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aheathen-conceivably · 10 days

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Ok so I read the post on your thoughts on Gio and the American Dream and I hate to say it … as an immigrant, I understand him.

I also come from a culture where women tend to their male partner's needs and I don't believe he wants to turn Jo into a subservient wife. He fell in love with a lively, free, and wild Jo and loves that aspect of her.

At the end of the day she loves him too so why would she leave? I understand she doesn't like to be dependent of him but where else would she go? There are no parties or glamour, which was her whole thing, anymore. At least the farm offers stability in the economic crisis.

Point is, I understand Gio as an immigrant, but don't understand Jo as a woman.

BABES! We’ve got another one…

(As in me being touched and having no other means to say how much I love y’all takes other than to give them a standing ovation in GIF form).

But you know…there’s a whole lot to break down here, friend, especially about Jo. I think you know what that means! Under the cut we go….

First and foremost, I very much appreciate you saying you understand that aspect of Gio. I did in part write him as a commentary on the immigrant experience in America (filtered through his own personality/character of course), and so to know that is relatable means a lot to me. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell y’all his journey is far from over, and you can already see the cracks in his outlook beginning to form. Whenever Jo is depressed he says this quite vividly:

Because you are very, very correct. This isn’t about molding Jo into some subservient housewife, or even eroding those exact qualities that he loves in her. This is about Gio attempting to square what he’s been taught/believes will bring his life happiness and meaning with his own experience and emotions. It’s about the myth of the American dream and the perfect housewife and the very real struggle of those things existing as actual, lived realities.

Because at the root of it, Gio is amalgamating an understanding of his own family unit and what he knows he doesn’t want in this country. He has seen another methods of “making it” in America, and so he thinks if only he can make the “right” choices, he can avoid that, and become the respected and happy man that he wants to be.

Now onto Jo, boy oh boy, Jo….

I think one of the core misunderstandings here is that Jo wants stability. This is kind of the crux built into her desire for control and her never-ending failure to achieve it. She wants to control her surroundings, to make sure nothing and no one can hurt her, but she also wants to feel in a way that is hard to find in a stable, heavily domesticated life. On the flip side, despite whatever imaginary dream Gio has, he’s the same way. They both want a life filled with excitement and new experiences, new people and rushes of emotions. This is one of the ways they differ heavily from Antoine and Zelda.

Now on one level, this is simply the way Josephine is. She’s high energy, fun loving, and insatiable. But on a deeper level, this is tied into her experiences not only as a woman, but as a daughter. She has a brief moment of clarity in that last post where she realizes:

Now I have chosen not to go too in-depth on Josephine’s trauma, but you can see her lay out the course of events here and also her deep hesitation to any of it here. Josephine is still only a teenager in that second post. Her mother not only told her things like that (“this is the weight that prejudice and expectation have placed upon us”) but also “what do you want to be then? Some glorified maid to a man?” (Which, frankly, I can write another Ted Talk about the juxtaposition here, but I think ya'll can pull some threads).

So when you see Josephine’s struggle with control, this is heavily rooted in bodily autonomy. Now all things considered, Josephine has managed to make great strides toward reclaiming this and reasserting not only her sexuality, but also her sense of self in her body. Gio knows this. We see him recognize and respect it quite clearly in that last post. He’s been part of that process for her, and that only adds another element of love, trust, and safety between them.

But on a fundamental level, neither Gio nor Josephine has made the connection between that trauma, her own personality, and why she hates her life now so much:

Here’s the issue right now: Josephine doesn’t feel like she’s living her own life. We have seen how she would like to live in the 20s not just in the parties and glamour, but when she was managing bands. She wants to be fulfilled professionally, through helping people/places she believes in and bettering her own life by bettering theirs. That’s how she gets her joy, and that’s what she would chose to do if given the chance.

And right now, she does not feel like she gets to chose. You’re correct in that part of that is coming from the current economic situation. Again, she sees that herself here. She knows what demons are waiting outside her window, and how easily poverty can make them rearise. That only makes it worse. It doesn’t make the smell of bread (domestic security) any better or more comforting. It makes it bitter, because she didn’t chose it. She was backed into a corner by circumstance (and, as she can sense, by the choices men made for her without telling her), and now she feels like she can’t say no. That’s her ultimate trigger.

Now whether or not that loss of control is simply perceived, or should be offset by how “lucky” she is to be in a stable position in such precarious economic times, we might all have different options on. Even more, I’m sure each of us would answer differently for ourselves in that situation. I know I would. But for Josephine? Not only is this a life she will never find joy in, because even without her trauma, she is an ambitious, restless, and outgoing person with different goals for herself; but that added memory and pain makes her reaction to it all the more volatile.

Perhaps most importantly, Jo feels as though her life is being controlled again, whether by Gio, the reality of the world outside her window, or by her own guilt/love that makes her feel beholden to the people around her (just like it did to her mother). Because you’re right, she does love him. She wouldn’t leave because she doesn’t. If she leaves now, it would leave because she panicked, because she feels like she’s lost all the autonomy she worked so hard to regain and she’ll never feel the fulfillment she felt when she was successfully independent ever again. That’s the element I hope we can understand, even if it’s not what we would do.

#okay THAT might be my longest Ted Talk yet 🤣#which if you’re actually reading you really deserve a tshirt let’s be real #and I’m so very sorry they’re so long #I try and infuse them into all the posts but like to condense it and write it all out clearly can be so helpful sometimes #for me too let’s be real #and like I want them to have a real solid base before we move into ~the great unknown~#anywho there’s a number of threads I could have touched on here that I didn’t for ~time~#but if you’d like to go through the #Josephine Duplanchier extra #tag there’s some good stuff there too 😉#Giorgio Mistretta extra #also #*ahem*#does it REALLY offer stability in the economic crisis?#y’all remembering what I’m remembering? 😬#ain’t a true American dream without a healthy serving of debt aint it

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theminecraftbee · 2 years

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would you have changed anything?

