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calitsnow · 1 year

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Ranpo's parents and their influence on his life + Ranpo’s anger + how Fukuzawa gained Ranpo's trust

The second episode of Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4 was released today and it continues the adaptation of my favorite novel from the series; the one depicting the meeting between Ranpo and Fukuzawa and the founding of the agency.

And I have so much to say but let's start with the topic I want to talk about the most:

The red thread of this post will be: Ranpo's parents

Unfortunately their importance has been diminished in the episodes and I can not help but tell myself that it is a significant loss for the understanding of the character of Ranpo but also many other themes and events that were closely linked to them.

Through this writing I will address four points:

I/The identity of Ranpo’s parents and their relationship with him

II/The influence of Ranpo’s parents in his life following their premature departure

III/The breaking point

IV/The birth of Ranpo’s blind trust in Fukuzawa

So be prepared for a long but (I hope) interesting ride

Whereas the first episode was based on introducing us to the past characters of Ranpo and Fukuzawa, especially introduce us to their encounter and to set up the different elements for the rest of the story.

This second episode had also a clear theme: the anxieties and the feeling of alienation from the rest of the world that gnawed at Ranpo.

But also the how of why Fukuzawa chose to lie to him and make him believe he was an skill user and why Ranpo believed him.

And these are very important elements to the character of Ranpo, because it is indeed this meeting and the words of Fukuzawa that gave him such a blinding faith in him and I would even go so far as to say, that shaped this haughty and superior behaviour that Ranpo showed at the start of the manga.

I'm not saying that Ranpo wasn't like that before, but he was so; in a much more moderate and silent way because of his parents' words (we'll come back to that later) and what stands out above all in Ranpo's character (either at the time of the founding of the agency or at the moment present in the manga) is his childish character coupled with a hint of haughtiness and an intellect superior to all.

So far, all we knew was that it was Fukuzawa who had given his glasses to Ranpo, who had revealed to him the fact that he is an "ability user" (even if it is a lie) and that he had founded the armed detective agency so that Ranpo can fully utilize his gift without fearing the outside world.

But it's never been made clear why Ranpo and Fukuzawa's bond was so strong, and we'll later learn that Fukuzawa didn't just create a safe space for our great detective, but was also the one who saved him from the image of a world that was breaking him a little more every day.

I have sometimes read posts that speculated on what Ranpo could have become if it hadn't been Fukuzawa who had found him but Mori for example, and often the conclusion is clear, either Ranpo would have ended up even more broken and frightened of the world he lived in or had he been influenced by someone who, like Fukuzawa, understood Ranpo's true potential but tricked him into using it for manipulative and scheming purposes, he would have been shaped to be someone like Fyodor or Dazai.

We could often witness as the manga progressed that Ranpo lost to Fyodor because, firstly, he was facing a very intelligent opponent but also because he is not able to set up and foresee all the stratagems which pass by the manipulation of the emotions of the men, whereas Fyodor and Dazai are specialists in it.

And this is due to the fact that Fukuzawa (and his parents, we will also come back to this later) did not educate Ranpo to use his intelligence for this, but to solve mysteries and have a strategic vision which is based on data / facts.

However, that also doesn't mean that Ranpo would be unable to become like Fyodor or Dazai, although he could never match them in their domain. He has already demonstrated that he can do so by manipulating Mushitarō Oguri into surrendering to the police.

Anyway, I digress a bit and I ended up not talking about the episode anymore.

But it was only to show that these episodes are very important to better understand the character of Ranpo and how he came to be who he is today.

Especially to explain the behavior of superiority that Ranpo adopts which can annoy some at the beginning of the manga because its origin is not clearly explained and can pass for simple arrogance linked to his childish behaviour.

Even though the theme of this birth of feelings of superiority and the theme of the fears related to a Ranpo who fails to understand his environment and who is not able to find someone who seems to understand him were addressed during this episode; some equally important themes/elements were unfortunately not brought up by the latter and I find that’s a shame, especially when they are such important elements in Ranpo's life and that manga/anime only cannot know unless they did research on the light novels.

To be fair; I think that the episodes do a fairly good job of adapting the novel but unfortunately; adapting a novel with so much informations into three episodes is a tedious task and certain elements must be skimmed over or deleted to keep the essential that is here, namely the meeting between Ranpo and Fukuzawa, Ranpo's discovery of his gift through Fukuzawa and the founding of the agency.

Ranpo's parents are a detail in all this, a way to deepen his character but they are not necessary to the story, only their death is.

But I still think it's a shame to have cut their involvement in their son's development because it's not just the loss of his parents that fractured Ranpo, it's also the vision they gave him of the outside world which led to his feeling of alienation.

Many people might wonder why Ranpo couldn’t figure out on his own that he was smarter than the rest unfortunately the episodes didn’t really try to give an answer.

I therefore wish to clarify things for the anime and manga only who would not have had the opportunity or the desire to read the novel 3.

I/ The identity of Ranpo's parents and their relationship with him

« What was your father’s name?”

When Ranpo told Fukuzawa, he was slightly taken aback. It was a name even Fukuzawa knew. There wasn’t a soul who worked in his business who didn’t. The man was a legendary detective. The “Headless Officer” case, the “Moonlight Phantom,” the “Cow Head Incident”—he helped solve several difficult cases that shook the nation.

His powers of deduction and observation were so extraordinary that people called him the Clairvoyant.

He was highly respected and praised. »

Even if in the anime Ranpo informs Fukuzawa that his parents are no longer of this world, he does not go further in his explanations and the subject is quickly forgotten while in the book we learn more about their identities.

We learn that Ranpo's father was also a great detective, which in a way can serve as an explanation for Ranpo's exceptional intellect, the apple does not fall far from the trees, especially when we learn later who was his mother.

Above all, we learn that Ranpo's father was a well-known figure in the world and that he was respected everywhere as a great detective, this public image may have harmed/endangered the Edogawa family and the cause of their deaths was perhaps not so accidental. But here, it remains speculation.

Ranpo then continues with new information about his mother.

« He probably wasn’t amazing enough to be known to the public or anything, though. He could never beat my mom when it came to solving mysteries or reasoning, so she always got the upper hand on him when they argued back home. »

Here what is interesting, in addition to the information about his mother, is that Ranpo, unlike the rest of the world, does not consider his father as someone exceptional and whose intelligence, surely, did not allow him to be someone famous.

Which is so telling about Ranpo's skewed worldview and which is a clue to the true situation he really finds himself in:

« Ranpo knew the secretary was the criminal the moment he walked into the office, but the reason he didn’t speak up was because in his head, he thought the adults in the room all knew that as well.{…}

Or perhaps it was because he had simply lived a sheltered life in a bubble with his parents and no one else »

Ranpo grew up isolated from others, alongside geniuses but he didn't grow up with this vision of them, seeing them as normal people with a banal level of intelligence, because that's how his parents wanted him to see them. (We will come back to this later)

Second information: Ranpo's mother was also if not smarter than his father, which confirms to the reader that Ranpo grew up surrounded by eminences grises on the same level as his.

However, unlike her husband, she was not a public figure.

Third information: either Ranpo's father hid his activity from him and managed to hide his reputation at home or he retired to live a less dangerous life and not endanger his family with all the enemies he could have gain over time, hiding in anonymity.

« He hated the countryside. He hated the people, the school, and essentially everything else there. »

Moreover, we learned that Ranpo was brought up in the countryside, facilitating his isolation from the rest of the world, but even if he was isolated it seems that Ranpo still felt this feeling of ostracization from the others.

Even if Ranpo mostly talk about his inability to understand the world after the death of his parents, we cannot rule out the idea that Ranpo did not get along with children of his age because of his different reasoning from theirs.

If this is true we can conclude that even before the death of his parents, Ranpo felt misunderstood and left out, being unable to understand others and to act like everybody excepted him to.

However he had the presence of his parents that allowed him to live without worrying about that. Their presence and ability to think like him, allowed Ranpo to feel normal in a world that didn't seem that much to him.

In sum, Ranpo's situation can be summed up by one of the sentences from the novel:

« A naive only child raised by genius parents… »

Here is the beautiful family picture that the book paints for us, but that's not all:

So we know that Ranpo's parents were intelligent, his father was respected, but they seemed to live far enough away from the rest of the world that Ranpo might not be able to realize their off-the-charts intelligences.

But there is another characteristic to describe the Edogawa family: they loved and cared deeply for each other.

Well, in truth, we can't really know what the relationship was between Ranpo's parents, but even if he mentions "arguing where his mother had the upper hand", I think it was heated arguments between two smart people trying not to lose to each other, nothing too bad anyway.

What matters most is that they ensured the education and development of their son, at least until their death.

Also, the way Ranpo seems to talk about his parents doesn't hint at a relationship driven by tension.

And it is made clear throughout the book that Ranpo was raised with care and love by his parents and that he loved and respected them deeply.

« You’re special, Ranpo, and if you so desire, you will become a greater mind than even your parents.”

“As if.” Ranpo immediately shot down the claim. “My parents were amazing. There’s no surpassing them to reach the top because they were the top. Neither of them ever told me once that I had a gift, and I believe them. »

« But Ranpo’s parents did that with their extraordinary minds. What was such a feat, if not unconditional love? »

« The only thing he liked was his parents. »

Ranpo often mentions his parents throughout the book and one can clearly feel the respect he had for them and feel that Ranpo out of love and respect for his parents is applying everything they have teach him: Because his mother taught him not to place himself above others, it is unthinkable for him to put himself above someone else, especially when his interlocutor is an adult.

And above all, Ranpo is incapable to place himself above his parents because they were the only people who were ever able to understand him (more on that later) and it’s because he loved and respected them so much that Ranpo can’t imagine going against their teachings.

And it was this lovingly constructed cocoon that was meant to protect Ranpo from the outside world.

« The protective wall his parents created was thick.

That wall protected Ranpo from a world of ordinary people who would fear and fail to understand him, yes{…} »

But unfortunately not everything went as planned.

« {…}but it was also what rendered him unable to step into the outside world. »

II/ The influence of Ranpo's parents in his life following their premature departure

But what were the consequences of this isolated education and stopped too abruptly?

Main effects can emerge from this:

Ranpo's parents "normalized" his level of intelligence, making him feel like his brain capacity was the one of any child or adult. But why? It is true that, one could wonders why Ranpo's parents sought to educate Ranpo in the most total unawareness of his gifts?

The answer is all found in the book:

« So his father knew, after all. He understood that Ranpo possessed an extraordinary gift. That was why he sealed it away. He didn’t want Ranpo to go astray, to ever hurt others and make the world his enemy. »

« His father wanted Ranpo to learn virtue and what’s right just like any ordinary person until he had grown up with good judgment and knowledge. »

All is said. Ranpo's parents were aware of his gift and what it entailed; and they knew the danger that the world could represent for their son if he failed to understand and adapt to its workings.

This is why they sought to hide Ranpo's gift, so that over time, when their son would have matured; he would be able to understand and adapt to the world despite his difference.

However, his parents weren't just doing it for the world, they were doing it for their son first: Ranpo's gift is still a unique talent that many might seek to use but above all they didn't want Ranpo to find himself alone because of his difference.

Why didn't they tell Ranpo that he was smarter than the others?

Well, the situation is quite complex, but from what I understand, Ranpo's parents did not want him to feel excluded from the rest of the world and wanted him to grow up like an ordinary child, so as not to accentuate this feeling of "being different" that Ranpo will have to deal with all his life. They also wanted Ranpo to know how to be humble so that, what he manages to see and divulge is not seen as arrogance.

Moreover, explaining to a child that he is special and different is not easy, because even at 14 years old, Ranpo does not understand why he is the one who had to be different.

« Besides, why would only I be special? There are so many people in the city, so why would I be the only special one? »

« But even if this hypothesis were true, how would one explain that to this kid? “You’re special. You have something that others don’t.” But why? And how different exactly was he? How could it be proved? »

Depending on one's feelings, it may seem more like a twist of fate, a curse, forever preventing him from understanding others and the workings that seem logical to anyone else.

A real feeling of bitterness and frustration coupled with loneliness can arise from all this, especially when others do not make the effort to try to understand in return.

Explaining to a child that he should not act according to what seems logical/correct to him without a concrete explanation is a complicated situation, especially when Ranpo's parents were able to understand him without him needing to adapt. I think Ranpo’s parents didn’t want him to hide his talent but they also din’t want him to feel the pressure that come along with it.

Especially since the difference, when you are a child, is not very well received by other children. They will not try to understand what seems strange to them.

A child does not admire another child for his intelligence, especially if it’s a child who cannot understand others and communicate as expected of him, he will just see him as a weirdo.

Ranpo's father has therefore created a cocoon woven of lies or at least omissions about reality to let Ranpo mature for the time it takes, until he is ready to accept the truth about himself and act accordingly/ appropriately for others to understand.

« He was protecting him, creating a transparent cocoon to protect his extraordinary gift from this strange world. Ranpo’s parents raised him like an ordinary child.

How difficult it must have been to convince him that the world he saw was normal and nothing he knew was anything other than common sense. »

He did not want his child, because of his gift, to have to live a childhood filled with stares full of misunderstandings and judgments. Ranpo didn't deserve to be blamed for that.

« Ranpo, still naive, may have fallen into that trap, but he did not deserve to be blamed. Nevertheless, Ranpo was an extreme case. Although he possessed such extraordinary powers of observation, he didn’t think he was special. Why? Was it his parents’ fault? Was it because he lived a sheltered life with parents who had minds that rivaled his? »

However, the death of Ranpo's parents prevented them from seeing to the hatching of this cocoon and Ranpo was therefore never made aware of his talent and what it involved. Forcing him to live with an idea of a reality that, now, only oppressed him with its lack of logic, which no one seemed to notice.

« But long before Ranpo had fully matured—far before Ranpo was ready for the world—they departed this life. An immature yet gifted larva was stripped of his cocoon and abandoned. »

The only people who could understand him and answer him satisfactorily had just tragically disappeared without leaving him with anything concrete to hold on to. (Apart from the job at the police station but no one there was able to explain to him why the world was so strange).

Which means that Ranpo has kept the vision that his parents have always taught him and transmitted of the world: you are like everyone else and everyone is like you.

But this vision did not help - because where it acted as a protective barrier in his childhood (a barrier maintained by his parents), once immersed in the middle of the active world — this sea without landmarks — at only 14 years old, this vision represented more of an anchor that prevented Ranpo from moving forward.

« He didn’t understand others because he didn’t think he was special. He didn’t think he was special because he didn’t understand others, which only confirmed what his parents had told him. It was unyielding logic that fed off each other{…} »

He couldn't destroy what had been the truth to him for 14 years, especially when that truth was taught to him by the only people he loved and who understood him. And that truth was the only thing keeping his head above water.

And so Ranpo lived in a world where he thought everyone else could see what he saw but everyone pretended not to see because that's what adults do.

And we arrive to a very important new point in this blockage that Ranpo has towards himself and his own abilities; Ranpo is still a kid

He lived all his life isolated with his parents but that was enough, but here he is, released in the middle of the jungle at only 14 years old, in a world that he thinks he understands but which constantly sends back an illogical image to him.

« However, Ranpo still hadn’t realized that what he saw was only visible to him and him alone. He was still immature in that sense. »

Ranpo is a teenager, a very intelligent one yes, but still a teenager, of course he will show immaturity and not correct himself, because even if he suffers from it, it does not make sense for him to do that.

« If a kid like me was able to figure it out, then surely you and the police already noticed a long time ago, right? My mother never got tired of telling me, ‘You’re still just a kid.’ And I agree with her. I really don’t understand what adults are thinking. Sometimes I even doubt they know anything, but that’s not even possible.” »

« “You’re still just a kid.” Of course you don’t understand adults. Because adults are smarter than you. Is that what she meant? It’s not hard to understand why Ranpo’s parents drilled that into his head, at least to a certain degree, and yet… »

Ranpo fails to understand adults and we see that he has already suspected that adults do not see the same things as him but it was an impossible idea because the latter had been taught to him by his mother. This lie, which was meant to protect him, prevented him from accepting his hypotheses. Also the only adult example that Ranpo had in his life was his parents and his parents understood him, his parents were as smart as him, his parents knew. So of course, since this is the only image he has of adults, he cannot imagine another one.

It is as if he only knew the color red but was asked to visualize blue, impossible.

And the fact that the others around him are adults and he is a teenager doesn't help because his mother taught him that adults know best.

A child cannot fully understand adults because he is not smart enough to do so yet, there are some things that you only understand as an adult.

Ranpo's parents must have wanted to instill this value in him so that Ranpo would listen to them growing up and know that even if sometimes his life can diverge, an adult has experiences that allow him to better respond to a situation or how to behave.

But this vision of the adult should surely also help Ranpo to know how to behave if he had to face another adult, he should not be pretentious but respect him so as not to be scolded for no reason.

Especially since Ranpo was educated by his parents to go/fit with the others and to adapt his behavior (so as not to offend those who listen to him and keep a low profil).

« Uh… My father always said, ‘One day, you’re going to surpass your mother and me, and you’re going to win the admiration of all those around you. But now’s not that time. Stay humble and keep your silence. Always be modest. Just quietly observe and don’t hurt others with what you discover.’

…Or something like that. I don’t really know what he meant, though.” »

« My mother told me to never look down on others. »

Ranpo's parents taught him to be silent and they associated this silence with the respect and humility that children should show towards adults. This mechanism was still intended to protect Ranpo and his talent but this mechanism was meant to disappear over time, it was simply to help Ranpo not to make the world his enemy until he was big and mature enough to understand and accept his difference. But his parents were never able to break this mechanism (because they died before they could), leaving him with a defense mechanism that only increases his feeling of odds with others, which is what his parents had done everything to avoid.

"What good would that have done?" Ranpo replied as if he was offended. “You're all adults. Do something about it yourself. What good is asking a kid what he thinks is going to happen? Besides, everyone gets mad when I state the truth.” »

“There it was again. Fukuzawa felt as if something was off. “I have absolutely no idea what adults are thinking,” the kid said—and something about how that came across seemed vaguely wrong. »

Ranpo thinks it's normal for him not to understand adult behavior because he's still a child and he makes sure to remember that. In the novel, Ranpo often refers to himself as a child, because that is what he is, but he also very often puts this word in parallel with "adult", indicating the clear and sharp border that there is in his head. Of course Ranpo think this is the only difference capable of explaining why he does not see the world like the others because it’s the only one he found.

Because of all this, Ranpo doesn't understand others and goes through what his parents always wanted to prevent:

“Most people would probably chalk it up to powers of deduction, but…even if the average person couldn’t understand him, surely the reverse wouldn’t be possible, that he couldn’t understand them? There was a decisive discretion. »

"He didn't understand others because he didn't think he was special. He didn't think he was special because he didn't understand others, which only confirmed what his parents had told him. »

This vicious circle in which Ranpo has found himself trapped is a trap from which he cannot escape on his own because nothing proves to him that he is trapped because no one tries to understand and/or no one succeeds. And his inability to understand other people prevents him from thinking that he would be different, that he could be smarter because who considered himself intelligent if he couldn't solve an equation that everyone else did seem to know how to solve.

All of which brings us to our third point.

III/ The breaking point

“Ranpo was all alone. After losing his parents, he was thrown into a confusing world to wander without a path. He had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. He was merely surviving, existing. »

This sentence sums up very well the true state in which Fukuzawa found Ranpo, even if it was not apparent at first glance.

Ranpo was alone and this loneliness hurt him, broke him a little more every day and no one seemed to be able to understand him or answer him without coming into confrontation with his very precise idea of the reality that his parents had sown in him.

And that's where Fukuzawa's intervention comes in and saves Ranpo from a mental breakdown and the birth of, I think, a real hatred for everything around him.

We will now go into the beginning of an analysis of the parental figure parallel between Fukuzawa and Ranpo's parents and how they are both opposite and similar.

But also an analysis of the adaptation of the anime compared to the light novel.

“Ranpo’s eyes were ablaze with fury. “Seriously, why? It makes no sense to me. I don't understand anyone! Why are adults like this? Why is everyone like this? Someone, just tell me why!” he shouted. This outburst didn't just come out of nowhere. Doubt and stress had been swelling inside him for the longest time, waiting to explode. “I don't understand what anyone's thinking! I'm scared! It feels like I'm surrounded by monsters! It doesn't matter what I say—nobody understands me! My parents were the only ones who did, and they're dead!” This time, he was screaming—an anguished lamentation aimed at nowhere with clear animosity in his eyes”

This is how Ranpo's breaking point is translated in the book; a real cry of rage, a call for help filled with despair that can only be expressed with animosity and anger because the situation has been going on for so long, without any improvement, that only frustration can result.

And we can only understand: Ranpo was alone but and felt misunderstood since forever and the accidental death of his parents did not help to accept this situation.

We clearly feel a rage, a hatred buried in Ranpo that took root a long time ago and finally bloomed.

It's a last cry for help filled with raw, honest sentiments from a teenager who doesn't understand what he's doing wrong.

In the anime this distress isn't expressed in the same way, first because we don't really have time to dwell on all of Ranpo's emotional struggle as much as in the book and we don't have time either to explain how this pain is also related to the death of his parents, because the anime didn't show their importance in his education and growth as an individual.

