#I mean we all know what kind of thing I would rather be doing

[delicateperspective]

I think people who assume Harry is completely free tend to overlook a lot—especially things he shows during his concerts and in some interviews. Starting with the queercoding, but also those really vulnerable moments. You can literally see it in his face what it means to him when he waves a rainbow flag. And when he says things like “that doesn’t happen to people like me”—it’s heavy.

And I don't blame them because Harry's public image has been pushed very hard, especially with dwd and that stunt with the director. But If you really pay attention to the details, it’s pretty clear that Harry isn’t fully free. He’s just doing what he can, playing the game with everything he’s learned along the way.

I’m sure he’s negotiated as much freedom as possible over time, and what we see is a gradual result of that. I really hope in this next chapter, with all the leverage he’s gained, he’s been able to secure even more freedom.

I honestly just wish the best for both H and L.

yes exactly. you put it so well — that’s the thing about public perception. in order to see H & L the way that some people do, you have to be willing to accept a version of events that genuinely doesn’t make sense unless you ignore… well, everything.

to believe that version, you have to believe that:

harry was a womanizer from the very beginning. that he dated half the girls at bootcamp and then moved on to older, high-profile women who just happened to boost his image (taylor, kendall, olivia). that he’s a commitment-phobe who’s never had a long-term relationship. that he leans into queercoding and wears obviously queer clothing just to sell albums — even when he doesn’t know he’ll be photographed. that he writes intimate songs about home, about loving the same person through every season of life — despite having no personal experience with any of that. and that he deliberately distanced himself from the other boys in the band — especially louis — because he thought he was better than them.

louis, meanwhile, apparently changed his entire personality between 2011 and 2013 for no reason. that he got angry at a magazine for implying he supports LGBTQ+ rights. that he got a triangle on his achilles heel because he just… liked the shape. that he wears t-shirts and brands with overt queer symbolism (Tchaikovsky, All Out, Only the Brave, Maison Margiela) without realizing or caring what they mean — even though he loves fashion. that he used to call himself “camp” and “flamboyant” all the time, but only as a joke. and that he had a long-term girlfriend during the band, which is clearly why no fans ever had a shot — not because he was gay.

and that’s just the surface level stuff.

the more you pay attention, the worse it gets.

you have to eat a lot of narrative gymnastics to believe that version. honestly? in some cases, you have to make more illogical leaps than even the most unhinged larries do. you have to completely discredit every contestant who’s ever spoken out about x factor. every person who’s criticized modest management. every lyric change — like: “women just don’t feel right”, “i’m hoping someday i could be open”, “i can’t compete with my boyfriend”, "hopelessly devoted to Lou", etc. — has to be chalked up to coincidence or queerbaiting or… misheard. and you have to believe that none of it means anything — even when it obviously does.

i’ll always go back to the metaphor harry gave us in the As It Was music video — the red pill and the blue pill. just like in The Matrix: the red pill means you wake up and see the truth. the blue pill means you stay in a comfortable illusion.

so many people would rather take the blue pill. and honestly? i don’t blame them. it’s easier. it’s lighter. it doesn’t force you to confront how corrupt the industry is. how normal homophobia still is. how much trauma they endured. to accept that kind of truth — especially about people you love — takes a toll.

because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. you’ll always question the narrative. you’ll always feel that unease when something doesn’t add up. you’ll always see through the bullshit.

and yeah — sometimes I wish i could close my eyes too. especially in this world, in this moment, where everything is already so heavy. but i can’t.

so we keep paying attention. we keep listening between the lines. we keep hoping the next chapter brings them more peace, more truth, and more freedom.

because they’ve earned it. and they deserve it.

[yes-no-maybe-soo]

Y'all, Freefall Gambit is so good 😩❤️‍🔥 Loved the return of Onychinus Sylus! He was aura farming so hard in this card, I had to restrain myself from audibly fangirling ijbol. I do feel like this card is sort of preparing us for the upcoming branch, where we'll most likely see alot more of this type of stuff and of this particular dynamic of SylusMC. Of being on opposing sides. Lots of angst and potential for drama, as well as self reflection and growth on especially MC's part.

My sole complaint is that Sylus isn't wearing the suit from the illustration ＿|￣|● I love his Onychinus fit as much as the next person but man... that suit... I will cry if they intend on forever gatekeeping it.

Because I want to avoid spoiling anyone that doesn't have the card yet, I've decided to write down some of my immediate thoughts below the cut.

Let's get the angsty predictions out of the way first – these lines set my alarm bells off. I feel like they are foreshadowing that something of Sylus' will indeed get taken or lost. Or rather someone. That someone ofc being MC, his most precious treasure.

I'll admit that these would not have alarmed me had it not been for certain lines in Sylus' birthday event and in Greedy Heart. I go into why exactly those lines make me uneasy in the linked post, and I just feel like the above ones further reinforces my theory. Call me paranoid or angst obsessed, but I predict pain for both SylusMC and for us in the main story, perhaps even in the coming branch.

On a similar note, just as how Sylus' vulnerability and fear (MC, and MC getting hurt or worse respectively) has been brought up more than once recently, so has MC's. Namely, that Sylus will get caught and put away, or become weak. We see these fears in Valleydream Bloom and in this card, as well as in Where Hearts Live. So things might be building up exactly to that.

I thought it was interesting how MC specifically mentions that the Association have Evol suppressing equipment. Which leads me to believe that said equipment could potentially be used against Sylus at some point to subdue him (provided of course that Sylus' powers are indeed Evol and not demonic/draconic based, but that is an eventual topic for another day). Idk but something tells me that Sylus will get captured whether willingly (most likely) or unwillingly. After all, we do see Sylus behind bars in the music video to Visions Opposées.

Could it be foreshadowing or just a neat visual? Only time will tell.

Me personally though, I am leaning towards the former, and I can see both MC's and Sylus' fears coming to fruition. Maybe even in a connected way (MC gets kidnapped and/or hurt and Sylus jumps in to save her but gets weakened or subdued in doing so, or Sylus gets captured by the Association, MC gets gravely injured trying to save him and maybe in the process triggers Sylus' dragon form and with it MC's memories? Boom. Several birds one stone. Helluva plotline imo)

What I still don't believe will come to pass however is either of them perma dying. This is an otome gacha. The main character nor LI can't die, especially not in a game as young and fresh as Love and Deepspace. So on that front I am not at all worried. Doesn't mean the angst we do get won't hurt a lot, though. But that being said, SylusMC will persevere in the end. Trust. Neither will let the other get torn away from them. Either will move heaven and earth to bring their lover back come what may.

Moving on...

I thought this was a nice callback to Sylus' anecdote

Here Sylus is revealed to actually be a sort of deepspace Robin Hood. We stan.

And the crowd cheered!!!

Also this is actually why Sylus jumped out of the plane. Man needed some cool and fresh air after this comment made all his blood flow south...

This makes me cackle 😭 bro is so unserious. And actually kind of insane, but again, we stan.

MC is living the dream. Do you know what I'd sacrifice to wrap my arms around that waist?? Happy for my girl though 💞 ( and for Sylus, you know that man is on cloud 9 here).

I adore that the card ends on a sweet and nostalgic note, with them gazing at the moon... like they used to in a distant past 💗

[crustyfloor]

(excuse to talk about one of my favorite cure scenes and ramble) Ivan's message as a character who chooses to not confront his feelings and doesn't find the words to describe them because they're so jumbled and unusual, makes it interesting when we see him express himself with actions rather than words, because action comes more easily to him rather than some complexities he won't put a name to or think about, in fact, Ivan doesn't consider himself capable of being so naturally attuned to emotions like others can be, it's just a fact to him, there must be something fundamentally "wrong" with him that separates him from others who have the ability. After all the years of suppressing and constructing a version of himself that didn't feel, for the sake of keeping control in an environment where, by all means, for him, emotions were a liability. He would not allow his weaknesses to come to light. It was simpler to live that kind of life instead of the alternative. I'm sure that's why he was so intensely fixated on Till, after finding someone who embodied everything Ivan believed he couldn't have and lacked within himself, sticking to Till and observing him was like a study

Ivan didn't learn basic concepts about emotions, so most of his behavioral issues stem from his upbringing. Ivan may believe empathy and kindness wouldn't come as naturally to him as others because Ivan is dispassionate about most things in his life, because he has to be, so much so that it gives the impression that Ivan doesn't feel at all. I love this scene in Cure because it shines light on the anger and compassion Ivan does feel, and it's for another person, for Till, whom Ivan can't help but have most of his passionate feelings and moments for.

Such a rare instance of gentleness from someone who otherwise wouldn't so easily give it reflects so strongly on Ivan as a character, he's seen Till so endlessly sympathetic and kind-hearted, Till as a person makes Ivan's deep and intense feelings come to the surface inevtibly even if it's hard to put a word to exactly what he feels, especially in that moment, so much to be said but nothing to say. But it's instinct to care, even though he wasn't shown that pity was something to give- his misery was met with mistreatment and punishment in his childhood, but something about seeing Till in such a state reveals a different side of him from the side that he would usually direct onto himself; he empathizes. Even if he doesn't know exactly what he's doing, and he's just clumsily nuzzling his face against Till's

A part of Ivan's character is a constant journey and exercise in expression, recognizing emotions, and in this case (compassion). Ivan is disconnected from his environment, his whole world is bleak, and he sorts people into cateragories and calculates how to approach them, not because it's what he wants to do, but because it's what he has to do, one of the only things in his control that he can manage in that regard is how he can maintain his perception for others and how he can perceive others. The closest we come to seeing him shift from that outside of Till is Sua, and still, she was also in a category (he just placed her in the same category he was in, to be exact, because of how he observed her), so he deals with people in much the same disconnected fashion

It's just that he's different for Till. Because aforementioned, Till's presence in Ivan's life, His love for Till pries open a part of Ivan that Ivan keeps resolutely shut, the part of him that feels, feels too deeply to be confronted here and now, but he does regardless and no matter how much that has led Ivan places that would eventually make him conclude that that side of him should never come to light, he never leaves Till, his underlying intentions on giving Till the leeway and freedom he wants, first being the meteor shower, and the smaller version with the collars, children don't instinctively know how to sympathize unless their environment teaches them how to express it, but it must be instinct to care for someone who's life you prioritize even over your own, it's just not so easily understood

His cover of wiege is also a nice callback to this, what I always loved about Wiege was how soothing it was as a song, even in the cruel, upside down world they live in, they still find comfort where they can in others and in healing through sharing it, in dreaming that things will be or could've been better even if something darker is looming over them.

