#<- take that with a grain of salt because he did start pretty young too

[starfallchampion]

Lillie here, this is so very sweet!! The little cheer the girl did was probably her and her Popplio immitating a Z-Move, a type of special move used in Alola! Did it look like they were doing a wave-type thing with their arms? If so, they were likely trying to do the Water-type Z-Move: Hydro Vortex! It's pretty common to see kids doing that in Alola, especially if they know someone who has a Z-Ring.

Just got back from the park with Chai. We had lots of fun, she chased all kinds of bright leaves that were falling. Met a rockruff who she played with for a few minutes.

But the highlight was most certainly watching a 1v1 battle on the battleground. There was a young trainer I believe from Alola with her popplio, and another trainer who had a few years on her with their bayleef.

I only started watching a few minutes after they started, but I swear that poor girl couldn't get a single hit in. For such a large pokemon, that Bayleef was incredibly agile.

Her popplio ended up in rough shape a few minutes in, and it was looking pretty bad. Most trainers would've called it quits at this point, but something in this pair just refused to back down. There was one moment where she even did a little dance and cheer(?) and her popplio did it back. It was very cute.

All that to say, when they finally managed to get a single hit in, everyone watching and a few pokemon walkers burst into cheers. Even the other battler threw their fists up and let out a great roar. Chai howled. It was a very unifying moment, seeing this young trainer finally manage something she'd clearly been trying very hard at.

The bayleef team still won. But she didn't even care. She was grinning ear to ear and gave her popplio all of the belly rubs. (I believe this was a hit for points battle and not to exhaustion battle) The other trainer came up to shake her hand, and then scooped her up in a big hug and spun her around a few times. She was absolutely giddy and it was rather infectious.

So, that was a nice thing to see today. Watching young trainers is always interesting, and it makes me think about how my life may have been if I'd been allowed to go on my own pokemon journey. Chai also seems very excited to watch battles, even on TV.

It's a bit of a sore spot as well, seeing all the common childhood experiences I missed out on.

I know some start their journey later then others. But... I'm not sure they do when they're in their 20's.

[angelflms]

talked about it on insta and ima do it here because i know xolo fans are so excited about this recent insider that just dropped but i have been a part of the mcu fandom for way too long and i know how things go:

TAKE THE NOVA NEWS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.

here's some facts about this whole thing that contradicts this announcement (not saying the casting is wrong or that it's impossible but it's very unlikely):

- xolo is under a current DCU contract with warner. marvel doesn't fuck with actors who are working with the competition (his voice acting work for moon girl and devil dinosaur doesn't count as it wasn't for the MCU and he did it before being cast as jaime)

- xolo is heavily rumored and hinted at to be playing ace for once piece on netflix

- the insider said filming starts in feb 2025

- kevin feige, the marvel studios president JUST announced that the nova project is gonna be in three to four years time

- so timing doesn't make sense

now there's some elements to this that can be true. glenn close and john c reliy's characters ARE probably gonna be in the project considering their connection to the cosmic world of the MCU (and close literally playing nova prime) BUT that's the only thing from the insider i personally believe.

xolo can still possibly be cast in the show. that can still be a thing. he could be sam alexander but again i highly doubt it. he could make an appearance as a live action, aged-up version of his character in moon girl and devil dinosaur as his character could fit into the world of nova pretty well (idk enough about his character to know if he's a character created just for that show or if he's in the comics), being that he is a kree alien.

now i have been wrong before about many announcements. and there can be a lot of ways we can find out if things are true but rn, i'd say that these rumors are just that: rumors. now they may not be outta nowhere. BUT the filming date is definitely wrong imo. casting could be true but i again don't think xolo can be in the mcu, one piece, AND the dcu all at once, especially if they need his characters to come in at whatever time they need him for. that would be way too straining for one actor, let alone one so young. i don't wanna crush anyone's spirit but that's a lot when you think of it.

now there have been castings of my favs that i thought were very unlikely just because i thought the universe would be too kind but did work out. big example being hailee steinfeld as kate bishop and joe locke as "teen" (billy allegedly) rn. and at the time of their castings, hailee already did spider-verse and joe filmed heartstopper so an actor being in the MCU and a netflix project isn't too far fetched.

but dc, marvel, and netflix while playing prominent roles that are gonna make many appearances that we have no confirmation about is wild. bc if so, that means he would be in multiple seasons of one piece, allegedly the teen titans movie, the blue beetle animated series, the nova show, any possible future guardians/cosmic/kree-related project, and that avengers two parter project, not to include lending his voice to the smurfs movie that he was announced in as well. all within a span of a couple of years. and let's not forget the crazy routines marvel has you do like idk.

xolo as sam isn't crazy. and i wanna see him in the show. but it just seems highly unlikely. but i'll wait until feige or deadline confirms it (or any of my trusted mcu insider accounts i follow since none of them have posted about it)

if he does pull all of that off though... i'm MARRYING the bitch.

[ladysomething]

Believe me, I do trust your writing, but the chapter this week really really got me almost crying lol! I often see people in the comments being mad at Charles while I can only feel sad for him everytime even when he is being "stupid" from a neutral pov... He was thrown into a world where he doesn't really have a lot of independence and choice and seeing him so defeated was heartbreaking :/

At this point I'm wondering the same thing as him... I understand society completly changing would be idealistic, but it seems like he's always going to be so restricted (like being vulnerable to the alpha voice)

Abt Kelly's pup anon theory, I really don't feel like it's Max's, but I can't form a timeline in my head for other options, since she did use to spend heats with Max and did leave in a hurry after discovering the pregnancy... so idk even if Max was protecting her from the pup's alpha, where does her spending her heats w him fit?

Also, I can't decide between two theories for Max's reasoning, which means you're doing a very good job because I tend to sniff out plots from a mile away

Ps. I do realise ao3 audience is kinda young sometimes sooo I do take their comments with a grain of salt

honestly, I feel for Max, but I feel for Charles too. they're both just in such shitty situations.

and yeah, Charles is starting to feel pretty hopeless. poor guy.

if this adds to your theory at all, someone suggested the pup's father is Jos. that could fit.

and what are your two theories? 👀

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

out of interest, how do you think izaya developed aspd and npd? i know that pds typically develop as a result of trauma so i suppose his parents always being absent would be a factor but id also like to hear your thoughts on it. love the aspd izaya headcanon btw

first off, thank u!

and secondly, his parents being absent would definetley be a factor. i read somewhere that its actually children whove been neglected that are more likely to develop aspd rather than children who are abused, because the complete LACK of stimului contributes to aspd more than bad stimuli does. take this with a grain of salt though because my source is "i saw it somewhere" and im 90% sure that place was NOT a study so it might be wrong

but either way, both pds are known to be caused by trauma and both have a genetic component to them. the genetic component isnt SUPER well known, but it IS known that there's a hereditery component here

so honestly? i think izaya was born with antisocial tendencies. NOT aspd, i must stress- at a very young age, if he was given adequate support and treatment, they could've stayed tendeicies and he wouldn't have developed fullblown aspd. he couldve turned out like one of those guys with a bit of a skewed morality system but is otherwise mentally healthy enough to participate in society without wanting to kill himself or others. quirks over disorder

but from pretty much every account i can think of, izaya was ALWAYS an odd child, to the point where it was his father that instilled a love of humanity into him

When he was younger, I saw he was distant from others, and that made me worried. And so I wanted him to come to like humans and become a man who could strongly love people twice as others would. (source)

of course this isnt exactly very detailed wrt izayas behavior, but if its enough that his absent father noticed, it mustve been pretty serious

so wrt his aspd, i think he was born with those kinds of tendencies, which were then exasperated by the neglect and ergo got worse and worse over the years, culminating in high school with his friendship with shinra, blackmailimg of nakura, and his beginning to poke his nose in the underground

his npd is a bit trickier

so, the way i personally developed npd is that my mom would seem to have two perceptions of me in her head, depending on wether or not i was following the Good Perception or not. the first me, the good one, was intelligent, kind, and filled with potential. the other one was a stupid lazy monster. i was the good one, up until i did anything she didnt like, then i was the bad one. these two ideas getting fed into me led to me clinging onto the Good Perception as how i really was, and if something even for a second made me slip, i'd crash down from total egoism to total repulsion. And It Sucked!

(disclaimer: do not armchair diagnose my mother. i have my theories but they will stay private and i absolutely do not want a STRANGER butting into this, especially when they could know less abt mental illness than me and thus spread misinformation)

now, i dont think izaya's parents were like my mom- but there was still a dichotomy at play here. he would go to school, where he would be a smart student and praised by his teachers, even if he kept to himself. then, he'd go home, and be alone. as he got older, it only got worse- humans are social creatures, and we don't take well to being lonely. the mind starts to cope with it however it can.

as izaya started to venture deeper into the underground, he couldve started to develop a superiority complex about it. see, look- he's smarter than everyone. better than everyone. that's why he's alone, its because he's too good to be around them. not because he's worse. he's better.

because, especially once he gets to high school age... izaya is smart. izaya is perceptive. izaya would be able to tell that there's something different about him, and that's why people avoid him and he avoids them. there's something wrong with him in a way that's repulsive and unpalatable to most. that'd wreck a kid's self-image, especially a neglected kid's, since he'd already have low self-image from, yk, the neglect

and the dichitomy of the low and high self-image makes him develop npd- the ego masks the low self esteem, but both are equally felt and true, its not like his egoism and god complex are fake- it's all very real, he feels it all and believes it genuinely, and he clings onto it because if he slips, he KNOWS where he's gonna plummet

anyway thats just my take on it!! "it was his childhood" is prolly a boring answer but honestly a lot of mental illness has that answer at the root of it. art imitates life and all

[pie-of-flames]

Beatles Asks - 3, 7 and 13 please!

I'm gonna do these separately because it's a lot.

3. What’s your opinion on The Beatles wives?

This is a very broad topic.

Cynthia: I read Cynthia’s book John: A Biography. Of course, any book like this has to be take with a grain of salt, assuming some level of self-interest and faulty memories. Even so, my heart really goes out to her after reading this. I believe she and John were truly in love. The pics of them together are always really cute. But I kind of doubt they would have married if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. Either John fell out of love or was too fucked up in general, or his mental issues were exacerbated by Beatlemania and later, heavy drug use, for the marriage to last long. He neglected Cyn and Julian horribly and was a gigantic asshole. For example, he hounded her to take acid and then, when she finally did and had a bad trip, he completely neglected her and left her alone to suffer. She says she even considered suicide during that trip. And don’t even get me started on the divorce. He really mistreated her. Granted, he was probably emotionally incapable of treating her with humanity, given his mental health issues. But he was just horrible and acted unforgivably.

Pattie: I also read the George part of Pattie’s book, Wonderful Tonight. She seems fine. I don’t have any feelings about her one way or another. They’re cute together. Both she and George were so young then. George was a shit near the end, of course.

Yoko: You know, who really knows what was going on between her and John? I do think they were genuinely in love. But I also think, in May 1968 when they got together, the relationship offered transactional benefits to both of them. She obviously wanted to snag a Beatle and become famous. She’d been stalking John for a pretty long time. And John desperately needed a “guru” to give he life structure and focus. He was really flailing after India, clearly in mental distress after losing Brian (and Whatever Happened In India™ which may have involved John feeling like he’d lost Paul somehow) and doing huge amounts of acid again. (Enter my theory that he had borderline personality disorder where you latch on to an Important Person to provide your identity.) Both of them were all on board with a codependent, all-consuming relationship. She doesn't seem like a particularly nice person, what with the stories about her ordering around Apple employees like they were her personal servants. She also seems very manipulative, but then again, so was John. Personally, I cannot stand her "singing" (I study classical singing, so...it's just painful to listen to.)

Skipping to the seventies, my impression is John wanted Yoko to control his life and she did,         although they also seemed to enjoy playing power games with each other. I don’t know why he went back to her after the Lost Weekend, but I assume part of it was a need to give up control to another person. It’s hard to tell if they were still in love in the seventies. I would love to find out what was really going on between them in this period because there’s such a drastic difference in opinions, like “happy, bread baking house husband” narrative vs. “depressed, in bed getting high and watching TV” all the time narrative.

Linda: I do think there was a bit of the starfucker in her but she and Paul were obviously in love and devoted to each other, as far as we can tell. No other thoughts. I don't really know much about her. I’m grateful for all her photos of Paul. :)

Later Paul wives: no opinion, I don’t know enough.

Olivia: same. I'm glad she and George were able to have Dhani.

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 3 Ramble#1 - New Year New Worlds ver.2

This is another one of those episodes where I almost feel like I’m betraying the name and purpose of the podcast, as this month I won’t actually be talking about manga or even anime for that matter.

The first time I did this whole New Year New Worlds thing was in Season 2 Ramble 1, where I focused on isekai manga and manhwa since I’d never really given the genre a chance before then. This month, again, I wanted to try something completely new to me and so I focused on Visual & Light novels.

Now my regular ramble format is to talk about top new reads on a particular topic/theme for that month, then give top reads I had on the same topic/theme before then. Seeing as this is an entirely new media format for me, there’s no way that format would work. So how this episode is gonna go is I’m gonna do a very quick once over of my top 3 isekai from last time, then get into this month’s media starting with Light Novels, then wrap up with Visual novels.

Lastly, before we get into it, I thought it would be useful to actually define these media formats, so everyone listening would be on the same page, veterans and newbies alike.

So…

According to wikipedia, Light novels are a type of popular literature novel, native to Japan, usually classified as young adult fiction targeting teens to twenties… In other words they’re books. Taking wiki at their word, light novels, or LNs as I’ll probably refer to them from now on, tend towards the YA novel variety you’d find in the west. The biggest difference being that they’re usually a bit shorter with an average length of less than 300 pages, but a crazy dense publishing schedule of 3 - 9 months between installments… crazy…

And visual novels, according to masterclass dot com, are text-based adventure games that combine interactive fiction and traditional anime or manga art styles, to give the gamer the experience of reading a novel in a visual format. The site goes on to describe different types and targets, along with 5 key characteristics of which I thought the first was really key and worth mentioning. Namely, Advancement; In visual novels, or VNs as I'll probably call them going forward, players do not guide a character the way they would in a traditional video game. Instead, they advance the story by clicking in targeted regions to refresh the text. Sounds kinda lame but trust when I say it’s the opposite. At least as far as my experience so far leads me to believe.

Getting right into it

A quick recap of my top 3 from Season 2 Ramble 1

#3) Loner life in another world - The ultra quick summary is in the name, as a lot of isekai tend to do for some reason… anyways, a loner gets transported to another world. Really it’s him and his classmates but he prefers to move alone. I thought it was pretty fun as far as isekai goes, mostly because it’s very lighthearted, doesn’t take itself too seriously and for the most part, at least from what i’ve read so far, it really felt like kids being kids. Which I really appreciated cause isekai always seem to go off the deep end.

#2) Murim Login - Again the ultra quick summary is that in this world, there’s the typical dungeon crawler aspect where special humans called hunters, protect the rest of humanity by going into special gates and closing them by defeating the boss monster inside. The MC is a low rank hunter that one day finds a VR game in the trash that actually sends him to another world. That’s the very basic premise but if i’m being real, the reason I dug it was because of it's heavy ancient chinese martial arts type vibe. The story has been enjoyable as well, split into two with his life in the real world and the one in the game, the one in the game so far being far more interesting… go figure.. but yh… I definitely have a martial arts bias so slight grain of salt there ig..

#1) Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint - This was my fav read that month and honestly I see it being my fav isekai for a long time. The story here is that the MC is a big fan of Light novels and happens to be the only person in the world to have completed one called Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse. Lo and behold the events of the story start to unfold in real life. Now I know that screams boring story overpowered MC red flags, as he clearly has a certain edge over literally the entire human population,, but TRUST. TRUST! it’s all handled really really well.

If i’m being honest, the really real reason I brought these up is probably because I saw some announcements earlier this month that two of them have started production for anime adaptations. #3 Loner life in another world and #1 Omniscient Reader’s viewpoint. Not that something getting an anime speaks to any inherent quality of a manga besides profitability, but in any case, if you liked the quick summaries, anime announcements or even just the names, I recommend actually listening to Season 2 Ramble 1 - New Year New Worlds, or reading its transcript for more structured descriptions and takes…especially on Omniscient Reader… so so good..

Now onto the stuff I actually got into this month, starting with Light novels... I say Light Novels plural and though I technically did read more than one, they were all from the same series

Durarara!!

I’m a big fan of durarara!! Watched the anime like ten years ago, and even back then I really wanted to read the source material but couldn’t find it anywhere, the source material being the LNs. I pretty much gave up.. but still 2 years ago I read the manga for Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency and still enjoyed it. Finally. Finally. I’ve gotten my hands on the light novels thanks to a 7 year old reddit post. Thank you reddit.

