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dailyfryes · 1 year

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Jack the Ripper DLC: a rant

Alright well, I always said I was going to write a rant about the Jack the Ripper DLC and how nonsensical it is. Since my boyfriend is playing it for the first time and I’m watching him play it... yeah well here’s my rant:

I don’t even know how to begin this, there’s an endless amount of plot holes and I’ll probably forget a few things.

Let’s just start with the beginning of the game, you play as Jack and literally murder a cop in plain view of the public. In fact Jack kills a lot of people in this game who aren’t just the canonical five. It’s absurd. Obviously I know it’s for a video game but it just seems too over the top, I feel like there would be a bigger outroar from the public and more newspaper articles. But anyway this is the smallest gripe for me.

I absolutely hate how this DLC has Jacob being too soft about Jack to kill him. You’re kidding me, right? Yes, I know Jacob has a soft spot for the disenfranchised, but this is his empire he has built in London all at risk. His position as a Master Assassin, and no doubt a Head Assassin at the London Headquarters, all at risk. His FAMILY at risk. As much as he might view Jack as a son, he would love his own son and wife (and perhaps other kids if he has others) far more than he would care for Jack. God, they don’t even mention his family (or Evie’s!!!! She’s even still referred to as Miss Frye???)! We know for a fact he has a son (at the very least) during this DLC as Lydia is born five years after. Since Jaocb becomes a grandfather at 46 he would’ve had a wife by the time he went to India with Evie, Henry and Jack - yet she’s not in the photo. (Let’s be real though: Ubisoft is crap at keeping up with timelines.) And, no, I do not believe it to be in his character to be unmarried or a man who sleeps around (it’s not in his character: he is very devotional, and it’s also pretty biphobic to characterise him as someone who just sleeps around). I would assume Jacob sent his family away from London, but no we don’t even get a mention of them, or Henry. AND even worse: the entire London Brotherhood just dips?????????????????? This makes me assume Jacob is the Head Assassin because why else would the disappear? Even so, since when were Assassins such cowards?? It’s literally one man.

Jack having influence over London, that’s why the Assassins left. This makes no damn sense. It is insane to me the power that Jack has over people in this game. Even so, why would a strong Brotherhood just leave because of one guy and some gang members? These London Assassins are stupid! So, Jack kills the canonical five, which he and both we know aren’t actually prostitutes, they’re Assassins. And yet Jack and his lackeys have a vendetta against prostitutes? He’s working with Lady Owers? Why? Why the hell would she work with him (like yeah I know she does it because she doesn’t want him to kill her: but why is he even after her??? She’s not a bloody Assassin!), he’s supposed to be completely and utterly anonymous. Not just anonymous in the form of an alias, literally no one is supposed to know who this man is. How did he even approach her to work with him anyway? Why is he going after prostitutes when he only wants to kill and get revenge on Assassins? Jack the Ripper was a misogynist who targeted prostitutes because he hated women. He mutilated them because he hated women. This DLC Jack is just after a vendetta against Jacob and the Brotherhood, so while I understand why the Assassins used prostitution as a disguise, it makes no sense that Jack continues to go after regular prostitutes. The writers made it clear he wants revenge, only does Evie at one point hint at him perhaps being a misogynist (”Do you hurt women to prove you’re a man, Jack?”) - this just seems like a lazy throwaway line to try tie in with the fact the real Jack was a misogynist, but again, this is not why he [this DLC Jack] killed the canonical five. So, it makes so sense. Also, I’ve said this before but, Jacob has not had a thing with Nellie like some of you in this fandom believe.

Influence over the Rooks in Whitechapel, this I guess could be more believable. I don’t know about y’all but by the time I finished the main game I was rich as hell from all the races and boat raids etc. And as a Master Assassin in London I imagine Jacob (and Evie) would’ve done quite well with themselves and would be able to afford to live in the richer areas of London (I’m thinking the Strand, personally). So, perhaps the Rooks from poorer areas like Whitechapel are feeling left behind, and perhaps could be swayed to go against Jacob. But then you get to the hulled out war ships. It’s littered in Rooks. There’s no way in hell Jack has all these Rooks and all the ones in Whitechapel/London City following him. Jack won’t even be paying them! You’re telling me not ONE of the Rooks on the hulled out ships thought, hey this is kind of messed up? No one out of the hundreds of Rooks said anything, ever? Also what even IS this hulled out war ship place about? This makes the LEAST amount of sense. So Jack, for sadistic reasons, is taking a lot of people prisoner, paying a hangman and other lackeys, to ferry out his prisoners (even the game doesn’t know why he chooses his prisoners asides from him being sick in the head), watch over them in the hulls, organise their murder and then dispose of the bodies? This is dozens upon dozens of people missing. Yet there’s no outcry in the newspapers. Nothing. Also, Evie quite literally lets some of the prisoners free, assuming they got out by boat before Jack got there, they would be telling everyone they were held prisoner by Jack (the game really doesn’t make it clear if they got out or not). Not only that but Evie just took a boat out there, does that mean anyone could just accidentally stumble across these ships? I assume if they did they’d die too: their families would report them missing. But the dumbest thing of all, Evie phones in to the London Police to let them know what is happening, so the police get sent to investigate. Jack then comes back and kills them all. So these policemen, dozens of them, are not going to return and the London Police will know about it. They will go to these ships again and see a massacre of prisoners and policemen, it’ll be big news. Nah, nothing about it is even brought up again. It’s the dumbest thing about this stupid DLC.

Also, Jack goes back to the Lambeth Asylum to get revenge and kill the nurse who abused him as a child, Evie literally says “Jack’s trail of death continues”. Again... how is this not news, how is this not one of the canonical murders? Oh, because it makes no sense. He kills so many non-Assassins, so many people beyond the canonical five, that it makes no sense there’s such an outcry about five women being murdered. It’s like the rest don’t matter. The thing is it’s hard to make a game about Jack the Ripper the way Ubisoft is trying to, there’s too much murder at every corner, but it’s expected in an AC game; it would be boring if you didn’t have anyone to fight. I would’ve preferred Jack to be some elusive target for the Assassins: something the Brotherhood hasn’t dealt with: normal people. Not an Assassin, nor a Templar. Even still, a Templar would’ve made more damn sense than Assassin. However, I feel like even I could write a better DLC with Jack being an Assassin that wasn’t as nonsensical as this. My boyfriend, who doesn’t like AC as much as me, even said this DLC made no sense plot-wise.

Side note: I would love to see how livid Evie and Jacob are at the pathetic London Assassins that come crawling back from their hiding holes. They left their stronghold, one of the most powerful cities in Europe, they left the citizens behind. Ugh. Obviously not all of them leave as Mary Jane Kelley is murdered on the Fryes’ birthday, but how could the majority of them leave their brothers and sisters behind to be murdered or to fend for themselves? Also, Jack’s motive being that his mother died... the dying mother trope is so overdone: think of BvS or Civil War. Yawn. Oh and Frederick put his head on the line by not revealing who Jack was - like think about it: he was hounded and deemed a failure by everyone. It’s a huge and unrealistic ask of Evie, in reality he would’ve exposed Jack but hey, we love Freddy. Freddy is the best associate confirmed.

Oh and there’s some people in this fandom who believe Jacob lived in Whitechapel?? (Again he’s probably rich, so, LOL!) He obviously wants to be right in the middle of it: to try catch Jack. This is clearly temporary lodgings, and also a means to stay away form his family to keep them safe if Jacob hadn’t already sent them away by that point. I’ve even seen some talk about the photos on the wall there, like the one of a bride, those photos are copy and pasted all over this game, they mean nothing. Evie literally has them in her train cart in the main game.

Right now that’s all I can think about: I’m sure I left other points out. But please feel free to send me an ask if you want to keep talking, I love talking anything and everything about Syndicate.

If you’ve read this far, thank you :) and sorry if there’s typos

#Assassin's Creed Syndicate #Jacob Frye #Evie Frye #Jack the Ripper #Assassin's Creed #JTR DLC #Text #Admin Talk

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apparitionism · 2 years

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Appreciation 4

“All the AUs”... I’ve written a few, and they always make me recall words from Elaine Scarry that I used in an essay about such things a while ago: “Beauty brings copies of itself into being.” An AU is a particular sort of copy, one that may be wildly inflectionary... also I personally prefer AUs, much of the time, because I think Joanne Kelly and Jaime Murray would be well served by appearing together in non-Warehouse contexts that make use of their sparking magic.

This fourth stave of appreciation follows “Architecture,” “Bridge,” and “Worry.”

House

Elizabeth Bishop, “Sestina.” New Yorker 15 Sept. 1956: 46.

With crayons the child draws a rigid house / and a winding pathway.

****

Myka Bering is selling her house. She has lived in it for two years, but it is simply the wrong space, and its wrongness has become too much to bear.

When she conveys her decision to her friend (and real estate agent) Pete Lattimer, he says, with gloom, “And you blame me because I sold you the house in the first place. And because I sold you on the house. Because I said I had a feeling.”

Myka assures him this shouldn’t be his worry; the house just didn’t work out. On the other hand, she doesn’t tell him that she’s disappointed, even though she is. It isn’t that she really believes that any feeling Pete has is really some communication of real meaning, something from elsewhere... but he’s in the past had an uncanny ability to steer himself and his friends toward productive choices.

But, okay, not this time.

Pete concedes it’s a good time to sell: “Hot market,” he tells Myka.

“You just like saying ‘hot,’” she accuses, and he grins.

****

Barely seventy-two hours after he lists the house, he shows up at her door—but she’s trying to stop thinking of it as “her” door—and announces with glee, “You got a love letter.”

She can’t have heard him right. “I got a what?”

“From a buyer. Saying how much they love the house so you should pick their offer. Toldya the market was hot.”

“Is that a thing?” she asks. She certainty didn’t write a letter to the previous owner of this place; everything was very straightforward: offer, escrow, inspection, close.

“Huge thing in markets that are hot.” He repeats it, “Hot hot hot!”, and giggles. “Kind of a sliding scale of realness to ’em though—you get your flippers pretending they’re gonna take such good care of the place all the way to people so, like, heartfelt, you just want to hand over the keys on the spot. Normally I wouldn’t even show it to you.”

“But?”

He shrinks back a little from the threshold, like a cowed vampire. “You’ll hate me, but I got a feeling.”

Myka sighs. “Hand it over.”

“I gotta be up front about this,” he tells her, not quite apologetically. “You’ll get multiple offers. Some’ll be better than this one.”

“Don’t tease me with a feeling and then wimp out. Hand it over.”

“Promise not to blame me if you leave money on the table?”

She laughs. “Are you insane? No.”

“Fair,” he says. He places in her hand a creamy envelope addressed simply to “Myka Bering.” Then he waggles his fingers in goodbye and scoots away, as if the faster he moves, the lesser the consequences.

****

The letter is written in a precise, not-quite-cursive hand.

Dear Ms. Bering,

A letter such as this may be viewed as manipulative, my Realtor tells me; she tells me also, however, that they can succeed in influencing a sale. I do want to influence you, for I would very much like to buy your house. No, I should be more specific: I feel that I need to buy your house, so that my child and I can live in it.

Allow me to explain. My mother, with whom we have lived since Christina was born, passed away some months ago, and due to difficulties with the estate, her house had to be sold. We are thus both contending with loss, but Christina more so than I: not only of her grandmother, but also of her only home.

We’re seeking a bridge—from our previous life to a new one, from grief to... I��d say “acceptance,” but neither of us is yet able to imagine that such a state exists.

And yet in this house—your house—I feel a difference. It may not be the right difference; that, only time can reveal. But Christina asked me, upon walking in, “How does this one make you feel? Do you feel okay?” and I had to acknowledge that I did, while adding a caveat that I was unsure what “okay” meant in the present moment. I asked her the same question, and she answered, “It makes me feel like I know what okay means in the present moment.”

At that, Myka has to stop reading, because it is exactly what she’d hoped for, in this house, and exactly what had eluded her.

That may seem a bit koan-esque, but the fact of the matter is, Christina is seven years old and far wiser than I.

Apparently I needed a seven-year-old around to tell me what was what, Myka thinks.

In conclusion, lest you think my feelings about your house are entirely metaphysical: the kitchen, to my eyes, is a marvel. The available information indicates it is your remodel, and I applaud your choices, as does Christina. She said, and I quote, “I like the stove. It looks new. The right kind of new. Like someday it will be old.”

Forgive me for turning to her words again, but I find them more meaningful than my own, and I hope you will as well. Or is it evidence only of further attempted manipulation?

If so, I hope it works.

Sincerely (if that doesn’t, in context, seem too much of an oxymoron),

Helena Wells

****

Myka calls Pete. “Is the offer reasonable?” she asks. “The one with the letter?”

“I guess. But like I said, you’ll get—”

“Still got your feeling?”

“Why are you making me say it? Yeah, I still got my feeling.”

“Feel anything about my Viking stove?”

“I feel like I was right to tell you to pay through the nose for it when you redid the kitchen, because it fits the architecture so pretty. Better than anything cheaped-out would’ve. I also feel like you used it that one time to cook—well, ‘cook’—that Thanksgiving turkey till we all could’ve used it to play touch football in the backyard and had to order pizza for dinner. And then I feel like you never used it again. I could be wrong, but I hope not.”

Myka would like to be able to be mad at him about the Thanksgiving description, but he’s entirely right. About all of it. “Take the offer,” she tells him. “I think I know why you had your feeling, first about me buying this place and then about the letter: they need this house.”

****

In addition to her little-used (but extremely aesthetically pleasing) Viking stove, Myka leaves for Helena Wells and her daughter another item she hopes will be of interest: the small almanac she discovered in the attic some months after moving in. It belongs to the house, not to her.

It’s a 1911 facsimile of Poor Robin’s almanac, published by Ben Franklin’s older brother James. (Myka of course researched its provenance.) It proclaims itself to be “The Rhode-Island almanack. For the year, 1728. Being bissextile, or leap-year.”

She determines she should leave a note in the homely little book: her own “love letter,” as it were, to the almanac itself, to the house, and to its new inhabitants. She’s not quite sure what to say, given that she doesn’t need to persuade anyone of anything... It’s just a document of existence, she tells herself, so she tries to write some things that are true.

Dear Helena and Christina Wells,

It’s only fair that I answer your letter, given that it’s why you’re here. First, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m thankful that this house was here when you needed it, certainly at first, and if this letter finds you settled in the way you want to be, I’m of course even happier.

I’m glad also that you’ve now come across this almanac, which has clearly lived in the attic here for some time. It captivated me from the moment I saw it, mostly because its title taught me a new word, and I love anything that can do that.

You’ll notice that the pages are worn. That’s not my doing, but I did think it was a little strange that a reprint, not even the original useful thing, was so handled.

Then again, once you fight through the colonial typography and spelling, there’s a lot of useful guidance. For example, here’s October’s instruction: “Now button your Garments close, for the Cold comes insensibly, and oft times begets a whole Winter’s Cold. Consult your Taylors as well as Physicians.” Which reminds me to warn you—or maybe you’ve already discovered—that even though I added more insulation, there’s some draftiness, so around October, the warmth of your Garments will come to seem pretty important.

There are also some lovely natural-world auguries. Here’s my favorite: “When the Owl scrietcheth in foul weather, it is a Token of fair weather at Hand.” I have to admit I’ve never heard an owl around here, but ever since I read that, I’ve felt myself hoping, when storms come. As they do.

Whatever would signify fair weather for you two, I hope you hear it in this house.

Sincerely,

Myka Bering

P.S. I’m envisioning you using the stove, insofar as I can envision people I’ve never seen, and I think it’s very happy to be used. I think it wants to grow old that way.

