#Yasu Threads

[acupunkature]

𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬

[kowaindar0u]

"Hm."

Taikyuu vaguely wonders how one could go so long with a pet like that and not name it, but now that he thinks about it, he doesn't think that any of the pets he knows of around the citadel have names, excluding maybe the horses.

As the cat(?) leaps off Kashagiri to start eating, he can't help but actually let out a laugh.

"God," he scoffs. "He's just like my brother. It's like he's got an endless pit for a stomach."

He crouches to where he can watch the critter much on the berries for a moment or two before reaching into his clothing and pulling out a small bag of konpeito. He pulls out a couple pieces and then holds his hand out to the cat.

"Try this."

"...Not... really?" Kashagiri realizes this entire thing he's been calling the furball on his shoulder some variation of 'that fluffy thing'.

Not that the cat-like creature seems to mind that. All it seems to care about is filling its stomach.

Which is made even more obvious by it jumping off his shoulder onto a bush full of berries.

"Seriously? I fed you right before we left." He sighs.

Their lack of progress with this recon is starting to make him wonder if the rest of the team is faring any better.

[the-narwhals-awaken]

Bloody Hearts Bingo: Supplement 3

Sixteen months of peace and experimentation was far more than Kisuke had thought he'd get, but the prospect of being disturbed and needing to let his lab rats out of his lab on a more regular basis had Benihime hissing. He'd basked in having them- refining, training, teaching, making them and being remade in turn to produce a perfectly suiting set. He'd even gotten to taste them properly- coaxing away that last thread of disconnection to ensure that he'd always have them, no matter what happened. It was no wonder that his brother kept it up- it was intoxicating to have them like that.

Still, the threat in his territory had to be dealt with (it was his territory by now- the Thirteenth maintained a perfunctory presence, which certainly helped in managing things while his ratlings were busy, but was by no means the primary presence in the area) and he would not let them prey on any of the weaker presences beginning to arise due to the high level of ambient spiritual power- only Arisawa might be able to handle them, and the safety of the twins was one of the only things that might break Ichigo's loyalty to him.

The fact that they'd almost immediately started baiting two of his rats made it personal. One had been starting his dear Ichi-chan, and another had been pointedly staying just out of range of Yasu-kun while dropping hints so obvious it was a wonder the police hadn't been called- or the yakuza, on somebody poaching their prostitution arrangements, if nothing else.

Chad had volunteered to infiltrate- he'd managed to coax Yoruichi into helping with some of the assassin-specific training that Kisuke had managed to acclimate to naturally and thus didn't really know how to teach, turning into a terrifying assassin-tank that had Tessai heading back to the Seireitei for three months before returning and yanking even more control of the shop away from him.

It was a wonder to watch him perform- for most people, they wouldn't be able to tell that anything was wrong or different, but to Kisuke, who'd seen and facilitated the transformation, it was an incredible mask he was wearing. Quieter, more restrained, half-afraid of his own power and ability to commit harm and more focused on not causing harm than refining his ability- the fact that they'd recruited him outside of the shelter that he volunteered at (a genuine habit, helping him settle and soothe himself and continue some independent self-definition) only helped cement the illusion.

He proceeded to lead them around by the nose- gaining a better explanation of Fullbring, filling holes Kisuke had noticed and worked to lead off, diverting their attempts to lure Ichigo into their group. There was, unfortunately, a limit on the power a physical body could contain, and even Kisuke's bindings had their limits.

There was only so long Chad was willing to wait, though- even the most patient of his rats had limits, and they were built to fight- he'd gentle them down later, once his kin were dead and they were safe. For now, Chad let them see Ichigo, let them get close- and then they sprung their trap.

[moontrope]

moontrope ... a low / sporadic activity animanga multimuse. mutuals only. penned by … chai. rules + tentative roster under the cut. pinterest. memes. blogroll … a11sunday , ambitiouslyher.

affiliations … candidaluna, eleutheriya.

rules + general information.

no explicit sexual material, infidelity threads, or holiday-centric threads will be written here.

suggestive content will ultimately fade to black.

force shipping ≠ asking if i ship our muses / wanting to discuss the potential for a ship. feel free to be forthright with your intentions since i generally prefer to have some discussion and chemistry testing before jumping into romantic shipping. as for all other types of dynamics, i'm always down and encourage it!

trigger warnings will be tagged " trigger // ". please tag your usfw, jumpscares, and any media or material involving infidelity.

plots preferred , but will use memes as ice breakers and will continue them whenever possible. i try to send memes to new mutuals to get interactions going, but please don't feel pressured to respond right away.

i get duplicate anxiety from time to time, and while that doesn't mean that i won't interact with duplicates at all, that means i might limit how many of the same muse i follow that are duplicates of someone i write. it's no remark on you or your muse, it's for my own comfort. of course, that doesn't mean my mutuals are prohibited from interacting with duplicates of any muses i have!

* as noted in some of my ocs’ lore / blurbs, i’ve written them with connections to canon characters. so, i will be referencing them as people they know in interactions unless you write said characters themselves. if you write any of these characters themselves and you are uncomfortable with pre establishing connections, then we can plot around it / discuss it further. i’ll approach you about it before i write anything that would assume they know one another.

roster. --- tentative list, subject to change. click on links for portrayal notes and muse info.

bleach (anime + manga): abarai renji, hayato tendou (oc), hirako shinji, ichimaru gin, inoue orihime, ise nanao, nelliel tu odelschwanck, ootori seto (oc), shiba kaien, ulquiorra cifer (test), unohana retsu, urahara kisuke (test).

nana ( anime + manga ): osaki nana, takagi yasu.

spy x family ( anime ): anya forger.

secret menu muses: son hak (yona of the dawn), tomoe (kamisama kiss), kozume kenma (haikyuu).