Durarara!! is a story written by Ryohgo Narita with illustrations, like the cover and a few more for emphasis on certain scenes, done by Suzuhito Yasuda. In total there are 13 volumes which started publishing in 2004 and ended in 2014. Of these 13 I’ve read 4 so far. This is the third time now I’ll be speaking about durarara!!, the first time was Season 1 Ramble 8 - A is for Anime (solo reprise) then Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency. Of course I encourage you to check those out but seeing as I clearly love Durarara!! I don’t mind giving the synopsis again.

Durarara!! Is the story of Tokyo’s downtown district of Ikebukuro and the people who live there. There are three central characters who the story mostly revolves around and a few more that make up the full main cast. The main three are mikado ryuugamine, a kid from the countryside who’s tired of the normal everyday life and so, invited by his best friend, moved to Ikebukuro to get closer to all the excitement. Mikado’s best friend who invited him, Kida Masaomi, is the second of the three. A rowdy, dye haired playboy who’s lived in Ikebukuro for a while and serves as mikado’s guide. Last but definitely not leat there’s Anri Sonohara, a plain girl who lost her friend on the first day of school.

There are others like the strongest in ikebukuro, shizuo, the most dastardly in ikebukuro, izaya, the random black Russian sushi store employee simon, and etc., that all affect the story one way or the other but there’s one more character that probably brings the central cast up to four and that’s celty sturluson, a dullahan, aka headless horseman, looking for her head that’s been stolen.

Not sure if you can tell from that not so short synopsis or the fact that there’s thirteen volumes of this thing but ALOT is going on in this story. For comparative reasons I'll bring up the anime here that has two seasons, the second being split into 3 cours, and they cover about 6 of the light novels. I say about, because I've only read four of them but I know for sure that season 1 covers the first three, and the fourth novel lines up with what happened in season 2 cour 1 so that’s where my assumption comes from.

In any case if it sounds like i’ve said a lot without saying anything, i’m aware and I hate it but it’s kind of a mystery story so i’ll give myself a small pass and hope you all can forgive me., Like this is one of those stories it’s hard to speak on without spoiling some aspect. I will say though that delinquents, katanas, superhumans and the yakuza are involved so… yh… Lastly the narration is great as almost every chapter is from a different person’s perspective and sometimes this goes back and forth through time so the story comes together in a very neat but crazy exciting kaleidoscope. One thing the anime had over the Light novel is that along with this changing vantage point, the narrator would change independently as well which I thought was really cool and really solidified the feeling that nothing goes unseen, whether on accident or by design, but the Light novels gave a bit more depth to the character's train of thought so I guess it balances out a bit.

Not much more to say but having watched the anime, read the manga and now the light novels I think it’s obvious that I definitely and holistically recommend durarara!!

Now onto the Visual Novels

The order I’m gonna mention them in is just the order I played them in, usually I’d do some sort of ranking but If you know anything about visual novels, and I guess story heavy games in general, it’s that they tend to be on the longer side of things so sadly I only finished one.

1) Steins;Gate

Released in 2009, developed and published by MAGES & Nitro+ with an approximate playtime of 44hrs. This was the only VN I actually got to complete a playthrough of this month.

I watched the anime 10 years ago and though I don’t remember much of the intricate episode to episode details, I do remember time travel being involved and it fucking with my emotions in the last half. In fact I went to check old tumblr posts I made back then to see if it would jog my memory but there was only one post and all it said was that the last 4 episodes were feels…

In any case back then I had no idea what VNs even were so I pretty much thought that was the end of it, but as the helix of time would have it, I’m back here again.

For those who have no idea, Steins;Gate follows a rag-tag band of tech-savvy young students who discover the means of changing the past via mail, using a modified microwave. Their experiments into how far they can go with their discovery begin to spiral out of control as they become entangled in a conspiracy surrounding SERN, the organisation behind the Large Hadron Collider, and John Titor who claims to be from a dystopian future.

Yes i know it’s kinda crazy that technical time travel was stumbled upon with a microwave but one it’s fiction, and two the series really doesn’t ask you to suspend your belief all that much otherwise. Getting into it, I really like the VN way more than the anime, the time difference is probably a factor but I don’t recall the anime being as thorough in explaining the science of different theoretical time travel mechanics and how they may or may not work. In fact the VN was way more thorough in general, from individual characterization to the overall settings, but to be fair to the anime, they have a limited time to work with and there’s no way they could fit everything in there. No reason to either as they told their own story and to be clear the anime was great and obviously having things moving about is a strength that the VN could never touch, but as a person who really loves the specifics of things, as well as a healthy interest in time travel, the VN just wins out.

Moving clear of the anime now, the VN playthrough is actually multithreaded, with several branching routes and independent endings which plays into the whole time travel, chaos theory, cause and effect type stuff brilliantly. Especially because the choices generally aren’t very obvious or with clear impact or storyline segmentation, besides the split in chapters which is independent of your choices. In my head, going into VNs I thought it’d be like you’re presented with a situation and there are some obvious choices with obvious impacts like do you want to be evil yes or no? But in steins;gate, you’re really just advancing the script almost unknowingly and the only choices you make are to answer a text or not to answer a text and the preset choices only present themselves when you choose to answer a text but i swear to you they are almost always about the most unimportant things that have absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand of trying to complete successful time travel and escaping a future dystopia.

Real example, a friend texts you and asks you if you want some anime frogs.., i only know this because I chose to look at the text but you’re free to ignore almost every text. In any case the options were like what tf is that? or why tf would i? (paraphrasing ofc) + even if you do open the text as I said you don’t have to answer. No idea what that or my even more insane conversations with the cat girl maid had to do with anything but somehow I ended up where I ended up.. In the end I somehow caused the MC to get stuck in the same cycle for some unknown time until his soul pretty much died and he was on the verge of turning to heinous criminal activities but ended up just leaving his time period behind at the risk of taking on extreme mental illness.. No reflection on me and my character of course, as I said the choices aren’t anything obvious like become evil or become good, it just turned out that way somehow but that’s part of the fun because the anime only had one ending but here there’s i don’t even know how many in the VN and I can’t wait to playthrough again.

Also want to mention that it’s largely from a first person perspective so even though the story could have had the feeling of being completely independent from you and just click click click powerpoint powerpoint powerpoint, that first person perspective gave it a feeling closer to that of things slowly slipping through your fingers as you desperately try to keep a handle on things… and art imitates life… great decision by the dev team there but yh… besides that the art and sound direction was great.. The character art specifically was pretty unique like I could definitely spot it in a lineup of 100 anime art styles… phenomenal story of course and though I’d say if you have no exposure to steins at all it could feel a bit slow in the beginning, like I distinctly remember having that feeling when I watched the anime back then and I’m sure my knowledge of the insane pickup had something to do with not feeling it so much now, but I feel it had more to do with the VN having less time constraints, so they were able to make deeper character interactions and with that, the individual characterizations became that much more fulsome and enjoyable.

Definitely definitely highly recommend both the anime and the VN, I think any order is fine as who says time itself is strictly sequential anyways..

2) Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen

Released in 2002, developed by AQUAPLUS, Leaf & STING, published by AQUAPLUS, DMM GAMES & Shiravune, having an approximate playtime of 35hrs.

Now I had never heard of this before but I’d asked a trusted twitter mutual for reccs and this was one of them. shout out LZ one time. Seeing as I didn’t finish I’d feel bad trying to give it a summary or overview with my limited knowledge so I’m gonna go with the description from vndb dot org, which for the record is also where I snagged the description for steins;gate.

In any case, Utawarerumono is about Hakuowlo, a man who wakes up in a tiny backwoods village near the mountains with heavy injuries, no memory, and a mask he cannot remove. After being nursed back to health by Eruruu, the girl who found him lying at the point of death in the forest, he starts to view the village as his new home. But when an oppressive ruler threatens the peaceful life of Hakuowlo and his newfound friends and family, they find themselves hurtled towards war, chaos, and a destiny far greater than any of them imagined.

Pretty simple storyline I guess but it’s all in the execution and from what I’ve played so far, which amounts to about 22hrs, they did a pretty good job. Personally they get extra points from me for justified political upheaval brought about by the consciousness of the masses due to the unjustified cruelty of the ruling class.. But i’ll digress.. Character design was pretty neat, typical anime type beat i guess, great soundtrack, loved all the wind instruments. The character interactions were neat too, definitely feel like i’m gonna do a little part 2 thing cause the more I go on I feel like there’s a few technical commonalities I wanna speak on but yh, again I didn’t finish, though I think I got pretty far, but i still I don’t wanna speak too long or hard directly on it.

Last thing on Uta is that it did have a lot of battle aspects, or at least a lot relative to my expectations for a VN, and that came in the form of a turn based tile map type beat. Think advanced wars or some megaman and final fantasy games.. In any case those were fun, i had it on easy mode cause I was more there for the story so that part was pretty much a breeze but it was refreshing coming off steins which was strictly text based + i haven’t touched any games in a good little while due to the economy™, I’d recommend this for sure, maybe not a super push but I definitely want to finish it which again implies that anything i say on this has to have a little bit more than a grain of salt.

3) Fate/Stay Night

Released in 2004, developed by TYPE-MOON & Notes Co.Ltd, published by those same developers along with Kadokawa Shoten & Kadokawa Games with an approximate playtime of 88hrs.

Just wanna start with no, I haven’t watched the anime, but of course i’ve seen the random clips on twitter, pretty much inescapable at the height of its popularity with ufotable doing undeniably excellent work on it, and i could tell that from just a few clips. But I was in my strictly manga phase back then so I let it pass. The only other exposure I had to the fate series was the gacha game Fate Grand Order which I played for a short time because of one of my twitter friends and then the fate strange fake manga because of that same friend which I will say I do enjoy and I think I even heard it’s getting an anime which would be really based. Anyways shout out jhin and I’m gonna go with the synopsis from vndb again but summarized by me cause it’s hella long, much like the playtime..

The Holy Grail War is a ritual that materializes the greatest holy artifact, the Holy Grail. There are two conditions to participate in this ritual: being a magus and being a "Master" chosen by the Holy Grail. There are seven chosen Masters and seven classes of Servants, beings akin to superhumans with incredible fighting abilities. If you wish for a miracle, prove that you are the strongest with your powers. Emiya Shirou is a high school student who finds himself engaged in the Holy Grail war as he gets attacked by a Servant. As he’s cornered, he somehow summons his Servant and manages to stay alive long enough to compete against the other Masters.

What’s crazy about this is that after playing Uta and reading the description for this I thought “oh so there’s gonna be fights and stuff” and yes there are but you kinda just watch them, well I can’t speak on the whole game but so far I’ve played about 30hrs and that’s what it’s been. Nothing bad, it’s a VN, just surprising given the nature of the VN. In any case I’ve enjoyed it so far, pretty much knew I would as most if not all the servants are famous figures from the past and it’s always cool to see clashes of famous figures across time.

I guess the bigger surprise was how much I liked the characters and their interactions, maybe they weren’t phenomenal but there’s always a certain set of folks on social media that will have certain characters as their profile pics and there’s always lewd art here and there and the trend that tends to follow from that is like the character is blown up by the fans to the point that when you actually get to the story it’s disappointing but… I get it…. Rin fans… i get it… saber fans… I get it… I only saw her briefly at the point where I got to but I’m a rider fan… Here my lawyers have advised me to mention that in the VN there is a disclaimer that all characters are over the age of 18… and i’ll just leave that there… Anywho I also dug the subtleties of the sound direction like if they were up high somewhere you’d have a light wind blowing along with the usual bgm or when they’re at a scene like lunch or breakfast there’d be the sound of plates and stuff clinking together… I thought little details like that were very cool… The art wasn’t much, typical anime stuff ig, doubt i could pick it out of a lineup but it was early 2000s so it gets a light pass ig…

Fate is a pretty big franchise at this point so I don’t think my recommendation for or against would sway anyone but for the record I would recommend it, grain of salt due to me not actually finishing it included…

And that’s it for stuff this month, thanks for sticking around to the end gotta shout out LZ again, that twitter moot I mentioned, they gave me reccs, set me up with sites and everything to get free to play, also shout out vndb dot org for the VN details, they’re doing great work over there and I would give the sites I got from LZ but loose lips sink pirate ships so i hope yall can understand… yh that’s it for the main stuff,, a little part 2 ramble is in the actual podcast if you're interested in listening but other than that, hope you enjoyed and have a good one o/

[safedistancefrombeingsmart]

Hm. Hello! Well, I don’t know how to start this, but I’ll try to be as soon as possible. It’s been a few long years since Amanda Abbington decided to be openly and proudly transphobic on her social medias and this surprised a considerable number of people. Last year, some Martin fans claimed that Rachel, his current girlfriend, had liked several extremely transphobic tweets, too.

The question is: how can I, a trans person who likes Martin a lot, be sure that he also doesn’t think like them? After all, he was married to Amanda and knew exactly the things she thought. The same with Rachel. I don’t want to be disappointed by supporting someone who thinks it’s right to think and say that my mere existence is a threat or a disgrace, and claim that this is an “opinion”.

Hi! Short answer: you can't be sure. Neither can I (or anybody else), because I don't know Martin or Rachel personally or can read minds (😉). It's a 'risk' we as fans have to take. We'll never know what someone else thinks about certain topics until they talk about it. A few things to think about, tho. 1. Those "fans" who claim that Rachel liked transphobic tweets, well- I'd take that with a grain of salt. I've read some really insane and frankly stupid things concerning Rachel. Unless those "fans" have proof (like screenshots or whatever), I wouldn't simply believe it. And since Rachel deleted her Twitter sometime last year (or in 2021, I am not exactly sure), it's pretty hard to determine if she did that or not.

Also, keep in mind that Rachel is still young. Maybe, just maybe she did like those tweets a few years back? Who knows. That doesn't mean she still thinks exactly like she possibly did back then. People mature, people educate themselves, people change their opinions. (Ok, that certainly doesn't apply to everyone, but I doubt that Martin would pick an uneducated piece of shit as a partner.) 2. With social media and tabloids things are taken out of context so often and so easily. I honestly don't know what Amanda said or did. I am not interested in her at all. And even tho Martin and Amanda were together for so long (they were never married!), it doesn't mean that Martin has the same views and opinions as her. I know my husband for 16 years (jeez, that sounds like such a long time) and I still learn new things about him. We also don't share the same opinion on every single topic. That's completely normal, yeah?

In conclusion: we will never know what a celebrity (or any person really) thinks about a certain topic. Furthermore people are not defined by their partner's opinion. It's good to be careful but also don't believe everything you see/hear.

Thanks for the ask! Take care! 🙂

[mixxdpunch]

I'm doing that Nikolai chart reading finally, IDK these are fun lol

His looks kinda cray cray btw but it's kinda similar to mine in someway so maybe it's why I relate to his literature lol

So to start off with - he has a LOT of aspects towards his sun, and his chiron squaring his ascendant. Im just mentioning this first cuz it relates to both the author and the character since they both had identity issues in life, and with your sun heavily aspected it does lead to a feeling of "otherness" in someone. This was a pretty big part of his life and work, so it's worth mentioning.

He has a scorpio ascendant, which could lead to a sort of strange impression people get when first meeting him - he also has a stellium with Uranus, Saturn and Neptune, which all add completely different energies to this. 2 are in Saggitarius, so he might come off as less 'welcoming' and with a leo in the 10th house it does add to the entertaining persona he had in real life and in the show (he was called a funny midget by his school friends when he was younger).

His second house is in Saggitarius, and with the ruler jupiter lying in the 5th house (which he did his work in) he did end up travelling a lot for his job. This isn't always an indicator of travel tbh, but he did gain value from this in his life.

The ruler of his 3rd house is also in the 1st, which means that his sense of identity as a writer is tied to himself. It's also in saggittarius, which probably adds that energy to how he communicated in life (he's a silly guy what can I say)

His 4th house has pluto which tbh is rather ominious (i have this it's a give or take) - he was bullied as a child, but made only a couple of long lasting friendships (something very scorpio like)

Nikolai also has mercury here and he a novice writer back when he was young. He wrote a lot for his fathers theatre and tried to write his own poems book and get it published but it failed, miserably - this was probably a pluto lesson but it was also a mercury one as well.

His 5th house has both his sun and his jupiter - his father owned a theatre and it's where Nikolai started, so he was born pretty lucky there. He also has a large sense of identity in literature and writing, since his sun in this house centers his life here - the arts kind of was meant for him.

His 6th house house is an aries house, the ruler of which is in the 12th - unfortunately that means a lot of the work and routines he has can be rather chaotic, and maybe even secretive. It's also the house of odd jobs, which he did do - both in the show and irl.

Fun fact about IRL Nikolai, but he got a position as a history professor for a year and sucked balls at it. IDK if it's related to the 12th house entirely but it's kind of funny, since BSD Nikolai would do that too.

7th house venus might be an indication of how he thought about his relationships - might also be an indication of him being gay but idk thats jumping. We just know that he was, so that could be a sign. He never married or had children btw, so take all of those "oh your 5th house and 7th house mean you'll have kids" things with a grain of salt fr. I honestly think this just means he was rather zesty guy in his friendships - he had strong ones throughout his life, and also ended up killing himself because of some spiritual guy saying he was sinful (this is the house of open enemies afterall).

