#they can have a deep meaningful relationship without it being full on mother-child from the get go
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Gotham's New Stray
Gotham Menagerie Menace AU: 1 | 2
-Lila swore off the ‘sausage tails’ hairstyle but by god she’s breaking that vow if only so she could use them to strangle Marinette.
-The past month has been an absolute shitshow circus. Somehow, LB managed to defeat Hawkmoth who turned out to be Gabriel (jfc, just when she thought the asshat couldn’t sink lower) but *gasp* CN has betrayed her! Worse, Adrien is gone!
-So far, no one, not even LB herself, specified what ‘gone’ meant. Was he missing? Was he dead?? Nobody knows and it’s killing them.
-Poor Marinette is naturally heartbroken & worried sick and oh, it’s so romantic how she’s holding onto hope. Just look at the shrine she made for Adrien!
-(Lila will bet her entire Venetian Mask collection that she isn’t the only one who wants to burn the embodiment of a stalker’s delusions & entitlement to the ground.)
-Chloe was throwing money at PIs but with the Hawkmoth revelation, Andre wanted nothing to do with Gabriel, much less his son.
-Felix doesn’t believe he’s dead. Call it stubbornness, call it desperation, call it faith: Adrien was tenacious long before he got the miraculous with an animal said to have 9 lives.
-More importantly, Adrien would Cataclysm himself before betraying Paris (yes, he & the others know bcz secret IDs are bloody overrated).
-Lila, Chloe, Zoe, Nino, Nath, Marc, Felix & Luka are determined to get to the bottom of this but where do they start?
-Their first lead comes in the form of Nathalie.
-Nathalie, who tells them the instructions she gave Adrien; who also shows them the peacock & butterfly miraculous.
-When Adrien Cataclysmed his sperm donor (damn it, all of them would’ve paid to see that), Nooroo barely hid inside his miraculous in time to avoid damage. Luckily, his dormant state made it easier for Nathalie to snatch him & Duusu before LB could.
-Although very suspicious, they begrudgingly accept her help. An adult would make a better scapegoat cover anyway.
-While the others prepare to leave, Felix reaches out to his Gotham pen pal.
F: I’m coming to Gotham.
D: And others say my humor is lackluster.
F: I’m not kidding.
D: And I’m not laughing.
D: You’re also not the type to do something without reason.
F: Damn right I’m not. I need your help.
-Before leaving, Nathalie tells them one last thing: she’ll hold onto the peacock (she’ll be damned if she lets another kid suffer for her mistakes), but someone has to wield the butterfly. It’s not combat-orientated but being able to empower someone in a place like Gotham? A boon they can’t waste.
Nathalie: Which one of you will accept this responsibility?
Chloe: .....just to clarify, Hawkbitch was wearing that like, 24/7?
Nathalie: Yes.
Chloe: I love Adrien but ew, no, not it.
Others: Not it!
Nathaniel: Not- damn it!
Lila: Twas fate.
-They could’ve sworn they saw Nathalie smile.
Meanwhile in Gotham.......
-Adrien was adapting.
-He’s found a decent building to stay in (Gotham was full of abandoned buildings), got a job at a hole-in-the-wall café & even better, the city was a fresh start for his alter ego!
-Rather than mope around, he’s more determined than ever to continue being a hero. His dad being a villain means he has more to atone for & Gotham may be a slaughterhouse but she never dictated who could play savior.
-He’s established a routine. Whenever he doesn’t have to work at the café/ run errands, he’s prowling around as Stray. He wanders around, helping wherever & whenever needed; saving a stray cat from cruel assholes with nothing better to do, stopping a mugger, befriending other kids who have it rough, he goes where there's trouble which happens to be everywhere.
-(Lots of crime means lots of work that requires lots of focus! Lots of focus means lots of time & less to be spent lingering on many repressed issues/traumas waiting to bite his ass.)
-He becomes a bit of an urban legend. Slowly but surely, he’s welcomed into the community. It’s imperfect & dirty but the slot he’s carving for himself fits him so much better than Paris’s ever did.
-Back home (...? Dare he call it that?), he’s trying his best to take care of all the kwamis. Each were unique & there was never a moment’s peace but Adrien loved them. These tiny gods gave him companionship & guidance despite what his father’s done to one of their kin.
-They try to teach him everything Fu didn’t & he’s lenient with them. His territory has more paraphernalia for their interests than his. When Adrien’s gone, they use fractions of their powers to chase away any would-be-robbers, giving Adrien’s building the ‘haunted’ status.
-Whenever someone he saves offers compensation, Stray usually asks for some food to feed himself & the kwamis.
-(They probably don’t mind giving food bcz there’s the saying abt feeding strays. But hey, him hanging around means extra protection. It’s a fair price to pay.)
-One night, while feeding a bunch of strays, he gets a visitor.
-Catwoman (he's totally not fanboying, he is.)
-Stray is surprised & a bit scared bcz shit, what if he’s done something wrong? Was he trespassing? Was he unintentionally mistreating the strays?!?!
-Catwoman was simply curious. She heard rumors of a ‘Stray’ lingering around the Narrows. She half-expected the mini menace to be some hotshot punk in over his head but-
-She knows.
-She knows how to spot the signs of abuse with a certainty as familiar as it is painful. She’s seen them all: abused animals, abused women, abused children, abused partners.
-The kit covered it with puns, cockiness & charisma but he wasn’t fooling her.
-It wasn’t just the matching theme. They clicked & before he knew it, they were sitting together on rooftops every night to feed & pamper the strays. Some nights, they sat in companionable silence; others they gossiped & bantered each other into a friendly spar.
-Maybe it was the loneliness & lack of human companionship but Stray found himself looking forward to their nightly hang outs.
-Selina knew it wasn’t her place to take him in like Batman would've; but she tried to teach him some tips before the city’s cruelty could. The first time he appears with a cut on his cheek & a split lip, she doesn’t hesitate to treat his wounds.
-Stray wouldn’t call her a maternal figure (she's neither Emilie nor Nathalie), but he comes to view her as a reliable cool older sister/aunt figure. She was nothing like LB. They were parallel lines: heading in the same direction but never intersecting.
-He’s glad that he’s made a friend.
.
.
.
-But some nights, when he thinks the kwamis are asleep, all of them can hear him cry for the friends & lover he never got to bid goodbye to.
To be continued
#adribat#gmm au#miraculous ladybug#adrien agreste#nathalie redemption#marinette salt#WE NEED MORE ADRIEN & SELINA CONTENT#LET THESE TWO MEET#they can have a deep meaningful relationship without it being full on mother-child from the get go#that's what development is for#they look out for each other but never look AFTER each other bcz both sides have faith in the others abilities#if that makes sense#au of an au#selina kyle
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I suspect quite a few people on this site don’t realize they are struggling with the effects of chronic trauma. In particular I think more people need to learn about the symptoms of C-PTSD.
Distinct from general PTSD, Complex PTSD is caused by prolonged, recurring stress and trauma, often occurring in childhood & adolescence over an extended period of time. There are many risk factors, including: abusive/negligent caregivers, dysfunctional family life, untreated mental/chronic illness, and being the target of bullying/social alienation.
I’m not a mental health professional and I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone, I just remember a million watt light bulb going off in my head when I first learned about C-PTSD. It was a huge OH MY FUCKING WORD eureka moment for me—it explained all these problems I was confused and angry at myself for having. The symptoms that really stood out to me were:
Negative self-perception: deep-seated feelings of shame, guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, and stigma. Feeling like you are different from everyone else, like something is fundamentally ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ with you.
Emotional avoidance of topics, people, relationships, activities, places, things etc that might cause uncomfortable emotions such as shame, fear, or sadness. Can lead to self-isolation.
Learned helplessness: a pervasive sense of powerlessness, often combined with feelings of desensitization, wherein you gradually stop trying to escape or prevent your own suffering, even when opportunities exist. May manifest as self-neglect or self-sabotage. (I remember watching myself make bad choices and neglect my responsibilities, and having no idea why I was doing it, or how to stop myself. Eventually I just stopped caring, which led to more self-neglect.)
Hyper-vigilance: always feeling “on edge,” alert, unable to relax even in spaces that should feel safe. May be combined with an elevated “flight” response, or feelings of always being prepared to flee. (I used to hide important documents and possessions in a sort of emergency go bag, even when I was living alone and there was no logical reason other than it made me feel “prepared.”)
Difficulty regulating emotions: may include mood swings, persistent numbness, sadness, suicidal idealization, explosive anger (or inability to feel anger and other strong emotions), inability to control your emotions, confusion about why you react the way you do.
Sense of foreshortened future: assuming or feeling that you will die young. Recurring thoughts that "I'll be dead before the age of 30/40/18/21 etc." As a teenager I used to joke darkly that I didn't plan to live past 30—not because I planned to end my life, but because I simply couldn't imagine myself alive and happy in the long-term. I couldn't imagine a meaningful future where I wasn't suffering.
Emotional flashbacks: finding yourself suddenly re-experiencing feelings of helplessness, panic, despair, or anger etc, often without understanding what has triggered these feelings. Often these flashbacks don’t clearly relate to the memory of a single event (since C-PTSD is caused by repetitive events, which can blur together), making them harder to identify as flashbacks—especially if you’ve never heard the phrase “emotional flashback” and don’t know what to look for. For years I just filed it under “sometimes I overreact/freak out randomly for no reason, probably bc I am just a terrible human being.” (It turns out there was very much a reason, it was just hidden in the past. I have since learned to be kinder and less judgemental towards myself.)
There are other symptoms too, here are more links with good info.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, because I’ve noticed that a lot of the people I interact with online have risk factors and experiences similar to mine. These include:
growing up in a dysfunctional household
having caregivers who do not fulfill basic emotional needs (do not provide consistent positive attention, encouragement, support, acceptance, communication, a sense of safety and security)
on a very related note, experiencing neglect or abuse at the hand of caregivers or other adults. I also want to emphasize the significance of emotional abuse, since it is hard to recognize, easy to ignore, and utterly rampant in so many communities. In general, family dysfunction, abuse & neglect are quite difficult to identify when you are a child/teen and that is the only “normal” you have known.
(For example, in my family it manifested as an emotionally absent father I was vaguely frightened of, constant nagging from a hypercritical mother, and a house full of people who yelled and screamed at each other. It took me years to realize I grew up in an abusive environment, because there was no physical violence, because I participated in the fighting, and because my behavioral problems made me the family scapegoat. And I internalized that guilt: I thought I was the problem. But no—I was a child, and I deserved not to grow up in a household full of anger and fear and negativity. You deserved that too. You deserved to grow up safe and loved and treated with kindness.)
anyway back to more risk factors:
being neurodivergent or chronically ill (especially without receiving proper treatment/support/accommodation)
being queer (especially in a conservative or undiverse community, or without the support and acceptance of family & friends)
being the target of bullying or harassment (from peers, teachers, authority figures, irl, online, etc)
being isolated or alienated from peers, from family, from your wider community.
growing up with chronic anxiety, discomfort, pain, fear, or distress caused by any of the above and more.
There are many other experiences that can cause chronic trauma, but these are some particularly common ones I see people in my own community struggling with. And I want more people to be aware of this, because we’ve been taught to ignore and second-guess the significance of our traumatic experiences. We’ve been taught to feel guilty for our own pain, because “other people aren’t struggling, so I shouldn’t either” or (contradictorily) “other people have it worse, so I shouldn’t complain.” But that’s not how it works—you are not other people, and you deserve to have it better. We all deserve better. We deserve to be happy. We deserve not to be in pain.
I used to think I couldn’t have a trauma disorder because (I argued in my head) the things that happened to me weren’t that bad. And then I spent five years in therapy learning to accept the full extent of my issues. I’ve since learned that trauma comes in many forms, and can happen quietly, invisibly, silently, chronically, and usually without the survivor being aware of the long-term repercussions of what they are surviving. That revelation comes later, after you have survived and must instead learn to live.
Finally, no single type of trauma is more real or harmful than any other. Severity is measured by the way the individual is affected, and the same situations affect different people in different ways. Because no one gets to choose how their brain reacts to trauma. No one gets to choose their hurt—otherwise there would be a hell of a lot less hurting in the world.
We can, however, choose to seek help. We can learn to recognize when something is wrong, we can learn when to reach out to professionals, and we can learn to educate ourselves on our injuries.
And gradually, we can learn to heal.
(posts like this brought to you by ko-fi supporters)
#The way things are is not the way things will always be. So I have learned to trust.#i...i accidentally spent 4 1/2 HOURS writing this what the FUCK#long post#not a shitpost#serious post#mental health#c-ptsd#complex ptsd#trauma#ask to tag#i need to take a break and drink some tea#maybe with the fancy new tea biscuits
i just bought#they have pecans and honey. i like honey#pecans are gross though except apparently in biscuits. these biscuits are really good#anyway let me know if you're worried I've misspoke or misrepresented anything here#again i'm not a professional. i'm just a person in therapy who has spent the last few years learning about and healing from complex trauma#and i wish i had known all of this years sooner. but i know it now so i'm putting it out there#bc i hope it helps someone dealing with the same things i dealt with.#i know things now that were painful to learn. and i will use them gently with great care#i wish i hadn't suffered the way i suffered. but since i have--how miraculous if i could use it to prevent others from suffering the same#that's the best thing to do with pain i think. turn it into something warm and blazing and try to use it to keep others warm#pain is like fire that way. you can burn yourself and others with it. or you can tame it and keep it in a jar and use it as a guiding light#For the Love of All the Fucks please notify me of typos
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[APH x AOT] Headcanons: The countries’ military regiment, fighting style and ranking
I only managed to get Germany, China, America, England and Russia in this, but I went pretty deep with all of them: There will be reasons for joining, strengths, weaknesses, and their overall ranking. The total wordcount for this is 3, 759, so that’s triple the amount of a regular headcanons post.
I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Garrison
The regiment with the most personnel, and arguably, the most productive. With limited entry into the military police and high fatality rate of the Survey Corps, most graduates wind up here.
But there is lots of work to be done. Whether it be maintaining and protecting walls, or evacuating citizens and adhering to emergency plans when disaster strikes--a breach in the wall and an invasion--there are always important jobs to get busy with. The Garrison frequently encounter both titans and civilians, so the soldiers here are well-rounded in titan combat, cannons, security detail, crowd control, and rifle usage.
Given their concrete role and how they successfully deliver what they pledge, they are objectively the most deserving of respect.
Germany
He always had his eyes set on the Garrison, having a high regard for their integral role in maintaining and protecting society.
Ludwig is well aware of his plethora of skills while remaining humble, and wishes to use them to his full potential. While he admires the will and purpose of the Survey Corps, he’d much rather join a regiment that has a better ratio of risk and return. The scouts who die outside the protection of the walls may not die meaningful deaths, but members of the Garrison have clear goals to dedicate themselves to, and he wants nothing more than to be a part of it.
As a hardworking person, he believes in sacrificing every bit of his time and energy to serving the people. What better way to be productive than defending civilians and the home he loves?
Fighting style
Selfless, strong and disciplined
Strengths
He’s outstanding in all areas. He’s fast, sharp, unafraid to tackle problems had on, and to top it all off, his cuts are deep and damaging. Using 3DMG in a city as convenient as it is dangerous. Infrastructure often hides titans from the naked eye, but he’s able to take in clues and process them quickly to take the quickest and safest route.
He has a high pain tolerance. Theoretically, if he got his arm bitten off, he could make his own way to find medical attention.
Ludwig is a natural born leader. He has one of the finest military minds. If you want strategy, you go to him. Not only is he renowned for remaining calm and level-headed no matter how grim circumstances become, he is direct and detail-oriented, so he’s a great communicator. Thus, he can be relied upon by everyone who works with him.
He has a strong moral compass, but isn’t very emotional. More often than not, he will take the initiative to go out of his way to save someone, putting his life on the line in the process. Ludwig won’t linger on any setbacks and incidents, and will make the most out of them by trying to learn something. This sources from being mentally strong, so he’s able to keep pushing without the troubles of self-doubt.
He possesses a very high standard for his work, and everything he does will be done well. As he takes on more authoritative roles, he will implement his work ethics into administrative tasks, and demand that others follow his example. Ludwig will not turn a blind eye to any instances of incompetence, and corruption will automatically result in your termination.
He’s a fearsome fighter. His combat skills are one of the best. Ludwig never held back when sparring in his training days, but now that he’s faced with real enemies, he will dedicate his time to studying and perfecting variety of techniques. If you can do so little as touch him, consider yourself good. Breaking your ribs is merely a warning from him.
Weaknesses
Ludwig is a workaholic, and he will get carried away. He can get too obsessed with completing his tasks to the point of neglecting his own health. This may result in pulling consecutive all-nighters or skipping meals, believing that his body can handle it. However, the long-term effects will be detrimental if somebody doesn’t stop him.
He takes on too much responsibility, sometimes more than what he can handle. There’s never too many burdens for him to shoulder, or at least, that’s what he thinks, but he’ll end up pushing himself and getting in trouble. This coincides with his selflessness, but he puts himself in harm’s way too often.
He can get fixated on the smallest imperfections and inexplicabilities in himself and the happenings in his regiment. As a detail-oriented person with high standards, he could get distracted by these fluctuations. Ludwig believes everything has to be accounted for, but he ends up counting in the more trivial matters.
Rank: 2nd
Military police
Only the top ten get to join the military police as the most prestigious branch in the military. They operate in wall Sina, the innermost wall, and maintain order, as well as serve the king. Ironically, they are the biggest farce of all regiments by nature. Soldiers train to be the best at fighting titans just to get away from them in the safest spot of their civilization.
That sounds appealing, doesn’t it? To hide away from the humanoid beasts and live a nice cushy life with the royals. Of course, this paves way for corruption, and their higher authority over the two other regiments leads to misuse and abuse of power.
Considering how little oversight they have, the military police often clashes heads with the other two regiments, but especially the Survey Corps.
Russia
He doesn’t like people enough to join a branch that will actually help them.
Ivan understands that its more worthwhile to join the Garrison or Survey Corps because they actually contribute to society. But his view on their work and humanity in general is far too pessimistic. When will the scouts actually do something useful after so many meaningless deaths? People will inevitably die inside the walls, with or without the Garrison, so what’s the point?
If he can live his own life not caring about things he can’t change, why not do it?
Being in the military police, the most prestigious and powerful regiment, and yet, met with their jarring incompetency everyday reminds him that maybe, he shouldn’t sell himself to saving the human race. His soul is far too bitter--too disappointed. He ends up prioritizing himself in a world he believes will eventually self-destruct. These walls won’t last forever. The people will only break down faster.
