comfort and guidance brought him back.

He’s grown up in a church that clearly cares about “the least of these.” There’s the orphanage for one, and Father Lantom sharing the church with people of other faiths, like the mosque in S3, and Maggie’s statement to Karen that the church is experienced with protecting people who are on the run who have nowhere else to go.

The church gave him a home when he had nowhere else to go. Father Lantom was a father figure when he had no one else to care for him that way.

He notably doesn’t appear to feel any guilt over a lot of Catholic sins: most prominently punching people in general (which…actually, it’s debatable whether that’s a sin in the context of defense of others), sex outside of marriage, getting drunk, swearing, skipping church, etc.

I think that about sums it up? Looking over this list, the only things that seems to be traumatic is his belief of “the devil inside,” and possibly his belief in damnation (though arguably not, or at least less so, to the extent that he considers the possibility of redemption for himself). Those are also the only two areas where I see guilt really arising.

Is that enough to say he’s a character with religious trauma and Catholic guilt? Well, definitely not Catholic guilt as it is technically defined, since technically Catholic guilt is about feeling guilt for something that you don’t actually think is wrong, but you feel guilty anyway because you were taught by Catholicism that the behavior is wrong. This would apply to all the things Matt does without feeling guilt, like sex outside of marriage, etc. This would not apply to the things Matt does feel guilt about, like, y’know, beating people up and considering murder, since these are things that Matt truly thinks are wrong.

So I think fandom is using “Catholic guilt” to suggest that Matt feels extra guilt or too much guilt (or…any guilt, to the extent that you might think no guilt should ever be felt) for doing certain things.

So by that definition, is it fair to say that Matt has religious trauma and Catholic guilt? Well, maybe—except when we consider his personality.

I mean, imagine Matt without ever having heard the words “devil inside.” Imagine Matt without any belief in damnation or hell.

Now imagine that same Matt lashing out in anger and beating people up. Imagine that Matt trying to kill someone.

How would he feel about himself?

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: Matt is an intensely self-judgmental person with or without his faith, and it is this self-judgmentalness that compounds his trauma and feeds his guilt. His faith gives him a certain specific framework by which to evaluate himself and his actions, but I don’t see any evidence that, if he ditched his faith, he would no longer care about doing the right thing. Nor do I see any evidence that, if he ditched his faith, he would think that lashing out in anger and trying to kill people is fine.

In other words, Matt would be a guilt-ridden person even if he weren't Catholic.

Additionally, the moments in his life that I believe were most traumatic have nothing to do with religion. Growing up without a mom. Losing his dad. Losing his sight. Growing up in an orphanage (and presumably watching other kids get adopted / fostered, while he was left behind). Stick’s rejection. Elektra’s rejection. These were all formative in his life, and most clearly lead to his specific trauma responses, and they would’ve happened with or without his faith.

Why, then, does Matt sometimes appear to have religious trauma or Catholic guilt, when in fact he’d have trauma and guilt regardless? I think the answer is this: his religion colors his trauma and guilt, and people see the coloring and mistake the coloring for causality.

This is where I have to tread carefully, because I’m straying from fact and entering into speculation, and I recognize that my own life experiences might be coloring (ha) my perspective. But then again…maybe my own life experiences, as a religious person, are simply giving me a unique insight into a religious character.

I mean, Matt hasn’t been to therapy, okay? He doesn’t appear to know the first thing about mental health. He doesn’t have the vocabulary to talk about it.

But what vocabulary does he have? A religious vocabulary. So how does he talk about trauma and guilt? With religion and in the context of religion.

Take his angst over his anger and how he acts on it, for example. If he had the vocabulary, he could talk about it in terms of nuanced emotions or in terms of cognitive distortions. But he doesn’t have that vocabulary. Instead of saying, “I’m constantly angry at the injustices of the world,” he says, “I have the devil inside.” Instead of saying, “I don’t always know how to act on my anger appropriately,” he says, “Sometimes I let the devil out.” Instead of saying, “I engage in self-blame and believe that every bad thing is somehow my fault,” he says, “I feel guilty.” These religious phrases (”the devil” and “guilty”) are not the cause of how he feels; they’re merely the vocabulary he has to explain how he feels.

So again, this is a matter of vocabulary, not causation. And it’s personally what I’ve experienced. My parents are psychologists, so I actually have an advantage over Matt in that I do have a vocabulary for talking about mental health. But even so, my faith adds a layer to things. It has to, if it means anything to me, if it’s not just window dressing.

Like, if I’m depressed and feel that I’m of no value, then I necessarily wonder if God values me. If I’m anxious and I feel that everything is out of control, then that could easily lead to me thinking God has abandoned me. That doesn’t mean my faith caused the depression or the anxiety, but it certainly is how I explain it. My faith colors it.

All that being said, I have to be fair: the idea that Matt’s faith colors his trauma and guilt rather than causing it does not negate the possibility that, by coloring it, Matt’s faith also exacerbates it.

So does it? Personally, I think…yeah, sometimes. Sometimes, but only to the extent that Matt applies his faith in an incomplete, patchwork way to himself. The clearest example is the damnation vs redemption issue, where Matt jumps to say that killing someone will damn him, but never seems to consider the possibility that he could be redeemed from that—or that he could be redeemed from any of his bad choices whatsoever.

I also think Father Lantom was woefully unhelpful in telling Matt that guilt is a sign that his work is not finished, which 1) misstates the Gospel (smh); and 2) places the responsibility of bad things on Matt’s shoulders; and 3) doesn’t bother to help Matt distinguish between the feeling of guilt and the reality of guilt—the reality that he’s done something wrong. (Which is incredibly ironic in S2, given that the “guilt” Matt was referring to in this conversation was about Grotto’s death, which wasn’t his fault at all, and yet we never see Matt process his mistakes with Foggy, Karen, and Frank’s trial in terms of guilt, even though those mistakes decidedly were his fault.)

And personally, I think the positives from Matt’s faith outweigh those. Positives like comfort and guidance, stability, a sense of purpose, a home, the belief that someone out there is listening, the belief that someone powerful is working things for good, the model of a lifestyle of service to others, the belief in redemption...that’s a lot of beautiful things, don’t you think?

I also think the positives from Matt’s faith would outweigh the negatives even more if he had a more accurate understanding of his faith, which would get at issues like whether his anger really is “the devil,” whether his feelings of guilt are accurate, whether his wrongs determine his value, whether redemption is applicable to him, etc. But that’s an essay for another time. ;)

Anyway, those are my thoughts on a character that I love and obsess over and enjoy analyzing way too much. Thank you for the fun and very challenging ask!

#matt murdock #daredevil #meta #religion #religious trauma #catholic guilt

[kareofbears]

a fragile line, chapter 1/3

Newt and Thomas always had something going on—even in the Maze, Gally knew right away. But never did he think it would turn into something like this; a devotion fermented. A reverence that made the chapel look blasphemous in comparison.

—

Or, as they infiltrate WICKED, Gally notices the shift between Newt and Thomas.

read on ao3 or below the cut

The worst day of his life was when Gally realized he still fucking cares.

He always cared. Probably cared too damn much, back in the Maze. Cared so much it tore them all apart.

They had lost everything in the span of days. Crops burned, walls torn down, weapons picked up only to be dropped, dripping in blood. Gally tried telling everyone to stop breaking the rules, but nobody listened, and people died. Boys, his boys, died. And he tried so hard to save as many of them as possible, took that burden on himself, tarnished his palms with invisible callouses from the effort of forcibly keeping them all together. There's nothing worse than having the hands that helped kids out of the Box be the same ones to etch their names off the wall.

Gally was younger, then. It feels like years have passed even if it's only been months since it all went down. He was struck with terror, confused, determined to find answers, and most of all, he was angry. Angry with grief, angry at the situation, angry at change. Of course, nobody pissed him off more than the Greenie, sauntering around and making big speeches like he built the damn Glade himself. And guess what—Gally was right about that, too.

But what really got to him, what really made his nerves light up with fury and sink deep into his bones was that nobody listened to him about the Greenie. Yeah, Gally can see now that he was a massive dick back then, but all of his worries were valid. Thomas was dangerous. Thomas was working with WICKED. Thomas did lead people to dangerous situations without thinking things through or considering the consequences. And nobody questioned that, because they were making progress on the Maze for the first time ever.

It's not something he'll ever say out loud, but damn the Maze. Damn freedom. What the hell is the point of fighting your way out when you see the bodies lined up behind you? What's the price of escape? Too high. It would always be too high for him.

When they left him there, bleeding out on the floor of some busted up WICKED lab with a meter-long spear sticking out of his chest—Minho did always have one hell of a throw—Gally cursed every single one of them. Croaked out their names with whatever breath was left in his lungs, lips tracing the syllables in a haze of red and hate. Was still mouthing it when Lawrence's guys found him.

Months later, slouched on top of a combat vehicle for a routine trip of the Last City's outskirts, he sees them.

They looked like shit. Clothes that have been through the ringer, hair matted with grime, every inch of their skin covered in soot and who-the-hell-knows what, and eyes blazing with something only anguish from the Scorch and running from WICKED can bring to someone.

