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transmalewife · 3 years

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Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

#star wars meta #attachment #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #yoda #jedi order #mine

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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Jaune: Zero to Hero

Pyrrha: It's not about why; it's about knowing. Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both.

Knowledge, Creation and Destruction all lead up to Aura. This is just another way to say that they lead up to individuality, which is something Grimms lack:

Pyrrha: They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity.

Individuality is conveyed through Choice. This is why Choice is the most important and final gift. It is symbolic of self-actualization, which is what our characters are pursuing in their coming of age story.

Jaune’s personal arc comments the group’s collective journey and marks each stage very clearly.

In which way does it happen? And what do these stages mean for Jaune’s growth as an individual?

THE IGNORANT WARRIOR

Pyrrha: Jaune, do you... know what Aura is?

Jaune: Psch! Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?

Jaune is introduced as inexperienced and ignorant. He lacks combat experience and knows nothing about key concepts like Aura, Landing Strategy or Semblances.

His journey starts because Pyrrha shares her knowledge with him:

She awakens his aura, his very soul and later on trains him, so she helps his body get stronger:

In other words, Pyrrha is the one who puts Jaune on the right path to become a true “hero” and a “warrior”.

This is Jaune’s objective since the beginning, but he initially pursues it in the wrong way:

Jaune: I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!

He is fixated on an idea of hero which is outdated and has its root in toxic masculinity:

Jaune: Cause this is always what I've wanted to be! My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one, too. I was just never good enough.

This is why symbolically Jaune wants to be like his male ancestors. He wants to grow into “a real man”:

Cardin: Let's see how much of a man you really are...

And this is conveyed also through his Weapon:

Jaune: It's a hand-me-down. My great-great-grandfather used it to fight in the war.

Jaune did not forge his own Weapon, but he inherited it. Crocea Mors initially represents the legacy he wants to live up to. However, this legacy, instead of driving him, slows him down because he can’t grow until he remains in his ancestors’ shadow. Jaune needs to develop his own individuality instead.

In order to do so, he needs to grow not only as a figther, but as a person too.

As a matter of fact, Jaune’s ignorance is not only limited to the world he has stepped into, but also to the people around him:

Jaune: That's easy for you to say. You've probably got guys clamoring over each other just to ask you out.

Pyrrha: You'd be surprised.

He is so self-focused that he does not notice others’ feelings and hurts them unintentionally.

However, Pyrrha teaches him once again:

Pyrrha:Tell her exactly what you said. No ridiculous schemes, no pick-up lines. Just... be honest.

It is thanks to her that Jaune manages to become a better man:

He is even able to call Neptune out the way Pyrrha did with him:

Jaune: Then just go talk to her. No pickup lines, no suave moves, just be yourself. I've heard that's the way to go.

And as a result, even Jaune’s relationship with Weiss gets better:

Weiss: You said you were embarrassed at first. What made you come talk to me?

Neptune: You're looking at him. You got some good friends looking out for ya.

Because the girl realizes Jaune is not only after her money or her romantic attention:

Weiss: All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name.

But wants to genuinely be a good friend to her.

In short, Jaune starts the story as immature both as a fighter and as a person to the point that he is considered unfit and annoying by other characters:

Glynda: I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat.

However, thanks to Pyrrha, he is given the chance to mature.

Not only that, but while other characters see a weakness and a nuisance in Jaune’s ignorance and inexperience, Pyrrha sees it as a possibility:

Weiss: Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?

Jaune: Not in the slightest, snow angel.

Weiss: This is Pyrrha.

It is specifically because Jaune is new to Pyrrha’s world that he is free from bias:

Pyrrha: That's what I like about you. When we met, you didn't even know my name. You treated me just like anyone else. And thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime. I guess, you're the kind of guy I wish I was here with. Someone who just saw me for me.

This is why Pyrrha feels she can forge a genuine bond with Jaune. What is more, the girl has faith in his potential:

Pyrrha: It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own. You have a lot of it.

She sees in him what others do not and helps him develop both as a man and as a warrior.

This is well highlighted by the metal motif the two characters share.

As @hamliet explains here Rwby has several characters linked to the seven metals of alchemy.

The goal of alchemy is to create gold thanks to a process of refiniment that purifies the metal and has it go through several transformations.

The seven metals are nothing, but a scale that goes from the heaviest and most raw metal (lead) to the most purified (gold) passing through the others (tin, iron, copper, mercury, silver).

For a story, it simply means that a character goes through a process of change that leads to self-actualization.

In Rwby this idea is conveyed through specific characters embodying a metal (Ironwood, Penny, Mercury) or even thanks to metal motifs commenting a specific part of a character arc.

For example, Yang is associated with gold:

I am the golden one Who burns just like the sun

But Adam takes her arm away and has her regress in the scale of metals to iron. This regression is not simply physical, but psychological as well:

However, Yang re-affirms herself and moves forward. The first step of this process is to symbolically make her new arm “gold” again:

When it comes to Jaune, I think that he may be the character associated with lead aka the “prima materia” that needs to be molded into gold. Even if this is not true, metal is at least definately still a motif in his arc, as it is in Pyrrha’s. This is why both characters wear metal armors, differently from others.

Pyrrha is already close to her self-actualization and she reaches it in the climax of the Vale arc, where she completes her (tragic) arc and dies a Maiden.

This is why her armor is gold, while Jaune’s is white and gray. Pyrrha is at the top of the metal scale and close to the end of her journey, while Jaune is respectively at the very bottom and at the very beginning.

He is the embodyment of the prima materia that has potential for greatness, but only if he is rightly guided and if he himself works hard.

Pyrrha takes over herself the duty to help Jaune mold himself.

This is underlined also by Pyrrha’s semblance:

Pyrrha: Well, Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs. My Semblance is polarity.

Pyrrha can control and bend metals and she shows her power for the first time when she helps Jaune against the Ursa, so that he can overcome his self-issues.

So, Jaune starts the story as the lead and is going through a path of self-refinement which will lead him to become gold, so more similar to Pyrrha herself.

Pyrrha offers him the basic knowledge to start this journey, but unluckily leaves him too soon and now Jaune has to move forward on his own.

THE CREATIVE AVENGER

Pyrrha: I want you to know that I'm just happy to be a part of your life. I'll always be here for you, Jaune.

Even after Pyrrha’s death, this stays true:

Blacksmith: That was some fine metal you brought me. Accents the white nicely. Where'd you get it from?

Pyrrha has become a part of Jaune.

This is a recurring motif in Rwby:

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

It is the idea that grieving is a process that leads to acceptance, but also to integration with a lost one. It is a way to have the deceased keep on living through the survivors.

In Jaune and Pyrrha’s case, this is conveyed through Pyrrha’s metal being used to enrich Jaune’s Weapon.

As stated by Ruby:

Ruby: Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! Oh, they're so cool.

Weapons are symbolic of the self, just like Semblances.

What is more, Weapons and Semblances are also a declination of the dychotomy of body and soul, presented by the series.

Weapons are wielded by bodies, while Semblances are a materialization of the soul.

In other words, Pyrrha’s gold becoming a part of Jaune’s Weapon is symbolic of Jaune’s first step in a painful process that will lead him to overcome his partner’s death and to inherit Pyrrha’s legacy.

Jaune must keep on learning from Pyrrha and become more like her. As noted by @hamliet, this is symbolized also by Jaune’s design aquiring more golden details as he goes on in his journey:

Jaune: Guess I was going to grow out of it eventually.

Ren: A sign of progress.

Jaune: Progress.

That said, grieving is not easy and Jaune must struggle with much pain and negative feelings.

This is why the changes he makes to Crocea Mors are finalized to increase its attack power:

It is because Jaune feels anger over Pyrrha’s death and wants revenge.

In the Battle of Haven he gives in to his fury and tries to kill Cinder. He is trying to superficially imitate Pyrrha’s sacrifice:

Jaune: If I die buying them time, then it's worth it. They're the ones that matter.

However, he is not doing it out of bravery or necessity, but out of recklessness and self-hate. This is why his actions lead to this:

Once again, Jaune risks to lose another loved one:

Jaune: No, no, no, no, not again! Weiss, c'mon, please!!

However, this time he is able to save Weiss thanks to his Semblance:

Jaune: My Semblance?

Nora: How else do you think you're healing her, dummy?

Jaune gives up on using his Weapon to fight and chooses to use his Semblance to cure. He chooses soul over body and Creation over Destruction.

At the same time, Jaune’s activation of his Semblance is meaningful on two levels:

Jaune: No. I don't think I'm healing her. Our Aura heals our bodies. It feels... it feels more like I'm using my Aura to amplify hers!

Nora: Wait, aren't you worried about running out?

Jaune: Pyrrha once told me I've got a lot of it. I still believe her.

First of all, Jaune’s Semblance is rooted in the idea that people heal themselves. His power is not to cure others, but to amplify others’ auras, so that they can become stronger and can heal. It is about bringing out the best in others. It is a power fit for a leader, but also an ability symbolic of Jaune’s own process of healing. He can heal himself through helping others to heal.

Secondly, Jaune’s Semblance is in itself a nod to Pyrrha. Pyrrha used her own aura to awake his and Aura Amp is simply an evolution of this idea. It is not about activating others’ auras, but it is a power that lets Jaune share his. It also makes good use of something Pyrrha noticed immediately aka Jaune’s huge quantity of aura.

In other words, Jaune ends up acting like Pyrrha in the Battle of Haven, but not because he fights Cinder, but because he shares his gift with others, just like Pyrrha did with hers.

Pyrrha is a part of Jaune both in body (Crocea Mors) and soul (Aura Amp), but Jaune must still truly understand what this means.

He makes progress in Lost:

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

This is the essence of Pyrrha’s sacrifice. Jaune comes to understand it and chooses to make a similar choice together with his team:

Jaune: I think... I think she knew she wasn't going to win. That she might not come out alive. But... she also knew she was the only one that could try.

Ren: So she did.

Nora: Maybe we should too.

Jaune: Yeah, we should.

In this way, it will be as if Pyrrha were fighting together with them:

Nora: Pyrrha may not be by our side anymore, but we can fight like she is.

Jaune: And in a way... she will be.

Jaune tries to overcome his anger and his sadness for Pyrrha’s death in order to keep fighting like she did.

So, once again he chooses this:

Ruby: I wanted to protect my friends.

Maria: Precisely! It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you. And to make no mistake, it is light. Preservation is an extension of creation, or, at the very least, an enemy of destruction. The Creatures of Grimm were made by the God of Darkness, but your light comes from his brother.

He chooses to protect life and this is the essence of Creation.

Once he confirms this choice, he is free to explore Creation’s potential and he does so in the land of Creation itself, Atlas.

He strengthens his shield instead of his sword:

And he trains his Semblance:

Oscar: Nice, your recovery is getting faster.

This all leads him to become stronger psychologically:

Ren: Him on the other hand... There's no fear at all. I can see it, he believes we're going to get this done.

That said, Jaune starts meeting limits to his new found strength rooted in Creation:

Jaune: Ah, sorry. No matter how much I boost you, they won’t go away.

Jaune: Did... I stop the virus?

Penny: No. It’s still there.

Jaune’s way to move forward is to heal himself through healing others. Still, what to do when this is not possible?

THE DESTRUCTIVE HEALER

Penny: No… there’s not enough time to heal me…

Penny: But there is something you can do…

What happens in Atlas is an inversion of Haven.

Penny pushes Jaune’s Semblance away and touches Crocea Mors.

Jaune is asked to give up on healing her and to speed up her death instead. He is asked to choose his Weapon (body) over his Semblance (soul) and Destruction over Creation.

This marks the characters entering the Destruction phase:

Leaving Creation (Penny) behind.

For Jaune, this means that his own self image that he has worked so much to build and to make his own:

And that has been enriched in Anima thanks to Pyrrha...is shattered:

At the same time, he is once again put in a similar spot as Pyrrha:

They both become unwilling agents of Penny’s death because of Cinder (and Emerald and Mercury in the first case):

Pyrrha: Ruby, I... I'm so sorry.

Ruby: Me too. But it wasn't your fault.

Jaune: She's right. Whoever was on that microphone... they're the ones that did this. And we have to make sure they don't take anyone else.

So Jaune’s journey to integrate with Pyrrha, to understand her and her struggle continues.

What now?

It is too soon to say because we have yet to properly start our journey through Destruction and what it is about.

That said, there are two things that are worth highlighting. The first is a motif Rwby is following, while the second is a general theme found in many stories.

1) As @hamliet has stated in many metas and as I have written here, Rwby is an alchemical story. Alchemical stories are usually marked by three important deaths. Each death is symbolically linked to a color. They are usually black, white and red. However, sometimes there can be yellow instead of the white or the red. This is the case here, where a resonant death is the yellow death aka Penny’s.

It is a death that happens while the characters are surrounded by yellow:

And it happens through a weapon called “Yellow Death” (Crocea Mors’s meaning). So, it is really not subtle. Penny’s death is meant to mark an important passage for our protagonists, just like Pyrrha’s one (the black death).

2) It is common in stories that deal with healers to explore the concept of death as well.

The basic idea is that a healer is a person meant to cure. That said, they will meet people impossible to cure and that will die on their watch. This is an unescapable truth a true healer must live with.

Let’s highlight this theme is found in works very different for genre and culture.

Let’s have two examples.

Scrubs aka an American comedy about doctors deals with this theme multiple times. In many episodes the characters must simply accept they can’t save a life, but must still not lose hope and keep on living themselves.

Yosano from the manga BSD says so:

Her backstory explores the link bewteen life and death further since it is shown that a power that cures fatal wounds can be used to cheapen life itself:

It is too soon to say if Rwby will explore a similar theme, but the fact that Jaune, (the healer) is the one that has to speed up Penny’s death might be a very powerful and poignant choice. This is true especially because Rwby does not refuse Destruction (and so does not refuse death), but presents it as a principle equal to Creation (so as a part of life).

THE CHOOSING HERO

Jaune’s arc is about living Pyrrha’s death over and over again with different scenarios and outcomes. This happens so that in the end he can finally overcome it.

So far, it has happened three times and each time has been in the climax of an important battle.

The Battle of Beacon has him witness powerlessly to Pyrrha’s death (lack of knowledge and passivity).

The Battle of Haven has him saving Weiss (creation).

The Battle of Atlas has him killing Penny (destruction).

What is more, every time Jaune becomes more proactive and conscious of what he is doing.

In Beacon he has no idea of what is happening. He works with little information and things happen to him without him being able to do anything.

In Haven his actions lead to Weiss being in danger, but he manages to save her. That said, he does not do it consciously. He unlocks his Semblance because of emotional stress. It is an unconscious choice and not a conscious one.

In Atlas he makes a specific conscious choice, but it is a choice that is forced on him because of external circumstances. It is also a choice that is meant to challenge and temporally break him.

In other words, he is slowly and painfully approaching Choice aka self-actualization. Right now, he has to face the consequences of Penny’s death, but this will probably lead him to finally enter the Choice stage and to complete his arc by becoming a “hero” aka gold (probably).

At the same time, this final choice will also be about healing and overcoming grief. It will be the final integration with Pyrrha and him being able to honor her legacy.

After all, we have been told from the beginning what Pyrrha’s fate would have been. We’ve just failed to notice:

Pyrrha: For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.

June and Pyrrha’s bond is eternal and she is meant to be the key character in Jaune’s arc. It is only through confronting and finally overcoming her loss that Jaune can finally self actualize and become the person Pyrrha has always known he could be. Pyrrha will symbolically be with him in this struggle. Her memory will protect and inspire him.

#rwby #rwby meta #jaune arc #arkos #rwby arkos #pyrrha nikos #tw: penny's death #jaune x pyrrha #my meta

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rare-yanderes · 3 years

Text

(F/H) =favorite hobby.

I have the weirdest crush on this freaking duck and I don’t know why, so I’m taking out my confusion on this matter by making him yandere. Sorry that this is so long, boring and slow but I’m a sucker for slow burns and just dislike instant love. This went from just from headcannons to a freaking long ass story. I think I’ll make more on how the reader reacts when they find out just how mentally fucked Scrooge became.

Who knows, maybe I’ll write one for good ol’ Flinty. I have a feeling he’d just drop kick any rival he spots without much qualms about it. Meanwhile, Scrooge has a full on psychological derailment.

TW: manipulation, dependent behavior, stalking, and more.

______________

•To be honest, the likelyhood of Scrooge turning into a yandere might be higher than you think. He’s capable of self defense and can fight. He literally hunts treasure for a living. He also has a trillion dollar stockpile sitting around begging to be used for cover ups. His determination is pretty crazy, and he’s seen a lot on his adventures, things that would kind of instill a paranoia over time or an unhealthy me mentality. He can easily hide behind a professional front. Oh, and if he so wanted, he could travel and bury any evidence under a volcano. :)

•Since this is a yandere AU or, I’m gonna go with the idea that this is a what if the show had a TV-14 rating as well, so much darker themes can link and be explored.

•After pretty much a century of adventure, most of which includes violence and fighting through perils, human or not so, Scrooge is desensitized to quite a bit of violence and the dark and greedy side of the world. He’s seen the best of people and also the worst. This plays majorly in anyone who becomes a yandere; how exposed they are to people’s bad side or their own dark tendencies.

•Scrooge himself is not perfect and has demonstrated some traits of greediness, paranoia, and general distrustful behavior which is perfectly reasonable considering his work and the things he exposes himself too during it.

•Even though he loves adventure, there are a lot of bad things that happen on them that he seems to bottle up or keep to himself. Bottling up things causes a negative buildup in anyone, especially Scrooge because he expects that loving his life’s work will repair the same damage it sometimes does to him.

•Most likely, Scrooge developed an affinity with you through your similar drive for adventure. Maybe you worked for him in some way and he saw you defend someone or maybe you outsmarted one of his adversaries on an adventure he decided to bring you on. Regardless, you’ve caught his attention and this is only the beginning.

•A rival love interest’s biggest mistake is mistaking his age for a weakness. One minute he’s complaining about someone being on his lawn, the other they’re buried under it.

•Scrooge would probably connect most if he’s seen that you used to be in his shoes before, or at least a similar situation. Maybe you’re struggling financially but working your ass off to stabilize your income. As someone with the humble origins of a shoeshiner, Scrooge understands perfectly. Despite his incredible stockpile of wealth, he knows what’s it’s like to be at rock bottom.

•At first, you’re probably obviously very suprised with Scrooge’s involvement in your life. He’s from an entirely different world than yours after all, the top of the pyramid. Depending on your origins, you might react quite differently. Currently, you managed to find yourself stuck in a job you hated, working for someone you despised. It was a miserable, repetitive job that brought to your life a void of boredom.

•You craved adrenaline, even if it would get you killed, you finally figured that at least you’d go out with a spark. Putting on a smiling face, you accept a position at McDuck industries thinking that it was going to be another office job. By your luck, (or, later on, unfortunate luck), you managed to score a position that required you to be near Scrooge quite often.

•This gave both of you time to acquaint with eachother and the opportunity for him to see the potential in you as an adventurer instead of just an employee. Scrooge rarely lets people in beyond family, and is quite reserved so he himself questions what he sees in you at first, distrusting you even.

•When you are taken on your first adventure, you nearly boil over with eagerness. There’s a worry at first of the treachery involved but eventually, as you venture on more and more explorations, that fear dulls and you think the adrenaline as far more important than the possible loss of your life.

•Craving adrenaline is the main reason at first as to why you to want to stay around Scrooge. Despite his repeated attempts to brush or push you away, you find yourself excited every time you get to explore and finally get to see a world that you thought you’d never visit.

•Still, Scrooge remains cold and you can’t figure out why beyond the reason that he’s just a pessimistic old capitalist. As much as you want the adrenaline, you kinda can’t help but eventually enjoy his presence as well despite his temper and general grumpiness. Having been alone for over two decades without friends does that to someone. You needed warmth again.

•Maybe you grew attached to all the times you felt you were winning when you snubbed an artifact. Also, after collecting and sneaking a few gold coins into your own pocket, you were finally getting out of debt and on track to actually start your own business involving (F/H). You had the dream that you could travel where you wanted and finally find peace from your own mind and problems.

•Scrooge, despite his own warnings to himself not to persue, can’t help but offer you a job working for him. You made adventuring a million times better and were a great addition to the team, providing your own perspective or plan for the times he and his family would journey out. Oh, and he’d finally get the opportunity to be around you more. It was refreshing to see how optimistic you managed to remain despite your current financial predicament. (Which he contemplated solving.)

•Soon, however, Scrooge began to see that you were not as happy go lucky as you pretended to be, at least not when you weren’t on another treasure hunt. Something appeared to be gnawing at you. Deep down inside, it appeared to plague you and Scrooge began to worry for your well being and as a too curious for his own good duck, he needed to know what was going on. Especially when he had caught you quickly wiping away tears while you began to head home. What could possibly be causing you this pain?

•He had to find out and to his own realization, he had to know now. After all the times you saved and helped him, he wanted to make sure you were at least doing alright in return. He ordered Launchpad to tail you home and Launchpad, oh so very loyal, doesn’t question it much.

•Most yanderes might suffer from the constant delusion that their victims love them back or that they’re in the right but that’s not the case with Scrooge. There are times where he does try to justify himself, but this is mainly due to a fit of rage or to play innocent to you. Most of the time, he knows his actions are wrong and the burning temptation is causing a war. Very early on, he suppresses his curiosity and the growing feelings he has about you. Especially when they begin to boil into something far darker. Although he’s done this to nearly everyone, being cold to you and pushing you away seemed to be his way of trying to ensure your well being instead of his. He was finding it hard not to think about you sometimes.

•Soon enough though, he begins to grow inquisitive about your personal life as you open up to him and define yourself as a person instead of another blur. You were always quite genuine to just sit around and talk to him and despite denying it to himself, Scrooge was lonely, especially after the Spear of Selene. Sometimes you’d joke to him, sometimes you’d think philosophically. Sometimes it was just a mutual, comfortable silence.

•Scrooge might make excuses aloud to you, but doesn’t lie to himself. All the times he’s made you work later or given you an extra dose of paperwork was because he wanted to keep you around and in his line of sight. 12 hours without you was turning into a painful reminder of how isolated he was, even with Beakley around. You were a warmth, a cool, calm warmth.

• “I’ll eventually need to know her address later on in case she’s attacked by one of my adversaries anyways.” Nope, Scrooge wasn’t fooling himself with that sentiment. He knew he was invading your privacy, but he also knew that he was too nosy to care enough.

•The main problem is that although Scrooge knows a lot of what he’s doing isn’t right, he begins to care less and less. (Though this process takes quite a while.) You’re a valuable and positive part of his life, you had stayed when everyone else had abandoned him for his admittedly awful mistakes. He can’t lose another person he treasures. Especially not you. You’re becoming the shiniest yet. Losing you might mean losing himself in some sense.

•Scrooge tries to shake off the guilt but only finds that maybe it’s better to punish himself by feeling it. He’s currently following along your path to wherever your destination currently is.

•Of course, his iconic shiny limousine would be a sore thumb sticking out to both you, the media, and Duckberg in general so he makes sure to either trail far behind or to have another mode of transportation available. Regardless, Scrooge never hires another person to watch you in place.

•Scrooge doesn’t even install cameras. He’d rather experience your life from his own two eyes and not as reported from another bird or screen. He rather liked tracking you himself. It gave him a place to go and at least he’d be able to bask in your duality himself. Sometimes you cried, he found to his own breaking heart. Sometimes you’d smile, (mostly only in his presence, to his delight.)

•Most of all, though, you seem caught in the present of life. Distracted, even. It seems though, that sometimes you’re so distracted that you don’t even notice something is off. Or maybe you yourself are too unable to break the cycle of adrenaline adventure to see it. Maybe you yourself were actively creating excuses, at least at first as to why you sometimes ran into Scrooge McDuck everywhere.

•If there’s something else Scrooge is a master at other than money, it’s with keeping up the detached and reserved persona of a wealthy individual. After all, who would suspect him of such crimes like these? He’s just a selfish, greedy businessman that only cares about his wealth, right? He’d never bother with other birds unless he was shaking hands at a conference table.

•Wrong. As you and him grow to become more like mentor and student, Scrooge begins to insert himself everywhere he possible can in your life, especially after seeing the shitfest that was your social group, what little of it there was. Apparently, you’d finally made a few friends over the years working for him and there was only one out of all of them that Scrooge approved of.

•Two of them, both identical Peacock twins appeared to be fascinated with your link to him and nothing more. It made some sense. After all, who could say they were a close worker to the richest duck in the world? The other one, a tall and lanky chicken, was getting far too handsy with you, and the final, a feline male was nothing but gossip and drama.

•To add to insult, you were a pretty big pushover outside of work which meant that they would drag you to places you didn’t even want to go and pressure you to have drinks you didn’t want to taste. They were in love with the mask you put up, not the complex and amazing face behind it. The one that you were beginning to let Scrooge see.

• Scrooge watches from a distance as your laugh reverberates. The laugh appears to Scrooge as unwavered and solid, mechanical in nature like it was a reoccurring script. Gazing at your face, he could see that your smile was strained, beak scrunched. You just wanted to go home and nothing more.

•The chicken next to you he was sucking a cigarette and the smoke blew in your direction, replacing your laugh with coughing and the others cackled with drunk glee, their solo cups tipping as they did. You blew it off as an accidental push in the wind which, by the way, wasn’t even blowing.

•Out of all of them, Scrooge hated the lanky chicken, who’s name he learned was Gale, the most. You deserved far better than that. Surely you saw through his sleazy act, right? Why were you hanging around such a ratched group of birds? Just how blind were you to their usage of you?

•Almost without even realizing it himself, Scrooge had tailed you the entire way home. After having to torment himself with an hour of seeing you torment yourself, he figured that maybe you’d find something that made you happy other thanyour little flock of “friends.”

•So he was admitting to being a stalker to himself. Did that mean he’d be able to admit it to oblivious ol’ you? Well, no. At least, not for now. Not until you trust him completely. Oh well, he’ll never go further than then that, right? He was watching you, but not engaging in any way. Nothing worse could come out of it..

•Wrong.

•After a while of having you working under him at McDuck Industries, Scrooge began to realize just how much financial control he had over you. Not only did you depend on him cod for paycheck, your landlord worked for someone who worked for him. In other words, the spot of land you were living on was an apartment company that belonged to him. You were living under one of his roofs. All he’d have to do was shift some circumstances and you’d either be homeless or debt free forever. Scrooge of course, plays the benevolent route and lowers it significantly for you. Why antagonize you?