****

Some months later, Myka picks up a call from Pete. She lives in an apartment now, a generic space that isn’t right but at the very least isn’t wrong.

“I know you’re sick of hearing this,” he starts, then stops.

“What am I sick of hearing?”

“A feeling...”

Great. Just what she needs. But she’d better let him tell her, or he’ll keep bugging her... either that, or he’ll burst. “Fine. What’s it about?”

“Did you put a note in a place?”

“Did I what?”

“Note. Place. You. Putting.”

“I heard what you said. What are you talking about?”

What follows is a convoluted story of a Realtor who contacted him “because the lady who bought your house found a note that you left and now she wants to get in touch but she thinks that might be intrusive or aggressive or something so she wants to make sure you’re okay with it but anyway what note are we talking about and why do I have this feeling?”

Well. “I don’t know about your feeling,” Myka says. “But I did leave a note. In the almanac.”

“Is that some secret code? Is the note in code? What do you want me to say?”

Myka, who has a feeling of her own, tells him, “I want you to say yes.”

****

In retrospect, her feeling was justified, for when she and Helena Wells met, on the threshold of that house in which Myka felt wrong, they fell into what seemed to be a predestined exchange.

Helena Wells said, “It’s October.”

“Are you keeping your garments buttoned close?” Myka asked.

“On good advice, we are.”

That was all, for their first words, as time slowed... as they both stopped, as if in agreement to be conscious of that slowing, to ponder its meaning, to accept its novelty.

Then, a small voice from behind Helena said, “We made an apple pie.” Then Christina Wells emerged, positioning herself next to her mother, albeit a ghost-width behind.

All three of them in the doorway: waiting. Liminal.

“How’s the stove working out?” Myka asked at last.

“It didn’t burn the pie,” Christina said.

“It would have if I’d made it,” Myka said. “I guess it likes you.”

Christina considered. “Or pie.”

More silence, while two pairs of Wells eyes scrutinized Myka. Inspection. Due diligence. “Any owls yet?” she tried, after a time.

“Maybe,” Christina said.

And Helena said, “Come inside.”

So Myka did.

****

After they had shared apple pie in the kitchen next to the happier stove, after Myka’s time in the house had stretched such that taking her leave felt embarrassingly overdue, after she stood and made I-should-go noises, Helena asked, “Will you come back?”

And Myka once again said yes.

Not twenty-four hours later, she did go back, for Helena texted her: “I want to teach you a new word.”

When Myka arrived, Helena asked, “What were we to listen for the owl to do?”

“Screech,” Myka said.

“That’s the word,” Helena said.

“That isn’t new,” Myka told her. Was that the right thing to have said?

“It is for us.” And Helena took Myka’s hand—not their first touch, but their first to augur of more—and drew her in.

****

Pete’s feelings. How many tears of gratitude has Myka shed for them, for the way they have bestowed such beautiful contours upon her life? Many, but she’ll never tell him; he’d be embarrassed. But she has said the words “thank you” more times than either of them are comfortable with.

She’s said them to Helena too, of course, and even more often.

“It’ll appreciate,” Pete had originally said of the house’s value.

He was right.

END

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Appreciation #House #Bishop's Sestina is a true exemplar of the form #then again anything by Bishop is an exemplar of itself alone #reflecting and embodying her singular gifts #and she'd without question be appalled by my miserable attempt at tribute #anyway the book mentioned herein is real #a fact of which I hope there could be no doubt #beringandwellsappreciationweek #day 4

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larryficwriter · 1 year

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one line, any fic

Hiiiii, I was tagged by @kingonafiftymetreroad and @thebreadvansstuff to do the one line, any fic challenge. Sooo, here we go.

Pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the mid point, pick a line, and share it! Then tag 10 people

Never Understood What Love Was Really Like (But I Felt it for the First Time Looking in Your Eyes) E, 37k

“Louis,” he looks to him, almost frantic with pleasure, and Louis sees his entire world.

“I know,” Louis says, literally feeling every emotion of Harry’s running through his veins. Their eyes lock as they both share this moment. “Me too.”

The connection he feels with Harry goes beyond what any words could describe. Laying there, locking eyes with Harry, who is all wide-eyed and beautiful, while they’re bound together - Louis has never felt anything like it. It’s like they’re no longer two separate people, like he doesn’t know where Harry ends and he begins.

Unwrap My Heart E, 15k

Harry started calling him Sweet after he discovered that Louis listened to Sweet Creature on repeat so much that it’s his top song of the year. It makes Louis’ heart do backflips every time. He has to press the side of his face into the pillows to hide his giddy smile.

Cure the Loneliness E, 14k

Harry rolls over and checks the time, 3:46 am. He should be sleeping. But all he can think about is how awry his life has gone. Yeah, sure, there are parts of his life that he knows he’s been blessed with. The fact that he made it, truly made it, in a career that rarely anyone does - it’s a miracle. He looks around at his empty, dark room. What good are miracles if you have no one to share it with?

You are the Lyrics E, 5k

Harry holds Louis’ wrist still. Even from his obstructed view of Louis, half of Harry’s face still smashed into their bed, he can see the look of confusion on Louis’ face. He gives Louis the best smirk that he can in the situation, and then he literally starts riding Louis’ hand.

Like Snowflakes G, 4k

Silence. Louis can’t quite place the look on his face. He’s momentarily distracted by the fact that snow has started to fall and he watches as tiny flakes start to waft peacefully around them. Some land on his hair, the white creating a stark contrast with the chocolate brown of Harry’s hair. When a single flake makes its home on Harry’s cheek, Louis’ first reaction is to swipe it off with his thumb and right when their eyes meet, words are spilling out of Louis’ mouth.

Til My Voice Breaks, Baby I Love You E, 23k

Louis looks at Harry, feeling emotional and vulnerable and he wants to say it. He wants to tell Harry. He opens his mouth and the tiniest “I” comes out. Harry didn’t even hear it.

Only You, Always E, 5k

“Babe,” Harry whispers, biting on Louis’ earlobe to regain Louis’ attention. “Hope you’re ready for round two.”

All My Senses Come To Life (Cause You’re The Only One) E, 20k

“I’m fine. The room’s stopped spinning. C’mon, don’t stall. Did you not like the kiss? Because it’s okay if you didn’t.”

“I liked it. You got weird.” Louis says, scratching at the 28 on his knuckles.

“You got weird!” Harry insists. “Oh my god. Are we freaking out over nothing?”

Dear Blue E, 9k

‘Blue,

Why? There’s so much I want to write to describe what I feel for you. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be special. I’m beginning to think it’s cursed. You’ve made me cry for a lot of reasons: from laughter mostly, but never like this. I don’t even know what to say to you anymore or even if we’ll be okay anymore. Happy fucking Valentine’s Day.

p.s. The first card contained a poem that I wasted my time writing about you. Fuck off.

Green’

A Beautiful Start to a Lifelong Love Letter E, 3k

There’s this peaceful sort of quiet. Somewhere down the hallway, someone is already experiencing their first college party judging by the quieted bass thumping. Simon stares at Bram’s bookshelf and smiles to himself. He should have known that the guy who calls him cute and grammatical would decide to be an English major. The streetlight casts just a small amount of light into their room, illuminating Bram’s sleek, toned calves.

As with my last writing related post, I don’t have many writer friends and the ones I do have already tagged me. If you want to participate, please do!

#fic challenge #one line any fic #larry fic #larry fanfiction #larry smut #TheIfInLife #my fic #I'm going to put this in the tags #this got rough at the end bc it was dipping into ooooold fic that I know was not my best #so pls do not judge some of the older content #also emotional ngl bc I lost my original tumblr years ago and I lost so many followers aand exposure to my writing #I sort of gave up for a long while but it's kind of nice to be sharing my work again #be on the lookout for at least two fics from me in the near future

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gigantamaxmareep · 2 years

Photo

[image id: three different images from the Pokemon Adventures manga: Black and White chapter. All of them are from volume 46, round 486 titled “A New Perspective”.

The first image is page 184. The top panel shows Elite Four member Marshal from the waist up, and the mayor behind him. Both of them are smiling. The second panel depicts a map of the Battle Subway. The text in its bottom right reads “Battle Subway Map”. The third panel shows six trains lined up, with the very right one being the closest to the viewer. The bottom panel has Ingo and Emmet standing in the foreground to the left, only the bottom of their legs being visible. They are turned away from the viewer. In the center of the panel stand the mayor, Marshal, a baker named Chris, Black and White as well as Servine.

From right to left and top to bottom, the dialogue reads as follows:

"...What makes it such a great test of skill."

"It's challenging and fun because you have to make use of your surroundings, forcing you to invent new tactics."

"There will be eight subway trains in total - including the ones still under construction."

"Six are already operational."

"There's the single train... The double train... And the multi train... We've created two lines for each of them."

"I see. A 'Beginners' and 'Experts' level, eh?"

"After several sets of these battles, you earn the right to face..."

The second image is page 185. It consist of two big panels. Ingo and Emmet are shown standing, Ingo being at the right and Emmet being at the left. They are both saluting with opposite hands. They are each wearing a dress shirt and dress pants, a tie, and a long coat with stripes on its bottom half, as well as a conductor's hat. Ingo is in black, while Emmet is in white. The latter is smiling. In the bottom panel there is a closeup of them from the shoulders up. They are now both smiling.

The dialogue reads as follows:

"...The Subway Bosses."

"I'm Ingo."

"And..."

"I'm Emmet."

The third image is page 186. The top right panel shows Ingo and Emmet in the foreground from the waist up, their backs turned to the viewer. To the right stand Marshal and the mayor, who is gesturing towards the two brothers. The middle right panel is a closeup of Marshal’s mouth in side view. The top left panel has a closeup of Marshal to the right. He is looking back and down at Black, who is standing to the left, looking up at him with a surprised expression. The middle right panel shows a closeup of an excited Black with his mouth wide open. The middle left panel is a closeup of Black’s right eye. The bottom right panel is a closeup of Black’s right hand. It is trembling. The bottom left panel shows Black running to the right and towards the viewer. He has a frustrated expression and both of his hands are ruffling his hair. Marshal stands to the left behind Black, looking after Black with his mouth hanging open.

The dialogue reads as follows:

“The Subway Bosses are highly skilled trainers I summoned them here just for this.”

“The only remaining test before we open to the public is to run a normal trainer through...”

“It seems fate has brought us together. How would you like to test the Battle Subway before it officially opens, young man?”

“Would I?!”

Writer’s Note: partially visible text that is split between two vertical halves of the panel. “But wait! Even though that’s a great looking battle arena (cuts off) want t- (cuts off) fight (cuts off) Pokemon battles (cuts off) And Gigi could be in trouble but I still want to battle but that wouldn’t be right because I should help rescue Gigi but this battle arena is so cool and I really (cuts off) batt- (cuts off) shou- (cuts off) bett- (cuts off) thou- (cuts off)

“Do I? Do I? N-n-n... No...!”

“ARGH!!”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass!”

/end id]

Ingo and Emmet’s appearances in the round A New Perspective! There is something very cute about the way they’re drawn in the manga, but I can’t put my finger on it.

#I apologize for the horrible transcript of the cut off text. I have no idea how to handle that #Ingo smiling gives me so much serotonin :D #pokemon #pokemon adventures #pokemon black and white #ingo and emmet #subway masters #submas #pokemon generation 5 #described #i'm not here it's queue

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casspurrjoybell-17 · 11 months

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HEART'S FATE - CHAPTER 46

*Warning: Adult Content*

Once they're dry and clothed in the silky robes, Skylar West leads the way from the bathing chamber through an arched doorway and into a long, broad hallway with a high ceiling and a red carpet lining the floor.

One wall is of white marble but the other is almost entirely of glass and gives a view of the blue depths beyond.

The strange marriage of fairy-tale palace and grand aquarium leaves Martin Hunter speechless with awe and stops him in his tracks and for a moment he merely stands, dumbstruck, as Skylar keeps walking.

Coralesque chandeliers hang from the ceiling, emitting a warm, pinkish-gold glow, while outside the windows, which are too large and thin to be mere glass at this depth, marine animals swim or drift in and out of sight among faint vertical beams of blue light.

Schools of colorful fish, clouds of jellies, the lone shark or ray and below these, gardens of corals and anemones.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Skylar asks, having come to stand at Martin’s side.

He can only nod as his brain struggles to comprehend how an entire palace could be made airtight and withstand the pressure of the sea.

"It's magic," Skylar says, apparently reading his mind. "Magic is woven into this place at... well, you might say at the molecular level. It's in the stones and in the cracks between the stones and in the very dust itself."

"And it never... fails?" Martin asks, suddenly very conscious of the weight of water above my head.

"Not while Circe's heir sits upon the throne. One reason my mother turned herself into a statue, if you recall. The magic is in the blood of her lineage. As long as the bloodline remains unbroken, Thassos will endure.”

Martin frowns.

"That's quite the responsibility. I suppose there's a lot of pressure to... continue that line, then."

Skylar rests his hand on Martin’s lower back, soothing away his worries with the warmth of his touch.

"Certainly but I'm not concerned. I've got seven sisters."

"Speaking of..."

Finally tearing his eyes away from the mesmerism of the sea, Martin looks up and down the palatial hallway.

"Where is everyone? Shouldn't our arrival have set off some alarms or something?"

Skylar shrugs and fingers his amulet.

"It isn't as if we arrived in the usual fashion but you are right, I would have expected my return to have caused more excitement. Still, this will be more fun, once we're properly dressed, we can present ourselves to the royal court and give my sisters a surprise. Come, my chambers are nearby. Let's see if the servants have been doing their job.

"You have servants?" Martin asks as he follow Skylar down the hallway to a large door decorated with an ornate motif of shells.

"Well, yes, of course. Someone has to keep the place in good order," Skylar says, opening the door to reveal another long, though less grand and windowless, hallway and holding it for Martin as he passes through. "Does the idea bother you?"

"It's just occurring to me that I know almost nothing about your society and culture," Martin says, dodging the question for the moment.

"Well, you shall soon know all you wish to know and more."

Skylar grins excitedly and strides down the hall to another, smaller door.

The handle looks like gold and after trying and finding it unlocked, he opens it and ushers Martin through.

On the other side lies a room that would look at home in the most opulent palaces of antiquity.

On a raised platform, an enormous bed draped in purple silks awaits.

A wide swath of windows looks out on the sea, bookshelves hug a curved wall, fine rugs carpet the marble floors and the same softly glowing lights from the hallway shine from sconces and hang from chandeliers.

A pair of low settees on which to sit or recline and a small table and chairs are the only furnishings.

Skylar leads his werewolf mate past these and around the dais-like platform supporting the bed, to yet another door and a smaller chamber beyond.

"Here we are, my dressing room," Skylar says, indicating the space with a sweep of his hand.

There's a changing screen, a chair, a table, a full length mirror and an enormous wardrobe.

This last, Skylar throws open with a flourish and begins rummaging within, all the while talking to himself under his breath.

"Let's see... Too fine. Not fine enough. Too scratchy. Too thin. Too fussy. Ah. Here we are. Simple and elegant."

Turning, he holds out a set of underthings, a pair of loose, ivory-colored trousers and what looks a lot like a pale-blue dress.

"What is that?" Martin asks, eyeing it dubiously.

Skylar laughs.

"Come here."

Reluctantly, Martin approaches.

Skylar smiles as he unties the belt fastening Martin’s robe in place and pushes the silky fabric off his shoulders.

The garment slips free and falls to pool about his feet, leaving Martin naked.

