#...there are some kind of emotions in here
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mind over matter pt. 2
synopsis: witness how your marriage was bound to fall apart with you on the front seat and your husband gojo had missed the show—now, he gotta figure out the story on his own.
content: arrange marriage au, angst, husband!gojo, mean!gojo, mention of blood, strong languages, some unsettling scenarios, emotional trauma, read at your own risk
a/n: couldn't still believe that this ff blew up like tysm for all of your support! and thank you so much for waiting~ and like always, this is not proofread lol
previous / masterlist / next
“if i'm not mistaken, the mission would take at least three to four business days.” yaga passes satoru a sheet of paper where it contains all of the information he needed to know and what kind of things he should focus on investigating.
satoru looked at his former teacher in uncertainty despite the blindfold in his eyes. he's very hesitant to take the mission not because he cannot beat this curse, but because he still needs to apologize to you as soon as possible.
“yaga, c—can i not…” satoru was about to continue when he suddenly trailed off.
“not what?” yaga raises his eyebrow.
but to think that it's all his fault, he must have really hurted you this time, and you wouldn't probably hear him out that easily. that is why satoru thinks that it is best to just give you some space as of now, and when he comes back from his mission, that is the time when he would bother you with his presence.
“it's nothing. i’ll be taking my leave now.”
“very well—” before yaga could even finish his sentence, satoru already vanished in thin air.
the duo, yuuji and megumi, was on their way to visit you just like what they had promised to themselves a while ago.
it was around eight o'clock in the evening and here they are, kind of tiptoeing through the hallway where your room is located.
“i think it's better to let her know our presence first.” megumi said quietly to the pink haired male while holding out a basket with foods that are suitable for digestion of a pregnant lady.
“then it wouldn't be a surprise if we told her.” yuuji then answered. he was carrying two board games on his left arm and a uno card on his right hand. you actually once told them that you were exceptionally good at these kinds of games, so yuuji wanted to test that out.
suddenly, the two boys stopped in front of a door where they immediately froze at the smell of something oddly familiar. “me…megumi, is this y/n sensei’s room?” yuuji slowly mumbles out a word, his eyes going wide.
however, megumi didn't answer him. instead, he immediately tries to open the door without any hesitation just to know that it is locked.
panic slashed across their faces as the smell of blood coming out of your room becomes the leading factor of their franticness behavior.
“y/n sensei! are you there?!” yuuji keeps on calling out to you while megumi does the door breaking.
“it's locked! i can’t break the door!” curse these doors in jujutsu high. megumi could not help but to mumble profanities when he remembered that the doors in jujutsu high are purposely made this strong so any invading curses could not sneak in especially during sleeping hours where most of the sorcerers are vulnerable.
“itadori! call yaga sensei and shoko-san, quick!” megumi screamed at the other boy, whom he instantly obliged.
a weave of panic surge on their bodies because you are involved in this situation. not to mention, you are pregnant on top of that and that puts the situation into a more nerve-wracking experience.
sweat drips on megumi’s forehead as he still tries to break the door. kicks and punches were made but still the door wouldn't flinch his attacks. the idea of using his curse technique came into his mind but he's afraid that it would worsen the situation.
sooner and faster, yuuji came back with the two elders running faster than before. both also have a panic flash on their faces as yaga begins to break the door with his insane force. and after countless tries, he successfully invades the door.
everybody froze at the sight, because there they saw you, lying unconsciously in a pool of your blood that trickled down on your lower body.
“shit! what happened?!” shoko was the first to react and immediately came closer to you to check your pulse, it was there but weak. then shoko proceeds to check your baby's heartbeat, and to her disappointment, there was none that she could detect.
“yaga sensei, please help me get y/n to my clinic. now!” without a further do, yaga carefully lifted up your body and then proceeded to follow the frantic shoko to her said clinic.
on the other hand, yuuji and megumi watch the two elders quickly move away from the scene and that leaves the two. they had been quiet all the time, probably still traumatized because they just saw one of their teachers (plus with an unborn child) on the literal verge of dying.
megumi's eyes trailed on the pool of blood that had been sitting on your floor. he could tell that you had been unconscious for like way past an hour now due to some parts of the blood being fresh while some parts were dried.
“what the hell just happened…?” yuuji was still flabbergasted. he would never expect that this would happen when he just visualizes this night as a fun one because he got everything ready for a surprise mini party to cheer you up.
“i don't know.” megumi solemnly answered.
“...do you think y/n sensei and her baby would be alright?” yuuji added, totally worried about your situation.
for the first time in his life, megumi didn't think he that would utter the same word but with a different tone, different meaning, and in a different situation.
“i…i don't know.”
satoru gojo was busy walking through the busy street of roppongi despite the sky being nighttime. the whole atmosphere was still so lively from bright signage up to crowded night market stalls. this makes a perfect night for a perfect leisure.
but satoru isn't here to do that. he was supposed to do a job and finish it as soon as possible so he could get back to you and finally do the right thing.
he was about to enter an abandoned building when he received a phone call. without looking at the caller, he answered.
“what?”
“where are you?” it was his corporate friend, nanami.
a teasing smile made it into his demeanor. “oh wow! here is my underclassmen calling me first—!”
“i am asking you, where are you?” nanami was clearly not in the mood for his bullshit. his tone was beyond serious and it made satoru wonder if something happened.
“i'm in roppongi. somewhere behind a luxurious night bar.” gojo said.
the moment he said his address, the phone suddenly dropped. confused, the six eyes looked at his phone then just shrugged it off. for the second time, he was about to enter the said building when someone appeared from behind.
“you should go back.” there he saw nanami, breathless as he tried to catch his breath. looks like he ran his way towards his location.
“yo, my man! what are you doing he—”
“go back to the jujutsu high. i’ll be taking your mission here.” nanami explained like he was .
did something happen? was on satoru's mind.
“why?” satoru dropped all of his mischievousness as it was replaced by his unhidden worry—you were literally there at the jujutsu high.
there was a pause on nanami, he seemed very hesitant to say it and satoru was growing impatient.
“just say it nanami—”
“yaga asked me to take your mission on your behalf after something happened. it's about your wife. she was found unconscious in her room.”
never ever in his life he could feel the quickest adrenaline rush in his body as nanami didn't even manage to utter the last syllables of his sentence when satoru already uses his technique and teleports himself towards your room back in jujutsu high.
and there, he was welcomed by the janitors of the said school, mopping the dried liquid on the floor. the smell was so familiar that it made his body tremble in a span of a second.
“w-what the fuck happened here?” he asked the janitor who looked at him in pity as he continued to solemnly wipe the floor.
“miss y/n was found unconscious and there was blood…in her lower area.”
blood, y/n, unconscious, my wife, danger, the baby…my baby!
that was the only thing that came into his mind as he went out of the hallway and ran somewhere he wasn't aware of. his mind raced with negative thoughts.
and since his life is not always about sugarcoating—he thought that probably you just had a miscarriage, got attacked by some curses, or worse, you're dead. his wife, you, were hurt when he was away and not even there to at least protect you.
unbeknownst, to the man, tears were threatening to slip down his six eyes, making his blindfold become wet as it was being absorbed by his tears constantly. satoru could feel that his body was filled with self-loathing, guilt, and regret all over his system.
“satoru.” a voice called him from behind. satoru does not need to turn around to know who it was. it was yaga.
“come to my office.” without waiting for him, yaga already left with satoru trailing behind him. taking off his blindfold, satoru wiped the tears that were about to fall.
when they arrived at yaga’s office, he saw his two students, yuuji and megumi, sitting quietly by the couch. they were both acting quietly odd, like they knew what was going on too.
“where's y/n?” satoru asked.
“do you want to know what happened first?” yaga avoided his question for now. instead, he goes into the other aspect that he's been wondering too. satoru fell quiet, so yaga took it as a yes.
the principal looked at the two students who were already looking at him. sighing deeply, yaga then proceeds to start explaining.
“y/n was found unconscious by these two. it has been over an hour since she's been in that situation judging by the dryness of her blood. right now, we still had no idea about her state since shoko's the one who's been handling the situation. and it's been a while too since we have seen her.”
“and the baby…i'm sorry, gojo. but we have no idea either.” yaga sighed heavily. satoru was all silent, he couldn't bring himself to utter any word. he was too caught up about the situation that he had so many things to say to the point that he couldn't figure out where to start.
“i know it's not my business to interfere but…did something happen that leads to this?” the principal asked the strongest. the next moment was something that everyone expected—they did not receive any response from the man.
suddenly, the door burst open, revealing the tired doctor. her eyes landed on your husband who's still frozen about your condition. on the other hand, satoru was too busy drowning himself with his thoughts to notice shoko in the room.
“itadori, megumi…go back to your dorm for now. it's getting late and i’ll just update you two tomorrow.” shoko scurry the two younger boys and they obliged.
as the door in yaga's office closed, the three grown-ups fell into a silent atmosphere, only the sound of the air ventilation could be heard inside.
“h-how’s y/n and the child?” yaga was the first one to speak among the three. but shoko's attention was drawn to gojo only and gojo was still unable to move.
“her situation was so severe that we needed to put her into a hospital as soon as possible.” shoko said quietly and directed to gojo only. her eyes were trailed to him, and only him. she wants him to taste the bitter medicine of his aftermath and she is going to make sure he's taking it.
call her brutal and cruel, but in your realm of marriage where her role is only being a worried close friend, she would choose you over everything. that's how much she cares for you. shoko could see what kind of person you are, and she believes that you deserve better than what you are right now.
sure, gojo was right when he said that she'd only known you for a short period of time. but that is enough for her to determine that she is going to stick by your side whatever may happen. because she knows how a gojo satoru works, she knows what kind of person he could be.
if gojo can manage to leave shoko out in his life, then he could do it to y/n too.
“she was bleeding too much, i'm afraid it has to do with the child. so if we don't act fast, we might have to choose who to save—are we going to save y/n and lose the baby? are we going to save the baby and lose y/n? or…what if we lose them both—”
*boogsh!*
a sudden explosion was seen. the four walls inside yaga’s office have officially become three when satoru couldn't handle his emotions that he let his cursed energy slip and create a hole into one of yaga’s walls. the impact was so strong that it literally shook the whole jujutsu high.
and surprisingly, none of the three inside the scene was scratched, just emotionally taken aback. the once gojo satoru who couldn't even utter a word earlier, was now looking at shoko with a mixture of menace, trouble, anger, grief, and…extreme sadness.
shoko ties his stare, looking equivalently. “did you hear what i said, gojo? your wife and your baby are currently facing the grim reaper. do you understand that?” she said calmly but there is a hit or hardness into her tone.
“shut up! fucking shut up!” another surge of curse energy flows in different directions, making yaga and shoko feel goosebumps on how strong it is.
“satoru!” yaga yelled in panic.
“where is she? where the fuck is she?! show me where she is!” satoru screamed at the doctor. shoko, whose face is now back to emotionless, decides to subside her annoyance to the man as she knows you are the top priority right now.
“i will let you see her. but once you see her, you have to teleport us into the hospital immediately if you still want to see her open her eyes.” shoko said seriously. thankfully, satoru managed to calm himself alone and just stared at shoko, waiting for her to continue.
“y/n was experiencing placenta abruption. it's a very serious complication in her case because the placenta in the inner wall of her uterus is completely detached. it greatly affects the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients and the situation causes her to bleed heavily.”
“i immediately minimize the bleeding but i cannot guarantee the two's safety, especially the baby, since it is not worth the risk to imply cursed energy to an unborn child—” before shoko could even finished explaining, satoru already stormed out of the room and just proceeds to the room where his guts tell you where. he was being followed by shoko who was screaming at him.
opening one of the doors, there he saw you all pale. he could feel your cursed energy barely beating, and that scared the shit out of him because that indicates your weakness.
“o-oh god…” satoru couldn't help but to feel his breathing pattern becoming irregular as a single tear followed by another drop from his gorgeous powerful blue eyes.
this can't be happening. you were just fine a while ago!
“y/n, oh my g-god! my wife…” gojo satoru, known by his title as the strongest sorcerer in his generation, was seen crying over his dying wife and dying unborn child. his tall figure was trembling in tangled emotions that he couldn't even determine the two ends.
“sorry to ruin your moment, but if you want to save your family, it's better for us to keep moving now.” shoko followed the suit, still savage as ever.
gojo does what she said and teleports the three of you into the bestest hospital that he knows. ignoring the toll on his cursed energy as it took more, more than the usual usage, satoru believes that your well-being should be his priority rather than his.
when they arrived, shoko immediately started to bump the people out of the way and started to call for help. “someone! get us to an emergency!” she screamed.
meanwhile, satoru keeps your body close to him. hugging your frame ever so delicately, scared that you might break or disappear.
a man like satoru gojo, whom to some called him a man-god, find himself crying out to every gods and deities out there to help you, to help him get this through. he prays and prays to keep you safe and how he's sorry for all of the things he would do.
for sure, he knew this sudden care for you is not born out of pity or regret, it is a late realization on how much he couldn't bear to see you like this. because deep inside him, satoru couldn't deny the warm feeling of having someone that was waiting for him to come home, provide him service, and even give him a bundle of joy.
the words he swore to himself that he doesn't need a wife to console his woes as he is completely capable of being by himself was getting eaten by his current self. served on a silver platter, satoru didn't mind eating his own words.
a stretcher was bought on sight and shoko instructed him to put your body there and watch the series of doctors rush your body into the emergency room. satoru watches the light above the door where you were in turns red, signaling that it requires immediate medical attention.
placing his traumatized body on one of the cold walls of the hospital, sliding his man shoulders and crumbling himself into small pieces to make himself as small as possible. never he would have thought that the night would end with him continuing to pray for your safety.
satoru didn't realize that he dozed off within the walls of a random corner of a hospital where he brought you in. he only realized his current situation when he could feel someone kicking his lower body constantly.
opening his tired eyes, he saw shoko eyeing him while still continuing to nudge him. “good, you're awake.” she said.
it feels like a surge of energy flows to his body and it immediately makes him rise up faster than he could. that was also when he started to feel all of the aches in his body just from sleeping in that kind of position.
“fuck, my whole body aches.” he mumbles to himself. satoru was about to stretch himself when he saw the time on the wall.
5:05 AM
and then his eyes landed on the door.
there was no red light anymore.
“y/n. shoko, where's y/n?!” anxiousness washed all over his body. he didn't know what to expect on what answers he's about to receive regarding his family condition.
meanwhile, shoko thinks that gojo looked like a lost puppy on how his eyes literally beg for a positive answer. despite his six foot frame, he looks like a poor and desperate child.
“the operation ended an hour ago. y/n was now stable and goy transferred into one of the private rooms. while the baby…” she pauses.
“w-what? what happened to my baby?” shoko almost grimaces the way satoru addresses the unborn child, wondering where the hell did he get the guts to say that.
the doctor was this close to brutally and savagely roast this man until he flew in shame—that’s how mad, angry, and upset shoko from what satoru did to you. but today is not the suitable day for that, she may be cruel but she had limits. so, shoko forcefully swallowed the harsh words and decided to just put it aside.