He wanted so badly for that same, familiar hurt to rise. That thorn on his side that he convinced himself would never leave, the phantom spear in his chest to make itself known. He waits for the anger to rear its ugly head again, like it always has. The need to feel hate.

It doesn't come. What does come, unfortunately, is knee-buckling relief.

They're alive.

After all this time, even after they left him behind to rot, they're Gladers. They're boys. They're Gally's boys, first and foremost. He protects his own until his last breath. For better or for worse, he still gives a damn about these guys.

If he's going to care, he's going to do it properly this time. And with these shanks? This is going to suck. It's going to be hell. But Gally doesn't do things in halves.

—

“Words?”

“Circulation. Novel. Badger.”

Thomas nods, taking a bite of his apple as he writes into that beaten up notebook of his. “Looks good today, too,” he says approvingly between chews. "And you're not—"

"I’m fine. Don't feel any worse than I did twelve hours ago," Newt cuts in, amused. "I feel bloody sparkling, Tommy. What's the next set?"

Gally watches as Thomas continues writing, brows furrowed in concentration. The three of them are sitting underneath the awning of the chapel's entrance, shielding themselves from the morning sun's abnormally hot rays, making last-minute preparations for when they head into the Last City tonight. Frankly, he was glad for it. Already they've lingered for too long, the paranoia of timing itching at his skin.

"Next words are 'narrow, switch, illusion,'" Thomas replies, closing his book shut. "Don't forget."

"I'll try my best," Newt says drily. "Can we move to actual business now, doctor?"

Thomas leans over and knocks on the wooden door, hard, taking another bite of his apple. "Brenda. Get out here."

Immediately, the door swings open and she peeks her head out, bob bouncing as she squints. "Done flirting?"

"Never," Newt says easily, scooching over so she has room to sit. "Lucky us, the doc cleared me to join the grown-up conversation."

Part of the last-minute preparations, apparently, is this. The Greenie playing Medjack and clearing Newt for a clean bill of health every twelve hours with little memory tests.

It's easy to make fun of, which Newt never hesitates to do. But when Gally first saw them doing it, saw Thomas' stone-faced expression as he insists on checking Newt every time, he's reassured, just a little. He still has his reservations towards the Greenie, probably always will, but if there's one thing they can both agree on, is that Newt's health isn't something to fuck around with.

Brenda flops down between him and Newt, giving Newt a side-hug and raises her fist towards Gally. Unhesitatingly, he bumps it with his own.

"Okay," Thomas swallows, passing the fruit to Newt, who takes his own bite in turn. Despite fatigue prevalent in his posture, Thomas’ voice is sure. "We're heading out tonight. The objectives are saving Minho, busting out twenty-eight Immunes, and taking the serum from the vault. We're taking the tunnels, like we did the first time." The way he's reciting the plan feels clinical, worn out, the same way sharp rock smooths down after years of being under rough waters. "Brenda's getting the bus for the kids with Fry's help—"

"Why isn't Fry here?" Gally interrupts.

"He's scavenging the place for something to mark the road with." Thomas slumps against the pillar like it was the only thing holding him up, before straightening again. At Gally's nod, he continues. "Newt, Gally and I are going in with Teresa to the main building. Gally and I will take point, Newt stays a few steps behind us as backup."

"Just a few?" Newt clarifies, coughing a little before biting into the apple.

"Just a few."

Newt’s teeth sink into the core, a piece falling with a loud crunch. There's still a hint of bruising still smudged just above his cheekbone; the only remnants of the mysterious black eye that appeared before they all had dinner a few days ago.

"Just a quick chat with Tommy," Newt answered when Gally raised a brow at him then. "Little trouble in paradise, just had to let out some steam, is all. You know how we are."

The thing is, Gally doesn't.

Individually, the two of them are pretty much the same. A lot happened in six months, and he'd be a liar if he said he's the same shank that was tearing his voice out in the Glade. Thomas is impossibly more difficult now, but he always was. At his core, though, he's still the brave, overly-observant idiot he pulled out of the Box. Newt's still the embodiment of wit, the patron fucking saint of composure, even if that's starting to chip away because of the Flare, judging by Thomas' twin bruise on his jaw.

But the two of them? As a unit? Gally has no idea who these bastards are.

It's as if the universe took a pinch of Thomas and a pinch of Newt, threw it in a barrel, and topped it with a gallon of deranged before stirring. A mixture of whatever the hell the two of them are now. It's something Gally doesn't want to put much thought into, because something about the two of them feels almost threatening. Warning bells, the presence of danger when something involves the two of them.

Newt and Thomas always had something going on—even in the Maze, Gally knew right away. But never did he think it would turn into something like this; a devotion fermented. A reverence that made the chapel look blasphemous in comparison.

Even asking Brenda about it, once, didn't help clear things up. "Those two? The only thing I get about them is that you should just get out of the way before you do something stupid."

"What, you make a bad comment or something?"

"Kissed Thomas." A pause. "Yeah. Don't ask. Newt laughed it off but Thomas wouldn’t speak to me for days."

Gally refocuses back on the meeting, as Thomas continues. "—into Sub-Level 3. Get the serum, give it to Newt right then and there. Get the kids out, meet with Brenda, get picked up by Fry." He pauses before nodding, as if he were confirming his own plan with himself. That, paired with his deep eyebags, Gally has to wonder if this guy's slept at all since they interrogated Teresa a few days ago. "Good that?"

Two good thats and one sounds good. Looks like Brenda never picked up the Glader lingo.

"Okay. Be back by sundown. We leave at nine." Thomas looks over them, voicd curt. “Don’t be late.”

"What Tommy means to say," Newt chides. "Is do what you need to do. Get some rest, pack what you need. Take care of yourselves, because who knows when we'll get free time again, yeah? Go on, now." Newt turns to Thomas. "Dick," he says, but it comes out oddly affectionate. "Never did pick up on niceties, did you?"

Thomas shrugs. "Figured they'd appreciate efficiency."

Gally gets on his feet, fully intending to slink away somewhere and get in the mindset for the infiltration tonight when he hears Thomas call out: "Stick around, Gally." A mild thump sounds out, like someone getting swatted. "...Please."

He doesn't repress a sigh, but doesn't complain—he has a thing or two to say, anyway.

They wait for Brenda and Newt to leave. Gally doesn't let him have the first word. "You look like shit," he says bluntly. "You can't go in there when you look like you can barely stay on your feet."

Thomas shoots him a glare but doesn't bother getting up from where he's sitting. "I'll be fine." Gally keeps staring, and Thomas visibly deflates, curling in on himself a little. "I'll be fine after we talk."

"Okay." Gally crosses his arms and waits. "Anytime, Greenie."

He doesn't answer, and Gally has the urge to tell him to just spit it out, but then Thomas' expression turns solemn. "Be honest with me."

"I don't think I have it in me to bother lying to you, man."

"Would you choose Newt over me?"

The question stuns Gally to silence. "Feeling insecure?" he asks instead of answering.

Thomas ignores the jab. "You would, right?" he insists, eyes intense. "You must. He has three years over me. You built the Glade together, one of the originals. You respected him even when he disagreed with you during Gatherings, I remember. You and I, we were never close. Got on each other's nerves a lot." He tilts his head, considering. "Still do."

Gally hesitates, honesty catching him off guard. "Shit, Greenie," he sighs, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before. They’ve made strides, him and Thomas. They’re not as cut-throat with each other like they were before, as much as Thomas tried to reignite the feud between them. Is it good? Fuck no, but it’s better than before.

Nonetheless, it’s nothing on the affinity that Gally had towards Newt.

Eventually, he nods. "Yeah. If it came down to it and I had no other choice, I would choose Newt over you."

He’s not surprised when Thomas relaxes, tension easing from his frame. "Good," he breathes out, flopping down to the hot concrete and closing his eyes. "So if it came down to it, you'd make sure Newt would get out of there, even if it killed me?"

Gally gives him a hard look. “You planning on dying out there?”

“I’m planning on Newt coming back alive.” When Thomas opens his eyes slowly, gaze sliding to him, his expression is almost unbearably vulnerable. "Please," Thomas says quietly, and he almost doesn't hear it. "Please."

"You asked me to be honest." A hum sounds out in reply. "I think if I got Newt out of there, but you didn't make it, there would be nothing left of Newt to save."

Thomas frowns. "Yeah," he agrees, a little too easily. "But he'd be alive."

—

Gally peers over Newt's shoulder, standing on his tiptoes a little to get a better view. "You choose which one you're wearing yet?"

"Red one, I think." Holding up the WICKED jumpsuits, he watches as Newt's eyes jump between the three choices. "I like a good pop of color."

"Well, I don't." Gripping Newt's shoulder, he grabs the plain gray jumpsuit, and pauses briefly when Newt tenses underneath his touch. "I'll take the boring one."

"Doing us all a favor, mate."

Gally glances at Newt—who gives him a mild, withdrawn smile—before turning his attention back down to the jumpsuit. Tracing it with his fingers, he studies it, unseeing. A sick sense of premonition tingling down his spine.