[knoxs2nd]

some thoughts on rules vs. choices

george and shannon's interactions have "rules" laid down, like george telling shannon they have to call each other george-san and sayo when they're alone, or george ordering her when he proposes. george thinks this rule-setting is cute and unique to them - but for shannon, it's another way she must navigate the world. disregarding the outsider pov on whether this constitutes a healthy relationship, from a yasu pov, it's not outright a "bad" thing.

yasu has had to navigate hierarchy and rules her entire life. she's had her own choices taken away from her forever, from her place in life (being taken to rokkenjima and made to be a servant), her friends, her fate after she learns about the truth. everyone's always made her choices for her. it's why it's such a huge revelation with battler when he asks her to make a choice: whether she wants to leave the island and be with him, and seems to want to respect her decision then.

george asks her to call him george-san, but that was him asking her to make a choice! but...the thing is, yasu is not used to making choices. she's uncomfortable. so then he orders her, instead, and, per the acting direction decisions in the ep2 stageplay, shannon seems really happy to be given a "rule".

yasu understands rules. she loves mystery novels and views the world through the lens of life-being-a-mystery-novel. mystery novels have rules, commandments, etc. that you have to follow, or else it's not "real" or "legitimate." there's no point in engaging in a mystery novel (or life) if there's not a common foundation, ruleset, and understanding that both writer and reader agree on. that's the basis of communication and building a relationship.

in her own witch worldbuilding, yasu lays down so many specific rules of how the magic system works. she navigated life in a way that had to adhere to real life rules, but also found enjoyment in working around them (by perpetrating the legend of the witch). a true witch/culprit!

as much as yasu craves freedom, a life without rules and complete freedom isn't worthwhile. all-powerful witches die of boredom and loneliness. they can only stave off the boredom with games, where they agree to follow a set of rules so they could interact with other people. you need rules (a common foundation) to interact with other people. so, george laying down rules for shannon, is, in one way, a very easy ask of yasu. if she follows all these rules, she can continue maintaining a relationship and interacting with george. it's comfortable.

going back to battler asking shannon to make a choice on whether she wants to leave the island.....in yasu's warped, instinctual pov of this whole scenario, she had made the choice that she wants to leave, but in the end, the choice didn't matter. the relationship disintegrated. that promise was supposed to be another rule that they had both agreed on. shannon would make up her mind, and battler would come take her away. but battler forgot. there was no common understanding between the two of them after all.....

however, this is not saying that "rules" are purely a good thing. as always in this series, it's complicated. they're necessary in interacting with other people and building mutually agreeable relationships, but also, they can get so restrictive that you lose yourself and give up.

this mutual set of rules that george and shannon had agreed on extended to their future. they both want to marry, to have their own family, etc. however, due to obvious reasons, this greatly distressed yasu! she can't follow these rules of being part of a cishet "ideal" family.

(of course, the entire idea of what socially acceptable happiness is and how much complex, complicated human beings trying to navigate fitting into these boxes and how it makes everyone suffer is its whole other thread.)

in the fantasy layer, the "rules" of life are given through the red text and, later, knox's commandments. what happens when characters are bombarded with so many they can't work with or think their way out of? they give up. just keel over, stop thinking, accept whatever, die. in ep2, battler gives up and becomes beatrice's "furniture." he accepts whatever happens to him then, no matter how humiliating it is. it's like he's no longer human. in ep5, the metaphor is even more pronounced. battler stops engaging and "dies". in ep6, the idea that when you yourself feel like you've outright violated the "rules", this becomes a logic error. the absolute worst, nightmareish thing that could happen to you! you're trapped within your own mind and can no longer interact with the outside world.

when there's too many rules, it's suffocating. you lose yourself as a person. but you need rules, because when it works out just right, when you can start engaging with the other person, throwing out your own blue text, communicating with them on a level that both of you understand. mutually trusting each other...

that's love, baby! and love's a choice!

[ruiination]

Original Characters!

These are all wip. I plan on making more uniform profiles with pictures later. Be warned that some of these characters do have triggering backstories. The ones listed so far, Zerah and Hlynur are upsetting. Especially Zerah.

FEATURED: Roi Coello (about. Based in Final Fantasy XIV originally est at brightbledded in nov 2019)

Primary, regular activity! Open to all!

Violette Roux (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Hlynur Thisbe (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Finn Atoel (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

E'vett Tia (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Hana Ueda (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Jayden Earle (About. Multi-fandom. Originally based in Saints Row 2.)

Secondary! Lower-activity. Open to all!

Z'jeht Tia (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Zerah Aria (About. Based in Final Fantasy XIV)

Sasaki Yasu (About. Based in Danganronpa)

Tertiary! Low activity. Open to all!

Kawaguchi Osamu (About. Based in Danganronpa)

Sasaki Rio (About. Based in Danganronpa)

Request/Private! (Only for certain partners or plotted threads)

Kiiro (About. Based in Danganronpa)

Nageku Kyo (About. Based in Danganronpa)

Takematsu Hitomi (About. Based in Persona 5.)

[knightrope]

knightrope : a low activity and private iconless mixed media multimuse, narrated by chai, she/her, 25+. operating on sporadic activity / semi-hiatus. character roster + rules are under the cut. memes.

rules.

all headcanons / original characters stories are mine. however, the media in which they may be inspired from are not.

i will not write or participate in writing explicitly sexual material, holiday specific threads or ships based on infidelity.

if you feature infidelity heavily on your blog (regardless of it being tagged), i most likely will not be following back.

suggestive content may appear but will ultimately fade to black.

force shipping ≠ asking if i ship our muses / wanting to discuss the potential for a ship. i generally prefer to have some discussion romantic shipping before jumping into things to check for chemistry! and, i’m always always down for all other kinds of ships!

i have a preference for plotted threads. but, i do believe in memes as ice breakers + will continue them as threads whenever possible.

notes for plotting: when i say plotting, i don't mean plotting out every interaction between our characters or building a world from top to bottom in one go, this usually means i'd like to discuss how we might proceed with a dynamic / get a general feel of ideas we may have for threads, and build from there on. so, no pressure to have it all figured out!

plotting is also a two way street, please don't leave it all up to me to come up with ideas. this makes me feel uncomfortable and i may softblock if this persists.

trigger warnings will be tagged as 'trigger //'. i ask that you please tag your usfw, jumpscares, and anything involving infidelity.

roster.

original characters ;

ferris caine. "the cleaner". fandomless. zane holtz. affiliated with whitelace.

friday lukas. stormchaser. xmen. rory culkin.

hayato tendou. bleach / modern verse available.

otorobashi akai. pirate captain. fandomless / modern verses available.

takagi seto. bleach / modern verse available. kawaguchi haruna.

ricardo de la fe. private investigator. hancock-inspired. oscar isaac.

canon.

animanga ;

abarai renji. bleach. anime + manga.

hirako shinji. bleach. anime + manga.

ichimaru gin. bleach. anime + manga.

inoue orihime. bleach. anime + manga.

ise nanao. bleach. anime + manga.

shiba kaien. bleach. anime + manga.

unohana yachiru / retsu. bleach. anime + manga.

osaki nana. nana. anime + manga.

takagi yasu. nana. anime + manga.

anya forger. spy x family. anime.

literature;

ellington feint. atwq series. natasha liu bordizzo (older).

kit snicket. atwq / asoue series. amita suman.

movies ;

morticia addams. the addams family / family values. angelica huston.

tv shows ;

connell waldron. normal people. paul mescal.

marianne sheridan. normal people. daisy edgar jones.