Fighting style:
Sharp and unpredictable
Strengths (In the military police)
Ivan’s ability to outsmart his colleagues allows him to stay on top of all the going-ons in the military police. He’s very cynical, but that’s the perfect trait for thriving in such a corrupt environment. Nobody will be able to take advantage of him, and he ends up doing it to others without even trying.
It’s impossible to anticipate where and how he will attack you. Ivan has a keen eye for body language, and will mirror his opponents’ movements for the most part, then when they least expect it, he will come for them in the most merciless fashion.
Thus, his combat style is definitely special, but that’s what makes him so deadly. He won’t always use punches and kicks because they’re easy to defend against. He might just hold you in a chokehold, but if he wants to get rid of you, he’ll use his height and strength to his advantage and slam you to the ground by your neck.
Weaknesses (In the military police)
None
His transfer to the Survey Corps
Nobody anticipated this. Not even Ivan himself.
He grew up rather poor, but fortunately, he wasn’t impoverished to the point of living in the underground slums. His father was a no-show, and his mother struggled to put food on the table for as long as he could remember. Already, the thought of joining the military police to escape poverty was starting to look like a realistic goal to strive towards.
Who would have thought the nice but strange-looking boy he befriended from his neighborhood would change his mind one day? He didn’t, not as he stood in the line of the top ten graduates of the 104th training corps, determined to fulfil his lifelong dream and finally stop suffering.
Every day, he’s reminded it was the right choice to join the military police. His superiors are corrupt, his colleagues incompetent and everyone is absorbed with gambling and drinking. Humanity was hopeless. It would face its eventual demise as the Garrison struggled to keep swarms of titans from invading one district to another, and as the personnel of the Survey Corps decreased every expedition with little progress. He might as well enjoy himself while he can.
His deep attachment to his childhood friend Yao would change all of this. As a child, he was always quite clingy to the boy, but one needs to wonder if it was because he gave him things to eat. While they went off on different paths to join different regiments, they kept a close connection, and would often meet up in secret to discuss each other’s military branches.
Eventually, Ivan’s attitude begins to change as his relationship with Yao deepens. After all, his friendship with the man reminds him of what’s left of the good in humanity. Soon, as he learns about the change in tide for the Survey Corps where they encounter new, real progress, and eventually, a real chance for salvation, he begins to question his morals and beliefs.
The military police start to look more distasteful to him at every passing day. The tables finally turn when he learns that the Survey Corps are to embark on an expedition outside the walls in a few months, meaning Yao will face uncertain death--that’s what convinces him to transfer.
Strengths (In the survey corps)
Like his personality, he has an unpredictable and unique 3DMG style. Most people will choose to swing by one way, he will choose the other. He might even go upside down for a while wherever he sees fit. That’s what makes him so strong against aberrants/abnormals. He might even laugh at how ‘predictable’ they were when they were anything but. Like the saying goes, to catch a thief, you have to think like one.
He always shows up at the right time. He will appear from obscure spots and pull you into a hiding spot when you’ve abandoned all hope. To his comrades, seeing Ivan in strange places is the best thing that could happen to you, because his presence signals a threat nearby and he’ll end up being your only ticket out.
His intelligence is one of a kind. On top of this, he’s very difficult to faze so he can orientate himself quickly in foreign environments and pick up on situations without panicking. Friends tend to rely on him in dire moments for this reason.
Weaknesses
He often rubs people the wrong way with how he speaks. Half the time, he��s being too blunt and honest that it’s hard-hitting. If not, he mentions grotesque or unpleasant things with a smile on his face. And in a world with titans, there are many things that fit the description. People have a hard time liking and trusting someone like Ivan, which may cause his isolation and a disconnect with the goals of the majority.
His blades don’t last as long as most people’s because he has a questionable way of cutting up titans. He gets the job done, but he definitely over does it. He’ll have to rely on his 3DMG to survive for the meantime until he’s able to replenish.
Ivan isn’t the best communicator in the world, and this is mostly because he assumes people already understand what they need to do. Unfortunately, not a lot of his comrades are as bright as him, so it doesn’t help that he can be quite vague. He can’t be relied on to relay important information, so he stays where the action all happens, or in other words, where trouble begins. This will put him at a greater risk even if he’s good at facing unexpected and dire situations.
Rank: 4th
Survey corps
You’d definitely be called crazy for considering joining. The Survey Corps is the branch of military that specializes in titan research, human expansion, and exploration of the outside world. Thus, this regiment symbolizes a hope for mankind—for freedom. However, the mortality rate is high. Stepping into titan territory will decimate members, and most will die within 4 years of joining. High risk, and almost zero return.
They are notorious for how little their success rate is so that citizens and other military regiments look on in disapproval. But they keep fighting and fighting, hoping that one day, their efforts won’t be in vain in their quest to change the world for the better.
Only the most convicted individuals will join. But only the most talented, and perhaps, luckiest, will survive.
America
This isn’t even a question.
He knows the risks. It’s not certain whether his death will be meaningful either, and count as one step forward for humanity. It probably won’t. But he’ll be damned if he’s stuck in these walls for the rest of his life, getting fattened up by taxes just to turn into livestock for titans.
Unlike Ivan who believes in self-preservation, Alfred thinks the meaning of life is to join a cause bigger than himself. To build something that will last for lifetimes.
He’s also a free spirit, and yearns for true freedom and justice. So he’ll fight for it. The logo representing the scouts aren’t “The Wings of Freedom” for nothing. Call him cocky, but he’s convinced he was born to join the scouts. Everything they believe in, he does too. Their goals resonate with the deepest fibres of his soul. He craves knowledge. Bleeds for revolution. He won’t rest until he satisfies his quest for discovery, and hope.
Fighting style:
Powerful and explosive, but a little flamboyant.
Strengths
Alfred possesses an almost super-human strength and stamina. He can go long, and go hard. He will go on a killing rampage for as long as his gas and blades allow him to.
He’s very hardy and able to make fast decisions in risky situations. Hence, when he’s subject to difficult situations, he makes it out without a hitch. This is evident in how he can make narrow escapes to survive in cases most people wouldn’t. Losing your horse outside the walls guarantees death, but he has a half and half chance of surviving.
His slashes are always deep to ensure he incapacitates a titan. He spins and flips a lot. He could easily dismember them if he wanted to.
A terrifying opponent to spar against because his attacks are usually too strong to defend against. The immense force he uses coincides with his incredible speed, so his opponents will have a hard time dodging and keeping up with him. One punch to the head will leave them blacked out, and two could mean permanent brain damage. Three and you’re probably as good as dead.
A good and calm communicator and works well in a team. He’s more observant than he lets on, so he has a keen eye for his friends’ abilities and will take them into consideration.
Weaknesses
He can be rash and act out on his own accord when he thinks he’s right. That’s why his teammates are wary of him when a plan is a little more complex and ambiguous. This often creates problems for other team members because once Alfred starts improvising, they have to as well. It never ends well.
As earnest as he is, he tends to talk back to his superiors. Looks like he’s on toilet cleaning duty again.
He can let his emotions get in the way. Anger is not his friend. It clouds his mind and that’s when he’s the most reckless, and thus, vulnerable.
As skilled as he is, his blades tends to dull faster than everyone else’s because he puts them under too much pressure. He will be the first to break them and could wind up defenseless for a while, but he has an uncanny ability to survive against all odds.
Rank: 3rd
England
Unlike Alfred, freedom and justice isn’t his main motivation to join the Survey Corps. But there is one thing they share in common--a deep passion for the quest for discovery. As human beings, arguably the most intelligent species in existence, he finds it to be a devastating waste to know so little about the world he was born in.
Is there another civilization out there fighting titans like his people in the walls? What kinds of foreign cultures, languages and religions could be waiting for him to come into contact with? And is the ocean really something that exists? If it does, then there’s a whole new world in the waters waiting to be discovered. The answers to these profound questions are well worth dying for, especially for someone who embodies human curiosity.
Salvation comes in a little further down the list. He has his doubts on whether he can save the human race. But when the chance comes, his loyalty and determination will be unbreakable, and he will go to the most extreme means to seize the opportunity.
Fighting style:
Swift and resourceful, but unsociable
Strengths
He’s one of the fastest and most efficient 3DMG users. One of the reasons is that he can use his gas sparingly, but not without cutting back speed. That way, he can survive for longer without stopping to replenish.
With this in mind, Arthur can go back and save any comrades in a tight spot. That’s what makes him an irreplaceable member of any team--with him around, you have a higher chance of surviving.
He can move like nobody else can. Tight spaces and unexpected obstacles will not slow him down, as he can make sharp turns and good approximations under pressure.
Cunning and good at avoiding conflict. Rather than direct confrontations, whether its with people or titans, he will only fight when he absolutely has to. This minimizes expense of energy and resources, as well as casualties.
Arthur has impeccable navigation skills and threat perception. When he’s outside the walls and on horseback, he’s often right next to the soldier holding the colored flares. If not, he’s in charge of firing them. He can accurately estimate the distance between his squad to the nearest titan, and he always knows where he’s going. That’s how he can make all the right calls.
Weaknesses
He’s a bit hot-headed and rough around the edges. This will make working in a team harder. Other times, he just doesn’t talk at all. A rather poor communicator when it comes down to it.
While his leaner build gives him speed, it also makes him a little weaker in hand-to-hand combat. Height and weight does not put a cap on sparring abilities, but since he isn’t great at it in the first place, he ends up sustaining worse injuries.
Arthur’s stamina is pretty average. Usually, he makes up for it with his 3DMG skills and conflict avoidance, but when he has to fight, he won’t last forever. That’s where his speed comes in. He has to end things quickly, if not, he won’t make it.
He take things personally and lingers on any incidents that happen. He’s mentally weak, and does crack from time to time. So if someone doesn’t talk to him, he could spiral down a path of self-destruction because it’s hard for him to reach out.
Rank: 5th
China
Along with the pursuit of intellect and salvation, he sacrifices himself so that one day, future generations can live in a safe world free from titans. This priceless moment in history will not be forgotten, and instead, remembered as proof of the spirit of humanity, unwavering and strong in the face of adversity.
There’s nothing more human than fighting for a cause you believe in. To know this while confronting those beasts, the very opposite of a thinking and feeling human being, sparks a fire inside him to keep pushing. Like everyone else, he’s under the impression the people in the walls are what’s left of humanity--the last remnants of culture, intellect, love, and joy--and he will defend it until his last breath.
If anything, he’s one of the most selfless characters of all. He’s prepared to put everything and everyone else before him, because he knows he’s replaceable. But everything aforementioned isn’t, so he will choose to save them over himself in a heartbeat.
Fighting style:
Graceful and gifted
Strengths
He’s the dark horse of the military. Despite his friendly demeanor, Yao is incredibly talented and proficient in all areas, and keeps updated with the going-ons in the other regiments.
He’s the most skilled with his blades so they dull the slowest. He uses them as if they were an extension of his body. To many, all you have to do is slice hard and fast, but he has technique that lets him lengthen the life of his blade while maintaining a good, clean cut. This lets him last even longer than Alfred, who is rather reckless with his weapons. If he can kill twelve before replenishing, Yao can kill twenty.
Nobody can beat him in hand-to-hand combat, not even Ludwig. This is where the saying ‘size doesn’t matter’ comes in.
He knows a variety of martial arts, so it’s a given he can use moves targeting bigger opponents. If you somehow last more than two seconds, he’ll dodge and deflect any attacks you try to land on him, then retaliate so quickly, you’ll be down faster than you realize he even hit you. He’ll use your own limbs against you and make it seem like you’re hitting yourself.
His manoeuvring skills are impeccable and crazy fast. With his smaller build, he can beat Arthur. And while they’re both cunning, Yao prefers to use it to his advantage to exterminate threats rather than avoiding them. This draws a fine line between the two men, and makes him so dangerous. When it’s not just titans he’s killing, he is perceived as a threat by human enemies.
He can remain calm and resist the urge of panicking when faced with adversity. That way, he can keep his head and rely on logic to come up with a solution.
Weaknesses
Like Alfred, he can be unpredictable when plans are ambiguous and complex. He will have his own agenda, and is confident enough to pursue them, so this will cause some discord among team members. Fortunately, he isn’t as reckless and won’t rope others into trouble.
Unlike Alfred, he doesn’t have the same fire to survive. If his chances are incredibly slim, he will probably sit down and accept his demise, whereas Alfred will keep fighting until the bitter end. This sources from his belief that he is replaceable, and he shouldn’t waste energy avoiding something inevitable.
Rank: 1st
To all the AOT fans following my page, this is a treat for you! If people liked this, I’ll have a part two and include France, Italy, Japan, Spain and a few other characters. That’s when we’ll get even deeper into the lore, because not all of them will join the military but will have important roles all the same. Yes I’ve read the manga and watched all four seasons, so I’m also aware of the Azumabito clan. But there are no mentions of it here.
#hetalia#aph#aph germany#aph england#aph russia#aph america#aph china#hetalia headcanons#hetalia headcanon#attack on titan#shingeki no kyojin#aot#snk#military regiment#survey corps#headcanons#crossover#anime#axis powers ヘタリア#Axis Powers Hetalia#hws#hetalia fanfiction#hetalia fanfic
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Anyhow, looking at Luz and Lilith’s interactions in Agony of a Witch, I’m afraid to say that it’ll probably REALLY color Luz’s perception of her mother, and whether or not she ‘loves’ her or back. Up until Agony of a Witch, Luz didn’t really know or have much to say about Lilith, other than that her and Eda used to get along but are now sort of divided…
But then Luz is in Eda’s body, and she’s basically alone with just Lilith for a moment, who’s under the impression she’s talking to her sister; And she’s SO delighted…! She’s so elated to be with Eda again, clearly she wants the best… So why is she so willing to put Eda through a harmfully-conformative process of assimilation, to become a ‘proper’ member of society? When Eda is very clearly happy with who she is now, like… Does Lilith NOT realize that Eda is evading the law for a reason??? Eda isn’t a child, she’s an ADULT, she made her choices in life and shouldn’t her sister be acknowledging this?
Then the NEXT time Luz sees Lilith, she’s on a mission to heal Eda of her curse, and Lilith just… Is NOT helping. And you can practically feel both the fear in confusion in Luz, at being caught… But also wondering, why isn’t Lilith helping? Isn’t Eda her own sister, doesn’t she want to see Eda be cured? Why is Luz, a stranger who’s known Eda for only a few weeks, doing more than Lilith is by actually trying to stop the curse AND respect her autonomy?!
And it’s almost like a betrayal, because to Luz, Lilith may have been comparable to that very distant aunt she heard about… Because obviously she looks up to Eda, and Eda and Lilith got along! So she may have felt an indirect kinship there, like at least we BOTH want the best for Eda, right? Clearly Eda and Lilith still love each other despite everything, so that may as well make them family, right?
Then there’s the hostage situation, the trauma of Lilith using Luz as a human shield, dehumanizing her by calling her a ‘pet’, literally trying to impale her on spikes, just to force Eda to turn back into the Owl Beast… And for what- Just to get Eda into a system she HATES!??
Luz and Lilith never really interacted with each other as individuals who recognized each other; Episode 8 doesn’t count because Lilith thought it was Eda, so we only have Lilith snidely acknowledging Luz’s presence in Covention… and THIS. But even so, Luz surely must’ve felt like there had to have been SOME kinship because she saw how much Lilith cared, there had to have been some hope on her part that Lilith would change for Eda…
So to see Lilith, doing such horrible things to Eda? The revelation that she betrayed her sister, cursing her?!? Like, Luz herself already probably doesn’t think much of what Lilith does to her because in the end, Luz doesn’t think she matters (but she DOES), but to see a sister betray her younger sibling like this… I feel like Luz had at least the tiniest bit of trust in Lilith from what she saw, that surely she would never stoop this low because Eda didn’t seem to regard her as doing such a thing.
To Luz, I think Lilith’s betrayal would’ve been personal to her, as well- Because don’t they BOTH care for Eda, doesn’t Lilith have even more obligation as her sister?! And not only that, but… Luz sees firsthand that a family member CAN genuinely love and mean so well for a person, and be so happily excited when that person agrees to conform to the system as they asked…
…But then still turn around and do this. And have already DONE worse things, too! And I think that’s going to affect how Luz sees her relationship with her mother… Because after seeing Eda betrayed like this, she’s going to wonder if she can trust her family, too; Especially after knowing how quick Camilia was to send Luz to summer camp, how she didn’t even bat an eye when Luz let go of her beloved hyperfixation like that…
Luz knows that her mother loves her, and means the best, and was SO happy at the idea of Luz becoming ‘normal’, that there at least wasn’t malice on her part!
But Eda also thought the same of her sister… and not only was Lilith still willing to do horrible things despite her own love for Eda being real, she already DID that terrible curse! So when Luz looks back on her interactions with her mother and all of the texts, she might wonder; Does her mother REALLY love her… and even if she did, is that enough? Because now she’s seen that familial love won’t stop some people from trying to turn their loved ones into what they want them to be, and after Camila’s track record, after the personal betrayal Luz must’ve felt from Lilith…
…I can see Luz being afraid of Camila; Not so much afraid of disappointing her, but terrified of the extent that her mother will go towards making sure that Luz will become a ‘normal’ person. That even if Camila loves her daughter with all her heart, Lilith also felt the same towards Eda and look what she did! That Camila will still care for Luz, and because of that she’ll completely reject Luz’s obviously-meaningful decision to stay in the Boiling Isles with Eda and King, and just roll over Luz’s wishes. Because obviously her mother thinks she knows better, and also…
If Lilith clearly felt some resentment towards Eda, after all; Then does Luz’s mother feel the same way?
Aside from obvious apprehension, I can see Luz choosing to stay in the Boiling Isles permanently, without bothering to reconcile with her mother as an act of rejection; Rather than simply making a choice between her lives that she’s happy with! I’ve seen others point out that Luz can no longer access the human world now that Eda is captured, but at this point in time, after these betrayals, I don’t think she would want to. If anything, this would make her MORE adamant to avoid going back home…
And I can see Luz outright rejecting her mother, just cutting off all ties entirely, because of a –reasonable- fear of betrayal. Maybe Luz will even feel anger towards her mother, knowing that despite loving Luz she still put her through this kind of conformative torment… She’ll see what ruthless things Lilith did to Eda, and Luz will feel like maybe her mother never loved her at all, or at the very least her love was no EXCUSE for this kind of action towards Luz!