"Well," Newt says, "I'm gonna—" he jerks his head to the door, clearing his throat, and Gally really, really considers letting him get away with it. But he can't, not when they're leaving in a few hours. Not when the stakes are so high. Newt, of all things, can’t be considered a variable. But it might be too late.

"Newt," he calls, still directing his gaze at the jumpsuit in his hands. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

He stops in his tracks, turned away from Gally.

Dread grows in his stomach. Silence reigns for a long moment.

"No," he admits, finally. "But Tommy seems to trust you, so." Facing Gally, his smile, sickeningly foreign and apprehensive, is being directed right at Gally. "You must be a half-decent guy."

Gally laughs, because he knows Newt would want him to and he doesn't know how else to react. "Now I really know your memory's fucked." Hopping on top of a crate, Gally lets the humor drop from his voice, fist tight around the fabric in his hands. "How bad is it?"

That earns him a scowl, harsh and abrupt. "How the hell am I supposed to know the bloody details? I don't fucking remember."

"Calm," Gally placates. He has to constantly remind himself that, despite the fact that he hides it so well, Newt is sick. "Come on, man, we need to talk about this. You remember Thomas?"

Like a smothered flame, the fight immediately burns out of Newt. Carefully, he sits on the ground in front of Gally, crossing his legs. Gally wonders why Newt wouldn't just sit beside him when he remembers that he probably wouldn't want to sit next to a complete stranger. It stung, a little. "Yeah, I remember him."

"Does he know about this?"

"Yeah."

Gally narrows his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes," he repeats, exasperated. "You really think I can hide anything from that Tommy bastard? Especially about me and my—" he gestures at his head, circling a finger around his temple lazily. "I tried, mate, and that didn't work out for the two of us."

"Gally."

"What?"

"Stop calling me 'mate.' It's Gally. Just ask next time."

Newt scrunches his brows in concentration. "Gally," he stretches out, like he's hoping muscle memory of the name will kick in, a faint recognition flashing in his eyes. "It's kind of ringing a bell, now."

"Hope it's not alarm bells," Gally huffs. "How does the memory loss work? Are you going to be okay for tonight?"

"Not sure, it's kind of a new development. Sometimes I forget small details like what I ate for breakfast, and sometimes I forget you exist. Tommy's been trying to keep track of the progress with the little tests, but not sure that's doing a whole lot. Thinking that he's just obsessing over my health, like usual. As for tonight," he shrugs. "I have to be okay, don't I?"

"Newt."

"Gally," he groans out, matching Gally's tone. Looks like the memories are back; a quick recovery, for now. "I don't have a bloody choice. Besides, it's not that bad yet. It usually happens for a few minutes at a time and then I'm right as rain. So don't bother convincing me—"

"And I won't." During Gatherings, arguments with Newt had always been a losing battle, especially when the Greenie was involved somehow. Gally can count on one hand the times he's disagreed with Newt—this isn't one of them. "We need you out there," he says truthfully.

"Thanks," Newt says, eyes crinkling in relief, before morphing into a thoughtful expression. "Did Tommy say anything to you?"

Gally was shaking his head before Newt even finished. "Nope," he jumps down from the crate and walks out. "Not taking anymore bodyguard requests from anyone."

“Gally.”

Gally flips him off without turning around, mouth twisted unhappily. It’s a steep learning curve, but he thinks he’s starting to get it. Newt and Thomas are an old book that hasn’t been opened in years—you can’t separate the pages without risking both being torn in half. But what he wishes they knew is that he doesn’t want to have to choose between the two of them. He doesn’t like choosing lives, weighing the risks of success and death. There’s nothing more he wants than to leave that mindset back in the Maze. Especially between these two; they’re finally back in his life and they immediately get to talking about how willing they are to martyr themselves. Like they don’t realize how much this fucks with Gally’s head.

Just as the door is about to close, he hears Newt sigh, tired and frustrated. “Shit.”

—

"Punctual," is how Thomas greets him when he gets there ten minutes before the meeting time. He looks impossibly worse. Shoulders drooping and eye bags bordering on purple, he looks like he’s only standing on his feet through rage alone, as if it is only his heartache that propels him forward.

By now, the sun had long since set, replaced by a huge full moon that they ignored. They're both dressed in WICKED uniforms, masks in hand. He may not see it, but he knows both of them have weapons laced and hidden throughout their entire body like a second skin, like suits that he sees adults wear in the city. It flickers in his mind, sometimes, that in a normal life, they’d all still be too young to wear suits.

Gally snorts. "While you shanks were eating sand in the Scorch, I was in the military the whole time. Punctual made sure my ass didn't get beat."

Thomas' expression doesn't so much as twitch. "Makes sense," he says, effectively ending the conversation. Not that he minded. Greenie was a real stick in the mud nowadays. He almost prefers the hundreds of questions that spewed out of his mouth over the contemplative, fuming silence that's associated with Thomas nowadays.

“You always gonna be this much of an asshole?” Gally prods, because there’s time to waste and he’s never been afraid to ruin Thomas’ day.

“Well,” he replies, tone perfectly level. “By the end of tonight, I’ll either be the most pleasant, cheerful, carefree shank you’ve ever met—“ he lolls his head towards Gally, eyes dead. “Or I’ll be begging you to kill me.”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond. Footsteps, paired with the heavy thumps that only someone wearing a WICKED uniform can bring, paired with a throaty cough. "You alright, Tommy?"

The change was instant; it’s as if dawn broke at 8:56 pm. Thomas, the miserable, angry, short-fused Greenie, splits a grin brighter than the sun. A happiness sharp and abrupt and covetous that it felt like a weapon in its own right, an ax to grind so cutting that it makes the guns and knives strapped to their bodies feel like childrens’ toys. Ridiculously, Gally has the urge to take a step back out of its range.

“Could be better,” Thomas replies, reaching for Newt’s hand. One thing he’s grateful for is that these two always keep the PDA to a minimum. Small mercies. “Brenda?”

“Hauling our lovely Teresa over.”

As if on cue, the chapel doors barge open, Teresa and Brenda stepping out. If it weren’t for the sunken, lifeless expression plastered on Teresa’s face, they might have looked like two friends in a different life.

“Oh, and here you are,” Newt slips Thomas a folded piece of paper, clearing his throat. “Keep it somewhere safe.”

“What’s that?” Gally asks.

“Insurance. I’m supposed to give it to him, in case he—“ Thomas gestures vaguely, still unable to vocalize Newt’s sickness. There’s an emotion Gally can’t place scattered on his features. “Can I read it?”

“Sure,” Newt shrugs. “Nothing you don’t already know.”

He unfolds the paper, and it was quiet as they watched him read it. When he finishes, he looks up slowly. For some reason, Thomas looks overwhelmed.

New rolls his eyes. “I told you, it’s nothing you don’t already know.”

“Yeah, but still. It’s in writing.” With a care he isn’t used to associating with Thomas, he tucks the paper deep into his breast pocket. "Can I keep this?"

"No, that’s for me." Newt pauses, considering. "I'll write you your own letter, maybe."

Gally’s barely listening to them, much more interested in how Teresa looks like she just got her soul sucked out of her. “What’s wrong with her?” he asks Brenda.

“Beats me. Ever since the interrogation, she’s been out of it.” Cutting a glance at Thomas, “You have something to do with that?”

“You already know everything I did during the interrogation,” he says, hands up in surrender. “Haven’t even talked to her since then.”

Somehow, Teresa looks even more dejected after hearing that. An unforeseen benefit; she’s easier to handle this way. Gally catches Newt’s glaring at her, a mildly amused look etched into his eyes, and wonders how much is unforseen and how much is just Newt.

Turning his attention back to Brenda, he double checks his belt. Pistol, knife, dagger, radio, hacksaws, extra rounds. “Ready?”

Teresa’s head shoots up and blinks, suddenly alarmed. “Brenda’s coming?”

“Look who’s back from the dead,” Newt taunts, and Thomas frowns at him slightly. “You’re a bouncer now, are you? Of course Brenda’s bloody coming.”

“But isn’t she—?” Her gaze drops down to Brenda’s shin, where the Flare used to be etched. “She’s not getting treatment, right? Otherwise Newt would—“

Thomas sighs loudly, not bothering to look in her direction. “We need to go. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Where is she getting her serum?”

Gally looks at her like she’s lost it. “Do you think if we had any serum, we wouldn’t shoot that shit straight into Newt?”

Newt blows out a breath, eye twitching, and a tingle of premonition tingles along Gally’s nape. “Can we get a move on now? This girl’s just wasting our time. Don’t we have something better to do?”

Thomas gives him another long, long look. “Okay,” he concedes. “Let’s head out.”

Teresa opens her mouth, but Gally grips her wrist. “Haven’t you learned to just keep quiet?” he hisses, the question more genuine than he intended. It’s a wonder she’s still alive. “It’s a simple thing. Shut up. Get us in. And maybe Tom will hate you less.”

The venom in her stare could rival a Griever’s, but at least she doesn’t complain when they start walking.

—

The tunnel sucks. It always does.

