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sherl-grey · 6 months

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dangerous words I fear but I’m craving some OFMD critical but civil discourse… s2 finale spoilers included below the cut. this is incredibly long FYI bc I’m truly desperate to get all my thoughts out

I want to preface by saying I loved S2. I think I loved it more than s1, I think there were some absolute GENIUS moments this season (the entire Calypso episode was *chef’s kiss* my favorite), and I think the cast, crew, and DJ deserve a lot of love and, of course, a renewal for another season.

I know there’s been a lot of anti-finale-critiquing posts out there (and yeah, I also don’t want to see baseless hate or, god forbid, people trying to interact with the cast/crew with anything less than love and respect) but personally, I think the biggest sign that I love a show is me wanting to pick it apart. I think digging into the writing and decision-making and characters of a show means you really appreciate the choices that were made even if you don’t agree with them, because you’re working to understand the story on a level most people only dive to if they’re forced to in an English class. No story is going to be perfect. No story is going to be written specifically for me unless it’s literally by me. But sometimes I still want to study it like a bug under a microscope, you know?

So here we go: I didn’t like the finale, and I didn’t think it fit very well with the rest of the season/show. Weirdly enough I didn’t feel a need to discuss online until I started reading the interviews DJ has been giving about the finale (specifically the choice to kill Izzy and Ed/Stede’s ending) and I’m so curious as to whether others interpreted things the same way. (Yes, they’re DJ’s characters. No, I don’t think all viewers are obligated to interpret things the same way as writers did—that’s half the beauty of storytelling and media consumption.)

Izzy’s Death

Let’s unpack the big one first. I think a lot of what DJ/finale defenders (if I may respectfully call fans who enjoyed s2e8 that) have mentioned is that Izzy’s arc was over and he’d served his narrative purpose. I’ve got a few different issues with this:

1. Part of what I love(d?) about this show is that I did not think this was a show that kills characters once they’ve served their narrative purpose, or a show that kills characters as punishment/retribution for mistakes/earlier actions. To me, OFMD symbolizes the idea that everyone is deserving of love, forgiveness, and second chances. I truly trusted that no one on the Revenge crew would die in this show, and to be proven wrong was a bit disheartening, to say the least. Will talk more on the suicide notion in the next bit because I think it was symbolic, but Izzy also now represents a suicidal character who finds the will to live again. I’d argue that a “full arc” for a character like that should be ending in happiness, not death (and especially not with a line like “I want to go” or whatever the specific words were).

2. DJ seems to describe Izzy’s role as being a mentor to Blackbeard, which I personally struggle to see at all. Despite the Captain/First Mate status difference, I think most signs have pointed towards them being roughly equals—the unrequited love Izzy feels for Ed, the way the two of them stand right up to each other when everyone else would be afraid to, the clear shared history and longevity of their friendship/companionship. (If anything, I’d argue Izzy takes on the mentor mantle for Stede in s2, though it’s a bit glossed over because of how crunched for time everything was.) I certainly have trouble seeing the “father figure” relationship that DJ mentions in interviews, because I think Izzy is the one crew member that puts himself on even ground with his captains.

But even humoring that, Ed’s story has been about shedding Blackbeard. And DJ has a great quote in the Entertainment Weekly interview where he says that Izzy and Ed are both Blackbeard, that the two of them together are what makes Blackbeard “happen.” So in theory, if we’re killing Izzy off to further Ed’s storyline, it’s to ultimately kill Blackbeard, right? Especially since his line at the end is to “just be Ed.”

Except we already have metaphorically killed Blackbeard, several times. I think S2E3 is a really interesting episode because in season 1, it can be argued (and is, by Chauncey Badminton) that Stede kills Blackbeard in his own pirate-y way—with kindness. The crew is also somewhat a part of this, as they all accept and love Ed for who he is and not only because he’s Blackbeard; the crew follows the example of their captain and it changes who Ed is as a person. S2E3 is a crew under Blackbeard, and they also kill Blackbeard following the method of their current captain—violence. And this “death” is, in my mind, the death of Blackbeard while Stede symbolically saves the part of him that is just Ed. (Bonus: we also get Ed trying to sink his leathers, and while it might just be because he’s on a damn boat, it’s interesting that Blackbeard’s clothes are drowned/sunk while Ed’s metaphorical comeback was being saved from drowning by Mer!Stede.)