Let a child who has never sung a lullaby, and like most in their world, didn't grow up happy and comforted, sing a lullaby and come in contact with that part of himself that only comes rarely, that he doesn't believe he is good enough to have had in the first place, the gentleness that is often pushed down for the facade of resignation and indifference. Ivan would never properly come to accept that he could. He has spent his whole life convincing himself he's just an unlovable person, and the people around him, and the way he perceived them, were a confirmation that he indeed didn't belong and wasn't a person capable of loving or being loved in return

These are lessons Ivan never came to learn because he was too adamant on a simplicity, that was the result of his insecurity and fears but simple enough for him to accept and live with, Nowhere is the best telling of this because the song lays out why he is the way he is, how he perceives the world as unforgiving and cruel and ultimately not where he can exist, his existence is like an (anomaly), even in the small moments of peace and love that exists between humans, he's an observer watching from the outside in and he's living day by day in a blur and he doesn't ask questions or try to change anything about it. Although it's an unfortunate situation to be in, loneliness isn't as pitiful as it may appear to be, and Ivan's method of self-isolation and coldness to the world keeps him alive and in control, so he allows himself to fill that role because ultimately, he fears confronting that all of his beliefs were wrong and questioning himself, he fears shifting from that role. After all, accepting some truths that we understand is something he can't afford to let consume him; he can't afford to fully see himself or trust Till with his feelings, not when it can hurt him (again), not when he can perceive him, perhaps even prove him wrong (Because if it were any more obvious that Till cared for him, Ivan would have to rethink everything about his "I'm not a person anyone can truly understand or love" belief, he does everything to convince himself that he's nothing to Till because he's so sure). It's simple to believe that this one-sided desperation is just something he has to live with and is the result of the kind of person he is, and not something he's miscalculating.

It's hard to interpret why Ivan's self-soothing mechanisms and the way he cares are so convoluted, but when he's so resolute in the notion that he's unable to be like others and usually won't let himself be so open to vulnerability because on the inside he doesn't think anyone as twisted, impure such as himself could, not without doing something wrong or something that he'd regret. But loving Till and observing him was a gateway to learning how to do the same back, even if it's this much, a hesitant, vulnerable, human gentleness that he doesn't know what to do with, (In this way, I like to think those moments in their childhood taught him some little things that children would usually learn from their caretakers, if that makes sense... Ivan is like a sponge to me, so I think just like that comic where they were telling a flower to cheer up, Till's compassionate character taught him more things about what it is to be human.)

[creacherkeeper]

i think part of the problem is many american colleges (the only experience i can speak to) got rid of admissions essays as well as the need for standarized testing scores after covid, plus in a few years there will be a steep drop off of 18 year olds in america, which means colleges are scrambling to recruit as many students as possible so they can maintain their student population in a few years when incoming freshman aged students plummet. finally, gen ai started getting better right as students who were in high school for the first years of covid were entering college, when high school educations were lacking to nonexistent

all of that together means, unfortunately, the gen ai is producing much better work than most of my students. about half of my freshman have never written an essay in their lives and cant produce a coherent paragraph without hand holding. the department encourages us to grade based on completion of work rather than skill (with the unspoken understanding that the majority of our students would not pass this mandatory class otherwise). a lot of my students, even when shown how to properly cite something and even with tools and resources available, still "cite" things by just putting some urls in a list

ive taught first year composition, advanced composition, and also tutored in the writing center the last two years and ... its genuinely dire. i had more writing experience and was producing better work in high school than my advanced composition students (20-21 year old english majors) are now

its already pretty well known in educational psychology that american colleges dont produce informed students or ready workers. graduate schools and employers have to spend a lot of time and resources retraining and reteaching american college students because they dont leave undergrad prepared in any way

and with the aformentioned problems, a lot of universities have kind of given up the gimmick that theyre selective and rigorous and are really just chasing money wherever they can. accept as many students as possible no matter how unprepared for higher ed they are and then keep passing them along and retaining them for as many credit hours as possible to keep getting money

so, all that is to say, college instructors and what youre assuming are our bad assignments and poor standards are so far down the ladder when it comes to the problems with the quality of college writing right now. like, sure, there are plenty of bad teachers out there, at every level. thats a known problem. although, most college comp instructors are wildly underpaid and undertrained graduate students. you can blame us if you like but that hardly feels like punching up. if you'd rather sympathize with all of us who are being taken advantage by these institutions in pursuit of more money, the problem really isnt that we dont know how to grade. look to our departments telling us to pass students through, the colleges we work under being deprioritized and defunded to worship stem, our universities doing everything to fill the leadership's pockets, and generally a society that has increased the barrier for entry for almost every field at every stage making undergrad a necessity for the vast majority of jobs

believe me, i wish i had a better answer for the ai problem. but shitting on college instructors just is not accurate or fair. its certainly not going to solve any of these problems to punch down at the people with the least amount of power in the situation

have made this exact post before but if you're a high school teacher i get being genuinely concerned that chatgpt is making it difficutl to tell if your students have learned how to write basically comprehensible paragraphs or not. that sounds really shitty and i have genuine sympathy! however if you're worried abotu students cheating with chatgpt as a college professor then you're admitting that you'd give a passing grade to uncited wildly incorrect computer drivel and i think you deserve to have your students circumvent your busywork assignments

[f0rs4k3nbyth3sp4wn]

making a post about how the fandom characterises elliot bcs ts pmo icl 🥀🥀🥀

(small cw for mentioned attempted murder towards a child [fictional ofc]. but this is the forsaken fandom so i dont think most people will care. oh also this is a REALLY long post so. beware)

sooo im pretty new to the fandom but after having browsed almost every sfw 7n7 fic on ao3, its safe to say elliot's characterisation (or, well, mischaracterisation), is becoming a HUGE problem. a lot of people make him pissy around n7 and c00lkidd, which, to be fair, he has a right to be pissy! but the way they execute this is where things go wrong.

this is a more extreme example, but here's the gist of an au my friend found on tiktok (not linking for the creator's sake, which, speaking of, if you've seen this au and know the creator, please don't harass them. i mean i shouldn't have to say that but im still putting it out there):

honestly i agree with the last sentence he said, even i know this is bs even though i've only been a forsaken fan for like a week or smth 😭😭🥀🥀 to show you why, let me break down what we do know of how elliot's personality, how he feels about n7 and c00lkidd, and how he expresses it:

he is generally portrayed as a sweet and kind person, who always wants to help wherever he can.

he 'hates' n7 due to what c00lkidd did to the pizzeria (according to the fanmade wiki), though nothing has (canonically) ever been said about his feelings towards c00lkidd himself (to my knowledge)

he is not openly hostile towards n7, and has never canonically said anything 'mean' to his face, only acted passive aggressive (e.g. "...just get going").

i do disagree with his feelings towards n7 being 'hate' rather than just 'strongly dislike' (trust me, theyre VERY different things), but i digress. even if we were to say elliot hated n7, some people portray him as not even hating, but loathing him (this is an even bigger problem in pizzaburger fics/aus imo). if you want to write a complicated/negative relationship between two characters who are not your own, it's vital to know the difference between dislike, hate and loathe (as seen below).

(via langeek.co)

the reason i say elliot strongly dislikes n7 as opposed to hate is because hatred is often accompanied with a sense of hostility (while dislike is more avoidant, which fits elliot more imo when we look at their canon interactions). if you hate someone, you will not want to help them, and to be fair, i've read a handful of fics where elliot straight up refuses to give n7 pizza, or is at least hesitant. i dont think that's how elliot would behave. yes he is mad at n7 for not controlling his son, and has a grudge against him, but at his core, elliot is a kind guy. even if he wasn't, he'd never leave someone to die, no matter how temporary.

but continuing on the whole 'elliot loathes n7' dynamic, it becomes even more jarring when you apply it as an 'enemies to lovers' pizzaburger dynamic. even more so if you don't do the work to make it well paced. here are some tips on how you can do that:

pay heed to the rest of this post and do NOT make elliot too aggressive towards 007n7 in your fic. otherwise, it may feel too forced, especially if you don't want to go through the slowburn route. feel free to let the guy be passive aggressive though, just don't make him feel uncontrollable hatred every time he sees 07 (i prefer to think he feels manageable disdain, though i think you can tell by now).

on the other side of the coin, do NOT make n7 too pathetic. im all for him being a soggy wet cat, but at the end of the day, that's a grown ass man that was once very similar to c00lkidd. at the very least, i don't think he'd be crying left and right, considering this is a former terrorist, lol.

this is more me telling you guys to be creative than giving tips on pacing (since im not very creative myself, so i dont have many tips myself rn) but if you want to write the exact moment elliot began to like and respect n7, i don't really like the idea of n7 achieving that by bodyblocking for elliot?? like. it's not typically executed right bcs again. it often does what i advised against in the above two points. if you wanna do smth like that in your fic/comic, try comprimising by making it a clone block instead, and letting n7 be a REALLY good distractor like those aggressive n7 main. (i left this incomplete on accident when i posted this lol)

just overall make sure elliot is respectful to n7 during the late pining and post establishing the relationship stages!! it's perfectly fine if you want him to say 'mean' stuff to him that he doesnt mean (think of how siblings, friends, and again, sometimes partners, joke with each other. tough love or wtv), but don't make him have a hate boner for the guy lol. unless youre writing smut where there are actual hate boners involved, i aint getting involved in allat.

anyways, idk how to end this post off, so on a more positive note, go check out this pizzaburger yaoilicious peak rn !!! and feel free to add your own opinions, idm having a discussion as long as youre respectful, and am likely to add more to this post if you remind me of smth i might wanna say (im not the best at articulating myself lol) !!