In the anime, this cry for help comes more like a stifled cry, a surplus of emotion that fails to express itself. You can almost see it as a mechanism that Ranpo adopted; he wants to express what he feels but does not know how to make himself understood, so he is only able to collapse into almost complete silence with clenched teeth, relying only on himself; but he comes to the same conclusion again and again:

« "If there's a skill user here, save me! If there's an angel, then save me! Why must I be alone?! Why do I have to live alone in the middle of a bunch of monsters?” »

Ranpo wants to be saved no matter by whom and despite that all he sees are monsters around him.

And that pressure, those fears, that feeling of not understanding, that has built up over time is so strong in the book.

It's alluded to in a subtle way by all of Ranpo's mentions of his past failures to fit in with the rest. Until it has become too much to bare and take the form of a cry of rage during the opera.

I find that in the book, the oppression of this life that Ranpo has been leading for almost a year is very well illustrated and really supports the character's lost/desperation and how Ranpo was really a bomb ready to explode.

What makes this outburst of anger even more striking is that it is pure and genuine. It's a raw emotion that Ranpo can't express otherwise.

"This outburst didn't just come out of nowhere. Doubt and stress had been swelling inside him for the longest time, waiting to explode. “I don't understand what anyone's thinking! I'm scared! It feels like I'm surrounded by monsters! It doesn't matter what I say—nobody understands me! My parents were the only ones who did, and they're dead!” »

We really feel the broken state in which Ranpo is:

Ranpo has tried to accept himself and understand his environment but despite his best efforts nothing seems logical to him and the others only make fun of him.

This idea is all the sadder when we see how much the death of his parents and the resulting loneliness affects Ranpo on a daily basis: he is a child who does not know that he is special and who has lost the only ones capable of understanding him and giving him this sense of normality and all he feels now is that it's his fault.

Here Ranpo is just the image of a scared child crying for the comfort of his parents.

In the anime, I feel much less this aspect of total rupture; in the novel Fukuzawa compares Ranpo's situation to him being on the edge of an gulp, ready to jump at any moment.

However, even if this comparison is very accurate, it is not really what stands out in the anime.

Ranpo doesn't really seem angry with the outside world, he seems more scared and lost, suffocating in this illogical daily life.

The anime mostly kept this aspect and his impression of being misunderstood by the world, but it didn't really keep the frustration that Ranpo had been able to accumulate, because this frustration takes on more meaning if they had time to talk about Ranpo's parents and the education they gave their sons.

Ranpo doesn't understand the outside world?

In the anime it's because it's a world he had never known before the death of his parents, it's the world of adults and it's a world that seems illogical to him and this absence of logic frightens him, but there is no anger, why?

Because the past vision of Ranpo’s world has not been broken (or at least the situation has not been presented like that to the viewer).

Whereas in the novel Ranpo found himself in the middle of a strange and illogical world whereas until now it made perfect sense thanks to the presence of his parents. So it's easier to understand why in the book Ranpo is reacting angrily, it's because he's frustrated at not understanding what he understood so far and feels like everyone is laughing at him out of pure malice.

I can't say that I find the adaptation bad either, because even if it removed all this feeling of anger in Ranpo, I admit that the anime replacement of it with a feeling of a suffocating helplessness is pretty interesting.

It fills the most important spot; letting us understand just how suffocating was the life he led.

They're just two different expressions of his emotions and two different images of his character.

In the book, Ranpo tries to understand others and fails but he doesn’t accept his failures and it results in anger.

In the anime, Ranpo tries to understand others but fails and therefore forces himself to live with this anguish even it suffocates him until he breaks down.

Two different stages but which stem to an event necessary for the development of Ranpo: his breakdown.

Ranpo can no longer live with such a reality

Ranpo's parents also served to create anger in Ranpo and for me that anger seemed so important to show because it tells us so much about Ranpo and the pressure that has been on his shoulders, it is a part of him . And this anger is all the more bitter when you know that it's just the anger of a 14 year old teenager, it seems so legitimate and you can't help but have empathy for Ranpo because even for us all of this seems too unfair

However, no one told him, explained to him that his view of the world is wrong and that none of this is his fault.

Nobody knew or took the time to do so, before Fukuzawa arrived

That's why Fukuzawa takes on this role of father figure in Ranpo's eyes, because he fills the role that his parents couldn't assumed until the end.

The parallel is so strong and so much clearer in the book because Ranpo's parents are constantly mentioned and paralleled with what Fukuzawa is trying to do: help Ranpo to accept himself and live normally.

I think removing the scenes mentioning Ranpo's parents is a loss, since they are the ones who had the most influence on his life and they are the ones who made Ranpo think the way he does in the past. Especially the mention of the role of Ranpo's parents in his life and his development because they were also supposed to be a parallel with the role (of parent) that Fukuzawa will decide to take on in the life of the great detective and all this parallel was supposed to support that idea.

Which bring us to the last point of this post:

IV/ The birth of Ranpo's blind trust in Fukuzawa

The problem I have with the anime is that everything is very fast. But really very fast, because unfortunately we don't have time to dwell on what can be seen as detail / bonus.

Just as proof of this, the absence of Ranpo's tantrum from the theater is mostly, I think, a way to simplify the after discussion with Fukuzawa and gain time.

In the book Fukuzawa doesn't calmly lead Ranpo out of the room and the two leave with some annoyance towards each other.

The most noticeable difference is that Fukuzawa doesn't know how to help Ranpo right away, and it's not as easy for him to find the right words and solution to appease the young boy.

But mostly, Ranpo doesn't trust Fukuzawa so easily. Because even if he is surely one of the only adults who is ready to listen to him and try to understand him, Ranpo is not going to sweep away everything he believes in just because a “stranger” suddenly explains to him how it works.

Fukuzawa must gain Ranpo's trust before he is able to change him. And I find this scene so important because we see that Fukuzawa did not just arrive with a ready-made solution and easely eclipse everything Ranpo's parents built.

We learn that, this so important trust that Ranpo shows in the manga towards him, this loyalty was won by Fukuzawa and does not simply come from the fact that Fukuzawa has offered glasses and "his gift" to Ranpo

This scene makes us understand why Ranpo gives so much importance to Fukuzawa. Because even if he is the one who found a solution to his problem, he was, above all, able to gain a position of guidance figure, of a parental figure in the eyes of Ranpo.

He took the place of his parents.

But then why isn't this scene illustrated in the anime, when it explains and complicates Fukuzawa and Ranpo's relationship?

Well because of the lack of time, the absence of Ranpo's anger and the abscence of the "presence" of his parents in this conversation.

“My parents were amazing. There's no surpassing them to reach the top because they were the top. Neither of them ever told me once that I had a gift, and I believe them.” »

““Don’t think you can control me with a few compliments.” Ranpo slightly warned his gaze. »

In the book, Fukuzawa tries to get Ranpo to understand the truth by bringing up his parents but it doesn't work as Ranpo only sees it as compliments and more lies.

Ranpo loved his parents and his parents loved him, so it is very difficult to destroy what they have built, especially when Ranpo has only known Fukuzawa for two days in front of his parents who raised him with this love for 14 years.

Still symbolizing the importance of his parents in his life and the influence they have even after their deaths

“He was stubborn. The protective wall his parents created was thick. »

"If Fukuzawa didn't use just the right amount of force, then the damage would be irreparable. »

Fukuzawa must then turn to something else and he must above all be careful not to cross the line, which could break Ranpo.

And even though Ranpo is suspicious, Fukuzawa manages to offer him the start of a new perspective:

“Have you ever thought the people around you were stupid? That they were a bunch of fools who didn't understand a thing?” »

He achieves this by talking about a situation that Ranpo has faced before but does not accept because it goes against what his mother taught him.

But what allowed Fukuzawa to gain the ability to change Ranpo's point of view, what convinced Ranpo to listen to him and stop believing what his parents had taught him.

It's simply: his sincerity.

Whether in the anime or the book, it's Fukuzawa's sincerity that earns him some initial trust from Ranpo.

“Fukuzawa was not an eloquent speaker. He wasn't someone who could manipulate others with his words. There was only one card left up his sleeve that he could play. Sincerity. »

“Ranpo carefully observed his expressions. »

And Ranpo was able through his observation skills to understand this sincerity and to believe in it. It was this sincerity that marked the beginning of the deep relationship that would unite them.

It's almost ironic that Ranpo and Fukuzawa's relationship starts out on both a lie and a truth at their rawest.

“If you refuse to acknowledge your gift, you are no different from the bloodthirsty man I used to be. You must recognize your talents, especially now that your parents are gone.” »

“All he wanted was to be able to tell a little white lie so that this kid could see the simple truth. »

Thanks to this, Ranpo is ready for the first time to believe in something else, he wants to understand and is ready to accept Fukuzawa's explanation because he no longer sees him as someone who could manipulate him but as someone sincere.

“But—then tell me. What am I? What were my parents telling me? Make me understand why I'm here—why I'm like this. If you can do that, then I'll believe you.” »

That doesn't mean he has to deny everything his parents did for him and hate them, no, he just has to find a new interpretation for their behaviors.

Fukuzawa does not seek to antagonize Ranpo's parents and what Ranpo learned from them because they are not the enemies in the story. Ranpo just doesn't have to choose between their version and Fukuzawa's because Fukuzawa manages to make them cohabit between them and I think that helped Ranpo to accept that it's just because of a new factor (his skill) , awaken after the death of his parents that he began to no longer understand the world. It wasn't his fault, he was just unable to control his gift.

And so here come Fukuzawa's lie.

The situation is almost the same in the anime, except for the following:

In the anime, it looks like Fukuzawa thought about and came up with the idea of the ability use naturally, it felt so natural that I even thought it was weird when he tried to backtrack at the end of the episode.

But in the book Fukuzawa gives this answer in a rush because Ranpo gives him the chance to help him get better and that's what Fukuzawa wants to do.

“Ranpo was no longer sulking. Instead, he was honestly looking for an answer—something he'd never done before. And Fukuzawa was the only one who could give it to him. »

"Fukuzawa didn't have much time. If he let this chance go by, Ranpo would probably never seek answers again. »

“Anything would do. He just needed to say something. He had already used the ace up his sleeve: sincerity. He wasn't good at persuading others or speaking eloquently, either. He was even worse at lying. »

“As if by reflex, Fukuzawa said: “Because you’re a skill user.” »

Fukuzawa sincerely wanted to help Ranpo, but he was in a rush and was unable to come up with a more stable plan. It was his environment that influenced his choice. It may seem rash but what mattered for now was that Ranpo could accept that he was not the one missing something but that the situation was reversed: the rest of the world was missing something.

“{…} and the only way to breakthrough was to shine light on something completely new. Something different. »

This status of skill user had become the new beacon in Ranpo's life, it was thanks to this that he could navigate in the middle of this sea filled with lack of logic.

That's why Ranpo clings so much to his status as a skill user at the start of the manga, because it's the only truth that was able to save him and given to him by the one person he has been able to believe.

This was new data that Ranpo didn't know about until the theater incident, so he never got to consider this possibility on his own, which makes the situation perfect for Fukuzawa.

"Yours (skill) is the reason why you're in pain and why everyone seems like a monster." “…???” Ranpo was at a loss. He blinked in silent confusion. »

And even then, Ranpo still doubts, because he doesn't understand why he would be special, because his parents always made him realize that he wasn't but Fukuzawa manages to justify that.

“Your skill awakened when your parents died. »

In the anime Fukuzawa remains calm but Ranpo accepts this "explication" much more quickly whereas in the book, even if Fukuzawa keeps a straight face, he moves forward guided by his impulses and his only goal: to help Ranpo get out of his cocoon.

He must insist, explain, and convince Ranpo of what he is saying.

“Fukuzawa gave thanks to his daily training. He had no idea what he was saying, but his heart was racing, and cold sweat dripped from his palms. Nevertheless, his expression was completely still. »

“Any hesitation in a fight with real swords could lead to death. The enemy must never get the chance to observe your eyes and predict your next move. That was why Fukuzawa was naturally able to keep a straight face, was feeling anguished or terrified. »

And it is with this calm and perseverance that Fukuzawa manages to convince Ranpo of his new status.

But the book shows us the complexity of how Fukuzawa became someone so important to Ranpo and where this blind loyalty comes from.

Then comes the moment when Fukuzawa finds an object to allow Ranpo to focus: the famous glasses.

This symbol of the sincerity and trust that unites their relationship is also the symbol of its basis / of how it all began.

It's a rebirth for Ranpo

« “{…}repeated Fukuzawa as if he were imprinting that thought on a newly born chick’s mind. »

But what matters is that Fukuzawa managed to help Ranpo and that he understands what is really happenning and who he really is.

« "Isn't it all clear now? The world isn't a frightening place. Everyone else isn't a monster. They're just stupider than you." Ranpo caught his breath. He traced his finger around the glasses' frames as he weighted. “But… No, could it be…? »

#bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs the untold origins of the detective agency #ranpo edogawa #fukuzawa #bungou stray dogs fukuzawa #bungou stray dogs the untold story of the detective agency #bungo stray dogs the untold origins of the detective agency spoilers #ranpo's parents #analysis #book vs anime #bungou stray dogs season 4 #bungou stray dogs season 4 spoilers #just me rambling #English is not my native language #so I apologize in advance if my speech go in circle or sometimes seems disjointed #and of course it remains an analysis and the discussion on everything I put forward remains open #bsd #bsd spoilers #bsd analysis

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kvothbloodless · 11 months

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As someone who’s followed you for a long time, and a fellow writer….do you genuinely support chatGPT? Even if it has been proven to scrape people’s writings without their consent? And the fact that its a soulless husk of what actual writing is?

So Ive done my best to avoid AI discourse, but I am bad at it. So to put it clearly.

I dont Support chatgpt specifically. Its a program made by a corporation because they can make a profit from it, and curtail its capabilities in line with their goals. I use it sometimes because its fun ans convenient, but I dont pay for it or anything. I think pretty much all legitimate concerns about AI are really just concerns about corporate ethics, at which point the AI specifically becomes irrelevant

I also dont really think the situation in general is one where "support" is the right word to use; its like asking if I support cameras.

I want to be clear im not trying to be vague though; i think in general AI is pretty cool, and that 99% of the arguments against it are factually incorrect, based on inconsistent or bad moral frameworks, or both. Im not going to get into all the reasons AIs are cool, since I dont feel up to doing a Big AI Post, but I do want to gesture vahuely in the direction of how much more accessible this makes artistic creation and experimentation, and all the insanely fun things people can use AI for. However, i do want to address the common arguments against it, especially since it feels like a lot of people are just misinformed and falling into the very easy tumblr trap.

1. Scraping fics without consent: if you post something on a public site for the public to read, and someone downloads it to read it, its not stealing. Tumblr is generally pretty firmly against strict copywrite laws, so its a bit weird that so many people are Very concerned about AIs "stealing" their work in a way thats even less direct than fanfiction. Like, "your writing is so in character" and "wow youre really good at imitating the authors writing style" are common compliments on fics.

To be clear, there are absolutely ways of interacting with free public content thats bad (like reposting). But AIs arent frankensteining stuff together, or copy pasting anything; they literally could not do that. The training/model files are so insanely tiny compared to the amount of training data that it would be impossible for them to be storing that sort of thing. An AI learning from your writing isnt really any different than a human reading your writing, going "oh I like that" subconsciously, and using that to inform their future writing.

Whats that quote about "to get better at writing, read more"? If you believe that statememt is accurate, then Im a bit confused how youd be upset about an AI "reading" your writing and learning from it?

All of the Actual ways this could be used badly (copying someones art style and then selling art cheaper, etc.) arent actually unique to AI (a person can also do that!), and also usually arent really a thing thats happening enough to be a problem (most people who want art from an artist enough to commission them, are going to want it to actually be done By that artist). Using AI to make an original work, or even to finish a fanfic someone else wrote, is no more theft than if you did it by yourself.

2. "Soulless Husk": im sorry im genuinely trying my best here to be gentle and respectful, but this talking point genuinely makes my blood boil a bit, so im not trying to get personal or insult anyone specifically. Claiming that art made by humans is automatically deeper, that art is all about Meaning and Struggle, comes off as extremely pretentious and just doesnt engage with the reality of art. Im having trouble articulating a good argument here, but like. Art doesnt have to be deep, it doesnt have to have a Message, and the necessity of struggling in order to learn about and create art is an unequivocable bad thing.

Many many people make art (visual, written, etc.) becuase they want to see or read something cool or because they think others will find it fun. Many many people who would like to create art do not do so because it requires talent/practice that they are not willing to put the time and effort into developing, and this is not a moral issue. As Ive said before, laziness is a virtue and self-indulgance is a goal we should aspire to. Using a tool to make the incredibly fun act of creating easier and more accessible is awesome.

Also, who gets to define what "actual art" is? Genuinely seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous to declare that something is or is not "actual art" based on your own preferences.

The posts that Really annoy me are the ones that are like "cant understand the people RPing or playing a TTRPG with AI becuz its soulless. I only ever RP with other people because the fun part is being social or collaberatively building story" or whatever. Cool. I rp and play tabletops because i like to have fun and I enjoy those activities. Im gonna be honest, i find it a bit offensive and kinda.. dumb, to act like its somehow morally superior to only enjoy oneself in a way that Builds Community or Has A Meaning. People do meaningless things because they enjoy doing them and so long as no one is being hurt, thats fine.

3. Replacing workers: This is the only argument that has Any weight, but its still a bad argument. Its absolutrly true that AI is gonna put people out of work. The fact that more people will be out of work and struggling is a bad thing. This is also what happens when literally any new technology is developed, dating all the way back to the industrial revolution (at the Very latest). Automation is almost always a massive net benefit to humanity (im aware this topic could be its own series of posts but You Know What I Mean, please dont start industrialization discourse here), and the fact that it puts people out of work isnt actually an argument against it. Lots of radio operators lost their job when telephones were invented, but that doesnt mean people should have never used the telephone and obstinately stuck with radios. When phone technology advanced, a lot of phone operators lost their jobs, but that doesnt mean people were Morally Wrong to use the new developments that made phones far more convenient.

As in all things, el problema es capitalismo; AI isnt preventing anyone from doing art, its just reducing how many people can get paid to do their art. The correct solution to automation putting people out of work is not to stop the wheel of tech development, but to change society so that one doesnt have to slave away in order to survive.

This also raises the adjacent point, which is that halting tech development like this is impossible. Once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in. AI tech is going to develop and become more widespread and theres literally nothing you can do to stop that. If you want to be upset about that, its your perogative ig, but im gonna be excitedly waiting for the dam to break and we get an open source LLM that I can use without worrying about data privacy or corporate filters, so I can have fun and RP however much I want and finally be able to write the stuff I want to write but cant do on my own because I have adhd and chronic fatigue, and Id kinda prefer if people stopped trying to rain on my parade because they think im not having fun or creating art in the "right way".

EDIT: I did want to add one more thing! A US court ruled that you cant copywrite something created completely by an AI, and i think thats an awesome move and I hope it gets expanded a bit and spreads elsewhere. This isnt a position based on whether something produced in this way counts as "real art" or is morally bad or whatever, I just think that reducing corporate and IP grasp on anything is good, and that AI specifically is going to be most enjoyable when its free and open source.

#AI #discourse #im genuinely happy to discuss this so feel free to send more asks or reply #but im turning off reblogs because im not a fan of online discoursing

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abimee · 4 months

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so tbh i was hard on nier:a while playing it cos i don't really like a lot of the anime tropes BUT i really like tragedies and i was promised some twists, and got some. but i wanted to ask you how you felt about the pacing. basically, did it feel like there was a solid line connecting plot points, or do you feel like certain things happened at random? barring the fact that yoko taro said he literally wrote the story out of order, is that how it felt to you? imo it felt really rushed through super cool parts and like things that were annoying or setpieces ran on for too long. ig i'm still fked up over how much it fell short of my expectations bc even after playing nier:a completely thru and h8ing how absurdly film-student its tone and ideology are, i was hyperfixated enough to read some of the side literature and learn drakengard lore. tl;dr, nier:a is cool and has some fun parts but i wish the android were more mature (or artificial) in physicalilty to avoid weird anime loli baiting in the fans and also they'd asked a writer to help revise and implement the og author's ideas okay bye thx for reading my rant ♡ i'm glad u had fun and ur fanart abt a2 and the indoor grill made me cough

ill gladly listen to people bitch about yoko taro ive had PROBLEMS with this man since a young age ☝️☝️☝️☝️

I was actually thinking about the pacing and insertion of certain scenes/plot points today because admittedly like. okay this might be all over the place but

The start of the game (Route A + B) was like pretty solid pacing I think due to being low risk, and I thought it was cool that the game let you see 9S' side of things --- but it really started to fumble when it got into it's moe complex storylines in C-D-E and went on to deposit a lot of information on it to the point where it felt like we were forgetting entire plots and characters because something new and shiny showed up

Like okay first off. Adam and Eve and the aliens. We never once got any sort of explanation WHY adam + eve killed the aliens, or why the aliens made the machines, but within that general thought we did learn that humans died before going to the moon (and possibly even before the aliens came?), and that YoRHa's only goal was to fight the machines until a specified amount of data was gotten and then they were to explode. Never did we get more elaboration on the aliens or adam/eve, and while we got some YoRHA spotlight stuff it also entirely just decided that explaining the true mission behind making YoRHa and why the androids had to die is beyond it. Which frustrated me because it Brings Up Ideas but doesn't specify if thats the true reason, like we learned that the machines fight purely because that was there sole reason, and so they made an enemy for themselves purely to enact that goal that the aliens gave --- but then it even goes ''haha okay but hear me out'' and introduces Red Girl and this vague idea of the Machine Ego and wanting to defy their masters of the aliens, but then DOESN'T ELABORATE WHY. Like we don't know WHY adam and eve and the machine ego wanted to develop enough to defy their machine logic and purpose because it wraps back around to ''theyre human just like us because they want to defy their masters because.... they're human like us?"