So Ed’s half of Blackbeard is dead. If we stand by DJ’s idea that Blackbeard is half Izzy, we’ve still got half of Blackbeard left, right? Well, that would’ve been right immediately post-S1, but then they gave Izzy a beautiful arc that seems to be a shadow of Ed’s S1 track. Ed and Izzy are very similar characters, but in S1 Ed is on the receiving end of love, acceptance, and admiration—namely from Stede, but also from the crew. Meanwhile, Izzy is subject to contempt and hostility… once again, namely from Stede, and also from the crew. Ed blossoms under the love during S1 until that’s taken away; Izzy simply moves in the reverse direction. He continues to be an antagonist while being treated like one, but once others start treating him with kindness (Fang hugging him, Jim and Archie amputating his leg while Frenchie lies for him, the whole crew making him the unicorn leg), he too becomes a part of the family. And wouldn’t you know it—Izzy has a near death scene as well, a suicide no less. Izzy is the one who is responsible in S1 for “bringing back Blackbeard,” so the symbolism of him pulling the trigger on himself is huge. This is Izzy killing his half of Blackbeard! Because Izzy Hands continues to live, even if it takes him some time to remember how to live without Blackbeard at first, and his relationship with Ed effectively dies here.

(As a side note, this growth arc and the way Izzy fully transforms into a member of the Revenge crew afterwards—whittling Lucius a shark and talking to him about forgiveness, dressing up in drag and singing to the crew, cracking silly jokes about Ed and Stede’s relationship—are also why I find the “Izzy Hands is the symbol of traditional piracy and his death is symbolic of traditional piracy dying” argument to be weak. In season 1, he was that definition, but we’ve literally watched him grow out of it. He’s no longer symbolic of something stagnant that will remain the same or be destroyed—he’s symbolic of something that grows and adapts to the new situations, that survives when all of the rules change on him.)

And then we have the return of Blackbeard: Pop-Pop pushing Ed to go back to doing “what he’s good at,” Ed fishing his leathers out of the ocean, Ed killing a ton of people because he thinks Stede is likely dead or at minimum in captivity/grave danger. This bit seems to go against everything the season was building towards; Blackbeard was almost entirely gone, but Ed is now the one who brings him back because he thinks Blackbeard is the one who can save Stede. And that’s fair, but what does that have to do with Izzy at this point? Why does he need to die for Ed to put that part of him away again? While we’re not owed a main character having a death that serves a narrative purpose, I’d hope for that to be the case, and I struggle to interpret what happens to Izzy as beneficial to either plot or character.

3. I think the actual core arcs of the show are character arcs and not plots. I get that they might’ve been trying to wrap plots with Zheng and the British in case they aren’t renewed, but I don’t think it was necessary—the pirating has always been secondary to the rom com and the found family, IMO. In S1, we had two main characters, but I’d argue Izzy got enough focus and attention to be a third this season. Which left us with a great character-driven story: we’re watching all 3 of them come into their own and discover who they are individually, while also discovering that the changes in themselves are causing friction between them now that they’re growing into new people. Which is an amazing story to tell, if you ask me, but the fulfillment of that story requires all three characters to be there. The conflict to be resolved is how these characters can become the people they want to be and still coexist together, because on some level they’re family now. Notably each pair combination of these characters grows together or apart (or in Stede/Ed’s case, both) during this season. Ed and Izzy are growing apart because they hold each other back from becoming the person they want/need to be; to complete this narratively, I would’ve expected the next challenge to be finding a way to become friends again as their new selves while letting go of the fact that they used to have a toxic relationship when they used to be different people.

Ed and Stede’s S2 Ending

So Izzy’s death is the big talking point, but I also think DJ’s take on Ed and Stede was interesting. He said that they deserved a happy ending for the work they put in this season. I agree with him in theory, but I’m curious as to whether others agree that they put in a lot of work. I think Stede followed through with his goal to come back and tell Ed how he feels, and to stay instead of running away from his problems. I think Ed followed through with trying to understand who he is and what his needs are while also trying to find the courage to open himself up to love again. But critically, they never talk. E7 makes a point to highlight the miscommunication/lack of communication between them, and then in E8 they still aren’t shown talking.

(I realize part of the issue is the limited amount of time and the amount of plot shoved into episode 8. I get it; personally, I think the plot should’ve been sacrificed for the characters. At this point, we were 7 episodes into a very character/relationship-heavy season. Plot could’ve waited for a potential S3.)

What’s more—there’s a huge, glaring gap between where they left off and where they end up. Ed left in S2E7 after he begins panicking and realizing Stede is becoming deeper entrenched in pirate life just as he’s finally finding his way out of it. Not once do they talk about this, but suddenly they’re retiring together? And right after Ed says Izzy was his only family and Izzy calls the crew his family (which… is also an unearned line, as Ed and the crew have almost no bonding or forgiveness this season, since we focused mainly on Izzy with the crew and Ed with Stede), they leave the crew to do their own thing? They’re all relatively minor things that could be fairly easily addressed by dialogue, but they fact that they’re not only serves to underscore the way that Ed and Stede really aren’t on the same page.

I want them to get their happy ending. They deserve it. I’m just not sure that I agree that they earned it to the degree that it was received, with retirement alone together without their crew, if that makes sense.