[stonesparrow]

”Just” Friends

Senku’s clubmates express surprise at Senku betting so much money on Yuzuriha not rejecting Taiju’s confession…because they thought she liked him.

Ao3

“A hundred yen says he gets rejected,” Yamada says. 

Senku raises an eyebrow as he bends over to open his school bag. They’re placing bets now? Well, he supposes it isn’t surprising. High schoolers will try to make a game out of anything, even someone else’s love confession. 

“Three hundred yen says he gets rejected hard,” Suzuki snickers. 

Well clearly they don’t know much about Yuzuriha. Senku grabs the energy drink from his bag. It’s odd though—she and Taiju come by the lab often enough that he thought his clubmates would have at least picked up on the tension there. How unobservant. 

“Five hundred yen says he gets rejected at full power!” Edamura exclaims.

Senku stands up. Heh. Might as well make some money off of these idiots.

“Ten thousand yen says she actually accepts,” he says casually, leaning back up against the windowsill as he opens his drink.

Three voices suddenly slam against his ears. “SERIOUSLY??!”

Senku smirks. “You’re welcome to drop out if you’re scared to lose,” he says, closing his eyes and taking a swig. 

“But—huh?!” Yamada splutters. “You mean you’re not secretly going out with Ogawa yourself?”

Senku abruptly sprays the entire mouthful of energy drink all over the floor, hacking and coughing. “Wh—“ he wheezes, trying to clear his airway. “What?! Why would I—what the fuck gave you that idea?!”

“Because she likes you?” Suzuki says, sounding equally bewildered. 

Senku can’t stop coughing. “Huh?!”

“Yeah, isn’t it kind of obvious?” Edamura frowns. “Like, ever since the start of the school year, the way she greets you…”

—————

Edamura was so excited for the first day of school, especially since he was a second year now! Now he could be the cool suave senpai to the cute first-year girls coming in!

Oh, there was one now! A petite girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a white headband was scrolling on her phone outside the school store. She looked kind of anxious—maybe she was lost? 

Edamura grinned. Perfect! He could see it now—he’ll sidle up to her, casually ask if she needs help, and she’ll beam with gratitude and admiratio—

“Did you seriously get lost on the first day?”

The girl’s eyes light up like the sun. “Senku-kun!” 

She runs over to a boy with pale spiky hair. “Morning! It’s so great to see you again!”

The boy raises an eyebrow. “What’s with you? You just saw me at graduation.”

The girl laughs sheepishly. “I just wanted to make sure I got to say hi—it sucks that we’re in different classes this year…”

“Tch. Next time, wait outside where we can see you,” the boy says, turning and walking away. “Come on, better find the idiot before the bell rings.”

The girl follows, tucking her hands behind her back as she leans forward and looks up at him with a sweet smile.

“Yeah.”

Edamura stares after them. A bond formed in middle school, huh? Must be nice…

—————

“She’s always so happy to see you and get your attention,” Edamura says. “Eagerly waiting for you at the door, asking you to come model for her at the crafts club, asking you to eat lunch together…” 

Senku’s eyes widen. 

Yamada nods. “And then there’s how she helps out in the lab…”

—————

Yamada blinks at the pretty brunette who’s just entered the science lab with Ishigami and begun setting up beakers on a table, with the whole club staring in confusion. “Eh? Aren’t you…Ogawa-san from the crafting club? What are you doing here?”

The girl stands up. “Oh, I’m helping Senku-kun out with an experiment today,” she says cheerfully. “Sorry, is that alright? He said it should be fine and I got the okay from my club president to leave, but Senku-kun can be rather lax about getting permission for things…”

“I told you, it’s not a big deal,” Ishigami says. “Right?” He stares at the club with piercing scarlet eyes. 

“No, I—yeah it should be fine,” Yamada says lamely. Everyone hesitantly turns back to their own projects, though Yamada notices quite a few of the club members are sneaking peeks at what Ishigami and Ogawa are doing on occasion.  

“Ah, Senku-kun!” Ogawa says suddenly. “Your goggles are slipping! Here, let me get that—“

She peels off her gloves and reaches over to Ishigami, who obligingly leans over and allows her to readjust his safety goggles. As she does, she gently brushes his hair out of his eyes and tucks it behind his ears with a warm smile. “There we go!”

“Mm,” Ishigami says, turning back to the experiment. He and Ogawa seem completely oblivious to the many eyes now fixed on them.

Yamada grits his teeth together. You lucky bastard! Man…if only I had a cute assistant…

—————

“I totally thought it was some sort of sick power play at first,” Yamada grumbles as Senku’s eyes somehow get even wider. “She’s just so affectionate with you, messing with your hair or poking your face, sometimes rubbing her fist on your arm playfully. There wasn’t a need to flaunt it in front of us!”

“Ugh, yeah,” Suzuki sighs. “Like that time when you forgot your lunch…”

—————

“Ugh, where is it…” Senku grumbles, rifling around his bag.

“Can’t find your lunch?” Taiju asks, opening his own neatly packed bento.

“Apparently,” Senku sighs, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded. After a moment, he smacks his forehead with a palm. “Ah. I left it on the counter again.”

“For a guy who has the entire periodic table memorized, you sure have a hard time with little things like that, Senku,” Suzuki points out. 

 Senku shrugs and starts to stand up. “Whatever. I’ll just grab some chips from the vending machine.”

“Oh no you don’t!” 

Suzuki startles. Ogawa Yuzuriha is pointing accusingly at Senku from the doorway, a pink fabric-wrapped bento dangling from her hand. 

She marches over to Senku’s desk, plopping her lunch on top of it and unwrapping the contents. “You’re going to eat something substantial, and you’re not going to complain about it!”

Senku rolls his eyes as Yuzuriha perches on top of his desk and plucks a piece of tamagoyaki out of her lunch, holding it out to him. “You need to eat too, dumbass,” he says. Taiju slaps him lightly on the back, which makes him choke on his spit.

“Don’t call her a dumbass!”

Yuzuriha sighs, the hard gaze in her eyes softening. “Come on, please? We’ll let you pay for ramen next time.”

Senku stares at her for a moment. 

“Ugh, fine.” He closes his eyes and opens his mouth, and she deposits the tamagoyaki into it with a satisfied smile. 

Suzuki stares. Letting a cute girl feed you…you really have no shame, Senku!

—————

“She’s always taking care of you like that,” Suzuki sighs. “Commenting on how much sleep you got, offering to repair your clothes, watching over you when you pass out in gym…”

“Yeah she’s like, literally the perfect girlfriend,” Edamura says. 

“I…huh?” Senku wheezes. “None of that was—you guys didn’t actually think we were dating, did you?”

“Well…if not that, then we figured it was only a matter of time,” Yamada says.

“The HELL?!”

“Senku.” Suzuki puts a hand on his shoulder with a serious expression. “Ogawa Yuzuriha is the prettiest girl in our grade. The only reason none of the other guys have tried confessing before is because they thought you’d electrocute them.”

 Senku stares at him incredulously. Well that seems kind of presumptuous. He promised his dad he wouldn’t electrocute assholes anymore. Although…if any boy had gone and made Yuzuriha uncomfortable with a pushy confession…yeah he could see himself considering it. Wait, that’s not the point here! 

“Well it’s not like that!” He exclaims shrilly. “Not one millimeter! I can’t…fucking hell, you actually thought all that was her being in love with me?”

“How are you so convinced she’s not?” Edamura asks. 

“Because she told me she’s in love with Taiju!” Senku snaps. “And anyone with half a brain can see it! It’s been like that since we were in fifth grade—ask anyone who knew us then!”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Yamada blinks. “You’re really…just friends?”

Senku’s face suddenly darkens, and all three boys freeze. 

“Just friends?”

He stares at them, red eyes gleaming. The boys hold their breath as he speaks, the words slipping past his lips like the hiss of a deadly rattlesnake. 

“Are you fuckers saying,” he growls, “that if Yuzuriha treated you like she does me, it would mean less to you than the promise of something romantic? That you’d let her offer you her time, her energy, her insights, her skills, her compassion, her trust, and yet call it an inferior level of relationship?”

His gaze narrows. “Because if that’s the case, then electrocution would be far too merciful.”

A thunderous, joyful shout echoes from the window—Taiju is hugging a laughing Yuzuriha with tears streaming down his face. Senku looks over, and suddenly his expression softens, the corner of his mouth turning up.

“Well, that’s settled,” he says airily, turning away from the terrified looks of his clubmates and downing what remains of his drink. “I’ve got some morons to make fun of. You can deposit the ten thousand yen each into my shoe locker whenever you like.” 

Partway down the hall, he stops and turns his head. “You know. Yuzuriha’s always saying I shouldn’t be so harsh. And maybe she’s right. Maybe your brains are so hormone poisoned that they’ve rotted away into uselessness, so I should try offering advice instead.”

He tosses his empty can into a nearby recycling bin. “If a girl like Yuzuriha calls you her friend, show some fucking gratitude. That kind of title isn’t just handed over. It’s earned.”

Senku disappears down the stairs, leaving three very bewildered teenagers behind.

“That was terrifying,” Suzuki squeaks.

“But…you know,” Yamada says hesitantly, “maybe he has a point?”

“If friendships can be like that too…” Edamura murmurs.

“Then friendship with girls…might be really cool,” Yamada finishes.

“…Haaaah,” Suzuki sighs. “We were acting pretty immature I guess…”

“And now we need to come up with thirty thousand yen,” Edamura notes.

All three let out a long groan. 

Outside in the courtyard, a new couple greets their best friend with happy tears, absorbing his acerbic ribbing with the ease and warmth of the kind of love that only they could have built. 

[stillness-in-green]

hello! despite being one of the more interesting 1-a characters and being a parallel to Midoriya (and arguably Shigaraki) Aoyama still isn’t really talked about in an analysis kind of way. this question is a bit broad but do you have any analysis or meta thoughts about Aoyama?

