#// are we even reading the same manga here ppl

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。what if you’re someone i just want around (i’m falling again)

synopsis. somewhere along the line, you started to hate suguru—that doesn’t mean you stopped loving him too

— word count. 9.5k (i am in misery)

— contents. post canon! au — fix it! (we all need a good fix it fic with suguru don't lie), this fic was started before recent manga chapters so the higher ups are still alive—just go with it ok :,), geto survives + lives free of kenjaku, exes to lovers, kind of redemption i suppose, mentions of blood, injuries, and weight loss (geto), mentions of canon character deaths (nanako, mimiko, nanami), mentions of wanting to raise children with geto and have a family, no gendered terms but reader has a personality and actual thoughts and feelings, references to the hunger games (you have movie night lol), BFF satoru (he is babie), there is a kiss y’all !! (scandalous i know :O)

— notes. i started this fic back in march and i had trouble with it and put it on pause for a while. i’m very glad i finished it in the end. i always like fix it! fics and this is self-indulgent and idk if ppl will read it bc it’s sfw but it’s ok if they don’t, i loved writing it. thank you koi for beta-reading this whole bad boy. mwah <333

the day suguru is declared a free man is actually the day he signs away his freedom for good. 

you say nothing, but you know it’s the truth. satoru fights tooth and nail to plead suguru’s case—you think it’s perhaps a little too desperate for it to be in the best interest of suguru and not himself. but satoru has suffered enough, and admittedly—although you deny it—a small part of you does not want to lose suguru twice. you watch as satoru argues that suguru has already died once—surely he can’t die again? and losing control of his body and mind is paying for his crimes enough, is it not? he argues that there are no ideals left for a man like geto suguru to chase after losing himself to every principle he had left. 

and then satoru wins. 

you expect it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. you watch numbly as suguru is assigned under your watch. you should be happy. you love suguru—you never stopped. but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s not a free man, and now he drags your freedom with his. you’ll never break away from him, never cut through the ropes that tie your hands behind your back and bind you to him—and then you wonder for a moment, unsure if it’s selfish or selfless or some cruel in-between to think this way, if geto suguru was better off dead. 

whether that’s for your sake, or his, you’re not sure. 

and yes, he’s let off alive, and sure, there’s no real punishment for all he’s done, but you know deep down he’s as chained and shackled as he’s ever been. he’s not allowed to leave the house unless you or satoru are there to chaperone, and it’s never to be anywhere near non-sorcerers. he’s not to live in a place of his own until the higher up’s deem him trustworthy. he has to ask you to buy the things he wants from the grocery store. he can’t even step outside for a smoke unless you’re aware. 

for a long time, he doesn’t speak much—can hardly muster a barely audible mornin’ back when you force a smile and greet him cheerily for breakfast. slowly, it turns into half-snarky conversations that get cut short by one of you leaving the room. finally, you’re civil—maybe even friendly. you’re not so sure where you stand with him as of now.

it’s not the same suguru you remember falling in love with, it’s not even close to the version of the man you fell for all those years ago. it’s hard having him here—some days you’re angry and want to throw him out, to scream at him for haunting you again just when you think you’ve moved on from the horrors of your past. some days you want to cry and cling to him, bury your face into his neck and thank him for being here again, for finding his way back to you. and some days you wish you never met him at all, that this would all be easier if it didn’t exist in the first place. 

he’s not the same geto suguru you loved, but somehow, because life is as bitter as it is ruthless, you fall in love with this version just as hard no matter how much you deny it. 

“i made your favorite,” you smile gently, placing a neat plate of french toast with freshly cut strawberries on the side. you even take great care to get the syrup-to-powdered sugar ratio he likes right, but he doesn’t make a move to reach for the plate. instead, suguru sits at the table stiffly, like he has to be here or there are consequences for that too. it almost makes you sad—even here, he’s not free. 

“thanks,” he says quietly, “but i’m not hungry.”

“you said that last night, suguru,” you sigh, “and at lunch. and at breakfast. and at dinner the night before—”

“i’ll eat it later,” he cuts you off, playing with the ends of his hair. 

it’s a lot shorter now. it’s you who finds his body battered and bruised after the smoke clears. he’s almost unrecognizable, not the same charming and perfect suguru you’re used to seeing. not the same silkened strands and smooth skin, not the same muscled and toned body, not the same chiseled jaw and soft cheeks. instead, he’s a shell of himself. his hair is matted in knots, his body is almost frail, and you notice the sunken hollows of his cheeks and dark undereyes as you lift him from the rubble a little too easily. but his body is his own—that much you can tell from the way the stitches have disappeared. 

it takes shoko a long time to nurse him back to health—it takes even longer for him to open his eyes.

you waited day and night by his side, hand over his as he breathed slowly, unconscious and unsuspecting. it would be so easy, you think one night, it would be so easy to kill him and forget and move on. 

you’ve already grieved him once before. you’ve felt and conquered the pain of loving geto suguru and losing him first to himself and then to death. but love is as selfish as it is selfless, and it’s under your mercy that you let him live—yet it’s under your cowardice that you keep him close. 

“you have to gain back the weight you lost, suguru,” you sigh, “you’re w—”

“weak?” he finishes for you, eyeing you for a second and then grinning. it’s unsettling, a grin that makes your skin crawl and your heart stop for a moment before he’s reaching for the fork and stabbing into his toast. “is that what you wanted to say? that i’m weak?”

“suguru, you know that’s not how i meant—”

“you’re not wrong,” he hums, chewing on the first bite as he speaks, “i suppose i am pretty weak right now, huh? couldn’t even kill you in your sleep if i tried could i?”

your throat is dry as you shrug, “i suppose not,” you whisper. 

“ah,” he grins again, “but that doesn’t stop you from locking your door every night, does it?” 

suguru is still healing. his body is weak, and sometimes, he leans against the wall as he walks. his arm is healed—you’re not entirely sure how, but you catch him rolling the shoulder out every now and then like it’s sore and stiff. he’s lost a lot of weight—part of it is from being bedridden for as long as he was, injured and half alive, and part of it is from barely eating—save for the few bites you force into him. you never thought there’d be a day when you could say this—but the odds of you beating suguru in hand-to-hand combat are high, and the reality is an everlasting reminder that he is not who you fell for. 

you swallow, letting out a shaky breath as he watches you closely, diligently cutting another bite from the french toast sitting on his plate as he stares you down like he can see past your soul. you don’t know what’s scarier—that suguru can still practically see yours, or that you’re unsure he even has one anymore. 

“you tried coming in?” you ask, unsure what else to say. he merely shrugs, takes another bite, and sets his fork down. 

“thought i’d check on you,” he pops a strawberry half into his mouth as he speaks.

“is that what it really was?” you raise a brow, “or was i right to lock the door?”

you’re not sure why you lock the door at night. maybe it’s because you don’t trust him, or maybe it’s because you don’t want him near you just yet. you’re not sure. you’re not sure how satoru can go back to his cheery self, how he can step through your door and boom a loud yo, suguru! before settling beside suguru on the couch with his feet on the coffee table as he rambles away. maybe it’s not real—maybe it’s satoru desperately pretending that if he tries hard enough, things can go back to how they were. 

but you don’t know how he still has the energy to try, and you don’t know if you have it in you to try anymore yourself. 

you and suguru stare each other down like that for a bit, the tension rising with every silent second that passes. you’re sure he doesn’t want to be here as much as you don’t want him around—but you’re also sure he’s glad it’s here with you as much as you’re glad it’s with no one else.

“you tell me,” he smirks after a bit, the hint of amusement making your fists clench. how dare he have the audacity to look at you like that in your own home? like he has the upper hand over you without trying? “what do you think i was there for?”

“i think you should stay in your room, suguru,” you say carefully, “i bought a new bed just for that room.”

“how sweet of you,” he hums. he sips the tea before him—it’s cold by now, but it’s just how he likes it, rose with one sugar. “you must have been excited to have me.”

“hardly,” you mumble bitterly—you can’t help it. you want him to feel hurt, even just a little. you want him to know that just because he’s back, it doesn’t mean you’ve waited all this time for him to be. liar, a part of you says, you’ve always waited for him, haven’t you? but suguru doesn’t seem phased—he doesn’t even blink.

“then tell me, why am i here?” suguru asks, his tone is as casual as ever. 

i wish i knew, you want to say. i wish i knew but i don’t.

“because satoru asked you to be,” is all you can say.

he nods, pushing back his plate and standing up, offering you that same grin. “you’re right,” he hums, “that’s exactly why i’m here.”

it hits you why his smile is so unsettling once he leaves—it’s almost genuine, like he’s still loved you all this time. impossible, you tell yourself. suguru stopped loving you a long time ago. and you need to stop trying to figure out why. 

————————————————

even despite telling yourself you don’t care what suguru thinks, a small part of you needs to prove to him you’re not scared of him. that you don’t fear for your own safety in your home, and that him being here is not some form of him haunting you. you don’t care. he shouldn’t get the luxury of thinking you care. he can come in and watch you sleep like the creep he is if he wants—you couldn’t bother to give it a second thought. 

the first night you take a chance and leave the door unlocked, suguru slips into bed beside you. it wakes you up instantly, and before you can question it, his head tucks into your neck, and his hand grasps your shirt tightly. you notice the panting almost instantly—and then you realize, it must be a nightmare. 

you fall into old habits, even after all these years, defaulting to care for him like it’s second nature. 

“you’re safe, suguru,” is what you settle for saying after a moment of contemplation. it’s all you can really think to say, so you brush your lips over the top of his head as you murmur, “you’re safe,” over and over again. 

as difficult as it is to have suguru around, as painful and cruel and aggravating as it is to be reminded of his distant existence even as he’s two doors down, this part feels natural. it’s almost like you’re back in jujutsu high, waking up to him sneaking into your room as he presses his weight over your body and wakes you with soft kisses along your face. 

except this time, he’s not annoyingly demanding cuddles or telling you about his weird dream, he’s not stealing your blanket and demanding you play with his hair. this time, it’s not the same suguru—and this time, it’s not jujutsu high. 

it’s your room. the one you got on the other side of town to leave the sorcery world behind, somehow still stuck right in the center of it no matter where you go. and yet, just like all those years ago, your legs tangle, and your arms wrap him up, and you murmur, “you’re safe,” while he catches his breath. 

“but they’re not,” he mutters in between labored pants, making you pause. 

and then you remember. 

faintly, you recall the blonde and black hair from a distance, you remember bitterly wondering what’d it be like watching suguru fathering children of your own as you came to the reality that it would never happen. sometimes, you wonder if you hate nanako and mimiko for existing, for living as the dreams you never got to live through with suguru. 

it’s selfish—to hate two children because they are what you do not have. 

but then you feel something wet hit your neck, and then you wish they were okay—for his sake. and just for a moment, you’re selfless again. 

“they’re not safe,” he mutters, making you sigh. 

“they are,” you whisper, hesitating for a moment before letting your fingers slip into his hair. you scratch gently at his scalp, feeling his body melt into yours almost instantly—like it’s a response that’s natural to him. “they’re not suffering. not anymore.”

“is that supposed to make me feel better?” he scoffs. you shrug, letting your cheek press against the top of his head as you sigh.

“it helps me feel better,” you say softly, “‘s just how you learn to cope.”

it’s an understanding you both silently come to. loss on both sides. bloodshed on either ground. defeat no matter which ideal you take. to love is to bear the pain of mortality—it’s a lesson that you never cease to learn until the ends of time itself. 

“the jujutsu world is one of suffering,” he grits, sniffling into your neck. you hum, pressing a kiss to his head as your eyes close. 

“every world is one of suffering, suguru, you can’t erase them all. the sooner you realize that, the easier you’ll find peace.”

you fall into a slumber after that, faintly aware of the way he shuffles closer to you, faintly aware of the soft kiss pressed to your skin as sleep takes over your body and drifts you out of consciousness. 

when you wake up the next morning, suguru is gone, and the door is closed. the blanket is tucked up to your chin, and your neck still tingles from last night. 

————————————————

“get up,” you throw a pillow at suguru, waking him up with a start as he sits up. his hair is tousled and messy from sleep—it’s now long enough that he can put it in a bun without strands slipping from the bottom anymore. you chuckle as he glares at you, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he groans. 

“the fuck was that for?” he grunts, holding the blanket up to cover his exposed chest. 

it’s funny that he does that, in a way. it’s not as though you haven’t seen his chest…and then some too. it’s not like you haven’t torn his shirt off to stanch the flow of blood from his injuries before or feel the bare skin with your palm under the pale moonlight as the lingering scent of sex breezes through the room. 

but somehow, even though he doesn’t need to cover his chest around you of all people, you’re glad that he does. truthfully, it keeps you slightly comforted to know that he’s aware you’re still technically strangers—no matter how well-versed you are in each other’s pasts. but you don’t ponder on it too much. instead, you grin, shoving aside the visual of the small glance you caught at his pecs, and you clap your hands to motion him to hurry. 

“we are going grocery shopping,” you say casually—as though it’s not something to make him raise a brow in shock.

“me?” he points a finger at himself. you roll your eyes, and he challenges you with another raise of his brow. “aren’t i supposed to stay away from civilians?”

“yes, you,” you nod, pointing back at him, “and satoru has worked overtime to get you granted permission to roam around with me. he says you’re welcome, by the way.”

“tell him to go fuck off.”

“that’s ungrateful,” you say flatly, “his feelings will be hurt.”

“his feelings will find a way to cope,” suguru huffs. “i don’t want to be around…them,” he says bitterly. 

you suppose it’s wishful thinking to hope suguru has let go of his past beliefs. perhaps he’s long abandoned the possibility of the vision he once planned on bringing to life, but you can’t say you expected him to revert back to the old suguru who fought alongside you and satoru. you yourself certainly have no intention of returning to the sorcery world after all the events, so you can’t say you’re shocked by the lack of change he seems to show. but then again, you suppose suguru has changed. whether he sees it or not. 

he stays here and doesn’t put up a fight to leave even though he can now that he’s healed. he eats lunch when you tell him and even washes the dishes. sometimes, when you come home a bit late, dinner is even ready on the table as he sits and stares at you expectantly. his plate is empty like yours—like he’s been waiting for you even though he doesn’t need to. you suppose you can see he’s changed in the way he doesn’t scoff at the tv channels you surf through, he silently sits on the opposite end of the couch now and watches with you, and perhaps if you’re lucky, you’ll hear a light chuckle or a quiet sigh as the scenes roll on the screen. 

you suppose this suguru is a step closer to your suguru every day he spends with you, but you don’t know if any suguru is what you need right now. perhaps that name should’ve been buried away as a distant memory, perhaps it should’ve only been something you unlock once every year on his death anniversary—when satoru clambers through your door drunk and unsteady as he clutches the hand that killed his best friend, only to share pancakes with you in the morning and pretend like you don’t notice the dried tears on his cheeks while he acts like he doesn’t catch the way your hand shakes as you cut into your breakfast. 

but suguru is here now. whether it’s as geto, one half of the strongest duo in jujutsu high, whether it’s as suguru, the love of your life and the sole reason you exist, or whether it’s as geto suguru, the curse user and mass murderer who haunts your past, present, and everything in between. 

so you simply sigh, grab the pillow again, and hit the top of his head before walking over to the door as you call over your shoulder, “i’m gonna wait for you by the door in fifteen minutes. be ready or face the consequences..”

