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fromkaermorhentolettenhove · 3 years

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Salvation - Chapter 5

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Chapter Summary: Geralt and Jaskier grow closer while still trying to heal

Words: 2371

AO3

Weeks had passed by now and Geralt was over the moon.

How quickly he and Roach had gotten used to Jaskier’s presence, leaving Geralt in a state of never wanting to let Jaskier go. Silent walks on the Path seemed but a distant memory, days and nights now filled with music and conversation.

Well, conversation on Jaskier’s part. Geralt did his best, but sometimes, Jaskier had already moved onto another thought by the time Geralt managed a reply. He didn’t mind, however. Listening to Jaskier’s voice was something he looked forward to, almost driving him to impatience as he waited for Jaskier to wake up in the mornings.

This particular day had been uneventful leading to a fairly quiet evening as the two companions sat by each other, just finished with their supper.

“What do you think?” Jaskier held out his carved wood for Geralt’s inspection.

All Geralt could make out were four legs, but the rest of the creation was a mystery. He didn’t want to hurt Jaskier’s feelings, after all, he hadn’t had years of carving experience. Geralt held his tongue, searching for some kind of compliment.

“That bad, huh?” Jaskier sighed, turning the wood around in his hands. “I was trying to make Roach but horses don’t make sense. I mean look at her. How has she not broken a leg yet?”

Geralt glanced over at Roach, biting back his smile as she glared at Jaskier. Oblivious, Jaskier kept on critiquing himself until Geralt took the woodwork from his hands.

“Try to carve down here,” Geralt made a small notch in the wood where the neck appeared to be.

Jaskier’s eyes on him made Geralt’s stomach twist, his voice caught in his throat. He hastily handed back the wood, watched just out of his peripheral as Jaskier tried to mimic Geralt’s movements. A mistake was coming with the next carve and Geralt’s hands shot over, covering Jaskier’s own.

“Like this,” Geralt’s voice strained as their fingers intermingled.

A perfect cut was made and Jaskier’s smile was beautiful.

“There she is,” Jaskier nudged Geralt with his elbow. “I’ll perfect her image, just you wait.”

Geralt was drowning in Jaskier’s eyes, the joy from the man surrounding him. He hardly noticed his hands squeezing Jaskier’s, their faces drifting closer.

A whinny and the stomp of a hoof snapped Geralt from his haze, his reactive time forcing him to his feet. With a quick scan of the area, there was no danger and Geralt gave Roach a pointed stare. She only shook her head, a small huff as Geralt sat back down, but it was all too late. The moment had passed with Jaskier focused back on the carving.

Geralt’s confusion swarmed around him, his heart battling with his mind. They weren’t about to embrace surely. He and Jaskier were nothing more than travelling companions and for Geralt that was more than enough. To take the chance to ruin that sent Geralt spinning, his body starting to curl in on itself. The silence dragged on until the two were ready to sleep, Geralt’s doubts still bothering him.

As he laid down on his bedroll, Geralt held his breath as Jaskier didn’t take his usual place on the other side of the fire. Instead, Jaskier placed his bedroll next to Geralt’s, inching closer to Geralt the moment he settled down. When Geralt finally found the courage to say something, Jaskier’s eyes were already closed, his breaths even. Geralt stared at the canopy above him, the stars that shone through the night. How free they were, unburdened with the chaos of life.

Geralt tried to sleep, drifting between nothingness and the hyper-awareness of the area around them. Harmless night creatures scampered by, a gentle wind passed through, and Jaskier slept through it all. It seemed he would have a restful night, something which Geralt was thankful for.

Often, Jaskier was caught in bouts of insomnia, filled with nights of writing well until the sun came up. When he did sleep, it could be for only an hour at a time and Geralt would do his best to help Jaskier through those days.

A soft moan called Geralt back from his thoughts and he turned to Jaskier, waiting as he held his breath. Jaskier twisted, a panicked shout leaving him then as his arms began to flail about.

When a hand collided with his chest, Geralt jolted up, grabbing hold of Jaskier’s wrist.

“Jaskier,” Geralt shook the other man. “Jaskier!”

Jaskier awoke then with a loud gasp, his eyes wide and unrecognizing. He pulled violently at his wrist that was caught in Geralt’s grip before his mind started to catch up. His chest heaved, eyes darting around before his face began to crumble. Throwing his arm around Geralt, Jaskier buried his face into his shoulder, his body shaking.

Geralt could hear the small sobs leaving him, his shirt becoming wet with tears. He let go of Jaskier’s wrist and pulled him into a tight embrace, wishing he could take his pain away.

When Jaskier’s cries began to subside, he pulled back, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He kept his head down, but he didn’t move away from Geralt.

“I was back in that village,” Jaskier began to speak, his voice just above a whisper. “They whipped me, but they did so much worse.”

Anger grew in Geralt’s chest, but he kept listening, stroking Jaskier’s hair gently.

“They threatened to cut my fingers off,” Jaskier looked at his hands. “They–I was no more than an animal. Even less than. Fucking low lives, the lot of them.”

Geralt agreed whole-heartedly and he turned Jaskier’s face up so he could look at it properly.

“If you want, I can burn the village to the ground.”

Jaskier let out a cynical laugh at this. “As wonderful as that sounds, I don’t want you to have a target on your back. At this point, I can only blame myself.”

“Why?” Geralt frowned.

That didn’t make sense. Jaskier wasn’t to fault for his torture, the way he was treated.

“I let my guard down,” Jaskier replied. “I called all that attention to myself. I was careless.”

“Careless doesn’t mean you deserve to be punished,” Geralt immediately spoke.

Jaskier didn’t seem convinced and Geralt held him firmly by the shoulders.

“Have you killed?” Geralt asked, trying to get Jaskier to look at him. “Have you done some unspeakable crime?”

Jaskier gave a weak shake of his head.

“Then you didn’t deserve what happened to you.”

“You’re too good to me, Geralt,” Jaskier whispered, letting one hand land on top of Geralt’s own.

Geralt’s shoulders sagged. He could see he was fighting an uphill battle, but to know Jaskier thought of himself this way was heartbreaking. Jaskier was showing Geralt wonderful things every day, he was beginning to properly smile again. He didn’t want to lose that in a single night.

“Don’t destroy the village,” Jaskier sighed. “They’ll get their retribution in time.”

“I hope so,” Geralt muttered.

Jaskier fell back onto the pillows, his gaze stuck on the ceiling. Geralt followed him and laid on his side, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

“Could you...hold me?” Jaskier asked quietly, turning to face Geralt.

Geralt blinked, unused to such a proposition. When Jaskier’s stare didn’t sway, Geralt caved easily, the need to comfort consuming him. He pulled Jaskier close and he was sure a smile appeared on Jaskier’s face before he flipped onto his side. Spooned up behind Jaskier, Geralt wrapped his arm around his waist, tensing a little when Jaskier tangled their hands together. Then, as quickly as the confusion came, it went and Geralt was engulfed in warmth.

Jaskier was quickly falling asleep, curling into Geralt’s hold and Geralt only gripped him tighter.

If Geralt had known touch could be like this, that to hold someone was so gentle and good, he would’ve done it years sooner. Jaskier had given him a chance where no one else had and Geralt took in all of Jaskier, wanting this to last forever.

He was safe, secure, able to provide Jaskier with the same, and sleep crept up in only a few breaths.

The morning started as normal, neither man wishing to discuss the night before.

Geralt didn’t know where to start and Jaskier focused on other matters. His talks remained light, excited for where their next adventure might be in between singing songs while strumming on his lute. It was as if he was an entirely different person in the daylight and Geralt took it all in stride.

After all, he wasn’t in a place to make assumptions. He took his emotions in silence and perhaps for Jaskier, unimportant thoughts kept the demons at bay. It made Geralt’s heart stir, that Jaskier could still put on a smile after everything.

By mid-afternoon, Jaskier had begun making up fairy stories for Geralt, even managing to pull a laugh or two out of him. The small outpost in the distance was right on their path and when they approached, the two were in high spirits. It would be a good chance to restock supplies and food in case the wind took them deeper into the forest.

However, the moment Geralt took a step inside, the man at the counter scowled at them.

“We don’t need your kind here.”

“Ex–excuse me?” Jaskier balked.

Geralt had already headed to the door and sighed as he turned back around for Jaskier.

“You don’t even know him,” Jaskier’s voice was raising in volume with each word. “He is a good, kind man! Worth more than you could ever be and–”

“Jaskier,” Geralt interrupted, his hand gripping onto Jaskier’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“But Geralt–” Jaskier began to protest.

He closed his mouth upon Geralt’s hardened stare and the two were sent off with a scoff from the man. Outside, Jaskier wrenched himself free from Geralt’s grasp, his anger radiating off of him.

“How can you let him talk to you like that?”

Geralt said nothing as he tugged Roach towards the road, not checking if Jaskier was following.

“I don’t understand you, Geralt,” Jaskier jogged up beside him. “Witchers aren’t bad. It’s like anything in life, there’s a few rotten eggs, but that shouldn’t define you. Definitely not you.”

“It’s not worth the fight,” Geralt muttered.

“And what would humans do if it wasn’t for you? Hm? What about the balance between this world and that of monsters?”

Geralt mounted Roach then, urging her into a small trot.

“Don’t you run from me, Geralt!” Jaskier shouted, sprinting after him. “We are talking about this like civilized men! No, not civilized men, as friends!”

Slowing Roach down, Geralt waited until Jaskier had grasped at her side and then grabbed him by the arm, pulling him up onto Roach. Jaskier squawked as he ended up half-draped across the saddle, gripping on for dear life as Roach cantered through the woods.

When Roach came to a stop, Jaskier fell off, followed by Geralt climbing off of Roach. He helped Jaskier to his feet and leaned back against a nearby tree, arms crossed.

“I take what I can get,” Geralt started. “No sense in wasting my time on people who will never change.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? It keeps me alive.”

Jaskier didn’t have a retort, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The silence dragged between them before Jaskier inhaled sharply.

“You deserve better, that’s all,” Jaskier mumbled.

Geralt wasn’t sure about that. He had come to accept the only thing he deserved was his coin and that suited him well enough. However, seeing Jaskier standing there, dejected, bothered him more than any insult could.

“Thank you, Jaskier,” Geralt struggled to find his voice. “I suppose that’s why I have you.”

Jaskier’s head whipped up at this, his eyes wide and searching. “What?”

Geralt didn’t want to repeat himself, but Jaskier was giving him little choice. Dropping his arms, Geralt pushed off the tree and took a step closer to Jaskier. New words, so unfamiliar to Geralt, were bursting forth, his need to say it all growing with each second.

“I have you,” Geralt swallowed. “You show me the good, what’s still worth fighting for.”

Jaskier shifted on his feet, remaining in his spot. There seemed to be a conflict in his eyes and Geralt waited, not wanting to rush the man.

“Did you feel that way when you first saw me?” Jaskier asked, his voice soft and low.

“I suppose so, yes,” Geralt admitted.

Then, Geralt was warm. Arms had wrapped around his neck and the press of a body against his own sent him reeling. He didn’t know what to do with himself until he realized Jaskier wasn’t going to let go any time soon. Slowly, he returned Jaskier’s hug, feeling the sigh of relief from the other man.

“I will do whatever it takes to show the world that you’re not a monster,” Jaskier spoke into Geralt’s shoulder. “To show you what I see.”

Geralt pulled back from the hug, if only to see the look on Jaskier’s face. To be met with such reverence made his heart stop in his chest, a memory he never wanted to forget.

“Let’s carry on, shall we?” Jaskier smiled at him. “I’ll write you the greatest song yet.”

The embrace ended too soon and Geralt simply watched as Jaskier grabbed his lute, holding it expectantly. Roach herself walked over to Geralt until she was beside him and Geralt gave her a loving pat before he took his first steps.

Jaskier’s lute filled the forest around them, the first notes still finding their place before Jaskier settled on a melody he was content with. He began to sing about Geralt’s conquests, making even the most mundane tasks sound like the greatest accomplishments. Geralt couldn’t help his small smile and didn’t try to hide it when Jaskier beamed at him.

There was no arguing with Jaskier, not when he felt this good. Even with his doubts, Geralt could find himself to believe the praises for a little while, to be taken to a world where things were better and beautiful with Jaskier by his side.

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #indigo's side shitposting

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dollbitch24 · 5 years

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A Bowers’ Bet (Part 2)

Thank you so much to everyone for all the love on Part 1! I’m not sure exactly how many, but this story will be a couple of parts! But for now, I hope you enjoy Part 2 :)

Summary: When Henry and Patrick make a twisted pact on who can steal Derry High’s most inexperienced student’s virginity first, they think it will be their most exciting game yet. But what happens when one starts to develop feelings, while the other is determined as ever to win, no matter what or who is standing in their way?

A Bowers’ Bet Part 1

Juliet didn’t get much sleep that night as she tossed and turned with butterflies dancing around wildly in her stomach. She was nervous to see Henry Bowers the next day at school, knowing he would want an answer to his poorly written proposal. There was a part of her that she didn’t recognize, a side that wanted to so desperately say yes. But then she had to come back down to reality and remember who exactly she was getting herself involved with. Henry was the school's baddest bully, but then again, Henry, the boy who tortured kids for his own sick amusement, wrote her a poem? He was obviously no Robert Frost, but the fact that he made such a thoughtful effort made Juliet feel extremely compelled to want to figure Henry out.

Juliet huffed in frustration from her inconsistency of being able to find a comfortable position as well as her mind that wouldn’t seem to turn off, consuming her with countless possibilities and scenarios of what tomorrow could bring. Finally, she fights against the voices listing off all the reasons why she shouldn’t give Henry the light of day.

Alright, just one date Juliet, she thinks to herself. If it goes bad then you learned a lesson and never go out with him again. Simple as that.

If only she had followed her intuition.

………………………………………………………………

Juliet stands at her locker, trying to think about anything else other than the inevitable interaction she will have to face with Henry today. She forces her mind to drift to other thoughts like what she’s going to get her best friend Jennifer for her birthday, or future assignments she wants to get a head start on, or maybe buying that jean jacket she saw in the shop downtown that’s placed in the front window.

All too soon, she slams her locker shut and Patrick is standing there, causing her shoulders to jump as she places her hand over her heart.

“Boo,” he flatly remarks, his smile growing wider as he knows he scared her.

“Ha-ha very funny Patrick,” she smiles while rolling her eyes a bit, turning around briskly to walk away from him. That is until a strong hand catches her wrist, preventing her.

“SO,” he states rather loudly, “I hear you have a little date with Bowers.”

Juliet was a bit confused since she didn’t necessarily give Henry a definite answer yet. However, little did she know, Henry couldn’t stifle his smugness for long before he bragged to his friends and lied, saying she had already said yes. Henry couldn’t wait to boast to Patrick about him being ahead of the game, however, it won't be too much longer until he painfully regrets that decision.

“He did ask me, yes,” Juliet answers, not wanting to give him too much information.

“Let me get this straight kitten. You turn me down because of my so called “reputation,” but want to go and fuck around with someone like Bowers? Did you hit your cute little head since the last time we talked?”

Juliet hated to admit it to herself, but Patrick actually kind of had a point. Were Henry and Patrick really so different? Patrick noticed the uncertainty in her eyes, realizing he’s starting to get through to her a little bit.

“The guy who beat up a kid so bad they had to go to the hospital,” Patrick states, staring off into space as if he’s in deep thought recalling past events. “The guy who tried to shoot a poor stray cat. The guy who carved his name using a knife into Ben Hanscom’s porky stomach till he was dripping blood.”

Juliet’s eyes widen, becoming horrified by the details of Henry’s severe cruelty that she was completely unaware of.

“I-uhm, I....” Juliet was at a loss for words.

“Bowers, man,” Patrick chuckles, interrupting her while he props his elbow up against the lockers. “He’s fucked up. I’ve done some wild shit in my lifetime, but him? Shit, Bowers makes me look like a fucking saint. I mean you should of heard the way he was talking about you last night. But oh well. I’m sure he’ll go easy on you.” Patrick immediately turns his back on her, about to walk away. He doesn’t even take one step before Juliet calls out to him.

“Patrick wait!”

He grins and softly titters to himself before turning around, changing his expression from coniving to concerned.

“What did he say about me?”

Patrick’s plan worked, luring Juliet right where he wanted her. He was having trouble holding back his usual wide, eerie smirk.

“Geez, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news or anything,” Patrick innocently shrugs, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Can you tell me? Please,” Juliet begs, not realizing how much Patrick loved hearing the word fall from her lips.

"If you insist,” he huffs in fake disappointment, trying to act as if he wasn’t beaming with pure joy. “He just kept going on and on about how excited he was to get you alone so he could have his way with you.”

“What did he say ...exactly?”

“I believe some of his exact words were, “‘She looks like she has a good mouth to fuck,’ and ‘I bet I can get her to act like a whore,’ and uhm,” Patrick clears his throat, beckoning with his pointer and middle finger for her to come a bit closer as if this last part was top secret. “He said he thinks you’ll be easy because, you know, you’re a virgin and all.”

“He really said all of that?” Juliet asks astonished, her eyes like a puppy dog’s.

He nods his head in confirmation. “I know,” he scoffs. “What a pig right?”

Juliet stares down at the tile floor, hating herself for being so naive that she can’t even stare Patrick in the eye. She glances up and from behind Patrick’s shoulder, she sees Henry from afar. He must have spotted them as well because Henry makes direct eye contact with Juliet and begins heading towards them. Juliet sets into immediate panic mode.

“Look Patrick,” Juliet rushes, her eyes moving frantically between Patrick and Henry. “I appreciate you telling me all of this, but right now I have to go.”

Juliet darts down the opposite end of the hallway before Patrick could even get a syllable out, wanting now more than ever to avoid Henry like the plague.

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

The school day was coming to an end and Juliet had managed to stay clear of Henry and his gang the whole afternoon. It was Thursday, meaning Juliet had to stay after to tutor Eddie in the library. As much as she adored Eddie and didn’t mind helping him, she just wanted to go straight home after this disappointing day.

Luckily after a bit of time, he seemed to be catching on quickly, understanding the material better than he did last week. He barely needed her help with his homework, making Juliet feel happy for him as well as somewhat relieved that their session didn’t have to last as long as usual.

“I’m so proud of you, you’re doing so well! You’ve totally got this test in the bag,”Juliet encourages, closing the textbook shut as she starts to gather her belongings. There was a moment of silence before she suddenly hears Eddie’s shaky voice ask, “Uhh Juliet, has Henry Bowers done anything to you lately?”

Juliet’s actions come to a halt when she turns to look at him, her eyebrows furrowed.

“No Eddie. Why do you ask?”

“Well yesterday he cornered me in the boy’s bathroom just to force me to tell him what I knew about you. I only told him you like books and shit so it would prevent him from drowning me in contaminated toilet water.”

Juliet sat there, her thoughts scattered all over the place.

“Oh,” she answers, sounding somewhat confused, but trying to be nonchalant. The last thing she needed was for poor Eddie to think something was going on between his bully and her. “Well I appreciate you letting me know that Eds. Don’t worry about it, Henry is always seeking trouble from somewhere.”

“I know. That’s why I thought I’d tell you. So you can keep your guard up.”

It’s like Eddie is giving Juliet an indirect warning as to what the two boys were plotting even though he actually had no idea what they were up to. Juliet may have her guard up now, but it’s only a short amount of time before she drops it. And once its down, she will have no way of being able to put it back up.

As she walks out the library doors, she feels like the world is playing some sort of sick joke on her when Henry is leaned against the wall, waiting for her.

“Henry.” Juliet freezes. “What are you doing here?”

“Detention,” he simply shrugs since it’s a usual occurrence for him. “So what, you tryna hide from me?”

“No!” she lies defensively. “Definitely not.” The butterflies from last night begin to flutter again in the pit of her stomach, but this time not in the good way.

“Well you got the note right?”

Juliet nods before Henry continues and asks, “So how ‘bout it? Tomorrow night?”

“Henry, why do you want to go out with me?” Juliet blurts, not even able to think about the words before they tumble out of her mouth. She crosses her arms, giving Henry a peeved expression. This makes Henry start to chuckle. “What do you mean babe?”

“Why did you write me that note? Why are you asking people about me? Why do you suddenly want to go on a date?” she questions rapidly, causing Henry to laugh at her, making Juliet even more angry.

“What do you think I’m planning to do, kill you? It’s just a fucking date, why are you acting so crazy?” Henry sneers, using his most common defense mechanism, knowing he was up to no good, but trying to play it off as if she was the one who was being cynical.

“Oh why am I acting crazy?” Juliet asks in a sarcastic tone. “Well let’s see, maybe it’s because you’re going around telling your friends that you think I’ll be easy and that I’ll blow you on the first date.”

“Jesus Christ Juliet, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she retaliates, her right eyebrow quirked up.

And oh was Henry very familiar about what Juliet claimed she heard. His mind briefly goes back to last night with the gang as they were all hanging out in Vic’s basement, talking about her. Fucking Patrick. He should have known that Hockstetter plays one way and one way only; dirty.

“It’s Patrick isn’t it? He got into your head. Why the hell would you believe anything he says?”

“Why should I believe you?” Juliet insists, staring so hard into his eyes that he couldn’t believe the girl he thought was timid was pure fire.

“Look Juliet, just hang out with me once so I can prove to you that whatever Patrick said is complete bullshit.”

Juliet shakes her head, hating and despising how much she wanted to give him a chance.