Hrmmm.  For me, Aoyama is mostly a character who I think “resolves” too easily.  He’s part and parcel of the endgame’s tendency to simplify and reduce all of its conflicts to the least challenging versions of themselves.  It's not that I dislike him, I just can think of a lot of ways I would have liked him better, you know?  Also, I admit to being a bit soured on him as the traitor to begin with because switching the focus to him after ending a chapter all but telling the readers that the traitor is Hagakure is such a shameless, tasteless “Gotcha!”  RIP Hagakure and her series’ worth of characterization opportunities sacrificed on the altar of maintaining her plausibility as a traitor suspect.

But the Hagakure thing aside, I just don’t wind up thinking there’s a lot to Aoyama that would – at least for me – provoke extensive analysis.  Like Hagakure, the series keeps him at arms-length for most of its run until Horikoshi is ready to address the traitor plot, but what that ends up doing is depriving him of the time to build both a nuanced character within himself and significant relationships with other characters. 

For most of the series, Aoyama has this kind of prideful but loopy exterior personality.  When the traitor plot kicks in, he suddenly becomes a real boy, with a tremendous amount of self-loathing over his double agent position and, after that talk with Aizawa, the willingness to be bold and fight back.  He talks about himself, his feelings and intentions, and he wears his emotions – be they despair or rebelliousness – very openly.  It’s very forceful, very “loud” – characterization that insists upon itself after so long being hidden behind a deliberately strange persona that we can presume Aoyama wore intentionally to put people off of asking questions or getting too close.  The only eccentricity he retains is the light seasoning of French in his dialogue.

After the war, however, I feel like Aoyama mostly – not entirely, but mostly – reverts back to the loopy pridefulness? He doesn't maintain the more direct openness, and that leaves me feeling like the loopy pridefulness was just his real personality all along, meaning he wasn’t putting up a front in any sustained or effortful way, making his characterization feel more shallow.

That sounds ungenerous, but please do understand that I liked Aoyama’s more in-your-face characterization.  It was a little self-centered, very focused on his own pain and his own feelings, and that was great!  I think we should have gotten more of that.  I think a character like that, in the situation Aoyama was in, should have leaned even harder into it.  A more nuanced version of Aoyama could have given us a lot to talk about on a lot of fronts.

For example, in a story that actually gave damn about the discrimination quirkless people face, Aoyama could have been harboring resentment towards his parents, that they put him in this situation rather than just accept him for who he was, trying to use their money to buy him a quirk when all that did was sell him and them to Le Diable.  This would also put quirkless discrimination right back in Deku’s face after Deku (wonder of the world that he is) immediately stopped thinking about quirklessness and the plight of quirkless people the moment he got handed a quirk from on high.

Heck, that could tie in Shigaraki, too, in a version of the story in which Shigaraki was actually quirkless at the beginning, rather than having his own quirk stolen by AFO in infancy or having Decay be his from birth.  Have these three characters be a lens for examining what it does to give quirkless people quirks with all the burdens and expectations that are forced on them as part of that, rather than just letting them exist and live their lives in the way people who are born with quirks are able to do.(*)  Admittedly, that story would kind of require a fourth character, namely a quirkless person who just stayed quirkless.  Could have been Deku in the original version of the story where he never got a quirk at all, or could have been someone new.  It’s not the version of the story that we have, but it’s a version we could have had.

(* Insert your desired level of Liberation propoganda about people with quirks not really being able to live freely because of the quirk regulation laws here.)

Aoyama could also have been harboring resentment towards his classmates, that he spent, what, nine months living with them in dormitory conditions and they never even suspected him?  They never even asked about him, just totally accepted his eccentricity and never wondered if there was more to him than that?  And yes, obviously he was trying hard to not let them suspect him, and was indeed playing up the eccentricity so they wouldn’t, and doesn’t it actually speak well of them that they accepted him as an eccentric rather than shunning him for it? But doesn’t that understanding just show how innocent and sheltered they are, while he’s having to live like this, under the thumb of Le Démon?  Maybe part of him even enjoys seeing his classmates afraid or suffering because he’s having to live with it, so why shouldn’t they?  And of course all of that just makes him feel worse about himself, in a self-perpetuating downward spiral.

To separate that from the in-character perspective, I’d have liked to see Aoyama wrestling with unwarranted, unfair, but still very understandable anger towards his classmates because he’s in a terrible situation and the constant, unceasing pain of that leads him to some irrational places because that’s what pain like that can do to people.  Of course, the problem here is that that scenario is probably a little too intense and self-centered when a) Aoyama’s actual actions taken against the class are so minimal and happened so long ago in-story and b) AFO just sits around in prison for months on end and Aoyama is seemingly completely free in that time, including free to come clean to his friends/teachers.

That could be alleviated by a more consistent presence from AFO’s minions, such that Aoyama could still feel threatened even with AFO in prison, but of course the story can’t do that either because the first two thirds of BNHA are set on portraying AFO as the ex-ruler of a fallen Empire, a man whose resources and followers have been steadily expunged by All Might until it’s just him and a tiny inner circle living in hiding. In that framework, with AFO arrested and no sign that Shigaraki knows who AFO’s U.A. contact was, who would even be left for Aoyama to be afraid of?  The last third of the story then has AFO loyalists crawling out of the woodwork all over the globe, which would certainly explain Aoyama continuing to live in fear, but because there was zero evidence of them until the story needed them, they just feel like one of the third act's many asspulls, not a good retroactive explanation for Aoyama's months of terrified silence.

I’m also very curious about a version of the story wherein Aoyama is exposed but not immediately captured – say at the training camp or during the first war – and he has to work for the Villains in direct opposition to Heroes/his former classmates, because not doing so would consign his parents to very horrible deaths, as well as himself if AFO or some of AFO’s followers ever caught him.  I’d have liked to see him bonding with the Villains whose lives and woes he never considered due to his wealthy background, and I’d really have liked to see the 1-A kids forced to wrestle with their own anger towards someone they see as a traitor while also facing questions of what they’d do if it were them and their families in the Aoyamas’ situation.

Would Ochaco have endangered her parents and all their employees?  Would Tsuyu have been willing to put her six-year-old baby sister in the line of fire?  What would have happened to Shouto and his siblings if someone had offered Endeavor a perfect quirk, or had offered Rei a way out via making it appear that all her children were quirkless?  What would Deku have done if the person who offered him a quirk was All Might’s enemy instead of All Might himself, but he didn’t know until after he’d already accepted?  What would any of those sheltered kids have done if it were them in Aoyama’s shoes?

I feel like this plays well into Iida stating that they had to help Aoyama because they had some responsibility for not noticing the trouble he was in despite being his classmates and friends.  If that’s really true to him, then the story could only have benefitted from making it more of a challenge for them to prove it, making them have to save Aoyama – and his parents! – from a scenario that’s more challenging than, “Deku and Hagakure witness the Aoyamas angsting openly about their treachery; they defeat them and take them into custody in approximately thirteen seconds because it’s laughable to suggest that Aoyama could last any longer than that against Deku in a fight.”

And none of this is even touching on a version of the story where Aoyama has a quirk because Aoyama sought out a way to get one, rather than that blame being placed on his parents!

Basically, there’s no scenario in which Aoyama isn’t more interesting to me as a character with more agency in and of himself and a more active, realistically conflicted internal life.  As he is in the comic, I mostly find him frustrating because there are so many interesting things the story could have done with him, but instead we get him as:

A clear-cut underage victim of years-long blackmail and coercion facing lethal consequences for disobedience,

who feels only self-loathing and despair for what he’s forced to do, no messy resentment or anger towards those who put him in this situation or those who failed to rescue him from it,

whose actions were taken only at the orders of another and never at his own instigation,

and of which the only consequences the class faced were some temporary fear and injury, nothing lasting like losing Bakugou for good, permanent debilitation of a Hero hopeful, or death.

And against all of those factors that downplay the weight of Aoyama as a traitor, he’s still portrayed as this horrible sinner repentantly facing inhumane imprisonment and an unsympathetic justice system unless he’s willing to throw himself right into the cruel clutches of his and his parents’ tormenter to “atone” for his terrible, terrible crimes.

It's heavy-handed to the point of ridiculousness, is what I mean to say.  But again, I don’t dislike Aoyama; I just think his characterization/story is indicative of Horikoshi’s bizarre obsession with doling out disproportionately harsh blame for what should be very mitigated criminal responsibility. That reluctance to commit to more active criminal responsibility – so he can avoid even more disproportionate punishment – leaves Aoyama as both less compelling and less divisive than he might otherwise be, both of which, I suspect, factor into the fandom being less invested in talking about and analyzing him.

Sorry I don't have more deep-dive to offer myself! But thank you for the ask!

(P.S.: My fanfic thought is that I want the AU where Aoyama and Kunieda have known each other since Aoyama was like eight years old because that was the first time AFO felt like he needed to send Aoyama's parents a Message, and Kunieda and his flowers have been an erratic but terrifying presence in their lives ever since.)

[grison-in-space]

Get a bsky account (they're free!), also, and start making a point to follow anyone who seems cool. If you see a talk and it sounds awesome, skeet about it and use the conference hashtag. At this point, I think a critical mass of scientists who do social media are on bsky and it's behaving like twitter again, and that means that the odds are good that whoever you're skeeting about will see it. This way you can gush about how cool someone's work is without having to lurk awkwardly at the speaker podium trying to jockey past senior people, and they can decide whether to reply back to you. I find that genuinely complimenting people whenever I can, including looking for things I like so I can compliment them, has been a really good networking strategy: flattery tends to make people go oh! and want to know more about you, especially if you are disproportionately flattering other undergrads or junior grad students. Your goal is not to be obsequious, just to tell people doing cool shit how cool it is. We all tend to forget that our work is interesting after a while immersed in it, and conferences are a great chance to be reminded that what we do is fucking cool in fact.

Posters rock. In neuroscience, I would 100% rather do posters than talks, because posters are where you can ask people to give you a personalized little spiel about their work using the poster as a visual aid. That gives you all kinds of opportunities for little conversations and chances to make friends. It also means that you can skip things if you know them already or ask for more information and grounding if you don't know them. In EEB, talks are more common and can be worth it if your feet hurt, but posters are still a super rad opportunity.

