#also Yuri only make a last appearance since last year

[nekoro-san]

( Spoiler)

I still think this should be a proper chapter of Yuri babysitting Anya of watching cartoon like lightnovel.

[pinkaditty]

Who's Passing NNN? Tokyo Debunker Pt 6

ohhhhh my god im almost done. writing this one actually had me in a chokehold 4 rui im ngl

a/n: sorry this one took me a while :(( but im back at long last! at long last! rui kinda admittedly has had me feeling some kinda way... hmm...

quick disclaimer that i write these under the assumption the tokyo debunker boys are at least 18 years old. they appear to be present at a university considering there are professors and a chancellor. not to mention the boys drink, smoke, gamble, and refer to themselves as adults.

summary: pt 6 of "Who's Passing NNN?" tokyo debunker thing ykyk we've been through this

cw: men... with dicks... and they jerk off!!?!? MINORS DNI!!!!!!!!!!! not ever proofread pls enjoy my brain slop

Frostheim || Vagastrom || Jabberwock || Sinostra || Hotarubi || Obscuary || Mortkranken

(MORTKRANKEN NEXT I CAN'T WAIT 2 WRITE YURI JORKING IT!!!!!)

Obscuary:

Edward Hart: Fail

A pity. He could have lasted if he’d wanted, but it really is that simple - he didn’t care to!

He never makes quick work of himself. He loves to drag it out, make it as painfully long as possible before his orgasm washes over him, his sticky cum spurting from his lower body and his lips parting in a whiny moan. Partially because he is lazy, but also because he values slow buildups. He believes it makes the climax all that sweeter. This is why he’s laid on his back in his room, rubbing himself to the thoughts of former sexual partners after a boner had caught him by surprise.

Steadily, gently, he rubs soft strokes along the shaft of his half-hard cock, shivering as he does. The sensation is close to electric, wincing as his arousal peaks, creating a familiar twinge in his lower body. He sighs blissfully, still moving his hand languidly up and down his shaft. Already, precum builds at the tip. He groans at the sight of it, and slows his pace, gently dragging his hand up and down his length. He considers pausing his minstrations, writhing in pleasure as he watches his cock twitch eagerly for release. He decides against it, instead ging painfully slowly, squeezing his cock as he strokes upwards, putting some pressure on his tip. He moans, feeling his body shake with pleasure. He gasps as his cock throbs in his hands, and he knows he’s getting close. He sighs in pleasure, picking up his pace again, sliding his hand up and down his length. He watches as more pre-cum drips down his length, and he parts his lips in a pleased mewl, feeling himself getting closer, and closer, and closer…

A knock at his door. His eyes snap wide open. He hardly has time to stuff himself back in his pants and pull the sheets over him for good measure before Rui prances in, carrying a laundry basket, complaining about Ed having left his clothes on the floor again. Internally, Ed sighs with relief, watching Rui trail around his room. His cock twitches in his pants, and Ed rolls his lip between his teeth. He might have to wait before he gets off. 

Rui Mizuki: Fail

Damn! Now Romeo gets free drinks for two weeks. Rui doesn’t feel all that bad about losing though, as he wasn’t taking the bet that seriously. He knew he would probably lose, but after hearing about a mistake with the mission documents and how it was all that “BTH’s” fault, Rui thought he needed a pick-me-up. 

The ringing in his ears just doesn’t seem to go away, no matter what he does. His knuckle-whitening grip on the counter of the bar was only making things worse. His bangs were beginning to stick to his forehead and his face was becoming quite flushed. He hadn’t had a single sip of any drink, not while on the job. He was rock hard, and he had been all day. It was thanks to some dream… Rui didn’t usually have horny dreams, but he wasn’t immune to them. This one was especially potent because it had been quite a long time since he’d had any true physical contact. 

Romeo sat chattering in front of him, talking his and Haru’s ears off about the “BTH” and the latest screw up he’d caused. The words flowed in one ear and out the other, with occasional nods and “Oh, really?” and other pitying phrases and hums of agreement slipping from Rui’s lips. Haru was responding similarly, cheeks also flushed, but Rui assumed it was from the alcohol. Rui found himself very quickly becoming warmer as he reminisced on the dream, remembering how smooth the stranger’s touch was on his bare skin, how real it all felt. He swallowed deeply, loosening and tightening his grip on the counter, trying to ground himself somehow. His mind swims with fantasies of real contact; fingertips tracing patterns on his bare skin, nails scraping the skin of his back and neck, palms squeezing his waist or hips, a pair of lips and a tongue idly marking territory via bites and hickeys across his body. Rui suppresses a low groan, instead straightening his posture, trying to take his mind off the way his cock twitched and hardened in his pants. He was certain his arousal showed on his face. His easy smile had slipped away at some point, instead replaced by a focused, somewhat irritable one. His face had to be flushed what with how warm he was, the redness spreading to his ears and creeping down his neck. He ran his hands through his hair and noted it was damp to the touch. He sighs, listening still as Romeo rambles on. 

He didn’t know if he could take this much longer. His cock continued to press angrily against his pants, as though demanding attention. Rui squeezed his thighs together as he stood, wiping down glasses and listening to Romeo’s endless drivel. The action made him shudder, sending pleasure and warmth coursing through his body again. He didn’t think it was possible to get harder than he was at this point. It was becoming painful, keeping his cock tucked away against his leg. He could feel it throbbing, growing impatient. He closes his eyes, sighing again. He leans forward on the counter, trying to refocus on Romeo’s rant. His cock twitches again. He just had to wait… a little bit longer…

Lyca Colt: Pass

He knows what this is but hardly does it himself. Doesn’t feel arousal often and when he does it makes him unbearable to be around. He gnashes his teeth like hell and digs his claws into his legs as though to will it away. It works sometimes, but not all the time…

Lyca dragged his sleep-robbed body to the room you typically slept in when you stayed over at Obscuary, his pillow dragging on the floor behind him. He’d had enough. It was impossible to sleep in his room tonight, for whatever reason. He just couldn’t… relax. A strange buzzing feeling seemed to keep him awake, permeating in his mind and hanging heavy near his groin. His cock would twitch every time he moved or thought of something in particular, irritating him to no end. He knew there was no chance of calming down while sleeping in there. And he didn’t feel like resisting it tonight. 

When he arrived at the room, he immediately pushed the door open, and was quick to lock it behind him. He didn’t want the blonde gigolo or moth-eaten Casanova to interrupt his sleep. Plus, he didn’t want them to come in here and ruin it. He sniffs the air of the room, feeling his lower body stir. It still smelled like you. He feels anticipation rise in his chest as he makes a beeline for the bed, ripping back the sheets and searching for any remaining traces of you, hoping the last wash Rui had done hadn’t wiped it all out. Thankfully, he still caught rather potent traces of your scent in the pillows and comforter. He sighed with relief, tossing his pillow to the side and grabbing one of the ones in the room, holding it against his face, taking in a deep inhale. He groans as the scent fills his nostrils, feeling his heart pound excitedly and his cock twitch again, half-hard from his anticipation and excitement. He exhales, bringing the pillow away from his face, glancing down at his hardening length. No escaping it now. 

He slides himself under the covers, placing the pillow under hie head, fully surrounding himself with your scent. It was faint on it’s own, but when surrounded with the bedsheets and comforter and pillows, it became quite potent. It was dizzying to Lyca, and he found himself eagerly gripping his cock before he could even think. A single stroke has him keening, soft moans slipping from his lips. To prevent making much more, he bites down on the pillow, gnawing at it repeatedly as he begins to touch himself. He growls into the pillow as he teases the head, his toes curling in further anticipation. His whole body shudders. He dives right in, wrapping his hand around his cock and pumping his length faster, loud moans and growls muffled by the pillow that smelled like you. He keeps gnawing at the pillow’s edge repeatedly, his legs shaking with pleasure as he approaches his peak. His free hand curls into the sheets and he begins to thrust his hips forward into his hand, his growls getting louder. 

At last he bursts, and a loud moan that quickly devolves into a whine escapes his lips as he frees the pillow from his jaws. He bites his lip, peeking underneath the sheets at the mess he’d made. Rui would have to wash these again. But, maybe he could get away with not saying anything… Who knows, maybe you’d come to stay again, and find the bed smelling just like Lyca.

a/n: *is visibly vibrating with excitement* IT'S NEARLY DONE! i can't wait 2 write yuri jerking off he's a fucking wet blanket it will be so much fun 2 write a pathetic nerd boyfailure jerk himself off

tagging @cupcakesmoothie bc this is ur fav house and ik u've been waiting patiently... which i deeply appreciate...

ALSO. PLEASE. I HAVE BEEN GOING THROUGH IT AND NOW HAVE THREE NEW FIC IDEAS:

“LEASHED” LEO (directly inspired by @/aayakashii’s fic im not even shy abt it): it’s been a long day and leo’s annoying you. he wants to use your power again to enhance his stigma to spy on some people. you don’t wanna. he pesters you so bad that you start thinking maybe his tie could be put to better use….

BUTLER RP WITH RUI: established couple maybe? idk rui mentions he’s still fucked up over the butler experience so you decided to give him better memories working as a butler for you. 

7 MINUTES IN HIDING: you and haku are fucking in a closet and trying really hard not to get caught. haku is very loud.

i wanna write these so bad. foaming at the mouth. vote 4 which one i should write first if u feel like it. if not, amen.

note that i appreciate likes, comments, and reblogs!! please, tell me how much you enjoyed this work!! it means a lot to me to know you like it! until next time!

[triptychgrip]

Fic Recs (January 2025)

Long post ahead!

Every month this year, I'm hoping to post a list of fic recs from the 2 fandoms I primarily write/read for: Yuri!!! on Ice and Fruits Basket (though a few others might sneak in here and there, like His Dark Materials and Angels Before Man). 

I'll definitely still reblog promo posts from authors directly, but this monthly rec list will mostly be to spread the word about stories for which the author doesn't appear to be on Tumblr.

In that vein, I'm going to try and prioritize reccing 1) WIPs/recently written stories (i.e. things that have been published or which have been updated within the last year) and/or 2) NSFW fics, since those don't seem to get as much love as they should! (And by that I mean I feel like ppl are shy about admitting they read/enjoy smut, so this is just one small part of my own journey to free myself of deeply entrenched Catholic guilt lol)

If something is a WIP, I'll note that in bold/purple next to the author, and if something is NSFW, I'll note that in bold/red, also next to the author. If you happen to check any of these out and think I've missed including important tags or notes, feel free to let me know.

Oh, and I feel the need to make the disclaimer that there's no way I can list everything I've enjoyed reading lately (even just formatting these 8 recs nearly killed me), so I hope no one takes this as an exhaustive compilation.

That being said, I have been trying to get better at updating My Bookmarks, so maybe you'll find something you like there. For now, I only (publicly) bookmark completed fics, but this will be changing soon.

With that out of the way, below the cut are 8 stories I discovered recently that I think deserve more attention.

Yuri!!! on Ice Recs

1)  warm velvet skin (6K, by Oceankings) - NSFW

Relevant Ships/Tags: Viktor/Yuuri, Porn Without Plot, Dom/sub Undertones 

I know not everyone is into this, but when I'm reading smut I want the full play-by-play and tons of detail, and this fic does such an IMMACULATE job of really setting the scene vividly, while also having great pacing. This is a porn without plot fic featuring Dom Yuuri/sub Viktor, and their first time making a full-length video of themselves in the bedroom. The trust Viktor has in Yuuri is just so, so good, and I love how unabashedly into each other they are.