Skylar gently turns his mate to face the mirror but Martin averts his eyes from his reflection and shivers as he feels the Mer-Prince’s fingers tracing the scars that mar his skin, so much for his hope that they weren't as noticeable as he feared.

"Put these on first," Skylar says, handing him the silken trousers.

Martin obeys and then Skylar picks up the blue cloth and wraps it around him, draping it over his shoulders and tucking it in at the waist.

"There. All finished."

When Martin finally dares to look, he catches himself by surprise.

The style is something like that of Greek or Roman nobility but with a shorter line to allow the trousers to show.

With bare feet and damp curls falling in a loose semblance of style, Martin looks like something half from the Arabian Nights and half from classical Greece.

"Now you see it, don't you?" Skylar asks, his fingers tickling Martin’s skin as he adjusts the neckline of his robes.

"See what?" Martin asks, still a little enchanted by his strange reflection.

"How I see you," Skylar says. "Strong, beautiful and perfect in every way."

Martin snorts.

"Please, I'm no Narcissus. This is just... better than I expected, is all."

"We Mer-folk dislike tight-fitting clothes," Skylar says, dressing himself in the same fashion as he speaks.

He chooses dark trousers and a pomegranate-colored robe.

"Loose and flowing, like water, is the way to go. In our aquatic forms of course, we lack the need for human modesty. Be prepared if you see my sisters, by the way, there are no shell-shaped bikinis here, I assure you."

Laughing softly, Martin turns and looks up at him.

"I suppose us Wolves are the same, aren't we? Sometimes I forget how it must appear to outsiders."

Skylar’s hands settle on Martin’s waist and he pulls his mate against him, the green of his eyes flashing to jade with sudden passion.

His Adam's apple jumps in his throat as he swallows and his voice comes out a little lower than before.

"My clothes suit you very well," Skylar says. "And yet I can hardly wait to get you out of them again. I swear, once this is settled..."

Skylar trails his fingers up the side of Martin’s bare arm to his shoulder and bites his lip.

"Are things really so much better under the sea?" Martin asks, allowing himself a grin.

Skylar quirks a brow at him.

"It is certainly wetter."

Martin pushes his lover away.

"Come on, Your Royal Horniness. We have things to do before we can do each other."

"Right you are," Skylar says, stepping back a pace and brushing imaginary dust from his clothes.

Either the servants he mentioned have, indeed, been doing their jobs or things are cleaner under the sea, too.

"Business before pleasure. This time."

Skylar shoots Martin a wink and bows from the waist before extending his arm to him.

"Shall we?"

"We shall," Martin says and does his best to imitate his bow, which he has only seen people in period dramas do, before linking his arm with his Mer-mate.

And thus, side by side, they exit the dressing room and find themselves face to face with what appears to be a small army of guards, weapons bristling.

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withthewindinherfootsteps · 1 year

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I posted 416 times in 2022

That's 416 more posts than 2021!

34 posts created (8%)

382 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ladypfenix

@piosplayhouse

@kimalysong

@mxtxfanatic

@grewlikefancyflowers

I tagged 393 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#mdzs meta - 129 posts

#mdzs - 118 posts

#mdzs fanart - 65 posts

#wei wuxian - 46 posts

#svsss - 38 posts

#wangxian - 22 posts

#my meta - 19 posts

#lan wangji - 19 posts

#svsss fanart - 17 posts

#fav tag - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#and that… loses the impact of the golden core quite a lot i feel? yes he didn’t know that while making a decision but that consequence isn’t

My Top Posts in 2022:

One thing I love about Lan Wangji is that how the way he’s viewed by others changes with the progression of his arc.

When we meet him in the Cloud Recesses, he’s already well known in the cultivation world. He’s known for being one of the Twin Jades of Lan – for being a model disciple, for being perfectly skilled in everything you’d expect a young master to be proficient in, for perfectly encapsulating all the Lan Sect’s principles, including their immovable adherence to the rules. And that’s immensely impressive. But the thing is, he’s not really defined by himself – it’s not his own identity he’s carving out, but the identity of a perfect disciple of a clan. That’s even echoed in his title as one of the Lan’s Twin Jades. He’s known, first and foremost, for being a son of the Lan Clan’s Sect Leader.

But as he starts to develop, as he starts to grow, what he’s known for changes, and people begin to know him for who, not what, he is. He’s not famous, first and foremost, for being Lan Wangji, one of the Twin Jades – but for being Hanguang-Jun, the ‘light bearer’, the person who goes where the chaos is, and for a title and reputation he’s carved out of his own merits. Instead of being known for perfectly embodying rules and principles, he becomes known for being righteous*, fair, and for caring about the common people; for prioritising their safety over his own reputation in a way that no other important member of a clan did. And I think it’s important to note that although doing this doesn’t break any rules, it does stand in contrast to the actions of most cultivators (and is even look down upon by some people, like Jiang Cheng, though I’m not sure how much of that is due to their personal history). Instead of being famous for embodying the values of the cultivation world, he becomes known for what he does that sets him apart from it.

People begin to define him by his actions and by everything he does that shows who he is as a person; not as somebody defined by embodying the status and clan he was born into. His reputation given to him as a Twin Jade has been carved into a reputation he’s made for himself, as himself.

And I think that’s beautiful.

296 notes - Posted September 25, 2022

Wei Wuxian and the nice, broad road: or, part two of why constantly self-sacrificial Wei Wuxian takes bother me so much (part one):

(Long post ahead)

Something that’s very prevalent in self-sacrificial Wei Wuxian takes, or self-sacrificial takes on any character, is that they’re not only self-sacrificial… they’re also an idiot. As in, they don’t think things through, the first impulse they have when they see anyone in danger is to throw themselves in front of them even if there’s a way that means neither have to get hurt, and even if that person’s not in any serious danger at all. And that combines with the common take of self-hatred and extremely low self-worth to form the image of someone who’ll throw themselves recklessly at any danger with no consideration for any consequences or alternate paths, and are almost seeking to throw their life away.

The thing with Wei Wuxian, though, is that he’s not seeking to throw his life away at any given moment. And, more importantly to this meta, he’s clever and he’s capable. If he can find another way out of it, and the majority of the time he probably can, he’ll choose that option. What I’m trying to say is that, if he sees someone being ambushed by a monster, he’ll distract it, fight it himself, and almost always win. He won’t throw himself in front of its claws.

However, the problem that arises with the story of MDZS is that there is no other way out. The thing endangering those under his protection isn’t some monster he can fight, it’s the corrupt structure of the society itself. Those in power are only able to manipulate its threads by virtue of their birth and therefore status (almost everyone), or in rare cases by using that structure to your own advantage and engaging in very corrupt methods to clear your path to the top (Jin Guangyao). And neither of those are an option for Wei Wuxian, the ‘son of a servant’ who will never join in with that corruption.

(And he isn’t the only person we see in this situation. We see the same thing with Mianmian, and she can’t oppose this either — the best thing she can do is walk away.)

Wei Wuxian actually summarised his situation very clearly, when talking to Lan Wangji at the Burial Mounds:

A moment later, Wei WuXian spoke up, “Lan Zhan, you asked me if I intended on staying like this from now on. To be honest, I’d like to ask something as well. What can I do apart from this?” He continued, “Give up the demonic path? Then what about the people on this mountain? “Give them up? I won’t be able to do it. I believe that if you were I, you wouldn’t be able to do it either.” He continued, “Nobody can give me a nice, broad road to walk on. A road where I could protect those I want to protect without having to cultivate the ghostly path.” Lan WangJi gazed at him. He didn’t reply, but both of them knew the answer in their hearts. There was no such road. No solution existed.

- Chapter 75, EXR translation

This is in regard to Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation, but the same rings true for everything else he does at cost to himself in the story. Not sacrifice his Golden Core? Then Jiang Cheng, whose whole sense of self-worth was dependent on being a cultivator, would waste away with no spiritual power and no will to live*. Not save the Wen remnants? Then they’d stay in the labour camp and live and die in horrendous conditions. Not painting the spirit attraction mark on himself to save everyone else at the Second Siege? Then they’d die, because what else could be done? And it’s important to know that he didn’t do it alone here, he had Lan Wangji help defend him as well.

So he technically did have an option every time, yes. But that one option was letting others get hurt, and he’s not going to do that. There was no third path. There was no nice, broad road.

But we see that that broad road is very much one Wei Wuxian would like to walk on.

Wei WuXian smiled, “Why would I leave the nice, broad road, and walk on a single-plank bridge on a dark, narrow river instead? If it really is that easy, people would have already walked on it.”

- Chapter 14, EXR

Again, this refers to demonic cultivation. And again, this can be adapted to every other action he takes. Because there are plenty of situations when there is a third option. And in those cases, he finds the way around it! Wei Wuxian is incredibly smart, incredibly creative, and an incredibly quick thinker — none of us in the fandom should forget that.

And thankfully, there are examples of this in the text. Let’s take a closer look at one specifically: defending Mianmian in the Xuanwu’s cave**, and stopping her being used as bait.

(Long passage ahead)

Watching his subordinates fight with [Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan], Wen Chao looked as if his mood was much better. He spat, “Talking back to me—what did you think you are? People like you really do deserve to be killed.”

A grinning voice came from the side, “That’s right. All those who oppress others and do evil relying on the power of their clan should be killed. Not only that, they should be beheaded for tens of thousands to revile so that those to come would beware.” Hearing this, Wen Chao spun around, “What did you say?” Wei WuXian pretended to be surprised, “Do you need me to repeat it? Sure. All those who oppress others and do evil relying on the power of their clan should be killed. Not only that, they should be beheaded for tens of thousands to revile so that those to come would beware. You heard it this time?” Hearing this, Wen ZhuLiu seemed to ponder as he glanced at Wei WuXian. Wen Chao erupted, “How dare you say such absurd, outrageous, and pretentious words!” Wei WuXian first lifted the corners of his mouth with a ‘pfft’, then immediately burst into unbridled laughter. Under everyone’s shocked eyes, he laughed so hard that he was out of breath, clutching Jiang Cheng’s shoulder as he spoke, “Absurd? Outrageous? I’d say you’re the one who’s all of those! Wen Chao, do you know who was the one that said those words? I’m sure you don’t, do you? Let me tell you. This was said by the most, most, most famous cultivator of your sect, the one who founded the entire thing, Wen Mao. You dared say that one of your ancestor’s remarks are absurd and outrageous? Well said, very well said! Ahahahahaha…” Within the Quintessence of the Wen Sect that had been given out, even the most ordinary of smalltalk comments could be analyzed over and over, their deep meanings boasted with exceptional extravagance. Let alone memorizing it well, Wei WuXian felt disgusted after just flipping through its pages. However, he found this quote of Wen Mao’s quite ironic, which was why he could recall it with ease. Wen Chao’s complexion switched between red and white. Wei WuXian added, “Right, what was the accusation given to those who insult famous cultivators of the Wen Sect again? How should they be punished? I remember that it was execution, right? Yes, very well, you can go die now.” Wen Chao couldn’t hold himself back any longer, unsheathing his sword and lunging at Wei WuXian. With that, he lunged out of Wen ZhuLiu’s range of protection. Wen ZhuLiu had always been used to defending against the attacks of others. He had never expected Wen Chao to leave by his own will. Facing the sudden difficulty, he somehow couldn’t react in time. On the other hand, as Wei WuXian provoked Wen Chao, he was precisely waiting for the moment of uncontrollable rage. The smile by his lips didn’t falter at all as he attacked with the speed of lightning. In a split second, he had snatched the sword and reversed the situation, subduing Wen Chao with just one move! One hand gripping Wen Chao, he leaped a few times and landed on one of the islets above the pool, keeping his distance from Wen ZhuLiu. With his other hand he pressed the sword onto Wen Chao’s neck, warning, “Nobody move. If you’re not careful, I might just decide to let some blood out of your Young Master Wen!” Wen Chao screeched, “Stop moving! Stop moving!” The disciples surrounding Lan WangJi and Jin ZiXuan finally ceased their attacks. Wei WuXian shouted, “Core-melting Hand, you’re not moving either! You know how the temper of the Wen Sect’s leader is. Your master is in my hand. If he loses just one drop of blood, then not one of the people here should hope to live on, including you!” Wen ZhuLiu put his arms down as Wei WuXian had expected. Seeing that the situation was under control, Wei WuXian was about to speak when he suddenly felt that the entire ground below him had trembled.

- Chapter 52, EXR

Important things to take away? Firstly, it’s Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan who are the ones standing in front of the metaphorical (and literal) blades here, risking their own well-being and health for someone else to protect them directly. That’s their first instinct. Wei Wuxian’s is not***. His thought process is this: taunt and enrage Wen Chao, the powerless person in charge, into leaving the protection of the actually powerful person everyone’s scared of, and then use the opportunity of him being undefended to use him as leverage to get Mianmian free****. And he succeeds in that! It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know about the Xuanwu’s presence, the Wen clan were very deliberately keeping that information a secret.

That is very well thought through, especially for such a short timespan, and especially considering the actions of the only other two people who tried to protect Mianmian — a protective stand-off that they very probably could not win, with the likes of Wen Zhuliu around. I repeat: they are the ones standing in the way of the blade here. Wei Wuxian is not. This is what Wei Wuxian does in situations like these, this is how he solves problems! He’s not unthinkingly reckless, he is not a self-sacrificial idiot.

…not that I’m saying Lan Wangji is one either, but he’s never portrayed as one anyway.

And just for the fun on it, let’s take a look at the branding scene too, to see if we can pick anything else up:

Just as he was about to let go, a cry suddenly came from behind him. The cry was full of fear. Turning around, Wei WuXian saw Wang LingJiao give orders to three servants. Two of them brutishly held MianMian in place, clenching her face, while the other raised the branding iron in his hand and thrusted it toward her face! The tip of the iron was so heated that it sizzled and shone with red light. Wei WuXian was some distance away from them. Seeing what was happening, he immediately shifted the direction of the arrows and let go of the string. The three arrows shot out at once and hit each of the three people. Without making a noise, they fell backward onto the ground. Yet, before the bowstring even ceased to vibrate, Wang LingJiao suddenly grabbed the iron that had fallen as well. Gripping MianMian’s hair, she again shoved it toward her face! Even though Wang LingJiao’s level of cultivation was extremely low, her move was both swift and cruel. If she really did it, even if MianMian could keep her eye, her face would be completely ruined. A woman like her, even under such dangerous circumstances where people were prepared to flee at a moment’s notice, still kept her persistent thoughts of harming others! All of the other disciples were setting up their arrows, handling the beast with all of their attention. Nobody was near these two. There were no more arrows on Wei WuXian and there wasn’t enough time to grab someone else’s. Under the urgency of these circumstances, he rushed over, one hand striking away the arm that Wang LingJiao grabbed MianMian’s hair with and the other landing forcefully at her chest. Having undertaken the strike, Wang LingJiao heaved up a mouthful of blood and flew backward. However, the tip of the iron had already pressed onto Wei WuXian’s chest.

- Chapter 53, EXR

…as you can see, there’s a lot more to this than blindly rushing in front of the branding iron. Again, what can we take from this?

One, Wei Wuxian’s first instinct, again, is not to take the strike directly. He shoots the three servants holding down and actively trying to brand Mianmian, eliminating the threat to her. Wang Lingjiao at the time was just giving orders, she wasn’t an active threat — everyone else was fighting the Xuanwu, there was nobody else to give orders to.

But, surprising him, Wang Lingjiao immediately picks up the branding iron. And, like the servant, she aims it at Mianmian’s face. As Wei Wuxian remarks later, that’s a mark she couldn’t hide — her face would be ruined forever, and considering the setting of this world where marriage is extremely important to women society-wise, it would have lasting consequences for Mianmian’s whole life. Marks to the chest, at least you can hide.