Pearl pauses from where she lies, victor paralyzed over the place she found her victory. She looks around. She doesn’t think she sees anyone; she’s the only one here.

i don’t mean to be rude, but—now that you’re alone at the end, would you have changed anything?

“I won,” Pearl says.

i know. but was it worth it?

“Scott thought so,” Pearl says. “Or, well. I forgave him. Hahaha. After everything, too! He blew himself up!”

he was supposed to be your soulmate.

“I know, right? He figured that out in the end, I guess, but still. He was supposed to be my soulmate.”

no, i mean—he loved cleo, but you, without hesitation—do you regret anything?

“If I was stupid enough to regret things,” Pearl says, and then stops. “I mean. I guess I regret a few things. But really, why are you acting like this is… like… Tilly’s down there on her last life. I won for Tilly! Yaaay!”

you don’t have to act like that. i won’t tell anyone.

“I—it doesn’t have to be that deep, you know. I really am exactly this impulsive.” She hums, sighs. “No. I don’t think I would have done it differently.”

even if it could have gotten you scott earlier? he was supposed to be your soulmate.

Pearl looks at the horrible bloodstains and burnt scorched on the ground a while. They don’t really resemble a body at all. It’s not really pleasant, but it’s one of the last things left, so she feels she ought to.

“Why dwell on that?” Pearl says, finally. “I’m not good at dwelling. That requires thinking, and I haven’t done much of that. I don’t think—he was supposed to be my soulmate, and he wasn’t, and we have to live with the choices we made, right? I have to—I have to live with the choices he made.”

…and the ones you made.

“And the ones I made.”

that’s what it comes down to?

“Yeah.”

just… you made your choices, he made his, and you live with them?

“I mean, duh. We even forgave each other. That’s a choice we made too.”

but isn’t that exhausting?

Pearl is quiet. She sighs and wonders when it will end. She ought to be dead by now, she thinks. She wonders why she’s busy talking to herself instead.

but isn’t it—isn’t it sad? you don’t seem that sad. isn’t this sad?

Pearl doesn’t answer that either.

why aren’t you sad?

“He was supposed to be my soulmate,” Pearl says. “And we weren’t supposed to win. But here we are.”

oh.

“I mean. You’re right about some things, I guess. I don’t know. It’s over now, isn’t it? Nothing left for you to watch. Nothing left for me to choose. Just…”

yeah. i don’t know. i’m sorry. i’m—i’m sad too.

“You’ll have to live with that.”

so i will.

It does not take too much longer after Pearl closes her eyes for her to see blackness again. She still smells blood, but she also smells the distinct smell of wet dog, and a bit of rot, and somewhere, poking through it all, spruce leaves after the rain. Alright. Alright.

#double life smp #double life spoilers #pearlescentmoon #a bee fic #heavily implied watchers #I never say it directly if you’d like to read this as something else you can #but look the implications here are ‘watcher-based meta conversation’#because I wanted to write some meta conversation #anyway this watcher represents. idk. me. you. not the bloodthirstiness the. idk. the aftermath

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magicdonuts-supreme · 2 years

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Your F/O would take a “No” from you and promptly back off the second that word falls from your lips.

Your F/O would make sure to check with you and ask for your consent before even trying to speak on your behalf.

Your F/O would listen, not speak over you or trample over your words to get to their own point.

Your F/O would never try to weasel out a different response from you or wear you down until you buckle at their every whim.

After all, you are the one they adore.

They don’t want to mold you into the neighbour down the street, the flawless person you wish you could be, nor the character you think they should pick over you. Nothing — no amount of “merciful” lies, acts, or people-pleasing — will ever be as magnificent in their eyes as you simply existing. Even if you can’t see it, their love-stricken words and/or yearning gaze are only for you.

And when your “home” finally grows tired of slipping hatred under your door? Your F/O will rest beside you. Perhaps the others in your life have done the exact opposite of the four statements I made at the start, but your beloved wants you to know that they would silence the whole world just to make your voice heard.

Imagine your F/O gently yet sternly telling you that “Whatever you want” can’t always be your answer. While it might’ve been pleasing for others to hear, they’ll try their hardest to coax solid “Yes” or “No” answers from you, to get to know you as you are and never as what the others wanted you to be. You might not completely know yourself, but your F/O would never hesitate to look for your true colors beside you.

They want to familiarise themself with every thought and feeling that you are willing to share with them. Your F/O is simply honored that you want to sail the seven seas of your self-discovery with them. And when the fates inevitably send a storm your way? They’ll always be your anchor, your place to rest.

… Maybe the true home you were searching for is much closer than you previously thought.

#writing induced by sheer lack of self-preservation? more likely than you’d think jcjakncksknfkslm #I’m kinda surprised that people actually feel validated and comforted by these #but it was always the goal. so… thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy whatever else my brain can conjure in the future #imagine your comfort character #f/o x s/i #romantic f/o #familial f/o #queerplatonic f/o #platonic f/o #f/o imagines #imagine your f/o #f/o prompts #self shipping #just something about a caretaker trying to get you to unlearn behaviors that toxic people taught you 🥺🥹#people-pleaser selfshippers. got anything to say for yourselves?#tw past abuse #tw trauma #my writing

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strawbubbysugar · 8 months

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Apologies if you made this clear in your fic and I missed it by accident, but I’m curious: Some DCA fanfic authors write Sun and Moon as brothers, sometimes as close friends, and sometimes as lovers. In So(u)l, what kind of relationship does Sun and Moon have with each other?

No worries! I write them as if they are two people sharing the same body, but also a little bit one person split in two. It’s very wibbly wobbly and undefinable. But def not brothers, and def not lovers. Close friends is the closest one I think, but like. If close friends were also the same person but not but also two people but also a little bit of both

#ask #this doesn’t make much sense but I guess you can read it however you’d like!