“I’m asking you to trust me. Please?” he persists, grabbing her hand and holding it in a surprisingly delicate way. There’s never been a time that Henry has ever begged someone in his life, but as much as he loathed it, he knew he’d get ahead by playing the good guy type. He could tell by the look on her face that she was giving into him. After a few seconds, Juliet proves him right when she finally caves.

“Fine,” she snaps, slipping her hand out of his grip.

Henry felt a sudden rush of relief, knowing that the ball has been placed back in his court.

“There’s a showing of Nightmare on Elm Street I thought we could go see.”

"That actually sounds fun,” Juliet admits, peering up at Henry with those long lashes that makes him want to do unspeakable things to her.

“The movie is at eight. I thought I could come get you and we can walk there. It’s not far.”

Usually Henry would use Belch and his Trans Am along with the other goons to have as a way of transportation, but Henry was adamant about the whole night having Juliet to himself, that way Patrick had no way of sabotaging things again. He also knew that Juliet is the kind of girl that wasn’t going to just go over his house and fuck around. He actually had to treat her with respect and take her out on a real date first.

“That sounds perfect, but is there any way you can wait for me a house or two down from mine? My mom, she-”

“Let me guess? Won’t approve?” Henry interjects. It was moments like this that Juliet truly despised how judgmental her mother could be. Her silence was proof that what Henry suspected was right.

“It’s cool. I know I ain’t the kinda guy girls like to take home to mom.” Henry begins to chuckle, “Or dad.”

“Hmm, I wonder why.” Juliet looks up to the ceiling, biting down on her lip before glancing back down to Henry, giving him a cheeky grin. Henry doesn’t know what it is, but her innocent yet sassy attitude was turning him on more and more. She wasn’t afraid to confront him or tell him off, which was actually a turn on for Henry since he isn’t used to people defying him whatsoever.

“Looks like Derry’s smartest student has a mouth to match,” he teases, starting to slowly stroll closer to her. She can see the seductive way he’s analyzing her, making Juliet take tiny steps back before she smiles and says, “Looks like Derry’s biggest bully isn’t so scary after all.”

“You don’t want to test me there baby doll,” Henry smirks, licking his lips as continues inching closer to her.

“I don’t know,” Juliet hums, “Tests are sort of my thing,” she responds confidently, sticking her nose up in a joking way. However at this point, Henry has her body pressed up against the lockers with his hand propped up near the side of her face.

Henry releases a breathy snicker, feeling like she was being a tease. He wanted to grab her ass, her chest, something. But he knew he had to control himself with Juliet and be patient.

“Well this is one test I’d hate to fail, so I guess for my own sake I better walk away before I start to ....slip up,” Henry simpers, moving his face close to hers.

Juliet laughs, but it truly was one of the most beautiful sounds he has ever heard. “See you tomorrow Henry,” she smiles, but it was her usual one that was laced with innocence and genuine kindness. She moves past him as he just stands there, feeling over the moon already even though he hasn’t even gone on the actual date with her yet. Juliet may be falling for Henry’s game, but Henry however, is falling hard for her, and the worst part is that he doesn’t even know it yet.

……………............................................................................

Juliet exits her house and starts to walk down the sidewalk, enjoying the crisp, cool, night air that was hitting her face. She told her mother that Jennifer was having a girls night which she surprisingly believed with no questions asked. Her parents seemed to be preoccupied with having dinner plans with her dad’s snobby business partners, leaving Juliet to have one less thing to worry about.

She suddenly spots Henry in the distance standing down near the stop sign at the corner. He’s wearing dark, ripped jeans with his typical black boots and an almost navy blue muscle shirt that looked extremely good on him. His biceps were prominent, making Juliet shamefully ogle at them for a minute before he turns around slightly and sees her walking towards him. As a nervous habit, Juliet presses her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She decided on a plain white, square neck, sundress that had slightly puffy sleeves.

Henry whistles at her, making Juliet blush profusely. “I don’t know how you expect me to stay on my best behavior tonight lookin’ like that.”

“Oh c’mon, l think you can manage yourself for a good two hours,” she smirks as they begin to walk together side by side.

“Maybe. But what about after?”

“After?”

“Well yeah after the movies, you know, I figured we can hang out some more.”

Juliet was certainly not planning for an after. She was planning for solely a movie and a straight walk home.

“Don’t look so worried,” Henry chuckles. “Still think I’m going to murder you or somethin’?"

“I mean you actually have the perfect opportunity to since my family and friends have zero idea I’m hanging out with you right now,” Juliet teases, making Henry’s heart beat faster and faster.

“Well since you put it that way...” Henry smirks, suddenly grabbing Juliet by the waist, hoisting her up over his shoulder as she lets out a small shriek. Her legs kick back and forth as he begins to run while she’s laughing hysterically. It’s only for a short moment until he eventually stops and gently places her back on the pavement as she holds onto his arms for stability. But that’s when they look up at each other, both slightly out of breath, their faces close as they glance down at each other’s lips. Henry starts to lean in, thinking this was his chance, however, Juliet tenses up. She bows her head down a bit, nervously studying the ground.

“Hey,” Henry says before grabbing her chin, tilting her face up to look at him. “You’re safe with me alright? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Okay,” Juliet responds, giving him a small, closed mouth smile.

Henry started to feel something he couldn’t quite decipher. Guilt? Regret? Whatever it is, he pushes back the unfamiliar feeling aside, knowing that Juliet is nothing more than just a stupid bet. A stupid bet that he plans on winning.

They eventually make it to the theater and walk inside as Henry opens the door for her. Once they reach the counter, Henry tells the worker he’ll have two tickets for A Nightmare on Elm Street while Juliet reaches down in her pocket to grab her money. When she’s about to hand it over, she’s shocked to see Henry has already beaten her to the punch.

“Henry I had money, you really didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t stress baby, I got it,” he winks, grabbing her hand as he leads them to the right theater. Juliet would never know that he had only gotten that money by stealing it from a couple of kids at school.

Once inside, Henry aims for seats that weren’t in the far back since it has just been made clear she isn’t the type who’s going to want to make out just yet, but he didn’t want to sit too close to the front either. He landed on two seats that were a good in between right in the middle.

The movie was supposed to start in exactly four minutes. Henry felt like everything was going according to plan. Not only did Juliet look as hot as ever, but she was eating out of the palm of his hands. Right as he started to think nothing could possibly go wrong, the worst of the worst comes crashing down on him.

“Henry,” Juliet leans into him whispering, “I didn’t know your friends were coming.”

“What are you talking about my friends aren’t-” and as soon as he looks over towards the entrance, there they were. Vic, Belch, and of course Patrick.

Henry shuts his eyes briefly, clearly fuming. “Those mother fuckers,” he mutters under his breath.

“It looks like they’re coming over to us,” Juliet observes, trying not to make her stare obvious even though it was hard since they were all collectively getting closer and closer.

“I didn’t invite them Juliet, I swear. I have no idea how they found out.”

“Well they knew we were going on a date didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Henry snaps. “But I didn’t want them knowing where.” As soon as the words rushed out of Henry’s mouth, he knew he fucked up.

“Why?”

As his mind scrambled for some sort of logical lie, his buddies came and interrupted just in time, preventing him from having to even answer the question.

“Well lookie here boys. It’s Romeo and Juliet,” Patrick sneers with his cheshire grin before throwing a handful of popcorn at Henry as Vic and Belch snort and chuckle beside him. Patrick plops his lanky figure in the seat next to Juliet while Belch takes the seat right next to Henry and Vic in the aisle seat.

“No fucking way, you assholes go find another place to sit,” Henry demands, trying his best to act calm for Juliet’s sake, but the irritation dripping from his voice wasn’t helping.

Belch searches the theater to see what other seat options there were. “Sorry buddy,” Belch shrugs carelessly while munching down on some popcorn. “It looks like it’s a full house.”

The theater is packed and there are only seven seats open at this point, but they are all completely separated from one another. Juliet could tell Henry was livid by the way his fists were clenched laying on the arm rests and how his nostrils flared. She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but there was nothing she could do to ease his anger at that moment.

“Want a taste?”

Juliet suddenly hears Patrick’s voice and turns to him, worried about what he was insinuating with Henry sitting right there.

“What?” Juliet asks in a somewhat mortified tone.

“Of my drink?” Patrick asks holding up the giant cup, looking at her as if she’s stupid.

“Oh,” Juliet lets out a half- hearted chuckle. “No. Thank you.”

Patrick licks his lips, grinning mischievously at her. He relished how he could play with her mind and make Juliet question herself. As if right on time, the theater suddenly goes dark as the movie finally begins on the screen. Juliet enjoyed the slight adrenaline she got when watching scary movies, but it didn’t mean she never needed to cover her eyes and watch some parts through her fingers.

Patrick however, seemed to be enjoying the horror as he laughed at the gore and terror, grinning from ear to ear. The scene comes on in the movie where Glen is fast asleep, lying on his bed with headphones over his ears. Juliet couldn’t help herself when she jumps slightly once the dreadful music starts to play as Freddy’s claws appear, sucking Glen into the mattress.

Henry laughs quietly at her reaction, clearly amused. He leans over to her and asks, “You good?”

She nods with a cute grin, hating how even though she knew something was about to happen, it still made her tremble. Even though Henry is enjoying the movie, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Patrick was just one seat away from him. He hated him so much that he wished Freddy could somehow come through the screen and swallow Patrick in like he did to Glen. He still had no idea how he found out that they were even there.

Enough is enough, he thought. Henry decided he isn’t going to put up with Patrick’s shit any longer. If he wanted to come see a show, he was about to give him one.

Henry places his hand on Juliet’s thigh, hiking her dress up a bit while his thumb rubs back and forth on her bare skin. Patrick notices this and begins to feel absolutely infuriated. He becomes even more enraged when Juliet snuggles into Henry a bit, interlocking her arm with his.

It didn’t take long for Patrick to act fast. He pretends to grab his drink when he purposely knocks it over, spilling the red liquid all over Juliet’s lap. She completely jolts when she feels the ice cold, sticky substance dripping down her bare legs, the lower half of her white dress completely drenched. Juliet stares at the ice cubes laying on her lap, not even comprehending what just happened for a few seconds.

“Oops,” Patrick says with zero emotion, satisfied that he didn’t have to endure watching Henry touch what’s his any longer.

“What the fuck Hockstetter?” Henry sharply whispers, staring down at the mess he had caused.

“It’s okay, it was just an accident,” Juliet assures, not wanting the two boys to cause a commotion in the middle of the movie. She could care less that her dress is ruined, she just wanted to immediately get herself cleaned up without making a scene and disrupting everyone else in the theater.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom really quick okay? I’ll be right back,” Juliet states in a hushed tone to Henry.

“Do you need me to come with you?”

Juliet shakes her head at him and gets up quietly. She carefully tip toes passed Henry, Belch, and Vic and then quickly exits out the door.

Once Juliet is in the bathroom and in the actual light, she sees that the drink got all over her socks and high tops as well. Juliet drenches some paper towels in water, doing her best at getting what she could out of her dress. She internally laughs at herself when she looks in the mirror, seeing the huge glob of red that only turned into a slight pink. The stickiness on her hands and legs made her feel gross, causing her to immediately wipe the soda’s remnants off. After constant scrubbing and fifty-two paper towels later, Juliet realizes that this was as good as it’s going to get.

When she walks out into the lobby, she spots Devin Mccalister, Mark Swanson, Derrick Mckinley, and Jason Montgomery all huddled near the back corner. They were arrogant tyrants disguised as the popular football jocks of Derry High. She never understood why The Bowers Gang were notorious for being bullies, but because they wore a sport’s jersey, they were seen as royalty.

“Well, well, well, look who we’ve got here boys,” Derrick calls out, each of them now giving her their undivided attention.

“Juliet,” Jason sings, checking her out with no shame before laughing. “What happened? Time of the month come early?” This causes his friends to bust out in a fit of laughter at the expense of Juliet’s embarrassment as they all walk closer to her.

“No,” Juliet responds flatly, having a hard time keeping eye contact. “It’s just soda.”

She begins to turn around to head back to the theater before Jason rushes and grabs her by the forearm, jerking her back. “Hey, where do you think you’re runnin’ off to?”

They each begin to huddle around her, shutting her in.

“You should ditch this place and come hang with us. We’re bored,” Devin offers while he gazes down at her chest.

“Yeah I can see that,” Juliet mutters, wishing she could just shrink and disappear.

“Can you?” Jason asks before snatching Juliet’s glasses off her face.

“Stop it Jason, that’s not funny,” Juliet exclaims, reaching out to try and grab them back, but failing miserably. “Please you guys, give them back,” she begs. They instead began to snicker and laugh at her multiple attempts of trying to pry the glasses out of each of their hands since they were tossing them back and forth to one another. Juliet obviously couldn’t see as well without them, making the boys even more amused. That is, until a certain voice causes their actions to come to a sudden halt.

“What’s going on here,” Patrick interrupts, his eyes narrowed and pierced with craze as he slowly strides out of the darkness over to them with his hips slightly jutted out and his hands in his pockets.

The jocks may be seen as intimidating and tough to most, but one thing was for certain; they were all mentally scared shitless of Patrick. Even if they were cocky enough to think that they could beat him up physically, they knew that he was a person capable of far worse things.

“Nothin’, we were just messin’ around,” Jason retorts, broadening his shoulders a bit, trying his best to be intimidating. Patrick chuckles at his attempt, taking a few more strides before he approaches Jason, standing dangerously close to him when he suddenly takes his pocket knife out and holds it right below Jason’s eyebrow.

“There’s nothing more I’d love to do to you right now then cut out your eye sockets and shove them so far down your throat, you’ll be seeing out your ass.” Patrick moves the knife’s sharp point close enough to where it’s almost touching the white part of Jason’s eyeball, causing him to go pale.

“Oh, but daddy wouldn’t like that would he?” Patrick taunts in a sarcastic tone. “I mean, how could his son play the big game next week with no way of seeing that football being thrown towards his stupid fucking face?”

Jason is shaking like a leaf at this point as his friends are standing their frozen like statues, too petfriefied to even move.

“Look man, I’m sorry. Just take it easy and put the knife down will ya?” Jason whimpers, his macho facade completely thrown out the window.

Just as Juliet was about to intervene and try to calm Patrick down, he starts to snicker and pulls the knife away from Jason, leering at his panicked expression. “Awh,” Patrick mocks in a teasing voice, frowning his lips down in a fake pout. “Don’t be so serious Montgomery. I was only messin’ around.”

Jason looks embarrassed and angry, yet still very afraid all at the same time. His face was beat red from wanting to punch Patrick in the face, but knowing that he couldn’t. He reaches his shaky hands out to return Juliet’s glasses to Patrick before slowly backing away. A piercing stare towards Patrick was all he could muster, although if looks could kill, both boys would be dead right now. His friends follow suit until they turn their backs, walking quicker than usual out of the theater.

Juliet is shook up about what she just witnessed as she continues to stand there not moving. “That was…..intense,” she gapes, appearing slightly apprehensive. Patrick feels worried for a second that he went a little too far in front of her until he hears a small giggle. “But also kind of amazing.” She slaps her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her smirk because she felt guilty for finding such a violent altercation humorous.

Patrick chuckles at her adorable reaction before taking a few steps in her direction. He unfolds the glasses and brushes a few strands of her hair away before putting them back on her face.

“Beautiful,” he simply observes with a slight grin. Juliet remains motionless as his hand reaches out to caress her cheek, his thumb gently swiping across her bottom lip.

“W-We should head back,” Juliet stutters, moving her face to the side, away from Patrick’s touch.

Patricks knows that no matter what he says, no matter what he does, she will not give into his enticement just yet. She was in the middle of a date with Henry right now, she wouldn’t be ballsy enough, but he recognized that glint in her eye and the way she stumbled. He knew that whether she wanted to come to terms with it or not, there was something behind those hazel eyes that he could tell felt tempted. Patrick has had his exact plan sought out from the start. He just has to wait until something certain happens until he can fully execute it, but this made him all the more excited.

"You ignored the little chat we had this morning,” Patrick states, studying her face.

“Me and Henry talked it out,” Juliet briefly explains, about to turn around until Patrick says, “Let me guess. He told you not to trust me.”

Juliet started to feel a bit frazzled. She didn’t want to tell Patrick that Henry told her not to believe him and pin the two friends against one another and cause issues.

“N-Not exactly, he uhm, he told me-”

“You’re an awful liar,” Patrick interrupts, smirking before he says, “Henry is a much better one.”

Juliet furrows her eyebrows in an annoyed manner, hating how Patrick kept trying to make her feel like she was being stupid for giving Henry a chance. She was appreciative of Patrick, knowing what those dumb jocks could have done if he hadn’t shown up, but it wasn’t hard to notice that Patrick can be manipulative. She couldn’t let him toy with her head again. Juliet stares at him for a brief moment, biting down on her tongue before she decides it’s best if she says nothing at all in return. She simply turns her back on him and heads inside the theater.

Henry’s face was set in a scowl, but appeared somewhat relieved once he saw Juliet coming back.

As soon as she sat down, Henry moved in closer. “What took so long?”

“I’ll tell you later, it’s kind of a long story,” Juliet whispers back.

Henry sat there, his mind thinking about all the horrendous possibilities that could have happened between Patrick and Juliet outside that theater. He was boiling with rage, causing him to not talk or touch Juliet again for the remainder of the movie.

Henry has his arm draped over Juliet’s shoulder when they walk out into the parking lot as Patrick lingers closely behind. Vic and Belch were staggering near them, still preoccupied with continuing their popcorn fight. They stroll together until they are all standing in front of Belch’s Trans Am.

“I’m going to fucking kill them. All of them, one by one I swear to god,” Henry fumes in regards to Juliet’s brief rundown about what occurred with Jason and his friends earlier.

“Trust me Henry they aren’t worth it. Although I do wish you could have seen Jason’s face. It was so red,” Juliet laughs.

“Yeah, well that fucker’s face is going to turn purple on Monday,” Henry responds harshly, making Juliet go silent. Henry begins to notice the way Patrick is intently eyeing Juliet, which reminds him that he needs to get her out of here before this night goes downhill. “We’re gonna take off,” he states flatly to his friends as he steers Juliet away, using his hand around her shoulder as an advantage.

“What’s the rush Bowers?” Patrick smirks at Henry, wanting to get under his skin.

“I got to get her home,” Henry grumbles while turning around, gesturing his head towards Juliet. She pulls her wrist up to glance at her watch, reading the time that says 10:02pm.

“My curfew isn’t until midnight, so if you want to hang out with them we can,” Juliet quietly offers to Henry, trying to appease him. However, Juliet was unknowingly ruining what he had planned.

“Great!” Patrick beams, hearing Juliet’s hushed offer before opening Belch’s backseat. “Hop in.”

Juliet glances up at Henry, trying to see if she can read his mind on whether he actually wants to join them or not. Juliet would much rather spend the rest of the night alone with Henry, but this was his gang and she didn’t want Henry to feel like she didn’t want to be around his friends.

“If you shit heads haven't noticed yet, we’re on a date. I’ll catch you guys later.” Henry stares Patrick down in a somewhat hostile way, only making Patrick more entertained. Juliet gives a meek wave goodbye to all of the boys before they turn around and start to walk away again.

“You two have a safe night now,” Patrick calls out in a taunting way, making Juliet feel like those words are being directed at her. Henry holds her closer and for some reason, she felt okay.

Henry didn’t know why he felt so nervous. He hated how this girl made him feel emotions he isn’t accustomed to dealing with. At this point, they weren’t too far away from Juliet’s house, making him even more anxious. She becomes caught off guard when Henry’s feet that were walking next to her come to a complete stop.

“There’s uhm, there’s a place I'd like to take you,” Henry utters, his palms slightly sweating.

“Okay,” Juliet smiles. “Where?”

“It’s in the woods,” he states, not wanting to reveal the exact destination quite yet.

“In the woods,” Juliet slowly repeats, laughing a little about Henry’s lack of detail, making his response sound highly suspicious.

“Fuck, I know how sketch that sounds, but I swear, you just gotta trust me.”

Juliet felt a bit hesitant on saying yes, but surprisingly enough, trusting him has gone pretty well so far.

“Lead the way,” Juliet grins, gesturing her hand out to him.

It was at least ten minutes of walking and the sound of leaves crunching beneath their feet before Juliet asks, “Okay I know we were kidding around earlier, but are you sure you’re not luring me out here to kill me? Because honestly, at this point, I would deserve it considering I ignored all the obvious signs.”

Henry chuckles, wafting a long, thin branch out of his way. “We’re literally almost there.”

After about another minute or two, a small and somewhat wonky, wooden treehouse comes into view. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it had a certain character to it that Juliet found appealing.

“This is it,” Henry shrugs, scratching his head as he nervously glances at the ground and then back at Juliet, waiting for her reaction.

“Oh my gosh,” Juliet mutters. “Did you build this?”

Henry nods, making Juliet’s eyes widen. “Wow,” she gasps. “Henry this is absolutely incredible.”

Henry gulps, having never heard such a compliment from anybody in his life before he asks, “Wanna take a look inside?”

Juliet shakes her head in an excited way which makes Henry grab her hand. He lets her go up the creaky ladder first before he follows right after her. The inside was small, but had some blankets laid out and wrinkled metal band posters taped to the walls.

“It ain’t much,” Henry says. “But it’s a place I like to come to where I can get some peace and quiet.”