And nobody else is focusing on Mianmian, and there’s no time for Wei Wuxian to call for help from anyone else. Ranged attacks aren’t an option, since he’s out of arrows. And only then does he rush straight to Mianmian, to save her directly.

See the full post

343 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

I think the thing that bothers me about ‘extremely self-sacrificial Wei Wuxian’ takes is that they all make his reason for helping others focus somehow on himself, when it’s the opposite that’s true. His kindness is taken as low self-esteem, his righteousness as low self-worth, and his confidence (when it is acknowledged) as a hero complex. It’s always “I deserve this” or “these people are worth more than me” or “I should be the one taking everything onto me, even if other people offer help, even if accepting the help would make things easier for everyone”. It’s always because of some sort of issue with him that he ends up helping people. And maybe that’s true for some characters, and maybe that’s the case in other fandoms, but that is not the case with Wei Wuxian.

Something so many parts of the fandom seem to forget is that Wei Wuxian is someone who enjoys his life — and he enjoys it so, so much. He loves playing around and night-hunting with the Juniors and spending time with Lan Wangji just having fun. He does not want to see it end early (again). But he’s not someone who stands back when injustices happen either, and he’s not someone who will stay put and watch others suffer. And when that happens, yes, he’ll step in. But that isn’t about self-worth or self-esteem or anything, it’s because We Wuxian is a kind, empathetic person with a moral core.

The main thing isn’t the cost of the action. The main thing is the action itself.

He put it best himself:

“Let the self judge the rights and wrongs, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on.”

- Exiled Rebels translation, Chapter 75

And it’s sad that that seems to have been forgotten by so many people, because that philosophy is at the core of Wei Wuxian’s character. It’s the thing that lets him move on so easily from the (many) traumatic events of his first life, it’s what makes him able to let go of resentment rather than let it fester or drive him on (contrary to people like Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao), it’s the idea shared to him by his parents in one of the only memories he has of them, and the idea he lives by.

That’s why he steps in to save people, even at cost to himself. Because he judges it to be the right thing, and he does the right thing, even if it’s hard. And he never regrets it.

And I think that’s a much more inspiring story to tell than that of someone who’s constantly throwing themselves in front of the axe to save others because they feel they deserve it.

(Part two of this discussion)

364 notes - Posted July 27, 2022

I'm rereading some of the flashback scenes in MDZS, and a little moment stood out to me:

This is right before Wen Chao finds him and throws him into the Burial Mounds, and just as he suspects here, it's indeed an act – a cover for an ambush. And I wanted to highlight this moment that shows us just how smart and resourceful Wei Wuxian is.

Because we all know he’s smart in more abstract ways – he invented a whole new form of cultivation, he made and invented lots of tools that revolutionised night-hunting, and so on and so on. But he isn’t just abstractly smart, and that’s something lost in a lot of takes I read. Like this moment shows, he’s very smart practically as well – he picks up on subtle hints, he can deduce things from extremely limited information, in the moment it’s happening and when it’s important now. He is extremely resourceful and perceptive, not someone who’s only smart theoretically and then somewhat stupid in the real world. He’s even very good at picking up on people’s emotions (and when needed, at using them to his advantage)! He’s not oblivious, whether it’s about emotions or the practical world, at all.

...And I do think a lot of this was born out of necessity. He grew up on the streets, where there was danger all around him – being observant and resourceful is a necessity in that sort of environment, and even if the younger Wei Wuxian didn’t need a lot of convincing before he would trust someone (look at Jiang Fengmian), he still almost definitely picked up those there. And it’s not like Lotus Pier was a safe environment, either! His default isn't to be suspicious of people, which is important to note, but he can pick up on red flags very, very quickly.

Of course, none of that makes this any less impressive!

547 notes - Posted September 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

...I need to see more content of Wei Wuxian solving problems by manipulating people’s emotions.

He isn’t a long term manipulator like Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang, but it’s actually one of his main strategies when it comes to solving problems! Stopping Mianmian being sacrificed in the Xuanwu cave? He angers Wen Chao into stepping out of Wen Zhuliu’s protection, allowing him to hold him at swordpoint and to take advantage of Wen Zhuliu’s loyalty, meaning that he (the greatest threat at the moment) won’t attack them. Helping Lan Wangji fight Xue Yang in the mists of Yi City where he can’t be seen? Taunt Xue Yang into talking by bringing up Xiao Xingchen, a subject he’s very sore on, so Lan Wangji can find him by ear. Suspect that Su She is behind the loss of everybody’s spiritual powers at the Second Siege? Mock him so he grows impatient and careless, as well as trick him into thinking he (Wei Wuxian) had two pages from the Collection of Turmoil to heighten that effect and stir up paranoia, so he carelessly uses spiritual power to deflect Lan Wangji’s attack – something he probably wouldn’t have done otherwise.

That applies when he’s on the defensive too. When Wen Chao and co capture him in Yiling and he doesn’t even have a Golden Core, what does he do? Use his words to scare him into not killing him – very much manipulating him emotionally (though I do believe he meant/wanted to mean what he said then, too)!

I’ve talked a bit about how he’s very resourceful, but something else that’s overlooked is that he’s also extremely emotionally perceptive, and won’t hesitate to use that to his advantage in dangerous situations. He may not be someone who manipulates for some ambitious, long-term goal. But as a tactic or a strategy? He’s very good at it, and it’s a method his mind very much defaults to when solving problems.

1,160 notes - Posted September 15, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #i… only created 34 posts?#i know i’ve been a bit inactive lately but #seems like i did a lot more than that wow #not mxtx

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donttalkaboutmemes · 2 years

Text

Make Mine Music (1946) Lyric Meme

Under the cut you will find 100 lyrics from the 1946 Disney movie Make Mine Music to use for your roleplaying enjoyment!

Make Mine Music

1. “Make mine music and my heart will sing.”

2. “Make mine music and it’s always spring.”

3. “All the world goes romancing when melody fills the night.”

4. “Even the stars go dancing to the music of the moonlight.”

5. “Make mine music and I’ll dream of you.”

6. “Make mine music and my dreams come true.”

7. “Music will play the shadows away when everything seems to go wrong.”

8. “Make mine music and life will be a song.”

The Martins and the Coys

9. “Gather ‘round me children, and I’ll tell a story of the mountains in the days when guns were law.”

10. “When two families got disputin’, it was bound to end in shootin’.”

11. “So just listen and I’ll tell you what I saw.”

12. “They was reckless mountain boys.”

13. “They took up family feudin’ when they’d meet.”

14. “They could shoot each other quicker than it took your eye to flicker.”

15. “They could knock a squirrel out at 90 ft.”

16. “After that they started out to fight in earnest.”

17. “They scarred the mountains up with shot and shell.”

18. “Just how many bit the dust is hard to tell.”

19. “At the art of killing they became quite deft.”

20. “They all knowed they shouldn’t do it.”

21. “On each side they only had one person left.”

22. “He was set to pull the trigger when he saw he pretty figure.”

23. “You could see that love had kicked him in the face.”

24. “They say they’re ghostly cussin’ gives ya chills.”

25. “It broke up the best darn feud in these there hills.”

26. “I’m tellin’ you them ghosts don’t cuss no more.”

Blue Bayou

27. “Roll along, blue bayou.”

28. “In your dreamy light, memories echo in my heart tonight.”

29. “I hear the echo of our song of love, murmuring low.”

30. “Here am I, still haunted by the ghost of long ago.”

31. “Roll the blue and sleepy shadows home.”

All The Cats Join In

32. “Hop in the old jalop and head for the malted shop.”

33. “All the cats join in.”

34. “Down goes my last two bits, comes up one banana split.”

35. “Drop your jack in the jukebox. Play your favorite disc.”

36. “When you dance with the bobby sox, you dance at your own risk.”

37. Swing til the rafters ring.”

Without You

38. “I’m so lonely and blue when I’m without you.”

39. “I don’t know what I’d do, sweetheart, without you.”

40. “The joy and tears that love endears would have no meaning if I didn’t have you to keep me dreaming.”

41. “At the close of each day when I’m without you and my heart kneels to pray, I pray about you.”

42. “You take a star and you lead it far away from home.”

Casey At The Bat

43. “Oh what a lark to ride out to the park.”

44. “The ladies don’t understand baseball a bit. They don’t know a strike from a hit.”

45. “That dame has got it.”

46. “The loyal fands stood pat.”

47. “The guy who’s the idol of all, but mostly the ladies.”

48. “A dangerous gent.”

49. “When he goes to bat, hang on to your hat.”

50. “He’s battling a thousand percent with the ladies.”

51. “He has nerve and he knows every curve.”

52. “He’s sure okey-dokey.”

53. “He makes all the ladies go gaga, it’s true.”

54. “No wonder they swoon when he comes into view.”

55. “Somewhere in this favored land, the sun is shining bright.”

56. “Somewhere bands are playing sweet and somewhere hearts are light.”

57. “Whattya know, the game is over.”

Peter and the Wolf

58. “There is also a wolf.”

59. “Little does that wolf know what’s in store for him this day.”

60. “There seems to have been a change of plans.”

61. “This is very embarrassing for a great hunter.”

62. “Excitable little chap, isn’t he?”

63. “Oh boy, a gun! Loaded too.”

64. “Imagination is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it can run away with you.”

65. “He’s a fun-loving sort, maybe a little shy on brains. You know the type.”

66. “Oh, how can they ever get any place if they’re going to fight among themselves?”

67. “And so, once more our little band of intrepid hunters set forth to find the wolf.”

68. “Oh, that wolf is everywhere!”

69. “Don’t just stand that way! Don’t stand that way either.”

70. “This is no time to relax!”

71. “Will this crime go unavenged?”

72. “You beast! Take this! And this! And this!”

73. “Look out, please, for overconfidence.”

74. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

75. “Oh happy day! I think I’ll say that again. Oh happy day!”

Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet

76. “Twas love at first sight and they promised they’d be sweethearts for evermore.”

77. “He sang of a beautiful palace.”

78. “Her beauty was sought by the girl she was bought by.”

79. “Your girl will always be waiting for you.”

80. “Don’t give up hoping and don’t give up dreaming, for true love will come smiling through.”

81. “His heart became gay once more.”

82. “I thought you were someone I knew.”

83. “Whenever you find yourself blue, you’ll find its June in December if you just remember that true love will come smiling through.”

The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At The Met

84. “This is how it all began.”

85. “Then this fantastic news appeared on the front page and in the screaming headlines.”

86. “Extra! Read all about it! Paper!”

87. “Headline followed headline.”

88. “Impossible! Preposterous! We savagely deny it.”

89. “Magnificent! Miraculous! We certainly certify it.”

90. “Get me a great big schooner and get me a good harpooner.”

91. “There was no time to lose.”

92. “Now at last success lay just over the waves.”

93. “He’s looking for you! It’s your big opportunity!”

94. “Goodbye, my friends! I’m off to be discovered!”

95. “At last the long years of patient waiting, the endless hours of faithful practice, were about to be rewarded.”

96. “He wondered what to sing for his opening number.”

97. “What would impress this impresario?”

98. “They hadn’t heard the half of it. They hadn’t even heard a third of it.”

99. “People aren’t used to miracles.”

100. “Don’t be too sad. Miracles never really die.”

#ask meme #rp meme #sentence meme #askbox meme #disney meme #movie meme #lyric meme #make mine music

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stirlingmoss · 4 months

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62. Then bow to God, and worship. 61. as idlers? 60. And do you laugh but not cry, 59. Do you then wonder at this history? 58. none can reveal it but God. 57. The impending approaches: 56. This is a warner from among the warners of old. 55. Now which of the powers of your Lord do you dispute? 54. so they were covered over. 53. and God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, 52. and the people of Noah before that; for they were most unjust and most cruel; 51. and the Thamud, not allowing them to survive, 50. and that God annihilated the ancient ‘Ad, 49. and that God is the Lord of Sirius, 48. and that it is God who enriches and satisfies; 47. and that God is committed to another creation; 46. from a seed when it’s emitted; 45. and that is Who created couples as the male and the female, 44. and that is Who causes death and gives life, 43. and that is Who causes laughter and lament, 42. and that the final aim is to your Lord; 41. then he will be requited with the most complete reward 40. and that his purpose will be seen; 39. and that man gets only what he works for, 38. that no one can bear the burden of another, 37. and of Abraham, who fulfilled his commitments, 36. Or is he unacquainted with what is in the scriptures of Moses 35. Does he have knowledge of the invisible, so that he can see? 34. who gives a little then stints? 33. Have you see the one who turned back, III. 32. To those who avoid serious sins and vile acts, discounting minor derangement, your Lord is indeed extensive in forgiveness. God knew you best on producing you from the earth, and when you were covered in your mothers’ wombs. So don’t try to justify yourselves; God knows best who is conscientious. 31. For to God belongs what is in the heavens and what is on earth, that God may requite those who have done evil for what they have done, and reward those who have done good with what is best. 30. That is the extent of their knowledge. It is your Lord who knows best who has strayed from the sacred path; and God knows best who accepts guidance. 29. So avoid those who turn away from Our remembrance and want nothing but the life of the world. 28. without knowing what they’re talking about; for they follow only assumption; and surely assumption is no substitute for truth at all. 27. Those who do not believe in the hereafter are actually calling the angels female names, 26. However many the angels in the heavens, their intercession is of no avail, except after God has given permission to whomever God wants and chooses. II. 25. So to God belong the end and the beginning. 24. Or is the human being to have what he desires? 23. They are only names, designated by you and your ancestors, for which God has not sent evidence. Indeed, they follow only conjecture, and what their egos desire, even though guidance has indeed come to them from their Lord. 22. Then that would be unfair division. 21. Is it the male for you and the female for the deity? 20. and the other one, Manat, the third? 19. But have you seen the goddesses Lat and Uzza, 18. He actually saw the greatest of the signs of his Lord. 17. his gaze did not deviate or stray. 16. When obscurity veiled the lotus tree, 15. near which is the garden of eternity. 14. by the lotus tree none can pass, 13. He saw him, in fact, on another descent 12. and yet you argue with him over what he sees? 11. His mind did not imagine what he saw; 10. and revealed to the servant of God what is divine inspiration. 9. as close as two bow lengths, or closer, 8. then he approached and came near, 7. at the highest range of view, 6. one full of intelligence: he stood up straight 5. one strong in power taught him, 4. It is just an inspiration with which he is inspired: 3. nor does he speak from desire. 2. your companion has not erred and has not gone astray; 1. By the star when it descends, 0. In the name of God, the Benevolent, the Merciful

#53:0-62 #The Star

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averrse · 1 year

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Part 2 of my SoC reread notes. Pages 46-165 of my edition.

(Note: I am sometimes lightly critical of Bardugo, and I have some Issues with Matthias, so fair warning! I keep it to a minimum, but sometimes these things come up.)

Inej could never be sure which stories about Kaz were true and which were rumors he’d planted to serve his own ends. For all she knew, he’d conned some poor honest trader out of his life savings to make the Crow Club thrive.

Breaks my heart a little bit that Inej thinks this, but I understand why, and I'm also sure Kaz would like that she can't be sure.

“Brick by brick,” he muttered to himself. They were the only words that kept his rage in check, that prevented him from striding through the Emerald’s garish gold-and-green doors, demanding a private audience with Rollins, and slitting his throat. Brick by brick. It was the promise that let him sleep at night, that drove him every day, that kept Jordie’s ghost at bay. Because a quick death was too good for Pekka Rollins.

