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aireia · 2 months

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from the stars did your kindness bleed through. — you are a spy, he is a sorcerer, a student in the very place you plan on betraying, but he doesn't know that, because he'll fall for you, the same way you fell for him.

tw/cw: reader referred to with she/her. angst with little fluff. hurt no comfort. spy! reader. spying. mentions of blood. minor violence. blades. suicide/ self harm. death. injuries. lowercase intended. author's first language isn't english. wc: 7.5K

note: riko told me to rival her 6.2k word fic, so i'm pulling up with this. (i got carried away) —masterlist

entry snippet, september 5th.

gojo introduced us to a new student today. she seems a little bit like me, but she isn’t, at least that’s what our unreliable teacher told us.she hasn’t interacted much with itadori or kugisaki, even after their pestering. i’m guessing it’ll take a while for her to get used to the new faces. not that it concerns me anyway…

the sun didn’t shine very brightly the next day. grey clouds covered the skies, the winds were getting colder, the once green leaves on trees were turning into a mixture of yellows and browns. winter would be approaching in just a few months, which meant they’d soon have those nights again, where they’d get permission to stay at each other’s dorms and have sleepovers while trying not to burn the kitchen down by making ominous hot chocolate for each other.

that morning when the trio walked into class, they were greeted by you absentmindedly staring out the window at the falling leaves. no concentration to any surroundings, considering you didn’t even look at them when they came in. yuji was the first one to say something, loudly greeting you a good morning, followed by your name, hoping to catch your attention.

you looked over to the trio, trying to take note of their expressions.

itadori yuji, who seemed excited, waving with his arm in the air and a grin as if you were worlds apart and you wouldn’t have seen him if he didn’t.

kugisaki nobara, who waved with a smile on her face. the perfect mix of crazy and calm, you think.

and finally, fushiguro megumi, who had his arm raised in an attempt to wave, but instead looked like he was raising his hand to answer a question. his expression showed nothing, something between irritated and ‘why am i friends with these people again?’

he reminded you of yourself… in a way. probably not what you were thinking about him, but something about him. maybe it was keeping interactions at minimum with people he didn’t know much about… yea. you’ll keep it at that.

the hyper duo had walked up to your desk before you finished processing your own thoughts. itadori slammed both his hands on your table, causing some of your things to vibrate upon contact.

“so, y/n, where are you from? what grade are you?” he asked.

“i’m from osaka, and i’m a semi second grade sorcerer.” lies spilled from your mouth easier than when you breathed around them the day prior. being a spy meant having to detach your identity as a person, which also meant having to create layers and layers of lies about who you actually were.

right before the cheerful boy managed to get another question in, the door of the class flew open, and gojo walked into class with nothing but happiness and positivity surrounding his aura… he was about to send all of you on a mission. you knew, even if it was just a gut feeling.

a loud clap followed by details of a new case confirmed your suspicions. a simple investigation in shinjuku about an unidentified curse that had caused deaths and disappearances of innocent civilians, as well as injuring numerous others.

“i’ll be leaving the rest of the details to our trustworthy assistant director ijichi! he’ll be waiting for you at the entrance.” gojo finished his ‘speech’ before hurrying all of you out the door.

“that gojo…” ijichi silently sighed before beginning the mission brief.

“your task is to only collect information from the residents in a specific area of shinjuku, mainly the offices around schools.” ijichi stopped speaking, only continuing after a brief period of silence. “If you happen to run into any high grade curses, please don’t try to challenge it.”

“my heart can’t take this type of stress anymore…” ijichi sighed.

the four of you began the mission shortly after, around 10am in the morning. you began by questioning some of the residents. a lot of them seemed nervous the moment anyone in your group mentioned the curse, some even running away from you. most of them didn’t have any information either.

when noon rolled around and your efforts weren’t bearing any fruits, the four of you decided to split into two groups. nobara with yuji, you with megumi. after the split up, you and megumi continued the search for anyone that might have had any type of intel. you never expected him to speak to you first.

“l/n, right? let me be straightforward about this. why did you join jujutsu high school?”

“to spy on you, obviously,” but you couldn’t say that.

“to help others,” another lie slipped past your lips.

“...did principal yaga actually let you pass the interview with that answer..?”

“no, but i doubt you’d want to listen to the speech i memorised to get in. he told me to stop before i finished it,” you sighed, remembering the amount of struggle you faced a few days before the interview. you had to ensure you had a 100% chance of getting into the school, or you would’ve been a failure as a spy. who the hell failed a mission before it even began?

megumi looked at you with a bewildered expression, though quickly shook the look off his face as you approached an ice cream vendor near one of the high schools.

“recently, less and less people have come by to buy ice cream. a lot of those were kids who would come by to get a sweet treat after school, so i have noticed quite a few of those disappearances.” the vendor placed his fingers on his chin, thinking of the customers that he enjoyed speaking to, even if their interactions were limited.

“alright. thanks for your time,” you expressed your gratitude, even though the things that the vendor had said had helped you in your investigation in… absolutely no way possible.

just as you and the raven haired boy walked away, your phones rang. a message from yuji, reading, “we ran into one of the victims that managed to escape the cursed spirit!! apparently most of the victims are people who’ve lost or cut contact with their parents. they won’t tell us anymore about it.”

“that’s vile,” you thought to yourself.

“we should meet up with them and report back.”

“so, what do we do now?” nobara whined out of boredom. ever since reporting back, there hadn’t been much to do. you all had a free day, but nothing to fill said free day with.

“we should go watch human earthworm 4!”

“no.” nobara and megumi said in unison, wanting to avoid the movie at all costs.

“oh! y/n, we should go shopping together!” nobara suggested. and somehow against both yuji and megumi’s wills, you had all been dragged to go shopping.

nobara suggested that she helped you get a new wardrobe, which ended in you trying on multiple sets of clothes. nobara insisted that you got them, and forced megumi to carry your shopping bags even though you said it wasn’t needed and felt bad that he had to help.

the rest of the day went by with a blur, and you exited the mall after the four of you had a few photos taken in a photobooth.

“my child…” everyone was walking in front of you when you heard that voice. it sounded oddly familiar, and it was calling out to you. you whipped your head around to look for the source, but there wasn’t anyone there. the call of your names continued, and you strayed from the group to look for the source of the sound.

you were almost one hundred percent positive that it was the curse you had investigated the other day. why was it targeting you? and no one else in the group seemed to hear anything either.

eventually, you were led to an abandoned building. you could feel the cursed energy leaking from it, and there was a very pungent smell coming from the abandoned structure. you briefly wonder how no one has flagged the place for an investigation yet. maybe it was, and was ignored. who knows?

the voice continued to lure you closer to the building, eventually getting you into the building and up the slippery stairs, wet from the leaking pipes around the building. your footsteps echoed in the building, the sound of your breathing in your ears.

you walked up to a room with a closed door. a heavy stench seeping from the gaps of the door, even worse than when you were in front of the building. maybe coming here hadn’t been your best idea, but you were already this close, so why stop here?

you exhaled deeply before twisting the rusty knob open. you saw the dead. blood and corpses were by the spirit’s legs. its claws were digging into the flesh of the innocent, shaking the body as if trying to toy with it more.

the report you submitted was done a week ago, and the incident started way before this. these bodies had been rotting for weeks at least. assuming the cursed spirit in front of you killed all the people around it, you were going to be next.

you entered a defensive stance, hand on the handle of your weapon, ready to fight if it pounced on you. instead, you watched as it slowly turned its head towards you and walked towards you. your body tensed, but it didn’t seem to bear any hostility.

it held its hand out, taking one of your hands, and you found yourself unable to move. even when you screamed at yourself to get out of the way, you found yourself unable to resist as it dragged its fingers along your wrist, a thin line of red bleeding out.

“l/n, step back!” the familiar voice snapped you out of whatever trance you were in before the spirit in front of you was hit with a few nails.

“you’re just like fushiguro. you really should tell us more about yourself, you know?” nobara sighed, holding her hammer over her shoulder. “oi, i’m the one who noticed she disappeared in the first place,” megumi grumbled. you looked at his hands.

so that’s how they found you.

“if anything, she reminds me of when you first came to the city, kugisaki!” yuji chirped in, seeming laid back even in this situation. he turned to look at you. “you aren’t hurt anywhere else other than your hand, right?” you shook your head.

you looked at the spirit on the ground. it was a first grade at most, but it had been weakened significantly, probably even before you arrived. it wasn’t long before you exercised it, with some degree of resistance.

as the three of them prepared to leave, you walked towards one of the dead bodies and crouched down, placing your hand over them.

while yuji and nobara had already left, megumi was curious about what you were doing. you got up and exhaled when he asked. “i don’t know if it works on those who’ve already passed, but usually, my cursed technique allows me to grant people on the verge of death a better demise.”

“it overrides the brain and erases any and all memories they have in exchange for peace, and a painless goodbye.”

“those two are probably waiting for us. we should report back.”

when you got back to your dorm, you took the picture out and stared at it. more people that you couldn’t be friends with, but they had saved you earlier… maybe you’d get it framed just to decorate your dorm.

you looked at your injured arm, which had been bandaged, and closed your eyes.

yuji itadori is physically gifted, a guy born with a set moral standard. his mental game is easily shaken, but that might change in the future. he has a ton of room for improvement. that’s what makes him scary.

nobara kugisaki is strong-willed, a woman born by the countryside. she cares for others the way she cares for herself, and doesn’t like showing her affected mental state to the world. she’s strong in her own way, and that’s just the type of person she is.

weeks passed by quickly. you continued gathering as much information as possible, while growing closer to your classmates. yuji often told you to cover up for the pranks he pulled, nobara would invite you out to go shopping with her, and you and megumi enjoyed reading together.

one morning, you saw megumi sitting by the benches eating alone. right, yuji and nobara had recently been dispatched on missions. you realised early on that you preferred to be with megumi out of everyone.

maybe it was his personality that drew you in? the both of you were paired up on missions often, so maybe the fact that you were partners helped develop your trust in each other… when he shouldn’t be trusting you at all. or perhaps it was the way he put you first instead of himself.

megumi is a selfless person that might not seem caring at first glance, but actually does in his own way. he holds back a lot, and has a mind matured enough to compare to that of a man twice his age, though lets loose around people he can truly find comfort in. that was the conclusion you came to about his character.

you walked towards him, hoping to be able to make small talk with him. instead, you were called upon by someone right before you got to him.

“so this is the location?” you and megumi had been informed of a cave infested with multiple third and fourth grade spirits. your job was simple. take care of them and go home.

“yea. be careful,” you said, gripping your weapon tightly.

you and megumi stepped into the cave, almost immediately registering that there was something wrong. a veil was lowered. were such low grade spirits capable of such a thing? you gulped and looked around. just the herds of lowly graded cursed spirits around. no signs of anything else.

“be careful.”

the both of you managed to make quick work of the spirits. a few scrapes, sure, but you were overall uninjured. now, there was only one problem. every last spirit in sight had been exorcised by you and megumi, but the veil wasn’t lifting. something was still there, and you both knew.

something in your senses clicked. “fushiguro, jump out of the way!” you screamed at him. there was something underneath you, and megumi had dodged just quick enough to not be drilled and split into two halves.

a drop of sweat rolled down the side of megumi’s face. how would he deal with this? his first thought was to have you distract it while he attacked, but that would probably be useless and would put you and him in too much danger.

“fushiguro! focus!” megumi lifted his head up, and you were in front of him. you had blocked a direct strike for him. he needed to concentrate. this wasn’t like the spirit you had dealt with at the abandoned building, where it showed little to no hostility, and had been weakened.

“are you back in your game yet?” you breathed out, the tiredness from blocking the attack and dealing with the earlier curses starting to kick in.

megumi took one look at your expression and hummed. there was something about it he couldn’t read, but he can’t let his thoughts consume him now.

you aren’t allowed to die here.

the both of you observed the curse for a little longer while simultaneously dodging its attacks. it primarily dug underground to attack, which made it hard to predict where its location was. the only warning sign was the rumbling of the ground before it drilled back up, which made it just a little easier to dodge.

it could blast balls of pure cursed energy, and with each dodge meant the interior of the cave was crumbling. you’d have to look out for falling rocks and stray boulders.

its weak point was probably somewhere other than its head, considering it used it to dig into places.

you shot glances at each other before megumi summoned his demon dogs to attack it from behind. “i have your back.”

you and megumi took turns switching on offence and defence. the one on offence would deal attacks to the cursed spirit, while the one on defence would watch out for oncoming attacks and destroy any rocks that were falling from the ceiling of the cave.

the plan worked well for the both of you. the uncertainty of when the both of you would switch out confused the curse, making it more vulnerable to your attacks. once you felt that the curse was confident on when you’d switch, you and megumi delivered one final attack to it together, letting it fall with a thump.

“is it over?” you heaved, your hand over your chest. a sudden realisation hit. the veil hasn’t been dropped. that meant–

“l/n, look out!” megumi pushed you out of the way before he got hit by a shot of pure cursed energy. you hear the sound of his body smashing against the rough walls, and his coughing afterwards. you looked towards megumi and briefly saw him cough blood out. you’re hoping he didn’t take the impact head first.

you narrowly managed to escape another blow just when your eyes snapped back onto the weakened, but still active cursed spirit. it can be exorcised in a single blow.

you rushed towards it and drove your weapon through its body as hard as possible, twisting, and slicing right through it. it’s as good as dead. you stared at the splatters on the floor that used to be a cursed spirit. you don’t have time for this.

turning your head away from the remains of your enemy, you focused your attention to megumi who was bloodied and injured. he was resting against the stone walls of the cave, and you could hear his heavy pants and breaths. you gulped and looked at his leg. it had stopped bleeding, the crimson now staining his leg.

you ripped a part of your uniform before crouching in front of megumi to tend to the wound. your eyes showed almost no emotion in the face of the situation, yet your trembling lips gave yourself away. you weren’t supposed to care for them, and yet here you were helping one of your targets.

you only spoke up once you finished bandaging his wound with the makeshift bandage.

“why would you do that?” you had unintentionally let your emotions slip. megumi looked at you tiredly. “just returning the favour. i would’ve gotten hurt if you hadn’t blocked the attack at the start of our battle.”

“fushiguro-” you started, quickly being cut off by megumi. “i know what you’re about to ask me,” he coughed a few times before he continued to speak. “you’re assuming i’m going to die? you’re cruel, you know?”

you tried to find words to speak, yet all you could say was a “no, i’m not,” turning your head away to not meet his gaze.

“i would kill myself if i died on you now,” he confessed, closing his tired eyes.