It has a perpetual stickiness that seems to permeate into the aged bricks in the wall, a natural humidity that makes the heavy stink of a sewer rise and settle onto their clothes like a snowfall that Gally has only ever read about and has lost all hope of seeing in the sun-scorched world. With every step, an unnamable liquid would make their shoes squelch with a viscosity he doesn’t even want to think about; yet another thing to ignore if he wants to keep it together. It’s dimly lit, slippery, a nasty piece of work. The sound is strangely amplified there in a way he knows gives all of them hives—loud sounds get you attention. Attention gets you killed. Just how it works nowadays.

Thomas and Newt climb down first, then Teresa. Brenda gives him a dubious look, one foot on the ladder’s ring.

“What?”

Her tone is forcibly nonchalant. “Have a thing against going underground.” In the corner of his eye, he sees her twist her ankle this way and that. “You sure there’s nothing dangerous down there?”

Gally cracks a grin. “If you’re worried about Cranks, I think there’s technically one down there.” It’s the kind of joke that would get his teeth knocked out if he told it to Thomas, but it pulls a startled huff out of Brenda.

“Guess so.” Scraping something like a smile, she descends, and he follows her, closing the trap door with a thud.

Hopping down the rest of the way, his boots hit the ground with a splash. “Straight ahead,” he tells them, blindly reaching for the lever and pulling it up with some effort. Lights flicker on, bulb by bulb, as the tunnel stretches on for what seems like miles. “Let’s make quick work of this place.”

Thomas and Newt set the pace, a brisk walk that reminds Gally that Thomas was a Runner and Newt would still be one, in another life. Gally studies Newt’s leg from behind, nodding to himself when there’s only the barest stutter in his gait. He must have worked hard to train it up to where it is now.

“Anyone ever told you that you’re not as good at being a jackass as you think you are?” Brenda whispers beside him, soft enough that the sound doesn’t bounce against the tunnel walls.

Gally bristles. “No, actually, they tell me I’m worse than they remember.”

A scoff, then, loudly: “There’s only room for one brooding jerk in this group, and I don’t know if you can rip it from the lovestruck fools.”

“I heard that,” Thomas calls back, annoyed.

Brenda chuckles, before dropping her voice. “Listen, Gally. This tough guy act? It’s not doing anyone any favors. You don’t realize how quickly—” she falters. “How quickly it can go away.”

Irritation rises in him. “It’s not an act,” he rebukes, fighting to speak softly. “It’s more than that. You don’t think I know about loss? Give me a break.” He gestures to himself before Thomas and Newt, “What do you even know about this? Because, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s not really any of your damn business.”

“I’m the one who watched them for six whole months while you were gone,” she reminds him. “It’s not the Maze, but the Scorch is its own hell. It changes people, it changes priorities. And it’s also when Newt and Thomas became Newt and Thomas.”

He scrubs his face roughly. “And?” he prompts, because saying Who fucking cares? is probably rude.

“You can probably tell that they’re—” her lip twitches. “A little off.”

“Batshit insane?” he offers.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “And with how they trip over themselves to stare at each other, all I’m saying is that it’s nice that someone out there is watching where they’re going. Make sure their footing is alright.”

He gives her an incredulous look. “And that’s me?”

Brenda shrugs. “You and me. We can take shifts.”

Gally continues staring at her before throwing caution to the wind. “You still in love with him or something?”

It’s Brenda’s turn to be irritated. “Can’t you just accept the fact that some people aren’t ashamed to look out for their friends? Why do you have to make it weird?”

“Can’t you believe the fact that I’ve already tried looking out for my friends before and ended up with a stick in my chest?” His tone is more piercing than he wanted it to be.

She falls silent, and they walk for a few minutes with only the sound of their shoes slushing in sewer water and the muffled staccato of Newt and Thomas whispering with one another.

“I heard about that,” she says eventually. “It sounded deserved, if I’m being honest.”

Gally grunts, because she’s right and he doesn’t want to grace her with acknowledgement.

Brenda’s mouth quirks. “Who’s the sore loser now?”

Despite his best efforts, he cracks a smile. “Whatever.” And then, begrudgingly, “Yeah. It was deserved. But it was also—“

“Complicated?” Brenda finishes. “Look, man. We can grill those two all you want, but one thing about them is that they keep their shit simple and clean. There’s one priority: each other. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. What you did is in the past, but you’re here for them now. Your hands are full enough as it is, so maybe—” she shrugs. “Try letting stuff go?”

There’s nothing to let go, he wants to retort.

I already let it go, he fixes.

I thought I let go already, he tries again.

I don’t think I’m allowed to let go, is what he actually wants to say.

A quiet, trilling voice, one Gally almost forgot about, made itself known. “You held them too tightly before.” Teresa mutters, eyes downcast. “So now you don’t even want to touch them now. Right?”

Bitterness coats his throat. “You, of all people,” he says, emotionless. “Don’t get to speak to me about that.”

He shoulders past Teresa, ignoring her. “I’ll go ahead and take the first shift,” he tells Brenda.

“That’s the Gally I’ve heard about.”

He scoffs without heat and has to jog to catch up to Thomas and Newt when he hears something that makes him stop in his tracks, liquid sloshing at his shin. Dread, cold and heavy, settles in his stomach.

“Narrow, beatle—no, it’s not beatle,” Newt’s back is to him, shoulders pulled in tight and fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Narrow, hoax…”

“Newt,” Thomas speaks quietly.

“No, Tommy, just give me a minute. I swear I’ve got it.” Newt takes a deep breath. “The words are narrow, insight—fuck.”

“They’re just words,” Thomas tries mildly, but even in the poor lighting, Gally can see how his hands tremble. “Nothing more to it. It’s a stupid thing I made up, anyway.”

“It’s not stupid,” Newt hisses. “It was bloody important to you twelve hours ago, wasn’t it? Don’t go changing the rules on me now.”

Thomas places a hand on Newt’s chest lightly but firm. Taking a deep breath, movements exaggerated, shoulder rising and falling, Thomas holds eye contact with Newt. In the next set of breaths, Newt joins him; reluctantly at first, until the tension in his shoulders gradually relaxes, their chests rising and falling in time with each other.

“We good here?” Gally interrupts quietly.

Newt turns to him, meditative state seemingly broken, and for a second, he thought that Newt was going to have that distant expression on his face again, the one that says he doesn’t recognize Gally anymore. Expects to be met with gritted teeth and wild eyes and black veins. Gally readies himself. Anger, he can work with.

But Newt lets out a sharp breath and casts his eyes to the ceiling, visibly deflating. “We’re good here,” he sighs, and when he glances back down, his expression is sheepish. “Sorry.”

Gally nods, eyes flickering to Thomas, who reveals nothing.

“Come on,” Gally says, brushing past Newt, gently squeezing his shoulder. “Tunnel’s turning soon.”

—

The trickiest part of their journey into the city was always going to be outrunning the train.

“There’s too many of us to go all at once,” Gally announces, all of them hunched in a cramped tunnel with jagged rocks pressed against their palms. He speaks with a raised voice, the train whooshing loudly, the lights rhythmically lighting up their faces like search lights. “We should split this up into two runs.”

He studies each person and doesn’t hide a grimace. The dramatics of how to split this group of shanks is annoyingly complicated. “Me, Brenda, Newt. Greenie, Teresa. Sound good?”

Thomas opens his mouth, and Gally gives him an unimpressed look. “What is it now?”

“...Nothing.”

“Great.” Gally pokes his head out slightly. It’s almost time. “Brenda, Newt. Ready?”

They nod. “Don’t trip this time,” Thomas tells Newt, a shadow of humor in his voice.

“Nice to see you well enough to make jokes, Tommy.”

“Now!” Gally calls.

The three of them hop down, one after another in quick succession. With the rumbling of the next train behind them, they didn’t waste time with idle conversation again. They set out in a sprint, and Gally lets Brenda and Newt pass him, opting to take the tail-end this time. He expects their serious expression, unyielding even in how harshly they suck in their breaths, but Newt’s brows are ruffled in together as he passes Gally.

It goes smoothly, thankfully. The rubble doesn’t even get a chance to truly start vibrating until they were long up the ladder, slumped against the concrete walls to support themselves as they catch their breath. Gally stares at the ceiling, lets himself zone out for a few moments, waits for his lungs to stop stinging, before glancing to his right.

Newt is sitting up, spine ramrod straight, a tense hand on his holster and unblinking.

“Newt?” Gally asks slowly, starting to recognize that vacant look in Newt's eyes.

He watches as Newt’s focus darts between Gally and Brenda, lips moving silently. There’s a glint in his eye that leaves Gally uneasy.

“Newt?” Brenda repeats, levity gone. “What’s wrong with you?”

“How do you know my name?” Newt presses his back tighter against the wall, like he’s trying to escape. Escape from them.

Brenda and Gally share a look. “We’re your friends,” she starts.

It wasn’t the right thing to say. Newt tightens his hold on his holster. For a fleeting moment, he wonders if this is what Teresa felt during the interrogation. “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he mutters, and Gally strains to hear him. “Not once.”

Gally slowly attempts to sit up, but Brenda subtly shakes her head. He settles back down.