•After having taken that action, Scrooge noticed more and more of a smile on your face as you realized that you didn’t have to depend paycheck to paycheck for food on the table. He had also been aware that you had a side hobby now, involving (F/H.) sometimes you joked you’d start a business and go off parting ways with that hobby. It was source of entertainment to watch you be..Well, you. There was this genuine behavior about you that just drew him in.

•If Scrooge wasn’t adventuring with you or at a meeting also with you, he was still with you. You just didn’t know it yet. Interestingly however, you’d begun to pick up the signs that there was a presence in your life. Whereas you didn’t close the blinds before, you did now. Or maybe that was from all the adventures you’d nearly died on fighting others off. Maybe it was paranoia.

•Eventually, Scrooge managed to break into your apartment under the guise to Launchpad that he’d been invited by you. A ludicrous lie, of course, but Launchpad is gullible to a fault when it comes to Scrooge. He’s loyal like that, and his friendliness to you plays into Scrooge’s emotional manipulation later on.

•As Scrooge sneaks in while you’re still home, he makes his way behind the kitchen counter which seperated your living room. He didn’t expect you to be right there in the living room, but you were, just five feet away from him and the window he snuck in. The window was to your right. He had carefully parted the curtains. Your couch was sitting approximately five feet from the window balcony, facing a corner of the wall with the T.V off.

•Peculiarly, you hadn’t even noticed he’d entered by rigging the door. You were right there, not staring at his direction, but he should have at least appeared in your peripheral. Just what were you doing to be so disconnected to the reality around you? It was worrying.

•Now hidden behind the counter directly to the left of you, he observes your desensitized form. For a moment, Scrooge thought you were a corpse until he peered closer. You were still there, physically. Mentally you looked as if you were in a whole other dimension. In a rather bold move, Scrooge slowly stands up and positions himself in the archway, watching you from his spot.

•You were still, so very still unlike all the times you’d fidget at work or with those “friends.” You still breathed and your hands shook slightly and there was color to your eyes but you yourself didn’t even seem present whatsoever. Your eyes were glazed and far away. It was just your body sitting there in that couch. It was worrisome and yet there was a blissful smile to your face seconds later.

•It was you, daydreaming about something. Something you obviously enjoyed. Scrooge, to his own shame, hoped it involved him. For a few more moments, all you did was sigh like you were meditating. It was haunting how easily you had lost yourself within the confines of your tumbling mind. Somehow, you were blocking out the world beyond, maladaptively.

• Scrooge knew he was taking a huge risk. All you’d have to do to spot him now was swivel your head a few inches or wake up from dreamland. It would take a few inches to ruin what you thought of him.

Just then, to Scrooge’s horror, you had slowly picked yourself off the couch. Your body shuttered as your head snapped up. He knew he was taking a huge risk with this and began to think that maybe it was a terrible idea after all. (Who was he kidding, it was terrible in the first place, he knew what he was doing.)

•He quickly fell back to his crouched position behind the counter, silently and expertly as you turned around and made your way closer and closer. There was a tense moment in which Scrooge contemplated just knocking you down completely and rendering you unconscious. All it would take was a few seconds. Maybe you’d forget or maybe he’d give you the dreamland you seemed so desperate to reach. It would certainly give him peace of mind to know where you are 24/7..All he’d have to do is knock you out and take you to the manor. You’d be secure and have everything you need there…

•Your presence was setting him alight, in the good way and bad way. He loved being near you. But hated the idea of you getting any closer right now, because you getting any closer would ruin your trust in him entirely. A few more steps is all there was between the idol you saw Scrooge as and the monster he was growing to be. You were like a fire. The heat scorched his feathers. Then, when you were away, his thoughts.

•Your steps were louder than they’d ever been. Then, to Scrooge’s unbelievable luck, you turned towards the hallway away from the kitchen. Scrooge knew not to push his luck trying to follow or stay, so despite his clawing urge to figure you out, he hesitantly snuck out with unanswered questions on your concerning mental state.

•It had been a months since that incident and Scrooge was moving onto bigger and bolder actions. Sometimes he’d swipe you away from any conversations you had with your friends by calling you in for a task. Sometimes he’d eat up all your time by keeping you in late, and taking you to places far away that required days of travel.

•Sometimes he’d drive bad influences away by financially ruining their life forever.

You noticed Gale’s downfall quickly, but you didn’t have any idea it was Scrooge who was responsible. Gale lived actually, three complexes from you and oh so suddenly, rent had begun to skyrocket in the particular room he had to himself. This led to him being presented with an eviction notice. You didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye. (Not that you wanted to, though.) deep down you were glad he was gone and Scrooge knew it. Gale had to move far off to find an affordable spot. It was a mercy considering how often Scrooge had dreamed of just throwing him into the ocean tied up for the sharks to find. He was a toxic influence.

•Maybe if someone pushed his button just right, Scrooge would end up killing them, and who would care? There were seven billion fellow people on the planet. Scrooge could just get rid of any threat he wanted and no one would notice or ever suspect it was him. After all, he’s just a grumpy old man with a cane.

•It turns out, Scrooge had picked up on your plans to possibly quit your job. He had never felt his heart sink like it did now. He was fighting off his initial shock as you stood in his office, masking it with a detached face. You hadn’t even confirmed the statement. All you’d said was that maybe you’d found a company within your favorite hobby.

•It was just a small implication. But, Implications could become statements, which could turn into actions, and Scrooge couldn’t let the thought even be a presence in your mind.

•You had stayed with him throughout the years of his loneliest moments, had confessed secrets, had confided in him. You were like his pupil, learning from him and you were like his partner, fighting alongside him. Maybe you were something different altogether.

•...Was it a friend that convinced you? It had to be. Scrooge knew how much you enjoyed galavanting around the world with him. There’s no way you’d just fly off without him.-

“I promise I’ll still occasionally go with you, Scrooge. (A first name basis. This was devolving from anything normal.) I found my passion. We can still adventure together, but I found a path that also makes me happy and doesn’t ya know, get me killed.” You chuckle as if it were nothing. A light joke.

•So you were leaving. You were going to go. Why? You had a great paycheck, (an expensive one that took a lot of money,) you had the opportunity to travel the world. You had the best job you’d ever get. Who else was going to be as good as him? He won’t let you destroy your future by applying for a Mediocre position at some dumptruck company.

•As it turns out, the bird responsible for swaying you was none other than one of the peacocks, her name was Shelby. She and you laughed, and for the first time, your laugh was genuine. Genuine with her and not with Scrooge. You both shared each other’s stories, and she in return had encouraged your little dangerous fantasy of being independent.

•Now of course Scrooge realized how ridiculous this all sounded. He had willingly allowed you to go on perilous adventures with him, but at least then, you were with him. How could he keep an easy eye on you if you just moved off to some rando spot? Plus, he was plenty good as saving you. He was your hero.

•Bad influences needed to go away.

•Scrooge might lie to himself about how much it digs under his feathers, but to see you around other people really dug wrong. He itched every time you decided to take advice from other people, or confide in them instead of him. He was the one you could go to, not them. Your secrets didn’t need to be shared with anyone else but Scrooge. All those rare and precious things that made you yourself didn’t need to be snatched by thieves like Shelby or Gale or whoever else.

•He knew that his criminal actions would scare you. Even with your growing trust and dependence on him, he knew it was too early for you to want to stay with him if you knew what he’s been doing. If he wanted your presence, he’d keep it through lengths you’d find terrifying.

•Scrooge found your biggest flaw was that you always attracted the wrong crowd, and it was primarily because you were always trying to impress others when they really didn’t deserve the magnificent canvas you painted yourself to be. To his even greater detriment, you were beginning to spend your time more and more with Shelby. The canvas you painted was beautiful, as always. But it wasn’t for him, and he found that he was not happy with this new development.

•Don’t you know people take advantage of kindness? It happened to him all the time and still does. It happened to you over and over and yet you kept venturing forth giving out your trust like it was nothing. The world is a sour place if you’re not careful. Cursed kilts, you were already naive about Gale. Who knows how badly future people would hurt you, even if they were well intentioned.

Scrooge could tell that, despite him insisting otherwise, you thought leaning on his shoulder was burdening him. He wanted to make sure you knew it was anything but that. As a matter of fact, he wanted you to lean on his shoulder every moment he possibly could get you to. What was just you occasionally asking for advice on impersonal things becomes entire sessions with Scrooge encouraging you to reveal every personal detail of your life.

•You had revealed that many times, you just wanted independence. A company of your own to possibly build so you could pursue life your own way. Scrooge knew these dangerous thoughts were one of the final roadblocks. Scrooge had to prevent them. Be it through roughening you up financially or discouraging you. Be it from murdering outside influences, too. Who was going to miss the miserable miscreants that plagued your life anyways?

•It is three days before the date you had decided that you would resign. Instead of being merry, you were miserable. The opportunity you had to get the job was burned by them not even calling you for an interview. After your resume, why would they reject you? You had the word of one of the finest businessmen out there to back you up. Scrooge himself promised to put in a good word for you! You were perfectly qualified for the job you were looking for. In your days of being rejected from the position you wanted, you confide in Scrooge. You don’t know it but as he pats your shoulder, he’s thinking of the next way to sabotage your efforts of leaving him.

•Shelby ends up going missing. She was one of your closest friends and the only one who finally treated you well. Your devastation causes a major setback in any ambitious plans as you isolate yourself from anyone else but only the closest person left in your life; Scrooge.

•Currently, you were enveloped in a warm hug, the side of your face leaning in the crook of Scrooge’s neck as he calmed your crying form down, patting your back and promising you his presence would remain forever. You wept at Shelby’s funeral, so did her twin sister and their parents, who, upon seeing Scrooge, had nearly fainted in shock.

•Despite your tumultuous relationship with Shelby, she had actually begun to redeem much of her previously antagonistic actions towards you. She was in a rough place when you had developed a connection with her. So you wept in your boss’s, or rather, your best confidantes arms. You wept.

Scrooge, however, did not.

#yandere #obsession #yandere ducktales #scrooge mcduck #headcanons #yandere x reader #reader insert #platonic or romantic #ducktales #cartoon #yandere Scrooge McDuck #minors do not interact #murder #this is weird I know #dt 2017 #ducktales 2017

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miu-miiu · 4 years

Text

⚡ astrobservations p.2 ⚡♌

🌟 houses

*this is a new theory i came up with but we might experience the energy of the opposite of our houses. for example, as a 1h venus person you may act more like a 7h venus where you avoid confrontation and value keeping the peace. as a 7h venus, you may act more like a 1h venus where you give more appericiation to your appearance and be more aggressive and argumentative.

as a 6h sun, you may find it more difficult to accomplish tasks at hand and be productive and it may feel like a burden to you, but you may easily get in contact with the astral realm and embrace your higher self.as a 12h sun, you may easily be productive and finish tasks and chores but struggle with surrendering to the divine, diving deep into spirituality or struggle to accept your gifts.

*mercury in 7h love to debate other people and share their ideas with other people

*jupiter in 5th gives excellent stage presence and abundance of creativity, its the ultimate performer and creator placement. people with chart ruler in 5h jupiter are often destined to become a creator/performer which can even mean being a tourist guide or a youtuber

*mercury in 5th people are never boring and they are extremely pleasant people who will make everything 5x more fun than it is. school work, chores, everything is funner with them!

🌟 synastry

*be VERY careful when getting into a relationship with 8th house synastry, especially if you are the planet person because you will most likely form an extreme attachment and obsession to the house person that will last for a very long time and can go into unhealthy lenghts. because you are the planet person and this is 8th house synastry we are talking about, the house person has immense power over you and they know it. they can see right through you. as the planet person, you want to be their one and only and feel they empower you, which makes you crave to be with them more because they give you power and their presence helps you get through anything. you will never forget about them and they become embeded in your subconscious. the house person will feel disturbed and triggered by you psychologically. but they become fascinated with the planet person. this makes an extremely transformative relationship. they bring out your true personality (especially if your sun is in their 8th house) to the surface and you trigger the heck out of them. the planet person usually finds the house person when the house person is at their rock bottom and sometimes vice versa.

*venus conjunct sun synastry has an effect where the venus person is widely known as the sun person’s sweetheart. the venus person becomes a magnefied and known person in the sun persons life, almost like a celebrity couple/duo while the sun person is known by the venus persons’ favorite people and inner circle mostly.

*12th house synastry is a BITCH i fucking hate it because it makes everything so blurry and unknown you have no idea wtf is going on but you also cant make your way out and you idealise the person a lot

6th house synastry is EXCELLENT because you’re involved in each others lives so much. more often than not, you spend majority of your time in a day together whether by hanging out or texting and the planet person usually reports the house person what are they doing during the day (like a random text of “im repairing a bike rn” or “im going to x, i’ll be back in awhile” etc) and you care about each other A LOT. the planet person can take a director role in the house persons life and they help each other a lot

mars conjunctions are wonderful synastries for sticking through thick and thin, it makes a very dynamic and sexy couple

with mercury in 7th house synastry, it’s IMPOSSIBLE for the love to remain as a secret if it’s a romance relationship. it will come out. one of you will admit it sooner or later

🌟 other

*wherever your mars is placed in, is where you’re not scared to take action or assert yourself. example: my pisces mars friends are not afraid of getting in dangerous waters likecliff diving, swimming in wild waves, going too deep in water etc. i, as a leo mars am not afraid of putting myself out there and performing

*sagittarius suns love to eat, while sagittarius moons have less appetite and desire to eat

*aries moons love themes of war, they have a warrior-like approach to most things

*aries-pisces people turn war and warriorhood into fantasy and make it dreamlike. (example: grimes’ (a pisces sun aries moon) WarNymph persona)

*i didnt observe this myself but read that mars opposite uranus people have deranges pasts with knives and it’s SO true.

*fire moons enjoy energetic and upbeat music, earth moons love chill music (like indie, lofi, can be r&b too maybe), air moons can enjoy techno music&rap, and i’m not sure about water moons cause i don’t have many water moons in my life but i’m thinking they would enjoy songs with lyrics or beats that make them feel something and songs with stories. i’ve seen that they tend to listen to music of all kinds. earth moons openly discriminate amongst genres and dgaf

*pisces placements have divine intelligence and are revolutionaries. this is rarely mentioned and pisces are often described as “airheads” which they are because of their giant imaginations and unique thought process but it’s a sign of intelligence. pisces people pick up on ANYTHING so quickly, absorb information like a sponge and analyze it themselves to form an opinion and understand it. their thoughts and opinions often dont make to other people or shock them. they will bring revolution and newness into whatever area they are working with. (example: einstein, rihanna, grimes (she’s literally trying to make the “ethereal techno” an official genre and creating avatars. revolution), billie eilish, kurt cobain (helllooo grunge king), paul mccartney, copernicus, aamir khan, steve jobs are all either pisces suns or risings

*sagittarians are similar in the sense that they like to discover new paths. they have the star quality (walt disney, britney spears, brad pitt, nicki minaj)

*it makes sense that the world’s most famous celebrity right now is a leo (kylie jenner)

*sagittarius and gemini risings have thick and pretty hair. it’s well styled and you want to run your hand through it. they’re physically advantaged

*aries suns and moons will just create trouble if they cant find it cause they love to throw themselves in tricky and dangerous situation as they feed off of it

*cancer moons get fucking poetic and dramatic at the slightest conflict, argument or emotional moment like they fucking channel the spirit of shakespeare. shhtoppp

*air sun, moon, mercury & venus dont like sadness, depression or traumatic memories so they will often program themselves to forget about heartbreaks or traumatic events and move on like they never happened or change the story and tell people different stories about what happened to convince themselves and twist reality.

*moon-saturn often naturally restricts food intake

most socialists/communists have taurus and sagittarius placements it’s INCREDIBLE

leo ic people are inherently and naturally charming af, thats because they are usually SHOWERED with love and affection as a child, they are often the only child and the golden child which obviously feeds someone with confidence for their life later on

libra moons will judge you on the inside if you are ugly sjdljsdf they dont like to be in aesthetically unpleasent spaces

#astrology #vivianstrology #astro #astrology observations #astrology notes #synastry #houses #sun #moon #venus #witchy #witchcraft #horoscope #zodiac #leo #gemini #libra #pisces #rising

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lokilickedme · 3 years

Text

The Way

I’m writing horror again. I guess it’s that time, you know, that time that has nothing to do with Halloween or the seasons or whatever, that time when it just hits me for some reason. And just like I always do, I’ll say I don’t know why.

Even though I know why, and you know I know why.

Because the truth is always so much weirder and worse and more disquieting than any excuse I could make up for it, and sometimes I just feel the need.

Today I felt the need, and I couldn’t make it go away.

And so I sat down, and words I didn’t want to write were written.

8592 words I would rate this Mature 18+ if it was a fic, strictly because of the subject matter.

Warnings: Death, mostly. Religious trauma, brief descriptions of abuse, mentions of mental illness, domestic violence, grief, familial dysfunction, religious abuse, emotional abuse, medical conditions, brief mentions of drug use/abuse, mild gore in reference to corpse decomposition, psychological unease and mild terror, child abuse (mental/emotional/psychological), brief allusion to physical child abuse, cult references, loss of faith, attempted murder, possible actual murder.

A Note: I love you guys, you’re always so quick and willing to be helpful and offer advice and suggestions and such, and I adore that about you. But on this piece of work I ask that nobody offer any theories about what happened to my brother - medical, criminal, or otherwise - and please no suggestions on things we could do to pursue investigation, that ship has long sailed. It’s been 23 years and he’s a cold case. We spent years trying to sort it out but in the end it’s just something that happened, and we moved on because we had to. There are a lot of open ends, a lot of question marks, a lot of suspicious details that never connected to anything - and we tried, we truly did. If anyone out there knows the truth, they’ve never shown themselves to us. We do have our theories, but my brother was a secretive person living a life none of us knew about, and the people he knew weren’t people we knew. Everyone involved is either dead or moved on or got away with whatever it was they did, and there are only three of us who still care. It’s over.

Until today, I’ve never put these events into words.

It was something I needed to do, finally.

This is PART ONE. There may not be a part two, unless doing this ends up making me feel better.

Please feel free to comment if you wish. As you can see, pretty much nothing triggers me. I just ask that you please refrain from the type of comments noted above.

And thank you.

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This is, regrettably, a true story. Nothing has been changed but the names, because the dead don’t like being talked about, and James was just enough of a shit to haunt me for it.

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They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking But where were they going without ever knowing the way

They drank up the wine And they got to talking They now had more important things to say And when the car broke down They started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

Their children woke up And they couldn't find them They left before the sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

- The Way, Fastball, 1998

That was the year James died in his sleep.

Or that’s what they say, anyway. Asthma, the likely cause based on his medical history, our first and least disturbing assumption. Undetermined, the official determination based on the hastily scraped-together autopsy, the best that could be done under the circumstances. We tell people he had breathing problems, and they nod their heads and agree because they knew he did, and now he’s been gone so long that nobody asks. Most of the people who ever met him have long moved on or disappeared or died themselves, or just remember him as the enigmatic middle son from the Keithley family that nobody really knew very well. You know, the odd one, the one that showed up at meetings maybe once a year and smiled nervously but didn’t really talk to anyone and always seemed anxious to leave? The one who died under mysterious circumstances? That one.

He left the way he always came in. Quietly, unexpected, without anyone being aware of either his entrance or his exit.

But me and mom know some things, and she’s not talking. She probably never will.

So maybe it’s time I did.

December 1998. I’d gotten married two years previous and moved back to the family land with my new husband. He hated it there, but we had an affordable place to live. It wasn’t bad. He’d tell you otherwise. The land never sat right with him, but I’d lived there too many years to see it. I’d been fifteen when my father uprooted his large family from the city and hauled us out to the great back door to nowhere, and even though I’d left several times to wander elsewhere, I always came back.

I didn’t realize why at the time, at any of the multiple times. But now I know. That place gets you, and it holds you, and unless you’re goddamned devoted to staying gone you will always be pulled back. It took me till I was 49 to funnel the necessary amount of devotion away from the religious dedication I’d had jackbooted into me and turn it toward getting out, but against a great number of overwhelming odds I finally did it.

But this isn’t about that, not yet anyway. This is about my brother James, and how he went to sleep one night and found his own way out.

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It was snowing, had been for days, a bit unusual but not unheard of. The part of the state we lived in was notorious for extended ice storms and we knew a bad one was coming, but until it hit we played in the snow like it was a gift and we were deprived children who knew it was all going to be taken away soon. My brothers and I were adults but you wouldn’t know it, watching us sneak around in the woods staging elaborate commando attacks on each other. James was the best of us, a stealth king who could stand in the middle of a room for an hour without a single soul seeing him. Perception bias, he said. Your brain ignores me because I obviously don’t belong, like those puzzles where you circle what’s wrong but it takes you forever to find them.

He crept around in the forest scaring the shit out of people, dropping his long tall self out of trees, appearing from nowhere to administer a well aimed snowball to the face of whoever happened to cross his path and then disappearing just as quickly. We called him a wraith and it wasn’t a good natured jibe. We meant it. He made people nervous. He was the stealthy kind of quiet you associate with danger, and he knew how to do things an average person doesn’t ever have any need to know. It was a quiet cool that we admired him for, because none of the rest of us had it.

The religion we were raised in kept a tight lid on us, but me and James, we never really let it get into our bones. We were the smart ones, in retrospect. I went through the motions by force of habit and a sense of self preservation, doing what was expected and demanded of me, following the rules and making myself a perfect example of a young member of the church so I wouldn’t bring shame on the congregation and my family. But mostly the congregation. It was always more important than anything else. And I had behaving down to an art form, but mostly when people were looking. Usually also when they weren’t.

But sometimes, not quite.

And then I prayed for forgiveness about it later because God was supposed to forgive you if you asked him to, right? The tenet of willful sin being unforgivable never took root with me even though that was what the church conditioned into us through fear and constant repetition. They said it from the stage two nights a week and again on Sunday to hammer it home. Two nights a week and again on Sunday my head silently disagreed. God’s not like that. And then I did the praying for forgiveness thing even though I knew I was right, because I was disagreeing with the church, and the church was God’s channel here on Earth, wasn’t it? I committed a mortal sin at least three times a week on that subject alone, and though the dread of divine punishment was hardwired into me, I never could reconcile the concept of a loving and forgiving God destroying me simply for knowing better.

I’m not sure the comprehension of an overwatching deity ever actually established itself in James’ brain. A moral code, yes. But isn’t that what God is, really? Maybe he understood more about God and forgiveness than the rest of us. But he was considered an unapproved fringe member of the church because he couldn’t suffer people and noise and being looked at and he refused to preach, and he was soft-shunned as a result. Because if you weren’t all in to the point of being willing to die at any moment for your faith, you were as good as faithless.

And faithless meant condemned. And the congregation couldn’t be bothered with condemned people, regardless of their reasons for not having both feet in the water. The first and only option on their list was to put the person out and let them find their own way back once they realized they had nobody left in the world who cared about them.

James escaped that somehow. He was supposed to be shunned whole scale, but he wasn’t trying to convince anyone to leave the faith and he presented no threat to anyone’s strength of belief, and so far as anyone knew he’d committed no grave sins other than disinterest. So the rule that dictated we cast him out was bent enough to allow him to remain living on the family land, though at one point during a fit of overzealous righteousness my mother had tried to have a family meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to let him stay. I refused to vote and when I walked out of the house the meeting fell apart.

I’ve never forgiven her for that. Her son’s life being put to a vote with her presiding over the proceedings, vengeful and unfeeling and devoid of compassion on behalf of God himself. It takes my breath away, the anger, still to this day. The only thing I ever truly learned from my mother about parenting was a long and intensely detailed list of what not to do to my own children, and I suppose I should be grateful for that. It’s a bitter thank-you to have to give, but it’s something.

We knew James as much as he would allow us to, and not an inch further. Which meant the extent of our knowledge of him pretty much stretched to include the singular fact that he was different. What that meant, I still don’t really know - but it was there from the day he was born, that slight off-ness, the oddly off center calibration that you can’t really see so much as sense in a person. I know now he was likely on the autism spectrum and he walked through life seeing and reacting to everything differently than most of us, but that wasn’t a thing back then. You were just weird, or you weren’t. And I’m not convinced that was a bad thing for him, strictly speaking. But in the confines of our religion and our family’s devout and sometimes violent dedication to it, it took its toll almost daily.

He stood out, and he was very much a person who didn’t want to. He wanted to fade into the background, to not be seen, to not be known. And our religion didn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense, because we were commanded to be bold bearers of The Word Of God, and no exceptions were made.

None.

I’m going to stop calling it a religion now. I beg your indulgence as I shift to calling it what it is, because calling it a religion is an insult to actual religions that don’t destroy peoples’ lives with callous indifference and murderous glee.

We were raised in a doomsday death cult. There’s no other name that fits.

And we were trapped in it and its ugly cycle of neverending mental and emotional manipulation and abuse until we were adults, and some of us are still bound to it. My oldest brother worked his way up to the upper levels of oversight in the local congregation and was solidly entrenched in it until his death, which is a story for later. My youngest brother, the last remaining living blood sibling I have, is still deeply in it to this day and will likely never leave it.

I took the hard way out, three years ago, by walking away.

James, though. He took the easy way. He simply closed his eyes, and he was free.

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December 22, 1998. Three days before Christmas, though that meant nothing to us. The cult told us Christmas was a filthy demonic pagan ritual that was condemned by God, so to us the season was just a nice chilly time of year with lots of time off from work. We’d had an unusual amount of snow, the most we’d had in years. The roads were impassable and everyone was home except my husband, who worked close enough that his boss at the glass shop came and picked him up that morning with chains on his tires. Lots of windshields had shattered from the sudden violent cold that had struck the previous night and Scott had the only glass shop for sixty miles.

I think it must have been around noon, and likely my mother had sent my dad up the hill to see if James wanted to come down for the lunch she was making. He and his wife had split up against the strict rules of the church after a few years of suffering through an ill advised marriage, an important detail to this story that will come into the tale later, and he was alone up there at the top of the hill a lot. Sometimes he forgot to eat, or he got so busy that he just didn’t bother, so our mother always made something for him because even though he was in his 20′s he was still a kid who needed looking after and her zealous fervor against him had died down with time. I think he let her believe he was helpless because it worked in his favor and there was always lunch waiting for him in her kitchen as a result.

He was different, he wasn’t dumb.

We all lived on the hill back then with the exception of our youngest brother. He’d moved to the city with his new wife not long prior. The locals jokingly called the place a commune, and I guess they weren’t completely wrong. Thirty-eight acres of wooded land far beyond the city limits that we’d painstakingly spent years carving a livable space into, with five houses, all built from the ground up and inhabited by an extended family of well known culties from a well known cult. It’s almost comical, looking back on it, knowing now how they kept an eye on us for years to make sure we weren’t doing anything weird up there.

