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frozenjokes · 8 months

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Signing Back In, Apparently - 8

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There were a couple things Scar noticed when he woke up face down on the floor. One, Mumbo was gone. Not a huge surprise. Two, everything hurt so much less! Hurray! Three; amendment to number two. His back actually hurt quite a lot, but this time, he was pretty sure that it was from sleeping funny. Exciting! Maybe he could actually get some drugs to take the edge off!

It wasn’t until he stood, gathering his things, that his mood dampened. Ah yes, today he would have to deal with the aftermath of yesterday. Well, he really didn’t have much to his name as of now, perhaps he could just pack the little he had and sail away, never to be seen again. Ah, a glory that would be. Unfortunately, nothing to his name also meant no food, water, and other necessary supplies. Plus, due to recent developments in his health , Scar wasn’t sure if he would make it alone on the sea. Too unpredictable. Although, perhaps ironically, he was feeling better today than he had in months.

Scar hadn’t had much time at all to explain to the Kestrels what was happening before his back and abdomen started spasming, quickly followed by immense discomfort in his eye and throat. Not that he intended to go into detail, but he couldn’t even stand, much less speak. He remembered saying something along the lines of ‘they’re fighting,’ which, in hindsight, was probably terrifying and cinematic.

But they knew. And now they would ask questions. Suddenly, taking his chances out in the ocean seemed like quite the appealing idea. He could put all his important stuff in a bag, maybe grab some canned food from the dining hall…

Scar opened his bedroom door, only to be nose to nose with Sausage. He screamed, falling backwards and dropping literally all of his belongings, which Sausage seemed to interpret as an invitation to come inside. The longer Scar spent here, the more threatening he found Sausage’s smile. Was that how other people felt about him? Oh, he hoped so.

“Scar! Good morning, or, rather, good afternoon! You slept in quite late today!”

“Yup! You know me..”

“Aha, yes. How about we sit, hm?”

Well, there was no escaping this afterall. Scar could fight, but he wasn’t sure he trusted his body right now, and getting supplies would be a far more difficult task. So he sat.

“Scar, I need to have an honest conversation with you, because right now, with the way you’ve been acting, the rest of us have been losing our patience. You’re a different man than you were six months ago when you joined us, and I don’t mean in a good way. You’re deteriorating. Everyone can see it, even in the other factions. Now, I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in your situation, with pain you can’t manage, and how frustrating that is, but,” Sausage sighed, sitting down beside Scar, “This has turned into something you can’t deal with alone anymore. It’s going to kill you, Scar, and by the time you’re dead, no one will care to mourn you, because you’re a fucking asshole.”

Scar wasn’t sure how to react to that. Sausage wasn’t wrong. He had been losing his grip. Quips and jokes that once came easily only soured on his tongue now. While he had never sailed quite as much as the other Kestrels, as months passed, he could leave his room less and less. This past month.. well.. when he did leave, it was safe to say he was snappy at best. He narrowed his eyes at the ground. It bothered him . He was falling apart, and everyone knew , and he didn’t have the ability to hide it anymore.

“It’s their fault,” he growled, voice low, “They came back. They were supposed to be dead.”

“No Scar, it’s your fault,” Sausage sighed, leaning back on his hands, “You never told anyone, in fact, you only got aggressive whenever the subject was brought up. You sat in your room by yourself, letting it get worse.”

“Well there’s nothing you can do.”

“You don’t know that. Listen, I don’t care what happened to you in your past; that’s your own business, but you can’t just deflect and attack everyone who offers their hand. It’s okay to be weak.”

“It’s not okay.”

Sausage paused, shooting Scar a calculating glare. Scar returned it. “Alright, Scar. Well let me skip to the point then. This is your last chance, or I’m going to ask you to leave the Kestrels. I’m extending an olive branch because I don’t want to see you die this way, so it’s your choice what you do with it. Tell me about your ghosts. They’re related to your pain, right?”

Scar closed his eyes. A choice indeed. “Do you really think you can get rid of them?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll try. We’ll all try, if you shape up.”

Scar shook his head, releasing a small, breathy laugh. “Well, why not then. Yes, they’re related to my pain. I’ve got four parts of my body that you could say are cursed, and the pain fluctuates with the corresponding ghosts’ mood. The longer I’m alive I think, the angrier they get. It must be something like that, because it’s been getting progressively worse. All you need to know is that they’d really like me to keel over.”

“Do you treat them well?”

Scar choked on his own laughter, falling back into his bed and shaking the entire frame, “Uh, no offense, but that is the dumbest question anyone has ever asked me.”

“I’m gonna take that as a no, then.”

“Well there’s a reason I got my eardrums blown out. Little bastard was trying to wreck my stuff. For the record, I did not know he could do that. Unfortunate, because he makes the best faces when you make fun of him. You know when-”

“Scar , you taunt your ghosts? When you know their moods directly correlate to your pain? What are you thinking?”

“In my defense, I don’t do that very much,” Scar shrugged.

Sausage put his head in his hands. “ Noted. Well to start, you need to be nicer to them. Even if they’re trying to kill you. You probably deserve it, anyway. But I’m also going to have you speak with Cleo.”

“Cleo? They’re a Heron, right?”

“Yes. Scott tells me they’ve got quite the affinity for ghosts. Apparently there’s this haunted island she visits often? If anyone can help you out, it’s probably her. Actually, if you want, I can ask Scott to go and grab her now.”

“Scott- is he here?” Scar bristled, turning wide eyes to his doorway.

“Hi, Scar!” Scott waved, looking mildly pleased with himself.

Scar stared, taking a deep breath before laying back down across his bed. “I guess this might as well happen.”

“That’s the spirit!” Sausage leapt to his feet, trotting to the door, “She’ll meet you in the tavern, so be ready!

“Yeah, great, I’ll be waiting then,” Scar mumbled, reaching for a pillow to crush over his face. Well. If he wanted to scrape together any amount of dignity, it was time to get it together. He washed up, ran a brush through his hair, and stared at himself for an inexplicably long time in the mirror. Surely there was something he could do about the bags under his eyes. Well, his good eye; the bad one was too far gone to be saved. Hm… but on second thought, it didn’t look as egregious as usual today… Unfortunately, before he could go and dig around for concealer in Oli’s room, he heard his name being called. Ah! But he hadn’t shaved!

Scar ran for his hats, stacking them with great care before balancing them precariously on his head and skipping downstairs.

“Well hello there! Sorry about that, I just got a little distracted, you know,” Scar waved his hand in a vague gesture, heading over to the bar where Cleo was already serving themself a drink. She turned, looking Scar up and down with a small smile.

“You look like shit.”

“You’re not so bad yourself!”

Cleo chuckled, leaning back against the bar. “It’s been a long time, I heard you’ve been sick. So it’s really ghosts that have been giving you trouble? I would have visited earlier, but I heard you were touchy, and I don’t have much patience for bullshit. Finally caved, huh?”

“I guess you could say that. And I damn well paid for it too, so no need to pry.”

“Looks like you’ve been paying for it for a long time, and not because you finally said something. You’ve had that black eye since I met you! I must say, it looks worse than I remember.”

“No need to flatter me. Can you get rid of my ghosts?”

“Oh, probably not, but I heard from Sausage that you’re hurting because they’re unhappy, and I know a place that’ll brighten them right up!”

Scar paused, staring blankly. Cleo stared back with an unassuming smile.

“You want to take my ghosts on a VACATION?”

#hermitcraft #pirates smp #boatemghostsau #boatem #grian #gtws #goodtimeswithscar #my pathetic slop of a man #zombiecleo #mythicalsausage #mumbo jumbo #impulsesv #pearlescentmoon

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Unfettered (aka NHS goes feral) - part 4 - previous parts: on ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

Wei Wuxian wasn’t going to lie: it was weird seeing Nie Huaisang smiling again.

It wasn’t that he didn’t remember how Nie Huaisang used to behave when they were all back at the Cloud Recesses, and even before, but that seemed so long ago these days that it might as well have occurred in a past life. The expression just didn’t fit him anymore, like a grown man trying to return to the clothing of his childhood, and yet at the same time it was wretchedly familiar, even welcome – it was as if time had reversed course all at once, plucking them all out of the stream of their lives and returning them to how it used to be long before. Back to simpler, happier times.

It was kind of funny, actually.

Those that had not known Nie Huaisang as anything other than the Pallbearer seemed to be in a state of utter shock, gossiping madly – Did you see? He was smiling! He laughed at someone’s joke! He told a joke! He patted that child on the head and said ‘good job’ and the child didn’t cry even once!

Those that had known him from before only by reputation were, if anything, even more aghast – Do you think he’s going to start pouting and crying at things again? Surely not, I can’t even imagine! The last time he pouted was when one of his fans got stained, remember, after he stuck it straight through that man’s throat –

Those that had known him from before in person…

Well, the reaction was mixed. There was some relief, some distress, and a great deal of pain as they remembered once again how much their friend had changed in the wake of his brother’s near-death – the reminder of his former self was both nostalgic and bittersweet.

Personally, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were working through their feelings on the subject with the help of a lot of roleplaying involving their time at the Cloud Recesses. It was very healthy of them, emotionally, although maybe not so healthy for the state of Wei Wuxian’s waist. Or throat. Or hands…

(No, they weren’t officially married yet, since they were still hoping that they could have a proper ceremony when the war ended, but they were both of age and engaged. And that meant they could go to bed together, no matter what some of the more conservative Lan sect members thought – with Lan Qiren backing them up, which he did with no small amount of eye-rolling and deep sighs and long-suffering resignation, they were free to do as they pleased.)

That, too, was something they owed to Nie Huaisang.

Without Nie Huaisang’s timely intervention, both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng would’ve fallen for the Jin sect’s instigation and turned against each other in an act of mutual destruction that harmed both of them, and everyone else besides. Jiang Cheng would have cut off his own right arm, voluntarily weakening his sect just at the moment when they needed strength the most, and rendered himself without any other choice but to be dependent on Lanling Jin, while Wei Wuxian would have remained trapped in the Burial Mounds in Yiling, getting called the Yiling Patriarch as some people still today did, growing ever more resentful at his isolation and poverty.

(That one uncomfortable month he’d spent arguing with Wen Qing and Wen Ning about whether they should try to grow radishes or potatoes had been very educational, especially since they were both not-so-secretly convinced that the argument was futile and that nothing would ever grow on the Burial Mounds, such that they were just whiling away time until they all starved to death.)

They would be scattered, weakened, unhappy and vulnerable. Wei Wuxian would be sitting there like a giant target until the Jin sect decided, in their leisure, to deal with him the way, in hindsight, they had so obviously always intended to.

Wei Wuxian would have missed his sister’s wedding, probably. He might even have missed Jiang Yanli’s widowing, and the consequences of that were unthinkable.

If Wei Wuxian hadn’t brought the Wen sect back with him to the Lotus Pier as a result of Jiang Cheng’s defiance of the cultivation world’s criticism, Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli would never had the chance to hit it off the way they had, becoming fast friends. If they hadn’t been friends, Wen Qing wouldn’t have been visiting Jinlin Tower to check up on her good friend when the news of Jin Zixuan’s death had first spread.

His murder, rather – Wei Wuxian wasn’t terribly clear on the details, but it wasn’t really necessary. Jin Guangshan had pressed his legitimate son’s filial piety to the breaking point in his pursuit of power, and finally he must have done something to go too far, to cause there to be a real break between them. Jin Zixuan must have made clear that he would not play along, no matter what, and by that point Jin Guangshan already knew there was Jin Guangyao waiting in the sidelines to step up and take his place. There was no other way it could have gone, simply because there was no other reason for both Jin Zixuan and his mother to so conveniently die on the very same day.

If it hadn’t been for Nie Huaisang convincing Jiang Cheng, Wen Qing wouldn’t have been there. Wen Qing wouldn’t have been available to be bold and decisive, the way she was with her medicine; she wouldn’t have been able to persuade Jiang Yanli of the possibility of danger and then to smuggler out of Jinlin Tower and take her on the run in disguise, long before it occurred to anyone else that there might be some threat to her – that the Jin sect might decide to hold her hostage, or worse.

Definitely worse. If Jin Guangyao had had the chance to figure out what only Wen Qing had known back then – that Jiang Yanli, barely more than a newlywed, already carried the next heir to Lanling Jin within her belly…

Jin Guangyao’s ambitions would never have let Jin Zixuan live, a fact they’d all only realized in horrible helpless hindsight, but if Wen Qing had been trapped in Yiling with Wei Wuxian at the time, instead of visiting Lanling, then Jiang Yanli…

Wei Wuxian didn’t even want to think of it.

So, really, it was only fair that Nie Huaisang, who had whether intentionally or incidentally saved so many of them these past few years, finally, finally get what he’d been dreaming of all these years: his brother’s return.

It was only fair that he be allowed to return to being happy.

And yet, at the same time –

“You need to go talk to him,” Jiang Cheng said. His arms would be crossed in front of his chest if he wasn’t currently holding a sleeping Jin Ling, who’d had something of a fright upon meeting the new and improved Nie Huaisang. The poor kid had been convinced that his habitually bitter and vicious Second Uncle Nie was possessed by some sort of fierce but bizarrely friendly ghost. “There’s a war on, for fuck’s sake. He can’t spend all his time haunting the Unclean Realm trying to pretend that he’s something he’s not in order to keep his brother from finding out that he’s changed!”

“It’s not as bad as all that,” Wei Wuxian objected. “I mean, Nie Huaisang’s always run most of the war through correspondence, anyway, and it’s not like we’re totally helpless without him to boss us around.”

“His absence hasn’t been noted by our enemies just yet,” Wen Ning murmured. His arms were similarly full with Wen Yuan – a little older than his friends, steadier and more mature, but a sympathetic crier, and spending a month of his childhood in the Burial Mounds made him more susceptible to fears of possession, not less, so he’d been set off by Jin Ling. And seeing them both in tears had, of course, made poor level-headed Jin Rusong, who didn’t cry easily at all, panic and try to help in a way that only made it worse; Xiao Xingchen had swept him away to the kitchen, and the two of them were currently making snacks for the other two when they woke up. “But it will be, soon. They are already puzzled by the change in tactics.”

Wen Ning’s voice was as soft as ever, his stutter subdued only by the fact that he was with company he liked, but his tone brooked no argument – he’d changed a lot since their youth, too, and knew more intimately than most how some things could not be undone.

The Jin sect, not content with merely killing him, had dubbed his resurrected self ‘the Ghost General’ in an attempt to incite the cultivation world into hating and fearing him. It had been a lie back then, when he’d been doing nothing more than planting radish seeds and babysitting, but now Wen Ning was a general in truth, the leader of their archers and one of Nie Huaisang’s right hands. He was still shy, still didn’t speak fluently and probably never would, but Nie Huaisang had assigned him several capable deputies who understood him even when he had to resort to the type of hand-signs used by the deaf or in covert situations. He was surprisingly popular with the cultivators on their side of the war, although Wei Wuxian acknowledged that perhaps his popularity shouldn’t be that much of a surprise: there was a certain morale-boosting effect in seeing your general continuing to fight even after being struck with enough arrows to create a porcupine.

“Being puzzled by a change in tactics is fairly run of the mill for any enemy facing Nie Huaisang,” Wei Wuxian pointed out.

“Which is why they haven’t noticed it yet, Wei-gongzi. But eventually…”

Wei Wuxian grimaced. “Is it really that dire?”

“Not yet,” Lan Wangji said ominously, and – fine. If even Lan Wangji thought that someone should talk to Nie Huaisang, Wei Wuxian would go and talk to him.

After all, they were old friends of long acquaintance.

Very long, even.