“the baby was delivered early through cesarean, it's the only way to save y/n and the child. the baby is currently in a neonatal intensive care unit where the bestest doctors monitor the child until it reaches mature development.”
so basically, you give birth to his child. satoru couldn't explain what he's feeling right now. he's happy for the baby, and yet at the same time, he feels really undeserving, but he still wants to be part of the child's life—this is too complicated for him.
and besides, this is not the right time to contemplate. because as a husband and father, he needed to stay with his family to provide them love, support, and to patch that once had been wounded. and he's going to start with…
“can i go and see y/n?” deep inside him, satoru felt ridiculous for asking that question since he is the literal husband! or was he? after everything he had done to her for five years?
shoko then tiredly pointed at the room at the end of the hallway and satoru, with the help of his long legs, never ran faster than his whole life.
gently opening the door in your room, satoru was greeted by your peaceful and sleeping form with all of the tubes connected on the back of your hand. closing the door behind him, satoru finally let go of the tears he's been holding the whole time, ranging from the confrontation with you until to to this situation.
sitting on the chair beside your bed, satoru weeps as he holds your arm. at this moment, the strongest no longer exists, it was just gojo satoru who couldn't stop himself from muttering an apology to his wife that he did so wrong.
they say, you would only realize the importance of something when it's now late. satoru would absolutely agree to that statement and he could even provide proofs and evidence. at first, he's being a total dick and douchebag to his wife who clearly doesn't even do anything wrong to him. then his own wife endured all of his actions for the whole five years and still remained as if their relationship could be only determined on a sheet of paper.
“i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.” satoru may not know what would happen the moment you would open your eyes. would you send him away? or would you let him stay despite all of the pain and trauma he caused you? for now, he can never know.
but one thing he's going to let you know, he's going to change for you and for his baby. he's done doing things for himself, and now, he should focus on you.
and he's going to start with cutting all of his ties to his mistress.
[part 3 will be on june 5 at 9pm (philippine standard time), for those who wanted to be tagged, just say it on the comments — ©luvvixu2024]
taglists: @mistymuii @kalopsia-flaneur @sherryuki-callmeyuki @tttttttf @slyhersophia @rirk-ke @username23345 @lvstru @neteyxms
#satoru gojo#gojo x reader#gojo satoru x reader#fanfic#anime#gojo satoru#satoru x you#gojou satoru x reader#gojo satoru x y/n#gojo satoru x you#gojo angst#gojo satoru angst#satoru angst#angst#luvvixu#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen#jjk angst#jjk#jjk satoru#jjk gojo satoru
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THE MONSTER’S GONE, HE’S ON THE RUN AND YOUR DADDY’S HERE
masterlist | rules
in which jason is a hero in more ways than one
pairings jason grace x fem!reader
warnings reader is afab/can get pregnant
on the radio . . . beautiful boy (darling boy) (john lennon)
an my blog has become baby fever central so naturally i had to deliver 🫡, shoutout to anya ( @puffoz ) for helping me name the eldest grace daughter <3
The night after you told Jason you were pregnant with your first child, you’d woken up to the sound of sniffles coming from a certain someone sleeping right next to you. At first, you were confused - Jason had been ecstatic a few hours ago when you broke the news to him, why was he crying now? Then it hit you.
He was scared.
Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, champion of Hera, ex-praetor of Camp Jupiter, Pontifex Maximus and so many other titles you never cared for, was scared. Tenderly, you’d coaxed him out of the ball shape he was currently in (arms wrapped around his knees, head sitting in between his legs) and asked what was wrong, even though you already had an inkling of an idea as to what the matter was.
When he didn’t answer, you didn’t ask again. Knowing Jason like the palm of your hand meant staying silent and waiting for him to be ready to tell you, as expressing and talking about his emotions has been a struggle he only recently began to deal with.
With your hand gently rubbing his back, Jason replied, his voice barely above a whisper, “do you think I’ll be a bad dad?” Only after the question left his lips did Jason make eye contact with you, his eyes glistening with the tears they once held.
Anyone who grew up the way Jason did would naturally have their doubts about their parental abilities: how was he supposed to take care of a baby when he didn’t even know what it was like to be taken care of as a baby? However, you knew the truth.
“No,” you said. It was a simple answer, full of certainty and confidence, “no, Jason, I don’t think you’ll be a bad father. In fact, I know you’ll be a good one. You aren’t your upbringing - you’re kind, caring and hold so much love in your heart for everyone and everything around you despite the circumstances the Fates put you through. Trust me when I say you’ll be the best dad.”
You were, of course, right. Despite all the hardships that come with pregnancy, yours was a breeze thanks to Jason. Throughout the entirety of the nine months you spent carrying your child, he was nothing but supportive. He’d always buy you whatever food you were craving at whatever time (no matter how strange it was), he’d give you massages, he’d comfort you when you were feeling down and so much more.
The next time Jason cried was in the hospital when your baby had arrived. Natalia June Grace was born at 9:47AM and was everything you wished for and more. As Jason stared into her eyes, the eyes she’d inherited from him, he was filled to the brim with conviction: he was going to be the best dad he could possibly be for his precious Talia.
Despite this, Jason would be lying if he said he didn’t have his hard times. He’d be lying if he said he never woke up in the middle of the night, sweaty as he reached for his glasses and reminded himself that the nightmares aren’t real, they don’t define him, he is not Zeus, he is not Jupiter, he is Jason.
Being Jason meant being an excellent father. In Natalia's eyes, Jason hung the moon and the stars - no one could compare to her father. They had a bond like no other and were inseparable from the minute they met. Everywhere Talia went, Jason followed. Dance recital? He had front row tickets and lots of storage on his phone to film every second of it. Impromptu tea party with her barbies? Jason was there, clad in a tutu as he poured invisible tea into their cups. To you, the fact that Natalia viewed him as her hero was no surprise. Jason, however, tended to need some reminding.
“Mommy!” You heard your daughter yell as soon as she and Jason made their way inside your cozy apartment. While your husband locked the door, your daughter ran to the kitchen and gave you a bone crushing hug. Immediately, you let go of the whisk you were holding and hugged back, unable to believe it was now almost six years since she had been born. Time flies when you’re having fun!
Running your fingers through her hair, you said, “Talia, how was school today? I really missed you!” She replied with a quick ‘good’ before going to sit on the dining table, princess themed bag clutched tightly in her little hands as she yapped to you about everything that had happened at school that day. You smiled, admiring the way your daughter managed to breathe life into the most mundane things.
Just as she was beginning to tell you about her current crush, Mikey, and how he shared his KitKat with her during lunch, Jason appeared, bouquet of flowers in hand as he took your own and pressed a kiss onto the back of it.
“Hi honey, I missed you loads today. Got you these ‘cause I noticed the others started wilting,” your smile widened at this gesture: only your husband would be paying that much attention to the flowers scattered around the house. You gave him a peck on the lips before taking the bouquet from him and going to place it in a vase. While you were doing so, you could hear Jason and Natalia having a conversation.
“Do you want me to put your bag in your room, baby?” He asked.
“No thank you daddy, I wanna show you and mommy something first,” she replied. Then, turning around, she yelled, “mommy, come! I wanna show you and daddy what I did at school today!”
You obliged, and you and Jason watched as she rummaged in her school bag before pulling out a single piece of paper and handing it to you. On it, in big bold letters, was the title, ‘My Hero’.
“Read it so daddy can know too!” She squealed, nearly jumping out of her seat in excitement. You stared at the picture of a tall, blond man and a little girl in pigtails she’d drawn to accompany the paragraph she’d written on this topic and felt your heart swell with warmth.
Glancing at Jason for a second, you read, “my hero is my daddy. He is my hero because he always plays with me and gets rid of the monsters under the bed when I go to sleep. I love my daddy very much.”
After you’d finished reading, Natalia looked up at Jason expectantly, a big smile plastered on her face as she waited to hear his reaction. However, her smile dropped when she saw tears roll down his cheeks.
Now pouting, she turned to you for answers, “why is daddy sad?”
You smiled, delicately cupping her face in your palm, “daddy’s not sad, babes, he’s actually really happy. Sometimes, when people are super happy, they cry. Your worksheet means a lot to him, he’s very touched,” at your words, she brightened up.
Natalia then took the paper from you and gave it to Jason, “you can hang it on your wall, daddy, since you like it so much!” She proceeded to give him a peck on the cheek and ran off to her room, not fully understanding exactly how much her simple worksheet meant to Jason.
That was the third time Jason cried: when he realised he wasn’t his upbringing, or Zeus, or Jupiter, or any of the other monsters that lived under his own bed. He was Jason - a great, loving father who put his family above all and was a hero in more ways than one.
#jason grace x reader#jason grace x you#jason grace x y/n#jason grace#jason grace x fem reader#pjo#pjo x reader#jason grace fanfic#jason grace drabble#percy jackson x reader#dad jason grace#dad jason grace x reader#cynwrites
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✨☁️💧💤✨Pick-A-Card: Who’s Dreaming About You?✨☁️💧💤✨
💐 Pick an image (1, 2, 3, or 4) for a message about who’s been seeing you in dreams, and maybe visiting you in the astral realm. 💐
✨Focus your intention and remain open — if none of the images light up for you, there may not be a message for you in this reading! Alternatively, more than one image might connect with you. As always, trust your intuition and take what resonates, leaving the rest.
Onto the readings!
#1: 🫧 Bubbles 🫧
The person dreaming of you might be a sister or close girl/feminine in your life. I get the image of a girl with tears in her eyes, with the feeling that they wish they could talk to you/are upset about something that has happened between you. There’s an energy of youth and feeling sorry for their action(s), and wishing to make things right but not knowing how. Literally bursting bubbles, tears spilling down cheeks.
If this resonates with you, there’s no specific path for you to take with this person — what you do with this information is up to you. That being said, the advice I’m feeling is for you to deeply consider the situation and if there can be a way forward for you, maybe with a level-headed conversation about boundaries and how to work together. I do get the feeling that the person dreaming of you is trying their best, and if they apologize they really do mean it, even if they still make the same mistakes repeatedly. There’s a sense of emotional dysregulation here or immaturity on their side, which feels hard because they struggle against it. Definitely a specific message for maybe only a few people, but I hope that at least gives some insight!
Keywords: sister, red-faced, tears/snot, roses, skinned knees, tantrum, car/car keys, drinking
PS Feel free to let me know if it resonates with you and if you have any feedback!
#2: 🌿🌞 Sunbeam + Water + Branch 🌞🌿
This is a very dreamy energy (lol), and feels very nostalgic, very different from the first group message. Maybe a school friend or someone from uni. I get the image of them looking down a bit absently, tracing their fingers over an open hardback book with a red cover. This is someone you may have not seen for a little while, or perhaps won’t see for the summer (if you’re in Northern hemisphere). I get the image of stolen glances and them looking at you while you’re with a group of people/friends, and then wishing they could tell you how they feel. It’s possible they’ve been a bit unconscious in their feelings for you in the past, but I feel they’re aware of them now. Curious, maybe pining a bit. I get the image of a 90s boy haircut, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Wants to say something but feels like there’s some kind of emotional distance to cross. Unlikely they will say anything about how they feel at this time, or even the next time you see each other if you’re away for a bit. Feeling it out for sure.
Keywords: summer, Coca Cola, red, red nail polish, sea swimming, shy, magazines, bicycles
PS Feel free to let me know if it resonates with you and if you have any feedback!
#3: 🌊 Waves 🌊
Lot more angst in this group. Someone feeling very angry with themselves over how things were left between you if you’re not talking, or how they’ve been unable to communicate well if you are in contact. This has a stronger emotional/spiritual connection than like #2, and feels more like a partner/former partner. There’s a volatility here and the image of someone frustratedly punching into their hand. The anger feels directed at themselves, and there’s the awareness of their own emotional blockage(s). For some of you, they may be trying to come up with ways to approach you or talk about how they feel/what’s going on, but it feels like they’re coming at it from a pretty rigid headspace. Trying to “fix” things and pushing against harder emotions. They don’t feel necessarily toxic or cruel, but maybe create a lot of their own problems through trying to “tough it out” or use their head to mend things instead of allowing themselves to soften and feel things through. I don’t get the feeling either way that you are in contact or not, but in either case they are trying to muscle through their frustration right now which feels hard. I don’t feel any advice for you, beyond that it’s good to remind yourself you can’t do the work for someone. Sometimes you have to let someone struggle through the hard bits on their own time and terms.
Keywords: rock, wrestle(r), tea tree, masculine, hands, thick eyebrows, clenched jaw
PS Feel free to let me know if it resonates with you and if you have any feedback!
#4 🌱🌾Sunny Meadow 🌾🌱
This energy feels very peaceful, and I get that this is either a past life connection you haven’t met yet or you have, but have not been in contact for a long, long time (potentially many years). You could also have met this person recently or briefly, but don’t know them very well yet. There’s a patient energy to it, earthy and contant. Like the way a tree experiences life and seasons, this love for you feels eternal. It’s a semi-conscious tether to you, like regardless of what this person is doing in their day-to-day life, you are on the back burner of their mind. It’s a constant, soul-deep love. I’d go so far to say it’s so deeply rooted that it connects to the cosmic river. So eternal, so ethereal while also completely in Gaia/Earth energy. Hard to put into words but if you resonate with this, you’ll know the feeling I talk about. Like so chilled out and in bliss, completely straddling human time and the eternal present.
Keywords: green, earthy, moss, stone face, wooden idol, old gods, river of stars. eternity.
PS Feel free to let me know if it resonates with you and if you have any feedback!
#pick a card#pick a pile#tarotcommunity#tarot#tarot reading#divination#pac reading#tarot pac#free tarot#free tarot reading#loa#law of assumption#idk what tags to use lol#channeled message#channeled reading
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Her Portrait
𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝙰𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚢𝚎𝚗 𝚡 𝙵𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚘𝚗 (𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝); 𝙰𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚢𝚎𝚗 𝚡 𝚈/𝚗 𝚅𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚗 (𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝).
𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: 𝙵𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚏𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚢. 𝙶𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛.
𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚎! 𝚅𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔! 𝙺𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚜𝚎. 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 (?). 𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚔! 𝙰𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚍. 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍. 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚍𝚞𝚝𝚢
𝙰/𝙽: 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚜 (𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛, 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚎𝚝𝚌.) 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝙴𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚐𝚎. 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗!
Floris was so nervous that her knees were shaking. Today she will marry Prince Aemond, who is steeped in madness. She was his fourth wife. The others had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
She stood before the doors of the temple, where they would be pronounced husband and wife. She will say goodbye to her kin and goodbye to the Baratheon name.
Her father, who held her hand in his, smiled proudly, finally he will give his daughter to the ruling family and he will be inbred to the crown.
The door opened and the guests fell silent. They rose to greet the bride. At the end of the hall stood Prince Aemond, the current King, the Dowager Queen, and the High Septon. Floris glanced at the guests and saw the bored looks, the women whispering to each other and the men sneering or averting their eyes.
Floris understood the court, this was the fourth time they had gathered here and they expected a fifth. What the young girl had feared. She was afraid to look into her husband's eyes when her father took her into his arms. She was afraid of the Supreme Septon's calm and weary voice. The queen's look that said nothing. The contemptuous eyes of the young king. She wanted to run away, she turned her head slightly towards the hall where her father sat and met his stern eyes, which could be understood without words.
There was feasting, drinking and dancing, and the girl was left alone in the banquet hall. Her husband had disappeared after the vows. The queen sat next to her, her look radiating a kind of hostility and non-acceptance, it seemed to the girl. Only Floris couldn't figure out if it was because of her or the situation that was developing.
"I am glad you have become Aemond's wife. Your father praised you and your merits. It's rare to meet such an educated lady," Alicent elegantly cut off a small piece of meat and placed it in her mouth.
A grimace appeared on Floris' face for a second, her voice drenched in fake friendliness, as if she was holding back poison.
"I am also happy that my husband is the second prince. It is a great honor," Floris muttered.
"I would like to give you some advice," Alicent turned to the girl who had put down the cutlery.
"I will accept any instruction from you," the girl said respectfully.
"Do not force your feelings on him. And listen to him, if he tells you not to go out, you must not go out," her quiet voice was ominous.
"I realize that. My father raised me to be the kind of person a man might like. "Gentle and understanding," the current princess replied, and Alicent curled her lips.