“no thanks. don’t wanna,” suguru grumbles petulantly, frowning at you as you stick your tongue at him, smirking as if you’ve just played your ace. 

“too bad,” you sing before swinging the door shut.

he’s at the door in exactly fifteen minutes, like he waited until the last possible second to join you as a move of spite. but you simply gesture him out the door and lock up, taking your sweet time as he stands there with an annoyed face. you stare at the doorknob once you’re done, taking a deep breath before turning to him with your best smile. 

“let’s go,” you hum.

“after you,” he mutters.

—

he grimaces as soon as he sees the people going about their business, clearly unhappy with the idea of being around non-sorcerers, but one sharp glare from you has him sighing and trekking along. the grocery store, admittedly, is not as bad as suguru thinks—in fact, there are lots of things he doesn’t realize he misses until he watches you grab a shopping cart. 

suddenly, he sees shadows. the silhouette of your figure climbing into the cart, the angry wave of satoru’s hands as he claims it's his turn to be pushed around, the figure of shoko pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation from the back—and then, he sees the dark shadow of baggy pants and a small bun. it’s him. suguru watches himself almost in slow motion through the remnants of his imagination as he gently shoves satoru out of the way and reaches to poke the tip of your nose before he pushes the cart with you in it.  

it’s a happy memory—and it’s gone all too soon.

as soon as he blinks, the shadows have disappeared—instead, it’s you waving a hand in his face, concern written on your features as you call his name. 

“suguru? hey, hello? are you with me?”

he exhales, pulled from his trance as he gently grabs your wrist from in front of his face and sets it down as he nods, “yeah, i’m fine. just thinking,” he mumbles. 

for a second, you hesitate, like you almost mean to say something. but in the end, you only nod before turning to grab the shopping cart. but he stops you—grabs the handle and turns to you with a small smile on his face, making you raise a brow as he gently moves you away. 

“what are you—”

“get in,” he grins, making you stare at him in bewilderment. 

“what?”

“just get in,” he sighs, “you love it when you get to sit in the cart.”

“i’m not a teenager anymore—”

“get in, will you?” he groans, “always so damn difficult.”

“hey,” you pout, glaring at him with your hands planted at your hips, “that’s rude.” it’s cute. suguru stares at you with amusement in his eyes and a soft look on his face that you don’t think you’ve really seen in years. 

“humor me,” he hums, “just get in, okay?”

so you do. 

with a huff and a grumble under your breath, you fight back a smile and climb into the damn cart just like old times. you swallow and try not to let it get to you when he reaches over and pokes the tip of your nose and pushes the cart around, letting you name off the things you need from your list while he grabs them. and when he sneaks snacks into the pile, you roll your eyes and glare at him in the way you always did—the one that isn’t actually annoyed. fond. happy to let it slide because it’s him.

“we need candy,” you murmur, “that’s the last thing on the list.”

“okay. what kind?” he asks, turning the cart into the candy aisle and smiling softly down at you.

“doesn’t matter, satoru eats anything as long as it’s sweet. he’s more likely to die from sugar than fighting a curse, i think.”

“you buy candy for satoru?” he asks, making you shrug as you reach over and grab a few bags of candy off the shelves, setting them down beside you. 

“he comes over a lot so i learned to keep stuff stocked up for him. you know how he gets when he’s hungry.”

suguru feels something he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. jealousy—specifically of satoru. 

suguru is not foolish. he knows as soon as he meets gojo satoru that of the two, one of them is stronger and it’s definitely not himself. for the longest time, he’s okay with that, okay being the strongest only when alongside satoru—until he’s not. and even if suguru always had a bit more attention in the romance department than satoru, in his head he’s always known that perhaps satoru can keep you safer, more well off, maybe even happier. with smooth smiles and eyes as welcoming as an oasis, gojo satoru would never leave you in the dark pit of misery as suguru once had. 

something about the thought of you and satoru keeping each other company through the lonely years, filling that empty spot suguru left behind, sharing moments over candy and empty wrappers makes suguru wonder for a moment if perhaps he’d be happier if he stayed. maybe he could have worn a heartfelt smile in a world that carves them off the faces of sorcerers with bloody knives as long as you were there to wipe the blood.  

but before he can dwell on it, you snatch one more bag—this time of his favorite candy, placing it into the cart and grinning gently up at him. 

“i haven’t bought this one in years,” you admit, “i almost forget how it tastes.”

“me too,” he says quietly.

“well,” you hum, “we’ll have to have some when we’re home.”

home. you say it as though it belongs to him as much as it does you, and then like you always have, without even meaning to, you wash away the dark stains of his jealousy with no trace left behind.

“yeah,” he chuckles, “we—”

“daddy, look! candy!” suguru is cut off by the gentle pitter-patter of two tiny feet running into the aisle, pointing at a bag of candy as a man follows close behind. 

his breath hitches. 

she’s small, the girl—she has two pigtails with soft strands of blonde hair falling out of the loosely tied bands. it reminds suguru of the first time he perfected tying up nanako’s hair, the soft giggles behind her tiny hand as she twirled in the mirror. 

there’s another girl in the man’s arms—dark hair on her head as she curls into her father’s chest and tucks her head into his neck when she sees you and suguru in the aisle. she’s shy, he realizes, like mimiko, and suddenly he remembers the tiny fingers that used to hook into his pants when she got too overwhelmed by the people around her, waiting for suguru to scoop her into his arms. 

perhaps in another life, suguru would redo everything differently—he’d be happy with you and satoru and shoko, and nanami and haibara would be there too, well and alive. but no matter what, he’d never redo nanako and mimiko differently. he’d never change a thing about them, not even the way nanako whines too much about small things or the way mimiko never speaks up even when something is clearly bothering her. he’d never change the way he saved them and took them in at the tender age of eighteen, too lost to be a father but choosing to raise them anyway. he’d never change the feeling of pure joy and unbridled pride when they climbed into his bed for the first time, shushing each other so as not to wake him—even though he’d awoken as soon as the door to his room opened. 

because he realized that night that yeah, maybe he’d made mistakes in his lifetime, lots of them too. maybe he’d made a bad choice choosing the path he did, or maybe he didn’t. he’s never been completely sure—just that he had to try at least to make his vision for a different world come to life. but one mistake he never made was his girls. one thing he was always sure about was the soft clutch at his pants and the tiny hands reaching for his own.

suguru wouldn’t change anything about nanako and mimiko—except maybe the fact that they aren’t here, gone because of him. 

“suguru?” you ask softly, reaching for his hand as he grips the cart tightly and pulling his gaze away from the family in the distance. 

he blinks, meets your eyes, and knows that you know. with one glance at your face, he knows you understand. the world is cruel, one filled with suffering, he thinks. but then he remembers what you said, that every world is full of suffering, not just his—that it’s a truth he has to come face to face with.

but it’s hard. it’s hard when this man has his two little girls and suguru does not—it’s hard to watch someone have what he wants with no worries of losing it, all because of people and their own weaknesses. he thinks for a moment that he’s been right all along—that non-sorcerers are too weak for this life, that the jujutsu world has always suffered so they don’t have to. 

but then the man speaks up, catching both of your attention. 

“your mother used to love those,” he says quietly to his daughter, a pained smile on his face. instantly, you and suguru both seem to understand the weight of that single sentence. 

every world has its own pain, suguru realizes. its own cruelties and unfairness, its own way of bringing suffering in its wake as it rips away the things closest to you from your begging fingertips, leaving them cold and empty and numb from the lost weight underneath them. 

“let’s go, suguru,” you whisper, “we have everything we came for.”

“yeah,” he whispers back, clearing his throat so his voice doesn’t crack, “let’s go.”

suguru leaves the grocery store with you after you pay, and for a brief moment, he’s unsure. unsure whether he’s grateful to satoru for fighting for him to be able to come and grateful to you for dragging him along, or if he wishes he died along with the rubble, gone before you could find him and turn him into this.

“before you even think about hiding away in your room,” you say, grabbing the bags from the cart as you put it back where it belongs, “you have to help with putting away the groceries.”

“sure,” he says smoothly. he grabs all the heavy bags from your hand, and you make a move to protest that you don’t need him to take the heavier ones, that you’re fine and can handle them like you’ve always handled them. 

but he walks off, and finally, you decide to simply follow.

—————————��——————

satoru likes to come and visit—you’ve started a routine movie night every week (unless he’s away, of course.) it’s fun, but it also means he makes your veins pop because he’s a headache like that—always makes himself right at home and eats your snacks like this is his place and not yours. he helps himself to your already limited candy and puts his sock-clad feet up on the coffee table no matter how many times you tell him not to. 

you try sitting with legs as long as these, he always whines, earning a harsh glare from you as you smack at his shins until he ultimately caves and begrudgingly sets his feet down. 

but then they always make their way back up to the coffee table, and you’re too busy enjoying his company to care—although you’ll never admit it. 

satoru is endearing like that, swallowing the dark clouds from your shoulders whole and eating up your burdens with that side of responsibility that you don’t think you could ever stomach. satoru is just like that, you realize, taking the brunt of the weight and laughing off every concern until you can’t help but not take them seriously yourself. 

it’s hard to remember that sometimes you didn’t just lose suguru, the love of your life, that night. everyone lost something. shoko lost someone to smoke with, yaga lost a student to scold, nanami lost a headache to avoid, and satoru?

well…satoru lost what you think might’ve been the only filled void of his miserably empty life. 

it’s hard to remember that satoru lost his best friend—the only best friend he’s ever had (although you like to think of yourself as a close contender)—because he’s so good at letting you forget. he brings you ice cream (that he eats half of because it’s only fair he gets a share), and he sits and hogs your couch (that he argues you don’t really need as much space as him on because your legs aren’t as long), and he watches those stupid sitcoms that are dry with boring jokes (that you used to make suguru watch back in the day).

it’s hard to remember that satoru also lost as much as you because he’s so damn good at making you forget about your own loss, you don’t care to think about anyone else’s for a while. just a short while. just until he’s yawning that obnoxiously loud yawn and stretching those awkwardly long limbs of his before he claims he really should go and that being the world’s best teacher requires as many hours of beauty sleep as you can squeeze in. 

and then he’s off. and it’s empty again. and just like that, you’re reminded of why he was there in the first place—to fill in that sick and painful void that geto suguru left in you. 

it’s gaping, like he tore a chunk of you right out with sharp teeth, like you’re just a piece of meat for him to get his fill of. if suguru really loved you, would you be so easy to let go of? why couldn’t he smile? because you could—god, you could smile just from the sight of him alone, you realize a long time ago. him with his cigarette tucked between his lips, those death sticks as you called them, hung loosely from his mouth as he gives you a lopsided grin. 

geto suguru is enough of a reason to smile. the world could crumble at your feet and leave you with nothing but rubble and dirt, and still, suguru is the core of the earth you’re searching for. 

so why couldn’t you be the same? what is it you were missing? what about you was just not enough for him like the way he was enough for you? 

it dawns on you one night, through bitter tears and shaky sobs, and that sick, twisted, pleading feeling in your gut that begs the wind to carry him back to you—geto suguru has never loved you the way you loved him.

and for that, you can never forgive him, you don’t think.

“you tryin’ to go bug-eyed?” he asks, settling down on the couch next to you, making you snap out of your trance. you shake your head a little, stare back at him for a moment before putting on that look on your face where you roll your eyes and pretend everything is fine.

“no,” you huff, “i’m just thinking.”

“about…?”

“satoru has rarely ever missed a movie night.”

“maybe he’s sick of you,” he shrugs, grinning slyly at you as you narrow your eyes with a glare, “there’s someone here to keep you company now so he’s probably taken his opportunity to run.”

“you’re hardly company,” you scoff, “freeloader.”

“hey,” he defends, shrugging as if it’s not his fault. you suppose it’s not. “i didn’t ask to be rescued. you can’t be high and mighty and petty. ‘s not how that works.”

“says who? you don’t make the rules. i can be graciously kind and a jerk all at once.”

“complexity,” he nods, “i like it.”

“i’m not as complicated as you might think,” you grumble, crossing your arms as you stare at the time. yeah, satoru isn’t making it—which, he told you as much, but he’s strolled in at the last second too many times to count before. you figure today would be the same. “as long as you don’t skip movie nights with me, i’m pretty simple to keep appeased.”

“alright,” he props his feet up on the coffee table—seriously, what is it with asshole men putting their feet on your table? satoru is a terrible influence. “let’s have a movie night.”

“what?” you blink.

“movie night,” he repeats, “you said you don’t like skipping movie night—”

“well, i meant i don’t like satoru skipping movie—”

“well, it was me before satoru, wasn’t it?” he says with a smile. his eyes are closed, crinkled at the corners, but his voice is carefully neutral—like he takes extra care not to let you see any emotion behind it. 

but that only means there is an emotion, isn’t there? is he jealous? does he hate the fact that you and satoru have a routine of your own without him? that you don’t need him to continue living your life? 

good. he should be. he walked out on you all those years ago. he killed a village. killed his parents. you never even got to meet them—he never even got to take you home and introduce you to them before he ripped away every fantasy you ever had with him. 

and now he’s back—he has the audacity to live, to laugh in your face with his existence that yes, geto suguru is here. and he was supposed to be executed, but your stubborn friend didn’t let that happen. he was supposed to be your husband by now with kids and a happy little home, and you were supposed to be his parent’s new addition to their family that they loved so much. but none of that is even close to happening, and it’s suguru’s fault, and the least he can do is show you some regret and maybe feel just the slightest bit bad that you now have to watch shitty movies with his best friend instead of him to feel normal. 

ex-best friend? half best friend? you don’t even know—do they still consider each other their best friends? does anyone consider suguru anything? you don’t know what you consider him. but you think the least he can do is act just the slightest bit pathetic after making you feel so pathetic for so long just to even the score. 

he should be a stranger. he feels like an old friend. but either is dangerous. 

