#revenge note 1 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

just-sp-in-inginthevoid · 1 year

Text

Takeomi, Self-Esteem and Denial (and more)

@raizelswitch, thank you for waiting!

TL;DR : I want a BD spin-off and I want it from Takeomi’s POV even though he’d be such an unreliable narrator (and like that we could also have a Akashi siblings spin-off, two birds, one stone). Takeomi has a lot of issues and making him raise children and naming him vice captain was a bad idea since it only made things worse. He had developed both an inferiority and superiority complex to cope. And we were robbed of any interaction between him and Inui, the other famous ‘can’t let go of Black Dragon even after x years’ character.

Who wants to read about 17,000 words about Takeomi (I didn’t expect to write this much, what the heck)? Clearly not Tumblr because I spent way too much time having to reorder this post, it mixed it all up everytime ! It also refused to post it for hours

The translations of Wakasa’s and Benkei’s ‘a day in his life’ as well as Takeomi’s failure story come from the Twitter user RanHaruchiyo

I feel like I made a few mistakes so there : English is not my native language, I apologize if some sentences don’t make sense. Sorry for any type of typos as well.

I referred to the past (beside the final timeline) as ‘canon-timeline’ several times because I had no clue how to name it. It’s not the futures, it’s not the original or final timeline, it’s… it’s the past until the final timeline comes in.

When you reach the top – the only way is down. (and up and down…)

Let’s get started with something very quick – Takeomi was created to be the exact opposite of Shinichiro. And when you’re the exact opposite of a character who’s perfectly good, loved by everyone (other characters and fans alike), then the writer uses you to be bad. Not necessarily evil - Takeomi isn’t evil - but ‘not good’.

And Wakui doesn’t shy away from that. I’m keeping the analysis of the kanji of the Akashi and Sano siblings’ names for the end, so I’ll just talk about the ‘shi’ of ‘Akashi’ here, to show what I mean.

司 (Akashi) means ‘administrator, official, a governor whom the emperor chose to carry on the imperial policies in provinces’. It fits Takeomi’s role pretty much, right ? He had a high rank in Black Dragon, but Shinichiro was above and that’s when it starts to be very interesting. 司 upside down gives 后. And it means ‘monarch, king, emperor, queen, empress’ – nice coincidence, isn’t it ?. It’s literally the same kanji upside down. Takeomi is Shinichiro upside down. Is that why he’s the rain bringer while Shinichiro, always being seen in a positive light, would be linked to the sun ? I already thought of Takeomi as a ‘teru teru bozu’ since they’re supposed to bring rain when hung upside down and it’s not stupid to think of Shinichiro, oh so perfect Shinichiro, as a ‘sun bringer’ – after all, like Mikey, he took over Japan, did he not ?

Plus, the sun is their most famous goddess (Amaterasu)’s symbol, Japan’s symbol, and by such the emperor’s symbol.

And when you’re that. When you’re the mirror of such a perfect character, how can you not be made but only of flaws ? You’re made to be bad in everything he is good – and the opposite isn’t guaranteed to be true. What if making you good in things he’s bad in makes you good ? No, no, you’re supposed to be bad. Because he’s good, and you’re his polar opposite. He’s bad in excusable things. You’re bad in barely forgivable things. It’s not important for him to be a horrible fighter, even in a story centered around gang fights. It’s unforgivable for you to not know how to raise your siblings, in a story built on siblings' relationships.

And Shinichiro is great at raising Mikey and Emma, while Takeomi isn’t that much of a fighter. We see him fight a bit when he goes with Brahman to confront South about Draken’s death, but it’s not big important fights, Benkei and Wakasa, and later Senju, are the ones fighting. And Benkei and Wakasa were Black Dragon 1st generation’s main fighting power, as the guard and special attack unit captains.

(Heck, Shinichiro is listed n°1 best in bikes riders, Takeomi is n°3 worst - yet another thing he's either bad or average at. (Wakasa is n°3 best, we dont know where Benkei lies. Mikey is 2nd best, Takemichi and Senju are respectively 1st and 2nd worse))

Shinichiro is good, even when he kills. Takeomi is only ever bad or less-bad. Perhaps Wakui initially planned scenes where he was ‘good’, but they never came to be, so instead we’re stuck with a character who has a potential for a redemption arc and who never got it.

(Look at this ! He became self aware! And finally stopped living in denial !)

(We never see him again after this btw. He never gets to talk to Sanzu.)

If there’s one thing Takeomi is good at, it’s strategy.

He is feared, he is called « God of War », he is named vice-captain…

By other people. By other delinquents. By Shinichiro.

He doesn’t think he’s the reason all of that happens. He isn’t those things, he receives them (use of passive voice). By such, if people don’t give him, then he’s left with nothing. No matter if he is good at something, if people aren’t there to tell him, then he doesn’t think he is. Takeomi thinks of his worth, his validity as a person by how others perceive him - they praise him ? He must be great ! They ignore him ? How pathetic has he become.

When do people say that ? When he’s Black Dragon Vice-Captain. When is he Black Dragon vice-captain ? When Shinichiro is on top. That’s why he panics in chapter 230 when Shinichiro tells him about disbanding the gang. If the gang gets disbanded, what does he have left ? If Shinichiro tells him to stop following him around (chapter 230: “I was always by Shin’s side”) what is he supposed to do ? He is but “an ordinary kid. Whether it be in sports, or studies, [...] just average. [...] a normal child, not special at all” (same chapter) whose childhood friend “had a mysterious charm that attracted people around him. Even with that charm, Shin never resorted to violence.[...]he was just very earnest and kind” (same chapter). Without Black Dragon he’s nothing. Without Shinichiro he’s nothing. Because he never learnt to let go of Shinichiro‘s hand, nor did he wish to. But Shinichiro just.. let go one day. We know how Shinichiro is. If he was aware of how much he is needed by Takeomi, he would have done things differently. And while he shouldn’t be responsible for Takeomi’s well-being, he is the reason whether Takeomi’s self-esteem is stable (or a bit too much over the top) or not. Takeomi made him responsible for it, and Shinichiro surely would’ve helped if he figured it out, (because Takeomi is a stranger to himself and wouldn’t have ever asked for help (he doesn’t know he needs help after all)), but Shinichiro didn’t. The same way Mikey didn’t notice why Baji acted the way he did during Valhalla arc until it was too late. It’s not because they’re childhood friends that they read each other like an open book.

Shinichiro, while he never intended to and we can’t blame him for this either, is the reason Takeomi turned out like he did. Takeomi followed him everywhere, he wouldn’t have entered delinquency if Shinichiro didn’t. Takeomi tried so hard to climb to Shinichiro’s level and kept comparing himself to him and it got worse when he was appointed the role of vice-president. His ego skyrocketed. And even if Shinichiro had noticed it, would he have figured out how to change that ? For sure, if he knew how to help he’d have helped – then again, would Takeomi accept this help ? He’s a professional when it comes to denial, he pushes everyone away. And denial is what he does best. From denying he would be nothing without the other Black Dragon founding members and hiding behind his God of War persona, to denying his involvement in Senju and Sanzu’s life. Even if Shinichiro, Wakasa and Benkei did try to help, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, who refuses to believe there’s something wrong, and by doing so who refuses to talk about it. It’s all made to protect himself from the truth. Because the truth will hurt him, facing it will make him realize he’s not special and that will shatter his self-esteem. It will make him feel painful emotions he can’t deal with. So he runs away from it, and thus, dives deeper into misery. If you refuse to see the problem, then it will grow, and Takeomi’s problems, his mistakes, grow a lot. The world changes but he doesn’t, he keeps the same behaviors, and soon they turn against him. His fame turns into debts. Debts he can’t pay anymore, but he refuses to admit it. Because he would have been able to pay, if Black Dragon had remained. Takeomi likes to live in luxury (his dream is to be a multimillionaire), so he’d keep on denying the fact he can’t afford it anymore just to carry on living this way.

Maybe the reason him and Wakasa & Benkei aren’t close isn’t that they see him as ‘Shinichiro’s childhood friend we’re obligated to endure/tolerate even though he’s insufferable’ (when the BD founding members interact, Wakasa and Benkei always tease, laugh at Shinichiro, chapter 230, Benkei “Look at all your battle scars !” Shinichiro, “Quit it !” Wakasa, “A loser in both fights and love !” Shinichiro “Hey man, that's none of your business”; chapter 269: Benkei “You sure are dumb, Shinichiro !” Wakasa, “Haha. Well, that's shin-chan for ya.”) they’re never shown as friendly toward Takeomi) but more that, even if they did try, Takeomi, unconsciously, never let them know who he really was underneath it all. To be fair, Takeomi lied to himself so strongly he wasn’t aware he wasn’t this façade he had created. I’m not sure if Wakasa and Benkei succeeded in seeing through his lies, Takeomi himself surely didn’t. Shinichiro was left but whether it be the original timeline or not, he didn’t succeed to help Takeomi. Takeomi compares himself to others (him being an ordinary kid vs Shinichiro not being one), is sensitive to criticism and compliments alike (while he didn’t seem hurt when Kakucho uno-reversed him by asking him if he had forgotten about Shinichiro after Takeomi had asked him if he had forgotten about Izana, he did react, unlike Kakucho who remained unfazed; “Drunk in the praises of my name, I became arrogant”), seeks attention and validation, makes things about himself (“[...]He talks about the Brahman Senju created as if he created it. [...] I remember he used to brag about Shinichiro's achievements as if he himself had done them[...]”, Benkei’s ‘a day in his life’) and has troubles admitting his faults (even if he eventually apologizes in chapter 230 to Senju, he is fighting back tears while doing so). Those are all things inferiority and superiority complexes share (beside the low self-esteem). And while there are signs we can’t be 100% sure he has, reading about Takeomi echoes to those two complexes. First, inferiority complex. Feeling insecure, incomplete or unworthy → “not special at all”; “I was broke and powerless“; ”at the lowest of low. But they accepted me as I was”. Withdrawal → “I got news of Shin's death. But I was too busy in struggling for money.”, that ‘too busy with money’ (in good (“treated as a VIP [...] never got short on money” and in bad “my debts piling up”) seems like the perfect excuse to avoid your friends and family. All or nothing thinking, things are either good or bad → he’s either at the top of Japan and everything is doing great or he’s not and nothing’s working in his life. Insecurity in relationships → Benkei and Wakasa are his disliked/feared people because "they look down on me" (3rd guide book) (there is no proof of that but I’ll dig into that later). Feeling good when doing better than others → only felt at ease when he was the God of War. Finding fault in others, demeaning others as a way to transfer their feelings → will go back to it way later, but his relationship with Sanzu is basically that. Shutting down because of shame, guilt, embarrassment or an inward sense of defeat → once again, what he did after he started to be indebted.

For superiority complex there’s : hiding feelings of mediocrity and underlying or persistent low self-esteem or feelings of inferiority → hiding his “powerless”, “ordinary” and all behind his mask of second in command of Black Dragon and Brahman. High valuation of self-worth, a self-image of supremacy or authority, overarching belief that they are better than others → “the first generation Black Dragon once ruled the nation - with me as the vice captain. I was feared, since my decisions determined how any conflict would end. I was called the « God of War »” . Feelings of entitlements and boastful claims that aren’t backed up by reality → he brags about Senju and Shinichiro’s achievements, they aren’t his own (even though he must have some). Which goes with: need to be in control → he’s the one who’s in charge of making Brahman gain money (and he’s the one who decided of it, Senju is against his ways), Brahman listens to him when he says they’re attacking Rokuhara Tendai and not to Senju who tell them to stop, and is convinced Senju is only where she is thanks to him, Wakasa and Benkei being around and dealing with everything (chapter 229, Takeomi: “Senju got herself included in the ‘three deities’ only through first gen Black Dragon’s support. Senju can't take this fight alone !”).

There are also signs which I can’t find quotes or panels to say Takeomi has them but, knowing the character, it wouldn’t be surprising. These include : feelings of hostility, frustration, nervousness, or aggression (he does express those but given the context it's justifiable; he's impulsively decide to go against Rokuhara Tendai even though Senju tells him no because they aren't ready, Benkei says "It's no use, Takeomi has lost his cool". There's also his nicotine addiction which does not help). Highly competitive, perfectionist paired with an avoidance for any kind of competition where efforts might be compared with others’ ; don’t do something if there are risks one would fail (he dislikes efforts (3rd guide book), so that may mean he only does things when he’s sure of his own capacities and refuse to leave his comfort zone, he doesn’t participate/try if he’s not sure of succeeding). And : unwillingness to listen to others (if BD founding members tried to take his head out of the sand, it failed). Overcompensation to specific elements of life (perhaps linked to his childhood but we have no information about it). Mood swings, often made worse by contradiction from another person (→ him seemingly aloof, becoming mad very quickly at Sanzu when he or Senju do something wrong ? His whole reaction to Draken’s death; “I'm gonna destroy Rokuhara Tandai right now.[...] Assemble everyone in Brahman for an emergency meeting !!”, followed by South’s comment in chapter 225: “It's so rare to see Akashi getting all rowdy like this.” and Senju’s trying to calm him down (only making it worse). Takeomi’s interaction with Kakucho about Izana and Shinichiro in chapter 212 too maybe). Gets offended if there’s no positive feedback.

I will like to add that no official list of signs exist or if it does, I didn’t find it. But knowing how both of these complexes work, it was interesting to talk about it, in my opinion.

(By the way, Takeomi was listed number 1 worst at ‘who is needy when dating ?’ (whereas Sanzu and Wakasa were 1st and 2nd best). Except that in Takeomi’s case the reason he’s not needy is because he's straight-up avoidant which isn't better. As opposed to Senju and Draken (2nd and 3rd worst) who seem non-needy in a healthy way.)

Takeomi wants to stand at the top, Shinichiro knows how to go up there, so he just has to tag along, easy-peasy. But like for a jungle gym, you have to get down one day. Did Shinichiro want to become Japan's number 1 ? I’m not that sure. It may have been a goal, but not the main one. What he liked most was the journey, not the destination, if it was then he wouldn’t have disbanded Black Dragon. But Takeomi wants to go on top of the jungle gym. Takeomi wants to be Japan number 1. Forever. Takeomi wants to learn how you get up there and how to stay/keep standing still.

That’s one of the most tragic point with Takeomi in my opinion. He was the brain of Black Dragon, he was the brain of Braham (it may have been an excuse but Senju recruited him for his guidance, his wisdom), and he was, supposedly as Mikey’s advisor, the brain of Bonten. He knows how to get on top of Japan. He knows how to become influential, how to make money (Brahman’s B-1 fighting club), how to recruit people and make them stay, he knows which decision to take to assure victory or defeat.

He’s smart, insanely. And he. doesn’t. see. it. If he did, he could have managed to live without the gang.

For Takeomi, it’s not that he becomes number 1, it’s that there’s a number 1 by his side and he knows how to follow them (his special skill is ‘taking advantage of others’ (3rd guide book)). He is aware he was the lead actor as to why victory or defeat were but – Takeomi isn’t a fighter. Wakasa and Benkei are. Shinichiro sucked at it but he was still insanely strong.

Takeomi doesn’t fight and that’s not his role. He likely knows how to pull out punches and other fight moves but as a ‘God Of War’ he’s mainly a strategist. He takes decisions, Shin agrees or not (and Shin is the one who has the last say), Wakasa and Benkei, and the rest of the gang, apply. (chapter 224, Benkei answering “yes, sir” to one of Takeomi’s command (even though Senju is clearly against it))

However, he’s not the one who brought them together. All of what he has. It’s thanks to Shinichiro. Wouldn’t be number 1 without him. Wouldn’t be friends with Wakasa and Benkei without him. Takeomi lives on what Shinichiro gave him. Him, an average, good-for-nothing kid. And when it’s time to say farewell to all of that – he doesn’t.

Shinichiro has his own shop. Wakasa and Benkei have their own gym.

Takeomi stays as if he was still on top. As if he wasn’t already falling, as if the impact on the ground wouldn’t damage him. As if Shinichiro, who decided climbing the jungle gym wasn’t fun anymore, didn’t stop stabilizing him.

He lives in denial. And it works at the beginning. People still think of them as number 1 so it’s not too hard. But then they realize they aren’t. But Takeomi is an average kid. In everything. He’s only good at what Shinichiro designed him as. And he didn’t think he'd be good at it. He isn’t good at anything else. He can’t do anything else. So it goes on.

The debts pill up.

Shinichiro dies.

And ? And repeat. Without the debts, this time.

Senju, joyous, cheerful, strong-willed Senju, asks him to join her gang. As her second in command. Even though he is “broke and powerless”. “At the lowest of low” (chapter 230). Even though Wakasa and Benkei are right there.

(Shinichiro asked him to be his vice captain. Even though Takeomi was average, good at nothing but following his childhood friend around. Even though Shinichiro had become friends with Wakasa and Benkei who were in this world since way longer.)

And so Brahman is created.

Their prestige comes back. They remember mannerisms days after days, they remember how you do it. Brahmam grows. They have hundreds of members, they make a lot of money with deals and underground fights. Whereas Wakasa and Benkei moved on (or, way more than Takeomi did), Takeomi didn’t and it shows even in their Brahman uniforms. If you look closely, they don’t have the same patterns on their sleeves – Wakasa and Benkei both got flowers, although different from the other’s (same thing for Senju) but Takeomi has a dragon. (Average Brahman members have the same thing they have on the back of their uniforms)

Draken dies. Draken dies. He shouts it – It’s not a childish brawl (chapter 224). I find it hard to believe that during Black Dragon 1st Gen, they never lost anyone, but Draken’s death snaps him back to reality. It isn’t like it was with Shinichiro. There’s no fun. It’s war. Standing at the top isn’t like standing on a jungle gym. Draken is dead and so is Shinichiro. Why isn’t he ? (chapter 225, Takeomi: “Souuuuuuuth !! Why did you kill Draken !? He wasn't even a formal member of Brahman ! If you wanted to kill someone it should've been me !”)

Either Draken dies, or Senju does.

For what else would have Takeomi joined Bonten ? Actually, let me change that question ; where is and what does Senju do in Bad Toman and Manila timelines ?

Because Mikey goes down a dark path in all the timelines so, did she try to stop him ? If yes, is she dead ? The three deities battle might or not have happened (South wouldn’t have the same members if that’s the case – Tenjiku never came to be in Bad Toman and Izana is alive in Manila). And… And if that’s the case or not – why are Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi nowhere to be seen ?

Wakasa and Benkei work in a way that opposes Takeomi. Not only with how they dealt with Black Dragon disbandment but how they dealt with Senju’s death. No matter how it happened, Takeomi joins Mikey after his sister’s death (Bonten), Wakasa and Benkei join Kanto Manji when Senju doesn’t (nowhere to be seen in Bonten).

Difference being, if Senju dies, Wakasa can’t witness Mikey’s dark impulses and can’t talk to him about it. And even if he witnessed it, if Senju is dead, would Wakasa care ? Wakasa must know there’s nothing against the dark impulses so why join Kanto Manji ? They love Senju, their princess, do they want to keep her safe ? Surely. Why take this option then?

It's never stated. So it's interpretation/theory time.

Wakasa would choose Shinichiro over Mikey. In chapter 270, he says "Honeslty speaking, I'm glad that Manjiro has passed. I was worried that you'd be first to die [...] Right now, you're just rotting away", now, Wakasa from the original timeline and from canon-timeline aren't the same. Original timeline Wakasa had the time to accept Shinichiro had lost his brother (and Mikey could perhaps regain consciousness one day, but the more day passes, the more the chances lower), but he couldn't see his friend rot away. His previously bright and charismatic friend was being devoured by sleep deprivation, helplessness and so much more. Hence, if Mikey dying would free Shinichiro from his suffering (although it would also add to it, he wouldn't have to work himself to the bone to take care of Mikey, and would finally have time to process all of what happened to him) then Wakasa is okay with it. Shinichiro is important to him, more than Mikey could ever be.

Wakasa, is the only person Shinichiro talked to about the original timeline. Out of the two people knowing about it, Wakasa is the one Shinichiro went to to tell him about it (Sanzu is the other and he came to Shinichiro asking about it). We don't know if Shinichiro planned to tell more people, and if yes, Wakasa was on the top of his list. Thus, this means Wakasa had heard Shinichiro telling him he killed a man and then himself. Because Mikey died. So that Mikey won't die. And he probably was murdered because of it later on too, because Shinichiro told him the homeless man's last words – because Shinichiro told him everything with every details.

So, when Wakasa finally sees Mikey again, sees the level of destruction he causes, sees that he kills like it's nothing, like he's enjoying it, this boy his friend killed for to keep alive... Well, Wakasa, dragging Benkei along, joined Kanto Manji to keep Mikey alive — because that's what Shinichiro sacrificed himself for, so, so many times. He can only stay near Mikey and try to not have him killed when they're in a world where being murdered is common. Mikey is strong, but he won't ever survive a bullet shot in the wrong place.

For Takeomi though, when he joins Bonten, his sister is dead. After his best friend. He failed the two people who meant the most to him and who appointed him as their second in command because they trusted him. He let them die. It’s not a child game anymore. South signed his death warrant.

And Takeomi hasn’t seen Mikey or Sanzu in years. (They’re the only ones left, he can’t leave them alone. He can’t stay alone.)

That’s the first theory. Second is, he crashes, he and Mikey end up meeting again, he gives him the role as his advisor. Rinse, repeat. The circle continues ; Bonten is at the top of Japan. Mikey is at the top of Japan – and that, even without Kisaki.

Even without Kisaki.