REQUEST MUSES ( written privately/highly selective -- feel free to ask ) ; dallas winston, chrissy cunningham, gerry keay, kozume kenma, matthew murdock, max mayfield, nyota uhura, son hak, sylvia sherwood, tomoe.

[troofless]

yo i finished umineko and here is my tierlist on how much i enjoyed the characters. thoughts further below.

overall i would not recommend to anyone else because the plot thread is so hard to follow for a minimal payoff 6 chapters later (everything is revealed in chapter 7 and chapter 8 is a fucking nightmare of a tying up loose ends that was fucking painful to go through), EVEN CONSIDERING that it is a ‘murder mystery’ meant to be reread several times. would rate it i don’t understand why people call it iconic/10.

my main thoughts/grudges with the story:

let me preface by saying that battler is amazing. meta battler, piece battler, whatever, he stayed a consistent sunny force throughout the entire novel and is always a delight to watch his journey and thoughts throughout the game. he stays consistently empathetic, forgiving, despite his growth into a hardened warrior of a intelligent mystery solver on the ruthless gameboard of the likes of bern, beatrice, and lambda. this is why i thoroughly dislike when the game diverts away from his POV to someone else’s, mainly ange’s and later on, will’s.

about ange: i hate ange. her whole arc was about her struggling with being forgiving and not forgiving everything, shown with the scenes of imaginary maria and her journey to rokkenjima. i really liked the scene when she commanded the seven stakes to kill her classmates but they couldn’t, causing her to shun then, which has a huge payoff later on when she is told later how that keys into the basis of magic, where as long as no one else knows how things happen, magic can hide human crimes as magic. but then ange takes up so much time away from battler and the mystery just for her own angst filled journey that eventually ends in an anticlimatic end - battler in chapter 8 coaxes her to believe that magic and love can be an encouraging force, and she shuns that completely, opening the diary - up until here, that’s ok because i too wanted to know the truth, but then when she opens the diary she shuns the truth??? and suddenly she runs back to battler like a wounded animal saying that she should have trusted battler all along like a proverbial son. and it’s done so abruptly that i hate it. at the end of it all i just wanted her journey to be over and go back to battler, the obviously better protagonist of the two. i get that ange is supposed to be a flawed human being in contrast with bitterness and hatred and jadedness, but it is also because of those same flaws that make her so boring because she’s just so predictable.

also let me say here, that i fucking hate sakutaro. sakutaro was okay as a lion, but the moment they made him a human avatar with that annoying ass uryu tick i fucking hated it. maria was already ticking me off by taking so much screen time with her scene with her and rosa, MARIA convincing ange ‘magic is real!!’ and the whole sequence where ange imagines her being friends with the seven stakes. it was pulling time away from the mystery with beatrice and battler to set up something that could be explained in fewer scenes - that you need love to believe and twist the truth or some other theme relating to that - and it was utter torture going through all of ange’s moments because of this.

about beatrice: so sayo/yasu was basically three-timing battler (by holding onto feelings for him), jessica, and george. which is just. why. the twist is classic for a murder mystery - i particularly like the clue that kanon’s body is never found after he’s murdered, shannon and kanon are never seen together by other people, shannon is the only one who knows natsuhi’s favourite season is autumn, when beatrice marks them with a butterfly burn so they know them meeting her is real the marks are identical on their hands to show they share the same body - so it’s fine. but the whole business with her manipulating other people’s feelings is just so weird and fucked up that i (battler) can’t condone. plus, who is she really? at the end she meets up with battler as beatrice and jumps into the ocean, which means that she has settled on beatrice being the dominant personality but that’s just cruel to the other two personalities that suddenly feel a lot ‘lesser’ because of this. also, the possibilities for incest with the reveal (triple incest with battler jessica and george, lmao) makes it so funny. 

my dislike for the narrative: throughout the entire game, it’s basically a given that narrative lies to you; about shannon/kanon, about the fantasy stuff that happens in the mystery sections not being real but a lie told by someone’s POV, the sprites of beatrice, shannon and kanon, being wholly different even though there’s no way they don’t look similar in reality, even the meta sections or the sequences where ange is in the real world don’t actually occur. it confused the hell out of me and made me so frustrated because they never explain the lies either; the solution to the mysteries for all the games are never explained but vaguely alluded to, meaning i have to pick up a wiki or reddit section to get explanations for those. heck, i didn’t even know or theorise that kanon was one of yasu’s personas until i pulled up a reddit section after the end of the game! i hate that the game doesn’t give you the answers, i get that they’re supposed to make you think, but that’s just bad mystery writing. explain all the tricks fairly by the end of the book.

the epitaph: the fact that someone solved it as soon as chapter 5 was amazing, but i hate that they didn’t give the taiwan hint until chapter 7. insert something about a detective rule that all hints should be given at the start of the game bla bla. i do like the quadrillion hints from as far as chapter 2 (battler offhandedly mentioning it when he visits the chapel?) and chapter 4 (photo from kumasawa’s family visit?) though.

THE FUCKING JEBAIT IN THE NAMES OF THE GAME. ANSWER ARC IS NOT ANSWER ARC. YOU ONLY GET ANSWERS IN CHAPTER 7. chapter 5 and 6 are a fucking pain in the ass to get through because of this, ESPECIALLY WHEN they tease battler understanding beatrice but never explaining what it is at all. (and yes i didn’t know how to solve chapter 6 logic error at all after chapter 6 ended.) and the fact that chapter 7 has the nerve to start with WILL as the protagonist and battler never appears... is so infuriating. tldr i spent 4 chapters of the question arcs having so many questions, making theories, enduring all the shitty fantasy sequence bullshit because i thought everything would be answered in the ANSWER ARC and have a huge payoff only to be sorely disappointed by the shitty answers that were chapter 5 and 6. i truly believe that if chapter 2, 4 and 5 didn’t exist, the game would have been better. 

i might as well put it in now that i remember that i spent the first half of chapter 2 groaning at how shitty it was that they had to divert from the interesting mystery - especially after the wonderful hook of chapter 1 tea party - to tell about the love story of george/shannon and jessica/kanon that i was wholly uninterested in, and it only got interesting once the mystery section came into play. and yes, all things considered, i still think that whole section should be cut out, or at least in later sections, slashed in size because yes we need to hear that shannon destroyed the mirror like five different times in five different points of the story, stop recapping pointless things!!!! (yes i know it’s supposed to key into the mystery that shannon is sus and later in the reveal that beatrice blew it up with dynamite cements that she is shannon)

also i hate the fight scenes like bern having to go the extra length to hold a single truth book party which has to lead to a fight scene with lambda that ends with the storyteller god killing lambda because 1. they are so obviously fantasy and the narrative blatantly tells you that they are using this to misguide you and 2. exactly as above. they are all skippable because of that in my mind.