Also back to BSD, look at how he treats Fyodor bro.

His 10th house is in leo, which means that his career of an entainer was pretty fitting here. IDK not much to say, it fits him honestly.

11th house is in virgo with a libra moon - which is kind of sad, since despite being rejected so much by Russian society, he was someone who took a lot of emotional energy to actually communicate with others, especially friends (moon opposite sun might have this affect tbh, since his ego and self opposes his emotional well being)

12th house house seems to be a part of his downfall - he clearly is spritual, both in the show and IRL. Mars is weakened here, meaning that the drive someone would usually get from this planet is rather struggling because it's filled with that wishy washy pisces energy - which is why despite the planet being in libra, the 12 house energy might make any mars emotions seem more watery.

BSD Nikolai really got it spot on cuz wtf this dude needs to chill tf out sometimes.

Also, the north node is here, meaning his purpose lies here - which is great for him being a writer. Also not great when you take into account other factors, like his death and life having such oddities, honestly a lot of them outside of his control.

BSD Nikolai kind of shows this, he doesn't have a backstory besides being obsessed with Fyodor and a more empty purpose tbh.

IDK. Shit's wack. His is all over the place tbh.

He clearly is a guy who has a strong identity with what he's doing - entertainment, writing. But when it comes to the smaller details, like love and the self, there seems to be a big gap - he's drawn sort of all over the place. He also suffers from a chronic case of 'being unlikable' since no matter what happens, some government official has it out for him. Even stalin didn't like him and he was dead for like decades at that point.

BSD Nikolai reflects him pretty well tbh.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 24/06/2023 (Leigh-Anne, Peggy Gou, Doja Cat... Gunna)

Content warning: Swearing, parasocial relationships, Gunna

For a third week, Dave and Central Cee hang onto the #1 spot with “Sprinter” on the UK Singles Chart. Welcome back, once again, to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with the notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 - what I cover on this show - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 75. Given it’s a middling week in terms of activity, we don’t have an insane amount of dropouts here, but we do say farewell to five songs that all have something in common: they’re pretty old at this point, all leaving the chart years after their release, and in most cases, years after they initially charted, those being “The Best” by the late Tina Turner, “Dog Days are Over” by Florence + the Machine, “Die for You” by The Weeknd - assisted by a remix with Ariana Grande that OCC does not credit - “See You Again” by Tyler, the Creator featuring Kali Uchis and finally, “Afraid to Feel” by LF SYSTEM.

As for what’s filling in the gaps... I mean, there’s not much of a gap to fill but two songs that are having viral moments right now return to the chart - “UNAVAILABLE” by Davido featuring Musa Keys at #75, which peaked at #60 earlier this year, and “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift all the way up to #28. It originally peaked at #27 close to release of the Lover album in 2019 and actually didn’t last a second week, but it’s been practically crowned an honorary single by the fans and has just now got that official push, so it’s off ACR and back to the top 40, right near where it debuted and peaked nearly four years ago. Oh, and for the record, I really don’t care for this song, I’m not bothered about it coming back or wherever it peaks from here on.

As for our notable gains, we do see boosts for “So Much in Love” by D.O.D at #55, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift at #45, “Relax My Eyes” by ANOTR and Abel Balder at #43, “Area Codes” by Kali at #38, “How Does it Feel” by Tom Grennan surging off of the album release (which did go #1 on the albums chart) to #31, “UNHEALTHY” by Anne-Marie featuring Shania Twain at #24, “Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles at #22, “Little Things” by Jorja Smith at #15 and finally, Hannah Laing and RoRo both get their first top 10 with “Good Love” at #9. Yeah, I’m not really complaining about any of that - you have a few bonafide great songs and the worst here is… “Late Night Talking”, I guess, and even that I just find kind of irrationally annoying rather than actually all that bad, so maybe this summer on the hit parade has some promise.

This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart consists of pretty much what you’d expect - “As it Was” by Harry Styles at #5, “Giving Me” by Jazzy at #4, “Miracle” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding at #3, “Who Told You” by J Hus featuring Drake steady at #2, and of course, “Sprinter” at #1. Now I said that the summer’s hits started to show promise, but our batch of new arrivals has two Gunna songs. So for everything I say, take it with a grain of salt. Let’s get to the new entries.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 - “back to the moon” - Gunna

Produced by Kenny Stuntin and Ayo Slim

Well, I haven’t listened to this Gunna album, a Gift & a Curse, which hit #9 on this week’s album chart, because… why would I? Young Thug just dropped an album, and really, especially since the producers have become considerably more unimpressive and the features are non-existent, I am just listening to a low-rate Young Thug. This song may be the best way to effectively sell that idea too, since the production is alright, if a bit unfocused with its lone melodies led by slick acoustics, soaring guitars, choirs and cute pianos functioning as a “loop” somehow when there’s just no real melodic composition to this. It does work, however, at least it could with this monotonous trap beat if anyone else was on it that had any genuine personality. He’s not saying of interest and even if the flow is fast and the delivery is relatively compelled for Mr. Kitchens… just imagine Young Thug on it instead and suddenly it’s a great song. Gunna has this meek-sounding voice that never fully sounds like it gives any substantial weight to what he’s saying, so whilst this works on smoother beats like “bread & butter”, on hard-hitting ones he finds himself lacking and desperately catching up to the beat, which is a shame because there is potential here. Speaking of sloppy flows on trap beats, let us welcome back an old favourite…

#53 - “Side Effects” - D-Block Europe

Produced by ProdByNInez

I wish the producer’s name was just Ninez so I didn’t technically repeat myself with that producer credit. Regardless, I guess we need a second song called “Side Effects” on the chart, and since it’s from DBE, it at least ends up being a bit more interesting, but mostly just like the Gunna songs… just British. This is a rare DBE song led by Dirtbike LB, who I generally prefer but not because of how he leads songs, moreso because he can deliver a weirdly depressing verse in the middle of a song with pretty good flows, so he feels almost out of his element acting as the lead with the first verse and chorus on this screeching loop that’s slapped over a drill-adjacent trap beat. His charmingly sloppy delivery is still here, combined with a pretty terrible vocal mix that sounds worse than in the hook than in the verses - priorities - as he flexes whilst praying the album doesn’t leak. Young Adz picks up a woman in his verse that kind of just proves that despite Adz having more of a presence generally, these guys are interchangeable since Adz ends up serving the purpose of desperate, longing second verse with cool, unstable flows drenched in Auto-Tune, except Adz has that fun “Ski” ad-lib, I suppose. Can we start a movement to make DBE comically bad again? This is just dull.

#47 - “fukumean” - Gunna

Produced by Dunk Rock and Florian “Flo” Ongonga

Come on, Sergio, this is a family show. This sure is a Gunna song, mostly ruined by Gunna but not entirely. I like the flute and its cheap-sounding piano counter-melody, with the stock refrain from P Litty, both in the fun gang vocals and the incessant “ee-yup”, giving something vaguely unique but also incredibly annoying, which is especially effective at turning me off the song when the only real dynamic within the song is the percussion, and even that just feels rote. Gunna sticks to one flow, calls himself a “perv” and all of you “little turds”, and then just ends up sounding like Travis Scott if he were even more bored. At least it transitions well into the next track on the album, which is both better than this thanks to cloudier production and actually compelling content in the second verse as well as something I accidentally listened to when meaning to just listen and review to this song. Great.

#37 - “Attention” - Doja Cat

Produced by Rogét Chahayed and Y2K

Doja Cat is a good rapper, and I definitely prefer her rapping to her singing, so when I heard she was going to release an album consisting mostly of more rap-focused songs, I had some hopes, and I still do even after this single didn’t wow me. The problem here is that this is not a particularly interesting instrumental - it’s far from bad, with its guitar frolick, but it’s not a guitar that sounds great with all its flourishes that if anything are kind of distracting. The boom-bap drums are a welcome breath of fresh air but the rhythm section ends up being kind of clouded in the muddled falsetto chorus and layers of vocal harmony, and when it isn’t, you can’t appreciate the musicality as much since it’s only Doja rapping and a few inflections added from Y2K that don’t add to the song all that much. That hook as well is not great, though it definitely adds to the eerie control Doja seems to want over the song, commenting on parasocial relationships through the infantilisation and dehumanisation of those who are very invested in their relationship with artists, as well as allowing for parallel between how she treats those fans - or haters - and how they view her as craving attention. The verses act as almost a defence of Doja’s actions in terms of her cosmetic surgeries, hair and social media antics, and whilst she definitely has a confident delivery and some pretty great lines - especially that now that she’s seeing a therapist, she can see the haters are depressed - I just don’t care. It’s a shallow reason, I know, but I can’t find myself invested in celebrity gossip that deflects from the celebrity itself. I prefer to hear more introspection when fame is a topic, though she actually gets to something really interesting in the second verse: she’s observant of the press and its toxicity that affects the way we respond to pop culture, whilst also making sure she stays away from going too far as to not look too invested in all the BS. The references in the inflections and rhyme schemes to Nicki Minaj when she’s brought up as a comparison is a pretty genius touch, honestly, and I love hearing when that direct influence feeds into an artist’s work without fully sounding like emulation, and for the last couple measures, we get to hear the instrumental breathe fully and it sounds great! Those moments are few and far between though, which is disappointing because I really, really want to like this song, yet that chorus gets on my nerves and a lot of the first verse I just don’t care for regarding all the clap-backs, it’s just not all that interesting to me, which will hurt the song years after some of this dies down, as well as hurt the song because it’s so lyrically focused. Hopefully the album lyrically touches on a variety of topics because this content could get old quick, and potentially spoil some more great production.

#14 - “(It Goes Like) Nanana” - Peggy Gou

Produced by Peggy Gou

Peggy Gou is a South Korean house DJ who has been active since at least 2016, and whilst her more recent EPs have made waves in the underground, I don’t think many people expected this new single from hers to blow up out of seemingly nowhere on Spotify, and end up debuting in the top 20, seemingly to stay for a good while and I am far from complaining because this is fantastic. If you know me at all, you’ll know I like my dance music more atmospheric, and this sounds straight out of a chill-out CD with his hypnotising 90s rave rhythm, consisting of a bass synth that is perfectly mixed alongside spiralling keys and a classic piano house pattern, as well as an unexpected guitar flick that reminds me of ATB. I’m pretty sure it’s Peggy Gou on vocals too, and she delivers an insanely infectious hook with a beautiful nonsense chorus perfect for this kind of atmosphere, which syncs up with a watery backing synth, it’s just a wonderful chorus. Gou’s vocals slide between a nasal extent and a more upbeat percussive cadence effortlessly within, and the vintage filter applied to all of the song definitely contributes to my pretty nostalgic enjoyment of this. Sure, it’s basically a non-stop chorus machine of a song, but when the hook is this good, it doesn’t matter, and really, any of the chilled deep house you hear from the 90s or 2000s is usually just as ridiculously repetitive with little splatters of synths or percussive changes that make it feel more interesting, so the fact that Gou decided to go for a breath-taking build-up in the final chorus here, that adds a little subtle vocaloid drop-sounding loop below the mix, as well as filtering out some of the drums so they make a less-than-full impact, both leads the song right back to its nostalgic roots whilst also playing a lot with the foundation. This is how you do a dance throwback - I’m very glad this charted, and I hope it sticks around, maybe even hits the top 10, because it would be a perfect summer soundtrack.

#11 - “Don’t Say Love” - Leigh-Anne

Produced by Jon Bellion, Pete Nappi and Jimmie Gutch

Damn, just as I started to forget each of their names, Little Mix are in full solo career mode, with Leigh-Anne being the second to release a charting single, but it’s best we forget about “Boyz” entirely so she’s actually leading the pack for our last new entry this week. With Jon Bellion on production and co-writing duties, it really can’t be bad, but is it any good? Yes, yes, to no surprise to anyone, once they went solo, the girls actually have room for being themselves, as she sounds more at home on this UK garage instrumental than she ever did on those group records. Leigh-Anne’s particularly silky over the syncopated 2-step beat and flashes of melody, and it’s an inescapable chorus definitely, especially over that vintage-sounding string section, and ESPECIALLY with that adorable interruption at the end of the chorus with all the percussive stabs. With that said, that’s kind of it - it has its tricks, it does them well, but doesn’t do much else, which is sadly also a problem with a lot of Bellion’s stuff, but at least we get a substantial bridge with a great belt as well as a new vocal melody that honestly sounds better than those in the chorus, and a spacey interlude that really fleshes out the song’s palette. It’s a good pop song, definitely one that feels like 2023, which should not as much of a breath of fresh air as it is, though I don’t know if it’ll last. I sure hope so, but our only frame of reference for a Little Mix solo career is… yeah, you know what I’m getting at.

Conclusion

This wasn’t a particularly great week, but there’s nothing terrible here, so I’ll give Gunna the Worst of the Week as expected for “fukumean”, with D-Block Europe grabbing the Dishonourable Mention as usual with “Side Effects”. Best of the Week is astoundingly easy as “(It Goes Like) Nanana” by Peggy Gou takes that, and whilst I really do want to give the Honourable Mention to Doja, I think there’s more potential than actual quality there so it’s going to “Don’t Say Love” by Leigh-Anne. I’m sure we can expect Young Thug on the horizon, as well as a new Nicki Minaj-Ice Spice collaboration, Hell, maybe something from Bakar, Hozier or God help us, Kim Petras and Coi Leray. For now, though, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week!

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

Thoughts from planes with Zee (an unhinged and incomplete list) Part 2

Hey friends! I traveled again, which means I wrote down every unhinged thought I had. Part 1 of this post is from August and you can find it here. And if you haven't heard my insane travel story yet, you can find it here.

Some of these are headcanons, some are random thoughts, some are responses to posts I saw while I was travelling. I wouldn't say any of these are particularly controversial, but I can see where people could disagree with me so everyone know that almost everything is a joke and should be taken with a grain of salt. Love you.

Do you think Wille went straight to Felice after the ball and was all giddy and telling her about the kiss? I think about this every day. Did he teenage freak out over it with his best friend? Does Felice know? 

Of all the random shit I put into Screwed about Erik, I think the funniest might be: Erik not being able to say anything other than “he’s pretty” when he meets Simon for the first time, and Erik’s least favorite month ironically being November. 

Wilhelm wears sweatpants on planes so he has pockets and Simon wears pajama pants, making Wilhelm hold everything for him. 

Just saw a post that said “Edvin looks at Omar like he’s in love with him” and after I’ve finished cringing, my response to that is: everyone looks at Omar that way. It’s Omar. 

Simon listens to the Beatles, but he does it in secret. Wilhelm only knows because he found the records in his room. Wilhelm, to this day, is the only person who knows.  

Thinking about how Henry didn’t think to knock on Wilhelm’s door because he probably knew after the locker room interruption just how heartbroken Wille was and therefore assume Wilhelm wouldn’t have anyone in his room. Henry didn't knock because Henry understood everything about Simon without being told.

Stella screams at airline representatives while Fredrika cries about plans being ruined. 

Wilhelm loves the rain 

Concept: season 3 opens with another dream like season 2 did, but this time it’s August and Sara. (Prompted by the song love, or the lack thereof by Isaac Dunbar) 

I truly and utterly appreciate Young Royals for showing what it is actually like for a teenager with anxiety to be forced into therapy. Like you don’t want to be there. For a while you do just sit in silence. But slowly you open up. It isn’t just "lay on the couch and share all your feelings" and then you’re suddenly better. It’s a process. It takes time. ESPECIALLY when you don’t want to be there. Just… god I’m crying about it again. 

Nils gives Tony Award worthy performances in his kitchen with a wooden spoon as a microphone. Change my mind. You can’t. 

Maddie is the first person in their year to get a license, but no one will get in a car with her behind the wheel. 

I feel like Walter is a Billie Eilish fan, but won’t admit it. 

Fredrika can sing every Hanna Ferm song from memory 

Stella sucks on lollipops because people got annoyed with her chewing gum. 

The entire Hillerska student body teases Wilhelm about not knowing Simon’s song was about him. They tease him for years. The administrators catch onto the teasing too and it’s mentioned subtly in their graduation address. None of the parents can understand why the entire student body started laughing at the headmistress’ speech, and they don’t understand why the crown prince is annoyed when he starts his own speech. 

Felice started learning Russian as a joke and now she actually speaks Russian and uses it often even though no one can understand her. 

Somewhat off topic, woke up rn to an Omar song, and was nice. 

Every rumor at Hillerska can be traced back to either Walter or Fredrika. They didn’t mean to, they just literally cannot keep their mouth shut. 

Henry watches ice age when he’s sick 

Moulin Rouge AU 

Thinking about ✨that✨ scene again 

If any of them were going to be a greyhound runaway, it would be Sara 

Follow up to that one^: Would like to see a fic where August is a greyhound runaway. Like canon still happens, but after s2 he just decides to run from his problems. 