They should have run us off with pitchforks and burning stakes at the very beginning.

Things might have ended differently for us if they had.

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My grandparents lived at one end of the property, an old couple as simple and solid as salted soup, devoutly religious and devoted to the cult and very much cut from the can survive anything and probably will cloth like so many old country folks of their generation. They were waiting out the end of days up there in their little wooden house, expecting the final hour of this old system to come long before their own demise. I liked my grandmother, she had a sweet smile and fell asleep every time granddad started talking about the Bible and she paid me five dollars every Wednesday to drive her into town to get groceries, and years later, when she was dying, she told me she’d had a dream where she met my unborn son. I was four months pregnant and didn’t know yet that I was having a boy. She died before he was born, but to this day, fifteen years later, he tells me he’s sure he met her, he just can’t remember when.

I was scared of my grandfather. Not terrified, but there was nothing grandfatherly to him and I always suspected he never actually liked kids much. He’d once told us a story about the great Fort Worth flood that wiped out most of the city when my mom was a baby, and how he had told my grandmother to let go of my 2-year-old mother while he was struggling to get them across a rushing flooded creek in water up to their shoulders. My grandmother couldn’t swim. We could make another Ruthie, he said. But I couldn’t get another ‘Nita.

He said it proudly, like he was to be admired for his choice. I was young when he told that story, but it settled into me that this was evil.

Even when he was old as dirt and dying of a brain tumor in hospice care, he made me uneasy. I was never close to him. But for some reason, in his final days, he forgot who everyone was except me. I had been living in another state for years and he hadn’t seen me since before the tumor started taking his life. But when I walked into the room he turned his head and looked at me, and he mouthed my name.

He couldn’t speak. I don’t know what he was trying to say, struggling with words that nobody could hear. And I felt bad. I didn’t want to be the last person he recognized. My cousins adored him and had spent the last few years constantly at his side, and they were angry, maybe justifiably, that I was the one he reached for.

I didn’t want that at all.

I don’t believe he was a bad man, but he never spoke of anything except the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, and it was as tiresome as it was terrifying. Granddads are supposed to be fun. Ours quoted doctrine at us in a deep loud commanding voice that you couldn’t interrupt and you couldn’t tune out, and once he got going you had to just settle in and wait for him to run out of zealous steam. And then he would suddenly stop and command grandmother to turn on a John Wayne movie and bring him some ice cream, and it was over until the next time.

I know my mother resented him. She knew grandmother was the one that had refused to let her go, the one that had held onto her even though she almost drowned by the simple act of holding on. She knew her father had been willing to let her wash away and drown. That he thought she was interchangeable with whatever baby they would have next. How she could spend her entire life with that knowledge and not be deeply affected by it was something that never made sense to me, but now, when she’s in her 70′s and I’m in my 50′s, I finally understand. It affected her. She’ll just be damned if she’ll let anyone see it. And she had stood there in that hospice room watching him mouth my name with resentment burning in her eyes, though she would have rather died than let anyone know what it was for. He’d forgotten her weeks ago.

The house in the center of the hill was mom and dad. The homestead. The house we’d all lived in together, that we’d built with our own hands, the first thing that marked that wild overgrown hill as a place where people actually lived. A long path through the woods connected it to the grandparents’ house, and it was the epicenter of everything in our lives. James and I had lived in the upstairs rooms of that house until we both moved out and married our respective mates years later, a reprehensible act on our part that was never okay with my mother and that she never forgave either of us for. She’d wanted us all to stay. We can all live here together until the New System comes, she always said. That’s how the Bible says it’s supposed to be. We can all keep each other safe and on the right path until the end comes, and then we’ll all be here together forever.

A decade later when I sat up on the hill watching that house burn to the ground, there was as much relief as grief billowing into the sky with the black smoke. It was the end of an era, and it was far beyond time for it.

Nobody saw it but me. James was dead, had been for years. Robbie was dead now too. Dad was gone, so was granddad. Me and my youngest brother David were the last two left of the kids, but he had moved to a neighboring city when he got married and he has never seen things the way I see them. We were of different generations, we weren’t raised the same way, and he’d never experienced the abuse I lived with for the first half of my life. And he had dedicated his own life to the cult with all the honesty and lack of guile that I didn’t have when I’d made my own dedication vows at the too-young age of sixteen.

It was the end of an era, but apparently only for me.

James’ house was up the hill, past a clearing where my dad used to keep old cars that he cannibalized for parts. Our oldest brother Robbie, long married with kids of his own, lived at the bottom on the farthest corner of the land. And my house was on the slope to the west, built on the spot where we’d cleared off an old half-fallen homestead from the late 1800′s, dutifully paying no mind to the fact that a grave was nestled into the slope, right where the yellow daffodils grew. The cult told us superstition was tied up with the demons and false religion, so we didn’t have the built-in human instinct that tells most people to stay the hell away from certain things.

We just pretended it wasn’t there, and put no importance on it. It was just an old grave. The soil was good and the garden I planted next to it did well, though those strange daffodils always wound themselves through everything I put in the ground. My husband said something wasn’t right about it, but I didn’t pay any attention to him. He hadn’t been raised as devout as me.

My dad knocked on my door around lunchtime and I opened it. He backed up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, the fancy leather coat the dealership had awarded him when he was designated a five-star Chrysler technician and given the state’s first and only license to work on the new Vipers that had recently rolled off the prototype line. It was a cool jacket. Made him look like the old pictures my other grandmother had shown me of him from the early 1960′s, when he was young and very much a product of a fancier era. He’d never stopped greasing his hair back and was still so thin that he and I wore the same size jeans.

I’ve never understood the look on his face when I opened the door. To this day I can’t sort it. It wasn’t a blankness like so many people who’ve seen death wear without awareness. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t even shock.

He was sorry.

Those were the first words out of his mouth.

I’m sorry.

I stood there, not knowing what he was sorry for. It was cold. I couldn’t push the screen door open very far because of the snow blocking it. And my father was standing at the bottom of the steps James had helped my husband build, his hands shoved down far into his pockets like a penitent child about to get in trouble, telling me he was sorry.

James is dead, he finally said. He’s in his house. I went up there and he’s dead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now - just now, this very moment in fact, I know that I was the first person he told. He came straight from James’ house to mine and told me my brother was dead.

I don’t know what I said back to him, I just remember sitting down on the top step and feeling the cold bite of the snow through my pajama pants. There’s a vague recollection of putting my face in my hands, and the embarrassing knowledge that I did that simply because I didn’t know what else to do. And dad just stood there, nervously stepping from foot to foot in the snow, because he didn’t know what else to do either.

I think I asked How at some point. He said he didn’t know. He had something in his pocket but to this day I don’t know what it was.

I don’t know if it was important. Something tells me it was. Or maybe it was just the eternally present handkerchief he always kept on him.

I’m sorry, he said again. He seemed to feel like it was his fault somehow. I’m sorry.

What do we do? I asked him. I’ve never felt more blank. What are we supposed to do?

I don’t remember what he said, other than he was going to get my older brother. I remember thinking that was a good idea. Robbie would know what to do. He always did. Brash and blustery and bigmouthed, he got things done while other people stood around debating how to do them. He would get on it, whatever needed doing. He would figure it out.

I went back in the house and dad walked away, headed down the path through the woods that connected my house to Robbie’s, hands still shoved deep in his pockets, the big retro vintage Chrysler emblem on the back of his jacket the last thing I saw before I pulled the screen door shut. I stared down for a minute at the mound of snow it had scooped into my livingroom, still with no clue what I was supposed to do.

No clue at all.

I kicked the snow back outside and shut the door.

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It’s an odd thing, watching the coroner’s van drive away with someone you know inside it. Someone you saw just yesterday. Someone who was alive. Someone who should still be alive but isn’t, somehow. And since there’s really no way to earn a ride in a coroner’s van without dying, there’s an awful unsettling sensation to it that you can’t get away from. The last time I saw James he was laughing that devious little laugh of his, his eyes red and bloodshot from the ever present asthma he’d suffered with his entire life. I don’t count the sight of the coroner’s van leaving the hill via our long steep driveway with his cold corpse tucked into a black zippered bag, because I didn’t see him. I never saw him. I didn’t see him dead in his house and I didn’t see them carry him out, I didn’t see them put him in the van. I didn’t see him later, when it was all over with. And if I try hard enough I can imagine that van empty, with that long black bag tossed crumpled in the back without a body in it, and James somewhere else living his life however the hell he pleases.

I hold onto that. Some days it helps. And some days I think I see him, walking by the side of the road or getting out of a car in the post office parking lot, and it makes me happy thinking he escaped. I see him in every hitchhiker, in every wandering traveler making his way down the interstate, in every tall thin man I glimpse from the corner of my eye as I go about my business in town.

He’s out there.

I hope he’s happy.

The ice storm hit the next day.

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For the next two weeks we were stuck on our hill. Power out, no electricity, no heat, no lights, roads iced over and impassable. We all piled up in mom and dad’s house, quietly grieving James, trying to stay warm. Most of the state lost power for days, including the city 150 miles away where his body had been taken to the state coroner’s office. There was no apparent cause of death, so the state ordered an autopsy.

His body had just been placed into cold storage to wait its turn when the power grid went down. And then, by some unholy stroke of nightmarish luck, the facility’s generators failed.

Nobody could make it in to work because of the ice. By the time someone finally got into the morgue the cold storage had been down for four days.

Six bodies melted, including James.

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No viable autopsy could be done, though they tried their best I suppose. The end report was obtained two months later. It was mostly inconclusive due to the long delay and resultant decomposition of tissue. There was apparent scarring on James’ heart, but it was old scarring and had nothing to do with his death. His lungs were scarred as well, but that was no surprise, he’d had severe asthma his entire life. There was no determinable cause of death, no inflicted trauma, no presence of illicit drugs as far as they could tell from the limited toxicology report they managed with what they had to work with.

No reason.

He’d simply died.

It seemed fitting, to me at least, that the end of him be enshrouded in an unsolvable mystery. He was a secretive person, intensely private. He would have loved knowing nobody had a clue what happened to him.

And so we drew our own conclusion as a family. He’d had an asthma attack in his sleep. There had been an inhaler next to his bed, but it was new and still in the box. He simply hadn’t woken up to use it. Dad didn’t participate in the drawing of this conclusion, his input kept stoically to himself, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

We pretended not to see it.

He and mom braved the last of the ice a few days later to make the 150 mile drive to see James one last time.

They came back different.

You couldn’t tell it was him, my mother said. He was melted, literally. It was like one of those science fiction movies where they melt you with a laser beam and you turn to goo.

Dad had nothing to say. He went to bed and stayed there until the next day.

You can go see him, mom told me. I’ll go with you if you want to go. But I don’t recommend it.

I decided not to go.

And so I never saw my brother dead. I never saw any proof that he was gone. He just wasn’t there anymore. There was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes were sent home weeks later, and I went on with my life with the image in my head of James, alive, somewhere else.

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Dad was different from that day on. He’d always been stoic, terse, strict. My childhood had been spent in fear of him, an eternal dread of making him mad and feeling his temper erupt keeping me from showing any hint of a personality during my formative years. The cult had forced him to abide by the violent tenet of Spare the rod, spoil the child and there was never any risk of me being spoiled.

James being gone flipped a switch in him. He was nicer suddenly. Mellow. Kind. After the trauma wore off his humor discovered itself and he was funny. The dour angry demeanor fell off and revealed a man that I was sad never to have known before. He and I became friends. I could sense in his new attitude toward me that he regretted how he’d raised me and respected the way I’d always stood up and been my own person despite it. But my mother was falling off the deep end and for all the newfound easygoingness of my father, she counterbalanced it with an extremism born of the religious fervor of a mother determined to gain enough favor with God to see her dead child again. And she was going to make sure the rest of us did too.

We all had to get good and straight on the path, get completely right and stay that way, or we’d never see James again. He’d be in the New World and we wouldn’t, and how would she explain that to him? She and I worked together in a law office at the time and as she became more unhinged and unpleasant, I reacted by becoming more outgoing and accomplished. Our boss changed my work designation from receptionist to Executive Assistant and started teaching me how to do everything from filing papers at the courthouse to photographing accident scenes. I no longer answered to my mother, the office manager. I answered directly to the boss.

That didn’t go over well. She was a control freak with heavy untreated trauma, and the one person in the world she felt the most obsessive need to control was suddenly no longer under her thumb in a workspace where she considered herself the supreme authority. She countermanded every order the boss gave me and tried to load me up with general office chores that left me no time to do the important assignments he’d given me. I had no choice but to tell her she wasn’t my superior anymore.

She chose that day to have her nervous breakdown over James, jumping out of my car at a red light on the way home and storming angrily through a shopping mall with me trailing frantically along behind her, yelling for security to arrest me while I tried to get her to calm down. I ended up telling her she wasn’t the only person who lost James but that none of the rest of us were allowed to experience our own grief because we were too busy catering to hers.

She sat down on a bench outside the sporting goods store and glared at me with a cold hatred I’ve seen on very few other faces, ever.

I knew it would be you, she hissed at me.

That moment changed our relationship forever. It changed me forever. That was the day I decided my life was my own, that she not only didn’t have authority over me at work, she didn’t have authority over me anywhere else either. She could no longer dictate my actions, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings.

For this she disowned me. It was the first of several disownings over the next few years. I got used to it. We went to work the next day like nothing had happened, and I didn’t do a single thing on the task list she slapped down on my desk. It was a metaphor for the rest of my life, but I didn’t know it yet.

My husband and I moved out of state a couple of months later, away from that hill, away from her increasingly controlling paranoia and bitterness, the first of many small steps toward freedom.

As we were driving away with our trailer full of personal belongings behind us, he said one thing that I tried to argue against, but that somewhere deep inside I knew was probably right.

That land is cursed, he said.

----------

A few weeks before we moved my youngest brother came to town and we went into James’ house together. It was exactly like it had been the day my dad found him. The only thing that stood out as different was the bare mattress on the bed - the men from the coroner had wrapped him up in the sheet he’d been laying on and took it with them, leaving just the naked springform mattress James had bought for Jessica right before her final breakdown and their subsequent separation.

It took me a while to go in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment I walked into the house that I was going to end up there. I needed to see it, the place where James had closed his eyes and left us.

There was a small puddle of dried blood near the foot of the bed, brown and stained into the fabric. James always slept backwards, with his head at the wrong end. The blood had come from his nose.

I touched it. I don’t know why. It was dry.

He was gone.

----------

David and I laughed a lot that day. James had been funny in a way that was distinctly him, quiet and of few words, but those words had always counted. And as we sorted through his things and talked about him and moved some of his stuff into boxes to be stored away, I felt as much awed respect as befuddlement at what was around me. He’d never been a conformist, which I knew was why the cult had never gotten a firm grasp on him. He was unknowable and therefore unbindable. But his house was proof that he didn’t conform to any human expectations either, and nothing in it made sense unless you’d spent time around him.

There was an engine in the bathtub. I’m not sure what it went to. Another engine, in the beginning stages of disassemblage, rested on a blue tarp in the center of the livingroom floor, obviously the last project he’d been working on. There wasn’t much furniture - his wife had taken most of it when she left and it would have never entered his mind to replace any of it. Jessica’s cookware was in the kitchen cabinets, unused, some of it still in the original boxes, some not even fully unwrapped from their wedding shower years before. Jessica didn’t cook, she microwaved. David asked me if I thought it would be okay for him to take a glass Pyrex measuring cup because he’d broken his. I told him to take it. It had never been used.

I didn’t want anything, but knew I needed to take something. One of my husband’s solo CDs was sitting on the entertainment center and the cover, the cover I’d designed, caught my eye and brought me to the CD player to pop the tray open.

Inside was a CD single of The Way.

It was the only thing I took.

----------

My husband told me some time later that my dad and older brother had altered the scene before the police arrived. After the phonecall from me his boss had rushed him home and he’d gone up to James’ house without my knowledge. He’d thought it strange that he’d had to step around at least a dozen empty compressed air cans scattered haphazardly around the place as he entered, like they’d been used and tossed aside one after another. There had been several more on the floor around the bed. My father had told him to go back down and see how mom and I were doing, and when he returned to James’ house after the coroner’s departure, the cans were gone. Other than that he said things seemed different, but he couldn’t say quite how. Just not the same.

He told me my dad didn’t call the police until after he and Robbie had been in there at least an hour, alone with the body.

It’s not something we’ve talked about often, because there’s no satisfactory explanation for it that either of us can come up with. My mother says they probably didn’t want the police to assume the cans meant he was huffing compression fluid and accidentally killed himself, because Look at the shame and reproach that would bring on the congregation if anyone thought such a thing! We all knew he used the compressed air to clear the valves on the engines he was working on, all mechanics do, it’s common. Wouldn’t the police have accepted that explanation? Dad was the only one that spoke to them. They wrote down whatever he said, and then they left, and then the coroner came and took James away and that was that. My father, the most upright straight-and-narrow devoutly dedicated man I’ve ever known in my life, misled the police for a reason that he took with him to his own grave.

The only other person in the world who knew the truth about it took it to his grave too.

At the same time.

In the same car.

Four years later, on October 18, 2002.

----------

The big garbage bag of empty air cans and whatever else that was removed from James’ house that morning had been stashed in my dad’s garage and stayed there until a few weeks after he and Robbie’s joint funeral, when my mother asked my husband’s old boss to come and dispose of it. Scott was a man who knew people who could do things.

The evidence, whatever it was evidence of, vanished.

----------

The mystery around James never dissolved and eventually no one talked about it anymore, I guess because there was no way we could ever truly find out what happened without him here to tell us. There were a lot of details that we could never find a way to weave together into anything that made sense and a lot of it was probably inconsequential anyway. There was a girlfriend that he’d tried to keep hidden from us, a woman that was quite a bit older than him who wasn’t a member of the cult and therefore needed to be kept a secret. In the end she had convinced him to stop hiding their relationship and he’d bought her a ring. We met her all of twice before he died, and within days of his passing she left town with her brother and never came back, taking whatever she might have known with her.

James’ ex Jessica had sneaked onto the hill and broken into his house to put a dead raccoon in his kitchen sink a few days prior to his death. We were shocked when he told us she trespassed on the land often without anyone knowing, and my mother made my father fix the electric gate down at the road so that it wouldn’t open without one of three clickers in the possession of herself, my father, and me. James would have to come to her house and get hers any time he needed to leave the hill, an arrangement he agreed to because Jessica stole things from his house all the time, she would absolutely take a gate opener if she saw it.

He told us the gate wouldn’t keep her out though, and that she didn’t come in that way anyway. The only way to protect ourselves from her was to lock her up and he doubted even that would do it.

He died less than a week later, and twenty three years later we still don’t know how or why.

----------

We never felt safe on the hill again. Jessica was deranged in the worst possible way, we’d known it for a while, and James was her obsession. She’d threatened to kill him multiple times and had tried twice. We hadn’t known this, because James, big strong stoic Clint Eastwood type that he was, wasn’t about to tell anyone he was violently abused for years by a skinny little woman that everyone believed was not much more than a meek dormouse with shyness issues and a case of painful awkwardness. But we knew she was evil. We just didn’t have any proof.

The first thing my mother said after the initial emotional breakdown of finding her son dead was Jessica did this, I don’t know how but I know she did it.

I believe she was probably right. But if Jessica was anything she was wily and devious with a strong survival instinct and an uncanny ability to lie convincingly and draw sympathy onto herself. She’d convinced us for years that she was the perfect combination of sweetly harmless and endearingly clueless, but that only lasted until the day she called 911 screaming that James was beating her and then threw herself face first into a tree in their front yard and sat, calmly singing and coloring in a coloring book on the porch with blood running down her forehead, waiting for the police to arrive. The act she put on when they got there was one for the Academy, but the officers didn’t buy it.

James calmly rolled up his sleeves and showed them his scars where she’d burned him and slashed him with a kitchen knife. He pulled up his shirt and pointed out the marks she’d left on him with her teeth and nails. He hooked a finger into his mouth and showed them the empty hole where she’d knocked one of his teeth out with a baseball bat. One of the officers asked him why he hadn’t killed her and buried her somewhere on the land already.

She left in the back of the squad car, and my mother took James to the courthouse to get divorce papers started two days later.

Jessica came to his memorial service when we finally had it, several weeks after his death. She wasn’t invited but we couldn’t keep her from coming. She wore black like a widow and created a dramatic disruption complete with loud wailing and declarations of undying love, and afterward she stood to one side of the room, smirking at us with the kind of icy malice that you only see on the dangerously deranged, and then usually only in the movies. Several people commented in hushed voices, asking why she’d been allowed to come. At one point she started wailing They killed him!!, but everyone with the exception of her mother ignored her.

Her mother, who was still in our congregation, flitted around the room chatting with everyone, sobbing her heart out like it was her own son we’d just memorialized. She was an ER nurse and had been famously fired from her job at the hospital for taking locked-cabinet medications home by the purse load. She claimed she put them in her pocket to use on her shift and forgot to return them to the cabinet before leaving.

Jessica had been staying with her for a while.

----------

We fed the crowd at mom’s later that afternoon with my husband and his boss guarding the gate, making sure she didn’t try to come into my mother’s house. The police were called preemptively, and because this was a town of 300 with not much of anything else to do, a squad car was dispatched and stationed near the inlet to the main drive.

Jessica showed up not much later, like we knew she would. She drove past the police and parked a few yards down from them in plain sight, just sitting there by the side of the road, far enough away from our property that we couldn’t legally do anything about it. The officers got out and talked to her, warned her not to cause us any problems, and she fed them a woeful tale about being banned from her beloved husband’s memorial service and denied the right to say goodbye to him.

The officers knew there was no body at that service to say goodbye to. They also knew her.

My husband came up the hill and told us she was down at the road and that Scott was blocking the driveway with his truck to keep her out. I told my mother it was time to file a restraining order against her. She was living in fear and Jessica was known to be trespassing on our property frequently. No, she told me with tears in her eyes but not a sign of distress on her face. It was a look I knew, because my mother rarely showed emotion unless she was angry and the rest of the time it was this cold detachment. That would bring reproach on the congregation because everyone knows what we are. I can’t do that. I won’t let her win that way. I won’t let her cause us to bring shame on God’s name.

God’s name. I took it in vain that day.

More than once.

I was leaving in a few weeks, moving a thousand miles away. My husband and I weren’t going to be there to help her keep an eye out, and thirty eight acres of heavily wooded land is impossible to protect and easy to sneak onto from a hundred different directions, James had shown us proof of that.

God will protect us as long as we do the right thing and leave it to him, she said. He knows what she is.

I think it was just a coincidence that nothing terrible happened in the following weeks, because my faith was getting tenuous and a lot of prayers were going unanswered. But Jessica quietly disappeared back to her own world after a couple of infuriating weeks of putting herself in our paths every chance she got, and not long after that my husband and I moved away, and as we left the driveway for what we thought would be the last time he sighed and shook his head with the exasperation of a man about to say I told you so.

“That land is cursed,” he said.

I tried to disagree, though I don’t know why.

----------

Less than a mile up the road we passed a man walking. He was tall and thin and covered in the dust of a long journey with a ratty backpack strapped to his back, and as we passed him I caught his reflection in the side mirror.

It was James, I knew it in my heart every bit as strongly as I knew it couldn’t be.

He was walking away from the hill, toward the west. The way we were going. And I swear on whatever holy relic you wish to place under my hand that he raised his head and met eyes with me in the mirror, and he smiled.

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sk1fanfiction · 3 years

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the many faces of tom riddle, part 2

-you dislike frank dillane’s portrayal of tom riddle only because you don’t think he’s attractive-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION (and this time, featuring a bit of armchair child psych from a student).

Wait, don’t clutch your pearls just yet. Compose yourself.

I am about to explain why it’s not actually that bad, and Dillane’s portrayal is vastly underappreciated.

I definitely agree that his portrayal comes off as ‘creepier’. It’s not helped by the stylistic decisions in the scene -- the smeary, green filter gives the scene a sinister quality.

Even Slughorn looks suspect here, which is somewhat appropriate, given that he is complicit in this crime.

Again, this scene is very much intended to be slightly off.

You’ll notice (and I’ll discuss this again when I talk about Coulson’s portrayal) that Dillane is almost always shot from at least slightly below, which makes the lower third of his face look bigger (and thus more menacing). The lighting also makes his eyes glow in a really unnatural way. There’s an echo-y effect to make his voice (and not Slughorn’s) sound unnerving.

People talk about how Coulson would have looked in this scene, and if he was filmed in the same way (monotone, smeary/shadowy filter, and always from below), he’d look a bit creepy, too.

But all of this, imo, is for a pretty good reason. Slughorn isn’t the POV character. Harry is. Harry is learning about how a young Lord Voldemort wheedled the secret of Horcruxes out of an unsuspecting teacher. Unlike in COS, he expects Riddle to be evil. And, so, Harry’s new perception of Tom Riddle literally colors how we perceive him.

Take this shot, for example: he does that head-tilt thing that Coulson does, and it’s actually... kind of... cute???

Imagine Dillane filmed from slightly above, like Coulson usually is, and it looks even more innocent. (I mean, come on, he does not look like he’s killed four people, does he?) It’s not hard to imagine teachers being taken in by this kind of act.

Even that little smirk he does when the camera (aka, Harry’s gaze) pans in, is for Harry’s benefit. No one else noticed that.

However, I still fail to find this creepy, like, at all. Yes, it’s a fake smile, but he’s portraying a different side of Tom Riddle to Coulson. Whereas, in COS, he’s in his vindictive, murderous element, where he’s free to express himself, in this scene, Tom Riddle is doing what he does best -- manipulating and managing appearances.

This entire scene is an act. And because Harry knows it’s an act, it should look a bit stilted.

From the Hepzibah Smith scene in the books: Voldemort smiled mechanically and Hepzibah simpered.

So, Harry is pretty adept at parsing Tom’s fake expressions.

But just look at the expressiveness in his face: he goes from brooding, he blinks, and his entire face changes to this charming (fake) smile.

At the risk of sounding elitist, I’m a bit tired of seeing the word ‘psychopath’, which is not an actual medical diagnosis recognised by any psychological or psychiatric institution, being tossed about, especially with reference to Tom Riddle (and from a neuroscience perspective, it’s doubly annoying). There’s no such thing as ‘insanity’ or ‘psychopathy’ or being ‘crazy.’

-although I use it too a shorthand in conversation to distinguish ‘canon’ Tom from his ‘softer’ OOC counterparts, I really shouldn’t-

Unfortunately, I’ve seen the ‘psychopath’ comment used time-and-time again as an excuse or a full explanation of ‘why Tom Riddle went evil’ (JKR in fact, has made a weird comment in an interview, basically saying that ‘psychopaths can’t be redeemed or learn adaptive coping skills’ or whatever), which really just goes to show the lack of understanding and compassion when personality disorders, especially, are concerned.