“and besides, you’re all i really want to think of right now.”

megumi went completely silent afterwards, and you heard soft breathing coming from him, compared to the heavy breaths from just a few minutes prior.

the next time he awoke, you were asleep, your head in your arms by his bedside. he felt a little sluggish, but his wounds had been properly bandaged and he was fine, aside from some soreness. you on the other hand, looked exhausted. there were creases on your forehead as you slept, and dark circles under your eyes.

there was a plate of food wrapped up on his nightstand, with a note stuck to it. “we make a good team.”

only after did he learn from shoko that you had completely gone against her instructions of two days of bed rest, and spent the time taking care of him instead.

“you still couldn’t have brought something more digestible?” megumi eyed the three of you, who had brought pizza to him. something that probably wasn’t nutritious enough for a patient in recovery.

“if you don’t want it, i’ll help myself!” the pink haired male took a slice of the pizza and began feasting on it. “oh, and since we’re already here, let’s just have our sleepover at fushiguro’s!” “itadori, talk after you’re done eating!” nobara shuddered at the sight of the food in his open mouth, while megumi looked as if he were about to kick everyone out of his room.

“we are not having a sleepover in my room,” megumi said in a deadpan voice, though the annoyance was evident on his face. “we can’t have it anywhere else because you aren’t permitted to leave your room, fushiguro,” you joined in on itadori’s suggestion.

“hypocrite,” megumi thought.

“alright it’s settled, we’ll have it here!” nobara clasped her hands together in victory, earning a sigh from megumi. “i still haven’t agreed to this,” he grumbled.

december 21st.

it’s cold outside. the temperatures have dropped significantly ever since the day you stepped foot into jujutsu tech. currently, you, alongside two of your classmates, were camping in megumi’s room. you had to admit, with so many people, the room considered spacious for one person became cramped.

you were sitting on megumi’s bed with a mug of hot chocolate in hand as you watched nobara and yuji fight over what they wanted to put into each other’s drinks. you found their sibling dynamic entertaining. megumi on the other hand, looked at you with softness in his eyes. the both of you had grown a lot closer compared to the first day you met. you were grateful for that.

maybe not in the right way, but at least you knew he was your friend, right?

the night went on with both chaos and comfort. yuji had suggested playing cards at one point, and he lost just about every single round. monopoly was going great until megumi somehow dominated the game so hard that the banker had to borrow money from him.

“i’m telling you fushiguro, it’s just this once! i’ll pay you back!” “you’ve said that about three times, itadori.”

you certainly weren’t in any place to laugh, and neither was nobara, since the both of you were basically hanging onto a thin thread, and if by any chance you landed on anyone’s property other than your own, you would’ve been out of the game from bankruptcy.

but you laughed anyway.

the night ended with all of you (except megumi) in your respective sleeping bags with extra blankets in case it got cold. it was quiet. too quiet, even with yuji’s snoring and nobara’s breathing. maybe that’s why you couldn’t fall asleep.

you slowly sat up, careful not to make too much noise. you looked at the clock on megumi’s nightstand. 11:47pm, thirteen minutes till midnight.

“can’t sleep?” a quiet and soft voice invaded your ears, and you looked over to megumi. he was lying down on his bed, staring out into the bushes and trees, which had been covered in a thin layer of snow. as a response, you shook your head and got up to sit on his bed. the both of you sat in silence for a while before you spoke up.

“fushiguro, you like the stars, right? wanna go stargazing on the roof?”

“are you crazy? it’s freezing outside.”

“we can use blankets.”

“have you forgotten that my leg’s still injured?”

“i’ll carry you up.”

that was how you found yourself sitting on the rooftops with a thick blanket around your shoulders. the stars shone brighter tonight. the cold winter wind that breezed by you every once in a while made you shiver. you looked up at the moon, it was full tonight. although the moon didn’t have an expression, you were sure it was smiling down at you and the raven haired boy sitting next to you.

come to think of it, even without exchanging a lot of words, you’d argue that you were closest to megumi out of all your classmates. when you first met him, you saw him as the moon, someone like yourself. yet you realised over the months that if you had to describe him, you’d have to say he were the stars. so pretty, yet disregarded by many as something outshone by the moon.

“y/n,” megumi’s voice broke through the comfortable silence, and you looked over at him. he had a small smile on his face. you felt him shuffle closer to you. maybe it was getting cold? the wind was getting stronger, afterall.

“yes?” megumi looked at the moon once more, then back at you. “the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” the words reached your ears, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little. “and what of the sunset?” you questioned him back, feelings hidden behind your eyes and the convincing smile you put on your face.

“the sunset? i dislike it. the rays of the sun blind me too much for me to appreciate it as much as others do.” the sound of your soft laughter reached his ears again when he finished his sentence. “is that so…” you rested your head on his shoulder and looked towards the skies, some of the stars now covered by clouds. “really? i think the moon is beautiful too, but i’m the opposite. i prefer sunsets over moonrises.” you continued, one of your hands inching closer to him and eventually resting on top of his hand.

you exhaled deeply before lifting your head up. “fushiguro, what time is it?” he looked at you with confusion before answering. “a little bit past midnight, i’m guessing.” “oh.”

“may i kiss you?”

your question caught megumi off guard. it was expected, considering it came out of nowhere. a familiar warmth creeped up his face, and the hand on top of his now seemed to weigh heavier as you looked at him, awaiting an answer. he slowly nodded, and you leaned in to press your lips against his. the kiss was short and sweet, the light of the stars shining down upon him as you did.

“fushiguro-”

“don’t call me by my last name.” you smiled when he said those words.

“happy birthday, megumi.”

nobara eyed the both of you suspiciously, looking you up and down. “you guys could at least try to keep it down when you’re climbing onto the roof. i need my sleep,”

“i thought i was being quiet. my bad,” you apologised sheepishly. the brunette looked clearly annoyed before she sighed and let it go.

“sorry,” megumi said to you. “why are you saying sorry?” you shot him a confused look.

“we would’ve been quieter if you didn’t have to carry me.”

“oh, thaaattt,” you dragged your words out. “don’t feel bad. you were worth it.”

“how about you come with me to the cliffs sometime? maybe in the next few days? there’s a great view of the ocean and sky from there, and it’s more secluded.” the invitation fell from your lips before you even processed it.

a rare smile appeared on megumi’s face. “alright.”

“what are you two doing?! we have a mission soon, hurry up!”

he kept to his word. you and megumi ended up going stargazing together so often that yuji and nobara started questioning if you were going on dates. to them, it was blatantly obvious that you two liked each other. hell, even the both of you knew. it was just that none of you had confessed yet.

megumi always felt warmth when you guys would go together, pointing out constellations and shapes of the clouds when you did.

you on the other hand, felt the spark between you grow stronger the first few times. you tried your hardest to suppress the rising guilt. afterwards however, you spiralled deeper and deeper into the guilt you felt as a spy. you were never supposed to fall in love with him, and yet you couldn’t help but do exactly that.

you wanted– no, needed to get rid of your feelings for him. you would never want it, but you’d need it in order to get over him.

you began growing more distant. it was hard, slowly excluding yourself from hangouts and ignoring them more and more, day by day. you felt terrible. every second away from them felt agonising. you’d push them away, dismissing their help.

the fact that they noticed your distance made it feel even worse. you were going to betray them, and everything you had built up for four months, their trust, friendship, it would crumble.

you’d complete your mission and switch identities again. anyone you’ve met here won’t matter anymore once you disappear. that’s what you reminded yourself.

january 25th.

“oh, you’re here,” you approached megumi from behind, sitting down beside him. the skies were dyed with violet and orange hues, the sunset that megumi had once described to be too bright.

“i was waiting for you. you’ve been quite distant lately.”

“i thought you said you hated the sunset?” you asked, changing the subject to avoid the question. “don’t try to change the subject, y/n. answer me, please, tell me what’s going on.” you could hear the alarms in your mind go off. you wanted to get up and run away. hell, you should’ve never succumbed to the burning feelings in your heart over your mind.

“it’s really nothing. i’ve just been more busy lately, i guess,” a lie rolled off your tongue again.

megumi sighed. he could tell you were lying, but he didn’t want to push it. “you said the sunset was pretty. i thought the other day that maybe it was because i never took the time to appreciate it, but…”

“hm?” you hummed, looking at megumi.

“i still can’t see why you like it that much. i still prefer the night skies better.”

the soft laughter you let out afterwards had goosebumps pricking on his skin. he watched as the light of the sun glowed on your skin, and you looked at him. “i personally prefer the sunset…”

“but if you like the stars that much, i’ll be sure to hate the sun and love stars the next time i’m reborn.”

a light shade of red appeared on megumi’s face, and he turned to look away from you. in reality though, he’s glad. there’s the girl he fell in love with. “you don’t have to do that. we can like what we want.”

“and i want to be able to truly love the stars.” you said, your tone sullen.

night fell not long after, but there was no moon that night. the waves underneath you didn’t seem calm either. it was especially cold this winter night, and you and megumi found yourselves bidding goodbye to each other in front of the dorms earlier than you expected.

mental entry, january 25th.

i wasn’t planning on seeing megumi at the cliffs today, but he was there. i was planning on spending the last day at jujutsu high alone. megumi and i really are alike. It’s a fault on my part, i guess. i grew too attached to them.

i don’t want to do this anymore.

you gulped, and just before he was out of earshot, you called out to him, grabbing his attention. he turned around to look at you, only for you to mumble a “nevermind” before quickly apologising and running back to your dorm. you couldn’t bear to tell him.

megumi was confused. why’d you suddenly call out for him? he decided not to dwell too much on it and went to bed. and the more he thought about it, the more he felt as if he had lost the chance to speak to you about something important, because you disappeared the next day.

you stopped going to classes, training, and you weren’t responding to texts either. any calls were immediately sent to voicemail, and other than the picture that the four of you took at the mall months prior, which was framed on your nightstand, your dorm had been completely emptied out.

megumi was the last person to see you.

the week following your disappearance, it was raining every day. although the higher-ups had confirmed to have launched an investigation for you, megumi was sure that they were looking into things much deeper than just your status as a missing student. he just wasn’t sure what it was.

the first day you were introduced to them, he felt that you were different in a way. was this connected to it?

the higher-ups had also told the first years to not worry, and that they’d take care of it. as if they’d ever listen. they had discussions every single day about where you might’ve gone, if you were okay or not, and why they couldn’t see signs of this earlier.

they got confirmation shortly after that there were no signs of cursed energy from your dorm. it was as if you had never existed, and had it not been for the pictures you’d taken together, along with the texts you’d exchanged with each other, he probably would’ve believed it.

february 26th.

JUJUTSU HEADQUARTERS NOTICE

one, y/n l/n has been confirmed to be sharing confidential information to third party sources. she has hereby been expelled from both jujutsu high and the jujutsu realm as a sorcerer.

two, the penalty of the crimes committed by y/n l/n is death. the execution will be carried out promptly.

three, second grade sorcerer megumi fushiguro will serve as the executioner for y/n l/n’s death penalty.

a full month after your disappearance, a notice was released by jujutsu headquarters.

megumi’s head was pounding. he had just returned from a meeting with the higher-ups, and throughout the entire time he was in front of them, he wished for nothing more than for whatever you were accused of to be false. he was hyperventilating, his face in his hands. megumi swore he heard loud footsteps outside his room before loud knocks echoed through his room.

“fushiguro, open up!” the familiar voices of his classmates rang in his ears. no. as much as he wished to find comfort in his friends, he didn’t want them to see him in such a terrible state, so why did his legs move to help him stand and walk towards the door?

megumi doesn’t know whether to regret or to thank his decision of opening the door. his mind couldn’t register that it was yuji who placed his calloused hands on his shoulders and told him to snap out of it. even when they questioned him for details about you, whether he knew about your intentions, and if it was the reason you had grown distant the few weeks before you vanished, he answered vaguely. all he could think of was that it was over. you’re gone, and you’re never coming back.

megumi wanted to run into the pouring rain and let it wash his soul away so he wouldn’t have to face reality. he wished he’d wake up and realise it was all just a dream, and he could still see your face when he walked out of the dorm in the morning. he remembers the words of the higher-ups so clearly, he was to carry out the execution without delay. he wants to be selfish and give the responsibility to either nobara or yuji, yet the better part of him stopped him from doing so. he can’t do that to them. for once, megumi wished that he would stop loving you.

that night, megumi had trouble falling asleep. he found himself tossing and turning in bed, his head constantly clouded with the many things that would follow this incident. it felt like hours before he managed to go to sleep.

he saw you, right there by the cliffs. you were looking at the sunset again. now that he thought about it, how many of the things you’ve told him were lies?

megumi walked towards you, standing beside you as he watched the sunset with you.

“megumi, i understand why you dislike the sunset now,” you said to him, earning a puzzled look from him. “i thought you loved the sunset?” he asked. the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks reached his ears, and you turned your head to look at him.

“it really is too bright. it doesn’t suit me.” you replied.

“megumi, have you regretted it yet?” you questioned him back, and he gulped. “regretted what, exactly?”

“us.”

megumi wanted to say yes. he did regret it. he regretted that he loved someone whose purpose was to eventually betray and leave him. yet, his answer was stuck in his throat, and he said he never did. not for a second did he feel that you weren’t worth his time. he looked towards the horizon, where the sun had now fully set, then at the sky, where the moon was supposed to be, and finally, back at you.

“you made me fall in love with the moon.” you chuckled at his answer.

“i thought you loved the moon from the start.” a brief silence ensued. one that felt comfortable. something he couldn’t feel for the past month when you were brought up.

“would you let me substitute the moon in your sky?” your voice pierced through the silence, and he responded almost instantly.

“always.”

a content smile appeared on your face. “i’m glad.”

megumi’s eyes fluttered open, the sun shining in his eyes. the male rubbed tried to rub the sleep in his eyes away, only to be met with a damp feeling. tears? what was that about? his mind was hazy, and he swore he dreamt, but he couldn’t remember what it was about.

he could remember the curve of someone’s lips. yours? yea, it was. even if he went through hundreds of lives, he doesn’t think he’d mistake someone else’s smile for yours.

he didn’t have time to think about that. through the hours of lost sleep, he had convinced himself he was ready to serve his role as an executioner, and he had a feeling in his gut he knew where you were already. at the place he had refused to visit. his mind told him that you had been going there every single day, waiting for him.

“you’re finally here.” megumi could feel his heart clenched as he heard your words, and the eerie silence that followed creeped him out. you had a smile on your face, arms behind your back as you looked at him.

“why aren't you moving?” you turned your body to look at him and spread your arms out. “you need to do your job, megumi.” the smile on your face dropped when you noticed he wasn’t going near you. there were no signs that his shikigami were active either.

one step, two steps, you walked towards him instead. a part of you felt as if you were walking towards your death. you felt him flinch when you used a hand to cup his cheek. his skin felt cold and slightly damp to the touch. he had been sweating. you looked down. his blade was just inches away from your stomach.

you took his expression in, and you couldn’t help but hold back your laughter. megumi’s eyes widened when you suddenly laughed. he felt guilty for loving it. was it genuine? or another one of the things you did as a spy to toy with his feelings?