Is Takeomi on the same level as Kisaki ? I don’t know. Kisaki is the moon to Mikey’s sun. But what was Takeomi to Shinichiro ? Perhaps his rain. And I'll keep going with the ‘perhaps’, because we’re never shown what Takeomi is to Shinichiro, beside a friend. Every meaningful interaction they have is from Takeomi’s POV. In Shinichiro’s chapters, Takeomi is briefly mentioned once when Sanzu gets out of the juvenile center, then when Shinichiro time leaps, he is too focused on Mikey to give (me) us any useful interaction/thought about Takeomi. There’s only one case, “Takeomi…” in chapter 273 but without that ? The start of chapter 269 is shallow. It gives us information on Shinichiro’s relationship with Mikey and Takeomi’s own relationship with his siblings (“I'm like his father figure at this point. Its best from him to learn from his peers” /"What kind of parent would let their kids learn from gang rides ?”) and also a quick information on Black Dragon founding members but that information is basically ‘they’re good friends :)’.

Anyway, Shinichiro nicknamed Takeomi ‘Rain Bringer’. So what does rain symbolize in Japan and does it somewhat fit Takeomi ? Rain is strongly linked to death and rebirth (as water usually is in Japan), to becoming something, someone else. This makes a nice little link with his siblings as Senju’s flowers are sakura (and so is her image color, pink sakura) which also symbolize the cycle of death and rebirth, the fleeting nature of life, how short if is, but also renewal and optimism, and Sanzu got his name from Sanzu no kawa, the three-crossing river, who is a river souls have to cross to get to the afterlife and/or to resurrect.

Takeomi’s other nickname, which wasn’t given by Shinichiro, is God of war. Japan has two gods of war, either Hachiman from shintoism, or Bishamonten from buddhism (since it’s Japan we’re talking about, those two got mixed up a bit but). Hachiman is a god of war and agriculture and was said to determine a samurai’s fate in battle (chapter 230 : “[...] my decisions determined how any conflict would end”). Bishamonten is a god of war and warriors, a punisher of evildoers and the ruler of rain. Bishamonten also carries a chatra (a kind of umbrella that symbolizes kingship, sovereignty).

This, while it gives more tracks to analyze Takeomi, doesn’t answer the question ‘What was Takeomi to Shinichiro’. So, if the story refuses to give us the answer, we have to find some parallels with other characters and see if they fit.

Shinichiro’s...

...Baji

That’s right ! Baji and Takeomi share the same role. For this topic, Sanzu (and Senju) is the anomaly between him, Baji and Mikey.(and although we could say Sanzu is Baji’s parallel, he’s mostly Kakucho’s.)

Let’s start with why Wakui decided to depict them that way.

For Mikey and Baji, it was mostly there to show how long they’ve known each other. Mikey had said they were childhood friends but that doesn’t give us a time indication as to when they met. Then, there is the ‘Baji is behind’ aspect. It isn’t a problem between them, that Baji never wins against Mikey, no matter the years. Baji is just after Mikey and can’t reach the top yet.

For Shinichiro and Takeomi, it’s the same. ‘They’ve known each other for how long?’ ‘Probably since then’. Takeomi is behind Shinichiro who is standing at the top. Takeomi wants to do so too, and Shinichiro helps him to. Takeomi can’t stand here unless Shinichiro holds him still.

Shinichiro doesn’t enjoy being Japan’s number 1 - standing at the top. He became a delinquent to form relationships, to have fun, to deal with his father’s death and his mother’s stay in the hospital. He wasn’t against becoming the strongest but it wasn’t his goal (chapter 142, Shinichiro, in a quick Inui’s flashback: “Is winning really that important ?”). After all, if there’s nobody above you, the only people left are below, and Shinichiro says it, it’s only bullying and that’s meaningless (chapter 230, “Now that there's no one better than us, at this point it's just gonna be bullying the people weaker than us, wouldn't it ?”)

However, the childhood friend dying changes. For Mikey and Baji, the one climbing dies ; for Shinichiro and Takeomi, the one at the top does. How can we interpret this ? We already did for Takeomi – that means the one climbing falls. But for the one already on top ? The person who (tried to) followed him there died on the way. He’s still on top, but now he’s alone. Mikey is never alone, but after Shinichiro, Baji’s death is one of the last indispensable nail on his coffin. A nail aggravating his isolation and loneliness.

Personality wise, Baji and Takeomi are awfully different. Takeomi is awfully different to all characters – he is one of the most flawed and most fans don’t find him any redeeming quality.

Baji does share one of Takeomi’s characteristics, and that’s what (ironically) led to Shinichiro’s death. As Kazutora says in chapter 44 while stealing the bike: “You might complain but you always go along with whatever I'm doing”, Baji follows people. He can do well on his own (Valhalla), but if it wasn’t for his stubbornness in pursuing Mikey around (chapter 39, Mikey: “We lived in the same neighborhood. It’s not like we got along that well. He was always picking fights with me”), they wouldn’t have become childhood friends. They are also younger than their childhood friends (Sanzu and Shinichiro are the oldest).

Baji is Shinichiro in one aspect though: he is the one to have created Toman and to have assigned every founding member their role in the gang. (Baji does it in a flashback of chapter 63, Shinichiro gave Takeomi his position as vice-captain so it won’t surprise me if he gave Wakasa and Benkei their). They both also challenge people stronger than them. (Shinichiro on a daily basis “He'd challenge guys way stronger than him to fights”, Baji with Mikey “He was always picking fights with me. And I handed him his ass every time.”).

If there are parallels between Shinichiro and Baji – are there parallels between Takeomi and Mikey ? The answer is yes. They both don’t know what to do after Shinichiro’s death (and Mikey is even more lost after Baji’s), so much that if you push them in the wrong path, they end up as the number 1 criminal organization of their country (Kisaki for Mikey (Bad toman, Manila) helped to speedrun the process — as we see with Bonten, Mikey’s circle in Bonten (Sanzu “There they are ! The dark impulses ! I've been waiting for this” Haruchiyo) helped too. And the one thing to do to get Takeomi back in his prime is to restore his self-confidence (Bonten, and what he was close to do with Brahman)), they both cope with their emotions the same way as well, ‘I’ll keep all my emotions right here. And then one day, I’ll die’ as one may say. They hide between smiles or blank faces. Little things matter as well, so.. chapter 123, Mikey “I wanna stand out” - they both do (even if Mikey is about 4 in this chapter).

...Kisaki

the fact takeomi is both baji and kisaki is hilarious pls. Those two hated each other so much. Well i wont be surprised if Wakui made it official that Takeomi hates himself

Yeah you read that right. Takeomi is Shinichiro’s Kisaki to the same extent he is Shinichiro’s Baji. Like with Baji, he fills Kisaki’s role while dealing with it differently – they don’t have the same personality so it’s not that surprising.

They’re both the gang’s ‘brain’. Whereas Takeomi was given the position, Kisaki approached Mikey with this exact idea in mind. Kisaki wanted to make Tenjiku Toman (chapter 126, “I'm going to make my own Toman”), and Takeomi was about to transform Brahman into (a much darker) Black Dragon (Chapter 219, Senju: “Brahman’s gotten bigger.. and Takeomi has changed. Now, instead of making brahman ‘stronger’ he thinks that making it ‘bigger’ is more important” → all the more people to praise him). Both had the same goal too (to become number 1), and end up being criticized for it because of their way to attain it by Mikey (“in order to make Toman bigger I've ignored your underhanded methods until now. But that ends here [...] Your arbitrary decisions will screw up my dream”) and Senju ("I get that not all the jobs we take will be clean. However, thinking about dirtying Brahman for trash like that pisses me off”) when those two asked them are the one who asked them to guide them (chapter 265, Mikey: “there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart. Sometimes that ‘something’ expands and drives me to destroy absolutely everything. Kisaki… I want you to stay by my side with that part of me. I want you to guide me, Kisaki” (and worse, when Kisaki asked him if he’s sure, even if Kisaki doesn’t guide him the way he wants, Mikey answered “yeah, I don’t care.” But then, it was before Takemichi waltzed in his life); chapter 230, Senju: “I want someone who I can trust ! Someone who can give some guidance to the team ! Will you fill that role, big bro ?”). They had different reasons, for sure, Kisaki wanted Hinata’s love, Takeomi wanted (to keep) that idolizing love other people had for him, but those different reasons have the same roots.

They never grew up from their child-mindset.

Kisaki kept that childish logic of ‘Hinata loves Takemichi. Takemichi wants to be Japan's number 1 delinquent. Hinata loves Japan's number 1 delinquent. If I’m Japan's number 1 delinquent, Hinata will love me.’ (and he wanted Hinata’s love because she was the only one interacting with him and being nice to him, she said “He’s a good kid” when everyone else doesn’t, even back in elementary school where he is described as “creepy”) and Takeomi kept that childhood wish of being important, needed, validated.

Now, they turned out differently because of a very essential point :

Chapter 182, first chapter of Kisaki’s flashback : “When I was in elementary school, they called me a child prodigy.”

Chapter 230, Takeomi’s chapter : “Whether it be in sports, or studies, I was just average. I was but a normal child, not special at all.”

Kisaki was made aware from an early age that he was smart. He is as arrogant as much his intelligence allows him to be (sure, it’s insufferable, but he is as smart as he says). He is well-assured of his capacities and is the one to make his life decisions, he is very independent from Mikey or anyone else. Kisaki has an actual self-esteem. He doesn’t under or overestimate himself. He knows what he does, he knows he is the one doing so. Takeomi is the opposite. He’s too arrogant, doesn’t know in what he is smart, but the others say so, so he must be, he makes his decisions while looking at Shinichiro – he got there thanks to Shinichiro. And Kisaki got there thanks to Takemichi, although in another way. Kisaki also followed Takemichi around. By stalking him, but still. And unlike Takeomi, Kisaki is very conscious of it when he lies, it is but another strategy to manipulate people.

Kisaki is Takeomi if people had noticed and talked about his capacities in his childhood. Takeomi is what Kisaki could’ve been if people never praised him, if he never finished number one at any national mock exam and if he became childhood friends with Takemichi (instead of stalking him).

Both of them corrupted Toman and Brahman (and Black Dragon if Shinichiro hadn’t been Shinichiro). “Brahman is closer to a group of adult gangsters than they are a motorcycle gang. Some nasty rumors follow them, too.” (chapter 215, Inui); “Money is power. How valuable do you think your ‘strength’ is !?” (chapter 229, Takeomi); but are also the reason why they became huge organizations. They are the reasons why Brahman (almost) and Toman fell into criminal organizations (although Toman would’ve anyway).

They also both first got into a gang when they were 13. (Black Dragon was created the 22nd February 1995 – Takeomi was born the 10th march 1981 (the year after Shinichiro’s own birth btw, Shinichiro who is the oldest Black Dragon founding member), so he was about to turn 14 BUT HE WASN'T, and in 2005 Kisaki is 13 since he was born the 20th january 1992 (two years younger than Mikey, one year younger than Takemichi))

...Draken.

Shinichiro and Mikey both have their “This is the breeze of a new era !”(chapter 230)/”I’m gonna seize this world” (chapter 223) speech that only Takeomi/Draken could hear ; and they’re both vice-captain/second in command.

When Black Dragon gets officially disbanded (their final garthering), Wakasa and Benkei shed a tear or two, Shinichiro being the crybaby he is, has a lot of tears running down his face, and Takeomi… too. Takeomi is the only one with his eyes close. He grins his teeth. He can’t accept this reality, can’t look at it. Even if Shinichiro talked about it with him beforehand. And… it’s the same with Draken. Not that Mikey informed him before saying Toman was over (and they didn’t have a second generation to lend the name too, as opposed to Black Dragon), but with how he reacted. On paper, he said he agreed with it (even after his “What ? What’re you goin’ on all of a sudden ?” in chapter 189 which is the same as Takeomi’s “Disband !? But why !? I mean, we just became Japan's number one !” in chapter 230, and Mikey also disbanded Toman after becoming Japan’s number 1), that since it was Mikey’s choice, he had “no objection to the leader's decision” (chapter 189), but in reality, not only do we learn it’s not true when they dug up the time capsule (chapter 198, Draken reading his letter : “I’m at a crossroads in my life right now. Toman disbanded. […] I actually regret it. Toman is everything to me. Im sure everyone in toman felt that way ? I’m worried… I cried”), but he also joins Brahman. There was nothing prior to that revelation pointing at it. In Bonten he has his shop, he says “I’m retired” and “I left everything i had back in Tokyo Manji” to South (chapter 211) in his letter he wrote “So, I'm leaving all of my regrets in here” and that’s what teenager Draken tried to do. But he joined Brahman instead. And we learn why after, when he says in a flashback to Mitsuya (chapter 238) : “Have you grown accustomed to living life without Toman ? Because I can't seem to move on from it. That’s why I think i’m gonna go back to the life of deliquent. I’ll continue following Mikey [...]”. Draken couldn’t leave Toman, his whole life behind. Then why did he in Bonten ? Because Senju died. Not only must it have affected him, but it affected Takeomi, Wakasa and Benkei. And, yes, we can say Senju died in Bonten regardless of the fact it’s never said. Why ? Bonten is a memorial for Izana, its symbol, its members’ tattoo come from Izana’s earrings and the (天) ten of Bonten 梵天 from Tenjiku 天竺, the (��) bon of Bonten 梵天 comes from Brahman 梵. The executives, advisor, second and third in command, are either former Tenjiku member or Senju’s brother (or both for Sanzu but again, can we really say he was a Tenjiku member when it’s clear he was acting as a spy on Mikey’s unaware behalf..) - and its leader had a deep relationship with those two as well. There’s no need for Senju to have the same role as Izana in Bonten if she’s not dead. So, Senju’s death is the answer as to why Draken utterly left Toman (and Mikey) behind in Bonten timeline (he loves Mikey very much but he can't lose any more loved ones). But Draken’s wish to get back to Mikey until then, his refusal to abandon Toman, was what led him and Takeomi to understand each other. That’s what led to Takeomi recruiting Draken (because he must have been the one to come up with the idea, like he is the one to have thought about recruiting Takemichi). That’s what leads Takeomi to get this angry at his death. Not only is Takeomi is partially responsible for it, Draken is essential to bring back Mikey, and Takeomi is not. And so, “If you wanted to kill someone it should've been me !” (chapter 225). And also why he becomes even more angry when Mikey arrives (“Fuck off, Kanto gang ! You guys abandoned Draken !”). Takeomi takes his role as Senju’s second in command very seriously, she asked him to guide the team and he accepted, he swore to give his all for them (chapter 230). He is the one telling her to keep cool and not being driven by her emotions (chapter 218), which is ironic because he’s the one to act before thinking after Draken’s death whereas Senju tries to calm him down (and fails).

Kanto being “a three-way state of equilibrium between these three teams and has entered the three deities era” (Yamagishi, chapter 208) was not an innocent choice when it is also revealed in chapter 226 by Senju that “Benkei and Waka. Before the first generation of Black Dragon happened, these two divided the Kanto region. Kanto used to be divided into two parts”. South takes the role of Benkei, and Senju, who created Brahman for the only purpose of stopping Mikey the same way Kodo Rengo was formed to stop Ragnarok’s expansion, takes the role of Wakasa. This is also backed up by their fighting style and body type. Mikey takes Shinichiro’s role, but whereas Shinichiro ‘defeated’ Wakasa and Benkei and became their friends and leader which lead to them ruling over the region, Mikey crushed South/Rokuhara Tandai and made Senju disband Brahman, for the same result (Takemichi could’ve taken on Shinichiro’s role but the power of friendship can’t do everything). And Draken is in Takeomi’s role. Not Sanzu. (because Sanzu doesn’t care about Toman while Draken just wants it back.). Furthermore, I like the fact South, in the final timeline, “is a heavyweight champion of foreign martial arts. When he visits Japan, he hangs out at the Gojo gym” because not only does South finally have friends (like Senju, he is friendless in canon-timeline) but because Benkei’s dream is “to produce a MMA champion from Gojo gym”, which while not being exactly the same thing is still close enough for me.

A difference between them worth mentioning is that while Draken is the oldest of Toman founding members, Takeomi is the youngest of Black Dragon founding members.

(+ Inui, Kokonoi:

The other character introduced as refusing the end of Black Dragon is Inui. He's a character who is developed alongside Kokonoi who can't accept Akane's death.

But whereas Takeomi seemingly doesn't do anything by himself to get out of his vicious circle and debts, Inui actively tries to keep Black Dragon alive. He even takes Shinichiro’s shop as his hideout (with Kokonoi), although it has been abandoned. Nobody else came to keep that place alive – it reminds them of a too painful reality. And it could've with Inui too, but Inui has only good memories of this place (chapter 143, Inui: “All those senpai who’d stop by were so dazzling and awesome. [...] I heard so many stories in this bike shop from our senpai. They all had so much fun talking about their old leader [...] Even as an adult, he could still laugh about the dumb stuff he did years ago together with his friends.”). Not to say the others don’t; but Inui is able to see pass the pain of this happiness unable to come back.

Inui is the first out of the three to let it go. He finds Takemichi and realizes that.. maybe he could live without Black Dragon. It takes a bit but Bonten Inui has let it go completely, unlike Kokonoi and Takeomi, both going deeper and deeper into criminality ; both still running away from reality, refusing to look back and see what they loved isn't there anymore.

Inui heals in Bonten. He doesn't in Bad Toman, where he's with Hakkai who became BD 11th leader. He doesn't in Manila, where Izana who was the 8th BD leader and the first leader Inui worked under comes back. Always running after BD shadow. Manila Inui met Takemichi, but Manila Inui wasn't separated from Kokonoi, not for years, not for more than a decade, since Tenjiku merged with Toman. They probably didn't have their 'Akane is dead, I'm Seishu!' talk, and if they did, it clearly didn't change anything.

We don't know how Inuis family life is. We know his parents couldn't pay for his sister's surgery and she ended up dying. We know he had had to witness his best friend lose himself in the prospect to make money. We know somewhen, he met Shinichiro. Spent time with him at his shop. Perhaps to stay away from home ? Home who burnt him? Home who took away his sister ? Meeting Shinichiro did a lot to him accepting his sister's death, surely. A bit of positivity in his life. But nobody was there for him when Shinichiro himself died. When Izana disappeared nobody knew where and the Haitani Brothers left Black Dragon when it became to hard to deal with, leading it to fade away (chapter 105, Kokonoi: “They ended up in a tough spot when the Haitani brothers of Roppongi came to power… So they ditched the gang, and disappeared.”).

Inui learnt about it after getting out of juvie. He went to juvie for Black Dragon. For Izana. This can't be the end of it. So he makes Taiju the 10th leader. He's not loyal to him because he's Taiju, he's loyal to him because it's the Black Dragon leader (chapter 143, Inui: “That good old Black Dragon I used to know was no more. I panicked when Black Dragon died for a while. That’s when I sought help from Shiba Taiju.”). But the Christmas Showdown happens, and Inui witnesses the force of nature that is Takemichi Hanagaki. And he's like Shinichiro was.

He leaves Black Dragon behind when he puts on Toman uniform for the first time. Black Dragon won't ever leave him, but he can let it go and cherish the memories he has. He didn't get to be in Black Dragon when he wanted to (chapter 143, Inui: “I’ve always admired such a team. That’s why I joined Blakc Dragon. But by the time I joined Black Dragon it was the eightth generation. It was shit.”) and that changed him (as being in a gang changed Takeomi) (chapter 143: ”During the eighth and ninth generations.. our gang did extortion, robbed people, sold drugs, all sorts of heinoius stuff. There was no trace left of the gang’s original intentions. And before i knew it, the gang’s evil had an influence on me. I landed myself in juvie.”), but he can maybe experience a similar thing with Takemichi, or maybe it'll be completely different. It's okay, he has turned the page. Now, he has to bring back Kokonoi and make him turn the page as well. Except Inui had a slow and nice 'turn the page', while Kokonoi won't.

Kokonoi needs more time, Kokonoi can't let Akane go just yet, even if Inui yells at him to stop acting as if he was seeing his sister instead of himself. Inui practically slaps him up. He has failed during Tenjiku, but this failure planted a seed in Kokonoi's mind which finally bloomed during the battle with Kanto Manji. It's a more abrupt realization than Inui got, but it doesn't hurt him. Akane tells him to let go, that she's glad he did all of that for her but that he doesn't need to continue – she's dead. Seishu is not. And even if that's meaningless, even if he knows he's, they're, going to lose, he goes help Inui against Wakasa and Benkei.

Takeomi's realization of having done something wrong falls upon him all at once. A part of it. His realization concerning Brahman, about Senju and Sanzu is there ("I've failed Brahman principles"(chapter 230)/"But me going crazy and Haruchiyo going astray[...]"(chapter 241) and it hurt him. Acknowledging his mistakes to himself and to others, to Senju, made him cry.)

But where is his realization about Black Dragon and Shinichiro ?)

But not Shinichiro’s Takemichi.

Takeomi isn’t Shinichiro’s Takemichi because for starters, Takemichi is Shinichiro as it is constantly repeated throughout the story.

Takemichi changed Mikey’s life (if it wasn’t for him, he would’ve kept listening to Kisaki, kept thinking he only needed darkness, he would’ve killed Kazutora (chapter 265)). Takeomi didn’t change much Shinichiro’s. Not the same way Takemichi did at least. Mikey, like Takeomi, needed someone to guide him, to follow around, whether this person was Takemichi or Kisaki depends entirely on the timeline’s events. Shinichiro could guide himself, he didn’t need somebody to show him the way. So what ? Why does it matter? It matters because all the friendships in this story have an impact on the characters it concerns. Whether it be the Twin Dragons, Izana and Kakucho, Inui and Kokonoi, Mikey is changed by Pah (going to jail), Kazutora (Shinichiro’s death), Baji (him siding with Kazutora and his own death), Draken (“Draken is Mikey’s heart. He compensates for what he’s lacking”) (not Mitsuya though. Which is very sad. I want a concrete example of how Mìtsuya impacted Mikey's life!!)… And the Black Dragon are out of this rule. Especially Shinichiro. Takeomi, Wakasa and Benkei all changed because of him (in good for Wakasa & Benkei, in what could’ve been good but ended up bad for Takeomi) but the other way around isn’t shown to be true. Wakasa & Benkei became friends, really good friends since they own a gym together in several timelines, and Takeomi got something to fill his lack of self-esteem which then got taken away from him without him having learnt how to cope with it in the meantime.