If you are currently angling to go to grad school assuming grad school still exists in a recognizable form in the next two years, see if you can't find current students who work for whatever faculty members you are interested in working with to hang with. If they seem broadly unhappy, steer clear.

Wear comfortable shoes, especially if you want to zigzag from talk to talk. Under no circumstances should you wear uncomfortable or untested shoes, even if you want to dress up for the conference (common in biomed). Different fields have wildly different standards for conference attire, so ask your mentor what to expect. Do not be me, who was slated to go to SEEPG (held at a 4H camp somewhere in the Southeast) and asked my boss if I needed a business suit when I was in undergrad.

(Which is to say, Mark is right: we've all been embarrassing in the past, and the stories of how we've been embarrassing are a great way to connect with one another and find things to laugh about.)

Talk to anyone and everyone who seems interesting and interested! That's the best thing about conferences, IMO.

Science side of Tumblr PLEASE share your tips/advice/hacks for academic conferences!

Im attending my first academic conference in a couple weeks and I’d appreciate anything you’d like to share with a lil baby bio undergrad like me

[yumeka-sxf]

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 7

Part 7 - Supporting character musings – other characters

As mentioned in Part 6 where I focused on the Eden kids, today I'll be discussing the supporting adult characters in SxF. Like with the Eden kids, I'm only going to be touching on a few characters who I think have the most notable things to say as far as the Japanese version.

Starting with Yuri, if you've ever watched the SxF anime in Japanese, you've probably heard him shout his signature 姉さん! ("Nee-san!") whenever he sees Yor, with 姉さん meaning "older sister." It's standard in Japanese for younger siblings to address older siblings with these kinds of terms rather than by their actual names.

We saw another example of this in the previous post where Damian calls Demetris 兄貴 ("aniki") which means "Big Bro." While it's normal in English for a younger sibling to call an older sister "Big Sis" or "Sis" or something like that, it's not something one would do as consistently as in Japanese. So even though Yuri only ever calls Yor "Nee-san" in the Japanese version, the official English manga will fluctuate. Sometimes it'll have him say "Sis" while other time he'll just say "Yor."

I can sort of understand this decision as it is less common in English for siblings to address each other like this all the time. Interestingly, the official anime subtitles are more consistent. I haven't checked every example, but it seems like they have him say "Sis" more often, at least in scenes where the manga doesn't.

When it comes to Yuri's nickname for Loid, in the Japanese version he calls Loid ロッテイ("Loidy" or "Loitte"). This originated from when Yuri first visited the Forgers and, in a drunken haze, demanded to know what nicknames Yor used for Loid, with this being one of two he "suggested" (the other being ロイロイ or "Loi-Loi"). Ironic how he ended up being the only one to use the nickname!

What's kind of weird is that the English manga translations have him call Loid the other of the two nicknames, "Loi-Loi," instead. Not a big deal as it doesn't change the meaning of anything, but still odd.

And of course, there's Yuri's nickname for Anya, チワワ娘 ("chihuahua girl"), which I discussed in detail in Part 5 if you haven't yet read it.

Moving onto Fiona, similar to Yuri, she has her signature term that she always uses for her "special" person – for Twilight, she refers to him as 先輩 ("senpai"). If you're into other aspects of Japanese pop-culture, you're probably familiar with the term "senpai," which is used to address someone who's your senior. It can either be used on its own (calling someone "senpai") or as an honorific (calling someone by their name+senpai). It's commonly used in school settings with students calling upperclassmen "senpai." It's used in work settings as well to address senior coworkers who are older than you and/or have been at the job longer. There's actually another example of "senpai" used in SxF – Yor's coworkers call her "senpai" or "Yor-senpai." They don't call each other "senpai," only Yor, which to me indicates that Yor has been working at City Hall longer than them.

Unfortunately there's no consistently good translation of "senpai" in English, at least not one that would sound natural to use in the same way as Japanese. Because of this, it's often omitted in English translations and replaced with just the character's name. Going back to Fiona, even though the English translations have her call Twilight just "Twilight," she always calls him "senpai" in the Japanese version.

Another thing to note is that, when she needs to be in her undercover role as a nurse who works with "Dr. Forger," she calls him 先生 ("sensei"), which is the term used for a teacher, doctor, or professor.

And lastly, I wanted to talk briefly about Melinda. Along with Becky, she's the only other reoccurring character to use feminine speech in most situations, which is defined by adding softening interjections at the end of sentences, like "ne" (ね), "no" (の), and especially "wa" (わ). It makes sense since she's a lady of high society, as well as being from a family of political influence, so she has a dignified persona to upkeep.

She also calls Yor "Yor-chan," with "-chan" being an honorific used among female friends. She called her "Yor-chan" fairly soon after they met, which shows how fond she was of Yor right away. Makes me even more excited to see what developments there will be for "Plan C" in the future!

<- Return to Part 6

[mountttmase]

10 fluff

Just some fluff before the games tonight 🩷

Parties had never been your thing, in fact you hated the whole concept of them and right now you should have been at home wrapped up in a blanket while you stuffed chips and guacamole into your gob.

Yet here you were, stuffed into a dress that really wasn’t your size as the stupid heels your best friend Kate picked out for you hurt more with each passing second. In the end storming off to the bathroom to readjust yourself and change into some flats as you’d had enough.

You didn’t have you be here, but there was no way you couldn’t be here. Not when you knew Mason was around.

You fancied the pants off of him, and it didn’t help that he was all over you whenever he was around but no matter how many people pushed you to come clean to him about your feelings, there was still a part of your brain that told you he’d never feel the same and you’d just be embarrassing yourself.

You knew what people were saying about the pair of you and how they’d look at you whenever you were next to each other. The same teasing look, an air of will they won’t they but you did your best to ignore it. Not wanting to make your time with him awkward.

You hadn’t spent much time with him alone tonight so you made it your mission to find him. Thankfully for you, you spotted him alone on the balcony straight away and walked through everyone to get to him.

‘You don’t mind if I join, do you?’ You asked carefully as you shut the door behind you, but his kind smile let you know it was fine. Holding his hand out so he could pull you into his side and you felt his warmth immediately.

The pair of you fell silent after a few minutes of chatter. Just holding each other as you took in the twinkling lights of the city below but his warm breath on your ear made you look up at him. His eyes on your lips instantly but rather than go with the moment and see what came of it, your mouth interrupted everything as you nervous chatter broke whatever was happening.

‘What do you think you’d be doing right now if we didn’t know each other?’ You asked quickly. Masons face one of shock before he was grinning and holding you a little closer.

‘I mean let’s face it, you probably wouldn’t even be here’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right’ you shrugged, laughing at how well he knew you.

‘But if you were, then I’d be on the other side of the room from you, probably quizzing Chilly about who you were while trying not to let him know how hot I think you are’

‘Mason’ you laughed, heat rising up your neck at the fact he’d finally admitted he was attracted to to you and when he tilted your face up to his you could see the blush on his cheeks.

‘What? You know I think you’re gorgeous’

‘Do I?’ You retorted but he just licked his lips and gulped.

‘Well you do now’ he winked. ‘What would you be doing?’

‘Probably on the other side of the room asking Kate who you were’ you smiled and you knew you had to say the next part as he’d been so open so it was only fair. ‘Trying not to let her know how hot I thought you were’ you giggled and from the way he smiled you knew everything was okay.

You didn’t need to say anything else. Masons face inching closer as you tilted yours up and when your lips finally touched it was just for a brief second. Mason pulling back to check everything was fine but when you were leaning back in instantly you felt him smile before he kissed you again.

You tried to ignore the sound of everyone inside cheering, but it was pretty hard to miss. Mason did his best though, holding you closer and kissing you even deeper until your knees were weak and all you could think about was the way his lips slot against yours so perfectly and the fact he tasted a bit like rum and coke.

You could have kissed him for hours, but the next time he pulled away and rested his forehead on yours, you did the same. Peering up at him with a shy smile that he returned and the sense of relief that came over you made you feel like flying.

‘You should ask me nervous rambling questions more often’ he laughed and even though you felt a little silly, you couldn’t help but agree.

[clownakai]

Hi! It's me again! Let's talk about: Shiho's trauma and how Gosho's portrayal of it comes as a pleasant surprise within Detco's rather abysmal landscape of in-depth representation

Very important disclaimer(s): I am not a licensed professional yet, and I am not diagnosed with any kind of trauma-related disorder. I nonetheless hold this topic dearly and wish to gather in one place at least a few of the things that made me truly appreciate the portrayal of Shiho's trauma in a way others haven't. Lastly, this remains of course a personal opinion first and foremost, so keep that in mind if you decide to dive into it!

P.S. - While I always try to start from canon material, we lack a lot of details re: Shiho's backstory. I will generally attempt to hypothesize what could have transpired in the past considering the repercussions we can observe in Shiho's attitude and behaviors, but my own speculations cannot compare to canon actually filling in those blanks (which I highly doubt we'll ever get in the first place).

P.P.S. - this thing got long. Like. Really long. And because of tumblr’s newfound habit of flagging random things as nsfw, I couldn't add any manga screenshots. Get ready for a wall of text, gamers

The Roots of Shiho's Trauma

Trauma is in itself an incredibly complex topic— even the mere fact that a set threshold past which events can begin to be considered traumatic doesn't actually exist on the grounds that individuals tend to react differently to the same stimuli (e.g. I once had to watch my father get the shit beaten out of him by a man twice his size to the point he had to go to the hospital, but neither I nor my dad ended up developing any sort of trauma response afterwards— I'm no warier of strangers than I'd been prior to what happened, and my father is as polite and non-threatening around really tall strangers as ever. This isn't to say that the event itself didn't have an impact on us, of course, but it didn't significantly affect our day-to-day functioning in distressing ways either. I do however know of people who, after experiencing this type of assault, developed an all-consuming agoraphobia— among other trauma-related symptoms—, for example).

With that said there is of course a point to be made about the kind of trauma Shiho herself has been subjected to. In her case, the very environment she grew up in was traumatic: from a very young age— as soon as her giftedness was identified—, she's been pressured to excel, and while studying in the States, although I imagine she hadn't been strictly beholden to furthering the Organization's goals just yet, there must have been BO members or at least affiliates watching her every move.