"I hope so. But my son is not any man, he... has given his heart to another... and that is something even I could not fix," the queen turned away, indicating that she would not continue the conversation.
Floris swallowed. She knew of whom Her Majesty spoke. Everyone knew.
The current princess had personally met with this 'mysterious' girl. And their meeting had left her with conflicting emotions. Floris shook her head, avoiding the image that formed in her mind, azure eyes and white hair...
Several moons had passed since then, but the girl only saw her lord husband at family dinners. The rest of the time she was alone. Talking to the queen was a dead end, and talking to Princess Helena was difficult because she was in her own thoughts. So Floris preferred the company of the young ladies of the court, all the girls were her age and had one thing in common - gossip!
"I am so sorry for you, Princess," the red-haired lady murmured.
"Why?" Floris put the cup of tea on the saucer.
"How! You have tied your fate to a mad prince..." the lady continued conspiratorially.
"I don't want to talk about my husband," the princess did not like the subject, although she agreed with the ladies.
"I heard that after the death of Y/n Velaryon he fell into madness, in order to subdue him the queen married him, pity no girls were found after that," the lady in the green dress and the black hair giggled.
“I beg you," Floris tried to stop the lady, but it was too late.
"And I have heard from the servants that there is a room in the castle where the body of the dead princess lies. Prince Aemond couldn't bear to part with her, so he hid her from everyone," the lady in blue giggled strangely.
"What?" Floris was astonished.
"Goodness, my dear, have you not heard of this?" the lady in blue clarified.
"Could Y/n Velaryon's body not be found?" the princess inquired.
"Most likely, as soon as Prince Aemond learned of her death, he immediately appeared to retrieve her, which is why she wasn't found. She was killed by Green Faction assassins," the red-haired lady snickered, taking an obscenely loud sip of her tea.
Floris became uncomfortable and she changed the subject to the scandal that had recently occurred in court. The ladies immediately giggled and chattered, distracted from the subject of the prince. To them it was just another amusing rumor, but to the young princess it was a real tragedy at the cost of a life. The girl's gaze wandered until it caught a silhouette in a half-closed window that quickly passed him by, and only then did Floris realize that it was a tower window.
"The tower? How long has she been here?
Floris walked beside her lord husband while the Queen Dowager and Princess Helena walked ahead.
The queen insisted on a family walk where she dared not include the young king. Alicent knew that Aegor could ruin this peaceful walk with his lewd jokes.
Floris' palms were sweating and she held them in front of her, trying to escape the awkwardness that hung between her and the prince.
"What are you doing today, my prince?" the girl decided to start a conversation.
"I had a morning workout planned for today that had to be canceled. But I will take care of her when our walk is over," Aemond replied neutrally.
The young princess noticed that her husband did not ask about her affairs. In a way, the girl thought it was a good thing, because her plans were...boring.
The conversation was over, so the girl began to wander her eyes again, and again and again her gaze fell on the tower.
"I find this tower very mysterious," Floris began from a distance, Aemond looked in the same direction she was looking.
"Hmm," the prince nodded, and for a moment the girl saw his gentle gaze and how the corners of his lips lifted.
"What is this tower?" asked Floris.
"You will not be interested, my lady, it is used to store various... things," Aemond chose his words carefully.
"For garbage?" the girl clarified.
"No!" the prince replied a little irritated and abruptly.
"I'm sorry... "Floris hastened to answer.
"It's you I apologize to, I was too harsh and didn't explain it to you, these things are precious to someone, there's no rubbish in there and there never will be. Everything is stored there...it's just that someone doesn't like...clutter," Aemond's tone became calm again.
"To the queen?" the princess clarified.
"Oh...yes...to the queen," said the second prince more dreamily.
Floris staggered, not expecting such intonation and behavior from him, but soon Aemond came to his senses. He said nothing more and the young lady did not want to ask. Now she was curious. Ignoring the queen's words, which were heard in the background of the girl's mind, she decided to see what was inside the tower.
Quietly, the girl walked down the round stairs and looked around. A small room awaited her at the end, with a few boarded-up crates spread out on it, and then... there was a wall. A man-sized painting hung on the wall; in fact, Floris only assumed it was a painting because it was wrapped in a red cloth.
The princess listened to the noises and when she realized that no one was there, she pulled the canvas and froze in surprise.
Princess Y/n's azure eyes looked up at her, her blonde curls gathered into an intricate hairstyle, her blue cloak draped over her shoulder, indicating that she belonged to House Velaryon.
Floris reached up to touch the picture frame, trying to find a spot that would open the secret door hidden behind the painting. Even in her home castle there were hidden passages, and most of the time they were hidden behind the painting.
Suddenly the girl heard the sharp sound of a door slamming and hurried footsteps below. She threw the cloth back on and hurried to hide behind the drawers. She was ready to kiss the man who had left them here and put them so well that the girl was hidden from view, but she could see the wall, where part of the picture was visible.
The footsteps came closer and Floris held her breath. She peeked out from behind the drawers to see the man who had approached the painting.
Floris did not realize what she was feeling when she saw Aemond's back. She realized he was connected to this place, but deep in her heart she hoped it was someone else.
Aemond pulled down the canvas, admired the portrait for a few seconds, then reached out his hand from the right side of the painting, grabbed something, and pulled. The princess heard a mechanism work and the painting opened. The young man made his way into the hidden room, leaving a small slit behind him.
Floris sat behind the drawers and listened to the prince's footsteps, the rustling of papers, the rustle of cloth and the creak of a chair. Then the girl heard a soft whisper.
"Oh, don't worry, my dear," Aemond said.
Floris concentrated on the sounds.
"I'm sorry for leaving you for so long. You are angry, aren't you? Oh, my love, my sun and moon, forgive me," the young man cooed.
The young princess's heart fluttered; she had never heard Aemond speak to anyone so lovingly and enthusiastically.She probably had a chance to get away unnoticed, but the girl's curiosity was aroused.
Boldly, she approached the painting cautiously and peered into the silk. Floris saw the prince sitting on a chair, cradling the girl in his arms. The princess could not see the face, but she guessed who it might be. Floris put her palm to her mouth and tried to stifle the sound.
"It can't be...she's alive?"
Floris tried to get a closer look, she was alarmed by the way the girl was lying in Aemond's arms. The princess hurried back to hide behind the drawers as soon as she saw Aemond get up and walk toward the bed.
"I'm sorry, my love, my life, I have dinner with my family tonight, my mom doesn't want to separate us, but she would like to see me with... never mind" Aemond was taken aback and silent, there was the sound of a kiss and hurried footsteps.
Floris staggered to a halt. She heard her husband's footsteps and the door opening at the end, but she waited. The girl realized that she couldn't go into the room now and convince herself of her suspicion. They would be looking for her! For there was dinner tonight. And the princess ducked out of the tower to get ready for her family, thinking about how to sneak back in.
Just as the girl had thought, the dinner passed in the same tense atmosphere. Floris couldn't get used to it.
After dinner, she returned to her chambers.
"Ollie," the princess called to her faithful maid.
"Yes, my lady," Ollie left her business and ran to her hostess.
"Tell everyone tomorrow that I'm not feeling well, call the healer for me at first light, and then don't let anyone see me until evening," Floris explained, rising from her chair.
"Understood, but why?" the maid asked, concerned about the actions of her young mistress.
"I have to check on something, so I need a reason not to be at dinner," the girl explained.
"My lady, I have a bad feeling, perhaps you will give up the idea that has visited your beautiful head," the maid dropped to her knees at the princess's feet.
"It'll be all right, I'll be careful. But I need to be sure of something," Floris smiled and hurried to her bed.
In the morning, the healer came in, Floris acting like a theater actress portraying extreme fatigue and pain.
"You have a rapid pulse, most likely a common ailment, I will give you a decoction of herbs. And I will advise you to go to bed. And everything will be wonderful," the old man said, placing a bottle of decoction on the table.
Ollie let no one into the room, only stepping aside when it was necessary to give the queen information about the second princess's well-being. In the evening, under the cover of night, Floris left her room and went to the right place. Again, the guards were nowhere near the tower, and the young princess confirmed the theory that only the prince knew about this place.
The girl climbed the round stairs and found herself once again beside the portrait, this time uncovered. The princess listened to the sound, afraid that her husband was here, but only the hum of the wind met her.
Exhaling, Floris found the mechanism on the side of the painting and pulled it. The painting creaked, clicked, and opened. The girl's face crumpled, not because of the noise, but because of the smell that immediately filled the corridor. The smell was mixed: flowers, incense, fragrant oil, and... rotting flesh. The princess covered her nose and went into the chambers. They were small, the entire space filled by the bed on which the body lay, hidden behind a thick veil. It seemed to Floris that a body was moving.
"Excuse me?" the princess tried, but was met with silence. She approached the bed, the smell intensifying.
Floris already realized who she would see under the veil and in what form. But she reached out and pulled off the cloth, cringing at the sight of the disfigured face. She froze in surprise and fear as she watched the white hair fall from Y/n Velaryon's face.
Respectfully, the princess turned away from the horrible sight. The once noble beauty of the young princess was gone, the Stranger had taken her and would not bring her back. Floris had seen Y/n a long time ago, but had never ceased to marvel at the Dragonstone princess' attractiveness. All she could do now was cover her mouth and try to keep from gagging.
"What are you doing here?" came the prince's stern voice.
Floris' heart froze, stopped beating. And her breath caught. She slowly turned to face the prince. His crazed eye stared at her. Is this her death?
"Did I tell you not to come in here?" Aemond asked his question as coldly as ever.
"I...I..." the princess tried to make an excuse, but she failed. It's hard to think of something in a situation like this, where there's no way you could come in here by mistake!
"You're no different from them..."
Floris stepped aside after noticing that the prince had approached Y/N's body.
"Roughly pulling off her head veil like that... She doesn't like sudden movements," Aemond sighed heavily, gently stroking his beautiful princess's hair.
"I don't understand, my prince, how..." the dark-haired girl was confused.
Aemond moved closer to Y/N's face and kissed her on the lips. Floris turned away again holding back vomit.
"They were betrayed by people they trusted. Rhaenyra decided to hide Y/n in Dorne, and turned to a supportive family. During the crossing, the coachman killed the princess. The traitors rushed to us to show us the body and thus prove their loyalty. But as soon as they shook off the cloth and our Y/n's face appeared before their eyes, their heads flew to the ground. Mother cared deeply for the young princess, and she fell into grief. And for me, that was the end...There was a chance we could be together at the end. But what those things did..." Aemond snuggled against the girl's body again, his long hair falling down, warding off the world and Floris' eyes.
Now the princess knew the truth. The whole story. And Floris felt sorry for Aemond and Y/n, who loved each other but couldn't be together. And herself...for herself, she was afraid, what would happen now?
At that moment, the sound of heels was heard on the stairs, and the panting Queen Dowager burst into the room. She was horrified when she saw her sister-in-law and the prince lying on the bed.
"Aemond..." the queen said cautiously.
Floris was distracted by her and didn't hear the clash of sword metal. But she felt a sharp pain in her stomach, blood spurted from her mouth. She collapsed to the floor and looked shocked at her husband, who was wiping the blood from his sword with a cloth.
The princess thought that the queen would scream and call for a Healer. But she just sighed heavily and scolded her son.
"You could have restrained your fervor," Alicent said resentfully as she watched the young beauty's eyes fill with tears.
"I asked no one to come in here," the prince replied calmly.
The former queen looked sadly at Floris and crouched down beside the girl's body.
"I'm sorry, I hope the Stranger treats you warmly," Alicent folded her hands in front of her and said a short prayer.
Floris saw all this and she wanted to scream! She wanted to cry, to jump up and run away, but she was lying on the cold stone floor and life was draining from her body. Gods, what injustice is this? One last breath and another young princess left this world.
"How will I communicate with her father now?" the woman said unhappily.
"You always found ways, mother. I'll get someone to clean this place up," Aemond lovingly covered Y/n's body with a veil and left her alone.
Alicent looked at the painting, sighed heavily and left Sleeping Beauty's chambers, it seems she will leave her son alone this time.
A/N: this idea is three months old...I hope I don't get blocked for this. Well, they shouldn't, since they can post p&rn pics here.....
#hotd#house of the dragon#x reader#aemond fic#aemond fanfiction#aemond targaryen#aemond x reader#aemond x you#hotd aemond
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A dragon's heart, part 13.
Pairing: Barbarian!Bakugou Katsuki x female!reader
Summary: The dragonblood tribe is known for being cruel, barbarian warriors that slaughter, loot and rape all places they pass through. They are feared among the villagers and even bigger cities. Having lost most of their women to a plague, they're trying to ensure their tribe's survival by kidnapping women from other places. However, they're not the only monsters in human form out there. When y/n experiences this first hand, she has no choice but to ask for help from no other but the barbarian leader Katsuki Bakugou himself.
Disclaimer: mentions of injuries, mentions of rape and abuse, marking, trauma symptoms, trust issues
[Please don't read if you are sensible to or triggered by the topics mentioned above.]
Note:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13
Series Masterlist
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Katsuki wakes up in a great mood. Yawning, he stretches his limbs. He feels a bit sore after last night's endeavors but he got a hella good orgasm out of it, so he doesn't feel like complaining. He stares at the ceiling of the tent with a big grin on his face. He's finally got a mate. And not just any mate, but y/n. In his mind, he replays some of the scenes when he had y/n bouncing on his dick drunk on pleasure last night. A warm tingle runs down his spine. Goddamit y/n looked so good beneath him.
He pats the space at his side in an attempt to find y/n but he only comes up with an empty space. He turns his head to see where his new mate is hiding only to see the other side of the bed empty. Sitting up, he furrows his brows. Where is she?, he thinks. Listening intently, he tries to locate y/n. Maybe she's taking a piss, he concludes and slowly gets up. Quickly, he pulls the discarded linen pants from yesterday over his butt and makes his way to the bathing hut. Without knocking, he enters the room.
That's where he finds y/n. She's leaning against the tub cowering on the floor. She's still butt-naked and dried blood clings to her neck and chest. Katsuki frowns. Didn't he take care of the mark? He remembers pushing a clean cloth against the wound to stop it from bleeding. For how long did she continue to bleed? Did she go in here in an attempt to dress the wound? Why didn't she wake him up?
„Hey, y/n.“, Katsuki calls out to her softly.
When y/n doesn't respond, he steps closer to her and crouches down to her level. „Y/n.“, he tries again. Carefully he touches her shoulder and tries to shake her awake. Y/n's head lolls to the side unconsciously. Katsuki can feel worry bubble up in his chest. He touches her hand. She's ice cold. Did she spend the entire night here on the floor?, he wonders worriedly.
Carefully, he picks her up and carries her back to the bed. Softly, he lays her down and pulls the warm, soft fur blankets over her. As he pulls the blanket up to her collarbone, his gaze lingers on the fresh bite mark on her neck. Again, he furrows his brows. The wound has an unnatural red-violet colour. The tissue is clearly inflamed and infected. Carefully, he reaches up to the wound. Y/n flinches at his touch. By now the wound should start to heal and it also shouldn't hurt anymore.
Absent-mindedly, Katsuki touches his own neck. Usually, mates mark each other during their first night together. He doesn't blame y/n for not returning the favor last night. He hoped they would do it again in the morning and y/n would finally make him hers. It's not uncommon for a mate to be overwhelmed with emotions both mentally and physically during the marking. Considering y/n is an outsider, he kind of already expected it.