“Are you crazy? I love it. Do you know how much skill you have to build something like this?” Juliet asks, still looking around and analyzing every corner and crack of the tiny wooden house in amazement. Henry genuinely wasn’t expecting a rich girl like Juliet to think much of it, but like in many ways, Juliet proved him wrong. Henry sits down near the entrance so his feet can prop up on the ladder. Juliet does the same beside him, except her tiny white sneakers are dangling in the air.

The only noise that can be heard is the soft hum of the bugs and the trees rustling together from the chilly night air. Juliet’s eyes are staring up at the stars, but Henry can’t seem to take his eyes off her. He has never felt more at peace in his life than in this moment.

“Henry,” she says, snapping him out of his trance. She peels her eyes off the sky and looks at him. “What scares you the most?”

The question was not only unexpected, but quite difficult for Henry to answer. Henry’s mind tries to think of something, anything, but it was like his brain went totally blank. He wasn’t used to people asking him personal questions. “Uhm...I don’t really know. I mean shit don’t scare me much, but I guess if I had to choose somethin’ it’d be...uhm.... I guess like what my future is goin’ to be in this shit town after high school. I’m afraid I’m goin’ to end up alone and be exactly like my old man.”

“You don’t like your dad?”

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Henry huffs. “I fucking hate his guts Juliet. He’s the biggest piece of shit I know. He’s the main reason I built this in the first place, so I could get away somehow when I needed to.”

This confession made Juliet feel heart broken. She didn’t want to press and ask too many questions, but it was clear that Henry’s home didn’t feel safe for him. Juliet interlocks her fingers with his.“You don’t deserve that. I know saying sorry won’t fix anything and you at least have here to come to, but if things ever get bad, my house is always open. Well I should say my bedroom window is,” Juliet smirks, bumping her shoulder lightly with his, making Henry chuckle. “But seriously, I can’t imagine how awful it must be to not feel loved by your dad, but it doesn’t mean you’re incapable of being loved by anybody else.”

Henry appreciated that she wasn’t pitying him or making him feel like he was a lost cause. This girl that he hasn’t even known a full week cared so much about his well being that she would be willing to take the risk of offering her room as a place to stay when times got tough. He ponders over what she just said before she continues on and says, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly thankful for my parents. They want what’s best for me, but my mom, she is constantly worried about what every single person thinks. Whether it’s my clothes or hair or grades or friends, she judges and critiques every little thing I do. I feel I can just never win with her, like nothing I ever do is good enough.”

Henry stares at her, shocked at how much they were opening up to each other, but how good it truly felt.

“Your mom must be fucking crazy,” Henry admits. “You’re beautiful and fucking smart as hell and have so much going for you.”

Juliet giggles, smiling at the boy who was making her cheeks flush.

“Well I appreciate that. But it sounds like your dad must be pretty crazy too if he doesn’t realize what an amazing and incredibly talented son he's got,” Juliet responds, gazing at him. Henry could swear he felt his heart completely stop.

He has never in his life had somebody who felt like they genuinely thought he mattered and was important. He stares intently at her, and not even a second passes before Henry grabs her neck, crushing her lips unto his. He moves his hands so they’re cradling both her cheeks, liking the sort of control it gives him. The kiss is slow and innocent until Henry slips his tongue into her mouth. Juliet was petrified for this moment, but she couldn’t believe how good kissing Henry Bowers felt.

He gives her bottom lip a slight tug with his teeth as he delves his hot tongue deeper into her mouth, moving his hand down to grope her chest. Juliet hated how much she didn’t want him to stop. She breaks away from the kiss, feeling like she needed a breath. Henry moves down and begins attacking her neck as he tries to pull the shoulder of her dress down to expose her bra. He grabs her hand and moves it on top of his throbbing hard on that lies underneath his jeans.

“You feel what you do to me baby,” he rasps in her ear before biting slightly down on her earlobe.

“Henry,” Juliet whispers, but it comes out as more of a soft moan.

“Now how about you let me feel what I do to you,” Henry utters, his rough, calloused hand moving up Juliet’s smooth thigh. His hand reaches under her dress when he begins teasing the waistband of her underwear with his fingers. She quickly grabs his hand to stop him, making Henry seize what he’s doing.

“I’m sorry Henry, but I...I think we should take things slow,” Juliet murmurs, feeling embarrassed.

Henry wasn’t used to girls he’s been with not wanting to move fast. He was used to them begging him for any sort of pleasure he was willing to give. But Juliet was different.

“It’s alright, it’s probably almost midnight anyways, we should start to head back.”

Juliet couldn’t quite decipher Henry’s tone as he begins to run his hand through his hair before he pushes himself off the tree house, his feet hitting the ground with a quiet thump. His mood shifted quickly as if he flipped some sort of switch. She decides to not over think it and starts to cautiously climb down the ladder. Juliet suddenly hears a slight rustling in the bushes.

“Did you hear that?”

“No? Hear what?”

“It sounded like there was something moving over there,” Juliet points over to her right.

“It was probably a rabbit or somethin’. There’s always critters runnin’ around here. Come on this way.”

The walk out of the woods was quiet which made Juliet think Henry has to be annoyed at her. She wanted Henry to touch her, but she felt like she wasn’t quite ready to go too far and offer that personal part of herself to him just yet. Meanwhile Henry was more silent than usual because guilt started to set into the pit of his stomach. He didn’t expect to feel this way towards her. He actually didn’t know what he was even feeling and that made him even more mad. They make it back to the red stop sign where Henry waited for her at the beginning of the night. The glow from the street light loomed over them.

"I’m sorry about earlier,” Juliet speaks up. “I wanted to. I honestly just got nervous. I haven’t you know-uhm, I-I havent done anything like that yet.” Juliet had a hard time confessing her inexperience to the boy who has been with countless of girls.

“I understand,” Henry assures, wanting nothing more than for Juliet to feel comfortable around him. “You’re safe with me remember? I’m not goin’ to ever make you do somethin’ you don’t want to.”

This made Juliet feel at ease. “I know,” she smiles. “I had a good time with you tonight. I’m happy I decided to come.”

“I’m sorry what was that?” Henry asks sarcastically, a smirk on his face as he pulls her in playfully by her waist.

“Okay, okay fine! The almighty Henry Bowers proved me wrong,” Juliet giggles, loving the warmth Henry’s embrace gave.

“Damn right I did,” Henry utters before leaning in to give her one final kiss. Henry felt no need to be rough or show his dominance. All he wanted was the simplicity of feeling her plush lips on his.

“Bye,” Juliet whispers once she pulls away from him. She grins before turning around to walk back to her house. Henry stood there watching her the entire time until she faded into the darkness.

On his walk home, Henry couldn’t stop the stupid smile that lingered on his face as he reminisced about the night. He knew Juliet was into him as much as he was into her, and that nobody, not even Patrick, could get in the way. Henry thought it over and came to the conclusion that not only was he going to win the bet, but he was also going to win the girl and make Patrick regret the day he ever tried underestimating him. However, Henry was delirious of the raven haired boy that was hiding in the woods the entire time, relishing how Henry and Juliet’s relationship was going exactly how he wanted it to.

#the bowers gang #Henry Bowers #henry bowers x reader #patrick hockstetter #patrick hocksetter x reader #it 2017 #it 2019 #Owen Teague #it fanfiction #bowers gang

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luna-almighty-god · 4 years

Text

Comfort a Little Dream n°2 [Applesauce]

This story is obviously not canonical, please do not refer to it if you are looking for canonical information.

Careful, there are explicit scenes in this story (violence) !

Have a good read!

===

Previous Chapter

===

Stormy gusts of wind struck their bodies, whipped their bones, and formed a barrier between them so that they could no longer strike each other. This umpteenth confrontation had been violent, terrible, more powerful than anything they had ever known before.

“YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME!”

Nightmare was trembling with rage, his tentacles flailing, ready to fall as soon as the wind blew. And Dream could only watch helplessly as his brother's anger was met with his hateful gaze, his gaze that screamed, "I want you to die, I want you to disappear for good.

[The world would be a much better place if he disappeared.]

“YOU'VE ALWAYS HAD IT ALL! BECAUSE YOU ARE THE GUARDIAN OF DREAMS, OF POSITIVITY! YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN THE SPOILED BRAT! AND ME IN ALL THIS?!”

Dream lowered his eyes, his throat tied, his limbs trembling before this terrible truth.

“WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU? WHEN I WAS BEING HUMILIATED, HARASSED?”

Dream wasn't there. It never had been. He'd screamed to the world that he'd protect his twin, that he'd always be there for him, that he loved him more than anything. But how can you protect your loved ones when you don't know they're in danger, when you don't know they're suffering? Nightmare had so many times concealed his pain, only not to worry the guardian of dreams ...

But Dream should've seen it coming. Even if he hadn't been told, he should have seen the marks on his body, heard the insults. But Dream was naive, living in his bubble, seeing only the kindness and gentleness that was brought to him, not seeing the horrors lurking in the shadows.

The fall had been all the more painful.

“DON'T TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND ME! DON'T GIVE ME ANY MORE OF YOUR BULLSHIT! DON'T TELL ME THAT YOU TRUST ME, THAT YOU LOVE ME, THAT YOU WANT WHAT'S BEST FOR ME! YOU'RE A LIAR!”

[He was just a liar]

[A pathetic, stupid, ridiculous liar]

That's why Cross had managed to make Nightmare smile, to bring him back at least a little on the right side. Because Cross was a trustworthy man. Cross wasn't a liar.

Dream looked with a dull eye at the memory that had played out before his eyes, recalling perfectly that conversation, that fight that had widened the chasm that separated him from his brother. That moment that had completed the guardian of dreams: he was not able to change his brother. He had never been able to change his brother.

“I understand you, Dream.”

Shattered made the memory of a finger snap disappear so that his counterpart would pay attention to him again.

“I'm probably the only one who can understand you.”

He approached the little skeleton who was suffering, wounded and feverish, trembling and exhausted. His phalanges coated with black ink came to caress his cheek to go down to his chin, raising his face to look him straight in the eyes.

“We're similar, little keeper. We've been through the same thing, the same pain. Both of us ... we just wanted to do our best, for ourselves and for others.”

Dream hiccupped, tears streaming from the corner of his eye sockets. Shattered came to gently wipe them away.

“Yes, I understand you, Dream... People are only interested in us because of our aura, and it's our brothers, our Nightmares, who receive real love. Isn't it unfair?”

He sticks his forehead against his own:

“After all the evil they've done, isn't it unfair for others to turn to them? We are the ones who should receive all the attention, we are the ones who should be loved, loved for real.

- ... No.”

Shattered, it tensed.

“... No ?”

He pushed his face back, looking at Dream in confusion. The young guardian held up his look of incomprehension, the pain twisting his being, his soul. The words were struggling to come out, his throat hurt so much, his mind was troubled, but he could not let the corrupt being continue to say such things:

"We have always received everything while our brothers suffered... Nightmare always wanted to protect me, always did everything for me. If he's become this way, if he hates me, it's all my fault. »

A poor smile stretched his lips as he let himself slide against the wall behind him. Shattered stood up, fists clenched:

"What are you talking about? That bastard stole everything from you! Your world, your family... even your friends turn to him! Even Cross gave you up for him! »

Dream closed his eyes, a salty tear beaded once again, slipped and crashed against the damaged ground. He was pathetic, half unconscious in his devastated living room. And Shattered's cry resounded once more:

“YOU JUST LEFT THE BATTLE IN A PANIC! AND NO ONE'S COMING TO SEE HOW YOU'RE DOING! EVEN INK STAYED THERE! YOU THINK THAT'S FAIR?

- I hurt Cross. They have to take care of him.

- WHA... AND YOU DON'T MIND? THE BAD GUYS CAN HANDLE IT! INK COULD...

- Ink doesn't like me.”

He opened his eyes again, a tearing gleam in his eyes:

“Nobody loves me. You said that, didn't you?”

Shattered widened his eyes:

“Isn't that reason enough to make them pay?

- Make them pay for what? Make them pay for my mistakes, make them pay for who I am? They had nothing to do with it. Shattered... We can only blame ourselves for being... for being us.”

Dream uttered a scream, surprised by the tentacle that pressed him violently against the wall, which almost broke his spine, wrapping itself around his throat to squeeze it tightly, half suffocating him.

“DON'T FUCK WITH ME! WE HAVEN'T DECIDED WHAT WE ARE! WE DESERVE TO BE LOVED! WHILE NIGHTMARE'S JUST AN ASSHOLE, NIGHTMARE HAS DECIDED TO CORRUPT HIMSELF! AND WE'RE GOING TO MAKE THEM PAY, THEM, THE WHOLE MULTIVERSE, HIS PEOPLE WHO USED US WITHOUT EVER GIVING IT BACK TO US!”

Dream froze, his soul tightening more as he was running out of oxygen.

“N... no…” he articulated. “I don't want to... I don't want to hurt anyone anymore…”

Shattered tightened his grip as another tentacle wrapped around the arm of the smaller one:

“Do you even think you have a choice? Do you think you are in control? Ah... Ahahah…”

His cynical laughter resonated darkly as his counterpart's arm cracked softly beneath his grip. His pupils orbits gauged Dream without a word, making him squeak with terror, while he spoke again in a hoarse, terrifying voice:

“You're crazy, Dream... Totally crazy... You don't know what's good for you. But don't worry, I'm here, I'll help you.”

The young goalkeeper was suffocating, trying in vain to struggle without any success. He couldn't think, couldn't understand what was going on. He could hardly discern the silhouette of his double, this silhouette that dominated him and made him tremble, that would soon kill him.

“I'M GOING TO OPEN YOUR EYES”

Dream bent down, eyes filled with horror, his mouth open in a silent scream, a scream that had got stuck in his throat at the moment the throbbing pain had torn his body apart, at the moment he had felt his arm being snapped off.

Shattered pushed a tentacle into his mouth, forcing him to swallow an unknown element, tearing a panicked sob out of him, and striking a deep wound in the puck.

He let him go.

Dream collapsed to the ground, coughed, spat, holding his broken arm while screaming, his cries so violent they could have drowned him. He tried to catch his breath, each breath aggravated the pain that ran through him, worsening the suffering in which he had been imprisoned. He watched his tears rushing down the floor, the blood dripping from his mouth, but most of all ... most of all he watched this. That thing he had spit out, that element that belonged to the thing he had swallowed. That little black spot that was so cruelly familiar.

“No... !”

Dream had groaned, horror seized his being, his anger and grief becoming even more violent than before as he became aware of what he had swallowed.

“NO!”

Shattered's smile came back, widened, almost ran across his entire face as if to demonstrate the immense joy, the pride that ran through it:

“Yes Dream, yes. Let yourself go, get carried away, and become like me. Join me!”

The guard struck his skull against the ground, screaming, his tears redoubling in violence.

Shattered had dared...

[He had swallowed a black apple]

Dream felt himself burning inside, consumed by a powerful evil, an acidic anguish that only wanted to corrupt him, to make him fall into darkness. He hit himself again, saw white dots dancing in front of his eyes, tightened his grip on his broken arm. The external pain seemed to be the only way to hold on to reality, not to twist, not to lose what little lucidity he had left.

He nodded, raised his skull again, but before he could inflict another wound he was seized by Shattered, by his tentacles which lifted him up, preventing him from touching the ground. His tentacles grabbed every part of his body, immobilizing him, preventing him from harming himself. Forcing him to look at the expression of madness that deformed the face of his double.

“Stop fighting Dream, it'll be much less painful!”

Dream didn't care.

What did he care about suffering? He could suffer a thousand torments if it prevented him from hurting others, from hurting his friends, those who loved him. He had already made Cross suffer, he wasn't going to make the same mistake again!

Shattered shattered by his resolute air before a pure rage took hold of him.

“You poor bastard, I warned you!”

The guard became livid, livid in front of the black apple that his counterpart had just pulled out. Did he have any others? What's that? How many others? His questions escaped him, evaporated as he stubbornly closed his mouth and tried to remain in control of himself.

But he was unable to do so, he cried out in horror when he felt his patella break, his tibia fracture, and his complaint was stifled by the second apple that came sinking into his mouth cavity, which he tried to regurgitate without being able to. He felt this filth hitting the bottom of his throat, flowing inside him, obstructing his soul with spikes, icy blades. He made himself violent to vomit, to reject this intrusion, until he was interrupted by a third apple, a third horror which passed as with difficulty as the first two, which petrified his soul of terror, his soul which beat much too hard, much too quickly, which shouted and begged while himself remained mute, with empty eyes, as if ready to fall into dust in the instant.

And he fell. But not in the way he'd hoped.

He discerned a distant crash, a bright light, a gust of wind.

Shattered widened his eyes, taking the tentacle that hit him in the chest and sent him crashing against the opposite wall, making him groan with surprise and pain as he released Dream in spite of himself.

The Dream Keeper felt himself fall but never touched the ground. He collapsed in powerful arms, arms that came to hold him firmly, arms far too familiar for his poor battered body. Slowly he looked up, unable to say a word, and in spite of his suffering body, in spite of his tortured soul, he knew he was dreaming, that it was all an illusion, an invention of his imagination.

For it was simply impossible for Nightmare to stand beside him, holding him like a princess as if he were the most precious thing in the world. It was impossible for his brother, his twin, to look at him with such eyes, with that gleam of panic, that expression full of anger and worry.

[It was impossible for anyone to come to his rescue.]

But it warmed him up. What a sweet and cruel irony, to think of his brother at that moment, to believe that he could still come back to him and support him ... Dream would have laughed if his body had allowed it, smiled if it hadn't been painful. But he thought that for his last breath, seeing his brother wasn't so bad. That for his last vision of this world, seeing his brother loving him was the greatest gift.

And he lied again. That's all he knew how to do.

[All is well]

He doesn't live anymore. Nothing but darkness.

Nothing but the darkness of unconsciousness.

===

Next Chapter

You can support me on my Utip or on my Ko-fi account !

===

Credits =

Dreamtale -> Joku

Shattered Dream -> ErroredArtist's

Cross -> Jakei

Error -> Lover The Piggies

Ink -> Comyet / Myebi

Dust -> Ask DustTale

Killer -> Rahafwabas

Color -> Superyoumma

Sugar Plum -> undertale Community (formerly NSFWShamecave ?)

#undertale #bad sanses #dream #dreamtale #nightmare #shattered dream #fanfiction #comfort a little dream

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crinkle-eyed-boo · 4 years

Text

Digging Deeper Meme

Tagged by the lovely @homosociallyyours @a-brighter-yellow and @disgruntledkittenface ...thank you my bbs. Let’s do this!

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? Usually black, and it has to be like an INK pen that flows easily. No Bic pens or any of that shit.

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? I’m a city girl.

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? I’d become fluent in other languages. I took Latin in high school and was VERY good at it, but I was shit at Spanish when I took it in college. (I also think I had a bad teacher, but that’s neither here nor there)

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? At Starbucks, half and half with sweet and low (I KNOW IT’S BAD FOR ME, I WAS BROUGHT UP ON IT.) At home, I usually have a flavored creamer and a splenda. (THE DICHOTOMY OF ME.)

5. What was your favourite book as a child? Babysitters Club books, The Little House on the Prairie Books (On the Banks of Plum Creek was my fave)

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? Showers. I DREAM of having a big ass tub some day though.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? A Fairy

8. Paper or electronic books? I used to be die hard paper only, but it’s HARD in a tiny apartment, so now I am more of an e-book person.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? Any one of my nice dresses.

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? I spent way too much time practicing my autograph instead of paying attention in math class to EVER change my name.

11. Who is a mentor to you? I always think of my first boss in NY as one. He took a chance on a kid who showed a compulsive obsession with box office results and gave me a job and took the time to teach me.

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? Being a famous writer offers enough anonymity to still keep your life but have money!

13. Are you a restless sleeper? I can be, yes.

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? A romantic with a heavy dose of cynicism because my romantic LIFE has been nothing but trash.

15. Which element best represents you? Fire, I think. When I care about things, it’s often all consuming.

16. Who do you want to be closer to? I wish I were closer to my sisters, but a lot of times, it’s like the three of us speak completely different languages.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? I miss my friends and I miss my city.

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. It’s not early childhood, per se, but it was the 80s and much more innocent time, because my parents would leave me and my sisters in kiddie movie and THEY would go see a movie for grown-ups. I remember sneaking into their theatre after ours was done, to tell them our movie was done. The movie was Dirty Dancing, and I stood in the back for the entire final dance, captivated. I was 8.

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? Nothing is REALLY coming to mind.

20. What are you most thankful for? Right now? My health and my dog.

21. Do you like spicy food? Moderately spicy, yes!

22. Have you ever met someone famous? When you live in New York and work for a long time in the entertainment industry, it’s inevitable. Add in fandom things, and I’ve met many many. I still think Joel McHale may be my favorite, if only for the fact that he stood and talked to us for almost 20 minutes after doing a stand-up show.

23. Do you keep a diary or journal? I’ve never had the discipline.

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil? Always a pen!

25. What is your star sign? Sagittarius, Taurus rising. I am, in a word, a mess.

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? A little bit of crunch. Though I am not really a cereal person.

27. What would you want your legacy to be? That I loved people (and things) fiercely and well. That I was loyal. And that I wrote some good words on occasion.

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? I DO. I have ALWAYS been a reader. As far as BOOK books, I don’t remember because I read so. much. fic. The last one being @twopoppies LOVELY artist fic, which was so awesome to read after writing Artist!Harry myself. And it just showed me why people shouldn’t worry if someone else is writing the same trope as you, because TRULY they all come out different and equally wonderful because different people glean different things from the same trope.