Note: you have to be a registered user on ao3 in order to view this fic

Excerpt: 

“Keep your hands to yourself tonight.” Yuuri murmurs against his lips. They’re not so much kissing as Yuuri is resting his lips against Victor’s. They share the same air but Victor would love nothing more than to be consumed in a kiss with Yuuri again.

His gaze flickers over the camera where the red recording light blinks at them still. He’d almost forgotten about its presence, becoming so distracted by Yuuri just being there. Seeing it wracks his whole body in a shiver and he stutters out a breath.

“I won’t touch myself.” The words are out of his mouth before he has the chance to think twice. It’s not until a few moments later that he realizes this is going to be torture. The chance to get to prove how obedient he is for Yuuri on camera barely fuels him forward.

Yuuri smiles and pecks him twice on the lips in reward. “I know you’ll do well, Vitya.” The phrase has its intended results and Victor manages to buck himself up against Yuuri one last time before he’s moving away.

2) Skaterview (13K, by skippingmud) - WIP 

Relevant Ships/Tags: Phichit & Yuuri, Viktor/Yuuri, Phichit/Seung-Gil, Fluff, Interviews, Slow Burn

I LOVE social-media and interview-based fics, and have really been enjoying this WIP. It features Yuuri and Phichit as college students who start a YouTube channel (called ShallWeSkate) as part of an assignment for one of Phichit's classes. 

What starts as a way for them to react candidly to watching their favorite skaters in competition later evolves to their conducting 'skaterviews': interviews with their idols! Once they create the channel and interview Leo de la Iglesia for their first skaterview, ShallWeSkate takes off in popularity, and it's so fun to read about in-universe figure skating fans FREAKING OUT on YouTube over both how talented a team Yuuri/Phichit are, as well as their proximity to their faves. 

Note: Tumblr formatting hates me, so in the below excerpt, I wasn't able to include the underlines that skippingmud has in their fic for the YouTube commenters; in the actual fic itself, the formatting looks much neater/polished than it does in this post

Excerpt (from Chapter 3):

You should spend some time in front of the camera, too!” Guang Hong added. “I didn’t see you in Leo’s video at all.”

“Come on, Yuuri, it’ll be our treat!” Leo insisted. “You deserve it for all the hard work.”

Phichit beamed when his roommate eventually agreed, though he wasn’t really surprised—neither of them were about to say no to eating with two people they were big fans of.

[Photo of four hands side by side, each holding a piece of crepe that was wrapped and packed to look like a burrito. The photo only shows up to the tops of their wrists.]

Liked by leodelaiglesia and 213 others

phichit+chu Food trip! 🌯 #ShallWeSkate

leodelaiglesia: Let’s do it again sometime!

leodelalala: Leftmost one is Phichit, the one next to him is Leo, and rightmost one is Yuuri. Who’s the fourth one?

guang-gang: i know that wrist anywhere!!! tell me my bby guang hong is the next skaterview!!!

gia-come-tti: @guang-gang how the fuck were you able to recognize guang hong’s wrist

guang-gang: @gia-come-tti it’s just like how you’d be able to recognize christophe’s ass in any picture!!!

gia-come-tti: @guang-gang touché, but a wrist?

guang-gang: @gia-come-tti ok the crepe was a giveaway coz that’s his favorite food and he’s training with leo in detroit rn so it was easy to connect the dots!!!

3) Mare incognitum (5K, by carnivores) - NSFW

Relevant Ships/Tags: Viktor/Yuuri, Dark Viktor Nikiforov, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Religious Imagery & Symbolism

As someone raised in a devout Catholic family (don't worry, I've deconstructed all that shit...slowly and painfully), I am such a sucker for religious symbolism fics and this story fulfilled my every desire when it comes to moral ambiguity and metaphor.

Like, good GOD, where do I even begin with describing the prose? If you've read/liked Paradise Lost, I feel like this fic would cater perfectly to your interests. It's a Siren Victor AU, with Yuuri as a (devoutly religious) shepherd. If you're not a fan of florid/surrealist prose, then you might not enjoy this, but I personally loved the way this writer plays with language. Note: this fic is only available to view by registered users on the Archive 

Excerpt: 

Yuuri huffs, closing his jacket around him, sealing warmth in. The wind keeps whistling, frigid and raw.

“I’m not coming with you.”

Viktor pouts, and the ruby red of his lips is like a nauseating warning siren. He has always been unfathomably beautiful. 

“Then why should I do anything for you?”

Viktor begins to sing, husky from the saltwater he has breathed, eroding his throat like the grind of sand, and he reaches towards Yuuri. Light reflects against his sharply silver hair, a hazy spectral play of soft and rough light. He is ethereal. The crescendo of his song kisses across Yuuri’s skin, sharply, wetly; but Yuuri is a devoted man, and he does not make mistakes twice.

“Give Yuuko’s children back.” Yuuri demands starkly. His nails press crescent moons into the skin of his own palms in his pocket. He does not waver.

Viktor is incandescently delighted. “And so Eve came to bargain with the sea-snake?” He asks, mocking.

“No,” Yuuri says, eyes narrowing. “The sword of God comes to slay the Leviathan.”

4) The amtrak incident (12K, by eiua) - NSFW

Relevant Ships/Tags: Viktor/Yuuri, Alternate Universe - College/University, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Breaking Up & Making Up 

I've recc'd this author before and it's probably only a matter of time before I go through their entire Dashboard, lol. They do such a great job of weaving in humor and little details into their writing that really makes whatever fic-verse they create come to life. This particular story is an AU featuring Viktor and Yuuri as academics/colleagues at MIT (architecture/urban planning), and a few months into a relationship. However, Viktor's unmanaged ADHD leads to conflict, and this fic features an absolutely brilliant depiction of how he has to take accountability for a mistake he makes, and apologize to Yuuri. The genuine respect they have for one another is so wonderful!

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that their make-up sex is mind-meltingly hot ;)

Excerpt: 

What about conferences? Is he supposed to just watch as Yuuri networks at the bar or run into each other around town and act as if they’re just passing acquaintances when they have, as Chris would joke, known each other biblically? Viktor has never been religious but it’s no understatement to say he could understand worship a whole lot better after sleeping with Yuuri.

And Yuuri is a terrible flirt when he’s drunk. Viktor knows this firsthand. Is Viktor supposed to just turn a blind eye to that and ignore the bile rising in his throat when he sees Yuuri be chummy with someone else? What if Yuuri visits UCLA and reconnects with his poledancing Russian ex-girlfriend and moves away?

Let’s just be friends. No, Viktor can’t just be friends with him, not when their dogs are playmates and Yuuri shares Viktor’s dream of high speed rail in America. Yuuri’s so sweet and sassy too, under all the shyness, and lights a fire in Viktor’s soul when he gets talking about what rail infrastructure would be most cost effective with federal funding.

5) Unstoppable (29K, by Red_Saga) 

Relevant Ships/Tags: Viktor/Yuuri, Post-Canon, Injury Recovery, Supportive Viktor Nikiforov 

This story will almost certainly make you cry, but I promise it'll feel cathartic. This is a post-canon fic (disclaimer, I'm not yet done with it, but have read over half), in which Yuuri suffers a major injury that completely alters his life and career. To be clear: I'm not talking about a sprained ankle or even a torn meniscus, but a spinal injury that puts him in a wheelchair for life. 

As you might expect, this fic details his injury recovery and the process of him coming to terms with/grieving the changes in his life. As someone with a disability, I can be pretty picky about stories in which it's a major topic, so I really appreciate the intentional way this story is written in regards to that; you won't find any trauma porn here. 

Excerpt (from Chapter 3):

Hiroko clicked her tongue. “When you come home, I will make you katsudon.”

Yuuri felt a twinge of some complicated emotion - anticipation, regret, grief, gratitude - that made him feel a bit dizzy for a moment. He wasn’t a skater anymore. The old rules about diet no longer mattered. He would never earn another bowl of katsudon. It was the feeling of one more anchor to his old life breaking free.

It must have showed on his face, because Viktor reached out to squeeze his hand and Hiroko tutted again. “Getting better so you can leave this place is victory enough, I think.”

Viktor brightened up. “That’s right! Yuuri, we need to think of other victories to celebrate!”

“Like escaping the clutches of the doctors?” Yuuri asked, half amused half quizzical.

“Like graduating from physical therapy,” Viktor suggested.

“Like watching someone skate a program you choreographed,” Hiroko added.

Yuuri gaped at her in surprise. Choreograph a program? He’d never thought about - never seriously considered - 

But Hiroko reached out and tapped his hand with a smile. “I see you doing this very often,” she said, and Yuuri realized he had been skating his fingers idly across the surface of his tray table, subconsciously marking out turns, glides, jumps, spins. She bent to pull something from the large bag at her feet (Yuuri’s mother  - always prepared) and handed him a notebook of blank paper and a pen. “But maybe it will work better if you write it down,” she suggested.

Yuuri clutched the notebook in fingers that felt suddenly too hot. He thought he was probably blushing. 

6) Body Electric (3K, by LadyMerlin) - NSFW 

Relevant Ships/Tags: Viktor/Yuuri, Light D/s undertones, Overstimulation, Begging

When an overstim scene is done RIGHT, I just....adfljkasdflkajlfkdf!! Combined with some expert dirty talk from Dom Yuuri, this fic is EVERYTHING. I'm sorry that I don't have anything that eloquent to say here...it's just THAT good, to the point where I felt like I was in a stupor upon finishing it, haha. Note: you have to be a registered Archive user in order to view it

Excerpt:

Viktor made a sound like Yuuri had just stuck his fingers into his very soul and tried to shove back against Yuuri. He didn’t have much leverage so it wasn’t very effective, but Yuuri rewarded his enthusiasm by timing his thrusts together with his hand on Viktor’s cock so that Viktor was instantly at the the edge, constantly and overly stimulated, his voice breaking on the edge of a whine, crumbling into quiet sobbing.

Something snapped inside Yuuri and he started talking. “God, you’re so beautiful when you cry,” he said, low in his throat, picking up his pace. His own hips were beginning to ache and he couldn’t imagine how Viktor felt. “I love seeing you like this,” he continued when Viktor whimpered, “all wrecked and ruined.

Fruits Basket Recs

1) A Second Breath of Spring (11K, by ElvenQueen18) - WIP

Relevant Ships/Tags: Hatori/Kana, Amnesia, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Happy Ending

Hatori lovers, and Hatori/Kana shippers, I think you'd adore this WIP (currently at 4 chapters), because it features a divergence from canon in which Kana doesn't completely forget her memories with him. Of course, this makes for a very confusing/heartbreaking situation for her,  given that she doesn't realize that the "daydreams" she's having of Hatori aren't actually daydreams at all, but rather, are memories of their relationship prior to the confrontation with Akito. The story is beautifully written, and you really feel for Kana as she navigates doing her best to find love, while having to contend with her mind pining for a man that she doesn't realize she once loved/was in love with her

Excerpt (from Chapter 2):

She kissed Hatori for the second time today, sweet and tender and filled to overflowing with all the feelings she had finally expressed out loud and now knew he reciprocated. She pulled away after a moment, still cradling his face, and watched as, through tearful eyes, he gazed at her like she’d just given him the world.

A lump formed in Kana’s throat as she drew back from Daisuke, her eyes stinging horribly. So she couldn’t even kiss her new boyfriend without fantasizing about him. Daisuke, for his part, continued smiling, so he apparently failed to notice her current mood. Or maybe he thinks the sun’s bothering me, she thought as she blinked several more times. She could only hope, she supposed.

“I’ll see you soon,” he told her.

She forced out a hum of agreement before they exchanged farewell bows and went their separate ways for the evening. As she entered the building, rode the elevator to her floor, and opened the door to her one-room apartment, the stinging in her eyes grew worse.

