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sunofpandora · 3 months

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𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆⭒˚｡⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊ *ੈ✩‧₊｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ｡𖦹 ⋆｡

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Angel

𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚, 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡 𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧

𝙏𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙣𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙨 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨

𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡 🏹🤍

✩♬ ₊˚.🎧⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚‧₊˚🖇️✩ ₊˚🎧⊹♡

About The Writer

･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ✯ currently writing for avatar and atwow

┊ ┊ ┊ ✯ Sol/18/Virgo/NYC

┊ ┊ ✯ art and film student

┊ ✯ Zuni, Apache, and Afro Latina

✯ mixed-native and supporting ICWA.

I’m currently living in the US but I’ve kinda lived all over.

The last place I lived was New Zealand, and I travel a lot with my partner who studies cultural architecture.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚Fun facts about me!

☆ My real name is Solana. Soleil and Sol are both nicknames.

☆ I have two cats, one named Bora, and another named Trudy (after the avatar 2009 character), and one Havanese dog named Lilo.

☆ I speak French, Spanish, and English.

☆ I study art and film, specifically story structure and cinematography.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

✮I write for any gender x any gender reader inserts.

☽ y/n will most likely be poc coded.

R U L E S A N D D E T A I L S

Favorite tropes: (I’m not urging anyone to suggest these. I just love writing them)

FORBIDDEN ROMANCE! ( will die on this hill)

Friends to lovers

Enemies to lovers

“Oh fuck. Oh no I love them” type shii

More to come soon.

General rules:

Nsfw is aloud but nothing crazy. (By that I’m not calling any of anyone’s kinks “crazy” what I mean like super, super intense bdsm, knife play, gun play, blood kinks, incest, stepcest, (let’s just say anything ending in ‘cest’ is a no.) and everything MUST be consensual.)

I’m a bit hesitant about writing human x na’vi nsfw and I probably won’t write human reader x na’vi fluff. It’s just I have a hard time visually imagining a human and a na’vi having sex without an avatar body. I am not against the idea in any way, but the general concept does throw me off a bit (I always imagine some type of detrimental injury occurring bc we are so smol compared to na’vi)

In all, I’m not the biggest fan of writing for a human reader, and will probably turn down requests for a human x Na’vi fic.

I will however, absolutely write for avatar reader x na’vi character of any sort! Or even a half-human half na’vi reader or some kind of biracial na’vi? (I’ve seen that concept a few times in the fandom an it’s honestly so much fun)

I do allow things like comfort for self harm, abuse, traumatic experiences, racism, etc. but these things will never be romanticized.

Y/n won’t have a name. Sorry, I just don’t see the point in x reader if the reader has a name. I will always refer to them as Y/n.

I write for a female reader for the most part but please, if you want any other pronouns please let me know in your request.

Y/n will always be of any size! That includes plus size or on the skinnier size. If you would like me to specify that in your request let me know.

I do age up my characters. If you don’t like it you can head out.

T H E H E A V E N S

Details:

Each character has their own sky object or natural phenomenon.

Works and fics are found underneath the collages.

(important!

This master list is not fisnined yet. Not all characters have an image yet.)

ＡｖａｔａｒＣｈａｒａｃｔｅｒＷｏｒｋｓ

･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ･｡ﾟ☆

Kiri Sully-

“And Kiri, a mysterious creation. Who’s heart beats with the rhythm of eywa’s pulse. Who’s eyes longed for otherness.

Things that grew beyond the edge of her grasp. Beautifully out of place.”

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼

Sky object: crepuscular rays, Neptune 🌀

Works:

None, currently.

Lo’ak Sully

“Lo’ak was an anarchist of his own recklessness. His gaze grazed with fire unapologetically unable to sit still.

Sometimes the smoke and ash become a haze of intangible adrenaline. preservations for one’s safety wither away under the charred sky.”

Sky object:

Mars

Rainstorms

Works:

None currently.

Neteyam sully

Sky object:

Golden hour

Sun rays

Works:

Diphanous part 1

Diphanous part 2

Virago Series:

Chapter 1. Day the sky turned red

Chapter 2. The son sun made out of stone.

Chapter 3 trilogy (Virago):

(Chapter 3 of virago was too long so it’s split into these 3 parts.)

1. Cupid wears a blindfold

2. Aim your arrow at his heart as he holds it out for you to ruin.

3. Surrender to his saubade, he has set his soul and sin ablaze (to be yours)

More characters coming soon!

#avatar the way of water #neteyam x reader #jake avatar #neteyam sully #neteyam #neytiri #kiri sully #avatar fanfiction #lo’ak x reader #neteyam x you

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gffa · 10 months

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ABSOLUTELY, UTTERLY CHARMED BY THIS ENTIRE STORYLINE. It's Tim struggling to figure himself out, what he wants, who he is, what he's going through, and realizing that he's growing into something he never realized was there before. And the story makes a point of bringing Steph into the story, specifically framing her as Tim's ex, and then also bringing Conner into the story in the same way as Steph--someone who cares very much about Tim and is worried about him and checking in with him. I mean, also, STEPH APPARENTLY TALKS TO CONNER please understand that canon confirmation of that is A JOY IN MY HEART but the quiet parallel of Steph and Conner as these two people who are such important figures in his life, but that Tim's figuring something out that's just about himself, that's why I like this being a Tim/Bernard story while also giving nods to both Tim/Steph and Tim/Kon. Do I have a favorite pairing out of all of those, one that I think should be ultimate endgame? YOU BET I DO. But I love so much that this isn't a story wrapped up in a pairing that comes with so much extra other context, that it's a story truly about Tim Drake and who he is and what's going on with him. If this had been about TimKon, I probably would have been flying too high on my joy about it to have any criticisms, but I do think it has value in being about a character that doesn't have a long established history with Tim, because now the story can be about Tim figuring himself out, without having to balance it with all the Young Justice/Teen Titans history and Kon's own issues and the intense friendship-turned-romance between them. Instead, Tim has the space to focus just on what's going on with his sexuality and, as someone who struggled a lot with figuring that out myself, that space to let that kind of thing breathe for awhile without having to pile more onto it--that's extremely valuable. But I love that this is very, very easy to read as a nod to TimKon just as much as it's explicitly a nod to TimSteph, while still being a Tim-centric story. BABY BOY DESERVES THAT OKAY THAT'S A HILL I'M GOING TO DIE ON, LET THE BABY QUEER FIGURE HIMSELF OUT FIRST THEN WE CAN START THROWING HIM AT THE PEOPLE WE WANT HIM TO SMOOCH, TIM DESERVES THAT CHARACTER FOCUS. (I'm absolutely going to keep throwing him at Kon eventually though YOU CAN'T TELL ME this isn't more confirmation that Tim's feelings for him were threaded through with romantic undercurrents because like he didn't have to be part of this storyline, but they chose to make sure his face got in there and You Can't Tell Me That's Not Significant.) Anyway, ultimately I'm fine with this because you know what? Tim should get a storyline that truly puts him at the center of it, plus HE IS SUPER CUTE IN THIS STORYLINE, I want to wrap him up in a blanket and feed him soup, he's so adorable.

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #tim drake #stephanie brown #conner kent #timkon #timsteph #timber #urban legends

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blorbologist · 4 days

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🖤💚

for the unpopular opinions asks

:DD Thank you! You get Percy rambles because that's where the brain goes past midnight <3

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Very, very quietly: my yearly reminder to everyone that Percy knew what he was doing when he invented Gun. The entire character concept, per Taliesin, is 'what the fuck could motivate someone to make something this awful'. He did not invent Gun to free Whitestone, he did not invent Gun to rid the world of terrible evil, he invented Gun because he was a terrified and hurt and furious teenager who did not care what consequences there were to his actions so long as he maybe, possibly, might be able to kill some of the people responsible for his family's deaths. Once it does hit him that he will have to live with the consequences, that others will live with this same pain because of the havoc firearms can sow, he definitely feels awful! And wants to undo it as best he can! But it remains that he was a deeply selfish character.

And still is! No Mercy Percy is a fun meme and all, but he really leans into a lot of needless cruelty when he's scrambling for control. Which pops up again even after the Briarwoods arc is all done with - he is absolutely furious at Scanlan and some of what he mildly brings up to Vex is horrifying shit to say you'd do to a friend.

Anyways he's perfectly in character in C3 and I will die on this hill. And get raised as an undead by Delilah because PERCY WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT THE WHOLE THING -

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

OK, so I know we (by we I mean me) all love to point at Percy and go 'this man is autistic please let him infodump about the Feywild/clocks/engineering stupid dragon traps'. But there is a really good reason why everyone was shocked by his backstory reveal in C1, and why he's got so few lines in the first two episodes of TLOVM, and that's because he's pretty fucking quiet. And it's something I didn't fully appreciate until recently, so it's really understandable how often it trips people up!

The main thing is that while Lord de Rolo is usually a man of few words, those words are fucking bangers. While a lot of Vax's famous lines tend to be part of a long Shakespearian ramble (which I love), Percy, as a Taliesin character, is a master of the one-liner. Which tends to get over-represented in our memory compared to how often he says very little at all!

Percy often gets wordy when he has a space to do so (a debate with Keyleth, a bit of Whitestone lore Taliesin wants to yell about, nerding out with Tary who is importantly nerding out right back)... and when he's talking to Vex. God he will not shut up when he's one-on-one with Vex. In his conversations with other characters (Vax and Keyleth namely) he usually keeps his input short unless he's doing some arguing. But with Vex? Just won't stop.