29. How do you show someone you love them? There are few things that thrill me more than finding the perfect present for someone.

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? Yes

31. What are you afraid of? Snakes. Tornados. Fire.

32. What is your favourite scent? Coconut

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? Usually when I first meet them it’s surname

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? Like Sage said, I would see every single Broadway show. I would get a nice apartment with my dream kitchen. I’d follow my fave artists on tour. And then, eventually, I would fuck off and go live in New Zealand.

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? pools. I hate sand.

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? TREAT YO SELF. I’d probably take myself to a nice meal.

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Yes.

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? I don’t plan on having kids of my own, so it is my duty as an aunt to make sure they are properly exposed to pop culture.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? I’ve been dying to get part of the pattern of the old carpet at the LAX Marriott, where Gallifrey One is held, tattooed on my inner ankle for 18 months now. Fucking pandemic.

40. What can you hear now? Supermarket Sweep on Netflix

41. Where do you feel the safest? In a puppy pile with my friends

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? My BODY ISSUES and disordered eating.

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be? The 50s - summer of 1963

44. What is your most used emoji? Currently, it’s the head exploding emoji

45. Describe yourself using one word. Passionate.

46. What do you regret the most? Not loving past me more.

47. Last movie you saw? Eurovision. A JOY.

48. Last tv show you watched? Supermarket Sweep.

49. Invent a word and its meaning. TOO TIRED FOR THAT.

Tagging @beau-soleil-louis @queenofquiet17 @sweetstrawberryheadache if you want a thing to do!!

#me!#this took ages!#worth it!

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capfalcon · 4 years

Note

top 5 f i c s

all my top 5 fics r for inception but like um in terms of marvel (i havent read marvel fic in a while ok this is hazy)

also i kind of hate you for this ask because i just re read literally every single fic i recced and now im fucking sobbing like a maniac

most of these r gonna be stevetony just an fyi and they are not in order bc honestly every fic is different and has it's own qualities and joys so they are not comparable or ranked i love them all. i would also like to mention that i am the type of person who has loved writing since i was maybe 4, and has been a writer since i was maybe 5, so like. when i recc these, i mean that these fics made me a different person. they made me a better writer. they made me a better human being. because every time you relate to a character over something you have 0 experience with, you are a different person. you have a new perspective. so i am reccing these from the perspective of both a writer and a human being and a person who loves words.

1. maya's (@quidhitch ) entire christmas AU makes me cry and laugh and cry and cry and smile and cry so much i love it (all her other fics are also life changing)

“I love this song,” Steve sighs.

Tony snorts. “Everyone in the world loves this song.”

“Doesn’t make it any less worth loving.”

2. hold your fire by jenthesweetie. this fic. god. this fic. raw. so fucking raw. i am a big big fan of the whole ravaged world idea, and this fic does it justice so beautifully. i even wrote my own fic sorta entirely based on this one. it's. so fucking good. plus im a really really big fan of...not ambiguous endings, but endings that aren't concrete. it's a fucked up world, and sometimes things dont have to be definitively good. it's a beautiful, beautiful fic.

"Yeah," Steve says, and then Tony's quiet for a long time, and absolutely nothing is ever right anymore but given the circumstances it's not exactly wrong, either.

3. okay. so this one is very difficult and honestly I'm gonna cheat and not even do it properly. there are a few select fics that @elcorhamletlive (nanasekei on Ao3) has written that literally maybe have changed my being. probably. quite possibly. almost undoubtedly.

the first is responsibility. this fic haunts me. genuinely. i fall asleep thinking about it, sometimes. it fucking hurts, but like in the way that makes you want it to hurt. (although this is the only fic i will ever recc with a sad ending. the only one. it is the only one i have ever found worth the pain.)

You think of Vormir, of how he kissed you too many times to say goodbye and not enough times to distract you from his shaking hands. He said I wish and you know now what he was thinking of.

the second is Hating Steve Rogers. no joke, for a period of like 5 months, i re read this fic at least ocne a week. i won't say more. the fic speaks for itself.

The thing about loving people is that no one’s exactly good at it. And Tony loves too much and too loudly, and Steve loves too much and too quietly, and they learn to find each other in the middle, to create their own frequency. It’s like palladium and shrapnel, and ice, and Steve’s touch in Tony’s hair in the morning, Steve’s voice at his ear at night, Steve’s hand carefully and slowly reaching for his during a team dinner.

Tony thinks: I’d start a war to get you to look at me like this.

(Maybe, Tony thinks, you just can’t be that stubborn and kind and brave and exist in the world without also being sad. Maybe being sad is just the price Steve pays for being real.)

Tony counts the endless shades of blue in his eyes, thinks of his hand still so close, wonders how it’s possible to feel drunker on someone’s presence than after five shots of whiskey.

the third is Five Seconds. it's a massive fuck you to the mcu and i love it immensly.

There are the moments where Steve thinks love, in itself, is not a good word to express what they have. Steve thinks love is too small a word – too simple, too easy –, and what he feels for Tony is something humanity hasn’t yet named. He wonders if in some reality someone has found the word, a word for the way he watches Tony yawn and stretch his arms above his head in the morning, a word for the feeling of dying and being born exactly at the same time.

the fourth. if I time it right, the thunder breaks (when I open my mouth). this fic is gorgeous. intricate. delicate. beautiful. just beautiful. it's sort of an ode to love and wanting someone, in its own beautiful way.

(If he’s going to be honest – and he’s always honest –, the minute the words actually leave his lips, he doesn’t regret them in the slightest, just like he didn’t before, in the hospital room and watching Tony sleep. At the end of the day, Steve thinks, you can’t regret the truth. It is just what it is.)

all the rest of her fics are beautiful and lovely and funny and so good, but these ones i would gladly get tattooed across my body, if i had to choose.

4. When Our Day Comes by thepartyresponsible

this is a funny but slightly serious fic about steve dealing with everything, cuz like. that's kind of a lot, and it's fun and it wormed a way into my heart. i adore it.

“Ugh, what the fuck,” Tony says, running a hand down his face. “JARVIS,” he says, as he falls back onto his bed, “I despoiled America’s sweetheart. Call Rhodey. Call a tattoo artist. Call a priest.”

5. Put My Guns in the Ground (I Can't Shoot Them Anymore) by jukeboxhound

one of the most important things in a fic for me is characterization. i don't really give a shit about grammar or format or even plot, i just want true to form characterization. tony stark is by far the hardest character I've ever written in terms of fanfic. his syntax and phrases and word choice are insanely unique. so, by large, i do not believe most authors tend to capure that perfectly. however, every fic on this list definitely does. but one of the defining characteristics i remember of this series is that i was pretty impressed with this take on ptsd and depression and mental health in relation to both steve and tony in general.

i have reread a few paragraphs in this fic daily for a few months because it's a piece of writing that sees me, that grips my fucking heart and hurts, says in no uncertain terms, "I hear you. I see you."

So yeah, Steve is their captain and their icon and this means he has to make the decisions that other people can't, or won't, or pretend don't exist in this modern civilized world. Tony puts his gauntlets on Steve's hips as though it'll anchor him in the correct era, in the here and now with Tony himself and the consumer capitalist soulless nation that America's becoming, where the American Dream has become the Wall Street Dream. Tony holds himself solid in the face of Steve's hard, bruising kisses, imagines himself taking in what Steve needs to give him and tucking it close inside the harsh light of the arc reactor because he's too cynical to let Captain America bear the weight of all their sins himself.

I'm aware that's technically both 5 and technically not 5, and i want to reiterate, this is not my top 5. this is not ranked. these are the fics i remember right now, and yes, they're beautiful, but there are dozens of other fics i love. there are fics so gorgeous i wish i could make every person on earth read. nasafic's fics got me into stevetony in the first place. i love romcommed by fate, i love first impressions, i love so so so so many more fics than this. but here we are.

i'm gonna go cry some more now and maybe go take another 4 hour nap.

#ask #save #fic rec #fic recs #fics

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atsoukalidis · 4 years

Text

13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings

Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.

Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don’t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night — and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards.

Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.

Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken. Most important, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?

When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.

Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

“Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. As I’ve reflected elsewhere, the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.

Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit — it’s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them, and visit them often. Use them not only as a remedy once spiritual malaise has already infected your vitality but as a vaccine administered while you are healthy to protect your radiance.

Don’t be afraid to be an idealist. There is much to be said for our responsibility as creators and consumers of that constant dynamic interaction we call culture — which side of the fault line between catering and creating are we to stand on? The commercial enterprise is conditioning us to believe that the road to success is paved with catering to existing demands — give the people cat GIFs, the narrative goes, because cat GIFs are what the people want. But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society. Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we hope to increase the demand for the substantive over the superficial — in our individual lives and in the collective dream called culture.

Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively. Fight it in yourself, for this ungainly beast lays dormant in each of us, and counter it in those you love and engage with, by modeling its opposite. Cynicism often masquerades as nobler faculties and dispositions, but is categorically inferior. Unlike that great Rilkean life-expanding doubt, it is a contracting force. Unlike critical thinking, that pillar of reason and necessary counterpart to hope, it is inherently uncreative, unconstructive, and spiritually corrosive. Life, like the universe itself, tolerates no stasis — in the absence of growth, decay usurps the order. Like all forms of destruction, cynicism is infinitely easier and lazier than construction. There is nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than living with sincerity and acting from a place of largehearted, constructive, rational faith in the human spirit, continually bending toward growth and betterment. This remains the most potent antidote to cynicism. Today, especially, it is an act of courage and resistance.

A reflection originally offered on the cusp of Year 11, by way of a wonderful poem about pi: Question your maps and models of the universe, both inner and outer, and continually test them against the raw input of reality. Our maps are still maps, approximating the landscape of truth from the territories of the knowable — incomplete representational models that always leave more to map, more to fathom, because the selfsame forces that made the universe also made the figuring instrument with which we try to comprehend it.

There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again. The richest relationships are lifeboats, but they are also submarines that descend to the darkest and most disquieting places, to the unfathomed trenches of the soul where our deepest shames and foibles and vulnerabilities live, where we are less than we would like to be. Forgiveness is the alchemy by which the shame transforms into the honor and privilege of being invited into another’s darkness and having them witness your own with the undimmed light of love, of sympathy, of nonjudgmental understanding. Forgiveness is the engine of buoyancy that keeps the submarine rising again and again toward the light, so that it may become a lifeboat once more.

Maria Popova

#philosophy #life #brainpickings #maria popova

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sweet-evie · 4 years

Text

Somebody Out There

youtube

Original Publication Date: November 20, 2019

Original Link: Somebody Out There FFN

She never smiles, never welcomes anybody. Never so much as interacts. And Lelouch wants to know why. [Lelouch/CC AU one-shot]

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She was a fascinating character, and he could never truly explain why she thoroughly had his attention. He couldn't even remember when her very existence began piquing his curiosity either.

For as long as he'd been enrolled in Ashford Academy, the strange girl was already here. In a different class, but the same level, nonetheless. Still he was strangely enamored by her, and that was that. Not that his existence — and everything else around them — really mattered to her.

She never smiled, never showed any extreme form of emotion other than the occasional grimace he saw and the general expression of disinterest on her pallid face. She always conversed with people with soulless eyes.

And in all truth, he didn't know if she was truly hiding every trace of emotion and putting up a stoic front, or was she really just dead inside. He didn't like that thought, but those two were the strongest possibilities as opposed to the many others floating around in his head.

Months after this errant fascination for her began, he firmly decided that he wouldn't put up with this brand of curiosity eating him up day by day any farther. He resolved to get-to-know her in the end. The end goal wasn't to become friends, because he didn't know if she wanted that, but perhaps a familiar acquaintance wasn't too much to ask for.

Looking back at it now, even he could say his first approach was a tad bit too forward. But no other form of introduction would work well with this girl, really. She always sat alone at lunch. She didn't occupy the same space everyday, and she wasn't picky either. The common denominator, however, was that she was always alone—eating in silence, and leaving after the last bit of lunch was consumed.

So despite the protest from his loud group of friends, he simply walked past them that day at lunch and made a beeline for the solitary girl's table.

"Hi." He simply greeted, not bothering to expect a cordial invitation or ask for her permission. The girl's entire demeanor practically screamed that she didn't care. So he sat down across from her and began picking at his meager lunch.

To his surprise, she responded far better than he expected she would.

"If that's all you eat for lunch, it's no wonder why you're all skin and bones."

Okay, perhaps he deserved that for being too upfront. How else was he expecting to be greeted? With a lovely hi? A mild insult was the best outcome he should have thought of, because honestly, he had been so prepared for so much worst.

"How have you been holding up, C.C.?" He flashed her a charming smile, the one that usually turns Shirley into complete putty, Kallen into an absolute tomato, and every girl into a screaming adoring horde.

"I don't recall you ever acknowledging my existence before this. What do you want?" She spoke quietly, but he could easily discern the scorn in her voice.

He simply shrugged. "There's a first for everything, and there's certainly nothing wrong with making new acquaintances."

The response was a frown—one that occasionally crossed her face when she was annoyed. And he only knew this because he had been watching her out of curiosity beforehand. "I don't want to be your acquaintance. To even be called one is pushing it."

He watched her walk away—as graceful as a strutting feline. He was expecting her to storm out of the lunch room like an angry whirlwind, but he supposed he had to give her credit for maintaining decent composure.

And if he had been interested in her before, the fascination only grew after that first encounter. Everyday, he went out of his way to greet her whenever he saw her, or sit with her at lunch even if she did walk away out of spite after two lines of conversation. A week of weathering her sharp tongue and suddenly waspish attitude turned into a month. And then two, then three, then four, until he hadn't fully realized that he had been trying to get her to tolerate him—at least—for half a year.

The fact didn't cross his mind all that glaringly until one of his friends pointed it out.

"Why do you put up with it?" Suzaku asked out of the blue one day when both he and his best friend spotted the figure of a lonely girl cutting through the grassy fields.

He rewarded his friend's question with a passive shrug and kept walking along their route.

"It's been six months, Lelouch. She clearly doesn't want anything to do with anyone."

Let alone you, was the unsaid statement.

"Then that's all the more a reason for me to keep going."

And even then, he knew that he had invested far too much time and effort to let it go to waste. He didn't exactly put up with C.C. for nothing, but in that span of time, he did see Suzaku's point. There wasn't anything in it for him—nothing except his genuinely insatiable curiosity for enigmatic things. He liked a puzzle, and this girl was definitely a complicated one.

But to what end? When he accomplished his goal, what then?

At that moment, he resolved to figure it all out when the time came. He didn't mind confusion once in a while. It was actually a refreshing change for such a mundane day to day life.

He didn't have long to wait for the answers when a class field trip to a petting zoo came. He had had thought that it was going to be just another boring trip filled with his fellow students gawking over the diverse zoology, but he was wrong. Throughout the duration of trip, he had discreetly hung back and watched her—like always.

Her hesitance to be around people was made all the clearer as she made a conscious effort to distance herself from the crowd. But while the rest of the enamored crowd was moving on from the pen of hopping rabbits, the center of his attention stayed behind.

And from the safety of the crowd, he had watched as CC picked up a few choice carrots and other greenery from the feeding bin and crouched down to be at the furry animals' level. Holding out a hand filled with appetizing food, the rabbits eagerly munched at the vegetables while she stroked one of them affectionately, a genuinely happy smile on her face.

It was a refreshing change to see. Because in that single moment, the girl clothed in isolation within the walls of the academy was gone. All that was there was a pure expression of joy on a carefree girl's face as she interacted with the animals.

In that single moment in time, Lelouch knew he'd found his motivation — his driving force for doing what he did. Because it was that profound desire — that strong compulsion — to see her smile like that again. Because for all his cynicism, even he couldn't deny how beautiful and radiant she had looked with her smile and her shimmering bullion eyes.

It was just a shame that it had morphed into her customary blank expression after one of the caretakers at the zoo approached her serene moment and told her about the rest of the school group moving on. Lelouch could easily see she wasn't pleased, but at the very least, she was polite to the employee. Begrudgingly, he watched her move on from the fluffy rabbits only to trudge behind the bubbly group of teenagers once more.

Because as the days wore on, and the more he observed her and interacted with her frequently, he could easily see how lonely she was. How withdrawn from the rest of the group. She was estranged, and no one bothered to speak to her because they were either intimidated by her demeanor, or they just straight up found her unsavory.

His friends were indifferent to her. Shirley tried to be friendly — invited her to parties and came up to her all cheery, but all she got were subtle nods, short answers, and polite refusals. Milly roped her into antics once in a while only to fail. Neither Rivalz nor Suzaku could get her to hold a lengthy conversation with either of them. And Kallen and Nina didn't feel comfortable enough around her because of the way she was.

"You never smile." He'd commented offhandedly on one of the rare chances where she didn't leave after he sat down beside her. "Why?"

A cold and dead stare for burnt gold-colored eyes. "Why does it matter to you if I do or don't?"

"If you did, perhaps more people won't find you so frightening."

She frowned, cutting a quick glance his way before she returned to scribbling down notes. "I never asked for your opinion. Or your company."

Smirking, he cocked an eyebrow. "Then why not leave? Why are you here tolerating me?"

She didn't have an answer then. He asked her the same question (or a variation of it) once in a while, whenever he had sat beside her. For weeks, maybe months, the dynamic didn't change.

"You don't have a problem being 'nice' to everyone but me."

"Other people aren't being pushy." She grumbled under her breath.

"Gino's pushy. Not me."

He spied the slight grimace on her face after he mentioned Gino's name. He liked the blond enough, but his bubbly disposition could be too much for some people sometimes. Milly and Shirley got along with him too well though. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for him or Kallen.

"Do you hate me?"

It took a moment, before she responded with "Yes…"

The slight hesitation was all he needed, to know that she was lying.

Once, he saw her struggling with math. And though her frustration never showed, he could simply tell by the way she jotted down numbers and solved one similar problem after another — returning to the original page, and still coming up blank. He'd helped then, without being asked; and left immediately after he watched her give the right answer.

A secret smile of his own bloomed across his lips as he turned away and heard the faintest expression of her gratitude. Not a manner-less girl, after all.

More unsolicited tutorials happened, until they'd both come to an impasse. It wasn't bad, and it wasn't good. But it was comfortable and neutral. He didn't mind, and he could see that she slowly wasn't beginning to anymore either. At the very least, him helping her quietly with her studies was the beginning of a silent truce.

It didn't become a routine. But whenever he found her alone in the more secluded areas of the library, he didn't hesitate to check up on her just to see how she was faring. Sometimes she studied, other times, she was just reading a book. He'd caught her doing the latter so much that he deduced it was something they both had in common.

"I never pegged you to be a YA romance type of person. Maybe thriller, but—"

He stopped talking when he caught the scathing glare she sent his way. Lelouch simply flashed a patient smile, more amused than irritated. She didn't really talk to him condescendingly anymore, and he considered that a small victory for this nigh impossible feat.

Defensively, she closed her paperback novel. He'd definitely done enough today, and he simply settled for burying his nose back into his own book, thinking she'd leave after he invaded her personal space again. But she didn't.

"Well, you seem to delight in fictional history a lot."

She stared into space and he smiled. "I'm writing a book, actually."

He caught her glance, and expected something frank along the lines of, 'What do I care?'

Instead, she tilted her head at him in a silent nod, and that was it…

Her birthday came around. He tried to surprise her, but he was still met with that same quiet resistance.

The birthday plans didn't fail, per se. It just didn't have an impact. When he'd brought her a birthday cake (that he'd slaved over) made from his own hand, she stared at him for a good long while before thanking him and setting the lovely marble vanilla-frosted cake back in the box. He gave her a gift too — a scarf, which she slightly smiled at.

It wasn't the smile he glimpsed at the petting zoo with the animals, but it was a start. He knew he should have felt more disappointment. To others, it could be said that his gift wasn't well-received. But he truly didn't mind. CC was closed off and would never deign to show emotions. It was a fact he accepted from the moment he began with…whatever this was.

Over the next few days and when the weather got colder, he spied her donning his birthday gift. The spark of pride and fulfillment that flooded him was a surprise — a pleasant one nevertheless.

Tutoring sessions, reading together, and holidays and school events passed… She got better, and she was just emotionally quiet now. The dark cloud hanging over her eyes and her icy demeanor lessened a bit, but not truly dissipated.

He invited her to his own birthday party.

She only nodded yes, and he knew it was her way of repaying the cake he got her and the gift he bought for her birthday. He understood just how uncomfortable she was with his friends, but just this once, he wanted to see how she would fare in a social gathering with a considerable number of people; mostly comprised of his family and close friends.

She arrived, not a minute late, quietly sang 'Happy Birthday' with the rest. And when the guests were busy heaping piles of food on their plates, she personally came up to him and offered him a gift.

Later, when everyone had gone home, he opened her beautifully wrapped present to find a leather-bound book.

No, not a book— But a journal. A thick, yet beautifully embellished journal — not his first though. It was a personalized gift; with his initials embossed on the smooth cover. As he skimmed through the blank pages, he came across the note she'd written in the very middle. It was short and curt, but for some strange reason, it caused the strangest warmth to settle over his heart. Relieved and happy, to the point of confusion, when his eyes grazed over each word — over each letter done in her handwriting.

I know you love books… You should definitely write your own.

Maybe this will help.

Happy birthday.

