i have never known peace like the damp grass that yields me, i have never known hunger like these insects that feast on me. [ yukiko ogawa, daughter of the harvest ; demeter's deadly nightshade ]
i have never known peace like the damp grass that yields me, i have never known hunger like these insects that feast on me.
VENUS FLYTRAP OF A GIRL. CONSUMING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.
♡ when demeter claimed yuki, she laughed. she laughed manically and loud enough for the gods to hear. it had to be a joke, right? yukiko who had killed so many plants in her short life, yukiko who was covered in the darkest colors imaginable from head to toe, yukiko who's heart had frozen over when she was still a child, yukiko who was hungry for some kind of darkness and lust from the moment she was born. named yukiko, for the cold darkness she was born into during the month of january. something had to be wrong with her if demeter was her mother -- something happened to her during her primitive years, that's what she decided a few days following. she had (unintentionally) grew a giant venus flytrap that would then "eat" the campers surrounding it (yes they survived don't worry). she was weird and strange and borderline off-putting. it bothered her at first, not making friends but over time she told herself it was better that way. not much had changed between her life before camp and life after -- still a loner, still quietly yearning for connection.
YUKIKO WANTED TO BE MORE LIKE DEMETER. SHE WANTED TO BE KIND AND BEAUTIFUL, SOFT AND EASY TO LOVE ; NOT A WOLF WITH BARRED TEETH OR A GHOST WITH NO HOME.
♡ over time yuki would learn to somewhat embrace her goddess ancestry. it's still something she'd struggle with -- but you're not required to love the family you didn't choose, right? yuki cares deeply for her father, but for her mother she feels nothing. a person she some abilities from. someone to blame her stubbornness on. someone to blame her "mommy issues" on. growing up with a single parental figure wasn't easy for yukiko or her father -- she had plenty of issues from the adhd and dyslexia to the mood swings and outbreaks. yuki spent a lot of time picturing who her mother could be and why she wasn't around [ she was an FBI agent who was undercover overseas and couldn't get in contact with yukiko because it would be dangerous, she disappeared and had created a new family with a new husband and hated her daughter with every fiber of her being, she was on the run from the government, she was a great queen in a far away kingdom where people worshipped at her feet but since yukiko was from earth she couldn't join her, she's actually been trying to get in contact with yuki but her father thew away all the letters and gifts ]. it wasn't that her father was a bad parent, he was great and he worked hard to provide for him and his only child. there was something really special between them -- yuki often felt that her father was the only person in the world who could even begin to understand her. he didn't have adhd nor dyslexia but for some reason it always felt like he understood her. her thoughts, her feelings, her weird interests. they were best friends, the pair of them. yuki didn't need anyone else in the world. and even at camp she feels that way, because even surrounded by people who are supposed to understand you, she feels like they don't.
AND STILL, SHE WANTED A MOTHER TO BRAID HER HAIR AND HOLD HER HAND. DEMETER WAS HARDLY A MOTHER.
♡ yuki's father, haru [ means spring, to contrast yuki's winter bc we love symbolic names ], was an artist with his own gallery, he also taught at the local high school in LA, where yuki grew up [ also where the punk, goth + alternative fashion / music originated ]. he was kind, serious, stern but also loving. he was punk before punk was a thing, but you'd never knew it. he always had paint underneath his fingers and markings on his nose from his glasses. he typically wore a dress-shirt and tie, regardless of the situation. and the tie was always a color, never black or white or any boring shade of grey. his favorite color was green. he loved demeter, and in return she gifted him a daughter. he'd joke that yukiko was sprouted from the ground like a cabbage [ he actually called her cabbage -- or キャベツ in japanese ], or came out of the central part of a flower.
WHO NEEDS A MOTHER ANYWAYS?
♡ yukiko is nowhere near evil, but if she wants you to think she is, she will without a care in the world. it's like a game to keep her amused. she does a lot of things for irony, or just because it may freak people out. she carries a scythe gifted to her by demeter (ugh), while most may think that's her main weapon, she absolutely only lugs that thing around because it's comedic to her. she also has a pair of knives she was gifted by a fellow demeter child, right before they left camp on a quest and didn't come back. -- yukiko herself came to camp some time ago, around ten years ago when she was fifteen. the older she got made haru nervous, for he knew she was close to gaining powers and being detected. over the years there had been instances of monsters -- all of which yuki had brushed aside without thinking about it. she turns thirteen and things get weirder. she goes from feeling out of place to feeling crazy, as if everyone knew something she didn't. a lot of things happen between age thirteen to age fifteen but it's nothing unusual for children of gods. plants die at her touch, or they enlarge themselves times one hundred. a tree goes right through the apartment building yuki was living in with her father. right through the middle. and apparently, their next door neighbor was actually some kind of monster ! and had been watching her this entire time ! her father is packing a bag, telling her to hurry -- but all she could do was stare at the monster she had knocked out with a lamp. the next few days were a blur. she learns some basic information, LIKE HOW HER MOTHER WAS A GODDESS? and they were going to a camp ... ? none of it made sense. she didn't want to go where her mother was, why would she? yukiko hated that woman for abandoning her and her father. she didn't even considered her a mother .. a someone, a goddess someone who gave her life. they spend the next few days driving across the country to new york, even despite her refusals and pouts.
HER FATHER DIED BEFORE THEY MADE IT TO CAMP. A MONSTER GOT HIM.