“I come bearing terms of peace,” Wei Wuxian announced, walking into Nie Huaisang’s study and waving a few jars of wine at him. “Come negotiate with me, Nie-xiong!”

“I don’t recall giving you permission to barge into my room,” Nie Huaisang said without looking up from his correspondence, a little flash of the vicious Pallbearer they’d all grown painfully accustomed to – he had his family’s temper but a cooler head, with rage that burned low and long rather than flaring up hot and burning out.

Wei Wuxian reflected once more on how apt Nie Huaisang’s personal title was. The foolish thought that it referred to the filial piety he showed in mourning the brother that raised him since childhood, the somewhat wiser to the way the attack on Nie Mingjue had forced Nie Huaisang to find the virtue he had previously lacked, but the really smart ones knew that the most accurate interpretation was that those that Nie Huaisang chose to accompany to their end would ultimately find themselves without any path forward but death.

Nie Huaisang’s cultivation was still nothing special, his ability to fight virtually non-existent beyond the most basic of saber forms – a saber he now carried with him often enough, but still almost never used – and he’d rejected Wei Wuxian’s very innovative idea (if he did say so himself) that he try to train with a war fan, both on the basis of it being both too much effort and furthermore thoroughly lacking in aesthetic. As a result, he had no particularly notable talents, and none that could allow him to triumph in a night-hunt or a duel.

It didn’t make him any less terrifying.

“You’ll forgive me,” Wei Wuxian said flippantly, and sat down next to him, looking at the words that filled the page with Nie Huaisang’s lovely, artistic calligraphy. “More spy stuff?”

Nie Huaisang’s lips curled up into a small smirk. “Naturally. The network never sleeps, as you well know. I assume you’ve been sent to scold me about the war?”

“Amazing,” Wei Wuxian said, and nudged him in the side with his elbow. “It’s almost like you have a brain in your head or something. Since you’ve guessed it, I don’t even know what more I need to say…how’s Chifeng-zun doing?”

That got Nie Huaisang’s face to soften, as he’d hoped it would. “Much better. He’s been sleeping and waking consistently, and the mobility exercises are working well, though of course he’s insisting on trying more than he can manage. He only just managed to walk across the room without stumbling yesterday, had to sit down right away after, and he’s already asking about saber training.”

That was very in character for Nie Mingjue.

“I’m glad,” Wei Wuxian said, meaning it with all his heart. “I missed da-ge.”

He owed him so much, after all.

So much more than most people knew.

It had been Nie Mingjue who had found him all those years ago, in the dark days when his parents had died in a night-hunt gone wrong and the money they’d left with the innkeeper turning out to be insufficient to keep him housed or fed for more than a fortnight. Wei Wuxian had been a spoiled, beloved child – even if his parents were rogue cultivators, his father originally a servant, they were famous; there wasn’t a town that didn’t welcome them with open arms. They had never lacked for money, for warmth and comfort.

Wei Wuxian might have had a chance if they’d died in the spring or summer. He might have been able to learn to sleep on the streets during warm nights and used those rich fat months to learn from all the other beggars how to eat refuse, but his parents had died in the winter. Even the beggars chased him away, unwilling to spare the smallest scrap of food or lose any bit of warmth by sharing the spots they had found to shelter from the cold; and when he went to the richer districts that had once greeted his parents with such enthusiasm, wild dogs were sent to chase him away, vicious and merciless…within a week, he had been very nearly dead.

Luckily, when hiring rogue cultivators turned out to be insufficient to deal with the problem, the miserly local landlord that had sent out the notice in the first place had finally given in and written to a Great Sect, begging for aid – as a rich man, he was obligated to contribute to the costs of a requested night-hunt, and the Great Sects, while generally more successful, were typically far more mercenary in that regard than rogue cultivators – and Nie Mingjue had come with his Nie sect, the most willing by far to do the work of defeating evil without charging too much for the privilege.

He’d found the bodies of Wei Wuxian’s parents.

Soon after, he’d found Wei Wuxian himself.

Wei Wuxian had been about seven, then. It had been a full two years before Jiang Fengmian had found him on the very same streets, hiding in the trash with a dirty face and a sad and miserable expression, ready to be picked up and taken home by his father’s old friend, the Sect Leader of Yunmeng Jiang.

Just as anyone might’ve predicted.

After all, Nie Mingjue had never stinted on sending out spies, even if he never used them.

(He’d released Wei Wuxian of all those old obligations long ago – but Nie Huaisang never had.)

“Da-ge passes along his thanks, by the way,” Nie Huaisang said. “He thinks the array you created to help preserve his life is brilliant.”

“It is brilliant,” Wei Wuxian said, shameless as always. Getting a truly vicious scolding from his little master Nie Huaisang about exactly how close to the line his arrogance had brought him and the Wen sect had humbled him a bit, and the disaster of the Stygian Tiger Seal nearly going out of his control at the Nightless City not long thereafter had humbled him still more, but in the end he was still Wei Wuxian. He was awesome. “Could anyone else have done what I did?”

Nie Huaisang rolled his eyes.

“He’s not angry at me for misusing Baxia?” Wei Wuxian asked, fishing for confirmation. If there was one thing that his two years in the Nie sect had taught him, it was a near-pathological revulsion at the thought of touching another person’s spiritual weapon – he’d been very nearly more excited to be allowed to put his hand on an unsheathed Bichen than Lan Wangji’s dick, although not quite – and Nie Mingjue was quite justifiably more paranoid than most on the subject.

Even that treacherous dog Jin Guangyao hadn’t dared touch Baxia. The spiritual poison he’d used on Nie Mingjue had been limited to the man himself, and that had been what gave Wei Wuxian the idea for the array he’d invented. Nie Mingjue cultivated with Baxia as his primary, if not only, spiritual weapon, and the disciples of the Nie sect were closer to their sabers than most – and by the end of the Sunshot Campaign, Baxia was a fearsome entity in her own right, possessed of her own spiritual energy.

And as he’d always said, energy was meant to be used.

There was something about the Nie sect’s cultivation style that reminded Wei Wuxian of his innovations in demonic cultivation, although it wasn’t quite the same. They didn’t manipulate resentful energy directly the way he did, but they still made use of it, refining their blades with it until the sabers were very nearly guai, cultivating saber spirits filled with a lust for blood – although the strict disciplines of the Nie sect cultivation path meant that every saber spirit that Wei Wuxian had ever had the fortune (or misfortune) to personally encounter just as absolutist in their disdain for evil as their masters.

Even Nie Huaisang’s saber Aituan was like that, and maybe that should have been Wei Wuxian’s first hint that Nie Huaisang wasn’t as simple as he appeared on the surface.

“It’s fine,” Nie Huaisang assured him. “Really. Da-ge said it was – how’d he put it – a charming contradiction, that his saber get used to cultivating energy for him rather than him for the saber. Though maybe he was just relieved that she was intact, given everything.”

Wei Wuxian grinned and toasted Nie Huaisang, drinking a little of the wine while Nie Huaisang continued with his correspondence.

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while.

“I’m not pretending,” Nie Huaisang said abruptly, and Wei Wuxian, who’d drifted off into daydreams involving him, Lan Wangji, and a very sturdy bathtub, turned to look at him. “I know what Jiang Cheng thinks –”

“Of course you do. I tell you what Jiang Cheng thinks.”

“Shut up, you – you calamity. I don’t need you to tell me what Jiang Cheng thinks, he tells me himself more often than not. He thinks that I’m pretending to be useless because I don’t want da-ge to know about everything I’ve done, but that’s not the case at all. He knows. I wouldn’t keep it from him.”

“I know,” Wei Wuxian said, because he did. Even at his most lazy and self-indulgent, Nie Huaisang abhorred the thought of lying to his brother. “But you are spending too much of your time in the Unclean Realm. We need you back in the field.”

Nie Huaisang scowled. “The cream of the cultivation world,” he said disdainfully. “Can’t they do anything by themselves, just for a few short months? You’d think my brother fought the entirety of the Sunshot Campaign by himself with how little they seem to contribute.”

“Personally, I think that everyone has just taken the Nie sect as lucky cats, and are afraid to do without you,” Wei Wuxian said, batting his eyelashes at him in his most provoking show of earnestness. “Nie-xiong, if I rub your head, does that mean I’ll win my next battle…?”

“Don’t you dare,” Nie Huaisang said, but the scowl receded and he looked amused again. “I can’t wait to send da-ge out on the battlefield again.”

“The Jin sect will trample each other in their eagerness to get off the battlefield rather than face Chifeng-zun,” Wei Wuxian agreed, and couldn’t help his own smile at the thought. “The rumors that he’s returned have already started spreading like wildfire, but you’ve done well to hide him away so thoroughly. It means no one knows if the rumors are right or if you’re just pulling some kind of trick on the world.”

“Who, me? A trick?” Nie Huaisang said, and smiled thinly. “I only wish I could’ve seen the look on that treacherous dog’s face when his spies reported on my unusual behavior. I hope he’s afraid.”

Wei Wuxian agreed.

He had tried many times to imagine doing what Jin Guangyao had done. To turn your hand against the man to whom you had sworn to love as a brother –

He couldn’t even imagine hurting Jiang Cheng like that, and Jiang Yanli even less.

Wei Wuxian owed Nie Mingjue his life. He had sworn fealty to him with all the passion and singlemindedness of childhood, and had never once regretted it. Nie Mingjue had taken him off the streets and brought him back to his sect, he’d taken back his parents’ bodies and buried them with full (if private) honors, he’d given Wei Wuxian training to make him strong and smart and capable. He’d sent him to do work in a place where he would prosper and thrive and be happy, and all the while promised that he would never be trapped – that he would have a way out if the Jiang sect became too suffocating or he was treated too viciously, on one hand, and on the other told him that he could one day petition to be released from his obligations to the Nie sect if he ever found them too demanding.

Wei Wuxian had asked to be released from those obligations after the fall of the Lotus Pier, unable to stomach the idea of reporting on Jiang Cheng now that he was all alone in the world in the way that he had so effortlessly reported on Jiang Fengmian and Madame Yu. Nie Mingjue had granted the reprieve without a second’s hesitation, even though it meant wasting the years and years of investment they’d put into him, even though it would have been a critical moment to have an ear within the Jiang sect’s camp.

Wei Wuxian owed Nie Mingjue everything.

And yet – if the man had asked him to kill Jiang Cheng, he would have said no.

Twin heroes, he’d promised Jiang Cheng, and if for a while he’d thought he would have to give up that promise because of the secret of the golden core that he still kept hidden away, he refused to think it any longer. Jiang Cheng was his brother in all but blood, in all the ways that mattered. Wei Wuxian would stand aside from him if he thought he had to, as he had with the Wen sect remnants; he would keep secrets from him, he would even deceive him, but he would never willingly seek to hurt him.

Jin Guangyao, though? He had attacked Nie Mingjue without even being asked.

He was like some rabid beast, a white-eyed wolf, Wei Wuxian thought. Utterly beyond his understanding.

He deserved to be afraid.

“Speaking of which,” he said, suddenly remembering. “I think I’ve figured out why Jin Guangyao was willing to kill his own heir to further his and his father’s ambitions.”

“About time,” Nie Huaisang said, and while his tone was stern Wei Wuxian was mostly sure that he was teasing. “I put you on that job months ago. What do you think I keep you around for? Your brilliant inventions? Your armies of corpses? Your amazing ability to stun irritating sect leaders into silence with your overwhelming shamelessness regarding Lan Wangji –”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Wei Wuxian said hastily, although the giant grin he couldn’t keep off his face said everything about his shame – or lack thereof – relating to that last one. You get caught doing one little roleplay about the fearsome demonic cultivator Yiling Patriarch being arrested by the righteous cultivator Hanguang-jun and suddenly no one wanted to look you in the eye anymore… “Anyway, according to all the rumors, you keep me around because you want me to raise your brother the way I raised Wen Ning.”

Nie Huaisang rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard that one, and I still can’t believe anyone believes it. Da-ge’s a sect leader! Even if you wanted to bring him back, think about the amount of resentment he would have had to feel at his death to rise up again despite all the soul-calming rituals he’s gone through! If he ever became that resentful, he wouldn’t rise up as a ghost general, he’d be a ghost king, and then we’d all be screwed.”

Nie Huaisang wasn’t wrong. Nie Mingjue was one of the most powerful cultivators living – if he rose as a fierce corpse, he’d be able to slaughter an entire village of common people overnight with just the energy in one hand. And if he were then allowed access to Baxia, her power added to his…he’d become a scourge on the world, a true calamity, and they’d need to find a way to appease his anger and somehow lock him away forever just to survive.

Assuming Nie Huaisang allowed something like that, anyway. Wei Wuxian was very happy they had never been forced to face the question of whether Nie Huaisang preferred his brother or his morality, as he suspected no one would like the answer to that. Not even Nie Huaisang.

“Enough speculation,” Nie Huaisang said, and Wei Wuxian twitched guiltily even though he knew Nie Huaisang was not, in fact, a mind-reader. “What’s the story with A-Song?”

“You want the long version with all the proof I found to support it or the conclusion?”

“Start with the conclusion.”

“Jin Guangyao couldn’t risk A-Song growing up into a half-wit on account of being a child of incest.”

That actually surprised Nie Huaisang, Wei Wuxian was pleased to see.

“Incest?” Nie Huaisang said wonderingly. “But how – oh, of course. Jin Guangshan and Madame Qin? An affair or rape?”

“Rape while he was drunk, supposedly, though of course we only have the relevant people’s words for that, and they’re not exactly impartial sources. Could’ve been an affair that had unexpected results, not that anyone would ever admit it.”

Nie Huaisang started laughing.

Wei Wuxian really wished he wouldn’t. It wasn’t the sort of happy giggle that he sometimes let out nowadays when he was thinking of Nie Mingjue’s recovery – it was the jagged vicious bitterness of the Pallbearer, through and through.

“Oh, Qin Su, Qin Su,” Nie Huaisang said, wiping tears from his eyes. “I gave you all the chances in the world, you stupid woman. I hope you’re happy with what you chose.”

“Can I ask?” Wei Wuxian said cautiously. “You never said – you just showed up with A-Song, no Qin Su and no explanation…”

“Says the person who adopted A-Yuan all but sight unseen?”

“I lived with him for a month, it’s different,” Wei Wuxian said. “What happened with Qin Su?”

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “Nothing dramatic. She wouldn’t believe me when I told her that her husband was planning on killing her son to frame his enemies, which is reasonable enough given that everyone knows I’m at odds with him. Even when I offered her proof, she said it was just a forgery – that he wasn’t like that, that she knew him, the real him, that she was the only one who really understood him, even though I’d say the whole cultivation world knows the ‘real’ him by now.”

“Irritating, but understandable, I think – he is her husband, the dashing hero that rescued her so valiantly in the Sunshot Campaign and which she defied custom and her parents to marry. So why all the disdain?”

Nie Huaisang’s lips pressed together tightly with disapproval. “I asked her if she was willing to risk losing A-Song just to show her husband that she trusted him, and she said that she was, because it wasn’t a risk at all. Because she knew he loved her too much to do such a terrible thing without a good reason.”

“Without a good reason?” Wei Wuxian demanded. “That’s her son!”

“Don’t you know that they can always have others?” Nie Huaisang said with a sneer, clearly paraphrasing words he’d heard. “They’re young, in love – it’s all my fault that he stopped touching her, apparently. I took Lan Xichen away from him and he’s so upset about it that he can’t come to her bed, but once the world is rid of me, it’ll all go back to the way it should be…”

“I’ll give her that much: she really loves him,” Wei Wuxian said, shaking his head. The delusions of a person in love, he supposed. He hoped that he and Lan Wangji weren’t quite that bad. “She’ll be in for a disappointment. Given what I found out…he’ll never return to her bed or give her children, not in this lifetime.”