But what I like most about the opening of this scene, actually, is that first, listless expression. And this is where we get slightly into headcanon, but Tom Riddle is the opposite of a happy, mentally healthy teenager. By Dumbledore’s own admission, he has no real friends. He has no parental figures, no real attachments. Yes, he might derive some pride or enjoyment from being good at magic and top of his class and all that, but I really don’t think even Tom finds that truly fulfilling. There is nothing that makes him happy.

In fact, although some might perceive it as ‘creepy’, I think that listless expression is an accurate window into Tom’s psyche.

I know people aren’t big on Freud, but I think that he does make some interesting points (also, cut the guy some slack for being relatively open-minded for the Victorian Era, and inventing psychoanalysis and while yes he did say some sexist stuff, good luck finding a field of science that isn’t male-focused and makes crazy generalizations about women, especially back in the day) about the possible origins of thanatophobia, the fear of death.

According to Freud, thanatophobia is a disguise for a deeper source of concern -- he did not believe that people were capable of conceptualizing their own death to that extent. Instead, he believed that this phobia was caused by unresolved childhood conflicts that the sufferer cannot come to terms with or express emotion towards.

Now, I know Freud almost always attributes mental distress to childhood experiences, but I think in this case, it really has some merit.

According to attachment theory, the basis of how we form attachments in adulthood is dictated by learning it from experiences with caregivers in the first two years of life. We know Tom was born in an orphanage, and that he didn’t cry much as a baby, and subsequently, probably received very little attention. Compounded with possible genetic factors and his caregivers being afraid or wary of his magical abilities, he later struggled to form attachments because of this -- I would actually go so far as to say that by the time Dumbledore meets him, Tom Riddle is severely depressed.

And that flat affect and anhedonia, I think, comes over very well in Dillane’s portrayal. There’s kind of this resignation -- a very deep sadness and loneliness to his character.

Of course, he doesn’t derive any comfort or fulfillment from human interaction, because (to borrow the description from the Wikipedia article on ‘Reactive attachment disorder’, which Tom meets all the criteria for) he has a “grossly disturbed internal working model of relationships.” In other words, he is unresponsive to all offers of attachment because of this unacknowledged trauma.

(You could arguably class Tom as having an avoidant attachment style, but I think in his case the trauma and its effect on him are severe enough to call it disordered.)

RAD isn’t particularly well-characterized (especially neurologically) and quite new in the literature, but here are some links if anyone is interested in doing a bit of digging: Link 1 | Link 2 | Paper 1 | Paper 2

And, instead of trying to resolve this conflict in a healthy way, or at least recognize that this is why he can’t be happy and try to learn how to cope from there, he (a) represses the desire for human attachment and (b) funnels that negative emotion into being the fault of Death, the Grim Reaper (again, to borrow Freudian terms).

And we all know how that turned out...

(And now, this should go without saying, but psychoanalyzing fictional characters has nothing to do with assigning a morality to mental disorders. Mental illness is neither a cause nor an excuse for criminal behavior -- in the same way that the cycle of violence is a phenomenon, not an excuse. Tom Riddle did not become a genocidal murderer because, in common parlance, he was a ‘psychopath’ -- he was not necessarily ‘predisposed’ to evil and could just as easily chosen to not follow the path that he did -- instead, he willingly made poor choices. This is a descriptive analysis, not a justification -- a ‘how’, not a ‘why’)

Here’s a Carl Jung quote that articulates it better:

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Yes, he’s a bit stiff (and a lot more formal than in COS during his *conversation* with Harry). But, and here comes the controversial bit, this is appropriate for a portrayal of a schoolboy in the 1940s. The upright posture is accurate -- respectful, polite -- everything Tom Riddle would have been expected to be (and even Coulson, in that scene with Dumbledore in COS, is quite stiff). Even the way he looks at Slughorn and maintains eye contact is very *respectful.*

And, Dillane (I think he’s seventeen or eighteen here) actually looks like a believable sixteen-year-old. I’m sorry, I love Coulson’s portrayal as well, but he looks around nineteen in COS; so in HBP, he probably would have looked at least twenty-two or so. (Sorry, not sorry).

This may be influenced by my own interpretation of the character (because I imagine Tom always looks young for his age, and Dillane fits that archetype, but I don’t think that’s very popular), but I think young Tom Riddle is supposed to be *cute* and a bit stiff/shy/awkward (being charming and awkward is very much possible), if you consider the way Dippet and Slughorn treat him.

To support this, he says very few words to Hepzibah Smith (in the book, that scene’s not in the movie), and is very... bashful and coy during the whole interaction? I think yes, he’s charismatic, but he’s not loud, suave, openly flirtatious or particularly verbose. Tom Riddle should have a quiet magnetism, and to me, that came across in Dillane’s portrayal.

"I'd be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me," said Voldemort quietly, and Hepzibah gave another girlish giggle.

...

"Are you all right, dear?"

"Oh yes," said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I'm very well. ..."

Even the ‘ugly, greedy look’ described in the books, when Slughorn starts spilling his secrets, is there. This is how he’s supposed to look! Slughorn glimpses it, but doesn’t understand its significance. Harry does.

“Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all.”

Remember the context of this moment, as well: He’s just discovered how to create multiple Horcruxes. Excuse him for looking a bit creepy (if not now, then when?).

Here’s two direct quotes of Harry’s impression of Tom Riddle in that scene:

“But Riddle's hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.”

“Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .”

Tom Riddle’s Horcruxes are a direct metaphor for his refusal to allow himself to heal from his trauma -- instead, he continues to inflict destruction on himself and others.

His desire to continue creating more Horcruxes sort of resounds with the fact that self-harm can also become a compulsion.

I’d also like to digress a bit to discuss the Gaunt Ring, while we’re at it. While we’ve talked about his attachment issues in general, this discussion is particularly pertinent to father figures. And while Tom’s attachment issues are extensive, I think there’s ample evidence that as a child, he craved acknowledgement and acceptance from a father figure -- the man who gave him the only thing Tom truly owned -- his name. He would have had a vaguely defined mother figure in Mrs. Cole, perhaps.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was.... He didn’t like magic, my father ... He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage ... but I vowed to find him ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name ... Tom Riddle. ..."

We know that by June of 1943 (COS flashback) Tom has already uncovered the truth of his parentage; he knows he is the Heir of Slytherin via the Gaunt line, and he describes himself to Dippet as ‘Half-blood, sir. Witch mother, Muggle father.’

In Part 1, I discussed the high probability that as a presumed ‘Mudblood’, Tom Riddle was treated rather poorly in Slytherin House. But by this scene in the fall of 1943, he is surrounded by a group of adoring hangers-on. Why?

In my opinion; the Gaunt Ring. We know that Tom stopped wearing it after school, so its sentimental value couldn’t have been that great. We know he likes to collect objects (which I believe stems from his attachment issues -- he seeks comfort in things instead of other people).

Signet rings (such as the one belonging to Tutankhamun seen above) were used to stamp legal documents and such, in order to certify someone’s identify -- like an e-certificate, if you will. Like Tutankhamun’s ring, the Gaunt Ring bears an identifying symbol -- Marvolo Gaunt tells us proudly that it bears the Peverell family crest.

By the Middle Ages, anyone of influence, including the nobility, wore a signet ring. Rings in antiquity were auspicious -- they signified power, legitimacy, and authority. And so, I believe that all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families would have worn these, too.

And so, bearing the Gaunt Ring would have established Tom Riddle, symbolically and in the eyes of the Sacred Twenty-Eight (his future supporters and followers), as the legitimate heir to the House of Gaunt. This is why, I believe, Tom coveted the ring as soon as he saw it -- not just because it was a family heirloom, and not just because he thought it was a pretty toy for his collection.

(He curses it so that no one else but him can wear the Gaunt Ring safely.)

This is why, to make the legitimization literal as well as symbolic, Tom murders his father and grandparents. It’s not just an act of vindictive, murderous rage due to his perception of being rejected by his father (although it is that, too). And so, Tom, abandoning his search for a father figure (and possibly also giving up on the possibility to allow himself to heal from his own personal trauma rather than continue to inflict it on others), ‘cleanses’ his bloodline, to make himself truly legitimate. It’s rather telling that instead of affirming his legitimacy as a Riddle, which would have put him in line for a nice inheritance, and hey -- money is money -- (thus accepting his half-blood status), he simply kills them all. He has done all the murdering he needs to become immortal (and he hasn’t had the discussion about multiple Horcruxes yet); but yet, he does it again. Frightening stuff.

(Just look how the others look at Tom. All but the one to his left -- possibly Nott, Rosier, or Mulciber -- have their torsos turned towards him. Their attention is on him, while he knowingly regards the viewer/Harry. Tom seems a little uncomfortable with the attention.).

“And there were the half-dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with Tom Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo's gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.”

...

“Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.”

...

“Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.”

The ‘gang’ are true hangers-on; Tom doesn’t seem to pay them much attention.

So, if not via careful flattery or charisma, the attraction must be status.

And perhaps yet more telling...

"I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," he said when the laughter had died away. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing." “A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader's famous ancestor.”

That, in my opinion, is as good as we’re going to get as proof that Tom’s shiny new signet ring (and by extension, his new status) made a big impression on his fellow students.

So, when he returns to Hogwarts, he is ‘pureblood’. He is cleansed of his Muggle roots, and becomes the legitimate heir of the House of Gaunt, now well on his way to becoming Lord Voldemort...

Watch the scene again, with a critical eye, and imagine Slughorn’s perspective, instead of Harry’s. There’s nothing creepy about Tom Riddle... unless you know what he is...

Strip away all the effects of Harry’s gaze (and notice, here he’s still looking at Harry), and he’s quite the charmer, actually.

(I will concede that I don’t like the promotional images where they have him looking like he’s up to no good. And I do wish he blinked once in a while.)

My challenge to you: Rewatch the scene with an open mind, and let me know if you agree that Dillane’s portrayal comes off as depressive rather than ‘creepy.’ And if not, why do you dislike his portrayal?

#tom riddle #character analysis #character study #the many faces of #tom marvolo riddle #frank dillane #i literally could not find any pictures other than these #literal crumbs i swear #i know this is unpopular #people really dislike him i guess #watch the scene again with an open mind i promise you'll like it #i seriously do think he did a good job #tw: mention of child abuse #tw: mention of self-harm #i'm not trying to oversimplify things but you can't deny that maybe if tom was hugged as a child it would have helped #say it with me: psychopathy is not an actual medical diagnosis #it's actual more of a legal/criminal justice term #and people just use it as a synonym for 'evil' at this point so the original meaning is pretty much obscured #and personality disorders should not be moralized #people with personality disorders are not 'evil'

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byunbaekby · 3 years

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title — the following pairing — demon!haechan x female reader, slight jaemin x reader featuring — jaemin as reader’s roommate and crush word count — 6.9k genres — horror, angst warnings — language, religious concepts in accordance to demons and angels, mentions of murder, psychological and physical torture, elements of haunting, choking, degradation in a nonsexual context (donghyuck often refers to y/n as feeble or unintelligent), minor character death inspiration — monster by red velvet

“under a single light, why are there two shadows?” “i’m a little monster, be scared of me / i’ll bother you by making you only dream of me.” “see i’m just playing, no bad intentions / try to come out of the dream but monster lives forever.”

author’s message — for the #neohalloween event hosted by @nct-writers. this is my first time ever writing something of this genre, so i’m very excited and nervous to put this forward. thank you to @give-seconds for proof reading this and making it 100x better! much love ♡

also, this entire scenario is loosely generated from a superstition in hmong culture that you shouldn’t pick up anything you find laying around in public, for you might bring home something else with you.

“Y/N? Is something wrong? Why are you calling me?”

Your roommate’s voice rings clear on the opposite side of the line. Though you’re shivering as a result of the cold, barren winter air, you try to get a response past your shaking lips. “I-I’m walking home, Jaem. Can you… can you stay on the phone with me?”

“Oh.” He immediately gets it; it’s never safe for a young woman to walk home alone, especially not in your neighborhood. “Of course… Where are you?”

You turn into the shortcut, your feet meeting the soft, pliable ground. The cemetery; it’s probably the worst shortcut you could ever take, but it cuts your walk home in half. “The cemetery…”

“Again? I told you that you should stop cutting through there, it’s not safe.”

You register his words in your ear as you eye a black bird resting atop a gravestone, peering at you with bright eyes. Casting your sight away from it, your teeth bite down on your bottom lip, roseate tier captured beneath the sharp incisor. “Walking down the street at this time isn’t safe either. At least here there’s nobody else around.”

Jaemin sighs on the other side. “Even worse, anyone hanging out in a cemetery at…” He pauses, likely to glance at his watch. “10:28 PM, is probably going to be weirder than someone you find out on the street on a Friday night.”

“Hey!” You tell him, clutching your bag close to you. “I’m a person hanging out in a cemetery at 10:28 PM.”

“My point exactly.”

You roll your eyes, a laugh leaving you, but you’re glad for Jaemin’s teasing. It helps get your mind off the fact that the hill you walk past casts a dark shadow over the path. As you walk past, engulfed in what seems to be the darkest area of the entire graveyard, you attempt to make easy conversation with your roommate to get it off your mind.

“Did you eat dinner already?” You ask him, voice low as if someone were listening. Who knows, someone might be.

Jaemin easily sees through what you’re attempting to do, but he follows along anyway because he’s nice. “I did. I tried to wait for you, but you took too long.”

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly. “Time passed by me in the library.”

“I know. Like damn, you should really lay off the studying sometimes and have fun.”

“I know, I know. You tell me, Renjun tells me, Professor Kim even—woah!”

You drop to the floor, the air flying out of your chest and dissipating into nothingness as you fall forward onto your chest. All the contents of your bag spill out, along with your phone, which lies a few feet away on the dirt.

Groan escaping your lips, you look down at your white jeans. Completely stained and covered in dirt. Damn.

“Y/N? Hello? Y/N, you there?”

You can hear Jaemin’s muffled worried tone from where you are, but you focus on gathering your things from your bag first before you grab the phone. In the darkness of the night, you can’t even see everything, you just hope you manage to grab everything. It would definitely be your worst nightmare if you lost your Calculus homework due on Monday to the graveyard because you hadn’t grabbed it.

When you finally return everything to your bag, you press the phone to your ear. “Hey, sorry, I tripped.”

“You had me worried there! I was about to run out there myself,” nags Jaemin, and you can see in your mind the way his dark eyebrows must be furrowed in distaste.

“Sorry Jaem,” you apologize to him as you scurry down the path, ready to be free of the cemetery’s unsettling aura as soon as possible. “Please tell me you saved me some food, I’m starving...”

He feels it when you walk in. He senses the irrefutable change in the air, smells your delectable scent with his sharpness. His grave sits at the very top of the largest hill, giving him the perfect place to watch you from. The cemetery becomes alive with your entrance.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Sitting rather stylishly with his thin, gauntly body atop his gravestone, Donghyuck watches you with sharp, focused eyes. You’re so pretty. He smirks, observing the way you flutter through the graveyard, feet barely touching the ground in your feeble attempt to escape the ominous lot as soon as possible.

“Walking down the street at this time isn’t safe either. At least here there’s nobody else around.”

That’s where you’re wrong.

The dark demon can hardly keep the devilish grin off his tiers, watching you. Beautiful, you are.

He’s seen you a few times, in the handful of times you’ve dared to cut through the cemetery on your way home. With an amused, almost teasing shake of his head, he tsks. “Bad decision, little lamb.”

“Did you eat dinner already?” You ask whoever you’re speaking to on the phone. Donghyuck can barely remember what human food tastes like. As a demon, he doesn’t eat humans, let alone get hungry, but if he had a choice, you’d definitely be his first choice.

Your soul is good. He wants it.

If he can’t have you, at least he can play with you a little.

It doesn’t take much. The moment you glide through the path and under the darkness of his hill, all it takes is the slightest snap of his fingers to send you flying forward. He’d love to make you stay down there, perhaps drag you down below with him, but that would be no fun.

Rather, he plucks off one of his rings, one of the many decorating his hands for absolutely no one to see, and tosses it seamlessly into the pile of your things spilled across the path. As he watches the way you carelessly shove everything back into your bag, his Cheshire grin grows even wider. Now, he has a reason to leave.

As you scurry away, Donghyuck jumps off his grave which he had occupied for decades, and lands on his feet. With a wipe of his hands on his jeans, he watches you go.

“Stupid little lamb. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to take things that aren’t yours?”

The rest of the walk home, you can swear there are steps behind you matching yours.

When you get home, you quickly slide into your bedroom amid Jaemin’s nagging sounds and slip off your white (well, brown now) jeans from your legs. After getting on some more comfortable clothes, you grab your dirtied jeans and make your way to the bathroom.

The restroom, however small, still has room for a washer and dryer, which you’re thankful for, seeing as you and Jaemin don’t have to pay a laundromat for your weekly laundry. You toss your jeans in the washer; normally you wouldn’t wash just one garment, but the dirt would likely stain your perfectly white jeans. After pressing start you make your way to the kitchen, where your roommate is reheating dinner for you.

The image of Jaemin’s broad back standing at the stove makes you smile to yourself for just a millisecond, so quick that it’s fleeting. Before you can take another moment to admire your roommate however, he turns to you with his trademark smile. “Hey, pick a movie. Let’s watch something.”

About fifteen minutes later, you’re eating your leftovers on the couch, Jaemin’s arm spread over your shoulders while the beginning scenes of The Conjuring play. You don’t have much, the apartment barely enough for the two of you to inhabit, and Jaemin is only your roommate, but you’ve gotten used to these kinds of nights. Simple, easy, sweet.

The light remainder of Jaemin’s daily cologne mixed in with his gentle cotton scent pervades into your senses, and you lean your head onto his shoulder with a smile. You’ve always wanted to be more with Jaemin, but you could settle for these comfortable nights of movies and platonic cuddling.

It’s something about having a full belly, Jaemin’s warmth, and the everlasting light traces of his scent that has you falling asleep, eyes drooping closed slowly into a peaceful suspension of consciousness.

You wake the first morning.

You don’t even remember falling asleep, but it doesn’t surprise you when you wake up in bed. Recently you’ve developed a habit of falling asleep on movie nights, and Jaemin is always kind enough to place you gently back in your room.

Wiping the sleep from your eyes, you let out an unearthly sound as you sit up and stretch your arms above your head. When you unsheath the blanket from your legs, your unprepared toes meet the cold wooden floor, causing you to flutter across the room quickly and into the living area.

It’s Saturday, but Jaemin volunteers at the hospital on Saturdays, so you only prepare a bowl of cereal for yourself. If your roommate were here, he’d probably scold you for the lack of nutrition, so you toss a couple of berries into your frosted flakes.

After you finish up, washing your bowl at the sink, your eyes widen in realization; you left your jeans in the washer! Falling asleep mid-movie had caused you to completely forget about them, not drying them before you slept like you had told yourself. God, they probably stink by now, sitting wet for hours.

But when you slide open the door to the bathroom, you see your jeans resting atop the drying machine, folded neatly like they had been waiting for you. Perhaps they were.

Ah, you realize, mouth parting just the slightest. Jaemin must have dried them and folded them before he left for the hospital this morning. Another grateful smile spreads across your visage; you really do have the best roommate.

You spend the rest of the day studying, and prepare a nice dinner (which also means going grocery shopping) for Jaemin, as a little thank you for always being so thoughtful. He appreciates it when he comes home to a fully cooked meal, and there’s something about the way he smiles that has you feeling as though you’ve finally done something good to amount to all the times he’s saved your ass as a roommate. When the night ends, you both retire to your rooms.

In your lovesick daze, you fail to recognize that under the single lighting of your room, there are two shadows.

VII.

On the seventh day, Donghyuck’s displeasure is enough to choke him—that is, if he needed to breathe.

He had wanted to tease you, follow you home and play with you a little before revealing himself. But God, you are so dumb; he should have expected as much from a feeble, stupid little sheep anyways.

That first night, testing the waters, he had done your damn laundry for you. It was just a little fun, to get the ball rolling. Any superstitious person would have known. And what did you do? You had thought it to be your roommate. As the days went by, his teasing grew in quantity and intensity; hiding your keys, ripping apart your essays, perhaps all the menial and annoying things that some stupid schoolboy would do to grab the attention of a girl he liked. But your attention is lost, and he is not a stupid schoolboy. No, he is far from it.

Even as his antics have built up throughout the following days, you always found some excuse to play it off; you must be more clever than he thought. No, you weren’t; you were either extremely clumsy and forgetful, or you were simply denying his existence. It’s time to make himself known.

VIII.

It’s the eighth night when he appears in your dreams. No, not he. It.

You can sense it, the moment your suspension of consciousness becomes overtaken by him and you find yourself in a simple black room. It seems to extend in every which direction, as though you could run off in any given direction and never hit a wall. But you feel it watching you.

He’s behind your shoulder, and the moment his low, amused chuckle is heard in your ears you swipe around to face him, eyes wide. He’s beautiful; dark brown hair, smooth skin, a captivating honey color, and dark eyes.

Those eyes.

They pierce into your soul, as though they can see right through you. They probably can. He is not a person, you know. He is… more.

Dark eyes once overtaken with curiosity are now characterized by bleak amusement. Your breath hitches, and his voice comes out low. “Welcome.”

“What is this? Where am I?” Your voice comes out rapidly, shaking. You know nothing of this… thing before you but you can’t help but feel unsafe under its gaze.

“Now, that’s not very nice. I am very much a person, not an it,” he smirks beneath the shadow which casts itself upon his visage. You freeze; he can hear your thoughts.

This realization only further widens the Cheshire grin across his lips, and instinctively you take a step back further into the black nothingness. “G-Get out of my head,” you threaten to no avail.

The same mocking laugh leaves his lips. “Sweetheart, this is your head. This entire place is of your making. If you hate it so much,” he says, and suddenly he’s in front of you. His hand leaves the pockets of his black bottoms, lithe digits suddenly cupping your chin and tilting it upward so you are staring right into his dark empty orbs which come to life with the image of you. His fingers, dressed in various shades of gold rings, grip you. You should feel his warmth on your skin, you should feel the radiating human heat that you so often feel with Jaemin.

“Erase me from it.”

But you don’t feel anything behind his callused skin, and that’s what scares you the most.

Your throat runs dry and when he parts his lips, even his breath is cold. “But you’re scared.” When you fail to respond, he licks his lips, and his next words are characterized by sarcastic rancor. “What’s wrong? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Unless…” At this point, under his burning gaze that contrasts the ice-cold emptiness against your skin, your knees begin to buckle. The smile which accompanies his next words, revealing his pearly whites and perhaps his intentions, is sinister: “You’re not afraid of demons… are you?”

IX.

You wake in a cold sweat, and you’re more aware of Jaemin’s soothing voice telling you to breathe than the fact that you’re not breathing. Chest heaving and eyes wide, you search for something in Jaemin’s eyes to tether you back to earth, back to reality.

He’s not real, he’s not real. He can’t hurt you.

It was just a dream.

“Hey, hey,” Jaemin calls out to you, hands on your shoulders to steady you from your previous thrashing. You had awoken him with your screaming. “You okay? Breathe, Y/N, just,” he takes a pause to take a deep breath, silently instructing you to follow with him. “Breathe.” In a few moments, when your breathing pattern has begun to return to normal, steady breaths, he asks again, voice dripping with nothing but pure concern for you, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod. It’s the first word you’ve spoken, so your voice comes out scratched and you’re reminded just how much air you need to actually speak coherently. “It was just… a bad dream.”

“Sounded a lot worse than a bad dream…” He responds, taking his respectful hands off of you and tucking them into the loose pockets of his fleece pajama bottoms. An image flashes before your eyes: that… person, hands tucked leisurely into their pockets, ominous smile enough to make you wonder what they were hiding in there.

You blink, closing your eyes tightly and shaking your head, as though it could shake the image from your mind. When you open them once more, Jaemin is still standing next to your bed. “I’m okay, I promise,” you tell him, though it feels more as though you’re speaking to yourself. “Thanks.”

“Any time,” responds your roommate, who offers you a reassuring smile and another worried look before slipping out of your bedroom. When you’re finally alone, you bring a hand up to your forehead, where sweat has made your skin clammy and sticky.

You’re warm. He is not.

XII.

“You’re a demon.”

You say this on the twelfth night, finding yourself once again stranded in the same dark and endless room with the sharp-eyed devil. This time, there are two chairs and the two of you sit facing each other. He sits as though he has all the time in the world, and perhaps he does. Legs crossed leisurely and arms over his chest with his head tilted at you, he stares.

With your tense posture in your own chair, you wonder fleetingly how enough light exists in this black room that you can never seem to avoid staring at his mocking facial expression. You gulp, gripping onto nothing as you tighten your fists to prevent them from trembling. He’s not real, you have to remind yourself.

“When did you figure that out, little lamb? When I told you, probably?” His tone is insulting, as though you were stupid. You narrow your eyes, biting the flesh inside your cheek.

“Aw,” he coos, grinning at you with dark beguilement. “You’re frustrated.”

“Duh, I’m frustrated,” you huff, blowing some air from your mouth to push away a strand of hair that has fallen into your face. “You keep bringing me here with no jurisdiction or knowledge of who you are.”

“Fine,” he acquiesces. “Three questions. Don’t make them stupid, though I know that’s hard for an incompetent human like yourself.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Next question. I’ll even be nice enough to abstain that as a question,” he responds, as though he’s doing you a favor.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Being a demon is rather boring, you see. Not here, not there.” He waves his hand around, as though pointing to heaven and its counterpart. “I found you, and you intrigued me.”

He leans forward, resting his chin in his palm. “Or rather, you found me. You invited me in.”

“I never did that,” you reply, indignant.

“But you did.” A dark eyebrow raises at you, and you bite down on your lip to prevent your anger from rising. “You never checked your bag, did you? Never found a gold ring, maybe?” He lifts his chin off of his palm, stretching out his fingers as though they were cramped. “Maybe one with DH engraved in it.”

You had. You had found the ring in your bag on Saturday and had figured it to be one of your own negligible accessories, tossing it into your jewelry box. Had there been letters engraved on it?

At the look on your face, a smile spreads across his features. “So you do remember.”

Despite the umbrage bubbling in your stomach, perhaps more feisty than you should be in the presence of a self-proclaimed demon, you have another question. Leaning forward just the slightest you ask, “Why haven’t you hurt me? Isn’t that what demons do?”

There’s a glint in his eye, and the easy-going expression on his face is quickly replaced by a darkened simper. “Do you want me to hurt you?”