♡ yukiko showed up alone, and with a million conflicting emotions and a heart that wouldn't stop pounding against her chest. her father was gone. everything she knew about herself was some kind of a lie. she couldn't believe he had lied to her for her entire life and only recently decided to share the important facts with her. he couldn't even tell her who her mother was. [ unless, of course, he didn't even know ]
SHE SPENT TWO MONTHS IN THE HERMES CABIN. IT FELT LIKE YEARS.
♡ it was a lot to go from being an only child with only your father as family to bunking with tons of kids. no privacy, eyes always on you even if you think you're alone, judgment -- a lot of judgment [ especially if you don't care for any of the activities the other loved ], and a whole lot of pride and desire for glory. it wasn't that she cared about who her unknown other parent was, but it seemed that the other kids did. the longer demeter waited, the more restless she got. and then she was claimed and she was caught between wanting to run off into the woods to never be seen again or uproot every tree in camp out of anger. instead, she laughed.
WANTED CONNECTIONS.
♡ wednesday & enid. yukiko is like if you took the characterization of wednesday and put her into pjo. this connection entails one thing -- goth grumpy who things she's undeserving of love (yukiko) and the personification of sunshine who thinks she is. it was/is a slow burn dynamic but over time the other is let in past yukiko's thorns. [ can be platonic, but i also think romantic would work soooo well bc yuki deserves some love ]
♡ found family (hermes cabin?). the people she met upon first coming to camp. perhaps they're not friends anymore due to getting older but they still check in on each other and will always have each others backs. or maybe they're still as thick as thieves.
♡ first love kinda thing. teenagers/kids will be stupid assholes. i kinda see this as a ""fake dating"" where the other person dated yukiko on a bet (to "fix" her?). feelings might've actually been caught but once yuki found out she lost it and they haven't spoken since.
♡ opposites attract. an extension of the first connection -- yukiko actually does really good with people who aren't like her at all.
old friend.
♡ romance. can be a combo of any of the above tbh. she's just suuuch a hopeless romantic and loves love and loves the grotesque - ness of it. when she loves, she loves with her entire being and soul.
♡ INSPO. wednesday (original movies + 60s tv show), cannibalism as a metaphor for love, emily (the corpse bride), grotesque love, azula / mai (atla), raven (teen titans), demonic!illyana rasputina (marvel comics), pamela isley (dc comics), ophelia (hamlet).
♡ A STUDY IN ... a yearning for a type of love you read about it books [ you see it in public, at camp, in your father in the way he spoke about demeter, even between the gods but it's unreachable even for you ; you're unlovable ], a dark coldness that forever surrounds you [ it's in your bones and your soul, you're a daughter of nature but you're the cold persephone leaves behind ], the ghost of a long-gone girl, a neglected and rotting grave without a name or marker, the type of love that no matter what you can never be as close to them as you want [ you want to drown yourself in them, devour them, let them devour you ], never understanding what home means ; is it a place? is it a person? can it be a person?, quietly suffering [ but even if it wasn't quiet nobody would notice because that's 'just what you're like' ], never being afraid of the dark ; but instead feeling a comfort within it, manic laughter that frightens even the trees when you're claimed [ oh the gods are soooo funny ]
WHEN : JUNE 8TH, 1977, MIDDAY.
WHERE : STRAWBERRY FIELDS.
WHO : OPEN !
BOREDOM EATS AT HIS COMPOSURE WITH EACH PASSING SECOND ( he arrived five minutes ago and already longs to be anywhere else ). an unjust command from chiron : leave your powers at field's boundary, today is a day for community and regaining a sense of normality — which means no speed-picking the strawberries and leaving the other campers with nothing to do.
the midday sun already pricks sweat on the back of his neck as ezra weaves between uniform rows that extend to the horizon ; finding a gap in the plants between one demigod and the next has him pause, fingers trailing across a leaf as airy words break a silence he's desperate to fill ( if only to pass the time ), ❛ looks like this strawberry patch ain't big enough for the both of us. ❜
the most normal, or maybe even abnormal thing was to see yukiko volunteering for strawberry picking. the eerie-ness of camp annoyed her. it put her on edge in a bad way. it almost made her nauseous. -- so she was here, in her normal dark clothes, in the middle of the fields, right with the sun blaring down on the back of her neck. she wasn't working that hard, it was just that hot. they really should've reconsidered putting camp on the east coast ... she hated humidity. and no, it wasn't her fault for wearing all black on an already hot day, she could never be at fault for having good style.
" oh, you're funny, or you at least think you are. "
By "geloyconcepcion" on Instagram / Maia Baia / @.inkskinned / Annie Ernaux, I Remain in Darkness / Ladybird and Marian, Ladybird 2017 (Dir. Greta Gerwig) / Tory Adkisson, Anecdote of the Pig / Acacia, Mommy / Susan Smith, Wych Elm / @.death-born-aphrodite / Blythe Baird, If My Body Could Speak / Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects /
“Hail Demeter, Mother of All, Gentle Hearted Lady, Bright Goddess,
Hear my prayer and come to me
Let your radiance pour upon me
Until my heart is full of joy;
Until laughter comes easily to my lips;
Until the only tears that I shed are of happiness.
Into your hands I give my needs and my sorrows.
Bless me with your wisdom.
Teach me to hope when all is dark.
Teach me patience when all seems fallow.
Teach me to accept both stillness and change.
Grant me a life that is just, joyful and bounteous.
I ask your blessings for my family and my home
Bringing peace and well-being to all
Fuck the clean girl aesthetic. Let me walk into the creek with all my clothes on. With grass-stained knees and dirt caked under my fingernails, I am filthy. The soles of my white socks soiled, I am free.