2) Self Mutilator/Holic (5K, orphan account) - NSFW

Relevant Ships/Tags: Akito/Akito, Selfcest, Body Horror, Character Study 

I honestly don't even know where to begin with a blurb for this story; this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful fics I've ever read that touches upon Akito's relationship to gender. There are times when reading this doesn't even feel real, because the way the prose draws you in makes you feel like you're living out a horror movie (but in the very best way). I was enraptured the entire time I was reading.

Excerpt:

Back in her consciousness she sees a demon in a lair, hiding in the darkness and lying in wait. A demon with hair like an ink spill, shiny dark locks reflecting the pale sweet moonlight. 

She sees the demon in the shape of a woman, a beautiful woman with an ample bosom and an elegant shape, clad in a clinging gown the colour of nightshade. A demon with dark eyes that glimmer with mirth, and a twisted smile marring its face. 

Its laughter rings like a twinkling bell through the confines of the room, but it isn’t alone. 

The demons nails are filed sharp like talons, claws made to tear into vulnerable flesh, to shred and rip. A demon’s claws, made for killing and ruining. And yet, these clawed hands are cradling  ever so gently and sweetly—the head of the other Akito. 

The male Akito, who leans lovingly into the demon’s clutches. He’s laughing too, a dark, heaving laugh from the low caverns in his flat chest, a laugh that sounds beautiful along with the bright and high tone of the demon’s giggling. 

Shameless self-promotion: If you've made it all the way to the end of this, I hope you won't mind my reccing my own fanfic. In particular, if you need a reprieve from The Ongoing Horrors, I very recently published this 5K post-canon Viktuuri story, in which they roleplay as strangers meeting for the first time. Hopefully it brings you a laugh :)

On the Fruits Basket end, thanks to interest around this Reddit post I made 2 months ago, I began working on a fic in which Ayame & Ritsu team up to wreak havoc/a bit of harmless fun in Akito's life (as payback for her striking Yuki at the New Years' banquet). Honestly, I just really wish we'd seen more of the Sohmas use their zodiac forms to wrest some control over their lives, so this WIP is my way of making that scenario come to life. I probably won't be able to complete it anytime soon (I need to take a writing hiatus for a few months), but I'm excited about where it's going, nonetheless!

[cellarspider]

5/30 The pseudohistory of Prometheus

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to a movie I wish to send on a journey down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, Prometheus.

And my insanity truly begins in this segment. We are only 1/10th of the way through the movie so far. Content warnings for discussion of racism in pseudoscience and historical anthropology, Spider getting hung up on logistics and space nerd stuff, and pictures of Yuri Knorozov, the most sour-faced man to ever live.

The cast sits down for a briefing. This is a scene with an easily identifiable narrative function: providing exposition to the theater audience. The act of doing a briefing makes sense. It is the last thing here that will.

We are introduced to a hologram of Peter Weyland, the financier of the expedition. The name means all sorts of Lore to the series, but what’s intensely distracting is that we seem to have caught Weyland halfway through applying his zombie makeup.

Weyland is played by Guy Pierce. As of the filming of this movie, he was somewhere around 45 years old. Yes, they smothered this Australian in old man drag so that he could play this character. This is a baffling decision, that only gets slightly less baffling if you know the production history of the movie, which I did not at the time.

Guy Pierce was hired to play a younger Peter Weyland. There’s a promo video out there of him giving a fictional TED Talk in the not-to-distant future of next Sunday AD 2023, there were various plans for him to appear in the movie proper. None of those scenes are actually in the movie. They refused to double-cast the role for some reason. While the practical effects in the movie are generally excellent and it does make the tiniest smidge of sense that a hypercapitalist asshole would be portrayed as a literal rubber-faced movie monster, this, like many things in Prometheus, made the movie a very weird sit. One where I was increasingly less open to going along with the movie’s fiction. You are telling me that this is an actual human man. I am not buying it. He looks far less human than David, the only non-human there.

Speaking of David, Weyland calls him “the closest thing to a son I will ever have”, and then immediately says David is an inhuman lesser being, who does not appreciate the specialness of his existence because he does not have a soul.

Which is funny, because I think you can see David’s soul leaving his body at this exact moment.

Weyland then tries to mash in some existential weight to the movie: they might finally get an answer for “why are we here?” and all that jazz! He also tries to explain why naming a ship Prometheus is totally not like calling it Titanic II: Don’t think about the part of the myth where Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his ever-regenerating liver eaten by an eagle every day! Think about the bit where he brought fire to mankind! We’re gonna bring back that bit!

And then the archaeologists take over the briefing, and this, THIS, is the bit where they entirely lost me. My suspension of disbelief had already been strained by multiple oddities up to this point. My skepticism about these characters in particular was already a bit elevated by their implied invocation of the ancient astronauts concept.

Turns out, only Vickers, Shaw, and Holloway know why they’re here. 

Two years away from Earth. On a massively expensive expedition that intends to make first contact with an alien culture, the first alien culture that humankind has ever found evidence of. Nobody has been briefed up until this point.

This is lunacy.

Explanations have been figured out by fans since then: this is a passion project by Weyland, an annoyance to the rest of the corporate structure that nobody else believes in. The movie eventually intimates this, through Vickers. 

Fans have thus speculated that Weyland was just quarantined off to do his little alien hunt, with no logistical support that would make it actually functional. He believed a crazy theory put forward by Shaw and Holloway, and everyone else wasn’t actually best-of-the-best, they were just whoever would take a big paycheck to do fuck-all for nearly five years of sleeping their way to and from their destination.

I am willing to consider that this was intentional. The movie possibly tries to confirm this with Mr. “I’m here for the money” Fifield, but none of the other characters have enough characterization to determine if this is the general trend.

How could we make a story that more clearly spells this out? Maybe Millburn the biologist could encounter more of the crew talking about the payout from taking the job, or reveal that he himself has some project he needs money for. It would also chip away at the dearth of character-building dialog for most of the cast.

As a result of those deficiencies in characterization, a lot of my discussion of plot points is going to be focused around what they do, rather than why. …Except when it is about the why, at which point the main commentary will be “WHY.”

In any case: while it makes sense, I'm still not certain the film meant for this character motivation. Prometheus is just so loudly explicit with so many of its plot points that it doesn’t seem like this is the case. The movie certainly believes in the sincerity and correctness of the archaeologists, though.

Unfortunately, it also immediately tells me that they’re a couple of wingnuts. I’m not sure if it intends to, for reasons I’ll get into after I foam at the mouth for a little while.

They present a series of artifacts to the crew: Egyptian, Mayan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hawaiian, and their Scottish cave painting. All of them feature “men worshiping giant beings”, who are pointing to what stargazer nerds call an asterism: a pattern of stars. Shaw and Holloway believe that these are aliens that engineered humans into their current state. Shaw literally says “it’s what I choose to believe” as the entirety of their justification for this.

Again: I knew the movie wanted me to take this as truth, within its universe. That’s the implicit deal the movie has made with the audience, this is truth. You are supposed to be contemplating the "whys" of it all. But the movie had also smacked me in the brain so many times in the past five minutes, that I, like Millburn the Biologist, was ready to call bullshit.

I appreciate him for doing so, and it shows he could have been a smart character, but sadly, he is in Prometheus.

Because he is a fictional biologist and I am an actual biologist, I will expand on his argument, as I descend into ranting for the rest of the post.

Millburn objects on the basis of evolutionary history, which the movie only partially succeeds in papering over: the implication is that evolution on Earth was directed with the deterministic outcome of creating something like humans.

This opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie doesn’t get into–when exactly did this engineering start? When great apes evolved? When mammals did? Tetrapods? Skeletons? DNA itself? After all, we know the aliens, now dubbed Engineers by the archaeologists, have DNA. Did they seed all life on Earth? How did they evolve? Our last universal common ancestor is believed to have already been using DNA 3-4 billion years ago, evolving out of a likely RNA-based genetic standard. Hominins diverged from other apes around 15-25 million years ago. What sort of culture would undertake a project that required at least 15 million years on the extreme low end?

All excellent questions! The movie is not concerned with them. I am, and that is part of why this movie still lives in a special, awful place in my head.

This isn’t actually what made me become actively hostile toward the archaeologists, though. What managed that, well! It was their archaeology. Anybody who had an Ancient Egypt Phase in their childhood should be able to articulate multiple reasons why the academic community would’ve laughed these guys out of the building.

Bigness in ancient egyptian art does not indicate literal size. It indicates importance. In fact, the artifacts the movie uses exclusively come from artistic traditions which feature hierarchical or non-literal scale. Do the Engineers turn out to actually be eight feet tall? Yes! Am I still annoyed by this? ABSOLUTELY.

You know what else is a big problem? Many of the cultures they reference here had written language! A LOT of written language! They include Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mayan art in their evidence, all of which not only wrote a LOT of things down, but had a habit of annotating a lot of their art with labels to tell you what was going on! You can actually see some on the props they used in this scene!

Beyond that, they had very prescribed formal styles, where you can follow the action entirely through gestures, held objects, attendant symbols, and clothing! If all these cultures, as implied, had actual, direct contact with aliens, recorded in the art presented here, we would know what they were told.

Skipping ahead of the movie for a minute: the Engineers were apparently not telling humans “we’re here in these stars, come find us”, they were telling humans “settle the fuck down or this is where the hurt’s going to come from”. 

Here's the thing. Ancient peoples weren't stupid. They wouldn't just not talk about this. If giant aliens came down from the sky and gave them a stern talking-to that contradicted their religion, that would be a big deal. And these characters specifically say the Engineers are being "worshiped" in these images! They're apparently taking onboard what's being said!

It is certainly possible for information to be lost. Over long time scales, that's unfortunately the rule, rather than the exception. But again: half the artifacts have writing on them!

I chose to believe that Shaw and Holloway simply did not attempt to read any available translations of attendant texts, and they were thus cursed for their foolishness by the ghosts of Mayan Studies pioneer Yuri Knorozov and Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, and the still-extant spirit of Assyriologist Irving Finkel.

Knorozov knows your sins against Mayan Studies. Knorozov is a vengeful god. Chapollion and Finkel are likewise very cross.

Two last things stood out to me in the theater. One of them was extremely petty but tied into some very serious issues with pseudoscience, and the other one was not.

Pettiness first: the asterism shown in the artifacts is a pattern of six stars. The movie wants you to believe that it is very spooky that the only asterism that precisely matches this pattern are six stars that are too faint to see with the naked eye. This is laughable, both because the asterism is so generic-looking that I can think of several very visible asterisms that are good matches for the pattern, but it also recapitulates a bunch of really fucking annoying stuff from pseudoscientific bullshit. 

First: Pseudoscience and pseudohistory likes to make a big deal out of the fact that every culture has stories about the stars. Why? 

The sky is very important to every culture’s mythology, because every culture can see the sky. Like, that’s literally it. People can see the sky. They tell stories about it. There’s not much to do at night except look at the sky, when even keeping a fire lit can be an expensive prospect. It is not even the least bit weird when multiple cultures–all of them in the northern hemisphere in this case!–have stories about the same stars.

Second: Cultures varied in their ability to faithfully reproduce celestial landmarks in art and align their architecture, and were not as exact as modern techniques can manage. Pseudoscience will claim that they are exact, when it fits their pre-existing theory, or fudge the difference if they want something to fit their claims.

(This is a photoshopped image, by the way.)