So while I do think infodumping can be compliant with canon Percy, he needs to either be doing it in tandem with someone else (he and Keyleth or Tary being little weirdos), he has to have a solid excuse to indulge in it and feel justified, or he and Vex are alone. (Cass can probably get him to infodump, but given her nature as an NPC there isn't much textual evidence alas.)

Ask me about my unpopular opinions!

#ask game #holds up the de blorbo..... he

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coldmail750 · 1 year

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In the continuing saga of me rambling about Beastars - having rambled at length now about four carnivore character arcs, I'd like to talk a bit about an herbivore character arc, one that is one of my favorite arcs in the series, and one that gets done incredibly dirty by how the series ends:

Louis's.

I'll Never Forgive Chapter 194

or, the Ignominious Death of One of Beastars's Best Character Arcs

So at the end of part two of the carnivore parallels essay, I summarized my thoughts on the deeply dysfunctional societal dynamic in Beastars:

...this carnivore-herbivore societal arrangement, as it stands, works for nobody. Herbivores live their lives in constant fear and regularly face either infantilization or objectification, carnivores live with constant self-loathing either for being carnivores or for not being carnivore enough, and hybrids get all the downsides of both with the upsides of neither.

In the same way that Paru uses Legoshi, Bill, Riz, and Ibuki to explore what it's like to live in the society of Beastars as a carnivore, Paru uses Louis to explore what it's like to live in this society as an herbivore - but, given Louis's backstory, he's also got a lot going on that's specific to him (in comparison to characters like Haru and Sebun, from whom we get a picture of slightly more standard herbivore life).

For the purposes of this essay, we're going to be focusing more on that Louis-specific stuff, but we will come back to the broader societal dynamics, because that is still an integral part.

So what is Louis's arc, then?

Louis's character progression, simply put, is him growing more confident with 1) not following the course laid out for him and 2) doing things that society does not approve of.

See, there's a fundamental clash going on between Louis's personality and Louis's situation. On the one hand, Louis is a very strong-willed character. He knows what he wants, is absolutely determined to get it, and has very little patience for anyone who would stand in his way. Indeed, Louis's insistence on living his life on his own terms is a hill he is literally willing to die on, which is part of why Oguma adopts him:

But Louis has never actually been able to live his life on his own terms. As a young child, he lived his life on the terms of the black market, as a piece of meat to be sold and consumed for profit. Adoption by Oguma meant salvation from the black market, but it didn't free Louis from living his life on someone else's terms; it simply changed the "someone else" from the black market to Oguma.

Oguma adopted Louis for a very explicit reason - he needed a respectable heir, another deer that he could pass off as his son who would make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate. That is the course that was laid out for Louis the moment Oguma adopted him, the terms by which he has lived ever since.

We can add to that the general Beastars societal pressures - that they will marry within their species, for example - and the societal pressures upon herbivores - that herbivores will hate and fear carnivores, for example - that Louis no doubt was exposed to regularly throughout childhood simply by virtue of living in the world that he did. These societal pressures are largely in line with - or, at the minimum, not in opposition to - the course laid out for him by Oguma, so we can group them together.

So what happens, then, if what Louis wants clashes with the course laid out for him by Oguma and by society? The way the answer to that question changes is how Louis's arc progresses.

At the beginning of the story... okay, to talk about where Louis stands at the beginning of the story, we have to talk about Adler.

Watching how Louis plays the character of Adler tells us how Louis approaches a role. When early manga Louis is playing the role of Adler, he gets really into it; he is constantly practicing, he drags Odie to an illicit nighttime practice to make sure that Odie's performance doesn't drag him down, he memorizes the lines so thoroughly that he can recall them months later, and - crucially - he insists on attempting to play the role even at the expense of his own health, as we see when he attempts to play the role of Adler even on a broken leg, only stopping when he is literally no longer able to due to his injury.

Louis, as it happens, is constantly playing a role - the role of the dutiful, obedient son who does what is expected of him by society and his father - and, at the start of the story, he is invested in playing that role just as much as he is invested in playing the role of Adler the Grim Reaper.

But that dutiful, obedient son is just as much a fictional character as Adler, and even at the very beginning of Beastars, the role is beginning to slip a little when what Louis wants contradicts what's expected of him.

The proof of this is his relationship with Haru. Given the choice between the expectation of his arranged same-species marriage with Azuki and pursuing an interspecies relationship with a rabbit, Louis chooses the latter - but he obsessively tries to cover this up, keep it on the down-low, to give the impression that he's chosen the former. He wants to make it look like he's playing the dutiful son... but he's already kind of unsure about it.

This is symbolically alluded to by the fact that, when Haru and Louis first met, Louis had shed his antlers. Antlers are symbol of a male deer's virility, it's shameful to be seen without them (which is why Louis is trying to hide in the gardening club to begin with), and Louis acts embarrassed when he realizes he's about to kiss Haru while without antlers. But it also works as a way of symbolizing that Louis is clandestinely rejecting the course laid out for him by his father, the course that has him marrying Azuki and taking over the Horns Conglomerate; Louis is literally hiding the fact that he is without Horns.

The next time he's confronted with this choice between what's expected of him and what he wants is when Haru is kidnapped by the Shishigumi. He can either leave Haru to die, which will lead to the mayor erasing the records linking him to the black market, and continue with the plan that he will become Cherryton's beastar, marry Azuki, and succeed his father at Horns; or he can try to save her, at risk to his own life.

Louis tries to force himself to pick the first option. As he tried to play Adler until it broke him physically, he tries to play the obedient son until it breaks him mentally. He snaps, and - like the character Adler - decides that he'll prove his love through death; he charges into the Shishigumi's headquarters, murders their boss, and tells the underlings to kill him, giving Legoshi and Haru the chance to escape.

Of course, the Shishigumi does not kill Louis here, and this marks a turning point for his character development. Before Haru's kidnapping, Louis consistently attempts to pick "what's expected of me", and if he picks "what I want", he does so as furtively as possible.

After Haru's kidnapping, but before the final climax of his arc, Louis consistently picks "what I want" over "what's expected of me", and does so in front of more and more people... but still tries to not draw too much attention to it, justifying his actions only when necessary, and sometimes still telling himself and those around him "I'm definitely doing what's expected of me still, you must be mistaken".

So throughout the bulk of the manga - everything between the fight with the Shishigumi and the fight with Melon - that's Louis's modus operandi. When given a choice between the expectation that he will seek to return to normal society and his preordained course as soon as possible, or staying on as the head of the Shishigumi, he picks the latter; but the only person he tells about this is Oguma, as part of a failed effort to break his familial ties with his father, with Legoshi discovering it by chance and Juno deducing it herself.

When given a choice between sticking to this prejudice against carnivores which herbivores are expected to have, and abandoning it, realizing that he's come to deeply care about and even love the carnivores in his life, Louis picks the latter; he allows Legoshi to eat his leg, a transgression of this world's ultimate societal taboo, to help Legoshi defeat Riz. This stands as a total rejection of Louis's previous bigotry, the overcoming of his childhood trauma, and an expression of just how close he and Legoshi have become - but he keeps it and his reasons for doing it relatively quiet, and, in the same vein, usually hides the fact that he has a prosthesis afterwards.

When given a choice between accepting the title of Cherryton beastar, the sort of high school honor that would look great on the resume of a future Horns CEO, the accolade everyone has been expecting him to win, and refusing it because Legoshi deserves just as much credit but definitely won't get it, Louis picks the latter, and only explains why to Cherryton's headmaster.

The example of this change in habit that is the easiest for comparison, however, is his relationship with Juno.

While Louis's relationship with Legoshi is one based in their having been forged in the same flames, that knowledge that they can rely on each other when they need it, trust the other with their secrets and their lives unconditionally, Louis's relationship with Juno is wrapped up in an... almost envy? for her willingness to pursue his own wants - as is his relationship with Haru.

Haru and Juno are both open about their own wants, as opposed to what society expects of them, in a way that Louis feels he cannot be. Haru knows that being promiscuous is societally vilified, will result in her being shunned and bullied, but she does it anyways, because sex is the only time she's treated like a person, not an object, and she wants to be treated like a person. Juno knows that her entering a different-species relationship with a deer would be societally frowned upon, openly wrestles with this in front of Louis, and ultimately ends up angrily shouting that she loves a deer live on national television.

Louis wants to be able to openly wrestle against societal expectation and do what he wants, consequences be damned, like Haru and Juno do - and he does a little, letting Haru see him without his horns and letting Juno see his prosthesis - but he feels like he can't truly do it because of the expectations imposed on him by Oguma.

The specific contrast between Louis's relationship with Haru and Louis's relationship with Juno that I want to talk about, however, is how and where Louis conducts his relationship with each. Louis's relationship with Haru was something he conducted almost entirely beyond closed doors - a furtive thing that they shared only in places where they thought no one could see them, the quiet dark of the gardening club shed or a space hidden between tents at the Meteor Festival.

Louis's relationship with Juno is something he has in bubble tea cafes, at bus stops, in school hallways, on the metro - in public.

Of course, he insists to himself and to her that it's nothing, he's just indulging her. But no matter how much he tries to convince Juno and himself that nothing is going on here, Louis has once again chosen his personal feelings over the course his father laid out for him, and he's getting increasingly comfortable with doing so openly.