Like it often felt like some concepts or plots brought up walked itself in a circle, dog-chasing-tail style, where it's entirely contained within itself and refuses to expand upon it's existence, which then causes it to get sort of left behind when the plot finds a new fancy idea to latch onto. Like how quickly the story introduced, focused on, then discarded Adam & Eve is almost criminal because of the things it could've done with them literally as the closest approximation to what the Machine Ego/Red Girls wanted, since they defied their creator's orders to be their own selves. Eve especially feels wasted in this regard --- like if the plot spent a little more time focusing on Eve & Adam in a B-plot scenario showing Eve and Adam learning more from humans and even leaning into Eve's wants that we saw in his mind when 9S hacked him (the human home built around him and his brother, and his brother wanting to go somewhere peaceful with him). Like they even could've tied that to when they get on the Ark and leave and Adam is holding Eve, that's literally Adam bringing Eve somewhere peaceful, but because those two instances are so seperated from each other and their own sort of throw-away concepts it becomes hard to Remember the tether between those two thoughts

This is also my biggest problem with A2's writing, I can only assume she's meant to be a Kaine-type character (and boy did my eyes momentarily widen seeing Emil say ''it must be fate that we've met!" to her) where her reserved nature and somewhat limited character blends in with her personality, but they really could've just given us like at least 2 more hours-game to learn about her past rather than just infodump us with her lore in some logs at the Resistance Camp. This is another problem Red Girl had where I feel like the fact you get unit data on them that basically explains away the confusing parts of their involvement in the lore felt cheap because this game has over 40+ hours under it's belt but couldn't be damned to give us information on our main antagonist directly in the game instead of in a post-credit LOG?

Like okay. I love my baby boy emil. He is the most special boy in the world to me and I am so happy seeing him get a pretty decent character arc for himself in the sequel to his original iteration. But why do we learn information about Emil more easily than the Red Girls? No unit data paragraph, no document information to read, no external book needing to be sourced. You learn whats up with him, why his big event out in the desert happens, and how it ends. You even get TWO special areas involving him. Red Girl gets to speak for a little bit and then vanish. It just astonishes me a bit

And it's not like the game doesn't try to expand characters last-minute either, that entire cutscene where Pascal reads Nietszche and then gets surrounded by the baby machines before the events of the Factory/suicide felt so forced in suddenly that it felt rather obvious something was going to happen. And I say this as someone who was in tears seeing Pascal get called ''uncle Pascal'' and see him defend the children in the factory --- it was super obvious that they possibly didn't originally plan that scene but needed something to really show that Village acted just like a human community with children and babysitters and family. Like not to be like ''this couldve been something beautiful'' but i think giving us a little time between A2 and the Village more could've done something beautiful. A2 getting the necessities to build the slide definitely made me drop to my knees but I noticed even the LPer was confused why A2 had a crying child inside of her as her enemy at the end of the hacking (like how 9S had 2B at the end of his destroying his memories), but the game didn't do anything with that besides lightly imply A2 lets down her mean bit for children sometimes (and again. why is this Kaine behavior). And then the fucking laughing children sound at the end of the route where she hacks 9S and she looks to the sky like ? This is all very interesting but it doesnt mean anything.

NOT TO MENTION 2B BEING AN EXECUTIONER TYPE. COOL CONCEPT BUT IT DOESNT MEAN ANYTHING IN THE END. It's just another thing to tack onto 9S's migraine of learning everything is a lie but nothing gets DONE with that incredibly interesting though afterwards because we never see 2B after that because she's been dead for a while now. We had a brief hint at it when we heard that transmission of 2B being her new name but the payoff just doesn't work if you just state it and then not do anything with it.

There's many cases of this and I notice it with how much questions I have that simply have no answer in this game despite the fact we have nearly 5 routes worth of time that could've gone into either sticking to like 3 ideas to the end or bridging the gaps, Which the story Does Do Sometimes! Red Girl talking about fucking up its own network to make pacifistic machines that want nothing to do with the war, the lie of YoRHA

OH MY GOD ALSO. SPEAKING OF RANDOMLY PUSHING STUFF IN. OPERATOR 210. The fact that they wanted to pull the whole ''she was curt and distant with 9S but secretly saw him as like a son because she wanted a family :(" could've gone INSANE if they didn't decide they wanted to bring that idea in at the last possible second and make 210 randomly baby 9S (and then make him point out how strange she's acting), and then ignore that until we get to the cutscene that they wanted to make for it. Like they could've had 210 start out as curt and distant, but as 9S operations with 2B got more dangerous she could've started laying on the doting mother thing, but it just came so abruptly in Route.....C? That it felt forced and rather last-minute, like they finished writing A and B and someone walked in and went ''wait I want 210 to see 9S as her son :(" and this is how they crammed it in

oh this post isnt even about the pacing i'm just talking about dead end plot concepts. But I can definitely see where you're coming from there because we spent an awfully long time with the Resistance only to know so little about them, but it defos felt more ''a lot of stuff is getting brought up but we dont have enough time to give it developing room because we want to bring in the next concept asap". A2, the forest king, Red Girl, hell even Pascal and Adam & Eve all suffer this. the only person who really got a steady character Was 2B and 9S but 2B felt like she got cut short and just became a puppet for 9S' plot which is so tiring how often we get dual man/woman protags and the woman's story just becomes part of the man's story and she becomes a nebulous concept. that yoko taro brand Misogyny

I SPENT AN HOUR TYPING THIS? I haven't even gotten to how I feel like 9S' plot feels like it was destined for something more but got bottlenecked for time and cut off at the like 80% mark

I can definitely feel that though of feeling like Nier:a didn't meet expectations, when I finished all the routes and the playlist i was watching just Ended I genuinely sat up and bed and just felt a deep sense of ''THAT'S IT? THATS ALL?"

it's crazy too because I really, REALLY loved what it had going and im going to be thinking about this game forever but it also just left me feeling like i'm missing something so badly that when I try to think about it sometimes my mind just draws blanks like im left speechless at it.

Like that was nier: automata? that was just 40 hours of being asked what it means to be alive

#im not even gonna talk about what it tries to say philosophically because i can see its trying to say some stuff #but it sometimes get drowned out with the incessant need to do what mr taro games do and just make shit feel bad #and i love tragedies. but it can be heavyhanded when done by his devs sometimes #AGAIN THIS ISNT ME SAYING THE GAMES BAD. I LOVED IT A LOT BUT MAN. WHAT THE HELL

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jbird-the-manwich · 5 months

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What are you most proud of this year?

oOo that's a hard one. maybe my grimoire system. I did write a file format and a handful of text parsers for it, and I've not designed a memory optimized data format with a functioning import/export entirely from scratch before, so I guess that counts as a milestone!

Also, not as polished, but the last few nights between sleeps and sickliness ive been working on learning the 6502 architecture, and so far my first from-scratch project is a geomancy chart generator targeting the Nintendo, - it's damn near finished, though this is all that's visible from where I left off last night, I do now have a functional (if vram buffer agnostic atm) interface and input system. the underlying code is based on the algorithm Agrippa detailed in Of Geomancy, rather than the usual and computationally very different "init a pseudo random from system time and thats it, thats the program" approach generally employed in divination through digital means - and I feel like that might be the bug in the soup that is digital divination - that it is simply not in general implemented in software in a way that accurately models the process. But with the right algorithm im confident this can be changed >:] also lookit these cute ass graphics:

I've developed a lot of theories over the years about digital divination and how it might suck less. this has lead to designing and now, implementing, a lot of new algorithms that are computationally just plumb off the wall. but as math and low level programming goes, it doesn't get lower stakes than my silly little pseudoscience, so, that's been hugely fun and very good for the winter blues.

I'm also still very much in the design phase for it, I have a few ideas for implementation, but once I have more software ready *to* test, I'd like to integrate quantum randoms and see if that alters the subjective "correctness" of the readings I subject myself to. I expect it won't, but I could be very wrong, and while my first experiments will likely feature QRNG devised by reading noise across a busy internal circuit, I do have to admit there is something very compelling to the idea of using a light sensor to grab ambient photons as raw data for true randoms that are processed and presented by software but originate from outside the system itself, shaped and altered by external circumstance *before* reaching the system, rather than being the result of a purely deterministic, and often repeatable or otherwise low quality number generator, usually one that ships with the standard library, and which is the whole backend of most divination apps but is where the least design effort seems to occur.

sorry for the book lol I guess I've a lot to talk about!!! <3

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scarsmood · 2 years

Text

Kintypes

So today I’m coming around and have been reevaluating what I think my kintypes are and what’s up with that jazz. Previously I’ve been able to get away with im a threatening wolf with a variety of ramus and finnis types using the kinnixus system.

I believe I may have some solid seperate kintypes now after exploring further. Now that I’ve been in wolf packs for awhile as well that has taught me a lot about my own kintype after interacting with so many good bois.

So i have hunch I am may be a T-rex. I have a spinosaurus ramustype but have been really questioning if it was its own kintype. Why do I think it’s a trex? After learning T-rexs move in packs for their lifetime, have strong parental bonds, have large territories they maintain. They swim which is a huge one and live on the coast/ jungle.

I assumed i was a jurassic park spinosaurus but there were so many things missing like having a pack, or maintaining a large territory, the jurassic park trex or any information i heard about trex didnt sell it to me that they were even remotely near bodies of water let alone able to swim. They also seemed solitary and had feathers which I definitely did not vibe with.

Prehistoric planet really gave me the information I was looking for. Which sucks because I’ve been looking on my own but never learned any of this which feels upsetting but ill let that go lol. So I think Trex may be its own audix type with its own ramustypes that are other dinosaurs. I definitely feel a strong aspect of kentrosaurus for a long time because it is a dinosaur that had strong herds and were like elk. With the information learned about Trex that aspect feels totally intergrated for the most part and the identity of trex feels like it can hold its own weight.

The issue with a prehistoric identity is I can’t read books about their behavior. It’s mostly up to my discretion and the most up to date data which is fucking terrifying and the main reason ive put off saying i am a real dinosaur. Because evodence for the prehistoric changes so often and so frequently it feels very unstable and definitely like i cant be confident in the identity. Prehistoric planet feels well rounded enough that i feel comfortable saying im a trex and not panicing about what if new data comes out that basically invalidates my experience or i learn something and think “i know i said i do x behaviour but this new y behavior sounds much more realistic so ill jump to that” feels very not fun.

So thats Trex. Big chonky dog. Rumbly boy. I’m gonna be offically adding that to my kintype list. I am going to have to seperate my threatening wolf and trex kinnixus systems as two audix types mostly its just going to be anything dinosaur related falls under trex.

I also think I have an object kin audix type. I don’t know what the object is though. Since I have object shifts so frequently and so easily I really think it’s a strong audix kintype but I don’t know what it is. It’s been very satisfying as a subset of ramus and finnis types since i learned im functionally blind, hearing impaired, and have a hard time processing information when im overwhelmed or excited. All my object kin experiences are still related to being a threatening wolf/ parasite. I haven’t found that perfect object that encapsulates how I feel yet. If I had to go off vibes it would probably be either hostile architecture, a totem/ carving of significance, a fossil, a living fossilized skeleton actually might be pretty close or it. Oops. That might be it cause i never considered that lmao.

I’ll think on that. But actually that might just be it now that im writting it out proper. If it a living fossilized skeleton as an audix type then i can also shift my other experiences incase some of my tgreatening wolf ramus or finnis types are related. I dont think they are tbh.

Also think I have a planet audix type. This isn’t to new! I have had a large carnivores plant kintype for awhile. Hell. Im even making a minecraft mod for it. I think that may be its own kintype again since i relabeled it as a ramus type. It just doesn’t fully fit and I think it stand on its own and holds it own weight. I love being a not so little guy and sitting in the sun and eating animals that pass by. Its a simple life.

So to recap-

New updates to my identity patch 1.14.35 /s

-Threatening wolf and dinosaur ramus and finnis types will be seperated and put under a Trex audix type

-carnivous planet audix type re-added instead of being a ramus type

- object kin as a living fossilized skeleton added

- 4 kin types in total now. Threatening wolf, T-rex, carnivorous plant, living fossilized skeleton

I am heavily considering making a prehistoric based otherkin server! If there’s interest let me know! I will add another post later on to gauge interest.

#otherkin #therian #werewolfkin #trex kin #fossil kin #plant kin #threatening wolf kin #dinosaurkin

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raevenlywrites · 2 years

Note

Hi Raev. I was wondering do you or maybe anybody following know some good tips for coping with depression? I don't have money for therapy but it is getting harder. I'm getting older and not really enjoying life anymore and I'm always tired and unmotivated.

Hi Nonny,

I am also in the "don't have money for therapy" boat, but I have found some things that help. Some work better than others, and some days it's easier than others. Imma throw a long list at you, so feel free to skim til you find something you like:

Make a list of things that make you feel happy - doesnt matter if they seem stupid. When you're depressed, literally ANY crumb of joy is worth chasing. At worst, it was usually music. There's some songs it's just impossible to not smile at (hint: those songs CHANGE for me so I try to keep the list updated) Having the list helps lower the start up energy, which means you're more likely to do it because it doesn't seem as impossible.

Keep a mood tracker - doesn't have to be elaborate. I have an email thread I send myself. I don't fill it out often- and in fact, I fill it out More when I'm down than when I'm up. But having the concrete data that it doesn't always feel as bad as it does now helps me a lot. It gives me ammo for this next one

Practice being aware of your mood - Allie Brosh did a comic about a "sneaky hate spiral" that really resonated with me. A lot of my really bad days started out okayish, and got worse and worse without me noticing. Learning to be more aware of your moods gives the opportunity to self talk your way out of them - like the above where I could coach myself through by saying "I don't ALWAYS feel this awful, even though right now it feels like everything has always been awful and will always be awful". I *think* this is the sort of thing you'd learn from a therapist, but as ive never had one, I can't say for sure (but I'm pretty sure this is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps some things and exacerbates others, so don't sweat it if this doesn't seem to help)

Sleep and exercise - I know I know everyone always suggests this one, but seriously. Trying to tackle mental health without a fully charged up physical health makes the battle harder. Just remember that exercise can be fun things - I like to dance, just ridiculous little butt wiggles (usually to one of the happy making songs from above)

Crowd source your therapy - like reaching out to me for advice, there is absolutely nothing wrong with talking to and reading advice from folks who have experience with what you're tackling. I've made huge strides managing my whatever-undiagnosed-neurodivernt-brain-goo I have by reading ADHD and autism posts and going "oh dang me too". You don't have to have the label to find the toolkit useful. It can be hard to find folks who's practices work for you, so don't be shy to try things on and only keep them if they work for you

I hope this helps, Nonny. I'm proud of you for asking, and for trying. That's the hardest thing to do, when it all seems like so much. You did good, and I'm proud of you :)

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livingbutamireally · 1 year

Text

AY2022/2023 Y4S1 Module Reviews

I have been putting this off for awhile and have been writing this over the span of a few weeks truthfully maybe even a month. I have no idea what is it in this semester but i get tired just from doing absolutely nothing. We already knew but the transition from work back to school wasnt easy at least for me couldnt remember some of the coding stuff i used to have at my fingertips. But i guess there was enough mods for me to practice them over so it didnt take too long for me to get back on my feet. Feels so surreal that its finally my last modreg season actually....

Without further ado the

Overview

LAJ2201 Japanese 2

GEH1016 Understanding Consumption

BT4103 Business Analytics Capstone Project

BT4212 Search Engine Optimization and Analytics

BT4222 Mining Web Data for Business Insights

LAJ2201 Japanese 2

Lecturer

Kitai S., Amazaki O.

Textbooks

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Main textbook Second Edition (SGD42.00)

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Translation & Grammatical Notes in English Second Edition (SGD33.00)

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Hyoojun Mondaishuu Second Edition (SGD18.00)

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Kanji Eigoban Kanji (English Edition) Second Edition (SGD32.00)

Prices are how the school vendor charges, if you can source cheaper ones outside feel free to get those instead! You will need Hyoujun Mondaishuu in physical copy so please get that at the very least.

Weightage

Term Test 1 Performance i dont know if im allowed to share this info tbh here goes nothign

Ave highest full mark

Kanji & Vocabulary 8.3 10 10

Grammar 1 Particles 5.9 8 8

Grammar 2 True or False 4.4 6 6

Grammar 3 Finding errors 2.5 6 6

Reading 7.6 10 10

Listening 7.5 11 12

Term Test 2 Components *performance not revealed

Kanji + Katakana Grammar 1 (particle) Grammar 2 (true/false) Grammar 3 (conjugation) *new Grammar 4 (finding error) Reading Listening

Review

honestly LAJ has been very exciting for me personally if not one of the most fun moments ive had in nus. sure 1 sem is barely enough for you to ground yourself in the fundamentals of a language and of course interest far supersedes any kind of effort u put in because it is not the hours u put into it that count, but rather the passive picking up of things as u go along. sounds cheesy as hell that is probably true. anyways laj has been nothign short of enjoyable despite the really tight timeline plus very consistent schedule of always being on the grind for submissions. the workload really IS a lot and its very time consuming so i have to think hard if i really want to take this next sem. honestly as someone whos been into this hellhole for awhile, learning it formally is still really different from anything ive been doing on my own (watchign etc).... like i didnt know i still have so much i dont know??? ok tbf i came in with no grammar knowledge other than the basic の and と that any seasoned otaku would know so i struggled Hard.. but i think the experience of learning with new friends really ive made eased it in so much for me... i love it.. 1000/10 would recommend if ur already into the culture idt u have anything to lose?? idt i did well throughout tbh as in weekly quizes ive got a lot of 6/10s but on days where i studied 30 mins before the class i get 9/10 so do what u got to do ig. my term test perf wasnt very good either so im not getting my hopes up despite me taking this module with the intentions to bring my gpa up.

for the drill every week theres 1 lecture, 2 tutorials. the lecture goes through one chapter of the minna textbook which includes both a set of vocabulary and some grammar rules. for tut A u got to hand in the kanji homework and theres a vocab quiz too in class that u need to prep before hand. tut A also goes through renshuu C-1 and C-2 dialogues usually. And every sun there are prep quizes for both vocab and kanji due, this preps u for the in class quiz can retake as many times to perfect ur score. for tut B u got to hand in the hyoujun mondaishuu (physical) for the previous weeks lecture and they go through more speech patterns covered in renshuu C-3 usually. Renshuu C is where u find the dialogues that you will need again for the oral interview basically memory work. Oral interview pairs u with a classmate and u guys take turns to talk, what is tested is the same as renshuu C just under different context/setting. sometimes theres additional hw to submit for shadowing (recording urself repeating the dialogue right after a recorded dialogue), writing (short compo) and reading (comprehension). When its nearing term tests, u will get a listening quiz the week before tt iirc the stuff are said only ONCE so if u zone out then byebye. The term test itself also has a listening component which is basically the same drill again for god knows why. other than that we had this online exchange session pretty fun with other jp uni students zoom n chat kind of thing then a presentation on ur exchange in w13. Pretty fun time passes too fast in laj honestly it made my week go by too fast (spend too much time doing jp).

GEH1016 Understanding Consumption

Professor Dr. Hendrik M.

Weightage

Content

Introduction - Thinking about Consumption

Geographies of Consumption

Consumption in History

Economics and Consumption

Business and Consumption

Psychology and Consumption

Society and Consumption

Cultures of Consumption

Politics and Consumption

Ethics of Consumption

Environment and Consumption

Internet and Consumption and Conclusions

Conclusions

Review

Took this as a ue just for the sake of a ue.. i saw the reviews saying its essay based sparks flew jk i think its like any other ge tbh the lectures go through consumption as viewed from the various disciplines, assumptions et cetera et cetera its like a content kind of mod? i skipped most of the later half of the lectures because my schedule was really so bad i needed more time for my other mods priorities right and i didnt do any of the readings theres just too much and im not that much of a reader i know.. attention span lasts for at msot 5s and these readings are like 30 pages on average long some weeks theres 2 readings i simply cant wiht the reading.. other than that u kind of just need to know what they are covering in the lectures so i should be safe..crossing my fingers.... tutorial wise its kind of seminar style? the tutor is able to talk a lot out of nothing sometimes which amazes me...its very nothing module idh a better word low effort ish? just sometimes we need to present and stuff in our groups for the tutorials and the final presentation on our location of research and findings..class part alright... essay is some reflection paper on what has been taught i think it wsa week 4/5 ish then group project is any location of your choice to study on the different perspectives of consumption and a bit of research u come up with this academic paper (tutor is very niao about the citation style and stuff so please be careful) then the original written finals by some reason i dont rmb became a take home final essay which is better for me since more time (not really for me cause AFA LOL) anyways shitted out the paper a day before submissions and still alive so...