Were the stone age temples of Malta secretly aligned with a particular star that foretold the doom of Atlantis, precisely tracking its location through the sky over thousands of years of Earth’s axial wobbling? No! They were roughly aligned with the sun. Sunlight is important when you don’t have electric lights. Were the Great Pyramids of Giza laid out ten thousand years ago to match the layout of the stars in Orion’s Belt, according to the designs of a legendary lost race of highly advanced non-African people? Were they tapping into the Earth’s magnetic field to generate energy? No! They were aligned with the cardinal directions, and they got them a bit wrong! 

Hell, if we want to play at that game, I found a decent match for the asterism in Stellarium's Egyptian constellation set. Just flip this 90 degrees clockwise and you'll see I'm totally right. Aliens confirmed.

I know the movie is trying to tell me that all the asterisms in the art are precise matches for each other and are thus impossible to explain without intercultural contact (or aliens!!), but it is also showing me that they are not that precise. So, it’s just showing me stars. At least in some of them. Their little charcoal lad from the Isle of Skye may be throwing fruit at his audience.

In fact, there's a further, probably unintentional link to pseudohistorical claims in the artifacts presented: the Maya artifact shown does not actually depict a "giant figure" being worshiped, in fact, it shows one instantly recognizable, known figure in Classical Maya history: It is an altered version of the ornately carved coffin lid of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (24 March 603 - 29 August 683), with the top quarter of the carving replaced with a star pattern that looks nothing like the ones on the other artifacts.

The carving shows Pakal in the pose of an infant, entering into death and being reborn. It is packed full of so many symbolic elements that can be easily recognized by those more familiar with the Classical Maya than I am.

Conspiracy theorist Erich von Däniken thought that it showed Pakal rocketing away on a spaceship. Däniken proposed this because he didn't understand the cultural symbolism, but he had seen pictures of astronauts before.

And on that note, 2,400 words into this rant, we get to the actually bad shit. Unfortunately, it ties into the issue I had with the premise to begin with: the real-world context of pseudoscientific claims of ancient alien contact. Specifically, the racism.

We’re going to unspool this more near the end of the movie, because there was further behind the scenes I was not aware of when I first saw Prometheus, and it just compounds this stuff. 

So, when I went on my first tangent on how unpleasant ancient alien theories are, one thing I highlighted is that the further from Western Civilization you get, the more these theories presuppose that fellow humans are incapable of building great works or imagining interesting things. No, they had to be guided, and explicitly shown things that they copied down to the best of their limited capability.

The only european example of alien contact they show is from the Upper Paleolithic, 37,000 years ago. All the examples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia range from 5,500-3,700 years ago. The examples from the Classical Maya and Hawaiʻi are from 620 and 680 CE. 

During this period, Tang Dynasty merchants were creating the first paper money as the famous female emperor Wu Zetian was on her way to the throne. The Prophet Muhammad went to al-Aqsa mosque, and we’re only eight years before the birth of Charlemagne’s grandfather. We’re no longer talking ancient, it’s just old.

I want to emphasize that the movie is presenting these not as depictions of myths that have been passed down–though there are more problems with that I’ll get into shortly–these are implied to be contemporary depictions of events witnessed by the artists, who were quite possibly instructed by the Engineers to record a precise pattern of stars. An equivalency is being drawn between stone age Europe, bronze age Africa and the Middle East, and a couple of startlingly recent Mesoamerican and Polynesian cultures. 

But let’s be generous. Maybe these aren’t supposed to be contemporary accounts in these two outlier cases: the movie’s script will certainly indicate later that they have no idea what they’ve implied here. Perhaps these are story traditions that were handed down from the Olmecs and Melanesian precursors of the first to sail to Hawaiʻi. 

Unfortunately, this just recapitulates a different racist trope: that European and more “developed” civilizations invented so much cool and comfortable material culture and philosophy that they forgot the Mystical Religious Truths of the old ways, which were preserved only in Primitive Lands and among Uneducated Peoples, where they never found anything better to do with their time. Oh, if only we had heeded the warnings from those spiritually attuned non-white people!

(Look, I only remember Devil (2010), which has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, because M Night Shyamalan wrote and produced it, and this was two years after The Happening came out, so I watched it out of morbid curiosity. It's not as unbelievably bad as The Happening, but as shown in the clip above, the spiritually attuned latino security guard Ramirez attributes toast landing jelly side down to Satan. That is an actual thing that happens in the movie. He is proven right.)

But let's be even more generous: someone probably realized that they'd focused near-exclusively on Middle Eastern cultures, and wanted to throw in a couple from elsewhere. Sitting here, having seen the movie in full, this is the most likely option: their inclusion creates a contradiction with a later scene, and was thus probably not checked for consistency. These cultures were thrown in as a bit of background flavor. I list this last, because in the theater, there was no way to know this at the time.

That answer's still not great. Still leaves us in the same position, where Europeans are pretty much given their own agency, while other cultures need to be led.

Oh, and to anyone else who’s made it this far and knows the production history of Prometheus: don’t worry! I know what Ridley Scott told that one interviewer, about a contact between a less-ancient European power and the Engineers. I’m saving that one. I like to save that one, because strategic deployment of that quote made some of my IRL friends scream.

Next time: the Prometheus descends to an alien world, and I descend further into madness. I am going to drag you all down with me.

(Pictured: Yuri Knorozov, and my present mood.)

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/

[aayakashii]

So I was thinking abt Yuri’s theory abt pacts and most humans being allergic to demonic particles causing them to die. If his speculation is correct then doesn’t that mean people planning on making pacts could try using immunotherapy?

Sooo just imagine. A few months pass and there’s still no hint of her curse being cured. MC doesn’t want to jump the gun but she wants to have a back up plan of her own instead of just trusting the institute to cure her curse, so she starts considering making a pact. She doesn’t wanna risk just happening to be one of the few that aren’t allergic to demonic particles (it’s not like her lucks all that great after all) so she seeks a ghoul who has a blood type that is compatible with hers (or she just has AB+ blood so she can accept any blood) and is just trying to not seem suspicious as she awkwardly asks if they’ll let her take their blood samples for months until the last week (or earlier depending on wether she even knows how to find a demon to make a pact with) before her year limit is up so she can build resistance. Whether she tells them her true or intentions or not tho may depend on the person.

Like I can just imagine that she’s type O (O- if you wanna give her less options) so she’s forced to ask Tohma, Ren, or Taiga who also have type O blood.

Or having to ask Leo or Romeo for whatever reason and you can only convince them by:

A) Giving them a reason they’d believe and care enough about

B) Telling the truth

C) Doing their bidding

Or

D) A combination of C and another one

It also makes me wonder how Yuri would respond. I’m guessing he would know why without having to question you for long since he is the one that told you about his hypothesis. Now whether he would initially refuses cuz he knows he can find a cure or he agrees right away to prove his conjecture is the question.

Sorry for rambling I know this is long 😭

I think it’s a pretty cool idea though, thx for reading it!

PLEASE I LOVE LONG ASKS LIKE THESE, KEEP SHARING IDEAS WITH ME!!!!!

That's actually such a good theory, too! I honestly think MC could be honest with almost all the ghouls, except Kaito and Luca. They would most definitely be 100% against the idea of her making a pact. Maybe Alan and Haru too, since they have a protective streak on them that would probably make them very against the idea. So maybe she would have to hide her intentions from these guys. But the rest could pretty much be aware of her goal. Some would be more resistant, but then they could just shrug and think "ah whatever it's worth a shot ig 🤷"

It would still force her into a bind, though 💀 it's not like Leo or Romeo would just accept it without getting something from it. But I don't think they would be against her using their blood like that. They would call her crazy for sure, but they would hardly stop her. It's not like they care about the poor girl all that much 😭

I think Yuri would be very conflicted. In one hand, he is adamant that he can cure the curse. But in the other, this would be the perfect way to prove his theory. He doesn't seem like a person who creates a plan B for any of his scientific endeavors, but maybe because it plays into something very important to him, he could accept it.

Although I wonder if he ever tried using his own blood to search for the specific antibodies in order to check whether or not his theory is valid.

Oh, but he would definitely need demon antigens to see which antibodies latch on them, and getting that must be very hard (I don't think Darkwick has a demon sample at all). yeah nevermind, immunotherapy for a probable allergy is the only option 💀

I wonder what types of adverse effects she would have to face though! Like, since she'd be building immunity, her body would be working overtime to fend off those antigens. How would that appear in her body? Would she get high fevers, vomiting, weakness, and other cold-like symptoms, like when we take a flu vaccine?

The thing is, she would need to start the therapy right away, so she can have at least those last 10 months of intense treatment. The mermaid guy did it for only a few weeks I think and it went horribly wrong 💀

But all in all, that's such a good theory! I love how they're pushing a medical pov through Yuri! It kinda gives me war flashbacks because I immediately think of work but that's okay dkjdsjdjd

[havecouraqe]

I can’t help but feel a little loss that Dae wasn’t the one for Kitty. Maybe it’s just me being biased but it seemed like one of those nice guys finish last tropes which I don’t always like. Dae is such a sweet, kind, and caring character. He never wanted to hurt Kitty but due to his financial situation, he felt like he had no choice but to go along with Yuri. You can see the pain in his eyes whenever Kitty was around them. He even slept on the floor outside her door just to make sure he wouldn’t miss her when she left.

His relationship with his family tells so much about who he is. As a son and as a big brother to Bora, you can see he loves his family a lot. The shock on his face when she tells him kids bully her anyway despite how her shoes look. He never wants anyone to be hurting. But then he saves enough money to surprise her with new shoes and buys the pears in remembrance of his mom. And then theres Kitty giving him her Mom’s necklace only a year into their relationship, it really shows how much she cares for him and knows how hard of time Dae was having with his loss because she can relate. I really wish we could have seen Kitty interact with his family because I’m sure there would have been cute moments but I know Kitty’s Korean isn’t good yet.

It also really sucks about Dae and Min Ho’s fallout because along with Q, they are such an amazing trio of friends. They support one another and protect each other, especially when they think Q is being cheated on. The death glare Min Ho gives Florian when they confront him is priceless. Dae never brings up to Min Ho about his suspicion that he might have a crush on Kitty because maybe he doesn’t want to believe it, doesn’t want to believe his best friend would do that to him.

But then we get to the final episode and when I tell you I cried, I cried. Kitty looked so afraid when telling Dae about having feelings for somebody else. Not only does she have to deal with the almost fight between Dae and Min Ho but she’s also so scared coming out to Dae. They are all each other knows and to Dae, this is sudden even though Kitty has had some time to think about who she is and is still figuring things out herself. Could he have handled it better? Yes, majorly he could have.

If they do come out with season 2 who knows if Dae will appear since he lost his scholarship. Suppose this is the end of the chapter for Kitty and Dae, it’s the best first love because they were so freakin cute. I wish they would have made the scene longer with them at the love locks since that is where they first met. All I know is Kitty and Dae will always be my otp.

[david3096]

If it's raining

My second Parksborn fic is here! This one is inspired on @moxielynx amazing art that you can see here

Here's a little preview, you can read the whole fic on AO3

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” Peter mutters with some weariness but delight. Right now, he's sitting and leaning against the trunk of an old tree, while Harry rests his head between Peter's legs. “I'm not even worried that we missed school.” He starts stroking his boyfriend's hair and they smile at each other.

“Okay, you need to get away from me.” Harry teases. “I'm starting to think our teachers are right, I'm a bad influence.”

“Oh come on, you say that like I'm way too innocent.” Harry tilts his head slightly, it's all he needs to know what his boyfriend truly thinks. “Besides, it's not like you're completely a cool guy, you're also a nerd.”

“But I’m a slightly cooler nerd than you.” Harry teases him and then grabs his hand. “You know I'm only joking, right?” Peter is slightly short of breath, butterflies appear in his stomach, his lips tingle.