So that's where Louis stands for the bulk of the manga; he's increasingly comfortable with openly doing what he wants rather than what is expected of him, but still feels bound enough by what is expected of him that he avoids calling attention to this fact and still attempts to pretend, at times, that nothing is happening and he's going to precisely follow the course his father laid out for him.

Louis's relationship with Juno (and his relationships with Haru and Legoshi) all stand in contrast to his "relationship" with Azuki, his preordained fiancée.

While Haru and Juno demonstrate a willingness to wrestle against and ignore societal pressures that Louis secretly admires, and Legoshi is overcoming his own internalization of societal messaging in part through his relationship with Louis, Azuki embodies the outside pressures upon Louis. She is same-species, opposite-sex, also of the upper crust, the person who Oguma has arranged Louis to marry.

But there is no relationship, really, between Louis and Azuki. They have met each other a handful of times. Their interactions are stilted and awkward; neither much cares about the other beyond the fact that they are obliged to marry, because their marriage represents a corporate merger between Horns and Azuki's father's corporation. When Louis tries to force himself to become intimate with her, he cannot stop thinking about all the carnivores he actually cares about, and, ultimately, vomits.

The contrast is clear. While Louis's relationships with Haru, Legoshi, and Juno aren't exactly smooth sailing - they're all working through a lot, after all - it's clear that they are actual relationships with people Louis actually cares about, as opposed to his hollow, artificial construct of an outside obligation with Azuki.

There's one more event before the Melon fight that I'd like to talk about, though, and that's Oguma's death.

See, Oguma knows that Louis's "dutiful son" role is an act. Louis gets angry at Oguma over the fact that Oguma never attended any of Louis's plays not over the literal plays themselves but because he is constantly performing a role for someone who is never there to watch the performance; Oguma outright tells Louis that the reason he never went to one of his shows is because he wants Louis's wedding to Azuki to be the first time he sees Louis putting on his best performance.

It seems reasonable to assume that Oguma knows that this is an act because he has spent his entire life putting on the same act. That, once upon a time, Oguma's father laid the same path for him - make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate - and that Oguma devoted himself to it, played the part exactly as he was told to.

Since then, as Oguma tells us, he has devoted every aspect of his life to the Horns Conglomerate. He has treated every choice he's made as a business decision, evaluated every relationship he has ever made based on whether or not it was profitable for Horns - and was good at it, the company reaping the profits of his diligence and his devotion.

But now, on his deathbed, he's realized something.

There's one relationship he can't quantify.

Oguma was not a good father to Louis. He was near-totally absent from his son's life, interacting with him once a week; he imposed heavy expectations on Louis, expectations which Louis has spent the entirety of the manga suffering because of. The only halfway-decent father figure Louis had in his life was a lion in the yakuza.

But Oguma did love Louis - felt unable to express it, because of the expectations that he inherited from his father and passed on to his son, but did love him. And now, on his deathbed, Oguma realizes that this is his last chance to tell Louis that a real, loving relationship is more valuable than any business relationship, to the point of being beyond quantification, to tell his son that he loves him.

And as his final act upon the earth, Oguma says "let me do the most unprofitable thing", and hugs Louis.

When Oguma adopted Louis, he freed him from the black market, but he didn't free Louis from having to live his life on someone else's terms. On his deathbed, Oguma rights that wrong by telling Louis that love is more precious than profit - that what Louis wants is more important than that path ending at Horns.

With that, we can finally arrive at the climax of Louis's arc - the press conference during the Melon fight.

When Louis gets behind the podium at that press conference, he has to choose between giving a normal boilerplate speech about how business will continue at the Horns Conglomerate with him as CEO, sliding into the role he was raised for from the moment Oguma adopted him; or, he can bring up the black market, breach every societal taboo about meat-eating and carnivore-herbivore relations, and proclaim openly that he cares about deeply about a wolf and that that wolf is in danger.

As with Haru's kidnapping, this is a choice where his previous strategy for dealing with the conflict between what's expected of him and what he wants no longer works. Where Haru's kidnapping put him in a position where he could no longer pretend to pick the former while clandestinely picking the latter, causing him to shift to picking the latter but not drawing attention to it, he now finds himself in a position where, if he's going to do what he wants, he has to draw attention to it. He has to defy his preordained path, explicitly, live on national TV.

And that's exactly what he does.

Louis has seen the harm the expectations imposed by the society of Beastars can do. He has seen how they hurt Haru, Legoshi, Juno, Bill, Ibuki, Riz, his father, himself. He has watched people bend and break under them, felt the pressure to do so himself, struggled against it his entire life.

But now he has stared down those societal norms that cause or perpetuate so much of the suffering the characters of Beastars face, and won. He is no longer ashamed and fearful like the fawn in the cage, nor embittered and hateful like the young stag we met when the series began, but confident and optimistic. He has gone from feeling the need to bend or break under the expectations upon him, expectations that forced him to choose between what was "acceptable" and the people he cared most about, to using his power and his influence to help change what society expects.

This - Louis's total rejection of the path laid out for him in favor of carving a new path, a better path, alongside the people he cares about - is his great triumph, the culmination of one of the best character arcs I have ever read.

And then comes chapter 194.

Louis, having completed his arc, is given one final choice. He can follow the course laid out for him by his father, have his loveless but societally-approved arranged marriage with Azuki and wholly submit to being the next CEO of the Horns Conglomerate; or he can reject that, "do the most unprofitable thing", and continue his relationships with the people he actually loves.

The manga has very clearly set up Louis and Juno as romantic partners. It's clear that there's a lot going on between Legoshi and Louis, who are incredibly close and whose relationship is a fan favorite. If I'd been writing the manga I would've just made Legoshi, Haru, Louis, and Juno a polycule. If he suddenly declared his love for some random other character he'd never even interacted with before it... would be unsatisfying for a lot of other reasons, but it would still technically kind of fit with his progression as a character, because it would still be him choosing his desires over societal & familial expectations.

The only clearly wrong choice here, the choice which it makes no sense for Louis to make and which cannot be reconciled with his growth as a person, is for him - having been freed from his father's expectations by Oguma on his deathbed, having totally rejected the societal pressures upon him on national television at the culmination of the manga's final battle - to suddenly, inexplicably, for no good reason, throw all of his character development out of the window and cave to marrying Azuki.

siiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhhh

The bleakness of this ending is amplified even more by a detail in the following chapter, where Haru tells Legoshi that she got a very short call from Louis, and it becomes clear that Louis hasn't just broken up with Juno to marry Azuki, he's stopped talking with Legoshi and is barely contacting Haru. Louis, whose entire arc has been about him learning to choose his own wants and the people he cares about over the path demanded of him by society, is now inexplicably cutting every person he cares about out of his life in the name of caving to societal pressure.

Look, I have a lot of respect for Paru Itagaki. She wrote the entirety of the character arc that I've spent the past god-knows-how-many paragraphs raving about, this wonderful narrative of a character who gets introduced as an asshole rich kid but becomes incredibly complex, compelling, and sympathetic, and did it all while working under a grueling schedule. But her decision to end Louis's arc like this is baffling and terrible all at once, and it still drives me up the wall two years later.

This is not to say she doesn't try to make it make sense. Louis says that he needs to marry Azuki because he needs to stay on as Horns CEO, and he needs to stay on as Horns CEO so that he can buy the Shishigumi a way out of prison and into his employ.

But that justification doesn't work because of a big piece of foreshadowing that, because of what happens to Louis's arc, ends up going nowhere: the whole "beastars" thing.

Paru Itagaki does a lot to foreshadow the idea that Louis and Legoshi are going to become co-beastars. After Louis refuses to become Cherryton beastar because Legoshi won't get any credit, headmaster Gon turns to Cherryton's deputy headmaster and tells him that it's a real shame that those two won't be a model for society to look to.

Shortly after that, we're introduced to Yahya, the sublime beastar, and to Gosha, Legoshi's grandfather. Yahya and Gosha just so happen to deeply resemble who Louis and Legoshi were at the start of their arcs - an herbivore who deeply hates carnivores because of an incident in their past, and a carnivore who allows himself to be feared and hated by those around him - and just so happen to have once dreamed of becoming co-beastars, before they went their separate ways.

Not long after that, we're told that Yahya is beginning to get too old to be sublime beastar, that his body is declining and he will soon no longer have the physical acuity or resistance to do the job he does, and that even Yahya is beginning to have to admit this to himself - in short, that soon someone will need to replace him.

We get an entire chapter about how Yahya once used his sublime beastar powers to get the 500 Cornered Rats - a gang of criminals who were captured by the police - released from prison so that he could take them on as his subordinates, which is important inasmuch as it establishes that Yahya can pardon Legoshi's conviction for predation and thereby allow him to marry Haru, but also clearly establishes that there is precedent for a sublime beastar pardoning and then hiring a criminal gang - something that would be really useful for Louis if, hypothetically speaking, the Shishigumi were captured and imprisoned.

Then, in chapter 158, Legoshi and Louis go to the black market, to the tower where Louis was once imprisoned, to the balcony where Oguma once told Louis he would change the world, and Legoshi proposes to Louis that the two of them should work together to change the world, that the two of them could be the beastars.

Louis even responds to this by making a big show of saying that Legoshi is being ridiculous, he can't just make up the title of the manga we're reading!