“alright,” you sigh, “let's bring back movie night. don’t fall asleep.”

“i get plenty of sleep nowadays,” he hums, “i have more than enough free time for that now.”

“how lucky of you,” you snort. 

—

picking a movie with suguru is difficult. he actually has standards—satoru watches anything so long as he gets snacks, and he can make anything fun to watch with the way he comments from the side like a critic. suguru, on the other hand, actually cares about the quality of a movie, the metrics that make it good. 

so you pick the hunger games just to piss him off. 

“seriously?” he raises a brow, “this is your pick?”

“yes,” you grin, “i like these movies.”

“of all movies—”

“my house, my rules,” you grin cheekily, “you can pick the movies as soon as you start paying the bills.”

“wow,” he deadpans, “stooping to use my financial status against me? i thought you were better than this.”

“oh suguru,” you sigh dramatically, grabbing a bag of chips from the table, “you don’t know me at all.”

all things considered, you think it’s a rather enjoyable experience. it’s not as fun without satoru’s stupid comments that you pretend to hate, but suguru provides his own commentary that earns a giggle out of you here and there too—although his are not meant to be funny. but that’s the appeal of it, you think. 

“she should have picked gale,” he mumbles. you raise a brow.

“peeta was always there for her, did you miss the rain scene?”

“so was gale,” he says smoothly, grabbing a chip from your bag and making you scowl.

“gale killed her sister,” you point out, “and a lot of other people too. he was ruthless. she needed peeta.”

“gale did what he had to do,” suguru mumbles. 

suddenly, it doesn’t really feel like you’re discussing the movie anymore. it feels more than that. it feels sickening—the air is heavy, and your throat is dry and god, you just wanted a movie night and not this heaviness as you talk about stuff from the past without actually talking about it. 

you blink before turning to your chips, playing around with the bag as you shrug. 

“in the end he didn’t get katniss, did he?”

suguru studies you for a moment, stares a little too deep into you that you start to feel the urge to bolt to your room and go to bed. 

“guess not,” he says quietly, “guess that’s the one regret he has, huh?”

you think for a second, as suguru stares at your eyes with something you can’t quite read, that you might cry. you might cry and throw that half-empty can of soda in his face for speaking in codes and making you question what he means and remember your past. you might cry because suguru could’ve always gotten you—in fact, he had you.

it’s not fair. nothing is, but you can’t help but dwell on it.

“i’m going to bed. it’s late,” you mumble after a few moments, standing. he only nods, staring at the tv as the credits roll. when you make it to your room and the door shuts behind you, you debate clicking the lock in place. 

in the end, you don’t lock the door. suguru climbs into bed with you once more later that night, shaking slightly from his nightmare but calmer than usual. he’s still gone by the time morning comes, and you still never mention it.

it hits you one night that maybe he still has you—maybe you never let him stop having you, no matter what you say.

————————————————

suguru is good at cleaning while you’re away. you have to go out and do adult things like breadwinning and grocery shopping and bill paying. he dusts and cleans and even takes out the trash when you’re home to monitor him as he steps two feet out of your front door. sometimes, because you like to get on his nerves, you accidentally mess up a corner of the house just as he cleans it, laughing as he shoots you an unimpressed look. 

“stop getting crumbs on the floor,” he mumbles, “i just vacuumed.”

“you make a good malewife,” you giggle, “vacuuming and everything. how cute.”

“don’t call me that,” he grumbles, sitting down on the couch. 

“but you missed a spot,” you point to the crumbs you’ve sprinkled from your fingers as you snack away, making him glare. “failwife.”

“i’m going to divorce you and take everything,” he snaps, making you snort as you put your hands up in surrender.

“you don’t have to, you know,” you murmur, “clean, i mean. i can handle it.”

“i think i should carry my weight around here,” he shrugs, “since you are basically sugar babying me around for now.”

“dangerous curse user to the world, but sugar baby to me,” you tease, pulling a chuckle out of him as he rolls his eyes. 

sometimes it’s nice to have his company. suguru is good with banter like that, he’s not annoying like satoru where you run in circles. suguru makes you laugh from your belly, makes the hiccups catch in your throat as you double over. he’s always been like that, always known how to make laughter pour from your lips and trickle down your chin. it’s comforting to know he still knows how. it leaves a small amount of bitterness that he’s still able to make you feel like this. 

“by the way, next time you go shopping, take me with you,” he says casually, “i need to buy stuff for my hair. it’s growing.”

“you’ll finally see the sun just for your hair?” you gasp, “who knew that’s all it’d take?”

despite the playfulness in your words, there’s still shock. suguru is willingly stepping foot outside your house. he’s finally choosing to return to life after living like a recluse no matter how many times you and satoru have tried to beg him to get up and go somewhere. the most you can get out of him is a walk around the neighborhood before he goes back to wandering your home and hiding away in his room. 

suguru is returning to life, his life, and you can’t help but wonder where that leaves room for you.

“my hair is my charm,” he reasons, “wouldn’t you agree?”

there’s a smirk on his lips when he asks—it’s like he’s seventeen and teasing you again, giving you that unfairly flirty smile that used to make you stutter as a kid. back when you were hopelessly in love. back when it was you, suguru, and the world in your corner. back when you had dreams of your future, practically giggling as you planned it away in a notebook. 

suguru was always perfect like that, the kind of guy you could only dream about. he’s always been handsome—he’s always been the center of attention everywhere you went. you used to huff about it, about all the attention he managed to get from walking into a room alone. but then he’d smile, give you that tender look of his as he’d chuckle, and you’d be hopeless again. 

he shouldn’t have that effect on you anymore after over a decade. but he does. it’s cruel, the way the universe works. it’s like there’s a magnet that pushes you together no matter how far you try to go, still pulled by gravity straight into his awaiting eyes and devilish smile.

“i cut your hair off once, i can do it again,” you huff. he laughs, it’s good-natured and kind. 

“i was a bit heartbroken when i realized it was so short, i have to admit,” he says, “i didn’t look like me.”

“you looked good,” you say quietly, “i think you’d make anything work, to be honest.”

“yeah?” he grins, “any requests? i might consider it if it’s you.”

“oh shut up,” you roll your eyes, “how about shaving your head bald? let's see how much charm you have without all that hair.”

“i could charm you without the hair still, couldn’t i?” he winks. 

it’s unfair how he acts like normal. like a few months in your home undoes everything he’s ever committed, all the atrocities he’s caused. the way he flirts with you feels like you’re his again. the way he’s aged and changed feels like you’re meeting someone new. you don’t understand how suguru is so natural with that—with seamlessly falling back into a rhythm with you like nothing has changed at all.

deep down, you know that suguru is just moving on with his life. he’s making the most of what he can. he can’t die, satoru would never let him have a peaceful death after all this. he can’t go back to the way things used to be, whether that’s his sorcery days or his curse user days, and he certainly can’t start over. so he’s making do with what he has—which is very little in reality.

it’s you, your home, and the biweekly visits from satoru and occasionally shoko. so he weaves you seamlessly into his life and treats you with a sense of normalcy you can’t hope to treat him with. maybe it’s because suguru was actually able to move on after he left. 

it’s the part you hated him most for. for building a family with new people. for having two girls that he raised as daughters. for finding people to follow him and trust. suguru, after he walked away from everything he ever knew, actually did something with his life—even if it could hardly be considered good. 

you? you fell deeper and deeper into a pit of denial until clawing your way back out was too impossible, until you had to leave behind everything you’ve ever known to get away from the remnants of his existence. 

it’s easy for him to weave you back into his life because he chose to cut you loose. it feels damn near impossible to let him weave back into yours after he tore himself from the edges and frayed away. 

“don’t do that,” you sigh, making him frown.

“do what?”

“you know what, suguru,” you pinch your nose in frustration, “stop acting like things are normal.”

“things are definitely not normal,” he snorts bitterly, “i think needing your approval to take the trash out is not equal to normal.”

“then why are you acting like…” you trail off, unsure.

“like what?” he raises a brow. 

“like we never changed,” you slam your hands down on the couch in exasperation. 

he stares at you for a minute, blinks once, then twice, and then furrows his brows.

“well, of course we changed,” he mumbles in confusion, “i know that—”

you shouldn’t have said anything. you quickly realize that. suguru is not trying to act like things are normal—he’s trying to be civil, and you’re just a fool. a fool who looks too deeply into everything and assumes what you want to out of things and god, you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of your one and only ex-boyfriend in over a decade who was once dead and somehow came back to the land of the living.

of course, he knows things are not the same. he doesn’t want what you think he does. it’s been years and suguru has moved on—he had already moved on all those years ago, and you’re the only one here that is still focused on the past. and now he knows it too. 

you stand before he can finish, nodding as you stare down instead of meeting his eyes, pretending to adjust your clothes. 

“right, of course you do,” you nod, “i don’t know why i said that. just ignore me, i’ll be going to my room now. i have…things to do, so i’ll be—”

“hang on,” he frowns, hand grabbing your wrist, “i don’t mean it like that,” he says gently.

fuck geto suguru for being so confusing and fuck him for being nice about it too. 

“you can let go, suguru,” you pull at your wrist, “forget what i said, i wasn’t thinking—”

“i still feel the same,” he cuts you off, making your eyes widen, “if that’s what you mean. i never stopped.”

never stopped—that’s almost worse than moving on. how could he have felt the same all those years and still never come back?

“that does not help even a little,” you swallow the lump in your throat. “that makes this so much worse, do you see that?”

“i know,” he sighs, “i’m sor—”

“don’t say you’re sorry,” you grit your teeth, “we both know you’re not.”

“maybe not,” he admits, “i had to try. and that meant leaving—i’m sorry that’s not what you wanted.”

“it’s not!” you turn around, pulling your arm out of his grasp—suguru, for what it’s worth, takes the shove to his chest like a champ. “of course i didn’t want you to leave and kill a bunch of people and have an execution stamped on your forehead and live your life without me.”

“i know—”

“and now you’re back. back! in my house, eating my food and sleeping in my bed for half the night and i just have to act like this is normal. how is any of this normal?” 

“it’s not,” he agrees. he’s calm. so calm, it almost makes you mad. why is he so calm? “nothing about anything in our lives is normal. it never was.”

“you ruined my life,” you blink back tears. he smiles sadly, taking a step closer.

“i guess i can take the blame for that,” he nods, hands finding their way to your hips. against your better judgment, you lean half your weight against his body. this is bad, very bad—but it’s also the best thing ever. 

being close to suguru feels like the sun’s heat tearing through your skin—it’s warm. it’s pleasant. it leaves you parched and drained with a dry throat. but still, you need it to survive. 

“why did you come back?” you ask tiredly. his hand finds the small of your back, rubbing slow circles.

“i don’t know,” he hums, “i didn’t really get a say. maybe i was always meant to, who knows?”

you look at him at that—tilt your head to get a good look at his features. his eyes are more tired, and his cheeks are a bit more sunken in compared to the youthful flesh you remember him with. his hair isn’t as healthy, and his forehead has the slightest traces of pale marks from the scars. but he’s still suguru—and you have always loved suguru, even if he gives you every reason to hate him.

“you make my life unreasonably difficult,” you mutter.

he hums, smiling. “can i?” he asks breathlessly, pleadingly. you stare at his eyes, he stares at your lips. you know what he wants—but fuck, you can’t let him have it so easy. 

“can you what?” you ask, raising a brow slowly.

“are you really gonna make me say it?” he grunts, lips almost curled into a pout. it’s cute, the way he looks longingly at your lips—it’s so cute and beautiful and dangerous all at once, just like suguru. 

“yes,” you say, “yes i am. i deserve to hear it suguru, after everything you put me through. you…you left me. i wasn’t enough for you. i mourned you. i grieved a body i never even saw. do you know what that does to a person? to lose them not once but two times? the least you could do is tell me what you want,” your voice wavers just a little. 

it shakes for the lost time. for the moments you’ll never have. for the memories you lost. for the past that’s tainted. time is cruel like that. but that’s the beauty of it all—the fragility. it’s like sand falling through the cracks of your fingers, every grain slipping from your reach but still soft and soothing against your skin as it falls. everything fades over time, everything starts to hurt one way or another. but it stops. it heals. it starts over. the sand fills the cup of your palms again, warm and delicate and just as beautiful as before it crumbled. 

“can i kiss you?” he asks desperately, “please?”

“kissing me is not a temporary thing,” you shake your head, “not anymore. it’s for good. only for good.”

“i want to kiss you for good,” he nods, hands digging into your hips impatiently. you’re close. you’re too far. he can feel you, smell you, hear your unsteady breaths. but it’s not enough. he needs to devour you, taste you on his tongue, and melt you with his touch. “i won’t stop this time,” he promises. 

“you better not,” you sniffle, tears blurring your vision. you hated suguru for leaving you. you hated him for coming back to you like this. you never stopped loving him, never will stop loving him—and maybe that’s what love is. when the darkness is worth trekking through for the afterglow of the light. “if you fucking leave me again, you’re dead to me. i don’t care how many times you come back to life. you’re dead to me.”

“okay,” he agrees through a shaky chuckle, “i suppose i deserve that. let me kiss you, yeah?”

“yeah,” you breathe.

he kisses you—years too late, he kisses you. it feels like you’re teenagers again. it feels different and foreign. you know this feeling like the back of your hand. you don’t understand what this sensation is anymore. it’s new. it’s old. it’s perfect. it hurts. suguru is here. he promised not to leave—you don’t know if you believe him, but you’re going to trust that finally, for once, you are enough. 

you’re enough to make him happy. to give him a sense of purpose. to keep him swimming when his limbs start to sink. 

finally, for once, you’re enough. 

“i love you,” he whispers against your mouth, breathing the words into you like he’s offering you the air from his lungs, “i never stopped. i promise.”

“you don’t deserve to hear it from me,” you murmur back, panting against his lips, “not yet.”

“fair enough,” he chuckles, “you sure know how to leave a guy waiting.”