oh yeah. and kyrie shooting eva but not checking to see that eva is dead is so completely bullshit, especially since it happens TWICE with beatrice, and then A THIRD TIME with eva again. like i hate the author for making her look incompetent as hell without giving a satisfactory explanation like she was rushing for time or rudolf chased her out of the room or smth.

welp, i’m just glad that now i can look for cool fanart know what they mean and browse through the wiki and ao3 to soothe my enraged heart from the shitty storytelling of umineko.

anyway, here are some fun screenshots i got from reddit while i was post-reading the wiki and reddit for answers even as basic as HOW TO SOLVE BATTLER’S LOGIC ERROR IN CHAPTER 6:

[skrunksthatwunk]

just finished nana!!! and. well. spoiler thoughts below the cut ig. ft me rambling for a looooong time

so when my friend introduced me to nana like three years ago she said the ending sucked but didn't really elaborate. knowing her, that could mean anything from "nanahachi wasn't canon" to "it's written badly" and anything inbetween, so i wasn't sure what to expect. anyway i think i understand why she felt that way now bc it's kind of a... non-ending? i wouldn't say it's bad, they just like. don't conclude most of the plot threads they'd been running with for the last 6-12 episodes. which is one way to deal with an indefinite manga hiatus ig.

i think the implication is that nana went off to do her solo career like yasu hoped, and that's why they don't see her? but like. are she and ren married? is she even still doing music? what's gonna happen with shin and reira? what's shin's family situation (in more detail)? what's misato's family situation anyway?? she's using a fake name we can't just ignore that??? we just don't get any answers to how most of these things go. im curious to know where exactly the manga leaves off and where the anime's story takes over. i wasn't sure until now, but my hunch is that the final episode (or maybe final two) are the only anime-original ones. it also seems like nightmare scenario #1 (hachi marries and stays married to takumi) came true unfortunately. (if anyone's curious nightmare #2 was her getting back with shoji. no he's not as bad as takumi but she can and should do better than his emotionally stunted nice guy ass). im honestly glad that we get to see nobu and hachi can like,, be around each other after however many years, and that takumi wasn't around for the festival. i think having to see them as a "happy" family would piss me off. im not forgiving him for his weird manipulative bullshit or him yelling at and insulting hachi etc etc he is disgusting!! and i hate him. he's weird and abusive and he should chew glass. that's all

i also dunno how to feel about some of those final threads anyway, finished or not. yasu being in love with nana was hinted at, but i kind of liked their dynamic staying platonic. yasu's defined by his devotion and dependability—nana doesn't really get special treatment in that, i don't think, so he doesn't need a reason like that to explain his behavior. and they didn't really do much with it anyway. it kind of seemed like they were teasing yasu and nana getting together near the end? like nana actually starting to reciprocate rather than just hachi suspecting stuff or even yasu pining. but the marriage proposal, and then just.. gah the story just ending like that really leaves everything on nana's end (the end we spent most of the last arc with) blank.

idk. i think satsuki's cute. the idea of hachi naming her kid sachiko was so funny to me like ??? no way. reclaiming it from the demon lord lol. any story where someone gets pregnant and has a kid that young kinda freaks me out tbh, but im glad they both seem happy. i really wish the reunion between the nanas for the first fireworks show was more impactful. they focused on hachi and nobu the whole time, even though the nanas haven't seen each other in actual months and also like 15 episodes?? and were desperate to see each other that whole time like that's so disappointing that it got shunted over for hachi/nobu resolution that didn't get the time to go anywhere. and i LIKE hachi and nobu as a pairing and as a point of dramatic focus i just think the nana show should end with the nanas especially since they were building it up for so long. but maybe they didn't wanna go against yazawa's vision or whatever and just avoided it entirely. blegh.

WARNING SELF INDULGENCE AHEAD idk if it'd be a narratively satisfying ending so feel free to roll your eyes at it, but my ideal sappy ending to this is nanahachi is real, takumi gets his ass DIVORCED, and nana buys hachi her house and supports her. it wouldn't be perfect, bc there'd still be that rock star schedule to contend with, but hachi wouldn't have to marry someone who treats her badly and who it doesn't really feel like she loves imo just to keep her baby and nana wouldn't have to feel like she needs to get hachi into a relationship with one of her friends to keep her around (which was an INSANE plot development and i love it tbh. like oh so she's a little freak huh). i think this ideally would happen over the course of a few years, so that the takumi divorce and ren and nana's breakup (i mean they're both unhappy with their relationship. marriage isn't gonna magically fix that) have time to happen and like. maybe nana'll be able to slide in as a step-parent after she's had some time with her career. agh i dunno maybe that's wrong. i don't think she's ready or willing to become a parent yet either, not only bc her job is super demanding but bc she wouldn't wanna be a parent without being able to devote a lot of time and attention to that kid (she'd take the responsibility very seriously and not wanna screw it up). would leaving everything to hachi really work for her? would she be able to accept it so long as satsuki has at least one parent who can dote on her? i honestly don't know. again, maybe when they're both older, and nana's fame dies down, they reconnect or smth. middle aged yuri. that way satsuki's gonna be a little less dependent on them both, and nana's role as stepmother wouldn't be quite so fraught for either. regardless i do think the ideal ending is hachi getting the support she needs to live without takumi (if not on her own), whether she remains a housewife like she wanted or goes to work (they were putting so much emphasis on her cooking skills—can you imagine her with a cute bakery or cafe or something? she'd go nuts!! so that's my ideal, though she'd probably wait until satsuki was in school). hm. maybe nana supporting her until she can stand on her own two feet? so it doesn't feel quite so much like she's keeping her as a pet. hachi needs some responsibility to grow (and she has, to some extent) but i don't think that should have to necessitate her marrying an abusive rich guy. she doesn't need that to be happy when she has other willing benefactors. and nana doesn't need to hold onto her that tightly—some sustained distance could help with her possessiveness/abandonment stuff, which she needs. and they were talking about finding hachi a job she can enjoy and be good at, and how much hachi likes customer service—i think having her own restaurant could be really good for her. maybe nana's an investor or something. idk. point is they should (in my ideal scenario) be able to grow as people AND realize their dreams (or a slightly modified form of them) without needing to give anything crucial up (nana giving up her career and hachi giving up on romantic fulfillment, respectively). and preferably they should have hot sloppy gay sex at some point in there too bc i think they want it. and also for my sake

i don't normally do the whole "how i'd end this series" thing (much less change it to make it happier bc i do think upsetting stories are valuable and engaging) but with nana it feels a little more right bc again it's so.. unfinished. it's hard to tell whether it'd go for a "the reality of your dreams is always going to be bitter" tragic ending or if it'd pivot with time into something happier. i just don't know. for yuri purposes im gonna daydream about the happy ending but let it be known i do think nanahachi unfulfillment and remembrance as a sort of "if i had known how i felt back then we could have had something and/or i'll wait for you forever" (which. ig we kinda got the latter) is a juicy ending (and also more what i expected from the show).