Katsuki keeps staring at y/n's neck. He's unsure what to do. Mate marks are not treated as wounds. They're left to heal by themselves. Creams and bandages that could help the healing process also usually lessen the scarring. And mate marks are meant to scar. Having a very prominent mate mark proved having a strong mate and a strong bond. That's why he put all his force behind marking y/n last night. He wanted to prove to her that he is the best mate she could wish for.
However, right now he doubts this practice. The wound looks bad and his instinct tells him to rub alcohol on it. Katsuki chews on his lips. Maybe he should also let the healer look over this. He's never heard of a case where mate marks get infected. Eventually, Katsuki decides to clean the wound and put a bandage on it. It's against the practice of his tribe, but he puts y/n before tradition. He looked forward to showing y/n around the tribe today and letting everyone see the great mark he left on her. Somehow he doubts that y/n is going anywhere today. Clearly, she needs rest.
Katsuki stays around for a while massaging y/n's feet and legs in an attempt to warm her up. When he's sure that y/n is warming up a bit and that she won't be waking up anytime soon, Katsuki leaves her to slumber. After getting himself some breakfast and catching up with some of his men, he returns to y/n's side. He takes some fruit and bread along with him. Y/n must be hungry after everything that happened yesterday.
When Katsuki enters the tent again, he notices that y/n is still asleep. For a moment, he ponders on whether or not to let her sleep. Eventually, he decides that she can nap later. He puts the food on the nightstand and pours y/n a glass of water. Then, he sits down at y/n's side of the bed. Carefully, he leans over to her. Gently, he strokes some stray hair out of her face and caresses her cheek with his thumb.
„Y/n, wake up.“, he calls out to her softly, „I've brought you breakfast. Don't you want to get up?“
For a moment, y/n doesn't react. However, when Katsuki starts scratching her head lightly, she begins to stir. Katsuki feels oddly relieved upon seeing her gain consciousness again. Y/n stirs and twists uncomfortably in the bed sheets. She turns to her side, away from Katsuki. Katsuki watches her with worried eyes.
The world appears infront of her in a haze. Sight and sound appear distorted to her until everything slowly becomes clearer. Her whole body feels sore and there's a biting pain that shoots up her neck. It takes a moment for her to recall what had happened last night. Then, she remembers. Pleasure. Katsuki. His lips on her neck. Then, his teeth sinking into her.
Y/n bolts up at the memory, almost colliding with Katsuki's head that loomed over her. Katsuki retreats immediately when y/n sits up. Her hand flies to her neck, touching the wound he left behind. Y/n lets out a sharp hiss. It must feel as painful as it looks, he guesses.
„Y/n.“, he says carefully. Something tells him the next few moments will be important for them.
Y/n's head flies around and her eyes meet his. Her eyes widen. Then, she scrambles away from him, to the other side of the bed. She pulls the blanket with her trying to cover herself. He can see how her breathing and heartbeat pick up. This time not in pleasure, but in fear. His heart aches.
„Y/n... what's going on? What did I do?“, he asks her. He tries to sound calm and quiet. He doesn't want to scare her away. When y/n doesn't react, he tries to reach out to her, to touch her cheek softly but y/n roughly pushes his hand away.
„Go... away...“, y/n's voice sounds hoarse. The look in her eyes is blank. Katsuki doesn't understand what she says but he doubts it's a profession of love. He pushes his hand through his hair. Worry overcomes him. This is not how he thought their first day together as mates would be. „Y/n...“, he tries again and reaches out to her.
„Go away!“, y/n yells louder while using her foot to push Katsuki's hand away. Katsuki watches her for a moment. There's something behind her eyes now. Fire? No, spite. Katsuki leans back and sighs. There's a lump forming in his throat and his eyes itch. There's no use talking to her now.
He watches her for another moment, just as she is watching his every move. He guesses she watches him for very different reasons though. She looks at him like prey watches its predator, calculating when the blowing kill comes, when it's the right moment to take flight. Slowly, he gets up. He places the fruit and water next to her.
„Eat.“, he tells her. He's sure that's a word she has picked up. He turns his back to her and looks for some clothes for her to wear. When he found some, he gently places them at the edge of the back. He points at the bathing hut.
„I'll heat up some water for you. To take a bath.“, he tells her.
Then he gets up to leave her be. He sees she doesn't want him around right now. He will leave her for now in hopes that she will calm herself.
~*~*~*~
Finally, he's gone. Y/n relaxes a bit when Katsuki leaves the tent. Her eyes wander to the water Katsuki put in her reach. Greedily, she grabs the cup and chugs down the cool liquid. By now, her head is pounding as is the wound on her neck. She wishes she had a mirror to see how bad it really is.
Y/n leans against the headboard and replays what happened yesterday night in her mind. Everything was fine, more than fine, until Katsuki sunk his teeth into her.
„Gods...“, y/n groans and rubs her face. What on earth was Katsuki thinking? Who does this kind of thing? What is wrong with these people?
She remembers how Katsuki eventually let go of her. There are very vague images of him tucking her in and snuggling into her afterward. Clearly, he did not see anything wrong with what he did. She remembers lying awake for some time. She can't even remember how long she must've laid there. Time was a construct that didn't exist at that very moment. She waited until Katsuki was deep asleep until she slipped out of bed and stumbled into the bathing hut.
She felt like throwing up. She felt the wet blood on her neck and chest. His spill clinging onto the inside of her thighs. She tried washing both of it away but the water was ice cold and her hands were going numb. She remembers sliding down at the side of the tub. Crying. Panicking. Wishing she'd be dead instead of here.
Y/n shivers at the memory. She doesn't want to be dead. Things must've been really bad when those were the thoughts that crossed her mind. She touches the inside of her thighs. His dried spent still clings to her skin. Suddenly, she feels disgusted. Not of herself, but of him. How could he not understand when she told him to stop? No matter the language, when someone screams at the top of their lungs in fear, one must notice it. Was he so drunk on pleasure? She wouldn't put it past him.
Slowly, she tries to get up. Her legs feel wobbly and for a moment she's afraid that they won't hold her weight. Carefully, she stumbles into the bathing hut. The hut is warmer than it was last night. She notices how hot water drips through a pipe into the bathtub. She stumbles closer and lets her hand touch the warm water. After using the chamber pot, she steps into the hot water. She hisses as she sits down. For now, she refrains from using the nice soaps and oils that are placed next to the tub. She doubts it will be good for the wound on her neck. In careful movements, she washes away the grime, blood, and semen from her body. Lastly, she tries to clean the wound. It burns as she dabs a clean cloth against it. Eventually, the pain gets so bad that she gives up cleaning the wound.
After giving her hair a good wash, she steps out of the tub and dries herself off. She puts on the clean clothes Katsuki left behind for her. After looking for some rubbing alcohol and fresh bandages to no avail, she gives up and settles on the bed again. She presses a clean cloth dipped in cool water against the wound on her neck and tries to figure out what to do next.
Somehow she doubts that Katsuki tried to kill her last night. Firstly, if he wanted to kill her, he would've been successful. Y/n cannot take on Katsuki in a fight. Secondly, she doubts that what happened last night happened due to Katsuki's ill intent towards her. Absolutely nothing that happened beforehand, or afterwards for that matter, hints towards Katsuki being cross with her. She saw the worry and hurt in his eyes when she woke up. Which makes what happened yesterday a bigger mystery to her.
Why on earth would you hurt someone so badly while being intimate with them? Katsuki was so soft and loving with her. The way he touched her, the way he made her feel... Y/n quickly shakes her head at that thought. She doesn't want to remember how good he made her feel. Right now she wants to be angry with him. For hurting her like this, for not listening to her. Or at least not noticing her.
She wants to blame him, she really does. But ultimately, everything leads back to her poor decisions. She was angry with him yesterday, for deciding things over her head. And instead of being cautious of him, she jumps into bed with him. Should she really be surprised at how this turned out?
She sighs and dips the cloth into the cool water again. Pressing it against her neck, she slides under the covers again. She pulls them over her head and hopes they would swallow her whole. Take her back to her mother's bed where she hid under the covers when a storm raged outside their tent.
Maybe for a while, she could pretend to be there instead of the place she chose to be in right now.
~*~*~*~
Katsuki is not sure what to do next.
After he poured y/n a hot bath, he's standing outside his tent lost in thought. He tries to come up with something he could do for y/n, to make her feel better. He hasn't got much time to dwell on this question. Soon, his men spot him and drag him back to the war tent where he's forced to listen to a bunch of questions and make a bunch of decisions concerning their tribe. He postpones all raids until the near future. He decides that treating their men and strengthening their numbers is a priority right now. He sends small hunting parties into the mountains and adjacent forests to gather food.
When he's worked through most of his men's concerns, he slumps down onto a seat. He massages his temple. He can already feel a headache starting to form.
„Yo, Bakugo, my man. You ok?“, Kirishima asks him uncertainly.
Katsuki didn't notice that his best friend was still in the room.
„Yeah, I'm fine.“, he grumbles and gets up. Kirishima gives him a look that says I-am-not-so-sure-about-that. Katsuki ignores him and steers towards the exit. He doesn't want to talk to Kirishima right now. Unlucky for him, his friend looks right through him and gets a hold of his arm.
„You know, it's not good for the tribe when his leader is somewhere else with his thoughts whilst making important decisions.“, Kirishima condemns him.
„I'm not somewhere else with my thoughts!“, Katsuki snaps at him and pulls his arms free. Kirishima is quick to block the exit of the tent.
„I get it, dude. There are a lot of heavy decisions to make. If you ask me, so far you're doing good. Some men might not like you restricting our tribe's activity outside our territory, but it's the right thing to do right now.“, Kirishima tries to encourage him.
Katsuki groans and turns away from his friend. He does not want to talk more politics with him.
„Or is this about something else?“, his friend says uncertainly.
Damn this Kirishima, why is he so quick about catching onto things?, Katsuki thinks. When Katsuki doesn't answer him, Kirishima is quick to press on about it.
„Is this about y/n?“, his friend asks. Katsuki rolls his eyes and grabs a cup. He doesn't even know what's in it, but he quickly chugs the liquid down.
„Because we heard you last night. Well done, dude!“, Kirishima grins and pats his arm. Katsuki is quick to push his hand off of him.
„Shut up, Kirishima!“, he barks at him and the red-haired man looks at him stunned.
„So... it's not good then?“, Kirishima guesses.
Katsuki doesn't look at his subordinate. He is weighing his options here. He could tell him and ask for advice. Kirishima seems to be better with the ladies than he is. Even though things between him and his mate aren't ideal either. Then again, Kirishima is a giant blabber mouth and telling him could mean telling the entire tribe. That's the last thing he needs. He takes a deep breath.
„No, it's not good.“, he tells him. Kirishima is quiet for a moment before carefully asking: „Why that? She didn't like it?“
Katsuki scoffs.
„I don't know. I thought she liked it. Until this morning. She looked... disturbed.“, he says getting more quiet at the end of his sentence.
„Why that? Did your enormous dick scare the shit out of her?“, Kirishima grins and Katsuki is quick to hit his friend's arm with his fist.
„It's not funny, Kirishima! This is serious!“, he barks at him. His friend gets quiet and a concerned look on his face.
„Walk me through it. What happened?“, Kirishima asks more solemnly. Katsuki scratches the back of his head.
„Dunno... Yesterday was fine. We enjoyed our time together. I marked her, tucked her in and we went to sleep. This morning, I found her in the bathing hut, all cold 'n shit. The wound on her neck looks fucking bad, dude.“, he tries to explain. He can see how his friend has trouble keeping up with his explanation.
„Alright...“, Kirishima says and ponders about it for a moment, „How bad looks the mark?“
„Inflamed, infected.“, Katsuki tells him.
„My mate's mark also took some time to heal. A lot longer than a mate mark usually takes to heal. Maybe it's because they're outsiders. If it's really bad, let a healer take a look at it.“, Kirishima tells him.
Katsuki snorts. He doesn't want another person to look at y/n's mark. Well he does, but he wants others to look at it in awe. He doesn't want others to know that it's not going the way it's supposed to go.
„Hey“, Kirishima puts a hand on his shoulder, „If it's really infected, this is not something to be taken lightly. An infected wound can be dangerous. Do you really want to put y/n's health on the line just because it would make you look bad?“
Immediately, Katsuki feels bad. He remembers the promise he gave to Drami. He wants to be a good mate and he definitely doesn't want y/n to suffer. He wants her to be happy and healthy. Pushing off his friend's hand, he agrees with him Kirishima flashes him a toothy grin.
„See, she'll be fine. Her mark will heal and things will be alright!“, he tries to cheer up his grumpy friend. Katsuki's facial expression still looks worried. After a moment Katsuki carefully asks him:
„How did she look at you? The day after I mean?“
Kirishima is taken aback at this question. They rarely talk about his mate. It's a touchy subject Katsuki usually knows to avoid. Kirishima sighs and sits down next to his friend.
„I mean... things were different for us. She was chosen for me and... I don't know, I did what had to be done. I don't have to tell you that she didn't exactly... want it.“, Kirishima waves his hand infront of his body.
„All of this. Me. Truth is, she probably despised me the day after. Maybe she still does, I don't know.“, Kirishima's shoulders slump down.
„I do my best. I want to be a good mate to her. But it's hard when the other person doesn't want to be with you.“, Kirishima becomes more quiet at the end.
Katsuki remains silent as well. He doesn't know what to tell his friend. After all, he was the one who chose the woman for his friend. He's the reason why Kirishima is feeling miserable with his mateship.
„But hey,“ Kirishima claps his friend's back, „I'm sure it's different for you two! I've seen the way y/n looks at you! She's smitten with you!“
Katsuki stays silent for a while.
„What if she isn't? She barely could look at me today. And not in the I-am-shy-because-we-just-did-it kind of way. More like she was scared of me. Maybe even resentful.“, he confesses to his friend.
Now it's Kirishima who doesn't know what to say for a moment.
„Are you sure? I mean did you give her any reason to be scared or angry with you?“, Kirishima asks carefully. He knows how explosive and rude his friend can be. Katsuki scoffs.
„I've told you what happened. Everything was fine last night and today she wakes up being all shitty towards me!“, Katsuki barks back. Kirishima takes no offense to his friend's tone. He can see the worry on Katsuki's face. He's sure his friend is just hurting.
„Maybe it's because of the wound. Pain can twist someone's mood. Maybe she blames you for her pain.“, Kirishima says carefully.
„Why would she?!“, Katsuki exclaims. Kirishima looks at his friend for a long while. Is he really this oblivious?
„Because you're the one that hurt her?“, he tells his leader carefully. This shuts Katsuki up for a moment.
„I didn't mean to hurt her“, Katsuki says quietly. Kirishima can see regret forming in his friend's face.
„I just wanted to give her the best mate mark I could give. Something she could be proud of.“, he mumbles under his breath. Kirishima catches onto it. He pats his friend's back understandingly.
„You sure that she got that? She's an outsider, remember.“, Kirishima tells him compassionately. Katsuki's ears perk up.
„Do you think that she thinks I hurt her on purpose?“, Katsuki says and Kirishima shrugs.
„I don't know much about outsider's mating traditions, so I wouldn't take my word for it.“, Kirishima replies.
Kirishima pushes himself up again and he pats his leader's shoulder. „Let's go to the healer's tent. We've got to check up on our injured men anyways and you can ask a healer to take a look at y/n.“, he tells his friend. Katsuki nods and gets up as well.
Internally, he's already making plans on how to make up with y/n. He can't have his mate running around thinking he wants to hurt her.
~*~*~*~
Katsuki returns to their tent after y/n has woken up from her nap. She's just changed the cloth one more time when Katsuki, Kirishima and an older man enter the tent. Immediately, y/n is on high alert. What on earth is Katsuki planning this time? Her eyes immediately dart around the room looking for a suitable weapon. Luckily, there are many to choose from Katsuki's collection. She manages to grab a silver dagger and hides it behind her back, pressing herself against the headboard of the bed.