“megumi, you’ve grown attached too, huh?” it only dawned on him then that you felt just as guilty for everything you were.

“do you know what would’ve happened if you sold us out?” megumi spoke with poison laced in his tone, and a lump formed in your throat. “the world would’ve weeped for your sins, y/n.” your expression dropped completely. “i know that better than you do, and here i am, giving you a chance to end my life. yet, you’re hesitating,” you retort back.

“so hurry up already.” you looked at him with sharp eyes, looking for any signs that he might finally give in to the orders given to him. megumi’s hands trembled as he tightened his grip around the handle of his sword. “it’s not that easy to just…” he groaned loudly.

“megumi, do you want to know why they chose you to execute me instead of anyone else?” you sighed and stared directly into his eyes. “they knew i would have resisted had it been anyone else but you.”

your hands went to wrap around his. then, you slowly pry his fingers off his blade and inspect it for yourself. “you sharpened your blade. were you hoping to finish me off in a single strike?” megumi almost choked on air in response, and nodded.

your eyes softened. “how nice of him,” you thought.

“how about this?” you stepped further away from him and pointed the sword at your skull. “i’ll be the one to carry out my own execution. then,” you pointed your finger at him. “you won’t have to bear the burden of killing me.” you could hear megumi’s heavy breaths. it seemed that reality had yet to crash into him when he first found you here. “megumi,” you whispered as you took one final look at him, “i think you know better than i that i wasn’t trying to give you an option.” you gripped the sharpened blade and winced at the pain as your hands bled, then flashed him a quick smile before you slashed your eyes.

you groaned, holding back the scream threatening to release itself in an attempt to sooth the pain in your eyes. you had no right after all the hurt you’d caused. you couldn’t open your eyes. it hurt like hell, but you didn’t want to see the look on his face either. you convinced yourself it was worth it.

megumi felt as if he were frozen during the entire duration of your encounter with him. what was he doing? he was spiralling into his own thoughts, and here you were, handling your own execution because he was too much attached and too much in love with you.

every nerve and muscle in your body seemed to scream at you as you gripped the handle of megumi’s sword tight. even then, your ears couldn’t mistake the heavy footsteps of your beloved as he ran towards you just as his blade pierced your abdomen. his scream rang through your ears when crimson spilled from your wound.

ah, it seemed that blinding your eyes wasn’t enough to keep yourself from thinking of his panicked expression and guilt ridden face.

then, everything went black. you weren’t sure how long you were out for. a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes? your entire body stung, as if you were laying in a tangle of thorned roses. one thing was for sure, you were dying.

you felt something soft under your head instead of the grassy surface the rest of your body laid on. “megumi…?” your voice sounded tired and hoarse. “is that you?” there was a brief period of silence that made you doubt his presence, but a hum from him confirmed that he was indeed still there. a smile tugged at your face even through all the ache.

“i can’t see right now. look up.” megumi looked up, and realised today was the beginning of a new moon. he could barely see anything. “could you tell me what the moon looks like?”

“a blood moon. it looks as if roses had bloomed on the moon.” liar.

“it’s not good to lie, megumi. but it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“very.”

you didn’t exchange any words to each other for a period of time after that. by now, your breathing had calmed down, and everything around you seemed hot and cold at the same time. something in you told you to let go of your consciousness, and another part wished you’d stay awake longer to feel megumi’s touch. be a little selfish, you told yourself.

you shakily reached your hand up towards the skies. you balled up your fist, a part of your childish mind hoping you had caught a star.

megumi could hear his heart thumping in his chest, and he pulled your body closer to him. he thought to himself, even if there had been that satellite in the sky, his moon was going to stop shining soon. he couldn’t help but wonder if the stars in your sky had burnt themselves out.

maybe all of them, except for the one that willingly let the moon outshine it.

“y/n, can’t you use your technique to give yourself a better death?” megumi asked, his hand supporting the weak, quivering fist you held up, his thumb brushing your knuckles.

“i can,” you replied back without hesitation.

“but i’d have to erase everything that’s in my mind. and besides,” you flashed him a pained toothy grin.

“you’re all i really want to think of right now, megumi.”

by user @ aireia, do not plagiarize and/or translate.

fun fact: i actually invested sm into this fic i made sketches of the one of the curses

#signed by aireia!#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #megumi fushiguro #jjk x reader #megumi x reader #jjk megumi #jujutsu kaisen x reader #fushiguro megumi x reader #jjk imagines #megumi fushiguro x you #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x you #this took 11 days to write believe it or not #also the first thing i uploaded in 3 weeks #how is everyone :D

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starburts-addict · 8 months

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Two of a Kind (part 1)

Note: Hi! I know this took a while to be posted. I had an AO3 moment. I'm doing better now just had a bunch of crazy things happen and whatnot. Now here is part 1 of my AU

CW: Mentions of death, reality shit, story changed drastically, I'm pretty sure the characters are OOC just because it's a yandere au, Shit starts changing immediately

@melon14

The light doesn't get any more blinding, even after a while when Grim opens the coffin. You rubbed your eyes and were ready to get chased once more, but you heard something completely different from the game. "What the- Hey! you're from my dream!" That sentence caught you off guard. You didn't expect him to dream of you. What if it isn't a dream? You needed to find out. “What… happened in this dream of yours?” Grim looked at you weirdly, like he felt guilty somehow. “Why are you asking? Why should I tell you?!” Of course, he wouldn’t outright tell you, if he had common sense, he would have tried to figure out why someone he dreamt of and never met was in front of him.

“Just tell me, I need to be sure about something. If you tell me, I’ll share it with you. You have my word.” Grim contemplated if he should, but he gave in to his curiosity. “Fine. We were friends, but towards the end, I ended up killing you. Happy now?” Your eyes widened. He remembers. He remembered the previous loop. It made you so happy, but you needed to be serious. You looked at Grim with an intense stare, well. intense for the cat anyways. “Grim. Listen to me. That wasn’t a dream. We’re running out of time before the upperclassmen walk in, but we need to find a way for me to leave. I’m not from here. I’ll explain once this ceremony ends.” Grim was a bit disturbed by how you looked at him, but even more by your words. You knew his name, you knew what was going to happen next in this situation that seemed so familiar to his dream.

“You can leave, you just have to walk out.” He rolled his eyes, trying to keep a tough front. "That's not what I meant and you know that. I meant to leave this world. It'll make more sense later." You remarked. Upon speaking, you hear the doors to the mirror chamber open, you curse under your breath as you and Grim turn your heads to see who entered. It was the headmaster and the upperclassmen. Luckily, your coffin was a bit out of sight, but your luck ran out the closer they got. The Headmaster looked at you in confusion and astonishment. "Oh my! A student got out! How peculiar!" You quietly groaned upon being caught. You knew the drill. Although, now that Grim is in the same situation as you, you can try something different.

"I'm not sure how I ended up here… Where am I?" You decided to play dumb. Grim was about to say something until you ended up grabbing him into a hug, which in turn would turn his speech into nothing but mumbles. The Headmaster raised an eyebrow at this, but simply ignored it. "My, it seems you have been severely disoriented by the ride here! It is okay, I'll explain everything for I am so gracious." This was similar to the dialogue in the game, but you just simply had to get the sentence out that you had no magic. You just had to play innocent. "You are at Night Raven College, an elite school to hone your magic! I am-" You interrupted. "E-excuse me… I don't mean to be rude… I don't have magic…" You said awkwardly.

The headmaster looked shocked. The students began to talk as you held Grim tighter the more he fought your grip."Well, how can this be! The process never made such a mistake before! If you don't have magic then who is that raccoon with you?" Grim bit you as he said that. You let go in pain and he shouted. "I ain't no raccoon! I'm a monster and I'll be the greatest magician around!" Great, Grim couldn't just play along. It made sense, but you had hoped he would at least listen for once. "He wants to be a student here! I think it would be worth it! He can replace me!" You said. Maybe, you don't really need Grim, maybe if you completely remove yourself from the school, you could finally go back once the story finishes, you've never tried that!

"Preposterous! No such thing has been heard!" Grim had an angry expression and then jumped away from your coffin. "I'll prove to you I can join!" He then commenced the prologue. Fire was everywhere and people were too busy panicking or trying to catch Grim, you decided to take this as your chance to run away and go to the Rival school.

As you ran, no one seemed to have noticed your disappearance, you mentally thanked Grim for the distraction and ran out, that was until you bumped into someone. "Sorry!" You automatically apologized. Then you realized, no one was really supposed to be out here. Who did you end up bumping into? As you looked up, you found an annoyed yet calm Malleus. What was he doing out here? He's supposed to be in Diasomnia! "It is alright." He spoke calmly. "I have to get going! Have a nice evening! Again, sorry for bumping into you!" As you were to run off, Malleus grabbed you by the hood. "Why are you wearing your ceremonial robes?" He asked. You were a tad bit scared, but decided not to show it. "There's some event in the mirror room! I'm not supposed to be here, but here I am wearing these robes." You said trying to stay calm.

Malleus stayed quiet before he picked you up. You were about to say something about it until he spoke. "That must mean the entrance ceremony is today…" He pouted. "I'm not sure if I should trust you, so I'm bringing you with me…" You sighed in defeat. You can't fight a strong magician. Especially one of the top five magicians in Twisted Wonderland. As you were brought back with Malleus, it seemed everything was back to normal before the fire, but everyone seemed to be surprised to see Malleus come, especially with you in hand. "There you both are!" The Headmaster said. "This one says they're not supposed to be here." Malleus said. "Oh yes! They have told me they hold no magic! If that is true, the Magic Mirror will tell us!" There was no need for an order as Malleus walked towards the mirror and placed you in front of it. And once again the game repeats. The reveal that not only do you not have magic, but you cannot be sent back home. You sighed heavily as you heard the shocked chattering.

"Oh my… I can't let you leave since you do not have a home…" You shook your hands in the air. "It's alright! I'll find a way back home on my own! Besides, Where would I stay?" You said in hopes that you would be let go. Your stomach dropped when you heard, not one, but two voices speak up. "They can stay at Diasomnia!" One seemed cheerful, who was easily recognized as Lilia's and the second one Seemed to be Malleus'. "I'm not sure… They're not a student here…" The Headmaster said. You chimed in hopes they would agree. "I couldn't possibly intrude in such a prestigious school! I'll only be dead weight!" Much to your dismay and surprise, Leona spoke up. "We'll teach you to be useful here at Savannaclaw." It was obvious he only offered to one up Malleus, but it was still a bit odd. "They can stay with us! It'll be absolutely no burden!" Kalim chimed in. Jamil tries to hush Kalim, but soon enough the rest of the dorm leaders had wanted to invite you to their dorm. All but Idia, who was against it, but Ortho insisted that you join Ignihyde.

Scratch the bit odd comment, this was very much more than just odd. You turned to the Headmaster defeated. "If I must stay, is there anywhere else I can stay? I wouldn't want to feel like a burden to the people around me!" Students with dorm authority all glared at you, but you didn't care. As long as you stayed quiet and didn't involve yourself with the main cast, you would be fine. The Headmaster thought to himself. "Well there is one dorm, but it's been abando-" Before he finished you interrupted him once more. "I'll take it!" Just like last time, he raised a brown in suspicion, but didn't really question anything. "Dorm Leaders! Take your students to your respective dorms!" All of them listened, albeit some begrudgingly did so.

You sighed as you were taken to Ramshackle and explained everything you have heard before. How you aren't a student, and you'll need to work to earn your keep and all that. You said your goodbyes before you turned to the dark off the form and looked annoyed. "Come out Grim." He came out quietly and looked a bit weirded out. "My dream wasn't really a dream was it?..." You smiled at him sadly and petted his head. "No… Know that I hold no grudge." He normally would have swatted your hand, but instead he looked at you and spoke. "For how long have you been stuck like this?..." You turned away and then looked back after taking a deep breath. "I don't know, I lost track after the 5th death…" Grim was saddened by your response, but he then swatted your hand and looked at you confidently. "I'll help you get back!" You smiled and thanked him for his contribution.

"Welp, let's get you recognized as another employee of the school. It's the only way to keep you here with me." Just as you said that, the fight with the ghosts had begun. You and Grim, like many times before, have coordinated Grim's attacks. And history repeated itself as the headmaster came in and had tested Grim's and your skills before deeming Grim worthy of staying as an employee alongside you. Once the Headmaster left you sighed. "This doesn't get any less tiring. Let's clean our bedroom a bit." You picked up Grim, who didn't seem to mind, but was startled as you both walked to the bedroom. You put him down as walked out only to come back with cleaning supplies such as brooms and such after a few minutes.

While you were cleaning, Grim had asked questions, which you answered with no hesitation. "Did you manage to change the story?" Hey asked. When he did, you remembered the strange interaction you had. "Yes actually. Normally, I just get offered to stay in Ramshackle, but this time, all the dorms offered me their dorm." Grim stopped cleaning and tilted his towards you. "I've never been there to finish the ceremony, that's not normal?" You nodded. "They never offer. It was strange, not only that Tsunotaro ended up being away from where was supposed to be and before I could escape, I bumped into him." Even Grim knew that wasn't normal. "We should get some rest, we need to plan for tomorrow in the morning." You said as you got into bed. "Why not now?" Grim asked. "It's late and we need our energy. Grim crawled up next to you without questioning anything else.

The next day, The only time you had to plan was the walk to the statues. Everything went according to the story. The ghosts woke you and Grim up, the headmaster came in and explained your duties, and now you're on your way to the great seven statues. "Alright Grim, I did come up with something. When Ace comes up to us, we let the conversation flow until he starts to be an asshole, after that we ignore him." Grim groaned. "Do we have to?" "Yes, Grim. We need to play it as cool as possible." You said as you both arrived.

Without hesitation you started to clean. It wasn't bad, Until you heard more than one voice approach. You and Grim turned around to find, not the person you were looking for, but the vice dorm leaders, plus Ruggie and Ortho. You turned to Grim with a surprised look on your face. Trey spoke up first. "Riddle, the Dorm leader of Heartslabyul has invited you for a dorm Dinner tonight." You and Grim looked at each other with surprise. That was until Ruggie spoke up. "Hey! Leona had the same idea! Back off!" The only leech twin at the scene spoke. "Pardon me, both of your requests cannot be met as Azul had invited them to a free VIP meal at the mostro lounge tonight." A fourth voice interrupted. "Kalim wants to throw a party with the guest of honor, I wouldn't make Kalim cry, now would I?" And a fifth. "Non! Non! Vil wishes to assess our dear trickster!" "I want my big brother to have a new friend!" A last voice chimes in. "Oh dear, none of the rest are honest. Malleus simply requests that I convince them to reconsider their choice to stay at Diasomnia!" All hell broke loose as the group that approached you and Grim argued.

You looked at Grim utterly confused as he whispered to you loudly, but only loud enough for you to hear. "This didn't happen last time." You whispered back. "This never happened."