Positivity Tax: Calypso Love 😊

I’ve probably got more to say but those were the big ones on my mind after reading the Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly interviews. Just to counterbalance some of the more critical things I’ve said, I wanted to share some loving analysis of the Calypso episode:

1. It’s a minor thing, but the way this episode shows that Ed’s actions as Blackbeard had consequences is amazing. Despite him arguably committing the more grievous wrongs in S1, he’s the one we get the least redemption for in this season (his apology to the crew wasn’t great, and most of his screen time is spent repairing his relationship with Stede), so for him to have to face something that happened because of his past actions is cool, especially because it was done in a way that doesn’t further damage his standing with the crew.

2. The way Stede saves the day is incredible. Competent Stede this season has been an absolute joy to watch, and his success in this episode is twofold: first he wins his way, with signature Gentleman Pirate flair. He listens to Ned’s crew, helps facilitate communication between them, and encourages them to stand up for themselves and demand better treatment. That’s a very classic Stede win. But then he wins in the traditional pirate way, and it’s absolutely glorious; he’s been working towards becoming a better pirate, both in terms of stomaching violence and building up the necessary skills. Ned’s crew can be taken down with kindness, but Ned himself is a pirate and will only be matched by another. I genuinely cannot think of a more perfect way to show that Stede is still himself while also showcasing the newer side of him that he’s been working towards this whole time.

3. Speaking of that newer side of him, the way this episode starts to open up Ed’s insecurities? The combination of seeing his least favorite parts of himself reflected in Stede as well as watching Stede grow into the career that he’s trying to leave? Amazing conflict development.

4. I’ve already talked so much about Izzy but the way this truly caps off the crew’s acceptance of him as part of the family is gorgeous. He’s an entirely new man at this point and there’s no jokes made, no friendly ribbing… just love and acceptance. It highlights both his newfound comfort and familiarity with the others as well as the extent to which they care about him.

5. Less analytical, but it’s also just a really pretty episode.

Considering the fact that I have zero OFMD mutuals and this was a whole essay (I’m on mobile and can’t see how long this is but I’m honestly scared), I would be shocked if someone made it down this far, but if somehow people are here and open to civil discussion… I’d love to know how you felt about this, if you thought DJ was right, if you were a little more on my wavelength and thinking things weren’t adding up, etc. Realistically I’m not sure if anything could change my mind as I’ve done a lot of stewing, particularly about Izzy arc, but new perspectives are always refreshing. Much love to the fandom and of course the creators, who hopefully never see this and get their s3 renewal 🤞🏼

#ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #our flag means death #sherlgrey.txtea #i am SO going to regret posting this aren’t i #i guess worst case scenario i delete #but I suspect most likely scenario is no one reads this lol

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throwing-summers-at-the-walls · 4 years

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Hello again ☺️Yes, that would have been really cool! I already read two of your recomnendations and i love them so thank you again for sharing! I can understand you being unsure of your writing but i bet there are people who will love it. Judging from how you answer your asks and how much you love John i have no doubt that i would love it. But if you dont wanna post it anywhere i would completely understand too. (1)

Im glad i came around to like Root cause otherwise it would have been hard to watch season 4 & 5 cause she appears a lot. I think part of it is cause i watched it witch my family and my dad loves her so i started to like her more too (you know who you love sth cause someone else loves it?) and then eventually i liked her to. Shaw i loved from day one and i loved her sibling energy with John. The John and Shaw dynamic was one of my favorites. I love their teasing and their chaotic energy (2)

As for Shoot i think its kinda cool that the writers just went with it cause of the chemistry and i like Shoot a lot. John and Harold would be amazing too (i mean whats better than one queer couple? Two queer couples!) And there are some parallels between the ships so there was room for both of them. Eventhough Harold and Grace is cute too. And i feel John has chemistry with almost everyone (not always romantic chemistry but also platonic chemistry if thats a Thing 😂) and (3)

in Addition to rinch i also really liked John with Zoe. The only one he had zero chemistry with was the theraphist imo. That ship was just weird. I wish they would have used that time for more Rinch scenes instead. -- yes someone who agrees about the happy end! I dont understand people who wish for a sad end. Like John is my fave character ever and i just want him to be happy with his newfound odd family and maybe someday adopt a cute baby with Harold or become an uncle or idk just be happy (4)

But in my Imagination he didnt die and someday he and Harold retired and started their quieter Happy life with Bear. --- yeah poi Reddit loves the later seasons and hates the first and i noticed they can get a bit mean with people who dont agree (thats why i only read and never write anything). Also said you could skip most of S1 which is just sad cause its a great season 😔 i will accept that i lost validity (is this even a Word?) for liking Root 😂 also yea 4x20 is the ep with the carter hallucinations so check it out. But a warning: Root appears :D sorry this ask got so long, but i just love talking to you and i always look forward to your replies :)

Hi !! Happy to see you're back :)

Glad you liked my recs ! I think there's quite an amount of fics with suicidal John out there actually. Not that surprising since it's canon.