Later on, she is constantly required to produce results via researching something we can't even be sure she was truly interested in: being a child prodigy and yet leading the research on the "wonder drug" means she was thrust in yet another environment full of adults that likely didn't much appreciate having to listen to a literal teenager, and on top of that her social life was considerably stunted in favor of the job she'd been assigned. At any and all times she'd been under scrutiny, and her own sister was made into an incentive for her to behave herself and stick to her duties. After Rye was outed as a NOC, the situation could only have degenerated— Akemi being most likely compromised meant there was a chance Sherry was as well, which would have translated into stricter regulations and increasingly more controlling behavior from the Organization.

Considering her backstory and how it's presented to us, we also know Shiho didn't have a childhood complete with stable parental figures, and she was separated from her much less useful sister very early on. That too is a kind of instability that deeply affects the developing individual, and if unaddressed it has a high chance of leading to widespread issues later in life.

So, we already have three pretty relevant points to start with: prolonged exposure to stress, perceived (but also very real) threats and instability that spans a decade at the very least. But fear not, for we can add more.

While I think this is somewhat of a point of contention within the fandom, I myself believe that there has been some sort of abuse perpetrated towards Shiho from within the BO's ranks. Her panic reaction extends to any and all members, yes, but Gin (and for some reason Vermouth) gets the biggest externalizations of it (let us never forget that he canonically stars in Shiho's nightmares).

Now, regardless of whether we're going to find out what kind of abuse Shiho went through (psychological, physical, sexual), and considering that we most likely never will, the implications on Gin's part abound in the early manga (and one can even posit that a few specific remarks made by Shiho are a direct consequence of her own experiences, expressed through dry humor and snark as a way of feeling more "in control" of the situation). I understand that Gin is literally "guy who will hunt you down and kill you with a smile", but so are basically all the other BO members, and Shiho only ever reacts so strongly to Gin. To me this means she either directly experienced some form of abuse at his hand, or that she projected well over a decade of stress and fear of the Organization onto Gin, thus turning him into a sort of boogeyman— a herald of every horrifying thing the BO is capable of.

Lastly, the impact of Akemi's death should also be taken into consideration, above all in relation to the role Shiho is firmly convinced she herself had in it. Considering how attached Shiho was to Akemi, and how her older sister's continued safety had been the biggest incentive for Shiho to have behaved herself especially in the past few years, her execution (delivered by Gin himself, once again cementing him as a big player in Shiho's trauma) definitely "breaks" her for good.

It's worth noting that the way Shiho breaks leads her to rebel against the system that's been suffocating her all along, but doing so is insanely hard and given the lack of a solid support system to fall back on, it doesn't go far: her actions aren't even that explosive— she announces that she will no longer work on the APTX until someone tells her the truth behind her sister's death— but they nonetheless elicit an extreme reaction from the Organization, thus further confirming its status as a massive threat to Shiho in her mind. Before the BO she is entirely powerless: they decide whether she's useful or not, they decide whether she's worth keeping alive, they decide what she should do, they decide that she's expendable the moment she displays independent wishes.

We have therefore unspecified abuse and grief accentuated by strong feelings of perceived responsibility re: the loss that transpired in addition to our first three big stars in the constellation behind most, if not all, of Shiho's trauma responses.

While frustrating to my perfectionist mind (everything must have a specific cause and if I do not make an effort to clarify or at least imply what it is in my work I perish; it definitely shines through via my poorly restrained desire to compensate for the chunks and details of Shiho's backstory we're missing), the fact that a great deal of what caused Shiho's trauma in the first place is quite nondescript at first glance, almost as if Shiho were trying to convince herself and others that "it's not a big deal" by rarely— if ever— bringing it up (and when she does she recounts the events matter-of-factly, as if she were largely unaffected by them), is something I've found myself appreciating more and more as the story progressed. Not because it truly isn't important, but because it can actually be pieced together through Shiho's every action, time and time again. At long last, a character whose trauma doesn't only make itself known when a specific trigger is at play, but rather pervades every single aspect of the survivor's life whether they're conscious of it or not.

Now, one thing I won't be doing is attempting to put a clinical label on what Shiho is experiencing: this is because her position in the manga is quite complex, and seeing as the plot itself isn't centered around her and her trauma, things aren't necessarily clear-cut. For example, Shiho did indeed get out of a stressful and traumatizing environment, but that doesn't mean she's out of danger for good just yet— if we were to attempt to categorize the symptoms she displays with the goal of making a diagnosis, we just wouldn't be able to do so due to the very much still present stressors and traumatic elements.

Applying a label to Shiho's experiences is also not the point of this post in the first place, and so I decided not to. I wanted to focus on the visible effects of her trauma, and how she's shown to be willing to at least try to break away from the mechanisms and mentality she's developed.

Which is how we get to the next section of this bad boy:

Haibara Ai And Living With Trauma

From the very moment we begin to learn about Sherry's backstory, her words and behaviors indicate a deeply rooted pessimistic outlook on her predicament— and quite possibly life itself. The very name she picked for her new identity specifically includes the Japanese character for 'sorrow', as opposed to that of 'love' suggested by Agasa. Even with said choice being played off as Shiho— now Ai— intentionally trying to unsettle Conan in every way she can, I can't help but read way too much into it and see a young woman who genuinely sees herself in that Kanji. Pain is all she is. Pain is all the world offers. It's inescapable the way a name is, and she made it into a reminder she's going to hear daily from now on.

It's also interesting how Ai brings up time and time again how Conan is the only one who can understand (and therefore help) her, with specific references to their shared predicament: Conan knows about the Organization, ended up shrunk because of the APTX, and has to constantly hide from them by playing the part of a grade schooler. While a freshly shrunk Shiho's options were insanely limited from the start, she still opted to head for Kudou Shinichi's house because in her mind he was the only person who could ever understand her situation by virtue of sharing the same experience.

As the plot slowly moves forward and we get to see more of Ai interacting with the world around her, multiple other things become very clear: an especially pronounced trait of hers is that she struggles to hold on to positive emotions and trains of thought, most notably very early on in the manga. She always finds a sour note even in the happiest of situations, because her thinking patterns cannot break out of that constant negative spiral— she is effectively still trapped, at least mentally.

As an additional example of this, even though she's been away from the traumatic environment for months, Ai cannot stop thinking about it (this can technically be countered by the fact that the danger itself isn't entirely gone. Shiho is safe for the time being, but the danger is always lurking somewhere. The problem is that she sees it everywhere instead, and cannot let go of the notion that she's going to get got if she relaxes even for a moment, which is what actually makes this kind of reaction encroach into unhealthy territory).

There's a also very obvious disconnect between her and her peers (both perceived— the Detective Boys— and real— other teenagers). To Ai, all these people are too naive for this world, and they aren't ready to handle its cruelty. She is quite defeatist in her outlook on life and has difficulties understanding how the people around her can be so optimistic, which in turn makes forming new bonds much harder for everyone involved: by keeping others at arm's length, Ai acts on the fear of having to experience a loss as devastating as her sister's ever again— here we have the avoidant aspect of her trauma reactions.

Speaking of: she also projects Akemi on Ran multiple times in canon, and always in contexts where danger and death are at the very least in the background. She's just like Akemi in that she decides to protect Shiho by putting her own life on the line. She's just like Akemi and like her she's going to die. Ai's reluctance to even introduce herself to Ran, and especially her shark-dolphin metaphor, is in my opinion pretty indicative of yet another tendency that can be found in trauma survivors, and that is the belief that there is something about yourself that is inherently dirty and shameful (traumatic event(s)), that sets you apart from normal, even good people, and it is a gap that can never be filled because you're now irreversibly damaged.

Dipping our toes into a more cliché detail re: the portrayal of trauma in media, let's not forget that Ai has nightmares featuring one of the sources of her trauma (and while Gosho kind of actually uses the Gin one as a "prophetic" dream, Conan does canonically comment on the fact that Ai is a night owl/doesn't sleep nearly enough, and we could interpret that as her being unwilling to fall asleep and risk yet more nightmares).

A considerable portion of Reunion With The Black Organization is dedicated to showing us just how much of an effect a single nightmare about Gin has on Ai. She's even more withdrawn than usual, prone to getting lost in her head (possibly even dissociating), receptive to the tiniest details that inevitably rouse her memory of the nightmare to the point she fails to assess the non-existent risk factor of her current situation and has a panicked outburst towards a very confused Ayumi, who did nothing apart from touching Ai's arm. Her emotional dysregulation in these panels shows us a clear see-saw between numbness, then mounting fear up to her breaking point (startle reaction), then an unfiltered externalization of her anguish that is ultimately played off as a joke so as to avoid further scrutiny from the Detective Boys.

We also get to see Ai's reaction to the mere sight of a black Porsche 356A, Gin's favorite car. The interesting part is that said man isn't even around at the time— this could be anyone's car. But it's still enough to trigger Ai's freeze response and put her on high alert. Later on, in The Four Porsches, we find out that said car doesn't even need to be a specific color for Ai to start spiraling, which is a pretty good example of how something innocuous and only vaguely analogous to past events can be more than enough to remind a survivor of their trauma.

Even with what little we are given, it's also laughably easy to tell how utterly terrified of "going back" or otherwise re-experiencing the effects of the environment she grew up in Ai is, which naturally includes an abject fear of the people that used to be around her. Ai's "sixth sense", although specifically primed to hone in on Organization operatives, feels to me like a magnified version of the hypervigilance that trauma survivors experience.

Surprisingly enough, as that isn't something I see often in media, we even see her considering (and attempting not once but twice) the ultimate escape as an option: killing herself (or letting herself be killed) would definitely solve all of Ai's problems. It'd free her from the constant fear and misery that characterize her every waking hour— and undoubtedly her sleep as well. It'd even rid all the wonderful, untainted people she somehow managed to surround herself with of the most dangerous burden they could have ever found themselves dragging around.