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longcovidshortstories · 2 months

Text

Long covid has meant seeing lots of doctors, lots of times. I've met some amazing people. Doctors with empathy and curiosity. A long covid clinic doctor started our appointment but just telling me, "you're not crazy" and I burst into tears. A pulmonologist assured me that even if he couldn't figure out what was happening to me, he wouldn't let me leave his care until he'd exhausted his options and he felt he knew where to refer me next.

But seeing so many people, I can't help but have experiences that hurt. I've joined the chronic illness community; the invisible illness community. Long covid is new, poorly understood, and has the fun addition of having a political toxicity attached to it.

A bad doctor's appointment really stings. It holds onto me. It haunts me. Sometimes, it makes me angry. Why am I not being heard? Why am I being treated like my disease isn't real. Why is this doctor making recommendations that I couldn't possibly physically accomplish? I explained my physical limitations. They're real. I know that they're real.

It brings back all of the doubt that i already carry under the surface. Maybe I'm being dramatic. Is long covid even really a thing? Am I making this up? Maybe I just need to try harder. Have I tried yoga? Positive thinking?

Sometimes, it's small and inconsiderate things. Recommendations that ignore physical or financial circumstances that i just talked about in that same appointment. Test results read in snide tones alongside the "normal" range.

Sometimes, it's big and brash things. Recommendations of surgeries or programs that are extreme or inappropriate. Making me fight for my medical care.

Being sick is exhausting. Having long covid is exhausting. Having some kind of medical appointment nearly every week is exhausting. I live in a rural area and have to drive about an hour to reach any of these doctors. I don't want to feel like the expert on my disease when I go to the doctor. I'm tired. I have nightmares about hospitals. I want to at least know that when I give everything I have to be in that doctor's office, they will believe that I'm sick.

ENT 2021: No one really knows what's causing taste and smell changes in long covid, so there's not much I could really do for you. If it's really hard to live with food tasting like trash, I could sever your olfactory nerve. Then you shouldn't smell or taste anything. Maybe that's better? Although, if long covid is actually neurological, that might not actually help you at all!

Nutritionist 2021: Maybe try (insert very expensive home delivery food service).

GP 2021: Are you really, really sure you want to remove your IUD? Your insurance probably won't pay for another one for a while. The ultrasound showed it was still in the right place, so I can't imagine it's what's causing you any problems.

A Different Nutritionist 2022: I think you should sign up for an online eating disorder program. It's not long covid specific, so it'll mostly be group therapy with people with traditional eating disorders, but I'm just not sure how much I can help you.

Orthopedist 2023: You wrote "long covid" under preexisting conditions. What is that? I've never heard of it.

Speech Therapy 2024: Breathe out saying "e" for as long as you can....Hmmm, that was 4 seconds. You know the normal average for that is 20 seconds.

#long covid #short story #non fiction

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mysteryshoptls · 9 months

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SSR Kalim Al-Asim - Dorm Uniform Vignette

"I just had a good idea"

[Exterior Hallway 2F]

Crowley: Ahh, so busy, so busy…

Kalim: Hey, Headmage, you dropped something! Oh, wait… Isn't this a tourist pamphlet for the Scalding Sands?

Crowley: Oh, pardon me. How careless of me.

Kalim: Here you go.

Kalim: Are you interested in going to the Scalding Sands?

Crowley: That's right, it's one of the possible destinations for my next vacation…

Crowley: Oh, oh, yes～! Now that I think of it, you come from Scalding Sands, don't you, Asim-kun?

Kalim: Yeah!

Kalim: A vacation, huh～ My home country is such an awesome place, so I'd love it if you could visit, Headmage.

Kalim: The people are all nice, and there's a ton of things to see, and the food is super good!

Crowley: That food is what gives me hesitation, you see.

Crowley: I've heard that the dishes served in Scalding Sands use many unique spices…

Crowley: I am unsure if it'll be to my tastes, so I just can't bring myself to take the plunge and go.

Kalim: Oh, if that's all, then come over to Scarabia! Jamil'll cook up a ton of authentic dishes for you.

Kalim: If we're going to be hosting the Headmage, then let's have a feast with the everyone else in Scarabia, too.

Crowley: Eh, oh… I wonder, is that truly alright～?

Crowley: Well, I feel as though I've asked a huge burden of you, but since you've offered, I shall absolutely indulge. I look forward to it!

[Scarabia Dorm – Lounge]

Kalim: …So, that's why we're going to be throwing a banquet tomorrow and inviting the Headmage!

Jamil: Well, he sure set you up… There's no way someone would just accidentally drop a pamphlet of the Scalding Sands like that.

Jamil: First of all, why are we doing this tomorrow? It would have been better to have had more time.

Kalim: I thought it'd be better to do it as quick as possible. No time like the present, they say!

Jamil: They also say not to venture into the sea without a net. Do you even realize just how hard it is to arrange a banquet…?

Kalim: It'll be a piece of cake for you, right? Besides, I've already decided what kind of feast we'll be having.

Kalim: First, we gotta decorate the place. So that the Headmage can appreciate the Scalding Sands' beautify, we need to use textiles that have traditional patterns on them.

Kalim: We got a ton of fabric we're not using up in the storage room, right? Let's decorate with that!

Jamil: One roll of that fabric is worth enough to feed a family of four for a whole month… But, fine. I'll do as you ask.

Kalim: The food is obviously gonna be traditional Scalding Sands dishes! That's also something you're good at, right?

Kalim: And so that he can enjoy all different kinds of things, let's set the feast up with some lightly toasted bread so he can all load up each one with whatever he wants.

Jamil: I'm sure that'll the Headmage will like that. …Even though that'll add a ton of dishes that'll just make prep work even harder.

Kalim: Ah, but even though I'm saying traditional dishes, don't make "that" one dish.

Jamil: Yeah, yeah. I know. I won't make "that" dish.

Jamil: …Alright, I understand what you want for the feast. You don't need to explain any further. So I'll start the preparations…

Kalim: AND THEN THERE'S THE PARADE!!

Jamil: Urgh, of course we're doing a parade, even though that's going to take the most time…!

Kalim: First, the elephant will kick open the doors with a bang. After that, the tigers will come in making their way around the elephant's feet!

Kalim: The white monkeys will bash the cymbals on the back of the golden camels… The lions and the peacocks will…

Kalim: And then after that, the bear… And then…

Kalim: …At the end, I'll pop out of the fountain on my magic carpet alongside the rainbow parrots…!

Kalim: And as the host, I'll give an awesome speech to finish the party!!

Kalim: What do you think!? Doesn't it sound like fun?

Jamil: …

Jamil: What a pain… All I see is how extravagant it'll be. If you're going to want a parade that crazy, it's going to take a while to prepare for it.

Jamil: It'll be especially difficult to get those rainbow-colored birds. I don't know if I'll be able to get them by tomorrow…

Kalim: Well, you're gonna be busy with prepping the decorations and the food, right? I can get the parade ready.

Jamil: Eh!!

Jamil: …Let's not be too hasty. It'll be fine. I'll make the arrangements.

Kalim: I told you, I'll do it.

Jamil: It's fine. Just leave it all to me, you just sit there and wait.

Kalim: I'm gonna do it!

Jamil: I said you don't have to!

Kalim: Don't worry! I'll find a ton of lively animals to bring in.

Jamil: That's what I'm worried about… Ugh, you really don't listen once you get started, do you?

Jamil: Fine. I'll leave the parade planning to you, then.

Jamil: …You sure you'll be fine? I'm counting on you.

Kalim: Leave it to me! I'm really good at handling animals.

[Main Street]

―Day of the Banquet

Kalim: Hey, all you parade animals! You following after me?

Kalim: Hey, now, you elephants and tigers need to get along. See how the lions and monkeys are doing fine together?

Kalim: It's great that the bears and peacocks are being super good. Keep following the lead camel.

Kalim: …Ah, that includes all you rainbow parrots, too!

Scarabia Student A: Wow… All those animals are following after Kalim-ryōchō without any problems!

Scarabia Student B: Our Housewarden's definitely amazing. Look how he's able to command so many animals at once like that!

Kalim: I'm not really commanding them… It's just that I've loved animals ever since I was little, so maybe they can feel that!

Rainbow-colored Parrots: [chirps]

Kalim: But hey, you guys are being super good today. Are you all looking forward to the party, too?

Elephants: [trumpets loudly]

Kalim: Hahaha, I see, I see! I'm so glad.

[Scarabia Dorm]

Kalim: Alright, we made it to Scarabia.

Kalim: I'll have all you animals wait here quietly until the parade starts, and…

???: Fwaa, funyaa…

Kalim: Hm? What's that pathetic sounding cry?

Grim: Nyaaa! I'm gonna be trampled by the elephant! Someone save me!!

Kalim: I don't remember bringing a raccoon… Oh wait, you're Grim! I completely thought you were one of the animals for the parade.

Kalim: Come up here. You'll be safer on higher ground.

Grim: Y-You've saved me…! I got caught up with all the marching animals while on the way back to Ramshackle…

1. I'm searching for a lost child! 2. Has anyone seen my poor little one?

Kalim: Oh hey, it's [Yuu]. If you're looking for Grim, he's right here.

Grim: Oooh～? [Yuu], were you sad that you got separated from me? My little henchie's so needy, huh.

Grim: But this was a shocker. Are you opening a zoo with all these animals, or something?

Kalim: Nope, that's not it. We're throwing a party for the Headmage at our dorm today!

Kalim: We got spectacular decorations, delish food… And we're gonna top it all of by treating everyone with an extravagant parade.

Grim: You got all these animals just for a party!? Man, rich people sure are different…

Kalim: This is all pretty normal. We gotta go all out and make sure both the eyes and stomachs of the guests are happy!

Grim: I don't really care 'bout my eyes, but… I gotta know what you mean by stomach!!

Grim: So, so, what kinda food're you bustin' out for the banquet!?

Kalim: Usually at the banquets we throw back in Scalding Sands, we'll serve dishes with a whole lot of spices in 'em.

Kalim: We got stuff like curry, bamia, saltah… Basically, my country's known for their stew-like dishes.

Grim: Authentic Scalding Sands curry!? I wanna try some～!

Kalim: Ah. But my family doesn't make curry for fests.

Grim: Ehh～ But it sounds like it'd be so good. Why not?

Kalim: Uh, well… A long time ago, there was a bit of an incident involving curry.

1. Did you eat so much you got a stomachache? 2. Did the curry go bad and give you a stomachache?

Kalim: Not really, but sure, something like that. It was days before the illness passed.

Kalim: But since then, I've just never liked curry.

Grim: Humph. You're a bit more delicate than I expected.

Kalim: Oh, it wasn't me that got sick, it was Jamil.

Kalim: He tasted what was brought out first as usual and immediately went deathly white.

Kalim: Ah, but don't worry. It wasn't food poisoning, see? Our dishes are always made with the best and freshest ingredients!

Kalim: Everyone else was perfectly fine, it was only Jamil who got sick, after tasting from my plate.

Grim: …So, doesn't that mean…

Grim: That something was only put into your meal…?

Kalim: Hmm. I mean, I don't really know all the details either, but…

Kalim: That was the first time I ever saw Jamil so down and out… And I've never been able to forget it.

Kalim: …But! It doesn't seem like it bothered Jamil that much, curry's still his favorite dish!

Grim: Urgh… Sounds like he's got weird tastes, totally different from a gourmet like me.

Kalim: We won't be serving curry, but Scalding Sands has a ton of other delicious food to offer up.

Kalim: And hey, you guys came all the way here to Scarabia, so you should totally stay for the banquet!

[Scarabia Dorm – Lounge]

Grim: Myaaah～! This feast's super amazing～!!

Grim: All the bright red banners hanging around the lounge're super cool…

Grim: And there's a toooooon of food I've never even seen before here!!!

Grim: I'm totally gonna eat enough for tomorrow too! Monch, scarf, gobble.

1. This is a real fun party. 2. Gobble, munch, munch.

Kalim: Eat as much as you want, [Yuu] and Grim～!

Kalim: And to our guest of honor! Headmage, are you enjoying the banquet?

Crowley: Yes, absolutely!

Crowley: I had completely assumed that the Scalding Sands would only have spicy cuisine… But it seems I was absolutely mistaken.

Crowley: All these crunchy vegetables! This fragrant seafood! The juicy steaks!

Crowley: And then on top of that you have this savory bread to wrap everything in! All your decorations are beautiful too. Everything is outrageously delicious.

Kalim: Right? And Jamil here made all that delicious food for us!

Crowley: Oh, this wasn't done by a professional chef? You're astounding, Viper-kun.

Jamil: No, not at all. ...Kalim came up with the menu so that you would be able to try an assortment of our dishes.

Jamil: In addition, my cooking skills were cultivated within the Asim household. Everything is all thanks to Kalim.

Kalim: Hehehe.

Kalim: The Headmage and all the other guests are happy, too. Thanks for setting up the place and for prepping all the food, Jamil.

Jamil: …You're welcome.

Jamil: But it's too early to get complacent.

Jamil: As the host, you still have your own part to play during the parade finale, don’t you?

Jamil: Go and get ready for that.

Kalim: Yeah, alright!

[Scarabia Dorm]

Kalim: Okay! I made it to the standby area for the parade.

Kalim: And just like we planned, I'm gonna get on my magic carpet here and wait for the starting signal…

Scarabia Student A: HEY, WAIT!

Scarabia Student B: OH NOOO!

Kalim: Hm? What's wrong, you guys?

Scarabia Student A: H-Housewarden! Uh… That is…

Scarabia Student B: All the rainbow parrots that we had for the parade…

Scarabia Student A: THEY ALL ESCAPLED!

Kalim: Eeeh!?

[Scarabia Dorm]

Scarabia Student B: All the rainbow parrots that we had for the parade…

Scarabia Student A: THEY ALL ESCAPLED!

Kalim: Eeeh!?

Scarabia Student B: S-Sorry! And those parrots were essential to the parade!

Scarabia Student A: We just completely forgot to lock the key to the cage…!

Kalim: All the parrots… I see…

Kalim: …But hey, I'm sure everything'll be fine!

Scarabia Student A/B: Huh.

Kalim: Can't do anything about something that's already done. Plus, it wasn't on purpose, right?

Kalim: I'll take care of it, so you guys don't have to worry about a thing!

Scarabia Student A/B: Kalim-ryōchō…!

Kalim: …Oh. I just had a good idea.

Kalim: I'm gonna head over to Diasomnia now.

Scarabia Student A: Diasomnia? …You mean the dorm Malleus Draconia leads!?

Scarabia Student B: Why would you go to that dorm of all places…?

Kalim: You guys and Jamil all worked so hard to get this party ready.

Kalim: I'll go gather all the birds so that everything goes off perfectly.

Kalim: I need all of you to start the parade as planned. We can't leave our guests waiting.

Kalim: I'll be back as soon as I can!