God bless Kaz thinking of the colors of the Emerald Club being "garish" even in the middle of his revenge fantasy. He's such a snob in his weird way. But it's also interesting to me that he believes killing Pekka outright would not "keep Jordie's ghost at bay." I think in reality, it's more that having his revenge quest gives him purpose and keeps him from having to actually face his grief.

Kaz could see himself as he was then, walking the Stave with dazzled eyes, hand tucked into Jordie’s so he wouldn’t be swept away by the crowd. He hated the boys they’d been, two stupid pigeons waiting to be plucked.

One thing I've always liked about Kaz's characterization is that he's internalized this hatred of who he and Jordie were. While he feels the need for revenge against Pekka for taking advantage of them, he also feels that they deserved to be taken advantage of because they were naive. He has clearly taken the role of Pekka many times, taking advantage of 'pigeons'... yet he also hates Pekka for doing it.

“I’ve seen Suli tellers ply their trade in caravans and pleasure ships, Inej. They didn’t seem so very holy.” “They are pretenders. Making themselves clowns for you and your ilk.” “My ilk?” Kaz had laughed. She’d waved her hand in disgust. “Shevrati,” she’d said. “Know-nothings. They’re laughing at you behind those masks.” “Not at me, Inej. I’d never lay down good coin to be told my future by anyone—fraud or holy man.” “Fate has plans for us all, Kaz.” “Was it fate that took you from your family and stuck you in a pleasure house in Ketterdam? Or was it just very bad luck?” “I’m not sure yet,” she’d said coldly. In moments like that, he thought she might hate him.

God, this whole conversation. Holy microaggressions, Kaz. Like, yeah, bud, I'm sure you understand Inej's culture better than she does.

But there are some interesting character things here. Inej is lumping Kaz in with... basically what Kaz would call pigeons (which I think is why he got really fucking cruel about her family).

Also, Kaz doing shit that will obviously upset Inej, then thinking she probably hates him--which he doesn't seem to want but he does seem to want but not really. Therapy.

The peepholes were a feature of all the brothels. They were a way to keep employees safe and honest, and they offered a thrill to anyone who enjoyed watching others take their pleasure. Kaz had seen enough slum dwellers seeking satisfaction in dark corners and alleys that the allure was lost on him.

Hey, look, it's one of those passages that make me REALLY uncomfortable with Kaz being 17 in the book and this being marketed as young adult and I'm just going to stay in denial about it.

But, yeah. If I ignore that aspect, it is sorta telling about how he views physical contact outside of just the touch aversion.

“It’s just a question of leverage, Nina.” “You don’t know him.” “Don’t I? He’s a person like any other, driven by greed and pride and pain. You should understand that better than anyone.”

Greed and pride and pain. God bless Kaz for not knowing how any person could function differently than he does.

“And Kaz Brekker?” [Nina] “A liar, a thief, and utterly without conscience. But he’ll keep to any deal you strike with him.” [Inej]

I love how Inej talks about Kaz. It almost strikes me as her describing him as he'd want to be described.

“You were early, Jesper,” Kaz said as he nudged Matthias toward the boat. “I was on time.” “For you, that’s early. Next time you plan to impress me give me some warning.” “The animals are out, and I found you a boat. This is when a thank-you would be in order.” “Thank you, Jesper,” said Nina. “You’re very welcome, gorgeous. See, Kaz? That’s how the civilized folk do.”

Love Kaz being mad at Jesper for being on time. Love Kaz assuming him being on time is to impress him. Love Nina, like, in general.

Although on a more seriously note, I do wish Kaz would be nicer to Jesper. He's SO negative toward him all the time at this point in the book.

Matthias knew monsters, and one glance at Kaz Brekker had told him this was a creature who had spent too long in the dark—he’d brought something back with him when he’d crawled into the light. Matthias could sense it around him. [...] He’d heard Brekker’s name in prison, and the words associated with him—criminal prodigy, ruthless, amoral. They called him Dirtyhands because there was no sin he would not commit for the right price. And now this demon was talking about breaking into the Ice Court, about getting Matthias to commit treason.

This is interesting to me, because Matthias is pretty much only this negative about Nina and Kaz. To me, it really reflects how Matthias basically thinks anybody who has experienced marginalization or poverty is evil~ Also, his interpretation of the Dirtyhands nickname being tied to "sin" is... telling.

“I worry about everything, merchling. That’s why I’m still alive. And you can keep an eye on Jesper, too.”

Maybe two people who follow me will understand when I say this but... Why is this line almost word-for-word a line John Sheppard has said?

ANYWAY. Kaz worrying about everything. Kaz having plans on plans on plans. Kaz catastrophizing about everything as a matter of survival.

He saw a shadow pass over Inej’s face. She wouldn’t like being without her knives any more than he liked being without his cane.

!!! EQUATING HIS CANE WITH HER KNIVES !!! Especially since this is near the section where Inej thinks about how her knives make her feel like she's safer and has more agency in her life.

The sensation of skin on skin set off a riot of revulsion in Kaz’s head, but because he’d been anticipating the attack, he managed to control the sickness that overcame him.

We love accurate representation of what touch aversion is like~

“You can’t spend his money if you’re dead.” “I’ll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.” “There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.” He’d turned his back on her then, giving each of his gloves a sharp tug. “And when I want a sermon on that, I know who to come to. If you want out, just say so.” Her spine had straightened, her own pride rising to her defense. “Matthias isn’t the only irreplaceable member of this crew, Kaz. You need me.” “I need your skills, Inej. That’s not the same thing. You may be the best spider crawling around the Barrel, but you’re not the only one. You’d do well to remember it if you want to keep your share of the haul.” She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t wanted to show just how angry he’d made her, but she’d left his office and hadn’t said a thing to him since.

This has happened a couple of times already; Inej will say something that low-key hurts his pride or his feelings, and then he'll snap back at her in some way he doesn't really mean. I think he is particularly harsh to her at times because she is generally harder to warn off his sensitivities than the others. (Absolutely not an excuse, just an observation. He's fully in the wrong here and most of the time, lol.)

It’s just a place, she told herself. Just another house. How would Kaz see it? Where are the entrances and exits? How do the locks work? Which windows are unbarred? How many guards are posted, and which ones look alert? Just a house full of locks to pick, safes to crack, pigeons to dupe. And she was the predator now, not Heleen in her peacock feathers, not any man who walked these streets.

as;dlkfj i love that inej tries to see things through kaz's eyes to try to feel in control. I think this is why she understands him better than most people; that is EXACTLY the reason he thinks that way too.

#. headcanon #. aj reads soc

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slinglouis · 2 years

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hello everyone! after reading 200+ fics this year, i decided to make a fic rec of my favorite fics that i read in 2021. these were all wonderful works, and if you choose to read them (which i highly encourage!) please remember to leave kudos for the authors! in no particular order, here's the 2021 end of year fic rec:

one sole will survive by starryharry (@lt2soon) | T | 71K

The one where Harry and Louis fake a relationship so Louis can get another shot at winning his favourite reality competition, Survivor.

now that you’re in it, what will you do? (keep your eyes open, they’re coming for you) by starryharry (@lt2soon) | NR | 81K

The second part of the Survivor AU series; the game from Harry's point of view. (Second part to the above fic - PLEASE read both, you won't regret it!)

Hold You Now by @solvetheminourdreams | M | 131K

Three years ago, Harry Styles said goodbye to communications consultancy firm McQuiston Worldwide, leaving a life of travel and agency PR behind. When he accompanies his best friend to a family wedding across the Atlantic, he'll be forced to reopen old wounds and face his past—one that no one wants to hash out, but may just have to.

Join Me In The Afterlife by guccikings | E | 262K

The one where Louis is a simple guy - all he wants from his summer break is to spend some quality time with his mother, get to know her new husband, and learn to play the guitar. Nothing out of the ordinary, that is for sure. However, life has a funny way of working and when Louis finds a strange boy sitting on his bed one sunny day, his summer break takes a turn for the better (or worse) when he discovers a ghost has stolen his heart from the get-go.

Have Love, Will Travel by @kingsofeverything | E | 97K

Rather than spend the summer working at their desks, Louis and Harry are given the opportunity to crisscross the country together in a tiny camper, filming their adventures for a YouTube series.

It soon becomes obvious to their viewers that there’s something more than friendship between them. Eventually, they figure it out.

don't want to fight you by starryharry (@lt2soon) | M | 124K

The one where two fighters can also be lovers because routines are never permanent.

Like Water Over Fire (Like Water On Fire) by MCSSymon | M | 119K

Prince Harry has 46 men and 13 weeks to find the husband of his dreams, Louis has a limited amount to time to live out a royal fantasy. They might just be exactly what the other needs.

plant new seeds by glitterhaz (@cloudslou) | T | 45K

Louis works at a lonely community garden, Harry is the upstanding fraternity man who makes it all feels a little less lonely. Over the course of a semester, that is.

smell the sea, feel the sky by lightswoodmagic | E | 16K

Louis doesn't know how he's going to spend a week with the one person he wants and can't have. Harry proves him wrong.

Caught Up in the Countryside by @cowboylarries | M | 60K

Louis Tomlinson had a great life, or so he thought, until everything came crashing down on him and he had to run away from his hurt. When he ends up in a little cowtown in Utah, everyone is so friendly, including Harry Styles, the hot hotel chef. Louis is welcomed into Harry's friend group but Louis isn't so sure that he can just be friends.

reach the heavens own blue by loubellies | E | 21K

Louis is a Boston Red Sox and Harry is a New York Yankee.

On The Edge by zanni_scaramouche (@zanniscaramouche) | E | 47K

Olympics AU where Louis is a figure skater, Harry is a hockey player, and a baggage mix-up brings them together.

You've Got My Devotion (Hate You Sometimes) by lucythegoosey (@harryrainbows) | E | 95K

Harry and Louis are forced to fake-date after an old video from when they were dating emerges.

Three Days in February by writing_practice (@mercurial-madhouse) | E | 188K

How close is too close? Harry and Louis are about to find out after a drunken night leaves Louis cursed. With only a week before tour starts, the race is on to fix things before they lose Louis forever. Oh, and Harry has to keep his long-time crush on Louis a secret while the lad can literally hear his thoughts. Easy, right?

Pining For You by peanutbutterapple | T | 10K

Harry sells Christmas trees. Louis doesn't mean to buy so many of them.

Call Me a Thief by moonlighting | NR | 9K

Of all the people on campus, the one person Louis can’t seem to stop running into is Harry fucking Styles. And he keeps stealing all of Louis’ shit.

Bite by Tita | E | 10K

Louis is a vampire hunter, and Harry is too happy being his prey.

But If This Ends by nonsensedarling | E | 107K

Harry’s life as a vampire is routine. He spends his years moving around from place to place, learning as much as he can, and falling in love whenever the universe sees fit. When he tries to move his casual relationship with Louis to something more, it all gets turned on its head.

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Love After the End of the World by writing_practice (@mercurial-madhouse) | E | 163K

When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.

It Goes, It's Golden by lucythegoosey (@harryrainbows ) | E | 151K

Canon Compliant AU in which Harry and Louis broke under the strain of it all and now, years on, there's a chance to put all the pieces back together. Set in early April 2015 all the way through to October.

Dreaming Of You by velvetoscar | NR | 69K

The Begrudging Starbucks AU.

once bitten and twice shy by pinkcords | M | 15K

In a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. He plans to work his way through the trip, eat his mom's cooking, and avoid everyone from his past for as long as possible. The only problem is best laid plans hardly ever go as intended.

Lonesome When You Go by 13ways | E | 158K

Harry, Louis, Niall, and Liam are surgeons-in-training at the most prestigious program in the United States.

Remember Me Fondly by kiddle ( @bluejeanlouis ) | M | 74K

Grunge legends Fearless Doe topped the rock charts in the ‘90s, but they spent the decade kicking Smudge off their heels. From lawsuits to jaw-dropping scandals and a surprising joint world tour, the two bands share a complicated history.

Twenty-five years later, frontmen Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles are finally ready to sit down and tell the world their two sides of the same story.

You Watched Me Sink by bananasandboots | E | 38K

The one where Harry teaches Sex Ed and sneaks around with the drama teacher, and doesn't realize how out of tune he is with his true feelings until everyone else figures it out for him.

hustling for the good life by bravestyles | NR | 120K

At the beginning of his sophomore year of college basketball, Harry's struggles with binge eating disorder and depression come to a head.

7 Up by cherrystreet | E | 52K

We follow the lives of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson in an interview setting every seven years. They fall apart and come together, their lives and emotions recorded. Harry calls it a time capsule. Louis calls it a pain in the arse.

let me look in his eyes by me_her_themoon (@laurelsmybeloved) | GA | 2K

based off a post on tumblr and harry's love advice during hsloveontour chicago night 2

(header creds to the wonderful @freelouisankles)

#here she is!!#pls boost these authors and fics deserve it!#fic #fic rec #this was a joy to make

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mostlymaudlin · 3 years

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Carry On / Epilogue - Baz POV

Any Way The Wind Blows / Chapter 16 - Baz POV

Any Way The Wind Blows / Chapter 46 - Simon POV

It’s really nice that this is an established bit of their relationship from the beginning. They both tend to view their love in cosmic proportions, but from the start they give each other the out. They say: This thing only works while we both fight for it.

The first time, Simon is just saying it out of a place of insecurity, but I think this is at the core of how Baz views any relationships. Baz grew up in a household where love was left unsaid. He lived with the fear that his family only let him stick around out of obligation. It makes total sense that he’s looking for the opposite with Simon — he doesn’t want Simon bound to him. He wants Simon to choose to be with him, every day. It’s only after Simon basically pulls an “it’s not you, it’s me” on Baz during the breakup that he gives up. “How can I convince him that we’re a good thing if he doesn’t believe in good things?” Baz asks himself in that scene. If Simon isn’t willing to choose the good thing (to eat the cake, if you will), then he can’t choose to love Baz.

Simon has such minimal experience loving and being loved that he’s not sure what he wants from it. But he’s learning, mostly from Baz, that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing — that they can both “break life into bites you can swallow,” as Simon’s therapist says. They can sleep in the same bed until one of them chooses to stop. It’s lovely that Simon’s the one offering this confirmation in the last quote.

They don’t owe each other forever. It’s not pressure, nor an added burden. They’re choosing to work to keep each other for as long as they want it. And that very well might be forever, but the choice is made day after day until then.

#my favorite theme: love as choice #I hope no one thinks I’m subtweeting the forever boyfriend post I’m not #Simon is def bazs forever boyfriend imo lol #but that’s bc they’re going to choose each other every day forever #🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰#a

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undertale-data · 3 years

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[Image Description: an Undertale chat box that has “MINOR CHARACTERS and NPCS” in its center. Next to it is a radar and a line chart from the Dating Hub. End I.D.]

The depth and variety of NPC characters in Undertale is an amazing quality of the game. Many Undertale fans have grown attached to minor characters that may not even have any speaking lines. The goal of this section of the survey was to showcase the love fans have for the broad cast of loveable background monsters, and see which of these monsters stand out the most.

If you participated in the survey, you may realize that the NPC and/or minor character question was the only question that was completely free-response. This allowed for a very wide range of answers—a total of 126 distinct NPCs were listed by responders. However, this freedom meant that some responders were unsure of which characters counted as minor characters. Often in their responses people would ask if their character counted as minor. This question was especially common among those who picked Burgerpants, Temmie, Muffet, Gaster, and Grillby. This seems to be a testament to these characters’ popularity in fandom. Though most of them only have a few lines at most, their fans consider them a major part of the game. More fans may enjoy these characters, but not have listed them because they did not consider them minor enough.