BT4103 Business Analytics Capstone Project

Professor Um S.Y., Hahn J.P.

Weightage

Individual Component Consultation Participation 25% Weekly logs 10% Group Component Presentations + Project deliverables 50% Client Satisfaction 15%

Note: The score for the teamwork component of your grade will be normalised based on your contribution to the team, which will be determined via a peer evaluation process and a client satisfaction survey at the mid/end of the semester

Schedule

Lectures for this mod only happened once during the start of the sem, on nusmods its a 3h long one but dw that only will occur just once. Following weeks will be a 30min consult that is set at the convenience of the group and the prof/TA can be held on another day as well really up to you. So at the start there was about 20 (?) projects on the portal they will brief you during that initial lecture and you can go in to look at the descriptions of the deliverables if it aligns with your groups interest. You bid for them by ranking the 20 projects and the assignment of groups to their projects is on fcfs basis (other than by rank) so please manage the time for bidding well if you want to get the project of your choice. Yeah and then you get to exchange contacts with your company etc to for an introduction of the expected work proper. After that you kind of really just liaise back and forth with your company on the submission, and every week the profs will check in with you on your progress, any doubts/challenges etc etc basically a slot to update on your work. There is a weekly log submission too due Fri 12pm where u outline your contributions in a doc to be submitted. Other than that for the presentations, there is an interim one nearing recess week and a final one in week 13. Interim was online/physical at your choice even though they did not make it very clear and finals is definitely physical with your project sponsors as well. Tip is to make sure u choose projects that you definitely have stuff to talk about.... if its too easy its a bit hard to make your project and value of work delivered look substantial enough....

BT4212 Search Engine Optimisation and Analytics

Professor Jin C.

Weightage

Class participation 5%

In-class quiz 5%

Homework assignments and group project 40%

Final exam 50%

Content

Keywords research, Google ranking algorithm updates, on-page/off-page SEO, randomized experiment design, A/B test, ranking algorithm, data mining and ml methods

Review

This actually is still a pretty interesting module even up till now but i especially rmb telling another friend how the content isnt dry like the other modules well till i was proven wrong with the experiment design flashbacks to ger1000 but overall i think its still pretty interesting the prof also is very engaging as in he talks in a way that captures your attention? or at the very least isnt very monotonous and he does put in the effort to come up with very relevant analogies amidst all the inevitably dry content Oh the reason why i was impressed was i actually finally understand?? the source material?? like snaps fingers enlightenment kind of thing???? hes actually really good at conveying the material without making it seem like the daunting insurmountable mountain... the first few weeks are fine though they ease u in wiht all the motivations behind efforts to improve seo ranking and the google ranking updates which are very interesting to learn about.. the ranking algo and ml parts are towards the end after week 7 and things start to get a bit haywire because its suddenly knee dip into matrices (after 3 years) and stuff solving eigenvectors (i thought we moved on from maths) </3 then towards the end the usual ml recap all over again this is good since most bt mods does a ml refresher over the models and stuff again so its a good recap or even does a good job introducing for those who are touchnig these for their first time.

The quizes kind of didnt happen until after week 7 iirc theres only 2 for our sem its a 5 mcq luminus quiz kind of thing and its all ctrl-f-able open book so try to get 5/5 for these. The homework assignments are also more congregated towards the second half of the sem so just manage your time well and expect these to take up some keyword some of your time. There are 4 of those in total, the first is a simple writeup pretty much no biggie then the remaining 3 are coding assignments but most of it u would have the pseudocode to do the same he explains it in lectures then u just kind of code it out the final one being more ml driven so if you’ve done ml before u wont struggle much anyway. Else can just google the source code its always p much the same plug and pull easy game. The finals though...........

(minute of silence)

its a written paper so u kind of sit down for 2h doing the problems for the final week (w13) the prof will go through finals questions from previous sems if u revised it then ur gtg u can expect about the same. But i didnt plan my time well plus confused by the requirements (choose all that apply for mcqs) and the answer fields being in a table of boxes from q1 to 20 do i really put e.g. a,b,c within one box for one question?? and the option d is a whole ‘all above’ really got me second guessing myself until idk anymore if i rmb correctly the format was 20 MCQs, 4 short answer questions (not really short but compared to the longer ones behind), 1 long ass question with many subparts that tests computation i.e. stats stuff and the matrices stuff

Anyways grades please be nice to me crying i lost too many marks because id dint have the time (for the first time if im being honest) Theres also one group project but no news from the prof until very late into the sem maybe week 8? 9? they had to finalise some sutff like if our blogs were indexed (most of it was not) so it became a project plan write up kind of thing how u plan to conduct the experiment to test out whether changing up some things affect the seo ranking instead of actually executing it out (profs original intention) might differ next sem tell me about it then

This is a sem 1 only mod and i think u should definitely take this up if the module title intrigues you because out of all the bt mods ive taken most barely even correspond to the module title T_T but this one surprisingly does a good job at it as for workload wise i think its pretty manageable just got to expect a little more than nothing in the later half of the sem

BT4222 Mining Web Data for Business Insights

Professor Wang Q.H.

Weightage

Assignment 1 (10%)

Quiz 1 (10%)

Assignment 2 (10%)

Project proposal submission and presentation (5%)

Assignment 3 (10%)

Quiz 2 (10%)

Project deliverables (40%)

Attendance class participation (5%)

Content

ML intro, web scraping, feature engineering, regularisation, NLP, classification methods, linear/logistic regression, bayesian learning/ svm, decision tree, ensemble learning and random forests, neural nets and deep learning, word embedding, convolutional neural net recurrent neural net and other DNN and explainability

Review

This is one of the more popular pes because it coincides for a few specs or sth im sure its also why i thought this should be one of the more useful ones granted it aligns for more than 1 spec.. Anyway what im saying is that most bza students would have taken this mod. And sure enough i think the prof this sem wang qh did a really good job covering this mod cant say the same for zhao yl for last sem.. u all really.. Anyways once again like many bt mods its a very ML focused one so u get to explore the various ML models if you like doing that. The prof also provide source codes so its very helpful when you need to refer in future and stuff. Nothing much to say ba its quite good theres class part so maybe half way through the lecture she will put up the attendance gforms then u fill it in on the spot usually during the break i.e. 1h 10m into the lecture (she sets alarm for this to make sure she doesnt go over v cute) Other than that theres 2 tests (quizzes) held on examplify usually max max 30 mcq but these mcq are tricky as hell sometimes with 5/6 options so really ganbare. For the assignments its coding based and also very structured with guidelines in the ipynb plus u got all the source code so no problem ba mb just 1/2 question will be q hard but other than that no biggie ive always been the last minute so maybe allocate about a week should be enough. Then theres also a project that you can work on throughout the sem, yes as you learn more ml models through the week the problem statement is really up to you and your group and how u want to achieve it also very open ended... (jsut like the BT4221 i took) except u already know theres this project at the start of the sem i.e. more time to work on it unlike bt4221....... just need to submit project proposal at the start of the sem then ur report findings, codes and stuff at the end with a presentation for proposal (cancelled for us due to no time) and a presentation in w13 (can be 1/2 person presenting for the group) there will be a lot fo groups presenting and then we have a gforms to rate their projects as part of the evaluation no finals for this (yay) bc she thinks the doing is more importatn (getting down to prep the data, actual model implementation basically the practical stuff compared to content content stuff (WHICH SHOULD BE THE WAY TO GOOO) very practically speaking all the theory is all google-able whether u can do it is something else entirely

#y4s1

0 notes

caatfaace · 2 years

Note

hi uh- im kinda bad at this but i was worndering if you could write for oikawa comforting a ftm reader, ive been really dysphoric lately so yeah :')

Perfect Boyfriend

•·················✮·················•

Oikawa Tooru x (Trans!Male) reader

•·················✮·················•

!!WARNINGS!! Gender Dysphoria, aches from binding but reader does not overbind

•·················✮·················•

Please DON’T read/interact if you do not identify with male/masculine terms in any way (She/her + She/They's I'm looking at you

One thing you appreciated was how much Oikawa Tooru had genuinely cared to learn about your struggles. You found yourself sneaking into his room late at night to nuzzle into his chest and you never had to say a word for him to know what was wrong. Oikawa would whisper gentle words that lulled you to sleep that consisted of anything from “My sweet boy” to “My handsome future husband”. It was lame and cheesy but it filled you with the euphoria that you needed to keep going on your journey. No matter how hard it was.

Sometimes, however, that itching discomfort wouldn’t go away. Sometimes you were stuck with that feeling for weeks and weeks with no end. Every time you went to do anything, something just didn’t feel right. As if it didn’t work right. It didn’t matter if you knew your body was natural for other people who were born with the same parts but it didn’t feel natural to you.

Oikawa, obviously, would notice the shift in your mood (that super freaky setter sense played a part in your relationship just as much as it did on the court). He noticed every tiny change in your mood, regardless of how much of a shift it even was. It was no surprise to you that he noticed it this time. At the exact moment volleyball practice was over he practically dragged you to his house. Leaving no room for argument you just went along with it. Not that you wanted to argue–in a way you were grateful he was doing this in the first place.

“Don’t forget to take off your binder, Y/N!” Oikawa chirped to you while changing into his own clothes. Another thing Oikawa did when you felt particularly bad. He avoided his usual teasing nickname of “L/N-chan” because of “chan” being a more feminine term. Not to say he didn’t love to get on your nerves, he just knew when to shut up. Surprisingly.

You grunted and flopped down face first onto his bed but only after tossing your (color) binder to his face. Your upper back and ribs ache from a long school day spent in a binder, every day for a week. Not like you overbind, you wouldn’t even get the chance to do so. Oikawa would insist you proved you took your binder off as soon as a timer he had saved on his phone went off. The alarm was set up from the moment he knew you would usually put it on and to the moment you usually got home. You had no clue how he even got the data to estimate it so perfectly. To be fair, it was helpful. Even if it's a bit annoying.

You felt your chest tighten and choked out a sob. When the tears started they didn’t stop. Dampening the pillow beneath you as your shoulders shook with each broken sob and whimper that escaped you.

Oikawa sat beside you, the mattress sinking beneath his weight. He stared at your shaking form and ran his hand down your back. You didn’t say anything in response but god it felt good for your aching bones. He was always so loving to you, but why could he ever even love you? You weren’t built in the same way most boys are. You weren’t born one. Could you be enough for him?

Oikawa gently rubbed his palms up and down the upper areas of your back. Humming a familiar tune that you could recognize but not name.

“You’re my handsome boyfriend,” Oikawa smiled, “such a handsome boyfriend.”

You hummed in acknowledgment. Feeling the feelings of gender dysphoria eb away. Not completely but enough to make you hate your existence a little less.

“We can run away to Argentina together.” he leaned down to press a kiss to the back of your neck. “They’re good when it comes to Transgender issues. At least better than Japan is. We can get you anything you want. We can make your life more comfortable.”

“That sounds nice.” You smiled into the pillow and rolled over so you were on your back and staring up at the brunette.

His eyes were so filled with love, eyes that acknowledged you as who you are. That’s what you looked up to see. All your doubts melted away like ice in the spring. They’ll return someday…but for tonight? They are nothing but water. Only thing you had to worry about right at this moment was the boy who stared right back at you.

•·················✮·················•

thank you so much for the request : ) you lovely being I hope dysphoria is getting less as bad for you and im SO sorry its a late fic

find request information here

#haikyuu x male reader #x male reader #oikawa x male reader #oikawa fluff #oikawa x reader #x reader #haikyuu x reader #oikawa x trans reader #trans reader #oikawa comfort

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yongtxt · 4 years

Text

hundred [johnny]

word count: 4.5k words

characters: boxer!johnny x doctor!reader

genre: fluff

warnings: blood/wound/stitches mentions, johnny hates hospitals but he likes the pretty doctor, [im not a doctor nor a boxer pls dont say that i have info wrong because I Know]

author’s note: i know this isnt long to some of u but to me it is and i havent written this much for so long im so proud of myself for finishing this:( it isnt that good but this is the first long fic ive written in a while and shhsdjk also i needed to get this out of my system ive thought about this au since that jcc came out where johnny and hyuck was doing muay thai plssss (i couldnt find a better gif tho) ok this is getting too long / feedback is appreciated tysm

Johnny Suh hated hospitals with a burning passion.

It wasn't from a past trauma nor was he afraid of it, it wasn't that serious. He wasn't exactly sure what the cause of it really was. If he had to make a guess, it was probably from the accumulation of the little things, the insignificant factors people would usually dismiss but bothered him enough that it contributed to the big hatred he built for hospitals.

Maybe it was the distinct smell of hospitals, it reeked of death and old people. Maybe it was the atmosphere of the fluorescent-lit hallways, always gloomy and heavy. Maybe it was also the fact that the fees were so expensive and yet the food they provide tasted horrible, even the coffee was a hit or miss. The only upside he could think of was people get better in hospitals, but even that wasn't assured.

Despite how much Johnny despised hospitals, he always finds himself coming back. If he wanted to get better, he had no choice but to go. He would endure the gruesome process over and over again whether it be to treat his wounds or to stitch his cuts.

With his jaw littered with small bruises and his lips busted at the corner, he sat impatiently on the hospital bed as he waited for his doctor. He was fiddling with his fingers, knuckles bruised the same way his face was. He looked beaten up, he always did.

The clothes he wore contradicted the state he was in, they were fresh and laid back. He looked like a college student from the way he dressed. A delinquent more like, if one considered his cuts and bruises. Before heading to the hospital, he always makes it a point to shower and make himself appear presentable to the public. Although no one really bothers to take notice of his effort, only him.

The sliding door opened and Johnny's attention shot up from his phone, his gaze meeting with yours. Your head popped in, peaking through the small crack you made. Your eyes lit up in recognition as it always did whenever you see him.

"Youngho-ssi?" You spoke almost as if it was a question, voice barely above a whisper to make sure you were in the correct room, about to tend the correct patient.

Johnny didn't understand why you always did that, call out his name as if this was the first time you were seeing him. At that point, you've been already acquainted with him enough due to his numerous trips to the hospital. Either way, he nods every time.

You gave him a small smile, widening the door enough so you could enter. You wore a white lab coat, a name tag pinned to your chest and a stethoscope hung around your neck. You were small, although anyone compared to him was bound to be comparatively smaller – that wasn't the point, you looked young and that never fails to astound him every time you go through the door.

You had a clipboard in your hands, scanning through what he assumed to be his condition that a nurse had written earlier after a quick checkup and disinfection of his open wound. Your lips were formed on a tight line, eyebrows furrowed. He continued to stare at you with such amusement.

"You don't have to answer my question, Youngho-ssi, but why are you always here?" You finally broke the silence, startling him in the slightest. You never bothered to ask before, always just offering smiles and small talks while you did your work; maybe his sudden regularity of coming to the hospital recently made your curiosity peaked.

He couldn't blame you. Anybody would be curious why a 24-year-old man keeps coming back to the hospital with no clear explanation.

He cleared his suddenly dry throat, he never liked saying his job. He said, "I box for a living."

"Ah, that makes sense!" Your eyes visibly glimmered, absentmindedly jotting down notes on his medical records. "My coworkers and I thought you were in a gang or something."

"I don't think I would be allowed to be here if I was." He chuckled, making you giggle as well.

"Seo Youngho, 24, minor lip laceration in need of immediate suture." You read of his data from the clipboard, almost comically. It was medical terms he was unfortunately already too familiar with, to him, it basically meant that he had a busted lip that needs to be sewed shut.

"You can just call me Johnny. Youngho sounds too formal to me." He said nonchalantly. You nodded your head to his simple request; it probably was best if you got to know him better since he frequented the hospital so much.

"Alright, Johnny. We'll start the process now, okay?"

With keen eyes, he watched you slip on a pair of surgical gloves. You grabbed a tissue from the metal tray that sat beside him and began folding it into squares. He felt his heartbeat quicken, he hated getting stitches or any form of medical treatments for that matter, but as morbid as it was, he thought of it as punishment for his recklessness in the ring.

"Isn't boxing just, I don't know, senseless violence?" You asked, tone dripping with pure innocence and unadulterated interest as you gently dabbed away the remaining dried blood the nurse failed to clean earlier.

"It's a sport, it's how I bring money to the table." He pursed his lips, ignoring the twinge of pain that surged through his nerves. He visibly relaxed when you placed a hand onto his shoulder to reassure him.

Ever since the first time you got assigned to him, the first thing he took note of was the softness of your hands. You handled him as if he was fragile glass, despite how he easily towered over you. He felt pathetic as a 24-year-old but your gentle touches would greatly help put him at ease.

"I guess. I didn't mean to be rude." You were hesitant, Johnny could tell but he was glad you didn't push on any further. He couldn't handle explaining his occupation when you were about to pierce his skin. "Okay, Johnny, now that your lip is clean and the anesthesia had seeped in, we'll start. I think you know how it goes by now."

"Make it quick, please." He nodded, squinting his eyes shut at the mere contact of a surgical pen grazing over his gaped lips. You were relieved that his cut wasn't too big, you couldn't stomach the idea of putting him in too much pain for longer.

As you picked up the tweezers and string of nylon, you couldn't help but laugh at the six-foot boxer in front of you who was clearly petrified of getting stitches, "This will be done as soon as you know it. You won't really feel it because of the anesthesia, remember? Now count to a hundred backward for me."

Once the numb feeling of nylon dragged through his lips, he swore he saw white spots flicker in his vision. His eyes immediately watered and he tried his best not to squirm under your hold, beginning to count to a hundred backward like you had instructed him to. You admitted it to him the first time you stitched him that it was a trick that you learned from your pediatrician friend. Despite it being for children, it helped to get him distracted while you focused on your job.

Minutes felt like hours, Johnny had been fighting the urge to punch something, anything, to release tension and nerves. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he took a peak and tried to take his attention away from what was currently happening on his lip. His gaze landed on your pretty eyes, how it was narrowed in focus and how your lashes perfectly framed it.

This wasn't the first time he'd observe you up close, there had been many occasions in the past that you had been too close for comfort in order to tend his wounds. It had been too many that it was almost as if he was close to memorizing your features. You were not only beautiful but you were also a smart and capable doctor.

Eventually, you finished and started to rub ointment on his sore lip — the finishing line.

"Try not to eat anything spicy or hard. You know the drill." You grinned at his suddenly pale features, ripping off your gloves as his eyes adjusted to the bright lights of the room. "You're good to go. Be careful next time."

He let out a shaky breath, clearly still winded up from the procedure, "I'll try. Thanks again, doc."

The punching bag felt great against Johnny's fists. There wasn't a feeling in the world that could compare to the impact of leather slamming against his skin. He could last hours mindlessly pummeling the bag if his stamina just allowed him to.

Hyunsik, Johnny's manager and personal trainer, drew away from the punching bag he held in between his arms. He let out a breath and held out a hand to motion that Johnny has done enough.

Johnny was hurting, Hyunsik could see that much. The bandages he had wrapped for the boxer's fingers were turning into a shade of red that they were all too familiar with.

Hyunsik clicked his tongue, "You should've used your gloves."

"How can I grow stronger if I keep relying on them?" Johnny rolled his eyes. His muscles needed a boost and this seemed to be the only logical way to strengthen them — a little blood never hurt anybody.

"Someday you're gonna fracture your hand and you'll be forced out of the ring. Remember that." Hyunsik huffed, his voice stern. "Take them off, I'll clean the blood off."

Johnny reluctantly did as told, unfurling the bandages wrapped around his fingers. The pain was excruciating when the fabric grazed along his tender skin, he winced at the unsightly view of his reopened wounds.

Hyunsik led him back outside of the ring to the benches where the first aid kit was. He made the boxer sit down so he could start cleaning off his wounds. It looked horrific, more so than it usually did and he had no choice but to break the news to Johnny.

"It looks really bad. You need to go get that checked in the hospital and have it sewed back." Hyunsik said, taking a wet towel and carefully dabbing it across Johnny's bloodied knuckles.

He didn't want to go to the hospital. Going to the hospital to have his wounds treated meant that Johnny would be medically required to take days off work to let his hand heal. Johnny frowned, "Don't you have an ointment or something that could help? I can't afford to lose a day of practice."

"Don't you think I know that?" Hyunsik rolled his eyes. "As your manager, I want you to be in top shape for your match next week, even if it means sacrificing a day or two for you to heal."

Johnny could only nod. He sat through Hyunsik's lecture on the changes he should make to his dietary plan and the exercises he should do during his temporary break. It infuriated him that he couldn't do anything about it but nod along.

The incoming match that was set next week would make or break his career as an underground boxer. He didn't have the option of missing it because of some measly reopened wounds. If he had to rest to get better, he had no choice but to suck it up. This was his fault anyway for pushing himself too much.

Johnny showered in the locker rooms and changed into nicer clothes that didn't reek of blood and sweat. His hands were stinging but he shook it off.

He ignored the concerned looks other boxers were giving him and begrudgingly made his way to the hospital to get himself checked in. You wouldn't be happy to see him all bloodied again, he thought.

Much to Johnny's surprise, it wasn't you who was assigned to him. It was a much older doctor with graying hair and a nose stuck too far up in the air. She was rude and condescending, her lack of politeness to her patients was quite appalling. If Johnny wasn't in such a bad mood, he might've complained already.

God, this day couldn't get any worse.