I appreciate your support ! In the long run idk if it's healthy for me. Like a few months ago I fell back into ace attorney and I read a lot of fics about Miles being suicidal and it affected me negatively. Sometimes I purposefully seek out suicide fics. And it may not be the most healthy thing to do. So I'm not sure about that fic. Bc I do wanna write it, but idk if it'd be healthy, as catharsis, or unhealthy, as rumination. I mean I've been writing that body horror fic with some projection of my body issues and it's fine. But yeah I'm pretty sure that if I ever finish it I think I'll post it – after all I posted a fic in which John jumped off a bridge a long while ago before I got suicidal (foreshadowing my own life here lmao). I also wanna try to work on my other wips

Yeah I see, that's understandable. Ngl Root makes me not motivated to get to these seasons during my rewatch (which technically wouldn't be a rewatch). It's wild how I feel nothing for Shaw (she do be kinda hot tho,,,, muscles,,,,,) but I think it's mostly bc I wasn't that interested in her back then and it's been so long since I watched the show I don't remember shit about her. She'd be able to grow on me I think. Yeah I've seen a lot of posts about that "mayhem twins" dynamic around here it does sound cool. Also it's refreshing to have a male/female relationship that isn't turned into a forced romance. But I'll always have a soft spot for S1 and its four core characters.

It's nice if they have chemistry, I didn't feel like they did. Yeah I'm still disappointed that they didn't go for Rinch too. I mean come on their chemistry is so painfully obvious ! I dislike the word queer but mood pls just give me canon Rinch I'm fucking begging hhhhhhh. I'm quite sure the notion of chemistry works with non romantic relationships as well. John is definitely good with people. He looks scary and brooding but he's just a good man who wants to help people ! I love him so much and same he's my fav character of all time !! Also I love seeing him interact with kids he's so good with them. But I also love when he's being an absolute badass. Damn I always forget about Grace gkjdfkjfd I don't have anything against her though, Harold and her are cute together. (Not much into the grace/harold/john OT3 tho, I've seen it around after return 0 but :/ not my thing. But hey good for people who like it.)

I liked John and Zoe too. Even if he had chemistry with Iris it's so cringe, didn't think poi would fall as low as portraying such a relationship between a therapist and a patient. Guess that shows the decrease in quality in the later seasons. Sad they did that shit when as you said they could have showed more Rinch. Like come ooon Rinch is just. Right fucking here. Just make it canon you cowards.

Yeah fuck sad endings (John didn't die obviously) I want my men to be happy and in love and live a good life together with their dog is that too much to ask. Like sometimes I read fics with MCD bc why not but most of the time I just want happiness. Fluffy domestic Rinch is so good ! Gives me so much life. I have a soft spot for married Rinch as well. Also while we're at it let me rec this domestic fluff fic:

Yeah not surprised. And you're right don't waste your time arguing on reddit lol it's not worth it. It baffles me when people say S1 is boring like ??? Where ?? There's literally soooo many eps I love in this season !! 📣📣📣number crunch is the best ep📣📣📣 Glad they stay over on reddit with their last seasons and their shit opinions about S1 smh. Like imagine being a fan of a show and disregarding the season that created the basis of the show and developed characters and relationships. Big brain time uh

I'm quite sure validity is an actual word, and that's how it be if you like root :/ I don't make the rules :/ you're the half valid anon now 😂

Oh well I shall endure root if it's a good ep ^^

It's cool !! I love your long asks !! I hope I didn't get lost in my own reply lmao

#anon #person of interest #half valid anon

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hashtagartistlife · 7 years

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KILL YOUR DARLINGS, pt. 2 (Discarded Fic Edition) (Part 1 here)

(A small snippet written after someone asked the group chat (I think it was Rodella) ‘hey, do you think Uryuu can’t bear to look in mirrors anymore bc he looks so much like his mom and that hurts him?’)

There’s something odd about Ishida-kun’s house, but Orihime doesn’t quite manage to put her finger on it until about the third or fourth visit.

“Sorry, Ishida-kun, could you let me know where the bathroom is…?” she asks, in between a brace of calculus problems; Ishida-kun looks up from his Japanese literature homework, a little startled, and points vaguely down the hallway.

“Oh— oh, right, it’s the first door to the left,” he says, and goes back to his book. Orihime excuses herself with a small smile.

It occurs to her while washing her hands afterwards; the reason why Ishida-kun’s house has always felt a little… off-kilter.

There aren’t any mirrors in his house at all.

(The discarded beginnings of a fic I was writing for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, paradise.)

There are birds of paradise sitting by her windowsill, pretty in their wrought-iron cages. A note, written in an elegant hand, is attached to the lock: Congratulations on the union. The birds are a set, a male and female; currently asleep with their brightly coloured heads bent together. Rukia’s hand itches for the key. In the quiet of the morning before everyone wakes, everything still seems a beautiful possibility.