“No, he won’t.” Nie Huaisang reached for his fan. “Thank you for this. I’ll think about how to use it.”

“And?” Wei Wuxian prodded.

“And I’ll come back to the battlefield,” Nie Huaisang conceded, looking discontented, and Wei Wuxian smiled smugly. “You can supervise the Unclean Realm in my place.”

“What? No!” Wei Wuxian protested, his smile disappearing at once. “You have Xiao Xingchen –”

“He’s newly blinded, and out of all the cultivators we have available, you’re the most effective at fighting on a stand-alone basis. Think of it as having some time to bond with your mother’s shidi.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t want time to bond with his martial uncle – or, well, he did, he’d been dying for an opportunity to talk with Xiao Xingchen more or less since the man first made his name known in the cultivation world, but Nie Huaisang’s rules were such that no one outside the most trusted inner circles of the Nie sect was allowed in the familial quarters of the Unclean Realm, or even in the Unclean Realm at all. And that meant…

“But – Lan Wangji –”

“Will not die if he’s forced to be abstinent for a little while,” Nie Huaisang said, and oh, it was on.

“Did Qin Su specify the method by which you took Lan Xichen from her husband?” Wei Wuxian asked, crossing his arms. “I was under the impression that you still referred to him as Zewu-jun –”

Nie Huaisang glared.

Too bad – if the Pallbearer didn’t want to get mocked over his crush on the First Jade of Lan, he shouldn’t have let Wei Wuxian find out about the fact that the torch he held for him was still burning hot as ever.

“Perhaps my information is out of date. Tell me, little master, what means of seduction did you employ to convince Zewu-jun to betray his poor sad little A-Yao? Did you work your wicked wiles on him?”

“Wei Wuxian –”

“Did you play his xiao?”

Nie Huaisang let out an ungentlemanly snort and had to cover his face. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no. Why did you have to give me that mental image? Fuck you, Wei Wuxian.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you too. Abstinent my ass.”

“I think you’ll find that the problem with abstinence is that it’s not your ass,” Nie Huaisang said, shoulders shaking. “That’s kind of the point. Now go tell everyone that I’ll be rejoining them tomorrow.”

“I will relish their groans of despair,” Wei Wuxian said, standing up. He was clearly going to have to take as much advantage that he could of the little time he had with Lan Wangji before being cruelly locked away. “Oh, is there any news on Song Lan?”

“None,” Nie Huaisang said. “He may as well have ascended into the heavens. Don’t tell Xiao Xingchen, he’ll only worry.”

“I won’t, I won’t. As for you – could you try to lighten up on Zewu-jun? Now that da-ge’s awake again?”

Nie Huaisang frowned.

“I’m not saying forgive him,” Wei Wuxian clarified. “Just – you know that da-ge wouldn’t want you to be so mad at him, especially since you still like him and all.”

“I’ll let da-ge decide that, I think,” Nie Huaisang said, and the humor had fled his face entirely. “It was his assassin that Zewu-jun decided to trust and protect, after all.”

Wei Wuxian nodded, accepting the verdict – he disagreed, but he understood – and turning to leave.

He paused at the door.

“Just so you know,” he said, not looking at Nie Huaisang. “Having trusted Meng Yao doesn’t mean you have to be so mad at yourself, either.”

He left before Nie Huaisnag could respond, but he heard something shatter in the room behind him.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #nie huaisang #jiang cheng #wen ning #my fic #my fics #unfettered

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lazyliars · 3 years

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/rp

DreamXD actually slots very nicely into a working theory I've had for about two or so months now, mainly centering around one question:

What happened to Dream?

Namely, why did Dream change, when exactly did it happen, and was it solely an internal change, or was there an external force at play, specifically a preternatural one?

I think with DreamXD, we might finally have an answer.

Or at least some clues to follow. DreamXD presents a shift in every single paradigm the Dream SMP has had. Like, I think most of it is just being so utterly blind-sided by George Lore Real, but part of it is the massive ramifications of an Actual God* being present in the storyline.

((*On the other resident god of the server, Foolish:

DreamXD is different than Foolish, in that his characterization is so dramatically inhuman - Foolish talks and acts like a (somewhat eccentric) person, and his powers are, as far as we know, limited in comparison to the creative-mode godhood that DreamXD occupies. And whether that is because Foolish is not a "full" god (having been referred to as a demigod) or simply because he's spent so much time around humans, we don't know, but we do know that either way, DreamXD is NOT that.

DreamXD's voice is marked by glitches and dramatic shifts in tone, he seems to lack control over the different aspects of his personality, like the more "Dream" part vs. the darker one that threatens to eat peoples souls. The "normal" part even displays confusion when George references things that the "darker" part said, implying that it may not be fully aware of itself.

TLDR: Foolish acts more human than DreamXD, who has a very eldritch personality.))

To get right to the point:

The Dream we knew before November 16th, and the Dream we know now are not the same. Something changed, and it changed for the worse.

Consider: Dream was always antagonistic to the L'manbergians - he was always imperious to them, and he was responsible for starting a number of fights between his faction and theirs, just as many if not more than they were.

But, he was also not... evil. He'd pick fights with Tommy, the disc wars were still a thing, but the gravity of the spats they had weren't dire. They were fun. They were... actually a game. He wasn't like the way he is now. While in hindsight we can look at these events and detect a serious undertone knowing what's to come, at the time they were far from it.

There is an argument to be made that he had the same tendencies as now, just not expressed as loudly, and while I believe it's a valid argument, I disagree that it's proof of Dream always being the way he is now.

Sapnap, Badboyhalo, Sam. They all remember Dream as their friend - they remember someone who was, maybe a little aggressive and a lot competitive, but not cruel. Not needlessly murderous. Not someone who steals sentimental items and lines the walls of a disgusting museum to use against them.

Dream cut them out. Sapnap was totally blindsided. Bad doesn't seem to fully believe it. Sam blamed himself for not realizing and tried to take the weight of that crime on his own shoulders by becoming the Warden.

There's also the competing theory that what happened to Dream was purely psychological - either the circumstances slowly isolating him from his friends driving him to the do things he's done, or a desire for control that started early and continued to fester until it overshadowed everything else, or any combination of both.

And those theories are still valid, they could still be the case, but I haven't been able to shake the idea that there is something deeper at play. I can't overstate how the exile arc and everything after it have been so inhumane, so cruel, and... not exactly out of character in the sense that I could never see Dream doing them, but in the sense that I could never see him doing them for no reason.

And there really doesn't seem to be one. Dream says himself, it's like a game. He sees people as toys, puppets. And there just doesn't seem to be an inciting incident that could explain how he made the leap from semi-authoritarian leader who, despite being a warmonger, does love his friends, to heartless murderer who wants to reduce everyone he knows to dolls.

There's... ways, he could get there, but nothing that we've seen makes sense. There is a missing piece, something that must have happened from his POV that we didn't get to see because he doesn't stream.

And DreamXD could be it. This godly entity that claims that it is "a part of [Dream]" but that it isn't him entirely. That seems to share the lack of understanding of humanity that Dream has been displaying like when he asks if resurrecting Tommy was “cool.” But that still loves George. He still, despite apparently not having the same history as Dream, desperately wants to be George's friend.

If I had to pinpoint the moment Dream changed, it would be the day that he revealed that he switched sides, and was going to be fighting against Pogtopia. He was paid for this betrayal in the Revive Book.

I mark this as the turning point in my theory because it is the first time Dream mentions his affinity for chaos in the context of hurting others. However, we also know that this likely wasn't the day he actually made the decision to betray - as he revealed that there was a traitor among the Pogtopians, a fact that he likely would have learned before this.

Now, I mark George's lore stream as the introduction of DreamXD proper, and I want that on the record because it isn't technically his first appearance on the server.

Most people will remember him from Techno's stream, where he logged on to break the End Portal in a panic. I doubt the character was properly written into the lore at that time, but it fits neatly with the rest of what we know about him - a guardian of the server, and the keeper of it's rules. No contradictions.

What less people might know, is that DreamXD has made an even earlier appearance, and it's this one where things begin to get... interesting.

Around roughly October of 2020, Tubbo and Fundy did some improv'd streams centering around Demon Hunting, or rather, "Dreamon" Hunting, and it's during the first of these two streams that DreamXD makes an appearance.

The bare bones of it was - Tubbo is an experienced "Dreamon Hunter" and teaches Fundy his ways. They find Dream, and realize that he has a Dreamon inside of him, which is basically an evil version of him. They attempt to exorcise the Dreamon from Dream via various shenanigans, and eventually, they do a ceremony to free Dream. However, they apparently botch it, and unleash the Dreamon within. After more shenanigans, one attempt to fix it utilizing Fundy and Dream's wedding appears to work, but then DreamXD logs on, flys around at Tubbo and Fundy threateningly, and they end stream on the idea that there are probably more Dreamons to hunt.

Now. There's a lot to unpack here. I'm not gonna go into the nitty gritty details in this post, but I do recommend watching the Dreamon streams, as they have A LOT of details that, if this is getting incorporated into the main story line, could be important - especially the focus on duality, having TWO versions of Dream, which end up being potentially separated from each other.

(Also, they're just really funny streams. Tubbo and Fundy are at PEAK chaos and Dream plays along with their inane bit perfectly, it's just good content.)

At the time of the Dreamon streams airing, they were explicitly non-canon. IIRC Tubbo and Fundy referred to them as taking place In an “alternate universe,” which makes sense considering they would have been on opposite sides at the time (Manburg and Pogtopia.)

However.

And this is where I show you my wall of red string and newspaper clippings.

My singular piece of evidence for this comes from one line DreamXD drops. He simply says: “At least you're not hunting me.”

The Dreamon streams take place around early October. Dream reveals his betrayal of Pogtopia around November 6th-7th. The timeline of the Dreamon streams would line up perfectly with the idea that there was a catalyzing event that put Dream on the proverbial path to hell.

I do not believe that they intended the Dreamon arc to be anything other than a side story at the time, but considering that DreamXD himself was barely canon until now, I don't think it's out of the question that they took a look back at a fan-favorite minor arc, saw an opportunity to co-opt it into the current story line, and potentially fill in some holes regarding Dream's characterization all in one move.

On the question of whether this would be a GOOD storytelling move?

The Dreamon theories were prevalent during the exile arc, and I've got to say, I was never a huge fan. The detachment of Dream's actions from his intentions, and by extension his morality, never sat right with me. It feels cheap to make him a victim and say “a Dreamon did it!” in regards to all of the horrible things that he's done. It strips his agency and makes everything that happened less impactful in my opinion, and I stand by that reading.

BUT. With DreamXD introduced, I feel like it's necessary to look at this from all angles. And with the way DreamXD was characterized in George's stream, I don't think it necessarily ruins Dream's character to say that an external force was involved with his descent into evil.

Namely, the idea that whatever happened to Dream was not really a “possession” so much as a gradual loss of humanity, could be an interesting way to look at this. It implies that Dream was always capable of his actions, but grants us understanding as to why he would actually perform them, and why he might have become isolated enough from his friends that they would let this happen.

The Dream we know now could be an expression of his “worst self” brought to the surface by a Dreamon/DreamXD/other. It also begs the question of what would happen if that force were to leave him, and how it might cause yet another shift in character, especially if it were to be portrayed as less of a switch being flipped, and more of a withdrawal, with a gradual process of realizing how far gone he was.

To close this out, I've been stewing on the idea that Dream hasn't entirely been himself since the climax of the Exile Arc.

I think this theory holds water, but it's also not waterproof... there are plenty of holes, and a lot of that comes from the fact that Dream doesn't stream. We're left in the dark when deciphering his character, and what might appear to be the key, could just as easily be revealed as a red herring, or even nothing at all.

Regardless of the validity of the Dreamon theory, I think that DreamXD is one of the most interesting developments we've had on the SMP in a long time, if simply because his arrival coincides with fucking George Lore Real. God. I still don't know how to deal with that.

I always appreciate people adding to the discussion by the way! Feel free to reblog with additions if you like or leave them in the replies.

And if a single one of you comes to my blog on THIS. THE DAY OF MY DAUGHTER'S WEDDING. And calls ME a c!Dream Apologist to MY FACE..... I will be v sad.

#Dream SMP #DreamXD #Dreamwastaken #c!Dream #georgenotfound #dream smp analysis #dream smp theory #lazytext

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dramaticviolincrescendo · 3 years

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Recently I had this moment where I thought "wow, in hindsight, it seems like ALL the Gallaghers' former partners weren't meant to be there in the long term". Like EVERYONE has treated everyone badly and yet Mickey seems to be a bit of an exception. I think alot of people agree he brings out something in the Ian character (and vice versa). I'm sure it's debatable cause I've definitely seen people call them toxic but I was curious on your take. Why does Ian & Mickey work while for example Fiona & Jimmy/Steve or Lip & Mandy not? I just named those pairings cause they're popular but I'm talking about all their romantic relationships.

That’s such a great point! I think my take on the subject may out me as someone who doesn’t put stock in romantic relationships carrying as much weight in most people’s lives as media would have us believe. There are so many books, movies, shows, songs, and video games that center around romance when Shameless portrays a far more realistic perspective: there are plenty of people who never experience lasting romance, and relationships don’t work just because we want them to. And that’s okay.

Take Fiona and Jimmy: they had so much passion and chemistry. They loved each other so much, even with all the rough patches they went through. The problem is that they weren’t compatible. At that point in her life, Fiona was focused on protecting her family. She was also very young, immature, and proud in a way that is very characteristic of someone in her position who feels like they’re being looked down on. (We see that with a lot of characters.) I don’t think Jimmy was trying to change her, but she saw his desire to help as a commentary on her ability to run the household—as pity, even. Had she met him in later seasons, I don’t think that would have been much of an issue, but I don’t believe that would have changed where they ended up.

I really liked Jimmy. He was funny and genuinely cared about the family. But Jimmy was selfish, entitled, and didn’t want to change. He wanted the excitement of the South Side without the struggles, and the privilege of his upbringing without the responsibility. Fiona was always about taking on responsibilities, even if they weren’t hers to shoulder. The problem with the two of them was something I think a lot of people take for granted in their relationships: both sides have to be willing to compromise, and they weren’t. He repeatedly wanted her to run away with him; she wanted him to let her make a lot of the decisions. Both sides make sense based on their respective experiences and aren’t inherently more or less valid than the other, but it also means that if they weren’t in a position where they wanted to compromise on those things (which they shouldn’t have to if that’s not what they want), they simply weren’t compatible and would be better off with other people.

Lip and Mandy are really the same. They kind of fell together out of mutual attraction but also a need for distraction: Mandy from her abusive home life and lack of options, and Lip from the situation with Karen and Fiona’s initial response to him dropping out. It wasn’t a sustainable relationship, though, because any feelings they did have for one another didn’t override the fact that they used (and, at times, abused) each other. Again, had they been in a different set of circumstances at a different time, that may have changed. The context of their interactions is important, and what they had wasn’t built to last based on what they hoped to get out of it. A lot of Lip’s relationships are like that: they are what the other needs in the moment, whether it’s sexual or for support, and then they eventually fizzle when one side oversteps. That has typically been Lip, because he also preferred to solve other people’s problems and avoid his own. (I am really proud of him for growing out of that.)