Your fists tighten again. “N-No…”

“Don’t tempt me.” His voice is dark now, his earlier lilted tone now descending into a deep pit. It’s almost demanding, as though he’s daring you to push his buttons and send him plummeting into a torturous rage. At the look of fear that swipes across your face, he chuckles once more. “Relax, little lamb. I’m just playing, no bad intentions here.”

You don’t believe him, not even for a second. If he’s really what he says he is… why does he torture you in this way, making you only dream of him? You push the thoughts from your mind, knowing that he has full access to your brain. “What’s your name?”

“Now you’re asking the good questions. You may call me…”

The corner of his lips tug upward into a smirk.

“Donghyuck.”

XIII.

The titles should shock you more than they do.

University Student Pleads Guilty to Murder of Three Female Students

College Killer: More Murders Revealed In Trial of Lee Donghyuck

Lee Donghyuck, Murderer of At Least Thirteen Victims, Sentenced To Death Penalty

He’s real.

It’s Friday night again, and you find yourself back at the library. Except this time, it’s not calculus nor world history that you are pondering. It’s not your psychology textbook that you are poured over.

No, the archives are open, and all it took was a little keyword into the filter to find just what you’re searching for. The only word you needed: Donghyuck.

He hadn’t been lying. Not about his identity or his demonic status.

When you read over the headlines and their accompanying stories, you don’t realize the way your pupils begin to shake, or the way that your heartbeat begins to accelerate as the truth dawns upon you.

He is real, he is dangerous, and he is haunting you.

XIV.

“So you know who I am.” It’s less of a question, more of a statement. Tonight, there is only one chair and you are sitting in it as Donghyuck walks circles around you. There are no chains, no straps to hold you down to the chair but you cannot move. Despite what he had told you the first night, that this is all your dream and that you have the ability to change anything, the opposite seems true.

He disappears behind you, and suddenly his voice is in your ear. Your breath hitches at the sudden gust of cold air on your sensitive skin as he speaks. “Are you afraid?”

“No.”

“You forget I’m in your head, sweetheart. I know everything, so don’t lie to me.”

He’s caught you.

You say nothing, and so he stands straight and makes himself present in your vision again. “It’s okay to be scared. It’s in your feeble nature.” His finger starts at your hand, bringing a chill down your spine. As he drags it slowly up the scope of your exposed arm, you hardly resist the instinct to shiver. “I just want to know, what are you afraid of?”

“Is it…” he speaks softly, teasingly throwing each word in your ear, like tossing small bites to a starved dog. “That I know each of your thoughts the moment you think it, and you only know my name? That I’m a dark spirit and can bring you enough pain to make you forget your name with just a snap of my fingers?”

His trailing hand, once tracing over the curve of your clavicle, suddenly grips your neck. Though only a light pressure is applied, you feel the wind knocked out of you by his sudden, unforeseen movement. “Or is it that because of me, sixteen women died and you might end up the same?”

With the little air you have left, you manage to squeeze out, “They said thirteen.”

Amusement shows on his visage before he finally lets your throat go, and you heave as you attempt to refill your lungs with air. “No,” he corrects, moving back to his original space, circling you like a shark locking its prey in uncharted waters. “They said at least thirteen. They never found the other three.”

The thought is enough to make you sick, but before you can manage to swallow down the bile attempting to rise up your throat, he speaks. “Don’t worry about them too much, my little lamb. You’ll join them soon.”

“You’re lying,” you spit out. “You keep threatening me, but you’re all talk and no proof. You can’t do anything to me, that’s why you only bother me in my dreams.”

Your sudden and unexpected quip seems to, rather than upset him, entertain him. “You think I can’t do anything to you outside of this box? Funny,” he scoffs, though he still maintains that grin on his lips. “Humans are so cocky, I learned that after they killed me.”

He stops pacing, and instead kneels before you, his face placed before yours. “I’ve done things, sweetheart. Remember the pants? The essay you spent five hours on torn up the morning after you printed it out? How about the dress you bought that I cut up until there was nothing left but shreds? You got really mad at your friend for quote-unquote, ‘pranking’ you.”

But Donghyuck is nothing if not honest. You’ve learned this.

“But on some level, you’re right.” His hand reaches up once more, but instead of resting it on your shoulder again, he gently caresses your cheek. It would be soft, romantic in any other case. But no, his touch makes your skin crawl. “I can’t hurt you, and I don’t know why. Don’t worry, I want to, but outside this dream…” His hand stops, and grips your chin instead. “I physically can’t. Tell me why?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You have a cross on you somewhere, little lamb? Or, a guardian angel?”

“I said I don’t know,” you repeat, voice louder as you turn your head sharply, ripping your chin from his grasp. In your ear, he tsks.

Now you’ve done it.

“Getting too comfortable, aren’t we? You’re forgetting who’s in charge here,” he says, voice dipping into dangerous territory as he reaches forward, gripping your throat once more. But this time, he digs his nails into the softness of your skin, and your choked scream is caught in your throat by his hands before it can ever leave.

“Y/N! Y/N, wake up!”

Jaemin’s voice is the only thing carrying you back to sanity, and when you finally force your eyes open he’s before you, gripping your arms once again to prevent you from thrashing about. “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream,” he coos out in worry as you finally come to.

Your hand immediately flies to your neck which is, to your relief, not at all sore. The moment your eyes fall on him and you realize that the hand around your neck is no more, you fall into a bout of tears. Instinctively, your roommate holds you to his chest in a protective hug whilst you sob into his chest.

It’s not real, it’s not real. You keep telling yourself this like a mantra in your head as Jaemin rubs your head soothingly. But why does it feel so real?

“It’s okay,” Jaemin continues telling you, voice soft as his sweet familiar scent pervades your senses once again and your tense muscles begin to relax.

Minutes pass before you’ve calmed down, outright sobs now quiet whimpers. Jaemin begins to set you down back into bed, but you grab at his wrist before he can set you down. “What, what is it?” He asks, eyes immediately scanning your body for any sign of distress.

“Can you… can you stay with me?” It’s a large request, perhaps much too intrusive for someone who is supposed to just be your roommate. But lately, Jaemin feels… much more. Every night as you’ve been plagued by Donghyuck’s presence in your haunting nightmares, he has come to save you when you’re falling apart in screams.

He feels like a friend, and a… a protector.

Not at all fazed by your sudden request, Jaemin wears an abiding smile and nods. “Of course,” he says, sliding into your bed whilst you move over to make room for him. You feel much safer with him around, and now with him in your bed, your personal dreamcatcher, you naturally find yourself in his arms once more while you drift away into sleep, Donghyuck’s presence no longer occupying your dreams.

Neither of you take the time or attention to look, for if you had you would have seen, in the corner of the room furthest from the window, where the darkened corner seems to extend into an infinite world of black, Donghyuck looking less than pleased.

Your roommate needs to be handled.

XXI.

Something seemed to have changed that night when Jaemin first slipped into your bed. You have since not dreamed of Donghyuck even once, and you definitely do not miss him. Perhaps he is gone for good.

How stupid of you to think so, even knowing what Donghyuck is capable of. Perhaps you never truly knew, not before now, just how powerful he is, or just what kind of chaos he can incite.

It’s 3 PM on the twenty-first day when you finally find out just how evil he is.

Jaemin is in the hospital.

You had gotten the call on the bus ride home from campus; your roommate, jokes and boyish smiles for all the time you’ve known him, had been hit by a car just outside your apartment building. Now, he is in the hospital with broken ribs and a herniated disk, barely holding on for his life in a coma.

You’re not allowed in his room, but you do catch a glimpse of your roommate when his physician enters, and just the sliver of him that you see is enough to make you turn your head away.

You know who is responsible for this.

The door to your bedroom is thrown open, and before you can recognize the emptiness of the apartment without Jaemin’s presence around, you’re screaming into the void.

“I know you’re listening, you dick! Show yourself, fucking coward!”

The obscenities that leave your mouth seem to do the trick because before you can register it, you’re on the floor. As though the carpet is pulled out from under you, you go flying forward and the wind is knocked out of you as you meet the ground chest first.

You don’t have any time to breathe or recover, as immediately there is a force pulling you up by the shirt, and suddenly you’re no longer standing on the ground.

You see him.

You’ve seen him before, of course. He’s appeared in your dreams enough to have his sinister expression sewed in your thoughts at all hours of the day. But now… now he looks stronger. Less pale and more colorful. Even the aura which exudes from him… is more dangerous than ever.

Yet, he still wears that shit-eating smile on his lips as he watches you float in the air, collar squeezing at your throat and looking completely powerless. “Now, little lamb, those are not very nice words,” Donghyuck chastises as he approaches you. When he’s finally before you once more, he twitches his eyebrow upward just the slightest. “Missed me?”

“Not at all,” you manage, gathering the spit in your mouth to chuck it out at him.

Not even fazed, he simply wipes at the spit on his face, flicking it off in a negligible direction. “I’m not feeling welcomed,” he comments.

“Because you’re not,” you retort, thrashing about to no avail. “What did you do to Jaemin?”

The mention of your now critical roommate only makes his grin grow wider. “You see, sweetheart, I thought you’d be pretty proud of me. I found out what was keeping me from being able to inflict any real damage on you,” he says whilst his cold hand comes out to squeeze at your cheeks. “Your guardian angel has been taken care of.”

Wait, what? Then it dawns on you.

Jaemin is… your guardian angel.

“You look surprised. That’s okay, I didn’t know either.” Donghyuck releases your face, instead choosing to pace left and right before you, though he never lets his eyes leave you. “But then he started sleeping with you, and I couldn’t get into your mind. I put two and two together. With him around, I’d never be able to touch you.”

The glint in his eyes turns feral. “And you have an embarrassing school girl crush on him, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. With every second that passes, his life is draining away, and I’m only getting stronger.”

“Why are you doing this?” You cry out once again, though your voice is more desperate than it had been the first time around. “What do you want?”

“You see, I figured that out too.” His mocking tone begins to seep away and is instead replaced by that familiar dark timbre of his as he approaches you once more, gripping your chin again in his fingers. Tilting your head up harshly, he stares endlessly into you and whispers, “I thought I was done with those petty murders, that the sight of women begging at my knees like dirt for mercy wouldn’t excite me as much anymore. But no… I want you to suffer. I want to destroy you, take away your happiness, and break you piece by piece, until you’re just begging for me to take you out of your misery.” The semblance of a smirk quirks at his lips. “Just like those other girls. Except this time, there’s no limit to what I can do. And when you do die, I’ll be right here to welcome you back.”

Tears sting your eyes at the horrible things he whispers to you, but you refuse to capitulate to him. “I’d rather die than do anything you say.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be dead just as soon. The fun hasn’t even started yet,” he teases. Suddenly, it’s as if the paranormal restraints on your limbs are cut free, as your body immediately falls to the floor, collecting in a pile. You hardly have the energy to lift your head, but you register the sound of Donghyuck’s voice as he walks away from you. “Rest up tonight, little lamb. You’ve got a long eternity ahead of you.”

Then he’s gone. You swear you will make use of the last twelve hours of your life.

First, you visit Jaemin again. You know you’re not allowed in, but you know his room number and there’s no one coming in to check up on him, you hope.

You don’t know if he really is your guardian angel, but above that, he is your friend.

“Hey,” you say softly, making your presence known as you sit down in the chair beside his hospital bed. It’s arbitrary… you know Jaemin doesn’t have parents around, and perhaps that only lends to the possibility that he really is someone sent here to protect you.

“How are you?” You scoff at yourself. “That’s stupid of me to ask, you’re in a coma. I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you really are an angel, but thank you, Jaemin. For always… always being there for me, protecting me. Walking me through the cemetery, making dinner for me, chasing my nightmares away.”

Sitting there, staring at your friend’s lifeless body laying on the bed looking gray as a sheet, tears begin to sting your eyes. “I’m sorry for bringing you into this, I should have listened to you when you told me to be careful. And if I have to lose someone as amazing and… pure-hearted as you, I don’t think I can live with myself. So please, even if you don’t make it out of here, please… stay by my side.”

As your first tear breaks the barrier and begins to coast down your cheek, you reach out and grab his hand. It’s cold.

XXII.

It’s a little past midnight and though your fingers shake from the cold, you throw everything of yours that he’s touched into the bucket.

Even the things you weren’t completely sure of, you toss away anything that could have been influenced by his dark magic; the leftover shreds of your essay that you had recovered from the recycle, the pieces of fabric that he had obliterated your dress to, the white jeans you had worn that first night, and more. Finally, you throw in that godforsaken ring that had started it all.

You swore that you would never return to the cemetery again, but here you are. This time, you really can see everything at the top of the hill. You turn your head back to glower at the tombstone before you.

Lee Donghyuck.

What a piece of shit.

Though your fingers shake, you light the match without trouble. When you toss it into the basket of forsaken belongings, it is only a matter of seconds before Donghyuck appears, tethered to his tombstone once more.

Gripping at his body, he snarls out at you, “What the hell are you doing?”

That, you hardly even know. Following only the speculations found on the internet, you had unknowingly lured your monstrous demon back to his home.

It seems to work, as the greater the fire grows, the more pained Donghyuck’s expression seems to become.

Your voice finds its strength as you announce your intentions. “Erasing you.”

“You can’t do that to me, you don’t get to win!” Donghyuck yells in growing anger, reaching out to you but failing. With this inability of his to touch you, you tilt your chin higher, the orange tint of the flames reflecting off your strengthened pride.

“I believed you all this time, I let you scare me into thinking that you could overpower me. That you could hurt me,” you muse, staring without remorse at his pained form. “But I was wrong. You only exist as long as I let you. You can only hurt me as long as I believe you can.”

“I’ll be back,” declares Donghyuck as the fire roars, only sending him further into a realm of pain. Whilst he grips his limbs in pure fury, you shake your head.

“No, you won’t. Because you were right, this is my world. I’m the one with the power here: I have blood flowing through me, I have oxygen in my lungs, and I have a soul. You have none of those.” With your anger bursting at the seams, you kick over the metal bucket burning from the inside, instead tossing the trash over the dirt of Donghyuck’s grave. “And because of that, I’m not scared of you.”

As the fire burns out at the final thread, and the spirit which had infested your mind for twenty-two days begins to fade away in a fit of rage, you offer him the same powerful, mocking smile he had tattooed into your mind.

“Goodbye, Donghyuck. Rest in hell.”

CCCLXV.

“Hey, did you do the notes from the last lecture?”

Flipping through your binder, you nod and pull out the said notes, handing them over to the student sitting next to you. At this point, you’ve learned enough about her to know that on Mondays, she always asks for the notes. You’ve started printing extra copies for her.

It’s been a year.

You had taken a year off of university to return home. After everything that had happened and Jaemin’s death, you simply couldn’t bear to even step into your old apartment anymore. Over time, you’ve found that you’ve healed and you are no longer afraid.

Not afraid to return to school, at least.

“Here you go,” you tell her as you hand over the notes. “You can keep that copy.”

The look she wears is grateful. “Thanks!”

“Hey,” calls a voice on your right. “Do you have a pen?”

“Sure, I—” You start, reaching into your pencil bag, but stop when your gaze falls upon the owner of the voice.

No, it can’t be. It just can’t.

Before you is Donghyuck. Except it’s not. He’s… different.

His hair is no longer brown, but rather a light shade of blonde that accentuates his honey olive skin tone. Rather than all black, he is dressed in a cream-colored sweater and a pair of light washed ripped jeans. Most strikingly of all, his signature sharp eyes are no longer clouded by dark evil, but are light with the sweet smile that he wears on his lips.

No… it’s not Donghyuck. After your return home, you had begun to see his face everywhere, and have since learned to distinguish between reality and trauma. When the stranger catches you staring, he tilts his head, smile growing further. “I’m Haechan.”

Shaking your head slightly to clear the thoughts, you go back to searching for a pen in your bag. “Uh, hi Haechan. Here you go,” you say as you hand the pen over to him.

When your fingers brush just the slightest, he’s cold.

You pull your hand back quickly, as though you had been burned. No, you tell yourself. It’s cold in here, the air conditioning is always on in the lecture hall. Turning back to face forward in your seat, you try to calm your breathing, pulling your cardigan closer to cover you. The stranger next to you pulls out a notebook from his bag, and in full view, begins to write in the corner.

Your professor is speaking, clicking on his projector, when Haechan slides his notebook over to you. There, written in perfect handwriting…

I told you I’d be back.

#NCT-WRITERS #neowritingsnet #dreamwritersnet #mlznet #neothestars #haechan angst #haechan fanfic #haechan scenarios #nct angst #haechan x reader #nct fanfic #haechan horror #neohalloween

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lovely-josuke · 3 years

Text

❝chapter one❞

“A letter?”

“Yes, it’s in a red envelope and has your name on the front.” Sugawara gave a perplexed look at his laptop while sending in an assignment. “I made sure your mother didn’t open it. You should come pick it up later today if you can.”

“But, why wouldn’t they mail it to my apartment?” Sugawara set aside his laptop. “Will you still be at home around four?” Sugawara heard his father continue rambling about how it was Sunday and he knew they never went out. Sugawara rolled his eyes with a playful smile.

“Come pick it up or I’ll give it to your mom.” And the line went dead. The grey haired male wasted no time getting dressed and taking the bus to his parents house. “Ah, finally. It’s on the table.” Suga’s dad opened the door, letting his son into the house.

“I don��t see the problem with me opening it.” Sugawara’s mom was in the kitchen. The sound of plates clattering led him to believe she was cooking something. “I’m only curious to know what’s in it.” Suga’s dad rolled his eyes, making his way into the kitchen where he began bickering that it was delivered for Suga.

“Hi Mom.” Sugawara gave a bright smile to his mother. “Where’s the letter?” She dried her hands on the apron tied around her waist. Her fingers picked up the edge of the letter and extended it to her son.

“Do you need any money for the way back?” She moved some strands of hair out of her face.

“No, I’m fine.” Sugawara examined the letter. The pretty lettering of his name stretched over the front. Sugawara gave a sweet smile to his parents, “Be careful. I’ll try coming over this weekend. Maybe we can go out to eat.” His mother patted his cheek softly and sent him on his way out.

On the way back home, Suga wondered what it could contain. An invite to a birthday? Can’t be. His friends all know where he lives. One of those letters of his past self? Man, it’s about time the high school teachers mail them. When did they get into red envelopes though?

Arriving back at his apartment, Sugawara tore open the flap carefully. Once it was all ripped, his slim fingers pulled out a folded sheet in it. He dumped the envelope on his kitchen counter, flipping the colorful sheet open.

Dear Koushi Sugawara,

You were the sun setting after a long day at the beach. Your eyes sparkled like those luminescent rays scattering across the water’s surface, their depth as fathomless as the ocean floor. You always radiate warmth, like the sun beaten sand beneath bare feet. I had never met someone who immediately made me feel at home, until I met you.

Running into you on campus was a blessing I never could have anticipated. I was lost, literally and figuratively, and you showed me the right path. Listening to you tell me the real truths behind university life was so raw and honest. It was everything I needed at that moment. You were everything I needed at that moment. Love at first sight was always a silly concept to me, until I met you. Our time together may have been brief, but you stole a piece of my heart that day.

Thank you for helping me to grow. For showing me the endless possibilities that awaited me if I would only reach out to grasp them.

For sharing your warmth with me.

Your wild campus encounter,

(Y/N) (L/N)

Sugawara flicked at the paper when he reached the bottom.

“(Y/N)! She came on tour last year and told me she’d gotten lost!” Sugawara smiled at the memory. Sugawara did his best to comfort the girl and help find her tour group. “How is she doing?” A giant smile stayed on his face as he re read the letter. Suga placed an elbow on the counter, leaning his chin into his palm.

Reading the letter had him in a trance.

Love at first sight was always a silly concept to me, until I met you.

‘I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the same case for you.’ Suga laughed to himself. ‘Might’ve been the only reason why I stopped to help.’ All his unanswered questions flew out the window when the memory of meeting (Y/N) came back. Suga’s phone beeped, making him jolt to check the notification.

Daichi

We’re here.

Suga hissed, hurrying out of the kitchen to open the door. Suga rubbed his nape sheepishly at the sight of Daichi and Kuroo’s arms crossed who gave him a look.

“I completely forgot you guys were coming. I went out earlier to my parents place.” Suga said, closing the door after the two males.

“Maybe you’re just in love.” Kuroo remarked with a grin and entered the kitchen. Suga’s breath hitched, mind roaming back to the letter, “They say people lose weight and daydream when they’re in love.” Kuroo closed the fridge when taking out a water bottle. Daichi shook his head, clearly tired of his antics.

“Ha ha. You make me laugh.”

“Huh?” Kuroo picked up the letter, causing Sugawara’s eyes to widen. “I got one like this this morning. Hey, you know (Y/N) too?” Kuroo held the love letter up, talking to Suga. Daichi’s eyebrows raised.

“I’m starting to feel jealous of not getting one.” Daichi input, getting Kuroo’s water bottle thrown at him.

“Well, uh… It’s complicated.” Suga shrugged. “I met her last year when she was on tour.” Kuroo examined the letter, turning it around to see nothing on the back.

“Yeah, I met her during the summer. Hella cute.” Kuroo grinned again, scanning the letter up and down. “Glad she’s doing good.”

“Do you… Know anything about her?”

“Oh yeah. She’s single. Actually, she goes to your university. She graduated from Hakone Academy.” Kuroo came from the kitchen, retrieving his bottle from Daichi. “That’s all I know. Why? Thinking of going for her?” Kuroo nudged Daichi on his side.

“Shouldn’t you do that to him?” Daichi pointed to Suga.

“Hey Suga,” Kuroo ignored Daichi’s comment, “Path’s open for you. I’m balancing between work and school. I won’t be mad or hurt or anything.” Kuroo brought the bottle to his lips.

“Yeah. Fine by me.” Suga sighed.

Sugawara grabbed the envelope and letter, walking to his room. He put the letter back into the envelope and stared at it. Prior to meeting you, he never ceased thinking that he missed a chance. Suga placed the letter on his bed.

‘I won’t miss this chance.’

Kuroo’d given him your social media, told him you had class at eight for Monday’s. Daichi commented on how that made Kuroo sound like a stalker.

Suga had classes at eight for Monday’s as well. Tomorrow, he will try and find you.

His eyes scanned the crowd thoroughly.

And the quick look away from you after he found you made him slip around the crowded walkway. Suga noticed you picked up your speed, making him laugh to himself. Thankfully, his athletic background from high school came back and he found himself grabbing your shoulder. You whipped around, surprised when he reached into the pocket of his jacket.

He pulled out the red envelope.

“Seems like these things are just flying around, huh?” Sugawara’s grey eyes smiled. Between his pointer and middle finger, Sugawara waved the letter in a teasing way. You stayed silent, letting out small muttering noises. “I didn’t imagine receiving one.” He put his hand down by his side.

“What do you mean flying around?” You asked. “And where did you get that?” You resisted snatching the letter and burning it. Sugawara let out a laugh and stashed the letter safely in his backpack.

“It was mailed back to my parent’s home. I picked it up yesterday.” He said. “By flying around I meant… Does the name Tetsurou Kuroo ring a bell?”

No. Please tell me he’s not friends with the lifeguard. There’s no way a guy like Koushi Sugawara could know someone like Tetsurou Kuroo.

“If it did?” You huffed, watching the corners of his lips curl into a smile. “How would you know him?” Suga snickered.

“I know, it’s weird isn’t it? You wouldn’t expect me to be friends with a guy like him.” You shook your head with a no. “I met him through one of his coworkers. My friend Daichi works as a lifeguard with him. They came by my apartment yesterday and Kuroo saw the letter.” You grimaced.

Daichi was the other lifeguard that had a flock of teenage girls and adult women trying to impress him. Suga definitely had a weird choice in friends.

“Sorry, it’s a dumb letter.” You rubbed your temples. It really is a small world we live in. “I can take it back if you want.”

“No, I don’t find it dumb at all.” Suga scratched by the mole under the corner of his eye, “It intrigued me. I didn’t know I impacted you that much. We’d only spoken for a couple of minutes that day. Anyways, it was enough for me to get the courage and talk to you.”

You tilted your head, noticing he wasn’t done talking.

“Had to figure out a few things though. Like if you were dating or interested in a date.” Suga’s cheeks flushed, his eyes darting to the cement to not make eye contact. Suga stumbled on his next words, “Basically, I wanna get to know you more. Do you have a class now?” Your heart pounded against your chest. Remind yourself to thank your psychology professor for not having classes on Mondays.

“No. Do you?” Sugawara’s face brightened.

“That’s great! I don’t have one until eleven. Wanna come with me and get something to eat?” You did skip out on breakfast this morning, rushing out to not miss class.

“Okay.” Sugawara gave an excited smile, proudly presenting it on his face to you.

“Great. It’s nearby so we’ll only need to walk. I’m sure you’ll like it (L/N).”

❝Koushi Sugawara is one out of fifteen to receive your love letter. Unlike the rest, he decides to talk to you and try to build a relationship. Will you allow him or will the embarrassment of the love letter get in the way?❞

TAGLIST CONTINUES IN THE COMMENTS

Taglist: @heykoutarou @the-writing-otaku @avbreyissad @elianetsantana @tetsujime @ne-kuroo @restricted-illusion @kac-chowsballs @bokuakadaily @kweenregent @justatempo @aksteldesu @kellesvt @luckypartyranchmug @london-quynh @humanitysbiggestsimp @daniella-uwu @kitababie @omigogames @sleep3deprived @melialeic @cafetetsu @vicassa @chibishae34 @timeturnerss @mariachiiii @dearestsuna @spaceboitrash @haikyuusugasuga @tsukisemi @atsumubabe @cadenceh2o @hawkssnugget @dabilove27 @hikari-writes @shibayamasbae @isleofnajera @thathoneybee3 @uncleirohsbobbatea @shinhiromi @greyevangeline @graykageyama @holycometz @mattsuns-prettybaby @fluffymilkbread @rogueofbullshit @turntechsquishy

— Change your mode?

yes. no.

— Continue?

yes. no.

#🌸 — to all the boys #👯‍♀️ — baby thots #sugawara koushi x reader #sugawara koushi x you #koushi sugawara x reader #koushi sugawara #sugawara koushi #sugawara x reader #sugawara x you #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #hq reader insert #haikyuu x reader #hq sugawara #hq suga x reader

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insufferablelust · 4 years

Note

Hi, I hope you're having a great day! I was wondering if you could write something for Hotch where the reader is one of the younger members and he always wants to protect her. She messes up on a case and Strauss yells at her and she ends up crying and Hotch takes care of her. Thank you so much, and it is okay if you don't want to write it!