And Wakasa & Benkei aren’t supposed to have a gym in canon-timeline. Wakasa is a gang leader in the original timeline – supposedly he only changed vocation because Shinichiro told him about the original timeline and he decided not to go down that path. But then, when did Shinichiro had the time, during his time in the past, to tell Wakasa about his time leap ? He barely stayed one day. So did Wakasa, in the original timeline, came back to the illegal world so he can produce/obtain money and help Shinichiro out ? We don’t know what Benkei does in the original timeline, but I’d find it hard to believe he’s not with Wakasa. As for Takeomi, his situation is most likely the same, he’s in debt (which would explain that brief “Takeomi…” from chapter 272 from Shinichiro before he has to focus on the date, and very much alive Mikey). Or, if we want to look at another option, since Shinichiro got into “shaddy stuffs” (as he says in chapter 270), they could’ve followed and got back into delinquency. If they did it fast enough, Takeomi probably didn't get to the point of having debts. If you add the “Join my gang, Shin. With you we'd be the top gang in the world” of Wakasa (same chapter) to any of this option, and the lack of negative response from Shinichiro you end up with one terrifying timeline where Shinichiro could have become, actually, a bad guy (or kill himself anyway).

What did all three of them do to make Shinichiro grow, positively or not ? Nothing (concrete that is, his admired/respected people are ‘’the Black Dragon First Generation Members‘’). Shinichiro’s entire personality, and that’s one of the only if not the only character, is centered exclusively around his family, mostly but not only, Mikey. He is changed by his father’s death and his mother’s hospitalization and starts to be a delinquent, he is changed by Mikey’s accident, by Emma running away, by his grandfather dying, by Mikey’s death and is so broken he is ready to believe in time travel, maybe was he also changed by Izana’s reaction when he discovered they weren’t blood-related. Only Wakasa is here in his flashback. No Benkei, only a mention of Takeomi. That’s not right. They’re his friends, why aren’t they here ? Why do we have so little information ?

Shinichiro stays the same until Mikey has his accident. He isn’t shaped by anybody else, not even his childhood friend whom he has known for more than a decade.

Shinichiro didn’t need guidance like Mikey did, but he didn’t need to stagnate either.

– which beg the question : Why did Wakui decide to put the exact same kanji, pronounced the exact same way in both Takeomi (武臣) and Takemichi (武道)’s name ? As a writer, making this decision means something (most of the time), alas, i didn’t find what. (Takemichi like Takeomi has self-esteem problems at the beginning of the story because he got beaten up as an middle school student by Kiyomasa but other than that..)

What I did find was Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi pages in the third guide book. There’s still not much about Shinichiro (he is listed as all three’s admired/respected person), but there’s a bit more about their relationship with Takeomi. First, the one thing that actually surprised me : Wakasa and Benkei are listed as Takeomi’s disliked/feared people. Then, Wakui was kind to explain since it’s followed by “(They look down on me )”. Now, to see if it’s true or not (if they do think that, or if it’s just Takeomi (who must be such an unreliable narrator)) we have to take a look at Wakasa and Benkei’s own page.

Takeomi is only mentioned once for Wakasa, in his ‘a day in his life’ :

“I had a one-week holiday, so I went on a quick trolling trip to Okinawa. I wanted to enjoy fishing alone, but Takeomi and Benkei came along. The aim was yellowfin tuna. Takeomi got tired of not being able to catch anything after 3 hours on the boat and said he wanted to go home, while Benkei was seasick and exhausted. I knew I shouldn't have brought them along.”

We learnt that Takeomi isn’t that patient (to be fair, fishing isn’t something he likes to do, unlike Wakasa) but not that much is said about how Wakasa really thinks about him and him alone. He is irritated by both of his friends, who ruined his holiday, equally. You can’t say if he looks down on Takeomi or not.

For Benkei, Takeomi is also mentioned once and it’s in his ‘a day in his life’ as well :

“The gym is closed today. Takeomi persistently invited me out for a drink. I usually don't go, but we went to an izakaya together. His drinking is long. At first its fun, but as we get deeper into it, he starts to brag. He talks about the Brahman Senju created as if he created it. He has always been like that. I remember he used to brag about Shinichiro's achievements as if he himself had done them. Shinichiro liked him, including such a bad part of him.”

It gives more than Wakasa’s did. First, Takeomi, although he dislikes/fears them, still tags along with both of them when he can. Second, not that much of a news, Takeomi brags and takes on Senju’s achievements, the same way he took on Shinichiro’s. Third, Shinichiro was aware of it and didn’t stop him ?

While we can say Benkei is probably irritated by it, like for Wakasa we can’t say he looks down on Takeomi.

It pains me that there’s not much interaction between them. You can say Wakasa and Benkei are friends – but do they consider Takeomi a friend ? I don’t think he’s still labeled ‘Shinichiro’s friend’ in their mind, but – especially with Takeomi’s fall – they aren’t close, have they ever been. They don’t have that kind of relationship like Toman’s founding members have for example. Perhaps they did once.

Takeomi’s page, in my opinion at least, is the one that gives the more information on the character it‘s about. He likes Akechi Mitsuhide because he has the same birthday as him (sure why not – Akechi Mitsuhide, to make it very short, a general in the Heian period who attempted to become Shogun, and whose reign as Shogun lasted thirteen days), he dislikes making efforts (makes sense, he makes others’ achievements his own, which also leads to:), his special talent is taking advantages of people, and his dream is to be a multimillionaire (he is also ranked number 1 best to ‘Who has a way with words ?’).

Except confirming what I was already thinking, it still doesn’t offer much (but i’m so glad it has been explecitely written). But his failure story, that’s, well, another story.

And all of that offers a great transition, but let me change the topic first –

Family - the first thing you learn to run away from

(You were probably waiting for it from the start, sorry it took so long for me to talk about it !)

Takeomi’s failure story goes like this :

“I was their father figure. My father was busy because we are a motherless family. I was strict with Haruchiyo because he’s a man. He cut my face with a knife one day and left the house. He’s a hell of a fucking brother. I vowed that one day I would let Senju punish him.”

Sanzu gave him the scar.

Worse, looking at the timeline, Takeomi doesn’t have the scar when Black Dragon is founded (in February 1995 Sanzu would have been 4 so, not that surprising) but he gained it along the way, before Black Dragon disbandment (in late spring, early summer 1999, so Sanzu was either 8 or 9 (Takeomi was 18 – they have a 9 years gap)). That’s… young. What could have pushed Sanzu to do this ? Did Takeomi really do such a poor job raising him, Sanzu decided that attacking him was the only way out or something like that ? Sanzu, who says to Senju, “I wish I knew how to talk back to big bro like how Mikey and Baji do…” (chapter 241), cut his brother’s face with a knife before the age of nine? (he was nine when he said that, so perhaps he did stand up for himself before but then he gradually stopped (or all at once, it depends on how Takeomi reacted to being cut i suppose.)).

This leads to a question : did any outsider of their family know about it ? Sanzu probably wasn’t running around yelling about what he did, but did Takeomi complain (to Shinichiro) or did he keep his mouth shut about how his scar came to be. Both ? Complained about how hard it is to raise Sanzu (who ran away after what he did) while saying his new scar is from a fight he has gotten into ?(of course he didn’t get his scar from a 4-9 years old. Who do you take him for, he wouldn't let anyone, let alone a child, scar him like that.) Since we know Sanzu doesn’t go home when he’s in Toman (chapter 206, Muto : “What's with that look in your eye ? You don't have anywhere you belong ?”), it may not be an unusual thing for him to run away. (Which begs the question: what does his grandmother and father think about it ? Are they even aware of it ?)

Looking again at the timeline, what did Mikey and Takemichi do during the final reset ? They came back in October 1998 (Sanzu 8, Takeomi 17), yet Takeomi has his scar during the wedding. So either Sanzu cut his face before (and be 8 years old at most), or Mikey and Takemichi failed to prevent it.

this baby cut his brother’s face.

Talking about scars… We never got to see how Takeomi reacted when Sanzu got his. Did he blame him (he thought Sanzu was the one who broke the toy plane before Senju confesses she is in chapter 241) ? Did he just not do anything and left (oh sweet guilt) ? Did he decide to stay away from Mikey a bit ? Did he go to the hospital ?

For both Sanzu cutting Takeomi’s face and the toy plane incident, I pity Senju for having to witness it and feel guilty for not doing anything, but also because she knows sometimes she should be punished and not Sanzu. Her and Hakkai should get along well (once he stops freezing everytime girls talk to him).

But above all, I pity all of them for witnessing how the Sano family works. How, even though they also have absent parents, they’re healthy. How Mikey talks back to Shinichiro, how Emma loves her brother without feeling unwanted or lonely, how Shinichiro knows how to raise his siblings even with his family life, his parents' condition. And my heart ached the first time I read chapter 273 and Sanzu called Shinichiro ‘Shin-nii’ – thing Mikey never did. They addressed Takeomi as ‘Take-nii’ in their childhood, but they stopped. (Sanzu calls Shinichiro ‘Shinichiro-kun’ in the original timeline, which makes you wonder why, but I think he did since he was young and stopped because, for one, Shinichiro is too busy with his study and taking care of Mikey, and two, Sanzu went to juvie.) And Sanzu goes directly to Shinichiro after getting his memories back. He shares his confusion with Shinichiro, even if what he says seems unbelievable (even for himself) because he trusts him and knows he can share his worries with him. And Shinichiro answered to this 13 years old needing reassurance by telling him he killed a man.

I’d give a lot to see how the Akashi father is. I’d give a lot to see how Takeomi was raised. Because with Shinichiro it’s easy. Mama Sano and Papa Sano, for the little we’ve seen of them, seemed like good, stable people. They must have raised Shinichiro great until they couldn’t anymore. We don’t know when Mikey’s mother got to the hospital, but his father died when he was 3, so Shinichiro at least spent 13 years of his life with (guidance from) his father. Sure, it would’ve been better if it be longer, but it’s already more than.. Taiju (which, with some calculation, was 8 when his mother died). But we don’t know for the Akashi. We only know that Sanzu and Senju don’t call themselves Akashi. That Senju says “ We’re the mysterious siblings !” which is funny but makes me think about ‘let’s not talk about whatever’s going on in our family/at home’ which is not funny. Think of it, if the Akashi parents were the same as the Sano, they wouldn’t have turned out that way. It’s not fair to compare families or even people but to be fair they’re characters so they’re meant to be compared. And maybe the Sano siblings would have turned out like the Akashi siblings if their dad survived and their mom still died, who knows.

Takeomi didn’t take Senju and Sanzu to gang meetings, or anything gang-related whereas Shinichiro did. There could be two reasons (which can both be true at the same time) : 1, gang stuffs are dangerous, who would bring kids along, seriously, Shinichiro ? (chapter 269, Takeomi “are you stupid ? what kind of parents would let their kids learn from gang rides ?” after Shinichiro said “I'm like his father figure at this point. It's best from him to learn from his peers”) 2, it was the only thing he had that wasn’t family/home, where he could be himself and not have to care about his siblings (and be completely crushed under his responsibilities and doing a poor job because of it--). The fact he didn’t isn’t that important, Sanzu didn’t want to be part of a gang to start with (chapter 277 : “Nah! I don’t wanna be a delinquent!”), he only joined Toman after having his memories from the original timeline back and talking with Shinichiro about it (and Shinichiro dying). But Black Dragon, like for Shinichiro, was Takeomi’s life and by not bringing Sanzu and Senju in it, he didn’t interact with them much, he let them out of his life. Mikey and Emma “followed him [Shinichiro] everywhere” (chapter 109, Mikey), Takeomi needed his me-time, far away from his siblings. He couldn’t, unlike Shinichiro, put on the ‘perfect big brother’ role/façade.

Since he left his house often, Sanzu was left in charge (chapter 241, Takeomi “[...] you have to set a good example for her”; chapter 249, Sanzu (to Senju) “Did you forget who raised you [...]?”). If Takeomi had to take care on their father's role, it’s easy to understand that he delegated his big brother role to Sanzu. This was clearly not a good move, but Takeomi back then didn’t understand how strict he was with Sanzu, nor how unfair it was that he would blamed him for things Senju had done (following the rule of ‘you’re the older, you should have taught her better’) (perhaps Takeomi was so strict with Sanzu because he lashed out all of his self-anger/hatred on him; there's also the fact he may have recognized himself (his childhood self at least) in Sanzu – shitty move, but as a professional of denial, Takeomi might not have even been aware of it). But Takeomi wasn’t meant to be their father figure in the first place, and he could have failed his big brother role as well even if their life had been different, but he shouldn’t have had to endorse the responsibility of raising his siblings, had he been given the choice or not. It’s also somewhat ironic, that Takeomi did take on their father’s role the same way their father did – he left home for work and everything to the oldest child who stayed. Just like Shinichiro took on his father’s role. Not only because Shinichiro spent time with his siblings, which their father seems like he would have done, but also because, like his father, he gifts Mikey a toy, and tragedy soon follows (his father’s death in the car accident, Sanzu’s scars or Mikey’s accident). He was also a crybaby – although his father never cried in public (chapter 263, Mikey: “My father also cried easily ?”, his mom: “I wonder if he ever cried in public? That man was hopeless”). Mikey looked up to him, like he looks up to his father. I honestly think Mikey, who was also a crybaby as a child (chapter 263, Mikey’s mom: “[...] you too… used to be a crybaby when you were younger. All you did was cry and wail.”), started to stop crying (in public and in private alike) after his father’s death. Sure, he was very young when it happened, but children lack life experience not intelligence, sometimes they’re very capable of reading the room, and Mikey, who probably didn’t understand what was happening, knew that weeping wouldn’t help his already crying brother and mother. Mikey saw his father as this very strong, capable man who protected the family and decided to take on that role by being ‘strong’, by not crying and by beating people up (chapter 263, Mikey: “I am not going to cry. That's why, mom, I'm going to protect you, so come back home”; “I met that big guy from east elementary’s third grade. And I beat him up !”, his mom: “You're so strong, Manjiro. Just like your father.”). He has one memory of his father, where he hands him a superhero figurine – and what are fathers if not the superhero of their young children ?

Sanzu was a better big brother than Takeomi was. Sanzu, like Takeomi in the past, doesn’t want Senju to be in a gang and much less a gang leader (chapter 216, Senju : “Haruchiyo doesn't like the fact I’m the head of Brahman. He doesn't like that I'm the strongest and that Takeomi endorses me.”). “Because of my mistakes, Takeomi got mad at Haruchiyo even so Haruchiyo was always nice to me” (Senju, chapter 241) ; he could have. He could have let out the anger he had on Senju since he couldn’t talk back to Takeomi. He didn’t, because Sanzu was a kind child, but also because seeing how Takeomi favored Senju (in his actions, this does not mean he loved her more) if he had learnt Sanzu got angry at her or even made her cry… Sanzu was already aware of how his brother acted when he got angry.

I refuse to believe “The curse Shinichiro created by killing the time leaper, that is what my ‘dark impulses’ are. It affected everyone around him” (chapter 274) as the reason behind Sanzu and Mikey’s behavior. Simply because, if it did, then why was Wakasa, Benkei, Emma, heck even Sano grandpa, not affected by it ? And why was Kazutora ? The only way I accept it is with ‘it affected Sanzu because he was Shinichiro’s trigger, so they shared the power and by such, Sanzu had to carry a bit of the curse’ (im not going to talk about mikey’s case here but i also came up with a more complex reason as to why he was affected, that is not just ‘he was close to him’). However, we don’t know what the curse does. The homeless man only said ‘’curse you’’ (chapter 271), any explanation from a character who isn’t the homeless man can’t be taken as the perfect truth. Anyway, all of that to say that behind Sanzu (and Mikey’s) actions, there was a bit of genuinity. The curse pushed them to act, but a part of them wanted to act, the curse made them unable to stop (and think of alternative solutions), worse, the curse made them like it. (okay, it’s theory time heck it. the curse feeds on tragedy, the more tragedy, the more it grows, the more it grows, the more hungry it gets, the more it wants tragedy, the more it triggers tragedy. And by feeding on tragedy i mean all the negative feelings that go hand-in-hand with. Sadness, despair, helplessness, rage, regrets, guilt… It clings to someone who already has a tragic life (Mikey, Sanzu, … Kazutora,…) and it worsens it. End of theory time.) ANYWAY. All of that to say that, this ?

Was something Sanzu would (without the curse) regret, but did anyway because he couldn’t stop it (because of the curse) because a part of him wanted to (not necessarily, hit Senju with a pipe, but get a pay-back from what he had had to go through as a child. Who knows what he would have done to Takeomi if Wakui decided to not drop our ‘God of War’ by the road before the last fight of the story). And he says things her ‘always nice to her’ brother wouldn’t have said (especially) to her such as “fighting all flamboyantly like that.. you buzzing disgusts the hell out of me. You disgusting fly !” (chapter 248)

Sanzu knows Senju isn't responsible for Mikey's curse, but he learnt about it when he was 13; not before (i'm not saying that's why he hit her, that’s not my best transition). Who knows, maybe somewhere in his mind he did blame Senju before memories of the original timeline flew back to him and he realized whether the toy had broken or not, Mikey would've turned up like that either way. This also begs the question : what did Sanzu think about the accident, before Shinichiro admitted what really happened on that day, before he got his memories from the original timeline back ? What did he think about staying friends with the one who scarred him for life ? Did he really wholeheartedly agree to stay friends for life with Mikey to Shinichiro?

Speaking of the original timeline, Takeomi is said to be on “non-speaking terms” with Sanzu. But let’s put everything back into context : Sanzu “used a damn katana and slashed all of his friends” (Baji ; chapter 270) (which also doesn't support the 'it's because of the curse' explanation or the "You can't erase the curse! [...] I've been following Mikey as if I was in a trance [...]"(chapter 275) of Sanzu. Because there wasn't a curse in the original timeline to 'explain' Sanzu's behavior), and Baji himself says to Shinichiro “Why do you give a fuck about somebody like him ?”(same chapter). Whether Takeomi blames himself for how Sanzu turned out or not, Sanzu at best hurt his friends, at worst killed them. And in this timeline, Takeomi still has Senju to look after – hence, he can’t let Sanzu interact with her, and he refuses to talk with him after what he did (whereas in Bonten, Senju is dead and Takeomi came back in the game and ends up accepting murder as part of his, their, life) Takeomi is also against Mikey killing (South), as he says “Are you even human!? There’s no reason for you to go that far, y’know?!”(chapter 233) which Mikey kindly answers to by kicking Takeomi in the chin and saying “you're better off dead, too.”(same chapter). Shinichiro, like Sanzu, justifies it ; “He just attacked them because they were talking shit about Manjiro. Isn’t that how Haruchiyo is ?”. Would Shinichiro have justified it in another timeline, though ? If Mikey was okay, if Emma was there, if his grandfather didn’t die… Would he have accepted Sanzu’s actions ? Shinichiro in the original timeline, is in deep, deep denial about his entire life collapsing around him.

One second he’s working at a job he likes and wants to do, the other he is a university student, a nurse and his brother’s main and only caregiver. One second, he lives with what is left of his family, the other his brother is his only family left, and he can’t leave the hospital. Not only did his life go downhill after Mikey’s accident, he must blame himself for it too. Why did Mikey have his accident ? Because he didn’t want to lend the Concorde to Baji and the rest. Who bought the Concorde as a gift for him ? Shinichiro. He guided his brother, the boy he raised, to his death, and the girl he raised is nowhere to be seen (which might have been in part his fault since he was too busy studying for Mikey to pay attention to her), even though he had promised to his father to look after the both of them (chapter 269, “Father [...] I’ll take care of both Manjiro and Emma for you.”). His parents, his grandparents, he had nothing left. But Mikey is still alive. So he keeps on focusing on that, only that. Mikey can’t interact with people, nobody knows if he is aware of his surroundings, but he is alive and that fact alone is the only thing keeping Shinichiro from facing reality, from realizing that at this point, he is his family on his own, it’s the only thing keeping him going. He has to keep Mikey alive, to the price of his health (chapter 270, Baji: “In order to get the qualifications to be a caregiver he had to study while working in the hospital. I’m sure he doesn't even have time to sleep, his life is a total mess”; Wakasa: “I was worried that you'd be the first to die [...] Right now you're just rotting away”), his money, his morals (same chapter, Shinichiro: “I've gotten involved in many shady businesses. So I could help Manjiro in whatever he needed. I've done whatever therapies and even paid a lot for those suspicious religious groups”) anything, anything for Mikey. So of course, Haruchiyo was justified in his actions, no matter what Baji or Takeomi might say (plus, Baji says all kinds of things (“He isn't right in the head.”) but he still tags along and interact with Haruchiyo, he doesn’t fool many people. Then again, does Baji have any friends ? If “there’s nothing great about middle school”, he can’t meet Chifuyu, and who knows if he met any other founding members, if he met Kazutora at least.) because killing for Mikey is exactly what Shinichiro does.