We see the same trend repeated with Debbie and all of the people she’s been with, though that has more to do with her personality in some ways. (I don’t mean that as a negative thing. Again, plenty of people don’t want or don’t have the temperament for long-term romantic relationships, and I think Debbie may just be one of those people in the latter instance.) The reasons for Debbie’s relationships have usually been pretty utilitarian. With Matty and Derek, she wanted to seem like an adult, lose her virginity, and escape into the family she always wanted. Neil was similarly an escape, but also a tool to keep Franny. When she questioned her sexuality, the way she framed her first relationship was almost experimental, and the situations with Julia and her mother were always intended to be for the monetary or proprietary gain they offered. Sandy is the first time we’re seeing her fall into a relationship with someone that wasn’t about anything utilitarian, but even now she’s been behaving less like they’re in a relationship while she focuses on herself, and Sandy is the one who takes an active role in Franny’s life on Franny’s terms. I can’t say if it’ll last, obviously, but I just don’t think Debbie is particularly suited to long-term romance. Carl doesn’t seem to be either, but that seems more like a lack of interest in serious relationships. A lot of his have been centered around helping someone or have gone from casual interest to wanting to help. That’s not exactly the foundation for a strong, healthy relationship, nor does he seem to be concerned about that at this point. He’s still very young, so that makes total sense.

Ultimately, I think Ian and Mickey are in the minority because they weren’t looking for a relationship but ended up being in the right place at the right time. I don’t even tend to subscribe to the interpretation that they brought anything out in each other, because all those traits we love (and that frustrate us) were always there. They were what the other needed when they needed them, they shared physical and emotional trauma, and they didn’t want anything from each other besides who they were. Theirs is written as such a pure kind of love in canon, even to the point of being naive on Ian’s side at times, which is why I think so many people are drawn to it and why it’s lasted this long. Ian and Mickey took it one step at a time, and they also got distance from each other. I know everyone hates Mickey being absent, but I think that was so important. Distance allowed them to gain better perspective on their feelings when they didn’t have each other so that they could appreciate just how deeply in love they were. They could ruminate on whether they were compatible, and at the end of the day, they were.

Compatibility is harder to find than fiction tells us, and if you’re not compatible, no amount of compromise is going to work. That’s why relationships are so hard. I think the Shameless writers take a very realistic approach on the subject of romance and family in general. A lot of relationships just don’t work, and many people never end up with a lifelong partner. That’s reflected here. We have Kev and V, who began as an established couple and worked through everything that’s been tossed their way because of how much they love each other. We have Lip and Tami, who have always been very up front about the fact that love isn’t easy and having a kid didn’t flip a switch. And we have Ian and Mickey, childhood sweethearts who sort of prove why it’s so unlikely that people who date when they’re kids will stay together. People grow apart or go through changes that make a relationship untenable, and that’s okay! We need to normalize that as being okay rather than promoting the concept that people should change when they don’t want to. What’s beautiful about them is that they made it work because of the context in which they fell in love and that, while compromise is still necessary, neither needed to change who they were to make it work, which is a very rare thing and portrayed as such on the show.

#shameless #shameless meta #Ian gallagher #Mickey milkovich #gallavich #you asked #i love how this show doesn’t portray people as being broken for not having successful relationships

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nyomjoon · 3 years

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why Kou is the best character in Ao Haru Ride

Why Kou is the best character in Ao Haru Ride & the most deserving of a fangirl club

to preface, the main girl (futaba) and main guy (kou) had crushes on each other in middle school, which would’ve progressed when kou invited her out to see her at a place near a clock. however, kou did not show up because one of their classmates questioned futaba on whether she fancied kou, and she was extremely introverted and replied that she hated boys - which she did. but, she had felt differently for kou since he was more gentle and less brutish than the other guys who were really the epitome of pubescent boys. so i see the appeal to kou. upon hearing this, kou decided not to show up in fear that she would not reciprocate his feelings. alas, she was left waiting in the cold for most of the night, and would not hear from him till highschool because he moved away due to his parents’ divorce. he also changes his last name from tanaka to mabuchi (this is significant).

edit: it has been brought to my attention that kou hadn’t shown up bc it was his parents divorce that day. i might’ve missed this detail but i assume when he tells futaba it’s not at the beginning so rlly mayb it’s another element to the ~character development~

When reminiscing, i only remember Kou to be the nonchalant, token tsundere, yeah he doesn’t care about you or your feelings. and upon surface level i found it to be so annoying, because he was the guy who left futaba out of his own fear. she was owed an explanation because despite it being middleschool, i too, would’ve been traumatised if the boy i liked had stood me up and not to mention leave school without a word to any of this classmates. i can side with futaba because i am also an introvert and it plucks a lot of courage to be able to ask someone out in the first place. however, that being said - being an asshole straight off the bat can only mean that there’s room or character development which to my little 12 year old self - failed to realise.

when kou moved middle schools, he struggled to find his group of friends, which in hindsight would probably be difficult for anyone who was going through what he had - his parents splitting. however, he meets ms. narumi, who initially we are grateful that she was able to help kou break out of his shell and develop friendships at school albeit he wasn’t besties with anyone. despite this, i will never forgive what she does later. as i’ve mentioned earlier, when kou enters highschool he becomes an asshole. this is because he experiences his mother dying and as anyone would be, he became bitter. he was more closed off than before and upon this revelation, we begin to sympathise for kou. because losing a loved one is as depressing as it comes and we begin to understand that with his parents divorce there was no one else there for his mother except for him. his older brother, given the split, had stayed with his father and so to satisfy his mother kou spent all his middle school years studying, with a realisation too late that he had made no better memories with his late mother.

consequent to his loss, we accept that his “asshole” personality is justified and he had become a man full of regret. during highschool, he moved back in with his father however, avoided spending time with his family at all costs. he’s revealed to be hanging around a group of friends to merely ‘waste time’ and really, he doesn’t enjoy anything in life. yet, ms. futaba, is persistent in nature and still has feelings for him so attempts to develop a friendship because of their previous relationship. much to his dismay, he still harbours remnants of his crush for her, however, he cannot and refuses to acknowledge it - he does this by not saying it aloud but he’s written her name in a notebook and despite the knowledge of its existence he does not tear or throw it away.

III

as futaba and kou’s relationship develop even further - she convinces him to stop seeing the friends and instead he has better friends at school who are all in this event committee or something like that. however, as the story progresses, narumi comes back and asks kou to help her because shes moved to the same town and has also experienced the death of a parent - which also happened after her parents divorced. knowing what that feels like, he felt obligated to help her out. i’m not sure if he intended to be an anchor for her, but this situation turned out to be very manipulative - because narumi was purposefully trying to hold down kou and drag him away from his character development, because as you would assume, futaba & co. are the steps towards moving on from his bitterness, regret and anger, and narumi tries her best to pull him away from it which inherently just inhibited his growth.

kou isn’t aware of this manipulation, because despite being an asshole prior he sympathises with narumi - which, really shows how kind hearted he is. he goes even further with his generosity by rejecting futaba, because even if they had dated, he still could not leave narumi because he felt as it was his duty to help her overcome her own adversities, which would’ve made futaba uncomfortable. it was/is in fact not his duty to help her overcome her trauma because as we all know it’s part of her own journey, and by helping her, he is still being tied to the past and he himself cannot overcome his trauma.

because he had rejected futaba, she decides to move on and although it does not happen immediately, she starts dating this other guy who in my opinion (which is completely objective btw) is so pushy and forward and he’s just a rat. because she starts to date this dude, kou realises that he still likes her, and depsite seeing them together he is unable to move on, or get rid of his feelings for her. now normally, this would be a bit problematic, however, because i hated kikuchi (futaba’s new bf) i don’t care. so, what i enjoyed about this particular bit of his transformation is that he was able to preserve the good things of his childhood which was fundamentally, memories of futaba and the times he spent with her. so when kou has his final talk with narumi - he lets himself out of that toxic environment, which is probably step five of his character development. and he goes back to the town he lived in when his mum died. he takes futaba with him to override the horrible memories that he had made - ones that reminded him of his parents divorce and his mum’s death. his logic behind this method was because when he was in the infirmary he was able to overcome his hate of the disinfectant smell because he was with futaba.

he also reconciled with his mother’s passing by visiting her grave and letting her know that he is finally able to move on.

another bit i wanted to mention, because it was so chivalrous of kou - basically, futaba got mugged and her bag had a strap that meant a lot to her. and so she tried chasing him, however, she got lost because she kicked the guy in the face and tried to run away. eventually, kou found her and she was really shocked and she actually had a fever so he had to carry her all the way to her hotel room. and then she mentioned that she lost her bag and really needed it. so, he left the hotel room and retrieved it and during his absence was when all the friends gathered in her room. when he comes back, he’s found the bag and throws it at her boyfriend which is funny because it shows how useless the boyfriend is lol.

after this, he does not give up trying to chase after futaba, because she’s been such a pivotal element to his life - which we can all see. his hard work does not go in vain, they do end up together which is very pleasing. but the final bit to his reform is his last name change. as you can imagine, the initial change from tanaka to mabuchi was probably something that was traumatic but then when he changes it back to tanaka he’s able to move on from his bitterness from his mother’s death. not to mention, he was very adamant on futaba to stop calling him tanaka but its pretty significant that he was able to overcome his personal struggles.

im too hungry so i can’t think anymore, if any of u read the manga add to the list!!1!!!111!!!!!

#ao haru ride #character study #kou mabuchi #anime #futaba yoshioka #shoujo manga #romance #pls be light on the criticism i’m v sensitive

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sorry-apsalar · 3 years

Text

See You in a Bit Chapter 1/4: I’ll Be Fine

On my Frender Drabbles Fic on Ao3, I finally got a request, it ended up being much more than a drabble though, 4 chapters long in fact. The request was: “Can you do Bender getting himself killed to save Fry?” So...

Content Warning for Major Character Death.

In hindsight perhaps Fry should’ve predicted that going on a mission without Leela was a dumb idea. But he’d been so excited by the thought of it just being just himself and Bender for once, like a date but not because they were working. Also, it had been a chance to prove that he was a competent pilot and capable of being in charge of a delivery mission. He’d even promised Professor Farnsworth and Hermes when they’d expressed doubts that he’d partake in no funny business; he’d just fly to the destination, deliver the package and go home. He’d done his best and truly had intended to keep that promise, even going so far as to say ‘no’ to Bender when he’d suggested they go off on a joyride with the ship before going to deliver the package. But alas, no matter his intentions, doing his best wasn’t good enough.

This was far from the first time he’d been arrested and imprisoned for unknowingly and/or accidentally breaking the law on an alien planet but it was without a doubt one of the more painful and scary instances. They’d beaten him black and blue, thrown him in a rusty jail cell and told him he was going to be publicly executed as soon as they had everything for it was ready. They’d lacked the decency to tell him anything about how long that would take.

Despite that looming over him, he’d managed to get some sleep – more like succumbed to unconsciousness – but not enough to make him feel even mildly rested. And now that he was awake everything hurt too much to let him drift off again. They hadn’t even bothered to take off his manacles off; a bit too tight, they chafed painfully against his wrists. His left forearm was broken and hurt worst of all which was saying something because he’d taken quite the beating and hurt all over as a result. At least his nose and mouth were no longer bleeding, right? Not that that made any of this much better. There wasn’t anything he could do about any of it except lie there, staring through the cage bars at the sandstone wall on the other side, and try not to move too much.

If Leela had been here she would’ve been the one who’d volunteered to deliver the package to the Monarch since only one person was allowed in to see them at a time. And she would’ve been smart enough to not mistake them for a potted plant and then piss on them. In hindsight, that was pretty obvious; they were plant aliens living in a desert, what would a random potted plant be doing in a room he’d been pointed to as if it were the throne room? He’d really had to go though. And now, it was looking like he was going to die for it.

Ugh, he was such a dumbass. After all the years he’d had this job, one would think he’d eventually learn to be more careful in general, especially on alien planets, but nope. If he somehow got out of this alive, he was going to…

“Psst, Fry.”

“Bender?” Fry gingerly pushed himself up and looked all around the now suddenly darker room. It was empty. …

“Up here.”

There was a small barred window on the rear wall of his cell, up out of reach and the only source of light in the room; Bender’s face was now blocking it.

“I’m so glad to see you!” Fry was almost always glad to see him but never had he been gladder. “I was starting to think they were really going to execute me.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t let them do that. It just took a while to find you because I had to be sneaky about it after they kicked me out and told me to never come back or they’d kill me. Whatever you did really pissed them off, so it better have been something good enough to warrant all this trouble. If it’s because you got caught trying to steal something valuable, I’m proud of you for trying but disappointed in you for failing so miserably after having me as a role model all these years.”

If only it had been that, it would’ve been less embarrassing. “Uh… I’ll tell you about it later.” He wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at and had more important things to think about like… “How are you going to get me out of here?” Even if Bender removed the bars from the window completely, there was no possible way Fry could fit through even if he could reach it.

“Here.” Bender extended an arm through the bars towards him. In his hand was an old-fashioned metal keyring with two keys jingling on it. “I pickpocketed them off the security guard while they were ‘escorting’ me out after they were done dealing with you. If they don’t work I guess I’ll have to break you out the old fashioned way.”

Fry carefully grabbed them and with a little bit of effort managed to get the small key into the lock on his manacles. Thankfully it not only fit but also turned. Freeing himself of them completely hurt, especially his broken forearm, and revealed just how horribly chafed his poor wrists had become in the hours he’d been locked in them, but it was a relief to be free of their weight at last. Next, he tried the big key in the cell door and again, it worked.

“Thank you!” He turned to look at Bender again. “You’re the best.”

“Yep, I know!” Bender grinned smugly.

“How am I going to get past the guards though? There are some like right outside the door I think.” Fry couldn’t fight them at his best, but bruised, tired and with a broken arm, he stood a negative chance.

“Let me take care of them. I’ve scoped the place out, they got a lot of guards but a big enough commotion should draw most, if not all of them away. Give me like five minutes and you’ll be free to just walk out.”

“Uh… all right, wait a bit and then leave, got it. You going to be okay though? There are a lot of them and they’re pretty scary.” They’d certainly beaten up Fry real good and it hadn’t seemed to tax them much if at all.

Bender scoffed. “They’re plants, how tough can they be? I’ll be fine, I’m not some fragile meatbag like you. You owe me for busting you out though. The next ten dates or so are all on you, got it?”

“Yep, totally fine with me.”

“Cool. I’ll met up with you back on the ship in like… an hour probably. Have it ready to fly before I get there in case I bring company.”

“Okay! Love you and good luck.”

“Eh, back at you meatbag, see you in a bit.” With that Bender pulled away from the window, allowing the moonlight to shine in uninterrupted once more.

The next few minutes were torture. Waiting wasn’t pleasant even at the best of times which this was far from. There was no way to know what was going on with Bender or immediately outside the door and Fry desperately wanted out in general, making time crawl by. There wasn’t even anyway to know how long it had been since Bender had left, one minute, five, more? But at long last, just when Fry was sure he was going to be driven mad by all the waiting, there was a muffled commotion on the other side of the door followed by silence.

He waited a bit longer before venturing over to press his ear to it. … Nothing. So, taking a deep breath, he cracked open the door – thankfully it wasn’t locked – and peeked through the gap at the other side. A mid-sized room with a large table in the center; chairs surrounded it and the abandoned remnants of some kind of boardgame were splayed out on top. No guards though and the exit door hung open. Fry was free to go.

Holding his injured arm close, he made sure to pull the jail door closed behind and to disturb nothing as he headed for the open door. On the other side was an empty hallway. Having been dragged here half unconscious, he didn’t exactly know the way back out so… he went left just because.

By some miracle, he managed to stumble his way through only four or five hallways – all empty by some other benign power – before happening upon the entrance hall. He wasted no time making a break for it, going as fast as he dared when each jostle sent a bolt of pain through his broken arm.

He paused as he stepped outside. The air reeked heavily of smoke and more of those weird plant people were hurrying by on their weird creepy root feet. Presumably they were headed to help put out the fire, judging based off the buckets they carried. Thankfully if they even noticed Fry at all, they paid him no mind.