That Luz will accuse Camila, of deep-down, actually hating her daughter for not being ‘normal’, of having done these harmful things and knowing full and well what the consequences were, and STILL thinking it’s okay! That familial love alone does not excuse, justify, nor put aside harmful actions or even ward off resentment! And if this is how Camila feels about Luz, then maybe…
…Maybe Luz should make the feeling mutual.
As a side-note, if Luz didn’t actively hate the Blight Parents before, then after Agony of a Witch she DEFINITELY loathes them, despite them being Amity’s parents that she insists she loves and vice-versa! I could maybe even see her overstepping her boundaries to make it clear to Amity that her parents probably don’t care that much in the end, or even if they did that hasn’t stopped them from doing terrible things.
And of course later down the line, Luz will realize that even if she IS right, she’s also possibly projecting some of her own feelings onto others, and is also guilty of overstepping Amity’s boundaries and pressuring her to rebel when she’s not comfortable yet, under the idea of wanting the best for her! THAT of course contributes more to her self-loathing and feeling unworthy of Amity, because Luz feels like her friend has already suffered enough and that Luz has contributed too much to this pain… you get the idea.
(Seriously Luz, you are a CHILD don’t be so hard on yourself if you wouldn’t be as hard on Amity for the exact same reasons, and more…!)
TL;DR Luz has zero doubt in her heart that Eda means the world to Lilith, but despite –or even because- of that love she’ll do terrible things to Eda. And considering that Luz means the world to Camila, and yet Camila was also willing to send her to the summer camp and didn’t bat an eye at Luz throwing away her hyper-fixation… Yeah. Luz is gonna notice the similarities.
You dun goofed-up Lilith, not only did you give Luz trauma and ruin the relationship between her and Eda, but you ALSO ruined the relationship between Luz and her OTHER mother! Granted that was already fraught, but it also wasn’t hopeless either… Luz will likely project some of her own anger towards her mother onto Lilith when they fight!
Honestly, I feel like a lot of emotional issues in this show could be resolved, or at least improved upon, if characters made it clear to one another just how much the other MEANT to them, on an unconditional level! This isn’t just applying to familial relationships, I mean this in GENERAL… Like between Luz and King, Luz and Amity… etc. Like these characters need to understand that they don’t need to justify their existences or their relationships with others, either!
#the owl house#owl house#the owl house luz#luz noceda#the owl house lilith#lilith clawthorne#the owl house camila#camila noceda#the owl house eda#edalyn clawthorne#speculation#ask
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Twisted - One shot
warning: sensitive topics (drugs).
I just wanted to write something a bit different. It might be a bit OCC but I thought it might be a great fit for the manga universe.
This story won’t be published anywhere else than tumblr so feel free to save the story if you like it.
Oh and also english isn’t really my native language so sorry if there are incoherences.
Takano had no sense of self-control. From a very young age he has been a witness of the sheer harshness of his mother and the complete indifference of his father towards their family. Despite how much he tried to convince himself of his difference he inherited from most of their flaws, which filled him with anger every time he thought about it.
No wonder that whenever he met someone bright, kind, generous and appreciated he became more aware of his whole dark gloomy personality. That was the case with Ritsu he was still viewing today as the 16 year-old teen he used to be a decade ago.
No wonder that when he met this bright, kind and generous highschool kid he had become more aware of his dark gloomy personality. He was still viewing Ritsu as the 16 year-old teen he used to be a decade ago and yet he couldn’t understand for the life of him the reason why such a lovable person would waste their time with him rather than finding another likeable person that would be such a better companion than him.
If all the open rejections from the brunette could make him believe he hated him, he was at least smart enough to read between the lines and see what the other tried so hard to conceal under feigned anger and flustered reactions.
What seemed to be like a bitter-sweet genuine love story from two ignorant teenagers who lost each other from a foolish misunderstanding was driving him straight into madness. Ritsu was constantly on his mind, invading his thoughts at any time of the day, reminding him of the terrible person he was and how he will never be nowhere near enough for him. Even in the poorly credible reality where the younger one would actually build up the courage to admit his feelings, he knew that their relationship was sealed to failure.
One day Ritsu would mature and realise how incompatible they were and how idealistic they’ve been this whole time before leaving him to find another person that could offer him the support and love he needed. Maybe one day Ritsu would find the man of his dreams, different from senpai in every way, to finally live the blissful life he aspired to. That’s what broke his heart the most: they were not made for each other. No matter how hard he tried, it will never be enough because they were simply not meant to.
He imagined Ritsu’s soulmate to be fun, social, caring, communicative and considerate which would make him forget all the turmoil he went through for all this time. His parents might be so enchanted by their personality that the fact they weren’t An-Chan wouldn’t even bother them.
The truth is he was physically and emotionally drained. He couldn’t feel a thing if it wasn’t his love for Ritsu and sometimes he felt as if that was his last tie with sanity. There were times where he would shut down his emotions. When it became too difficult to confront their inevitable fate, he would put himself in a semi-automatic mode working up to 15 hours straight without paying attention to anything or anyone, only accomplishing what he ought to.
Over time, he came to accept that he wasn’t able to love anyone without causing them a great deal of pain and suffering. That’s why he decided to distance himself from the few people who actually cared about him in his life and managed to bring him some split meaningful moments of happiness. It was like a lightning bolt shaking him from side to side, making him surrender to the hope of one day being able to spend the rest of his life with Ritsu and recovering from his long-lost friendship with Yokozawa. He hurt them both and didn’t deserve to be part of their lives.
His phone vibrated. He broke off his thoughts to center his attention on the alias displaying on the screen: “Taisho” along with a message “I’m here.”
He stood up from the floor, came up to the entrance of his apartment and opened the door. A man of average-height in his mid-thirties was waiting for him. At first glance, he gave the impression of being a regular salary-man coming back home to his family after a long day of hard work. However, he came to discover that the man likely had a long history of debt behind him involving matters such as a costly divorce and low paychecks.
Not bothering to greet him, he pulled out 6,000 yen from his pocket and handed it to the fearful looking man who replaced the notes with a small transparent plastic bag containing a white powder.
“Same thing next week?” asked the anxious black-haired man, his light blue eyes too faithful to be a dealer squeezing behind his oval glasses.
“Yeah. See you.”
Without giving him a second glance, he double-locked the door and came back to his dimly lit living room that felt so lonely without Ritsu here. It would take some time, if not forever, to prevent this heavy load in his heart from manifesting every time he would find himself alone without the prospect of his first love joining him any time soon.
It still pained him… Nao came unannounced in the office earlier in the morning and asked Ritsu out for something that too likely looked like a date. A walk in the city center, a restaurant, and a nighttime exposure. That bastard.
The rare times he had managed to take Ritsu out for a date was by forcefully dragging him out of his apartment or bluntly lying by message playing the card of ‘emergency’. He remembered the dull ache he felt in the morning as he realised how easy it was for his “best-friend” to take him out to a full outing while he had to prepare a strategy days ahead just to drink a coffee together.
Opening the tiny bag in his hands, he chased away his dark thoughts and kneeled in front of his coffee table, pouring half of the powder out on its surface and realigned it in two fine lines with the help of an old credit card. He usually didn’t take such high doses in one shot, but tonight he knew that he needed it. The accumulated pain and overthinking were taking a toll on him. Rolling a paper, he brought it to his right nostril and sniffed the first line, ignoring the burning pain in his cavity before passing it to his left one and repeated the action.
A few seconds later he started feeling the tiny molecules flowing through his blood system, noticing the faster pace of his heart beat and the gradual relaxation of his muscles as the drug invaded his mind.
He closed his eyes.
As always, the thrill was exquisite. The far away sounds of ambient city noises echoed and at some point the only thing he could decipher in the absolute silence was his own breath. His body was soft and any psychological pain he felt instantly disappeared. It was as if someone had covered him with a warm fluffy blanket while stroking his hair with a gentle grasp, providing him an endless feeling of comfort and security he so desperately needed.
At that moment, everything stopped and all his troubles went away. Nothing mattered anymore. He was back being a young child pampered by a protective mother he never had with an unconditional sense of love. Pleasurable sensations coursed through his body from head to toes until his spirit went numb and he lost any notion of space and time.
He reached that moment of nothingness that he wished could last forever.
___
“Takano-san!”
...
“Takano-san!”
Who was it?
The voice seemed so far away he wasn’t even sure it was real.
“Masamune!” Why would someone try to break the silent darkness that was surrounding him?
For what seemed like hours, he felt himself trapped in-between the process of gaining and losing consciousness. He didn’t want to be drawn from his deep slumber yet.
He recognized some familiar voices in the background but it was hard to put a name on them as they seemed to continuously echo.
It took him several more minutes to realise that people were present and it shook him. He became hyper aware of his environment.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a bunch of white blouses around him scampering around the room at a feverish speed.
His mind whirled. The world seemed to be going so fast but his brain was so slow.
His golden eyes blinked several times to adjust to the brightness of the room. In an instant he was blinded by the artificial light of the leds on the ceiling.
In the chaos of all the fast-paced strangers around him, he felt a delicate hand fondling with the hair on the short back of his neck and let out a soft tired moan escape his lips.
“Takano-san can you hear me?!”
He groggily stretched out his limbs while burying his head on the petite body frame behind him and looked up to see who was the kind stranger offering him such soft intentions.
Above him were two wide teary green eyes displaying a worried expression. Despite his blurry vision, he could recognize the refined and familiar traits of the man he loved. It looked surreal, having the both of them like this sharing such intimacy in a restless atmosphere.
Next to him was standing Yokozawa in his usual professional attire. He could only watch them through half-closed eyes all the while trying to figure out what they were doing in his apartment in the first place.
“He’s stable now. Overdoses happen regularly when cocaine and other powerful stimulants are added to the equation. That’s what producers do nowadays to boost the effects”. Said a firm feminine voice. He could see the lady in white gesturing around to her colleagues and immediately realised what just happened. She was staring at him, probably trying to jauge how awake her patient was.
“You were lucky Takano-san. This could have been much more serious.”
He saw his friend sitting next to Ritsu, his usual severe expression ruptured by the deep crease in his eyebrows.
“How did you find me?” asked the raven, his voice so weak he wasn’t sure the two others heard him.
The brunette brought his face closer to his ear, petting his forehead as he replied in a shaky shy voice: “Yokozawa-san found you like this…” he heard a sneeze. “The front door was unlocked and your phone was ringing without you answering it. You… You stopped breathing.”
He felt absolutely miserable.
Trying to shift his position to have a better view of his comrades, he caught the look of utter disappointment and guilt from his older friend. He probably thought that he was long done with this dark hazardous period of his life.
“I’m… I’m sorry... I didn’t want to…”
His battle to stay awake was getting harder and harder.
“It’s okay Masamune. Just rest for now.”
The nurse took a hold of his wrist and stuck the intravenous line with a patch.
“We’re going to transfer you to the clinic as you need to take several tests. You’re safe now but your body needs to recover.”
The hand that was playing with his hair resumed and he let his head fall back on his lap. This combined with the liquid in his body led him to a sleep without dreams.
___
When he woke up again, he found himself buried under the sheets of a hospital bed. It took him some time to become accustomed to the artificial lighting of the room. Gathering enough energy to finally keep his eyes open, he gazed at the clock at his right indicating 4:55AM.
The first thing he felt was an atrocious headache that hit him with a massive chest pain undertaking his whole body. He noticed the numerous wires connected to his skin accompanied with the steady regular bips of a machine.
He heard a light snore on his right. Shifting his head, he immediately saw the small fragile figure crawling up into a ball on the couch. A cheap blanket was covering him from toes to his neck. This sight made him feel so terribly selfish. As seconds went by he started getting back to a normal state of awareness despite a fizzy pang at the back of his skull.
With as much strength as he could gather he sprawled a hand towards him and rested it on the others’ laps. He stroked his thigh lightly with the help of his thumb and stared at his seemingly exhausted resting face. He felt so worthless. He knew he had hurt him badly in the past already and the only thing he could think of is that this was too much.
“I’m so sorry Ritsu…”.
After reuniting with his first love following the 10 years they had spent apart from one another he had started to believe in fate. Yet he had been too trustful, using it as a justification for every one of his impatient and inappropriate moves towards the younger one. Everything became painfully obvious. This whole thing they had was destructive and that was mainly his fault. It was time to finally respect the distance that Ritsu wanted and deserved. He could not go back to these college years pretending that nobody cared about him.
Now Ritsu would need him.
Still, they were nowhere near close from getting into a relationship. Too many mistakes had been made. It was crucial for both men to work on themselves first as jumping the steps one more time would only bring them unhappiness.
That day Takano swore he would stop pursuing Ritsu. He’s forever been broken and finally accepting to get help was a start towards a less twisted life.
“It’s okay Ritsu.”
One day they would be okay. They would get the life they both secretly wanted.
#sekaiichihatsukoi#Sekaiichi Hatsukoi#junjou romantica#Ritsu Onodera#Takano Masamune#yokozawa takafumi
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Since Yashahime is such a dumpster fire Im just gonna rewrite the sequel to what I THINK would have been the better alternative to the whole SessRin situation and also some story elements that could really be improved and would make this series alot better.
For starters, if we HAD to go the SessRin route then I would make it take place 21 years after the end of final act, Kagome was 18 when she returned to the feudal era and 3 years had passed at the end of the final act which made her 21, Rin should have been about 11-12 at that point, if we count 21 years from then, Kagome would be 42 while Rin would be 32-33, meaning when the twins were born Rin was 18-19, I know that might make ppl a bit uncomfortable still but atleast she would be a legitimate adult where you can atleast say "alright...Im KIND of ok with this, I still dont like it but atleast she is technically an adult capable of consenting and not a literal child being taken advantage of"
Thats if they HAD to go the SessRin route, then I would atleast make it done tastefully where it doesnt promote pedophilia, plus the old gang being in their 40s wouldnt be that big a deal because they'd still be capable of fighting.
Now for my PERSONAL take on how the sequel should have taken place, SessRin wouldnt happen at all, because the beauty of their relationship stemmed from this ruthless cold hearted demon who hated humans, learned to love and care for a small child to the point of nearly crying when he thought he lost her for good, there are all different kinds of love and the love Sesshomaru had for Rin was pure and innocent. He was someone she adored as her savior and caretaker and she was someone he cared for and wanted to protect, to me that bond was far more impactful and meaningful than anything romantic or sexual building up between them, but simply two people whom the other simply cannot live without because they mean THAT much to eachother. Such a pure and sweet relationship did NOT need to be twisted into a romantic and sexual light. Rin could have continued to adore Sesshomaru and he could have continued to check up on her and bring her gifts as he did in the final act until Rin decided she wanted to travel with him again.
Now onto the rewrite, as I stated SessRin WOULDNT happen and their bond would remain as it was in the OG series, so who would be the twins mother? well if we HAD to go the half demon route to show Sesshomaru's development full circle, and we didnt wanna undo Kagura's death because it was a critical moment for Sesshomaru's development, there were several other routes that could have been taken.
1 Create a new character and develop her over the course of Yashahime through a series of flashbacks as we unravel the mystery of what happened to everyone through the girls travels. If you want to go the angsty route you could have her die giving birth and have Rin raise them as a sort of surrogate mother figure, kind of like Clementine with AJ.
2 Use an already established character, one possibility being Nazuna, a human girl that debuted back in the early OG series, she had black hair and black eyes but as we see from Yashahime, the girls clearly didnt inherit their mothers looks as in the OG series Rin's hair was black and her eyes are brown while Setsuna's hair is brown and she has blue/purple eyes while Towa has red eyes, features that neither of their parents have. They also have a random red streak in their hair for some reason.
So based on this, Nazuna would be a good possible candidate as she was a teenager in the OG series and would be an adult by the end of the series when she would give birth. [Correct me if Im wrong about her age but she looks like a teenager, but if Im wrong then I would just adjust the timeline to where she would be an adult at the time she gives birth]
Another potential candidate would be Momiji, true she may have been anime only but since this is an anime only sequel she is a plausible candidate. She has red/auburn hair which would explain the strange red streak in the twins hair. Like Nazuna, she was a teenager in the OG series so she would also be an adult by the time she'd conceive and give birth.
Another candidate would be Kaname Kururugi, a game exclusive character, but the fact that they went through the trouble of creating a complete OC and fleshed out her backstory to such a degree and allowed her to build relationships with established characters, including Sesshomaru, its safe to say they could have incorperated her into the anime canon considering they already had an established foundation they could have just built off of and meshed it into the anime. Plus she has brown hair and blue/purple eyes just like Setsuna.
Now that we have all the potential candidates, who's the one that seems the most plausible? In my opinion, I would personally go the Kaname route because she has such a deep and fleshed out backstory and they actually took the time to even animate scenes specifically for this game, so she does TECHNICALLY make an appearance in the anime, just not in an actual episode. And just like Kagome, she could have grown fond of the feudal era as well and wished to go back and somehow found a way to do so at the end of the Final act or maybe a month or year later after Kagome returned.
So going with the Kaname route, I'll begin my rewrite.
Being as Sesshomaru hasnt seen her since she was 15 like Kagome and vanished for several years, when he finally sees her again she will now be 18-19 when they reunite and a relationship would start to build and ensue.
Continuing where the game left off, Kaname would continue on with her normal life as Kagome did and eventually graduate when she is 18. She would still often think about her time in the feudal era and miss all the people she spent time with and bonded with there, one person specifically being Sesshomaru.
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^ A refresher for those who forgot the Sesshomaru ending.
As she comes home from graduation, another Doll Festival of Wishes is being held and it reminds her of Sesshomaru whom she wishes to see again, she goes and buys one of the dolls and writes his name on it as she did when she first returned home, thinking to herself that its no use and is probably a waste of time, but with what little hope she has left, she does the ritual anyway.
Afterwards she goes over to her father to help him with the festival, who like last time asks her to go get something from the storehouse. As she enters the storehouse, the hole in which she fell through before has been patched up, as she walks through the storehouse, she walks on the patched up floor which caves in when she walks on it and she is once again transported to the feudal era.
She once again lands in a forest not far from where Kaede lives, as she wakes up, she is greeted by Sesshomaru, who had saw her unconscious on his way to visit Rin and watched over her till she woke up. Overjoyed and also in disbelief, she hugs him which surprises Sesshomaru who isnt used to recieving this type of affection but he doesnt push her away, nor does he reciprocate by hugging her back.