All of this foreshadowing is pointing so clearly in one direction. Everything that Paru has set up is absolutely screaming that Yahya will wipe Legoshi's conviction and then name Louis and Legoshi as his successors, the beastars; that Louis and Legoshi will build on the previous generation and succeed where they failed, with each other - and Haru and Juno - by their sides, standing as a new, healthier example of how carnivores and herbivores can live, work, and love truthfully, honestly, in solidarity alongside each other.

Louis, then, can use his sublime beastar powers to free and hire the Shishigumi, and break his betrothal to Azuki while giving her Horns - the only part of Louis she was actually interested in - since he's too busy to run it anyways.

It works as a culmination of the character progressions involved; it fulfills all of this brilliant foreshadowing Paru has set up; it makes the name of the manga work, because it establishes Beastars as having been the story of how Louis and Legoshi became the beastars. Everything ties together so neatly, so perfectly, so brilliantly.

Instead, all of this foreshadowing goes... nowhere. Legoshi gets an ending that's perfectly adequate but unexceptional, Louis's arc gets thrown in the trash, Yahya resigns from being sublime beastar but then keeps doing the work even though it was age interfering with his ability to work that was the issue anyways, all the stuff about "beastars" leads to nothing, and the manga just kind of fizzles out.

Again, Itagaki tries to offer some justification for this decision, putting the words into Louis's mouth:

I don't find this argument, this claim that Louis remaining close to the people he cares about most and becoming co-beastar with Legoshi would be too much like the plot of an overly saccharine movie, to be convincing.

Firstly, Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars with Haru and Juno at their side would not be a magic fix to all of the societal issues that Paru Itagaki demonstrated through her characters throughout the course of Beastars. Systemic change is slow, difficult progress, and it is never guaranteed that gains made will be kept. While Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars would represent the potential emergence of a new paradigm and the hope that change is possible, it wouldn't represent the issues they struggled to overcome being magically resolved overnight; but I don't think anyone unsatisfied with how Beastars ended is pretending that it would.

Secondly, even if Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars did magically fix all of the societal issues in Beastars going forward (which, again, it wouldn't and shouldn't, but just for the sake of argument), it wouldn't preclude the ending being bittersweet, because for a lot of characters, it's too late. It's too late entirely for Tem, for Ibuki, for Toki and Leano. Melon, psychologically, has been broken beyond repair; Riz will spend years in prison for what he did; Gosha and Yahya, once fast friends, spent thirty years not speaking to each other that they can't get back; Louis lost his childhood and Oguma lost the chance to have a proper relationship with his son.

Even if everything was magically fixed, the people who were hurt would still bear the scars - and I think that's plenty of bitter to balance out the sweet.

So there we have it. Paru Itagaki gave Louis one of the best damn character arcs I'd ever read, one that is incredibly layered and compelling, executed it masterfully from its inception to the final climax of the work, and then fumbled it in the final chapters, throwing out her own foreshadowing and leaving us with an ending that was a mixed bag on the whole and that, for Louis specifically, was outright terrible.

I guess that's why I'm still not over it, two years later, even though Beastars isn't even my most recent furry fixation anymore. It's agonizing to see something that was so enthralling and compelling get obliterated at the last possible moment, to think about what could have been, and to have the knowledge of what it ended up being looming over you every time you come back to the work.

I still love Beastars. But the way that Louis's arc ends, and the way the entire ending of the series got weakened to make his arc end that way... that's something I think I'll always be at least a little bit bitter about.

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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 19 days

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just out of curiosity – why do you like sukugo??

i've just never seen any of the accounts i follow/my mutuals celebrate this pairing so i'm really curious!

:))))))))) i smiled so wide getting this ask anon. PLS DON’T BE ALARMED just take my hand and let me tell you abt two deeply violent homoerotic men….

okay so when it comes to sukugo i just. ADORE their dynamic and relationship. it’s one of my favorites in the entire manga and i truly think akutami COOKED with it . not only the shinjuku fight itself (which is, ofc, what sold me on the ship) but also the foreshadowing beforehand!!! like sukuna telling gojo that he’ll be the first one he kills…. the two of them making the same kind of pose in their respective volume covers (vol. 4 & 14….. another parallel which is even more devastating when you remember that the number four is associated with death in japan)….. both of them being referred to as ”the strongest.”

i actually didn’t pick up on a lot of it until we got to shinjuku!! but i just think akutami teased at their importance to each other so well and so early on.

WITH THAT BEING SAID . their dynamic. their parallels. yes. they’re both the strongest and the most isolated and those two things are synonymous. it ties into one of the most central themes of jjk that equates absolute strenght to absolute solitude — it’s a kind of curse. a curse and a blessing. and they both have it.

the main difference is that gojo knows what it’s like to be understood and loved — but sukuna doesn’t. so he can’t feel lonely. he’s never known what it’s like to not be alone. but gojo has!!! gojo has felt love and felt what it’s like to be understood, and when geto died a part of him died too. he’ll always be lonely. he’s the loneliest character in the series. and when he looks at sukuna he sees the exact same isolation that’s plagued him since the moment he was born. so what does he do about it?

he tries to teach sukuna about love.

^ and THAT’S . the most delicious dynamic ever. i take no criticism. i’ll die on the hill that this concept and their dynamic is one of the absolute highlights of jjk. it’s so GOOD. it’s so insanely good. gojo wants to teach sukuna about love/cure him from his solitude by killing him. and vice versa. it’s inherently violent and inherently tender and it makes me INSANE. to me that’s the greatest appeal of sukugo!!!! violence as tenderness is a trope very near and dear to my heart (and also VERY frequently associated w queer subtext in media…. just putting that out there……) and they do it so good. they have a blast killing each other.

also i just NEED to say how much i love the ”teach you about love” line. it’s one of my favorites in the manga and akutami utilizes it so well!! he repeats it over and over as foreshadowing and to build up the sukugo dynamic. the final reveal that gojo is ”the one who will teach [sukuna] about love” made me weep (even though it was so obvious)…. it’s just so deeply. idk. it just says so much about gojo as a character :(( the fact that he wanted to teach sukuna about love. i’ve seen some people who think that part is ooc but i disagree completely!! gojo has never concerned himself w the morals of others. not really. toji kills riko but gojo still has a respect for him and allows him to say his final words. he never hated geto despite his crimes. he supports yuji fully no matter how many people die because of him. etcetc. same with all his students.

gojo looks at sukuna and sees someone who is just as alone as he is. so deeply, deeply alone. him wanting to change that is not ooc in the slighest because that’s quite literally what drives gojo as a character:

he’s just such a genuinely good person at his core. and it coexists with the way he sometimes disregards morality. this is a hot take but i genuinely think gojo’s character blossomed fully in his battle with sukuna….. i don’t see him as ooc in it at all. he genuinely wanted to reach sukuna!! he knew he was the only one who could even hope to do so. and he tried his best.

and, i would argue that he succeeded.

SEGWAY TIMEEEEEEEEE LET’S GO. okay so let’s talk abt one of my favorite panels in the jjk manga, the panel that solidified sukugo as one of my favorite pairings Of All Time:

(two diff translations bc i love them both :3)

THIS. wow. wow. wow. i could talk abt this panel alone for hours and hours but i’ll try to be coherent……

there’s just? so much meaning to be found here??? for both of them????? not only is it a fundamental moment for gojo — being praised and acknowledged and accepted as himself rather than the strongest — but it’s also proof that gojo did reach sukuna!!! he’ll remember him forever. sukuna will never fully be entirely isolated because even millenia into the future he’ll still remember gojo. gojo nestled his way into sukuna’s heart.

and that’s just . so romantic isn’t it???? so beautiful???????? this is the culmination of gojo’s efforts; the most genuine expression we’ve ever seen on sukuna’s face. he actually looks happy.

i cried seeing that panel btw 😭😭 not a joke!! i was already crying when i started chapter 236 bc i knew how it’d end but this panel (+ the one w geto cheering gojo on in his cult leader fit) made me SOB. not exaggerating. i’ve never cried so much reading a manga… T_T

so!!!! yeah. i just love sukugo. their dynamic is so interesting and beautiful and i can never get enough of it. sometimes i love it more than stsg… don’t tell geto that though……..

#i also really love the idea of sukuna getting seduced by a lanky gay guy #but that’s besides the matter.#TYSM FOR ASKING ANONNN ILY #i love talking abt these silly guys #i miss them :((((#ask tag ✩#sukugo

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ekingston · 7 months

Note

Your reply on ao3 about your wife’s screenshot and being a cheerleader stuck with me, because I’ve realized I don’t actually articulate enough how amazing some writers (read: you) are. I finished the most recent chapter of soup (after eleven-thousand unacceptable distractions), and I was going to plunk together a quick comment that would absolutely not do enough justice to express the genius I find your writing to be. So instead I opened a google doc and started smashing my keyboard which resulted in a pretty long-winded... something, but allow me to fan-girl for like, a second:

The quality and style of your writing floors me every time. There is an effortlessness about it that makes it totally and completely bingeable but also something that gives a little more each time I read it. For me, it’s the most replayable form of literature: I can go back for the plot, for the character rapport, for the punchy dialogue, or for the voice of the narrator. It fits all the moods. It charms me. It amuses me. I want to hug it.

Your work excites me, and when I think of authors and works that excite me, I’m lumping you in with like, Heartburn which is an all-time favorite for that exact reason: I can binge it in a day or go back and sip on it and discover something clever and witty and just impossibly gorgeous in execution.