“Where is he?” Newt breathes out, low and urgent. It’s faint, but there’s the softest hint of leather creaking, like Newt’s considering pulling out his gun. “Where’s Tommy?”

Sucking in a breath, Gally tries to reply—he’ll be here in a minute—when the next train whooshes past them, drowning out his response. In this sporadic lighting, Newt’s eyes burn bright, rapacious, boring deeply into Gally’s. The train fully passes them, and for a moment, darkness swallows them whole.

Then the lights flicker back on and Gally is staring directly into the barrel of Newt’s gun. When he speaks, it’s guttural, very nearly inhumane. “Where’s Tommy?”

Gally doesn’t flinch. “He’s coming,” he assures him, refusing to let his voice waver. “Maybe in ten seconds, he’ll be here.”

Newt presses the barrel closer, actually touching Gally’s forehead this time. “He wasn’t supposed to leave my side,” Newt retaliates, but it comes out unsure. “I know that much. We—we talked about that, I think.” For a moment, he shrinks on himself, before anger seems to seize him once more. “Where?”

A hand grazes Newt’s shoulder. “Hey—” Brenda murmurs.

The barrel leaves his forehead and is pointed at Brenda, but her draw is the quickest out of all of them. In an instant, both of them have their pistols pointed at each other, Newt shaking uncontrollably and Brenda calm, the only sign of her worry is from the downward tilt of her mouth.

Then, out of nowhere, Newt lowers his gun. “It’s been ten seconds,” he states abruptly. The whiplash leaves Gally reeling.

“What?” Brenda asks, lowering hers. “What are you talking about?”

“Tommy, he—“ Newt’s face scrunches, thinking. “He’s fast. I remember that much. It shouldn’t take him long. It’s not like him to be late. There must be something wrong.” The tunnel they’re in is cramped, but Newt tries to stand anyway, and suddenly collapses. “What’s wrong with this bloody leg…?”

In the back of his mind, Gally is vaguely impressed. Never mind forgetting Brenda and Gally; Newt forgot his limp, but is able to recall that Thomas can run faster than the average person. “You think Thomas is in trouble?”

Gally doesn’t hesitate—he foregoes the ladder and jumps down directly from the platform when he hears them, voices raised and Teresa clutching onto Thomas' arm like a lifeline. A flash of disbelief flares in his chest. How did Newt know?

“—You see that Brenda's fine? Can't you see there's—"

"I'll let this train run you over Teresa, I'm not fucking—"

"Please, this can save Newt's life—" Faintly, the screech of the train becomes audible, but the two of them pay no heed to it.

"Keep his name out of your mouth. You're the reason why his life needs to be saved—"

Gally doesn't even try to break into their argument. When he's close enough, he grabs Teresa's wrists and forcibly tears it away from Thomas. "I'm really starting to regret not taking Greenie's offer to just chop your thumb off."

"You have to listen," she starts, eyes shining with frustration, but the screeching is getting louder and louder. "The cure—!"

"How dare you," Thomas lashes out, ablaze. "Taunt the cure in front of me when you know I'd skin anyone alive to get my hands on it."

"The train!" Gally yells, but neither of them look at him.

"I'm not taunting, I know how much this means to you, and I want you—"

"And I don't, Teresa. I don't want you, I don't even want to see you, I can't stand to look at you."

Enough is enough. "Newt's memory is blanking again," Gally cuts in. "Has no idea who me and Brenda are."

Thomas whirls on him, Teresa completely forgotten. "Shit." Without warning, he turns and runs, the soles of his shoes barely hitting the ground before it's up again.

Teresa stares at his back for a long moment before turning to him. Heartbreak isn’t a strong enough word to describe the devastation on her expression. it's as if she doesn't hear the train that's rolling closer and closer to them. Or maybe she doesn't care. "Will you listen?" she asks him.

Gally gives her a blank look. "If you don't run now, you'll die."

He sets off, and he can't help the surprise he feels when footsteps sound behind him.

—

Curiosity gets Gally this time around. “How’d you know?”

Newt glances at him. By the time they got back, breathless and exhausted, Gally doubly so, Newt seemed to have found his memories again.

After a long moment of silence, Newt simply shrugs.

It would have been naive to expect any other answer.

#the maze runner #fic tag #newt #maze runner #TMR #thomas/newt #newtmas #a fragile line #ah shit here we go again #do you guys know when my last multichaptered fic was #2021 #for plainly in truth #isn’t that CRAZY #fever longing still #to all unaware this is a series! so please read the others first maybe #or not #be the master of your own fate

[birdkeeperklink]

10 characters 10 fandoms

I was tagged by @salsedine ages ago (thank you! 👋🥰) and finally getting around to it!

So these are in no particular order even though they're numbered, but here we go:

1. Leonard McCoy from Star Trek: The Original Series

I love his gruff exterior coupled with how much he cares really deeply. He's passionate and full of fire, but he's also so compassionate and caring. He's a healer, but instead of embodying the "saint-like" version of that trope, he's all too human and flawed. I adore him.

2. Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes from Elementary

Yes, I am cheating, but they are sold as a set do not separate 🤷

I just love both of them. I love the way they interact, and their partnership in every sense of the word. They're funky and unapologetic about it, and they can be sharp and vindictive, but they can also be so, so soft and caring, both to each other and to others.

3. Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones

He's slick and snarky and talented. He's in a nasty codependent romance with his sister. He's incredibly insecure yet incredibly cocky. He's so so brave and stupid. He's in love with Brienne and shows it by giving her a sword. He's a hot mess. Just a complete disaster of a human. I love it. I want to study him in a jar.

4. Sam from Lord of the Rings

He's a cinnamon roll, does this need more explanation? 🤷

5. Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec

She never, ever gives up, and she believes so hard in making the world a better place, and she loves her friends so much, and.... She's just inspiring. She's a character who gives me energy and makes me feel like things can get better and good people can make a difference.

6. Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit

My boy 🥹 He is fierce and loyal and cunning, and he's got a temper and can somehow get away with scolding people twice his size. The bitch energy is at epic levels, and yet he's also somehow so caring. He is an icon, a legend. We can only aspire to such sass and love as is packed in this tiny man.

7. Basil from The Great Mouse Detective

He's ridiculously cute and smart. I love how he pretty much adopted Dawson as His within like 5 seconds of meeting him. He's also a secret softie, getting all testy with Olivia only to pretty much immediately cave when she starts crying. Plus he's Sherlock Holmes as a mouse. Only wins here.

8. Richard from Galavant

He's a pathetic noodle of a man who's committed horrible atrocities by his own admission, yet he still manages to make you want to give him a hug. What a disaster man. I adore him.

9. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park/World

He's got a PhD but can't figure out a seat belt. He's clearly madly in love with Ellie but takes like 30 years to admit that he'd rather have her than his career. Yet again, a complete disaster. Are you sensing a pattern?

10. Bek from Gods of Egypt

Yes, I know this movie has problems, first and foremost the whitewashing, but I can't help it 🙈 Bek in particular is just 👌 He's so determined and spunky. He says cheesy one-liners to himself while stealing from literal gods. He's blasphemous to the gods' faces. The love of his life is killed and his immediate response is to blackmail a god into bringing her back to life. He's lucky and brash. I love him.

No pressure tagging:

@the-chickenshit-oddity @lassiesspanishaccent @lenievi @figsandfandoms @51kas81 @mourningroutine @underture @lovethistoomuch

You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you do - tag! You're it!

#tag game #characters #fandoms #why are so many of mine men? #huh

[enkisstories]

On Batuu John Spilph had only ever known Rey Palpatine as a shining beacon of hope, who swooped in, saved the day and returned to being an elusive enigma again. And Armitage Hux had at best been a scary face on TV, not even a real person. It had been doubtful whether Hux had even been aware of Batuu's existence.

But now that John was sheltering both in his factory, the larger than life hero and the looming menace had turned human to the point where the entrepreneur felt comfortable to casually chat with them over meals.

John: "Caroline once said that I bring out the best in her. Am I right in assuming it's the same for you? Is there a certain someone for whom you put the General aside and looked what else there might be to you?"

Armitage: "Wouldn't that be a story? But, no. I allied with the Resistance to bring down Kylo Ren. Working together with them turned out to be a greater challenge than fighting them, though. For the first time since I was three years old, there were no demands or expectations, just acceptance. Such a soft lifestyle! Laughable, really. I mean, corn syrup on a stick and chocolate Vaders? C'mon! But it also was enticing, in a way. I felt… sheltered."

John: "That's how Daniel must have felt when he came into my household. I bet he was at his most vulnurable when the crystal started to whisper to him, making it easy to corrupt him."

Armitage: "You started to rub off on me... a little. But then Rose bared her fangs, did what needed to be done, with no regard to my feelings in this matter, and the illusion of a happy rebel utopia in the woods got pierced. I wasn't even angry at Rose, but at the way the world works, after all."

Rey: "It doesn't have to remain an illusion. We can make it real. I'm working my ass off to make it real."

Armitage: "No. You can't. A military victory over the First Order is impossible."

Rey: "That's not decided yet!"