[Scarabia Dorm – Lounge]

Crowley: Well now, the parade has started. It seems we can view it from the balcony.

Crowley: I wonder what we'll see… Oh?

Crowley: Something is walking towards the dorm from the distance in tune to some music… Wait, aren't those elephants!?

Crowley: And there are tigers walking around the elephant's legs… Hm? And there's lions on the elephant's back…!?

Crowley: Eh, how is this possible!? And now there's white monkeys!? I didn't know a trumpet could be used in that fashion!!

Crowley: And between the golden camels there's… And all the tigers and lions… Wow! Unbelievable!!

Grim: Th-The peacocks' feathers are wrapped around the bears, and… Oh, the elephants! Look at the elephants' ears!! This is amazing!!

1. I'm so moved I can barely take it all in. 2. This is the greatest parade of the century.

Scarabia Student A: Th-The finale is coming up…!

Scarabia Student B: Kalim-ryōchō… Do you think he's going to make it…!?

Grim: Ooh! The parade has made it to the fountain.

Grim: The music's amping up, too…

1. Here comes the finale! 2. This is the most exciting part!

Crowley: I wonder what surprise ending they have in store for us!?

???: …Heeey!

Scarabia Student A: Hey! I see a magic carpet flying our way! And who's that riding it…

Kalim: Sorry to keep you waiting, everyone.

Scarabia Student A/B: KALIM-RYŌCHŌ～～～!!!

Kalim: I was trying to find my classmate Silver, and it took a bit longer than I thought… But I brought them.

Kalim: I got all these white birds!!

Scarabia Student B: …He's right. There's a ton of white birds flying behind him!

Scarabia Student B: Oh yeah, I remember hearing that Silver from Diasomnia has a good rapport with small animals.

Kalim: Yeah. I went and asked Silver to call for his little bird friends to help me.

Kalim: But man, he dozes off so much. It took a long time to be able to call all the birds.

Scarabia Student A: …But in the end, I guess you couldn't find the rainbow parrots.

Scarabia Student A: No matter how you look at it, those parrots would have been flashier than these white birds. And it's all our fault for letting them fly away…

Kalim: Don't worry about it. It wouldn't be nice to force those parrots back into their cages anyway, right?

Kalim: A party's only a party as long as everyone's enjoying themselves.

Kalim: …Ah, and that includes you guys too. So don't look so glum.

Scarabia Student A/B: Housewarden…

Kalim: 'Sides, even these white birds can replace the rainbow-colored parrots! I told you guys I had a great idea, didn't I?

Kalim: It's time for the amazing finale to start. Don't blink at all and keep watching 'til the end.

Kalim: "A haven within the hot sands, a never-ending feast. Dance! Sing! Oasis Maker!"

Crowley: Oh, there goes a spray of water from Asim-kun's Unique Magic…

Grim: And from it, out popped out some colorful birds!!

1. It's so beautiful. 2. I've never seen a scene like this before.

Crowley: …Oh?

Crowley: When I look closer, I can see that the birds flying aren't colorful at all.

Crowley: The rainbow that appeared from Asim-kun's magic were cast onto the wings of those white birds, making it seem like they were colorful.

Crowley: This blizzard of colors, the shimmering spray of water, and those birds dyed by a rainbow…

Crowley: Ah, oh what an astounding view…!

Kalim: Hey, Headmage! And [Yuu] and Grim! Thanks for coming to Scarabia today.

Kalim: Nothing makes me happier than being able to host valued guests!

Kalim: And I hope one day you guys will be able to come enjoy my home country of Scalding sands! …Whoops.

Kalim: Sorry, Carpet. I didn't mean to step th… Hey, don't shake me off!

Kalim: Woah, woah, I'm losing balance… Aaaah!

Kalim: I'm faaaaalling～～～!!!

???: WATCH OUT!!!!!

[SPLASH!]

Kalim: …That totally scared me. I accidentally fell into the fountain.

Kalim: …Hm? But I'm not injured…?

Kalim: …Ah, Jamil! I guess you must have used your wind magic to help slow my fall.

Kalim: Thanks a bunch. I didn't get hurt at all.

Jamil: I thought... M-My heart was going to stop… Ugh.

Kalim: But, oh man, I'm soaked… This is so terrible. Hahaha!!

Jamil: It's not something to laugh about. I was completely beside myself!

Jamil: …Come on, hurry up and get out of the fountain and dry yourself off.

[clapping]

Crowley: A miraculous rainfall that falls on the desert during a parade… I witnessed such beautiful magic.

Crowley: That was splendid, Kalim Al-Asim-kun!

Grim: Yeah, even the part where you jumped off the magical carpet got my heart pumping, it was so cool～!!

1. I don't think that was part of the plan… 2. That was really thrilling.

Crowley: It must have been very difficult for you to prepare everything for this, wasn't it?

Kalim: Nope, not at all. Right, Jamil?

Jamil: Yes, not at all.

Crowley: Asim-kun, your ability to lead everyone to successfully throw this amazing banquet is absolutely spectacular!

Scarabia Student A: That's right! Kalim-ryōchō is always thinking about the rest of us in the dorm…

Scarabia Student B: He's such a reliable guy!

Crowley: I see, I see.

Crowley: This was absolutely a thrilling experience. I've decided, my next vacation will be to the Scalding Sands!

Kalim: That's great! I'm super happy that you get just how awesome Scalding Sands is!

Kalim: And that's all thanks to the parade going off without a hitch. I'll have to make sure to thank all the animals later!

Requested by Anonymous.

#twisted wonderland #twst #kalim al-asim #jamil viper #dire crowley #twst kalim #twst jamil #twst crowley #twst grim

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thebreakfastgenie · 2 months

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Hi :3 If you're still doing the character ask game, may I request 4, 5, 19, 24, & 25 for Charles? Thank <3

Hello! I am still doing them!

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

Hmmm I don't know!! I would put him in Boston Legal as a client involved in a lawsuit over something ridiculous just because DOS's humor would have been perfect on that show.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Where's the Orchestra by Billy Joel. This was my most inspired song choice. It's all about getting to this point in your life where you've achieved something and thinking "this is it?" and the metaphor it uses is an orchestra. To quote the man himself, "life isn't a musical, it's a Greek tragedy." (No I do not think Billy Joel was okay when he wrote this song, it was the last song he wrote for an album that he said he felt as if he'd died when he finished it.) Where's the orchestra? Dead, perhaps? Charles's whole goodbye dinner speech in GFA just tracks to this song so well.

youtube

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

If I could delete the Charles/Margaret ship tease from season 6 I would. I wouldn't hate it so much if they had ship tease in season 7 after she got divorced. But most of it happens when she's a newlywed and her marriage isn't even on the rocks yet and it just makes absolutely no sense for her after she made such a big deal about breaking up with Frank and staying faithful to Donald! I still don't think I'd ever ship them, but it wouldn't be such a hard no for me if it was handled differently in the show. It felt like they only wrote Charles flirting with her because Frank did, but she'd dumped Frank a whole season before! Some of their later scenes as friends make me understand why people ship them, but I never will because season 6 just poisoned me against it forever.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

This is not a fandom I'm in per se and it's kind of a limited resemblance but it makes me crazy: in Downton Abbey, Sybil works as a nurse during WWI, and after the war she feels increasingly alienated from her noble family's way of life. She just can't pretend the rich people nonsense matters anymore. And from what we see of Charles in GFA, I think that's going to happen to him. He's exposed to so many things and forced to connect with so many people from different backgrounds, he can't just go back to how he was before. There are also some Charles elements to Josh Lyman, who is not nearly as wealthy but also a high-achiever Harvard legacy from a privileged background who lost a sibling as a child.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I didn't like him at first! I mean, I like characters who suck, so I liked him because he was well-acted and funny, but I wasn't invested in him emotionally. I was like wow he's an asshole. I don't always like character who suck right away, either, because if I'm deep in a show I'm thinking about how likable they are, and my love of well-crafted characters who I would loathe as people comes later. Anyway after a couple of seasons suddenly I cared about Charles and I still do! He's a rich asshole who's a caring person deep down to me. I'm not super interested in soft squishy Charles, I like him to kind of suck but have a heart of gold. I haven't been engaging with a lot of Charles stuff because I've been oriented toward the Gelbart seasons more, but because of that when I do see Charles stuff I get to remember how fun he is! I have a soft spot for poor little rich boy characters.

#ty!

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starseneyes · 1 year

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Chenford REWIND - Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 4 Ep 14

This one might seem a little weird for me to pick out of the pile, but it really resonated with me for a few reasons that I'll get into once we dive into the Meta.

Season 4 is the era of open Tim and Lucy truly sharing in one another's lives at a level they never did before. It's needed for this episode.

So, bear with me because this is more of a "mini meta", but this episode deserves it, I think.

SPOILER ALERT: In the land of Spoilers I doth play! Merriment is to be had for those who partake of said indulgences, but for those who forsake the foreign finds, atrophy doth await. Okay, I can be a little silly because we've done this enough. Spoilers within. But I do try to write without foreknowledge of what is to come.

Everyone versed on the way this works? Excellent! I'm ready to dive in.

"... since I don't know my biological father, you know, it makes it kind of challenging."

I hate these forms with everything in me. And I. Have. Twins. So every time I start them with a new doctor, I have twice as many forms that have to be filled out in the same time as most parents get for one. So, I'm with you, Lucy.

Also, I remember the first time I had to fill out a School Form after meeting my biological father. I was a lot younger, but I remember my absolute confusion. "Mama, am I Hispanic?" "Just mark 'white'," she responded. Yeah... it was an interesting season.

"Wait. Your Dad's not your bio dad?" "Mmnm." "You never told me that." "It's not really a big deal. My Dad, the man who raised me, is my Dad."

Absolutely, Lucy! Blood does not determine fatherhood.

I remember an episode of The Pretender that took the angle of "Didn't I teach you to tie a tie?" and I was a mess of blubbering crazy on the floor because "Dad" isn't owed to anyone just because they contribute biological matter to an insemination. "Dad" is a special moniker.

And, yes, I call both the man who raised me until I was 7 and my biological father "Daddy". Plus I have a step-dad. My wedding was really interesting with three Father Speeches, let me tell you!

"She told me that he was not ready to be a father..."

I do feel for Lucy's mom on this one. My biological father let his friends convince him my mother was lying... so he never wanted anything to do with me.

She had to go to court to get the blood test for... you guessed it... medical history forms, so she'd be able to fill them out accurately for me.

Yeah, Lucy doesn't owe this man anything and neither did her mom.

Wait... did I just take Mama Chen's side on something? It feels dirty...

"Hey, do you think it's weird I didn't try to find my biological dad?" "No. You don't owe the guy anything."

Thank. You. Lucy, if you're not going to listen to me (just like football teams when my Uncle's screaming at them from his couch), then please listen to your husband.

What I also love about this is that we've caught up with them mid-conversation. It's possible they were talking about this in the Shop, but I like to think that it came up between them before. Lucy's comfortable telling Tim almost anything.

For a man who tries hard to keep the Shop a "personal free zone", by Season 4 Lucy has worn him down, and he's beyond telling her to stop.

She's already versed Tim on the fertility fun, so it's completely natural for her to talk to him about this, too.

"The only thing he ever contributed to your life was measured in millimeters."

Best. Husband. Ever. Get this man an award, because he's busting out all the support for his wife while calling out this no-show sperm-contributor on his lack of parental contribution. We stan a man who thinks fatherhood demands some bloody effort.

Look, I love my bio dad and we have a great relationship. But it took a lot of work and a 13-year-old screaming at her father to put down the beer and drive because he was the adult and needed to act like it. Yeah...

"Seriously, I don't know why I bother talking to you about personal stuff." "Mission accomplished."

This cracked me up the first time I saw it! Because, Tim's beyond telling Lucy to stop talking, right? But that doesn't stop him from being a cynical bitch to get her to stop.

She gives him the look, but his gaze is safely on Bailey so he isn't instantly vaporized by meeting her eyes.

"Why don't you give us a list?" "How about giving me your number?"

Tim turns to her and does his little finger point that he did when dismissing her when they decided to ride together again as Gofer and Sergeant.

He didn't need her involved in his paperwork that night so he waves her away. This time, he's waving himself out of his conversation. Also, he doesn't want to be present so he doesn't have to write Lucy up for threatening the guy.

"Sir, are you okay?" "Do I look like I'm okay?" ... "Did you see where she went after she attacked you?" "Obviously not."

Calm down, Timmy, my boy. About 12 seconds ago you asked a man washing his blood-red, can't-open eyes with a garden hose if he was okay.

Neither one of you's doing great in the common sense department, today, so why not back off on the attitude directed my girl's way?

I've seen a small contingent of people claim Tim's changed too much from Season 1. Nah. What we've seen is a man who was at the lowest point of his life finding healing. It's gradual, but it's there.

And we see that the cynical, sarcastic, dead-pan part of him is still there. But it's not overwhelming all the other wonderful, layered parts of him like before.

Also, I speak cynicism and sarcasm, so in that I've found a kindred spirit in a fictional character.

"People suck." "Amen to that."

He's not wrong. Look, there are individuals who can be pretty amazing, but in my experience, people as a whole generally suck. That's why the kind-hearted, compassionate, considerate, empathetic humans matter so much. That's why people like Lucy matter so much.

Because in a hurting world, the hope-bringers matter. They're the ones who light a torch in the blackest night and hold it high for others to see. And as we're drawn toward that light, holding our own water-logged torches, drenched in our tears... we find warmth. We find hope.

The warmth dries out our torches, not erasing our tears, but ceasing their flow. And then, slowly, the spark within each of us returns, and we can then hold our own torches high for the next weary travelers who've lost their sense of self on the difficult trails of life.

Tim's torch is starting to spark, and he can thank Lucy for a lot of it. But, right now, he's reminding us that he's one of us... still not all the way out of the dark.

Lucy twitches her hand at Tim's remark, almost a "Are you kidding me!?", but Tim doesn't see it.

"Is it better to know? Or to not?" "You talking about bio dad now?"

Kitty! My husband says that to me every time I cock my head to the side in response to something he says. It reminds him of his kitties he grew up with.

So, as soon as Tim cocked his head, I thought "kitty!" and promptly erupted into laughter in an empty room like a madwoman.

But I love how well Tim can read her. There are still times he checks in with her with a "You okay?", but we're seeing the evolution of his understanding of Lucy. He's grown in his understanding of her, and right now he knows exactly where her mind has gone.

And how special is it that she's working through this with Tim?

Look, family stuff can be complicated and we've already seen Lucy's issues with her mother. Tim has likely had several earfuls of all this, but I love how supportive he's being of her, here.

He's not telling her what to do. And that immediately throws me to post-DOD when he didn't tell her what to do with her tattoo. There's a consistency here that I appreciate.