Somewhere in Hillerska Erik graffitied his name

Off topic again, but noise canceling earbuds are a god send 

Felice+Adele. Send tweet. 

Want something to fuck you up? Actor for Nils is older than actor for Erik. 

Breaking up with my gf was such a good idea knowing what I know now💀

Madison loves flying. In comparison, Nils would rather die 

Omar songs + sunrise part 2 

I have never been more convinced that Vincent listens to fallout boy unironically 

Simon drinks peppermint Mochas 

Rowing team blamed their loss on “karma” 

Wilhelm has a crippling fear of being forgotten, but more so he has a debilitating fear of Erik being forgotten.  

Things I have now done: had a panic attack at 30,000ft (twice)

Felice makes sure everyone else eats and then forgets to eat 

Nils and night drives 

Carefully by Ben Platt is Wilhelm season 2 

Jag hatar mannen bredvid mig.  han gjorde ingenting.  Jag är bara arg på hela världen.

If Dani and I started a podcast, would people listen to it? 

I hope Henry knows the names of Simon’s fish. Like maybe not right now in the canon story, but at some point. I feel like he’d appreciate the fish having names .

I wrote the beginning of a fic and I think it’s like kinda good but I did write it at 2am so maybe I’m just tired 

Is It Just Me? By Emily Burns is about to become the most painful Wilmon edit. Try me. One like and I’ll do it. 

Sara can’t swim 

Was thinking about a 1950s AU and then realized I have no reason for them to be in the 50s. Like why do they need to be in the 50s? Poodle skirts? That’s literally it. 

Growing Sideways by Noah Kahan is a Hangman Song. This is a top gun thing. Specifically Aftershocks fic by @the-navistar-carol. 

How… how are people gonna watch a show in which Edvin plays a queer character, and makes out with another man, and then accuse him of being homophobic? How do you even-? 

Sometime in the future August gets sober and people more mature than him begin to forgive him. Not because he deserves it, but because they don’t want to put the energy into being angry anymore. 

I want Omar to start yelling at people. Like he has to want to yell at people at this point. I think he should. 

Ayub 100% knows every detail of Wilmon. He is a walking Wilmon dictionary. Simon told him everything. Like he could tell you where Wilhelm’s least favorite freckle was or some shit even though he’s never asked Wilhelm about it, nor has he seen the freckle. 

Vincent’s guilty pleasure movie is Chicago and his ringtone for August is “cell block tango” aka "he had it coming."

Paparazzi catch Wille teary eyed, and it becomes a big “Boys DO Cry” Moment but really he just saw a really cute dog or some shit 

Wilhelm asks “would you still love me if I was a worm” and Simon replies “yes” without hesitation 

And that's every thought I felt like writing down. I hope it was delightfully unhinged. Much love to all of you.

[brushstrokesapocalyptic]

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

[evita-shelby]

Between the Shadow and the Soul

Chapter 35

As much as Eva hates surprises, she hates pretending to be surprised even more. The twenty-nine-year-old witch had known the activist was going to corner her on the way to Tommy’s office, but since everyone is supposed to think the strange Mexican woman has no legitimate supernatural power, Eva must play along.

“Miercoles.” she mutters when Jessie Eden ‘scares’ her. Jessie finds her oddly fascinating, so much so that she’s made it her job to seek her out and see if she can annoy her into getting Thomas to rehire his workers back.

Eva wonders if Jessie Eden is queer as well. The witch remembers her strange admiration and dislike for the nude model at Gabe’s art school and her realization that she also likes women. “Every time I come to my husband’s Digbeth office I run into you. I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose, Eden.”

Eva had started to like Jessie, but her moods change faster than she can change Diane’s nappies. Just this morning she cried because Dia took her first steps, but they had been towards Tommy and not her.

“No children today, Eva, I thought you weren’t the type to hand ‘em off to nanny the second you grew bored of them.” Eden smirked as if she’d gotten something over her. Her new informant was one of Eva’s Smith relations, a Macdonald cousin from her grandmother’s side. Sara, second cousin once removed, invited to both her weddings and once or twice gotten caught talking shit behind her back. The young communist should take her words with a grain ---better yet, a jar--- of salt.

“Pretty difficult to fuck my husband if the children are there.” that had been said mostly to shut her up, but who knows, it might happen. “You should remind Sara not to run her mouth, one day she might find that my patience runs out.”

“She says you’re a bitch, that you wouldn’t lift a finger to help others ,but everyone thinks you’re a saint because you had to leave your country in a wooden crate.” Jessie keeps talking. Sara never liked her, and Eva stopped trying to like her after she said Eva kept Tommy at bay because he was poor. Never spoken to her after that.

“Sara also thinks if I hadn’t come to Small Heath Tommy would’ve fallen in love with her.” Eva snorts. Sara would have been the one asked to take care of granny after the previous nurse was caught stealing. But she lacked one thing to attract the attentions of man like Tommy: novelty.

Men were attracted to her because she was like an oddity at a curiosity shop. Sara was pretty and sharp as a knife, but she wasn’t the pretty foreign girl who dabbles in the occult. To get Tommy’s attention you had to stand out amongst the crowd.

“How did you know it was her? ”Jessie asked surprised. Sara didn’t know she was a witch, or at least not a real one.

“You need better informants, Jessie.” She mocked her. “Unbiased parties will tell you how it is, Kitty thinks of Thomas Shelby with fondness, Sara hates me for simply breathing.”

“What makes you think that’ll affect my judgement, maybe I’m capable of making my own opinions, Evie.” Her name drips with something akin to contempt.

“You think my husband will change his mind because you brought up Greta, and you think I’m incapable of caring for anyone else because Sara thinks I am a snake in the grass.” Eva points out.

“You don’t think he will?” Eden had assumed he’d cave in soon, but she doesn’t know Thomas Shelby, OBE.

“Tommy would’ve never let his workers suffer like that, but this is Thomas and this man you met would let the world burn out of stubbornness. If you hadn’t made things worse, I would’ve gotten him to compromise by new years.”

“I smell a wager, Mrs. Shelby.” Jessie smirks, if she had not been happily married, Eva would’ve so pursued her too.

----

“You know when I came here it was on a Manchester Car Factory crate. Made up a whole Pantomime about wanting a crate big enough to carry out some valuables I was selling and the company’s warehouses only had that one.” Eva sits at the edge of his desk, cross-legged with her skirt hiked a little too far up. His fingers play with the sheathed knife ---same one she almost killed him with long ago--- and she knows her husband will say yes to anything she asks. “Next thing you know, I was being helped out of it once we were out of the gulf.”

“What do you want, love?” he sighs irritated. Tommy knows her games, she knows his and everyone’s much happier to cut to the chase after five years of her seducing him to get something she really wants. Like him teaching her how to drive, his signature on an investment that made them millionaires and now the same factory Communists and disgruntled workers kept trying to burn to ash.

“The factories.” Eva keeps his gaze, she never backs down and her husband needs a reminder that he is not the only businessman in the room.

Thomas arches his brow, he looks handsome in his glasses. Eva used to associate glasses with old men leering at young ladies at balls, old maids looking for any fault they could find and ,worst of all, the word no.

For an entire year, every time she saw him wearing his reading glasses, it was always a no. Would you like to go see a picture? No, I'm busy. One week in Brighton for our real anniversary, just us and the seaside, mi amor? No, it’s me, Lizzie, Thomas is at some work thing with Tiago. Do you have any real excuse as to why you missed your own children’s birthdays? No, Eva, at least not one you consider a legitimate excuse.

If he says no, she’ll kill him with the paperweight she had made for him on their first anniversary.

“You could ask me for anything else, but you chose that?” he sits back on his chair, usually she’d climb on his lap ---or get on her knees if he let the game continue a while longer--- but this time Eva stays on the desk, standing her ground on the matter.

“What, two and a half children and suddenly you’ve forgotten your wife is also a businesswoman?” she asks, scoffing that he’d think her incapable. Its insulting, really.

“Remind me how great you are at business, love. Tell me why I should let you have them and we’ll see how it goes.” he was amused now, got that look in his eyes and that quirk in his damnable lips that told her that he’d make her work for that fucking yes.

“They'd still be yours, or Arthur’s, if you want, but I’d be the one managing them. Devlin works better with me, the workers trust me and you’ll be busy with your political career for the rest of your fucking life to even remember the mess you made here.” she leans forward, coquettishly even, as if daring him to refuse her.

“Tell me what Eden promised you and I’ll see if I can part with the mess I made.” He stands, looming over her, Eva subconsciously uncrosses her legs and he takes his place between them. They work like clockwork, like professional dancers so in tune with each other.

This was her Tommy, the man who never liked saying no to her even when she had a bad argument. He reasoned that Eva has never lead him wrong business wise, so he knows better than to take her words lightly.

“Her support. I may not like communists, but if you have her approval, you won’t need to blackmail or bribe too many people into making you a Member of Parliament.” Eva turned her face to his and she's lost in his eyes again, like she was twenty-three again and he was the young man who refused to back down no matter how politely she refused him.

“Are you decent? There's a Mrs. Ross to see you.” Lizzie’s knock breaks the spell and by the time the door opens, Mrs. Shelby is looking at a ledger over her husband’s shoulder, standing without a hair out of place.

---

“Well, you see, tomorrow would have been my son's 21st birthday. Had he lived. A- and I'm having a bit of a thing. Just sandwiches and beer and looking at old photos.” she gulps, her eyes dart around the office, avoiding the very discerning eye of the lovely witch she used to clean for. “And, as a gesture, I thought I would invite your brother, Arthur.”

Eva remains standing behind him, certain gestures, like her hand on his shoulder, confirm what he already guessed.

“A gesture of what, Mrs. Ross?” It’s a trap for Arthur, he has no doubt of that.

“Not exactly forgiveness.” Mrs. Ross is caught off guard when Eva takes the words from her mouth.

“But something like that.” she looks flustered, people often did when Eva did something that was a little strange. The timing was always a little off, the wording too exact or the unmistakable feeling that she can hear your thoughts. His wife wasn’t a mind reader, but she could ‘hear’ words and sentences before they were uttered. Something that always fascinated him about her.

Mrs. Ross used to clean for the late Mrs. Smith and she had been one of the few people to somehow grow used to Eva’s occasional strangeness, or so she had told Polly once. Can't look at a human lie-detector in the eyes, can’t she.

And also it's a way of saying thank you to the Shelby family---” her words are scripted, but she stutters and finds herself trapped in the eyes of the witch at his shoulder. “---for helping me and my children get by since the death of my Edward.”

The murder of her Edward, she means. The Italians might have scared her, but they were not half as terrifying as the witch called Mrs. Shelby. Changretta can kill the body, but Shelby can damn the soul as well if he wanted.

“How kind of you, Mrs. Ross. And you said the invitation was just for Arthur?” Eva asks, coming to sit at the edge of his desk. He can see her warm and polite smile as Mrs. Ross turns as white as bone.

“That's very kind. Well, I will let Arthur know.” he dismisses her, but she remains there. Scared like a bird caught in the deadly gaze of a cat.

“It'll be at my house at midday.” she adds, looking at him, but ever so often she can’t help, but look at Eva like she holds her life in her hands. She would be right, Eva is the one person who decides if she’s worth the trouble. “He should come at midday.”

“Your house, midday tomorrow. All right. One of us will be there.” he dismissed her as if she were unimportant.

“We’ll make sure its Arthur, like you asked.” Eva keeps her words short and curt, like she was politely asking her to leave without saying it.

---

“I thought you said the trap was for Arthur, why are you here?” Michael asks her while she sits with her knife ready in her hands.

“I saw two visions, one where they go after Arthur and one where they come after you.” She answers calmly.

“They could hurt you, you know, these people don’t care if there’s innocent bystanders, they would've killed Esme if the Lees weren't there.” the young man warns her. Reminding her that Esme was there with John. “If anything happened to you or your baby, Tommy would---"

“John’s not dead, just gone from here.” She interrupts. Eva no longer trusts him, there is a ten of swords above his head now, but this bit might be what makes him change his mind. “He survived his injuries and we hired Gold just as he and Esme asked. You weren’t supposed to go with him that morning, kid, I’m sorry.”

“Does my mum know?” he is not angry at being lied to, but he will be when he realizes that Polly’s supposed betrayal isn’t real. Especially because he will be the one caught red handed.

“Yes, couldn’t have made it happen without her.” Her ears perk up like a hound. She moves quickly to hand him his gun and close his bag. “They’re here.”

------

Notes:

Miércoles, Wednesday in Spanish and often used to substitute mierda/shit when children are present. Eva is used to moderating her swearing to the point it became a habit.

Peaky Blinders version of Jessie Eden has queer vibes written all over her, like maybe bi or pan. Anyone else get that vibe from her?

---

Taglist(I'll assume anyone who rbs wants to be in it, really likes aren't enough to sustain me anymore): @joossieisdabomb @johnathancanines

[autisticburnham]

So, in my opinion*

Enterprise's 9/11 metaphor (the Xindi attack) was good in that it ultimately came to the conclusion that military response and war were the wrong reaction. Peaceful resolution was the only way forward that wouldn't lead to the deaths of more innocents, something particularly relevant due to the fact that the decision to attack was made by a small few.

Enterprise's 9/11 metaphor was mixed in that the Xindi only attacked as the result of influence from an outside force. On the one hand, this could be a tacit acknowledgement that the only reason Al Qeada was able to form and amass as much power and influence as they did was a direct result of the US and Russia sticking our colonialist noses where they didn't belong. On the other hand, saying that a group that is a metaphor for people of color could only be on level with us/The Federation because of backing from another power could also be read as a colonialist mindset.

Enterprise's 9/11 metaphor was bad in that most of characters were totally down with blowing up a nursery and the only one who objected to that decision only did that because he was brainwashed. The narrative frames it as the ends (revenge) justifying the means (killing innocents).

Aos' 9/11 metaphor (the destruction of Vulcan) was good in that it explicitly acknowledged that the government didn't give a shit about the attack itself, they just wanted to use it as a very thinly veiled excuse to ramp up militarization and start a war

Aos' 9/11 metaphor is bad in that the face of victimization as a result of the militarization is the whitest asshole on Earth. Which would have been an issue regardless, but the fact that he's a whitewashed character makes it 10x worse. This story of the consequences of our response to 9/11 and the way it killed innocents, separated families, and tore apart communities could have potentially been impactful if the face of it was the Sikh man Khan is supposed to be. But regardless of what race Khan was, the fact that it is Khan is in issue in and of itself. Because now it's not innocents being hurt, it's genocidal, eugenicist warlords. Which isn't to say that this story has to be told in black and white with only innocents being hurt, but Khan and his gang definitely swung way, way past morally grey. And the fact that the 9/11 plot gets completely dropped halfway through the climax in favor of a poorly written Wrath of Khan role reversal spirk au fanfic is also not great.

Picard's 9/11 metaphor (the Mars attack) is good because... umm.... I guess the characters criticize the fact that the Federation isn't helping refugees because of it? But A, that's not even the reason the Federation isn't taking Romulan refugees. It's because of the long history of war with the Romulan Star Empire. Which is still not a good reason to reject refugees, but it doesn't particularly tie into the 9/11 metaphor. I don't even think they find out the Romulans were responsible for the Mars Attack until well after they've refused to help. And B, I will to B in the bad section.

Picard's 9/11 metaphor is bad in that it's pretty clunkily written and poorly paced overall. Picard season one (like every season of Picard) was trying to tell too many stories at once and it made all of them feel underdeveloped. And B from above, an asylum seeker using the fact that they are accepted in to launch a second, much more deadly attack from within is THEE conservative talking point for why we shouldn't accept refugees. So the fact that Oh did that means the narrative takes that side, making the fact that the characters don't pretty useless.

*Take this all with the MASSIVE grain of salt that I'm a white USAmerican who is too young to remember 9/11. Also it's been a couple of years since I've watched any of these

So embarrassing for aos and Picard that Enterprise did their 9/11 metaphor better than them. First of all, it's Enterprise. Them being better at you than anything is embarrassing. But more importantly, Enterprise's 9/11 metaphor isn't even good.

[cqlfeels]

what do u think happens to post-canon nhs?

I'm really not a good person to ask this to because I spend very little time thinking about post-canon - I'm mostly interested in canon, then pre-canon and only then post-canon, and there are only so many hours of the day I can devote to fandom, so I end up getting around to post-canon musings only very rarely. So take my answer with a grain of salt because it's very half-baked!

I don't... See a happy ending? I know it's a popular headcanon that NHS has been Unleashed™️ and now he's gonna Be Awesome and also Do Things, but I don't know about that.

He's burnt every bridge for a revenge that doesn't seem to have given him the satisfaction he hoped it would. (I think in part because literally no one in the room thought "Hey, JGY is a monster! Thank god someone revealed his misdeeds!" but rather everybody is either sympathetic to JGY or, at best, utterly uninterested in the whole thing. I don't think that's what NHS was hoping for.) So he has no friends, and for all that he's good at keeping secrets, he seems to genuinely enjoy people, so that's not ideal. He can't trust the smart people around him to be truly his friends now that they haven't taken his side (he's a Nie. You're loyal to him or you're not, and he won't ever move on from that.) but if he stops hanging with the absolute geniuses of the jianghu to mingle with, say, members of his sect, he's gonna be bored in five minutes. Even at his laziest, NHS has never shown any interest for people who aren't outstanding. I don't think he'd start now.