And speaking as someone who CANNOT for the life of me write something that doesn’t eventually tumble into a vat of angst, I also just adore the way you manage tension without losing the light-hearted reading experience. Holiday wine is a masterpiece, AND I think Soup is almost better because you juggle so much more: the chorus of characters are taking on their own plot lines, the stakes are higher, you add danger and adventure, you weave a more complex, interconnected storyline, and you massage it all beautifully to act as a supporting cast to the core of the story.

Which brings me to the trope (and a complete tangent): miscommunication. Like, ok look… I usually can’t stand it. But that’s mostly because of the execution: the obvious interruptions, the clear misdirection and disregard for natural intuition, the not asking the right questions, the very blatant ham-fisted forcefulness of it just… I can’t.

AND THEN YOU WENT AND MADE A MASTERCLASS OF IT.

You took every complaint you didn’t know I had and put in the work to make it believable. Kara is charmingly oblivious but not for lack of trying. She perfectly talks past Nia and Alex and Lena not just once but every. time. and every time is just so well-conceived and articulated and *gesticulates hands in the air wildly trying to find the right word* gah. The world of her confusion and misguidedness is so believable and commendable and *gesticulates again* gah. This is the absolute genius of the work. I will give kudos till I’m blue in the face about the story as a whole, but I will die on the ‘Easter crushed the miscommunication trope’ hill.

And this is just ONE EXAMPLE of how you knock it out of the park every single time. I could go on about how solidly you write the characters, how charming your prose is, how epic your one-shots are, or how I don’t even care that I can’t trust your chapter count anymore but this is already a run-on and I'm running out of air.

I don’t know how you write, if there is one draft or a million, if you just stream–of-conscious this into existence, or if you summon the words through a ouija board, but it’s brilliant and commendable and THANK YOU for doing what you’re doing.

so. this message is. a miracle? and you are a GIFT. and i’m not going to be able to elaborate much beyond that, because unlike you, i am terrible; at writing attentive notes, at handling compliments, and—hilariously, maybe, since i’ve finally started thinking of myself as a writer again after a decade of self-loathing false starts—at writing down my thoughts in an easily digestible way.

can i say it’s the nicest thing i’ve ever gotten from someone who isn’t (yet?) a close personal friend? that the timing of it was almost implausibly perfect because it arrived in the middle of the deep breathing exercises i was doing after being made aware of some deeply stupid twitter discourse around Soup that was going on right as i was getting ready to post its final chapter?

i think i’ll stick to the important stuff: like THANK YOU. like how your (AMAZING) note completely obliterated the bad stuff and made me excited not just to wrap up this fic, or even to jump into the next, but about doing it all in the first place. that it was a very needed reminder of what an immensely privileged position i’m in to be able to put something out online that brings people (you) enough joy that you want to come tell me about it. and, obviously, that the specific things you chose to highlight are extraordinarily flattering, and i am absolutely not immune to that kind of thing.

i went back and forth on publishing this ask because it feels almost embarrassing, and boastful. but whatever, you know? you made me feel good about my writing again and provided important perspective and ultimately you put thought and effort and overall awesomeness into it and i’m not going to hide that away when you intended it to be shared.

thank you. SO MUCH.

#also i’m totally going to cheat and add:#MISCOMMUNICATION MY BELOVED #if you’d told me a few years back that i was going to write a slapstick-adjacent romantic comedy of errors #i would have died a little inside #i LOATHED drama that only existed because people refused to open their mouths and speak to each other #you don’t know how thrilling it is to hear that you do too & that you think i got it RIGHT 🥳#anyway you. are a hero.#i’m going to be thinking about this one for a while!#ps it’s the ouija board. 100%#ask me things!#eqt-95 #TSOS #YMHW

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case-of-traxits · 4 months

Note

50 Random Character Asks:

Tseng, 1 - 50

You know you had this coming.

50 Random Character Asks: Tseng Edition

I can't even pretend to be surprised here, can I? Well, I got your second ask with your choices as well, so they're in here. 💖

50 questions. Whew. I'll give you guys a sampler on the first one, but the rest are going to be under a cut. This took me SO LONG to do. I've literally been working on it since the 17th! All together, there's 4934 words in this bad boy, excluding the questions.

So uh. Enjoy nearly 5k of meta about Tseng. XD

That said, please keep in mind that all of my answers are specific to how I personally write Tseng. I'm not going to necessarily distinguish every piece of canon from headcanon.

[For this ask game!] || [Still accepting]

1. Canon I outright reject

That Tseng knew Zack was being kept in Nibelheim. For me, it just doesn't work with the rest of Tseng's arc regarding Zack and Aerith and him keeping all of those letters. So. No. Technically, in BC, Tseng is aware that Zack and Cloud are both alive and badly injured, and Hojo orders for him to "prepare the mansion," but never actually says what he's going to be doing there. Tseng sends the Player Turk to clear it out, and then Veld shows up and sends all of the Turks to work on handling the townspeople and everything instead of the mansion. So it's entirely possible that Tseng never knew, according to BC, that Zack and Cloud were placed in those tubes in the basement.

2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on

Tseng is absolutely capable of slapping Aerith. I realize that they took that out of the Remake, but I just feel like it's critical for his character for you to know that he is absolutely capable of that level of violence, even against someone he cares about.

3. Obscure headcanon

Tseng is the third (and youngest) son of Kisaragi Godo's older brother, who was emperor during the Wutaian War. He was brought up in one of the Leviathan Temples to keep him as an effective (and safe) spare to the throne before he defected to Shinra. His forehead marking is a holdover from his time in the Temple, and he'll never admit to a single soul that sometimes, he feels the guiding hand of destiny (or fate or whatever you want to call it) in his life.

4. Favorite line

"It must have been a real thrill for you… Did you enjoy it?" I think this is everyone's favorite canon line. With the possible exception of the "Mr. President," line from the Remake. That one's pretty damn good, but it requires actual explanation, doesn't it? XD I will say, he also has the canon line of, "I put everyone else at risk because I feared feeling guilty," in BC. Which is... telling.

5. Best personality trait

Tseng's loyalty is easily his best personality trait, in my opinion. We see a lot of it in BC, with his dedication to trying to help and save both Veld and the department, as well as in CC, with his devotion to getting those letters to Zack.

6. Worst personality trait

Tseng's devotion to doing things "correctly" is definitely his worst personality trait. I am firmly of the opinion that this is the thing that's held him back on just killing the President and installing Rufus early. I mean, I have no doubt that there is technically more to it, including the fact that we have no idea what kind of succession clause might have been put in place for Rufus to inherit.

7. Age/height/weight headcanon

Age // Born in 1975, so he is 8 years older than Rufus and Reno, 2 years older than Sephiroth, and 3 years younger than Reeve. Height // I usually go with 5'8", but I'm a little flexible on this. I'll go up to 5'10". He cannot, however, be taller than Rufus for me. Weight // Eh, I don't really do weight HCs.

8. Unpopular opinion about them

Hm... Do I have an unpopular opinion about Tseng..? I don't know that I interact with enough Tseng fans to know. Maybe my insistence on him being fairly easy-going when he isn't at work? I see Tseng as the sort who can go with the flow to some extent, mostly because I don't think he'd work as well with Reno if he wasn't.

9. Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

Oh man, honestly? This might be my unpopular opinion, but his "death" scene in the OG. With Sephiroth. And no, not just because of my ship goggles. But there's just so much implied trust there, at a point where Tseng probably shouldn't trust Sephiroth. He just... He talks to Sephiroth like he's still sane, and Sephiroth cuts him down during it, and then he still drags himself back through the entire Temple of the Ancients to get to the entrance so that he can let AVALANCHE in.

10. Best moment on screen (or in the book)

See above. I just... I love that scene. It's easily his best scene.

11. Faceclaim for the role

Satoh Takeru.

12. Crack headcanon

So, I don't think I have a straight "crack" headcanon for Tseng. I do have some crack-treated-seriously headcanons, including that he doesn't heal well magically (explaining why he spends so much more time in bandages and recovery than basically everyone else), and that if he's not friends with Reeve or in a romantic relationship with a partner who insists otherwise, he would live entirely on takeout. Tseng does not cook, in my opinion. He's perfectly capable, but why? He's spent years curating an extensive collection of takeout menus he considers acceptable food, and he eats exclusively from restaurants that have passed his very exacting standards. Ooh! And this: Tseng drives a small black sportscar at possibly dangerous speeds in Midgar. It also has no plates, but there's not a cop in Midgar stupid enough to try to ticket it.

13. Dumbest thing they’ve ever done

Possibly trusting Sephiroth when he ran into him at the Temple of the Ancients, but honestly, there was probably no way he was walking out of that anyway, right? So excluding that... Probably, the actual 'dumbest' thing he canonically does is in BC, when he chooses to rescue a single lone reactor guard instead of destroying a ship full of weapons that Shinra can't afford to let get out. That's definitely treated as his dumbest choice by the canon.

14. Most heroic moment

When he literally, while dying, drags himself through the Temple to make sure Aerith gets the keystone.

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

I mean. He canonically murders people for his paycheck. So probably that? Unless you're more offended by the 'abandoning his country' backstory, of course.

16. Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves

He will always wonder if he could have made a difference for Wutai if he'd fought for them instead of going to Midgar. Not that he regrets leaving. He is fairly sure that he was always meant to be at Rufus' side. But there's always that small, lingering thought.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

I actually have an old fanmix that more or less I still use. That said, you can also add "Secret (Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists Theme)," covered by Denmark + Winter.