Also, I love this growth compared to when she was vetting Emmett. She pretended to talk to Rachel (not this Rachel... but I'll totally be her second Rachel BFF if Lucy Chen, fictional character, is looking for a new BFF). And when Tim called her on it, she admitted she needs to process orally and knew he wouldn't do it with her.

Look. How. Far. We've. Come. Tim doesn't have to be talked into it. In fact, he's the one who drew it out of her when she started waxing poetic Shakespeare style—"To know, or not to know?"

Tim is Lucy's sounding board, now. Losing Jackson was huge. And while Lucy loves Tamara and talks to her a lot, it's not the same thing since there's more of a mother/daughter relationship at play.

And as someone with incredibly odd parent/child dynamics, I'm not judging. Just saying, it's different.

But in the vacuum that stole Jackson from Lucy's life, there will never be someone to fill that space completely. Yet, certain elements transferred near-seamlessly to Tim. Tim and Lucy are friends, and they are deeply involved in one another's lives, at this point.

Remember, we are post double-date, post Tim's father, post Lucy helping with demo, post so many other things that moved them forward in Season 4. Walls were torn down between them.

It's that thinnest veil now keeping them apart. That, and their placeholder significant others because, wow, were we dealing with some dead weight in Season 4, am I right?

Tim tells Lucy to find out the truth, and I love that. He's encouraging her in this endeavor on the same day he told her "mission accomplished" in scaring her off. He's still Tim. He's still going to be a bit of an ass, sometimes.

But, damnit, he's making more and more exceptions for Lucy. And he doesn't even realize it, yet. But we get the delicious point-of-view of watching it happen, and I love this for them!

"The year your mother became a therapist, she slept with a patient. He was your father... I think the shame still eats her up."

Hold. Up. Mama Condescending slept with her patient!? That is one of the rules you do not break. So rather than own up to her mistake, even with her own daughter, she tried to mold Lucy into the model of perfection without consideration for the psychological damage she might be inflicting?

Oh, Mama Chen and I are gonna fight the next time her face appears on my screen. You don't do my girl Lucy dirty like that.

It's totally in-character. Like, it makes sense. But it also hurts. Because "the shame still eats her up". Lucy's mind can't help but wonder if part of that shame is her.

"You okay?"

Hubby knows when wifey's acting off. And he knows it has something to do with her father. So, he's not going into this blind. Tim Bradford is asking Lucy Chen about her state of mind knowing it's personal.

"Personal Life Free Zone" my ass.

"My whole life, nothing I have ever done has been good enough for my mom. Not, not my grades, my boyfriends, my career. And this whole time she has been a total hypocrite." "Look, uh, maybe she's trying to prevent you from making the same mistakes she did."

Oooh, swing and a miss. Tim, you can't help someone avoid repeating history if they don't know history.

Also, Lucy's never gonna sleep with a suspect, which is the closest equivalence I can make. She may sleep with a certain Sergeant, though, down the line. Am I right?

I've wondered for a while, too, if Tim has a soft spot for Moms considering everything he went through with his own Mom. From what we can tell, he tried to shield her and protect her even when he knew things were bad with his father.

My brother and I had a bad string of babysitters when my mother first became a single Mom. She divorced my brother's dad shortly after her mother died, and it was just the three of us.

We knew how bad it was. How hard it was for her to find good sitters. When we finally found a decent one who would let us stay over at her place when needed... we hid it from my mother when she and her husband got into a physical altercation in front of us.

I was about 7 and my brother was 3. He didn't quite understand what was going on, so as my Nanny ripped us out of bed and drove around town half the night looking for a place to stay... I distracted him. I played games with him.

And as we fell asleep foot-to-foot on her mother's couch across town, I was satisfied to know he didn't understand what was happening. I managed to protect him.

And I protected my mother, too, by not telling her. Because I wanted to shield her. I didn't want her to have one more thing to worry about.

Tim strikes me as a kindred soul in that. So, he looks at Lucy's mother and doesn't quite see the whole picture. After all, he hasn't even met the lady... yet.

Oh, but when Tim Bradford meets Mama Chen and sees the bullshit she puts Lucy through? He's gonna have his wife's back and it's going to be a glorious minute twenty-five of television that I will play on repeat to my heart's content.

"Or she resents me for reminding her of the one time in her life that she messed up."

There it is. The shame. Is that why Mama Chen is always ashamed of her? Lucy has to wonder.

"Lucy, it's..."

No, phone. Not now! I have never wanted to chuck a phone out the window so badly as I did when Lucy's chirped just then.

Because Tim Bradford knows a thing or two about a parent who makes you feel ashamed of yourself. And I really want to know what he was going to say.

One of y'all better have a fanfic to fill in the blanks because, whew, if I find Lucy's phone alone in a back alley, one of us isn't coming back.

Yes, I know I have a beef with an inanimate object and that the whole bloody thing's fictional.

But damnit, I want Tim to have the opportunity to speak love into Lucy's life as often as possible and that. phone. killed. my. dream.

"Patrick Walsh. That's my father's name." "Well, I mean, at least it's not something weird like Dilbert." "You mean like the cartoon character?" "Someone named their kid Hashtag. You never know."

I love this. Tim falls into their natural rhythm, and Lucy goes along with him. It actually coaxes a smile out of her, which is what I think he was trying to do.

Awww, our babies have graduated to responding to one another's needs wordlessly. I'm so proud of them!

"So, what are you gonna do?" "Find out the truth."

She's echoing Tim's exact words to him, which I love. But I also love that Tim is driving this whole conversation.

Mr. "Personal Life Is a No-Go On The Job" is the one coaxing this out of Lucy. Because he knows her well enough to know that she'll stew on it, otherwise. If he wants her focused on work, he has to get her through those personal blocks by talking it out.

This whole episode is a love letter to Tim's understanding of Lucy and how far they have come. Yes, he gave her a little trademark Tim at the top with his no-nonsense assessment of ejaculation's lack of causality to actually being a parent.

But, throughout this episode, he's been the one driving the conversation. He's been the one drawing her out. And he's been the one supporting her in this, which is huge.

They. Have. Come. So. Far.

"He's dead."

I can't even imagine. All of these scenarios Lucy built up in her head, and they're just gone.

I met my Dad at 6. He got clean when I was in my 20's, and that is when we truly bonded. But I've had friends meet their biological fathers into their 40's. It was a wild ride.

And though Lucy loves her Dad (the one who raised her), she was curious about this man who fathered her.

A girlfriend of mine was fascinated when she met her biological father and found out he was an artist... like her. It was so cool for her to connect those dots, even though she still recognized the man who raised her as her real father (because blood ≠ "real"). There was a piece of her that she'd never seen in another human, before, and that was cool.

Lucy will never have those moments. And wanting them doesn't mean she loves her Dad any less. She simply wanted to meet the man who fathered her, to know that piece of herself a little better.

"Maybe I should have tried to find him sooner." "Maybe, but he's the one who made the decision that he wasn't ready to be a parent. Whatever he did with his life after, it's not on you."

All. Of. This. And you can tell Lucy's not completely convinced, because what kid is? Yes, Lucy is a grown woman. But when it comes to our parents, we'll always be their kids.

Lucy hasn't had the best examples of functional relationships. And, frankly, neither has Tim. Neither of them know what it looks like to really work through.

We can argue that Tim was married before, but that didn't work out. For a million reasons, it didn't work out.

And this whole "egg" thing started because Lucy's Mom wanted to be sure she'd have grandchildren even if Lucy never found the right man. And that led Lucy down the path to finding her birth-father... only to find out he died. alone.

If she had reached out sooner, could she have changed that? And, Lucy, honey, I know that "what if" game oh so well. It never ends if you keep playing it. So, you have to step away.

And, you. Yes, YOU! Don't play the what-if game. None of us can change our pasts, but we can shift our paths.

Our past is written, but the future's as twisty and turny as my kids' favorite board game. Lots of options. Lots of opportunities. Don't limit yourself because of the past. Don't "what-if" your life away.

Do what you can with what you have, and bit-by-bit, you'll build a new life. One breath at a time.

As always, thank you for reading. See you on the next!

#Chenford #Lucy Chen #Tim Bradford #Melissa O'Neil #Eric Winter #Meta #The Rookie #Lucy x Tim #Tim x Lucy

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arcplaysgames · 1 year

Text

okay with THAT dissertation done, the rest of the shit I've done so far, which is finishing up a lot of SLinks! I have now completed Temperance, Sun, Moon, and Death. Let's go over them.

GET READY FOR SOME CARTOMANCY TAAAAAALK

who me? what? don't know WHAT you could be implying Kawakami hahaha anyway how about this weather, btw i'm super happy for you. wow what a crazy random happenstance! you deserve it, i love you.

I KNEW IT, SHE KNOWS

When asked how she figured out, she points out that the thing with Takase's guardians worked out way too well for her and Reverie was the only person she told. Which... yeah, that makes it p5retty fucking obvious huh.

lmao as if Reverie going "I need their names," in the previous scene wasn't a massive flag. I am not playing this subtle but also Kawakami is smart and I adore her.

Her SLink is complete!!!! So far, she's the best one in the game, to my utter astonishment. I'm glad I muscled through the awful start because this SLink has everything: mocking the player's teacher-maid fetish, an incredibly mouthy cool millennial lady, a genuinely tragic backstory without being soap opera-y, sympathetic portray of sex workers. IT'S GOT IT ALL.

Kawakami was kind of a very Standard portrayal of Temperance. It's not a super interesting card, it's just about having the emotional strength to find the path forward and to find balance in yourself spiritually and materially. It's often portrayed as an angel passing water between two cups-- cups are the suit of emotional intelligence. And they're my favorite suit, personally.

Kawakami starts the arc solidly in a reversed Temperance, she can't balance anything, the goblets are overturned, and all of her emotional strength is just pouring out onto the floor because she is so overworked, there is no well for her to draw from. Through the arc, she actually shares her troubles with Reverie, which in of itself is a show of emotional strength, and with his help manages to rebalance herself. Finally, she can take her eyes off the cups and look ahead to her future.

TEN OUT OF TEN, SO FAR SHE'S MY FAVORITE CONFIDANT.

I haven't been recapping it because it's.... genuinely not a link that's easy to summarize bc its a lot of politics and small moments, but I finished the Sun too!

OH SO THAT'S THE JOKE OF EVERY LINK HUH, EVERYONE KNOWS WHO REVERIE REALLY IS that's pretty cute actually, I like it.

Yoshida was this failed politician who got disgraced twenty years ago in a finance scandal, now returned to try and take office again. His whole arc is about his new ideals of empowering the youth and taking care of the elderly, and with the rise of the Thieves, he acknowledges them as a symptom of a broken system that needs massive reform.

You follow him through some intra-party political issues and his recurring thing is that he sticks to running instead of being someone else's right hand man, even when doing so would clear his name from the finance scandal that ruined him.

I'm NOT gonna lie, his final speech is good. He speaks about Reverie, "a certain young man" he met who is aspiring to change the whole, and though Yoshida cannot follow the same path as this young man, he hopes they will meet again at the top of the mountain they are both climbing together, separate.

It's really good honestly. And for the curious, Yoshida is a very interesting Sun to me. The Sun comes at the end of the Star-Moon-Sun sequence and those three cards are basically their own mini-journey. The Star is the herald that the story isn't over and you must continue. The Moon is the darkness that follows, full of illusions and distractions and madness you have to navigate. And the Sun is the light that comes after, is exuberant and joyful, and more than anything it is certain in itself. In the light of the Sun, all is revealed and laid bare. (Which is why it leads into Judgement soon after.)

Yoshida works for the Sun really well because the twenty years of scandal and shame have already happened to him, and he has made it out to the other side. Now, his ideals and purpose are illuminated under the Sun and he never strays from his path.

It's good! Eight out of ten on him!

DEATH! Goth Doctor!

lmao she figured it out too. I guess that's just the joke of every max rank, huh?

Anyway, I loved Tae for The Unnamed Arcana. She's great. I love that she's actually a goth, actually has a very morbid sense of humor, actually talks about death a lot. They really leaned into the whole vibe and I appreciate that.

Also her look is impeccable obviously.

Tae's whole thing is that she's undergoing the process of Death, the transformation the card deals with. With the lost of her prestigious position at the research hospital, she is stuck working in a small back-alley clinic.

She definitely goes through a period of real mourning for her past self, resisting the forward motion of her life. But slowly she begins caring for the locals around her and builds a new patient base. Really, the drama with her past patient and the miracle cure for her is an afterthought; the Death aspect is definitely rooted in Tae herself. And by the end of the link, she is still dour and morbid, but there is life to her voice again.

She's great. Seven out of ten.

So Mishima.

SIGHS. Okay. I hate Mishima as a character and I think he represents everything that is bad about the Phantom Thieves and it's his actions (which were completely unasked for and unprompted) that leads the plot to the clusterfuck we're about to enter with Okamura's imminent death. Fuck the phansite and fuck this phuckboy.

BESIDES THAT

yeah he's a half-decent Moon? It's complicated, actually.

So his set up as the Moon is pitch-perfect. The Moon card is a place a person comes to after great upheaval in their life. It's a dark, quiet place for contemplation and reflection. Best case scenario is that it's a stepping stone in your journey towards the new dawn and the Sun.

But there are strange images in the reflection and the reflected light of the Sun in the Moon can lead a person astray and into madness.

Again: the Moon is an environment of possible madness. The Hanged Man is a risk taken that might led to madness. The Hanged Man goes into the deal eyes open, knowing the stakes. The Moon doesn't know the danger around them and has to keep from lingering.

So as the Moon, Mishima goes from being Kamoshida's punching bag into this dark, quiet place where he doesn't know what to do with himself, only that he needs a purpose. He settles on the Phansite.

Now, I think the game is arguing that running the Phansite gives Mishima direction and purpose, letting him move forward in his path.

I think that's undercut by how much the game itself points out Mishima's actions led to various fuck ups. Remember when Reverie had to be the one to tell him to give back the fucking money he'd collected from "donations"? Honestly, most of the conversations in this SLink are just trying to drag Mishima away from his worse impulses.

Which... also kinda works! I say the game's intended portrayal of the Moon is dumb, but my own is just as valid. I don't think Mishima has moved on and grown at all. I think he's been dazzled by the false, reflected light of the Moon (metaphorically, the allure of his nebulous fame re: the Phansite and his repeated misunderstanding of how to use it without being a malicious prick) and instead of continuing on his journey, he is staring slack-jawed into the illusion.

Sooooooooooo.... Nine out of ten, honestly!

But also I hate Mishima.

ONWARDS, INTO IMMINENT DISASTER!