Hi! i’m so sorry it took me awhile to write your piece but i hope this is worth it! and i also changed it a bit so i hope you don’t mind, but if you have any specific ideas just let me know! anyways thank you so much for requesting and waiting! much love!

This is an Aaron Hotchner x SA!Reader Blurb.

Warnings : Fluffs, angst, Mean!Strauss, Hotch is like your caregiver in a professional way like he guides you through the cases and help you etc because you’re new and young, Mention of Guns, Blood, Supportive!BAU, Mental disorder, and Abductions.

this blurb also have a special meaning to me since i’m diagnosed with the same Disorder the unsub has in this so i’m sorry if the descriptions are a bit too detailed. i still hope you like it and give me feedbacks or constructive criticisms thank you for reading❤️

———————

Being the youngest in every field has its own disadvantages, when you were at school, being the youngest would get you picked at, but you shut them up quickly with your bravery. When you were in college, most people doubted you even your professors, but you also managed to make them stare in awe when you became the top student of your criminal psychology class. When you were training in the academy, many underestimate you, but again— you came out on top, trainee with the highest score amongst others. So you never thought about being the youngest much,

No, not until you actually work— by work i mean becoming a part of BAU, Special Agent Y/n Y/l/n. It was easy at first, you received such a warm welcome from your new teammates that you already thought that this is going to be easy enough. The first time you met them were at the bullpen, they were all lounging and talking about a recent case as you stepped in nervously yet you put a stern smile. The first person who approached you was the wonderful Miss Penelope Garcia, who happens to be your friend, and then you shook hands with David Rossi, Jennifer Jareau, Aaron Hotchner, Dr. Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss, and got a flirty remark from none other than Derek Morgan— who you scoffed at and said “not going to work on me pal, Garcia has told me aaaall about it” which drew laughter.

Your assignments were quite easy at first, you were always the one to be confident, top of your class and all— so on your first day you got your first assignment with the team, a case in Virginia. You were told to follow Agent Hotchner, and you have to be honest that it couldn’t be any more easier for you. He showed you the ropes, how to analyze certain behaviors, even let you interview the family alone. He made you feel safe and comfortable to do this job, and you couldn’t be more grateful.

Now that you’ve gotten to several cases, you’ve felt like you earned your place here, not just as the new girl, but a profiler, an agent, and you couldn’t be more prouder— and you can’t help but to thank Aaron for it, he always guides you through all the horrible things that you just feel content to work on cases with him. Your teammates joked about it sometimes, saying how close you two have gotten, they noticed how Hotch never raised his voice with you, not once, it’s either you’re that good or as Prentiss likes to call it “He has a soft spot for you (Y/n)”

But not all paths are smooth paths, it was sunday afternoon, you were lounging with Emily, Garcia, and Sergio when you heard the call coming from Garcia’s phone. Upon seeing “HOTCHER” as the called id, you and Prentiss sigh deeply before preparing your go bag not even bothering for Garcia to finish the phone call.

Turns out it was a child abduction case, and the first thing to note about this is that time is of the essence and every second counts. The first abduction started in Virginia a month ago, where it was handled by the local police— but then the same type of M.O and Victimology appeared in some abduction cases all over the country, the most recent one is Los Angeles. So off to LA you goes with the team, only thing different this time is that JJ and Hotch was staying behind to talk to the police in Virginia—it’s your first ever case without his guidance and you haven’t decided if you like it or hate it.

———————————

12 hours into the abduction, and Y/n has messed up bad, bad enough that it put her own life in jeopardy. Y/n had gone to follow a lead, that she received from the hotline tip, she debated at first.. on telling the others about the call she received, all her training would told her to tell someone, you can’t go alone but the caller insist that you go alone. Something about this man is not right, you can feel it in your guts. But you know that if you were about to tell the others- they wouldn’t let you pursue, not because you’re incapable but because its not right to go alone, but you took the risk to save these children— the caller did mentioned you only have 10 minutes to drive to his address and if you don’t show up alone, the children will be killed— and you can’t let that happen. So you told the tip responder that you have told your team and that you’re under pursue before sprinting out of the LAPD.

When the team realized that Y/n was gone, it was an hour after she actually left. The second they found out about her whereabouts, they rushed to the location— already hoping that you and the kids are still alive. To their relief, you were found alive, but you were tied to a chair, face bloodied and its clear that you took some harsh beating. The unsub was holding one of the child, threatening to kill him.

He was a man who has Abandonment issues with severe borderline personality disorder, the reason why he abducts children is because he hated his childhood— he hated himself for being a fuck up, so he took the perfect children according to his judgment and kept them— it’s masochistic, he kept them as a reminder for himself of how worthless he is.

“Put the gun down, and let the boy go” Morgan’s voice rang through the abandoned building, causing the unsub to panic and move backwards “No! stay there! c-come any closer and i’ll blow his perfect fucking face off” He snarled, before you gained all the energy you have left and speak up,

“Adam, let him go please. I know how you feel, and let me show you that you are none of those things your mind is telling you. You’re not worthless and you deserve to be loved, a- a mother’s love.. don’t you missed it? Come here, i- i can give it to you” You coughed up blood as your vision gets blurry, The team gasped as the unsub let the boy go.. all of them and kneeled next to you, gun still in hand as he untied you, then lay his head on your thighs. Your fingers shakily move, to ran through his hair, and inching to get the gun from here.

“Shh, shh Mama’s here, give me the toy.. I’ll let you play w-with it later” You said holding back the tears as he slowly handed you the loaded gun before you tossed it and the team cuffed him.

You cried hard as you fell to your knees on the floor, the last thing you heard was Prentiss’s voice calling for medic and then you black out.

——————-

Its been a few days after the incident, you’re on your way back to Quantico. Some of the bruisings are gone but there are some scars that will be there forever, and honestly you don’t worry about it all— the only thing you worry about is what your superior is going to do with you. You knew you messed up bad and it doesn’t matter that you are the reason that those kids are free, you should’ve told your team. When Emily asked you why, you said it’s just gut feeling em. And when Spencer asked you how’d you know?

you told him, that The unsub told you about his young mother, the same exact age as your age, your hair color, and around your height. Thats why he wanted you to come, and the pieces clicked, All of the hesitancy to kill, He liked the pain, not inflicting it to others if not necessary but to himself. That’s how you know. Your answer seemed to please the young doctor as he smiled and whispered a small “Great job, Agent.”

All of them were understanding on why you did it, except Morgan because he’s like your big brother but he did said something along the lines of “You’re a damn good profiler but you’re still stupid” but the worst had to come from your superior; Erin Strauss.

As soon as you landed in Quantico, Hotch was there waiting for you, then escort you to his room, where Strauss was there also. You were nervous not because you’re wrong but because you knew you could’ve done better and it’s against the regulations.

Hotch had said to you during a phone call that he “understands why you did what you did but it certainly doesnt justify it.” The way he spoke those words calmed you down up until now.. standing in front of Strauss herself.

“Agent Y/n, sit down.” You sat down in front of her with Hotch leaning against his desk, you put on a smile as you keep eye contact with her, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling fine, Ma’am. Thank you for asking—i’ve completed the psych evals too and-“

“What you did was reckless and stupid, Agent. You put your own life in danger as well as your teammates. You let your own ambition to lead you into this mess—“

Taken aback at her words, you quickly replied, “Excuse me Ma’am, with all due respect i never have any intention other than saving the boys from the unsub. So i don’t understand how my ‘ambition’ led me.”

“Agent, you will not interrupt me. Must i remind you that you’re an intelligent, bright, and exceptionally young with a lot of great potentials but let me ask you this, Are you too immature that your ambition on becoming the one who caught the unsub is your top priority? The Director agreed that maybe you should take another year of training to successfully complete mature so you dont make mistakes like this.” and at that your eyes brimmed with tears, How could she? how could she compared your age to how you do your job? You were trying to save the kids and you did. Your age has no connection to any of this and certainly not to your abilities. You were about to say something when Hotch stand and put a finger up signaling you to hold it.

“Ma’am I know what Y/n did is incredibly reckless but she only did that because the unsub specifically asked for her— she reminded him of his young mother, their features are the same. Agent Y/n, does know the regulations and protocols, and she knows that if she tells anyone the risk of those boys dying is greater than any other. So with all due respect Ma’am, As her direct superior in this case, i’m asking you to back up and let me handle her penalty according to my professional judgment as someone who has seen her incredible work and sacrifices.” His voice is loud, ringing on your ears like you’re the only thing that mattered. It left you speechless as he give you the tissue box and then waiting for Erin’s reply.

To your surprise she didn’t say anything before leaving his office. You broke down once again, gasping for air as you feel the pain now, the ache on your shoulder and wrists, the dull pain on your face, the cuts and bruises on your stomach. You are exhausted, and It seemed that Hotch knows it too.

He sit besides you as he gently placed your head on his shoulder, so you can cry with a shoulder to support you. You were so exhausted, that you dont even care if this is breaking any rules or protocols. You just want to save people, you just want to be with your team.

“She won’t do anything, I promise you that ill protect and guides you, so hang onto my words.” He said, rubbing the back of your neck and shoulders as you let out tiny gasps, trying to form a sentence.

“T-thank- y-you, Aaron.” is the only thing you managed to speak before the exhaustion wipes you out, the last thing you heard was his voice, “Anytime Y/n, Sleep well.”

——————

Feel free to send me blurb ideas! give this a like and reblog, thank you!

#aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotchner angst #aaron hotchner smut #aaron hotchner x reader #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds fluff #insufferableblurb

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outerbankslut · 4 years

Text

Listen Before I Go... Draco Malfoy

Summary • Based on the song ‘Listen Before I Go’ by Billie Eilish. At the final battle at hogwarts, Draco realises something too late.

Warnings • death, sadness etc. Swearing.

Word Count • 1.2k (Blurb)

Masterlist

(GIF isn’t mine, let me know if it’s yours)

Take me to the rooftop

I wanna see the world when I stop breathing, turnin' blue

Tell me love is endless, don't be so pretentious

Leave me like you do

DRACO SAW IT all. It was all so sudden. He saw the eruption of light that emitted from in front of him, like blue electricity that blinded him until it was too late. He saw it shoot forward. He saw you in the line of fire. Your eyes turned to him almost in slow motion as you both knew what was happened and then a second later you were gone. Draco moved to do something. Save you, sacrifice himself but instead he felt your limp body fall into his arms as he fell to the floor barely holding you up. Your eyes no longer begging him, pleading for him to be okay, to not do anything. Your eyes were empty, lifeless. Skin cold as ice and unforgivingly colourless and hollow. A single tear trickled down your cheek as you breathed your final breath. The life was sucked out of you.

Taste me, the salty tears on my cheek

That's what a year long headache does to you

I'm not okay, I feel so scattered

Don't say I'm all that matters

Leave me, deja vu

YOU SAT UP confused as you looked around, sure that you were meant to be dead. But you felt fine. Your eyes scanned the chaos around you and saw the back of the blond boy you were looking for.

“Draco!” You shouted scrambling to your feet and across all the rubble towards the boy. “Draco...”

Confusion set in as soon as you saw the body laid across his lap. The tears in your eyes weren’t falling. Somehow you felt at peace with this revelation. Your heart aches seeing the boy you loved.

His tear stained face sobbing and scrunched up in pain.

You were everything. The one person who chose to love him despite his flaws. Understanding and kind. You helped him realise how wrong he was about everything. Or at least how wrong his parents were.

But apparently you were too late. If only he’d chosen the right path and not let his misguided upbringing stray him towards the dark side. It was out of pure necessity. Survival. But if he knew this was going to happen to you because of his mistakes he’d go back and choose the right path a hundred times no matter where it leaves him.

His hands curled tightly around the ripped and worn fabric covering you as he sobbed into the crook of your neck. His cries begging you to come back. But the blond knew it wouldn’t work. You were dead and only the darkest and most dangerous of magic could ever bring you back. But the boy knew you wouldn’t want that. You’d curse him for even thinking about it at all. As the boy sat up he kissed your forehead softly, “I love you, Y/N.”

If you need me, wanna see me

You better hurry, I'm leavin' soon

Sorry can't save me now

Sorry I don't know how

Sorry there's no way out

But down

HE SHOOK HIS head as a lump formed in his throat choking him. Not allowing him to breath as he thought about you. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His blue eyes cast towards the wand still grasped loosely in your outstretched hand that Draco remembered holding. Feeling your reassuring squeeze as you have him a smile. There was nothing now. The Malfoy hesitantly moved a shaking hand towards the wood in your hand seeing its intricate features you had loved about it so much.

His hand grazed one of your fingers wincing at its icy cold harshness. He felt his jaw clench. You’d never be able to go where you wanted in life. Never be able to become the amazing wizard you were. He choked back a sob that could shatter worlds as he thought about everything he already missed. It had all become something he looked forward to when seeing you. He craved the sound of you laughing, laughter that he had caused and the smile that appeared on your face. He missed seeing you excited over what class you were going to that day or new things you learnt. You’d always tell Draco about them and he’d listen despite already hearing it in that class before, just because it was you.

Call my friends and tell them that I love them

And I'll miss them

But I'm not sorry

Call my friends and tell them that I love them

And I'll miss them

Sorry

HE CLOSED YOUR eyes slowly saying goodbye to the the very things that looked toward him in adoration instead of disgust and hate and that held a comforting gaze as he felt footsteps wander behind him.

“What happened?” The stern but quick and distant voice Hermione Granger appeared behind him as he felt all the world falling around him. White noise and chaos. Would he be able to be without you.

You watched from afar as he cradled you no ounce of him ready to let go of you and Hermione approached from behind. You walked up to him your ghostly hand setting on his shoulder.

He could feel comfort surge through him. He felt the weight of your hand there. It almost felt like he could feel your breath on his neck. And almost as if he heard you murmur the words in his ear, your voice soft and sultry. He already craved the feeling of you again.

“Draco. It’s okay. You can let go now. I have to go now,” You turned seeing the ever growing white light around you. You were ready. Never ready to leave him. But you were ready to wait for him. You’d always wait for him. “But be strong for me. I’ll always be here. I’ll always be waiting. And when you’re ready, we can see each other again. Be happy and please tell everyone I’ll—I’ll miss them. Please live your life, okay? I love you, Draco Malfoy.”

You kissed the boys forehead and you saw the pain flash on his face. He heard every word. And it hurt even worse. He wouldn’t hear you singing in the halls or ever feel your presence around him again. He could only imagine. He let out small sputter. Burying his face in the crook of your neck as he pulled you closer to his body. And suddenly he felt a hand in his shoulder, just as you walked away from him. Towards the light.

He turned quickly only to see the Granger girl there an abundance of tears gathering in her eyes as she let out a small gasp inaudible to Draco as he sobbed. He didn’t know when he’d stopped but eventually he laid you down on the ground and stood up with his wand. His eyes were free of tears and his face monotone as he looked at everything falling down scattered around him. Giants were destroying structures of Hogwarts. Flashes of magic were everywhere. The setting was dusty and filled with debris. It was all falling apart. But Draco was glad you weren’t at the centre of it now. And if he needed to, he’d sacrifice himself. For everyone who’d lost someone, for you, for Hogwarts. For anyoen he hurt.

And then maybe he’d see you again. Maybe he could finally make the right choice.

Note • I literally came up with this like two hours ago and it was meant to be a blurb but then I realised how similar it was to this song so I put some of the lyrics in and then edited it after and obviously it was a lot longer than before. I did only roughly edit so please excuse the bad grammar and spelling mistakes :) anyway so yeah finally fricking posted. Hoping to finish a stiles imagine for bricks’ writing thing but it finishes in two days so idk whether it’ll be finished but anyway I have to go revise for a psychology test that’s in like 7 hours oop.

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans Are Space Orcs, “Psych Eval.”

I know some of you were hoping for the stuff going on in between, but I needed to get us moving for purposes related to the 23rd, so I think you guys can forgive me. I hope you like it.

A lot of you were calling for something similar to happen, so I hope it all works out. The last little bit was super fun to write.

Dr. Adric Jakande wasn’t entirely sure what he had signed up for. When he had moved from The coastal African provinces, it had been to attend the school of his dreams, and from there his path had led him to the UNSC where he had spent most of his time counseling veterans of the Panasian war. Then a letter had come across his desk looking for volunteers brave enough to take on a very new, and dangerous mission.

He had planned on ignoring it because his life here was stable and comfortable, but there was something about it he just couldn’t get out of his head.

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done: and it wouldn’t be just humans he would be dealing with.

Somehow, however, he found himself writing his name on the contract that signed away five years of his life to the crew of the Harbinger.

There was no turning back now, so might as well get to work.

He wanted to understand the dynamic of the ship and so had filtered through a hundred or more psychological evals. He didn’t read them all, and he wouldn't interview them all, but there were a select handful he was very interested in, and planned to take a look at himself.

He pressed the button on his desk causing the call light above the door to blink on in green inviting his first patient into the office. Footsteps followed, and a young marine, not too much younger than himself, slipped into the room walking over and sprawling out in the seat across from him, a smile pulled taught over his olive-tan face.

“Cprl. Angel Ramirez?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s me.”

He glanced down at the stats on the eval. The corporal seemed in pretty good shape except, “Tell me corporal, on your evaluation you reported higher elvels of anxiety than normal, Would you be willing to tell me why?” The corporal sat up sraighter his dark amber eyes narrowing a little.as he thought.

“Well, sir…. It has nothing to do with me really…. But a friend of mine has been having some problems lately, and I’m not sure if he will be able to get it together before we are on our way. It would pretty much ruin my life if he was….uh…. Not allowed to com .”

“Ruin your life? That seems pretty serious.”

He shrugged, “He holds the ship together, everyone loves him, and I don’t think we would make it in deep space without him.”

“Do you find deep space to be mentally taxing?”

He frowned a bit forced to think about it, “No, not really but I think that has to do with this friend of mine. He does a lot of stuff to get us to come together, activities, holidays, group meals, it really keeps crew morale and I’m not sure we would have it without him.”

“Is there anything particularly bothering you corporal, besides that/”

“No, I guess I miss my family a little, but I was just there, so that is expected. I’ll video chat them from orbit, so it will all be cool.”

He let the corporal go with a nod. The man was stable, happy, and well-adjusted. He would use him as a baseline.

The call light came on again, and another figure stepped into the room, at first he assumed they were a man, though turning around he could see that wasn’t the case. She had very short hair, and a face that could have gone either way, not unpleasant just different.

She took a stiff seat in the chair opposite him.

“Sgt Maverick Morozov…. Russian?”

“My family was a long time ago.”

“Says here you are the ship’s Chaplain.”

“Yes, sir/”

“Do you have a lot of work on the ship?”

“Not really sir, most of the crew is Agnostic, though some come and visit me to talk, though now that you’re aboard the ship that will probably trickle off.”

“Does this bother you?”

“No, not really. I will help people if they need it, but I don’t actively try to solve other people’s personal problems.”

“I am assuming you have a good relationship with your religion?”

“Yes sir, it saved my life once.”

“Do you think this has helped you cope with being in deep space?”

“Deep space feels safe to me/”

“Why is that.”

She shrugged, “I don’t know, its one of those feelings like maybe nothing has touched that place other than you and the will of some kind of creator. Space isn’t malevolent to me, its empty and dark-- in a comforting way.”

“Do you often experience malevolent things when you aren’t in space?” She paused frowning, “This makes me sound insane doesn’t it, but yeah, and don’t ask me why I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me that much, I can handle it, I just don’t like to.”

Interesting, he would have to take a look into that later.

“And your reported anxiety levels have been high lately. Why is that?”

“On the behalf of a friend of mine.”

Interesting.

“Someone on his ship.”

“Yes sir, if he can’t come with us, I will probably quit.”

“That’s a lot of loyalty.”

“I’ve no doubt he would do the same for all of us, so….. Yeah.”

He let her go thinking about this friend of there who seemed so important to them. He had no doubt she was talking about the same person they all were. He had picked this group of people very intentionally.

The door opened again, and a very, very large figure ducked through the doorway. Adric had to sit back in his seat to contain the surprise. The Drev was HUGE, he had never seen one in person before, and this creature was just massive. Six limbs, and bright red carapace. It almost had to duck to avoid hitting its head on the ceiling.

It ignored the chair, which made sense, and happily kneeled on the floor before his desk still coming into eye level with him even as he sat on his chair.

“Kanan?”

“Yes Kanan Lumnus’s son though all my human friends call me Cannon.”

“Forgive me, I have never interviewed a Drev before.”

“I have never been psychologically evaluated either, so I suppose we share a commonality.”

“Your file is a little sparse, but it says here you were a veteran of the Drev war, and that you were injured during that time. Do you experience any psychological symptoms related to the event.

“Not to the war itself, Drev don’t respond to trauma like humans, mostly because we do not perceive it as trauma. The worst part came after the war when I was exiled.”

He blinked, “Exiled?”

“Yes, i received a grievous injury during the war and my mother banished me from the clan to sacrifice myself to the burning spirits.”

He simply blinked, “Your mother wanted you to……”

“Throw myself into the volcano.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No I betrayed our traditions and left Anin. I nearly died starving a month later, but the humans took kindness on me, and I was recovered.”

“Feel free not to answer this question, but it says here that your…. Mate died during the war.”

His golden eyes saddened a bit, “She did, but she died in glorious combat, so I am not sad for her death. I am sad because of how little time I got to spend with her. Nechal and I would have had a strong brood, but we never got the chance.”

“How does this affect your daily life?”

He shrugged, “It does not, but i think about her sometimes at night before I sleep. And I do my best to honor her memory, and the memory of my father who died during the war as well.”

The Drev had plenty to be psychologically unstable about, but otherwise he seemed fine. He wasn’t sure yet just what a stable Drev looked like though, so he would have to do some more digging, “Thank you, Cannon, you may go.”

He met with a few other humans before moving on to his next patient Both of the humans were fine aside from concerns abut this unnamed friend of theirs, which seemed to be a recurring theme.

The door opened again and looked over confused at first when he did not see anyone , however a sharp scuttling across the floor caused him to look over his desk where a small, almost spider like alien was skittering across the floor.

As he watched it inflated a flap of skin at the back of it’s head and floated up onto the chair turning to face him. Its large orange prismatic eyes watched him cooly.

“Dr. Krill.”

“Yes, and you are Dr. Jakande.”

He glanced down at his paper and blew out through his cheeks. He wasn’t sure how to go about this. The anxiety this creature was experiencing nearly broke their scale, and on a scale of neuroticism he almost broke that as well. If he saw this in a person he would be very concerned.

“You seem anxious, doctor.”

“I am always anxious, it is a proclivity of my species. If you want an accurate reading on your test, you should lower the levels to a halfway point”

He glanced down at his paper, “That is still pretty high.”

“I am the commanding physician on a ship where all you humans are bent on getting yourselves killed, and even when you aren't I have to worry about whether or not you will choke on a grape because your larynx are so poorly placed. I am constantly surrounded by creatures that don’t understand the meaning of caution.” he looked very seriously at Adric just then, “These are my humans and I do not want any of them to die if I can help it though they seem to defy me at every opportunity.”

“Your humans?”

“Yes , my humans, my responsibility therefore they are all MINE.”

Ok this little guy was a bit on the crazy side. If he saw this out of a human he would be concerned, but i the creature was already prone to neuroticism than he wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“Not to mention a friend of mine may not be returning to the ship, and if he doesn’t I will be out of a job.”

He paused, there was mention f that friend again, “Why would you be out of a job?”

“Because he is the only reason I am on this ship in the first place. He holds my loyalty.

Very interesting.

He let the little doctor go taking mental notes to talk more with him later.

A woman stepped into the room next,her long dark hair falling about her shoulders, large glasses glittering in the overhead lights as she adjusted her coat.

“Dr. Katie Keddrick you are the second attending physician on the Harbinger.”

“Yes, I was brought in to ease some of the burden from Dr. Krill.”

“And how are you coping with that.”

“Oh I am doing very well. I love it aboard the ship. Its just one big family honestly, very nice and homey.”

“That ‘s good. Tell me is your reported anxiety to do with a friend of yours who may or may not be able to return to the ship?”

The doctor paused her eyes wide, “How did you know.”

“A common theme.”

“Well yeah actually. He has a tendency to take all the burden on his own shoulders, so he doesnt cause issue to anyone else. He likes to control things though I don’t think he knows that. It never bothers any of us, but it is getting to him, and we are all worried that they won’t let him through.”

“This friend means a lot to you.”

“He brought our little family together, so yes.”

“You see the crew as family.”

She smiled, “Well doctor, yes but you will find that out there in the galaxy humanity survives by creating families. Everything that makes us human is magnified under the lens of space, our power our weakness, our goods and our bads.”

He talked with her a little more, she was intelligent and insightful about the workings of the crew, information that he found valuable before letting her go.

He only had one more evaluation before the big one.

This Drev dd not have to duck through the door as she came in. She was very small though the color of her carapace was a pleasant electric blue. She was able to seat herself on the chair tilting her head to look at him.

He wasn’t sure what to make of her evaluation.

“Chalan.”

“Call me Sunny.”

“Chief weapons officer.”

“Yes.”

“I am going to be honest, I was not sure what to make of your evaluation. You come across as someone trying very hard to prove they aren't affected by something very important.”

She tiled her head. She had the same gold eyes as the other Drev, “My mother didn’t like how short I was, or that I was not as talented as my brother, she treated me poorly and my father died during the war, so forgive me if I still have some unresolved conflicts.”

Very blunt, interesting.

“”How do you cope with those.”

“I remind myself that I beat my mother in open combat, also I have friends now.”

Hmm yeah they were going to have to talk some more for sure. This was less of a healed kind of thing and more of a stick it to the man sort of attitude. She was still trying to prove something, probably more to herself than to others.

“And you are anxious about a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if he does not board this ship again, I don’ think he will live to see next year, and if that happens, I doubt I will either.”

That was…. that was kind of concerning and intense.

“Who is this friend of yours.”

She shook her head, “No, I will not be telling you.”

Aggressive loyalty, very, very interesting.

He tried prodding a little more out of her, but she didn’t budge, and he eventually let it go allowing her to leave.

He had one more evaluation…. The big one.

***

It was late, this evaluation had been scheduled for the last possible second, and he was curious to see what would come through those doors. He heard the clatter of UNSC issued dress shoes long before he saw anything coming steadily up the hall. He left the light on, and waited at his desk for the person to pass through the doors.

It paused outside his door and then slowly opened inward.

The light fell on a man much, much younger than he had expected. In fact, he could have passed for early twenties, if the uniform he wore hadn’t suggested at least seven years of service, which would make him, at minimum, in his mid twenties. He wore the uniform well, almsot comfortably as he crossed the room.

The look on his face was pleasant like it was just about to break into a smile. His one visible green eye was curious flickering around the room with some interest.