As she lets go she tells him how much she missed him and everyone there, then, noticing Rin wasnt with him, asks him where she was, worried that something might have happened to her. He reassures her that Rin is fine and that he was just on his way to visit her at Kaede's village which relieves Kaname. She goes with Sesshomaru back to Kaede's village where she reunites with everyone much to their surprise but they are all very happy to see her again.
Anyway Im not gonna do a play by play step by step storytelling so Im just gonna mention the main story beats and you guys can fill in the blanks for yourself.
Anyway after the happy reunion and catching up, Sesshomaru prepares to leave back on his travels which saddens Kaname who had longed to see him again and only got to be reunited with him a short time. Reluctant to be apart from him again, she asks, or rather insists he allows her to come with him on his travels. He tells her that if she comes with him it'll be a dangerous journey for her, she replies confidently that she can take care of herself and promises to not be a burden to him. Reluctant but not willing to argue, he tells her to do as she wishes and flies off. Kaname hops on A-Un and soon follows, and the two begin their travels together.
Thats pretty much how'd we leave off the final act, atleast a month or two after, you can decide your own timeline.
As for what happened on their journey and how their relationship developed will be shown through a series of flashbacks over the course of Yashahime as we solve more of the mysteries.
In episode 15, we'd get the same flashback but with Kaname being the one to give birth to the twins with Rin, Kagome, Sango, and Kaede there for her as support. It is said that when Sesshomaru and Kaname found out she was pregnant, he brought her back to the village where she could have a safe pregnancy and birth. Of course Sesshomaru isnt the mushy type to stay there with her through her pregnancy, but he does visit from time to time when giving gifts to Rin but also goes to check on her and see how she’s doing, although he doesnt admit thats what he’s doing.
After the twins were born, everything plays out relatively the same, but instead of just taking the twins without a word to her, he atleast reassures her that he's taking them someplace safe from harm, although he cant explain to her right now what that harm is, Kaname says she trusts him.
As I said, things play out relatively the same after that.
As for Rin, what exactly happens with her? well if we MUST pair her off with someone, it should be Kohaku, someone she has an established relationship and bond with that is closer to her age. Whether or not they have kids I'll leave up to you to decide, but I like the idea of Kohaku having a little demon slayer son to carry on their legacy. It would be interesting seeing his bond with Setsuna since Rin would essentially be like a sister figure for the twins although they dont remember her, it would be interesting and sweet to see Setsuna develop a bond with their son who for the sake of simplifying things, we'll call him Korin.
Korin, if we want Rin to be an adult at the time she gives birth, would be 4 years after Kaname gives birth to the twins when Rin is 18-19, making Korin 10 in the present. Like the twins, Korin has no memories of his mother since she was sealed away in a tree for whatever reason, so the only mother figure he's ever had has been Setsuna, which would be an interesting dynamic to explore since it would be similar to how Sesshomaru filled a parental role for Rin who didnt have anyone at the time.
Moroha would NOT be this uncaring about her parents, infact she would be insanely curious, maybe even furious wanting to figure out why they abandoned her and vanished without a word since nobody seems to have told her anything that happened. She would want answers and wouldnt stop until she gets them. The OG crew if we MUST have this mystery drawn out, would tell her that it would be better if she found out the truth for herself and that any answers they give her wouldnt be the answers she wants. So Moroha's driving force in the story wouldnt be about some stupid bounty hunting debt, although she could still be a bounty hunter, but her main motivation would be trying to discover the truth about her parents and why they abandoned her.
Also this BS with Koga giving her up would NOT happen, it just wouldnt, that is BEYOND OOC for him to do and I will not be having it. Instead, Koga would be IN character and not let Moroha out of his sight, he would treat her like kin like the rest of the wolf demon tribe, maybe even give her special treatment because of her connection to Kagome. Koga would train Moroha himself, not going easy on her because he wants her to be strong enough to fend for herself, concerned because of her being a quater demon and having her demon powers sealed, he’s hard on her to toughen her up to not have to rely on it.
If we must include Yawaragi, then she would be sort of a bodyguard assigned to watch over Moroha by Koga for when he cant. The storyline of the rat armor would still relatively be the same but instead of selling Moroha off to some shady bounty hunter which Koga would never allow or forgive her for doing, she simply introduces him to her as a long time friend, Moroha would take interest in the bounty hunting business as an opporunity for training, and potentially finding info on her parents since Jyubei seems to have alot of connections and intel that’ll be useful in her journey. Yawaragi instead of pursuing the key alone would bring Moroha with her when they are approached by the shady demon whos name I cant be bothered to remember, he blackmails her with the key telling her to fight Moroha if she wants it, Moroha scoffs at this telling him that she wouldnt do that and that they’ll both fight him together to get the key instead, but to her surprise Yawaragi attacks her.
Everything plays out relatively the same, Moroha is hurt at her betrayal and lashes out at her. Yawaragi, like in the episode uses this fight as one final lesson for Moroha, with full intention on dying by the end of it. Moroha is hesitant to fight her because she still cares about her as she was like a second mentor and somewhat mother figure to her. So to get Moroha to fight seriously she lies to her by saying that everything was a lie and that she never cared about her etc I wont go into a ton of detail, Moroha is reluctant to believe her but is eventually convinced when she attacks her full power, seemingly with the intent to kill her. This pushes Moroha to fight seriously as well, remembering what she taught her about using her clever thinking and successfully strikes her down.
After this she goes over to her and Yawaragi admits to lying to her so that she would fight because she knew chances are the shady demon wouldnt have given her the key and since the rat armor was close to killing her anyway she decided she would rather die by Moroha’s hands rather than being crushed to death by the armor. Moroha would be devestated and guiltridden since she is the reason she was in the cursed armor to begin with, but Yawaragi reassures her that it isnt her fault and that it was her own negligence to see through the trap that resulted in this outcome. As a reward for defeating her, she gives Moroha her sword [yes Moroha wouldnt have her sword until now] and tells her to get stronger with it so that she wouldnt have to rely on her rouge, but win using her own strength. Moroha promises her that she will and Yawaragi passes away shortly after that. Everything plays out relatively the same after that.
As for the twins their motivations can mostly stay the same, but they also wouldnt be so uncaring about their parents, or specifically Towa wouldnt. Towa would be furious at her father and want to find him and maybe even kill him for abandoning them and causing them to be separated with seemingly no regard for their safety. Setsuna can maintain her non caring attitude, but given Towa's upbringing in the modern era, it makes sense for her to be furious at her birth father's neglect after experiencing what a loving home and father feels like.
As for what happened to Kaname, like I said you could go the angsty route where she died giving birth, or you could have her be kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip to blackmail Sesshomaru into doing the enemies bidding. You could have it where Sesshomaru was able to prevent Rin from falling into the enemies hands but not Kaname. Or maybe Kaname sacrificed herself for Rin, agreeing to go with the enemy in exchange for them sparing Rin, which is what leads Sesshomaru to sealing Rin in the tree to prevent them from potentially coming back for her. You guys can come up with your own conclusions there, these are just some scenerios off the top of my head. But for the sake of the rewrite we'll go with Kaname being kidnapped and used to blackmail Sesshomaru.
I’ll make an actual rewrite in a separate post with how I would PERSONALLY make the sequel, this post is just me tweaking and making slight alterations to the way Sunrise chose to write the sequel, the separate post would be how I feel the sequel could have played out instead for the better.
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“You can’t treat me like Zuko!” - Azula, Sozin's Comet Part 1: The Phoenix King
This quote is so important for her character: it tells us that she suffered from her father’s abuse of her brother too, though indirectly. That every time Ozai hurt his son, he was demonstrating what could happen to her should she ever fall from grace, that this became a deep-entrenched fear in the back of her mind.
(Pic: Azula and kid!Zuko, both upset and confused, asking for answers from their father, who has his back turned toward them.)
I want to delve into it a little bit: what it means, for Azula, to be treated like Zuko. Long post under the cut, as usual!
Here’s the full exchange:
Azula: Sorry I’m late, Father. Good palanquin bearers are so hard to come by these days. So, is everything ready for our departure?
Ozai: There has been a change of plans, Azula.
Azula: What?
Ozai: I've decided to lead the fleet of airships to Ba Sing Se alone. You will remain here in the Fire Nation.
Azula: But… I thought we were going to do this together.
Ozai: My decision is final.
Azula: You... you can't treat me like this. You can't treat me like Zuko!
Ozai: Azula, silence yourself.
Azula: But it was my idea to burn everything to the ground! I deserve to be by your side!
Ozai: Azula! Listen to me. I need you here to watch over the homeland. It's a very important job that I can only entrust to you.
Azula: Really?
Ozai: And for your loyalty, I've decided to declare you the new Fire Lord.
Azula: Fire Lord Azula? It does seem appropriate. But... what about you?
Ozai: Fire Lord Ozai is no more. Just as the world will be reborn in fire, I shall be reborn as the supreme ruler of the world. From this moment on, I will be known as... the Phoenix King!
So what’s interesting to me here is that Ozai isn’t actually treating her like he would Zuko under the same circumstances (not according to what we’ve seen of their previous interactions?). For one thing, it’s clear she wasn’t punished for lying to him about who killed the Avatar, nor for keeping her suspicions that Aang wasn’t truly dead to herself. Azula’s tone is light upon first catching up to him and she attempts to make casual conversation. Sure, she’s actually nervous underneath, but that’s because she can see things aren’t going according to plan and she doesn’t know why - she doesn’t know she’s supposed to be in trouble. He’s not ignoring her either, like he simply ignored kid!Zuko asking about his mother in the parallel scene in the above screenshot. She’s also not punished for her outburst, for raising her voice to him at a formal and public event, even after he ordered her to “silence herself” (how’s that for speaking out of turn? No Agni Kai, Ozai?). Instead Ozai is... surprisingly gentle? He placates her, reassures her of her importance and of his trust in her. And then he rewards her with the title of Fire Lord.
When we think of the way Ozai treated Zuko, we think of a history of open disdain, emotional and verbal abuse that culminated with setting his son’s face on fire. He’s doing none of these things to Azula here. So what it is exactly in this scene that Azula assimilated with the way he would behave toward her older brother?
Here’s my understanding: for Azula “being treated like Zuko” doesn’t start with disappointed looks, insults or scornful comments. It doesn’t need to go that far. Instead it starts with exclusion. And that’s a dimension of Ozai’s abuse and their family dynamic that I feel isn’t explored enough, despite being just as harmful.
Let’s go back to the flashbacks in “Zuko Alone”. Even without seeing them interact alone, we get the sense that there is an odd complicity between Ozai and his eight or nine-years-old daughter:
She shows him her new firebending moves - and what makes this significant isn’t that a father would keep tabs on his daughter’s progress, it’s that her mother and brother weren’t apparently in on it. Ozai speaks of the moves she showed to him not them (her parents), and Zuko’s amazement at Azula’s forms implies he hadn’t seen them before. So it’s time that Ozai and Azula spent alone together.
She supports his ambitions: “If Uncle doesn’t make it back from war, then Dad will be next in line to become Fire Lord, wouldn’t he?” and “I still think our dad would make a much better Fire Lord than his royal tea-loving kookiness”. More than that, she seems aware of his plots (might even have a hand to play in them, but that’s not confirmed either way): “‘Fire Lord Azulon’... Can’t you just call him Grandfather? He’s not exactly the powerful Fire Lord he used to be. Someone will probably end up taking his place soon.” - Azula obviously knew that her father had plans to get rid of her grandfather. Here again, what I want to focus on is the fact that Zuko and her mother were completely unaware about all of it (“What is wrong with that child?”).
Ozai calls her “my dear” and asks her specifically to demonstrate before the Fire Lord. He doesn’t address Zuko once throughout the flashbacks.
So even as a child, Azula was allowed into her father’s confidence. He trusted her, while her brother was left in the dark. And I think this was likely the biggest difference in how Ozai treated his children before he became Fire Lord. In these flashbacks, Zuko didn’t seem scared of his father yet. He wasn’t afraid to perform before him, to cry and lament his failures before him, or to be comforted by Ursa before him. He didn’t seem overly worried to have embarrassed him in front of Azulon himself. He wasn’t afraid to demand answers of him after Ursa’s disappearance. So I tend to think that whatever abuse he was subjected to at this point, before Ursa’s banishment, was limited. What is clear is that Ozai and Azula shared a special relationship that Zuko wasn’t a part of.
Of course, this puts Azula in a privileged position compared to her brother. Their father is the one with all the power in their family, the one they are both constantly trying to please, but only Azula is allowed to know his mind. Note that throughout the different scenes in the flashbacks, there’s a pattern of Azula using information Zuko doesn’t have to mess with him: “Uncle is coming home” “Dad’s going to kill you” “No one knows where Mom is” “Grandpa passed away”. She’s the bearer of news, and as such always ahead of him. Knowledge is power, and knowledge is something Ozai constantly denied his son.
This disconnect between Zuko and his father reached its climax, imo, when Ozai challenged him to an Agni Kai and Zuko… misunderstood (more likely, he was deliberately misled). Zuko just never understood his father, because his father never spoke to him. Zuko was never allowed to know his thoughts - and for three years afterward, he wasn’t even allowed to see his face. He wasn’t allowed to know who his father was, unlike Azula, who was privy to his ambitions since they were children. This is why she can successfully manipulate him using the promise of their father’s love (in both the first and last episode of Book 2).
All of this is still true when Zuko comes back from his exile. Ozai doesn’t welcome both his children at the same time. Instead he sees Azula first. She reports to him, and only afterward (after they had the time to talk about him and make decisions behind his back) does he finally see Zuko.
He welcomes him back with honors as the crown prince, but Zuko still isn’t truly allowed to know what’s going on. He’s sent on a forced vacation to Ember Island while Ozai meets with his generals. He’s not invited to war meetings, until suddenly he is and people just… forgot to inform him. He has no important part to play during the counter-invasion plan. In short, Zuko is still excluded. Azula uses him as a shield one moment, says she’s looking out for him the next. His father calls him a hero, but doesn’t try to get to know him or spend any meaningful time with him (not even to try and make up for... everything). I don’t believe either of them truly intended for Zuko to ever succeed Ozai. So the whole time he’s in the Fire Nation, back in his “rightful place”, Zuko is fidgety because he can’t trust them. He doesn’t know if he’s being paranoid or too naive. He doesn’t know if they’re honest or just playing with him.
(Truth is Zuko was emotionally banished long before he was legally banished, and him killing the Avatar couldn’t change that.)
And this is what Ozai did to Azula in their final scene together before abandoning her. When her father’s palanquin left early, it was her turn to be fidgety and paranoid, wondering what’s going on. Ozai blindsided her, left her in the dark, excluded her without telling her why. When she was a kid, her father talked to her about his plans to become Fire Lord. Now not only did he not tell her about his plans to become Phoenix King, he didn’t even talk to her about her own promotion. She was no longer his confidant, but just another pawn, like Zuko.
#azula#zuko#ozai#atla#avatar#mp#the fire nation royals#don't mind me i'm really into their fucked up dynamic at the moment#my commentary
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Beach Dream
Pairing: Arthur Fleck x Reader
Summary: Arthur always dreamed about going to the beach. And now that he is with you, you decided to realize his dream the best way you could.
Genre: Fluff
Word Count: 1,6k
A/N: Today I went to the beach and, as always, I thought about Arthur and how it would be perfect to go with him 🥰 (I don't own this gif!!)
Your relationship was based on true love, affection, care, comprehension and mostly important, trust on each other. Both of you shared all your fears, secrets and dreams, one of them being going to the beach. So, since today was saturday and neither of you had to work, you took this opportunity to surprise him in the best way.
When you told him where you were going that day, Arthur was speechless. Not because he didn't want to go, but because his dream was about to finally happen. With you. His toothy grin told you everything you needed to know: that this day was going to be wonderful. You had a car of your own, so you decided to take him with you, since using public transportation would take to much time (without forgetting that besides that, he was always very scared and anxious whenever he used public transports).
Most of the way to the beach, you noticed that your boyfriend was very unquiet, balancing his knees at an immense speed with his hands tangled on one another between those.
"Hey, baby, it's going to be ok, don't worry." you said encouraging and smiling at him.
"Y-yes, I know. I uh... guess that I'm a little nervous. I never... I mean, no one ever taught me how to swim... What if I drown??" he was already overthinking too much, which wasn't a good sign.
"Honey, don't worry about it, ok? First things first, you don't need to swim in the deep sea. Second of all, I will be there. We're going to relax, to get tanned a little bit and I will teach you how to swim!" he looked more relaxed now, or at least his knees stopped beating too fast.
"You... you would to that for me??" surprised, he looked at you.
"Of course, sweetheart! It will be my pleasure." you put your hand on his left knee, caressing it with your delicate thumb to try to reassure him, which seemed to work. Like it always does.
When you arrived at the closest beach from Gotham, Arthur seemed to paralyze.
"Come on baby, we are finally here!" you said while walking out of the car to grab your things. Arthur followed after, yet very slowly, like he was still processing if this was really happening. You grabbed his hand firmly with your available hand to guide him to the place you were planning to stay. The beach wasn't full of people like you thought, which was great for both of you.
"Right here looks nice, doesn't it?"
"Yes, love. It's perfect here." he gently agreed.
The sun was burning into your pale skins, telling you that both of you needed sunscreen urgently.
"Honey, come here please. We need to be careful to not get burned. Specially you, love. You're very pale." you sound like his mother, but you didn't care. You would always watch out for him and take care of him the way he deserves.
While taking turns, both of you put sunscreen on each other, massaging meanwhile: Arthur’s hands were so smooth with the sunscreen and every gesture of his were so gentle, you could feel yourself in heaven and ready to sleep right away where you were.
"Don't sleep on me, sweetheart. Keep that tiredness for later on our cuddle session." you laughed at his cute statement, already missing one of your most intimate moments.
"Don't worry, Arthur. I know I can't sleep here and miss this special day." you approached him, putting your arms around his thin, yet muscular neck, and kissed him lovingly right after. He gladly returned the kiss, enjoying the feeling of your wet tender lips against his, under the shinning sun.
The sky was deeply cleared, unlike the grey days that both of you were used to see in Gotham; the sand was almost white, and it was way smother than you ever imagined. Today was a lucky day to bring him here, you happily thought. You knew this wasn't exactly like his dream, because this beach wasn't the California beach. However, you knew that he didn't mind at all: as long as he was with you and you with him, you were both safe and loved.
After you both made sure that everything was in place, you invited him to go to the water with you.
"Do you want to experience the feeling of touching the sea for the first time, sweetie?"
"Yes, but... please take it easy on me, Y/n."