This constant devaluation of her person plays such a big part in selling Shiho's trauma, at least to me. It doesn't come off as edgy or disingenuous because it has solid roots in her past, in the things she's done and what she's been through. Sherry's value lied in her brain, her genius: in a way, even Ai's working on an antidote, producing prototype after prototype at a frankly insane rate for a person who's working alone and with fragmented data to start with, can be traced back to the unhealthy notions that have been drilled into her by the Organization. She actively relives her day-to-day life as Sherry after she's gotten out, and it's fine because it's familiar. She knows how this works much better than she knows how to hold a friendly conversation with a peer: she's back under pressure, but at least she's in control. And this way she can prove that she's good, that she's useful, that she's worth keeping around.

Truly, having reached this point, the question comes naturally: can it get better? The answer? Yes. Yes, it can.

The Ups And Downs Of Recovery, Between Healing And Fighting Back

Let's not kid ourselves: recovery is hardly a straight line. There's no magical fix-all cure that entirely erases someone's trauma and associated triggers in the blink of an eye simply because the current situation requires it, or because “it's been long enough” and other people just want them to get over it already. Trauma doesn't just “go away” because you really need it to. It doesn't stop affecting you, but there are ways to ensure it no longer takes over every moment of your life.

For Shiho, the first step towards recovery consists in acknowledging that 1) she is not alone anymore, and 2) she may be deathly afraid, but letting herself drown in that fear, only ever running away from it, isn't going to make things better.

Still, “fighting back” isn't all about acting like Conan. Ai is hardly expected to hunt down the Organization the way Conan does, and she honestly shouldn't be. Her experiences with the BO largely differ from Conan's, and even without taking that into consideration, different people may react very differently to traumatic events.

Ai's abject fear and general unwillingness to confront the Organization face to face (or investigating it in general) aren't a sign of weakness on her part, nor is it necessarily bad writing on Gosho's end. I am actually elated to see how consistent Ai is in her avoidance of those massive triggers. She rightfully wants to know when they're around, wants updates on their movements, but she loathes the idea of actively interacting or facing off against them even after Sherry's supposed death on the Mystery Train. Everything about the BO is bad news and bearer of bad memories, and she wants those reminders as far away from her as possible— which is an absolutely valid position for her to maintain.

However, in the eventuality that Ai decides to start facing her fears in a healthy, constructive way rather than as a way to get herself killed (which is in fact what eventually happens in canon), starting small is key— and it's to my delight that Gosho made a point of having Ai do just that. It takes her so, so long, but she decides to stop running because she's reached the conclusion that even if she does, she's never going to be truly safe and free (which is, coincidentally, what happens if trauma goes unaddressed); by refusing to go into Witness Protection, she acknowledges her fears but also the fact that she's not alone in facing them, and that she can't ever expect to find peace if she doesn't start doing just that.

Later on, during Black Impact, we see Ai being proactive and helping out in a small way by providing Jodie with the number she needs to call. Albeit tiny, the action doesn't go unnoticed by Conan, who comments on how unlike Ai that was, nor by Jodie, who shoots her a thumbs up. And here's the thing: of all people, Jodie is maybe the one who actually comes the closest to understanding at least some of Shiho's feelings, especially in regards to the abject isolation of having your family ripped away from you all at once (only to immediately find yourself in danger in return) and consequently the Witness Protection Program.

I'm definitely more than a little biased when I say I'm sad that Gosho didn't explore their parallels further, especially when Jodie herself canonically acknowledges their similarities as well as what sets them apart: unlike her, Ai refused to go into Witness Protection, because she's already found more than enough reasons to keep her in one place, and those reasons— those people— give her courage. It's pretty simplified, of course, because this isn't what the manga itself is about, but it is nonetheless a heartwarming moment that showcases how building meaningful relationships anew can literally be life-changing in the face of trauma. Regardless, I immensely appreciate the fact that these scenes exist at all.

Now, is this all there is to Ai’s path to recovery? Of course not. The Organization itself isn't the only thing weighing her down, after all: her grief and feelings of responsibility regarding Akemi's death play a big part in her day-to-day problems as well. To put one of my earlier observations about the visible consequences of Shiho's trauma to good use, let's jump back to The Mystery In The Net, where we see Ran initially remark on how Ai refuses to even look at her when they're near each other; at the tail end of the case, seemingly out of nowhere, Ai surprises the other girl by willingly introducing herself and offering a handshake. It's genuinely touching to see, most notably because we as readers are privy to information Ran doesn't have— she doesn't know how Ai sees her, nor how the little girl sees herself. She has no idea that what makes her a lovely person to interact with is exactly what's causing Ai to keep her distance, but we do, and Ai managing to put aside her fear and shame in order to reach out to someone like Ran is definitely a massive step forward as far as her interpersonal relationships go.

Along with all this progress, however, come many relapses— usually due to a close encounter with a member of the Organization. In these cases, but most importantly in their aftermath, we're shown just how debilitating Ai's trauma responses are. After The Mysterious Passenger, wherein Ai “only” spent her time in freeze mode because of how close she was to an Organization operative and then proceeded to try to stay behind on a bus that was about to explode because she'd convinced herself that only by dying could she do the right thing, we're plunged into a relatively low-stakes case where a small dog disappears. More than anything else, it's Ai's attitude, her words, and the things we find out through the Detective Boys and Agasa that paint the true haunting picture of the day. Ai has retreated into herself, unable to escape the vicious cycle of her negative mindset, and it's a wonder Agasa even managed to get her to step foot outside— all of this from a girl who was teasing the old inventor for catching a cold right before having to go skiing just a few days ago, seemingly completely at ease in her skin and with the world around her.

I'm not going to lie: this is the kind of up and down that only brings me closer to Ai. It is frustrating to see it happen, and that's good! That's exactly right! Because imagine if, instead of just witnessing it, you were the person this is happening to: opening up the tiniest bit, daring to stick your head outside because you think that maybe, just maybe, today is going to be a nice day, only to be sent spiraling right back into fight/flight/freeze mode and having to start the process of loosening up all over again. Rinse and repeat. It's infuriating. It's maddening. It's despair-inducing. Will it ever end?

That's what I love about Shiho, Sherry, Ai. This feels so real in a way I don't see often, and it's the reason why, despite all my gripes with Gosho's writing (particularly that of these last few years), I actually think he's done a pretty damn good job with Ai. Yes, even now that she's “so annoying”. Even now that she snaps and snarks and externalizes her emotions in a way that clearly doesn't appeal to everyone. Because that, too, can be what it looks like when someone starts taking their life back piece by piece: their personality, if carefully repressed in the past, begins to unfurl. And it's not always one-hundred percent pleasant, but honestly? I wouldn't expect it to be, especially not from someone like Shiho, and especially considering that yes, she's beginning to heal, but it's not a monitored process. She isn't actively being helped nor taught about ways to manage her trauma, and it's amazing that she's made so much progress on her own. It's amazing that she wants to live now (most days).

And it's going to get better. It's going to get better, and she's going to be there for it.

[thenexusofsouls]

Tony did crack a smile when Wanda mentioned them having Iron Man on their side. "Oh, you flatter me," he said dramatically. "You're right, I just... You know me. I wouldn't be myself without an unhealthy level of neuroticism, right?" On some level, Tony did know that he was being more than a prudent level of paranoid about this, but the invasion of New York was something he still had nightmares about, something that still bothered him a great deal. Having a bunch of aliens saying they dropped in from a Leviathan... did nothing to help assuage that paranoia at all. For Wanda's sake, though, he tried to reel himself in.

And for Steve, too, because he could see him starting to get that disappointed dad expression he often did around him. If his hands found his hips, Tony knew Steve would officially be at full annoyance. "Okay. I'm... I'm willing to say... that it's a coincidence. But I'm also saying, let's get in touch with NORAD and see if they can't get eyes on this thing. Moya. Whatever they call it. Let's verify that it's a coincidence. That's all I'm saying."

"She," Rygel said.

"What's that short stuff?" Tony asked, looking down at the tiny Hynerian.

"Moya... is a she. We've got a great deal of respect for her. Best not to let Zhaan hear you refer to her as an... it," Rygel said.

"Okay, if you know so much," Tony said, crossing his arms and looking like he was ready for a full debate. "Where do these... Levianthans come from. Huh? How do they get up there in space? If they're alive, are they born? Do they have babies?"

"They are a unique species native to space itself. It is their home," Rygel explained. "Yes, of course they are born, and they die, and sometimes they have offspring. Moya herself has a son named Talyn."

"Rygel!" Aeryn said again, this time getting up and coming over to them. If the little slug blurted out that Talyn was special, that he was the first Leviathan of his kind to have weapons capabilities, that would not weigh well in their favor at all.

"What's your problem now?" Rygel groaned.

"That's enough," Aeryn said. "Stop running at the mouth."

"Why?" Tony asked her.

"Why what?" Aeryn asked, blinking.

"Why's it enough? What's wrong with what he said?" Tony asked.

"Nothing, he just... doesn't need to be sharing that much," Aeryn said.

"Why not? The little guy seems friendly enough, why can't he chat with us for a while?" Tony challenged.

Aeryn laughed at that. "Oh, trust me, he's not. He's a complete pain in the ass."

"Thank you," Rygel said rather cheekily.

"So why can't he talk?" Tony pressed.

"Would you start sharing personal details of your family with a foreign species that suspects you of some sort of underhanded, nefarious plan to do... who knows what?" Aeryn asked, clearly getting annoyed.

Rygel groaned and slowly facepalmed.

"This isn't your family we're talking about, it's your ship," Tony said.

"She!" Rygel said.

"Moya is part of our family," Aeryn said.

Now it was Zhaan's turn to leave Pilot's side. He was sleeping soundly anyway, and she was afraid tensions were going to explode if she did not intervene. "Could you stay with him for a moment, please?" she asked of Vision, who seemed very curious about Pilot.

"Of course," Vision said with a kind smile.

"Thank you," Zhaan said, making her way over to the others. She suspected she knew the reason why Aeryn wanted Rygel to stop sharing details about Talyn, but she was also sure it was about more than just pure information. "Please, if I may," Zhaan said to Tony, causing both Rygel and Aeryn to look to her, respectfully being quiet for now. "The circumstances surrounding Talyn's birth were... very distressing for all of us. The process was extremely difficult for Moya, and mother and child almost did not survive. We each did our part to ensure their safety, and Aeryn is highly protective of Talyn. If she seems defensive or evasive, it is no doubt for those reasons. As we've said before, we mean you no harm and are not hiding anything from you."