He made his way to the desk and held out a hand, “Dr.”

He took it, the grip was strong, “Commander.”

He sat in the seat just opposite and Dr Adric stared at the eye patch that covered his other eye.

He nodded to it, “I thought you had a mechanical eye.

“I do.” He said softly lifting the eyepatch up, so he could see the workings of the cold metal ball and its black aperture.

“Why do you still wear an eye patch?”

“Because, the eye has better vision than my normal one, and it can be overwhelming. I generally only use it when I need binocular vision.”

“Why not just shut it off, why wear the eye patch.”

He paused thinking head tilted, “It was a gift from a friend after losing the eye in a moment where I wasn’t sure I would make it through the injury. It lightened things up for me reminded me that there is always a way through.” He smiled, “Plus I think it makes me look dashing.”

The two of them laughed together for a moment.

“Why did you call extended leave like this, commander.”

HE sighed leaning back in his seat, “I had to work on myself for the good of the crew. I mean I saw how surprised you were, probably based on how young I am, right? Well due to that I am a novice at leading. I haven't had the time to cultivate how things work when commanding a crew, and I have made some mistakes that have almost cost me my job in the past.”

He listened.

“People tell me I shoulder too much burden and take on too much guilt. I recently learned that I have a tough time relinquishing control on things.”

“Why is that/ Do you often feel out of control.”

“No, but I think that’s why. The last time I was out of control is when I was a child and didn’t know how to fix it, so I assume bad habits formed from there.”

“Your family was stable?”

“Yes very, but school was…. Less than easy for me. I joined the flight academy after my freshman year of high school, so I don’t think I really had the life experience that most other people do when it comes to interacting with people my own age. The point is moot now, but it did hold e back a little maturity wise, I think.”

“You left due to extreme anxiety and stress?”

“Yes, I wasn’t handling it well.”

“And how are you doing now. I don’t see any records here saying you went to see someone .”

The man sighed, and for the first time Dr Adric noticed the German Shepherd sitting at the man’s side resting her head in his lap. She was wearing a service vest.

“I didn’t. I have done therapy before but the first time it didn’t work and the second time I was left with more questions than answers.” He patted the dog’s head, “She helped me the most and I decided that it might be prudent for me to try other avenues. I realized while I was gone that I was neglecting time for myself, and so I have developed a schedule to combat this.”

“Oh.”

“My average working day should be around nine hours, I only need about six hours of sleep. IN that case that gives me eight hours of free time, one of those I will use for exercise in the morning, and another for flight time.”

“Flight time?”

“My greatest stress relief, there is no better way to feel in control in an out o control way than flying, so I have worked it into my schedule and into budget in some way or another so that I can do what this fleet and the UNSC needs.”

“So, you have given up some responsibility, found yourself some free time, discovered stress relieving alternatives. Have you changed the way that you command in general?”

“I have made some changes to the command structure including a panel of advisors, which was just a good idea anyway.”

“You talked about maturity in your earlier statement. Do you feel that has increased much in the past few months?”

The man smiled and sighed, “As it turns out doc, that is the one thing I couldn’t fix at least in part.”

“Oh?”

“I can handle conflict and issues like an adult, but I have decided that some of that isn’t a maturity thing, it is simply a product of personality. So if the UNSC has an issue with a commander that makes too many Star Wars’ references and listens to 2000 year old rock music on the bridge, then I guess maybe I am not the man for the job.”

They talked a bit more until eventually Dr Adric stood.

The commander followed, he looked openly nervous now, though that was to be expected, this was the moment of truth.

Dr. Adric held out a hand, and the commander took it tentatively though his grip was still strong.

“I look forward to working with you and your crew.”

The near smile broke on the man’s face into a pleasant grin that sent little crinkly lines up through his eyes.

“You are in for a good time, Dr. Make sure to read the rules before you come aboard”

Dr Adric stood confused for a moment before glancing down at his hand.

He had not noticed the Commander slip him the folded piece of paper. He glanced up towards the door as the man’s foot vanished around the corner.

He stood in stunned silence for a moment before looking down and tentatively opening the note.

Welcome Dr. Adric Jakande to the UNSC Harbinger,

On behalf of my crew, we look forward to having you, and I am pleased that you are here to help my men with whatever they may need. You will be an amazing asset to our team.

There are a few ground rules I would like to lay out first. Of course, you know the UNSC code of conduct which I will not repeat, but I have a few personal rules that will make our lives all the much easier.

Rule number 1: Don’t chuck Marshmallows at Neutron Stars.

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beneaththetangles · 3 years

Text

Light Novel Club Chapter 32: The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1

Welcome to our Light Novel Club discussion of The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1! We’ve got a fairly unique light novel to discuss this time around, and this is a great time to discuss it, with an anime adaptation coming up soon and also the recent announcement of hardcover print editions for the series. So let’s jump into the discussion!

Joining Jeskai Angel and I is marthaurion, one of the members of the Beneath the Tangles Discord! This is a reminder that all Light Novel Club discussions are held on the public Beneath the Tangles Discord and anyone can join these discussions, so if you want to join future discussions, check us out over there.

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1. What are your overall thoughts on the novel?

Jeskai Angel: The pacing was a little slow at times, but overall I enjoyed this light novel. Also, it bugs me that I can’t narrow down a specific reason, but this story felt strangely old, like I might have picked it up at the public library back in 1998. I’ve written before about how I think Unnamed Memory doesn’t “feel” like a typical light novel, and I experienced a similar sensation with Faraway Paladin, though I don’t think it was for the same reasons (e.g., how magic works is actually explained quite a bit in Faraway Paladin).

stardf29: Maybe it’s because the author took inspiration from traditional tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, as opposed to video game RPGs like “typical” fantasy light novels?

Jeskai Angel: Ooh, that’s possible! It’s not exactly “You all meet in a tavern,” levels of DnD tropey-ness, but I can definitely see the DnD resemblance now that you point it out.

stardf29: This was definitely an interesting read that is quite different from the usual isekai light novel. It does feel a bit slow-paced because a lot of the beginning is so focused on Will simply growing up with his “parents” and learning about the world. That said, that kind of start is nice every once in a while; it is kind of like Mushoku Tensei in that regard. The worldbuilding is great because of it, and the conflict against the god of undeath is nice, too.

Beyond that, I do like how this story delves into various themes that are worth thinking about. It’s a nice, thoughtful light novel, and as much as I like my brainless fun light novels, having something like this is good for a balanced light novel diet.

2. What are your thoughts on the characters?

Jeskai Angel: By far, my favorite aspect of this story was the active role the gods played. It actually sort of resembles my favorite aspect of Spice and Wolf in that regard. In most light novels, either there’s no evidence gods are real, or they are deistic watchmakers who jump-start the story by isekai-ing the MC but thereafter take a hands-off approach to the setting, or they are benign comic relief. The biggest exceptions I can think of are Invaders of the Rokujouma!? and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, plus Tearmoon Empire (which, thus far, has strongly-implied-but-not-explicitly-confirmed divine intervention).

I think one way to summarize this volume is that it’s the story of someone (Will) coming to know and put his faith in a loving deity (Gracefeel). Since learning about the Lord and then choosing to devote oneself to him is fundamental to being a Christian, it’s actually kind of a relatable process. Gracefeel, as a character, walks a fine line, managing to be knowable while remaining mysterious. She’s not just a human with superpowers, but neither is she a total enigma. She’s also a rare truly benevolent god; her power is finite, but she consistently seeks to use it for good.

Stagnate was…peculiar. Like, if the author had added a line about Stagnate twirling his mustache while cackling evilly, it would have fit right in; he acts almost ostentatiously villainous. At the same time he, doesn’t feel quite as “evil” as he acts. He DID help with sealing away the demon king, and even if he had an ulterior motive, that doesn’t entirely invalidate the goodness of aiding the struggle against the demon king. Then there’s issue of death. Stagnate isn’t wrong to see death a Bad Thing (TM). I got the the sense that he really had at least somewhat good intentions behind his flawed approach to the problem of death. Even his nefarious scheme to ensnare Blood and Mary consisted of…arranging for them to raise the child they’d always longed for. Like, as far as villainous plans go, “Give a childless couple a baby so they can shower him with love” isn’t actually all that fiendish. I can’t be too hard on Stagnate if that’s the best he can do for an “evil” plan.

marthaurion: For what it’s worth, I don’t really think I got the same impression of stagnate as being overtly evil, but maybe I wasn’t focusing on that at the time. From what I read, it seemed like his motivations were rooted in a concept that made sense, but his implementation ultimately brings him at odds with others.

stardf29: I have to agree that Stagnate is not so much “intentionally evil” as much as a sort of “well-intentioned extremist”. I think it’s interesting that Stagnate was originally a “good” god, but would later “stray from that path”; it shows that, putting the initially “evil” gods aside, the gods are not actual moral paragons and are indeed falliable. I’ll have more to say on this in a later question.

Jeskai Angel: Will was surprisingly relatable. The way he described himself, I got the impression that he suffered some real trauma which caused depression or anxiety or some other form of mental ill health, and as one commonly sees in anime / light novels, he never got adequate psychological / psychiatric treatment for it. I also appreciate that his past-life memories were important yet not intrusive. By that, I mean that the story spend a bunch time dwelling on Will’s efforts to replicate modern technology, business practices, or Japanese food culture the way so many isekai protagonists do. That sort of thing is sometimes done well, but other times just feels like a cookie cutter isekai trope. Memories from his past are both inspiring and useful for Will, but they can only carry him so far, something he explicitly notes when talking about how Gus’s lessons eventually surpassed his past-life education level.

Will eventually does end up as an OP Isekai Protagonist (TM), but it feels “earned” in a narrative sense. He puts forth a ton of effort to reach the point of being OP, and even then, it’s not just efforts that make it possible. He never could have reached the point he did without all the care and teaching Blood, Mary, and Gus give him. Mater and Gracefeel also contribute to what he becomes. He isn’t just handed phenomenal cosmic power from the start.

marthaurion: For my impression of will, it was hard for me not to draw parallels to Mushoku Tensei, since both protagonists come from that similar thought of feeling like they want to make something more of themselves in their new lives. It’s hard not to feel like Will’s reincarnation is more of an afterthought whenever it comes up, whereas Rudy’s reincarnation seems to more actively inform many of his decisions. Ultimately, it seems like Will’s reincarnation is mostly meant to tie him to Gracefeel. To be fair, i think this is fine, but the other attempts to tie back to his old life don’t really hit home for me.

Also, I would agree that will’s abilities definitely feel earned, in spite of what I said earlier about how I compare him to Rudy.

It’s more of a commentary on how the reincarnation aspect ties into things.

Jeskai Angel: I haven’t read the Jobless Reincarnation light novels, and only watched the first few episodes before dropping the recent anime adaptation. That said…the big contrast I saw between Will and Rudy is that the former is a relatively good person and the latter is a relatively awful one. I got the distinct sense that Rudy, was a Jabba-the-Hutt-like sleazeball in his previous life, AND that he carried over his perverted habits into his reincarnated life. In that regard, at least, Rudy didn’t even seem to be trying to do better than in his previous life. Perhaps I’m off base in this, and Rudy wasn’t as bad as in his first life as the anime made him seem, or perhaps he eventually turns better in his second life. I just know that in terms of comparisons, I found Will vastly more sympathetic and likeable.

marthaurion: Is that so wrong? Even if I don’t have the same traits, I can respect that Rudy carries over parts of his identity while working past some of the traumas that held him back.

stardf29: Regarding Will, honestly, I don’t really have anything to add here that Jeskai hasn’t already said. I like how his past life memories have enough of an effect on his current self that you’re curious what his past life was life, but not so much that I want the story to actually explain it, leaving that in the realm of fascinating mystery.

Jeskai Angel: I appreciated how each of Blood, Mary, and Gus contributed something irreplaceable to Will’s upbringing. They were well balanced, and had a fun rapport with each other. I also thought it was a fun touch how the story emphasized that some of their knowledge was dated and they don’t really know anything about the current state of the world. I can’t help but suspect all three are some kind of allusion to Christianity, due to in their names. First, having a woman named Mary who ends up with a baby through unnatural means is…not remotely subtle. And once you’ve introduced that, the names of the other two start to seem suspiciously coincidental. “Blood” is in fact a very important thing in Christianity (e.g., the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist). And Gus isn’t in the Bible by his nickname, but “Augustus” (of the Caesar variety) does get a shout-out in Luke 2:1.

stardf29: Man, Blood, Mary, and Gus are great. They are such a great parental trio, with each of them having aspects that are different from each other that allow them to balance each other out, which overall makes them quite good at raising Will. It definitely made me sad that their time with Will ultimately had to come to an end. And I definitely found the use of “Mary” for the mother’s name strangely familiar…

Someone took some creative liberties with their nativity display.

3. What do you think about the setting/worldbuilding in this volume?

Jeskai Angel: Now that you’ve said it, the worldbuilding and setting seem clearly inspired by tabletop RPGs (or video games closely based on tabletop RPGs, like Baldur’s Gate or something), which in turn drew from older western fantasy works (from Greek mythology to Tolkien). It contains a lot of traditional elements, and the end result is something that in one sense feels creative and unusual compared to typical fantasy light novels, but in another sense more derivative than many other fantasy light novels. That is, light novels that don’t draw so heavily on traditional fantasy have room to sometimes do some really interesting things, whereas Faraway Paladin never completely loses that familiar “I think I might have read this in the ’90s” vibe I mentioned before.

marthaurion: I really liked how magic was presented in this world. It feels more grounded to think of it as something that isn’t guaranteed to succeed in a general sense. With that presentation, Gus’s philosophy of choosing words that have the safest failures rather than the most effective successes makes a lot of sense. It truly makes magic feel like a feat of intelligence, rather than just a question of how well you can time or aim the spell, as is the general impression in other fantasy settings.

As for the pantheon, I’m less familiar with kind of the “official” pantheons for D&D, so I didn’t immediately draw that parallel. I felt the similarities to Greek/Roman mythology a lot more strongly when I was reading, where the gods are just presented as very powerful beings that preside over processes.

stardf29: As mentioned before, the current highlight of the worldbuilding is in the gods and how they relate to the people of the world. I do like how the worldbuilding is presented over time, as if we are learning about it alongside Will. This is especially notable since this first volume only takes place in a small area geographically, so there’s still a lot of world for us to learn as Will explores outside the city of the dead.

Also, I like how magic in this world works. It’s not just “oh yeah people can use magic,” nor is it too videogame-like or overly “scientific”. There’s a greater sense of mystique thanks to the connection to the “Words of Creation”, and even Will himself mentions it’s more like classic fantasy novels in this way.

Now, about those gods. As I mentioned before, the “good” and “evil” designation of gods is not static, and that does make me wonder a few things. For one, what exactly defines what makes a god “good” or “evil”? Gus does say at one point that he considers those designations something that their followers, i.e. the people, decided, and that makes me curious as to the greater religious sociology of this world. It also makes me wonder if there are any cases where an “evil” god ends up being more “good”…

4. What connections does this volume’s story have with our Christian faith?

Jeskai Angel: The conflicting divine approaches to death provide fascinating contrasts with the third possibility Christianity teaches. Gracefeel represents reincarnation with no memories. Life ends in death, but then restarts from scratch. In this system, a soul is basically an Etch A Sketch, getting erased & reused over & over. I find this a deeply unsatisfying concept because it makes one’s life meaningless. It doesn’t matter what you do, eventually you’ll die & get erased & nothing about you will carry over. This approach leaves no room for reward or judgment. It actually reminds me a bit of some of my issues the versions of predestination/election found in some circles of Christianity, in that by say God absolutely predetermines the outcome, they risk making this life meaningless.

Stagnate has beef with this, & thus offers undeath as an alternative to reincarnation. Your identity won’t get erased, but you’ll be stuck as some damaged or half-destroyed version of yourself (e.g., a skeleton, zombie, or ghost) that isn’t truly alive. By offering some degree of continuity, Stagnate’s undeath does have an advantage over Gracefeel’s soul recycling bin. Unfortunately, it’s rightly called ‘undeath,” not “life.” The solution to death needs to be life, so in that respect Gracefeel’s approach has an edge over Stagnate’s.

Finally, there’s Christianity, promising a transformative bodily resurrection. Gracefeel & Stagnate only have workarounds to the problem of death; they can’t do anything about death itself. On the other hand, in the person of Jesus, Life directly challenges & overcomes death. In the resurrection, we will still be ourselves in some meaningful sense, unlike Gracefeel’s reincarnation. But unlike with Stagnate’s static, flawed imitation of life, we will be truly alive as transformed, perfected versions of ourselves. In short, the contrast between Gracefeel’s reincarnation & Stagnate’s undeath really drives home how awesome our Lord’s promise of resurrection is.

stardf29: So one of my favorite moments in the novel is when Mater protects Mary, and shows that Mary’s “punishment” was entirely self-inflicted, and that Mater had long forgiven her. It’s a good picture of grace, and how we can sometimes believe we are being “punished” by God, and perhaps even try to punish ourselves, even though God has already satisfied all need for “punishment” through Christ’s death. Sure, we have to deal with consequences of our actions, but that is not some kind of divine judgment.

Now, this story’s theological worldbuilding is based on the idea that “if good is created, then evil must be created to balance it”. There’s also how Will feels like he needs to fear death in order to feel like he truly is living, in opposition to Stagnate who wants to remove death entirely. It’s this idea of “balance” that I think comes from one of the major Eastern religions (will have to do some more research on this) and is fairly popular in fantasy works. It’s certainly a nice-sounding idea, but I think Christianity shows how we can look forward to a future without death, and not feel like we’re “missing” something because of that.

The contrast with Stagnate, as Jeskai pointed out, is particularly helpful because it shows that eternal life, separated from God and His perfect design for life, is pretty crappy. (And I have to agree that Gracefeel’s reincarnation of souls feels rather empty.)

=====

Thank you for checking out our discussion on The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1! The series is available digitally from J-Novel Club if you want to buy this volume or any later volumes for yourself, with a hardcover print edition planned for release in March 2022.

Discussion on our next Light Novel Club title, Tearmoon Empire Vol. 4, has started on the Beneath the Tangles Discord! The discussion will be open throughout the month of August, so there’s still time to read the series and join our discussion.

If you want to prepare for the novels we are discussing later in the year: In September 2021, we will be discussing Sword Art Online: Progressive, Vol. 1! And if you want to know what we are discussing in October 2021… we will be discussing the next novel in the “Rascal Does Not Dream…” series, Rascal Does Not Dream of Petite Devil Kohai!

#Light Novels #Christianity #The Faraway Paladin #Saihate no Paladin #BtT Light Novel Club #Articles #Author: Jeskai Angel #Author: stardf29 #Author: marthaurion

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revasserium · 4 years

Note

Hey! Can i please ask for 5 + Oikawa? Thanks!

hq!!reqs temporarily: closed ; all other reqs: open

send me a number a character and i’ll write you a drabble ;

5. love as one of the dead languages oikawa ; 3,718 words, assassin!au

a/n: this will… maybe. have a part 2… maybe.

for him, love was never a question, and death almost always the answer. it was never a question of why, only how and where and when. but then again, he’d never questioned the who either, assassination as a trade, or the stock of lives taken like tally-marks against his skin – sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he thinks he can hear them screaming.

the first time he meets you, it’s at the grocery store. you bump into him, one airpod hanging from your ear, a loaded shopping basket swinging from your arms. you turn with wide eyes and a cherry-stem mouth to apologize for not paying more attention.

he tells you it’s okay, smiles, and glances at the things in your basket.

“big party this weekend?”

you shake your head, grinning up at him, “nope! i just really like cooking. so i cook a ton of food and bring it to all my neighbors. there’s an old lady that lives two doors down from me who loves it! and she has the cutest cat – his name is mr. meowmers.”

oikawa blinks, your voice chiming through him like church bells, the sound of it something he doesn’t think he’ll forget in a hurry. there’s a light in your eyes that makes him wonder if you’ve ever tasted the pain of heartbreak, another part of him that hopes (wishes, like a child on a shooting start) that you won’t ever have to.

“ah…” is all he musters before you’re off again.

“he’s a really cute cat, but i think i’m a little allergic. i always get the sniffles when i visit them. or maybe it’s just cause the old lady hasn’t dusted in like… 87 years.”

oikawa laughs, and the realization shocks even himself. when was the last time he’d laughed like that – a completely unweaponized thing, reactionary and natural. he tries to think back and finds that he can’t remember.

“oh shit! sorry, i’ve gotta go – the weather forecast said it was gonna rain and i left the goats out on the window. bye! and sorry again for bumping into you!”

he doesn’t have the chance to ask you your name; he spends the remainder of his shopping trip wondering why he’d ever want such a thing. it’s not like him to be so… sentimental.

two days later, he moves into a new safehouse. and it’s in a nice enough building, if a little dated (built in the 80′s, or something like that), doorman and mailroom – he thinks he’ll be sad to leave. it isn’t till he hears someone knocking on his door that he frowns, pressing the large sniper rifle he’d been assembling back into its case and kicking the entire thing under the couch before peering cautiously into the peephole.

his stomach drops out of his body at the sight of your face.

your cheeks a little pink, your bottom lip caught in your teeth.

you reach out to knock again, but oikawa pulls the door open with a colgate smile.

“hi! i’m sorry to bother – oh! it’s you!”

you blink up at him as he leans casually against the doorframe, wondering what on earth you’re doing here.

“ah – yes, it’s me,” he says with a small flourish of hands, his heart thumping against his ribcage. the world swaying beneath him because why the hell are you here? and more importantly, why does he care so damn much?

“uhm – i was wondering if i could borrow some sugar? it’s just – i was baking and i was halfway through mixing everything before i realized that i forgot to buy sugar that one time at the store and – well, the old lady, she likes stuff really, really sweet, even though her doctor’s been telling her that she needs to keep the sugar intake down. and –” you teeter on the balls of your feet, rocking forwards and backwards as you babble on and oikawa can’t help feeling just a bit endeared.

“do you live here?” he asks, catching you in between breaths.

you nod, your smile widening tenfold as you point to the door diagonally across from his. his heart sinks into the place where his stomach used to be.

“yep! just over there.”

oikawa forces another smile and jerks his head towards his living room, “i can get you some sugar if you give me a sec. how much do you need?”

you purse your lips, your eyes glittering with what he imagines is an entire galaxy of just-born stars, “just a cup! oh – or maybe two – to be on the safe side. in case i need them for the cupcakes. yeah, definitely two cups.”

oikawa nods before retreating back into the apartment. he scoops out two cups of sugar from his untouched sugar box into a large bowl and returns to the door, handing it over with a smile.

you bow your head, your hair fluttering around your shoulders – its only then that he notices how long it is, falling around your face like a waterfall, sleek and smooth and –

he wonders if it’s soft. girls’ hair usually is. he wonders if it’ll smell nice too.

he resists the urge to lean foward and check.

“thank you! i’ll bring you some when they’re finished – and uhm – well,” you stand back up, your cheeks three shades darker than they were before, “thanks, again,” you totter along the edge of your words, and he leans in, as if drawn forward by some invisible force – perhaps gravity, perhaps something much less physical. but he stops himself.

this is not the time, nor the place.

“you’re welcome! and, thanks in advance! i’m sure the cake will be delicious!”

he watches you scurry a back to your door, bowing once more before you turn into your own apartment, the sliver of it he catches when you open your door is bright and a veritable explosion of pastel colors.

by the time you disappear back into your own apartment, oikawa is already hitting speed dial on his phone.

“tell me you didn’t fuck this mission up already.”

oikawa scowls at the sound of iwaizumi’s voice.

“i’m not always a fuck-up, have a little faith.”

iwaizumi lets out a bark of laughter, “right, like that time you accidentally left your gloves on the rooftop of the shinjuku hit? or that time –”

“okay, okay – shut up! i get it, so i’m a little… scattered, but i always get the job done, don’t i?”

iwaizumi snorts across the lines, “yeah. by some godforsaken miracle.”

oikawa smirks, “i’m pretty sure being forsaken by god is a prerequisite for assassination as a career path. isn’t that like… on the pamphlet they give you at job fairs?”

“alright, what do you want?”

oikawa slumps down on his sofa, “the girl living diagonally across the hall from me. in unit 1012 – whatever info we’ve got on her.”

silence. and then.

“do i even wanna ask?”

oikawa grins, glancing down at the bit of sugar caught on his shirt, “depends. do you like cupcakes?”

two days later, he returns from a particularly grisly assignment, his joints aching from a completely unwarranted bar fight, the front of his shirt completely soaked in blood and beer. he doesn’t even want to think about how he might smell.

“rough day at work?”

every muscle in his body tenses at the sound of your voice. his hand rests on his door and he somehow manages not to break the handle off the hinges.

he turns towards you, pressing his lips into a rice paper smile.

“something like that. some of the coworkers wanted to get some drinks after and uh – things got a little messy.”

you laugh, your shoulders shaking, your eyes alight with mirth. he watches you with a muted fascination. he’s never known anyone to laugh as freely as you do.

“a little, you look like you murdered a guy!”

he laughs, “oh, homicide via tequila shots is a pretty frequent occurrence in my life, so, you’re not entirely wrong.”

you smile, ducking into your apartment only to return a moment later with a platter of freshly baked cookies.

“here, i made these today – macadamia nuts, you said you like them, right?”

oikawa nods, cautiously reaching out to take a few, hoping that you won’t notice the blood caked beneath his fingernails.

when he finally pushes through the door of his own temporary abode, he finds iwaizumi sprawled across the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table.

his eyebrows are millimeters from disappearing into his hairline.

“homicide via tequila shots – really?”

oikawa scoffs through a mouthful of cookie, pulling his sullied shirt over his head and tossing it into the basket by his door, lovingly labeled burn pile.

iwaizumi eyes him with a curious expression.

“i got the file, on the chick in 1012.” he waves a thin folio in the air before tossing it down onto the table by his feet. oikawa swallows, licks the crumbs from his lips before picking up the file.

he nods, skimming over your name, birth date, birth place, social security, nationality.

“studying criminal psychology, interesting.”

iwaizumi cackles, “that girl? criminal psych? please say sike.”

oikawa frowns, “you never know, she could have been onto us since day one.”

iwaizumi rolls his eyes, “us – you mean you? letting her borrow sugar.”

oikawa scoffs, “it’s just sugar, and it’s not like i’ll ever use it for anything.”

“right, cause you can’t cook worth a shit.”