Armitage: "Is, too. My words just now didn't come from pride alone, I told you a fact. When we camped at Moonwood Mill, I managed to gain full access to your network. I saw the truth, but never told you. You have zero chance."

Rey: "Armitage, you... I see that you are not lying. I can feel it in the Force, too. But that only means that we have to find a different way to win!"

Armitage: “Hm... How determined exactly are you in this regard?”

Rey: “You still need to ask?"

Armitage: "Alright... To defeat the First Order, you need to free us from ourselves first. Are we in agreement about that?"

Rey: "Yes. We never fought for territory, or resources, or from a thirst for power, but always first and foremost for the people!"

Armitage: "Good. Then I will tell you now what Ben hasn't shared with you guys yet: The First Order is breaking apart over Ben's redemption arc. We are in a state of civil war. As Grand-Marshall and third in the command chain, I hereby propose a formal alliance between our faction and the Resistance."

Rey: "Allying with the rancor's claws against its fangs?"

Armitage: "It's that or anihilation at the hand of whoever wins the civil war, because we won't toss our weapons to you guys' feet. But if you help us through this crisis, then after the civil war we will listen to you... blood of Palpatine and rightful successor to our throne."

John: "So it'll be the Second Order all over?"

Armitage: "The what now?"

Rey: "That's what Governor Sonderan named his movement, back on Batuu, when the planet was under First Order rule. He introduced reforms, a slow change, that would leave nobody with the impression of having lost. Reality forced him to abandon that path, though, and to go full on rebel."

Armitage: "Why can't I shake the feeling that when you say "reality", you really mean Kylo Ren..."

John: "Yes, him.”  (turning to Rey) “ I can’t stomach the idea of the Resistance I, however briefly, fought in myself, joining forces with Kylo Ren. But if you have claims to the throne? And those shitheads would voluntarily follow you? Rey... Princess Palpatine... you should seriously consider that!”

Rey: “I refuse to act as a figurehead, so I’d stay in power for like two hours.”

Armitage: “Considering that I needed three and a half minutse to finish off the New Republic, two hours is something I can work with.”

Rey: “That comment was more than inappropriate!!!”

Armitage: But you didn’t outright tell me “No”, either. Let’s bring this up again at a later time.

#rey skywalker #rey palpatine #armitage hux #gingerrose #sims4journeytobatuu #star wars #simblr #battleforbatuu6 #newstarwarssims

[couldntbedamned]

Hello! Since you appear to be a Strange fan, both comics and the movie version, do you think the movie does his arc justice? Not being very famiaair with the comics my issue with the first movie is that pre-character development Stephen is potrayed, instead of charismatic amoral bastard like pre-character development Tony Stark, as merely a run of the mill charmless asshole, so what happens to him feels more cruel than karmic, but you also don't get that invested in seeing him get better.

So, Stephen's backstory in DS1 definitely left something to be desired for me. I know that BC did his absolute best, but not touching on WHY Stephen is so hell-bent on Not Failing Ever and so determined to Be The Very Best Like No One Ever Was™️ was a huge miss on SD & MCU Exec's part.

Stephen's childhood and losing his sister Donna is such a huge part of what informs who he is as a character. He couldn't save his sister from drowning and he's never forgiven himself for that. He has a perfect record in the OR because 1) he IS a talented and gifted surgeon and 2) he's able to purposefully choose cases he KNOWS he can pull off. Every time he saves a patient he's succeeding rather than repeating the worst failure of his life and the thought of not saving a patient terrifies him because he already failed once and he can't bear to to it again.

[Also in 616 Stephen's father was such a massive asshole and Stephen's childhood was Not Great, which also factors in to why he's so driven to succeed. (Also he developed a drinking problem to cope with the pressure.)]

One of the parts that struck me in DS1 is just how uncomfortable he is being thanked by the patient's family after he removes the bullet. Dude saved a guy's life, but he doesn't exactly like the praise from the family; he doesn't think of himself as a hero. He just did his job and he resents the hell out of the other doctor (Dr. West) for not doing his properly (in Stephen's view). Then he's back to being cocky which always struck me as a front.

I will never ever EVER say that Stephen's not arrogant. He IS. I LOVE that about him and I feel like one of the few people in fandom who doesn't have a desire to see him humbled or knocked down a peg or two (usually in the name of making him worthy of whatever love interest is being put forward in fic 🙄). He's arrogant and he has every reason to be: he IS smart, he IS a talented doctor, and he IS a master of the mystic arts. He's earned the right to be.

But that's FAR from the only part of his character. He's also empathetic, incredibly lonely, and desperate for connection even when he's terrible at it. In lots of ways he's a self-fulfilling prophecy because he WANTS to connect with people, he WANTS love but he's also so scared of failing or hurting anyone else that he defaults to Asshole!Stephen because if they leave, then he can't hurt them. He's also, more than once in 616, made decisions for someone's own good without actually consulting that person.

Stephen is, first and foremost, a healer. He WANTS to help people. He ABHORS the taking of a life. And a lot of that clashes once he learns about the mystic art because as we've seen, sometimes there's no other way and it weighs HEAVILY on him, to the point where he feels so guilty about what's happened to Peter in regards to Endgame that he did a spell to MODIFY THE WORLD'S MEMORY. There some desire to play around, sure, but I 100% believe most of it was due to guilt.

I wish his trauma from the Dark Dimension and Infinity War was touched on more, because man has been through the wringer.

The thing about adapting Doctor Strange into a movie is there is a LOT of lore that has to be cut or repurposed to fit within the box MCU has built. SD is a fan and did his best, I know, but things like Stephen's backstory getting cut and removing the scene in Nepal where Stephen tends a dog's paw because "he's not nice enough yet" kind of irk me. I do think, hands down, he has a much better grasp of Stephen as a character than do MW and SR. And BC himself is a huge fan and understands Stephen's character very well and what little backstory/gravitas we got for Stephen in ITMOM (that wasn't built around pining for a woman he parted amicably with and hasn't dated in fucking years 🙄) was because of BC. I wish we'd gotten more.

I'd definitely check out @doctorofmagic and their AMAZING posts. They have such a fabulous understanding of Stephen as a character.

#couldntbedamned answers #stephen strange #doctor strange

[rhaeblack66]

marauders era girls as disney princesses (+ two others)

because there is simply not enough about these girls in the fandom

narcissa black | mulan

narcissa is a survivor first and foremost and a slytherin all the way. mulan seems like a gryffindor at first glance - running away into battle and defying the role laid out for her, she seems more like sirius than narcissa - but she’s also doing this for her family, for her father, which is literally what narcissa is all about. the song honor to us all gives such narcissa vibes to me. the quiet but still fierce girl that turns into a soldier for her family.

andromeda black | jasmine

this one is more obvious. young princess sick of the world she’s stuck in falls in love with someone far below her station who teaches her about world outside the palace. andromeda and ted tonks anyone? plus jasmine is plenty sneaky and does what needs to be done.

bellatrix black | merida

bella was difficult for me to decide but i chose merida because they’re both headstrong but still care about their families. bella is the only named female death eater and pure blood daughters were expected to be trophy wives, she didn’t exactly fit the mold did she? merida refuses to be contained and i see bellatrix, especially young bella, in her.

pandora rosier | snow white

i always imagine pandora as kind of dreamy. intelligent obviously, but she’s definitely where luna got some of her personality from. she seems like someone who would be content in nature and appreciate the little things, and i feel like she would resonate with snow white.

dorcas meadowes | elsa

dorcas very much strikes me as an independent woman. she has her soft spot (marlene) like elsa does anna, but she’s not afraid to be her own person. i can also definitely see her needing to find herself like elsa does, especially when she finds herself on the opposite side of there war from her best friends.

marlene mckinnon | moana

marlene is definitely a gryffindor. she’s wild and free and does what makes her happy. i can definitely see moana’s free spirit in her and the determination to do what’s right, even when it’s not the easy thing **cough cough facing down a bunch of death eaters on her own**

lily evans | belle

i feel like this one is obvious. lily loves learning and she’s good at it. she reminds me of belle so much. girl ends up with a guy pining after her who she hates but eventually realizes that he’s not so bad once she gets to know him. like please, that’s literally jily. lilys also really headstrong and will do what she thinks is right, just like belle.

alice fortescue | tiana

alice was also a little difficult for me just because i feel like we don’t know that much about her. but she just gives me such tiana vibes. i feel like she’s definitely hardworking, i mean she becomes an amazing auror soon after graduating hogwarts. she’s kind, but won’t take anybody’s shit.

mary macdonald | anna

i feel like mary is just the kindest soul ever and will help anyone who needs it unless they give her a reason not too. she’s the friend that won’t stop reaching out to you if you’re being self destructive and trying to ice everyone out (see what i did there). her heart is huge and she sees the good in people.

+2

sirius black | ariel

classic kids rebelling against their parents and what they’ve been taught their whole life about the people who are different than them.

harry potter | anastasia

child is separated from the world they were born into when their parents meet an untimely death at the hands of enemies. when they’re older, they discover their true identity (i didn’t realize i needed a harry potter anastasia au until now).