"I'm not doing anything you don't want to, darling. I just want to see you relaxed and having fun."
"Ok, ok. Can... C-can I grab your hand? Please?" he pleaded with the most cute puppy eyes.
"You don't even need to ask me two times." you gladly grabbed his freckled hand with your own, leading him carefully to the water.
"Ohh, it's cold!!" he shivered after giving a little backwards jump from the sudden contact.
"I know, honey, I know. It's perfectly normal at the beginning, you just need to get used to it and then it will be the most liberal and fantastic experience ever!"
"O-ok, I'll try to advance a little bit." he deeply sighed.
"Take your time, Arthur. I'm right here, you're safe with me." after that, he got more confident and entered the water gradually, step by step, until he took his first dive into the comforting and now warm water.
"Y/n!! I did it!" he was so happy and proud for overcoming his fears and realizing one of his longest dreams.
"Good job, honey! I'm so proud of you!!" after that, he clumsily approached you, wanting to hug and kiss you immensily.
Moments after, you returned from your fun time, because he wanted to rest a little... but you wanted to return for other reasons: you were going to surprise him one more time, since you wanted to make this day similar to the one he had always dreamed of, and that's why you brought a spacious beach bag: and inside of it was a small ukulele! In the past days, because of your different work schedules, you applied yourself to learning how to play and sing some romantic and "beach vibed" songs to show him later.
"I have one more thing to finalize this day in a perfect way... just for you, my love." you widly smiled at the love of your life, excitement already building inside of you. "But you have to close your eyes first, ok??"
"Oki doki, ma'am!" he answered childishly, putting his hands in front of his outstanding big ocean eyes. You carefully took the ukulele out of your bag and sit on your towel in a comfortable position, so this moment could be unforgettable and perfect for both of you, within the possible.
"Ok, here we go. You can open your eyes now, angel." when he removed his hands from his face and his eyes landed on the ukelele that you were holding, he paralyzed once again.
"Is... I-is that a..."
"Yes, my love. This is a ukulele and I'm going to sing a song to you. If you don't mind, of course."
"Please!! Play it to me, I can't wait to hear my angel's voice singing!" he really looked like a happy child: where he would rescue all that energy, you didn't know.
"Ok, uh... I hope you like it!" you nervously said. The songs you have been training and that eventually sang to Arthur, were firstly "Over the Rainbow" by Louis Armstrong, and the next one, having a more meaningful lyrics, "What a Wonderful World", also composed by the very talented African-American Jazz player.
While you were singing and playing the ukulele, Arthur stared at you and listened so mindfully the entire time, his eyes becoming wetter and wetter after each word that you sang, and his smile grew bigger and bigger for each note you played. Despite your fear of playing some note incorrectly (even when you perfectly knew that Arthur wouldn't judge you and would still find you the perfection in person), your show actually went quite well, so you felt deservedly proud of yourself. Arthur then started to cry non-stop, which made you feel deadly worried. You immediately released the ukelele into your towel carelessly.
"Baby?? What happened?? Didn't you like it??" instantly your proud and happiness vanished.
"N-no! It's... it's not that, darling. The problem is that I can't... I can't even describe how this moment was exactly how I ever dreamed and so much more... S-so I couldn't help myself from letting my emotions out... Don't even dare to get me wrong, dear!! These are pure happy tears, nothing more. And this... this was perfection, my love. Thank you so so much for caring and loving me. I-I can't even imagine my life without you by my side... Believe me, this is way better than going to California: wherever you are, you turn that place into pure heaven." this time, it were your eyes that became full of happy tears. Arthur knows exactly what you need and want to hear, while being truly genuine with every word.
This day was memorable, one that none of you would ever forget... and one that you two would definitely repeat very very soon.
#arthur fleck x you#arthur fleck x reader#arthur fleck imagine#arthur fleck#joker arthur fleck#arthur fleck imagines#joaquin phoenix#joaquin phoenix x reader#joker 2019
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The Bookshop Around the Corner by mordelle
(Based on the film The Shop Around the Corner.)
Chapter 1
At a very young age, Anthony J. Crowley was introduced, like many children are, to fairy tales. Knights in shining armour, true love's kisses, and love at first sight. Little Anthony cherished those stories so much that he learned to read before his peers could even say the alphabet in the correct order without having to sing it.
Then he met Charlie and fell head over heels in love. It was an innocent infatuation that set off a chain reaction for the rest of little Anthony's life.
Anthony had been too shy to approach his boyfriend at first. That's what he called Charlie and, no, Charlie did not know he was secretly spoken for. Because little Anthony barely had a frontal lobe at the time, he did what any child might do to get his boyfriend's attention; make a fool of himself. Anthony did succeed in gaining Charlie's attention, but he also gained it from the rest of the class and his teachers. Little Anthony saw a lot of corners during that time, always getting into trouble.
On the outside, the only thing all the grownups and other kids saw was a mean little menace who never behaved. If only someone with a fully developed frontal lobe had sat down with him and asked him what was wrong, his life probably would have turned out differently. Alas, no one saw what was on the inside, a little boy who just wanted a special friend, a friend to love and laugh with. A friend to push on the swings, and play pretend. A friend to hold his hand and give him hugs.
It stands to reason that because Anthony fell in love so young, he'd also experience heartbreak in those pivotal years of development. And he did. Even though many tears were shed, it did not dissuade Anthony from believing his one true love was out in the world somewhere, at least not until "one true love" number three. But before Anthony experienced how messy love could be, he had hope. He was willing to wait for his soul mate, and while Anthony waited, he read books. The kind of books one might be embarrassed to share, especially when one is male and expected to be a certain way.
Anthony's mother pretended not to notice her romance novels disappearances. She encouraged his hobby by frequently trading in old books for new ones and leaving them discreetly out in the open. She thought it was cute. His father did not. So, Anthony learned to keep his romantic notions to himself and act like a man .
When Anthony actually became a man, he quickly realised that fairy tales were just that, fairy tales. After meeting and loving soulmate after soulmate, well, he lost hope. Anthony was still too young to be bitter about love, but by age twenty-three, he'd had it. Anthony donated all of his romance novels to a library. The love between him and books, at least, was dependable. So although he didn't give up reading entirely, he did replace his love stories with stories about adventure, mystery, horror, religion, atheism, and textbooks.
It was no surprise to anyone that A.J. Crowley became one of the most influential book critics in the country. It was also no surprise that he also became a bitter, miserable arsehole. A bitter, miserable arsehole to anyone, even his plants. The only being on the planet who ever saw his soft side, was his nephew, Warlock.
Soft, little Anthony became the hardened, cold Crowley. Only family kept calling him Anthony, no one else was allowed. It was his conscious buffer against letting anyone get too close. His other shield was his sunglasses, which he wore about seventy-five per cent of the time.
He never wore them when alone, in his barren, grey flat, while watering his emotionally abused plants. He didn't wear them while watching telly on his sleek but uncomfortable sofa. Crowley especially did not wear them while chatting anonymously with the closest thing he'd call a friend; a fellow book lover online. The only other clever person in a book forum chock full of idiots. At age forty-two, Crowley was still a bachelor and the only truly meaningful relationships in his life were with his nephew and a username; @AngelCrepes75.
Dear @demoneyes666,
I'm afraid I disagree with you entirely. Romance novels, albeit not all or most of them nowadays, have a much more important role than to plant seeds of impossible expectations in people's heads. They can serve to teach people about healthy relationships, and show them what real love could be like. In a world so full of misfortune, sadness, and broken relationships, it is vital for us to have some hope. I believe romances–even the horribly predictable drivel that most consume–can help a person feel like they can carry on in this world. A promise of happily ever at the end of a book can truly have a powerful impact on mental and emotional health. Not to mention, romance novels have been a pivotal medium for feminists. Most romance authors are written by women, after all.
Respectfully, @AngelCrepes75.
Crowley scoffed and shook his head fondly as he reread the message from Angel for the third time. They usually never disagreed regarding most things, but love, a higher power, and food? Always. For some reason, that never really bothered Crowley. Maybe it was because Angel was always so damn polite, even when being a complete snobbish bastard. Angel could hold their own, that was for sure, and Crowley respected people who stuck to their guns–no matter how wrong they were.
There were other replies to Angel's comment, but Crowley did not bother to read those. Their opinions didn't matter to him, and they all hated him for it, the dull sods.
Not for the first time, Crowley wondered if he should extend an invitation to meet in person. All he knew about Angel was that they lived in the UK. They were always carefully vague about everything else. But Crowley lived in London, and he would have been willing to make a short trip to meet the mysterious Angel.
Crowley's fingers hovered over the mousepad, hesitant to reply. Finally, he clicked on Angel's profile and then clicked on the private message button. He took a deep breath, and then his fingers typed out his message quickly.
Excerpt from The Bookshop Around the Corner ch.1
#good omens human au#good omens fanfic#good omens fanfiction#human!crowley#human!aziraphale#good omens angst#good omens fandom#aziraphale/crowley#crowley/aziraphale#aziracrow#good omens romcom#anonymous love letters#the shop around the corner#you've got mail#she loves me
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What are your thoughts on taurus?
I thought I had written about Taurus before... but apparently not. I can’t find it in the archives. Taurus is typified by the “toddler” archetype. They are just becoming aware that they have an impact on their environment, they are innocent, pure and always testing boundaries to see where they fit in. They are looking for structure to build their identity around, and they are the most cuddly, sweet, earthy and sensual beings you will ever meet.
I have taken care of two Taurus children throughout my career as a nanny, Taurus children (depending on what else is in their chart) are generally very sweet, docile, tender with animals, love food, and earthly pleasures. Taurus is the first earth sign, so they are very grounded in reality, and like their sign predecessor (Aries) being the first in their element—they are the most connected to source energy.
Taurus loves metering things. Depending on their interests. My mother is a Taurus. She loves lace, victorian things, crafts, art projects, food, and family togetherness. Taurus loves to create an environment wherever they go. They love to bring people to their house to entertain. They take pleasure caring for others, particularly by feeding them. That does not mean they are gluttons, but that they love food, and the healing and restorative properties they bring to our lives.
My boss is a Taurus. She does yoga religiously, very connected to her body. She eats healthy, Whole Foods. Grain bowls, roasted veggies, soups, salads. She loves to eat green things that connect her with the earth. She loves tea, kombucha, and anything that is natural and unadulterated. Taurus like to keep things simple, but elegant. They are ruled by Venus just like libra, so beauty and peaceful surroundings are a priority to Taurus. If there is discoed in their environment, they will often just up and move without saying anything.
They like to keep things even keel, and they are the ones who will follow cardinal signs ideas and ambitions through to the end. They are good at follow through, and deeply loyal and romantic. They don’t waste time or energy on things they don’t find to have a potential to be fruitful. They are a fixed sign, so stubbornness is paramount. You will have a hard time changing a Taurus’ mind about virtually anything if they have made it up.
Taurus is generally sweet and kind, but they can be more trying and disagreeable if they have fire in their chart. My mother is a taurus sun, Aries rising and Sagittarius moon—so she would literally knock on my door while opening it. It’s like... why even knock lol. She is always certain that she is right, and other people are just crazy to doubt her certainty. Taurus is grounded and practical, but also very romantic and sweet. They long for love, deep, meaningful love that needs few words. They know what they feel, and are very sure of their feelings, unless they have a surplus of air signs in their chart which will make them more indecisive and inquisitive.
If air signs dominate their chart, they will be likened to a librarian due to their fanaticism to knowledge. If they have predominately fire in their chart they will be combative and argumentative, driven by impulse and intuition, and also very creative. If they have water dominating their chart, they will be the psychic intuitive peace makers, healers, who just want everyone around them to be satiated and okay.
Typical earth driven Taurus however will be very no nonsense about most things, but are prone to overindulge. Either in sex, drugs or alcohol. They like the good life, they like to feel “full”, in all aspects. Hey are excellent hosts, they love to throw parties and entertain—that’s where they really thrive.
Taurus is very sensual, they make excellent lovers, the perfect foil to their opposite Scorpio who is more psychologically seductive. Taurus is turned on by physical alone, and their innate romanticism makes them very tender hearted and indulgent in the bedroom, they love to please and to be pleased. For them sex is a connector. Something to consummate their deep but uncomplicated feelings.
The little girl I nanny is a Taurus, and the other Taurus child I looked after... all they want to do is cuddle and eat. They thrive off human connection, particularly physical warmth, and they love to feel included and invaluable due to their practicality. Most earth signs need to be needed, and with Taurus it is very much the same. They only feel happy when they are able to help someone solve a problem to its conclusion.
Of all the signs, Taurus is the least emotionally complicated next to Aries. Where Aries is assertive and dynamic, Taurus is steadfast and true. They are the accountants, the record keepers, the benevolent leaders. They are put in positions of power not because they necessarily want it, but because they are the most capable. People rely on their capability to get through tough situations, be they financial, emotional or physical.
Taurus is so close to source energy that they tend to be very sensitive. Like a cow slowly chewing grass, they take in their surroundings and absorb the energy of what is going on. And can easily become stressed if they are rushed. Even if they can’t contextualize of what is happening, they still del it in waves. They are very sensitive to shifts in mood, and are very effected by their atmosphere. That’s why they try to create a harmonious, safe environment wherever they go, because discord upsets their routine like no other.
Taurus has difficulty with change, unless they have fire in their chart which will temper it, but even so—they need to be told in advance, and given fair warning before a big change takes place so they can properly prepare.
They will work hard to maintain their relationships because they are innately loyal. They are also enterprising in business. They do their research to make sure no stove is left unturned. They don’t like surprises, so they tend to methodically plan and research all potentialities.
They are hurt easily by those who don’t appreciate their efforts. They often feel that their meddling is a form of love, that is misinterpreted constantly. All they want to do is help, they want to fix, they have a hard time accepting abstractions and other people’s processes.
They usually live to cook, but if they don’t, they love to eat food that is rich and full of flavor. Or if it’s healthy, they want the healthy aspect to dominate their flavor palette so they know they are doing right by their body. It can go one way or the other. They can be gluttonous or rigid and methodical about their diet, but only the two extremes, never in between.
Taurus never does things halfheartedly. They always do things with intent and purpose, otherwise they consider it a waste of time. They don’t like to dwell on heavy subjects. They are simple, gentle creatures, and though they have deep feelings, they tend not to ruminate on them for too long. They tend to enjoy caring for others as a way to distract from their own pains and shortcomings.
They don’t do well with criticism. Most earth signs struggle with this, and Taurus is no different. They like to be right, and often would rather be right than happy—which is one of their shortcomings.
They love to have nice things, if they spend hard earned money on something—they want it to be of quality. They want things to last, and prefer endurance to availability. They like things to be long lasting, and worth their while. If they are poor, they are likely to make their own things to know it is made properly and with the potential to last.
Taurus is the silk drapes of Versailles. They are the home cooked meal, the friend next door, the perfume left in the air. They are the smell of sex left over in a room, old family photos, genealogy, connection to the earth. They are the physical manifestation of earthy sexuality, and a body that encompasses this. They often are well endowed or overripe in terms of their sexual organs. They are also slow moving, practical, methodical. Devoted, enduring and capable.
They are nurturing, sweet, and unassuming. Generally concerned with the needs of others above themselves. They are the curtain going up on the opera. The gold plated details of an old building, the foundation on which we build, the ones who follow through. They are the old reliable dog, who sits by the fire waiting for your affection. The leaves blooming in full color on the fall trees. Overripe fruit. A full course meal, a hobby mastered, a dream fulfilled.
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Ten Years
This was actually originally posted on facebook around the end of the year. It began with my need to share my experience with others. I saw a few of those ‘10 years ago’ posts where people post a pic from back then and a recent one side by side. I tried that and realized I don’t really look much different. But the last decade of my life has certainly been the most meaningful of my life. This is very personal and discusses physical, mental and emotional abuse so if that’s a sensitive subject for you please don’t read. This is why I’ve been absent from tumblr and writing for so long.
I would also say this is not appropriate for anyone under the age of 18 due to adult themes.
It’s been 10 years. A decade. The most difficult yet meaningful decade of my life. When I think back to the person I was 10 years ago, I am amazed by the woman I’ve become today. I stand here at the end of the most difficult decade of my life and I’m proud. Proud of what I’ve accomplished, my strength and everything I’ve learned.
I began this decade feeling nearly suffocated by grief. I was no stranger to grief, but the loss of my mother was like the spiritual and emotional equivalent of having the wind knocked out of you. Pure, utter devastation. I was overwhelmed by my feelings. The whole world felt like a strange, scary place without my mother in it. In the months preceding her death I had tunnel vision, I focused on taking care of her and Emily and didn’t allow myself time to feel anything. So even though I knew she was dying, it didn’t really hit home until after she was gone. I instantly regretted that I didn’t focus more on enjoying my mother’s last months on this earth. I carry that regret with me still today. I should’ve had her teach me how to make her spaghetti sauce. I should’ve written down the recipe for parsley potatoes that she showed me how to make once but I haven’t been able to duplicate since. I should’ve asked her questions. Questions about my grandparents, about my dad, about when I was a baby. I should’ve had her French braid my hair every night. I miss that the most. I should’ve asked her how to be a good mother. What to do when my child is up at 3am puking down the hallway, all over the bed and the carpet. If I should take my kid to the hospital when she has something stuck up her nose, or how high of a fever is cause for alarm. There have been countless instances over the past decade where I would have given anything to be able to call her for guidance and support.
Grief has been the overwhelming emotion guiding me the past 10 years. I’ve learned that grief never ends. It changes, at first the feeling of loss is so raw that you just don’t know how you’ll ever be the same again. Then, over time, it evolves into every emotion. Grief can be happiness, sadness, anger and frustration. It can encompass all emotions at once. There are times even now when I just feel the loss of her all over again and in that moment I’m devastated all over again. I struggled with a lot of things after my mother’s death. I am still struggling with my faith. I have been angry at God for the past decade, so angry that I have neglected the spiritual well-being of my children. I have yet to figure out how to let that go.
I’ve always considered myself to be a strong, independent person. Life made me that way. I’ve experienced enough death, enough pain, enough abuse. Not long after the death of my mother, I was lured into a relationship that provided security. Financial security, which I had never had before. But I lost my strength. For 7 years I allowed my strength and independence to be stripped away. I was broken, ashamed, nobody knew what I was going through. Hell, I didn’t even realize the full extent of it. I was blind to the damage being caused not just to me, but to my children. I told myself our security was more important than our happiness. I realized after a while that I was wrong, but by then I didn’t know how to get out. I was afraid of losing everything.