The homeless man tells him to gain the power he killed his predecessor, and for a man who has lost everything, killing isn’t much. Except it doesn’t work. Shinichiro doesn’t go back to the past instantly after killing this man. His last hope is gone. And it wasn’t even one – he helplessly believed in the idea of time leaping because it was the only thing left he could believe in. So he kills himself. There’s nothing left anyway. Wakasa, Benkei, Takeomi, Haruchiyo, Baji ? Not enough. And then it works. He’s back. He saves Mikey. Then when he unexpectedly goes back to his present (2003) and goes look for the homeless man, he doesn’t find him. Probably to talk, to thank him. But the thing is, he killed this man. But not once is he seen feeling guilt about this. Denial ? Maybe. Or maybe it’s because he finds it justifiable. He killed for Mikey, for his baby brother, for his own sanity. One doesn’t mean the other isn’t true – he could justify it to stay in denial. He dies too soon after for him to learn to cope with what he did anyway.

There’s also the fact that out of everyone, he goes to Wakasa to tell him about the original timeline. Not Takeomi (who isn’t doing well in any point anyway), and not Benkei (who… we don’t know), but Wakasa. And he confesses his murder to him (as we’re told by Mikey, chapter 268 : “I was informed by Wakasa” ; chapter 274 : “the curse Shinichiro created by killing the time leaper… that is what my dark impulses are.”), the same way he confessed what he did in his previous timeline and what he thought of doing (“In these four years, I've gotten involved in many shady businesses [...] Maybe I should kill them all for deceiving me.” (chapter 270)).

So, while in the original timeline, Takeomi focuses on Senju even if that means neglecting Sanzu, Shinichiro focuses on Mikey which leads to Emma running away (to where, we don’t know). And those two little sisters fit their role differently. While Emma cooks (she is seen several time cooking; and to Draken after he asked her if she was housekeeping “well, gramps is old and…” (chapter 263)), likes cute things (the teddy bear she wanted and Draken got for her birthday), isn’t a fighter and in the final timeline becomes a housewife, Senju chases Mikey, Baji, and Sanzu around, wants to play with their toys (Mikey’s concorde), trains at Wakasa and Benkei’s gym and is a gang member. Takemichi refrains her to buy punk clothes and even though she still buys a lot of items, she prefers Brahman’s uniform and she goes shopping because Takeomi tells her to (“We’re shopping in Harajuku because Takeomi told me to ‘do some girly stuff sometimes.’ This is his card.”) and gives her his credit card (whose money comes from Brahman’s activities, so as to whether it’s his or Senju’s decisions leading to him being rich..). They’re both feminine, but Senju is a bit more of a tomboy in what she likes. Emma doesn’t feel lonely (“Since then, I've never felt lonely. Not even once”)(she has friends her age, such as Hinata), Senju clings to Takemichi the moment he joins Brahman (“Brahman’s full of old guys, so I’m glad people my age are joining”(chapter 216);”So can i think of us as friends now ?”(chapter 219))(seemingly, her only friends remain Mikey and Baji, whom she likely hasn't seen in years, even before Valhalla arc). They are also the only girls Takemichi saw in bra (chapter 9/chapter 216) but uh.. I don't want to know if that was made on purpose or not. But it joins the feminine/tomboy dichotomy – when Emma undressed, she had something else in mind (which, fortunately, didn't happen) and she has lace underwear, whereas Senju is very uninhibited (“Oh, it's fine. It's just sports bra”, chapter 216) and is wearing a sports bra like she says. They were raised the same way (Emma taking care of/helping her grandfather with chores ; Senju being forbidden to use ‘ore’ by Takeomi because it’s not ‘girlish’, making her go shopping for her to ‘do some girlish stuffs’; both being surrounded by men/boys (who are gang members, or former)) so it’s not because of outside influences they came to have different personalities and behaviors – Senju doesn’t fight or is tomboy-ish because she was raised among men (heck, she lives/lived at her grandmother’s while Emma had no woman/girl family members), she simply likes what society deems ‘for boys’ because she is herself and likes those things ; same for Emma, she doesn’t force herself to be someone she isn’t.

The Akashi are a motherless family but we don’t know why. If the Sano parents are dead (beside Karen, Emma’s mom) then I have two theories coming to mind. Either, the Akashi parents are alive or, they are indeed dead and the father in charge of raising them is Senju and Sanzu’s but not Takeomi's (or a mix of both, who knows). There are various details pointing to Takeomi being half-siblings with Senju and Sanzu.

First, it would be another obvious parallel with the Sano → Emma is Shinichiro and Mikey’s half-sister, but make it a twist by making the half-sibling the oldest instead of the youngest. Second, Manjiro (万次郎) and Shinichiro (真一郎) share a kanji and so do Haruchiyo (春千夜) and Senju (千咒)– if their parents wanted to give them names with a same kanji why don’t they all share it ? I get it with Emma (her mom probably named her and we don’t know how involved her father was in her life, plus, 郎 is a kanji that literally means ‘son/boy’, but she could have have a name ending with 子(ko) meaning ‘child’ and who’s only used in feminine names), but Takeomi ? If they wanted to do that, even if Sanzu and Senju came after, couldn’t they choose 武 or 臣 ? Both feminine and masculine names with those kanji seem to exist (and even if they didn’t, it’s the Japanese name system, they could very much invent it – that’s what they did for Senju!(can’t find information on this name like Wakui decided to write it)). And third, the Sano brothers look a lot alike (Mikey did get his hair color from his father but beside that, they both look a lot like their mother) while Emma looks like her mom (they don’t realize straight away she’s their sister “Isn’t she a foreigner ?”, chapter 123 and Takemichi, Hinata and Naoto don’t realize it either and think she’s dating Mikey for a brief moment in chapter 66 (although Takemichi ends up saying “They do have some sorta resemblance actually” after being told, but Mikey asks him “Really ?”), Sanzu and Senju both look extremely alike while Takeomi doesn’t (different hair color, eye shape, eyelashes, eyebrows - perhaps same eye color).

If we go along with this theory, which also makes their mother the parent they share and not their father like the Sano do (like they stay at their grandmother’s but the Sano stay at their grandfather’s), then the answer as to when Takeomi stopped living with his biological dad and moved in with his step-father would be important. Which one is responsible for how he raises his siblings, or perhaps they are both at fault ? When did their mom leave/die? Did someone ever tell Sanzu and Senju Takeomi was their half-brother ? If Takeomi’s step-father’s family name is Akashi, then Takeomi doesn’t use his birth family name either. And since Takeomi’s mom left him, does he feel the same way Emma feels about it ? (not saying his mother left for the same reason/the same way)

Or they could share the same father and have a different mother like the Sano. Either way, I’m craving for more information about them. They better not stay the “mysterious siblings” forever. Wakui pls

The Sano siblings are 4, we all know that. Izana is a Sano. So what if he throws the parallels off-balance ? He doesn’t. If you’re as delusional as I am, Muto is the Akashi’s Izana.

While Izana knew Shinichiro and Emma, and never got to know Mikey before dying in Tenjiku, Muto knew Sanzu and never got to know Takeomi and Senju. When they met, Mikey had lost Shinichiro and Emma, Sanzu left his home (and most likely stopped interacting with his siblings - although the “Haruchiyo doesn't like the fact im the head of Brahman. He doesn't like that I'm the strongest and that Takeomi endorses me” of Senju in chapter 216 means that he made his disapproval known). Izana knew of Mikey (Shinichiro kept talking about him), Muto didn’t know of Sanzu’s siblings. Muto also has the same age gap with Sanzu (and Senju) that Izana has with Mikey (and Emma). Izana was meant to parallel Mikey, Muto was meant to… parallel Takeomi. He parallels Sanzu too, in some points (staying loyal to their first ‘king’, being very harsh on betrayers/spies, having nowhere to go, Muto to Sanzu, chapter 206, “You don't have anywhere you belong ? You and I are pretty alike.”) but Sanzu said “I would've loved to have a big brother like you”(chapter 206) and so… either Wakui came up with Mucho or Takeomi first. Maybe he didn't even intend to narratively tie them in the first place. But they're still shaped in a way to be opposite. Sanzu took Mucho as his big brother figure first because he’s the opposite of the big brother Sanzu got and who failed him. Mucho’s betrayal against Mikey leaves him to die by Sanzu’s hands anyway, however, by betraying Mikey, he also betrayed Sanzu’s trust. His big brother failed him, again. A brother who told him “it's fine to be devoted to the king, but take care of yourself, too.”(chapter 206), not only validating his actions but saying he’s important as well, a brother who gave him his jacket, a brother who is the reason behind his favorite food (Sanzu’s favorite food is cheesecake for Cozy Corner and Mucho’s failure/heroic story explains why : “to make Haruchiyo Sanzu open up, Mucho bought him cheesecake from his favorite shop, Cozy Corner. The atmosphere was awkward and Mucho asked if something was wrong, to which Sanzu replied that he hated cheese, but would give it a try. There was no conversation after that.”), a brother who tried to make him open up, who tried to understand him, a brother who thought handing him a mask was a good idea because he was “missing out because of those scars” (chapter 206). Another perhaps useful information is that Sanzu dislikes “smothering people”, which was probably what Takeomi was to him (we already know Takeomi likes, has to be in control).

We only have one example of a moment the Akashi siblings spent together, only the three of them. And that’s Senju’s “it's super sparkly ! I haven't been [in an amusement park] since second grade of elementary school !” (chapter 219) and her hidden volume cover (which happened the same year Sanzu got his scars so between April 1st and July 30th 1999).

(Takeomi is the only character, on a (hidden or not) volume cover, we can’t see the face of. Most of them look directly at the reader, and if they don’t we can still see a bit of their face (just like Sanzu and Senju here).)

Final Timeline

It’s not a rant about the entire ending, that’s not the purpose of this post so I’ll only stick with Takeomi.

He’s the only one I have a problem with in this ending. Not him in particular, but his role, his job. Mikey and Takemichi fixed everything (the best they could), including the Akashi siblings’ relationship. All three of them work together.

I won’t say it’s bad for Takeomi’s development, it depends how it’s done and since it’s a happy ending for everyone, it shouldn’t impact anyone badly, But. Was him being the ‘self-proclaimed producer’ necessary ? I’m not against it, especially not if he has another (official) job on the side (and we know he’s smart enough to have one, and one who pays lots, which would also explain how he succeeds to ‘produce’ Senju & Haruchiyo). The only small problem I have with this is – he still lives by being someone important, needed, for somebody else, living on somebody else’s success. And it can be healthy ! But why is it ‘self-proclaimed’. Yuzuha isn’t Hakkai’s ‘self proclaimed’ manager. She is. Takeomi could very much be Haruchiyo and Senju’s producer. Sure they’re youtubers and I don't know if they can have official producers, but why? Takeomi, especially final timeline Takeomi, doesn’t need to brag about others’ achievements as if it was his own, he needs to brag about what he can and what he does by himself, without the need of anybody else.

And I don't say it’s what happens in the final timeline. But it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I hope he has another job where he constantly realizes he is the only reason why it succeeds. Because I don't need him to say ‘I raised them’ or ‘I produce them’ when someone praises Senju and Haruchiyo, as if he was the reason they became famous. I don’t need him to get Haruchiyo and Senju under the spotlight to steal it from them. I need him to be their producer because he can, because he wants to help and bond with them, without taking what they did for himself. I need him to have an individual job, to have built his career without anyone’s help, to see that he can succeed alone. And unfortunately, that’s not what this last chapter made me feel was happening.

Still, it is (and that’s why we’re here for, not me rumbling about how Takeomi’s job is the only one to piss me off because he’s the only character who ends up with a job that can screw up his development). First, I'm so glad the Akashi actually get to be siblings. There are still some issues they had had to fix (with Mikey and Takemichi’s help-), Takeomi and Haruchiyo’s relationship was already pretty bad (Takeomi has his scar on his face) but it got fixed ! Second, Takeomi deserves to feel needed (and to be), which he is by being their producer and i wish, if both sides do take advantages of the other, that it’s in the most healthy way (if that makes sense) – that “the money [...] spent out of Takeomi’s pocket” was his idea and Haruchiyo and Senju accepted (with perhaps the intention of paying Takeomi back later, maybe not with money, since Takeomi doesn’t seem to need it, but still, to do something to show Takeomi it was appreciated) and that Haruchiyo and Senju thanks him publicly, without his ego feasting on it.

I hope he got his self-esteem restored. Which of course that’s what happened, we’re in the final timeline and everything’s good. But. I really hope he did.

And I choose to believe that the “same old Takeomi.” from Shinichiro means Takeomi the same as he was when they were kids. Maybe not exactly, because Black Dragon 1st generation and Takeomi’s superiority complex happened, but that Shinichiro recognizes his childhood friend is doing well, that he’s still here somewhere and got healed.

+ What’s in a name ?

(I'm gonna do something I didn't do for the Shiba (there wasn't much to say about it for them))

Writers are careful with how they name their characters (I'm making generalities here) – and it's especially true with Japanese and Chinese Writers whose characters' name change meaning depending on how they decide to write it

So it's been odd to me, when I realized the ‘Take’ in both Takeomi and Takemichi were the same. Why would Wakui do that? It can't be a coincidence, right ? And indeed. The Akashi siblings' names hold meaning.

Let's start with 明司 (Akashi). 明 (aka) means light, bright and is made of the Kanji used for sun (日) and the one used for moon (月). Then, 司 (shi) means official, director, administrator and was once used to design governors the Emperor had appointed to carry out the imperial policies in provinces. So 司 is for people in power, but not at the top. As said before, 司 seems to come from 后 which is the same kanji upside down and which means ‘emperor, king, monarch..’.

武 from both Takeomi and Takemichi means ‘military, war’. Takemichi's name is actually made of the exact Kanji as Budō (武道, way of war/way of the martial arts). 臣 (Omi) means ‘retainer, subject’ and could be used as a ‘I’ when addressing one's master. Ah, and it can be pronounced ‘Shin’ by itself. Because of course it does.

Takeomi is either: the warrior retainer or the war/military retainer. But he can also be in some way, the director of the light (and so can be Sanzu and Senju.)

I've got more to say about Sanzu than Senju so I'll start with her. Search "Senju Japanese name" into a search bar, you won't end up finding it written like Wakui decided to write it. Not that it means it doesn’t exist, but it's not popular. And for cause, Wakui chose to write Senju: 千咒 – A thousand curses.

Now, who would name their child "curse", I don't know. Perhaps it's one of those names where they're supposed to be degrading so as to push bad spirits/ghosts away? I have two theories for this but they’re without any real basis. One of them is ; the person who named her was really angry at her birth and since we don’t know where is/what happened to their mother.. Yeah (either she died giving birth or for some reasons she named Senju that way before leaving/disappearing). Or it could be one of those ‘Kira Kira names’ (names outside of the norm parents decided were cool). Anyway, Senju thinks she is the reason why both Mikey and Sanzu (+Baji) turned up that way, which isn't true as we're being told after, but Senju thought she was the reason behind Mikey's curse – without knowing it was a curse.

I didn't find any real concrete stuff about Kawaragi. Which is sad. 瓦 means roof tile and 城 means castle. When put together with the Kanji 礫, 瓦礫 means rubbish, wreckage, debris. With the Kanji 解, it becomes 瓦解; collapse, downfall. Normally I won't dare to talk about things who seem to be a bit too coincidental. But 土崩瓦解 doesn't feel coincidental. It can either mean 'complete collapse' or, '(something) going to pieces', meaning 'broke beyond repair'. Which she did. Or rather, thinks she did (not only the toy plane, but “Ever since that day, they all changed… mikey, baji and Haruchiyo. They all changed, and it's because of me” (chapter 241, Senju)). Also, 瓦 is 万 but backward and 万 is the first Kanji of ‘Manjiro’ (万次郎). Which makes a lot more sense. I guess ? For 城; there's 成, meaning 'promoted' it's notably used in Shogi where some pieces can be, well, promoted.

I like to think Sanzu started calling himself such because Mikey and Baji decided to find themselves different names (even if Baji is never even once referred as Ed or Edward). But whatever the reason, Sanzu is one hell of a name. Quite literally, hell. If you look up "Sanzu'' and ignore the Tokyo Revengers-related things, you'd scramble upon: 三途の川 – Sanzu no Kawa. River of the three crossings. A place the deads have to cross after their deaths, and which leads them either to heaven, to hell, or to resurrection. Souls get punished there. Every sin gets met with a trial.

(Plus, it's interesting to know that those you get drag to Jigoku, "hell", fall in the water/river where a bunch of snakes await them. Whereas people who get a pass to Tengoku, heaven walk over a bridge. Sanzu is never called ‘sanzu’ in the original timeline. But you know how Shinichiro died the first time ? Yeah, you do. He isn’t called Sanzu once in the original timeline, and even if he is in the final timeline, I decide to believe it’s because Mikey and Takemichi are too used to calling him that way to realize it and he just picked it up.)

春千夜 (Haruchiyo), is the only name among the Akashi who don't have any kind of negativity in it. Senju has curses, Takeomi has retainer (which isn't a negative thing in itself, but we've already established that Takeomi wants to be so much more than to be at someone's else service), Haruchiyo means "Spring of a thousand nights". Just like Senju, he has 千, ‘a thousand’ in his name.

Remember the 武 from Takeomi and Takemichi ? Yeah ? Well I'm a bit of a liar. Rather than a liar, I didn't say everything. There's a third character with 武 in his name. But it isn't pronounced 'Take' for one, and for two, it's in his family name, not his first

武藤泰宏

Muto Yasuhiro

(I can't imagine the pain he has to go through every time he writes his name down. 藤 is one hell of a kanji.)

Ah... Mucho. Sanzu's big brother figure. Better than the other. But who did the only thing Sanzu would kill anyone for: betray Mikey. But that's not the point here, we're here to talk about his name. Beside the obvious 武 meant to add to the fact he's Sanzu's big brother, like Takeomi but reversed, 藤 means wisteria. 泰宏(Yasuhiro) means "peaceful' and 'broad' which describes Mucho's personality accurately but, but, but. In 泰 there's 𡗗 just like in 春 ;) (it actually doesnt mean much because taiju also has it in one of his kanji but shh). Or, just like Sanzu shares a kanji with his sister, he shares half one with his not related by blood brother. And ⺢ is a variant of 水, water, just like Sanzu is a river.

朕 is also in there. It's the royal ‘I’, ‘we’ – completely opposite of the servant 臣, ‘I’. More globally, wisterias represent the imperial family in Japan; thanks to the Fujiwara who impacted Japan by a lot when they were the ones ruling the country. And I’ll stop there with Mucho because I may be going too deep here and at some point digging further is meaningless.

Shinichiro and Mikey’s names are… It made me chuckle, not gonna lie. Not because of what the kanji means, but because those are extremely common kanji found in names. 一郎 in 真一郎(Shinichiro) means ‘first’ and ‘boy/son’. 次郎 in 万次郎(Manjiro) means ‘next’ and ‘boy/son’. These (reading ‘Ichiro’ and ‘Jiro’ by themselves) were rather common names for children from not-upper class families. It’s much less common nowadays. Then there’s 真 who means ‘real, sincere, genuine, truth’ and 万 who means ‘ten thousand’. And I didn't quite understand why their parents would choose that kanji, but if you add 全 to it then it gives 万全 or, ‘perfection, flawlessness’, and suddenly it makes my heart melt and also more sense. (it also seems to come from his grandfather’s name Mansaku (万作))

Sano 佐野 too, is a rather common name. Or at least half a common name. since 佐 may make you think of 佐藤 (Sato) which is the most common Japanese family name. However, the 藤 comes from the Fujiwara clan, since the Sano don’t have this kanji (unlike Muto) we can say they don’t have samurai ancestors (or if they do, it got lost along the way). It seems like family name with two out of three of the following kanji : 田, 中 or 村 are reasonably common. And 野 (Sano) has both 田 and 村. (although unlike Tanaka(田中), Nakamura(中村) and others they are stuck inside one kanji).

Unlike Akashi which describes someone of the upper-class, the Sano are everyday average people (Sano means ‘to help’ and ‘field, plain’ but also a prefix meaning ‘wild, lacking a political post’). Except they aren’t. But Wakui must find himself funny for this.

EDIT: 'Sano' is a city in the Tochigi Prefecture in Kanto, which economy revolves around agriculture and light manifacturing. It was also once the name of a clan.

(By the way, the -no of Terano (寺野) is the same kanji. As in, Terano South. And there are some parallels between Mikey and him.. (ill mother, no father, a parent who's a foreigner – but Mikey was born and raised in Japan while South had Brazil), person who raised him showed him the world of delinquency (but they had clearly different view of it), go live with their grandparent(s), person who raised them died when they were 12 (Shin died before Mikey had turned 13) because of ‘dark impulses’ (South himself; Kazutora), they both have ‘dark impulses’ (although we might never know why/how/if they are really the same dark impulses for South), they are both known by a English name rather than their official Japanese one (but Mikey chose his while Dino named South)… We don’t have enough about South and I don't like it.)

(Even worse, because if you’re as delusional as I am, you would notice that if you take out two strokes of 南(South) you end up with the kanji 幸. And since Mikey loved his mother very much, and she loved him very much, and South loved his mother very much… Then his mother must have loved him very much as well (even if she was incapable of fully taking care of him). And 幸 means ‘happiness, luck, blessing fortune’. But then it’s a girl name. But perhaps that’s what his mother wanted her child to be named if it was a daughter ? It’s still hidden in the ‘’Minami’’(南) Anyway, as I said, I’m being delusional and 南 is not an unusual name in Japan. Leave me and my headcanons alone. There's also the possibility it was his father who was Japanese, of course. After all South’s name is Japanese, but then, we don't know a thing about his father so we can't say if him and South’s mom were married. But no matter which one was his Japanese parent, he either had no vocabulary in Japanese or only the basis and had had to learn everything when he was sent to live with his grandparents in Japan – who probably don't speak a word of Portuguese so it didn’t help South having very violent habits. They couldn't communicate.)