18. What they’d go to see a therapist about

I am going to read this is what he should see a therapist about because I'm pretty sure if he had to go see one, he would spend the entire session silent, watching the therapist and making them horribly uncomfortable. (Unless it's Angel, but she's one of @ladykf-writes' OCs that I gleefully borrow whenever I can. She's a counselor specifically for Turks, and Tseng knows better than to try to argue with her.) Honestly though. If Tseng were up to date on mental health, I think he'd need to see a therapist about his inability to be settled with anything less than perfection from himself. And, you know, probably talk to them about the killing people thing.

19. Vices/bad habits

Tseng smokes. It wasn't a habit he was in before Midgar, but while he was being 'debriefed,' he discovered that asking for a cigarette meant he got to go outside and see the sky and breathe the (admittedly not great) air. However, due to him not healing super well magically and needing to actually recover naturally, he did eventually notice a cough and slight shortness of breath that he couldn't shake. So he tries not to smoke as much anymore. Still, he does keep a pack of his clove cigarettes on him at all times.

20. Scars

Oh plenty. All the Turks have them, and Tseng has a few more than most given his difficulties in healing.

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

Alcoholic // Junami sake, served warm. He has a few brands that he likes, most of which need to be imported from Wutai. Non-alcoholic // Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel and extra whip. Not that he'd let anyone catch him ordering it. He has a single barista that he goes to in the coffee shop in the Tower (her name is Peony), and she knows better than to call his order out. Tseng's sweet tooth is something he keeps very much under wraps.

22. Best physical feature

I mean. How do you pick? He's gorgeous. Maybe his hair, but I have a weakness for beautiful hair.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like?

Vetiver. But that's probably just because I HC his cologne as having notes of vetiver in it.

24. Most annoying habit

According to Reeve, it's Tseng's uncanny way of reading you. There's nothing more frustrating to him than Tseng's little, "And is that all?" sort of question because he knows that Tseng means, 'I know there's something else and here's your opportunity to tell me what it is before I go digging.'

25. 3 things they’d want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere

Assuming he is not allowed to bring his phone, and assuming that a backpack full of his usual supplies (he has one in his apartment, one in his car, and one in his office; he finds it unlikely he'd be caught somewhere without it) doesn't count as a single item, and assuming that he's not stripped of his usual clothes/gear when he's dropped off... 1 // A survival radio with a rechargeable battery. 2 // A waterproof map. 3 // A first aid kit. Really, he'd probably be fine even if dropped off with absolutely nothing, but trust me, he would not be happy about it.

26. What they would do if stuck in an elevator with [Lazard]

At first, there would be a long stretch of silence as they both studied the number display and then the elevator panel itself. Lazard would be the first one to move, leaning forward to punch a few of the buttons, but once it was clear that the elevator was not moving, Tseng would sigh and tip his head back and study the ceiling. He's cataloging everything he needs to do, wondering briefly what he can hand off, what he could text some of the others about to ensure it's done in time. Then he looks over at Lazard, who is sighing and pushing his hand through his hair. There's another few moments of silence before Lazard pushes the emergency call button, and after they're both reassured by the voice on the other end that maintenance is aware of the issue and working to restore functionality, Tseng slides down to sit. Lazard looks over at him, then sighs and takes that as an invitation to do the same. "Do you think it's inappropriate to text Reeve?" And Tseng looks up at Lazard, a small, knowing smile on his lips. "That depends," he murmurs. "Do you actually want to get to that meeting?" Lazard chuckles, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose slightly, and he looks back down at his phone. After a moment, he lays it face down on his leg and tips his head back against the glass wall of the elevator, and he looks out over the city on display behind Tseng. Tseng notices he doesn't start texting. The silence is comfortable. Companionable. Neither of them have any stake in impressing one another, and there's no need to fill the silence with talking only for the sake of talking. Tseng supposes that they're lucky that it isn't winter. Else they would have to sit much, much closer. A glance over at Lazard, who has taken off his glasses briefly to rub one of his eyes, and a little smile touches Tseng's lips. Not, he decides after a minute, that it would be a bad thing, necessarily.

27. Their guilty pleasure

Tseng loves sweets. Basically all kinds, but he does have a particular weakness for good chocolate and good caramel. His secret indulgence that he'll never admit to anyone who knows him is that sometimes, during the winter, he'll order a large hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and get a caramel drizzle on it from the coffee shop in the Tower. But only if his usual barista (Peony) is working. Since she already knows his coffee order is something equally ridiculously sweet, he finds that to be less humiliating than adding someone else in on the loop.

28. How they feel about [Reeve]

Complicated. On the one hand, Tseng and Reeve are always, always good friends when I write. One of Tseng's first long, solo missions with the Turks (and I really should rewrite that fic with my current Tseng's backstory and clean up the prose a little) was to function as Reeve's escort on a reactor tour. That's a minimum of two weeks if they're taking advantage of helicopters periodically, more often three full weeks of travel when Reeve drives the whole thing. And of course, the driving is definitely Reeve's preference. Reactor tours are practically the only vacation he takes. But there's no way you don't spend three weeks on a cross-planet roadtrip and don't end up very close to the person you spent all that time with in the car (unless, of course, it's terrible and you just want to murder them). But at the same time, there are secrets between them that they both know they can't know about one another. Reeve can't know all the gory details about Tseng's life as a Turk, and Tseng can't know about Reeve's... let's call it his uncanny knack with the reactors. Now, do I ship them? Honestly, yes, sometimes. I mean, I usually pair off Tseng with Sephiroth and Reeve with either Lazard (if I want canon to happen for something later) or Genesis (if I'm wanting a fix-it), but I can absolutely ship Tseng with Reeve. Honestly though, that's kind of an unfair question. I can ship Tseng and Reeve with nearly anyone.

29. Eating habits

If it weren't for Reeve's insistence on a weekly meal with him and Reeve's occasional order of groceries simply arriving at Tseng's apartment unannounced (he only really sends dry goods these days; produce and dairy get delivered by Reeve himself when Tseng invites him over), Tseng would live exclusively on takeout. Expensive takeout. But takeout nonetheless.

30. Sleeping habits

Tseng slept in a Midgardian style bed for about a week while he was in debriefing after he defected, but eventually, he took all of his blankets and everything and just started sleeping on the floor instead. Now, in his apartment in Upper Eight in the middle of Little Wutai, he's found someone who can make him a gloriously oversized futon, and his one "concession" to the Midgardian way of doing things is that he no longer puts his futon up every morning. He has four futons to rotate between, with a veritable army of sheets and blankets for them that he's gotten as what he suspects is something akin to 'tribute' from some of the Little Wutai locals. He's done his best to make it clear that he's to be treated as anyone else in the community, but he's hardly going to refuse these things. Tseng sleeps lightly, waking up at basically any sort of unexpected sound, but he has the enviable ability to drift right back off.

31. If the had a tumblr what would it look like?

Honestly? It would be all precisely curated images/gifs of nature. Probably of waterfalls and rivers and creeks. But it would be immaculate. Perfectly tagged and maintained.

32. Something guaranteed to make them smile/laugh

I don't know that it is guaranteed, but Reno's antics often get a smile or a chuckle out of Tseng; particularly so when someone is underestimating Reno in some way. He has a tendency to find amusement in watching someone walk right into something they should have seen coming. That said, both Reeve and Rufus are also able to routinely get a smile out of him; Reeve because he's just so warm that Tseng can't help but to smile back and Rufus because, well, to be perfectly frank, he's a sassy little shit sometimes and Tseng loves that about him. (For the record, Aerith also often fits in that "sassy little shit" box, but Tseng does his best not to let her see him smile, or else she'll take it as encouragement.) If we're talking about something other than people though, the sort of thing that will routinely get a smile out of Tseng is people watching. He likes sitting on a bench in the Tower or in Midgar in general and just... watching people go by. It helps him feel grounded in the world.

33. Something guaranteed to make them cry

I don't know that anything specific is guaranteed to make him cry. He's very much a 'buckle down and take care of things,' sort of guy instead of the emotional reaction sort of guy. That said, he doesn't handle it well after Nibelheim. Even if he's not in a relationship with Sephiroth, the whole mess of 'handling' the survivors and realizing just how far the President will go to keep himself in power and the uncertainty of what's going on with Veld and with AVALANCHE and just... It's isn't pretty.

34. How they react when they are feeling [excited]

Tseng has, as a general rule, muted outward emotional tells for anything he's feeling. It was trained into him when he was at the Temple, both as a potential heir to the throne as well as because he was being trained to be a priest. That said, when he's genuinely excited about something and not just 'looking forward' to it, someone who knows him can tell. He's distracted from other things. And sometimes, if you're talking to him and he's excited about something, he might ask you to repeat yourself. Not like, "Oh, I didn't hear you, what?" But you'll get a lot more of those little noncommittal "Mm?" sounds out of him. Unless you're talking about the thing he's excited about. In that case, you'll have his complete attention, and his usually small, amused smiles (the smug ones; you know the ones) are a bit bigger, more genuine and, dare I say it, softer.