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shandycandy278 · 8 months

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that post u reblogged frames antis in a dishonest way... literally all we want is for people to be normal about minors and siblings.

but the issue is that most of the bad stuff is framed in a neutral light. or worse, it just exists for someones pleasure. which knowing fandom spaces, is going to be the case a rather high percentage of the time.

antis arent evil, and its clear that that post is coming from a close minded person.

sorry i just got up and seeing a post framing me as someone who wants to censor the whole internet makea me mad. i LOVE being not censored. its just some stuff HAS to be censored because its just morally gross.

but as i said, as long as that morally gross stuff is framed as it is, morally gross, im fine.

No, you’re right. Anti’s aren’t evil. But they’re not entirely right either. There’s a LOT of miscommunication going on in the drama surrounding them, and I will happily take a chance to try and communicate about this as clearly and calmly as I can.

I’m not mad or upset or anything, PLEASE do not see this as me being like “actually you’re WRONG”. That’s not it at all. I’m just going to be going over what was brought up in the post you are talking about, and how I interpreted them/what I believe.

(TW/CW: talk of the pro/anti drama, pedophilia, incest, abuse, murder, suicide, terrorism, rape, censorship)

I’m very confused as to how you thought this was an attack on you. The post was literally talking about how the response they have is very natural and good. Especially in real-life situations, because those sorts of things are wrong in real life. If you reread the post, you’ll see that it compares it to an automatic immune system for fandom spaces and the like. There was no hate or shade thrown, because you guys are necessary and right that incest and pedophilia is wrong. There’s nothing that says that you are not right.

But it also says that fiction is something that requires different approaches in this regard. People writing and drawing about pedophilia and Incest don’t want it to happen in real life an know it’s abusive and shady IRL. They KNOW it’s wrong, they aren’t denying that it’s wrong. The post actually explains this part better than I’ve seen many others describe this, and if you read it, you’ll find that they go on to define that exploring this sort of what-if thing in a fictional setting helps us, as humans, process the horrors of the reality and and the reality of the situation.

I’ve written about characters committing suicide and killing each other. Does that mean I want everyone to kill each other and then themselves? No. But I couldn’t fully process and define how that made me feel. Not until I wrote about it in a fictional setting. I didn’t even realize how horrible it was that I had almost offed myself years before that, back before I found writing and fanfiction. Not until I wrote about it. Now if I write characters killing themselves, it’s a reminder to myself. My life is valuable.

People make shows and the likes about serial killers too, you know. There’s fiction out there that highlights that, slavery, abuse, rape, terrible addictions, genocide, cults- but Anti’s don’t get upset about those. Not really.

Because those are ALL horrible, terrible things. Things that suck about our world, things that we hear about and it makes us feel sick. Because they’re BAD. Everyone knows they’re bad. Proshippers, Anti’s- EVERYONE. The only people who don’t know that are the people being abused and the people abusing them (depending on the situation).

You can drop into a pro shipper or Anti’s inbox and ask “how do you feel about school shootings, incest, pedophilia, rape, and the likes IRL?”, and they will respond with “man they SUCK humans sucks I wish people wouldn’t do that, I wish humans would (insert something to try and get the horrendous acts to stop). I hate that it exists IRL.” Or something along those lines.

But I haven’t seen anything telling writers and artists to stop creating content on those things. Why? Because creating them in a fictional reality helps us process the truth of it.

All of this was also in the post! I understand if it was a hard read because you felt like you were being attacked by it, but I do NOT think the post’s intent was to “attack” antis. Heck, “anti” is even in quotes because I’m fairly certain OP was only using the title so that people would see it and know that this is what they were discussing. It was just to try to explain the dilemma to people who didn’t know, or to those who have chosen one moniker or another not knowing what exactly it means or what’s happening. An analysis, if you will.

But I’d like to gently ask (if you can find it in yourself to, because I’m not going to force you to do something you’re uncomfortable with) that you take a deep breath, push your feelings about the drama and the likes to the side, and re-read it. It really summed up everything nicely, with a comparison that is honestly very true- not just for fandom, but for a lot of humanity. Again, if you don’t, I understand. It’s very hard to reread a post after it gets you all huffy and puffy and upset. (Especially when you hate feeling like that, like I do, and it makes everything worse.) But it’s ALSO very hard to see what exactly is being talked about in a post and what the point of the post is if you read it huffy and puffy. Again, you don’t HAVE to, but it’s something I’d recommend trying if you feel up to it.

Along side that, I don’t think pedophilia and incest in fandom was ever intended or meant for it to be centered AROUND the fact that it was pedophilia or incest. Not unless it was a MAJOR story/plot point, or a part of the source material (like in a LOT of various Anime. I’ll be very honest, it’s a surprise that anime has not been brought up/referenced in any pro/anti drama I’ve seen so far. There is a LOT of fictional pedophilia/incest going on in there. Then again, Japanese fandom has stated that they don’t care about antis/proshippers or any of this sort of thing and will just happily block anyone who tries to drag in drama or throw them into mud. Maybe that’s why. Idk).

I personally think it started because people liked the idea of the character types and personalities working off of each other. Not because of some “HIDDEN SECRET EVIL PREDATOR URGE”. They just like how the characters acted together and had chemistry, thought it was cute, and went with it. The fact that it was incest and/or pedophilia wasn’t even at the forefront of their minds. They literally went “OOO TWO PRETTY CHARACTERS they should kiss”.

And honestly, that’s a lot of what shipping just… is. It’s deciding you like how two characters interact, taking it, and running off with it. Shipping discourse exists because people disagree on how that should happen and what dynamics should be in a ship, too! Because it happens soooo often. This isn’t much different, even if it’s a ship that others or many May view as problematic.

The post WAS admittedly a bit confusing about this next topic, so I understand if this was a big basis towards confusion, but-

I am a firm believer that people should create what they want to make, and not what others want to see from them.

And this post says much the same, in the later parts of it. Just phrased weirdly.

If this means that they make a bunch of stuff about incest, porn, pedophilia, murder- that’s not our business.