aghh i just didn't think they'd spend so much time apart onscreen and then it just ends with them like that. it's such a weird thing narratively like they are THE two core characters THE core relationship and the last time we see them speak (and the first time in a dozen episodes and like two in-canon months) nobu's the center of attention!!!! again i like nobu it's not like i wasn't interested but that's the last episode!!!!! that's the last episode you're holding!!!!!! bwah. i think that might be what bothers me the most. we know throughout basically the whole show that at some point they can't reach each other anymore and are stuck with the memories but god i didn't think it'd happen in such a like.. underwhelming and real way lol. just ppl genuinely drifting apart. and in a way that is still valuable but i feel like the execution is just not quite there for me, in this story. but again i JUST finished it so maybe after my thoughts percolate a bit i'll see the beauty in it. yeah 👍

what else. oh i will be real i was rooting for hachi to get an abortion for a bit there. like girl you are NOT ready you are TWENTY. i ended up liking it overall, but it's kind of bittersweet for me. i think i tend to dislike stories that view pregnancy/motherhood as a loss of innocence moment. like,, to me it kind of frames ppl who can get pregnant as children UNTIL they get pregnant—as well as children as this sort of tragic burden—and i think there's a lot of ways and reasons hachi could mature without this. and i do think her maturing is like,, perhaps THE key arc for her, but doing it like this almost feels like a copout bc we just expect (from a million stories before this) that motherhood wises you up somehow, completely rewires all your priorities and sensibilities and your whole existence towards keeping that baby alive. im sure it is that way for some people, but irt fiction it feels like characters often lose themselves in their becoming mothers. it's like them dying—they enter this kind of end stage that removes them from their old selves and makes them unreachable by other motivations. they fall asleep. and obviously we saw a lot of hachi during her pregnancy and she's not Just thinking about the baby the whole time—and her beginning to want and love and prioritize the fetus isn't like. a bad writing choice. it just feels like that sleep state's kind of where we ended up BECAUSE she stays with mr babytrapper and we don't get to see the full consequences of that choice. parenthood is often beautiful and precious i just don't like "pregnancy stories" a lot of the time for these reasons. if any of you have seen waitress i feel like that's a good example of like.. the kind of pregnancy narrative i find unsatisfying. like so much of the conflict was interesting and bittersweet and harrowing and then after all that anguish and inner turmoil she has her baby and suddenly she wants to be a mother and she can stand up to her abusive husband and follow her dreams and everything's perfect because the strength of a mother conquers all, including overriding every personal flaw and fear and opinion you once had. it just feels kind of gross and bioessentialist to me. like you have no choice but to love your kid once you have it, so you should just have it anyway, because it's in your nature. nana (the show) resisted that in its depiction of absent mothers, and i think hachi is the kind of character to get too sentimental about a fetus to abort it regardless of the consequences, the choice just made me a bit worried about the theming throughout. anyway to state my feelings more clearly i think i ended up liking the pregnancy arc it just ended up feeling kinda unfortunate bc like. hachi DID get babytrapped and then just stayed there, and we're supposed to be happy for her bc at least she had the baby?? at least it feels like we're supposed to view it as an okay thing, if not a good thing.

hachi settling for a relationship that is that shitty feels wrong to me as well. yes her expectations in the beginning are too high—of perfect earth-shattering love from a flawless prince, etc etc. but her wanting to be genuinely loved and treated well is like NOT a big ask tbh?? it's not a fantasy she needs to wake up from at all. it feels like her maturation arc concludes with "love is unattainable so settle for tepid comfort" rather than her growing into someone who can engage with a partner in a more healthy way. and again if the tone was more obviously bittersweet on that front i think it wouldn't bother me so much but that final episode really does feel like we're supposed to accept her happiness as genuine and good enough for her, this as her happy ending. like somewhere along the line it felt like they stopped viewing takumi as abusive and shitty and kind of just.. slid into treating their relationship as normal? in a way that makes me doubt my reading of it as intentionally abusive and unsatisfying in the first place. like wasn't the point going to be that this sucked for hachi? were they not on track for a divorce?? she just suffers and the story goes "yeah but it's fine" like girl get OUT of there!!!! maybe all the stuff about nonconfrontation and easy ways out was about this too, but it doesn't feel like they tied it back to her relationship with takumi in any way, so i don't know if that's a stretch or not. AGAIN. a lot of this is about it not having a proper conclusion to like 8 story threads but im just trying to reconcile something i can't know—what they WOULD have done or were trying to do and how i would feel about that. and that's something im wrestling with bc im trying to figure out the themes. like what story is nana trying to tell? that's important for analysis of it. im worried im being too childish expecting clear tragic/happy endings or whatever but knowing what a text views as upsetting or ideal is pretty important to gauging whether characters' arcs were successful or regressive or something else entirely. i feel unmoored a little in ways that don't feel in line with the story up until now and im not even sure how intentional that is. much to chew on.

do i still think hachi's a lesbian with real bad comphet? no idea. i am starting to lean more towards a bi4bi nanahachi reading bc her thing with nobu felt a lot more real than anything else she had. hachi still has crazy comphet to me though. you don't want a man you want to be seen as valuable by guys, you don't want a husband you want a wedding and a dress, etc etc. maybe the true good ending is nana/hachi/ren/nobu polycule. "im nobu and this is my gf hachi and her gf nana and her bf ren" style.

what else. uhh them getting a stereotypical queen manager was kind of funny. homophobia moment. i kind of like that shoji never completely disappeared from the story. he mostly just showed up occasionally to get dunked on and i respect that. i also don't mind the closure/end conversation he and hachi had, but it did revive my nightmare scenario #2 fears lol. i liked shin more with time. i still think yasu's great. uhh i thought it was interesting that reira and shin felt like possibly the most normal relationship in the end despite the whole shin being 15 thing (not good obviously i just kept forgetting she wasn't also a teenager? anyway reira you bastard). nana being canonically into choking was fun too. oh man we never found out what her job was did we. like early on when hachi thinks she's a dominatrix? i kinda wanna know now. also thank you hachi, sapphic puppygirl icon. you Cannot take that hc from me i know that mf wags

yeah that's about all for now. :p 👍 im sure i'll draw them when midterms are over

[anetaen]

THE HARBINGER . INUMAKI NO SUKEYASU ⁽ 狗巻 祐保 ⁾ .