On the other hand, there were a few responses for characters such as Chara, Asriel, and Sans, who would not count as minor characters for the purposes of this survey. Though Chara and Asriel may not appear for long, their story is integral to the plot of the game.

This brings us to our methods for processing the responses given about NPCs and minor characters. Characters that were not minor (Chara, Asriel, etc.) were removed from the responses, as were characters that do not belong to Undertale canon (Deltarune-specific characters and Undertale AU characters). Each response was transcribed by Ficus Licker to create a standardized tally of votes. For example, responses that listed “the bunny who runs the shop in Snowdin,” “the shopkeeper bunny,” and “bunny shopkeeper” would all be listed in the graph and word cloud as “Snowdin Shopkeeper.” Some responses for specific NPCs were consolidated into their major grouping. For example, Gaster Follower #2 was lumped with “Gaster Followers” in the data; in contrast, “Bob” was listed separately from the other Temmies. If a responder described a character but did not know their name, the character’s name was counted, as far as we could understand who they were referring to. There were a few specific bunnies without names that were described and may have been listed simply as “bunny.” The names chosen for the survey were either the characters’ names as listed on the Undertale Wiki, or the most recognizable abbreviation (“small gap bird” being substituted for “bird that carries you over a disproportionately small gap.”

Without further ado: the top 25 Undertale NPCs (under the cut)

[Image Description: a horizontal side graph titled “TOP 25 FAVORITE UNDERTALE NPCS.” From top (least) to bottom (greatest): Scarf Mouse, with 25 votes; Mad Mew Mew, with 30 votes; everyone, with 32 votes; Onionsan, 33 votes; Naracat Jester, 37 votes; all dogs, 43 votes; Lesser Dog, 43 votes; Nice Cream Guy, 46 votes; Woshua, 46; Annoying Dog, 47; Froggit, 49; W.D. Gaster, 53; Fuku Fire, 54; Small Gap Bird, 58; Heats Flamesman, 61; Snowdin Shopkeeper, 62; Muffet, 63; Napstablook, 78; Gerson, 80; Riverperson, 81; Shyren, 93; Grillby, 110; Temmie, 143; Burgerpants, 148; and, finally, Monster Kid, with 169 votes. End I.D.]

After all the data was compiled, Monster Kid was by far the most popular NPC according to the responses. This may be because they fit in that “sweet spot” where they are not popular enough to have a large and vocal fan following, so fans consider them a minor character, while still being very memorable. Some fans still asked if they counted as a minor character. The prompt did not specifically ask for what fans like about the minor character(s) they picked, so there is less information on why Monster Kid is a fan favorite. Of those who did give a more detailed response, some of the highlights were mentions of them being baby, being a good friend, and being cool. Here is one fan’s response about them for reference:

“I like Monster Kid! they're such a fun character and I like how we journey with them in Waterfall for a while. their idolization of Undyne is adorable and pretty nice, i like how he was quick to defend us (the player) during the pacifist and neutral routes where in we help him up, meaning that even if faced against their idol, they will defend their friend rather than let her harm them, plus i find it pretty cool that they become a fan of Papyrus at the end of the Pacifist route, and it also makes sense knowing how nice and positive the guy is.”

It would be impossible to go into this much detail about the other popular NPCs, but the next top four favorite NPCs were Burgerpants, Temmie, Grillby, and Shyren. Shyren in particular was more popular than we had expected. Hum hum hum.

Another interesting sidenote is that Gaster only had 53 votes (2.0% of responders), despite appearing in 13.2% of Undertale fics on AO3 at the time this was written. From this contrast, we hypothesize that many people did not think to pick Gaster as a favorite NPC due to his status as a major character in fandom. A few responders who chose “I don’t care for any of the main Undertale characters” mentioned Gaster in their explanation, lending more weight to this theory.

It has been inspiring to see the amount of love that fans have for each minor monster in Undertale. I do not know if there was any NPC, named or unnamed, who did not have at least one vote.

(Even Jerry.)

[Image Description: a lumpy wordcloud with no definied shape. The text is all capitalized, and is colored blue and green. Some of the most visible words are: Monster Kid, Burgerpants, Temmie, Grillby, Shyren, and Gerson, which represent the most common NPCs that responders chose to list. End I.D.]

View the full NPC results in table format by clicking here.

#character analysis #undertale #results #undertale fandom census

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tessiete · 2 years

Note

Hi! For the Spotify wrapped, could you do song 46 with Cody and Obi-Wan? You decide if it's platonic or romantic!

WILLOOOOOOOOOW!!!! Alright, so, so, so for YOU I broke my vow to never write Codywan, and wrote my first Codywan. I'm gonna tell you right now that @the-last-kenobi was NO help, and advised that I skip plot and for for "straight vibes".

The vibe you chose was Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives.

So, I'm afraid I've gone a bit tragic, a bit dark, and with an ambiguous (possibly sad, sad end?)

I HOPE YOU LIKE IT, BECAUSE YOU ARE SO LOVELY AND KIND AND I DON'T WANT TO MAKE YOU SAD! (Unless it's the good, fic-reading kind of sad, you know?)

ANYWAY - tw: mentions of violence, discussions of death, assassinations, ambiguous ending (of which one possibility is major character death).

It only took my little fingers to blow you away

It’s raining the night he rolls into town. Gun-metal sheets of water glinting in the lamplight of 47th street. Downtown. Yesterday’s news lines the gutters, the print bleeding out, black ink spilled across the street, running into the sewers, the evidence of the past washed away and forgotten. Distant figures cluster on street corners. The red eye of a cigarette glares at him as it’s passed from hand to hand. A siren wails. Dawn is a distant, impossible thing at this hour of the night. A pipe dream. The city is full of them.

God, Cody hates this place.

He cracks another sunflower seed between his teeth, and rolls up the window of his Phaeton trying to ignore the twist of envy that curls on the breeze like smoke. He’s been trying to quit. He’s been trying to move on. From a lot of things.

All he needs is a bit of money. A bit more money, he thinks, and then he can move upstate. Find a farm. Find a bit of green, and a creek, and maybe, finally, some peace. Freedom. Escape.

This job is one step closer to that. No matter how much it sickens him to do it.

Cleaning up for the Empire isn’t his idea of noble work. But it’s better to be on the right side of the devil than in his path, and he knows he owes them. One spot of trouble coming out of service, and he’s paid for it ever since.

“Damn it,” he growls, cracking the window to spit the shell.

Well. This rain isn’t letting up any time soon. Best to get this over with.

The diner is empty when he goes in - or, at least as good as.

Some guy with skin folded over itself like origami sits at the countertop making his way through a bowl of soup, hand trembling with each slow sip. His hat lies by his hand, turned up so the band is visible. It’s white with salt, and the brim is bent. Cody spares him an errant glance. Seems like they both have seen better days.

He rings the bell for service, and a man steps through the saloon doors from the kitchen, a gingham towel thrown over his shoulder. He’s neither short, nor remarkably tall. His hair falls over his brow in a haphazard way - far different from the neatly combed coif of his DA photo. His mouth is softer, too, and he smiles at Cody.

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

The photo Cody has is in black and white. Nobody told him anything about the colour of his eyes. They’re blue. An aching, stunning blue that Cody thinks must have only looked on clear skies and mountain views. They’ve certainly never seen this city. They’ve never seen the streets - not the way Cody’s seen them. This is his target?

Shit.

A muscle in his jaw jumps as he grits his teeth. Doesn’t matter. Job’s a job.

“Sir?”

He realises he’s been staring. So much for subtlety. The old man shoots him a sideways glance, slurping at his soup.

“Yeah,” Cody says. He clears his throat. “What’s good here?”

“Ah,” the man stammers, blinking in the dim, yellow light of the diner. His eyes dart to the side, and Cody can tell by the way his mouth twists, and the way he runs his hand nervously over his beard that he’s not accustomed to lying. “Most people just order coffee,” he says, finally.

“Alright,” Cody says, sliding onto the next barstool over. “We’ll start with that.”

The man’s hands are steady as he pours him a mug from a large pot. Cody likes it black, and so he sets aside the bowl of cream, and the little caddy of sugar. He notes the angle of the man’s hip as it juts out to brace a tray against it, the coffee pot balanced neatly on top. He snags a pencil down from above his ear, and flips up a worn notepad already filled with the indecipherable scratches of his handwriting. From this angle, Cody can see some of it is in shorthand, and thinks, that’s right. Vader said he was a spy. A traitor.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter to him.

“Can I interest you in anything else?” the traitor asks. “Anything to eat?”

Cody takes a sip from his coffee. It’s cold, and burnt, and coats his tongue like treacle. Awful stuff, but he reckons it’ll keep him up. Already he can feel the buzz of caffeine clawing its way over his skull. Whatever the taste of it, there’s no denying that it’s strong.

He shifts slightly to see the old man, still digging away at his bowl of soup. He can’t do anything with him here, he was strictly told: keep it tidy. So he glances at the menu, the peeling plastic and old food stains make it practically impossible to read, but he figures a diner is a diner. It ain’t that complex.

“You got any desserts?” he asks. “Milkshakes? Ice cream?”

“We’ve -” the man breaks off, like he’s said something out of tune. But he squares his shoulders and tries again. “We’ve got some pie. It’s fresh.”

“Oh, yeah?” Cody says. “What kind?”

“Apple.”

“Any good?”

The man smiles, showing his teeth, lines breaking away from his eyes like sun rays, bright with joy, and Cody thinks he might be fucked.

“Best thing you’ll get in this place.”

At this point, Cody’s convinced that grandpa in the corner is drinking from a bottomless bowl of soup, or else Obi-Wan - Obi-Wan, he’d introduced himself as - has been topping him up. He’s been sitting here for more than an hour, watching his mark ever so graciously flit back and forth between his two customers with all the charm of a born politician. Snakes and scoundrels, the lot of them. It makes perfect sense for Obi-Wan to be a master of this. After all, it was his silver tongue that negotiated the Utapau Pact. His efforts that sealed the Treaty of Geonosis in ‘43. His voice that spoke out to undermine the Mustafar Agreement which put this whole damn thing into motion. Cody knows this man is a cheat, and a liar, and a fraud, but it’s so damn hard to believe that when he’s watching him laugh with the old man like an old friend.

When he laughs with Cody like that, too.

“A top up?” he asks, sidling over with the coffee pot. “Or do you think you’ve punished yourself enough for one night?”

Cody nods, his mouth grim as he pushes his mug forward to be refilled. The cuff of his sleeve pulls back, and he catches Obi-Wan looking at the tattoo inked at the base of his wrist. Obi-Wan blinks, and looks away.

“Military man then, are you?” he asks. His voice is carefully casual, his eyes downcast. His hand shakes.

Cody only shrugs. He hates it when they make a scene.

“Used to be,” he says. “Now I’m just a humble man, trying to make my way in the world.”

“Aren’t we all?” Obi-Wan says, voice soft. He fills the mug then steps back, licking his lips. He glances over his shoulder, but the old man hasn’t gone anywhere. Hasn’t called him either. He’s looking for a quick escape. He clears his throat. “Another slice of pie, sir?”

“Sure,” Cody agrees. The night isn’t getting any shorter. “Why not?”

God, it’s got to be well past midnight now, and that damn fool still hasn’t left. Obi-Wan’s definitely topping him up, though, but Cody doesn’t want to read too much into it since he was doing it before he knew Cody was ex-military. Cody begins to suspect he does it a lot.

“You’re right,” he says, clearing his plate of a third helping of pie. “That was good.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says. He ducks his head, and when he looks back up Cody is horrified to see a vivid blush spread across his cheeks. “I made it.”

“What?”

“I made the pie,” he says with an indifferent shrug. “There’s an apple tree just down the street from the boarding house I live at. Not beautiful red apples, or those sour, green ones, no - or I suspect I would have had to fight to get my hands on them. No, it’s just these ones. Northern Spy, I think they’re called. Good for baking, and, well, I like to keep my hands busy.”

“Is that so?”

Obi-Wan nods. “Anyway,” he says, his smile fainter and more brittle now. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Well in that case,” Cody says. “Sit. Share a slice with me.”

Obi-Wan hesitates, glancing at the old man.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Hey,” Cody says. “I hear it’s on the house.

Obi-Wan is a fantastic conversationalist. Obi-Wan speaks four languages, and has a doctorate in English, and has climbed literal mountains, and has, by pure coincidence, lived in the same town that Cody was born in.

He doesn’t tell him that, though. He only listens as Obi-Wan describes the familiar streets, and the familiar faces with all the loving detail of someone who never wanted to leave.

“Dex’s ain’t in Pawalo,” he corrects, as Obi-Wan describes the greasy little hole-in-the-wall that’s a favourite of all the locals. “That’s Cocotown you want.”

Obi-Wan catches the slip before Cody does.

“Oh, you’ve been there?”

“A bit.” Cody takes a sip of his coffee, wincing at the taste and hoping it covers his chagrin.

“Then you know how beautiful it is.”

“Yeah,” Cody says. “Suppose I do.”

There is silence between them for a moment. Cody can hear the old clock ticking on the wall over the register, and the patter of rain against the glass, and the old man’s spoon scraping the ceramic of the bowl.

Obi-Wan leans forward over the table, and Cody, instinctively, leans in to hear him.

“Have you come to kill me?” Obi-Wan asks.

Cody looks him dead in the eye. “Yes.”

“I see,” says Obi-Wan. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t beg. He only leans back in his seat, his arms wrapped over his chest, and brow furrowed deeply in thought. He’s a strategist, Cody realises. Like himself. And a realist. He takes an unflinching view of the world, and knows his place in it. He knows he’s overstepped. He doesn’t fight it, now.

You can only admire a man like that.

Obi-Wan rubs a hand over his jaw, gently. Tenderly. He handles himself with a certain care as though he means to offer himself the comfort which the world at large has denied him.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan muses. “I had thought Vader might catch up to me eventually.”

Cody nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels the warmth of Obi-Wan’s hand over his, reaching out across the table to pat it reassuringly. As if it were Cody who was to meet death imminently. As if he were giving Cody sympathy.

He smiles, and Cody...Cody fucking cracks.

“What’d you do?” he says. That’s a thing he never does. He never should do. He knows better than to ask this, and get reeled in by a bad story. It doesn’t matter. He’s not the boss. He just pulls the trigger. He knows it’s better to know as little as possible about why.

Obi-Wan knows better, too.

“If this is going to be my last night,” he says. “I’d much rather we talked about something else?”

“You have until that old man goes.”

So Obi-Wan talks, and Cody listens.

More stories about travelling, and teaching, and studying. More stories that skirt close to the war, then dart away again. It’s hard, Cody knows, when so many friends began and ended in those ranks. It’s easy for your thoughts to wander back there. Easy - but dangerous.

But Obi-Wan is nimble, and soon, he has even distracted Cody from his brooding thoughts, and in a sudden, shining instant, he is laughing.

And then Obi-Wan is laughing. And Cody is telling his stories. All of them. As many as he can think of, and for some reason, with Obi-Wan, he can only think of the good ones. The ones when he was happy. Obi-Wan’s eyes shine with delight, and his cheeks are red with the flush of joy. Cody can feel that same heat coursing over his face, and he wonders when the last time was that he felt warm.

He can’t remember. The city is always so cold.

“I’m going to move upstate,” he says. “I’m gonna get out of here once my contract’s paid up.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Cody says. “Maybe Alderaan. Maybe Naboo. Heard there’s a pretty little town called Mandalore I’d like to go to. Gonna buy a farm, you know? Try growing something for once.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“And you -?”