“i learned from the best,” you shoot back.

he grins—suguru smiles, heartfelt and real. life is full of misery, it’s painful, and nothing fucking makes sense. everything is cruel. everything dies no matter how carefully you water the roots. there’s always something, someone, ready to tear it from the earth. but if you keep planting the seeds, suguru will keep watering. 

maybe something kind can bloom from that, something big enough for him to hide under the shade when the scorching heat of tragedy becomes too much. 

in this world or in the jujutsu world; in this life or in the next. suguru is yours.

“why am i here?” he asks gently, his face digging into your neck. you hold him, cradling the back of his head as you hum. 

“because i need you here. will you stay?”

“yes,” he murmurs, “i think i’ll stay.”

hi. i have been working on this since march. its still not how i envisioned it to be originally but that's okay. i had fun writing it and it means a lot to me even tho its kind of. well....cliche LMAO like everything i write. but. i enjoy the cliches okay ?? i do. kxljchskdf hope u guys didn't hate it </3

also the fic banner is …. not the greatest. just ignore it ok

[bunnwich]

Uh just a heads up, did you read/saw the Leona and you meeting in the novel? I kinda wanna talk about it

Leona and Yuu Meeting in the Novel

ANON ANON. YOU REALLY BROUGHT MY ATTENTION TO SOMETHING W I L D BC I HAD NEVER ACTUALLY READ THE NOVEL VERSION OF THE MC MEETING LEONA???? Also, I was gonna see if the EN translation had been released but it doesn’t in my area until 8/27 so RAAAAAAAAAAAA. OKAY SO LET'S BREAK IT DOWN. (Using @/yuurei20’s wonderful translation) So as we know, in the game and manga Leona comes off as very… aggressive?

He threatens to “rip out our tooth” which, sir???? Like from the first time, I could tell that this was just a “flex” and he absolutely was saying it in a facetious manner. Though in the manga they further escalate it, even going as far to have him going to kick Yuuken.

BUT, HERE???? IMO this interaction is much more indicative of his character as a whole. There is so much more nuance to his intentions here. Protecting his dorm, deescalating, being smart. All the stuff that I’ve been saying from when I started playing twst about him just keeps being proven to me. Also that perhaps Leona, actually doesn't like fighting. These are my main takeaways.

1.) Leona is a well-respected and liked dorm leader who is looking out for his dorm's best interests.

And his dorm mates follow his word like gospel for the most part. I feel like ppl tend to gloss over this bc he is lazy or w/e but the Savanaclaw students mostly love Leona and would do anything for him. 

It’s just nice to see so much of the stuff you get reading between the lines at the forefront here. He’s so much more calm and menacing here than cranky and aggressive and that feels so much more him? Leona’s intimidation IMO doesn’t come from his physical strength per se, it comes from the authority he commands, his demeanor, as well as his magic I’m sure.

-- He is wrapped in a strange atmosphere that attracts the stares of everyone around. Even hidden under his school uniform it is clear he is well-muscled, with a scar over his left eye that lends all the more power to his chiseled face. The fists of the older students froze in mid-air at the command, completely throwing off their momentum. Now, like small animals under the watchful eye of a predator, they shrink away, murmuring, 'Leona-san'. Ignoring the confused Deuce entirely, Leona raises an eyebrow at the formerly brawling group. 'Move up a grade and the first thing you do is start a fight in the street--are you all stupid?' 'But that brat is the one who started it first.' 'Huh. And? Don't like what I have to say, then?' 'Impossible! It's not like that at all.' Leona is dressed down, wearing neither the jacket nor the tie to his school uniform, but he does wear the same yellow vest as the three students who had come so close to exchanging blows with Deuce. All three have become properly obedient in front of their fellow dorm member, Leona. --

2.) HE DID WHAT???

SO in my head I always imagined Leona stepped a bit close and sniffed the air around Yuu/MC but in this version HE SNIFFS THE NECK?? LIKE FULL ON PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE BACK OF YUU’S NECK?? WHAT THE HELL???? THATS SO WILD SIR?? I’M CALLING THE POLICE??? YUUYA ,ARE YOU OKAY??

-- ‘Hey. You.''Y-yes?' Yuuya's response leaves him in a sound that is almost a yelp, because Leona has suddenly drawn close enough to place his beautifully-sculpted nose near to the base of Yuuya's neck.Yuuya breaks out in a cold sweat. Having his neck so exposed is frightening in a way he cannot put into words: he is frozen in fear of Leona tearing out his throat at any moment. --

3.) In this Ruggie CALLED Leona over to help Yuu and Deuce fight off the Savanaclaw goons.

That just gives such a layer to Savanaclaw as a whole, that neither one wanted to see Yuu and Deuce get beat up. Leona continues to show he has a soft spot for his underclassmen perhaps. I do think it mostly was about him protecting his dorm mates and not wanting them to get in trouble bc he knew Yuu was taken in by Crowley, the headmaster.

-- 'My name is Ruggie Bucchi.' Ruggie responds, with a deliberate shake of his whole body. 'And this scary personage is Savanaclaw Dorm Housewarden, Leona Kingscholar-san. We already know you're dumb enough to pick fights with upperclassmen, but even you know you won't be winning against our Housewarden, yeah? Times like this, you gotta side with whoever will benefit you the most.' 'Benefit? They're the ones who started this fight, and now they're trying to run away!' 'My my, aren't you a hot-blooded kitten--and here you should be thanking me. I called Leona over because I saw you were in danger, y'know?'Leona looks to Ruggie. 'Tch. Patronizing bastard. You just wanted to give me more to deal with.' 'Shi-shi-shi. That's our housewarden! Settle brawls in an instant like that, and people will start relying on you.' The three students who had been scuffling with Deuce and Yuuya look down at their feet, snickering; they seem to have cooled off after being chided by Leona. As his position in the dorm would lead one to assume, Leona seems to be well-liked.) (!!!) --

4.) Perhaps, Leona’s Lazy demeanor is just a front to something more.

-- Though he has a languid stare, his narrow pupils send a shiver down Yuuya's spine. Yuuya knows, instinctively, that challenging Leona on their own would be disastrously reckless. --

Anyways its just so funny that I never read this bc I assumed (wrongly) that it was just similar to the other version of this meeting and like…whoa. 

I know it doesn't seem like much of a difference now but when twst was newer and we got less depth to Leona, andhe came off as very one-dimensional guy who was aggressive for aggressive sake and most of my HCs were really were speculation for the most part, and at that time as not many bothered to read between the lines about him.

Yes, he is scary (stop sniffing ppl) but also a bit teasing, but lowkey a caring and good leader. I do think his intimidating persona is two-fold. Like…half is so he can command respect from his dorm mates and it’s needed to be the Savanaclaw dorm leader in the first place. And the other half is a front to hide the softer parts of his personality that he denies at every turn, like being idealistic and a good mentor.

5.)  Leona sort of defends Yuu when the 3 goons make a comment implying that Yuu needs to watch who they tangle with.

-- 'Nothing wrong with having guts, but prepare well enough to know who your opponent is.' 'Hahaha! Yeah, just like the Housewarden says!' 'I'm talking to you three, too.' --

IMO He’s clearly looking out for his Savanclaw member’s well being here but I think he does some inkling of respect for Yuu, whether that bc they are strange or simply bc they are affiliated with Crowley and he doesn't want trouble, either or both is interesting to me. 

(TBH I’m still NOT over the neck sniffing thing.)

I will be interested to see the official EN translation of this scene, so I’ll update ya’ll on that once I see it! I NEED to know if they change any of it. Sorry for the ramble but YES please anon, feel free to talk about it with me! I love to yap, thank you for bringing it to my attention!!

(Thanks again to @/yuurei20 for all the translations for this scene!! Your work is so so appreciated!!)

[angy-grrr]

ppl who are talking shit about the manga just because Endeavor is not in jail and the others still talk to him -what are you even talking about?

Some people already talked about how relatable this is for Asian families and the society that punishes in any case victims more than abusers -but also, this is really common in other contexts too. Idk who is able to just get a whole family to agree on punishing the father, of all of the members (usually the one that holds the most power, emotionally and economically), and start the whole process to get him to go jail. Who thinks this is so easy?

Dabi expected to change the way people saw his father by exposing him, but as we saw, people still consider him a hero and admire him, and in any case people were criticizing his inability to control his kid. Are we not reading the same manga? Their society is literally trying to be the same as it was, because thats what the status quo does. You think a war or two change what is considered good in a system? You think the cycle could just stop so easily? That society doesnt support abusers, especially when the one who exposes it is "the villain" accusing "the greatest hero"? Or you even think, in a micro level, that its easy to cut ties with your abusers, especially when they tell you they want to change for the better?

Family is extremely important in many, many cultures, to the point that is a relevant point to bring up in political discussions -the familial structure just changing a little bit is considered reason enough to vote the far right. Women are still shamed collectively for getting divorced, labelled as bad mothers, bad women, inhuman. Kids not talking to their parents says worse things about the victims than the abusers. Why wouldn't you talk to them, after everything they have done for you? Why wouldnt you, when you owe them your whole existence?

And you are here, expecting a divorce, everyone going no contact, Endeavor in jail and everyone all of the sudden thinking they should get into other people's privacy -because getting abused, hurt, etc, at large, is considered a personal problem, that you should resolve on your own without involving others.

Because thats what its normalized, not acting when people need help. That's the whole point.

Everything will be the same. Except it just can't.

And its worthy to show the how to start getting there, than pretending things would change just like that..

We are living with the rising of the new far right trying to get votes, multiple genocides while the military tries to recruit using tiktok, AI and cute girls, multiple countries maintaining slavery systems and models, accelerated exploitation of nature, people and life in general, climate change and covid deniers getting in power... And you think a war and the exposure of abuse would change a society and social system in that way?

No, the change doesnt come from magic, just like that, but thru action and organization. Im hoping the next chapters can show us how Izuku feels about most people pretending everything is fine when he cant agree.

[misc-obeyme]

resending just in case the first didnt send due to my wifi cutting off right as i sent it 🙄:

how would the brothers react to an mc who comes from a family where twins, triplets, quadruplets n other sets of multiples are common ? like, their mother is a twin, their father is a triplet, most of their siblings are twins or triplets, the mc even has a twin themselves

i just wanna see how the brothers react to visiting the mcs family n seeing 9 different ppl have look the same cause theres 3 separate sets of triplets in the family

Hi there!

I did get your previous ask, but I decided to answer this one, so I will just delete the other one :)

Okay, this was certainly interesting to think about and the consensus is mostly that they're all confused lol.

Thanks for the request!

the brothers react to GN!MC having a family full of twins, triplets, etc

Warnings: none!

Lucifer

Great. There are more of you. Just how many of you are there, MC? Are these your clones? It must be some magic spell gone wrong. That's the only explanation.

Lucifer demands answers. Explain what is going on. Once you've told him about all the twins and triplets in your family, he's trying to figure out how this is even possible. He always thought such things were rare, but here you all are.

He tries to keep everybody's name straight, but he messes up sometimes. It's not from lack of trying. Actually keeps a little notebook with a list of everybody's name in an attempt to keep track of them. This doesn't really work all that well when everyone looks the same, though.

He never confuses you for one of your family members. No, he knows which one of you belongs to him.

Mammon

He is immediately flustered. How is he supposed to act around all these slightly different versions of you? They all remind him of you, but they're not quite you and he's so confused.

Since we all know he has feelings for you, being around so many people that look like you makes him nervous. He has to try even harder not to give himself away. Pretty much just constantly blushing.

Please stay by his side, MC. He doesn't want to lose track of ya. Not that he would ever mistake anyone else for you, but it's just hard for him to find you again if you go too far.

Mammon likes your family just fine, but being around them all is kiiiind of stressful. Doesn't remember anyone's name. Uses yours almost every time even though he knows he's not talking to you. It just comes out, he can't help it!

Leviathan

Oh! This is just like that one manga called Everyone In My Family is a Twin or Triplet So I Moved Far Away Where No One Would Recognize Me and Ended Up Falling in Love with a Demon Lord! That's almost your exact scenario, MC! You're living a real life manga storyline!

He's not too terrible at remembering who is who, but he's not really great at it, either. He certainly never gets you confused with anybody, but everybody else kind of blends together a bit.

If you've got any family members that have similar interests to him, Levi will get all their names correct every time. This helps him to keep everybody else straight, too.

He's fascinated by your family of look-a-likes, but he definitely thinks you're the best version. He might try to actually say that to you, too, but he's going to be blushing like crazy while he does.

Satan

He's never seen this many twins, triplets, and quadruplets before. He's going to ask a ton of questions. He wants to know how this is even possible. -Tell him you understand the science behind it, MC, because it's fascinating. If you don't know the specifics of how the genetics of such things work, he's going to read a bunch of books about it as soon as he gets home.

He gets everybody's name right. He never mixes anybody up or confuses anybody for anybody else. How he manages to do this is a mystery to everyone, even you. It likely has to do with his ability to retain details.

Since he's capable of keeping everybody straight, your family loves him. It's nice to finally have someone who doesn't get you all confused all the time. He's a little baffled because to him it's not a big deal.

Asmodeus

He has so many ideas. Please, he just has to have a fashion show or photo shoot with all your lovely family members! He's always wanted a crew of models that are just as lovely as you!

Another one who never gets anybody mixed up. Asmo is able to do this because he's a social butterfly and somehow connects everyone's appearance to their qualities and interests. He's just good at it, you know?

He wants to do everybody's hair and paint everybody's nails and any one of your family members who agree will find themselves looking fabulous in no time.

But don't worry. He will make sure to pay extra special attention to you. He's in love with your entire family, of course. How could he not be especially when they all look like you? But you'll always be his favorite, MC.

Beelzebub

Hey. You have a twin, too? Do you guys have twin telepathy like him and Belphie? He's going to have a lot of questions for your twin specifically because he knows what it's like to be one.

Of course, he doesn't look exactly like his twin and that part's a little confusing. Also, MC, do you realize that all of your family members look the same? What's going on with that?

You'll have to explain who is twins, triplets, or quadruplets with who. He'll try to keep them all straight, he really will. But his success rate is kinda low. Gets most of them mixed up with each other.

He never gets you or your twin mixed up with anyone else, though. He gets that, so it's easier for him to understand. Thinks of your twin as "MC's Belphie" forever after.

Belphegor

Okay. He obviously knows about the twin life, but this is kinda overdoing it, don't you think? He knows your family isn't like this on purpose (at least he doesn't think so), but wow. It's kinda chaotic.