We are in no right to tell them what they should or should not create. It doesn’t matter their reasoning. It is their freedom to make whatever they want. No one should be policed over their own content, which they make for themselves.

But You know what is within your right to do?

Blocking them.

You have every right to block them so that you don’t have to see what they’ve made. If you don’t like it, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the block button and blocking tags, too.

And I think this is SO IMPORTANT for people to do.

A lot of proshippers have adopted this tactic, did you know? A lot of them block other proshippers and the likes ALL THE TIME, because they don’t like the content that that person makes. It’s fascinating. Proshippers will even do their best to respect Anti shippers by blocking them, so that the Anti won’t ever have to see the Proshipper’s works. And if proshippers find that someone is actually IRL a pedophile or a predator like that (a rare occurrence, mind you), they will block them, too! (Like what happened with an NSFW artist named Neahchan some time back).

But I think SOME (not all) Anti’s don’t understand that this is the easiest and safest way. Because you want to know what those FEW (not all) Antis do if they follow a proshipper?

If they are not blocked immediately, one of the first things those few do is harass the person. Cyber bully them. Maybe something small at first, but it gets to big things quickly. “You are sick I can’t believe you support this, let me make a full on call out post about this to tell everyone to isolate and bully you too”. If the proshipper chooses to comment or argue against the allegations, harassment just gets worse. If they block it then, it saves some face, but the drama swells horribly and it takes HUGE blows on their mental health.

Do you remember those videos about the kid that was bullied online and in school? About how they were going to kill themselves because they felt so horrible? That’s what those few antis are doing. They’re doing that to a human being.

(To me, this is the big issue. This is the thing we should REALLY be talking about instead of if a ship is okay to ship or whatever.)

If the proshipper blocks them right away, it’s a lot less impactful and a lot less harm is done. And those few antis will pick up a fuss about it “why did you block me! Your AUs are so cool! Whatever I’m going to try and harass you anyway”. (This is something that has actually happened recently to Skumhu, the creator of leviathan tale.)

When proshippers usually talk about Antis, it’s often these antis specifically that they’re talking about. The ones that harass and cyber bully them over completely fictional things that have no impact on the real world.

But why am I bringing up blocking people, anyway? You were talking about censorship.

That’s because blocking is a form of censorship, just personal to you.

If you were to go out one day and censor the entirety of the internet from, let’s say, images of any and all kinds of skeletons because skeletons and their symbolism made you uncomfortable, you’d get a LOT of people really upset at you. Because skeletons mean something completely different to them.

Okay, well, what if you prevented people from talking about and discussing terrorism by censoring them? It’s bad and horrible, surely if we stopped talking about it then it would stop. But now a lot of people who were victims or terrorism are upset because they had safe spaces where they could talk about their traumas and express them without fear. They don’t get that anymore with censorship in play. And now, terrorists have actually increased their attacks because there isn’t enough awareness going around, and people can’t prepare to defend themselves or keep themselves safe because they can’t even find out that it’s happening.

So now what if we censor pedophilia? Horrible, gross. SURELY something that’s influenced from everything going on online, so stopping it would put a stop to it. Right?

I promise, the same exact thing that I described above with terrorism will happen here.

Victims would not be able to discuss or share their experiences safely, or recover in their own way. Children would be put into further risk because parents wouldn’t be taught how to teach kids to watch out for the signs of a predator and notify their parents. Some parents might not even know of what signs to look out for, because we censored all the content of it.

Full, complete censorship of something gives oppressors the power to be more oppressive.

I understand being uncomfortable when fictional characters are written as incestuous or pedophilic, but if you want to censor the uncomfortable and icky gross stuff entirely, you should be ready for the consequences of censoring EVERY LITTLE THING about it because extremists and religious extremists will take what you’ve done and make it ten times worse. It’s not worth the pain and suffering it would cause. Not worth the lives that would be lost or the lack of support systems in place for survivors.

Is this every Anti’s vendetta? ABSOLUTELY NOT! But that doesn’t mean that censorship doesn’t give the abusers the power and freedom they need to hurt people.

There’s a reason why these are the signs of people in abusive relationships, and that’s because the lack of knowledge and support someone has, the more power the abuser has.

The safest and healthiest way isn’t to censor the whole internet because you’re uncomfortable with something. It’s to block users and tags who make you personally uncomfortable. It’s SO much better for your mental health, AND theirs. No one gets harmed, hurt, or cyberbullied.

It’s so important to know that there is SUCH a vast range of pro and anti people. There are certainly proshippers that are abusers, trolls, or jerks. Just like there are also antis who are the same.

(Trust me. I’ve been hurt by both a proshipper and an anti shipper. I’d rather not have to talk about my experiences with them to prove my point, because I’m also friends with pros and antis. It’s also a very private experience, and just mentioning that it happened is something that makes me feel weird.)

Repeat after me the 15% rule: in any given group of people, 15% of them are just the worst, most horrible and sucky people you could ever meet. And those people should be blocked for EVERYONE’S mental health and well being, but more specifically, YOUR mental health and well being.

I apologize if this doesn’t make sense or if there are any typos. It’s 5:30 in the morning and I haven’t slept, but I just… HAD to say this.

I’m so sorry you got hurt by that post and felt like it was attacking you. That was not my intention and I doubt that that was OP’s intention, either. But it’s SO important to me that people are free to do as they wish and create what they want in safe fictional spaces, to define that proship does not mean they support those things IRL, and the issues with censoring the icky gross stuff.

#ask sc #drama #pro shipping #anti shipping #pro ship #anti ship #pro anti drama #stars it’s 6AM now #i need to sleep so I can go to work tomorrow but I don’t think I can anymore #this exhausted me because this isn’t something I like to talk about #because blocking and moving on is just so much easier and safer than having to spill my heart out #but you are my friend and I care for you #so I did it anyway #and even if you disagree still #or even decide to block me or something because of it #I’d be okay with that #it might hurt but you’d be talking care of your mental health and well being #and that’s far more important to me than anything else #same with any other mutuals who read this

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waywardstation · 1 year

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Maintenance Check

Akari invites a weary Ingo out of the rain to rest and have a hot meal with her, but Ingo realizes Akari needs some help of her own as well.