Best wishes,

He didn't get many chances to see her over the summer, and mostly because he was away. To his knowledge, she probably was too. But in the few times when he was free, he'd tried to set up days where they could hang out. He didn't know what did it, perhaps it was the fact that they were away from school and from prying eyes. She was more… open. He was more than used to having short conversations with her — ones where he'd have to fill the gaps with follow-up questions.

It was different during those Summer days. He mostly started conversations — as always, but she chimed in of her own volition with minimal coaxing from him. Observing simple things, he took note of her preferred ice cream flavor, found out she loved furry dogs, realized that she loved visiting thrift shops and antique stores (just because of the atmosphere), deduced that her favorite flowers were white tea roses. It was just the beginning.

He got the chance to walk her home one time though. She lived in a quiet street, in a duplex apartment.

Summer came and went. And before he and the other students knew it, school started up again. It was their graduation year; his, his friends, CC's.

He hoped he didn't sound delusional when he said he and CC were closer than they were the previous year. She joined him and his friends sometimes, but stayed quiet and kept to her corner. Part of the group for the moment, but not really.

Although he didn't know why, he respected it. They may have crossed the bridge and settled on subtle friendship, but he didn't know her personal stories — never pushed for them, because that was where his personal boundaries lay. Any person's past was their business.

But CC never spoke to him waspishly anymore. And it was all he could ask for… At the very least, when they parted ways after graduation, he would get the personal satisfaction of knowing he'd helped a closed-off student with their social life. He still didn't get that smile though.

Ah well… He supposed her friendship was now good enough. Her smile (what he could remember), was radiant and beautiful. And if it was that rare, then it was special. Part of him wanted to tell her that she should give her future special someone that smile one day.

But he didn't. It wasn't his business…

Spring break rolled around. With it, her approaching birthday all over again.

The second time around, he wanted to make it special. It was her 18th, after all. And though he knew CC never cared much for frivolous things, he still meticulously planned and prepared for the day anyway. As such, it didn't all go according to plan. He had an irrevocable appointment on the day of her birthday, so he was forced to call up the special place and move the reservations several days early.

He'd asked her to dress nice. She didn't argue.

Little did he know then that it would be the day that would change everything — warp their dynamic, and set them both on a path of no-return. The days that led up to it were full of ups and downs, and only Fate had deemed that they wouldn't walk away from that birthday celebration as friends. Not for much longer…

She was a vision — a stunning wraith walking beside him with unnatural grace in the gloom. She'd asked where they were headed only once, considering how they were both dressed. He only told her it was an early surprise in honor of her 18th birthday. She insisted that he shouldn't bother, but Lelouch was even more eager.

He took her to a private glen decked out in warm fairy lights, strung and intertwined on arches that loomed over them as they stood at the entrance. Dressed in a modestly cut (an inch above the knee) cream dress, she was the picture of elegance and chic as he finally untied her blindfold and let her see.

For the first time in a long while, Lelouch felt fear and slight worry — wondering what she made of his little presentation. For once, he refused to be appreciative if all he got out of this was a blank stare and a solid thank you.

But just when he was on the brink of asking her outright, she turned to him with glittering silver lining the edges of her eyes. The majority of her expression still betrayed nothing, but that facade was crumbling fast as one unwarranted tear and then another slid down her pretty face.

"It's beautiful." She said in her wobbly voice, fists clenched tight and pressed against her chest, eyeing the wreathes and the decor — all of it meticulously laid down and prepared by none other than the boy who pestered her for company since last year.

"It's so beautiful."

Reverently, she traced her fingers over delicate netting, over the flowers and the lovely lattice work of trellises. This was just the entrance to the official venue, wasn't it? But it was still so heartbreaking and gorgeous. Like an entrance to the resolution of a story. In some ways, perhaps it was.

Turning to him, she bowed deeply in gratitude. "No one's ever—" A slight break where she swallowed and cleared her throat. "I've never received surprises before. So, thank you."

It was followed by the smile he remembered he liked so much — the smile he always wanted to see. And though he was quite surprised by what she just said, all he could do was return that smile and take her hand, leading her the rest of the way.

"I would have invited your family, but I didn't want to impose. I'm sure you'd celebrate with them on your actual birth date. Still, happy birthday, CC."

They had dinner in the middle of a pretty garden, bordered with medium-height hedges strung with the same fairy lights. There was a pavilion six feet away from the considerable dining table and its array of covered dishes. A four-tiered cake surrounded by white roses was perched atop a small round table not far.

And all throughout their shared meal, she laughed and smiled. She sighed in bliss and utter contentment as he twirled and led her into a slow dance for fun after dinner. The number 18 was supposed to be a solid tradition, but he made do and gave her a verbal message worth 18 people, presented her with a large bouquet of 18 white tea roses — her favorite. And in the middle of their dance, 18 candles twinkled in their pavilion for two.

There was a gold couch in the pavilion, furnished with throw pillows and a folded blanket. Later, as they wound down from the excitement, she told him a story — her story — as they sat side by side on that couch.

It was the story of a girl who had spent the early years of her life in an orphanage, before being adopted, sent back to government care because of an incident, adopted into a different family again, and then sent back. Just like a hand-me-down sweater, and after she suffered through unspeakable acts of domestic violence in her first family too.

There, she found little sense for using her name. Because if she wasn't going to be remembered or loved, and mostly forgotten anyway, then what was the use? She had friends before, but none stayed because every time, she was sent to different government welfare houses across the country. That meant different schools.

It wasn't until recently that she received her official emancipation, and now she lived alone, balancing work and school (this, he figured out before). She'd looked him in the eye and told him that, no, there was no family to celebrate with on her 18th birthday in two days. Not when she didn't have one from the beginning. If anything, her birthday was going to be spent in a therapist's office, to talk about the trauma. She was still trying to get better, and with sincerity in her eyes, she confessed that his friendship had helped her open up socially a great deal.

So she lived alone, and worked a job to support herself while going to school…

And now he understood why…

Why, after all this time, she wasn't very comfortable with people. Why she refused to be open or bear her feelings. Because her whole life up to this point had been nothing but loneliness and fear. It was all just survival. That was why she studied so hard, why she strove for competent grades. She didn't say it, but it was obvious that all she wanted was a good life for herself after this.

To finally hear her story and see the tears that glimmered at the edges of her eyes whenever she glossed over the hard parts, he'd given in to his own wanting. Had decided that it wasn't just the pretty face and the smile he wanted. He realized easily enough that all this time, he was drawn to her strength and her commitment to see life through as they spent the better part of the year slowly opening up to one another and feeling comfortable.

He was the first long-time friend, she'd ever had.

And in the beginning, she didn't want to form that connection because she'd been unsure and scared; thoroughly convinced that it was useless because friendships and other forms of intimate feelings would just fade over time. Even close friends and so-called family couldn't be trusted. Why bother?

But it was different tonight… He knew it.

And she did too.

Beneath the twinkling stars and with hundreds of candles and fairy lights glimmering around them, he reached for her face to brush away those tears.

It was heavy talk, but it was relieving. Nevertheless, he asked if she wanted to dance again and she said yes…

So he led her into a final dance before they would inevitably part for the night.

But this time, he pulled her closer than before, silently pleased that she comfortably rested her cheek against his shoulder. He slowly brought their joined hands to his chest, where his thumb rubbed the back of her hand as they swayed to the soft melody and the quiet love song playing in the background.

This was a fairytale… One she'd never thought could happen to her.

But it was all real. He told her so before gently holding her face and leaning in slowly — so he wouldn't scare her or startle her. She felt no such feelings as that lovely mouth descended on hers. A soft and tender kiss, cautious at first before settling into firm strokes. His hands on her body, her fingers buried in his hair as she returned that kiss. A gift he'd wanted to give her.

Because even if he didn't want to acknowledge it, he knew it happened long ago. Knew that he had been slowly falling in love with her all this time.

When they both stopped for air, and his forehead laid against hers, she gave him her brilliant smile again, mouthing her gratitude.

She said 'thank you,' for the time he spared, for enduring, for reaching out to her, for offering her his friendship. Thank you for never giving up. Thank you for seeing a stranger that didn't know they needed the help. But he offered anyway, out of the quiet kindness of his heart.

Thank you for making her believe that love was real…

That friends could love. And there were people in the world who cared genuinely.

She still had so much inner turmoil to work through, but 'thank you' nonetheless, because this was a better start to a complete healing journey that would happen. Better than she deserved.

She leaned into his touch as he quietly peppered her face with the gentlest of butterfly kisses. All the while, murmuring three special words he only ever wanted her to know and hear.

"I love you…"

Three special words she deserved, and he would give to her for as long as she would have him.

"I love you."

Three special words that let him endure a year of fighting with her demons, just to see the ethereal glow of the lovely angel hiding underneath.

"I love you."

#lelouch x c.c.#fan fic #fan fiction #code geass #c.c x lelouch #lelouch #c.c. (code geass)#cluclu #lulucc #wbad fanfiction #post-requiem #code geass r2

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justselfloathingthings-blog · 5 years

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What do you think of dark mahou shoujos that came after PMMM?

Okay this is going to be long potentially so bear with me. It will have a twist ending (okay probably not). One thing I’m going to say is that I’m not going to comment that much on if they are ‘Madoka ripoffs”. Some are very Madoka-esque in tone, others have plot elements that clearly are inspired/borrowed from Madoka. However, the latter do tend to their story in a pretty different direction, and I honestly haven’t seen enough of the former to form that definite opinion no the matter. So I’ll be trying to judge these shows on their own merits.

It’s also worth noting that aside from Yuki Yuna, which I want to discuss at the very end, I won’t be necessarily judging the quality of the shows that much. I have seen two episodes of Daybreak Illusion, 1 episode of Magical Girl Site, and 2 episodes of Magical Girl Raising Project, as well as a small amount of the first light novel volume. My focus here is more going to be on their status as magical girl anime based on what I have heard and the information I can look up, and their pros and cons as such, hopefully that’ll answer your question.

I have very mixed feelings. One thing I will say about them is that I’m not sure some of the characterizations they get is necessarily fair (especially in one case but it’s a bit special so I’ll touch on it at the end). People tend to frame “dark magical girl anime” as grimdark torture porn and I’m not sure that that’s fair. Overall, most of these shows do have a degree of the magical girl concept at their core, and you can kind of tell that by how the shows end.

Daybreak Illusion ends with all the girls surviving, uniting to fend off the power of darkness and defeat it, and the protagonist even being able to reconcile with her long dead sister on her own terms

.Magical Girl Raising Project ends with the main character having been able to live by her ideals and basically being the only one to not kill a single character (more on this later), and taking down the horrible system that was forcing them to kill each other in the first place. The other surviving character, formerly a jaded cynic, having their heart warmed and spends time after the end of the series training to help people.

In Magical Girl Site, again, all the magical girls live. The protagonists take on the evil in the hearts of others and arguing that past misfortunes can actually make people stronger and through doing so temporarily thwart the antagonist. The two protagonists, who didn’t get along at all at first, had developed a strong bond and while unlike Daybreak Illusion and MGRP Magical Girl Site doesn’t really have a concrete ending, it does end with the two vowing to protect each other.

And so on. Like, it’s hard to say that at the end of the day these shows aren’t managing to capture something of the spirit of a magical girl show, and just want to make girls suffer to be edgy. It feels like a slight rush to judgment and I don’t want to do that.

On the other hand, it’s hard to argue that Daybreak Illusion and Magical Girl Site especially don’t take a lot of joy in having their characters suffer. Akari losing her sister in the first episode is important to the plot, but in no sense did it have to happen the way it did, with how it was shot and scored. Not to mention the icky rapey subplot that happens just because. Magical Girl Site has the same tihng, with its own rapey fun for no particularly good reason, and just general edginess. The shows tend to use it as something of a crutch; they can’t seem to play by the rules of a traditional magical girl show, or even a show like Nanoha or even Madoka. They feel the need to push further and harder and at the end of the day it just comes across as characters suffering for the sake of suffering.

And at the end of the day, that shouldn’t really be what is in a magical girl show. Suffering and sadness are valid, but they need to accomplish something. They need to be part of the narrative and strengthen the characters. And while they do that sometimes, all too often it feels more like the writers want to break the characters down, you especially seem to see this in Magical Girl Site, where basically nothing can go right throughout most of the show, so much emphasis is based upon the and the victory they do get at the end is, while valid, completely temporary. The show is one that refuses to let the protagonists really win at any actual point at the end of the day, and that is really frustrating for an entry in a genre that is all about empowerment.

Daybreak Illusion isn’t necessarily as bad, but it’s still pretty bad. The suffering and sadness tend to have a point, but they still stack on each other to a degree that feels completely gratuitous in its own way. There is such a thing as a balance, and Daybreak Illusion doesn’t know how to reach it. Not to mention the incredibly rapey subplot that just exists because it can, which is ugh and most certainly doesn’t not belong in a magical girl show (this goes for you too Magical GIrl Site, only you’re even worse.)

Magical Girl Raising Project is kind of a whole different thing. It’s trying to be a weird Magical Girl Battle Royale hybrid that isn’t really for everyone to begin with, and certainly does wear its grittiness on its sleeve. On the other hand, it certainly does become too gritty, with the elements of several characters backstories just heavy on edge, our co-protagonist having the same. It doesn’t help that the story revolves around magical girl after magical girl dying until only two characters are left, with one victim being pregnant and two others being a lesbian couple killed completely gratuitously. The story is just intensely dark and I can totally get that sense of darkness just feeling completely overwhelming and not feeling like it belongs in the genre at all, with the sort of all-consuming edginess displayed by plenty of the characters just making the whole show completely lose most of its magical girl feeling, the protagonist managing to maintain it hardly being a cool comfort. (It’s especially a cool comfort when you know that she completely abandons her ideals and becomes EDGY too in the follow-up works.)

I will freely admit that MGRP actually sounds interesting to me, and I have a copy of the first light novel and intend to read it sometime when my backlog isn’t as bad. However while it sounds like a really interesting thriller, I do think that it fails pretty badly at being a magical girl work, completely butchering the tone, putting way too much emphasis on girls suffering, and far too reliant on edge at plenty of points.

So overall I would say the most heavily dark examples in the end just don’t work as Magical GIrl anime in the end, tonally and content-wise they simply betray the genre, even if they loosely fit into it, often seem like they would not be fun to watch at all (I really typically don’t think it’d be a good time to watch Magical Girls suffering for the sake of it), and even the ones that I think could be interesting I think work better if you don’t treat them as strictly Magical Girl anime at all, because in that regard they become way too problematic, due to similar baggage. So my opinion is not that positive.

Now I haven’t touched on Yuki Yuna. And that’s because I actually quite like it. I think it’s a really good show, despite a few flaws, and the comparisons to Madoka I don’t think are well-argued at all. In terms of “darkness” it is far closer to Nanoha than any of the other shows seemed to be Madoka’s “successors”, and when you actually watch the show, look at the tone and what the show is trying to do and communicate, it really does have the magical girl spirit to a greater degree than any of the other shows by far, and honestly probably more than even Madoka. It puts a colossal amount of emphasis on teamwork, friendship, never giving up, and the girls being able to earn their happy ending with plenty of sweet moments, even if there are some rather heartbreaking bits along the way. I think it is honestly deeply underrated and would highly recommend anybody reading to check it out.

Hope all that rambling answered your question. ^_^

#daybreak illusion #magical girl site #yuki yuna is a hero #magical girl raising project #dark magical girl anime often aren't very good #but it can be a bit complicated #also watch yuki yuna #very longpost

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moistwithgender · 5 years

Text

Monthly Media Roundup (April 2019)

April was a bit of a disaster month for me, and as such I didn’t get much of anything finished. Old wounds got reopened, I was sick all month, I had an unavoidably bad birthday, and a lifelong pet died. I didn’t engage with a lot of things, and mostly slept. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild, but seeing as I didn’t finish that, I’m not including it yet. Here’s the things I did finish:

Games:

Blaster Master Zero (Switch): I actually first bought and finished this two years ago, and since the sequel has come out I decided to replay it with the Shovel Knight DLC character. While I genuinely like this game (I 100%’d it both times), I was not really in a good spot to enjoy this playthrough, and just kinda mindlessly pushed through it for nine consecutive hours, beating it in that single sitting. Playing as a DLC character removes the story, which is fine since they’re intended for replays, though I wonder if it added to my emotional disconnect. SK doesn’t receive fall damage, and so the precariousness of navigating the world outside of the highly-mobile tank doesn’t exist nearly as much, though the trade-off is that SK’s combat abilities in dungeons are hindered by an overall lack of range. The game is still rather easy, though, so I can’t say any particular level cadences or combat scenarios carved their way into my memory.

To the game’s credit, though, the things that are good about it are still good. If you have an attachment to the original NES game, or an interest in retro properties, or just want a nice, breezy platformer, it’s very good. It’s interesting in how it repurposes the altered plot of the US version of the original game (where it was its most popular), including even the plot of the little novelization that came out because Gotta Get Those Video Game Kids to Read Something. It has a fake out ending, and if you 100% the maps it unlocks a final map that is genuinely surreal enough to be the highlight of the game. Despite my sighing, it is a genuinely good time, and I’m very curious to play the new game, somewhat hilariously titled Blaster Master Zero 2.

Anime:

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I chewed through the last four episodes of this so that I could say I finally finished the season. I didn’t watch the post-season recap episode. TenSura (the abbreviation of the Japanese title, which I will use to refer to it because satisfyingly abbreviating the english title is impossible) is not a very good show, but for about half the length of the 24-episode first season, it fascinates due to how it functions at all. TenSura is an isekai show, much like the other isekai shows, where a person dissatisfied with their life is brutally murdered (usually by a truck. USUALLY by a truck) and is reborn in a fantasy world that coincidentally gives them an absurd advantage over other people, allowing them to live out all the decadence they felt they deserved in the real world. If this sounds like the most boring kind of wish fulfillment possible to you, that’s because it is. It’s also extremely popular with consumers. Which is interesting! I think the isekai boom is indicative of how late-stage capitalism everyday people the world over, that we envision or escape to worlds where your efforts actually return appropriate reward. A bonkers concept, to be sure.

In TenSura, the formula doesn’t stray much. The main character is a man in his 30s (?) who has never fucked and gets knifed to death while HEROICALLY saving a coworker from a plot-irrelevant stabber dude who was running down the sidewalk with his knife out for no reason besides Main Character Needs an Inciting Incident Now. It’s actually pretty weirdly violent for the start to a show that is almost entirely light-hearted. Dude dies, his coworker dumps his hard drive in the bath out of respect (lol), and he wakes up in a fantasy world that works on videogame logic, including loot, skill trees, and class upgrades. He is reborn as an adorable slime a la Dragon Quest, but the personality traits he had in his previous life (and I guess his choice of dying words) scan to obscenely convenient passive abilities that ensure he’s not only invincible, but will never stop experiencing exponential power growth. Also he immediately makes friends with a final boss-level dragon and then eats him. That’s how he makes friends in this sometimes.

I’m being very cynical here, but the core narrative loop (and it IS a loop) of the series kept my interest for longer than I expected. Rimuru (the name of the reborn protagonist) goes somewhere he hasn’t been, astonishes the nearby (sometimes violent) inhabitants with his overpowered abilities, makes friends with them, and then improves their lives with community. Goblins, direwolves, orcs, demon lords. It stacks and builds upon itself to absurd degrees but it’s interesting that in a genre loaded with very problematic stories of disenchanted dudes finally getting the underage harem they’ve always wanted (aaaaAAAAAAAAA) that the main concept of this series is improving the lives of others and giving them closure for the ways life has hurt them. Even if. Sometimes that hurt was the main character’s doing? Like Rimuru absolutely decapitates a direwolf leader and then adopts the pack who from then on absolutely LOVE the dude. Also one of Rimuru’s abilities is that if he gives a monster a name, it class upgrades, which is generally and reasonably seen as a life improvement. Though, these class upgrades are almost always decidedly “less-tribal” or outright human, which smacks of some imperialist thinking. It’s also something I’m sure I never questioned in old videogames growing up. Meanwhile, there’s also a bit with a woman who came from Japan during that one really bad war, you know the one, and the closure she’s given as she’s dying is handled with actual delicacy. It’s a weird series! It’s only a shame to me that after most of the first season, there was less to talk about. Sometime after the halfway mark, you realize the show is never going to maintain tension for more than half an episode, that all problems are solvable (yes, even terminally ill children), and that the show isn’t going anywhere you can’t predict. It’s a checklist show, and the plot points are a list of achievements being checked off one episode at a time.

I don’t think I would actually recommend the show to most people, despite how popular it is. It’s not a great show, but it does weird enough things for a while that it generates conversations. Which is honestly pretty okay. It’s a pretty okay show. Also, Rimuru is effectively nonbinary (with he pronouns), and that’s… somethin’! (24 episodes, finished 4/17/19, Crunchyroll (Funimation also now has the dub I think? Clips I saw were pretty weird, Rimuru seemed to be characterized differently.))

Manga:

Nejimaki Kagyu Vol 1: You would think a manga that immediately starts with a reference to Phantom Blood would be, well, at least interesting.

Okay maybe invoking a beloved work doesn’t actually mean anything. I just wanted to share this blatant callback. Nejimaki Kagyu is a seinen manga about a highschool teacher whose tragically cursed to, uh, have all teenage girls fall in love with him. And the highschool-age childhood friend of his who has spent her whole life obsessed with him and learning super martial arts to defend his chastity. Her supers make her clothes explode.