Cody blinks. His gut twists, and his stomach flips over on itself. Eight tours of duty, and this is what’s going to make him lose his supper? But it’s sick. He’s sick. The taste of apple is still on his lips. Obi-Wan sighs, looking at Cody’s mouth.

“I want peace,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m tired of running. I’m tired of - do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy? To know it’s coming, that is. I don’t blame you. And I think it might be nice...to rest.”

“Obi-Wan -” He leans close, reaching for Obi-Wan’s hand where it lies between them, and gripping it.

“Only I - I should like a little taste of happiness. Don’t you think? Or is that too selfish to ask?”

He leans in to Cody, offering himself up to the pull of Cody’s gravity, and Cody surrenders with him, tilting ever so slightly until they are touching, brow to brow, the warmth of their breath mingled between them.

“It’s not selfish,” Cody swears. “Not at all.”

He lifts his other hand to cradle Obi-Wan’s jaw. The rasp of his beard is as soft as Cody had imagined it, and he is warm, and yielding beneath his touch. Cody lifts his chin, and Obi-Wan relents, his eyes drifting shut as Cody closes the distance between them with a kiss.

The bell over the doorway rings, and Obi-Wan pulls back. Cody opens his eyes, not noticing he’d shut them, and Obi-Wan smiles in the yellow light. Outside, the rain pours, dragging the night down with it. The old man has gone.

“Well,” Obi-Wan says. “I suppose my time is up.”

#my fic #spotify prompt fill #codywan #tw: violence #tw: death #maybe?#obi-wan kenobi #commander cody #modern au #film noir #i have no idea how this is gonna go

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gingersnaaps · 3 years

Text

at your window

hanahaki: the fictional disease where a person, afflicted by unrequited love, grows flowers in their lungs and stomach. unless the love is reciprocated, the disease will grow fatal. there's one workaround, though - one that issei matsukawa is very interested in: the plant can be physically removed.

wc: ~3.8k

tags/tw's(PLEASE PLEASE READ): n*fw, masturbation only(no sex), stalking, snuff, gore, blood, yandere!matsukawa, sorta necro(attraction but not sex), noncon filming, fem!reader but no mention of genitals

a/n: for @suedebunn's april showers collab // this is the most self-indulgent thing i've ever written and i spent way too long on it. it's supposed to lean towards horror?

i don't want minors interacting with my content

March 8th, 2013

[12:47 am]

The longer Issei sits outside your window, the harder it becomes to stop himself.

His face is pressed up against the dusty glass pane, peering inside at the outline of your sleeping body, and he finds that he can’t help but fixate on it. You look so peaceful, so tranquil, completely at rest as your mind flits between the shadowy realms that dreams inhabit.

He wonders what kind of wonderland you’re in right now - if it’s cotton-candy pink and delightful, just like you, or dark and hazy and spun with danger.

You’d look beautiful in any setting, he thinks, and finds his hand inadvertently drifting downwards.

His gaze rakes over the rise and fall of your chest, taking in the flashes of bare skin where your sheer nightgown rides up, his breath catching as his palm glides over his clothed cock. The friction feels so good - there’s no question that he wants this, needs this - and he wastes no time unzipping his pants and reaching in to free his dick. He doesn’t need to fantasize much, not when you’re mere feet away, instead making sure he sears every detail of your sleeping form into his mind: your fluttering eyelashes, your shallow breaths, the soft glow of your skin in the moonlight.

Issei quickens his pace, stroking up and down the shaft of his cock with purpose, thumb flicking over the slit. His breath huffs against the glass, clouding the surface until it’s dripping with condensation, but he still sees you as clear as day in his mind even as the real image of you blurs. You’re blissed out and relaxed, shoulders free of tension, your lips curving slightly into a smile.

He closes his eyes, rolling his head back as he works his cock, every single brush of his fingers leaving him twitching with sensitivity. You look like an angel, picture-perfect and frozen in time and consciousness, as if you were a framed picture or a museum exhibit preserved just for Issei to admire. Just for Issei. He lets out a quiet groan at the thought as he cums, his hips stuttering and cock jerking up.

You turn over fitfully in your sleep.

Looking down at the cum dripping off his fingers, he wants nothing more than to crawl in through your window and wipe it on your face. It’s an unmistakable mark of ownership, a sign that you belong to him alone, but he hesitates. He’s a bit of a shy guy, you see.

He can wait.

March 14th, 2013

[10:01 pm]

He has to conceal himself a bit better tonight than he would on his normal visits. This time, he’s a bit early, and you’re still awake.

His back is up against the siding of your house, right beside your window, but he can still see you in the periphery of his vision. You’re sitting at your desk, bathed in the warm light of your desk lamp, hunched over some math worksheet and scribbling furiously with the pencil in your hand.

Forget the moon; you glow even prettier as the world around you fades to dark.

Just like every other night, he takes in every detail meticulously. Your hair is messier than it was the previous day - maybe you hadn’t washed it in a while? He doesn’t mind, because it’s endearing when you’re messy and imperfect, barefaced in your pajamas, a little rough around the edges.

He thinks it’s similar to the way you’d look after being fucked stupid, if he closed his eyes and tried to picture you being ruined.

Issei tries very hard to ignore the way his cock strains in his pants at the thought.

March 23, 2013

[11:30 pm]

The mild spring breeze carries the sweet scent of fresh blossoms and green grass, leaving behind the wintry chill that he had to shiver through each night to be at your side - well, as close by your side as he could get.

These little visits have become a part of his life now, as ingrained as waking up in the morning or eating three times a day. It’s comforting for him to watch you from his spot outside your window each night, admiring you as you go about your nighttime routine, puttering from your desk to your bathroom to your bedroom.

He’s started to take some pictures, maybe even a shaky, pixelated video or two, just to tide him over when he’s alone by himself. They’re no replacement for the real thing, obviously, but it’s enough for him to be able to carry around a reminder of the way you look and sound all the time, even if it’s just a shadow of what you’re like in person. He’ll scroll through his camera roll, fingers trembling with excitement, hissing as he brings his hand down to stroke at his cock.

It’s always better in person, though. He sees you more clearly, hears the sound of your voice muffled through the walls, and most of all, he’s closer to you.

Issei likes to make it last, likes to prolong the pleasure as much as possible, so he always starts off with slow, gentle, pumps, gliding up and down his cock with his index finger and thumb curled into a circle. It’s honestly a miracle how you haven’t noticed yet, because he always tends to lose himself after he starts.

Face pressed close against the window in order to get the best view possible, his warm huffs of breath cloud up the cold glass as he strokes himself faster. His eyes rolling back into his head, his two digits of measured stimulation give way quickly to full, hard, pumps of his cock until soft moans start to spill from his mouth.

It’s hard to resist when you’re right there.

Tonight, you’re sprawled out on your bed, phone held above your face as you chat with your friend on video call. You’re shaking with laughter at some silly joke your friend’s telling, head thrown back and chin tilted upwards, face shining with joy, and he suddenly feels a warm, warm feeling of arousal course through him.

Seeing you happy turns him on, makes his cock so hard even though he just came minutes prior.

The sound of your voice carries through the walls, carefree and bright, chattering on and on about some assignment - or maybe it’s a complaint about the teacher, he’s not too sure - and he smiles contentedly at your silly little worries. Too cute, really.

You suddenly cough.

It’s an ugly sound, dry and strangled, and he cringes at the way your body tenses up and shakes. The coughing fit feels far longer than it actually is; every second of your hacking and wheezing is compounded by the panic gripping him. He watches, helpless, as your face turns ashen and grey, his heart seizing with dread and pounding in his chest.

It’s over as quickly as it begins.

You smile weakly, brushing it off as you apologize to your friend, but he can’t shake the uneasy feeling that settles at the pit of his stomach. He tugs up his pants, bare thighs and dick feeling awfully exposed in the night wind, and scurries back home. Maybe another night, then.

April 1st, 2013

[12:09 am]

You’re not in your room today.

Issei leans his head against the cold glass of your windowpane, hands shoved into his jacket, his mind clouding at the edges and overrun with possibilities. He doesn’t recall seeing you making plans with friends the previous night, and there’s not much you could be really doing right now - you have no boyfriend, no plans that he knows of, no real reason to just be gone.

He’s always thought of himself as a calm person. He doesn’t fall victim to temporary urges and flights of emotion the same way that Oikawa or Iwaizumi might, doesn’t do anything reckless on whims he knows will disappear just hours later.

But there’s just something about you that always makes him lose himself, isn’t there?

The window is fogged up with condensation, obscuring his view inside your room. He reaches out the sleeve of his jacket, wiping away the dew clinging to the surface, and squints as he tries to make out the scene in the dim lighting.

On the floor, awash in a pool of moonlight, lies a yellow flower petal spattered with blood.

April 4th, 2013

[4:46 am]

Issei’s not stupid.

He knows what the flower petal means, knows what your sickness means. He’s read about it in books, heard the tales from his parents friends, the whispered legends and hushed myths that make one thing clear:

You belong to someone else.

It’s a thought that fills him with revulsion. You already have Issei; is he not enough for you? Are you such a whore that his devotion falls short of what you’re so clearly greedy for?

He’s stopped restricting himself to just his nightly visits. They’re not enough, not when he can’t seem to go five minutes without his thoughts inevitably drifting to you - you in your fluttery, sheer nightgown, lying in your bed, your frame growing sicker and frailer as the blood drains from your cheeks and your coughing fits grow more frequent.

You can hide it from the prying eyes of your friends at school, from your teachers, even from your parents(as long as you make sure to roll your eyes a few times and lean into that murky, illusory persona of teenage angst), but here in your bedroom, your sanctuary, all your vulnerabilities crawl out and bubble to the surface, bared to your four off-white walls and his eyes only.

You can’t hide this from Issei; not the symptoms, and certainly not the disease.

He sets his alarm every day early enough to hear the nighttime croaking of frogs, the shrill, insistent chirping of cicadas, hours before the sky bleeds daylight, making his way over to your house. He stands outside, silent, his fingers pressed up against the window.

He doesn’t know why he goes anymore. You look ugly when you’re sick. Your healthy complexion has given way to grey, and his dick goes limp every time he tries to jerk himself off. It’s a reminder of the fact that he can’t ever have you the way he used to dream about: lively, healthy, and wholly devoted to him and him alone.

At this point, the pictures and videos of you are the only thing he has left, a pitiful reminder of everything you used to be. He has no use for those other girls from porn sites online, or even the scantily clad social media posts of his classmates. Issei only wants you, but you aren’t quite who you used to be, and every time he trudges home after staring through that stupid window, there’s always a bitter aftertaste in his mouth that makes his blood curdle.

It’s not that he’s jealous, exactly. He doesn’t really give a fuck who you’re pining after, because it’s you he cares about. He wants to own you, to possess your body, mind, and soul, wants you to end up at his side one day, acknowledging him with tears brimming in your lovely eyes, voice raw and hoarse as you chant thank you Issei, thank you, thank you for watching over me, Issei, i’m yours, Issei, i love you, Issei

Maybe it’s no wonder he can’t stop thinking about you.

April 19th, 2013

[11:52 pm]

He finds you passed out on the floor, surrounded by crumpled piles of faded carnation petals. They’re a sickly yellow, browning at the edges, tinged with blood and vomit and spit. It’s a scene straight out of a movie, illuminated by the waning moon, the cold, pale, uneven light casting shadows that dance across your body.

April 24th, 2013

[2:03 am]

Issei is nothing if not a practical man. If there’s a problem, he’s going to fix it.

He’s had enough of waiting, anyway.

April 25th, 2013

[12:00 am]

He’s never actually been inside your room before. It’s eerily quiet, save for your shallow, rapid breaths, all outside noises absorbed by the walls and curtains. It almost feels like he’s dreaming as he makes his way over to your bedside, his shadow stretching and bending in the distorted light like those funhouse mirror reflections.

Your lips are parted slightly, mouth agape as if in waiting, and he can’t help but run a finger along your cracked, ashen lips.

Issei shivers.

He’s never been quite so close to you before. It’s almost anticlimactic, the way he ends up at your side. He won’t lie; he had been hoping for a different ending, one with more sunshine and roses, one where you’d be smiling happily by his side as he tenderly holds your hand.

But he can’t change the way things are, and he’s more than willing to make the best of what he’s got.

He doesn’t have any surgical tools that might’ve been more fitting, but he supposes a kitchen knife - one he’d sharpened just yesterday - should work well enough. He runs a finger along the back of the gleaming metal, admiring the way it glints, brilliant and blinding, even in the midst of the dim room.

The old, worn, bed creaks beneath him as he climbs carefully on top of you, straddling your torso, taking care not to place too much pressure on your body. He reaches out to caress your face, brushing a loose strand of hair aside as he appraises you. In sickness, you were nowhere near as beautiful as you were before, but your proximity almost makes up for it; Issei can feel your heart thrumming beneath your skin, can feel the huff of your breath on his hand as your chest rises and falls.

He almost regrets having to do this.

Bringing the blade up to your chest, he begins to cut through your paper-thin nightgown. As the fabric rips, it falls to either side to reveal your chest, and his breath catches. The soft curve of your tits are stained with red, little green buds of growth peeking out from your chest and between your ribs. Blood blooms across your skin, thorns and stems pricking out from the smooth surface of your skin, standing out in stark relief as the sick, twisted, unnatural growth threatens to burst out of your body.

He flutters his fingers along your delicate skin, trailing gentle touches down your stomach, completely absorbed in the way you look and feel.

So absorbed, in fact, that he almost doesn’t notice the way you tense, eyes blinking awake, as pain lances through your body.

Issei’s quick, though - far quicker than you, at least, and by the time you open your mouth to scream, fear catching in your throat, he shoves a large hand over your mouth to muffle any of the unpleasant noises that threaten to spill out.

“Shh,” he whispers, voice hoarse and foreign in his own chest. He’s not used to speaking to you. “If you don’t hold still, it’s going to hurt even more.”

You freeze in terror at the implications of his words, eyes catching on the blade pointed at your chest. There’s a sudden urge to lash out, to fight back - but it quickly passes. You’re not stupid.

You know that he’s far stronger than you, far faster, and as his calm, remorseless gaze latches onto your body, you realize very quickly that any resistance would be futile.

He begins his work as soon as he feels you go limp beneath him. You’re still trembling slightly, shivering from both the fear and the cold, completely exposed, completely at his mercy. You’re still not sure who he is; maybe you’ve caught a glimpse or two of him in your classes in the past, but for the most part, he’s still a complete stranger.

Issei, on the other hand, knows you very well.

As the knife slips beneath your soft flesh, your bed quickly turns into a sea of scarlet, of vermilion and ruby, of wine-red blood that grows from a trickle to a stream to a rushing, spurting mess that stains your sheets and spills onto the floor. He can feel the spatters of your blood on his face, his clothes, can see the periphery of his vision growing red as the blank, white walls turn crimson.

He finds it’s a bit difficult to hold himself back.

Cutting you up feels like catharsis to him. He’s never seen you quite like this before, but he thinks this version of you looks very pretty, your eyes rolling back into your head, your chest shaking uncontrollably as he rips his knife through your flesh over and over again. A small, barely audible whimper slips from your lips, and he feels a shuddering mix of pleasure and revulsion wash over him.

The stark white of your bone peeks through the ripped, bloody mess. Perhaps he’s finally gone far enough.