In terms of motivation.... Well. He already made his brother proud by taking revenge, didn't he? What's left after that, now that he's shaped his whole identity around NMJ? WWX is a good parallel here - after molding himself as the protector of the Jiang, he became a protector of the Wen, and when both of those things failed, he couldn't find anything to live for (especially in CQL, but I'd argue MDZS WWX was pretty depressed too.) NHS has succeeded rather than failed, but is that much better? He's also at loss, it's just that he seems to feel empty rather than depressed.

And the thing about having no moral compass is that you don't know what direction you wanna go if left alone. Characters like XXC know that even if they lose everything, they wanna help people. Characters like XY know that even if they lose everything, they'll keep lashing out at the world. What does NHS wanna do now that he's lost everything? What does he strongly feel about? Imho, nothing. No matter what he does - if he paints fans and bothers no one, or becomes Chief Cultivator and changes the world, it'll still be nothing more than a half-hearted attempt to pass time until..... until what? I don't think he'd know.

This story is a lot about sacrifices, and I think NHS sacrificed his future for his family. (Twin Heroes, anyone?) I think going in, he knew it was possible that he'd spend the rest of his days miserable and aimless, and he thought it was worth it. I don't think NHS quite escapes the Nie curse? In every way but physically, I think he did die pretty young and now he's mostly waiting for his body to catch up.

So those are my extremely cheerful thoughts lol Anyway, I stand by my belief that in the entire Sunshot generation, wangxian are the only people in this story to get a happy ending, and even that is because they've had two tries. Even if I'm wrong about the specifics, I think just by the story logic, I'll always assume NHS doesn't have a bright future ahead of him.

[keysmashingfantasies]

An Old Fashioned Meet Cute

A/N: hi! this is my first fic here and i hope you like it. comments and constructive criticism is very much appreciated just please be nice and i tried not to describe nor reader nor the Hilda character too much apart from the fact that they are plus size so it can cater to more people (altough the Hilda character is a white woman originally, I left that out because I wanted everyone to be able to read it) :D. and a huge thank you to @divine-mistake for encouraging me to make this blog and post my fics. ily Tay <3, this one's for you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!plus size Reader

Word count: 2.1k

Summary: Bucky didn’t remember much of his life before the war. Not as much as he would like, anyway. But he was content to at least have remembered something. The memories of his teenage shenanigans with Steve always made him laugh. But there was a memory that he didn’t even know it was on his mind until that day when he accompanied Steve to the thrift shop. And until an Avengers party, where he met you.

-

“Steve, come on… Shouldn’t you be showing me the wonders of the modern world?”, he mocked. He knew Steve was doing his best, he did. But he knew that this wasn’t just a friends’ afternoon. And Bucky didn’t need a babysitter.

“I will! I just thought it would be nice to see something less overwhelming first and Sam told me a thrift store would be a nice place to start. Most of this stuff is new to us anyway”, Steve said, picking up a CD of a shelf.

“Yeah, ok”, he mumbled. The things he did for Steve. He mindlessly wandered through the little cluttered store, browsing the shelves full of knick knacks. He saw vinyls, old books, a great variety of toys, some paintings and an old fashioned vanity, with an old mirror, a few vintage perfume bottles, and… Oh.

“Steve?”, he said, picking up the old calendar that was propped up against the stained mirror. Carefully, he lifted the calendar up, looking at his friend. He had seen it before, he knew he did. He flipped through it as he waited for Steve to make his way across the store, careful to not bump in any of the tables containing delicate porcelain tea pots. His eyes scanned through the cover, a delicately painted picture of a curvy woman and with the saying “HILDA, 1940’s calendar” in bold red letters above it.

“Oh wow”, Steve let out a belly laugh. “You remember when we stole some of these? Man, we even took these to war”, he said. He started to remember. Him and Steve running, each one with a calendar in hand, flipping through the pages, Steve whining that he would never find a girl like that. He didn’t even think twice before taking it to the counter, with Steve giggling like a school girl behind him.

“For the memories, punk”, he said in a stern voice and a frown, but with pink dusted cheeks.

“Of course”, Steve said in a mocking voice.

-

“So, Tony’s throwing a party next weekend”, Steve said as he entered the training room.

“I prefer the thrift store”, Bucky mumbled, without tearing his eyes from the punching bag.

“Come on, Buck. I think it will be good for you to go”, Steve said. “It will be something small, Tony will introduce the new team assistant, so no eyes will be on you”, that got Bucky’s attention.

“Small?”, he said, pushing his hair from his face.

“Very”, Steve assured, but he had that look that Bucky knew very well from his young years; the look he would get when he was about to pick a fight. He was up to no good. But he didn’t want another trip to a dusty thrift store.

“Yeah, sure”, he mumbled.

-

You were shaking in your boots. Yeah, you knew that you would work for them, which meant that you inevitably would have to attend this kind of things. But this wasn’t like your former office jobs, no. You work for the Avengers now.

“You can do this. You have to. Do it for the paycheck”, you said, trying to reassure yourself as you shakily applied mascara. As you browsed through your wardrobe, you let out a sigh. You remembered shyly asking for advice on what to wear from Natasha, but you took it with a grain of salt. She could wear a potato sack and still look gorgeous, and you were… Well, a potato. You knew this was another test. If you couldn’t handle all eyes on you and the eventual bickering that was about to happen, you were not fit for the job. But damn, you at least expected a few weeks of taking care of documents and serving coffee before a party. In a room. With the, quoting the tabloid you read that very morning “super team that saves the world and looks hot doing it!”. You were a pretty confident person. But this… Anyone would be nervous.

“You can do this”, you told yourself one more time before heading out.

-

When you got to the party, not everyone was there. You politely greeted everyone with a nod, and gave your name to the ones you didn’t have the pleasure to meet yet.

“You, pick your poison”, Tony Stark pointed at you while walking to the bar.

“No, thank you, Mr. Stark, I won’t be drinking tonight”, you managed to say, silently thanking all the gods above (even the one that was sitting not too far from you) that you managed to hold back the quiver in your voice.

“She doesn’t want to be vulnerable around us. Smart, I like her”, said Natasha. Sometimes you wonder if she was a telepath like Wanda.

“Is there anything wrong, Y/N? I sense that you are uneasy”, asked Vision, with those glassy unblinking eyes. You wondered if he was in your mind that very moment.

“Gee, I wonder why”, said Rhodes, before taking a sip of his drink.

“I’m okay, just… A bit nervous, that’s all”, you said.

“Well, then you definitely need a drink”, said Tony, handing you a glass of champagne that no doubt cost the same as your previous paycheck.

Soon enough, the awkwardness made way to pleasant conversation. You laughed as you listened to their banter. It wasn’t like any business party you ever attended. No, it was more like a family gathering than anything.

The sounds of the elevator doors opening caught you attention as three men wide as refrigerators walked in, followed closely by a pretty young woman. Of course you knew them. You read all about them. Especially The Winter Soldier, the little devil on your shoulder taunting you by remembering you of every single time you talked to your friend about your crush on him.

“Sorry we’re late guys, Steve went to pick me up before the party and we had dinner”, said the blonde, linking her arm with Steve Rogers himself.

“Nah, Sharon, don’t cover his ass. We were late because the three of us had to wrestle Barnes into changing out of that old ass Henley”, said Sam.

Instantly, Tony and Natasha cheered and raised their glasses, making you laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny”, said a gruff voice coming from the bar, making you turn your head, seeing Bucky Barnes open a beer bottle with his vibranium hand. 'How did he sneak past everyone?', your thoughts were interrupted as you took him in. You wanted to personally thank Sam, Steve and Sharon for making him wear that tight fitting black shirt.

“Well, Y/N, here’s Capsicle, Mrs. Capsicle, New Captain, and Snowflake. Guys, this is Y/N, the new assistant. Oh, and there’s Spider Boy but he’s on curfew, Strange had to hop out of the dimension and Scott but he’s… He’s somewhere out there being small, I don’t know. Watch were you step, just to be safe”, said Tony

“Hi”, you gave a shy wave, being greeted right back.

-

If it wasn’t for the serum, Bucky is absolutely sure he would have a heart attack on the spot. You were wearing red heels, a form fitting black pencil skirt and a white button up blouse and he could see your curves, your strong arms, your thighs. You looked absolutely amazing. You look like one of the girls that Bucky would’ve rushed to ask for a dance back in the day. But what really made him stare is the fact that your body type looked eerily similar to the character of the calendar he spent an embarrassing amount of time staring.

As your eyes scanned the room as you were bombarded with questions, Bucky made sure to avoid your gaze, looking everywhere but your face: his shoes, the ceiling, the armrest on the couch, Steve’s shit eating grin. Oh. So THAT’S what it was about. Little shit.

Even avoiding your gaze, he made sure to keep his ears open. A man could be interested, right?

.

By the time the party ended, Thor and Bruce were sleeping, Tony was buzzed walking around singing Iron Maiden, Natasha and Sharon were talking, Steve and Sam were giggling like two school girls, Rhodes went home and Vision and Wanda were talking and looking out the window to the New York skyline.

Which left you – and Bucky – alone.

“Uhhh. I guess I’ll start cleaning, then”, you said. Your face was on fire. The only person that you were sure didn’t like you and you were awkwardly standing, not knowing where to look and what to say. It didn’t help that you were attracted to him but damn it, you were not going to lose this opportunity because of a school girl crush. So you decided to keep yourself occupied by taking some empty glasses and bottles from the table and taking them to the kitchen.

“Oh, come on, Y/N! Let the cleaning crew deal with this in the morning!”, said Natasha.

“No, no, I don’t mind. I like to keep myself busy”, you said with a smile. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. You only hoped she couldn’t see how awkward you were.

“I’ll help”, he said, picking up some glasses and following you.

“You can pick up more of these glasses and I can start washing them”, he said. “I- I noticed you got your nails done, so…”, he said, and you shyly looked away while thanking him and making your way out of the kitchen.

.

In no time, the room was getting emptier. Vision and Wanda went home and Thor took Banner back to New Asgard. And you were almost done with the dishes, having also gotten rid of most of the empty food containers. As you both cleaned, you and Bucky got a bit more comfortable with each other.

“I’m sorry for seeming a bit standoffish earlier”, he said suddenly. “I’m not used to parties and I don’t know how new people will react to me. Especially pretty women”, you smiled at the compliment, but felt your heart ache. You were so caught up in your insecurities that you didn’t even consider his side of things.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I don’t know how you feel but by what I’ve seen and heard, you have a family here. You’re out there fighting to save the world. Trying your best. This is redemption enough, don’t you think?”, you said as you put the glasses to dry, missing the awestruck look that Bucky sent you, a goofy smile making its way into his features. “Okay, you wait here and I’ll get what’s left”.

You were back in no time. “Okay, so just more two champagne flutes and one plate left”, you said but before you could give the dishes to Bucky, you slipped, and if it wasn’t for Bucky’s reflexes, you would’ve fallen hard. You yelped as the sound of breaking glass hit your ears and for a second you two just stared at each other, before Bucky pulled you closer and back to a standing position.

“Thanks”, you said as he helped you straighten up.

“Your ankle, does it hurt?”, he said.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so”, you said.

“Ah, I think it does. And I can’t let a dame go home alone on a hurt ankle”, he said, giving you a dashing smile.

“You know what, now that you’ve said it, it hurts really bad”, you said, catching on. “You know what’s amazing for a bad ankle?”, you asked, and the gentle smile in your lips and the mischievous glint in your eyes made his heart piston inside of his chest.

"What?", he said softly, stepping closer, like you were sharing secrets.

“Ice cream and a walk on the park. Very therapeutical”, you said, making Bucky laugh.

.

Before you knew it, Bucky had already scooped you up into his arms and rushedly announced that you had slipped and fell, whisking you away into the elevator.

“Dude, that took all night”, said Sam. “This is the smooth guy you told me about?”, he said, while Steve and Sharon laughed.

While everyone got ready to go home, Scott came out of the kitchen in his Ant-Man suit eating some leftovers.

“Someone owes me 20 bucks for making her trip”.

[meliorist-midoriya]

chasing the sun

synopsis: there’s something screaming in familiarity—in mourning—deep in his soul at the sight of you, a complete stranger. this is the price you pay for resurrection, the sun whispers as it rises.

pairing: takami keigo x fem!reader

genre: angst with a happy ending, reincarnation au

warnings: mentions and depictions of death, major character deaths, mentions of war (+ description of a battlefield scene), injuries, blood.

word count: 11.7k

a/n: happy (extremely belated) birthday, bird boy. and aaaa my baby’s here, she’s finally here! i’ve been working on this fic for a little over two months now, and i’m so happy to see it fully fleshed out! thank you to @dimplesum​ for beta reading, and the tumblr chaos server for listening to me yell all the time abt this fic :’) disclaimer, i did as much research as i could, but any historical depictions are not 100% historically accurate and i have taken some creative liberty, so please take the historical scenes with a grain of salt! 

important: there will be songs linked throughout the fic to be played in accordance with the scene, i do hope you listen to them for the full experience! it is okay if the ost ends before the scene as that is also on purpose. the beginning of the song will start with 【 ☀︎ 】 with a link to the song. with that said, i hope you enjoy, and happy reading!

crossposted on Ao3

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Keigo, the youngest government official in the empire, stumbling upon a lone concubine in the eastern lotus garden. 

He’d been searching for solitude, away from the viper’s nest of samurai-turned-aristocrats, strutting around the castle with their now-useless weapons strapped to their hips, discussing poetry and politics instead of battle and war tactics.

It’d been disgustingly easy for them to make the switch from warrior to bureaucrat, taking the status boost in stride. Those who couldn’t, they stayed with their lords if they were lucky. The warriors who weren’t… Keigo would need an abacus to count the ones who weren’t so lucky, the countless rumors and reports of wandering rōnin with familiar names never failing to reach over the palace walls to get to him.

(Oh, what he would give to join them.)

Of course, he’d been intending to brood ponder over this in the seclusion of the garden he’d discovered a few days ago, staring at the green buds of the young lotuses in the water until his head spun. The sight of the concubine sitting in his spot (that he was certain was too secluded to be found) told him fate had other plans, however.

He cleared his throat and forced down the grimace once he saw the concubine jump, startled, before trying her best to smoothly turn and bow without looking too flustered.

“Good morning, madam.”

“Good morning—”

He smiled through the static in his brain at the mention of his surname, messily tacked to the honorific that he would never get used to. 

That name… it’s not mine. Don’t call me that.

A discordant mess of jumbled kanji that sounded nothing like the powerfully elegant names in the court. The ill-fitting characters standing out like an eyesore on his documents, the syllables falling awkwardly off the tongue in conversation.

Wholly fitting for an outsider like him, really.

The mention of that name grated something terrible in him, and he settled for keeping his teeth grit into a smile. A sheltered concubine wouldn’t know, of course she wouldn’t know. Practically no one did, so he had no one to fault but his own cursed sensitivity to a name he wanted to burn.

“Do you mind if I join you?” The slight twitch in her demure smile was answer enough, but he’d set aside time for this escape, and damn if he was going to let it go to waste.

“Of course not. Please, don’t mind me, my lord.”

He dipped his head in thanks and you bowed in return, the silence hanging in the air settling into something stiff and awkward. 

A minute passed… 

Then another… 

Then five… 

Keigo was going to go mad at this rate. Neither of you had any intention of leaving the rare pocket of seclusion, and the competitive whisper in the corner of his mind told him that leaving first meant conceding, meant losing.

(In his world, losing meant death.)

Keigo’s had enough of losing in life despite his dumb luck, thank you very much.

So, he did what he knew he did best. He talked. Shattering the awkward silence in an effort to coax the tranquil silence he was searching for back into the little gazebo by the pond. Maybe if he ran his mouth long enough, you’d get tired and leave.

“You’re a new face in the palace.”

With an expectant gaze, he watched the telltale shift from awkward to apprehensive, the rigidness of your stature sharply contrasting the flowing brocade of your kimono as you looked back at him with a too-sharp gaze before casting your eyes away to the green buds in the water. Had he been any slower, Keigo would’ve thought that the conflicted expression you quickly smoothed over was solemn (it was anything but). 

“I would say the same to you, my lord, but every face in this castle is a new face to me.” You tilted your head with a thin-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Although… I’m sure an official who just arrived at the castle for his yearly residence would be an especially new face. Please excuse my rudeness.”

Keigo blinked. Once, twice, his jaw relaxing into a disbelieving smile at the sight of your steely gaze bright with a challenge and a smile sharper than the blades at his waist, the unsaid words ringing clearly. 

Two could play at this game.

Well, now, this was new. 