#narcissa black #andromeda black #bellatrix black #the black sisters #pandora rosier #pandora lovegood #pandora lestrange #dorcas meadowes #marlene mckinnon #alice fortescue #mary macdonald #lily evans #sirius black #harry potter #marauders #the marauders era #slytherin #gryffindor #ravenclaw #jily #disney princess #the valkyries #slytherin skittles #i actually prefer the slytherin court but whatever #pandora has three different last names to choose from #i chose rosier because why not #mulan #jasmine #aurora #merida

[mxtxfanatic]

Xie Lian grinned, “Feng Xin, did you know, there are so many people in this world that are nothing but rocks in my eyes.”

Feng Xin didn’t understand. Xie Lian walked with his hands behind his back, “Rocks are everywhere, but precious jades are hard to come by. When it comes to martial arts, I’ve only ever seen two people who could be called jades. One is you. The other, is him.”

He suddenly stopped in his step, turned his head around, his eyes shining brightly, “I truly think that Mu Qing is extremely gifted. Such a precious jade, how can it be sat to let dust collect and hide its beauty just because of backgrounds and temper?”

Xie Lian looked determined, “No! I think that’s wrong. You ask why I think so highly of him? It’s the same reason as why I think so highly of you. Ones that are destined to shine, I must let them shine. Besides, I don’t believe that good will brings bad returns.”

—Chapt. 61: Lost Red Pearl; Inadvertent Eyes Red with Desire (Part Two)

Xie Lian helps Mu Qing, first and foremost, because despite Mu Qing’s bad attitude, his martial skill still deserves to be honed and admired. The friendship is an added bonus, but Xie Lian went into this with the conviction that a person must be allowed to shine for their skills.

#human reads tgcf: take 1.5 #anyways i love this man #or i guess boy at this time #he is just so good #i love mxtx protags

[delusionaid]

closed starter for @basbousah

It's a day like many others. A mild evening that follows a warm day, promising a cool night breeze to help sleep comfortably and actually feel rested for the next day. The city is alit and filled with scents and scattered chatter from the restaurants at the market, the voices indistinguishable from a distance and at at volume that almost makes them pleasant background noise. Up here, sheltered by the pavilion and the shadows cast by the flowers glowing under the moonlight Alhaitham feels relatively at peace. It's late enough so that not many people will walk by anymore - most will have finished up their studies for the day and gone home and those determined to continue will do so long into the night.

It's a day like many others - but more importantly it's a day exactly like the one he remembers; the one that's been sitting in the back of his mind for years, longing to be revisited in more than just memory. There is a time and place for everything, some people say, but over the course of his life Alhaitham has not found sufficient proof to confirm this notion; rather there seems to be one most inopportune time and place for everything, followed by a ranking of times and places less inopportune for it, their supposed order measured by a plethora of criteria, some subjective and some objective, creating an innumerable amount of degrees of variation that pulls into question if any one option is ever truly reliably favorable over another.

In any case, that day was unquestionably inopportune, and no day that followed was the time or place to confront the ripples Kaveh's oversight in this matter caused.

It should always be favorable to have a answer with a higher claim to truth than to have a thoughtless but quick one, unless the cost of patience in its context is too high. Maybe in their case it was too high - but feeling Kaveh next to him in this moment and watching his shoulders move as he breathes leads Alhaitham to conclude that it was not. A high cost, certainly, but not too high - and a necessary one. As such he can't see a need to regret the time it took to come back here, physically and mentally, not unless their minds should turn out to not align from this moment on.

He has an answer now and he's content with it, just as he's content with his life - their life; with his idea of it and Kaveh's proposal painted all over it in colors a little brighter than Alhaitham may have chosen. His book is lowered to his lap, two fingers holding open the pages, although he'd easily remember where he stopped even if it fell shut. Kaveh's thigh is warm against his own as his right hand moves to rest its palm there, just above the knee. It gets the reaction he requires: a turn of Kaveh's face towards him, and like a mirror of the past he leans close, in no hurry, to capture the other's lips with his own.

Back then it was confusion he felt, first and foremost, and soon the dread that heralds in the loss of stability and comfort. However, right now he feels certainty and something akin to elation in the face of his expanded comfort that allows him to give in to the sensation of Kaveh's lips on his own and all that comes with it. The intimacy of it, the tug of curiosity and a desire for more, the growing connection between what his mind knows and his body feels. Unlike back then, his eyes are almost closed - before he pulls back only to find the very opposite to be true for Kaveh.

#basbousah #p. basbousah #( m: alhaitham. ) #( alhaitham: basbousah. ) #there you go #now main me on the dash ;)

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Main Story: Part 4 - Act 13: Budding Spring - Episode 4: New Fleur Award

Host: “We will now begin the press conference for the New Fleur Award’s Board of Directors. Thank you for your attention.”

Host: “First, board members Yukio Tachibana and Reni Kamikizaka will explain the policy for the New Fleur Award.”

-

Sakuya: What kind of policy are they going to announce?

Izumi: There were no details whatsoever, so I have no idea…

Sakyo: They may be changing the selection method for the Fleur Award.

-

Yukio: “My name is Yukio Tachibana, I am one of the Board Directors for the New Fleur Award. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Yukio: “I will be explaining the New Fleur Award.”

Yukio: “First and foremost, a major change to the selection process is the introduction of the ranking system.”

Yukio: “The previous selection process, where the Board of Directors selected amongst the participants, will be abolished entirely. All theater companies that have applied will be able to participate.”

Yukio: “The positions in the ranking will be based on the accumulation of two types of points.”

Yukio: “The first are points collected votes from the audience at theater shows, the second are votes collected through SNS from audience who watch the plays through streaming.”

Yukio: “For it to be fair, theater votes will amount to more points, as SNS votes are easier to earn.”

-

Izumi: Ehhh!?

Sakyo: A ranking system… So they’re making the audience’s judgement more valuable than ever.

Homare: As long as the audience votes, of course.

Tenma: So having passionate fans would give someone an upper hand?

Banri: That ain’t all you need for SNS voting, is it?

Itaru: If you know your way around social media, you could gain votes by creating a buzz.

Juza: So we need to fight in a way we haven’t thus far…

-

Yukio: “It will be held once every two years.”

Yukio: “The first year will be divided into four quarters, Q for short, where the rankings will be tallied, and the top 10 companies will be determined.”

Yukio: “In the second year, a final will be held amongst those 10 companies, and the winner will be awarded with the New Fleur Award.”

Yukio: “The supplementary prize is 10 million yen, as it has been before.”

Yukio: “We will be using the new theater that is currently under construction as the venue, but details will be announced at a later date.”

Yukio: “These changes have been made with transparency in mind.”

Yukio: “The New Fleur Award’s winner will not be determined by a Board of Directors, but by the audience.”

Yukio: “Every company participating has an equal chance of winning, and therefore they can all aim for victory.”

Yukio: “Our aim is to revitalize the whole world of theater by having new and old companies participating in an even playing field, and having as much audience as possible be involved in the voting.”

Yukio: “With the introduction of the ranking system, many people will be involved in the winner’s selection.”

Yukio: "Although on one hand, transparency has increased. There is a chance there will be more impropriety than ever before."

Yukio: “The Board intends to address these issues one by one.”

Yukio: “Being exposed to criticism and the public opinion may make you anxious, and there is also the chance you will fail…”

Yukio: “Nevertheless, I would like to make the New Fleur Award open to everyone involved in theater.”

-

Izumi: You’ve gone ahead and done it, Dad…

Sakyo: That’s just like him, in a sense. He’s completely destroyed the old system.

Tasuku: Until now, there’s been a hierarchy based on the companies’ history and popularity, but this will change now.

Chikage: You could pretty much predict who would win the previous Fleur Awards, but from now on that’ll be hard to do.

Itaru: Lots of new theater companies can participate, huh.

-

Reni: “Next, we will announce the detailed schedule.”

Reni: “You will be able to apply for the New Fleur Award by the end of this press conference.”

Reni: “We will also hold a pre-voting period to help everyone understand the voting system.”

Reni: “Said pre-voting period will begin tomorrow at 7AM. It will be SNS only, and the results will be announced the next week.”

Reni: “Do note that this pre-voting is only a trial intended for you to understand the flow of the voting system.”

Reni: “The results will have no effect on the actual Fleur Award’s ranking.”

Reni: “The true voting will begin the day after the pre-voting period ends, at 7AM. From then on, two types of votes will be available: Theater votes and SNS votes.”

Reni: “From then on, the rankings will be announced once every three months. And thus, the top 10 companies that will move on to the finals will be determined.”

Reni: “Details for the final round will be announced at a later time.”

-

Manager: “Wh-wh-wh-wh-what should we do!? First, we gotta ensure our entry…!”

Manager: “Where’s the entry sheets? I could’ve sworn I lined them up at the office this morning…”

Itaru: Aren’t those old?

Chikage: There’s an announcement in the Fleur Award site. To enter, we need to fill the required information and submit it.

Sakuya: And then the ranking will be announced in a week, right…?

Tsuzuru:  Does that mean we’ll be directly updated about all companies’ position…

Banri: Ain’t that interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing where the other companies will end up.