It's not the first time it's happened to him, since almost two months ago he started to feel these symptoms. The first time he thought he was about to get a cold, the second time, that he would have a new power, the third time he realized that the cause of this was always Harry. Now that he has lost count of the number of times he has had these symptoms, he knows it's love.

“I know, but that doesn't stop me from being offended.” He says, instead of the words he feels in his throat. He's sure if he let those three little words slip out he could ruin everything.

“I'm sorry, I really am.” There is honesty in Harry's voice and face. “You're handsome and the coolest guy in the world.”

“Why do I feel like you're making fun of me?”

“Who, me?” Harry uses the most sarcastic tone he's ever heard him use. “Let's change the subject, what does May think we're doing?”

“She thinks we're at MJ's house finishing the science project.”

“The one we finished last week?”

“Yeah, that one.” He keeps running his hands gently over his boyfriend's hair, the urge to tell him he loves him starting to subside, just a little. “I also asked MJ to cover for us.”

“How much is it going to cost you?”

“Free math tutoring for the rest of the year.”

“Tutoring? MJ is nerdier than you, I would have asked to have my homework done.”

“It's nice to find someone who wants to learn too.”

“Nerd.”

They are silent for a few seconds. It's unbelievable, but he feels the urge build a little after this interaction, even if he was making fun of him.

He looks up at the sky, it's about to get dark. He wonders how he has been able to hold back these words for so long. On so many occasions, after so many days together, so many evenings, after so many times that...

“Aren't you going to ask me what I told my father?”

“Did you lie to him? I thought he would have a busy day of meetings today.”

“That's right, but what fun would it be without a little lie?”

“Okay, Osborn, what does your father think we're doing?”

“We're at the chess club.”

“Harry, there is no chess club anymore, not since someone stole all the chess boards from the school.”

“Still don't know who did it?” Peter shakes his head. “Well, Dad doesn't know that anyway.”

They laugh and fall silent again.

It's as if time stands still. Peter can feel peace, tranquility... love. All coming together in this moment, with his fingers untangling his boyfriend's hair.

He takes a deep breath, it's been a difficult month for both of them.

Peter was too busy being Spider-Man, first it was Rhino, then Electro, finally Mysterio. Even with Yuri's help it was all too difficult.

Harry for his part had to attend several Oscorp meetings. Some with workers, others with unbearable millionaires who do not know what to do with their money and want to spend it on the first thing they come across.

They had the idea on Monday of that week. They hadn't been able to see each other for more than three minutes for four days and neither of them could remember the last time they kissed. So, while eating lunch, they planned to skip school.

Early that day, the two met at a cafeteria away from school and places May or Norman might frequent. They had hot cakes for breakfast, laughed a lot, the nice waitress didn't ask them awkward questions or tell them they should be at school.

Then they wandered around town, as if they were tourists, walked and walked and talked and laughed. At lunchtime they decided to go to the park they always visited when they were kids, the one near May's house. They ate hot dogs and sat under the shade of the tree. They haven't moved since.

“What's on your mind, Peanut?”

“I still don't approve of that nickname.” He warns him, but his boyfriend just laughs.

“Oh come on, it's perfect for you.” Harry grins gently. “What's on your mind?” He repeats, softly. “You seem kind of absent.”

“I'm thinking about you.” Peter replies with honesty. “About how it was a good idea to skip school, about how cute you look now...” And how much I love you.

“Now I feel bad, I was thinking it would be nice to buy pizza for dinner.” Peter can't help but laugh. He leans over to give him a little kiss on the lips. “Sometimes it amazes me how romantic you can be. I like you.”

“And I like you.” Harry laughs. It's clear that this is the way things should be, that they've only been dating for six months and that no matter how many years they've been friends, romantic relationships should take a different, slower pace, right?

“I dislike you, if I'm really honest.” Harry replies sarcastically. “Seriously, I like you too.”

He sighs, wanting to keep his mind off his feelings for a while.

“Do you want to do something?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, I was hoping you'd come up with something.”

“We could make out behind that bush.”

“Or we could go to your place instead.”

“Parker!” Harry feigns surprise. “You're such a horny boy.”

“You suggested the idea of making out!” He tries to defend himself, the blush already on his face.

“I know.”Harry says nonchalantly. “But I don't know what time Dad will be home. I don't think we'll have time to do it... all.”

“Then we'll have to settle for playing some game.”

“A sport? I don't want to move, nugget.”

“I didn't approve of that nickname either.” He laughs. “But I was thinking of something quieter, something to keep us here.”

“Like what?”

“Twenty questions?”

“After playing it five times today, I think it's kind of boring.” Harry straightens up slowly. He arranges his hair and puts on his blue cap. Then he leans back against the log next to Peter. “We could ask each other questions.”

“Like truth or dare?”

“I was thinking more like truth or truth.” Harry looks around, the park is pretty empty for a Friday. “I mean, just ask each other questions. About anything.”

“Oh, okay, sounds like fun.” Peter pulls their bodies a little closer together, takes Harry by the hand. “Do you think we should make some rules or something?”

“I don't think they're necessary.”

“All right, then start.”

“Me? Why me?”

“It was your idea, Osborn.”

“But the youngest should start, Parker.”

“You're only two months older.”

“You're still the youngest.”

“Then let the best-looking one should start.” Peter smiles and gives him a little shove on the shoulder. “It's your turn, then.”

“Are you out of your mind? Either you need to buy other mirrors or those glasses need a check-up, Parker, the best looking one is you.” Harry shoves him back, he doesn't seem to be lying or trying to get out of the situation.

“Of course I'm not.” He moves his face closer to his boyfriend's, looks at his eyes, his nose, then his lips. They are so close together that he could almost kiss him, but he does not. “If I were, I wouldn't have even considered going out with you.”

“Hey, that was mean.” But still his boyfriend lets out a little laugh.

“That's how cute I think you are, to turn me into a horrible, vicious being.” Peter fakes a ghoulish voice, trying to sound like a monster.

“More like you're cute and clueless.” Harry kisses him on the cheek. “That's why I like you.”

“Okay, then I'll use that against you.” He smiles, tries to make a cute, tender face. “You start Harry, please.”

“Ugh, I hate that it worked.” They both laugh again, maybe it's absurd and MJ has told them they are so cute and romantic that sometimes it gets tiring and a little bit gross, but he doesn't care. “Okay, I'll start.”Harry sounds a little frustrated but rests his head on Peter's shoulder and it calms him down.

Neither says anything for about two minutes, they look around, there are kids playing on the swings in front of them, others playing ball, a couple walking their dogs, it's an almost quiet night.

“Okay.” Harry lifts his head and intertwines his fingers with Peter's. “Would you rather vacation at the beach or in the woods?”

[animehouse-moe]

Oshi No Ko Episode 1: Overhyped To The Moon, Or, Crucifying An Adaptation

A release schedule that's had the first episode in the works for a month in the making. Ninety minutes of content to start. An Akasaka story. This first episode, and its subsequent reaction, is like throwing a dud of a bomb and everybody pretending that it went off. But why? Well, even though I'm a fan of Akasaka's work, and even if I suggested the license to various publishers through their suggestion channels, I feel like an explanation is owed to the overhyped mess that appeared today.

A Nine Point Three Six on MAL. You know, the website where FMA:B reigns supreme and anything that challenges it is review bombed into oblivion? The site where the next highest rated anime is at a 9.11? Yeah, that MAL.

This is Doga Kobo's highest rated series, by Over One Point Three points. That's the Akasaka Difference™, and it's insane.

Let me dispel any preconceptions you might have about it. It is nowhere near that number. It's nowhere near A-1's adaptation of Love Is War. Oshi No Ko does have an interesting, if not abrasive, story for its first episode. But that can't carry it that high. It's story can't get rid of the limitations that Doga Kobo has, it can't get rid of flaky and flat direction, it can't get rid of shallow work that relies on the individual.

So, allow me to paint a more accurate picture of this first episode, starting at the bottom. Doga Kobo is... a studio. Not a particularly outstanding one, and one that hasn't had any "big" titles in its repertoire for a long time now. Arguably, their most memorable titles such as Plastic Memories, which are the poster children of the studio, are well out of their prime now. The majority of their higher rated series are 5 or even 10+ years old now. Stuff like Yuru Yuri, stuff like Nozaki-Kun, stuff like... stuff like. Would you consider New Game? Or Gabriel Dropout? I guess really, they only have Plastic Memories for the average anime fan.

They're not a studio that you entrust with big projects or names. Not that they can't deliver adaptations that make full use of and more of their source material like Nozaki-Kun, but that was almost a decade ago now. It's been over a year since Doga Kobo had an anime that was over a 7 in score, and I'd be surprised if their average score for the last 5 years could punch above a 7.3 (side note: excluding Oshi No Ko, it can't. It doesn't even break 7, it sits at 6.99).

Alright alright I swear on my life this is the last piece of Doga Kobo/OnK slander before I start getting to the episode itself. That would be the director. A career Doga Kobo in-house man, Hiramaki Daisuke has had forays into other studios for an episode or two and even some storyboarding, but has stayed close to home for his biggest projects. You know, big works like An Angel Flew Down To Me, or Selection Project (which is another Idol Anime), or Koisuru Asteroid... Also, you might be wondering, "Why is the direction so bad at times, and so much better at others?". Well, to the astute and curious people out there that had the same thoughts as me, it's because there's Five people credited with episode direction for it. So, odds are you're picking up on the direction changes that are of issue with the episode. I'd have to find proper time frames and everything to give real answers, but I'd say there's probably two episode directors in this first episode that offer solid direction. Anyways, point made, moving on.

The first half is painful. At a glance you might think "oh this isn't too bad", but when you get into it, in a single sitting, it's hard to get through. The direction and delivery is incredibly flat, and it relies totally on the energy that the quality VAs bring in.

It's a lot of single character and focus frames that suck any originality or uniqueness from the content, and causes it to feel like it's just droning on as we suffer an onslaught of dialogue that's ill-equipped to match the visuals.

I could pull hundreds of these layouts from the first half of the episode alone. Conversation bounces back and forth between incredibly static characters, closeups that can hide detail, and any number of other tricks. Of course, it's not that it's all terrible or lazy, but that the overwhelming direction is of this lazy and flat nature.

And this is where the core issue arises. As a visual adaptation, it's plain rough. The character designs are alright, if not a pretty big overgeneralization of the art of Oshi No Ko, and the art is solid enough, but it has nothing to give itself a leg to stand on. The direction is limp, the animation only in bursts, and the whole appeal is almost nonexistent to the manga.

They use transitions rather than animation or more creative cuts, they reserve everything for a few moments in the episode, it's just something that can't hold a candle to what the manga can do with its medium.

Just look at this stunning animation. Doesn't it just scream quality work? I wish I could give more examples (I could find a good few if I wanted to slog through 90 minutes again), but Doga Kobo is crafty with it. They very rarely show full characters in motion, and hardly is there more than one person moving in a scene.

I've said it a lot, but it really is just bad enough that I have to say it a few times. I wouldn't have to, if people were to take it at face value, but as it closes in on a 9.5 on MAL it's impossible to separate.

Now, I wouldn't say that all of it is bad. The second half of the episode seems to pick up on the fact that it's meant to do something, but that thought only appears... about 35% of the time.

Thankfully, that 35% appears awfully close to each other, and we get stuff like Ai's Idol scenes. They're well choreographed, and incredibly well animated compared to the rest of the episode. It's fluid, it's creative, and there's lots of moving parts to it. I just wish there was more of that quality in the rest of the episode.

Truthfully I think it's a good example of where the talent and ability comes from in the episode. The idol part has a measuring stick. You can find similar direction in real idol performances, and the flair/impact frames are found later on in the episode (most likely from the same animator).