I didn’t find something that caught my attention with Baji’s kanji. Sad. But Edward means ‘guardian, protector’ so at least he chose a name that does describe him well. Micheal means ‘who is like god ?’ and of course reminds you of Michael the Archangel and knowing his mother called him ‘my angel’, well my heart is currently aching. I mean… Baji is made of a kanji meaning ‘place’ and another meaning ‘ground’ (the kanji for Keisuke means ‘jewels/corner’ and ‘meditation’ and i really have no idea for those) – Michael is one of the most famous angel name and Sanzu is linked to the afterlife so.. perhaps Baji is the ‘human’ of them three ?

(Baji Keisuke is written 圭介場地. Out of all these kanji there's only 圭 I perhaps found something interesting about. In Shogi, there's a piece called 成桂; 'promoted Katsura' and its abrevation is 圭. Btw, in Shogi, the 'king' is 玉将 or 王将 (if you're a lower rank player or a challenger VS if you're a higher rank player or a reigning champion) notice the dot ? It's 瓦 from 'Kawaragi' vs 万 from 'Manjiro' again)

Emma and Izana's can't be analyzed this much. I didn't find anything for Izana (If i go on Behind the name, in japanese the name Izana (rare and only used in pop culture) comes from the verb izanau ; to invite, to ask someone to do, to call for, to tempt, to lure, to entice ; but honestly, searching for the etymology of this name doesn’t give you a lot of answer (not enough sites say the same thing for me to believe it)) and Emma is "universal, whole" when it comes of German etymology and "all containing" when it comes of Hebrew etymology.

Also it’s interesting how Sanzu and Senju decided to change their family name and not their first like Mikey and Baji. Plus, Baji gets called by his family name every time so it didn’t serve much – like Senju who changed her family name but is never addressed by it in the story (even Brahman members yell ‘’Senju’’). But then Mikey changed his first name and gets called by it and Sanzu changed his family name and gets called by it. One option for each possibility, so it could be in/Wakui’s purpose! The one who didn’t use their other name as much as their real one are the ones to die, whereas the one who, to overstate the point, changed their identity by identifying with something that wasn’t initially them, actually got those selves erased. It’s more clear for Sanzu. Sanzu came up with ‘Sanzu’ and ‘Akashi Haruchiyo’ wasn’t anymore. Mikey came up with this name for another reason but it was still to get rid of ‘Manjiro’. And he didn’t get rid of ‘Manjiro’ until his brother, the only person left to call him that, died. Mikey’s flashback (chapter 264-265: “I.. really like ‘strong’ people [...] Until that day [Shinichiro’s death] [...] I was looking for ‘something’ other than strength [...] All the guys in Toman are good. They're so good but there's something I can't figure out. I wonder how long… there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart [...] ‘strong’ alone is not enough [...] After all, all I need is ‘darkness’.”) tells us he was already starting to follow his Dark Impulses ; after his brother’s death. He confesses it to Kisaki (“I wonder how long… there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart. Sometimes that ‘something’ expands and drives me to destroy absolutely everything”). Manjiro Sano died with his brother. Other people may still call him that way, like his grandfather, but Mikey is Mikey. And this innocent name he once chose to make his sister feel less lonely became a metaphor for his incoming loss of sense of self.

We can also add that Shinichiro may have not changed the way he called Mikey because since his brother, 'Manjiro', was the only thing left from his life before it went downhill, calling him 'Mikey' instead of 'Manjiro' would have created even more of a distance between Shinichiro and his past 'normal' life from his childhood.

Baji and Mikey chose their name (Micheal & Edward) to try to make Emma open up. To get closer to her (especially Mikey). And Emma gets her birth name (Kurokawa) changed as Sano, which makes her even closer to her two brothers (and less from Izana). Sanzu and Senju chose their name to separate themself from Takeomi (and each other).

Of course, they aren't the only characters being best-known as a name they chose themselves of have been given by others. Draken for example, doesn't show any kind of resentment or even neutrality against his name; Ken is still present in Draken. We also know he chose it as a child (like the others), but (unlike the others) a reason is never given - he most likely thought it was cool; just like Mitsuya's dragon and his new tattoo were. Same with Benkei. It is written in katakana in the manga, but with kanji Benkei and Keizo have the same 'Kei'. Benkei is one of the most famous historical figure in Japan, by the way. (He is the servant of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, born Ushiwakamaru. Birth name which shares a lot of kanji with 'Imaushi Wakasa'. Both were great fighters). South, is another example of a name given to change one's identity – but South didn't name himself 'South'; Dino did, after making him kill someone, or giving him a bloody baptism if you prefer. And 'Minami' means 'South' but Minami never grew up enough for us or himself to know who he was.

mikey baji sanzu and senju are four and so are bd 1st gen doesn’t feel like a coincidence. But i cant think of something that makes it very interesting. Wakasa and sanzu both know about the og timeline, baji and takeomi are used as parallels at least once, senju has some commons traits with Shinichiro, but mikey does too (and more), senju and benkei.. both like MMA ? And their favorite catchers are rivals ? Thats not much for me to talk about ngl)

#me writing analyses on the fanbase’s most hated characters : why is it not getting attention ?#alternatively. Me writing analysis : im going to make so many parallels #if another character has 武 in their name i’ll go bash my head against a wall #Takeomi seems like the kind of person to say ‘stop it youre going to make me look like a bad (mother) brother’#tokyo revengers #tokrev #tok rev #tr #tr takeomi #takeomi akashi #akashi siblings #black dragon #sanzu haruchiyo #tr sanzu #tr senju #senju kawagari #senju akashi #wakasa imaushi #benkei #arashi keizou #shinichiro sano #tr shinichiro #i feel like i spent more hours trying to get this post to be posted than i did writing it #if i forgot anything i swear-#honestly i think i couldve written it with less words. but i also dont know how i could do that #i added to this a bit too much after posting it. meh whatever #the 'no' of matsuno is the same as teraNO and saNO and 'chi'fuyu share the 'a thousand' kanji with haru'chi'yo and senju #'They'll tell you to be number 1 never to be happy - First place is for those who need a grade who lack self-confidence'#- Notes pour plus tard by Orelsan (french singer)#i think this idea fits omi a lot

98 notes · View notes

unproduciblesmackdown · 21 days

Text

blade gunnblade !!!!!!!!

via eliza simpson:

There are no words for this true warrior. They kill me. MMM: went in for a post show hug. Me:"ow!" Asia: "oh sorry, that's my bullet necklace." 😳........ 😍

#blade gunnblade #asia kate dillon #kapow-i gogo #eliza simpson of [angel & others in the mysteries] & [the mother line story project] & [saw ak dillon in triptych yes we're jealous]#& [princess cloudberry in kapow-i gogo]#here we also see stephen stout in the 1st pic but going ''!! surely our dear cherished blade gunnblade's back. hair's long though hmm''#only to have that cleared up by the 3rd pic thank god =']#i guess at some point blade gunnblade has blue hair & i do love that for them #i believe they're in part 3 but i have all the less information about that plausible appearance #(and of course still no info on [asia perhaps doubling roles with the longer black haired wig & ultracorp jacket in that one pic?])#one thing that would be fascinating & fun is if part 3 blade has more of part 1 kapow-i's look. the bright blue hair #looks like pink lipstick. Pure Speculation but i know the like [this is reaction to You Know How Media Is] element discussed like #part 1 thinking most [sat. morning cartoons experience; the legend of] part 2 is like when these series get sequels or just some #ep or turning point that upends its own previous established conventions. Darker more Serious / Mature Themes etc #part 3 like well sequel to That which adds yet another layer of the same factor there lol #i'm not really that versed in All This Media directly b/c i'm not that versed in / familiar with much of any media directly but #i am also not completely at sea & also one thing i could think of is like. blade is our revenge vengeance tragic anti antagonist lmao #what if after that they get to lighten up in delightful contrast to the torment & tragedy. turn more optimistic moral support bestie etc #but like i said utter speculation based on ''oh this is a look they have?'' & comments on [comments on material commenting on itself] so #could be anything! or nothing! except that it's Something enough to have been photographed a couple of times. thank god #oh hang on also we can see that that's stephen stout's character in the pic of Wearing A Black Longer Haired Wig & Ultracorp Jacket #who's to say it isn't also: yes that's blade disguised or something. underneath they have this bright blue shorter wig & Blade Outfit lol #i would cheer for that. compelling #(also noting that it didn't preclude a doubling of roles instead but; that figure Is wearing blade's necklace. makes it easy to switch to #Blade Mode backstage; makes it easy to switch to Blade Mode onstage....)#which: noted! bullet necklace! makes sense lmao. sort of #also pic 2 ft. director kristin mccarthy parker fyi. and the typical blade hair length i.e. simply asia's own.#''😳........ 😍'' soooooo true ''MMM:'' standing for ''most memorable moment:'' and also sooooo true as well #blade gunnblade is everything to me. if they died in part 3 i'm blowing this whole building up. they have bright blue hair now

3 notes · View notes

zkretchy · 1 year

Photo

@alllthequeenshorses you continue being too funy-have this for now and also thank you for all the tags they made my day(night?)!!

#the witcher #possession au #kiyan #geralt #the duo of kiyan and roach is also something terrifying to imagine thank you #i currently have 1(one) serious note in my...well note file of this #which is imagining the hell that would be cut loose #is kiyan was around for the threads quest aka 'hey karadin killed aiden help me get revenge'#but like...now you have a whole extra cat to consider who will be very pissed #lambert&kiyan ready to tear karadin apart rIGHT NOW #geralt having to be the reasonable one currently trying not to have every city on the way report them for gruesome murder #and also actually getting them to skellige etc #i KNOW in game you have the option to be nice and soft and not kill everyone...but like....I am not going for that #i dont think geralt would protect karadin either #i know the sniper died bc i was like 'oki lambs go have fun and do it how you want <333' and then woops i got to stab people #a win win as far as i'm concerned really #anyway thats again a completely different topic but yeah #in my griffins au aiden def gets to live bc there are a couple of kids ready to protect and fight for him #and while he will survive whenever i want this would prob keep it more like a hidden faked death case #just so i can imagine the terror ghost/demon kiyan could bring on top of everything #more fun #also apparently kiyan now got my trait of 'be quiet/more introverted a lot of time but also overshare and poke at everything bc emotional-#zoomies' or smth #idk i either do nothing or wanna run across the ceiling no betweens #rn its a ceilings case-I have been switching between 10 videos the past 2 minutes and am not relaxed/tired enough for anything relaxing #insert cat fuck/fight zoomies here i GUESS #how do you exhaust a ghost though.....fuck #art #zkretchy

22 notes · View notes

doshi-sukiru · 2 years

Text

Happy Pride!

Happy Pride day everyone!! In honor of such a great month, I am taking asks for any character of your choice with your flag (or any flag you want) with them! In case you want me to draw a character that isn’t Dragon ball or Ranma 1/2, that’s fine. You can choose a character from this list of fandoms that I follow if you want a different character:

Dragon Ball

Ranma 1/2

Tokyo Revengers

Hunter x Hunter

Backflip!!

Genshin Impact

Sk8 the Infinity

K-On!

Inuyasha

Dororo

Banana Fish

Death Note

BNA: Brand New Animal

Kuroko no Basketball

Millionaire Detective

Sanrio Boys

Cuphead

Please Take My Brother Away

Poppy Playtime

Tomodachi Game

Given

Jujutsu Kaisen

SPY X FAMILY

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Fnaf series

Ranking of Kings

Studio Ghibli

Doki Doki Literature

Undertale/ Deltarune

Gravity Falls

Creepypasta

Examples of some images. You can also ask if you want the image to look differently than these ones:

The characters above are Vegeta, Goku, Ryoga, and Ranma (you can ask for those characters again if you want I don’t mind)

This is only for this month so ask away! I don’t mind! It may bleed into July depending on how many asks I get. Enjoy this month everyone!

15 notes · View notes

bl-bam-beyond · 1 year

Text

BAM- BEAUTIFUL ASIAN MEN:

PARK SOLOMON

[Nickname: LOMON]

#BAM #BEAUTIFUL/GORGEOUS MEN #ACTOR #ALL OF US ARE DEAD #My GIFS #SOUTH KOREAN #VERY ATTRACTIVE #GOOD LOOKING #SWEET REVENGE (REVENGE NOTE) 1 #THE DOCTORS #LOOKISM (LEARNED MANDARIN FOR THIS ROLE

3 notes · View notes

kamaluhkhan · 3 months

Text

THE GRUDGE (or: the 7 things luke castellan hated about you)

read part two GET HIM BACK! (or: the 7 reasons you want revenge on luke castellan)

pairing: luke castellan x child of nemesis!reader (gender not specified)

word count: 8.5k

summary: luke hated your guts. he really did. he just hoped that no one could tell how, even after all this, you're still everything to him.

warnings/disclaimer: luke's POV. spoilers for the lightning thief and season 1 of pjo. some heated make-out sessions but no actual smut - MDNI / 18+. mentions of blood + death + alcohol. luke is 19 during tlt but i wrote this with him + reader being 21 by the end of this (this is important for the next part lol). anyways, luke + reader share clothes and lots of intense emotions they maybe possibly don't process in the best way. lots of ANGST - it's a greek tragedy fr!

author's note: welcome to my new hyperfixation! this fic is LONG but i hope she's worth it ♡

♪: the grudge by olivia rodrigo

(i. you have a sharp tongue)

fourteen year old luke was overwhelmed when he first stepped into the hermes cabin. it was loud and overcrowded and no one really seemed to care that they had a new cabinmate. the head counselor showed luke to an empty bed at the back, told him to get settled in, and left without another word. luke dropped his backpack before collapsing on the mattress. it was so thin that he could feel the springs dig into his back.

"you'll get used to it."

luke sat up to see you climbing through the window.

you had a band-aid stuck on your chin, chipped nail polish the color of blackberries, and leather combat boots that looked way too heavy to be wearing in the heat of summer.

“the shitty mattress?”

“i meant the whole chaos of cabin 11, and the way things work around here in general. if you can get used to the shitty mattress, all power to you.”

your tone was friendly enough, playful even. you smiled at him so comfortably it made luke nauseous.

“good to know.” he tried to smile back at you, but his heart wasn’t in it. “i’m luke, by the way.”

“yeah, i know. i’m —”

“y/n!”

you seemed entirely unfazed as the blond who called your name stormed over to you. you rolled your eyes, something only luke could notice, before turning to her.

“someone stole my candy.”

“i’m very sorry to hear that, maddy. gotta be careful around here.” your voice dripped like poisoned honey, deceptively innocent and sweet.

maddy was not having it. she huffed at you. “it was you, wasn’t it?”

“that depends. did you cheat at poker last night? again?”

some of the chatter throughout the cabin paused, heads turning to listen in.

“what? n-no!”

“then you have your answer, maddy.” you exaggerated a sigh, as though you had already won the fight and were annoyed that she came back for more. “now, if you’ll excuse me, i have a new camper to show around.”

chiron had already given them a tour, but luke didn’t protest when you grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the window with you. your hand was warm in his as you dragged him along to the corner of the cabin where a poorly made ladder waited for you.

“come on.” you started climbing, and only stopped to look down when you realized luke wasn’t following you. “best view of camp. trust me.”

a shiver passed through luke. trust didn’t come easy to him. he also didn’t particularly want to return to a stuffy cabin where all he would do was count reasons he did not want to be there.

so, luke followed you. he sat down next to you on the roof and looked out at the sun shining on his new home, but he couldn't help but be slightly bitter. the gods had gotten all of you into this life of endless danger and battles and monsters, and this was all they had to offer in return: a summer camp.

it just didn't seem fair.

there was something else he noticed then. what was it that chiron had said? camp half-blood was supposed to be a safe haven for all demigods.

“i don’t get it. there are only twelve cabins, but aren’t there, like, a million other gods?”

you straightened your posture then, and turned to luke with a newfound interest.

“camp half-blood only has cabins representing the twelve olympians. apparently, they’re the only ones important enough to have children worth recognizing, and they can’t even do that half the time,” you explained, impertinence laced throughout your words. it seemed like something you could never quite get off your chest.

every demigod knew that the gods didn’t appreciate sarcasm. they didn’t particularly like being called out on their bullshit, either.

you didn’t seem to care; you even rolled your eyes up at the sky, as if challenging zeus himself.

“anyways, that’s why the hermes cabin is so crowded. it takes in campers who are unclaimed or whose parent doesn’t have a cabin at camp. like me.”

“so, who’s your godly parent?”

you fiddled with the leather cord on your neck. it held a few clay beads like the other campers, but there was one silver charm he noticed only you wore — scales, by the looks of it. you clutched onto it.

luke realized that, despite your own advice, maybe you resented having to get used to the way things worked around here, and having to hide your resentment. maybe that was worse than having to sleep on an uncomfortable bed for the rest of your life.

"nemesis. goddess of revenge."

"that's....hardcore."

you scoffed and moved on to twisting the silver ring on your index finger. "a lot of people take it that way, and i think it scares them a bit.”

“so that’s why you’re extra nice to new campers, huh?”

“no, i was just in a good mood today.” you smirked.

“guess i was just lucky, then.”

luke couldn’t help but smile at your laugh — sharp, biting. you nudged your boot against his sneaker, which shifted you closer to him, shoulders practically touching.

“what people don’t understand is that it's more about balance, you know? you do good things, and good things happen to you. at least, they should. you do bad things and….” you pulled out an outrageously big bag of candy, dropped it between you and luke, and winked at him. “you face the consequences.”

“that makes sense.” luke leaned over to grab a handful of gummy bears. “like karma.”

“yeah. exactly.”

you bit the head off a red bear, both of you chewing in silence before you added:

“by the way, i’m sorry about your friend.” you swallowed and caught luke’s gaze.

chiron warned him that word would travel fast around camp about what happened to thalia, and luke had prepared himself for anything — anything but your reaction. there was no pity in your eyes; instead, there was a hint of rage, as though thalia had been your friend, too.

“she deserved more.”

luke’s eyes caught the glint of a knife strapped to your belt. he took another handful of the candy you stole, and he thought about the fire and fearlessness behind your words, and, despite everything, it felt right to be with you then and there.

“yeah,” he finally whispered back. “she did.”

we all do.

neither of you said those words, but the suggestion was there, and it felt like a promise.

(ii. you hold on to every stupid, little detail)

“slow down, tiger.”

your voice echoed throughout the arena, and if luke had been fighting a real opponent, it might have gotten him killed. instead, he just stopped mid-swing, sparing another straw dummy from losing its arm.

“left hand,” you noted as you walked past him towards a bench. “you, my friend, are in need of a break.”

luke loosened the grip on his sword. the only time luke fought with his non-dominant hand was when he had overworked the other. he must have switched an hour ago, but judging by how heavy his arm felt, it could have very well been two.

his curls were stuck to his forehead with sweat, his shirt soaked through. he could feel a dull pain behind his eyes, and luke was worried that if he stopped to catch his breath, he would pass out. or, even worse, have to face the reality of the shitty news he’d gotten early that day.

“come sit with me,” you urged. “you’re exhausted, tiger.”

luke bristled at your nickname for him.

sure, luke loved that there was something only you called him, a secret kept between you in plain sight, but it was also a reminder that it was harder to hide behind the hero act when you were around.

everyone else at camp figured the nickname was a playful attempt at calling him strong and charismatic. the truth was that luke once told you that his favorite cereal as a kid was frosted flakes and that he would dream of playing sports as well as tony the tiger. for better or for worse, like most things, you wouldn’t let it go.

case in point: if it was anybody other than you trying to get him to take a break, luke could have just brushed them off with a charming smile and continued swordfighting until his arms fell off, but in the two years since meeting you, luke had never met anyone as stubborn and convincing. like him, it seemed you were willing to fight and shed blood to get your way. luke was never really in the mood to make you bleed, even when feeling like he could burn the entire world down, so he usually gave in to your demands.

as soon as he sat down next to you, you handed him an orange flavored energy drink — his favorite. anything other than water was hard to come by at camp without the enchanted goblets in the dining pavilion, or the right connection in the hermes cabin. he ran out of his stash the other day, but you must have noticed and gotten one of the stoll brothers to smuggle more in.

“thanks,” luke said, ignoring the jolt of electricity that passed through him when your fingers brushed together briefly.

the two of you looked out at the sword arena, and all the straw dummies that luke had destroyed. you wait for him to take three big gulps of his drink before speaking again.

“i guess chiron and your dad decided you weren’t ready for a quest.”

luke exhaled sharply. “how did you —”

“the only time you’d skip out on capture the flag is if something really shitty happened.” you looked down at luke’s clenched fists, and that seemed to be all the confirmation you needed. “you promised annabeth you'd be there, and it's not like you to let her down."

fuck. he had completely forgotten that tonight was annabeth's first time as team captain. this entire week, she had been prepping a winning strategy. it wasn’t like annabeth needed him to win, but luke was her big brother, and he should have been there. you were right — he had let her down.

the realization made luke’s day go from bad to worse.

"i told her you were helping a new camper with an emergency. she didn't believe it, but she adjusted her strategy and we still won.”

“well, thank the gods everything worked in the end,” luke grumbled.

“don’t thank the gods,” you quipped. “thank annabeth chase for her brilliant mind, and me for covering for your sorry ass.”

when luke didn’t indulge in your usual playful banter, you moved closer to him and brushed some curls away from his eyes. your skin warmed his forehead, and the small gesture made him feel better than he had all day.

“look, i’m not going to give you some bullshit inspirational speech about how the gods don’t get to define what a hero is, or how you don’t need a quest to prove that you’re worthy of being one. we’ve each been through that before, and i have a feeling this won’t be our last time, either.”

“then why are you here?” the question came out harsher than luke had intended it to.