Perhaps it was your defiance that remained steadfast in this castle, or the blissful ignorance that made you one of the few to look at him straight on instead of down your nose. A little voice whispered that this would change in due time, the politics and power struggles confined within the castle never failing to break down even the most resilient. Those that didn’t know how to play the game correctly simply… vanished.

“Someone’s well-informed, I see.” He folded his hands behind his back, his wish for tranquility long forgotten. “I heard a new concubine has just entered the castle as well. A consolation prize, of sorts, from the farthest reaches of the country. Of course, as I’ve been gone for a year and have only been here for four, I’m not too sure.” He flicks his gaze to you, accepting your challenge with a knife-sharp smile of his own.

“I am curious as to what this concubine’s name is, however.”

You arched a brow, the thin-lipped smile widening into something sweet (that looked better on a fox rather than a beautiful concubine), and you bowed. Any trace of that stiff apprehensiveness dissolved into a graceful fluidity that seemed to disappear within the rippling silk of your kimono.

“Lady Y/N. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

To this day, he’ll never admit how surprised he was at your reverence, nor how his heart did a funny little flip in his chest when you giggled at his flustered response. What kind of fool gave respect to a commoner picked up from the slums?

You. Except you were no fool, and maybe that’s why he kept coming back like a moth to flame.

Time passed, and he found himself in that little garden day after day, morning after morning. Listening to the concubine who told vivid stories of lands he could only dream of, foods he found himself craving, and tales of warriors past. 

The conversations at dawn soon turned into stories of the past, the laments of the present, and dreams of a bleak future. With delicate hands and gently prying words, you two unlocked every bar and lock you’d put over your souls and allowed yourselves to lay them bare for each other, the intimacy of a bond forged in secrets and solidarity far stronger than any alliance or contract.

You two confided in each other in that garden, staring at the dew on the lilypads as you two whispered how you didn’t belong in the palace. How the confines of grand walls with ears and eyes were no place for the adopted commoner and a concubine far from home. Two people in this big world who were just lucky enough, fortunate enough to end up within this lavish palace, your lives guaranteed splendor and comfort. 

Then again—you two would share a conspiratorial laugh—maybe you two were unfortunate instead. What was splendor and comfort when you had to constantly watch for a knife in your back or poison in your cup? When a single misstep could cost you your life? 

Conversations shared with you, the concubine with a sharp tongue and even sharper wit, were the most fulfilling he’s had in ages. Maybe it was the sense of formality that the intimacy of the waterside gazebo stripped away, or the unraveling realization that he hasn’t breathed this freely in ages, that he was looking forward to these moments in the morning. The intimacy shared in the garden he selfishly liked to call his own little world.

Keigo catches the smile you hide behind your sleeve when he steps into the gazebo, and he realizes you’re being selfish, too.

He didn’t know how the conversation got here, he didn’t know why he had a hairpin meant for you tucked into his sleeve. All he knew was that when it came to you, he was helpless to the whims of rambling and buying a pretty hairpin made of red jade because it reminded him of a sharp wit with a pretty smile.

“I live for this country and I die for this country. Well, not that there’s anything much to die for anyway.” Keigo’s laugh is empty, and your melancholic gaze even emptier. A fog had blown in that morning, covering the pond in a soft cover of white, and your soft voice and softer touch on his arm (careful, almost) silenced his dry laughter and left his throat even drier. 

“What you would die for is also an excellent reason to live, is it not?”

Your words, whispered into the stillness of the moment, resonated so loudly within his soul and forced a shaky breath out of his lungs as he gazed in awe at you. At the soft, ethereal glow in the fog cast by the rising sun breaking through the clouds, the scent of bloomed lotuses wafting in on the breeze that rustles the dangling pieces of your hair ornaments. He is weak to whims when it comes to you, so he pulls out the hairpin burning a hole in his sleeve to slip into your hair with shaking hands unbefitting a swordsman. Keigo watches your eyes sparkle like the gem in your hair, and his heart lifts with hope as he whispers his devotion into the warm morning, carried by the wind into a sea of blooms.

“I’ll live for you, then.”

And with a smile, you fall in love.

(Keigo falls even harder.)

【 ☀︎ 】

He should have known.

“I don’t know what I was expecting from the son of a criminal.”

He really should have known.

“What was that fool thinking, taking a street rat like you in all those years ago?”

Honestly, he’d like an answer to that, too. Too bad the old man was dead and left him to inherit a position he didn’t even want. To think he’d agree with the emperor for once in his short life.

“Tsk, a son will follow in his father’s footsteps, after all. A grave in Kozukappara should suit him well.”

Keigo should be concerned that he couldn’t feel how the coarse dirt dug into his knees anymore, his cheek still aching from where the guard had punched him. 

(Okay, yes, he deserved it, but he could’ve done without tasting iron.)

The sadistic glee in the guard’s face after he landed that “disciplinary strike” told him otherwise. With a bitter grimace, he spat red into the dirt.

How long has he been kneeling here? Minutes? Hours? The words echoing over and over in his head pulled him away from his present reality, bringing him back to the blur that was the past two days.

(Three? He couldn’t be sure, time passes oddly in a prison cell.)

The servants whispering about a concubine being expelled from the harem, the handmaid being promoted to concubine suspiciously quickly, and sudden memories of too-loud rustling coming from the treeline that he’d foolishly brushed off. All of it culminated in the form of palace guards dragging him from his study all the way to the harem to throw him at the emperor’s feet.

“Could the street rat not keep his hands off the women of the court? Plenty to pick back where you came from.” 

Keigo wanted to vomit at the cloying stench of sake, unpleasant memories rushing to the forefront of his mind and forcing his limbs to lock from age-old fear. Not like he could use them anyway, with heavy hands on each shoulder pinning his knees to the tatami and his blades having long been tossed away in the struggle to drag him here.

“Oh, my lord, haven’t you heard?” A sickeningly saccharine voice pulled the man’s attention away to coo at the woman curled into his side, cradling a bottle of warmed sake. “Apparently the small-time nobleman who adopted him, did it knowing he was the son of that criminal you were having trouble with all that time ago.”

The grip forcing his head down loosened from the resounding laughter that rippled around the room, just enough to allow Keigo to glare at the loose-lipped concubine. Your opportunistic maidservant who’d been all too willing to take your place in the harem, having taken her chance and fleeing with it. Her tittering giggles and power-drunk grin grated his ears, and he kept glaring. Daring her to look back, to look him in the eye without feeling an ounce of guilt for what she had done.

Almost as if she heard his furious challenge, she took a glance at the man pinned to the floor (trying to look down her nose like she had been looked down on. Pathetic fool.)  only to jump at the righteous fury burning in his gaze, fear clouding her conscience for a precious moment. 

More, Keigo urged, rage bitter on his tongue, Guilt, shame, despair, all of it.

I hope you regret this for the rest of your life. Lament, as punishment for ruining hers—

“Don’t assume what I have and haven’t heard, woman,” The drunkard grunted, holding his cup out for her to pour with shaking hands and a meek surrender, “But, the man was losing his mind from age. What was that fool thinking, taking a dirty brat like this in all those years ago? Too useless to bear a son nor keep a wife, so he had to stoop low enough to take in a criminal’s son from the slums.”

Righteous fury welled up in his chest, and his body moved before his brain could catch up, spit landing at the emperor’s feet. Almost immediately thereafter, his head whipped to the side, cheek smarting from the sharp strike the guard’s knuckles had indented into his swelling cheek. He grit his teeth as that same cheek came down on the tatami, someone pressing his head into the ground.

“Years upon years of trying to force yourself into nobility, and you’d think you’d learn some respect along the way.”

Had he not been the one with his face pressed into the ground, Keigo would’ve laughed at the shade of fury-red the man’s face was turning. Sake did not treat him well. The concubines at his side, fearing for their lives, immediately rushed to whisper soothing words and calming pleas. Somehow, it worked, and he reclined back into his seat with a heavy sigh, draining the sake in one gulp.

“The son of a criminal shall inevitably become a criminal. Now that I think about it, this is a wonderful opportunity to get rid of an eyesore. A grave in Kozukappara should suit him well.” A sadistic grin split his lips around the cup, chortling with laughter at his own (terrible) wit. “Being buried next to his criminal father! What a filial son!”

The table shook from the force of a fine porcelain cup slamming down on it, as if the emperor were stamping his death certificate right then and there.

(He was.) 

“Get him out of my sight. The next time I want to see his head is on the gates of Kozukappara.”

Keigo the official had died in that room, and the man that was dragged out by his shoulders left the castle as a criminal.

“Done saying your prayers?” 

Slowly, he looked up from the white paper fan set in front of him in place of the tantō that should’ve been there for his use (obligatory seppuku, his muddled brain supplied with annoyingly familiar haughtiness, so the ex-warrior could die a warrior. What a joke—) to the man he’d chosen to be his executioner. Normally, he would’ve snapped back with something witty, something sharp, but going days without water wasn’t treating him well. A heavy sigh, and the man ran a frustrated thumb down the bright blue wrap of his katana hilt. 

“The concubine, of all women? An imperial concubine, at that. I’d expect you to know better than that, my friend.”

Ah, the static in his head was a little stronger today. Wonderful.

“I thought I knew better, too. At least I get to die to someone with a steady hand.”

He scoffed, thumb running over the blue hilt again. Keigo idly remembered seeing the man rub his burn-leathered skin the same way countless times, the anxious habit having stubbornly ingrained itself into his being since childhood.

“Must you be so dark?”

“When am I not?” He managed to muster up a slow grin. “I’m hurt, I thought my closest companion would’ve known this after years of keeping swords out of each other’s backs.”

The heavy gong announcing his execution sounded, and he watched his best friend’s melancholic gaze glaze over into soulless steel that mirrored the blade drawn from its hilt. Keigo dipped his head with a solemn smile and shut his eyes in resignation.

I really… should’ve known…

“Keigo!”

Everything paused for a breath, in shock at your shout breaking the stillness of the moment. He didn’t have to lift his head to know who was crying out, trying to delay the inevitable certainty. A sharp smile and an even sharper tongue reduced to nothing but cries and desperation.

“...I’ll continue.” The executioner ignored your desperate “No!” as he shifted his stance, scarred hands steady as he placed the blade against the back of his neck despite the pain Keigo knew he was in. 

It would’ve been nice to hold you in his arms, at least once— 

No, for eternity.

The blade came down and, like a lotus facing the sun in supplication, you screamed your despair into the heavens. 

That day, the blood red sunset matched the crimson pooling on the execution ground’s floor.

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Private First Class Takami Keigo marching into a small city on the way to the front lines, rifle slung over his shoulder and feet aching.

They’ve been marching through the night, and for the first time in his life, he found himself grateful for Japan’s humid summer nights. He’d take sweat over losing toes from frostbite any day. 

But, he decides, sighing in relief along with the rest of the company at the sight of a town once they crested the hill, there was nothing like the relief of a warm bed and any food other than the tasteless military rations.

“Tired already?” The low voice beside him would’ve made him jump had it not been so familiar.

“Aw, what’s this? Is Touya-kun worried for little old me?” Keigo shot a grin at the man marching next to him and dodged the elbow that he aimed at his side with a short laugh.

“A tired soldier is a dead soldier.” A pause, and the next response came backed with a dry laugh. “Not like it’d affect you and your monstrous instincts, anyway.”

“Yes, as we’ve been told a thousand times, General.” The teasing tilt to his voice came easy, and he let his best friend elbow him this time, too busy laughing at his annoyance. 

Should he have been a little more worried of the captain catching him messing around? Yes, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Judging by the restless shifting rippling through the soldiers, no one was too worried about getting a scolding when they were so close to a warm meal and rest.

“Think the inn will be big enough to house all of us? Another night sleeping on the floor doesn’t sound all that nice to me.” 

Touya scoffed as if his question was the stupidest thing he’d heard all day, keeping his gaze straight as he adjusted the rifle on his shoulder, the company shifting around them into formation as they approached the gates.

“You’re complaining like it’s anything new to us.”

“Harsh.”

The conversation faded after that, the rough dirt under his boots soon transitioning into the packed earth of the town’s main street as residents gathered to whisper and gawk at the soldiers passing through, the sight of their uniforms a jarring eyesore in this sleepy town. 

A sleepy, familiar town.

Keigo’s mind was spinning. His restless gaze kept flicking around the too-familiar buildings and shops and people that remained after all these years. The restaurant with the broken kitchen window that was too easy to sneak into, the grocer who still kept his trash bin too close to the alley, the old woman sitting in front of her izakaya who always had ginger candy and a meal to give. 

They slowed to a stop in front of the large inn, and he stared up at the building that looked much smaller than he remembered, the interior much less grand than he’d imagined it to be as they filed their way in, and he found himself in the room he once dreamed of sleeping in. There, Keigo sat in near disbelief, on the futon that wasn’t as soft as he thought it would’ve been.

“How time flies, huh?” He looked up to see Touya dropping his pack next to his futon and sitting down across from him with a melancholy grin.

There was too much Keigo wanted to say, nostalgia bitter in the back of his throat, so he settled for a matching smile.

“Old Man Yasutaro never got around to fixing that boarded up window.” 

Touya barked out a surprised laugh, Keigo’s smile widening into a self-satisfied grin.

“You ever think he did that on purpose? He always did stock too much food.”

“Are you kidding?” Keigo shuddered at the phantom pain of the beatings he earned. “He was scary whenever he caught us, there’s no way mean ol’ Yasutaro would do all that just for a pair of orphans on the street.”

“Mm, I don’t know, he was always pretty sweet to Granny Tamayo, so anything that made him look good in her book.” Touya leaned back on his arms, the melancholy melting into the ease of bittersweet nostalgia. It was easier to smile through the painful memories rather than dwell on the past, so Keigo let himself toss his head back with a laugh.

“God, her ginger candy was the best.” 

“You sure it was the candy? Or the granddaughter who always snuck an extra piece to you?” That earned Touya a frustrated noise of protest and a half-hearted kick he dodged.

“That was ages ago!”

“And you still react like a little boy!” 

Keigo groaned, burying his face into his hands as if that would tune out Touya’s cackling laughter. It was short moments like this that took the weight off his shoulders, the murmurs of public dissent, the leaked plans of a planned riot, the magnitude of his actions tomorrow morning.

(Civilians. Of all things, why did it have to be civilians?)

He suddenly pushed himself to his feet, the heavy weight having pushed itself back onto his shoulders and slotting the familiar hum of alertness back into place. Touya gave him a knowing look that he, decidedly, ignored in favor of getting out before his mind swallowed him whole.

“Dinner is supposed to be in a bit, we should get going.”

“Wonderful job of changing the subject, really.”

“Wonderful job of being annoying.”

Touya dodged another swipe of the leg, laughing at his displeasure as he stood to follow.

“Why thank you, I try.” His grin widened with a certain glint in his eye that Keigo found himself dreading. “Now let’s get going, I heard some of the guys are at Granny Tamayo’s izakaya.”

“What?”

“My, isn’t that little Keigo? And little Touya?” 

Keigo faltered halfway through the entrance, smoothing his grimace into a smile as he watched the old lady totter over from her seat with all the coddling of a grandmother. The soldiers within earshot (who were already drinking and eating away. It was barely sunset—) paused to gawk and grin at the endearing interaction.

“Not so little anymore, Granny.”

“I’ll say. Are you eating alright? Is the military treating you well?”

“Granny!”

“What’s this? Speedy and Torchface have some history here?” Keigo kept his smile smooth, only shifting it just the slightest bit into what he knew would look like a sheepish grin instead of the pained grimace underneath the surface. Boisterous laughter that only alcohol could bring rippled around the spacious izakaya, the men cracking jokes over drinks and food.

“Careful calling him Torchface, he has the temper to match.”

Ah, there it is. Touya shouldered past him to stalk towards the offending table with a scarily wide grin, pulling the loose-lipped rookie into a chokehold, his wide grin unmoving.

“‘Has a temper’ my ass, you’re just jealous that a guy with a bunch of burn scars has an easier time with women than you idiots.”

The laughter only grew louder, Granny Tamayo’s expression softening at the interaction before turning back to Keigo with a nostalgic smile.

“Not so little… I see.” She motioned to the table Touya had made a space for himself at, shoving the rookie (who was still in a chokehold, poor kid) aside to make room for him. “Take a seat, dear, and the drinks will be right out.”

The too-loud laughter and incessantly clinking glasses filled the space up with ear-grating noise, and Keigo wanted to leave. Search for peace and solitude in the quiet streets in a way that was strangely familiar. 

(For a fleeting moment, he thought a quiet garden would be nice.)

However, he’d rather eat with the company of drunks rather than the void of his own mind and the horrors silence tended to bring, so the migraine starting to brew in the back of his head was a small price to pay. As was the heavy arm slung over his shoulder from some random soldier, alcohol-loosened and heavy, and the awkward conversation he found himself following along with perfectly tailored humor.

