takenwithhim: (⚡ phantoms of the past)
山崎 宗介 || Yamazaki Sōsuke ([personal profile] takenwithhim) wrote in [community profile] thefarshore2018-02-02 02:53 pm

Heaven's BBS | ~Video~

From: Sousuke Yamazaki
When: Early October

[It’s rare that he posts to the BBS; Sousuke’s quiet nature and sometimes-over-focus kind of leads to that little problem. Content to dwell with his own life and his own small circle of friends and duties. But sometimes, the private life just doesn’t cut it. Especially when said private life is the entire reason for breaking his silence and going outside that small circle.

The video feed clicks on with a quiet sound, light blazing from the screen for a second until it adjusts to the scenery. It’s soon obvious he’s alone. Considering the presence of a black jacket barely resting at the peripheral of the video’s frame, it’s likely he’s holding the screen to his side. Deliberately not pointing the feed at himself. Instead, there’s a lovely shot of a quiet patch of natural garden, complete with trickling spring, breezing of clear air, and the ever-present drizzle of pink sakura petals from the surrounding grove Eros’ castle temple is renowned for.


There’s a moment of silence, semi-awkward on his end, before Sousuke finally outs with it. His tone’s calm, musing.]


Can a god and a shinki be more than god and shinki? [A measure before adding in a lower voice.] Or will it make problems between them?

[Yeah, it’s vague, he knows. The nature of god and shinki is a complex relationship. But Sousuke’s not honest enough with his softer emotions and being open to other people to outright ask the serious/embarrassing question:

What happens if you find yourself attracted to your own god?]
reformedsinner: (look at this mess)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-03 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It would. I can't help but think that some of it may be random; who comes here, and why... I still haven't found a meaningful pattern.

And shinki are meant to forget their past. It's stranger, though, that new shinki have sometimes remembered pieces of it.

I wish I had any answers.
reformedsinner: (elementary my dear dragon)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-03 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, you mean that they're replacing gods? Well, yes. So far as I can tell, at least.

Not all of us were gods who seemed to have had much presence here before, and some represented gods who had seen very little worship in centuries. It's hard to tell what drives the selection of the missing gods, too.

And it's not just human. But almost all of the older gods' shinki seem to have once been human, too.
reformedsinner: (deduction)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
There still are plenty of older gods, although admittedly they don't seem interested in socializing with us too often. The ones we replace... well, they do seem to disappear.

I'm not sure why. But -- that said, I don't think that the dangers of memory are a punishment, precisely. It seems to fall on old and new shinki alike.

I've been told that the danger is really that memory will tip us into despair, and I must admit, when I was a shinki... the things that I remembered made it very difficult for me not to despair.
reformedsinner: (sore eye)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know. Not for certain... when I asked that, I was a shinki, speaking to one of the old gods after I'd regained a fragment of my memory. Perhaps she was trying to reassure me.

I do know that it's never safe to hear anything about your old life. For the older shinki, it seems, even their name is lost.
reformedsinner: (foundling)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
Yes. I'm afraid worrying about it is likely to bother you more than simply accepting what you learn.

May I ask... were you ever frightened? Of the god you know knew you in life?
reformedsinner: (closer look)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
I doubt many people tried as hard as I did to push the limits.

[Not when it could mean destruction-- but then, Hakkai had never found that very frightening. He'd pushed, and he'd been blighted for it, but he was never destroyed.

And he'd never remembered anything for trying. Not even Kanan.]


Frightened... that he might say something, I suppose. That he has that power over you.
reformedsinner: (blank)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
Or, if not content, at least not willing to take the risk. I couldn't blame anyone for feeling that way.

I'd like to ask for advice, if you don't mind. If you knew someone else, someone you didn't have that trust for yet, had that power, how could they convince you they meant no harm?


[It's not even close to a subtle hypothetical, but Hakkai can't bring himself to care. This is a private conversation, for one thing. For another... Gojyo hasn't been subtle about their connection.]
reformedsinner: (from the wreckage)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
Was he a red-headed man who liked long coats and went by the name Loki?

[Or are there other gods doing that? Loki isn't a problem anymore, but there's no guarantee that he's the only god who'd try to abuse the shinki bond in that way.]

I'm not asking about how you could learn to trust someone who has already abused that trust. In a case like that, there's no reason you ever should.

But if there's that knowledge, but no trust, yet.... It's a situation many of us are in here, I suppose.
reformedsinner: (weary)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 04:43 am (UTC)(link)
I thought I remembered that... well, he's dead now, at least.

And gone for good, it seems.

Thank you. I didn't mean to ask you something so personal, but it helps.


[It doesn't, really. In some ways-- it's nothing that surprises him, of course. Trust requires a relationship. Trust requires work, and without work, without that day-to-day keeping of faith, it can't be built.]
reformedsinner: (reserving comment)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 05:15 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, someone I care about deeply.

I'm afraid he's been frightened of me since we met. Why... I couldn't say.


[Because he's youkai. Because he's too quiet, or says too much; too dangerous, or too calm. Because he can't say what he means, and not merely due to personal failings.

He shouldn't be saying all of this to a teenager he barely knows, either.]


I'm sure he wouldn't agree with that description, either. But it's how he's acted.
reformedsinner: (sore eye)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
It does, actually.

[Maybe it is the fear of memory. Maybe...

He'd insisted on trying to get close, the moment he had a hint that someone was a part of his own forgotten past, when he was a shinki. He'd pursued it with obstinate fascination, grasping, wondering. Even when he shouldn't have.

He'd always been a little more self-destructive than he should have been, though. And then there's Gojyo: who's careless, but not self-destructive. No, Gojyo's problem is that he hates himself, and now, it's too easy for him to believe that his forgotten past is nothing, no one, worth remembering.

Hakkai wonders how it is that Gojyo manages to be jealous of a dead man, and refuse what the dead man had had, at the same time.]


Perhaps it's different for every shinki. But I suppose all I can do is be trustworthy.
reformedsinner: (interior redecorating)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-04 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[Or after he's tried and failed. Or--

Perhaps it's all academic, now. Gojyo had been driven to dangerous extremes to try to separate himself from Hakkai: and when he's willing to go so far to free himself of any connection, is there any way to get close enough to prove his allegiance?

Hakkai still finds himself flinching from thinking of exactly how far, at least now, in the cold light of day. Those thoughts are poison reserved for two a.m., when he can't distract himself anymore.]


It's difficult, but I don't want to give up.
reformedsinner: (sore eye)

[personal profile] reformedsinner 2018-02-05 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
I've found that to be the case in the past.

[Enough so that the question is never whether anything will stop him; it's whether he should stop. That's a harder question to answer. That's-- well.

His smile is automatic and defensive, but this is only a text conversation, and so he lets it fall.]


And thank you. I may ask him -- but it's not quite the same situation. The person I know is not my shinki.

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