There’s no slit or hole for him to find - he wasn’t quite so careful - but he reaches a hand in to dig around at what used to be your stomach, and begins to pull out the flowers from the roots. They’ve spread to your lungs, climbed almost all the way up your throat, the green stems and yellow flowers twisting and threading between your organs and ribs. He removes them one by one, meticulous and careful, tossing them aside as he searches and prods and kills every last trace of your disease.

The lungs are by far the hardest for him, the branches of tissue packed densely with blood vessels and capillaries, and he has to pry the clusters apart to remove the growth that’s embedded itself within the organ.

If you think about it, he’s really doing you a favor.

A wave of relief courses through him when he’s finally finished. It’s unfortunate that it had to end this way, with your face screwed permanently into that pained, tortured expression, but it’s nothing he can’t fix - he brings a bloody finger up and adjusts your features until they resemble something slightly more pleasant.

There’s no heartbeat anymore, he realizes, no rhythm thrumming and pulsing beneath your skin.

He climbs off of you awkwardly, swinging his legs back over the bed. The quilt, pooled around your ankles, is still remarkably clean considering what the rest of the room had been through, and he pulls the soft, white cover over your mangled body until it comes up to your chin.

If he moves backwards a little and squints, it’s almost like you’re still asleep.

And if he tries really hard, uses his imagination to fill in the gaps and blot out the unnecessary bits, the blood smeared on your cheeks and lips almost seems like makeup, covering up that ugly, ashen complexion from your sickness, like a rosy imitation of what he used to find so beautiful.

Maybe it’s all in his mind, but he thinks you really do look better dead than sick.

He knows it’s not right.

He knows he shouldn’t.

He also can’t quite bring himself to care.

Cursing softly under his breath, he hand wanders until it finds the growing outline of the bulge in his pants. It feels so good to do it right in front of you, especially when you look better than he’d seen you in weeks(as long as he sort of squints), and he shudders with pleasure as he palms his cock slowly.

He usually likes to hold back a little, but there’s really no point this time - it’s the last time he’ll ever be this close to you, so he might as well make the best of it, right?

His cock is rock hard and dripping with precum by now, straining with arousal against the pressure of his fist, gliding and stroking along his curved, thick length until he begins to feel that warm heat coiling in his stomach. He kind of wishes that you were still alive to see him jerking off to your perfect face, pumping his cock desperately as he fixates on the fake blush of your skin. It’s almost exactly how you look before you fell sick - minus the gore splattered on your sheets, of course - as long as he pretends that you’re still breathing, that your pulse is still thrumming steadily beneath those soft, white quilts.

He fists his cock a bit faster, rhythm increasing as he feels his balls growing heavier, his dick flushed and desperate for release. Although he’s sad that you’d never be able to fully participate, he supposes it’s for the best.

Better dead than hung up on someone else, right?

As he turns his gaze back onto the flowers he’d ripped out from your chest cavity, he feels a perverse burst of pleasure coursing through him. He can’t help but feel proud of the way he’s made everything right, how he’d gotten rid of that annoying little crush you’d been harboring for weeks. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see the way you’re thanking him from the afterlife, tears of gratitude and joy in your eyes at the freedom he’s finally given you.

Issei finishes with a low, pleasured, groan, his cum spilling into his waiting hand as he strokes himself through his orgasm. It’s one of the strongest orgasms he’s had in quite some time, and he can’t help but think it’s the commemoration you deserve.

As the blood rushing in his eardrums slows, the hazy, uncertain world around him seems to stop spinning, and he feels himself being pulled back down from his high. If he strains his senses, he can hear the nighttime din through your walls, quiet and ever-present. He looks outside, the streetlamps flickering dimly, staring off into the inky stillness of the star-lit night.

Funny that he’s finally on the other side of your window.

Maybe he should leave you one last present.

April 26th, 2013

[9:00 am]

When they find you in your bed the next morning, your mother screams and your father cries.

They never saw it coming, did they? You were a good girl, someone who always did what they were supposed to do, said what others told them to say, acted exactly how they expected you to. Never got yourself into the slightest hint of trouble.

It’s a horrific scene: their precious daughter, limbs mangled and organs torn up, stomach and chest cut wide open as if straight from a horror movie. The room seems to swirl with hostility, and the four walls, once your sanctuary, had turned into an image of brutal, bloody, violence - with your body as the centerpiece.

It’s not until they step closer that they realize the dried, white, glaze on your face is cum.

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Ken and Osamu

In doing meta for this blog, I generally try and focus on things that aren’t immediately apparent, or things I feel haven’t been sufficiently talked about over the years, and so in the case of Ken I always feel at a bit of a loss with what to write about him -- in a series that could sometimes be frustratingly subtle about things, Ken’s character arc was very much not, and it all comes down to “what can I even add to the conversation that isn’t immediately obvious, or hasn’t been covered a million times already?”

But since I’m now on this trail of extensively covering the Tokyo Chosen Children in detail, I feel like I ought to do something, because, really, I love and adore him as much as the rest of us do, and after putting some extra attention I thought I should bring some attention to Ken in his backstory prior to the events of 02, and, more prominently, his relationship with Osamu, one of 02′s most enigmatic backstory characters.

What we know of Ken and Osamu’s early life is limited, and largely told through the mouth of Ken, whose view of the entire situation is heavily skewed (in multiple ways) -- especially since a lot of the drama surrounding the brothers happens specifically because Ken himself is only capable of processing his own perspective and not truly understanding what Osamu must have thought at the time. We also don’t really have a lot of content to work with, with the vast majority of what we do have coming from a single 02 episode (23), which means we’re really going to have to go through this with a pair of tweezers.

The very important 02 episode 23 starts off setting the tone for how Osamu was doted on by everyone, and it’s important to distinguish the expectations put on him as being distinct from one like Jou’s, whose family was deliberately aiming him for high status. In the case of Osamu, his being recognized as a “genius” seems to be somewhat accidental -- basically, at some point, people noticed he was a “smart, good boy” and started praising him for it, which caused the Ichijouji parents to also get in on it. In essence, the Ichijouji parents -- and, eventually, many other parents who started “noticing” similar traits in their Dark Seed-implanted children -- got a bit too caught up in “riding the hype”.

02 indicates that a lot of this kind of behavior is somewhat selfish on the part of the parents -- having “a kid you can be proud of” has a very blurred line with stroking one’s own ego, and both the above scene in 02 episode 23 and a later scene with the Dark Seed children’s parents in 02 episode 46 very distinctly involve “parents comparing their kids to other kids”. At the same time, however, it’s not like this situation is done entirely out of greed. It’s an unfortunately common situation that a lot of kids who have been labeled as “gifted” will testify about -- these kinds of parents also legitimately think that this is the best thing to do for their kid. They’re so proud of them! They have so much potential, it’s their job as parents to foster it! When the Ichijouji parents reflect on what might have gone wrong with Osamu and Ken in 02 episode 23, their conversation also carries a nuance that, at least, Osamu had seemed to like studying (or, at least, not dislike it) -- it was just that they weren’t paying closer attention what could have been his more silent pleas to be able to play more and be relieved from the pressure.

It’s like the story of the nine-year-old child sent to Columbia University that apparently freaked producer Seki Hiromi out enough that she told the story of how it influenced 02′s production at least five times and then made Kizuna 20 years later based on this same story. It sounds “glorious” for your super-amazingly-accomplished kid, but it also robs them of everything that lets them have a “normal childhood”.

Another interesting thing to point out about this whole situation is that it not only focuses on Osamu’s apparent smarts, but also on him being a “good boy” -- that is, well-behaved. This is important because “the pressure of being well-behaved” was also said to be another major theme behind 02, especially because the final arc deals very extensively with children feeling pressured and scored because their parents and society didn’t consider their dreams acceptable (Oikawa Yukio and Hida Hiroki being cut off from the Digital World in childhood by a well-meaning but overly strict Hida Chikara, and the Dark Seed children feeling that they’d need to crush all of their future dreams for being too “childish”.

We get a few shots of Osamu’s room in the episode (it’s apparently also Ken’s if Spring 2003 and staff notes are to be believed, but for some reason the episode itself fails to depict the bunk bed both refer to), and, interestingly, it’s filled with some rather high-end computer equipment and other electronics (especially high-end given the time period!) and a ton of books. It’s thus implied that the Ichijouji parents were happy to splurge on Osamu for “whatever he needed” to foster his talents further...but there are no toys or anything you would normally associate with an elementary school-aged child.

Again, since we only have the very skewed perspective of Ken as an unreliable narrator, it becomes difficult to tell what Osamu himself felt about all of this -- but we have a certain degree of evidence about what it might be.

When the Digivice emerges out of Osamu’s computer, Osamu exhibits some...interesting behavior -- he “looks sad” when he takes the Digivice, and starts getting suspiciously possessive of it, to the point he actually physically hits Ken and insults him as “the worst kind of person”. It’s tempting to think that these events might have been exaggerated by unreliable-narrator Ken, but in fact, the Animation Chronicle -- one of the only potentially neutral sources we have about Osamu -- actually corroborates this:

Ken was a Chosen Child. But jealous of this, Osamu takes the Digivice from him.

Osamu’s strange behavior, including the parts that even Ken himself doesn’t seem to understand, very likely has to do with this -- after all, Ken states that he was able to sense something about the Digivice that drew him to it, so it’s equally as possible that Osamu was somehow able to sense that the Digivice was not for him. He may not have psychically been told the full details of what being a Chosen Child meant, but he probably knew enough to understand it’s Ken and not you -- and thus possessively shut away the Digivice so he could deprive Ken of it, with his resentful feelings increasing even further when he later came upon Ken staring at it and clearly having fun.

In short, the reason Osamu lashed out so violently and coldly to Ken? Osamu was just as jealous of Ken as Ken was of Osamu.

In Spring 2003, Ken, having moved on past a lot of the situation and able to look back on it with a somewhat clearer view, starts somewhat tapping into what Osamu’s emotional problems were at the time:

Around 1999, you were still using the top bunk of our bunk bed. I slept on the bottom, even though I wasn’t happy about it and wanted to sleep on top. When it became spring and it got warmer, the room would get so hot that I’d often pull the covers off the bed in the middle of the night… but you’d gently cover me with them again. I knew the truth then. You were always in a bad mood and you were cold to me, but now that I think about it, maybe you really wanted to be nicer to other people. I don’t know what happened to you that made you act like you did, but now, I finally feel like I understand a bit. You were demanded to grow up fast, weren’t you, Brother? Because we were always being evaluated and compared by someone, we didn’t get a chance to have more freedom. We didn’t have any chances to run down an alley because we felt like it, or pull up weeds, or tumble around… meaningless things, things that didn’t bring any value to us at all. Just like the cat napping on the roof… we weren’t able to fully enjoy any everlasting freedom.

While both Ken and Osamu were under the pressure of “expectations”, Osamu had it much worse due to being doted on by so many adults as a “genius”, and therefore was crumbling under the pressure of “growing up fast” -- to be the perfect, well-behaved, smart child that society wanted him to be. All of that started eating away at his emotions as he started losing the ability to be “a normal child”, resulting in him becoming emotionally cold and taking out his frustrations on others. And so, when Ken -- someone who is much more able to enjoy that life of “being a happy, normal child” than he is -- got something for him and thus another amazing thing he could be happy about, Osamu spitefully tried to take it from him out of jealousy, because although he was seen as someone who “has everything”, he’d actually never truly been able to feel like he had anything for himself.

And in fact, that part about Osamu “wanting to be nicer to other people” is also corroborated in the episode itself:

Osamu is said to be the one who prepared the bubbles and cut straw for them whenever they blew bubbles together (possibly one of the only true kinds of “child’s play” we ever see him doing), but says that Ken is the only one able to blow them well, because his always burst. It’s a statement about Ken being naturally gentle compared to Osamu, but Osamu (almost self-effacingly) labeling himself as inherently unable to do it, combined with Ken’s observations in Spring 2003, carries another implication: Osamu knew exactly what kind of person he was turning into, and hated this about himself.

And before any kind of resolution could be made for him, his life was cut short.

The visual symbolism in the episode with Osamu being the spitting image of the Kaiser (or, perhaps, the other way around) was of course caught by nearly everyone, but in any case, Ken ends up modeling his Kaiser persona after Osamu, or, at least, his perception of Osamu as a “strong” kind of person that he felt pressured to emulate. Out of guilt over believing he indirectly caused Osamu’s death and the void in his family, Ken tries to force himself to fill it by becoming smart, well-behaved, and -- indeed -- emotionally closed off, because that’s a “strong, perfect person”. However, being cruel is not in Ken’s original nature, and while the Dark Seed ends up making it easier, he is, ultimately, forcing himself. His stint as the Kaiser is full of indications that he actually isn’t very good at being sadistic, as the series carries on and the facade comes to crack more and more easily, until finally his rejection of his actual self completely fails in 02 episode 21 and he becomes forced to accept everything.

The first bit of irony here is that the Dark Seed sending him over the edge ends up causing him to lose track of that original motive when he ditches his parents and the real world entirely, ultimately becoming even more of a child when he starts trying to treat the Digital World as a playground.

The second bit of irony is that, despite him trying to model himself after his perception of Osamu in the belief that this was what constituted more of a “perfect person who could do anything”, Osamu himself never wanted to be this kind of person, either.

In the end, because Ken and Osamu were never able to reach a resolution while the latter was alive, Ken’s illusion in 02 episode 49 involves Osamu being the one to deliver the message of Ken being “forgiven”, because Ken, who no longer has any way of truly verifying what Osamu was feeling and thinking at the time, desperately wants his forgiveness because he still perceives himself as being the one who “caused” all this, including Osamu’s death. But Osamu is dead, and Ken is never going to get that answer from him, and as Wormmon says: he can’t keep living in regrets about the past anymore. He has to move on.

Which Ken ultimately internalizes himself in Spring 2003:

There are still a lot of times when I think about how I should have “done this back then.” But I discovered that there are many things I can do over afterwards. I’ll stop counting the things that I can’t do. Because I’m sure there are many things that I can do.

As much as Ken could easily keep regretting everything he did or wasn’t able to do with Osamu, at the very least, the better thing for him to do would be to try his best to live the life that neither of them were able to have back then, but both desperately wanted.

Some random unrelated trivia

Adventure and 02 didn’t necessarily give everyone super-amazingly-meaningful names, but for years it was speculated by Japanese fans that Ken (賢) and Osamu (治) were named after Japanese author Miyazawa Kenji (賢治). This kind of “pair naming” was not unheard of in the series -- after all, Yamato and Takeru were pretty obviously named after legendary Japanese figure Yamato Takeru, and Sora and Mimi suspected to be a pun on “soramimi” (mishearing -- the series actually has a brief pun on this in Adventure episode 44), so it’s understandable that Ken and Osamu would seem to fall under the pattern.

As it turned out, they were named after Fuji TV producer Shimizu Kenji, and in fact Ken was originally supposed to be named “Ryou” before they realized it’d cause overlap with Akiyama Ryou. So in the end, it was actually a coincidence. (But this shouldn’t be taken to imply that the staff was thoughtless or anything, because while Shimizu’s name was certainly the origin, I’m absolutely certain the staff must have been aware of the irony of naming Ken with a kanji meaning “intelligence”.)

Still, while it turned out to be a coincidence, it’s fun to think about why people thought Miyazawa was the name source, because Miyazawa’s most famous work is a certain novel called Night on the Galactic Railroad, an extremely culturally influential novel that has very heavily to do with the themes of childhood, loss, death, the many meanings of “moving on”, and what each person considers to be happiness to them. The novel is in public domain and has been translated many times, so I recommend reading it if you’re interested in Japanese pop culture, because I seriously cannot stress enough how often it comes up.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta #ichijouji ken #ichijouji osamu

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