Pulling a bit further away from the palace entrance gave him the room to look back and spot the source of smoke. One entire side of the palace and several of the buildings next to it were on fire, the flames big enough to light up the night and silhouette the folks bustling around, trying to put it out. Yep, that was a pretty big commotion all right and would require everyone available to put it out before it spread too far. … With a grimace, Fry quickly moved on. Hopefully the damage it caused wouldn’t be too terribly bad and no one would be severely injured by it.

He encountered a few more plant people on his way out of the city but thankfully they were all too busy running to deal with the fire to notice his retreat. Once finally outside the city walls, the air was clearer, making it easier to breath. He wasn’t quite home free yet, but he was close. All he had to do was head for the ship, hidden amongst the sand dunes not far from here, and he’d be good to go. Hopefully Bender would be joining him there shortly because he was so done with this particular adventure.

#my writing #futurama #frender #Established relationship #upcoming main character death #See you in a bit

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lemongogo · 4 years

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It's funny that I actually disliked Shigaraki in the beginning of the manga until the Overhaul arc gave me some respect of him. Then came the MLA arc and I am now a shiggy stan. Midoriya who? Sorry we got a new and more developed shonen protagonist in this city and that bitch is Tomura

AHAHAH yeah, thats kinda the same for me too SKJDFS i never actively disliked him, but i couldn’t be bothered to learn more about him as a character up until the overhaul/mla arcs. like i know the story intentionally portrayed him as both inexperienced and flawed for a multitude of reasons, but his aimlessness in the beginning of the series led to me find him kinda.. unremarkable i guess? as in , i felt like there wasn’t anything worth focusing on until tomura began to explore his independence away from afo. which !! in hindsight is definitely cool. i love looking back at his earlier scenes now, because it’s nice to see the ways in which he’s grown. im sure its always been evident but the highway scene !!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the mla arc gave him a lot of credibility and humanization that was previously denied to him

its so hard for me to figure out how to say what i mean bc obviously like. watching the earlier seasons , its not as if he didnt get any development whatsoever but . having a whole entire arc focused on giving him positive growth, healthy interactions w the league, an extensive origin, etc. allowed me to see him more for himself and his ambitions rather than the puppet afo intended him to be

& thats whats so satisfying imo . midoriyas growth, while focused on his confidence, is mainly limited to his acquisition for greater strength or power. i feel like his desires to save have always been the same. maybe a few changes every now and then with the people he meets & the situations he’s in (ex: mirio/nighteye), but its pretty linear and predictable. shigaraki’s growth, on the other hand, has been far more interesting . i just love how he’s routinely challenged by the story in ways that midoriya isn’t . how his actions are heavily influenced by the physical removal of afo which allows him to actually like. find his own convictions as best he can (tho i’d argue with 274 and the rest of the manga, he’s still heavily influenced by afo). idk. maybe thats just me, but like u said !! i feel like shigaraki’s gotten a hell of a lot more meaningful development than midoriya has with half the amt of storytime. good for him :-)

its kinda funny bc like. i caught up to the manga Right before the mla arc happened (ch.218) so when ch.220 happened i SDNLSKADSA originally did not care that much.but it grew on me quickly and now its my favorite arc in the entire series SKFDS isnt it funny how that works . like characters or plotlines u could care less abt end up being like . ur favorite over time

#me watching s1-3 for the first time: m.nah no thanks #me nwow: m.yeas...thank u tomura.for carrying the series on ur back #shigaraki #bnha #bnha spoilers #Anonymous #asktag

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lastsonlost · 4 years

Text

Oh gasps, I'm shocked.

Who would have thunk it?

The story:

Updated with Sunday figures: In the wake of Terminator: Dark Fate’s failure at the B.O., and Paramount’s recent decision to make Beverly Cops 4 for Netflix, we have the further breakdown of cinema IP in Sony’s Charlie’s Angels reboot, which is tanking with a God-awful $8.6M domestic opening, $27.9M worldwide (from 26 markets), 3 Stars on Screen Engine-Comscore’s PostTrak, and a B+ Cinemascore.

The Elizabeth Banks-directed-written and produced pic is also opening in 27 offshore markets,

China being one where it’s also bombing,

with a $7.8M 3-day take in third place behind No. 1 local title Somewhere Winter ($13.1M).

All of this is primed to further spur a WTF reaction and anxiety among film development executives in town in regards to what the hell exactly works in this have-and-have-not era of the theatrical marketplace. Many will make the hasty generalization that old, dusty IP doesn’t work, or is now deemed too risky when it’s not a superhero project. However, moviemaking is an art, not a science, and annoying as it might sound, good movies float to the top, and this Charlie’s Angels reboot didn’t have the goods going back to its script.

<Maybe somebody should have been working on a good story instead of pushing an agenda.

We’re going to break down for you what went wrong in another graph, but we don’t want to bury the success of Disney’s release of Fox’s James Mangold-directed Ford v Ferrari, which looks to be coming in at $31.5M, well ahead of the $20M+ many were seeing, with an awesome A+ CinemaScore and 4 1/2 stars and a 68% definite recommend on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak. After a franchise-laden summer which buried originals, now an original pic is sticking it to the IP.

When it comes to the bombing of Charlie’s Angels, the takeaway is this is what happens when you have IP, but there’s no reason for telling the story.

In the walk-up to developing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and in the wake of its near $1 billion success, a fever broke out at the Culver City lot in the post-Amy Pascal era to reboot former Sony franchises or extend them, i.e. Zombieland: Double Tap (well over $103M at the global B.O. now), the upcoming Bad Boys 3, and, of course, Spider-Man, the latter electrified by Disney’s Marvel. Development studio executives define their being by getting films greenlit, and whenever that happens, it’s 90% of the job.

And the pressure is on to fill a 10-12 picture annual slate in a world where Disney vacuums up all the best IP. A third Charlie’s Angels with McG directing and Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu starring, wasn’t made immediately after the second chapter, 2003’s Full Throttle, as the sequel turned out to be 29% more expensive than the 2000 original at $120M, and also made less worldwide, $259.1M to $264.1M. With Elizabeth Banks coming off her hot feature directorial debut with Universal’s Pitch Perfect 2 (which over-indexed in its stateside opening at the B.O., going from $50M projections to $69.2M, and finaled global at $287.1M); after she expressed interest in September 2015 in taking on a Charlie’s Angels reboot with a modern feminist spin, there was no question in Sony’s mind that the project should move forward.

<Yeah Sony, how's that working out for you? You think they would have learned their lesson...

Guess not.

Back to the story.....

However, there were script problems, I hear, that could never be resolved. A few months after Banks boarded, Evan Spiliotopoulos came on to write. By the time cast was assembled in July 2018, Banks had penned the latest draft off a script by Jay Basu (The Girl in the Spider’s Web), and earlier drafts by Craig Mazin and Semi Chellas. Andrea Giannetti oversaw the project on the lot. However, I hear that the script for Charlie’s Angels didn’t really attract top talent, i.e. Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone and Margot Robbie (a trio that would have potentially jazzed up business). Hence, why the production opted to go with largely a fresh face cast outside of Kristen Stewart. While we overwrite that stars mean nothing at the box office, they do, sometimes, when it comes to propping IP, and unfortunately and arguably, no one in Middle America knows who British actress Ella Balinska is, and they’ve only became recently acquainted with Naomi Scott from Disney’s Aladdin and Lionsgate’s Power Rangers. Stewart, who is hysterical in the movie and even needed more funny bits, is in a different place in her career professionally, publicly, and privately. It’s unfair to think that she could delver her Twilight fans now.

Had she done Charlie’s Angels promptly in the swell of the Twilight whirlwind (like Snow White and the Huntsmen) then maybe it would have popped.

But she has largely been dormant from popcorn wide releases for the last seven years since 2012’s Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, busy excelling and wowing in specialty awards season and festival fare like Clouds of Sils Maria, Still Alice, and this year’s Seberg, to name a few. Stewart needed to be paired with equal or bigger-name actresses.

was a one quadrant movie, eyed at women 13-39, especially given its lack of action scenes, and wisely limited their exposure to what I hear is 50%, with co-finance partners 2.0 Entertainment and Perfect World. Sony claims the budget is $48M net; we’ve heard in the mid $50Ms. Tax incentives were taken in the pic’s Berlin and Hamburg shoots. Perhaps Sony should have spent more, because Charlie’s Angels biggest problem is that it has very low-octane, we’ve-seen-it-all-before action scenes. Heck, there’s more action in a 1980s Chuck Norris movie. After watching Charlie’s Angels earlier this week, I put the first two McG movies on Netflix, and it was like watching Star Wars in comparison to this reboot, with his sharp production design, camera movements, unique action, and comedy set pieces, and, of course, the first movie blasted Sam Rockwell out of a cannon. Understand that the first two movies in the series were able to compete and hold their own in an action space where, yes, Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious (the first two films came out in 2001 and 2003) also thrived. Mission and Fast sequels distinguish themselves on multiple 10-minute action sequences that we’ve never seen before on screen; it doesn’t matter who the villain is. This Charlie’s Angels doesn’t have that. And not even a super-duper hit song “Don’t Call Me Angel” for the movie from Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Lana Del Ray can trigger lines at the multiplex; the music video clocking over 116M views on YouTube, per entertainment social media monitor RelishMix.

Some will claim that Banks’ version was never intended to emulate the meat and potatoes version of McG’s films; that this version was expected to be more comedic, and more feminist. Unfortunately, after McG set the table here with the franchise as an action film, you can’t reverse it. You can only outdo him. And with a franchise movie like Charlie’s Angels, you can’t make it for a one quadrant audience.

The film arrived on tracking with a $12M-$13M start, and really never budged, but sank. That means marketing didn’t work. I heard that a $100M global P&A was first planned on Charlie’s Angels, with the studio now reducing that overall cost greatly to around $50M and pulling back on expensive ads. Another hurdle in activating the young girl demo is that much of the pic’s cast isn’t on social media. RelishMix says that Banks is the social media star with over 6.6M followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with Scott counting 3.4M.

Sony kept pushing Charlie’s Angels, which in hindsight means there were development issues. In May 2017, a release date was announced for June 7, 2019. When the cast was locked down in July 2018, Charlie’s got moved to Sept. 27, 2019. In October 2018 when Warners pushed Wonder Woman 1984 from the first weekend in November to summer, Charlie‘s took over the autumn spot, which was the same exact place the original 2000 opened. However, when Terminator: Dark Fate moved onto the same first weekend in November, Charlie‘s relocated to this weekend as they vied for a China release which they ultimately got.

Charlie’s Angels drew a 66% female crowd, split between 36% over 25 and 30% under 25. But both demos respectively graded it low at 68% and 79%, with men at 35% giving it a 68% grade on PostTrak. Diversity breakdown was 52% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic, 14% Asian/Other, & 13% African American. Charlie’s Angels best markets were on the coasts and big cities. But again, nothing to brag about in Friday’s $3.2M gross, which includes $900K from Thursday and Wednesday previews.

Says RelishMix, which also foresaw this disaster approaching on social media chatter, “Angels is the latest example in a ‘woke’ effort to reboot a franchise that many were not all that interested in to start with. In fact, many references to the 2000 version get a call-out as a reason this one doesn’t seem to compare – whether it’s the cast or the action teased from the film.

And, as observed with other recent films, some action/adventure, unfortunately fans say they’re steering clear of this one because of its ‘girl power’ messaging.”

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thescispot · 3 years

Text

I had difficulty recognizing C when she arrived.

We had agreed to meet at the on-campus burger joint and I was early. Sitting in a booth in the corner, I finished up some statistics homework as well as the last of my coffee, and although I expected C at any moment, I was nevertheless startled when she peered over my shoulder, an enthusiastic grin painted on her face.

“Hi!” she chirped cheerfully, wrapping an arm around me. I returned the hug hesitantly, partly because I was in the awkward position of sitting while she was standing, but also because it had not yet registered to me that this was, in fact, C - the very person I had been waiting for.

She slid into the seat across from me and we launched immediately into comfortable conversation, exchanging pleasant greetings, and speaking to one another with a familiar ease I had not expected. We might as well have been meeting up after two weeks, when in actuality, it was nearly two years since we last spoke.

She was wearing a sunny yellow top and had her hair tied up sloppily on top of her head, revealing a pale face with large, doe eyes and a friendly disposition. I entertained the idea that her lack of makeup was what caught me off guard and explained my difficulty in immediately recognizing her but I quickly dismissed this theory as absurd; we had once been living together, after all, so her bare face could not feasibly be considered an unfamiliar sight for me.

She apologized profusely for her inability to meet up with me for the interview on two previous occasions and I assured her it was not a problem. We lamented the difficulties of school life, such as busy schedules, relentless deadlines, and the general fatigue that accompanies the Sisyphean struggle of adulthood. She complained about how much time her job took out of her day. I complained about how the lack of a job left too much time in mine. We both agreed that we could not decide if we were grateful for the looming shadow of graduation on the horizon or not; did it promise much-needed reprieve or threaten even greater distress?

I remembered when C and I had first met, moving into our dorm in late September four years ago. After a few lazy and unsuccessful attempts at unpacking, the two of us decided to seek out cold drinks at the neighboring dormitory building, Lothian, in a desperate attempt for relief from the encroaching heat. To our chagrin, we were hopelessly lost within a matter of minutes and were left wandering in circles around the campus, the sun attacking us the whole while as if driven by a personal vendetta. The two of us trudging across the fields, full of regret, must have been a funny sight, only exacerbated by the fact that we looked to be complete opposites of one another; she pale and I tan, she short and I tall, her hair a sleek curtain that brushed her shoulders, mine waist-length and frizzy. I was average-sized but she was very, very thin.

“When did it start?”

I finally worked up the courage to begin the interview. I felt I was being invasive despite her insistence that she was perfectly happy helping me with my assignment. We had spoken about this subject many times before, but something about the academic lens I was peering through felt disrespectful somehow. Almost alienating.

“In hindsight,” she said thoughtfully, “it started when I was fifteen years old. I . . . stopped finishing my dinner.”

C claimed she had always had a large appetite growing up, that she always cleaned her plate. But as her sophomore year of highschool approached, she had fallen into an insidious routine - she made sure to always leave a little bit of food behind, to never completely finish a meal. An innocent enough habit, or so she thought at the time.

“It spiralled out of control from there?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

C nodded. She related her actions from that time in her life the way one might analyze the motives and psyche of a fictional character, like she was discussing the mental health of someone else. She had a great deal to say, but her voice and manner did not betray even the slightest hint of anguish at being reminded of her troubled past.

“The eating disorder takes control of everything it can,” she said wisely.

Anorexia, in C’s experience, was not something she felt she was “suffering” from as she underwent its horrors. She was not punishing herself by not eating, it was quite the opposite. Not eating made her feel better. Invincible, even.

“I felt superhuman,” she explained. “I felt like I was honing a skill and it made me feel good about myself, that I could go to school and handle all these things in my life without needing food. It was an accomplishment.” She paused for a moment. “Really says a lot about how our culture conditions teenage girls, huh?”

We both sighed with tacit understanding.

“What if you ate more than you intended?” I asked. I tried to hide my discomfort about the whole conversation. I felt like I was trying to play the part of a therapist and it would be painfully obvious to any third party that I was woefully unprepared to do so.

“Then it was a bad day,” she said. “I felt like I failed.”

I suddenly recalled something she had mentioned often back when we lived together. She never went into great detail, and had a way of minimizing the despair this subject caused her. But it was clear to me, and probably our other hallmates as well, that her illness was not a result of merely deciding to eat less one day. It was obvious since that night she watched a music video entitled “Till it Happens to You”, drank copious amounts of vodka, and promptly had an emotional meltdown that something more significant triggered her eating disorder.