⁽ ¹ ⁾ HARBINGER, A COUNTABLE NOUN. A PERSON OR THING THAT ANNOUNCES OR INDICATES THE APPROACH OF SOMETHING. A FORERUNNER. TO COME BEFORE, TO EXIST AFTERWARD.

bearer of cursed speech during the heian period, skilled yari user. they/them. 5ft 8inches. is killed in battle at age thirty - four in the war waged against the king of curses, ryōmen sukuna.

general note that i'm aware the inumaki clan are not part of the big three, but i've chosen to name them nobility in their own right as holders of the cursed speech technique. in the modern day they are the last known holders and so i thought it only appropriate to date it far back to nobility in this period. another note: sukeyasu is a cis male and in threads can be referred to as such. i use they/them pronouns as within their own clan and the surrounding lands, as the inumaki clan have closed their doors to society for some time, sukeyasu as the holder of the cursed speech technique is revered as god - like to their people, and as such experiences detachment to themselves and their body as being seen as something more than human. sukeyasu has a rather feminine beauty that is not to be confused for lesser male presentation, this is just how i choose to refer to them and their detachment to their existence as a human being, instead seeing themselves as a weapon and higher figure.

INU ⁽ 狗 ⁾ “dog”. MAKI ⁽ 巻 ⁾ “to roll up”.

SUKE ⁽ 祐 ⁾ “help from god and buddha”. YASU ⁽ 保 ⁾ “to keep. to protect. to help”.

inumaki no sukeyasu is the second - born child to the head of the inumaki clan and his wife, twin alongside a brother, sukenobu, older sibling to a younger brother, sukehiro - 3 years difference.

as the bearer of cursed speech sukeyasu was born with the snake eyes and fangs seal on their mouth, to which all three siblings until almost the end of their teenage years wore half - veils that covered their mouths from sight and did not speak in public so as not to distinguish which child had inherited the technique. ( sukehiro was once targeted in an assassination attempt because of this, recovered well though slept in sukeyasu's room for 4 months as a result. ) once the technique had been coveted to a level skilled enough the veils were removed. outside of the inumaki clan residence and the presence of other jujutsushi, sukeyasu continues to wear the half - veil when exposed to non sorcerers, to shield the seal present on their skin.

personality - wise, sukeyasu is good in nature and likes the company of others, reserved as a teen but not shy. inwardly opinionated, easily irritated when things do not go their way, user of physical touch to convey emotion when expression does not suffice. will use cursed speech to their advantage when necessary.

coveting the technique means that sukeyasu cannot communicate like most people. their predecessors were mainly selective mutes to protect themselves and others, choosing not to speak unless using the technique for its intended purpose, though two generations before it was discovered that the bearer could lean on words that carry no cursed energy to communicate in absence of full sentences. as the heian period was a time that bred powerful jujutsushi with power that vastly combats those of the modern era, sukeyasu possesses the ability speak in short sentences that require a moment of thought ( they can control their cursed energy output to a tremendous extent so as to speak using verbs and not command their conversational partners, this is reserved for friends as it can be tiring if prolonged. ) sukeyasu, much like the descendants of the inumaki bloodline, relies sometimes on a small array of chosen words that do not carry cursed energy, but unlike inumaki toge, these are not commonly linked.***                 ▍ SUKEYASU'S CHOSEN WORDS : these are words they namely relied on in their childhood, before they coveted their technique and were able to push past the limitations surrounding cursed speech being imbued into words without will. they also tend to revert to these if tired, or have used their technique within a certain timeframe ( these are written in modern japanese as it is difficult to find translations from this period, you get the idea ). soot ( 煤 : susu, used to waive concern ) - the name of their cat. ginger ( 生姜 : shōga, used as an affirmation ) - something they carry with them to soothe their throat. magnolia (  朴の木 : hōnoki, used to show concern, a way of saying i have it from here ) - plant native to the minakami area, where the inumaki clan residence resides. pheasant ( 雉  : kiji, expletive ) - a favourite meat. + others that will be added to in time. sukeyasu can also use friend's names, yes + no quite easily to answer questions and/or grab attentions.

that being said, sukeyasu often communicates most emotion through their facial expressions. it is noted that they would likely be very outspoken and diplomatically inclined if they were able to communicate freely in full sentences, and are very naturally expressive in hums, clicks of their tongue against the roof of their mouth, sighs - so on and so forth.

the inumaki clan residence during this period is located in what is now modern day minakami and resides atop a channel of canyons that act as echoing amplifiers for cursed speech when used as an offensive tactic against intruders. in open space, sukeyasu will expel further cursed energy to amplify the reach of their voice. though this is usually not necessary as their reach is fairly powerful without. with the nature of the inherited technique passed down through the bloodline, the inumaki clan often chose to be uninvolved in most happenings, but this changed with sukeyasu's forebearer, who took a step forward into the world and sought to do what they could for the people.

labelled the harbinger, sukeyasu's presence in battle, in general, can be seen as an ill omen. ( think: inumaki toge is seen as a nusaince wherever he is for those opposing him. ) none are exempt from the effects of cursed speech - though those with higher cursed energy will perhaps not be compelled to the same level. cursed speech can be a very useful tool in interrogation, as the receiver of the words could be compelled to tell the truth, and sukeyasu does not need to physically touch in order wound. sukeyasu has to be quite specific with their chosen wording, and cursed speech users tend to keep their commands short so as to avoid injury and fatigue to themselves.

sukeyasu is well versed in martial arts and is a skilled yari wielder and uses one as their chosen cursed tool to aid in close proximity fighting, they are agile and light on their feet, evasive and defensive fighting techniques are paramount to their need for proximity and yet to keep themselves out of reaching distance of most enemies. they are leanly built though muscular and toned from years of training.

as with those who came before and those who inherit the technique after sukeyasu's time, they carry medicinal herbs and tonics to soothe their throat after usage of cursed speech. if travelling, they will stop to top up their store in nearby villages, or by foraging themselves. they have an educational knowledge of what will work and what to look for.

their father passes when sukenobu and sukeyasu are twenty - two. with sukeyasu being the second - born, naturally sukenobu takes over as the head of the inumaki clan and sukeyasu continues their aid of ridding the surrounding lands of cursed spirits, curse users alike in order to hone their technique, sometimes at the behest of the emperor. they take an active role in the efforts to subdue curses, notably sukuna, and play a part in strategizing and commanding sorcerers either offensively or defensively depending on the situation.

they die at age thirty - four during the war waged against ryōmen sukuna and other curses, a particularly brutal death. sukeyasu puts up a valiant effort but in the end is slain after having their tongue removed so they cannot use cursed speech, choking on their own blood before their body is burned to avoid resurrection or aid from a reversed curse technique.