Then it happened. The one thing I always said I would never tolerate. And yet, I found myself wishing it would happen. Because then I would have a reason. I watched my mother suffer the effects of physical abuse many times while I was a teenager. I vowed that I’d never let that happen to me. But once I was tangled in the web of my own abusive relationship, I began to realize that there are types of abuse that far surpass the physical. Bruises, cuts, even broken bones eventually heal. And it’s so easy to say, “He hit her? What a monster!” The abuse is very evident. But when you’re subjected to the whims of a narcissist, it’s very different. Everybody thinks they’re such a nice guy. They project an image of being loving and caring and happy. But the truth is they are even more of a monster than the guy who beats his wife. For seven years, I merely existed in his world. I tried as hard as I could to give him what he wanted and make him happy. Nothing I did was ever good enough. My daughters and I walked around our house on eggshells, not wanting to poke the sleeping giant. I tried to be the peacekeeper. Tried my best to keep his anger focused on me and not my girls. I told myself I could take it as he backed me into the bathroom, up against the shower wall, screaming at me with his face inches from mine. Spit flying everywhere. He called me worthless, accused me of cheating, told me I didn’t care about my children or the home we built for them.
And I stayed. Because I didn’t know how to leave. I didn’t think I could take care of my home and children on my own. I wasn’t strong enough. I was weak. I wasn’t good enough. After all, that’s what he had told me for 7 years. The day after one of our fights was always surreal. He acted like it never happened. Told me he loved me and he just needed to get his anger out or he’d explode. Like berating me and breaking me down was no big deal. And I would stand there in front of him, bewildered. Amazed by how really fucked up he was. But I stayed. I kept the peace and I stayed.
Until that night. When he hit me, it was like he knocked some sense into me. I remember the look on my daughter’s face after it happened. Tears welled up in my eyes as my baby looked at me with concern and asked if I was ok. I was not ok. Not at all. I saw myself in the face of my baby, saw the concern I felt for my mother all those years. And I drew strength from it. My mom would have been devastated to know what my life was like. I was her strong child, yet here I was broken and weak. I couldn’t let the same cycle repeat itself. I couldn’t let my kids grow up watching their mother being treated badly. I knew that if she were still alive, I would’ve gotten out sooner. She would’ve seen right through him. She would’ve known he was evil and I was miserable. She always did. She always knew. I used to hate that she was always right about my life and my feelings. But now that she’s gone, I truly miss her ability to tell me what’s wrong with my life. She always had a way of calling me out on my bad decisions. And she was the only one I listened too. The only opinion that really mattered.
So I decided to make a change. I called the cops and had him arrested. Then I went the very next day and filed an injunction for protection from abuse. He was gone. My oldest was already with her dad and my youngest went up north to stay with my aunt for awhile. I had two uninterrupted months to find myself again. I picked up the broken pieces of my life and focused on me. I spent time with friends. I went on dates. I lost a bunch of weight. I went out and experienced life beyond my couch. Gradually I began to feel like myself again. I regained my strength. But I also found myself grieving, once again. Despite everything I had been through, I missed my family. I worked hard for 7 years to build a life and it was gone. Of course I didn’t miss the abusive part of my relationship. But there were some things I missed. The feel of someone next to me in bed at night. Having someone to talk to about my day. Despite my decision to stay single and raise my daughters on my own, I found myself lonely at times. Sure I had been out on dates, but I told everyone up front that I wasn’t looking for a relationship, I just wanted to keep things casual. Once you tell a guy that there’s really no way to take it back. Plus I had so much baggage. And I’m not talking about my kids. I’m talking about emotional baggage. I was a mess. I faked confidence that I didn’t have. Sure I was getting stronger, but healing takes time. How do you tell someone you just met that you just suffered through 7 years of narcissistic abuse? Without them thinking you’re totally crazy? You don’t. So I held it back. I tried to push it to the back of my mind and forget it was there.
It didn’t work. I decided to try something different. I talked about it. To everyone. Literally. Friends, co-workers, family, dates. Reactions were mixed. Most people were really supportive. Some were not. A lot of people just faded into the woodwork of my life at this point. They stopped texting me and returning my calls. I was upset by this at first, but soon discovered that letting it out was like lifting a huge weight off my shoulders. It was helping me heal. I was growing stronger each day. I have to thank each and every person who listened, even if they had a negative reaction. My healing was much quicker because I let all those feelings go rather than bottle them up. I know, crazy, right? Here I am, the cold-hearted one who buries their feelings deep down, sharing all my feelings with pretty much anyone who would listen. And something amazing happened. I started to smile more. I opened up to people. I started being honest and upfront with people about my feelings. Sure, I’m still hurting and healing, but I really feel transformed. I struggle, I have stress and anxiety, mostly about my children and finances. But I am happy. I am confident again. I know I’m a good person and learning how to let go of all the bad feelings and negativity created by my situation. Some days are good, some days aren’t. Some days I feel strong and on top of the world. Others I feel weak and broken. But the most important thing I’ve learned in the past decade is how to pick myself back up, dust myself off and rise above.
I don’t know what the next decade has in store for me. I know I will continue to focus on my inner growth and raising my children. I will figure out how to be happy and how to struggle less. I will also focus on developing honest and loving relationships with the people I care about. Respect and loyalty and communication are my top priority. My focus has to be me and my children. We come first. I refuse to allow any of us to be mistreated or abused. I will settle for nothing less and surround my family with people who are genuine and who care. This is my goal for the next ten years.
It will be the best years of my life.
Tagging: @allaboutchoices @innerpostmentality @bobasheebaby @sirbeepsalot @darley1101 @desiree---1986
I’m tagging just a few people I know. I won’t be offended if you don’t want to read or reblog.
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“Losing Love”
There is a feeling you’ll get when it happens...
Having lived now for more than three decades, I can say I’ve felt this a few times before. It is never easy or ever wanted, simply said, IT SUCKS and I’m not sure how I’ve managed each time.
The first time I thought it would be best to erase all the memories, the handwritten love letters, I destroyed them in a fire hoping for some closure. I think back now at what a mistake that was, mostly because they were from my first love, and beautifully written in endless detail. I did save just one, it was titled, “100 reasons why I love you.”
Although she is no longer in my life, I cherish the letter even as the penciled wording fades with time.
How did I move on from my first love? I recall being angry, upset, crying a lot, & drinking with friends just to numb the pain. She ended up finding someone else & they were in love four times as long as us.
It has been fourteen years since I lost my first love.
When I was twenty three years old I lost my second love...
It has been over eight years since we last kissed. This loss was harder to cope with than the first. I remember feeling so sad that the tears would pour out of me, continuously & uncontrollable.
I was so broken that I started hurting myself, my career, and it nearly killed me. I would tell my doctors treating me that I wanted to go to home, deep down meaning I wanted to let go & end my own life. To me, home was heaven, & I was far better off there than here, or so I thought.
Kissing the person you love for the last time & knowing it, is one of the most painful feelings you will have when you lose them.
It has been over eight years since we last saw each-other & had that final kiss goodbye.
Years later, I found love again...
I remember the first time we met, she was my brother’s friend, single, & completely uninterested in me. She quickly became a crush but I never thought I would have my chance.
I dated a few women before I got my chance to love her, nearly a year after we first met. We became close friends, and after two months of dating we became a perfect couple.
When the time came for us to have sex, I was so nervous that I couldn’t keep an erection. Something I’ve never experienced before. I wanted her for so long that once I had her, I must of feared I wouldn’t be good enough. My fears eventually faded & we had some of the best times together... I still love her to this day.
How did I lose her? Well, my fear was always that I wasn’t good enough for her. From the day I first met her to the last time we broke up, I never felt good enough to have her. Those fears made our relationship unhealthy. You could say I was a little crazy about her.
Losing my third love wasn’t like the others, but it definitely hurt me the same. Losing her was kind of great for the both of us, as we were both able to grow up & create meaningful lives for ourselves. I don’t think this would have been possible had we remained together.
As time goes on, I know there isn’t really a chance at starting over with her, but she frequents my dreams often. I still miss her I guess, who knows...
It has been over four years since we last kissed and & said our final, “I love you.”
How could I possibly love again? Why risk giving my heart to someone, I’ve already given pieces of it I could never get back.
It has been two years since I met my best friend, my person, & the mother of my first and only child.
Unlike the others, this loss is fresh & how I am feeling now can’t possibly be put into words. My heart is crushed, the only reason I know it is still working is because it has been pounding my chest to death for over a week now.
I wake up in pools of sweat, my dreams are awful & full of my greatest fears. The hardest part of losing this love is the fact that she fell out of it.
Loving someone who doesn’t want you or need your love anymore is debilitating and soul crushing. You start to add up all the mistakes you’ve made, placing your choice to start again at the top of the list.
This isn’t someone I can just delete away, block & ignore, or run away from. We have a child together & that forces me to see her, help her when in need, & be there for her... for life, even though I lost her.
Losing your best friend, your partner in life, & the mother of your baby isn’t something any man should have to face. I wanted this family, now I have to accept the facts & move on with her in my life, but without her love I’ve grown to know.
What choice do I have but to accept it, I have to let her go & I can’t pray she doesn’t find love again. I know with time I could love again, but for now all I can do is remain hopeful that this is part of God’s bigger plan for me.
I have to keep loving myself, because there is no greater love to lose than the love you have for you.
As much as I wish, pray, hope, & dream, love isn’t controllable, & losing love is simply; inevitable, unavoidable, & bound to happen.
JRG
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That Which Holds Us - Chapter 5
Pairing(s): Adrien / Marinette, Nino / Alya
Summary: It has been several months since Ladybug and Chat Noir discovered their true identities. Now that they are not trapped by secrets, they can finally be their full selves around each other and have never been closer. Marinette is going into her final year at university, Adrien is exploring new classes and passions, and their friends Alya and Nino seem to be moving towards a happy future together. It all feels like things could not be better.
But of course, nothing in life is quite so perfect.
When Adrien starts having vivid nightmares and visions about his mother, old questions begin to resurface. Will he be able to find the answers, or will these ghosts from the past tear apart the heroes of Paris for good?
Reminder, you can also read / follow this fic at AO3 here, and FF.net here.
Previous Chapters
Chapter Word Count: 4,732
Enjoy!!!
***PLEASE NOTE: If you read all the previous chapters BEFORE 9/18/19 and are jumping back in, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go back and re-read at least Chapter 4! I did some heavy editing to the beginning of this fic, and now Chapter 4 is twice as long as before with some MAJOR plot points!! ***
The cool night air sent a shiver through Chat Noir, still covered as he was in the cold sweat that had come over him during the attack.
It had taken only several minutes for him to make his way over the city’s rooftops towards Master Fu’s home. He had spared no time stopping anywhere else after leaving his father’s party. He knew he should have waited for Ladybug to join him; this concerned her nearly as much as it did himself. Plus, he felt terrible leaving her on her own to deal with everyone’s questions.
But he couldn’t wait – he needed to speak to Master Fu immediately.
Hurrying up the stairs, he detransformed as he rapped his knuckles sharply on the door.
“What’s gotten into you?” Plagg exclaimed as he materialized out of his ring to land on Adrien’s shoulder. “What was all that about? I couldn’t see what was going on for a while, there.”
“I don’t know,” Adrien said, surprised to find his voice hoarse, as if he had been the one screaming.
They heard a sound from the other side of the door – a latch being undone – and Master Fu appeared, gazing up at them with interest.
Wayzz hovered above his head.
“Adrien? Plagg? What are you two doing here at this hour –”
“Master, I’m sorry it’s late, but something has happened,” Adrien interjected.
Fu’s face turned suddenly serious.
“Where is Marinette?” he said, glancing past them to the empty hall.
“She’s alright,” Adrien said assuredly. “It’s not her, it’s… I’m sorry Master, but I need to speak with you about something.”
Fu frowned and nodded, moving back from the door to allow them to enter.
“Do you happen to have any cheese?” Plagg added, though the dramatic distress he usually feigned was somewhat lessened by the severity of the situation.
Master Fu shut the door with a snap and strode into the kitchen. He returned quickly to place a plate of food before them as Adrien settled himself onto one of the cushions at the table.
Plagg dove down and began munching on the bits of cheese in earnest.
Adrien noticed that there was some fruit and crackers on there as well, likely for himself, but he was too tense to eat anything.
Wayzz settled down beside Plagg, and Master Fu moved back to the kitchen to prepare a kettle.
Adrien looked around and caught sight of the printed copy of the Grimoire that sat on one of Fu’s side cabinets. He rose again and made his way over to leaf through the pages until he found what he was looking for; when he landed upon the page with the Peafowl Miraculous, resignation washed over him. There had been a part of him that prayed he was wrong, that he had simply misrecognized the broach and it all had been a mistake. But there it was, just as he had seen it in person earlier that evening.
“Now, Adrien. What is on your mind?” Master Fu said, sitting down on the other side of the table.
“Well, you see… tonight, Marinette and I attended an annual party at my father’s house –”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Master Fu said.
Adrien looked back around to stare at him and caught an understanding twinkle in the old man’s eye. He couldn’t help but smile briefly at that.
“Yes, well,” he continued, returning to his cushion, “the thing is, while we were there, I had to go to my father’s office and inform him about something. But while I was in there, I saw… Master, I think my father has the Peafowl Miraculous in his possession.”
Master Fu went rigid, his mouth hanging open.
“Th-the… the Peafowl Miraculous?” he said finally, raising a shaking hand to his brow in shock. “You’re… you’re sure about this, Adrien?”
Adrien nodded grimly.
“I recognized it from the illustration in the Grimoire. I would know it anywhere.”
Fu exchanged a worried look with Wayzz, who sat atop the table.
“This is… surprising news indeed. Well… I supposed not quite so surprising. Even Marinette had suspected him of being Hawkmoth a while back, do you remember –?”
“We disproved that theory, remember?” Adrien said, a bit more harshly than he intended. “I’m sorry, Master, but… there has to be another explanation for all this, hasn’t there?”
“What kind of explanation are you looking for, Adrien?” Master Fu asked grimly.
“I don’t know!” Adrien exclaimed, standing up again in agitation and pacing across the floor. “I don’t know if there is another explanation, but… my father? Working with Hawkmoth? The monster who has tried to kill us for over half our lives?!”
Adrien stopped in front of the window, running his hands through his hair in distress.
“I’m sorry, Master,” he said finally turning back after a long moment of silence. “I… I suppose I’m just not ready to believe something like that. My father may be a terrible person, but… a supervillain?”
Fu gestured for Adrien to sit down.
Adrien grimaced before returning to his cushion.
“We all discover things in our life that are difficult to accept, Adrien,” Master Fu said slowly, as if he were choosing his words with great care. “There are… thin strings of destiny that connect us all. Every choice we make – or don’t make – has the power to strengthen or severe those connections. Some of them we rely on to reassure us of who we are, of why we move along the paths we have chosen. Not only do they connect us, they can pull at us in all directions. Sometimes it can feel like they are pulling at you so much you will be ripped to pieces. Sometimes they are the only things actually keeping you from being ripped apart.”
He paused, peering at Adrien before continuing.
“But in all things, it is important to understand that, for better or worse, these strings… these connections are why we are who we are. And we all must make the choice to either focus on that which holds us back, or instead, on that which holds us together.”
Adrien gazed into the old man’s somber eyes. He turned these words over in his head, trying to understand what they meant, and not entirely sure if he did.
He felt like a child again, alone in the world, trapped in a cage he could not escape. He wanted to find the answers, but how could he possibly face his father without proof? To accuse him of being – or at the very least, aiding – a supervillain would surely drive the final nail into the coffin that was their relationship. Dreadful father that he was, Gabriel was still the only family he had left. Was he really ready to throw that away for good?
The kettle suddenly began to give off a loud whistle, making him jump.
Master Fu hopped up to retrieve the tea.
“Master, I’m afraid that’s not all,” Adrien said, feeling even more apprehensive.
“Oh?” Master Fu said as he returned to the table with two cups and a teapot. “What else is there that troubles you?”
“Master, it’s… You see I’ve…” he hesitated, unsure of where to even start.
Plagg shot him a meaningful look between bites and gave him a nod of encouragement.
Adrien took a deep, shaky breath and tried again.
“Master, ever since the Akuma last winter that… that put Marinette in the hospital, Plagg and I have been having… I suppose nightmares are the best way to describe them.”
“Yes, I know,” Master Fu said gravely, pouring the tea into two cups and pushing one across the table towards him.
“You... know?” Adrien’s brow drew into a frown.
Fu nodded.
“Marinette informed me of this some time ago. She has been worried for you.”
Adrien’s jaw clenched. Frustration bubbled up inside him. But after a beat of silence, it subsided. After all, he knew he would’ve done the same thing for her had their positions been reversed.
He couldn’t fault her for simply trying to help.
“Well,” he continued. “They had always been the same; for the longest time, it was just like… reliving that attack, over and over, and feeling the dark energy that came from destroying an Akuma myself. But a few weeks ago, something changed.”
He shuddered.
Plagg stopped eating to float back up and perch on his shoulder.
“I began having dreams… visions… about my mother.”
“Your mother?” Master Fu raised an eyebrow.
Adrien nodded.
“They have the same dark energy around them, Master,” Plagg added.
“You’ve been sharing these same dreams still?” Fu’s surprise was plain on his face.
Plagg shook his head.
“No. I’m still tied to them like the other nightmares. I can still feel the darkness. But Adrien is the one trapped inside them.”
Adrien shifted uncomfortably on his cushion.
“They felt so real,” he said, another shudder running up his spine as he recalled the screams. “But the thing is, they aren’t just… nightmares… anymore.”
Master Fu’s gaze intensified.
“How do you mean? What has happened?”
“Tonight, there was another Akuma attack. Everything was going fine. Ladybug and I were in the middle of fighting it when…”
Adrien paused. He almost didn’t want to say it out loud, as if keeping quiet about it would make it seem less real.
“Please go on, Adrien,” Wayzz said gently.
Glancing down, Adrien saw the kindness on the Kwami’s face. Swallowing hard, he nodded and continued.
“While we were fighting the Akuma, the same thing that happens in those nightmares about my mother began to appear in real life.”
They all stared at him. Even Plagg had frozen in shock.
“Your mother appeared to you tonight?” Master Fu said slowly.
“N-not completely, I don’t think,” Adrien said quickly. “It was like I myself was back in the nightmare. But this time I was awake for it. I kept hearing her voice, hearing her screams… And then everything went black, and she was there. I couldn’t escape what was happening. I think I panicked and tried to Cataclysm my way out of the darkness. Somehow, it actually worked.”