“What about your boyfriend?” I asked. “Would you say he was the cause of all this?”

“He was definitely a factor,” C replied hesitantly. “ He was older than me and the relationship was kind of, like, secret, you know? My parents didn’t approve. He would always tell me ‘fat girls are so ugly.’ And I wanted to be pretty for him, you know?”

We were both silent for a while, trying to process how something as simple as the desire to impress a boy could derail one’s adolescence so disastrously.

“One time I called myself fat and he said ‘No, babe, you’re so pretty - I could eat cereal out of your collar bones.’” C seemed embarrassed by how much pride she had once taken out of this disturbing remark.

“He wasn’t the source,” she chose her words carefully. “But he was definitely . . . the spark.” She fell quiet and I decided this avenue of conversation had extinguished itself.

“So when did people notice?”

“We were moving,” she explained, “and my parents noticed the self-harm scars I had running up my legs. They put me in therapy for a while. Eventually, I told the therapist I was, you know, done. Just done. I told her I was going to swallow a bottle of pills that night. I thanked her for trying to help but I was just over it. I was resigned about the whole thing, didn’t have any strong feelings about it one way or the other. ”

C was immediately taken to the emergency room following this therapy session. At this point in her life, she described herself as having skeletal shoulders and no stomach. She had taken to loose, baggy clothes and was especially partial to sweatshirts, even in the summertime. She only weighed eighty seven pounds.

“And the therapist didn't notice?” I asked dubiously.

“She had her suspicions, I’m sure,” C said. “But she admitted to me later that she felt unqualified to handle the severity of my condition.”

I balked at the idea that no one would see their own daughter, sister, friend, disappear steadily in front of their eyes.

“There was one person,” C remembered suddenly. When she was fifteen years old, a classmate she never spoke to slipped a book onto her desk, a book about eating disorders. Inside the book was a note, encouraging her to seek help.

“I was offended at the time. I didn’t think anything was wrong with me.”

“You were in denial.”

C reached into her bag and fished around inside for her wallet. She slipped out a piece of paper but did not offer it to me. My gaze only captured the name “Lauren” scrawled at the bottom in feminine script.

“I keep the note with me everywhere I go now,” she said soberly.

C was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and major depression, as well as obsessive compulsive tendencies in regards to her weight. She was in the hospital for a miserable two months, which she described as being like “solitary confinement.”

She believes attending “Program” saved her life.

“It finally started to make sense to me that I was sick,” C said, sounding more upbeat. “The eating disorder, it distorts a person’s thinking. I was finally educated on my condition and realized it wasn’t my fault.” Learning the science behind “ it”changed her perspective.

She happily relayed to me the structure of Program, and how she felt it helped her the most during her recovery. It was an outpatient program and she was given a meal plan as well as access to therapy for her and the people in her life. “Family night was on Tuesday,” she noted. I didn’t have to ask her to elaborate.

“My mother could be . . . unforgiving of imperfection,” she looked at me searchingly, trying to make sure she had used the right words.

“Did you feel ashamed of your condition?”

“Oh yeah, big time,” she said. “I felt like I was a burden for my family.”

C recalled how she began forcing herself to eat in an effort to gain weight as soon as possible; the hospital and subsequent program, she decided, were costing her family too much money and now that she knew what was wrong with her, why not just, you know, stop?

She threw up many times as her body was not yet adjusted, not yet ready to let go of its trauma. There were two separate occasions where her nasogastric tube was displaced as a result, an experience she implied was excruciating. An especially compassionate nurse was the one to hold and comfort her during the ensuing mental breakdowns.

“The disease pulled my family together,” C claimed. Her relationship with her mother improved significantly. Guilt was something they all had to confront.

“It was hard, but it was worth it,” C said with a smile.

According to C, stigma against mental illness was a huge factor in the initial conflict with her parents. Their words likely echo in the minds of every mentally unhealthy child of color who has made the mistake of displaying such a vulnerability:

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

C insists now that both she and her parents understand that it was the eating disorder that did this to her.

Program was run by a man named Dr. Marr, a leading researcher in eating disorders and mental health among youth, and it took place in Rancho Cucamonga. I noted how strange it was to realize that while I was learning precalculus and writing essays on Shakespeare, a girl I would one day live with was recovering practically next door, missing out on such a formative part of her life.

C and I both reached the conclusion that while the hospital helped her physically get her weight back up, all the emotional work was done in Program.

“I grew up a lot,” she said and then added, uncertainly, “I feel indebted to it, you know? It let me see parts of myself I didn’t before. I’m stronger now and I can endure so much more. Like if I could make it through this, I could make it through an algebra test.”

“And what about your identity? Did your mental illness impact your conception of yourself?”

She thought about this for a great deal of time. “Who I was and who I was meant to be...are intact. I’m sensitive, blunt, empathetic, loud, funny, I’m so many things. The eating disorder tried but it could not warp the core of who I am.”

Recovery, C believes, is all about accepting yourself.

“This is something that’s always going to be at the back of my mind,” she explained. “It’s chronic; but I’m getting better. It’s going to get better. I know it is.”

The conversation drifted. We discussed school life, working, friends, etc. She told me about her boyfriend, Ian, and how happy he makes her. I reminded her how the two of them fell asleep while video-chatting with one another one day during freshman year. She told me about an infuriating roommate she had had to deal with the previous winter. I told her about a fight I’d had with my former best friend. She told me about her cat and I told her about my dog. She told me about the time a customer pulled a gun out at her job. I told her why I quit mine. A meetup I expected to take no more than thirty minutes managed to eat up five hours.

Finally, I thanked her for her help and willingness to share with me for my assignment.

“No problem,” she shrugged. “I’m spreading awareness, you know? I’m kind of like, the best case scenario.” She laughed and I agreed. We said our goodbyes.

I was halfway home when it finally occurred to me why I couldn’t recognize her earlier. It wasn’t a haircut, or a new wardrobe, or the lack of makeup that changed C’s appearance in the last two years.

It was the fact that she had, to my utter delight, put on quite a bit of weight since we last met.

#science writing #science #mental health #mental health stigma #anorexia #Anorexia nervosa #eating disoder recovery #eating disorder #Interview #journalism #science journalism #depression #Psychology #neuroscience

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regrettablewritings · 4 years

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Hello! Id like to request 3, 5, 13, and 22 for Poe please?

Hello! Stuff’s below the cut, assuming Tumblr has stopped assing around!

3. Who is the most romantic?: As much as people like to joke about him and play him up as a rowdy boy who takes very little seriously, it’s quite easy to forget that Poe is canonically a sentimentalist at heart. He keeps his mother’s wedding ring on his person so that he can one day give it to someone whom he wants to be with, for crap’s sake! I think what also makes him showing off his romantic side a bit out of place is that no matter what anyone says, love blooming during a war is still something happening during a very chaotic time. Maybe inspirational, arguably a little too optimistic, but always and most definitely out of place. And considering his rank as general, Poe’s got a lot on his plate. Even when he wants to take you out to a nice dinner and do any usual courting actions, the likelihood is just so low . . . But don’t underestimate him. Poe can be quite resourceful in addition to being determined. Some nights when it seems quiet, he’ll set up a blanket somewhere for the two of you to sit on. If you’re on a ship, it’ll be by a window; if it’s on a planet, he’ll find a nice, quiet spot that’s not too close to base but not too far just in case; if you’re in more of a bunker, he’ll find a nice, quiet corner as far from everyone as he can get and sketch a randomized star chart that probably isn’t based anywhere near reality. Whatever the case, you’ll see stars and planets of some kind and he’ll encourage you to make a game of it, pointing at random dots and he’ll either identify the planet or make up a name for it and then go on to make up silly or amazing stories about the adventures he’s hypothetically had there or the dates you could go on while there. It’s very sweet, and also rather promising about the future.

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first?: It would depend, honestly. I don’t think Poe’s above saying it, but I think under certain circumstances, you might beat him to it. Circumstances that include the ship coming under attack and him having to fly out in defense. You’re nervous obviously. You’re always nervous whenever he flies out, even if it’s just for a recon mission. But in the middle of a blitz? You can’t understand why he seems so calm about it all! Why does he always seem so sure of himself when he jumps into that piloting suit? How does his brow remain unperturbed whenever he places that bulky helmet on his head? Is it all a facade? Or is he genuinely that confident? To your dismay, the only thing to rip you out of this fearful reverie was a sudden blast from the attack, the rattling sending you off balance. It was a mere stroke of luck that the man of the hour was already at your side, keeping you steady. “Gogogo, get to one of the pods!” he demands, his unwavering sense of leadership prevailing. “Be safe, okay?” It sounds so simple, yet when he says it, you know it’s not just some phrase to give you comfort. It’s an actual plea. Even as he parts, you can see the worry in his eyes. It’s the only hint you have that he might not be as dauntless as he seems. As you released, stumbling to keep moving forward, you turn back to see him heading toward the direction of the X-Wing hangar. You don’t know what you feel first: The pang in your gut; the thunder of your heartbeat; the scrambling of your mind as panic hits you. The only thing you notice (and in hindsight, no less), is that you called after him: “I love you!” He stops for a moment. He stares at you. You weren’t sure if he intended on doing anything. Maybe some part of you hoped he would respond in turn -- respond at all, really. But before anything could even happen, a shower of sparks from the breaking walls interrupted you, causing you both to stumble backwards. “Get to a pod, (Y/N), I’ll find you later! I promise!” you heard him call out to you. By the time the rain of static ended, he was gone.

13. When do they realize they should get together?: Poe comes to this conclusion first. Or rather, he is more accepting of this before you are. Deep down, you’ve been wanting to be with him for ages. How could you not? He’s handsome, brave, smart, sweet, funny, protective . . . But he’s also fighting as a general and pilot in the Resistance. You’re involved, too, of course, but you’re not anywhere near the front lines as he is. And as selfish as it may be, the fear of one day learning he won’t be flying back leaves your body filled with a heavy, dark bile of sadness and fear. Besides, surely a man of his standing would prefer a woman befitting of his caliber? Perhaps another warrior soul with a gorgeous face . . . Meanwhile, Poe already knows: You’re the one he wants. You’re smart, you think fast, you like his sense of humor, you’re loyal and kind -- and those are just the things he can think of on the spot if he didn’t have time to go into detail about how you were resilient, a different breed of hero he could respect. The tipping point that brought him to this, though, probably happened when everyone had gathered one evening during dinner hours and began to swap stories about their lives before the war and what they planned on doing after. When it came to Poe, he talked about how he kinda liked the idea of exploring the galaxy more, seeing places and embracing them without the cold grip of a looming war, helping to rebuild and maybe potentially help to establish stability on more outer realms . . . And these were all true, he did want these! But the more he talked about it, processing his thoughts into words . . . the more he couldn’t help but feel something missing. He never added that last little tidbit, but it did stay in his mind for the rest of the night. It didn’t leave until the next day when he saw you shuffling out of your sleeping quarters, hair a mess, eyes still crusting with sleep. “‘Mornin’,” you muttered as cheerily as your morning-broken body would let you. And just like that, he knew what his plans were missing: You. He wanted you to be there in all of his efforts, by his side. And, likewise, he wanted to be there with you. To support you, to experience what more life had to offer with you. He tried after the fact to see him doing any of these things without you but frankly, it just felt wrong. Incomplete. In short, you had been wanting to be with him after getting used to him. Poe wanted it after realizing he didn’t want it any other way.

22. Where does their first kiss happen?: Sooooo remember when I said you blurted out your love confession at a dramatic and less-than-ideal moment? It stuck with him. Even as Poe sprinted toward his X-Wing, even as he and a handful of other pilots took off to handle the threat. Honestly, it was a miracle he was able to stay focused just enough to avoid getting injured or even killed. But he did it, and now he had a promise to keep. Meanwhile, you were dealing with a lot. All the escapees managed to warp and regroup to a backwater planet for the time being, giving you one less thing to worry about so you could go ahead and worry about everything else. Like if Poe was safe, what the next steps were for this branch of the Resistance, and, oh yes, the fact that you had confessed your love to a general in the midst of an attack. Simple stuff. Of course you wanted him to return safely. You wanted that more than anything! But every time you tried to even consider what would happen next after the fact, your mind would collapse into a blob. To your dismay, you still didn’t have any answers when the X-Wings landed. Against your brain’s screaming pleas, you felt obligated to run with everyone else to the designated landing area and greet the heroes. The screams only silenced when you saw him. Your mind just couldn’t function enough to make any sounds or movements. You didn’t even so much as flinch when your brain registered that he had caught sight of you . . . and was walking towards you. “(Y/N)?” His voice sounded so distant, and yet you could hear something in his tone. You just weren’t sure what. Concern? Hesitancy? You felt his gloved hands cupping your cheeks. You could smell his sweat, hints of smoke from the mission, trace amounts of the soap he’d used this morning for his shower. You could see those brown eyes that you loved so much, how they practically shined with gladness and adoration -- Wait, what? You didn’t really have time to think back: The moment you felt his lips, warm and needful, connecting with your own, your mind went blank.

. . . I think I went a little overboard 😅 But I hope it came out alright! Thanks for asking!

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron imagine #star wars x reader #poe dameron imagines #star wars imagine #star wars imagines #character ship headcanons #regrettablewritings

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reachexceedinggrasp · 4 years

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What are the conspiracy theories about their motives?

Ted and Marshall are their self-inserts (that’s not speculation, that’s something they’ve talked about), they made a lot of kinda excessive comments about falling in love with Cobie Smulders during the first season, and their original vision of Barney was as a ‘Jack Black type’ much older than the rest of the cast who is purely gross and pathetic.

So the fandom speculated that a) going back on the entire point of Robin and the foundational twist from the pilot (aka that she is not the girl) was unplanned and possibly in large part because they (mainly Bays) wanted to vicariously date her. When I watched the show (after it had finished, so I knew about the finale already), I immediately noticed that the first two or three episodes very much suggest Ted and Robin were never intended to date seriously. There’s a very abrupt track change and some clumsy retcons to create the thread which will eventually lead to them having a relationship. Which makes sense, because narratively this big Ted/Robin build up is largely pointless, redundant, and unappealing and we already know it won’t work out- no one is going to ship that. They were created to be incompatible and they are.

b) Bays and Thomas (especially Bays) really, really resented that the audience latched on to Barney and not only made him the face of the show but loved him best and wanted to root for him. They were angry that Ted wasn’t anyone’s fav but theirs and that as far as the audience was concerned Barney/Robin was the big will-they-won’t-they couple, overshadowing Ted’s quest for The One.

Bays ‘blames’ Neil Patrick Harris for this and their writing for the character in the context of their interviews makes it not totally implausible to believe there was an aspect of punishing him for being everyone’s favourite. And that’s really the main conspiracy theory I’m referring to and the one I joked about in my post comparing HIMYM with tros- that you treat a character you created so badly it feels like you have a vendetta against the actor for making the part more rich than you imagined.

Because it feels very clear to me that part of the problem with the writing is that the showrunners, unlike the rest of the writers and the audience, never saw Barney in any other way than their original idea of a creepy, unattractive joke with no depth. They never, ever intended him to be seen as a romantic option for anyone and never anticipated the audience wanting to root for him as a romantic lead.