Her trembling fingers sweep over the fabric of her dress, skitter over the handle of her sword; nobody would ever know. One twist of her wrist, a key turning in a lock, and she’d never have to see them in captivity again. A gift, from some far-flung branch of her family. Who would she be offending? Does she rightly care? She does not understand why her marriage should be celebrated by tying creatures of the sky down to a lifetime on the ground. What a terrible thing; to lose your wings. To never even realise what you’ve lost—

The key is such a slender thing to be the only obstacle between them and the endless expanse of the sky. Rukia grips it in her hand, and though she is tiny, the key is tinier still; such an easily lost thing, this tenuous bridge to freedom. It shakes as she moves it towards the lock.

(When we were busy writing irbb, the irbb writer’s chat did a thing where we rewrote a snippet of each other’s fic in our own writing style. The excerpt in italics is a scene from Jess @sequencefairy’s irbb fic, Torque, which you can find here (x). The part following is my take on that scene.)

There are always sirens at night, Tokyo is a big city, and even though Karakura is a relatively quiet part of it, Ichigo can always count on hearing the wail of some siren, somewhere. These are close, and, in his relatively extensive experience, they are police sirens. He gets up, shuffles across his bed and pulls his window open further.

They get closer still, and now Ichigo can make out the whine of an engine being pushed to it’s limit. They must be a number of blocks away still. Ichigo pulls out his phone, keeping half an ear on the noise outside and scrolls through his twitter feed. Sometimes, if he’s lucky, the Tokyo police force traffic detachment will give information about current traffic disruptions. There’s a screech of tires and Ichigo winces. His thumb pauses in its movement on his phone’s screen and everything seems to hush.

The moment hangs. Ichigo forgets to breathe.

The crunch and squeal of metal on metal is unmistakable, even at this distance. He’s already pulling on his sweater by the time the phone in the clinic rings.

________________________________________________________________

The still air of his bedroom is split by the sound of police sirens. This in itself is nothing new; living on the edge of a city as big as Tokyo, the fantasy of an undisturbed night is something he has long since discarded. But these sound closer to him than usual, and Ichigo strains to hear them. It was unusual to have a chase this close to Karakura-cho. He flings his window open and reaches for his phone.

His twitter feed reveals nothing unusual, but Ichigo stays on edge. The sirens get closer at an alarmingly fast rate, and now he can make out the whirring of the engines and the skid of tyres on asphalt that tell him they’re only a few blocks away. His phone is crushed in his palm. Ichigo knows from experience; a chase at this speed ends in only one of two ways. Voluntary surrender, or…

The screech of metal on metal tears through the sky, and Ichigo’s already gone; the phone slips from his sweaty grip to land on his abandoned bed even as the one in the clinic begins its urgent and unmistakeable song.

(The beginnings of a discarded fic I was writing for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, lunar.)

There is something about the moon that night. Brighter than the streetlamps that dot the streets below, less harsh than the fluorescents inside the house, she emits a soft, steady light that bleaches the surroundings of colour and makes the edges of objects glow.

(.... this was going to be a fic where it looks like Ichigo is talking to Rukia at first, but as the fic progresses the reader notices things getting weirder and weirder until at the end they realise that a) Ichigo was actually just monologuing to the moon and that b) Rukia’s been dead for ten years. (Un)Fortunately for everyone involved, my muse for this fled, so this is all there is of that.)

(Some Ryuuken/Katagiri + Uryuu introspective thing that I really want to finish, but I can’t remember where I was going with it :sadface:)

The boy’s in love.

For all that other people called Ryuuken an awful father, he’s always been adept at reading his son’s emotions; Uryuu always been far too much like Kanae for him to not be able to see every flicker of thought across his idiotically expressive face.

(The discarded beginnings of a fic I was writing for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, truth-bridge-knife. The ellipses indicate that there was supposed to be more writing in between, but I never quite got around to it.)

Here’s the thing: the truth is, she’s never loved him.

Oh, people supposed. If you had, you certainly wouldn’t have been the first; they never seem to understand, all these outsiders, that she’s never felt more for him than what a mentor would feel for their student, what a comrade would feel for their fellow soldiers-in-arms. The bond forged by blood and war is stronger than any covenant sealed with homework and trips to the arcade; she supposes it’s easy to confuse such a bond with love. But it’s not like he’s ever singled her out for special treatment compared to the rest of his comrades. It’s not like she ever treated him any different to Renji or nii-sama or any of the other men in her life. She loves him, of course; she loves all her friends. But she’s never been in love with him.

Here’s the thing: he’s never been more than a bridge to her; a connection back to the world that she belongs in.

And now, here’s the thing: truth isn’t a bridge. Truth is a knife and you can wield it in the same way, cut, cut, slash. Truth is subjective and truth is not what the Kuchiki Clan keeps and sometimes, the truth isn’t the truth, not at all, but everyone agrees that it should be the truth and they won’t listen to anything else.