Katsuki enters the tent first lying eyes upon y/n who presses herself against the back of his bed. There's a wild look in her eyes. He's not sure whether it's fear or anger. Or maybe both. He gestures for the two men to wait by the entrance. Kirishima entangles the healer in a conversation to give Katsuki some kind of privacy.
Katsuki walks closer to y/n and sits down at the edge of the bed. Y/n holds his gaze. She definitely looks angry, Katsuki determines. He moves his hand towards her neck but y/n catches his arm, holding his wrist in a strong grip. Her eyes flicker towards the other two men. She's contemplating threatening Katsuki with the hidden dagger.
„Y/n.“
Her gaze flickers back to Katsuki who is still looking into her eyes. He says something and points towards the wound on her neck. With his other hand, he carefully pulls away the cloth that covers the wound. Upon seeing the wound, his expression sours. At least he feels bad seeing his work, y/n thinks.
Katsuki turns around and says something to the men waiting on the other side of the room. He moves away and y/n relaxes a bit. Katsuki steps away and makes room for the older man he brought along. The man puts down a basket and asks y/n something. Katsuki answers for her. The man keeps his eye locked on the wound on her neck. He doesn't move to touch her. Katsuki tells the man something and the man starts taking out medical supplies out of the basket.
Y/n sees fresh bandages, cloths, a salve and a small bottle with a translucent liquid in it. It's probably alcohol, she thinks. Did Katsuki really bring someone here to treat the very wound he created? She moves away when the healer tries to touch her neck. She doesn't want anybody touching the wound. She notices how Katsuki gets angry at her being unwilling to let this stranger treat her wound. This, in return, makes her angry. She trusted him to touch her and where has this gotten her? Why should she let a stranger touch her? When the man moves to touch her again, she finally pulls the hidden dagger from its hiding place and holds it to the man's neck.
„Don't fucking touch me!“, she hisses at the man. She almost pities the man and his shocked expression. Clearly, the man was here to treat her wounds and not to hurt her further. He means no harm and it's probably unfair that she holds a dagger to his pulse point right now. She's not sure why she does it. Clearly, her wound needs treatment.
„Y/n!“, Katsuki's voice booms through the tent. He's fuming. How can she humiliate him infront of their head healer? Kirishima snickers behind him.
„It's not funny, Kirishima.“, he barks at his friend.
„Wel... it's a little bit funny. Seems like your mate is as thickheaded as you when it comes to getting their wounds treated.“, Kirishima points out.
Meanwhile, the healer doesn't dare to move a muscle. Y/n looks as if she's serious about ramming that dagger in his neck. Kirishima pushes past Katsuki. Carefully, he puts his hand on y/n's and pushes her hand down.
„Now, now, y/n, let's keep this civil.“, he tells her. The healer sighs in relief when y/n lowers her hand.
„I don't want strange men touching me!“, y/n yells even though she knows none of the men will understand her.
Kirishima looks at her with pity and y/n can feel her face become red with shame. She must look like a cornered animal and it makes her sick. Kirishima gestures for Katsuki to follow them outside. The three men leave the tent again. The medical supplies stay on the bed with y/n.
Y/n can feel hot tears burning behind her eyes but she refuses to let them flow. She must already look pitiful enough. Instead, she reaches for the medical supplies. She pours the rubbing alcohol onto a clean cloth. She moves to put it on the wound and hisses when the harsh liquid comes in contact with the inflamed tissue. The pain is blinding. She forces herself to keep her hand in place. The wound must be cleaned. It's probably already too late and an infection is forming, but still. Finally, she can feel tears streaming down her face. The pain is just too much. She pants in paint and starts rocking back and forth in an attempt to distract her from the pain.
Y/n doesn't notice how Katsuki enters the tent again or how he watches her attempting to clean the wound. She also doesn't notice how Katsuki's face contorts in pain as well. Not physical pain, but emotional pain upon seeing his mate so miserable. He hates seeing her like this. It's even worse knowing that he caused this.
Katsuki moves towards her and sits on the bed again. Y/n is so blinded by her pain that she doesn't notice how close Katsuki is. Only when Katsuki touches her wrist, does she jolts back in surprise. Upon seeing Katsuki, she tries to move away from him but Katsuki keeps her locked in place. Her chest rises heavily upon being so close to him again.
„Y/n“, Katsuki says softly, „Just let me take care of you.“
Y/n stares at him in bewilderment but doesn't move away anymore. Katsuki lets go of her wrist and takes the cleaning cloth from her. He pours more alcohol on it and moves towards her neck. Y/n flinches away.
„I know it hurts, love, but we gotta clean it.“, he mumbles and moves towards her neck again.
Y/n's hand flies towards his other hand. She grips it tightly. Her nails dig into the back of his hand. She looks at him pleadingly. Katsuki just shakes his head. In a swift movement, he puts the alcohol-drenched cloth onto the wound again and y/n lets out a howl in pain. She curls forward and Katsuki pulls her against his shoulder. Katsuki dabs the cloth onto the wound cleaning it properly. He can hear y/n cry and convulse in pain and his heart feels heavy. He never meant to hurt her, he just wanted to fulfill his promise and be a good mate.
When he's done cleaning the wound he applies the salve the healer brought along and wraps a clean bandage around her neck. Y/n doesn't make any attempt to push him away or murder him with his own dagger. He places her head back on the pillow when he's done. Y/n looks exhausted and pale. Katsuki touches her forehead. He imagines that she's slightly warm.
He brings y/n another cup of water and forces her to drink it. Y/n only drinks half of it before moving away. Katsuki puts the cup away and keeps looking at her. He doesn't know what to say or to do. It's unlike him. He's the leader. He always knows what to say. But when it comes to y/n everything is so much more complicated. It's like she claws away the surface and lays open the deepest parts of him. Parts he refuses to acknowledge exist. It's unfit for the leader of the dragon blood tribe to be this vulnerable.
„Y/n“, he calls out to her softly. Y/n doesn't meet his eyes. Carefully, he touches her cheek. She doesn't resist this time. She only looks at him with soft, sad eyes. He can see tears shimmering behind them.
„Shit“, he mumbles, „I really screwed up, didn't I?“
He moves his hand from her cheek to her hair and strokes it lightly. Tears spill over and Katsuki doesn't bother wiping hers away. Who is he to console her now? Y/n says something to him. He doesn't need to understand it. Whether it's a question or an accusation, it probably holds the same meaning. You did this to me.
„I only wanted you to be proud to have me as your mate, I swear.“, he mumbles as he keeps stroking her hair. Y/n ferociously wipes her tears away. For a moment, Katsuki wonders what she would do if he pulled her close right now. The next moment, he doesn't care what she would do. May you stab me with that dagger, I don't care.
Katsuki moves to lie down next to her. He's lying on the edge of the bed. He pulls her close burying his nose in her hair. Gently, he keeps stroking her hair and arms. Y/n makes no attempt to move away. Eventually, she turns around and stares into his eyes as if she's looking for something. Katsuki doesn't know what to give her. He keeps holding her until she falls asleep again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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REVIEW
Gatsby: An American Myth (Welch, Chavkin, Bartlett, Majok, & Tayeh; American Repertory Theater)
Something that most adaptations of Gatsby get wrong, whether film or stage, is the treatment of characters as archetypes rather than individuals. Symbolism drowns out most genuine attempts at capturing emotional connections and conflicts of personality. They forget that this story is not only a failure of the so-called American Dream; first and foremost, it’s a tragedy of failed roles and relationships. Almost every one of the players is attempting to be someone they are not, and even as they reach for what they believe they should want, they reveal with increasing fervor what they actually want. This is the heart of what makes Welch’s new adaptation so devastatingly, disarmingly unique, so true to its source.
The set design is literal wreckage. Crushed and warped automobile chassis scaffold the moving staircases, and concealed trap doors. The backdrop shows no clear incorporation of the infamous Eckleburg billboard; rather, it is made up of a dotted grid resembling headlights. These play out effects ranging from a downpour to camera flashes to, briefly and only once, a pair of eyes that make no effort to hide behind the owlish frames of glasses. The only thing infusing this jagged framework with meaning is the people who move through it.
The lighting design works with the set’s incongruences, deepening or excavating shadows as needed. The brightness, when it flares, is blinding. Jewel tones either enhance or diminish a costuming scheme that is composed of either very pale or very dark shades, no in between. And whether it’s the post-apocalyptic black and gray cabaret garb of the ensemble or the wealthy protagonists’ pale suits or the gunmetal and gray denizens of the wasteland, everyone’s trouser and skirt hems are conspicuously rimed with reddish dust. The visual effects are nearly impossible to describe without sounding like I had some kind of desperate fever dream.
So far, I realize that these descriptions of the set and lighting design sound like this production is about to fall into the trap of overplaying symbolism, but please bear with me. With all of that established, I can focus on what’s truly extraordinary here, what’s meant to and does shine unhindered. The acting, musicianship and vocals are all so precise that it was hard for me to believe this show is still in previews. It feels Broadway ready, West End ready, major international tours ready. If I was the production crew, I’d turn this loose on a massive scale from the get-go without a second thought.
Much like with Hadestown, the musicians are not down in an orchestra pit. They’re characters in their own right, present on the stage from start to finish on tiered risers that run up from the center on each side from one of the catwalks. I’m sure Chavkin’s involvement as director has everything to do with why this show feels so much like, moves so much like Hadestown. The company is on an equally small scale, about 23 - 25 people including the principals.
Costuming among the ensemble is delightfully gender agnostic. I mention a cabaret aesthetic earlier in this review, and I’m not kidding. If you had shown me the ensemble costume designs without showing me the principals’ designs, I would have assumed I was looking at a Cabaret revival. They’re the most talented dancers I’ve seen occupy one stage in more than a decade. The choreography relies on movements in eerie unison for a significant portion of the show, but not without allowance for individual flair within those constraints. The guy sitting next to me, when I spoke to him at the intermission, said he works as a choreographer in regional theater, and he’d never seen anything like this. I couldn’t agree more; the dancing is singular, and as impressive as the musicianship is, the dancing and unusual body movement are maybe the greatest achievements of this show on the living, breathing end of things. I could have watched the dancers for those three hours without any dialogue or vocal intervention and still understood the story. That takes so much fucking doing.
As for the principal cast, they’re constantly among the ensemble; when I say these are all triple threats in the purest sense of that terminology, I really mean it. You always expect a few of the principals to be less dance and movement focused, more polished on the acting and singing side, but this show gives you terrifying proficiency from every angle. Even the guy playing Meyer Wolfsheim is at the center of what I think is the most memorable dance number in the piece. I’ve just never seen such versatile principals all in one production. What’s even more extraordinary is that I had never heard of or previously seen any of them, and that takes some doing given how much live theater I’ve consumed in several decades of life.
Ironically, the musical composition is the one aspect of this production on which I’ll be spending the least time. I need not tell you why Welch and Bartlett were perfect for this job. They understood the assignment, and then some. There’s not a single weak number among the track listings, and I desperately hope they release a recording soon. The standout numbers all have something in common: they showcase Soleia Pfeiffer as Myrtle Wilson. You can tell that’s the role where Welch sank most of the sound that’s considered her signature style. I don’t even need to describe it; you already know what I’m talking about. What’s impressive otherwise is the restraint, the lack of over-reliance on that signature style.
The principals are fucking perfect. I’ve kept this review tautly professional without meaning to thus far, but from here on out is where I start bleeding feels all over the post. If you don’t already know who my blorbos are due to my writing history with a Gatsby-related novel (The Pursued and the Pursuing, 2021), you’re going to know by the time you’re done reading this. You’re going to know exactly who I love and why, who I hate and why, who I ship and why. But you’ll also know that I approach all three of those elements from a place of enjoying every moment of those characters, even the ones I hate. Nobody’s performance put me off or struck the wrong tone when taken in context of the novel and how the tragedy of how their relationships play out.
For a long time, I’ve been saying that there are certain support roles, certain sidekicks, that make or break the higher-profile person to whose side they’re stuck, ride or die, until the bitter end. Horatio is a great example that I’ve ranted about before; if your Hamlet production has a lackluster Horatio, then it doesn’t matter how good the Hamlet is. You have nothing if you don’t have the binary star system at the heart of that harrowing universe. I’ve seen other adaptations of Gatsby consistently fall apart because Nick Carraway is treated like the kind of voyeur who doesn’t matter, the kind of voyeur who serves as the audience’s eyes and ears, and nothing else. Anyway, this is all to say: Ben Levi Ross as Nick might be the most compelling argument I can make for the fact that the creative team behind this show understood the assignment. He’s awkward, warm, sincere, and reactive in all of the ways you need Nick to be. He’s not a passive observer; he’s in the middle of everything, and he knows it. There’s a self-deprecating response he makes when one character, Jordan if I’m not mistaken, quips that maybe he’s the reason for Gatsby’s parties for all he knows. “Maybe I am,” he says, and the tongue-in-cheekness belies a gutting meta-sincerity. We believe Daisy is the point, Gatsby believes Daisy is the point, but what’s borne out every breathtaking moment of this production is that Nick is the point. He always was. He’s also given his due as a gay man in context of the story for the first time ever. I might make some folks mad when I say Nick has always been gay; I’m going to point you to Myrtle’s apartment party and the hookup with Mr. McKee as textual evidence in the novel. The kiss with McKee, the hookup with McKee, is unapologetically here. His lack of belonging everywhere else he’s ever been, because he is gay, is unapologetically here. One of the most memorable numbers in the show hinges on the hope feels at being able to be himself in New York. Queer fans of Gatsby have been waiting a long time for this. Anyone who’s read the text closely and understood him has been waiting a long time for this. I’ve been waiting several decades as a reader, and I would’ve waited forever to have Nick so fully, lovingly realized.
One of the other things that Gatsby adaptations have persistently gotten wrong is the titular character himself. The invention of Jay Gatsby hides the underlying James Gatz, makes it feel as if that old self is truly subsumed, as if it never mattered. But Isaac Powell gives us a Jay who’s exactly as he should be, who can’t hide beneath his own attempt at artifice and reinvention worth a goddamn. He’s young (as young as Nick; they’re 32 and 30 respectively both in the novel and here), painfully earnest, and just barely keeping a handle on the criminal shit he’s had to do in order to get where he is. When he says old sport to Nick, it’s not an affectation; when he says it to Tom, it becomes a biting insult. This is a Jay who knows where and why he’s vulnerable; he latches onto Nick like a not because he sees a man close to Daisy that he can exploit, but because he sees another young man who’s equally vulnerable, equally an outsider, equally haunted by the things they had to do in the war. From the moment they meet, they are almost always touching—a hand on the shoulder, on the back, getting in social harm’s way for each other, eyes seeking each other without cease in the most crowded of settings. When Jay takes Nick to lunch to meet Wolfsheim (who has in this production taken on the function of Dan Cody as well), it’s not to have somebody else vouch for the artifice of who Jay Gatsby is. It’s taking Nick to meet his fucking father-figure, and all of the messy, sincere “if you hurt my boy, I’ll kill you” sentiment that Wolfsheim aims at Nick was the moment I knew just how much the Nick’s loss by the end was going to hurt. Jay’s love for Daisy is a ghost of itself, even if as painfully earnest as everything else about him. Meanwhile, his attachment to Nick is so disarmingly genuine from the start that you understand the true tragedy you’re about to watch untold: these men who need each other, maybe even were made for each other, each prove unable to step outside their parallel distractions from what they truly are to each other. Jay’s interactions with Daisy and Nick’s interactions with several male and/or gender ambiguous members of the ensemble have something in common, which is a shocking level of physicality. This show had an intimacy coordinator; that’s the level of no holds barred we’re talking about. When you look at Tom and Myrtle, you can see why that was merited, too.