“because she’s trying her best to hide it, but annabeth is really hurt that you didn’t show up for the game. i figured the least you could do is suck it up, come to the campfire, and make her those signature luke castellan s’mores. you could probably use one, too, since you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

you were right, again. luke was exhausted, he was furious, but most of all, he was starving.

later that night, luke sat next to annabeth and vowed to make her as many s’mores as she wanted. you’d gone to sit with the hephaestus kids, trying to convince beckendorf and nyssa to join your cabin’s post-campfire party at the beach, even though they had to work in the forges early the next morning.

when chiron made his weekly speech, congratulating the winners of capture the flag and thanking the gods for keeping everyone safe, you and luke caught each other’s gaze from across the fire. you rolled your eyes and luke bit back a smile as you turned back to beckendorf. he noticed your knees were practically touching. did you sit that close to everyone?

luke was looking at you for so long that the marshmallow he was roasting fell into the fire, despite annabeth’s warnings. she handed him another one.

"you should tell her how you feel," annabeth said. "stop being a coward."

whether it was the smell of burnt sugar, the heat of the fire, or annabeth’s comment, luke started to feel dizzy. he did his best to shake it off, asking annabeth for a play-by-play of her strategy earlier that night, but he couldn’t quite get rid of the thought of you.

(iii. you don't care if your clothes are stained with blood)

“i just….i can’t fucking believe you, luke.”

“i don’t get why you’re so upset — you’ve never cared about quests before.”

luke was hoping to break the news to you after capture the flag. unfortunately for him, word travels fast around camp.

annabeth had the two of you scouting the east side for the flag, while she and some other athena kids took the west. you hadn’t found anything so far, which meant that you’d spent the better part of an hour bickering over luke’s choice of companions for his quest. a choice that included charles beckendorf and chris rodriguez, and purposefully did not include you, much to your fury.

before you could continue arguing, luke heard the sound of footsteps approaching. he looked over to you, and you already had your shield and sword at the ready.

a few red defenders emerged from the trees. one charged at luke, but you stepped in so he could deal with the other two. one of his opponents went down fairly easily, but the other put up much more of a fight. metal clashed behind him as you kept fighting as well. you might not have been as skilled a swordfighter as luke, but he knew that you could hold your own, at least until he was finished with the person in front of him.

luke parried his opponent’s strike, causing them to take a step closer. he was preparing to disarm them, just as he heard you yelp and stumble to the ground. it only took a millisecond of his attention, but it gave his opponent the opportunity to elbow him in the face. luke felt a crack upon impact, and pain radiated from his nose; he powered through.

he had to finish this fight, and he had to do it fast. you needed him.

his ears were ringing as he finally knocked over his opponent, kicking away their sword and keeping his foot on their chest. luke turned around to see you having turned the tides, the blade of your sword dangerously close to your opponent’s neck.

you locked eyes with luke, and you both understood — it was time to go. the two of you ran through the forest, as far away as you could before having to stop and catch your breath.

luke removed his helmet to get some air, and dropped his weapons. you did the same. you looked at him, brows furrowed.

“your nose.”

luke licked his lips, tasting blood. the triumph of winning that last fight overshadowed the ache of his potentially broken nose. in fact, he liked the image of a ruthless warrior emerging from the glory and gore of battle, that even though he did not bleed ichor like a god, he still had power.

you, on the other hand, didn’t look impressed. instead, you stepped forward and offered the sleeve of your shirt to wipe away the blood.

“you don’t have to —”

“i know you think you’re a badass walking around all broken and bloody, but you shouldn’t deny your admirers your pretty face,” you teased.

it was no secret that luke had numerous admirers around camp, a fact you loved to tease him about. he was sure that you relished in how flustered that made him. all you had to call him was pretty boy, and luke could be reduced to a blushing mess.

it was pathetic how much power you had over him.

“besides, i wouldn’t have gotten out of that last fight if you hadn’t taught me that disarming technique earlier. i owe you. it’s what we do. we take care of each other, right?”

he couldn’t argue with that.

a few moments of silence passed as you cleaned his face. something shifted as you worked, the flirtatious grin fading away. when you pulled away, your sleeve was stained a dark crimson.

“just tell me honestly,” you finally murmured. “why don't you want me to join your quest?”

luke was genuinely taken aback by the softness of your voice, now devoid of its usual fire. you wouldn’t meet luke’s eyes, but being that close to you, he noticed they were slightly glazed over.

he had expected you to be angry at his decision. he expected you to yell and argue and try to change his mind. luke hadn’t expected you to be so hurt. so broken.

he hadn’t planned on it, but luke decided to tell you the truth then.

“look, karma, if you come with me, my heart wouldn’t fully be in the quest. i’d be so caught up in….well, you.”

a pause.

“is that a bad thing?”

“not usually, no.”

you smirked a little at that, and luke’s heart skipped a beat. it also made his decision even clearer.

“but i need to be focused for this. i need….” he let out a deep sigh. “i need to prove myself. this is my first real chance, and i can’t fuck it up.”

you met his gaze and smiled brightly at him, your signature spark of confidence returning.

“you won’t.”

you reached a hand up to play with his necklace. luke hadn’t noticed how close you’d gotten until your fingers started tracing over those four clay beads. it made his entire body burst into flames.

“i’ve been wanting to do something for a while. and, aphrodite save me, it might be really stupid, but —”

luke took a lucky guess as to where you were going, and crashed his lips against yours. aphrodite knows that he'd been wanting to do that for a while, too.

he often got drunk on the adrenaline of battle, the glory of winning, but nothing was quite like the rush of kissing you for the first time.

it was messy and urgent, both of you aware that, at any moment, you could be interrupted. your noses were bumping together, teeth clacking against each other. the metallic tang of blood lingered on luke’s tongue, but neither of you seemed to care. you even bit his lip slightly, as if you wanted more. armor sat heavy and cold between your chests, preventing you from getting closer. luke had never loathed the protective gear more.

he made up for it by lodging one hand underneath your jaw, and snaking the other beneath the celestial bronze, beneath the cotton of your shirt, admiring how your pulse quickened under his thumb when he grazed the soft skin of your stomach. you tangled your hands into his hair, nails scraping against his scalp. he groaned and felt you smirk against his lips.

luke had kissed a few people before, sure, but never like this: like a knife to the gut, and if you pulled away, luke would surely bleed out and die.

it wouldn’t be a hero’s death, in the traditional sense, but at least he’d die happy.

how many heroes could claim that?

when luke ran out of air, feeling like his lungs were burning, he had to pull away.

you glanced down at luke’s kiss-bitten lips, then back to his eyes. luke flushed under the intensity of your gaze.

“just promise me something, tiger,” you whispered, voice hoarse.

“anything.”

“come back alive.”

luke leaned forward and placed another kiss on your lips, this one much gentler than before.

“i promise.”

(iv. you love like a scar that won't fade)

the nightmares were getting worse.

luke woke up in a cold sweat, taking gulps of air in an attempt to steady his breathing.

“luke.”

your whisper did little to quell the pit of dread growing in his stomach, but it did enough to bring him back down to reality.

he was at camp half-blood (fuck the gods of olympus), in the hermes cabin (fuck you, dad), in a bed next to yours (fuck, if he could tell you what — who — was going through his head, he would).

“i’m…i’m fine,” he murmured back, voice catching slightly on the lie.

like clockwork, you shifted from your bed to his, slipping under the covers. it didn’t matter that it was a hot summer night, and the minute your legs touched his, he could feel himself starting to overheat.

your thumb brushed over the thick edge of his scar, up his cheekbone to the corner of his eye. it had been a year, living with this reminder. a reminder that he had failed, just as much as his father and the olympians had failed him.

luke tried to pretend that he didn’t come back from his quest as a shell of who he once was. after all, it was meant to be his shining moment as a demigod, meant to gain him all the glory and father’s praise he once wished for.

what a fucking joke.

every morning, luke would crawl into a different skin. he welcomed new campers and taught sword-fighting. he laughed with chris and his other siblings and strategized with annabeth for capture the flag. he would be the easy-going, charming, skillful senior counselor who respected the gods and honored them in everything he did.

again: a fucking joke.

nights were different, though, with you so close to him, you who could always see right through him.

every night, luke was a fourteen-year old boy again, with so much rage and resentment he didn't know what to do with it.

of course, you were always you - a bleeding heart underneath layers of armor. you didn't care about fate, or the gods, or the titans. you cared about justice, you cared about what was right and fair.

most of all, you cared about luke.

“you were screaming,” you told him, voice barely cutting through the soft snores and sleeptalkings of your other cabinmates.

“sorry,” he managed. looking at you in the dull moonlight, luke noticed the deep shadows under your eyes.

“it’s fine. you just….you scared me, tiger.”

your hand still rested on his cheek, and for a second, luke hoped you would kiss him, but you didn’t. instead, you told him to try and get some sleep, and sank further into his bed before closing your eyes.

for the hundredth night in a row, luke hoped you couldn’t hear his heart hammering in his chest as you fell asleep next to him.

since coming back from his quest, luke didn’t have it in him to suggest being anything other than friends, and you didn’t push it. there had been a few....moments between you, sure, but nothing more.

luke thought you might have changed your mind, because who would want to be with a bitter, worthless, wannabe hero? then again, that voice haunting his dreams…. luke could change that.

but, at what cost?

(v. you protect people as ruthlessly as a starving dog)

luke could hear you talking to percy jackson outside. though he couldn’t quite determine what was being said, as much as he tried.

you entered the bathroom and instantly caught luke’s eyes in the mirror. you were wearing your faded pyjama shorts with cartoon crows, and a flannel shirt that luke had a sneaking suspicion might have been his. you smiled at him before setting up at the counter, one sink between you.

“what was that about?” luke asked after spitting out a mouthful of minty toothpaste.

“oh, nothing.” you were searching through your toiletry bag for something, and seemed to come up short. “hey, do you have any extra dental floss?”

luke threw some over to you. as you effortlessly caught it, he noticed your knuckles, bruised and bloodied.

“what happened?”

you finished flossing and briefly examined your hands before pulling out your toothbrush.

“it’s not a big deal,” you assured. “some ares kids were picking on percy, and then they started pushing him around, like, really pushing him around, so….”

“....you decided to send them to the infirmary.”

you squeezed some toothpaste on your brush before continuing. “i don’t need you to lecture me about how i shouldn’t be fighting with other campers because i’ve been here longer and i should be a good role model. you know what a good role model does? not let kids beat up other kids and think the worst punishment they’ll get is no dessert for a week.”

luke watched carefully as you jammed the toothbrush in your mouth and brushed with such force, he was worried your teeth might dislodge. he knew that you would shed blood for someone you loved, and that you didn’t particularly care if you had to break rules in doing so, because you believed that what was written was not necessarily what was right.

in fact, luke loved that about you.

no, it wasn’t the fighting that luke cared about — it was who you were fighting for.

percy was a good kid, he really was. luke just didn’t want you getting attached.

“i wasn’t going to lecture you. i’m guessing chiron already did?”

you nodded and spat out what looked like a combination of toothpaste and blood. you rinsed your mouth until the water lost its pinkish hue. once you were done, luke continued his train of thought.

“i just didn’t realize you cared so much about him.”

“about percy?”

luke could tell that he didn’t have your full attention. you were packing your stuff back up, accidentally tossing luke’s dental floss into your bag, but he had more pressing matters to deal with.

“yeah. the kid’s only been at camp for three days, and you’re already acting like his guard dog.”

you finally turned to luke and glared at him.

“maybe. but percy’s sweet and he doesn’t seem like the type to put up with bullshit. he’s been through a lot, and annabeth seems to like him, too. as far as i’m concerned, percy’s one of us, and i’m not going to let anyone push him around.”

luke raised an eyebrow at you. “he’s sweet?”

“yeah. like, just now, he gave me some blue raspberry jelly beans as a thank you. said his mom used to work at a candy store. he also wanted me to apologize to you for him. he feels bad about beating you in sword-fighting earlier.”

you scoffed, like you resented luke for having to apologize to him on percy’s behalf. you definitely did not appreciate that guard dog comment. luke clenched his jaw, seething over what you had just said.

satisfied with his reaction, you gave luke that nauseating smile of yours, tilted your head towards the exit. a truce, because you never liked to fight with luke for too long, and a order, because you knew luke would always follow.

the two of you began walking back to your cabin in the warm mid-june air.

“i wouldn’t say he beat me,” luke huffed. “it was beginner’s luck.”

“sure, tiger. it was beginner’s luck that disarmed the best swordsman we’ve had in the last 300 years.”

you nudged luke’s shoulder with yours, but he recoiled from your touch.

“are you trying to make me feel worse?” luke tried his best to avoid snapping at you, keeping his tone measured.

“i’m just saying that maybe the kid has natural talent and that doesn’t make you any less talented. there’s no need to get jealous.”

luke resisted the urge to growl at your suggestion.

to be clear, he was not jealous. it’s just that luke had spent years of blood, sweat, and tears getting to where he was then, and percy jackson had just gotten to camp.

and, to be even more clear, luke was not jealous of how you were already defending percy with your whole body and your whole heart, the way you did for him.

by then, you reached the front of the hermes cabin. luke could already hear the commotion of what he would need to deal with as soon as he walked in. the burden of being head counselor, one he approached with an elastic smile that could snap at any moment.

you tugged on luke’s sleeve before he could open the door.

“hey. are we okay?”

luke looked down at your fingers grasping the fabric of a sweatshirt he was just realizing was yours. your nails were painted a dark red, now chipped after a week of wear. you had begged luke to paint his nails then, and once again, he gave in. he even started to like the purple you had chosen just for him, so deep it was almost black. the same color you were wearing the first time you and luke met.

he smiled at the memory — a real smile, no plastic — and then smiled back up at you.

“we’re fine, karma.” and he moved to enter the cabin. luke could hear the threat of an argument bubbling up, what sounded like a petty one over a prank gone wrong.

“wait.” you tugged at his (your) sweatshirt once more. “there’s something i wanted to talk to you about, about tomorrow night—”

“annabeth called a meeting during free time.”

“yeah, i know, it’s just —”

“she’ll run through strategy for capture the flag then.”

“one of the aphrodite senior campers asked me to the campfire,” you blurted it out, and luke decided to ignore the sound of a fight breaking out from behind the wooden door.

what in the name of hades were you talking about?

“they asked you out? like…like a….” luke didn’t even want to speak the word, scared it would make it real.

“a date,” you said casually, as if that one word didn’t rip luke’s heart in a million pieces. “i said yes.” an admission that took all those pieces and set them on fire.

sure, in the seven years since you and luke met, you’d each talked about boys, about girls, about dating and kissing them and going further. but there was something about this one that felt different. something about the way you told him.

“but, listen, i wanted to let you know it’s not —”

“good for you,” was all luke said through gritted teeth before someone started calling his name again, louder and more urgently, and he had to duck inside.

(vi. you taste like burning cherries and righteous anger)

your team had won capture the flag, of course. the biggest news of the evening, though: percy jackson was the son of the sea god.

he was a forbidden child, the hero of the great prophecy.

everything was falling into place.

all luke should be thinking about is kronos’ plan, and his role in it, and how a world without the gods of olympus was that much more in reach.

unfortunately, for the time being, he was so consumed by you.

you, from across the campfire, sporting cutoff denim shorts and fresh wounds from the game earlier. you, who had wrapped your knuckles in gauze, concealing their bruising, fixed the chips in your nail polish and stacked rings on your fingers. (for the record: luke had gifted you the one on your left thumb.) you, with dark lips that whispered too closely and laughed too loudly with a child of aphrodite— jordan li.

you hadn’t so much as looked at luke since congratulating each other on another win. when chiron announced his weekly gratitude to the gods at the start of that night’s campfire, you didn’t punctuate your resentment with your usual eye-roll or biting remark. you were too busy giggling at something jordan said.

luke wanted to be the one to whisper jokes in your ear. he wanted to be the one you left lipstick stains on later, along his jaw and down his neck. he wanted to be the one who kissed the blade mark on your shoulder and the bruises on your knuckles.

and yet, hours passed and it seemed that the thought of luke had never so much as crossed your mind. he found himself at an after hours party with a few senior campers on the beach. a lethal recipe: a poorly crafted bonfire, some contraband drinks and you in jordan li’s lap, playing with their hair and pretending luke castellan did not exist.

meanwhile, luke had katie gardner’s full attention. she was talking to him about the strawberry season, potentially leaning a bit too close into luke’s personal space, definitely flirting with him.

luke could have done a lot worse than the head counselor of the demeter cabin, who always smelled like fresh lavender, whose eyes were the bright green of spring grass and whose lips tasted like golden honey.

the problem was that luke only wanted you, and his eyes kept sliding over to where you were kissing jordan’s cheek, and he accidentally called the girl he was kissing by your name, which did not make her happy.

katie threw her drink in his face, told him to wake the fuck up, and walked away.

a chorus of gasps and chuckles erupted as luke stood there, diet coke and vodka seeping into his shirt. the commotion seemed to capture your attention, because you suddenly appeared next to luke, an empty bottle of cherry soda in your hand.

“rough night, tiger?” your voice, that nickname, made luke sick, his face twisting into a frown. you don’t seem to notice or care. instead, you switched your bottle with luke’s and took a sip.

“looks like you were having a pretty good time,” luke practically sneered. “where’s your date?”

“they went to bed.” you swallowed a mouthful of beer, grimacing at its bitterness. “gods, this is terrible. you and i should go on the drink run next time — we have better taste.”

“so, are you and jordan like a thing now?”

you gave luke a smile he didn’t quite understand, but made his stomach churn in ways only you could. “would that be a problem?”

“of course not.” he answered way too quickly for that to be true.

“let’s get out of here,” you suggested. “i think katie is about this close to strangling you with a tree branch.”

luke glanced over your shoulder to where green eyes glared back at him.

nowhere could luke find it in him to care. he wasn’t even sorry. he just shrugged, took the bottle back from you, took his first sip all night. luke almost gagged (because of course you were right, and the stoll brothers had better fake ids than they had taste) but he suppressed it.

“no. i’m good.”

biggest lie he ever said. like there wasn’t anger caught in his throat and jealousy swelling between his ribs.

“go find jordan,” he taunted. “kiss them, show them a good time! isn’t that the reason why you got all pretty?”

you narrowed your eyes at him carefully. your nostrils were slightly flared, and luke took a bit of pride in being able to rile you up.

“look, we haven’t really talked lately, and i think we should.”

“go find jordan,” he mocked once more. “almost all the aphrodite kids are here, and i’m sure you can be quiet enough to sneak into their cabin and if you want a quick fu—”

“luke.” you clipped his name, obviously getting to the limit of your patience with him. “if you want to stay here all night and be an asshole, you’re welcome to. you should know, though, that your happy-go-lucky hero mask is starting to crack and i don’t know if you could deal with the fallout from it shattering completely.”

you leaned in close and whispered that last part, very aware of the chattering that stopped and the eyes that watched the pair of you anxiously. luke was usually good at hiding that part of himself who wanted to burn the world down.

in ways you didn’t realize, you were right: he couldn’t risk revealing it, not now.

not yet.

“do whatever you want, castellan,” you spat out his last name, the combination of letters foreign in your mouth.“i’m leaving.”

luke should be proud of himself. he waited a whole two seconds before following you like a stray dog.

luke didn’t know if he’d ever felt you that enraged by him, and it horrified him. it also made him hungry for more.

“i’m not sure that jordan would want the two of us alone together at night,” he shouted after you, words echoing into the starless sky.

“gods, enough about jordan!” luke practically ran into you with how fast you turned around to confront him. “i was helping them with that stupid aphrodite tradition!”

“you….” luke faltered, all the snark leaving his body. “what?”

luke remembered silena beauregard once explaining the rite of passage to him: to prove themselves, a child of aphrodite had to make someone fall in love with them, and then break their heart.

“why…why would you agree to do that?”

you had reached the dining area by then, and you sat on one of the steps leading to the pavilion. luke stayed a few feet away, looking at you cautiously.

“jordan and i are already friends, and they figured a fake relationship would be the way to avoid anyone from actually getting hurt in the process.”

“you seemed so…so into it, though,” luke stammered, the memory of you in jordan’s lap, laughter bubbling from your lips, still fresh.

“it’s called acting, dumbass.” the camp didn’t rely on electricity, but there were enough torches around that luke could see you roll your eyes. “anyways, i was trying to give you a heads-up last night, but you wouldn’t listen.” you took a deep breath. “and, honestly, i didn’t push it because….i figured i should test a hypothesis.”

a hypothesis? you’d known annabeth for too long.

“what hypothesis?”

you hesitated.

“it doesn’t matter. fuck, this was stupid,” you muttered, and without another word, stormed through the dining pavilion, a short cut to the hermes cabin. your footsteps fell heavy against the marble, and luke’s not far behind.

“what hypothesis?” he asked again.

nothing but rushed footsteps.

“what hypothesis?” luke finally yelled.

third time was the charm, because you stopped in your tracks and faced luke once again. a fire burned in the bronze brazier, where campers were forced to offer up portions of your food to the gods at every meal. its roaring seemed to captivate you, and the flames danced across your face, illuminating all your curves and edges.

“i’m angry at the gods,” you stated.

this caught luke off guard. from the day the two of you met, luke knew you shared that feeling. you’d gotten quieter with your rage as you’d gotten older. luke supposed he got better at hiding it himself, as well.

“i’m angry at the gods for letting bad shit happen even if they can stop it, and for building this world in the fucked up way they did. i’m angry at your dad for the way he’s treated you, but — you, luke castellan.” you finally met luke’s eyes with a gaze so sharp, luke almost felt himself bleed. “i’m also angry at you, and not just for your bullshit tonight.”

your admission felt like a punch to the stomach, and luke was left with no air to breathe.

did you know?