So, here’s the thing: the truth is that he’s always never been just a friend. Love and companionship are needless essential emotions and she had both was missing both before he came into her life. It’s not like he changed her world and dried her rain; it’s not like she became his ray of light. The truth is that they’ll always never be ‘just friends’.

But here’s the thing: people don’t care. They’ve never cared and what can such a ragged, patchwork truth do to disguise the festering wound that’s opened up between them, more effective than a child’s the floor is lava game in keeping them apart? Nobody wants to read between the lines anymore and what matters is what the Kuchiki Clan’s records say. Some truths are truer than others and none are as true as the Kuchiki Clan’s truths, and there, written in her own hand, in the truest true-black ink she can find, will be her name; linked to a man she’s never wanted, not like that. And in time, when there is no more Ichigo and Rukia, that will be all that remains; just her name linked to someone else’s in true-black ink, the only truth left out of the myriads of other truths that they keep.

(The discarded beginnings of a fic I was writing for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, truth-bridge-knife (can you tell I was very taken by this prompt… also that it was viciously difficult for me :’)). Truth was supposed to be Sode no Shirayuki, Bridge was supposed to be Zabimaru, and Knife was supposed to be Zangetsu.)

(Truth)

The truth is that you’ve never liked the boy. Hair like the blazing sun, and a soul equally as hot; yet what is the sun to the snow but anathema? You waited out your stint in the boy’s soulscape like a curse. In his heart, there is no room to hide, nowhere to escape or take shelter. If it rains, you get soaked; if the sun shines, you burn. You wish the boy would learn some tact; some scrap of control. You lend him your powers because you see no other choice. You never even give him your name. He never thinks to ask.

The truth is you don’t like him. He jumps into things without thinking; deliberation and calculation is second nature to you. You felt abandoned, see; when she relinquished her grip on your heart almost eagerly, handed you over to him like you’re water through her fingers and not solid ice growing through her veins.

(Bridge)

It surprises you how easily a bridge of a hundred years, forged from the sweat and tears and blood of shared friends, crashes and burns.

It doesn’t matter how many years have gone into its making; it doesn’t matter how steady you thought it beneath your feet. One moment of inaction is all it takes, and she’s sliding your master’s hands from her shoulders, averting her eyes. You think you can see the smoke as everything goes up in flames.

You didn’t know her then, yuki-onna. You won’t know her for another forty years.

(Knife)

You haven’t been called upon in years.

Even the best swords rust if they’ve been neglected. You’re not sure you can even call yourself a sword any more. A kitchen knife, maybe— maybe less than that. A butterknife. You almost envy that imposter that once took up space inside his mind, as much as you had cursed him once— he, at least, had bailed while the King was intact. You could overthrow him now, sure, but for what? There’s no point in ruling over a field of ashes. His fire has long since burned out.

(A very very short snippet of a Bleach x Percy Jackson AU)

“You’re a demigod.”

Ichigo blinks. “I know I’m good-looking, but that’s coming on a little strong, don’t you think?”

The girl with the odd violet eyes smacks him upside the head. “Not that kind of demigod, you fool,” she snaps. “I doubt an oaf like you would be familiar with Greek mythology—”

“No, I know a little.” It takes a short second to sink in, and when it does, he bolts up from his chair. “Wait, demigod as in Greek mythology demigod—??”

“Yes.”

“But, but,” he splutters, “we’re Japanese.”

She smacks him again, harder. “Don’t question it, fool!”

(idk what this is but I like it.)

In his dreams, he loses her a hundred, a thousand, a million different ways. To fire, to flood, to a sword through the gut; to creeping disease and the ravages of time. Always right before his eyes, so that he can see the life draining from her; always, always, always helpless.

None of the dreams ever hurt as much as waking up does.

(A really, really old (several years at least) highschool soccer AU fic I started bc Korea lost to Australia in the Asian Cup and I got pissed as hell lmao)

The shrill blast of the whistle cut through the morning air as twenty-two people erupted into simultaneous noises of outrage, but one voice carried clearly over the rest.

“A foul?! Which part?! Any moron could have seen that it was his foot that tripped me over!”

“Not bloody likely!” snarled player fifteen, his face slowly flushing to match his distinctive orange hair. “Look at her! I’m not even sure she’s tall enough to actually trip over my feet! If anything, she’s the one that was underfoot, not me!”

“Underfoot?” The woman’s eyes flashed dangerously as she took a step closer to player fifteen, and despite being a clear foot and a half taller, he stumbled backwards in his haste to avoid her searing anger. “I’ll show you underfoot, you great, big, bullying lout—”

“That’s enough!” Another shrill pipe of the whistle, this time right into the two players’ ears; they jumped back comically, the boy tripping over the ball and landing flat on his backside. The opposing team hid their sniggers behind clean white shirts accented in violet. “Kuchiki, Kurosaki, no name-calling on the field. Kuchiki, last I checked you weren’t the umpire. It’ll be Kurosaki’s free kick. Resume play!”