Surprisingly good at keeping everybody straight. He doesn't try too hard and he still messes up, but he's better at it than some of the others.

He also wants to know if you have twin telepathy. What about the triplets and quadruplets? Do they have it, too? He imagines that having quadruplet telepathy would be pretty noisy.

In the end, he likes your family fine, but he prefers you. Content to just sit beside you while you interact with your many family members. Probably falls asleep on your shoulder as you do so. Sorry, MC, but your family kinda tires him out.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[explainslowly]

Semi-random manga rec based on looking at what I rated 10/9/8 on myanimelist like a decade ago

For your benefit I am going to eschew the stuff I see discussed on tumblr all the time. Like by this point no one needs me to tell them that like, Junji Ito is good, right? Right.

The water is just fine:

Hikaru no Go - now this one used to be pretty big in fandom spaces but it was like fifteen years ago so I don't feel bad bringing it up. It's a sports shonen about a boy falling in love with Go and growing up through finding his passion in it. A classic bildungsroman type of shonen narrative but executed with finesse. Also illustrated by the same guy who drew Death Note if that sweetens the pot.

Kekkaishi - do you guys like a fun little shonen about creatures and youth with magic powers and shit? This one is simply a pleasure to read as well as well paced. I especially appreciate a somewhat strict magical/power system. Maybe it's nothing insanely special but I do feel it has been somewhat overlooked so I put it on this list.

Hourou Musuko - this one got an anime fairly recently (*checks notes* uhhh. In 2011. Nvm, kill me) so people might know it. But hey, you guys want a sweet little manga story about a teen trans girl and her gaggle of friends? Of course you do. This managaka generally writes a lot of stories about queer ppl, so feel free to check out all her work.

Ashita no Ousama - bildungsroman, but for the girlssss. It's a story about a young girl moving to the city and falling in love with theater and writing. I am simply a sucker for stories about people finding their passion and working at it.

Getting deeper:

Blame! - again, a recommendation that would sound sooooo silly like twenty years ago but Tsutomu Nihei is simply not in the public eye the way he used to be. The pleasure of this manga is to a large extent visual. But you guys do want to see a trek through a crazy technological landscape, don't you?

Bokurano - Mangaka is a known sicko and this fucked up little story about feeding children to the war machine is a good entry point. What if Evangelion was even more evil? Now you can find out.

Monster - the Naoki Urasawa story that really put him on the map. I think people say that 20th century boys is superior but why not start at the source? Psychological/mystery story especially suited for people who can set aside their reservation when the psychology gets a little dubious with it (if that's a line you don't cross, do go on and check out 20th century boys instead)

Now we are getting somewhere:

Shigurui - Anyone here looking for an awe-inspiring visual orgy of violence? Anyone?

Dainippon Tengutou Ekotoba - I am outrigh obsessed with this mangaka's visual style. The thick, bold brush lines make me craaaazy. This is as good as any entry into their work, I think - a urban fantasy story about Tengus living in the modern world.

National quiz - looking for a zany distopian sci-fi with great visuals? Look no more!! I don't remember the details of what happens in this one but I remember it being strange and interesting, so do check it out.

Soil - what if Twin Peaks was a manga? Well, it's not one to one, but this too is a story about a small town and fucked up bizarre shit happening in it. Also incredible art, in my opinion.

Shintaro Kago - making an exception here and mentioning a guy instead of a specific work. The thing about Kago is that he shines in writing bizarre short stories, so ultimately you really could start anywhere with him.

[nezz-cringe-crib]

teru mikami analysis bc i love him

hi i'm just here to rant about how much i love teru mikami's character because he's genuinely such a well written character. this is probably gonna be unorganized and just rambly. i might rewrite it later but for now i just need another reason to procrastinate and focus on my silly emos.

(oh yeah also spoilers if that isn't obvious)

-------------------------------------------------------------

mikami is probably one of the best representations of religious trauma (at least imo and from what i've seen). i haven't read the manga yet and a lot of this might just be me projecting, but either way he's still the top in my books. there's SO many scenes and details about him that remind me so much of myself when i was still heavily involved with christianity (and to be clear, this is my own interpretation, not me tryna shit on any religions. that's a big wompwomp no-no. respect ppl hoes). so here's some random bits about mikami that make me go "OH SHIT ME-CORE ALERT!!!!":

the entire thing with his mom. i know that when he reflects back on his mom's death, he talks about how he's happy the whole thing happened because "she's evil and god killed the evil for me thanks god" but i completely believe the whole thing is just him brainwashing himself. like think about it for a second. his mom just died in the same car crash that involved his main tormentors, and this was also right after he was holding a slight grudge against his mom for defending said tormentors (she obviously didn't do that. she was just trying to help mikami view the world from a more realistic point of view to keep him out of trouble, but when you're that young and that passionate about justice, to him it'll seem like she's defending the same evil he's trying to fight). when you combine these things together, this is just gonna lead to a WHOLE lot of conflicted and lost feelings, and we see that in mikami. he had just been through a rough conversation with his mom, and she died before he could even get a chance to really think about said convo. all he is left with is a mixed feeling of loss, resentment, and fear. however, on the other hand, her death meant that the tormentors she was defending had also died. so to him, it has to mean something, doesn't it? the group of bastards that had been ruining his and others' lives and had finally been rid of. and if this had happened right after his mother had been defending them, it has to be a sign, right? there has to be a reason for all this hurt, right? when mikami is viewing the world through these lenses, it makes sense that'd he'd suddenly want a reason to justify his mom's death, even though it feels unbelievably cruel. so he finds a reason, and he finds that reasoning through god. this is honestly something that i used to do a lot when i was still heavily invested in my church, and i'm sure there are others who have been in the same situation. when the world is unjustifiably cruel, people will make up justification for it. it's a fear tactic that many people fall prey to in religious environments, and if not treated, it can fester into much more toxic environments for the people around them.

^^^ tldr: mikami copes with his mom's death by telling himself "it's okay that my mom died!! she was working for satan and god had to kill her!! thanks god!!" and if that's not the most religious-trauma-core shit out there then idk what is.

ALSO LITERALLY JUST EVERYTHING WITH LIGHT'S DEATH???? YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THAT SHIT HURT MAN. the realization that your god is not the god you thought you had been following used to be some of the scariest shit out there to me and mikami had it thrown right at his face when light died. not only was his god gone, but his god was never a god to begin with. he was just some guy. some pathetic guy who was now bleeding out and screaming on the ground. he had dedicated his life to this thing, and it was never real to begin with. and so he dies with it. because when the god revolving your life is gone, what other life do you really have? mikami was the perfect fucking example of that and i need it to be talked about more fucking please guys he's literally just like me fr i swear.

that's all i can think of right now tbh. if there's any typos in here no there isn't you're wrong nuhuh. anyways i fucking love mikami's character. he might be an antisocial autistic boyloser edgelord but he's MY antisocial autistic boyloser edgelord and i will defend him with my life. that hoe did EVERY wrong thing but your honor he is just a silly guy.

[5-pp-man]

another tierlist because ppl actually liked that first one;

the crème de la crop;

the first 2 eps i thought it was fine, but it didnt really captivate me as much as id hoped. but then ep 3 changed everything for me. i started to think "how could living armour work logically? everything so far has been edible, so this must be too, right?" i actually managed to think of the exact thing that this series did. that really made me realise the worldbuilding in this was something unique, and it only got better and better with each episode. its really managed to captivate me and i look forward to "delicious donderdag" every week :)

ANIME ORIGINAL LETS GOOOO absolutely bonkers show that almost slipped by me because it initially tried to fool its audience into thinking it was a regular dramatic military show. it still is but theres also a giant robot who plays by saturday morning cartoon giant robot rules. if that sounds like tonal whiplash to you, trust me, it is. and its amazing. have i mentioned how homoerotic this one is as well? yeah. originally a tier below this one, but immediately after finishing this post i watched the newest ep. i had to make an exception and edit the list because ep 9 changes everything. i havent been gobsmacked by a show this hard in a while.

(return of the) show(s) that execute their own premise very well;

i havent read the manga for yubisaki to renren so i cant compare, but the quality of this adaptation has been very consistent. you need a little sweet romance every once in a while :) this is one of those series where the characters really grew on me the longer it went on. im always a fan of mixing realistic struggles with romance and this one has been doing it well so far

adaptations that are ok (i read the manga for both of these);

i've been a mashle fan since before s1 aired. and the anime has some good changes and additions here and there! but its not very consistent in terms of quality, it does that shonen thing where the animation quality suddenly spikes for certain action sequences, but it also frequently had a lot of scenes where they recycle shots a lot and nothing interesting happens on the screen for a considerable amount of time. still! its a fine adaptation. and yeah the op for this. blew tf up lmao? very strange to see happen in real time

i actually rlly like the manga for this one. i read the whole thing up until vol.6 before the season started (all that was available back then) and it made me cry multiple times throughout. i was sort of missing that connection with the show, though some of the later episodes still hit. its mostly to do with the animation quality, which isnt that great unfortunately. the voice actors are knocking it out of the park though

wghere am i;

is this show good? i. uh. will you hate me if i say yes...? objectively, i know its not that good. especially in the animation department. but if you like other Umatani shows, you'll like this one. it's got the same brand of goofy reactionary humour mixed with gimmicky tacky characters and crazy stupid plot twists. ive been faithfully watching this one each week and I'm afraid i've become very invested. overscientific indeed

bro you fell off...;

i was so beyond excited for this one. i replayed the op a million times, watched each preview, rewatched multiple episodes. and then. ep 5 happened. and i started to realise. oh this show kind of sucks doesnt it? the pacing of the first ep was great, but the rest? way too fast. it became clear with ep 6 that theyre trying to do a double cour show with half the length, which is why they started hauling ass plot-wise. now. i was an arajin apologist for the longest time. but at that point i honestly started to loathe him. even when he stepped up, his praise still felt sort of unearned. and to top it all off, shindou's motivation sucked so he felt like a lousy antagonist. ep6 was better than 5, but it really made me lose my enthusiasm and hope for the series. and right as we were talking about them probably not having time for a filler ep, ep7 happened. feels like a waste of time to do an ep like that when you've still got a whole 2nd arc to go through. but who am i

it started off pretty good honestly. but then chris went to the hospital and it kind of just dwindled from there. this season does so much with characters that have not even been properly introduced like how am i supposed to care about these people if i barely know who they are. the stuff with finn and leo respectively was good though. but the lore dump? lord help me. also vijay just kind of. exists to be there in the background huh? i would not call him a main character they never give him any attention. wendy had another ep again and he didnt get shit. again. also i think finn was stupid as fuck for not listening to lala but again. who am i. i know we cant destroy high card because we need a show but. cmon man.

i am severely behind on these;

reason why im behind is because most of the eps are a bit heavy so i kept. not watching them. its starting to get rlly interesting though so i'm def gonna catch up this is one of those robo-racism shows so i have to really watch out to see where its going. dont want another marginal service situation...

sorry this is just. a little too boring for me. its charming, sure. but i think this wouldve worked better as something with an 11 min timeslot instead of 23 min. theres just a bit too mu- or well, too little for me to rlly get into this. i think reading it would be more fun for me personally

[sasukeless]

6, 8, 11 and 16

6) which ship fans are the most annoying?

i have grown to hate poly team 7 the most rn. i hate whenever ppl see a ship war and go “if they all date it fixes everything” when no???? and that ship specifically just lives off my leeching of narusasu scenes and trying to insert sakura in it. example: “naruto is the sun, sasuke is the moon and sakura the star” ?&/&2!&2 as if the manga isn’t constantly making narusasu dynamic smth separated from every other bond and relationship each of them has.

it’s incredibly annoying also that the same people that have spend years harassing narusasu for imaginary misogyny for shipping a gay ship and fictional cheating hcs are now all suddenly okay w cheating as long as it’s on hinata only. like most of these people are just annoying sakura self inserts that are mad she’s sidelined all the time because kishimoto wanted for narusasu only to be the plot.

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

we could be here all day when most of naruto stans don’t open the manga... anyway i will say jealous / possessive sasuke. there’s not a single scene of him acting like that but it’s such a mass delusion.

alsoo when ppl say that part 2 sakura moved on from her crush on sasuke sjjskskle it’s okay if that’s ur hc but like. that’s not true at all please read the manga

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

when ppl try to add characters to narusasu and make them poly. just loud and wrong they gotta change their whole characters to make it make sense

when people make sasuke always rude and the one always picking fights with naruto like??? be serious

the sasuke finds his brother annoying while itachi is just a loving older brother characterization also it’s stupid. i’m sorry but itachi is literally the person he loves most and looks up to even after everything that fucker did. meanwhile itachi is an annoying pest when it comes to how controlling he is over sasuke but he’s never portrayed as anything but perfect

ah. i also hate when people make sasuke and orochimaru get along or have orochimaru be a parental figure whatever. just weird to me when you actually look how their dynamic is and also sasuke hates that guy like srly

[eshtaresht]

holy. fuckin'. DAMN. I was pretty good at predicting the plot so far, but this episode proved that stampede is going in a whole new direction for real. spoilers for ep 9!!! (and manga a bit)

first of all, we still haven't got a full story of the great fall, but I think it's something they'll reveal in this season, probably during confrontation with knives. and still no scar reveal!! I'm angy but it's something that could be relevant to the standoff with knives, hope we'll get it

the piano scene... oh we're eating GOOD, it's just so wholesome but goes to confirm my theory that twins weren't completely fine on the ship. vash feeling useless because he can't do cool plant shit, knives envying vash for being good at human shit.... oh it's great

so glad knives is getting proper characterization and not just "he evil because he evil"! the fear, the hurt, the genuine care for vash, but then frustration with him – it's right there and I'm eating it up so yummy

the way they recontextualized vash's arm loss is GORGEOUS! I've seen ppl reading this scene differently, but to me it was an act of care from naï. he looks really scared for a reason: we see that the gate consumed all matter, including the hand. vash couldn't control it, so it would only grow bigger and destroy him. NAÏ REALIZED THIS AND SAVED VASH THE ONLY WAY HE COULD

he didn't want to fight him, this was not an act of anger, like in previous versions. all he cared about in that moment was saving his twin..... and what did he get in return? a gun pointed to his face. a gun he gave vash to kill human scum. oh, the DRAMA

ahem, now to the less intense stuff

homeboy has so much trauma, like, damn... how is he gonna fit any more from his impending epic brother fight...... I'm quite curious on how they're gonna characterize him in the next season. concidering that we're taking off earlier than previous versions, he might end up with the same unhinged vibe 98' vash had, as a coping mechanism (if depression didn't work, try dissociation and silliness). but then it would be even more interesting to see meryl's and wolfwood's reactions: they knew him before the accident and saw the big sad

vash has sense in the prosthetic arm, so it must've hurt when he damaged it... probably it hurts less than the real one, and it's clearly painless to take off. but the hand seems to be rather sensitive and fic writers are gonna go crazy for this

age reveal! also brad and luida being in cryosleep makes sense, I was racking my brain on how they're still alive. seems like they're using much more plant power tho... both for cryo and the vegetation, while in manga they tried to keep it as low as possible and send signals to earth

saw someone say that they're probably not doing that here because the earth is destroyed... could be that they decided to go the hard way. but in the manga the earth was still fucked, and it wasn't clear if they communicated with the ppl left on the planet or the fleet that was in some new place. what I'm saying is, there is a possibility that they are looking for help in stampede, we just don't know it yet

meryl was so cute! go off, comedy relief goofy girl, while you can, there is more trauma coming your way :3 yeah, enjoy roberto calling you by your first name... oh it would be such a shame if he gave you his derringer before his untimely death..........