35. Their idea of a perfect day

Tseng's idea of a perfect day... well, to some extent, that varies based on where we are in the timeline and if he's in a romantic relationship, but in general, his idea of the perfect day is as follows: Nothing disastrous happens. Barring that, he'll settle for: Anything disastrous that did happen was handled. Appropriately. In all seriousness, Tseng is very much the sort who focuses on living each day as though he won't have another, and he doesn't let himself indulge much in idle fantasies. He's much more interested in perfect moments. A good morning run with someone he likes. An effective training session with one of the other Turks. Watching someone grasp something that he's been teaching them. An evening walk with someone he loves. Sharing a ridiculously rich chocolate cake with them afterwards. That sort of thing.

36. Their favorite season

Tseng's favorite season in Midgar is fall, when there's a near constant wind coming off the mountains. It can be difficult to track the seasons in Midgar, since there's not much by way of greenery, but fall means a cool wind that helps disperse some of the excess heat that comes off the Plate under his feet. Back in Wutai, his favorite season was summer. He liked watching the fireflies in the dusk at the Temple, and no small part of him misses that.

37. What they really think about themselves

Deep down, no matter what else, Tseng knows that he is an oathbreaker. He can justify it to himself or dress it up all he wants, but he knows that his father, that his brothers, that his country counted on him, and he walked away. He abandoned everything he'd ever known and walked into the camp of the enemy and swore to help them instead. It's part of why his loyalty is so fiercely held now, and part of why he's so careful to be as pristine and perfect at what he does as is possible. He knows what his family— had they survived the war— would have said. Once an oathbreaker, always an oathbreaker, and now, he's tied to the oaths he has made in a way that he wouldn't be if he hadn't defected, because he's terrified that they would be right. That puts him in the position of conflicting loyalties, and why he is so careful not to make promises once he's in Midgar. His first loyalty is to Rufus now, his second to the rest of the Turks, and if there's anything that keeps him awake at night, it's how he's supposed to juggle the additional loyalties that he's found himself collecting (Aerith, Reeve, Zack, Sephiroth, Veld, Reno, etc.).

38. Favorite holiday

Valentine's Day. Or, to be more exact, the day after. When Tseng can get a box of very nice chocolates for extremely cheap. XD No, in all seriousness, Tseng quite likes the Midgar celebration of the dead, All Hallow's Eve, with the fixation on costumes and frightening people. He finds it fascinating for a culture that spends so much of its time not talking about the dead.

39. Favorite game

Tseng likes card games. He's good at them for the most part, and in fact, when he first defected and arrived in the SOLDIER camp, he realized very quickly that his traditional Wutaian garb was only going to keep him Othered. So he learned to play poker from watching several hands, and he won himself gil and spare clothing alike off those SOLDIERs who heard his— at the time— thick accent and thought he'd be an easy mark. He still has a soft spot for poker.

40. Favorite book

Have two of Tseng's favorites. Both titles have been translated from the original Wutaian for your convenience, but Tseng only has the Wutaian copies in his home. "When the Sun Rises in the West," by Yurieva Aiko. This is a collection of poetry made from the letters recovered from the belongings of Wutaian soldiers after the war. "The Sleeve Cost Me Nothing Compared to You," by Sato Ivan. This is a collection of short stories and poetry about love and the fleeting nature of romance.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

Before he defects // Tseng would like to have lunch with one of the previous emperors at this point, just to try to get some perspective on what's happening with his country. Particularly, he desperately wishes he had someone to ask for advice from. He's torn on what he sees going on, and he wonders what's wrong with him that he seems to be the only one who sees that there's no possible way for them to win this engagement with Shinra. After he defects // During his time in Shinra, given the option to have lunch with literally anyone, Tseng would like one more lunch with someone he loves. He's very much of the opinion that the best thing to do is to savor every moment you get with someone, no matter how mundane or fleeting. Post-canon // He would like one more lunch with Aerith and Zack. Just to see them again, and to convince himself to let their ghosts go.

42. 3 comfort items

1 // Tseng has kept, over the years, exactly one kimono from his time in Wutai, and while he never wears it anymore, sometimes, when he's feeling nostalgic, he'll go and run his hands over the silk. 2 // After he completed his training to be accepted into the Turks, before he left the Academy in Junon to go back to Midgar full time, the Acting Director of Operations in The Junon Branch of the Administrative Research, Anya (also one of @ladykf-writes' OCs), gave him an inlaid bone and black alloy knife with a blade cleaning kit. This is the knife that Tseng wears strapped to his left thigh (the left pocket is cut open in every pair of his pants so that he can reach it). 3 // When Rufus was fifteen, he gifted Tseng a solid black watch with no markers on it besides a pair of mythril white hands and a single mythril accent on the face that marked the twelve. Rufus never intended for Tseng to keep it as a staple, but while Rufus has gifted him other watches since then, this is the one that Tseng wears as his every day watch.

43. 3 favorite foods and 3 they despise

Favorite Food 1 // Sushi from a tiny hole-in-the-wall place in Little Wutai. And when he says hole-in-the-wall, he means this woman literally just sells bentos out of her kitchen. Favorite Food 2 // Fiola's in Upper Six is one of his favorites. They have excellent Mideelan pasta and even better bread. The bread is, in fact, good enough that while Tseng usually doesn't eat bread with his meals, he'll make an exception for Fiola's. Favorite Food 3 // There is a tiny bakery in Upper Three that sells the absolute best chocolate cake that Tseng has ever had. Despised Food 1 // The "sushi" for sale in the Midgar cafeteria. One of them had mayonnaise in it. Despised Food 2 // Pork rinds, a surprisingly popular snack in Midgar. Tseng suspects it's a holdover from when the area was much more farming-oriented. As it stands, every sector, Above and Below, has their own 'special' flavoring for them, and Tseng has yet to find anything redeeming about them. Despised Food 3 // Tseng doesn't despise bread exactly, but he fails to find it enjoyable to eat most of the time. He'd prefer his carbs come in sugar, pasta, or rice, given the choice.

44. Their happiest memory

Tseng has a couple. The first one is of one of the last times he saw his mother. He was about eleven, and he was brought to her rooms so that she could see him. They spent the evening reading poetry and him showing off his sword forms and her telling him how proud of him she was. He helped her brush out her hair and braid it for bed, and then she returned the favor and kissed his forehead and sent him on back to his own rooms. He has a small jade comb that he found in a secondhand shop in Little Wutai that makes him think of her. His second happiest memory is nearly always with Reeve, of their drive around the planet on that first reactor tour. It was the first time Tseng traveled that he could just enjoy the process, and he has fond memories of the times they rolled the windows down and Tseng could let his hand hang out of the car and just... feel the breeze. Reeve had been content to talk about nothing or put on an audiobook— and those had been something delightful to learn about, something that Tseng had immediately invested in because that was a great way to listen to the language— and let them just ride.

45. Their favorite celebrity

Tseng is embarrassed to admit it, but when he first arrived in Midgar and Junon, his Standard was not nearly as good as he'd thought it was. The tutors he'd had in Wutai hadn't been native speakers, after all, and while he'd learned very well from them, there was no way he'd be mistaken for a natural speaker. So he'd immediately immersed himself, watching the news and reading everything he could get his hands on, and eventually, he'd discovered what were called 'soaps.' He never really followed a lot of the plot lines— he felt sometimes like they had put several novels in a blender and poured the resulting concoction on the screen— but he did eventually decide there was one actress, Gabrielle Cooper, that he enjoyed watching. She had one of the most neutral accents he'd ever heard, and he followed her from show to show faithfully. Even long after he'd stopped watching soaps to help with his Standard, long after he'd more or less shed his own accent completely, he would catch himself picking up a magazine or a tabloid if she was featured on the cover.

46. The person they most admire

For a long, long time, it was Veld. And then everything with Felicia happened. And it isn't that he no longer admires Veld, but he certainly seems more human now. What Tseng admires most about Veld now isn't the seemingly perfect Turk persona that he presents, but his dedication to what he thinks is right. Post-canon, the person he probably actually admires most is Rufus. Rufus Shinra, who was brought up to rule the world and has been barred from the throne. Rufus Shinra, who should have had everything and instead has had to cobble something together from the ruins left behind. In that vein, Reeve is an extremely close second. Reeve was never intended to be the one in charge, and Tseng knows that Reeve would like nothing more than to hand it all off to someone else and go back to designing houses and buildings and parks. But there's literally no one else to hand it off to. So he trudges on, running the now-largest military force in the world, making decisions that shape the entire world with almost no oversight.

47. Their dream job

If Tseng wasn't a Turk and hadn't been brought up in the Temple and was just an average Midgar citizen? He'd be a restaurant critic. He'd write the most detailed and possibly scathing reviews possible, and restaurants would fear him.

48. Scariest moment of their life

A few months before he defected, during a ritual for Leviathan at the Temple, Tseng nearly drowned. This was one of his big catalyst moments for abandoning Wutai, as he realized in that moment that no matter what anyone told him about how important he was, they all saw him as expendable. After Advent Children, the scariest moment in Tseng's life was watching Rufus jump from that building.

49. Favorite toy as a child

Tseng was given a wooden training sword very young that he absolutely used to menace every Temple Guardian he ran across until he was big enough for proper training, and he cherished it right up until he left the temple. He didn't take it with him, but he made sure to polish it and leave it in a respectful place when he left. He is sure that it was broken and/or burned upon discovery that he had chosen to side with Shinra.

50. A memory they’ve blocked out

I don't know that Tseng has very many memories that he's blocked out. Tseng is very unflinching when it comes to facing who he is and what he's done and what's been done to him. He believes in facing things head-on and in dealing with the consequences that brings.