Speaking of Tom (Cory Jeacoma), the treatment of him here is every bit as scary as it should be. There’s no attempt to make him palatable, unlike what I’ve seen done with him in other adaptations. He towers over everyone else in the cast, I mean everyone, to a physical degree that’s uncomfortable. The way his wife, lover, and friends all flinch when he gets too close to them speaks volumes to the fact that he’s an abuser in every sense of the term. Even Nick, the prodigal college friend from Yale, is on eggshells around him (which, by the hotel blowup at the end of the show, becomes a sneering, reckless contempt, one of the driving forces that drives Nick to put himself between Jay and Tom whenever real harm is on the table). At the same time, this is a Tom who sincerely loves his wife and was only ever using Myrtle as a fling. You can tell he never meant any of the promises he made Myrtle. When Daisy tells him she didn’t stop the car on purpose, it’s as if his wife’s unapologetic act of manslaughter (“It was her or me!”) is the thing that wins him back. They aren’t careless people; they are people who consciously choose, day in and day out, to use others until they’re bored or done with them. The ruthlessness of Tom and Daisy as a couple is impressive, played up to a level that I feel more adaptations should do without fear of exaggerating the text.
As mentioned above, Daisy (Charlotte MacInnes) is no delicate, nervous creature who can’t help her actions under duress. She knows what she’s doing every bit as much as Tom knows what he’s doing. They use people, hurt people because they get bored and restless and enjoy it. I respect a Daisy who’s in control of her actions every step of the way even if I don’t like her; it’s better than trying to depict her as weak and at the mercy of the men around her. She’s a pragmatist and a survivor. So many of her songs are about choices and being conscious of those choices. She is a person you should fear every bit as much as you fear her husband, and even Jordan knows she’s not safe in Daisy’s orbit.
As Jordan, Eleri Ward is one of the neatest personalities on stage. Like Tom, she’s noticeably taller than most, which gives her a commanding physical presence. She has no romantic interest in anyone; I fucking love that this production show her and Nick bonding on the basis of being queer and tired of everyone else’s shit. This is a more likable, relatable Jordan than I’ve seen in the past. This is a Jordan whose relationship to Gatsby is much more familiar and warm, much more akin to the friendship she forms with Nick. In fact, the queer-and-tired vibes that roll off several of the principals in this production are palpable.
Myrtle and Wilson (Matthew Amira) aren’t always played as effective foils for Daisy and Tom, but here? They unquestionably are. They do actually love each other in spite of the things they’ve done to hurt each other, and it’s a constant dance of daring each other, challenging each other. The most memorable duet in the entire show is between them, during Act II. The confrontation is positively electric. These are two people with deep, complicated history. Of all the couples in the show, they feel the most real, the most alive. It makes the loss of Myrtle so much more wrenching; she’s not just a plot device emblematic of the bad choices they’ve all been making. She’s not shallow or frivolous or anything like that. She’s a shrewd woman with complex motivations, and for the first time ever I find myself loving her and caring what happens to her. She’s thrust even further into the action in that one of her part time gigs is working as a maid at Gatsby’s parties, a conceit that works shockingly well and hastens the devastating consequences of her affair with Tom.
I’ve made mention of Meyer Wolfsheim’s (Adam Grupper) uniquely enhanced role previously, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on him again. This is a man who does, in fact, seem to give a shit about Jay above and beyond using him as a tool in his criminal empire. It’s not necessarily a healthy father-son dynamic, but Wolfsheim is usually played as ruthless, opportunistic, inhumanly calculating. Here, he’s a charming, but unquestionably dangerous man moved by a young soldier’s plight. He seems conflicted between his love for Jay and his need to have Jay continue to hold the party line within their business relationship. Wolfsheim is deeply conflicted about Jay in a way that I haven’t seen any Wolfsheim be played previously. And, as I mentioned earlier, the actor has a showstopper of a song and dance number. That may be the #1 “I wasn’t expecting that, but I’ll take it!” moment for me in this show. And I say “may be” only because the moment that truly stopped my heart, will stay with me until everything else fades from memory, is perhaps only understandable in the context of my engagement with the text of Gatsby as a writer of transformative works.
Daisy’s and Tom’s daughter, Pam Buchanan doesn’t always appear in adaptations because she’s a toddler. Even in the novel, she a throwaway mention plus a single scene near the end where the nanny brings her out to meet Jay and Nick. She’s most often left as a throwaway mention without even grave of the scene where she appears. The scene in the novel, however brief, is memorable—and has been captured in all its fragile beauty for the first time in this adaptation. Jay and Nick both pay bewildered, wondering attention to this kid when she’s brought out. Jay drops to his knees and takes her hand when she greets him while Nick looks on in a moment of singular focus on both of them. The child who plays Pam here has a spark, an expressiveness that made me choke up even though she’s only on stage for a few minutes, if that. The tableau is one in which you can feel the shock of reality, however brief, touch on these men—Daisy’s and Tom’s reckless actions may yet do harm to someone who’s barely even begun to live her life, but who is just conscious enough to be a participant in it. They recognize that they, like this child, are probably in for a word of ruin—and that they have let it go on for so long that there’s now nothing they can do about it. For me, the deepest tragedy was watching Nick and Jay throw off that moment of heartbroken, horrified recognition prompted by Pam and return to the parts they’d decided to play out until the moment one of their hearts stopped.
Speaking of grief, of Nick’s grief since he’s the one who loses so much: there is only one person who loses more, and that’s Mr. Gatz, Jay’s father. They preserve his arrival at the house when Nick is the only person who stays around to carry out Jay’s funeral and burial. And when he arrives, the visceral shock of seeing his dark skin, braids, and beaded elements of Native regalia in juxtaposition with his otherwise period-typical Western garb underscore the tragedy of what young Jay was running away from, of what he never quite succeeded in erasing from himself. The burial scene shows Nick reverently bringing several of Jay’s folded shirts from the house and handing them down into the grave to Mr. Gatz, who places them reverently as possessions to accompany his son into thereafter. The cultural ramifications are all at once understated and devastating. Nick has moments with each of Jay’s father figures that are among the most complex and moving in the show. The program does not make clear the name of the ensemble member who takes on this most memorable of all Mr. Gatz appearances, and this erasure in and of itself is both unfortunate and telling. This is a world that never belonged to the majority of those who inhabit it, and Nick realizes it with heartbroken clarity after having this final interaction. Even though he’s an outsider, he’s part of a world that has erased and betrayed the man he loved so much at every turn.
The closing number, “We Beat On,” felt like it needed something more, but it utilized the final line of the novel to a deeply moving effect. The lights go down suddenly as the last word is sung; it feels like the song is half finished. When the lights came up, Nick and Jay were center stage in each other’s embrace, just withdrawing from each other as the entire company transitioned into final bows. That’s how I’ll remember them, always: touching even when they’ve already lost each other, borne ceaselessly back into each other’s arms. If Nick is Orpheus, then I have no doubt that he, too, will tell this story again and again until someday, somewhere, something gives.
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So Denis Villeneuve has this particular type of close-up shot that he uses to varying degrees in all his movies but uses a lot in Dune, particularly when shooting Paul. In fact he uses one for the very first shot of Paul in Dune Part One.
There are some common cinematographic elements that define what I would consider the Villeneuve Close-Up (TM), but I'll admit there is also a vibes-based, you-know-it-when-you-see-it element to picking out these shots, which means all discussion here is somewhat subjective and we're talking about general trends instead of fixed categories. But in general, in these shots the camera tends to be at eye-level with the character, which means it can be very low or even on the ground if they are having a floor-based experience.
Sometimes we're in a SUPER extreme close-up where the character's face is filling the frame.
Other times we are not actually that close but we know we are seeing something that other characters are not.
The character may be alone or they may be surrounded by people, but the point of these shots is to reveal something to us the audience that no one else in the scene sees, pulling us into a private emotional world where it's just us and the character. It's a very effective tool for building sympathy and emotional intimacy.
I'm not the only person who's noticed that we lose this specific kind of close-up of Paul entirely in the section of the movie after Paul drinks the Water of Life. I've seen this described as "we're no longer seeing from Paul's POV" or even "he stops being the protagonist of the movie at that point" but I don't think either of these are exactly what's going on. Seeing the world of the story through a certain character's POV is different from what I'm talking about here, and Dune Part Two takes us through many shifts in POV over the course of the movie.
What happens is that we, the audience, recoil from our close, intimate visual and emotional relationship to Paul--or maybe he withdraws from us--for a portion of the movie after he drinks the Water of Life. But, crucially, not right away.
This shot in the "we're Harkonnens" conversation is such a classic Villeneuve Close-Up (TM). We're positioned as if we're sitting right next to Paul, seeing something on his face that is mostly hidden from Jessica, who's standing across the room and slightly behind him.
I think this shot is super important for telling us (even if we only register it subconsciously) that the Paul we know is not completely dead. Drinking the Water of Life may make you see things that others can't, and it may make you a little unhinged, but it doesn't make you inhuman. There's still a person in there.
I would argue that the distancing from Paul starts in these shots:
This is still a close-up; we are not much further away from Paul than in the shot above, but the vibe is totally different. Now we are seeing him the way his followers do, closed-off and purposefully intimidating. We are seeing the image he chooses to present to the world and none of the human vulnerability underneath.
We stay at this emotional and visual distance from him for most of the rest of the movie--but not the whole thing. Because after watching Paul be a terrifying force of destruction for half an hour, we get slammed into remembering he is a person--young, hurt, alone; a person who didn't want any of this--at the very end of the movie.
I think you could make an argument for a few different shots being the first Villeneuve Close-Up of the end of the movie. But where I always notice it is here, when the Emperor is talking about Leto.
While not a particularly close close-up, I'm always struck by this shot as well:
And then we really get pulled in close to Paul during the duel--particularly at the end of the duel when he's already wounded and it seems like he might lose. We get this angle several times:
We get this shot that I'm particularly feral about...
...because while the focus of this shot is (1) the knife and (2) Feyd, someone made sure that the features you notice on Paul's face are his eyelashes and the curls of hair falling in his face, the features that make him look most soft and vulnerable.
And then of course after Paul has won the duel we get this shot, another peak Villeneuve Close-Up (TM) that I have already written about, where Paul is surrounded by people chanting his name but no one to pull the knife out of his shoulder for him.
And we hold onto that connection with Paul right up through "Lead them to paradise."
Which is an insane choice for that moment actually! Once again, this is not a super close close-up, but we're watching him from a perspective that no other character can see and we understand that there's no personal triumph in this moment for him.
Now, obviously, there are a lot of other choices being made in these scenes, in terms of writing, performance, lighting, score, everything. The camera placement is just one element supporting the overall storytelling. But it's one that's very easy to track through screenshots and a good example of how one specific element of filmmaking can be used to influence how we see a character, whether or not we even consciously notice it while immersed in the film.
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Ok, I know everyone is talking about the big emotional stuff but I just wanted to point out something super small that I noticed
So in this scene, Stolas says that it's always about sex, and, for some reason, the phrasing of this really jarred me. I didn't notice this while watching but, in retrospect, I realized why.
Because Stolas said the word "sex". Which isn't all that weird, right? It's a raunchy show and all. But for some reason, it felt strange that he said it. I initially chalked it up to Stolas being a more composed and polite character who doesn't swear and stuff outside of certain situations.
But, then I realized something:
So his whole episode was kind of about sex. Blitz was making it through Lust for a reason. There was a bunch of comedy about all the different sex shops and horny stuff going on and this whole time Blitz is prepping for a big, sexy night.
But at no point in this episode do the characters refer to this stuff as "sex". It's always a euphemism or a creative expletive referring to specific acts, but they never say this word with this meaning.
And, throughout the rest of the show, Stolas in particular is always very flowery and vague when referring to it, saying stuff like "our little rendezvous" or "a night of passion" or whatever.
But here he is, referring to this act outside of all that. It's pure and clinical and matter-of-fact and blunt. And it's clear that before this, he's looking for a word, maybe something more gentle or poetic but then he lands on this. It's the most blunt Stolas has been about this. This is the most blunt this episode's been about this, because, stripped of all the kinky shit and the emotional stuff, that is all their relationship seems to be. This is all Blitz sees their relationship as. And there's no need to sugarcoat it because that's all that it is. So he might as well be blunt about it.
#don't ask me what any of this means for the show or the writing#because i don't know#it's just a small thing I noticed and thought way too much about#helluva boss#stolitz#blitzo#stolas goetia#full moon#full moon spoilers#helluva boss season 2#helluva blitzo#helluva stolas
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before this episode I was wondering if they would change the timeline of Armand’s backstory since he is so much older (like 17- to thirties is a big jump), and Armand’s backstory is heavily reliant on him still being a child who is living with Marius and deprived of any life of his own prematurely. I thought maybe they would change the timeline from Armand is bought by Marius, he is living with Marius, he is turned, he is taken by the cult, since armand is an adult and there is room for him to experience deviations in his story. But, they r seemingly sticking to that format which has some rlly disturbing implications, that I rlly enjoy!
in the vampire Armand the dynamic is that Armand wants to be a vampire and Marius tries to resist this fate for him bcus he knows that it would be cruel to doom a child to that life for his own selfish purposes, but he of course eventually gives in for those selfish purposes and regrets it bcus of how fucked up being turned rlly young makes Armand. There’s another layer where Marius buys Armand with the explicit intent of turning him into a vampire when he is ready bcus he considers Armand less of a person then Bianca, his current human lover, and thinks because he is so “broken” by his trauma that the cruelty of vampirism would not hold the same implications for him (since he is functionally void of any purpose or humanity anyway). Then he goes on to regret this mindset bcus of Armand’s brilliance and resilience which proves his mindset wrong, and he takes a stressful 180 and refuses to turn Armand until ofc he does.
in the show the thematic implications of vampirism r changed in a way by the new format. It’s implied instead that Marius bought Armand with the intent of keeping a human for his sexual purposes and refuses to turn Armand because that would leverage them (especially in his adulthood) as closer to equals, which he doesn’t want bcus he enjoys Armand for his use, his submission, and his “beauty in his humanity”. His intentions in the book r, in my humble opinion, gross and predatory, but they r even more so in this version.
In the book marius’s options he considers are A: mercy (send Armand to collage like his other young apprentices, giving him the same opportunities as any other boy that he is not having sex with, and hoping that he goes on to live a fulfilled life and forget about his childhood with Marius) or B cruelty (give into his temptation and turn Armand, having him be his companion for eternity but then submitting to the cruelty of both depriving Armand of the humanity he deserves to experience and risking Armand’s descent into madness due to being turned both prematurely and of an unstable mind)
As it seems so far in the show (I could be wrong) Marius’s options with Armand were instead A: mercy (turn Armand into a vampire so that he can evolve from his role as a prostitute and experience life as marius’s equal footed lover who he respects enough to meet on an emotional level) or B: cruelty: (keep Armand as a catamite for his entire life until he considers him a broken toy and moves on to the next). In this version vampirism is the kinder option!! Which is insane but heart breaking. Amc iwtv has a habit of taking already disturbing things from the books and making them 10x worse (which I sometimes hate, but in this case kind of like). It’s as if there is no hope for Amadeo, and never was, which is just rlly a guy punch.
there also is an implication here that instead of Armand’s childish stunted mindset being caused, of course, by how young he was when he was turned, it was instead caused by how he was raised as a infantilized functional slave who is valued for his lack of agency or control, which causes him to have a sort of stunted growth. And like, God that’s horrible
#armand#iwtv#The vampire armand#Amc iwtv#interview with the vampire#amc interview with the vampire#iwtv spoilers#iwtv s2#iwtv season 2#iwtv speculation#Armand iwtv#the vampire chronicles#Tvc
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Pick a pile
Messages from your parents
Pile 1:
If they could, they would give you the world. They say that their sacrifices for you will never cease and that they wish they could give you more at this time.