“I believe in you, onii-chan!” a sweet-looking girl with pigtails called from the stands as the orange-haired striker assumed position; the white-clad team slunk into formation, muttering darkly about the umpire— Mizuiro, wasn’t it? Fucker’s got raisins for eyes— behind his back. Player twenty-three, black-haired, violet-eyed, seething with anger, settled into a defensive stance; her opponent smirked at her lazily.

“Don’t worry, Yuzu, I got this,” he called back to the stands, but his eyes were trained on her.

Bring it, they said.

There was nothing that Kuchiki Rukia did better.

________________________________________________________________

Half time at the annual ‘friendship’ match between Karakura High and Seireitei Academy brought with it a frustrating score of nil-all, multiple yellow cards, numerous fouls and several inappropriate insults hurled across the field. The umpire for the first half had narrowly managed to avoid an angry Seireitei Academy mob, slipping away into the Karakura High stands before blood could be drawn. The game so far had been tight; the two teams were evenly matched, and, as such games tended to go, had been getting increasingly dirty with time.

(Very old Ichiruki sort of camp counsellors AU I was writing based on some of my own experiences with mentoring at camps)

“We are going to annihilate you.”

A perfectly acceptable sentiment in team sports, had it not been for the fact that currently, their teams were made up of borderline terrified seventh-graders on their first highschool camp. Kuchiki Rukia brandished a finger in his direction, and Kurosaki Ichigo rolled his eyes.

“In your dreams,” he retorted, spinning his makeshift paddle in one hand and looking for all the world like a full-grown adult to their coterie of kids. The mischievous gleam in his eyes, however, could only belong to a teenager, and a reckless, headstrong, seventeen-year-old one at that. “Bring it, Queen midget.”

“For god’s sake, you’re leading kids. Do you have no shame?” Ishida Uryuu interjected from the side, rolling his sleeves up methodically and pushing his glasses up his nose. Behind him, Inoue Orihime smiled apologetically, ushering yet more seventh graders along behind her. Rukia and Ichigo looked at each other.

“Not really,” they both replied, before turning to their frightened looking protegees.

“Besides, you guys want to win too, don’t you?” Rukia asked, flashing a grin that was all teeth. There was a short silence.

One brave soul nodded.

________________________________________________________________

Peer mentoring as a concept had existed for a while now in education; it developed leadership and organisational skills for the mentor, helped younger students settle into the rhythm of school life with minimal discomfort and fostered a sense of unity and mutual respect throughout the school. A beneficial arrangement all around, many schools had soon adopted the procedure of assigning an older peer mentor to a group of younger students. Karakura high was no exception; their ten-week peer mentoring program in which students in their twelfth and final year of schooling each mentored a group of roughly five seventh-graders was generally acknowledged to be the best leadership program around for miles, and looked stellar on any resume, reference letter or college application one cared to write.

So there was no way in hell that Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia, two of the most promising students of the 2015 graduating class, was about to pass that chance up.

(Old hichiruki oneshot set straight after the fullbring reunion)

He’s taller.

Kuchiki Rukia is used to being small; used to having men and women tower over her day and night, used to fighting and defeating people and monsters that far outstrip her in size. Her lack of physical presence is something she is long accustomed to, such that she barely gives a passing thought to size differences between her and her opponents these days. People who are taller and bigger than her have long since ceased to unnerve her, given how she has been positively diminutive all her life—

So then why am I so acutely aware of the fact that he’s taller than me?

Not just taller than her, no; taller than before, specifically. Silently, Rukia berates herself; human males grow, it’s not as if she didn’t know this. Did she think Ichigo would forever remain the angry fifteen-year-old she had first transferred her powers to? Of course it was natural that he’d have gained a few inches since she’d last seen him, but for some reason, the fact that he is notably taller and broader than when she left him is really hitting home at this moment.

Maybe it’s because of his proximity to her. Suddenly flushing, she realises how close they are standing; attempting to hide her flaming blush (it’s ridiculous, this is Kurosaki Ichigo, why would she be blushing—), she coughs and takes a deliberate step away from him.

“I’m not your princess.”

He cocks his head at her, like a disturbing, overlarge bird. “No?” he hisses, eyes glinting in the half-dark. He grins a grin that’s all teeth, and his tongue curls out and runs across his bottom lip. He slams a fist into his palm as though he’s figured something out. “Queen, then. There, that fits better, anyway. You’re not some timid bitch under someone else’s rule. You only bow for the King, don’t you?”

“I’m not your Queen either,” she says steadily. Her voice does not betray her inner turmoil, and for that she is thankful. “And I don’t bow to anyone—“

The hollow snorts. “Tell that to the King,” he says, getting up from the bed. Rukia smothers her instinctual reaction to take a step back.