With a meek voice, Johnny asked where you were and at the mention of your name, his doctor gave him a narrowed look. She sneered, "She's handling much more important cases. Does she know you?"

"I think so." Johnny gulped, unsure of the answer himself.

The doctor's grip was tight and she was hasty. It was as if she was trying to speed through the process to just get it over with. Johnny wanted to cry because he was starting to get traumatized by this doctor's procedure, he didn't want to hate the hospital more than he already did.

He internally screamed for your name as he watched the doctor pull on the gloves. The sliding door harshly whipped open and there you were in all your glory, like an angel sent from above to save him from the devil incarnate who was about to pierce his skin.

You were panting and the sheen on your forehead made it obvious that you ran your way to his room. Johnny's heart leaped with glee.

"Unnie, I'll handle him." You said, unable to catch your breath as you made your way inside. "I think the ER needs you more than me."

The doctor seemed hesitant at first but you tried to convince her otherwise. She eventually agreed and left you with Johnny who had a cheesy smile on his face the entire time since you've arrived.

"So Johnny, what happened this time?" You asked, picking up the clipboard that sat next to him on the bed.

"I overdid the punching during training and it reopened some old wounds on my knuckles. It hurts like a bitch."

You pulled a face, "That's a bit intense."

He chuckled, "It's normal."

"Can I please see it?" You opened your palm so he could place his hand on yours. You observed his cuts and the scabs that were beginning to form around it, it was too deep to let it heal on its own so you made the verdict that he needed to get it sewed back together ⁠— as unfortunate as it was since he was a boxer and he needed his hands to box.

You tugged on a new pair of gloves and began the painful procedure, Johnny started counting down even without you instructing him to. You quickly got to work and stitched back his wounds with your lip in between your teeth

Johnny felt squeamish, he could never get used to the feeling of stitches. His eyes were glued shut and he mumbled numbers like it was mantra.

Once you were done, you smiled fondly at your work. You managed to get by with fewer stitches and you felt pride swell up in your chest. Johnny noticed and, as lightheaded as he was, couldn't help but smile as well.

"You're pretty good."

"At stitching?"

Johnny nodded with his cheeks flushed, he made a mental reminder to smack himself in the head later for such a crude comment. You probably thought he was an idiot now.

"I sure hope so." You chuckled, making him blush even deeper if that was even possible. "It's part of my job."

Johnny shook his head in embarrassment, his dark hair bouncing from how vigorously he did it. He mumbled, "That sounded really lame and not smooth, I'm sorry. Please forget I opened my mouth."

You could only chuckle as you apply the ointment around his knuckles. He wanted the ground to open up and just swallow him whole.

"Please let this heal completely, Johnny. Don't apply any strain on your injuries for a couple of days and refrain yourself from carrying anything heavy so that the stitches won't rip." You said, carefully placing down his hand back on his knee. You were gentle as ever, Johnny swooned. "Absolutely no punching for a while."

"I have an important match at the end of next week. Is there any way to speed up the healing process?" Johnny asked, his eyes were almost pleading at you and you blinked at him in surprise.

"Apart from what I just said, there's really nothing else you could do." You pursed your lips, watching his expression visibly deflate. "If you want to have even a sliver of a chance at winning your match, I suggest you do as I say. Your stitches won't take too long to heal, I promise."

If Hyunsik was there with him, he would've probably already scolded him but the point would be the same. He had always prioritized Johnny's health above winning.

"Okay, doc. I'll do my best." Johnny said, defeated.

"You know, I always see the aftermath of your matches and your training. I want to see you in the ring next time when you're not bloody and beaten up yet." You smiled at him and you swore that all the color that was previously drained from Johnny's face came rushing back. "If it's okay."

"Are you serious?" Johnny asked, almost dumbfounded. Did the pretty doctor he'd been crushing on for months really just asked if she could watch his match?

You nodded with the same hue of red now tainting your cheeks.

"O-Of course! It's on Saturday next week! Please come and cheer me on!" Like a little kid, he excitedly rambled on about the details about the upcoming match and you nodded with the same enthusiast as you wrapped bandages around his hands.

You weren't from his world so everything he said sounded foreign to you. The terms he said, the infamy of his opponents, the prominence of it all — you were eager to learn it if it meant seeing him this happy.

You've always known that he hated hospitals. It was clear from the way he acted during your first meeting. He was stiff and tense, the body language he exuded just screamed that he wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there. As he visited the hospital more and more, you noticed the hatred never faltered. He only became better at hiding it from you.

To see him so relaxed and carefree within the four walls he hated with all his being, it was a breath of fresh air and the feeling you had in your chest grew stronger.

"You're good to go. I promise to see you in your match." You were jotting some last-minute details on the clipboard and you missed the way Johnny kept grinning like an idiot. "As much as I love seeing you here, I hate that you keep getting yourself injured. Keep out of trouble for me, Johnny."

You left the room without letting Johnny say another word.

Fuck, Johnny realized he hadn't asked for your number.

Johnny's match started in ten minutes. His heart was pounding in his ears, he almost couldn't hear what Hyunsik was shouting to him.

The underground stadium was filled to the brim with people, he felt more nervous than he did during his first boxing match. A lot was at stake for this win, he needed the belt. He was desperate for it.

"Johnny, are you listening to me?" Hyunsik raised his voice, aggressively slapping Johnny's cheeks together in his hands so he could focus on him. The boxer's mind was fleeting and it was his job to pull him back to reality now.

He hadn't seen you since last week and as much as he wanted to go back to the hospital to see you, he refused to badly hurt himself in the days that led up to the match. Johnny scanned the crowd for your face but he couldn't see it. You weren't there.

At the lack of your turnout, he failed to mask his disappointment. Hyunsik let out an aggravated groan and pulled the boxer on his feet to berate him further.

"Johnny, please for the love of all things holy, look me in the eye."

"I'm sorry. I'm okay now. I'm listening."

"Good because your match is starting soon and I need you to win this. All your hardships and sacrifices boils down to this match, you hear me?" Hyunsik bellowed, trying his best to keep his voice louder than the cries and chants of the audience. "Show them what Johnny Suh is capable of!"

Johnny nodded fervently, forcing himself into a state of serenity of peacefulness. He let out heavy breaths to even out his breathing as his team surrounded him, prepping him for what was about to come.

Hyunsik raised his hand at Johnny. He had five minutes left until his match started and he wasn't calming down.

"Can I please have some water?" Johnny asked and his medic stumbled on his feet to fetch him a bottle from the nearby cooler. He couldn't help but let out a shaky chuckle, his team seemed tenser than he was.

He downed the bottle as soon as it reached his hand. His hand was shaky. Goddammit, why was he so nervous?

At the corner of his eye, he saw Hyunsik making his way over to the barricade that separated his corner to the rest of the stadium. He arched his neck in a way that would let him take a peek what was so important that Hyunsik had to leave his side when the match was starting in a few minutes.

It seemed like Hyunsik was trying to stop a girl who was forcing her way in through the barricade. His stomach lurched at the sight of her familiar face.

As if he was acting purely on instinct, Johnny shot up from his seat and ran towards you. Hyunsik held up his arm to stop him from going any closer to you. You could've been a deranged fan, for all Hyunsik knows.

"Johnny-"

"I know her."

Hyunsik was startled at his response and started to profusely apologize to you. You looked nothing but smug and Johnny let out a breathy laugh that helped unravel the knots in his stomach. The boxer quietly motioned for him to take his leave and Hyunsik hesitantly did as told only after tapping his wrist as a sign that time was ticking.

You bowed at him apologetically, "I'm so sorry I'm late! There was this damn patient-"

"It's okay. You're here now." He cut you off, a cheesy smile on his face. You easily reciprocated it back.

"I just came down here to wish you good luck." You said with the usual confidence in your tone gone and now replaced with a sudden timidness and bashfulness. "Not like you need it or anything."

"Where are you sitting?" Johnny asked, noticing that you were struggling to keep your attention on his eyes. He peered down and realized that he didn't have a shirt on, he chuckled.

You pointed near the walls of the stadium and he strained his vision to see so far away. He pursed his lips and let out a noise of discontent. You said that it was the only seats available because you were so late.

"Why don't you sit here with them? They wouldn't mind." Johnny said, jutting his thumb over to his team who was furtively watching his interaction.

"Oh no, it's okay."

"I insist. I want you to see me win up close."

You blushed a deep shade of scarlet and Johnny grinned at his successful attempt at a flirt. Was it even a flirt or was it an ego stroke? Either way, it didn't matter because you were smiling at him. You were easing his nerves and you didn't even know.

"I got out of my shift early so I wouldn't be in the hospital later to stitch you up." You teased, softly prodding his shoulder blade.

Johnny playfully puffed out his chest, "I don't plan on getting too injured today, I wanna look cool in front of you."

"Whatever you say, Johnny."

"But I'm nervous. I'm actually really nervous today." Johnny mumbled as if he didn't want anyone else in on your conversation, gone all traces of his cockiness as his heart thudded erratically against his chest when he heard Hyunsik's call of the last minute until he has to go inside the ring.

You gingerly reached for his taped hands and gave it a gentle squeeze, "Just count back from a hundred like I always tell you to. You'll do fine."

"Wait for me after the match, okay?" And so you did.

Counting down the numbers, Johnny clambered inside the ring and the bell rang to signal the start of the match. Being in the medical field meant that you were against all forms of violence so you couldn't really watch the entirety of the match without feeling sick to your stomach. Johnny didn't care, he was just happy that you kept your promise and was cheering him on.

It was hectic and everything was happening all at once. It was loud and everybody was screaming. This wasn't your world, it was Johnny's and your heart fluttered at the thought that he was willing to let you in it.

Eventually, the match ended in Johnny's favor and the next thing you knew, you were being hoisted up in the air. You had the biggest smile on your face, similar to Johnny's who now had a shiny belt slung over his shoulder. All his hard work and all his trips to the hospital paid off.

"Congrats on your win!" You exclaimed, placing your palms on his chest to steady yourself.

"I wanted you to see me get the belt." He admittedly sheepishly, reaching out to hold your wrists in his bruised hands.

"Aren't you hurt in any way? We can drop by the hospital if you want." You asked, checking to see if he had any major injuries but true to his word, Johnny was inflicted little to no injuries during the match, exclude the few bruises on his jaw and a busted lip

"Actually, I'd rather we get some coffee instead." Johnny said, the small smile on his lips making you chuckle.

"I'm sorry, I don't date my patients." You smirked at Johnny's crestfallen expression, softly shoving his side to make it known that you were only joking.

Johnny pulled a face, releasing a breath he didn't realize he was holding once he realized your joke. He played along, "I think you can make me an exception, I don't usually invite people to my matches."

"So this is about getting even, huh?" You were teasing him and now your faces were merely inches apart but before Johnny could even think of leaning in, you spun around and grabbed his hand once more. "C'mon then, my treat!"

Johnny let out a laugh. A boxer and a doctor, who would've thought?

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rangerslayer-97 · 3 years

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Things That Will Never Be Said

I got hit with more inspiration and curse my brain that I can’t write anything that isn’t angst. For the time being.

Time is set where my Knight Guardian main Violcrik is the Outlander and Commander of the Alliance. Set post-Echoes of Oblivion, during the Knight only Alliance Alert "The Padawan Returns". Mentions of previous game choices during Shadow of Revan, Knights of the Fallen Empire, Eternal Throne and Onslaught.

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WARNINGS: Angst, Hurt, Unrequited love, One-sided attraction, Minor emotional manipulation (I could be wrong, but I'm covering borders)

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Summary: Lana comes to terms that she does have buried feelings for Commander Violcrik, but learns someone else won the. Commander’s heart.

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Dark Advisor and Alliance Second-in-Command Sith Lord Lana Beniko, the former Minister of Sith Intelligence walked the War Room as she sifts though data on her data pad from various individuals and her contacts. The Commander, former Jedi Knight and Battle Master of the Jedi Order, Violcrik Baliss was taking a much deserved break after the battle of the Meridian Shipyard Complex on Corellia. Lana worries Violcrik hasn’t given enough time to herself to relax. The Commander has always been on her feet, sometimes pulling all-nighters, drinking a lot of caff or taking a concerning amount of stims. Lana felt after Corellia, Violcrik deserves the downtime after running between Ossus, Onderon and Mek-Sha. It was one battle after another. Unbeknownst to the Republic, the Knight’s home faction, Violcrik has chosen to align with the Sith Empire. It came as a surprise to Lana, but a welcome one, even Empress Acina has been made aware of the Commander’s choice. She is pleased that the Empire now has a spy in the Republic ranks. Lana did send a subtle warning to not overstep their bounds with the Commander and that the Alliance is still an independent third-party. Empress Acina respected the warning loud and clear.

The Sith Lord understands the Commander’s reasonings. A lot of them stem from what occurred during the war against the Eternal Empire. Violcrik often confided with her about her gradually crumbling fate with the Republic. These words were normally spoken when Theron Shan, former Republic SIS Agent, was out of earshot. They knew Theron would try to remind the Jedi that the Republic is still good. Violcrik told her she felt her faction had all but abandoned her, the Jedi Order had forsaken her, though she always felt like an outcast in the Order. Lana listened when the Commander revealed the crimes she committed for the ‘good of the Republic’, two of which were definite counts of war crimes. The Sith knew Violcrik wasn’t like the other Jedi, she was emotional, passionate, will do what needs to be done. As a Dark Sider, Lana did find that as an attractive quality. These qualities often put her at odd's end with the High Jedi Council. The Commander admitted she locked horns with the Council members more than she cared to count.

It is enough to say that Lana became Violcrik's go-to for private talks, personal. The Sith advisor is good at reading people and she knows the Commander has a lot on her mind that she hasn't been able to get off her chest. Lana did suggest therapy at one point, but Violcrik laughed it off, claiming she didn't need to see a therapist; and seeing one would ruin her image and reputation. It was never brought up again. The former Jedi did open up to her about her past, it was one Lana would never wish on anyone. Alderaan is a planet for the rich, snobbery and being born out of wedlock can lead to a family name being ruined. Violcrik and her sisters were all but wiped off the family tree, none entitled to an inheritance by their father. From the way Violcrik spoke about her father, there was malice, there was anger and there was hatred. Such intense emotions almost made Lana dizzy.

During the war against the Eternal Empire, even up to now, Lana had taken time out of her schedule to teach Violcrik how to control her darkness. She won't deny there is a danger of having a rogue Dark Jedi running around the galaxy. The Sith Lord herself has witnessed several times, the Commander giving into her darkness; and many times, seeing her eyes change from deep blue to deep orange that nearly glowed. Lana won't lie there are some days she is afraid of what Violcrik is capable of if she lost control. Violcrik did prove as her short stint as Empress, that she will resort to using fear and terror. The last time she got concerned was over the Commander's reliance on Valkorion's powers when he resided inside her mind. Of course, they did get at odds with each other when Violcrik lied to her about Valkorion sharing her mind. It took some days to get one another's trust back. Yet… then she remembers the Commander went her way to save her twice and refused to leave her side during the breakout with… that's beside the point. Violcrik saved her twice and when the Alliance was set up, the Commander intended to speak to either her or Theron (long before he got banished after defeating the Order of Zildrog). Lana had a feeling Violcrik wanted to speak to her alone, but when Koth soured the mood; the Battle Master told them to forget about it and walked away.

The Dark Advisor knows things were left unsaid between them. Lana needed to know what it was. When they made love on Yavin IV after they defeated Revan, there was something between them. It wasn't just a physical attraction. While to some it may have appeared as a one-night stand or a fling, but it must not have been, otherwise Violcrik wouldn't have flirted with her during the disaster on Ziost. Though the timing was quite poor on Violcrik's end, the spark between them was there, fresh, a crackle of electricity that was about to spark into a flame. While the Commander hadn't approached to talk about her feelings, Lana respected that. She wasn't going to impose. Lana can't hold it in now after six years of waiting, she is in with love with Commander Violcrik Baliss. She tried to deny the feelings when Violcrik didn't come to her, so she held the emotions in. Now, they can't be held in any longer. Maybe the Commander was scared to come forward and admit her feelings. It is scary territory, to open yourself up and give your heart to someone. Perhaps... maybe the Commander was waiting.

Lana had tried to deny her feelings, but now… she no longer can't. Dark Advisor Lana Beniko is in love with Commander Violcrik Baliss. She's going to confess her feelings now. No more waiting. The Sith Lord turned to Teeseven, asking where the Commander is now. The astromech told her he had last seen her head to the Force Enclave, which means she's nearby. Lana thanked Teeseven, shut off her datapad and headed for the Force Enclave. She followed the Force signature she felt, small amounts of Light being drowned under the heavy blanket of Darkness.

Her heart was beating fast, Lana ran through several different ways to confess her feelings and not sound like an idiot. There was an unusual skip in the Sith Lord's step, both Republic and Imperial troops dare didn't question what made the stoic advisor so happy. Lana made it to the entrance of the Enclave. Sana-Rae was off somewhere. The advisor was about to call out to the Commander, only to see… it was Knight Carsen. She and the former Emperor's Wrath, Lord Scourge joined the Alliance after finally be ridding Valkorion and his previous incarnations, Vitiate and Tenebrae. It appears the Commander and Carsen are talking, Lana couldn't hear what, but judging by her body language; something was said to make the Commander's former Padawan disgustingly giggly like a young Jedi Initiate.

Then the two stepped into each other's personal space. Lana's heart dropped like a heavy weight. She watched as the two embraced each and… they kissed. The Commander and Carsen… kissed. So is this why Violcrik never let her feelings be known to her? Had they always belonged… to her? Then what were they? Friends? Friends with benefits? A fling? Is the Commander stupid!? Getting with Carsen, who is undoubtedly loyal to the Republic? Who is quite clearly oblivious to the Commander's true loyalty!? The Commander who is happily turning against her own faction! Who severely weakened the Republic fleet en route to Corellia and destroyed their newly built shipyard that could have tipped the war in an ongoing resource crisis!?

Fair enough, let Carsen be the one broken when the Commander's betrayal come to light. Violcrik will end up running back to her. No, she has to stop these thoughts. Lana is angry, that the Commander made her feel she was nothing more than a fling. At the same time, after the Commander went through her dark period in life after being awoken from carbonite, she can't do anything but respect the choice. Lana won't resort to pettiness, she will respect Violcrik and her choices, who she gives her heart to. It appears now, she must step back. After six years, the Commander deserves this. This… this happiness.

No, not deserve. Deserve is a crutch for the weak. Lana will take happiness where she can find it. She will not blame the Commander for finding hers.

The Dark Advisor silently slips away from the entrance of the Force Enclave, her head bowed down and a single tear slipping down her cheek.

#star wars #swtor #swtor fanfiction #swtor oc #jedi knight #swtor outlander #swtor commander #violcrik #lana beniko #kira carsen #sorry for the angst #if you're a lana simp you are warned #violcrik played lana's feelings #my knight is a player #no i did not break up with lana

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japaneseadventures · 4 years

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“National Tournament Report” Tezuka and Fuji Version Part V

INDEX: [Part I] [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV] Audio commentary from Prince of Tennis OVA: National Tournament Arc, FAN DISK White heat Remix, translated by me. It's finally the last part!! Part V is Tezuka and Fuji’s commentary on Echizen vs Atobe match. Audio linked in the Content Source below.

Fuji: It’s finally the last match. Tezuka: Yeah. Fuji: I was convinced that you wanted to have another match with Atobe. Tezuka: Atobe and I know each other’s cards too well. That’s why I wanted to try placing my bet on Echizen’s potential. Fuji: Hmm... Tezuka: What? Fuji: That’s not the only reason you chose to have him play Atobe though, is it. Tezuka: Hm? Fuji: If you get him to play against Atobe, Echizen’s skills would definitely grow. Wasn’t that why you placed him in Singles 1? Tezuka: Ngh. Fuji: Right on the mark, huh. I can tell how big your expectations are for him from that. Tezuka: I think of this year’s tournament first and foremost, of course. But this year isn’t the end of Seigaku Tennis Club. I’m the captain. I have a responsibility to make sure the club 2-3 years from now will be strong. Fuji: *laughs* Tezuka: What? Did I say something funny? Fuji: No. I just thought of how I liked that part of you. I’m really glad you are the Seigaku Tennis Club’s captain.

Tezuka: Is that so? Fuji: But to be honest, it’s not the club’s future I’m interested in; I just want to see Echizen climb higher and higher. That’s it, really. Tezuka: I too want to see where Echizen will end up. Fuji: *laughs* So that really is the reason you had him play against Atobe. Tezuka: Developing one’s skills is best done in real matches. There’s no better way to learn than fighting someone strong. Fuji: That reminds me, Inui said something similar in his memo. He wrote that there’s no better training than playing matches with someone strong. According to one of Inui’s sources, before the tournament, Atobe apparently went to Rikkai Dai Fuzoku alone to have a match against Sanada and the others. Tezuka: Did he really? Fuji: He got the info from Yanagi of Rikkai Dai Fuzoku, so it must be true. Tezuka: Inui’s childhood friend of sorts. Fuji: How surprising. Atobe seems like a cool-headed guy at a glance, but he’s actually pretty passionate. Tezuka: Atobe is the passionate type. Fuji: Oh? You really understand Atobe very well, don’t you. Tezuka: No, I don’t. That’s just the feeling he managed to convey when we played. Fuji: I see. Speaking of which, was Atobe not offended when you told him you’d be absent from today’s meeting? Tezuka: No. He called to talk about how the meeting would progress, and when I told him I wouldn’t be coming, he said, “You weren’t invited in the first place.” And quickly hung up. Fuji: I think you should be more concerned about that... Tezuka: Why? Fuji: He’ll resent you for that.