“Alright, I have two beers as well as a few rounds of edamame and—” 

The familiar voice stopped short, and Keigo felt his heart stop in tandem. Slowly, he looked up and saw the girl who used to sneak out an extra candy when her grandmother wasn’t looking, now a woman in the izakaya uniform balancing trays in one hand and two mugs in the other. 

“...Keigo?”

Almost as if the locked gates had been thrown open, a new rush of memories past had overcome him. Jaunts through the town disguised as adventures, clumsily dancing around an old gramophone and calling it a waltz, and the start of blossoming love. Keigo simply smiled, easygoing and familiar, like it hadn’t been years since you saw him run to the military with Touya the first chance they had, drawn by the promise of food and shelter. Like he hadn’t left a malnourished boy and come back a man with more scars than skin.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“‘Been a while.’” You rolled your eyes, setting down the mug in front of him with a huff. “The two most important people in my life run off to join the army without so much as a word, and that’s what you say?”

His words stopped halfway up his throat the moment he saw Granny Tamayo come up behind you to pinch you on the arm, the half-formed response morphing into a laugh as he watched you flinch back with a surprised (and betrayed) yelp.

“Y/N, darling, don’t be rude to the customers.” You pouted, rubbing at the sore spot on your upper arm.

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“It’s fine, Granny. Nothing new, right?” At the sight of his cheeky smile, the old woman scoffs, something endearing, before nudging him out of his seat despite your noise of protest.

“Well, since you two seem to be talking of nothing but the past, why don’t you go take a walk down memory lane?”

“Wha— Grandmother! There’s still customers—”

“Kaede can handle it just fine! Shoo, shoo, get out of my hair.” 

Without missing a beat, Granny Tamayo smoothly plucked the trays from your hands and nudged you two towards the door as the soldiers watching roared with laughter and cooed jokes at the two “childhood lovers”. Keigo turned towards Touya, almost desperately, in a futile search for— what? Escape? Wasn’t he looking for escape in the first place?

“Wait, Granny, come on. Touya’s part of this too, isn’t he?”

“Don’t drag me into this, a trip down memory lane isn’t for me!” With an arm still slung over the now-wheezing rookie’s shoulder, Touya raised the cup of sake he’d ordered as if in toast. Whether it was to Keigo’s mortification, or to the potential opportunities this meant, Keigo didn’t want to know.

Probably both.

(...Probably the former, if he were to be honest with himself.)

A flurry of drunken laughter and lighthearted jokes, half-hearted protests that fell on deaf ears, and insistent pushing at his back later, he found himself standing outside the izakaya, blinking up at the full moon before looking over at you.

“...Did we just get kicked out?”

“I think we did.” You snorted, scuffing a mark into the dirt path with your heel, and Keigo wanted the earth to crack open and swallow him whole. What was he supposed to do? Stuck with the remnants of a rekindling love, the awkwardness that tended to come with years of estrangement and words that failed him when it came to you. 

Well, there’s really only one thing he could do.

Talk.

“So, what’s new with you?” He immediately cringed at his choice of words, forcing himself to school his expression over into an easygoing smile instead of recoiling like he so desperately wanted to do. 

Nice going there, Keigo, really.

“...Same old.” Your quiet answer snapped him out of his thoughts, and he tilted his head, almost like he was beckoning you to continue. “Same old town, same old job, same old life. I pretty much walked the path everyone knew I was going to go on as the granddaughter of the izakaya’s owner.”

You looked up with a sheepish grin, the bright moonlight casting the world (and you) in a silver glow, and Keigo felt his heart leap into his throat.

“Not the most exciting to a man from the military, huh?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve seen a lot—” Keigo rubbed at the identification tag hidden under his clothes by force of habit, the leather cord heavy around his neck. He has seen a lot. Too much, to be exact, but how would he even begin to explain the horrors of man to someone… “normal”? How could he?

For someone whose wit and silver tongue helped him survive all these years, he was awfully tongue-tied tonight. Or maybe it was just you, and the surreal lightness settling into his soul that had him stumbling over his words.

“But you’ve seen enough?” You finished his sentence with a wry grin, and the surprised laugh found itself past his lips before he could catch it. How could he forget? You were always, always a step ahead of him. Back then and even now.

“Enough of my barracks and Touya’s face? Yeah, definitely.” You swatted his arm with a huff, and the familiar action made the next laugh come a little easier, his chest a little lighter as the awkwardness slowly dissipated into something… comfortable. Normal.

“You know that’s not what I meant!” 

“Well, that’s your answer, Y/N. Don’t know what else to tell you,” He shrugged in mock ignorance, and you groaned, going back to worrying at the deepening scuff in the dirt. 

“What, so, we both had boring lives?”

Far from boring.

“...Yeah, I guess so.” 

You pursed your lips and stared out at the quiet street, the beat of silence almost bordering on awkward by the time you broke it with a resolute sigh, starting to walk forward into the moonlight.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to make up for it somehow.” 

“And how would you do that?”

“By going back to when life wasn’t so boring,” You hummed, spinning to face him and grandly spreading your arms, as if you were presenting the lantern-lit street to him, “C’mon! Tonight, this main street is memory lane!”

“Aren’t you taking me out of town at one point, though?”

“Oh, hush. Are you coming or not?”

“I’m coming, coming.”

Oh, your smile was radiant, and Keigo had to force himself to keep moving instead of gaping like a fool.

(Was it possible for him to make you smile like that all the time?)

For the next hour, time seemed to stop. The moon stood frozen in the sparkling sky, watching two star-crossed lovers go around town, laughing and reminiscing on what could’ve been. What could be, if Keigo were to be bold. You took him down Main Street as promised, and he found it hard to relate to the memories you spoke of, associating each store with scornful stares and pitiful ignorance. Eventually, you two looped around to the outskirts of town. To the river that looked more like a creek now, and the quaint houses and maze of alleyways. To familiarity.

He smiles as he watches you skip rocks in the creek, laughs when you wrinkle your nose at the dog that always seems to only bark when you two pass by Old Man Yasutaro’s gate, and revels in the memories.

“You still suck!”

“Hey! It’s not like we skip rocks all the time in the military.”

You merely rolled your eyes and continued to skip ahead, the slow and awkward trudge from before revived into the enthusiastic step he remembered, fueled by the joys of nostalgia and escape. 

This, Keigo realizes, is nostalgia.

Not the pain of remembering a past he wanted to forget, not looking at alleyways to remember what used to be his childhood, not thinking of the shops as someplace otherworldly. Rather, it was this. The joy of reminiscing on good times. The joy of breathing new life into old memories.

The joy he now knew was to be found in you.

“Hey.” Your voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see you grinning, the moonlight illuminating something akin to mischief in your eyes. “Remember that old gramophone we could never figure out when we were little?”

“You mean you could never figure out. I didn’t want to touch it because Granny Tamayo is a scary, scary woman.”

And a dirty street orphan’s hands had no place on such an expensive thing.

You rolled your eyes and he chuckled, following along anyway as you set off down the path with a new purpose. The route was familiar, and Keigo already had an idea of where this was going, but who was he to speak when you were nearly buzzing with excitement?

“What I mean to say is: I figured it out, so—” You spun in place again, taking his hand, and his heart damn near stopped, “—would you like this dance? To some actual music, this time.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you? A proper lady needs the proper etiquette, after all.” His cheeky grin betrayed the politeness of his words, and you scoffed, tugging him along.

“Like you would ask me first.” Keigo’s tongue stalled around a response, scrambling for a proper comeback because you were right. Deep down, he knew that he still never would’ve asked you first for anything. It wasn’t his place. First, as a kid on the street compared to the granddaughter of the izakaya owner. Now, as a man with blood on his hands compared to an innocent civilian, untainted by the shadows of war.

Who was he to ask anything from a normal person?

“Lead the way, then.”

There was that radiant grin again, brimming with excitement and sending him reeling. Keigo couldn’t help but let your enthusiasm rub off on him as he followed you to the little communal courtyard behind Granny Tamayo’s home, where he knew that she liked to keep that Western gramophone to play for guests. You broke away to go and try and work the old machine, mumbling to yourself as you fiddled with the knobs and rifled through the records filed away in the ornate cabinet it was sitting on. 

He took the chance to look around the empty courtyard, struck with the realization that it hadn’t changed at all in the years he was gone. He left all those years ago, only to return to a town that seemed almost frozen in time. It was too far from the cities for all the modern inventions to catch up with it, so the only things that changed were, well, the people. Keigo most of all. What if he hadn’t—

The sudden burst of music and your shout of victory cut off his wandering train of thought, and you walked back into his line of vision with a triumphant grin.

“I still don’t know how to fix the tempo, so the song’s a little slow. You’ll have to forgive me for that.” You offered up your hand and tilted your head, still smiling. “May I have this dance?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Like you’d ask me first.”

【 ☀︎ 】

Keigo grinned in well-earned defeat, and his hand slipped into yours with the other on your waist. The music swelled, and he took the first step.

One, two, three, one, two, three…

With too-slow, clumsy steps, the two of you slowly began waltzing your way around the small courtyard. You still kind of didn’t know how to work the gramophone—the song almost eerily slow, despite the years of fiddling—but that didn’t matter in the face of the giddy smiles shared, your soft laughs when he spun you in a flash of spontaneity, and the nostalgia of old times.

Before, he was a scrawny kid on the street who clumsily tried to follow the steps of the pretty girl playing a song on her father’s gramophone. Tomorrow, he would be Private First Class Takami Keigo, fighting for his life on the battlefield. Tonight, he would be normal again, slow dancing to Clair de Lune playing off an old, off-beat gramophone with you in his arms, mourning a start he didn’t get to have.

(As normal as a kid scrounging for scraps on the street could’ve been.)

Your voice, soft and wavering, broke the stillness of the moment, as if it were something taboo that shouldn’t have been uttered into existence at all.

“Keigo?”

“Yes, beautiful?”

You flushed at the endearment, the next words shattering his illusion of happiness within nostalgia with the renewed vigor of confidence in the face of the impossible.

“Will you come home?”

Home.

A simple word, really. And yet it dropped like a stone in his chest. Home meant a roof over his head. Home meant warm food on the table. Home meant a simple life in a sleepy rural town. Home meant the promise of a new beginning.

To you, “home” probably meant nothing more than the place you had known all your life.

To him, “home” meant you.

So, like a dreamer in love, he answered with all the confidence of a fool.

“Yeah... I will. I don’t care how long it’ll take me, but I’ll come home.”

He thought the shaky lilt to his voice would’ve given him away, or the way his step faltered in the already clumsy waltz as if trying to step around what he knew should’ve been the answer. 

Instead, you laughed. Something soft, and let him spin you once more.

“Well, I’ve already waited a couple years, what’s a little more waiting?”

Keigo had to keep himself from double checking if this was real. Dancing with you in the moonlight as he tried to step around the reality of that answer with all the awkward grace of a scared child.

One, two, three, one, two, three… 

Truth be told, the both of you knew the answer long before you had pushed the question into desperate existence, searching for a shred of hope. That his simple answer should have been an realistic “I don’t know” or a pessimistic “no promises”, instead of a foolish “yes.”

Instead, he slowed the waltz to a sway, pulling you close to both ingrain the feeling of you into his soul and to hopefully hide the resigned melancholy of a soldier being carted off to uncertainty.

And, for a traitorous moment, Keigo wondered.

Dreamed, even.

What would it have been like to have a “normal” life? Instead of grasping the hand of desperation, would he have grown out of the side alleys and homes made of boxes into a “respectable” man? Maybe he could’ve gotten a job at the grocer’s, at Old Yasutaro’s restaurant, or maybe even Granny Tamayo’s izakaya. Could he have—he pulled you closer, pressing a ghost of a kiss to your temple—could he have courted you the “right” way? Brought you flowers and honey-sweet words of praise and promises of a happy future, instead of a single night dancing in the moonlight with a brittle promise hanging in the tense air that the both of you clung onto like a lifeline. A promise that Keigo wasn’t even sure he could fulfill.

He would later come to regret this single moment. Of this, he was sure.

(But, as you lifted your head from his chest with glassy eyes and a shaky smile, he knew he wasn’t alone in this regret.)

Keigo knew the words that you wished to let fall into the night air, in hopes of making that brittle promise tangible. Of giving life to a bright future with three little words. The reality crawled up his throat like poison, bitter and cloying, something that he knew shouldn’t be said. Keigo settled for gently wrapping his hand around your head to pull you closer, filtering the harsh truth into something a little softer, the bittersweet tone marking the unspoken truth as a reality instead of the dreams of a future.

One… two… three… 

“Don’t,” He muttered, heart tightening as he felt you go rigid in his arms, “I know. Please, God, I know—”

You slowly relaxed in his arms with all the bitter acceptance of a night before battle, and he murmured the next words into another ghost of a kiss. A whisper against your lips, seen only by the fading notes of a song in the moonlight.

“—but don’t.”

【 ☀︎ 】

Keigo’s breath was rattling, ears ringing with war cries, death wails, and everything in between. The once-blue noon sky was now a startling haze of ash gray, thick with the choking scent of the world burning.

He couldn’t even tell where the carnage started or ended anymore.

(Would it ever end?) 

How long has it been since the first shot?

(Too long.) 

Would he live to see the sunset?

(Of all times to worry about this, why now?)

The incessant drill of artillery fire was nothing new to him, as was the stench of the battlefield that could only be described as death.  What was new, was something that pushed his aching body to keep moving, the autopilot state he usually entered backed with something raw. Something like fear.

Something like the will to survive.

The pain that set his nerves on fire has long since faded, all the pain of countless wounds blending together into something numbed by the adrenaline of survival. Were the wet patches on his uniform sweat? Blood? Both? He couldn’t tell anymore, all he knew was survival and the persistent voice whispering deadly distraction in the back of his mind.

Civilians. You’re fighting civilians, you mur—

The skin of his back prickled, the telltale whistling of something flying screeched in his ears, and his reflexes yanked him to dive out of the way before his mind could catch up. Not even a second later, another explosive detonated behind him and heat blazed across his back. His nerves screamed fresh pain into his senses and he grit his teeth, ignoring the concerning sound of sizzling over the ringing in his ears in favor of ducking into cover, collapsing against the wall of a destroyed building. 

Since when did regular people know how to make bombs?!

In the next breath, someone else had ducked into the small shelter he’d found in this hellscape of a city. 

Well, the remains of one. All hell broke loose once the other side brought homemade explosives into the fray and now, as he stared at the burning and destruction, Keigo wondered if those Westerners who muttered meaningless blessings whenever they passed were right. 

If this “Hell” they spoke of really was on Earth. 

He turned his head, suddenly sluggish, to the man that had joined him in the makeshift cover, and grinned at the familiar face.

“Hey, man.”

(Maybe giving his body a chance to slow down was a mistake.)

Touya ignored his exhausted greeting, instead opting to yank a rag from his pouch as he pulled Keigo to sit up so he could press the rag into the deep gashes the shrapnel had gouged into his back. Keigo immediately groaned in protest at the stinging pain, despite how necessary he knew it was.

“Fucking— how did you even survive that?”

“Dunno,” He let out a weak laugh, “Don’t think I will—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you myself.” Despite his harsh threat, Touya pressed the slowly darkening rag deeper into his wound. A desperate (futile) attempt to stop the life pooling onto the floor underneath them, steadily flowing from the deep gashes in his back and all the other wounds peppering his body.

“Isn’t that the exact opposite—” He hissed in pain at the pressure on his wounds, “—of what you want?” 

“Shut up.”

“You know you don’t want me doing that.”

(He was right. Keigo running his mouth meant that he was breathing. Meant that he was alive.)

Touya pressed his lips into a thin line, Keigo blearily tracking the way his burn scars pulled with the movement. 

Grounding himself, that’s what he’s supposed to do during times like this, right? Hell, he didn’t know. Not every day he came so close to death. Touya really needed to look into something for those sc—

“For the love of the gods, I am begging you to shut up.”

Ah, he said all that out loud? He managed to muster up a sheepish grin, despite Touya’s grim expression.

“Ooh, Touya? Begging? That’s a first, I should stay awake to hear it.” Keigo didn’t have to look to know that the rag was soaked through and Touya was fighting against the inevitable at this point. Keigo? He… he was too tired to fight to keep his eyes open. Too cold.

“Maybe you should stay awake to go home, loverboy.”

“I should.” He fumbled to find purchase, pressing his palm into the ground and scooting his feet closer for leverage. “Can’t leave Y/N waiting after all.”

Maybe it was the delirium from the blood-loss, or the desperation of this cursed situation, but Keigo tried to pull himself up. To move, to get somewhere safer, somewhere where he could survive. His palm slipped on the blood-slick floor underneath him and he came crashing down once more, his strength disappearing along with it as he slumped against Touya.

“Ah—”

“Shit, I’ll get you to the medic.” 

Keigo groaned at the pain of his wounds being jostled as Touya tried to haul the deadweight of his sluggish body up. The reality of the situation weighed heavy on his shoulders (or was it his strength leaving him?) and he licked his chapped lips, whispering the grim truth into the ash-hazy air.

“I’m not gonna make it to the medic.”