I wrote this off of a request to let Ingo relax and have a nice meal with Akari in the wake of Heart Full, Bowl Empty’s events, as well as two requests showing how Ingo and/or Akari would deal with a toothache away from the modern-day dental practices they’re used to.

This was supposed to be my last request fic of 2022, but instead it’s my first request fic of 2023!

OR read here on AO3!

Enjoy!

————

The door to Akari’s unit slid open and shut quickly, the rain from outside clinging to Ingo’s coat as water dripped from the brim of his hat.

“You were gone for a while!” Akari commented, looking up from the cooking pot hanging over her unit’s irori; the sunken hearth in the middle of the room was already heated, warming the room and chasing away the chill that had begun to seep into Ingo’s skin. “Did they not have any?”

Ingo shrugged his wet coat off and hung it up with his cap on the wall; he did not want to drip all over Akari’s floors. He plucked a pouch out from one of the coat pockets and brought it over to Akari, handing it to her. “They did have it, but it, ah… took a considerable amount of time to retrieve from their cargo. I apologize for the delay.”

Ingo decided to refrain from telling Akari about how he suspected Volo left him standing in the rain longer than he needed to, searching through the back of the Ginkgo Guild’s covered wagon for quite a time for something so simple as a single sprig of King’s Leaf. It had left lots of awkward but well-meaning smalltalk with Tuli, until Ginter had decided to call out and ask if Volo needed help looking. Only then did Volo come back around the side of the wagon, King's Leaf in hand.

Maybe he shouldn’t have told the merchant that it was for a soup that he was cooking with Akari in her unit - he had come to notice that Volo wasn’t too keen on how much time the teenager spent with him. But technically, it was Volo’s fault for asking about what he planned to use it for in the first place.

“Sorry about that,” Akari took the pouch and pulled the plant out, a bit flattened, but perfectly preserved and dry. She set it down on a thick board beside her and began to cut the vibrant leaves up into smaller pieces, occasionally glancing at one of the hand-written recipe pages of her Pokedex to make sure she was doing it right. “But thanks for getting it! I didn’t know I was out of them, so it saved me some time.”

“Glad to be of service,” Ingo moved to stand closer to the heated irori, and chase away some of the cold aching that stubbornly clung to his limbs. “Is there anything else I can assist with?”

“No, no, it’s ok!” Akari would have waved him off if her hands weren’t full of freshly-cut King’s Leaf. She dropped the bits into the pot, before grabbing another small bowl full of chopped leeks and vivichokes, dumping that in as well. “You’ve already done so much today, just relax! And all the work is pretty much done, anyways; we just need to wait now.”

With that, Ingo moved to finally sit down with a grunt, at the edge of the irori, finally able to take his weight off his feet. He was silently thankful he could just sit back and rest for a moment. Today had been an exhaustive one, what with the Pearl Clan requesting his help on an icelands hunting trip that was supposed to be over and done by mid-morning, but dragged well into mid-day instead. And by the time he had reached Jubilife Village for whatever was left of his shift at the dojo (excessive rain having begun to pour down halfway there - he knew the sky had been too dark that morning for its own good), Zisu had regretfully let him know work was canceled due to the weather.

Akari had thankfully spotted him leaving the village to return to the highlands, and had asked him to join her in her Jubilife unit to dry off and share some of the soup she was making. He was surprised to see her - she was supposed to be gone on an expedition trip for at least another day - but he was certainly cold, hungry, and exhausted by that point, and very much not looking forward to a long trip back up Mount Coronet, so he had wearily agreed.

“Thank you again for your generosity, Miss Akari,” Ingo slumped forward, the heat of the hearth easing him as the soup began to spread a pleasant scent throughout the room. “I admit, this is much more favorable than traversing up to my highlands station in this current weather.”

“Yeah, well, you looked like you needed someone to give you a break,” Akari half-joked with him as she took a wooden spoon and stirred the contents of the pot a few times, sprinkling some crunchy salt in. Satisfied with the state of the soup, she left it to simmer and moved to sit next to Ingo, the sounds of the rain slicking down the slanted roof of her unit. “And I need someone to share all this soup with!”

————

“These are excellent reports, Miss Akari; very thorough. I’m sure Professor Laventon will appreciate this data. Wild sliggoo are notoriously hard to properly observe.”

Akari gave a small smile as Ingo browsed over her pages of notes, freshly filled out from the expedition she had just gotten back from. She always liked showing Ingo any new observations she had made, as looking over her extensive notes sometimes allowed him to recall some additional information she could add. But, she also knew he took special interest in Hisui’s select species. Just like the voltorb and electrode native to the region, focusing on their differences from what he could dimly remember always intrigued him.

“Hard is an understatement!” Akari glanced over her own notes as well from Ingo’s side, recalling what she had to do to get them as she held her soup secure in her hands. “I couldn’t even get close without them somehow hearing me, and retreating into those big heavy shells of theirs! And you would think they wouldn’t be able to see where they’re going rolling around in them, but they can aim pretty well! Got me good a few times-“

Akari set her bowl down and rolled up one of her black underlayer sleeves as she talked, the survey corps fabric bunching up over it as she showed him a few cuts and bruises she had sustained from scrapes with the sharp metal shells. This caught Ingo’s attention, and his gaze finally drifted off the words and drawings of the page, to the teenager at his side.

“Is all this just from crossing tracks with the sliggoo?” Ingo looked the damage over briefly; it didn’t seem too bad thankfully, but then again, all he could see was her one uncovered arm. Though, he didn’t think she normally got this scraped up from a routine expedition. “Is this why you departed ahead of schedule?”