…

I take no joy in this travesty.

Anyway, uh. The biggest tragedy here is that the art is actually really good, though the paneling is regularly squished around to hilarious degree. Let’s look at some pages and then forget this manga exists forever.

That horror face is how I feel the entire series should be portraying itself. The manga has a distinct lack of self-awareness.

The fan translation for this series appears to have dropped off halfway through and hasn’t been picked up for years, and based on reviews I saw on MAL talking about the directionlessness of the later volumes, I wonder if the translator got fed up with the series. Oh well!

Kyou no Asuka Show Vol 1: Oh god damn it I just got done with talking about a series about ogling the youth.

BLEASE STOP

Okay so. Kyou no Asuka Show, or “Today’s Asuka Show” is an older slice of life manga by the same author I mentioned previously who is doing an edutainment series about people working in a condom factory. Innocently-minded women in comedically lewdish situations appears to be his whole bag. I think Asuka is pretty charming, but I also know she’s designed to appeal to my monkey male gaze. Obliviously sexy is very much a mood, and in a more adult context I would be all for it. There have been a few chapters where I find myself at odds with the wisdom the author is attempting to impart, sometimes through Asuka’s father, who works as an adult photographer, and doesn’t want his daughter involved in anything that could cause her to be ogled. Like, that’s already something that requires a lot of unpacking in the modern day. Aforementioned wisdom sometimes takes the form of Asuka doing something stupid and innocent and ripe for objectifying, like wearing a school swimsuit in a rainstorm. Or she’ll work a job as a cute girl courier and inadvertently turn a shut-ins life around. Situations where, if it were in real life, I’d think “wow that’s weird and charming,” but by being a work of intentional authorship, it inherently loses some of that innocence, and becomes something well-meaning but problematic. Is that the second time I’ve used the word “problematic” in this post? Is this 2014?

I may continue reading this, but I really can’t recommend it to most people I know in 2019 without several disclaimers and also without probably getting some side eye. I think it’s worth a couple chapters to feel out what its doing before you decide whether you can siphon the charm from it, or would rather move on to something else.

Me enjoying myself when this manga tries to suddenly get up to some shit.

Blue Period Vol 1: This is the last thing on my list, because I don’t want to expand this list beyond the three mediums I’ve already assigned to it. Also, I actually finished this May 1st, but I wanted to talk about it now.

If I had the power to actually get people to engage with a specific work once per month, Blue Period would easily be the one I pick. That doesn’t mean as much when all the other things I finished this month were conflicted experiences, but I really think everyone would benefit from this series. Or at least anyone with even a passing interest in visual arts.

Blue Period (named for Picasso’s Blue Period) is about a highschool delinquent who has a knack for studying, a safe social life, and no interests in pretty much anything. He’s on the road to do fine in his life, and he doesn’t question it much, but that’s it, until he discovers art and realizes it’s the only way he’s ever been able to truly communicate his feelings. It changes everything about him, for more emotionally satisfying reasons, but also riskier ones. He only has one year of highschool to go to decide what he’s doing with his life, and Japan has a very strict education system. You’re not really allowed to just “get around” to things.

Apologies in advance if you’re tired of me spamming full pages but I really do wanna show this off. This is another series with an educational angle to it, though the emphasis is definitely more rooted in a personal narrative of growth. The explanations of art practice and the functionality of exercises and tools are both very informative and relevant to the characters, never feeling like the story is taking a backseat to explain. The characters are, hilariously, everyone I’ve ever met in an art class. There’s the kid who would rather exclusively draw the things they like, there’s the kid who likes art as a hobby but haaaates being given a project, etc etc. There are students who have an innate grasp on how to draw but haven’t internalized the Why of the exercises, and students who are receptive to the lessons but don’t have the ability to match. The narrative is extremely even-handed towards all of these different levels of skills, and places a lot more importance on why, emotionally, you should totally care about drawing apples and water pitchers for five hours at a time. It’s GREAT and I want to force it on every creative I’ve ever known.

Another thing I appreciate about this series so far is that while there has been something resembling sexual/romantic tension, it’s kind of not like that at all? In the first volume I haven’t been able to pinpoint where a potential relationship subplot would go, if at all. Two possibilities are this girl:

...who is a very likable character but surprisingly doesn’t fit into that box of “standard love interest”. The protag’s interactions with her have been exclusively respectful and admiring, which doesn’t even necessarily imply a romantic subplot, but would be pretty cool if it did? And the other girl:

...who is featured in decidedly more sexual tension-y contexts, is actually TRANS. The manga actually portrays them so uncompromisingly feminine that I didn’t realize they were crossdressing (the term used in the text) until the author’s notes at the end of the volume. I will partially blame this on me being out of it this month, since I just went back to their introduction and yep, they got misgendered and contested it. Given how the character is regularly framed (confident, attractive, skilled, nonstereotypical), I’m… pretty okay with this! If a romance blooms between a delinquent boy and a trans girl, that’s amazing.

I hope y’all understand where I’m coming from in expecting a shoehorned romantic subplot. I’m not hoping for one, I just know the product by now. And if it happens, the options are considerably more interesting than usual.

These are pretty good kids.

Manga licensing is a lot better nowadays than it ever was before, with lots of obscure series being picked up, old series getting re-localized, and translations being better than ever. I really really want this series to get licensed so someone can be compensated for it, and so more people might read it. Until then, I think you should look up the fan work.

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So that’s all for April. If these posts included live-action movies, I’d have talked about Endgame, but I also don’t want to go spoiling anything for someone who still wants to go see that (it’s probably one of my favorite MCU movies, though). I read most of 1970-71 in Marvel comics, or at least most of the issues on my reading list, but I semi-liveblog about those, so you can just search my “curry reads comics” tag for that. Here’s hoping I have more interesting, more positive things to say about May in a month. I expect to finish Breath of the Wild by then, so I’ll finally talk about that. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far! Go check out Blue Period.

#curry reads manga #curry watches anime #curry plays games

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jacereviews · 6 years

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Review: Mobile Suit Gundam

Television (Anime) Consumed in: English Sub Also known as: Gundam 0079. OG Gundam. Gundam TV

Note: This review covers only the first television series. This is not the franchise as a whole or the 0079 movie trilogy. Those will come along eventually.

Airing from April 1979 to January 1980, animated at Studio Sunrise and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, I’m sure most if not all of you know what “Gundam” is even if you might not have watched or read any of it. I have watched the debut of this long-running series over the last few weeks and had the lovely experience of seeing the birth of Real Robot Mecha and many other pieces that would become part of Anime Culture. Though the question tends to come up with genre fathers, does it still hold up? Or did this simply work in an era of lower standards? This review will not contain any major spoilers, though for the sake of analysis I will have to discuss how the series handles its plot and characters even if I avoid going into major detail. Alright, let’s rock.

PLOT: So while Mobile Suit Gundam *is* the story of the One-Year War, it is also not. The year is Universal Century 0079. The Earth Federation now covers more than just Earth, with lunar colonies and artificial satellite space colonies known as “Sides”. However Side 3 has risen up in rebellion, calling itself the Principality of Zeon, and has in a swift move of advanced technology and facist war culture fought a destructive war against the Earth Federation, taking out many Sides and even conquering parts of Earth. By the time the show has started, this war has cost a toll of half of the human population. However this show isn’t about the war as a whole, more so it’s the story of one ship, the White Base. Classified military vehicle White Base docks at Side 7, carrying with it prototypes of the Earth Federation’s Mobile Suits. However Zeon gets a jump on the federation, launching an invasion on Side 7. The White Base makes its escape with the civilian population of Side 7 on board. The rest of the series follows the voyage of the White Base, from its escape to Earth, to its fights in the operation to end the One Year War. Rather than a large scale lens the plot is told through mostly the experiences of the White Base and its crew, we actually see more from the perspective of Zeon than we do from other Federation forces, and every instance of other Federation views are directly on the White Base. While this focus can lead us to becoming intimately familiar with a size-able cast, it means that any large scale operations the White Base partakes in feel similar to the independent skirmishes it partakes in, as we see only the perspective of the White Base crew and the opposing general, mostly hearing about other fronts through radio reports and discussions. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but those looking for a bigger war story might be a tad disappointed. In general I found the plot to be rather engaging. It mostly moved at a pretty fast speed and kept shaking things up enough that the constant battles didn’t get very old. As the stories are told in a more episodic manner most conflicts tend to get resolved in a timely manner and we move on. However the downside of the episodic nature is occasionally you just get uninteresting episodes (such as Episode 7) where the whole thing feels pointless and feels like it needs to move on with the overarching plot. Aside from the arc on Earth dragging on occasion most individual episodes tend to make noticeable progress and push along the course of the narrative. Occasionally it even feels like the story is moving too fast, some enemies get steamrolled, some interactions turn a significant result after only a few minutes, but it never felt like the story overall moved too fast, and a lot of these happened towards the end of the series, where anyone familiar with the production of Gundam might be able to estimate why. Though mostly grounded, towards the end the plot takes some strange turns with the introduction of the concept of Newtypes, which could make the show more or less interesting depending on the viewer. To briefly touch on the ending, I thought it was pretty good. It’s definitely not the most climactic of endings (as one wouldn’t except a war story to climax with a final episode called “Escape”) but it was satisfying none the less. It was messy and chaotic only insofar as war itself is messy and chaotic, and it put a good bow on the stories of our characters, though some epilogue would’ve been nice (like perhaps a “Where are they now?”).

For this section I’d give a 7.5/10, it’s good but nothing amazing.

CHARACTERS: It might seem odd that I didn’t mention any characters in the plot section, but that’s because the crew of the White Base act together as a unit, though definitely not to discredit their individual characters. Let’s start with the main character Amuro Ray. Amuro is the 15 year-old son of the Federation engineer Dr. Tem Ray, he moved out with his father to Side 7 so his father could work on developing Mobile Suits. Amuro himself is pretty technology-savvy (having built the series mascot Haro). Through a large part being forced and a small part choosing himself, he ends up piloting the prototype mobile suit, Gundam, after the invasion of Side 7. As a natural pilot and engineer, he becomes the leading man of the White Base’s combat forces, being the main pilot of the Gundam and doing some rodeos in the other Mobile Suits. Over the course of the series we see him develop from a semi-anti-social teen who’s hesitant to shoot another human to an ace soldier. His arc develops slowly with plenty of bumps caused by his immaturity, but he does naturally grow and develop over time and by the end he’s quite the force to be reckoned with. While not a particularly unique or shockingly nuanced character, he’s more than serviceable and in a lot of ways represents different aspects of the world of Gundam. Being both the civilian dragged into the catastrophic war and eventually being our lead into the secret of the Newtypes. Other people of note on the White Base include Bright Noa, the military officer pressed into active command of the White Base after its captain becomes incapacitated. He starts off as a rather unsympathetic hard-ass, who’s stiff nature both causes him to be effective in crisis but also to break hard rather than bend. He learns to warm up and adapt, over time becoming the heart of the White Base and its leader. By the end of the show he was one of my favorite characters. Sayla Mass is also a character of note, initially working as a coms officer and eventually becoming a pilot. She’s the only female pilot and despite taking a long time to become decent, she becomes one of Amuro’s most reliable comrades by the end. Her past also slowly becomes revealed as it holds some of the secrets to the origin of the One Year War. Last character of the White Base I want to give special mention to is Kai Shinden. Kai starts out as the cynical voice of the cast, showing a desire for self-preservation and satisfaction, being generally unsympathetic to the “we’re all soldiers now” narrative everyone else plays. However for a few episodes in the late 20s his character arc becomes the main focus, it’s one of the stronger parts of the show in my opinion, and seeing him go from unlikeable douche to a character with his own baggage and reason to fight was nice, even if the arc itself was tragic. However the characters I mentioned early are stand out rather than the whole cast. I mean no disservice to Hayato, Ryu, Mirai, and Fraw Bow, who have some pretty good development of their own, just more interweaven into the overarching story rather than taking a front seat. They’re good characters in their own right, but they aren’t the shining stars you’ll never forget. As I mentioned earlier in the plot discussion, we also see the perspective of Zeon quite a bit and as such they have some pretty strong characters themselves. First and foremost is the show-stealer Char Aznable. The Red Comet, Char is a Lieutenant Commander of the Zeon military, and the one leading the chase of the White Base. Char is a very strong character both in combat and presence, he stands out for his masterful Mobile Suit control (notably his Mobile Suit is painted red) and his quick thinking and strong tactics. Even in a losing battle Char is known to keep his Mobile Suit intact and is already preparing for the next battle ahead. As much as Char spends his time hunting the White Base, he has grander ambitions within the Zeon Military. His wit is not only in combat strategy, but in politics and people, making him a joy to watch. He too has a hidden past, covered up like his face, which he always hides with a mask. Some other notable Zeons are Garma Zabi, the son of Zeon ruler Degwin Zabi, who alongside his siblings play major roles as opponents and leaders in the Zeon military. And Ramba Ral, a lieutenant in the Zeon military and an old fashioned soldier through and through. He’s rather likable with his noble patriotism and respect for his opponents, treating them as equals rather than lessers. He’s a good man who just happens to be on the opposing side, he inspires admiration and respect from both his soldiers and the viewers. All in all Gundam does a good job of developing and both likeable and large cast. Char himself is worth a bonus point.

8/10, loveable cast but only Char reaches anything above good.

VISUALS: Keep in mind this series was made in 1979. It’s old, no way around that, but not necessarily bad. The designs are pretty good even if there’s not a lot of stand out. The Mobile Suits and technology generally look pretty good, but I felt some of Zeon’s newer weapons introduced in the later half were a bit much on the design aspect. The Gundam itself is iconic, but I wouldn’t call it amazing. If anything my favorite mecha design was actually the Guncannon. The backgrounds never really stood out to me as anything too amazing, and I wonder if it’s intentional that the series mostly avoided showing futuristic big cities. The animation itself is hit and miss. There’s a lot of cool direction and interesting ideas. Due to the nature of mecha anime in the 70s, a large amount of the violence had to be separated from humans. For a war story there’s very little blood as most battles are fought with machines and explosions. A good amount of times some interesting presentation tricks were taken to show death or extreme violence. Covering up blood and death in the chaos of war is hard to do believably but Gundam pulls it off. Towards the end though the gloves come off and we occasionally see some people get straight murdered. However to balance out all the unique tricks and ideas are loads of animation errors and inconsistencies. Weapons and gear changing between scenes, pieces of machines vanishing for a bit, derp faces, you name it. The series has lots of them but they’re never really distracting but aren’t fun (or are fun depending on who you are) to notice. The only real egregious one is a derp face Ryu makes once that keeps showing up in the episode opening recaps (which aren’t themselves bad) for a bit. Other than that they mostly go over with no problem and don’t much damage the experience. Though there are interesting ideas in direction, I never really found any point where the animation was particularly impressive. It’s a 70′s TV anime though, so we just have to accept that. Not everything can be Akira. After the introduction of Newtypes we occasionally get some unique and trippy visuals but they themselves aren’t much to write home about even if they’re nice to watch.

5.5/10, It’s mostly passable, the good and the bad balance out a lot. Though the mecha designs are iconic for a reason.

AUDIO: Starting with voice acting it’s a pretty flat even. Char’s got a good Seiyuu, so does Garma. Nothing too amazing, no Mamoru Miyanos here. No real negatives either, the kids can be annoying but they’re little kids, little kids are annoying. The narrator is pretty good and Haro’s got a nifty sound. Everyone is nicely distinct though. It’s average and that’s fine. The music is more notable though. There’s some good bops in there, the few times the show puts a full insert song make for a good time, though the regular OST does it’s job quite well. Some of the combat themes have some nice kick to em, and Lalah’s theme is pretty memorable. Large part though the soundtrack isn’t that memorable. Nothing outside of action scenes really stuck with me. There were a few times the soundtrack sounded confused, cutting from piece to piece uncomfortably and on a few rare moments it felt like they were using the wrong track for certain scenes. Nothing particularly noticeable unless you’re trying to pay attention to the OST though. The OP’s pretty good, definitely grew on me over time, by the late 20s I found myself singing along to it on occasion (and once in public). The ED’s pretty nice and quiet and pretty alright, didn’t do much for me personally.

youtube

Overall 6/10, it’s decent but not much more. Few really good moments, few missteps.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

While the show is by no means perfect, it was still a damn good time that even made me cry once. It has aged but many things have aged worse than it. It shines a lot in it’s ideas and characters, but has noticeable hickups along the way. Not only is it important in the history of mecha and the Japanese media industry, it’s also just a genuinely good show with a lot of heart. I’d still give it a recommendation to fans of mecha and classic anime, though the movie trilogy or Origin manga might be a better telling of the story (I’ll go through both eventually). It’s a good show on is own, but as the first step into a mega-series I’m excited to see where we go from here. All in all, Doan Cucruz didn’t deserve to be cute from the dub and DVD, his episode was good, Tomino.

#mobile suit gundam #gundam 0079 #OG gundam #Gundam #0079 #Anime #Anime Review #mecha #classics #classic anime #blackwinged

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hamliet · 6 years

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HxH Characters and the MBTI

As requested by @aspoonofsugar. :D

The Myers-Briggs Personality type is older than the Enneagram, and consists of sixteen types based on four different pairs of personality traits: Introversion vs. Extroversion; Sensing vs. Intuition, Feeling vs. Thinking, and Perceiving vs. Judging. To be clear, none of these categories are black and white–for example, all Feelers are capable of using logic, and Thinkers have feelings and care about people–but it’s a cool way of understanding personalities.

I’m not going to do every character, but simply the characters I think are most important and/or my favorites. :P Also, this is just my opinion and definitely open to debate! MBTI isn’t a science; it’s just a fun tool.

Main Characters:

Gon Freecss: ESFP “The Entertainer”

The biggest challenge ESFPs face is that they are often so focused on immediate pleasures that they neglect the duties and responsibilities that make those luxuries possible. Complex analysis, repetitive tasks, and matching statistics to real consequences are not easy activities for ESFPs. They’d rather rely on luck or opportunity, or simply ask for help from their extensive circle of friends.

Killua Zoldyck: INTJ “The Architect”

It’s lonely at the top... People with the INTJ personality type are imaginative yet decisive, ambitious yet private, amazingly curious, but they do not squander their energy.

Kurapika: ISFJ “The Defender”

ISFJ personalities (especially Turbulent ones) are often meticulous to the point of perfectionism... ISFJs take their responsibilities personally, consistently going above and beyond, doing everything they can to exceed expectations and delight others, at work and at home. ISFJ personalities are a wonderful group, rarely sitting idle while a worthy cause remains unfinished

Leorio Paladiknight: ESFJ “The Consul”

Supportive and outgoing, ESFJs can always be spotted at a party – they’re the ones finding time to chat and laugh with everyone! But their devotion goes further than just breezing through because they have to. ESFJs truly enjoy hearing about their friends’ relationships and activities, remembering little details and always standing ready to talk things out with warmth and sensitivity.

Hisoka Morow: ENTP “The Debater”

The ENTP personality type is the ultimate devil’s advocate, thriving on the process of shredding arguments and beliefs and letting the ribbons drift in the wind for all to see. Unlike their more determined Judging (J) counterparts, ENTPs don’t do this because they are trying to achieve some deeper purpose or strategic goal, but for the simple reason that it’s fun.

Illumi Zoldyck: ISTJ “The Logistician”

Their defining characteristics of integrity, practical logic and tireless dedication to duty make ISTJs a vital core to many families, as well as organizations that uphold traditions, rules and standards, such as law offices, regulatory bodies and military. People with the ISTJ personality type enjoy taking responsibility for their actions, and take pride in the work they do – when working towards a goal, ISTJs hold back none of their time and energy completing each relevant task with accuracy and patience..Dependency on others is often seen by ISTJs as a weakness, and their passion for duty, dependability and impeccable personal integrity forbid falling into such a trap... their blunt approach leaves others with the false impression that ISTJs are cold, or even robotic. People with this type may struggle to express emotion or affection outwardly, but the suggestion that they don’t feel, or worse have no personality at all, is deeply hurtful.

Chrollo Lucilfer: INTJ “The Architect”

He’s a confusing one because I kept going back and forth on the F or T function. But I lean T.

While this may be intended as an insult by their peers, they more than likely identify with it and are even proud of it, greatly enjoying their broad and deep body of knowledge. INTJs enjoy sharing what they know as well, confident in their mastery of their chosen subjects, but owing to their Intuitive (N) and Judging (J) traits, they prefer to design and execute a brilliant plan within their field rather than share opinions on “uninteresting” distractions like gossip... A paradox to most observers, INTJs are able to live by glaring contradictions that nonetheless make perfect sense – at least from a purely rational perspective. For example, INTJs are simultaneously the most starry-eyed idealists and the bitterest of cynics, a seemingly impossible conflict.

Dumpster Fire The Zoldyck Family

Alluka: ESFJ “The Consul”

ESFJs love to be of service, enjoying any role that allows them to participate in a meaningful way, so long as they know that they are valued and appreciated.

Milluki Zoldyck: ISTP, “The Virtuoso”

While their mechanical tendencies can make them appear simple at a glance, ISTPs are actually quite enigmatic. Friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, ISTP personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. ISTPs can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.

Kalluto Zoldyck: ISFJ “The Defender”

I went back and forth on whether he was an ISTJ or ISFJ but decided on F thanks to that one brief snippet we had into Kalluto’s mind and how he desired to help Feitan whereas the other PT members did not.