[blackrder]

@swordrisen​ asked: ❛❛ Ara ara , how cute. ❜❜ She squishes their cheeks tenderly, with the tonality of a mother. A sweet press of lips to forehead as gaze softens before she suddenly pulls them into the tightest of bear hugs. ❛❛ So cute ! So cute ! ❜❜ / from koto !

                                    𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐦 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐮𝐛𝐚𝐝𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐤𝐨𝐭𝐨’𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬. inexorable celestial warmth surges alongside the soft croon of shy euphoria that overtakes them. as simply as though they were breathing, they give themselves up to the scintillant immediacy of existence and languish in the generous heaps of praise which she offers them with such disarming sincernity and strength of feeling. inadvertently, they release a high-pitched embarrassed giggle, their pale soft cheeks dusted over with a sweep of blush. more often than not, they beg and ask shamelessly for compliments, for words of encouragement, for anything that could fill them up with the comfort of affirmation—but, oh, they are so startled once they have been heard and their demands fulfilled! already, they are dazzled and dizzy, their vibrant amethyst eyes glassing over from the bashful pleasure of being 𝐬𝐨 𝐝𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 . what a sweet marvelous necessity this is! they could travel the world a hundred times over and it would still not compare to the intoxicating heady joy that koto has so munificently accorded them. so, with all the alacrity and tenderness they could summon, astolfo returns koto’s embrace, stretching out their arms and pulling her closer to them, their face buried in her fragrant yukata, partly to hide away the redness of their cheeks and party to breathe deeply into her calming scent that is redolent of night’s splendour and safe familiarity. she feels so much like the mother they have always prayed they had had, but, no! none of these thorny pesky thoughts! this moment, here, feels like a sealed orchard of peace that only koto and they can enter. a dreamspace that belongs solely to them! 

                                    ❝   𝑡ℎ𝑎—𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟,   ❞   they stutter, still a touch shy, their voice muffled and a little dulcet, tears springing into their eyes unbidden.   ❝   you know, you really should, um, give me more hugs and forehead kisses and praise! i deserve it the most, right? and! i’ll make sure to brush your hair in the morning and listen to your stories and train with you to the best of my abilities! oh, and i’ll totally gather flowers in the early morning so you can put them in the vases.   ❞   the flush has spread to the tips of their ears, but they keep going.   ❝   your hugs are the best. and i know because i’ve hugged a lot of people! so this isn’t an empty compliment, okay!   ❞  

[quamxmulti]

@sorrowfilledexistence started following you

💉 ─ “Hmmm” Yasu looked up from the papers in front of her to focus on her visitor. “How can I help you today?” it wasn’t that unusual that people came by to get information here or request them to gather or find something after all.

[knoxs2nd]

i was pondering the question of why yasu didn't commit suicide on her own instead of the massacre, so - here's a thread on yasu & suicide

yasu frames death as freeing, a place where nothing and everything happens, and as a choice people can make to break free of their chains. but! i also think she's terrified by the aftermath of death for two reasons: being forgotten, and also the aftermath of her death and the grief/trauma it’d cause.

for reason 1: being forgotten: the “secret” of bice, kuwatrice, and yasu – the three “beatrices” are now known only to genji, kumasawa, & nanjo. If yasu dies, those 3 would still carry her secret, and no one would know her real self, just like no one remembers bice or kuwatrice. that’s such a slap in the face for yasu, who already feels like she leads a cursed existence and was never meant to be born. dying and being forgotten by everyone is just “proof” that her life was an anomaly from the beginning.

(i know in the confession manga, she also talks about how she doesn’t want battler, specifically, to forget her and move on, but it’s the same deal. it's anger at the idea of resigning herself to her fate, or what she believes is her “true” fate – that she isn’t allowed to exist.)

of course, yasu finds a “solution” to this dilemma - through writing the message bottles. those messages bottles are the work of a writer in an existential crisis of how they would live on after their death, and turning to the timelessness of fiction to achieve that. yasu likens reading mysteries to playing a game with the writer, whether those writers are alive. the idea of continuing to “play games” with readers long after she was gone brought her comfort (in addition to all the other feelings of catharsis writing the bottles did for her).

even if what she really wanted was battler to play the game with her, yasu’s life would, at the very least, retroactively be given meaning by people she’d never meet. anyway, in conclusion, there’s no suicide without any message bottles, and no message bottles without a suicide.

as for reason 2: yasu was afraid of the ripple effects of her own death. bice and kuwatrice’s deaths only caused pain and suffering for others: kinzo went off the deep end and poor young rosa was traumatized and blamed herself for kuwatrice’s death for decades after the fact.

now, who would this relate to for yasu? how about her two love interests: george and jessica? george already has ALL THE kinzo parallels, so, what happens when george loses shannon? he already said he’d go mad like kinzo, and we can look at the ep4 test to guess how that'd go.

in the test, george was willing to kill everyone else for shannon’s sake. so, if shannon is taken away…then george doesn’t care about everyone else anymore. george post-shannon could turn from a doting lover into someone who hurts and abuses others without care, just like kinzo...

as for jessica, in the ep4 test, she picked kanon and everyone over herself. so if kanon dies, then instead of hating and hurting others like george, jessica would turn that grief inwards and blame and hate herself. this isn’t to be taken lightly, if we take rosa’s trauma from kuwatrice’s death as any indication, and how that self-blame and hatred was also a factor in rosa's abusive behavior toward maria.

so, even if yasu really does want to die, she can see that she might be a factor in pushing two people she loves into this cycle of abuse. so, solution to this dilemma – take george and jessica with her in death. And then you know [insert time lapse here] why not extend that to the whole family!

anyway, that's all i have, but i just want to conclude this thread with: yasu became a writer because she resolved herself to committing suicide, while ange became a writer because she resolved herself to live :)

[silentglow88]

They're... Evolving!! (╬⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾ Д ⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾)

Actually, it felt more like...

From: Yu Yu Hakusho

Or

... is it just me because he has one eye????

..... moving on

[golden-witch]

So, how many other people have Umineko character daydreams?? Can we get a thread going where y'all describe how you tormet/nurture ur blorbos?? Do you think abt George Ushiromiya's cram school?? Do u wonder if Rudolf is a Gucci or Versace man?? Does someone have an AU where Yasu is the zodiac killer?? I must know abt ur blorbo worlds.

[dear-mrs-otome]

IkeGen Sampler #4 - Tamamo

Tamamo: “Don’t look at me, MC!”