Your well-being is their first priority, and they're always in need of feedback from you. They just love it when you get in contact with them and share with them your feelings or thoughts about something. They never get bored of hearing from you or from your company. You light up their world when you're around.
They feel like no matter what, you're always in need of their support, even though they know that you're always the independent kind, not willing to bother them with your problems. But they can say that you're in need of something just by having a gut feeling; they can sense when you're not alright, and often they try to offer you help indirectly without letting you know that they know. And they wish that you could be more open to them about the heartbreaks and troubles you're facing. They mainly want there to be more transparency and truth between you.
Pile 2:
You haven't seen them or been around them for a while.
While you were growing up, you were deprived of their emotional support. They were mostly engaged in their work, so you grew up isolated. They always felt this barrier between you and them. They want to say that even though it appears this way and that they may have neglected you a bit emotionally, they've always cared for you. Even when they didn't have time, they made sure you were not lacking in the things they could afford, they cared for your comfort, and they made sure you were protected. For some, they aren't used to expressing their love to you directly; they keep it inside, but their love for you is huge. They're telling you that if you pay attention to the little things they do for you, then you will know how much they love you. Especially a mother here says that she hid a lot of distress from you and handled a lot to see you grow well, and when she sees what you've grown up into, all her pain fades away.
Pile 3:
You are stubborn, I'm getting; they have always had struggles convincing you of the right decisions to make; you were always rebellious, and even though you sometimes did things behind their back where you regretted not hearing their advice, they want to tell you that you always taught them something new with your daringness. They want to tell you that they forgive you for the mess you have made and that whatever you do, you remain their dear child. But they do wish you would listen more often to them and that they wouldn't wish you harm if they acted a bit harshly towards you. They sometimes struggle to convey their message to you in a nice way, and they sometimes lose their nerves, but they always want to apologize. They only wish that you would hear from them. They always feel this responsibility to teach you. Even if you're all grown up, they still see you as a child, unable to differentiate between what's good and bad for you. They may also be harsh with their words, but they believe it's for your guidance.
#channeled message#channeled reading#intuitive tarot reader#pac reading#pick a card#pick a pile#tarot community#tarot reading#tarot#intuitive messages#tarot tumblr#tarot cards#pick a photo#pick an image#pick a picture
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sometimes, part of me wonders if sxf will even end in a reveal bc i don't think ppl having secrets or keeping secrets is necessarily an indicator of an unhealthy relationship. sure, it depends on each partner's boundaries and wants from their partner. some ppl want somebody who will tell them EVERYTHING. some aren't concerned about that.
it comes down to how you think of love, and the kind of love media pushes is the kind where you know somebody perfectly and they know you perfectly. WHICH IS MY FAV VERSION OF LOVE (and it's def what OMWF is HAHAHA), but truthfully, can you ever REALLY know somebody perfectly? you probly feel like you can, but that's very different from actually knowing you do.
i guess i'm talking about unconditional love. i can know every wonderful and hideous thing about somebody and still love and trust them. that's unconditional. on the other hand, i can not know everything about you and still love and trust you. that's unconditional, too.
it seems possible to me specifically bc i think sxf (and so endo) is a lot about going against accepted convention. some of that is obvious (war, being a kid), some is more subtle (overworking/academic rigor), and some is emerging and currently becoming accepted (generational trauma, emotional abuse vs. physical in damian's case). and the fact that loid and yor have a healthy relationship and respect each other despite having these deeply embedded secrets really makes me wonder if endo is subtly poking at the conventional idea of what "real love" looks like. not necessarily that his story says "this the right way to love somebody," but that media only shows one way, so here's a story about another way to love somebody unconditionally.
but anyways... i'm so down for an identity reveal at the end KSKSKSJFKSDH@#
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Dead Boy Detectives Fic Rec List
Mostly payneland <3 I will update as I find more fics.
“The house is… sad,” the client responds.
so many ways to give in by piilu
“I think there’s something really wrong with me, mate,” Charles sobs, the remains of the bat falling from his hand.
----
Charles struggles with his anger issues. Again.
a beautiful day to say goodbye by ofstitches
“Again, we can’t help with selling the house. Maybe try some decorations. That’ll brighten the old place up,” Charles suggests.
“No, you misunderstand. The house doesn’t look sad. The house is sad. It is depressed.”
“How do you figure?” Edwin says, sitting up in his chair now that the client has said something potentially interesting.
or
A new case brings up old feelings, and maybe something more.
A Heaven Like They Talk About by LikeMmCookies
being unknown by The_IPRE
After managing to piss off yet another witch, Edwin and Charles are cursed as punishment. Bewildered, powerless, and lacking answers, they face their greatest challenge yet: being human again.
With Edwin doing novel things like picking out shampoo and wearing different pants, Charles finds his body reacting in strange ways to his best friend. He questions if these are new feelings, or if they'd been there all along.
But the biggest question remains - do they stay alive or do they find a way to go back?
Edwin does know Charles, or at least he likes to think that he does. He knows that Charles is far better with the clients than he is, quick to offer a smile or extend sympathy while Edwin is far more interested in delving deeper into the details of the case. He knows that Charles has a wicked swing with his cricket bat, but prefers to leave that as a second resort when he believes there's a way for them to come to a compromise. He knows that Charles chooses to hope for the best from people, even after having seen the worst they have to offer–and in fact, having been killed by it.
As Charles sits in front of him, the strain in his shoulders at odds with the easy grin on his face, Edwin wonders how much of his friend he is failing to see.
--
5 times Edwin didn't press the issue, and one time he did.
The Kind of Light That Means Just Love (When My Baby Smiles at Me) by DontOffendTheBees
“Charles,” Edwin admonished, gently closing his book with a finger tucked between the pages to hold his place. “I have asked you to stop fooling around with that contraption and get some work done.”
“I have been!” Charles defended, gesturing broadly at the higgledy-piggledy array of items around him. Evidently, taking stock of the contents of his bag of tricks was an expansive task. “Taking a break.” He snatched the small square of paper from the Polaroid camera and began to shake it with abandon.
In which Charles partakes in some amateur ghost photography, and Edwin (fondly) bemoans the futility of the exercise.
The Good Left Undone by plutosheaven
Help comes from unlikely places when Edwin is once again faced with a threat worse than death.
the phantoms here will never have their fill by ahyperactivehero (ahyperactiverhero)
Poltergeists are created when a ghost experiences extreme emotional distress. Poltergeists are notoriously hard to reign in, and they almost never gently move on. Neither Edwin nor Charles ever imagined it would happen to them.
Basically, five times where the Dead Boy Detective Agency dealt with the threat of a poltergeist.
XXX
“Once you choose to go down the poltergeist route there is no coming back,” Edwin said. “And I will have no choice but to follow you.”
“You can’t do that mate,” Charles said. His voice had cleared up some, his form less wavy.
“Then do not go where I cannot follow,” Edwin said.
Form 239, Schedule L by sanctuary_for_all
At the top of a small pile of papers was a copy of Form 239, Schedule L, filled out with achingly familiar handwriting. At the top, the word "Approved" was stamped in large red letters.
This Darkness, Enduring by kickingtheladder
“Your son is gone,” they tell her. “It was… an Act of God.”
She cannot think of a single thing to say for a very long moment. And then she has many things to say, most of which are not at all appropriate for polite company.
---
Edwin Payne's mother, before and after.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by kickingtheladder
“Your son is gone," they tell her. "He ran away."
She doesn't say anything.
---
Charles Rowland's mother, afterwards.
dreaming of the things you said / hoping that it's meant by ohmyfuckinggod420
Edwin turns away with a deep breath, ignoring the fluttering in his stomach. His non-existent, ghostly stomach. It seems so ridiculously cruel and on theme for his current situation. Not only is he in love with his best friend, and not only does his best friend not love him back, but he’s feeling things that he shouldn’t be feeling on top of things that he physically should not be able to feel.
or
The gang is back in London. Niko is gone, Crystal is on the cusp of a breakdown, Charles is still a flirt, and Edwin is... trying his best.
Oh, and he keeps feeling his pulse. As a ghost. A very dead ghost.
The trouble really never ends.
the ghost of the past that you live in by ObsessedWithFandom
It didn’t start as much. As anything, really. Charles noticed him in the hallways only because he was new, which was rare in Year 11, and because he smiled shyly whenever Charles said hi. Aysar, he’d introduced himself, and Charles liked the way the syllables formed in his mouth. He wanted to be Aysar’s friend.
Or: five boys Charles didn't date, and one he did.
Aftermath by sophisticatedyet
“What are you humming?”
Charles’ polo muffled his question, and the pause before Charles answered was so long that Edwin wondered if he hadn’t heard him at all. But then he said, "A lullaby.”
The answer made Edwin smile bemusedly. “Why? I can't fall asleep.”
“Yeah, duh, I know. It's just meant to soothing.”
“Oh.” Edwin rested his head back against Charles’ chest. “I suppose I do feel quite soothed.”
Dance the Night by Gruoch
“What is that?” Crystal asks, looking Edwin up and down with an expression of abject befuddlement that borders on disgust.
“It is my disguise,” Edwin replies a little stiffly in response to her tone. “You told me to wear a disguise.”
“You look like Margaret Thatcher,” Crystal says flatly. “You’re going undercover at a nightclub, not a library. This—“ she plucks at Edwin’s long tweed skirt, her lip curling— “is not appropriate nightclub attire. You’re gonna attract too much attention.”
“I thought attracting attention was the point of this ludicrous exercise,” Edwin snaps back.
“Yes, the right kind of attention,” Crystal stresses. “This—” she waves a hand broadly at him—“will get the wrong kind of attention.”
~~
In which the gang returns home to discover something sinister stalking London’s party scene after dark, Edwin lets his hair down, Charles’ confidence is shaken, and Crystal pursues a new lease on life (and hopefully doesn’t die in the process).
Everywhere, Everything (wanna love you) by WildCookieKeef
Freedom, as it seems, is suffocating. Decades spent running away from death herself and yet now more than ever does Edwin feel restless. Hell is behind him for the second time. He might’ve escaped his fate of eternal torture, but rabidly approaching are revelations he would’ve kept buried for far longer.
He’d never be so flustered and disorganized if it hadn’t been for Crystal or the Cat King or Monty or the Night Nurse or that horrible witch Esther or Simon, god not Simon, or practically reenacting old Greek tales with his best mate or. . .
No. It’s no one’s fault but his own. If he could sleep he’s sure he’d have nightmares.
Of what? There’s lots to choose from, but he can just feel it. Maybe some spirit malady has taken root in his body. He can sense the tension under his skin. Aches of pain that he knows aren’t physical.
He never should’ve told Charles. What was he thinking?
or After the end of S1, Edwin reasons that Charles rejected his confession and fears the worst while trying to suffer silently. Charles is very bad at letting Edwin suffer in peace.
the eight layers of hell, reversed by Zairielon
There's a lot that Edwin and Charles don't talk about. Frankly, after 30 years together, you don't have to say much for the other person to get the point. But Port Townsend and Crystal and Niko knocked their dynamic off-kilter, and by the time they return to London and finally get back to "normal," "normal" has changed. "Normal" is now Crystal's bright laughter, Niko's earnest affection, and Edwin's faint smiles. "Normal" is an unnameable ball of emotions tangled up in Charles' chest. "Normal" is Edwin looking at him, and Charles hearing those words all over again.
Charles, I'm in love with you.
OR, Charles figures out what it means that Edwin is the only person in the world he'd run into Hell for.
When We Walk Together We Tend To Walk Alone by UneducatedAuthor
She’s never unexpected, but she’s always a surprise. And when Charles meets her, it's nothing like the nightmare he's built up in his own head, being split away from Edwin and cursed to an afterlife without him. She's kind and gentle and familiar, and she gives him a chance to say goodbye to his mother.
Or, the one where Charles meets Death. They have a lot to talk about. But it's okay. They have time.
it's you that i hold on to by lrvzender
A pair of lips press shakily on his temple. Charles Rowland’s blood definitely runs hot, Edwin decides, definitely.
“You’re not asking anything, mate. But you have to understand that you are worth saving, a thousand times over. You are worth knowing, Edwin.”
Something bigger than the whole, wide sky. Something bigger than death, perhaps.
(where Edwin does not ask to be known, but Charles knows anyway)
and your song, it haunts me like hunger does the crow by kay_cricketed
After they return to London, Charles notices an escalation in people approaching Edwin with their attentions.
Which is fine! It's not that Charles is jealous. He wants Edwin to be happy and to have a chance at a fulfilling relationship, yeah? The problem is, Charles is aware that Edwin is unpracticed with these kinds of emotions and other people, and it would be very easy for someone to take advantage. And that’s not going to happen, not on Charles’ watch.
To make matters worse, the admirers are getting a little too intense. And Charles is starting to suspect there's more at work than everyone realizing his best mate is brills.
(Or: In which the damage to Edwin's soul across years of torture has had an unusual effect, and Charles needs to fix it before he's compelled to violence. Again.)
trína chéile, le chéile, claochlaithe / entangled, together, transformed by theroyalsavage
Edwin Payne and Charles Roland are not Orpheus and Eurydice. They are not tragic figures of myth, children of gods and spirits, immortalized in verse by the poets of old. They’re nothing special at all – just two boys too stubborn to move on.
With that said, however… Edwin must admit that there are certain similarities.
Came up from that lake of fire by ghostinthelibrary
"Are you a zombie?” Niko peers into Edwin’s eyes. “Because the Night Nurse told me zombies exist. Do you hunger for brains, Edwin?”
“Hardly.” Remembering being splattered with gray matter in the not-so-distant past, Edwin shudders. He cannot imagine consuming it. “I’m not a zombie.”
“What about a vampire?” She almost looks excited by the prospect. “We’re only a couple of hours from Forks. It would be perfect!””
When they’re caught during their escape from Hell, Charles and Edwin have no choice but to make a deal: they have one hundred days to find and entrap a powerful, malevolent spirit, or both of their souls are forfeit. But when they’re both temporarily restored to living bodies to aid in their search, being alive brings with it a host of new feelings, which neither of them know how to cope with, especially as their deadline looms closer and their quarry proves increasingly dangerous.
Unbreakable by Asexual_Enjolras
Edwin feels as though he owes Charles an apology because he cannot offer support to his best friend in the same way that Crystal can. And Charles tells him exactly where to stick that apology the moment he does.
Or, Edwin feels like he is broken and Charles does not agree.
#dead boy detectives#dead boy detective agency#dbda#edwin payne#charles rowland#payneland#crystal palace#dbda fanfic#cj's fic recs
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Cw: 18+ Only! MDNI! Smut!
GhostxReader!
"The rain is coming down hard. It looks like we'll be spending the night in this cave." I sigh and sit down on the hard ground.
Ghost looks around. "We have no choice.." he sits down beside you, the sound of the rain is loud, the air is damp, and the rocks are slick
"Why are you so distant?" I look at him. it's a question that has been plaguing my mind.
He stays silent for a moment, his mask covering any emotion that may be displayed. His face, he finally answers you in a monotone, cold voice. "I've seen a lot of things. Some people would break if they saw what I had."