pretty weird that nobody knows why they fell on no man's land, but ppl probably were too ashamed of their past and 150 years later the new generation is oblivious. also so funny that luida has to explain what vegies are..... they have so many plants but haven't see any plants

tbh I wasn't expecting the zazie twist at all, but I'm excited! they are SO gender in stampede, might be the best redesign in the series, love me a genderless bug creature with bold fashion choices. really cool to see that storyline adapted, it was barely touched upon in the last volumes of trimax

btw the multiple bullets story about a plant, worm and human who went around figuring out if their species could coexist and just.... creating this foud family and then building a town there all were equal...... that's my favorite mb story for sure

wolfwood saying "I'm not your friend"... I know what you are. and we got a "you'll have to decide one day"... oh oh the misery, but the context was lacking. it just doesn't hit the same when he isn't daring vash to shoot him in the most homoerotic way possible. on and he looks so goofy trying to ride with his cross

in the last ep's rant I assumed that luida lied about rem saving everybody for some reason?? but no, she actually saved them, I just got a bit confused

so, as I predicted, the gang separated (tho not because of vash) and by the end of the next episode vash'll be in july and meet naï. the poster, man.... that gorgeous futuristic city is getting obliterated for sure

btw vash's gate being opposite to knives and sort of a black hole is nothing new. but there are new layers to this, like vash willingly giving away energy, but destroying things against his will, and knives with the opposite of this. ying yan twins go brrrr

[hereforthefunnyguys]

Hey bro, if you don't mind me asking... What's the worst Yu-Gi-Oh take you've ever seen? I like seeing you rant.

God... I'm blanking right now but there are a Lot. There are just so many </3.

Later addendum: This went... all over the place. I have no clue what happened here but I stand by my opinions.

I realize I rant about Marik problems a lot (tis the tism) but I think the ones that actually tend to genuinely anger me the most in like a "oh, you genuinely did not read the same series as me" are the ones that attempt to villainize Atem over the whole series or make it seem like he only really cared about Yugi. That is just like. Blatantly incorrect.

First of all, I realize everyone really likes s0 "ooooOOO eDgY yAmI", but early manga Yami Yugi was only terribly violent for a few chapters. After that, he pretty firmly chillaxes, especially post-Death-T and definitely post-Monster World. And we are given a... pretty good reason for why he was like that originally! I would also be a little mad if I woke with no memories after being tormented in a labyrinth full of shadow demons for so long i literally could not remember being born and my first sight was someone trying to beat the shit out of the guy who was kind enough to release me from my Gay and Stupid Maze!

Literally guys, he's like a recently adopted stray kitten. He's just lashing out because he's scared. He's not evil you idiot he's 15 and incredibly incredibly confused and freaked out. Yes he still committed murder no I don't care we've excused other people for worse (take note of how these will often be the same people that uwuify marik or yb (but marik especially -> about to have a sub-rant its related i promise.))

ps. i don't get the marik thing he may be pretty but he is not a sniffling little kitten like people write him as (especially in comparison to his Big Bad Evil Personality and dangerous-bad-boy Yami Bakura who certainly never admitted to himself considering Marik slimy and weird and a dangerous asshole in canon no sir never). The man literally tried to drown Joey and (admittedly accidentally) got his own big brother fried like a fork in a toaster engineered by Elon Musk (and, I want to mention, he didn't seem to consider Rishid a genuine brother until much later after the psychological equivalent of multiple slaps upside the head). I think people just don't know how to write mental illness and/or emotions other than Horny or Sad and morals more complex than black and white.

This is actually part of I think a larger problem in the fandom with not tending to remember the whole storyline/point of yugioh was proving that people are not naturally evil and in fact often prove to be quite noble when they get taken out of a bad situation and worked on a little. Ppl don't quite get this outside of redeeming their favorite evil pretty boy so he can date around, so they either make everyone a sad little angel thats never done anything wrong in their life or a terrible demon whose surprisingly abusive qualities are only matched by his shockingly canon-inaccurate height and muscle mass increase. This is, imo, why people tend to do That to Atem. Either they interpret him as a perfect Good King that can do no wrong or, sadly more commonly, an evil serial killer that only cares about [EXPLETIVE REMOVED]ing Yugi and then pretty much nothing else.

Also, he was like... not a bad Pharoah from the exactly (checks notes) 72 hours he got to be one before dying a horrible torturous undeath. For the good of his kingdom, I want to mention. That was something he willingly undertook for the sake of his people. As far as autocratic dictators went, he was by all accounts a pretty nice one! Didn't even torture anyone to death! In fact he was so against the idea of torturing people to death we had to Specifically keep the bit where we were actually doing that secret from him!

also section B of this take then usually comes around to trying to prove he never cared about his friends other than yugi. And if I may be so spicy in the chat tonight. This is usually ooc puzzleshipping brain rot influencing critical thinking. Yes yes I get that your yami yugi 20k yandere fanfic (with a yugi that cries all the time for some reason and apparently refuses to just Take The Damn Thing Off) is hot but brother of mine that is not what Atem was like in canon. Like. At all.

First of all, even before Memory World he showed off caring about his friends. There was the whole "deadly yo yos" incident with Joey and then there was the not one but two Anzu hostage situations that he dealt with, one of which when there was literally no benefit to him or yugi to go and rescue her! In fact it put them in Active Danger to do so! And from what I remember, that was before even Death-T! So he has very much cared about his friends from the very beginning, individual of his aspect as an extension of Yugi's survival instinct.

Also. The whole point of Yu-Gi-Oh is the whole friendship is magic stuff. That absolutely applies to Atem as well. In fact it probably applies to him more so. The guy really depends on all of his friends for his sanity in a way that not even Yugi does. He likes Joey and he likes Anzu and he likes Honda (even with as little time as he got to shine RIP spiky haired king) and he likes Ryou! In fact one of the original conflicts in Battle City was that he cared about Ryou so much he wouldn't get rid of his age old archenemy because it would have hurt Ryou! But anyways. Anyways.

It feels like part of that can be blamed on the Orichalchos arc in the anime (which was certainly. An Arc. Not good not bad but a secret 3rd thing.) where they had him get incredibly depressed and ever so slightly unstable when Yugi went away. Which makes sense for him, but then people tend to overstate it to "Atem is inconsolable when Yugi isn't there to make it all better for him" and not "Atem feels incredibly guilty for falling under the spell of a literal magically evil-inducing rock and would likely feel similar if he lost really any of his friends in a similar manner."

"But steve. how are those last two things at all related to each other" WELL. YOU SEE. It always feels like people tend to make Atem evil and hate everyone else in order to justify a fantasy scenario where "Yugi" (read: writer's self-insert) gets to come along and redeem him and he gets to be their loyal attack dog. And you know what? I'm fine with that as a fanfic scenario! Let people have fun! Is probably very hot to people who are not stickily uptight bastards like me! But it annoys me like Hell when people try to canonize that particular bit of oocness.

Atem isn't evil. The poor boy is having his own problems. He's hanging out. He's doing his best. Leave him alone. He literally is just a teenage boy that likes to play games. Let him chill. Let him chill.

[rainstormcolors]

hi! im curious how u feel about. Kaiba's ending in dsod as a devout kaiba fan

bc quite a few ppl ik *arent* rlly big on it for reasons that include but arent limited to "it ruins the message of letting the dead go and moving on like Yugi did" and etc which i dont agree with for sm reasons but im curious abt ur thoughts on the matter too 😭

Hello.

I’ve talked about DSoD and DSoD’s ending quite a bit over the years. I've come to understand the ending of DSoD to be layered on several levels, and it actually tackles several themes in the original work from different angles at the same time, and I think trying to force the ending into one neat "this is what definitely happened" box stifles that complexity. It’s deliberately open to interpretation. I also want to make room for fans who do not like DSoD. We have our preferences and individual concepts we value from canon, and carry personal experiences we relate to canon in different ways. Please understand to those reading this that it’s alright to omit this film from your internal design of canon.

I can talk some about my own relationship and journey with DSoD. I’ve loved Yu-Gi-Oh! for a long time. I watched the show as it aired and read the manga as it was released within the United States. One of my parents died when I was young. At the time I felt very disconnected from both that event and from the other people in my household. We never talked about our feelings and I was always vastly terrible at interpreting my own emotions and behaviors. The further catch here is we were seeing a grief therapist some, and I’d been in and out of therapy for a while before that as well. I just could not parse out any feelings at all and I didn’t know how to talk to other people about things. I was disconnected from it all. We flash forward to the release of DSoD. And to my surprise, something I didn’t expect from myself, I was talking to people. I was talking about what grief looked like even if a person wasn’t labeling it. I was talking about how sometimes we can’t name what we’re feeling. What I saw in DSoD were people grieving and I understood this. And I was communicating my ideas and emotions that had been so foggy up until then. I suppose this is the strange power of an autistic interest paired with personal experience – and I was actually trying to talk about feelings and trying to bond with other people.

And I was truly pondering on and reflecting -- not on a subconscious level but on a fully conscious one now -- on the loneliness and struggles the other people in my household had felt back then too. There had been a suicide attempt at a certain point which was something I had refused to let myself think about but I was now thinking about that too.

I like stories about the experience of grief over stories that are PSAs about grief. It was going to take a grief story with teeth and bite to awaken this piece of me, not a cutesy PSA on grieving. For me, it can feel like fandom at times has this idea that everyone has it in them to just talk about their feelings and reach out and that everyone has that, and that is just not true at all. (What a further surprise to me to discover later on why I was also drawn to elements of Death-T back then, back while I still felt so disconnected from “the experience of death.”)

I’m especially drawn to and touched by Seto’s narrative, but I think Yugi’s own story in DSoD harbors this as well. As I read this line, “it ruins the message of letting the dead go and moving on like Yugi did,” I think of how I feel the story was also about Yugi accepting that it’s okay for him to draw from the strength Atem gave to him and to feel inspired by Atem even though Atem is “gone” and that this is the meaning of why Atem joined Yugi in battle in that grand final showdown in DSoD.

As I said, there is the potential of multiple layered interpretations inside the film’s ending. There’s the theme of the power of friendship and love being able to break through the universe, that friendship can be so meaningful the barriers surrounding us can’t stop those feelings. It is love as a powerful force and Seto -- who had rejected others and feelings for so long, who has felt so disconnected from everything but those brief burning moments of winning -- has embraced love and what Atem meant to him. There is the hyperfictionalized portrayal of grief and its forms like emotions as art, and how grief stays with us but evolves and matures: Death-T as angry scarred grief and the negative impacts of the departed “villain” on the living “villain”, the Ceremonial Duel as the acceptance of grief and the positive impacts left by the departed “hero” on the living “hero”, and DSoD as finally seeing and understanding the departed one as just a person just as you are a person. And grief is a permanent marker on us. It doesn’t really go away. There’s the metaphorical portrayal of closure for the survivor finally being able to say goodbye to the one they love, to see that person outside of their grief for who they are and it’s painted in an artful and literal way, and it gives Seto the tools to move forward in life carrying Atem inside his heart. And there’s the wonder of science fiction as technology and humanity and the soul are fused. Our voices and images travel across the world through technology in our reality – could it travel even further? What are human beings capable of? And it’s about Atem still possibly being savable from this place, that death wasn’t his answer because people care about him. Someone wanted to see him this badly. There is no duel, no words we see exchanged, because this gesture already says everything. Seto being here to see Atem says everything.

It’s also a possible commentary on how scars don’t go away and sometimes we can’t save someone. Sometimes someone isn’t able to break free of their ghosts and it’s possible to wish peace for that person or to be left scarred by them or both at the same time. People can be warped by their trauma and not overcome it because it’s a hard hard road to walk. To only harbor any sympathy for the survivors who are healthy, cute, and palatable belies a very conditional idea of compassion. This isn’t to say the harm isn’t real or that people don’t need to be accountable for their actions, but they are human beings who have struggled and struggled. The wounds of trauma are not shallow and healing can be hard. Seto is only 18-years-old in DSoD.

Death and love are weaved throughout Seto’s entire story in canon.

While I understand what people mean as they say “Seto needs to face the consequences of his actions and should have a strain with Mokuba," when it’s employed as a critique of the movie, I also feel very strange and think, "That's just the way grief is. Or rather how it can be and how it is for a number of people.” As I said, my own family was horrible about any talking about our feelings in the wake of grief and then that suicide attempt. There was no PSA-type talk between us. For me, the mess of DSoD comes across as real even if it’s an exaggerated presentation.

I’ve also had very dark periods in my life, terrified of having no one understand me ever again, and this also grounds me into how Seto’s head and heart may have been working. I didn’t know how to talk to people about emotions, including my family even though I loved them, and everything felt dark and like I was endlessly sinking.

And I had a moment of truly understanding how profoundly alone my father must have felt when my mother died, as my father was just as friendless as I was and didn’t have outside family to help at all.

I had felt I was incapable of connecting with other people and I felt I saw that trait within Seto, and so watching canon tell me “the bond between Seto and Atem is real, it meant something” was very very moving for me. Even if you don’t know how to talk, you can find connection through what you do understand.