#p5 #persona liveblog #cartomancy

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septembersghost · 2 years

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Hi! A few words I wanted to add about Hank and about Jesse as well. There’s a video of some extra moments from Jesse’s confession tape. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but just in case, I’m leaving the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfvQIx8V14Q&t=205s&ab_channel=MoviesBreaker You know what hit me from the get-go? It’s Jesse, obviously very traumatized and suffering from PTSD, begging ‘No, no, I don’t wanna talk about it. Can we just take a break?’ (because it’s hard for him, he’s actively reliving his trauma and, I think, retraumatizing himself too), and Hank just cuts him off with a dismissive ‘Later.’ and pushes him to continue. Again, I like Hank, but he’s clearly not so kind, especially to Jesse. I’m also thinking about Marie. She must have heard this confession, right? And I wonder if she too didn’t really care, whether too betrayed by Walt and too obsessed with catching him (and she was, judging from her scene with a therapist), or whether she just completely shared Hank’s opinion. Or maybe she did care, maybe she was able to see Jesse as someone more than just ‘a junkie’, someone with a heart and a conscience? Like, did it leave an impression on her? And when months later, when Jimmy tried to play victim and told her ‘Jesse Pinkman and the others, they are out there, and they are to blame, I am not’, did it change anything for her? Did she remember that moment when Jesse was crying in their living room, crumbled with guilt, and maybe that’s why she looked at Jimmy with so much contempt and didn’t believe him even for a second? (pt 1)

(pt 2) Also, as I was rewatching this confession now, I remembered the Waterworks episode, the way Jesse was with Kim right then. And it’s CRAZY how much he’s changed. Crazy and so painful too. Those are two completely different 5-minute long moments of basically Jesse talking and recalling his past experiences, and just in a span of a couple of years, he’s a completely different person. His patterns of speech changed, his behavior, his eyes, his expressions, and it hurts. He was such a cheerful bumbling kid back then, just rambling happily (rather incoherently) about everything in front of him or whatever came to his mind, adding ‘like’ and ‘yo’ and ‘you know’ a lot, smiling almost all the time, doing his little cute gestures with sparkling eyes, and here he’s just… He’s just so in pain. Gone is that silly bubbling boy. His speech here is much more cohesive and coherent, he’s choosing his words, but god it’s so filled with grief and regret. The raw pain in his voice, the way he’s crying, it’s just… He broke my heart in this scene. I just want to hug him so much…

i saw what you wrote on the other ask i got about this and really appreciated it (i'm SO behind on properly keeping up with everything lately that going through asks keeps making me miss replies i want to reblog/respond to!). it's viscerally upsetting how little value is placed on jesse as a human life by people around him. he is constantly exploited and used. hank - who overwhelmingly struggles with ptsd of his own! so you'd think he'd have some empathy for it - only sees jesse as a criminal and a tool. he only sees him, in S5, as a way to get to walt. no real kindness or respite or even safety is offered to him. "kind" is not an adjective i myself would've ever used for hank, and that scene in the interrogation room was meant to represent all of the lives lost, but it was a tad jarring for me. marie's perspective about her late and beloved husband is certainly understandable, but it isn't wholly true, and i'd be fine with that except the scene kind of played it straight? you can misuse a badge like you can misuse a law license.

we only know so much from context, but unfortunately i tend to think marie agrees with her husband's views on criminals deserving less than humane treatment (see the scene after he's assaulted jesse for insight into this - she suggests he lie and say jesse attacked first. "it's some lowlife degenerate versus you doing the job you're supposed to. why should you be the one who pays for doing the right thing?" and to his credit, hank openly says it was not the right thing. yet he still goes on to treat jesse's life as a poker chip.) i don't think marie ever has a sense of sympathy for jesse, i just think she holds jimmy (saul to her) and jesse on similar levels of contempt.

breaking bad and bcs do an interesting thing regarding their views on individual personhood and criminal behavior. i think about wendy - she is treated abominably by basically everyone. kim is an exception. she sees her as a person and offers her assistance, should she need it. (and this could lead into a discussion of whether self-punishing as she did ultimately caused more harm to the world than good, because she removed herself from being able to help anyone or affect any positive change by obliterating her purpose so thoroughly. i'm not blaming her, it's just such a terribly sad path for her.) badger, skinny pete, combo. nacho. mike. jimmy and kim. we spend a lot of time with these people who do illegal and even reprehensible things, and it asks us to attempt to understand where humanity can still lie in that. jesse is maybe the most defined and biggest example of it. he does unquestionably wrong things, but we see the depths of his heart and the horrors of his suffering and suspend moral judgment, because at some point it's just not going to help. jesse was a kid who needed concrete guidance and support, and instead he's mistreated and rejected and looked upon with derisive cruelty and broken again and again. does it matter that he isn't "innocent"? at what point do we decide to prioritize compassion and realize that someone has been punished enough?

these stories asks us to look at how people get lost in life - to mistakes, to trauma, to abuse, to bad choices, to hurts internal and external - and to sort of do a there but for the grace of god go i... examination. we all make choices and slip up and struggle - how far could we fall given difficult enough circumstances? how much sympathy can we extend to those who are so damaged? how much trust can we actually put in the systems around us? i've mentioned this, but it's why boiling a lot of these characters down to just ____, just their worst traits, is incomprehensible and even hurtful to me.

jesse will never be that boisterous young man again, yet it's the echo of him we're left with as our final moment. maybe to remember how much difference it would have made if something could've turned his course around. instead, he is always going to carry that grief, those scars. he is always going to be changed. we have a much fuller picture of him than someone like hank ever could, or gus, or even walt. mike may be the only one who sees his whole a bit more clearly. we don't love him despite his wrongdoings, we love him because we understand who he is at the core. and that, to me, really matters, to understand not only the story, but also as (hopefully) an exercise in empathizing with others.

#idk if this is actually on topic but i completely understand what you're saying #snowstormserenade #letterbox #breaking bad #jesse pinkman

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chaisshitposts · 6 months

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🦁🐻🦒 anon here again

Firstly, what happened to you for 2 days? What crazy hiatus was that? I'm sure not only me but others were worried too! Could you explain what happened, if it's not too much trouble?

Second, to answer the question: yes, I am neurodivergent. I don't talk about this so much with anyone because: you know this has become something commonplace in today's world (everything is autism, everything is ADHD, sometimes there isn't even a diagnosis, and often the individual uses the clinical case to justify his own failure and defects) and also by my family who, well, I'll summarize: they are all very alienated in everything (spirituality, behavior in general, how things work, etc.) and I was always different from the others (a "boy" who doesn't like cars, football, or being shirtless) (and making it clear that the quotation marks are because they didn't consider me normal, not because I'm not a boy or anything like that) (and I think I'm writing too many parentheses and this is getting ambiguous) (and oh my God, I looked very cult and edgy saying "I'm different from the other kids"😭😭), so, in this case, my family, kind of not accepting the uncomfortable truth that I was normal, but different, they created this generalized idea that I was abnormal and were incessantly looking for something that would validate this, which is why I had many exams throughout my life (a good part of the physical body, brain, ears, nerves) and nothing ever resulted, much less the psychologist's report, which not only revealed that I was normal but that I was even MORE than normal. In this case, I have AH/SD, which in my language is "Altas Habilidades/Superdotação", in English, well, I'm basically gifted, which explains my behavior (precocity, taste and high level of reading and interpretation; varied interests and differentiated; tendency to associate with older people; asynchronism; preference for doing certain things alone; independence; autonomy; acute and refined sense of humor, filled with irony, sarcasm, mockery and abuse of dark, morbid jokes and acidic comments, extending even into other spheres of coexistence other than humor; highly developed aesthetic sensitivity; high observation capacity; leadership; atypical tastes and preferences, wide vocabulary and use of it; ability for: complex, symbolic thinking and reasoning, abstract concepts, relationships between different things, situations or facts; early physical and social development; great sensitivity; high creativity; spontaneity; tenacity; difficulty in relating outside the comfort zone (new environment, new people, tastes different from yours that he doesn't understand, etc.), quick ability to adapt and create intimacy, competitiveness) and because I don't fit into other cases, such as ASD, ADHD, ODD and the like. In this case, I don't comment much because I'm afraid of giving the wrong impression, of people thinking I'm a victimist or an exhibitionist or something like that, and also because of my family dramas too, and because that's who I am, right? 🤨 Isn't it ridiculous to see these people on the internet (and sometimes in real life) basing their entire personality on their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ideology, social class, damn, I'm much more than neurodivergent, I don't need to keep talking so much about this, there are so many more interesting things to talk about me…

And about the failure in communication, I think it's because of the geographic barrier: look, I assume that you are anglophone, and therefore, from a low-context culture, since most countries that share Anglophony were British colonies, then share this characteristic. But I am lusophone, but, unlike another country that shares Lusophony, my culture is high-context. This means that we don't just analyze the type, but how it is said, the moment, the manner, the intonation, we capture the emotion in speech and writing, while low-context countries are more literal, they don't have as many idiomatic expressions, figures of speech, so they end up causing some confusion sometimes (that's why people in my country are known for not saying "no"). For example, when you said "You're treating my ask box like it's an entire Tumblr - and also, it's not questions" Idk what you really mean by that, really, but in my head that sounded a bit like "you don't belong here, can't you see you're using my ask box wrong?" I think I understand what is being said when using emojis, camelcase, and slang, because that way I can capture the humor of the writing more easily 🥰🥰

one -> hiya! and oh my god you're the second person to mention that I've been gone for two days... I didn't mean to disappear!!! I was just in... hm— I guess I was dead? 💀 And not like ACTUALLY dead, but more so, dead to the world. On Wednesday something major happened and I was in disbelief for a bit. (My student loans got paid off in full eventhough there was $20k USD in debt, I didn't do anything aside from my usual affirmations) Then the next day another thing happened and I was still in disbelief. (I manifested something overnight involving my job after affirming that I can manifest anything I want overnight) And Friday was my day off of work so I went outside and spent a bunch of money on stuff I wanted. I had no idea I hadn't posted on Tumblr in a couple days, I'll be honest. Time got away from me 😓

two -> ahhHhhHh so my spider senses were right! we're more alike than I thought. and yeaaaaaah, it is pretty weird how much more 'common' autism and adhd seems to be in the eyes of social media. HAHAHAHA no no no, I didn't think that was edgy at all!!! being 'different' is what makes people interesting, after all. and yeah, I can understand where you're coming from when it comes to people using their superpowers/handicaps/gifts as an excuse to do bad things. sometimes I find myself doing that, but only when I'm trying to explain to others why I don't get certain jokes that they say or I have trouble with telling the difference between sarcasm and the truth.

three -> ah yes, the language barrier. I had a sneaking suspicion that may have been an issue as well. WAIT NOOOOOOOOO 😭 I would never say that you do not belong!!!! You will always belong here!!!! I— gods I wish I could explain what I meant in a cohesive way. 😫 I love it when you send me your words in my asks box! Your words of wisdom should be shared by YOU!!! and when you share your words of wisdom to me, and I make posts with them, it feels like I am stealing your words of wisdom!!! I do not want to take credit for your beautiful words! I don't know how else to explain it, I'm so sorry 😭

#— chai's asks. !! ~#— 🦁🐻🦒. !!~

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48787 · 1 year

Text

I keep thinking that like V1 is like a non-sentient feral beast that has sudden flashes of genius to solve the occasional puzzle, but it's all just following its programming like a state machine. Like even with the Terminal lore and V2's very clear sentience, I keep thinking V1 just is like different being, like an older bot who doesn't have all the sentience as the other robots which lets it be much more efficient with its murder. This is all wrong, of course, V2 and the other robots are practically feral beasts too and are just as blood thirsty (just not as efficient), the Terminal lore obviously applies directly to V1, yadda yadda. But what inspired this post, and why I think I keep having this weird perception of V1 despite the fact that I know it's wrong, is because I keep forgetting the fact that V1 directly speaks! It only happens once (at least as I'm remembering, this whole post is about me forgetting shit so like who fucking knows), but I keep forgetting the "You're not getting away this time" line. Like with all the lore it never is in your face with how it actually applies to V1 and we never get anything direct about V1's personality (I wanted to brain rot about how this is wrong too and we actually do get a lot of V1 personality through the gameplay and animations n stuff but i am so tired and this post is getting so long), so when I first saw that line it felt a little jarring, especially because it only happens later into the game and doesn't happen again, and my brain just sorta didn't know how to slot it into the game's story.

EXCEPT THAT'S ALSO NOT CORRECT! (Extreme brain rot territory that might just be me looking too much into it but I don't care) It's not, like, a special dialog prompt or anything and V1 does not audibly speak, it's the SAME text box that appears throughout the entire game in tutorials!!!!! This can mean either two things:

One (which is what i currently believe) is that ALL the text is ACTUALLY V1 speaking, at least to itself. Like the "Sentries can be interrupted by shooting them with the revolver, railgun, yadda yadda" is like V1's computers making a little "mental" note of a new enemies weaknesses, perhaps because V1 knows about these enemies beforehand or V1, bein a lil robo dude, did a scan or something about V1's computer knows how to figure that stuff out. Not to mention other game-y things such as the scoreboard and cyber grind are continually proven canon so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary. This makes the sudden dialog less jarring in my mind because it's not sudden!

Two (which i don't like as much but whatever) is that all dialog in the game isn't, like, real. Like the tutorial stuff is just tutorial stuff, has nothing to do with V1, and by extension the "You're not getting away this time" line isn't actually V1 dialog. There's a little bit of evidence to support this one as well (even though I'm gonna refute every single piece in favor of my preferred interpretation). Jakito's lines are also in this dialog box, which would go against it being V1's dialog or internal monolog. However, that could just be because words are being communicated in a way other than speech and V1 is translating this, sorta like some kind of telepathy, not to mention the words were a different color (I THINK?? I THINK IM REMEBERING THAT RIGHT). There's also the "Something wicked this way comes.... Just kidding :)" line, which wouldn't make sense for V1 to say to itself. I'm tempted to write it off as a funny little goof, there's so fucking much I want to write off as a silly little goof, but Hakita said before that all secret levels besides 2-S is canon (I MIGHT BE LYING I JUST SPENT AN HOUR LOOKING FOR THIS QUOTE BUT COULDNT FIND IT, DID I IMAGINE IT??? GOING CRAZY) so I don't know! But that could've been a meme as well!! It could also be similar to the Jakito thing. Maybe it could've also been V1 being like "wouldnt the be funny lol" to itself. whatever. point being the "youre not getting away this time" line could just be non canon and just a silly little line.

I obviously really prefer my first interpretation, stuff that seems like its just game-y stuff keeps being made canon so like it just makes sense that something we'd take for granted like tutorials is also canon.

I can't tell if I am looking too far into all this or if this is just something everyone already knows or noticed i am so tired and potentially at that stage of insanity where you think its all so obvious and everyone is on the same page and then you talk about it and realize everyone actually thinks your crazy but also maybe it is so obvious and im just dumb or maybe this is all stupid i am so tired and have so many feelings about this fucking game. I had so much more i wanted to say but forgot it all because its so late. when looking for references for this stuff i thought i knew like most of the lore but realized i was actually probably wrong because i havent seen a bucnh of hakita quotes about shit. the one quote i was trying to find just stopped existing and i dont know if it ever existed. This post is a mess, i dont even know if any part of this will make sense to another living soul or if there is a single sentence that isn't completely incoherent.