I thought we’d try some Tamamo today - and this scene specifically is one of many that made me cry in his route. The whole thing is very bittersweet, and goes from high highs to low lows...I don’t rave about it enough but it’s a very solid, excellent story.

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

(From Chapter 23)

When the men possessed by Yasuchika's clay dolls move to attack again, Tamamo freezes them all in place with a single heavy word, his kotodama. Yasuchika is agog, gaping at Tamamo's attempt to overwrite the possession with his own words of power - an ability that's new to MC as well, who looks on in shock.

He commands the struggling men again, with another Word, to go back where they came from...and one by one, lumps of black mud begin emerge from the men's mouths and fall free. She wonders if that broke the spell, as Tamamo sags a bit, pale and clearly exhausted by the effort. Still though, he orders them once again, more forcefully - and the soldiers writhe but spit out more, until they seem to regain themselves.

Tamamo urges them to hurry and rejoin the others - then he turns to Yasuchika and draws his sword, the blade glowing blue as he strikes. Yasuchika is able to just barely bring his own sword out and up in time to block the attack, but the force of the hit sends Yasuchika flying backwards.

All the soldiers are gaping at the insane blow, as Tamamo tries to hustle them to run away. Yasuchika picks himself up off the ground, groaning, but with grudging admiration for Tamamo's strength. She can see that he's both struggling to breathe and bleeding heavily.

"Well, you have to be a little exhausted, don't you Tamamo?" Yasuchika asks. "Breaking that curse with your kotodama...especially when undoing curses is not your forte."

Aya realizes how difficult it must have been for Tamamo to force his powers to do the opposite of what they're used to, and how it's a testament to how hard he struggled to free his men.

"Enough talk. Yasuchika, I'm going to hand you over to Yoritomo personally," Tamamo promises.

To which Yasuchika says thanks but no thanks. He smears his own blood all over his hands and draws a complicated sigil, before slapping his palms on the ground.

A mysterious purple glow springs up, sending gasps through all the people collected, and Tamamo grunts as the light coalesces into threads that wrap around and bind him tightly, forcing him to his knees. She yells his name as Yasuchika keeps building his spell, holding his bleeding side and screaming incantations, until Tamamo is bound helplessly, unable to so much as budge.

Tamamo seems startled to see this technique, and Yasu says he perfected it testing on Byakuran - and she realizes he IS the culprit behind Byakuran going mad all along. He admits it's a doozy though, he couldn't have done it without using his own blood, and she starts begging him to leave Tamamo alone, asking what he's trying to accomplish here. Yasu says honestly it's HER he's really interested in, the Kitsunetsuki Princess....what made HER so special??

And she's thinking...this guy is crazy. He is certifiable, and terrifying, as he stares at her malevolently.

From his place on the ground, Tamamo's telling her to run, glaring murderously at Yasuchika. Still struggling against his bindings and trying to stand. Yasuchika is impressed he can still move at all, but tells him if he stays quiet he won't touch MC - deal??

She's pissed about being used as a sort of hostage and calls Yasu a coward again, but Tamamo falls silent finally, biting his lip in frustration. Yasuchika begins rambling, musing on how Tamamo was able to be caught at all because he stayed to help all these people, going so far as to exhaust himself for their sake - when did he get to be such a softie??

"Shut up," Tamamo tells him furiously.

"No matter how hard you try...you can never be human!" Yasuchika accuses.

She gasps and shouts at Yasuchika, because the soldiers don't know that Tamamo is an ayakashi...and all around her the men start murmuring in confusion, asking her what Yasuchika is talking about. She stumbles over trying to come up with some answer, but can't say anything that isn't a lie and she falls silent.

"It's just cruel to keep it from them," Yasuchika says. "All this time, they've been in the dark, blind to the fact that they had such a horrifying creature at their sides! Trusting their lives to one....risking their own lives for it."

Yasuchika's poisonous words keep flowing, and she interrupts him to shout that Tamamo is their friend.

"Friends??" he scoffs. "Isn't it about time that pathetic dream ended?" He takes out a fresh seal of paper and tosses it onto Tamamo. "Show them exactly how much of a beast you are, Tamamo!"

Tamamo's body begins to contort, as if enduring some great agony, setting him grunting with pain. She shouts at him to resist, and he gasps out her name. And then in a flash of light, his ears and tails appear. The soldiers all begin clamoring at once in fear, as MC tries telling them all to remain calm, when...

She's interrupted by Tamamo's sorrowful scream.

"Don't look at me, MC!"

Power flares up around him in an inferno, his hair whipping in an invisible wind as he collapses to the ground. Fearsome claws grow from the tips of his fingers, as his hands and feet contort into inhuman angles, and she can only look on in disbelief.

A beast. He's transforming into a beast, she realizes.

The soldiers begin screaming in horror at the monster, at the deception, and Tamamo is wordless as foxfires begin to flare up uncontrollably around them all - just like Byakuran, she recognizes. He's lost control of his power entirely.

"...Run....Run away..." Tamamo tries to gasp.

The fires flare higher, threatening some of the soldiers, who scramble and scatter as fast as they can. Panic reigning supreme.

All she can think about is trying to help Tamamo, racing towards him as fast as she can. But her legs falter as she sees the eye that lifts to meet hers is slitted and animalistic, his name falling from her brokenly. She stares at that beastly gaze, blood from wounded soldiers all around as she trembles with fear - the hand she's been reaching towards him with stopping out of instinct.

Tamamo make a small wounded sound...and then darkness overtakes his eyes. And as if in response, the rest of his body transforms completely into that of a horrific beast. Before her stands a gigantic white fox, with a roar that could be either rage or suffering shaking the very air around them.

"Good, good. There you go, Tamamo," Yasuchika croons. "And just like I promised, I won't be the one to harm your friends. So let's start by having you destroy them all - shogunate and rebels alike."

She's standing there in just...a mute numb sort of horror, as Tamamo's massive forepaw slams into the ground, shaking it. Staring as it lifts again, coming closer....

When Shigehira appears, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her to safety, yelling at her for being a ninny and not running away

"But... Tamamo..." she protests.

"Yeah, but what about you??" Shigehira retorts. He drags her up on his horse, her thoughts still a total muddle, and says they have to get out as fast as they can, it’s not safe here now.

And they gallop off...chased by the sorrowful howls of the great beast behind them.

The sky grows dark as they're riding back towards camp, her clinging to the saddle behind Shige in a daze. Running over the events that just happened in her mind. The look in Tamamo's eyes when he'd seen her fear, and how hard it still is for her to wrap her brain around the idea that that was Tamamo. And she's crying now, just clinging onto Shige's back as they ride. Blaming herself.

Thinking...that if only she'd been able to take his hand, maybe this wouldn't have happened.