"Oh," Tony said, frowning a little. Maybe he really was just being paranoid over nothing...?

Aeryn's eyebrows rose a little bit, but she said nothing. For all of Zhaan's moral preaching, she certainly had no qualms about lying. Not that anything she said was untrue... until the very end. They were hiding Talyn's ability to do a great deal of damage to Earth, if he ever wanted to.

Rygel simply put on his best and friendliest smile. Zhaan was frustrating sometimes, but at others, she had a way of bullshitting herself out of any sticky situation, and he quite admired that.

"Isn't that right, Aeryn?" Zhaan added to make it stick.

"Um... yes, right," Aeryn said. "Sorry."

"There, see? All cleared up. Let's all of us try to remain calm. It has been a very trying day," she said, making her way back to Pilot and Vision.

A few employees of the compound cautiously came into Pilot's cell to clean up the blood on the floor, and what looked like a large plush couch cushion was brought over for him to rest his large head on. Vision lifted it up as the cushion was positioned underneath, and then gently lowered it down. Pilot mumbled a bit in his sleep but then settled down again.

"Thank you so much," Zhaan said graciously, sitting down by Pilot's side once more.

As Wanda said that 'Peacekeepers' was a funny name for an army," Rygel looked up at Aeryn, figuring she was going to field this one and hoping things wouldn't erupt into a tense situation again.

"We are a private and autonomous military force. Planets contract our services to maintain order. To keep the peace," she explained.

"We...?" Rygel asked, batting his eyelashes with a smirk on his lips.

Aeryn sighed. "I became irreversibly contaminated during my stay aboard Moya and was exiled from service. So... I am technically no longer a Peacekeeper," she explained further, not realizing that no one on Earth knew what it meant to be irreversibly contaminated.

Once food was mentioned, Rygel perked up considerably. "Yes! What a splended idea! I second that notion!"

"Alright, calm down," Aeryn said, though she smiled a little at Rygel's antics.

"You calm down! I've got three stomachs to feed!" Rygel said.

"And you never shut up about them either," she said.

"Nevertheless," Rygel said.

"What... do you guys even eat?" Tony asked.

"Food," Aeryn deadpanned. "Why, what do you eat?"

"Ignore her. She's sickeningly literal," Rygel said. "We shall be happy to receive anything your great hospitality would provide us with."

“Are you friend or foe?” (For Zhaan)

Zhaan looked up at the young woman from where she sat inside her holding cell, not unlike the one used by Loki years prior. "Given our respective positions on either side of these walls in which I find myself imprisoned, I would say... at present... neither. But there is time yet for misunderstandings to be cleared and injustices to be set right." Her tone was not antagonistic, but it was guarded. She did not appreciate being incarcerated yet again after finally escaping Peacekeeper oppression after a number of years, yet she could hardly blame this woman for that. Still, trust was something that would have to be built.

The wormhole that had facilitated the invasion of New York City was not to be the only such anomaly to occur, it seemed. Another had just been detected, though this time, the results had been far less... dramatic. Something had come through, however. Perhaps several somethings. Both SHIELD and the Department of Defense were still attempting to determine exactly what.

One being had been captured thus far. A Delvian, apparently, by her own admission. No one had any idea what a Delvian was, or what such a being was capable of. For now, she was being contained at the Avengers compound, both because of the unknown level of threat she posed and for biological containment purposes. She could be carrying pathogenic microbes, after all.

Zhaan had been both interested and concerned to discover that she was on the planet Earth. It was John Crichton's home planet. How agonizingly ironic that she should be sent here and not him. Still, it was a planet entirely unfamiliar to her, and for that reason, she had to remain cautious. Although most of the humans who encountered her seemed unwilling to treat her as anything more than a caged pet, an oddity on display, or a test subject to be poked and prodded, there had been a few who had bothered to actually speak with her. Through them, she had learned where she was, at least, but was no closer to being able to gain her freedom.

And now... this young woman had chosen to speak to her. She did not look like the usual soldier or government official that had spoke to her - no, interrogated her - up until this point. That gave Zhaan some hope that perhaps this might be a different sort of interaction. Slowly, she rose from the bench she had been sitting on and walked closer to the glass. If the relative age of Crichton was to be any basis for comparison, this woman looked very young indeed. Then again, all humans were young ones compared to Zhaan. Eighty years... That was about how long Crichton had said the average human lived. Zhaan had already lived ten times that long.

Standing closer to the woman, inasmuch as the glass was still dividing the space between them, Zhaan's polite smile faded into a look of concern. Despite her situation, she was still an empath and a tenth level Pa'u, and for those reasons, she found it impossible to ignore the pain of others... even that of her own captors. "My goodness... There is such a heavy sadness that follows you," Zhaan said, her voice gentle and almost pained, as if she was feeling it too. It felt like... grief to her, but with humans she could never really be sure at first impression. She simply wasn't as familiar with their minds and emotions yet. "Are you alright?"

[t1meslayer]

I promised a trip to Emerald City Comic Con 2025, and boy did I live it up in Seattle!!

Figured it would only be right to share a couple of con pics for the fellas and not-so-fellas living vicariously. So be prepared to hit that Read More and live vicariously through me and my nicest Thursday threads:

Mimikyu Hoodie, baybee!

I've been to San Diego Comic Con once or twice, and a few scattered conventions beyond that — namely Anime Expo. Even so, I was caught completely off-guard by how huge ECCC was. Checking in happened at the main Arch building of the Seattle Convention Center, which had a couple of vendors but was primarily celebrity autograph booths.

The real party happened in the Summit building a few blocks out, wherein two entire convention floors were filled end-to-end with artist alleys and merch vendors and sponsor tables and much more.

As you might imagine... I spent way too much money on stuff.

But in my defense?

A lot of the stuff I bought are gifts for my friends and family. So it's worth every penny.

... And the stuff I didn't buy for my friends was also worth every penny. For example, this very fun Kingdom Hearts print that I'm going to put up alongside my Halloween Town Sora figure as part of my brand-new apartment™

And, of course. It wouldn't be a fandom-centric convention without the goofiest horny stalls you've ever seen in your life. Here were some of my faves:

Congrats to Gojo for making it in with the horny anime pin-up girls.

It also wouldn't be a fandom-centric convention without some really good cosplay! I saw way more than just the characters pictured below, from a full suit of Spartan power armor to Luz and Amity holding hands out in a distant crowd, and even multiple younger kids dressed as Pomni from Digital Circus.

I did not, unfortunately, pick up the names of anyone. Not the most professional way to do things I know, but I wasn't thinking about it beyond "let me snap a quick pic for my friends" at the time.

You'll have to forgive me and merely enjoy the craftsmanship on display, just this once.

Bonus: A couple of RC characters were also roaming the floor, both an expected Star Wars droid and a much less expected Rosie from The Jetsons.

Found the time to hit a couple of panels too, though the ones that interested me were more professional-oriented. One covered works of storytelling in YA graphic novels (put on Mad Cave Studios' Maverick publishing arm, which has some works like "Scoop" that I'm pretty interested in reading now). The other was about self-publishing works of fiction, and tools available to modern-day writers that are a boon in that field.

No mystery as to what I've been thinking about lately, I suppose!

However, one aspect of the trip I'm most excited about — and, in fact, the reason I went to ECCC in the first place — was getting the opportunity to meet @phantom-nisnow [main website here] and see a special sneak peak at the proof print for @fairystorieszine <.<

I can tell you guys that we've got a real good one coming together.

PRE-ORDERS ARE STILL OPEN THROUGH MARCH 30 !!!!!!!!!!

Since I can't offer many teasers on that front (yet~), I figure I'll leave y'all with a different kind of teaser. While moving to a new city hasn't left me much brainpower to write new fics, my couple of nights spent in a Seattle Airbnb did provide enough of a reprieve to say...

Hey.

How about I start the proper fanfic idea tracker I've been meaning to cobble together so I'm not just scrolling endlessly through my Notes app?

And so, here we are:

Just a couple of glimpses at a few of the Pokemon-related ideas I have in my pipeline right now. Don't get TOO greedy now~

Unless, of course, you want to be greedy for more of my favorite pic from the trip: West Point Lighthouse, Discovery Park. Dusk.

The world truly is amazing.

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[shakingparadigm]

horrendously sick and twisted btw

[agapestricken]

romantic gestures. bold what you're sure applies to your muse, italicize what could be possible / it's dependent on the situation.

holding hands (in public) · buying flowers · cooking · cuddles · writing a poem / song · holding door open · tying shoe laces · sharing a milkshake with two straws · offering their jacket when it's cold · kissing in the rain · publicly confessing love · long walks at the beach · doing the titanic pose on a boat · taking cute pictures in a photobooth · sharing a taxi / uber · kissing the back of their hand · slow dancing · getting tickets of their favourite artist / sports team / other · introducing them to their parents · lighting candles · flower petals on bed · love letters · star gazing · brushing / doing their hair · picnics · teaching them to play an instrument / sport while gently guiding their hands · compliments · late night drives · taking selfies together · drawing them · self-made gifts · massages · proposing with a family heirloom ring · lending them their favourite book to read · paying for dinner / coffee · mixtapes / playlists · surprise birthday parties · feeding them · handing them keys to their apartment · making space in drawer for their clothes when they stay over · sharing a blanket · couple costumes · tucking a hair strand behind their ear · running after them at the airport / keeping them from leaving · moving cities to be together · blowing a kiss · breakfast in bed · defending them in a fight (verbally / physically) · joint bubble baths · dropping the L-bomb ("I love you") · dedicating a song at the karaoke bar to them · wearing their clothes · yawning before putting an arm around them while watching a movie · grant them the last bite (from meal)

stolen from: @riddlesnap (TYTY ❤️)

tagging: anyone who'd like to do this, as i don't know for sure who's done it already and who hasn't LOL