#ultrakill #ultrakill spoilers #all nighter posting

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elfboyeros · 8 months

Text

Sneaking Around

Bridgehid Masterlist [start from the beginning?]

@jj-pines @karaboutmyart @lerenee

"What are the scientific theories in biology?"

"...Uhm, cell theory and gene theory?"

"You're forgetting one," Rowan remarked.

"Really?" Elias questioned.

"Starts with an H," they replied.

"Oh, oh! It's on the tip of my tongue!"

Rowan giggled, "You got it, you got it!"

"HOMEOSTASIS THEORY!"

"YEAH!"

"Alright, I'm giving you that one," they stated as they checked off the question on the study guide in front of them, "That's all the questions, you got a 23 out 30, that's better than the first exam."

"I am okay with that," Elias said proudly.

Rowan flashed him a small smile before looking back down at the study guide for Elias's most disliked class. The guide was placed on top of the biology textbook.

The two teens were sitting in one of the campus' small little green areas.

Elias noticed the shift in their mood, raising an eyebrow before he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Things are getting weird," they muttered.

"And what do you mean by that?" he pondered.

Rowan sighed, "The creatures from the tower, the whole chosen one stuff? I first thought that it was just some crazy cursed demonic, whatever the hell, speech," they rambled, "But then Georgia's grandmother said that something big is coming, and I am at the center of it. ...What the fuck does that even mean?!"

Elias nodded along.

"Ever since I got here, things have been weird! Like this has been nice and fun. I'm making friends, and I am back in school. But my parents are dead, and I know nothing about them, I don't remember them, hell I don't even recognize them!"

Rowan over-exaggeratedly flopped into Elias's lap, making his cheeks become flushed, "Something happened when I was little that I can't remember no matter how hard I try, and it makes me so angry!"

"Do you think it has anything to do with your mom's death?" Elias asked as he looked down at them.

"...Probably," they sighed.

"I know it doesn't help, but I remember her," he commented.

"You knew her?" Rowan asked, slightly shocked.

Elias made a face, "I saw her like two times, her appearance is hard to forget."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Rowan groaned.

"Well let me make you feel worse," Elias half-joked, "We met when we were little."

Rowan groaned, before slapping their hands over their face.

"It was only once. When I was like eight... or maybe I was seven? I don't know. Anyway, we met in the courtyard on campus. We watched ants for like 15 minutes and then when you left... I never saw you again... Well until now."

The pink-haired teen groaned again, "Oh goddess..."

"Hey, it's no big deal," Elias replied with a kind smile, "We were little."

"This isn't just a case of not remembering because I was six, I don't remember because I can't remember anything from before I was 9!"

"I've heard of old mages and alchemists "locking away" people's memories. Mostly so they could commit crimes," Elias relayed, "Maybe someone locked away your memories when you were little?"

"Why would someone take away the memories of a kid?!"

Elias shrugged, thinking for a moment, "You said that you don't remember very much of whatever your life was before you were here at the college. ..Maybe someone did it because you did or saw something you weren't supposed to?"

Rowan groaned once again.

"...And maybe the college has stuff on file from that time." Elias offered.

The idea that Elias just posed made Rowan jump up, "Okay, great, that's perfect actually," there was a moment of thought, "..But how would I even get my files?"

Elias shrugged once again, "Indigo, maybe?"

"You are a genius," Rowan replied, jumping to their feet, "Let's go break into Indigo's office!"

"Goddess," Elias chuckled, getting up from the grassy hill, and following them toward the building.

They quietly made their way to Indigo's office, greeted by the door where Elias pulled out his bobby pin before he kneeled to lockpick the door.

"Dude, why?" Rowan scoffed while laughing.

"Do you have a key?" Elias replied, "...My sister taught me, just give me a second."

"Dude!," they laughed quietly before grabbing the doorknob and twisting the door open, "She doesn't lock her office. It's so Calvin can get in."

Elias sighed with a smile, getting off the floor and following Rowan into the mage's office.

That same mage was just a few doors down talking to one of her colleagues. Discussing the next day's training.

She looked exhausted, her speech was even slurred, yet it went unnoticed by the older mage.

However, when Percy walked by, she noticed.

"Corals?" she said with a questioning and slightly concerned tone in her voice.

Indigo turned around.

"Goddess, Indigo, you look like shit," Percy gasped, seeing the French woman's-tired eyes and dark circles.

"What do you need Percival?" Indigo asked.

"Have you slept recently?"

"Percival, if you don't need anything, I'm in the middle of a conversa—" Indigo began to turn around mid-sentence before beginning to fall to the floor.

Percy caught her before she hit the floor, shocked that the great Indigo Corals fainted from exhaustion in front of her.

The cursed professor picked the French woman up, biding their mage colleague well, before rushing to the infirmary.

"BOOKSTONE!"

Percy barged into the infirmary yelling Calvin's last name, causing the healers in the room to turn to attention.

"Mr. Corals is in the forge," one of the healers squeaked out.

Percy clicked her tongue, "Mr. Corals, good goddess," she sighed, "You idiots! Help her!"

The healers took Indigo from Percy, she turned to the other healers who were watching the madness unfolding in front of them, "Call him, you imbeciles!"

Back in Indigo's office, Rowan and Elias looked around, Elias sat at the mage's desk in her chair while Rowan looked through a filing cabinet.

Indigo's office was dimly lit by a few desk lamps scattered throughout the room. It was the same beige/brown color of the college.

Yet, her office felt so whimsical with bobbles, little trinkets, and other such objects that screamed Indigo and magehood.

"Indigo looks really different with her hair short," Elias remarked, looking at the framed photos from Indigo and Calvin's wedding.

"They have a whole wall of pictures in their house, it's weird how Indigo can look so different but also the same at the same time," Rowan replied, "AH-HA!"

Rowan pulled out a thick file that sat in the "R" tab of Indigo's filing cabinet.

They carried it over to the desk and sat it in front of Elias, "This is all on me," they sighed.

"Let's get to looking!"

They spent the next couple of hours looking through old documents.

The texts went from just standard transcripts that the two friends found themselves joking about and simple medical records from when Rowan was a child, to documents that became more and more censored the further the two of them looked.

Which made them both more concerned but also furthered their curiosity.

Whilst the teens were somewhere they weren't supposed to be, Indigo finally woke up.

Indigo opened her eyes and registered that she was in the infirmary.

She heard movement in the room, which sounded like Percy.

"Baiser," she sighed.

"Baiser is right."

This was probably the only time Indigo did not want to look at her husband.

The sound of the door shutting made her jump slightly before she tried to sit up.

"Easy," Calvin sighed, "You're lucky Percy was there."

Once she sat up, she finally brought herself to look at him.

He was upset, obviously, his arms firmly crossed across his chest with this look of disappointment and anger.

"I don't want to do this right now," Indigo muttered looking away from him.

"Well I do," Calvin declared with force, "So we're doing this."

Indigo rolled her eyes.

"Hey," he said sternly, his tone making her look at him, "You passed out from exhaustion, Indigo! You've been lying to me!"

"I haven't lied!"

"I asked you every day for the past three weeks, including yesterday: are you okay? Have you been sleeping? Is there anything I could help you with? What was your answer?! No, you were fine," he hollered.

"I just assumed that I was fine!"

"I don't like that answer!"

"My goddess, Calvin, I've been working! Working my ass off! I've been trying to take care of Rowan and all the shit that is happening around them, taking care of our house, my students, my new apprentice, my classes, my fucking mages. So, I got a little exhausted, no big fucking deal!"

"Indigo, you collapsed!"

"It's not the first time, Calvin," she mumbled.

"Goddess," he scoffed, rolling his eyes, "I don't want there to be any more times, Indigo!"

Indigo shook her head, "I can't make any promises," she said almost incomprehensible.

The healer-blacksmith shook his head, "..Indigo," he sighed as he saw her staring out the window avoiding his gaze, before he looked away and exhaled, "I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore."

Her eyes widened quickly as she looked back at him, "What do you mean?!"

"Angel."

It made her feel a bit better that he called her by one of his favorite nicknames instead of her actual name.

"I've told many times: I'm on your side. No matter what you want, how you want it, or how you're going to get it, I do not care, I will help you and stand beside you. I will be in your corner always," he began to explain as he approached the bed she sat in, "But, there is also a caveat to me being on your side with no questions asked, and it's that you don't do shit like this! You don't get yourself hurt on purpose, you try to keep yourself out of harm's way, and you come to me if you need help!"

Indigo didn't speak, waiting for him to continue after a pause.

"You, Mrs. Bookstone, are my only concern," he cooed, sitting at the end of her bed, "and because of that, I can't stay by your side and watch you destroy yourself. In fact, I won't allow it."

She nodded along.

"I know this stuff with Rowan is difficult and super stressful, but please take better care of yourself."

The French mage sighed, "I've hit the floor, huh? The bottom-ha-there is no falling anymore."

"Yes, but I'm here to help you up, angel," he mused.

"I'll try to be less self-destructive," Indigo stated.

"Thank you, angel eyes," he muttered, kissing her forehead, "You're going to stay here until the end of my shift, what do you need from your office?"

"...Calvin," she huffed.

"Yeah, no," he replied with a slight chuckle, knowing she wanted to leave, "What do you need?"

"My laptop, my beige bi-fold, and my phone," she listed, "The door isn't locked."

"I'll be right back."

"Thank you, grenade."

"Of course, angel eyes."

"I love you, Calvin," she called as he left.

"I love you, too," he replied, even though he was out of the room already.

Back in Indigo's office, Rowan was slumped in the office chair as Elias stood in the middle of the office with the overhead light on in an attempt to see the text beneath the black boxes on the sheet of paper in his hand with the help of the bright light.

"Elias, just stop," Rowan sighed with their head in their hands.

The long-haired teen looked over at his friend.

He saw how distraught they were over the whole situation; this was his idea and it had not gone how either of them wanted, "Rowan, I'm sorry," he sighed his arms now down at his sides, the paper he was trying to inspect clutched in his hand.

Rowan shook their head slightly, "Don't worry abo—"

The office door then opened, and Calvin was standing in the doorway.

Everyone froze in place as Calvin analyzed the room, the healer saw Elias and Rowan looking at him with wide eyes, the latter in the middle of the room, and the former in his wife's office chair, papers all over the Indigo's large desk, as well as one of her large filing cabinets drawers wide open.

Calvin cleared his throat, straightening himself up in the doorway looking upon the two teens, "You two aren't supposed to be in here... are you?"

"We are sorry, Mr. Bookstone," Elias squeaked.

Calvin cringed, "Just..." he sighed, "Stand outside, you two are coming with me after I get Indigo's things."

Rowan and Elias sheepishly nodded, waiting for Calvin to gather up what he was asked to, before taking them back to the infirmary and relaying what he had walked in on to his wife.

The two teens sat on a bench outside waiting to be reprimanded.

"She wants to talk to you, kid," Calvin remarked, making Rowan perk up before entering the hospital room.

Indigo didn't look pleased. She looked tired and irritated with her arms crossed as she sat upright in that hospital bed.

"I'm sor—"

"What exactly were you two looking for?" Indigo interrupted.

"Just stuff on me," Rowan answered.

"Why?"

Rowan sighed, they had never discussed the why with Indigo before, "I don't remember my childhood, and I wanted to find out if there was anything that could explain why."

Indigo shook her head, "Why didn't you come to me?" she asked.

They shrugged.

"So..." Indigo cleared her throat, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

They shook their head while staring at their feet.

"Mmm-hmm," Indigo hummed, "Did you find anything of interest?"

"Actually... Why are my records censored?" Rowan inquired.

Indigo paused for a millisecond, "...Because they are just copies of your records, even though I am your legal guardian, you and I are not biologically related. If I request your records, they will come to me censored."

There was something about the way that she explained it that made them not trust her account.

It made them want to push the issue, "Is there anything behind the censoring that explains why I don't recall my childhood?" Rowan asked.

There is a longer pause than the last, "...No," Indigo replied, "Like I have told you before I have no idea why you have no memories and believe me, I have searched for the answers why."

Rowan huffed, becoming increasingly irritated, "...So you don't have any theories?!"

"None that make sense," Indigo said with quite an erratic tone, "I have looked everywhere for answers for you, Rowan, I really have. It's possible that there are no answers to your questions."

The teen exhaled, leaving the room for the mage to sit in peace, whilst Rowan went back to sit with Elias, their head resting on his shoulder as they sulked.

"First time getting in trouble?" he asked.

Rowan nodded, "It's not just that... I think Indigo is right, I will never get my answers."

"What are you guys doing here?"

The duo looked up to see an ever-concerned Maverick with a clipboard pinned tightly to his chest.

"Hey, Ricky, we're..." Elias paused, debating on telling Maverick what they had done and why, "We just got in trouble with Indigo and Calvin."

"Really, why?"

"Eh-well—"

"You can tell him Elias, it's fine," Rowan groaned with their forehead against his shoulder.

"Well, we snuck into Indigo's office, because Rowan wanted to find their file to see if there was anything that could explain their amnesia," Elias explained, "We got caught after not really finding anything."

"I found out that my dad died of an illness, and that I was sick for a bit when I was five, and the rest was blacked out," Rowan moaned, "I don't think there is any documented reason why my memories are gone. It's just a mystery I will never solve."

Maverick stood in front of them wide-eyed. He had no idea that this was the reason they didn't remember him or the horrible things that had happened in the past.

Why were they so thrilled to be at the college, or open to talking to Duke, and just being in this environment? Yet, he couldn't say what he was thinking, but he so desperately wanted to.

"I-I'm sorry to hear that Rowan," he replied shakily, "I...I have to get back to work. I'll talk to you guys later."

With that the older teen walked away, leaving Elias and Rowan to sit on that bench feeling disheartened and deeply saddened. It seemed that the truth about baby Rowan just might not exist after all.

"When will I stop lying to them?" Indigo asked Calvin as he sat on the side of her bed.

"I don't know, angel, that's a choice you have to make," he answered as he brushed the hair out of her face, "What's the harm of telling them the truth about some things?"

She shrugged, "Because it will cause them to ask more questions, questions I actually don't know the answer to."

"So, you think making them ignorant will make it better?" he posed softly.

"Not ignorant. It's just to make them forget about all of that and focus on the things that will make them happy."

"What if knowing even the slightest bit will make them happy?"

The French woman gave him a look.

"All alright, angel, I'll stop," he cooed, "I'm going to check on Casper."

She only nodded, still sulking from her previous conversation with her ward.

She could see Elias and Rowan sitting on the bench outside her room through the glass wall that held the door. Both of them with their backs to her. She had never lied so much in her life, it was eating her alive.

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