“This is all… very unusual, Adrien,” Master Fu said slowly, gazing at him with concern.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me. Am I losing my mind? I want to stop it, but I don’t know how. Master… how do I make it stop?”
“Adrien, I do not believe that you are going mad,” Fu said, his voice gentle and reassuring. “The fact that it is tied to the same dark energy that has plagued the both of you since that Akuma last year leads me to believe that you are coming under attack.”
Adrien frowned, giving him a questioning look.
Master Fu simply gestured for him to have some of his tea.
Adrien grimaced but reached for his cup nonetheless and took a sip. The tea had a warm sweetness to it, dispelling some of the chills that he hadn’t realized were still afflicting him from the attack.
“It is like Marinette herself said,” Master Fu finally continued. “The Akumas that Hawkmoth has been sending your way have been few and far between. Most of them have been, well, insultingly easy. But perhaps this is because Hawkmoth is trying a new tactic.”
“Are you saying that he is responsible for all the nightmares Plagg and I have been getting?” Adrien said, anger stirring in the pit of his stomach. “It’s not just the Akuma’s dark energy, but an intentional attack?”
“Yes and no...” Master Fu leaned an elbow onto the table, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I believe that he may not have been influencing these dreams directly from the very beginning. It would have simply been enough that his perversion of the Butterfly Miraculous fueled the residual darkness when you absorbed the Akuma. Perhaps he became aware of this connection to you over time, and is now testing his ability to manipulate it.”
“But how would he know what to trigger in those nightmares?” Adrien asked, frowning. “Even I couldn’t have come up with the visions of my mother like that.”
“Who is to say he knows what you are seeing? Is it not enough for him to target the parts of your mind that hold your hurts and your fears? Perhaps he is able to influence the dark magic needed to cause you psychological pain, but I do not believe that he can look into your mind and see those thoughts for himself. If he could, well… that would mean he could easily find out your true identity. As no one has attacked you in your civilian form, I do not believe that is the case… yet.”
“But… why?” Adrien ran a hand through his hair, feeling frantic. “It’s been months since the nightmares began, so why is it escalating now?”
“Who knows? Perhaps it took him this long to realize there is a connection. And there are many reasons why he would want to torture you. To be tormented by disturbing dreams and visions, at the very least, would weaken you, making you more vulnerable to any future attack he may throw your way.”
Adrien felt sick. To think that he was being actively targeted by the villain, manipulated to be weaker so that Hawkmoth might have a chance to gain the upper hand after all this time…
“I don’t know what to do, Master,” Adrien said finally, his voice small.
Master Fu regarded him thoughtfully for a long while, the tips of his fingers pressed together.
Finally, Wayzz floated into the air between them.
“Do you think she might have the answers, Master?” he asked, his small voice solemn. “You have been working on deciphering that book for many years, but there is still much you have not made out. She might know what to do.”
Master Fu frowned, but still said nothing.
Adrien looked between the two of them, confused. After another moment of silence, he could wait no longer.
“Who is this ‘she’ you’re talking about?” he demanded. “Is there someone else who knows about the Miraculous? Can she help?”
Master Fu sighed and closed his eyes.
Adrien turned questioningly to Wayzz.
“Well...” Wayzz said uncertainly. “Do you recall Master telling you of his time with the Order of the Guardians?”
“Yes,” said Adrien slowly. “But I thought they had been destroyed long ago.”
“Well, for many years he thought he was the only survivor,” Wayzz said, shooting a glance towards Fu before continuing. “But it turns out that was not entirely true.”
Adrien’s eyes widened.
“Wait, you found other Guardians?” he exclaimed, shocked that it could even be possible.
“Guardian.” Wayzz corrected. “Singular.”
“But that’s incredible! Master, you must be thrilled!”
But Master Fu did not look thrilled. On the contrary, his scowl deepened, and with a derisive snort, he stood abruptly from the table and crossed the room to stare out the window into the night.
“Unfortunately,” Wayzz sighed. “Kunchen desired nothing to do with Master when they found out that both of them had survived. In fact, she… well, she was quite vehement in her demands that he never contact her again.”
Adrien turned to gaze at Fu’s back. The old man’s shoulders hunched, and a tension hung around him that Adrien had never seen before.
He thought back through the years of knowing his mentor, trying to recall everything he had learned of Master Fu’s time with the Order. There was not much to remember, though, other than how Fu had always seemed to blame himself for their downfall. And for the loss of the Miraculous.
“Master Fu…” he hesitated, feeling it might be unwise to ask this question. But his curiosity got the better of him. “Master, what did happen that brought the downfall of the Guardian Order?”
Fu remained unmoving and said nothing.
Adrien shifted uncomfortably on his cushion as the silence lengthened. He was beginning to formulate an apology for his intrusive question when Master Fu finally spoke.
“A grave mistake was made,” he said, a hard edge in his usually calm voice. “But that is not a story for tonight.”
He turned back to face them, and Adrien was relieved to find that the anger had left his eyes.
“Perhaps she will never speak to me again,” he said thoughtfully, strolling closer again. “But I doubt Sifu Kunchen would outright refuse to help those from a new generation of Miraculous Wielders.”
Adrien raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Fu began pacing back and forth across his apartment, stroking his beard absently as he thought.
Wayzz floated over to him, his head tilting curiously.
“Yes,” Fu murmured, mostly to himself. “Yes, I suppose that there is really nothing else to do.”
“Will you just say it already?” Plagg burst out finally, making all of them jump. “It’s getting late, and I want to get home to my camembert before dawn comes!”
Adrien threw his Kwami a reproachful look, but Plagg was unabashed.
Master Fu hardly seemed to mind. He shuffled over to the cabinet where the Grimoire was sitting and stooped down to open one of its doors.
“Adrien, if you would be so kind, I need your passport information as soon as possible,” he said matter of factly, rummaging through stacks of papers that sat on the cabinet’s shelves. “And Marinette’s as well, if she is to accompany you.”
“What?” Adrien said, taken aback. “Why do you need our passports?”
“Because I need to forge your various documents and travel papers. It will take too long to do things properly, and if Hawkmoth is targeting you then we need to find answers now.”
“Wait, Master hold on! Where are you sending us?”
“Tibet.”
“Wha– ?!” Adrien gapped. “Master, wait! You can’t just –”
“Adrien, I do not have the answers you need!” Master Fu said abruptly.
He straightened up from the cabinet with several documents in his arms and slammed them down upon the table.
Adrien jumped.
“This has already become a graver matter than you could have expected when Hawkmoth’s influence over your mind strengthened. If there is any hope in learning how to resolve this, you must go to Sifu Kunchen.”
The intensity in his eyes as he said this sent a chill down Adrien’s spine. He stared, unsure of how to respond.
Finally, though, he nodded.
“Alright, I’ll go.”
Master Fu’s glare relaxed a bit as he regarded Adrien.
Both Wayzz and Plagg were hovering between them, looking uncertain.
Plagg caught Adrien’s eye and offered him a rare smile of encouragement.
“Can you just promise me one thing?” Adrien added suddenly.
Master Fu’s frown returned as he looked questioningly at Adrien, but he gestured for him to continue.
After a long moment of hesitation, Adrien bowed his head.
“Please, just don’t tell Marinette.”
*******
Marinette rolled over under her covers and slowly opened her eyes to stare at her bedroom wall. A cold, pre-dawn light had started to filter in through her curtains.
She had hardly slept a wink since the attack the night before.
Adrien had been entirely unreachable after he’d fled the party. She’d had to smooth talk her way out of the bombardment of questions from everyone who had witnessed Chat Noir’s strange behavior.
“It was just part of the Akuma’s attack,” Ladybug had said, waving her hands dismissively when they had asked what happened. “He’s perfectly fine, nothing to worry about!”
And then, once she had managed to stave off their questions and find a place to detransform, a whole new round of interrogation came from Monsieur Agreste, Nathalie, and several other people who were curious to see where Adrien had gone off to.
“Sorry, I don’t think he’s feeling well!” she’d had to say loudly, barricading herself in front of one of their bathroom doors, allowing no one to enter the perfectly empty room. “I don’t think some of the hors d'oeuvres are sitting well with him this evening. No, you DO NOT want to go in there, it’s all pretty gross. I’ll see if he’s feeling better in a moment, but we might have to head out early!”
It hadn’t exactly been her finest moment.
The night had ended with her “checking up on him” by going into the bathroom, transforming into Ladybug once again, and fleeing through the window. Hopefully everyone would think they had both slipped away together when no one was paying attention.
If she wasn’t so worried about Adrien, she might’ve been ready to kill him.
But as it was, she truly felt sick with worry. The way he had acted when they were fighting the Akuma made it seem like something unseen was attacking him. And he’d looked terrified when it was all over. She was desperate to talk to him and find out what was going on, but after scanning the city as Ladybug, and then spamming his phone with dozens of messages and calls, she still couldn’t reach him.
It slowly grew lighter as she continued to stare at the wall. Soft, weak rays of sunlight began to inch across her room. In the distance, she could hear the growing noise of morning traffic.
She reached a hand out from under her blanket and rubbed at her temples, trying to dispel a low throbbing headache. Her eyes itched with drowsiness, but now that the sun was on the rise, she didn’t have much hope of going back to sleep now.
Letting out a deep sigh, Marinette pushed her blankets off and rolled over to swing her legs over the side of the bed.
She froze.
Sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed, his head resting against the mattress, was Chat Noir. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was open slightly as his shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths.
Marinette looked to her window and saw that it was open. She was shocked that he had managed to sneak into her room without her notice.
She reached a hand out to wake him, her mind buzzing with questions, but she stopped her fingers just short of brushing through his hair.
He looked exhausted.
She knew, perhaps better than anyone, just how often he neglected to sleep, and to see him doze so peacefully was a precious thing. Perhaps her questions could wait a little longer. At the very least, she knew he was safe.
Tikki floated over and perched on her knee.
Marinette gave her a half-hearted smile but said nothing. Finally, she stood and wandered to her closet to change out of her underwear and sports bra. She might as well put this nervous energy into something productive. Her studio was to have a big review soon anyway, and she had plenty of work to do that afternoon.
Tying her hair up into a ponytail, she dressed quietly in a simple skirt and light jacket before gathering her supplies into her bag. As she retrieved a handful of cookies for Tikki and put them into one of the bag’s pockets, a small yawn came from Chat Noir.
Turning, she found herself gazing into his tired, green eyes as he watched her.
“I was going to let you sleep a bit longer,” she said quietly, putting her things down and moving across the room to settle herself onto the rug beside him. “How are you feeling?”
Chat reached a clawed hand up to rub some of the sleep from his eyes.
“Could be better…” Turning to look at her again, the corner of his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “But I could probably be much worse, too.”
“You have no idea how much I’ve been freaking out,” Marinette said, frowning. “Why didn’t you call me? Or answer any of my messages? I’ve been trying to reach you all night.
Chat’s smile disappeared. He held an arm out to her.
After glowering at him for a moment longer, Marinette scooted forward and curled into his chest as he wrapped her up in a hug.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her tightly against himself and pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “I’m so, so sorry, Marinette.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice muffled into his shoulder. “What happened to you? I was worried sick.”
“I know, I just…” Chat hugged her tighter. “I’m so sorry. Something’s… happened. A couple somethings, actually. I was kind of freaking out last night and didn’t know what to do. I’ve been at Master Fu’s.”
Marinette could have kicked herself for not thinking to check there. Pulling back a little, she held his face in her hands. He looked about as tired as she felt, and his brow had pulled into a worried frown.
Tikki hovered around them, fretting silently.
“What’s going on?” Marinette finally asked.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead down against hers.
“It’s the nightmares again,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Marinette waited for him to speak, but he remained silent. Peering closer at him, she realized that he looked utterly worn. His soft leather cat ears were drooped into a tense, flat line, and his head hung like a man defeated.
Softly, she ran two fingers along the edge of his mask, feeling how the ridges of material met the soft skin of his cheek, before combing her hand gently through his hair.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and looked sadly at her.
“They’ve gotten… so much worse.”
They sat there on the carpet while Marinette and Tikki listened to him describing the dreams of his mother, how they had felt just as dark as the dreams from the Akuma, and how they had escalated into hallucinations during last night’s attack. He told them Master Fu’s theory that Hawkmoth had become aware of this dark magic connecting them, and was now possibly using his influence to mess with his head.
Marinette wove her fingers through his and held his hands tightly to stop her own from shaking.
“He’s trying to make you weaker… more vulnerable,” she said finally, her heart thudding in her chest.
Chat bowed his head.
“That’s what Master Fu thinks.”
“We’re going to figure this out,” she said, working hard to keep her voice calm for him and wrapping her arms around him once more. “We’re going to find a way to break his hold on you. We will find a way to make this stop.”
Chat nothing, but leaned his head against hers, his clawed hands clinging tightly to the back of her shirt.
“Is this what you were trying to tell me last night outside your father’s office?” she asked suddenly, remembering how shaken he was before the Akuma had shown up.
She felt Chat tense in her arms.
“Well…” he said, pausing for a long moment.
Marinette heard a strange note in his voice.
“What is it?” She tilted her head down, trying to catch his eye.
“… No. That was… something else….”
Chat shifted back a bit to look up at her.
Marinette thought she saw a strange conflict his expression. She frowned expectantly.
“Well,” he said, still hesitant. “Last night, I found –”
BOOM.
A deep rumble shook the apartment building.
They both jumped, exchanging a worried glance.
Quickly untangling herself from Chat’s arms, Marinette stood and hurried to her window.
“Not another one so soon?” she said, looking up and down the street for the source of the quaking.
A few blocks away in the direction of her campus, a large cloud of dust was rising into the cold morning air.
Turning back to Chat, she saw that he too had gotten to his feet, his expression grim.
“Do you think you’ll be ok?” Marinette asked, stepping back to him and taking his hand.
His frown deepened for a moment before he gently cupped his hand to her cheek and leaned down to kiss her.
“I have to be,” he said, pulling away to give her a halfhearted shadow of his old Cheshire grin. With one last squeeze of her fingers, he let go and leaped out her window.
Snatching up her bag and slinging it across her shoulder, Marinette leapt after him, calling, “Tikki, transforme moi!”
Together, they hurried over a dozen rooftops, the commotion growing louder as they closed in on the latest Akuma.
SURPRISE B!TCHES!!! BET YOU THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN THE LAST OF ME!! :D
I like to pretend I'm still a content creator since I technically have been working on stuff regularly, I just haven't been posting it lol :) But! C'est la vie. Adulting is busy work!
I wouldn't be surprised if I lost all my readers after *ahem* not updating for a year and a half, but for the two of you who might have stuck with me, thanks for your patience!! I have this fic entirely planned out, and as of right now I have up through Chapter 10 completed and ready to go. I will be posting a new chapter every Friday from here until we catch up to where I'm still working! Chapter 11 is halfway edited, and everything else is in progress. This fic is looking to be nearly twice as long as ABND, so at least there's that! :)
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy!! Next update will be posted 9/27/19 so stay tuned and THANK YOU FOR READING!!! <3
#miraculous ladybug#ml fic#miraculous ladybug fic#abnd fic#twhu fic#ladybug#chat noir#adrien agreste#marinette dupain cheng#adrinette#ladynoir
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Hi, I was wondering if 6 ccore could be the reason why someone is withdrawing from others in certain situations or is it usually just 4? or can 6 core be the reason why someone behaves like a 2 (helping out of loyalty even when they would rather not)? I think that 6 core makes identifying our fixes really hard and I end up wondering if the traits I see are not due to 6.
I’m gonna be honest, because I see a lot of people struggling with this (and not just as 6′s, but with the other ambiguous numbers like 3 and 9).
You will not figure out your lower fixes until you deal with being a core 6.
In other words, shelve the “search” until you have a better self-awareness. Your only and best shot is to grow up your core. So read all you can about it. Study it until you have exposed every raw piece of yourself, until you have identified everything that stops you, until you can see all the lies you tell each and every day, until you stop making your number’s excuses and face up to your fatal sin – because that’s what it is: a lie, a sin, that keeps you trapped. Once you can admit to all those flaws without trying to deny or excuse any of them, you are halfway there. You will learn to see yourself clearly for the first time, with no lies causing you to deflect and refuse to admit to your deep, dark core motives. And then you will have the emotional honesty required to identify your lower fixes without any self-delusions. At that point, you should be able to turn your broken attention to the missing fixes and your crap in those areas.
You cannot know yourself until you are brutally honest with yourself. That is the entire point of Enneagram. That’s why it exists. To expose all your self-delusions to you, so you can know what you are doing when you are doing it, and do something about it.
It’s good you are searching for the truth about yourself but you will get nowhere until you can be honest with yourself. I know being a 6 complicates it, but if I can do it, so can you. Truth be told, I would rather be anything but a 4. Part of me thought, “Oh, gee, they sound romantic and DEEP, man,” but 4 characters drive me frigging insane because they are SO DAMN MELODRAMATIC AND OVER-REACTIVE AND TORTURED AND PATHETIC that it felt like scraping my face on a cheese grater to admit that I am melodramatic and over-reactive and tortured and pathetic. I read through in-depth 4 chapters and while I can’t identify with everything, because I am not a core 4, I identify enough that it makes me wince – over and over, page by page. People who squeal, “OMG, SHE HAS MY CORE!!” have yet to face up to their own dirty laundry.
Since you mentioned “withdrawing from others in certain situations,” allow me to expound on that. A 4 plays stupid games with themselves which include jerking other people around. And by that, I mean when the 4 is with you, they can see all the ways you are not perfect and do not live up to their deep idealism, which causes them to have contempt for you. They treat you like crap, while longing for another relationship – basically, anything other than the one they have. When you abandon them, because they treat you like crap, suddenly they are full of intense longing for what they no longer have – which is you. So they will chase after you, because their entire emotional life is spent envying what they do not have and ignoring / failing to appreciate what they have.
An unhealthy core 4′s life is hell, because they keep doing this to themselves – and other people. Treating them like a yo-yo. Chasing, then hating, then chasing, then hating. Rohr talks about a woman who loathed her husband until he left her, then she desperately wanted him back – only to find out that “my love for him died the instant he entered the house.” It was her intense dramatic FEELINGS that she pursued, not a meaningful connection to her spouse.