If you imagine Jack Black doing schtick instead of NPH, his whole concept reads differently; that Barney would have been a sad clown, just a buffoon. He thinks he's awesome but is definitively a loser, and no one is too mad at him or too sorry for him because no one takes him that seriously. He's irredeemably gross, totally not threatening, and any pathos he might have is tongue in cheek. The plays are pathetic but harmless, he isn't actually successful but he's so determined everything be awesome that in hindsight it sort of is (the early episode Sweet Taste of Liberty is totally like this), just because it makes for a funny story for Hero Ted to tell about his wacky friend. And that idea lingers throughout the show even after the direct remnants have gone (remnants like: there’s an early episode where everyone acts incredulous with Barney’s plan to dance with girls at a club- because who would want to lol?? Barney, who is NPH in a fitted dress shirt), because sometimes both the writers and the other characters treat Barney like he's a cartoon even in the more dramatic storylines- they don't take him seriously as a character, his motivations and feelings aren't important. There are moments when everyone is legit awful to him in a non-comedy way but it doesn't matter, he doesn't hold it against them and the audience isn't expected to either. And there’s things like his total absence from Robin's fertility drama when just logically, just from momentum he should be a huge part of it. It becomes confusing when they suddenly take his silly actions seriously and dramatically condemn him for being terrible when the story never treated his worst behaviour as having any basis in reality and yet have given weight to his sympathetic moments before then ignoring them. And this is where it makes sense that Bays 'blames' NPH; it is fundamentally his casting which changed how the writing played and thus changed the way they wrote the character. He is too good-looking and obviously adroit to play the standard harmlessly sleazy, delusional wannabe-womaniser that they imagined, the audience won't react the same way. This instantly complicates the character: Why would a fit, rich, sociable guy capable of being actually charming need elaborate pick up strategies? If he's just a shallow douche why would he latch on to someone like Ted instead of hanging out with other douches? He wouldn't. So why is he like this? His abject loserness becomes interesting instead of self-explanatory and that makes all his glimpses of depth read less 'pitiful clown' and more 'tragic character who can be redeemed'.

We were always supposed to like him- exactly the way Ted likes him in S1, as a sort of spectator sport which we don't for a second approve of and who you only sort of root for because he's so pathetic that any success he has is all part of the comedy. But then they cast someone who is too believable, people root for him unironically, and the show gets sort of weird about How We Feel About Barney and whether he's cool or not. The characters never stop thinking he's disgusting, but they also still encourage him even as he becomes more and more actually successful until his personal mythology is barely a delusion. Him being a successful womaniser who genuinely IS most of the things he claims to be throws his sadness and dissatisfaction with his life into a completely different light, now his pathos is real. After that, seeing his dorkiness and his many esoteric skills is less 'haha embarrassing for the lame wannabe' and more endearing.

Basically they accidentally a really compelling arc and were mad the audience was more interested in this incredibly dynamic, charismatic character who had tonnes of room to grow and change instead of the Dogged Good Guy protagonist who is obligated to be fairly static.

#And also they spent seasons explaining how he and Robin were perfect for each other and then were mad people shipped them.#there was no reason for them to break up either time because they just work so well #so you get this ridiculous bullshit out of nowhere about getting ugly and lack of wifi #the other writers obviously had no inkling of any of these shenanigans because #they literally spend an entire season on how Ted and Robin make each other miserable and shouldn't be together #and constantly contrast how Ted doesn't actually like Robin as a person but only his ideal of her #where Barney appreciates all the things about her Ted wants to change #and there's all this foreshadowing with Ted's divorced parents vs his mum with her new husband etc. etc.#them trying desperately to puppeteer the characters into place for the finale was SO PAINFUL AND AWKWARD #it's just LIES #like either WRITE TOWARDS THE FINALE YOU WANT #or ALLOW ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT #I mean the finale would never have worked at any point because the pilot precludes it #but they didn't even TRY #himym

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actor-mark · 4 years

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Riverside

Ah yes... Forgive my memory on this one friend, it was quite some time ago now! We were young, 8 years old! How the time flies eh! Ahahaha...

Well, I only wish things had remained like this. Fun happy smiling young boys without a care in the world. A world of danger, politics and heartbreak never crossed our minds at that age. Stupid adult stuff. All we wanted to do was play games and have fun.

The river was the most fun we’d had in a long time....

((Contains Damien / Mark ship, young Actor, Damien and Will headcanons, 18+ towards the end NSFW)) ((Story below the cut))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvjMgVS6kng (play in background )When I was a young lad my parents owned quite a bit of land, I enjoyed the outdoors as much as any young boy rolling around in the dirt pretending to be a pirate or a dragon-witch slaying knight, not that my mother ever approved of me coming home covered in mud, but hey young boys will do as they do. So it was natural for them to send me off to one of those summer camp things where you do all the camping and the canoeing and all that stuff.

Fairbank’s a nice place, ya know? Lot of forestation, lot of city. Got that city / country vibe goin’ on. Lot of mountains to the south, and that’s kinda where we went for the summer trip. Fairbank’s camping ground was a nice spot for cub scouts and the sort, couple of log cabins and some flat land to set up tents, and this real nice river. I must have spent every day that I was there, sittin’ on the banks or hanging off a tree. What can I say, I was the adventurous kid, always getting into something, risking my neck, ahaha some things never change eh?

Bout a week in to the camp, I was sitting on a branch, swinging my legs, watching the water go by under me, saw a little paper boat go by and another kid from the camp go chasing after it. It got stuck on a rock under me but the poor fella couldn’t reach it so I hopped down to the rocks and handed it back to him. Cute kid. shy. Still was several years later but I guess we kinda brought him out his shell a little in the end. Er... No pun intended.

We sort of hit it off, got to talking, I taught him how to cross the river safely over the rocks and he let me play with his paper boat with him, we chased it up and down the river for a while. Least until we were called over for dinner, then we sat together and just talked, got to know one another. He came from a rich family, I came from semi wealthy, we talked about how dumb our parents were and how neither of us really wanted to be here but it wasn’t so bad.

A week later we were best friends. Laughing and playing every day, talking about nothing important. His mother was a nurse, father a lawyer. they wanted him to follow in their footsteps. He just wanted to make people happy.

That evening we were by the river again, sat in the tree talking about a cartoon we both liked, I don’t even remember which one, and we heard crying. Another kid but not from our camp. Took us a bit to find him but we did, hiding in a bush sniffling.

We went over to sit with him and found he’d been yelled at for something not his fault, though in hindsight it probably was. Something about throwing a hunting knife around. Makes sense now I look back ya know?

Sure enough my goofy ole self got the kid laughing and a little spark and click the two of us were making jokes and had our third laughing as well. Fast friends...

Sadly Will wasn’t staying for long. He was camping with his family just over the other side of the river from us, and was only there for the weekend, but we got to meet his parents, got their number and eventually Will was gone. couple weeks after Damien and I were trading numbers too and parted ways.

I’d hated the camp but I couldn’t wait for the next summer to see them both again....

Fast forward a couple years turns out we all went to the same high school! Myself an actor of course, the theatre kid, Damien got into all the mathematics, English all that, Will got into the sports and science, lil’ bit of an artist too.

We grew up together. Got jobs and eventually hosted parties to meet up. That’s when I met Celine....

When I turned 27 I invited the boys on a vacation, never stated where of course, but I took them back to that spot. By the river. Will naturally went running off into the woods something about making fires and going to see if he could find any wild life. That was fine by me and Damien.

It’s funny ya know. Despite how much I talk about Celine I don’t talk much about what happened with Damien on that trip... He was quiet, reserved, a lot on his shoulders while studying to be a lawyer. Then a DA and then eventually the mayor. But in that moment he was just a baby lawyer. Just got his license. Couldn’t get him to relax no matter what I did.

So I decided to surprise him. A paper boat. The old tree was still there too. The branch we had both sat in was long since broken, but there was another we could have gone into if we were still young and weighed less.

We sat on the bank, watching the boat sort of spin in a mini whirlpool caught in a crevice of some rocks. “I miss this place” “Me too...” “Do you remember the day we found Will in that bush over there?” “Oh yeah! He got grounded for trying to cut windows in their tent” “Ha.... yeah.” Idle chatter really, nostalgia, reminiscing on the activities we did while here. The sound of the river babbling beside us, birds tweeting somewhere above us. “I never did get around to telling you” His words had confused me, caught me a little off guard. “Tell me what?”“Doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past. We both moved on” “No no no go on what was it?” “I was just a kid” “Damien.” “.... You were the only friend I had. I mean I had Celine of course but.. she’s my sister she didn’t count. you were my first ever friend. No one else would talk to me. You made me laugh”

Funny how one little thing can change everything isn’t it.....

We talked for a long time, idle stuff, nothing important, eventually Will came back saying he pet a squirrel, oddly we believed him. He set about making the fire and we set up the tent and a small pot for cooking with. That’s when we discovered Mr smarty pants lawyer wasn’t so smarty pants after all. Dumbass forgot his own tent, but that was fine, mine was a two man. So we’d bunk together.

We sat around for dinner, talked stories about what we’d been up to since we last met up, expressed our excitement for a whole weekend together in this familiar place and complained about the mosquitoes. Was bound to happen this close to the water.

Eventually night fell and we retired to our tents, we heard Will snoring before we could even get undressed, must have tired himself out or something. But me and Damien talked for hours... like old times.

Celine was beautiful, I loved her dearly but this was far before I’d even gotten to know her. Met her twice maybe at this point in time. So Damien... Damien had my attention. Now don’t get me wrong! We were never a thing, not at all. But you can’t deny Damien was a handsome lad! Not as handsome as me of course but still, I’m capable of appreciating a looker!

We were close, closer than I was with anyone else at that time, and I guess chatting led to us laying on our sides, to laughing, to getting cold and scooting closer and then ....

.....

......... ((18+ NSFW))

It was a long time ago... Just a one off thing, I guess Damien was stressed from work and needed a way to relax. We talked afterwards, didn’t mean anything, we were just... enjoying our vacation together. .... Weirdly never did forget that night. I remember everything we did pretty well. You’d be surprised ya know.

For a soft, shy mayor, Damien has quite the wild side inside him ahahaNever took him for a Dom but hey, he’s not shy from being in control it would seem. Using his belt for a collar was a nice touch.

#;'answered #ask actor mark #writing prompt #cddtag #my work #damien x actor #actor mark #damien #The Colonel #riverside #actor mark lore #headcanons

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dantecampanas · 4 years

Text

hello all, i’m pepper and i have never been on time for anything, ever, in my life dsjksdkj, but i am literally so much later than usual though, i am so sorry y’all but to make up for my tardiness under the cut is some stuff about this mess, dante. it’s messed up ride so i hope you enjoy? also, like this if you want to plot and i’ll literally come sprinting okay.

BIO ; tl;dr basically craig kielburger, but make it dark

to start here is Dante’s pinterest board.

and here is a song that reminds me of him so much it may as well be his anthem but also this other song because i wrote his app to it basically, it reminds me a lot of him, more the vibe than the actual lyrics but still.

okay so Dante’s family is kind of inspired by the Quinns (from ‘You’ on Netflix), the Castillos (from How to Get Away with Murder) and like Henry Goulding’s family in Crazy Rich Asians.

Dante Isaac Campana was brought into the world in Madrid, Spain with a silver spoon dangling out of his mouth. You’d never guess from looking at him, what with his hobo chic style and generally unkempt appearance but it’s the truth. He came in this world out of a well paid surrogate as the second child of the famous Sofia and Gabriel Campana, and he wanted for nothing because for it. His parents made sure of that.

Gabriel was a CEO and Sofia was a wildly successful author, and from the moment Dante could breathe his parents had his whole life set up for him. After all they wanted their son to be successful and they planned to make sure of it. A hefty trust fund in his name, to be accessible at the age of eighteen. A place in the family business that he would fill the moment he finished university. They even had an arrangement for who Dante would marry eventually, before he was even old enough to understand what the concept of marriage was. It was all planned out for Dante without the slightest bit of input from Dante himself, and Dante was just supposed to accept that. The funny thing is, at first, he did.

After all he was young, and he had no reason not to. He loved his parents deeply, passionately, but honestly, that was how Dante loved anything. One of his very first memories of his life is of his grandmother. They used to feed the ducks together when he was a child. Dante would throw whole loaves of bread into the water and his grandmother would always laugh and laugh until there were tears building at the corners of her wrinkled eyes. And one day, the day of the memory in question, Dante remembers her sitting him on her knee, smoothing back his wild curls and telling him that he was born with a heart too big for his body. A heart too big for this family. Dante was too young to know what it meant at the time, but it stuck with him. And by the time he was old enough to understand it, he knew she was right.

The truth is the Campanas were cold. Dante for the most part was an anomaly. Because while his parents probably did love him in return, they had an odd way of showing it. Cold hands pressed to warm cheeks, thin smiles of approval that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Never the words ‘i love you’, or ‘i’m proud of you’, or ‘i believe in you’, but instead the heavy feeling of expectation. If you wanted love, you had to earn it. If you wanted them to be proud of you, you had to do something to make them proud. Not be a person to make them proud, no. You had to do something.

So when Dante was twelve years old he did. Not on purpose mind you. Dante wasn’t even thinking of his parents in his pursuit, only of others. You see, when Dante was twelve years old he, mostly accidentally, started a non profit. I say accidentally because that wasn’t really what Dante was setting out to do. Honestly, it all started when he met a homeless teenager not much older than him, sat beside them on the little street corner they begged on, and was struck by the overwhelming, gnawing need to help. To make things better. To protect them, because no one else was doing it. It started with Dante rallying up the children at his private school, and later those children’s parents, and later those children’s grandparents. Or maybe it really started when Dante climbed up on the stage one school assembly, took the mic from their principal’s hands and gave an impromptu speech on the cause. No, to be honest, it really started when someone recorded that speech and put it on YouTube. Because the moment that speech went viral, so did Dante and his charity.

Even today if you look up Dante Campana you will be assaulted by a myriad of articles and photos of young Dante giving impassioned lectures to interviewers, to audiences, to millions of people over livestream. It was just something that Dante was passionate about that became much bigger than he intended, but he didn’t mind. He was helping people. He used the money that the charity brought in to build youth shelters, and food banks, and rehabilitation centers, all for homeless kids. It was everything he wanted.

And for once, his parents were proud. They loved him. They didn’t say it, but Dante knew it from the way they looked at him. Like he was their pride and joy. (Later, he would look back on that look. It would strike him as disturbingly too close to how one might look at a shiny new trophy, and he would never be able to look at his parents the same way again.)

Dante only became aware of how conditional his parents love for them was when his elder sister started to slip under the pressure they put on her shoulders. Anya Campana was about sixteen at the time, and Dante, three years her younger, had to watch as his sister crumbled. Anya had always cared too much about what their parents thought of her, about impressing them and making them proud. It didn’t help that her parents made it clear that they would not accept anything less than excellence from her, their first born. Anya was supposed to be their champion. The head of the family once their father was gone. The pressure of it all drove Anya to the edge. At first the edge was just adderall. Later cocaine, just to take the edge off, just to make things easier. To help her focus. Dante remembers catching her in the act. Remembers her crying. Remembers being shocked still, and just staring and staring as his perfect sister literally fell apart at his feet.

It wasn’t long until the weight of their parents expectations had drove Anya to a full on addiction, all in the pursuit of their favour. But of course, when Dante’s parents found out about Anya’s problem, they had no sympathy for her. Only disappointment. That ‘slip up’ cost Anya her role. She could no longer be the head of the family if her resolve was that weak; instead the position would fall to Dante, and Anya would be sent quietly, and shamefully, to rehab. it was an eye opening experience for Dante, honestly. To see just how replaceable their parents saw them.

The Campanas brand of cold was also fake. Plastic. Sure, they smiled in the public eye and the relationship between the siblings at least was genuine, but the truth was Gabriel was cheating on Sofia when he thought no one was looking (Dante was. A story for another time), and Sofia had openly slapped each of her children across the face at least once, usually when she got a bit too much wine in her. The older Dante got the more and more he felt his love for his parents becoming more of an obligation than anything tangible. Something cold and plastic itself. And he despised it.