ISFJ personalities (especially Turbulent ones) are often meticulous to the point of perfectionism, and though they procrastinate, they can always be relied on to get the job done on time.

The Phantom Troupe (or my faves there)

Machi: INTP “The Logician”

Further, with Thinking (T) as one of their governing traits, INTPs are unlikely to understand emotional complaints at all, and their friends won’t find a bedrock of emotional support in them. People with the INTP personality type would much rather make a series of logical suggestions for how to resolve the underlying issue, a perspective that is not always welcomed by their Feeling (F) companions... INTP personalities are so prone to reassessing their own thoughts and theories, worrying that they’ve missed some critical piece of the puzzle, that they can stagnate, lost in an intangible world where their thoughts are never truly applied.

Feitan: ISTJ “The Logistician”

ISTJ personalities are no-nonsense, and when they’ve made a decision, they will relay the facts necessary to achieve their goal, expecting others to grasp the situation immediately and take action. ISTJs have little tolerance for indecisiveness, but lose patience even more quickly if their chosen course is challenged with impractical theories, especially if they ignore key details – if challenges becomes time-consuming debates, ISTJs can become noticeably angry as deadlines tick nearer.

Phinks: ESTJ “The Executive”

ESTJs are aware of their surroundings and live in a world of clear, verifiable facts – the surety of their knowledge means that even against heavy resistance, they stick to their principles and push an unclouded vision of what is and is not acceptable... However, ESTJs don’t work alone, and they expect their reliability and work ethic to be reciprocated – people with this personality type meet their promises, and if partners or subordinates jeopardize them through incompetence or laziness, or worse still, dishonesty, they do not hesitate to show their wrath.

Pakunoda: ISFJ “The Defender”

ISFJs utilize excellent memories not to retain data and trivia, but to remember people, and details about their lives.

Shizuku: INTP “The Logician”

Usually known as the philosopher, the architect, or the dreamy professor... They may appear to drift about in an unending daydream, but INTPs’ thought process is unceasing, and their minds buzz with ideas from the moment they wake up. This constant thinking can have the effect of making them look pensive and detached,

Uvogin: ESTP “The Entrepreneur”

If ESTPs aren’t careful though, they may get too caught in the moment, take things too far, and run roughshod over more sensitive people, or forget to take care of their own health and safety... ESTPs are full of passion and energy, complemented by a rational, if sometimes distracted, mind. Inspiring, convincing and colorful, they are natural group leaders, pulling everyone along the path less traveled, bringing life and excitement everywhere they go. Putting these qualities to a constructive and rewarding end is ESTPs’ true challenge.

Shalnark: ENTP, “The Debater”

ENTPs only make up about three percent of the population, which is just right, as it lets them create original ideas, then step back to let more numerous and fastidious personalities handle the logistics of implementation and maintenance.

Nobunaga: ESFP “The Entertainer”

[T]here’s no greater joy for ESFP personalities than to bring everyone else along for the ride. ESFPs can chat for hours, sometimes about anything but the topic they meant to talk about, and share their loved ones’ emotions through good times and bad.

Chimera Ants:

Meruem: ISTJ “The Logistician”

[P]eople with the ISTJ personality type often prefer to work alone, or at least have their authority clearly established by hierarchy, where they can set and achieve their goals without debate or worry over other’s reliability.ISTJs have sharp, fact-based minds, and prefer autonomy and self-sufficiency to reliance on someone or something.

Komugi: ISTP “The Virtuoso”

ISTPs love to explore with their hands and their eyes, touching and examining the world around them with cool rationalism and spirited curiosity... ISTPs explore ideas through creating, troubleshooting, trial and error and first-hand experience. ... ISTPs enjoy lending a hand and sharing their experience, especially with the people they care about... ISTP personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones.

Pitou: ESFJ “The Consul”

ESFJs are the cheerleaders and the quarterbacks, setting the tone, taking the spotlight and leading their teams forward to victory and fame... ESFJs continue to enjoy supporting their friends and loved ones, organizing social gatherings and doing their best to make sure everyone is happy.

Shaiapouf: ISTJ “The Logistician”

People with the ISTJ personality type enjoy taking responsibility for their actions, and take pride in the work they do – when working towards a goal, ISTJs hold back none of their time and energy completing each relevant task with accuracy and patience... ISTJs tend to keep their opinions to themselves and let the facts do the talking, but it can be a long time before observable evidence tells the whole story.ISTJs need to remember to take care of themselves – their stubborn dedication to stability and efficiency can compromise those goals in the long term as others lean ever-harder on them, creating an emotional strain that can go unexpressed for years, only finally coming out after it’s too late to fix. If they can find coworkers and spouses who genuinely appreciate and complement their qualities, who enjoy the brightness, clarity and dependability that they offer, ISTJs will find that their stabilizing role is a tremendously satisfying one, knowing that they are part of a system that works.

Palm Siberia: ISFJ “The Defender”

ISFJs utilize excellent memories not to retain data and trivia, but to remember people, and details about their lives.

Kurapika’s Side Character Buds

Senritsu/Melody: “The Advocate”

INFJs indeed share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to INFJs, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.

Oito Hui Guo Rou: ESFJ “The Consul”

Moral of this: Why Oito should take over the Kakin Empire and make it a matriarchy.

ESFJs are more concerned with fashion and their appearance, their social status and the standings of other people. Practical matters and gossip are their bread and butter, but ESFJs do their best to use their powers for good. ESFJs are altruists, and they take seriously their responsibility to help and to do the right thing.

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theme-park-concepts · 6 years

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The more I think about the criticism of the Disney treatment of various topics, and how problematic it can become the more I’m left wondering if it is really possible to create anything idealistic, optimistic, hopeful and childlike in tone without by necessity skirting over the less pleasant aspects of history and culture. Especially when dealing with the popular myths and archetypes that are embedded in 1000s of years of human culture.

Like the whole appeal of Disney is it’s inspirational “look how wonderful the world can be” tone and it’s use of archetypes that resonate deeply within ourselves. But of course for every wonderful thing about the world there’s a dozen horrible things going on that make it possible. For every truth in classic archetypes there’s a multitude of incorrect stereotypes, assumptions, and backwards notions we should be working to get past.

I think the deep unpacking, and analysis, and rethinking of our myths, tropes, etc that has become extremely popular in the last few decades is enormously valuable but I also think it makes creating art absent of cynicism incredibly difficult. To me, what makes Disney’s offerings so appealing, so comforting, and wonderful is their way of showing us things like love, romanticism (of the Vaughner variety), optimism, etc without any trace of cynicism. The world has gotten enormously cynical over the last 100 years, and especially so during the last few decades. And not without good reason. And there are enormous costs to creating art that perpetuates or idealizes a system that causes great harm. But I am kind of left wondering exactly what options that leaves.

How does one celebrate any topic while managing to give due time to its downsides while not letting them overshadow the celebration? Is that even possible or desirable? Maybe the idea that there’s a time and place is applicable? After all when it’s your birthday and you’re blowing out the candles on your cake are you thinking about the underpaid factory workers that made them? The immigrants and cramped chickens in the egg factory. The fossils fuels used to transport and mill the flour. The fact that any gifts you receive are the product of a capitalistic industry that makes it a virtual requirement for those close to you to consume more goods on the pretense of being a good friend? That the cute paper plates and tablecloth are going to end up in some landfill after their brief use and probably be responsible for the death of a penguin or otherwise heat up the atmosphere through excess methane production? What about the very notion that your birthday is special? And how that might very well be of a way too individualistic and narcissistic self-absorbed society.

Like - that analysis isn’t wrong and yet - including it as part of the birthday celebration would quickly suck any life or joy out of the occasion.

So, you see this is the dilemma I’m struggling with - and not just for Disney art but really any art that attempts to be more fun or joyous than critiquing. People need fun, joyous, upbeat, optimistic, uncynical art and entertainment in their life - that much I’m certain of. But doing that in a way that doesn’t reinforce any harmful ideas is devishly difficult. I might get flack, but I think it might be largely impossible.

I’m thinking that the solution has to lie in drawing a line around the major messages you want to avoid, and then letting the chips fall where they will - knowing full well that humans are incapable of creating perfect work. That through some lens - 5,10,15 years later you’ll see flaws that you didn’t notice then. Or perhaps more discomforting, there will be problematic messages that you see from the beginning but must accept that they can’t all be eliminated.

Like even with my Poppins ride, a ride that’s barely supposed to have any connection to reality at all, the IP still idealizes a very specific class of people, romanticizes the life of a suffering class (Chimney sweeps), condones hunting for sport, hell you could make the argument it participates in upholding unrealistically high standards for women. The whole thing is absolutely an appropriation and bastardizarion of British culture. And on a larger level perhaps it sends a message that it’s perfectly fine to go on a jolly holiday for a while and forget the rest of the world that’s suffering while you ride a merry-go-round. Which frankly I can’t decide if it’s a sheltered message of privilege or the genius secret to life.

So yeah - where to draw the line on what issues to ignore and what to insist on addressing in the creation of art. How to romanticize and idealize while not being naive. It’s one hell of a balancing act.

#themed entertainment #disney #imagineer #themed entertainment design #theme park #theme park design #theme parks #theme park philosophy #theme park theory #idealism #romanticism #writing #art #optomism

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overdrivels · 6 years

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The Way to a Heart (9)

I really can’t thank dickbutt enough for listening for me scream and cry about writing this and living through my own self-inflicted slowburn.

<<Chapter 8

Contrary to what others may think, Hanzo is not the cool, collected, rational man that he presents himself to be.

Genji could easily recount the times that his brother has flung something in anger after being forced to contain it for appearance’s sake or the way he sulks for days on end in that sort of irritating silence that he's come to know from being on the receiving end of such behavior for years leading up to the...incident.

Rage that once rattled at Genji’s remaining ribcage like a beast had ebbed away into a void-like weariness and then into the occasional spike of all-consuming fury that ate and ate and ate at him until it extinguishes itself with little remaining other than the desire to sleep for a long, long time. Family, obligation, and his past became such a distant thing in Genji’s mind when he was taken in under Zenyatta’s wing. Prior to this, he obsessed over the idea of revenge, believing for years on end that he had done absolutely nothing to deserve the actions taken against him that day.

Things change, he supposed, especially when Winston initiated the Recall. Winston was concerned about the lack of agents that answered and asked Genji if he knew of anyone capable of taking on the mantle of being a hero. While no hero, Hanzo was one of the strongest he knew.

The idea was not his alone, of course, but he was not opposed to it.

He had been worried that his older brother would have delved far too deep into his self-destructive tendencies in these ten or so years of absence to listen to reason or to even continue living—he was not deaf to Hanzo’s betrayal and not immune to the snarky joy he felt, uttering a vicious 「It serves you right, you monster」that did not give him any satisfaction. His brother is not made of the stone that their elders had envisioned him to be. Genji supposes it's an equal parts luck and his brother’s pride that prevented Hanzo’s complete destruction.

It’s likely the same luck and pride that allows them to work cordially together for the few missions that Hanzo had been asked to accompany. It was almost as if nothing had changed. Until they had again, like his older brother had slipped into reality and finally come to grips with the exact situation he’s landed himself in.

It gives Genji a sort of nostalgic headache to be the target of Hanzo’s silent treatment again. He had been prepared for it, though, giving his elder brother the space he so required to finally process the situation he had landed himself in. (Their initial contact was going well, far too well for it to have been able to last long.)

Even if Hanzo will not communicate with him, at least the company of Overwatch could be trusted to keep his brother anchored. There’s no mistaking the way he treats some of the members—some with the strict type of respect reserved for those sitting higher in a hierarchy, some with genuine kindness, and only one or two people with a sort of brief unguarded playfulness that Hanzo rarely allows himself to have. (And if Genji were being truly honest, it was a little bittersweet.)

So when Lena tells him in confidence that Jesse had made a bet with Hanzo involving the kitchen, he had to worry that his brother would soon be neck deep in something reckless in his attempt to cope—funny how the tables have turned after all these years. The cyborg is almost tempted to ask the man what his intentions with his brother are, but thinks better of it. Jesse is known for making calculated trouble, and can be slippery when he feels like it.

And although it's only you remaining in the kitchens now, there’s no doubt you’re dyed in the ideals of your former mentor.

Gabriel often spoke of it and Genji didn't bother caring too much until now: the kitchen staff will defend their territory to the death and to pry their treasure of them if you dared, but all have big hearts made to give and give and give regardless of the crimes committed against them. Hanzo likely does not know that, however, and would not treat you with the same sort of careful reserve he does with the other members (each with their own strengths and abilities that could be interpreted as ‘threatening’)—you’re a chef, and if he knew his brother, someone that he could not see as a threat requiring him to put up any mental shields against.

Maybe this type of contact, this type of discourse, is what Hanzo needs.

And what sort of brother would he be if he didn’t meddle a bit?

The next few days before his first mission in a long time are perilous. While he is no coward, Hanzo did not know how you would react to him ordering food after his shameless (though disguised) attempt to infiltrate the kitchen.

To his surprise and suspicion, however, all his interactions with you have remained the same—“Thank you, Chef.” “You’re welcome, Agent Hanzo.”—almost as though that night in the kitchen never happened. Though, if he dared let himself think it, the food may even be a higher quality than before—the sauces more flavorful, the food is fresher, the flavors a little more bold. It’s likely his imagination, but he feels no shame in ordering seconds and there is no issue with those orders, either. However, it does not keep him from checking his food over, turning ingredients over and inspecting your dishes until they have gone lukewarm and eating in small bites.

Even more baffling, no one else mentions his attempt, instead just giving him raised eyebrows that simple say, “I’m waiting.”

The only indication that that night ever happened was the stinging underneath his beard where the rim of your ladle grazed that’s little more than an echoing throb.

He finds himself contemplating it.

Hanzo was careless, unfocused in the face of an adversary he seems unworthy. It’s a bad habit, his teachers had told him. Even the weakest of creatures will bare their fangs when cornered, and yet, he had constantly been letting down his guard and catching himself in the act. He only remembers your eyes and the expression on your face that looked too painfully familiar.

While making preparations for the upcoming mission—scouting with Satya and retrieving some items from an informant in America (McCree was mercifully assigned elsewhere)—Hanzo concludes that the chefs must have been either taught to fight (if one could even call the reckless jabbing of a ladle ‘fighting’). A strange weapon of choice especially when you’re surrounded by knives and other utensils that could better serve as a weapon. Judging by your skill, you either have not trained in a very long time or you were not trained very well from the beginning. It’s a gross miscalculation on your part if your intentions were to protect the door. It’s baffling how anyone would think your level of skill would be able to defend against a whole base of agents, or why no one has ever attempted to break in yet.

McCree (and everyone else) must have misjudged you and your abilities or there's something he's not seeing.

He suddenly feels like a pawn in a game, a feeling so eerie familiar, it makes his skin crawl and his lip curl. It makes no sense why McCree himself will not try when your prowess is practically non-existent. McCree, based off their training sessions and scarce missions together, is more than capable of taking you out without trouble.

For a moment, he’s tempted to think there is no treasure, that he's being played for a fool so that everyone can laugh at his failures again, but he remember his encounters with Fareeha, Genji, and Ana who all say otherwise. It is unlikely that all of them would be dragged into some ridiculous scheme (though he cannot dismiss it as a possibility).

A change in tactics might be prudent, he muses.

The night before his mission, he finds himself venturing to the kitchen in the middle of the night for the first time since finding out you were human; he had tried to grit his teeth and contain himself to his room whenever the feeling of something jittering in his veins strikes now—he does not need tea from the kitchen. It is a luxury that he’s gotten far too accustomed to far too quickly when he has perfectly good (stale) tea bags among his belongings. He had let himself become too spoiled, like a child, like…

The door opens and he stops in his tracks.

Mei, in her pajamas and her hair sticking out every which way and looking so very undignified, chatting at the window. He doesn’t know whether to feel relieved that it’s not him that is responsible for keeping you from your sleep or annoyed that other people are doing so. He's quick to dismiss that thought, however. This is your job. There is no reason to feel excessive sympathy for a person doing what they're supposed to do.

She seemed very absorbed in talking to you and doesn't seem to notice his presence—it’s funny just how much focus she can have for something as simple as a conversation. Cynically, he thinks that it wouldn’t be difficult to end her if any assassin chooses so. It’d be a huge loss to the world of ecology (and to the world in general), however.

As he approached, he can see that the scientist holds wrapped packages held together by string. It reminds him almost of the onigiri wrapped in bamboo wrapper—ones that he would keep tucked into his clothes when he was out on missions in enemy territory. Food there is never guaranteed to be safe (or guaranteed in general), so it was prudent to have some rations on his person.

"粽子! Oh, I missed these."

Mei’s face lights up as she speaks. Hanzo almost smiles. The scientist’s enthusiasm is always infectious, her smile even more so. In a way, her being here reminds him that there is still good in the world, people who will try their best to save everyone, people who are still naive enough, but strong enough to express their emotions and believe in the best in everyone.

"Oh! With the egg, too? Thank you, Chef! I'll be sure to bring something back for you."

He can't hear what you're saying, but he can see your hand peeking out of the window, waving—'no, it's not necessary'—and gesturing—'it's okay'. Hanzo wonders why he has never noticed it before. You seem to have them out often enough to prove you were human. Has Overwatch dulled his senses or did he just care so little about the faceless chef—not so faceless now—that he just never took notice?

"Oh, Hanzo!"

"Miss Mei."

In the beginning, he had called her Dr. Zhou, fitting of her status and title. At her vehement and animated insistence that they were friends and she prefers him to use her name like anyone else, it eventually led to compromise.

“What are you doing up so late?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

Mei looks down for a moment, contemplative, before beaming a smile right at him. "I am going back to Liangjiang to meet up with a colleague and to visit my family, so I wanted to drop by for some food to take with me before I go.”

Family.

Hanzo could only blink, the distinct feeling of slipping into a different plane of existence pulling at him. Family. He’s never heard Mei mention her family before, didn’t know what it was composed of, didn’t know her relation with them—it must be good if she’s going out of her way to see them.

“I see. Good luck.”

The words feel awkward in his mouth. Good luck. What is he wishing her luck for? Her family life likely isn’t as screwed up as his own. Most people’s families, he had long realized, were not so dysfunctional as his own—where dinner talks consist of politics, territories, war strategies, where birthdays are celebrated with lavish gifts and shows of power while sitting at the head of the room with legions of people kneeling, where fun is comprised of sparring sessions and listening to your enemies appeal for your favor and peeling back the layers of greed and self-preservation to see the miserable creatures that lay helpless inside.

Mei didn’t seem to notice his odd choice of words. “Thank you! I'll be gone two weeks or so. Is there anything that you'd want?”

His immediate reaction is pineapple cakes. The little ones from Taiwan. Chunks of pineapple in that gelatin that's sweet but not excruciatingly so, wrapped in a crumbly skin like the shortbread Lena brings back occasionally, but much more moist. Just the thought of them makes his mouth water.

“No,” he answers instead, swallowing down the suggestion. “Do not trouble yourself.”

“Oh, nonsense! I was planning on getting souvenirs for everyone. Is there any food you’d like?”

It takes a lot of willpower not to speak his desires. “I have all that I need here.”

There’s a twinkle in Mei’s eyes that could just be a reflection of her glasses. “Well, all right, I'll think of something.”

He's about to protest a second time when she asks again, “What are you doing up so late?”

“I was thirsty.” The excuse sounds incredibly lame to his own ears, but it’s much better than saying that he could not sleep because he feared what lurked in the recesses of his mind.

“Oh, sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to take up your time.”

There really isn't anything for the woman to apologize for, but she seems to feel compelled to make herself scarce for a transgression she did not quite commit.

“Good night, Hanzo. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Good night, Miss Mei.”

She leaves quickly enough, and Hanzo returns his attention to the surprisingly empty window. You’re no longer there, having long abandoned them to their conversation.

Hanzo does not know whether to say it’s rather professional of you to leave them to their ‘private’ conversation or to have left your station in the presence of a customer.

Curiously, he peers into the kitchen, sticking his head slowly through the spacious hole. From this angle, the Cellar door is still hidden from view. The doors beside it that look like they lead into a walk-in freezer are now fully stocked with all types of boxes and seem to be overflowing with various contents. Ingredients for their meals, no doubt.

“Can I help you, Agent Hanzo?”

You come into sight from a blind spot in the kitchen, oven mitts in hand.

“Chef,” he answers as flatly as possible and retracts his head like he wasn't trying to scope out the area. “I was wondering if you were still here or if you had gone off before I could order.”

You splutters, much to his satisfaction, and reply hastily, “I would never—so long as my customers still require me, I will be here.”

“Hm.”

He pretends to busy himself with reading the menu, skimming over the ‘Chef’s choice’ listed all the way at the bottom of the tea list. He could easily skip over it as he had so many times before; he knew what he wanted. It could be guilt, however, that makes him pause over the option. A chance for you to get at a sliver of retribution before he leaves on a mission. He would be putting himself at your mercy, but he is nothing if not unshakable. (Others would beg to differ and he’d like to silence them all the same.)

Tonight, he makes the daring move of selecting it and waits.

It's lucky the cafeteria is so silent; he can hear everything from the kitchen. A quiet yet excited gasp and the hurried yet rhythmic workings of the kitchen: the running of water (...two, three, four beats), the clicking of a stove (...two, three, four), then silence. And the unscrewing of a cap (one, two), and the sounds of utensils; clack, clack (three, four).