“Nah, I just finished early.” Akari rolled her sleeve back down to pick her soup back up.“I mean, I sort of rushed it, but I just wanted today off - fieldwork isn’t nearly as fun in the rain. And it’s fine! It’s mostly just soreness now, nothing that won’t heal.”

“Speed but not haste, Miss Akari.” Ingo felt like he had to remind her of that a lot lately. He closed her Pokedex and handed it back to her, so he could pick his own bowl back up and continue eating his soup. “It’s important to maintain safety.”

“Yeah, well if I did that,” Akari tucked her Pokedex back away, “You’d be heading up to the highlands right now with about twenty pounds of rain in your clothes. And I would be too, still trying to get Pokedex pages filled out, and we wouldn’t be sharing this great soup right now, listening to the rain outside while we’re warm inside.”

That earned a small laugh out of Ingo. She wasn’t wrong.

“That certainly tracks,” He stirred what was left in his bowl. “And it would be unfortunate to pass this up - my schedule has not allowed me time to enjoy something like this for a while. The refuel and the maintenance stop are much appreciated.”

Between more frequent hunts with the Pearl Clan, his duties to Lady Sneasler and her kits, and his shifts at the dojo, it had all been constant foot traveling for the last three days. Always walking. Always traversing. Letting the cold cling to him and slip deeper under his skin the longer he immersed himself in the wilderness. No time to stop and eat, either plucking off stunted berries from trees and bushes he happened to walk by, or stuffing potato mochi down on his way out of Jubilife and onto the next destination, being unable to sit down and actually enjoy it. Sleeping in whatever place he happened to be at when the sun set, even if it didn’t exactly have a nice warm bed to comfort him, and ease the pain in his back that would flare up from the cold’s grip.

Akari’s offer for him to come in and sit down, to relax and have a nice meal, was the first time he had been able to really do so in a while.

And it was nice. To take the pressure of walking off his legs and let them rest for once, and relieve the dull throbbing in his feet brought about by traversing rough terrain on worn down shoes. To actually enjoy the taste of his food instead of hastily stuffing down whatever he could get, to simply keep his engine running on his way to the next destination. To let warmth ease him and loosen his tense weariness. While the heated irori thawed his limbs well enough, driving out the deeper frost that had settled into his muscles, the hot soup left a pleasant internal warmth in his body, heating whatever the hearth couldn’t.

“Here, I’ll get you more then,” Akari reached out to take Ingo’s bowl from his hands as he tipped it back and swallowed the last of its contents. “It’s more vegetables than broth, but there’s still some left in the pot.”

“I appreciate it, but I’ve ah, already had seconds,” Ingo tried to object. “And your portions for me have been rather generous. It’s alright. Go ahead and finish it.”

It wasn’t that Ingo found the meal to be unenjoyable. It was genuinely excellent - the best meal he had had in days. Akari had gotten very good with her recipes. He could have had more, but he told himself not to depreciate a comfortable fullness down to a stomachache. But moreso, he just wanted Akari to eat more than the little amount he had seen her put into her own bowl.

On his first serving, he had noticed Akari dumped lots of the larger, tougher soup contents into his bowl - sootfoot roots, leeks, mushrooms - but her own bowl had consisted of smaller chunks amongst mostly broth. It had been easy enough to dismiss, until he noted that she did it again with their second helpings. She wasn’t even really using her spoon, instead opting to sip from the bowl itself. Generally, just eating slower - and less - than she normally did.

Why?

“I’m good,” Akari took one last glance at the soup pot, before moving to sit back down next to Ingo. “It’ll probably just be leftovers then.”

Leftovers? With her typical growing-teenager appetite, the concept of leftovers was practically a foreign one to Akari. Ingo’s gaze flitted over to the sleek orange icebox against the wall - that thing was used more frequently to hold icelands snow than actual food that couldn’t be finished.

“Forgive me for being so upfront Miss Akari, but,” Ingo began, leaning forward to better feel the irori’s heat, as well as get a better look at her face. “are you feeling alright?”

The teenager didn’t have to say anything for Ingo to see the confusion on her face - for her, the question came out of nowhere. Ingo worried insufficient clarity had led to incorrect assumed inferences.

“Apologies, it’s just that it appears you’re, well… drinking more of the soup than you’re eating.” He explained, before repeating himself. “Are you feeling alright?”

Confusion quickly faded, understanding taking its place.

“Oh, no, no!” Akari waved it off. “Like I said earlier, I’m just still a bit sore. My mouth just hurts a little, makes it kinda hard to chew. I’ve been making a lot of soup lately because of it, actually.”

When Akari had said she was sore, Ingo assumed that only extended to achy limbs, and tender muscles. A sore jaw was a bit of a different matter, especially if it influenced what Akari could and couldn’t eat - now he understood why she was mostly just limiting herself to the broth.

The lack of worry in Akari’s voice told Ingo that she didn’t think it was a big deal at all - so much so, that it seemed she didn’t even find it worth mentioning until explicitly asked. She did not appear worried about it, but Ingo couldn’t say the same.

Draugr, the iceland’s territorial alpha mamoswine, had given Ingo the unfortunate opportunity to experience how Hisui deals with dental complications himself.

He did not want to think back on that, and he did not want Akari to have to deal with that agonizing possibility like he did. He had a feeling oral care in Hisui was not nearly as advanced and optimized as it was wherever the two of them had come from, and he was sure Akari was also aware of this to some degree.

“If it’s preventing you from properly eating, perhaps we should go visit Miss Pesselle.” Akari could hear the concern start to bubble up in Ingo’s voice as he shifted to a more attentive position. “When did you first notice the pain?”

“Ingo, it’s ok!” She tried to keep him from getting worried over her. “It started like three days ago, but this happens a lot, trust me; I get roughed up from expedition work, thrown down a few too many times by a wild Pokémon. I knock my jaw maybe, it’s sore for a little bit, but then I get over it. It probably happened when I was out observing the sliggoo. It’s fine, really!”