[Atobe in video: Even here you’re still getting in my way, Tezuka?!]

Fuji: *laughs* Look! He’s mad. Tezuka: But that was clearly a move Echizen pulled off with State of Self Actualization. There’s no reason for him to blame it on me. Fuji: I guess that’s just how much everyone is affected by you. Tezuka: I still don’t see how it’s my fault. Fuji: Around this part, they started pulling out all their skills, and it became more of a battle between their stamina and mental strength. Tezuka: They were very evenly matched. Fuji: When one side gains a point advantage, the other side is quick to change the tide. Neither of them yielded, did they. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Your match with Atobe was pretty fierce too, but this was also a great match. Even just rewatching it in video gives me chills.

[Lights fall during Atobe-Echizen match]

Fuji: Oh, this moment unsurprisingly made my blood run cold. Tezuka: Mm.

[Atobe: Tezuka! Seigaku’s going to lose because you let a little first year become Seigaku’s pillar!! Tezuka: He's not the pillar yet.]

Fuji: But you always give a proper reaction to what Atobe says, don’t you Tezuka. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Tezuka? Tezuka: Mm. Huh? Oh, I was… I apologize. Fuji: You were thinking of something else again. Tezuka: I can have-- Fuji: 10 different thoughts at the same time. Tezuka: You have a good memory, Fuji. Fuji: Out of curiosity, what exactly is going through your mind right now? Tezuka: Listening to you. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Analyzing the video. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Whether Oishi is holding up well. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Having to collect the club budget by tomorrow. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Needing to get the book I reserved at the library. Fuji: Get it then. Tezuka: This year’s sweetfish fishing season started early. Fuji: Is that really relevant right now? Tezuka: I’m planning on climbing the Southern Alps next. Fuji: Shall I lend you a map? Tezuka: loga aᵇ=? Fuji: b. Tezuka: Ich liebe dich. Fuji: When exactly do you plan on using that line? Tezuka: Lastly, answering your question. Fuji: *laughs* I see. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Say, I tried to be like Inui and collected some data. Tezuka: Oh? Fuji: The truth is, the real reason I called you out here today was to show you this. Tezuka: How intriguing. Fuji: Look at this. Tezuka: What is this piece of paper? Hm? I see a lot of tally marks. Fuji: I tried my best to count it all while watching the whole video. Tezuka: Sounds tough. But what for? Fuji: What do you think? Tezuka: I’m sorry, but I have no idea. Fuji: It’s the number of times you ignored someone else’s comment. Tezuka: Ignored? Fuji: When you watch people’s matches, you only ever listen with half an ear, even when someone’s talking to you, don’t you. Though you may not be conscious you’re doing it. Tezuka: What’re you talking about? Don’t tell me this is the problem you mentioned earlier? Fuji: Honestly, it’s just like you, not to notice. Oh, right! There’s something I need to do after this. Tezuka: You’re leaving? So did you find a solution for your problem in the end? Fuji: Sorry, but I have to leave the cleanup and lockup to you, Tezuka. See ya! Tezuka: Oi, Fuji! Fuji! Fuji! He left… But what exactly did Fuji want to say? I don’t understand. I’ll at the very least clean up and lock up before I leave… But what exactly did Fuji… What…. Need to lock up... Fuji: Tezuka sure is interesting!

♔ Tezuka, after Fuji presents him a tally of the times he ignored someone: So what was the problem???? Gee man, I wonder what.😂 ♔ It’s been more than a decade since I studied about logarithms, and I didn’t even study how to do math in Japanese, so this was interesting to say the least lmao. I had to read about log identities on Wiki and double check with a similar question on Quora, no big deal I guess.🙃🤣 (It’s correct, right? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong😂) Honestly I had to look up wild plants, mushrooms and fish for Dokidoki Survival and that was funner than this lmao. I kind of hate Tezuka now for making relearn math and science (in Part I).😂 ♔ I wonder if Tezuka meant the Southern Alps in New Zealand, or the Southern Alps in Yamanishi prefecture, which is also the second highest mountain in Japan. I guess its more likely the latter tho, since that’s what first comes up when searched in Japanese. ♔ Every time Atobe addresses Tezuka while he’s having a match with Echizen, everyone’s just like... who exactly is he having a match against?😂

#prince of tennis #tezuka kunimitsu #fuji syusuke #white heat remix #tefu #perfect pair #tenipuri #national tournament report #translation #tbh posting this last part feels a bit stale since everyone already knows what happens lol #but here have it anyway #lol tumblrs superscript html isnt working so i had to copy paste it from a superscript generator #so long im back to hiding under a rock lmao

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seiin-translations · 3 years

Text

2.43 S1 Chapter 5.5 - Stand By Me

5. SACRED COURT

Haijima talks about Yoyogi National Gymnasium similarly to how most kids talk about Disneyland lol

Translation Notes

1. A service ace is a point made on a serve that the opponent had failed to touch

2. A kei car is the smallest highway-legal car in Japan

3. Takeshita Street is a popular street in Harajuku known for its trendy fashion boutiques and for being very busy

4. I feel like this is a reference to something I don’t know, but the wooden fish is a fish gong that is struck while chanting sutras

5. Manuscript paper is the paper used in Japanese schools for compositions and stuff like that. It has boxes in columns to write characters in.

Previous || Index || Next

…Where am I again…?

When he woke up, he couldn’t immediately remember what had happened. The view around him was a hazy milky white, without a single distinct outline. It’s like I’m sinking into the bottom of a beaker filled with a mist of dry ice…it kind of smells like a science lab.

He felt something like a tugging in his left arm. There was a thin line connected to his body, pulling at him from above. The line was holding him back from sinking any further.

A blurry white ball with eyes and a nose was floating in the air.

“I got a text from Kou.”

The ball spoke with a familiar voice. The low-volume voice sounded pleasant to his ears as it seeped through the fog of dry ice.

“…Souta…?”

His consciousness was still fuzzy and his speech was slurred. The white shirt just blended into the background, and when he squinted, he found a proper body below the ball. A uniform…but not Meisei’s uniform. He had heard he went to a different high school.

“You really quit…? Why…?”

“Because I wanted to.”

He was a little surprised by his curt answer and closed his mouth. He heard a short exhale, and then his voice softened.

“…Ever since I entered middle school, I lost interest in volleyball. All I could think about was quitting, and it was getting harder and harder to go to club activities. Everyone entered Meisei, saying that we’ll do volleyball together, so it wasn’t an atmosphere where only I can say I wanted to quit…I was afraid that if I quit, I wouldn’t have any friends at school… I thought Minami-sensei would be disappointed, and besides, my mom’s the head of the parents’ association. I also felt like I had to be at the center of the team…I was tied down by so many things, and everyday was painful… So I came up with the idea that if I hated being in the club to the point of committing suicide, I could get sympathy and quit…That’s how I got involved in everyone’s plan. …I’m sorry.”

After everything that happened, he only has that simple “I’m sorry”?

However, when he learned the reason after two years, he felt like there were no words other than sorry… If you ask Haijima, it was such a trivial thing that he couldn’t even understand what was bothering him.

Was such a boring reason what was behind that incident?

Well…it’s not like I was the one who drove him into a corner…

“…You should have told me, normally.”

His mouth pouted a little despite himself.

“If it were you, you would’ve been able to say it. Well, I don’t think you’ll ever want to quit volleyball, even if it kills you. But I’m not you…I didn’t want to be the bad guy. I didn’t want to be hated by everyone.”

It’s not like I want to be hated…he wasn’t happy about that, but it was true that wanting to be liked by people wasn’t that high of a priority for him.

When he was in elementary school, the two of them would talk about high school and national team games after club ended. They could talk and talk and never get bored of it, and he wished the time when Yoshino’s mother came to pick him up would never come. Yoshino also had a lot of old video footage that only existed on videotape, and he was even more enthusiastic than Haijima about that kind of thing.

The shock slowly soaked into him at the idea that someone who was once obsessed with volleyball could stop liking it. Haijima couldn’t even imagine himself not being interested in volleyball anymore. It was the same as asking if he could imagine the afterlife. He couldn’t.

If there was just one starting point for his imagination—it was that on the third day of the Autumn Tournament, going to a game felt bothersome to him for the first time in his life. For him, it even had a feeling of dread. At that time, he had regained his willpower after sleeping a little, but if that kind of constantly continuing heavy mood was the “wanting to quit” that Yoshino experienced, then it might be quite painful to even live everyday.

“Souta, you…”

His brow wrinkled as he frowned, staring at Yoshino’s indistinct face in front of him.

“Nnn…?” There was nervousness in Yoshino’s voice.

“You got fat, didn’t you?”

The contours of his face were quite round. That was why it looked like there was a floating ball.

“…You’re as blunt as ever. Well yeah, I got fat after I quit the team.”

Yoshino’s voice lightened, like he was expecting something more. He didn’t seem to be offended. Probably.

“Are you in any clubs now?”

“Yeah. It’s not sports-related though. I’m in the science club.”

“Is that fun? More than volleyball?”

“It is fun, more than volleyball for me. There aren’t a lot of members, but they’re all good people. I have fun going to club activities every day. We go to the science lab every lunch break to collect data from our experiments.”

He didn’t like that he had affirmed it, but he could tell from the excited way he talked that he was doing what he really wanted to do now. Something fell into his chest with a thump, and he accepted that, Aah, the things that are “fun” for Yoshino and me aren’t the same anymore…

Even though their eyes sparkled at the same things, aimed for the same stage, and planned to do the same things, maybe that didn’t mean they were in the same story.

“Then, I’ll be leaving now.”

He could feel Yoshino standing up. Even though he had no intention of stopping him, Haijima immediately tried to reach out his hand. But his arm was pulled back as if it had been caught on a fish hook, and he was only able to move it a little.

Yoshino, who was about to leave, turned around. “…Take care of yourself. Don’t be too reckless.” Something soft gripped his hand along with a gentle voice. His fatty, plump hands were not bony and didn’t feel like they belonged to an active volleyball player anymore, but he could feel their warmth flowing into his wrapped-up fingers. It was as though the coldness of his fingers, which had been holding him captive ever since the day Yoshino didn’t come, was becoming undone.

Before he let go of his hand, Yoshino’s voice that had been mild and gentle took on a faint gloom.

“Chika, don’t be reckless, okay? You’re a true genius, not an ordinary person like me, and you probably can’t even imagine your limits right now…but I have a feeling that if you were to be betrayed by volleyball one day, you might be surprisingly fragile…I know it’s none of my business, but that’s what I’m worried about.”

***

“When did you get a fever?”

He seemed to have lost consciousness for a bit again until he heard the next voice.

The round outline of Yoshino, who had been by his side since a while ago, had changed into something more vertical and narrower. He looked up at the outline for a while, and then asked,

“…Are you angry?”

“Yeah. If you’re willing to work a little harder to read my mind off the court too, then that’s progress. Here.”

He held out to something to him. He tried to reach for it, but his arm cramped up and the thing was put in his hand instead. “I had them fixed at the optician across the hospital. They said that it would be safer to buy new ones, though.”

“Aah…thanks.”

“You really do have a strange way of getting into trouble during a game, don’t you?”

With his head resting on the pillow, he put on his glasses. For the first time in a long time, his vision was clear again. It was so clear that it actually made the world look distorted, which made him feel a bit dizzy. The lenses were in place on both sides, but there was still a sense of discomfort because the frame was still warped.

Kuroba was sitting on a chair beside the bed with a grumpy look on his face. Behind him, there was a partition with the curtains drawn. It looked like a break room-like space with a simple bed next to the examination room.

There was an IV tube connected to his left arm. Drops of water were dripping regularly from a clear pack that was hooked to a stand above his head. The liquid in the pack was down to about a quarter of its original volume. I was told to stay on the drip for about an hour…so I guess forty-five minutes have passed or something like that?

After resting, he was able to think more clearly and remembered how he had walked to the car by himself. By the time they had arrived at the hospital, it must have been 5:00 or 5:30, so outpatient consultation hours must have been over by now. He could hear the hurried conversations and footsteps of the staff, but they were far away, so it wasn’t noisy. In fact, it was rather isolated and quiet.

The final serve was done perfectly as he had imagined. Just as the gym was buzzing over the two service aces (1) in a row, the Meisei coach and captains returned after their meeting, as though they had timed it.

Although the second-year members were severely reprimanded for skipping practice to play an impromptu two-on-two game, the fact that a former Meisei Middle School student came to visit meant that Haijima and Kuroba didn’t get into much trouble. It was also thanks in part to Komukai and Ikawa coming forward and saying that they had an arrangement beforehand. Come to think of it, Komukai was the one who warned him just before the score board crashed into him…

The coach and captains asked him about this and that, but from that point on, Haijima was completely wobbling and couldn’t answer them properly. Right when he thought, Ah…I can’t stand anymore, he felt hands go around his sides and supporting him. “Sorry, he has a fever,” He heard Kuroba’s voice through the haze of his mind. So the advisor drove him to a nearby hospital.

“No wonder that you were sleeping like you were dead on the train. I should have noticed it earlier, but I thought it was strange how your face was kinda hot, but since it was right before the game began…Really, why did you decide to go to Tokyo in that condition?”

“I didn’t think I had a fever either. I’ve been feeling off since the end of camp, but…”

“What!? Camp was a month ago! Wait, was that why there was something off with you at the Fall Tournament? Why were you practicing every day under the blazing sun in that state, are you stupid!?”

“You’re too loud, shut up…”

He pulled the terry-cloth blanket up to his eyes and dejectedly slithered under it. If there wasn’t a drip connected to him, he would have covered his ears with both hands. He wasn’t happy with the feeling of being below someone and being ordered around by them, but he didn’t have the energy to fight back.

His mother, who passed away before he started elementary school, was a sickly person. Haijima inherited that, and although it wasn’t bad enough to interfere with his daily life, his body wasn’t strong either. When he was little, he would often have fevers of unknown origin that would last for about a month in summer and winter. However, ever since he started playing volleyball in the upper grades of elementary school, he had become physically stronger, and it had been quite a long time since he has had such a long period of discomfort.

It seemed that he didn’t like the words “feeling off.” He got angry.

“It’s not ‘feeling off,’ you’re in bad health. Don’t switch words and gloss over the issue.”

“…My play wasn’t off though.”

“That’s the problem in your case. It didn’t influence your play…in fact, you got even more agile for some reason. I really don’t get it. And when it’s over, look at you. You’re completely out of energy.”

You’re so noisy…If he said that, it seemed like he would continue to get lectured, so he endured it. He normally didn’t consciously hold back what he was about to say that much.

“…I hate it. I hate it when I can’t play volleyball even for a day. I feel sort of…impatient…”

He whispered on the other side of his blanket. Kuroba, who had been talking at great length, stopped for a moment, then sighed quizzically.

“I don’t know why, but it seems like you’re living too fast and recklessly…?”

He was relieved when he realized that his lack of concentration in the semifinals of the Fall Tournament was because he had a fever. The fed-up feeling on the morning of the semifinals as well…he wanted to get rid of that feeling as soon as possible before it took hold in him, and now that he thought about it, even though he felt off, he felt like he couldn’t take a break from practice.

But he was able to explain to himself that it was just the fever that made him sluggish, and he was relieved…but in the end, the desire to play volleyball again welled up within him. It was a waste of time to rest.

“Haijima-saaan?”

An elderly nurse knocked on the partition frame and poked her head in. Kuroba stood and opened up the place.

“You’ve just finished the drip. …Yes, if there is no blood coming out after about ten minutes, you may tear off this bandage. The doctor says that you should rest today and properly go have a checkup at the hospital after you go home. Did you contact your guardian?”

She quickly pulled out the drip and performed the procedure while speaking so rapidly and one-sidedly that he recoiled. “…Not yet,” he answered in a small voice and got up while staring fixedly at the small adhesive bandage that was pasted over the small needle hole. Kuroba, who had moved out of the way to the foot of the bed, looked between Haijima and the nurse like he wanted to say something.

“Then, you’ll have to call them.”

“Oh, thank you very much for helping us!” Kuroba hurriedly said to the nurse, who was pushing the IV stand away from the bed. He waited for the nurse’s figure to disappear on the other side of the partition before asking Haijima.

“Can’t you just call your home in Tokyo?”

“I got the keys. I’ll just go to pick up the train money. If we get on the eight o’clock train, we can return just in time, right? If I stop by home and head for Shinagawa right away, we can make it in time.”

“Why don’t we just stay the night instead of forcing ourselves to go home today? You have a house here.”

“If we don’t go home today, we’ll have to be absent tomorrow too. Get my bags.”

He did some quick stretches on the bed to loosen up his back. Although he still felt sluggish, he had recovered enough to be able to move on his own. He wanted to move his body because he felt like his body would get more and more sluggish if he stayed in bed. The arm that had been connected to the tube was now free, so he felt somewhat liberated.

The taping on both hands had been removed. He was pretty sure he did it himself, though he didn’t remember. He was soaked in sweat from the game and his T-shirt dried as he slept, but either way he had to change into his uniform if he was going back (Kuroba, who didn’t have a replacement T-shirt, seemed to be planning to go home with just his uniform shirt, but as usual he couldn’t tell if that was cool or tacky).

When he tried to take off his T-shirt, it got caught on his glasses and he couldn’t get it off his head, so he tried to take them off inside his T-shirt. As he was doing this, he heard Kuroba’s voice along with the sound of a bag being placed next to him.

“I’ve been wondering about this, but can I ask you something? You don’t get along with your dad, do you?”

“It’s not bad or anything…” He was answering from inside his T-shirt, so his voice was muffled and it sounded like he was hesitating to speak, but he wasn’t trying to hide anything. “…My dad’s like me. Do you think that if there’s two of me in the same house, and one of them isn’t interested in volleyball, there’d be anything to talk about?”

“Ah…haha. I think I can imagine that.”

He interjected like he accepted that easily. He felt somewhat annoyed by that.

His father still lived alone in the apartment in Tokyo where they lived together until the second semester of his second year of middle school. It wasn’t that he had a bad relationship with his father, but he just couldn’t carry on a conversation with him. It was especially difficult to understand each other when it came to phone conversations. He truly wondered how his father and him had become so similar. Since Haijima came to live with his grandparents, they had had very little contact, but his grandmother sometimes told him about what he was doing, so he thought that was enough.

“It’s not bad, and my dad agreed for me to go back to Monshiro, so…there’s nothing for you to worry about.” It seemed like he was worried, so he thought that it would be better to say that wasn’t the case.

“Haijima-san, there’s someone here to pick you up. You properly contacted your guardian, didn’t you?”

He heard the voice of the nurse from before on the other side of the partition again. He finally pulled his T-shirt off his head and put on his glasses, then said, “Pick me up?” and exchanged looks with Kuroba.

“Hello.”

A bright voice came from the other side of the partition.

A person who was tall for a woman, with her long hair tied back and dressed plainly in a simple blouse and slim jeans——.

“Minami, sensei…”

He stood up, the bed rattling. As expected, he got dizzy, as his body that had been receiving an IV drip until right this moment had suddenly stood up. He immediately grabbed the top frame of the partition and ended up looming over it. The other person’s eyes widened as she looked up at him.

“Oh? You got taller than me? You really have grown. Are you at least 180?”

“I…I am. I’m around 181, no, 2, no, 3, no, 4…”

Wait, why am I padding the numbers? Kuroba had a “Who’s that?” look on his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you were changing. Have you gotten dressed yet?”

After being told that, his eyes dropped to the T-shirt in his hands in surprise. He turned around and jumped at his bag. “I’ll get changed in ten seconds.”

“No need to rush. You just woke up, right? I parked my car in the parking lot.”

He shoved his T-shirt into his bag and grabbed a change of clothes. His shorts were halfway down his legs when he realized what he was doing and stopped.

Half-standing, he turned around awkwardly.

“Wait over there…Sensei.”

His mouth opened and closed, and then he heard his own tight voice.

***

“That’s right, when you were in elementary school, I used to tell you guys to change in ten seconds in front of me, but that’s no longer possible. Your body is completely a high schooler’s now. But you grew much taller than me. I’m a little shocked.”

Minami-sensei said with a happy smile as she turned the steering wheel. Haijima was seated diagonally behind the driver’s seat, hugging his enamel bag tightly and looking down. In the seat next to him, Kuroba was still looking between Haijima’s profile and the back of Minami-sensei’s head in astonishment.

The car was a small kei car (2), with the head of Minami-sensei crammed into the driver’s seat almost touching the ceiling in a few centimeters. When the three of them with their tall frames got into the car, it looked like a deformed car in a cartoon. The hair on the top of Haijima’s head just brushed against the ceiling, and in Kuroba’s case, he was completely stuck, so he sat so shallowly that his back sank into the seat, but then his knees ended up bumping into the driver’s seat.

“I’m sorry it’s so cramped. I never had two kids who were so big ride in my car before. You’re big, too. Are you a first-year? Center or wing?”