There’s a sense of calm that quiets everything in him as he listens. Hanzo catches himself counting. There's a beat to your works that he's never really noticed before, not that he's ever given it much thought. Previously, you were background noise that he cared little to know about, but now, knowing you are human and up at this hour, your presence has become more pressing, more demanding of his awareness. Even your steps, as muted as they are, follow this rhythm. Maybe his mind is attempting to make up for the inattentiveness he's had for his environment and is attempting to cram every bit of information he could glee from you into his brain. Maybe some part of him just feels bad. Regardless, you were an entity he's never considered before and as always, that could be very dangerous in his line of work.

The sound of the bell signals the end of his musings and the slide of the tray, also on beat, ends the unconscious counts on a four.

Instead of the teapot and teacup he expects, there's a large mug with something milky-looking and a square treat that is still bubbling just a bit. It looks to be some type of steaming, wet, spongy thing that looks like a cross between tamagoyaki with an uneven crust and raisins. It looks borderline unappetizing, but he won’t risk asking and making a fool of himself.

“It’s bread pudding,” you supply.

Now he really isn’t sure if you could read minds. Perhaps he paused too long at the window or you were really able to tell what he was thinking, but the information does not soothe him in any way. Bread pudding. He cannot help the way he grimaces at the idea of it—how can bread be pudding? Or vice versa?

Or maybe he overestimated your professionalism and you’re getting back at him.

But you haven’t served him anything he truly disliked yet, so there’s little reason (other than the fact he tried to break into the Cellar) for him to distrust anything you’ve given him.

“Agent Hanzo?”

“Yes?”

“You have been...checking your meals lately, may I ask why?”

Hanzo finds that he is not as surprised as he should be. You are, as he thought, ridiculously attentive.

“You are not angry about my trespassing?”

You raise your hands up, one holding an elbow and the other straight up as though to hold your chin in thought. He swears he could almost hear the moment the implication clicks in your head.

“Oh. Oh!” You wave your hands erratically. “We chefs would never tamper with your meals. It's against the rules. And a waste of food.” You mutter that last part beneath your breath before continuing. “Even I am angry, I would never do anything to your food that you disliked. I swear it.”

Maybe he underestimated your professionalism.

“But you are still angry.”

“I could never be angry at someone for trying to feed themselves. I was…irate, yes, but that was history. I...remembered some things and...unfortunately, I have taken out my anger on you.” Then, even softer and more sincere, “You didn't deserve that. I'm sorry.”

“No, you do not have to apologize.” It's he who should apologize, but he can't quite form the words. “Is there a reason why no one is allowed in the kitchen?” Hanzo asks instead, casually. “A reason why this rule exists?”

Your torso shifts around, an uncomfortable hum strangles your words.

“The...kitchen must be kept sanitary at all times and there have always been reports of people filching food, so…”

While he's sure your words are partial truths, you're also a terrible liar, almost as bad as Winston. That's fine, this means he has a good chance of getting information out of you later. Patience is key.

His lips quirk up. “So you mean to say we are untrustworthy and dirty?”

“No!” you shout. “That's not what I mean! It's just...we have a very strict code in here from the old days and I'm just trying to keep it together.”

Tradition, yes, he would know a thing or two about that and upholding it. Instead of answering, he takes a thoughtful sip of the milky tea—the chef’s choice—and almost immediately, he's struck by it's sweetness.

It's creamy, rich, fragrant, and a bit sweet that reminds him of royal milk tea, except different. Like he's consumed a mouthful of flowers, but it's not unpleasant. He takes another hearty sip and it settles comfortably in his stomach. Something like this could put anyone back to sleep. Maybe he could have this another time.

“How is it?”

An underlying excitement and eagerness betrays your attempts at remaining neutral. The archer is reminded of a puppy, one who seems all too eager to please.

“It is acceptable.”

He could almost hear the smile in your voice and finds himself wondering what you look like with one—all he knows is the anger and the weariness of your features that's already fast fading from his memory—before dismissing the idea with deadly swiftness.

“Oh, excellent. And the bread pudding?”

The slice of bread pudding wobbles when he presses it with the back of the little fork you've provided and seems to ooze just the slightest bit. It smells nice, but just looks plain unappetizing.

Hanzo braces himself and cuts a piece, shoving it into his mouth and chewing quickly. Though, his movements slow and Hanzo ruminates on what he’s eating.

It's warm and sweet, almost on the side of too sweet and the choice of pairing this tea with this bread pudding is questionable but there's cinnamon and raisins and it's bouncy and there’s a slight crunch and—

“Delicious.”

He almost chokes when a resounding “phew!” echoes in the kitchen.

Hanzo and Satya board the Orca late in the afternoon for the maximum amount of cover with the blessings of the other agents who are soon to go off to their own missions.

The trip is many hours too long. The only consolation is, to his surprise, that you had packed them lunches—small, neat sandwiches that's neither soggy or too tough with different fillings each and a cup of hearty broth and other side dishes—in sophisticated lunch boxes that may have once been a relic of an organization that barely exists. It could be a mark of change, then, that this is really it. They're Overwatch.

There's even a small cooling compartment for dessert: tiny fruit tarts that look like they belong on a sauce-decorated plate of a single-star restaurant than in the dinky little trapdoor in a lunch box. It tastes like it, too.

It's a far cry from the ration packs Soldier: 76 had distributed to them this morning. He shudders to think of what is in them, swearing to secretly discard them somewhere on the ship before they land. One look at Satya says that they are of the same mind, especially with the way she holds the bland packages like it personally offended her.

Satya gives off the impression she’s very used to having things a certain way. For Hanzo, it’s both an irritation and a relief. She understands the need to have a routine, the need to have beautiful plans, and tolerates his insistence of sticking to a particular method even if she does not agree so long as he is able to prove that he is correct. Though, after working with her on few projects around the base and a mission or two, he finds himself deferring to her for certain things.

Her sense of visual balance and her ability to create things at her fingertips makes her a valuable ally. More than once, he had caught himself staring at her work that shifted from nothing to some so structurally sound yet so delicate, a motion of Satya’s mechanical fingers would crush the creation in a second.

There really aren't that many people Hanzo would say that he preferred working with, but Satya ranks high on the list (if only for the fact that she makes lists and mentally has every aspect of the mission organized like an itinerary).

After a lengthy discussion with her on the ship to review the mission details, he's almost confident this mission will see no distractions.

Which was too much to hope for, apparently.

Everything within the first day had gone smoothly. They had made contact and were about to meet their informant at a determined location. Then nothing went well after. Truthfully, the challenge was not unwelcomed. (Satya would disagree.)

There was a close call while meeting with this informant with some unexpected 'guests’, and he had run out of arrows. In desperation, Satya crafted him a few out of hard light for him to at least do some sort of damage to their pursuers—likely Talon-affiliated, but neither of them are quite sure. Their informant got spooked after the attack and it took too long to find her again.

Between quick purchases of street food (guiltily enough, Hanzo did manage to sneak some alcohol into his purchases) and trying to find this informant again and running from pursuers, Hanzo really cannot wait to get back and get a proper meal into his stomach with some actual tea.

Taking Satya’s seemingly perpetual grimace since this mission went south, Hanzo is sure that she feels the same and then some.

The days on the base were quiet without some of the agents around, but no less busy. The time you would have used for serving the agents are easily replaced with other things; the kitchen needed its weekly deep-clean, contracts had to be renegotiated, menus had to be created, ledgers had to be edited, in-person conferences had to be attended, the agents’ health has to be managed, meetings, and so much more.

All this work makes running a restaurant look like a joke.

After putting out some boxed lunches and dinners onto the service sill for everyone, each marked with its respective agent’s name (barring the ones you know will not be returning soon), your communicator beeps, reminding you of your next appointment—another negotiations meeting, likely a shitty sales pitch from someone who doesn’t even know the industry all that well—and you’re tempted to just ditch it so you can catch a moment of rest.

Instead, you force yourself to thumb through your pictures, your second greatest source of strength: a happy Agent Junkrat with his face stuffed full, teatime with the Amari family, lunchtime with Winston and Agent Tracer, and then there was Agent Hanzo, fork still in mouth and eyes closed with the faintest of smiles.

A warm, raw feeling entangles itself with the dull pang that seems to be ever persistent in your stomach. It travels up into your chest and squeezes hard.

“We chefs exist for them. We die for them.”

You pocket the communicator. With a final adjustment of your jacket—much more formal and well-fitted—you set off to depart the Watchpoint, chin held high.

They return on the Orca with the hard-won mission objective in their hands. Tracer greets both of them, too cheery for either agents, and hands them lunch boxes that must have travelled for hours to get to their hands. He only feels slightly bad that he does not have the appetite to eat it immediately, squirreling it away into his belongings for later so he can work with Satya on the mission report until their landing.

Their return is marked by the rise of the sun and jetlag.

Hanzo skips breakfast and lunch entirely in favor of a briefing with Winston and Satya and then a shower and some sleep. He finds himself waking up nearing midnight, but without the jittery feeling of suffocating and fear. Instead, it’s the untimely rumbling of his stomach. It reminds him of the terrible street food he’s endured on the mission, though Satya had more to endure than he—at least he ate meat.

Strangely enough, when he bumbles his way into the kitchen, the terminals read ‘Closed’ again. Hanzo regards them carefully—it’s far too soon for them to be closed. While he is not here all the time to qualify his theory, there’s something about the timing that feels too off.

A trap, perhaps?

To test his theory, he approaches the window, ignoring the stacked boxes—likely dirty dishes from another Overwatch agent’s trip. “Chef? I wish for tea.”

There’s no answer.

The kitchen lights are dimmed, but not shut, indicating that you are likely still around. How curious. He would turn away and leave you be, but his stomach grumbles once more, announcing its demands.

“Athena.”

The response is immediate and all around him, echoing in the vast cavern of the mess hall. “How may I assist you, Agent Hanzo?”

“Is the chef available at the moment?”

She pauses as if checking. “Affirmative. Would you like me to pass on a message?”

“No, that’s fine. I would like to contact the chef myself.”

“I’m afraid I cannot provide you the chef’s information for privacy reasons.”

Hanzo narrows his eyes and repeats slowly, “Privacy reasons?”

“The chef is considered a civilian and therefore Winston had requested that communications be kept at a minimum.”

The skepticism that’s been building these past few months again grows by leaps and bounds. What is that gorilla thinking? If he didn’t want a civilian involved in the first place, then why are you even here? “That’s ridiculous.”

“My apologies. These are the rules set in place.” Again with archaic rules. “The only way would be to have the chef personally provide contact information.”

Hanzo resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Very well. Let the chef know I am here.” And hungry.

“Understood.”

The AI leaves him alone and in silence. Hanzo takes the time to lean into the sill, poking his head into the kitchen area. Since you have the audacity to make him wait, he may as well scope the area. Though, there's very little to observe. Everything is immaculate as always, gleaming.

He can hear something slide open; it’s familiar and he soon recognizes it as the Cellar door accompanied by the hurried rustling of clothes.

“Agent Hanzo.” You sound slightly breathless, though that’s quickly tempered. “Welcome back from your mission.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm glad you've returned safely. How may I help you?”

There's the obvious stiff politeness that he is sure is nothing like how you are really like, but he’s not here to endure your posturing or to make friends anyway.

“I would like to order dinner.”

“Please use the terminals t—”

“They're closed.”

Confusion colors your voice when you repeat, “Closed? The terminals are closed?”

For a moment, you disappear from the window and all Hanzo hears is silence followed by some nonsensical grumbling before your torso returns.

“I apologize, I must have shut them down when I…” You trail off, leaving him to wonder what exactly you were doing before you arrived. “Let me turn them back on.”

“Anything is fine,” the archer snaps. “I just need dinner.”

“Oh, of—of course. We have three different entrees tonight, our offerings are a seafood fri—”

“I said, ‘anything is fine’.” he grounds out. If he has to repeat himself one more time…

“...I understand. Please give me a few minutes.”

He lets out a long suffering, but silent, sigh. He knows you’re doing your job, but this is too much. You shuffle into sight a small distance into the kitchen and toward the large freezers, shoulders hunched down and looking overly defeated, like a puppy that just got scolded or beat. He suppresses a grimace, knowing it’s his doing and maybe his words were brought on by hunger rather than reason. Genji had always complained of his behavior when he hasn't had sufficient food.

He watches you pull out everything you need, or seem to need, and spread it out on an island counter that gives him a good view of everything you’re doing. You seem just as weary as the night he went into the kitchen, but the anger is not there. Just looking at you, he gets the sense of an overwhelming exhaustion that likely cannot be solved with just a night’s rest. Maybe...just maybe he should retract his order and eat the boxes food he didn't eat during his return home.

But then, you take a breath and exhale, slow and methodical like a musician before a crowd right before a performance or a master before a fight.

And then it begins.

Cutting board and a knife are pulled onto the surface. Your hand shoots out and there goes the click-click-click of the stove and the slam of a metal skillet. In one hand, the knife comes up, and the other feeds ingredients onto the board. Thu-ka-thu-ka-thuka-thuka-thukathukah—whatever you’re chopping becomes minced in an instant, the knife rocking back and forth with relentless precision. A loud scraping sound signals the finish to that ingredient.

Without even glancing over, your free hand shoots out and grabs the next ingredient, a poor onion which is also reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds before you put down your knife and drizzle oil into the smoking pan beside you as you turn and reach for something else.

Hanzo can’t help but stare at your technique and the efficiency in which you use and know your space, he finds he barely breathes as you continue this storm with the same striking rhythm he founds himself counting to before he left for his mission.

Most strikingly of all, however, is probably the look of laser focus on your face. There’s none of the shamed timidity or false professionalism, just pure and unadulterated you. It reminds him a little of his archery teacher, whose wrinkled face would change from harsh lines to a sort of ethereal calm and cool tranquility, unwavering even under the most intense of pressures as she made her mark.

Is this how you make all their meals? With the same conviction as the master of any other craft?

Loud crackling and hissing breaks him from his reverie and the kitchen is flooded with the thick aromatics of onion that’s topped with a sweep of salt and sugar. His stomach growls fiercely and he swallows. Patience. You give the pan a quick toss, the ingredients arching up gracefully in the air and landing without a single piece lost.

He hardly notices himself uttering, “Impressive.”

There’s a pause in your rhythm that brings his hunger rushing back, and in that moment, he thinks that all that you’ve done has been ruined, but then you respond with a voice that sounds almost hopeful. “You think so?”

Hesitantly, he replies, “It is.”

He’s seen people cook before at fancy dinners where they make their food in front of you, but those people always glanced at the audience, gauging their interest with a narcissistic greed in their eyes that always ruined his appetite. Even worse was the clapping and the cheering for a particularly flashy and cheap trick that contributes nothing to a mediocre meal. The best of the best would never look at their customers that way, keeping to themselves and turning all their focus on quality, lost in their own world where there is nothing except themselves and the ingredients they prepared.

Hanzo can’t see your face, not with the way you turn to open a fridge door right underneath your tabletop, but he can hear some blooming pride as you speak.

“That’s very kind of you to say, Agent Hanzo. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all the others, however.”

“The others?”

“Oh, yes.” You seem fairly content, now deveining shrimp with a new knife, much smaller than the one you previously had, but with the same tempo you've been sporting. “I learned everything from the other chefs here in the old days, but especially from Head Chef.”

Again with this mysterious ‘Head Chef’.

"Did you learn how to...fight from this Head Chef as well?"

Not that you were particularly good at it, not enough to call it ‘fighting’ anyway; this is just 'friendly' conversation, admittedly not unlike the manipulation techniques he was taught so many years ago, though he never would have guessed he’d use it for something so mundane (if you could call a hidden treasure ‘mundane’).

Tossing the shrimp in some combination of spices, you give a thoughtful hum. "The Head Chef forced me to learn it."

“And what for?”

The bowl of shrimp is set aside as you give the pan another shake and a quick turn of a spatula. You scrape off something from the chopping board and dump it into the pan, the smell of roasting garlic bursting forth.

You seem hesitant to answer, not that Hanzo is surprised in the least. You rinse your hands and wipe them against a towel at your hip before picking up your knife again.

“Well, you see, Head Chef Richard was actually an Olympian fencer at one point.”—chop, chop, chop—“We all used to laugh at how stereotypical that was, but it was because his father was a previous champion. Head Chef gave it up for some reason and pursued cooking. No one really knows why." There's a brief pause in your chopping before it resumed again, steady, grounding. "But he didn't forget fencing. He taught it to me, I guess, because he couldn’t let go of it."

“And you fought me because of what he taught you?”

There’s a stutter to your cutting and he knows he’s slowly cornering you, but holds off on savoring victory just yet.

Your voice is surprisingly weak. “You...surprised me that night.”

“I recall you mentioned a rule; non-agents are not allowed in the kitchen.” He leans forward onto the sill a bit more. “Is that not why you attacked me?”

He could practically hear the gears turning in your head as you desperately try not to reveal what he already knows (and doesn’t know). It’s almost...cute to watch you struggle.

“Well, sort of…”

“Why is that, Chef?”

The chopping stops and sizzling begins, a new mixture of aromas—herbs and vegetables that he can’t name—permeating through the window. Then the shrimp are thrown in as well and the pan hisses violently, but you do not answer. No matter what you throw into the fire, the sounds won’t be enough to cover the subpar deceit you’ve set up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, Junkrat’s warning of, “Y’don’t mess with the bloke that feeds ya,” rings out above his ambitions. With his food (and his stomach) at your mercy, it’s best to heed that advice now, but a professional promise from you to ‘never tamper with his meals’ only serves to soften that blow.

Maybe he can leave you alone on the Cellar’s secrets. For now.

"Was fighting a necessary skill for a chef?" he asks instead.

The change of topic is clearly welcome and the tension in your shoulders visibly fades away as you consider his question in between stirring and throwing in some colored rice.

“I don't know. There were many chefs here who knew how to fight, though. We had some ex-cons and some really amazing people." You laugh to yourself but the sound bounces straight into his chest, a strange feeling of fullness filling him up.

“There was sous chef Mori, he knew jiu jitsu, I think. Our rôtisseur, Fuchs, was great at chopping stuff up and boxing. She was arrested for major fraud but ended up here somehow. Oh! And patissiere Woo, she taught me a lot about sweets from different countries, but I don’t really know her fighting style. People just...fall to the ground when they attack her.”

Again, you laugh, sadder this time. “I kind of wish they were still here.”

"Where are they now?"

At that, everything quiets down and even the sizzling seems to have taken a turn for the somber. The activity is no longer rhythmic, instead, each motion sounds forced and entirely out of sync. It's as though Hanzo has just stepped on a conversational landmine, and not for the first time, he thinks there is too much he does not know about Overwatch and the secrets that they keep guarded from him.

"They’re...around,” you say carefully.

It seems like Hanzo has a knack for stumbling upon unpleasant topics, but that only feeds his curiosity. He then asks, quietly and slowly, "Then why did the other chefs not come?"

“We wouldn’t have been able to compensate them properly.”

At the mention of compensation, Hanzo knits his eyebrows. Winston and Athena have the money to compensate each agent, but not another chef? Surely an agent (though outlawed) is more expensive than that of a single cook.

You add, “They also all have their lives and a lot of them just got it back on track. So, to come back to Overwatch would be...well, it'd be giving that life up.”

“And you?”

Bitter laughter floats above the sound of the food getting plated, and it just sounds all sorts of wrong. It sounds of deceit and history.

“I want to be here.” There’s a tone of finality to your voice as you begin to set up his tray, signalling an end to that discussion.

There is nothing he can say to that, but still, he stews on it. It’s difficult to describe, but he may have just stumbled upon the edge of something incredibly personal.

“Here you are.”

You slide the tray in front of him and he sees the moment you catch yourself about the ring the bell, likely out of instinct. He smothers a huff into his fist. He watches your hand twitch away from the bell and move toward the lunchboxes beside him, taking them away.

On the tray is a fried rice dish with seafood and medley of vegetables, arranged carefully in a done with a sprig of parsley on top, accompanied by a thick mug of tea rather than his usual teapot set. It smells good, even better now that it’s up close. Again, his stomach rumbles, so very eager to disregard all conversation and any further thoughts of distractions, demanding that he stay here and eat rather than go through the trouble of sitting down at a table.

Hanzo puts his hands together. 「Thank you for the meal.」

With gusto, he digs in. The shrimp is succulent and splits apart in his teeth with a bounce. The grains of rice are similar, chewy. The vegetables have a crunch to them that offsets the seafood. There's even the slightest hint of spiciness accompanying the mild flavor of herbs. He's shoveling more food than he can chew into his mouth just to feel the textures and keep the taste from dissipating at the haste in which he's eating. He drowns it with occasional sips of his drink—a more subdued barley tea.

Vaguely, he's aware you’ve returned, just out of sight and watching him, but it's not the uncomfortable type of gaze that he had received all his life up until now. His throat does not close up, his appetite did not diminish; he finds himself still relaxed. It's...comfortable, like he's being watched over—protected—rather than scrutinized. He clears off his plate and leaves it to you with a, “Thank you,” and receives a gentle, “You're welcome.”

While today yielded more questions than answers, Hanzo returns to sleep—he will have more time to interrogate you, patience is key—content with a belly full of food and, rarely enough, does not wake up until the next morning.

Chapter 10>>

#my writing #the way to a heart #hanzo shimada #reader #when you burn so slow you have to keep blowing on it #just to keep it going #come on you guys #twtah

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