When Dante was fifteen, just after Anya’s second stint in rehab, he and his sister were spending the day together to catch up. All they wanted to do was get ice cream together, talk a bit. But those plans were foiled when a black indistinct car rolled up beside them, and before Anya and Dante could even put up much of a fight, they were both blindfolded and tied up in the back of the car. It honestly shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was considering the Campanas were easily the wealthiest family in Spain. But the kidnapping was traumatic and shocking to Dante, especially because of course all these men wanted was money.

Their kidnappers called his father with every intention to get said money within the day. They asked him for one billion dollars for each child, which was a lot of money, but not an amount that the Campanas didn’t have, or couldn’t get access to if need be. But it was then that Dante got the second big shock of his life. His father refused to pay. Dante remembers his blood running cold at the statement heard over the speaker. He remembers his sister crying. He remembers the kidnapper shoving the phone into his face, demanding he beg his father otherwise. To convince him to love him enough to pay for his life. Dante remembers crying so much it hurt. Before that day he didn’t know that was possible.

The kidnappers gave their father a deadline. He had a full twenty four hours to get the money, or they would be killing one of his children. Their father agreed, and so Dante and Anya were left in the hands of their kidnappers for a full day. Dante still hasn’t properly talked to anyone about what happened during that time, and he’s not even sure he can. Honestly, looking back, the memories of it all are all a blur. Like even his hindsight is blurred with his tears.

The hour came and their father was called. He was asked for the money and told that if he didn’t pay it, his daughter would be shot. Once again, he refused. Dante can remember the gut wrenching sound Anya made at the news. It was at the chilling mid point between a sob and a scream. He can remember crying himself, but trying to comfort her as much as he could with his arms tied behind his back. And because he was touching her, he can remember the exact moment Anya flinched from the gunshot fired into her stomach. He can remember the warmth of her blood over his skin.

Dante can’t remember much after that. It’s like his mind filmed that day with a fish eye lens and half a roll of film. All blur, until it cuts out. More blur, and then it cuts out. The next thing he properly remembers is being in a hospital bed for shock. He remembers seeing his parents there. And he remembers being filled with a hatred more consuming than anything he ever felt before. Apparently he lunged at his father in a moment of rage. He doesn’t remember it, but enough doctors attested to it for Dante to find himself with a semi permanent place in mandated therapy. Well, due to that specific moment and, you know. The circumstances.

Dante learned that day that to his father, he and his sister were of different value. Dante was worth more than Anya. He didn’t mess up as much, or quite as publicly, and with everything with his charity, the media loved him. He was smart, and charismatic, and maybe he was a bit sensitive, but he could grow out of that. If they lost Anya, so what? They had Dante. He would lead the family to greatness.

And Dante did. After an abundance of therapy of course, well, during an abundance of therapy. Despite it all, somehow Dante didn’t buckle under the pressure. He took some time off from school, but once he got back to it his grades were the same as ever. He spent some time away from his charity, but once he was ready, he threw himself back into it with a single minded focus. He made a foundation for Anya, his sister. His world. And then he moved on. Came back stronger. At least in the public eye.

Privately, Dante was furious, and disgusted, and grieving. His sister, his confidante and likely one of the two people in his life to love him unconditionally, was gone. And she was never coming back. And Dante would never, ever be the same. He remembers attending Anya’s funeral. Seeing everyone cloaked in the colour she always hated, crying over her and telling lies about how much they adored her. He remembers his mother saying how proud she was of her daughter. He remembers his father saying how much he loved her. And he remembers feeling nothing. He remembers getting up on stage, drunk, and numb, and he remembers looking hard at them all. He vaguely remembers telling them all to fuck themselves, but after that? The film cuts out.

Dante spent a lot of time leaning on his friends then. Hiding from the sharks that were the paparazzi. Dante’s pain was like a healing wound, and they were drawn to it like the animals they were. Picked at to see if they could get him to bleed again. How are you coping, Dante? Will you be testifying in the court case, Dante? How much do you miss Anya, Dante? There is footage of Dante ripping a paparazzo's camera straight out of their hands and throwing it at them. Or at least there was. His father got rid of it before it could truly make it to the press, and the paparazzo, well, he walked away with three new stitches in his eyebrow and a significantly heavier wallet. Dante, for his part, walked away empty.

The truth was, now Dante was plastic. The bleeding heart that he once was now sadly hollow. He played the part though. And he played it well. To the world Dante was the golden boy. Any mistakes or slip ups were covered up neatly by his father, or his mother, or both. And the legend of Dante Campana, child philanthropist, and hero lived on. Y’see, Dante’s mother wrote a book about the whole experience, and took some creative liberties. In the novel, Dante tried to save his sister. Fought his captors. Held her hand as she bled out. As sick as it is, Dante read it, hoping it might jog some of his memories from the whole incident. It didn’t, but it could have been true for all Dante knew. Didn’t make him hate his mother any less for profiting off of the whole thing.

Eventually, Dante graduated. Accepted a position at Ashcroft University. And then he was handpicked for the Imperium Society. And that’s where he met Lady Macbeth.

And It was like for the first time in three years, Dante was living his life in colour again. He fell, and he fell hard, almost immediately upon meeting them, which was as much of a surprise to him as it was anyone else. Yes, Dante had dated before, and had crushes but he didn’t necessarily believe in love. Not after his parents lousy display of the whole thing. But he met them and that changed. He was consumed by love. Driven by it. He would do anything for them, absolutely anything. And he made that very clear very quickly, and never wavered. Not once.

In the time that Dante loved them he was brought back to some semblance of his old self. He found his passion again. He found his happiness again. And he knew it was because of them. They brought him back to himself. They made him better. And the gratitude, and codependency, and love all stirred itself into a poisonous mess that was more adoration, or rather idolization, than love. What he felt for her was something all consuming and probably not entirely healthy, but something that Dante dedicated himself to, like a religion.

Which is why when they told him about the issue with Octavia Dante was so incensed about it. For the most part, despite previous outbursts, Dante was kind. A peacekeeper. A joker. A lover. But when it came to those he loved, after everything with Anya, Dante was painfully protective. He promised himself long ago that no one coming after those he loved would get away with it. Not again.

That said, when Dante went to meet with Octavia he did his best to be calm. To be levelheaded, and understanding, and kind. But Dante’s reputation must have preceded him, because Octavia didn’t seem to see any reason why she should listen to him. Dante was the artist. The charity guy. The hippie. He was about as threatening as a puppy, or at least his public image was. Her words were sharp, and her disposition was cold, and Dante wouldn’t have cared, he truly wouldn’t have cared if the words she spat were just directed at him. But the moment Lady Macbeth was brought into things, Dante snapped, Othello’s presence be damned.

The film cut out.

The next thing Dante remembers is the aftermath. The water bottle he’d bought to reuse, to spare the plastic, to save the environment, to save the world, now ironically covered in blood. His hands slick with it for the second time in his life. Othello’s understandable panic. The shock was thick as fog once again, and the next thing Dante knows he’s at Lady Macbeth’s door, eyes hollow and hands shaking around the water bottle as he fully realizes what he’s done.

He never meant to. It was an accident. He lost control. All he wanted to do was protect them.

But somehow instead they ended up protecting him. And leaving him for Othello. A large part of Dante knows that he deserves nothing less. That what he did is a crime that deserves a much larger punishment, one that Lysander unfairly took on for him. But his heart is heavy with guilt, and now heartbreak on top of it all.

As if watching Lysander go to prison for his misdeeds and witnessing Lady Macbeth and Othello in their honeymoon phase all wasn’t enough torture, well, then there was Octavia’s ghost. Which was truly the most painful torture at all. Every time she visits Dante just ends up with breaking down. Terrified, guilty and asking for her forgiveness. He’s pretty sure it’s not helping in the slightest though, and he can’t blame her for being angry. She has every right to be, and honestly Dante is quickly reaching the breaking point. He’s seriously considering just turning himself in to appease her, and to make things right for Lysander, and he would do so in a heartbeat if there wasn’t the risk of Lady Macbeth going down with him. So Dante is at a stand still. Miserable, and in pain, but doing his best not to show it to keep up appearances. Luckily it’s an act he’s been putting on for a good portion of his life, so he’s good at it. But he’s crumbling at the edges, and he’s not sure how much longer it’ll take for everyone to notice.

To cope Dante has been indulging in a lot of his sister’s old habits. Drinking. Drugs. The same mechanisms he used to cope with her death, but quit once he met Lady Macbeth. Now, without them, he’s just using leaning on them in an attempt to make things easier.

PERSONALITY ; god who knows dkjsdjksd dante is very fresh and new so he’s a bit of a mess in my brain and he will definitely develop into something new passed this point but

PASSIONATE! god he’s so passionate, like dante just feels everything on 10 one hundred percent of the time, especially since lady macbeth came into his life. The type to get teary eyed over a dead bird, but also the type to like stay up five days straight working on a project because he can’t get it out of his mind.

despite this used to think romantic love was a straight up myth lmao because of his parents relationship, so we love a contradictory king. a bleeding heart but also a philophobe, and now a murderer, wow what a resume. lady macbeth changed that a lot for him, so for like a WHILE dante like became the poetry writing, love is the answer, romantic which had to be a drastic change for anyone who knew him before

nurturing honestly? but only with people he actually cares about like juliet or lady macbeth.

but also impulsive, as we can see, like dante doesn’t tend to really think before he makes any decisions. he just does things man

thinks he’s funny! sometimes he is tbh. a bit of a good natured goofball generally. willing to do pretty much anything to cheer someone up

a big ol’ flirt just naturally, like he’s honestly very charming, but like so was ted bundy yk. also bi, but like all my muses are, so sdkjsdkj are we surprised at all, i don’t think so.

very touchy feely tbh because he’s a tactile person.

a live and let live kinda guy like actually,,, so close to a hippie it’s not even funny.

a bit promiscuous more so before lady macbeth came into his life and he became entirely enamored, and now a bit because he’s heartbroken and just looking for any sort of connection.

the most generous person when it comes to money and kindness. the type to sit down with a homeless person and end up giving them his jacket, five hundred dollars, and a new outlook on life as he leads them to one of his youth centers. Has actually thrown himself into his charity a lot more since Octavia’s death. Is kind of viewing the whole thing as penance.

the type to hold a grudge until the day he dies, but also the type of person who can’t NOT help someone who needs help you know. like he hates his parents but if his mother called him tomorrow like i want to see you one last time before i die, he would fly out to spain to see her.

very liberal. literally can’t talk to conservatives without wanting to physically fight them. has definitely gone to protests and gotten arrested for punching a nazi, but his father probably covered it up.

HEADCANNONS ; alright now onto the fun stuff

fun fact, was actually brought into the world via surrogate because his parents had a lot of trouble conceiving, like both of them were pretty much impotent. so he’s not technically blood related to either of his parents, neither was anya.

deaf in his left ear and has been all his life. it’s kind of difficult for him to hear a specific person talking in a crowd of too many people, especially if you’re standing on his left so he might straight up text you instead. also if you’re standing on his left side in general, he might turn to face you to better hear you. can speak multiple different sign languages including asl, bsl, auslan, and of course catalan.

has delightful spanish accent but speaks fluent english because of all the networking he grew up doing with his parents, also you know, very expensive private school. also is fluent in french, italian, romanian and portuguese, like just the romance languages honestly. he’s traveled a lot though so he can get by in a few other languages, which basically means he can hold a stilted conversation and ask where the bathroom is.

Despite his charity being his life and occupation kind of, at heart Dante is an artist. Like his art is everything to him and his is actually quite popular. He gets a lot of offers from people wanting to buy it but he can never part with anything he’s made so he always refuses the offers, no matter how much money the customer is bidding. It’s not like Dante needs the money anyways, so he has refused offers on grounds of menial things such as ‘i didn’t like the vibes he was giving off’ or ‘he looked like a republican’ or even, once ‘pretty sure i saw that guy in a dream once. god, he sucked.’ So most of his art decorates his dorm room instead, and he’ll even give some to friends for free. Dante actually wanted to become a full time artist once he graduated, along with keeping up with his charity but considering how picky he is about who actually buys his art, he’ll literally make no money, which is okay because again, he’s rich. Now though, he’s considering just pouring himself into his charity and forgetting about his art because, you know, penance dkjdf.

Actually learned to cook from his family chef, and is really, really good at it, like professional level good at it. He hasn’t really had time to get any actual professional training but he really wants to. He has absolutely snuck into culinary school very briefly before just to sit in on a few classes. Just pretended he went there and made a bunch of friends and he learned a lot of stuff, and even taught some culinary students a few things. He was eventually discovered, but then he made friends with the professor, and now he just comes by whenever he wants or has the time. That’s the kind of guy Dante is.

Honestly pretty good at anything having to do with his hands, like if he had a label it’d probably be the artisan. Dante is the type of person who knows nothing about like mechanics but can like fix something if you put it in front of him. Likes to make furniture as a hobby, so hit your boy up if you want a sexy chair. Also makes sculptures and does a bit of pottery, like he’s a jack of all trades when it comes to tactile things only.

Intelligent in the way that he just has a lot of pretty well informed opinions like if you want a fun fact don’t go to Dante but if you want a good insightful conversation he’s your man. Not like… clever at all though, like he doesn’t have a manipulative or conniving bone in his body, and it’s really hard for him to tell when he’s being manipulated or taken advantage of. He thinks with his heart rather than his brain honestly. Like if you’ve ever heard the story of the foolish traveler... that’s Dante’s fool ass. If you haven’t here it is.

A big defender of the environment. He was planning on launching a charity for that too, and honestly he’s probably throwing himself into that project to stop thinking about all this.

Has a bunch of tattoos, usually of his own art or other art that’s moved him. I imagine him with at least one sleeve that’s beautiful, and he’s probably starting another. Is seriously considering a neck tat. His parents would hate it and that just makes him love it more.

If you watch jenna marbles i want you to know that Dante is Julian in the kitchen and Julian in the kitchen only, but somehow everything he makes end up coming out near perfect anyways.

surprisingly has a green thumb? can revive almost any plant with relative ease.

never learnt how to ride a bike tbh, but does ride a motorcycle so?

Has taken to religion like a mad man ever since Octavia’s death, like he’s suddenly at church once a week. He tells everybody that it’s for his art, and that he just wants to study the stained glass, but really he’s praying for Octavia’s forgiveness. He’s pretty sure it’s not working in the slightest though.

Kind of salty that Octavia of all people is haunting him but he hasn’t seen his sister’s ghost once. Actually kind of believes in the supernatural and karma and all that, so he wasn’t too shocked by the whole Octavia coming to him in the night thing. Always thought that he could feel his sister watching over him so, now at least he has that confirmed.

suffers from black outs, but i feel like that was obvious in my little bio sksdjkjsd straight up has stretches of time that he has no recollection of. it tends to happen when he gets really angry or in really traumatizing situations but honestly people close to dante probably know that he’s just lost stretches of time like you could mention something from his childhood or even a few weeks ago (actually especially a few weeks ago) and dante would just be like... i don’t remember that. honestly has been feeling like he’s kinda going crazy since his sister died, so literally since he was like fifteen oof.

has been painting some pretty dark stuff lately like since the whole octavia thing, like just in tone and color. probably a bit reminiscent of the stuff he painted after anya for those who knew him then, but if you met him after lady macbeth then this is a drastic change because his art got very beautiful and full of life then you know.

#spectreintro #d.c. | bio.#i'm gonna just post this so i can stop looking at it #otherwise imma drive myself up the WALL

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