“I might be inclined to disagree, if it means it obstructs you from having anything else besides soup broth.” Ingo emphasized. “Did you at least perform safety checks, and ensure nothing was damaged? If you’ve possibly cracked a tooth, it must be addressed as soon as possible.”

“Ingo… I didn’t crack a tooth,” Akari dismissed it. She interrupted herself by pushing herself back up onto her feet, and taking their empty bowls in her hands. She was trying to busy herself now. “I’m used to this, really. It’ll go away in a few days.”

She did not check.

Ingo gave her a look telling her he knew she didn’t, which made Akari huff a sigh through her nose as she dropped their dinnerware on her washing table.

“I can’t feel anything sharp with my tongue,” she insisted, her confidence apparently unfaltering as she continued to try and quell Ingo’s worries. She slipped open the lid of her water container, and began to scrub the dishes. “It’s sore, but that’s normal. For me, I mean.”

“Still, it does not hurt to be thorough.” Ingo reasoned. “Something else could require repairs. If you haven’t checked, you cannot know for sure.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Akari simply hummed in acknowledgement as she continued to fret over the dishes. He could tell she was starting to want to drop the subject.

The rain came down against the roof of the warm unit. Busying her hands, no other words were likely to leave Akari’s mouth, while Ingo struggled to get the right string of them out of his.

Perhaps he should talk about it.

“…I had a similar experience, once.” Ingo started after a moment of contemplation, watching Akari needlessly busy herself. “When the Pearl Clan first brought me back to their settlement and were trying to repair the damage that Draugr had caused, they were trying to fix everything they could with haste. They patched me up as best they could, and waited. But as the days went on, it was becoming apparent that something was wrong.”

Akari said nothing, but she stopped scrubbing at the dishes - Ingo could see he had managed to take her nervous energy, and convert it into attention that was trained on him. She always said she didn’t like hearing the more explicit details of his recovery, but by the way she always listened in with a sort of hesitant curiosity, he could tell she said that more for his sake, assuming he had a hard time talking about it.

He did.

It was difficult to think back on that time, and recall how it felt to be so confused and alone.

“I was not eating, or drinking. They could not figure out why, and I regret to say it was because I did not make it easy for them to do so.”

Behavior like that would be laughably unheard of from Ingo now. But at the time, he had known nothing about who or where he was, and all he knew was that he was in an extensive amount of pain, and that he was surrounded by people he did not know or understand, who were endlessly prodding him and just irritating the pain more. It had freaked him out, and admittedly, when he had the strength to, he had become resistant to their invasive monitoring.

“Only once Lady Irida had arrived to check on me herself with a gentler approach, were they able to figure out the issue. I had a cracked tooth, viable for infection, and it needed to be removed.”

“You got a tooth pulled!” Ingo could already hear the flood of excitedly curious requests for him to show her the gap coming.

“It was just a wisdom tooth, its departure did not change much to my cab,” Ingo stopped her in her tracks before she got too far. “It had most likely needed to be removed even before my jaw had a collision with an ice tusk as thick as a tree. But before I knew it, Miss Calaba had checked it over for confirmation, and one of her more eager assistants was already wrenching it out.”

“Oh man,” Akari frowned. “Just pulling it then and there? That sounds… super sucky.”

Akari’s word choice surprised a brief laugh out of Ingo. “It was definitely not favorable, though it could have been much worse. And only due to Lady Irida’s incentive to check herself, were the tracks corrected. It was of utmost importance to be thorough, and to be entirely sure of the situation.”

Akari was starting to bite her cheek, nervousness returning now that the subject was returning back onto the issue at hand, and away from Ingo’s story.

“Miss Akari, I understand your hesitance. I myself have been on that line. Sometimes, maintenance of one’s cab is not an easy track to go down. But if something needs attention, it’s best to attend to it now before it gets worse, and affects the functionality of the rest of the cab… especially with Hisui’s limited medical methods.”

It seemed his own personal example and words of gentle encouragement finally broke through to her. Ingo’s words were followed by a loud silence that drew attention to the sound of muffled rain against the unit’s roof, until Akari let out a deep sigh. Her shoulders slumped, defeated.

“…I know,” she muttered, looking down at her feet for a moment, before turning back to face him. The dishes she once couldn’t get her focus off of were now entirely forgotten behind her. “I know I should probably get it checked. I think my jaw’s fine - it’s my tooth that hurts. I came back early because it was just being so bothersome; I couldn’t really eat anything I found out in the mirelands, so I had to come home. It’s just…”

It was scary.

Ingo could see she found it scary.

“…I know my options are different from what I had back home. If anything, um… happened, my only option would be to get it pulled.” Akari began to explain to him. Her voice was no longer as certain and unfaltering as it was earlier. “And I’ve heard how people manage that whole procedure when they come into Pesselle’s office. I always hear them yelling! And Rei’s told me horror stories about how he’s had to assist her with emergency procedures, just because he was the closest Galaxy Team member nearby. I don’t want to have to get any teeth pulled! I was just hoping to wait and see if it would get better, but… it’s been three days. It’s not.”

A pang of empathy tugged at Ingo’s heart. It was clear now that Akari was just scared - scared that something was irreversibly damaged, and scared that she would have to undergo a worrying procedure that freaked her out. She hadn’t checked out of fear that it would confirm these things.

It was understandable.

Ingo pushed himself back up onto his feet (the heat from the irori was starting to become noticeably uncomfortable anyways) and moved to try and console her - she looked like she was about to start pacing the room out of nervousness.

“You mentioned the soreness only began three days back, correct?” Ingo recalled, putting a hand on Akari’s shoulder. “You may not be experiencing improvement, but that does not give much time for things to worsen. And perhaps nothing is wrong, and it really is just sore. Then we have nothing to worry about. But, we should perform a maintenance check now, and if repair is required, it should be manageable.”

“Yeah,” The complete lack of enthusiasm in Akari’s voice, as well as her glance back at the dishes to her side, told Ingo she would much rather keep avoiding the issue. But she wasn’t, and he appreciated it. “I guess I should.”