Sakyo: The press conference itself seems to have attracted quite a lot of viewers, there’s probably going to be a lot of people voting.

Citron: There is no need to worry! Our fans will surely vote!

Yuki: Letting any theater troupe participate means that people who created a troupe on a whim can also participate.

Tasuku: They don’t ask about the activities you’ve done or your background, so pretty much.

Kazunari: So they might be able to get first just by attracting attention?

Tsumugi: But it’s not like this pre-voting will affect the rankings, and even if it did, it would probably be temporary.

Homare: Regardless, the simple fact that it’s in the form of a ranking will make everyone upset over the results.

Izumi: For now, we have to enter! We won’t know the results unless we do.

Omi: That’s true. I’ve just finished cooking the rice, so let’s have dinner.

Kumon: Agreed~!

[Doorbell ringing]

Izumi: ?

Manager: Yes, yees? Who is it?

Izumi: Who could it be at this time?

Manager: Owowowow! Everyone, we’ve got some big guests…!

Izumi: Eh?

Yukio: Good evening.

Reni: We apologize for the time. We’ll be leaving soon.

Izumi: Dad and Kamikizaka-san!?

Misumi: It’s like they came right out of the TV~

Yukio: The press conference was held at a nearby venue, so we thought to drop by.

Yukio: I don’t think I’ll be able to come here so easily for the time being, after all.

Izumi: Eh?

Reni: Not only is this his old company, but his daughter is the one now in charge of it. You may be suspected of collusion.

Izumi: I see…

Sakyo: You seriously are planning of changing the Fleur Award and its Board, Yukio-san.

Yukio: Yes. So that no one will be sad anymore. And so that the future of theater will be bright.

Itaru: Well, it’ll be darkening in other ways now.

Muku: Will we really be okay… during the ranking… what if we start trending, get criticized, and no one votes…

Kumon: Or what if there’s a system error, and only MANKAI Company’s votes are invalidated…!

Juza: All we can do right now is wait for the verdict.

Azuma: Fufu, you’re saying verdict as though we’re criminals.

Tenma: Nothing’s been decided, and you’re already expecting the worst. Good grief.

previous episode | masterpost | next episode

#a3! #translation #a3! translation #sakyo furuichi #izumi tachibana #reni kamikizaka #yukio tachibana #+ more

[a-weird-writer]

Would diablo kill his lover if Rimuru ordered him?

In the long run, yes.

Warning; Angst and Dark themes (Death, emotional turmoil and mentions of betrayal.)

Diablo has shown nothing less than incredible loyalty and unwavering respect to his eternal master, Rimuru's orders go above all his personal feelings, going as far to be willing to sacrifice himself and his subordinates. As long as it helps his master, he would do anything to get him one step closer to achieving his master's goals. In all honesty, I think he'd go as far to ask Rimuru himself if he may be the one to kill them.

Rimuru isn't a remorseless or cruel leader, merciless to his enemies, in passing judgment. Able to understand his foe's ideals, but if they pose a threat to his city then his citizen's safety is his first priority. The lover would've had to be an active present threat to Tempest or a traitor of sorts. He wouldn't order the death of anyone without a proper reason, his hands are bloodied enough as it is, lives by a moral code; no death unless it is a complete necessity. Diablo knows his great master is like this from his constant observation of him, servants hear and know everything. Not to mention Diablo doesn't keep his beloved a secret from him, or anyone else. He wouldn't announce it aimlessly, your personal lives are private and should be respected, but will tell if asked. Demons are selfish in their sin, and while his lord has taken it upon himself to bear a majority of the sins of and for his people, Diablo doesn't want his precious lord to burden himself with a problem Diablo feels responsibility over. He should've watched you more carefully, should've been more aware, less lenient.

A lover of Diablo is someone of extraordinary importance to him, a rarity he protects furiously. A great storm awakens if anyone dares to take his beloved, disaster will strike, he guards his precious treasure with might equal to the great Dragons. However he regards them, they won't be ranked higher than his lord, never. Butlers are tied to their masters, soul bound by name. No matter how close they may be to someone else, the master is first and foremost. Tempest is his home, where his most important memories of his master became. Its important to his master, so its important to Diablo. He will allow no one to harm it, over his dead body. Depending how deeply you slighted his lord, forgiveness may never come.

If it is inedible, in your confrontation, Diablo would kill his lover.

The devil loves games, he always wins, but no games here. This is serious business; cares not to disgrace his lord by acting like a fool. Diablo prefers to make it painless, quick and easy. In testament, in honor for all you have done together, your determined death will come swift and simple, numb as his heart. Take it as his last declaration of love for you, all before he officially loses it.

If you roughhouse, fight back against him, he won't bother making you come quietly. No sugarcoating. He won't play with them like he usually does with his prey, if anything, he probably allows you to let loose on himself, lay out your fortitude. Stall time for you to put your foot down, state whatever little excuse or monologue you prepared. Parrying your moves and dodging earnestly, straightened back and eyes forward, tirelessly refined in his mission, ever elegant. The butler is maturely modest, tidying your mess. Avoiding blood splatters on his neat suit, too much dust and dirt on his shoes.

Conduct all your attacks on him, reveal all the cards in your deck, do all you can to defeat Diablo, because it will be the final moves you make until he finally subdues you, held back far more than originally anticipated. He wishes it didn't have to be like this, but he can't twist fate to his whims. His goodbye to you is silence, he hardly uttered more than a single sentence your entire encounter, the air breathes dread, yet your former lover holds no tears. His gaze is powerful, but dead, a sickening blank. There is no anger, no burning molten golds in his eyes, dimmer than they ever been. He prepared himself for his, hardened his resolve and bordered his sorrows. Whatever you can't see, its covered by a false mask of indifference. You catch the slightest flutter of his dark keen eyelashes, nerves tighten, it threatens to hurt, it eventually does. A pitiful grimace of sadness you aren't sure you actually saw, it surely looked real. Almost as if he really was crying waterfalls. True monsters, true demons can't weep, nor sob, they can't shed tears. No matter how much they want too, and Diablo doesn't. He can't, why should he? Can't show weakness, can't break, not in front of a traitor. Peering into his bright red sun, dwarfed by the swirling yellow, the center of the cruel galaxy of tainted gold for the last time, you notice they aren't shining as passionately as they used too.

Thats a disappointment, his shine, his beauty was your daily boost, your confidence, your energy. One look was all it took for you to melt, in a good way. His eyes were coins, worthy of God's vault. Where no angel, demon, monster or human could reach it. If only you could collect them, hide them away from anyone else but yourself...

You won't see it-the smooth flick of his claws-till your head is dethroned, cut almost too clean, from your neck.

#ask #anon #anonymous #diablo #noir #tw death #tw death mention #tw angst #tw betrayal #ttigraas #ttigraas x reader #diablo x reader #that time i got reincarnated as a slime #that time i got reincarnated as a slime x reader

[shorter2243]

hey this is chance and here’s week 4’s prompt. how do strangers within the world view your protagonists? how would they describe them? and how does this contrast against how the protagonist views themself?

Okay so all main 5!

Sziliana to a stranger on the street she is probably nothing short of intimidating, She is the kind of person, that when you see on the sidewalk you cross the road just to avoid her. To a random girl at the club she is probably another fuckboy, but with some weird charm to her. Szili on her own, first and foremost, loves herself. She's convinced she is very attractive. Very assured of her physical strengh. She is also aware that she is not the smartest one there, but she doesn't let it bring her down!

Scisor on first glance he is very friend-shaped most of the time and seems very approachable. Just someone people feel comfortable around in an instant. Scisor doesn't really think about himself too often, as he is focused on other people. Even tho he doesn't show it, he wishes to get more assertive since he knows that being a people pleaser won't take him far. Deep down inside he knows his worth, knows how smart, creative and determined he is. He just forgets about it sometimes.

Marcel seems like a snooty, but overall cute and fragile kitty with a really good fashion sense, very friendly and likes to be flirted with. And while the fashion sense is true the rest is quite... different. Marcel is a cunt and he is well aware of that. He likes the way he is, knows his worth, both physical and brain-wise but will act otherwise if it's convinient. Generally very self assured person, that has his needs on the first place. He likes when people flirt with him, true, but will ditch them if he gets bored.

Yajone is not really viewed by strangers, simply because he doesn't live his place too often. Even if he does he just does it so quickly and imperceptibly that no-on even notices. Yajone doesn't have the best self-esteem. He thinks he is never enough and even tho he technicaly knows how impressive things he does are, he always feels that he could do better than this. He is very harsh to himself.

Ivo is just plain unapprochable. He may be quiet, but just looks hostile so it's better to avoid him and just not talk to him, because he will give you the most disgusted look ever. Ivo has a bit of a tough relationship with himself. His depression surely isn't helping. He may even be as hostile to himself as he is to other people, but in the same time he just doesn't care. On one hand he is fine with his skills and looks and on the other he just wishes to stop existing so baddly. He doesn't even want to be better or anything, he just wants to vanish.

//wow, this took me several days to write, I dunno why i struggled to baddly lol. Glad i did it and thanks for the ask!

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