“i’ll filet your ass if you keep on going off –”

“you know that this can’t be a thing, right?” iwaizumi’s voice dips into a lower register, his eyes going dark as he leans forward to fix oikawa with a look.

oikawa narrows his eyes, “of course i know it can’t be a thing – i let her borrow sugar. it’s not like a fucking proposal for marriage –”

iwaizumi shrugs, “with you, i’m never sure.”

oikawa pouts, raising his hand to toss your file back at iwaizumi. but he stops himself with a sigh. he opens his mouth to say something, but a series of knocks at the door tells him that you’re on the other side of it. probably with another tray of some baked good you’d spent the whole day making.

he takes a breath and opens the door.

“hey! i made challa bread – cause the couple in 1017 are jewish and – oh, were you about to take a shower? sorry –”

oikawa glances down at his bare chest and flashes you a sheepish grin.

“i was about to hop in the shower, but damn, these look really good. did you have to braid it yourself and everything?”

you nod, the excitement painted so plainly across your face he feels his heart stutter.

fuck.

“here! uhm – this one’s for you. and uh – if your friend wants some, he can have some too! i’ll let you get back to your – uhm –” you glance at his chest again before flushing the most darling shade of pink, “showering,” you finish, bowing as he reaches out to pick up the large loaf of challah bread. he waves his free hand as you scramble back to your own apartment, glancing over your shoulder once more before ducking behind the door.

oikawa closes his own door with a sigh.

he meets iwaizumi’s gaze with a flatline one of his own.

iwaizumi looks from the loaf of bread in oikawa’s hands back up to his face.

“not a marriage proposal, huh?” he scoffs, “damn, you’re fucked.”

oikawa stares down at the freshly baked bread in his hands before heaving a sigh.

“get out of my house – i still need to shower.”

iwaizumi gives him one last once-over before pushing to his feet. he brushes by oikawa with a grimace, pausing by the door even as oikawa sets the challah on the kitchen counter.

“y’know, it’s the first time i’ve heard you call anywhere a house.”

oikawa stiffens. “it’s called a safehouse, isn’t it?”

iwaizumi lets out a mirthless laugh, “yeah, but the way i see it now – it’s the farthest thing from safe for you.”

and then he’s gone, before oikawa has the time to snap back, or perhaps throw something at the back of his head. oikawa glares at the place where iwaizumi had sat on his couch and vows to wash the pillow covers the next day. he glances back at the challah bread, and then to the file still on his coffee table.

maybe, just maybe, he should find a new safehouse. he takes a cold shower and decides to invite you to dinner next week instead.

“i thought you said you’d made lasagna before!” you laugh, bumping oikawa out of the way with your hip, bending over to inspect the damage he’d managed to do in the four minutes you were in the living room picking a movie to watch.

“i have! in cooking mama – and garfield makes it look pretty easy,” he says, pouting as he leans over you, trying to watch what you were doing with the lasagna but he can’t concentrate for the smell of your shampoo. green apple and jasmine flowers. coffee beans and petrichor.

you almost smack into his nose as you lean back up, closing the oven door with a snap.

“it’ll be ready in about four more minutes. and is john wick okay with you?” you glance over your shoulder at him. he licks his lips before flashing you a sheepish smile.

“maybe something that’s not about killing people?”

you smile, “what, not good with blood?”

oikawa shrugs, “something like that. what about marley and me?”

you gasp, “so you’re okay with a dog dying, but not with people?”

he yelps, shaking his head, “i mean, no! it’s just – you had a lab when you were younger, right? so i thought maybe –”

you quirk your head, “how’d you know i had a lab?”

oikawa blinks.

well shit.

the timer goes off and you jump, turning back to the oven. the moment passes like any other moment, and with you tittering about how hot the lasagna pan is, oikawa tries to remember that breathing shouldn’t be so difficult – but it is. he forces himself to breathe in, and then out, and then in again.

you end up watching something on the disney channel, but oikawa’s too distracted by the way your leg is pressed up against his for the entire duration of the movie to pay attention.

the lasagna is good (no thanks to him), and when the movie ends, you turn to smile at him, a bit of sauce on your upper lip. he reaches out to wipe it away and time slows around him, the way it usually does right before he pulls the trigger, every millisecond coalescing around him in stark, mind-numbing clarity.

you lean forward at the same time he does.

the second before he kisses you feels like an entire eternity – one that he can stretch and bend to his will as he pleases. something he can mold between the palms of his hands – these hands that have only ever known death now cupped around your cheeks like they’re learning how to hold life for the very first time.

he kisses you with trembling lips and when you pull back, you flash him a tiny little frown.

“why’re you shaking? i’m not going anywhere.”

oikawa lets out a breathy laugh before leaning in to kiss you again, harder this time. his lips more sure, though his mind is the furthest thing from sure – he can’t shake the tightness curling in his chest, wrapping his heart in a thick gauze of worry – when he pulls away again, breathless and lightheaded, he wonders if this is what fear feels like.

real fear. like the phobia of heights, or falling.

or rather, falling in love.

shit. fuck. goddammit.

the next time he meets iwaizumi, the latter is much too pleased with oikawa’s clear distress.

“not gonna say i told you so,” he says, smirking as he tosses back a glass of scotch.

oikawa glares, nursing his own glass between his fingers, “well you just said it, so fuck you.”

iwaizumi raps his knuckles on the bar for a refill. it appears a moment later, and he promptly downs this one as well.

“well, you know my advice. nip it in the bud – kill it before it –”

“she’s got a name –”

“fuck oikawa, i was talking about the relationship, not actually killing her.”

oikawa tosses back his own drink, grimacing as it hits the back of his throat.

“could’a fooled me.”

iwaizumi frowns before flagging down the bartender and tapping at oikawa’s glass.

“we’ll take the rest of the bottle.”

the bartender regards him with a dubious look before iwaizumi tosses down his black card and the bartender bows, scurrying away to fetch the drink.

“he’ll probably upcharge you for that,” oikawa says, not looking up from his empty glass.

iwaizumi shrugs, “who cares. company card.”

oikawa allows himself a helpless sort of grin.

“maybe i’ll just tell her,” he says, swaying in his seat as the bartender returns with the bottle of tequila and iwaizumi’s card.

iwaizumi thanks the man before turning back to oikawa.

“what, that you kill people for a living? please don’t – i’ll end up having to take you out, and we both know you’re not gonna enjoy that.”

oikawa laughs, “you wouldn’t kill me.”

iwaizumi heaves a long sigh, “wouldn’t i?”

oikawa shakes his head, and a moment later, iwaizumi laughs.

“you’re right. i probably wouldn’t. which is why they’d assign someone else to you. someone without any emotional connection – and then you’ll be just another target. just another mark.”

oikawa nods, “just another mark,” he repeats, even as iwaizumi refills his glass.

“so,” iwaizumi says, slipping off the barstool, clapping oikawa on the shoulder, “like i said, kill it before it gets worse. and i mean –” he shrugs, “if you gotta kill her too. well, that’s just how it be sometimes, right?”

oikawa grunts, downing his drink before pouring himself another.

that night, he gets home way too late, only to find you curled up on his couch, his jacket tossed over your shoulders.

he smiles as he crouches down next to you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, letting his fingers linger against your skin. he watches the way you sleep, peaceful, without a single sign of bad dreams. what must it be like, to be so innocent and unhaunted by the cruelties of the world? to fall asleep without the fear of death looming over your next waking moments.

he leans in, his lips moments from yours when you awaken again, smiling as he kisses you. tender and sweet.

“rough day at work?” you ask, blinking sleepily up at him.

“yeah,” he says, smiling as you push yourself up onto your elbows, barely stifling a yawn, “sorry i’m so late. there was a big project that needed finishing.”

you nod, burying your head in the crook of his neck as he scoops you up into his arms. he carries you to the bedroom and lays you down in bed, kicking off his pants and shucking his shirt before crawling into bed next to you, curling up around you with a long breath.

you relax into him, your heartbeat steady beneath his palm as he holds you close.

after a moment, you giggle, twisting around in his arms till you’re face to face, your hands pressed against his chest. you lean up to kiss him, nipping playfully at his lower lip as you do.

“quit being such a scardy cat, like i said, i’m not going anywhere.”

he smiles and crushes you against him, burrowing into the junction of your neck, the place where you smell the most like you. he takes a deep breath, and then another. they both come out shakey, and you card your fingers through his hair with a sigh.

“do you wanna talk about it?”

oikawa shakes his head.

“okay then, we don’t have to talk about it – but here’s what i know – i know that you’re a good person. and that you like cats more than dogs, but you’re also super loyal, like a dog. you suck at cooking, but you’re not terrible at baking, and you like classical music with violins in it. i know that you’ve got your heart in the right place, and to me, that’s all that matters.”

you hold his face between your palms like it’s something precious.

he hiccups and wonders if it’s at all healthy to be feeling like this – to be so full of some unnamed emotion, to be boiling with it to the point where he’s sure he’ll burst. he kisses you, hard, and hopes that somehow, someway – this will all work out.

though he has no idea how.

he pulls back with a watery laugh.

“you’re the best.”

you smile and lean in to nuzzle your nose against his.

when you pull back, he settles into the pillow, hooking one of his legs over yours with a contented grin.

you trace the line of his nose with your forefinger, bringing it down to his lips, where he presses in to give you another kiss.

“tooru?”

“hm?” he hums, allowing the tiredness to seep from his body and into the sheets. he thinks that whatever it takes – whatever that might be – to make all of this, all of this with you, work out – he’ll worry about it tomorrow.

you lick your lips.

“can i ask you something?”

he smiles, a little sleepy, a little (or maybe a lot) in love, “sure, shoot.”

you take a breath, hesitate for a moment before –

“why do you always smell like gunpowder?”

—

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#haikyuuwritersnet #oikawa tooru #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa x reader #haikyuu scenarios #oikawa #haicuties #floofy floof floof #and i guess a little bit of angst?#but not rly that much? this is just weird idk where the fuck this is going #pls let me know ur thoughts? i honesty am just...... v v v v unsure about this LOL #that feel when i usally dont do plot at all and sudden write something with something that resembles a plot O_O;#idk how to handle

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bnhaficsforthesoul · 4 years

Text

BNHA College Au - Aizawa

Major: Psychology

Minor: History

Sports: Nope

Clubs: Nope x2

So shouta fully intends to become a teacher, he’s had a rough upbringing and cause of that he wants to help kids in any way he can

This is one of the reasons he chose to major in psych, other than the topic being very interesting he wants to have a good understanding on psychology so that he can be as helpful as possible

He’s planning on becoming a high school teacher cause he feels like that’s the age group he would work best with and also he could help the most there

He works at a local high school too as a tutor, decided he might as well get some experience in and tutors students (mostly first years) on whatever he can help with, he’ll go there on days he doesn’t have any classes

He’s honestly just minoring in history because it’s always interested him, he finds learning how everything has developed over time into today interesting

Him and nemuri definitely have nerdy conversations about history, even though she’s more interested in the art aspect of it, they still talk about it all the time while hizashi and oboro are usually just stuck there listening to them ramble

Anyways, back to him working at a high school, you also work there

You’ve obviously seen shouta multiple times and knew he was from your college, but you didn’t really bother trying to talk to him at first because you just needed to focus on your job

However, one day when shouta was helping a kid on his math homework, they came upon a problem that neither of them knew how to solve, and seeing you in the room the kid called you over to ask if you could help

Cue lowkey blushy shouta because you instantly ran right over and tried helping the kid with a smile, and you had this cute concentrated look on your face as you read over the problem a couple times

Eventually the problem was solved, and the kid had to go leaving you and shouta alone

You didn’t want to be rude and just walk away, and there was no one else needing your help right now so you sat down next to him and started talking to him

It was kinda awkward, you were very much carrying this conversation

“You go to UA right? What’s your major?” its a simple question that has the poor man almost panicking, but he muttered out a “Psychology.”

He’s got the kind of voice that makes him sound like he’s just not interested, but you can tell from the look on his face that he’s flustered, but it doesn’t seem like he wants you to leave

So you keep talking, mainly about your majors and career paths, but you don’t mind - it’s fun talking to the shy boy

Eventually it’s time to leave though, and you have plans elsewhere, so you go your separate ways

But now when you two are working at the same times, neither of you are so hesitant to talk to each other, and any time you have a break you spend it chatting about anything and everything

Of course, being the best friend that he is, hizashi found out about ‘the cute person at work’ that shouta’s been talking to (since after a couple days you finally exchanged numbers and suddenly your conversations weren’t limited to only being at work)

Hizashi is practically begging shouta to ask you out, literally on his hands and knees like “shOUTA PLEASSE YOU GOTTA DO IT!!!! JUST ONE DATE!!” he just wants his friend to be happy and not limited to only hanging out with him oboro and nemuri

But shouta’s too scared to, no matter how cute and nice you are he’s too worried that you’ll say no and he doesn’t wanna ruin the friendship you two have formed

So what does hizashi do? He asks you out for shouta (which almost gets him strangled when shouta finds out)

He took shouta’s phone while he went to shower, and of course he knows the password, so he just opened it up and texted you “hey, can I take you out for coffee tomorrow?”

He gets so excited when you say yes lmao and gives you all the details, then shouta walks back in and is like “the fuck are you doing?” and hizashi gets this huge grin on his face and responds “I got you a date~”

Hizashi barely even saw shouta move before suddenly the phone was ripped out of his hands so that shouta could frantically look to see just what his friend did, and the glare he sends hizashi has him almost regretting everything

Shouta debates telling you his friend sent those texts, but he sees how excitedly you said yes and decides he might as well see how this goes

He wakes up so early the next day lol he’s nervous, and he spends a good hour fixing his appearance, like he considers shaving and putting his hair up but he doesn’t want to look like he’s trying too hard at the same time, so he eventually decides on just wearing nice black jeans and a black long sleeve - going “it’s not even an actual date, it’s just coffee, it’s not that serious”

A couple hours later, shouta’s waiting in the cafe, sitting at a little table waiting for you since he got there a little early. He’s just texting hizashi, who’s offering shouta a bunch of encouragement since he knows he’s nervous, and eventually you walked in, immediately spotting shouta in the corner and going over to him

He’s so cute he sees that you dressed nicely for this too and he tries to be cool when he goes “you look nice” but the blush on his face betrays him, not that you mind, and the blush deepens when you compliment him back

He buys you your coffee, and you sit in your little corner of the cafe - just talking. Even though you guys basically do this all the time at work, now it feels more personal, and it has you both talking about your lives more. Nothing too specific, just funny stories and about your interests other than work or school related things

Once youre both done with your coffee, or when you both notice that you’ve finished it since you were so deep in conversation, he offers to walk you back to your dorm - he doesn’t want to keep you for too long

You let him, but once you get to your dorm, you tell him “I had fun, I hope we can do it again sometime” to which he can’t help but get excited for - you wanna go out with him again! Yay!

After that, it was a bit easier for him to ask you on dates, and you still saw each other at work constantly, and so you guys grew even closer pretty quick

You went on maybe 4 or 5 more casual dates before finally, after work one day, he gathered up all his courage and asked you out officially

“Hey, y/n, would you - would you go out with me? For real?”

Baby looks so hopeful behind that generic bored stare of his, and of course youre ecstatic! You’ve had a small crush on him basically since day one, and now he’s actually asking you out! So of course you agreed, letting out an excited “of course I will!”

Okay so his friends adore you, they love seeing shouta so happy with you

You two just sit around in your dorms cuddling whenever youre not busy, hizashi acts like it’s gross, your roommate probably does too - but no one can deny how cute you are together

Even the high schoolers you tutor, of course they eventually got wind that you two were dating and they all ship it like crazy

Most of your dates consist of small things, like going back to that cafe, or taking a late night walk in the park, he doesn’t like doing anything too grand

Its fun watching as his beard grows out during finals, he’s too busy studying to shave and youre trying to kiss him but he’s all itchy, and he’s just like “Kitten, I’m sorry I promise I’ll shave later” every single day until he finally does, but then again if you like his beard youre probably thriving during this period

During one of those late night walk dates, you guys came upon a small black cat under one of the benches. You barely even saw it with how dark it was, but you saw the glint of its eyes and went to investigate and saw a little kitten

He didn’t have a collar, and you didn’t see what could have looked like a momma cat or anything around, and you didn’t want to just leave the poor thing out there in the cold. So what did you and shouta’s dumb asses do? You adopted it.

Even though cats aren’t allowed in dorms

But that wasn’t about to stop you guys - and you figured it would be better to keep the cat in shouta’s dorm because everyone was already used to hizashi being loud so you could excuse any meowing

Hizashi going “what the fuck guys, you’ve been dating for 4 months and you already have a kid? Smh my head” but he’s also a supportive uncle lmao he loves the kitten too

Oboro loves taking polaroids of you two and now you both have tons of photos of each other/you together in your rooms and its really cute - and also polaroids of your son too of course he’s part of the family

#this is the first of like 19?20 characters im doing 😊#hope you enjoy cause they took 3 days of planning lol #aizawa #aizawa imagine #aizawa x reader #aizawa shouta #aizawa headcanons #bnha #mha

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rainbow-scarab · 3 years

Text

This is my take on Asgore (with a healthy side of Chara).

Obligatory disclaimer that you are free to have your own take, and I enjoy seeing other takes! In the end he's just a fictional character, and people have all sorts of life experiences that lead them to different interpretations.

Also warnings for discussions of difficult subjects found in Undertale, such as suicide, guilt, grief, psychological trauma, death, war, genocide, etc.

Asgore rates pretty low on my scale of UT character morality XD Though I find him an interesting character.

Asgore has both good and bad points as anyone in UT. He's a gentle soul at heart who likes bringing joy to others. But he is very reluctant to wield responsibility. And I believe this inaction is what's behind most of his other negative points, especially when it comes to making decisions.

When Chara came to the Underground, there was renewed hope. Asgore called them "the future of humans and monsters". For a time they all were a happy family, Asgore, Toriel, Asriel, and Chara. Or mostly. Chara was a very troubled child.....

Chara and Asgore were close, as were the rest of the Dreemurrs to Chara. But I don't think they quite knew how to help Chara. Chara must have had such a horrible life among humans to hate them so much...and then just decide to leave where they would never return. They found a loving family, and loved monsterkind. But they were still quite disturbed and probably had a lot of self-hate, both for being human and for their problem behavior. Being designated "the future of humans and monsters", they may have felt a lot of pressure.....and took what actions they thought would help monsters. Already hating humans, and humans being the cause of the monsters' imprisonment underground, on top of the self-hate, killing themselves and going on to kill six more humans in pursuit of monster freedom would feel like the best way they could contribute to a family, and species, that they loved so dearly.

Though I don't think being designated "the future of humans and monsters", a symbol of hope to the kingdom, ended up being healthy for Chara, I don't blame Asgore for this. The kingdom really needed that hope. And the Dreemurrs themselves would have been overjoyed both for that species-wide hope, and for the place Chara had in their family. It would be near impossible to be able to guess what Chara would ultimately do. It seems Chara did not open up about what had happened to them to Toriel and Asgore, and only partially to Asriel. But I think they would have been able to provide an environment of love and support to help Chara heal had they been there longer.

(Check out this post for a thorough analysis of Chara. It talks about and give evidence for Chara and Asgore's relationship. Also explains the "Chara is the narrator" theory I'll reference later)

But once Chara and Asriel took action, and both died.....Asgore became enraged. He declared war on humanity, completely reversing tone from before. Toriel left, and Asgore was alone.

In the years that followed, Asgore's declaration was followed. Monsters had great prejudice towards humans, and the royal guard kept a lookout for humans. Humans would either be killed by the guard, or Asgore himself.But at least by the time we get to him....he doesn't seem to be angry with humanity. He doesn't pretend that he will try to be friendly with Frisk the same as he does with other monsters, but...he wants to be. And he will give Frisk all the time they need before their fight. Doesn't even seem to care if it's years down the line. He just won't let Frisk pass in the end.

Once you fight and defeat him, he expresses how much he hates all the stuff about war, and just wishes for everyone to be happy and hopeful again. And perhaps...it could all just be over, and Frisk could leave the Underground with his soul. (More on this later)

To me, Asgore's big flaw....is not his declaration of war. Though that is definitely bad. One does not just declare their intention to not just kill humans to free monsters, but to destroy all of humanity, while in a position of power and influence...for that to be dismissed as nothing.

But....he was also very angry, for a very understandable reason. And....at some point....that anger subsided. And yet, he continued on the same path.

To me Asgore's biggest flaw is that he avoids responsibility and making decisions. The only time he ever is shown to make a significant decision...is his declaration of war, and it took extreme emotion for that to happen. But once back to more reasonable levels of emotion, he wouldn't even take action to reverse his own declaration. He felt duty-bound to kill humans, or else they would lose hope. Mmm...I'm not sure if that's just what he was telling himself to avoid decision, and perhaps the feared consequences of changing course were overblown. More on this in a minute.

In the past, it was Asgore and Toriel ruling together, even if Asgore seemed to the be official one in charge. As far as I can tell, they worked well together. Toriel on most of the details of running a kingdom, and Asgore, keeping up the spirits of monsterkind. Once Toriel was gone....no one really replaced her role.

(pic from Alarm Clock dialog)

Asgore did not develop the skills to run things well, and did not find anyone to help as far as I can tell. Undyne became head of the Royal Guard sometime after Toriel left (Undyne does not recognize her when they meet), though it's possible the Royal Guard itself appoints their own leadership. At the very least, Asgore appointed Alphys into the long-vacant position of Royal Scientist.

Though as seen by this bit of dialog from one of the neutral endings, merely having people in official positions doesn't mean his role as king is supposed to be over. Proper oversight would have certain made the amalgamate situation different anyways.

(There's the question of Sans possible working for Asgore. But since there's no hard evidence that I know of for this, I'm not really using this in my analysis)

Asgore still wants to get help. I think...to be unburdened from some or all of his responsibilities. Even if he doesn't know much about who he's asking help from. Like Frisk.

Ambassador is a huge responsibility to place on a young kid. Granted, there aren't other human choices, and even a child with no political skill would be a great symbol to bring humans and monsters together. And this child is the one who just saved everyone pretty much. Okay, I’ll grant him that.

Once defeated in a neutral run, he asks Frisk to take his soul and head to the surface. He would pass on the fate of monsters and humanity to someone he knows nothing about, not even their name, only that they came and defeated him in battle. But perhaps he just was...tiring of even trying anymore. Perhaps he was filled with guilt and grief and just...didn't want to live anymore. Okay. Spare him, and he entertains the thought of living a peaceful life together as a family, before Flowey kills him.

If you complete a neutral ending, then go back and defeat Asgore again on a neutral route, you get some special extra dialog. On choosing to spare him, Flowey doesn't come as quickly to kill him. He thinks again of life as a family, before dismissing it as fantasy. He identifies you with Chara (for having hope), with the prophecy of the angel, and then asks you to find a way to free monsters without really giving you a choice. ...again, he knows nothing about Frisk, their name, where they come from...only that they would give them mercy. And yet he is willing to make them in charge of the fate of all monsters. He kills himself, offering his soul up (before Flowey destroys this possibility).

(Side note...this or my analysis do not have the message that suicide is avoiding responsibility. I analyze his stated motives. It's quite possible that he had additional feelings of guilt and grief that led him to chose this. Even if not, it can't and shouldn't be generalized for other suicides)

Asgore is so reluctant to act...not even in genocide will he do anything special to save his people.

When you reach Asgore, clearly he has not heeded the warning and absorbed the human souls. I considered that perhaps Alphys did not call as she hates phone calls. But... there's a Queen Alphys ending, an aborted genocide ending. In it she pushes aside her fears and steps up, saving her people, implied that she hides them in the True Lab. I think this Alphys would have called.

He even gets a second warning here. But...he still tries to reason his way through, and speak with kindness. He is promptly killed.

In addition to his reluctance towards taking action, the other half of why Asgore wouldn't change...is that he was afraid that the people would lose hope.

...but I agree with Toriel. Through Asgore's lack of leadership, and continuation of the anti-human policies that came about when he was angry...the hope in the future that Asgore gave his people was dark.

In reality, though Asgore didn't want his people to lose hope...he himself had already lost hope. Perhaps that's why he couldn't bring true hope to his people.

In the Queen Toriel neutral ending, Asgore and the six human souls are gone. Toriel has instated a new policy to treat humans as friends. The people's hopes have taken a blow....but I don't think all is lost. It is possible to have a new vision and policy going forward, without Asgore or hoping for humanity's destruction.

In the King Papyrus ending, things are not quite as bright. There's a new policy to treat humans on a case by case basis. Papyrus tries to keep everyone working and fed. Sans does...a lot of paperwork. Productivity is up. But.....things are really hard. Papyrus is a great candidate to keep people's hopes up, kinda like Asgore (...Sans functions like Toriel too taking care of a lot of the details lol). But the Underground has lost many of their most beloved in this ending.

Yes.....I don't think Asgore, despite having lost hope, was only a detriment to monsterkind. His presence still brought some hope to the people, and his death was something to be mourned. But the loss of Asgore and his vision forward is just one factor in the outcome. Ultimately, I think Asgore's fears were not very true. If he changed course, away from his declaration of war...the people would adjust.

....Through all this.......

There was still one person still filled with Asgore's original hopes.

Chara never forgot Asgore's words as they lay dying. Even though they didn't heed these words....Asgore was an important figure to them in life.

Chara sticks by you the entire game, giving narration. In a few parts of the game, they share their memories with you, like when they fell into the Underground and were found by Asriel. And.....

When you die....they relay Asgore's own words to you. A message of hope to keep you going. A message that repeats to you the entire game, as many times as you need it upon death. Determination...the will to keep living...the resolve to change fate.

When you reach Asgore...he sees it. Maybe it doesn't mean anything special. A child may be full of hope for many reasons. I just kinda...want to believe that the same message of hope he gave to Chara...encouraged Frisk to make it this far, and it shines through on their face.

Through Frisk, Asgore's hopes come back to him. It's come full circle. He believes in a bright future again. A future with both humans and monsters.

You meet Asgore at the very end of the game. You've known him all of five minutes before Flowey shows up, and the final battle begins. Perhaps this is why he didn't have time to grow beyond this. Maybe, once on the surface, he'll work on himself further. Or not, I dunno, he stayed the same for a long time. We don't know.

Honestly....in the course of writing this my perspective on Asgore has changed. I expected to mostly write about his flaws, and why I thought of him poorly. But I didn't want to be unfair. And well...in Undertale.... When you dig a little deeper, you can find so much more about them than your assumptions and initial impressions. That the whole beauty of the game.

While I still think that Asgore is one of the most flawed people in the game...he has his good points too. And those actually turns out to be pretty important. Stay determined ❤

Screencaps from the Undertale Text Project (the work of squishing many textboxes in one image done by me)

P.S. One of the funnier lines in the game to me:

Thank you for reading!

#undertale #undertale theory #asgore #undertale analysis

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