“Good.” Ingo encouraged her with a final reassuring pat on the shoulder, before looking around her unit, between the pot of soup and the half-cleaned dishes. “Now, you go check, and I’ll get started on cleaning things up. We can figure out how to navigate the tracks before us once we know what’s going on.”

Akari sucked in a breath and released it, trying to force all her anxiety out with it. “…Ok. I’ll go check.”

Ingo picked up the half-cleaned dishes that Akari had started washing, and began to scrub them clean as she moved into the back section of the unit, where her bed and mirror were set up.

As Ingo scrubbed one of the bowls, occasionally scooping more fresh water out of the table-side container, he fretted over Akari and what she would find.

What if it really was a cracked tooth? She did say she had been bashed around by sliggoo quite a few times… those tough metal shells were not padded at all. He hoped it was nothing more than soreness, but prolonged consistent pain that made it difficult to eat did not sound good.

And removal of a cracked tooth was not fun in the slightest. He should know. It was incredibly painful, even with dulling medicinals, and the throbbing hurt lingered for days afterwards.

But why tell Akari any of this? He hoped nothing was wrong, so that he wouldn’t have to. If something was, then perhaps he would take steps to prepare her for it, but he didn’t want to have to do that.

With the bowls clean, Ingo moved to pick up the soup pot from where it hung over the irori. Looking inside, there was still a small amount left, just enough for about one more bowl. Maybe he should ask Akari if she had something he could store the rest of the soup in-

“Ingo!”

A quick turn of his head, and he spotted Akari standing in front of her bedside mirror, face very close to the glass and thoroughly inspecting her teeth with her head turned at an awkward angle - partially to get the best look at her tooth, and partially to be able to look in the mirror without standing on top of all the assorted junk she had piled around her.

She did love her space-time distortion souvenirs, and often kept all the leftover wrappers and bags neatly stored away. Ingo just had no idea she had so many.

“I think I found the problem!”

“Is it cracked?” Against his wishes, Ingo was beginning to dread the answer, but the fact that she had found something at all worried him.

“No…” Akari pulled the side of her mouth back with a finger, inspecting her teeth again. “I don’t think so? I mean, I definitely see something, but I can’t tell…”

“Allow me to check, if you’d like,” Ingo offered as he approached her, leaving the soup pot behind; now he was curious.

“This one, I think-“ Akari tapped one of her bottom-row bicuspids as she opened her mouth, tugging one of the sides back with a finger, and Ingo lowered down to take a quick peek at it.

Don’t be a cracked tooth, please, don’t be a cracked tooth…

Once he spotted it, Ingo was pleasantly surprised to see that indeed, it was not a cracked tooth.

Instead, it was a developing cavity.

Small and easy to miss, it was not much more than a dark line on the side of her tooth. Thankfully, it was clearly in the early stages of development, and even Ingo could tell that it was not far enough along to be past the point of irreversible damage.

And while a cavity was not a good thing, it certainly was good news to Ingo, considering the alternative. She would not have to lose the tooth.

“Well?” Akari pulled away from him, a little impatient now to know what it was. Ingo could see the concern in her eyes, and it relieved him to know he wouldn’t have to confirm such worries.

“I’m pleased to report that it is not cracked, but there’s a small cavity-“

“-A cavity!”

“Just a small one! It’s in the very early stages, and should be able to be managed without removal. You will be fine if you can stay on top of it.”

“Oh thank Arceus,” Akari heaved a sigh of relief. “So, I can just fix it myself? No tooth pulling?”

“Well, it would still be good to allow Miss Pesselle to take a look at it first, and ensure nothing needs to be done,” Ingo reasoned. “I’d be happy to accompany you if you’d like, but I have a feeling she will simply remind you to brush frequently if she doesn’t think it needs to be pulled.”

“But I already do! I brush my teeth twice a day!” Akari defended herself. “And I rinse! Just like how I always did it at home, and I never got any cavities then!”

Ingo glanced back down at the stacks of empty wrappers and snack bags on the floor. With a sigh, he realized what the problem most likely was, and reached down to pluck one of the bags up from off its stack.

“Well, I regret to inform you that with fuel like this, brushing twice a day might not be enough with Hisui’s dental management methods.” Ingo explained, holding the empty snack bag up. “Current toothpaste may not be enough as is. I recommend you start adding medicinal leek filling to your toothpaste powder until it mends.”

“How do you know that’s going to work?,” Akari frowned as she was handed back the bag, and moved to set it back on its stack.

“You are generous enough to share a considerable amount of these things with me,” Ingo reminded her. “And Miss Calaba was not pleased at all when she discovered I had added such things to my diet. But undeniably, she is very knowledgeable when it comes to medicinals and treatments. Trust me, it is effective.”

Akari made a face, most likely imagining how bitter the toothpaste would become once leek filling was added to it, but Ingo could see that she was ultimately relieved to have such a relatively easy solution to her problem.

“…Alright. I’ll, um… I’ll go see Pesselle when the rain stops, and get it checked out. And I guess I need to pick up some more leeks as well. Would you come with me?”

The heavy, constant rain pattering against the roof of the unit didn’t sound like it was going to stop anytime soon. They’d be here for a while if they were to wait for it to let up, but Ingo didn’t have anywhere else to go for today. And he would not leave her after she asked him to stay - he knew she was looking for a source of comfort.

“Of course, Miss Akari.”

#submas #Ingo #warden Ingo #Akari #Pokemon Akari #Pokémon legends arceus #Pokémon legends #Pokemon legends #Pokemon legends arceus #pokemon #pokemon fanfiction #pokemon fanfic #waywardstationfanfic #to anon who requested Ingo have a good time #I hope you’re feeling better and that this new year is very nice to you!!!!#the dental stuff with this one was difficult to figure out #you can read my thoughts about it at the bottom notes of the AO3 version if you’d like

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