What I can say at the end of it all, is that this clip is as good as it gets, by a pretty large margin. The direction adds emotion to the clip, the animation heightens it, and the anime original aspect of the music and choreography is the icing on the cake. But in reality? I'd say it's good. Not great, not outstanding, and certainly not worth its outrageous score on MAL.

Oshi No Ko has good pieces, but not a good whole. You can take parts of it out and say "yeah, I think the layout for this scene is really solid and makes use of the full frame afforded by an anime vs a manga panel", but you don't watch an anime in pieces, you watch it as an episode, a total experience. So yeah, you'll get some nice pieces like below, but you're trading off everything I've already talked about and then some for it.

Is it really worth it? Is it really worth that insane score that lords it over other entries this season like Heavenly Delusion, Demon Slayer, Hells Paradise, Skip and Loafer, MahoYome or GWitch? I think the obvious answer is no. Akasaka's story certainly has charm and talent within, but as an adaptation, I really had no interest in most of everything that Doga Kobo gave it, especially considering that they dropped content from the first volume still.

[crehador]

winter 2024 first impressions: ishura

and so we ring in the new year with some beautiful doomed yuri that lasts only until a weird guy appear

typical

i picked this one up for the cast (romi park my beloved please arrive soon) and it's off to an alright start imo. the fight sequences were pretty good, visually, but the soundtrack didn't blow me away—and i really wish it did. the ost wasn't bad or anything, but if it had stood out more to me, i feel like it would have elevated the action scenes as a whole

the premise is remarkably simple so far, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. i often like simple, but it means the series will swim or sink based on its characters (who were mostly only namedropped towards the end of the first episode, so time will tell if they compel me)

one element of the worldbuilding i did like is there are these big mech type 'golems' facing off against humans, some of whom can use magic. exceedingly standard stuff

but then!

you see one of the golems using the same magic humans wield, which was a nice little twist i quite enjoyed. not sure if anything will become of that detail, since it seems like the series is shaping up to be more of a pvp battle royale than a pve humans vs golems type story

(side note this feels like it would make a pretty sick video game)

the weakest part of the first ep, to me, was the pacing. it just felt rushed, but that's mostly understandable since this ep was clearly just set-up for the 'main' plot. i feel like it might have benefited from being an hour-long episode, or maybe all this backstory would have felt more impactful if we saw it later, with the 'main' plot starting in medias res and circling back to this later? idk it wasn't The Worst, i just feel it (the pacing) could have been Better

also content warning for anyone who might need it: there was at least one instance of extremely graphic violence in this first ep, which i anticipate might continue through the series, so heads up on that

tl;dr it's fine so far

[littlejarsofhappiness]

I'm Soda (he/him). I am Lightkin (Death Note), Sayorikin (Doki Doki Literature Club), and Charakin (Undertale). I am also copinglink with Hajime from Danganronpa.

👇Learn about my kins below 👇

☀️Sayori Saihara (original last name)

☀️School life: She befriended Yuri, Natsuki, and Monika when she first started high school. She joined the literature club as vice president, which she loves because she gets to spend time with her friends and white poems with them. She was especially happy when she convinced Protag to join the club. She does okay in her classes, but her favourite classes are language and art. She feels happiest during club time or in art class.

☀️Personal info: She has struggles with mild depression since around 14. She first kept it to herself because she didn't want to be a burden to anyone. Protag eventually found out about Sayori's depression and helped her to reach out for help. Now she goes to therapy and she relies on her group of friends. She isn't close with her either of her parents, but she wishes she was. She's closer with Protag's parents since have was at his place most of the time as a child.

☀️Gender/sexuality: Sayori is a demigirl and uses she/they pronouns. She's okay with being seen as a girl and presenting in a feminine way. She feels half a girl and half agender. She is demisexual demiromantic and has only felt any attention towards Protag. They wear a binder when their not in school and on the weekends. Binding helps with their dysphoria. They don't bind at school because she's not out as demigirl there. She's only out to the other girls and Protag. Sometimes they wish they could wear pants at school, while at times she's okay with wearing a skirt.

☀️Her relationship with Protag: She grew up being next door neighbors with Protag. She likes making people happy and appeares to always be cheerful herself, even when she didn't feel that way. She loves anything cute and loves anime. She and Protag often watch anime together and introduces new shows to each other. She has a small crush on Protag, but she's too afraid to tell him because she doesn't want to risk loosing her close friendship with him.

☀️Source differences: The main difference is that Monika never messed their world's code, so nothing bad that happened in the game happened in my source. Sayori opened up about her depression with help of Protag. In my source, Sayori is the only one who has a crush on Protag. Yuri and Natsuki are crushing on each other and eventually Sayori helps them to ask each other out. Natsuki is a trans girl, Yuri is asexual, and Monika is pan.

☀️Age/pet regression: When Sayori feels overwhelmed with depression or stress, they involuntary age regresses to three year old as a coping mechanism. Protag is her main caregiver and helps her feel safe and loved. Sayori likes onesies, pacis, soft blankets, and her cow plushy. Occasionally when she gets really excited, she puppy regresses. She age regresses more then they pet regress. When they pet regress, they feel like a lab puppy.

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

🍫Chara Dreemurr (pronounced care-ah)

🍫Age: 8

🍫Gender: Agender, They/Them

🍫Backstory: Chara grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive family. This cussed them to distrust and dislike humans, since no one helped them when they were hurt, so they ran away to Mt. Ebott, because they wanted an end to their painful life. After landing in the Underground, they were found my the Dreemurr family and they were taken in. Chara started to feel at home in the Underground and finally felt like part of a family with the Dreemurrs. Chara felt happy and loved being around the monsters. They didn't think it was fair that the nice monsters had to live underground, while the mean humans had the aboveground all to themselves.

After Chara and Asirel accidentally gave Asgore buttercup flowers, Chara came up with a plan to help their new family and the rest of the underground. They are the flowers, and when they died, Asrriel absorbed their soul and passed the barrier and went up to the aboveground. Their goal was to kill six humans to use their souls to break the barrier that is keeping the monsters trapped underground. The humans attacked Asriel and he fled back to the underground, severely injured. Many years later, when Frisk fell into the underground, Chara was awaken because of Frisk's determination, but only Frisk could see and hear Chara (besides the ghost monsters). Chara helped guide Frisk through the underground. Chara and Frisk eventually used the six human souls that Asgore already collected to break the barrier, saved Flowey/Asriel, and freed all the monsters from the underground. Now on the surface, Frisk, Chara, Asriel, and Toriel live together as one happy family.

🍫About: Chara loves being outside and being in nature. They love climbing trees, finding cool sticks, going on little adventures, and just have fun. They are very independent for their age and they have a hard time letting people take care of them. They love anything with chocolate in it, especially milk chocolate bars. They deal with PTSD because of past abuse, so they have a harder time being comfortable around new people.

🍫Source differences: There isn't much of a difference from the canon pacifist route.

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

📓Light Yagami

📓About: Light has strong guilt about what happened in his source, and feels like he was almost a different person, corrupted by the Death Note's power. He especially regrets killing L, who he secretly saw as a friend. He also regrets using Misa and misses his little sister, Sayu. He doesn't have emotional empty and doesn't experience guilt, unless it personally affects him. His emotions feel shallow at times, and he relays on his logical side over his emotional side.

📓Source differences: The death note slowly corrupted Light. Light was only truly himself at the beginning and when he didn't have memories of the death note. Kira formed from thee death note's power and mixed with Light's strong sense of justice, turning Light into a darker version of himself. Light could feel himself slowly losing control off his thoughts and actions, as Kira slowly took over.

[peccatula]

🍲📈 🪢 for Joy 🧳💥⏳ for Galina and ☀️ for both of them :3 lobcorp yuri,,,,,

Hi michelle lol. My yuri...

🍲 — What would they bring to a potluck?

Joy is not a chef and is just decent/passable at cooking/meal prep so they would probably just bring like. a salad. They DO like baking though, if cookies or brownies are on the table they might bring those.

📈 — What's their relationship with the rest of their team like?

Joy is the Info captain and works under Galina (they were dating before Galina was promoted to Department Head). Obviously they love Galina <3<3<3

Joy HATES Blossom. He is a catty bitch who lives for the drama and has a vendetta against them because he wanted to be captain or department head and instead the positions went to Joy and Galina. He thinks he's more valuable to the manager than he is. Joy cannot stand him and actively tries to avoid him.

Joy is fond of Anneli and actively worries about them. Anneli, being very new, is Not at all adjusted to how Lobcorp works yet, and their inability to cope with death is something that Joy knows will spell their death. They're trying their best to teach Anneli how to cope with life as an L Corp feather.

Joy likes Justin a lot though they don't know him the best yet. They feel similarly to him as they do to Anneli, though in the beginning this is not as clear as he appears far more well-adjusted at that point in time. When things start going under, Joy wants to make sure to be there for him, especially since Galina also cares for him but struggles to express it (Galina sees Justin as a brother as he's very similar to her brother who had died years ago)

🪢— What type of Work they do best in; what do they specialize in when fighting?

I'd say they're best with Temperance, but Prudence is a close second! They specialize in white damage.

Galina:

🧳 — Do they have any items that would persist with them in every universe?

Not items, no! There'd be universes where she'd wear contacts, for example. I think she'd always maintain her love of books, though!

💥 — What are they like when panicking?

Shockingly I remember the nugget that became her's panic type and it was the run around aimlessly while screaming type. Nowadays she'd be more realistically the type to just shut down and do nothing? Stand still. Hope it ends, somehow.

⏳ — If they could go back in time with this knowledge, would they still join the corporation?

Since she's not in the main branch she's not trapped there. The branch she joined was her last hope after having gone through job after job, and she was only trudging along thorugh life on a promise to her family. She met Joy through J-03, and Joy managed to give her an entirely new perspective on living, so... She would not change her mind about joining L Corp. Without L Corp she likely wouldn't have been alive.

Both of them:

☀️ — What would their happiest end be like?

Married, living together, adopt a kid, have cats or dogs, a garden, a persona library, therapy, comfortable living for the foreseeable future... They get some of these things and absolutely do not get others. Considering where they live lol

[magpiejay1234]

ED2.

Life Stream Dragon appears here. IIRC the original plan according to rumors was to have it show up after the Misty Duel, to restore life, which would also likely be in-universe justification of all souls trapped in Earthbound Immortals being revived at the end of this arc.

(Of course, this would also mean Life Stream Dragon wasn't planned to be a Synchro Tuner.)

Crow is depicted with the main cast, but not a Signer. It is pretty clear in the Yoshida episodes that he intended Crow to become Dragon Head in replacement of Rex using the arm in a vat, hence why he is depicted as Crow's idol here, but rest of the production wanted to keep close to Takahashi's original intention, even though they scrapped the idea of Crow's prototype being the final boss of this arc back when the production started.

Crow being the Dragon Head causes huge issues, despite being narratively quite good, as Lua becoming the Heart of Crimson Dragon was not something planned in advance. Since Lua was designed to become a Signer, but had to lose the mark associated with him because of the early changes staff made to Takahashi's plans, the Life Stream Dragon's debut would be delayed for years.

However, going by later episodes, it seems part of the reason why Crow took so long become a Signer, and Lua took even longer in addition to staff still considering making Crow an antagonist (most likely a minor temporary one), there might have been still conflict about whether making Lua Dragon Head, or their eventual decision of introducing a new mark.