I do think it’s quite understandable for people to feel put off by DSoD and its ending. I think it’s quite fair that people root for Seto and Mokuba together and that they’ve hoped for a journey of healing. People become upset on Mokuba’s behalf. I personally connect with the messiness of grief and Seto’s conflicted heart and the artful and challenging portrayal of a person spilling over in grief. I do personally hold interpretations of Seto returning, so my answer here is also shaded by that. Even on Mokuba’s side, I’ve sort of been there and it allowed me to talk about that experience which isn’t an experience many people talk about. It’s very hush-hush in our day-to-day lives and it’s not easy to talk about.

Does DSoD reward Seto’s self-destructive behavior too much? I would say I’m not here for moral lessons and life is full of so many contradictions, so many tangled complicated layered emotions. It’s fair to hold this as a personal gripe with DSoD, but given the amount of audience backlash and discussion over this ending I don’t personally feel it’s actually a fully rewarding message. It’s more layered and thematic than that to me.

For a film for a big money-making mainstream shonen franchise, DSoD is unusually arty.

Again, people have their own experiences and people need different things from art. Someone else will carry a different relationship to DSoD, and someone else may need different things to come to terms with grief.

Thank you for the ask. I hope this answer wasn’t too wordy. I think it’s good to form your own opinions too. Thank you for reading my rambling.

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 3 Ramble#2 - “romance" lol ver.3

This month’s episode is all about romance, the third time around now and somehow I find myself with yet another tweak in format. Guess that just goes to show that love comes in many forms. In any case this month’s format isn’t that different from last time. I’ve still split my reads into 3 categories, the main difference is that the categories themselves have changed. Last time it was cute stuff, fucked up stuff and lewd stuff, this time I still have the cute category but I've switched out the other two based on this month’s reads, which I'll explain as we get to them.

So basically how this episode is gonna go is I'm gonna give my top reads this month in ascending order for each of those categories and then my top 1 reads before this month for the same.

Getting right into it the first category up is

Awww {basically v cute v innocent stuff}

#3) The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague (ongoing w 57 chapters, story & art by Miyuki Tonogaya)

This is an extremely simple but extremely cute story. The title pretty much summarizes it actually, the main character is the descendant of an ice demon, which is apparently not too strange in this world since he works a normal office job,,, and he has a crush on his cool, stoic, almost expressionless female colleague.

It's a pretty neat take on slow burns because one it's pointedly ice related, and secondly the ice guy’s emotions affect his environment, like if he gets too excited there'll be a blizzard or tiny snowmen will appear.. If you've ever had a crush on someone you know it's already hard enough to act natural or “be cool" so this guy has a pretty rough go of it.

The art is pretty nice but the characters, especially the wider cast leaves more than a bit to be desired. It actually almost kinda feels like the creator really just wanted to focus on the main two but the editor was like,, that's not how the real world works, especially not in an office... I do appreciate though that some of the wider cast includes different types of demons and it’s fun to see the different ways their emotions leak out, the different pairings, and so on.

As I said it’s an extremely simple story, almost feels like a 4 panel tbh, nothing I'd push too hard but it’s undeniably cute and makes for a super easy binge read or just something to pick up from time to time to escape the harshness of reality and indulge in the very cute but very absurd fantasy of a successful workplace romance… I think more than a few ppl have that one coworker you would if you could… but no… just no… leave it alone… leave it in fiction land my friend…

#2) Skip and Loafer (ongoing w 58 chapters, story & art by Misaki Takamatsu)

The story here follows our main heroine, a real go getter, who moved from the countryside to big city Tokyo for highschool, all so she could follow her dreams of being a politician and help out in rural areas around the country. Anyways she’s characterized as not being great at much else but studying, and in that spirit, gets lost on the way to her entrance ceremony. Here enters our main hero who’s also late but for the opposite reason, he’s super laid back, slept late and was considering just skipping but he felt sorry for this obviously lost but obviously trying girl so he decides to help her out and the story takes off from there.

Just wanna get out of the way that I love all the characters and their interactions with each other and especially within themselves. If anything, that's this manga’s strongest point. It makes the characters ooze real feelings that really feels in place for each where they are. Like not too dramatic where you wonder if they’re really highschool kids or even in school for that matter, and not too fantasy like where everything is perfect and it’s almost like characters are machines just filling a roll.

It kicks off pretty early on with engaging character interactions and the way they change and develop as the main cast gets to know each other is really endearing. I especially really really love the main heroine because she’s that innocent character type but it’s not done in that way that makes her this pure cinnamon roll that’s too good for this world, where nothing gets her down or she chooses peace and love every time. Her thing is that she’s basically socially inept and so she doesn’t really get when people are mean or even when they're being nice sometimes, but she’s all by herself in this new place so she’s trying and though she doesn’t always get it, it’s a real pleasure to see her grow.

It’s ongoing, only 58 chapters but there’s been a ton of realness and real growth in a bunch of ways for most of the cast packed in so far. Really can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Anyways, cool art, great cast, love the interactions and would definitely highly recommend this one.

#1) Horimiya (complete w 152 chapters, story by HERO & art by Daisuke Hagiwara)

The story here is that the main hero/heroine pair each have a hidden side to them that nobody else knows. At school, the heroine is always super put together but when she’s at home she’s too busy taking care of her little brother for all that and takes on a more homely caretaker persona (the art is shoujo leaning so she and most of the main cast pretty much always looks pretty). But anyways, at school, the hero is seen as a gloomy glasses wearing loner but when he leaves school he looks like he came out of a rock magazine. Tattoos and piercings everywhere. Anyways, this and that happens, the convenient plot is convenient and they end up becoming friends who hold each other’s secrets.

As much as the story kinda feels like shoujo perfect world fantasy stuff, and as much as it came out as top 1 largely because it’s complete, I think a small part of it might have been that a tiny part of me still wants to believe in, and might even still want that kind of “perfect” love. From the innocent buildup to the accumulation of every day special normals and beyond… but in any case, I did honestly like the theme of more and more of your true self coming to the surface and being able to show that true self to someone.

Overall, besides the main pairing, the cast was kinda weak, not bad, just pretty one dimensional But that one dimension was very cute and fluffy and this being a romance manga, it worked. What I will say though is that it took a while for the wider cast to come into play and even more for them to make me care, like not until late 50s heading into 70s did i care about anyone but the main pairing. Meanwhile skip and loafer only has about 50 chapters total and I was fully invested in the entire cast well before then.

But as I said, when the full horimiya cast rolls in it’s all very cute and I liked that they even made the platonic same sex relations pretty cute like yh guys just having fun and it’s not weirdly pervy in any direction, just another form of love yk.. v cool… Again it did have me yearning a bit like wow imagine having a life with both platonic AND romantic relationships being healthy and fulfilling.

Anywho,, pretty neat art, the story kinda just goes on ig but having in mind that it was a romance and it goes on in an increasingly cute way and all, i’d recommend it.

hm:

Even the Introverted Gals Wanna Get Out There! - pretty funny, maybe more funny than cute, also it’s girl on girl, think dead dead demon’s destruction but the main heroines actually get to live life and breath air, literally just vibing out in the club room after school (ongoing w about 6 chaps)

Train Man - Net Development, the Love Story of a Local Train: based on a true story apparently, basically a dude saves some people on a train and becomes friends with one of them and stuff take off from there (complete w 27 chapters)

ftr everything in the main list has an anime but i can’t speak on their status or quality

also ftr I'd definitely rate skip and loafer higher than horimiya overall but because this is the cuteness category, + horimiya is a complete story which I tend to favour for higher places in lists and stuff

next category up is

Dense & Denser

{this is basically when one or more of the characters are just oblivious to any love flags thrown their way}

#2) How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend (complete w 42 chapters, story & art by Takeshi Moriki, original LN story by Fumiaki Maruto)

Had never heard of this one before but the title pulled me in like how and why would one raise a boring girlfriend anyways?

The story here is that on the way to school the mc has an encounter with a mystery girl and it’s love at first sight, even though he didn’t see her face…. The mc is an anime/manga otaku much like myself, and this encounter inspires him to make a dating sim game, but after he happens to actually meet the mystery girl face to face, he finds that she’s actually kind of plain,, albeit in a cute sort of way. In any case the feeling of their first mystery meeting lives on so he pushes through with his idea, intending to transform this girl into his ideal heroine. The main story, relations and problems arise around him trying to get the dev team together for this game, and of course this being romance they’re all girls.

It’s all very funny in a very meta way, with commentary on anime/manga culture in most chapters, and the so called main heroine, being outside that culture, usually playing a very good straight man. It’s also meta in how the mc goes about getting his dev team together, as i said they’re all girls so it’s almost like his life becomes a dating sim in trying to woo them into his harem… i mean game dev team…

In any case I’m not even actually sure the mc really counts as romantically dense or if he was just so committed to the bit of being a single weeb undeserving of love that he just pretended not to notice all the pretty loud romantic undertones,,, but maybe that's a type of density in itself… a younger me can def relate… being committed to the bit is a lifestyle… bed is bae… anyways it’s kind of ecchi but still surprisingly good in both the romance and meta aspects. Pretty good art, they made a decision to keep the cast compact and it worked out very nicely. It wraps up in just under 50 chapters but I will say each chapter is pretty dense and can be a bit word heavy. Would recommend.

#1) Monthly Girls’ Nozaki (ongoing w 148 chapters, story & art by Izumi Tsubaki)

This story follows our main heroine as she tries to get the attention of her crush, who is our mc. In approaching him she finds out he’s actually her favourite romance manga creator and through this and that ends up working on it with him as an assistant to try and get closer to him.

Right off the bat I think everyone in this cast is pretty dense but man is the main hero just the most dense mf in the universe. I feel sorry for the main heroine cause she knows but she’s just so down bad for him she kinda becomes dense to how down bad she is. In any case every chapter takes the form of a series of connected 4 panel stories and it’s pretty funny throughout.

The wider cast is pretty neat, nothing too crazy but as i said they’re all pretty dense in their own weird ways so the interactions are usually funny. The art is solid, cast is okay, pretty funny, would recommend for sure.

ftr both have an anime not sure of status or quality

and again ftr i’d rank boring girlfriend over monthly girls’ in general, especially as it’s complete it’s just that this is the dense & denser category and monthly girls’ nozaki is definitely dense central, like black hole event horizon density my friends…

and the last category

That’s Rough Buddy

{a direct reference to avatar when sokka told prince zuko his girlfriend turned into the moon and his response was “that’s rough buddy”, this category is different from the that’s fucked up category I used in very.2 in that these focus more on emotional turmoil and have no physical violence and so on}

#3) Kowloon Generic Romance (ongoing w 61 chapters, story & art by Jun Mayuzuki)

This is kind of eh tbh, cool art, and it’s kind of a mystery as to what’s goin on, so much so that I don’t think I can describe it without spoiling so i’ll lean on the anilist/yen press summary a bit here which is as follows:

“Welcome to Kowloon Walled City: a dystopian townscape where the people are brimming with nostalgia, and where the past, present, and future converge. Amid the hidden emotions and extraordinary daily lives of the men and women working in its confines, a tale of romance begins to unfold for real estate agent Reiko Kujirai—one that feels as familiar as Kowloon itself…”

I doubt that told you anything but I hope it sparks some intrigue, I will say it has a good number of dope one liners, and if i’m being honest the main characters smoke a lot which is an aesthetic I love for some reason so sue me…

Not much else to say tbh, nice art as I said, it’s pretty cool, okay cast, the story is pulling a bit but the bait isn’t that strong, though the aesthetics of it all has definitely caught my eye so I will be keeping up with it after this month… i wouldn’t push it as a recommendation that hard but there’s only 61 chapters rn so no real loss if you do decide to check it out

#2) How Do We Relationship? (ongoing w 115 chapters, story & art by tamifull)

The story here is that the main heroines are gay and in reality no matter how much the media and conservatives want ppl to believe that homosexuality and homosexuals are accepted and normalized in society, in fact that anything but being heterosexual and cisgender passing is accepted & normalized, that’s simply not the case in real life. I live in jamaica and man, not that I really care, but I could get shunned just for reading stuff with gays in it… In any case that’s the sort of reality the main heroines live in which was cool for its realness as they were/are hiding the fact that they're gay, but in any case plot plot plot they end up going out….

This is the “that’s rough buddy” category so I think it’s okay to spoil that it doesn’t go smoothly though I won’t go into further detail. I will mention a really cool thing the author said in an afterword where they say that a lot of romance stories tend to build towards and end at the start of the main characters getting into a relationship, but life isn’t like that. There’s life after that and that’s sort of what they wanted to illustrate. The life after a relationship…. Sounds like a spoiler but remember there’s more than just our heroines in the story. there’s a whole wider cast and they’re all pretty great. each having their own relationship troubles or lack thereof, ideas and philosophies on love and etc.

Pretty solid art, in fact it really reminds me of yokohama shopping log, so much so that i’m convinced it’s a fanfiction created just to make the characters from that series actually full on gay. Pretty solid cast, a story that gets more and more engaging as it goes on though it’s pretty solid from the start. would definitely highly recommend though it can be a bit tumultuous like damn you guys just never gonna be stable huh??

#1) Chobits (complete w 88 chapters, story & art by CLAMP an all woman manga group formed in the mid 1980s made of Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki lgarashi)

I’d always seen this around and always as the profile picture for some more than suspicious internet accounts… the vibe it gave off in my periphery view was just horrendous tbh but i took the dive and it was worth it, obviously, coming in at #1.

The story here is that in the future, the world is inhabited by humans who live alongside their extremely powerful computers called persocoms, that are shaped to look and act almost human. numerous stories have taken this angle so I think you can imagine the effects that would have on society, but in any case the story follows our mc who recently moved from the countryside to the city and ends up finding one in the trash that he takes in and starts to take care of. The thing is their memory is corrupted so he has to teach them everything, but soon enough the mystery of the discarded persocom comes to light and their abilities could change the world.

All that pompous stuff aside the theme of discerning the shape of love and who deserves it was pretty cool, the mc was bleh and so was most of the cast but the last few chapters and the questions they posed were enough, especially the origin story of the persocom like damn… that’s rough as fuck buddy,, def kinda weird but my condolences all the same…. Art was okay… and yh i’d recommend it..

hm:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

Top Combo

Video Girl Ai (complete w 131 chapters, story & art by Masakazu Katsura)

This was probably my fav read this month, somewhere between this, boring girlfriend and skip & loafer but this definitely has the best combinations of the different categories I was working with this month.