You want a visual example? Scarlett O’Hara is a 3w4 with a strong 4 wing. She spends years married to Rhett, pining for Ashley – the person she cannot have. She could have total happiness with a man who adores her and will give her everything she wants, but instead she pines for Ashley and ignores / abuses Rhett’s love for her, failing to appreciate his generosity and love until she loses it, and then suddenly it’s all she wants. When Melanie dies, and she can have Ashley, suddenly Scarlett realizes she does not WANT Ashley. She wants Rhett – the man she now cannot have, because he has had enough of her crap and refuses to take it anymore. Him walking out makes her love him more, just like Ashley repeatedly telling her no made her want him more.
Ashley is also a 4 fixer. Pining for the old days. For Scarlett. Because she represents something beautiful in his eyes, a time that has gone. Granted, it’s hard to find anything to enjoy in that hellhole of post-war “ugh” but Ashley is still not living in the moment. He’s chasing dreams and things that do not exist. Not fully loving or appreciating Melanie, then falling apart after her death. (Melanie is a 2 fixer, btw. Note the difference in their approach to loving people. She loves where she is, in the moment. Every minute of every day. None of this “I hate you, go away… wait, I actually love you, come back” nonsense.)
Does any of that ring a bell with you? I wish it didn’t with me, but I have pulled that kind of crap on people. I have spent ages not appreciating the people I have and finding things to criticize about them, only to have them leave me and for me to suddenly be able to only think of the good things about them and how much I want them back and how my life was better before this and how sorry I am that I treated them that way. I once broke up with my best friend. We did not speak for over a year. Six months into it, I broke down in tears after spending the day with someone else – I could not appreciate the person I was with, since all I could think about was my ex-BFF and how much BETTER our conversation post-movie would have been. I look back on my last boyfriend with similar feelings – now he’s gone, I want him back. Except I don’t. I would still find the same flaws in him that I did the first time, once the rosy hue wore off. And in total truth, one reason I broke it off with him was I know I am not healthy in a 4 way, and I would rather not treat him like crap while I work on my health levels. Nobody deserves that kind of emotional mistreatment.
I am working to correct this, but I still catch myself doing it. Having perfectly good, decent, and wonderful people in my life and longing for someone else; if they left me, I would want them back. Except, when they returned, I wouldn’t. I am in love with the idea of something that does not exist. I look back on former friendships with rose-colored glasses and longing. But their return would remind me of their flaws. I would be happy for 12 minutes and then start criticizing them and longing for something else again. It’s bloody hard to admit that to myself, much less to all of you, but it has taken me thirty-five years to become aware of what I am doing when I do this, and to slap myself and tell myself to QUIT.
2′s do not play this game. Oh, no. 2′s have their own mind game. It’s called “I deserve your love because of all the nice things I do for you.” It’s called manipulation. It’s called you being dependent on me is what I want. Helping you seems like the right thing to do (and I tell myself I am doing it because I am a good person) but actually, I look down on you for needing my help, I expect you to give me something in return, and I WILL play the “AFTER ALL THE NICE THINGS I DO FOR YOU…” card if you do not. If you want a raw, brutal look at the sort of crap an unhealthy 2 can get up to, look no further than Bates Motel. You know Norma? I do. “If you really loved me, you would…” “After all the good things I do for you, Norman…” “Why won’t you help me? I AM YOUR MOTHER, I TAKE CARE OF YOU.” Whine, fuss, cry, tantrum, slam door, wait for child to come with hat in hand to beg forgiveness and do what she wants.
That’s an unhealthy 2 in all her glory.
Now, all the types have excellent traits. You should absolutely look into them. Healthy 4′s are not afraid to tackle dark things or to go through emotional times with other people. Healthy 2′s are the most generous, loving people on the planet. But when you focus only on their good traits, and overlook the bad things, you do not get a full picture. You get an attractive image you’d love to put in your online profile, that does not help you decide.
If you really want to know your heart type, ask yourself how you screw with other people and yourself. And it’s going to HURT, when you see your reflection.
To answer your initial question, a 6 should only be withdrawing if they feel threatened by someone. And then, that’s only the phobic 6. A threatened cp 6 will attack aggressively. All 6′s are withholding of themselves. Richard Rohr says you can know a 6 a long time without ever ‘knowing’ them because they reveal very little. But they will test you to find out if they can trust you.
If the 6 is helping out of loyalty, then this loyalty is limited to their friends, family, and close acquaintances, it will not extend beyond that like a 2 might. A 2 will see an opportunity to help as an inroad into a new relationship.
- ENFP Mod
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A life update / bio for those who dont know me well
Basic bio: 27, female, living in Washington state, California native ; married & 8 months pregnant with my first child.
I’ve been very secretive about my life since I left to Washington state in general. It really hasn’t been the easiest of journeys for me; but it’s been a learning experience for sure . I’m not sure if I should just spill my heart into this post completely or just take things day by day. September 24,2018 I got married to Isaac who I met online through the app ok Cupid . I met him just a couple weeks after I had been broken up with by a guy I dated on and off for two years. Isaac came into my life when I least expected him, but I really needed him more than I realized . We were only dating for 4 months until we decided to tie the knot and it was the best decision I’ve made in my life in a long time.2016/2017 I was actually feeling pretty suicidal. Which probably caused me to not be the best version of myself in my previous relationship. The timing of everything was just off , I was forcing it , and he tried to show me signs he didn’t want what I wanted in many ways but I just wasn’t getting it. Thankfully , with Isaac I don’t have to worry about my position in my mans life, I’m sure of myself , and I’m more mentally and financially stable than I’ve been in my entire adult life.
Since I’ve gotten to Washington , I haven’t worked as much as I previously had in California. I have been in the food service industry for 10years , and caregiving for 7 years , I also nannied for a family for 4 years . I’ve always had full time work or even stacked more than just that to my plate . However , I was never good with my finances ; I love to shop, I love to go out to eat, and splurge on myself . I’m currently actually working on fixing my credit as well , due to the fact I moved out when I was 19 and I made some mistakes financially along with getting a dui back in 2016 (which is super expensive) I’m not sure that I ever actually went public with my dui. Because I didn’t really want anyone feeling bad for me , I just wanted to figure that out on my own and I pretty much took care of it. I got my license back 4 months after the dui but it took me about a year and a half to pay off my fines and such. It was a learning experience for me. Not something i reccomend (11k) is what it cost me in total.
I still need a lot of help from my family , my mom does help me with some of my debt since I had an unexpected pregnancy , I’m thankful for that, I never really asked for help before but sometimes people need help and right now I do need that help. I hope to be able to get her back in the near future .
Some more about me, I really depend on my husband Isaac for everything. He takes care of our finances , and he’s also in school right now for web development . He was in the marines for 5 years , he’s very driven, motivated and positive . Something I like about him is he’s good at saving money, he doesn’t drink or smoke by choice , he’s a leader , and he doesn’t care what people think. He does everything with a purpose and logic behind it (something difficult for me to do) he’s also been a good influence on me to not lead so much with my emotions , and to not waste time and my life on things that I cannot change, focus on the present day and live in the moment but also focusing on creating a good future by living with purpose and not just going about life without knowing what the point of it all is.
I found out I was pregnant in May of 2019, just 3 months after we arrived here in Washington from California. It was overwhelming for me. I was thinking of what I would do at first , Isaac didn’t think there was any option but to move forward with our baby, I just never imagined myself being a mother. I always kind of thought of myself as a fuck up, not someone that would be a good example, and I always thought negatively about my future , and even sometimes thought maybe I wouldn’t have a future (imagined darkness). Isaac was actually super happy to find out we were having a child, I wasn’t familiar with how he felt because my parents were never together , so I didn’t know that there even could be the feeling of a full family . Now; we’re 8 months into it , and I’m due January 10th. We’re having a boy and his name will be Miles Dominic Nelson. I also plan to change my last name before the baby is here preferably . I’ve been meaning to go down to social security but I never did. I know it would mean a lot to isaac if I got that done, so I intend to do so as soon as possible.
Another thing is that our families recently found out we were married , I didn’t initially tell them and he didn’t tell his family. Because we didn’t feel it was anyone’s business (until we moved closer to his family then it became their business). My mom just found out this weekend actually . I felt a little bit bad about it , but it was just something I felt was really personal for me.
In addition to this, there’s been some hiccups for me since I’ve arrived in Washington with my work and my social life. Things have kind of been flipped upside down in that area. I actually was able to compete a manager in training program with a company called qdoba. The food industry to say the least is immensely different from anything I’ve ever seen practiced in California. I don’t want to delve too deep into it in this post, but I worked there for 3 months & I found out I was pregnant , I was going to take a leave of absence; but my first trimester was really difficult for me, so I left at the end of May and I don’t plan to work until I go back to California .
As far as friends go, I really haven’t made a lot. They weren’t kidding when they said “Seattle freeze” most of the people who live in Washington are natives of Washington from what I’ve experienced. Where as, in California people come and go from different states and country & they are a lot more open, friendly and welcoming . We actually don’t live in the heart of Seattle , we live 50 miles away from it . We live in a city that is considered to be northern and going toward Vancouver, British Columbia. It is more rural, this also makes it more difficult to make friends. I suppose if I wanted to make friends I would have to go to church or go out a lot more but I really don’t feel like putting myself out there because I already have my heart set on moving back anyway. We do have two couples we are friends with one is joe and MJ & the other is Chelsea and jack . We typically get to see these couples once every couple of months because they are busy. Jack and Chelsea live on an island named guemes and joe and MJ live in Everett which is about 20 miles south of our location . They are very nice people, they are natives of the area. They were actually Isaacs childhood friends and that is how I was introduced to them. I’m thankful for these two couples.
Other than them, I haven’t made any friends organically on my own and that kinda kills me inside. I’m really hoping to leave here by May/June when the baby is a few months, that’s the plan we have because by then my husband will be done with school. I don’t intend to stay here any longer than I have to. I have a few really chill friends who I cherish back in California , and I didn’t realize how much they and my family meant to me until I became isolated here in Washington .
I’ve tried to put myself out there multiple times. I’ve downloaded apps like peanut (tinder for moms) it’s basically to meet friends in your area who are moms, thaw (meet friends) and what to expect ; but I haven’t made any meaningful connections. I get upset about it sometimes, I’ve tried to have many conversations and even meet up with people and it’s never quite worked out. I’ve also invited two people who I thought were friends from online and have chatted with a ton to my shower , but they didn’t show, so I’m no longer going to waste my time trying to contact these people like I need to prove myself to someone. I even went to two different events for one of the girls , so I expected some reciprocation but she didn’t show, so I was a little salty about that.
Anyway; the plan for Isaac , baby miles and myself is to move back by summer . He will be done with his school by April , we will focus on minimizing things , streamlining living minimally and I will focus on being the best mom I can be to my baby and getting in the groove of things and we will be back in California in no time . I plan to try to breast feed for the first 6 months, if I can that’d be great if I can’t then I will just get formula. There’s some stuff I have to take care of like getting WIC and changing my name too.
I’m going to use this as my personal blog , so if any of you want to keep up with me or what I’m doing on a daily basis come here and you’ll know. Thanks for reading guys. Lots has changed in the past couple years. Life’s so different now.
Love,
Kawaii
#firsttimemom#pregnant#preggers#washington#california#personal#married#babyboy#motherhood#friends#family#marriedlife#newmom#newmother#writer#blogger#mother#commited#journal#online diary#my diary#diary entry#my life#life is strange
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How Fire Emblem Fates tried, and failed, to live up to Awakening.
Fire Emblem Awakening was a tonal and mechanical masterpiece. It set a new bar for Fire Emblem games and the like, so Fates had a lot to live up to. And boy, did it try. And fail. I've got about a million complaints about this game, but I'll list my top three here:
Setup
Fire emblem awakening's avatar, Robin, was relatable. Not in deep ways, but we could sympathize with their situation. They knew exactly what we knew about the world – nothing. They awoke with amnesia and were found by the royal family. Amnesia is a wrote plot point, but its popularity is not baseless. In games especially, dropping the player into the second act allows for swift action, and playing catchup in the story comes for naturally to a player who knows everything their character does, meaning dialogue and exposition can come across as being natural and not ham-fisted.
On the other hand, we have Fates. Mind you, I have only played Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, but I believe these problems extend to Birthright as well; the setup is bad. Instead of giving our player character no knowledge of the world around them via amnesia, they use a different method; seclusion. Corrin as a character is locked away inside of the Nohrian castle throughout their entire childhood and is only allowed in the outside world during the rising action of the story. This, akin to Robin, gives them no knowledge of the world around them. There's one key distinction, however; the family. In Conquest, Corrin knows their family well, and there is an existing dynamic that was built up long before we, the player, entered the scene. So, while Corrin knows nothing of the war and the land, they know much of these characters – and we do not. This flows very poorly. The characters end up awkwardly barking out their relationship to our main character in expositional dialogue before we ever end up even fighting alongside them, instead of having those relationships grow in real-time as we play and allowing us, the player, to form a relationship with the cast based in mechanics while Corrin gets to know them in the narrative. Corrin already loves the cast, regardless of what we think, and we have no choice in the matter. Fates makes the erroneous assumption that the player's interest in the world around them exists in a vacuum, but in reality an average player is interested in how the world exists in relation to the established characters and mechanics, not in the Deep Lore. In fact, Deep Lore is called just that because players who desire knowledge of the world are willing to go to greater lengths to uncover it than players who do not care. This is what in-game history books are for.
Marriage
Fire Emblem Awakening introduced a new mechanic: marriage. Your characters' relationships would grow organically as they fought, and this would eventually lead to (straight) marriage, which would eventually lead to children. The plot of the game involved time travel, and thus a new system was born; the child soldiers. Children are born of your units, your units die in the future, and those children grow up alone and scared, learning to fight for themselves. Eventually, they all get together and use the fire emblem to go back in time. They meet their parents. They introduce themselves. They fight, as they always have, but this time with hope renewed. This created a fantastic dynamic; a younger solider in their prime, with a child they know they'll eventually have but are meeting for the first time. Throw in some well written, natural dialogue, a few fun time travel jokes, and you've got yourself a compelling personal story. It also tied into the main plot in a significant way, having Lucina be a product of this same time travel fiasco. Fire Emblem Fates takes a… different approach. Halfway through act II of the story, you enter an alternate universe. The place is strange, scary and full of mindless evil entities. You meet a character who had been presumed dead, and you fight your way out with him in tow. Upon leaving, you're informed that if any of your characters mention this alternate reality to anyone, they will cease to exist. The point is then dropped, and the unrelated story continues. This puzzled me… A lot. Why did this exists? Was is setting up a structure for a future plot point? Was it world building? I had no idea, I was completely confused.
And then Corrin married.
This was my first marriage in the game, as honestly, none of the characters (save for Niles/Odin, and Effie/Mozu) had what I saw as a real connection, so I waited some time. Corrin and Keaton got married. A popup appeared onscreen afterwords. “A baby was born. The baby is placed in an alternate reality to grow up safe from harm, but a side effect of this reality is that time flows differently, making the children grow up very quickly.” Ah. I see. It makes sense now – the alternate universe is a plot contrivance, created in service to the brand of “You can have children and fight alongside them.” So then you pluck these kiddos from their isolated homes one by one, skipping over the major plot hole of 'Corrin spent nine months fighting while pregnant and then had a baby in the middle of a war? How long did this war take?' and jumping right to “Let's recruit child soldiers.” And so you do. You recruit every child to fight, much to the apparent behest of the mother and father. There is no reasoning to explain why these sensible adults are asking young teenagers to fight in a deadly war. It's simply a fun mechanic, and the game does not expect us to think about it. Except it strips the system of its most important aspects: A) The children do not HAVE to fight to save a doomed world, and B) The parents and the children know one another well. This has removed both the believability of the plot point and the charm in the interactions, leaving us with strange relationships bland dialogue that has an overabundant use of the word “daddy,” which should be purged from every writer's page as it is written.
Incest
You can just. You can just marry your siblings in this game. And have children with them.
At first I though Camilla's apparent attraction to the player character was simply because she was explicitly designed for horny fans to drool over. While this is still true, it's not the only reason she shows an interest in her sibling, as she's more than willing to marry and have children with them. “Oh, it's fine!” You might say. “They're not siblings by blood, you see, so it's morally fine!” Which is the stance the game seems to take. I am not going to explain why incest bad. I will also not drone on about how in the game's counterpart, Birthright, your player is related by blood for plot purposes, but as not to miss out on banging your siblings, each sibling will explain just before marrying you that you're actually not related to them by blood either. Nope, definitely not going to touch that subject.
Small gripes:
I lied about only listing three things. Here are a few notable issues
-You can dress your characters up in stupid looking accessories that add nothing to the game and 95% of the time clip heavily inside the character's model. The characters ASK you to dress them up, and some of them even comment on how silly this is during a war.
-“A+” rank is a cop-out created in an attempt to appease the Queer community without alienating any fans, and the fact that they couldn't be bothered to write any dialogue for the A+ rank relationships shows their lack of interest in queer representation while they sit back and get praise of major publications for “progressivism”
-In the Japanese version you pet your friends on the face Pokemon-Amie style to get them to like you more. I am glad they removed this for the western release
-In the final cinematic, they paid a team of animators to animate your character's first-person experience as they run face-first into their sisters boobs, which joyfully go “Boioioing” and shake like maracas as you reel.
-Sometimes you walk in on your allies naked in the hot springs. You walk all the way in, sit down, relax and stare at the naked peer for seconds before they say “Hey I'm uh… Naked here.” As which point Corrin goes “Sorry!” and sprints out of the room with the speed of a cheetah. I do not know why this happens.
-Keaton is unreasonably erotic when you marry him. Fully voice-acted, he whispers sweet nothings into your ear as the screen fades to black. He is a furry's wet dream. This is not a complaint.
-The story toys with this “abusive father with a family of children who are closer for having a common enemy with whom they have a love/hate relationship” thing, but fails to say ANYTHING meaningful on the subject. It's just empty story dressing
-At one point, you have to choose to either kill or spare a person who just tried to kill you. If you spare him, he joins your party. This goes nowhere, and puzzles me as a narrative choice. He doesn't even bother to betray you or anything, he simply stops mattering.
-Nohr should be dark, gloomy, fun and interesting, and instead it fails to spark the imagination even slightly, instead being “Bland fantasy setting but some of the trees are dead.” Give me some purple and black in that color palette! C'mon!
-There are two wolfskin characters. They are different genders, different heights and weights, but use the same exact model in wolf form. Compare these to the bunny people in awakening who have my heart forever, and this is a major insult.
Thanks for reading
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