It seems the second idea was having Lua become a Signer before WRGP, presumably during the Skiel Duel, but that didn't materialise due to the mark issue, but also because that two-parter occured during the time show was showcasing cards that won the fan-made card contest (Chaos King Archfiend, Drill Synchron/Warrior, Splendid Rose, Bird of Roses, Morphtronic Vacuummen), which was set up during the end of Fortune Cup.

As for Black-Winged Dragon, we have a better idea. Its debut was on Episode 95, though that is the second part of a two parter, with Episode 94 being on January 27, 2010. This means its design was finalised around late June 2009 the latest (going by six month production cycles). This coincides with end of Dark Signers, and start of S3, meaning all the episodes from Ghost Duel to Crash Town were already written, and due to the production issues caused by BBT, they didn't go over the episode production, unlike the last minute changes to ZEXAL's ending.

However, calling Black-Winged Dragon "finalised" is a stretch, as its effect will apparently be different in episodes 95-121, and only become corrected to be like its OCG effect in episode 126. This probably means Episodes 126-154 were written in a different writing order, which also means the the way episodes are written, and the way episodes were actually produced was actually different, at least for the last stretch of 5D's.

Black-Winged Dragon's effect being different is not an issue caused by animé, but rather OCG, which delayed its card release to have Majestic Red Dragon (already debuted in Dark Signers arc) appear as the cover card of Absolute Powerforce, which also caused the Fake Jack two-parter to become a thing. Similar issue was caused by Chaos Neos in GX, despite being only appearing during Rainbow Dragon's debut Duel, it got its dedicated main set. Though there it was due to Gladiator's Assault coinciding with Supreme King mini arc, as Evil HEROes were instead moved to third Duelist Pack for Judai rather than a main set.

This would also explain how Yoshida found time to publish the first chapter of ZEXAL manga before ZEXAL animé.

This is also partially why Yuri's Starving Venom appears near end of S2, way before the Fusion arc, before its effect was finalised, in order avoid another affair like this.

Yoshida has his part to blame here, but the far bigger issue lays on Konami, and TVTokyo being weird about merchandising, which is, ironically enough, not primarily due to Blackwings, or Infernities, but Jack, and fan-made card contest (Bird of Roses is particularly amusing, as it forced Ruka to change her Deck concept from Fairies to regular Plants).

****

As for the actual ED2 animation, and song, they are pretty good. Check them out.

Though Misty is already showcased in her Dark Signer outfit there, Carly isn't yet.

Edit: Misty isn't in her Dark Signer outfit in ED2 yet, though she is in parts of OP2. This has been corrected.

Edit 2: Miswrote OP2 as OP1, haha.

[smol-grey-tea]

Hello! Can I please know from where u played nameless? Did you get it on steam or any other way ?

Hi! Judging by your blog, I'm guessing that you are asking because you have never seen or played the game before yourself? If you are interested in playing this game, in my opinion it is Cheritz's best game and I can ensure you will enjoy it

After playing Mystic Messenger in 2017, I first of all played the Nameless demo from Steam, which shows you 2 scenes from the common route. I then purchased the full game for roughly £22 and it has been my biggest special interest since. That's roughly 7 years ago now, and I currently have over 720 hours in the game from playing it over and over again.

Sometimes it does go on sale, tho I'm not sure when. Usually at holidays. I think it is a fair price tbh, especially considering that there are no additional subscriptions or micro-transactions like with the other games

It is not a mobile game like Ssum and MM, but can only be played on Steam. If you don't want to pay but still want to enjoy the game, I recommend Melizbeauty's play through of the game on YouTube

It's an entire visual novel as well. No chat rooms, just visual novel. There are 2 mini games in the game but they aren't difficult and don't have big consequences for failing

I can't tell how much you know about Nameless already, so I'll just take this opportunity to infodump a bit anyway. Sorry if you expected a short answer for this, I'm a bit of a rambler. This post will not contain spoilers though

I'm going to be talking about Nameless in comparison to MysMes and Ssum, since that's the perspective I assume you're coming from - see below for a spoiler free review of Nameless the One Thing You Must Recall

The game has the same 5 love interests and 2 secret endings, just like MysMes, and it of course has a smiliar vibe, in which the game appears quite cutesy and innocent but can have a lot of dark themes

Mystic Messenger's general theme is mental health, and Nameless has themes of that too, but specifically leans into grief and abandonment as a core theme, as well as childhood and memory

It revolves around our main character, who has been living all on her own since her grandfather's passing in the last year. She has 2 best friends, but still keeps her own feelings and her hobby of doll-collecting to herself. When her dolls magically come to life one day, they begin to live with her, and she is no longer lonely or sad at home like she was before they came to life

Considering Dandelion as well as Nameless, I believe that Cheritz made the wrong decision by making games that had blank slate main characters. I don't think that it was the wrong idea to give blank MCs to MysMes or Ssum, since the games work better that way, but I'm not sure why they made such a decision when they've shown just how good they are at writing main characters. I am able to relate to the main character, Eri, throughout the entire game and she is one of my favourite characters I have ever seen

About the love interests, I can also see each of them as human as well, and I see how human all of their interactions with each other are as well. I believe that something Mystic Messenger wrote really well was the characters' relationships with each other. In both Nameless and Dandelion, the love interests are all stuck in their situation and really wouldn't rather be friends otherwise; whereas MysMes' characters' relationships are all intentional yet also quite nuanced and complicated. Nameless' relationships, I think, aren't quite as complex as MysMes', but they are still very complex in their own ways and incredibly interesting to explore, especially between that of Yuri and Tei

In terms of tone and rating, I'd say this game has lower stakes (takes place in a high school rather than in a cult) but the yanderes of this game are more obsessive and violent, even outside of bad endings. I'm not an expert on otome in general, so I don't know for full, but some people say that Nameless has more extreme yanderes, while other people say that the yanderes aren't bad enough? Idk, I'm not an otome fan, I'm just a hardcore Nameless/Cheritz fan so I can't say much. I just know that it's more yandere than MysMes, but not nearly as yan as Dead Wishes (which is also available on Steam and I do recommend)

The plot and story I'd say is God tier. Better than MysMes imo. I love how the plot comes to a climax in the last route, then we play the secret endings and resolve the main conflict. A lot of people say that the ending is way too abrupt and ambiguous, but I think it does wrap up the story really nicely. If you've got nothing else about the story to say, then why continue talking. The ending was perfect the way they left it, idk where else they could've gone with it. Plus, it leaves plenty of room for interpretation and plenty of room for theories and fanfics

The translation is fine with a couple inconsistencies. A few of them can take away from an emotional scene but it's never bothered me. The game is fully voice acted and I think that every single one of the voice actors put their entire soul into their performances in this game. I especially want to praise Lance's, Tei's and Red's voice actors. Even if you just listened to the audio without reading the translation, you can just hear the emotion so much. They all did so well

(￣ヘ￣）ᵁᴹᴹᴹ can't think of much else to say. If you do decide to play this game, I do look forward to hearing your opinions to it and also encourage you to devour my entire blog for all my Nameless posts

ʕ´•ᴥ•`ʔ ˢᵒʳʳʸ about the length, and ʕ´•ᴥ•`ʔ ˢᵒʳʳʸ if I completely misunderstood and you already knew all of the above. (๑`✪̤◡✪̤)◞ღԵհɑղƘՏღ for the ask!!!!

[mt-musings]

To Inherit the Night - 6

Erwin waited a solid five minutes before crossing to the door to ensure Lorenz was not waiting outside to eavesdrop. Once satisfied he returned, eyeing Cecily with a new sense of wariness. He’d never much noted her appearance—she would arrive consistently filthy and bruised, much too underweight to be considered pretty, even if it hadn’t been for the thick scars that overwhelmed the right side of her face. 

Perhaps the shock of white that was her hair should have raised his suspicions. Or her barely concealed hatred of the Empire, even though Lorenz had mentioned her complete distaste of the nobility as a governing system. 

“They’re working with them. The mages that killed those children. There’s been other experiments, mostly in Hyrm, but in some of the more rebellious villages on the edge of the Dukedom as well. They no longer seem interested in having survivors.” 

Cecily still hadn’t looked up, though she’d stopped her careful arrangement of the war table. 

“How old were you?” 

She took a shuddering breath, knuckles white as she clutched the edge of the table. “Eight. Until I was nearly eleven. They were trying to build on what they’d learned in Ordelia. There were others there, I could hear them, but they never lasted long. They’re becoming more brazen, now that they’re under Adrestia’s banner. They’re stockpiling strange weapons, mobilizing small squadrons, but I haven’t been able to figure out the plan. If they invade the Alliance, our only chance is to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. We don’t have the weaponry, not even with half a dozen Hero’s Relics.”

She looked up at him then, mismatched eyes wide—frightened. He’d never known the girl to be frightened, not when appearing half-dead on his doorstep, not when fighting off ruffians along the edge of his territory.

“Is Claude aware?”

She shook her head. “No. Not of the troop movements or my…connection. I came straight here. They set up in border regions first, so I wanted to ensure you could prepare.”

“This is what you’ve been doing, when you disappear for weeks? Why you’ve been suffering more and more injuries? Because you’ve been infiltrating them?”

She shook her head. “Infiltration is easy. I’ve been hunting down outposts, thinning the numbers. Though there is information I’m seeking I have yet to find.”

“Alone?”

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.  

“I should bring this to the Roundtable.”

“If you do, you didn’t hear it from me.”

“So no one can try and stop you?”

She gave him a crooked smile, her eyes heavy with fathomless pain. “You were always quick, Count Gloucester.”