"I understand that, I just wish you weren't so cold towards me, I hate when you make me feel like I'm not a part of the squad." I sigh, but my eyes never leave his.
he gets up and paces around. He's breathing heavily, he's fighting some kind of internal battle, then he finally sits down again. "i can't...... i can't get close to you, i cant do it. "
"What about Captain Soap? Don't you trust him?" I look at him curious.
He hesitates. "Yes, but.. something about you.. I can't figure it out.." He looks away, his cold eyes hidden by the shadow of his mask.
"What do you mean by that?" I was confused.
he looks at you, he's looking at you with eyes of pain, pain he hasnt let out. "I- i dont know, i feel like i could trust you, but i've been hurt before."
"Don't let fear dictate your actions. I'm sorry if I came on too strong, but I know you can trust me." I smiled and pat his shoulder.
he looks at the ground. "I don't think you know the weight of what you're saying, the pain i've gone through. It's made me like this." He gestures at himself.
"I know, but you're not alone." I squeeze his hand.
He sighed, "Do you mind if I remove my mask?"
"Go ahead, it's just us two." I smiled.
He reaches up and take off his mask, he turns to look at me, his brown eyes meet yours, there's a small scar above my left eyebrow, his hair is messy, voice is still monotone and cold. "There we go, better?"
"Your hair is messy. "I chuckled.
He rolled his eyes playfully "yeah, I know, I was attacked by a tiger, then I had to get out of a cave and then run all the way here, I didn't have time to brush it!" He chuckled along with you. His eyes still are cold and distant, but they're not as emotionless as before.
Asmile breaks across my face as I laugh, "You're bad at lying."
He laughs, "Yeah, yeah, I'm a liar, but at least I'm a funny liar, unlike Captain Soap, he's got no humor." He teases.
"We should start a fire and get out of these wet clothes." *I was shivering."
Later
We started a fire and a makeshift clothes line.
Slowly undressing, I stopped midway as I looked at ghost, my eyes widened with horror, half of his muscular body was molted, reddish, purple hue overshadows his light skin.
"Oh my god, ghost! Your scars!" He looked over at me, at my reaction. He wonders if I'm disgusted.
Ghost looks away, "I-its fine, please dont worry about it."
"I'm sorry to pry, it's just i've never seen so many scars on someone before.. it must've been hell." I look at him with a face of disdain.
Ghost sighs, "It's a long story, but yes, I've experienced a lot. It's made me who I am today."
my fingertips brushed over the molted flesh, the uneven flesh is taut and slightly bumpy. "They're beautiful, all of them, every inch of you."
He suddenly freezes. He's shocked that you'd call such horrible scars beautiful.
I replaced my fingertips with my lips, kissing the delicate skin, slightly gliding my tongue across the disfigured chest. "Beautiful"
Ghost is stunned by the sudden action. "w-why?.. I'm all.. broken, scarred, not good-looking, I'm a mess."
"You're the only man that I want to be with." I kiss his from his collarbone up to his neck, nipping at his flesh.
Ghost blushes, "You really think that?.. I've never been good enough for anyone."
I kiss his cheek, "You're perfect to me." I place a hand behind his head and pull him in, kissing him passionately.
he kisses back, his heart beating like crazy "I-I thought, you'd find me disgusting."
I pull away slightly, looking up into his eyes
"There's not a single part of you that isn't beautiful."
Ghost hesitates, then pulls you in for another kiss, wrapping his arms around you tightly. Suddenly, I feel my back make contact with the damp ground. I run my hands up and across his chest, sharing a passionate kiss.
Later
Our bodies are one, as our moans fill the cave like a choir as the rain plays like a symphony, The undeniable pleasure rocks both of us to our core. Ghost spread my legs wide open so that his thrusts would go deeper and deeper as I moaned and whimpered.
"Slow down, we have all night."
He didn't slow down. Ghost loved rough sex.
Making sure I'd feel ever inch of his throbbing hard cock stretching my tight velvet walls.
"You're so tight, fuck!" Ghost grunted, not long before I felt the jagged ground of the cave digging into my knees as he fucks me behind in doggy style, having a fistful of my hair as he slaps my ass periodically.
As time progress so did our urge to climax, holding onto him tightly as we reached our peak together, collapsing against his chest.
Aftermath
Ghost smiles as he pulls you back into a kiss, and he whispers, "Promise one thing, y/n."
"Yes, what is it?" I look into his eyes, wondering what he wanted me to promise.
Ghost looks you in the eyes. He seems serious, the smile gone from his face, his voice low and serious. "If anything ever happened, if I was gone or hurt, or something, you'd never leave me, right?
"I promise, whatever happens, you're stuck with me." I whisper.
"I love you, Y/n."
"I love you too, Simon."
-THE END
#simon ghost x reader#simon riley x reader#simon ghost riley#ghost x you#ghost x reader#ghost cod#ghost smut#cod fanfic#cod smut#cod fic#cod fluff#cod x reader#call of duty x reader#18+ content#18+ only#18+ account#18+ blog
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Mexico City recap
Louis showed up wearing a Burberry mesh shirt
Setlist had 20 songs (Louis skipped Chemical)
“Fucking hell Mexico City, there is a lot of you here tonight!”
“I’ve just spent the first 3 songs just trying to come down, man. This is fucking incredible, look at what we’ve fucking created, I love you all, I love you all. Combination of emotional and fucking shitting it up here!”
“Fuck these creepy crawlies!”
Louis during the SIBWAC rainbow project: “It's better with the lights off! Not yours, these [the stage ones]”
“That shit with the lights was fucking incredible, thank you for that, I'll never, ever forget that, thank you.”
“I’ve been thinking over the last couple of days, let me get sentimental a second right, truthfully, I never grew up wanting to be a singer. I mean, course, I always wanted to be one, never in a million years did I think I was gonna get, nevermind here, just any stage. What’s really resonated over the last couple of days is: I say this a lot but I can sing the songs I wanna sing. If I feel like being a little moody and I wanna sit on the mic stand and stand here the whole time, you guys’ll have it. You guys are on board. When I was younger and you look for people to aspire to, people kind of gallivant across the stage doing all sorts of mad shit, and that’s not me. So I never saw myself doing this job– can’t call it a job, but you know what I’m saying. It’s nights like tonight that not am I just thankful for being on this massive stage– that goes without saying right, thank you, thank you thank you– but to have the luxury to be who I wanna be, to sing what I wanna sing, not every artist has that luxury, so I thank you from the bottom of my fucking heart that I have that fucking luxury, so thank you. A bit motivational speaker, isn’t it!”
“Can't keep the smirk off me face, I love youse!”
“Right, I’m getting sentimental again, listen up. I don’t do this a lot, but thank you to my fucking incredible band man, thank you, thank you, thank you. I obviously came up with One Direction, some of you like them, yeah, me too! I was used to having people around me, I was used to having people share this experience with. I’m getting croaky, can you hear me? So yeah, it’s been a pleasure to tour with these boys, I definitely could not do this without them, so thank you. Give it up for my incredible band please. Now onto you fucking wonderful people, you don’t need to hear this but I’m saying it anyway, I’m an honest guy. I’ve been a bit croaky today, so I came out, I were a bit nervous, a bit worried about the whole thing. You guys are fucking out of this world, honestly. I’m trying to come down to earth but I’m in awe, I'm in awe of this, I fucking love you, thank you. I wish I had more words– well I do! But right now it's just getting the better of me, so before I start breaking down into tears, thank you, thank you, thank you. I fucking love youse. With me Northern articulation there, okay!”
“I wanted one last chat, I do not want this show to end. I just wanna say a little moment, a little message to everyone, not just everyone here tonight, not just everyone who’s watching the stream. Every single person who has ever, ever supported me, in any fucking way, online, whatever it may be. I don’t care if you’re not here tonight, I don’t care you’ve never been to the tour ever, if you support me, I fucking love you. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I am in awe of tonight, I will dream of tonight, this has been a fucking incredible night, thank you.”
“[sings] I know nobody understands— Great lyric! [sings] me like you do!”
Closing: Silver Tongues
#010624#louis tomlinson#fitfwt#fitfwt:latam#fitfwt:mxc#fitfwt:recap#a long one because he taaaaaaaalked
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35MM CHAPTER THREE: dostokovestky
track number three: andromeda by weyes blood
masterlist
-> fun facts!
akaashi downloaded a journaling app on his phone just to keep track of his daily emotions/tasks
yn worked as a counselor/teacher at a filmmaking class for kids. they made a crime drama. it was twenty minutes long and it was a disaster/masterpiece
akaashi's project is focusing on the way the nuances of narration can be lost in adapting novels into film with a focus on this issue in various adaptations in lolita
he's writing a (very long essay) and filming a short scene to draw comparisons to the actual films and show how biases and interpretations by directors can alter the plot of a story and change the fundamentals of a character
i know its not revolutionary but cut me some slack lmao
the classes yn's taking: women in film, the working cinematographer, film theory and criticism, intro to world literatures through short stories and film, & studies in narratives
she got all of her core curriculum classes out of the way her first year. her roommates did not
an: im kind of surprised at the response to this! tysm for reading everyone <3 i really appreciate it and i hope it will continue to be enjoyable ! i apologize that this chapter had a lot of assignment talk but we’re just at the beginning here lol
taglist: @wyrcan @thechaosoflonging @publicbathroompanic @bedeater @rottingt1tz @rintarawr @deluluforcarlos55 @ahseyy @localgaytrainwreck @cherrypieyourface @baskin-robinhoods @polish-cereal @iheartamora @ferntv @eclecticeggknightpsychic @httpakkeiji @does-directions @hikikaimar @needtoloveoutloud @rinheartshyunlix @causenessus @bookworm-center @kettlepop @makkiroll @atsumou @eyes-ofhell @kawaii-angelanne @ryeyeyer @k8nicole @mydearchoso @phoenix-eclipses @lixie-phoria @suitstars @reneny @scxrcherr @ueknightbl @iluvaquaphor @sleezzsister @barricadesenthusiast @staygoldsquatchling02 @nemesii @sereniteav @crimsoncamra @gsyche @evening-latte @rrosiitas @kunimix @kitnootkat @aquariarose @iluv-ace (taglist is closed, apologizes if you filled out the form and were not able to be added, the taglist filled up way quicker than i anticipated)
#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu#hq x reader#hq x you#haikyuu fluff#haikyuu smau#hq#haikyuu texts#akaashi keiji smau#akaashi smau#akaashi keiji x reader#akaashi x you#akaashi fluff#hq akaashi#akaashi x reader#haikyuu akaashi#akaashi keiji#akaashi keiji x you#akaashi keiji x reader smau
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Look, it's probably still not time to go really deep into it, but I did mention there are ways this ending where Tomura dies could work for me. Honestly I didn't have much of an issue with chapter 423 itself before the internet's emotional onslaught over it, but now that I'm hearing rumors the chapter was received well in Japan and a number of western fans have decided to couch all their disappointment in racism and rage at the target readership, maybe I should give some cursory thoughts just to counteract the stupid.
The Bittersweet Ending
Here's the thing. For all the game the bird app likes to talk about how MHA is happy and kid-friendly and not dark and that's bad somehow, it's kind of funny to me how little MHA actually meets expectations in that regard. If I were to divide MHA arcs into categories based on their endings, I would probably have to put the majority of them into the "makes me cry" category. Even arcs where the hero wins with ostensibly happy endings often have absolutely gut-wrenching moments, like All Might's retirement in the Kamino arc, Tsuyu's apology in the UA Dorm Contest arc, and Nighteye's death in the Overhaul arc. I don't think it's possible for me to watch the Sports Festival arc and come out of it with anything but mixed feelings of hope and haunting. Stain may have lost his battle, but his effect on society sure seems to give him the win when it comes to the war. The Paranormal Liberation War arc has a pretty rough ending where there may still be a sliver of hope, but goodness is it a small one.
Sure, some of the teariest moments are a result of happy scenes like Eri smiling for the first time at the cultural festival, but what I'm getting at is that MHA tends to go for more hopeful endings rather than happy ones. And those hopeful endings are often stained by some other tragedy, a price to pay for the hope. Just because MHA isn't full of random death doesn't mean it doesn't contain poignant loss. This was one of its early selling points in fact. MHA's most hopeful moments have always felt so real because the story acknowledges that these things should often play out messily. We've seen the mess, and now chapter 424 has given us a glimmer of hope. The question is now where the story will take us from here.
The Anticlimax
This post has come back for me in the most unexpected way, not gonna lie.
I often hear “anticlimax/anticlimactic” used as a negative criticism, especially colloquially. This criticism assumes an anticlimax is always written unintentionally. But that’s often not the case; anticlimax is actually fucking fantastic when placed in the right hands.
And Kohei Horikoshi is a goddamn anticlimax connoisseur.
I say he’s a connoisseur because Horikoshi has the gall, nay, the gumption–dare I say the balls to showcase the versatility of anticlimax as a storytelling technique for more than just comedy (although he does also use it for comedy a lot). He dares to use it in action scenes, horror/thriller scenes, and even fuzzy heartfelt scenes, all to the great effect of toying with our emotions. And he successfully has us feel exactly what he wants us to every time–because that’s the point. These aren’t cheap jokes; they serve a purpose!
They illustrate an actual, meaningful point about whatever scenario they are used in to make the story more realistic, to combat the fridge logic “well actually” complaints endemic to fandom. Because Horikoshi is a fan himself.
When I write "realistic," I don't mean to apply this quote here to indicate that death (especially for edgy aesthetics) is realistic. I mean to indicate that imperfection is realistic. Izuku isn't a perfect hero. Tomura isn't a perfect victim, and by victim I mean "character for the hero to save." Izuku says it himself:
A perfect victim for the hero to save would yield to the hero's attempts to turn and save them. They would see the wisdom in the hero's position and 100% change sides to agree with them. Trite.
Doing this runs the risk of erasing the victim's identity that comes before. Izuku never has a perfect answer to all of Tomura's problems with the world.
Izuku is the same as All Might. He's only human.
[...]Horikoshi has no compunctions using anticlimax in big, important, non-humorous scenes (even if the anticlimax ultimately adds humor to the scene that was otherwise unexpected). This man has no fear. He ends his famously popular take on the tried and true trope of tournament arcs with one big let-down that affects not just the audience but the in-universe characters.
[...]
You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know exactly what he was doing here? You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know about the fandom war over Katsuki’s hero name? That he didn’t purposefully fucking troll the fandom with this? That this isn’t the single greatest brick joke in the history of published media for its effect both in the canon and in the meta? Fuck you, we’re building up the tension around the most wildly popular character’s hero name reveal for 248 goddamn chapters (that’s five-and-a-half years) just to make it the cringiest fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your goddamn life. His hero name must be the closest audio rendition anyone can imagine shaped like a middle finger and fucking nothing less will suffice. Congratulations, fandom: you played yourselves! You made a war no one could win! Horikoshi could have chosen Ground Zero or Kacchan as Katsuki’s hero name and risked alienating half his fandom either way, but you didn’t realize there was a third option, which of course he took: to risk alienating the entire fucking fandom.
I'm just saying, an ending like this isn't out of character for Horikoshi. In light of this trip down memory lane and Izuku's parallel with All Might in that they acknowledge they cannot save everyone, I'm interested to see what Horikoshi does with this ending whether or not Tomura survives. What sort of hope will he offer?
The extended ending arc
The only real extended ending arc we've had in MHA that might give us a glimpse at the inner workings of Horikoshi's mind is the School Cultural Festival arc. Because of that (and the many other things I've mentioned before this post), I will say there is cause to believe we will have a hopeful ending. Again, I don't know what that looks like. A lot of people seem to have a specific thing they need to have happen to save the story for them, and I cannot speak to those.
Except for Deku vs Kacchan 3, which is what I need to have happen lol. And god does it seem really fucking possible now.
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