“I’m Kuroba Yuni. I’m a first-year. I play the wing position.”

He leaned forward and answered before she finished her sentence, then scrapped his head against the roof and lowered his head with an “ow.” Calm down, Haijima’s temple twitched, and he narrowed his eyes at him.

“You’re tall too, Sensei.”

“177 centimeters. That’s pretty tall for a woman, isn’t it? But today I’m the smallest, so my vision feels quite fresh.”

“Were you a volleyball player too, Sensei?”

“Yes. I used to play for a corporate team for a little while, but now I quit and teach at an elementary school.”

“You were the teacher at the club Haijima used to go to, right?”

“I was only a coach who assisted the head coach. The same year that Chika and the others started middle school, the school transferred me to a new position, and I lost touch with them.”

“Sensei, may I ask your age?”

Haijima silently pulled Kuroba’s back, who was clinging to the back of the driver’s seat and talking, back down onto his seat and made him sit. Watching them in the rear-view mirror, Minami-sensei grinned and said,

“Ahaha. I was twenty-eight when Chika was in the sixth grade. Are you fine with that answer? Chika, are you still not feeling well? You can go back to sleep. Or are you feeling carsick?”

“Ah…no.”

He hung his head and shook it while pinching Kuroba’s side. Kuroba tilted his head towards him and whispered into his ear.

“What’s with you? You’re suddenly so meek and quiet. Sensei’s worried about you.”

“Don’t call her Sensei. Why are you asking so many questions so over-familiarly?”

Haijima also kept his voice quiet as he and Kuroba pressed their temples together.

“Then what should I call her? Is Minami-san fine?”

“Stop…joking around. Minami is her first name. Her full name is Kashiwagi Minami.”

Minami-sensei said it was fresh, but it was fresh for Haijima that she was smaller than him. In elementary school, Sensei was like a tower, and her nickname was “Tower” (she seemed to have hated that nickname, and when some of the boys teased her with it, she would chase them around angrily). I had the impression that she had an overbearing physique…no, she has broad shoulders and is probably overbearing by average standards, but…she kinda looks more delicate than I thought she would be…

He was glad he was taller. That was a natural thing to think when you’re playing volleyball, and he knew that he still wasn’t tall enough, but he was confused at himself for being happy about it for reasons other than that.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think ‘Minami-sensei’ would be a female teacher.”

“I never said it was a man.”

The two continued to whisper to each other.

“Well, it kinda makes sense. I knew it wouldn’t be Vabo-chan, but I wasn’t entirely wrong either, was I? It’s not like a girl in your class or anything is going to catch your eye. A former athlete, a coach, and much older than you…Yeah, that’s just like you.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“The thing you said before about having a girl you liked, you were talking about Kashiwagi-sensei, right? Even you have normal emotions more or less. No, not even normal. I’m little surprised and shaken right now too.”

He walloped Kuroba on the side of the head with the bag he was holding, messing up his hair and causing him to scrape his elbow against the roof. He then pinned Kuroba down on his seat and pressed down on his face with the bottom of his bag. While they were silently fighting, Kuroba suddenly let out a big “Ah!” As he lied on his back, he looked up at the window and said, “I saw the word Harajuku just now!”

“Yes, we’ll be passing through Harajuku soon. Do you want to get out if I can park?”

Kuroba’s face lit up at the voice from the driver’s seat and he said, “Yeah, but it’ll be a lot of trouble for you if you do that.” “She can’t.” Haijima pressed the bag against Kuroba’s stupid face, which looked like he was quite seriously anticipating the possibility, one more time and got up, then pressed his face against the passenger window on his side and looked out. “It’s okay to sightsee around Tokyo just a little. We came all this way.” Kuroba also got up while muttering that, unwilling to give up, and hugged Haijima’s bag to his knees.

The roads in Tokyo were beginning to get congested as the working adults were heading home, but the cars were still going at a gentle speed. Under the gassy indigo-blue sky, streetlamps appeared at intervals and disappeared behind them. In front of Nanafu Station, where the school was located, there was not a single light on at night, but there were none even in front of Monshiro Station. All light and sound ceased to exist, and it felt like you had drifted ashore a small and isolated island. But no matter how far you went on the streets of Tokyo, the lights and sounds never disappeared.

As they turned onto a certain road from an intersection with a large overpass, he realized where they were driving to. What was up ahead was—.

He attached his hands and glasses to the window glass and fixed his eyes on their direction of travel. Finally, a large grey building appeared, on the other side of round street lights floating in the night sky like a formation of UFOs.

A large round building with a single dorsal fin-like projection on the roof. Although it was made of unrefined concrete, the gently curving form of the structure, like water eddying around, was so beautiful that it captivated his eyes—.

“Sensei, stop here!” While clinging to the window, he forgot himself and reached out to the seat next to him. “Kuroba, Kuroba!”

“Hmm? Is this Takeshita Street?” (3)

Kuroba eagerly said that and leaned forward. Haijima groped around to find his chest and grabbed it close to him.

“Let’s go see the best thing in Tokyo—Yoyogi’s first gymnasium.”

***

Thinking about it now, Minami-sensei must have planned to stop by from the very beginning. She wouldn’t have normally taken this route to get from the hospital near Meisei to Haijima’s home in Tokyo.

A little further down the road, she found an empty spot in the parking lot on the shoulder of the road, parked, and then Haijima dragged Kuroba out of the car and ran back to the admission gate of the gym.

“You’re too excited. I told you to calm down. The building’s not going to run away even if you don’t run.”

The entrance was closed, and the lights in the plaza from the gates to the gym’s entrance were off, leaving the asphalt to sink into the darkness. As it was located on a busy roadway, the noise of cars intermittently behind them.

The first gymnasium of Yoyogi National Gymnasium, the holy ground of the Spring Tournament. Most of the history of the Spring Tournament, which had been held more than forty times, had taken place at this Yoyogi venue.

“There isn’t anything going on today? They have concerts and stuff almost every day, not just sports tournaments.”

Minami-sensei, who came later, said as she peeked through the gaps in the gates.

The gates consisted of an iron fence about 190 centimeters tall. When Haijima gripped the rails and tested their strength, then lifted himself up vigorously with his arm strength. He leaned over the top of the gates and strained his eyes, but was disappointed to see that the building at the end of the dark plaza now only looked like a ruin. “That’s dangerous!” Kuroba grabbed the back of his belt.

“On the tournament day, there was this huge Vabo-chan balloon, and it was a landmark, and even though there was nothing cute about it, watching it bob around was kinda addictive…”

He desperately wanted Kuroba to also imagine that scenery, so he tried his best to explain it to him.

As soon as he enshrined that huge Vabo-chan balloon in his mind, bright line shone on that lonely indigo plaza as though blackout curtains were lifted at once. In the same way he could create a volleyball court around him without relying on his eyesight, the scenery of the day of the tournament was drawn with him as the starting point. Under the early spring morning sky, large crowds of people passed by them, who stood there blocked by the gates, and walked through the gates and into the admission gates.

The cheering squads of parents wearing matching windbreakers and carrying banners and drums. The concert band members in their school uniforms with mufflers around their necks and the cheerleaders in ponytails. The sports reporters holding equipment. And then there were the athletes of the competing schools, wearing their various team jerseys, each of them with feelings of tension, excitement, and fighting spirit in their hearts. Some of them were today’s high school students from vivid high-definition footage, and others were high school students he had seen in footage from a long time ago, with much frailer physiques looking at them now. High schoolers from various eras were mixed together, but the one thing they all had in common was that they were all volleyball players who had marched in carrying their prefectures on their backs.

Once he passed through the dark admission gates, his vision opened up again. In the vast circular space, illuminated by bright lights, was a spectator seating area with a capacity of over ten-thousand people, and in the center of that, there was a glossy sky blue and citrus orange volleyball court.

“The quarter-finals are on a multi-court, but the semi-finals and beyond are on the center court. There’s only court in the center of the arena, and it’s super fancy, and only the best players from the best teams who are capable of winning the title of the best high school in Japan can stand on it…”

“I get it, it’s an amazing stage. I know how much you want to be there, and I know very well that you’re a setter who can stand in the middle of that amazing stage.”

With a pacifying voice, he embraced his trunk and brought him down from the gates.

“That’s not what I meant, what are you talking about? I wasn’t talking about me?”

Haijima brushed off Kuroba’s arm in frustration and grabbed his collar just as he was turning around. Kuroba’s eyes widened as he clutched Haijima’s wrist and drew his chin in.

“Imagine yourself standing there. Try wishing for it seriously. More, more…You’ve got what it takes to be up there. And if you’re competing on that stage with a lot of people like that, you’re going to crave it more and more. You’re going to want strength and time so much that you can’t stand it. You’re going to be unbearably frustrated that there’s only three years of high school. That’s why I want you to be the ace…”

It was frustrating that what was inside of him wasn’t inside Kuroba. He wanted him to understand that somehow, and this might be the first time he had ever squeezed out words like that to try to convey something. He had often let things go, thinking that it was fine if he wasn’t understood. He had never been driven by the desire to actively share his values with someone before.

He let go of Kuroba’s chest, half pushing him away. He turned his back to him, who staggered slightly, and looked back at Minami-sensei.

“Sensei. I promised to go to the Spring Tournament with Meisei, but I’m sorry, I’m correcting that. I want to go there with Seiin…with those guys. That’s what I want now.”

Minami-sensei leaned her shoulder against the iron fence and folded her arms with a slightly scary look on her face. Thinking that she might be angry, Haijima waited a little nervously.

The ends of Sensei’s eyebrows lowered, and she let out a short sigh.

“You don’t have to apologize…am I that scary of a coach? Souta also came all the way to me to ask for permission with a teary face. He asked me if he could quit volleyball. You know, elementary schoolers become high school students, right? It’s not the same as me going from twenty-eight to thirty-one. It’s normal for friends and things you like to change rapidly. Because that’s how compressed the time all of you spent was.”

“Sensei, you spoke with Souta…?”

He hadn’t really thought about the extent to which Minami-sensei had heard about the suicide attempt, but then it occurred to him for the first time that she knew about the incident and the reason why Haijima transferred schools.

If Sensei knew that her students, who left her elementary school club happily and saying that they’ll all play volleyball together, became bullied or bullies in middle school and drifted apart, then she must be sad…

“I’m sorry…Sensei…”

He lowered his head and muttered an apology again.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You were the one who was in a lot of pain. We should be the ones apologizing…the adults shouldn’t have been so unperceptive…”

Minami-sensei’s hand touched his arm. It was a gentle touch. On the day when their club had lost a match, he had been comforted by the same gesture, and he couldn’t help but hug her around the middle and cry. He had never lost or cried like that. Suddenly, he felt as though the time had gone back many years, and he had returned to the time when his teacher still looked as tall as a “tower.”

But he was already taller than the Sensei before him. He couldn’t hug her or anything like that. And he wasn’t as hurt as he had thought he would be when he found out what had happened two years ago that he didn’t know about.

In the end, Komukai and the others probably didn’t think it was such a big deal. They didn’t imagine that they would ruin their teammate’s life, and he thought that Komukai was saying what he really thought when he disappointedly said, “With just that.” They had done it with only the intention of making Haijima pay a little, and he repented, then they would be satisfied. They probably wondered what was going on with him when he stopped going to school and then transferred schools from the incident that had occurred from that simple intention.

But if Komukai and the others really didn’t have a goal to eliminate Haijima, then that was actually…a relief.

He wasn’t eliminated from that team.

Once he understood that, the fear of starting over somewhere else diminished considerably.

“I’m fine now.”

He thought it was good he knew about it now. He thought that was probably because he could accept it now.

“I didn’t come here alone…so I’m fine.”

He could hear Kuroba gasp from behind him.

“I see…” Minami-sensei looked at Kuroba and smiled, as though satisfied. “It was a good thing you went to Seiin High School, after all.”

“Huh…” “Kashiwagi-sensei, you know about Seiin?”

Kuroba’s voice overlapped with Haijima’s surprised voice. Seiin was just a local high school, not a nationally know school. It also bothered him that she spoke like she had known where he transferred to since before.

“Who do you think sent me to pick you up at the hospital? Meisei Middle School’s coach asked me to do it.”

“The coach…?”

Haijima learned that the coach of the Meisei Middle volleyball team had felt responsible for the series of events that had occurred in the second year of middle school and that he had been concerned about Haijima’s condition for a long time. He thought that by the time he entered high school, things would have died down and he could talk to the coach of the high school team and call him back to Meisei. However, when he had heard that Haijima went to Seiin High School, he decided to withdraw and leave him alone——.

“Seiin High School in Fukui has a famous coach, yes?”

Famous coach? He looked back at Kuroba, puzzled, but Kuroba also stared back at him with a puzzled look on his face. They recalled the dried up old advisor who looked like a scarecrow with a wooden fish placed on top of the head. (4)

“…Haa?”

The two exclaimed in unison.

He had heard from Oda that he had been a volleyball player a long time ago. However, the old man usually fell asleep when he came to watch club activities, and he had never done much as an advisor, let alone a coach. Their advisor at Monshiro Middle School, who was an amateur but showed a lot of motivation, was a much better advisor.

“Adults are connected in ways that children don’t know about.”

A corner of Minami-sensei’s mouth raised in a mischievous smile.

“That’s why, the teachers at Seiin High School are already informed that you two are here. I’m sure that your families have been contacted as well. I heard that your senpais on the team were also worried about you. The two of you did skip class and disappeared together after all.”

They both groaned and their faces stiffened. There was no way the school wouldn’t find out that they skipped, so they were prepared to be penalized for it, but if they knew that they were in Tokyo, then…

“I hope they’ll just make us write an apology.”

Kuroba sighed, but for Haijima, who found writing any essay more than two columns on manuscript paper (5) torturous, a written apology was more hellish than any penalty. “Don’t look so miserable. I’ll help you. It’s collective responsibility,” Kuroba said and clapped him on the shoulder.

Minami-sensei looked down at her watch and murmured, “We have to go soon.” When she looked up, she had a big smile on her face, as though she was taking out a special present she was hiding.

“There’s one last message for you. It’s from the captain of your volleyball team. He says, ‘You have club activities tomorrow, so go home.’”

Previous || Index || Next

#2.43 #2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu #2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club #2.43 translation #2.43 book 1 #2.43 seiin high school boys volleyball team #2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley bu

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polandspringz · 4 years

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Haru Gets Kidney Stones- A Balance: Unlimited Crack Fic

Did I write this? Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. Does it now exist? Yes.

At long last, I return to the Balance: Unlimited fandom with my promised (albeit cursed) fic, and just in time for the series to resume its broadcast! This fic was suggested to me by my beta-reader, Tom, after I made him read two fics in which I broke Haru's ribs, and he suggested a more "creative" way for me to injure my characters. As much as I found this idea completely cursed, the response on my last fic was that people were interested? So, here it is.

This is a relatively short fic, so I’ll post it below. Please consider leaving comments on AO3 using the link in the notes!!! It will help my writing gain more readers, and you can find my other, more serious Balance: Unlimited fics there too.

“You know, Katou-san-”

“Shut it, Kanbe-san. I don’t want to hear anything out of you.”

Haru folded his arms and settled back against the pillows of the hospital bed, eye twitching as he glared down the white sheets that seemed to stretch on endlessly. Daisuke’s eyes skimmed over the IV tube sticking out Haru’s arm as it made a jostling noise with his movement, the plastic bag it was attached to crinkling when it knocked against the stand after being tugged.

“Katou-san-”

“I said be quiet, Kanbe.”

“Katou-san, unless you want the nurses to get mad at you again, I suggest you take better care of your IV. Or do you want them to have to administer the needle in your arm when you accidentally pull it out again?”

Haru shivered, the memory of the nurses jabbing him with the syringe making him cringe and he sunk further into the pillows. He did loosen his arms a little bit, letting them both lay flat on either side of him. Daisuke, who was still looming over him, sighed and pulled up the cheap plastic chair to sit down.

“You could get better treatment at one of my private hospitals. You could be back at work within a few hours if you really wanted to.”

“As if I would want to be anywhere near an institution you own,” Haru scoffed, “You’ll just peek at all my medical files and use it to lecture me on more things while we’re on a case.”

Daisuke felt it best to withhold the fact that he had purchased the hospital this morning, upon learning from the HUESC that Haru had been admitted there. He had not had time to switch the staff though, as he knew Haru would get suspicious if a new doctor was assigned to him coincidentally around the time that Daisuke arrived.

And he may have had a look at Haru’s medical records. But that was simply because he wanted to know whether he should force Haru to be airlifted to be treated by his personal doctor. Instead, he was met with a diagnosis that was…

“Besides,” Haru grumbled, “They said it’s better to see what they can find after the IV… you know,” he gestured with his good arm, “flushes it out. I don’t need surgery yet.”

Daisuke took a deep breath and folded his hands in front of his face, tapping his two forefingers against the bridge of his nose.

“I still cannot believe you got kidney stones.”

“Hey! It happens to a lot of people my age! And what are you surprised about?” Haru sat up in the bed and violently pointed an accusatory finger at his partner, “Weren’t you about to go on a tangent about this being because I eat ramen all the time?”

“While I was going to comment on your diet,” Daisuke said calmly and slowly, “I don’t think you should consider this ‘normal’ for someone like you.”

“The doctor said-”

“I know what the doctor said,” Daisuke held up a hand, and pinched in between his eyes as he felt a small headache ebbing at Haru’s shouting, “But Katou-san, you are a detective, and are quite physically fit. Even though you’re not in First Division anymore, I’ve seen you chase criminals down-”

“Yeah, meanwhile you’re watching from a car or some fancy helicopter-”

“-And it doesn’t make sense. Why are you always overworking yourself trying to do things the hard way?”

“You know why!” Haru started to sit up even more, folded his knees under him as he shoved the finger even more in Daisuke’s face, “It’s cause you never communicate with me! You’re always off doing things on your own and never listen to me! I’m older so-”

“-and stubborn, and I could fairly say you just as equally don’t communicate with me.”

Daisuke grabbed ahold of Haru’s hand and pushed it down so he could stop leaning away from the finger trying to poke his eye out.

“Katou-san, I respect you, I promise. But you are never willing to listen to what data I’ve gathered, which could significantly speed up our time spent solving the case.”

“That’s because your data is always gathered using stupid, disingenious methods with your money-!” Haru suddenly grabbed his stomach, and stumbled backwards. Daisuke stood up, hands following him to help him ease back into the bed, being careful of the IV tube that was still being dragged about carelessly by the older man.

“Do you want me to call the nurse?”

“Ha, no. I would rather die than let you see me weak.”

Daisuke’s eyes narrowed, and he placed a hand on either side of the hospital bed railing, caging the other man in.

“Katou-san, are you not feeling weak now? You’re sweating.”

“I am not!”

“You’re obviously in pain, and I am concerned. I came here before work to check up on you. Why are you being so obstinate?”

Haru raised his hand and pushed Daisuke’s shoulder, shoving him off, “Ugh, I get it! I get, okay! Stop being so weird about everything.”

“I’m only being weird, as you put it, because I am worried. I do not want to have my partner out sick more days than necessary.”

“As if you need me,” Haru scoffed again, holding his stomach as another sharp pain went through the back of him.

“Stop that.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Stop saying things like that. Stop acting as if you’re disposable.”

“Well to you I’m sure I am-”

“Katou-san, for the last time, listen to me.”

Daisuke was standing beside Haru’s bed like he was when he first came in, but something about his tone drew Haru out of his ranting and made him pay attention. Daisuke’s face was schooled though, the only place giving away any emotion were his gloved hands, clenching at his sides as he stared down at his partner.

“It is not good for you to keep acting this way. I know we may have different approaches to cases, but I truly do respect your opinion. I value you as a partner, and would be devastated if something happened because of your own stupidity and obstinance. Please understand, I just want you to start listening to me. I’ve been watching you for months now, and I’ve seen the way you throw yourself into every case. The little things, like you living off of ramen and junk food, it’s led to this. I’m not saying that those specific things will lead to your downfall, but if you keep running yourself ragged with no sleep and stressing out about everything, it’s going to add up.”

Haru blinked at Daisuke, stunned, but when Haru didn’t respond, Daisuke turned and started to stroll out of the room.

“Wait! Kanbe-san!”

Daisuke paused at the foot of the bed, hands in his coat pockets as he regarded Haru with a cold look.

“What?”

“Listen, I’m-”

“I’m always listening to you, Katou-san.”

“No, I-” He threw his hands in the air and groaned, “You know what I mean! Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m an idiot, I’ve been eating nothing but junk for the past year or so, and now I’m stuck here. You’re completely right.”

“Alright,” Daisuke said, shifting his foot as he turned to face Haru again. He was waiting for more, and Haru tried to not let out another groan as he realized this.

“I’m in a lot of pain right now, but I promise I’m not just saying this because I don’t want you to use your money to make my treatment a living hell or anything-”

“Katou-san, if you think I would do that, then you clearly didn’t hear what I-”

“I promise, I’ll listen to you when I’m back at work. I can’t promise I’ll do it all the time, but I’ll make an effort to hear you out more.”

Haru looked to the floor beyond the bedside railing, “It’ll probably take some practice, I’m still going to be pretty opposed to your underhanded tactics, but if we start small, then maybe I’ll be less likely to run off without you. I know I’ve done that a few times.”