He stared at her, at the broken slip of a girl that stood behind his war table, defiantly smiling, even in the face of all the horror forced upon her. A kind, clever girl turned biting and brutal in the hands of a vicious and uncaring world. 

~~~

Yuri hadn’t been to Enbarr in the four years since the war.

It was strange how everything remained the same, from the canals to the open air markets to the tenement buildings he and Cecily had squatted in what felt like a lifetime ago. He’d taught her to read in Enbarr, nursed her back from the horrible skeletal thing he’d found in the tunnels of Rowe back to a little girl. 

She’d learned other things as well, despite his trying to prevent it. She’d learned to fight and steal and sneak about, how to be a good little bird and ferret out what he needed. It helped a great deal that she had experience as a servant in a noble house, that she was able to pass unnoticed. 

He passed one of the stalls where he used to buy the fabric dye they’d used on her hair to make it the same color as his, smiling to himself at the memory. They’d done it in case the mages sent people with her description, her shock of white hair memorable and immediately noticeable. It also helped them to pass better as siblings, especially since her violet eye resembled his lavender ones.

Once, she had followed him to the opera. He’d made it very clear that she was to avoid the whole area, though he hadn’t told her why. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten past the ticket collector or the ushers in the faded tunic she wore, her hair still pulled back in the braids he’d done before he left. She’d pushed into the box he’d been sharing with several particularly vile, particularly well-connected nobles and made a bee-line straight for him.

He hadn’t realized before then just how much she’d picked up from watching him.

“Brother, I’m sorry, I know you told me to stay home and do my schoolwork, but the man in the flat next door got really drunk again and started beating down the door and I was so scared and he wouldn’t go away and—and—“ she grabbed his hands at that and he could feel the slip of paper she’d pressed into his palm, even as her lip trembled and her eyes welled up with tears, “I crawled out the window. I didn’t know what else to do or where to go. I’m sorry—I’m sorry—“

She’d managed to make just enough of a scene to allow him to hastily check the note in his hand and find a single word scratched almost illegibly onto the paper: bad. 

She clung to his arm as the nobles in the box fussed after her and she spun some tale about how their mother had died when she was five and how he’d taken such good care of her, how he’d gotten her into lessons even though they didn’t have very much money at all, how he all he wanted her to do was to study and didn’t make her work in the lace mill like all the other kids in their tenement building had to.

“And what is it that you are studying, child?” One of the particularly unsavory nobles asked, leering at her from beneath a curtain of thick black hair. Yuri had been sure that would be the unraveling of the whole story, hadn’t even known she’d been able to scratch out the singular word on the piece of parchment he’d already stowed in his sleeve. 

He’d only started teaching her her letters a few weeks ago, after all.

He’d already opened his mouth to concoct some story he hoped would be enough to fool them when she lifted her hand and murmured something unintelligible. A rippling illusion appeared in her hand, a tiny songbird that almost appeared to be made of shimmering midnight water. He did his best not to look surprised, as if this was a common occurrence. 

“How marvelous. That is quite the talent for someone so young,” he’d replied, seemingly satisfied, though Yuri didn’t trust the way his pale eyes lingered over her. 

He’d tried to usher the pair of them out, to deal with whatever was ‘bad’ enough to send Cecily running to find him while he worked his marks. Unfortunately his patrons had insisted they both stay for the show, that his poor little sister deserved such a treat after such an awful fright. He spent the entirety of the opera on alert, making sure that she suffered none of the wandering hands he endured, even as Cecily became enraptured by the show, her anxiety and urgency melting away as she watched the divas below sing. 

When they finally were able to duck away, gold in hand ‘to stay at a proper inn until their neighbors could be dealt with,’ she informed him that one of their safe houses had been raided by guards, but she’d managed to stuff everything of real value into a burlap sack that she’d hidden under the lip of the canal by the market. 

He just nodded, his stolen stash of B-grade magical trinkets the least of his concern. “I didn’t know you could write.”

“I’ve been practicing, when you go out.”

“What about that illusion?”

“I don’t—I just, wanted it to happen. I don’t know. I thought it would be enough to convince them but not, you know—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Goddess damnit all, this isn’t good.”

“Do you think the other safe houses will be next?”

“I—no, that’s not what I meant. I don’t want you getting mixed up with nobles, I don’t want—“ he broke off, looking away.

“Don’t you just tell them lies and they give you money?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, instead pulling her into a hug and pressing his face to the crown of her head. 

“Yeah. But they’re dangerous. You know that,” he said, watching as she dropped her gaze, face turning stormy. 

She knew better than most just how dangerous nobles could be. 

After that it had been nearly impossible to keep her out of his work, even though he tried. She begged to help and he let her because she was goodat it.

A decision he still regretted. 

He wound through the maze of the market towards the edge of the theatre district and the slums, making for the familiar tavern. Shae had operated it well before Yuri and Cecily had ever fled to Enbarr, a titan of the underworld before he’d even been born. He wasn’t even quite sure how old she was—she had one of those faces that didn’t age, not in the conventional sense. She was dangerous—far more dangerous than it was worth to seek her out, for most things.

But this wasn’t most things. 

Yuri knew there were things Cecily hid from him, even now. He also knew there was a whole host of things about herself that even she didn’t understand. And he’d seen, over the past four years of the war, the toll her power had begun to take, a toll he knew she didn’t see, or at least didn’t acknowledge as a problem. 

It wasn’t a Crest. That much he knew for sure. And left unchecked he was scared it would consume her.

So when Shae said she had information on the sort of power Cecily wielded, he’d had to go.

~~~

Hubert raised an eyebrow, delighted by his own luck as he spotted a man with familiar lavender hair winding his way through the market. It was longer than last he’d seen it, but unmistakable. He abandoned his place in line in favor of trailing him, ducking slightly to disguise his height. Yuri moved with the confidence of someone intimately familiar with the city, something that struck him as odd. 

Still, Hubert knew the city better than anyone, knew every alley, every canal, every bridge. It wouldn’t be hard to pin him, especially since he’d turned towards the slums. 

If he couldn’t track Cecily down, he certainly could get her to come to him.

Next

[lgbtqmanga]

New Releases October 18, 2022

Canis: Dear Hatter vol. 2 by ZAKK

Kutsuna and his crew's showcase at New York Fashion Week was a huge success. While there, Ryou encounters an old friend of his -Chase- who informs him that the mob boss he thought was dead is still alive.

Hoping to face his past, Ryou decides to stay behind in America, meaning Katsuna would now be on the other side of the planet. On the outside, Katsuna seems perfectly calm on his own in Tokyo, but beneath the surface...

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card vol. 12 by CLAMP

Tick Tock, Tick Tock... Yuna D. Kaito can use magic to control time. Does Akiho know? Is she part of his schemes? Sakura isn’t sure, but her heart tells her to let Akiho come to her when she’s ready. Then things get even more complicated when she and Akiho get cast in the leading roles for the school play! Where will the twin Alices’ journeys take them now...?

The Executioner and Her Way of Life vol. 1 (manga) by Mato Sato, Ryo Mitsuya, nilitsu

The Lost Ones are strangers from another world, hailing from a place no one has ever heard of called “Japan.” These wanderers have been associated with catastrophes since many years ago and the solemn duty of exterminating them without remorse falls to Menou, a young Executioner. But when her mission is complicated by a Japanese girl named Akari who refuses to die, Menou embarks on a peculiar journey to find something that can slay even an immortal who insists on traveling with her would-be-killer!

Happy of the End vol. 1 by Ogeretsu Tanaka

Unrequited love, poverty and a series of bad choices leads a young man into homelessness. And once there his only way out may be to listen to a charming young man with a dark side.

Dazed and confused, Chihiro awakes on a pile of garbage with memories of wedding still fresh in his mind. When out of the blue a young man named Keito appears before him. Instantly, he then recalls the night he spent with this person. The booze! The hotel! The punch to his face!

Chihiro may not have a place to call home currently and Keito may not be a good person by any means, but maybe the two of them could be happy together.

She, Her Camera, and Her Seasons vol. 3 by Tsukiko (digital only)

"We're so close, but I feel so lonely..." It's the spring of Akari Miyama's last year of high school, and she's feeling constrained by her superficial friendships and stifling routine. That all changes when she meets Yuki Sendo, the cool beauty wielding a twin-lens reflex camera, and Akari's days begin to shine. But Akari starts to feel shaken by the deep bond between Yuki and her childhood friend Rintaro, and Yuki notices some mysterious emotions in Akari's photos... At Yuki's suggestion, Akari starts pretending to date Rintaro. But it's not long before her feelings start to waver, and the line between acting and actual dating starts to blur. The love triangle deepens as autumn turns to winter...

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat vol. 1 by Sakaomi Yuzaki

Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation...?

Yuri Espoir vol. 2 by Mai Naoi 

After finding out she's to be forced into a marriage of convenience as soon as she graduates high school, Kokoro sees her life ending before her eyes at her father's wishes. And so, in her final year of high school, she decides to indulge in her love of other women — and create an incredible sketchbook of lesbian romance to leave behind as her legacy. As she observes the young women of her town, she learns more about their desires, their struggles, and the unpredictable whims of love.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Do you give recs? I'm looking for some woke-free medias to consume (books particularly, but it can be anything)

It's hard to give recs without knowing your taste, but I'll try. Necessarily, many of these will be older things, so sorry if that bothers you

Books:

The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell (sci-fi)

The Nightside series by Simon R Green (urban fantasy/detective noir)

The Deathstalker series by Simon R Green (there are gay side characters in a few of the books, but the books themselves aren't woke. Just good sci-fi/space opera)

Any Conan the Barbarian story written by Robert Howard or Robert Jordan (fantasy)

The Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson (disclaimer I'm only up to book 4 out of 15 and the last book was published in 2020 so it may have gotten woke or started to suck later on, but right now it's pretty good and pretty pro-American. Alternate history action sci-fi)

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy)

Any Dune book by Frank Herbert or Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert (sci-fi)

The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (only read the first three out of nine so same disclaimer as Destroyermen. Alternate history fantasy. Napoleonic Wars with dragons)

The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell (also the excellent film adaptations of the books with Sean Bean if you can find them. Historical fiction. You follow Richard Sharpe through the ranks of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars)

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (the grandfather of modern fantasy)

The collected works of HP Lovecraft (definitely not PC or woke. His cat makes an appearance in one of his stories. Horror)

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker (horror. Hellraiser was based on this novella. tentative rec because it's good, but there's a lot of mentioned sex and very liberal attitudes towards sex so I don't know if you'd consider that woke or not. The sex obsessed characters are the bad guys though)

Any of the pre-Disney "canon" Star Wars expanded universe books.

Any of the Star Trek books written by William Shatner (they're all a connected series though so read them in order)

If non-woke is your main criteria, I'd suggest giving the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski a try. I personally hated the little bit of the first one I read, and I hate the Witcher series in general, but no one can argue that the Witcher is in any way woke, lol

Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (fantasy)

Phantoms by Dean Koontz (also recommend the movie with a very young Ben Affleck, but if you rent it on Prime use headphones. Audio is all fucked up through a surround sound system. At least it was when I rented it a few years back. horror)

The Legend of Drizzt series (and the associated sub-series) by RA Salvatore (fantasy. I stopped reading at the Transitions series--books 20-22--because I personally didn't like them and the way they changed the characters and the setting, but YMMV. I'd highly recommend books 1-19 though. Great fantasy series in my favorite D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (young adult book, but has a great message of individuality and anti-government)

Since you wanted books mostly I'll just breeze through movies, shows, comics and games with a few of my favorites:

Movies - Equilibrium, Lord of the Rings, pre-Disney Star Wars, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, Hellraiser 1 + 2, Friday the 13th series, Halloween series, The Patriot, In the Mouth of Madness, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 + 2

Shows - Jericho, X-Files, Star Trek (OS, TNG and DS9 especially. Anything nu-Trek is easily skippable), Chernobyl, Avatar The Last Airbender, Lost (it's not confusing if you just pay attention!)

Anime - Fullmetal Alchemist (both series are good but Brotherhood follows the manga more closely), Death Note, Bungo Stray Dogs, Yowamushi Pedal, Ace of Diamond, Yuri on Ice (super gay but funny and heartwarming and not woke beyond the two male leads being stupidly in love with each other even if it's never mentioned explicitly), Street Fighter II V. Honestly most anime isn't woke at all, so just look around for things that seem interesting to you and you're probably good there

Comics - Batman: No Man's Land, Batman: Knightfall, Batman: Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive, Batman: The Killing Joke, any Marvel Masterwork collection, any Dark Horse Alien or Predator or Alien vs Predator comic, Spawn. Special mention: Isom and the Rippaverse. The Rippaverse is a new shared comic universe created by Eric July, self-described anarcho-capitalist and contributor to The Blaze that's specifically designed from the ground up to not be woke and offer a customer first mentality. They promise that the various books they're planning on releasing will focus on story and characters, not politics or social justice crap. So far, only Isom #1 has come out, and I haven't gotten my copy yet, but most people who've read it seem to love it, and that one comic alone has already sold over 43,000 copies and made $3.7 million so early adopting is probably a safe bet.

Games - Metal Gear Solid series, Batman: Arkham series, Halo 1-3, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Greedfall, Dishonored series, Edge of Eternity, Metro series, Mafia 1+2, Elden Ring. Pretty much any game before the mid-2010s is a safe bet for non-woke, so like anime, you should just look at older games you think you might like, or their remasters, and go from there.

So that's my list. It's by no means complete, and there's no real order to the recs, so just look them up and see what, if anything, appeals to you. If you, or anyone else, want more specific recommendations or an opinion on a certain title or series that I mentioned or even ones I didn't, feel free to ask. I'll help if I can. Mostly what I read and watch are sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and things like that. I don't really read typical bestsellers or westerns or comedies. So I might be much help with those genres.