“you haven’t been the same since your quest,” you continued, words slow and deliberate, the way you spoke when you were worried your voice would shake. “and i’ve come to terms with that in the past few years, but you….you’ve never tried to ice me out before. you’ve been acting distant since december, and it’s been driving me insane. do you realize how much i miss my best …..” you swallowed the word friend. “how much i miss you?”

luke hesitated, because what could he say? i know i’ve been distant, but i’ve been busy trying to start a war between the gods. sorry babe!

would you hate him, if you knew?

you had to have known that, despite the distance, luke missed you. for tartarus sake, in the last two days, he’d driven himself mad at you calling a fourteen year old boy sweet, and he was about to combust at the image of you dating someone else, with little care as to the collateral damage.

"you can't just avoid me, makeout with katie fucking gardner, and then….” you trailed off, hiding your face in your hands. whether it was to hide embarrassment or tears, luke wasn’t sure.

a smirk spread across luke’s face at the revelation that he hadn’t been the only one jealous at the bonfire that night. it lit luke up with the confidence he needed to not completely fall to his knees in front of you, beg for your forgiveness for everything he’s done.

“why do you care if i make out with katie fucking gardner?”

as he waited for a response, luke walked towards you until your back hit one of the marble columns.

“why do you care if i’m with jordan fucking li?” you clenched your jaw and looked right through luke. a clear indication that you wanted him to break down first; it wouldn’t be you who yielded this fight.

“because i want to be the one you’re with.” at that point, luke was so close to you that he swore he could hear your heartbeat. he reached out and played with the hem of your shorts. “why do you care if i make out with katie gardner?”

“because.” you drew in a sharp breath when luke’s fingers brushed underneath the denim, across the warm skin of your thigh. you closed your eyes. “don’t make me say it, tiger.”

the desperation in your voice made luke want to do unholy things with you, to you. luke knew you didn’t think of him as a saint, and you never expected him to be one. the reality was that you weren’t much better, either. what was essentially an altar to the gods burned bright next to you, but it seemed neither of you had ever cared less about it than in that moment.

luke would watch olympus fall. he would dethrone the gods and watch their glass castle shatter and find glory in a new world. in the grand scheme of things, he was willing to lose this battle.

in fact, he would have rather betrayed the titan lord himself than waste another second not kissing your lips.

so, he kissed you, and you kissed him back with such force, such hunger, it was ungodly.

no, you certainly weren’t a saint — but you were divine, in the most brutal, intoxicating way. in the way you shuddered when luke lodged a leg between your thighs; in the way you threaded your fingers through the belt loops of his jeans to bring him closer; in the way the metal of your rings burned through the skin of his hip, right to the bone, which made him shudder, and you smile triumphantly against his jaw.

the more he tasted your smirk flavored by cherry soda and the ashes of nearby flames, the more he felt your feral teeth against his neck and your wicked nails digging into his shoulders, the more you tugged on his curls, the more luke thought: maybe.

maybe you would give into your seething resentment, live up to those eye-rolls and snarky comments that got you in trouble with chiron, on the edge of hot water with the gods. maybe you would join the titan army. maybe, just maybe, this time, you would follow luke.

and yet — maybe wasn’t enough if it meant he could lose this. luke wouldn’t risk it, not until he kissed every battle scar and bruise on your body, and you did the same to his.

“wait.”

it was the last thing luke wanted to do, but he complied. he took the opportunity to appreciate the chaos he created: your shirt in disarray, your lipstick a mess, your chest heaving and desperate to catch a breath.

“i promised jordan that we’d keep up our charade for a week, two at the most. do you think we could keep this…” you tightened your fist around the fabric of his shirt. “a secret until then?”

luke responded by pressing his lips to yours once more, because there were definitely worse secrets to keep.

(vii. you wouldn’t hesitate to make him bleed)

luke had just left percy jackson to die.

he should be leaving camp, now, but he needed to see you one last time.

the universe works in mysterious ways, because you were out on a run through the forest, and you crossed paths before he even had time to wonder where you were.

“hey, tiger.” you smiled as if this was a regular afternoon. the two of you would teach your afternoon activities, sneak away during dinner so luke could kiss you in that spot that made you gasp. “wanna join me? i was just wrapping up, but i could be convinced to go longer.”

for a second, he was tempted to. very tempted.

“i don’t have much time.”

you seemed to notice luke’s sullen mood and you dropped your playful demeanor.

luke explained: the messages from kronos in his dreams, him stealing the lightning bolt and helm of darkness to start a war between the gods and framing percy. the plan to destroy olympus that luke had pledged his life to.

percy was surprised at what luke had done, and luke could imagine that the rest of camp would be, too. luke was the golden boy of camp half-blood, everyone’s big brother.

you, on the other hand, didn’t express any sense of shock.

“luke.” you said his name like you weren’t quite sure it was poison. “i’m going to give you five seconds to tell me that you’re joking.”

five seconds of silence passed. you took a few steps back from luke.

“i….i should have told you sooner.”

“yeah,” you scoffed. “you should have. but, you didn’t. did it feel good, having the titan king whispering sweet nothings in your ear? all the lies about how this war is the only way to get the glory you so desperately want? it’s fucking delusional.”

“it’s not delusional—”

“yes, it is!” you glared at him. “you’re on the wrong side of a war you made the mistake of starting.”

luke straightened his posture, thinking about how hypocritical you were being.

“isn’t this what you’re all about? revenge, karma. your mom will probably join us, too. don’t you want to see the gods finally get what they deserve?”

“not like this. i can’t believe how desperate you are, to believe that kronos is going to make everything right. it’s pathetic,” you spat. “i’m not saying the gods don’t deserve to be taken down a notch. their fucking obsession with power and glory….it’s sick and twisted, but i don’t think your titan king is any better. i don’t think you are any better.”

“it’s time that the gods fall. this is the only way, even if it isn’t perfect,” luke countered. his voice was firmer now as he absorbed your anger. your mother was the goddess of revenge, but you clearly didn't understand the sacrifices, pain, and blood that was required to make the world a better place.

luke just needed to convince you.

“we’ve talked about this for years,” he continued. “nothing is balanced! there’s no justice here, for anyone. we can build a better world where we don’t have to burn our scraps and throw ourselves at monsters to get attention. we can fight together like we always have. y/n, i love—”

“don’t,” you snapped. “don’t you fucking dare. you should have died on your quest.” your voice laced with venom. one hand gripping the knife you always kept on your belt. “that dragon should have fucking sliced through you and saved us all the trouble.”

something pricked in the back of his throat, down to his stomach.

“you don’t mean that.”

“i do,” you promised. “at least you would have died with all of us thinking you’re a hero instead of the traitor you really are.”

you grabbed your knife, took a fighting stance.

“i’m not going to fight you,” was all luke could say. he noticed your hand tremble, and you tightened the grip on your knife to prevent emotion from slipping through your invisible armor.

in that moment, you have could slice through luke, and it would hurt less than everything you just said, less than the murderous look you were giving him, like he was just another monster you wouldn’t think twice about sending to tartarus.

luke didn’t even have a chance to unsheathe his sword before you charged at him, but he quickly had you pinned to the ground, the tip of your own knife pointed at you. he hesitated. the blade pressed harder against your cheek than he intended, enough to break the skin and let a few droplets of dark crimson escape.

“please come with me,” he pleaded. you didn’t answer, but you did seem surprised by the softness of his voice.

a few moments passed, the celestial bronze still between you. luke waited for you to see his way, to yield to his proposal.

you didn’t. instead, you took advantage of the situation. you wrapped your leg around his and flipped your position. in the process, you regained possession of your knife. without the hesitation that held luke back, you sliced through his cheek, deep. luke bit his lip to suppress a groan, tasting blood. your gaze set his whole body on fire as he waited for your next move. that was when you glanced down at his camp necklace, and the new clay bead added to commemorate this summer.

a turquoise trident.

“percy told me he was on his way to see you,” you realized. “what did you do?”

luke didn’t answer. he knew then that a choice ran through your head.

and it stung, just a little, watching you sprint away through the trees in a last ditch effort to save percy’s life.

there was a small, pathetic part of luke that wanted you to choose him, even if it meant you would have plunged the knife into his chest.

#this is my baby fr #really feeling the tragic hero vibe down to my core #will prob do a part 2 from reader's POV!#ofc inspired by get him back! bc nemesis!reader....#percy jackson #pjo fanfic #pjo series #luke castellan #luke castellan x you #luke castellan x reader #pjo x reader #luke castellan angst #luke castellan imagine #percy jackson and the olympians #luke castellan smut #saf writes #Spotify

5K notes · View notes

badjokesbyjeff · 1 month

Text

A newly opened bar has a sign outside, beer for only $3

A man sees the sign, walks into the bar and orders a beer.

After finishing the beer, the man takes out three $1 coins from his pocket, and feeling a bit mischievous, gets up from his seat, walks to one end of the counter and places a $1 coin there. He then walks over to the other end of the counter and places another $1 coin there. Finally, he walks back to his seat and places the third $1 coin right in the middle of the counter. The bartender gives him an odd look but has no other option but to walk the entire length of the bar counter to pick up the coins.

This went on repeatedly over the next few days and each day the bartender felt more and more annoyed at the man's behaviour.

One day, the man returns again to order a beer but realises he doesn't have enough $1 coins to place them all over the counter. So, he hands the bartender a $5 note. At this point, the bartender gets all excited and thinks that it is finally his day to get his revenge on the man. The bartender quickly takes out two $1 coins and places them at opposite ends of the counter.

With a grin on his face, the bartender goes back to the man and says, "Go on then, collect your change".

The man then takes out a single $1 coin from his pocket, slides it over to the middle of the counter, and says, "One more beer, please."

#funny #jokes #humor #lol #comedy

3K notes · View notes

avelera · 7 months

Text

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

#this rant requires gifs I don’t have but trust me those odd little beats are there #bless Rhys Darby for making Stede so very neurodivergent coded because it SHOWS #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd meta #sometimes fandom flanderization makes characters so DULL compared to canon

3K notes · View notes

ioniiaa · 3 months

Text

My Darling, My Honey

Alastor X Fem!Reader (Part 7)

Quick Notes:

You, the reader who is an artist, and had become Alastor's sweetheart, have just died.

Alastor is about to find out.

Part 7:

The sound of a singular gunshot rang clearly in the night that had been so peacefully quiet up until that moment in time.

Alastor, with the engagement ring in his pocket, who had been peacefully reading a novel within the confines of your shared home, nearly ripped his book in half upon hearing the sound of a gunshot in these woods.

The forest around here was part of his private property, anyone who dared to trespass or hunt in his neck of the woods was shot on sight. Many people ignored the plentiful and very obvious warning signs, so it wasn't his fault so many people ended up becoming your and his meals. Everyone else just thought the law didn't apply to them, straight-up criminals. In his eyes, they all deserved it.

Thinking it was just another nuisance, a "tsk" left Alastor's mouth as he grabbed his shotgun and headed into the woods.

After a few minutes of walking, he finally caught sight of the transgressors. Two men that he, unfortunately, recognized right away as the men from the bar who liked to push his buttons by harassing you.

The seething rage pooled in his core, bubbling up into his chest. This was his chance to get rid of those nuisances once and for all.

They would trouble his darling no more.

For him to get into a better position to take the men out, he crouched down and quietly circled around them like a hunter playing with his prey.

After circling around to position himself behind the men, what he wasn't expecting to see was the most nightmarish sight he's ever seen.

His beloved sweetheart, soon to be betrothed, all disheveled and tied up against a blood-splattered tree with a bullet lodged in the middle of their forehead.

Your eyes were lifeless. There was no doubt about it, the love of his life was dead.

Alastor didn't need to even think before pulling the trigger on the men, shooting one after the other, over and over, even after their bodies had hit the ground.

He. Was. Enraged.

By the time Alastor was done with them, they looked like Swiss cheese, barely strung together.

Alastor's breath was heavy, his chest heaving, near hyperventilating, his eyes were enlarged and his mind was focused on one thing. You.

His beautiful love, he couldn't bear to see you in this state.

In his oddly manic and shocked state, he untied you from the tree and took your body back to your shared home in the woods not too far from here.

For a few moments, his rage was replaced by sorrow and mourning as he buried you in the backyard. As fucked up as he was in the head sometimes, he would rather die than think about eating you. You were sacred to him.

As he laid you down into the ground, he embraced you once last time and took the ring out of his pocket. He placed the ring onto your ring finger and kissed the top of your hand, "In life and in death, I am forever yours, as you are forever mine. I love you, dear."

After you were buried, the rage returned like a vicious tsunami. Oh he wasn't done with revenge just yet.

Every single man or woman that ever mistreated you or offended you, was put on his list.

This night was the catalyst that gave birth to the serial killer known as the "Bayou Killer".

Alastor stopped visiting Mimzy's bar since your death, with his sole focus and dedication in life going to hunting down those that had harmed you in life. After all, they deserved it, you were like an angel to him.

But what Alastor didn't stop doing, was broadcasting his radio show. So many of his connections were made because of his show, so it was a valuable resource to keep active, to use to his advantage.

Alastor continued living his life like this until every single name was crossed off his list.

It was then that it was time for his luck to run out.

Right upon the killing the very last person on the list, was Alastor also shot right square in the forehead.

Before his consciousness faded into black, all he could hear was the muffled panic of a stranger who seemed to be apologizing for mistaking him for some sort of animal.

All Alastor could do was chuckle at the irony of the whole situation, the maniacal laughter was the type that only a madman could produce- before everything went dark and he died.

He thought he would never see you again, because surely, his beloved sweetheart would end up in heaven right?

The answer to this would remain a mystery for many decades to come as Alastor descended into Hell and became who is now widely known in Hell as "The Radio Demon".

-> Part 8

1K notes · View notes

fandom · 5 months

Photo

Anime & Manga

Do you hear the Drums of Liberation?

One Piece +5

Jujutsu Kaisen +1

Mob Psycho 100 +2

Chainsaw Man +8

Boku no Hero Academia -4

SPY x FAMILY -4

Trigun Stampede

Bungou Stray Dogs +11

Buddy Daddies

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure -2

Naruto -4

Mo Dao Zu Shi -2

Haikyuu!! -9

19 Days +3

Sailor Moon

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -5

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System +9

Fullmetal Alchemist +2

Tian Guan Ci Fu -3

Bocchi the Rock!

Trigun Maximum

Dungeon Meshi +16

Attack on Titan -10

Death Note -6

Blue Lock

Yu-Gi-Oh! -12

Bleach -5

Gundam

Tokyo Revengers -20

Hetalia -9

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Revolutionary Girl Utena +6

Digimon -5

Kuroshitsuji

Hunter X Hunter -8

Neon Genesis Evangelion -10

Inuyasha -13

Dragon Ball Z -2

Soul Eater

Witch Hat Atelier

Trigun

Lupin III -9

Berserk -2

Fairy Tail -10

Yuri!!! on ICE -23

Detective Conan

Dorohedoro

Pop Team Epic -6

Sk8 the Infinity -20

The number in italics indicates how many spots a title moved up or down from the previous year. Bolded titles weren’t on the list last year.

#year in review #anime #manga #tumblr2023

3K notes · View notes

amakumos · 1 year

Text

CUPID’S CORNER — nishimura riki

synopsis. because he’s a little shit, nishimura riki sends a totally embarrassing confession about you to “cupid’s corner”, a twitter account that posts anonymous confessions from decelis academy students. but when that joke confession suddenly makes a bunch of people confess to you on cupid’s corner (for real this time!) riki finds that he’s jealous — and oh… he can’t believe it took him a fake confession to realise that he’s crazily in love with you.

pairing. best friend! riki x fem! reader

genre. smau, fluff, humour, slight angst

warnings. swearing, riki’s a little shit but so is yn😭 rikiyn are dense and just overall silly people in general

status. complete

author’s note. i lied about never having another smau. this is inspired by my friend submitting an embarrassing confession of me to one of those confession accs . i got my revenge tho😍

server link . here's the link to join the discord server. you're welcome to discuss theories with fellow readers ^_^

profiles 1! / profiles 2!

ONE — be my girlfriend TWO — my kyky THREE — get a job! stay away from her! FOUR — gimme chocolate FIVE — BS = bank statement SIX — im so eunchae SEVEN — stupid vball anon EIGHT — deep thoughts in the toilet NINE — hiiiii (manipulatively) TEN — bob, the cat ELEVEN — i keep it 99 cuz i b lying sometimes TWELVE — stupid moral compass THIRTEEN — me when im ran FOURTEEN — ugly emotion FIFTEEN — hyungyeom's adventures in hell SIXTEEN — cried into my suitcase SEVENTEEN — fuck up that plastic packaging EIGHTEEN — toilet emoji NINETEEN — he’s poohing TWENTY — out of all people TWENTY ONE — i don't know when i want!!! TWENTY TWO — niall horan TWENTY THREE — i have a confession TWENTY FOUR — riki fanclub TWENTY FIVE — r u srs TWENTY SIX — may god bless the asteroid TWENTY SEVEN — my #1(0) TWENTY EIGHT — rikiy/n > the world TWENTY NINE — cupid dumb era THIRTY — be my boyfriend

4K notes · View notes

harmoonix · 7 months

Text

☾ Night Goddess ☽

• Astrology Notes •

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🌃 - Venus/Mars/Mercury in Libra/Cancer/Taurus are the type of people you can get easily get along with, because they are good at making an nice good impression

🌃 - Mercury - Moon/Jupiter aspects can be very wise in talking and always having this nice tone in their voice, they have a pleasant voice

🌃 - Pluto sextile/trine/conjunct Neptune are the good at manifesting things in their life, because they have a rich and powerful imagination

🌃 - Sun aspecting the Moon can be really underestimated, like people tend to make fake scenarios about how these people truly are

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

🌃 - Do not force someone with Saturn - Mercury aspects to lie, because they will be always saying the truth even if it hurts somebody, it will be for their own good will

🌃 - Moon/Venus/Sun in the 9th house can really get blessed relationships with their partners, because the 9th house is also the house of fortune

🌃 - Gemini/Virgo or Mercury in the 7th house indicates that the native wants to communicate a lot in their relationships, and aswell with their partners. If they don't communicate they can feel sad about it

🌃 - Chiron in the 10th house or Chiron in Capricorn are very revengeful placements if you mess with their public state, they can end up hating you forever actually

🌃 - Draconic Sun in Sagittarius or in a Sagittarius Degrees (9°, 21°) indicates an soul who travelled a lot, they can be wise when it comes about culture and traditions (To know this placement you have to do your Draconic Chart 🌃)

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

🌃 - Draconic Moon at 3°, 15°, or 27° degrees indicates an soul who always seeks for more communication and understanding of the things around them

🌃 - Draconic Sun in Aries or at Aries Degrees 1°, 13°, 25° degrees, is an soul who is here to learn about themselves and to be themselves in the first place

🌃 - Draconic Cancer/Taurus/Pisces in the 7th house indicates an soul who is here to get in touch more with their relationships and partners and of course to be more nurturing

🌃 - For someone who Virgo placements, being clean, healthy, organized and hardworking is holy for them. Because they are very in touch with these things

🌃 - Uranus in the 2nd/7th/8th house can experience being attracted to the same sex (not in all cases but in can determinate that)

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

🌃 - Air Moons/Air Venuses and Air Mercuries can have a lot of love for music, and specifically more around the r&b style and strong bass music (it can apply of course not to everyone)

🌃 - South Node aspecting the Moon can be hard to let some things go and can find themselves always looking back in the past

🌃 - South Node aspecting Saturn can find it hard to cope with authorities or with people older than them, like they don't like when the olders came in the picture

🌃 - Saturn aspecting Moon can go numb when they feel pain or they have it low, one thing about them is like you Will never see them crying in front of you. They will always hide it

🌃 - Libra placements (Specifically Libra Moon or Libra ascendant) can find themselves being people pleasers, don't let people to treat you bad and to manipulate you because you don't deserve it at all

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

🌃 - Sun in the 8th/12th house can have a complicated relationship with their dad, and it can be mostly because their dad could've been absent pretty much in their lives

🌃 - Venus in Aquarius/Aquarius Risings always dress nice, there is something about their style who stands out and is more prominent on them (Like when you go in a bunch of groups of people these placements can have the type of clothes everyone can stare the most at)

🌃 - Sagittarius/Pisces/Aquarius Placements can also find themselves being attracted to space/planets/the unseen sky, most people I know with these aspects tend to like these things

🌃 - Capricorn Placements (especially Sun/Moon/Risings) had to be responsible and aware from a young age, they always have this "bigger sibling" energy

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

🌃 - Leo Sun/Mars/Venus can be the kind of people who can praise their partners a lot (Which in my opinion is one of the cutest thing ever), is like their partners are their whole world and honestly good job Leo Placements

🌃 - Aries/Taurus/Cancer Lilith can have an kink for licking/kissing/touching, is like an mix of everything with them, hot and cold

🌃 - Pluto aspecting the ascendant has an energy of the person everyone wants to be like, people will always want to be them

🌃 - Draconic MC in Scorpio or MC degrees in Scorpio, 8°, 20° is the soul who came on earth to experience a lot of evolution in their lives

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽ ☾•☽

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🌃Hellooo 🥰 It's a great day to post a full observations post since in the last days I posted only "mini - observations 🌃

🌃 In case nobody told you today, I hope you are fine and loved because you are worth of it, you are loved moon child 🌃

🌃 Have a great day full of love and warm energy to everyone reading my notes 🌃

Angel Number for this post :12:12

1K notes · View notes

f1version · 8 months

Text

BIRTHDAY POSTS ★ CS55

pairing: carlos sainz jr x gf!reader

summary: Five birthday posts that show how you and Carlos always loved each other.

notes: this short smau was supposed to be posted earlier but i just checked and tumblr didn’t post it (i did scheduled it, i think it glitched or something) anyways enjoyyy <3

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55 and 217 others

yourusername Ostiaaaa feliz legalidad Chili, no tomes mucho!!!!! ❤️18❤️✨🌹🇪🇸🍻 [ happy legality Chili, don't drink too much!! ]

September 1, 2011

view all comments

carlossainz55 Tomar?! Eso no es lo mío 😂🤐 [ drink?! that’s not my thing ]

yourusername No te lo crees ni tú cabróncito!!! 😂😂 [ not even you believes that ]

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55 and 762 others

yourusername Felices 20 a mi piloto y rapero favorito🏎️✨ [ happy 20 to my favorite driver and rapper ]

September 1, 2015

view all comments

carlossainz55 Noooo 😂😂

yourusername Tú perdiste la apuesta, aguanta!! [ you lost the best, deal with it! ]

carlossainz55 La venganza será dulce [ revenge will be sweet ]

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55, landonorris and 6,726 others

yourusername 25 years loving you!! Happy birthday Chili🎂💓

September 1, 2019

view all comments

landonorris Get in line he loves me more 🙄

yourusername Pero a quién le da besitos??🙄 [ but who does he kiss??? ]

landonorris @ carlossainz55 i need translation🙏

carlossainz55 🤫🤫 Google it

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55, scuderiaferrari and 50,826 others

yourusername Preferisci l'italiano? Tanti auguri, amore mio 💘💘 [ do you prefer italian? happy birthday, my love ]

September 1, 2021

carlossainz55 Ti amo per sempre ❤️

yourusername ❤️❤️❤️

yourusername

Liked by carlossainz55, charles_leclerc and 3,726 others

yourusername 29 years of being my best friend, 10 of being my kissing buddy 💋🥂

September 1, 2023

view all comments

carlossainz55 😘😘😘

yourusername 😘😘

2K notes · View notes

amefuyuu · 15 days

Text

Also since it took me a while to get my notes sorted out here are the small changes/things I noted reading the scripts for the first ten episodes of ‘Our flag means death’:

-stede keeps calling lucius ‘marcus’

-roach was named ‘salty’

-frenchie speaks french

-izzy is described as cat-like

-the tribe leader breaks up izzy and Stede, makes them introduce themselves

-izzy, fang and ivan help get the ship unstuck

-blackbeard’s room is described as ‘looking like it were decorated by david lee roth where he a pirate in 1717’

-frenchie also gets named frankie???