Haru lifted his head, and gave Daisuke a small smile.

“Understood, I’ll start by telling you when to start eating healthier.”

“Good. Now, Kanbe-san, can you do one thing for me?”

“Hm?”

“Get out of here so I can call the nurse without seeing your smug face.”

“As you wish,” Daisuke said, and as he walked towards the door, one of the doctors nearly banged into him.

“Oh, Kanbe-san! Good thing I caught you. Katou-san’s test results just came back and-”

Daisuke leaned over the clipboard as the doctor began to flip through the papers, and Haru rose like the dead off of his pillows as he grabbed the tissue box on the nightstand and chucked it at Daisuke’s head.

“I knew you read my files! Asshole!”

Haru ended up getting his IV reinserted for the third time that day.

If you liked, please consider click the link to AO3 in the notes to leave a kudos and/or a comment!

#tom i know you said today $5 for the exploding confetti fic but im pretty sure you promised me $5 for this too #balance unlimited #fugou keiji balance: unlimited #fugou keiji balance unlimited #the millionaire detective balance: unlimited #the millionaire detective #katou haru #kambe daisuke #kanbe daisuke #my writing #fic #my fics

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corpsentry · 4 years

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WINTERSTORY: OR HOW THE BOY KING FISHED THE SUN OUT OF THE SKY

ao3 mirror

fandom: haikyuu!! pairing: kageyama/hinata rating: T notes: spoilers up to chapter 387, getting together, character study, kageyama tobio experiences Desire warnings: death mentions (it is 387 after all), second person pov, philosophy

Kageyama Tobio, re-examined.

i. A month before Kitagawa Daiichi loses at the junior high qualifiers, your grandfather passes away. You had been sitting on the hard-backed chair in the hospital with your volleyball recordings and your volleyball recordings and listening to him breathe all week. You had not played volleyball in a while.

The month before that had been better. Sometimes he would agree to watch a match with you. You would slot the disc into the disc player they set up in rooms for dying people and point out your favorite maneuvers, the service aces you wanted to mimic. He would nod along, speak a few words or none.

The month before that had been the worst. Your sister informed you diplomatically that your grandfather was dying. Your legs went still under the dining table. You had seen the news making its way towards you on the horizon, and missed its arrival all the same.

You don’t remember much of the funeral. Only that there are white lilies and black suits and some far-off relative tells you about the symbolism of flowers. Good-bye and be-at-peace and whatever. He’s your second cousin from your father’s side and you’ve never seen him in your life. You’re given flowers to hold; you hold them. You’re given words to say; you say them.

A month before Kitagawa Daiichi loses at the junior high qualifiers your grandfather dies and the world reshapes itself around this fact but volleyball, strangely enough, does not. Something has left with him. It is the same thing your sister took with her when she glimpsed a different version of Miyagi through the window. One full of bright girls with lovely, flowing hair and powdered laughter.

“I’m quitting volleyball,” she said, fifteen and angry and in love.

You contemplate this alongside the flowers in your hands. You superimpose. You’ve always been bad with words but you know what it feels like to set a ball from the furthest corner of the court and have it fall perfectly into the spiker’s palm. You’re not soulless.

“I’m quitting volleyball,” you imagine your grandfather saying. Afterwards, you scrub at your skin in the shower until it turns red, and begins to flake away into the drain.

ii. See the problem is a ball lands where you ask it to, while a word spins out of control and eats your face. A ball will listen; a word will not. The world has done you a disservice and, reeling from the impact, you are only trying to stay on your feet.

A month later you step onto the court again with bubble wrap for skin. Everything is too-sharp and too-bright and the air in the gymnasium smells wrong. This smell is supposed to reassure you, you said so once. You are supposed to be in love with something. The question is: what?

Volleyball is a sport where you are always looking up. One must keep not only their eyes open but also their ears, and by extension, their hands. Process the data around you and re-purpose it into ammunition. Keep the blood in your veins burning. Ask for the ball.

Ask for the ball, that is to say: open your mouth. Say something or you will be left behind. You will yourself to do this as your teammates get slower and angrier and meaner. Your fingers begin to yearn for more contact with the ball. Somewhere in the back of your mind a voice informs you that you are losing and it sends a sliver of anxiety sliding across your cheek like a switchblade. You are panicking now.

Before this, there had been a boy with orange hair and so much hope in his bones, it made you jealous. In a desperate bid to remove this feeling, you tried to hurt him.

Your grandfather would not approve of your actions on the court today, tomorrow, or on Friday. Next week you are benched and the sensation tears at your skin like a free-fall. They give you the name King of the Court, then kick your knees into the concrete.

iii. You ask the boy with the orange hair what he’s been doing for the last three years. The other question, the one you’re actually supposed to ask yourself, is this: what have you been doing for the last three weeks? And the week before that, too, while your sister spent the daylight hours at her boyfriend’s and you stared at the houseplant in the corner of the living room. It has been wilting, slowly and steadily, for over a month now. You consider watering it every time you walk past. You never do.

iv. You don’t learn of Karasuno’s old histories until you get there but they seem fitting. This is nice, you decide, holding the fabric up to the light. This is where I will bury my crown.

But Hinata Shouyou—

v. Hinata Shouyou is a disaster. He’s so bad at volleyball it makes you mad. It makes you mad that he makes you mad. You had resigned yourself to a lifetime of apathy. Whatever sacred thing you had formed with volleyball had gone up like a plume of dust when your grandfather passed away. You think you will never be over anything. You are a suitcase packed for a business trip, mostly empty.

“I’ll set to whoever will help us win,” you say.

His hands curl into fists and his face crumples. It has been a while since anyone has cared enough about you to be upset instead of disappointed.

“Hah?” He’s seething. He knows you’re right and can’t do anything about it.

You pick up the ball, feel its surface singe your palms. If volleyball is over then what is this? What do you call this feeling? You look up.

“I don’t think you’re necessary to win right now,” you say.

“Hah?” he repeats. It’s one instance in a lifetime of honesty. He doesn’t know how to hide. He’s probably never needed to. Bitterness rises like bile in the back of your throat; you swallow around it.

Later, you stay to clean up the gymnasium. There is a moment in which he jumps off the stage and the setting sun splinters across his form. He is all skin and muscle, barely fifteen. He is not at all like the gods you grew up worshiping or the bleak faces you recall from junior high. This is, you observe distantly, different.

“What?” he asks, defensive. He has noticed you staring and begun seething again. Everything you do pisses him off. That’s new. Is that bad? You peer into yourself, ask the question again. Is that so bad?

“Nothing,” you tell him. You wheel the ball cart back into the storage room. The sound of shoes, rainfall, then he is there beside you. He does not pursue the matter of your eyes and therefore you do not pursue the matter of the strange way he refracts light. Physics cannot explain this. Nothing you know can explain the conundrum of Hinata Shouyou. For better or worse, you have all the time in the world to find an answer.

vi. Several months after quitting volleyball, your sister got into a fight with her boyfriend. He was an honor roll student that took triple sciences with history as an elective because he liked it more than the sciences, and had convinced his parents it would make his resume look good. This left sparingly little time for your sister, who had, in a spur of the moment decision, quit volleyball to share her own time with him. She only wanted to walk home together a few times a week, eat lunch at the same table, go on dates sometimes; she told you these things as she did her nails and cried. You listened and tried to fit her words into the dollhouse of your universe. Spending time with someone sounded painful. It involved sacrifice, you surmised, the act of carving things out of yourself. You decided it was a pity that your sister’s boyfriend was in love with history and she had been in love with volleyball. It was hard to love two things at once, or separately.

Later she broke up with this boyfriend and you watched as she acquired a string of subsequent boyfriends who were all unwilling to give up their version of elective history for her. You wondered what exactly she was trying so hard for but were unsure how to ask. Was it companionship? Was it devotion? Was it that abstract notion of love that made your face burn with exertion, even when you had done nothing at all? She had stopped looking for boyfriends altogether by the time you entered high school, and decided eventually to pursue hairdressing in Tokyo.

vii. Volleyball is a sport where you are always looking up. After junior high you refused to stare at anything but the ground before you, having resigned yourself to the fact that no one would want to hit a ball you had set. It seemed fair to anticipate the ball’s descent instead of its ascent. The ascent, after all, was dependent on factors outside of your control. The descent could be slowed down or at least cushioned with your hands.

“Give me the ball,” Hinata demands. He opens his mouth and the words cut right through you. Mesmerized by the sound, you toss to him and he slams the ball into the opposite court. There’s that age-old silence, the sharp intake of breath. Hinata and Kageyama’s freak quick does it again.

As long as you’re here, you think, he’s invincible.

Or is it the other way around?

viii. Karasuno goes to the Spring High. Still it doesn’t quite sink in until you’re walking onto the orange court and the announcer with his shiny annoying microphone is reading your name off a placard. ‘Kageyama Tobio’ goes up in the air like a firework. You feel your heart scrabble for purchase on your ribcage.

You play on all three days. You inhale the stark geometry of movement and the court teaches you physics and sorcery. You have sunk your feet into the hardwood floor and you will not go anywhere until Hinata Shouyou who refracts light like a miracle falls from the sky. Until he becomes Icarus.

When he finally does, you tell him, "I'm going on ahead."

What you really mean is: I want you to chase me.

ix. “What’s volleyball to you?” Hoshiumi asks once after practice. The question comes from nowhere and arrives nowhere. You simply happen to be present.

“Volleyball is volleyball,” you say perfunctorily.

Hoshiumi tilts his head back like a Yakuza. “That’s a stupid answer. Think harder.”

You slide your notebook into the front pocket of your bag. You picture rows of plastic bottles placed at equal intervals along a court. You hear the ball falling. The smear of shoes.

“Think harder,” Hoshiumi repeats. You think maybe he’s psychic, though he’s probably just bored. You think you would be nothing without volleyball. And Hinata, if he had not pulled you out of the sky and tied you to a kinder religion.

You consider Hinata Shouyou and the ball. Which matters more, which is the elective history class you cannot give up? Hoshiumi taps his feet against the floor impatiently.

“Volleyball just is,” you decide. Something has come upon you. You know what it looks like but not how to describe it. Hoshiumi can take his weird questions and shove it.

“Hah?” Hoshiumi tilts his head so far back you worry that his neck will snap. You zip your bag and sling it over your shoulder, nod in his direction without meeting his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Kageyama, you’re full of bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

x. He calls you one night from Brazil, drunk off his ass, and you burn like Alexandria with the urge to put your hands on his throat.

xi. “Is that so bad?”

“No, but the Black Jackals are annoying. Atsumu still holds a grudge against me for the Olympics. Sakusa’s going to make everyone use his hand sanitizer and then he’s going to run out and he’s going to make one of us buy him refills.”

“And Hinata Shouyou.”

“Yeah. And Hinata Shouyou.”

xii. Maybe passion is frustration. Maybe love is consumption. Maybe Hinata comes back from Brazil and the first thing you think when you see him in the hallway outside the toilet is that you want to lick the smile right off his face. It has taken you several years to reach the place where the shadow of junior high and the family you left behind does not cast itself across your shoulders, but merely the tips of your toes. Your feet are planted firmly in the dirt.

Your grandfather used to say that no one understood what was and wasn’t important to you better than yourself. At eight you felt that he was being evil and deliberately cryptic. At twenty-two, you think you understand. Volleyball is Hinata is volleyball. You cannot have one without the other and you cannot have neither, so you want to have both.

The Black Jackals win. As the crowd surges out of the bleachers, calling your names like promises, you duck under the net to the other side of the court. The sound of shoes, rainfall; then he is there beside you.

“It’s my win,” Hinata says, smiling so hard you think he’s going to crack right open. He's sweaty and gross and you've never seen anything quite as spectacular.

“Yeah” you say, and then you kiss him.

xiii. Everyone knows Kageyama Tobio fucked up at the junior high qualifiers, but most people don’t know he borrowed his father’s suit for his grandfather’s funeral. He didn’t want to go in the first place. He was scared of the faceless casket he would be forced to confront.

By the time he emerged onto the court again he had retreated so far inside of himself, there was little left on the outside but a motorized shell which remembered, vaguely, how to play volleyball. They called him King of the Court for months afterwards, but they didn’t see the way the court had swallowed him up and spat out his bones. His teammates had been watching him with curious resentment for months. His coach had little sympathy for the sullen genius with the brackish words. No one saw that he was carrying a wound for a heart. They saw only the court and the ball and the way the spiker’s hand fell short of its golden trajectory.

Look at that, they said in wonderment. Isn’t that terrible.

Everyone knows Hinata Shouyou sucked at volleyball at the start, but they don’t know that Kageyama Tobio looked at him for the first time that day and hoped immediately, from some strange and selfish part of his chest, that Hinata would be the one to wake him from his solitary dream. That he saw in him the face of a sleeping god.

They don’t know that Kageyama spent six years watching for the shadow of the sun through the clouds, and then was there to greet it at first light.

0. By the grace of God and with this crown, I name you king of everything.

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sonderwalker · 4 years

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haven’t posted any writing in a while but chapter 4 of welcome home is up!

summary: A misunderstanding between a Obi-Wan and Anakin boils over into a fight where feelings are left unsaid... for a little while that is. Obi-Wan is perplexed by what seems to be a sudden change in Anakin's mood. Anakin runs away after the confrontation comes to a head, and Obi-Wan searches to find his apprentice in the cold, rainy night of Coruscant, before someone else does, or something else gets to him first. They have a heart to heart after that.

chapter four is under the cut!

Obi-Wan watched as healers, nurses, and doctors passed by, moving through the halls of healing. With his back against the wall, he watched as time slowly passed, waiting for news about Anakin. He knew that several hours had passed- the ache in his joints from sitting in one position for so long was telling him that more than anything. But he couldn’t bring himself to move. Not until he got more news about Anakin.

He felt his eyelids drooping, but they would snap open after a moment as his anxiety fought with his exhaustion. Master Che came from around a corner and Obi-Wan quickly stood up, eager to hear any news.

“Master.” He said, his voice hushed. Obi-Wan looked at her- while she was a stern and stoic woman, he had never seen her look weary the way she did now. She started at him for a moment before speaking.

“Padawan Skywalker is going to be fine.” She said before he could say anything else. Obi-Wan let out a huge sigh of relief, releasing hours of anxiety that had been building up.

“But,” She continued. “It will take some time before he is back to feeling like his normal self.”

“How long?” Obi-Wan asked.

“At least a month.” She said and shrugging. “It could be longer.” Obi-Wan opened and closed his mouth again, unsure of how he was going to break to Anakin that he was going to have to spend the next month sitting still and not doing very much. Master Che sighed.

“I know that your Padawan is an active boy. But trust me, he will not have the energy to be moving around like how he did before for at least two weeks.” Obi-Wan frowned and reached a hand up to stroke his beard to hide the concern in his expression.

“Obi-Wan.” Master Che said in a soft voice. “While the chest infection wouldn’t be that much of a problem on its own, it’s the infection on his arm that is worrisome. Do you know anything about when he could have hurt himself?” He crossed his arms, deep in thought about when Anakin could have done something to injure himself.

“Well…” He began. “If I didn’t know about it until now, that means that he was probably doing something that he didn’t want me knowing about.” Obi-Wan muttered. “And my first guess would be that he was working on some project somewhere and didn’t want me to find out about it.”

Master Che nodded. “That makes sense. Had he been more closed off than usual?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan replied. “His mood got worse as the week went on.”

“Well, I think that tells us what we need to know. He probably was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing- was worried about your reaction and decided to hide the wound instead of getting help.”

“But what about the chest infection?” Obi-Wan asked, trying to push down the guilt that was rising.

“For that, I would assume that he was trying to hide that as well.” Master Che said. She sighed.

“It is obvious that your padawan has learned many things from you, including a lack of self-preservation skills.” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry when he heard her say that. He decided to change the subject.

“When will he wake up?” He asked, anxious to see his apprentice.

“It’s hard to say. We had to sedate him to stop the convulsions. It should wear off in a few hours, but he won’t be in any condition to hold any kind of conversation. Right now, we are more focused on clearing the blood infection than the chest one.” She paused to look at Obi-Wan’s confused expression before continuing.

“The chest infection, while probably a nuisance, is not life threatening. Had Skywalker waited longer before getting help for the blood infection however, it would have been very likely that we would have had to consider amputation.” Obi-Wan gasped softly.

“He is a healthy child. I am sure he will make a full recovery. It will just take time.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“But for now, I would suggest that you focus on getting some rest yourself, Kenobi.” Master Che said. They heard Bant call her name from another room and Master Che walked off, leaving Obi-Wan alone with his thoughts once again.

Obi-Wan had never seen Anakin be so still in his life. His padawan was always on the move, and never seemed to tire out. Asking more questions than Obi-Wan had answers. Pushing whatever limits he could. But now, as Obi-Wan stood by Anakin’s bedside, he wished that he were dealing with a hyperactive teenager instead of one who looked like he was on death’s doorstep. The dark circles under his eyes were prominent, and his face was pale aside from the fever. Obi-Wan looked at the machines by his bedside: an oxygen monitor, heart monitor, several IVs, and data pads with notes and charts. He looked back down at Anakin- who was now wearing a white tunic and saw the infection in his arm. Obi-Wan winced while looking at the angry, red lines that ran up and down his arm. He looked out the window, at the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. Speeders passed by, casting temporary shadows against the buildings. He watched them go by, not really focused on what was in front of him.

Yes, he was definitely going to have a serious talk with Anakin once he was well enough.

He heard a cough and jumped. Obi-Wan quickly turned around and saw Anakin trying to sit up while coughing. He quickly rushed over and helped him sit up, and felt his body shake as the coughing continued.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan said sternly, “How are you feeling?” He watched as Anakin blinked a few times, like as if he were trying get rid of the mind fog from the fever.

“Tired.” He rasped out. He brought a hand up to rub his eyes, and then looked down at the IV that was inserted into his wrist. He frowned, and then looked back up at Obi-Wan, who had now sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Anakin,” he repeated as he watched his apprentice lean back into the pillows, his eyes half open. He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Obi-Wan sighed.

“I should go get a healer. I’m sure they will want to check in on you and make sure everything is alright.”

“Later.” Anakin whispered, his eyes closing again.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan sighed.

“Master, I’m tired.” Anakin replied, his voice cracking on the last word. Obi-Wan felt that tug on his heartstrings.

“Fine. Later.” He said.

“It is now later, Anakin.” Bant said as she approached his bedside. Anakin’s eyes cracked open, and they still looked dazed from the fever.

“You’re lucky Obi-Wan let you rest some more- if I was your master, I would have had the healer check on you as soon as I saw you were awake.” She said as she picked up a nearby data pad and began to read through its contents.

“Oh, I wanted to, believe me.” Obi-Wan reported from her side. A ghost of a smile formed on Anakin’s face, but his eyes still stayed mostly shut.

“Well, his fever has gone down, so that means that the antibiotics are working.” Bant said as she continued to look at the data pad. “Although you’ll have to stay on bedrest for at least another standard week, Anakin.” He hummed in response, his eyes closed again, and she glanced at Obi-Wan who was trying to conceal his worry in the force.

“Don’t worry about it.” She whispered. “I’m sure Master Che told you that he was going to be really out of it for a while. Until his fever breaks, he won’t be very responsive.” Obi-Wan nodded.

“The only concern we have about that is that if he’s too tired to eat on his own we might have to insert a feeding tube.” Bant muttered. She leaned over and gently shook Anakin’s shoulder, who groaned and then coughed.

“Do you feel like eating anything?” She asked him gently. He shook his head.

“Not even some juice? Some tea?” She questioned. Anakin shook his head again. Bant stood up straight and looked at Obi-Wan. She sighed.

“We can try asking him again later, but if he still says no then we would have to consider inserting the tube. Do you know when the last time he ate was?”

“Yesterday, lunch, I think. He ran out before we had dinner.” Obi-Wan replied. She nodded.

“His body isn’t going to be able to fight off these infections unless we are able to get some more nutrients into him.” She commented. Obi-Wan leaned over and shook Anakin shoulder again.

“Anakin.” He said softly. “If you keep refusing food, then the healers will have to insert a feeding tube.”

“And you don’t want that.” Bant added on. “So, it would be better if you could try and eat a little something on your own.” Anakin whined into his pillow, but after a moment he began to sit up, using shaky arms to help push himself up. The two of them leaned forward and helped him sit up.

“Great!” Bant said. “I’ll be back in a moment with a juice pouch.” She said as she walked away. Anakin leaned forward, resting his head on his master’s shoulder and sighed.

“I know you’re tired, Anakin, but I promise you can sleep after this.” Obi-Wan whispered softly as he rested a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. While he knew that Anakin’s fever had gone down, he could still feel the intense heat against his neck that was coming off of him. He felt Anakin nod, and the wave of chills that overtook his body. He heard the door open and Bant walked in, holding a purple juice pouch in one hand.

“You don’t have to finish it, but you have to try and take a few sips.” She said as she handed Anakin the drink. He took it with shaky hands and Obi-Wan was pleasantly surprised when he was able to finish about half of it before handing it back to her and curling up underneath the covers. Bant chuckled slightly.

“It must be weird to see him so quiet.” She remarked. Obi-Wan nodded.

“Quite.” He replied, watching Anakin’s chest rise and fall as he slept.

#star wars fanfic #fanfic #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #writing is hard

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