Congratulations on making it all the way down here, omg. IT WAS SO LONG!!

All of the love. 💖

#ff7 #final fantasy vii #tseng of the turks #meta #I cannot believe I wrote damn near 5k on this thing #BUT HERE YOU GO.

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frozenmoonshine · 3 months

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Kawaragi Senju - Headcanons

I've been suffering from some bad Senju brainrot recently, and decided to make it everyone's problem, lmao. But I just love her sooo much, she's my favorite female TR character, she's such an adorable little baby, I can't help it, I want to adopt her!!! 😭

Anyways, here:

She was one of those kids that ripped the heads off of their dolls! She got a Barbie as a present for her 5th birthday, but instead of the intended way of playing with it, she "tested" how much it can bend and stretch, so the head popped off in the process. It didn't stop her tho, she continued to play with it, even headless. Until Wakasa fixed it for her with some flextape, but then it lost its charm so she took the head off again.

She's a BIG cuddle bug! She would cling on to her grandma for affection, or to Haruchiyo when they were little, even to Takeomi, although he would most often just turn her down. Haru was always fine with it, since they shared the cradle as babies, until he grew too big for it, so even as toddlers and older, they were kinda used to snuggling with each other. That changed as they were growing up and gaining separate senses of self, as well as he started accumulating resentment towards her because of Takeomi's favoritism.

When Waka & Benkei became her unofficial guardians, she was sooo happy that Waka didn't mind her snuggling up against him during their "family" movie nights, or that Benkei seemed to enjoy giving her piggyback and shoulder rides as much as she did!

Wakasa is her mother figure. Don't @ me, I will gladly die on that hill!

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She collects cool rocks, and gets a bit too excited about them, and wants to show them to everybody! She will talk the ear off of anyone willing to listen.

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She is very easily excitable, and can talk a bit too loud sometimes. (Another reason why Haru dislikes loud people.)

‌She's incredibly loyal, and mega protective of her friends and loved ones (that much is canon). But she also believes it's her duty to protect all girls and women, and if sees any girl in any kind of distress, she will step in to help. She's like a public service friend! However, she has trouble making actual friends, cause she's shy and socially awkward, believing that people will hate her, even though she doesn't give off that impression.

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She hates conflict with a passion, and wants everyone to get along with each other (my poor traumatized baby 💔)! Her views can be a bit too naïve sometimes, but that's just because she has a heart of gold!

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Her favorite pastime as a kid was climbing up the trees, to spite Takeomi and tease Haru because he couldn't do it/was too afraid.

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She has the absolute best, most flawless, impeccable, mind-blowing fashion sense EVER, that puts to shame Koko, Inupi, Mitsuya, Ran, and Izana combined! But she doesn't bring out her best game until adulthood, when she realizes that fashion is not just a "typically feminine" hobby, that gender stereotypes are trash anyway, and flips off Takeomi for his warped, outdated ideas!

‌

Speaking of which, she most definitely went through a gender identity crisis in adolescence, but she eventually grew out of it and found herself as she healed from her toxic upbringing.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo revengers manga #senju #senju kawaragi #kawaragi senju #senju akashi #akashi senju #brahman #tokrev brahman #tokrev battle of 3 deities #akashi siblings #haruchiyo #sanzu haruchiyo #akashi takeomi #imaushi wakasa #arashi keizou #waka and benkei

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mental-about-you-too · 2 months

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Why I believe the Will Darling Adventures were originally conceived as johnlock fanfiction

I will die on this hill.

The Will Darling Adventures (Slippery Creatures, Sugared Game, Subtle Blood) by KJ Charles are my favorite guilty pleasure comfort books. I have listened to the audiobooks an embarrassing number of times. I can play exchanges of dialogue in my head from memory, reader’s inflections and all. If you haven’t read them and you like a mix of adventure and gay smut (plus it’s a trilogy so there’s time for more complex characterization and more gradual relationship development than you usually get in books of the genre), then absolutely go do that, and don’t read below—because here be spoilers. Also, because the books are a delight.

So. Grand theory.

To be clear: I am not knocking these books AT ALL (if I’m honest, the Holmesian flavor is part of why I like them so much). As in many really good works of fanfiction, the characters have ceased to be mere copies, and have gained their own original and internally consistent characterization. Kim and Will are not Holmes and Watson, but I am completely convinced that the latter were the inspiration for the former. Here are some of the parallels/moments of homage:

Watson => Will

Returned to England from war with nowhere to go; ended up in London: “I had neither kith nor kin in England, and […] naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” (Study in Scarlet) => “…his mother had died from the Spanish ‘flu while he’d waited to be demobbed […] So, like everyone else, he’d come to London…” (Slippery Creatures)

Ran out of money as a recently-discharged veteran: “So alarming did the state of my finances become…” (Study in Scarlet) => “…his slide into poverty was unstoppable...” (Slippery Creatures)

War wound that nearly killed him: “For months my life was despaired of...” (Study in Scarlet) => “A month in hospital.” (Sugared Game)

Saved by an underling who never appears in the story: “…had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.” (Study in Scarlet) => “If it hadn’t been for the bravest stretcher-bearer in Flanders, I’d have died out there.” (Sugared Game)

Retained his favorite weapon from the war: “I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.” (Study in Scarlet) => “…the Messer, his old trench knife...” (Sugared Game)

Is asked to bring the weapon on adventures: “Put your pistol in your pocket.” (Study in Scarlet) => “Got your knife?” (Sugared Game)

POV character

Holmes => Kim

Has a bunch of names but goes by a middle one: William Sherlock Scott Holmes => Arthur Aloysius Kimberley de Brabazon Secretan

Has pretty hands, which are something of a fixation for the POV character

Doesn’t eat much: “My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food…” (Norwood Builder) => “They ate breakfast, or at least Will did, while Kim chewed a single slice of toast with distaste.” (Subtle Blood)

Withholds information because he doesn’t trust his partner’s ability to deceive: “You won’t be offended, Watson? You will realize that among your many talents dissimulation finds no place.” (Dying Detective) => “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but subterfuge isn’t your strong suit.” (Sugared Game)

Withholds information for dramatic effect: “It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.” (Naval Treaty) => “Of course Kim would turn up after two months with some bizarre story; of course he wouldn’t tell it like a normal person.” (Sugared Game)

Plays fast and loose with legality: “Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.” “I shall be delighted.” “You don’t mind breaking the law?” “Not in the least.” (Scandal in Bohemia) => “I am absolutely not empowered to break the laws of the land, so I try not to get caught at it.”

Has a brother seven years his senior, whom we meet (several adventures in) at a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall, and who looks like him but bigger: “Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock.” (Greek Interpreter) => “He looked like someone had drawn a caricature of Kim as John Bull and not been kind about it. He was significantly bulkier…”

The club (The Diogenes => The Symposium) has a Strangers' Room, and in at least part of the club: "no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed" (Greek Interpreter) => "speech is strictly forbidden" (Subtle Blood)

Chases down the leader of a mysterious criminal organization who appears respectable in normal society, and who stays one step removed to leave no evidence of his involvement: “But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which would convict in a court of law.” (Final Problem) => “[Arrest him] on what grounds? I’ve got a lot of nothing. Straws in the wind, and fears, and the words of the dead. The case needs to be iron-clad, and mine is wet tissue paper.” (Sugared Game)

Has a chat with this adversary before the action kicks off: “…I was seriously inconvenienced by you” (Final Problem) => “It has caused me enormous inconvenience” (Sugared Game)

Better at hand-to-hand combat than he looks like he should be: “I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling…” (Empty House) => “Where did you learn knife fighting?” (Slippery Creatures)

Lounges around in a purple dressing gown (Blue Carbuncle; all three Will Darling books)

Tall, slender, pale, and dark-haired, with remarkable eyes (at least, the POV character sure remarks on them a lot)

Other parallels:

Inspector Lestrade (“lean and ferret-like as ever”) => Inspector Rennick (“He was a short, shrewd-looking man who sounded North London.”)

An aortic aneurism renders prosecution of a criminal moot: Jefferson Hope (Study in Scarlet) => Lord Waring (Sugared Game)

Will’s expectations upon meeting Waring line up with a description of Moriarty: “His face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion” (Final Problem) => “[Will] wasn’t sure what he expected. Something snakey, some reptilian air of cruelty…” (Sugared Game)

This rather iconic phrase: “He sits motionless, like a spider at the center of its web...” (Final Problem) => “…sits like a spider at the centre of a web of obligations...” (Sugared Game)

Alongside the parallels, Charles adds elements often found in the best works of fanfiction: in addition to the on-page romance, there's expansion of the characters' backgrounds, including an exploration of class and privilege, plus a fix-it-esque resolution of the issue of Holmes'/Kim’s dishonesty (I for one always wished Watson would confront Holmes about lying to him for cases).

There. Cataloguing all the parallels was taking up a ridiculous amount of space in my brain, so now you know & I can stop obsessing over it so much.

#this is less a conspiracy theory and more a love letter #will darling adventures #sherlock holmes #john watson #sherlock holmes fanfic #johnlock #acd holmes #kj charles #will darling #kim secretan #slippery creatures #sugared game #subtle blood #will darling spoilers #inter-fandom meta #i will die on this hill #thank you for coming to my ted talk #edited to be even more unabashed in my appreciation of these books #also i listened to an interview with kj charles about comfort reads and these fit the bill

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