(Ichiruki Snow Queen AU, version 1: Ichigo dies in the war with Yhwach, Rukia singlehandedly ends the Thousand Year Blood War, goes insane with grief, turns the Seireitei into a desolate icy wasteland and flees to the snow fields with Ichigo’s body, which she encases in ice and basically becomes a hermit ice queen protecting the corpse of her loved one. Several hundred years later, a reincarnated Ichigo comes to the Seireitei, wonders why everything is so shitty and cold, and decides he’s going to go give this ‘Ice Queen’ a piece of his goddamn mind. He likes summer, ok?)

The thousand year blood war ends like this:

Kurosaki Ichigo falls, blood spurting from a wound that not even Inoue can close. Unohana, who might yet have saved him by dint of accumulated centuries of medical knowledge, lies a lifeless corpse in the bottommost floor of Muken. Urahara is too far away on the battlefield to implement any of his clever schemes, and his father is god knows where, doing god knows what. Aizen watches his demise with passive eyes. Yhwach swings his broadsword, and blood trails from its edge in scarlet droplets – scatters on the soil like rain. He laughs, Kurosaki Ichigo falls, and dooms the entirety of the Seireitei to fall with him.

Yhwach laughs, because he can see it now, his victory, his victory, Soul Society his to rule and a realm of endless carnage that would ensure he never lose the light– but all those eyes and that almost infinite power of his could not have shown him what came next.

It is not Kurosaki Ichigo he has to worry about. It is a tiny shinigami, not even worth making the special war potentials list, barely a foot soldier before her promotion to lieutenant a year prior to the battle. She is the one who ends the thousand year blood war, she and her zanpakutou spirit and the mindless energy that comes with the severance of a fate ordained by a higher being than he could have ever imagined.

For if the Soul King evades his prophetic eyes, what hope does he have of perceiving the fabric of destiny woven by a power greater and more terrible than ten Soul Kings combined?

The moment he felled Kurosaki Ichigo was the moment he sealed his mortal fate. The last thing Yhwach sees before frost encases him is a blinding pillar of white annihilating half of the Seireitei.

(Ichiruki Snow Queen AU, version 2: Sode no Shirayuki gets jealous of the ‘unbreakable bond’ between Rukia and Ichigo, and also she thinks that Rukia’s kind, giving heart is basically barring her from true greatness, so she blankets the Seireitei in an eternal winter, erases Rukia’s memories and kidnaps her to some ice castle on the edge of a cliff, so she can train her to be the Queen of the universe that Shirayuki knows she can be. Ichigo, predictably, is having None Of That Shit, thank you very much.)

Winter comes upon the Seireitei without warning that year.

Softly, quietly, almost without anyone noticing, the first snow comes, blanketing the eaves of the nobles’ and the commoners’ houses alike, the cold winds starts stealing into the alleyways and shakes the last of the autumn leaves off the trees, creeping frost scurries along the pavement, filling their cracks–

and slowly, imperceptibly, the unfurling of something colder than the winter, pale violet eyes blinking open, waking to the world it observes with dispassionate detachment before deciding–

something was wrong.

She looks out the window, to the blizzard just starting up outside; he is still there, waiting in the snow.

“Who is he, Shirayuki?” she asks later, when it is just the two of them and any cries of her name— Rukia, Rukia— are drowned out by the wind whipping through the corridors. “He burns like the sun.”

The tiniest furrowing of Shirayuki’s brow, an almost imperceptible tremble in her hands— but then she blinks, and it is gone.

“I know not, and I care even less,” she says, face smooth and cold. “The sun is no friend to the snow, Rukia.”

(...Some kinda timeskip!feels, I suppose?)

It’s been 17 months, not that he’s been counting.

Or maybe he has; and who would blame him? After all the shit that happened to him two winters ago, the peaceful life he’s living now seems almost like a dream. He lives in constant fear—

Fear?

— fear of it disappearing, like so much smoke through his fingers, so is it any wonder he keeps count, to this day? You know, kind of like those joke signs about workplace safety. It has been X days since our last nonsense. Yeah, that’s definitely what it was. Every day that he adds to his mental tally reassures him—

does it

— reassures him, and one day there’ll be so many days that he’ll have lost count. One day the days that he’s had to count will outnumber the days that he hasn’t counted, and he looks forward to that day with a reverence bordering on fanaticism; he can’t wait till he can do away with the tally altogether, until he’s secure enough in his normal

mundane

life that he no longer has to count every new day like an

disappointment

achievement. Because that day will come, he tells himself, gritting his teeth, curling his hands into fists, that day will come when he no longer leaves his windows open at night and leans into the cold snap of the frost; that day will come when he doesn’t jerk away from butterflies and look the other way when he sees Inoue or Chad or Ishida running down the corridors, skipping class. The tally is only one part of it, the easiest part of it all; and that day will come when he can take it down from his mental walls and throw it in the trash. But for now, for now—

Seventeen months and a day, since he last saw spirits.

#bleach #ichiruki #kurosaki ichigo #kuchiki rukia #writer life #kill your darlings #ishihime #bleach fic

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