-jim steals’s spanish jackie’s hand

-the crew put up a flag saying ‘we love ed’ and cheer for him after he returns to the revenge without Stede (wanted to add, it’s not immediately after he returns but after a little bit of Ed sulking)

-the ghosts of badminton 1 and 2 still haunt Stede

-buttons keeps calling izzy, fang, and ivan ghosts

-jim spits their bread on frenchie in the mermaid scene

-ivan says he has always felt hemmed in by expectations of gender

-Ivan had a lot more appearances/lines :(

-the crew hosts a support group (sans, ed, Stede, izzy, lucius, buttons) to talk about gender???

-most scripts are 37-38 pages long

-lucius replies to izzy “your world, handsie. Were just living in it” during the pantry scene

-the revenge has a ‘chore wheel’ which dictates who does chores around the ship

-lucius sketches ivan not fang, fang is cleaning the barnacles

-izzy is called ‘izzy the barfer’ not izzy the spewer

-izzy ‘notes the chemistry’ between Stede and ed

-the ‘fucking on deck’ overhearding scene isnt here

-izzy and ed do laundry together and talk about killing Stede

-fang shuts the door on izzy’s face

-ivan wants to ‘seduce sailors and kill the dutch’

-izzy is the one who suggests the fuckery end with the kraken to cause ed to breakdown (?)

-ed hides under a table not in a bathtub

-wee john has a twin ‘big john’

-izzy calls Stede a boob

-stede and ed’s feet touch instead of a kiss in ep 9

-stede leaves a note for ed instead of not showing up entirely for the escape, it says ‘Dearest Edward: I can't. I'm sorry. Yours always, Stede’

#our flag means death #izzy hands #stede bonnet #edward teach #lucius spriggs #black pete #jim jimenez #oluwande boodhari #frenchie #the swede #wee john feeney #fang #Ivan #ofmd #ofmd bts

502 notes · View notes

joequiinn · 26 days

Text

The Dos & Don'ts of Fake Dating | E.M. x reader | pt. 1

[all chapters here]

summary: You propose a crazy idea to the resident freak of Hawkins, Eddie Munson. But maybe he was even crazier for agreeing to it…

notes & tropes: fem reader, faking dating, opposites attract, bratty rich bitch reader, super minor revenge plot, not-quite-enemies-to-lovers

a/n: Was I the only one who turned 18 a month into their senior year and then proceeded to spiral and become The Worst version of themself possible?? Well, this fic is semi-inspired by that shitty part of my life lmao. Reader figure skates though. I can’t figure skate, hurts my feet lol. I never expected to write a fake dating story, but Eddie Munson has had me bewitched for nearly 2 years now, so here we go.

(if you'd like to be added to a tag list, pls let me know!)

wc: 3.9k

Chapter One

The idea came to you during a student council meeting as the class president was droning on about the ‘85 homecoming preparations: you needed to do something crazy, something completely and utterly out of character.

Maybe it was because of your ex breaking up with you just weeks before school started. Maybe it was that senior year itch. Maybe it was the realization that you were turning 18 next week. Hell, maybe you just woke up that morning with a strong sense that the things in your life were no longer satisfying you.

Whatever the cause, since the start of your senior year, you’ve just felt so off.

Your ex, Duncan, breaking up with you right before school started was a low blow, and an absolutely shitty feeling - you didn’t date much, but when you did, it was never the guy that ended things. It wasn’t shitty because you were in love and oh so heartbreak, it wasn’t shitty because you saw a future with him. It was shitty because of how goddamn embarrassing it was.

To your peers, you were a couple that made sense, and in fact people had been urging you to go out for a while. And, obviously, you had grown to like him, considering that you were in a relationship for six months - you never would have put up with him for that long if you didn’t actually like him. But the fact that he broke up with you, and not the other way around, left a sour, spiteful taste in your mouth.

So, perhaps it was that break-up that made you feel different this entire month. Or maybe it was your impending 18th birthday, which made you realize just how close you were to legal adulthood. Whatever the cause, every single aspect of your life up to this point suddenly came under your deep scrutiny. You just weren’t… happy?

That made it sound bad, but what were you enjoying right now? What got you excited every day? As you sat in the student council meeting, zoning out since the very start, you came to think that maybe you had nothing going on right now that you genuinely wanted in your life.

Hell, you weren’t even on the student council because you enjoyed it, Janet just dragged you into it back in your sophomore year. You figured she loved the sense of importance it gave her. She and everyone else in the council probably got off on how important they felt, the dictators of Hawkins High School.

You always ran in this crowd, and before you never questioned it. The popular kids, the rich kids, the successful kids. You don’t remember ever choosing these friends and acquaintances - if anything, it seemed that these peers were all a constant, as if they’d always been there from the very start. You figured it was the natural state of the world - as the daughter of one of the richest men in town, you were predestined to end up here. Not here as in the student council, surrounded by other spoiled rich kids debating the difference between turquoise and cyan. But here in an even broader sense - in a finely curated life, in all the “right” circles, on the path to either greatness or becoming the trophy wife of greatness.

Up until now, you’d never questioned it. Yes, mom and dad, you were a popular kid whose free time was fully booked between college prep, figure skating, student council, dates with a cookie-cutter boyfriend, and everything else under the sun. Yes, mom and dad, you were doing everything they all told you too because it would look great on your college applications, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, because that’s how things have always been done.

It started to dawn on you maybe a week or so into the school year just how mundane you were - you never questioned your time spent skating or on extracurriculars, you never went against the order of things as dictated by only the most popular of your peers. That’s just what was done, what was always done. But after your ex dared to break up with you, you came to realize recently that maybe all of this wasn’t what you wanted - maybe it was time to start making some choices for yourself instead of worrying what your parents told you or what your peers thought or what to do to keep your boyfriend semi-happy.

So, you started to consider what exactly it was that you wanted. And that proved to be more challenging than you anticipated, which probably would have sounded extremely pathetic if you had said it to any of the people sitting next to you.

Did you like figure skating? Of course, it was your idea after all. What you didn’t like was the pressure from your mother to train and become an Olympian, a feat that was never your intention when you took up the sport at six years old. Besides, you told her, you were way past the age for trials, you’d never get in (or, at least, that’s what you told her, because how the hell would you know whether or not there was a cut off age).

Did you like your friends? You thought so - you’d known them virtually your entire life, so you never questioned your relationship with them. But proximity didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand with likeability. Maybe some of them you actually liked, but the rest? No, they were just around because they always had been.

Did you like your relationship before Duncan broke up with you? No, probably not. Of course, your opinion of him and that entire relationship was soured now, but even at the time, you were probably just going through the motions, doing things that couples do without any real heart in it.

So… What did you want? What did you actually like?

It was jarring to realize that your entire life had been dictated and finely tuned for you from the moment you were born, that even the things you wanted had been molded into new shapes by your parents or your peers or your teachers.

Once you realized how little of your life was in your own hands, you couldn’t get it out of your head. You always saw yourself as someone who was in control, as someone who couldn’t be told shit. And yet, you came to realize that that was far from the truth. It was as if suddenly everything about your life was something you hated. You hated your classes, you hated your friends, you hated running in the same circle as your ex, you hated all your obligations. Through the first few weeks of senior year, all you felt was frustration, disinterest, and absolute boredom with everything around you. Something had to change. And during the bullshit student council meeting, you became determined to make it happen.

So, over the course of that boring as all hell meeting, you tried to figure out what you wanted, and how you were going to get it. You set a goal for yourself, silly but helpful considering the structure you were so accustomed to: you’d set your plan in motion on your birthday. New year, new you, right?

Once you gave yourself that deadline, you then had to think about what exactly you were trying to accomplish - yes, you wanted to make some major changes, you wanted to, in a way, become a new person, but how were you going to do that?

You settled on four key things to keep in mind:

You wanted to piss off your parents big time - your dad barely acknowledged your existence and your mom coddled you, so actually upsetting them would be a feat unto itself. You had to become so awful that even your mother would stop making excuses for you.

You needed to drop your friends - the more you thought about all the people you grew up alongside, the more you realized that you weren’t particularly interested in relationships with any of them. Whether you made new friends or not wasn’t a priority, in fact you kind of liked the idea of just being left alone.

You had to figure out what you actually enjoyed - outside of skating, you had no idea what really interested you, what you would like to do with your life and your free time. You figured it was time to do some self reflection and focus on finding things that you’d actually enjoy.

And, most importantly, you had to get back at your ex. Yeah, it was stupid to be motivated by a boy, but nothing would make you happier than seeing him worked up and frustrated. Your focus wasn’t on trying to win him back or anything like that - you wanted to piss him off, to exact some kind of revenge for making you look like an idiot when he broke up with you at a party that all your friends had attended.

How you were going to accomplish these, however, was yet to be determined. But they were a damn good starting point, and they got you motivated to become an absolute nuisance to everyone around.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

The Friday following the student council meeting, you decided to first experiment with a little something, satiate a mild curiosity. To anyone else, it was probably the most mundane thing in the world, but to a high schooler who thought graduation was life or death, doing anything out of the ordinary felt nail-biting.

You were going to sit at a new lunch table.

You had just two days left until your birthday, until you’d officially set your plan in motion, so you still had a little more time to come up with something. So far, you couldn’t think of shit. You were already someone who was blunt and commanding and mean, whose thoughts and feelings were always on your face, so people were used to you being bossy and a little miserable - you couldn’t start being meaner or blunter, you just knew that wouldn’t be enough. Maybe you could start skipping class, maybe you could start flaking on friends, but somehow none of that felt like enough, like it wouldn’t make a statement. You had to really make an impression, to really set yourself up for a total ruination of your social status, you just hadn’t figured out how.

But a new lunch table was as good a starting point as any, right?

You chose a table at the far end of the lunchroom; customarily your group of friends, acquaintances, and ex sat centrally, surrounded by the jocks on one side and the academics on the other. The new table you chose was only occupied by two other people, a dorky little couple who looked at you funny when you sat as far from them as possible. In turn, you gave them an icy cold glare, prompting them to look away quickly, like you were a Medusa who could turn them to stone.

Your stupid little lunchroom plan was a bust, though. Five minutes into your peaceful lunch, your two closest friends, Amelia and Janet found you, each looking perplexed and put-off by your seat of choice. They looked around before lowering into the seats around you, their expression full of something akin to disgust, as if sitting at a different table was that offensive.

“What are we doing over here?” Amelia asked judgmentally, eyeing the couple at the opposite end of the table. Across the lunchroom, a few people (including Duncan) from your usual lunch table looked at you funny, “It’s like we’re exiled or something.”

So dramatic, you thought while staring harshly at her.

“Change of scenery.” You answered plainly, stabbing at the food in front of you. Amelia hummed in acknowledgement, but still made it quite clear that she didn’t agree with the decision.

“What, does this have something to do with Duncan?” She jabbed, receiving another nasty look from you, “So, he’s a jerk? Get over it.”

You should’ve known this idea was too simple to work. Of course they’d just follow you like the lemmings that they were, just as unable to make their own decisions as you were. Yeah, you definitely needed to try something bigger to scare them off.

Briefly, you thought that you could maybe tell them, just say point blank, “Amelia, Janet, I hate being around you and this friendship is done.” But, again, you figured that wouldn’t be good enough, that they’d laugh at your mean sense of humor even if you reiterated yourself. In this crowd, being mean was never enough to make your point, because all of you were nasty, not only to each other but to virtually everyone you met.

And despite your well-known attitude problem, you still cared about Amelia and Janet, flaws and all. These were the girls that you’d known since you were five years old, of course you worried about their feelings at least a little bit - nearly 13 years of friendship would do that to anyone. Guess you had more of a heart than you gave yourself credit for.

You definitely needed a foolproof plan to get out of this friendship, this social circle, this popular bubble that you’d always been trapped in. The friendship had to end without you saying so. You had to push them out until they finally gave up on you. Make it seem like it was their idea, that would definitely work on them.

As you schemed, Amelia and Janet chatted around you. Various acquaintances stopped by the table, all with the same question: what the hell were you guys doing sitting all the way out here? Even Duncan was amongst those that asked, trying to ignore the way you glared daggers at him. Amelia and Janet gave various responses, all of which put blame on you as if this simple little decision meant their utter ruination.

As Duncan was preparing to walk back to your usual lunch table, a commotion rose out in the hallway, the echo of rapid footfall drifting in through the doors. Multiple heads turned to face the cafeteria doors with curiosity, some people peeked out into the hall to check what the yelling was about, scurrying back to their friends to report what they’d seen. You, Amelia, Janet, and Duncan all waited silently, sharing raised brows and curious looks.

Not even a minute later, Eddie freaking Munson came crashing into the lunchroom, a look of total glee on his face as he cackled, not even remotely fazed by all the eyes on him. As he tumbled through the cafeteria doors, you jumped a little at the burst of sound. Eddie’s disruption turned everyone’s heads now, the lunchroom silent in shock and loathing as the resident outcast ran between tables, heading for the set of doors at the opposite end of the room. Your gaze was locked on the shit disturber as he blew past your table, carelessly running into Duncan in the process, but even that collision didn’t slow him down. Duncan yelled at him, but Eddie was focused on one goal, and if this were a cartoon you definitely would have seen dust kick up behind him from how quickly he was moving.

Not too far behind was Coach Miller, a look of absolute rage marring his puffy red face as he pursued Eddie. It didn’t even seem to cross his mind that he was making a fool of himself in front of the entire student body - his only focus was stopping the offender of whatever shenanigans currently pissed him off.

Your gaze turned back to the excited Eddie, an undeniable curiosity rising in you - what the hell did he do to piss off Coach Miller this bad? Sure, the coach was always pretty damn temperamental, but you couldn’t recall ever seeing him look quite this upset before.

Eddie paused at the cafeteria doors to turn and pull a mocking face at the coach before darting from the room, as if nothing in the world could touch him and he was unstoppable.

As Coach Miller disappeared after Eddie and students returned to their usual conversations, albeit with an air of awkwardness, you stared at the cafeteria doors thoughtfully.

That’s when an idea began to form.

You needed to take a page out of Eddie Munson’s book. If anyone in this school knew how to be a thorn in everyone’s side, it was him. So, you spent the remainder of your lunch brainstorming, trying to figure out how to channel even a sliver of Eddie’s energy; you only chimed into the conversation when someone spoke to you directly.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

In the middle of fifth period, you still weren’t quite sure what your game plan was, but you at least had a vague starting point. While your history teacher rambled on about some significant European war that you couldn’t begin to care about, you tapped your pencil as you thought about Eddie Munson (a sentence that very nearly grossed you out).

You’ve known about him since your freshman year - at the time, he was a year ahead of you, but since then he’d been held back. People always sneered when talking about him, as if Eddie was the most offensive thing they’d ever encountered, as if he was some kind of plague. He went against all social norms you’d learned up to that point, he was contradictory to everything you’d ever been taught about social conduct and likeability - he wore ratty clothes, listened to scary music, acted out in the most theatrical ways possible, and never seemed to give a shit what anyone thought.

You had never spoken to Eddie personally. Through the years you’d had a few classes together, including your math class this year, so you’ve witnessed some of his antics. But really, you knew nothing about the guy. Just the things that everyone else told you, and those things were nothing good. Whether or not Eddie was as bad as people said didn’t matter to you. His reputation was shit, and in this instance that’s exactly what you needed.

So, how were you going to ruin your senior year with the help of Eddie Munson? Well, at the very least, maybe you first had to have a conversation with him. It would be pretty stupid to walk up to him and go “hey, Munson, I know everyone here hates you, how about we chat and you make them hate me, too!”

Maybe you needed to find a way to hang out with him? Pretend to be friends long enough that the rest of the student body begins to ostracize you? With a little amused huff, an even worse thought crossed you: maybe you needed to pretend you were interested in Eddie Munson for a while, that was sure to piss just about everyone off. Especially Duncan.

But then the idea gave you pause.

You could not pretend to flirt with, or even date, Eddie fucking Munson. No chance in hell that would work. No way he would go for it, and no way you’d be able to tolerate him long enough to convince anyone that you were even remotely into him.

But… maybe?

Shit, what a stupid idea.

Or maybe it was a brilliant one.

You mulled it over a few minutes longer - if you were going to, somehow, convince Eddie Munson to pretend to date you, you needed to offer him something in exchange, that was obvious. You needed to give him a good reason to help you out, or this plan was never going to work. Its chances of success already seemed slim to none.

You had one idea, though you weren’t entirely certain if he’d go for it.

Your Uncle Tom was a cop, had been with the force your entire life - and you’d bet he’s probably had at least one run-in with Eddie. Maybe you’d tell Eddie that you could get cops to leave him alone, to stop watching him wearily whenever they were around. You couldn’t promise him too much, of course, but you knew at the very least that you could get your uncle to leave him alone. Or you could even take the fall here and there for whatever trouble Eddie inevitably lands himself in - what cop was stupid enough to arrest the niece of a cop and the daughter of a man who owned half of Hawkins?

It wasn’t foolproof, and you knew there were flaws to be found, but it just might work.

So, with your mind made up, you rip a scrap of paper from your notebook and scribble out a quick message:

Let’s make a deal. Sunday. You pick the time and place. Locker #436

You’d hoped that Eddie would be smart enough to realize that you wanted him to write you back, to drop his own stupid note in your locker so you could meet up and tell him your stupid, crazy idea. God, this better work.

You swiftly raise your hand in the air, giving a small impatient wave when your teacher didn’t acknowledge you right away, instead trying to focus on his lecture.

He rolled his eyes when he spotted your hand in the air, pointing at you and saying in an annoyed monotone, “What’s so important that you’re interrupting?”

Without any hesitation, you state bluntly, “Lady troubles.”

The teacher looks shocked by how plainly you stated it. But because it was you that said it and not someone else, your peers didn’t dare laugh, although a couple boys seemed to choke in surprise or amusement.

“Go, go…” Your teacher waved you off before continuing his lecture, wanting to forget the small interaction entirely.

You exited the room and roamed the halls confidently. Eddie’s locker wasn’t hard to miss - he was one of the students that decorated the metal with crude permanent marker sketches, and the school was too cheap to care about replacing or painting over it. As you approached Eddie’s locker, you checked around to make sure no one spotted you; it wasn’t as if you were committing a crime, but you didn’t need anyone wondering what you were up to in case this plan didn’t work.

So, you slipped the note into his locker, returned to class, and waited impatiently for the final bell of the day to ring, hoping that Eddie would actually stop by his locker and not just leave school without ever seeing your note.

When the end of the day came, it took everything in your power not to rush back to your own locker - just in case, you didn’t want him spotting you there. Why all the secrecy, you sure as hell didn’t know, but you nonetheless continued it.

So, you waited, stopping into the bathroom to check your makeup, walking with Amelia and Janet as they stopped at their own lockers. As the three of you exited the building and walked into the parking lot, you pretended to remember something, telling them that you needed to run back inside. You said your quick goodbyes and went back to wandering the halls, finally opening up your own locker.

It was stupid that your heart leapt when you saw a crudely torn piece of paper resting on top of some of your belongings.

You opened it quickly, eagerly reading the metalhead’s response:

Picnic table behind the football field, 4.

God, what were you getting yourself into.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x you #stranger things #em #dos and donts

442 notes · View notes