“How many times do I have to keep telling you to shut up?” Another attempt to pull him to his feet, and Keigo managed to push out a weak laugh.

“Just a couple more times.”

“Hey… hey, c’mon now, I still have to make fun of you and Y/N for being the most disgusting couple I’ve ever met.” He carefully shook Keigo, trying desperately to get him to keep his drooping eyes open.

“Aw, don’t tease Y/N too badly.”

Something changed in Touya’s voice, a block in his throat that he had to force his words through, and he clutched the dripping rag closer to his wounds as he muttered out his response.

“I won’t.”

“Good, good,” Keigo’s hands clumsily fumbled for the cord wrapped over his chest, tugging at it until it came loose. “Hey, can you tell Y/N that I’ll do my best to come home? In any way I can.”

“...Just do it yourself.” 

“Mm, that would… that would be nice. Coming home, I mean. I promised… Y/N… I would…”

His words faded, and Touya froze, arms suspended in midair around the slumped form of his best friend, his stunned gaze locked on the identification tag hanging from a limp, bloody hand.

“Kei...go?”

【 ☀︎ 】

Waiting was agony.

You used to think you were a patient person, years of dealing with drunks, horrible customers, and everything in between training the patience of a saint into you. 

Today, however, revealed that you were anything but. The moment the company had crested the hill and out of sight, your anxieties slowly overcame you the farther they went. Working in the izakaya helped, the constant flow of customers and orders kept you on your feet and your thoughts off the battle that was no doubt waging mere miles away. Every so often, a wandering patron would come in murmuring that they heard bits and pieces of the battle, and you forced yourself to forget again.

All that effort was lost once the company’s runner came barreling through the town, shouting that the soldiers were on their way back. That they needed spaces cleared for the wounded and their lodgings secured. They called for the doctor, they called for food, they called for supplies. 

If you didn’t know any better, it would’ve sounded like a cry for help.

Word spread like wildfire, and the rush of serving customers turned into the rush of trying to help prepare for the soldiers’ return. None of it helped get your mind off the one thing you didn’t want to worry about. If anything, it just shoved all your worries to the forefront of your mind, accompanied by the dull headaches of something you hoped were just random fantasies.

(Fantasies of a lotus garden, a guarded grin, a red hairpin, a betrayal—)

Would he have to be wrapped in the bandages you were carrying? Would he have to rest in the bedding in your hands? Would he be able to eat the food your grandmother was preparing?

Then, they came. 

A slow straggle of wounded and weary men, leaning and limping on each other as they slowly trickled in through the main street.

There were many things that wouldn’t happen, you would later realize, watching the company trudge back into the town. Their formation was shaky from the hobbling wounded, and you felt your heart drop as you desperately searched the noticeably thinner crowd, trying to peek through the uniforms and bandages and dented helmets for any sign that he had come home. That he had survived.

How many men did they lose?

(Too many.)

You watched the flow of soldiers slowly follow their commander to their lodgings and the doctor, the once boisterous crowd now silent and battle-worn. The rookie that had just been under a chokehold the other night was now cradling bandaged wounds and a gaunt expression that only told of his first brushes with death.

One soldier broke from the crowd to make his way towards you, and—for a fleeting moment—you hoped. 

And just as quickly as it came, that hope you had soon sunk into despair once you saw who it was, and what he held in his scarred hands.

Across the street, a man broke rank, with a heavier burden than most would’ve thought and few would ever experience. He hoped that no one would have to experience this, a death and the task of delivering such news weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Life, Touya thinks, is cruel.

It left such a brilliant mind like Keigo to starve with him on the streets.

It forced him to run to the military in desperation, searching for steady food and shelter.

It snatched away the one man who had salvation waiting for him.

Death, Touya grieves, is even crueler.

Keigo would never get to go home.

He wouldn’t get to see the joy on your face once you welcomed him home with open arms. 

(How could he? When your expression twists into something akin to dawning horror instead of joy, watching Touya make his way up to you with downcast eyes and a heavy bundle of fabric carefully cradled in his palm.)

He wouldn’t get to start the new life he deserved, in a sleepy rural town with the one he adored.

He wouldn’t get to fulfill his promise to you.

A promise that everyone knew was too risky a promise to make. Yet, he believed enough to make it to you.

A promise that Touya holds back on his tongue because he knew this—a little metal disc on a bloodstained cord—wouldn’t fulfill it, not when he hands you the neat square of scrap fabric and watches your tears flow before you even open it. Not when you slip out a worn identification tag, holding it up to the sunset to try and make out the letters you already knew were there.

A lantern illuminates what the fading sunlight could not, casting the stamped characters of Keigo’s bloodied name in an amber glow, and you crumble.

【 ☀︎ 】

Dawn finds Professor Takami, Head of the Sociology Department, first through the doors of the campus café with essays to be finished grading in one hand and his laptop bag in the other.

The cashier greets him with a familiar warmth as he steps up to the counter, his staple order already halfway punched into the register with a knowing smile that he forces himself to return. There’s a nervous energy simmering under his skin that he can’t seem to shake, and it shows. The barista (Touya. His name is Touya. He literally has one of the guy’s essays in his hand, fucking hell. Get it together, Keigo) shoots the normally easygoing professor a worried look as he slides the warmed pastry across the counter to him, the full sleeves of swirling blue and black ink a stark contrast against the smooth wood of the counter.

“Everything good with you, Professor?”

“Perfect, now that I got my pastry. Think I’ll be even better once I drink some coffee.” 

Nothing was perfect, and he couldn’t even put a finger on what it was. 

He plastered a convincing smile on his face as he picked up the too-heavy plate, careful to hold it steady before making a beeline for his usual table. The faster he got to sit down at his usual corner booth and sort himself out, the better. 

He knew that he would just drown himself in grading papers instead of figuring out what was making him feel off, but it was the thought that counted.

The hum of energy under his skin was nothing new to him. Something deep inside that made him almost jumpy, wary of the peaceful days that had consumed his entire life, lying in wait for… something. For what? Keigo wished he knew.

(For battles yet started, for warcries yet sung, for survival yet fought for.)

All he knew was that the strange hum that threatened to vibrate him out of his own skin was different this time. Wrong. It didn’t help that his sleep had been suffering for the past week, plagued by dreams and nightmares both of eras past, the blurry picture of the same person a constant sight in the swirling mix of history. Images flickering between a secluded lotus garden and an elaborate kimono to an old izakaya and Clair de Lune at moonrise. Images of yearning and blood and tragedy and endings before the beginnings.

At least his conversations with the once-intimidating Japanese Literature professor got a smidge more interesting.

With the resolute click of a red pen, he swept away the thoughts clouding his mind as he resigned himself to his fate of just dealing with the strange mood for now, fully intent on getting to work. Years of repetition and muscle memory had him opening up his email with practiced ease, quietly sighing to himself as he waited for the doubtlessly endless emails from students and colleagues alike to load. 

Would procrastinating just the tiniest bit by fiddling with the rolled cuffs of his sleeves or pushing up his glasses for the nth time help at all? 

No, but it let Keigo expel the weirdly restless energy in what ways he could, the creeping sense of foreboding setting his nerves into overdrive. The page loaded and he frowned at the onslaught of emails he knew were going to flood his inbox. 

Hell, he expected them to.

What he didn’t expect were the contents, the subject lines all variations of “Did you know?” and “There’s no way” and “I can’t believe it” from colleagues he didn’t even talk to regularly. Sure, the email from the cultural anthropology professor made sense, but the graphic design professor? The head of the business department?

Before he could open the first email of many, his laptop chirped out the familiar ‘ding!’ of a new email, the sound rippling through the café as everyone’s phones and laptops lit up with the same message. 

A schoolwide email? Okay, th—

The world slowed to a crawl, everyone in the packed coffee shop silencing almost at once and the shocked whispers rippling throughout the space only serving to make the silence all the more deafening (“Hey, check your email.” and “Look at this.” and “No way.” and it was too loud someone please make it stop—), his ears near ringing as he struggled to tear his gaze away from the picture embedded at the top of the page.

“Looking a little rough there.” The cotton suddenly stuffing his ears muffled the barista’s voice and would’ve made him jump out of his skin had he been focused on anything but burning the email into his eyes. God, he’d barely even registered the guy coming up to serve his coffee, what was wrong with him? “Professor? Was it that email?”

“Y-Yeah, I just read it.” He cleared his throat and slid the mug closer to himself, taking a sip of the scalding hot coffee to ground himself as he stared at the picture of you. 

The barista merely arched a pierced brow and muttered a soft “ah.” before going back to his spot behind the espresso machine, vibrant blue eyes tracking the rattled professor suspiciously. Keigo was too preoccupied to thank him as he usually would’ve. Too preoccupied with what was staring back at him from his laptop screen.

A picture placed right under the subject line plastering “Unfortunate news about Prof. L/N Y/N” across his screen, the few words in the body text (that he could pick out through the sudden tidal wave of memories past clicking into place) painted an image that he couldn’t help but mourn.

After being reported missing… remains found… will be missed.

Will be missed… 

Well, now that he thought about it, Keigo had been missing you all his life, hadn’t he? 

Both figuratively and literally, always arriving after you left and vice versa, never really seeming to connect in person. Any emails were shrouded with a veil of professionalism that he couldn’t pierce through. Yet, there were things so irrevocably you that he knew to pick out now. The jovial note at the end of your emails, the unapologetically confident sharpness to your words, the extra mug you left for the next person that passed through the faculty lounge (that somehow always ended up being him on the days he was rushing to his next lecture). 

All these things, all these moments, and the fool had passed all of them by.

The restless energy humming under his skin through his entire being disappeared much quicker than it had come, its job done, leaving a gaping  void in its wake that was shockingly familiar. Almost as if this wasn’t the first time this had happened, where the curtains never raised on the beginning you two could’ve had. He took a shuddering, stabilizing breath (that didn’t work), too numb to feel the freshly brewed coffee scalding his tongue that he had hoped would pull him back to reality, hoped the sweet taste would wash away the bitterness at the back of his throat and the splitting headache of years upon years of memories crashing into him like a tidal wave.

Professor Takami had work to get done.

Keigo could mourn later.

Even as he convinced himself of that, he couldn’t even bring himself to brush the dead lotus petals off his work, the sight of the wilted centerpiece only bringing more pain. The cruel coincidence of the once bloomed flowers now dead in his hands didn’t go unnoticed, and Keigo desperately tried to bore the printed words laid in front of him into his mind. 

As if doing that would sear away the sudden onslaught of memories, dead lotus petals igniting a yearning for a long-demolished lotus garden and a pretty concubine who didn’t belong in the palace (or was it a small town and the life he could’ve had?) and the love that slipped through his fingers once more.

Did you go through this too? When he—

The half-graded essays lay untouched for the rest of the day, red ink disappearing in the crimson light cast by the setting sun.

【 ☀︎ 】

When did I…?

He blinked down at the concrete under his feet, stunned, before looking up to see an endless sea of trains passing in front of him. The incessant rushing of the trains around him had replaced the silence of the hotel room he was supposed to be sound asleep in, the too-rhythmic noise of the train tracks surrounding him in an almost ethereal white noise. 

I had just gone to bed… How did I end up at a train station?

He winced at the glare of the midday sun reflecting off of the last car of the train passing in front of him, before stopping short at the sight of someone standing on the other side of the tracks—alone—revealed by the passing train. His heart leapt into his throat and pushed a name he didn’t know and wouldn’t remember out of his lips. There was no way he knew her, the multi-layered kimono and elegant hairpins looked like something out of a millenia-old ukiyo-e print and wholly out of place in a modern train station. But... something deep in his soul knew that it was right, and it sang as he watched the woman turn around. 

“You’re dreaming right now, Keigo. Go back to sleep,”

“What…?” 

“It’s true,” The woman tilted her head with the soft smile that he’d missed so much (missed? Wasn’t this his first time seeing it?) and the ancient hairpieces jingled and swayed with the movement, his gaze locking on a familiar crimson gemstone catching the sunlight, “Don’t believe me? Try to count some numbers, then. One… two…”

Another train hurtled past, blocking his view once more as her painted lips moved soundlessly around the final number.

“Three.”

Keigo sat up with a gasp, staring at the soft shafts of light the sunrise painted on the walls.

It was the start of a new day, and he found himself mourning something lost that he couldn’t even remember.

Dawn finds Hawks, the number two hero, leaping out of his Tokyo hotel window, wind catching on vermilion wings to buffer his descent to the sidewalk.

He was far from home, his current mission dragging him all the way to Tokyo from his agency in Fukuoka. Sneakers touched concrete, and he started down the path where he was supposed to meet with the last person he wanted to see right now. Especially after that mess with the High-End Nomu. He shuddered, spreading his wings as if to remind himself that they were all there, recovered after that hellish fight.

Come to the location on foot, he’d been told, and don’t be conspicuous.

Weird request, and it was kind of hard to remain inconspicuous when he was the number two hero and had a pair of bright red wings announcing his identity to the world. Alas, he needed to cooperate or else he’d end up jeopardizing the entire mission, so Keigo settled for ditching his hero costume in favor of casual clothes and a cap to hide his identity. He pulled a mask over his nose and tucked his wings closer to further help conceal himself as he walked down the street, dipping into the first alley he saw.

His path through the grid of alleyways and side streets had already been mapped out the days before, so it was just a matter of making the short trek there. Unfortunately, the area wasn’t the best, and Keigo found himself slowed by sidestepping trash and the occasional bottle of liquor. The scent of stale alcohol only brought unpleasant fragments of memories, and he pushed them aside in favor of quickening his pace.

“My, not every day I see such a bigshot hero pass by.”

He almost tripped over another bottle, wings ruffling in surprise as he cursed himself for being caught off guard.

There was an old woman sitting there, a steaming cup of tea in her hands as she sat outside her quaint little storefront. 

A flower shop, in this secluded side street? 

“Ah, sorry, ma’am, you have the wrong person. I mean, me? The number 2 pro hero?” He was quick to deny her, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. She merely hummed and took another sip of her tea.

“Do I? Well, this old woman’s eyes aren’t what they used to be after all.” She set down the cup and stepped out of her chair, shuffling over to the water feature on the other side of the doorway that served as an attraction. He could see why, the soft rush of the small waterfall and fragrant lotuses drawing his attention the more he stared.

Suddenly, the woman plucked one of the younger lotuses, patting the stem dry before handing it to him with a smile.

“Uh—”

“You saved my son that day, from the Nomu attack in Fukuoka. This is the least I could do.”

Against his better judgement—he really needed to get going to catch the train in time—he took the half-bloomed lotus in his hands and pulled down his mask to smile at her.

“Your eyes are… actually pretty sharp, ma’am. Thank you.”

She laughed, sitting back in her seat and sent him on his way. The rest of the walk went smoothly after that, and he soon found himself jogging up the stairs to the station, muttering under his breath as he checked his watch. 

Right on time.

【 ☀︎ 】

A strange sense of deja vu creeped into his chest as he stepped onto the platform in Minami-senju station. He’d been feeling off all day, and the weird sense of familiarity that had been tugging at the back of his mind didn’t help. Luckily, he’d managed to arrive in time to catch the noon train so the rest of his schedule should hopefully go smoothly from here. A departing train screeched into motion, and he winced at the rippling glare of sunlight that reflected into his eyes, the strange deja vu rearing its head again.

Keigo stared at the train passing in front of him as he idly twirled the lotus stem in between his fingers. The words left his lips before he could catch himself.

“One… two…” He cut himself off with a sigh, dropping his head and dragging a hand over his face.

It was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.

Keigo.

His head shot up at the sound of his name, the world darkening under the shade of a passing cloud. Did he just imagine that? He had to. The train station was practically stranded, and there was no one even close enough to call his name without shouting across the station (if they even knew his name in the first place). Despite his better judgement, he wet his lips and shut his eyes, the strangely familiar words passing his lips once more as he desperately tried to recall the familiarity he longed for.

“One…”

I want to see you.

“Two…” 

I don’t even know who you are, but I miss you anyway.

“Three—”

Suddenly, the steady rhythm of the train tracks silenced and left him with the raging drum of his heartbeat, the blood rushing in his ears as he stared at the person standing on the other side of the tracks. The emerging sun smiled upon him, casting the world in light once more as his voice locked around a familiar name he’d never spoken.

It started as a hushed whisper, and he swallowed the lump in his throat to call the name thrice ingrained into his soul.

“Y/N!”

The familiar smile that bloomed across your lips was answer enough as he pushed through the newly arrived train to the other side, to you. He reached out, clawing through the rush hour crowd (why were there so many people? Why were you so far? Closer, closer, closer—) and he nearly sobbed in relief as you fell into his arms, clinging to each other as your souls finally, finally, melded together as one. Now and forevermore.

The questions could come later, but now... he had a promise to fulfill.

He was home.

notes: minami-senju train station is located in very close proximity (a two-minute walk) from what is left of the kozukappara execution grounds, where a temple now stands in its place. he’s made quite the journey to come full circle, hasn’t he?