Again this is something I'd seen floating around for the longest and associated with more than sus accounts but it was pretty good.

The lazy story is that the mc is a lame with no game and his crush ends up confessing to his best friend in front of him. obviously distraught he ends up renting what he thinks is a porn tape.. which I guess it technically is but it's supernatural in that the girl comes out of the TV and tries to mend the viewers’ heart.

Things get super complicated and it turns into the weirdest love polygon I've ever seen, lots of back and forth and dilly dallying but I enjoyed it. The art was great, had a great classic feel, there's more than a bit of ecchi but it's not entirely distasteful or weirdly out of context, the characters and their interactions were a bit exasperating with the back and forth, loves me loves me not stuff but that had its own entertainment value, and in any case I'd recommend it

now moving onto stuff from before this month, which I won't get into details for as I've spoken on them in previous versions which I'm encouraging you to go listen to or read the transcripts for,,

Oldies

Awww

Our Precious Conversations (top 1 oldie ver.1)

Dense & Denser

That's Rough Buddy

Hi Score Girl (top 1 ver. 2)

Boy's Abyss (top2 wtf ver. 1)

That's it for this part, got a little off cuff rambling in the rest of the ramble of you wanna listen in, thanks for checking this out as usual, hope you can find something here or elsewhere that you'll love and I hope you have a good one until next time 🍻

[class-1b-bull]

1B with a S/O with chronic pain?

Not proofread we die like men

Awase - he doesnt really know how to help and hes to scared to ask so whenever the pain is bothering you a little more than usual he will just stand there and maybe give you an ice pack/heating pad <3

Sen - while he does do little things to make the pain better he knows that it is constant and wont go away so he more so focuses on taking your mind off of the pain

Kamakiri - hes actually surprisingly good at helping people with pain (maybe hes accidently cut one too many ppl in the past or smthn) he knows what you need before you do

Kuroiro - hes overall an akward and shy person so he doesn't really know what to do to help but he does spend multiple nights researching so he can learn how to help! Just tell him what you need and he will get it!

Kendo - she knows that the pain is constant but she does little things for you each day to make it more tolerable <3 (like carrying around pain meds and heating pads and such)

Kodai - she spends so much time just listening to you rant and she would do everything she can to understand what your going through <3

Komori - you are not allowed to do certain things when shes around. It may not even help with the pain but she likes to think her doing these little tasks for you help a lot!

Shiozaki - she prays for you to be healed each and every day and the time she doesnt spend praying she spends with you. Either just hanging out or trying to help ease the pain <3

Shishida - he is constantly making you tea and snacks for you throughout the day. He also offers to go to the doctors with you if you have an appointment <3

Shoda - hes constantly hovering near you in case you need anything but he wont act without your permission/ without you asking him to

Pony - ya know how some animals can sense if you are hurt? She can kinda do the same thing by reading your facial expressions and such. She always asks where your hurting and how she can help <3

Tsubaraba - he knows the pain is constant and wont completely go away no matter what (he had to look it up when you told him lmao) so he focuses more on making you laugh and be happy to hopefully take your mind off the pain

Tetsutetsu - he is your emotional support idiot honestly. He has no idea whats going on or what to do but he does everything he can to help

Tokage - she gives constant reassurance and does everything she can to make sure you are feeling as good as you can mentally! (Despite the pain)

Manga - hes constantly doing little tasks for you to the point where if he sees you try to pour your own glass of water he will (gently ofc) take it from you and do it for you lmao. He just wants to help

Honenuki - hes constantly giving you messages and tea to try and help with any and all pain you have. Hes happy to help even if its just a little

Bondo - hes better at emotional support and making you comfortable than actually soothing the pain itself but his help is still very appreciated <3

Monoma - hes a little bitch by trade so he would be annoying as shit about the whole thing but at the same time he will do anything you asked him too honestly. Sometimes you dont even have to ask he just knows somehow

Reiko - she doesn't do anything specific unless you ask her too but she does constantly remind you that shes there for you and she constantly checks up on you

Rin - bro does everything he can think of to make your pain bareable. Medicine, self care techniques, hes always making sure you got plenty of sleep and enough food and just little things like that all the time ykyk

They look so silly here <3

[moisssofrp]

 was plotting with someone and threw out some ideas. i wanted to bring them here to see if anyone was interested. for this it’d be m/m and i’d like to play the bottom / sub and contains mainly dead dove related content. so check below for more & ideas. warning; dead dove content / ideas

if you’re of the rp-finder type than, most of these were written with either a large age gap or cookie with the top being younger. they’re quickly written and rough idea’s but all contain some element of dub/non, monster (thinking tentacles) or haunted (ghost), i**cest or step, omegaverse and etc! But we can tweak them and add or take out as you’d like. or if they springboard some ideas of your own but i’m open to more.

the typical jock x nerd, my muse would be the jock and maybe the friend to your muse’s older brother. he doesn’t really bully him but might play pranks. ppl think he’s straight but your muse maybe finds a lot of gay porn and black mails him

this one is based of off one i read and my muse is molested on the train but doesn’t stop it and kinda enjoys it or is to scared to speak out. either way, your muse see’s, records and uses it against him. it could be student x teacher or they live on the same street

this one, my muse is secretly an omega and is finding it and it’s a very pro-alpha world. because of that my muse keeps to himself and comes off mean or is just really strict. your muse is an alpha and finds out he’s an omega and takes him

this one would be incest and my muse raised your muse so your muse thinks of him as a father instead of an elder brother. my muse is alpha but acts like an omega in a sense of being motherly as well so your muse decides to bitch him and turn him into an omega

my muse moves into an apartment complex that’s fairly empty and your muse family could own it or something. it’s haunted or has monsters and it’s really your muse and/or your muses controls them. one day, it’s happening and he tries to your muse to help bc they’ve built up a good relationship but ur muse is in on it

this one is from a manga but with some tweaks, it could be a male dominated world or even alpha dominated world. so your muse even though young, is seen as the head of household. my muse starts to date your muses elder sister / mom and has ideas on my muse. he takes him and my muse doesn’t want to be exposed but ends up loving it and trying to keep it secret. the mother/wife doesn’t really pay attention that they spend so much time to together bc your muse tells her it’s not a woman’s place or something

same kind of plot as above my muse has a younger sister and starts dating your muse is who is considered a bad boy, he wants doesn’t approve and your muse comes over one day to confront him and catches him watching gay porn has his way with him until my muse gives in and wants it

my muse nephew (your muse) has always talked about marrying him and my muse has always laughed and brushes it off but your muse comes to live with him and he takes the chance to have them

for this one our muses could it’d be incest and our muse’s live out in the country or away from a lot of people at least. my muse had your muse young and is struggling to put food on the table and the farm doesn’t make much money. your muse gets the idea to use his dad to make money via porn and etc. we could iron out the fine details but involves non-con, mind-break and etc

a world were underage sex and etc isn’t considered taboo everywhere and is considered more liberal. your muse suggest to his dad/brother/caretaker they move to a knew town and my muse doesn’t realize they’ll moving to a more liberal one and when your muse starts to take advantage of mines, no one really cares and it’s encouraged

a world were men are supposed to be seen as tough/doms and those don’t are degraded slightly. my muse is secretly gay or at the very least, secretly likes being the one taken. your muse finds out and does it

another train one that could lead to more (for plot and not just smut) but my muse was dared to wear a slutty out on the train late at night, it’s cramped and your muse takes advantage of mines

your muse and my muse have been messaging on an app and meet up for the first time in person, my muse is already in the room and blind-folded and etc. when your muse realizes who it is, they don’t stop and things go from there, blackmail, more non-con/dub-con and etc. they could be siblings, father-child, student-teacher or whatever

[feekins]

oh. I'm beginning to experience Hoppered Feelings 🥲 all that and more here in my thoughts and things and whatever translation weirdness I find as I re-read ch 5 of Trigun Maximum vol 4!

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and the Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

okay. oh man. Hoppered is hitting different this read-through. with the Overhaul's translation, I feel like I'm getting a greater sense of just...the depth of Hoppered's grief and how that's crystallized into such immense, vengeful rage. how fitting, then, is the Overhaul's title for this chapter: Wild Crying Bullet.

Dark Horse's title? it's "Crying Wild Breed" I'm not even joking 😆

both translations are roughly the same for this first page (Dark Horse's being "The remaining Gung-Ho's -- Zazie... Midvalley... Hoppered... Who's there?! Someone's coming...?!" - so, again, the Overhaul's translation is more explicit/nuanced). what I find interesting is that in neither of them does Wolfwood count Legato among the "remaining" GHGs. so I looked back and in ch 1 of Trigun vol 2, Legato does specifically say (paraphrasing here - both translations have basically the same thing) "Soon, twelve assassins will come to hunt you down." I tallied up the GHGs in both the anime and the manga, and in doing so, I realized the numbers track with what Legato knows of the GHGs. I guess, for some reason, I've always mentally categorized Legato with the rest of the GHGs, hence my initial confusion.

that brings up another interesting point: Wolfwood does not seem to be aware that 12 is the GHG magic number, so to speak. He's only counting Monev, E. G. Mine, Dominique, Leonof, Hoppered, Midvalley, Gray, Rai-Dei, and Zazie (but what about Wolfwood himself? lol idkkkkkk). so. yeah. THAT'S interesting. 🤭

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

here's where Hoppered's story starts hitting harder for me this time around - "Since that day...I ceased to be human." that line alone is so compelling to me - there's this crushing amount of grief and rage to it.

Midvalley's cold professionalism rly comes through in the Overhaul's translation here!

this bit has always confused me. looking at the context, I get what Nightow/Dark Horse/the Overhaul is putting down...but I feel like I'd get it better if I could understand the onomatopoeias in that top panel 😅

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

two things I wanna note here:

① to me, "been improved" reads as more passive - like things were done to him - while "made many improvements to become" implies a more active transformation for Hoppered - like he consciously and willingly did these things to himself.

② while I prefer the Overhaul's translation...I do like how poetic Dark Horse's choice of "inside of my head"/"my body" is =u=

...interesting discrepancy, coin VS coins...

...and with the second panel, again, the Overhaul's translation is more straightforward. both basically say the same thing, but...idk. the Overhaul's feels more clear and intuitive to me =u=

Dark Horse's translation kinda has Milly connecting Wolfwood with Hoppered (and Midvalley? and Zazie?) in terms of like...having the same drive. but in the Overhaul, we see this bit is more about Milly having this epiphany about just Wolfwood, and I like that - feels like that tracks rly well with how perceptive of other ppl we've seen Milly be.

ooooh Vash is. SO done. gets straight to the point in both translations.

both translations make sense in context here imo - but the Overhaul's gives you this sense that Hoppered is well aware of how Vash prefers not engage in armed combat if he doesn't absolutely have to, which I think adds more dimension to Hoppered seeking revenge, picking up on these bits of info over the years!

in Zazie's opinion, Knives isn't the kind of person to fight for anyone but himself.

as someone who very much enjoys all iterations of Knives, I must say THANK YOU!!! SO MUCH!!! FOR INCLUDING THIS DETAIL, OVERHAUL!!!!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩

[tempenensis]

Hi lele just wanna drop a lil vent AND need YOUR opinion on it please if you would be so kind♡ tq

I hate western fandom so much like even god can't help them!

Ok so i shipped satosugu and itafushi (♡♡) but now this western fans are screaming crying blah blah saying its canon when its NOT

Ok i understand about itafushi cus gege has implied it as well but nothing about satosugu has been said has it? It was just a mistranslation for godsake

All these western ppl started screaming satosugu canon after the director said some ship stuff but that SO does NOT make it official now does it?

I mean even the director of bleach has officially admitted that the anime was kinda biased and towards ichiruki than the ichihime that was later CANON by the MANGAKA himself

Im east asian and i speak and write Japanese well (its my first languag) and so i have always been reading manga first and then watching the anime. And i, as a manga reader, noticed the difference and so many things that were indeed ichiruki but thats not what im saying

Cmon are you getting me lele?! Im not trying to spread hate i just want the western fans to know not to cry wolf unless its OFFICIALLY confirmed or such

Just because THEY WANT to make a ship canon thru some half assed opinions does not mean they would pressurized or shame others who do not get on board on their not canon but i say its canon so its canon train

I really liked satosugu because i though it was cute but now i don't cus the western fandom made it so toxic

I told them that the official manga that is in Japanese language says something else (that my one and only thing) they literally all hounded on me, bullied me online for being a 'homophobe'? Like why? I have a girlfriend for around 3yrs now haha 😂 (im a girl)

I DONT KNOW WHAT TO SAY IM SORRY LELE FOR WASTING YOUR TIME BUT I JUST want WHAT IS YOUR OPINION please

Thank you very much

Have a wonderful day

Uh, yeah. So it's finally time that I came clear. I once said that I have a ship that I barely tolerate, so.... that NOTP is none other than stsg. I recently block the ship tag here in tumblr, actually. So now that I said this, stsg fans, you're very welcome to block me.

I'll put the rest of my answer under the cut in consideration for the ship fans, since this is definitely not for the fans. Don't say I didn't warn you if you're one of the fans and still continue to read and then get offended

Honestly, this is a thing that has been happening since several months ago. I don't know exactly why, but the western stsg fandom got very loud - to the point that I, who usually can tolerate many things including pairings that I don't ship, became unable to ignore it. Fans today really likes to throw words like "canon" and easily verbally attack people who don't agree.

Anyway, even if Director Park said it, it doesn't really make it actually canon. I still remember Nakata Jouji (I love the man, he's my favorite priest in Fate series), the seiyuu for Naobito, said that Naobito is Maki's father, which later written by Gege to be untrue. Ougi is Maki's actual father. So, unless Gege writes or says it directly, what other people (even staffs) can only be considered as a speculation; since it's their interpretation of the characters, just like we fans do.

It's just when related to a ship, fans always get loud. Remember viz's mistranslation "my one and only" lol? I have long thought since the volume came out that the stsg fans will take it and run with it. And this is just a personal theory, but the loudest one are the one with the smallest crumbs. Itfs is still fed today by gege so we're just content day to day, but stsg currently has nothing in the manga so they get really loud when the smallest crumb drops. It'll pass if you wait, just stay calm lol.

So my intolerance does not come from the ship itself, but from the fans, so yeah. Same, anon, same.